I’ve told lots of friends to “just start,” and how episode 10 will be better than episode one, and on and on. One of these days I’ll believe that for myself, and my own work, but this the struggle, I suppose.
Thinking out loud here – I’ve been doing video on and off since 2006, never really committing at any one point. Not to say I want to build a YOUTUBE CHANNEL and have a million subscribers. Hell, I don’t know what I want. I’m 44, and have done a lot of shit over the years. Sometimes I feel like I’m just running into walls with stuff, and still trying to make heads of tails of anything at all.
The past few weeks have been blah, which has seeped into my running. My last 20+ mile week was back in APRIL, when I was still doing my “Four Miles Everyday in April (the 4th month thing), and hurt my foot.
So a combination of injury, and mental burnout from work stuff, and *** everything else that’s going on in the world *** I’ve lost a step. Haven’t felt as “driven” to run.
Thankfully that changed this past two weeks, having hit 17+ miles each week, along with some cycling.
All that to say, this 5K was rough. First mile I clocked an 8:39/mile pace, but the heat and humidity (97%), along with not actually training for that sort of effort, I finished at around 29:17. The last half-mile was in the eights, topping out at 7:39 (!!!), but that’s all I could muster. Strava page here.
But hey – this was all to raise money for the Trevor Project, and I got to run my friend Shannon at 8am on a Sunday, so this was good.
Hating Facebook isn’t anything special these days. Quitting, which is something a lot of my friends have done, is good and all, but the machine lumbers ahead. Until now, maybe?
The Stop Hate for Profit movement has some momentum – over 100 companies have pulled advertising from Facebook:
Among them are well-known brands like Ben & Jerry’s, TalkSpace, and Magnolia Pictures. But things became really serious when Verizon signed on Thursday evening.
Then, yesterday, consumer goods giant Unilever — one of the world’s largest advertisers — announced they would stop advertising on Facebook and Twitter for the rest of the year.
My first race this year was supposed to be the Queens Marathon, way back on March 22nd. All hell broke loose on March 14th or so, when the NBA suspended their season because one of their players got diagnosed with COVID-19.
Now here we are in late June, and things ain’t looking great. I went to my gym today, intent on cancelling my membership. All their treadmills were still packed together, and no one was wearing masks. Hell, they’re not even required. I don’t like walking in the chip aisle at the grocery store if someone isn’t wearing a mask. I sure as hell ain’t gonna be comfortable in a gym with sweaty, heavy breathing people. Fuck that.
So yeah… first race is tomorrow, a virtual 5K. The Golden Coast Track Club Pride 5K.
I’ll get up early, do my pre-race breakfast routine, and hopefully start at 7:30am, like most races in the summer start. I know it’s gonna be painful, I’m not really in 5K race shape, coming off two weeks of the “blahs” and barely squeaking out 15 miles a week, but I know that pain and discomfort is nothing compared to what those in the LGBTQ+ community face. The stigma, the prejudice, the discrimination; people have died for who they loved.
The virtual race raised money for the Trevor Project, and I’d be stoked if you could chip in a few dollars. Sure, June is Pride month, but it’s really every month. Give if you can, spread the word otherwise.
Hellah Sidibe ran the length of the NYC subway system to help raise money and awareness for the Black men and women who’ve lost their lives at the hands of police; George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, John Crawford III, Trayvon Martin, and Sandra Bland.
This quote is just the tip of an iceberg, a rabbit hole stemming from an offhand Tweet, to the struggle that BIPOC / LGBTQ+ face everyday in life and work:
On one hand, I find myself thinking, “astrology is a silly thing to get worked up over, especially when there are such big, important issues going on in the world right now.”
But on the other hand, it angers me how deep these systems that marginalise women, POC, queer people, and any other group that’s not cis men, run in our lives.
And most people don’t even realise that somewhere in Cupertino, a white man is sitting in a conference room making decisions about what categories of apps can and cannot even exist for you to download onto your phone.
This is a little phrase I’ve been repeating here and there lately. Perhaps we’re living in a computer simulation. Or maybe in the Fight Club-esque mindset, that our lives are tied to computer records. Deeper yet, we’re plugged into the Matrix, and really we’re all fast asleep, living in a computerized dream world.
If nothing is real, it’s a sure thing that everything is fucked. COVID-19 is as real as ever, and cops (and their budgets) are out of control.
Went to my first protest this past weekend, and kept my head on a swivel, staying alert for any wackadoo who might start any trouble. It felt good, though, and I want to stay involved.
Black lives matter. Defund the police. Pay teachers.
I wrote this in a recent Metal Bandcamp Gift Club newsletter:
I don’t know when I’ll be able to thumb through any used CD bins, or be surprised by an opening band on a Tuesday night. At the moment everything is laid out in front of our face. There’s no surprises.
That’s why each birthday wishlist is hidden, a mystery! No mention in the subject of the email of whose birthday it is, and you can’t mouse-over to find out who it is, either. Do you dare click?!
When can we dig through a friend’s record collection again? Well, not today, probably. But today you can scroll through someone’s Bandcamp wishlist (today’s has over 800 releases), or their collection, and probably find something new, or a release you forgot about.
It’s not the same, but it’s the best we can do for now, I guess. Thank you for clicking.
In those newsletters, the link to someone’s wishlist doesn’t mention their name, and mousing over the link only reveals a Mailchimp-created tracking link (at least in your inbox, on your desktop), so you still don’t know who it is. You have to click.
In this world of click bait headlines, it’s hard to trust any link. Thankfully the Metal Bandcamp Gift Club newsletter has a click-per-unique open of like 60%.
Build trust by giving, serving, filling.
Metal Bandcamp Gift Club exists to funnel traffic direct to people’s Bandcamp wishlists, where people buy albums as gifts for their birthday. In 2020. This is driving album sales, and putting money into the pockets of artists. It’s a wonderful thing.
Another Bandcamp Roulette, and I’m so made this one today because I found this album from Brendan Byrnes – and it came out yesterday.
I’m as shocked as anyone that I go from geeking out on that sort of music to making another Goodnight, Metal Friend mix, with some of the darkest, grimmest, foreboding tunes on Bandcamp. But I tell you what – they put me right to sleep, and that’s the point.
And I don’t know… these two things aren’t for everyone, and that’s by design. Think ‘1,000 True Fans,’ or “minimum viable audience,” as Seth Godin says:
Stake out the smallest market you can imagine. The smallest market that can sustain you, the smallest market you can adequately serve. This goes against everything you learned in capitalism school, but in fact, it’s the simplest way to matter.
Will either of these things get a million subscribers anytime soon? Probably not, and that’s okay, because I know if I had “just” 1,000 people who were really into either of them, it’d be cool.
And the best part is this; I’m doing it anyways. I’m making sleep mixes for me first, to fall asleep to. Sourcing the music, arranging the mix, making the mix, crafting the artwork – it’s all meditative to me which helps me (wait for it)… sleep.
And the Bandcamp Roulette? I legit do this several times a day when I work, now I just take some extra steps and make them into videos.
I dunno… I just geek out to this stuff, and I’m stoked I finally slowed down enough to realize it.
Haven’t really made much “content” since shutting down Skull Toaster back in 2018. Got nearly 40 episodes into making a thing called “Later” in 2019 (archive of the audio available on SoundCloud), but that fizzled.
Started watching DJ sets on YouTube, you know, to sort of stay sane and experience people doing things besides just my cat yelling at birds. That inspired me to try my hand at the process, which led to making my own metal-leaning sleep mix called Goodnight, Metal Friend.
And now “Bandcamp Roulette” (at the top of this post) is a thing now, maybe?! I just really enjoy digging for and finding music, and it’s not that hard to set up. Two video shots:
The initial Selling Right Now scroll, and the actual clicking around to listen to the individual band pages are captured with ScreenFlow.
iPhone Xr on a tripod, which I then sync with the video captured using ScreenFlow.
I don’t have to prepare or research anything, as I’m picking stuff on the fly. I guess I might recognize some of the releases from time to time, but I’ve been writing about music since 2001, so I’ll be able to draw from that experience, and I love the free wheeling, spontaneous nature of this format. I guess it could even be live-streamed, maybe too? HMMMM.
These three things – running Metal Bandcamp Gift Club, making sleepy time metal mixes, and Bandcamp roulette have just been something nice to rattle my brain, and keep things fresh, and keep the curiosity stoked.
