- Email Marketing – I mean, it’s a major part of what I do for a living with CLOSE MONDAYS, and I started a newsletter called HEAVY METAL EMAIL for “metal folks who want to start an email list.” So yeah, I could talk for an hour about this.
- Running – though I’ve only been running nearly every other day (or so) since July of 2016, ran a bunch of races, got advice some great people, coached by the great Grayson Murphy in 2019 / 2020 for a marathon that I never ran because of COVID!
- Bikes – I left my Williamsburg, Brooklyn apartment in August of 2010 with a messenger bag and some clothes taped to my handle bars. Rode all the way to Rutherford, NJ. Then kept going, crashing on friend’s couches, all the way to Albuquerque, NM (via a lot of buses). Also traveled by Brompton and train from Miami, FL to Portland, ME. That’s just scratching the surface.
- Music blogging – I’m where I’m at in life right now because I started a music blog in 2001, so heck yeah, I can riff on writing, friendships, interviews, gossip, life before social media, all that good stuff.
- Growing up in the 80s – the movies, buying a Poison record at a drugstore, the bikes, the toys, the technology… my goodness, what a time to have lived.
Category: Life
A COLORFUL MATRIX
Watched the new Matrix for the sixth time last night, this time with my roomie, and they asked something that got me thinking; if I were a character in the Matrix, how what would be my wardrobe?
Five years ago I probably would have said all black and be done with it, but now I’m not so sure.
Besides Switch, Morpheus seems to be more my style. The most colorful.
And the new Morpheus? Wow.
“This Morpheus is a newborn, discovering who he is. So he wants to try out the suits, the body, different fighting styles even different sunglasses. He’s having a ball with freedom of choice,”
Abdul-Mateen via USA Today
As I said, years ago it would have been all black everything, all the time. But now I have yellow glasses, lots of blues and reds. Oh snap. My jacket is the same color as Morpheus above.
My first foray into adding more color to my life was when I started going to the gym, and being around a lot of masculine energy. Men’s locker rooms are a… vibe, which I’m not really all that into. So when I needed a new gym bag, I bought this North Face bag.
Green! Purple! Pink!
Every other gym bag I found was just plain and boring.
In the past few years, I’m trying to avoid plain and boring, I guess.
I’m turning 46 in 2022, like a fireball to 50. Dammit.
So maybe not an awaking from the Matrix, and the red goo, with the flush and grab.
Just maybe a bit more vibrancy in my digital self image here in the real world.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR THING
Success or making it isn’t black and white, yes or no. For every success we see on a magazine cover there’s years of back story. Of “failure.”
For every video with 3 million views there’s a legion more with 174.
Those 174 are no less valid. They’re just as important, and we need to keep making them.
The world needs videos and songs with “low play counts” in the same way we need street art – it is PERMISSION.
It is a sign from the universe that says anyone can do this, so you should try it.
HEALING WITH TATTOOS
David Allen gave me a pretty big break back in the day, linking to music blog in my early days. I think he said it was cool, or something – hah! That was like… 20 or so years ago, so I don’t remember all the details. I just know we got a few more readers after that.
I met David years later in NYC, and I don’t even remember how that even happened, either. I do remember him making the comment that I didn’t have any tattoos, and that we needed to change that! It was a fun moment, I remember it vividly.
And then here we are, all these years later, and now I get to see what David has been doing this whole time. This video brought up plenty of feelings, that’s for sure. Not just because of the discussions I’ve been having about mental health, or money, or art, but… the process of life. Continuing to learn, and find out new things about ourselves. Things we didn’t think possible.
GET COMFORTABLE
I don’t care what you do, or what style of music you play, ever performance can destroy a venue.
You’re on stage, you’re an artist commanding a room, I don’t care – you own that moment in time.
We still have our words, and 4K video cameras in our pockets.
Music videos move people to tears. Simple words, expressions. Honesty can bring a person to their knees.
Not everyone. But some. Our magic isn’t for everyone, but it’s meant for the realm we’ve conjured without even knowing.
We’re royalty of a kingdom we can’t even acknowledge because the world wants us to sit in rows and check off the right boxes.
Some of us are meant to command rowdy biker bars, while others own a stuffy work meeting.
A lion is less fierce in the arctic, so stop wondering why you don’t fit places.
HANGING UP LIGHTS
I think a lot about nostalgia, especially around the holidays. We grow up, and suddenly everything feels less magical. As adults we know too much, the magic is gone. Black Friday shopping, credit card bills, traffic… good luck fitting in any Christmas magic, I guess.
When we were young the magic happened around us, and we just walked into it. My parents loaded me in the car, and we went and bought a Christmas tree. We went shopping during the holidays. I pointed out the video games I wanted. I still knew my parents bought me these things (SPOILER ALERT), but it was still magical.
Now the only magic is the magic we create. I hung Christmas lights around my two windows, and I have them on all day and night. I love them.
My housemate and I bought some Christmas lights and hung them on our back porch last night. We were outside, with thumbtacks and zip ties, messing up, re-doing it, and finally, boom… we have lights on our porch now.
We’ll buy a tiny tree, and put some ornaments on it.
It’s the October, November, December months that I always look forward to, and they always seem to disappoint, but that’s like looking at the the music that “kids these days” like, and saying everything was better when I was a kid.
Not sure the answer, but I know no one is gonna show up and make it magical again. That’s on all of us.
BURN AWAY THE BURN OUT
I’ve been reading a lot about burn out, probably because everyone is fucking burnt out. The thing that makes me the most sad is burning out from things that we control.
Like, I talk weekly with a friend that I made from the Akimbo Freelancer Workshop. We bounce stuff off each other constantly, and one of the big focuses is outsourcing. Getting things off our plate. Giving ourselves the permission to be the boss who takes two hour lunches.
Obviously the various stresses and demands of freelance work can make it hard to take that two hour lunch, but… if you don’t design your ideal work situation, others will. It will be ideal for them.
Emails at all hours. Phone calls. Ridiculous deadlines.
The best busy work is no busy work at all.
Sure, that sounds hippy dippy dream talk, but fuuuuuck it – a person has to dream, right?
It’s the whole “saying no,” thing, which I’m sure you’ve seen all over the internet. The act of saying no is basically saying yes to other things – yes to free time, yes to other work, yes to not working at all!
A while back I said “no more transcribing.” I had done 100s of hours of audio transcribing for writers. It was okay money, but the work required absolute focus. If you lose focus, it’s hard to get back on track. Toss in bad audio, and other work on your plate, and it just got to be too much.
So I said no. Could I have used the money? Of course! I could still use that money!
But saying no to that work gives room for the work I want to be doing (and it’s working).
Saying no to clients with ridiculous deadlines, unreasonable availability, low pay, high stress – that’s the shit you say no to.
Stripping away of the stuff that depletes you that makes space for the time to go outside for a walk, or take a two hour lunch.
So don’t manage your thing – your business, your blog, your music – with what everyone else is doing – make it fit how you want to live.
DONE WITH GUILT
I got lost recently, digging through the Subtle Maneuvers newsletter archive. This quote struck me.
“As an artist and freelancer, there’s a lot of ways you can feel guilty on a daily basis. Guilty for not having enough free time, guilty for having too much, guilty for loving your job, guilty for not loving it. I’m trying to eliminate as much of that guilt as possible, because it’s totally useless. Since quarantine, I regularly sleep until 10. I have dessert every single day. I exercise when I feel like it. I relish my free time when I have it, relish my work when I love it. I ask for an extension if I’m just too sad to meet my deadline. I don’t care anymore. I’m done with guilt. Life is too short.”
Hallie Bateman
Just Be Better
Been thinking a lot about this press conference statement by Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles:
“If you’re fixing free throws, if you’re getting better as a player, none of this is happening. So everybody can bitch and complain about how tough this city is to play in. Just play better, man. This city will love you.” ESPN
Just play better, man.
A friend and I have a mantra we share, very simply, “just be cool.”
My mind is heading towards “just be better each day.”
I’m not talking about some quantifiable metric, some hustle, some “get 1% smarter everyday” grind. Better goes great with sports, or sales, but in life it’s different.
Just appreciate, be grateful, be present, be mindful. I know, magical hippy dippy new age bullshit, but whatever, I have to live inside this brain for the rest of my life, so I’m going to use what I use.
Just be better. Just experience better? Just be?
Asking Questions is Art
So simple, yet so right:
In an expert-run industrialized economy, there’s a lot of pressure to be the one who’s sure, the person with all the answers.
Far more valuable is someone who has all the questions. The ability to figure out what hasn’t been figured out and see what hasn’t been seen is a significant advantage.
Seth Godin
I know this only because I’ve been on the planet for 45 years, been in a couple of conference rooms, with smart people who kept me on my toes.
Yes, having an answer is fun. Makes you look good. Sure.
But when you ask a question that no one thought to ask, that brings the meeting to a halt, that sets fire to the agenda – that’s way more fun.
Getting there, though, is the long road. The journey. The million mistakes, the trials and errors, the blood, sweat, and tears.
The gold isn’t found in offering up the answers. It’s asking your friend the right question when they’re going through a hard time. The one thing that pulls them up, because the answer was inside them the whole time.