Sometimes you just wake up at 4am and can’t get back to sleep so you start planing out a podcast series that you’d announce and launch on the day you host a big online event. What if?
Category: Life
THE PEOPLE IN THE ROOM
We’ve all seen it – people waiting for their drinks at Starbucks. Arms crossed, sighing loudly while scrolling on their phones. Waiting, waiting, waiting for their drinks.
Then someone walks in, no wait, and walks out with their drink.
I get it; get people to order on the app. Less interaction, no friction, no need for someone to take the order.
In and out, money in the bank.
But I just looked and there’s like a dozen people here in this space, none of them having a pleasant experience.
How does that bode well for a business? A brand?
People in and out, and on their way.
And a business place filled with people rolling their eyes and getting the wrong order (like me) and just walking away.
OLD PHONE
Got this old rotary phone at a local antique market for $10.
UPCOMING MILESTONES IN 2026
50 years old.
25 years since I started Buzzgrinder (music blog).
20 years since I had a full time job.
18 years since I started Noisecreep (for AOL Music).
15 years since I started Skull Toaster (metal trivia).
10 years of Metal Bandcamp Gift Club (buying albums for strangers).
10 years since I started running.
8 years since I started working with MNRK Music Group.
5 years of Social Media Escape Club.
WHY DO PEOPLE PRE-ORDER RECORDS?
Tom Williams from the band Stray From The Path:
No-one gives a fuck about first-week numbers anymore, anyway. People care more about finding the record at your merch desk for the first time and buying it right then. I clearly remember asking (our label, SharpTone Records), ‘Why do people pre-order records?’ and being met with a minute of silence.
NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB
Love this from Jen Mayer of Makeist.
I’m not looking for a job. I’m not waiting to be hired. I’m not leaving it to luck.
I’m making the connections. I’m connecting the dots.
I am actively and intentionally creating my calling: a career I never want to retire from, and a life I don’t need a vacation from.
This is the work: building Makeist into something that’s not just a business, but a life.
Here’s to not looking for a job in 2026.
CHRISTMAS EVE ADVENTURE
My friend and her dad hiked here earlier in the day. Hours later, he called and said he lost his glasses, so we went looking for them before it got too dark. We didn’t find them, but we got in a good walk at least.
YOUR CONTRADICTIONS ARE AN ASSET
Love this from Henrik Karlsson’s “Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog:”
Your contradictions are an asset. You’re a lover of classical English architecture and you’re also a dirty little punk—expressing both at the same time is more interesting than sharing just cute pictures of English gardens or just wild trashy stuff. The more you incorporate everything that you love and that comes easily for you, your interests, your sense of humor, your grammatical tics, etc, the more your style emerges.
THE OLD WAY IS GOING AWAY
This quote from Bobby Lee sums it up:
“Let’s talk about Theo’s podcast. What TV shows do better numbers than his podcast? Not many.”
Theo’s shows get lots of views on YouTube, and probably at a fraction of the cost of most big name TV shows. I mean, it doesn’t matter if that’s good or bad, it’s just the way it is. The gatekeepers used to be the TV networks, but now it’s the YouTube algorithm. Build an audience, though, and you’re good. Like Bobby Lee goes on to say, when asked to play a part in a TV show:
“Two days, $1,500 a day… agents and managers take 40%… with taxes I come away with a couple hundred bucks. I’ll just do my thing.”
This concept is easy to dismiss, to think that only people with millions of subscribers / views can do this.
Like everyone chasing 1,000 True Fans, try thinking of how to manage 100, or 10, or even one person who likes / shares / reaches out and say they like your work.
We all start somewhere.
GOOD OMENS
From Carly Valancy, a quote from American theatre and opera director Anne Bogart:
Anne Bogart says, a good omen is “a moment when the world seems to answer you back. It is not a guarantee of success, but a charged sign that your attention, your desire, and the circumstances have aligned in a way that invites you to proceed – more awake, more responsible, and more brave.”