First off, it’s been long as hell since I dusted off the ol’ ‘Stack. I was prepping this past weekend to interview an artist for my good friend (and former ‘Stack guest Parag)’s nineteen93 publication and thought “Damn. I gotta dust off my ‘Stack!”. So thank you for opening this email. I doubt you will regret it.
Overall, I have been writing more frequently and enjoying the heck out of it. I’ve been workin’ hard in my day job of building projects with music artists that fans will hopefully love and pay money for. I’ve been both patiently and very impatiently awaiting clinical trials to start for the first-ever treatments for LGMD2i -the gnarly rare muscle disease most of you all know has fricked with me heavy the past few years. I’ve been hanging out with my wife, dog, friends, friends’ dogs, and doing more stuff I enjoy doing. All of those things make up 40% of ME (the other 60% is unflavored LaCroix). I’d love to get back to writing more about those things -thus I am declaring this the 2023 SEASON 3 PREMIERE of this here SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER.
Even though it’s the middle of June, I am personally still feeling the mids (not quite highs, but certainly not lows) of my favorite month: May. After 3 straight years of pretty off Mays (Because pandemic times AND I was a part of the trendy media startup layoffs in 2020 and 2022 right smack dab within my favorite month!) I was very welcoming of a mid-tier May. It ended in a way that felt very familiar with Mays past -I went to see live music indoors for the first time in a long time. My work put on a show right on Venice Beach (is it “on” VB or “in” VB? Any So Cal Heads have a strong opinion there?). It was quite cool to have a hand in live music again, especially after the past few Mays (and years in general) and at this point in my strange career as well. My friend Venice Jason even came through (never called him that before but I am damn well gonna start). It was a cool evening/feeling. It was the type of energy that the best Substacks are made from (probably).
May and early Summer also got me nostalgic as hell for my “NYC May” in 2010 where I met my wife (very good), fell down the stairs at B&H (not so good, but it built character), stayed out until 4AM almost every night, and captured an absolute era on my iPhone 3 that had a “black dot” on the lens.
But this ‘Stack is more about where things are going vs. how they have been. And on that note, I’m sure a lot of you opened this email looking for my famous SUMMER PREDICTIONS*. I will waste no more time getting right to it…
*they are not famous, nor have I ever done anything to suggest I have or had “Summer Predictions”.
Summer Prediction 1: With social media fatigue and disinterest reaching its heaviest, I am here to predict the SUMMER OF QUORA. Contrary to what guys named Bryce on Linkedin are shouting into the void…”the people” are not ready to go fully ChatGPT or microdose ChatCBD for that matter. What the people DO want…is answers. And Quora if FULL OF ANSWERS:
SP 2: We’re going to see an end to the default summer blockbuster movies being SUPERHERO mega films and a return to form for people flocking to the theater for silent films. Sounds crazy right? It’s not. The new era of silent films will be integrated with emojis -thus being much more in sync with how we communicate.
SP 3: Fidget spinners=back.
SP 4: For the first time in 9 years, RUDE by Magic! returns as the song of the summer. Much like fidget spinners, RUDE is back.
SP 5: A new city might get announced. That would really shake things up.
About Making Things (it feels good)
Another thing I’ve been way into in 2023 was born out of a creative session with a friend towards the end of ‘22. We’d been “shopping some projects around town” as they say in the biz (showbiz, to be specific. They probably don’t say that in industries like pest control) and began tooling around with some weird technology that probably was created that same week. In short, we learned to make animated (or something resembling animated) vids and create both the dumb stuff I always talk about making and the actual scripted and well-thought-out stuff he and I had been working on ourselves. Born out of that was Minor Treats, which started a few months back and it’s been fun. It’s like a bakery of weird, short cartoons. I would officially love it if every single person who opened this ‘Stack would follow on your platform of choice:
MT IG
MT TikTok
Among other topics, it has fake sponsored content for questionable energy drinks, podcasters discussing Kangaroo Jack, a kid who HATES cussing, and an ESPN First Take style breakdown of an NBA draft prospect named after the WORST cuss of them all!
Alright that’s all for this ‘Stack…but what a flawless season 3 premiere if I may say so…
BONUS CONTENT for the read-to-the-enders: DODGER DAY. A ridiculous fake essay I wrote on another Substack to entertain like 4 of my friends. It took 45 minutes and I think it also doubles as my accidental 💜 letter to a decade+ in Los Angeles AND a time capsule of 2022…a year that already feels (to me) like there’s no way it actually happened.
