Playing With Networking (Weekly Recap August 30, 2025)
August 30, 2025·0 comments·zg
Every day you live a little and die a little - art happens in the balance. Even on Tuesdays when nothing feels artful, Bukowski reminds us that creativity emerges from the excess in either direction. It's what you do with the net-living versus the net-dying that matters. For a guy with "Don't Try" on his tombstone, his insight is pure poetry: if you live a little more than you die, you'll continue creating pretty fair stuff. Life is exhausting - we've all got work, home, endless responsibilities without respite. But if you're exhausted, you're probably dying more than living, and you can do something about it. Doesn't have to be big, just has to capture some part of that living excess. Every post, every creative act, is an attempt to tip the balance toward the living side.
Sunday Music: What They Do Vs. What You Do (Questlove, The Roots, And Frustrating Missteps)
Sometimes standing for something means standing alone, and The Roots learned this the hard way. Their 1996 video "What They Do" was brilliant satire - calling out rap video clichés with sarcastic subtitles like "rented for the day" over mansion shots. But satire has consequences. The video devastated Biggie, a huge Roots fan, and when they later backed Jay-Z on MTV Unplugged, Nas called them hypocrites on Hot 97. They found themselves on a lonely island - too authentic for the mainstream, too successful for the underground. Yet "What They Do" became their first Top 40 hit precisely because their critique was true. Like Hugh Hendry calling out "champagne socialists" during the European debt crisis, being right early often looks wrong until it doesn't. Careers that last decades require getting comfortable with occasionally standing alone with your values.
Alchemist And The Death Of Mass Market Thinking
After 25 years chasing bigger features and budgets, Alchemist was burning out until he discovered Trent Reznor's formula: CWF + RTB = Success (Connect With Fans + Reason To Buy). Watching $20 PayPal payments roll in for a self-released instrumental album blew his mind. Instead of the traditional cycle of write-record-send-wait-maybe-get-paid, this was immediate. One day finished, next day in fans' hands, money in the bank account. The revelation wasn't about reaching everyone - it was about being irreplaceable to someone. Like running a microbrewery versus a mainstream operation, you can be local, have limited releases, and still be the most special thing for people who actually care. Success becomes project-based, defined by who has what connection with you and what unique reason you've given them to buy. Marketing is sales at scale, but you get to define what scale means success.
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