"The world is not set up for the honest man to succeed"

All shot using real figures, lighting, miniature sets and tin foil to create the city lights

One of my favorite things to write as an author is what I'm going to call a semi-productive conversation. aka a conversation where two characters who don't see eye to eye both completely fail to make their point– either speaking past each other or just lying straight through their teeth– but in the process one of them manages to come to some kind of realization about the other. Then, during the next disastrous conversation, that earlier realization gives them some pause and makes them say something different, leading the other to get their own small moment of understanding. You repeat this ad infinitum until after 50K words they finally have a talk that actually fucking goes somewhere.

ladies, ladies one at a time. im getting scared.

Today, August 20th, 2026, is the 20-year anniversary of me working at CollegeHumor / Dropout.

At 42, that's nearly half my life.

I know how rare it is to spend an entire career at one company, let alone a "new media" company.

My LinkedIn is pretty sparse.

I've spent most of my life committing hard:

- I still play video games with my grade school friends;
- I got married to my summer camp sweetheart;
- I (inadvisably) took over the failing company I had been hired by 14 years prior.

With apologies to Brennan, I sometimes worry it gives me a "homeschooled" vibe.

But all this staying put has turned out to be one hell of an adventure.

When CollegeHumor hired me at 22 - at 4 days per week, as a video team of one - I never could have imagined collaborating with so many people in so many contexts to create so much art for so much audience.

Let alone having a show or two to call my own.

The author and naturalist Annie Dillard once wrote about an eagle found with a weasel's skull embedded in its neck.

She suggested we should all "live like weasels": bite into the neck of something meaningful to us, then go wherever it takes us.

This life has not been without sacrifice. Doing this, while fun, is stressful. The body keeps the score.

It is also fiercely dominant, which perhaps also explains why the rest of my life remains so simple.

But, as the internet itself - my sandbox - yells "choice!" a little louder with every passing year...

I both rue to think, and cannot imagine, what my life would be without committing to these few things I love so deeply.

So tonight I toast my job of 20 years, with my partner of 27 years.

Here's to all the weasels out there.

"Learn the fundamentals first" seems like really sound universal advice, and as a former classical musician, I can vouch for it. You will have a more solid foundation for increasing complexity if you put in the time to study in a structured way. If you don't, you'll have a lot of shit to fix later.

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

You have official permission from your local pretentious classical music snob: fuck the fundamentals. You can always unfuck them later (but only if you want to).

@spookygibberish Some Opaleyes

yeah. i've got the wikipedia page for rat. on cassette.

Hoplitaspis hiawathai - a Chasmataspidid (Eurypterid relative) from the Ordovician

Many of its fossil exuviae were found in what was a calm, low oxygen, shallow lagoon environment, suggesting they traveled there to take advantage of the seclusion to molt.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.