One thing you learn working on deadline is to be nimble and decisive. Sometimes, a source doesn’t get back in time. A client’s needs shift at the last minute. A freelancer is off the grid. Don’t freak out! The key to making the right decision in these situations is a mix of sound strategy and blind confidence. Send a hail Mary to a source with “ON DEADLINE GQ FITNESS STORY” in the subject line. Do what the client needs without asking additional questions. Figure it out on your own. Whatever you do, get it done and get it done right. There’s an important distinction between going rogue and trusting your own professional and creative instincts—this falls in the latter camp, and the longer I do this the more confidence I have in my ability to make the right decision for Three Point Four Media and for our clients.
What I’m saying here is we were supposed to have a Q&A for you this week, but ran into some unforeseen scheduling issues. Rather than check in with my business partner who is out on parental leave I made the unilateral decision to call an audible and turn this into an overwrought small business lesson. Show, don’t tell. Trust thyself. Make it work! Onto the links.
An article
I’m trying to be bored. Look out the window for two minutes between meetings and writing this newsletter instead of stare at my phone. I realize this is a huge luxury. But my phone—and the way I use it—makes me feel bad all the time. The modern condition, baby! Which is why I immediately clicked on Friend of the Newsletter
’s recent New Yorker column about using the app Opal to cut down on his social media usage.The temptation to tune into everything at once was too strong. I could leave my phone in another room, or switch to a flip phone, or try “launcher” apps, such as Dumb Phone, that convert one’s smartphone display into a minimalist set of text-only buttons. But those solutions all rely on self-discipline, which is something I’ve proved to be short on. Opal, I found, provides something like gentle parenting for your smartphone habits: you set up a daily schedule of which apps to block when, and then the app guides you into sticking with it using a combination of mild friction, encouragement, and guilt.
But those solutions all rely on self-discipline, which is something I’ve proved to be short on. Thank you for explaining my predicament, Chayka. By the time you read this I’ll be on day three of using Opal to rewire my brain—I’ll be sure to update you in a future newsletter.
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A book
I just finished Brian Anderson’s excellent history of the Grateful Dead’s monolithic wall of sound, a 75-ton sound system that changed the world of live music and nearly shattered and bankrupt the Dead—and their crew—along the way. Anytime someone saw this book on my desk or at a coffee shop they said, “there’s enough for an entire book on that?” The answer is a resounding yes. Read if you like: The Grateful Dead, expensive audio equipment, stories about roadies smuggling contraband inside speaker cabinets across European borders, foggy retrospectives from the Summer of Love.
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A movie
Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem make the car go fast and 2.5 hours in industrial air conditioning during a heat wave as wildfire smoke settles across Michigan? That’s what we call Summer Mindset at TPF Ann Arbor HQ. A very fun, if slightly hokey, blockbuster.
Bonus article: I enjoyed this Times column about how Pitt still has the juice as a movie star.
Conventional Hollywood wisdom has it that movie stardom is a thing of the past. Of course there are still famous performers who are paid a ton of money to act onscreen, but their hold on audiences has waned.
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A sandwich
Summertime is when my sandwich making arts thrive. Tuna salad, slow-cooked turkey, grocery store deli meats—it doesn’t matter the palette, I take pride in making a cooler full of sandwiches for the river or the beach on a hot afternoon. Over the 4th of July weekend I made a batch of sandwiches (to order! have it your way) for the crew and took them to Lake Michigan. The farmers market tomatoes really took these sandwiches from very good to first ballot hall of famers.
The key to a beach sandwich is taking it out of the cooler at least 20 minutes before you eat so it can bake in the sun a little bit.
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A run
There’s a nature area near my house called Eberwhite Woods. It’s not even a mile around the perimeter, but there are a few different ways you can zig zag around and get a nice run it. It’s hilly and rocky and often times I have the place to myself. It’s especially nice this time of year, because it’s entirely shaded. It’s my own (taxpayer-funded) Hundred Acre Woods, albeit much smaller. A nice escape. One thing longtime runners don’t tell you is that it’s fine to just run in the woods a little bit, you don’t have to do an ultra marathon.
Thanks for listening. Check out this Q&A with the prolific Will Leitch. We’ll have another Q&A for you next week—for real this time.
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