Question for folks who've directed ads, where's a good place to start in terms of contacting people to send materials?

We've hit a point where most things lack any sort of real importance, and that's rather heartbreaking.

Even in so-called traditional labor fields, people are asking themselves if anything they do is useful. Especially when the rest of the greater world is held together by rubber bands.

We've educated an army of engineers and architects to make the same Contemporary Mid-Rise Building to be sold by a fleet of real estate agents, making all of them into condos with mixed used space on the ground floor for some artisanal coffee spot.

We're truly entertaining ourselves to death. People travel and do the same things they'd do at home, going to resorts to eat chicken tenders and take shots.

The same thing has happened with our larger world. There's a lack of exploration, we've exchanged originality with commercial viability. Safety is rewarded over curiosity.

And this isn't exclusive to artistic expression.

This in turn is causing audiences to disconnect. When everything is commodified and mass produced, there's no need to engage with it beyond its existence. You don't think about the last time you've seen a McDonald's, you just know there will be one somewhere.

There are more books than we'll ever read, more movies and TV series than we'll ever be able to watch, more music than ever, all being fed to us by the algorithm without any of the serendipity.

Even when things are "experimental," they lack a sense of poetics and spiritual value; not in the religious dogma sense, but in the human spirit sense... which is often connected to the religious sense of spirituality not mutually exclusive to it.

We don't make things or choices to stand out anymore, this is apparent in the awards season nominations and in the regurgitation of political stances on both sides of the aisle.

You can currently see this the clearest in mainstream art and politics. It's all just a regurgitation of what preceded it and often in service of the attention economy.

We're producing nothing new, and certainly nothing useful. We're no longer interested in creating anything good, just a series of samples and remixes that sample and remix the previous samples and remixes.

I'm supposed to be off social media, but... Morning thoughts:

No one wants to admit it, but we've hit ouroboros territory as a larger society and it’s showing. It's showing in art, in how we interact with others, in everything that gets produced in the business sector.

As we speed run toward fascism, I'd like to take this time to encourage everyone to read the work of the Black Panthers, and Frantz Fanon.

Also, to the same subject, buy physical books because the internet could get regulated faster than you realize.

Been training for a marathon, it’s both humbling and invigorating. I’m learning to push my mind far more than my body in this process, which is much needed in this time.

Thank you. Glad to be home, challenges and all.

Also, being here is humbling because you get to see what people are actually watching. And let me be the first to tell you, LA is deeply out of touch from this. We, I’m including myself here, live inside of an echo chamber. This applies to TV and film.

I’m actually happier in Detroit, and I have more peace here. But I’m also distant from the work that I want to do in ways.

The challenge that I’m facing now, however, is how do I balance being here and also gaining more opportunities in the Hollywood machine. Because while I’m piecing together things here, the checks in LA are undoubtedly more lucrative.

I’m thinking more about why I started this journey in the first place, and trying to figure out how to make things here. I don’t have answers yet, but I feel like I’d forgotten how rich this city is with stories by being in the machine that is Hollywood.

Being in Detroit has actually made me want to write more and has stirred up some dormant creative activity. I’m revisiting old stories with new perspectives and skills I picked up from working in the industry.

In the last 5 years alone, I can name at least 4-5 artists that I knew personally on some level who unalived themselves. I don’t know if LA was the sole reason for that for any of them, but I also wonder how much it factored into their headspace.

Being back in Detroit has made it so clear to me how being in LA deeply disconnected me, and maybe other artists that I know, from the thing that made them want to do their art form in the first place.

2024 was a kick to the chest.

We did it, we survived til '25...

What next?

In the modern age of TV with shorter seasons and higher budget/production values, I miss the great lessons taught by network shows which would course-correct mid-run. There's such a lot to learn as a writer from watching, say, Parks & Rec, retool on the fly and suddenly become a lot better.

For folks working with #Hollywood support staff (PAs, assistants, coordinators, in any and all departments) - please remember the bulk of support staff ARE NOT PAID through the Christmas holidays. Please consider gifting cash to your assistants (if you are financially able). 1/3

I love writing and I'll probably continue writing until the literal day that I die, but I can't help but feeling like the TV & Film industry is going the way of radio.

It's a legacy institution, so it'll still be around... but in what form is TBD.

Thanks man. I’m just grateful that I got to be part of the whole process.

That said, I want to keep writing and working as an artist… but capitalism go WHURRR.

Crazy part about the entertainment industry is that I finally have a good credit to show, and now I’m unsure of if I can afford to continue working in the entertainment industry post strikes.