What Am I Making Podcast

My friend Mark Neese is not only an avid reader, but his gig as a cataloguer at Lansing’s Capital Area District Library expands his literary universe far beyond what a regular appetite for reading would normally allow for. Much like my chats with Kevin Alexander and my daughter Maddie recounting their best music of 2023, Mark lets me cheat off of his homework to share his favorite books of the year.

We cover the genius of Paul McCartney and his brilliant new volume of photos form the year the Beatles broke. There’s a trio of graphic novels that capture everything from a young woman’s lonely journey of adolescence, to the rise of a dictator, to the story of a long-forgotten sit-down strike told within the locker room of a semi-pro hockey team.

Mark shares his first experience with a legendary YA novel that is the only cheat on the list. There is a surprising entry with a special story behind it. And of course, there are tons of words on music from Echo & The Bunnymen to Black Sabbath, the Beatles, and the drug addled past and present of Detroit’s radical music scene.

In addition to his favorite books of 2023, we talk about Mark’s son living in Germany and the amazing travel opportunities that has provided the Neese family. There is a brief recap of some of Mark’s favorite films from the year too. We also hit upon Mark’s love of music more than once in a varied and truly lovely conversation.

Come hang with me and Mark in the Sheddio to find out the new books you’ll be picking up the next time you hit the local library. Hope ya dig it. Here is the full list.

* Acid Detroit: A Psychedelic Story Of Motor City Music by Joe Molloy

* Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson by Rebecca Roberts

* Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath – and Beyond - Geezer Butler

* Accidental Czar: The Life And Lives Of Vladimir Putin - Andrew S. Weiss and Brian “Box” Brown

* 1964: Eyes of the Storm - Paul McCartney

* Monica - Dabile Clowes

* Echoes - Will Sergeant

* Strikers! - Kiel Phegley and Jacques Khouri

* Westminster Abbey Souvenir Guide - Esme West and James Wilkinson

* Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret - Judy Blume

Cheers,

Matty C

Remember The Lightning is a love letter to guitar pop. Its author, S.W. Lauden has been firmly in the grasp of rock and roll since he can remember. Steve’s truly lived a life in rock trenches and lived to tell the tale. He’s not only spent a life writing about rock and roll, he played drums in one time major label darlings, Tsar, as well as in his current band The Brothers Steve. 

Lauden’s writing on music has been a lifelong love affair culminating in several non-fiction books on the subject, and with a series of punk rock detective novels featuring musical PI, Greg Salem. He is even collecting the best writing from his Substack along with several guest contributors for an annual pair of physical books on the subject of guitar pop and its various iterations and purveyors. Volume Three is presently in the works.

During our eclectic and varied chat, we hit upon the idea of cultural inheritance and how we all rebel against it. Steve and I discuss how guitar based rock music has ceased to be the dominant force in music any longer, and why it needed to go back underground to get relevant once again. 

There are forays into the lasting legacy of the Beatles, the waning influence of rock and roll, and the glory of growing up with older brothers who were more like cool uncles. Of course we also tackle the overuse of the term power pop and the nerds that try to neatly define it. 

This is a great chat with a terrific writer who has lived a life deep in the guitar pop salt mines, seen his share of rock history, and a dude who still has much to say about where the artform of guitar pop might be headed, and why it still matters. 

Cheers,

Matty C

My daughter Maddie mentioned that she wanted to talk to me about the new music she had discovered in 2023, and wondered if we could record it for the pod. For years now, she and her sister have talked about starting a podcast and I so badly wish they would stop dilly dallying and just get to recording. They are hilarious, smart and interesting. Plus, even if they’re the only ones who listen to it, it’s totally worth it. 

Needless to say, I was thrilled when I was approached with this query. Within minutes we had a date on the calendar and before I knew it we were recording in the sheddio. As we got going, she confessed that she was nervous and hoped she would do a good job. Maddie was concerned she wouldn’t have enough adjectives or be able to describe things in enough detail. 

I assured her she would be great. I knew she would, even if it took her a bit to get comfortable. Before we had finished discussing the first record I was fighting back the tears of a terribly proud father. It’s been so important for Kimmy and I to raise thoughtful, sensitive, observant, and conscientious young women. To see that displayed so vividly in the confines of the sheddio was a genuine treat.

Maddie and I bounce through her ten favorite records of the year and even cover a handful of honorable mentions. You’ll find indie pop, omnichord, singer/songwriters, broken hearts and even some metal. It’s quite the list and quite the charming journey as Maddie takes us through her best of 2023 on the turntable. 

She was even kind enough to put a playlist together for us with tracks form all of her selections. You can find playlists below for both Apple Music and Spotify.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Matty C

The federal minimum wage in the United States of America is just $7.25 an hour. By July of 2024, that figure of $7.25 will have been frozen in place for fifteen years. While $7.25 was a paltry sum of money when that figure went into effect in July of 2009, 15 years later it is worth even less. Even if folks making minimum wage were not allowed the privilege of a raise in the interim, that 2009 amount of $7.25 would need to be raised to $10.38 just to keep pace with inflation.

Observers might rightly point out that lots of states have enacted minimum wage requirements that are higher than that of the federal level, and this is true. In thirty states, the minimum wage threshold has been raised above the federal level of just $7.25. However, this means that there are still twenty states in which $7.25 is still the law of the land.

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Financial advisors and budget experts all suggest that housing should not take up more than 30% of a household budget. Everyone from Forbes to the National Low Income Housing Coalition have acknowledged that there is nowhere in the country that a minimum wage job is enough to secure housing for a full time worker based on this best practice. If we cannot pay a full time worker enough to afford a place to live, why have a minimum wage at all?

Many employers, especially larger employers will encourage their employees to access government programs such as affordable housing, food stamp programs, welfare stipends and other benefits. Wal*Mart is famous for including access to these programs as a part of the way they train their staff. They are well aware that the wage they are paying their employees is insufficient to provide even the most basic necessities. So, they take advantage of public dollars to pad their profits and exploit their staff.

Wal*Mart is just one of thousands of offenders gaming the system. This practice, while unethical, is completely legal. Furthermore, one would hate to cut off the limited resources that are the lifeline for so many of these low wage workers. The programs designed to help people in need are not the problem, the folks gaming the system sure as hell are though.

In the last 15 years we have seen no movement in the federal minimum wage, but there have been big changes in the workplace. As companies strive to make greater profits they are running threadbare staffs in retail locations; see the great John Oliver piece on the way Dollar Stores are run and how they are staffed. Stores that might have once had six or eight employees on staff are now operating with just two, or in some drastic cases even down to just one. These efforts are being made to squeeze maximum profits from each location with no regard for the safety, dignity, or well being of employees.

Not only are low wage workers earning less due to fifteen years of inflation, but they are often working in conditions that are unpleasant at best, and unsafe at worst. Employees are now expected to work for lower wages than we have seen in this country in nearly a century, and they are expected to work in less stable and less secure environments as well. The workdays have largely gotten harder, more dangerous, and more unpleasant for the menial workers of this country. And they’re doing it for less money than in generations.

Critics might offer that no employers actually pay the minimum wage. Fair enough, all the more reason to raise it then. If your economic theory on the going rate for hourly work is on the money, let’s go ahead and codify it into law. Except, lots of groups and associations have fought higher minimum wages tooth and nail. Seems like if everyone was paying more than the lowest legal amount, raising the minimum wage might not raise such a stink.

Perhaps instead of thinking about this from the standpoint of the employer and the value for his money, let us think of it from the standpoint of the worker and the value of her time, talent, and efforts. Let’s work backward from our 30% of the budget for housing just to get an idea of where the wage should be. In my home state of Michigan, rent is in the middle of the pack as rates by state around the country are concerned. The average two bedroom rental would need a wage of $21.65/hour, more than twice the current minimum wage of $10.10.

What is the point in even having a minimum wage if it isn’t even half of what you would need to rent an apartment? And yes, many households do have two incomes, but it should not be a requirement for one to be married, partnered up, or to have a roommate to find affordable housing for your rate of pay. If we cannot ensure that a full time worker is able to afford a place to live and the ability to put food on the table without a handout from public assistance, why are we pretending to be upholding a certain standard of living at all?

If we are going to legislate with this level of ineffectiveness and apathy, let us simply return to the days of child labor and twelve hour shifts six days a week. Maybe we can return other gilded age traditions like tenement housing with several families sharing a single apartment. Perhaps these destitute workers could all share a barn or a stable. We’ve already removed most of the humanity from our low level employees, why treat them like humans at all?

In keeping these wages so low and forcing hourly wage employees into federal and state assistance programs we are redistributing the wealth of these workers back into the hands of families like the Waltons. Instead of subsidizing the avarice of the Walton family, we could force them to pay their workers a living wage, instead of the bare minimum.

In the state of Arkansas where Wal*Mart was founded, housing is almost as cheap as anywhere in the nation. For just $16.27/hour you too can make enough afford a two bedroom apartment in Arkansas. The trouble is that even in Arkansas, minimum wage is just $11.00, leaving you with a housing budget that sits way above 30%. Even in one of the most affordable states in the union, and one with a wage above the federal minimum, the minimum wage would still need to be raised nearly 50% to afford rent.

To give you a reference point, a worker in Arkansas making $11.00/ hour and working 40 hours a week should be spending no more than $528/month on rent.

While the housing situation in Arkansas is challenging, in expensive places like California it is absolutely dire. An hourly worker needs to earn $42.25 an hour to afford to live in California. The California minimum wage is one of the highest in the nation at $15.50, but it would need to nearly triple to make rent affordable. Surely, the housing crisis is not the fault of the minimum wage but the two are inextricably linked.

In forcing workers to spend greater percentages of their earnings on rent and in keeping their wages artificially low, there is a larger and more impoverished group of working Americans than at any time since the Great Depression. As food prices, housing costs, education, and health care have risen faster than the rate of inflation, wages have stagnated for the lowest rung of workers.

All of the above examples are based upon full time work at minimum wage or just above and yet for many workers in the country it can be difficult to find full time employment. To avoid paying benefits like health insurance many employers keep their employees scheduled for less than 27 hours a week. Full time workers are defined as anyone working 27.5 hours a week or more.

For many low wage workers this means coordinating multiple jobs usually in multiple locations. Securing regular hours and making sure shifts can be met at various employers is an additional series of challenges for an employee in this position. Having a second location for work also greatly increases the necessity for the employee to have access to a vehicle or reliable and affordable public transit. This of course is likely to add significant additional expenses into a monthly budget that is already overstretched.

Where we once had built a thriving and vibrant middle class, we’ve now built a system where one can work 40 hours a week and still be left without a place to live.

Is that really the minimum we want for ourselves?Cheers,

Matty C

Chris Dalla Riva is an independent musician with a small, but engaged audience that is continuously growing. As much as his musical ambitions are headed in the right direction, Chris also has a day job as a data analyst for the digital music streamer AudioMack. This gives him a wholly unique perspective on the digital streaming industry. 

Not only does Dalla Riva have access to the data of both the musician and the streaming provider in his situation, but he gets a daily, on the ground perspective from both points of view. He sees the struggle to break through in an overly saturated digital music market while also seeing how costs can mount up for a small digital streamer paying seemingly small amounts of money to the artists on their platform. 

Can't’ Get Much Higher, Chris’ terrific Substack is a wealth of information on the data behind the musical trends of yesterday and today. Outside of Substack, his work has been featured by NPR and The Economist, among other places.

Our conversation is a wonderful stroll back and forth between the struggles of daily life as an independent artist and understanding how we can better harness the data and metrics that Chris works with everyday to create a more fair and just economic system for music as we move forward. 

The more I explore the issue of digital streaming, its economics, and the impact it will have on our musical culture, the more I am baffled at how unjustly the system is set up. Chris and I will delve into the shortcomings of the way the system was built hastily at the dawn of a digital age and then added to with the effectiveness of polishing a turd. 

Chris will also work to explain that the low payouts for artists at sites like Spotify and Apple aren’t even real hard numbers. They’re average rates based on a pool of revenue sharing that is complicated and tends to favor the already successful artist over the independent creator. 

We explore the reality that no other industry works like the music industry, specifically the digital music industry. Film, TV, televised sports, live events, and other entertainment is all more fairly and transparently paid for. There’s also a chance for me to discuss my theory of the Convenience Con with Chris as well. 

It's a fascinating discussion with a brilliant and insightful person with a genuinely unique view on the subject. Enjoy

Cheers,

Matty C

Be sure to reach out to Chris on the socials and make sure you let him know you enjoyed his appearance on the pod. Thank him for being here and be sure to follow his Substack as well. Thanks, y’all.

The Detroit Lions won their division, the NFC North, for the first time in 30 years this season. It marked a true high point in a remarkable run of poor form, for a team that is a noted laughing stock of the National Football League. When the Lions last won a division title, I was a young man of just twenty one years, and followed every snap with anxious enthusiasm.

My knowledge of the team, the division, and the league as a whole was encyclopedic. I read the newspaper every morning and listened to sports talk each afternoon. Routinely, I would call into some of my favorite shows to share my opinions or concerns on the Lions’ hopes for a deep playoff run. Even the guys on talk radio had to acknowledge that I knew my shit. I watched, studied, and listened intently. I was an enormous fan and a student of the game itself.

In that 1993 season, the Lions failed to win even a single playoff game and have spent the last three decades in the veritable football wilderness. Now, they are back atop their division and considered one of the favorites to make a run deep into the NFC playoffs. Some pundits even have them as a pick to win the Super Bowl.

It’s worth nothing here that the Lions have never won a Super Bowl. They have never even appeared in a Super Bowl. The last time the Lions won an NFL Championship was in 1957. It would be another ten years after that before the first Super Bowl was even played. The Lions winning a Super Bowl is the low-rent NFL equivalent to The Cubs winning the World Series in 2016.

Thirty years on from that ‘93 season, I have grown away from the game of American football. My ingestion of sports as a whole is down to a mere fraction of what it used to be, and resides almost exclusively now within the confines of actual football (soccer) and the Detroit Tigers. If I thought very hard about it, I might be able to name the head coach of the Lions and perhaps as many as three players on the roster, at best. In short, I know nothing about the team I once loved, or the game that I knew so well.

I honed most of my basic argumentative skills as a young man debating the ins and outs of football and baseball at our extended family gatherings. As I got older and learned more, I became confident enough to share my own opinions while the adults talked. At first, I was largely parroting what I had heard others say, but I began to watch and listen enough that I could formulate my own ideas from time to time.

While my family were encouraging and supportive, they were not prone to giving me free passes. If I had forgotten about someone in the bullpen in my approach to a late season run, I would hear about it. It would be delivered in a jokingly affectionate way, but it was still a smackdown of sorts. If I wanted to hang, I would have to know my shit.

So, I learned my shit. As I listened to games, I studied batting averages from the newspaper and looked at last week’s lineup cards to chart changes. I could name every switch hitter in the American League by heart, and tell you who was leading the league in stolen bases or runs scored. To use the parlance of our times, I had done my research.

If I was confronted with an argument that I knew to be false, I had the confidence to challenge it. When I was proven out to be correct, I was supported again and encouraged by my elders. My knowledge and interest and perspective were valued, both because I was loved and because I knew what I was taking about. I was rewarded for having done my own homework. I was raised in a world where knowledge and truth were firm, and held no favor. The rules were the rules, and the facts were the facts.

At a family function this Fall, I overheard a number of family and friends furiously debating just how good the Lions would be this year. It was early in the season, and hopes were high. I listened and smiled with a beer in hand and thought of how wrapped up in it all I used to be. There were names of players, coaches, and even play formations that might as well have been in Greek to my ears. I was truly clueless. I stood idly by and just watched the good natured debate play out.

Eventually, someone, turned their head my way and said, “Matt, what do you think?”

Frankly, I was a little stunned. It had been a very long time since I had been a part of one of these discussions, but I was flattered to be included. There was the tiniest part of me that wanted to see if I could still hang without knowing much of anything about the current state of the NFL. That thought quickly passed and then I began to scramble for a way to politely extricate myself from the discussion without sounding as though I was shitting on their debate.

The truth is that while I don’t enjoy American football much these days, it was nice to be in that room for just a few minutes again as a fly on the wall. I was happy to be there for a bit and just eavesdrop. Now, I had been outed as a voyeur and was being asked to participate. I struggled for a clever way to talk about it without really talking about; a way to make a joke and an exit while also saying to the group, “I still have a bit of an opinion”. Wink

I let out a big sigh and stood up a bit straighter as I prepared to walk away from the table. I took a swig of my beer, and I replied,

“It’s been a very long time since I watched the Lions with any real attention. Seems like they might be really good this year. I hope that happens. All I know is that in my lifetime, even with the greatest running back the game has ever seen, the Detroit Lions have always found a way to eventually just be the same old Detroit Lions.”

A chorus of hearty chuckles filled the room. I felt a small bump of pride. With just a couple of sentences I had managed to avoid being dragged into a debate about a subject on which I knew very little, but I had also made it clear that I had an opinion based on years of futility as a fan. Lastly, I had managed to deflect any possible tension with humor. A pretty deft handling of the matter, if I do say so myself.

It would have been a fool’s errand to engage in the debate without knowing anything. It would have been disrespectful to just respond that I didn't care for such petty matters. So, I framed a quick joke, and then showed that I knew enough to be let off the hook and it was back to the BBQ.

As I strolled around the party for another few minutes, I began to fixate on the situation that I had just exited. It was a scenario where I was expected to have an opinion that was informed, based in fact, and built upon the trust for a certain set of truths that were taken for granted. I needed to be aware of the principal parties involved, and be attuned to their strengths and weaknesses. To hang in that crowd, I would need to be armed with statistics, trends, and proof for any and all arguments to be taken seriously. I needed to know the game inside and out to even take part in that discussion with any degree of good faith.

As I drove home, the nagging sensation began to grow louder and more persistent. Examining the set of criteria that were in place, it was obvious that for me to discuss the Lions or Spartans or Tigers required knowledge, expertise, and research. If I failed to prepare properly, I would rightly be rebuffed. If I offered bad information or false statistics, I would be shown the error of my ways. And this was all to discuss a fucking game!

In the thirty years since the Lions last won their division I have spent a great deal of time studying and learning American history and political thought, much of it time that I used to spend studying the Lions. I was even such a nerd in high school that I worked on the failed Michael Dukakis Presidential campaign in the fall of 1988 despite the fact that I was two years away from being legally eligible to vote. Things have only gotten “worse” since then.

My daily routine involves listening to at least three news and public affairs podcasts; One from the BBC, one from Reuters, and one from independent producer Pete Dominick. Those first pair, by all accounts are two of the most objective news sources in the world. The third leans progressive, but is still deeply rooted in a search for the truth and is based on the concept of ethical journalism.

Additionally, I spend several hours each day reading and paying attention to sites like the Associated Press, National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post and more. I do not claim to know it all, but I do have a fairly good idea of what is happening in the world and around the country. I trust my news sources in the same way that I trust ESPN to give me an accurate score for the most recent Tigers game, and not just the score that I want to hear.

If one of the nice folks at that table who knew his Lions inside and out, came to a party at my place and we had a group of folks discussing a National Healthcare Plan, they would be welcomed to join our discussion. Their view points would be listened to with respect and given thoughtful reply. Those points however, would need to be just as well informed about the issue of healthcare, and how to pay for it fairly and effectively, as I would need to be about the Lions and their defensive philosophy.

Instead of holding political debate to the same level of knowledge expectation as professional sport, politics has become the new bandwagon sport and rabid fandom seems to have come right along with it. There is clothing, merch, team colors, and even hats to make it seem more like they’re in uniform. These folks root with the same abandon as they would for their favorite team at a drunken tailgate, but with none of the context or knowledge that they would give to men playing a game for money.

When real lives are on the line with issues like education, health care, voting rights, reproductive rights, and foreign policy it seems an opinion is worth far more than experience or education. Look not further than the treatment of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Where I might be laughed at for not knowing the current defensive coordinator of the Lions, it appears that it matters not if your idiot neighbor has no clue who the Secretary of State is, you should still hear him out on what’s happening in Ukraine.

Even worse than being uninformed is the obstinate refusal by some of the new political advocates to learn on the job. Instead of finding factual information or accepting hard truths, they mine the dark corners of the internet for flawed conspiracy theories to use as a convenient excuse. When the truth is constantly changing, nothing is ever true.

Still, there is seemingly never any punishment for those that refuse to know the rules of the game, the way it is played, or the stakes at hand. These nascent political acolytes are hardly willing to give the same credence to meaningful public policy that they would give to a weeknight Tigers game in late April. We are debating ways to change the actual everyday lives of Americans, not just balls and strikes.

At a recent gathering, an attendee (who shall remain nameless to protect both the innocent and the guilty) began to rail against socialism. I did my best to remain calm and asked what they were talking about. In essence, this person was concerned that a group that he kept referring to as THEY, would soon own up to roughly half of the housing inventory in America. When I asked who THEY were, I was told it was four huge real estate companies.

With a note of sarcasm in my voice and a smirk on my face, I replied, “That’s a monopoly caused by unregulated capitalism. That’s not socialism. Socialism would help to fight against that. Even still, what you are worried about is unchecked capitalism.”

“Oh well, the government is part of it too”, he shot back.

I said, “Well, if the government is doing its job on behalf of the people, it would regulate a monopoly like that. The problem is that . . .”

At this point, a couple of family members stepped in to try and stop the discussion before it escalated. I agreed to stop and then attempted to finish my sentence and offer a polite end to the discussion. As I began to offer the next phrase, the attendee in question looked at me and said,

“You can go ahead and stop talking. I wasn’t fucking listening to anything you were saying anyway.”

Here in essence, is the problem. The lack of listening.

I’ll admit that I could learn to be better at it, but the studying and daily information routine that I absorb are a form of intentional and deliberate listening to be informed on the facts and the facets of the issues of our time. Now we have reached a point where a relative at a family function cannot even be bothered to “listen” to something he might disagree with? This utter lack of respect and investment from those who claim to be willing to “debate” is baffling and unacceptable.

Bravado and posturing have replaced true debate techniques like research, context, and philosophical reflection. Furthermore, this bro class of would-be political scientists is only willing to present and accept the facts that support their arguments. They are armed with nothing more than malformed conspiracy theories, toxic masculinity, and fragile egos.

Yet these are the same crowd that regularly wear merchandise brandishing the phrase FUCK YOUR FEELINGS, and you’ll find them calling the progressives in their wake Snowflakes. In reality, these fragile, ignorant, and stunted dudes are the true snowflakes. When they arrive into a discussion based on policy ideas, extensive knowledge, and compassion they melt as quickly as snow hitting warm pavement. The only thing that surpasses their cluelessness is their fragility.

Public policy and the way it affects the day to day lives of Americans ought to secure more of our attention than grown men or women playing a game; any game. If you can take the time to know the intricate details of your favorite team’s offensive system, maybe you could at least know the name of your US Representative.

These would be political ideologists want to be fans without the knowledge. They seek to engage in the passion and the glory of the game with none of the investment or research to genuinely understand how the game is played and what the facts and stakes actually are. Instead of constantly shifting the rules to always achieve victory, they could play the game honestly and with heart to see the best idea, and not the best team emerge victorious.

Sport is fun, entertaining, and even necessary to our culture. It is still though, just a game. Elections, politics, and public policy are not a game. They are a complex system of disparate parts that affect the real lives of everyday people. When your team loses in the playoffs, you naturally feel bummed out. When public policy renders you homeless, sick, or bankrupt it is more than the disappointment of loss that you’ll feel. It is truly a life or death situation, and not a meaningless game.

We should start acting once again like there is a difference between the two.

Cheers,

Matty C

From the moment that my parents bought a small print shop in the summer of 1989, I have been transfixed by the machinations of graphic design. What began as simply learning how to use as an X-Acto knife, a light table, and a darkroom, has gradually become an understanding of the ins and outs of layering and editing within Photoshop, as well as the glorious joy of clipping masks.

My brief life leading up to that moment in 1989 had been filled with great design that I lapped up in the form of album covers and movie posters. Listening to albums, I would pore over liner notes and study the photos, fonts, and paintings that graced these brilliant slices of wax.

Movie posters didn't just look like art, they were art, and displayed as such in our home. My mother collected film memorabilia. While she didn't veer toward anything valuable or particularly rare, she did have a lovingly curated gallery of posters, lobby cards, heads shots, and more.

The posters that hung around our living room for classic films featuring Garbo, Fonda, Gable, and more were their own crash course in design. Even after just a few glances, I began to pick up on the ways that color, type, and images were used to not just convey basic info of the film, but also hinted at the plots and themes within as well. While these might seem like basic observations now, to my teenage self, they felt like a shockwave of awareness.

In the nearly thirty five years that I have been learning and practicing this art form, I have stumbled upon a few basic rules that help to keep me on the path toward great results. It is rather remarkable that as I lay these guidelines out for you that I also realize they are also a wonderful guide to living a better and more intentional life.

Simplify

Most posters have far too much information on them. There was a time when we needed to convey several pieces of info at once to a potential viewer. That time has past. Details like ticket prices, times, and addresses can now be had in a few microseconds with just a quick search. While those details probably have a spot in your design, make sure you remember that as long as the potential attendee knows the name of the event, maybe the date, and the general area where it’s happening, the rest is imminently findable.

Focus on the one or two crucial pieces of information that you need your potential audience to remember and give those full focus as you begin. From there, only add the most necessary requirements. It is crucial to remember that most folks that even take the time to look at your poster are likely to give it no more than a second or two at most. You need to get their attention with one thing. It’s probably the name of your show, musical, event, or band. It sounds simple, but start at the beginning and only add what you need.

Prioritize

Once you’ve assembled and selected the information you’ve deemed crucial to conveying, you’ll need to prioritize the arrangement of your design. Is there a title you want the viewer you see first? Maybe you have a striking image or piece of art that will be the focal point. Perhaps you have a great looking banner font for the name of the headlining band. Begin your piece with that idea at the forefront of what you want to build. Everything that you assemble from here forward should support whatever your focal point is.

Let’s assume you have a striking image and some bold text to convey the name of your event. As you add details like time, date and location, you want to make sure your text is far smaller for these important, but secondary bits of information, than your main title focal point. Not all of your information is equal. Give each item its appropriate amount of weight.

Be Consistent

Fonts are awesome. They can bring simple lettering to life with a mouse click. They have become free and ubiquitous. Now, they’re even the butt of jokes online as folks dig at corny typefaces like Comic Sans or Papyrus.

Before the days of Canva and even Microsoft word, I lived in a world where fonts were a relatively rare commodity. The expensive font pack that we first purchased for the print shop was several hundred dollars and had something like 100 fonts or so in it. If we needed Times New Roman bold italic, we couldn’t just hop on to 1001fonts.com and pick up a new one.

This reduced availability taught me quickly about the value of limiting your font choices when designing a poster or record cover. What I saw at the time as a huge roadblock, I now see was a lesson in how to use type effectively.

Most terrible poster design comes from an overuse of fonts. Once we reach three, four, five, or more different typefaces in a single piece, all aspects begin to lose their meaning and we’re left wondering what info we should be getting from the design, while also giving the viewer a terribly unpleasant experience. It also removes all style from the poster and becomes nothing more than a muddled mess.

Start by limiting yourself to just one font. Use italics, bold, and other font features to change the shape, width, and character of your typeface. Then, begin incorporating color, which we’ll talk about more in a moment, to accent the truly important information.

Display The Truest Colors

Color, much like fonts, gets overused all of the time. Would be designers get caught up in the idea that more colors or more fonts means more good. It doesn’t. Design, like cooking, is about choices. It is as much about what we leave out as what we add in. It’s also about understanding the effect of adding small amounts of powerful ingredients to what we’re making.

Choose a main color and then use your accent colors with scarcity. Every word does not need to be in a new font and a new color. If you really want to dive in, start learning about color swatches, the color wheel, and how these things pair together. Like most art forms, making design look simple can be incredibly complicated. We don’t have to let it be that way.

Your color scheme should reinforce the themes of your event. Is it an autumnal fundraiser with a color tour? Don’t use pastels, dude. When in doubt, re-read the rules above and apply again to color.

Don’t Do It All Yourself

Most posters attempt to convey too much information, or have no focus that allows them to unveil the information in any sort of order. Often this is a result of a designer not trusting his audience. Yes, I want to simplify. Yes, I want to clarify my point. Yes, I want to use color and type and imagery to draw focus and attention to specific areas. I also need to ask for some investment from my potential viewer as well.

It’s difficult to make an attractive, effective, and intriguing poster or album cover. One could easily follow all of the rules above and still end up with something that feels, well . . . boring. Even a great designer can start with a good idea, a good focal point, and follow the basic precepts and still wind up with a soulless poster that conveys information, but with little meaning or depth.

I find that most posters leaving me feeling flat, and I’m left with little to no memory of them afterward. They are fine, but forgettable. The truly remarkable posters make me work a little bit for it. Perhaps there is a bit of text that’s tough to read or an image that is haunting but unclear. Maybe the poster has been aged, weathered or worn to make it seem as though the digital image has lived in the real world. Trust that your audience will find their own way. If you do it all for them, they won’t bother making the journey at all.

Fail

Design like any true art form, can only truly be learned and absorbed through a series of humiliating failures. We must do things poorly repeatedly until we can learn to do them well. Allow yourself the chance to fail at a new idea or approach. Revel more in a bad poster made with your own vision than in a good poster made in the shadow of someone else’s.

It is often in failure and struggle that we can truly find ourselves, and our voices.

Cheers,Matty C

Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah recently sent a holiday email to his employees to end the calendar year. The memo was nothing more than an uninspired screed of personal validation from another in a long line of overpaid emotional infants running major firms who have no grasp of actual life, or apparently any shred of self-awareness.

To begin his year end email, Shah doesn't bother to thank his staff or compliment them for another year under their belts. He hops right into his sole point of reference, his first person point of view. As happens repeatedly throughout the memo, Shah begins the opening paragraph with “I”.

It’s a reasonable way for one to expect Shah to start his manifesto, as it’s clear that he sees himself as the lone savior for Wayfair, despite the company losing more than $400 million in just the second and third quarters of 2023 combined.

As you’ll see in the full memo below, along with a full set of notes for translation and deeper understanding, Shah expects his workers to suffer longer hours, provide additional value at every moment for no additional compensation, and to help him in cutting costs at every turn. In essence, Shah would like his staff to do most his job for him. Let’s have a look at the transcript, shall we?

Hi everyone,

I thought I would take a minute to share some thoughts that I have had recently.

As we work our way through the holiday season it is really encouraging to see that we are back to winning. Winning feels good - and is a great reward for all of our efforts. Our market share is growing nicely, our repeat is increasing, our suppliers are leaning in, and we are profitable. This is something to be very proud of.

What the fuck does winning even mean, Niraj? Are you beating Joybird or Ashley or some other furniture manufacturer at a game of whiffle ball? Did you guys win the fantasy baseball league this year for CEO dipshits?

This is a huge part of the problem with corporate culture. It’s been built up into this mentality of conquest and victory and athletic prowess. Stop behaving like a middle school volleyball coach and be a fucking adult. You are one of the few people winning here. Everyone else is trying to eke out a living, you clueless hack.

That said, while we have worked hard to get back to the execution oriented, hard working, frugal, customer oriented culture that we had for most of our history we still have some work to do to make sure that we get fully back. And this is what I want us all to push on in the weeks and months to come.

One point I think is important to make is that winning requires hard work. I believe that most of us, being ambitious individuals, find fulfillment in the joy of seeing our efforts materialize into tangible results. Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success. Hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success. I embrace this, and the most successful people I know do as well.

What Shah is essentially saying here is that he doesn’t want you to have a work/life balance. Yeah, he’ll say the acceptable things, but in essence, figure out it yourself. You’ll be expected to work long hours. You need to be right there when needed and if you can’t figure out how to do that within your life, you are not gonna fly here, pal.

Shah mentions that “hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success”, and I would agree wholeheartedly. What Shah fails to grasp, or at least mention is that human beings will at some point become inefficient and ineffective, no matter how hard of a worker they are. There are only so many hours in the day and life has other priorities besides work.

CEOs and employers talk all the time of compensation packages and bonuses but never seem to incorporate the value of boundaries to keep life and work at least somewhat separate. When you are responsive and attentive, it means you are always in work mode. It’s difficult to be in the moment at a family dinner or a friend’s wedding when it’s expected that work mode is always on. Life is there, but because of work mode, it can never fully be lived.

You may know of Nirajisms, these are phrases that start with 'Niraj said'. What disappoints me is that the majority I hear are either not true, are old and no longer applicable, or are taken out of context. The one I would reference here that I heard was 'Niraj said that he does not think that we should work late'. I would suggest that this is laughably false. Hard work is essential for success, and a key part of getting things done. Everyone deserves to have a great personal life - everyone manages that in their own way - ambitious people find ways to blend and balance the two. I think that is what we all should do.

If you are using your own name to talk about a series of phrases you have uttered, you’re a douche. Sorry, this is a hard and fast rule and I will not be budging. If I started throwing bullshit aphorisms at you and called them MattyGrams you’d rightfully mock me out of the room.

If Niraj needs you to work late once in a while, that is totally reasonable. There are projects, emergencies, staffing shortages, and all sorts of other reasons why Wayfair might need some extra time from you once in a while.

The problem is that it has become corporate expectation to get 50 to 60 hours a week from many employees, week in and week out. This isn’t working extra, this is doing one and a half jobs. This is where Niraj and his friends are fucking you.

You work 60 hours a week and get counted as one employee. Dave over in accounting also works 60 hours a week and gets counted as one employee. Now, you and Dave are doing the job that used to be done by you, Dave and Sarah who left last month to have a baby. Sarah won’t be coming back and you and Dave need to pick up the slack.

Niraj now gets to have the work of three people done for the cost of two. We had a word for that when I was growing up. It was called theft. Niraj is stealing that third paycheck from you and Dave, and then telling you you’re winning. No, he is winning. You are working harder for less.

I heard another Nirajism yesterday which was 'Niraj said that we cannot recruit from Google Amazon or Walmart'. I am not even sure where that could come from since so many of our senior leaders are from these places. Again false.

I would encourage you to run any Nirajism that sounds odd by me. I am happy to clarify anything. And I am sure there are some that in fact I would support and say we should stick with. Ultimately I want us to be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart. Use those as filters and I think things can become clearer.

I would also encourage you to think of any company money you spend as your own. Would you spend money on that, would you spend that much money for that thing, does that price seem reasonable, and lastly - have you negotiated the price? Everything is negotiable and so if you haven't then you should start there. One cost we were discussing yesterday was the cost to run ethernet wires. In this example it started at $1,600 a drop. At 12 drops that would be $19,200. To run them would take two people maybe 8 hours or so. I would be happy to spend a Saturday doing this with you and splitting $19,200. Basically that price is highway robbery. Why did we get robbed? Because no one worried about the cost. That $1,600 became $800 and then $300 as some questions were asked and negotiations ensued. We have this this type of problem in many places - we need to root them out. And we need everyone who is at Wayfair to care. If you see wasted spend that you do not know how to fix just let me know and I will help. This is a great way to strengthen the culture.

Cutting costs is wonderful and I am thrilled that Niraj figured out a little problem all on his own like this, but the idea of him and a buddy dropping line all over town cracks me up. He says he’s happy to split the costs of drops with a partner for a big payday, but he fails to mention a number of factors.

* Niraj, do you have any fucking idea how to safely, dig, run, connect, and/or secure cabling?

* Are you insured, licensed, bonded, and registered with the proper authorities to perform such installations?

* Do you have a truck to carry tons of wire as well as a massive spool to help uncoil it for easier installation?

* You mention just splitting the $19,200 with a partner. Did you plan to steal the wire or had you not considered the costs of the actual components of the job?

* You are a man who makes more than $750,000 in compensation before benefits and stock options. Your company lost nearly half a billion dollars in six months this year. Yet, you accuse others of highway robbery. Have you recently looked up the definition of irony in a dictionary, you disaffected twat?

And lastly I want to encourage us all to be smart. You will encounter some things that do not make sense. Question them. And then escalate it if you encounter bureaucracy and believe that you are right. We have a lot of policies or practices that need to refreshed, leaned out, or eliminated. Less is more - let’s find policies and procedures that do not add value and eliminate them. Let’s find policies that do not make sense and adjust them. And just approach everything with first principles. You are smart - bet on that and use your judgment. And feel free to ask me or other leaders for advice when you have a question. This will help us all win.

Together we can win much faster than we are winning now if we all row in this direction together. Let's be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart.

Thanks for being on the team!

Niraj

I have a cost-cutting measure for you Niraj. You currently make at least 7 times what your average employee makes before you get your stock options. How about you work for free and hire seven more people? You clearly are not worth your salary. It’s hard to figure out just how much you have lost on your watch, but looks like it’s more than a billion dollars. It seems like highway robbery to me that you get paid at all.

Maybe seven more people could help take the stress off of Dave in accounting now that Sarah is gone. Besides, you said it best, “Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success.”

Someday you’ll be back there with the makers again, buddy. You just need to work harder, leaner, and smarter. Oh, and maybe try a bit of empathy, humility and tact while you’re at it.

Cheers,Matty C

P.S. It’s also worth noting out that Niraj is a terrible writer. He begins sentences, and even paragraphs routinely with the word “And”. He forms run-on sentences, often with competing ideas. There are mixed metaphors, clumsy allusions, loss of viewpoint, and just poor clarity altogether.

You may think it petty of me to pick apart the poor writing of a man who is just sending an email to his weary staff. Important to remember that this is a man who is paid a lot of money to communicate with his employees. If he cannot do that well in the written form, he is severely overpaid.

When author and producer, Matt Berenson first published his list ranking all of the fifteen albums in the R.E.M. canon, I felt one more cosmic connection to him and his fandom for the most famous band from Athens, GA. I was thrilled to read Matt’s piece and see how the LPs stacked up in his estimation. Furthermore, I began to wonder where I would differ and where our ideals on the perfect R.E.M. record might converge. I accepted my own challenge, and I was off. 

Throughout November and December, I published my own full list ranked 15 to 1 with detailed notes on each album as to why it finds itself in that particular spot. The project was truly challenging, but what a joy to work on. I was able to revisit albums in the catalog that I hadn’t spun in full for a few years. I was also given the chance to reassess the latter records of the band’s career which I had largely dismissed when they were released. 

Matt and I got together to talk in the quiet days between Christmas and New Years to review our lists and see where we lined up or diverged. Largely, we’re in the same camp on what does and doesn’t make the best sort of R.E.M. record. Much of the subtle differences in our lists can be found in the timeframe at which we were first introduced to the band.

Somehow, while breaking down the R.E.M. catalog in detailed fashion Matt manages to tell me about the rare opportunity he had to see British band, The La’s at the Tower Records in Los Angeles on their lone tour back in the early 90s. There is also healthy section on an indie classic by The Wedding Present and a thorough assessment of Morrissey’s early solo career. Somehow, it all makes sense.

In talking about how supremely terrific R.E.M. were at covering the work of other artists, I challenged Matt to a collaborative playlist project. Each of us selected six songs featuring the band playing a tune written by another artist. We went at this draft pick style. The result is a twelve song playlist of the band’s best cover versions. I’ll be sharing those soon in a separate article.

How does your list compare to me and Matty B? We wanna know.

Cheers,

Matty C

Back in August of 2023, I published an essay here at What Am I Making about moving to the small town of Bath in the summer of 1984. I was twelve years old. I did not want to move to a new place. I was sullen and furious. 

In an effort to help me with the transition, my Dad pulled out an old history magazine and told me about a bombing known as The Bath School Disaster that took place in the town where I was moving away to. It’s a story of the roots of American domestic terror, the ways we forget our own history, and how hard it is to talk about our skeletons in the closet. 

What follows is a podcast version of that story complete with new original music by me, Matty C. These musical sequences are from a new series of compositions that I am working on that I hope will become a full ambient record inspired by the Bath School Disaster. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast version of the story. 

Cheers,

Matty C