i guess the beginning is a good place to start

the end is sometimes too

Hey, this is Thursday’s at 1 Newsletter.

This is a place where ideas and things will be delivered to your eyeballs and earholes and sometimes formed by your hands and put into your mouth holes so you can continue to experience time in a good way as it goes on and on.

What you are seeing here is an attempt to put something out into the world as an accumulation of ideas and ponderings which seem connected in a rambling sort of way, then bundled in a package, and delivered to your inbox or on the other side of a couple of clicks. The idea of this is inspired by the many newsletters I get from an array of different writers and from conversations I have with friends both in my daily life and those on the other side of wires around the world. These conversations and interactions start as tiny, hot, crimson ambers in my mind, and after some time and some wind and careless house keeping, create all-out wild fires. I thought the best way to appease them would be to put them down to share with all.

Whatever this ugly baby is today will most assuredly evolve into something entirely different, as it is with most things, and will grow and develop and mature until it gives but a faint resemblance to it’s infant form. An ugly adult, perhaps.

The topics here will cover a multitude of areas from music, to books and writing, to ideas in the managerial/ leadership realm, food, travel, health, art, philosophy. It’s like that drawer you have in your kitchen or your living room or downstairs office where you throw a whole bunch of random crap inside to use for a later date and which ALWAYS comes in clutch when you need it the most, like safety glasses, a razor blade, a black sharpie, a specific screwdriver for that Ikea furniture which keeps loosening, a hair tie, adaptors for European style plugs. A large paper clip. The kind of stuff which is only important right when you need it (or want it).

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This past week I went to visit an old friend in Gulfport, Mississippi for Thanksgiving. This is the type of friend who you can spend hours with and not talk to each other, or not have seen for an extended period of time and pick up right where you left off (even the shared bottle of rye is just as you left it). We buds.

When we were stationed in Spain he and I were in a band together. The story goes: I was contacted to form a band for an event. I knew a lead guitar player (with whom I played a few times in other ensembles, incredibly talented) and a singer (with hell-acious pipes, he can sing BOSTON!! who can sing BOSTON these days??) but we needed a bass player. Though originally a rhythm guitar player, my bud dabbled a bit in bass (a huge Beatles fan, he had a McCartney-esque Hofner 500/1). And as it so often goes he agreed to play bass. After about two weeks of rehearsals and what was supposed to be as a single-serving band for a small event turned into the best cover band I’ve ever been a part of with some of the coolest guys I have ever had a pleasure of knowing and creating music together (there’s a lot to say about these guys, but one thing I will mention is that my bud learned how to play Ramble On by Led Zeppelin in less than two months from deciding to switch to bass. Have you ever really listened to that bass line? It slays. Who knew that singing about Hobbits could inspire such a masterful bassline? He is an incredibly dedicated learner, putting hours into practice).

Back to the short Thanksgiving trip, he and his wife are also the type of people that eat and drink good shit. GREAT shit. With them I’ve had: the best meatloaf I’ve ever had, the best pancakes I’ve ever had, and the “best I’ve ever had’s” just keep rolling. I later found out in a roundabout way, how life throws in common intersections, from a coincidence from one of my oldest and best friends that they BOTH used the same badass cookbook called The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt (the book has another title now for me and another friend, called “the bible”. Used in a phrase: “hey bro, did you try those eggs I made? I used the science-cooking shit from the bible” or “hey bro, lets cook some baller shit from the bible this weekend”). I’ll probably write a separate newsletter on that book alone, but if you are a food dude/dudette, just buy it. (Another tangent, I have a personal rule that if two completely unrelated friends tell me to look into the same thing, such as a cookbook or book or band or whatever, I DO IT. I believe once we grind ourselves down to the core of who we are we only let those into our lives as friends (“chosen family”) who have common attributes. Though these friends may not know each other, you yourself are the common denominator, the fabric woven between these social bonds. And if THEY suggest the SAME thing, then YOU have chosen WISELY in friends… I think).

For Thanksgiving meal he and his wife decided to forego the traditional fare and instead make a beef wellington from Gordon Ramsay’s masterclass. I had never even heard of beef wellington before this, but I knew I was in for a good one. I sat there as he seared the beef, layered the prosciutto crudo onto the from-scratch crepe with the chopped olive-oil marinated mushrooms, then rolled the beef onto the concoction, making a sort of burrito. After some more steps and culinary gangster shit and wrapping it in a puff pastry, it was baked. What resulted was one of the best things I have ever eaten. Incredibly rich, complex. Add a fantastic sweet potato casserole and some greens, paired with a strong Sicilian wine called Drus (if you are interested in trying this, holler at me and I know a guy), it was an amazing meal with amazing friends.

It’s experiences like this which make life the beautiful conundrum that is.

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Something I have been thinking a lot about is the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything.

I first came across these written words from an article from Ryan Holiday, but it was my dad who instilled this in my life from an early age. When you can slow down and think about the phrase and understand how it may be attributable to your life the truth of it becomes readily apparent. Everything we touch and make, once it leaves us, has our signature on it and becomes representative of who we are. That project you’re working on will smell like you once you let it go out into the world. Your attention to details will show others your reliability, your thoroughness, your thoughtfulness, and your professional acumen.

It’s like you are a maker of little robot birds which, once they are constructed and given electronic life, are released out into the world to complete their tasks. The aesthetic design of the bird, it’s inner code, how it performs it’s functions, are all evidence of your craftmanship, your programming, your care and attention.

Perhaps most importantly, this also goes with our words, the ones we let leave our mouths and the ones we let flow out of our fingers. Once you submit or press send you have created something new in the world and those ideas could trigger a change in someone else’s work and life. This fact alone should call us to be specific and careful with what we allow into the world that has our mark on it. And the sum total of our personal output with how we treat others equals our life. We have a choice to put out quality product, or shit. It’s always your choice.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.