Celebrating twenty years of blogging

 

A few weeks ago, I passed a monumental anniversary. Twenty years ago, on September 19th, 2006, I typed my first blog post. It wasn’t much, just a few paragraphs, but it altered the course of my writing life forever.





My blog, The Serious Tip, has always been my writing home. Although I have written for bigger websites and publications, my little blog (or now newsletter, depending on where you read this) has been where I write whatever I want, whenever I want. No deadlines and no oversight, for better or for worse.

These days, as I hobnob and cavort with authors at bookfairs and events, I meet purveyors of the pen of various experience. I’ve noticed many jump into novel writing as their first writing aspiration. To me, that’s like running a marathon after buying your first pair of running shoes. I started with blogging. The Serious Tip is my gym, it’s where I work out. It’s where I practice. It’s where I develop a voice. It’s where I develop confidence.

The Serious Tip might not get very many readers and blogging might not be popular anymore, but it will always be my little corner of the world wide web.

I’ve written about this before, but I credit former FSU Cowgirl and current comedian Jenn Sterger for inspiring my online writing endeavors. I wrote for the Florida State college newspaper when she and I were both students there in 2005. When I saw her blogging on Sports Illustrated and getting readers, I figured I too would throw some words into the innertubes for the masses. I almost called my blog The Not So Serious Tip in tribute to Not Necessarily the News, the 1980s HBO comedy show, but settled on The Serious Tip, a tribute to an old school hip-hop term.

Early on, I wrote a lot about sports. Sports blogging was popular in the late 2000s and I was part of that community. But I didn’t really have an angle. I was just doing commentary, some of it forced to keep up with the latest sports current event. Despite many good posts, there wasn’t much consistency in content or subject matter.

In 2010 and 2011, I wrote a lot about stand-up comedy as I was trying my hand on stage. I wrote a lot of posts dissecting comedy as I built my knowledge of the art form.

In 2012, The Serious Tip played a big role in chronicling my time working and living in Afghanistan. I wrote some really interesting commentaries at the time on the people I met and my experiences. But that was short lived. That time in Afghanistan also was the first time I wrote personal tributes about people I cared about who passed away, as I wrote blog posts for both of my grandmothers, who both passed while I was in Afghanistan. I’ve since written about several friends and other family members who are no longer with us, to include my Dad who left us in 2023.

Afghanistan is also where I started writing the draft of what would eventually become Curveball at the Crossroads. On March 24, 2013, I blogged that the rough draft was finally done.

Following my return, there was a time where I tried writing on JordiScrubbings.com, and left The Serious Tip to wither on the vine. According to Google Analytics, there was a month when The Serious Tip only got 30 views. That’s one view a day. For a website, that’s terrible. Fortunately, I realized that paying for a website was a waste of money and again started writing on The Serious Tip.

From late 2013 to 2016, I barely wrote on The Serious Tip. Not only was I in grad school, but I was also consistently writing about baseball on TampaBayBaseballMarket.com. I built a baseball readership there, analyzing stats on the business of baseball in Tampa Bay. Posts on The Serious Tip were few and far between.

On September 27, 2016, I wrote about my first 10 years of blogging.

I also wrote a lot about my first long stint with unemployment. Looking back after other long stretches without work, I am saddened by how often I’ve had to ponder career instability. Those periods take a toll. There are definitely times that The Serious Tip became a diary of sorts, a place for me to word my thoughts.

In 2018, I used The Serious Tip to chronicle another overseas journey, this time to Qatar. I used blog posts like letters to friends and family. All I had to do was send them a link or share the link on social media. I had a lot of great adventures there and they are all documented on The Serious Tip for all time.

A few years later, during the COVID pandemic, I started doing bad movie reviews. I watched and wrote about the worst movies I could find. I called them Not So Serious Movie Reviews. Most of them were short and quick and allowed me to keep The Serious Tip going.

When I finally published Curveball at the Crossroads, The Serious Tip was where I posted pictures of me and my first novel. I also posted about my book signings and events. It was where I let the world know about my positive reviews. The Serious Tip was the online home of author Michael Lortz.

From 2021 to 2026, The Serious Tip was mostly book news or movie reviews. It still didn’t get a lot of views, although occasionally there was a spike of bot traffic from Russia. Maybe I’m big in Russia. Since publishing The Serious Tip newsletter in March 2026, I’ve tried to add a weekly or at least bi-weekly essay. What is published on the newsletter also gets published on the website.

Now The Serious Tip has over 1,000 blog posts. Many more are unpublished and sitting in a drafts folder. Since that lonely night in my mother’s basement, I’ve developed the confidence to write novels and write for several national and local publications. I became a writer.

I will always be a blogger as well as an author. I have friends who write short stories. I write essays. I write bad movie reviews. I occasionally write something that makes readers think - things that make you go hmmm. There is a little bit of everything on The Serious Tip. That’s the way it started and that’s the way it will probably always be.

Stay tuned. I want to eventually collect all my best essays and put them in a self-published book. Twenty Years of The Tip or perhaps The Tip of The Serious Tip. We shall see.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

A Review of In-Demand Indy by Rob Kimball aka RYZIN

 

 

The art of self-publishing involves a lot of promotion, marketing, and business savvy. In my journey selling my wares as an author, I have taken a lot from professional wrestling. So it was with great interest that I recently bought In-Demand Indy, a new book by pro wrestler Rob Kimball aka RYZIN. It also doesn’t hurt that my upcoming novel, Chaos in the Corner, is a story about a wrestler who works his way through the independent circuit. Reading about the industry is research.

Admittedly, I am not the target market for In-Demand Indy. The book is written for wrestlers aspiring to make it in the difficult business of pro wrestling. Unlike other books I have read on independent wrestling, RYZIN writes from the perspective of someone who has been successful, with over 20 years in the business. Despite never being signed to a long term deal, something he addresses often, RYZIN is a name in demand, having worked for WWE, AEW, TNA, and many other well known promotions and he has experience against some of the top names in wrestling. In-Demand Indy details his lessons learned, successes, and failures. It is a great book for those trying to make a business of being in the business.

Although I have only been in a wrestling ring three times in my life, I made a several notes as I read In-Demand Indy. These are from my perspective as a wrestling fan who has friends and family in the business and someone who has a love for the old school days of professional wrestling.

1) My biggest observation is that while RYZIN writes often about being a character, he makes no differentiation between being a heel or a face. For RYZIN, the business of wrestling is agnostic, which is the dominant theory since fans started rooting for the NWO in WCW and Stone Cold in the WWE(F). These days, heels can make as much, if not more, than faces.

The old school fan in me disagrees with the agnostic business model. In the old days, heels would not go out to see fans at intermission. Old school heels also didn’t interact with fans before or after shows. They kept kayfabe as insufferable assholes or unapproachable, intimidating monsters. Today, MJF in AEW is the only wrestler that keeps this tradition alive. Unfortunately for old school heels, that meant not making as much money in merch and other fan-related avenues.

I had a lot of problems with Norm Kaiser’s Fixing The Indies but his chapter on heels is really good. Kaiser writes about what makes a good heel including the different types of heels, from the arrogant bastard to the super strong monster. (FYI, I reviewed Kaiser’s book here.)

2) Speaking of old school, I don’t think the term “kayfabe” is mentioned at all in In-Demand Indy. Maybe once? In past generations, this book would have a “TOP SECRET: FOR PROFESSIONAL WRESTLERS ONLY” label on the cover. It would not be for sale to the general public. Wrestling was a secret society and “protecting the business” was paramount. This is not a knock against RYZIN. I am sure there are parts of the business fans are still not privy to. I know the days of keeping kayfabe are long gone, but I always wonder how the modern era of the business could fit in the past mentality of secret keeping.

3) This book was published in 2025 and probably written in years prior to, but it would be interesting to know RYZIN’s thoughts on Generative AI and wrestlers using AI-generated material for their marketing and swag. Is it ok to make AI-generated flyers? What about creating an AI logo or putting an AI design on your shirt or stickers? What if you sharpen your image by putting in ChatGPT or Claude?

If I am not mistaken, you can’t copyright an AI image. In order to sell your image on a t-shirt, you need to own it. If you can’t copyright it, you can’t own it. In other words, don’t use AI. Hire a real artist and buy the image from them.

I could see RYZIN commenting on AI in almost every chapter, from flyers to swag to using AI in business spreadsheets. That might be in volume two.

4) I mentioned in the intro that I use a lot of the same skills that indy pro wrestlers use in my book hustle. I “cut promos” to tell viewers the time and place of my next signing, I book my own events by contacting venues and organizers, I have an LLC, I tally profit and loss, I add swag to my table, I push product, and I hope to get signed to a contract for guaranteed money. I really enjoyed finding those comparisons. Fortunately for me, I don’t put my body on the line. Although I probably should go to the gym more often.

5) Since this book is all about the business of being a pro wrestler, how do wrestlers reconcile their personal business with the business of the promotion? For example, what if the promoter wants a wrestler change from heel to face or face to heel? What if that interferes with their branding? Should wrestlers not take the booking, even if it is early in their career? What if the show that wants them to alter their gimmick offers great, possibly career-altering, exposure?

What if a promoter wants a wrestler to job out (lose without putting up a fight)? What if the promoter’s idea is bad for the wrestler’s business? Is it ever ok to go into business for yourself? How do wrestler’s minimize the impression that they are only trying to get themselves over?

6) I enjoyed the social media chapter. In 2010, I wrote an article for a wrestling website on how wrestlers can best use social media. Of course, platforms and audiences have changed, but the need to constantly communicate to potential fans has not.

7) If I could add one chapter to In-Demand Indy, I would suggest that indy wrestlers be open to participating in other creative avenues as a way to promote themselves. Podcasts, talk shows, stand-up comedy, improv, movie acting, and many other platforms use many of the same performing “muscles” as pro wrestling and allow should allow a wrestler to namedrop their wrestling endeavors. There are numerous examples of this, from Hulk Hogan in Rocky 3 to Nick Nemeth in comedy to Tyrus on FoxNews. Even just taking local improv classes can raise a profile. Anything a wrestler can participate in is going to bring fans and make them more in demand, especially if they bring their new fans to wrestling.

Overall, I really enjoyed In-Demand Indy. 5 stars out of 5. There were a few typos and grammatical errors, but that can be looked over. It was a quick read (only 138 pages!) and it is filled to the top turnbuckle with great advice. RYZIN knows what he is talking about and it would behoove beginning wrestlers to pick up a copy and follow RYZIN’s words of wisdom. Recommended and necessary.

In-Demand Indy is also helpful to other folks peddling their creative wares. Pick it up if you want. Support indy wrestling.

Seeing Beast Mode on the Big Screen

 

 

I’ve always been a fan of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. It’s a movie about a guy who makes a lot of friends across the country and after he plays a role in a movie, he invites them to the premier. Yes, there is his quest for his bike, but I think the movie is more about the friends than the bike itself.

Last Wednesday, I had a Pee-Wee moment in a movie theater. Woah, let me rephrase that.

Last Wednesday, I had a life accomplishment not unlike Pee-Wee’s character at the end of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. I invited my friends and family, many of whom have never met, to see me in a movie, Joel Wynkoop’s latest low budget psychological thriller-horror-comedy Beast Mode.

I’ve been promoting Beast Mode for a while and while that was a lot of fun, it was even more fun to sit in a nice cushy theater seat, look up, and see a giant me acting on screen. My character Jordi Scrubbings is the first character appearing in Beast Mode. None of my guests had to wait to see me. I am not just some guy walking in the background. I play a reporter and newscaster who has segments throughout the movie.

I may have tapped my mom on the shoulder every time I appeared and whispered “That’s me!”. I wonder if big time actors had the same moments of awe the first time they saw themselves on screen. I don’t think I have ever seen that question asked in a Hollywood interview.

Big thanks to my mom (pictured above) and my friends former wrestling cameraman Jason Davis; Mabili from WMNF 88.5, who also helped with some promo videos (below); fellow writer Eddie Peeler; and former wrestling ring announcer/promoter The Don Vinnie. Not surprising, I have an eclectic group of friends.

One of my friends asked my mom if she was surprised I was in a movie. She said something to the effect that she wasn’t because my creative adventures aren’t really surprising anymore. I hope they are still fun and enjoyable. I actually agree with my mom. I made a 35-minute low budget sci-fi movie in 1999 and thought about applying to film school at Florida State before settling on English. I didn’t apply because the FSU advisor didn’t think my movie, Flash vs the Aliens, was enough experience to get accepted into the program. So I started writing.

Fast-forward 27 years and I am in a movie directed by the King of the B-Movies. I don’t know how many FSU film school grads can say that.

Hot Girls Shouldn't Be The Only Readers

 

 

I always find it interesting when I tell people about the Bookstore Revival. There is a 600% increase in bookstores nationwide according people who track these things. Bookstores are popping up everywhere. There are over 30 in the Tampa Bay area, from Brooksville to Sarasota.

Is this sustainable? I am not an economic forecaster, but I hope so. A lot of bookstores fill specific niches, such as romance-only, used-only, Black community, or fiction-only. There are bookstores that sell only books, bookstores that have coffee shops attached, bookstores that are part record stores, bookstores that are part of oddity shops, and even bookstores that share spaces with tattoo parlors and virtual reality gaming areas. If you put up a wall of books, to me, you are a bookstore.

I wholeheartedly believe the rise of bookstores is 100% attributed to women. Not only do women own a large majority of the stores, but women visit bookstores far more often. Go to a local bookstore. I guarantee you will see more women buying books than men. Especially fiction. In my experiences selling my novel in bookstores, the ratio is not even close. Probably at least to a 66% to 33% woman-to-man ratio.

Bookworld is predominantly female.

This dominance of women in book spaces has led to several interesting phenomenon. As women also tend to be more social in their book reading, reading and book buying has become a lifestyle brand. Books are the anchor in which elements of their social life revolve. They are part of book clubs, which range from the typical discussions of a weekly/monthly read to experience-based adventures, such as wine tasting and soirees. There are elaborate cosplay events to celebrate certain best-selling book releases. There is an overwhelming amount of bookish merchandise – book bags, t-shirts, hats, mugs, stickers, and numerous other pieces of swag that announce the owner as an avid reader.

Enter Hot Girls Read.

Hot Girls Read is a slogan seen on a lot of bookish merchandise. It is proclamation of empowerment. Reading isn’t only for nerds and outcasts, it is for Hot Girls. You can be a Hot Girl and become a reader with no judgement or you can be a reader and be accepted as a Hot Girl. The only qualification to being a Hot Girl is to read.

(There was also a giant kerfuffle earlier this year when a book influencer tried to copyright the phrase “Hot Girls Read” for their own specific line of merch. The women in bookworld made them public enemy number 1 until they dropped their copyright claim.)

The predominance of Hot Girls in book culture has also led to discussions that book reading is feminine. Preposterous as a rhinoceros addicted to phosphorous. But whether for clickbait or honest discussion, “reading is feminine” has been an online discussion in recent years.

Again, women tend to read more, be seen with books more, wear bookish merch more, and are more social about their reading more. I can see why the layperson who might not be in bookish culture might assume that reading is feminine in the same way that playing video games might be masculine. Newsflash: there is no additional testosterone needed to play video games as there is no additional estrogen needed to read.

Finally, there is a trend, mostly online and mostly among women book reviewers, to call their followers “girlies”, regardless of their gender. Because the majority of their audience is women, they assume only women are watching their content. This might be ok for a romance or romantasy book review, but what about sci-fi or mystery or horror or fantasy?

My fear is that these cultural phenomenon in bookworld are not welcoming new men into reading. There has never been a more important time for men to read. But I fear they are discarding bookworld before even giving reading a chance.

Of course, there is a different between reading and involving yourself in book culture. But why not create a line of book merch for men? Do Hot Guys Read? Is there a space for men in bookworld?

I do see men in horror. I see men in sci-fi. Plenty of men write non-fiction. But maybe men aren’t supporting bookstores as often as women, as I don’t see them browsing the stacks to the amount I see women. Maybe men order their books on Amazon, which I don’t recommend, but it beats not reading at all.

There are a few all-male book clubs. I am a huge fan of the Tough Guy Book Club, a network of Australian book clubs that meet in pubs. They only have three rules: you have to define yourself as a man (however you want to do that), you have to be an adult (it is in a pub, after all), and you have to read. Easy. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of Tough Guy Book Club in the United States, and most of them are in the Northeast.

So how do we get guys to read books? I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe it starts at the top. Maybe seeing well-regarded male public figures reading or carrying books might make it “cool” again. Several years ago, President Barack Obama put out a list of his favorite reads twice a year during his presidency. That tradition has sadly gone away.

We need men to read. We need men to read diverse books by diverse authors. Getting them to read is the first step. For that to happen, we need to welcome them into book spaces. We need to lure them in and get them hooked.

Unfortunately, the problem is there is no money in marketing books to men. Women read more. Of course publishers are going to publish to the gender that buys more. Whereas there are still many men in the traditional best seller lists, self-published and independent book publishing is dominated by women.

It frustrates me that outside of my author and writer community, most of the men I know don’t read regularly. Maybe they are a lost cause. Maybe society needs to focus on school age boys and get them into books. But they aren’t going to like being surrounded by Hot Girl Reads swag and being called “girlies”.

I am not in a position or role to make changes, but unless we want men to be ignorant lumps in society, we need to create spaces for men, especially young men, to embrace reading. Hot Girls shouldn’t be the only ones reading.

Good documentary on Florida music history

 

Years before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Black performers had to play at venues in Black communities. In the South, the path through these venues was called the Chitlin Circuit. Florida had many stops on the Chitlin circuit as jazz, blues, and R&B performers took their tour bus from Pensacola to Miami.

Florida’s Chitlin Circuit explores the history of these tours. The 45-minute documentary also profiles the performers, many of whom went on to national fame and fortune. Names such as James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner, and many more all played on Florida’s Chitlin Circuit.

I give this documentary a 4 out of 5. It spends too much time on the Florida Panhandle and misses out on discussing the Jackson House in Tampa. It also loses Florida in its discussion of female performers. There was also no mention of Zora Neal Hurston’s book “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, which details the Central Florida Juke Joint scene of the 1930s. Kind of an important piece of literature on the history of rural Black music in Florida during segregation.

But if you are interested in Florida music history, click the video and check this out.

Not so serious movie reviews - Raw Force, The Realtor, The Cat From Outer Space, and Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS

 

 I’ve watched 47 movies this year. I’ve only told you guys about a few of them. Here are a few more:


Raw Force (1982) - watched 10 Apr 2026

Do you like boobs? If so, you will like Raw Force.

Do you like butts? If so, you will like Raw Force.

Do you like kung-fu? If so, you will like Raw Force.

Do you like zombies? If so, you will like Raw Force.

Do you like explosions? If so, you will like Raw Force.

Do you like bartenders with really weird haircuts? If so, you will like Raw Force.

If you read all this, you will like Raw Force.

Go watch it now.

Grade: 5 stars out of 5



The Realtor (2024) - watched 22 May 2026

A wrestling real estate agent? A guy who finds his confidence in the ring? Rob Van Damm, Sgt Slaughter, and Jake the Snake? Tommy Davidson? A secret cult of successful realtors? Alas, so much unmet potential. The plot meandered. There wasn’t much of a conflict. There wasn’t much of a build. The wrestling was realistic but the organizations were not. There were parts that didn’t work. And did it take place in Philly or Baltimore? It seemed to jump cities for no reason. Low budget or not, I wanted to really like this. It could have been a classic. They could have taken the money spent on cameos and paid better writers.

Grade: 2 foreclosed stars out of 5



The Cat from Outer Space (1978) - watched 18 Jun 2026

When I asked my cat if this was a true story, he denied everything. But I think he is lying.

Fun old school Disney family movie.

Grade: 4 stars out of 5



Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975) - watched 14 Jul 2026

I’ll be watching Tom & Jerry cartoons until this disappears from my brain.

A movie about a Nazi torture camp run by a sadistic woman who does experiments on captured women. While trying to prove women can withstand more pain than men and proving her prowess to the leadership of the Third Reich, she puts the women of the camp through several scenes of utter repulsiveness. When a senior German general arrives for a visit, she puts on a show and tell not for the squeamish.

Why was this movie made? Why did they make sequels?

Grade 2 highly disturbing stars out of 5

Beast Mode - Premier Showing at Sun-Ray Cinema!

 

I am really excited to announce that Joel D. Wynkoop’s Beast Mode will be screening at Sun-Ray Cinema in Tampa on Wednesday, August 19th at 7:15pm.

You can see me on the big screen as reporter/newscaster Jordi Scrubbings, host of the Jordi Scrubbings Show. This is my first major film appearance and I could not be happier how the movie turned out. Joel incorporated some of my old comedy and Afro-Squad images and let me mostly improv my scenes. Jordi Scrubbings in the Wynkoop-Sunnyville Universe is the crossover you never thought you would see!

But you can see it! This August 19th at Sun-Ray Cinema in Tampa, located at 12332 University Mall Court, Tampa , FL 33612.

I will be there, of course. Joel will also be there. We might both have tables of merch as well. If you like Beast Mode, I highly recommend picking up Joel’s other movies such as Lost Faith or Dirty Cop, No Donut.

If we get a good crowd, maybe Sun-Ray will have us back! Maybe Beast Mode will be the underground, low-budget horror hit of the year!

Business Advice from Vanilla Ice

 “If you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it.” - Vanilla Ice

“If you got a problem training your organization on the most recent cyber threats, yo, I'll solve it.” - Me

In his 1990 smash hit “Ice, Ice Baby”, rapper Vanilla Ice is selling solutions. Whatever your problem, Vanilla Ice has an answer. His elevator pitch is distinct and confident. It is also based on simple IF/THEN programming. IF you have a problem, THEN I will solve it.

There is a lot to be learned by Vanilla Ice's bravado. As a job seeker, I struggle with selling myself. Exploring elevator pitch advice makes me think others struggle with it too. Whether due to lack of confidence, insecurity, or indecision on what to say, developing an elevator pitch can be overwhelming. Personally, I know my biggest struggle with elevator pitches is focusing too much on what I have done in the past, not what I can do in the future.

Talking about your past is wonderful for a memoir, but it is a bad way to sell yourself as a solver of problems. There is no IF / THEN. Vanilla Ice didn't talk about his past. He told you what he would do.

If you need a complicated heart surgery, you need a doctor who will tell you what he or she will do. A doctor who spends his time telling you his or her life story may not assure you that your heart will be operated on correctly or that they are doing the correct procedure. You want to know what they are going to do to solve your problem.

That is not to say backstory or credentials aren't important. Remember the old Holiday Inn Express commercials in which someone claims expertise because they stayed at a Holiday Inn? They proposed solving a problem, but were rebuffed when their lack of credentials were discovered. Staying at a Holiday Inn Express was not enough.

A better approach might be to briefly mention credentials, while keeping the focus on the problem. For example, introducing yourself as a certified heart surgeon would assure someone who needs heart surgery that you are the person to solve their problem. It is also important to address the problem in your pitch to make sure you and the potential client are on the same page on what needs to be addressed.

Here are a few examples in the theme of Vanilla Ice:

“I am a certified heart surgeon. If you need heart surgery, yo, I'll do it.”

“I am a licensed electrician. If you need your house re-wired, yo, I'll do it.”

“I am a certified organizational trainer and continuity planner. If you need your organization trained on the latest cyber threats, yo, I'll do it.”

and finally,

“I am a multi-platinum album rapper. If you need someone to perform their biggest 90s hit, yo, I'll do it.”

In most cases, you might want to drop the “Yo”. But that's personal preference. Remember IF / THEN, have confidence, and Go, Vanilla, Go!

Reflections through a Demon Box

 

I recently finished reading “Demon Box” by Ken Kesey. Kesey is one of the great American authors, best known for his 1960s book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. I went through a phase in the late 90s where I read Kesey, Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Jim Morrison’s poetry. I also read a lot of Aldous Huxley, who remains one of my favorite writers. These literary figures were counterculture, pushing limits with drugs, free love, and other ideals and driving the hippie movements. Their writing showcases American during that mostly bygone era.

But back to Kesey. I bought Demon Box along with several Huxley books and Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in my second-ever Amazon order on January 30, 1999. I have had this book for 27 years and never read it until now. I guess there is a bit of symmetry that 27 is how old Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin were when they died, and they were heavily inspired by that era and literature – The Doors is literally named after Huxley’s book Doors of Perception. So I have had Demon Box sitting on my shelf for a long time. About time I read it.

Published in 1986, Demon Box is not a great book. It is more like a mixtape of essays written in the late 1960s to the 1980s. Like most mixtapes, there are nuggets that stand out, but a lot of flotsam and jetsam. The parts that do stand out appealed not only because of the story, but because of Kesey’s position in life. The essays were written after Kesey stepped away from the counterculture scene to live his life with his family on a small farm in Oregon. He was still writing, but focused more on his rural, quiet life. He was no longer driving around the country with a bus load of hippies distributing acid and preaching against the powers that be.

Many of the better stories in Demon Box involve Kesey’s friends and acquaintances visiting him as they continue their wayward lifestyles. There are people fleeing to Canada, people convincing him to go to jubilees and rallies, and a gaggle of Hell’s Angels who hang out in order repair their motorcycles. There are also a few wanderers and vagabonds who want the famous author’s guidance and wisdom of which he is not in the business of giving. He is done with the scene. It’s not that he is embracing modernity or the materialism of the 1980s, but he is enjoying isolation with his family. Sorta like a psychological Walden Pond if Henry David Thoreau had cameos from friends.

Demon Box reminded me a lot of the 2016 song “Dorks” by Aesop Rock, the chorus of which goes “Party over here, I’ll be over there”. Like Kesey generations before, Aesop Rock left his scene - mid-2000s hip-hop – to live in Oregon away from the mainstream. Like Kesey, Aesop Rock is also an amazing wordsmith. Check out his song “Lotta Years” which preceded Dorks on the album, and is also about facing the passing of time.

Both Aesop Rock and Kesey have me thinking about scenes and aging. What does it mean to create as you get older? What does it mean to create and not be part of a scene? Perhaps you are a storyteller about the scene, celebrating what’s behind and recalling days past. Or perhaps creating for those who still ride with you in a way they understand. Maybe it’s a mix of both.

Time takes. It constantly moves forward. But time also gives. It gives opportunities to live, learn, love, and laugh. (Ugh, did I just use Live, Laugh, Love in a post? Sorry.) You can’t let getting older mean getting sad. Gotta leave room for new experiences. Sometimes a new excitement appears – such as my recent post on the Knicks winning the NBA Championship, something I never thought would happen. I might fall in love, get married, or have a kid one day. Yeah, I am getting old to be a dad, but let’s leave room for it. Let’s not close opportunities for moments just because of a number on a calendar.

My good friend Chris (some know him as SportsChump) recently wrote an essay on turning 58. Entitled “How To Tell If You’re “Young” Old or “Old” Old”, Chris and his friend J-Dub write about their life as 58-year-olds. While J-Dub is battling ailments and succumbing to an early bedtime, Chris is still bartending at a popular Irish pub, providing spirits for folks half his age. Chris golfs, goes to the gym, and is showing only a few signs of slowing down. He still works in the scene, albeit from the safety and financial benefit of behind a bar.

I am a decade from 58, but like Kesey or Aesop Rock, I have several scenes that I no longer affiliate with. Some of which I have never felt further from (looking at you, FSU). Many of the jobs and career fields I was once a part of I also no longer work with. 

But it’s the people. The good people, the friends, the family, the friends who turned into family, the co-workers who turned into friends, the 10, 20, 30-year friends who keep life exciting. It’s the real people. And I also always leave room to meet new people.

This is where social media can be deceiving. Connecting doesn’t mean friends. I’ve been connected to old college acquaintances for almost 20 years. I don’t know anything about them besides what they post online. And most of us of a certain age aren’t posting like we used to, and some us are leaving social media completely, leaving only a profile and connections on a friend list, but nothing of substance. If I really knew them, their presence on social media wouldn’t matter. I would know them in the real world.

Besides the people, it is the classics that I also find solace in. Timeless art, music, and literature that yearn to be discovered. I’ve been listening to a lot of classical, jazz, and soul albums recently. After finishing Kesey, I began reading Anatole France’s 1914 novel The Revolt of the Angels. Going back even further. Perhaps this 112-year-old work will inspire a scene in a yet-to-be-written novel.

One of the benefits of going back to the classics is retrospection. You read, sing, or explore works you once admired to see if they still reflect your beliefs. Can you still relate? Media of the past provides insight to how we’ve changed. Are you still the angsty teen listening to counterculture music or reading counterculture literature? 

Personally, I think I am done trying to change the world. I done with those scenes. Maybe I am just trying to save what’s left.

All this to say, I give Ken Kesey’s Demon Box 3 of 5 stars. Not good enough to stay on my bookshelf for another 27 years. Some essays were better than average, some were boring and haphazard. Kesey published Demon Box when he was 49. I will be 49 this year. Maybe that’s life.

Sidestepping Spotify

 

I might be the only person who does not have a paid Spotify account*. The service never appealed to me.

Spotify is saturated with AI-slop, background Muzak, and other fabricated phoniness. It also barely pays artists, typically paying .01 for a thousand plays of a song.

Millions upon millions of people are on Spotify. However, that might be slowing down. I’ve written that buying physical media is on the upswing. Gen Z is increasingly wanting to own media after millennials digitized everything. Combined with collectors and people who care about artists over billion-dollar companies, there is a bit of a movement on the fringes. While nowhere near the physical sales of books, physical music sales are trending up.

Consider these numbers:

• Vinyl records sales were over $1 billion in 2025.
• After plummeting throughout the 2000s, CD sales have stopped falling, and now represent over $300 million in sales.
• The used CD market is growing as younger music collectors look for a cheap way to collect as used CDs are often 1/5th of the price of a new vinyl album.

Despite this, streaming still represents 84% of the 11.5 billion in American music spending.

Meanwhile, I don’t pay for streaming music at all.

How do I, a professed music fan, listen to music? I don’t have a CD player in my car and I no longer have stacks of CDs around my house.

For those new to not streaming, here is how I have sidestepped Spotify.

First, I downloaded my favorite radio station apps (shoutout WRRJ Cocoa Beach and WMNF Tampa). But they don’t play all of what I want to hear all the time.

I used to have an iPod Classic. If you remember those, they were the best and biggest iPod on the market. You plugged your iPod into your desktop or laptop and uploaded your MP3s. Mine held 19,000 songs. But then it died. I needed a phone-based music player. Shout out to my iPod Classic. I miss you.

After the death of my iPod, I re-downloaded all of my CDs. I had over 600. Then I acquired 350 more from my brother. It took me months, but I put all the music on my desktop.

(I should have mentioned, I also own a USB CD Drive. Old media readers are still out there. Buy them now while you still can.)

For organization and meta-tagging, I used MediaMonkey. MediaMonkey is a free jukebox-type player for your computer, laptop, etc. There is a mobile version that claims to sync across devices, but I have never used it. I only use MediaMonkey on my desktop to edit the metadata for albums.

 

I scanned all the music folder on my desktop in MediaMonkey, edited metadata that needed addressing, then uploaded each album folder into Google Drive. Instead of deleting the files on my desktop, I saved them to a portable hard drive. I like having copies of my music. I did however sell most of my CDs, only keeping local artists, signed CDs, and a handful of my favorite artists. From over 900 to barely over 100.

Once my files were copied into Google Drive, I downloaded an app on my phone called Cloud Player by doubletwist, which plays the music in the cloud folder I point it to. Cloud Player is a 1-time purchase of $12. In 5 years, they have updated once for an additional $12.

When an album is uploaded into Google Drive, I open Cloud Player and hit refresh. It looks in the Google Drive folder and shows the metadata from the album I just uploaded. Ready to play.

Cloud Player is not perfect. Although it has a “Most Played” list, it doesn’t tell me how many times I listened to a song. It is oddly difficult to randomize the songs from a singular artist. While there is a playlist function, the metadata does not list if a file is already in a playlist. I have accidentally listed songs in the same playlist multiple times. And there times where Cloud Player doesn’t read a file right and it skips 5 or 6 songs until it plays another song. I don’t know why this happens. Every time there is an extended break between songs, I pause the player and hit the back button to the last played song. After that, Cloud Player has no problem playing the next songs.

In addition to playing my cloud-based tunes, Cloud Player also has a Magic Radio function that allows users to stream radio feeds from anywhere in the world. Magic Radio is organized by genre, location, or language. Every Sunday, I listen to Bru Zane, a classical music station out of Italy.

Cloud Player is perhaps my favorite, if not one of my most used apps on my phone. Despite a few weird bugs, I highly recommend it.

Even though Media Monkey is free and Cloud Player is only $12, there is a larger cost to this system. A free Google Drive only holds 15 GB. That’s not enough for a music collector. I subscribe to Google One and pay $100 a year for 2 TB of storage. That’s my cloud storage for everything - email, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, saved videos, and my music. I am not even halfway full.

$100 to hold all my important online files and over 35,000 songs that I have curated and can replay whatever I want, whenever I want. Guaranteed no AI slop and no algorithms. Spotify is $15 a month ($180 a year) for far more songs, but a billion dollar company controls the algorithm and contracts to play or not play an artist. I am the owner of music. Spotify subscribers are users of a music service. It’s more work, but I know what side I like to be on.

Of course, I still acquire new music. I still buy a handful of new CDs of my favorite groups on Amazon. On occasion, I find new and used CDs at the local CD store. I also download new music on Bandcamp. If you are not supporting musicians on Bandcamp, you should be. Especially on Bandcamp Artist Fridays, which is a once-a-month event in which all money from purchases actually goes to the artist, not the website. But Bandcamp has to pay the bills and keep the servers serving, so giving them a few dollars isn’t a bad thing.

(There is also archive.org and many blogs that post classic albums for those who sail the open seas, wear an eye patch, and have a parrot on their shoulder. You can find a lot of music at these locations.)

I don’t expect Spotify to go out of business anytime soon. Just like I don’t expect Amazon to go out of business. Spotify has embedded itself as a platform for artists, even though, like Amazon, creators get paid peanuts. But through a mix of free software and one very cool cloud player, I have been able to create a system that allows me to listen to all the music I have collected for over 30 years whenever I want, wherever I want.

If you want to leave Spotify and don’t want to go through everything I do, there are a few open source options. I can’t attest for any of them, but here is a link to list of them.

https://github.com/chayotic/Open-Source-Music-Streaming-Apps

If you are on Spotify, you can listen to my debut novel, Curveball at the Crossroads. I recommend it. The audiobook is awesome.

Full disclosure: I’ve made $15 dollars from Spotify since they started carrying audiobooks in 2023. I make approximately $2 per full listen of my audio book. You can buy a digital download for $10, or you can also listen to the whole 7 hour and 23 minute story as part of your subscription. For that 7 hours and 23 minutes of entertainment, I make $2. Which is approximately 1/2 of 1 cent a minute. Or 2 cents every 4 minutes, which isn’t much, but is admittedly far more than music artists are making.

(I have a Spotify author account. I had a free Spotify music account once, but I lost the password. If I remember right, I wanted to listen to a local artist’s new album, which was only on digital.)