Can we still have nice things?
Let me clear my throat.
Am I really doing this? I’ve been asking myself this question lately, as I’ve somersaulted through an internal spin cycle over whether or not to “have a Substack.” I am, at times, extraneously aware of my own undiagnosed personality disorder which renders me all-or-nothing when it comes to any sort of personal commitment. I’m typically thrilled to select the “nothing” option barring the emergence of some totally irresistible benefit. One reason for this is that when you are a freelance, self-employed, creative laborer, that benefit is often one that has to be cajoled, manipulated, harangued, legally negotiated, or threatened out of someone. Now that I have agents and lawyers, I don’t have to subject myself to these things as much, so why rock the boat? Is it bad to admit that as I type this I am still unsure of my answer? Perhaps it will emerge before I hit send. Allow me to weigh some pros and cons:
PROS
I actually began my career as a blogger, so there is a cosmic full-circle narrative if I were to return to the form. (Some might call it sad!) When I was in my early 20s (XX years ago), I started a music blog called Cobain In A Coma which was a companion to a radio show I hosted in San Francisco. It aired live on 93.7 FM on a pirate station called Western Addition Radio. This was pre-podcast era. My friend and co-host Liza Thorn and I would put mp3s of our episodes on our show’s MySpace page, which earned us the distinction of being the number one weekly show on the station. That blog and radio show is what earned me so many friends in bands, but also paid work writing for independent fashion magazines like Dazed & Confused and i-D, and set me on my first career path as a magazine editor at titles like Dazed, V Magazine, and CR Fashion Book.
I used to be what industry professionals called “a tastemaker.” This is before the advent of the dreaded “influencer,” and was due to the fact that in my work as a fashion and culture journalist, editing V and writing for magazines like W, Interview, GQ, Dazed, and wherever else, I had a tendency to highlight a lot of artists right before they ascended into the larger pop consciousness. I also supplemented my income for much of that time working in marketing and advertising for luxury brands and mass consumer goods, on a sort of carousel of New York-based creative agencies, which was instructive and incredibly valuable as an experience in the way branding and marketing works. Sometime during the pandemic, I ceased working in magazines and branding by and large. (Maybe I’ll get into the reasons why in a later post—for now I’ll just say something came up.) Today I suppose I am a “lapsed tastemaker”. And look at where taste has fallen. Is it because I abandoned you all when you needed me the most? Maybe I need to come back just to correct the arc of history and set us on a more righteous path. This is the delusion I’m going with and I encourage everyone to latch on.
I am, unfortunately, a writer. I was born a writer and I will die a writer. Of this, I’m painfully aware. While I’m always writing for the job I actually do now (again, it’s no one’s business until I make it your business), and it pays better than anything I have ever done in my life (although, if you are reading this and are hiring me, it’s still not enough) I think it’s probably good to develop a practice of having to churn something out for an audience at a regular clip. Of late, my outlet for this has been my Letterboxd account, which is naturally limited to the subject of film. All my fashion knowledge and opinions have been more privately enclosed in group chats, and it seems like there should be a place for them to breathe and take flight, someplace where I can—please bear with me in case I’m wrong—share them with people who might care.
Now that I am no longer beholden to fashion brands as advertisers, I can be honest about what they’re doing and whether or not it’s any good. L. Ron Hubbard might have referred to this feeling as “total freedom.” On second thought, I think that pertains to something else.
CONS
I suspect that the oft-cited figures of the money people make on Substack are largely overstated and only apply to a select few. Can I earn a living from this? Let’s not count on that.
I have a tendency to weigh in on things that are none of my business and say things that get me into trouble. I admit it.
I’m giving myself more work for no good reason other than to meddle and make myself relevant. I admit that too.
It could flop tremendously, more than anything has ever flopped before.
These cons aren’t very convincing. They might even qualify as pros depending on where you levitate within the spectrum of the contemporary dialectic. I think this is why I set this whole thing up and explains where I’m going with it: I simply don’t give enough of a fuck to inhibit myself from doing it, so here goes.
WELCOME TO PARAPHERNALIA
What interests you about fashion, design, music, movies, television, automobiles, electronics, tabloids, drugs, magazines, literature, or whatever it is you consume? Do you find that you collect things? Like a serial killer collects things? People fascinate me, and their ephemera can say everything about them. The paraphernalia that makes up our lives is personal. It’s psychological and it’s pathological. Sometimes it can give you a voyeuristic rush. Sometimes I feel like a grave robber, the way I can pour over the contents of a dead person’s effects. I get a rush at estate sales and auctions. I love spying on people’s internet histories and cruising message boards, closely reading lawsuits that reveal a person’s private messages. I eavesdrop on the schizophrenics outside my window on the boulevard because they fascinate me and I care about them. I can certainly obsess over my own paraphernalia, but I can just as easily admire someone else’s without ever wanting it for myself. The more one can explain what they love about something, the more accessible and decipherable it is to someone else. This is the lens through which I metabolize the concept of style, and that is why I want to write this newsletter. This is not a shopping guide or a fashion diary. We’re doing aesthetic analysis over here. For the good of mankind.
Every week you can expect at least one newsletter, with some semblance of the following:
An unstructured essay on something I have noticed, find fascinating, or which says something about styles and customs at this particular moment, most likely within fashion and culture, and probably online.
A focus on a piece of music, fashion, or film that relates to the way I’m feeling and why I think it stands out or belongs in The Pantheon, so to speak.
A list of nominees: things happening in art, design, fashion, publishing, or entertainment worth knowing about, celebrating, or otherwise acknowledging which often fly under the radar.
A piece of paraphernalia from my life with a brief description and an explanation for what makes it significant.
Paid subscribers will also be given access to a private Spotify playlist of selected current music, to help you maintain some semblance of a pulse rather than succumbing to the same nostalgic records you already listen to. My process of discovering new music is close to a religious ritual for me—I think it’s important to never allow oneself to be felled by cynicism and simply give up (though I don’t judge you if you have). The idea of a seriously good, unpopular band existing somewhere, and me not knowing about them, sends a chill down my spine. Thoughts like this keep me up at night. I am happy to do the work so you don’t have to, because if I ever stop, I will surely cease to exist.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
For my inaugural list of nominees, I want to stay within the theme of Substacks, so here is a list of the ones I read and enjoy the most. I would love to expand my roster, but until you sign up for a paid subscription here, I’m not made of money. Do substackers trade paid subscriptions? I could really fuck that up, as the saying goes.
Selling Out by Natasha Stagg. I moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2020 and ever since then, Natasha makes me feel like I still know what’s going on, even—or especially—if it’s something petty, observed in passing.
Gift Guide by Kaitlin Phillips. Kaitlin and I have very different taste but I’m aware that hers is better. While I am blissfully self-entrapped in an OCD Beverly Hills postmodern American Gigolo visual realm of my own psychopathic design, Kaitlin is the last word in a sort of patinated, literary, yuppie sumptuousness. She is my own personal Martha Stewart.
Self Involved by Alexis Page. My friend Alexis is my personal beauty and skincare guru. I ask her everything. She introduced me to my new facialist, everyone tells me I look much younger than I am, and I can basically thank her for it. If you know, you seriously fucking know when it comes to this person. Spiritually, I’m gatekeeping her, even though I’m blowing up her spot. Don’t get too comfortable.
System Magazine on Substack. Probably the best fashion magazine in the world right now? Getting it shipped to Los Angeles is so obnoxious, it ends up totaling around $100 all-in, so I’m happy they are digesting a lot of their content here. They’ve never asked me to write anything for them so I’m going to refrain from being too effusive about the one fashion print magazine I actually care about reading for the articles.
Foreign Exchanges by Derek Davison. Derek is the co-host of the American Prestige podcast, and both that podcast and this Substack are like perfectly concise breakdowns of all the most critical stories happening in the world on any given day, and he makes me feel like less of a stupid idiot.
Obsolete Sony. Just for the thrill of it. A daily dose of beauty and perfection in a godless world.
Fast & Loose by Yasi Salek. I always tell Yasi she is the MTV VJ for our time, as host of Bandsplain, the Ringer’s music podcast. She cites her own emphasis as “guitar rock music,” which differentiates us enough (my emphasis being, for lack of a better term, gayer), and she really understands my music obsession and how crucial it is to remaining sane in insane times. She and I also talked about the idea of paraphernalia and its importance when her house burned down, so I probably wouldn’t be launching this Substack without her having planted that seed in my brain.
Cosmic Update by Ang Stoic. The most merciless and hardcore astrologer I’ve ever come across. Reading his horoscopes feels sort of like getting spat on by the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. In his last update on the Libra full moon, he wrote that four generations of exclusion and envy have turned my personal faith in myself rancid. LOLZ, and not no…
The Arcades by David Lê. I’ve known David for a long time and never knew what he did (I consider this a compliment, we are not defined by our work). It turns out, he is a designer of furniture and other interior objects. At least, I think? This ambiguity is cool to me. Every week he presents auction listings that are going live within the week following, which he seems to imply that someone should buy. I think he has extraordinary taste rooted in a profound intellect and he’s also a naturally brilliant writer in a way that many professional writers can’t even claim to be.
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR
And listen to Once Upon a Time (Super Deluxe) by Simple Minds, their lush and breathtaking album from 1985. Winona Ryder once told me this is her favorite band. I think it’s important to listen to full albums from the past that you might not have spent enough time with, and I chose this one yesterday. It felt luxurious and improved my day. You might dismiss this type of recommendation as obvious, but if I didn’t tell you to do it, would you have?
PARAPHERNALIA #001
No Sale!
Is doing it for me enough of a pro? Giving me joy?
thank god