Let's Get Back To Basics
This is my annual or semi-annual long, heartfelt, emotional out pouring blog. Some people probably dont care. Some people do. It feels a bit narcissistic, but this is basically my version of therapy so I gotta get out it and on to the page
Mailtime is back – download, rate, review and subscribe
I’ve never really been one for News Years Resolutions. Aside from being gross and skinny fat and telling myself I’m gonna work out and eat right, I’ve never made a concerted effort to change myself with the turn of a new calendar. For a couple reasons. A) I had always lived a pretty simple life that doesn’t entail much to radically change 2) I have always been honest with myself about not having the level of dedication it takes to follow through on a New Years resolution, and d) hubris. Probably a bit of arrogance in there for the first 30 something years of my life that I’m good, I know what I’m doing, and I don’t need to change anything.
Well this will be my 35th season with Team Human this year. 2020. *Insert pun about 20/20 vision* And I’m at a point in my life where all three of those things are now the complete opposite. My life is extremely complicated now, I think I’m finally ready to stick to a new game plan, and I would have to be an absolute ego maniac to look at my life and think that I don’t have to make any changes. In the last couple years I lost my way. Lost my wife. Lost my family life. Probably lost a chunk of fans. Gave more ammunition to the people who hate me and don’t want to see my content succeed. And lost an entire lifestyle and personality that comes along with being a happily married family man.
Which honestly, I’ve come to terms with. I came to terms with that a while ago. I knew I was never gonna be able to live the same life that my dad and my brother and all of my friends are now living. What I hadn’t come to terms with, however, was the way to handle all that. The last couple years I was acting like the same guy who never made Resolutions. I thought I had all the answers. I thought I knew what was right. I blocked out all the haters and disregarded all feedback from anybody who had any criticism. Which is something I’m sure most people can relate to with whatever life problems you may have encountered along your path. It’s human nature to think you’re right, and it’s difficult to truly admit that you’re lost and need to do things differently. And in a Barstool world where everything is constantly contentious 24/7, it’s a lot easier to dig your heels in, put your head down, and plow through doing things the same old way.
But now I’ve come to terms with all of it. Both the truth of the matter, and the way to handle all of it. I’ve listened to a lot of people in my life. From my ex wife to my family to my friends and to the people who consume my content. I even decided to hear out the people who hate me and rally against me at every step professionally and personally. And in all of those conversations and all of that feedback – some of it being helpful & kind and some of it being hurtful & misinformed – it all circled around one thing. The “new me” vs the “old me.” There’s still a huge piece of the stubborn Irishman in me that refuses to acknowledge that. I don’t really believe I’ve changed that much, but that’s silly. My home life radically changed, my professional life has radically changed, and – just because I’m getting older – my social life has radically changed. Trying to bury my head in the sand and not admit there’s something wrong? The last time I did that I ended up divorced. And trying to pretend that things are the same way when life radically changes around you is idiotic. I’ve been like fucking dog in the burning room. The extended version where his whole body melts:
But obviously I’m just a dumb, emotionally stunted, hardheaded mick. It doesn’t take a genius to look and say things were better a few years ago than they were today. Don’t get me wrong, certain things thrived. KFC Radio was up 30% this year and ATI launched and I’m doing more than I ever even imagined I would merch-wise. The connections we’ve made… the live tour on the horizon…revenue and sponsorships…all that stuff has reached a level I never expected. But none of that matters in the content world when you’re not comfortable. Despite the monetary success, everything has been such an uphill battle the last couple years that I forgot what it’s like when the content just flows easy.
So long therapy session short, I realized in order to go forwards I gotta go back. Back to a time when I blogged and podcasted for a living. Back to a time when people liked the words I wrote and the bullshit convos I had with my brother in his basement in Brooklyn. Today, we relaunched Mailtime, one of the original podcasts at Barstool. When KFC Radio took off and turned into the weird hypothetical, sex advice, call in, video show, I started up Mailtime with my brother because I still wanted a podcast where I was being my regular ass self, just having conversations about interesting stuff. When we had to put an end to that, I put an end to that version of myself. That quote un-quote normal side of me. The more relatable, reasonable side of my personality. And coinciding with the demise of Mailtime was my departure from the blog. My writing was another place where all sides of my personality would come through…a place where my content resonated with the largest number of people. It’s no coincidence that when I stopped doing what I was best at, I lost myself a bit here at Barstool.
So for 2020, it’s the first time I’m doing a Resolution. It’s time I get back in the booth with BC, a mailbag, and talk about nerdy shit that interests me with all the cube monkeys out there. It’s time to get back on the keyboard and go back to being the best blogger on the planet earth. I followed the money for a while for this company shifting over to KFC Radio and video content because that’s where the revenue comes from these days. But it’s time to get back to the building blocks that even made it possible for me to make that money in the first place. OG Stoolies know Mailtime and my blog content well. Even the Stoolies who now hate me will tell you that’s the content I made they most enjoyed. But to the new Stoolies who don’t know me from Mailtime and don’t know me as a writer…I hope you like it. I think you will. To be honest though, if you don’t, I don’t care. I know it’s the best version of me and that’s all I can do going forward now – but my best self out there.
So do me a favor and subscribe to Mailtime, and rate it and review it. Out of all the shows I’ve ever been a part of, I’ve never launched them the proper way and I’ve never gotten the huge push of subscribers and ratings and reviews that helps propel a show through the charts. So if you could do me one favor after the last decade of content – download subscribe rate 5 stars and leave a nice review. We’re gonna be putting out a weekly podcast that uses elements from Daily Mail and Storyboards and all the old content I used to make. We’ll also being doing special podcast features like the breakdown we did of the Jay Z discography. Basically that Mailtime feed is going to be run the way I want to run it, not the way sales or sponsors or Apple tells me it should be run. We got a lot to put out there after a 4 yr hiatus.
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And look out for me on the blog. I know I’ve said this before, and I know my previous attempts to return to the written word have fallen short. But I think setting a realistic goal about the amount of blogs I’ll be writing, picking topics that I truly want to write about, and capturing this reinvigorated determination will actually make it happen. Its extremely hard these days with the amount of other content I’m obligated to make. Got a lot of bills to pay and cash still unfortunately rules everything around me. But I want to get back to KFC the blogger. In the coming days and weeks if and when I start to fall off, please remind me to stay on my grind. And actually if you could help me, the best way would be to send topics that you want to see me blog, it cuts down on the search time and makes it realistic that I’ll keep going. Which I need to. It’s what’s best for me, and hopefully whats best for the Stoolies.
But ALL of this starts tomorrow because I left my computer at home and we still can’t blog from our phones. As much as things change, they stay the same. Mailtime.