This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--

DID I MAKE MY GOAL?

My goal for this week was to get started on building a dedicated website for Dead Media.

And I did! I congratulate past me on the turn of phrase “get started” because that is, indeed, what I accomplished.

It’s been a while since I’ve set up a website. Like many things on the internet, it feels like it’s become pointlessly complex, every step including an extra step where some other plug-in tries to sell you AI. Truly, a great time saving convenience to have to say “NO” 72 times to perform a simple task.

But I did register the domain name, research various website builders, and write up the main contents of the site. Now I just need to decide on the layout and get moving on it. I’m parked down hill on the project.

Besides that goal, I’ve also applied to a few more festivals, had a good meeting about booking more screenings, and polished up the teaser trailer.

I also wrote up my goals for 2026. As always, I try to write goals that are actions I can generally control. And mostly YES or NO tasks as opposed to aspirational things like eat better, listen to music frequently, disassociate and float into space more often, have a successful and stable career as a film director, etc. Hopefully, these are specific tasks that will lead to the more general results I’d like.

So far, the one about push-ups is going great.

A NICE THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK

This year, I’m going to try to keep the ol’ blogletter a bit more concise. So each week, along with reporting on my goal, I’m going to share one nice/fun/interesting/rewarding thing that happened.

This week is very easy! My wife and I took a fun trip for New Year’s. We stayed at the infamous and delightfully bizarre roadside resort, The Madonna Inn.

If you’ve never heard of the Madonna Inn, here are the basics. It’s located on the Central Coast of California, right off the 101 freeway. There’s a big main building with a fancy restaurant, a dance floor, a diner, a bar, three gift shops, and a giant waterfall urinal that sends water cascading down rocks when you stand in front of the sensor. The urinal has room for at least three people.

Up the hill from the main building, there are several more buildings with many hotel rooms, all different themes. Sara and I stayed in the SWISS ROCK room. It’s called a rock room because the walls, the floor, the bathroom sink, and the shower are all made out of rocks. It was the most interesting and dangerous hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.

As an overall aesthetic, Madonna Inn has two main themes: Macho cowboy stuff and the color pink. It is an exercise in contrasts. A gender studies essay you can eat a Monte Cristo sandwich inside of. A delightful mix of actual 20th century charm and class mixed with absolute bash-you-over-the-head roadside Americana kitsch. It felt like a cruise ship hit the ground and exploded. A Vegas hotel that forget to include the gambling. All of these sentences are compliments. In a world that increasingly pushes us toward sameness—box stores, algorithm based entertainment, chasing social media trends, etc—it was fantastic to be in a place so incredibly specific, unique, and bizarrely, incoherently human.

I had many fun and interesting moments at Madonna Inn. But possibly my favorite was this: A fixation I developed on the chairs in the bar.

They had these big, comfortable blue chairs. The ones with tall backs. I think of them as Masterpiece Theater chairs. Every time I see one, I just want to sit in it and start telling a grand story, illuminated by dancing flames in a warm fireplace.

The night before we left, I got to sit in one for just a few minutes before the bar closed. (Pictured below.) The next day, before we left, we made extra time to sit in the big comfy blue chairs. Sara and I reclined and wrote our goals, spinning the story of what we hope the year will bring.

It was a great way to end our vacation and start a challenging year. A safe comfortable chair in the most dangerous hotel I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit.

LIGHT PLUGS

Three light plugs!

DEAD MEDIA MAILING LIST: We’ve got a mailing list for Dead Media. I’m only going to send out messages occasionally with concrete info and asks for help—screening dates, sales news, help getting the word out, etc. You can sign up here if you’re interested!

SHORT FILMS ON YOUTUBE: This January, I’m going to release three short films I’ve made over the last couple years. There will be a new short film every Thursday starting January 8th. First up is THE NARRATOR. An experimental cosmic horror comedy starring Phil LaMarr. It would be huge help if you subscribed to my YouTube channel!

DONATIONS TO DEAD MEDIA: We need all the help we can get for film festival submission fees, advance money to book theaters, etc. Through Film North, you can make a one time tax deductible donation here. Thanks for all the help and support!

MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I want to continue to fight the monster I’ve already engaged in battle, so my goal for next week is to get the Dead Media website up and running.

YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?

A LITTLE SKETCH--

This week’s sketch was done after I wrote down my goals in the big blue chair. For context, blue has always been my favorite color. Being around blue feels like connecting to my truest self. Recently, I’ve been embracing it more—in clothes, chairs, artistic choices. There’s a lot of blue in Dead Media and it’s one of the things that makes me happy every time I see it. It just feels right and true. So making “blue goals” was a very positive thing for me. I wish you the best on your goals, whatever color they may be!