White people really like to sit around and talk about things, and about talking about things.

"I'm great at identifying problems, but am utterly inept at coming up with solutions, which is why I am a writer."

In past projects, my failure has over and over been in an overemphasis on ideas, and a deficit of attention to any tangible product. I write my ed's letters in an ultra-meta perspective in the hope that I'll be able to keep myself in check until I'm able to build a salaried editorial team around me. It's also why I have been killing myself polishing both my own words and the look of the site, itself. I want to be sure that - when the opportunity arises to present Extratone to investors - I have a liberal surplus of product to depend on.

I have spent the past few months riding a day-to-day pendulum between I am insane and I am a genius in ever more precarious angles, which you can consider pro-health in my case, I think. I'm just now realizing a use for that passion word in my life, though my rate of progress is not exactly blistering. While I am now Verified Invested emotionally in Extratone, I exist at an inadequate emotional intelligence - in many areas - to handle the consequences of such an investment appropriately. But again... this is a good thing. Though I suppose I couldn't have chosen to improve myself in a single more public (not necessarily popular) means.

I am terrified by the 'power of the startup,' and by the number of adolescents who appear to be pursuing 'careers' in gaming and streaming.

Tevin and I talked about this on what's probably the best episode of Futureland to date. Our childhoods were both particularly notable examples of the you can be anything you want to be generation. I inexplicably began recording things as early as toddlerhood, and he began playing around with video in his fifth grade. Neither of us ever quit, really, so we both have a difficult-to-manifest body of skills that we acquired in the pursuit of a final product, or by a whole lotta fuckin around.

Now, we are both trying to make careers out of our happenstance proficiencies. Apparently, Tevin makes some money freelance video editing, but he's also a competitive gamer. A good one. He was 13th in the world for Mortal Kombat 9, and he's still very keen on getting good, but remains acutely aware of the reality of it all. Perhaps it's because he grew up black in a Kansas working class home.

"I don't want to make money the way it's being made right now" still contains "I don't want to make money."

I've spent the entirety of my adulthood 'joking' about my ambition and moneymaking, but I've ended up a bit Marxist in day-to-day life, if I'm honest. That said, there's one quote from the girl I used to infiltrate Amway (that's uh... a story that'll still have to wait a bit) that's continued to seem more and more insightful.

You can't help anybody without any money.

I have a lot to offer, but it's almost never needed more than just... cash. I suspect a big reason Extratone's patreon hasn't been more successful is that my friends & audience are mostly 'creatives' and therefore very broke, always. I think we're all capable of being a worthwhile investment for the general public, but I haven't been able to articulate why in a manner they can understand. (Which is one of the reasons I'm writing these.)

Of course, the second I started publicly using the word startup, my YouTube recommendations became ridiculous. I complied with one video, yesterday, and was surprised to hear something personally relatable (if vague) from Stevie Jobs.

...to know that you can plant something in the world, and it'll grow...

Always with the agricultural metaphors. 
I've never been a big fan of the The Fruit Man, but I feel like I understand him, now, for better or worse. It's strange to be using the same language I've heard from the looniest individuals I've encountered so far in life. Most of them also consider(ed) themselves unique, but really... aren't. Not that the uniqueness of a body matters, just that of what it says,; and I still think my comrades and I have something worthwhile, in that regard.

This is the essence of the divide I have been repeatedly teetering across, as of late: I really am a human being, and I love them, but I am also definitely strange, and find communicating with them to be frustrating, at times. My religion has always been aspiration, though I did know it by name when I was powerless and required to inhabit other churches, as a child. As I've gotten older, I've grown to understand its interdependence with curiosity, and have become especially committed to keeping both alive in myself those whom I care about for as long as I can. After 2015's crises and subsequent alcoholism, I've resolved in this commitment a sort of purpose in life.

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Click this bullshit to hear an especially creative track from my latest tape, Four.

I've been playing the piano a lot recently, and even began a Big Ole' Post for the site, detailing my now 20-year-long relationship with The Dear Chordophone. Naturally, there's been internal debate as to whether or not it belongs on Extratone. Coincidentally or not, the story is in keeping with what we've planned for Summer Edition. (It involves boys & trauma.) As saturated as I've become with sincerity, it's still a little cringey to imagine such self-indulgence appearing immediately after I've begun soliciting for subscribers. Here's an early preview.Let me know if it's too genuine to survive. (You can actually reply to these emails, which is pretty handy.)

I now have 60mg of Adderall left until the 30th, which should make for one more productive day. I guess we'll see if I'll be compelled to write one of these without it.

Till next time,
David