THE Lukas Kaiser

My name is Lukas. What's yours? You can reach me via email at [email protected] Google+

[thelukaskaiser]

Humble Pie

I've been sparring at a boxing gym. I'm terrible. It's frustrating. I get in my head, I quickly turn into a sweaty mess in like 5 minutes. Everyone else is 20 years younger than me. They can jump rope in that cool "boxer skip" fashion that I can't. It's not fun being bad at something. But when I come home, after I take a quick shower and brush off my embarrassment, a sense of relief washes over me. It's good to be humbled.

It's good to be reminded I'm an idiot and things that other people can figure out in moments takes me days to wrap my head around. It's good to be pulled out of the world of my "career" and my "experience" and be a dumb animal - dripping in fear and shame - and knowing that I'll survive and be fine. Online gurus talk about the importance of "failure" - they cite Steve Jobs and how he "failed" - which ultimately led to his successes. Cool. When you've got your job on the line - when you've got a family to feed - when you have a project you've been dreaming about for years that you care about deeply - that idea of failure feels FATAL. It feels like getting hit by a truck. But perhaps rather than putting the big stuff on the line, you re-oriented yourself around the humility that ANY failure might bring you. When I step into the boxing gym - and I know I'm going to be bad - real bad - I can almost physically feel these calcified associations I have about myself (Lukas, you're the man! You're at the pinnacle of your career, bro! Cmon, seize the day baby!) - these silly, braggadocios inner voices being silenced. It's like old synapses - ones that create my blind spots that make me less empathetic, that shield me from opportunities, that keep me from being kind or patient or being more "me" - are snapping and fizzling, one punch to the chest at a time. I think the importance of failure is not in the havoc it wreaks upon your life - it's in the lessons it might teach you about expanding how you look at the world. And perhaps having a lab - a gym, a studio - where you can work out those lessons - where they serve up humble pie - that's the point. It is for me, at least. I got punched in the mouth yesterday. It's because I let my guard down - I stopped looking, I stopped paying attention. I went inside - into my fears and my feelings of stupidity and self doubt. That snap to the lip was a very real, very live demonstration of the importance of staying present. Of being in the moment. And a good reminder to keep my damn hands up, especially when I'm in the ring with some 26 year old hot shot.

[thelukaskaiser]

Be Here Now, Now.

Single Most Valuable lesson of the last 18 months? Be Okay With Being Uncomfortable.

Be okay with being Not Okay.

For the longest time, when I began on a path of being aware of the mindfulness movement - and meditation and its many, many benefits, I was always stuck on the concept of "Now."

The Power of Now. Be Here Now. In the present moment. Easy enough - stop living inside your constantly escaping thoughts - try to find yourself - and the moment you're living through instead of thinking about the past or the future.

Cool.

Except that - when big feelings came up - excitement or rage (pick your poison) - I often found myself trying to chase the feeling of the "now" and finding that the outcome wasn't something I was always proud of.

Either I was a blubbering fan boy, saying way too much and ultimately confounding and confusing whomever I was working with - or I was a grumpy jerk, snapping at my collaborators and contemporaries like I was a spoiled child.

But... that's what I felt like doing. Right now!

My therapist, in a session three or so years ago, said something interesting. She said, "Anger isn't an emotion. It's a reaction that you have in order to shield yourself from the real emotion... which is likely sadness, disappointment or shame."

I didn't understand what she meant at first - and I tried to talk this concept out with some friends at work. "Sounds like some California stuff," one of my co-workers said. I laughed. It felt like she was right. If you google the word "emotion", Anger is going to come up as one of the primary examples. If you look it up on Bing... well I wouldn't know. No one uses Bing.

But - how could Anger not be an emotion? What does that even MEAN?

Sitting here, a few years later, I realize what she meant - that I wasn't allowing myself to feel what I really wanted to feel - uncomfortable - and was protecting myself by getting ANGRY. Or flippant. Or cracking jokes. These were reactions - things I thought were part of Being Here Now. But they were, perhaps, the final centimeters between "Right Now" and me.

I don't like being made fun of. I don't like feeling like an idiot. But it happens. And stopping myself from feeling those feelings doesn't allow me to express those emotions and get them out of my system. It just keeps them locked up, bottled inside. Which is like - duh - but like, truly - how many people ACTUALLY let themselves feel things?

Like, why would you? Life lets us down all the time. And the truth is - what I had to come to grips with - is that you have to be willing to constantly have your heart broken by life and still believe in order to keep going and be functional in any sort of open hearted, human way. Because the closed-hearted version of me? It takes way too much time and energy and attention.

I want to be the weirdly optimistic in spite of how stupid life can be version of me instead.

[thelukaskaiser]

Graduation Day

The day I graduated college I knew I was destined to a life of mediocrity and failure. 

The graduation ceremony was at noon - my mom would be waiting outside the dorm at three - ready for me to pack the five boxes that held the contents of my dorm life for the past four years into the cargo section of her Toyota Highlander so we could make the 45 minute drive to her house, which would be where I’d be moving back to.

The three internships I’d put every waking hour of my life into the last 3 semesters hadn’t panned out into a job. 

The extra curricular activities - editing a magazine on campus, running a live comedy show that packed out hundreds of students, shooting & editing videos - were all dead ends. 

My professors in the journalism department - professional journalists themselves - weren’t responding to my requests for informationals about possible gigs. 

The sun was blaring - late May in New York City - as I walked up University Place, from Washington Square Park, to my dorm in Union Square. Sweat was forming on my forehead - soaking my hair (yeah - I still had hair back then). Tears - small ones at first, then bigger ones - formed in the corners of my eyes. 

I’d been running - sprinting towards this idea of a plan, purpose, passion - my entire life. Whenever a feeling of doubt would creep into my head - a cloud of sadness, a glint of gloom - I’d squish those feelings into a ball, toss them into the corner of my mind and clear space to roll up my sleeves and WORK. 

Work as an editor for the school newspaper. 

Work as a jazz trumpet player in the school band. 

Work as a comedian in an improv troupe. 

Work as a student. 

Work as a busboy. 

There was never time for tears - there was always the next thing, the next task, the next project I need to conquer. 

Now, standing in a purple gown, gripping onto my diploma for dear life, I felt the tears come. There was no way to outrun them. 

Pain - sorrow - anguish - my mind thrashed, it did battle with itself.

This is the end. This is it. There’s nothing left. Let go. 

Let go. 

My eyes opened - tears streaking down my face. 

Let go. 

Let go of who you think you are. Let go of what you think is possible. Let go. 

People brushed past me. An older woman smiled. I smiled back. Her coffee smelled milky - but fresh. I rubbed my eyes. 

I stood there for a moment more. Silence comforted me. 

I had been an abject failure to the version of myself I had created. I had let him down. And that feeling of letting go of HIS expectations for what life might mean? 

That was the most liberating moment of my life thus far. 

That moment was 19 years ago. 

I’ve had many, many moments in my life just like that day on University Place, on graduation day - where I had to loosen my white knuckle grip on the control I’ve held for myself. Countless times, really. 

Each time - it’s felt like I’ve gotten to know the real me a little bit more. Another layer peeled back on the onion. 

Riding in the passenger seat of my mom’s SUV - the sun still hanging above us as the city looked off into the distance, I realized that I had just graduated from college but that I had so so much more to learn, so so much more to experience. 

My mother’s hand was dangling out the window - a lit cigarette between her fingers. We smiled at each other - not sure what life had in store for either of us.

[thelukaskaiser]

They used to let you to ride elephants at birthday parties. That seems to have never been a good idea.

We lived in a world that was devoid of context - just experiences.

Ride an elephant!!

Eat this deep fried Snickers bar!!

I think it’s easy to be nostalgic. Sometimes that feels like we’re trying to go back to a simpler time - which we equate in our minds with “better.”

But was ignorance bliss? Or was it a blister - a festering sore ready to burst?

What’s in our food - our water - our shampoo?

What should we do with our bodies - our plants - our skin - our time and attention?

I know - it’s an overwhelming burst of information - but isn’t it better than before? When we asked no questions and received no answers? When we just dropped dead one day?

Elephants. They used to let you ride elephants at birthday parties.

Who was “they”? How did “they” get those elephants? What were their lives like? How could we have done more to save them?

Once, I rode an elephant at a birthday party. His skin - dry - felt like carpets brushing against my bare legs. I was little. But big enough to feel this was all a mistake.

All wrong.

All encompassing, all knowing God - how could you let one of your finest creatures suffer this way?

What were we to learn? We had no context. No consequence. Just experiences, vibes, sensory events.

Now what? What are we blind to now that will be shocking then? What horrors are we casually lumbering through?

Elephants. At birthday parties.

Now - unimaginable. Then - a memory. An experience. It was real.

Elephants at birthday parties.

[thelukaskaiser]

Tuned Out

It feels like we see a headline like this one - about something we grew up with being removed from society - at an increasingly rapid pace these days. 

The truth is this - we have lived in a liminal space between digital and analog for quite some time. Trillions of dollars are being transferred from one space to the other and back again - from brick and mortar retail to commence to brick and mortar again. From digital downloads to movie theaters to some mix of the two. 

Analog systems - physical businesses, physical products - create more value around them than digital goods do. More jobs are created around a CD (pressing plants, shrink wrapping, stores) than an mp3 (there’s a musician and some coders on the other end). 

Digital systems by and larger are better for the environment and they democratize success for creators because the barrier to entry for starting a business in the digital space is so low. And distribution costs are a magnitude lower as well. 

Sometimes people year for the old - analog, physical, human. 

Sometimes they yearn for the new - digital, cutting edge, egalitarian. 

There truth is this…

There is no trend spotting that can tell you which way the wind is blowing. The Weather is an apt metaphor here because in spite of patterns, as anyone who has watched hurricane coverage on live TV knows, the weather is in fact unpredictable. Category 3 or category 5 all depends on how warm the water is 100 miles away from the drop zone. Factors outside our control and outside our real of consciousness are dictating what tomorrow might bring. 

This all can be confusing and heartbreaking - to give in to the idea that we just don’t know. 

I think the key is to search for your constants. I listened to Miles Davis on LP, on CDs, on Apple Music, Spotify and I’ll listen to him on any format that has yet to exist. He’s a constant. 

If you’re a coveted fashion designer, you’ll sell outfits online, in a store, on the street - wherever. 

People are constants. 

It’s only the systems that change. 

The world might feel like it’s crumbling and shaking - but you are a constant. Your light and contribution to the human family is constant. 

You are loved and valued. 

-LK

[thelukaskaiser]

The Chasm of Needles

The time spent in between a pitch and finding out if you’ve landed business or not is a casual walk through a cactus patch in hell I like to call the Chasm of Needles.

The Chasm of Needles isn’t a long stretch - you can walk it sometimes in an afternoon - at longest it takes a week. But it’s a painful stroll - each patient and careful step you take more painful than the last.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And anxious people abhor a pregnant pause. The creative brain - the one that day dreams up paintings in the clouds and sees patterns in the ripples of a pond and effortlessly spins yarns at the sleepover - the clever, creative brain makes up stories about those pregnant pauses. He hated the idea. He’s actually offended by the idea. He’s quiet, sitting there staring, pretending he’s processing what I just said - but under the desk, he’s texting the FBI. My idea is federally offensive.

We find meaning in blank spaces. A silent father is as much a canvas for stories as a train car is for graffiti. Is he quietly approving or silently raging on the inside? We spray our insecurities and anxieties and stories based on what’s happened before into these voids, these chasms.

And for creative people, the silence that inevitably comes between presenting your gifts and finding out how they’re received - that’s the chasm of needles.

It’s the thorns that nag and gnaw at your flesh from this jaunt through hell that keep you from making new stuff more than the rejection itself.

If your gifts are rejected, they often come with a map - sorry, you dug in this hole looking for the treasure - it aint here, but it might be in this other direction.

Rejection contains information.

Silence contains innuendo.

I used to do stand up comedy. It became an addiction, as I stacked together other creative work. I found it fun, inventive, creative. But I kept doing it, even after I lost a little passion for it, because stand up has almost no chasm of needles. You say a joke - and its accepted or rejected.

Social media is like that too - try something, get feedback and keep it moving.

But as I’ve continued on in my career and ventured into farther recesses of my career, I’ve come to realize this truth - the longer the chasm of needles, the larger the potential for greatness a work of art has.

Shipping a screenplay into the chasm can feel damn near masochistic. A novel? Certain death.

You kill yourself working on something for months - years - and then send it off into the darkness - letting the unfettered opinions of the sticky fingered dim wits who push papers across their desk for a living tell you what their opinion on art is.

That’s real pain. And that means there’s the risk of real reward on the other side. The risk of life changing action.

I can’t tell you the chasm of needles will go away or hurt less next time. I can tell you two things - 1 - it is real, these anxious feelings are real and you aren’t crazy. And 2 - the feeling you have is the sign that you’re on the right track.

Grab some chewable Advil and keep going.

[thelukaskaiser]

The Bike Path

I’ve been on a mission for the past couple of years of trying to feel more like myself. My therapist had asked me, in our first session together, what my stated goals with therapy were. At the time, I was going through an emotional crisis - and on top of that, it was the beginning of the pandemic. So staring back at her, via a Telehealth link, I took a deep breath and, ultimately, that’s what I said.

“I want to feel like myself again.” 

Prior to therapy, I had been trying to work on my behavior. I am prone to fits of grumpiness that can crest into pockets of anger and, sometimes, when I’m most under stress and least in control of myself, fits of rage. Though I feel I have nice things to say about people and pleasant opinions about the world, I came to realize that as long as I couldn’t get my anger in check, I was an unpleasant person to be around. 

But the thing is, I intellectually understood that I was an unpleasant person to be around at that time, but I couldn’t embody that description of me - I didn’t feel that I was a bad person. I thought I was, inherently good. 

Which is, to be fair, the most human thing a human can think. No one thinks they’re the antagonist of their own story. In an egocentric existence - which is, to be fair, just existence itself - we’re all the protagonists of our own story. 

So I was finding that I was “doing the work” - with a coach - working on looking at anonymous surveys people I worked with and know filled out about my behavior. And the ways people described me did not in any sense sound like me. 

Which was fascinating at first, and interesting. And helpful. But ultimately, it was destabilizing. I would find myself working with the coach and listening and understanding the work we were doing, working on ways to give feedback or encourage people without making them afraid. And I would do the exercise with vigor and feel accomplished, but then I’d think to myself “Don’t I already do these things?”

I began to lose my sense of myself - and I would find that on Zoom calls at work, I would be prone to dizzy spells and fits of depersonalization and confusion. So I sought out therapy as a way to augment the coaching I was working on - to maybe get a sense of non-partisan understanding of myself - or at least the ways I see myself. Because I was beginning to lose grip on that reality. 

The first thing my therapist had me do was find an outlet for my rage. I had bought a bicycle a couple months into the pandemic and was riding around the bike path in Santa Monica and I mentioned off hand in a session that I really liked cutting off people on the bike path. 

“Do you hurt people when you do that?”

“Nooo! Never,” I said.

“Well - then I think you should do that more often. You should get on your bike and go cut people off at least once a day.”

I laughed at my therapist’s suggestion - but then, the next time I was on my bike, out on the path, I did what she said. I did it with purpose and intention - and I could feel my heart racing in the same delicious way it did when I would get myself worked up in a fit of rage. 

That biking turned into spin biking as well - where I would emphatically bike at home, throwing my body around - in a way cutting people off, competing, exhausting myself in the process. 

I had dabbled in exercise before, but never as a mood stabilizer. I know people hate it when their therapists suggest exercise. 

My therapist was smart enough to suggest cutting people off - and I translated that into exercise. 

It’s been 2 years now of managing my attitude and my mood. I’ve lost over 100 pounds. And I’ve found better sight of myself that I ever had in my entire life. I think if I had set out to lose weight, or set out to transform myself, I doubt I would have reached my goals. 

I think setting myself up for something smaller, more intimate but ultimately more complex - knowing who I really am - was the most generous gift I’ve ever given myself. What a layered and complex and always evolving project it has been - to get to know myself. 

In some ways I fully know who I am - and in some ways, I am nowhere closer to an answer than I was when I began. And that is beautiful. 

[thelukaskaiser]

Record Store Clerk

I miss the record store clerk. There are still record stores - some sell vintage LP’s, some sell a mix of new and old stuff, some even have CD’s! Which - incredible to see in my lifetime CD’s go from being the most reviled medium to something people are nostalgic for. 

But at these new fangled record stores, the people working there are keenly aware of the status of buying physical copies of music - banged up and bruised, unconfident. And acting accordingly, these truly passionate and kind hearted record store clerks in these new fangled record stores are HELPFUL - they want you to make a great purchase - and fall in love with their recommendations so that you’ll come back again and again - and maybe one day find yourself in a world where buying music is a normalized activity again. 

Wow - these are nice people, these clerks and salesmen behind the counter at the new fangled record stores. Which makes them absolutely unrecognizable with the quintessential, platonic ideal Record Store Clerk of yesteryear that I miss oh so much. 

You see, when you’re younger, you get nostalgic for the good times. But beyond nostalgia there’s a certain wistfulness for the fuller experiences of our childhood - and I’m a 40-year-old man who consumes music - and have a defined though flexible sense of my own taste - and I will say the FEAR that the Record Store Clerks instilled in me - at all the various record stores - is what shaped that taste. 

Picture this kids - you’re 9 years old and you love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Which makes sense because it’s 1991 and the singles from their breakout album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” are being blasted across the radio airwaves and all over MTV. 

You’re a kid - so you don’t know what day of the week albums drop - you just know that you saw this one was dropping soon. So you ask your parents to drive you to the record store and let you buy the album with your allowance money. 

Now - CD’s at that point in time, in 1991 - cost an insane amount of money. Their LIST PRICE - in 1991, 32 years ago, was $19.95. Most CD stores would sell them at a discount - between $11 and $13. 

That means their list price, in today’s dollars, was $43! And they were “on sale” for $27. 

Music was VALUABLE back then. And you’re in the store - a 9 year old having saved money from doing chores for like, maybe a whole year and you approach a surly looking Record Store Clerk. You walk up slowly, feeling intimidated by his black baseball cap and horn rimmed glasses and his intense, furrowed brow. He’s reading a paperback novel of some sort and you hope that as you slowly walk up to him, he’ll see you in his peripheral vision and look up and engage with you. 

“What do you need, young man?” He says to you, in your fantasy. 

“Acceptance for who I really am,” you say in your fantasy. “Both in the long term - but also, in the short term - by you acknowledging and complimenting me on my taste in music.” 

This fantasy - it never comes. Because the Record Store Clerk never looks up. He just keeps reading - licking his fingers as he turns the pages. You’re standing just beneath him now - and he looks like a bird of prey, perched on the ledge of a building, cooly ignoring the pigeons and doves that hover around - his eyes set far away. 

You clear your throat. He looks now, down at you. 

“Yes?” He says, in a tone that FEELS like “No.” 

He waits. “Need something?”

“Uhh…” you’d arrived with a purpose - but somehow, your nerves got the best of you and can’t seem to remember why you’re in this record store to begin with. 

“Hmm” he says and returns to his novel. 

Just then, you remember your father is in the store with you. You glance to your right to see him, his face constrained in confusion. That’s MY son there? you imagine he’s thinking. You see him cringe and then he whispers “Red Hot…” 

He’s jogged your memory. 

“Uh…” you muster the energy to interrupt the Record Store Clerk again. He’s really not happy this time. You glance at your father - he mouths it again “Red Hot…” You sigh to yourself, slump your shoulders, look down and say:

“Do you have the… Red Hot Chili Peppers album?”

“God no. Of course not,” the clerk says. 

You’re thrown off guard and you look at your father, who it seems, is also thrown off guard. He comes over to your side now. 

“Uh, do you know when it’ll be in stock?” Your dad asks. He’s meek now, cracking under the pressure of the Record Store Clerk’s seemingly invincible force field of scorn and derision. 

“Hopefully never,” the clerk says, turning his gaze back to his book. 

“What… What do you recommend we get instead?” My father musters the strength to ask. The clerk tosses my dad a copy of NWA’s debut album “Straight Outta Compton”. There’s a parental warning label on the album but in the dizzy haze of the moment, my dad pushes through, ignores that subtle signifier and buys me one of the most seminal influences on my budding artistic psyche. 

Because this surly fellow - the Record Store Clerk - refused to sell us something that he deemed in poor taste. More than a music reviewer - more than a musician himself - a Record Store Clerk believed, with intrinsic honesty and valor, that MUSIC was VALUABLE. 

They understood these objects - records, tapes, CDs, sometimes posters - weren’t just disposable, replaceable pieces of “media”. These were coveted and magical objects of DESIRE. 

I don’t want to be “sold” on things. I want someone who cares more than I do to give me a doorway into their passion. I want someone who is willing to laugh at me or tell me I’m a fool for asking the wrong question because they’re confident enough in their belief in their products. 

The luxury space sometimes approaches this - but I don’t think passion should be a commodity that only rich people can afford.

There used to be sandwich shops in New York where you were told they would kick you out if you ordered wrong. 

There are hot dog spots in Chicago and cheesesteak places in Philly like that too. Dedicated, committed people who work and live and breathe a “brand” and its wares so confidently that they don’t tell you why you should buy it. They tell you why you’re maybe not worthy of making its purchase. 

What happened to these temples of passion? These record stores and comic book spots and movie palaces and sandwich spots with a line around the block - the more we’re told we’re doing it wrong the more we want to come back? 

Has our on-demand culture made the “work for it” culture that defines taste go away? The only time you see a line around the block for a store is if they’re selling sneakers and people think they can flip ‘em on eBay. 

That’s not right - passion shouldn’t be transactional. It should be transcendental! 

I want the Record Store Clerks back. I want them at their perch, telling little kids they’re not allowed to buy that pop album because there’s this new noise band they need to listen to instead. 

I want this next generation - Gen Z sure but also Gen Alpha - to feel what it was like to have the unbearable weight of a confident and over qualified Gen Xer sitting behind the counter somewhere, ready to possibly get fired for their passion. 

I miss it. I’m not sure we’ll ever get it back. But I pledge that I will seek out experiences that challenge me and make me uncomfortable - that don’t please my algorithmic choosing but challenge my tastes. 

I don’t want a quiet machine to guess what I might like. I want a scornful teenager to tell me what I like is BAD and give me recommendations as to what I should like instead. 

Grumpy, ironic machines. Is that too much to ask for? 

(It might be)

[thelukaskaiser]

Keep Going

Lukas’ Blog - January 1, 2023 - 5:30PM

Blogging isn’t really a thing anymore, but that isn’t going to deter me from re-starting this one. Sorry about that. I know it’s been a minute since you’ve engaged with one, so I’ll forgive you if you’ve forgotten what to say or do. Let’s just sit here for a moment and relish in the fact that we’re still alive - and both old enough to remember “blogging.” 

I remember the first time I found a “blog” - it was in 1999 - and I found the Livejournal of a graphic designer I really liked who was living in New York City. And in 1999, I was living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - on the East Side, near UWM. If you’ve seen the movie American Movie, the place where Mark edits his film was about a block from my house. 

And in 1999, I was a hyper creative high school senior, 17 years old and entering into his final year of school, hoping to be accepted (early acceptance) to NYU so he could pursue his dreams of becoming a filmmaker / comedian / media person (which, hey, I was able to achieve - so that’s damn cool). 

And I was into comic books and indie toys and cool stuff and there was this plush toy I bought through Giant Robot magazine - which was a wildly influential magazine on my sensibilities and likes at the time (and hell, probably still is) - and the plush toy came in the mail and the tag to the toy had a URL to the artist’s blog. 

Not “Vlog” but blog. Because you couldn’t really host videos at the time. I mean, it wasn’t that normal for people to have websites either. I had a couple sites - I had taught myself how to make stuff in HTML - but I had never seen a blog before. It was a LiveJournal - and I was absolutely stunned. Blown away. 

Because I just sat there for days on end and read about this artist’s life. Mundane things and important things, triumphs and tribulations - and I was absolutely enthralled. That I could just see how a normal person lived - and lived, in particular, in New York City. Because that was where I wanted to live. 

And I would write down on paper the places the artist would go to - the restaurants, the stores, the bars. And I would just dream - dream I was with him - and feel less alone. 

Blogging wasn’t ever something I kept up regularly, but as a consumer, man, did I absolutely love the Blog era. I mean, we talk about Twitter and independent journalists and all that - but in the mid 2000s, I worked for and ran several blogs. And we were making REAL money - off of advertising and merch and other stuff - and it was a grind, but it was an honest one. And we had our own audiences and fans - and some of those people who became fans of mine from that era still follow my work to this day. It’s a trip. 

So, I’ve decided to blog again. In short bursts and longer bursts too. I don’t really care how many people read the “blog” per se - though it is important for me to publish these entries. I think that in addition to my various daily / weekly journals I keep for myself - my morning pages, which are like a brain dump right when I wake up, along with my “Simple Diary” - which is a regularly updated, quite personal record of my life for the last couple years or so, I want to begin to craft a public persona - one that I’m okay with sharing with complete strangers. 

I had a call with someone about a potential project - something I don’t want to share yet. And on the call, we began to talk about my experience in media and the entertainment industry and it was clear that I really don’t write down or share with anyone my experience. 

Now - that’s sort of normal to me? I feel like most people don’t document their lives - or at least they used to not? I suppose social media has turned us all into oversharers, certainly. But like, if you go to Facebook and look at some of the connections you have from your hometown - there are a lot of people who haven’t posted on their social media pages in years. Because this constant deluge of personal information isn’t normal. 

And, look, am I normal? No. I’ve always had a skewed perspective on life. I have pushed myself to self promote at many times throughout my life. It’s just that the last couple of jobs I had - my current gig at Westbrook and my previous gig at Viacom - were both sort of “insider” roles that worked best when no one knew the roles existed. The Viacom one was in part because there was a ton of writing we were doing - a lot of it comedy writing - but we weren’t part of the WGA, even though our shows were all signed to the union. 

We were just nameless / faceless “Creatives” - sort of ad agency model. 

And at Westbrook, working with public figures to craft their digital brands and personas is a very behind the scenes role. If you’re doing your job right, the public figure you work for seems to be generating this content and this digital brand from thin air, seemingly effortlessly so. 

Which - at times, is true (okay that’s never true). But at times it’s like, well if I tooted my own horn here, it would actually hurt my whole business model. 

Now - we have evolved what we do at Westbrook Media a considerable amount - yes we still help some public figures with their social media, but we mostly get paid to MAKE CONTENT. And I think just about anyone would know that making content takes a lot of effort - both hard effort - like writing and planning and editing and shooting and all that - as well as soft effort - like strategic thinking and positioning and making sure your clients are making the RIGHT content and not just making what they think is going to be hot. 

And I’ve realized that in both the hard and soft labors at my current gig - managing an incredible team of creatives who are truly some of the smartest and most innovative thinkers I’ve ever been able to work with - it doesn’t help anyone for me, as the boss, to set the example of being the humble behind the scenes guy. Because then everyone feels the pressure to have that dance - should I take credit? Should I not? 

It’s tough! But rather than “take credit” I think I want to try to begin to focus my energies on exploring the things I’m struggling with - the things I’m excited about - and using my work, and my experience, and my day to day life (with a lot of discretion) as the medium to explore these topics, knowing that my life may be a good example for other people. 

So - this is to say I’m excited to be back in the business of writing and publishing written content in this space. I will likely attempt to turn these posts into audio / video things as well at some point, though my space is not clean enough or well laid out at the moment, and the anxiety of showing off my messiness would be too great to bear and I’d explode into a million pieces or something. 

Regardless, I am in my space - and I am lucky to have a space to create things in. Both in my professional as well as my personal / creative life. And I do not take that for granted. 

I remember quite clearly the five years when I was living in my mom’s attic, working from home, constantly grinding to try to freelance and publish content and become a writer - and how painful it all felt - and how isolating it all was. 

Look - people definitely can go longer than five years to try to crack through - and I had some positive experience mixed in with those painful ones - but from when I graduated college, in 2004, until I landed as a junior writer/producer at Spike TV in 2009, I can say without a doubt I skated quite close to the edge of fully giving up on my dreams. And every time I tried to pursue something BIG or CREATIVE or IMPORTANT - like the screenplay I wrote with my former boss, or my stage play, or the podcasts I tried to launch at the time, or the sketches or digital content I was trying to submit, or the numerous late night TV packets I was writing and submitting every single day - it would always blow up in my face. 

Now, looking back, it was amazing that none of that stuff worked out - because I was clearing out my mind of all the horrible, bad ideas I carried around with me while getting the experience of DOING THE WORK… 

I was learning how to write screenplays and how to direct videos and edit and all that - skills I still use to this day, in a much more professional setting - but learning how to do those things in practical ways that school could never teach you. And thankfully, none of my output was good, so the cringe-y and stupid ideas I was churning out will hopefully never be seen by anyone. 

I can look back at my isolation and loneliness and anger at that time with fondness - knowing that I was growing so quickly, even though it didn’t feel like it. 

And maybe you’re at home, feeling like you’re hitting your head against a wall over and over again - maybe you’re publishing content that no one seems to care about, or you’re applying to job after job and no one cares. It SUCKS. I know what that feels like. 

But if you can somehow orient your mind around gaining those SOFT SKILLS in the process - and understanding that a few years of obscurity will allow you to be BETTER - well maybe it won’t be so painful all the time. 

The surprises in store for us in 2023 are going to be painful - it’s going to be extra hard for people to get things SEEN and to get things MADE. Our normal modes of selling content, our normal ways of distributing things to audiences - it’s all going to feel so lost and so pointless. So we damn well better focus on the GROWTH and not the SUCCESS. Because otherwise, I’m telling you, every day is gonna feel more painful than the last. 

And the goal of making stuff is to feel less painful - less judged, less alone. So if the stuff you’re making is just making you feel more lonely, more rejected, it’s gonna push you to give up your dreams. And that would be a damn tragedy. Because you never know who’s moved by your stuff - you never know who needs an encouraging word. You never know who’s at their wit’s end and feels utterly isolated and alone. 

Yknow, how I felt less alone as a teenager in Milwaukee, reading those entries back in 1999. In some ways, all the therapy and personal work I’ve done to transform myself over the last 2 or so years has done something remarkable - it’s made me actually REMEMBER more. And it’s given me a helluva lot of empathy for myself in those vulnerable and quieter moments. 

I kept a diary after I fell in love with blogging, with the hope of turning it into a blog one day. It was the year 2000 and I was a Freshman at NYU at that point. I lived on 10th street and Broadway in a dorm called Brittany Hall. Which at the time was the only dorm with no air conditioning.

We lived in these big, concrete rooms - 3 of us, me and my two roommates. And we were all so hopelessly depressed and horny. Wanting to meet new people - yearning for life - knowing we were at the precipice of a new life experience (which ultimately was 9/11 - which happened the next year - we just didn’t know it yet). 

And I kept this journal - and the entries were PAINFUL. They were overwrought and filled to the margins with grumpiness and sourness and angst and WANT and DESIRE. 

But they were fucking VULNERABLE too. And as I began to make friends - I had a sketch group from the Upright Citizens Brigade and we would hang out at Max Fish - and I had a job teaching kids writing and reading and became friends with my co-workers - and I got an internship at Mass Appeal magazine, and joined The Plague - our college humor magazine - as I began to form a more confident persona, I would look back at those vulnerable journal entries and WRETCH from embarrassment. 

And when I graduated from college, I hid those journals for a while - until one day, actually in 2010, a year after getting my “break” in the industry and in the process of moving from Long Island (where my mother had been living - long story, she moved from Milwaukee) to Brooklyn (to the place I still live in to this day in BK), I took the notebooks and, instead of packing them, I tore the pages of the diary entries to shreds and threw them in the trash. 

Because I was mortified that I was ever that lonely and desperate and in pain. Because it had been so long since I had felt that way. 

But now, 13 years later, I’m really, really mad at myself for having done that. Pain is a real feeling. We don’t find ourselves confronting “real” things that often. And I wish I could look back and thumb the spines of those notebooks and glaze my finger over my handwriting - which hasn’t changed in decades - and try to connect with that little boy who was in pain - and tell him it’s going to be okay. Because it was going to be okay - it was okay. He ended up being just fine. 

And I disrespected him by throwing away his journal entries. The ones he cared about. 

Which I forgive myself for doing, but man, do I regret having done that. We don’t so often leave ourselves a trail of bread crumbs back to our past experiences. So when we do - when we write in journals or keep up a blog or whatever - we’ve gotta cherish those things and let them be. 

This “blog” doesn’t have to be anything other than a dumping ground for missives and dumb ideas - again, a place where I can quietly shape my public persona, which I so desperately need to craft and then use for the next chapter of my life. 

But I’m not going to disrespect the space. I promise myself that now. 

Anyways, I’m going to do some other writing now - this was honestly really nice. Hopefully I can keep it up - and perhaps it’ll be something you find useful or helpful or interesting. And if not, then I’m sorry. 

By the way, the artist whose livejournal I fell in love with was Mumbleboy. It looks like his early entries are gone, just like my old journals.

[thelukaskaiser]

“Why am I naked at this crosswalk, officer? Well…”

[thelukaskaiser]

[thelukaskaiser]

This Monk Seal is all of us. (at Kauai. the Garden Island) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvM9yDvnOi_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1hpmtvsdaos7h

[thelukaskaiser]

Laundry

I didn’t learn how to do my laundry until I was in college. Before that, my mom would wash all my clothes for me. Our washer & dryer were in a room in our basement that was connected to an apartment that was built into the side of my house. There were walls and no doors between our house and the adjoining apartment so the only way to get between the two buildings was the laundry room. We owned the apartment and someone rented it from us.

Sometimes, when my mom wasn’t home, I would sneak into the apartment and look at our renter’s stuff - thumb through his mail, look at his magazines. Even then I knew it was something I shouldn’t be doing - something dangerous and scary. So I became afraid of the laundry room and by extension, I was afraid of doing laundry itself. 

That adjoining room has come to be a metaphor - for the gritty place between desire and outcome - you want something (clean laundry) and one day it comes to you - but to get it, you need to thumb through someone else’s mail and look at their sad, lonely refrigerator. 

[thelukaskaiser]

This is Frankie. She’s probably 2 years old. A friend found her roaming the streets and we lucked out and ended up adopting her. On her first check up the vet said she was probably around a year old. Which means she spent a year roaming the streets. Sometimes when she’s sleeping, we will whisper in her ear “What sort of crimes did you commit before we found you?”

In the backstory I’ve concocted for her, she murdered her lover after he touched a piece of pizza she found in a dumpster. Which is how I’ll most likely die myself. At her hands.

[thelukaskaiser]

Elephants

When I was a kid I got to ride an elephant at my dad’s friend’s house. Looking back on the experience now, I realize it was probably not a good experience for the elephants involved. I didn’t really enjoy the experience either.

I guess what that means is that our most memorable experiences are the ones where pretty much everyone is miserable. 

[thelukaskaiser]

Margot Robbie... is... TONYA!

[thelukaskaiser]

The loneliest astronaut