The kid in this photo is eight years old, and he is at the height of his creative powers.
Around this time, my parents had generously gifted me some of the most sophisticated electronic equipment of the 1980s:
A Panasonic cassette recorder…
A Casio SK-1 sampler keyboard…
And in the hall closet, I discovered the family’s Kodak Super-8 motion picture camera.
My happy place was in my bedroom, making stop-motion Lego movies, recording talk shows, and creating music from sampled rap tapes. And I didn’t care what anyone thought about what I was making.
Years pass. Anxieties combine with adult responsibilities. It’s near-impossible to recapture that creative freedom, those vast blocks of time, that spirit of play.
We condition ourselves to self-edit, over and over again.
A New Way to Play
During the early days of the pandemic, my teenage kids introduced me to TikTok, and it felt like the return of that Panasonic cassette recorder, Casio SK-1, and Kodak Super-8 camera — not to mention a built-in audience of strangers.
For me, TikTok was a perfect antidote to the growing toxicity of Twitter. Without that community of indie musicians, singers, and artists, I’m not sure I would have released my first solo music last year.
Now, that creative community might be going away. My For You page is full of people saying goodbye with one last song. Sure, we can follow each other on Instagram or YouTube, but it’s not the same. On TikTok, people danced like no one was watching.
New Single: ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable’
So it seems appropriate to this moment that my new single is a letter to my younger self.
“Don’t Get Too Comfortable” is about the loneliness of a crowded room, and a reminder that even in uncertain times, we still know ourselves.
It’s also keeping a promise to my younger self — to never stop making things and putting them out into the world.
“Don’t Get Too Comfortable” is available now on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you like to listen.
This was one of the first songs I wrote in 2021 when I was challenging myself to write new music, and I’m thankful to work again with the talented producer-artist nickspat. Thanks also to Jonathan Jetter, who mastered it.
Extra special thanks to singer-artist-coach Sophie Said, who I first discovered on TikTok (of course), and editor-writer-playwright Kara Cutruzzula, both of whom have taught me so much about what it means to make art.
What would you tell your younger self?
If you could offer advice to yourself as a kid, what would it be? What would you tell them about the person you’d like to become?
Share it with me by replying to this email. I’d love to feature you in a future newsletter.
Thanks for listening.
-Mark