kung fu grippe

Regarding Lonelysandwich

Dan’s spanking new interview with Adam is a pure gem. Listen to it (mp3).

If, for the past three years, you’ve been cryogenically frozen, doing time in that Midnight Express prison, or living inside a Tupperware bowl, you may not know Adam Lisagor. Of course, for any variety of reasons, since you’re seeing this thing you’re theoretically reading right now, the chances are good that you do know him and already enjoy one or more of the properties in his growing empire on a regular basis.

If you do know Sandy, you already know he’s just the best. And, Dan’s wonderful, intimate, hilarious, and uncommonly insightful helicopter tour of the varied terrain of my friend’s complex topography is unmissable. Really. Listen to it. It’s good.

As I’m inclined to admit every chance the opportunity arises, the primary project on which I have the pleasure of collaborating with Adam (along with our pal, den mother, and tireless forebrain, Scott) is simply my favorite thing I’ve ever been involved with. Full stop.

But, as much as anything that Scott and I do contributes to the chemistry of our ridiculous pageant of boners, poop, and Estelle Getty references, it is Adam, and his truly, seriously, ridiculously, what-the-fuck-are-you-thinkingly, careful editing that, in every sense of the word, makes the show.¹

Tell you a secret. Related to what Adam talks about here. A couple years ago, with only a few early eppies of the young show under our collective belt, I found myself thinking super-hard about some of the other stuff I was doing—how I wanted to either start doing them really differently, or simply stop doing them at all. Because of Adam’s unintentional influence.

Candidly, I ended up dropping my participation in several fairly well-known projects simply because the bar wasn’t where I needed it to be. Adam had spoiled me on the idea that sweating the details at the right points does more than just incrementally improve the quality of the product; it actually means creating a substantially different and better artifact. It means you’re trying, and it shows.

Adam tries. Really fucking hard. And, I love that.

And, as much as it certainly doesn’t evince itself in my own work on anywhere near the level that it does in his own, I’m grateful any strand of Adam’s hirsute genius has ended up sticking to my sweater.

Listen: if you’ve read this space more than once, you know how surly I can be about—well—about practically everything. But, especially, you know how dickly I can be about the sad and venal commode of non-effort, entitlement, serial shortcutting, and charlatanism that too often passes for “content” on our shared stage these days. It’s repulsive, and, as you’ve reluctantly sussed out, I simply can’t make myself stop saying so. I’m sick of people peeing in the well for nickels.

But, Adam’s not playing that game. He’s doing something different, and he’s creating a unique career for himself in the bargain. He’s actually doing something, I’m confident to say, that even he couldn’t totally explain in a handful of bullet points without shearing off a fairly nuanced point about what separates personal style, craftsmanship, uncompromising auteurship, and good old-fashioned care from…well…pretty much everything else. Gosh, that’s something we could all use a little more of. Present company included.

Anyhow. You guys that are my real-world, non-air-quoted friends already know how I feel about about Adam (and, for that matter, Scott and John and John and John and John and Jesse and Jonathan and a couple dozen more of the homely bugbears and orcs who populate the Monster Manual I call, “My Insanely Talented Friends”).

Sure you know.

But, it’s worth repeating again and again and again: I feel ridiculously fortunate to be pals with people like Adam, who are so irresponsible about defying the viral mandate to bronze every poop before it even hits the water—then beg an anonymous audience to “favorite” it onto the front page of a corporate shovelblog. Snob me up with that snob crowd, Jesus. Snob me hard and snob me often.

The nut of it for all of us? I don’t know how you could listen to Dan’s swell interview with Adam without feeling at least a teeny bit inspired. Inspired to pick your new projects more carefully, to dump the less gratifying old ones more buoyantly, to give your latest draft just one more line edit, to start noticing the well-disguised opportunities that are lurking in the shadows of inconvenience and loss—to at least briefly double-check that the trendline for whatever stuff you’re making that theoretically matters to you is moving in a sustainable direction you can be proud of.

Even if you’re never exactly sure what the next point on that line will end up being, it’s gratifying and instructive to learn which times the pen mark did or didn’t land where you’d aimed.

Yep. Sure inspired me.

Anyhow. Thanks for letting me attach myself to your awesome, Sandy. You’re a goddamned viking, and we’re all unreasonably fortunate to have you on the boat.

Addendum 2010-07-28_08-57-49 PDT

The Pipeline #7: Merlin Mann | 5by5. Couple people suggested/reminded me I should also link to Dan’s Pipeline interview with me. I’m really happy with what Dan got out of me in this one, so, sure, here ‘tis (mp3). Thanks, Dan; long-time fan.