Unconventional
The focus of my 2025 has been around bringing a vision to life. It’s a path that has required more solitude than I had realized, but that’s okay because the solitude is fulfilling. I’m creating something that’s about connection, so I still get my healthy dose of that, it just feels different than it used to. There’s a consistent weight to the vision I’m holding. It never really takes time off. It’s lurking from the corner of my brain while I do other things.
In reality, I work every single day & it’s genuinely because I want to right now. I can assure you I’m not doing the “996” trend that other founders are doing in the Bay Area though. But nothing fulfills me like getting to bring this thing to life. With the time of increased solitude, I have liked to make it an adventure. A bit whimsical you might say. So I’ll throw my laptop in a backpack & go on aimless adventures.
I’m someone who can work from anywhere, as long as I have some routine keeping me grounded. Most of my adventures are limited to SF right now, raising a bernedoodle & starting a company will do that. How lucky am I that I get to call SF home though? It’s 7x7 miles of so many different vibes & cultures. One day I was like wait I have free will to just hop on a ferry & go to a coffee shop in Sausalito instead of SF.
Last Saturday I had one of those aimless adventure days. With that, I just stopped in places that inspired me throughout Noe Valley & the Mission. Grabbed a bagel, worked at a coffee shop, wandered in between. I stumbled upon three movie titles that interested me while out & about that day. Two in the window of a video store in Noe, one on a poster outside a frame shop on Valencia.
It’s funny what sparks curiosity… but these three did & I added them to my notes app called “Things to Consume”. Watching movies has been something that I’ve really enjoyed during this period too. It’s the one thing that for 1.5-2 hours my entire attention is on the movie.
The three movies were: Saturday Night, Frida, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. How in the hell is there a thread between these three you ask? After watching them this past week… I can tell you. At their core, they are all about the story of something unconventional & new being created through three different visionaries.
You have a 30 year old Lorne Michaels in Saturday Night & the chaos that ensued in the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of SNL. A cast of unknown kids were going to perform a show that was experimental & live for 90 minutes every week? All of the NBC executives were there & convinced that he would fail. I won’t give away the ending… but I think we all know how this turned out for Lorne Michaels.
You have Frida Kahlo, who had limitation after limitation in her own life. She was quite the contradiction to people. She was a woman who liked to drink, smoke, & was in touch with both her feminine & masculine sides. With every setback, she turned that pain into artwork. My favorite part of the movie was when the doctor said she had to be bedridden during her first exhibition in Mexico. She said watch me… & had her actual bed brought to the gallery. I had to fact check that afterward. You bet it actually happened. Her El sueño (La cama) painting just sold for $54.7 million this month as the most expensive painting ever sold by a female artist. Still a large gap from the male equivalent, but that’s besides the point here.
You have Weird Al Yankovic who was really up against a lot of odds. A music career on polka & parodies of well-known songs. How was he possibly going to pull that one off? He proved that being able to perform a range of songs & continuously come up with thoughtful lyrics & themes to each one… is musical genius that not many people can do. He also did this without offending the entire music industry. Then he even has this movie… that is, of course, a parody of his life & an homage to Boogie Nights.
All three of them held their vision even when it made other people uncomfortable. They were operating in uncharted territory where traditional formulas don’t apply. But that’s the whole point. If you don’t break from the formula, you don’t get new ideas. Without their conviction, we wouldn’t have SNL, we wouldn’t have Frida Kahlo’s paintings, & we definitely wouldn’t have the song White & Nerdy.
