Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you

Father's Day 2025. We went to the Broadmoor. Ate donuts. Fought dinosaurs. Your favorite color is purple. You have a walrus named "Wally" and a seal named "Sealy" that we play with at bath time. You tell everyone your name is "Butch." Tonight you asked me how snakes poop. I love you.

One day, I will have an immaculately organized, clean garage.

It's funny as you get older, the things you start to notice and appreciate more... like sealed garage flooring. This is the final frontier of adulthood. The rest of the home is so nice and dialed in that sealing your garage is all that is left. I really look forward to this stage of my life.

My garage is an absolute DISASTER. Embarrassingly so. It's basically one big storage unit. I avoid it at all costs.

I look forward to walking out into my garage one day — it smells clean, no dust, everything is organized — I look down at the floor and it’s just shining back at me, quietly saying, “you’ve made it… you can rest now.”

🎶 Elderberry Wine

When I first wrote about Wednesday back in early 2024, it was mostly in awe: how this band from Asheville was able to combine this sense of 90s nostalgia with this sort of country, distorted emotional wailing that just works so perfectly. They sounded like something between Big Thief, Phoebe Bridgers, and Snail Mail... but with a more of a country twang that made them an instant hit with me. 

With their latest release, Elderberry Wine, my love of the band ONLY DEEPENS! It’s a quieter song, more restrained than Bath County. Quarry, or Chosen to Deserve (one of my all time faves!), but it still carries that same hazy weight that triggers this deep sense of nostalgia – like driving past somewhere you used to live.

Wednesday is making the best music in America right now, and it feels like they represent this broader shift in indie music that’s circling back to sincerity, guitar solos, and emotional texture—what GQ recently dubbed the “New Golden Age of Dad Rock.” I am a Dad... and I love this music, so yeah.

They made their TV debut a few weeks back on Late Night with Stephen Colbert – watch here!

2025 DON.EARTH FATHER'S DAY GIFT GUIDE

Noah X Timex Collaboration
I get so many compliments about this watch. Steph got it for me for my birthday this past year, and people stop me all the time to admire it/ask about it. Everybody knows Timex, but not everybody knows about NOAH. A little background, NOAH is an American menswear brand founded by Brendon Babenzien. Before launching NOAH, Brendon was the former creative director of Supreme for 14 years where he shaped Supreme's identity, blending streetwear with elements of punk, hip-hop, and skate culture. In addition to NOAH, Babenzien is currently serving as the men's creative director at J.Crew.

Kirkland Socks

Best socks on the planet. Wear them every day. The official sock of the #1 destination for all fathers, Costco. You never gonna catch me without my Kirkys on!

Toyo Steel ST-350 Tool Box Orange
Look... I don't need a toolbox. I barely have any tools. The few that I have are somewhere in the garage and only get pulled out when my Father-In-Law is here to fix the things I don't know how to fix (which is everything). I AM COMPLETELY useless when it comes to anything tool and toolbox-related. Buuuuuuuuuut this toolbox is so cool. It's more like a sculpture. A piece of modern art. That's why it's proudly displayed on the bookshelf my incredibly handy and loving Father-In-Law built me to help me look smart and successful on all my lil' zoom computer calls. It's really full circle! Where do you get such a toolbox? The Museum of Modern Art, duh. It's ART!

ORSLOW 105 Straight Leg Denim

I spend way too much time thinking about and buying denim. As I mentioned in last year's gift guide, ORSLOW makes the best denim on the planet.

Nike Design Book
Actual Source Books partnered with Nike for No Finish Line, a book about how Nike thinks about design and the future. Cool book. Cool pictures.

Stussy Stock Water Short
The Pataonia baggies got a little tired. So this year I picked up the Stussy Water Short Stock. I think it's the perfect length swim short.

EBAY Finds!

I don't know why it's taken me so long to find out about this... but have you ever heard of eBay? This may be a problem because suddenly an entire universe of vintage Lacoste, Ralph Lauren oxfords, and Levis denim shirts has opened up to me. I have bought 3 shirts in the last 24 hours. 

The Beatles - Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight

I sat down with Forbes to talk about marketing and cybersecurity startups:

The cybersecurity industry has long been defined by its cautious pragmatism—measured growth, technical jargon and a general aversion to flair. But that mold is beginning to crack. Following Google’s headline-grabbing $32 billion acquisition of Wiz, industry analysts and investors have turned their attention to what might come next. One name that frequently comes up in those discussions is Torq.

Read more here.

My 36-Hour Fast (reaching peak cringe!)

I've done it! 

I've nearly reached PEAK CRINGE!
(the summit of the Tech Bro Pyramid)

I've ascended and realized this...
True self-actualization is actually recognizing and accepting how DEEPLY CRINGE YOU ARE.

How insufferable is all of this?
My last post was an introspective post about Bon Iver's new music. GAHD.

It's over for me. And I accept that.

Acceptance.
That's the real work. That's the mirror. Seeing clearly for the first time that you, are, the, meme.

But letting go is where peace begins.
Painful?
Yes.
But necessary.

And with that, I share with you my 36-hour journey – my fast – that I now refer to as my "ancient protocol." 

The Fast:

After doing very minimal research, I decided I wanted to try a fast. I had done intermittent fasting, which is just a fancy way of saying "skipping breakfast." But I had never fully committed to a fast, no coffee, no food... basically just water, for 36 hours. 

Why did I do it?
I think on some level, my body was telling me to do it. As corny as that sounds (remember, you are the cringe)... I have been achy and sort of just feeling bad for a while. Not eating right. Sleeping like crap. Not working out as much as I should. It felt like I need to do a hard reset and getting my body to a fasted state seemed like the fastest way to do it.

I had read that after around 24 hours of fasting, the body initiates autophagy, a process where it clears out damaged cells, recycles waste proteins, and removes dysfunctional components (casually dropping autophagy into everyday conversations and then explaining people is another sign you are ascending)

That's what I was interested in. It's like closing tabs on your body's web browser. I needed that.

I had heard about mental clarity, but didn't really experience it until the very end (when I realized how absolutely unbearable I was going to be when I TELL ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ABOUT THIS EXPERIENCE). 

The hardest part of the fast was 4pm–7pm. This was, I believe, the autophagy phase. It HURT. I felt real hunger – the type of hunger I have never felt. I went to bed early because staying up just kept me in that feeling. I woke up the next morning, and the hunger had subsided (sort of dizzy, but not hungry). From 5am – 7am was that energized, acutely aware phase I had read about. I did not feel like I needed to eat, but I also did not want to go another day without coffee. So I broke the fast and ate some yogurt and had coffee. It was fine. No major breakthroughs. 

Conclusion:

I'm now a few weeks removed from the fast. I've since done another 24-hour fast (basically just skipping breakfast and lunch). I do think that your body feels better after fasting. Everything feels less inflamed. I've also noticed my skin looks better and I've been sleeping better. I am going to do another 36-hour fast on Monday to Tuesday. I'll provide an update afterwards for those who can endure it.