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. 

New Bon Iver

Each Bon Iver album has seemed to arrive at very distinct moments in my life. The sound always found a way to meet me where I was.

That's probably the case with all art, but for me, Bon Iver has been a profoundly meaningful backdrop to so much of my life, through many changes. We've seen him 3 times in concert. Steph walked down the aisle to Beach Baby. Sonny was listening to Beth/Rest while he was still in the womb.

All that to say, we are long-time Bon Iver fans. So I've been very excited for the new album.

First listen through, and I think there are some reeeeeeeaaaalllly good songs – some that take you back to the early Bon Iver (reminding everyone how and why he became so insanely famous). Songs like SPEYSIDE – VERY GOOD. Sounds like For Emma Forever Ago era Bon Iver – super minimal, acoustic, with hauntingly sad lyrics (what a waste of wood). 

But there is one track that really stands out. AWARDS SEASON. This song, for me, is maybe the most touching song he's ever written. Feels like a letter from God or a prayer I said to myself in some past season of life.

‘I can handle. Way more than I can handle. So I keep reaching for the handle. To flood my heart.…

Oh how everything can change. In such a small timeframe. You can be remade. You can live again.

What was pain now is gain. A new path gets laid.

And you know what is great.

And nothing stays the same.’

🎶 Listen to AWARDS SEASON

Build a Pirate Ship

A bunch of random thoughts on startups and marketing:

1. Don't let the process get in the way

Great ideas don’t come from processes – they come from people. Most marketing orgs are built to manage – not to imagine. Too much process and management can get in the way of creative thinking. Efficiency is great. But in my experience, I would rather focus on originality and creativity than optimization.

2. The best people require autonomy 

Creative people are allergic to control. They don't want to be told what to do or how to do it. And this is the challenge when it comes to business... because business is all about control, growth, and predictability. Organizations like organization. Creative people like chaos. Business wants conformity. But conformity and tightly controlled environments REPEL the people you need most. The most talented people want freedom. And so it's super important when you are building a team to figure out how to balance all of this. This is why hiring the right people and creating the right culture may be the most challenging parts of building a startup.

3. "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy." 
—Steve Jobs, 1982

Big companies are boring and slow. Successful startups require people who can move fast. You need to create a pirate culture that celebrates dissent against bureaucracy/process and unconventional thinking. Most importantly, avoid hierarchies at all cost! Small teams that move fast are the way you win. Speed over structure! Creativity over control!

Links!

"I ain't no cowboy, but I can ride."

🎶 Jason Isbell – Bury Me

Google buys Wiz for $32B.
Wild to think that Wiz did not exist 5 years ago. Israeli cyber is a great game to be in.

Apple Is Losing Over $1 Billion per Year on Streaming Service, Has 45 Million Apple TV+ Subscribers
Exhibit A: The Gorge (woof)

Also...

Hot take: Severance is boring.  

Tesla is a dumpster fire
Feels like the perfect time for a new EV carmaker to step in. Apple shouldn't have ditched their EV.

Bob Iger Says AI May Be “Most Powerful Technology That Our Company Has Ever Seen”
Bob knows everything in film making is about to change.

Happy Gilmore 2 sort of feels like the one thing the world needs most right now. Can't wait.

Nintendo Nostalgia

There’s something deeply satisfying about clicking an old Nintendo cartridge into place – it's like ASMR for kids who grew up before the internet. Sadly, that  tactile ka-chunk has been lost when gaming moved online. Today, like everything, gaming is digital, online, and endless. There are no cartridges, manual inserts, or downloads and microtransactions. It's cool to buy a game instantly, but we lost some magic in the convenience. 

Lately, I’ve been chasing that old console feeling—a specific kind of nostalgia wrapped in chunky plastic shells, from the SNES to the N64.

Neighborhood or microchip? 

I've been having some truly bizarre dreams. To be fair, the whole house is sick, and my go-to survival strategy involves unhealthy doses of NyQuil (If I ever drop a mix-tape my rapper name would be Lil' Quil). But let me tell you—whatever sorcery Dextromethorphan (DXM) is working, it’s cranking out the kind of hyper-real dreams that linger.

 

The most vivid one yet... In this dream, someone was explaining to me—very matter-of-factly—that theatres exist because they create the ideal conditions for transporting people to other dimensions via sound and visual stimuli.

Then, I'm sitting in this dark theatre and hear a male narrator introduce "the process" before these binaural sounds begin playing over the speakers. The screen is completely black, but I become transfixed, staring blankly into this black void as these tones play. Suddenly, the exact point I’m fixated on stretches, like it's being pulled away from me, and the whole room starts expanding at warp speed. I sit in this state for 10-20 minutes, almost as if I recognize some meditative benefit to it all. I then get up, walk out of this theatre setting, and into a long hallway where I encounter a staff member of whatever building I am in – they are clearly surprised that I was in the theatre – I walk down the hall further and exit through a museum and wake up completely confused.

That's it. Just needed to document this weird dream.

Three Nights at the St. Regis Punta Mita: A Study in Leisure and Decadence

There’s a point in every well-executed vacation when you start believing you might have "made it." For me, that moment happened roughly 15 minutes after stepping onto the St. Regis Punta Mita property. Someone placed a chilled margarita in my hand. Another person took my bag. A third welcomed me with a warm, but not overbearing, “Señor Jeter, welcome home.” Home? If this is home, then Denver must be Arrakis — where water is a rumor, warmth is a memory, and survival is the only goal.

I deleted Twitter (I refuse to call it X) from my phone. I found myself spending too much time going down rabbit holes. Now, I'm blissfully in the dark about most stuff. I am no longer the first to know that there is a rare bird flu outbreak in some remote jungle. I just hear about it when I hear about it. I have found that it's a good way to filter the noise – if it matters, I'll hear about it. Until then, whoooooo cares? It's like my approach with email. I don't check it. If someone needs to get ahold of me, they'll find a way (typically WhatsApp or text). It's been about a month, and I don't see myself ever reinstalling it. I think the constant connectivity to bad news takes it toll. There is something really nice about unplugging – I watched the entire Super Bowl without seeing all the Kendrick Lamar dorks rave about his boring ass performance – "NO BRO, YOU DON'T GET IT... IT WAS ALL SYMBOLISM!"

After spending a week in Spain, I have never been more excited to get home and have a proper meal. Tapas, or simply, small snacks on toothpicks, are NOT a substitute for dinner. And yet, every dinner, I found myself holding a stick instead of a fork. It felt like I walked around a really exotic Costco for a week, getting handed samples of jamón. When it wasn't ham, it was pork liver pâté, WOOF. When I touched down back in the motherland after a 20+ hour travel day, I drove straight to Chic Filet and chanted USA USA USA all the way home.

A Week in Madrid

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Hoka’s immersive Run Stop Corner Shop is opening in London
ATM-generated ‘Hokens’ is brilliant – this is EXACTLY what I was referring to in my previous 2025 predictions post:

We see the smart brands begin focusing on outside-of-the-home activations – IRL experiences to generate brand awareness and build community. I think we will see a lot more brick-and-mortar stores, pop-ups, and in-person engagement. We're going to see the smart brands focus on deploying non-digital strategies – more analog than AI – this will help stand out from all the digital noise.

Related: Severance activation in Grand Central Station is another example of an out-of-home cultural moment. 

As predicted, this year is gonna be wild.