i interviewed a bunch of cool ppl and now it's a...print publication??!

Whoa, Vol 1: Conversations to make you feel human

For the past few months, I’ve been having pretty dope, v vulnerable conversations with people who inspire me. The result, about which I am still in disbelief, is a physical and digital print publication called…

Whoa, Vol. 1
Conversations To Make You Feel Human

The zine opens with a lil letter from me which I wanted to share with you all below.

Before that though, some deets:

• 100 print copies available

• unlimited digital copies

• each purchase comes with a private podcast feed and unlisted YT playlist of the uncut interviews I had with each person (lottta Alex Dobrenko in these if that’s your thing)

• We’ve only announced it so far to Sublime members and I wanted to share with y’all today so you can jump in on the discount before it ends in 24 hours.

Ok enough blab, here it is (plus a lil video trailer of the zine at the bottom).

---

a letter from the guy asking all the questions

The assignment was simple. My boss at Sublime,

Sari Azout

, gave me carte blanche to interview people I find inspiring about the big ideas that move them.

Which I did, sort of. Mostly though I just steered each conversation toward the same set of questions: 

• How do you stay optimistic and hopeful in a world where cynicism is the default? 

• How do you make enough money doing your art? 

• Is there even such a thing as authenticity, or is it all bullshit? 

You know, super general questions that weren’t at all the ones I was desperately trying to solve for myself.

For the last few years, I’d been slowly (oh, so slowly) emerging from my personal Great Depression (the 5th in as many years) and found myself clinging for something, anything, to hold onto before the next tide of sadness swept me away. 

By then, I’d identified my own cynicism as both the cause and effect of my worldview. I saw things as negative, and so they were. 

But naming a problem and solving it are two very different things. The answers, I was sure, would be in these conversations. 

In October of 2020, I asked a tattoo artist in LA to design something based on Rilke’s “live the questions” quote.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

She created a landscape scene of a fox on his back—legs all cozy, cuddled in the tall grass—reading a book. And from that book emerged an orange-dotted question mark that half-circled the moon.

I was admitted to hospital after flexing too hard for this photo. Also, hi Robert

But knowing something, even having it permanently inked onto your body, is different than experiencing the truth of it. 

Some truths are meant to be forgotten so we may taste the sweetness of realizing them anew.

I felt a deep peace after each conversation. Not because of anything said, but because the conversation itself was the answer. It’s hard to be cynical when you’re connecting with someone. 

My hope for you is that being a part of these conversations (for what is reading if not participation?) will rocket launch you the same galaxy of feelings—freedom, hope, connection, belonging, sublimity—they brought me. 

Thank you to

Sari Azout

,

gabriel

and Sublime for entrusting me with this, and most of all thank you to

Yancey Strickler

, Anjan Katta,

Leandra Medine Cohen

,

Adam Mastroianni

,

Douglas Rushkoff

,

Isabel

,

Melanie Masarin

,

Mason Currey

Without you all, I’d be a lost fox. With you, I’m still a lost fox, but one who isn’t so lonely. 

---

Whoa, Vol. 1

If you’re into deep, vulnerable conversations with the internet’s best creatives and builders, these pages will make you feel energized, inspired, connected, human, sublime.

Featuring Sublime’s own Alex Dobrenko in conversation with:

• Anjan Katta of Daylight Computer on building humane tech without losing your humanity
   

• Douglas Rushkoff
  on the case for not knowing—mysticism, machines, and why the future is human
   

• Yancey Strickler
  of Kickstarter and Metalabel on escaping the algorithm to build a creative career that actually sustains you
   

• Leandra Medine Cohen
  on starting over after Man Repeller’s public fall from grace
   

• Melanie Masarin
  of Drink Ghia on how to build a brand, the costs of authenticity, and the realities of founder life
   

• Mason Currey
  on all the ways artists, himself included, have balanced making art with making a living
   

• Isabel
  on what happens when you let go of cynicism and trust yourself enough to be positive
   

• Adam Mastroianni
  on what’s making us all so unhappy and what to do about it
   

• Plus a special conversation between Alex and

  Sari Azout
  where, among other things, we talk about why Sari resents her parents, whether bad business metrics bring her down, how her children would describe her, why being optimistic but dissatisfied is the road to progress, and perhaps the hottest take in the entire zine: how Sari feel about naps

All purchases include links to private podcast and YouTube feeds of every conversation!!!