You ask me anything / me ask you anything (YAMA/MAYA #4)

Ask me stuff I honesty dare you to ask me something please I would love it seriously I need this

Welcome one and all! And frankly, also big welcome to the many numbers between ‘one’ and the lesser known ‘all.’

Especially big welcome to three, five, and seventeen.

To all the other numbers, please do not send in lengthy diatribes (or, god forbid, triatribes) outlining why you deserved a welcome. The very fact that you’re writing in, on a weekday no less, tells me everything I need to know.

Woof. Anyway, we’re all here for the once-a-moon-cycle YAMA/MAYA!

how this works

• You Ask Me Anything

• Me Answer

• Me Ask You Anything

• You Answer (optional)

Usually, there’s a theme or topic for YAMA/MAYA, but not this month. This month it’s a FFA (Free For All, not 2 factor authentication).

Ask what you want. Hell, don’t ask anything at all. Just say some stuff and I’ll respond in kind. Or in mean, if you want.

There’s a lot of new people here and I wanna get to know y’all so if you’re one of the billions of new paid subscribers, I hope you comment / ask something / say hi!

Some sample questions:

1. Are you…okay? We worry.

2. Seen any good movies lately? (spoiler: I have, and I will tell you what they are if you ask)

3. What’s the #1 tip you’d give new substack writers for Growth and Success?

4. Would you ever publish a book?? We would love that, please do! Would you (genuinely asking).

5. what’s your ideal way to spend a saturday afternoon and if you say ‘work’ i’m gonna kick you

7. tell us a story from tinseltown but plz don’t make it one of your sad ones where you fail no one wants to read that shit

8. What’s the ideal BPMs in an essay (see below for deets)

TO THE COMMENTS, LET’S GOOOOOO!

Quick thought on BPMs

Here at BAT we talk a lot about an essay’s BPM - bangers per minute, aka how many jokes you try to put in per minute of essay. Too high of a BPM, and you overwhelm the reader with goofs, like the first paragraph of this post. (That paragraph is a case study in off the charts BPM. It’s frankly unsafe, but sometimes, it’s all I’ve got.)

Multiple doctors have looked at my propensity to try way too hard, aka have a BPM that’s way too high and illegal in six countries, and they all say it’s for the same reason — FONEBPM (fear of not enough bangers per minute).

Overcompensation, they also call it.

With pieces I really care about and love I often spend a lot of time in editing parsing down the BPM so as to make stuff, ya know, readable, and allow the story / feelings / vibe to shine through (SPM, FPM, VPM).

None of this is an artform. It’s science. I am teaching a workshop.

Thank you, I love you, and good night (its 5:09am here so it’s still night).

ALSO this is a great YAMA/MAYA topic - nothing is off limits! Ask me about BPMs I dare you!

Tell ‘em what they've won!

Posting YAMA/MAYA questions is for paid subscribers only (otherwise we’d break Substack’s servers again). But that’s not all you get! You also get access to the stuff I’ve written Behind The Paywall (my new collab album w Metallica minus the drummer guy who hates napster, out next fall).

This includes…