I did a lot of stuff in 2025 that I really wanted to do in 2024, or maybe the ideas of what I wanted to accomplish started brewing then. Either way as this year winds down, I can firmly say I ended up on the positive side of my middle aged psychosocial developmental goal of generativity vs stagnation. Shout out me, shout out Finals, shout out this years’s contributors kimdollars1, Nick Viagas, Atoosa Moinzadeh, CB Rucker, Tyler Burston, and Jaiyn, and shout out our interview subjects and coconspirators at the live events.

Use film photos in blog posts

Atoosa came through on Goya Gumbani and Theravada stories this year, and the homie CB did too shooting his first photo mission of 1Alkebulan. The film-on-blog aesthetic is something I love, and have done prior on Finals with Enumclaw and JWords stories, where I gave them disposables. I think it looks cool, emphasizes the “moment in time,” and creates a future nostalgic impact with some analog flavor in an otherwise digital realm.

Buy SAS shoes

San Antonio Shoemakers, which I believe manufacture in New Orleans, make Medicare diabetes type shoes that I can’t get enough of. They’re like American Mephistos. Sort of. This year I bought the first Body Of Work collab (grails), the Ambassador, the Amigo, and the Journey velcro. I even bought an SAS hat. All used, mind you.

Buy fitteds

Bought a navy Braves fitted, the first fitted in about 20 years, and then bought Cardinals and Orioles 80s deadstock ones. Forgot how hot they are. Good winter hats.

Not-write (more in editor role these days)

Like half Finals stories were written by someone else this year, while I guided things, connected dots, crossed Ts and dotted Is. I find less and less reason to inflict my taste and opinion as I get older, and more opportunities to pass the mic. This is developing naturally, and sometimes, makes it so when I do write, I enjoy it more.

Make music

Dropped a solo EP with Tomu DJ producing and a grip of edits on the Finals bandcamp, plus three collab beats with Laron.

Start a new night with Laron

What started as “Let The Music Play” morphed into “Generator” as I teamed up with Laron for lineups that draw from our existing and expanding worlds, while giving us a cozy record store back room to DJ in. It’s all real organic and we’ve had legends like kimdollars1, Elise, Tomu DJ, MIKE, and Niontay perform, and the next one 12/14 has Jaiyn and Tony Seltzer. It’s free for the culture and so far, so fun.

Wear Eighteen East more as a shirt brand than pants brand

This is something I noticed. I sold like four pairs of 18 East pants this year and bought a couple shirts. One of the two brands I buy new besides shoes and hats.

Continue wearing Earth\Studies pants

They keep getting better. Best pants since Errolson did ACG.

Watching music videos on my bigass TV

I love me some YouTube. A lot of artists in NY like Shawny Binladen seem to only drop there, or drop there first, so there’s always something to watch. This years music video of the year was a two way tie between the NTS Oklou ice skating live EP, and MIKE’s Tiny Desk. Speaking of, 2026 goals: interview Savannah Harris.