Baseball, Optimism, and Giving a Shit
Newsletter #013
This blog was adapted from my monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
Happy Opening Day! It’s the first day of baseball season, which is my favorite national holiday:
Did you watch the World Baseball Classic? It’s been a while since I tuned in to the tournament and I absolutely loved how much energy there was in every single game (especially compared to standard spring training matchups). Check out this list of the top moments from the Classic, including: Salvy Perez as team captain of the Venezuelan champions, a pitcher that is also a full-time electrical engineer from Czechia, and Vinnie Pasquantino installing an espresso machine in Italy’s dugout for home run celebrations.
-Happy 50 years to Tom Petty’s song, American Girl, which didn’t even hit the top 100 when it was released in 1976. It was the last song of that first album, the absolute best from The Heartbreakers, by a long shot.
-“The whole purpose of this… is to actually meet real people in my community, meet other businesses… to build community.” This dad bought an old hot rod to serve coffee on the side of the road. It’s called Camino Caffeino.
-I like to say, “Optimism is an opportunity.” In the world we live in, I think if you are kind and generous and reliable it actually helps you stand out and find success. Paul Worthington shares a similar theory in his newsletter: “The cultural mood is one of suspicion, extraction fatigue, and a deep yearning for somebody, or something, that actually gives a shit.”
-“Marketing isn’t hype or hustle or scamming. It’s not spam or manipulation either. We already have words for those things. Marketing is the generous act of showing up with a true story that helps people get to where they’d like to go.” — Seth Godin, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead
-Hot Take: Restaurants should never use puns as product names on their menus! The “Do-It-Yourself Meg Ryan” (breakfast combo w/ hash browns). The “Don’t Go Bacon My Heart” (bacon cheeseburger with smoky garlic sauce). The “Baaa’garita” (margarita at a restaurant with a goat mascot). First of all, they’re never that funny. Second, they’re not descriptive enough for me to scan the items and find the things I like. Third, it actually forces me read the things I hate. And fourth, you’re making every customer feel stupid when they have to say those things out loud.
-You may have learned that I’m a big fan of Subway Takes. And you have no idea how delighted I was to find KC Streetcar Takes on Instagram!
-I loved this thoughtful tour of New York design agency, Pentagram, with Andrea Trabucco-Campos. In some ways, I think that Hot Dog! is the anti-Pentagram (small studio, middle America, hyper-local, not precious about aRt And DEsIGn, barely profitable 👀) but boy did I vibe with Andrea’s stance on collecting design books for inspiration rather than relying on the internet. I frequently flip open my books about mascots or bowling alleys or Route 66 road signs and think, You can’t find this shit on Pinterest!
-It’s spring break season, so enjoy this 1931 home movie about a “Motor trip to Florida.”
-Native American botanist and author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, reminds us not to forget our responsibility to Mother Nature: “Individuals far wiser than I have said that we get the government we deserve. That may be true. But the maples, our most generous of benefactors, the most responsible of citizens, do not deserve our government. They deserve you and me speaking up on their behalf. To quote our town councilwoman, ‘Show up at the damn meeting.’”
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Thanks for reading, enjoy the sounds and smells of spring, and go Royals! 🤙
Justin
Big win: We put our name on the door!
My new buddy, Molly, made a timelapse of us installing our logo on the front door of the studio!