The random post generated #43 from October 27th last year. The newsletter had already moved from the first several layouts into what it looks like today. Links and commentary on news stories from media, music and tech. In this issue, I listed a few of the top-shelf television shows I watched in 2022, and finished the letter with a flashback of an MTV show called 120 Minutes.

Over the year I increased the links to external sources based on the commentary of each report and section. Several icons and design elements in the newsletter's layout have also undergone changes. I skipped the Subtitle on this one, too?! The Substack default subscriber CTA was in use; I changed that later, and I attribute many of those changes to the daily publishing ritual that forces you to see the things you want to change every day. The newsletter made it past its first 30 days and was improving.

Below is the copy of the original post, enjoy!

Big brands, big shows, big thoughts, what more could you want on a Thursday?

Heading into the 2022 shopping season could be interesting. Financial concerns loom significant, and the uncertainty of 2023 could lead to some shrink-inflation on the gift-giving list. Here’s a list of the Top 100 Most Valuable Brands in 2022. Feel free to use this when digging through your mutual funds or figuring out if the shop you plan to get your gifts from is on the list. Better yet, print it out and throw darts at it for assistance. Darts will take the decision-making process into a more random game.

We used to reduce our decision-making during the holiday, but waiting until the last day to buy all the gifts. When you do that, you are left with whatever is left on the shelf!

Reading the news, listening to music, and writing exciting and informative newsletters can be a labor of love. When we find time to relax in front of the screen, we will report on shows with excellent writing and interesting characters.

As a team, we like stories above everything else; bonus points if we get to the end of a series without knowing where it’s going. See Severance on Apple TV for some of that! Here’s what we are watching.

For a team of NON-binger’s, any show that grabs us enough to binge is worthy of further review and recommendation. The last binge-worthy show we watched was Stranger Things. We are halfway through The Peripheral, but it’s starting to head into the binge category for us. One part is dystopian, and another part-time travel; the show has great characters and a good mix of reality touched with future tech. It’s currently available on Amazon Prime.

Also, on Amazon Prime, Counterpart is a mystery with many bizarre twists and turns. It stars J.K. Simmons, who proves he can hold a show or a movie. The story includes a parallel dimension, a way to cross over to a similar extent, and a counterpart of yourself on the other side. The trailer will do more justice, and we give it a big Shout!

[Music Notes]

If you listened to music in the 80s, it might have been a mix between Def Leppard and The Cure. More metal on one side and alternative on the other. Maybe it was Motley Crue, Guns and Roses, and Skid Row. You can find punk accents in all of those bands; you can find interviews of all of those bands where they talk about the influence of punk on their rounds.

Listen to Livewire from Motley Crue, Paradise City from GnR, and Youth Gone Wild from Skid Row; all have the fast tempo, power chords, and punchy lyrics of punk rock. They also had talent, and whether laced with punk or not, talent wins. In the 80s, as some of that talent drained or the bands mentioned above were living the spoils of superstardom, it was getting harder to find that talent or get new music out of some great bands. This is also in the land before time, before satellite radio, streaming, and bringing up any song you could think about by asking Siri or Alexa.

If you wanted alternative music, you could watch 120 Minutes on MTV, or metal; you could watch Headbangers Ball. If you were into alternative music, you had limited programming on MTV and maybe a college radio station, depending on where you lived. A lull may have led to the explosion of Nirvana and Nevermind in the 90s, a reasonable assumption or a perfect storm; to each their own.

Let this one itch your brain for a bit; coming soon!

More New Stuff:

Secret Links to Cool Stuff:

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Where the story goes.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us!

With A Shout Team