Ivanka Trump 40th Birthday Photos, Nick Saban's 70th Party & Weirdo Shows Up At OutKick 360's Studio
Odds & ends on an ugly weather day here where 1-2 more inches of rain is expected to fall
• Brent P. in Carmel, IN needs your help with Halloween costume ideas. Let your creativity flow here. I don't know how to put together a custom "Let's Go Brandon" costume, but it would probably be a hit:
Seeing the kids in your Screencaps of Trump and Clinton was awesome. I have a Halloween costume party to attend Saturday night and was wondering if you could summons some ideas from the Screencaps community. In my pre-kids era my wife and I always dressed up together in costumes that were sexual in nature. (i.e. I a leaf and she a leaf blower, or she a brick and I a bricklayer) It was 6 or 7 years of epic costumes.
The party was thrown by the same person every year with the same party goers. Everyone in attendance could not wait until we showed up to see what we would be. Now that I am 53 I need some ideas for my wife and I that won’t gross out my four kids. I figure if you put it out there tomorrow we could have some good ideas Saturday morning.
I think I need to get in touch with Indy Daryl. He sounds like my kind of guy.
• Mike T. in Idaho is back to his safe space. Wednesday night, Mike lit up his fire pit for the first time since his big cross-country trip. Look at how peaceful this is. I picture the Ts (I know Cindy T. is right there) enjoying a drink, smiling, thinking back to their massive trip and nodding in unison at how fortunate they are to have a successful life that affords nights like this one.
• Mike T. tells me he celebrated returning home with an In & Out Double Double Animal Style:
• John S. is one of those dads who knows great content out of a kid. Thursday's post about how my son is now pumping out prose triggered a memory for John. He writes:
Your son's story reminded me about an illustrated story my son wrote in 3rd grade. It's called how to kill the Snowman. It may be a bit pic-heavy for screencaps, but I thought you would enjoy it. Feel free to share.
John adds:
Oh, he's 19 years old now.
• Paul T. wrote earlier this month looking for advice for his stepson, a University of Texas-Austin sophomore who loves sports and journalism on how to help him get his foot in the door here at OutKick.
Is there maybe an internship or some way he may be able to give the point of view of a college student?
I tell pretty much every single person who has ever asked me this question: write, write, write and write more.
Start a blog. Write on it consistently. Find your voice. Hammer away on hot topics. Fun topics. Topics that others think are weird. Topics that the mainstreamers won't touch. It will not take long to learn whether writing is in the blood. This is the same advice I've seen Dave Portnoy from Barstool give dozens and dozens of times to those who think writing is their calling.
Here's how I got my start in the business: I bought a URL, spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in 2007 teaching myself basic coding to make sure advertising code worked properly. Then I made connections with people who knew how to do technical coding. At the same time, I was working a full-time job.
My schedule back in those days:
6 a.m. - 10 a.m. -- produced content for Busted Coverage, the site I founded via a $10 URL
11 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. -- my full-time job at a newspaper
7:30 p.m. or so - midnight -- more content for Busted Coverage
I did this for four years straight while finding time to develop a relationship that turned into marriage before the site was purchased by a media company out of New York City and I was able to make the Internet my full-time career in 2011. I quit my newspaper job the night the site sold. I walked into the office, cleared my desk, and walked right back out the door. Peace out.
And then I did the same thing when Clay called and said he wanted me as part of the OutKick reboot. Peace out. I loved Busted Coverage for everything it did for my family and my career, but after selling it in 2011, I was no longer married to it. Business is business.
Here's what I'm willing to do: I'll give Paul's stepson an assignment and if he's willing to accept the challenge, I'll run it right here on Screencaps. I want him to document a Longhorns tailgate. I want to see photos. Show me "Let's Go Brandon" signs. Tell Screencaps readers something interesting. Get a food recipe from a tailgate. Show readers speciality drinks. Show us crazy tailgating setups.
This is a basic assignment that goes straight to my heart. We'll see what happens.
• Thursday was a day of reflection about my career. I was on a group text telling old stories from my travels created via this career and how none of it would've been remotely possible if I hadn't started a blog.
One memory that sticks in my head is from 2018 when I was up in the newest Goodyear Blimp flying over Akron as part of a media event. You don't just buy your way up into the Blimp. Goodyear doesn't sell tickets to go up. It took years of connections in this business that led up to the moment.
Here was the son of a backhoe operator and a secretary who figured out a career path that led to flying around in the iconic Blimp. I sat there in the gondola with Ray Evernham and my buddy Paul taking it all in.
Anything is possible in this country. I'm proof of that.
Blimp pilots know they have one of the greatest jobs in the world. I asked.
• Have a great Halloween weekend. Remember to drop costume suggestions for Brent. As for the Kinsey household, we're heading north to the Henry Ford Museum for its Halloween extravaganza.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com