Hi! My name is Josh, this me blog.
The dance of pleasing the social media algorithims of the world’s biggest companies, whilst being beat to death by strangers with their comments displeased me so now I’m here.
I wish I were the kind of person who could just live without broadcasting. But there’s an animal inside me — right down in the marrow — that keeps asking ‘can you see me?’ and silence has never once soothed it.
My 2023 challenge is to get really good at modern search engine optimisation, which is pretty different to 2019's SEO. So I've got a new project using Superstash, and it's a celebrant directory. How original, Josh.
You look at this photo and think it's some kind of grand cathedral in Rome. It's a storage room in Ravello.
Every week, sometimes every day, Britt and my inbox is filled with couples worrying about what happens if it rains, or if it's too hot, or if something something. All valid worries, but they don't stress us out too much because we always find a way. We'll always find a storage room on the Amalfi Coast that also just happens to be an epic location for your ceremony.
That's what we do. We look for solutions, not problems.
Any chimp can find a problem. We find a storage room, move all the things being stored, and then walk you into a sacred place where you can exchange vows intimately, in private, with joy and peace.
This is Raimie and Kelly on the Amalfi Coast in Villa Cimbrone with the Elopement Collective and Joey & Jase.
16 years ago today the way I viewed the world changed completely. I can still remember seeing that little lump of plastic and metal in Steve Jobs's hand, watching a video stream, and thinking that everything changed. Today that remains ever so.
I believe that you can measure the meaning of something by imagining taking it away. What would life be like if we didn't have it? Like earlier today I mused to a friend that if a certain media property disappeared, no one would notice.
Imagine a world without the iPhone. You might point to Android phones, but 16 years ago today the team developing Android 'started over' and despite the common argument that iPhone copies Android's leadership, on that day, Android took iPhone's lead.
Even comparing the two, Android was just a software platform under development. iPhone was hardware and software. Not long after it became a software development platform and the world as we know it today changed completely. Services you take for granted were enabled that day.
16 years is nothing special, but every year when this date rolls around, and the subsequent anniversaries, I reflect how years later we've not experienced a tectonic shift like that since.
"Make something wonderful and put it out there." You sure did, Apple. You sure did.
When you elope in a far-away destination you’re choosing a very different vibe and moment than a domestic elopement. It firmly places your ceremony - the beginning of your marriage - in the middle of an adventure. Between customs, packing, flights, delays, transfers, language barriers, different foods and weather, it’s impossible to not revel in the moment as you take a deep breath of that fresh international air and exchange vows with me and the @elopementcollective in some epic location like Italy, Iceland, or anywhere in-between.
I’m up for a European wedding adventure any day of the week, but in June and July 2024 I’ll be there with The Elopement Collective plus House of Lucie and Jason Corroto.
More info available in my email my name at my last name dot co or withers.co/europe.
This is me with Stuart and Chelsea outside of some epic villa in Tuscany, Italy, with Jason Lucas a few years ago. Epic trip.
I have a long and beautiful history of catching up with friends in weird and wonderful places. I just had lunch with someone I’m pretty sure I met in the first month or so of my radio career, about 20 years ago, in a Mexican restaurant in Franklin, Tennessee.
The rubbish being pushed by Instagram Reels is astonishingly bad. Jacob Sweet unveils some of the nonsense in the New Yorker.
Currently reading: Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker 📚
I’m only two pages into this book and already I’m sensing something important. Good parenting isn’t the theatre most think it is. It’s in the substance, not the theatre.
Elderly lady walking her dog with a Bluetooth speaker blaring Li’l Jon’s 2002 banger, Get Low. Stay cool, Nashville.
Dear the United States of America,
I would like to submit my application to become your house's Speaker. I'm of the understanding than you do not currently have a speaker, and you are in need of a speaker. It just so happens that speaking is one of the few things on this planet that I am really good at.
Attached is photographic evidence of me at to Kirsten and Todd's wedding speaking quite well, you will notice them as much as I speak really good, I also slide into the background of the story if the photographer uses the correct aperture.
For references, please see my Google and Facebook page reviews, where I maintain an almost five star rating, with the exception of a few random spam accounts that have left me one star reviews without any reason.
It is possible that me being an Australian currently residing in Mexico may be an issue, but for the next week, I am still in Tennessee. If you are willing to give me a green card, I am willing to speak at your house.
I am also available for weddings, parties, anything.
Yours sincerely, the next speaker of the United States of America, Josh "Married By Josh" Withers.
Tasted fine Kentucky Angel’s Envy bourbon with a Great Indiana Man™️
Roadtrip to meet an old friend for the first time
Naval in Don’t Rely on Credibility Stamps:
"It’s a priesthood. You’re only allowed to say what the priests have approved, and you can only say that if you are a priest, and the priests get to decide who’s a priest."
Better times
This nugget from Cory Muscara is sitting well with my soul today: "We often need to get out of alignment with the rest of the world to get back into alignment with ourselves."
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This bloke was just chilling but when he saw I had a camera he came and stood next to his sign as if he was at an animal trade show manning a booth
Monkey business
Live footage of me trying to find a better deal on insurance by comparing deals available on the market
Breaking news: not all flamingos are pink
My favourite Apple Watch feature is New Year’s Day
I've assembled a top 10 list of top 10 lists I'm paying attention to this year:
1-10: .
Noah Smith in The internet wants to be fragmented:
"Perhaps someday the human race will be ready to become one collective consciousness. But the experiment of the 2010s shows that this day is not today. Let the internet once more be an escape — a place where you can find your people and be happy. Let us learn to speak a thousand different languages once again. Let the Tower of Babel fall."
Neighbourhood fireworks > City provided fireworks
Water damage and damage electrical damage to the house were housesitting thanks to frozen water pipes over Christmas means we’re bringing in New Year’s Eve with CNN via MacBook. Hilariously the internet just died.
Vale 2022
Being in Tennessee for New Year’s Eve this year has really revealed to me How annoying it must be to be an American with Australian friends. You wake up here to blurry fireworks photos from Oz then everyone goes to bed and it’s still half a day until NYE here.
Reflecting back over 2022 the one thing I can say for sure is that it’s been 21 years and I still haven’t forgotten about Dre
As lovely as it is, TikTok is candy from Chinese spies and really ought to be banned purely on national security reasons. More at daringfireball.net by John @Gruber.
Another day, another Airbnb, another part of Tennessee, another sunset. Seems cyclical.
Ted Gioia documents the story of Barnes and Noble’s rebirth and regrowth:
“Daunt refused to play this game. He wanted to put the best books in the window. He wanted to display the most exciting books by the front door. Even more amazing, he let the people working in the stores make these decisions. This is James Daunt’s super power: He loves books.”
Boring kids
A Squirrel’s tale
So a white Christmas in Nashville is pretty cool
Old mate out on the back fence of our Airbnb in Nashville this morning is a bit cold.
Merry Christmas from The Withers, Tennessee edition.
Please let it be true, that 2023 is the year of RSS. Death to big tech running our conversations, our views, our beliefs, our relationships and our careers.
That cold front hits Franklin, Tennessee and its -18 degrees Celsius but feels like negative 30.
So so cold
Where you from? Australians: Australia. Americans: Town, State, GPS Coordinates, local landmarks, name of their neighbour.
I’ve been in Nashville less than 24 hours and the Christmas miracles have already begun
It is well
and with that the 2022 wedding season comes to an end
I’ve almost escaped Australia, just waiting for that delay to Dallas to stop being a delay
