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Just did The Modern Rogue Interview with Bill Oakley of The Simpsons fame!  Did you know that before he created the Steamed Hams sketch, he help catch murderers?  That is a REAL SENTENCE I just wrote!  This was an amazing episode.  I’m transferring footage now! 

Yo!  I did my full, live stage magic show in Daytona Beach, FL a couple nights ago, and I'm going to edit the whole thing on the live stream.  Tune in if you want to see the edit, and remember Patrons get the whole show for FREEEEEEEE! 

Setting up for the shows at the Founders day Picnic! Patrons get the whole event on livestream!  Patreon.com/modernrogue if you wanna see Jomo and the Possum Posse (guy on a buffalo), Matt and Mattingly’s Ice cream social, comedy and more! 

Wow... That's neat!  Never had an "A" rating before... even during peak early  ‪@scamschool‬  days! 

Still a bit surreal.  Question:  should we do more of testing stuff like that one short?  Or does that read as too needy?  Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to chase trends, but if people really like one aspect of what we do, I’d seriously consider leaning into it. 🤷‍♀️

Thoughts? 

Holy moly!  Welcome, new rogues!!

I know this happens from time to time, but wow is it crazy when a short pops like this.  I think yesterday was the single biggest spike in traffic in 19 years of YouTubing.

Man, I’m old!  Hah.

Anyway, welcome aboard new folks.  Hey long-timers:  what say we do the gentlemanly thing and respond with thoughtful replies to new commenters.  I’ll pin any good examples I catch in the act 😇

-Brian 

Heya rogues!  Some of you know I've been posting ad-free, 4K-remastered "Modern Rogue Perfect Editions" over on  ‪@scamschool‬  , and some of the commenters understandably are really, really hungry for *new* stuff. I ended up writing this response to a comment that felt more like a proper post, which I'm making a poll since I don't think YouTube loves just random essays out of nowhere.  Thought you'd like to read it, too.



[[Insert_Wonderful_Fan_Comment_Asking_For_More_New_Stuff_Here]]



My response:



Yep.  



It's hard to get pumped about cleaned-up older content, but like Carl Sagan said:  "If you wish to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."  



 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiX... 



All projects go through predictable stages of expansion and contraction, and then expansion into the next evolution.  After landing the plane on the 5-year journey through the total solar eclipse (thank you, Founders!), I had to walk back all the way to the fundamentals.



I had to force myself to learn stuff that I hadn't had to worry about in years, like "where are all the episodes located? On what drives?  Where are all the logins? How many services are we double-purchasing?"  And "how much of this equipment is old, broken, antiquated, redundant and just taking up space?"  And "it's been 15 years since I edited things.  What's changed?  Do we even need physical media on our cameras?  How much of all of this is now silly to have humans still doing?"



Essentially I've had to re-learn and re-design every stage of the production pipeline.  And that means "Undercover Boss"-style, actually performing every single job of every single person that had been standing between you the viewer, and me the creator.  There were just too many steps in-between us for years and years, and it was long overdue that I fix that.



I know it's not very exciting to hear about data backups of hundreds of terabytes of footage, setting up systems with robot cameras, configuring automated systems that let me conceive of an episode during my 6am run, and have it published by lunch, and so on...



Those are all the parts that are too boring to watch.  We're only just now getting to the more fun parts that make for good livestreams (BTW, those are really fun hangs... I'd encourage you to give them a try in the MR channel).


We went nearly a decade building brittle patchwork systems on top of brittle patchwork systems, all while my real time body had to be out giving lectures and talks, performing magic shows, hosting podcasts, workshops, etc. etc.  And now it's time to get back to the shortest possible distance between me and you.



Basically, we're 6 months into a literal once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a better storytelling engine that can run faster and better for the rest of my life, and while it's not earth-shattering to see old ads vanish and previous content cleaned up, I hope you'll keep peeking in so you can catch that lightning-in-a-bottle moment when the Wheel of Ka turns, and stuff catches fire once again.



-Brian



PS:  One small ask? Get on that email list, and very little of this will remain hidden from you :-)  In fact, let's make that the poll question!  Are you on the email list? 

Studio’s coming along nicely!  Now to clean up around here… 

I'm asking this for science, so you have to tell the truth.  (Actually, this helps a lot for getting a sense of which audience is where)...  --QUESTION:  Did you know that I have another channel called  ‪@scamschool‬  (Scam Nation)? 

Hey gang— had a short delay, so the WGC season 1 live listen will be at 3pm central time while I drive back to austin!  Cool?