The Transformer - Scott Mann

Why Yellow Matters is about communicating. Writing. Deciding. Understanding. Thinking things. Deciding things. Writing things. It is about brevity and balance. Cleverness and chaos and clarity. The hard things and the great things and opening yourself up to the zone. But most simply, it’s about taking the time to ask why. It is about how important it is sometimes, often, to take the time to think about what you’re saying and doing and why that matters to you and other people. Other human beings in the world. I didn’t set out to write this book. I just had one idea one day that I thought was important and I started writing it down.

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In this special Christmas episode, we take a look at a short section of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that never seems to make the movie. It's a literary-cinematic montage where Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present take wing across countryside and sea to get a deeper glimpse into the working persons holiday celebration during the industrial revolution.

Shane MacGowan left behind scores of friends and loved ones. And scores more fans and admirers from afar. And some of us who didn’t fully understand how important the songs are to us until now. Now that he’s gone. Shane gave us all a gift. Of poetry. Of friendship. Truly, and maybe more toward the end of his life, of love. A gift for which we all should be grateful.

Sometimes those things are physical, product-like things you can hold in your hands. Other times, those things are services or businesses or in the case of what we’re going to talk about today, experiences.

Things that you live through. Things that impact you in a sensory way. Things you can remember and take with you always.

I feel bookended this summer. We lost Walter back in July. In a rush. An emergency. Unexpected. This one was different. A known-known. He was old. A beautiful old boy. And ill. We knew it. But he kept on going. And loving life. But we knew it was coming. And it wasn't any easier knowing that.

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They say you don't get to choose your family, but you can choose your friends. And sometimes, out of the blue, unexpectedly, you find yourself needing to say goodbye. And it hurts. Deeply. Dog people get it. Not-dog people don't. But for my money, there is no truer, no more caring, more loving friend than your dog. We had to say goodbye to Walter this week. And I wanted to share everything that meant to me, with you.

Ashley is a friend and a colleague. We've worked together. She's a mom of three kids. A wife of a husband who is a healthcare professional. And she is a writer. And an entrepreneur. And newly a podcaster. And what she does is help people, particularly women, learn and grow into their own freelance writing businesses. We talked about a lot of different things from where her family comes from to how people assume things based on her name or background. We also talked about truth. And journalism. And why it remains important as a vocation even in today's world. Maybe because of today's world.

Breaking news in the golf world: the PGA Tour announced yesterday that they would, in a complete 180 from their previous moral position, merge their operations with the renegade LIV golf tour funded by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this short Hot Type episode, we take a brief look at what's going on, what they're proposing to remake golf into and what it means to those of us who care about golf and international sports.

A special, solo episode of The Forge where I walk through a list of 100 things I believe. It's an exercise in paying attention and being intentional about the things you do and knowing why you choose to do them. Might not be a bad exercise for you all to try, too.