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November 18, 2025 25 mins

Dead-of-night energy. Freezer-burned ice cream. A sore mouth that won’t shut up—and somehow the most productive studio session in weeks. We come back from a break with a simple promise: new music on the last Friday of every month, starting with a double single called Get a Grift. The plan only works if the workflow does, so we unpack why a gifted Roland workstation beats a distraction-heavy laptop, how hardware limits can boost creativity, and why two upcoming instrumental tracks lean into jagged rhythms and haunting motifs.

The conversation swerves, as late nights do, into the drag of headline noise and the fog around high-profile cases. Instead of feeding speculation, we take the tension and make story: first, a surreal tour-van scene that seeds the song title Lacerated Halo; then a tight, noir-tinged short story about an agent, an island, and the slow echo of institutional failure. Fiction becomes a filter for hard topics—less outrage, more clarity—and a reminder that art can hold complexity without amplifying chaos.

Between riffs, we talk focus, habit, and the small rituals that keep a solo creator moving when life gets messy. A monthly cadence sets the bar. A hardware DAW reduces decision fatigue. Pain and constraint shape cleaner choices. And a shoutout roll call of listeners from Detroit to Osaka proves the weird, stubborn magic of showing up. Hit play if you want a window into process, a few strange stories, and a practical roadmap for making more with less. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review—then tell me what tool keeps you creating when the night won’t quiet down.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
Hey little guy.

(00:01):
Hey little hey hey little guywhat are you doing?
What are you doing with thatdude?

SPEAKER_03 (00:10):
Welcome back to the show.
This is unconceivable.

SPEAKER_04 (00:22):
I've took in taken a hiatus from from from from
podcasting since the last timethat I did it, which was on
Halloween.
Um so since then what ishappened?

(00:48):
Well, I've got like this gashnot gash, but I've got in uh
it's and it's a possibleinfection.
On so here's the thing.

(01:11):
Here's my um Spiel Schweel.
Is it Spiel or Schwiel?
Um But before that, I want totalk about um my new release

(01:34):
schedule.
I will be trying to releasemusic every last Friday of the
month.
And uh yeah, every last Fridayof the month, my new trick.

(01:54):
Um, it's like a double single,it's gonna be called Get a
Grift, because you gotta get aGrift.
Um and uh shoot.
Shoot.
Um so I've got like this gash onmy mouth.

(02:19):
Uh not a gash on it's a gash apossible infection in my mouth.
It might just be a canker sore,but so I had two my top two
wisdom teeth removed, and Icouldn't get the bottom two

(02:40):
removed because I lost insuranceat the ripe age of health
insurance at the ripe age oftwenty two.
So after that, I've kind of beenin a whirlwind to find a way to

(03:03):
finance.
I I'm like literally like I amlike stumbling over my words
because like this gash in mymouth.
So we're work here's the moralstory, we're working on it.
In next episode, I might evenhave like a torn-up mouth, and
it'll be really fun.

(03:24):
Um but my next two tracks arelike wildly instrumental tracks.
Um and I'm working on I've beenI've been making like a lot of
weird stuff in this Rolandvirtual daw that I have that my

(03:50):
uncle gave to me before he died.
And I've just been working outlike these ideas like in the the
no daw I mean it it it is a likephysical daw, but just working
out ideas without like not in myMacBook because like when I use

(04:13):
my MacBook I like will getdistracted very easily and find
I'm just in like there'ssomething I don't know, there's
something about like looking atGarage Man and my Mac that like
really makes me feel like weirdand like depressed, I guess, but

(04:35):
I don't know.
Um and I have like this idea forjust like a name of something
that's like near the mouth.
But recently I I don't know if Imentioned this.
I did I don't know if I saidthis on the last episode.

(04:57):
I did get a switch too.
The day has finally came.
I I probably did mention this atsome point, but the um the I bit
I got Cyberpunk on it and youknow people say it is not like

(05:21):
the best version of the game.
But it it definitely is like thecoolest version of the
game, 'cause it's just like youknow, I don't have to sell the
switch to anyone.
You get it.
You do you do it on the TV, youdo it and not on the TV.

(05:45):
Um But yeah, the the EpcineFiles Do you want to hear more
about the Epcine Files?
Do ya?
I bet you do I bet you do Yousicker You sick little uh Yeah

(06:18):
So yeah you know Um It's justlike impending doom gradual
threat of war Democracy iscrumbling basically like not

(06:48):
brick by brick, but probablylike particle by particle daily
Um violence issues and stuff butall that is what you came here

(07:19):
to escape There's somethingweird about doing this at like
the dead of not the dead ofnight, but just like in the
chatters of the night um haveyou seen these 302 documents?

SPEAKER_01 (07:54):
Have you done I have asked my FBI agent to review the
entirety of the FD files?

SPEAKER_04 (08:01):
I'm watching Asmund Gold and Eaton Ice Cream.

SPEAKER_01 (08:15):
So is is the loophole here reporting that
you're searching that these uhvictims are credible that the
302s maybe didn't producecredible statements that arise
of probable costs?

SPEAKER_04 (08:40):
Listen to the honesty in this catch.

SPEAKER_01 (08:43):
They reviewed all that, yes.
Name the people who victimizedthem?

unknown (08:53):
I I personally know what the FBI has.

SPEAKER_04 (08:56):
Who's uh FBI?

unknown (08:59):
You gotta get your shit together, man.

SPEAKER_04 (09:02):
The ice cream it's kind of freezer burnt.

unknown (09:05):
You you gotta look figure out who it is.
Like this guy, and here's what'ssad.

SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
Am I the only person that had like very, very high
expectations for this guy?
Like I was very, very positiveabout him.

SPEAKER_04 (09:18):
I was really hoping to I don't know why you would
be.
He's obviously a crook.
A huckster and a grifter.

SPEAKER_02 (09:40):
We are not in the practice of department of the
code.

SPEAKER_04 (09:56):
No free advertisers on this show.
All right.
No YouTube ads are making theirway through this secure to you.

SPEAKER_00 (10:15):
Like, honestly, this is pathetic.

SPEAKER_04 (10:17):
This really is fucking honestly cooked for a
minute.

SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Uh what we gotta we gotta do something about this.
We gotta go.
It's not the same cache.
Like it really, it's not.
Like, this is crazy.
What that what was the question?
It wasn't that answer.
I'll tell you that.
Certainly wasn't that weird,bro.

unknown (10:38):
This is really weird.

SPEAKER_04 (10:42):
The ice cream is freezer burn, but it's still
stupid.

SPEAKER_01 (10:50):
How can you hear in front of the table and say there
are no names?

SPEAKER_00 (10:56):
There are no names.
And he's talking specificallyabout the names of the people
that were listed in thedifferent testimonies.
So let me get this right.
So the uh banking executive thatwas having women trafficked to
him by Jeffrey Epstein was oneof the victims.
Is that correct?

(11:17):
Is this accurate?

SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
We are not in the knowledge.
We are not in the practice thatDepartment of FBI over this.

SPEAKER_04 (11:23):
There's been an update on the whole debacle.
And basically, if you're not inthe know, um there's been an

(11:43):
update on the whole debacle.
And if you're not in the knowand if there's an update on the
whole debacle and you're not ina no.

(12:04):
Okay.
Here's what here's what happenedto Epstein.
Epstein was sitting in the backof a rust red tour van somewhere
between Ohio and a place thatdidn't technically exist on the
maps.
This is Epstein.

(12:25):
The air smelled like gas stationcoffee and guitar strings.
The kind of scent that onlyshows up when you're awake for
31 straight hours.
You're trying to work on a newrift, Epstein that is.
Something jagged and mean,something that felt like the

(12:47):
song Downer by Nirvana.
But sounded like it had eaten agalaxy.
Every time you strummed thatLowy Epstein, this is from
Epstein's perspective, thelights flickered in the cell
where he hung himself with thesheets, allegedly.

(13:07):
At first Epstein thought it wasthe van, but it was actually the
sky.
The sky that flickered.
It went black, no stars, nomoon, just thick velvet nothing.

(13:28):
The drummer, Epstein's drummer,yelled from the front seat,
dude, did someone turn offspace?
The road ahead lit up with weirdpurple glow.
Like the banner for this show,the play Cunningham Delirium had
spilled out into reality.

(13:49):
Out of the glow stepped a kid,maybe fifteen, maybe fifteen
maybe fifteen with a cheapukulele covered in stickers.
Don't worry it, Mr.
Epstein said.
I can help find you I can helpfund your music career.
He pointed at Epstein, he said,You wrote my favorite song, he

(14:14):
said, but you haven't written ityet.
Epstein blinked, what's itcalled?
He grinned like he knew thepunchline to a joke Older than
mountains around you.
Lacerated halo.
And then just like the powersurge, everything snapped back,

(14:34):
the sky returned, the moonblinked, it like nothing
happened, the kid was gone,allegedly.
The van coasted to a stop on theshoulder.
Everyone stared at Epstein, andyour guitar was not my not my

(14:56):
guitar, but his guitar was waswas vibrating, but you hadn't
touched it.
It was playing the rift, theopening rift to Lacerated Halo,
the song that Epstein wrote inprison before he tied together a
bunch of sheets.

(15:20):
So that was the um the updatethat happened between um between
uh now and yesterday.

(15:51):
So I'm gonna continue eating myice cream and back to Asmund
Gold.

unknown (15:57):
That's not what you ask what we do.

SPEAKER_02 (15:58):
We are all it's crazy, bro.
Like I'm not in the habit ofreleasing incredible
information.
That's not what we do.
But multiple authorities havelooked at the entirety of what
we do.

unknown (16:09):
I gotta move on here.

SPEAKER_04 (16:10):
It's very useful, I'm eating ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
They can't figure out how to deal with Reddit.
You can't even micromanage thewebsites where people are making
death threats to politicians.
You can't even stop that.

SPEAKER_04 (16:28):
I'm banned for Reddit.

SPEAKER_00 (16:30):
You are actually managing the F team data in a
way that's a bit of it.
What the fuck out of here?
You can't even handle socialmedia.
What's going on here?
Sorry, guys, we can't releaseanything because there's decided
names for we can redact thoseparticular names and release
everything.
But uh we're good.

(16:51):
Yeah, I guess what a bunch ofbullshit, man.
What a bunch of fucking I thinkhe's getting blackmailed,
probably.
Unfortunately, he got captured.
I think so too.
But I don't care.

SPEAKER_04 (17:03):
If you get blackmailed, then we need to
have you get blackmailed, thenwe need to have a story about
somebody unrelated to Epstein.
I know everybody's so sick ofand tired of hearing about
Epstein.

(17:23):
Here's a story unrelated toEpstein that I wrote in my spare
time.
This story is called The Islandof Echoes.
The plane touched down on astrip of sunbleached concrete in
the middle of the Caribbean.

(17:45):
To the outside world, the islandwas a little more than a wealthy
man's retreat, an indulgentbillionaire playground.
But to special agent Marie HateRay's raise, it would be a crime
scene waiting to be unsealed.

(18:06):
The case had landed on her deskearlier.
Jeffrey Epstein, financier,convicted sex offender, a man
who slipped through the cracksof the justice systems more
times than anyone should have.
His death in 2019 felt more leftmore questions than answers, and

(18:31):
the trail had gone cold.
Until now, a whistleblower hadcome forward, not with wild
conspiracies, but with the nameson a hard drive.
A single encrypted drivecontaining schedules, journals,
messages no one had ever seen,enough to reopen the entire

(18:55):
investigation.
Mars stepped onto the islandshore, the heat pressing down
like a hand.
Everyone around her silent, toosilent.
The ocean didn't crash, itwhispered.
Birds didn't sing, they watched.
The place felt haunted by theweight of the truth.

(19:15):
Inside the main villa.
Dust covered everything.
The glass walls faced the ocean,but the view felt wrong.
Like the island was staring backat her.
She opened the hard drive andbegan reading, and what she
found wasn't the spaciousglamour the tabloids chased, it

(19:38):
was patterns of manipulation,detailed logs of grooming,
accounts of victims who hadnever been heard, receipts,
flight logs, dates, times,meticulous meticulous planning
of someone who believed he wouldnever be stopped.

(20:00):
It wasn't a powerful list ofnames.
It was a map of systematicfailure, judges, prosecutors,
officers who had looked theother way, bent corners or
simply failed to push harder.
The deeper she dug, the more sherealized Epstein had been one

(20:24):
man, but the silence thatprotected him had been an
institution.
When the night fell, Mars stoodon the balcony overlooking the
water.
She knew the part this the nextpart would be dangerous.
Opening the case again meantangry people who'd b benefited

(20:45):
for getting it.
But she also knew the truthechoes.
Maybe it took years, maybedecades, but eventually someone
heard it.
She closed the laptop.
This time she said to herself,the echo becomes a voice.
And she turned back toward thevilla, ready to break open

(21:06):
everything the world thought italready knew.
So that was just a little storyfor you, unrelated to the
Epstein thing that we have beenso um intensely talking about
lately.
Um on a different note, let'sshout out, let's go through the

(21:29):
stats and let's shout outeverybody that listens to this
um locations.
We got people, we got peoplelistening from the United
States, Singapore, UnitedKingdom, Canada, what?
Japan, Russia, RussianFederation, oh.

(21:53):
That's probably not good.
Brazil, New Zealand, Bangladesh,Australia, we got Detroit, White
Lake, Michigan, Texas, Dallas.
Oh, let's start over again.
We got Detroit, Michigan, WhiteLake, Michigan, Dallas, Texas,

(22:18):
Navi, Michigan, Warren,Michigan, Lavonia, Michigan,
Plymouth, Michigan, North NorthBergen, New Jersey.
Did I say something about peoplefrom New Jersey that I don't
remember?
West Bloomfield, San Jose,California, Potaski, Michigan,

(22:40):
uh, Southfield, Michigan, Troy,Michigan, Ludington, Michigan,
Farmington Hills, Michigan, SanFrancisco, California,
Southwark, Southwark, Waterford,Michigan, Tower Hamlets, Tower
Hamlets, Hamilton, Ontario,Ferndale, Michigan, Anaheim,

(23:05):
California, Osaka, Asaka,Farmington, Michigan, Phoenix,
Arizona, Jacksonville, Florida,New Orleans, Louisiana, Mosamin,
Saskatchewan, Alexandria,Virginia, Fair Oaks, California,

(23:28):
Ashburn, Virginia, Caribbeo SaoPablo, Romeos Michigan, Jesamasu
Akasaka, East Jordan, Michigan,Oxford, Michigan, Pontiac,
Michigan, Garden City, MichiganHuntington Woods, Michigan,

(23:53):
Huntington Beach, California,Ypsilani, Michigan, Granton,
Michigan, Amadab, Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, Adeline, South
Australia, Wallin Lakeland,Michigan, Villa de Baba, Ottawa,

(24:15):
Ontario, Mix Wixam, Michigan,Auckland, Auckland, Borman,
Oregon.
Those are all the places thatyour people are listening to
this for some reason or another.
If you're doing that,something's deeply wrong with

(24:35):
you, and you should stop youshould stop doing that because
it's not good.
And I'm really boring on thesurface, but if you actually got
to know me, I I'd be extremelymore boring than the I let on to

(24:56):
be.
So with that parting thought,please go check out Blake
Cunningham on Spotify, B L A K EC U N N I N G H A M on Spotify,
Apple Music, YouTube, wherever.

(25:19):
Good night.
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