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Do you know Morgan Ranstrom? He’s a wealth advisor at Trailhead Planners, author, musician with Stone Arch Rivals, and someone who thinks deeply about compounding in all its forms – from right living to generational legacy.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Morgan combines financial planning expertise with a musician’s creative soul, and he’s written thoughtfully about the intersection of money, meaning, and multi-generational impact. I wanted to connect with them because they embody something I value deeply: the rare ability to see how everything compounds – relationships, habits, creativity, and wisdom – over decades.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you’ll hear us dive deep into time as a filter, the power of being a good ancestor, and why Morgan traded his Friday nights for Saturday mornings.

Read more at cultishcreative.com

Do you know Rupert Mitchell? He’s the founder of Blind Squirrel Macro, a French and Spanish literature major who became one of the most thoughtful macro observers in markets today, and someone who’s survived everything from the Barings collapse to building electric cars in China.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Rupert spent decades as an investment banker and derivatives specialist across London, Hong Kong, and Asia before transitioning to independent research and macro commentary. I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the ability to translate complexity into clarity while maintaining intellectual curiosity across disciplines.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Epsilon Theory YouTube Channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you’ll hear stories from the trenches of global finance, insights on Chinese capitalism, and why being a generalist might be the ultimate competitive advantage.

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Every time I talk to Morgan Ranstrom, he works a little idea into the conversation that takes over my brain for weeks. So when I invited him back onto Just Press Record, I expected it to happen. But the perspective he brought still surprised me.

Morgan said, on the topic of AI and (what I now understand to be) my very algorithm-bucking live-action networking show:

I’ve started to think of AI as like compression, you know, it’s like when I listen to Spotify on my AirPods or whatever, it’s like you’re just missing so much of the data, you know? That you hear live or you can hear the touch of something or you can hear, you can feel the amps or whatever it is.”

Morgan Ranstrom on Just Press Record

You can see me react in real-time. I said: “This is the raw file. It is kind of the whole idea behind the show. You might have just explained something to me.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a compression problem.

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I don’t think it’s the standout track. I don’t think it’s anything new. I don’t think it’s anything you need to spend more than 30 seconds thinking about.

I do think, and I’ll stand by this, that Pusha T and Malice, especially with Pharrell, are the Larry McMurtry wild west books about drug dealing, and I don’t care if it’s one-lane and shallow, I want to hang out with them forever.

The choice to make this so heavily accapella with that slight reverb fascinates me.

The choice to let the beat that does come in be so old-school chopped fascinates me.

The choice to have a run on the album of acronym titles fascinates me.

And I don’t think any of my fascination warrants being deeply probed so much as deeply experienced.

This is my fascination now and forever with Clipse. Nothing is new. Everything fits like an old glove.

Even the lyric video has style. This is culturally inappropriate. Get into it.

Clipse are forever proving that if you define your own norms the area to explore is infinite – making acronym titles feel inevitable rather than gimmicky, making minimalist beats sound maximalist, making the same corner feel like a whole universe.

Read more at cultishcreative.com

Grow Your Network: Laurie Kaye Is A Rock Radio Pioneer Who Conducted John Lennon’s Final Interview

Laurie Kaye’s journey from transistor radio sanctuary to rock radio pioneer illustrates the power of trusting your readiness and finding chosen mentors. Her professor’s advice to leave school because “you already know how to write” represents those pivotal moments when formal education has served its purpose. More importantly, her relationship with news director Jo Interrante shows how chosen mentors can provide the support and belief that families sometimes cannot. Conducting John Lennon’s final interview on December 8, 1980 – hours before his assassination – taught her about the fragility of peak moments and the responsibility of cultural curation.

Sunday Music: RIP Ozzy

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne this week sparked a reflection on why Black Sabbath doesn’t receive the same cultural reverence as the Beatles, despite fundamentally changing music forever. Four rejects from industrial Birmingham created something entirely new on February 13, 1970 – meeting critical scorn (“bullshit necromancy”) but finding their audience through word-of-mouth and underground appreciation. The contrast between Simon & Garfunkel’s refined sophistication and Sabbath’s Birmingham grit reveals how outsiders often have to fight for recognition that insiders receive automatically. By year’s end, they’d proven what the Beatles proved in the 1960s – that you could reshape popular music entirely. The difference is Sabbath had to fight for that recognition, and they’re still fighting for it fifty-five years later.

The Day The Music Died Vs. The Days The Music Lives: Laurie Kaye and Kevin Alexander on JUST PRESS RECORD

Both Laurie and Kevin discovered that being a receiver of great music eventually turns you into a transmitter. Laurie’s transistor radio refuge as a child led to her becoming a voice that guided others through their own musical discoveries. Kevin’s field trip revelation with Talking Heads and record store obsession evolved into a life dedicated to surfacing incredible sounds for others. Their conversation reveals how the “village of voices” – DJs, record store clerks, cool friends with perfect tapes – serves as both sanctuary and bridge across generations. Music doesn’t just soundtrack our lives; it’s the vehicle that carries us to our peaks and the lifeline that pulls us through our valleys.

John Darnielle on Ozzy

Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle wrote perhaps the most moving Ozzy obituary, weaving together personal, micro, and macro scales in his signature style. His story of meeting a stranger on a train who simply said “Ozzy Osbourne. I’m just telling everyone I know, Ozzy Osbourne” captures how music passes between people through intimate, authentic moments rather than marketing campaigns. Darnielle’s reflection reveals how art that ages with us understands something about life that we don’t yet grasp – it becomes the voice of someone who sounds like they understand us when we can’t find our own words.

Read more at cultishcreative.com