The first time I published one of these entries was January 10th, 2018.

And the last time was March 1st, 2018; so it’s been a while.

Exactly 5 years and 10 months.

Or 2,132 days.

So much for the promised month to month entries…

Anyways, before I get into the incessant information dump of thoughts, ideas and convictions - I should (for consistency's sake) paint the picture of my current setting / situation as I’ve done previously.

It’s an unusually warm and foggy December night, Tuesday at 6:55pm - the day after Christmas. My dog-child, Luna, is in the living room snoring away on the couch. My wife is out grabbing food and drinks with friends. I’m sitting in my home-office. Led Zeppelin’s 1976 studio album, “Presence”, hums in the background with the occasional scratch & crackle as the record spins on the turntable. Adjacent to it, an incense stick, palo santo, smolders in the corner. I’m surrounded by artwork, skateboards, books, records, photos, a burnt-orange rug, matching curtains, and other “artifacts” - mostly all things unapologetically me.

It’s warm, cozy, comfortable,

safe.

A massive change from the previous three entries.

The air purifier in the living room angrily whirrs as it battles the draft of incense smoke that escapes the office.

Life is so drastically different from 2018. So much so that these might not even be my own words, thoughts, ideas or reflections - but instead a re-hashed garble of internet word vomit crafted by our trusty OpenAI generators like ChatGPT. What a time to be alive!

To deduce that statement as false, I will admittedly say that in reality I stubbornly fight a day-to-day battle with technology rather than fully embracing it. And in relation to most of my peers, I must sound like the equivalent to one of our grandparents cursing the use and adoption of cell phones and the internet as they did in the early 2000’s. At this point in time I view it mainly as a tool or a utility. In this specific case, a vessel, in order to bring these thoughts and ideas forth to a public stage. At the end of the day, keyboards, word documents and websites are much more efficient than pen, paper and copies thumbtacked to trees and telephone poles.

In another effort to curb the blue light and screens, I’ve made another long awaited jump into the realm of analog activities: books.

A statement that says a lot just in itself, but here’s two core specifics:

1. Time: In my previous “Absent of a Topic” entries, when it came to the concept of time as a currency, I was dirt poor. Maybe even in debt. From then to now I’ve made the critical adjustments to reverse that, and a byproduct of such, I can now afford the time to read. A long awaited pleasure I’ve had to brush off for years as I dealt with my constant contributions to the rat-race.

2. Writing: After finally getting to a place that I could prioritize reading, the natural progression of that felt like a reignited spark was there to write again. Not finding time - but making time to come back to this platform and jot long-winded, intimate articles here, completely detached and safe from the broiling content-machine social media platforms that jam frivolous headlines, memes and nonsense down your throat. And by no means are my words worthy of much more than these little blog entries, but to catalog sentiments here at least brings things full circle for me and is fulfilling.

At the end of the day, this column just serves as another sounding board I use to work out concepts and cement ideas and feelings to.

Outside of all of that nonsense is something more important to this space. More important to me. And something that I feel should be addressed and made clear to those who care to read this far. Knowledge worth knowing for those not knowing.

Decade (2012 - 2022)

The SOSICO. documentary highlighting the first ten years of the brand is almost done. We teased at this a while ago, September 25th 2022 to be exact, and aimed to release at the end of that same year. Then we ran into some roadblocks. We were working with some friends who came up with the idea of “The Foyer Project”, a group of creatives who wanted to develop a video based platform to showcase the different work and stories of the individuals they knew. By creating a platform around showcasing others' existing platforms and their stories, the Foyer Project was positioned to achieve a win / win growth strategy that benefited them and whoever they worked with. I was onboard.

So what has become “the SOSICO. documentary” actually started as a single episode in a to-be video series developed externally, that we happened to be the guinea pigs for. (I say “guinea pigs" in admiration as I’m proud that they reached out to me to use SOSICO. as the pilot.) They pitched a concept / storyboard, we went back and forth a bit, then locked it in with a focus on: “behind the scenes of what goes into making a SOSICO. product - from the initial concept to a finished and sold out item”, paired with some general establishing interviews and questions to drive the storyline as well. We confirmed a two-day film schedule and made it happen.

Shortly after filming, they delivered a rough cut for us to review. After noting our revisions in a word doc, things went quiet. The group behind The Foyer Project disbanded, and as collateral damage, the video we filmed was unfortunately abandoned.

My thought process then became this:

The rough cut was good. The concept is there. The footage and interview questions were good. It’s not worth letting this effort go to waste. We can take this and build it into a full length doc that summarizes and tells the story of an entire decade of SOSICO. They had already covered so much that we might as well take this thing all the way and cover EVERYTHING thoroughly. To the point that if Vice or some other massive media outlet approached us to cover the story there wouldn’t even be anything else to cover in that ten year block that we didn’t already hit.

To make a long story short that consisted of calls, emails, texts and a long drive out to Connecticut with an external hard drive; we were now the proud owners of all of their footage and files. We were ready to in-house this thing and see it through.

After I started going through everything more in depth I started to realize that I had opened up a can of worms and underestimated the magnitude and undertaking that this would be. With bigger things on the plate at the time, the doc had to get shelved for a while. Not by choice, but by necessity.

Fast forward to present day and out rolls the trailer. Now under the creative direction of myself and paired with co-production by Devlin, James and Troy, we are nearing a final product. It needs an infinite number of rounds of revisions and feedback, but it will see the light of day this year. Hopefully before quarter one comes to an end. But my focus is more set on quality and longevity rather than a release date. When the doc rolls out it will do so only after I have scrutinized every millisecond of it and deemed it up to par. My goal is that it will stand, bulletproof and finite, and I can be happy and satisfied looking back on it years from now. Others opinions and critiques come second.

SOSICO. is a passion project once again and something that I do for me, and for Matt and his legacy. The “Forever and Always” slogan is a promise and a reminder to myself to keep the fire burning for us both, and for something that we started in a high school classroom in 2012 and brought this far.

Without SOSICO. I wouldn’t be where I am today. Call it cliche or whatever you like, but this is simply a fact. As I embark on being (legally) involved currently in six businesses, I always attribute my foundation to number one, and still 1 of the 6, being SOSICO. This is why “Decade” is so important.

Another reflection point comes in my ability to even write all of this, like I mentioned above, and I’m going to start to summarize here so bear with me…

For the first time in my working life, I’m taking time off from Christmas through New Years day. It sounds unimportant and probably is to most, but here lies the significance; every year for as long as I can remember, or at least since 2012, I’ve spent this week working my ass off. Consecutively refining backend processes, planning for the new year, preparing tax information, getting final projects out the door, and there were even a string of years that I spent the night of Christmas Eve to the early hours of the morning on Christmas Day overhauling and updating the entire SOSICO. website for no other reason than my own obsessive compulsion.

Last year, 2022, was the absolute worst. I worked harder in that single week than I had worked the other 51 weeks combined. As I sent out emails, I was bombarded in return with automated responders informing me that my recipients were on vacation until at least January first or second, some even longer! It was at that moment I vowed to plan accordingly, from that point, to take this week off and allocate time for myself indefinitely moving forward.

And as my life has seemingly dwindled down from the ostentatious events and traveling I previously cataloged in 2018, I can now say that “boring” is good. Boring affords me basic creature-comforts I once lacked and longed for. It also provides stability and routine, something I once gagged at the thought of, but now embrace. Boring affords me time. Time enables the ability to finish some long standing projects, like “Decade”, and put them to bed. Or like these blog entries - more like absent of a BLOG ENTRY …and for almost six years! Jeez.

And the ultimate product of all of this - happiness.

I’m not going to set a precedent as I did foolishly six years ago, so I’m not sure if the next “Absent of a Topic” entry will come in another six years, six months, six weeks or even at all. The plan from here out is to just let it ride, and if inspiration knocks I will happily answer.

Peace + Happiness

- Zack

P.S. I absolutely cannot believe how many orders we still fulfilled this year after being almost completely silent and irrelevant on social media for two years now. As I write this, there is at least one unfulfilled order that came in the Friday before Christmas that I need to get to the office and ship out. We haven’t even released anything new in two years either. So seriously, I’m beyond humbled every time an order notification pops up. I’m actually even a little surprised now.

P.S.S. I have no official news of new gear to offer or tease at. And I’m not just saying that to be secretive. There’s nothing in the pipeline at the moment, but that could always turn on a dime. At this point, like the blog entries, it all comes down to when the spirit moves me.