Originally published on Substack

In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman talks about how we often postpone the things that we care about into oblivion. We all feel like we should send that meaningful, heartfelt birthday message to a friend, but we worry we won’t get the poetry right. We tell ourselves that we ought to take an afternoon to think and to write them something that feels real and non-cursory. Sadly, what ends up happening is we overpressurize, procrastinate, and never send any message at all.

The hard truth is that showing up imperfectly is better than not showing up at all, which is what happens when our perfectionist tendencies get the better of us. Sure, a quick unpunctuated birthday text feels like weak sauce. It may be! But Burkeman reminds us that weak sauce is better than no sauce, and the best sauce in the world counts for very little if it is imaginary. The sauce must be tasted.

It’s in this spirit of imperfection that I want to talk with y’all about my friend Timothy Bailey who recently died. I feel a bit presumptuous calling Tim a friend — we spoke to each other in person once, and digitally a handful of times. But he was a friend. He was also a great client — I helped him with the packaging for New Love Stories. He was as thoughtful about design as he was about songwriting — deferential to me and my skills but also very interested in album art and its importance in the listening experience. It is easy to want to do great work for someone like that.

From a distance, I admired Tim — here was this dude a few years older than me who was still about that life — who was committed to songwriting. Who thought hardabout releasing music in meaningful, non-disposable ways. It can be hard to hold on to that stuff — so much of the currents of our world flow in the other direction. I felt like I had an ally in Tim — someone I could swim upstream with. Having his likes and comments here on Substack was so encouraging. When I felt like I was throwing my thoughts and work out into the uncaring void of the internet, Tim would often be there with a quick word or two of encouragement — always thoughtful but never belabored, showing up for me in a way that Burkeman would approve of.

Hearing about Tim’s passing made me wish I could have fought my own perfectionist tendencies and showed up for him more. Tim took his art and its creation seriously, so when he released it I always felt an obligation — obligation isn’t the right word — more like a desire really — to listen to it with an equivalent amount of attention and care. When Picnic in a Landfill came out I wanted to meet Tim where he was — to respond to his grapple-y, dense, poetic songs with a thoughtful message. I wanted to write and let him know I had truly heard him, but I put it off — I didn’t think I could be articulate enough.

In a world where trying to make a living through art seems like a crazier and crazier thing to do, where hope and real connection seem more elusive than ever, where trying to be well in an unwell world feels like an absurdity, I can’t help but feel like my lack of a response was a failing on my part. There’s more shit than ever that we need to hold each other through, and weak sauce is better than no sauce. Something for me to work on.

Doug Nunnally recently shared a beautiful thing about how Tim included a handwritten note in the copy of the LP he bought that read “Inevitably, sorrow and loss will occur. Love will make you whole.” I’m not sure if those words are original to Tim, but it feels like his whole deal in miniature — real connection and beauty, but never flinching in the presence of the hard stuff.

There are many other folks who knew him much more intimately than I did, and I have no idea what they might make of this post — I don’t know how much Tim would see of himself in my ideas about who he was. But all the same, I choose to carry those ideas forward in his honor — I choose to quietly support my artist friends, to fiercely advocate for art and its worth, and to keep making art that is as beautiful, necessary, and true as I can muster.

Thanks for reading this one. Spin some Timothy Bailey and the Humans today! You won’t regret it. Wishing you the courage to show up for the people and things you care about, even when it’s messy, sloppy, weird, saucy. See you next month.

Recent Work

Things are cooking but not a lot to serve y’all this month. I have had a sec to rework my website, and in honor of that (minus the first image), here are few from the archives — the digital flat file if you will. To see more, you can always head over to the home page.