a slacker call-to-arms; or how the beastie boys continue to inspire me

Photo credit: Morrison Hotel Gallery

I’ve been thinking lately about slackers and ambition and earnestness—and all the weird and interesting ways they sometimes intersect in a capitalist-driven creative industry. 

This particular obsession began with another new obsession: my recently revived interest in the Beastie Boys—which itself was prompted by the release earlier this year of the “Beastie Boys Book.” (It’s a hecka quick and good read btw.)​

In the book, remaining members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond recount the unbelievable and unexpected success of “License to Ill,” and how that success led the group to becoming larger than life but also largely hating what they become. Their teenage selves, they explained, would’ve ridiculed that inauthentic frat-boy party-animal asshole image. 

So they set out to change that perception with the left-field, sample-heavy and expensive-to-make “Paul’s Boutique.” 
Which then bombed, hard. But that failure, in turn, relieved years’ worth of pressure and led to a completely new way of working that radically transformed the trajectory of their career.

And what was this new thing, this new way of working?

Play.  

The Beasties moved to L.A. and transformed a warehouse into a recording studio, basketball gym, indoor skate park, and stoner hangout. And then they just, well, hung out. They played hoops, skated, and jammed.

The output? The transformative and career-redefining “Check Your Head” and “Ill Communication” albums. 

This new way of “working” soon carried over into everything they did, including the making of the iconic music video for “Sabotage,” directed by Spike Jonze, another famous '90s slacker/DIY creative. Someone had a crazy idea to make an intro to a 1970s cop show, so they bought a bunch of thrift clothes and some cameras and then just did it, without permits or anything else typically associated with a music-video shoot.

In the following years, that method ironically proved enormously successful: The Beasties launched a street fashion line, a record label, a magazine, a festival, and started a national conversation about the plight of Tibetans. 

They were, in short, incredibly ambitious and hard-working. And almost everything they achieved sprung from a childlike sense of play and an openness to following their energy to new places. 

Well you say I'm twenty-something and should be slacking
But I'm working harder ever and you could call it macking.

Earlier this year, Quartzy released a similar slacker call-to-arms, but it ended the piece acknowledging that any embrace of slackerdom, particularly in this economy, would be based purely style and not substance. '90s kids had a privilege many millennials don't: namely money. It's easier to goof around when you can afford to.

I don't mean to discredit that—there's absolutely a lot of truth to that sentiment. But I also wonder if there's not more to consider. 

I've largely been thinking about these subjects—ambition and slackers and the striving for authenticity—because I’ve  been thinking about my own work and about all the ways I’ve sold myself out and then, subsequently, burned myself out.

And I've been thinking about how I always return to the roots of what I enjoy most about work: getting lost in the flow and following my energy while still striving for something impactful and sincere and authentic.

That's where the magic happens. That's where I sound my yawp from the rooftops. 

Maybe embracing the slacker ethos is a lost cause. Maybe I'll only wind up wearing more flannels and trying to wear baggy jeans again. It's entirely possible.

But then again, something tells me there's more at play here.