From ‘hold my beer' to ‘holy sh*t’ 🎸🥲

The Mac Demarco Effect

The one time I saw Mac Demarco live, I had the privilege of spanking his crowdsurfing naked butt.

Now, before you clutch your pearls, hear me out: if you want to do great work, there are two deadly gaps waiting to swallow your ambitions.

First up is Ira Glass' taste gap. As Glass puts it, "People begin creative work because they have killer taste. But most people quit before their taste matches their skills."

It's having champagne dreams on a beer budget.

Then there's Mac Demarco's "hold my beer" gap.

If you missed 2014's Mac Demarco, picture a jazz-level guitar hero playing lo-fi chords that sound like they were plucked from an alien crystal cave.

All while surfing a crowd who's spanking his naked butt.

Demarco makes it look so effortless that you can't help but think, "Hold my beer, I can do that." It's the same impulse that makes soccer dads at Picasso exhibitions mutter, "My kid could draw that."

Spoiler alert: they can't.

It's easy to dismiss Demarco as your goofy stoner cousin at the family dinner, the one who rants about government-hidden aliens but can also break down the physics of light-speed travel and the Fermi Paradox if you pass the vibe check.

His genius lies in the ability to make the complex look easy and the profound seem playful.

I'd love to say that Mac acknowledged my spanking with a nod and a wink, but the man was busy bridging the the skill-simplicity gap that separates the merely good from the truly great.

See you on the next one! 🫶

Matías.

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