Our friend Travis recently packed up and moved to Los Angeles (“Swimming pools and movie stars!”). He talked about keeping a journal of his adventures and yesterday, while drinking beer on my deck, I had an idea for a brief, video mini-podcast. Something along the lines of…

I asked Claude for some good names: “What would be some good names for a daily one minute video podcast chronicling the adventures of a middle age hipster who pulls up stakes and moves to LA?”

Some ideas, ranging from wry to punchy:

Self-aware/ironic:

• Sixty Seconds of Reinvention
• Midlife, Crisis Optional
• The Relocation
• Uprooted
• New City, Same Guy

LA-flavored:

• West of Everything
• Palm Trees, No Plan
• Traffic & Transcendence
• The 405 Diaries
• Sunset & Second Acts

Hipster-leaning:

• Cold Brew Crisis
• The Vinyl Relocation
• Artisanal Adulthood
• One Minute, One Life Reboot

Minimal/punchy (good for a daily short-form format):

• Daily Reroute
• The Minute Move
• LA in 60
• Stakes Pulled

If you want, tell me the tone you’re going for (deadpan comedy vs. earnest documentary vs. absurdist) and I can narrow these down or riff further.

[I suggested we shoot for “droll”]

Droll suggestions — dry, understated, the joke in the deadpan delivery rather than the wording:

• Sixty Seconds of Reinvention — mundane phrasing for a big life upheaval, that’s the joke
• New City, Same Guy — the punchline is in the shrug
• The Relocation — flat, bureaucratic-sounding title for a personal odyssey
• Traffic & Transcendence — deadpan pairing of the sacred and the sublime with LA gridlock
• Uprooted — plays it straight, lets the visuals carry the humor
• One Minute, One Life Reboot — self-important framing undercut by the format
• Cold Brew Crisis — treats a latte order with the gravity of an actual crisis
• Stakes Pulled — terse, almost military-sounding for a guy moving to chase vibes

(Claude’s) favorite for droll specifically: The Relocation or New City, Same Guy — both let the deadpan do the work without reaching for a joke.