For a Reason

Some people come into our lives for a season, and some come for a reason. My best friend Serenity is the latter.

Today is her birthday.

She was born August 15, 1969. The first day of Woodstock. Which, if you know Serenity, is almost too perfect.

I’ve known her for a year and a half and I still never know what she’s going to say. Ever.

I can call her because I have one very specific thing to tell her. That’s it. Five minutes. Then somehow we’re an hour into a conversation about God knows what, we’ve changed subjects fourteen times, one of us has said something completely inappropriate, and I couldn’t get us back to the original conversation if you paid me.

That’s Serenity.

And somewhere along the way she became one of my best friends.

I don’t really know when that happened. There wasn’t some big moment where I thought, yep, this is my person now. She just was.

And I think that’s one of my favorite things about us.

It took more than forty-eight years for our lives to cross.

I started my first TikTok account on January 25, 2025, right after the man in charge was inaugurated. I had things I wanted to say about what I was watching happen in this country, so I started making posts. A couple of weeks later, I started noticing the same woman showing up in my comments. She’d liked a few of my posts, left a few comments, and her handle was Eye See You. I don’t know why, but the name caught my attention, so one day I commented back.

We started talking through TikTok Messenger after that, just little conversations at first, but it didn’t take long before TikTok started getting in the way. Messages wouldn’t go through if the app didn’t like something we were trying to send, and after dealing with that a few times, we finally just exchanged phone numbers.

That was sometime around the beginning of February 2025.

She had come into my life through Southern Punk, but it didn’t take long before she knew there was a whole lot more going on behind those videos. My wife and I had gotten terribly sick while we were living near my family, and eventually I told Serenity what had happened.

I can remember telling her about the poison report because it was bad. Really bad. We had this report sitting in front of us showing what was in our bodies, we knew how suspicious everything that had happened looked, we were sick and scared and trying to figure out what the hell had happened to us, and somehow we still couldn’t find anybody willing to help.

By then, I already knew what it was like to tell somebody what had happened to me and have them question me immediately. And I also knew what my wife and I had lived through. I knew what it felt like to have a poison report sitting right in front of me, know exactly what it said, know how sick we had gotten, and still find myself wondering what somebody else was going to think when I told them about it.

That was sitting in the back of my mind when I told Serenity.

But here is the thing. I didn't have to convince her. She didn’t question me. Instead she said four words I will never forget, how can I help?

That was one of the first things I learned about Serenity. And after a year and a half of knowing her, I can tell you she’s still exactly like that.

This woman has the uncanny ability to be there for you even when her own world is falling apart. And I know this is going to sound crazy when you read it, but I actually think that’s when she’s at her strongest. Helping somebody else seems to give her strength when she doesn’t have much left for herself.

I think she just stops thinking about whatever she’s dealing with for a while and focuses on the person who needs her. I’ve watched her do it when I knew full damn well she had plenty happening in her own life, and somehow she still had room for whatever somebody else was going through.

Sometimes, though, I wish she would stop doing that long enough to take care of herself.

I wish she could see herself the way the people who love her see her. Just once.

I think about Rocky when I try to explain what having Serenity in my corner means. Rocky had Adrian. His wife. His person. Which, for me, is easy because I already have mine.

But Rocky also had Mickey.

I can think about all those times Rocky came back to that corner after getting the absolute hell beat out of him and there was Mickey, yelling at him, telling him what he needed to hear, getting him ready to go back out there, and somehow believing Rocky had another round left in him even when Rocky wasn’t so sure himself.

My wife is my Adrian.

Serenity is my Mickey.

And because she found me so early, she has pretty much watched Southern Punk grow up. Including the parts where TikTok kicked me in the teeth.

The first time I lost my account, I was devastated. I hadn’t been doing this very long, but I knew people already. Not in real life. I knew them from seeing the same names over and over in my comments. Somebody would show up again and I would remember what we talked about the day before. I was getting attached to these people and if I am being honest, I don’t think I even realized how attached until that account disappeared.

Serenity was there.

She kept telling me to make another account. And eventually I did. But Lord, rebuilding sucks.

Then less than 8 weeks later the unimaginable happened. TikTok took the second account.

Somehow it had happened again. Another crushing blow. And the first thing I thought was you've got to be freaking kidding me. I HAD JUST WENT THROUGH THIS.

So as you can imagine even the thought of rebuilding was daunting at best.

And I don’t think she knows this, or maybe she does, but there’s a pretty good chance I wouldn’t have kept doing Southern Punk if she hadn’t been around when I lost that second account.

I was tired and I didn’t want to do it.

I told Serenity I was done. Or I think I said I was done. I don’t remember the exact conversation anymore. I know I told her I didn’t want to start all over again and whatever I said apparently didn’t impress her very much because she wasn’t going along with it.

She told me to get back up.

I wish I could remember her exact words but it was along the lines of don’t make a decision you’ll regret while you are pissed off and exhausted.

So I made another account. Again. I branched into Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And most importantly I started my Substack. The one you are reading right now.

At the time there was no People’s Porch. There was no Porch Council. My wife and I weren’t making songs together. I wasn’t doing the kind of writing I’m doing now where I’ll find one thing that doesn’t sit right with me and next thing my wife knows I’ve got 47 tabs open and I’m reading a government report from 1972 because apparently that’s what I do with my life now.

Most of y’all weren’t here.

That’s strange for me to think about now because I recognize so many of you when your names come across my screen. And some of y’all have been here long enough that I forget you weren’t always here.

When I started that account though, I was just hoping people from the other one would find me again.

And they did.

I’d see somebody I recognized and think oh thank God, you found me. Then somebody else would show up. New people started finding me too and after a while I recognized them when they came back.

I couldn’t tell you when all of that turned into this.

There wasn’t some grand moment when I realized we had a community now. I am pretty sure I noticed it after it had already happened. And guess what? Y’all started knowing each other as well. People were talking to each other in the comments instead of everything being between me and whoever happened to be watching the video. Somewhere in there I started calling it the People’s Porch and now I can’t imagine calling it anything else.

Serenity was there while all of that was unfolding. And there have been a few times since then when things went sideways and I couldn’t get on camera and explain what was going on myself that she did it for me.

She got on there and she talked to y’all.

When I first met her, her name was Eye See You.

That’s what I knew.

I didn’t know Serenity. I didn’t know where she lived or anything else about her. She was somebody who’d been showing up in my comments and that name caught my attention.

She asked how she could help.

There are hundreds of thousands of people across all these platforms now. We have the Porch Council. My wife and I make songs that somehow y’all actually listen to. I write things now that would’ve sounded completely insane to me back then.

I couldn’t see any of this when I was sitting there not wanting to make another account.

Serenity couldn’t either.

She just knew that I had created something special. Something that's been missing in our modern-day life… Community.

And she was right.

Which is annoying.

Today she’s 57.

Serenity was born August 15, 1969, the first day of Woodstock. More than 55 years later she somehow wound up in my TikTok comments calling herself Eye See You.

That’s still makes me laugh.

Because I answered a woman I didn’t know, based off of a name, and now she’s the person I call when something happens. Or when nothing happens. Half our conversations probably start with one of us having an actual reason for calling and end somewhere that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

She’s been around for some really shitty days and some really good ones too. She’s part of my life in a way I obviously couldn’t have known when I saw that username in my comments.

Somewhere along the way she became my Mickey.

And now she’s one of my very best friends.

I wasn’t looking for one.

I was just answering a comment.

So happy birthday, Serenity.

I love you.

And I know you’re going to enjoy this part way too much, so here you go.

You were right.

I needed to get my ass back up.

I want to say something before you go because this piece is a little different from most of what I write.

This one is about my best friend.

But in a strange way, it is also about this place and how we all ended up here.

Serenity was here before there was a People’s Porch. Before there was a Porch Council. Before my wife and I were making songs. Before hundreds of thousands of people had found Southern Punk.

She was here when I got knocked down and wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to get back up.

And she made sure I did.

I think that’s why asking y’all to support the Porch feels a little different underneath this piece.

Because Southern Punk has always survived because somebody showed up.

I can spend six, eight, sometimes ten hours researching one story. Then I write it, make the video, edit everything that goes with it and put that work across Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

And here’s something most people probably don’t know.

Facebook is the ONLY one of those platforms paying me for video views right now, and that only recently started.

TikTok can give one of my videos thousands of views and I make nothing from those views. Same thing on Instagram. Same thing on YouTube. You can watch Southern Punk all day long on those platforms, but unless somebody chooses to subscribe or directly support the Porch, those views don’t pay for the hours that went into making what you just watched.

That’s why I talk about subscriptions.

Not because asking y’all for money is my favorite thing to do. Trust me, I would much rather be sitting here talking to you about hot Italian cows and banks full of Parmesan.

But Southern Punk is my job now.

And I want to keep doing it this way.

Independent.

No corporation sitting behind me deciding which stories are worth talking about or telling me what I can and cannot say.

Just me, my wife, this slightly ridiculous Porch we’ve built together, and all of you.

When you become a paid subscriber, you’re helping give me the time to do the work that happens before you ever see anything. The hours researching. The writing. The videos. All the rabbit holes I inevitably disappear down because I found one thing that bothered me and couldn’t leave it alone.

You also get a seat on the Porch Council and a voice in what we investigate next.

And as soon as this damn kidney stone passes, I’m giving paid subscribers something new too.

Southern Punk Uncensored.

And y’all already know what that means.

No worrying about what Facebook might flag. No wondering which word TikTok has decided it hates today. No watering something down because one of the platforms might throw a fit.

I’m going to say what I actually want to say.

I’m holding nothing back.

And all of that is less than 34 cents a day.

If you’ve been here for a while and you’ve thought about becoming a paid subscriber, and you’re able to do it, I would love to have you sitting here with us.

Really.

Because every person who chooses to support Southern Punk is giving me a little more time to keep doing something I love with people I’ve grown to care about very much.

And if a paid subscription isn’t something you can do right now, please don’t feel bad about that.

You can share us.

Send this write-up to somebody. Share one of our videos. Tell somebody about the Porch.

You can also help keep the Porch light on directly through BMAC whenever you’re able:

https://buymeacoffee.com/southernpunk

It all matters.

Especially to me.

I started writing today about somebody who showed up for me when I needed her and somehow ended up thinking about all the people who have done that for Southern Punk too.

Serenity made sure I got back up.

And y’all have helped me keep going ever since.

So thank you.

For subscribing.

For sharing.

For reading.

For coming back.

For pulling up a chair and becoming part of this weird little family we’ve made here.

I don’t take any of it for granted. ❤️🪑

This IS the People’s Porch.

The Porch is where we gather...

The RESISTANCE is what we’ve become. 🥊

I’m tagging Serenity in this post, so help me embarrass the hell out of her. 😂

Drop into the comments and wish my best friend a Happy 57th Birthday.

She has spent the last year and a half showing up for me and, more than once, showing up for this Porch too.

So today, I want the Porch to show up for her.

Happy Birthday, Serenity. The Porch knows who you are now. 😅❤️