Dear friends, comrades, and fellow UMDers,

I owe you all an apology. The past few months, I've been (pardon my French) a bit of a shithead. No excuses… although I'll probably make some below anyway. We aren't the best version of ourselves 100% of the time, but most of us have the sense not to flaunt the lousy aspects of our personality in public. Sadly, I've been letting moments of bitterness and cynicism creep into my public posts for too long. That shouldn't have happened, and for that I'm sorry.

Have I been frustrated over recent sales? Sure, but that's no excuse. I think all creative people-musicians, writers, actors, and yes, even low-budget pie video producers-go through jealous stages. That's still no reason to begrudge another person's success or take veiled shots at them. I need to remind myself that, even during good years, I've had runs where particular scenes and volumes just DO NOT SELL. It's the nature of this beast. Unfortunately, without meaning to, I did lash out at my own customers and (former) fans… Which is just silly and stupid.

If a scene or a shoot doesn't sell, that's ultimately on me. Bad judgment, bad execution, bad promotion… Whatever. Does it sting when you devote a lot of time to putting a project together and it fails? Sure, but don't blame the audience. Even successful people go through peaks and valleys. (Sorry about Tomorrowland, Brad Bird). And it seems especially churlish for me to complain, considering I've had far more success than failure over the last 11 years.

That said, it's incredibly scary when instincts that have served you well over those 11 years feel like they've suddenly vanished… Seemingly overnight. But again, not an excuse for behavior. I've been in that mindset for a few months, and it's not a fun place to be. But I'm trying really hard to snap out of it, so again… Thank you for forgiving the recent outbursts and I promise I will try to avoid them moving forward.

(But, you know… No absolute guarantees. I am still the weird, sarcastic, shooting-off-at-the-mouth SlapstickStuff guy for better or worse….)

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the support. Thanks for calling me out for bad behavior, privately or otherwise. Thanks for choosing to still support me if that's what you care to do. Thanks.

Rich

NUTS AND BOLTS, AKA "STILL READING??"
Admit it. Some of you like knowing how the sausage gets made. That's why you follow my random comments and funny/awesome/horrific tales of past shoots. If you're that person, soldier on. No negativity here, but a few ideas moving forward….

--Compilations… I'm proud of my back catalog, and constantly grateful that it still sells. That said, I could probably do more with repackaging and promoting it. Right now I'm gonna start with a few "just the pie hits" compilations, probably from the HD era, probably focused on a single model. But I could easily focus on different aspects… Slime? Feet? Kidnapping? Top hats???

--Smaller file sizes… When I switched over to HD, I was predicting large file sizes would quickly be the norm. In reality… Not so much. My bad. I'm proud of the video quality of my current clips, but I've also been experimenting and I think I can offer comparable quality at a more reasonable size. The "Original Download Store" will soon be getting an influx of clips from the HD era that land comfortably in the 200MB range, and sure, I'll take requests for what to add next. (Because why not??) Going forward, I'll also use a new approach to get the file sizes of the RAW HD clips reduced significantly. I hope this helps.

--Pricing… Still in flux, unfortunately. The goal is to find the correct price point right away and keep it there. But I've been doing a poor job of that lately. If you ever think you overpaid for a SS clip… Email me. I'll try to make it up to you. That said, I'm still gonna run sales occasionally, because they work. And I still like the "scavenger hunt" element of dropping new scenes into the stores, unannounced, just to see who spots them… And yeah, some of those are gonna be priced higher, as those early sales go a LOOONG way towards recouping initial costs. I hope that's cool.

--Nudity… Yeah, still not happening. I know. I suck. I gotta stick to my guns on this one. But also remember, about 99% of the girls at SlapstickStuff wouldn't be there if they had to get naked. The occasional exceptions tend to be happy accidents (Kylie! Angie!) and not a new market I'm pursuing, so please treat them as occasional rays of sunlight from a (better?) more R-rated SlapstickStuff world… And not my way of jerking around the folks who want to see more boobies. (I like boobs too! I swear! But skimpy outfits are fun too and a much easier sell for all my models…)

--Customs… Well, Shelly was the only model I trusted to pull off specific requests in a way that (hopefully) gave the buyer his money's worth, and she's retired now. So I'm not in the customs market. If that changes, obviously I'll spread the word.

--Male scenes… Might be happening more. For better or worse, I work (very) cheap. It's also a market I've under-served, and one I think I "get" more often than not. This is also the one area where I CAN do customs. (For the bulk of you, I know that's disappointing. But for others… Now we're talking!!)

--Other random stuff… Remember what I said about instincts? I still trust them more often than not. It's tempting to "blow up the model" if sales decline, but I honestly don't have the skill set for mud… Or foodplay… Or wetlook… Or a variety of other things. (As a kind producer told me privately, I'm actually getting a lot of the foot fetish stuff wrong. I didn't know! It explained a lot…)

Honest truth: This isn't just a business for me. I truly do shoot what I personally want to see… And then, more often than not, I'm fortunate enough that others share my tastes. This applies to everything from selection of models to selection of pies. That said, I really do value your input and suggestions… even if I don't follow through on some (most?) of them. We tend to be a very private community, so it's hard to get a feel for "consensus" sometimes. And believe me, if I get an idea that's in my wheelhouse, I do try to incorporate it! (Not always successfully, but…)

So that might be my motto going forward… "This isn't just a business for me." I don't see myself ever quitting SlapstickStuff completely, because I don't see a time when I won't get a thrill from that initial model email response of "Sounds like fun!" Or the rush of a perfect pie hit, or green sliming, unfolding in real time. Or the happy exhaustion of watching the footage of a shoot that took a really long time and was really worth it. Those are the moments that more than compensate for the occasional frustrations along the way.

I'm very lucky to still be making money doing something I love… and I'm gonna try very hard to keep remembering that.
(And also stop being a shithead. At least 98% of the time.)