Rusty Trombones saw things in the aughts and isn’t going to un-see them now.
Meet Rusty Trombones, our columnist who knows the best things in life were made in the 1970s—like that period’s music and the first handjobs he gave and received under the bleachers at the local playground.
Rusty’s musings are a delightful blend of soft rock nostalgia and tech follies, showcasing a man who firmly believes that the world stopped turning after Air Supply released their greatest hits. Can you blame him?
Rusty comes equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of mullet hairstyles and acoustic guitar solos. He can tell you how Barry Manilow made his first million or why opting for a full-time gig in a dotcom startup was the best career choice since deciding to go full-time on his collection of mugs from fables startups like Pets.com.
Rusty Trombones’ columns often read like a mashup of an aging boomer’s Spotify playlist and a podcast episode from 2000 about surviving Y2K. Picture this: a headline like “How the Eagles Taught Me About Venture Capital (Spoiler: They Did Not)” captures everything from Rusty’s confused admiration for Don Henley’s slow jams to his misguided belief that every tech entrepreneur should be wearing sunglasses indoors.
With a pen that’s as sharp as his fashion sense, Rusty describes himself as “an aficionado of soft rock and a trailblazer of the dotcom bubble.” He uses his column to reflect on how the two are more alike than you think. “I see so many parallels between the algorithm of a mediocre website and a poorly syncopated fade-out on a soft rock ballad,” he writes, occasionally breaking into spontaneous verses of ‘Sailing’ by Rod Stewart to illustrate a point.
Rusty’s witty critiques of early 2000s startups are gut-bustingly hilarious as he recounts his own experiences with companies like “e-Pet Rock” and “GigaPets.com”—both of which he claims were intended to revolutionize the pet care industry with electronic pets, complete with doodie duty. Rusty’s keen observations about the rise and fall of these absurd businesses weave an unintentional narrative about the struggles of life, love, and acoustic guitar duets.
One of his most endearing quirks is his tendency to embed song lyrics into his columns, often citing them as profound truths. For instance, in a column titled “You Can’t Fight This Feeling, But You Can Start a Blog!” he muses about how Air Supply’s ballads hold the key to understanding website traffic and user engagement. In Rusty’s universe, every dip in clicks can be explained with a veiled reference to ‘Lost in Love’.
Navigating through his columns you’d find him amusingly detailing his lengthy phone call with a college friend who insists that they should come back together and start a company that sells ‘vintage cassette tapes’ online. “Why go ordering a Spotify account when you can have the genuine fuzzy sound of a cassette that smells like the 70s?” he often argues, waving his hands like he’s conducting a symphony.
Clutching the warm embrace of nostalgia, Rusty’s reafers (as he calls them) resonate with his witticisms as he poses thought-provoking questions like, “If Fleetwood Mac can survive a breakup, why can’t my email marketing campaign do the same?” Each column leaves readers chuckling at how metaphors from the world of soft rock are the unexpected solution to the modern-day problems of webmasters and entrepreneurs.
Additionally, Trombones frequently holds nostalgia-fueled live events titled “Rusty’s Soft Rock Revival”—bandana-clad and strumming a surprisingly dulcet acoustic guitar while providing live commentary on 70s hits. These events double as startup pitch meetings, sometimes culminating in his ambitious idea: “The Air Supply of Tech Firms, Inc.—an online space that promotes emotional connections between tech geniuses while they all binge-listen to ‘Making Love Out of Nothing at All.'”
Rusty Trombones proves that soft rock isn’t just a musical genre, but a philosophy—one that should also steer the next generation of entrepreneurs. So, whether he’s linking a slow jam about love to online user engagement or reflecting on his hilarious dot-com ventures, Rusty continues to serenade us with laughter, nostalgia, and the occasional cringe-inducing pun. As he likes to say, “If you can’t find harmony in your life, at least find a really good tune to rock the chaos away!”
