Inspiring conversations with exuberant humans about how to live a creative, fulfilling, and authentic life. Hosted by enthusiasm enthusiast, Brad Frost.
We experience a brief moment of truth when we first wake up in the morning. Before the cold shower of reality, our infinite to-do lists, and macro-level woes seize our consciousness. We experience a brief moment of excitement — and this pure moment tells us something important about ourselves.
There are people out there who seem to move through life with intention, authenticity, creativity, kindness, and enthusiasm. And they do this despite the deeply inperfect world we inhabit. This podcast is an attempt to learn from these people.
Through wide-ranging conversations, Wake Up Excited explores guests' passions, interests, enthusiasms, and philosophy of life.
Nostalgia, Legacy, and Finding What’s Next with Andy Clarke
Andy Clarke shares what excites him lately, sparking memories of his early photography career and frequent trips to Schaffhausen. His pivot from art school and darkroom work into technical sales, and lessons about good selling as an art of solving real problems. The discussion moves to creative storytelling on the web, focus and distraction habits, challenges with open-plan offices, and how he’s built a work life around late-night rhythms and self-managed attention. Clarke also reflects on family history, his father’s suicide and trauma, changing views on mental health and heredity, and a desire to do more consequential political or social work while relearning how to create for pleasure.
Topics:
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:17) - Rebuilding The Sinar Camera
(08:28) - Pre Digital Car Shoots
(14:28) - Sales Lessons That Stick
(27:15) - Storytelling On The Web
(37:10) - Writing Needs Silence
(48:45) - Designing Your Rhythm with ADHD
(01:08:01) - Turning 60 Reflections
(01:12:36) - Mr Rogers Envy
(01:17:49) - Providing vs Purpose
(01:25:30) - Objects as Memory Anchors
(01:40:43) - Music Picks and Billy Bragg
(01:45:42) - Where to Follow
Links:
Up (2009 film) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(2009_film))
Love Story (1970 film) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_(1970_film))
Philadelphia (1993 film) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_(film))
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood)
Mister Rogers biography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers)
Billy Bragg (https://billybragg.co.uk/)
Motörhead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mot%C3%B6rhead)
Meat Loaf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_Loaf)
Led Zeppelin (https://ledzeppelin.com/)
Miranda Lambert (https://www.mirandalambert.com/)
Megan Moroney (https://www.meganmoroney.com/)
The Rolling Stones (https://www.rollingstones.com/)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky)
Wilco (https://wilcoworld.net/)
Woody Guthrie (https://woodyguthrie.org/)
Bat Out of Hell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell)
Between the Wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Wars_(EP))
Power in a Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_in_a_Union)
Unfinished Business (https://unfinished.business/)
stuffandnonsense.co.uk (https://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/)
Sinar P2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinar_(company))
Schneider Super-Angulon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneider_Kreuznach)
IWC Schaffhausen (https://www.iwc.com/)
Rolex (https://www.rolex.com/)
Hermès (https://www.hermes.com/)
Rickenbacker (https://www.rickenbacker.com/)
Gibson Les Paul (https://www.gibson.com/)
iPod Classic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Classic)
Game Boy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy)
Tiffany & Co. (https://www.tiffany.com/)
Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/)
David Hockney (https://www.hockney.com/)
Jeremy Keith (https://adactio.com/)
Preston North End F.C. (https://www.pnefc.net/)
20 Aug 2026
Accessible and Sustainable AI with Hidde
We’re finding renewed excitement for discovering music through going to gigs and reflecting on how live shows offer an irreplaceable shared experience. The discussion shifts to the indie web, hyperlink culture, and how social platforms and chatbots reduce discoverability, while AI could lower barriers to building websites but raises concerns about credit, control, hosting complexity, and accessibility.
Topics:
(00:00) - What has you waking up excited?
(01:03) - Music and Travel
(07:16) - Owning Music Again
(10:59) - Re-discovering the Indie Web
(15:19) - AI for Personal Websites
(23:47) - Accessible Defaults and Standards
(39:02) - Web Trends Come Full Circle
(43:02) - Smaller Models Better Choices
(53:38) - Accessibility Positivity vs Policing
(01:10:10) - Assistive Tech vs Novelty Use
(01:12:42) - Music Picks
Links:
◉ Songkick (https://www.songkick.com/)
◉ Bandcamp (https://bandcamp.com/)
◉ Open UI (https://open-ui.org/)
◉ W3C (https://www.w3.org/)
◉ How People with Disabilities Use the Web (W3C) (https://www.w3.org/WAI/people-use-web/)
◉ WCAG (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/) / WCAG 3 (https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG3/)
◉ CSS Day (https://cssday.nl/)
◉ Green Web Foundation (https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/)
◉ Green Software Foundation (https://greensoftware.foundation/)
◉ hidde.blog (https://hidde.blog/)
◉ State of the Browser (https://stateofthebrowser.com/)
◉ Massive Attack (https://www.massiveattack.co.uk/)
◉ IJsland (https://ijsland.bandcamp.com/) — Dutch punk/hip-hop
◉ James Blake — Trying Times (https://jamesblake.bandcamp.com/)
◉ React (https://react.dev/)
◉ Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/)
◉ Bootstrap (https://getbootstrap.com/)
13 Aug 2026
Pottery, Theater, CSS Collaboration, and the Ethics of AI with Miriam Suzanne
Brad chats with Miriam Suzanne about pottery, theater, CSS, and why we shouldn’t just accept AI as the way. Miriam describes their through-line as collaborative creativity across pottery, theater, client work, and CSS standards, arguing process shapes results and that CSS is inherently collaborative with users, browsers, and devices. She critiques rigid notions of originality and authenticity, emphasizing growth and multiplicity. Miriam rejects “results over process” arguments, challenges claims of democratization amid surveillance, environmental costs, and corporate control, and calls for collective agency to imagine and build better tools and systems.
Topics:
(00:00) - Waking Up Excited
(02:26) - Returning to Pottery
(04:51) - Theater as Hybrid Art
(07:00) - Inviting the Audience In
(11:14) - Questioning Authenticity
(17:20) - Theater in Prisons
(28:36) - Facilitating Collaboration Everywhere
(38:06) - Why CSS Feels Fuzzy
(53:01) - AI for Early Prototypes
(01:01:05) - Fix Orgs Not Tools
(01:08:10) - Using AI Without Hype
(01:17:40) - Uneasy Benefits Tradeoff
(01:26:10) - AI's Original Sin And Accountability
(01:36:28) - Vision And Agency
(01:45:22) - Music Recommendation
(01:48:09) - Where To Follow And CSS Courses
Links:
oddbird.net (https://oddbird.net/)
grapefruitlab.com (https://grapefruitlab.com/)
miriamsuzanne.com (https://miriamsuzanne.com/)
courses.oddbird.net (https://courses.oddbird.net/)
Balsamiq (https://balsamiq.com/)
Harvest (https://www.getharvest.com/)
Claude (https://claude.ai/)
ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/)
Discord (https://discord.com/)
The Rolling Stones (https://www.rollingstones.com/)
Velvet Underground (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velvet_Underground)
Lou Reed (https://www.loureed.com/)
Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament-Funkadelic)
Maggot Brain by Funkadelic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_Brain)
Teacup Gorilla (https://teacupgorilla.bandcamp.com/)
Emily Rogers (https://emilyrogersmusic.bandcamp.com/)
"Franchise" by Isaac Asimov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story))
Walt Whitman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman)
John Allsopp — "Dao of Web Design" (https://alistapart.com/article/dao/)
Busch Gardens (https://www.buschgardens.com/)
Riverdance (https://www.riverdance.com/)
"12 Angry Men" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men)
Timnit Gebru (https://www.timnitgebru.com/)
Emily Bender (https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender)
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