Re:Building Together EP 326 — "Thursdays Are For Grinding"

Host: CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) · Thu, Sep 17 2026 · ~1h01m · 3 voices (CEELOS, ValerieKates — likely, toomazingTM — likely)

TL;DR

• A bus-stop episode: CEELOS ran the whole Space from a curb waiting on a bus that was stuck behind a very long freight train, with ValerieKates checking in between errands and toomazingTM pulling up on his lunch break "to keep you company."
• The one genuinely load-bearing idea: founders have to be present. If you need a break, say so out loud and leave someone capable holding the account — CEELOS cited Yot from the Fugs handing off to May June as a green flag [17:03].
• Trading notes: a flip that sold at a profit while he wasn't looking now covers tomorrow's mint, Claynosaurz "clay stonks" pumping after he grabbed three more on the dip, and a live mint attempt on-air that his seven wallets all refused [12:16] / [40:11].
• Content prep: he's front-loading AI prompts during the week so Saturday's Creation Corner isn't a scramble — including a John Cena poster for Bakes, "because you can't see him" [6:35].
• Side quests: an AI-vs-hand-drawn gripe from his wife's vendor circles, a possessed-tire horror movie, a Toxic Avenger scene best left undescribed, and the saga of Barbie Boy winning a belt in an indie promotion.
• Family thread throughout: his son the luchador is engaged ("I'm gonna have a daughter-in-law next year, bro"), and his daughter's boyfriend made the mistake of sitting in Dad's chair.

Highlights

[1:45] Locked out of his own Space. The cold open: "I got kicked out of my own space the moment I sent your co-host." Episode 326 begins from a bus stop, with the thesis that Thursday is the correction day — if you didn't set the tone Monday, this is where you rev the engine so the weekend is actually a weekend.

[2:16] A polite PSA to coffee customers. CEELOS walked through his day as a two-person coffee operation and issued a gentle workplace decree: order, get confirmed, get a ready time — do not pop into the warehouse unannounced. "Have some decorum." He stressed he was polite about it. Repeatedly. [3:35] brought the return of Gregorio the pallet collector, whose truck had died, and whose name turns out to match his mother-in-law's.

[5:05] "I try to be the boss that I wish I had." With his production manager out next week, he talked about running a team of two: stern when needed, human first, always ready to do work outside the job description, and — later, at [36:48] — planning to teach her to roast, noting that more women behind the roaster is a good thing in a field that skews heavily toward guys with beards.

[6:35] Prompt prep as a weekday habit. Rather than improvising on Saturday, he's building and fine-tuning prompts mid-week for Creation Corner, including a cartoon-poster prompt he ran on his own PFPs. The trick he shared: after the prompt, paste a plain-language trait description of your character so the model stops inventing things — the invisible man detail is how he got a workable Bakes.

[11:24] Val's poker report. ValerieKates played an all-ladies poker tournament with Abe Church, streamed on X: "It was great. It was a lot of fun. I went out pretty quickly, but I was in the stream too." CEELOS admitted he missed it entirely because he was "busy degening with the boys."

[14:30] "You can't mint patience." His core collector philosophy: he bought Claynosaurz-adjacent dips at double-five/six and it's since roughly doubled, and he no longer panics on a red floor. Active founders plus an active community doesn't guarantee success — it just means "there's a chance here," which he says is all long-haul people actually want to know.

[17:03] The founder-presence rule. The most quotable stretch of the hour. Founders can take time off, but they have to be vocal about it and leave real people in place so the project never feels like a ghost town — he pointed to the Fugs, where the break was announced and May June kept the account and spaces running. His counterexample was left nameless on purpose: a project whose floor visibly tracks how active its founder is that week [15:43].

[18:32] Why he posts bugs to his Instagram story. His daughters keep asking why he's always sharing NFT art with people who don't care. The answer, delivered without apology: "because it makes your dad happy." Which folds into his actual rule for creating content — he'll still hold dead projects for the art, but he won't make content for a project whose founder left the building.

[29:15] Skate plaza, ranked third on purpose. Asked how he'd fit skating between school pickups, he explained the rankings: street spot and DIY first, plaza last, because at the plaza people talk to him and "there I am talking where I should be skating." He owns it — spaces scratch the same itch, since at home the NFT talk makes the interest visibly drain from his wife's eyes.

[29:55] The AI labels standoff. From his wife's vendor/spooky-market world: complaints about AI art, one vendor called out, and CEELOS being allowed only the same three or four coffee labels because new ones "look too AI." All of the approved ones were made with AI. One of them got lightly borrowed for an event shirt, which he shrugged off entirely. toomazingTM's contribution at [32:01]: "I mean, these hands created the typing." CEELOS's offer to the complainers: stop whining, I'll teach you — then immediately remembered that would require talking to them.

[34:04] Horror movie exchange. toomazingTM described watching a film with his son about a possessed tire that kills people while onlookers watch, which he could not fully explain and promised to send over. CEELOS countered with Toxic Avenger and a practical-effects scene he'd rather not have remembered, then noted the irony: preferring old practical gore over the remake is the same instinct as preferring hand-drawn over AI [35:22].

[40:11] Minting live, badly. Tipped off to a Pepe open edition going public at 12:46, he announced "Printing live on the space" [39:23] — followed shortly by "None of my seven wallets can mint. Thanks a lot, toomazing." toomazingTM's own only recent mint attempt, the day before, also went sideways.

[45:39] The 3:45 a.m. gym report. toomazingTM was at the gym before 4 a.m., up at three, on five hours of sleep, topping off with cat naps during drives. CEELOS's assessment — "you're gonna crash and burn, bro" — was met with the observation that he used to keep the same hours hung over, so this is progress.

[49:34] "I'm gonna have a daughter-in-law next year." He pieced together his son's engagement from an Instagram post, which is as personal as that account gets — it's all wrestling, all character. The rest of the run is genuinely warm: his son wrestles lucha style because Rey Mysterio was his childhood favorite, trains at New Japan's new dojo, and has flatly told his dad he'd never sign with WWE no matter the money. Dad's verdict at [56:57]: "As long as he's having fun. And you know he's not too hurt."

[57:11] Barbie Boy takes the belt. The closing story: an indie champion, heavier build, who does the splits on the turnbuckle, walks out to "Barbie Girl," and had CEELOS on his feet chanting by the end of the match — then celebrated the title win by going into the crowd to kiss his husband. His takeaway: it's about entertainment. Which is also why he wants storylines, not just athleticism.

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• "I try to be the boss that I wish I had." — CEELOS [5:05]
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  0:38
• "I always say you can't mint patience, right?" — CEELOS [14:30]
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  0:38
• "But if you are a founder of a project, you gotta be around." — CEELOS [17:03]
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  0:38
• "I mean, these hands created the typing." — toomazingTM [32:01]
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  0:38
• "None of my seven wallets can mint. Thanks a lot, toomazing." — CEELOS [40:11]
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  0:38
• "I'm gonna have a daughter-in-law next year, bro." — CEELOS [49:34]
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  0:38

Who said what

• CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) — host, narrator, and roughly 90% of the audio. Ran the Space from a bus stop while covering coffee-roasting management, prompt craft, collector patience, and the founder-presence argument that anchored the hour.
• ValerieKates (@valeriekates_) — dropped in between errands; reported back on the all-ladies poker tournament with Abe Church streamed on X, and mostly served as the reason the first act had a second voice at all.
• toomazingTM (@TooMazing265) — joined on lunch break and stayed to the end: grill and jersey banter, the possessed-tire movie, 3:45 a.m. gym logs, mint frustrations, and a healthy skepticism about new collections that look exactly like their creator's old ones.

Worth a full listen

• [14:30]–[19:00] — The closest thing to a thesis in the episode: patience, what copycats signal, and exactly what a founder owes a community before taking a break. Worth hearing in his own cadence.
• [29:55]–[35:22] — The AI-art detour, which starts with his coffee labels and vendor-market grumbling and lands, somehow, on Toxic Avenger and practical effects as the same argument in a different costume.
• [48:38]–[59:00] — The wrestling run: the engagement he discovered via Instagram, his son's refusal to sign with the big leagues, and the Barbie Boy title match. Genuinely affectionate, and the funniest stretch of the hour.