Spent part of my Memorial weekend doing what I do best: building a world inside a small space.

The project: a mobile podcast/Zoom studio inside a vintage 1970s Fleetwood trailer I’ve been restoring for years. I asked AIs (ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok) for design advice.

The brief I gave AI: cozy retro industrial steampunk. San Francisco coffee shop meets co-working loft. Think Stewart Brand’s Long Now out at Fort Mason.

That distillery on Treasure Island. A little Brooklyn, but make it Bay Area.

ChatGPT and Gemini went dark. Black velvet. Deep forest green. Chocolate brown. Matte blackout curtains for sound dampening, Edison bulbs for that intellectual salon glow. An “On Air” sign (corny—I kind of love it). And plants. AI always adds plants.

Then I read that Joe Rogan just rebuilt his Texas studio inside in red in a Quonset hut with Moroccan lights. Suddenly the dark velvet didn’t feel so eccentric.

https://kfmx.com/joe-rogan-unveils-new-texas-podcast-studio/

The artifact wishlist: old globe, telegraph equipment, maritime lights, a Brownie camera, leather books, old dial up phone, compass, binoculars.

The analog communication era, curated.

Why a trailer? Glad you asked.

It started with my mom during Covid lockdown (I was caretaking.) She had dementia. She photobombed a live Zoom broadcast and it was embarrassing.

I looked at the screen and thought: that’s it. I need a controlled environment.

Roosters. Kids. Dogs. Weed wackers. A neighbor mowing at 2pm. These are not character. These are production problems.

After years of Zoom presentations for Founder Institute, and managing radio interviews for clients—here’s what I actually recommend:

→ Dark room. Natural light is uncontrollable. A three-hour podcast means the light moves, the shadows shift, and your background tells a different story by the end.

→ Hard-wired internet. WiFi is a promise. Ethernet is a commitment.

→ More than a ring light. One light source flattens everything. Layer it.

The trailer gives me all of that, plus the thing no open-plan house can give you: a door that closes.

Yay or nay on the dark velvet? Too moody, or exactly right?

Drop your thoughts below—and if you’ve built a home studio setup you love, I want to see it.