Month: May 2014

Yeah, already in the middle of the third but a lot happened. That second week was a lot of stress and pain, even though I was living mostly alone in an awesome 550 meter square loft downtown LA, right by the LA Game Space. So many things done and cancelled and postponed. Hustle. Humiliation. Charm. Friends and family backing me up, damn it feels good.

I just love this city, that hot concrete slabs kingdom filled with delicious things and people. You have to search for them, to know them. I have found and met great people and it’s only the beginning. Thankful.

Hitting the 10 West for new adventures. Thanks for your kindness, DTLA.

I have no idea how to fix it. I’m hoping you’ll tell me how to fix it. But we should do something to fix it. We can try a hundred different things. You people are designers; treat it as a design problem! How do we change this industry to make it wonderful again? How do we build an Internet we’re not ashamed of?

Great talk of what is going on with technology today.

I think saying we have no idea how to fix it is bullshit. We know what works or what needs to be done. Let’s take an example. Rian writes:

So, sure. Let’s continue to publish on our own sites, and shout loudly about the virtues of doing so. But let’s not make people feel like unwanted newbies when they dream up a different web. We need them as much as they need us.

What we need is way, way, simpler tools for people to self-publish, exist, control and connect from their own web. People suck at computers and it’s OK because computers suck too. So developers, there’s a problem to solve right here.

WHERE ARE THOSE DAMN TOOLS. Developers don’t think about empowering people anymore that was the 90s, when programmers had grown up in the 70s, flower power and shit. Developers today are kind of egoistic greedy dicks, I’m sorry.

Facebook should be subscription based and not ad based. No algo. Users have full control. Mark you’d still be a billionaire and people would love you, isn’t that better?

Twitter should have gone the WordPress way and we all know it (the way they treated their ecosystem that made them what they are? So gross).

To register a domain name and linking a website, editing it, adding stuff to it should be as easy as using mobile apps or linking contacts on a windows phone. Mobile apps are popular because that’s the extent of what people can do with computers. It has nothing to do with mobility, almost.

RSS, torrent technologies, micro transactions, should be flourishing and be all the rage because they are changing the world and the internet, making us stronger. Instead, Snapchat and Pinterest.

Any service that we use everyday or very regularly shouldn’t be ad based, store our activity forever or fuck content providers over yes I’m looking at you, music streaming services.

We know what to do, we know what we should have done. It’s so annoying to witness.

Tour guide: “And what happened in 29?”

Students: “…”

Me, immediately: “Financial crisis…”

I know I’m older than you but damn, it’s your country you guys. Anyway, here’s the house’s story according to the website:

Seventy-five years ago, in Los Angeles, with a no-interest loan from Dutch philanthropist Dr CH Van Der Leeuw, Viennese-American architect Richard Neutra built a radical "glass house" with rooftop and balcony gardens on Silverlake Boulevard. He called it the VDL Research house, after his benefactor. It was designed to accommodate his office and two families on a small 60 x 70 foot lot.

Maybe a bit small for two families but it’s interesting to me to look at a modest modern house, there are usually such gargantuan palaces. The layout is very interesting, maybe a bit too many little corridors on the right. Despite a busy Silver Lake Blvd, it is very calm in the back (best acoustic shield is stuff + air + stuff + air, works every time).

There’s a lot of different textures and colors and material inside even though you don’t notice it at first. It must be a nightmare to maintain but it does add to the charm quite a bit (thinking about that tiled door that disappears into the wall). The built-in design is the same, it adds so much to the tightness and neatness but have you ever tried to fix a wall mount toilet? It’s horrible. The challenge is really to find a good balance and we should be able to achieve that with today’s technology. Nevertheless, 75 years ago Neutra was at the top of tech and beyond (the motorized panes that you see on the right move accordingly to the sun).

I wanted to see what a lot of glass does when you’re behind it, inside and of course it was quite hot but, we were like 30 people in small rooms with the 11am sun on us. And most of the glass can slide open to let the air come in so, it’s not that hot. Plus in winter in Cali? Yummy.

Tour guides were super cool and chill even though the older lady gave me that “nigga, you are lost” look at first but once she saw how excited I was and that I knew my shit, I was allowed to not take my shoes off, ha!

You see that Cantilevered roof? The edge is probably made of at least six different material. If not ten.

It is a lovely place. So zen. Well, one LA modern house visited, 7,654 to go.

Monday night I was in the NoHo Art District, listening to some French Opera, watching a magician, short movies and beautiful pictures.

Tuesday morning, making my lungs feel like cardboard walking through melting downtown Burbank.Tuesday night I was out eating ridiculously good Juicy Pork dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Thank you so much, Jim.

Wednesday morning I was hiking. In the afternoon I had an interview. Wednesday night after some lovely Vietnamese food I was on the move again. Daniel and Melanie, I love you so much.

Thursday morning I was showing my one time German roommate Sandra Silver Lake. Thursday afternoon, shopping the area before chilling in Griffith Park. 40°C. Thursday night Banh Mi in Atwater looking at this wonderful sky. Also, 1st quarter of NBA playoffs.

Friday morning, on the move. You’re the man, Brandon. Bye Burbank, hi Metrolink, hello downtown LA. Hello homeless people, 90% of you being black. I’m sitting at Union Station, pondering over and over.

Saturday morning. in Silver Lake to contemplate Neutra’s VDL house, very inspiring. Saturday afternoon oh god very soul and heart crushing.

I wish somebody was dead and somebody else wasn’t, it would have changed everything about my now. Maybe her brother would have had the words to convince her to wait a bit, maybe I could have told him. Maybe everything would be different. For the life of me I can’t see how I could have done what I did and am doing differently trying to make shit work with insane patience and control, costing me near everything. I can’t get over that fact and being ice burned to the inner core emotionally really, really doesn’t help.

Time for anger.

I was listening to that song when I embarked my SuperShuttle at 10:20pm, after 11 hours in the sky.

We leave LAX, I look at the buildings, Square Enix, DirecTV. We hit the famous ramp that makes you overlook downtown. I smile, closing my eyes and feeling the cool breeze from the open window. Hi, convention center! Now we are heading to the North, we pass that bridge that I did so many times on my bike, looking down at the freeway. Dodger Stadium, 2 miles. On my way to Burbank/Glendale. Modern architecture here and there, my eyes catching them as much as I can while the woman in the back wonders “’the fuck is he looking at outside?”. A young couple is kissing on a bench in front of a Del Taco. 24 hour CVS drive thru pharmacy, Ha! I have arrived. My host is so good to me. I can’t sleep, I much prefer landing in the afternoon, my body doesn’t have the time to understand that it just spent half a day in the air.

My body is hard. I literally moved tons and tons over the past six months. Last week alone, took my old mattress down, got the new one up, alone. Moved my parents’ kitchen to my grandma’s house, mostly alone. Unmounted my home studio, moved all the heavy bags of dirt from the attic. When I take my heavy suitcase in the car mom is like, “you’re out of breath!” and I kind of wanted to tell her, “bitch, when was the last time you did any heavy lifting on your own?” but that’s rude. I know she didn’t mean anything. That’s my weird family, three days before leaving mom didn’t know that dad couldn’t give me a lift. They all live in the same house but I swear, it’s like they aren’t. Meanwhile I make sure to do as much as I can to help them out, like waking up early on Sundays to paint some stuff because they can only complain about it, even though my sister, dad or mom could have done it. Now it’s done, BAM thanks Harold. I love fixing stuff. I just love tightness. I love caring and see that everything in my reach is all right and if not, that I can change that.

I’m dreaming of going to LAX in a couple of years and pick up anyone who would come to visit me and say to them, “It’s so good to see you! Welcome to Los Angeles”.