Author: harold

Anthony Davis at the Lakers? I don’t know.

First, I didn’t know that AD grew up looking up to LBJ. He’s such a different player and he looks 35 already. He’s only 25. So I get how playing with your idol must be very exciting.

The problem is that basketball is a team sport more than ever. Yes, we see James Harden or Giannis take over and secure wins for their teams but make no mistake: it’s all about depth and having a squad. Big 2 or Big 3 ain’t it anymore. The Clippers or Kings show that very well right now: no big name, no problem. AD who gave everything for 7 years at the Pelicans knows that very, very well too.

Every position needs to be staked with talent that can switch and do everything from defending a 7 footer to shooting 3s. If the Lakers give everything for ONE player, they’ll just end up with injured stars. Sure, stars sell jerseys and that’s the juicy business here: merchandising is the cash cow, right?

But if the team doesn’t perform well, there’s no game. If there’s no game, what’s the point of buying stuff?

Back to you, ESPN.

My man Red passed away recently. I wrote about him last year, when he “retired”.

Things go too fast. He sold his business across the street. It’s a new gentrified shop now, as if the 25 years of him working that corner never existed.

He died six months after finally getting the bag. I still go through that street 4 times a day.

Down the boulevard another mom and pop shop, JnJ BBQ, is now gone.

The Lower Ninth Ward, a working-class, predominantly African-American neighborhood on the banks of the Mississippi River, was completely submerged by the hurricane. When actor Brad Pitt visited the area two years after the storm, he was alarmed by how little had been done to rebuild. Putting to use his considerable power and wealth, he pulled together 21 of the world’s most famous architects, as well as homeowners and community organizers in the Ward, and launched a project to build houses that were affordable, environmentally friendly, and aesthetically pleasing.

Ten years later, only 109 of the 150 have been completed, and of those 109, many appear to be falling apart.

It is now quite a disaster. People are suing. Some thoughts:

– On the neighborhood not wanting to change

There’s nothing wrong with that. There can’t be many stores and services? Have the minimum like everywhere else on earth then. Have a small shop that doesn’t make mad profit but serves a community with basics. Have bigger shops come in the neighborhood with trucks, once a week. There are many solutions to having single family homes serviced. You don’t need skyscrapers and a massive Walmart or Ralphs to accommodate people’s needs.

– On designs

And it quickly became clear to residents that a few of the all-star designs — sent from architects as far away as Ghana, Chile and Japan — weren’t going to work in Louisiana. The roofs on more than a dozen houses were flat — a red flag for locals.

smh. How on earth is that possible to fuck it up like that? Flat roofs in Louisiana is not a brilliant idea but even if you go for this, just tilt the damn roof by 5° and water will evacuate… It’s not rocket science.

– On costs

There are ways to build sustainable houses for quite cheap. The fact that they had inexperienced –and underpaid, probably- staffers working for the organization to help people go through one of the worst disaster ever in the USA, is maddening. You needed the best of the best here, no exception. The organization should have paid upfront to get a solid team so that they don’t have to rebuild and maintain houses for the next 20 years would have been smart. But no. Cut corners, get wrecked.

They also used OSB SIP for walls, a terrible choice because OSB rots easily. You wanted to experiment? Use hemp insulation and a bit more wood because hemp can’t be used for load-bearing. But it doesn’t rot and is natural.

That’s where having star architects was supposed to change the deal: they put some money in to make sure good material is used, for instance. Those residents are paying a mortgage on a new house that shouldn’t be decaying that badly within a decade.

What a shame. Imagine losing everything because the government failed you with levees that don’t work. Then you have a Hollywood star coming in with big bucks, building a green house that you pay for and it’s rotting right away. How can you trust anyone, anything after that?

First, you need the crash course (4 hours).

Christopher Martenson started this over ten years ago now. It’s still totally relevant.

The whole world is finite and you guys are fucking it up is happening with batteries and cobalt. It’s sad and disgusting how everyone involved in this business is acting as if yes, like oil, there was no shortage at all, if ever. That our techno-economy is not wildly depending on an earthbound rock.

But it is. And immediately, manufacturers are sweating because they can’t grow anymore. They can’t sell more phones and tablets. Make sense of that: the market is saturated and a key ingredient in batteries is running out. Manufacturers are all insanely rich, beyond their dreams, but it’s not enough. What the fuck y’all want? It makes no sense.

I just want to remind everyone that our current battery technology is 40 years old and that we only incrementally, very painfully made it better in the past decades. We put our very best brains on the problem, tried a million ways to use something else than cobalt and… We haven’t found shit. We’re dependent, there’s no way around it.

Meanwhile I’ve been here in LA for 10 years and every time I look at the daily weather, some record was set within that decade, extremely often. I basically lived the hottest, coldest and wettest days in southern California while being new here. That’s crazy.

Butterflies, of course. They disappeared a while ago in summer in France and here man, I can see the dramatic decrease each year. Super old trees –which lived longer than civilizations- dying suddenly are a powerful sign that we fucked up.

We live in this world of infinite entertainment, infinite lies and vapid ass shit. People argue far too much for things that don’t matter like “is Superman stronger than Aquaman”. We spend most of our times with feel-good solutions while refusing to scale down our aggressive behavior towards earth a bit.

So, I feel good spending time thinking about building an independent, zero-maintenance needed, green house. I hope to have the time to make it happen before the world economy collapses.

Hopefully we soon find a way to store electricity for at least a few months without significant loss. That wouldn’t solve everything, especially our crazy world economy. But that would tremendously help and empower us to be gentle with earth while living nicely and boringly.

We can do this.

True story, couple years ago.

*Phone rings*

me: allo?

dude: hi, harold? how are you today?

me: fine, how about yourself?

dude: good, thank you. listen, don’t you want a gold’s gym membership?

me: nah I’m good thank you, I’m in great shape man *grabs pasta*

dude: oh really? how do you do that? what’s your strategy chief?

me: well I move my body a lot and don’t eat too much

dude: …right. good for you if it does the job!

me: It does work pretty well and it’s free *puts lid on pot*

dude: nice

me: I’m sorry I gotta go now have a good one

dude: take care, bye

*clicks*

Man, he can’t get no calls. I still think he relies too much on this, but he really doesn’t get them. Unfortunate loss last night.

He’s great. His jumpshot is the smoothest in the game. His moves are flowing. Impeccable footwork. He’s become a great passer. But he’s missing the rage. It’s not a bad thing per se but in the extremely competitive western conference, it is showing. Add some speed to increase your unpredictability and you’ll be fine Mr. DeRozan.

I guess it’s his character as well. He sounds like a chill dude who doesn’t like conflict. Which might be why he’s playing so often on the soft side. Pump faking. Trying to passively get the foul.

I want to see Super Saiyan Demar, torching teams like he’s possessed by MJ. Then add AD to the Spurs and let’s get a ring y’all. FOR POP