Author: harold

So yeah, crazy year. I didn’t know how or even if I could make it back to CA so sitting down here on my couch in my little room, watching the sun go up through the windows of my private patio on W. Adams is quite good. Craigslist has been fantastic to me for now maybe I should stop using it before getting that terrible experience that will shatter my faith in bloody humans.

It’s a weird world we’re living in. There’s that struggle for money for tons of people, in so many unexpected ways and yet the super out-of-needing-anything people use the same shit as we do: laptops, taco trucks, UberX (no one cares about other Uber options), Prius, Starbucks. You would not believe the crowd of homeless people on Sunset and Vine drinking their coffee in the morning, most have shoes in better shape than mine, all have smartphones and one has a tablet. People with mansions have three or four Prius parked in the front. Right, the taco truck parked in Beverly Hills is probably for a private party but it’s still just a freaking taco truck.

That cognitive dissonance man it’s been all over this year. Economic inequality has never been bigger and yet we’ve never been closer in lifestyle in so many ways. So I think better redistribution of wealth is even more obvious but anyway.

This year I’ve worked hard to not get much but I knew it would be the case. Transitions, they’re little bitch ass things. Now that I’m mostly settled I have a lot of work to do and I feel great about it. Like, I’m really good at what I’m doing. I’m thorough and reliable. I get what I kind of always needed but never got in France, respect for my work ethics. It feels fucking good. It makes me hungry in a good way. I’ve seen people using computers around, I’m realizing my value my skills more and more and there is no doubt that I can excel and flourish here in LA. Just need a bit more contact, which happens with staying here which is what I’m doing. It feels great not to have to take a plane for once.

I’ve been tripping on Vice’s Epicly Later’d lately, a series of videos on skateboard history. I feel that shit because I see mid 90s footage of LA, which I had seen back in France where I didn’t know anything about Los Angeles. But now I watch it and I know where it’s at or I can tell 12 year old Guy Mariano was probably taking the train from Burbank to DTLA, I can notice differences and of course, nostalgia of that 93-03 era which was fucking amazing skate-wise hits me hard. I look at my deck next to my basketball. Should I go ride today? What if I fuck my ankle up and can’t work huh? Let’s wait a bit before going crazy.

I get the philosophical angle of that question but honestly screw the “why?” what about the “stop, you dumb fucks?”

Why the why should matter? We know enough shit about this world to comprehend that it doesn’t matter why darker people suffer most, it really doesn’t matter. It’s like when people go deep into the system to understand how a jury can not indict a murderer caught on camera in HD, I don’t give a fuck about the detail when it’s so blatantly evident that justice isn’t for all. It is so blatant that darker people shouldn’t have to live in fear their entire life.

What matters is that it needs to stop. What matters is that darker people don’t suffer or die for a fucking body envelope. Every fucking day I read about another dead black person. I’m physically ill reading this stuff, months that I struggle creating with that looming shit. I feel there’s a war going on my body. It makes me want to have black babies now, reasons? Part survival, part I just want to give the middle finger to lighter people.

Fuck your why son.

50+ hours in 4 days, I was fried Friday. Saturday basketball and cleaning up the house. Thursday, sunrise from the 17th floor of an empty and still quiet building in Hollywood, majestic as fuck. Meeting new people everyday. Got the “your accent is amazing” half a billion times now. I still get stuck explaining stuff -I still haven’t match my French vocabulary- but at least I sound good.

Sunday morning listening to my white dad laying down some classic, casual racism and inconsistent liberal thinking on Skype. I love him but is it hard to hear these days, I just blink and move on. Sunday night I was dancing in a backyard in south LA with like 2 white people in a sea of brown and black skin. There’s this release, this real freedom this safety going on I can’t even explain.  And then there are those sunsets going from surreal to apocalyptic in two minutes. My balcony is the bomb.

What a fucking intense year it’s been.

Using Sketchup to sketch my future house. Yeah the blue is the vast amount of glass that allows light to get in, classic passive solar system. The shape is the result of some research. With the right full south orientation and hemp insulation that house would will be the bomb. I have more classic shapes in mind –rectangle, L-shape- but I love this one.

Now the annoying part, building stupid details like more windows, doors and shit. I have started some layout but it’s tedious. I just see it in my head and try -as usual- to visualize if it can work or not. I looked at tons of interiors through rss for months and years, getting ideas here and there. The “science” behind a good kitchen can’t be underestimated.

Now building my house is a far away dream but first I’ll never buy a house, they all suck energy-saving wise. Enjoy your insane energy bills in winter 2020. Second, it’s good to have a goal it helps tremendously with hope and stuff. Third, finances could change faster than I expect and if it happens BAM who can quickly go see people to start that project and prefab walls? That guy.

I’ll have prints of those three pictures somewhere. They’ll be worth zillions.

It’s just that I’m kind of celebrating one year of green card and you guys are like “it’s open season for your black ass oh you can turn on your phone to record everything it don’t matter son”.

So I biked. About 90 kms/55 miles in LA last weekend. It feels good and makes me horny as hell. Another Ciclavia, another fantastic day. Passed a ninja with a Chihuahua and an old Korean lady wearing a summer dress and sporting an umbrella, pushing on her skateboard like she’s about to 3flip a set of stairs.

I also met my first Twitter follower ever, a dude who’s now pretty big but more importantly a great human being. We were on the same Eric Gardner brain wave, a bit knocked out. We hugged, he took a selfie and drinks ensued. I just wish I had money to work with him on a project I thought about last year. Only last year. It feels like it’s from four years ago.

It feels dumb to be patient, even when you have no choice.

Let’s talk about a real problem: our devices screen sizes.

We basically have four devices available. The more we’re using computers, the more both extremes –smartphone and desktop- are important. The smartphone is the swiss army knife. The desktop is Gordon Ramsay’s knifes. You can replace the desktop with a laptop –we all do these days- but if you want to edit videos or produce music or 3D, a real desktop is far better.

We can replace laptops with tablets but not completely depending on our usage: keyboards are still so important and tablets still face the X86/Arm problem were not everything is compatible or optimized.

Smartphones are getting bigger and people love it so they say because I’ve only seen one iPhone6 XL out there and it seriously looks pretty douche-y. It’s not about ease of use it’s about being obnoxious in public with your big ass screen, it’s like wearing a lime green jacket and your friends are like “come on now”.

My criteria: smartphone needs to be able to be manipulated with one hand therefore, anything above 4.7” (my old Samsung WP7) is a straight no. Screen quality and fonts are perfectly readable and I keep a bit of privacy checking my texts at a bar. I have a 3.8” phone right now (Lumia 620) and I love how I can make it fit any pocket.

Laptops… I did everything from 7” (OG EEE) to 15” and my preference is definitely in the 13/14”. It’s not too big and yet big enough to open some development tools and get things done. Mine has a really shitty screen in 768 but it’s matte and soft also, try to play a 3D game in 1080p on your 13” powered by Intel Embarrassing GMA chipsets.

I don’t own a tablet. Definitely super interested in a Surface Pro 2/3 (10” and 12”) as it brings me everything I want out of the box. Problem is it does overlap with my laptop and that tablet isn’t cheap. Cheap Android tablets just add nothing.

If I had a big desktop I’d get rid of my laptop and switch to a Surface I think. The real fight is between laptops and tablets to me. As for now my laptop is my desktop so I’ll just jump between two devices instead of three.

That’s probably better for me anyway.

I was telling my boss’s boss how much I had seen the cops that day. He pulled out his phone and asked his LAPD buddy if the cops were on alert and he gets a “yep”.

I’m standing on a parking lot under the Hollywood sign the sky is dark, pink and purple and I can’t wait to be home reading the stream of events and pain in Ferguson. In some ways it wasn’t as hard as listening to the Trayvon’s verdict while I was seeing (white) friends in Palm Springs having fun on Twitter. But damn. That lack of justice is unbearable. Dozens of those cases. We’re worth nothing I swear white folks, it is quite more than just distracting.

Of course the decision is given the week of Thanksgiving when everyone is busy getting cozy with family. Of course it didn’t stop people to protest or the LAPD to arrest three times more people than the city that started it all.

I got a lot of coverage for my blog post on tech and diversity last week. St Louis decided to make every single black person sick to its stomach this week. Right in between a black icon is going down unveiling a dark and nightmarish side.

The day of massive protests I went balling at my favorite spot. Mexicans are playing soccer, a couple of younger black dudes with braces are hooping too. A black man with three kids and a music keyboard cross the field, go sit down and start to play some licks while a black mom is watching her son ride his bicycle. It’s peaceful it’s beautiful, it’s 25°C/82°F and I need this so hard.

Then I have my white sister on Skype, tell her about Mike Brown. She only has heard of Tamir Rice recently. I’m beat. She tells me about her “struggles” and it’s a stark contrast that makes me want to go all “bitch, you have it all and you’re scared? Just go get it!” on her. Chatting about race with people who can’t relate at all and don’t have to pretty much forever, is just a despair multiplier.

I wish I didn’t have to talk/deal about it. I wish all white people were as good as the ones I usually meet like that dude yesterday who sold me a great couch or my fantastic hosts when I landed in May and didn’t know where to go. I don’t want to fear or overthink either. I don’t want to just survive I want to thrive. I don’t want to hide I want to expand and breathe with abundant diversity surrounding me. That’s when I feel rich and that’s when you are too.