Category: Me Myself&I

One morning hitting Jefferson Blvd, I felt something had happened. Something was missing. Something big and peaceful wasn’t here anymore and it was like Totoro had passed away.

This tree and his healthy 17 brothers and sisters on this block are gone. The city cut them down. How it happened?

Some LA sidewalks are busted, usually by trees roots. It’s the city’s responsibility to take care of them, if a LA resident can’t use the sidewalk he/she can sue the city for that (“trip and fall’ lawsuits). On this stretch, one tree definitely had busted the sidewalk wide open. One tree. What does the city do? Cut them all down including this gorgeous one that wasn’t destroying the sidewalk at all. And of course it’s LA, no one’s walking around and now that this entire block has been deprived of natural shade…

What is sad is how no one wants to do the work and fucking move on. I’ve cut down trees before. It’s a neighborhood issue: take 4 dudes over a weekend to cut the one tree that is annoying, another day to repair the sidewalk and those trees live, the sidewalk is fixed, the city didn’t pay shit, the neighborhood is tighter, people got to know each other and kids can still marvel at that wonderful green giant. Instead it’s a barrage of “if the city had done its job ten years ago” “property owners should have done it” “wasn’t me” BS.

Sorry my big beautiful dude. I miss you.

Having said that,

Man I still can’t believe it. The vibe is weird as hell. I live with three people, all white. At least one voted for our new president. It’s just the unusual and little things you notice. So living this in this historically black neighborhood completely under gentrification, while this shit is happening I can’t.

I keep thinking of Thiel. No one talks about him but that billionaire has a foot in the US office and is on the board of a company that has 1.7 billion people connected together. Between that and his ideas good god I’m trying to not freak out but it’s not easy. I can’t even imagine all the messages and all the dick riding that happened this week, after all the pressure Silicon Valley got after he showed up on the stage of the RNC. That was a defining, scary moment.

That election night picture of Donald surrounded by his staff and family being so not, but like really not into becoming the President of the USA is brutal. He knows all the motherfucking work he will have to actually do, and you can tell he’s not looking forward to it. That picture with Barack is unreal too. So fucking unreal it almost feels like they’re about to say “you know what, let’s just have the country run by itself”

Which in a way, is exactly what is going on. Which is why our new president will not bring any job back. Jobs are gone, are going, profits will rise and redistribution will probably not happen.

What a mess.

As an urban black man who grew up in a foster home in a rural white setting, I have so many feelings.

I know the data and fear that people living in the middle of nowhere feel, I’ve been there. I know the numbers and fear that people of color and minorities living in cities feel, I am here. All legitimates. How to answer them?

Not by having a very controversial Democrat candidate, for one. It is common sense to not have a candidate that represents everything that people in pain hate and don’t want anymore. You have to be completely deaf to not understand that. Well done, white liberals.

It’s done now. All the isms were here, they’re just a bit more validated but it’s not like women weren’t getting molested a few days ago. It’s not like I didn’t get some impossibly hard looks and being called a fucking nigger earlier this year. We are all battling, we were and we will.

Another thing: stop shaming people, really. you give them the strength of ten Hulks and although it might feel cathartic in the end it’s dumb as fuck. People build entire goals they didn’t have because of your funny memes targeting them. Don’t be that person, stop panicking by being petty. Not bringing the light on things you don’t want to thrive is good practice, look at the UN stance on reparations for black people in America: no one talked about it, no one talks about it. You didn’t even know! The silence treatment works, it’s just not sexy.

Anyway let’s move on. Next step for me: voting for the French elections next year. Another one.

Something weird happened this year. I started smoking cigarettes again for half the year, and then I stopped completely. For the first time not smoking tobacco at all. So it’s been like a few months.

It’s weird. First it’s disappointing: I thought I would gain so much more breathing room, I guess I’ve been physically active enough to compensate. It did get better, I don’t have those first 3 or 4 out-of-breath minutes on my bike anymore but it’s not crazy and it looks like it won’t get that much better.

I sweat less. I’m far more sleepy I’m yawning hard at 930pm now.

But also I feel losing a sense of urgency, as if now that I’m pretty much not doing anything against my body I can live forever so no rush needed. It’s fucking weird.

Focus. Really hard to focus in my mind. I can focus on paper and go through the motions but like, why bother? I’ve never felt this way. I suspect nicotine to play on my feelings to get me back on smoking though.

Well last night gave me reasons to go back to smoking YOLO and shit but I won’t. I’ll try.

So many black shows on TV. For the first time in my life, I can watch a different black-focused show every day of the week. Blackish, Queen Sugar, Atlanta, Empire, Insecure. Well, almost. But it’s not the volume that’s so amazing, it’s the diversity of angles, stories and the pleasure of watching black banality.

Atlanta for example. In a very rude way I could say there’s not much going on, and this is exactly what I needed. Nothing that I haven’t seen before except that it comes with that black, southern layer with green trees and Paperboi and all of sudden I have to watch episodes twice or three times in a row because they’re awesomely poignant. I’ve always wanted something like Atlanta on TV and I enjoy it immensely.

The only thing that hurts is that black men in those shows once again, mostly ain’t shit. And that bothers me because well stereotypes and also because seriously, we need some positivity here. It’s exhausting to constantly defuse bombs in people’s minds, in real life. If I walk in too fast in a store, employees freak the fuck out I just had to deal with it again recently. We still get shot dead by police at an alarming rate. I still haven’t worked directly with black people in my game audio field in 16 motherfucking years I mean we black men can’t only be loved on sports field or music stages can we? Can we just be good men in fiction for once? No supermen, no devils, just normal folks? Hopefully.

Anyway, good stuff. So glad to be here to enjoy it.

Seriously: it has become impossible to know for sure if a thumbnail picture is real, if it’s from the last big game or if it’s photoshopped. All options being totally viable. That’s really weird.

I’m ALSO kind of crunching on a Twine game, yeah I know. Even with a decent scope, even on a one-man team, even on a short Twine game. You have to do it. You have to polish it and shape it until it’s good. I did a normal, average reading walkthrough and it clocks at 7 minutes. Seven, lucky number I’m going to land an amazing job soon. It all makes sense.

What is going on behind the DDOS attacks? I’d love to know what the hell is going on behind the routers and ISPs and stuff. Guys, it’s real life Patlabor shit going on.

Winter is coming and I’m pumped. “Is winter OK?” Yes, it is OK in Cali.

“Dear US, you have an extraordinary bullying culture that you praise as much as you despise.”

“Dear France, you have an extraordinary avoiding culture that you praise as much as you despise.”

I tweeted that and I kind of feel like it’s damn true. People bully each other a lot here, the cause being good or bad doesn’t matter, people truly enjoy going at it, going after it. Like American football. In France it’s more like the opposite where people avoid confrontation a lot more because it’s kind of stupid, the outcome is never good. Like European football. The problem though is that at some point, it explodes and it explodes big time. And we’re all very conscious about it. US folks denounce bullying all the time and French people often criticize the lack of action, pointing at the terrible inertia. Yet, we continue.

Just observing our cultural patterns and paradoxes.

I will probably never see another left-handed black man at such a prestigious position, unless I become president too (I’d be perfect for France tho). I randomly gathered those pictures but man, they perfectly illustrate my memory of his 2009-2017 tenure. Outstanding wife, humor, work, kids laughing, vacation, that left-hand writing –such a classic, stiff hand position-, Barack in the paint fighting for the basketball I mean… It’s going to be another painful moment this year.

Very disappointed in what he probably couldn’t change anyway which is a weird, confusing feeling but what isn’t confusing in 2016 amirite.

I’m a little afraid for the family’s safety after November to be honest.

Great article on e-waste. One thing though:

“Who is to blame? Consumers certainly have a role to play in the increase of e-waste—they’re buying the goods, after all. But manufacturers have given people fewer and fewer viable ways to keep older electronics functioning effectively.”

Un-true. Weak. We update devices when they’re perfectly fine, we don’t have to. A few days ago I charged my 2011 dusty phone, it works like a charm. I just checked the battery, the phone is still on with 60% of juice. We lie to ourselves as much as manufacturers plan obsolescence, let’s be honest.

You still can text and tweet with a Blackberry and you will get the same results. Technologically speaking the world runs on old ass protocols and low-level things that haven’t changed in decades. We do not need to update. We do not need to upgrade. 5 year old laptops are still powerful enough to do just fine with 99% of what people use computers for. Millions of computers less powerful than your little sister’s phone are running our world without sweating.

Yes, it will be a tiny bit better with the freshest silicon available but in the big scheme of things, it’s not important. Outside the existential question about what happiness is (is it a new device every 12 months?), how much we waste is a bigger issue and again if you have some kids you’d better curve your upgrade habits down a bit because at this rate well, I kind of feel like we are destroying everything right now at a wonderfully fast pace so… We’ll see.