Category: Me Myself&I

My bike is awfully heavy but I love it. I did so much with it.

The more I bike this city, the more I know I’ll need a car at some point but the more I spend time in a car sitting in traffic and the less I want one? Meanwhile on my bike, free, using my body to propel myself, getting that sun into my bones, cruising beautiful side streets I feel like I’m the smartest.

Los Angeles is all about you doing your thing, right?

I have now a couple hundreds of miles biking L.A., did it in traffic, crossed super heavy locations, did hills, rain etc.

So first I have to say that I have biked all my life pretty regularly, I also have been skateboarding and playing shoot’em ups. Those activities made my “upcoming things coming at you” radar super acute. You need to be able to decipher what’s going on pretty fast and act accordingly. That’s the challenging part (but also fun part to me).

You also need to know how to ride straight while looking behind from the left or from right. This is not an option, it’s vital that you can do that but don’t worry, kids can do it so you probably can too.

Once you have those skills:

1/ Respect the rules

I know most bikers don’t and that’s why cars hate us. If there’s a stop, you stop. I don’t care about your momentum or your lifestyle, I care about your life son. Follow the rules is the first rule of not getting hit by a car. It’s pretty obvious but so many bikers think that because they wear a helmet they can do whatever they want. Wrong.

2/ Know what you’re doing

You need to know where you’re going, if you should be on the left or right lane before being on your bike. You have doubt? Stop on the side and read your map, itinerary for the next segment to come. It’s scary for cars to see an indecisive bike. Don’t change your mind like you are alone on the road (oh, I think I should turn left like right now), even if you are it’s bad habit. Again, safety first.

3/ Smile

Nice, gentle smile. Cars love that shit. They feel like they allow you to ride “their” roads, which is the good vibe to be in. Don’t be a dick because whatever happens, you are still only on two wheels with no protection so don’t be a dick. In the animal world it’s called survival, in the human world it’s called not being dumb.

4/ Buy kevlar tires

I haven’t had any puncture in a while with my classic tires but kevlar tires are what you want if you want to make sure that flat will almost never happen: professional riders use some for thousands of miles before getting a flat. Expensive, but worth it.

5/ Sometimes, you have to assert your dominance

It’s not really dominance, but you need to make sure cars know you exist: you are in traffic, about to turn left in the left lane waiting for the light. Stretch out, be visible, wear bright colors. Once the light goes green accelerate like you have shit to do, don’t act like you’re chilling that drives cars crazy. Assert your presence and get the fuck back to your bike lane on the right asap.

6/ Don’t necessarily trust Google bike maps

They are mostly good but sometimes (and again it highlights how machines are dumb) they are not: like they don’t want to put you in traffic on a big boulevard but will make you cross that boulevard through a side street, which is way more dangerous. Being in traffic isn’t great but sometimes it’s actually easier to bear with it for 3 minutes instead of dangerously trying to avoid it.

Enjoy.

Probably the best Facebook article from this week. This quote got me thinking:

When you log onto Facebook, the posts you’re immediately shown at the top of the News Feed are not every post from your friends in reverse chronological order. Of course Facebook has the technical ability to do this, and it would in many ways be simpler. But their worry is that users will be inundated with relatively uninteresting (but recent) posts, will not scroll down far enough to find the few among them that are engaging, and will eventually quit the service.

Most of us know that and IMO they are totally wrong. If Twitter can be so addictive it’s because it feeds you in finding gems in an unfiltered stream of people you follow. By altering feeds, Facebook pushes me to do nothing: I just look at items and like most of it but I could like anything, that’s the thing.

We’re humans, all different, all weird. Your algorithm is going to show me things that I will like which makes it the Mc Donald’s of social media where I know exactly what is going to show up in my feed. But every time I log onto FB, I wonder about people I don’t see anything from anymore, every time. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Yeah they push me to search and go on their pages but technically, I shouldn’t have to do that. What should happen if that I see someone’s post just because I happen to look at my unfiltered feed and I engage in deeper ways than a like, because I found that interesting thing, not Facebook. Basic psychology. I’d use the shit out of Facebook instead of reluctantly go on it.

God damn greed, over a billion people connected sold to ads, what a shame.

TL;DR: Facebook wants me to be that human in Wall-E and I don’t want to because I find more satisfaction and deeper meaning by creating connections myself (and I believe it’s something shared by a lot of people).

I noticed how well they keep smells from where you have stayed long enough. I have smells from Paris and Silver Lake in mine. Still in.

Smells are so powerful. I reach for a shirt and I feel different just because of some scent that triggers an avalanche of thoughts and memories.

It’s like a little treasure that I kind of want to keep as long as I can.

Wow, it’s already been a month that I’m here on Adams.

I don’t know how to describe my feelings over this year, I just feel like a runner who’s only been hearing his own breathing after doing a very long run in the sun. Some kind of zone where happiness or pain or anything else doesn’t really matter because they don’t exist.

I’m in the zone!

Somewhere on the West Side, on my bike, smiling to oblivion because I like simple things like a nice-looking street.

Spent the last two days working in Burbank, it was so great. I have so many cool moments with my Uber drivers. 95% of them are Armenian dudes and if you happen to be French, just let the word out that you know Armenian culture a bit through Charles Aznavour and then you’re best buddy forever. Last night we were laughing too much, dude stepped on his brakes like crazy at some point.

Just talking about the usual, work, divorce stuff, immigration, US/EU comparison, kids, how I might not get a car or maybe… It is amazing to share or get a point of view, perspective from people that are like you but also totally not. Soccer Football is making me closer to so many immigrants too. This is where you see how truly universal that game is, except for Americans so that’s kind of fun.

I’m still high on how services here are awesome. The lady at Burbank’s Starbucks know what I want after going there only once. I feel comfortable in no time everywhere and it feels great.

Travelling between different neighborhoods, especially on my bike makes me love the part of the city I’m living in and loving others too. For the first time in my life, I kind of get what’s like to be like “this is my territory”, I had never felt that way in France.

My neighborhood is growing on me. Mostly Mexicans and black people, Blaxicans too. Everyone is super nice, it’s calm. My roommates are still awesome, I’m running this place a bit –taking care of things- and it feels like I’m really at home.

And those sunsets on the roof, oh boy. Last Friday, when the sun was two minutes away from disappearing, when the yellow and orange are super sharp, I was up there. Temperature was absolutely perfect, perfect wind, just enough to wear a light jacket, I was sitting and chilling, reviewing music I’m making in my headphones, watching the sunset while vintage cars –40s Oldsmobile and roadster- were parking across the street, skateboarders doing tricks on the parking lot half a block away, and fireworks were going off around.

It was fantastic.

“I guess we learn not to do it again” is not what most people are guessing.

It boggles my mind that people accept their health to be tracked and visualized with stupid numbers, when it’s to me the most private thing ever that I don’t want to share with mega corporations, at all.

Also, the human body is so complex that we’re still not sure about how everything works, how the fuck your stupid monitor on your arm can help you, I don’t fucking know. Being healthy is not a race against others what is wrong with you people?

Personally, the best way to take care of my meat envelope is to simply listen to it. Closing my eyes. Paying attention to what’s going on inside the beast. Kind of syncing what I feel with what I want and what I want with what I feel if that makes sense.

Through the years I lost that habit. But I’m back on it, I know how to listen I just need to do it. Aerophagia, that can be so strong with me sometimes under stress, eating way too fast while looking at a screen, smoking? Gone if I listen to my meat envelope and take my time. I don’t need pills or activity tracker, I just need to stop acting like eating doesn’t require “thinking”, it does, especially after years of not doing so:

Eat slowly.

Chew fully. Pause.

Drink water whenever you feel like it instead of postponing it to the end of the meal because you’re eating like an animal.

Breathe.

Balance your food, listen to your kidneys, if they feel stiff (your lower back hurts? It might be them), go for vegetables and more water. I have plenty of dumb “body notifications” like that that help me feeling and looking good.

Exercise. Even if it’s just a 15 minutes walk that looks like nothing, it’s good for your body, it helps. We think we’re smarter than our systems with our pocket computers. We don’t know shit. You still don’t know shit with your Fitbit “goals” and if you can’t feel happy without an app telling you “yay!” you need to reconsider some stuff in your life, for real.

You can be happy without reward, I know, crazy talk here.

How the body processes food is still some kind of magic and almost unique to everyone. Which is why the Soylent thing is ridiculous too.

We’re only sure of one thing: our food in the West is way richer than what we need. I’m totally cool with meat but I enjoy eating veggies like a rabbit for a couple of days. If I get physical and that the temperature is low, my body will talk: “duuude, give me some pasta and beef”. If it’s hot and that I don’t do a lot except sitting down “duuude, where’s my big salad??” I guess I trained my meat envelope well and got lucky growing up.

Train it too. Early in your life, as early as you can. Don’t give your kids candy, ever. Make them sweat, it’s good for the mind too.

And do not track nothing except your meals in your head, learn to listen. Close your eyes.

Hey girl, ain’t no mystery says the Isley Brothers song but those apartments are still mysterious to me and I so wanted to see them. My picture sucks but I didn’t want to show how gross the parking lot looked like (10 full trash bins, no thanks).

DAT CANTILEVER DAAAAMN

Better, thanks Wikipedia. It’s a student residence so you know them kids, they don’t care about anything. They don’t realize how amazing it is to have a structure built 65 years ago that big, balanced out in the open. It’s beautiful, cocky engineering.

I just love the play with void, it reminds me of sound and playing with silence. So important, seems easy, it’s not.

I’d love to see the layout inside. I saw students going in but I didn’t want to creep them out. It’s in the middle of UCLA with fraternities and sororities all around and here I am parking my bike and looking at that building for 20 minutes from every angle legally possible. People don’t and can’t get it. I have done medieval stuff all my life, that futurism is like a ripe banana and I am the fruit fly. I can’t stop staring at it.

15 miles bike ride through the West Side, needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it as pretty much all my rides in L.A. Well dear Mr. Lautner I was glad to see your work and concrete expertise. I have more addresses to go to. And please dear students, take care of that building it is unique.

Jesus, I can’t believe how weird my nose looks like. But that’s him right here.

My grandfather passed away after a decade fighting Parkinson’s. Apparently, he woke up as usual and went back to sleep, forever. That’s how we all wanted him to leave. 91? I’m not sure, we all suck at birthdays in my family.

Born in Dunkerque in a modest family, he was enrolled in the Air Force despite the fact that he hated flying, let alone jump from the aforementioned flying plane but he made it through WWII.

That probably changed him forever because he always hated conflict. He’d do anything to fix anything.

He started to fix radios and TVs in the north of France and met my grandmother there -her dad had a coal business and most coal plants were up north- if I recall before they moved to Paris to open a shop on Boulevard St Germain in the heart of Paris.

They started to sell music, music instruments,, music sheets while he was on the road fixing electronics or delivering pianos in the 60s and 70s, probably the most beautiful time to live in Paris ever.

They virtually met all the jazz musicians from that time, French or Americans who were going to play in the neighborhood. I was blown away that they had had freaking Tina Turner and Ike buying stuff, that Manu Dibango was a good friend etc.

When I landed in the family they had just started to retire, the shop was still theirs and my parents attic had TONS of instruments clients didn’t pick up, which made me try sitars and guitars and trombones and turn knobs and press buttons etc.

He was very calm. I loved how he would talk to me like a normal person and not try to baby talk me. He would never judge, always make me feel that it’s too easy to judge and that you should always step back a little bit. He was right. He was the first to make me understand that regardless of what history books say about Europe’s colonization of Africa, it’s messy and he wasn’t proud of what France and Belgium had done.

Self made man, colossal culture, he knew so many things from what year that bitch ass Louis XVII died to who built that Parisian neighborhood to how to repair a TV tube I could ask him anything. That was before the internet and Wikipedia you young assholes and basically that was awesome. He would go to the store and take me with him to buy magazines, I would sniff around and start reading one and he would always ask, “would you like to get this one?” and I would nod and know that videogame knowledge was going to come through those pages. At the same time, he knew that I would sit hours and hours in the living room and not do stupid stuff. Good trade.

He made me laugh so much. He loved dark comedy and English humor. I so wish I had some audio recordings.

Dat ninetiesness. Also I think she’s about to smash my face.

Dude knew how to handle a bottle and a nice meal too. I kind of wish I had known him earlier but in the end, he had a good run and Parkinson’s a bitch.

See you, wise man.

Third week was meh but I moved in a new place last Sunday, at the corner of South LA. Settling down. Damn it feels good.

So this 4th week was all new stuff, new people, new habits, and I think I really found a gem over here. I’m almost like I don’t want to say anything so that no one moves in my new neighborhood. That’s right, I can do that.

It’s funny how Paris or Silver Lake were vertical –buildings or hills- and now it’s totally horizontal at the exception of my Baldwin Hills, that I visited for the first time last year, dreamed to be around ever since and this year well, I’m 5 minutes from them after being chosen as the new roommate.

I love it here.

Did I tell you that I enjoy the most beautiful sunsets on the roof? That my three roommates are awesome and my landlord the coolest and greatest?

Yesterday I rode my bike to Burbank (53 kilometers trip) to help a friend with his 55” TV and back having fun in my neighborhood, that day was fantastic and crazy and today was too, seeing so many smiles and faces and wow. So many things in less than a month, it’s overwhelmingly ridiculous.

Now,

Tons of stuff to do. Some financial pressure with all that moving and setting things up going on but ITS ON OH GOD ITS ON SHIT IS REAL