Category: Me Myself&I

68. Not that old.

That show started to air in France I think in fall 1991, I was eleven. Needless to say I was instantly hooked. That story sounds like mine, only I have white parents and no brothers and sisters! I’m from the “countryside ghetto”, another weird angle but the show’s “let’s try to make it all together despite our differences”, that I dug hard. Of course, Will’s wit.

Also, the father figure. Uncle Phil was acting and giving Will the same things my dad gave me except for hugs but that’s just how France is. His character in the show is described as “strict, gruff, kind of a miser” pretty much my dad too.

I was wondering if just a change of skin color would make things better. Of course it would have, because it’s not just that. when I saw episodes where dance is involved, I know I would have LOVED to be ridiculous in the front of the couch, shouting “popcorn!” with James Brown and dad. Damn, I dreamed of this and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was delivering that part to my brain (family reunion episodes would always make me sigh so hard).

But it also made me conscious that you’d rather have a white dad that doesn’t really understand you, that no dad at all like I started. Or being a dad at 15, when episodes were talking about this issue in the black community. All that shit was running in my head while I was listening to harder and harder music (Sepultura 4ever), I guess trying to be as invisible as a black man as I could be in a white world.

So those 30 minutes of blackness everyday for almost a decade were super precious to me. And I knew who Quincy Jones was, that black dude who was making music with Michael Jackson was also producing the show. Nothing in my world was that black and that cool at the same time. And fucking everyone regardless of race loved that show. It made me feel good. It made me have hopes.

And Uncle Phil was awesome. RIP, Mr. Avery. Damn that’s young, pop.

If there’s a paradise, this is probably what James did to Jesus. (Do Not Fuck With Uncle Phil)

Website you ought to check out if you want to know more.

First African-American architect member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923. First certified African-American architect west of the Mississippi.

Orphan at four, he was the only African-American student in his elementary school. That stuff sounds familiar.

Like Chappelle says, “you might not want to be the first nigga to do anything in this world.” Paul did though. Most of his work is things people wanted, not so much what HE wanted. People would fight even with FLW to get what they want so obviously Paul wasn’t going to get lynched for an interior. No black man even today can say “Fuck you, I am the architect” to his clients.

I’m wondering what his output would have been if he had been truly free. I mean he did these:

And a couple other modern stuff. The dude knew his shit. Look at his own house, in Los Angeles:

Far from the classic Spanish or American colonial revival he did so often.

SUPER MASSIVE SIGH OVER RACE AND STUFF.

This is how I feel when I compare 7 and 8. I haven’t even used 8 with touch yet.

Your browser, everything-in-tabs paradigm is terrible in every way. Sometimes it crashes and if you say it’s not much of a problem, you are lying. I have virtually never lost anything using native apps. A browser? Enough to never do that again.

The desktop is terrible. You only use it because like the 20+ tabs BS, it makes you look like “busy”. OMG icons everywhere, menus everywhere, notifications everywhere JUST LOOK AT HOW BUSY AND IMPORTANT I AM PLUS LOOK AT MY COMPLEX SHINY COMPUTER UI I HAVE ARRIVED. I did it too.

The desktop is the symbol of 2000s office procrastination and vegetative evenings browsing Digg. It’s still there, and neat when  going down the memory lane using 35 years of software history without breaking a sweat but experience wise? Fuck that.

Fuck your systray and your start menu. Let’s get real and let’s get shit done, that’s how I see Win8 UI after 12 months of usage.

Full screen by default is great. Yes you can’t fake work now, you can’t do the old window switcheroo but you’re not supposed to anyway. I know, it hurts. I feel like in a game with Win8: getting in/out fun-to-use-and-yet-serious apps like I’m Mario in a warp zone.

If I compare the best apps in both Win8 Metro and Win7 Desktop, Win8 wins by far (simplicity, stability, speed) and looking at how much the entire tech industry is copying MS design since WP7 is out (who would have known in 07 that Apple would copy MS design in 13? Not even me), I’m not the only one convinced that that flat, clear as hell, unobstructed UI is awesome. Fuck your chrome, fuck your ugly ass drop down shadow.

No, Win8 is not perfect because nothing is. Two things that need to change: OEMs and developers.

Dear OEMs, you are so bad! Trying to sell netbook-class, atom powered tablets at $800 is like shitting in my mouth directly. WTF. Those touchscreen laptops? You can tell 5 miles away that it’s going to feel stupid. How the fuck can you not put the goddamn trackpad in the middle of the fucking computer like that brand, is beyond me. Is there a patent you don’t want to pay or you all are morons or what? Fucking embarrassing. Where the fuck is my 20” tablet? Of course you have to have a 24” with 4K display like anyone would give a damn about an extremely expensive device. It’s pathetic.

And you developers, shut the hell up about the store. You can’t jerk off on your Apple sales and condemn MS, that’s being a fucking hypocrite. Plus as a user, app stores are quite awesome (easy to check, easy to uninstall, sync). Stop trying to scam people (and fuck up the market that is, your own ass) with free apps and ads, that’s lame. Make great apps with trial. Yes if your app is not great, trials are not going to help but will demonstrate how unpolished your stuff is. Stop focusing on the business model and make awesome shit, that’s like the #1 rule for any business and it’s like you developers are constantly forgetting that.

You guys want app ideas?

How about the ultimate GIF maker with which you can capture from stills or videos and export perfectly sized GIFs to social networks?

How about a distraction-free blog app that connects to blog services and allows you to drag and drop pictures in your post without the need of using any FTP shit or annoying services?

Foobar8 anyone? Flickr with all the features? Musician uploader, one interface to upload to Soundcloud Bandcamp et all? Get on this!!

The only reason that I’m using the desktop outside gamedev and obscure old software is because you guys have yet to deliver better apps in the store (so many are pathetic). There’s room, I have some bucks, you guys are missing out I’m just saying.

Hey I don’t know, I’m six.

You might be reading Derek’s blog and this sums up my value system, pretty much perfectly:

The samurai adhered to a way of life, ethics, rules, and a code that spread to all branches of society, and even today affects the way Japanese think.

• Buddhism taught them to stay calm and patient.
• Confucianism taught them that relationships between people are the basis of society – to respect our ancestors, relatives, and superiors.
• Loyalty, justice, and honor are central.
• Sincerity, compassion, courtesy, and honesty are important key values.

Though the samurai no longer exist, this way of viewing life is ever-present in society. Students are loyal to their teachers. Workers are loyal to their companies, putting in long overtime hours. Japanese are loyal, honest, sincere, and disciplined at work. They follow rules and try to improve themselves every day, just as the samurai did in their time.

I know it’s dumb, I’m not living in Japan. The Samurai way makes so much sense to me. People don’t understand the importance of relationships, humility and modesty and then wonder why the fuck the richest 85 people hold as much wealth as the 3.2B poorer. It’s because there’s no relationship at all. Like kings in the past having giant structures being built for someone that doesn’t exist while people around are dying by the hundreds. It’s dumb. I’d rather have had less cathedrals and cleaner villages.

The individualistic society is BS, we depend on each other from the maid to the air traffic control tower. Companies forge contracts with the state all the time, everything is subsidized, if a factory burns in China your phone might get delayed etc. I don’t understand why people don’t see this. Meanwhile well, I guess I should get some cornrows and start a “cleaning” business.

Loved that movie, obviously. Am I that dude but with a bass and wifi instead of a sword and pigeons? SHIT.

I’m cold. I’m fighting. I close my eyes, I see that beautiful building on Wilshire or that laundry at the corner of Benton and Beverly. I open them, I feel like in 2009. I’m going to rip off this wallpaper and it’s going to feel so good.

I’m fighting, asking. Telling all the motherfuckers who owe me money that they need to do what they’re supposed to do, again and again. I make some room on my computers, find pictures, remember all the fucks given to emails I sent to my family showing things around: none.

I’m cold on my chair, fighting tears or am I trying to get them out? I can’t do it. I’m mad. I read about police brutality, have minutes of silence. Is it hours? God that poor kid.

I’m either cold of have enough heat in me to power five stars.

So I’m sharing it with you guys.

But way more crazy and painful. Working my ass off, I feel like a zombies with a s, yes.

Little restaurant with that amazing French food.

I went to see my foster mom who took me to the restaurant for the first time ever. Just the two of us. She told me she did it with all her kids so you know, humidity in my eyes. Sometimes she talks to me and I can’t really hear her –honestly not that interesting either- because I’m loving her so much at that moment. That woman. That bond.

She asked me if I wanted my picture when “she’ll not be around” and told me that I could get anything from the house to keep, even getting priority over her six kids. I’m thinking that I’d rather have her keep her stuff and live a little bit forever? No?

She’s alive and well for now though, just a bit of arthritis. Like she says “it was a very small weekend” but I always have to jump on the road early. It takes me a while to go back to my own life, parking at my parents, talking a hour while they watch CSI:Miami with terrible voiceover and finally sit here, breathing deeply and trying to stretch out as much as I can.

Next time it’s on me Mèmère.

Still modifying little bits here and there but mostly there, thanks to Boilerplate and HTML5Bones. I still think css and html should be one and only damn file called .website or .html6 whatever with strict rules for formatting things and one and only one way to present your structure. People say “learn to code!” and I say “make that shit simpler, way more unified and consistent how about that”. No one would read or write if grammar and spelling were like computer languages.

Sorry. Design mind problem.

On 8 December 1919 he wrote in his diary “ I shall never live with fewer worries, never have time to develop ideas, I wish I could get out of Europe and get to an idyllic tropical island where one does not have to fear the winter, where one does not have to slave, but find time to think and more importantly to be a free spirit.”

Richard Neutra (got this very nice book for Christmas!). Fine, it’s kind of a romantic vision but I’m from Paris, romantic shit is what I ate breakfast lunch and dinner.

Outside love I’m realizing what culture brought me and keep sending me to California:

-music (rock)

-sound design

-skateboard

-game development

-music (funk)

-bike

That’s like all my life, man. And now modern architecture. It’s only been a couple of months that I dig and realize how much that attracts me, deeply. Architecture really modifies your perception of the world: seeing modern buildings make me feel in such a progressive world, the future now, even if it’s a bit of an illusion. It’s an illusion until it’s not. The modernism that happens in Paris is tucked in 200 year old buildings, you can feel the weight, the dissonance as if France was transitioning from a flamboyant past to a bland future.

Anyway mister Neutra, same feeling here in 2014. I don’t have a Frank Lloyd Wright to work for yet though but I’m working on it. *badly needs LA job*

One day I’ll build my modern, affordable and simple passive house in Compton. I’ll call it “Big White Mansion”, jam on my bass in it and it will be awesome.