Category: Me Myself&I

This year I told myself that I would take any opportunities in front of me and that it would be the year I exploded. Whatever it means.

Et on reprend les bonnes habitudes..

I moved to L.A. found an oustanding partner and am so ready to push it hard, doing audio like crazy. I miss some tools, they’re on their way. After three months without producing new content, without my dear 5.1 that makes me want no tv no movies no nothing because sound is all I need, I’m frea-king starving.

Years and thousands of hours of the same routine stopped temporarily, some important details to solve, money flying by no doubt why I did get back smoking cigarettes. Damn it, I should stop already.

I have to shut down ideas in my brain because I can’t realize them. As you know ideas are cheap, making and finish them is what is hard and all about.

The production of SideFlip the iPhone game I’m working on didn’t go very well. Too much experience of what we should fix and go for first, not enough experience of managing people, especially without contracts and just trust from words. Eventually it’s gonna be out soon (we’re in beta).

I did the 8 mn original music, all audio fxs, design 20+ puzzles –some I can’t solve now!-, manage the consistency and ergonomy of the GUI, report bugs and all that boring stuff but I failed at making it happen in time. Like says my friend Sean Bonner I’m just shit at providing structure to people I work with. I want to get better at it. Or find people who don’t need it.

Anyway some music from me is gonna be featured in Boxgame by Sophie Houlden, the internet game of the month in Edge magazine next month! I can’t wait. Oh and play it, it really is a fun platform-puzzle game.

I did not explode yet but the fuse is burning steadily.

Family time.

During that time, August in Paris makes you believe that the capital is at least half black, half asian demonstrating who can go on vacation, sort of. It makes me feel bad that my white friend after four years in China seeing that too is feeling “invaded” while at the same time he loves black pussies.

And then I see angry young black men at la Def. Usual stuff for a suburb parisian like me. Never had relation with french black communities. Not nerd enough for me I guess.

In L.A. it’s different. Black people are quite rare where I live but they all share the streets and card boxes. A large part that I saw for now are homeless or poor with shitty jobs. Last night I paid a vegan taco to a big black man with a guitar before he did go to Mc Donalds.. “Black man.. Guitar..”

They all have this “sympathy by default” bro’ thing with me, always smiling with the classic “how’s it going?” coming out from their mouth shortly after. Sometimes I want to talk and share.

Then of course there’s Barack the Boss. Health care debate on TV. Openness.

And then I read that, here’s an excerpt:

“People of all races got sucked into subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages, but even high-income blacks were almost twice as likely to end up with subprime home-purchase loans as low-income whites — even when they qualified for prime mortgages, even when they offered down payments.”

Something that follow the analysis of the End of Work which explain how technology has killed millions of jobs for minorities since half a century:

“In October 1944 the first mechanical cotton picker was successfully demonstrated in the Mississippi delta.vIt could pick 1000 pounds of cotton an hour, thereby doing the work of 50 seasoned pickers. 1949 only 6 percent of the cotton in the South was harvested mechanically; by 1964 it was 78 percent. Eight years later, 100 percent of the cotton was picked by machines.

More than 5 million blacks migrated north in search of work between 1940 and 1970. The fortunes of black workers in the North improved steadily until 1954 and then began a forty-year historical decline.”

“In the mid-1950s, automation began taking its toll in the nation’s manufacturing sector,” he wrote. “Hardest hit were unskilled jobs in industries where black workers were concentrated. Between 1953 and 1962, 1.6 million blue-collar jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector. While the unemployment rate for black Americans had never exceeded 8.5 percent between 1947 and 1953 and the white rate of unemployment had never gone beyond 4.6 percent, by 1964, blacks were experiencing an unemployment rate of 12 percent while white unemployment was only 5.9 percent.”

It seems like the economic race is always lost twice as much by the same people. For no reason. Just History and slow progress.

I’m fortunate enough to be in the tiny knowledge and high profile economy,I’m lucky enough but I know that without my unique experience and “white legacy”, I would probably not be here. It hurts. It fuels me too.

In the game industry where there’s less than 2% of black people (yeah, less than women can you imagine?), it’s just not the representation of western societies today. Didn’t see a change in ten years. On the consumer side of it, I read that and I feel sad that people just don’t get the solution (Valve totally got it with L4D, Sega totally got it with Streets of Rage in 19 fucking 91) and get angry instead. And sure thing is, there is never been a time more multi-cultural than now.

These gigantic contrasts between what I live and what I see around me, what should work and doesn’t make me contemplate all that shit. I’m in the middle. No sides, nothing to say except that everybody’s to blame. Not very useful.

Also, there’s the fastest man ever. Coming from the country more known for its slow tempo music and slow motion grass. You can’t invent that.

Sometimes I want his legs. I want to run. Run away from you, society you are so slow! I want the Future Now.

Watching everything that goes on in the tech and computer world –well as much as I can-, here some thoughts.

Just so nobody can’t say nothin’

Closed/Open technologies and monopole.

It’s an endless loop I guess. Usually at first we use the closed ones because they are better and when the technology is mature enough –when people really need it while the tech reaches stability- we move to alternatives to the point where we’re almost totally free to use this technology seeminglessly and endlessly. And then a new closed tech comes etc

So there’s nothing wrong using closed tech. Opera offers a great browser experience and it’s a closed tech. The only thing to do with closed technologies is to not giving up everything on them. Using them to get things done and have a boost of productivity is fine.

Adobe Flash is an excellent example of a great productivity tool for which we tend to give up everything, building a monopole based on a proprietary technology where only a giant company like MS can compete with (Silverlight). But Flash is cool –though not as fast as the Grandmaster-, it is used by visual designers. They are the coolest guys of the entire universe they can’t be wrong!

That’s weird. The stability of the open source alternative should be here and competing. I can’t wait to have the open source equivalent of the PDF format, without any restriction and gazillion of devices capable of reading it while offering perfect performances, feeding great apps.

I see some people complaining about the monopole of iTunes these days and people going away from a market so tightly controlled by the California based company that apps are refused arbitrary.

Well, Apple is known for that –just having to install iTunes to see the music catalog is the first step-, it’s closed closed closed. The size of the iphone market is now enough to make people think twice before being stuck.

It’s like the cooler you seem, the more you can fuck people. Open or closed technology doesn’t even count. That’s why I don’t want Chrome. Way too nice Google, and you already have me with mail and rss.

OS/Apps and updates.

They all fail at some point. Whatever it is, from Snow Leopard to WordPress to Windows, a major update on a major system has to break some stuffs. That’s why 7 is impressive for me, it didn’t break anything and everything worked out out of the box on three very different computer. Because doing an operating system is one of the most complex task in the world, sometimes it doesn’t deliver. Hopefully it’s less and less the case whatever the flavor of what is running your computer on.

Also the more the app is used, the more it’s vulnerable and needs updates. WordPress and Firefox come in mind. It’s just like that. And no system is unbreakable so.. All this noise on news about what is normal in the software world is pretty annoying because during that time, they don’t talk about great apps and services that would be worth the word.

Patents & lock-in.

Well, I agree with Raph Koster on this one. You have a great idea, you did work hard on it, it seems fair that you want some revenue from it. The point is to what degree. It seems that people always want to abuse that, largely. The lack of competition because of abusive patents especially on hardware is slowing the spread of progress so hard (multitouch mess).

Anyway the only way to prevent abuses or slow generalization of great tech things seems to make sure to be in the middle of it. No sides, just going here and there, getting the one that fits your need without compromising your freedom.

I feel like I’m overcapacity. Too much information, I can’t process them all. Facebook was not a really good idea for that. I am officially scared to launch the website. It’s a time-elapsing hemoragy.

I have some trouble to find a way to filter, priorize all this digital social information creation thing. The more I create, the more I get feedback. The more I get feedback the more I need to answer it. The more I answer it, the less I create. Then I switch for another period, endlessly.

Quite exhausting. A blog comment appears in the mail, I click, read it, prepare my answer then see 4 tweets with 2 links with one to a picture. Internal dialog:

“RT the article? Haha funny picture. Where was I. Oh I didn’t read this tab yet, good 5 pages article. Let’s see. Oh, it blinks in the taskbar, the discussion is on. Correcting, the three conversations are on. Another link ok but quickly then because I was doing.. Oh damn the answer to the blog comment. Oh. I was writing an email at first and needed a starred rss item. Let’s see. Oh new items. And new tweets. And it’s blinking again. And it feels exciting.”

This little reward loop in my brain is saying to me: “yeaaah, encore”. I’m a fucking mouse in a laboratory. With a scroll-wheel in the forehead.

I have around 400 streams of information to check everyday, some of them are enough alone to occupy my brain for hours. Videos. I now avoid them widely, so time-consuming.

I know. But the Internet is so addictive. Especially when Gmail is down.

I guess we all are in the same shit.

LAX Immigration and Customs, first time:

“Have a nice stay, enjoy California!”

Second time:

“Are you on vacation here? Allright”

Third time:

“What are you doing here? Where’s the plane ticket to get back to your country? What are you doing here? Why staying for so long? Let me see your card. So why are you coming here?”

Immigration. It seems fair until you’re on the other side.

It was the french president Sarkozy talking to suburbs and saying that about France.

Well I’d rather do both.

I’m stupid: I started working with this idea that it always seems to be greener there while it seems shit where you actually are, but that is on average (well in the western world) the same wherever you go. There’s down and upside. So I believed France and Europe would be a good playground to do stuff, no need to go away in Canada or CA. There is plenty of good things in here and a cultural melting-pot quite unmatched on Earth. Paris is amazing for that (and weird, I’d talk about it). I was thinking about the challenges and the potentials. There are still here.

But nothing big happened. Or it’s so slow it’s invisible.

No real good signs of society improvements just some willing to move forward but nothing happens really. France is lagging. In so many ways it even goes backward (wtf is this religious vivacity these days?? or Hadopi or this amazing rampant bigotry..).

People don’t give a shit. Globally, French don’t give a shit. Progress is difficult in this context.

Wherever I am, since I’ve been living outside a bit, I can’t believe how France don’t care from the airport to sidewalks to services, whatever. It’s not that it’s bad behaviors, it’s more like it’s dull and selfish ones (boss kidnapping I mean, come on!). It’s even more irritating when people apologize. Sometimes I want to stab the dude in the eye and say “SORRY I DIDNT KNOW IT COULD HURT I MEAN I HAVE THE RIGHT TO PLAY WITH A KNIFE RIGHT?”.

I love the independence state of mind of France, questioning everything, all the time. I think it’s good to be not sure of anything, because that’s what life is. I hate the careless rude, rough, mean side of it.

We don’t have to have them both. We could have the positive one and ditch the stupid side but no, that would be totally not french to do so.

I guess.

Anyway, I feel angry against myself for giving up, against french people for having all the pain in the ass to believe, adapt, build and finish stuff instead of always talk and criticize it (because if they are not like this, they usually are not in France anymore) against California for being so awesome despite its own downside.

I hate waste in every way and I can’t stop thinking about it when I remind myself of these last years or when I listen to my friends or public transports conversations. Social, society opportunities falling and failing.

And then I just have to see some smart witty funny french people and..

Man I feel weird. But I’m doing it. Both.

Après un mois et des poussières sans nuages, ça fait bizarre quand même. Juste après le Groenland, mer de nuage. A 10 km c’est magnifique, j’ai même vu un château dans le ciel. A 3 km sur Paris, on plonge doucement dedans. C’est doux, c’est gris.

C’est du moisi.

N’empêche le lever du soleil sur la planète blue en altitude, c’est le pied.

What to say?

That I have never been that happy in life? That it’s the best summer ever? Or that it’s gonna be the best autumn of the galaxy at least for me?

I don’t want to make you more jealous that you already are.

Seriously though, there is still some unsolved and important stuff to deal with but at the same time it’s always the case whatever you do so..

I don’t know which subject to talk about living here, on Sunset blvd. I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be about food and diet though :) I’m still in the process of assimilation of cultural differences. I miss nothing in the everyday life compared to France, at least for now. At the opposite getting back to Paris scared me and made me regret L.A. Not only for Her.

I have unleashed the archives to december 2005 and re-reading some stuff I can’t say I’m not having what I wanted. It’s all happening. It’s scary fabulous. I’m suspicious about the scary part.

Maybe I miss to speak/hear french. That’s why I’m finding myself listening to “Libre comme l’air” from Reciprok french hiphop band (la hontassse). I feel so constricted in english, checking so many times my grammar and all. Eventually it’s gonna be automatic.

But man, this weather.. I breath better with roads everywhere and an ocean breeze than in Paris with woods but no breeze at all, just a big annoying wind. And fucking rain.

It’s awkward to listen to the music I know in a completely different environment like one song was reminding how much I wanted some change, looking at the moon, freezing in my appartment while playing before having some soup.

Paris, I’m not missing your cloudy mood. At all. I need an amp though.

It’s weird because I didn’t believe that I would find something or someone in the US. I was just fed up with Paris and parisians. I even wondered if I would not return in the french countryside, making music and growing vegetables. Even if I know that I’m too urban for that, it was tempting. Living cheaply, independantly, no bullshit, just jokes weed&wine. I was thinking about it so hard when back in my less than 300 people village.

And then a few weeks later, I’m starting a life in a 11 million people city. It makes me wonder what is next? Well for now some funk legends live. It’s like that my friend!

“Happy birthzzzzZZZ”

Thirty years old ala old school with family. I had this idea of throwing a party at my place letting everybody write on the walls but I was too busy falling in love 10K kms away. Sorry.

This picture makes me smile and sad at the same time. Smile because I remember my grandfather getting grumpy while we would make him go to his bed for the afternoon nap seeing that the wine and the champagne had some effect on him. It’s sunday of course he can have all the alcohol he wants, one of the last funny stuff he can appreciate these days.

Sad because this picture –and pictures in general- are sure not enough to describe someone. Here’s my grandfather so silent, so sleepy so like nothing special. I remember him as always having some joke or some funny thing to say. Like I would make fun of him and he would just look casually at my grandmother and say “punch your little son on the head please” so that it would always crack me up.

it’s like pictures are not enough. Videos are silly. I’d love to only have the sound of him during some dinner or something when he was not at 10pills/day (Parkinson’s). I have some ninja recording from 10 years ago, it’s quite amazing. It makes you feel the past like nothing else. No filters, no photoshop. No pretending in front of a camera. Just naked people minds communicating. Raw Past.

Anyway at my birthday Raymond asked me to come to see him in his bedroom. “I want to ask you something son”. I was thinking about getting him something, like some cakes from the north of France from where he comes from or some diapers because uh, it’s part of his life now.

He asked me with his sweet and soft tone voice “Could you write me on a paper the name of your girlfriend please?”

“Aww sure, I’m gonna do it right now!”

So I wrote it on a post-it with my best handwrite style possible.

v e r d e l l w i l s o n.

I think he couldn’t understand when I was talking about her (you). He may not meet her (you) but he knows what is going on. All stooped as he is, he heard the smile in my voice saying those two words.

I’m watching MJ’s funerals in L.A. Streets are calm, it seems like the entire city is watching it too.

Michael Jackson from my french countryside point of view.

He was so all over the medias in the 80s, even in my little village in the middle of France. I forgot about that.

The big memory is of course the 1982’s first broadcast of his video clip of Thriller in Champs-Elysées, a french famous tv show at that time. It was scary as hell for my little age but the dance part was so amazing I couldn’t stop watching and listen to this grawl synth and thick bass sound with claps and percussions.

More than just an amazing blend of groove, horror and dance, watching this man was something very special for me: I had no brothers, no black people around me, all I had was Diff’rent Strokes, Sydney on TF1 –a black dude introducing african american music in France, especially hip-hop- and Michael Jackson. The last one was so above everybody, he couldn’t be no more than a reference to me.

It was awkward because I was feeling that either you’re black and invisible in a village or you’re black and you’re the most known person on earth, ever. No real in-between.

Either you’re the supreme or you’re nothing. Either you entertain or you don’t. it gave me infinite hope and fear at the same time.

Now that I do music and play his songs regularly, now that he has passed away I can feel how influential he has been on me. I mean if I look at my 80s tapes, there’s MJ and MJ. BAD has been the soundtrack of my ten-ish years. Everytime I was starting to walk her street I would synchronize my walkman on Man In The Mirror intro and smile while throwing her some croissant at her window. Her father was kind of racist. Maybe the first materialization of that feeling I didn’t know about. I was ahead of that.

Al Sharpton MJ’s funerals speech was right, MJ did a lot to make me feel that I could be at the top of the world even if the world was totally different from me, physically. Giving and sharing love has no such barrier. It was kind of The 80s message. And the messenger, with his glove and his famous moves was Michael Jackson. RIP.