Category: Me Myself&I

It was the first crowd ever since March 13th. This was the closest I had been to anyone outside the house and my neighbors. This dog was happy to see people! I kind of wanted to steal it but I heard it’s wrong, so.

It’s like:

LeBron James: “WatchThisWatchThis”

Chris Paul: “I… Is that a shooting form?”

James Harden: “Hell I hope I don’t look like this”

Nikola Jokic: “Oh boy”

Anthony Davis: *speechless*

They also all look like looking in the direction of the hoop except for Ben? tsksktsktsktstksktstkstkskt

I see a lot of noise around journaling these days. I hear people say that they keep a private journal.

While there’s nothing wrong with that, it doesn’t add as much as you think it does. I believe that writing something and knowing that anyone can read that, will make you face whatever you face with a lot more seriousness and honesty.

I’ve been writing online for 15+ years now. I’ve written privately. It’s usually unreadable! You just moan, not even trying to build sentences. Why for? It’s just for you. But then, what’s the point? Posting a sad picture isn’t cutting it. There is no catharsis besides telling yourself “I put it down”.

Except that you didn’t. It’s still lingering in your head.

Writing publicly means that you need to make sense. You kind of need to make it appealing, even if no one reads it. You need to go through your arguments, angles, self-pity etc. And you need to cook all that at the right temperature. But this is where catharsis happens.

I just wrote about adoption, as if I was explaining to someone what I’m going through. I try to explain it, not dwell on it. That’s the positive of writing publicly: it pushes you to extract what is interesting, the essence, of what’s going on. In this example, I try to convey how having a foster family and a family after all those years feels like, and that it’s okay to feel how I feel.

Not only this helps me push the bluesy clouds in my mind away, someone in this world, tomorrow or in five years might stumble upon my post and reflect on his/her/their life. Adopted or not.

And that’s too me, so much worth the effort to go public. You help yourself and someone else. Without commerce in between. We need that.

It makes me smile being told that my foster mom, who lives alone in the house I grew up in, refused to have anyone go through the small driveway gate since the pandemic started. She would stand on her balcony and yell at people to drop whatever they wanted to drop and to leave. This cracks me up because I can see and hear her.

I guess it’s Easter and we’re on her couch with my cousins. ‘better not squirm on that thing.

I also know that if I was doing a surprise visit to her right now, she would barely ask about vaccination and let me in.

With some of her kids, grandkids, grand grandkids around, she has become a little bit of a tyrant, so I’m told. I understand. She raised us all and she’s now older and can’t drive. She needs help and she demands it.

I also understand everyone being fed up. I’m 10,000 miles away, she can’t reach me on the phone. When the US president farts though, she immediately asks my cousin who lives half a mile away from her if she had a hold on me recently, how am I doing etc.

My cousin is telling me that nothing has changed. My baby blue skateboard is still probably in the garage, at the same spot that it’s been for 35+ years. It is both a frightening and lovely fact.

When I tell my parents what’s going on in the foster family, they’re always looking kind of hurt. They know I love them to death and they wonder if they compare. Love is thankfully limitlessly expandable. Most people know the rhetoric, I am immerged in the praxis.

It’s complicated as hell though. A maze of relationships and history where I’m the only one having access to all of them.

The Clippers are in the Western Conference Finals for the first time ever.

The Lakers have 17 championships, tied with the Celtics for most ever in the league.

The city of Los Angeles is very much pro Lakers. BUT the Clippers are not hated, just smirked at. They’re like the Android of LA. The working class Lakers.

The Clippers have beat the Lakers consistently in the regular season since 2012, almost ten years ago, including giving them the worst defeat ever recorded by the Lakers (Clippers won by 48 pts).

The Lakers won a title in the bubble last year, but got their ass whooped in the first round this year.

The Clippers lost a 3-1 lead in the playoffs last year but just overcame two series down 0-2, which had never been done before in NBA history (and did it with so much resilience, it was beautiful).

The Lakers built their team from the top down: get some superstars, and the rest will follow.

The Clippers built their team from bottom up: what is needed for a championship? Get those folks.

The top down style fails to create a synchronized team with poise. It might be good for regular season, but the playoffs are something else. The bottom up approach might look a bit disappointing at first, but it turns out that it created a versatile, strong team able to pull miracles with the Clippers.

LA folks celebrated last night. I’m Harold, I shoot the ball every day and I’m happy to have two teams of basketball in this city. Let’s GET IT.

When we rely on free (but more importantly unverified) platforms for our broadcasts, and refuse to then independently analyze or assess, we become complicit in a system which relies on our indifference. If institutions, or even individuals, notice that sensationalism is the only variable which affects the amount of attention an issue generates, then truth and facts and evidence all become obsolete. They rest easy, knowing that by the time someone has noticed, there will be another issue making waves somewhere else.

A true problem of our times.

All the stars are down due to injuries.

I recently wrote that I wanted to see the small markets, not-star-stacked teams to win but I didn’t ask to have it this way! Damn.

Greed is always the problem. The Bubble was greed. Players had the shortest off-season ever and they all go down to injuries? Weird? No, completely predictable.

Had the NBA actually cancelled the season last year, those athletes would ALL be in the best shape of their lives right now. Look at KD (he was out last year and dropped 49/17/10 with 3 steals and 2 blocks last night).

smdh.

At home

Fully vaccinated.

We were supposed to “reopen” California today. I put my mask on like my socks, I don’t even think about it. I still wear it outside and considering the lingering new variants around, I will keep doing that.

The vibe is weird. The pandemic rose plenty of questions and after being exhausted of sitting around and being unable to answer said questions, we were eager to go back to what we know: commute and work. At least some, I guess.

The new government hasn’t kept any promises. In a deteriorating situation as it is, this is some shit. As usual, isn’t it? Right, but now it’s in billions of dollars. Look at homelessness in Los Angeles: plenty of room, plenty of hotels, federal financial help, federal demands about it, the state of CA having a (revised) $38B treasure chest and yet, they evict without regards and the population in the streets is growing. You can’t live on $15/hr. I mean, you will be homeless. It makes no damn sense.

So there’s this euphoric feeling about being able to hug and laugh and go out with friends after a rough year but it’s contaminated by this dire, incomprehensible social situation around. So people dissociate constantly. The vibe is weird.

There’s also this “the past five years have been so hard, what the f was all that??” washing us away. It’s really complicated to absorb and deal with.

I’m in a pickle with that smartphone bull.

I didn’t use no iPhone nor Android for the past decade because I knew that once you get sucked in, it’s over. You probably won’t change, ever.

I wanted to make sure that I had that choice. Thus, I didn’t choose either, and life was pretty good. Decentralized AF, doing my thing.

I also kind of knew what would happen at a bigger scale and I didn’t want to participate into that:

I could go on and on.

Those things are not just the result of a decade old market dominance, they happen because those two companies are so big and pervasive that they are above the laws, literally. Brands >>> Sovereignty

They make so much money they can buy anyone, any government on earth. They did and will continue (we need to step up here).

And because there’s a brutal amount of spam, scam, tracking, wasting time on pointless apps or games on those platforms, I am not looking forward to spending time dodging and setting up stuff I didn’t have to care for ten years.

I feel so free. It feels right.

Yet I kind of need an iPhone? And so it’s super weird because at this point, I don’t even really have a reason for it.

Payment? True, Cashapp and Zelle are often mentioned and I can’t do them and it’s starting to look suspicious. But payment is easy to solve, we did pay each other before GoogApple. I got some cash the other day or PayPal still does it or direct deposit or a check. The idea of setting up everything on an iPhone (device, Apple ID, Zelle app, Zelle account and all the surveillance with it) to get $200 back from a friend is not mentally exciting, you know. And then I’m locked and dependent. And then Zelle starts adding fees once we are all locked in. That bait & switch culture has got to go.

Social media? Nah, I don’t need this on my phone anymore. It’s the 20s, we off that shit bro.

App to record everything if I get stopped in traffic? ACTUALLY, this might be it. This might be the app that I need very much. This is sad.

I have two iPhones laying on my kitchen counter. Both in great shape, new batteries, up to date.

I play with one, I notice that new text messages, new calendar reminders and new notes buttons are at three different locations. I know damn well that this is not a mistake. It’s Apple’s designers making sure that I am my device’s little hoe. The phone is supposed to make me feel whimsical, looking for stuff around, having “fun” (haha, that autocorrect is so bad it’s so cute!) because that’s how brands work: you’re supposed to bow down and feel grateful.

I don’t want to bow down and I am not feeling it.

Maybe RATM’s Fuck You I Won’t Do What You Tell Me stayed in my mind the whole time, but even without that, I have a hard time deciding why I should get stressed and enter a world of pain that –and that’s batshit crazy when you think about it– everyone these days it looks like, is trying to quit or minimize as much as possible.

People getting viral on social media? They don’t like it like that, usually they get 1,000% more anxious after and never or rarely post again. People addicted to virality burn the hell out trying to keep up with obscure algorithms.

These days many people give the advice to use the least possible apps, always. Turning all notifications off etc. This is exactly how I lived with my phone in the past decade, I know that’s healthy! But so then, I don’t need to switch do I?

The mix of some kind of need to conform and simultaneously being right at how insidious this all smartphone thing is, is exhausting. Maybe I read too much. Maybe I shouldn’t care at all about anything, ever.

But the idea of 2021 children digging their own neighborhoods as slaves, so that we can power up devices that are lobotomizing us and making us more anxious than ever, while giving a duopoly everything about us including our biometric data (bodies and voices) now, doesn’t sit well in my mind. Probably never will.

(Documentary, thank you owner!) So view from the street and view from the patio. As you can see privacy is there even though it is fully open. You have a shady area and a sunny area. It’s deep enough that you won’t see much more than the top of a head from the sidewalk. Far enough to keep conversations private but not that far from the convenience of front street either.

The balance between emotions, functionality and aesthetic. It’s amazing to me.

But also cozy and chilling on the couch, watching a movie or the freaking cinematographic view around is probably simply good life. Give me a cantilevered roof anytime.