h. Play

(via this site)

Places have souls. They have seen things. They are guardians of those things. Or something.

20 years ago when I learned that they had destroyed Stax Records’ studio, an old movie theater with an amazing sound (only to build a copy across the street, jfc), I felt devastated.

My foster mom’s house potentially sold next year can’t be true.

My friend’s apartment she told me yesterday that she left recently, makes me sadder than it should. It had one of those 50s/60s very well thought-out layout and I have great memories from it. Gone.

It’s probably a mix of being from Europe where places don’t change for 75 straight years if not longer, and the adoption thing which makes one acutely aware of spaces due to not belonging to any by default. Those together trigger in me a greater sense of loss when places change, transform, disappear.

America and Japan are ruthless on that end.

Got hit with this the other day:

Note that:

• This was to watch a skateboard video (some littering seen and “let’s fucking go” heard) on YouTube.
• My gmail itself is 21 years old.

The good news is, it looks like Google doesn’t know much about me (I’m not using my gmail address like that).

I didn’t watch the video. What a nightmare.

Reddit is the most manipulative shit I have ever seen. The algorithm is such a desperate bitch these days! It tries and tries.

The thing is now with how people use AI, anything that looks real can be 100% synthetic. A thoughtful comment. An inspiring video. A picture of something incredible. I spent the past few weeks wondering more about if something was real than actually learning things. Wild!

Therefore, there’s no value anymore. It was already the most astroturfed website ever, but now it’s literally pointless.

This is freeing. This is good.

It’s been all over the place. So many!

I can’t believe the entire tech world bowed to that president. I can’t believe Google said “yup, gulf of America coming right up sir!”. And Apple was like “look at my little gold gift!!!”. It cannot be more sycophant than that.

Apple literally did what we all feared a surveillance state would do and no one said a fucking thing! How dare you still use their devices, come on y’all.

I can’t believe Los Angeles blocked adobe construction after its biggest fires ever because officials are “not sure those structures would stand”. Humans have been building those for five thousand years, your stupid ass stick construction burns the fuck down in 24 minutes and you doubt contemporary adobe? Beyond dumb as hell. It’s completely anti-science.

Yeah, the fires were started by some emo mf who felt sad. Beat his ass senseless.

Wondering what happened to $2B used to fix homelessness? Corruption. That’s what happened.

Disappointment. Kawhi’s arc (this man literally made me watch the NBA ‘gain back in 2013). The legendary skateboard pros showing their whole ass on social media, spewing hate and nonsense. Good people like D’Angelo dying. Brother, you were not supposed to leave before at least another couple albums, goddamn. Meanwhile Diddy probably playing some flute with somebody’s booty in prison, smiling. Fuck all of that.

At work, politically, on vacation, with family or with friends, it’s been a whole lot of  deception.

Nothing inspiring.

Yet. I’ve just had probably one of my best year ever. In control.

I have the best sound systems I’ve ever had. I live in a cute, gorgeous place while designing one bigger and even better. I enjoy my job. I’m well respected and liked by my peers. I have monster orgasms, daily. I have enough projects, small and big, moving at decent paces to make me smile all the time. I land heelflips now! I enjoy my life fully. I have room to grow. I feel strong and hungry.

I’ve never been in a dissonance like this. I’m mad but I ain’t stressin’ I guess.

2025 being the year we cannot trust videos anymore is a wild milestone.

A huge one. Video had always been the safeguard for everything!

The consequences for young people growing up trying to understand the world, are dramatic. Like, insanely dramatic.

My mind is racing.

My foster mom was lied to and deceptively ended up in the retirement home thinking that this was just a hospital routine check for no more than a week.

She fell  in there a couple days ago. 14 stitches on her head. At this rate her funerals are going to come fast.

The brutality to me is also in the dissonance. This family gave me their best. But now her own kids, people I love and who I didn’t know could do that, the people she worked so hard for so long for, are kind of literally putting her in a casket now that she needs constant help. It is inconvenient to have a dying mom but come on, man.

It be your own people. It doesn’t have to be.

Where Do the Children Play? – by Eli Stark-Elster

We can complain about their screen time, lament the anxious generation, scoff at how ‘unnatural’ this brave new world has become. Simultaneously, though, we should do our best to understand why kids are behaving this way.

Rather, I think we should be super fucking active to get back to what we know is good.

I’m generation I-had-it-all. Wood sticks, dirt, doing nothing around an electric box by a sodium lamp, 8-bit consoles, bicycles, porn in gif files, 32-bit consoles and the internet. I’m part of the very few who got it all.

We went too far. We all know this. We need to cut down screen time. Cut down brainwashing through hours and hours of nothing-ness. We need to go back to doing nothing outside. The real nothing.

digital space is the only place left where children can grow up without us

That is not the case! There are tons of adults in those spaces since forever wtf? That is one of the main issues with digital spaces: you cannot verify who is behind that username, you can’t even less today and probably never ever will be able to thanks to AI now.

When we were up a dirt hill and couldn’t hear anything, we knew we could do whatever we wanted. No adults disguised as trees. Sure, we wouldn’t do much as it would be cold in November and after throwing some rocks or whatever, there was nothing much to do. But it was real: we were truly by ourselves. Left with our thoughts. Getting more honest overall. Pondering more. Taking our time. Setting some shit on fire and laughing. Understanding accountability. Real.

Digital spaces do not allow that. They are fake as fuck and that’s a massive issue in terms of trust in your environment and yourself. All this time and energy spent trying to decipher BS and bullshitting left and right on phones while growing up is probably destructive.

Because digital spaces are so good at hooking up people thanks to the ability to make filthy money selling our info, giving up on them being the only spaces left for children is an absolutely fucking not for me.

Send the kids out. Trust the process.

The Edris House By E. Stewart Williams has been a big influence in HHH design. For one thing: monopitch roof and living room designed around it.

(more pictures here)

It creates a dynamic relationship with the outside. The ceiling/roof line is a diagonal going forward the sky and the sun. This is exciting!

It obviously brings in copious amounts of light inside, which I will need with my concrete cave. It is simpler to build than a gable roof and the slope provides effective rain drainage compared to a flat-flat roof.

Studying houses for years now, I noticed that what makes a “modern contemporary” house feel so flat and boring is the constant horizontality of its ceiling. This house is small yet the monopitch roof makes the living room look bigger.

So this + my layout having no 90° angles will make my 1,300 square feet project look cozy and I can’t wait.

My foster mom was put in a retirement home last week. She has Alzheimer’s.

The thing is she lived in her house for five straight decades. She doesn’t drive so that’s essentially 24/7 in the same environment for 50 years.

She raised five kids (and me) and provided daycare to countless families. Same place, same woman. Same woman, same place.

This summer as usual, I drove to go see her. She was beaming. Yes, after 25 minutes she started to ask me a couple things again, but otherwise she looked serene, at peace. In her own house, watching TV from a comfortable chair. Giving me compliments for my shoes and how I kind of have big feet (“you know what they say about men with big feet?”). Her light green eyes wide open.

We’re laughing. It’s just her and I. It is quiet and there’s a little summer breeze. I want to stay longer than an hour but I have to get back on the road. She stands up, uses her walker to get to the balcony to wave a goodbye while I honk and wave back, as we always always do.

I just didn’t know that it would be the last time. I remember thinking that it might be, got my tears up and then dismissed the idea “nah, there will be another one” to motivate me to dry up the eye water supply.

She fostered me. I have zero legal leverage to do anything. The house is scheduled to be sold next year and I don’t fucking want it to happen. There is just a lack of dignity in this whole affair. She is conscious that she can’t live alone anymore, but she’s also conscious that she doesn’t want to be in the retirement home and wants to be in her home.

I feel her. I hold onto my memories of taking her out to restaurants in the past few years. I was so happy to provide some sweet, short change to her routines. Stimulate her brain. Make her walk. Activities are essential when you’re in your 80s, even just for an afternoon or a couple days.

I’m still in denial, not going to lie.