h. Play

I love that word. I think it’s a really important one.

Scarcity is the problem of infinite human needs in a world of finite ressources.Yeah it comes with about everything in this world.

From that, you find yourself doing things you would usually not do when not having issues of lacking something. You adapt to a new situation and that seems to be good for a lot of stuffs.

Countless important things in science or art have been discovered or are born from scarcity, was it on purpose or not. Here’s my last experiences on that:

• No amp, no subwoofer: it means almost no sound with an electric bass. I did three weeks without it. Focus on fingers position instead of sound, focus on melodies instead of rhythm, paying attention to what I was playing and filling the notes in my head on the E string.. Back on my Ampeg I felt like sharper and stronger, able to do stuffs I couldn’t get back while in France. CA’s sun helped me too.
• Just a few LPs-I didn’t-listen-to-yet for this trip: yeah, sometimes it gets a bit boring but I made memories with this music that are going to be forever connected to those albums from Shock or Side Effect. I can feel the wind of Venice on some tracks or see the sun going down on others. I think the all “every music I have in my Apple brick” is pure BS. You don’t need that. Your brain cannot process that. You end up either not listening to new stuffs because you have your favorite old ones or either listening for the 6 millionth time to this particular song instead of this album you should dig more. Yeah scarcity pushes you to make fucking choices without ducking them. I know it’s hard.
• Having to talk another language for every primary stuffs –I need to pee, what’s your name again? No me recuerdo- forced me to be social. Not that I’m not but I had to whenever I wanted to or not. Which is good. I still need improvements though.
• Time: I met her in the middle of the first week. I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time windows to get to know her. “Two weeks left and no Kitt nor Batmobile” I thought. It made my ass move the hell out of my guest room, it increased my will to go all the way from “hi!” to “I miss you so bad I asplode kittens against the wall to make myself calm and comfortable”. I was damn right to do so. Now I’m stuck in France and it forces me to think. Think that really, I want to get back to her and L.A. because it’s fucking un-negociable.

Hey, thanks scarcity!

Little résumé of my bag and my trip.

Back monday, I’m still talking to people in english. I was biking and the guy told me “il y en a une ici une piste de vélo (sur le trottoir)” to what I answered “yeah but there’s one here too!” with a natural flow and US cali accent. He couldn’t answer me. And I was like “what did I just say? It was so automatic”

I’m not really back in fact. I’m hitting 30 years old monday and I didn’t do anything, nothing about that.

Yeah it was that great. I could talk about The Room, driving L.A., visiting SF, the best coffee of the world, scorpions and black widows, The Hills of Silver Lake, Santa Monica BBQs, eating tacos or ceviche, good french cheese on Sunset Blvd, smoking good and sweet pot, talking trend in games with big names..

That was too awesome. I took my chances in fact and it worked. I’m back in L.A. soon.

It’s like, everything is just logical. Totally random but still making sense. That’s life when it works right?

I have good personal exciting projects that are maybe gonna get me some noise or even a big job.

I have fantastic friends there.

And then there is her.

She can teach you, but you’ll have to charge.

The most amazing girl I have ever met. What am I doing here right now? I know dude, I know!

I have this memorie getting back often these days. I was 5 or 6 years old, in my foster family and things were getting good. Ok it was weird, I was kind of special, little black dude in a 300 pl white village. The first black I ever saw in my life was a little boy in the same situation that I was. He lived down two houses and didn’t stay more than a few months. I stayed 6 years.

Anyway I was starting to feel good and legitimate even. Then they were telling me things like “you know you don’t belong here right?” explaining to me that it would not be like this for long, that it was exceptional and that I’ll have to choose some parents.

I can remember that blues getting as huge as the entire oceans of this world. I would just stay in awe, looking at my feet, frowning. So what now? Street maybe?

Suddenly I had to think hard, to evaluate things like an adult. My foster ones knew that I was able to understand Iaw already asking questions. It was hard for them too.

So no choice. Move forward Harold. Think of the future and as you have no choice but doing things the best you can to make people happy and be thankful and stay with them, do it.

It’s in my skin and bones now.

The thing is, I can’t share it with nobody as a unique child. Of course I’ve been interested with people with weird pasts all my life, from my 12years old friend fan of horror movies with just a mother and a brother to friends with abusive parents etc.

Well I always find out that everybody has at least at a moment in his or her life or laying beneath, something someone fucking real to stick to and maybe rest a bit. In movies too. In litterature too. In all the culture, there is something not virtual to get a grip on and move on for people. As social mammals that we are, if you don’t have that, you are just using energy to avoid to go down emotional hell. I don’t.

That’s why I’m quite a control freak sometimes. Managing is a survival thing for me.

The other day in France I was having my little sister who can now have a conversation on family stuffs with interest, at my place. She can’t stop saying “my parents” like yeah, she’s really the child of my parents. But I could also share my feelings with her and it felt good. I wish I had someone to talk to these years, share with pain like Q with his brother or his father. And then his own son that he left in Sweden –Q had seven child from five women-, he came back at one point and they shared to tears.

I can’t do that with nobody. And it doesn’t seem to happen to others.

Doing so with a girlfriend is very temptative but a disaster. In couples sharing pain is maybe not a very good thing especially in my weird case. I’d rather not base a relation on pity. So I’m more in a position where I’m running away of those bad things.

All of that made me as I am though. And the result is not too bad.

I can only keep the blues away with music and love. They just ease my mind so easily no other things can. The first one is always around. The second seems to hide from me.

But when I find it, when I have it for real right here right now, it can’t be better. Ever.

I just arrived in San Francisco, a bit tired I have this iphone to take pictures, today is the Apple conference and I don’t care. I’m netbooking my way through Win7 and it’s cool.

At least once a day someone is telling me in the street “I like your hat!” and it feels great.

I think I’m lacking so much love that the stupidest thing I can enjoy, I do. Kind of cool because I’m like a camel, I can perform and survive with so few. This scarcity is well matching the game industry.

On the other hand it breaks me. I no longer can find a simple way to give/receive because I’m so scared now to put my feelings on the table. Not afraid. Scared, like something I’m still figuring out how to manage while at the same time I care and do everything I can to please people, to make them feel great. This is the not afraid part.

I feel my heart is tremendous. And yet empty. I feel I’m always in “should I stay or should I go” stance about love and women. And as you know time is not waiting for you.

I’m reading Quincy Jones autobiography and the way he had no mother –well he had but a crazy one-, always in love with every women he was meeting and of course his dedication to music, makes me feel I’m quite normal somehow. 60s France seems like a dream for US black dudes.

Fifty years later a EU black dude feels the dream in the US. I dreamed about me with no more shyness and kissing her and make the world a better place. Yeah, all at the same time. The craziest things on the planet happened so I can go and try to do my thing (yeah I’m digging the Tim Ferris shit like crazy, thanks to Sean & Tara).

And then I’m stuck, not taking all the chances as if it would burn me.

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU

My new neighbor, the red carpet is mine. Just saying. Don’t touch it. Seriously.

It’s a bit overwhelming to meet so much great people in a few days (like yesterday eating burritos and BBQ sandwiches with Betalevel Rock Cookie Bottom and Monochrom guys). The other day I wrote a blog post full of acid against what I hate so hard in France but it would not be interesting. You my french people already know that.

With all the stuffs going on here, enjoying every minute of my life in L.A., I had almost forgot about my blog. Scrolling it was like “man you talk about so much different things with focus and vision, it’s impressive”. I mean the french blogosphere is so weak from that point –no personality, so predictable- that I should stand up you know, maybe being linked or something as crazy as that.

Anyway, now I’m located in Silver Lake just around the corner of Sunset Blvd for a couple of days and I’m lovin’ it.

The weather is not that great this week but at least it’s hot and it doesn’t rain. The sun always shows up at a time.

I’m gonna have a great coffee at Intelligentsia then heading to Rudy’s barber shop getting a haircut and maybe I’ll go to Runyon Canyon.

Did I tell you about her?

Oh boy.

Nan mais le truc qui tue ici, ce sont les gens.

Le décor bon si vous connaissez la côte d’azur et le sud de la France, ou l’Espagne ou le Maroc c’est pareil: un brin désertique et sec avec des parpaings apparents ou des finitions à la va vite, de la chaleur un peu de vent et cette odeur particulière de l’océan. Rien de spécial voir c’est pas franchement sexy, comme toutes les “poussées champignons” dans ce genre de paysages. Bon ok Venice c’est autre chose.

What cloud?

Venice et son parcours de vélo, ses shops qui vendent des pompes de skate et du American Apparel à 20$ ou des pipes/bangs “à tabac seulement” (putain mais lol quoi) de toutes les couleurs et toutes les formes, ses artistes de rues et tous ces marginaux qui suintent la coolitude… Même le plus crado des homeless people semble être funky (indeed).

Tous ces gens en skate ou à vélo (quasiment pas de rollers, la trottinette n’existe pas carrément) de tous les âges, tout style –presque à celui qui aura le plus original- ça donne juste le sourire sous ce soleil qui tape pas trop fort, juste comme il faut.

Bass workout.

La bonne vibration des gens m’impressionne. Genre je passe comme ça avec ma basse autour du cou en train de jouer en marchant et en croisant les gens quasiment à chaque fois eye-contact et les gens sourient en dodelinant de la tête comme s’ils essayaient de chopper le groove que je suis en train de jouer et comme pour me donner le feu vert que “ouais c’est cool man play that funky music!”. Bon en fait celle là on me l’a vraiment dit et le mec s’est mis à chanter. Alors qu’il entendait rien de ce que je faisait –connaissez le truc hein (matez jusqu’à la fin)-, en tout cas super cool.

La fameuse piste de vélo. Ou de skateboard.

En une heure et demi de basse au soleil je me suis fait photographié trois fois. Soit c’était des touristes qui croyaient que j’étais du coin –ce qui est fort possible vu que de Roissy CDG à Air France tout le monde voulait me parler en anglais, go figure- soit les gens aiment bien tout ce qui est cool et marrant.

Et ça, il suffit que je repense à comment ça se passe quand je fais la même chose à Vincennes pour me dire que je me sens vraiment bien ici.

Pendant ce temps à Santa Cruz…

Pendant ce temps, délicieusement hébergé que je suis chez Sean Bonner (internet troublemaker) et Tara Brown (project manager) je rencontre Angela Baxley (designer) qui vit à SF et qui après deux rencontres m’invite à faire le voyage (par avion c’est po cher il parait, en caisse c’est trop long) pour visiter la ville. o//

Et tout est comme ça man. Nan j’ai pas encore goûté la weed mais j’aurais déjà pu et ça ne devrait pas tarder. C’est vraiment un produit du terroir californien et vu comme ça par les gens. Rien d’autre.

C’est trop easy ici c’est ça qui déchire, ya pas de frictions ou de coups de pute. Ou disons qu’ils sont minimisés au maximum. Embouteillages ? Pas un klaxon. Rue blindée de monde ? Personne ne se prend la tête quand il faut attendre 6,875 sec que le douchebag qui bloque le chemin bouge son cul. La bouffe du chat ? Distributeur automatique. La litière ? Nettoyage automatique. Un ultra bon café pas reuch ? Un petit tour de vélo et c’est parti pour la joie des papilles gustatives (Starbucks à côté ça ressemble à de la pisse d’âne et j’ai testé pour la première fois hier).

Donc finalement rien que je ne savais pas déjà, c’est juste l’expérience de le vivre qui est si plaisante.

Et ça fait seulement deux jours que j’y suis. J’ai encore des copaings à voir. Genre ceux-là:

Que des gens aux mêmes métiers et styles de vie que moi…

J’ai un pote qui m’a parié une bouteille de champ’ que je reviendrais pas. Putain c’est qu’il pourrait bien gagner.

Je regarde par la fenêtre et que vois-jeuu

Waking up..

Les US. La Californie. Los Angeles. Venice.

Premier jour passé après genre 16 heures de dodo suivant la vingtaine d’heures de trajet.

Tranquille.

Plus demain, je suis encore raide du décalage en fait.