“Sixty dollars? I got sixty cents!”
Lil homie at the skate park asking how much a skateboard costs. I’ll try to get him mine next time.
It’s funny how kids say the same stuff at the same age, across different decades, different locations and cultures.
Very simple. Two reasons:
To fight nudity. Y’all outside this country might know this, in America nudity is still seen as something dangerous. People need to defend themselves against it. Nudity is everywhere! You need an automatic weapon to survive it.
To fight buses and trucks. Americans are dead scared of buses and trucks. They won’t pass them. If they do, they accelerate as if those big machines were going to change their minds, and jump on them for no other reason than being predators! Enters the AR-15. Every car probably has one in the trunk, just to be able to make it home safely through 18-wheelers and bus lanes.
Naked bodies and large vehicles! It’s hostile out there y’all.
Katt has me dying since last night.
Since wheeeeen? tsksksktsktsktsktsktskts
Dave’s delivery will always be one of the best. I can listen to that nigga telling stories all day. It’s the flow, the pitch changes, the pauses, the looks. This mf cracks me up.
Not making a raucous noise about LGBTQ jokes but just let the online and offline crowd whisper how not funny those were, would have stabbed him in the heart a thousand times. Instead folks went super loud, all the way to boycotts and physical assault on stage and forgot that a standup comedian is like a boxer: they’re meant for confrontation. That’s their jobs.
So unsurprisingly, Dave went down again with his latest. He will never give a fuck, that’s his job, again.
Incentives shape behaviors. Comedians are here to explore controversy and scandalous things, thoughts and feelings. The incentive is a bit to shock, to make folks uncomfortable in a live, experimental way, yes. That’s standup comedy. So if you shock folks and that it triggers massive publicity and sold out shows, then you do it again.
There’s no need for personal vendetta or anything like this. Just business.
Now of course I really, really, really would love to see Dave explore other fields like, what the fuck is marriage? What’s going on with many men online talking about colored pills? The wild shit that people do while not sober that they would otherwise, not do? How a black Elon Musk would have been doing in Silicon Valley? Not well, bitch! And so many observations that are not being distilled because y’all gave Dave so much attention about jokes that are not so good. Waste.
It’s frustrating sometimes.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abandoned-baby-birth-story-adopted-korea_n_6553d968e4b05cf51a16a5c2
It’s always the same pattern with women adoptees: adopted, wondering about their past, a husband scoops them up, they have a baby and the story arc ends. “You were alone in your life but now you have re-created a family that is YOURS.” Everyone smiles. It’s adorable. And scene.
It’s a lot different for a black man adoptee. There are logistics issues; I couldn’t just simply become a wife, I’m a boring straight so that doesn’t work. I’ve had to find my place in this world within a system that is quite actively not helping black men (or if it does help, it is bound to be shut down at all costs), and more likely trying to kill us all or make us as impotent as possible.
That’s a pretty big difference!
Childhood trauma or not, difficulty of connecting with people or not, I’ve had to make moves because there was and is just no other way. I’ve had to forget that things are a bit different for me. I never used my energy to make things up about my past. I used it to funnel myself into a sense of normalcy. We here. It’s 100% OK to be here. Grafted or not, it doesn’t really matter. Relationships are built. Literally and figuratively, a big heart is built too. All of that is something you do, not something that is.
My birth family and blood relatives never existed for me and likely never will. It’s fine! It’s easy to have a kid by mistake. Very easy. Birth happened, I was the result. The adults who created me bounced. Some others showed up and said “he’s cute, let’s grow him well” and it went on. There’s no narrative thread, really. That’s something I see a lot: adoptees who become writers because they think a lot about stories. I think a lot about systems. And fixing them.
I’m more design-minded. Systems create stuff. Stuff moves on and creates other stuff and systems. It is endless.
I’m surrounded by those where I live. I love that plant so much.
I didn’t know: it is the official flower of Los Angeles! It’s originally from South Africa, but they grow like seaweed in the ocean here in Southern California. They’re everywhere.
The flowers are built different for sure, but I love those fat, wide leaves. They create the best shade and there’s something rich about them, something solid. Give me that luscious vibe, bae.
Tagging Matt for his birthday.
It’s just so beautiful. That ample sound, that beat (sampled by Dilla, of course), those chords. Mmmh.
“drive engagement and taking advantage of psychology that makes people want to scroll while they are driving”. If your mental state is that bad, that weak, you should not drive. You should seriously seek help. If you need timer apps to curb your appetite, you need to go back to a flip phone and a laptop. You already know this. Safety first, goddamn.
Last year I almost got hit in a front end collision by a car drifting in my lane, because this idiot was texting with both hands, driving with his elbows while accelerating and of course not paying attention. I avoided him barely and really just because I was super attentive.
It was close enough that I think about it almost every single time I’m down that road. I see horrifying stuff when driving. People watching videos while making a fucking turn (aka when driving needs 100% of your attention). I’ve seen someone in the left lane down a hill stop at the green light because they felt that they should text back now (I thought the car had broken down rather suddenly, it had not). People are absolutely insane on the roads with their phones in L.A.
At this point laws should be voted, companies should be sued and folks should go to therapy.
I was made aware of a New Deal map last year. Reminder of what the New Deal was:
The New Deal was the effort by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933, to respond to the calamity of the Great Depression and alleviate the despair besetting America. FDR and the New Dealers launched scores of new programs to respond to a wide range of problems facing the country: stabilizing the banks and stimulating the economy, creating jobs and raising wages, investing in public works and modernizing lagging regions, and giving ordinary Americans a new sense of security and hope. The New Deal lasted until American entry into the Second World War at the end of 1942.
The New Deal keeps on giving: most free stuff (parks, schools, infrastructures like water fountains, art and federal buildings) in America is dated from those years. The map is fabulous. I didn’t know, but I am using New Deal work made before 1942, everyday. Their work mostly still stands admirably 82 years later. Beautiful.
Two thoughts:
How Los Angeles had a $500M budget (do people realize how much money that is???) to end homelessness in 22-23 and couldn’t? Homelessness actually went up in double digit? And the budget for 23-24 is $600M?? Y’all better audit this shit daily.
For that price New Deal folks would renovate every vacant building and house every homeless folks in L.A. before spring.