pirate apprentice

[pirateapprentice]

The Cat Walk, by Donald Byrd, is just an unreal album. Right off the bad, he hits it hard. If you’re throwing a dinner party tonight and have a started goal of people getting boozed up, this well help

[pirateapprentice]

Album of the week. Freddie Hubbard just killing it. And ATCQ fans will clearly recognize the sample.

[pirateapprentice]

Coast Line

Dusting himself off, Robert surveyed the scene he now found himself occupying. He melted into the greyness of it all, the ashen stream and the dry, overgrown grasses meeting the charcoal ocean, which, much further out, met the silver, overcast sky.

The air was cold, and without a single imperfection. The offshore wind imperceptible except for the the grasses that bowed towards the ocean, as if trying its hardest to mimick the surf.

A few hundred feet up the shore, Penny, the collie-shepard mix, gave up trying to chase down the deer that was much more nimble than she is, and much more familiar with the terrain. She looked around confused and concerned, wondering what had happened to her human.

Robert squeezed his eyelids, stealing a few more seconds. Then, bringing himself back to his current reality, he took one last glimpse at the photo, adjusted his focus to his reflection in the glass where he checked the knot of his necktie, and, reaching for the door, headed for what came next.

[pirateapprentice]

ok nate, let's dance

sunday, 9:15

gloriously sunny day here. hardly a breeze. enjoyed our time together nate.

saturday, 3:16

what a joke. they were talking category 2 for a little while there. but now, nola is just looking at a tropical storm. the curfew has been lifted. probably not even gonna lose power. all this build up for nothin. (though I'm sure some folks east of here are being hit pretty hard).

worst issue I've got is everyone else in the hood is home and also trying to stream shit. making it impossible to watch the seinfeld standup on netflix

saturday, 5:11

nothing doin'

saturday, 3:16

the first rain band arrived a while ago. Some wind, good amount of rain. Now it is just a steady rain, far from a downpour. Hoping doggie's bladder is doing ok; might not get out for a while.

saturday, noon

neighbors don't seem all that worried. the response to the question "should I board up my windows" tends to be greeted with a look of "you should have a glass of wine".

tourists just look amused.

friday, 23:45

a bit breezy. the bar on the corner is full of cheer. the crescent city ain't swettin' a category 1. at least not yet.

friday, 18:45.

done: three days of water, enough calories to last three days. full tank of gas. dog food, cat food. cash. important documents consolidated.

tbd: plywood for at risk windows, send insurance company videos of house / possessions and shit, microdose dog doggie xanex to test affects

not gonna happen: waterproof safe to store important docs

[pirateapprentice]

Four Years of This?

The Trump presidency is underway. One of his first announcements? He’s going to take the weekend off, get started on Monday. Maybe this presidency won’t be so bad if he only works 5/7’s the amount of time presidents usually work.

But as is typical with Donald, he quickly backtracked on his word, sitting in front of the CIA’s Memorial Walk of Agency Heroea, a sacred site for members of that agency, mending the relationship he damaged by continuing his war against the media.

I’ve never been a politically charged person. I’ve disagreed with presidents and politicians and pundits, but I’ve never been aggravated the way I am today. Likely because the discourse, while rancorous at times and often petty, always seemed professional and civil at the highest levels: ranking members of Congress, Senior members of the Senate, and certainly the office of the Presidency.

Not anymore.

Trump sounds like a junior congressperson from a backwoods enclave trying to make a name for himself. In other words, he sounds like he got into a fight on the schoolyard, and is now making his case in the principal’s office, denying culpability and blaming everyone else for his failures.

And what was the failure? Drawing a smaller crowd than Obama? Who gives a shit! Obama was the first African American elected to the presidency. It is arguably the most historic version of a historic event. Donald’s election is historic, but mostly just because for the first time America elected somebody who is a known asshole. What else about his presidency is historic? And it doesn’t even matter. Do you think Barack gives a fuck? I’m sure right now he is laughing about it, but only because Donald made it a thing. It wouldn’t have been a thing otherwise.

To get into a schoolyard brawl over crowd size isn’t just pathetic, it is terrifying. Is that really the kind of thing The President of the United States going to devote time to? News flash: every waking moment of your next four years has to be marvelously prioritized. To be the president of the United States, you’d damned well better make sure that whatever you are doing at every waking moment is in the very best thing you should be doing for the country that very minute. I have to believe brainstorming ways to discredit the media’s claims of a smaller crowd size is objectively less important than some of the other things on his list of things to do. If he actually has a list of things to do.

At this point, Donald Trump’s priorities seem corrallated to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s: I’d imagine the top thing he would like to accomplish is to shut down the media and replace it with a state controlled propaganda apparatus.

The media, for its part, seems game to fight back, but outside the opinion pages by only portraying facts. Keep it coming: what keeps this country working is the media holding those in the most powerful positions accountable. Without that we would look like Turkey or probably more like Russia. Because there is no doubt in my mind if he could our new POTUS would use his pulpit to bully his way into whatever he wants. That might have worked in Atlantic City boardrooms, but that won’t work here. The stakes are too high.

[jamiatt-deactivated20201227]

I crossed the 150 page threshold today, probably about 100 pages left to finish this first draft. I feel like I’m throttling this book into submission. It’s extremely alive, and it’s also extremely agitated. I’m just trying to make sure all the things that need to be said get down on the page. I want all these characters to work their shit out.

Everything I read is informing how I’m writing. I prefer to read short, tight, efficient works. A few poems for breakfast, short stories throughout the day. Those things which seem to be powering my brain in the direction I want to go, I try to sample in small doses, so as to not use them all up.

I just want to burn through this draft as quickly as I can. I’ve mostly lost interest in the outside world. I haven’t had a real conversation in five days. But I know this isolation can’t last. I have some other responsibilities that will begin in two weeks. That’s why I’m treasuring this time now.

I’m serious as a fucking heart attack right now about making this book great.

[pirateapprentice]

Off to a good start

I'm sitting outside on a comfy, semi-reclined chair with my foot on the railing, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, Catalina Island slightly to the left, and the Los Angeles basin even further to the left. You hear the occasional plane coming and going from Burbank, the occasional car on the opposite side of Topanga Canyon, winding down the road that leads down to Malibu, back down to civilization. The house is an architectural marvel, a hyper modern square house, fully glass walled on the east and west ends, where everything is controlled by iPad: the lights, the heat, the pool temperature, even the sound system in the guest house that sits on stilts 100 yards back from the main house. It is now 2016, and I am drinking a beer to try and erase whatever traces remain of a night of heavy celebration. My only accomplishments to date are frying some bacon to perfection, and taking in the grand view this house has to offer. Some of our closest family and friends are with us. Everyone is casually flipping through magazines, instagram, or their own photos documenting the absurdity that was our eight person dance party that went on hours after the ball dropped, accomplishing nothing other than letting the hangover bestow a general lethargy that would be unacceptable 364 days of the year. Foresight and planning has afforded us the comfort of knowing our rations will last beyond our checkout time on the 2nd, and that preperation will be minimal. A tenderloin to season and roast, a ceviche to blend. Towards the southern horizon, planes glide just above the water as they make their initial accent out of LAX, registering no decibles here. All we have is a pleasant mixture of tinnitus and the Muddy Waters Anthology. It is a dreamy way to ring in the new year. Down the mountain lurk the realities of the day to day. We'll get home to our jobs and our responsibilities, and our forever in flux checklists. For now though, it is good to pretend that this is reality. It is a soothing cocktail of feeling carefree and feeling that big things will happen in 2016.

[pirateapprentice]

Jamie XX at Bimbo’s

I've never really been one for seeing dj's live. I've always been a band guy; I like to see the drummers drum, the guitarists guitar, the saxaphonists sax (is that it? Or is it blow?). Standing around, watching someone DJ just always seemed a little strange to me. A guy or gal in a hoody stands on stage alone and taps a computer, shuffles some things around on a table, ever so slightly bobbing his head to some tunes. If I wanted to do that, I'd put a mirror in front of my desk.

So I was cautiously optimistic when I entered Bimbo’s 365 Club to see Jamie XX. I knew his music well, and liked it, and I love the venue. I’d be willing to take a flyer on practically any act that comes through the place. I figured it would be a fun evening anyway, a few drinks, listen to some music that I was into, catch up with some friends, but I didn’t get my hopes up that I’d be blown away.

He didn't dissappoint. Throughout the night, Mr. XX artfully created an experience; he very intentionally crafted a tempo to the evening that swung pendulum-like between mellow and amped up, and the crowd took the bait. The high end of the evening came after five seconds of dead air when a melancholy jazz piano riff began to play. The crowd wasn't sure what to make of it at first, it was a major departure from everything they'd heard so far in the evening. When the raspy, punchy voice of Carmen McRae sang the poignent first lines of the song, the crowd lost it. The lines were "I'm always drunk... in San Francisco...".

Jamie wove in his well known album pieces alongside on the fly creations. It is hard to tell if he was actually 'mixing' his album pieces or if he was simply pressing play, he rarely did more than move around some records, adjust some dials, and bob his head as if to both keep a beat and to say "this is working". But ultimately who cares, he was throwing a hell of a party.

[pirateapprentice]

A highly under appreciated GZA beat.

[pirateapprentice]

El Dorado

[pirateapprentice]

Shot On An iPhone 5s

It has become something of a running joke, one where everyone thinks the joke is on the other person. Every Thursday morning, I sit in a product management meeting looking at adjustments to our website on a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone. The three developers all look at their enormous iPhones and agree that the recent changes to the hamburger menu are looking good and it is responding the way they'd hoped it would respond. 

"Sorry, guys," I chime in. "It is getting cut off on my phone and the menu expansion isn't responding." One developer rolls her eyes without even attempting subtlety. One looks at me with that look that many developers reserve for non-developers, the one that says, 'you have no clue what you're talking about and therefore I am not interested in anything you have to say.' The final developer, always very patron oriented, makes the joke I've heard over and over (and over) "can you please get a new phone?". 

At issue is my archaic iPhone 5s. They simply cannot bring themselves to take the guy with the second most recent generation iPhone seriously. Every time I pull it out in a meeting, I'm met with what I find to be a hilarious cocktail of mockery and pity, as if I were the guy wearing pleated Dockers with too-large of a waistline and too-small of an in-seam and covered in three week old mustard stains. 

But there is a rationale for this. The most obvious is that someone has to stand up for the little guy; it isn't fair to assume all of our customers have the latest iPhone, or even the iPhone before that. It is incumbent on us to make sure we can serve those individuals. 

There are more selfish reasons for this policy. I made a vow at some unspecified point in my adolescence never to try and keep up with the Joneses because I found that trying to be at the forefront of hardware is both exhausting and expensive, and I believe the benefits to be overrated. Last October I was ready for my two year contractual upgrade through AT&T. I could get the iPhone 6 if I chose to wait two weeks for $200+, or I could get an iPhone 5s immediately for $50. Knowing I could trade in my 4s (which admittedly was really starting to show its age) for a $50 credit, I basically had the options of paying $150 for a two week wait, or pay $0 for immediate satisfaction. To me, the choice was clear. 

Many would argue that I chose an inferior piece of hardware. That may be true, but it is all relative. How inferior is the 5s vs. the 6 really? In day to day life, how much more productive are employees with a 6 versus a 5s? Are they better able to navigate traffic? Do they write more thoughtful and timely emails? Can they get better organic blueberries through Instacart? Is there some loss of processing power? I'm sure there is, but do I feel like I'm at a disadvantage? Not at all. My guess is that the time spent waiting in line to purchase a 6 negates the cumulative processing speed gained over the course of a year. In fact, in most major iPhone releases over the past few years, the early movers have gotten a relatively untested, imperfect piece of hardware (remember the "death grip" on the iPhone 5?). When I purchase my one year old model, I'm confident that the Apple corporation has fixed all of the glitches and perfected the model I'm about to procure. 

The largest argument I hear is the differences in the camera. After all, you don't see any billboards displaying the masterpieces shot on an iPhone 5s. I won't refute the quality of the camera on the 6 versus the 5s, but those billboards seem to be advertising Adobe Creative Suite more than they're advertising iPhones. I'd also imagine that many people who stood in line to buy a 6 likely own an incredibly powerful DSLR Canon camera, against which the iPhone 6's camera is an unequivocal downgrade.

I don't mean to be guilt-tripping people who purchased an iPhone 6. It is a great phone. It is better than my 5s. What I am advocating for is that people have an earnest conversation with themselves about what they really need, and what their financial priorities really are. With the money saved, I was able to treat my wife to two nights out on the town. That is a much larger priority for me.

[pirateapprentice]

Pride

[pirateapprentice]

Pride

It is hard for me to say anything about what it has become, because I haven’t been involved in it in the past. I’ve only lived in California for eight months. But that said, there was something about yesterday’s Pride parade in San Francisco that rubbed me the wrong way.

I was promised more naked people. There I said it.

I’m not saying that because I have some insane yearning to see boobs in person, I got over that many, many years ago. The reason for my lament is the parade had been billed to me as absolute pandamonium. A massive party where who knows what is going to happen.

Maybe that was the case last year, or even a few years ago, but the parade I saw seemed to be a watered down version of tales of epic parades past. This appears largely due to the infiltration of corporate sponsors in the parade (though it might also be due to recent laws banning public nudity). It seemed like every float was Apple, Whole Foods, city supervisors, and Zico Coconut water. Yes, there were the fire departments, the library, and other civic institutions, but they were grossly outnumbered. Tech companies are part of the community, and deserve to be in the parade, but it just felt wrong.

It did not, however, fully tarnish the spirit of the event. The crowd’s spirit was untarnishable. Even if people weren’t getting naked, they were in great spirits about what the parade represents, and it seemed like for the first time that instead of being a parade that needed to raise awareness for a cause, it seemed like a parade to celebrate the full acceptance of a cause, even if there still is work to do for full and complete acceptance. Corporate takeover or not, the pride parade continues on as a celebration of the ability to love whomever you choose to. And there were some boobs here and there.

[pirateapprentice]

sao paulo street art

[pirateapprentice]

A New Beat

The place is old and dusty, and smells faintly of mildew and of a time before cigarettes were outlawed indoors. The lighting is harsh, and when the people who live above it flush their toilets, you can hear water snaking through the pipes. Yet this setting is the perfect way to celebrate a generation of artists who put art before everything else.

The Beat Museum, catty-cornered from ground zero for the birthplace of hippie-dom at City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, San Francisco, is a collection of original texts, old typewriters, photographs, and marijuana propaganda celebrating the lives of the artists whose movement was based in San Francisco. In particular, it celebrates the lives of the mega stars of the time, the Kerouaks, Ferlinghettis, Neal Cassidys, and Ginsbergs of the world, and tries to tie them all together as they helped create a way of life that still reverberates through San Francisco, even if the current, well documented wave of transformation is chipping away at its legacy.

What remains of beatnick lifestyle in San Francisco is being priced out by a new wave of thrill seakers: the oft maligned tech industry, with their cash, car sharing apps, and overreliance on the word disruption. But these generations share much more than they realize: an appreciation for design and art, even if the mediums are different (one imagines Ferlinghetti would have had an epic tumblr if the technology existed), an appreciation of good coffee, and a desire to portray a modest lifestyle, at least more often than not. Sure some members of the tech community can come off as loud, arrogant, and superficial, but I've got to believe that a lot of "artists" were showing up in Frisco, back when it was called Frisco, who were loud, arrogant, and superficial, and I'm sure they drew the ire of the remaining military citizens who were the majority at the time. The Beat Musuem celebrates those artists who simply created good art, and it is becoming increasingly important to preserve their memory, and to remind ourselves, newcomers and locals alike, that new generations will keep coming to San Francisco, and we'd better learn to deal with it.

[pirateapprentice]

street art from sao paulo, brasil.

[pirateapprentice]

hb. sao paulo street art.