I stumbled on Giving What We Can a week ago, and since then I've been thinking about giving much more on a regular basis to charity. Looked up a bunch of charities that strive for things I care about a lot, such as global warming and animal welfare. Found out which ones are well regarded and ended up with a few good ones. Last weekend though, the gf and I visited my parents for Easter. It had been a while since I'd last seen them, and while we had a wonderful weekend, it was also pretty clear that they're not in a good place. My dad finally got something of a stable job - something he hadn't had since 2008 - but fell really badly and broke his shoulder in the first week. They got a pretty hefty bill from the energy company, which had promised the bill wouldn't be big. And there's a bunch of other stuff they're dealing with - enough that they're losing sleep over it. So instead of helping charities, I decided to help them out instead. And despite my best efforts, there's this veneer of guilt and empathy and sadness around all of this - I feel bad for not doing more, for not helping more, for choosing what's near over what's far away. For doing more than fine myself. I don't know what's best, don't know if I can know. At least I can try.
For several years now, I have auto-deposited a couple hundred dollars a month into my parents bank account. It eases things a bit for them, and they are proud that their son can do this. The guilt you feel is your own. You do it to yourself. Choose love, and that a perfectly valid expression of that love is sharing your bounty with your parents. All you need to do is give it with the right intention. That's where your part ends. "I love you, and want you to have this." No judgment. No expectations for what it will be used for. No strings attached. Being a provider for your parents in any capacity is a powerful thing, and - I feel - an important part of "growing up".
You doing better than your parents and turning around and helping them sounds like the basic parental goal going back to cave paintings. Whatever guilt you're managing to mine there, leave it in the goddamn ground - you got to where you are in no small part because of the sacrifices they made to you and at some point in the future those will be your children's grandparents and when they ask why Oma and Opa have it so rough you don't wanna say "because I gave money to Greenpeace."
I'm mixing post again. I thought I was done with that. It's been pleasant - I'm really good at it and one of my greatest frustrations with the entertainment industry is that the proliferation of content has gone hand-in-hand with the proliferation of bad sound. Nobody pays for it anymore because nobody cares. This kid's a year out of USC and has delivered a project in better shape than anything I've ever gotten out of my best buddy, who has been out of school for 20 years and whose clients include AT&T and Toyota. Another buddy of mine is in NYC right now doing the live broadcast... of a Fortnite competition... at Madison Square Garden. The project I'm working on has one of his lead actors from ten years ago in it. Time marches on and we just get older. The jobs get shittier, the work gets scarcer and another buddy has the #1 movie in America right now because everyone is so scared of Avengers that all the studios held their real films so the box office was won last weekend by The Curse of La Llorona. I'm in class with a bunch of 20-somethings. They live five to a house. They dumpster-dive. They're mad that anyone would pay to restore Notre Dame when there's so much poverty and inequality in the world. They go to a school that can't afford to keep its kitchen working because they can't afford a $2 slice of pizza so now they get truck stop sandwiches. And they aren't every student. There's CS majors at other schools. There's pre-law majors at other schools. There's rich kids whose way is paved who will end up as intermediate flacks in finance somewhere, making eight or nine times as much as the Art Kids. But the rich kids didn't used to be an order of magnitude wealthier than the art kids. And what breaks my heart is the art kids don't understand why they'd fight their lot in life. The disparity is so systemic that they don't see any other path. Seven to a house if you include the children. The kid who gave me the film project went to a school whose rack rate is $55k a year. Our school? $3k. 
Some time ago, I commented on a pubski post that I found out my childhood best friend who grew up in SF with hippie parents was now very pro-trump on facebook.
I found an intersection of my education in art and my interest in far left politics. I always knew Gustave Courbet as the self aggrandizing prick who compared himself to God and made a painting of a close-up pussy and called it "The Origin of the World". Apparently he was also one of the first anarchists and was involved in the Paris Commune, the first communist revolution. There doesn't seem to be much if any writing about Courbet from a leftist perspective easily available. Might fuck around and make a blog post about French Realism and the beginnings of socialism. Pubski is good because we can write about stupid shit we're into once a week without it being its own post. Yall might have to ignore my blog post if I get around to it. Sorry in advance
I really don't know how to write it. Art history is good at showing you how one artist influenced another but not so much about the actual history of the time. And The Collected Letters of Gustave Courbet is out of print and $130 on Amazon. I'll start paying attention to 19th century French history as I browse the web and keep an eye out for the name Pierre-Joseph Poonhound. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I almost kinda feel like a masters in art history wouldn't be the equivalent of burning tens of thousands of dollars (His name is Proudhon but I prefer my spelling.)
I've been in a funk for some time. Probably since my grandfathers death. Well, it ends now dammit! I've been eating and sleeping like shit. I've been drinking too much and exercising too little. That ends now. I've signed up for a yoga instructor to come once a week to my home beginning May 21st. My health is worth investing in. I have taken to riding my bike to work on nice days. I am eating and drinking less. I've had 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine since Sunday. That may seem like a lot to some of you, but it's pretty measured for me. I would like to begin playing tennis again. I used to take great joy in tennis. I need to up my game again so I can go to DC and kick wasoxygen's ass. :) Work is going well. We are raising funds to bring on a large channel partner and increase some marketing spend. We need runway to get us through the year. I will be raising our first priced round in the fall. We aim to participate in YC's series A program. I'm raising $1m at the moment and have $600k circled. I think I'll have it all within a week or two at the latest. We have been fortunate with interest. Fundraising is a beast. Wish us well! Onward!
I used to practice yoga, but stopped. I was needing to try something else. Than I started practicing kickboxing and reduced significantly my intake of booze. Yoga is great, but kickboxing makes me feel more alive. I have friends who play tennis. I never tried it myslef, though. Maybe one day, who knows.I've been drinking too much and exercising too little.
I know the feeling. I've been there.
I have derived a surprising (to me) amount of satisfaction out of yoga. I would not have thought that there would be a whole religion/exercise routine built around stress positions and I would not have thought it'd be so good for my posture. It might be worth checking out classes, too. Cheaper, and you can watch everyone else fail as hard as you. Good for the spirit, that.
Time management. If she comes to my house, it will take less time. Also, because she is coming to my house I have to do it. I can’t back out. Eventually, I look forward to going to her classes. She teaches them. I’m in horrendous shape. It’s gonna be rough but I’m excited.
I went to the desert to eat Sonic yesterday. I am taking a break from entertainment for a while because I got a scare from a "fan." So now, I am just waiting until I get the green light for some bigger projects and studying other careers to gain experience in before the summer. Big things in store, guys.
I have potentially done the last bit of schoolwork I need for getting my high school diploma. I have an exam on it on Monday, but I think it is more of a formality in this course, I haven't been asked to prepare anything. So I might be done before may first. Hopefully. I have applied for the program I want to attend, though the website currently says I'm not qualified. Which makes sense, since I am not. But hopefully I will be in a week or so. The prospect of like, actually moving on with my life feels kind of real now. More like a plan then a "plan for the future". An with it feeling like an actual thing - that is going to happen - I'm also thinking about the practical stuff around it more. it's exciting and also scary. Other than that summer is basically here in Sweden, metrologically speaking. Which is really nice until you start thinking about it, and then it's just scary.
We're done with our South American trip! This week of being back home has been amazing. Went wedding dress shopping for my sister with my mom, aunt and cousin. Cooked an awesome supper for my boyfriend's family. I missed so many of my friends, and I feel I've gotten to see a lot of them in the past couple of days. There was an awesome fundraiser party for a makerspace, and we went home with some company at 8am. Total success. I have so much shit to do, and I kind of don't really want to leave for South Africa tomorrow. It's a full month of sleeping in tents ahead. But then I'll get to see some people I really miss, experience some awesome shit and I'll be back home soon! My only worry right now it that I put my passport through the washing machine like a total dumbass. my photo's a bit washed out now. Making a new one would have been $400+ since it was easter weekend and I'd have to pay the maximum rush fee. So I opted against it and will hope I don't get denied entry. I have a solid plan B since I have a valid Russian passport and I don't require a visa to enter the country. But i'm still a bit worried since "security" is a great reason to ruin anybody's fun.
Godzilla: Yesterday morning I woke up to see Warner Brothers posted their final trailer for King of the Monsters. It's pretty spoilery and the dialog cuts are pretty corny, but other than that, it's got me a bit excited for May 31st. I was home all day yesterday so I ended up treating myself to a mini Godzilla Marathon while I cleaned. Jeans: I gotta say, while I can see why people like it, I'm not a fan of flexible denim in the slightest. The wind cuts through it easier, after about a half a dozen washes the pants start to lose their shape, and worse of all, while I can make a normal pair of jeans last me over a decade, I can't get a pair of flexible denim jeans to last me a year. It's getting harder and harder to find traditional denim jeans, let alone ones thst fit me, so this past week when I found four that fit me well, I jumped right on them. I kind of hope flexible denim is a fad, like 3d TVs, otherwise, in another five years or so when it comes time to get some new jeans, I might be screwed. Life: It's been a lovely spring so far this year, guys. Probably my personal favorite in recent memory. I wonder if that's because it really is an exceptional spring, or if it's because I feel exceptionally good about the world this year.
Fashion Design major here, with a key focus on materials science... Stretchy materials are inherently weaker, and their integration with any other non-stretchy material will diminish the lifespan of the garment made from that textile. Especially at the seams. Elastics are broken down by UV (sunlight), hot water, detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, intense heat (dryers), and use. So if you wear stretchy jeans outdoors on a regular basis, and wash them in a washing machine regularly, they won't last long. But people wash their jeans FAR too often. Once a year, or so, is all they actually need. No, seriously. The founder of the Tobacco Motorwear company just posted a video to his Instagram last week, where he talks about how actual selvedge jeans are made, cared for, etc. The pair he is wearing in the video he's had for 10 years, and has washed 3 times. Our knee-jerk reaction (carefully cultivated by the personal care products industry) is Disgusting! But, in reality, it isn't. We wash EVERYTHING - clothes, hair, faces - far too often for our good, and 99% of those resources are wasted... the material, the clothing item, the detergents, the water, processing the detergents back OUT of the water at the wastewater treatment plant, etc. So yeah... stretchy jeans won't last long. But they'll last longer if you don't fall victim to the manufactured myths promoted by people who want to sell you cleaning products and appliances.
When I was twelve I wore one pair of jeans for about 2/3rds of the school year. They were pretty vile by the time I took them off, and they smelled horrible, but I was twelve. When I washed them they disintegrated. RIP stinky-ass 501s. I have a few pairs of Eddie Bauer jeans that have been around since 2004 or so. They get washed every week. More than that, one particular pair was in not one, but two layovers and are doing fine. I'm not sure who these magical people are that can wear a pair of jeans for a year and not have them smell like bait? But I'm definitely not one of them and neither is my wife, who is an android devoid of sweat and scent glands. Unless you're wearing long underwear your jeans are the direct repository of half the skin cells your body sloughs off every day. And I mean, just walking around wearing a mixer all day is enough for me to sweat out a pair of jeans. I wash my clothes when they stink, which is one wearing or 4-5 for jeans. I wash my hair when it feels gross and smells bad, which is every other day. I wash my face once or twice a day which is the carefully-calculated minimum to keep myself from breaking out (at 44). When I'm in LA that becomes 2-3 times a day because of all the schmutz. I know there's this vast movement to let it mellow but I, for one, am fucking vile if I don't keep clean. I suspect I'm not alone.Once a year, or so, is all they actually need. No, seriously.
We wash EVERYTHING - clothes, hair, faces - far too often for our good, and 99% of those resources are wasted... the material, the clothing item, the detergents, the water, processing the detergents back OUT of the water at the wastewater treatment plant, etc.
Well, obviously, once things stink you wash them. Or hang them outside to air out. The sales of moisturizer and conditioner would plummet and whole countries would fail tomorrow, if people actually took care of their skin and hair properly. Stripping away the body's natural functions and replacing them with chemical ones is not a route to happiness or success. But helping your stinky self out a bit with a few carefully selected products is always a wise choice.
NASA actually tested this. How funky do you get if you don't bathe or change your clothes? What they discovered is that we hit "peak funk" at about four weeks after which point we don't get any funkier (they actually weighed clothes - which quit gaining "funk" weight after four weeks). The problem is, "peak funk" is "haven't bathed or changed clothes in a month" and that's one of two steady states, the other being "squeaky clean out of the shower." We used to feel about lice and ringworm about what we feel about dandruff now - awkward, something to be avoided, but not the end of the world. Attitudes change and as our cleanliness has gone up, so has public health... and "the body's natural functions" are a whole lot more offensive than they used to be. Maybe it'll swing the other way. For work I watched some dudes under 30 and some dudes over 30 interact about body hair in about 2012. The dudes under 30 were smooth-shaven everywhere, from toes to nose. The dudes over 30 were aghast. the dudes under 30 were all "yeah, this is our life now, you're old" but within about four years body hair was back. But I went for a run yesterday and took a shower. Then I had a day, went to bed, woke up and went to yoga. It's now been about 26 hours since I had a shower and I'm gross.* I'm not leaving this house without a shower and a shave. 50 years ago I'd be a damn obsessive compulsive deviant for having that attitude but 50 years ago I'd be a deviant for going for a run and then to yoga so you know what? I'ma keep changing my underwear every day.
I'm firmly in the don't wash your jeans until they stand up and ask for voting rights camp. Longtime pubskivites who somehow remember the ex girlfriend I lived with might be surprised to learn that we got in an argument and she stopped talking to me briefly over wearing pants for more than one day and it wasn't even about hygiene, but a much stupider issue. I don't think your schedule is really feasible though because of visible stains. I've worn jeans for several months but a lot of times you get something on them and have to wash them. My current jeans have a permanent ink stain it seems but get some salad dressing on them and I'm definitely going to wash them instead of walking around with what looks like a cum stain on my pants
Elastics are broken down by UV (sunlight), hot water, detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, intense heat (dryers), and use. So if you wear stretchy jeans outdoors on a regular basis, and wash them in a washing machine regularly, they won't last long. So it's a conspiracy by the clothing industry to get us to buy more pants. ;)Stretchy materials are inherently weaker, and their integration with any other non-stretchy material will diminish the lifespan of the garment made from that textile. Especially at the seams.
I get the tongue-in-cheek nature of your comment, but there is more interesting stuff to unpack here. Up until the 50's, people had Clothes. They wore clothing. They went out, bought things that lasted, and wore it - and repaired it or handed it down - until it no longer functioned as clothing, and was turned into rags. Think Levi's. There was everyday wear, formal wear, and high-fashion. Then one designer - can't remember who it was, but someone whose name you'd recognize, like Chanel - introduced the idea of Seasonal Lines. Now you suddenly needed FOUR TIMES the amount of clothing you had before! And remember, this is post-WWII America, where industry is booming, and factories are making shit, and the economy is going crazy, and the Suburbs are invented and Shopping Malls are invented. So now you have NEW STUFF YOU HAVE TO BUY, with your NEW MONEY, when your drive your NEW CAR, to the new - air conditioned! - SHOPPING MALL... That was Phase One of the change in clothing worldwide. Phase two began when you needed someone who bought last year's spring fashions, to shell out more money THIS year, because now you had this factory and employees and pensions and OSHA and Insurance and 40-hour workweeks, to support. And there was all this oil we made for the War Effort, and it was still coming out of the ground, so the government funded DuPont and others to invent new things to do with this oil. And stretch materials were invented. And water-repellent materials. And materials that didn't need ironing. Etc. So you had the seasonality of a garment, then you made it with less resilient materials. The final step was to cut prices so EVERYONE could afford "fashion". And you did that by moving production overseas, and reducing the resiliency of the design to cut down on costs - material cost, material use, construction time, etc. - which also reduced the lifespan of the product. So now you have bespoke jeans. Now you have niche manufacturers literally using 150-year old machinery - that still works great, thankyouverymuch - buying quality materials (selvedge denim), and using the sewing techniques used early last century that created the ruggedness of an original pair of Levi's, etc. Full circle, man.
I feel like Fast Fashion took everything you just described, put a brick on the accelerator, and pointed the car to the nearest cliff. On the subject of flexible jeans, is that I find them to feel so cheap, but I went to the fancy mall the other week to kill some time and I'm even seeing them in the "high end" stores going for a couple hundred bucks and they actually seem worse than what I've seen in places like Target or Kohls. Also, what brands do you recommend for durable, sustainable, ethical clothes? I know of a few, like Everlane and Bluer Denim, but not much other than them.
How much is he sweating in them though? I once had some slacks that I didn't wash for a decade... and then I threw them out with the rest of the clothes I never wore. I tend to wear jeans until I spill food on them, but even if it's only working in an office and some walking in air conditioned or cool places after 10 or 15 wears there is a definite "this is the smell of my skin when I sweat" smell. Not strong, not really a bad smell, definitely not swamp ass. Probably not noticable to someone next to me, but it's there. And I'm not gonna buy a dozen to wear in rotation so they can air out.The pair he is wearing in the video he's had for 10 years, and has washed 3 times.
Ha! Kind of funny. goobster we aren't hating, I mostly agree with you. And if you can go a year without peanutbuttering yourself more power to you
My wife turned 50 yesterday. We had a little get-together at a bar/bottleshop near her skating rink so she could do her usual Tuesday night adult skate after gathering with friends. I got gluten-free cupcakes for everyone to share. Some people brought cards. There was lots of good conversation and crazy connections between people who had never met before. This weekend we travel to Toronto to see the Seattle Seawolves rugby team play the Toronto Arrows. It's a package deal provided by a company that does special rugby trips for Seawolves fans. We did the trip to New Orleans with them back in February, and it was a total blast. Looking forward to seeing Toronto for the first time, and touring around the local sights and rugby hangouts! Then, in two weeks we will be traveling again with the club to NYC for the game against Rugby United New York (RUNY). The day after I get back from NYC, I get to participate in a day-long data visualization training put on by Edward Tufte. Been wanting to do one of these for almost 20 years now!! Totally excited for it. Meanwhile I have my fingers in my ears as my country burns around me, and my friends in the UK and EU are further harmed by the same bunch of rich white cunts that want to destroy the planet. Onward...