A Year of Doing More

I didn't do anything yesterday, or the day before. But today I spent about 5 hours of my time attending the All Black Lives Matter march/demonstration/celebration in Hollywood.  Yesterday the organizers painted the street in front of the Chinese Theatre: Bonus: I took my youngest daughter. Who is gay. Who had never been to any kind of pride event. She was blown away by all of the massive display of LGBT and BLM pride.  Here she is with her sign and her first ever "actual" rainbow flag that her nice daddy bought her (also notice her SPHS class of 2020 mask!).  I was trying to keep 6 feet apart from everybody, but at the beginning the crowd surged toward us. Ooops! I thought we were standing near the back and would follow everybody as they walked down Highland. Instead they all walked straight at us and Arden and I had to duck into the "open space shelter" of a side street while the thickest part of the crowd went by. I didn't want to be shoulde...

The Big Idea behind this blog.  I'm trying to sum it up in a subtitle.  #1) "I can't spend all day on BLM, but I can do a little bit every single day" This is true. I can't just work all the time. I can't spend 24/7 parenting my kids. I can't abandon my life to exclusively train for elite athletic competition. I can't spend all of my time on my hobbies (unfortunately!).  I can't do any of these things alone. But I can devote some time to them each day. Over the year, it adds up. Sadly, there is not much poetry in this one. It's kind flat and contrived like a corporate mission statement. Or any other mission statement (I'm biased. I loathe mission statements and anything that smacks of a mission statement).    #2) Woke Diary [*cringe*].  This is short and to-the-point. But there are a couple of things: #1) It already presumes that I am completely "woke". Which no. I'm not. And I don't want to put myself ou...

I TRIED to go to the Compton Cowboys BLM protest last Sunday, but I did something dumb early in the morning (tried to back into our townhouse garage with my truck...when the rack was attached...oops) so I was super late. And I went to the MLK monument downtown, instead of the one in Compton. So it was a total fail, I missed the whole thing, and after all of those hours it was as if I hadn't supported the cause at all.  But I tried to make up for it today by going to the BLM protest downtown.  And this time I didn't fail.  Learned some things:  1) Parking downtown is super cheap right now. My lot in Chinatown was posted at $5 flat rate (on a weekday!) and there wasn't even anybody in the exit booth to take my money. FREE PARKING IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES ON A WEEKDAY!!! ...now I'm worried that we really are in the end times.  2) If you're going to make a cool sign, be smart and write on both side of the sign, so that when you hold it up, people behind you...

Hello World.  So it's a new day and I'm only working one day a week right now, so it's kind of like a ...weekend?  I've got more time to get things done. Including becoming a better human being.  So far today I ordered a book:  "From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation" by Keanga-Yamahtta Taylor.  Hooray for Haymarket Books. You go to checkout and they just want your credit card. They do not want to vacuum up every last bit of information about me in a creepy Google or Facebook type of way. Compare that to the split donation that I made to Justice Democrats today: Making this donation to Justice Democrats reminded me why I hate giving money to professional activist organizations.  The worst was the ACLU. They never answered questions from members like me (when I emailed them), but they ALWAYS asked me for more money. At least once a day. No respect, but a nonstop beg of "gimme money" . Go pound sand ACLU! I'm gla...

[Tap, tap] Is this thing on? Hello future me. Hello future world.  If everything worked as planned, you will be reading this entry on June 8th, 2012. But...  ...if the last few months have taught me anything, it is that the world is a very strange and unpredictable place. I've had a vasectomy, but by this time next year, I could be a father of quadruplets. I don't like to bake, but in a year I could be the owner of a wedding cake shop. Or, I could be dead from the coronavirus.  But let's move forward as if everything is going to work out just fine. Because in my experience, it usually does.  I am sincerely trying to become a better human being. That does not mean that I want to post some piece of social media performance art about becoming a better person so that I can get likes or some other garbage like that. I don't want to be performative. I'm not looking for attention. I don't want to be a person who posts about "How we all...