busblog

they wanted to interview me for their 50 over 50 issue. i was all, wtf.

they said anyone over 50 in IT grew up without the internet, without cell phones, and without very good computers, and still ended up in tech.

that was interesting to them.

i said, I KEEP TELLING YOU IM NOT REALLY IN TECH. but they never listen.

Black Webmaster: What makes a good team?

busblog: a good team usually has a strong but flexible leader, and a variety of people who can do multiple things well. and the best teams communicate well, trust each other and like one another.

BW: How do you get a team to like each other?

busblog: if it’s truly a team they will love each other naturally. being successful helps.

BW: You are known for being brutally honest. Did you ever wish you were White?

busblog: maybe it was different for me since we were the only black family in town, but from an early age i recognized the advantages that i had over my friends. and even though my relatives taught me what to look out for from others, they were from the South, and those things weren’t happening where we lived outside Chicago. what i did envy was long hair.

BW: Long hair?

busblog: i thought it looked cool. maybe the movies and tv shows were convincing me that it was cool, but i bought into it. i do remember wanting long hair when i was a kid. that changed when i was at my first boy/girl party. 6th grade. a bunch of girls cornered me right after we played spin the bottle. one after another they wanted to feel my afro. 6-7 of the prettiest girls in school playing with your hair and noone else’s will do wonders for you. i never wanted a haircut again. and i never wanted to be anything but me.

BW: That sounds good but, that’s hard to believe.

busblog: i had this uncle, he reminded me of Snoop Dogg before there ever was a Snoop Dogg. coolest dude ever, in my eyes. his life ended tragically but when he was alive he would drive me to the store in his car which had an 8-track and a separate EQ that lit up, especially so at night. One thing that always stuck with me. He said, “don’t ever forget, you have soul.”

When I was a lad, I wasn’t a Steelers fan, despite my aunt and uncle flooding me with Mean Joe this and Franco Harris that (they lived in Pittsburgh, and were very proud of those teams in the 70s).

But I was amazed at the beauty and grace Lynn Swann exhibited out on the football field. When he was near the ball there was no violence, no mayhem. It was peaceful and slow as he leapt in the air and suddenly very fast and overbeforeyouknew it.

For some reason he has dismissed the legendary USC Song Girls from performing at the school’s basketball games and he won’t say why. 

The only theory that makes some sense, though not much at all, is he was perturbed that during the end of the football season, when 100k fans were chanting to fire the football coach, word got to him that some of the Girls were caught joining in on the fun.

So instead of firing the coach, he’s firing the young women. 

And if you ask me, it’s suicide by cheerleader.

My guess is Lynn Swann realizes that being in charge of USC, right now, in the midst of so much turmoil, hither and non, is far more insane than Dallas’s Doomsday Defense or the Monsters of the Midway. 

That shit was nothing compared to whatever this is now. 

Swann was part of 4 Super Bowl Champions (he never got that one for the thumb). He’s an NFL Hall of Famer. But as Athletic Director in the 21st century, where your best players leave far too soon and the pressure allows you every little time to turn things around, it takes a very different skill set to be great. 

Which is why no matter what the cheerleaders do, you don’t fire them unless you are the one wanting to go gently into that good night.

Lynn Swann is 66 years old, wealthy, respected and knowledgable. He’s also a black Republican. There are many paths he can take once he resigns, which I presume will happen soon. 

If I were him I would volunteer my services with Betsey DeVoss to bring Physical Education back to public schools the way it was when the Steel Curtain was doing damage on frozen tundras. 

That is the legacy he deserves. Not that of cheerleader killer.

poor lyft, stuck in a race for the bottom as uber continually makes the ridesharing market unsustainable and unprofitable

im sure lyft doesnt want to be giving away rides just to match uber’s craziness, but do you really want to be known as the 2nd most expensive rideshare company?

for a while lyft could differentiate itself from uber, among drivers, because lyft was the only one that allowed tipping, and even put it in the app.

but now that uber – once their founder was forced out of the company – has tipping, lyft no longer has that big advantage as being known as the company who gives a shit about its drivers.

so heres my idea: introduce Pre-Tipping

Install a pre-ride tip button in the app that cannot be revoked and the driver sees before he accepts the ride. this will

• encourage drivers to get to the pickup spot faster
• make the driver happier during the trip
• inspire a good vibe in the car where now the pax can ask for a lot more. Aux cable? Fine.

drivers’ attitude and alertness can change with as little as $2 because this does not eliminate the post-ride tip.

if the passenger was going to tip anyway, then do it all upfront. make a friend. be a hero. and guess what, the driver is gonna feel like he sorta owes you when you tip upfront. that is the best time to tip! it will inspire better service and deliver a more enjoyable experience.

and if Lyft really wants to market it right, they would call it a Stoke.

Lyft: where you can Stoke your driver even before you meet.

i havent forgotten

which is weird cuz i never get moody.

was it the rain?

i love the rain?

i could easily live up north in constant rain

galoshes and mud boots,

overcoats and hats.

is it my lack of exercise?

they say that does something to your attitude

and i dont doubt it.

i walked up two flights of stairs last week and i was a wreck.

been watching all these movies,

georgia rule, less than zero, the neon demon.

so many.

jerry lewis.

just watched the doc about the fyre fest that hulu made.

some people are just total dicks.

i dont ever wanna be a total dick.

if i had done that

in school they taught us the secret to writing a good story

introduce a totally lovable character, then fuck their lives over and see what happens. if they pull it off, great. if they die, then thats a tragedy. either is fine.

either is fine.

so here they make us fall in love with this totally unique person. he happens to be a mountain climber.

and the thing he loves to do the most is climb without ropes.

one false move and he dies.

at the academy you will meet some people who are obsessed with watching movies. one of those people worked on the same floor as me.

and i noticed that he was going to see this movie again because he loved it

and he was seeing it in IMAX, because it’s made by National Geographic

because mountain climbing is beautiful, apparently

and even though i think this movie would be emotional and beautiful and terrifying no matter where you see it

im so glad i saw it on imax.

for 2018 movies theres two movies ive given an A+ to:

isle of dogs
and now
free solo

sometimes i get these random flashbacks. not memory. vibe.

it will race me back decades to when i was sharing a bedroom, imagine that, with a guy when i was in junior college.

and in one sense it reminds me how far ive come (i now share a room with a girl, imagine that) but how almost exactly the same i am.

back then he had this drawer full of cassettes that he had made of dozens of albums. every doors record. every stones record. all the classics. all right in that drawer.

somehow i started dating a girl who wore red lipstick and used perfume. she was 21. i was 19. she made a big deal about our age gap.

one day we were making out to frank sinatra on the couch. the roommate was out. later in my diary i would rate it the second best make out session of my life. after a while we stopped and she said she had to drive back down to signal hill where she lived with her parents.

it’s a long drive so i said ok, later.

the next day she called and said she wanted to break up with me. i was all, but but

she was like, you are such a child.

i was all, i had frank sinatra on!

she said, you didn’t ask me to make love to you.

as stated, i was 18. untouched if you catch the drift. but my midwest upbringing had made that option… unthinkable. i literally hadnt thought it would be possible. this girl was amazing. i was happy to kiss her.

she said, i cant have a boyfriend i cant have sex with. and hung up.

i wore that diary out that night, i’ll tell ya.

it started

the first time we kissed was at a stop light at wilshire and bundy. i was driving us in my cadillac and out of the corner of my eye i could see her applying her lipstick

very slowly.

she said, oh man this lipstick tastes so good

we stopped at the stop light

she lunged at me and kissed me

doesn’t it?

some i had seen before some i hadnt. in just the last seven days ive seen

the big lebowski
greenberg
confessions of a dangerous mind
devil in a blue dress
500 days of summer
and a doc on jerry lewis, who i learned bought his first big house in pacific palisades

so many are so fearless about so much but it sure seems like writers are so afraid, but why

is it because our imaginations run and run and can think about all the possibilities – with special emphasis on the negative outcomes.

but they dont happen.

for years before i worked at the Times i wondered, what if they read this and think im insane and dont hire me? but not only didn’t “they” read it, they couldnta cared less. they barely read LAist which was 100x more popular

and wild. and fun. and at times embarrassing.

all the things you should be afraid of showing a prospective employer. but that was the thing we talked about the most.

finally got some sleep last night. the issue with this secret project is you can do it all day and all night and one thing just leads to another

its never ending. and fascinating.

i want a tommys burger now.