EROSDAVID4REAL

It’s 2016, Kobe Bryant’s last season in the NBA. It's also currently Grammy season, with Kendrick Lamar enjoying 11 nominations. Kobe is an established legend in his profession while Kendrick is just approaching his own in his craft. Though experiencing different stages of their current careers, I can't help but draw a connection in my mind - one that travels through time, connecting two different spaces in the continuum.

It's 2002. The Lakers are coming off of back-to-back championships, on their campaign for their third in a row. Kobe Bryant has come into his own, beyond the 1-2 punch of Shaq and Bryant. It's in these All-Star games that Kobe makes a point to shine. He wants to prove himself as the All-Star's All-Star. In 2002, it was in his hometown of Philly. The home team, the Sixers, led by reigning league MVP Allen Iverson, had just come off of a Finals loss to Kobe and the Lakers. Philadelphia is not known for being the most hospitable sports town in the world, so add that to a crowd still bitter from defeat and you had a different type of welcome for Kobe.

Bryant won the All-Star MVP award that year, in front of his hometown fans - most of them showering him with boos as he received his trophy.

Fast forward to 2014. After critical acclaim for Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, Kendrick Lamar loses to Macklemore at the Grammys - many people including Macklemore himself assert that Kendrick was robbed by the committee.

Jump forward a year to March 15, 2015. Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly and it's a critical darling. People write about it. Not just critics, but scholars and writers fawn over the album's content and messages. But go online and you'll see rap and hip-hop fans saying they couldn't get into it or even that the album was just straight up garbage.

Kendrick is getting booed during the All-Star game.

Skip to the present. We know Kendrick is nominated for 11 awards and on February 15th, we'll know which ones he wins and loses. Will he be cheered for finally claiming the praise that he deserves while masses chime in, extolling the virtues of Drake and J. Cole as music they connect to more easily?

Kobe Bryant wasn't an easy character to understand at first. He's gotten more personable and outspoken as he's gotten older, but earlier on in his career, he kept to himself and had a very singular focus on just basketball. He rarely took interviews and even less often spoke his mind. He has an old school mentality of keeping your nose to the grindstone and doing everything to win. It distanced him from other players and the media.

TPAB came out of relatively left field for a lot of people and seemed to distance Kendrick from many rap fans. While many had praised his storytelling and ability to craft a complete album in GKMC, TPAB doesn't have "bangers" like "Backseat Freestyle" or "Swimming Pools". What it does have is his same ability to convey messages, though this time with complex delivery coupled with a less radio-friendly sense of musicality.

For those of us who grew up on the West Coast, the funk is familiar. Old heads know where Kendrick came from.

For younger fans, it is crazy and abrupt with syncopations. They can't rock with it. They don't want to bump it in their rides.

But it's a damn good album. It deserves to be All-Star MVP.

If Kendrick does win big, he shouldn't be booed (online) - I don't think he will be. Even Kobe got a video tribute before his last game at Philly.

Cocktail Tasting: Hennessy VS Essential Summer Cocktails @ Commissary at the Line Hotel on ShopEatSleep

From primary school through high school, I always excelled at and favoured math. Everything was basically concrete and I knew there was an answer to every question and exercise. With math, showing your work was all the explanation needed and I had a knack for having the proper intuition in arriving at the right answer.

English, however, was a tougher subject to crack. Answers weren’t set in stone and there was a lot of interpretation involved. It seemed impractical and I had considerably less talent or motivation in writing and grammar assignments. Topics and grading were so dependent on the teachers, it wasn’t as straightforward as mathematics.

Two setbacks happened in my schooling that I recall as demotivating for me. In first grade (I know, I’m reach pretty far back with this one), I remember everyone having to read aloud in class. I got annoyed with this process and would just read at my own pace and then stop at the end of a section/chapter - jumping in if called on. My teacher told me to stop reading so fast and to just go along with everyone else. My young mind took that advice and twisted it to mean that it wasn’t worth it to try harder or get better at reading - and that’s exactly what I did. I stopped having interest, as I was chastised for what I thought was advancing, and my interest waned.

I recall being able to read before I started formal schooling. I would pick out books and I could read them. Without having a classroom to judge myself against or pace myself with, it was strictly for enjoyment and I truly did enjoy them. I chose those books (with the help of my parents) and I treasured them for what they were. Without the competition or knowledge of how much other kids could read, they weren’t telling me how smart (or not smart) I was - I was just happy with the fact that, as a child, I had the ability to comprehend the secrets (i.e. read the contents) contained within those books.

My second setback happened when I moved from Irvine, where to I went to elementary school, to Lake Forest. During enrollment at my middle school, we had to go over my previous school records and decide my schedule for the next year. In sixth grade, my last year in Irvine, I was going to the neighbouring middle school for math class because I was one of the handful of students accelerated enough in math to require the advanced placement.

It would come as a shock when, upon starting seventh grade, I found myself in a math class doing the same exact book I had just completed the year before - with a better than passing grade in the class. Unbeknownst to me, the school had advised that it would be a detriment to my other class if I had to go to the high school a couple blocks away for math, so my parents agreed to place me in the recommended math class - a fact that I bitterly found out years later. Again, it was like I was being punished but this time it was even worse. I basically had to repeat a class I completed and did everything asked of me. I even took homework with me to the Philippines when I had to visit for a couple of weeks, completing the assignments on my own without the benefit of class instruction.

This being the case, I didn’t care for learning in this math class. I finished the homework quickly and easily, not paying attention in class and more or less becoming a nuisance to the teacher. It was not my teacher’s fault, but I had no interest in reviewing material I had just spent the whole past year learning.

I was a distraction to the other students and pretty much got kicked out of class every day. There, while sitting out in the hallway or outside the building, I would kill time instead of learning. Even with this setback, I still ended up going up to Calculus my junior year of high school and passing the AP test. I was still good at math, after all.

After finishing Calculus, I considered myself “done” with math, as far as school was concerned. (I took Statistics in college, but I don’t count that since it was safely easier than the Calculus classes I took in high school.) With my mathematics school complete, I found myself shifting. I knew I didn’t want to take even more advanced math classes because I saw no practical use for them in my life. I wasn’t aiming to be a physicist or engineer. I was a psychology major and spent most of my time in the school’s rec center playing pick-up basketball.

Instead, I picked up an interest in English. Instead of just learning the rules of how to write sentences properly, I enjoyed playing with the language to infuse multiple meanings with plays on words and metaphors that connected with people’s experiences. It meant more to me than the cold, impersonal numbers I previously valued for their empirical truth and straightforwardness.

If numbers are how we figure out how the world works, words are how we make sense of the people in it.

I started to value people with personalities and points of view. When considering different issues in life and interacting with others, there were no hard-and-fast rules that math offered. I came to appreciate the puzzle of how to consider the motivations behind different points of view. Poli-Sci theories intrigued me and creative writing showed me the freedom of exploring ideas the resonated with others. Journalism made me consider our responsibilities towards others and just how many layers can disguise the truth, in matters big or small.

The more life experiences I started having, outside the bubble of my neighbourhood, the more I could see the humanities being much more interesting to consider and relate to my own thoughts. Seeing things from a new standpoint, ones that I had to find on my own - not given to me by instructors - became an enlightening and rewarding challenge. Being able to see the world in different ways, not being so rigid in always having to find the “right” answer, is liberating in how much more lenient, patient and laidback it would make my disposition.

The comfort I felt in having concrete answers was replaced by the maddeningly reassuring fact that sometimes answers weren’t always needed. While numbers mean one thing and one thing only, words grow, adapt and deceive. Words play, inform and enchant. Even back in the days of pagers, we found ways to turn numbers into letters and words.

I was washing my clothes in the sink* and thought to myself, “I have to remember to plug in my toothbrush so it can charge.” Not a completely ridiculous notion nowadays, with Sonicare and other similar toothbrushes you see ads for all the time, but it occurred to me as funny that I would just accept and adapt to such silly phrases as “I have to plug in my toothbrush” so easily, yet I hold on to outdated conversational phrases that date my slang/frame of reference, e.g. “hit me on the hip” or “ya undadig”.

This mix of adding and advancing to our vernacular while still keeping relics around, plus the existence of (once**) regional slang, is a fascinating instance of how we can mentally live in different times at the same (damn) time. My texts and messages on my phone have 2015 type references, sayings and hashtags, but my in-person conversations might have some phrases and slang words I’ve been using since the 90′s. 

When I moved to New York, I noticed those slang differences. “Let’s get faded.” “That’s tight.” “Mark ass buster.” People weren’t really saying those things. Not just because it was New York, but also because it wasn’t California in the 90′s.

I’m used to quoting movies, stand up comedy and music. Kids these days, they quote Vine videos, YouTube clips and seemingly the most random people who I have no idea how they know about them. There’s a weird coming together and pushing apart, again at the same (damn) time. 

We had these shared cultural references in years past because there just wasn’t that much media around. There were only so many movies in the theaters and only so many successful comedians we could watch on HBO. Now, with so much access to exposure, anyone from anywhere could get clued into the most local act from some remote place far away, yet at the same time, that doesn’t necessarily make it a household name. 

What is a household name is Sonicare. I have an Oral-B/Braun electronic toothbrush that I plug in, but the idea is still the same: I’m plugging in a toothbrush. A far off idea years ago is so common now. The same as the ability to create content to theoretically reach millions of people, anytime, from anywhere. We’ve come to grips with this. It’s normal. 

What I can’t come to grips with is giving up my outdated slang. Why is that? Does it feel more age appropriate to me? I don’t want to talk like a tween, yet there’s definitely overlap with things that are taking over different age groups culturally. Why is it relatively easier to adapt to talking about or saying some things while it’s almost outright refusal to not adapt to others? 

If we all know we’re evolving with time and technology, why do some parts of our communication not evolve with it? Every generation seems to think that the generation after it has dumbed things down, but the opposite is happening technologically. I don’t necessarily have a problem with people holding on to phrases from days gone by, in fact I enjoy them. Often times, they’ll convey situations that transcend time, things every generation would understand - interpersonal situations or recurring themes in everyday life. 

They don’t always get passed on, though. Sometimes references are just so antiquated or certain words just aren’t in vogue anymore. Some parts of language die while other parts are born. Is it almost like the reincarnation of communication? Can horrible words like “on fleek” come from past dead phrases as an everlasting punishment to mankind for doing too much with language? 

The next time we hear a new phrase or slang term, maybe we can consider just which one died to make way for it.

*This is what I do with my gym clothes after working out or boardshorts after swimming. I’d rather wash them by hand and line/hang dry them than wait to wash them on laundry day. I feel this is more efficient and keeps my supply cleaner, longer.

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Egg-xpensive

Why I've been buying eggs for double the price.#organic #cagefree #antibiotics #freerange #happyeggs

There’s no perfect situation.  Every relationship has its flaws.  We might be a little harsh in our tendency of calling relationships a “failure” if it doesn’t progress to eternal status.  I believe this is incorrect.  The relationship runs its course, we glean the lessons we can from it until the inconvenience levels outweigh the benefits.  Sometimes, you’re at a mediocre restaurant and sometimes you’re at your favourite Las Vegas buffet.  At some point, you stop eating.  You didn’t fail, you just had your fill.  You just happen to get out of relationships faster if they offer more food that you don’t like than dishes you enjoy.  Sometimes, just sometimes, you find the right restaurant for your tastes that offer a satisfactory ratio of must-haves.

When you’re in any relationship, romantic or otherwise, the initial buzz will wear off and you’re going to start to notice your differences.  And not just notice them, but you’ll become painfully aware of which ones bother you.  In this situation, I would argue, there is no such thing as indifference.  There are only two options: sacrifice or must-haves.

Most of the time, the differences are small and thus the sacrifices are small.  At some point in many relationships (and we’ll focus on the romantic variety from here on out), however, there will be a difference or sum of differences that become a must-have and force one (or both) party’s hand.  At some point, the sacrifice is not worth the benefit of the relationship.  This is the cold, inconvenient truth of being in and keeping up a relatively convenient and beneficial relationship.  

Dating websites come up with algorithms that weigh what we tell them is important to us and compares those items with what others feel about them and say what’s important to them.  This is all well and good in finding someone to meet and go out with, but this doesn’t necessarily address your true tolerance levels nor how intolerable you can truly be.  

There are small things like your guy might not be a Gladiator wrapped up in Scandal or your girl is a Giants fan but you live in LA.  That second one might not be a good number of people, actually - but that just goes along with what I’m saying: at that point, the sacrifice is too great.  In a more macro sense, looking at a larger scale of humans on the whole, that’s a high level point of contention to have issue with.  If you’re a Dodgers fan and you happened to be caught up in a tragic event and it was in your power (let’s say, with no detriment to yourself) to help someone who is a Giants fan who would otherwise perish or be catastrophically hurt, your loyalty and duty as a fellow human would most likely trump your regional sports team allegiance.  We can joke otherwise, but in practicality, I have to overwhelmingly believe the sports loyalty brainwash is not that powerful, despite which colours you might metaphorically say you bleed.  

If you turn that situation around, and say you’re a Celtics fan caught in a flash flood and about to get swept away and drown unless you take the outstretched hand of a Lakers fan trying to save you (let’s say you’re both wearing your team gear at the time, that’s how you know), I doubt you’ll willingly become an unsung martyr to preserve the integrity of your marketing manufactured rivalry.  

Those are extreme examples, but what’s the breaking point for romantic relationships?  What pushes us over the edge to call it quits?  That obviously varies from person to person: How patient are you?  How well can you see other people’s point of view?  How strongly do you feel about the items of contention?  These are all unstable and changing variables that could be altered by the day of the week or even what you just ate or what song you just heard.  Also, how averse are you to conflict, confrontation and going through the ceremony of breaking up with someone?  Is breaking up with someone more inconvenient to you than the problems you have with your differences?