Mateo

Probably listening to… music.apple.com/us/playlist/…

I remember telling all my friends in 2022 to vote for Caruso. Karen Bass was a hack, it was clear that she had no vision for the city and was going to use her role to boost her profile and employ her political supporters regardless of qualifications. And that’s exactly what she did. Bled through taxpayer money to fund failure after failure, programs designed for the headlines and not the outcomes. She purposely misrepresented data to appear successful, but if you actually listened to the public service workers they were warning about all the trouble her policies were creating. She claimed to be the first mayor to reduce homelessness in Los Angeles, by 3.2%. What she failed to mention is that rents during the same period fell by 4%. Los Angeles number of residents fell by 1.08%, consumer activity by 7%. She was hiding a local economic slowdown behind the positive homelessness data. People were leaving the city. By her last year in office, unsheltered homelessness rised back up to 8%. A net neutral impact in four years, after billions were spent. She was expecting the city to run on autopilot while she could play identity politics, travel the world, and audition for a cushy ambassadorship or a cabinet position under the next democratic president. She had been shortlisted for VP under Biden, when she didn’t get that, she was hand picked to become mayor so she could have a job. Literally became mayor because she didn’t have anything else to do. The LA mayor position had been used by the CA democratic party as a consolation prize for politicians who albeit loyal, didn’t have the chops for a meaningful boost at the national level. In Los Angeles, they could fundraise, continue capturing local organizations, and fuel the cultural negotiations with minority groups to continue supporting and donating to democrats in exchange for minor concessions, contracts, and relevance. Meanwhile, the city could run through city council, the LAPD, the county, etc. This could’ve worked when economic activity was buoyant. It felt like LA couldn’t fail. LA county has the highest concentration of millionaires per sq mile in the country. You could just “let the rich kids play.” But this was unsustainable, and COVID proved it. The hit that Los Angeles took was immense. People left in droves. Entire industries became deserted. Then climate events destroyed entire neighborhoods. I saw this city collapse, from the coastal California Dreaming paradise to a dirty shell of its past self. And it was obvious that Los Angeles did not have a plan. Until this week. We finally will have a mayor in Nithya Raman with a plan and vision. Someone I fully trust to bring LA back up to speed, so we can have paradise again. I’m so fucking excited.

I’m not crying, you’re crying

People seem to forget that Trump won by only 1.5 points. The GOP had a mere two-seat House majority. Americans didn't give them a sweeping mandate in 2024, they gave a "maybe" and didn't hesitate to take it away. Last night's results were a referendum on governance.

El-Sayed won by the largest margin in a Michigan federal election in 12 years.

Voting for Karen Bass can only be explained by deep mental retardation, excessive consumption of paint chips, growing up next to an oil well, etc. The city is a fucking money-bleeding dirty mess. Come on Nithya!! I want to believe in this city again!!!

The only race that matters to me is LA mayor. If Karen Bass wins I'm moving out of the shithole she's created.

Ossoff has an interesting quality I haven’t seen before: saying pretty tough stuff in a monotone, boring, soft voice. It’s quite impactful because it’s unexpected and it wakes you up.

Why does Lupin's son look 40 in season 4?

It’s crazy that democrats poll higher on immigration issues. Clearly, Americans don’t like how violent and heavy handed immigration enforcement has gotten. No one likes seeing state violence in their town. I don’t understand why Trump hasn’t pivoted on this.

I'm working on cleaning up my knowledge on @NotionHQ to separate context for LLMs and records for Humans (e.g. SOPs, Playbooks, Company Literature). The LLM context would have both, but say, if I get a temp designer to work with me for two months, I want them to be able to consult the knowledge docs without getting overwhelmed. I'm way less stringent about LLM context, but I actually review, write, and edit everything that a human reads. Eventually, I want to hire an office lead that is in charge of maintaining these systems as my company grows and evolves. But in the meantime, I want to clean up the foundation. For the human-readable layer, do people find any advantage in structuring it as a wiki vs. a database? What are the Notion pros doing these days?

For whatever reason, Apple loves alternating between dusty and bright colored generations. This year we got the dusty homepod mini.

I moved to LA in 2019. Before that, I started as a theater actor in NYC in 2016. I worked hard to build a name for myself in the theater community, but I decided to move to LA to cultivate new connections that had shown an interest, including new reps, and a group of friends that were getting early buzz in shows you’ve all seen. For me, the final push was *finally* getting auditions for the big theaters in NYC, I remember seeing all these actors that looked like me, piles of resumes on the casting table, for shows that were paying $2,000/week if you were lucky and run for two or three months. Seeing those rooms made me realize how competitive it was, and even though film and tv seemed far fetched, it was equally competitive for much better pay. A commercial in LA could pay anywhere from $6,000 to $100,000 without being a name. You just needed one a year to live. As a working class person, this mattered to me. I arrive in LA, pandemic hits, friends move out. The first director to call me back for a role passes away, the casting director that showed an interest during those early months quit. I had been working towards getting my SAG card. Met with a friend, successful Spanish actor, things were going well for him and he had just joined the union, I asked for his advice: “Joining SAG was the worst decision I made in my life, all the non-union work that was paying the bills dried up.” He moved back to Spain shortly after. I was surviving on commercial work, commercials went non-union after the 2000 strikes. My commercial agent was getting me two auditions a day, my other reps one a week, sometimes one a month. I thought “fuck it, I’m staying non-union.” I worked through the pandemic, even though I was non-union, SAG’s rules still applied on set. There would be two or three actors on standby on every set to step in if anyone of us tested positive on set. A positive rapid test would mean you got paid the $600 per diem, and wouldn’t get the $20,000 buyout. For working class actors like me, it was hell. I shot my last job in 2023, by that time I had been fully vaxxed and boosted. Still, SAG was applying the same covid rules they published in March 2020. Even though we had much more information, vaccines, etc. I remember during a wardrobe fitting, I saw a list of names with several names crossed out, I asked a production guy why they were crossed “they tested positive.” It was astonishing to me that a union’s guidelines were literally hurting the most vulnerable actors. It was extremely stressful too. I wouldn’t see people for two weeks prior to a shoot, I was married and we kept a distance at home and took tests every night so I wouldn’t lose my job. Then SAG goes on strike, no auditions, reps closing shop. LA never came back. In 2024, I couldn’t travel while my green card was pending. Lost a job shooting in Thailand. Barely had any auditions, and the few I had were shooting in Mexico, SE Asia, Canada, UK, Serbia… I called my agent “I’m done.” He was understanding and said the door was always open. But I didn’t look back. Then, I opened my business. I couldn’t be happier after my career pivot. I was willing to sacrifice income for acting. Now I sacrifice acting for income and agency. I still miss it, it’s an incredible craft that forces you to be strong and flexible, it’s athletic for both body and mind. But it’s not a working class career anymore, and it was the incompetence, arrogance, strong arming, and chaotic leadership of the unions that contributed to ruining the industry for everyone.

If Karen Bass wins in Los Angeles I’m seriously considering moving out. Her incompetence is so insulting it makes me nauseous to pay local taxes. I rather feed my money directly to a donkey.

Are you telling me your employees don’t receive intensive phishing training in 2026?