this black dude who used to work at Facebook

quit his job at Facebook because he said the environment there wasn’t good if you are black.

he said that security guards harassed blacks at night, that they were dissuaded from having black backchannels, and they were even asked not to do “black things” after work with each other.

i dont know the gent, and some of these accusations seem outrageous especially in northern california but who knows, maybe he’s totally telling the truth.

he even said that 2-3 times a day, every day, he noticed people clutching their wallets tighter whenever he walked past them.

am i weird that i usually left my wallet in my desk? also, why would you need a wallet if all the food is free?

but lets say he is telling the truth and it sucked being 6% of a huge company and the environment made you feel intimidated to speak up else youd lose your gig?

i think that could be fixed. and i dont think it would be hard. you just need an african-american in charge with actual power to fire people if they, indeed, tried to tell people who they could hang out with after work and what they could do.

if the culture there is so backwards that even bright young tech workers are terrified of a black man walking through a campus in menlo park then there are actual things that can be done about it and a filthy rich company like Facebook should be the ideal place to invest in that sort of shift.

clearly mark z has other fires popping up all around him, and maybe he still wants to be a major political player, but as they say, how you gonna tell me how things should be when you got problems in your own house?

could i fix the culture problem at Facebook? of course. easily. and with style. i hired hundreds of people at PeopleSupport. the crew was diverse, talented and respectful. parking sucked though.

is that something that i would want to spend my energies on right now? no.

right now im working on a secret project and wondering why my tax man hasn’t called me back.

even i have a problems in my own house right now.

i am the most basic bitch

 

i still have cable tv. i still miss my mtv. even though i listen to jazz on sundays i couldnt tell you four miles davis records let alone four white piano players.

i try but i am Joe Sixpack who fortunately moved to LA at the right time otherwise id have 2.4 kids and a four bedroom 3 bath house with a messy garage in suburbia right now, id be fatter and balder and seeing possibilities with Mitt.

but like i said the Lord nudged me west and opened my mind so you can all get inside

when i landed on this coast in the mid 80s, one young woman after another told me i was on the wrong path;  that i was steering into sexism and stupidism and lazyism, and god bless them for calling bullshit because my dude friends sure as hell never told me those things.

so here we are in the future i never expected. a world without mtv. dumbest president ever, voted on by the most gullible 60 million plus some russian bots. only music can tame this wild beast so after seeing this glorious write up in my favorite paper, i told the gf that i bought tickets, in cleveland, to listen to classical music in that gorgeous setting.

she was all, fuck yeah.

until i learned that the stones are playing that same night here in LA. what to do? the Stones are olllllld. there can’t be that many more chances to see Keef and Mick bouncing around. they want my money and i want to give it to them.

do you know how many times i say Siri, play Some Girls?

all the times. do you know i devoured keiths book? how much i love how they took black music and immersed themselves in it and washed it behind their ears and let it seep into their nooks and crannies and marinated in it album after album in the early days and then, as if it was like magic, 1967 appeared and out came the perfect swirl of brit pop, american r ‘n b, and lsd. her satanic majesty’s secret sauce.  the perfect storm. the storm before the storm because boom boom boom one classic after another.

will this tour be a celebration of experimentation and exploitation?

no. it too is living in the future they never thought would exist: selling out stadiums in their mid 70s.

but everything is possible in this brave new world so when i said baby the Cleveland show i wanna go to is the same day as the Stones show, what do we do?

she said, “lets go to Cleveland, ive already seen the Stones. And you have too, several times.”

and my mind was blown because once again a delightful woman had gently advised me that i buy in to the hype time and again. i am the most basic of bitches. the most gullible of guppies. i am Joe Sixpack, quietly being led to the slaughter.