#also you guys gotta remember like. people who are 30+ grew up with internet too? we aren’t like. boomers??

[girlvinland]

I saw a comment on a post that was like “I can’t believe people over 30 use this app!!!” and I’m like 🤔 ???

[annakie]

-----------

We're back for part two!  Remember the last time how I said....

And after that game... I parted ways with my friends once again.  Because I had tickets... to Critical Role.

Well... not only that, but I was finally meeting @thievinghippo​ IRL to see it!

CRITICAL ROLE (aka Friday Night)

I took off right after the previous game had ended and headed for the show.  My one big frustration was that it took 30 minutes for my Lyft driver to arrive from AROUND THE BLOCK (ok, about a quarter of a mile, but still).  In retrospect, I think he was hoping I'd cancel so he could get a bigger fare or something.  I think he just fucked himself over because he could have done that route twice in the time it took him to come get me.  So I got there with just a few minutes to spare and no time to get in the merch line.  But hey, I found Hippo and met a few other people from Tumblr whose names I recognized!  

It was so great to finally meet her, but we had almost no time to talk beforehand (but when we did, it was all about how mad we still are about Jaime / Brienne and also I tried to catch her up to what's happening in CR since she's pretty far behind.)

The show was AWESOME.  It was so fun to see live!  It was particularly awesome when the entire audience sang along with the theme song (See this video if you haven't yet for those of you not there: https://twitter.com/PhoenixHeart815/status/1157446225223962624 ).  It reminded me a lot of singing along with the Sparks Nevada theme the last few TAH shows, I got a little misty-eyed.

The bad?  It was really really hot in the theater.  At intermission I bolted out to the bathroom and buy cold waters.  I was about to get in the merch line but the lights already started flashing.  SIGH.  I gave Hippo a water and before we could settle in much, the show started again.  I told her my plan for the end of the show, though.

I will admit, my lack of sleep from the previous two nights was starting to catch up with me, and I had no caffeine available to combat it with.  I almost ducked out of the show early because I felt myself nodding off with the heat in the theater masked with the dark of the theater and that the second half of the show was less exciting (but still fun!) than the first.  Seeing the show live was amazing!

Just as Matt said they were ending the show there, I hopped out of my chair (I was in an aisle) and went into the lobby.  I was dying to get a set of the metal dice... and they were sold out of EVERYTHING except the big blue d20 and some pins.  ARGHGHGHGHGH.  So I got the d20, and watched the rest of the show including Liam's very surprising win, on the monitors.  (I'd voted for Liam because I assumed Sam would win.  I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. :)  Though I love Sam to bits.)

Hippo joined me outside in the lobby early, and we left the theater just ahead of everyone else and she waited and we chatted while I called a Lyft.  She wanted to get out before traffic got too crazy, too, so she took off.  I am VERY MAD I didn't get a pic with the two of us at all.  Next year?!  

Then of course my Lyft driver didn't come to where I was exactly (literally at the Lyft pickup/dropoff designated location) and I had to walk around and look for him and by the time I found him, he'd gotten boxed in so we had to wait in traffic anyway.  Ah well.

At least the freeway was re-opened that night heading back to the airport, and thus, my hotel, for a shorter ride.  I ended up not falling asleep til close to 2.

I loved my evening and would do it all again but that Jeremy and Marcus told me that the Starfinder game they played in that night was AH-FUCKING-MAZING and was literally one of their favorite games of their entire lives, both of them.  It was a multi-table megagame that had a pass-fail condition and would shape the next season of the Society, and I'm sad I missed it while being really glad I did what I did.  Sometimes it's feast or feast, and you gotta pick which awesome meal you want.

I didn’t take many pics, just one as they were settling in after Sam came out in his costume, and one during intermission.  It’s all on Twitch, anyway!

SATURDAY

Oh man, for some really dumb reason we'd scheduled our Saturday morning for 8AM... but it was Starfinder!!  Uh, I will say I consumed more caffeine on that Saturday than maybe any other day of my life.  But it was needed.

What also helped keep me awake that it was FUCKING FREEZING IN THE ROOM.  The game itself was an absolute blast, though.  It was a brutal slog through a dead planet with hostile aliens everywhere and we had to stealth through, collect information and get out.  This was the game I felt the closest to death in all weekend, I'll say that for sure.  But we did it!

The very kind Felice(sp?) who was at the table decided she didn't want to carry her hoodie through the dealer hall, where she was going next, and her husband was working the main table at the Pathfinder room, so she told me to leave it there with him when I was done with it.  Since our next game was also in the Paizo room, I took her up on this offer and was warm and comfy the next few hours.

Our DM, an Operative, and Felice, plus the Hoodie of Warmth +2.

A very rare picture of me, on the internet, along with the guys.

And our next game was our first Pathfinder 2 game!  We were very excited to try out the system, and were put at a table with a father and son duo.  Jeremy and Marcus were excited because the DM was the same guy who'd DM'd their Starfinder game while I was at Critical Role.  

The only bad thing that happened here was that the El Paso Cielo Vista shooting news broke.  I grew up in El Paso, from when I was 12 to 22... it's Middle School through college for me.  Even though I've now lived in Dallas twice as long as I lived in El Paso and I haven't been there in like ten years, it's still... a little bit home.  So I left the table for a little bit to get on Facebook and make sure my friends there were all okay (they are), and text with my mom to make sure a family member who still lives there is okay (she is, though she took awhile to answer mom so we were worried.)  I have a lot of thoughts though, which belong in another post, and I'm still angry and upset about the shooting, even though it didn't affect me personally.  But for now, that's the end of talk of that terribleness.

At our table were a father and ~10 y/o son, who I'm cutting out of the pics because posting pics of minors without getting permission is not OK.  Also, the game was SHORT.  It turns out it was designed as an intro to Pathfinder 2 or maybe even RPGs in general so we knocked it out pretty quick, like 2.5 hours.

One very cool thing that Pazio was doing was that when you played in a game, you got a wooden token that you took up to the prize table, and rolled a d20 + d10.  No matter what you rolled, you got a prize, though most of them were cool little boons for your official characters.  However, if you critted, you got to pick a physical prize from the table.  Well, we played so much that Jeremy and Marcus both critted twice.  They ended up getting ALL THREE Token boxes (like cardboard minis, very nice quality) for Starfinder, plus the Starfinder Beginner's Box.  Pretty sure those four things together retailed for over $100.  Score!

So after the short game, with time to spare before our next game, the gang decided it was Dealer Hall time, literally the first time Jeremy or Marcus had time to go AT ALL.  I volunteered to be the stuff-holder.  After dropping off Felice's hoodie, I found a comfy seat near an outlet that was near the dealer hall and let everyone dump the stuff they didn't want to carry with me.  They came back and left stuff with me, and then after a couple of hours, also brought me dinner from the food trucks.  It was a fair trade.

I also asked Jeremy to stop by one particular booth and pick me up a set of dice I'd decided on, Blue Turquiose stone dice from Metallic Dice Games.  I took some pics of the dice below, though the next day I did have Jeremy swap out the d20 at the booth because I didn't like how some of the faces looked (by far the angle in the pic is the best side, there was too much solid color on the other sides of the die.)  These are going to be my official dice for my 4e character, who is a storm sorcerer reskinned as a druid.

LOVE THESE DICE, can’t wait to roll ‘em.

DM, Dad and blurred-out son.

A blurred-out boy and my guys.

Our final game of the day was the Cypher system, which is made by Monte Cook (one of the original D&D designers).  Cypher is a fairly simple system which mostly just uses a d20 and d6, and the DM never rolls dice.  The original system was made for a game called Numenera, which we'd played the beginner's box adventure for a few years ago but didn't feel like we got a good feel for the system, so we wanted to give it a go with a DM who knew the system well.

Overall, we enjoyed the game, it definitely wasn't "bad"!  But the problem was, we all agreed later, that the module that was being run was the kickoff module for a much longer campaign, there was a huge lore dump near the end and we also didn't really "get" everything that was going on.  

It also had the most memorable ending, though.  We ended the game by trying to escape from a base while being chased by some guys who greatly outmatched us.  My character was a pilot, and we needed to leave via a shuttlecraft.  One of the players who we didn't know was on the "get the door open and provide covering fire so everyone else can get to the shuttle" team.  And then he needed to make a roll in order to also GTFO and get to the shuttle.

He rolled.  Got a 5.  There's a mechanic where you can spend a card that you've collected in order to re-roll.  So he did that, got a 2.  Someone else gave him a card to re-roll.  He rolled a 3.  Someone else did.  He rolled a 5.  I was the last one with a card on the table, so I slapped it down.  He rolled a 4.

It was amazing.  Amazingly terrible rolling.

My pilot already had the craft powered up and was waiting for only him to get on.  I sighed, looked the player in the eye and said...

"I'm so sorry, but my character sheet says that I have a personality flaw.  I'm impulsive and impatient and have a setback to anything that requires patience, concentration or willpower.  I'm not waiting for you."  I looked at the DM and said "I decide that he's sacrificing himself to save us, and take off."

So I left him behind.  

The player was 100% cool with it, we had a laugh about it, and he agreed it was what my character would have done.  So it was kind of a tragic and funny way to end the game.  Also Brian needed to get some sleep that night so he hadn't come to that game, and Marcus left a little early to tend to the family, so just Jeremy and I closed out the night.

DM on the left, players I didn’t know in the center, and one on the right.  The guy in the bright blue shirt in the center?  I killed his character.  Sorry not sorry.

SUNDAY

The next morning, sadly, was the last day of GenCon.  We only had one game scheduled that morning, our second Pathfinder 2 game.  And EVERYONE was gonna be at the game!  

I hadn't even SEEN Gwen or Laura the entire con, and when they arrived at just about the same time Jeremy and I did, we joked that we hadn't believed the others were at the convention.  

We'd hoped that they'd let us put all 7 people at the table (Kirstyn had left late Saturday night to fly home and be at a concert she was playing in.)  They did not.  So we split up "Kids" and "Adults".

Sadly, this didn't work out super well for either table.  Gwen/Brian/Ally's table had a DM they did not enjoy and also a married couple who actually fought with each other uncomfortably at the table(!!).  

We had a good DM, but also an old guy who... I did not like.  At all.  He talked over the DM, even when the DM was explicitly trying to answer a question we'd asked him, things like rules questions on how game mechanics in PF2 had changed from PF1, since, you know, it was a system that had released THREE DAYS AGO.  Also, he was very... helpful... in telling me how skill checks worked and also questioning my decisions on how I was playing my character.  (YES, thanks I did consider carefully before casting Sanctuary on myself, and yes, it WAS THE RIGHT CALL.  I was the only healer in the party and had gargoyles flanking me, THANKS.)

I literally told the guy (as nicely as possible) "Sir, I've been playing RPGs for over twenty years, I'm well aware of how RPGs work, thank you" the second time he told me how skill checks worked as I was adding up my die roll with my skill modifier and took two seconds to do the math. And sure he'd probably been playing for thirty or more but um... I know how to roll a skill check.

After a short break, I told my friends I might need to leave the table.  Instead, Marcus and I switched seats so I wasn't sitting next to him anymore and the DM tried to refocus the game a bit.  It helped me at least.  I just did my best to ignore the guy.  I'm pretty sure he just didn't have the greatest social skills in the world but sometimes my tolerance for people like this can be... low.  His brother was also at the table and seemed okay, at least.  

The game itself was pretty good, ignoring everything having to do with that guy.  After the game the DM thanked me for sticking around and basically empathized that he was getting pretty annoyed, too.  

Not the greatest way to end gaming at the con, but hey, it also could have been worse.  I took pics of that game but decided not to put pics of someone I didn’t like on the internet.

Gwen, Brian and Ally's game ended like 45 minutes before ours (sadly, much to their relief) and they'd left to do one more run through the vendor hall and then left the con to start their drive home.  I had Gwen pick me up a set of dice that... I haven't even seen yet... and they were hella expensive.  I'm kinda feeling buyer's remorse about them right now, I didn't need to spend that much on dice this con but... well, we'll see how I feel when I see them in person.  If I hate 'em, I'll resell 'em.

All weekend long I'd been texting with my BFF from High School's husband, who is also my friend.  He was at the Con as well but doing his own thing and we'd been trying to arrange a meetup.  Well, we finally did it!  He came and saw me, and we hung out for about 45 minutes, just talking about the con, and old times and what we're doing now and the family etc. etc.  So that was great!  I was really glad to see him and catch up.

It’s Richard!

After he left because he had to go help tear down the booth he'd been working at, like the day before, I set up "basecamp" in the same place as before.  I had thought about going back to the vendor hall where Jeremy, Marcus and Laura were, but I'd already sent Jeremy off to ask him to pick me up the one last thing I wanted (the official GenCon dice tray.  I have a Wyrmwood Lacewood dice tray for home use, but wanted a nice travel dice tray.  I had a leather one for Kraken, but I'm real unhappy with Kraken Dice now and wanted something else.  I don’t plan on buying from them ever again in the future.  The official 2019 Gencon tray is very nice, and Jeremy had gotten one the day before, so he picked me up one as well.)

POST-CON

I only had to wait about an hour for the end of the con, and by that time the only ones from our group left were "the adults."  So once we were all gathered back up, the four of us headed out and walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant, which we couldn't get into, so we went to the restaurant next door, the Yard House.  

Wherein we had comically bad service, but they were very nice about it, and also WE were really nice about it, and ended up getting about half our meal comped.  Like our waiter had put in all the drink orders for all his tables to our table, so we had the wrong drinks delivered about five times.  We never got water refills.  Marcus had half a beer spilled on his leg (not even his beer, just another wrongly brought to our table), Laura's Appetizer-as-entree came out as an appetizer.  We asked for more chips for the chips and guac and queso we'd gotten as an app and never got it, etc.  Also while the manager was there assuring us we wouldn't have any more drinks brought to our table we didn't ask for... drinks were brought to our table we didn't ask for.  It was actually hilarious by that point.  

The waiter was brand new (his second day) so we got it.  It was just one of those things.  But they took care of us, we tipped well, it was all OK.

So that was the end of Gencon.  Back at my hotel, which Jeremy and I had long decided we wouldn't stay at again, I'd taken a shower very early Saturday morning after Critical Role.  Sunday morning when I showered again, the water still hadn't drained from the tub(!!) but I was in a hurry and just showered in gross cold water at my feet.  Then told the front desk.

They hadn't even been in my room all day to even clean up the room at all, much less do anything about the bathtub when I got back to my room Sunday night, so I switched rooms.  And then the room next to me had left the alarm clock on, and it went off at 9pm.  And my phone in that room didn't work, so I had to go downstairs a second time to get someone to go shut it off.  Also the AC in that room never turned off, the controls seemed to do nothing, so it was like 60 degrees in there the entire night.  It was actually a relief to leave the hotel the next day.  Next year... we'll pay a little more for a bit nicer hotel.

Annnd.. the next morning Jeremy and I got to the airport early enough, flight was full but not delayed, and had no problems getting home.  Spent most of the day from getting on the plane to going to sleep that night with a massive migraine so I spent the afternoon at home sleeping and drinking lots of water.. but yay... no con crud!

I miss the con, but being back in my own bed with my kitties is all worth it.  Still, I can't wait for Gencon again next year. :D

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came  across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story – Jack Harries ( I would also recommend checking out his twin brother Fin Harries – truly inspirational guys) This is the photograph that blew me away:

Amazing right? This photo lead me to Natural Geographic page where I found bunch of alarming articles about plastic pollution. Of course like many of you I knew about this problem before but I never really realized juts how fucked up this situation got and the powerful images they shared truly hit me hard.  Check out some of this articles to learn more.

  There is a bunch of sad environmental videos, photographs or stories I could share with you but that’s not really my goal in this article. What I want to share with you is the ways we all could make a difference and show you some heroes that have been doing their part and don’t get much recognition for all of their hard work.

So here we go:

First of all I want to point you to this website called worldenvironmentday.global and their project BEAT PLASTIC POLLUTION with inspiring slogan if you can’t reuse it, refuse it.

They came up with amazing idea of organized clean up. Basically you can join a clean up event in your location and help get rid of and properly recycle plastic. Here you can learn more about clean ups and also about this app called Litterati which is simply an app tool to help you encourage others to collect plastic.

If you are more of a leader than follower you can organize your own clean up event and register it at this page and share it with people in your location with map of where exactly will the clean up be. Here is how you can register and start and make a difference.

With this organized clean ups I must introduce you someone. His name is Afroz Shah and to be fair I don’t know much about him but I aspire to be like him. This guy does the most amazing clean ups I have ever seen, he does post on his instagram page his clean up results of the week and there has been lot of weeks since he’s been doing this.

This was the picture I saw that led me to Afroz as he was the one of the volunteers. This truly restored my faith in humanity and I feel such satisfaction and relief that there are people who care and do something about plastic problem.

Here are some other photos I screenshoted that supports my theory about unknown hero:

I highly recommend you visit his instagram page HERE  and see for yourself the amazing things he did.

If you’re not into big events such as this you can still do your part by following many eco-friendly tips you can find on the internet and here are some:

The whole point is to reduce the amount of plastic you use every day, and if you are for some reason unable to stop using plastic the least you can do is reuse it. I understand that not all of the time you have your canvas bag with you, or your reusable bottle so you buy cheaper plastic version of this, but I’m sure you could find some use for them afterwards.

The sad thing is how cheap is to get this plastic option instead of ecologically friendly ones and trust me being a drop out student in between jobs, working part-time in KFC – money is heavy step back in my eco life as well. I feel so guilty every time I need to purchase a plastic bag and the amount of plastic waste I create on my own is upsetting. The least I can do is recycle it I – have bunch of plastic bags under my table that separates my plastic, paper and glass trash and once in a while I need to find a recycling bin and separate them. You would think that medicine a pharmacy students would have better access to recycling, but nah – if you want to recycle you must make an effort yourself what is such a difference from my primary school where each of our classes had recycling bins so kids could learn to dispose their trash properly.

This leads me to another topic and that’s leading and teachings kinds to reduce plastic waste. I would recommend you check out this stunning video called Oceans of future by Greenpeace. It’s important we grow sence of responsibility and ecological thinking in this kids. I’m so grateful my parents did that with me.

Since I was little we would always separate plastic or milk cartoons from other trash and recycle them later and my parents do that till this day. They actually fill the truck of our car with plastic and need to drive to recycling bins, because there are none in around our new place.

We would always need to turn off the lights when we would leave the room (sometimes not even when we leave the room – it’s so annoying when your dad turn of the lights off when you’re in the bathroom almost every time), turning the water off when you’re brushing your teeth, washing dishes or shampooing your hair. This might sounds ridiculous to you cuz I believe this things comes naturally to people and I find it useless to even mention such small things but I remember skyping with my grandma when she was living and working in america. She would always ask me if I tun off the water when I’m brushing my teeth and I always found it so weird she would ask me something like that. Of course I do. But the family she was staying at don’t find it as natural as I did and it was upsetting my grandma a lot.

We would always make fun of our family’s plastic bag full of plastic bags we would take whenever we went shopping, but once I moved out and lived on my own I realized how clever this idea is and now I have my own plastic bag of plastic bags.

I feel it’s important to put this sence of responsibility into kids and you can always do it in some fun kid friendly way. My parents would for example give me and my sisters bag and we would have to collect trash around our building – make a competition out of clean ups – who collects the most?

There is just no wrong or too little way to save the world.

How to be more eco-friendly if you work for larger corporations?

I currently work for large fast food chain restaurant KFC and let me tell you the amount of waste our single small store creates is alarming. The amount of food and plastic waste is unbelievable and the sad fact remains that single-handed part-time worker in such corporation can’t do literally anything without risking their jobs.

We do have separated trash bins for plastic, bio and mix waste, but we also have to throw all of the meat out once it reach its expiration period of extremely short 30 min! As a former vegetarian the amount of chicken meat, energy wasted for its preparation and basic situation of world hunger depresses me a lot. So what can I do  as an individual ? Girls gotta eat and pay bills.

Sadly I did not figure out answer to this question yet besides to push the big bosses into doing eco-friendly changes for whole restaurant chain. We did switched to paper to-go cups instead of plastic and we also use paper bags what is incredible step forward, but the amount of plastic straws is still bad and hopefully we would also make some changes like our competition did hat really pleases me :

Being a middle european I don’t really understand the demand for straws or ice, but switching to reusable metal straw could make a difference and prevent this from happening:

Of course I understand that if I refuse plastic straw at 27th June 2018  7pm from a cashier at fast food restaurant who has to offer me one I’m not gonna save the world – but if the fast food stops/reduce offering one – this might be actually a huge step  forward.

Why do I even write this?

Let me be so full of myself and believe that one day some big animal in some firm would come across this article, or some family member of their would mention Beat plastic pollution project to them and light up a spark of thought process in someone who actually could make bigger impact on environment.

Spread the word, get inspired, some people are really trying to make a change – why not be one of them ?

I’m not saying I’m perfect, I still occasionally buy plastic bag or bottle, I don’t always recycle materials that should be recycled and sometimes I’m just lazy and put plastic into mix trash can. But I also switch to bamboo toothbrush instead of plastic, I ordered bunch of canvas shopping bags (that would get deliver to me in plastic bag – how ridiculous is that? There should be something done by this issue as well, or the recipes – most of us don’t need them and sure as hell don’t have any way to reuse it – you might refuse it but that doesn’t mean it’s not gonna get printed anyway) and the least I can do is trying to be better and spread the word to people who care and even to those who don’t .

Also not every time is our effort met with actual results. I’m talking about fake recycling bins where all of the garbage ends up in same place without any recycling whatsoever. So if you see something like this in your building call out the authorities about it! Some of us are actually trying for crying out loud !

The amount of waste that ends up in oceans is just heart breaking. I grew up in a country without access to ocean and I only got to see sea or ocean at our summer family holidays and the memories  have from those trips do not meet the sad reality of how bad ocean pollution got.

Simple hard-working individual can not make a difference unless the individuals with actual powers makes changes to preserve the earth. But I feel like I’m slipping back into depressing side of this issue but I really want to point to positive effort of many people involve in helping solve this plastic pollution problem.

There is a note at our fridge in our dorms shared kitchen that states: “Our problem is that we believe someone else is gonna save the world” after one neighbour of mine got upset about number of plastic people from our hall were throwing away.

If you wat to make a difference but don’t know how to start here you can take  pledge at national geographic with simple tips of what to do to reduce your plastic waste.

Take your pledge

  Thank you so much for your attention

xo Natalia

    Beat Plastic Pollution Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came  across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story - …

[mindjumpthoughts]

INFP go!

You know, I have caught 4 really good INFP friends and I have pokémon typed them to be GROUND/NORMAL, ICE/FLYING, POISON/BUG and GHOST/FAIRY. Let me share their pokedex information:

GROUND/NORMAL - this is the INFP I have known the longest: met him when I was at convention, he came to me and said: "your bag is so cool, can I take a picture of it?". I said yes and jumped to the same bus with him. We laughed and joked about traffic lights. He's mind is not as jumpy as other INFPs I know, and his legs are more on the ground surface. He is powerful, helped me to move once and was the buff dude who carries all the heavy stuff alone. Complains while doing the job, but always gets the job done. Professionally makes comics with dark humor. Worked as a karaoke-person for a long time. Kind, passonate and sticks to traditions he has. Can wear t-shirts in nordic winter while others have 6 layers of clothing. Loved cats and sceneric paintings. Enjoys material happiness and nests wherever he lives.

ICE/FLYING - This INFP I met through some friends and it wasn't spectacular at all. He just kind of followed. He does research at the University where I study. But once we ended up playing "never have I ever" turned out he had quite the History. He has lived in many countried, grew weed professionally, went couple of times in the middle of nowhere to study glayciers in the arctic and survived -30 celcius. Had tried polyamory and hiked unbelievable distances. He is obsessed about isolation to nature, but at the same time dreams about being an writer. I have never met a person who makes me accidentally slip so many things about me just by listening. Cool person who has flewn from one place to another since left childhood home, never completely growing roots. Really straight face and wicked humor, usually thinks he's the most interesting person in the room :'D usually is right. Super smart, beautiful eyes and always wears long sleeves. Everything he says in group hangouts is a joke. Everything. Even he's humor flies.

POISON/BUG - This INFP is the most social one: Tall guy who crawls to many events and is liked by hundreds of people. He has the power of naive weird stupidity, though academically he's smart. He spoke me and one INTP to put absinth, lime and lemon in our eyes while also doing it himself and claming it's a ritual. He skii'd a hill down with a grill he had ducktaped skiis on. He can talk hours and hours about scenarios that are not real. He thinks whelks are the best thing in the world, and orders small whelk figures from eBay and tapes them around our University campus. Laughs alot and learns languages super fast. He focuses his Ne in action rather than thought. I met this INFP at an event I was organizing and we ended up having a discussion about a thriathlon with beard and tutus and shooting and skii'ng while playing "flip the cardboard under your beer". Drinks alot when in big social events.

GHOST/FAIRY - I feel like I have known this INFP forever: I met him through my partner who was studying languages with him. I remember going to his house to watch a movie and he didn't own tables or chairs, just cardboard boxes turned upside down. But it didn't bother him. He is the one with the memes, knows when to throw right amount of shade and when to be quite to make the effect more dramatic. He's body language is graceful, fabullous and obviously gay. He lives with a lesbian couple and too many cats. He's things alot about different scenarios in everything, but does not overthink physical life like my other INFP friends sometimes do. Gets lost in philosophy and theories. He talks deep when there is just the 2 of us/really small group, but in a big gathering keeps things light and philosophical. I love it when he starts with "what if..." s, those things are usually comedy gold! Sometimes has no idea about real world because spends so much time in his head and internet. Plays DnD with me. Most strict about äesthetics.

WHAT TYPE WOULD YOU/YOUR INFP BE?? Gotta catch 'em all!

[nbhd-daily]

Jesse Rutherford’s Blonde Ambition

After seeing success as the lead singer of standout band The Neighbourhood, the 26-year-old So-Cal native decided it was time to try things on his own. &, Rutherford's first solo album, perfectly embodies the personality of the man who was born to be blonde. It's funny, poppy, loose yet precise, and more than anything, honest.

office met with Rutherford at his hotel in New York City a day before his flight back to California to perform in front of a sold out crowd alongside the band that helped him find his voice. Rutherford was open and reflective. He's as transparent as you'd hope any musician would be. He knows the key to success as a musician is being your best and most honest self at all times, all while making great music.

Interview by Khufu Najee

Photos by Mitchell Connell

I want to start off by saying I love the album.

Thank you.

I was in LA with my girlfriend when I first heard it and on that same morning, I actually dyed my hair blonde.

Yo (laughs). That’s sick.

True story.

So cool. It looks great, by the way.

Thank you, man. But that leads me to my first question. "Born To Be Blonde." What was the inspiration for that song? I know you were very specific about starting the album with that song. What went into that thought process?

The general statement just kinda means be whoever you wanna be. It’s just kind of a twist on how to say that or my particular way of saying it. I felt like it was a chance for me to be as stupid and as smart as I am — or as I think I might be — all in one go. I don’t know. It just kind of happened. It was a poem. It was a poem that I wrote while The Neighbourhood was recording our Wiped Out album. It was just a poem. I wrote it one day and or one night. I don’t even remember. I just know it was during that process cause I was blonde at that point and I was really psyched about it. It was just the way it made me feel I guess. Wrote it down. Maybe 75% of it came from that initial poem. The last 25% — the bridge and shit — was written in the studio as I was recording it. But I tried doing it a couple times. It was going to be a Neighbourhood song a long time ago. Nothing ever happened to it.

It’s very interesting how often I hear a good portion of songs that we hear on someone’s new album are actually old.

Yep. And that comes with age and with time. It’s crazy you say that cause I’ve thought about that a lot recently too and it’s given me a new hope with writing music because I probably have hundreds of songs that are not released and now I know sometimes I can go back in the fucking Rolodex. Oh okay. Wrote it in 2013. It’s 2018. Now they're ready for it. That’s how it goes sometimes.

You have to be ready to let it go.

You have to be on time. You can’t be early in this game. That doesn’t get you anywhere. At least from my experience. I feel like there have been moments where I’ve been like well I did that first and then something else happens and someone else does it. And maybe they did it at a better time. Maybe they had it more refined. Maybe it was better than the version I had. Or the type of song. Or the type of sound. Sometimes you gotta wait for the right time.

The 2014 mixtape with the band. Two features I want to ask about. You had Gerald and Kossisko. Two really good friends of mine.

Oh, you grew up in the bay?

Yeah, man.

Dope.

So, I’m curious. How did the Bay Area connection come about?

(Laughs).

It's always a good answer when they laugh before answering.

Well, Kossisko, 100s at the time, that was through our friend Matthew. Kirk, who has a label now, runs it with Matthew’s partner label.

What’s the label?

Bad Habits.

Okay.

And Matthew, he’s like my LA homie. He’s like my first LA friend. When I was like 19 trying to rap and putting my shit on the internet, he was the first dude from the city — cause I’m from the suburbs outside the city — he was like the first dude from the city to be like, yo, you’re tight, come hang out with me and my friends. And those friends ended up being 4e, who helped me produce the mixtape and then helping The Neighbourhood do our Wiped Out album. It was a long process. That was, you know, six or seven years ago. It was a while ago. I met Kossisko through him.

He’s a good dude, man.

Yeah, dude. He’s smooth too.

Staying on collaborations, on that same mixtape, you had Danny Seth. And I noticed on this new album, you had MD$, both of whom are big on the music scene in London. How did that connection come about?

Danny was also through Matthew.

Of course he was. Danny lived in LA for a bit, yeah?

Yeah, and Matthew was fucking with him for a minute. I could give you Matthew's number if you want (laughs). He’s in with everyone.

Collabs are important. How did you go about choosing who to work with on this album?

Well, I met Dylan Brady, who produced the majority of the project. I think I was playing a show and Kirk came out. Kirk met with Dylan. I think we were in St. Louis, where Dylan is from and he just walked in and I saw him. I know this may sound very surface but I basically just judged a book by the cover. Like, clothing and how you present yourself, matters. Dylan walked in and he just had this steez that I’d never seen before and I was like there’s something about this guy. Then I ended up hearing his music and it was so ambitious and unique and at the time I was trying to figure out how to find my own lane and find my own sound and do my solo thing. So we got in the studio together, we had a week in Paramount in LA, five days, and we ended up doing seven songs, and about four or five ended up on the record. It was a solid week for sure. He’s a great producer. He can really do anything. He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen before. He’s a fucking machine, dude. He’s nonstop. Dylan kinda kicked it off. We started with this sound. I worked with Daytrip a couple times before when they were back in LA and we did a couple records but nothing that was my favorite. They were amazing doing what they do but I wasn’t pleased with what I was doing on the songs.

The mind of a perfectionist, man.

Right? But then they randomly sent me a 30-pack and I was like this is fun. So I went through them, picked ten that I liked, recorded on about four or five really quickly and two of them ended up being on the album. MD$, that was just another random session when they were in LA.

MD$ is fire, dude. That’s good music.

They make really good music.

London, for the most part, is known for Grime Rap. When you think rap in London, you think grime. But what they do isn’t grime. It’s so dope and so different.

Very musical.

Very musical. Absolutely. I really want to meet the dude.

He’s a mystery. You never saw him?

No.

He’s cool. He has a swag to him for sure.

How old were you when you decided on music?

I started playing drums when I was in the eighth grade. High school came around and I met this guy who became my buddy. I grew up in a suburb where it’s like hard core punk kinda shit and I just wanted to be a part of that. But my balls took forever to drop and finally when they did I started singing. Voice is still pretty high so they only dropped so far (laughs). But I would say around 17 is when I took it seriously.

And around that age is when you knew this was what you were going to do with your life?

Yeah. Especially once I stopped doing hard core and started making really bad pop rap. I had to start somewhere though (laughs). I’ve never really thought twice about thinking twice. This is all I’ve ever done. And luckily it’s worked. It’s always felt so good. It’s the only thing I’ve ever felt natural at. I’m not that great at video games. I’m not that great at fucking school, all the cliche shit that everybody says.

Knowing what you know now, what would you tell that younger self?

Don’t get those tattoos on your right arm (laughs). Save that real estate because you’re going to want some other shit some day. Maybe don’t get any of the tattoos so early. But 17 year old me, looking at 26 year old me, with like neck tattoos and shit, would be like "yo this guy is so sick what the fuck.” I know that really surface level but I think the boxes you in. If I’m in the whitely tatted lane, then okay. I did it to myself. Other than that, just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s working.

Are you familiar with the word synesthesia?

No.

It’s basically a condition, although I don’t know why they call it that cause it almost gives it a bad connotation. But, Lorde has it, Frank Ocean, few other artists. Basically, you can taste, smell, see colors, in ways other people can’t. It’s amazing.

Me and my team talk about that all time time. We try to relate things to colors when it comes to Neighbourhood music and my own music. We try and connect songs to seasons. Some songs always seem to fit with certain seasons. Day or night. That’s a big one.

Very true. I have music I only listen to at night time. Or when the sun isn’t shining.

That’s the struggle of being asked to play a festival, when you make night music, but they give you the noon slot. How do you like the sun, yo? Yeah, this dark ass song is going to sound great while this bright ass sun is turning my pasty skin bright red.

What color would you say your music is?

I feel like I have to just say rainbow because it has to be the opposite of rainbow because The Neighbourhood has always done the black and white thing. But I don’t know. I really do like yellow. I think yellow is a really cool color. And it doesn’t even have to be bright yellow. Just a nice warm yellow that kinda has some warmth to it.

I’m not going to ask you who your musical inspirations are cause I think that shit is corny as fuck but I am curious where do you draw inspiration from? Are you the kind of dude who has a movie playing on silent in the studio at all times?

No. I’m terrible at watching movies. I need to start watching more. I just started on Apocalypse Now.

Started. Didn’t finish?

Not yet. I’m about half-way through. It's a slow process for me. But inspiration… It’s funny cause I do like Spongebob (laughs) but I feel like a sponge. I just absorb a lot of shit around me. Sometimes I can’t even pinpoint it. It’s just like shit that’s coming at me. Between the different styles and sounds of music that I like and what’s fucking constantly stewing in my head. I just feel like I can do all these different types of music, so I need to do it. And sometimes I fail. And sometimes I think, from what I’ve seen from the internet and from what fans tell me, I think I nail it sometimes. With this project especially, the title alone, just using &. Calling it that left it open to anything. Cause you can’t just have that and nothing else. There has to be something before and something after and you know that. So that alone it’s just like, I’m a sucker for that kind of shit. I just love hooks. I want everything to be a hook. A photo, to a fucking pair of shoes, the title of something, hooks only. I did a book two years ago I called that. It’s a collection of photos I took with my friend, ended up turning it into a book. I’ve always called that book the Bible of Jesse. In that book, there’s no words. All pictures. Just me wearing a whole bunch of shit. It’s all over the place. But that’s how I felt. That’s who I am. I think a lot of people are like that. Especially young people. With the internet how are you just gonna be one thing in this shit?

You have to do everything. It’s the norm now.

You have to. Remember when Drake came out. And he was singing and rapping? People were confused. But now? You can’t not do that (laughs). It’s all that. Which is great. It’s fucking incredible. I feel like now more than ever music is ready for me. You know what I mean? And I’m ready for it. I don’t feel old, I just feel grown enough to just be like, oh yeah I can do all this shit. I’ve been doing this shit for years. It’s just about catching the right moment and knowing what to do. Last time I caught the moment I didn’t know how to hold onto it. I never know how it’s gonna work anymore. I never know what song is going to work. You said you love Barbie and Ken. I was terrified to put the song out because it’s so, so opposite to the character of Jesse Rutherford from The Neighbourhood is known for.

Well, that’s what a solo project should do, innit? Show that other side?

I think so. I hope so.