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new2fivesauce · 5 years ago

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Please Don't Regret Me - 4. Lavender Sheets

4091 words.

No Warnings... I think.

Sorry for the looooooong wait. I hope this makes up for it. I think the ending sucks but I needed to get this out my head fast before I put it off again. Enjoy.

June 2018.

Nelle's departure from being 5 Seconds of Summer’s assistant had been abrupt, leaving her feel like she had left her job incomplete thus causing her to spiral through a series of emotions and phases she believed she hadn’t felt since she was a raging, hormonal teenager.

The day she had given her news, they all awkwardly arrived at the airport at the same time. In her haze of emotions, she had not changed nor cancelled her flight to Australia and since 5sos was also flying international, they were stuck in the same terminal. Luke and Nelle did not speak again since their elevator meet. Michael noticed their tension, but didn’t say anything. His saddened green eyes only flickered between the two as they both tried their best to ignore one another. It wasn’t how she wanted to leave Luke, but she didn’t want to get his hopes up.

Calum, however, was the first to come up to her and apologize, practically beg her to forgive him for being such a selfish, shitty friend. Ashton and Michael followed suit with their apologies letting bygones be bygones. They agreed to keep in touch; everything returning to somewhat normal although the guys still looked bummed walking towards their flight with their new assistant.

She’d spent a couple weeks in Australia, staying in the house duplex she and Calum had bought together with their first good paychecks, but had hardly used due to constant traveling. She spent time with her parents, visited the guys' families, cleaned their empty homes to not waste money on a cleaning service, and took the duties of taking care of Duke from Mrs. Hood. Nelle also hung out with a few old schoolmates but quickly regretted that choice. They all seemed to “remember” how good friends they were, trying to manipulate Nelle for favors or money only because she knew “certain” people.

Mali-Koa, Calum’s sister, came to visit one week. She’d heard the news of Nelle’s leaving, and insisted that she come back with her to London.

“Girl, you needed a break from those dweebs anyways.”

So she did.

Nelle didn’t last very long in London though. Word had been passed of Nelle’s whereabouts which caused a very weepy, distraught Michael to leave a lengthy voicemail about betraying them for Cal's bitchy sister. She wasn’t really enjoying her time in London anyway, leaving Mali about 3 weeks later. She made a quick visit back to Australia before deciding that perhaps living in her vacant loft in Manhattan wouldn’t be such a bad idea. She’d let Calum know that Duke was coming with her before departing to the Big Apple.

She’d only been in NYC for two days when she’d run into a childhood friend that was not Calum.

Sasha Hendricks had been Nelle’s best friend when their parents were in the Army. They’d lived on the same bases and traveled the world together before Nelle’s parents settled in Australia and Sasha’s in Texas. Every year, before Nelle took on her job with 5sos, the girls alternated spending summers with one another in their country. They hadn’t seen much of each other in more than five years so no doubt it was a huge surprise when they both walked into the same small, cozy café.

Sasha had derailed from her parent’s Army footsteps to become a model. Not in the big leagues with faces like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, but she was aiming to get there.

With Sasha there, she didn’t feel so alone in the big city. It made her move a lot easier to handle but also there was just something about the city of New York and all of its noise that made Nelle feel at her calmest. She hadn’t been in the city for more than a two weeks now but if she had to be completely honest with herself, this was the best she’d felt in a long time.

<<*>><<*>>

Duke pushed ahead of Nelle, clearly already knowing his way around their block. He sniffed along a passerby's shoe, received a compliment from a passing child, and then decided he has enough the outdoors. He led the way back to the loft.

Nelle had just passed her building lobby’s front desk, when the security officer called her back. She looked down at Duke, where he was already looking up at her as in saying Oh shit, what did we do?

“Padilla, right?” the officer asked her from behind his desk. Nelle nodded slowly. “A package arrived for you while you were gone. Delivery guy didn’t want to leave it outside your door.” He said this as he retrieved a rather large box from the floor next to him. He heaved it over the desk and slid it over to her. She glared at the box hesitantly, not sure if she could carry it up to the 5th floor by herself.

“It’s not as heavy as it looks.” Security said, noticing her expression.

She thanked him for holding her package, grabbed the box awkwardly… he was right. It was not as heavy as it looked, then proceeded, with Duke at her feet, to the elevators.

Nelle barely made it inside her loft with the enormous box. Sure it didn’t weigh a ton, but five floors was a long time to be carrying a box.

Duke ran in, going straight to his water bowl near the kitchen. He didn’t care when Nelle set the cardboard box next to him. She went into one of her kitchen drawers, pulling out a knife to cut through the tape sealing the flaps down.

There were five thin, but square shaped boxes inside with a thousand packing peanuts. She made sure to carefully remove the small boxes without making a mess of the peanuts. She couldn’t risk Duke swallowing one up. The thought of telling Calum if such thing happened nauseated her.

Nelle was in the midst of opening the first thin box, when there was a knock on her door. Duke peeked around the kitchen corner to look at the door suspiciously. He growled a bit as Nelle went up the door.

“Duke… it’s just Sasha.” She clarified after peeping through the door hole and swinging the door open.

Sasha sauntered in, wearing a very see-through top and what looked like plastic pants. Her feet kicked off the six-inch heels with a sigh of relief. One heel slid close to Duke; he growled at it.

“Yeah, pipsqueak. It’s just me.” Sasha stuck her tongue out at the small dog. Nelle thought she imagined Duke rolling his eyes at the model.

Duke was kind to everyone… well almost everyone. Sasha had accidentally stepped on Duke's paw on their first meet. Ever since then, he tolerated her. He let her pet him but for the most part, he just stayed clear of the tall brunette.

Without another word, Sasha found her way to Nelle’s bedroom, emerging ten minutes later in a pair of Nelle’s Halloween pajama pants that were slightly too short since she was taller than Nelle and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt that fit too big.

Nelle hadn’t noticed Sasha wearing the shirt until she came up beside her about to open the first of five packages. Seeing her friend in the shirt made her freeze, her throat closed around a sudden lump that made it almost too hard to speak.

“Hey Sash… where’d you get that shirt from?” Nelle croaked. Sasha shrugged.

“Your suitcase. Why?” the girl looked down at the shirt and suddenly a zesty whiff of it caught her nose. Sasha hardly hung out the boys, only when she been to Australia during the summers, but she knew a guy smell when she smelt it and by the way Nelle’s face had gone temporarily pale, she slowly retreated back to the bedroom because she now realized this was not just some random shirt. Sasha knew all about Luke. She knew it was a bit of a touchy subject. She quickly changed into another shirt that was lying around.

Finally, when Sasha came back into the room, Nelle opened the awaiting first package. The flaps of the skinny box opened fully until they were flat against the kitchen counter surface. Staring up at her were four familiar faces in various shades of yellow, violet, and blue. The word YOUNGBLOOD was written across the middle in a graffiti red font. Nelle carefully lifted the plastic entrapped vinyl record from the cardboard.

Sasha, hovering over her friend’s shoulder, whistled lowly. “Damn, you didn't tell me Cal looked that good now!”

Nelle snickered and threw back a playful hit to Sasha's side. “I've tried to hook y’all up multiple times. You two just hate love so much.” Sasha scoffed as she pulled the new record from Nelle’s grip. She flipped it over to see the back and the track listing.

“Oh, I’ve heard Want You Back just the other day. Was Luke singing about you?” Sasha mused as she put the vinyl down and helped open the other boxes. There were two more of the same record, two CDs, and finally at the very bottom of the original box under the packing peanuts was the band’s clothing merch to go along with the new era.

Nelle ran her hand over the material of one of the shirts that showcased the boys' faces. Her fingers lingering over Luke’s face. “Nah. That song was written before I left.”

Sasha’s eyebrow quirked up, but she shrugged her shoulders. She held up one of the CD albums. “Should we listen?” Nelle nodded. “Good, because we were going to regardless.”

<<*>><<*>>

Nicole: Welcome back everyone. If you’re just tuning in, we have 5 Seconds of Summer in the studio right now! They’ve just released their new album and they were thoughtful enough to stop by today to talk about it. Guys, why don’t y’all say hello again.

Michael: Hey, I’m Michael.

Ashton: I’m Ash.

Calum: Calum, here.

Luke: And I’m Luke. We’re 5 Seconds of Summer.

Ryan: We have a few more questions from our callers. This one is from Mary: Youngblood is obviously the principal track seeing as it’s also the name of the album. Did you know that that was going to be the name of it or was it like a damn, we forgot to name the album, quick, just pick a song to name it after kind of thing?

Michael: HA! Yeah, that last option. Without a doubt.

Ashton: No, really! It was. We had other titles that we were referring the album to during the recording session, but we had to scrap a bunch of songs and basically start over. The album wasn’t fully completed and to our satisfaction until just last month. We had the promo pictures, the whole works, and then they were like ‘Is this going to be named Untitled?’ and Mike was like ‘What’s our next single? Just call it that.’

Nicole: Woow! I guess your fans really know you, huh? So I’ve been listening to it pretty much on repeat and some of these songs are really deep, heart wrenching, very mature. Very different from your previous albums. Can you explain the writing process and how this album was not like the others?

Luke: With Youngblood, they gave us a lot more creative permission, I guess is the right way to put it. Our other albums were done when we were teens so lyrically and musically, they didn’t give us as much freedom as they did with YB. We had to take a break after the release and touring of the second album because we were just so worn down; our physical and mental health were at an all-time low.

Ashton: It just sucked, really. We couldn’t focus or concentrate on what was going to be our new album when we just weren’t feeling like ourselves. Halfway into our break, Want You Back just came to me. When I played it through for the first time to the guys, everything else just came naturally from there. I guess that would be the rawness and deep, wrenching sound you hear so different from our previous work.

Ryan: One of our listeners is asking if any of the songs are about anyone in particular. Girlfriend maybe?

Calum: Umm… no? Ha, I don’t think so. At least none of the songs that I input in aren’t about anyone. I mean… sure, we take from our past experiences and put them into song, but for me, that’s a no.

Michael: Cal is anti-love, everyone. I think, like Cal said, we take from our past experiences; we’ve been up, down, and around the world for a long time. That does it make difficult to be in a relationship with someone and actually make it work. I’ve tried, Ash has tried, we all have. It’s just not in our cards right now.

Ashton: Unless you count our personal assistant…

Nicole: Whoa! Personal assistant? Who’s dating the personal assistant? … … Listeners, everyone is looking at Luke.

Ryan: Aww, he’s blushing.

Calum: He’s not dating our personal assistant. What Ashton means is… our EX-assistant, who had been with us since before the beginning, ya know, quit on us just before we released Youngblood the single. We’ve never been with any other assistant than her. So, it’s been challenging to say the least and Luke, who’s probably the most dependent person EVER, has been having a grueling time adjusting without her here.

Ashton: Yeah, yeah! Nelle was the best! She was like f*cking top-notch. I think like Rihanna, One Direction before their hiatus, uhh, I want to also say Fifth Harmony have tried to hire her when she was still with us. She’s like the fifth member of the band. She’s the fifth Second.

Michael: Dude, that was lame. But so damn true. Funny story, she used to come out in a lot of our paparazzi pictures and the fans would just ugh, be so nasty to her because they thought she was one of our girlfriends or whatever. We had to come out with a statement saying like yo, chill, she’s just our assistant, she means no harm, she’s just walking me to McDonalds… Then the fans were like OMG Nelle has the best style and she’s so beautiful blah blah blah. So, she’s a Yale student now with one of those influencer instas… so make sure to follow @seeyouneller…

<<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

The hotel room was tense. No one dared to make a sound as Luke paced back and forth. His fury running off him, his hands were clenched at his sides, his mouth in a scowl, his light blue eyes were dark as the ocean floor.

Calum nervously looked at his blonde friend, worried that even just glancing at him might cause Luke to erupt. The longest five minutes passed before Luke stopped walking. He turned his body to the cowering three. He inhaled and then signed the heaviest sigh.

“I swear, you have the biggest fucking mouth!” Luke exclaimed towards Ashton.

Ashton shook his head, his red locks bouncing around his head. The newly dyed red hair matched Ashton’s hot head nature and with Luke going off on his, Ashton didn’t know how much longer he could hold it in.

“It was just a statement! I didn’t exactly say Oh Luke is dating our ex-assistant because it’s not fucking true. It was just a quip. You two left off on… whatever the fuck ya’ll left off on, so… It was nothing, Luke.”

Luke glared at the drummer. His breathing was hard, making it look like his whole body was shaking. His fists were clenched at his side, knuckles white to the bone.

“Yeah, dude. I mean, it could have been me who was dating her.” Michael chimed in. “Sorry we looked at you. I don’t know what to really say… It’s just one interview of like a hundred that we’re going to do. No one is going to get anything out of it.”

Calum, who had remained quiet this whole time, suddenly cleared his throat. His friends all turned to him, Luke’s eyebrow raising in a bold way.

“You know we are in New York though.” Calum started. “And we were on satellite radio… You guys remember Sasha… Nelle’s other best friend. Would spend the summer with her every other year? Had braces for like ever then the last summer she visited, she was super hot?”

“Yes, we know you have the hots for her.” Ashton said exasperatedly. “What about her?”

“Anyway, she texted me. She heard the interview. Nelle listen to it. No biggie.” Calum tried to smile, but failed tremendously. Michael darted his eyes to Luke.

“We didn’t say anything bad about her. She’s fine, right? Fuck… I should text her. We should ask her to get dinner with us. She’s back at the loft, right?” Ashton pulled his phone out his pocket as he spoke. He was already tapping rapidly on his phone before anyone could answer.

Luke furrowed his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. “You’ve been talking to her?”

At this question, Ashton slowly lowered his phone to his lap. He gulped audibly. His words were stuck in his throat. He hadn’t meant to slip up. It had been decided that he with Michael and Calum were not going to tell Luke where Nelle was living at. He had already tried to follow her to Australia once and London.

It had been unpredicted what each member would go through at Nelle’s departure. Calum was sad for a few days; he wasn’t sure what to do with himself without his travel buddy, but quickly adjusted to the new assistant. Michael, too, was upset, but he was adapting well. Ashton wallowed for a bit, maybe more so than Calum and Michael, because like Luke, he still crushed way too hard on Nelle. He knew that there was nothing ever going to happen between the two; he’d realized that Nelle did have feelings for Luke, so he had to get over it, and she was always a text or phone call away, so the adjusting wasn’t too difficult. It was just she was not there anymore, physically.

However, Luke went through a tantrum phase. Anything the new assistant did was absolutely wrong. He blew up at the smallest things. If he asked for room temperature water, but got slightly cool water, he would throw a bitch fit. He distanced himself from the band for a bit. He only spoke with them when they had shows or interviews. He’d stayed locked up in his bus bunk, hotel room, wherever they were staying at. He’d text Nelle and she’d never reply. He had tried to go Home whenever he’d spoken with his mother and she told him that Nelle had just left her house. He tried to go to London when he’d overheard Michael leaving a rather upsetting voicemail about her disowning them for Mali-Koa. The sudden vastness of her being not there threw him for a loop. This crush, intense liking, feeling for her was messing with him severely. If she’d departed the band at any other time, he knew he wouldn’t be reacting this way. She just had to leave when his emotions for her had just blossomed.

Fuck.

Calum suddenly raised up from his spot on the couch. He was nervously spinning his phone in hand, checking the time after every third spin.

Suddenly he stopped, facing Luke. Calum’s head tilted slightly, confused at once.

“I just don’t fucking get it.” He mused. This time it was Luke to look bewildered. “Why? Why are suddenly so strung up on Nelle? You’re acting so clingy and it’s weird. You’ve never shown any interest in her. We go on hiatus, start touring again and all of sudden you’re acting like her boyfriend. Giggling, sleeping in her room, fighting to sit next to her, inside jokes…”

“Ya know… now that you’re saying it like that, it definitely seems like Luke is keeping something from us.” Michael chimed in. Ashton’s head perked up towards the front man. Could Luke been harboring a secret this long, months on end? Luke was never good with keeping quiet.

Luke’s eyes darted around his bandmates. His scowl dropping, being replaced with nervous lip chewing and nervous hand twisting.

He inhaled and exhaled heavily.

“We kissed.” He blurted out after what felt like minutes of awkward silence and three pairs of eyes awaiting eagerly.

Michael clutched his imaginary pearls, his very exaggerated gasps filling the room.

“What? When? Where? HoooOOOOoOW?” he howled. Calum shot him an annoyed glance.

Calum was neither shocked nor upset about the statement. He just wanted to know what happened between his two best friends. He just wanted his band to go back to normal.

“It was when we were on break.” Luke exclaimed. Ashton’s eyebrow raised. He recalled him spending time with Nelle, not anymore than usual, yet she never brought up the fact that she had kissed one of his best friends.

“Well that explains fucking everything.” Michael stated sarcastically. “C’mon, there’s gotta be more.”

Luke sighed, shaking his head.

“I was supposed to be doing my therapy sessions, but every time I'd get in the car, I’d have these intense anxiety attacks that kept me from driving. I told Cal and he suggested he drive me… I said okay and on the next time I went to his house so we could ride together. He wasn’t there but Nelle was.

“She was supposed to be on vacation just like us but I explained to her what had happened and she insisted. She took me to my session and we got lunch afterwards. It was weird. We didn’t say much, just made polite conversation.

“On my next session, same thing happened. Cal forgot, wasn’t home, Nelle took me. It became a routine. She took me to all my sessions even after I objected to wasting her time and I could easily get my mom or one of you to take me.

“The day that Ash came up with Want You Back…” Luke paused, his cerulean blues looking towards Calum wearily. “After the session, I was reading the texts from you, telling me to all meet at Cal's because Ashton called a band meeting so we got there but obviously no one was there yet. Nelle invited me into her house. I’d never been inside but that time we helped her and Cal move in…

“By this time we had kind of become friends but there was this tension and I know she felt it too. Next thing I know we're making out… like full-on making out, with her pulling me towards her room. We get in there and we collapse on her bed. I remember black everything and lavender sheets. It smelled like her pop rocks smelling lotion with a twinge of weed. We're kissing. Intensely.”

Luke stopped talking again. All the boys were staring at him, in awe of the story he had been struggling to keep internal. Calum noticed the way Luke reached up to place a hand on his chest; he clutched the material of his gray shirt, a far off in the distance glassy gaze on his handsome face.

“She heard Calum’s car on the driveway before I did. I’d been so absorbed in her, thinking how the fuck is this happening? Is this really fucking happening right now! She separated from me so fast that I felt literally cold and empty. Then she acted like nothing happened. She didn’t say anything about it. Just went on like… as if it just didn’t occur.

“But I couldn’t forget. I tried to talk to her about it and she just acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about so I did the same. Then we started touring again and working on the new album and it was a distraction. A good one… until I realized that I liked her. That’s why I was getting to know her, bothering her, hanging around her. She couldn’t tell me no knowing that it would look suspicious to you. I think she gave in to me eventually because I know she feels the same. She feels the same way I feel for her.

“And I'm sorry. I’m sorry to all three of you for keeping this secret. For being a fucking asshole. I just… I think it’s beyond the like stage. I think I’m like… at the L-word stage.”

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #luke hemmings #calum hood #michael clifford #ashton irwin #please dont regret me #luke hemming imagines #5 second of summer imagines #5sos imagine

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cryptswahili · 6 years ago

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Living on Bitcoin Day 7: A Supposedly Fun Thing I’d Definitely Do Again

This is the seventh instalment of reporter Colin Harper's "Living on Bitcoin" experience in San Francisco. Find out what happened to him earlier on Day 1 , on Day 2 , on Day 3 , onDay 4, on Day 5 and on Day 6.

I woke to the sound of thin but consistent rain against the sailboat. A gentle storm soon rolled in to softly rock the harbor’s rustbucket bedfellows, a few spurts of lightning distant and crackling across the bay.

Dustin wasn’t up yet so I made a cup of coffee (gods be praised) and went above the deck of the Velela — the name Dustin’s sailboat came with when he bought it four years ago. The previous owner (a marine biologist) was inspired by the jellyfish of the same name, which can hoist a sail-like fin in the air to propel itself more quickly through the water.

The Velela resting in the harbor.

After Dustin got up (and we wolfed down some bacon-n-egg burritos), we made preparations, which included stuffing a rubber skiff into his Honda Fit, and we set out on the open water. The day was graying as we left the docking area, with a misting of rain so faint you could barely feel it on your skin.

Once we’d motored out far enough, Dustin hoisted the sails. Swelling with the bay’s untamable winds, the sails vaulted us forward and pushed the boat to the right — a bit more than I would have liked.

“This is safe, right? It’s not going to tip over?” I asked apprehensively.

“I wouldn’t exactly call sailing a safe activity,” Dustin said with a smile that managed to be both carefree and severe.

“But it’s not going to tip over, is it?”

“Probably not,” he joked. “But really, there’s a huge weight in the middle of the hull, so we’ll be fine.”

We were headed for the city’s waterfront, a 10-mile trek, give or take. The wind was against us, though, so we had to get there by tacking, a maritime navigation technique that involves sailing diagonally with the wind and cutting an angle to switch back toward your destination (basically making a zigzag pattern).

Roughly 10 miles out from San Francisco, the city’s skyline faintly visible to the right.

Dustin pulled out what he called the autohelm, a smart tablet ((Even the boats in Silicon Valley have iPads) that keeps track of speed, depth, GPS, trajectory and supposedly can even steer the ship using this USB-plunger attachment on the wheel, which looks uncannily like the suction sections of those automatic pumps for milking cows.

He put it to work, the mechanic whir and churn of the plunger struggling to keep the boat on course as the weather worsened. I had the feeling that, under conditions, the autohelm would have performed admirably.

The heavy force of the wind and waves, though, eventually overpowered the automaton’s control over the boat. Dustin “fired” it and took the wheel.

Looking out to my right, I noticed a blackened cloud, dark and gnarly, billowing up, the kind that looks ready to dump at any moment. The rain was falling a bit more steadily (though not too heavily), and the wind was picking up, causing the waves to chop savagely away at the haul.

Before I could convey my concerns, Mother Nature decided to blow them into the open. A gust of wind bruised the sails and sent the ship tipping and the cabin’s contents flying below. The ship was at an angle when the clatter of Dustin’s belongings became audible as they were flung about below.

Should have kept that skiff at hand. And now that I think about it, where are the life vests?

“Let out that line!” Dustin commanded, taking on the urgent persona of a captain as he strained to turn the boat against the lean. “As much as you can!”

I released a line connected to the bow’s sail and it went slack. Dustin rushed to the midsection while I took over the wheel and he let down the mainsail, finally disarming the wind. The entire ordeal, which felt like it took some time, probably lasted a minute at most.

“I think we should turn back,” I observed brilliantly.

“You think so?” he said with a heave of nervous laughter.

We got back (thankfully) right before the boat’s motor died, but we were still eight spots away from Dustin’s space in the dock. With the help of two good samaritans, we towed the sailboat back to its place with painstaking attentiveness. Dustin didn’t relax until she was safely moored.

“Whew! I’m still up on adrenaline!” he hollered when the boat was docked

Most people get stressed into a knot when their car battery dies. Imagine that happening except it’s a boat in open water and it almost capsizes. Oh, and the boat is also your house.

I said goodbye to Dustin over another burrito and sent him some sats for the trouble. After we parted ways, I grabbed a Lyft and headed just south of the Tenderloin district to cryptografitti’s place.

The apartment is on brand for an artist. Sterile, with neutral tones of chrome and white across each room, the flat was extremely well kept. Art of various styles decorates the place: a postmodern painting detailing San Franciscan life, which he had commissioned by a local artist, hangs above a tannish-brown, leather sectional; a puzzle-piece coffee table to accompany the couch; and a metal-matted two-piece fixture in the kitchen with a surface that looks like cells under a microscope that his sister made for him;.

And, of course, his own art is on display in his studio.

One original, United Nodes x 100, hangs directly behind his work desk, while two variants of Currency Exchange lie in the back-left corner and on the desk. Next to the one on the desk is one of his latest: the abstract of the Bitcoin white paper made from USD.

The rest of his office is lined with shelves that are stuffed with various supplies, including the white gloves he wears in each of his videos. On one of the shelves, a bag of hundreds of credit cards for a piece he made to commemorate the late Hal Finney. I was curious as to how he got his hands on that many cancelled credit cards.

“It’s a trade secret. They’re all used,” he said. (You can buy them on eBay, by the way).

We talked art, bitcoin culture and the experiment in a conversation that seemed to intertwine all these topics together.

“To me, it’s all about teaching people about bitcoin through art. I wanted to anchor the work in something that people were already familiar,” he said.

He’s certainly made an impact. The former DJ subsists off the money he makes from his art, and he takes regular commissions, mainly from wealthy, fellow enthusiasts who want an original of the subversive fusion of fiat and digital economies that cryptografitti’s art represents.

“I want to remind people that the materials I use in the work are short-lived and, therefore, so is the entire status quo. And if the old monetary realm is no longer, what should the new one look like and why?”

Carrying on the conversation we had the night before at Stookey’s, he said again that it’s not all that surprising fewer merchants accept bitcoin now. The party’s over and everyone’s gone home. The people who were just there for the good times left with the bull market; but, in the bear, the people who really give a damn are sticking around to deal with the aftermath.

“It’s like when you have a party and your good friends stick around afterward to help clean up after the revelers have left. Go to Bitcoin meetups nowadays and you’ll find the people that care and are willing to put in the work,” he said.

He doesn’t think enthusiasm is dead, it’s just dampened and embodied in a very dedicated core community.

“The excitement is still there, it’s just shifted focus to Lightning,” he said. It’s likely that Lighting is the very thing that may make my experiment easier, if I choose to do it again in the (distant) future.

Black Swan, one of his latest pieces, exemplifies this excitement. The Lightning Network-only auction had 100 plus participants and sold to the lowest bidder — less than 1/100th of a penny. Part-performance, part-visual art, cryptograffiti said he wanted the piece to provoke people to appreciate innovation without fretting about price.

“My work is rooted in activism. When I can motivate people to get involved, it brings more awareness to whatever I am trying to convey. In this case, a lowest-bidder-wins auction was my way of ensuring participation/reach in the project while highlighting the capabilities of the lightning network.

“The fancified promo video that accompanied the art was meant to contrast with the absurdly low micropayments and poke fun at MSM who tend to focus more on price than the groundbreaking tech being built,” he said.

Catching a few hours of R&R, I still had one thing to do before I could call the week quits. I couldn’t get a room at 20 Mission due to San Francisco boarding codes, but I was still game to visit the hacker community house that Kashmir Hill shacked up in during the weekend of her week on bitcoin. I had made arrangements with Berkeley, the community’s head honcho, to visit that night.

The Uber that took me there was yet another Prius, the fifth (maybe sixth) I’ve ridden in this week.

I buzzed myself in with the house’s callbox, entered the foyer and made my way upstairs to a labyrinth of hallways and rooms (the community houses 40 or so people).

A resident came in shortly after, toting an LED-glowing electric unicycle that had an extended handle like a rolling suitcase. I asked him if he knew where Berkeley was, and he pointed me in the right direction.

We made introductions and Berkeley offered me a La Croix, another in a set of San Franciscan constants that include whole bean coffee, 20-somethings ripping Juuls, and Uber rides in Priuses.

Berkeley actually helped Jered Kenna, the cofounder and now owner of 20 Mission, found Tradehill, a once-upon-a-time bitcoin exchange that accounted for 15 percent of the coin’s daily trading volume back in the day when Mt. Gox accounted for 80 percent.

He reiterated some of what Hill talks about in her piece: how 20 Mission was much worse for wear before Kenna first cleaned it up.

“Before that it was basically a seedy crack hotel. Squatters lived there, but it was abandoned for something like 18 years,” said Berkeley.

As we talked, we walked around the house and I surveyed the murals that decorated each hallway. Local artists had done them, including the ones that enliven the house’s glorified courtyard: an open-air space in the middle of the building that’s accessible only through windows and is floored with roofing tiles.

One of the house’s many murals.

At the corners of some of the hallways, street signs with titles like “Litecoin Lane,” “Ethereum Blvd.” and — thank God — “Coinye West.”

The signs made me wonder if the house has an active crypto and general tech community, seeing as it’s billed as a hacker community. They still accept bitcoin for room and board, but the house’s tech focus shouldn’t be overstated, Berkeley told me.

“We have some people working on crypto, but it’s not like everyone is in crypto. For example, we just had a guy here who is a doctor, so it’s a mix.”

Doctors, lawyers, professors, service workers, developers — folks of all kind live in the community.

“With 40 rooms, there are lots of different people. We’re decentralized.”

Unfortunately, none of the crypto-focused professionals were around to chat, either by virtue of being busy or because they were hiding from “the media.” That was all right by me; I understand their need for privacy, and given America’s current media climate and public sentiment, I didn’t find it shocking that they didn’t want to show their faces to a nosy reporter (the industry’s professionals seem to approach the press with serious skepticism).

Satisfied with the tour and the talk, I thanked Berkley and went on my way.

Back at the castle, I had a last supper from Curry Up Now (courtesy, as always, of Bitrefill-funded Uber Eats), relaxed and, just like that, the week was over.

I went to bed thankful I’d be able to use my fiat debit card in the morning.

As Kashmir Hill did in her original journey, Colin is accepting BTC tips to help him along the way.

Tip jar: 3CnLhqitCjUN4HPYf6Qa2MmvCpSoBiFfBN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

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ellahmacdermott · 6 years ago