Skateboarding, hubris, girls and delinquency ruled the care to excel academically. Years of reflecting on his sudden death have broadened how I interpret reality. Our lives have no meaning — it is our job to find its meaning. — Monday, Feb. 1st, 2010 It wasn’t a phone call. Seven or eight in the afternoon, I found out my dear friend David Robinson II took his own life scrolling down my Facebook feed on my Compaq desktop computer. …

Regardless of his presence or absence, the world as you perceive it depends on competence and your ability to answer the title. I call it “The 10 Requisites”. — I Love My Pops I never called him dad, I wasn’t that type of kid. My father was my pops (for those unfamiliar with the Brooklyn, N.Y. term). Bernardo was a deafening, assertive and notorious hard-ass from the deep countryside poverty of El Seibo, Dominican Republic who overcame unimaginable adversities. From attending middle school…

Trigger warning. — Today, February 13th is my 29th birthday. I’m currently hiking across windy San Francisco, CA being a tourist speeding in a 2021 Mazda MX-5 Miata Convertible Roadster. Thank you all in advance for reading and for the grateful influx of well wishes arriving. Birthdays always have a profound way to…

5 Things I Learned Becoming A Perfumer — Fragrance Is Misunderstood 1. There Is No Such Thing As Cologne or Perfume…Kinda Only fragrance. Perfume and Cologne are mere terms referring to the percentage concentration of scented oils in the total fragrance, which is itself the basic, gender-neutral term. Eau Fraiche — 1–3% Eau de cologne — 3–8% Eau de Toilette — 5–10% Eau de Parfum — 10–20% Parfum — 15–30%

Dare to encourage unity — Denial of your African ancestry is racist, unconscionable, and unethical. The cancerous, dogmatic self-desecration ends in our generation. As a native Spanish speaking Dominican-American man born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, I’ve spent a lifetime disappointed in the racism fostered in the Dominican community. I was too Black for the…

How another “tech company” with a billion dollar valuation will nosedive after years of exploiting one store location in NYC, their 250,000-square-foot sweatshop, and mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic. — UPDATED 05/09, 8:46 a.m EST: Since my initial call-out, The Huffington Post and Business Insider reached out to aid their publications. The collaborative effort to stand up for for thousands of people once employed under Rent The Runway’s decade of poor leadership was reverberated with substantial praise and gratitude. Although…

Three laws to never break again The text message never arrived. Let’s keep it 100. Anticipating an SMS notification away from your apartment to then read “Delivered at 10:05 AM!” in your GMail inbox hours later is enough to trigger impromptu rage in most of us. Make no mistake —…

The unfathomable tragedy of 9 devastated millions, possibly billions with a meme Numb. Kobe Bryant — NBA Basketball icon and Lakers legend, died yesterday morning alongside his daughter Gianna Bryant, Orange County baseball coach John Altobelli, and six others in a helicopter crash over Calabasas, CA. Monday, January 26th, 2020…