Ranier

Back in middle school, my homie Lance gifted me a shirt that said Filipino Strength on the front — and a yolked out Filipino dude on the back. It was the only "Pinoy AF" piece of clothing I had, and I wore that damn shirt for 20+ years till it faded and frayed apart.

Then one day, I saw reshare an old post of mine of that same shirt — and boom, I finally rediscovered the designers who made the original one. So I had to grab a new tee.

This new “Anting Anting: Filipino Spiritual Power” tee not only fits beautifully around my shoulders and is comfortable AF, it also screams Brown Pride and Pinoy AF.

They don’t just do Filipino gear either — they got Hawaiian Strength, Māori Warrior, and other Brown/Islander pride shirts, all rooted in pride and designed with a retro aesthetic.

Check out for their full Filipino Strength line of t-shirts.

There’s a library near my house that I hadn’t been to in over a year, so I stopped by the other month and found this gem of a book: Last Resort.

I like to believe that library books enter your life at the perfect time, because damn did this one arrive on beat.

Lately, I’ve been collecting as much history and knowledge as I can about the resort and travel industry.

Part of this comes from my fascination with complex branding, and the way governments and nations revitalize their public image, and the other part stems from my interest in colonization and capitalism.

And within the tourism industry, no other segment brings in more money (aside from casinos) than the hotel and resort industry.

Like an island-hopping tourist, this book does a wonderful job at explaining the origins, economy, and tourism culture of many well-known destinations.

From the early origins of Resort Life in Monaco and Hawaii, to the luxurious options in Miami, Florida or far away in Malaysia, ‘Last Resort’ is an all-inclusive overview of the global tourism industry and how it operates.

I’m still finishing the book but I’d highly recommend it if anyone’s as passionate as me about unmasking the dirty details of this massive industry.

Shout out to Midi for biting a chunk out of this book. A replacement was only $10 so at least I get to have this copy as a souvenir 😄

Like many 17-year-old unsure creatives, I started to feel like the world around me was fake, and my life was one giant movie just like The Truman Show.

The performative nature of living in Silicon Valley started to wear heavy on my brain.

When I wrote this Myspace blog post in my Junior year, I didn’t realize it at the time but I was writing about my feelings of alienation under capitalism.

I have always identified as a creative since I was a damn toddler — but at 17, I experienced a deep creative identity crisis:

Do I become a happy starving artist or do I become a wealthy unhappy techbro?

My heart wanted to pursue a seat at the San Francisco Art Institute and chase a creative career, but I wasn’t confident or experienced enough in any particular medium so I couldn’t decide what route to take in art school, and I was afraid that whatever job I would end up with wouldn’t pay well.

My head told me to chase a career in tech and become a badge-wearing techbro with a two-story house with granite countertops and a garage for a silver Mitsubishi Lancer.

My family and those around me said I should either become a nurse, or get accepted into a prestigious business school and become an insufferable little s**t.

The lack of choices made me claustrophobic and I started to wonder...
..what else was out there?

Can I create my own career path? Combine them into one?
Do certain jobs exist in the future that aren’t available now?
Are there people with answers and pathways that I don’t know about? Can I learn from them without knowing them?

Being forced to choose between two caricatures of my future pushed me to question those very same expectations, pathways, and pressures I felt were in my way.

I started to question my self-worth, my purpose and value of my life, the value of education, a degree, money, homes, luxury, and success.

Someone created these limitations and set these arbitrary standards.
I wanted to know who was across the fence.

I felt lost, unaware I had actually escaped.

After a few months as the Fashion Columnist for De Anza College's campus newspaper, La Voz, I realized there were more fashionable people 50 miles north in SF who I could feature on my fashion blog.

Within the first few weeks of me traveling to downtown San Francisco to photograph strangers on the street, I received an invitation from on behalf of the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance (SFFAMA) to be a photographer for San Francisco Fashion week.

Apparently, I photographed a friend of Owen who then sent me the invite.

But when I arrived at the event, I quickly realized how little I knew about my camera settings. I had to shoot in full auto, which is why so many of my images were over- and underexposed, the wrong white balance, or blurry.

On top of that, I was stuck in a cramped room where all the models, MUAs, and event organizers were huddled together on a small stage.

I stood behind a bunch of photographers with more expensive gear. And there I was with my $250 second-hand Canon Rebel with a damn kit lens lol.

Since I couldn't get a shot better than them, I turned around and started photographing the dozens of models waiting in line to get their photos taken. They were there, so why not?

Eventually, some of the other photographers caught on, so naturally, I wanted to do something else. I walked out of the photographers room and into the audience, alone, and started snapping shots of everyone's outfit, and the details in their accessories.

This focus on the event's fashionable audience gave my blog posts a fresh perspective that was both behind the scenes and "on the red carpet," and it led to me being invited to many more SF fashion gigs.

The lesson I learned?

Highlight the margins. Show the unseen.

Take an inventory of what people are noticing, recognize where folks might not be paying attention, then shine your light back onto that area with purpose and passion.

People want to be seen, recognized, and praised.
Give them that space and they'll love you forever.

This mindset has served me well both in fashion, marketing, writing, activism, and in my decade+ of being a creative professional.

During the first few years of mine and Livi’s relationship, I was totally obsessed with photography, blogging, and vlogging, and I wanted to document our relationship and post it all over social media.

I was a typical 22 year old who wanted praise and attention for my artwork, my writing, and also my relationship.

A part of this was the FOMO I felt from seeing couples be affectionate and silly online. Another part was simply because I was a shy guy who felt GEEKED that I had a hot girlfriend I could show off.

I would lug around my digital, film, and polaroid cameras and snap candid photos any chance I got.

I’d photograph us on dates, I’d take photos of the food, and during random moments at home.

On the other hand, Livi was a shy 21yo who was used to the attention, so she actually hated being on camera, and didn’t like the idea of me posting all our business out in the open.

At first I was upset because I couldn’t openly brag and show off our love. But as I got older, and my platform grew, I realized how important it was for us to have a safe haven outside of work, outside of my social media following, and away from the scrutiny, pressure, or side comments from friends and family.

Instead of trying to present a perfect love for the world to see, Livi taught me the value of us creating a perfect, private love for us to experience and enjoy for ourselves.

A big part of this wouldn’t be possible if the two of us weren’t so self-assured of ourselves, and what we wanted in a relationship.

But so much of our success together has been anchored by our prioritization of each other’s well-being, and the relationship we cultivate when no one is looking.

It’s a shame so many people depict marriage as an uphill battle because it has been anything but difficult for Livi and I. Our love has been the easiest and most fulfilling part of our lives because we don’t do it for anyone else but each other.

When the Star Wars franchise rebooted in 2015 with the release of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, I remember seeing a FIRESTORM of angry neckbeard dudes pi**ed off at the idea of a woman being a Jedi.

This fascinates me because some of the dopest characters to exist in anime and fantasy are women, and I just don’t know why anyone would limit their imagination by only wanting stories that feature male heroes.

Kill Bill didn’t need a male protagonist.

Kill la Kill didn’t need one either.

I like the the idea of Dasha being a Starfire-esque character who is actually the most OP of the squad, and her only limitation is herself.

She’s driven to avenge her parents who were massacred by the Empire (I still don’t know what the empire is, or how I’m going to build that part of the world, so we’ll see lol) and she wants nothing else but to see the vaporization of the state-sanctioned violence that took her family away.

She’s a necromancer who can grow an arm out of your collarbone and make it attack you, or she can graze the side of your arm and make it crumble like sand.

But because she’s so focused on this singular goal, she constantly neglects her own health, wounds, heartaches, and wellbeing — choosing burnout and vengeance over balance and sanity again and again.

Olex is a self-taught genius. An avid people watcher who likes to tinker in stranger’s heads.

Imprisoned for 1,000 years for the crime of Illegal Thought Leadership and Propaganda, Olex kept himself sane by learning to escape his mind and project his consciousness onto other people.

A former political activist and automation engineer, Olex has the power to create desirable and undesirable realities that not only invade people’s minds, but changes them. Like an automated script that keeps running, Olex can place people on “programs” to do anything from fetch a jug of beer or carry out a complex hit job on an elected official.

He is unwell and can't tell what's real or just his own propaganda, what's his memories or someone else's. He hates what he's become because he can't remember who he was.

Throughout my Sophomore and Senior years of High School, I was deeply depressed and isolated from my family and friends.

I spent most of my time alone in my room upstairs, glued to Myspace, Gunbound, and online pool chatrooms because that was the only space that allowed me to be social and have fun for zero dollars.

If I did go out, I’d walk around the neighborhood with my iPod blasting Green Day or Ben Jelen while I fantasized about finding a random duffel bag of money or possibly a single girl who wanted to date a depressed high schooler and aspiring artist.

If it was free, I was down. My first camera was from a Sony Ericsson phone that my brother stole and gave to me.

Every week I’d ask to get dropped off at Eastridge Mall so I could spend a few hours flipping through magazines and art books since it was also free.

But around Junior year, I started to realize that amidst all of this loneliness and darkness, I genuinely enjoyed this quiet life of art, gaming, and solitude.

As someone with a low social battery, I felt most like MYSELF when I was alone in my thoughts and free to express my emotions.

At the same time, I started to see family and friends suffer from the 2008 housing market crash, and the money-hungry attitudes that preceded them.

I started to recognize how easily I, my family, and others were duped into believing that happiness could be found only in homes like this. Or with salaries like that. And I started to compare the expectations that were placed upon all of us living in the Bay Area to earn as much money as possible, and the reality of what it actually took to make me happy.

So at the young age of 17, I declared (without realizing it) that I was NOT going to be persuaded by the Capitalist dream of making more money for the sake of making more money.

I was not going to subject myself to the pain of trying to fit in with the Joneses by chasing a version of happiness that wasn’t centered around the things that ACTUALLY make me happy.

17 years later, I can proudly say that I was on the money. That same anti-Capitalist vein runs through so much of what I do (and don't do) to this day.

They lied and told us Midi was a small doggy!

This little one grew 10 lbs the first month and basically elongated her hotdoggy body overnight and now she thinks she's grown and mature 😤🥹

But probably my favorite thing about Midi is her connection with Livi . Every night, Midi curles up next to Livi's butt, legs, or she'll burrow herself into a nest on top of Livi's thighs. That's her favorite place to sleep ❤️😍

It's probably because Livi sleeps warm and stays still through the night. I'm Mr. Fidgets Around every 2 seconds so I'm not a reliable nest for the pup. Plus I sleep with half a leg out the blankets to stay cool ❄️

Compared to Yoko, Midi loves to just goof off in the backyard for the fun. Yoko does her business then comes in. Midna needs to sniff every corner and scare off the birds from the lawn before she comes inside.

She's also DAMN GOOD at finding things we didn't realize we're lost. Screws. Shorts. A workout glove. An insurance card 🙄

Little pup, big personality.
Extra wiggly and very licky.

She fits right in with the family ❤️

Photographers often think that buying new expensive cameras with the latest bells and whistles will be the key to taking better photos.

But one golden piece of advice I learned from my fellow street photographers (s.o to Eric Kim ) was to consume more photography books instead of chasing after new gear.

So I found myself at a bookstore in Mountain View, CA one day and I found a copy of Roy Decarava's 'The Sound I Saw' and what I saw forever changed my creative aesthetic and how I chose to identify as an American.

This quiet, powerful book drew me in, and it hasn't left my mind or my inspiration board for 15 years.

On top of featuring Jazz legends like Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday, each page was covered in a blanket of shadows that was so drastically different from the bright, well-lit and "perfectly exposed" glossy images I trained myself to recreate as a fashion photographer.

And through this creative change, like a photographer developing their own film, I started a journey to learn as much as I could about Black artists, musicians, thinkers, and writers to help me develop my negative image of myself as a FilAm American and unlearn all of the Eurocentric standards I was told were gospel.

It was one small step for my creative journey, and one massive step for my sense of self-worth.

Thank you, Roy ✊🏼