A Time to Pause, Reflect, and Support
The map shows a blue dot. Me. Home. For now. Four minutes north, there's a Red Flag Warning that reads like a menu of impending disaster. Ten minutes out, my neighbors are performing that grotesque ritual of modern catastrophe: the hasty selection of what matters when everything matters.
The Palisades Fire isn't some distant threat I'm reading about over morning coffee. It's here, a unwanted guest, its acrid breath seeping through windows, turning the air into something that belongs in a post-apocalyptic B-movie. My planned Home-to-Home Charity Ride sits idle, which feels absurdly trivial when people are losing their homes, yet somehow significant in its twisted way.
I've been here before. Sort of. Back in March 2011, during the 9.0 earthquake in Japan, I was an Executive Creative Director on the Nissan account at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY LA. we were all action and purpose, one team with the kind of focused energy that comes with distant tragedy affecting those we care about. But this? This is different. When it's your backyard burning, there’s an acute level of momentary paralysis that hits. It's personal in a way that gets under your skin and stays there.
Pacing on my front yard, phone in hand, watching that evacuation zone creep closer like some digital predator. Four minutes. Ten minutes. Numbers that suddenly mean everything and nothing. The map doesn't show you the stories, the lives, the memories being erased with absolute indifference by nature's march.
I've seen humanity at its best in the worst moments. In Idaho Falls, when a stranger took us in after Fabio's crash, no questions asked. Now I'm watching it again, as neighbors become family and strangers become saviors. To those in the fire's path: we see you. No bullshit, no platitudes – we're here.
to My sponsors – Lone Rider, Klim, Long Beach BMW Motorcycles – thank you for getting it. you understand that sometimes the road ahead isn't just metaphorically closed, it's literally on fire. And still, we stand by this mission, this crazy idea that maybe we can make something good out of chaos.
For now, we sit in a limbo of smoke and sirens. When the road reopens – and it will – the home-to-home ride for charity will happen. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will. Because that's what we do – we wait, we adapt, we move forward. Rising United, Hera Rising – these aren't just causes. They're proof that even when everything's burning, hope doesn't have to go up in smoke.
