Philosophy

It’s not just in my head it’s in my heart…

(pic H2O soundchecking, 2/6/11)

I haven’t been to many shows in the last few years, certainly not that many punk / hardcore shows. I’ve seen some bands play here and there but there’s quite a difference between standing in the audience bobbing your head to a catchy tune and maybe tapping your toe if things get really bouncy, and jumping and clawing to get to the front of the room so you climb on top of someone and scream the lyrics that you know by heart into the mic that the singer of a band is holding out into the crowd. There’s quite a difference between a band thanking the people in the room, their fans, for coming out, and a band rattling off the names of half the people in the room, expressing their love for them, and treating everyone there like brothers and sisters, like family. I’ve been to a lot of the stand around and get thanked shows recently, but not so many of the jump around and get hugged ones. This is only really noteworthy because I spent probably 5 nights a week at those kinds of shows until somewhere around ’98.

I quite working at Victory Records in ’98 and when I walked away from that job I walked away from a group of people that meant more to me than I can ever explain. If you grew up in the punk and hardcore scenes than I don’t even have to try because you already know exactly what I’m talking about (I started going to shows when I was 12 – my formative years revolved around this world). I didn’t realize I was walking away at the time, but in hindsight that’s exactly what I did. The problem for me was the music that I loved had become fused with a job that I hated. My feelings for one spilled on to the other and rather than think of shows as places were all my friends were and where I’d be surrounded by people who knew me, loved me for who I was and would always be there for me, I began to think of shows as places where I might run into that someone from that band that said that thing in that one magazine or who went with this label instead of that one, or whatever. It became a nest of business politics instead of a positive comfort zone. I let that happen without realizing it, and when I had the chance to get out of the business I left the scene and the people behind as well.

Not one of my better decisions I might add.

Sure I’ve been to a handful of real hardcore shows over the past 13 years but mostly friends bands, and I mostly just stood around to see them and support them, and soaked up the mellon collie of what used to be but no longer was. I missed it, but it was the past. That’s kind of how I think I felt about it, without having actually consciously been thinking that at the time.

Twitter has helped me reconnect with many old friends and I’m glad they still remember who I am and want to talk to me from time to time. Over the last year I saw that Toby from H2O was talking about a new project of his called One Life One Chance – something like motivational speaking, but for kids in schools, and really more of a sharing stories and trying to set a good example. I often talk about things I’m doing in my own life, knowing full well that most people won’t change their lives because of it, but if what I have to say inspires a few people to change their lives for the better it’s worth it. Toby’s project was like that but on rocket fuel. By talking to school aged kids he was really reaching out to people who it might really make a difference to.

There’s no question to me that punk and hardcore, and straight edge specifically, saved my life. No question at all. I was a pretty depressed kid with a fairly bleak outlook on life. I didn’t see much of a future for myself, and didn’t get along with most of the kids in the schools I went to. I tried to get along with them, but for whatever reason it just never clicked. I was trying to be something I wasn’t, and it was obvious to everyone. And then I found punk rock and a group of people who didn’t want me to be anything other than me. I found hardcore and a group of people who treated me like family and I knew I could count on for anything. I found straight edge and realized that every day, every moment was a chance to do something positive. These things changed me forever and I’ll never forget that.

Lately I’ve been feeling old. I’ve been wallowing in missed opportunities and failed attempts. I try very hard to be positive and sometimes that is easy, but sometimes it’s harder than others, and sometimes the weight of the world gets really fucking heavy.

Toby has been doing OLOC for a year know and spoken at a ton of schools. Looking at the videos and photos of the students he’s talked it, it’s pretty clear he’s making an positive impact and I think that’s amazing. Some schools can pay to bring him out to talk, but others can’t afford that, and those are likely the ones who can use this message the most. When I heard H2O was going to play a benefit show for OLOC I paid for a ticket right away, without even seeing if I’d be in town when it was happening, just because I knew it was a good cause and I knew that was money well spent. Turns out I was going to be in town and as the date got a little closer I saw Toby put out the request for some people in LA to give “testimonials” on film for a mini doc they are working on about OLOC. He was looking for people who had positive things to say about how hardcore impacted their lived. I offered and was asked to come in and, I said yes right away.

The day of the show, as I was driving in for my scheduled filming time I was thinking about all of the above and all the great things I could say. I could talk about directions my life could have gone without it, I could talk about amazing friendships I’ve made thanks to it, so much I could say. But then I got in front of the camera and blew it. I froze, totally blanked, and likely gave the worst testimonial they have recorded yet. I don’t even remember what I said, but I think I spoke for about 20 seconds. Maybe. It was bad.

I’d been trying to channel the positivity so much but it just happen. Which was kind of a bummer. The dudes said it was great, but I knew they were just trying to be nice.

Does it sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself? Well, just you wait.

With recordings done and sound check out of the way I had a few moments to walk down the street with one of my super old friends from the hardcore world. I hadn’t talked too him much in many years and that sucks, so I was really happy to catch up with him a little bit. But it reminded me, hell kind of smacked me right in the head with the reality that there are a ton of people out there who I really care about, an entire scene of people I really care about that I had been completely out of touch with for a really, really long time. This is simultaneously a good and bad thing, bad because I feel like I missed something I shouldn’t have, and good because now that I’ve identified it I can try to correct it.

When the first band played, I saw them and the kids who came out to see them so filled with everything I remember once being filled with. At one time I would have felt perfectly at home in that crowd, but I felt like an outsider. I didn’t know the band, I didn’t know the songs, and I didn’t recognize a single face around me. This used to be my briar patch, but now it was kind of jabbing me where it hurt. I felt out of place, and after the stellar performance on camera earlier I thought maybe I should just go home. I stopped myself when I got to the front door and thought about it a little more.

If I was going to wallow and feel bad for myself, I could do that anywhere, and if I went home now that’s certainly what I would be doing. Or I could stay and see what might happen. Hell, I have PMA tattooed on my wrist, it’s there for a reason. It’s a reminder and I needed it right then. I reminded myself that giving up was a guaranteed loss. If I stayed I at least had the chance of turning that around.

So I stayed.

Toby showed some footage before the H2O set of previous OLOC talks at schools and it was inspiring. I could see the kids it was inspiring, and I could feel it inspiring me. This was a good thing that was going on, and this was a good thing to be a part of. Through out the set there was constant talk, both in the songs and between them, about the positivity, support and friendship that makes up the hardcore scene. Seeing Toby, now 40 years old, thanking his wife sitting off stage, and his 6 year old son standing right there on stage really hit home for me. I thought about how I’d been feeling so old before, and who I’m turning 36 this month, and how my own son Ripley is turning 1 next month, and how not only does this world which means so much to me not have to be just a part of my past, it can actively be part of my future. I just have to make the decision for that to happen. I was kind of floored by that revelation. And a bit ashamed it wasn’t obvious to me before this.

I didn’t go to this show to be inspired. If anything, I just went to say hi to a few friends and show some support to a cause I thought was a positive influence for other people. Turns out it had a pretty positive influence on me too. I realized I was smiling when I was walking back to my car to head home. I liked how that felt.

Hero Worship, Julian Assange and Religion

[Advance apologies for scatterbrained nature of this post, it’s kind of an expanded idea I was running with on Twitter that keep taking more than 140 chars and I just wanted to write it out while it was fresh in my head. Perhaps I’ll expand on it more in the future as well if folks think it’s worthwhile.]

So there’s been a lot of discussion of the Rape accusations against Julian Assange recently, and a lot of discussion about the reaction to those accusations. I don’t think I’m mistaken when I say that a non-trivial number of people have publicly speculated the rape charges might be fraudulent for one reason or another putting the credibility of the accusers in question, but there’s also been a non-trivial number of people who’ve done just the opposite – instantly believed any and all accusations and condemned Assange based on what is basically hearsay at this point. We’ll see how much that changes after the trial, but I think that’s to be expected for a lot of reasons.

It’s easy to think this is indicative of some kind of sexism but it’s worth noting that, in my observations anyway, I’ve seen just as many men as women take both of the above sides. Personally, having known women who have been raped, as well as men who have been falsely accused of rape – I’m extremely hesitant to make early assumptions but I’m very much in the minority there I think. It might be some underlying sexism, it might be some ingrained guilt, or it might be something else. I think it’s less of those things and more that our society as a whole has a really hard time accepting the duality of people. People are not all good, or all bad. They are both, sometimes they do really good, or really bad things, but by and large one action isn’t indicative of everything about a person.

So in the case of Julian Assange, people who are supporters of wikileaks are having a really hard time with the idea that the guy behind it might not be a saint. And I’m not using that word as just a random example, I think religion, Christianity specifically, is very much to blame for a lot of this. People are brought up being taught about this group of people who were completely flawless or who if by chance did mess up, were instantly repentant and forgiven thus maintaining their good graces with God. Children are taught to aspire to be like this, and given this ideal that isn’t realistic or achievable at all. So what happens is when someone gets in to the spotlight all of those hopes and dreams are projected on them. We saw it with Obama and we’re seeing it again with Julian Assange.

It’s very hard for people to wrap their head around the concept that someone they look up to on one level might not be as respectable on another. Wait, how could Obama smoke? He’s supposed to be perfect and a role model. Wait, how could he give Bush & Co a pass, I thought he was going to be the shining light of change? This is a problem when you put anyone on a pedestal – how could Assange be anything but a gentleman in his personal life because wikileaks is such a great thing? Wait, I really agree with that one thing Assange said, but I can’t support rape so in order for that to balance out in my head one of those must be false, and I want a hero so I must assume the rape charges are bullshit. Hell maybe the rape charges *are* bullshit. But maybe they aren’t.

Good people sometimes do really bad things.

Bad people sometimes do really good things.

There’s no such thing as saints or saviours. People are just that, people. Anytime we expect them to be more than that we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. This is something we should keep in mind, and judge actions based on the actions, and not try to constantly fit people into the role of great redeemer.

Shelving It – why bookshelves have become outdated and obsolete

When I was a kid growing up, one of the most impressive things I could see when visiting someone’s house was floor to ceiling shelving, every inch packed full of books. This was before I could read, or before I remember being able to read so which books were on the shelves wasn’t nearly as important as there just being tons of them. I felt like this meant the people were important and smart. I may have I picked up that notion from hanging around my fathers office, he was a lawyer and had towers of law books and encyclopedias everywhere, though I don’t recall thinking that he, or *we* were exceptionally important so I’m not entirely sure from where that concept came. What I am sure of is that if I saw a massive book case at your house I was impressed. I also know I wasn’t the only one thinking that.

I didn’t really get into books myself until I was a bit older, but what I did get into was movies. Given that this was the mid 80’s – the day and age when you could rent a VHS player from Blockbuster and every respectable video tape rental location had a well stocked betamax section – the idea of having a home video library was gaining popularity. Hollywood had given up on the war against video tape, abandoned the idea that this technology was going to bankrupt every studio out there, and were now making cash by the pirate ship full from selling and renting videos. The advertising of the day played off the obviously understood notion that if you were at all cultured you were actively building out your own home video library. I know that my step father at the time once explained to me how it was smart to rent a movie first to see if you liked it, then if you did you could buy it to put on your shelf, but you shouldn’t buy movies before you’d seen them.

This concept made perfect sense to me because your video library was a representation of your tastes. You only wanted to have good stuff in it, but you wanted to have all the good stuff in it. I was young then and without any real refined cinematic taste, so “good” was synonymous with “big” for me, and thusly we ended up renting a lot of Jim Varney, Tom Hanks, and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. For some unknown reason, still a mystery to this day, my family decided many of these titles were not worth purchasing after viewing. This didn’t go over well with me and at the wise old age of 10 I decided I needed to get started putting together my own video library. Getting a head start on it at that point was clearly genius because by the time I was an adult I’d have the best library ever. Probably an exact duplicate of the Blockbuster stock if I had my way.

I convinced my family it was a good idea to rent a VCR each time we went to blockbuster so that I could hook it up the one we had at home and make copies of the movies we rented so that I could add them to my newly started video library. I drew the covers of all the movies I copied because I wanted them to look real when on the shelf and I distinctly remember spending an afternoon attempting to replicate the cover of “The Man With One Red Shoe.” No reason why that one sticks out to me but there you have it.

Oh, did I mention that our home VCR was betamax? Yep. So you know that library had staying power.

This mindset stuck with me all the way through college when I did get into real books, I’d hang out at peoples houses and see books and movies on their shelves and decide I also had to have those on my shelves. Its embarrassing but true, in those days I definitely had books I’d never read on my shelves just because I saw them on other friends shelves and assumed that meant I should have them too. I did go on to read most of them later, but that’s beside the point. I didn’t buy them to read them, I bought them to fit in.

I’m getting somewhere with all this nostalgia – I wanted well stocked shelves because I wanted people to be impressed the way I was when I saw that kind of thing at other people’s houses. The shelves weren’t for me, they were for them. They were for my ego certainly, but I wasn’t keeping those books around so that I could reread them at a later date, I was keeping them so that people who visited me would know I’d read them. I wasn’t doing this consciously, but I was doing it. And once I realized what I was doing I felt like a douche and stopped adding to the stacks I’d amassed.

As a graphic designer I could always justify buying design books which I could argue were for inspiration and reference. And I definitely put them to heavy use for many years. Until the web really started getting going and then I found it was easier to go there to reference things than to hunt through stacks of books.

Skip ahead a few years, I’ve moved from Florida to Chicago to Los Angeles, and often several places in each city. And I’ve moved tons of books and DVDs and things each time. I take them off the shelf, pack them in heavy boxes, struggle to move them, unpack the boxes and put them back on the shelves. Rinse. Repeat. Until finally I realized it just didn’t make any sense. I had books I’d read once and hadn’t touched other than to move in over 10 years. I had reference books that had never been opened after looking through them in the bookshop and bringing them home because Google has proven to be a more efficient reference source. I have movies that are easier to just watch on my laptop via Netflix streaming or download from somewhere else then to have to fumble with DVDs and sit through unskippable advertising and trailers and antipiracy warnings. Digital files replaced CDs for me as well a very long time ago. So how is it better to have these things on my bookshelf?

I stopped being able to come up with a good answer for that.

I can argue valid reasons to keep art books which are all about the visual and tactile, and aren’t the same as a single JPG, but very few people have houses full of art books. Even I, an ex-gallery owner and art collector had some stacks, but not piles. But fiction and non-fiction?

As I get older the less I care about people’s opinion of me, and feel that my actions should say more about me than what objects I decided to purchase. Once I realized that it was hard to justify keeping these things and I decided they’d be better off in the hands of someone who hadn’t read them and could actually benefit from possessing them. Am I the only one coming to this conclusion? Do you have shelves full of books and media? Do you still use them?

Some thoughts on the 100 thing challenge

Fair warning, this is a rambling jumble of thoughts kind of post.

People keep sending me links to or excerpts from this NY Times story “But Will It Make You Happy?” And rightfully so, as it’s about how having (and buying) less stuff can make you happier, which if you have ever read my blog in the past you know is very relevant to my interests. Specifically the story starts off following a couple who were drowning in debt and had mountains of crap in their house, and in their life, and how they decided to pair down and get away from it, and how their families thought they were nuts, but how it worked and now everyone is jealous of their swanky minimalist lifestyle. Well not exactly that, but basically. And how spending money on stuff is a waste, but on experiences is golden. There are a few really good quotes in it worth noting, even if they are painfully obvious:

“One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.”

…

“A $20,000 increase in spending on leisure was roughly equivalent to the happiness boost one gets from marriage,” he said, adding that spending on leisure activities appeared to make people less lonely and increased their interactions with others.

…

Current research suggests that, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness. (Academics are already in broad agreement that there is a strong correlation between the quality of people’s relationships and their happiness; hence, anything that promotes stronger social bonds has a good chance of making us feel all warm and fuzzy.)

and

Another reason that scholars contend that experiences provide a bigger pop than things is that they can’t be absorbed in one gulp — it takes more time to adapt to them and engage with them than it does to put on a new leather jacket or turn on that shiny flat-screen TV.

“We buy a new house, we get accustomed to it,” says Professor Lyubomirsky, who studies what psychologists call “hedonic adaptation,” a phenomenon in which people quickly become used to changes, great or terrible, in order to maintain a stable level of happiness.

Over time, that means the buzz from a new purchase is pushed toward the emotional norm.

“We stop getting pleasure from it,” she says.

And then, of course, we buy new things.

Like I said these aren’t really new concepts for me or anyone who has spent time talking about these issues with me in the last few years, but it’s nice to see some big media backup of those ideas and it’s reenforcing to know there is some neurological science to back up the speculations I’ve been throwing around here so won-tonly.

One thing that was news to me, and I blame each and every one of you for not tipping me off to it sooner, was a passing mention of a website that encouraged people to live with only 100 personal things which inspired some of their early stuff purging. What? 100 Things? A website promoting this? How did I not know about this before? I did some searching and found the source over on Guy Named Dave and wouldn’t you know it’s over 2 years old? I’ve really been slacking to let this get past me. Anyway, I dug in and read the challenge, and honestly was a bit disappointed. Dave’s motives are in the right place, and his efforts have certainly worked out well, but it’s not *really* a 100 thing challenge as it was advertised. Sure the goal is to pair your belongings down to 100 things, but as Dave notes in his initial post he has a family, wife and kids, and so the challenge only applies to his stuff, not to theirs or the stuff they share. So he could kind of just give his wife everything he owned, and then be at 0 and not have to change his lifestyle at all. And some things he considered a set, all of his underwear counted as 1 item, etc. So yeah, it wasn’t quite as hardcore as I was hoping it would be.

Still, his list of 100 things that he decided were worth keeping is certainly a good starting point for a mental exercise. What 100 things would you keep, could you get it down that low? I posted that question on my tumblr and got a few replies of interest and support, and one that stood out from my good friend Michael, who said:

“The concept works toward preventing you from deep interests in things like cooking or cycling, etc. Perhaps a limit to buying 100 items/yr”

Now I don’t agree with that at all. First of all I don’t subscribe to the idea that you have to buy anything to learn or be interested in it. Thanks to things like NeighborGoods it’s much easier to borrow just about anything, and if you keep a diligent eye on craigslist or ebay you can find many things for free or next to nothing. Now obviously you aren’t going to find a $2000 bike on craigslist for free (unless it’s stolen or being given away by a pissed off ex-lover), but you can probably borrow one from a friend on NeighborGoods. And yes I know that is a stretch and to really dive into something you need your own that you can customize, but I think having to make sure you buy the right one instead of buying several can actually make that choice better. For instance at the beginning of this year I had 5 bikes. I’ve been selling them and moving towards having one that is better than all the others. That’s less stuff, which is good.

So I don’t think this idea prevents you from getting deep interests in things, rather it causes you to be a bit more focused. And certainly being deeply into several things all at once could be a bit harder, but that is really more of a problem of people who can afford it. I say that from experience, being a obsessive collector of both cool stuff and interesting info about said cool stuff, who also happened to grow up broke as hell. When I found something I was interested in it became all encompassing for me and it was hard to get me to talk or think about anything until I felt I’d satisfied that interest. In many ways I’m still like that. The thing is, when you have no money the option of putting the last obsession in a box in the closet and moving on to the next is impossible, and having two costly obsessions at once slows progress on both. So what I had to do was focus on one, learn what I could, buy the stuff I wanted, and then decide what if any of that I was going to keep when I got the taste of the next obsession. The cash from the sale of the last interest was the seed funds for the next one. That doesn’t mean I’m any less interested in the old stuff or think it’s any less cool, it’s just not center stage for me which means having money tied up in it seemed like a bad idea. For example at one point I had a record collection that was easily over 1000 albums, I probably have closer to 100 now. At one point I had a Japanese toy collection that was easily over 500 pieces, I maybe have 30 now. And yes, I know that 130 items right there blows the whole 100 personal items in a heartbeat, but that’s kind the path I’m trying to walk down. Slowly, but the intent is there.

But back to the point, maybe 100 is too tight which is why Dave had to make exceptions. Maybe 256 is more realistic. Or maybe 100 is realistic you just have to be seriously committed to it. I’m not sure, but I’m trying to make a list. If I could only keep 100 items what would those be, and what exceptions would I find myself making? I have a complete collection of Ark Diecast robots from the 70’s. They only made 8 of them. I have all 8. Are those 8 items, or is the collection one 1 item? I have a bike, that’s one item right, it’s not 2 wheels, 1 frame, 1 saddle, etc. Is a box of bike tools one item or is each tool an item? This is why it’s an interesting exercise. What would be on your list, and why?

Engineering Serendipity

Yesterday I was watching Nina Paley speaking about her film Sita Sings The Blues at The Next Hope conference in NYC and she was talking about approach to putting her film online for free for anyone to use, and how many people did in fact use it and that lead to many benefits for her. She showed a slide with a quote attributed to ‘Donald X’ that said

“If you want to be in the right place at the right time, be in lots of places all the time.”

Nina was specifically talking about how this idea got her film into places she never would have thought to put it in on purpose which ended up working out great for her, but I think this applies to traveling frequently and widely as well. I often tell people that one of the benefits of me being all over the place all the time is that I have a really good idea what is happening in many places at any given time and I’m more likely to be able to make connections that I wouldn’t if I was more locked into one location. People often thing of Serendipity and Luck, and of being in the right place at the right time as total chance. Total chance you hope to have because they can produce some amazing results, but when you think about it, it’s not that difficult to game the odds – by being in more places on a regular basis, you chance of one of those being the right place at the right time goes way up. Sure, if you look at the hard math and statistics you are still only in one place at any given time so nothing should change, but in reality often these connections and “right time” don’t require something specific down to the minute. Frequently I’m talking to people and am able to refer to someone I met or a project I saw a week or two earlier in another city, that I never would have come across had I not been there myself.

Certainly people can tell you what is happening of note in any city at any given time, but that is different than just being there and walking around and seeing what jumps out at you. Some artwork on a wall, some fashion trend, a new store opening up. Or going to a location or an event and seeing who you run into, and what they tell you they are up to. These are things that are often deemed too insignificant on their own to be relayed to anyone other than those there at that particular moment. And having more of those particular moments in your bag of tricks that you can reference at any given moment gives you more dots to potentially connect.

I like this idea and want to write more about it, if you have any thoughts on it I’d love to hear them.

Creativity is just connecting things

This quote by Steve Jobs has been flying around recently even though it’s a few years old but it’s really good and I wanted to talk a little about it. Here’s the full thing:

“To design something really well you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to thoroughly understand something – chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that. Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have.

Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they en up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.”

This isn’t just really good, it’s really, really good. That’s 2x the really. Really. It’s so good because while it’s specifically about design it actually applies so much more, and actually goes a long why in helping me describe what it is that I do – even though that answer might still be confusing to some people.

Steve is talking about design, and likely product design at that, but I think the essence of this is the need for lots of points of reference and lots of dots to connect. And the need fully digest something to be able to isolate those points worth connecting. Think about your favorite movie, how many times have you seen it? I’ve talked to people before who when mentioning a movie say something like “oh that is one of my absolute favorite movies ever! I’ve probably seen it 5 or 6 times!!!” This doesn’t make any sense to me because movies that I simply enjoy a lot I’ve seen over 10 times, and movies I really love easily over 100. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched The Big Lebowski for instance, but it’s enough that I know almost every line by heart and have stared at each scene and studied how they were put together for hours. This is the difference between just watching something and really getting it. Of course Steve isn’t talking about watching movies, and neither am I really, it’s just a simple example of how really getting into something means different things to different people.

It’s no secret that I’m a very obsessive person who has to regularly fight the compulsion to collect things. I’ve been this way my whole life even if I only realized it in the last 5 years. I find something interesting and for some chunk of time that becomes my entire world. I fall asleep and wake up thinking about it. I dream about it and day dream about it. I endlessly research it and try to find the people who know the most about it and try to soak up as much of that information as possible. I immerse myself in that world until I feel like I get it. Sometime I get it in a few weeks, sometimes it takes years. And once I do feel like I’ve really “groked” something, I rarely leave it behind, even if it doesn’t continue to be my all encompassing daily routine. In fact, often it continues to expand – usually because of bits and pieces I fine in later obsessions.

In many cases my obsessions take up so much of my time that I end up needing to find a way to justify the time I’m spending on them and end up turning them into businesses. If you look at my history this becomes pretty obvious. My record label spawned from an obsession with punk rock in general and subcultures like youth crew straight edge hardcore movement specifically. My record distribution company spawned from an obsession with how those subcultures grow and manifest themselves. My design firm spawned from obsessions with advertising in general and the emotional responses imagery can provoke in people specifically. While I never actually started a real business from it, it was my obsession with old Japanese toys in general and Jumbo Machinders and Sofubi Kaiju specifically that drove me to the web and got me creating things there. Before these toys and the community I found around them online I mostly used the internet for one off communication and minor games, the toys gave me a reason to write articles, do research, take phones and try to actually build something. (My first “blog post” predates blogs considerably, and was a guest article in the mod 90’s on Alen Yen’s Toybox about an 18″ knock off Getter Robo figure I’d won on ebay.) Continued obsession with arts, and my growing connections to visual artists as the creative director led to my involvement in the art gallery world, and continued obsession with web communities and relationships led to the launch of blogging.la.

Not everything has had a justifiable business come from it – lots of the things I’ve collected have been from obsessions that lasted only as long enough for me to track down a bunch of them, learn enough about where they came from and what was drawing me to them. Sometimes I just collect images of them. Some of those things stick around, some are sold to make room for the next thing, but the info and knowledge I amassed from studying them carries on into everything else. I learned print production from designing concert flyers at kinkos. I learned product design from seeing the difference between how Ark and Popy designed toys for the same robot characters with vastly different results. (image above is a rendition of Baltan by Popy on the left, and Ark on the right) I learned marketing from touring with punk bands. I perfected trend spotting by hanging out in fixed gear bike shops in LA and Tokyo. I sharpened attention to detail by watching baristas at Intelligentsia craft the perfect cup of coffee again and again. I learned business best practices by sitting in the lobby of technology conferences and listening to what people said about others -who did they have respect for and why, and who didn’t they. Most recently my obsession with the D.I.Y. culture that fueled much of my punk rock years has drawn me to hackerspaces. I spent years hanging out in European hackerspaces before attempting to open one myself. It’s a different world for sure, but many of the underlying themes are constant. That chapter in my life is still being written.

Travel has also been a massively important piece of this – going to many places regularly and surrounding myself with interesting people gives me a much better perception of who is doing what and why, and where similarities pop up and dots that need to be connected. When I talk to people and companies, I’m able to draw from all these experiences. Otaku level knowledge only comes from immersive obsessions, and I’ve spent a lot of my life collecting obsessions.

This existence isn’t all roses and sunshine – part of the trade off with always trying to find new and exciting things means to make room in my head for it I often have to leave less shiny uninteresting things in the past. In means I need to see a pattern developing before I recognize new threads. It means I’m rarely content with my surroundings and when I have 5 free minutes I need to find something to fill them with. It means I go through cycles of insomnia because something I’m so excited about something new that I can’t shut off my brain to sleep.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t imagine looking at the world through any other viewpoint and I love being able to help people see their projects from another perspective. I love tying things together. And these things all become part of my repertoire, part of my arsenal. I know that doesn’t really answer the “what do you do” question any better, but hopefully it sheds a little more light on the process.