I get asked all the time what it is that I do.
And its not just at Isite.
I went to Starbucks the other day, in my normal attire, and the barrista just looked at me with a quizzical expression and asked "what do you do?"
And I'm thinking hipster guy in front of me with the cowboy boots, the raggedy bell bottoms, the journey t-shirt, the aviators, the UNIX beard, the handlebar mustache, the gold plated iPhone and the John Deere fucking tractor cap, you don't ask him?
I am addicted to Starbucks. There are worse things to be addicted to.
I swear alot. And I swear I just read that people who swear are smarter than those who don't.
I am an only child of parents from the me generation.
Having an only child has not made me swear any less.
I was born in 1970. Which makes it easy to remember my age.
Hipster is just a relative term older people use to describe younger people.
I did not go to school until I was 7. Instead I travelled around the united states in the backseat of a Volvo with a Labrador named Jeremy.
I don't really like dogs. I don't mind them. I like the animals. I like cats better.
I'm a cat person.
Actually I am very much like a cat, or perhaps its cousin the bear. These are my totem animals.
I like to sleep. I am built for short, intense bursts of energy, then I like to take long nap.
You have probably seen me walking around yawning. I'm not bored. I'm fucking tired.
I was born in the year of the dog. For my entire life this is what I was told I was, but I knew in my heart it wasn't right.
A Chinese friend blew my mind a few years ago. She said that because I was born in the very beginning of the year of the dog I am only the head of a dog and the ass of a rooster.
Neither of those is a cat or a bear.
I am the son of photographers, artists, musicians, revolutionaries, union organizers, teachers, film-makers, barflies and writers. Also an executive and a horticulturist.
I cannot remember my birth mother and father being together. I have known them separately my whole life.
I am pro labor, pro union, pro choice, pro science, pro equality, pro environment, pro art and pro education.
I have never voted for a Republican in my entire life. And I do vote.
My birth father is a Republican. He lives next door to me now. He taught me that no one wins in a compromise. And also how to wink.
My mother is a photographer. She taught me how to take a photo and how to develop one.
Capturing light was and still is both art and science. These were the days before digital. A slip of the wrist and an entire roll of film would be lost forever.
In 1978 we had to flee Boston when my mother and my step father over exposed all the film from a wedding they shot for the only daughter of a well known Mafia boss.
I didn't know that until years later.
I am part Italian. I have a god father. His name ends in a vowel.
Most of my formative years were spent in Flint, Michigan. As a kid in a ghetto I dreamt of the west coast. Clean air. Clean water. Quiet at night. No factories.
I was an honor student when I started high school. I was placed in a gifted program and for 4 years I spent half my day in a school for arts and half my day in a school for sciences. This was the magnet program.
I graduated with 1.9 GPA. The day after I moved to California. My best friend and I drove cross country in an old Volvo.
I have worked my entire professional career as a visual designer.
I interned for one day at a newspaper.
Now I make internet thingies. That's what I do. I don't just design, and I don't just build. I just make.
For me designing is building. And building is designing. It both art and science.
I also take pictures, I grow and watch grow, I move, I breathe deeply, I wink, I solve fucking business problems, I make art, and then I sleep.