all things mau

Ali looking Homegirly, originally uploaded by maubrowncow.

See this and more photos from our friends hilarious 90’s hip hop gangster party here:

I rarely get political on this blog, but we’re at a junction in time where I feel excited for the future. As someone involved intimately in technology culture, I’m an adamant supporter of Obama, as he is an adamant supporter of us. At an ideological level, Obama makes me look forward to moving toward the future, While Clinton makes me look forward to moving back to the 90s. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not very inspiring is it?

Larry Lessig is the founder and CEO of the Creative Commons and board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. These two entities have shaped me over the past two years in terms of rethinking the way I see creativity and ownership. In this video essay, he beautifully explains the wide divide, within the tiny difference, between Clinton and Obama.

20 minutes into this video I physically shook my head yes as he addresses a perspective that has never occurred to me.

update: this is the top rated comment on the digg.com page for this video:

If you like Lawrence Lessig here’s another great reason to support Obama’s campaign: They went directly to Lessig with their technology policy to get his feedback. This strongly suggests that in an Obama administration, Lessig or Lessig-minded people would be in charge of federal technology policy. Us “Internet Culture” people have been wandering in the wilderness this whole time, and in 2009 we could be *running* federal policy. Now that’s something to hope for!

It occured to me, that the laundrymat is the city’s great equalizer. Everybody in here has soiled their costumes and have come back down to their basics in order to prepare for another week of dress up.

No bra to falsely shape breasts. No jeans to contain our asses. To wear makeup now is as futile and grotesque as a clown face in casual attire.

No, the only indicator of lifestyle are the stylish hipster shoes being rocked sans socks.

Here at the laundrymat, we’re all, flesh and blood, and sweat pants. Cleansing our fabricated status fabrics a buck seventy five at a time.

Short and sweet explanation of why I ride a bike. Now if they could just demonstrate that shockwave in relation to uncontrolled fits of anger.

Contradiction, originally uploaded by maubrowncow.

As reported on Laughing Squid and BoingBoing today, Flickr has a Bad Signage group. I joined with this picture from the Los Angeles Griffith Observatory. After closing down for 3-4 years or so, it went from this:

to this:

Amazing huh?

I fully understand and support the purpose of the LA conservatory, which serves to preserve architectural building history. I just don’t think this signage serves the best interest of the observatory.

Update: I especially wasn’t a fan of their new newspaper roll telescopes, demontrated here by David.

My first week(end) of work has come to an end. It’s turned out to be mind boggling boring. When Ali would ask, “What did you do today”, I couldn’t really answer. I’ve decided to document what it means to do nothing in a computer lab.

7:30am - ignore work procedure and only open and start up 3 out of 21 editing rooms. Weekends don’t have more than 2 students at a time and the overkill is too much work and wastes electricity.

7:38am - begin documenting my day here in wordpress. Start up iTunes radio>Eclectic>KCRW Simulcast on my laptop using the only Ethernet connection at this station. My weekend co-worker says he doesn’t want to use the internet during work so he can read and play video games. We’re the ying and yang of the weekend.

7:43am - Update my Tadalist. Feeling stupid attempting to play along with Will Schwartz puzzles on KCRW radio.

7:50am - Remedy stupidness with Brain Age on my Nintendo DS. Unlocked a new game called “Time Passage” where I have to compare two analog clocks and answer how much time has passed. How appropriately inappropriate given my boredom.

8:20am - Co-worker arrives. Switch to playing RC Pro am and Excitebike on Nintendo Emulator on the Mac. Talk with co-workers about Nintendo, Japan, Japanese mail order brides, Okinawa, Karate Kid part 2, Clint Eastwood movies, movie spoilers, Massachusetts chicken farming.

8:40am - write that last entry.

8:41am - Listen to KCRW again, but this time, music stream. Simulcast was boring

8:48am - Chat with Allison Greenheck on IM. Not sure why she’s up at this hour on a Sunday. Turns out both her and John are Fantasy Football freaks now.

9:22am - Bored with Fantasy Football Videocasts. Hungry. the hunt for food begins.

9:35am - Found some.

11:56am - Finished watching “The Graduate” on VHS. My career pre-move was Benjamin’s life in college. My current job is Mrs. Robinson. Repetitive, safe, soul sucking, and trapped Mrs Robinson. Only as long as I let it shape me, rather than shape Mrs Robinson myself. Chilling.

12:11pm - Handed a vegan raw dairy free chocolate by Ben O while writing the last entry.

12:17pm - Looking up Mike Nichols career in IMDB

12:30pm - took a walking tour of the entire building, floor by floor. Realizing I have millions of dollars worth of resources at my fingertips with a staff ID. Planning out my own education here.

1:12pm - Wrapped up a long conversation about tango, general ballroom dancing, competition, martial arts competitions, that one time I got my ass kicked, Brazilian jujitsu, meditation, focus, chi, homeopathic healing, the power of suggestion, and doritos.

1:21pm - Tried to maintain 4 separate conversations on IM by using the same phrases with each response. Results here.

1:48pm - Walked to whole foods for lunch. 7 Veggie Curry Biryani, and Daal were too gross looking to post on mausmenu. Shared a refreshing beverage with co-worker.

3:03pm - Rocking the casbah with Culver City Dub Collective. Here… have a listen.

3:04pm - Look up the history of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” on wikipedia.

The song was inspired by the banning of rock music in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. The song gives a fabulist account of the ban being defied by the population, who proceed to “rock the casbah“. The King orders jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban. The pilots ignore the orders, and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios.

3:12pm - Caught up on Twitters from 1/2 the quatro currently at the Austin City Limits music festival. Wrote the header to this Entry: My first week(end) of work has come to an end. It’s turned out to be mind boggling boring. When Ali would ask, “What did you do today”, I couldn’t really answer. I’ve decided to document what it means to do nothing today. But you’ve already read that.

3:30 - Complete my home schooling curriculum. Photography theory, Calculus 1 review, Java programming, Intro to Motion Graphics, Mixing and Mastering in Pro Tools, and PE. School begins tomorrow.

4:12 - Called a Tech Shaman by a faculty member cuz I helped him get sound to the monitors. My first tech support moment of the day and I’m off in 15 minutes.

4:30 - Walk downstairs and read “The World Without Us” on a bench as I wait for Alison to pick me up. Smile, noticing a Browne Berd, the mark of a Venice California Artist, here on the cabling of New Montgomery and Howard.

History of medicine:

2000 B.C. - Here, eat this root.
1000 A.D. - That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 A.D. - That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 A.D. - That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 A.D. - That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 A.D. - That antibiotic is unhealthy. Here, eat this root.

Why didn’t anybody tell me that the bay area is pollen mecca? I’m getting allergies for the first time in my life and witnessing an amazing variety of stuff come out of my nose. I’m completely fascinated to the point where I stare at my tissue for a bit too long. Don’t “eww” me, you do it too.

So after I acquired my second, secondary infection, I visited my first acupuncturist. The western doctor only wanted me to take antibiotics, even though he said it was only a virus. Those who are medical savvy will recognize that antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses.

My eastern medicine session was full of surprises. I was kinda hoping for an old white bearded Asian man smoking opium. I instead got a young Jewish(?) thick glasses wearing dude who repeatedly used the adjective “fucking” to describe mucus. I concurred.

I think acupuncture is a sick joke. He stuck needles in my forehead, thumbs, and shins, and left me there for about half an hour while he collected money from the in studio audience members watching me from hidden camera. Actually, i’m not that cynical about the whole thing. As a matter of fact, as soon as the shin needles went in, my conversation was interrupted and I had an unidentified emotion wash over me, which nearly made me cry. That must mean something, right?

When all was done he sent me home with these tree bark and leaves to boil and inhale for half an hour. After two days of treatment, my virus walked away, being too embarrassed to be in company of such of pansy hippie in the Bay Area.

Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they’ve known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult?

The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life. - Yann Martel

There has been a disappointing aspect of moving to the Bay Area. I don’t miss LA. Not because the fog penetrated and stole my soul in the Sunset district the first three weeks of my time here. Not because I had been busy helping plan my marriage to my best friend in Oakland. And not because it’s only been 61 days.

I’m disappointed to learn, or rather, confirm, that I’m OK with missing LA, but not my LA friends. I was half hoping I’d find my homesickness remedied with In N’ Out and a daily dosage of LAist.com and Curbed LA. Instead I find comfort in the streets of San Francisco, or at least down in Lakeshore here in Oakland, quenching my rare need of gregariousness. The equivalent of turning on the friendly TV when home alone. I’m not really watching the scene, I just need a chatty noise of friends with friends.

I’ve never been the kind of guy that had a clique. Never had a buddy that I made a ceremonial blood oath with, or called everyday, and eventually his wingman in singlehood. As a child I preferred to play by myself, never joined sports teams, or any local gang. I lived in my head. I thought me strange for the longest time. I imagine this untethered life is what got me out of my home town, and into LA. This occurred to me this past weekend home with mom in Pomona. I sat in the front yard listening for familiarity and nostalgia. I heard a distant freight train, chickens and the trees. I heard a simple childhood that grounded me in reality while in reality, and allowed me to dream in dreams. I heard the comforting silence that allowed me to be the budding ADD kid who didn’t quite fit in the puzzle of Pomona. I had the isolated eccentric childhood any doctor today would be proud to prescribe Ritalin.

In LA my obtuse ends fit into the puzzle. I found friends with matching obtuse edges. I moved to San Francisco to learn. My first lesson is that it isn’t a city that brings the pieces together, it’s friends themselves. I’m just happy I married and moved up with the best fitting piece, showing a hint of a picture other puzzle pieces might want to help complete.

People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. Because of the gnawing feeling that no matter how hard they work their efforts will yield nothing, that what they build up in one year will be torn down in one day by others. Because of the impression that the future is blocked up, that they might do all right but not their children. Because of the feeling that nothing will change, that happiness and prosperity are possible only somewhere else.

The Move is done.  The Wedding was great.  I’ve found a job.

All other plans still lie in limbo.  What happens next?

Venice Art Car, originally uploaded by maubrowncow.

I was thinking today, I’m gonna miss the Venice oddities. But then I realized… “Wait, I’m moving to San Franfreakshow!”

This transition shall be painless.