Glamsters! Thank you all SO MUCH for making my GLAM Party such a huge success. So many of you! So many rocket-packs! So many aliens! SO. MUCH. GLAM.

A few quick thoughts:

• I LOVED SO MANY OF THE COSTUMES. SO GREAT! I think Liz won on overall Rocket Glammiest and Best Rocket Pack! (& bringing the hotness!)
  
• I get an honorable mention, coz I LOVED my costume, and it did not turn out looking like a GLAM SPACE CHICKEN as I feared. If I wear it everyday going forward, someone please intervene. My best Glam Costume to date!!!
  >
• I also was SUUUUPER happy with the playlist (see below) I hope you were too!
• So I’ll post a few random shots here, but for gods sake, at least check out the BEST 50 Photo Booth Shots here on Facebook
• Here is the full set of photo booth shots on Flickr – honestly there are closer to 85-90 GREAT shots in there!
• Sorry the photo booth was a bit balky (& the first chunk of shots were out of focus) – we just got it & it will be in better shape for the NEXT GLAM Birthday Big thanks to Adrian & Kimberly & all the volunteers who took pix!

Big thanks to Kimberly for all the hard work in making this happen (and putting up with the fact that we made it happen “my” way ) You rock babe! (And damn you’re hot!)  And you make the best ridiculous facial expressions in the photo booth shots.

ROCKET GLAM!

‘Deep

.ps For those of you who still don’t understand, here is why (as I said after my 40th Birthday GLAM of the Dead party):

Q: Why GLAM? A: GLAM – because I love bright shiny things. When i turned 31 I decided to reclaim my love of all things shiny, sparkly & bright. Guys (at least straight ones) aren’t supposed to love that stuff as much as I do. Yeah. Whatever. It’s been all GLAM ever since

You can find pix from all my GLAM parties here.

.pps

And here is the playlist. Like I said, twas one of my best!

• Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long Long Time) – Elton John
• M.I.A.’s Lips Ain’t Sealed – DJ not-I
• Good Morning Rhythm Hit – Ghetto Funk presents Bobby C Sound TV
• Rang de Basanti – Chitra & Daler Mehndi
• Take Me To The Casbah – Ghetto Funk presents Bobby C Sound TV
• Lose My Breath – Destiny’s Child
• I Got It from My Mama – will.i.am
• Our Story: Enga Yeriya – Dhanush (Rap Prem Gi Amaren and Yuvan Shankar Raja)
• Put Your Hands Up for Detroit (Radio Edit) – Fredde le Grand
• Gifted (Steve Aoki Remix) [feat. Kanye West, Santigold & Lykke Li] – N.A.S.A.
• Suffragette City (Illuminoids Remix) (David Bowie Vs. Illuminoids) – The Illuminoids
• Harder, Harder, Harder, Harder! (Daft Punk Vs. Passions) – Electrosound
• There’s a Party (Funkglorious Remix) [feat. George Clinton & Chali 2na] – N.A.S.A.
• Billie Jean vs Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (Michael Jackson vs Indeep) – UPDATES SPIN
• ‘Mr Wendal’ (D-Funk Mix) – D-Funk vs Arrested Development
• Black or free – Mighty Mike
• Night By Night – Chromeo
• Moves Like Jagger (Studio Recording from “The Voice” Performance) [feat. Christina Aguilera] – Maroon 5
• Deewangi deewangi – Shahrukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, Deepika Padukone & Shreyas Talpade
• Dil Le Gayee – Jassi
• Do The Thang Thang (Bhangra Remix) – Shakti Feat Bikram Singh
• Yo Viviré – Celia Cruz
• Soy Callejero (Mark Pistel Remix) – Los Mocosos
• You Make My Dreams – Hall & Oates
• Things I Do for You – The Jacksons
• Born This Way – Lady Gaga
• Bulletproof Dude (La Roux Vs. Loony Wise Men) – Sugamotor
• Guns N’ Roses “Welcome To The Jungle” (Jells Mayhem’s Serpentine Edit) – Guns N’ Roses
• I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) – Hall & Oates
• Hombre is in the groove (Deelite vs M.I.A.) – DJ Prince mashup
• Day-O (Banana Boat Song) – RJD2
• Ace of Base vs Pink vs Kim Carnes – Raise your sign – amoraboy
• Walkin’ Out Yo Girlfriend (Unk Vs. Avril Lavigne Vs. Toni Basil) – Lobsterdust
• Do You Wanna Cuz It’s Tricky (Franz Ferdinand Vs. Run-DMC Vs. The Knack) – Thriftshop XL
• Do That There (The Young Einstein Hoo-Hoo Mix) – Lyrics Born
• That Dude – The High Decibels
• When I See You – Macy Gray
• Remember The Time – Michael Jackson
• Dance Wit’ Me – Rick James
• CelePlanes (M.I.A. vs. Rare Earth) – dj lobsterdust
• Bonkers – Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden
• MMMTipsy (J-Kwon Vs. Hanson) – King Of Pants
• Chain of Fools (Unedited Album Version) – Aretha Franklin
• Mack The Knife (Digitally Remastered) – Bobby Darin
• It’s Not Unusual (Single Version) – Tom Jones
• Billo Rani – Anand Raaj Anand & Richa Sharma
• Dhoom taana – Shahrukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, Deepika Padukone & Shreyas Talpade
• Rock With You – Michael Jackson
• Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe – Barry White
• This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) – Talking Heads

[Ed. note: Numerous people have asked for "the story" of me proposing to K, so I thought I'd write it down. It feels a little odd to write a blog post about such a moment, but we here at deeptrouble.com are all about giving the people what they want. Also, this post allows me to explain why we have unexpected pictures of the proposal itself.]

I’ve been thinking about asking Kimberly to marry me for a while now & I told myself that if I felt like asking her 5 times or so, I should just do it. In the end, it ended up happening half by intent and half by serendipity, like many of the best things in our relationship.

Unexpected Proposal-Cam! (courtesy of Hannah Tries)

As it became clearer that I was really going to do this, it dawned on me that I should ask her family first, so I managed to pull Dad, brother, and sister each aside during their family Christmas Day gathering, and call Mom while she was vacationing abroad. Thankfully, they were all excited (thanks Conleys & Haydens!) Once I had asked them, I knew there was no turning back (fire in the hole!) & that I’d be asking her soon. Besides, by that point I had already had a few more near-asks.¹

The week after Christmas was warm and gorgeous and Kimberly decided that we’d go on a long walk from the Mission to the Golden Gate Bridge (on Friday.) Given that, “Ask Her On The Bridge!” became The Plan of Record.

But then, Friday turned unexpectedly grey & foggy and we decided to go on a less scenic walk to a restaurant on the far west side of the City, and I decided to not ask her yet (though I almost did anyway.)¹

Frustrated, that night, I asked her if she wanted to go on a late night walk, and figured the view in Dolores Park would be perfect. But she said no.

The next good candidate seemed to be the next night, Saturday, on New Year’s Eve. I decided to ask her on our big New Year’s Eve bike party/ride. The only concern was that our roving street party is big, loud, and *VERY* public which is much more my speed than hers. Nonetheless, I thought I’d try to just pull her aside quietly right after midnight, in the middle of the rambunctionating. New Plan of Record + Slight Misgivings.

I woke up Saturday, realizing everything was set & all I needed to do was wait. The day was stunningly beautiful & we found ourselves at the Embarcadero Farmer’s Market after a nice walk and a lovely lunch with friends. As we were buying fruit, I suddenly realized that now was the time: the day couldn’t be more perfect, we were near one of my favorite spots (Pier 5)², and it would just be the two of us, which she might like better than the big party planned for later.

The only problem was that we were running late for a scheduled delivery at our house & any suggestion that we become even later might result in a remarkably inopportune argument (she’s really good at staying on schedule & is often frustrated that I’m not.)

Nonetheless, I asked her if we could walk to the pier since it was so beautiful & braced myself for the worst. Fortunately, she was game & so we headed over. As we made our way to the end, I noticed a couple sitting nearby chatting away happily and some folks fishing a little ways away, but it was private enough & lovely.

After talking for a few minutes, Kimberly turned away to look out over the water, so I stepped back & got down on one knee & waited for her to turn around. She didn’t for a little bit & so I continued to wait. I decided that the nearby couple might be wondering if anything was wrong, so I turned and flashed them a smile & a thumbs up.

After another few seconds, Kimberly turned half way around to see where I was & finding me down below her, looked at me quizzically. I motioned for her to turn around fully. “Kimberly Hayden Conley, will you marry me?” At least that is what I planned to say. She says I did. I was a good bit more nervous than I realized, so I don’t actually recall. I think she said “Of course I will.”

–

Amusingly enough, the nearby couple realized what was going on when I flashed them the thumbs up & took a few pictures for us during the moment How lucky (& kind) is that! Thanks Hannah!

courtesy of Hannah Tries

• a bike ride through Golden Gate Park and the Dahlia Garden
• cuddled up watching movies on a snuggly night at home
• a beautiful sunset on Bernal Hill
• a few really awkward moments (Eeek! Rings!) in jewelry stores while randomly window-shopping.
• on our Friday walk through the Inner Sunset as we were geeking out about the Sunset Reservoir (we’d never seen it). (Luckily, good sense prevailed & I decided that the locale wasn’t “us” enough, even though it was awesome that I could geek out about urban infrastructure with a hot girl.)↩

^2.Google & Facebook say it is Pier 5, but my iPhone says it is Pier 3. I think Apple is wrong. [Also note that some of the pix on the linked Google page are of the wrong pier. Grr.] ↩

Trixie in her natural habitat, the ‘Deepistan National Parklet (& in front of our temporary construction mural by Adrian Cotter.)

When I started my front-of-home renovation project, my architect Jane Martin surprised me by asking if I was interested in doing a parklet. The irony was that though I spend plenty of time involved in issues related to urban spaces & livability (and thus I run in parklet-y circles), the thought never occurred to me! Luckily, it did to Jane & I immediately loved the idea.

Months later, as the parklet project was really making progress, Jane proposed doing a “succulent sculpture” for it. And since she was so dead-on about the parklet, I immediately said sure! I thought “Ummm – a what?” Jane excitedly explained that our parklet needed an artistic focus & that it should be plant based. At that point, seeing her vision completely, I said “sure!” I said “Ummm – hmm” & started trying to figure out how to say “no” to something she was so enthused about.

Sensing my skepticism, she showed me small models of vague blobby shapes & and I said “I don’t get it.”

Resolutely, she then showed me one of her succulent sculptures: a large mass of succulents cleverly and attractively agglomerated into a hanging sphere a large vague blobby shape made out of plants. She loved it, so I went with “It’s very nice.”

As I explained to her that I just wasn’t all that excited about a giant blob of succulents or the cost, she asked “well, what shapes do you like?”  Immediately, I said “animals!”¹ and Jane said “we can do animals!”.  Finally we were getting somewhere.

I pretty quickly thought “dinosaur!” but couldn’t think of any that would look good as rounded blob of succulent plants other than my least favorite types, the big, boring, sauropods (think “brontosaurus”).²

Giving up on that, the work of Benny Bufano came to mind, as he’s very popular in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Thus, I turned to my friends for answers & the consensus was: “Dinosaur! Duh! You LOVE dinosaurs!”.

Halloween 2009: Glamosaur

Then, one day, while perusing my favorite dino blog, I saw this:

• Serious cuteness
• Soft lines, easy for rounded blobby forms
• Triceratops was my childhood favorite & is still right up there for me.
• Jane liked it
• the pro-pelican lobby (my GF, Kimberly) was even excited.

It was on.

Soon thereafter, we made a small model out of clay.

After that, Jane began making it real: she added a mesh skin, filled it with a mixed dirt & plant matter substrate & then began plugging in all the wee plants.

After about three weeks, we had her moved to her habitat in the parklet! I had always wanted a real live dinosaur of my very own & now I had one !!
After that, it was all over except waiting for her horns to grow in & picking a name (thanks Nadine Mellor!)

-’deep

^1.In hindsight, it’s surprising that my favorite shape, “girl,” was never even considered, but probably because it has been done to death in sculpture ↩

^2.Yes, I know they are really “apatosaurs” you pedants.↩

[PLEASE NOTE: The opinions below are entirely my own & do not represent those of anyone else, much less Apple, Inc.]

Over the past 9 and a half years, I’ve often fantasized about sitting down at lunch with Steve Jobs. I frequently walked past him eating with Jony Ive at the Apple cafeteria and considered it.¹

The last time I saw them having lunch together was a few months back, but that time I didn’t experience the wild flash of “what if I just sat down and started talking!?”.  That time, I could tell something was very wrong: just seeing the sadness in their eyes and the silence between them made me hurt. I convinced myself that it was just that Steve wouldn’t be coming back to Apple. I think I was very wrong.

Since Steve died last week, I’ve been surprised at how much it has affected me, and in the aftermath I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why.  What was he to me? I’ve been having a hard time finding the right word.

The first word that comes to mind is “hero”, but Steve was no hero of mine.  He could be too mean too often for that.  I’m sure a lot of people will start calling him one, that seems inevitable, but I dislike the process of whitewashing his story.  It’s so disingenuous and ultimately devaluing.

So what then? “Pioneer” – too impersonal. “Eminence” – meh. “Mahatma” means “a person regarded with reverence or loving respect” but even besides the fact that Gandhi has that covered, it captures none of the “why” since it is just an honorific.  ”Visionary” is pretty good but fails to capture the real world drive he imparted to my life.

So what is the word for someone for inspires your best, focuses your creativity, and creates the standards by which you judge yourself and the world around you?

In the end, something I often said in jest, to defuse criticism, makes the most sense to me. I’ve always been sensitive to the fact that my reverence for him was dramatic and that my need to find out everything he said and digest it could be easily mocked.  I was also aware that to critics, we Apple people were just simple-minded thralls animated by Steve Jobs. We’re often dismissed as a cult or at least a cult-of-personality.  So a good while back, I started referring to Steve as “Maximum Leader,” in hopes that I could preempt such criticisms by co-opting the term ironically.  It was a “wink & a nod” that said “I know you’ll just think I’m a fan boy, but I’m smarter than that. You can tell because I’m using irony.”

But in the end, I guess the irony is that that is how I felt, and the joke was the truth:   Goodbye, Maximum Leader.   In some part, I’ve been following your lead since I was 15. Thank you for all that you gave me.  It has made all the difference.

—

I saw my first Macintosh in late 1984 or early 1985 in a dorm room at my high school, and it changed me the first time I used it.  The promise of the Mac, and of the graphical user interface it brought to the world, was the idea that humans could be empowered by technology to do great things.  Or as Jobs put it, computers as “bicycles for the mind.”  I was hooked.

In college when I picked a major, I decided on Computer Science and Political Science.  From the get go I wanted to be a Macintosh programmer.  Later on, my love for animation and cartooning melded with my software engineering side, and the other thing I wanted was to be a programmer at Pixar.² Though I knew Steve Jobs was involved at Pixar, I didn’t make much of it at the time.

After college, in 1991, I moved to California with hopes of eventually working at Apple or Pixar.  While working for a Mac game company, I almost got a job at Apple, but failed to & quickly relocated to the far-more-stimulating pastures of San Francisco. In the 11 years that followed, it seemed unlikely that I’d ever work at Apple, but I remained a Mac programmer even as Apple was dying because I loved the Mac so much, and still believed in it.³

Then in 2002, 5 years after Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, someone from Apple called & asked if I’d be interested in working on iTunes.  Apple was still struggling mightily at that point & it’s future was far from certain. The iPod had just recently been introduced, but was nowhere near the cultural phenomenon it would become, and the iTunes Music Store was still a year away, so very few people believed Apple was going anywhere & the industry press was still waiting for Apple to fail. But, despite a lot of smart advice not to, I did it. The chance to work on software that I loved for a company that I loved was never much of a question.

It has been 9 and a half years now, and Apple has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  Very quickly, I realized that I was working on software that brought thousands (now many millions) of people joy⁴: a better convergence of my personal and my professional aspirations is scarcely plausible.  But even more than professionally, my time at Apple has transformed the way I think and the way I see the world.

In that time, I’ve been a part of the flourishing of the iPod, a simple device that has brought a lot of real joy, the introduction of the iPhone, I think the greatest transformational device I’ve ever seen and a hell of a lot of fun, and finally the iPad, which is coming into its own as the true “computer for the people” that Steve set out to build so long ago.  It is not correct to say that Steve “made” all these – because I know better, but it is true that without Steve, we at Apple wouldn’t have made these things as well as we have.⁵

On some level, these things represent what I think of as Apple’s values, and Apple’s values were cultivated by Steve Jobs. Over time, a  good many of these values have become some of mine as well, while others have strengthened values that I already had:

• empowerment
• excellence
• beauty
• delight
• humanity

I’ve learned that making powerful things simple and accessible enriches lives.

I’ve learned that excellence in what you ask of yourself is the only excellence that ever matters.

I’ve learned that the more you care about something, the more honest you should be with it and about it.  This certainly applies to things, but even more so to people.

I’ve learned that the honesty of a made thing is quickly evident and that the beauty evidenced on the outside should match the beauty of the thing on the inside and vice versa.

I’ve learned that the greatest joy someone who makes things can have is to delight people, both themselves and others around them.

I’ve learned that technology is at its best when it fosters, empowers, and connects our humanity.

Goodbye Steve.  Thank you.

- love ‘deep

The small memorial I made at my office. I don’t usually wear so much black. (Update 10/21: Indians wear white at memorial services. I thought about wearing white at Jobs’ memorial here at work, but realized I was too American to feel legitimate in white & too Indian not to wear a kurta: So I wore a black kurta: amusingly ‘Deepian.)

——

Things to watch…

Crazy Ones, narrated by SJ

Bicycles for the Mind

2005 Stanford Commencement Speech

I loved this commencement speech when I watched it back in 2005, and love it even more now.  I’m happy to say that my life so far has stacked up pretty well against his advice, except maybe the “death” part.  I’m unfortunately still too scared of it to contemplate it as a useful tool.

^1. So no, I never had lunch with him: I respected him too much to intrude and also I liked my job too much.  I did fumble through a brief elevator conversation once and he smirked at one of my Disco Ball costumes one Halloween. The only significant interaction was when I asked him a question about Apple’s behind-the-scenes approach to corporate giving at a company meeting.  We had a smart back and forth about it, but I’m not allowed to discuss it, since company meetings are confidential.↩

^2.The late 80′s were many years before any of us had seen “Toy Story,” and thus many years before anyone other than computer geeks had heard of Pixar.  It was known to our people for its animated short films, which were part technology demonstrations and part art form.  As a cartoon maven, the combination of computers and animation was (and is) electric.↩

^3.By then, I no longer believed that we were going save the world ecologically simply by making new technology (we must change ourselves first), but technology still had a role, perhaps even a big one, and I still believe that personal computers can empower people.↩

^4. And yes, some pain I’m afraid.  We’re sorry – truly.  The best way to let us know of bugs and other problems in iTunes is here. And yes, we really do read what you send in.↩

^5.Now we’ll make new things.  Hopefully, we’ll live up to Steve’s standards.  We have a pretty good shot.↩

[Ed Note:  What follows is just a lot of blather about how I decided to remake my classic Disco Ball costume - if you just wanna see it in action CLICK HERE for the 1 minute video for all you need to know , otherwise see ALL THE PIX HERE.]

So every year around Halloween three things happen:

1. I start wondering what costume I’ll do for Halloween since it’s my favorite holiday.
2. People from all over the interwebs find my Disco Ball costume online, and start emailing me for advice on how to make one for themselves*.
3. People start asking me if I’m going to do my Disco Ball again…

(Click for more pix)

In response to 1, I always have to do something that makes me happy.  That usually means it has to have high production values, it has to be ambitious, and it has to ”wow” people. Ideally, it is somehow interactive, and even more ideally it is something I can wear on my bike**….

The Disco Ball costume has always been one of my favorites but, but it seems to be far and away everyone else’s most favorite (as seen from items 2 & 3 above.)  People just respond to DB more than anything else I ever do.  Maybe it’s the built-in sound system, maybe that it is such an iconic thing, or maybe it’s just how much fun I have while in it , for whatever reason, it’s what the people want!

In any case, every once in a while I realize a way to make it better and that usually sets me about making a new version.  There was the initial “I’ll be a disco ball since I’m bald” 1.0 version, then there was 2.0, the first body sized version (paper maiche), then there was 3.0, the first attempt at a sturdy version out of foam, then there was 4.0 – the new and improved sturdy version.

  

 
Disco Balls through the years 1997 – 2010. Click on the image for more info…

I was crazy happy with Disco Ball 4.0 when I made it & figured that was as good as DB costumes would ever get.  There was one really obvious problem with it though: the mylar squares I used didn’t look quite “disco ball” enough.  The fact that they lay more or less flat on the curved surface of the ball, kept it from being perfect in my mind.  The only solution I could think of was to buy real glass mirror squares, but that would be ridiculously heavy and even more ridiculously expensive, so mylar it was.

But recently I realized that instead of glass, I could use plastic mirrors & that my local plastic supply shop, TAP Plastics must carry them (no matter what I’m doing for Halloween, I always seem to end up at TAP for something!).  On top of that, I could reuse the ball from 4.0 since I was very happy with it & my costume would be EASY to make for once! Woo hoo! This year there would be a Disco Ball 5.0!

Since I knew it was going to be easy, I decided to procrastinate.  It has been a really intense few months with work & local politics, and I just didn’t have another project in me.  So a week or so before Halloween, I went over to TAP and ordered 425 2″ plastic squares.  Unfortunately, they were MUCH more than the $50-$100 bucks I thought this was going to cost.  MUCH more.

But at this point, there was no time to do another Halloween costume & I did really want to make the ULTIMATE Disco Ball costume, so I ponied up.

I ripped off the old mylar squares, and glued on the new tiles one by one (using special mirror adhesive so as to not ruin the mirrors themselves), made some internal improvements to the speaker mounting system inside the ball (added straps to hold the components in better) and voila – Disco Ball 5.0 was ready for the world!

Yes, it was crazy expensive and it is honestly pretty heavy - but I think the results are worth it Is it the ULTIMATE Disco Ball? Well, we’ll see…

(Click for more pix)

* Really! I get emails from everywhere – this year I got a bunch & amusingly enough, one of the people who made one lived in SF AND I ran into her at random as I was walking down the street in costume!  Her pic is here (you looked AWESOME LULU!)

and here is another excellent one – nice work Jennifer!.

** I have yet to live up to this goal – I really want to be able to ride Halloween Critical Mass in full costume glory, but that never happens & I always feel lame… “I really have a cool costume back at home guys! It just doesn’t bike well!”

.ps If you are looking how to make your own Disco Ball – start with the instructions on Disco Ball 4.0 & then decide if you want to upgrade to Disco Ball 5.0 – the mylar squares were $1 a piece plus tax. Also make sure you buy special “mirror adhesive” – other glues will destroy the mirror’s silvering… 

Courtesy of Adele Burnes

This means so much to me I don’t know where to start!

To be appreciated is always nice, to be honored is even better, but to be honored by people you admire, that is simply fantastic.

For those of you who don’t know who The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are, check this great Wikipedia article* – but in the best sense of the words, I’d say they are the clown-priests of San Francisco, steeped in social justice, gay pride, high & low comedy, and irreverent demolition of many of the most troubling aspects of organized religion (like guilt and intolerance.) Add to that the fact that they bring flair, wit, and humor to all they do, and you begin to understand why I hold The Sisters in such high esteem. And now they have deemed me to be part of their world. Wow.

The proclamation says it all:

SAINTHOOD!

Absolutely, Totally, and Universally Administered by The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc., The Sisters Hereby Forever Proclaim Amandeep Jawa

I now answer to “Your Saintliness”, or “Your Holiness”

-Saint ‘Deep

*Even if you think you know who the Sisters are, the Wikipedia article is a GREAT read. At the very least, check out their mission statement at the end of the “Inception” section & the list of my fellow Saints. I imagine those are the A-list saints (unlike lil ol’ me) – but nonetheless wow again! (Also there is a pic of Sister Viva L’Amour in the “Sisters at Reno Pride” section.

.ps for a few more pics go here…

.pps The Sisters’ website is here…

What follows are some ideas I banged out late the other night while writing  the invite to my 2nd Annual MJ Memorial Flashdance (tonight! y’all should come).  It isn’t particularly well-written (it was 3am!) but I’ll post it anyway, because the thoughts are important to me & I don’t have time to improve it just now (my apologies! – I’ll try to get back to it later I hope… feel free to leave edit suggestions in the comments )

Besides color, what’s different about these two “Michael Through the Years” images?

from the Chicago Tribune

from the Daily Mail UK

I think it is that the Chicago Tribune stopped at 1990? Why? Maybe because it is easier for us.

In the aftermath of MJ’s death, I was once again reminded of the fact that we as a culture have a hard time getting it right when it comes to dealing with our heroes and our villains.

If the person is a hero, like one of my greatest heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr., we try like hell to make them into a saint – someone who was a perfect paragon & could do no wrong. Even if, as in the case of MLK with his plagiarism & infidelity, that is patently untrue. And if the person is a villain, we make them into a monster – someone beyond human understanding.  The problem with this approach is simple – in both cases we put a huge amount of distance between us and them, a distance that costs us in many ways.

In the case of our heroes, it means that we put them on a pedestal and absolve ourselves of the responsibility to attempt to follow in the better parts of their footsteps: “Oh, I’m no saint, I couldn’t possibly do what MLK did.” By making them different from us, we don’t have to apply their standards to our own lives. If we would allow ourselves to see them as flawed, they would become much closer to us, and much more accessible. We would gain a pathway to improve our lives: “Well he/she was flawed just like me, but look what they were able to accomplish.” MLK was NOT a saint, but what he accomplished was saintly – that makes it even more inspiring in my book.  By making our heroes super-human, we allow ourselves off the hook and fail to hold ourselves to a higher and better standard.

For our villains, we do something similar. Obviously, we shouldn’t attempt to emulate or hold ourselves to their standards, but when we treat them as nonhuman, we fail to learn from the great significance of their lives. Why not try to understand why they got where they are (how could it have been prevented?) or in the case of the smarter ones of them – what critiques of our society are they making (Is there anything to be said for their ideas?) By pretending that they are not like us, we fail to see what they are illuminating. By making our villains sub-human, we waste the understanding of our condition that their lives represent.

So what then of Michael? In the near term after his death, someone said that death restored his humanity – and the obvious truth of that really struck me. But sure enough, for some of us, it went to far. We rushed past his failings and tragedies and lionized him. This is almost as wrong-headed as the many years that we could only stare at the sad freakshow MJ had become. In both of those, we failed. To me, Michael was a hero for many reasons, and a tragedy (perhaps a monster – I don’t really know for sure) for others. When it comes to him, there is so much greatness and tragedy: who can really look at Michael’s pale frightening later years and not wonder about the role of race in America. His pushing the boundaries of race through his music certainly played out in my life. Who can contemplate the allegations of child abuse in his adulthood and not appreciate the abuse he was put through by his father in his youth? To ignore all this is folly, just as it is to ignore the fact that he brought so much joy to so many, and inspired the world to DANCE like no one else ever has.

More particularly, I think of Michael as an *American* hero and an *American* tragedy. His life and death reflected so much about what is great about our culture (the amalgam of black and white .esp in music, the optimism, and class mobility) and what is toxic about us too (the pressure of racism, and the dangers of fame, the love of morbid spectacle). And even his death itself showed us so much about who we, as Americans, are, for better and for worse.

In the end, there are no saints and there are no monsters, there are only men and women & lives both beautiful and sad. And plenty to be learned and appreciated from all.

Thanks for all the JOY and all the lessons MJ.

.ps

Here’s the Wikipedia article on MJ...

Hiking with Bob, Mokelumne Wilderness, July 2003 (courtesy of Eric Arons)

I have developed a few life rules over the years & I have added one more over the past few days:

Rule #1: Avoid Death

New–> Rule #2: Make Yourself Known (Intimately)

Rule #3: Leave Things Better Than You Found Them

…

Rule #23: Avoid Tusks

—

A few days back one of my dearest friends committed suicide. Even writing that still brings tears to my eyes. It’s a very recent occurrence and we are all sitting here struggling – through pain and loss, confusion and anger, and mostly just struggling.

One of the saddest and most instructive things (yes, I MUST try to make some good come from the chaos) of this whole event is that I just lost one of my best friends and I didn’t even know he was one of my best friends.

Tuesday, I was sitting at work when I got a Facebook chat from a friend – he was looking for my friend Bob’s family contact info, with “horrible news”. Very quickly, I learned that my friend Bob had taken his own life.

Then, in trying to find Bob’s family’s info, I thought to myself “OK – who is Bob’s best friend? Who knew him best of all us?” Bob and I had been really good friends for 13-14 years and he was a constant in my life, but I never felt I knew him really intimately like I do with my closest friends.

So I went through the list of Bob’s closest friends in my head… and one by one I realized that none of them knew him more than I did (Please let me be wrong about this? Anyone?) – sure they knew parts of him more (more time on the playa at Burning Man, more time hiking, more time singing karaoke) – but I knew other parts more and probably spent the most time overall with him. We were probably all on the same level of intimacy. That hit hard. It was me. I was one of Bob’s best friends. Oh god.

I shifted into acting like “the best friend” and thus went into “responsible-in-a-crisis” mode because, well, it is something I’m good at, and it needed to be done, and it gave me plenty to do other than cry my eyes out sitting in my office.

Within short order, I had contacted the friend who found him, figured out how to find his family, contacted his sister (& broke the news to her), contacted the coroner, put the coroner in contact with his sister & emailed all our friends with the news, informed the world on Bob’s FB page* and set up a get-together at my house for all our mutual friends. Then I went home early, went and talked to the friend who found him, set up the event at my house, got more info from the coroner, and then hosted the get-together at my house, and greeted everyone and then pulled them aside to give them the latest that I knew. I even tossed in some baby-sitting for good measure, so another friend could be with the group .

Since then it has been up and down. This has actually been a super fun week: Disposable Film Fest (Me & my Trike provide the sound for a bike-in movie night projected against the side of a building), Bike To Work Day (always one of my favorite days of the year), and now today Bay 2 Breakers**. I have had a blast, and I have cried and cried, and screamed and beat my fist on counters, and choked back sobs in inappropriate times and places. Mostly, I’ve just cried. And thought of Bob.

I’ve had two fascinatingly sad realizations in this time.

The first sad realization involved how we all knew Bob: People from all over Bob’s life have said the same thing: “I didn’t know him that well, but he was so good, and kind, and generous – I wish I had known him better.” It didn’t matter if they met Bob for 15 minutes on a bike ride with me, or had known him for 15 years, they all said they “didn’t know him that well” or “I wish I knew him better.”

Me too. I tried.

I have known Bob for 13 or 14 years (I wish I could figure out exactly when I met him) and from the get go, I liked him a lot. Everyone did and everyone who meets him does. Bob and I have spent lots and lots of time together – great times – most of the best times of my life have had Bob in them. But if you had asked me before Wednesday if Bob was one of my best friends, I would have said “No.”

I loved Bob, but I did not know him intimately. Unlike all the other people I consider best friends or super close friends, I had never gotten to that level where I felt like I really knew how Bob felt about things.

It wasn’t for lack of trying – I can think of many conversations where I tried to pry into Bob’s world – only to back off due his lack of enthusiasm, or my sense of respect for his boundaries. Usually, when you ask close friends sensitive questions about their lives, at some point they begin to tell you more than you ask & you learn about them. Bob always told me only what I asked – or less.

Even the last year or so, where Bob lived with me for 9 months on and off (while his house was being remodeled), there were ample opportunities and attempts to talk – but none of them bore much fruit.

If I had known Bob was ever truly sad, I would have pushed harder, I would have made it happen – but Bob was almost always pretty happy, and was always even-keeled. I knew of a few times he was down, but they always seemed to be fleeting and momentary….

The second painful realization was for me. The morning after I found out, I suddenly realized the scope of my loss. Bob had always been a rock in my life, a point of solidity and orientation, but I hadn’t realized that by his sheer constance and enthusiasm had become one of my best friends. I counted on him to always be there and life was always better with him around. My girlfriend (who has only been in my life for a few months), said “I was surprised when I heard you say that Bob wasn’t one of your best friends – he was always the first person you called…”

All my birthday parties, all my FlashDances, all my Thanksgivings, and lectures, and Sunday Streets, and Trike rides, and movies at my place, all the burritos, and all the nights going out dancing at Bootie and Non-Stop Bhangra, and the PIXAR movies or blockbusters, all my ImpromtiQs, all the Critical Masses, all my attempts at cooking my Mom’s Indian food, all. of. it. Bob was there 95% of the time. And every time, he made things better. My life was so much better for always being able to count on you Bob. I’m sorry I’ve only just now realized you were one of my best friends. I wish I knew you better.

—

In thinking about all this, my new rule becomes clear, as my friend Amy put so well: “let people, one person at least, in – share yourself, all of yourself, warts and all… ; connect deeply; share your burden; bare your soul…” And my girlfriend, Kimberly, added the other essential part of this: “that friends can only meet you halfway — they can ask, but you have to answer.” That is seriously worth noting – the responsibility is ours to reach out, as much as it is our friends’ responsibility to ask.

Bob was great on #1, #3, and as far as I know, #23. And I guess he taught us all the value of #2.

‘deep

.ps

I wish I believed in an afterlife, and I certainly don’t believe in a god. I think he’s just gone. As we all will be someday. I think Buckminister Fuller once said something like we are all just patterns in the food we eat, much like a knot is just a pattern in a rope. I guess that means, in the truest sense, Bob’s only afterlife is then as patterns in our minds: the cliché about living on in our memories is all we have. I’ll do my part, Bob.

.pps
Adrian Cotter has put up a tremendous set of photos of Bob here: “The Life And Times of Bob Seymour.” It’s fantastic. Check it out.

* People were already posting things on Bob’s FB page that made it clear that something horrible had happened & everyone else was getting worried – so I broke the news.

** All of these were the types of things I did with Bob.

It is done.  I have done it.  I have perfected my Mom’s Mattar Paneer recipe!

You don’t know what I’m talking about? You don’t know what mattar paneer is?  You poor, unwashed, heathen.  Wikipedia will tell you that mattar paneer is “is an Indian dish consisting of paneer (cheese) and peas in a sweet and spicy sauce.”

Swaran Jawa’s Mattar Paneer

This is the latest version of this recipe as of 5/7/10.

Ingredients

• Onions: 3 normal yellow
• Vegetable oil: 6 tablespoons
• Garlic: 4 big cloves
• Ginger: 1inch chunk
• Tomato sauce : 15 oz can
• Frozen peas: 20 oz
• Whole Milk: 1 Gallon
• White vinegar: 4 tablespoons

Spices

• Tumeric: 1/2 tsp
• Salt: 2 tsp
• Red pepper: 1/4 tsp
• Cumin seed: 1/2 TBSP
• Coriander seeds or ground coriander: 1/2 TBSP
• Cinnamon sticks: 2 inches of thin sticks or 1 of thick stick
• Cloves: 4
• Brown cardamom pods: 2 – (best to get Indian cardamom from Indian food store)
• Nutmeg: pinch
• Mace: pinch

Equipment

• Food processor
• Spice/coffee grinder
• Cheesecloth
• Large cooking pot
• Large microwave safe bowl
• Frying pan

Instructions

1. Combine 2.5 cups of water with 1 unit of masala base (see below) in large pot
2. Add 20 oz frozen peas
3. Put on high
4. Add 2 teaspoons of salt
5. Add 1/4 teaspoons of red pepper
6. Cover, leave on medium
7. At some point when peas are close to done, add 1 heaping TBSP of gharam masala (see below)
8. When peas are wrinkled/shriveled, the gravy is done – put on low until paneer is ready (see below)
9. You can add a half cup of water if you want more watery
10. When the paneer is done (lightly fried) dump it in the gravy, stir it up a little & you’re done!

Masala Base (gravy base)

NOTE: This makes 2 units of the masala gravy base. Save off half in refrigerator or freezer for later use.

1. Chop up onions really small in food processor (small diced)
2. Put onions into large pot and add 6 tablespoons oil & turn up to high heat stirring OFTEN to not burn
   • Oil is important to keep the bottom of the pot from becoming a mess of burnt onion.
   • For slower results put on medium heat & stir occasionally
   • If too dry add more oil, can be spooned out later
3. Chop up garlic cloves & ginger small in processor
4. Turn down onions to low, keep stirring – note slowly browning
5. When dark brown put in ginger/garlic mix
6. Put in 1/2 teaspoon of tumeric
7. When almost burnt, slowly start adding tomato sauce – keep stirring, waiting for oil to seperate? (spoon off?)
8. Put a little water in tomato can & slowly pour it in
9. NOTE you can always put on low & leave for a while at any stage
10. When deep reddish brown, it is done
11. USE HALF, REMOVE OTHER HALF & KEEP IN FREEZER FOR SOME OTHER TIME

Gharam Masala (spice mix)

NOTE: This makes 2 heaping TBSP of the spice mix. Save off half with your spices for later use.

1. Roast 1/2 tablespoon of cumin seed in a pan on the burner for a few minutes
2. Place the following ingredients in spice blender & grind until fine powder
   • 1/2 tablespoon of roasted cumin seed
   • 1/2 tablespoon of coriander seed
   • 2 inches of cinnamon thin sticks or 1 of thick stick
   • 4 cloves
   • 2 brown cardamoms – break pods & get seeds out (can only get at Indian store)
   • nutmeg & mace (pinch)
3. Use half of mix (1 heaping tablespoon) for 1 unit of masala base

Paneer (cheese):

1. Pour 3/4 gallon milk in large bowl (or all if you want more paneer! Yum!)
2. Microwave for 25-30 to BOIL (there will be a large bubble of air)
3. Stir in 4 tablespoons of white vinegar
4. Keep stirring
5. When cheese separates fully and gets clumpy (& liquid gets yellowish and clear) pour into collander with cheescloth
6. Squeeze out as much water as possible. The more water you get out, the better your paneer will be.
   • Initially squeeze out the water by hand, twisting the cheesecloth
   • Put the cheesecloth between two plates and squeeze the plates together as hard as you can.
   • Or, if you don’t want to squeeze by hand, use my Mom’s method instead: put cheesecloth between plates & stack books on it for a few hours
7. When cheese is firm & cohesive it is done – it should not be crumbly! should be like almost like tofu in terms of consistency
8. Put on a plate and slice into cubes – if it is crumbly, you did not press it enough
9. Put a few tablespoons of oil in a frying pan at high & then put down to medium low
10. Drop cheese cubes one by one in at side of pan to lightly fry them
11. Dry cheese in cloth towel to remove oil
12. Rinse cheesecloth after use

To download this recipe as a text file, click here.  As HTML, click here. Also, do check out the pictures I’ve posted – they should help a bit.

*As a fascinating aside, I have spent a lot of time wondering how Indians made this before the “discovery” of the New World – because tomatoes (used heavily in Punjabi cooking) are a New World fruit & thus could not have been in India before Columbus.  The biggest clue was when I asked my Mom, she explained that yogurt could be substituted instead of tomato sauce – so my best guess is that in ancient times, this was made with yogurt instead.  Fascinating!

(photo courtesy of KayVee.INC on Flickr)

Being a simple recreational trike, she was never really physically capable of the hard riding being Trikeasaurus required, but damn if she didn’t make a good try. Bent seat posts, broken fenders, and now finally, a cracked rear axle have taken a toll.

The cracks* in the axle have more to do with my new speaker-mount rig (super awesomely heavy duty, but alas too heavy) than the trike itself, but it just reinforced the fact that this light duty recreational trike was never designed for the kind of wear and tear I put it through…..

Fear not, Trike-fans! I’ve ordered a new Worksman industrial grade tricycle** to become Trikeasaurus 2.0. Trike 1.0 – we’ll miss ya!

*I’m planning on trying to get the cracks in the axle welded so it can be given/donated/sold to someone as it is still a useful light duty tricycle….

**I’m getting a “Mover“