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Web Design as a Profession

I’ll probably never work full-time as a web designer (nor, God forbid, as a developer). I don’t have the interest level nor the self-discipline required to teach myself every new technology. Web design has always been more of a means than an end for me. I don’t want to be a programmer. I’m a content-driven sort. I want to communicate simply, and in as aesthetically-pleasing a manner as this simplicity will allow…

That’s not to say that I don’t have strong opinions on the subject, nor is it meant as a criticism of those who blaze new territory. It’s just that I personally don’t see the need to add complicated functionality on my own sites just because I can. There has to be a really compelling reason for me to go to the effort required to learn new technologies, My sites (or my life) must be improved dramatically in some way to make it worth my time…

For example, I started using Dreamweaver templates a long time ago. It made my life and my updates much easier. I started using limited CSS for the same reasons (and to improve page loading times). I have not, however, found any particularly compelling reason to experiment with Flash, XML, PHP, or complete CSS-based layouts. I may at some later point…

I can write HTML from scratch (and often do, as it’s sometimes the only way to make the aforementioned Dreamweaver work properly), but I’d prefer not to have to do so on a daily basis. If I can come up with a reasonably attractive layout in a (good) WYSIWYG editor, which will load reasonably quickly for a reasonable percentage of browsers and operating systems, I’m happy. And I don’t feel particularly guilty nor low-tech…

At least I care about design and realize that not everyone on the planet is using Internet Explorer for Microlsloth Windoze with a resolution of 1024×768 on a 17-inch monitor, which will always put my stuff a few notches ahead of about half the websites out there…

Yes, I’ll occasionally play with something just to see if I can make it work, but it’s usually to solve a specific problem like complicated navigation or whatever…

I have the highest respect for those few people who are strong on content AND backbone. I guess I’m not one of them, although I probably know more about the nuts and bolts than most users and many designers. I don’t think I’d ever have a webhosting account which didn’t come with Unix shell access, just because I want it to be there the couple of times a month when I feel the need to “chmod” or to “ls-l”…

But dang it, I’m not completely convinced that the medium is the ENTIRE message, so while this may read like an apology, it really isn’t…

Under the Milky Funk

Song I like very much tonight: “Under the Milky Way” by the Church. Which probably suggests that I’m in a funk. It’s meant that just about every other time since 1988 or so. Owning many hours of music videos which were taped during the very hardcore funks of one’s youth is either a blessing or a curse at moments like this…

It may just be a different level of the same mild funk I may have been in since about midway through my vacation. Or it may not be (nor ever have been) a funk at all. I’ll keep you posted. Either way, I’ll try to spare you further nostalgic ramblings…

Anybody want to hang out and listen to some Ultravox this weekend?

I Love My Mom

  

It’s true, you know, and not just because it’s Mother’s Day.

I really do love her. She’s fun to be around. She has interests outside cooking and cleaning. She’s about to buy an iMac, for Chrissakes. She asked for my email address today on the phone. She’s even offered to help me paint my apartment next time she visits.

This is a woman who dealt not only with her own really weird Depression-era upbringing (maybe I’ll tell that story some day), but with a really weird kid, and she turned out just fine. I never wanted to play sports or whatever the hell the other kids did. I wanted to prowl around downtown taking pictures of old buildings. I wanted to go to flea markets and diners and read books and play DJ. She not only coped, but she encouraged me. When I went through my “drug phase”, she was remarkably sane in retrospect.

My mom has driven me places and put up with strangeness no woman should have to deal with.

And she had a career. Thirty years with the IRS. By the time she retired in 1985, she was working with computer security (but I still have to re-program the VCR when I go home). For several years in the 70’s when my dad was unemployed, she was the sole breadwinner of the family.

Coming out was never an issue really. Mom is not an idiot. One day I just introduced her to “the guy I’m dating now” and it was just as natural and normal as if I’d said “nice day, isn’t it?”. Now she asks about ex-boyfriends on the phone and walks in the AIDS Walk and sends me newspaper clippings. Lots of newspaper clippings.

She treats all my friends like family members (although I think she has favorites). You’d think Dan, my ex-roomie, and Duncan and Jeff, my two oldest friends, were her own kids. She even asked about Sarah, even before they’d ever MET. And she seems to have taken well to Mark too, which is a good thing…

She’s adopted not one or two, but THREE immigrant refugee families, and not in a stand-offish “society matron” way. She babysits, goes grocery shopping and cooks Christmas dinner for her “families”.

Mom wants to go places and do things. My dad seems to be getting more and more letharigic, and so my mom just goes without him. She’s been to New York, Atlantic City, and the beach in the past month, and she’s coming here soon. She’ll be staying with me. And I’m actually looking forward to it.

I love my mom…

And no, she’s not online yet. She won’t be reading this, so I’m not kissing up to her. And shame on you for thinking that…

Summer of ’80

The summer of 1980…

I was 15. I’d been hanging out with Jeanne, an older girl of rather loose morals. Dating seems too strong a word, but we necked and petted and all that kind of stuff. It was pretty apparent she would have let me fuck her, had I been so inclined. At the same time, I was supposed to sort of watch out for her and help keep her out of trouble, which was a task for which I was ill-prepared…

One night Jeanne and I went out drinking and getting stoned with my friend Kris. He was older than me too (17) and had a car. We all ended up in some park, sitting in the car talking. Jeanne and Kris were getting a little chummy…

Eventually, they got out of the car and went behind a bush. Kris fucked Jeanne. And it didn’t particularly bother me. I didn’t think of the implications behind the fact that he was screwing my date. All I could think of was that I wished I’d seen his naked ass bobbing up and down as he gave it to her…

A few realizations that night:

  • I prefer boys to girls in the sack (no surprise).
  • I have voyeuristic tendencies, particularly when they involve friends I have the hots for.
  • I’m a bit of a wimp.

This could have been a big moment for me. It could have been either my first fight, my first (and only) sexual encounter with a female, my first gangbang, or my first three-way. Or some combination of the above…

Instead, I just sat in the car and joked with them after it was all over. Then I went home and had a wank. Within a year and a half, I’d given up girls (and getting stoned)…

Thanks

Just wanted to offer a quick thanks to all the people who’ve sent me really nice email this weekend. And also to Dan and Jamie for making me consume lots of read meat and ice cream. I’d also thank the nice lady at the San Diego coroner’s office for calling me back, but she’s probably not reading this today…

Now, if all my assorted clients will just refrain from being pissed off about all the work I didn’t do this weekend, everything will be OK…

I’d rather not ever mention the coroner’s office in this space again, thanks…

Stanley W. Brown (1954-2001)

 

I got the phone call I’ve been dreading for weeks today, confirming that one of my oldest friends died on 22 March in his San Diego apartment. I’d been afraid this had happened ever since I couldn’t reach him prior to my trip last month.

Stan and I met in 1982 when we both worked together at the college radio station. He fancied himself as sort of a queer “mother figure” for me, trying to teach me things I already knew, like how to pick up boys and find the “hidden” gay content in every pop cultural phenomenon of the day.

Stan moved to San Diego in 1986 and never looked back. I made my first visit in 1991, as part of the trip where I decided to move to San Francisco, and I’m sad to say, I made only two or three more visits after moving west. But he came here once a year or so, using my apartment as a home base for his various solitary adventures throughout the city. And we usually talked on the phone once a month or so.

Stan and I had very little in common other than our common background in the south and the sheer longevity of our friendship. But we stayed friends no matter how much our lives (and geography) changed. We always managed to find something to talk about.

He was an odd sort, with very few close friends and confidantes, and he loved his privacy, which might explain why it was so difficult for his supervisor at work to contact anyone close to him. It was this supervisor who eventually called me, after I started making inquiries at the Department of Parks and Recreation.

It’s very unnerving to have a stranger (albeit a nice one) inform you of the death of someone you’ve known for almost twenty years.

For the record, diabetes was the culprit, along (I believe) with the strain of a very stressful year, on which I will not elaborate. He was found in his apartment when he didn’t return to work after a week’s leave to “recover”. There was a memorial service, his ashes were scattered over the Pacific, and there will be a tree and a plaque installed in his memory at the recreation center where he worked.

I’ll miss him.

Morning. Would.

Note to the guy with the red and black Airwalks and the wraparound sunglasses who’s been getting on the 12-Folsom at Seventh Street around 8:30 AM all week: you look like the biggest jerk who ever walked the face of the earth. Wanna screw around?

Yeah, that’s always been a problem for me: many of the people I find myself sexually attracted to as I’m walking down the street also tend to be people I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with otherwise. Fortunately, that’s not true in all cases. Mostly just those where I’m walking down the street at 8:30 in the morning…

Really…

I’d love to offer some wonderful new news and insights, but mostly I’ve just been working, cursing the pollen, and fantasizing about sticking it to that guy in the bus shelter while he’s wearing nothing but his red and black Airwalks and his wraparound sunglasses…

Now get out of here. It’s spring. My mind is wandering. Go say happy birthday to Dan…

Integration

This was unexpected: poking around the Census Bureau’s Factfinder, I discovered that each of the inner-city areas I’ve lived in as an adult is actually less integrated than the suburb I grew up in (where my parents still live). Throws a bit of a monkeywrench into both the ideas of segregated suburbs and of the segregated south, huh?

Or does it just say something about gentrification?

The Weekend

Hmmm. Let’s take stock of the weekend:

  • Created many ad banners for sex sites. It’s amazing how non-stimulating dirty pictures can be while you’re tweaking them and making them into phone sex ads.
  • Realized how odd it is that Jonno and I are both discussing phone sex ads today.
  • Kept trying to (a) minimize my sore throat and (b) figure out why I have one.
  • Pissed off a few people (perhaps justifiably) with what I believed was an innocuous comment about literacy levels and education in the south.
  • Watched a few “Streets of San Francisco” episodes while nodding in and out on the couch from the allergy medicine.
  • Vacuumed up all the remaining construction dust in my apartment.
  • Had dinner at the most miserable, useless Pizza Hut in the world with Dan and Jamie.

It seems like I accomplished much more than I really did…

On my mind moving into Monday:

  • Damned throat.
  • I’m glad I didn’t go out, pick up a boy, and stay up doing nasty things tonight like I did last Sunday.
  • I have heat again.
  • There’s really very little good daytime TV on the weekends.