Mad Professor

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life in LA
1. Failure analysis engineer, Marina Del Rey. The worst job I've ever had. I commuted between Sherman Oaks and Marina Del Rey on the 405 and was in the mood for murder at the end of each drive. The actual job itself -- figuring out why 8-inch hard disk drives had failed -- sucked beyond belief, too. I quit after four months.

2. Computer systems consultant, Toluca Lake. Ran my own business setting up computers for people in the late 1980s.

3. Freelance designer, Hollywood California. I designed Billy Idol's Cyberpunk CD artwork. He called me on the phone one day out of the blue, after having picked up a copy of bOING bOING, and asked me if I'd be interested in designing his new CD cover. I said sure. About ten minutes later, the record company's art director called me and gave me the specs: Mac, Bhotoshop Tiffs, 300 dpi, etc. I had never used Photoshop or a Macintosh before, but I didn't tell him that. As soon as I got off the phone, I went to the store and bought a copy of Photoshop and started reading the manual.

The next day I put the Photoshop software in my backpack, got on my motorcycle and rode to Billy's house in the Hollywood Hills. He was super friendly and chatty. He led me to his in-home recording studio which had a Mac. I don't know what kind -- this was late 1992 or early 1993. I installed the 7 or 8 disks onto the Mac. Billy was staring over my shoulder the whole time. I was a little nervous. He had an external hard drive with some screen grabs of his recent music video. I figured out how to load the pictures, thank God. Then I just started opening the menus in Photoshop and trying out random stuff. The image was getting all warped and purple toned. I didn't know what to think. I was just going along for the ride, praying it would work out.

After about five minutes, Billy cried, "Stop! Whoa! Fuck me! That's brilliant!" So that was it. We used the image for the cover. For the next several weeks I did his other singles, his print ads, video boxes, and even wrote the advertising copy and his publicity kit bio. I spent a lot of time at his place, and got to know him. He was always very polite and loved to talk about any subject you brought up.

When I started working at Wired, I continued to do CD single design for him.

4. Editor-in-Chief, Make Magazine, Tarzana. I love this job more than any other job I've ever had, in LA or elsewhere. If I won the lottery, I'd still do it.

Four Movies About LA I Could Watch Over And Over:
1. The Player

2. Pee Wee's Big Adventure

3. Streets. 19990, starring Christina Applegate. From IMDB: "Serious, well-made story of runaways living in Venice, California, under the threat of a psychotic cop who is a serial killer of prostitutes."

4. Echo Park

Four Of My Favorite Foods Found In LA
1. Volcano Chicken Bowl at Newsroom Cafe on Robertson. This was one of the daily specials, and was the most scorchingly hot meal I've ever eaten (and I can tolerate very spicy dishes). The ensuing endorphin rush was exquisite. I'll never forget it. I have seen Volcano Chicken offered there again. Was it a dream?

2. Akbar Indian food, Pasadena.

3. Carney's, Studio City. Excellent Hamburgers served in a train car.

4. Bob's Big Boy, Burbank. Designed by mid-century architect Wayne MacAllister in 1949. As a bonus, the food is good and reasonably priced.

Tagged:
1. Neatorama

2. Joshuah Bearman

3. Kevin Roderick

4. Kyle Buchanan