Category: memoir

Fast and loose race at a slow and steady pace!

The story of Bopgig is a long one –  and not without hiccups. 

(updated: 2 May 2022)

(note: additional information about BopGig in Israel Tech Scene 2006-2011 and GrooveGuide)

2000: The name comes to mind.

GrooveTip in its inception was about tipping artists in the same way people tip street buskers. FairTunes.com (2000) worked on that concept, which had a WinAmp plugin. I took an interest in media metadata at the time as that should’ve contained the information for any funds to travel back to content creators.

I had thought… “once people have downloaded songs from Napster… then what?” … ideally, a voluntary tip by the listener/viewer to the creator!

src

2001: Final-year undergrad student enters MBA competition.

pic 2 | 3

2003: Multiple PHP apps cobbled together. Later GrooveGuide (more info here) is added – a free street-press magazine. 500 copies were printed and distributed around Melbourne. Problem: lack of app integration and hence automated signups.

src | 2

2009: Rethinking the business model and user experience. BopGig or GigPop?

2010: A working prototype launches. A Y-Combinator application occurs.

Overworked and under-utilized. Music + Entertainment industry. (Jerusalem, 20 Oct '10)

John on the left, Sup on the right.

Bopgig from Adrian on Vimeo.

2011: Development moves from USA to Israel.

Bopgig pitch (Jan, 2011)

 

2012: Public launch and then a pivot into indefinite hibernation!

 

2020: Hibernation continues!

2022: Thinking about it again!

source

Gigwell Productivity Suite for Booking Agents & Artists

note: With GrooveTip 2000 in mind, I would instead look at making it easier for listeners to give rather than own. Maybe both.
✓ 3 years ago

2010 – The Twitter UI gets an overhaul

March 2009:

pic 4 notes: (2010 screenshot)
(1) Browse pre-selected twitter accounts from a menu that is opened.
(2) Searchable list of celebrity accounts from @valebrity within a dropdown.
(3) 2nd and 3rd columns (middle and right) could be switched with the preference remembered between sessions.

  • 1st and 3rd columns floated into view (with fresh user data) whenever a user was selected within the middle column.
  • The basis of this site was done by Scribu in Romania using jQuery according to my spec. I ended up building upon that foundation very substantially in the subsequent months. The site became unusable when Twitter changed their API in August 2010 but I still have the code and had fun building it. I initially launched it via a Techcrunch comment.

September 2010:

[source]

Evan Williams Explains New Twitter Interface

0:58: “We had a bunch of changes in mind that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. And sometimes you can make them incrementally and sometimes it kind of takes a big rethinking. And so this was one of those times where we decided to take a big leap forward just to create the best product we can.” ~ Evan Williams, 9/2010

further reading here
✓ 3 years ago

2018 – The Gianni Versace signature motif is born – and the House of Drew.

In Jerusalem, January 2018, I devised an outfit from Versace 90’s gear and a James Bond print. The Beeodd mark is from ~2015.

Then:


Later in the year:

Presently – “Gianni Versace’s handwriting is placed on an assortment of clothing and accessories”… which has been in effect since late 2018.

Ultimately leading to:

Similar outcome to House of Drew.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by drew house (@drewhouse)


✓ 3 years ago

Brighter Days

From the time I moved into the Great Twitya Pad to the time I left, there was always something going on. Life could’ve been much worse though.

updated: 23 April 2023

By May 2008, I found myself back at Hayarkon hostel, Tel Aviv:

Then, after pondering what to do, I decided to return to acting so I took these headshots and sent them to CU-Agency – the talent agency who had already spotted me in Jerusalem in 2005:

This led to my first extras role since my original 2005 role as a Roman soldier for a History/NatGeo documentary (Mount Zion). Sharon ran the agency:

At the hostel, another Australian guest took issue with me living at the hostel even after making ‘aaliyah.’ Regardless, I found myself wanting to leave anyhow.

Soon after I found the Great Twitya Pad while literally walking up the street (just after dark) with my bags after grabbing a newspaper. Whoever picked up my phone call first had my business. I was so keen to find brighter days.

On the corner of Levontin and Allenby, many people door knocked. I rarely answered because they were strangers.

Outside my door was another door into a corridor and groups would congregate, chatter, unlock the door and then close it behind them. So it was noisy but it didn’t matter. It was far better than nothing at all.


During my time at the Great Twitya Pad starting in mid 2008, I returned to Tsfat and attended a few tech events.

I’d also go rollerblading to Tel Aviv port and the skatepark.

Rollerblade Tel Aviv port

I ended up in a number of film, TV and advertising productions including Bena and David and Kamal. I also acted with a small dog in a Chevrolet advertisement.

In February 2009 while working diligently on Twitya, there was a callout to do this supermarket TV ad. It was a welcome break (and brake) to my train of thought!

מגה בעיר - Mega in the city - TV Ad / Feb 09

The Al Foster Quartet even played up the road:

These activities continued into 2009 before I left to Jerusalem in early 2010. By that stage I had lost hair and developed adult acne in that apartment, which all soon dissipated. I had real trouble with Hebrew but I felt I was moving forward regardless. I had learned Hebrew at King David School for around 5 years, so I could speak, read and write it pretty well but not converse in it, strangely. It was also my least favourite subject.

So in terms of Brighter Days:

Seek, and you shall find – Luke 11:9

[April ’10]

I stopped working for CU agency because my roles would remain non-speaking as my Hebrew wasn’t good enough to progress. Regardless, I kept getting call-outs because I was almost always successful in auditions, and I eventually changed my phone number in order to put an end to it.
✓ 7 months ago

2009: Believing is seeing!

A girl is mugged, but she ends up fine in a surreal incident !

It is 25 June 2009 around 3am, and I am listening to news of Michael Jackson’s death (and his music) on my computer inside my apartment in Tel Aviv:

 

I was reading various people’s thoughts on Hacker News:

When I first heard of his death, “Never Can Say Goodbye” seemed like the most appropriate track for that moment.

Michael Jackson Never Can Say Goodbye Live (HD)

But then I started hearing squeals (not really screams) from the street below and I thought they were coming from drunk girls and so didn’t pay too much attention:

 

However, the squeals persisted. After about 20 – 30 seconds I peer out and a woman is lying on the road holding her handbag with one hand, while a bagsnatcher is trying to yank it away from her. There is a bicycle on the ground between them. He is still standing up. I yell aggressively a few times at the man, he looks around (not at me,) lets go and sprints around the corner:

Interestingly, the street was empty and quiet at the time.

I go downstairs and the police have already been called by a bystander. The police arrive and I thought I saw the same man up the street again but an officer told me that he had already been apprehended in the area and was known to them.

I go to the station with the woman in a police car. She appeared unhurt (perhaps grazed) and was speaking Russian. She could have been a prostitute. Her handbag was damaged.

My witness report was emailed to the station officer later due to language difficulties.

I got a call some weeks later from a lawyer asking what I was doing up at that hour and I told them about MJ.

It was a surreal, very sad and unnerving night to say the least.
✓ 3 years ago

2020: The New Déjà Vu

I literally (and accidentally) walked passed the garage of Tasmania’s largest comic seller yesterday as I was waiting for my vehicle to be checked.

This was the first comic that I saw from the road as it was displayed prominently in the center of the shop.

This is NOT an April fools’ day joke. See Dave’s card and auto receipt above right – both received within about 1 hour of each other.

Dave thought I was someone else and had another book waiting (some compendium about huts.) So I asked how much was the IJ comic, and he said it was $5. I opened my bag and pulled a fiver straight out (the only note left.) “It was meant to be.” He said.

“The next Indy film may involve Indy’s quest for the fabled KING SOLOMON’S MINES, but with a twist – this time, INDY has to fight the DEVIL to get the jewels.” – Indy III comic (p4. 1985)

Based on the comic’s speculated “Indy III” to-be, this is my extremely brief visualization of it, with the last act moving into how the expeditionary story is eventually monetized via film (a film of the expedition itself, within the film) in order to help sway public opinion as to who is the true discoverer of King Solomon’s treasures. However, the expedition’s filmmaker is actually an agent of Andy Barry and two versions of the film are made, with a battle as to which gets released!

So who ends up getting the fortune and glory? It’s loot after all isn’t it?

pics
www.flickr.com/photos/zigzaglens/5480522611
toughthingsfirst.com/blog/there-is-no-pot-of-gold/
pixabay.com/illustrations/superman-hero-superhero-strong-3308158/
www.needpix.com/photo/942360/hero-heavy-red-look-sport-ads-funny-vector-sticker
✓ 4 years ago

2001: Evolution Revolution. A Retrospective.

I rediscovered an essay yesterday accidentally while browsing old files.

(updated: 21 January 2023)

It was July 2001, and I was staying at a backpackers’ hostel, most likely in Noosa, and I wrote an essay about my experience soon after I left. Here is a snippet from my 2001 essay Evolution Revolution:

It was during the night while I was sleeping at a backpackers’ hostel that I spoke to Steven Spielberg in a dream. We were at the summit of a mountain immersed in nature’s beauty. I could say anything to Spielberg and he would understand me compassionately and completely. We exchanged a few words. His use of silence was sublime.
I walked up close to him and asked straight out,
“Do you believe in G-d?”
He responded,
“God is sensed by the brain and becomes apparent to those willing.”
His simplicity was unconvincing so I pressed on,
“So have you realized God?”
There was a pause, and then I awoke. It wasn’t the dream’s content that woke me, but instead it was the realization that I was dreaming which was awakening. This caused a fresh flow of vital force to penetrate my whole body and had become like an electricity generator.
Such was Spielberg’s answer.

The next day I was talking to a very hot German girl at the same place and saw a book on the table, and so in my essay I continue:

The book was called The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge and one thing it discusses is the spiritual discipline of Desana Shamanism originating from the ancient people of the Colombian Amazon [p57]. Their manuscripts reveal that the two main fissures seen in a cross-section of the brain represent the Anaconda and the Rainbow Boa serpents in binary opposition to each other. It is said that in the beginning of time, the ancient Amazonians arrived in canoes shaped like these serpents and today they live as metaphysical entities in the brain. The evolutionary challenge purported by Desana Shamanism is for Humankind to overcome the binary opposition of these serpents as they sway against each other. Such an achievement brings individual awareness and integration. This metaphor clearly shows that evolution begins with the creation of time and ends with the realisation of God, all as a result of two related serpent entities.

What happened next was that I didn’t see the girl, any snakes or Spielberg. I did go back to the dorm room and eventually drifted back to sleep, only to awaken to a strange vision:

The internal eye allowed me to view five different types of hologram-like visualizations of my brain. Furthermore the eye could rotate and see the brain from a range angles. As I relaxed and enjoyed the show it was clear that the brain’s creator certainly does not play dice. Einstein was right about God. One view showed a grid of grey and black lines carefully mapped over a glowing mass of neurons. Another view saw different chunks of the brain as different colours. A yellow region exploded and I felt some heat in the corresponding region in my head. Not only had the third-eye been activated but the brain was also being restructured by the increased cosmic energy as Gopi Krishna’s theories attest.

I didn’t see any Anacondas or Rainbow Boas. However, their mutual co-operation was being symbolised by the activity of the two opposing energies passing through my body. In the previous night theses energies were a bit strong but tonight they were perfect allowing for some 5-star evolutionary activity to occur. It is noteworthy to mention that at one point the brain stem looked like a funnel going into the body. I tried to peer into this funnel but only felt an explosion in my heart and saw a golden glow radiate out of the top of the funnel.

Other things I was reading around that time were “Communion with God” which I lent out to people at the Byron Bay Backpackers Inn, and then “To Be Human” which was recommended to me by a Swedish fellow who I lent Communion to.

Three people that were at the same hostel were Martin, Rich and Aaron – fun times – more could be said later.

And that’s it really.

pics
www.artstation.com/artwork/BX5Zm
twitter.com/alexgreycosm/status/590014814912524288

✓ 3 years ago