hi, my name is eric bogs. i currently live in brooklyn, new york, and have previously lived in london, san francisco, near berlin, los angeles and elsewhere. some would call me a bit of a global soul (vagabond wanderer with a short attention span), but i’m attempting to stay put—for now—as new york is tons of fun.

i crave new experiences, and my default answer to most queries is “yes”. well, sometimes it’s “no”, but if you ask me two more times i’ll always say “yes”. at the age of 32 i’m lucky enough to have some awesome life experiences, and really my only gripe with life these days is that my lovely friends and family are so scattered around the globe.

aside from my gluttony of chasing after excitement and experiences, the two largest facets of my personality that drive my passions are: personally curating and filtering content, and innovating to solve annoying problems. you’ll find some examples of that below, and in my portfolio.

not to say that being a computer geek is bad or anything, but i have spent much of my life programming and building websites. i ran a bbs when i was 13, and barely escaped caltech with a computer science degree in 1999.

as the dot-com bubble burst in san francisco in 2001, it catapulted me over to london. much of my adult personality was formed whilst living in the united kingdom for 5 years, discovering life with my crazy friends, in the pub and club, the park and the party.

i’ve built websites for a bazillion clients, large and small, as a corporate citizen and a slick consultant. for a few years, i chased after billable hours at scient, leading an entire department at the age of 23. my blood ran purple for four years at yahoo!, including two years of jock strap jokes at yahoo! sports.

to contrast my nerdiness (and that sports reference), i’ll mention that i served as editor for xy magazine, a popular gay youth magazine. websites fizzle, but the glossy copies of xy tend to leave permanent impressions on readers.

planning editorial content for an issue is far more entertaining than debugging compiler errors. also: interviews, photo shoots, models, and empowering young people to lead better lives. i have mountains of curated content which i’m trying to distribute via pet projects such as qr magazine and boredgayboy.

my inner nerd brought me to google in 2007, allowing me to flex my computer science might, building awesome web applications alongside incredibly brilliant kids. all the synapses are firing within the google docs team—all day, every day. i still enjoy hearing about how google spreadsheets and forms (my babies) are making a positive impact on the world (e.g. helping to mobilize obama’s grassroots campaigning efforts).

i am the biggest electronic music fanatic you’ve met, and although i don’t go dancing/clubbing/raving like i did in the nineties and naughties, i do still love to get my swerve on in the club, at a good concert, live show, or houseparty. i’m an equal-opportunity funseeker, and never turn down an invite to a concert.

jonny moirée is my superstar deejay alterego. i/he compiles, curates and frequently releases all sorts of interesting/commercial/quirky/mainstream/unique mixes, which are sometimes adored by a handful of friends, and sometimes downloaded [for free] thousands of times or pirated on ebay.

i’ve been trying to cut back on my travel these days, to fertilize my roots in new york. it’s difficult, being a global soul and all, but i do have a wonderful superstar of a boyfriend to help make the big apple feel like a home that i don’t need to run away from. and, he’s a painter, and knows nothing about computers (he calls them “machines”). perfect.

i attempt to follow my own advice, and to this day i play an interesting philosophical trick on myself whenever i’m at a crossroads. it’s recursive, but otherwise quite simple. i ask myself one question, and then answer it honestly;

wwebd?

random factoids:

• been to 16 depeche mode concerts. and over 200 other ones. i’m a rocker, and i rock out.
• a pbs documentary was filmed about me. there’s really nothing quite like waking up with a camera crew in your face.
• i was on the price is right. i left with some fabulous parting gifts, including a dirty sticky feeling after watching bob barker flirt with the serviceman next to me in contestant’s row.
• living in germany when i was 15 made me gay. ja, gern!
• my first boyfriend was also my first girlfriend’s boyfriend. oops. 15 years later, we’ve finally reconciled. i think.
• i’m a creature of the night, and love to dance. and drink. and cause trouble. when the sun goes down, eric wakes up.
• i keep my life ridiculously organized, for maximum spontaneity.
• the closest thing i have to an idol is richard branson. i look up to my mom, of course. she’s a hero for raising my two siblings and me by herself, working double-shifts so that i could afford the top-notch education i got at caltech.
• i’ve got entirely too many brightly-colored shoes. and sunglasses. and belts.
• although i’m a big-city boy and love my creature comforts, i’ve been lucky enough to enjoy many magical journeys. places visited more than 3x: ibiza, manchester, paris, amsterdam, burningman, las vegas, new orleans, bristol, brighton, miami. then there’s all of 40+ gay pride adventures, including sydney mardi gras (twice).
• my favorite job ever was serving ice cream at dairy queen in indiana. it was a bunch of girls and me, overcaffeinated and on a sugar high. my dog would attack me when i got home at 1am and try to lick all of the wayward toppings off me.
• second fave was managing xy magazine, where i got to flirt with models, writers and fanboys 24/7. ooh, and craft witty and intelligent themes to share with our readers. and occasionally save or seriously improve a life.
• i have a vast storehouse of intelligence from caltech that i will never use, e.g. fourier transforms, kjeldahl reactions, multiprocessor architectures. and what sort of blue jokes steven hawking tells after dinner.
• i was set up on a date by a famous pop duo. it didn’t work about, but at least i got serenaded in their dressing room at the bbc.
• i met another famous pop singer during my first week in london. upon hearing my american accent, he decided to corrupt me. that was a very memorable houseparty.
• i have several famous exes. or, put another way, several famous people have me for an ex. there will be a tell-all book at some point. i hope one of them writes it.
• i have urinated next to 3 billionaires. not at once. and, not like that. and, i never really noticed this statistic until just now.
• i was was interviewed on a japanese talk show for about 8 minutes, where i played some complicated game involving actor’s faces. there was much screaming and laughing, and me pretending i knew what was happening.
• my family and i caused international scandal when i was 15 and we took our foreign exchange student to visit niagara falls in canada. on the way back, we told him to just pretend to be american. that didn’t work out so well.
• i unknowingly danced booty-to-booty with madonna in a miami danceclub. turns out it wasn’t my amazing dance moves that caused my circle of friends to stare in awe.
• i am an out and proud star trek fan. i have been lucky enough to meet a few cast members via a well-connected friend. i have also sat in captain picard’s chair on the original set.
• i can’t cook to save my life, and often set off the smoke alarm when cooking frozen pizzas or boiling water for pasta.
• i’m not religious. i was raised roman catholic and don’t mind participating in the rituals, but would much prefer attending a new age wedding reception or a lively gospel service.
• i was that dork in school who had perfect attendance and straight-a’s and was valedictorian and won the science fairs but never went to parties or went on dates or really enjoyed himself. making up for lost time now?
• travel writing, particularly books discussing the philosophy of travel inspires me. i adore gay fiction. i love classical texts. i love bitter saracastic texts. i love david sedaris, alain de botton, dave eggers, kurt vonnegut, translations of plato, armistead maupin.

about evijhserf

• the bo.gs domain name is registered in the south sandwich islands.
• evijhserf 1.0 was launched in 1997.
• evijhserf 2.0 was launched in 2001 and is really quite cool to play around with.
• evijhserf is pronounced eve-sherf, and is dutch for naughty laugh.