7 Apr 2021Gary Mueller Two weeks ago I lost my brother, and my best friend, George Mueller. We spent fifty years together on this blue-green marble, and I will cherish every moment.
George was a remarkable brother, husband, son, father, uncle and friend. He was passionate, creative, intelligent, resilient, whimsical, unique, and so loving. He was deeply supportive of the people he knew, and relished creating opportunities and platforms for others to follow their passions and dreams. He epitomized the word mudita, and truly found joy in other people’s happiness.
Simply put, George loved to create magic.
And for him, the most magical thing of all was his family. I was so happy as I watched my brother fall deeply in love with Ting. They were inseparable, traveled everywhere together, and loved each other profoundly. It was clear from the way he spoke about Ting that she was his guiding light and his true love.
Of all his creations, he was the most proud of Astro and Xing. George’s love for his children was boundless. Together with Ting, they were his universe, and George was happiest when he was surrounded by his family. Everyday there were adventures and bike rides, trips to the playground to swing and climb and to the pool to splash and swim, dinners with Bua and Gong Gong or friends and family, sledding or making snowpeople with my kids in Vermont, and always books at night. Of course, with George, there was always one more adventure to go on, one more book to be read, and one more universe to explore. As Astro says, “Tomorrow is another day.” George loved being a dad, with Ting by his side every step of the way.
From an early age, George looked at the world differently. (Maybe it was because I dropped him on his head when he was a few days old.) Our single mom gave us incredible freedom and was a beacon of strength and hope and love. George was mischievous from an early age. When he was about 10, he wrote a program on his TRS80 to dial up repeatedly our local hangout called the Custard Cone. He’d run the program, we’d ride our bikes there, and laugh as the phone rang off the hook. When George was twelve and two days old, and I was 16 and a day, we took our first drive together. Of course, in preparation for the drive, we filled up 20 water balloons. On our drive, as luck would have it, George threw a water balloon that hit the middle of the windshield of an oncoming police car. The first of just a few run-ins with authority. We were never short on fun or adventure.
The adventures continued as we grew older. From driving across the country in our VW Camper bus, to hosting gatherings around the world, to setting up offices in 29 countries for our first company, to snowboarding in Japan, Europe, Canada or Alaska, we had so many great experiences. As a creator and inventor, together with Ihor, George authored hundreds of patents. As a founder and leader, he launched Color Kinetics and EcoSense, and with his colleagues, lit up the world. And now EcoSense and Korrus are developing a new category called healthy lighting. From the top of the Empire State Building to the London Eye to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, George, your lights still shine brightly and inspire us daily.
Creating Robot Heart was another of George’s inspirations, and the joy and music he enabled touched so many. He envisioned building the Stradivarius for electronic musicians. He would often talk about how the deep playa at Burning Man was the perfect place for sound, and he wanted to build the ideal sound system for artists to play there. As with his other creations, he loved it when other people shined, whether those who helped to create and run Robot Heart (Swamy, Rob, Mike, Walt, Tom, Clare, Benji, Justin, Jean, and so many others), or the artists who gifted their music from the top of the bus.
Most people do not know that George publicly played only one song on the bus. It was 2012, and at Saturday’s sunrise, Lee Burridge played Time by the Pachanga boys followed by a spoken poem he had written. It turns out that George and Rob Scott, together with Jesse Houk, had mashed up Time by the Pachanga boys with snippets of communication from the lunar landing. The Monday morning after temple burn, George looped the song for over an hour, “This is tranquility base. The Eagle has landed….We are on the f**king moon.” During the song, Lee and Christina biked up with huge smiles. From the top of the bus, George and I smiled back, and put our hands together to form a heart for them.
So, here I am
Out on the playa at Burning Man
Dancing in front of the Robot Heart Bus
The sun is coming up…
The color of the sky
Changing right before my eyes
Deep blue to red hue
Smoldering on horizon’s edge
Where mountains dip to dust…
That LED heart
Is sparkling in the sky
Catching my eye
And I ask myself
Could this be love
And as I dance out of the night
And into the light
I just want to say
That some other day
I’ll dream about you again.
-Lee Burridge, 2012
The outpouring of stories from the many people George has touched from these, and so many other creations, has been incredible. George was, indeed, a dreamer and a doer all of his life.
Probably like many of you, I could go on and on talking about stories, adventures, inventions or creations. Who will ever forget George’s Braveheart’s speech at the party after Hurricane Sandy? Lower Manhattan was without power and completely dark, but the party at George’s building was lit up like a Christmas tree, thanks to a generator from fellow burners. Or the launching of Further Future, and the incredible experience and confluence of music, art, food, people, talks, and that Dixon set. Or, with Astro and Dave, creating Cerebellum to use artificial intelligence in novel ways. Or, together with Tyler, dreaming up Send It in the Blaze King at Points North in Alaska, and then sending it in Revelstoke. Or playing the iron with Tommy and Jimmy. Or that Final Final at Gyu bar in Niseko. Or yet another Final Final Final. George dreamed big and lived large.
He also had a big heart. And his heart beats on, both figuratively and literally. Even in his passing, he continues to provide light and life - someone else has received his heart. How great would it be to get that person on top of the bus?
George is no longer with us physically, but wherever he is, he’s probably smiling at us, playing some music, watching the sunrise, and urging us to follow our dreams. He’d say we’re only on this blue-green marble for a short time, and that we should live life fully. After all, George packed in 10 lifetimes in his 50 short years. Let us carry his spirit forward. As Justin said, quoting TS Eliot to us both at Tom’s home not long ago, “This is not farewell, but fare forward, voyager.”
Love you, my brother, my partner, my fellow voyager and my best friend. Love you, George. Forever. I’ll look forward to reuniting with you to create some magic when we are both Above & Beyond.
