My Time as a Human

Laura used to drive down the street towards the river while looking around under the seats for her glasses as we screamed in terror. In high school, she was one of my first girlfriends and Sunday she found me online and gave me a call. I couldn’t even recognize her from her picture, but the second I heard her voice she was the same cute and completely insane girl I remember. Suitable to my current end of game experience we joked about how she had cheated on me with a sailer while diving in Florida and she caught me up on what she’d put time into over the last years.

In hearing about her life I felt suddenly like a very exotic creature. After college she focused on having kids and a long marriage and has hardly left the state. Her husband gathers the neighborhood guys to watch football once a week. I’ve never watched football and there may be only two states I haven’t visited, let alone the rest of the world. I’ve never even had a TV.

I realize that I live in a bubble, surrounded by freaky programmers, filmmakers and artists. Sometimes, though, I forget how significant the gap can be and Laura really grounded me. In particular, she connected me to the reality of our current financial situation here in America.

I hear about it on the radio. My friends have lost jobs, but most of my friends are the kinds of people who are laid off all the time. They work at small businesses that fail or contract jobs that are temporary to begin with and are used to free falling in between. Without kids or a huge attachment to material things, I myself consider hitting the road with a guitar and a backpack more of a romantic vision than a terrible hardship.

She lives in Michigan. Her friends are losing their critical long time jobs right and left. They have families and mortgages and people are so desperate they are literally abandoning their homes to foreclosure and heading to places like Florida and Arizona to live with relatives and friends. That’s the reality behind the ranting I hear from commentators as I cook in the evenings or sneak in Morning Edition while I write software and read email in the morning. That’s what is happening to real people in this country, the people behind the numbers.

The next few years are going to be rough, and things are only going to get worse as we run out of oil and water. I’m not sure if it’s time to ditch my extra guitars and load up my camping supplies but you never really know until it’s too late. I’m certainly feeling a little too far from Canada’s forests at the moment. I’m also glad that I have no debt and don’t need much to survive. If anything, I’ll be a resource for those in worse shape. At least, I know how to start fires with sticks.

Lately I’ve had this strange sensation that I’ve reached the end of a long game. The last die was rolled, question answered, or strategy played out and with a cheer or a groan everyone’s hands went up and they stepped back from the table a few months ago. Now we’re all relaxed and talking openly about the strategies we used on each other and filling in the blanks where things were previously unsaid.

I’m not sure what’s lead me to this point, or why I feel that everyone is with me. I know that I feel much more at peace with myself. I’ve finally reached a point where I’ve accepted my skills and talents. I’ve given up some of my bigger ambitions, which has freed me to focus more on what excites me and less on sacrifices that might lead to future gains. I’m less concerned about how my actions affect other people, and I am not obligated to let anyone know where I am or what I’m doing at any point. I feel like a more genuine expression of myself, less driven by my innate desire to meet the desires and expectations of the people around me. It all feels very sexy.

I’m not sure why I feel like every one else is here with me. Some of my older friends are starting to reach the point where the ups and downs of life affect them less and they’ve even begun preemptively laughing at the absurdly awkward or terrible times as they happen. My younger friends are learning some of the same tricks, or perhaps I’ve chosen younger friends that have already been moving in that direction.

I can say that after telling this story a few times I’ve had at least one person tell me that they have no idea what I’m talking about and they don’t feel the same way at all. So again, maybe this is just me and I’m projecting this little worldview on everyone around me. But I think everyone should accept my projection and get in on it. It feels great! So go tell someone something you’ve never told them about an old conflict between the two of you, a secret love you had for them, or a crazy view you had of them before you knew them better.

Right now. Go.

As the latest Burlesque for Peace event prepares to take over Antones I can’t help but remember my first show.

It was in talking to an ex-stripper friend of mine that the idea first appeared. She talked about how much she enjoyed being on stage and being playful and sexy, but how the environment of the modern strip club was stifling and didn’t allow for any creativity or real performance. I’ve always been a fan of big horn bands and that loud, bold brass music from the old burlesque shows. Before the idea of nude performance was, well, stripped down to what we have today those shows were so much more. Instead of women simply dancing naked around poles all night, there were huge performances with outrageous costumes, long teasing dance routines, fans, people under water with flowing silks, comedy acts and songs. The more we talked, the more excited I became. I started contacting potential venues and then, as often happens, I got distracted by some other series of projects and it never came to fruition.

Years later I was riding out the end of a tough breakup and living on my best friend Steve March’s couch in San Francisco. He had hundreds of books lining one entire wall, and every day he would leave a few more book spines protruding seductively from the enormous bookshelf and head off to work. I paced back and forth through the sunlight that bathed the wooden floors of his large studio apartment, ingesting books about psychology, spirituality and the self and scribbling furiously in a notebook on the end table. In the evenings he would return and we would jump into his Miata to roar into the city for sushi and philosophize late into the night.

It was in this context that I got the call. My friend G-Fire was hosting an all girl DJ night at Elysium, a club in Austin, for her birthday. She wanted male strippers and wanted to know if I was down to be one of them. At this point, I’d never done anything of the kind. The idea was terrifying and, therefore, immediately something I couldn’t resist. Better still that I had only days to prepare and was currently halfway across the country. I packed up my notebooks and headed home.

Back in Austin I drove straight to my favorite thrift shop and rounded up a whole pile of outfits and equipment. When I got to the club I was nervous, excited, and ready to throw down. I burst through the door to find the two other guys cowering at the bar, huddled over drinks. They were simultaneously attempting to goad each other into taking action and trying to somehow avoid the whole affair entirely. I had a duffle bag loaded with costumes and wasn’t having it. I found the next DJ and told her roughly the kind of music I was looking for and went into the bathroom to change.

Her voice boomed through the speakers as she called the audience forward to the stage, “and now I give you… The Professor!” The house lights came up and the music started slowly with a simple pulsing beat. I was standing, head down, my hands held before me completely covered in a thick black graduation gown. The gown turned out to be a good choice, as it completely hid my knees, which were clattering together like castanets.

Each of my arms extended into the opposite sleeve and I slowly began to wripple around like I was working something out under the front of my outfit, doing my best to imitate the girls I remember changing under sweatshirts on the bus after track practice. Then my arms burst free and a huge white bra flew out of my sleeve, arced through the air and landed on someone’s head. The crowd went wild.

From that point I teased and danced and worked my way through layer after layer of outfits. Having never done this before, I had no idea how long it would take and I was only halfway done when the DJ had to scramble to put on another track. It was also my first experience with shoes. There’s nothing sexy about trying to pull off shoes. Hopping up and down and spinning didn’t help, so I yanked off a sock, inhaled it deeply, and threw that out to the crowd earning me more cheers.

As girls were scrambling to fill my waistband with dollar bills, the other two guys were running for their chance to get on stage. Each one turned it up another notch, one by leaping off stage and doing a knee slide. When all was said and done all anyone wanted to know was when it would happen again and how they could get a turn. A few months later, Audrey Maker started ramping up for the first Burlesque for Peace.

For months afterwards I would meet countless people at parties who would insist on calling me The Professor, many of whom only knew me as The Professor. I had so many demands for a rerun that I eventually did another version of the same act that was much better scripted and featured a ruler and a variant of the famous endless handkerchief gag using neckties. Another year I had a really profound moment helping my friend, who had finally left the army, strip off her uniform for the last time. As I handed out her medals from a silver bowl, she threw the trappings of the life she was leaving behind to the crowd.

The all volunteer show has raised money for numerous causes, from the clearing of old landmines to Amnesty International. This year the focus is on voter registration and there have have been several sexy librarian vote drives leading up to the event. I haven’t performed in the last few, but I definitely got a twang watching my housemates Natalie and Jules prepare for their first show this last week. As they bounce and giggle their way through the house, covered in balloons, I have to wonder if, or when, The Professor will one day return…

As yet another massive storm pounds our coast, New Orleans refugees have piled into our house and kept me turned on to the progression of the water’s attack. One of them is, in fact, an urban planner who has all kinds of great levy stories and the kind of engineering tales that I live for. Apparently all of the drawbridges along one stretch were lowered to prevent their being torn out by the storm winds. As a result, the rising water is getting caught up on the bridges and causing even more problems. It might even be worth letting the wind have a crack at them except that now… wait for it… the drawbridge controls are under water.

I have to admit that when there are two groups of people watching something like that happen, and one is weeping about the property destruction, I’m with the other that is throwing a hand into the air, laughing, and saying, “of course! Why didn’t we think of that!” Oh science.

The other problem I’m having is that every time I see the ocean waters, I can’t stop thinking about surfing or diving into it.

Just a week ago in North Carolina I was doing my best to catch rides on an ocean that was so sleepy I could have napped there all afternoon. Then tropical storm Fay swung by Florida and stirred things up. We got rip tides and some pretty fierce wind that at times turned the beach into a sandblaster and, best of all, brought waves! Of course, they were choppy, mean, random waves. Just getting out past the break was an effort that left me exhausted, my poor arms unable to move. The trick was that once I got out there it wasn’t the calm pool for floating and relaxing I’d had in California. Just to stay in one place I had to keep paddling with my feet and struggling to stay balanced on the board. The whole thing was exhausting, before I ever even tried for a wave.

The swells were coming in a constant stream of short chaotic spikes and as soon as I’d try for a huge, rising swell it would reach me and drop off like it had given up. There wasn’t any sweet spot and if there was one, the current was sweeping me so fast down the beach that I would never have been able to hold it. Then suddenly, after all of the struggle, I caught a ride. It was short and quickly threw me over, but for a moment I was back on top of the world, tearing towards the beach. I was already shouting as I burst up through the surface and, with a rush of fresh energy, I was ready to do it all over again. On one day over the span of a few hours I probably got, at most, three rides and yet somehow it was enough to keep me coming back for more.

Back home in Austin I’ve been told that the surfing in the gulf is pretty much the same, with the addition of stinging jellyfish and waste oil. But even here it inspires the same level of nuttiness, including a guy who wants to have his Texas and surf it too. He’s been working on raising funding for a massive surf park with wave generators. Am I going to become one of these guys? Or just another chump with a trailer by the beach on the west coast? Only the song royalties for Mr. Rat can tell.

Embryonic Learning

During the North Carolina trip, when the storm fueled ocean was at its most extreme, I decided to go out for a swim. Struggling to walk out into the writhing ocean I had an interesting realization, as one often does when returning to the embryonic fluid from whence his species came. I loved letting the ocean throw me around. I was tossed into the air, pulled under the waves, and yanked along by fierce low currents. I tried to stay reasonably close to shore, though, and there would always come a moment when I would touch bottom or suddenly realize that it was no where close. If I had to, I’d fight my way a little closer so that I could feel my foot hitting the sand.

In learning about Harry Harlow’s surrogate mother experiment the image that, for some reason, stuck with me was that of the little monkey who’d established a connection to the soft cone mother figure. Having done so he was then excited about exploring his surroundings, and wandered freely. Every now and then, though, he would return to cuddle the cone for a moment. He would routinely spend a few minutes there before heading back out to explore.

Both of these work as great metaphors for the way I live life. I love exploring the world and sometimes letting it throw me around like storm waves. But between bouts of this exploring I need to return to touch the soft sand of Austin with my toes or reconnect with my family and friends. At one time I found this dichotomy odd. I thought it didn’t make any sense that I craved novelty and radical experience so much and yet have lived in the same city for years. Now it’s all clear. I’m just a monkey after all.

[ed. dude, what about the toe story?]

The Toe

Oh, the toe? I did promise the story. During one of my wild leaps up onto my board to catch a rare, rideable wave my right second piggie whacked into the surfboard. While I was grinning, riding and thrashing along, the back of my mind registered a quick note to self: pain. It wasn’t until I crawled exhausted onto the beach much later that I stopped to check it out and noticed that it had turned black. The thing about broken toes is, well, there isn’t much you can do about it but wait it out. It certainly isn’t worth not surfing and I was already wearing sandals everywhere I went. I re-injured it trying to put a shoe on the other day, but at least it’s a familiar toe color again.