My Time as a Human

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.

When I told Samantha I was going to a family reunion on a North Caroline beach this last week she paused and said, “um, is that good or bad?” Sometimes I have to remember that for many people, extended family gatherings are the only times they have to interact with people from a wide array of lifestyles and socioeconomic statuses. Since these crews have to see each other continuously throughout their lives, longstanding resentments, feuds and political fights build over time to churn and writhe beneath the surface. Judgements are passed with the cole slaw and handed down with used jeans.

While I certainly did have to contend with my cousin goading me with his “W” sweatshirt, he was wearing it primarily for effect and it didn’t keep us from spending all day in the water surfing. Ironically the three christian ministers in the family are all strong, liberal women. They have an enthusiasm for life and genuine love of people that is common among this flock. It’s a big part of what sets the tone that allows our seventy people to willingly gather together and fill eight beach houses every year.

One of the nice things about this visit was that, having declared myself a filmmaker/artist, I wasn’t once asked to repair anyone’s computer or fix anyone’s “email”. Better yet, I was stunned to discover that there were people reading this blog! Even some who were willing to pretend that they enjoyed it! It certainly has cemented my reputation as the token crazy world-wandering relative and it’s a brightly colored coat I’m happy to wear. I was always quick to point out the trade offs and I think that while some exhibited envy for my bohemian lifestyle, none would willingly trade their families for it and would rather enjoy the exploits of a wandering soul from afar. Now if only I can convince about fifty thousand more people to think this way and cough up a dollar a year for the privilege…

I spent some more close quarters kid time, even going so far as to sleep in the bachelor pad with my two and five year old nephews. Periodically they would wake up screaming because a stuffed toy had gone missing or another equally horrific tragedy had been imagined. By the time I fell out of bed and fumbled around in the dark trying to help they would be quietly snoring, and yet I never seemed to learn and the urgency always seemed just as real. It certainly put my own complaints about life in the right light. Unless I’m being tortured, my whining is entirely self indulgent child’s play. And yes, water boarding and taking care of two year olds is torture.

Of course it wasn’t all drama with the small humans. I had a lot of fun writing songs and playing some of the children’s tunes I’d sent them on a rough sketch of an album. I hadn’t really believed that they listened too it as much as I’d been told, but they did in fact seem to know all of the words to Robot Squirrels, Mister Rat and Sleepy Stick. There was a lot of playing pirates, which I do at home with my friends anyway, and some good times being smashed by waves.

While the family beach vacation and Burning Man will forever fight for the same space on my calendar, thus forcing me to choose between what I feel are my two biggest family reunions, I’m certainly hoping I can at least alternate between the two. The sand, screaming, and pirates are about the same, and there’s plenty of love at both.

Tomorrow: the toe explained! Yes yes, I’ll talk about the toe.

“If you see anything, anything with writing on it, a post-it, a toilet paper tube, an old band aid… do not throw it away. It might be a poem.” I held up a wet wad of what looked like snotty kleenex. There were smeared blueish lines disappearing into the folds of paper. “Like this,” I asked, cringing. “Yes, yes. Like that. Save that.”

I got the call in the early afternoon as I struggled to sort my clothes and regain my sanity after last week’s family reunion on the North Carolina coast. I hadn’t even had a chance to blog about the trip before my vibrating cell phone growled like a motorcycle revving and my life popped back into high gear. I didn’t have all of the details, but my friend Zoon was in sudden need of help moving. “Just bring the van to this address,” Winnie told me. As soon as I arrived Zoon pulled me aside to whisper out the true nature of my day’s adventure. “My roommate is insane. We have to get everything out today. I don’t think he’ll try anything with other people watching.”

Apparently the morning had started out as an attempt to move some boxes from a storage shed to a garage where they could be sorted and cleaned out. The roommate had been becoming increasingly aggressive and prone to spontaneous bursts of anger. He had been sneaking into Zoon’s room and tried to force the door open when he found it locked. During one recent discussion about the appropriate time to use the washing machine, he told Zoon, while invoking a variety of inappropriate references to sex acts, that he should leave. When he saw Zoon picking up some of his boxes, he had assumed that he really was leaving, and exploded such that it became clear that the time to go was, in fact, right now.

The three of us walked towards the house and immediately a tall, beefy guy in a white T-shirt pushed open the screen door and strode towards us. I was glad I’d worn sunglasses, and I was hoping they made me look intimidating. I know my sandals and open hawaiian shirt didn’t. I looked more like the dude.

“So you’re taking your stuff. You’re trying to screw me. Is that it? Trying to skip out without paying?” He was tense and looked ready to fight. He didn’t seem drunk, but he didn’t seem altogether rational either. I eyed the collection of weights and workout machines he kept in the back yard and tried to remember what I could from my years of martial arts training.

“Look, we can talk about this later. I’m paid up through the end of the month. Right now, I’m just going to move my things,” said Zoon calmly. Angry Man blocked our way and continued shouting. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew you were sleazy from the start.” We started walking towards the back yard. “I’m going to go to every one of your poetry readings and tell people the truth about you.” Winnie held her cell phone out like a tazer, telling him she was ready to call the police, and we continued around back and into Zoon’s tiny room behind the house.

We began dropping tennis shoes and shampoo bottles into large plastic tubs. After learning that the precious nuclei of poetic masterpieces lurked under every empty tube of toothpaste, I gave up trying to throw anything away and focused on trying to get things packed for the fewest possible trips to the van. I was loading up a stack of CDs when, through the open door to the back yard, I heard a scraping sound. “Oh,” Zoon said turning, “we’d better set up a little blockade to keep him out.” There at the door was a gigantic turtle. A tortoise, actually, who weighed about fifty pounds and was slowly trying to haul himself into the room.

Zoon scrambled over to set up a row of box lids. The tortoise craned his neck to see over them but couldn’t get past. We’d solved the immediate problem, but then I had to get by the prehistoric creature with a drawer load of t-shirts. I tried to encourage him to move but he just pulled his head down into his shell and played dumb. Eventually I was forced to step carefully over him, balancing the drawer and trying not to trip over the lids as I stuck my own head out to look for any signs of Angry Man before going to the front of the house.

Winnie and I are both allergic to cats, and so of course all of the futons, blankets and pillows we were hauling out to the street were covered with cat hair. As I came back around for another load, Winnie was stumbling across the back yard, bent over by loud, explosive sneezes. Behind her I saw the huge tortoise, his muppet-like head extended, chasing her as fast as he could. Like a game of Marko Polo, every time she sneezed he zeroed in on her new location and hurled himself forward on his giant stumpy legs with renewed enthusiasm.

Angry Man returned and began tearing through the yard. “Those grey tubs are mine. Are you taking my gray tubs?!”

At this point Winnie’s current boyfriend showed up with another van. With his tie dye shirt and sandals he looked even less threatening than me, but the sheer number of witnesses must have worked their magic. Angry Man quieted down and went back inside.

To his credit, apparently Angry Man was in the midst of a fierce legal battle for child custody rights. That said, I can’t help but recall the homicidal manic in The Jerk who, after trying to fill Steve Martin with lead from a high powered assault rifle while screaming, “die gas pumper, die!”, arrived later in the film to explain, “it was a difficult time for me. I’d just quit smoking. My wife left me.”

In the end there was no physical violence, and while I didn’t really think it was going to come to that, my already broken toe was thankful. When leaving Zoon told Angry Man, “it is my job to do everything I can to work this out so that we don’t ever need to speak to one another again.” We finished loading up the vans and left him to return to his work illustrating children’s books.

I had a mohawk when we first hit the road to Santa Cruz where, my friend Ori believed, his next big romance waited with open arms. We spent days winding slowly through the west Texas desert, stopping every fifteen minutes or so to make sure we read every single historical marker along the way. At night we threw open the tailgate on his aging Ford F150 pickup, filled the back with old brightly colored Mexican blankets, and slept under the stars.

Somewhere at the very start of the journey I decided it was time for a change and chopped my mohawk haircut down to a tiny sprout that sprung up like a leak from the top of my head. I had recently quit my job and so any weak remnants of constraint brought on by the corporate world were dropped with those locks into a bathroom trash can. The mohawk could still be left down to, in some ways, resemble normal hair. The sprout protruding from my barren dome left little doubt as to my general abnormality.

My plan for the new hair was to ultimately grow it into a kung fu-esqe braid, giving me a somewhat funky style and yet leaving me with hair that could easily be cut by my friends in the back yard. This would also forever free me from the oppressive hair stylist corporate machine, breaking the cycle of endless haircuts they used to keep me paying into their scheme. This was the plan, but the little braid I began to call a “dilbus” grew to be so much more…

Several years earlier I had experimented with purple hair. At first I styled it very normally, and even showed up at work in a three piece suit the first day. Two girls I didn’t know well were struggling visibly to contain themselves when they saw me. They finally let loose when a friend came into the room and immediately broke into laughter, thus making it OK. What could they have been thinking? That I was somehow taking myself seriously and would be offended that they were laughing at my bright purple hair?!

They proved to be the exception and I quickly learned the value of making a visible statement that I was, in effect, clowning and therefore ready and willing to be interacted with. People would chat with me on the street, or come up and ask me about it at clubs. As someone who loves people, but sometimes has trouble starting conversations, this was solid gold.

The dilbus followed much the same principle and I can’t be happier with the results. People remember me. Strangers come over to greet me on the street. Little kids go nuts when I dance and spin it around my head. It’s the ultimate conversation piece, and always leads to more interesting interaction. In one of my favorite and most extreme examples, I was buying a hard drive at a chain store. The experience was typically cold and lifeless until I got to the register, where the girl working it leapt up over the counter, gleefully tossled my hair and shouted, “wow no way what is this?!”

In keeping with the tradition of having friends be involved in the process, the dilbus has also become a canvas for artists. It’s been dozens of tiny braids, several forked braids, intricate weaves, the shape of a cube, a tree, and even a crazy glowing sculpture covered with dangling, glowing rings. It even once served as a gesture of truce when someone with whom I was experiencing a bit of tension and conflict offered to take a minute to rebraid it. That quiet moment between us conveyed so much that couldn’t be spoken at the time.

My bicycle helmet has a special hole through the top for the dilbus. It’s actually how a friend of mine recognized me when we first met formally. “Hey, you’re that guy that bikes through campus with the crazy braid!” Hats are a different story, though, and despite how much I like wearing them I don’t think I’ve ever done it without having at least one person have a nervous breakdown. “Where is it? I can’t see it! Did you cut it off?!” Maybe I need a little sign for my hats, “dilbus inside”.

For now I can’t foresee the day when it too will pass, but there are plenty of angry girlfriends with scissors between now and my ultimate demise. Until then when you ask me how it’s hangin’, I’ll always know what you mean.