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Diffstat (limited to 'published')
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2016-05-15_root-down.txt | 31 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2016-05-24_back-from-somewhere.txt | 49 |
2 files changed, 80 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/published/2016-05-15_root-down.txt b/published/2016-05-15_root-down.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14c0b00 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2016-05-15_root-down.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +One of the interesting things about moving is the archeology it requires, digging through layers of accumulation to reveal yourself. The longer you've been in one location the more stuff that's accumulated. As far as I can tell there is no real way to combat the detritus of the world seeping into your space, saving cutting off all contact with the outside world. I imagine monasteries are generally immaculate; the rest of use get out the pick axes and clear the rubble. + +At first I spent a lot time thinking how hard it is to move, but then I realized it's probably no harder to move out than it was to move in. Moving out just happens to severely compress time. You acquire over the span of 10 years. You un-acquire in a matter of weeks. + +But in between the crap, the dirt as it were there are the occasional shards of pottery and other things of interest. It's fun re-discovering this stuff. + +Many moons ago I was down in Laguna Beach, CA at the now long gone Tippecanoe's clothing store when I ran across a relatively innocuous dark olive green shirt. Probably handmade, it looked a bit like an old-style baseball jersey, with an iron-on number three in red on the front pocket. On the back it had a cheery serif script that read "Fuck Our Society", flanked on either side by anarchy A's in padlocks. You bet your ass I bought it. + +I was in a band back then and I played quite a few shows in it. My friend Ruben asked me to play with his band on the side, I'm pretty sure just because he wanted the shirt on stage with him.But this was Orange County CA in the mid to late 1990s, deviations from the norm simply didn't happen. I didn't wear it out much. Wearing it has always been a kind of performance. I haven't warn since I moved back east in 1999. + +Once, on the way to a show, we stopped at Trader Joe's to grab a snack for the road and while we were standing in line I felt a tap on the shoulder. I had been conscious of wearing the shirt since I got out of the car so I turned around expecting some kind of confrontation, but it was a tiny woman, not much over five feet tall who looked me up and down and then smiled and said, "I like your shirt." + +I felt like that was probably the shirt's high water mark. I don't think I've worn it since. Why do I still have it? Fuck our society's obsession with keeping things. I fired off an email to a friend I knew would want it and it's gone. + +This particular purge is probably the biggest I've ever done, both because we've been in this house the longest and because I've made the most money. Money, no matter how frugal you might be, seems to breed stuff. It's not the purchases or the money that bother me though. Not even the dumb things like the $1300 TV that's now worth essentially nothing. It's the little things I did not stop myself from getting. It's the lack of personal awareness they demonstrate. The old banjo that caught my eye at a junk shop outside of Nashville, the old mailing label and postage box set, the antique cards, the mediocre books that could have been checked out and returned and the coffee mugs. How many coffee mugs do I actually need? How many books am I reading right now? + +All these little things are symptoms of my failure to appreciate things without possessing them. + +I sold what I could on eBay. I took the books to a friend's yard sale and looked at them on the ground there in a cardboard box before I finally realized there was nothing special about them at all. + +The rest of the accumulation I pitched into boxes and dumped at my favorite local charity thrift store. + +Not everything goes though. I'm not a minimalist counting up my possessions. Not yet anyway. The bus may not be huge, but it's downright roomy compared to traveling with only a pack. We also have a storage unit for now. There are things I don't want to throw away, but which also don't belong in the bus. Like old photographs, which are probably the most exciting artifacts to stumble across in a moving dig. + +It worries me sometimes that it's always the same photographs I discover whenever I undertake these excavations. The photographs I have are a reasonable catalogue of my life from roughly when I dropped out of college until about 2001 when I switched to a digital camera. There are no physical artifacts documenting anything in my life for the last 15 years, save a handful of prints from our wedding. + +On the plus side this keeps the entirety of my photo collection to single shoe box. But I wonder. I wonder how much fun it will be to dig through your parent's hard drive in search of your youth. Will the hard drive even spin 50 years from now? Will there be an operating system and image viewers capable of reading all those zeros and ones? Do you have anything that could read the tape archives of 50 years ago? + +I don't normally advocate for buying stuff, but a [Fuji Instax printer](http://instax.com/products/printer/) is on our short list of trip purchases. I want to leave my kids a record of their childhood that exists outside these digital walls. + +That's always the hard part of these excavations, figuring out what actually has personal value and what doesn't. I find I'm often wrong. I thought the banjo and the books had value to me, but they don't. Five years ago I almost threw out the photos. Now they're the only thing I keep around. diff --git a/published/2016-05-24_back-from-somewhere.txt b/published/2016-05-24_back-from-somewhere.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bf380e --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2016-05-24_back-from-somewhere.txt @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +My kids love to do new things. At least they think they do. They're really good at getting excited about things. Like most kids (I imagine), they get excited about things even when I know they have only a dim inkling of what those things might actually entail. The idea, the anticipation, is often more exciting in fact than the actual thing. + +<img src="images/2016/skate-show_2016-05-21_132528.jpg" class="picwide" /> + +I went to get some coffee the other morning and noticed that the Jittery Joe's roaster was hosting a [skate contest](https://www.facebook.com/events/1126780367373997/) the following Saturday. Skating and surfing more or less defined my existence (along with punk rock) from junior high through, well, now. + +I try not to steer my kids in any particular direction. I try to expose them to as many different things as possible and see where they're drawn. But secretly I really hope they end up liking a few of the things I did when I was a kid, like skate boarding. So I mentioned the skate contest the night before and showed them a bit of the old Bones Brigade video. They were entertained for a few minutes and then they wanted to move on to something else. + +I figured the actual skate contest would be the same way: take it in for an hour or so and then slowly interest would wane and we'd all head home. That's about how it generally goes when we take them to any sort of organized event. + +This time, however, I was wrong. They could not get enough of the skating. Neither the intense afternoon sun beating down on the concrete slab of parking lot nor the humidity left over from morning rains deterred them. We were there all afternoon, over four hours of skating, pulled pork and the occasional train rolling by. They never stopped loving it. + +<img src="images/2016/skate-show_2016-05-21_132922.jpg" class="picfull caption" /> + +And neither did I. I haven't skated in years. Over a decade. And even before that most I did was use my old board to go get cigarettes from the gas station down the street. But skating culture, along with surfing culture and punk culture are things that were a huge part of me and that has never never gone away, even if I mostly watch from afar these days. + +I still feel more at home among skaters, surfers and punks than anywhere else. + +<img src="images/2016/skate-show_2016-05-21_131807.jpg" class="picfull" /> + +Since having kids though I've accidentally drifted away from that culture. There are practical considerations. It's hard to get out to shows, the beach is a really long way away and I no longer have a skateboard. Instead I find myself at the sort of "kid friendly" affairs I swore I would never go to. And you know what, I was right, those things suck. And they aren't very kid friendly either. But we're remarkably adaptable creatures. Do something enough and it starts to feel normal, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. + +I spent so much time not fitting in at kids birthday parties and "kid friendly" events around town I forgot that there was actually people with whom I did fit in. I'd forgotten that I had a people. + +The Shredder Joes contest was a nice reminder that there are still sane, friendly, open people out there in the world among whom I feel at home. + +On the drive home Corrinne turned to me and said "I know it's been 18 years, but I felt more at home there than I do at any of these hipster family bullshit events we go to." I'd been thinking a similar thing, but I'd been wondering why. + +Why did the kids want to spend four hours watching skaters and can't be bothered with a petting zoo for more than five minutes? + +I have a few theories, but the one that's most appealing is pretty simple: because the world of skating doesn't have rules. There are the basics rules of taking turns and accommodating the people around you, but for the most part you are expected to do whatever you want to do. The petting zoos and the kid friendly events are full of waiting in line and doing as you're told. + +Another part of it is the welcoming nature of people in skate/surf/punk scene. That's not to say there aren't assholes in any group of people. There absolutely are, especially surfers who can be real territorial, but [exceptions aside](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-surfer-gang-enforcement-20160211-story.html), generally, if you have the humility to start at the bottom, you'll be accepted eventually. It's even easier if you're a kid, I've seen some of the scariest looking heavily tattooed Hawaiian surfers move aside with a smile for some kid just learning[^1]. The thing about learning a skill like surfing or skating is that you never forget that it is *learned*, and that tends to create sympathy for those who are just starting out. + +<img src="images/2016/skate-show_2016-05-21_132009.jpg" class="picfull" /> + +Another thing that I think makes the skate/surf/punk scene different is that it's built around practice and failure. Watching skating is watching failure after failure until that time when you stick it and suddenly all that failure is gone. People comfortable with failure typically have less to prove. It was always my experience that skaters, surfers and punks were really only trying to prove something when they're skating, surfing or playing. Hipster parent events are one big gathering of uptight people with something to prove and nowhere to prove it. The difference between the two is palpable. + +It could also be that those scenes are full of people who, by necessity, have mastered their fears. To a degree anyway. You can only get so far in skating if you're afraid of getting hurt. I know this because I was always too afraid of getting hurt to be any good[^2]. Anyone willing to drop in on a backyard ramp or empty pool has necessarily mastered at least some of their fear. Fear closes you up, it feeds on itself. + +Whatever it is that makes these things different my kids seem to pick up on it. + +The skate show was also the single most diverse event I've ever been to in Athens. With one exception, there was not a single woman skating. That was disappointing, but when we got home I pulled up some videos of [Vanessa Torres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMocKem3N4c), [Elissa Steamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IgE_JXiBs) and [Peggy Oki](http://www.peggyoki.com/about-me/peggy-oki-dogtown-and-z-boys), along with some great home videos of girls skating on YouTube to balance things out. + +The best part of the day for me though was on the way home when Olivia asked if she could have a skateboard for her birthday. Absolutely. + + +[^1]: Whereas, while still friendly, they did not hesitate to cut me or my friend Andy out of any wave they wanted. +[^2]: Put me in the water and my fear disappears, but concrete? That shit hurts. And I could never get past that enough to get any better. |