Chasing Mr. Bautista

There were times when I was mad at Benito Bautista for putting me in awkward situations. "Go ahead, talk to her!" he said to me on a flight to Bicol, the island boasting the most perfect volcano in the world. "Ask her questions." He unpacked his obtrusive digital 8 camera and pointed it at us. Smiling nervously and flush from embarrassment, she had the window seat and I was next to her, unable to speak, just as embarrassed. Dissappointed, Bautista put his camera away. He would get really mad a week later when I resisted the idea of singing with an acoustic guitar at the birthday fiesta of Ramon Magsaysay, then-governor of Zambales, a coastal province north of Manila. Luckily, the fiesta was bigger than we thought and Magsasay was behind dozens of armed guards on a balcony, above the masses, far from my guitar.

But over years of friendship the most important lessons I learned from Bautista was that making ideas come to life, whether an art show in San Francisco, a documentary in the guise of a surf trip or a post-modern psychological thriller, takes a single-pointed focus and success depends on building community. Venturing out on my own creative pursuits, he remains a source of inspiration as the competition I can't keep up with and the mentor who leads by example.

Though it's been years since working with the five-man crew on the Gift of Barong, the 2-3 years of intense involvement led us from conception (my invitation came sitting at the wall, post-surf, at Lindamar Beach in Pacifica) through post-production and the hustling of the film to festivals and screenings as various as Riordan High School and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum and MoMa. The years were a blur of grassroots fundraisers, shows and dinners and parties with producers, musicians and supporters. Benito was at the helm for all of these, able to go from talking business to explaining his vision, all the while cracking jokes and spreading good vibes. Though I rarely see Benito these days, social networking allows me to keep up on the life of this eternally youthful man who never keeps still and never stops working.

O' he e Nalu

The completion of the installation hit me when I saw two young ladies with smart phones taking pictures of two of my old surfboards, one band-sawed in half, the other table-sawed into cross-sections in boxes in the gallery. The goal of the pieces and the collaboration with Peter L'abbe was to make an experience. The editor from * posted something along that lines of how art should be something visceral and I went the "fanciful" route in my head with this project the same way I thought I could relate "The Large Glass", by Marcel Duchamp, to "Truth and Lies" by Nietzsche, in a term paper. I got an A, but she said it was fanciful.

For instance: telegraph is a form of communication; or rather, telegraph is a vehicle for communication. Classic Cars West, where "O' he e Nalu, Objects of Inquiry" is displayed, is on 27th Ave. between Broadway and Telegraph Blvd. Telegraph goes six miles north into Berkeley where I work. My coworker, who lives off Telegraph walked five miles north to his house after losing his girlfriend in the crowd.

The significance of having a street party, whether it's called First Fridays or Art Murmur, on Telegraph once a month isn't lost in my associative disorder. The stirrings and hopes of something revolutionary are not lost in this. Is it possible to communicate hope through a street name through a street party through the Telegraph?

Well, I ask because I can, I imagine because I hope, and I accept this fanciful outlook because I believe. Not in a word or an abstraction, but in what's in front of me. From electronic bits to blood, sweat and tears, you are reality. saludos at salamat

warehouse abstract

Current projects fit in the space how?

First major build out would be a "wall of windows", surrounding the music studio. This is a cheap way to get studio quality soundproofing. We can also insulate a first wall with blue jeans, or both walls. We can rig a pulley system that reconfigures the room so the bandspace is the open center.

Fake storefront entrance? -- Can we play w/portable subdivisions? Is this getting a little convoluted.

What would bring in money? Counseling--------->(wtf, Jon?) Psychologists would be present to interact with no preconceived notion of structured hierarchy. How this relates is a little obtuse.

BRAF--I have to believe that their revolutionary premise interpreting a "decolonization aspect" through their diversity clause in their mission statement makes them okay. Extending this to the Bayview Boom festival, we can provide more access to the public with a non-profit or education designation. A community would benefit as a vocational aspect is provided. In a horizontal integration we can supplement places that are doing metal work, etc. Connections to neighbors in skilled trades is the center of this.

List of hypothetical projects

1. band rehearsal/music studio
2. community workspace w/ set hours
3. subdivided art space (though this has been done, what makes this different?"
4. Gallery/cafe space
5. Theater
6. Co-op/hostel
Beyond the potential fun for this property, what sort of professional front/business plan can we put together and execute?

Theory of Fluid Space--the living situation changes depending on what type of projects are happening.

1. Reverse Everything--project becomes living space center-these are compressed and fluid.

2. Dedicated Areas are Anchored (yet may be portable)
a. kitchen
b. bathrooms
c. shared comfort zone, communal, where our friends are free to stay.
d. band room
e. stage
f. Deitch-inspired skate bowl installation

Essentially, it doesn't have to be dogmatic with an overly-complex mission statement. The progressive thing would be making a decentralized zone aware of the specifics of each project whether artistic, spiritual, hedonistic or civic in nature. Essentially it's a playhouse, where artistic work ethic, community and joy are the center. We're attempting to further our careers in a multi-disciplinary time.

Observing other spaces

a. SummitSF would be more successful if it escaped the subdivisions. There is an air of seriousness inside from space users that the patrons are not privy to, thus the weight and lack of customer interaction. (pretentious)

b. Ritual Valencia has is anchored by a huge box surrounded by pseudo-scientific coffee-making devices. Glaring waste of space and somewhat formulaic.

c. Philz, Folsom and 24th--Fluid Space!! So fucking old school. Middle Eastern practicality that has grown as the business has grown. It's organic without trying too hard. the product is good and the atmosphere is homie instead of staged.

Black Rock Arts Foundation Letter of Intent

Low estimate: $8500, considering price of car, insurance, registration, smog, fees for registration as "tour bus" among other requirements for street legality, even outside of materials, stipend for contributing artists and ideal final version of the car.

My computer crashed right at the deadline for this. Such a bummer. Sought solace in scanning old half-done sketches.

Studio 13

A. Physical presence and theme

This art car is a direct jab at realty greed. San Francisco lacks space for musicians to rehearse, especially if they can’t afford to pay for space. SF is one of the most expensive places to live, so the local scene lacks diversity compared to other places. Inspired by my virgin Playa adventure in 2011, the Studio 13 double-decker art car will be used by over half a dozen local bands ranging from rappers, djs and turntablists, to hardcore and pop-punkers.

The name Studio 13 is in honor of the rehearsal space at Tommy Guerrero's Audiobox Studios that housed the Freshkimos, Golda Supernova, Slashton, and Ghosts and Strings for over a year, a prolific time before the two lessees could no longer afford the rent. Aside from dedicated rehearsal space, goals for Studio 13 include: 1. Helping local music/education foundations. 2. Coordinating with activist communities to provide big audio for hedonistic and political actions. 3. Creating a live talk show, Manafrio radio. Local activists and journalists will be free to hold panels, interviews and give speeches.

When there are no scheduled speakers and no band is using the car, the public can still hold a conversation. 4. Bringing the Playa spirit to the S.F. streets by offering free rides to revelers at night, from the Mission to Potrero and throughout SoMa. This cuts down on drunk drivers and offers a magical experience for passengers.

B. Physical Presence, Frequency of Exhibition and Relation to BRAF theme of "Interactivity"

The heart of Studio 13 is a converted bus or van. The exterior will have swirling, wavy metal and fiberglass work inspired by the ocean and interlaced with mostly found or secondhand mirrors and possibly a few old televisions wired with closed-circuit cameras. This composes the “Sea of Vanity”. I may look to Flux Foundation for help with the body work. The second level of the art car is a wooden boat inspired by Southeast Asian “outrigger” boats from Indonesia or the Philippines whose design and construction would passed on to CCA masters student Peter L'labbe.

Both components will be joined by a spiral staircase at the rear of the vehicle. Cushioned benches will line the boat’s perimeter with two forward facing benches and room for a coffin DJ booth at the bow of the boat, though the merits of having the booth at the port side (the sidewalk side) may rearrange things a bit. Handrails and moorings will surround Studio 13 with a space for a pole in the middle that will serve as a mast for tarps or a parachute. The boat may also have outriggers to give it the genuine aesthetic of the aforementioned while serving double duty as a bike rack and weather shelter that may or may not rise up for driving.

Inside, we can maintain the upholstery that doesn’t impede storage/transportation of the audio system and its mobile components. Now, the dream scenario would be new electronic systems with amps and a huge amount of wattage and whatnot all plugged into an interface with modern electronic amenities, but at present I’m looking at this project from a minimalist perspective. There must be room to keep the 8 x 10 Ampeg bass cab and the tiny 12-channel portable PA system with its two monitors that I already have. If we can keep the interior intact, all the better, as it’d be nice to if the van could hold as many passengers as possible. At a minimum all we need to buy is a generator and rewire the stock speakers and radio to make the system integrated.

As far as when this project appears, it seems contingent on weather and our own weather proofing, and law-enforcement and legality. The option of rehearsing on a warm fall day by the zoo and ocean is a Bacchanalian dream, just as providing a public forum for political discourse in San Francisco, while exciting in its own merits, is scary. Also, the idea of having art car frequency increase in San Francisco brings up questions of whether it takes away from experience on the Playa.

While my lesson from Burning Man was that there is no such thing as a default world and that we should strive for magic and transformative experience as frequently as possible, some diehards might beg to differ. And though I feel that BM has started to change the world (I didn’t know that those burn barrels at Ocean Beach were paid for by BRAF! I grew up surfing down there!) in a sort of unconscious way (really, how much is Occupy Wall Street possible without decades of people not questioning the merits of camping out in a treacherous desert for art, music and burning stuff’s sake), I’m not one to assume that this project can be overtly political on its face (though I just read the BRAF mission statement!). Anyway, given the opportunity to bring this project to fruition, I would personally see to it that its potential as a transformative, community-oriented vehicle, bringing music and audio to the world would be everywhere in this city that it’s needed.

And since that mission statement is fresh in my mind, I will state that I’ve become increasingly enamored with the Occupy Movement and its potential for change. If my involvement increases from ivory tower/facebook activist to front line, I would use this project much in the same way I would on the playa: it’d be shared in all the ways my delusions would provide me.

That being said, I feel like there is an aesthetic/frequency of appearance ratio that has a somewhat fine line. The more frequent Studio 13 appears the less gaudy and more professional and subtle it should be, especially considering that audio is the central impact of the project. But that in-itself is debatable.

C. Fit with BRAF Mission Statement, Civics and Community

Studio 13 fits the BRAF mission most directly in the vein of community. It's primary and founding purpose (1) as a portable rehearsal space is a direct reaction to a lack of resource for a community of musicians, many of whom grew up in the Filipino-activist community in SoMa. The first gigs for Slashton, for instance, were in annual festivals like Pistahan and Asian-American talent competitions. After the original Studio 13 became too expensive to maintain, Slashton, along with Freshkimos and some other bands became inactive.

The dynamic of this community of musicians serving SoMa, as many of the musicians worked with youth groups like United Playaz and Loco Bloco, changed, with less concerts and promotion, putting music on the backburner for many folks who'd just learned the first lessons of what goes into live music. This put added pressure to re-open Bindlestiff Studio on Sixth and Howard, so there would be a place for theater productions or even jam sessions and parties.

This is just one facet of the potential for community involvement with the Studio 13 art car project. This describes the relationship of community art to the "Institutional Hierarchy" that has everything to do with positions in the monetary scale. Another aspect of this is (2) the potential to work with youth in SoMa who would never have an opportunity to play on a professional bass amp or drum set anywhere, much less any spot in the Bay Area that could logistically be reached by the art car, the beach, Treasure Island, an open pier on the Embarcadero. Golda Supernova, an activist, poet and singer, has been working as an artist since she was a teenager. She and her husband, Wern, who played bass for Slashton, now have children who are following in their parents footsteps picking up the guitar, getting comfortable with the spotlight of performing. Having studied journalism at City College at the beginning of the decade, I was introduced to activism at an interesting time--2000 till 2005--when my first stint as editor of The Guardsman newspaper coincided with a time of unprecedented upheaval--I'd never seen so many pissed off people decrying the patriotism and reactionary politics.

I was swept into it, learned the power of print and research, and burnt out after we invaded Iraq. But the time is right. (3) I've been imagining a live-talk show for over three years now, but had to wait for music to stall and be left in a strange limbo with an excess of musical equipment (It felt like the Lord of the Rings with amps instead of rings!), run into a group of crazy people who'd multiplied since my surfer friends returned from the desert in 2000 hell-bent on renting water trucks for some "Mirage" something or other, buying white suits when we were in Indonesia for what sounded like a cult, wondering what was going on with all of the bikes with PA systems during Critical Masses that looked so fun from my lonely window working at Harvest Market, and finally getting dragged to some weird Potrero Hill address in late October when I was more concerned with the Giants in the Playoffs and Jimi James' amazing full moon party in Pacifica.

I was just like these people and my crazy ideas were encouraged instead of dismissed. I'd found something that I never wanted to stop. And I didn’t care that my buddy painted over the stuff I’d worked on down the stage from the Mermen and the crazy lady offered $500, because I’d never been so happy. I guess this last rant could cover my last bullet point (4) the importance of hedonistic action to balance all the civics, something Joseph Campbell would understand and make archetypes out of.

Caveat on Manafrio radio

Just to clarify, point 3 is an artistic concept that I've been pondering for a while now: the question posed is this: What happens when an every day dialogue between people, two or more, is broadcast on a powered P.A. system in a public place like Dolores Park or Justin Herman Plaza. If the parties are uninhibited in their expression and empathetic in listening and using their highest potential--through past education, current spiritual paradigm and personal barriers of trust, abuse, memory, etc.--is not the conversation heard just as profound, insightful and transforming as any educated, power-based, hierarchical or canonical discussion or panel? I've been curious about this for years. Though this doesn't take away the importance of the aforementioned "expertise" I feel that this experiment could reveal a lot and the Studio 13 project could easily suit both the personal and the expert-based discussion. This is civic, interactive and community-oriented.

Black Rock Arts Proposal 1 of 2

Studio 13 Portable Rehearsal Space

This art car aims at realty greed. There is a lack of spaces for SF musicians to rehearse, especially if they're working hard to ends meet. SF is one of the most expensive places to live, so the local scene lacks diversity compared to other places. Inspired by my virgin Playa adventure in 2011, the Studio 13 art car will be used by over half a dozen local bands ranging from hip-hop, dj-ing and turntablism, to hardcore and pop-punk bands among others. The name Studio 13 is in honor of the rehearsal space at Tommy Guerrero's Audiobox Studios that housed the Freshkimos, Golda Supernova, Slashton, Ghosts and Strings, among others, for over a year, a prolific time for all the bands before the two leasees could no longer afford the rent.

Aside from dedicated rehearsal space, the goals for the art car include:

1. Helping local music/education foundations.

2. Coordinating with activists communities like #OccupySF, S.F. Bike Coalition, Sunday Streets and Bindlestiff Studios to provide portable audio for hedonistic and political actions.

3. Creating a public talk show, Manafrio radio, coordinated with internet broadcast capabilities through fccfree radio and ustream.com. Local activists and journalists will be free to hold panels, interviews and give speeches. When no scheduled speakers are available and no band is using the car, people in public will be allowed to use the microphones to hold a conversation.

4. Bringing the Playa spirit to the S.F. streets by offering free rides to S.F. revelers at night, circling from the Mission to Potrero and through SoMa. This will cut down on drunk drivers and offer a magical experience for passengers. Hopefully this will spur other people with art cars to do the same.

Aesthetic

The joyful pilot art car of Studio 13 is a converted van outfitted with dozens of mirrors within a metal frame. The mirrors, "The Sea of Vanity", creates an everchanging dance of color and reflective light while masking "the guts" of the car--a plug-in portable rehearsal space! The second level of the car is a wooden boat crafted by CCA masters student Peter L'abbe and inspired by outrigger construction of Southeast Asian boats (with removable outriggers), which will be adjoined by a spiral staircase and surrounded by a safety bar with perimeter benches, and cushions.

Our hope is that the voyage of Studio 13 helps bands who've been unable to rehearse and inspires the next generation of musicians through visits with our art car. Our intention is to be on a regular schedule with those involved in music education, help local bands rehearse and provide audio for a wide-range of purposes and activities in San Francisco.

Regular Stops

Dolores Park
Justin Herman Plaza
Powell St.
Sloat and Great Hwy.
Haight St. food truck outpost
Noe St. Farmers Market

I first learned of the Enclosure Movement in England in a renaissance literature class at S.F. State. Though the professor's droning reading of his own papers brought yawns and prevented my full attention, this idea of the beginning of fences and borders that would lead to Manifest Destiny in the Americas stuck with me. When Orwell speaks of Oceania in the digest section of 1984 he includes the Americas, the British Isles and parts of Western Europe.

I have no claim to expertise in what went into the movement and online sources are slim. One short definition in thefreedictionary.com summarizes:

"Division or consolidation of communal lands in Western Europe into the carefully delineated and individually owned farm plots of modern times. Before enclosure, farmland was under the control of individual cultivators only during the growing season; after harvest and before the next growing season, the land was used by the community for the grazing of livestock and other purposes. In England the movement for enclosure began in the 12th century and proceeded rapidly from 1450 to 1640; the process was virtually complete by the end of the 19th century. In the rest of Europe, enclosure made little progress until the 19th century. Common rights over arable land have now been largely eliminated."

Four centuries since the time of Shakespeare, it seems we've reached another milepost at the end of industrial revolution. It's become clear that as civilized animals who have technology, we may have gone as far as we can in "manifesting destiny". Postwar suburban sprawl has proven itself as unsustainable if abandoned towns and bankrupt city governments are any indication and Orwell's 1984 is prophetic. His claim of the State controlling the populace with armed police and control over resources--limiting access to food, shelter, etc. depending on your place within the caste sytem--would be seen as "paranoid" and "crazy" if not for events that have occurred over the last few years.

Naomi Klein's viral article "The Truth About the Crackdown on the Occupy Movement" from the Guardian U.K. lays out in clear terms that Occupy's "dissent"--a term which ironically fits of a movement who many claim to have no message or demand--is not welcome in our current climate of governmental shakeup. Klein writes, "The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests."

The Department of Homeland Security defines centralized policing and security. Folks who would dispute that will also be not-so-politely asked to remove their shoes when traveling freely by airplane, a humiliating new reminder of control for Nietzsche's beasts (Genealogy of Morals).

Anyway, please excuse the pretentious exercise of reference and paraphrase. I will continually rewrite this essay (second day) till it is streamlined and informative.

The aesthetic argument of OWS is the most telling because it rejects : people are outside camping. This is a rejection of the status quo and in the bigger picture, the enclosure movement that has marked Oceanic culture since the invention of the printing press.

Find joy always, first and foremost, apart from bottom line. Outside of this simple physical/aesthetic decision, the matrix of words and politics must be objectified. You are not a number or a commodity. You are spirit incarnate. You must scramble and redefine what they are giving us, bending the matrix like an artist (Nietzsche said the artist is the one who changes the symbols). Everything must start over: university, spirituality, exchange of goods. There must be a hermetic seal with full awareness of how the power center operates at its borders. An organization like Burning Man is fully aware of its transcendent nature and maintains a relationship with law enforcement, thus, citizens of the temporary Black Rock City are more insulated from oppression than they are at an event like Love Evolution.

In a sense, we return to tribalism and natural law in our physical lives. As strange as it feels, we exist tribally--communicating physically--more than we realize. In our modernity, we've numbed ourselves to this fact. You are grumpy with a courageous soft heart. It's not going to be easy because we have to learn trust. I love you with all my heart. You are the children of the revolution.

Morning in Davao

Now the mysterious familiarity of the now-defunct Surf Maniac Camp is explainable. In 2000 there was an internal clock of comfort that went off when we entered the traditionally built, three story building crawling with ants and geckos, the skinny, crazy-eyed owner offering coffee and massages that felt like death pinches, the highest point on the hill above Uluwatu. I'm now the non-tagalog speaking gnomon at the circle gathered around the bottles of beer. My cousin keeps offering me smokes and I cut myself off at two. Bicycles with sidecars and umbrellas pass in front of the neighbors, who've set up a pink tent over the barbecue that sits streetside with the backlight of fluorescent lights.

There's an equilibrium, as if the failure of western economies and infrastructure is just theatre, a flawed tragedy that has nothing to do with how we're really supposed to live and interact with each other. The child at the end of 100 Years of Solitude, dead and crawling with ants, has another meaning now. There's still time. In my ignorance I didn't know why they were calling Marquez's book as important as the bible till this family reunion.

Don't know how women withstand the mental stimulation of so many winks, pokes and inane messages online: facebook, okcupid, twitter. Locked to a keyboard, no fear of carpal tunnel, we're jailed. Bank of America now has bullet proof glass surrounding their tellers. Whole Foods has computer monitors giving numbers of the next available cashier in a snaking airport security line, doors safely surrounded by glass partitions. The underlying theme of these designs is maximizing safety, controlling interaction with the public. It's unclear whether we feel the cynicism behind these societal changes.

But it begs the question: are we already trapped in the system? and how guilty am I for my own winks, pokes and inane messages online?

bye bye

Fuck it. Yeah, I don't need to be doing this anymore. I'm too exposed when typing my life into a desperate news real over the internet. Invitations occur regardless of the pool of life that is scrambling and swirling our minds and feelings. The past floats in and out of my life, a constant reminder of triumphs and failures. My good friend Nathan did it first. And now I have in a sense freed myself. It's melting my mind. Just put the computer back to its correct place as a tool. I'm about to lose my mind. I'm wondering if this technology has something to do with it. I haven't felt normal for the last two years and I've been on facebook for about two. It's time. Countdown to reality. Dive back in...

Decompression

He dropped down from the rock-and-roll floater, tail two feet below the nose of his board, hands at 12 and 6 o'clock, feet cross body, front knee to back elbow for the recoil from the drop. Andy Irons taildrop body english was etched in my mind. I could hear Perry Ferrell covering the Stones in that last great ...lost video, Lost at Sea, "Please allow me to introduce myself..." Just a bunch of friends who ripped and lived life to its fullest.

That's what I imagined before the sun set, October 10th, 10-10-10, paint brush in my hand, negative space shadows of figures in the barrel, airs, mist blowing out the back of the waves, painting before a crowd of strange, energized people, on one of two pieces of plywood my friend and I worked on from noon to midnight, under the freeway in San Francisco. I drew Andy right over a barrel like it was that same wave at Lance's.

The Mermen jammed out electronic fuzz and high octane 64th note delays, surf guitars on acid, and I was dressed like Hunter S. Thompson painting on chocolate covered mushrooms...it felt like my scene. Billy Shatner had run off into the crowd after his muse, down by the sculptures, closer to the techno. I'd paint for an hour, feigning some kind of structuralism, overly intellectual, cryptic lazy scrawls, some homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat, "Don't ever be sad", "I have a strange anthropomorphic bent", then Shatner would come back, the wild-eyed, dialated Aquarian, absorbing drama from his girl's intense feminism and paint fluorescent green over my shadow figures and waves I worked so hard on, Pollock splashes with the paint water, hand washes over psychedelic pastoral moment I imagined, gone forever. "He's so subtle," I heard earlier. The hippy girl in the half-vest snuck up behind me at one point and shot video, so subtly I didn't have time to think about her--curly brown locks, caramel skin--a moment of synchronicity, then she was gone.

I'm painting surf scenes stage left while the Mermen plug everyone into the air. Vanity strikes: First wave stood on, 1987, Lindamar Beach; surf, punk rock third wave, Mission gentrification opens the door to masses with tech money, bio, computer, hipsters in waves, 2000, the Albion becomes Delirium, 2007, Member's Only jackets, nylons and bicycles, Valencia looking like Sunset Blvd...live music, Frieda Kahlo parades on Dia De Los Muertos, playing a cello as a bass 23rd and Folsom, banging a floor tom with Ghost, 24th and Bryant, and the sun is setting, the Giants are about to win the penant, I had my first Giants hat when I was six. I was there--inside my head I'm screaming at Billy "SHE SAID SHE WOULD PAY $500!!!!! STOP PAINTING ON IT!!! WHY DID YOU PAINT OVER MY WAVES!!!!!"

I would wander off through the crowd for an hour while he painted, then we'd switch. Toward the end of the night he was quickly leaving for another world, his eyes the only thing to read. Hurt, worry...the muse is still open, his dad is still sick in the hospital...The sea is swirling, fluorescent, pagan, electric, tribal, weird shit is happening everywhere. They wanna look for more drugs. They're gonna wander down the block. The boys are young, talented, we're all friends. We're just looking to have a good time, she says. The look says, don't take her away. Don't take him either, not now.

I remember this, I swear. We're all in this together. Let's have another drink. Smoke a J. Furry hats and jackets, topless girls with face paint. None of that matters. That lady wasn't gonna buy the painting anyway. The money doesn't matter. We'll probably never see her again. It's not about the money. She was drunk off her ass...Let's get this shit done. Let's get you home. Yeah, I can drive. She's already there...

It all washed away. The moment was eternal, maximum. The sun set like a wave crashing. Two weeks later a parachute drew fire by the sea, in the rain, under a full moon. The Giants won the World Series on Dia De Los Muertos in Texas. Andy Irons died that same night in Dallas. Everything was different after that. I don't know how, but it was. The gates had opened. Now, sometimes I just don't wanna go to sleep...

So...

The coincidences led me forward. Yes, in a hippy-mystical way like James Redfield's book, "The Celestine Prophecy"...synchronicity leads you forward in a moment of indecision when you don't know what direction you're life should go. The higher power in whatever form shows you signs that you just need to be ready for, awake, alert, conscious: you've been thinking about going to Mexico and suddenly a commercial comes on TV to visit the Yucatan or you overhear a conversation where someone just got back from Cabo. You wonder whether you should study biology and your friend asks you if you want to go to the zoo.

But let me get rid of any vanity of being destined for something, even if it could be true. I've been drifting because I'm lazy, not because of a dizzying encounter with a chasm in my life. Yes, I do believe in the void, but it's ruined many a moment where I should've just put my arms around a girl instead of dragging her to the edge as if she didn't know that the dark existed.

In the last six months, where my sanity has been in question, I had moments roaming around San Francisco, drunk, stoned, with a guitar occasionally, trying to figure out where to go. I worked at Whole Foods for five years up until last June. The work paid just enough to keep me from complaining, but not enough to really ever get ahead. My coworkers and I shared a sort of entitled bohemian existence where nights out drinking helped ignore the question of whether we or not we deserved better then working in a grocery store. It's easy to say "yes, of course. Fuck that, I know..." But this question is deeply political and sociological. What is this better life we deserve? The tech nerds are rich and they can afford to shop at a place like Whole Foods. Their occasional displays of class conscious arrogance are the bain of many a charming artist jockying a cash register when they want to ring up a case of twelve bottles of champaigne in the 8 items or less express lane. They can afford to go out whenever they want and numb their brains with alcohol and drugs much more frequently and with better taste then the struggling Joe.

I don't know. I cannot wrap my head around this comparison. But I can say that their materialism is not going to change the world. That's all. Some of my good friends genuinely want to change the world, even if it's just their own.

In any event, there was synchronicity, strange conversations about the collective unconscious, characters that seemed out of the movies, so strange, sharp and genuine that I believed what they said. Some checked out online. Others I'll have to wait and see if they show up again.

forgot something

spit it out mr. schizophrenic. That the west was divied up, it's dangerous. On the fringe I tell myself it's not from the outset. Despite odd coincidences that the competition among muses fell to a certain few. Different levels of existence. Coke was the opposite of weed. Hyperdrive. I'm bored, I have to go do something. Versus nothing is ever a mistake, but it's still a lesson, an idea, that you have to develop.

This is frantic

But if you hey I had a great time last night. I don't meet girls like you that often. There's a thesus statement and something to expand on. Fuck it though.

This is boring

--------------------------------------------

before you left I freaked out. I wanted to drive out over the bridge to say "by." There was no reason not to, but you explore the ones that are sudden impulses like lighting bolts...I'm a prisoner, there's no use because it be better ifs and why ruin a good thing right? I know we'll come together again. ...and it's on a weird delay. The world with her was different. We're both able to find magic in the world but our language out of pragmatism and idealized delusions of grandeur shakes to the left where I'm pondering the ocean from the sand.

Drink beer in public as many times as possible. Have rational fears of catching something. Stay on the edge between roof leaping and holding someone for a lil bit. I shook when it was quiet. Tried to find the right music. silence the void.

People are stirring, shouting numbers in desperation
So I read the little note by chance

article beginning

Surfers live in a boundary between elemental forces, land and water, where two dimensions meet in alternating cycles of chaos and calm. When we leave the water and feel the sand and rocks getting dryer walking back to our terrestrial lives, onlookers not so vested sense something different about us. But the moment we come ashore the surfboard we carry becomes a symbol at best and a burden at worst. Like everyone else we have to get in a car, drive home and sleep in a room surrounded by four walls. Perhaps the hardest part of surfing is solving an infinitely complex equation of aesthetics and physicality--our relationship with the ocean--unfathomable beyond our endorphin-riddled enjoyment, living in a society that limits and overwhelms us at the same time, a society that requires an existential leap to achieve anything that compares to our lifelong passion.

Unlike our counterparts in Southern California, where beach culture is cushioned and isolated by vast track housing, warm weather and an industry built around it, surfers in the Bay Area deal with cold water and a social morphology that changes rapidly from the smell of salt and eucalyptus to the stench of human detritus, exhaust and urine, where artists and businessmen try to create meaning under the shadows of skyscrapers, the black dust of the freeways and the echo of police sirens. Some bay area surfers hide close to their favorite haunts in the foggy outer avenues of the Sunset or the coastside hills of the Peninsula and Marin County. Surfers are intrinsically fringe dwellers. But others try to find out what society has to offer.


Moving mountains must change your perspective on life. My brother recently told me he may be retiring his 9'6 Mavs gun. He cited the crowds, said that it's turned into a circus. This potential hand-me-down makes me nervous. There's no surfboard design that tests your skill more than this that doesn't require a motor, stirring the bile in your stomach. Surviving an elemental force makes normal life seem absurd. And when waves are over twenty feet, the absurdity increases exponentially.

Jim Kibblewhite lived this in the late eighties as Jeff Clark spread word of the dragon in his backyard, Mavericks, at a slow pace. Clark's Ocean Beach invitation to Santa Cruz kingpins Vince Collier and Richard Schmidt wouldn't happen until 1990. Ben Marcus's Surfer Magazine article on Pillar Point was released in 1991 and Maverick's place in surf lore took care of itself from there onwards. The days of empty, glassy Maverick's with just Clark, Kibblewhite, Matt Ambrose and the rest of the crew from Pacifica and the coastside was relegated to "Golden Days" status. After having it good like this, where do you go from there?

June 2000

I wouldn't meet Jim in person till we crossed paths in Kuta Beach. Two years before its demise, Paddy's Irish Bar was DJ central on Legian. Jim was in his element on the dancefloor, dressed low-key and stylish in a sunburned sea of boardshorts and Bo Derek braids, hanging with a pretty Italian girl. I'd only seen him in the water at Rockaway Beach when the swell was over twelve feet, so it was telling that we'd meet in a mystical place like Bali. A ragtag group of misfits from the bay area was in Kuta at the same time: Curt Myers from Half Moon Bay, Shawn Rhodes, Joe Grochowski, Andy Anderson and others from Pacifica had just returned from a two week boattrip in the Mentawais. Andy Olive and some of the "groms" from the City, as everyone was calling them at the time, were spotted at McDonalds, the cave at Ulu's and Sari Club. For a wind-down a group of the Pacifica crew ended up on a week-long tour of Lombok and western Sumbawa. Though the swell didn't cooperate outside of a tiny low-tide pulse at Scar Reef on day two and our last day at Desert Point, Rhodes put on a backside tube-riding clinic. with fishing, spliffs donated from a trio of Spaniards from the Canary Islands, and one night of debauchery in the Gilis took up the rest of our time.

Three years earlier, Jim went into the desert in northwest Nevada. Burning Man was in its seventh year on the ancient dry lakebed, the Playa, as it's called. Although the underground scene that pollinated the world with house music from Detroit, would fade with the advent of coliseum-filled commercial raves, the feeling dispersed to different places. The water brings the silt to the desert floor in a perpetual cycle.

October 24, 2010

Ten years later I got an invitation on facebook from Jim for a full-moon party. He'd been neighbors with the Keating clan, Pacifica royalty, for a good part of the decade on the rustic boatdocks at the south end of Lindamar Beach. Rain had been in the forecast all week, but the plans for the party went on undaunted. I lived less than a mile from the docks across from the Quikstop on Roberts and Crespi. The first rain of the season was unrelenting. As the San Francisco Giants had just won the National League Penant, I was content listening to some records and calling it a night. But around three in the morning, as the rain was blowing sideways, with a mellow high, I went to the balcony and heard bass thumping through the rain. I threw on my shoes and a snowboard jacket. I had to go.

The tent that covered Kibblewhite's house was visible from the highway. It was a parachute moored to the docks. Walking in the rain I saw a young couple making their way back to the valley. There weren't a lot of cars on the highway and the south wind pushed the rain in my face. I stepped in some puddles behind the surf shop and made my way up the levy getting closer to the house music.

A carved chest sat at the top of the stairway down from the levy. Along the wooden fence were a string of lights. There were lanterns posted atop wood pilons and the red parachute was lit from the inside. Though the party had peaked earlier, there were committed revelers chatting and dancing inside the house and on the docks. When the tent flapped open, it revealed the moonlit swell combing Lindamar while a beautiful raven-haired Russian girl finessed the ebb and flow of the pulsing electronica. The tent contracted and expanded in the wind, opening and closing while the fire pit exhaled glowing ashes.

I'd missed the peak of the party, but the tribe was still going strong in a late fall celebration.

rites of passage

either way, it arrived. The age of aquarius was marked by something as random and unforeseen as the San Francisco Giants winning the world series. The smallest big city in the world would be overrun by a feeling of 700,000 people all making the existential leap into possibility where none exists. Relationships were rocky towards the end of the era of Pisces, the fish. But this was everything in the new package. Everything was brought to the surface in Aquarius through arguments, body language and a return to another accepting era of consumption and an accelerated fashion show getting its ridiculous speed in direct proportion to how many eighties movie stills were available on the internet and how many delay altered songs used samples from the eighties to dance to redundant 4/4 rhythm using a kick on every eighth note or a Roland 404 sampler.

That's how I know that's the Clash. I was there...in the nineties. Motherfuckers. Ha ha.

I'm glad that "ha ha" replaced "lol". Sometimes I don't even laugh.

My only knowledge of the age of Aquarius comes from three Aquarius friends.

1) Jane: Broke my heart, but remained a distant siren in my life because our friendship was true and she had ridiculously hot lips. I made fun of her chicken legs but in truth they were worthy of an adjective in a Prince song. I wrote a story and named her Rhiannon. She could read me like a book. She reads the world like a book.

2) Perry: painted over paintings I had done of waves while we collaborated on two eight by five foot pieces of plywood at the Decompression while on mushrooms while the Mermen channeled electricity through their surfed out guitars in a confluence of (a) painting in front of thousands of people (b) surfing since childhood and (c) seeing my life written before me as the world sped up and I slowed down, all in weird coincidences that centered around my going to Black Rock City. It was collaborative so the hallucination must have tripped Perry into what seemed like a fit worthy of Jackson Pollock. Water was thrown with paint and rubbed on the canvas. Everything was graffiti. My waves were gone. We laughed afterwards. The world is absurd. Why does it matter?

3) Mariah: After I got of the bus I bombed down Castro. The cute girl with the knee-high socks, a sideways hat over her long blonde hair and cutoffs went straight down the hill to 18th. "You beat me!" I said to her at the 33 bus stop.

"This fuckin sucks," she said. "The bus isn't coming for like an hour."

"Where do you live?"

"Twin Peaks."

"C'mon, I'll give you a ride." I said, walking up the hill.

She's drunk and nineteen.

We talk about life for a good twenty minutes between the walk and the drive.

A few weeks earlier she fell skating and blacked out from a concussion.

She has pictures of her black eye on her iPhone

I saw her on a train. She gave me a hug goodbye on Clayton and 17th. Then she yelled, "Did I leave my sweater in your car?"

The guy behind me honks and yells at me, something I couldn't hear. I hand her her sweater and as I flip an illegal u-turn in a five-way intersection I catch a glimpse of her, skateboard in hand (not a longboard, a legitimate hardcore skateboard with 55 cm wheels and a blunted twin-tip), with her sideways hat and knee socks.

Where the hell am I right now?

Too bad she has a girlfriend.

Ha ha...

Explanation

What is this mirage? Sometimes you wish life could be more. That's what that was. It was more. A party under a freeway overpass. We are alive and moving, swirling schools of fish, out of the pathways of timeclocks and street grids, we are pulled by gravity and follow a pulse.

This is why I am addicted, to this crowd, to the shopping mall. Coral reefs have patterns similar to human patterns of migration. The migratory fish swim away in the deeper water leaving the bustling activity of the reefs, these cities of integral-symbiotic organic relationships that hold life and death, within close proximity, triumph, getting by and drifting.

I need to sleep.

She knew her friend was getting off at the Church St. station. She came over to my side and stood close to me as I was standing, holding the handle. I had to leave as well. My head hung down leaving her. What just happened? Fate only goes so far.

Mysterious Brew

They're now faint facsimiles of people, flesh and blood.

That's all. It sounds like family and a lot of f's. Damn alliteration. Can't help it sometimes. A bad writer follows his mistakes to the grave. Nothing happening. The economies bad. It's just so hard to start something new. She says I write like a fourteen year-old girl, sometimes. At other times I'd come home to her, and now she's gone.

Back to the electronic database, where so quickly I can catch up and feel in the loop, while I can't wait to leave an exciting city, a fun occassion, the adventure of my life, because I had to go home and stare at a screen, sometimes typing. That's where she is.

Another...

To your bottom left is a purple butterfly. You don't notice the rectangular cuts of the sidewalk but you've imprinted them in your brain with the slight flutter.

That's who she was. Four flights up a random building on 16th Street where the security guard asks you what your business is and you say, Oh yeah, umm, yoga graduation with a slight hint of guilt in your eyes because you were just kind of goin' with the flow on this one and after a few beers at a late lunch watching beautiful women graduate from yoga school isn't that bad an idea. Right? But you kinda feel like your girlfriend is trying something on at Forever 21. Your friend invited you anyway, so no biggie.

But she got you, instantly. Right when you crossed sixteenth someone was reprimanding a thief, then there was brick wall, then you saw a line of people and you assume that's where the event is. Your friend's girlfriend Tiffany is there. Wait, Tiffany is friends with that girl. I met her a couple months ago, maybe two at a friend's going away party, weirdest thing to have two women with the same name who made some impact on your life despite your hermetic seal go away at the same time. She was in the corner, quiet, observing, bending the room to her presence, she had too much room around her, yet she was circled with eye contact. I said 'wow' quietly. She's out of touch. She's amazing. Gone. Nothing but a name on a database. Then she cancels her account.

And usually if you're around, that means that...

The purple butterfly on the sidewalk. My stomach tenses and I pretend like it doesn't. "Hey, how are you," you say to Tiffany. It's small talk. You catch up. You look over at Tiffany's friend, a princess, thus her danger. You love alpha females, but you're sensitive. But she seems really mellow.

And now she remembers me, don't give her credit, keep smiling. Four flights upstairs behind cowboy boots and a black dress. No shoes and polished wood floors inside the studio, slippery socks. Where am I? This building is beautiful, Am I spiritual, athletic, intellectual? Where do I go with this? If I've seen her twice does that mean I'll see her a third time? She's constantly in line behind me, first by the guacamole, then by the red wine. We smile. Will she be marrying a yuppy, dowsing me with regret for being so scared of being happy and not acting on the moment that could've changed the lives and direction for a thousand people dazed by insomnia and the eternal return seeking only things that weren't that bad? One moment at a time.

"I'm a Leo, and I'm quiet and laid back," she says. "but don't ever stop looking at me."

"I won't."

The room went quiet. Our friends have walked away. No one says a word.

Venice

They hustled me last time I was down there. The Venice boardwalk didn't have its new skatepark yet. It was a windy September night, when the crowds die down. The hostel lounge was full of European backpackers so I took a walk to the little quarter pipe shaped like a U. I called Jane as I waited. Half my mind was pouting, the other half was claustrophobic.

"Yo, you got any weed man?" a young voice called out. He had the deep voice exaggeration that teenage boys speak with. "I'm drunk, dude. Hey, lemme try your skate!"

D.D. called me on her cell as she and her brother were outside of the hostel ready to leave. We spent the evening at happy hour smoking cigarettes, catching up over a six pack. They had to catch a bus out to North Hollywood so we said bye.

The wind woke me up. My german bunkmate was heading out on a tour. Random tall dude with red shorts on, he came in after drinking beers all night. That's why I like those hostels so much. It feels like I'm on the same trail that the Europeans take: Tep Phenom, Kuta Beach, I'm there; there's weird accents everywhere, like world war II had blessed us with this strange guilt that said the world is a bigger place, please, for the sake of not killing each other can we realize that there's more in the world than guns, tanks and fighter planes? The jungle in Vietnam, green canopies, the smell of rotting vegetation, now on the hippy trail, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Bali, Byron Beach, Australia.

"It's kinda hood, but it's kinda mellow too..."

It's in the air in that small Cali town. I skated all day and ran into the same kid. We played SKATE. Same crazy eyes I'd seen before, unmoving, looking just a little bit away, life trying to burst at the seems, graffiti, skate, surf, gangs, wondering what trust is. He hustled me for pizza. An older cat on a beach cruiser came by and said someone was looking for him. I thought I heard him say to his friend, another skater kid, this guy's a sucker. Ask him if he'll buy you pizza.

When they rolled a joint, I made sure to get a few drags. I'm not a sucker. Pay it forward. It was almost time to move on.

Am I promoting drug abuse, am I messing up by taking as many trips to L.A. as I can with no money to spare? Do I have to find more responsibility in my life than questioning reality or finding the importance in art and life and laughter, high-brow pretense? Writing becomes a job, my writing has no thesis statement, said a professor, cause I don't do well with academic writing...take a breath like Jack wrote in Good Blonde, and let it out like music...I'm drowning in your world of ideas, measured out time, preconceived straight lines we live in, obsessed with the power of the idea, the next big thing, where is my power source? Drum sticks and peanuts on commuter flights, shadows and skyscrapers: I have to be electric, I have to be electronic, shake hands with strange objects--none of this makes sense, I'm lost, there's doubt, so stop.

silence

All the kids hanging out on the lawn were smoking cigarettes. The metal girl was pretty. A mom in a tie-dye sundress was letting her kids hang out with the sunbaked vagabonds. Kids in dreads skate on the street while brothers by muscle beach hustle their latest rap CDs. " Everyone is tanned, looking out to the horizon. A longboarder drops into a small mushy wave by the jetty. Smokes don't help my bronchitis. Is this real? Complacency, irresponsible.

We're back a year later. It rained when we sat outside of the market. I mentioned the birth of the Doors and skateboarding to the crew, waiting in the car bumping Lemonade, a new joint by Gucci Mane. "It's just like back home," Dom said.

"We drove 400 miles and found the same place," J.E. said.

I guess it's not surprising to have memories here. Sad porcelain, breaking easily, so I always worry and wonder. I don't know if it echoed because it was rare to be here, or if it was another place where life slows down to the present, mystical, filled with color and sound. Maybe the opening is accessible whenever we want it. We just have to be ready. Or still. Keep still and mystery reveals itself. I don't even know what it means. My nihilistic tendencies would associate mystical openings with the void: Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche.

If there's a void, something will fill it. That's how it works, even if you don't try. It only rained for a few minutes, but something felt different after.

"I just had to make sure you could find life," said the Alchemist to the shepherd boy.

end of the decade

We only lost two clubs, three coworkers and a few relationships.

I'll always remember.

This sunset is for them

I wish I could be in a million places at once.

but it's a step at a time.

OedipElectric Company

my dad left for a year

this is no excuse

actually, more like a year and a half

my mom was sad

i swear i absorbed this

now i have issues, 34 years old

now I have excuses

but whatever, so do you

no more apolegies or guilt

so nothing left but now and later

"nobody owns another,

let's start there

cared about her..."

rap music, garageband

i wish i knew how i'm going to get

to southeast asia

i have to

there's so many plans

no attachment,

happy tea party holiday

explosions and lights

bursting

i'm numb, i don't know what

is going to come out next

conscientious, awareness

i cannot make you my world

i have to make my own

how many times do i have to tell myself that

about anyone

you're melting away

i couldn't reach you

a kiss on the cheek

i'll see you soon

you're a baby again

people are worried that you don't know me

do you know me?

that makes me sad

i can't do this anymore

at least not here, where i've made too many

memories, met too many faces

i have to leave again

i never want anyone to see me like that

mad, jealous, lonely, putting the world

into one face again

you're right, it's not fair

that those closest to you are the worst to you

isn't that always the case

it isn't ever as bad to hate a stranger

a tailgater, someone who bumps you

walking by

something trapped me

or i felt claustrophobic

without even knowing it

standing on my own now

standing on my own now

everything changes

i am free

T-Roy yelled outside of my window this morning. "Get the fuck up Lil' Jon!" he yelled. "Let's go surf."

It takes a lot to figure out the next paradigm in your life. Ten years ago I read the Celestine Prophecy while living in Hawaii for a month, unemployed, with a severely limited bank account, and only enough gas to get to Waikiki (Aina Haina is in the southeast corner of the island, ten minutes from Sandy Beach and Hanuma Bay, twenty minutes to Ala Moana). My buddy Vince was back in California and I was driving his car that had no registration. "Don't go to town. The cops are dicks," he said.

So with no town life, it was quiet. Paradise became monotonous. There were two huge mastiffs and a pitbull that belonged to one of the borders who was staying at the house for the summer. I met this jiujitsu guy the day he got home from Kauai and fucked his girlfriend for a few minutes and stopped. I couldn't go in the backyard for fear of getting maimed.

Linda, north shore, 2002...

The Celestine Prophecy is a hippie book. And my hippie friend Linda asked me why I don't go more in-depth with my exploration of life than these "metaphysics" books. I eventually did through a college education and life-in-general. But the idea of having your life as a part of a bigger plan was a major theme in the book. Coincidences lead you forward. You think of an idea and suddenly the little parts that create the synergy of the idea reveal themselves.

This is happening. It has to. I have to believe this. We can easily interpret this as existential: life becomes redundant, monotonous and devoid of meaning, time starts moving faster and from then on we either hurl ourselves into oblivion, off bridges and buildings, in running cars in closed garages or baking ovens, or we decide what direction our lives will move.

Synchronicity. Self-evaluation. Cutting the cords that we weave like strange spiders. electricity, music, internet, passing glances. Run-on sentences. Fragments.

So needless to say, I slept in, the usual reaction to having too much to think about. I'll go surfing tommorrow. The sun's out, a weird occurrence in Pacifica in June. I'm gonna head to the city and meet up with my illustrator friend and face the world, hyperbole vs. hyperbole.

So I'm glad. Psychotic angst combines with work ethic. You are beautiful.