Venice Beach- My Wishbone Is My Backbone
Venice Beach · The Left Coast
The CallThe Power of NOW
Between Venice Beach and Santa Monica, the Pacific edge becomes an operating system: show up, move, make wishes, and let the story change you.
My life, based on a true story, is downright paranormal. How the hell did I get here?
Field Note 01 · Being T/Here
A Genius—or a Genie?
Whatever talent I possess—or possessed—is on loan from some deity, some unimaginable source and force, for some exquisite portion of time. It is here to be passed on when I am finished.
The most extraordinary aspects of my being did not come from me. The sparks of epiphany I occasionally get are less about being a genius and more about having a genie: making wishes, showing up, being T/Here.
Fear is for folks who do not get out very much. Outdoors is in.
“When you define me, you negate me.” So let me tell my own idiosyncratic story.
Field Note 02 · Life’s Change Agent
I’m a Renaissance, Man
When I started blogging about my experiences at sea—the blessings and gifts of that unique lifestyle—I began answering the question: What is the meaning of life?
I got one: find what you love and let it kill you. Then you will be born again on a planet of new inexperiences. I am not a Renaissance man. I am a Renaissance, man.
Do not ask me to swallow the ocean. I did not do any of this on my own. Serendipity and meaningful coincidences once warped my digital narcissism into believing I had everything to do with whatever was happening. The painful reconciliation came when the reversals arrived and the future was no longer what it used to be.
You can never plan the future by the past.
Field Note 03 · Earth School
Those Who Do Not Move Do Not Notice Their Chains
It is hard to win back-to-back championships. “The sky’s the limit” is a problematic vibe because it persuades us that we can—and should—keep succeeding beyond what reality supports. Still, restlessness and departure are written into the AmeriCAN cultural DNA.
The ethos of mobility and individualism began when I became an idiot—the Greek word originally meaning a private person or non-citizen—and stopped buying into the shared hallucination of mediocrity. You question everything. What is deeply personal becomes universal: the real internet, the real network, the collective unconscious.
Telling our own story is not something we are taught to do. There is a course called Life 101: the Earth School of Hard Knocks. Tuition is free, paid for with bad planning. Success is continued enthusiasm despite failure after failure, and nothing fails like excess.
Field Note 04 · The Ship and the Shipwreck
Do Your Human Homework
Earth School kills all its students. It only ends once; everything else is progress. Hopefully, you escape the jumping-jack default state of shopping and buying, go to the edges, and profoundly do your human homework.
The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.
The word “blessing” has also been associated with the French blessure—a wound. A blessing carries its other side. My cruising obsession, that invisible wound, became a private religion: the place where the bulk of my spirit was invested.
The wisdom of this excess is that we die to the present tense and are born again in the future perfect—the heroes of our own lives. Yet there is always nostalgia: homesickness for the West Coast.
The Call · Return to the Edge
What Am I On? My Bike.
From the last visit in July 2011: I biked past Chess Park and its Old Radicals—Bicycle Pete, “Swiss” Pierre under the rainbow umbrella, Irwin from RAND, Mark Rosenberg and the Caro-Kann Defense, Isaac the “Lord of the Rings,” and Dave, Pope of Greenwich Village.
They debated renaming Santa Monica Ho Chi Minh City, complained about conservatives, landlords, developers, and busy people, and finally settled on The People’s Republic of Santa Monica: Big Sur, New York SoHo, and Beverly Hills-by-the-sea wrapped into one.
There is more status and much more quo now. The Old Radicals are nowhere to be seen. But the coast keeps calling because movement makes the vanished world visible again.
Moving Image · Original Film