Uncaged

“Hang on back there.”  I say it out loud and I’m not sure why.  It’s past one in the morning on some curve after curve downslope between Barstow and Bakersfield.  The Jeep is lashed to a trailer screeching and shrieking like a death metal (death metal fatigue in this case) band as it swivels and shudders on the U-Haul’s ball hitch.  Luke (that Luke) asked the same thing of R2-D2 once, and as the words come out of my mouth with no one to hear them, they have the same tenor.  Weird, except if you think about how an inanimate object can provide comfort to the extent that you worry about it’s safety.  Still … a little weird.

It’s been just ten minutes since I passed a wreck that must have been fatal.  It looked like one semi driver stopped on the side of the road to sleep and another semi just plowed into the back of the parked truck, likely not understanding the rig ahead was standing still.  That display of random danger had me turning off the best radio I found on the journey to wholly focus on this section of the drive.  Separated from news by two days on the road, I thought I had just stumbled on to an insightful David Bowie fan.  This morning, I would learn why the show was on the air.

Here’s my take on artists.  They don’t die in the conventional sense of the word.  They die when the last person who experienced their art dies.  This is, by the way, a powerful incentive to be a great, transcendent artist (and/or a landscape architect).  You get to live a very, very long time.  Mozart?  Still alive.  Monet?  Still alive.  Jens Jensen?  Still alive.  Frank Lloyd Wright?  At some point, those flat roofs are going to be his doom.  Nickleback?  Rest in peace.     

Here’s the good news.  The art doesn’t have to be art.  Jonas Salk?  Still alive (as are we, thanks).  Steve Jobs?  Still alive.  Thomas Edison?  Still alive.  Thomas Jefferson?  Pay no attention to the fear-mongers, he’s still very much alive.

It helps to be unconventional and/or inventive.  A little weird; that’ll get you remembered.  Paint like you see, not like someone else sees.  Put the forms together how they speak to you, not how they speak to others.  Tell someone in power you’re no longer going to go on with their charade of superiority, and neither is anyone else who is paying attention.  Capture the essence of anxiety and/or truth without dilution, as Bowie did.  Live as you decide, not how others mold the norm.  Do stuff like that and the pesky mortal “best if used by date” becomes fungible.     

So what does that have to do with Luke, and R2, and the Jeep lashed to a trailer? The small scene with Luke telling R2 to hold on helped humanize an inanimate object.   That’s the essence of art; to infuse an object, place or performance with a humanizing and/or mind-expanding idea.  That’s why we respond to art, and how inanimate objects, performances and places can be powerful in our lives.  

The inanimate Jeep lashed to the inanimate trailer is trading snow for sand, as is it’s pilot.  Trying to find some comfort in the new surrounds, I applied for a Use Permit to transform a vacant former furniture stripping shop into a live-work space that would house a lathe to make custom wood bats and a batting cage Seaside ballplayers could use for free.  And some furniture and a stereo.  The Thwack Factory.  A tongue in cheek name, yes.  But also a real attempt to jump-start a downtown live-work revolution in Seaside. 

Packing up the Jeep for the journey back Friday, the California Building Code swung some lumber of its own.  A ninety-one page collection of regulations has me opting for Plan B (or Plan S or Plan T, I’ve lost track) instead.  The regulations include a California Building Code requirement – and I’m not making this up – that the batting cage must be enclosed within fire-rated walls.  The social convention Bowie tested everywhere is writ into code.  Social code.  Zoning code.  Building code.  

I’ve been witness to a few million balls meeting their fate as they come across the plate.  I’ve seen balls hit into rivers, streams, houses and tibias.  I’ve seen them hit off, over and through scoreboards.  I’ve seen them hit so far we gave up looking for them.  I’ve seen them literally flattened, and saw one where the cover did, indeed, come off (check the collection on my desk).  But I’ve never seen one burst into flames.  I’ve never seen one even smolder.

Regulations are regulations, and while there can be art in an administrative appeal of their applicability, that’s not appropriate in the role I start tomorrow.  I applied for the Use Permit as a private citizen.  I'd have to pursue appeals as City Manager, on something that is a bit of a lark (not that larks are unimportant).  l’m not going to appeal a regulation Seaside staff has to enforce for my personal amusement, even though I think Jefferson covered the workshop and batting cage visible from your bed idea quite well with his "pursuit of happiness" line.  

Rather, it'll be “Go Team” that I’ll say out loud ... and I’m quite sure why.  Let’s get to the transcendent art of community achievement.