Chapter 18: Be it Ever so Humboldt...
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Eureka, California (1,153 miles)
January 1, 1987
We would have pedaled down to Ferndale today if it hadn’t rained.
For over a week we’ve been planning our New Year’s Day departure from
this place that has grown too familiar. All through December the sun
shone brightly—by Christmas I was so sure that it would rain on January
first that I almost called the National Weather Service to offer them a
hot tip. Hitting the road on a bicycle is a more reliable rainmaking
technique than washing your car... try it sometime.
Oh, I suppose it’s just as well—we were up until four A.M. celebrating
the end of 1986 and the resumption of our travels. Imagine the scene:
Over a thousand rubber bands turned loose in a small house, with seven
schnapps-soaked loonies firing them at every hint of exposed
flesh—raising welts, cries, and crazy guffaws of short-lived victory.
Maggie in the new mini-dress, her pantyhose-clad cycling legs an
achingly inviting target; June sniping from behind furniture and
giggling at every strike; Micki dashing into the open for ammo only to
yelp at the unexpected zinging barrage from all sides. The Fathers of
Trollo waged their own war, thundering at each other like F-4 Phantoms
as I crept about on missions of private intrigue: gathering ammo,
ambushing the unwary, and hiding rubber bands in odd places to serve as
a perpetual reminder of our visit. Yes, it was a gentle night... at the
stroke of 12 we dashed to the alley and fired salvo after salvo from
Ken’s homemade oxy-acetylene cannon—potatoes mashed against distant
walls, our ears ringing, our retinas seared with hot streaks of muzzle
flash, the scratchin’-lickin’-bitin’-snortin’-stinkin’ dog trembling
against June in mortal terror. More schnapps... more nachos... more
rubber bands... and then gradual acquiescence after far too many hours
of defying gravity, bodies sinking to couches and floors, whimpers of
pain and exhaustion mingling with the surreal sounds of late-night
television and the dwindling drunken traffic of my third New Year’s Eve
on the road...
And there are thirteen years until the 21st century.
So. It’s 1987. It is traditional for columnists to rhapsodize at length
about the past and future as viewed from the standpoint of that
infinitely small point moving between them. But the former is colored
by the present and the latter is pure conjecture, so instead of putting
travel predictions in print I’ll just tell you what I want to do.
If you’ve been following these writings for a while, you have probably
noticed a certain variance of purpose. Sometimes fun is my bottom line;
sometimes I’m seeking a resolution of the old freedom-vs-security
trade-off. Sometimes I want to travel forever; sometimes I get all
misty-eyed over the sense of home that appears wherever I take the time
to look. I go on great technoid binges of logic design and system
integration, getting so deeply immersed in electronics that streets
with NO OUTLET signs seem vaguely primitive—then I turn my back on all
this gizmology and refuse to discuss it. Peer over my shoulder one day,
and you’ll find me celebrating my nomadic lifestyle for its variety of
contacts; do so the next and you’ll hear me muttering about the
exhausting sameness of endless beginnings.
What am I really up to? Has this just become my default mode?
OK. Here’s the plan, and I welcome correspondence from anyone who can
help me pull it off. As I explained back in Chapter 2, wandering the
planet on a computerized bicycle and writing about it is an ideal
lifestyle for a confirmed generalist living in fear of commitment. It
sounds a lot like large-scale Brownian motion, but my life can actually
be reduced to a simple formula: I open doors with my bizarre key, make
observations about what goes on behind them, draw inferences from
related experiences, and then pass stories and commentary along to the
rest of the world in exchange for enough of a living to keep going.
It’s just a form of street theatre: The
Computing Across America Traveling Circuits...
And, interestingly enough, it more or less works. Publicity
happens with little or no effort, and even though people generally
recognize the Winnebiko
instead of the guy sitting on top of it, the net effects are the same:
brand recognition, invitations, publishing opportunities, free hardware
or services, and even, amazingly enough, that absurd yet flattering
“groupie effect.”
Now. Let’s turn all it into something that doesn’t depend upon
momentary whims and chance encounters.
Throughout history, writers, satirists, commentators, cartoonists and
other interpreters of the culture have been supported by the
population—whether through salary, spare change tossed into passed
hats, or the generosity of patrons. We pay these people to expand our
vision, to digest reality and present it to us as “entertainment.” What
sounds at first like something essentially playful, however, turns out
to have critical importance in the evolution of our culture: it is the
job of these people to raise human awareness, sniff out absurdity,
spotlight political nastiness, recognize trends, and define our
collective self-image—all the while inviting us to step outside the
routine of daily life and be entertained by what they have to say.
Every component of popular culture, from the Sunday funnies to 60 Minutes, is part of the ongoing
education of our complex society. It is the measure of Berke Breathed’s
success, to pick one of many instructive examples, that he can convey
an elusive and essential message in the middle of thigh-slapping
laughter.
Educators, take note.
So what’s all this have to do with me, my compu-bike, and big plans for
1987? This: I have become a living caricature of information
technology, a wandering commentator on the zany American scene, a
generalist/journalist with a 220-pound press pass, and a rolling media
event. That’s almost enough to insure success... but not quite. What’s
missing is marketing, that mystical process that turns ideas into
products and products into necessities. Publicity alone doesn’t pay the
bills.
“Marketing” in the context of what started out as a personal getaway
adventure sounds like sacrilege. It calls to mind vendor decals and
slick packaging, product slogans and pithy superficial distillations of
my life that can fit onto a bulk-rate glossy flyer. But here, dear
readers, is the reality:
Weekly online columns make valuable contacts but earn just enough to
buy one reasonably fine restaurant meal a month, assuming moderation on
the bar tab. Occasional freelance pieces sometimes pay the rent back at
the Ohio office. A book about my travels is due in two months from a
publisher that has never tried selling anything outside the exciting
but small world of library and information science. A little bit of
random consulting work pays well but draws precious energy from the
adventure itself. And I depend more than I’d like to admit on the
generosity of new friends, feeding us after a long day and sheltering
us from the night.
This—a shaky hand-to-mouth existence—is what supports that exuberant
grinning figure you’ve seen on national TV, in Time Magazine, in USA Today, and hundreds of other
places. I never really understood the difference between public
relations and marketing until now: CAA is a PR bonanza and a marketing
fiasco. I have media coverage the average small company would kill for,
but no standard products other than these weekly columns and a
forthcoming book about my first 10,000 miles.
So that’s the plan for 1987: adding business survival to my
long-established objective of fun. It’s not just an adventure, it’s a
job! But there’s one subtle problem... my essential message is
freedom—that you can accomplish anything if you want it enough, that
risk is healthy, that your resources of intelligence are probably a lot
deeper than you think. We have new technological tools to free us, new
worlds to explore, and even a new population of people who cavort
freely in Dataspace unconstrained by location, color, appearance, or
education. Freedom. It’s an exciting message, and people easily relate
to it in these days of urine testing, polygraphs, poorly maintained
credit databases, economic pressure, horrifying new social diseases,
and a resurgence of misguided puritanism. A whiff of freedom perks up
the imprisoned like that first hint of morning coffee.
But try living as a public paragon of personal freedom within the
bottom-line-oriented constraints of a marketing plan. There’s the
challenge: treating this as a business without having it look like one.
Let’s close this week’s installment on a playful note, something that
every reader can relate to. Something that touches us all deeply,
evokes intense memories, and rouses strong feelings...
I floated easily in a nitrous fog, the Walkman pumping Bob James into
my head, my wool-shrouded toes tapping in their well-worn Birkenstocks.
Through half-closed lids I saw the needle approach my mouth and
prepared to wince, flashing painfully on the closing scene of the movie
Brazil. But the nurse tapped
my arm, some kind of swabbed on local anesthetic numbed me, and I
failed to notice the violation of my gums. So far so good.
Mega-numb—no way for me to transcend dental medication. I was calmed by
the delightful gas but intellectually nervous, my normal dentist-chair
panic elevated to a sort of bemused abstraction but still very much in
evidence. I had never been to a painless dentist and didn’t truly
believe them to exist... and he was probing a very large hole in a
broken wisdom tooth, the subject of many a horror story.
Jazz swirled through my head; I heard the drill scream. It entered,
rising and falling in pitch as it carved living tooth, raising a cloud
of hot enamel-dust that shocked my nose as would my own burning flesh.
Yet the sensation was of someone drilling into a block of wood lodged
in my mouth: multiple smooth hands, the glint of stainless steel
instruments, the suction tube, the detail of the overhead light, the
smells of rubber gloves and faint perfume and powdered tooth... but no
pain. Stunned, I waited for it—5% of my brain quailing at each approach
of the drill while the rest soared through the pure bliss of the Touchdown album and wanted the
experience to never end.
And then the smells of solvents and sealants; the welcome poking and
prodding that bespeaks an end to destruction and the beginning of
reconstruction... and soon the vaguely depressing news that I had
already been on pure oxygen for five minutes and did I feel normal
again? NO PAIN. This had to be the most unusual Christmas present I had
ever received: a gift certificate from Ken (of Trollo and Bionic Taco fame) good for “X-Ray
& anesthesia with a filling or extraction” at the offices of
Michael Holland, D.D.S.—and then to find the experience genuinely
pleasant as well!
Ain’t technology wonderful?
See you next week, from somewhere south of here. This time I really
mean it.
Just Say N2O