Turn On, Tune In

I watched and dug the recent PBS doc on Woodstock, which they released for the festival’s 50th anniversary. (It’s on Netflix, if inquiring minds would like to know.) I have my own dramatic history with Woodstock. My mom and uncles were there (see below for the vintage pic of Nancy Sherowski and her brother Dick cold chilling on the stoop of their dream machine. This pic incapsulates a sweet kid-like happiness that I love. I want to be friends with them. I wonder if they have a CBD doobie we could all burn in the parking lot? Anyway.

The narrative we’ve been fed from Woodstock is that it was a disaster of traffic and mud. A “rock crisis” attended by a half million burnouts. And yet this documentary reveals the story of kids taking care of each other, of event organizers abandoning their business agenda to let the event pop off, and of a conservative farming community reaching out and welcoming the counterculture in a time when the sociopolitical schism was, arguably, as tragically fucking massive as it is today.

I was inspired by this story, needless to say. Especially now. Especially at a time when most young people would rather drop out and nihilistically live through their phone screens. Now more than ever we need, and cannot have, a Woodstock.

Stuff To Do In The Summer

We’re already in the soft part of summer. Thoughts, cool and smooth like marbles, have been rolling around my mind. I have not written any of it down. I’ve worked hard to be flagrantly selfish with my time really. The other seasons are fine for meeting expectations but when the air is all sweet and warm you should do exactly what you want.

I listened to a radio interview recently with a man named Ross Gay, who spent a year writing an essay every day about all the small things in life that delight him. Loitering at a cafe. A kind exchange with your boss. The fore-knowledge of the donut you’re about to procure and eat. The book is pragmatically titled The Book Of Delights. How lovely! I haven’t read it yet but I’m inspired by the idea. In the interview, Gay talked about how when you start noticing everyday things that delight you, you gain an aptitude for it. It’s like building a muscle. Doing sit-ups is always hard until one day it isn’t.

A couple weeks ago Mark and I drove to Colorado. We spent most of our time in the mountains at elevations that left us seeing stars, forever gasping and head rushing. I grew up way up there and it made my primal self feel like itself once again to be walking through all those rustling-leafed aspen glades. Summer vacation — more specifically the ability to take a summer vacation — is no doubt a delight of the highest order. But the trip called forth plenty of tiny delights — the everyday kind that could and should make up my own Book Of Delights.

Like crawling in the tent with the dog and cozying our way through a wicked afternoon thunder storm. Unsettled air is a precious commodity. You can soak in the wild ions and feel electrified. As the booms got louder, Jedda’s ears rotated like satellite dishes and her eyes grew round. We all inched a little closer. An hour later, a sunbeam shot through the tent and we knew it was over.

Like drinking a beer in the afternoon with my mom. In the heat and sun, over food-truck Mexican, there is no urgency and the vibe is authentic celebratory relaxation and the conversation meanders in an inspired way.

Like watching the sun rise over an empty meadow. The wall of golden light moves like a whisper across the grass, setting the seedpods on fire as it goes. You keep very quiet as you watch. This process is a touch spiritual, a tad mystical. You feel like you’re seeing behind the curtain, glimpsing the ineffable. Some secret miracle. And just like that it’s daytime.

New Things

Gizmo: This is Nike Skateboarding’s new women’s team video. While it usually gives me heartburn to hype up mega-corps, I’m gonna do it here. I liked this film. I dug the progression-through-the-generations angle. I dug the straightforward, unfeminized, unapologetic, unpretentious, unpreachy, un-wannabe-inspiring delivery. Gizmo isn’t trying to be anything that it isn’t. It’s a banger action edit, featuring people who are women. And that in itself is a statement. Next task for Nike: push it beyond “separate but equal” and integrate your lady rippers into your dudes’ edits.

Pic by Andy Wright

The passing of J2 Rasmus: J2 was battling cancer. Now he’s on the other side. I hadn’t seen him in many years — since I don’t know when. I remember him most from when I was clueless-but-thought-I-was-cool teenager on the Vail snowboard scene, where J2 and Megan presided over us as actually cool and tough older kids. I remember that he helped me jump my old POS Audi 4000 when it died in the Sunridge parking lot. I remember drinking 40s and riding aspen rainbows. I remember getting a lot of shit from him. You had to be on your toes around Twos. It’s how respect has been taught through many generations — by smart people giving snot-nosed kids a hard time (does that happen anymore?) Anyway, his wit was razor sharp and I remember him never giving any fucks about authority or what you thought — which was as inspirational of stance to me then and as it is now. Today, I’m thinking of his family and close friends, and of the mystery that brings us from dust into stardust.

Functional minimalism: Now more than ever, I’ve been into the act of non-acquiring. I work in advertising where we think up creative ways for our clients to sell you things. But in my private life, I don’t want to buy anything more. I’m just sick of it. Like I’ve been dabbling in mountain biking this year but I always just wear street clothes and my skate helmet. They work. And crotch blowouts notwithstanding all my jeans are just fine and will last me until eternity. Denim purveyors be damned. I don’t know — it’s started to seem like a crazy snake-biting-its-head-off kinda circle to me. If you keep getting new things, where does it ever end? Less. Maybe it’s more.

What I Can’t Wait For

Stranger Things 3: While other people got buzzed for Black Mirror or West World, I secretly pined for the next season of ST. This is a wantable series for me because it artfully blends nostalgia and humor and the otherworld, plus that vibe that the kids are the real heroes. Which is awesome since we all feel like kids inside, and we all quietly know that we are the real heroes. Also, I like how each series is set against the backdrop of a holiday (first season, it was Christmas, season 2, Halloween and now, the 4th of July). This only serves to heighten our nostalgia to a feverish pitch. 

Going Back To Bend: I will tell you a secret. Late at night, when I can’t sleep because my brain is washing on high-spin-cycle, I used to count carefully backward from 100 imagining each number in a different dazzling color. Lately though I’ve been calming my neurons with a meticulous fantasy about finishing the fence on our land near Bend. Let the sun wash over me. Use the post hole digger to pull out the sandy clods. Smell the sap and dirt. Pull a post from the pile and place it in the hole. Level it while Mark pours in the concrete. Feel satisfied. Dozens of those on down the line. Then it’s back to the beginning for the brackets and cross beams, and then the cedar panels, one by one by one by … 

Rulebreaker

Breaking your arm is physically risky, but I would recommend it. This is a question of embracing the darkness to know the light. If all it takes to worship the wonders of our two hands, which are miraculously crafted to do everything from caress your lover to caress your keyboard. Button your jeans. Untwist the olive jar. Rip open the paper enclosing a tea bag. Much less sports — skateboarding with friends and riding bikes all over town. Much less homesteading — digging holes in the forest and putting fenceposts in. If what it takes to appreciate the wild joy of all that is a fracture of the right radius — I’ll do it.

In other news, I can still walk, and the trees are in bloom.