House on the Verde River

First time I came out from San Francisco for Casey’s 60th birthday. I had not ever been to a desert home built on the banks of a river. The home is surrounded by a is a mix of mesquite, cottonwoods and sycamore trees. Last night I saw a scarlet tanager. Morning we drank coffee watching cardinals, finches and sparrows eating seed we’d left out on the porch. You take Salt Mine Road five miles south of Camp Verde to get to out to the estate where this home is set.

Arriving here in 1970 this is Casey’s second home, the first is next door, it is set back further. Casey’s best home is built to take advantage of the natural rise along the banks of the Verde River where if you sit out back on the porch you can enjoy listening and looking at this water as it makes its way south toward its final destination near Cave Creek.

As desert rivers go this one owes its existence to a modest sized watershed higher up and to the west of here. There are no dams, no spillways, no reservoirs, there’s no nothing between the headwaters and Casey’s home. If it rains hard water can come right up to the front door, usually it happens when a real super soaker of a storm stalls over the top of the mountains where the Verde River is born. We had a big storm this year, there was another in 1994, and there was one more big water event one other time.

Casey’s the kid’s grandmother. I like Casey’s memories of her days cocktail waitressing in North Beach after World War ll. Her and a friend named Ann had a pretty good time of it until they got married. Casey settled briefly in Fairfax, Ann was out in Muir Beach. The 1950’s was the heyday of famed radio personality Don Sherwood. Casey was fond of gossip, comedy and jazz. A husband was found, children born, and the one girl in her family I got close to became the mother of my one and only child.

I worked out here in Arizona October through April for decades. When I wasn’t working I was often up here between shows hanging out with Casey. We’d drink coffee in the morning, listen to jazz music on the FM radio, settle in for chores and meet at the end of the day to make food for dinner. My mom passed back in the late 80’s and my daughters grandmother and I somehow struck up a friendship that proved durable and useful to a motherless man such as I found myself to be.

Casey’s best house is for most of us impractical and inconvenient. Too far from anywhere is one thing, the nature of the persons that live here not the best fit for most of us too. Rural desert Arizonan’s are good souls, but they are not kindred spirits. You’ll want to be prepared to spend your time minding the pesky javalena, skunks and coyotes here. If you do enjoy great hiking, Indian ruin exploring and birdwatching you just might find what here has to offer being something you could build a life upon.

I’m here a few days. Casey’s son Ian and I spend time swapping stories. Appreciating the scrappy insect loving desert dwelling Casey Nelson comes with a visit here. The river house is all we got left but the place isn’t nothing and there’s plenty of something in the spirit of this home’s old bones that speak to us of the great woman that build this place. It is a rotten deal this missing our mom’s turns out to be, it is plain hard work to accept their passing and get on with your own living. I’m grateful the river house is here to still use. Enjoying her place, mesquite grilling, river reveling, and sunset watching all tend to be a kind of cure all for whatever might be ailing you. This place will fold you into the patterns of the day to day, sunrise is for building a fire, sunset for winding down with a good book. Best of all you can feel Casey here having spent most of her life whiling away any and every of her days doing much the same.

Biography

Spirit’s New Home

Featured Dana SmithLeave a comment

Here is the vessel Spirit the very Gulfstar 50 I sailed from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We enjoyed about 3 weeks while sailing south then departed leaving Tom and Shauna to voyage throughout Mexico in the privacy and style they were accustomed to.

Our passage began in late November 2019, in the before time’s, prior to the global chaos caused by Covid19. By many measures this is one of the last of my unburdened adventures. Vaccinations were still 16 months away from being available, wearing masks and such didn’t get underway until late March 2020.

The completely unencumbered fearless world was still available to any normally wired curious souls. You didn’t fear congregate settings, traveling by sailboat would be risky but not because of a virus, risks were offshore aboard a sailboat should a patch of nasty weather might kick up a messy sea.

I had by now logged about 3000 coastal ocean sailing miles aboard my boat primarily. There were a few other offshore jaunts with a host of other fine sailors, but the sail to Cabo with the skipper of Spirit was a next level experience.

First, the skipper knew every inch of the Gulfstar, he knew every system, had either replaced or repaired most of the systems aboard. A sailboat with a diesel powered generator, watermaker, vacuum powered toilets, air conditioning, heater, and refrigeration requires some dandy tool skills to keep all in good working order.

The vessel is powered by a 150 horsepower turbocharged Cummins diesel engine. Spirit was re-powered after the previous owners agonizing northbound trip up the coast from Mexico in the 1990’s.

My smaller sloop is 36’ and a much simpler boat. I have no watermaker, no generator, no vacuum flushing heads to keep running. The larger a boat the more systems are usually installed, and the consequences there are more things to go wrong.

As fine an experience as Spirit is she is also a lot of responsibility and keeping her in tip top condition will tap your wallet and time. For some years any talented sailor might muster the energy to keep up with a machine of this size and complexity, but a day will come when the sailing vessels keeper will have had enough.

I would have not an inkling of a clue to Spirit’s fate. I wasn’t sure they would drop us in Cabo and then continue on to circumnavigate the world, I’m not sure the skipper and his first mate had any fixed plans. By March 2020 with the global pandemic taking grip of the world most borders were closing down. In a sense the decision was made for the pair of voyagers.

By summertime I received word of Spirit returning to Southern California, they were able to find a suitable berth in the same Channel Island Harbor from where they had departed.

Circumstances changed. Opportunity pulled the voyagers in different directions. One went back to London while the other remained aboard. Some soul searching took place and the decision was made to put Spirit up for sale.

Spirit has fatefully been sold and has ended up here in San Francisco’s South Beach Harbor. We are berthed out at the end of C-Dock, Spirit is out on an end tie on A-Dock, as the bird flys perhaps no more than 200 feet north of where I keep Sweet Seas.

I can’t help but think of Spirit and her skipper as one inseparable thing. I see a few boats as well cared for, now and again, you have to know boats well enough to know when you are in the presence of such a finely maintained sailing craft. The pleasure of sailing with the vessel Spirit had to do with the personality, passion and skills of her skipper. My personal reward was how his caring for his boat influenced our taking care of our sailboat.

Hanging out with the skipper raised your game, you played a better version, you stepped up, you did better, you worked that much harder, you discovered the value of cleanliness and good order. We weren’t exactly slackers to begin with, we were pretty good in fact, but not this good, not this attentive to every detail, until now, and I can’t help thinking of the skipper of Spirit when I’m hard at a task varnishing the teak, cleaning the toilets, or troubleshooting the windlass.

Hat’s off to a good one, thank you Spirit and the best to the skipper wherever your muse and wonder might take you next—

Books · Performances

Vet Showmen Pay Lip Service

Featured Dana Smith1 Comment

Trip to Kona has been a bit of a tale. A carrying cart failed just before coming over to the islands resulting in a propane tank landing square on my big toe. That kind of changed the last two weeks. An urgent care doctor glued the gash back together slapped me on the butt and told me to get back in the game.

Then my buddy Waldo hobbled by a motorcycle accident comes to the Kona side of the island to visit. Hobbling together we got out and about the two showmen not accustomed to being on injured reserve. Gallows humor ensued well into the wee hours of the early morning.

Street show veteran get togethers are like comfort food for the soul. I can still do this but I can’t do that. There are the favorite shows to review, some performed together some solo. It goes on and on like this. There is the part where we brag about how few props we needed to do a show. Waldo made his living as a suave, dashing and lightening quick juggler that never dropped. I was every bit of Waldo’s equal (allow me to amuse myself) but for the drops— I am perhaps best known for my trouble with this minor detail— Try not to applaud when I make a mistake, you’re only reinforcing my bad habits—

Our careers were long. I like Wally to tell me his Perth, Australia stories. He likes our time together in Arizona and gets a kick talking about those adventures. Street performers are not sentimental, but we have lived privileged lives traveling both here and abroad and earning a pretty penny along the way. The present and future we imagine is framed as a life beyond our work as showmen.

Two months ago I visited with Sean Laughlin and Lee Ross. Conversations between all of us track by topic to do with shows, love and a bite at life lived with no regrets. A performance happens in a particular time and place and after— like that— vanishes into the slipstream of time. We might improve the show, we might do better shows, there may be advances in our skills, better costumes, bigger paychecks and fancier stages. Of the many tens of thousands of shows all of us have under our belts most are now in the rear view mirror. Any of us might still do a show, but none of us are likely to do anywhere near as many as we have left behind to the sands of time.

One benefit of not having a demanding show schedule is that it gives your head the space to consider the less examined parts of your life. This is to the good. A bad show is like a losing game and after back in the locker room a showman can suffer pangs of regret. Climbing that hill day in and day out is in one sense about being ready to defend your emotional life. A good show pumps you up and lousy show lets you down. Without having to deal with that rollercoaster our offstage time isn’t ordinary time, it is human time, we are allowed the chance to be back in touch with our most ordinary day to day self. The more selfless we can live, the less stuck in our heads the better. This is our occupational hazard.

Where we live and who we love is always a topic that hovers near our meetups. Some of us are in, some out, some up, some down. The funniest are on the ropes getting a pretty good pummeling by the object of their desire. Most interesting to my way of seeing things is my showmen friends have had a life full of love and it shows they have skills they know how to be in a relationship. Some of what causes so much trouble is our time away from our partners while we are on tour. Our finances are what they are, like any self-employed sole proprietor there’s a lot of ups and downs in a business famous for uncertainty. This isn’t a common circumstance and while the romance of loving a showman is second to none the practicality of such relationships requires a dash of courage with a twist of letting go—

Sore toe and all being here on Kona turns out to be a good thing. Waldo and I will see each other over on the mainland later this summer. We can continue to build on our extended conversation. There will by then be new information. Waldo is slated to speak with many of our peers in the weeks ahead. By the time I see him again he’ll have ten new next things to do. Sean’s still got his place in Silver City, Nevada to wrangle into shape, most of that work is done but not all of it, and then there’s the matter of what’s next to do that isn’t about a show or a house— I think he’s interested in finding a path for his heart. Lee has slated a shoot of a short feature he hopes to complete before September. Editing will consume his autumn. I know his family is coming out to Colorado for his birthday. He’s got a lot up in the air right now and how any of it sorts itself out remains wrapped up in the creative mystery.I’ve been stuck restructuring my office where I write and have had to clear my desk of the chaos I’ve allowed to place a gauzy haze on the clarity good writing demands.

Right now as of this moment the project is to do with a pesto made with pistachios— highly recommended. Then, when I get back to California I’ve got raspberries, figs and a melon patch to work into our meals. That’s likely where my focus will be tied up. Eating good food, cooking interesting dishes, having fun playing in the kitchen with food grown from our garden is its own simple pleasure. Yesterday was the solstice and the long days are all to the good. Life isn’t that complicated if you don’t let this one visit to earth run you off into the intractable pieces beyond a showman’s ability to fix.

Books

Cassavetes Crossroads

27 Jan 2021 Dana Smith2 Comments

Stuck in Bakersfield. Highway through Tehachapi closed due to snow. Grapevine to LA closed. Packed into a Shell Station with a sea of masked humanity attempting to move east to Barstow, Las Vegas and destinations unknown, how does it feel…

Fixed supper, listened to McConnell fold on organizing rules for senate. House sent Articles of Impeachment to senate this afternoon. Revolution, insurrection and treason don’t draw as big or as enthusiastic a crowd as the revolutionaries. Republican senators are hoping to squirm their way out of this vote. I say flush the senators out, make them vote, find out whose for this project in self governance and whose not.

Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader’s people encircle my present location. Just passed a citrus processing plant. Maybe we need less orange juice for breakfast. I am a passionate opponent of water grabbing. Water grabbers occupy the lowest rung in the ladder. We need more water protectors!

Then I read the new Prez has mandated the national government buy electric cars, not just any electric cars, but American made electrics. Why topless dancing, speedo bathing suits and high school night sober celebrations are making a comeback. Still love a good looking bikini, I find it restores my faith in the healing energies of seeing unblemished skin in its mortal manifestation.

Road closures, snowfall delays and high wind warnings beats hungry bears romping through the campsite looking for a taste of sponge cake, pork rinds and cinnamon buns.

Favorite vice is going north on the coast to Tomales Bay. In Marshall stopping to buy fresh oysters is an essential culinary act, it is to join in solidarity with the sea. Buddy of mine, we’d drink and dance at the tavern, always dancing with phantoms, the lipstick drenched finest, then sleep over on Dillion’s Beach. First thing in the morning we’d drive to Bodega Bay for coffee, then devolve into post adolescent fog slick highway sport driving.

Have been driving between San Francisco and Denver since March. Even Bakersfield is bigger now. Citrus groves on the southeast side represent political power. The minority leader is the citrus growers man. Bakersfield is a conflicted soul, an end to a valley that craves no ending. Buck Owens Crystal Palace is here, shuttered due to the virus, but the joint will reopen, and then you’ll have to decide if you need Buck’s music makers back in your alligator skinned boots. Two-stepping remains one of country music’s greatest gifts. The best dancers have imagination, private investigations and divorces.

I don’t know that any of us can predict how we each are dealt a set of crossroads that we seem fated to return to again and again. Beginning in 1974 and until now I’ve been through here in route for shows, home, or adventure. Took a road trip with my mom to Palm Springs to hang with family. Up top near Tehachapi in a snowstorm, just getting through before they closed the road. Yesterday my mom now long gone, but here she was with me at this crossroads.

In those days you drove Highway 58 through Mojave instead of taking the bypass. Mojave no longer a crossroads has all but killed the place. Motels shutdown, restaurants hung on then failed, gas stations seemed about the only business that survives.

A bit further east Highway 58 intersects with Highway 395. Eight hours from San Francisco, another 8 hours to Phoenix the intersection had a few gas stations, truck stop, convenience store. Have slept here countless nights while in transit one way or another. My first encounter with this crossroads I was riding shotgun in an El Dorado, a real boat of a machine, baby blue with white leather interior, my pop was at the wheel, he kept a flask of Southern Comfort in the glovebox, while we motored south to San Diego we’d take a nip, just enough naughty my playing Faulk to my pops Gazarra, pretending to be players in a Cassavetes film. You don’t drive a baby blue Eldo, you swagger in a piece of Americana such as this, the car announces your overindulgence.

I can’t run these highways without visits from long gone souls. Keep them close at hand. Long distance driving allows us to share time. My two dogs come visit, they were both nothing but ball chasers. They were good dogs, loyal to their owner, dedicated and kind. I loved those dogs more than I can say.

Crossroads, there are a lot of jokes, music lyrics and plot lines for novels have all been sorted out while running the two-lanes to far off intersections scattered all across the west. Nomadic types, those with the itch, the ones that understand why we need to keep moving, what we see, what we find out here, the distinctive landmarks called intersections. This is what a road trip is made for. To take yourself to places you’ve never been, then return to feel the ghosts whisper to your soul.

Books · Performances

Southbound Along Baja

3 Dec 20193 Dec 2019 Dana Smith3 Comments

Departed San Diego on November 19th at 0830 hours. We arrived in San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula on December 1st at 1030 hours. We made stops in Ensenada, Turtle and Magdalena Bay before arriving at the southernmost tip of Baja in San Jose del Cabo.

The length of the entire trip was somewhere near 750 miles. We were offshore overnight on four of our legs. Conditions between Turtle Bay and Magdalena Bay were the least agreeable. Wind was blowing us down the coast more often than not. The leg between Turtle and Magdalena Bay was sailed against the wind. Swell was coming both north and south with steep surface chop beating at us from the west. This made for an uncomfortable ride. That is probably accurate but not the whole story. Miserable is more like the fact of the matter. A real gut buster. Rotten and no good come to mind as well. Could have done without that leg, but that isn’t how sailing works.

The two most experienced sailors had been in such uncomfortable sea states before. We kept a close eye on our two other less experienced crew. After a long day sailing south and the boat heeled to port pounding and yawing fatigue and motion sickness began to set in. Fatigue, lethargy, and the inevitable mental confusion. Winds increased overnight to 30 knots with gusts higher. Seas built but it wasn’t their size so much as their chaotic mixing that did the most to make matters uncomfortable.

Nobody was frightened by the rugged day offshore so much as feeling a bit discouraged. Making our way south in late November off Baja is generally expected to be a downhill run. Having to bash our Gulfstar 50 south against the wind in such conditions is an unpleasant motion. We would have avoided the entire mess had weather forecasting large swells expected to make Turtle Bay a mess. We picked what we thought was the least uncomfortable choice. In short we were cornered and did what we had to do.

Most of our way south was much less fraught. Beyond Mag Bay we had a fine warm breeze to set our asymmetrical chute and spent most of the daylight hours driving our boat at 6 knots upon a docile sea. Crew were busy snoozing, making meals or on watch for sea turtles. Attire was shorts and sunscreen, sunglasses and a good hat to fend off a bright sun. The motion of the boat only somewhat later in that long day ever tested our crews mettle. More wind foreword of the middle of the boat, the beam, began to cause mild concern among the now veteran crew. Best of all the two that had taken it the hardest hit on the worst days were now all the wiser more seasoned and capable sailors. Most crew do get their sea legs over time.

We are enjoying shore leave here in San Jose del Cabo. Our boat is being scrubbed clean in preparation for her crossing to Puerto Vallarta. Two of us will fly home to San Francisco to leave the skipper and first mate to negotiate the shorter distances and jumps from harbor to harbor.

In our longer passages we were three hours on during a watch. One watch came every nine hours. Between watches crew either napped, was eating, reading or observing the natural world we were surrounded by. Only the darkest and earliest morning watches were manned by a sole member of the crew. We made sure to keep our least experienced crew scheduled to stand watch on the earlier time slots. Checking the boats progress on her course, using radar to spot any approaching boats, or the AIS to see if more distant ships were closing was most of what a person standing watch was responsible for. Otherwise a quick scan of the horizon and those standing watch had an easy time of their duty.

Being offshore is its own world. You are isolated. There are a thousand and one things changing over the course of a day. Still when the sails are drawing wind and the wake is singing off a speeding hull there is nothing quite so enrapturing and as peaceful a way to wander about this one world we have to care for. Sailing as ever is not just about where a boat takes you, but how a boat stirs a soul. We are transported to distant unexplored interior shores. We arrive at the next port knowing more about what we are made of. Wind power is revelatory in that sense. Sailing is about so much more than merely traveling somewhere.

Every Kind of Phenomena

Books · Performances

Slacker Dudes Sailing Baja

22 Nov 201923 Nov 2019 Dana Smith1 Comment

Tropical storm Raymond has arrived late this season. Raining here in Ensenada. We will hold here while seas settle down.

A safe passage isn’t just luck. You want to tip the odds of an uneventful sail in your favor? Show some patience and wait for the weather to settle down.

The first leg of our journey was a fine first taste. South to San Jose de Cabo we go. 800 nautical miles to the south and east down the Baja peninsula we head. For a brief while out on the first day there were whitecaps for a spell. Then dolphins came to play on our bows wake, crew was made merry by their sight.

Entering Ensenada Spirit found her slip right off. We tied up, checked in with the harbormaster, took showers, made dinner and played backgammon. We were on our bunks to read soon after.

From where we departed in San Diego we sailed east of the Coronados Islands. There are three. North, South and a third called Middle Ground. Charts indicate a sailing vessel may find use of the eastern leeward side of the islands to anchor.

Further south over the horizon Isla Todos Santos hosts pelagic birds, fishing boats and sailors headed north or south. Low and coming into view out of the mist, far off, will be on our starboard beam once we clear from Ensenada.

South of Ensenada it is 316 nautical miles to Turtle Bay. The Bay of San Quentin is more or less one hundred miles. We would make San Quentin in a day, Turtle Bay in two. Now set to sail Sunday we will make our next stop Turtle Bay.

The disintegrating remnants of Raymond continue to have us holding here in port. Fractional memory of geezers in these waters after much discussion agree none can recall an event of this kind at this time of year since forever.

Our watermaker has malfunctioned. A solenoid (it is always an infernal solenoid) has given up after twenty years. Tomorrow an agent from Ensenada travels for business to San Diego and will return with the necessary German made replacement part. Our agent has a global entry pass making her trip less difficult. Our skipper has no such document and since there is no Rick’s here in Ensenada the agent will expedite getting the solenoid back to Ensenada.

Our Gulfstar 50 has a formidable engine room. There is also an electrical generator, inverter, watermaker, various types of water filtration, water pumps, water heaters and other assorted appliances. Our skipper spends his waking hours in the engine room. The Cummins turbo diesel is a worthy mechanics adversary. The King Kong sized alternator and the thick copper cables that transfer the electricity to the bank of batteries all look to be ready to light up Paris.

We’ll cruise along at 7.5 knots with the motor spinning at 1700 RPM. Our Jeanneau, a much smaller boat, the diesel cruises at 2700 RPM. Still we are pushing a sailboat that weighs four times our boat and tips the scales at 41,000 lbs. That is a lot of guacamole.

Each boat comes with its own set of virtues and vices. For instance our smaller lighter sailboat, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36.2 has many fewer systems and is built to thrive in much different forces of wind and sea.

Because I do not have a complex system of inverters and generators I have much less complicated electrical system to maintain. I have no solar panels and no solar power regulators to maintain. Even a smaller, less complex sailboat needs tending. There are no free lunches in pursuit of coastal cruising.

While sailing is done by sail we use our auxiliary power to help us get in and out of our berths. With the motor running we can make electricity. While running the motor we store extra into our battery bank. When cruising we’ll run our motor each day to top off our two house batteries.

I am due to install a device that will monitor how much energy I have remaining stored. Until this year I have spent my years running the boat by intuition. You don’t want to rush into these upgrades and even more important “if the dang thing ain’t broke don’t mess with it.” This advice works for boats, marriages and marine electronics. Stand alert to truth sailor!

By now our time in Ensenada has stretched out to a length of time that the street vendors know us by name. For reasons I think are self evident many sailboats arrive and never leave.

We wish we knew why but a boat is much like a woman to a man and their coming and going is an inexplicable mystery so confounding as to halt speculation dead in its wake.

Slacker dudes will find their lives ruined if they make a mistake of judgement and imagine they’re is something compatible with their lifestyle and going to sea. A slacker type will find the discipline of chores and maintenance something like living with your mother-in-law.

What you want in the mariner that has taken leave of their senses and possession of a sailboat is an insatiable appetite for puttering. You’ll want to fuss over things. If a thing isn’t broken perhaps you may try to fix it before it breaks. Rebuilding your equipment ahead of schedule is a kind of pocket protector form of behavior.

Many great sailor have traveled the globe while spending the entire voyage either in the engine room or hunched over a workbench trying to bring some piece of machinery back to serviceable life.

This is the way it has been, the way it is and the way it will always be. We don’t go to sea with the boat we want or the boat we go to sea with the tools we have and as we sail we discover along the way that there remain tools we still need.

Books · Performances

Street Street and Repeat Street

12 Dec 2018 Dana SmithLeave a comment

Player in Disguise…

On slower day’s a tighter circle is the coin-of-the-realm. Street performers and audiences fit glove to hand. Squeeze the experience tight. Empty space along the perimeter of a circle is a deal-breaker. Street performers plug leaks with live bodies. Success depends on persuasion, stand here not there, the seasoned showman knows what to do.

Blurring the focus, blow a line, miss a trick and like that minds wander, the entire enterprise is put at risk, an audience sees through the framework, becomes aware of the underlying engineering.

Subterfuge, veiling— are the stealth tools of the busking arts. Lighthearted crowd gathering is in fact audacity camouflaged. Stopping people is a make or break business carried out in full view with an undetectable touch. Technique requires concealment— you can level with your audience later, once you’ve won them over, once you’ve proven your worth, now that you are their keepsake. Great acts mate temporary intimacy to the delicate present moment.

Another More Transparent Version…

A wise to ways street urchin can look at a sidewalk and predict down to the last Lincoln Head copper one-cent piece how much they’ll earn. Unless the show goes off the rails, good or bad, one way or another they will have converted an otherwise stingy group into a generous free-spending bunch who’ll be unfolding their wallets, moving forward prepared to toss a buck, five or twenty-five cent piece into the hat.

Sidewalk ‘been arounds’ are problem solvers, lived to tell, and know how to steer the experience on the track of the tried and true final destination. This is the practical craft mixed within the mind of a compulsive personality. Enterprise matters but the presentation of a profitable show is foremost. Buskers have only so much time, so much energy. A street show is in some sense a curated list of livewire fixes to prior money-reducing performance errors.

A Card in the Deck…

If the new material work’s the busker makes more, if the untested bit doesn’t land the take will be less. Acts stumble onto repeatable nuggets. One guess, one experiment, one positive result after another working by feel, listening by ear and discerning mind to that revelatory moment when critical mass achieves its aim. A veteran busker knows everything there is to know about escape velocity. Laughter is involuntary, applause is synchronous; the experience is irresistible, here and now, unfolded skillfully into the present moment.

The larger goal of a thirty minute show is constructed piece by piece from the fifteen minute act. The whole project is a painstaking perilous journey to the center of a wanna-be-performer’s muster. Weathering a tough day on a sidewalk is a transitory tragic rear ending example of doggedness.

Always be on the move in front of a crowd. Buskers are linguistically kinesiological. Slapstick and pratfall illustrate the foibles of the common man. There is a high minded purpose to the lowbrow comic art. Do things an audience can see. You may trick a mind by word but there is something profitably superior about what must be confessed to the priest. The visual appeal works every time; seeing is believing. You don’t have to talk anyone into anything, they can bare witness with the naked eye —Come along, this way—

Books · Performances

Code of Street Performing Conduct

18 Oct 201818 Oct 2018 Dana Smith2 Comments

Love Your Audience

There is no getting off the road, there are no breaks— you can’t undo what you’ve bet your life on. One of the hardest hand to mouth games ever invented in this world of hard knocks is busking full time. No contracts, no off site gigs, just pure hat and more hat shows. You do so many you’re at risk of drowning in a sea of nickels, dimes and quarters.

To take the edge off, to stand just that much further from the abyss some acts blend the footloose street show with the paid for hire show’s. For the sake of profit and efficiency contracts and appearances need to be packed tight. A good act is infused with an evangelical enthusiasm. The paid gig, as sweet as that payday might be, is never more than a prayer and a hope whereas a first class street pitch opens the door to pure worshipping at the altar of the almighty unseen mystery and miracle. It is not exaggeration to claim street theater in some spontaneously combustible way is as near to a religious experience as you will ever behold.

Running with the Wild and Free

A street act is either in town or on the road, behind the wheel or on stage. A day off with no show is an odd unwelcomed event, something worrisome and undesirable. Fairs and festivals are all performed by binding contract between the producer and artist, the agreements are simple fee for service agreements. Some entertainers might forward stage, light and sound requirements, but a grizzled street act, tested by parkway and boulevard, the hardcore bust your butt busker urban take no guff kind, are most times pure point and shoot types. A veteran street act is accustomed to possessing the chops to walk on steal the show. “Hand me that mike. Is it hot? Let’s roll…”

Buskers are all about squeezing the light out of the red dawn and gold dusk, there is no tomorrow, there is this opportunity right here, this show, this crowd, what are you waiting for? In the vernacular of the street, “Throw it down, and whip it out…” a racy phrase that means to set down your prop case and do what you do— perform.

Skylight before a Starry Night

Street veterans eat the scenery. The Grand Canyon would be lucky to even be noticed. Empirically this may not stand up to factual analysis but by size of heart and willingness of spirit— this kind of zeal is customary. Buskers are all great infinite expectation unexpectedly seized by ‘I never saw it coming’ heart failure. This is the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. We are trained by sidewalks to talk our way into anything and get out of more corners and tight spots than an average Joe might know was even possible to be caught in to begin with. Buskers worth their weight in copper coins are charmingly eccentric hybridized brightly packaged one part con and two parts escape artist.

I’m sorry to say that a good many of the world’s most rational sisters and daughters couldn’t help but toss all caution to the wind and go all in on our outlandish shows and offbeat lifestyle. The gutsy best of them became our wives. And all those women who ought to have known better, the women who have seen a thing or two, the wives and mothers? Countless numbers of these firebrand beauties in the most unexpected next chapters of their lives entangled their fates with ours, some for a night other aspiring free spirited souls have had the course of their wardrobes irreversibly changed, abandoning suburb and former friends forever and go full wanderlust while vowing to never look back. Love is as unpredictable as a street show. Strap a heart to a buskers grit and you’ve got a life worth riding down the unforeseen future boulevard of unbroken dreams. Neither Hells Angels or street performers want for women. Charismatic outlaws got nothing but magnetism, unpaid parking tickets and access to real happiness.

A Star is Born

Being a busker is handcuffed to having no more excuses for why the impossible isn’t even an excuse. Rainy days and lonely nights catch no sympathy or slack from our kind. We hold self empowered destiny hostage. Our sidewalk show pitch—the pavement stages we concoct is a no strings attached low budget self-inoculating wide open wild as the west dream vaccine. On the ride to the top of the small time a busker’s prop case is near at hand, in our veins, at the tip of our tongues. We don’t go buy costumes- we come costumed. We’ll have plenty of time to relax after this brawling life has been chewed up, satisfaction and self-contentment can come later. Easy Street has got its own sorry location. That useless boulevard is just the other side of the mortal coil.

Fire Dreamer

My money is on a bunch of the best I’ve shared stages with who I believe are working hard out there in the afterlife, and even if there is no for sure I have to hope they’re all killing up there, even now, in the rose bowl of eternal laughs… Wayne Condo, Vince Bruce, Hokum W Jeebs, Butterfly Man, Johnny Fox,Rob Torres, Dick Finkel, Steve Hansen, Gary Schnell… that is a tough lineup to break into. There you go, now you’ve been given a taste, from the barrel.

Books · Performances

Character

20 Aug 2018 Dana Smith3 Comments

Jeanneau Sloop’s Southernmost Mooring…

Avalon, Santa Catalina Island

Moitessier 1958, Sailing to the Reefs, “The deterioration in the weather was sudden and without warning— it was just a simple call to order to remind me that winds are not always favourable and that fine weather never lasts for ever. As always when I am obliged to move about on Deck at night in a squall of rain, I came out of the cabin swearing that God’s providence is a myth.”

To one degree or another admitting where our talents lend our sailing advantage is a must. Knowing what we are best and worst at is to keep our wits about us.

I am quick to change sails as the wind builds. Although I’ve suffered from sloth and torpor and been meted out punishment for the inaction.

Long Point, Catalina Island

The Length of the Trial

In preparation for the passage north from Los Angeles to San Francisco I’ve noticed a particular form of grit seeming to have been found inside. I’m determined that I will return my sailboat to her home port. I have suffered bouts of grave doubt but have fended off the demons for the moment.

Character Enhancer Seated to Left

An old now deceased sailing companion had brought his Tahiti ketch from Baja back to San Francisco’s Bay View Boat Club many times. Carl’s strategy was simplicity itself… patience.

Rather than have his will broken, rather than attempt to advance to his destination he opted to rest, wait, and pick his spots rather than have Mother Nature punish his boat or his backbone.

Carl exercised patience and judgement. His sailing skills were sufficient to the task. Pragmatism and common sense was perhaps his greatest talent—-but hardly his only. Of course he had made careful study of the weather patterns along the West coast. He knew as much as his mind could hold. Tides, currents and where the next place to anchor north of his present position was built into his plan.

Escort Services

I had once ignored Carl’s advice and in my haste wasted hours beating against a current. As the current slackened a fresh and rested Carl joined me in San Pablo Bay for a sail back to San Francisco. I arrived exhausted. Carl returned unruffled and rested.

We will see what we see in the next few weeks. I’ll pick my way north with my sage sailing friend in mind. I’ve a good twenty days to make a trip that ought not take more than three under the better circumstances. Toss away two rough days waiting at anchor to advance one good day seems sensible.

In that light provisioning and a second hand that can abide the captain’s strategy will bring the capable sailboat safely home.

Books · Performances

Don’t Cry for Me, Catalina

6 Aug 20186 Aug 2018 Dana SmithLeave a comment

Paddle Board- Bikini- Beach

Sailing from San Francisco to Avalon, this was the long planned passage, a tribal escapade, journeying to the harbor of the living-breathing Santa Catalina Island—- a offshore destination where exists an alter paced island ambience— the much admired oak barrel aged amber liquids bottled and called booze, in all things swaddled in near nothingness called a bikini; mingling amidst the sun-gilded bronzed visitors and residents who have by happenstance roved here to this storied island— separated by nothing more than mist and fog bank—- one half-day’s sail from the buzzing Southern California megalopolis— where by arm’s-length from the mainland reside the formidable sum of forty million of western civilizations quirky and traffic hazed.

Running with the Big Dogs

I pet my peoples dogs, admired their dinghies. I relished the glorious knowing transcendence, our group-oversharing, our unyielding sanguinity— a fair-weather native birthright, people tested in gridlock but unbent (until fenders have clashed,) a citizenry resplendently aglow with a can-do- window tinted willingness to rise against all ill-tempered obstacles identified as too hot or too cold. All our thermal moderation, all evidence of material insufficiency, all former physical attributes once celebrated as character traits vanished by American Express fueled scalpel and suture. This is not self-help on steroids, this is what only a modern day banking system- financialized surgeon enhanced imagination can buy. Chins, cheeks and noses are chiseled into appealing compliance. Veneers for teeth, fitness centers for a cursory quick do over of gut or bicep. Hair and nail salons are cheek to jowl from Yreka to El Centro. My people start the day in circuit training end the day on a yoga mat. Kale salad and our first of two hibiscus infused martini’s are sipped at sunset with more often than not a second or third present-life-partner. The brilliant oranges and atmospherically moody ozone and carbon enhanced reds bring to climax another Left Coast Topanga Canyon sunset.

Performing the Mightiest Little of Dogs

My sailing began on the Alameda Estuary. In 1980 I had come off the road from constant touring. I had weathered five years out of state crisscrossing the nation chasing dates playing my juggling act to infinitesimally diminutive audiences. I heard the call of home. Born in Oakland and raised in the Bay Area. Northern California of the seventies and yet to be written eighties was fern bars, funk bands doused in magnums of Napa sparkling wine. We were the world’s glitzy, garrulous— glamorously libidinous. A person born in California tested the complex multidimensional iterations of the sprawling romantic endeavor described more or less as love.

Summer Winds

Decades, children, homes all came and went. Some vanished, some were sold and some simply moved out. All the while I was playing the streets of Fisherman’s Wharf a swelling population compounded like some interest bearing retirement account. The long wet winters are memory. A dryer and warmer climate has taken hold. We don’t much like to do dreary, wet or cold. It’s so awful we invented Palm Springs to help the most averse among us to not have to ever have to suffer such inconvenience.

Cozy Lagoons Nestled in Hillsides of Prickly Pear

And to this leading edge of all that is left of the era of enlightenment, as we all sort through the digital catastrophe, the computer chip disrupted economic rollercoaster madcap E-ticket ride to mostly rags or in some few circumstances riches here at this island outpost I arrive to take measure of my fellow countrymen. I am here to shoot my curiosity arrows into the heart of others minds, to gauge temperament, to discern what remains of what we have in common. In less than one year three historic sized conflagrations have leveled thousands of buildings, terminated the lives of good people helping to shape the expectations of what Tesla, lithium and solar panels can bring to our fragile future. Dusk is spent rocking gently at anchor. I see you fellow citizens. I see your spirit, I see our challenge. I want to shake your hand, hold you in my arms and convince you that we can do this. Together, we can do this, starting here and starting now. Come September and my return to my harbor… it is time.