The last thing I made with my hands was a birdhouse when I was 12.
It was the sort of birdhouse that made the well-to-do starlings and cardinals rally to keep it out of the neighborhood, lest it drive their property values down.
I’m still not particularly good at making physical things, but as it turns out, tenacity is a fair substitute for competence.
The “to do” list, which includes electricity and plumbing, is still eight miles long. But first: ROAD TRIP.
The Airstream, circa January. There aren’t too many “before” photos, since there was little light, little space, and I was desperate to start tearing things apart. The photos I did take don’t really do justice to the mind-boggling level of filth.
For the first three weeks after I bought the trailer, I wore a respirator whenever I worked inside of it.
The entire interior was yellow from cigarette smoke. Nicotine was literally dripping down the walls.
I found seven mouse nests.
The oven was coated in a thick brown goo that, if you got it on your hands, wouldn’t come off even when scrubbed with pumice. None of the major appliances were even remotely salvageable.
Behind every single panel and fixture I removed, there was a layer of mangled insect corpses.
It still makes my chest crunch up to think that anyone lived there, much less died there, much less alone and in a wheelchair.
There’s this scene in Lilies of the Field where Sidney Poitier’s character begins to build a chapel for the local nuns. He’s intent on doing it solo, for he’s got something to prove.
I, on the other hand, got over any such hangups pretty quick. Throughout this project, I have cheerfully accepted the assistance of others.
Renovating a trailer is a bitch on a bitchboat. I’ve supplied the design, research, labor, funds, and gross disregard for social convention.
There’s still a lot of work to do. I’m maybe at the 65% mark.
However, it would have been much more difficult to get this far, especially in three months, without certain resources. Namely two resources. Namely my mother and stepfather.
Oh, sure, I could have found some warehouse space in California and clawed away at this thing with an Ikea toolset and the barest wisp of a clue. Perhaps I could have finished it before our sun expanded to swallow Earth and form a planetary nebula.
But an aircraft hangar stocked with every tool known to humanity, plus a guy who’s probably built more planes than anyone else in North America, plus a hardware store, a donut shop, and a guesthouse to inhabit, all within a mile radius? That’s a much better deal.
Family that will come with you, on Christmas Eve, to check out the most lo-fi, embarrassing trailer in existence? Family who crack many (many) jokes at your expense, but who never discourage you from doing what you want, and who will occasionally enshroud themselves in trash bags to help you spray paint?
The best.
(Thanks also to Jimmy for the countertop, to Judy for getting the scum out of the galley tambour, to Francisco for helping paint the bedroom despite his fine Italian shoes, and to Bill for taking out some dents with a toilet plunger. Like a boss.)
With 11 days left before it’s time to take this show on the road, I go to procure a trailer hitch from a local joint called the Hitch ‘N’ Post.
Tarzie, the proprietor, hooks me up with a hitch that has weight distribution and sway control. I don’t entirely understand the physics of these features, but I do know they decrease the likelihood that I’ll die in a towing accident.
The hitch is used — a rare find, as people hardly ever get rid of their hitches. I save a couple hundred bucks and crow about it to anyone who’ll listen.
Tarzie also installs my new brake controller for me. When I return to pick up my truck, his 12-year-old son approaches and says:
“I have an arcade.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I made it myself.” He points to an open U-Haul truck nearby.
“Did you get the idea from that boy on the Internet?”
“Yeah, Caine’s Arcade. I wanted to make an arcade, too.”
“Can I play?”
Ethan’s Arcade isn’t as extensive as Caine’s (he’s only got two games at the moment), but he charges no admission, which makes young Caine look pretty cutthroat by comparison.
I only needed 30 points to win the marble toss, but managed to score 150 points because I’m amazing, and because most of the target holes had corresponding scores that were well in excess of 30 points.
“You won!” says Ethan. “You get to choose a prize.”
My choices were: 15 green plastic army men, or a miniature bowling set that “even comes with this little bag so you can carry it around!”
Caine needs to step up his game.
Back in the Saddle
I’ve been working on the Airstream again. It’s far from done, but it’s almost time to haul it to California.
If I were a better documentarian, I’d have some cool time-lapse footage enrobed in indie rock, but there’s already a lot to think about without having to consider, additionally, whether my ass is facing the camera and how it might look.
There’s also some Eat Pray Love shit going on, that is to say, confrontations with myself and my assorted limitations, that is to say, learning to rejoice in the many imperfections of this aluminum behemoth, that is to say, you know how in films when you see a woman renovating an old house and she’s got a bandana on and torn jeans and some paint splattered just so, and it’s always symbolic of an internal shift and her burgeoning empowerment but in a way that’s not threatening to the average viewer because it’s still inherently domestic, that is to say, I never read the book and I’ve been busy.
Cloud Lion
We raced. He lost.
Roanoke, VA.
Channel 2
Oakland, CA.
Check Please.
Neptune Society Columbarium, SF, CA.
Either I’m About to Spraypaint, or E.T. is About to Die.
Florida: Red in Tooth and Claw.
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