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Scree in celebration of the scramble volume 1
Journey ON.
The inaugural issue kicks it off with lessons on becoming an urban legend, a dive inside Cuba, an infographic on a year’s worth of beer consumption, original accessories, and plenty of perspective about the roller coaster that is the journey.
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On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a devastating tsunami. Across the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, CA, USA the tsunami waves were photographed by geologist Christie Rowe as they poured into Cowell’s beach. The above is an artistic compilation by Carissa Carter of the waves over a 45-minute period. 3 / SCREE v1
Letter from the Editor
A few years ago, I made the decision to jump out of a plane. I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish exactly – to conquer my fears, to hit the reset button on my focus, to force my hand at writing a will – but I do know that if I didn’t try, I would spend the rest of my life obsessing. Nevermind the fact that the idea of jumping out of a plane was a relatively new one in my head. Forget that I had no actual clear goal in my head for why I should go to 12,000 ft., roll out into a violent cheek-distorting tumble, freefall for a solid minute through 7,000 ft. of turbulence before praying to the saints and the soul of my dead grandmother that my parachute would, in fact, open at the 5,000 ft. mark, allowing me ultimately to sail gracefully back down to earth like the good nanny Mary Poppins. I prepared for weeks. I meditated. Prayed. Wrote apology letters to all of my loved ones. I figured I had about an 82% chance of survival, so the odds were in my favor. When the day came, I went with friends, donned the gear, and walked bravely to the plane. I was at peace. I was Frank Herbert’s Dune. Fear is the mind killer. I will let it pass through me. I was so very, very Zen. The engine roared. We went up. And then the door opened. That’s when I noticed them. They were dressed in gear. Crazy gear. Like birds or superheroes or possibly flying squirrels. When the wind hit their faces, it was as if they were revived. Their eyes glowed. Their teeth glinted. Before I even had time to register who they were or what they were doing, each of them had taken a running leap toward to the door and had jumped open armed and chests flexed into the deep blue. When Carissa Carter, Scott Archer and I first had the conversation about starting Scree, we had in mind a magazine that would explore what it was like to be on one’s way to the top. What is it like to be close to the peak of your game, and still reaching? And is it harder or easier as you near the top? We took a good look around at our friends and associates: artists, techies, writers, scientists, performers, producers. A handful of them had won awards and accomplished a measure of fame. Each of us had tried our own hand at various ventures – some successful, some not – so it was with some recognition that we saw the fire in these people’s eyes. Which of these would succeed and why? And what separates them from the rest? At Scree, we like to compare the quest for success to a rigorous climb. For anyone that has ever climbed a high peak before in summer, you will know that right before you get to the top you often need to walk through an inclined field of loose boulders and rocks. This rubble, or “scree”, is the final challenge before reaching the peak. This is the part where it gets hard. 4 / SCREE v1
The casual hiker, of course, may never get this far. Some, seeing what they have to cross in order to summit, decide that the views they’ve seen thus far were their own reward and call it in. Others begin picking cautiously and methodically through the shifting ground, one foot in front of the other, fighting against the unpredictable stones. Maybe they’ll make it, maybe they won’t. And still, there is one other group of climbers. These get to the scree field and it’s like they’ve been revived. Sure, they’ve had their moments of exhaustion from fighting against the altitude, the shifting ground, the lack of oxygen – but with the goal just over the next rise, they’ve now had a recharge of energy and are locked in on their venture like a heat seeking missile. They will not listen to the advice of their friends and family to reign it in. They will get there if it’s the last thing they do. They might even break into a run. These are not normal people. In professional venture terms, these are the people who have been known to sleep under desks and on the floors of their workshops using nothing but a phone book as a pillow and drafts of their discarded work as a blanket. They are the endlessly driven, the unconventionally methodic and the crazy ambitious enough to conquer the whole damn mountain. They might even be wearing super hero flying squirrel suits. (Do not be fooled – there is more than one way to reach a peak.) And they are anything but normal. -Erika Rae
SCREE SUBMISSIONS Our goal is to publish submissions by individuals whose work falls somewhere on the continuum between smart and witty. We think the world needs more of you. We love your works in progress, and learning about your inspiration and journey. We welcome non-fiction, creative, and opinion pieces, and invite infographics, drawings, designs, cartoons, and photographs. If you have an idea for a special column or feature page, top ten list, etc., it’s all fair game. Drop us a line: editors@screemagazine.com
Contents textual 10
2
Opening spread
4
Letter from the editor
6
Contributors
Why I haven’t quit yet • Ham scramble comedy performance
visual
28
14
Super relax concept • Goligorsky
19
My life by the pint • Hoyt
product design transportation
self-documentation infographic
The next great frontman in rock and roll • Daly report music
58
36
Portraiture examined • Camera
51
The first 100 days • Carter
photography
self-documentation infographic
Paul Berberian of Orbotix • Rae interview product entrepreneurship
60
Cartoon • Rae
62
Braided • Milroy
comedy
product design fashion
66
Dreaming, drinking, quitting • Wetherell
71
For transitions • Witthoft
74
scramble film
scramble self-documentation
Exposure and urban legendom • Ferguson scramble comedy poetry performance
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Tourist information • Butler scramble documentary sport
86
Horoscope
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Slade Ham Lauren Milroy
Scott Witthoft Brin-Jonathan Butler
ributorscontribu Anthony Camera Rich Ferguson
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David Goligorsky Christie Rowe
Joe Daly Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
Kimberly Wetherell Christopher Hoyt
utorscontributor Scott Archer Carissa Carter Erika Rae
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LAUREN MILROY is a designer who loves studying the relationship between people and their possessions. She’s an avid collector of weird and mundane objects and has mad parallel parking skills! You can see where she chronicles her everyday inspirations and things she loves on her blog at www.hippanonymous. com. Lauren earned her MS at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco, CA.
SCOTT WITTHOFT believes in deconstruction in service of construction. A designer and engineer, at the moment he is interested in street-sound capture, transition design, and small-scale manufacturing. Scott teaches classes in human-centered design as well as storytelling & visual communication at Stanford University. He has degrees in Civil Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and The University of Texas at Austin and in Product Design from Stanford University.
SLADE HAM is a stand-up comedian. He has performed in 22 countries on four continents. When not on stage, he drinks Irish whiskey on the rocks and listens to rock and roll much too loud. One day he hopes to finish his book, host a travel show, and continue to trick the world into paying him to do the things he loves to do. He keeps a very expensive storage unit in Houston, TX.
BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER is an author and boxing trainer. His writing has appeared in The Toronto Quarterly, The Rumpus, Annalemma Magazine, and The New York Times. Brin is working on a memoir about his time living and boxing in Cuba entitled The Domino Diaries, as well as a documentary called “ Hero Traitor Madness” (herotraitormadness.com) chronicling the life of Cuban boxing legend Guillermo Rigondeaux, which Academy Award winning director Leon Gast has called “ …worth the wait.” He lives in New York.
Slade Ham Lauren Milroy
Scott Witthoft Brin-Jonathan Butler
orscontributorsc Anthony Camera Rich Ferguson
ANTHONY CAMERA is a Denver-based photographer specializing in editorial, advertising and fine art photography. Camera’s work has appeared in Westword, News Week, Psychology Today, TV Guide and 5280. Specializing in environmental portraiture, his work can be seen at his studio/gallery in Denver’s Santa-Fe Arts District. Camera is sought out for being a leader in his field and has recently been interviewed by TheNervousBreakdown. com, Action Figures, and Self Made. He has appeared on the Untitled Arts Show, and has been acknowledged by CORE Media as Denver’s “Best Commercial Photographer” – and yes, Camera is his real name.
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RICH FERGUSON has performed across the country, sharing the same stage with Patti Smith and Janet Hamill, Exene Cervenka, Holly Prado, and many other esteemed poets and musicians. He has been heard on numerous radio stations and is a featured performer in the film What About Me, also featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, K.D. Lang, Krishna Das, and others. Ferguson studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg and fiction writing with Aimee Bender and Sid Stebel. He has been published in the LA Times, spotlighted on PBS, and is Poetry Editor at TheNervousBreakdown.com. His spoken word/music CD is entitled Where I Come From. Rich lives in Los Angeles, CA.
David Goligorsky Christie Rowe
DAVID GOLIGORSKY is, among a myraid of other things, a professional designer. Everything Goligorsky owns, he owns in double, except for a found snow globe figure of a WWI foot soldier. Formerly a Biologist, he shifted toward Aerospace Engineering before earning a graduate degree in Product Design from Stanford University. He has also cofounded an electric vehicle operation and currently works at IDEO. He plays the musical saw and creates artifacts under the Goligorsky Laboratory marquee. He lives in Cambridge, MA.
CHRISTIE ROWE spends her days seeking the ugly messed up rocks that self respecting geologists leave behind. Presently a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, she is an a capella failure and an aspiring potter. A misplacer of irreplaceable documents, she explores earthquake destruction on rocks at 5, 25, and 30km depths, and recently had a moment in the poplular spotlight when she used real science to call out author Simon Winchester on fearmongering.
KIMBERLY M. WETHERELL is an award-winning filmmaker, stage director and storyteller. A clip of her short comedic documentary Why We Wax can be seen on Al Gore’s non-fiction cable channel and website CurrentTV. She is currently on location in St. Petersburg, FL, developing her debut feature film, Lullaby, and writes, produces and directs a variety of independent films, promotional videos and book trailers at her Brooklyn-based production company, She Shoots to Conquer.
JOE DALY is a writer who has freelanced pieces for national music publications, major record labels, legal journals and online message boards whose moderators exercise heroic tolerance in regards to his opinions His experiences playing and enjoying music are the subject of his upcoming book. When Joe is not searching for his next musical obsession, he does yoga, plays guitar, and spends hours in deep conversation with his dogs, Cabo and Lola. Joe is Associate Arts and Culture Editor at TheNervousBreakdown.com and lives in San Diego, CA.
CHRISTOPHER HOYT is a designer of anything graphical, as well as a range of objects that people interact with in everyday life. Chris’ furniture projects play with perceptions of physical proximity, and his blown glasswork incorporates layers of color and form. Christopher has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from the College for Creative Studies and currently lives in Grand Rapids, MI.
TY KENNEDY-BOWDOIN is a scientist and a photographer. He spends his days flying in small planes over the rainforests of the world, capturing images beyond the visible spectrum with sensors that help him calculate the amount of carbon stored in this lush vegetation. His interest in imagery extends beyond the top-down view and into photography as an art and practice that allows him to collect an excessive amount of gear in his home in Menlo Park, CA.
Joe Daly Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
Kimberly Wetherell Christopher Hoyt
contributorscon Scott Archer Carissa Carter Erika Rae SCOTT ARCHER is a software architect and entrepreneurial thrill-seeker. He is also a boundless dreamer who believes this world is too small and goes too fast. Scott is the lead architect of Glib.net. He is also the founding tech guru of Full Signal Internet, as well as social lending company, IOU Note, named in 2008 as a CSIA Most Innovative Company. He earned his M.Phil in Bioinformatics from The University of Hong Kong. Currently, he lives near Boulder, CO and, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, is married to Erika Rae. Scott believes there is no such thing as strong coffee, only weak people and speaks cynicism fluently.
CARISSA CARTER designs products and experiences. She will be a professor someday. Having sampled a range of occupations from science to consulting to tech startups, Carissa is currently building a shoe company, making skateboards, and drawing maps. She loves all board sports, coffee, bloody mary’s, and awkwardness. Carissa lives in Hong Kong. Creative Director, SCREE
ERIKA RAE is a writer, editor and serial entrepreneur. She is the founding editor of 2CupsofCopy.com and is cofounder of IOU Note, a webbased social lending company chosen as a CSIA Most Innovative Company (2008). Her home is in the mountains west of Boulder, CO, where she cofounded Full Signal, an ISP serving the surrounding mountain communities. Erika is nonfiction editor at TheNervousBreakdown.com. She earned her MA from The University of Hong Kong in Literature and Linguistics. Her irreverent humor memoir, Devangelical, is being released in 2012 by Emergency Press. Editor in Chief, SCREE
Web + Media Director, SCREE
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Comedian Slade Ham sums it up.
Why I haven’t quit yet 10 / SCREE v1
I am writing this from a snow-locked room in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’m not even in a hotel this week; I’m in what comedy clubs like to call the “comedy condo”, which is a misleading way of saying “horrific, stripped down apartment that the club rents so they don’t have to pay for a hotel”. The problem, if you rolled it all up and shoved it in a nutshell, is this. What I am doing at this moment is not success. I am a comedian. An artist. A rebel-rousing, loud talking, outside-the-box storyteller. I take words and twist them unexpectedly. I stand in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people at a time and manipulate their emotions to the positive. I’m really good at what I do and I know it. To feign humility would be completely unauthentic. In fact, that ego is one of the most important tools in my toolbox. Even now, here in Wisconsin. So why is it that I am sitting in this “condo” with no cable, no internet, and a plastic lock box over the thermostat? I
am a wild chimpanzee flown in for the circus and kept in a cage until showtime, unable to even alter the temperature of my environment without opening a window to the twentyeight degree, frozen air. Who puts themselves through this voluntarily?
*** Four years ago I closed the comedy club I had owned for half a decade after sinking all but the last of my savings toward keeping it alive. Owning a comedy club was one of the most exhilarating and empowering things I had ever done. I was able to cut my teeth as a performer on my own stage, at my own discretion, while still hanging out with the best comics in the country every weekend. I was still just the largest fish in a tiny, small-town pond though. I had plenty of options after the club closed. There wasn’t a bar or restaurant that wouldn’t take me on as a manager. I could even go back into radio if I wanted to. Yes, comedy
was fun. Yes, I enjoyed writing. But I needed to take myself seriously, didn’t I? I was a grown up with responsibilities and bills to pay and just a small little rat-hole of money to get by on. I should have quit then, but I was convinced I could make it.
*** Following a dream immediately separates us from the pack. Instantly. The second you choose to do it you are expelled from the crowd of dogs racing down the hill. You are tossed, bumpy and bruised off to the side where you watch that mad pile of animals round the corner toward what you believe is mediocrity. Dusting yourself off you stand in silence and look out around you, alone, and try to determine the best path forward. There’s something better out there, you tell yourself. I’m supposed to do this, no matter how terrifying or difficult it seems.
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Necessity is the mother of an entire litter of children, from invention to survival. When the last dollar ran out, I found myself staring down the same decision I had been faced with months before, except this time without the safety net. So you begin walking and somewhere along the line you hit a stride. Despite the lack of guideposts and street signs you manage to carve a path in a promising direction. Normalcy taunts you. You can see that pack of dogs down at the bottom of the mountain, seemingly happy and content, thirst quenched and hunger abated, while you trudge along toward a destination that you can’t even really define. Just “not down there”. That’s all you know. You can’t live on their food, in their world, by their rules. I’m headed somewhere much, much, bigger, you repeat as you walk ever onward.
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After my club closed, I spent the next several months refusing to be responsible at all, flitting between Los Angeles and Houston and taking myself only halfway seriously. There always seemed to be just a few more dollars in my safety account, always just enough to keep me unmotivated and inactive. I honestly believe I was waiting on my big break to show up on my doorstep of its own accord. I let my mental muscles atrophy. I let myself forget that you actually have to do the work to get anywhere different. Eventually both the money and my ability to skate by without actually doing anything ran out. Within six months I had
gone from king of the world to the broke guy sleeping on his brother’s couch. And I really should have quit then.
* * * The medium we choose to work in doesn’t matter. It takes as much courage to open a bakery as it does to run a marathon; failure hovers like a harpy outside of both doors. The stage of a comedy club is no more or less threatening than that of a symphony hall. Even when you’ve climbed high enough to plateau, the threat of disaster never really disappears. What if I can’t get any higher? What if I’m stuck? What if all of this work and sacrifice only nets me just enough to scrape by? There are so many safer options I could have taken. Which is why I’ve learned to feed my ego. Not publicly. Not arrogantly. Not in a chest-beating, look-at-me kind of way, but privately. I load up where I can like I’m stocking a storeroom for the Apocalypse. Every handshake after a show or comment left on my website or round of applause. Every compliment, smile, laugh, and mention on Twitter. I carry them in water buckets to those empty places in my soul. Even as I sit here lamenting this awful week of work I took because I needed the money, even now, that ego is shoving me hard in the chest and calling me a whiny little schoolgirl. I’m that good, it tells me, and I believe it. Better than good. I’m a Charlie Sheen-style, angelic Jedi rockstar sent to change the direction of the Earth’s spin. You have to let yourself get a little crazy. Sane people don’t venture outside of the safe walls of the village. Normal people eat with the pack. Not us though. We walk alone. Even when our wives or husbands or families support us unconditionally, we are the ones that have to take the actual journey. Nobody has to fight the dragons but us and you can’t do that if you’re not willing to let yourself go at least a little bit insane on the inside. You have to be willing to kick and scream and claw and laugh maniacally at the moon and then run headlong into the darkest forest imaginable like you’re going on a family vacation to Disneyland. Because that’s how stuff gets done. The reason I haven’t quit is because I’m crazy, and the best kind of crazy, too. If it’s something I picked up on my own then I got lucky when I found it, and if it’s genetic then I owe my parents a debt of gratitude. You don’t make it this far if you’re not great somehow. Sure, I made a bad judgment call when I took this gig. Last week though I was lying on a beach in Clearwater, Florida between shows. Last year comedy took me to Amsterdam and Saudi Arabia. Japan a few years before that. I’ve stood on stage in twenty-two countries over the last decade. I’ve played theaters full of screaming people. I’ve wrestled with cheetahs and played soccer with Djiboutian orphans in Africa. I’ve leaped off cliffs into the cold clear waters of the East China Sea. I’ve sat in dusty, dirty restaurants in more Middle Eastern countries than I can name eating shawarma while the muezzin’s prayer calls echoed peacefully in the distance. And there are a million more memories of bizarre cities and wild adventures and strangers that became friends, too.
* * * As much as I loved what I had built, the club’s closing (along with the consequent zeroing out of my bank account) was the best thing that ever happened to me. I needed to be thrust into the flames to see if I would survive. Necessity is the mother of an entire litter of children, from invention to survival. When the last dollar ran out, I found myself staring down the same decision I had been faced with months before, except this time without the safety net. I couldn’t do comedy the way I really wanted to and maintain any sort of real job. I had to choose. And I probably should have quit then. The instability of income as a stand-up comedian scared me to death, but the tedium and rhythm associated with entering some homogenized workforce scared me even more. Up against a wall, I realized that what I was making into a huge decision really wasn’t a decision at all. If it was going to be one or the other, I was going to be the best comedian these people had ever seen.
* * * So the reason I haven’t quit is because I simply don’t know how to do things differently. It’s my wiring. It’s the intermingling of electricity and soul that makes my synapses fire differently from that pack. It keeps me awake at night and makes me sweat. It makes me take that one more step even when I am relatively certain that I am incapable. I gave up long ago on the Plan B. I haven’t quit because I can’t. Not won’t. Can’t. I’ve accepted that this is simply what I am, for better or worse. So tonight - regardless of where I’m staying or how I’m feeling - tonight I’m going to walk out on that stage and do what I decided to do a long time ago. I’m going to be the best comedian these people have ever seen. ◊
Slade Ham and The Whiskey Brothers. Listen to the podcasts: praisewhiskey.com
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Designer David Goligorsky presents SUPER RELAX CONCEPT ELECTRIC RESEARCH VEHICLE. Built by hand, this electric tandem bicycle was inspired by the Swedish proverb “a joy shared is a joy doubled; a burden shared is half a burden.” An artifact within his body of work surrounding short-distance personal mobility, here Goligorsky shows off the bike at the Bay Area Maker Faire.
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A
B
C
D
A B C D
Driver view SRCERV custom, multi-lingual identity Backseat driver bell and foot platform Showing at Maker Faire
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VEI D D TAH
GOL
IGO
LAB
RSK
ORA
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TOR
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photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
Onions.
As far as we know, we’re the only planet that makes them. 18 / SCREE v1
In 2010, I decided to combine my three passions: beer, local, and design. This report is the result of 12 months spent recording every detail of my beer consumption at my local watering hole, Founders Brewing Company, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.
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Most memorably named beers.
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ABBY a.k.a - P-Dick mug #874
LINDSAY a.k.a - Hoyt-y Toity mug #892
While Daniel didn’t come all the way from Italy just to drink with me, we did enjoy some laughs over a few beers.
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105 hours, the equivalent of 4.4 days, were spent at Founders. In contrast, 336 hours (14 days) were spent commuting to work in 2010.
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1.5 oz.
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My fear, after 16 months recording and making my alcohol consumption ready for pubic view, is that you will brand me an alcoholic. I am not, and like anyone in denial, I have facts to support my defense. When my entire beer consumption for 2010 is divided by 365, the daily average is less than half a beer – considerably less than the average 2 cups of a coffee drinker, or the daily glass of red wine a day recommended by some physicians. I would like to thank my friends for joining me at Founders over the 12 months of 2010. Without you, I would have been a weirdo that drinks alone. And to those that helped with the analysis, visualization, and writing of this report – I stand on the shoulders of giants. This makes me really tall.
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Chris Hoyt makes another tick mark in his records at Founders Brewing Company. He drinks best in purple.
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The Next Great Frontman in Rock and Roll From a boarding house in Utopia, one band takes a bullet train to the big time. -Joe Daly
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It takes a special kind of person to front a rock band. The numbers are staggering: for every guy or girl fronting a rock band, there are 7.2 letter carriers, 12.3 doctors, and 37 attorneys. OK, I made those figures up, but the point remains valid - quality frontmen are a rare and glorious species. Sadly, the landscape of rock and roll will forever be dotted with the tumbleweeds of singers too timid to properly rock the microphone. Perhaps these pretenders suffer from a simple lack of inspiration, but a good frontman realizes that just because you’re singing doesn’t mean you’re entertaining. To reach out into a crowd and pull them into your vibe you need equal parts swagger, roguish charm, and mystery. Admittedly, it helps if you can sing, and writing lyrics is a rather obvious bonus, but history has shown us that audiences will eagerly overlook these if the singer can deliver a good time. When I think of figures who exemplify this model, I think of Bon Scott, former frontman of Australian colossus AC/DC.
Bon was not as pretty as Jim Morrison and his voice had nothing on Robert Plant’s. His lyrics were often juvenile, yet he sang with a bravado that dared you to laugh. No stranger to shenanigans, Bon gave and took his share of punches, drank and dispensed his share of drinks and drugs, and gave one hell of an interview. Regardless of your opinion of AC/DC – Bon Scott was a great frontman. Bon came to mind recently as I read a profile of a band that is one of the hottest indie concert tickets of the spring. This band has critics salivating on two continents, earning the adoration of some of the surliest rock writers in both the US and the UK. While the band’s sound transcends the meaning of “infectious,” it is the singer who has kidnapped my attention. Barely into his mid-twenties, he has all the earmarks of a legend-in-the-making.
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Their profile features a large color publicity still showing the frontman standing off to the side, a scraggly, long-haired beanpole who looks like a refugee from the grunge era. So do his band mates. But these guys are not grunge and the singer is no Kurt Cobain. With his red hair shooting out like straw from his hat and a past as checkered as an Italian restaurant, this singer is the next great frontman. Believe it, baby – it’s true. Meet Dom – the band and the man. Most band profiles begin with an assessment of the music, followed by some high level information on the musicians, lifted from the band’s press kit. But it is far more instructive to understand this band’s beginnings before discussing the music, so jarring is the contrast between the two. Dom (the band) formed in Worcester, Massachusetts in early 2010, after singer Dom (the person) met drummer Bobby K in a boarding house. Worcester, MA is a gritty New England city that best-selling author Truman Capote, in his true crime blockbuster In Cold Blood, described as a “factory town of steep, up-and-down streets that even in the best of weathers seem cheerless and hostile.” And so Dom’s (both the band and the man) legend begins in a nameless boarding house in a hostile city. When you hear their music, you will understand the significance of this fact. Like many of music’s most colorful figures, Dom’s life was no Norman Rockwell painting. As he relates, he was abandoned by his mother at age 8 – given up for adoption although, for reasons unknown, his mother chose to hang on to the rest of his other siblings.
From this inauspicious point, Dom entered the Massachusetts foster care system, subsequently entering the state’s penal system. Ping ponging from one foster home to another, Dom observed that he was surrounded by children who had been removed from their homes by the state, while he himself seemed to be the only one who had been donated to the state. This kind of experience can understandably fuck with one’s worldview in a lasting and expansive way. After years of obsessing over and analyzing possible reasons for his abandonment, Dom turned his gaze from the past to the future, saying “fuck it,” and dedicating his days to “hav[ing] a good time.” Like many of his great predecessors, Dom is a rough-aroundthe-edges anti-hero, who in the face of emotionally barbaric treatment from the woman he trusted most, looked for (and found) redemption in music. You will note that no last name has been provided for either Dom or his drummer. In fact, none of the members of Dom come with a last name, including bass player/guitarist Erik and guitarist/”shred head” Cosmo. Only Dom offers an explanation: “I’m not a fugitive, but I owe a lot of money,” laughing as he admits, “I just don’t want to pay people back.” This may or may not be true, as Dom has established himself as a master of the tall tale in more than one interview. Yet he speaks with such a good-natured charm that it renders his unrepentant disregard for social obligations as strangely refreshing. Dom might sing in a band but he talks like an outlaw. Here in America, we love a good outlaw. Having met the man, let’s get to the music.
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Dom’s grunge look, downtrodden roots and band ages (midtwenties) all point squarely to garage rock. You can almost hear the de-tuned guitars and screaming vocals by simply looking at them. But their sound, sprung from the gray streets of a cheerless town in the dead of winter, could not be more unexpected. Cue up their seven song EP, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods, and listen. You’ll need to pick your chin up off of the floor, and go sit down, because what is pouring from your speakers feels like golden rays of sunlight washing down on your soul. You hear Malibu sunsets mixed in with warm lo-fi production, fuzzy guitars and snappy beats that come together as the precise halfway point between the Beach Boys and the Happy Mondays. It is rock, it is electronica, and it is dance. It is a party album and it is a driving mix. It is the ultimate soundtrack to the perfect summer day.
Unlike Irish Beach Boys revivalists The Thrills, Dom have not set out to mimic anything. Their dreamy psychedelic surf vibe was originally intended to be “an electronic sci-trance project,” but once Dom, Bobby, Erik and Cosmo teamed up, the sound that organically poured forth was something entirely different. There is an attention to detail in the songwriting that makes it clear that while Dom might not take themselves too seriously, they take their craft very seriously. Though the album has been re-mastered, it is apparent that these guys know how to write a catchy song without a producer’s guiding hand. That they put their initial EP together in a matter of months makes the album all the more impressive. The drums and lead guitar stand out as evidence of a depth of musicianship that goes far beyond the DIY garage sound that many of their peers seek to master. Beneath unique and hook-soaked guitar melodies, the result is a snappy groove so
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A kid who has every right to walk through the world with a middle finger extended to all, is instead gratefully and playfully creating his own world of great music, good friends, and lots of partying. catchy that it is already being re-mixed and re-packaged for the club scene. But these guys are no pop band – they play their instruments with the confidence of seasoned rockers. Their sound is feel good music with an edge – the lyrics speak of girls and good times but are laden with enough irony and drug references that you won’t hear any Dom songs performed by grade school choirs anytime soon. There is no “Barbara Ann” on this EP. The leadoff track is “Jesus,” which has nothing to do with the Messianic figure and everything to do with infidelity and breakups. It was the first song they wrote, inspired by Dom catching his then-girlfriend in the arms of another man. Again, vintage leading man stuff. But the song is no bitter diatribe against a scorned lover – it is a punchy hip-shaker about partying in basements, taking ecstasy and looking for meaning in between it all.
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With a synthesized sound and funked-up drumming, it is an ideal choice to kick off the EP. “Living in America,” the group’s bona fide hit, mixes catchy lyrics and pop hooks so addictive that this could be the first song ever to be classified as a controlled substance. It rolls like a montage from a John Hughes movie, but it’s every bit as current as the streak the band is riding. The remainder of the songs stand out equally and individually – there are no throwaways on the EP. Critically, while the overall sound and production are constant, the songs do not blend together. “I Wonder”, the final track on the album, is a glorious closer full of candy sweet lyrics and a playful melody that feels like the sun going down as the bonfire party kicks off. The EP was a homegrown project that they slapped together after a few months of rehearsing which they then
released on Burning Mill records. As word of their sound hit the street like a new drug, bigger industry players stepped into the picture and the EP was subsequently re-released by Astralwerks (Virgin/EMI), home to electronica giants Fatboy Slim, Phoenix, Air, and Basement Jaxx. Perhaps a little closer to Dom’s sound are label mates Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, and Röyskopp. The original EP was available only in limited physical quantities, but Astralwerks is re-releasing it in several formats (LP, CD, and digital), and while the tracks have been re-mixed and re-mastered, they retain the homespun analog sound that flowed so naturally from their initial collaboration. With the EP taking off, the band is capitalizing on the opportunities coming their way. They have recorded a remix track with Gucci Mane and they have collaborated on a new single with fellow up-and-comers Cults. They plan on releasing more EPs in the coming year as they hone their sound on the summer festival circuit. Dom played nine shows in four days at the 2011 South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, delighting crowds and living up to SPIN Magazine’s nomination as one of the 35 “Must-See” picks of the festival. They are now headlining their first tour, while magazines across the globe, from Pitchfork to Sweden’s Sonic Magazine continue to herald their arrival into the consciousness of the music world. Dom (the man), is taking it all in as if he’s been in the business for years. While so many young musicians approach their first media experiences blathering on about how hard they work and how important their music is, Dom is simply having fun. When SPIN inquired as to the economic realities of being indie up-and-comers, rather than extol his band’s work ethic (which is high), Dom replied “[e]very day, it’s a struggle to get
drunk. We can’t pay our rent, but we get food stamps. That’s pretty awesome.” Again, his predilection for exaggeration brings the food stamp issue into question, although the averred dedication to getting loaded is most certainly true. In some interviews, Dom has disclosed that their song “Bochicha,” written about his cat, is played before the home games of hometown heroes, the Worcester Sharks, whom he referred to as American Hockey League champions. In fact, the Sharks were the 2010 first place finishers in the Atlantic Division, losing to the Manchester Monarchs long before reaching the championship round. This is a smaller fib in view of the fact that the Worcester Sharks have never played “Bochicha” before any home games. This is the impish charm that not only keeps reporters on their feet, but that makes him so endearing. Steady doses of
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bravado, mystery, and lots of laughs make for a compelling interview and an intensely high-energy show. A kid who has every right to walk through the world with a middle finger extended to all, is instead gratefully and playfully creating his own world of great music, good friends, and lots of partying. And Dom never forgets where he’s from, either, constantly singing the praises of the city where it all began. “America’s pretty awesome. I can’t say enough about Worcester, Massachusetts. It’s a utopia.” As Dom (the band) continue to carve out their place in the world, and Dom (the man) continues to hone his frontman chops and avoid debt collectors, we can look forward to much, much more. Expectations are already high for their next EP and I can’t wait to see what they come up with when they’ve got a big production budget, limitless studio resources, and the eyes of the world on the stringy haired kid with the mischievous smile.
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photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
Chili peppers An unforgettable addition to your next fondue party. 35 / SCREE v1
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portraiture examined A portrait can capture a soul, cause a fleeting feeling seen only for a split second to penetrate to unexpected depths. A portrait is a frame of an individual’s existence. It is revealing physically, texturally, emotionally. A master of portraiture, photographer Anthony Camera shares some of his best. 1 Daisy 2 Tony 3 Terrence 4 Paul 5 Kit 6 Jordan 7 Gloria 8 Lou 9 Baljit 10 Andrew 11 Joshua
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photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
o u y r t mo it n e G joo
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start
hong kong
shanghai
macau
dongguan
tokyo
singapore less
hap
py
mo
re h
app y
the first
100 days
lexington
Last October, I embarked on a project to draw a picture every day. Continually interested in hand drawing as an underused method of expression and connection to others, I want to see what I might uncover in my quest. In addition to each drawing, I record my emotion and the intensity of that emotion each day, as well as my location and one sentence that describes my day. I’m still experimenting with how I’ll use this information. The above is an experimental infographic charting emotion as related to location. In the following pages I share my drawings from the first 100 days. Some are great, and some suck. -Carissa Carter
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hong kong ----> trying to adjust, assimilate ------> shanghai ----> talked about, trying to put on
counting milestones, frustrated, allowing others in but keeping my guard up, contrasting the love
finding inspiration beyond and comfort in simple glances ---->singapore ---> celebrating a small w
fed up but energized by true friends, anticipation ahead, able to forget when surround with the ri
close to escape, avoiding sneezes, eating well on the brink --->lexington ---> i am whole, and com
a lens to blur it ---> macau --> exploring ---> hong kong ---> looking for the right people --->
from some with the distrust from others, biding my time trying not to lose my sanity, hiding --->
win ----> hong kong ----> comforted by those that respect me, laying it all out on the line ----->
ight energy ---> singapore ---> two steps back, held together by those I love ---> hong kong ---->
mplete, and surrounded, welcome yule, and giving thanks and love, cozy, celebration with all ---->
remembering those that aren’t here, last moments of warmth, nervous to leave ---> hong kong --->
wishing I could get over it, showing others the ropes, waiting for nothing, worried about losing m
enjoying making ----> shanghai ---> better when creativity is accepted ---> hong kong ---> oscilla
enough for the weekend ---> hong kong ---> the best visitors make me better, able to forget, confi
small steps towards health, progress on the side, resolving to charge for my family, squashing tur
trying to resolve to get a grip, gazing out, resisting adjustment, wearing armor, searching ---->
my edge, pretending is getting annoying, disappointed in myself, heard by some but unsure ------->
ating, encouraged, excited by those that value me, optimistic ----> tokyo ----> empathizers! ---->
ident, not alone, on a cusp, and then a bump on a log, not wanting to waste what I have here ---->
rkeys, pushing creation, combatting lows with plans for highs, conflicted ----> singapore ---> tbc
Boots.
They’re for your feet.
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photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin 57 / SCREE v1
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When I met with Paul Berberian a few years ago about a company I was involved in launching, he was in between ventures – looking for his next passion. He has found it perhaps unsurprisingly high up in the thin air of the start-up world. Currently, he is the CEO of Orbotix (orbotix.com), developer of Sphero, a robotic ball controllable by iPhone. Not only does the man know how to start a buzz, but he apparently also knows how to roll. SCREE So…a robotic ball that you can control with your iPhone. Please explain? PAUL Well, it is just a ball about the size of a baseball that you can control with an iPhone or Android. You can download games to your phone and use the ball as part of the gameplay. We call it a mixed reality game – part in the real world, part in the virtual. SCREE Tell me a little about the geniuses behind this idea. PAUL Ian Bernstein is the robotics co-founder and Adam Wilson is the software co-founder. It was a mutual idea. They were part of the TechStars (techstars.org) 2010 class and I was their lead mentor. When I heard the idea, I thought it was brilliant. Gaming and the way we use our phones is changing
smart folks who want to build something the world has never seen. This fit the equation. I had great chemistry with the founders and the three of us make a great team. SCREE Where is Orbotix in the process of launching this spherical marvel? PAUL We are ramping up production now. In fact, I’m off to China tomorrow morning. We should have our first units for 2011 holiday time - and will really be ramping things up once we get feedback from some early customers. SCREE You’ve recently received a new round of funding. What was the biggest hurdle in getting this? Was it harder than the first round? Why or why not? PAUL This business was a piece of cake to raise money for. We raised $1M in days and $5M faster. Foundry Group, our lead investor, is a huge supporter of our vision to build mixed reality experiences. Seeing the ball move is just magical. It is not hard to fall in love with the ball. SCREE Let’s talk about you. You’ve done the start-up thing before What number is this for you now?
Scree Talks with Paul Berberian, CEO of Orbotix by Erika Rae
like crazy. Soon we will be controlling all sorts of physical objects with our handheld devices. SCREE Why did you choose to get involved in Orbotix? Do
you have a background in robotics or…in rolly things? PAUL I love balls! (Ha!)
No, I love gadgets and gizmos. I love working with really
PAUL Seven. SCREE What is the draw for you in being a serial entrepreneur? PAUL I love creating things, forging a business from just an idea, bringing new things to market – the entire thrill of creation. It drives me.
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SCREE What is your best piece of advice for other entrepreneurs who are trying to follow their dreams and are finding that summiting their ventures is harder than they thought? PAUL Keep plugging away. There is no such thing as a unique idea – just good and bad execution. Those that succeed execute. It is really hard work but if you love it, it comes easy. If it feels like a slog then probably being an entrepreneur is not for you. SCREE Would you agree that it gets harder just before you succeed? Is there a final push?
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PAUL No, I don’t agree. If you are in tune with your business, you can see success coming. With that vision in sight it drives you harder and gives you more energy. Success isn’t like a finish line but there are moments that you know you really have something. Landing a big client, getting profitable, users signing up over a certain number…whatever your key metric, you will know it. SCREE Pop quiz: How is being an entrepreneur like climbing a mountain? PAUL You eat lots of granola bars on the way up…and drink on the way down.
photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
How the hell did Peter Piper pick a peck of peppers that were already pickled?
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Br
designer Lauren Milroy presents:
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raide 63 / SCREE v1
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Scree is excited to debut Lauren Milroy’s new accessories collection, BRAIDED. A master of material combination, Milroy shows us three new looks made from coordinated cotton, leather, and chain.
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Dreaming the Impossible Dream, or, To Quit, Perchance to Drink Filmmaker Kimberly Wetherell takes us on the journey.
“You have to collect one hundred ‘no’s for a single ‘yes’” “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”
These are just some of the things that echo through my ears on a daily basis. Whether they fall from a friend’s lips in an attempt to embolden me, or are chanted in a mantra before dialing a new telephone number, or the lullaby I coo to myself at night to stave away the tears at the end of another seemingly fruitless day, I find I’ve grown tired of these now-bland adages and I’m starting to ask myself the hardest question I’ve ever had to face: “When is it time to quit and move on?” You see, I am trying to raise money. And not just a little bit of money, a lot of money. One million dollars.
* * * As of December 20, 2010, it was five years since I penned the first draft of what would eventually become LULLABY. The journey has been far from uneventful. 66 / SCREE v1
[Seemingly]
The [re]writing process alone has produced 32 unique revisions, 3,800 pages, 570,000 words, 8 main characters, 79 unique speaking characters, 142 non-speaking featured extras, countless background extras and 56 unique locations and has eventually been whittled down to 108 pages, 5 main characters, 9 supporting characters, 15 additional speaking roles, 44 features extras, 100+ background extras and 18 locations. At one point, I had two producers to help me make this film and we had raised $4 million, but then lost it right before preproduction started, which sent me into a deep depression that took more than a year to overcome. After picking myself up and dusting myself off, I have cut the budget in half – twice, held public screenplay readings, sent queries, made cold calls, begged foundations, chased grants, courted actors, chatted-up new producers, made a promotional teaser, built a website, started a production blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed. I’ve submitted to countless screenwriting
competitions and networked my ass off to get noticed, and when I felt I had exhausted every other possible option, I packed up and moved to Florida to be ‘on location’ and explore what local support might be available. And I am not complaining. It’s what it takes nowadays. I know this. Long gone are the days of Patronage. Today it’s a DIY game. With our government officials ignoring the importance of the Arts and our philanthropic organizations teetering on the brink of extinction, you quite simply can’t do the “show” without the doing “business” as well.
* * * I’ve heard it said: “If you’re not getting rejected daily, you’re not working hard enough” and I’ve read many tales of tenacious resolve and unflagging perseverance and finally breaking through and making that film, or publishing that book, or 67 / SCREE v1
selling that painting – some with gestational periods far longer than my current (and seemingly average) five years, but what about all of those who couldn’t take it anymore? At what point do the indefatigable rejections stop being personal? Artists need a thick skin (another adage I would like to drop-kick in the delicates), but I’ve never found the ability to embrace the ‘Meh’ and move on. I cry. Every single goddamn time. I still equate people not liking the project with not liking me. Me! ME!?!?!? How can someone not like me, not want to be involved with this amazing thing that I wrote, not be supercharged and simultaneously moved to tears by its message, not believe in it as strongly as I do, not want to eat, drink, sleep and breathe it every minute of every day like I do? And then I jump on the hamster-wheel of doubt: Is it any good? Am I any good? Am I a “Creative”? Maybe I’m not a Creative. Maybe I should just go back to being “Production” where I’m merely a facilitator of other peoples’ creativity. It’s the Peter Principle at work: succeed until the point of failure. And that’s what I am. A failure. A complete and utter failure. Have I just wasted the last five years of my life? Five years! People have met, fallen in love, gotten married, had children and divorced in shorter time frames! Perhaps it really IS time to throw in the towel. And if I did, if I really got to the point of quitting, what would I do then?
* * * I got some feedback once that always strikes me as particularly funny:
“You are clearly a very strong writer; have you considered adapting this as a novel?[…] once the novel garners success, it would be much easier for LULLABY to attract financing and to succeed commercially as a film.”
* * * I don’t have any real answers here. Not yet. I don’t think I have it in me to quit – I mean really quit. But I do I toy with the idea of giving it all up and opening a little café. It would be only open 7:00am to 3:00pm and it would be called “Wake and Bake”. It’d have a daily rotating menu of strictly breakfast and lunch items and a plentiful bakery case filled with ‘drunk cakes’ – confections of every variety with one common ingredient: Alcohol. Guinness chocolate cupcakes filled with a mocha-whiskey ganache and Bailey’s buttercream icing, Key lime mojito pie, Kahlua cream profiteroles, Strawberry margarita marshmallows, DiSaronno marzipan, Bananas Foster brownies, Brandy Alexander pie, Flourless dark-chocolate cake drizzled with a port-wine pomegranate reduction… my list is endless. And I think I would be happy there in my little bakery. I do. But it’s also terrifying. The minute I make that decision, I’m putting a nail in my own coffin; sealing off the dream that I’ve been dreaming of and working towards for (gasp!) thirty years now. Can I give ‘The Man’ that kind of power? To let the fear of more rejection take away my dream? Maybe. ◊
Artists need a thick skin (another adage I would like to drop-kick in the delicates), but I’ve never found the ability to embrace the ‘Meh’ and move on. 68 / SCREE v1
The last thing Tess O’Keefe, a devout Polish Catholic immigrant, wants to do after the death of her husband is sell her modest Florida home and move into The Willows – an affordable, Jewish, Adult Living Community. The first thing her granddaughter, Kathleen, wants to do, after stumbling upon a mysterious box filled with evidence of her grandmother’s past as one of Poland’s ‘Hidden Children’ of the Holocaust, is to figure out why. And all Tess’s son wants, Kathleen’s blue-collar father, Jake, is for everything to stay the way it is. Tess’ façade begins to crumble after she is befriended by Yetta Mendlowitz, a spunky septuagenarian, and her gaggle of yapping yentas at The Willows. Thrown head-long into a forgotten world after years of deliberate self-suppression, Tess’ inner demons begin to wage an all-out war upon her conscience. She is plagued by painful memories
and haunted by recurring nightmares; nightmares, she believes, of what should have been. Meanwhile, Kathleen enlists the help of Liev, a hip, Sephardic ‘scenester’ and klezmer virtuoso. Together, they dig further and further for the truth, only to discover a secret not even Kreskin could predict. And once revealed, the O’Keefe family suddenly finds themselves thrown into total upheaval; questioning their faith and scrambling to hold onto their unraveling family ties; all while racing the clock to salvage what’s left of Tess’ rapidly deteriorating life. Intimate and heart-wrenching, yet ultimately inspiring, LULLABY is a poignant portrait of survival; a universal story about family and faith, filled with the excruciating silences and exuberant music of Life.
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For Transitions Scott Witthoft
I can hear it at 8 minutes and 53 seconds: that is the moment I know that the Grateful Dead are playing out of “The Eleven” and into “Turn on Your Lovelight”. The shorthand from fans with many more years committed to the band is “Eleven > Lovelight”. Of course such fans also frown on having a record label-issued “live” album such as the source material for the point: Live/Dead. Just the same, that album, released before my birth, transformed how I listen to the music between songs and redefined my expectations for how and why songs fit together. I knew about medleys and I reveled in hearing riffs making the rounds in larger circles, but on that recording I somehow first found the invitation to middle spaces of real-time transition building from one work to the next. That signaled a bit of a life-long quest: identify how and when the change will happen. I am pretty sure that the band did not intend my personalized outcome, but they did forever change the way I experience music. As a side note, I semi-secretly delight at hearing my take on the transition 20-plus seconds prior to the CD track indexing. Maybe I also inadvertently developed a bit of competitive pride, as well.
Graduate students are deceptive learners. They have incredible stamina for sitting through new and obtuse brain
candy, and pair that with an alarming ability to nod and smile at all the right micro-moments to suggest that they understand. It has taken me several years in practicing from both perspectives--as student and teacher--to understand what is happening, and even now I make no claim at understanding that understanding at any kind of neurological level. I have been able to triangulate on a learning phenomenon that teachers--again, released before my birth--regularly experience: the “I’ll ask you right after class” pattern. After class, as the theatrics of a classroom performance come to an end and the roles of student and teacher begin to dissolve into the rest of the day, students will often freely engage in question and conversation with a kind of curiosity and informality that is somehow incongruent with typical learning behavior-particularly in the context of large classes full of judging eyes and ears. The behavior of students in a classroom is apparently the same as that of athletes on a playing field. A colleague on the coaching staff for Stanford University’s Women’s soccer team anecdotally shared that team practices include an intentional 10 to 15 minute lull on the field before actual practice, based on observations that players would routinely show up at that time with particular concerns that would otherwise go unaddressed. It struck me as a profound parallel that while the details of the athlete versus student behavior--before practice versus after
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class--were slightly different, the phenomenon was the same. Mental and physical gymnastics perhaps require the same segues: classrooms as practice fields and the inverse.
In a monkey-see, monkey-do manner, I have taken two of my most profound lessons in transitions from subtleties in my paternal grandfather’s later life. My grandfather, Sam, worked many jobs, including car salesman and homebuilder. I never knew him as the former, but I did know him well as the latter and often worked with him up to his retirement well into his 70s. Sam and my grandmother moved from North Hollywood to Tucson in the early 1980s. Tucson, like its western megalopolis brother, Los Angeles, is a driving city. Driving was a fundamental activity in Sam’s life and livelihood. On a particular Sunday while driving home from church services, Sam, aged 85 years, slowed the car and pulled onto the road shoulder, coming to a stop. He switched off the car and turned to my grandmother in the passenger seat, asking her to switch places with him and finish the drive home. I learned a bit later that he had been working through the situation in his head and he balanced his diminishing confidence in his dexterity with their safety and made the choice to stop driving. That was that: he stopped driving that day. I found that polarity compelling: driving as a demarcation of so many things--freedom, power, control, masculinity, and perhaps vanity--is culturally significant. My grandfather’s choice to stop driving charms me in its favor of family safety over all else and it makes for fun lore, but it also strikes me as a choice without a transition. I wonder how long he had been contemplating the choice in his head, and if he had considered tapering versus terminating his drive. In Sam’s later years, as his physical health warranted attention beyond the capabilities of my grandmother, he inadvertently designed another transition. In fortunate circumstances, my parents and grandparents found a care facility very near to my grandparents home--a home my dad built for them in 1981. As need arose, Sam moved into an apartment at the facility while my grandmother continued to live in their home. Every day, she drove down the hill of their driveway and down the foothills in that part of the city to be with him. She stayed through the morning and into the afternoon, leaving to handle the emerging administrative demands of their new lives. In the evenings she would return to be with Sam. His lucidity varied over a period of months, some days being clear and sunny like the outside weather, with others hazy like faraway places. He asked her on several occasions, “when will I be going home?” in reference to their home that he knew. She was challenged with the explanation that he was at his home: he was where he lived.
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I have taken tw profound lesson in my paternal g My grandparents had been married for over 70 years at that point in their lives and while they had lived in many places throughout the country with many different professions, their togetherness was constant. My grandmother shared an observation with me following Sam’s death: in the weeks of daily visits, she gradually became accustomed to a reality of not having him in the house. They had long discussed their desire to live independently--that is, in their own, independent home--as long as they could. As their respective capacities changed in the context of Sam’s health, the actualities of their options became more and more present as challenges: should they both move into Sam’s apartment? Should they keep their home? How to choose the facility--based solely on his needs or hers as well? With their decision to keep their home, the implementation of the mindful and gradual transitioning from one life to the next emerged as an unexpected tool. By visiting Sam every day--arriving and leaving--my grandmother built a physical and emotional transition from a 70-plus year pattern.
In 2006 I acknowledged to myself that I did not know how to do a flip-turn and my future depended on changing that situation. For swimmers, the flip-turn actually is a pretty significant transition from one direction of travel to the opposite within a lane. Good turns can change a race among competitive athletes. I am by no means a competitive swimmer, and I hadn’t been a free-and-easy swimmer for decades. As an overweight and introverted kid, I entirely avoided my outward transition from child to adult. The physiology of puberty does offer a wholesale gift in that 160 pounds on the frame of a boy in fourth grade will take on a fundamentally different aesthetic on a taller teen. I welcomed that gift. The complementary compulsion to look good for the girls fell flat though in that it did not fit, much like my jeans. Freaked out inside my tent of a t-shirt I was singularly interested in the beautifully embodied boys who were not me.
wo of my most ns from subtleties grandfather’s life. So, I stayed an ugly duckling. As I contemplated that story, it occurred to me… decades later… that the trajectory of my telling would less likely reveal a beautifully swimming swan than it would a dead goose, stuffed. So, in that year I decided to take off my shirt and literally dive into the pool. There is no better--nor more intimidating--place to learn how to be a “swimmer” than on a college campus. Much to my surprise, however, the social burden of that exercise faded significantly as I addressed the fundamentals of the sport, including how to once again change directions of motion. I enrolled in a class that focused on teaching techniques of all strokes and some of the subtleties of swimming that would become instinct with practice. As it turns out, there was not much emphasis on actually learning flip-turns. I went through an exhaustive search for materials to help show me what was right and what was wrong. It seems obvious to just go ahead and “do it”. It is equally obvious to do the right thing in life, and yet that is a challenge for… everyone, so I don’t feel too badly about the paradox of reading how to swim. It turns out there are some fantastic descriptions of flip-turns both in print and video. The print descriptions are particularly amusing. For all of their intent they are simply embellishments on a
fundamental fact: you have to flip and turn around. They read like critique of actual oil on canvas: blather. Diagrams are equally hilarious and unhelpful in facilitating a body to experience an event. Videos seem slightly more useful, but that might be just the illusion of movement. I went through all the materials I could find and as casually as one can ask friends who know better: “Hey, so, flip-turns… how do you do those?” I got some good tips, and ultimately I did learn by doing, but the build-up mattered. For my own wellness in the situation, and for every time that I now get a really sweet momentum thing happening with a successful turn, I appreciate the actuality of the event: each turn that I make is a return on a 30-year transition.
Transitions continue to trick me and in a fairly frustrating way: they are obvious companions to change. The trick is that I know situations requiring response to change can be better managed and perhaps better designed if a transition is identified early, but so frequently I cannot see the change until it has already happened. In the case of The Dead, all at once I knew that the song had changed, and only when I went back and investigated could I find out how and when. The challenge that I now try to address is identifying and acting. A good friend once suggested I have a sinusoidal disposition. Diction as a clue, my friend is a scientist. I thought his statement was probably true of me, but it seemed fitting to most situations and people too: if someone is moving from one peak to the next--positive to negative, success to failure, ignorance to illumination--there is a route describing that transition. We can all acknowledge behaviors, trends, and facts and in doing so, we can respond through modulation rather than dramatic reversals. In the case of embracing swimming and reflecting on the state of my own life, I appreciate the singular importance of a dramatic reversal, and I’m further inspired by the possibilities in tackling the challenges of long-standing behaviors, both good and bad, in anticipation of certain change.
Previous page Ian Davenport 2007 Acrylic on aluminum
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Spoken word poet Rich Ferguson on the all-out exposure of poetry and performance. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti once said: “Your poems must be more than want ads for broken hearts.” When I write, when I perform, I do my best to keep that in mind. For me, poetry is life. Poetry is energy and combustion. When I rub words together I want to create a fire. Blaze rant, blaze poem, story & sermon. With my words—sometimes humorous, sometimes serious—I do my best to address society’s injustices and goodness, while also addressing my own personal fears, foibles and aspirations. If, through the process, I inspire others to see the world or themselves a little differently then I feel I’ve created a successful poem. Not one that’s simply a want ad for a broken heart, but instead a huge billboard for mutual understanding and communication between the masses. That one word is key: communication. My writing and performance is all about communication. It’s the way I best relate to the world and myself. Talk to me on the phone or in person, and I can sometimes be humorous or revealing. Or, depending on the day, I can stumble on my words, be shy and 74 / SCREE v1
reclusive. But see me perform, that’s when you see the true me. That’s when you witness my true heart and voice in action. That’s another reason I do what I do: so I can expose my highest self to whoever wants to take part in the elation I feel when tapped into the high-octane energy of self-expression and revelation. Sure there are down-to-earth struggles when trying to accomplish these lofty goals. Many days I’ll write a crappy poem, or no poem at all. There are other days when no one cares what I have to say. Not even me. Still other days I can’t get a gig to save my life, and all my words remain trapped in my head, my journal or computer. I’ve performed in huge auditoriums where it was so quiet all you could hear was the sound of my voice. Conversely, I’ve had shows in coffee houses where I’ve had to compete with the whooshing of cappuccino machines and boisterous conversations. I’ve had shows in bars where drunks have yelled at me and I’ve yelled back. I’ve had shows in clubs where people have listened with such rapt attention it felt like church. The
good shows would leave me high for days. The bad ones would leave me catatonic, unable to get off the couch. As for inspiration, it has come from the most random situations: an overheard piece of conversation, a few words from a poem, listening to music, or simply a thought that drifts through my head. Like other writers, I’m also inspired by personal experience. One example comes to mind: It was a Friday night, five years ago. I was at home, cleaning my ears with a Q-tip, getting ready for sleep. As it was, I already felt like a loser for not being out partying with the rest of LA. But to make matters worse, I ended up getting a piece of the Q-tip’s cotton tip stuck in my ear. I tried calling a few close friends; the ones I knew wouldn’t give me too much shit about what I’d done. Since none were home I had to take matters into my own hands. Yet no matter what I did—jump up and down, use my finger or tweezers to try and dislodge the menacing cotton tip—nothing worked. I drove to the emergency room. Five hours later—after a mortifying session with the intake nurse; two Snickers, a pack of Nutter Butter cookies, and three diet Cokes consumed in the waiting room (all while avoiding eye contact with other far less fortunate patients); and another humiliating session with the doctor and his nurse—I left the hospital swearing I’d never tell anyone about the experience. With time, however, I realized I had to write about it. Had to put my life—ridiculous warts and all—right on the front lines of poetic expression. And forget about creating a want ad for a broken heart. In great big letters, I needed to skywrite all the horror and foolishness I’d experienced with the Q-tip. That’s when I created perhaps one of my best performance pieces to date, “On Becoming an Urban Legend.” These days, the way I perform and how I share my work with others varies. With a piece like “Urban Legend” I feel more comfortable getting up on a stage and, with the power of just my body and voice, letting it rip. In other situations,
however, I’ll perform different material with musicians, creating a hybrid of spoken word and music. I find that to be a perfect way to take those that may be resistant to poetry and guide them into my work with more grace and ease. Many times, I’ve had people come up to me after a show and say things like: “I used to not like poetry until I saw you. Now I think it’s cool.” To me, that’s one of the best compliments anyone could ever offer. Another thing I’m doing these days to reach a wider audience is to create spoken word/music videos. I’ve had the good fortune to work with directors like Mark Wilkinson (“All The Times”) and Chris Burdick (“If I Were a Bond Girl”). I also performed in Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman’s latest film What About Me? (sequel to the Grammy-nominated film, 1 Giant Leap). Recently, I even collaborated with animator Luca Dipierro and composer Bo Blount to create my first animated video, “We Voice Sing.” Spoken word videos have become a way for me to combine words, images, music and humor to create a fuller, more realized and accessible version of my work. Again, it all comes down to communication. We humans are very complex and multi-faceted. That’s why I try to stretch myself and collaborate with as many artists as possible, utilize as many mediums as I can to get my words out into the world. To continually reveal myself in new ways to my audience, and to learn new things about myself; create a more varied language of the heart. As for the future, no matter how many or how few people witness my work, I’m doing my best to keep things in perspective. Try to realize that, good or bad, every aspect of my life is fuel for the fire of words. And even if there are nights where I’m sitting at home alone—all my thoughts trapped in my head or computer—or if I’m performing in a club where there are only a few people listening, I’ll do my best to use those fiery words to burn myself alive.
When I rub words together I want to create a fire. Blaze rant, blaze poem, story & sermon. 75 / SCREE v1
Listen // www.isgoodmusic.com/richferguson
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On becoming an urban legend
by Rich Ferguson
Becoming an urban legend is simple. When you want to become an urban legend you start out by sitting at home, alone, on a Friday night, doing your best to not think about all your friends out roaming the city—clubbing; drugging; strolling through art galleries featuring earth tone paintings or famous sports photographs such as Mary Lou Retton in the 1984 Olympics—friends laughing, learning while you, the still not yet an urban legend, sit at home, alone, on a Friday night, feeling like a bottom feeder down at the dark depths of the popularity food chain, reading a book you’ve already read five times, doing your best to not think about all those friends out having a much better time than you, as you change out of your clothes; wash your face; brush your teeth; dig a Q-Tip through your ear, recalling the countless occasions when parents, priests, doctors, teachers, all of them telling you it’s not a good idea to stick a Q-Tip too far in your ear because it could burst your ear drum or any number of other Godawful health risks; but there you are alone on a Friday night, still not yet an urban legend, digging a Q-Tip, which is not really an official Q-Tip Q-Tip, more like some flimsy, generic cotton swab you bought at the 99 Cent Store to save a few cents; digging it in your ear, realizing this generic-cotton-swab-inthe-ear feeling is the closest thing you’re going to get to any excitement on a Friday night, and you relish in this generic-cotton-swab-in-theear feeling until suddenly it
changes; becomes a harsh cocktail-straw-in-the-ear feeling, and now you realize you’re not hearing so well out of that ear anymore, like everything’s underground, underwater; and when you pull the generic swab from your ear you see the cotton end is no longer there, but now stuck in your ear; and not thinking clearly you stick a finger in to dig it out, but that only pushes the cotton further into your ear canal; so you grab a pair of tweezers to dig it out, but you can’t turn your head around far enough— definitely not like Linda Blair in The Exorcist—to examine your inner-ear in the bathroom mirror, so you drop the tweezers, run through your apartment, jump up and down, tilt your head, praying the cotton swab will simply dislodge from your ear, fall to earth like an object from one of Newton’s gravity experiments, but when it doesn’t happen you pick up the phone, and start calling friends; but not all your friends, only the one or two really close ones that won’t laugh their asses off when they hear what’s happened; but when you call those friends, all you get are their answering machines because it’s a Friday night and of course they’re out engaging in much more productive, provocative activities than sitting at home, alone, getting generic cotton swabs stuck in their ears; and as crazy as it seems you now realize you’re going to have to drive yourself to the emergency room to get this little piece of cotton removed from your ear; so you put your clothes back on, jump in your car, get on the freeway, as you watch all
the cars around you, how their headlights, tail lights float ecstatically through the ether of Friday night let’s-get-it-on electricity while you—the still not yet an urban legend—drive yourself to the hospital; and when you get there, when you tell the whitesmocked attendant why you’re there, she gives you a look; the look that says I hope this isn’t how you spend all your Friday nights; the look that says I want to laugh at you, pity you, spit on you for being here at almost midnight with a generic cotton swab stuck in your ear when there are much more serious cases like gunshot wounds, stabbings, car accidents for me to deal with; then the whitesmocked attendant has you take a seat until another white-smocked attendant comes for you—some guy looking like David Bowie, except if David Bowie were a short, well-tanned, bottle-blonde Filipino with a slight limp; and so you go with this different David Bowie, dreaming of Diamond Dogs and Scary Monsters as you follow him down winding, snaking, fluorescent-lit corridors as Code Blues and other commands crackle through the intercom; and when you get into the bowels of the emergency room where there are doctors and nurses all rushing around, treating patients in flimsy blue curtained-off rooms, the short, well-tanned, bottleblonde Philippino David Bowie with a slight limp puts you into your own blue curtained room—barely gives you a second look because to him you’re just another patient, still not yet an urban legend—as he
says matter-of-factly that a doctor will be with you soon; and when he leaves, you touch the flimsy blue curtains surrounding you, and realize that that’s the only thing separating you from the more seriously injured; that the line between life and death is really quite fine, fine as those flimsy blue curtains surrounding you, and just as you’re about to pull those curtains open, cross over to the other side, that’s when the doctor and nurse arrive; and when you tell them why you’re there, the nurse responds: “you know I’ve only heard of this happening before, but I’ve never actually witnessed it, and now here you are, some guy with a Q-Tip stuck in his ear, you’re like one of those urban legends, wow, this is great”; and when the nurse says those words you realize they’re the words you’ve been waiting to hear your whole life, the words that no longer make you feel like a bottom feeder down at the dark depths of the popularity food chain; instead those words leave you exalted, raised to new glorious heights as you enter into the pantheon of urban legends; right up there with Altoids as sexual aids, attack of the camel spiders, gerbils in Richard Gere’s butt; and before you can think of another urban legend you now accompany the doctor has already grabbed a pair of tweezers, plucked the cotton from your ear and said: “there, done, you can go home now”; and you sit there stunned, almost wishing there had been more drama, like putting you under the microscope, under anesthesia, into stirrups, into surgery;
anything but sitting in your flimsy blue curtained-off room, the doctor showing you the tiny piece of cotton that may as well have been a bullet in your head for all the pain and fear it had drawn up in you; but relax it’s okay because you’re an urban legend now, right up there with junior high sex bracelets, the eye of God Helix Nebula, Mr. Rogers as a marine sniper/ navy seal; and so you bolt out of the hospital, jump into your car, head back toward home, floating above the ethereal swirl of Friday night let’s get it on electricity; you take your car up to ninety, the engine screams louder than murder, louder than great sex as you rocket past all your friends and other partiers, insomniacs, and romantics; go ahead, drive faster, take your car up to a hundred, show everyone around you that you’re much wilder, crazier than the rest of the restless souls in this city; show them you’re a force to be reckoned with; right up there with Hogzilla, the Hairy Hitchhiker, cyanide laced deposit envelopes; go ahead it’s okay you can do anything, you’re invincible, you’ll live forever in people’s imaginations, be the story that’s passed back and forth over the Internet, the office water cooler, over after-work cocktails; go ahead, live it, breathe it, be it, say it: You’re an urban legend now.
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Tourist INformation by Brin-Jonathan Butler
“Nothin’ wounded goes uphill... It just don’t happen.” I got stuck rereading that sentence on the plane for a long time. For the last three years of my life I’d been following a boxer who’d risked everything to step into a smuggler’s boat and join other Cuban athletes in becoming the most expensive human cargo on earth just to have the chance of climbing wounded toward their dream. I was front row in Dallas when Guillermo Rigondeaux won a world title faster than anyone in the history of boxing. He was booed out of the stadium. He hadn’t risked anything. Mozart had opened at a Metallica concert. Nobody had ever seen anyone look so empty and resentful succeeding at their dream. Worse, hardly anyone was convinced he’d had to sell his soul to achieve anything and resented the suggestion
that he had; they never believed he’d had a soul to begin with. In most people’s eyes, it seemed being a slave to an American nightmare was an improvement on living anything as ugly as Fidel Castro’s broken dream and he ought to be grateful. I drove him and his new belt back to the hotel from the stadium that night. He barely said a word sitting in the backseat. Looking at his face in the rearview mirror, I asked him if winning a world title felt better in America than winning his first Olympic medal for Cuba. He glared at me and flashed the gold on his front teeth he’d once told me was the result of melting his first Olympic gold medal into his mouth. “Of course it’s better in America. They paid me.” I knew what he said, and the bitterly condescending way he’d said it, while not 79 / SCREE v1
exactly inspiring, was the truth. This was the defiant headline he’d always maintained for leaving his country, the canary in the coal mine he wanted you to identify with. But I also knew the fine print for his headline: he’d never read so much as a word of a contract he’d signed in his life. Which, for my money, asked a different question of his story: is it better to be a slave in America than a slave in Cuba? Nothin’ wounded goes uphill. The plane touched down on the runway...
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They joke that if Spanish lacked a future tense Fidel Castro would be silenced: he’s only fluent in broken promises. I landed in the airport named after the poet Castro claimed was responsible for the last 52 years. Miami uses the same poet in their opposition to Castro. The same poet has a statue at the base of Central Park commemorating his time in New York that I walked past the day before. Even simple things like arriving at an airport here soak up ambiguity far too fast. Then all those faces amidst that jungle and zoo scenery, ideas, feelings. Too many characters for any drama, let alone one that’s gone on this long. Millions of people picking at the same scab of a reality creating some of the most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen, almost to the point where I forget I’m watching something bleed and suffer. Finally a face I recognize waiting to pick me up... You follow the news. You correspond and compare notes. Turn things over. But all over again you have to decide for yourself which the worse scenario really is: crying about five times a day walking the streets of this city––60% happy, 40% sad––or being back home where you’ve walked your whole life and never cried over anything you’ve seen or felt. Is it uglier to have a sore heart here or a numb heart where nothing reaches it back home? Are you the high season crisis tourist in Havana or are they really the tourists of your crisis for being here? What was I here to do again? Interview people on camera. I mean, officially, conduct interviews on camera. But can’t do anything officially here, unless you know the right officials to bribe. But then most of the Cuban athletes themselves want bribes too. Bribe them with a hundred bucks to tell you how they turned down hundreds of millions. What’s it worth to meet some of the biggest uncashed human lottery and hear
their story? What’s it worth to have them tell you how they turned down millions because of their principles and that nobody in America believed it meant anything beyond them being brainwashed? Between America and Cuba, who exactly has the better syrup in the Kool Aid if we can’t believe anyone can stand for anything when money is on the table? Push your chips in and snag a lot of illegal interviews and try not to get caught or arrested or get anybody else caught or arrested. But what are interviews supposed to do again? Fuck me. Do I have a hope in hell of getting any answers that reveal more about the person I’m interviewing than my questions reveal about me? Fuck me.
Do I have a hope in hell of getting any answers that reveal more about the person I’m interviewing than my questions reveal about me? 80 / SCREE v1
Is this what my interviews are meant to reveal or conceal? Jesus fuck. I had, to my thinking, a pretty ambitious list of people to interview on camera. A lot of high profile people. Banned authors, a controversial Time Magazine Most Important Person blogger who’d interviewed Obama not long ago and shown up on Wikileaks getting US funding, Olympic champions, a teenage boxer who’d starred in a documentary who many people viewed as the next great hero in Cuba. Highly touchy people as far as the government was concerned. Plus I wanted to interview Rigondeaux’s wife and child. The collateral damage. I’d been warned they had two cameras on their house 24/7. Then everything fell apart before my trip. My camera guy never showed up and backed out. At the hotels in Havana I was stood up by every contact I’d had lined up through journalists in New York. Cars began to drive past with strangers smirking and pointing up at the cameras hanging over the street.
“Beeeg brother eez watching, gringo!” I was warned by the people renting me their apartment illegally. “Welcome to Hotel California! Leezon to Mr. Henley’s words. ‘Check owwd aanee time bhat joo can never leave...’” I’m convinced a country becomes ugly and sinister in immediate proportion to Don Henley’s lyrics carrying any significance or relevance. Later on the warnings escalated to begging on the lives of their children that I cease anything that could get their family in trouble. The pleadings were so sincere and grave, at first I thought they were joking. Everyone was too scared to talk about anything related to Rigondeaux or defection. “You’re on your own,” I heard over and over again. “Security knows everything. Taps the phone. Checks your emails. Talks to your neighbor. When your boxer tried to defect, Castro wrote about Rigondeaux himself. This is not a man to ask questions about. Officially he is a traitor. He is Judas in our country.” Surveillance had escalated. Cameras on most street corners 81 / SCREE v1
I had a fling once or twice with Fidel Castro’s granddaughter. I met her at a New Year’s party in Centro Havana. 82 / SCREE v1
now across the entire city. More uniformed police. More secret police than ever I was told (How does one measure this?). The CDRs (Committee for Defense of Revolution) on every block are stepping up their vigilance! More informants! Government clamping down on everything, especially with an issue as touchy for the government as defecting boxers. Don’t you know anything, Brinicito? A Cuban’s worst enemy isn’t security, it’s his neighbor. Leave it alone. You can leave. We cannot. We live with the consequences of your actions. If you are not careful you will be able to come back. You might not be able to leave. And I’m left to ask the same vulgar question: “Do you want my money to help not?” We both start laughing because there’s no choice for either us. While they have little or no opportunity to make money, I’ve racked up a boatload worth of credit card debt and the only way out is to go forward and pull something off.
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The first place I went after arriving was a wedding with a few friends. After it finished, I hired a gypsy cab to take me the 20 miles back into Havana. The old Ford was doing just fine until she began to overheat halfway back into the city. “I knew she was angry about me listening to Raggaeton at this hour,” the driver shook his head, scrambling around the radio dial until he found the classical composer Ernesto Lecuona. “Even at her age she requires a little seduction at night. Now she will punish us for denying her. Cubaneo,” the driver shrugged and grinned at me in the rearview. Only in Cuba was the driver’s last remark, tearing at the old scab. You hear it everywhere, but it always gets to me putting a new face on its meaning. And about thirty seconds later, when a father and son pulled over with their horse-drawn carriage to offer a hand, I wondered if Cubaneo had an opposite expression meaning all the things that happen here that would mostly never happen anywhere else. The closest one I know in Cuban slang is palanca, meaning when someone helps you out of a jam. Every aspect of life here is a jam. Literally survival itself depends on palanca on a daily basis... But it cuts both ways. People actually give a shit about your misfortune. A mob came over to help. Every Cuban is a mechanic. They have no choice. In this place you can be sure everything that hasn’t broken down yet will soon. I needed help at that wedding too. Just after sitting down, out of nowhere, a sonic boom exploded over our heads as fighter jets broke the sound barrier. I jumped out of my chair until several people came over to laughingly explain that on Tuesdays and Fridays at this hour the Cuban Air Force conducted test flights. “Tranquilo, yuma. The gringos are not invading our island again tonight. Relax.” And then, even more surprising, I did. I never really joined in, but I couldn’t get far away either. Unlike nearly every wedding I’d ever been to, collateral damage was everywhere emotionally. There wasn’t any pageantry or much formality to it. Nothing self-conscious. No emphasis on
expectations. No stiffness or tension. People were sweaty and relaxed. Despite the festivities being outdoors, the bathroom stunk out the whole place. Plumbing was shot. It was hard to concentrate on the past or the future with that stink permeating everything. Not very many photos taken. Nobody really posing for history. Lots of easy and hard tears coming on their own, without the usual cues from prescribed moments. Lots of warmth and dark humor. I felt the creepy distinction over jokes people clap at versus actually laugh at. Joy and sadness mixing on a lot of faces talking or observing, taking everything in. A certain amusement relating to how death and birth embroidered everything with the different generations brought together too. It just all felt very human with the burden of the joke shared by everybody. A bird shat on the groom while he was reciting his vows and everyone except me exploded with joy about how prosperous the wedding would be. I was very confused. Someone had to explain to me that if shit lands on you in Cuba or you step in it, you’re regarded as lucky. Good fortune and wealth was on the way! The fact that this explanation was delivered to me with no trace of irony given the last 52 years of struggle made it even more magnificent. None of my friends or their parents had ever opened a bank account in their lives. During the 90s, my closest friend in Havana used a rag after she got her first period and her mother showed her how to rinse it out and use it again for the next month. Her boyfriend had fished for cats in his backyard during the same time period: hook, line, sack, hammer. “Cat cooked in lemon sauce was not that terrible.” Will anybody believe this place existed when it goes back to being some awful, broken down circus lion? Everyone got up to dance to Elvis while I sat down in a new chair and lit a cigarette. My closest friend in Cuba came over–– visually a cross between Winona Ryder and Juliette Binoche–– and introduced me to her filmmaker cousin who was going to help me with my film. “What are you smoking, yuma?” she asked me. “American Spirit.” “And what does that taste like?” she smiled. “My communist lungs would like a taste.”
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I had a fling once or twice with Fidel Castro’s granddaughter. I met her at a New Year’s party in Centro Havana. A lot of TV and Radio personalities were there. I didn’t know about the Fidel angle with her until later. She wasn’t the one who brought it up, so it actually might be true. As with just about everything enticing in Cuba, behind every silver lining is a cloud. After midnight of the New Year we went outside to the balcony for a cigarette. She’d just been outside the country for the first time and told me she never wanted to travel again after the experience. I asked why. She asked me if I’d ever read Invisible Cities. I shook my head. She told me a story from it about several men around the world who had an identical dream. They all saw the same naked girl from behind, with long hair, running through an unknown city. They chased after her. Each twisted and turned
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and eventually lost her. After the dream all these men set out in search of that city where they’d seen her. They never found the city, but they found each other. They decided to build a city like the one in the dream. Laying out the streets, each followed their own pursuit of the girl. At the spot where they lost the fugitive’s trail, they arranged spaces and walls differently from the dream so she would be unable to escape. They all settled in this city waiting for the scene to be repeated one night. None of them, asleep or awake, ever saw the woman again. New men arrived to this city having a similar dream. Changed streets and arcades and stairways so, at the spot where the woman vanished, there remained no avenue of escape. But they never found her either... I wanted Castro’s granddaughter to finish the story, but I wanted a little privacy for revenge more. We walked back from the party to my apartment, where I had access to a rooftop overlooking the busiest street at night in Centro Havana, Calle Neptuno. I live in a kind of Cannery Row with rum soaked dominos played on every street corner. When we climbed the stairs several floors and got to the roof looking out over the other rooftops in all directions and the Juliet girls on their balconies talking down to their Romeos and the chorus line of taxis below us, instead of trying to kiss her I chickened out and went back to fishing for the end of the story: “Tell me what happened with that city in the end?” “Stop pretending like you brought me back here for the story when I can tell very easily you’re already looking for a place to fuck me on this roof. Have some dignity, yuma.” She took off her shirt and glared at me. The dogs on the roof next door sounded the alarm and woke up the rooster to join in. “Are you worried about Fidel finding out? You were quite bold until you discovered my secret.” It turned out nobody else had the dream of the girl and everyone else who saw the city left immediately because of the ugliness of such a place invented and designed only as a trap. Fidel’s granddaughter asked me the next morning if this was helpful tourist information.
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photo: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin
Go ahead, Pippa. Eat a chip.
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You’ve heard the news by now. A group of Minnesotan astrogeeks with impressively large telescopes have called out astrologers everywhere by reporting that the stars have moved since the Babylonian concept of the zodiac was born. Thought you couldn’t control your innate Leo craving to be adored by the masses? Guess what. You are actually supposed to prefer solitary walks by the beach and are just an ass.
Capricorn: Jan. 20 - Feb. 16
If you’re a Capricorn, you don’t need a horoscope to tell you what to do. You’re already driven, motivated, and probably have a highly detailed Excel spreadsheet filled with the necessary steps to get from point A to points B, C, and subsequently, D. Your biggest challenge is refraining from judging everyone else around you for not having such a detailed life roadmap and from repeating the words, “Really? Really?” when confronted by the average non-Capricorn. As a matter of fact, the only star sign you fear is the new and improved Scorpio (see above), who you suspect in Column T, Row 46 could throw a potential kink in your Grand Master Plan to Take Over the World by eating your heart directly out of your still-steaming thoracic cavity with a shrimp fork, should you cross them.
Aquarius: Feb. 16 - March 11
For those of you who come to this sign as former Pisceans, the Age of Aquarius has literally only just dawned. What you need to know in your new star sign: #1 - You are easy going and a fabulous networker; #2 - You are lazy and slothful by nature; and, #3 - Unlike the Broadway show Hair, life is not a musical and you will need some extra motivation to spur yourself into action. The good news is that of all your non-Aquarian friends, you stand to have the highest connection count on LinkedIn if you choose to apply yourself. Good luck with that.
Pisces: March 11 - April 18
Al Gore’s migration from Aries (Active, Demanding, Determined, Effective, Ambitious) to Pisces (Depth, Imagination, Reactive, Indecisive) explains a lot about how he was able to invent the Internet.
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Aries: April 18 - May 13
If Scree had a star sign, it would be Aries: adventurous and living for the entrepreneurial thrill. What you need to know if you are a newcomer to Aries: you are a doer and not just a talker. The flip side of that is that sometimes you dive in too quickly without thinking through the consequences. We don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.
Taurus: May 13 - June 21
Well, former Gemini, now you’re a Taurus. Big whoop. You’ve always known you’ve got at least two personalities in there, so you might as well take the bull by the horns. Also, now you’re the same star sign as Mark Zuckerberg. (queue Simpons-esque “ha-ha”)
Gemini: June 21 - July 20
Turns out David Hasselhoff was actually a Gemini. Who knew? What you choose to do with this knowledge is entirely in your hands.
Cancer: July 20 - Aug. 10
Thanks to that hard shell of yours, you-who-are-nowCancers are well-equipped to deal with the change. Of course, you are now also are equipped with a set pincers, which means you’re going to have a hard time letting go of your former Leo-hood, where you were loved openly and without restraint by panties-throwing masses. You now have a choice: insist on being worshipped, or embrace your new sign and practice a little love and nurture for your inner circle of friends. No, the person in the mirror doesn’t count. It’s going to be tricky. You may want to seek counseling. And, if you were born
Ophiuchus (who?) Rising Your new horoscope, according to Scree by Erika rae photo: JPL / NASA Ophiuchus constellation
before July 22 and hung on to your former sign into the MAE (Minnesota Astrogeek Era), well, you are one hell of a Cancer. Go. Surround yourself with people you trust and be productive in your venture. *pinch*
Leo: Aug. 10 - Sept. 16
Yes, we adore you. Yes, you mean the world to us. No really, we mean it. Also, as a point of information, Kenny Rogers, who was once a Leo, remains a Leo post-MAE – which is kind of cool, since he genuinely looks like a Leo. Kenny Rogers, we salute you. No really, we mean it.
Virgo: Sept. 16 - Oct. 30
You need to spend less time on Facebook. No, seriously.
Libra: Oct. 30 - Nov. 23
Hey, former Scorpio! Great news! Now that you’re a Libra… oh, who am I kidding? You don’t give a shit about your new Libra horoscope. Chances are, you’re not even reading this right now because you’re so pissed off that somebody would dare to change your sign. I could type the lyrics in their entirety from “When the Doves Cry” for this star sign because no former Scorpio will ever, ever read it. It will sit here in digital purgatory for generations to come, completely ignored. “Why do we scream at each other? This is what it sounds like…” There, there. Put down the axe.
Scorpio, AKA: "Super Scorpio": Nov. 23-29
Yep, you read that right. Newcomers to this fine planet of ours have exactly one possible week to be born a Scorpio now. This means that everything you know and fear about Scorpios:
the passion, the revenge, the murderous intent – shall now be compressed and concentrated exponentially for this highly evolved group. It’s like melding Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil with an açai berry. Founding CEOs who are born under this sign are to be feared, and possibly eventually incarcerated.
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29 - Dec. 17
The newly resurrected Ophiuchus sign represents a man wrestling a serpent and shares traits with Imhotep, a 27th century BCE Egyptian doctor – not to be confused with Mummy Imhotep, the still-juicy High Priest of Osiris who terrorized Brendan Fraser to the transitioning squeals of prepubescent male audiences everywhere. Like Dr. Imhotep, Ophiuchus is a healer of men and a doctor of medicine or science. And, like him, you insatiably seek higher education and are perfectly comfortable being the only person in your continuing ed class sporting a set of trifocals and a wad of extra absorbency hanging low in your trunk. You are expected to achieve a high position in life, regardless of how long it takes. As an addendum, you will also spend a lifetime trying to pronounce your new sign, regardless of how long it takes.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17 - Jan. 20
The Sagittarius makes for the classic dot-bomb era entrepreneur. You’re adventurous, optimistic, and you love those trendy little hipster companies that encourage jogging breaks and offer 6 weeks of fully paid paternity leave. You also love the idea of learning. This is not to be confused with actually learning. Your biggest challenge this year is going to be putting down the latest Seth Godin book to actually write that white paper.
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