Mood:  not sure

Well, originally it was a response to someone else's obit, but people seemed to get something positive out of what I wrote, so I thought I'd post it here, where a wider group can read it.


Here goes:

Parents shouldn't outlive their children. I've seen this happen time and time again, especially over the 10 years that I've been a member of this tribe [Burning Man/BRC-DPW], but I still believe it's true. We need to outlive the ones who brought us into the world -- or in some cases the ones who raised us -- as it's not only as things should be, but also because it's good to prove the fuckers wrong. I hope this makes sense.

Schaber called me a while back, saying he'd run out of his medication and that he kind of wanted more, but wasn't 100% sure he wanted to take pills for the rest of his life. The medication helped him find some much-needed clarity, and also seemed to help him get more work done. He wasn't sure what to do.

He wanted me to buy some art, which I did, and also to talk to me because I'd lost a friend to an anti-depressant/alcohol related suicide about 10 years ago. He wanted some help, some advice, and a little support.

I'm not sure about what happened to Caleb. I heard he was sober that last evening, and I also heard he wasn't. I'm not sure who to believe, but somehow, I think he was mostly just tired. Being a "doer" all the time is exhausting, and so is being someone like Caleb Schaber.

Sure, that he lived to be as old as he was might have seemed strange to some people. I, for one, was happy that he'd outlived my friend by 10 years, even though he possessed many of the same personality traits and prolific artistic level as she'd possessed. I was hopeful, but also prepared for the worst, should it ever happen. Matt, my partner, actually fed Caleb a really nice, home-cooked lamb dinner back in October of 08 in part because we really appreciated his company, and in part because we didn't know when we'd see him again. It turned out to be one of the last times I'd ever see him in person, even though we continued to talk over the phone, email, and IM afterward. It was an awesome dinner, one of the best I've ever eaten among friends.

I'd always hoped he'd pull through, be one of the ones who lived. I tried to be supportive where I could, and to offer friendly, good-hearted support and counsel even when he did something most everyone could agree on was inappropriate. Rather than be judgmental, I saw a lot of my old friend in him, and I also loved that he could so easily stir people up over the stupidest shit. He almost never failed to make me laugh, even if a couple of his antics made me cringe a little bit on the inside.

Caleb was one of a kind, however, and even the most annoyed or bitter people among our ranks probably have to admit at one time or another to either admiring him a little bit, or else that he inspired them to do something fun and seemingly out of character on their own.

When Caleb went to Afghanistan and Iraq, I really began hearing his own true voice materialize beneath all of the HST admiration he possessed. When he returned, this pattern continued. I read Schaber AS Schaber, rather than Schaber as Imitation Of HST, and I really wanted the best for him more than ever at that point. He even mentioned to me at one point that he felt like his voice was being molded and refined, and that he liked what was happening, even as he was dealing with some PTSD issues. I cheered for him when I saw the Inauguration ticket in his hand this past January, and could hardly wait to hear his impressions. As things got better, he got to work on more projects, including a script, a book, and the continuation of his career in journalism.

Who knows what went wrong in the end. We can all speculate, but really, the only person who knows the answer is no longer among us, at least not in a recognizably human form.

- Quiet Girl

[photo credit: not sure, but pulled from his website]

Mood:  hug me

For the second time this week, someone I owe part of my own success and happiness to has passed away. Caleb Schaber, my old friend from the BRC-DPW, apparently killed himself at approximately 2:00 this morning.

Caleb Schaber and I first met one another during the summer of 2001 on the BRC-DPW 80 Acres Ranch just outside of Gerlach, NV. I was given the job of "Assistant Ranch Manager" to Metric, one of the year-round ranch hands. The biggest task we faced was to clean up all of the crap on the ranch so that more people could lay down even more.

My compadres in this adventure were The Chupacabra Policia, including Caleb Schaber, who, on our first meeting, gave me this "Oh no, I'm working for a woman" look, or something to that effect. I quickly disarmed his fear by just being my hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone self, and when he found out that I was the maker of Working for the Man, a favorite Burning Man movie of his, he really got into the idea of us working together, as he had another filmmaker to talk shop with. We cleaned up tons and tons and tons of stuff left from the previous years, and got to know one another fairly well in the process.

As the years went by, Caleb and I kept in touch both on the playa and off. We talked film, lovers, wars (he went to both Afghanistan and Iraq as a journalist), anger, disappointment, depression, drugs, and everything else in between. Later on, we decided to work on a writing project together, and over the past few months, we'd been shaping everything up so I could make a good pass before we sent it out.

On more than one occasion, I stopped Caleb from getting into a fight, and in return, on countless occasions, he would just happen to call, IM or see me at almost the exact time I needed a spark of life to keep going.

Caleb was a great inspiration to me, despite all of the destruction he's known for, and occasionally, because of it. When he saw something he wanted to do, he just went out and did it. He reminded me of myself when I was younger, less afraid, more headstrong and courageous, back before the ravages of time set upon my soul and made me look back at what I was leaving behind from every step forward, something I do less and less of these days, as I've learned well how to do the best things possible for myself and those around me that I love instead of only pushing everyone away. Through his adventures in running for Mayor of Seattle, going to the Afghanistand and Iraq wars, and writing for Hustler magazine, Caleb reminded me that I, too, had been a doer of things, not merely an imaginer, for the first three decades of my life, and that if I wanted to accomplish more in life, I needed to get up off my ass again and DO SOMETHING again.

Because of people like Caleb, Tom Kennedy, and Stevie Vitalouditus, I remembered to consciously continue making myself more, to become the person I always knew I would be. Without crazy art-car builders, friends who dared to become the best they could be despite the odds, and sharp, beautiful women reminding me how to be happy, I'd be a shell of myself today. A lot of us would.

If someone you know has had a profound effect on your life, do that person and yourself a favor and TELL THEM RIGHT NOW. They'll appreciate it, and the two of you will have so much more in this world in common to share.

[Photo Credit - M.T. Whatley]

Mood:  hug me

I was going to write about my friend Kim Corbin's Skipping Revolution today, but because I recently learned that an old inspiration of mine, Tom Kennedy, died from a surfing accident this past Sunday, I thought I'd share some thoughts with you all on how important it is to recognize your inspirations, as even the smallest occurances may one day change your life.

When I was an angry, bald drunk-punk living in Houston back in 1994, I one day happened to see a small, flourescent flyer advertising a "trip of a lifetime to the Burning Man event" at the local alternative record store, Sound Exchange. On the flyer, a photo of the Burning Man and a shark-shaped art car I'd seen around the neighborhood a couple of times were featured. My curiosity was instantly piqued.

Thanks to my dad, I was raised with a love of festivals of all kinds, from Cherokee religious events to Catholic ones, and everything inbetween. We went to Art Car Parades, rock concerts, polka music shows and hot rod car events. When I got older, I made the case for cutting school to go to the first Lollapalooza in 1991 by appealing to this side of my dad, who let me go as long as I promised to call when I got to Dallas (done!). We traveled the world and went to all kinds of events when my dad worked construction as well, never hesitating when something cool was happening. My dad could certainly be a raging a-hole and a pain to be around, but in the end, we got to do a ton of cool stuff together, and the cool stuff kinda balanced out the less cool stuff. Our parents are our parents, for better or for worse.

I was raised by an adventurer, and going to Burning Man 1994 sounded like a great one. Unfortunately for me, I'd worked my way into a state of poverty. Life was never that fancy to begin with; my family didn't have a ton of money, and at that period, we were somewhat estranged. In the spring of 1994, I was living in a one-room apartment in the center of the Montrose district with my best friend Regina, her 9-month old son, and a Greek-Rastafarian lady who inhabited my walk-in closet. Even with all of the help I had, I was still broke -- and helping to take care of a 9-month old -- so travel out of the state was pretty much of out of the question.

Still, even though I missed the 1994 Burning Man event, I kept the idea of going close to my heart. Later that year, on a day of sunny indulgence with Regina while her son was staying with her mother for a couple of days, we caught a glimpse of what we'd been missing when Tom Kennedy rolled up Westheimer Blvd. in Ripper the Friendly Shark, making our necks snap in a hazy double-take. Dusty and grinning, he waved to the 1/2 mast-eyed bald chicks sitting on the curbside as he, his caravan, and Ripper ambled down the potholed street, bouncing lightly as they rolled across the pockmarked pavement of our fair city.

Transfixed, I knew from that point on that some day, I HAD to do something amazing with my life. The what in question took a couple more years to figure out, but three years later, I got to go to college, to Burning Man, and I got to live in San Francisco, where Burning Man and a lot of other amazing things were first invented. Three years after that first amazing post-playa vision --  and after other trials and tribulations -- I was doing a lot of amazing things I'd only ever imagined.

When I look back on the positive changes in my life, which started with a tiny, 3"x5" rectangle of flourescent paper, I recognize Tom's (and the other Art Car affecionados') influence in my life.

He will be missed dearly, not only because we will no longer interact with him as part of the works he's created, but because, as Chicken John put it recently:

Life is fragile. I will miss Tom Kennedy. So will a million others. The really sad thing here is all the kids that will miss his work… the work he never got to make. Lets make sure that we always save a place for Tom to park…