6/23/15

Retro!  Five Bands Vol. 2 - Artists who are Batshit Insane

(updated from the original published post on DVDinmypants.com)

Real rock and roll has always been the music of the rebellious. As such, it has attracted artists who live their lives creatively and literally on the edge. For every “down to Earth” rock star like Dave Grohl, there are easily four more who would rather refer to themselves as “The Artist” and who want pink toilet paper in the hotel bathroom, not because they can get away with asking for it but because they truly believe it is partially responsible for the proper flow of their creative juices.

Now making outlandish demands and telling people to lower their eyes when talking to you does not necessarily make you “batshit insane”. That’s a title that is actually kind of hard to come by. It’s what sets apart the eccentric artist from the dangerous, “don’t leave him alone with live animals” artist. When I saw someone is batshit insane, I don’t mean they refuse to put an album out because they have self-confidence issues (Axl Rose). I mean there’s a distinct possibility that if the soundcheck doesn’t go right, they could literally take a hostage.

I love batshit insane people who play music. I don’t like actually being in bands with them, mind you. They’re really annoying to deal with on that level, but watching them from the sidelines is never less than entertaining. You go to any concert featuring a band member who's thinking is cock-eyed and while you’ll probably hear a less than stellar performance, there’s always the chance of a pubic hair fire and ranting about grasshoppers. 

Here, take my own personal experience.  You may walk up to the front of the club a little early to find some guy curled up on the ground in front of the door, soaking in his own urine and asking you for a “cigarette to chew” (which he promptly did when given one). Then you may see him a couple of hours later front a killer band onstage and afterwards, he may walk up to your date and talk with her lucidly and eloquently for 10 solid minutes about plays by Ibsen all the while smelling like piss and alcohol.

The band was Smoke. The singer was Benjamin. I’m pretty sure he’s dead now, but damn if he wasn’t electrifying on stage.

What follows is a list of five artists who definitely qualify as “batshit insane”.  Some of them don't necessarily deserve celebration.  However you can't make a list like this and leave these people off.  You may not agree with my picks and if so, feel free to let me know who you think I missed.

1. Lee “Scratch” Perry

Really, there is absolutely no denying that this man leads the pack of the batshit insane. He’s a total and complete lunatic who also happens to be a production genius and a pioneer musically. Perry once burned his own legendary Black Ark studio to the ground because he thought it was possessed by Satan himself. Think about that. He found gasoline and matches and burned the invading spirits out of his studio. Still don’t think he qualifies? What about the time he stayed in the US with a prominent record producer, rounded up all the televisions in the house and proceeded to bury them in the back yard? How about the times he baptized people on the street outside his studio with a garden hose?

That, folks, is what I mean by “batshit insane”. Now, he’s 79 years old and in a much more stable frame of mind. He lives in Switzerland with his wife and children and is still actively writing and performing.

2. Mayhem 

 Yeah, pretty much the entire band belongs on this list. At least their original lineup does. Mayhem were really the first band to bring Norwegian Black Metal to a wide audience and part o the reason their reputation spread was because they were such complete lunatics. All the members were obsessed with being the most evil band on the planet. In true “evil” fashion they turned on one another. The first victim was lead singer, Dead, who decided this world was too much for him. He shot himself in the head and when guitarist Euronymous found him, he didn’t call the police. No, instead he took some pictures, picked up some pieces of Dead’s skull and ate a small piece of Dead’s brain. He brought the skull pieces back to the band’s drummer, Hellhammer (no,I’m not making these names up), who fashioned some jewelry out of them and wears them still. That’s not all though. Because of the brain eating thing, Euronymous got quite the reputation as a bad ass, so in a fit of jealousy (”I want to be most evil!”) bass player Count Grishnackh stabbed him over 20 times. In fact, Grishnackh later testified that he counted the 20 times on purpose because he wanted to out do another Black Metaller who was on trial for stabbing a complete stranger repeatedly.

All this and much more can be found in a great book called Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind. As for their music, point your sights to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas if you’re curious. Try not to kill anybody finding it.

3. Jaz Coleman 

This guy is one of my favorites. The lead singer/leader of Killing Joke, Jaz is one crazy son of a bitch. He’s one of these guys who is super smart, but is also subject to flights of weirdness and odd belief that will make your head spin. He moved to Iceland in the early 1980’s to await the end of the world. It didn’t come but he worked with the band that would eventually become the Sugarcubes so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Still, moving to another country to await the apocalypse wouldn’t seem so weird in itself, except that he was kind enough to leave us a full length album where he detailed his beliefs in black magic and why he thought the world would end soon. That was nice of him wasn’t it? It’s a Killing Joke album called The Courtauld Talks. It was recorded after his return and it consist of one continuous track where Coleman talks about demonology, the imminent return of The Elder Gods and why he things H.P. Lovecraft wasn’t writing fiction but was channeling a voice from beyond. During his talk, he’s backed by Killing Joke, although the music mostly consists of soft guitar and percussion. There’s a really incredible part where he talks about how by using musical chords constructed from numerological studies, we can help drive back the demons we’re unintentionally awaking through war and violence. He demonstrates… ‘nuff said.

For the record, insanity aside Killing Joke has made some of the best post-punk records in the history of the genre and their resurgence in the 2000’s has them hitting a new high mark. If that’s your kind of music, check out their 2003 self-titled comeback album or the unstoppable 2010 album Absolute Dissent. Meanwhile, have no fear. Coleman still believes Cthulu is coming any minute and I’m sure he’s praying to be eaten first.

4. G.G. Allin

This guy was a given for this list. Did you know his actual given name was Jesus Christ? See… crazy runs in the family. Allin made a name for himself by shocking audiences and critics. His act was banned from many a town across this great land of ours and each time he played, the word got out to a few more people who suddenly craved an opportunity to see him. Allin would take the stage in a jockstrap and proceed to urinate on audience members during the set. He’d been known to defecate in his hand and throw it at the audience. He even tried (unsuccessfully) to have sex with a dead cat during a performance. He was a pen pal of John Wayne Gacy (the notorious serial killer). He did the talk show circuit and once told Sally Jesse Raphael that he was the father of the girl who was accompanying him and that they practiced incest. It was completely fabricated (Allin had one daughter who “distanced herself from the family” for obvious reasons). I saw this episode and watching the audience and hosts reactions were hilarious.

Needless to say, Allin was bent on shocking people. That much is obvious, but the fact that he lived exactly like he performed qualifies him for true “batshit insane” status. This was not an act. He really was one of the most disturbed and disgusting performers in the history of rock and roll. Allin died of a drug overdose and was buried in New Hampshire wearing a jockstrap that said “Eat Me”.

If you want to experience G.G. Allin, then don’t look to CDs. Get the documentary Hated and you’ll get a great look at what this guy was like. As for music, stick with the compilation Expose Yourself: The Singles Collection 1977-1991. 


5. Captain Beefheart

Now the great thing about Captain Beefheart is that he wasn’t violent crazy like many of the people mentioned above. No, he was old-fashioned, out-of-his-gourd, eccentric to the nth level crazy. Case in point, while rehearsing for his famous Trout Mask Replica album (of which I have a near mint condition vinyl copy… just sayin’…) he surrounded himself with an accomplished band and literally locked them into a house for eight months. During that time, no one was allowed to leave. Food was brought in weekly. Beefheart would try to communicate the songs he was hearing in his head via humming or piano. Here’s the batshit insane part. He couldn’t play piano and when the musicians couldn’t properly interpret his vision, he would explode in fits of rage.

He was very strict about his vision, to the point of being a tyrant. The results though were never less than interesting and many times they were pure genius. He also made it a point to confuse the press and public as much as possible, once telling Rolling Stone that he himself taught two of the musicians on Trout Mask Replica how to play their instruments “from scratch”. In fact, they were both more than fluent when he hired them.

Beefheart was a hands down musical genius, but it’s my opinion that the insanity fed the genius in this case. He died in 2010 at the age of 69.

There are loads more artists I could list, but most of them seem to get their “crazy” from drugs or alcohol. These five seem to come by theirs naturally, so that’s why they’re featured. If you think I should add one, hit me up on the comments.

6/18/15

FIVE BANDS - Vol. 1 - My Top 5 Favorite New Finds

Years ago, I wrote a column for a website called DVDinmypants.com.  It was called Five Bands and each post would feature five artists who fit some theme.  It was one of my favorite things to write about so I'm resurrecting it.   

When Mike sent my head spinning with that Bloodshot Records compilation, I came home and started digging deep into their catalog and for every artist I found on their label, I found two or sometimes three more connected to Bloodshot in some way but on another label. The result was a staggering amount of new (to me) artists that I’m still exploring.

For this inaugural Five Bands, let’s talk about the five artists who blew my mind more than any others over the last two years.

1. Lydia Loveless

More Like Them

Lydia Loveless does not sing modern country music. She does not sing traditional country music. She’s hard to define and that’s exactly why I love her. She has the voice of a seasoned country superstar packaged in the body of a punk rock loving teenager and the results are pure, unadulterated magic. That she writes her own material makes it even better. That she’ll cover a song like Elvis Costello’s “Alison” for her Record Store Day release ups the ante even more. Each new album has been five steps better than the last one but my personal favorite is Indestructible Machine.  I cannot wait to see where she ends up being in the pantheon of music in 20 years. Check out “More Like Them” to get a taste.  It's equal parts Neko Case and The Replacements, plus if you listen to the lyrics you’ll hear her examining her real life issue of social anxiety in a way that’s smart and even funny in places. 

2. Patty Griffin

Chief

Truth #2

This one is a much more traditional sound.  That voice of Lydia Loveless that I spoke about? Patty Griffin has it also but it’s packaged in the seasoned mind and body of an expert in her craft. She writes songs that tell stories in ways that I couldn’t tell if given 10,000 words. If you don’t believe me, just listen to “Chief” or “Making Pies” from the album 1000 Kisses. That it took me this long to discover her makes me sad, and the way I found her was so out of the ordinary it was pure luck. 

I’d heard a song by The Dixie Chicks called “Truth #2”. I went to look up the album it was from and found they didn’t write it. Who is this Patty Griffin person? So I go to look for the song on iTunes and it looks like she never recorded it. That’s odd because it’s an amazing song. I dig a little deeper and soon I find that this song is from a lost album she recorded for A&M and they shelved. So then I pull out the big freakin’ steam shovel and scoop down further to finally find a bootleg copy of the studio album. The rest is history and accounts for about sixty songs on my iPod. The good news is that album (Silver Bell) finally got an official release so you can find a much better mix on iTunes now. Check out “Truth #2” and tell me that chorus isn’t pure genius. Then check out any of her other fine albums. You won’t be disappointed. 

3. Findlay

Off & On

A freakin’ car commercial helped me discover this band. My family is an Olympics obsessed family. Every two years, we’re glued to the television and internet while the games are on and that means we can’t avoid the commercial. During the 2014 Winter Olympics, the song “Off & On” was played probably 5,000 times in a commercial for either BMW or Mercedes or something. That’s not important. I can’t endorse the car. What I can endorse is you finding their EP Off & On. It’s the only thing they’ve officially released so far and I love all four songs on it. The stop, slow, speed up, sprint pace of the title track is what sold me but there’s so much great stuff here. Also, for what it's worth this is the only band on this list that my daughter also endorses. 

4. Dave Alvin

Signal Hill

He was the guitar player in The Blasters and the writer of their biggest hit “Marie Marie”. That song has become iconic and has transcended musical styles and genres. He’s got a distinctive voice but what sets him apart in my mind is his songwriting. Like Patty Griffin he can tell a story musically that rivals the greatest novelists of all time. Plus his catalog goes all the way back to 1987 so there’s a ton here to explore. He wrote one of my favorite late-period X songs (”4th of July”) as well as one of my favorite Dwight Yoakam songs (”Long White Cadillac”). Check out “Signal Hill”, a bruiser of a song from the extended edition of the album Eleven Eleven.  It's about lost dreams and losers in a town my old band used to play regularly.

5. Bobby Bare Jr.

Let's Rock and Roll

And here’s the artist who sent me down that Bloodshot rabbit hole. The son of an iconic country artist, Bobby Bare Jr. defies description. His song “Let’s Rock and Roll” is equal parts nursery rhyme, noise fest and pop song. At the same time, it’s the most accurate portrayal of an unknown artist playing music on the road I’ve ever heard. His album Boo-Tay under the Bare Jr. moniker is alt-country awesome, while his solo albums defy labeling but are even better. Below is the video for the song that would not leave my head after watching that Bloodshot tribute. 

Thanks Mike and thank you also Bobby Bare Jr. Maybe someday I’ll be able to shake your hand and thank you in person.

Bigfoot: A dissertation on why I'm a 9-year-old in my head

Let's get a few things straight up front.

I don't believe in UFO Conspiracies. Roswell has a logical explanation (Project Mogul if you're interested). Besides, the government can't even run a war without screwing things up and leaking information everywhere. There's no way they could consistently cover up something as big as having UFOs in a hangar somewhere.

I don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster. That lake has been sonar scanned to death and it's just not possible for a dinosaur to live off the amount of food living in it. That Scots are seeing monsters in lakes does not surprise me one bit given the potency of their fine, fine whiskeys.

Fairies, elves, 50-foot snakes, honest politicians, the right of pre-emptive war, giant spiders, trolls, etc. are all completely ridiculous and there's no way in hell they exist.

However... I think Bigfoot is real. So is Mokele Mbembe if you're wondering.

Why do I think this?

Well because scientifically, they haven't been completely ruled out yet. That means that technically it's still possible that they exist and honestly, that's enough for me.

Now, that may not seem important to you, but to me it's more important than almost anything else! You see, one of the things that I'm personally conflicted over is reconciling my need to absorb as much information as possible with my desire to still live in a world where there is at least some sense of mystery.

So I believe Bigfoot is real because I want to believe it's real.

When I was a kid (in the 1970s for those keeping score) Bigfoot went nationwide as a phenomenon. Sightings were in the papers, books were written and were best sellers, people I knew in Florida swore to me that they'd seen similar things in the swamps when hunting. All of this sparked my imagination like nothing else. It didn't matter if everyone was lying or not. The fact was, I thought there was something out there that was new and undiscovered and it consumed me.

There's a lot of unspoiled wilderness still left out there. There are plenty
of places where people still say they've encountered something they can't explain and there are plenty of scientists who, while stating they don't actually believe Bigfoot exists, do concede that if it did exist, it would be able to survive in these areas.

The thought that something that big could remain undiscovered in the age of satellite imagery, laser beams and internet pornography really sparks my inner 9-year-old.

Which is exactly why I think it's imperative that a small group of us go looking for it.

Let me explain myself. There are all kinds of people out there who are looking to find this thing for all the wrong reasons. My favorite to read about can be found at www.bfro.net . Here's a link to a sighting just this past November that takes place mere miles from where I grew up. It's all very matter of fact, claims are properly investigated and the research is scientifically founded, but they rarely come up with anything beyond footprints and they only occasionally get those.

While I admire their dedication, there's no way I'd go out with them to look for one of these things. Mainly because they're way too serious and honestly, a little on the douchey side.

I want to reiterate that I'm not in this to bring back physical proof of bigfoot and make a name for myself. I just want to see one, hopefully while sober and then walk away. That's why I'm proposing a full on expedition by complete amateurs who only want to hike, camp and have fun... but just do it in an area where people have seen Bigfoot.

You see, I have a theory. After reading multiple accounts of sightings, I've come to the conclusion that if we act like we don't want to see one, apparently we'll be partying with them in no time. Once that happens, we can offer them a couple of drinks, maybe trade funny stories about scaring the shit out of campers and then they go their way and we can head back to civilization.

It's essentially a foolproof plan and as you can see, I've put a ton of thought into it.

There are a number of places we can go if we want to find some of these things, including northern California, Washington, Texas and Arkansas. There's even that kickass fish camp up in Canada that Monsterquest spent time at. That place is practically crawling with them but it's hard to get to.

I'm inclined to want to go somewhere here on the West Coast but that's because it's easier for me, but I'm open to suggestions.

What's important is that we go, we bring along what we need for a three or four day trip and we bring along whatever substances may be needed to help us find bigfoot.

If you're concerned about undertaking such an endeavour in these uncertain times, consider it a health trip. You will feel invigorated, refreshed and have a renewed sense of purpose once you've gone on such a quest. I speak from firsthand knowledge. Just read the post on the great white shark trip . I'm still getting occasional tingles thinking about that one... at least I hope that's what's making me tingle.

Either way, who's with me? Let's do this thing in 2009!

Writing a Book is a Weird Experience

I know, you are probably thinking it's boring and I'm sure that if someone put a camera on me and filmed the actual action of me writing a book, it would only barely rival Warhol's epic movie about a man sleeping.

But hey, it's what goes on inside that's weird. I've written stories before and I've worked on this book for over a year but up until recently, it's only been one day a week. In a massive gesture of faith and love for me, my wife suggested that I make a sprint to the finish of sorts and try to wrap this thing up by the New Year.

At least I think it was a massive gesture of faith and love... it could be that she just wanted the TV to herself to watch that John and Kate show. Either way though, I find myself well over 200 pages and 65,000 words into something that originally started out being nothing more than a five to ten page short story about a graveyard. I'm probably at the halfway point now and what's weird about this can be summed up in two sentences.

1. I'm living other people's lives in my head.

2. I've kind of enjoyed killing some of them.

Seriously. On both counts this is supremely weird for me, but it's true. I find myself creating backstories in my head that never make it to paper. They don't need to. They just need to help me better define the characters I'm writing about. I also find myself trying to relate to people I'm inherently not like. For instance an 80 year old single woman or a 28-year-old hispanic drug dealer. In ways, it's opened up a part of me that was formerly adverse to empathy.

But then, there's that second statement which is also very true. Killing some of these folks... even some of the innocent ones, has been incredibly fun. The more weird and wicked the better in most cases. The real carnage in the story is still to come and I'm wondering if I'll get to a point when I look in the mirror and ask myself, "Is it normal to think these things?"

I suspect I won't. There's a big part of me that is able to separate the real world from the world in my head where anything is possible. I just have a feeling that it's just going to be hard to convince folks who read this later that the grey matter in my skull is just like theirs.

In the end though, I don't guess it will matter much. They'll either like it or they won't but I'll have still written the book I wanted to write and that's all I care about.

Time to go write some more now. You enjoy avoiding work or whatever it is you're doing while you waste time reading this. I'm going to go knock off a convenience store clerk... in my head.

The Voice of the Beehive

"It's weird what goes through your mind in such a foreign situation. Here I am, as far away from my everyday life as possible, literally thousands of miles away from almost everyone I know and submerged in the ocean. Speech communication with any other human being is impossible, so it's pretty much just you and your thoughts. My thoughts and I aren't always on speaking terms, so it can be kind of tough to be stuck with no one but your inner monologue to talk to. My mind drifts around from a laser focus for sharks to wondering what I could have/should have done differently in life and back about a thousand times every time I'm in the cage. It was kind of therapeutic and certainly more helpful than going to an actual therapist was. I may still be a disaster as a human being, but at least now I have an insane story to tell." - Will Mason


Personally, I haven’t been diving long, but I’ve embraced it like few other things in my life. I took to it immediately and until now, I’ve never given much thought to why that is. Reading Will's excellent take on the shark dive over at sharkfinhat made me pause and think.

Two things in particular struck me. First was that he actually seriously considered we may die and secondly, that he felt the experience of being underwater was therapeutic.

Throughout my life, I've been fortunate to have something I like to think of as good intuition. Sometimes it's a feeling, sometimes it’s an actual voice in my head but either way, it's not something I get all the time. It’s not something I can count on as always being there but when it is, I heed it. It's served me well in these first 40 years.

Unlike “Spidey-sense”, this isn’t a feeling of impending danger (although I’ve gotten that a couple of times). Many times, it's more like a reassurance. It's a feeling that says, "Yeah, this is weird, but you're going to be just fine."

You know, I don't want this to come off as some macho posturing because anyone who knows me knows, I'm not "that guy", but from the moment I stepped onto the boat on the shark dive, I knew we weren't going to be in any danger, ever.

It wasn't like I felt that way thanks to any safety lectures or anything (because God knows, James left out some pretty important shit in the 'safety lecture' we got… for instance, how to avoid sharks if they get in the cage). Still, there was never a doubt about our safety in my mind. I KNEW we were going to be just fine. Call it overconfidence. Call it stupidity. No matter what you call it, though, I want to reiterate one thing.

I didn't think we'd be fine... I KNEW that we would be fine.

I've had that feeling of, "no matter what, I'll walk away from this" more than a few times throughout my life. It's a good feeling to have and it's one that has come to me in the weirdest and most stressful of situations. A good example is back in 1990, I got lost on a day hike in the Angeles National Forest and had to free climb 300 feet in the dark while wearing Vans slip-ons to regain the trail. I never once felt uncertain about what I had to do or questioned whether I’d make it to the top. It was a certainty in my mind that I would get there and I was right.

In the last two years, that feeling has hit me underwater more often than not.

So after reading Will's post and realizing that I definitely had that "Everything's Fine" feeling all day, I started asking myself why. I mean, it's not like we weren't in some of the most dangerous waters on the West Coast. Every minute spent in that cage was spent looking for sharks. Giant, seal-eating, "the things movies are made about" sharks, no less.

After some whiskey and serious reflection, the best answer I can come up with is this.

From my earliest memories, my brain has been like a beehive full of trivial information. Song lyrics, work deadlines, movie quotes, the magna carta, the fact that Playboy’s Miss July 1977 didn't like selfish people… any and all of these things swirl through my head on a minute by minute basis. I'm the guy people call up at work and ask, "Who was it that ran against Clinton in 1996?" or "Who was the producer on Def Leppard's Pyromania album?" or "Who was the cinematographer on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?"

(the answers are Sen. Bob Dole, Robert "Mutt" Lange and Daniel Pearl, respectively)

And personally, I don't mind it. I've never wanted to stop it. It's like my head plays a constant game of referencing and cross-referencing the world as I experience it and that's something I revel in. However, every time I’ve had that feeling of "Everything is fine", it’s been in a situation where the beehive has stopped buzzing; when my attention and focus became laser sharp.

The one place where my brain never strays is underwater. It's such an alien environment that it demands my attention. When I'm down there, I have one job to do: enjoy a safe dive. That takes up so much of my concentration, that I tend to be at peace most when I'm beneath the surface. The pressures of deadlines, mortgage payments, school costs and everything else can't follow me down below sea level, where my focus is on my breathing, my guages, the environment around me and my dive buddy. Many times, my stress can't even make it past the beach. I don't think about the meetings I have on Monday. I don't think about the negotiations I'm behind on at work. I don't think about how I'm going to find a way to surprise Karen for her birthday or how I’m going to juggle my schedule so Lily can get to piano class. It's like from the moment my feet hit the surf, I begin to achieve a zen-like state of mind that I don't get anywhere else. For the length of my dive, all that exists is that moment, that place, and instead of a beehive in my head, I get a very calm, rational series of observations, choices and lists of options, none of which involve pop culture, politics or the preferences of 1970s Playmates.

The best dive I ever had was one that was for all intents and purposes, a wash out. I accompanied a friend who was teaching a student. The two of us went out and set the dive float. Then he went back to shore for his student. While I was there, the float pulled loose from the sandy bottom and I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon on the bottom, holding it in place while the two of them went off to do their underwater examinations.

I was alone except for the four purple sand dollars half buried in front of me.

I heard the clicking of dolphins. I heard the sound of my breathing and those breaths breaking the surface 20 feet above. I felt the push and pull of the tide and heard the waves pounding the shore 100 yards away. I heard the creaks of all manner of creatures climbing the reef nearby, and I'm pretty sure they heard me as I just lay there on the bottom and breathed.

I wasn't diving. I was 'being'… I was simply existing… and everything was going to be perfectly fine. It wasn't narcosis. I didn't feel euphoric. I was focused, but I was relaxed.

Being in that cage with Will, I felt the same way. It was cold as hell. The cage was rolling. The sharks were out there and my nerves were crackling, but it was okay. The beehive was quiet and there was no doubt within it that everything was fine.

I've never really thought about it before now, but for me, it's that time underwater, where my brain and I can be selfishly alone, that I cherish. I don’t get to dive as often as I'd like, but I have no doubt that when I do, it makes me a better father, husband and person. So yeah, Will’s right.

That’s way better than going to an actual therapist… sharks or no sharks.

Sharks or the lack thereof...

Here's the question. Your wife asks you, "So what do you want for your 40th birthday? You can do whatever you want. Just name it."


Do you tell her about your fantasy involving a midget, one pound of powdered rhino horn and her dressed as Wonder Woman singing Oingo Boingo's "It's Just Another Day"?

The answer is no. Thirteen years of marraige have not prepared her for that revelation and another thirteen probably won't either. Instead, you tell her about the second thing that pops into your head... as long as it doesn't involve midgets, powdered rhino horn or Wonder Woman.

For me, it was, "I want to dive with Great White sharks!"

The look of subtle worry was instantly more gratifying than the look of disgust the other option would have elicited and after a quick look to see if death by stupidity was covered on our life insurance policies, arrangements were made.

That was back in April which left six and a half months between laying down the deposit and actually climbing aboard the boat. Six and a half months of anticipation. I almost didn't make it. The thought of climbing into that cage was so exhilarating that it lit me up like a firecracker. It was six and a half months of wanting to go "NOW".

So, a little over a week ago, I finally climbed into that cage. Did I see sharks?

Yes, I saw a shark.

Did I get a picture of the shark?

No. However I regret nothing... except maybe not buying my wife a Wonder Woman costume while in San Francisco. That would have been the coolest.



Though you may think from the first part of this post that I'm all about drunkeness and insanity, I'm not. In fact, I'm a mild mannered family man. That's why the first part of the trip was spent with up in Clearlake (about 3 hours north of San Francisco) with my wife, daughter, sister and parents. Here's Karen and I at the Coast Guard station in Sausalito.

I actually succeeded in not thinking about the dive at all during this part of the vacation even though my sister, Kelly, constantly talked about it (she was going also). I think the copious amounts of wine and beer helped my cause and believe me, you can't be in the middle of the Napa and Sonoma valleys without partaking in some wine and beer.

Either way, the laid back part of the trip was officially over on October 15th, when we headed back down to San Francisco to pick up Will Mason. We found him standing outside the Hotel Boheme looking suspiciously like a tourist. Sure, he was all suave and casual in his trendy japanese jersey, but holding onto a gigantic friggin' suitcase in the middle of the sidewalk sends out an "I'm not a local" vibe like you wouldn't believe. He threw it in the Prius and we were off to find my sister who had disappeared in the direction of Pier 39.


Feel free to insert any jokes you'd like about my sister, Piers, sailors, etc. at this point. She would expect it and likely appreciate the opportunity to one-up you. I'll be glad to forward all comments her way.

We found her down by the harbor seals and grabbed a bite to eat before doing some sight-seeing. If you haven't seen the Penny Arcade down by the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, you really should. Lots of cool machines from the 1920s can still be found there. My favorite was The Opium Den which featured skeletons, demons and a dragon that slowly popped out from doors surrounding puppets smoking hookahs. There's just nothing like getting your daily dose of morality via an animated puppet show. Sure beats the sock puppet sex-ed class I got when I was in 3rd grade. I've never looked at knee-high basketball socks the same way since.

Here's a shot of Will corrupting my daughter by letting her look at an Adults Only peepshow.

It was showing women of the 1920s exposing their bloomers.

GASP!

Eventually, I kissed my wife and daughter goodbye and they headed back to the safety of Clearlake while Will, Kelly and I started thinking about sharks. Actually, that's a lie. Kelly went to the hotel and went to sleep. Will and I hit a bar called Vesuvio's (next to City Lights bookstore) and met up with a friend of mine from Boston named Mike. By complete coincidence, he also happened to be visiting the area so we had to share a few beers and discuss important matters, like movies and Tom Waits albums. After a few, we decided it would be a great idea to get our pictures taken in front of Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. Our train of thought was a tad clouded no doubt.


The conversation went something like this:

Will: You know, Larry Flynt's Hustler Club is right around the corner from here.

Cary: Holy shit! We should get a picture taken there.

Mike: Sounds good to me.

Fifteen minutes later, Mike was on his way back home and Will and I were in the car headed back to the hotel:

Will: What if that's the last picture taken of us before we're eaten.

Cary: Crap. Karen will want to kill me and we didn't even go inside!

Many conversations along these lines happened over the next 12 hours. This is the kind of logic that comes about when you combine a cheap buzz with emminent shark doom. Upon seeing this photo, Karen turned to me and said, "I know you didn't go in because you still have money in your wallet."

That's what I love about my wife. Logic rules all.

In any case, after a night of restlessness, Will, Kelly and I all headed down to the pier at Emeryville (outside of Oakland) and boarded the Superfish. Here's Will and I by the cage at 5:30 a.m.



While it was early, we were pretty pumped as was everyone coming on board. At this point, we were just hours away from becoming bait. The ride out to the Farallons is about 3 hours from Emeryville. They sit 26 miles out from the Golden Gate bridge, however the currents are horrendous. This is a shot of the coast near San Francisco as we headed out to sea.



This was a relatively calm day so we were lucky, but we lost a few people (including some divers) to seasickness. More on that later. However I do want to relate a story that had Will, Kelly and I shaking our heads in disbelief on the way out to the islands. In the days when lighthouse keepers were still on the island, one keeper, his wife and two kids made the trip from the Farallons to San Francisco in the dead of winter, at night... in a rowboat. The older kid was sick and with no radio to call for help and weeks before a supply ship would arrive, they felt they had no other choice.

I can't be bothered to walk down the hill to the grocery store most days. Can you imagine rowing a boat in rough seas for 26 miles? Add to it that 26 miles only gets you to the cliffs. There was no Golden Gate Bridge at the time so it's more like close to 30 before you hit a pier. It boggles my mind that they all survived the trip (the sick kid died a few days later in the hospital).

Now that I've succeeded in brightening up this entry, let's talk about the islands themselves. They came into sight about 9:00. The island on the far left is called Saddle Rock. The big peak you see in the middle is Southeast Farallon and the round rock you see on the right hand side is actually a separate island called Sugarloaf. This is some of the most inhospitable land imaginable.



The Farallons are really part of a mountain range that broke off millions of years ago and are gradually moving toward Alaska (about 1 inch per year). In the 1800's a lighthouse was established out here to help ships avoid being caught in "The Devil's Teeth" as the islands were nicknamed. It's automated now but you can still see the original structure on top of the peak in the picture below. One of the best stories about the building of the lighthouse is that after it was initially built, they realized it was the wrong size for the lens and had to demolish it and start over.

As Will pointed out, "I'm pretty sure someone lost their job over that."



These islands are about as rough a place as you can possibly be and on top of that, they have a long history of violence and agression, not just toward the animals but between the people exploiting them also. In fact, during the Gold Rush that thrust San Francisco into being more than just a roadstop on the California coast, actual gunplay broke out on these islands between rival factions warring over the equivalent of chicken eggs. It's like being at this place automatically short circuits your common sense. I can't blame that myself, because I wanted to go diving with Great Whites long before I ever heard of the Farallons, but being there didn't cause me any reservations either.

Around the southern tip of the island you can get a peak at two killer looking caves. On the other side of the island is an amazing arch but we never got around there for a clear picture. On that side of the island, the rollers were worse and with so many people about to lose their breakfast, Captain Mick wisely decided to remain on the eastern side.



In the old days, supply ships would have to come out and bring food for the keeper and his family since you can't grow anything edible on the island. That's still the case today. There are only about 6 - 9 people on the island at any one time and all of them work for the U.S. Forestry Service. No one else is allowed on shore without express permission from the government. The islands are the main breeding grounds for a number of birds (including endangered Murres) and also sea lions and elephant seals. For the people on the island, this is no picnic, however all but one of them are unpaid volunteers. That's right, people actually volunteer to live and work here.



Here's a picture of the boat launch. As you can see, there's no sandy beach around here. The only way off the island is either by helicopter or by lowering a boat by crane. If conditions are poor (which is all too common) that's just not possible.

We anchored between Saddle Rock and the east landing on Southeast Farallon. This is an area that had been a hotspot for sea lion kills recently. Which brings me to the subject of chumming. At the Farallons, chumming doesn't work. The reason is that mature Great Whites make a switch in diet when they get to be over a certain size. That switch means that they begin eating elephant seals and sea lions 100% of the time. It's like the Atkins Diet from hell. In fact, it's because the shark has become so big that it needs to eat enough fat to get the energy it needs to continue swimming and hunting. The only things with that much fat are seals and sea lions... and Will but he's slimming down.

Anyway, they can tell the difference between mammal blood and fish blood so chumming is pointless. What you have to do is look for a fresh sea lion kill and get your boat and cage in that area to see sharks. If that's not possible, then you have to park in a good location and employ your decoys in hopes of drawing one in. That's what happened with us. With no fresh kills around we picked a promising spot, the crew put the cage in the water and it was time to suit up.



The trick to getting in the cage was simple. You sit on the lower step with your feet on that "ladder" connecting the cage to the platform. The crew drapes about 30 pounds of weight around your shoulders in a special harness (not a BC vest like in scuba, just a bunch of webbed straps with lead weights). You pop a regulator in your mouth and then you crawl feet first out to the cage opening, spin around and drop in.



It sounds simple, but the boat was being hit all day by some good-sized rollers. Since the cage was connected, that meant everything shifted and rocked, even underwater. That seasickness I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it took out five of the nine divers on board including my sister. She only lasted for part of one session before popping up and hurling. She said she was so ill, she just surfaced from her position in the center back of the cage and started vomiting. She'd been at it about 45 seconds when she finally heard the divemaster yelling at her to either get back in the cage or back in the boat because she was completely exposed and throwing out an interesting profile to any whites swimming below.

Speaking of profiles, here's a picture of the decoys.



They're kind of hard to make out, but they are both seal profiles. These were tossed out and reeled in occasionally as groups of sea lions departed from shore or headed back in from the open ocean. There are probably over a thousand sea lions here so this was happening a lot.

Back to the cage. When I jumped in the water, it finally hit me that I was not in my element. I have always enjoyed that feeling (whether it be culture shock living in Japan or deciding to move to California on a whim), however this is the only time in my life that I can remember thinking, "Should I really be doing this?"

There are three big reasons for this. First, the visibility was only about five to six feet. That's about one third the size of the sharks we were looking for so by the time you were going to see one, it was going to be nibbling on your ear. Secondly, I've dove in cold water before but this was 54 degrees of smack you in the face cold. Finally, the cage was rocking hard! Big rollers were moving it all over and while I don't have any problem with motion sickness ever, it was just hard to keep all your limbs inside the cage at first.

That's something I thought may actually be important to do considering what was swimming below us. Which brings up something else I should mention. When the cage is rocking and sharks are outside, how exactly does one hold steady without wrapping your fingers around the bars and exposing them to the sharks? Well, I improvised and tried to hold my hands flat against the corners when possible. If not, I squeezed my knuckles around the inside of the bars. Others didn't seem to be so worried. My favorite was a fellow diver who stuck his entire torso out of the cage and rested his arms on the "viewing window". It took him about 15 seconds to realize what he was doing and he pulled himself in very quickly.

Anyway, back to the cage. I've jumped in and stabilized myself and I can't see a damn thing. I decided to take a picture of the back of the boat when I got my wits about me because I figured no one was going to believe how bad this visibility was. Here's what that first picture looks like:



Remember, the back of the boat is only about five feet from my camera at this point and there are two propellers under there. I dare you to find them in that picture. A couple of hours later conditions cleared up some and I took another one. Here it is for comparison.



As you can see, the chances of my getting a picture of a shark, even in comparably good visibility, was pretty slim unless it came right up and posed for me. Unfortunately, that never happened. It didn't stop Will from posing though.



All of these horrible conditions did lead to one powerfully good thing in our favor. So many people declined to go back in the water that I got to spend almost a full three of the five hours we were out there in the cage. Will was with me for most of that time and that's why we were the only two people who actually did see a shark.


So here's the story.


The decoy had been going by repeatedly with no luck at all. You can see it in the picture above. Will and I were on our very last turn in the cage when both of us saw a large shape move slowly under my side of the cage. It was about 10 - 12 feet below us, dark and had a conical snout so there was no mistake about it, but she was too far away to make out details. She swam from the direction of the boat out past us and we followed her until she disappeared from sight. Then a moment later, she came back, this time moving past Will’s side of the cage. I surfaced and yelled to the guys on the boat that we had one below us and they immediately started working the decoy hard trying to get her to come up closer.

It never worked though. She made one more pass a little deeper than before, this time moving again from the boat side of the cage to the open ocean. I stayed down another 45 minutes waiting for her but she just wasn’t interested. I keep calling it a she, but I’m not sure of the sex because we never saw the underside of her. I just figure if she wasn't interested in checking me out, she's probably a female.

(insert rimshot here)

Will and I estimated that she was between 12 – 15 feet long which is actually small for that area. Still, I can say I’ve seen my first Great White and I did it off the Farallons, something relatively few people get to do. In fact, here's a picture of me after seeing the shark.



Other than that, we saw about 50 Sea Nettle jellies. These were between 4 – 6 feet long and passed directly below our cage throughout the day.



It's hard to judge scale in these pictures but these were about 12 feet below us. We also saw humpback whales completely breaching and crashing down in the waters beyond Southeast Farallon. We saw porpoise, a ton of sea lions, some gray whales and some good beer on the ride back.



All in all, it was a great time and we’re already talking about doing another trip only this time to Guadalupe where it's all but guaranteed you'll dive with more than one Great White.


Of course, that may have to wait for two reasons.

1. money.

2. Bigfoot expedition.

More on that one some other time.