Rod Amis - Unbound

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NEW ORLEANS - I wrote this the day my computer died:

9 APRIL, 2002: One of the things I love about My Darling (Dragana gave her that name) is that I can take a sultry, overcast afternoon off from the world and myself and take a stroll down by the bayou, Bayou St. John, with her. I can explore the neighborhood. I can make mental notes about the birds who remind you how near you are to the traffic, competing with each other in song, dive-bombing the surface of the slowly moving water, calling down from trees in those staccato bursts you only hear in movies of places where birds still abound. Then we can come back along the embankment and just sit watching the dark waters roll. She can play a favorite tune or two (like "The Captain of the Heart") and I might even be moved to share it all with you. Yes, she is a darling.

A woman might stroll by with a friendly dog, which dashes up to lick my face. Darling is well-behaved if the pooch is not. She plays our music and awaits my return.

The sun almost breaks through the second layer of low-hanging clouds and you begin to believe you could be in any of the cities of the last year, on any afternoon, even if the girl down the way is not the same dark-haired waif you've dreamt about a hundred times. She could pretend to be.

To the strains of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue, the lower clouds coalesce again. It gets darker. You are thinking of cities seen and cities calling like sirens for an embrace or a return. A redhead walks by wearing a Walkman. "So what is the new Plan?" you ask yourself aloud.

You think about poor descriptions of that contoured look of a moving overcast sky. They (most writers) never get the colors right. Don't describe the dark greys of the lowest, moving clouds just overhead and how they are set off by the static, almost-white of the stationery wall above. They never get the coalescing of heavy clouds and spooling roll of the lighter, softer ones unraveling. Maybe that's why you've never even tried, you tell yourself.

The buildings on every side, the low-hanging clouds, give a city the feeling of a large room, unlike the expanse of nature under an open sky. A low sky is like a limit on our expectations, a curtain between us and the heavens. It's not hard to see how people in constantly overcast cities tend to feel hemmed in and depressed. The sky does seem bigger in places like Wyoming and Montana.

Sitting on the stoop in this neighborhood is different from out in the Marigny. Instead of lots of foot-traffic on the street, you get the people in their "ticky-tacky" houses checking out your porch action --- if there is any. Lots of people are stuck in that life-goes-on-"privately"-behind-curtains-and-blinds mentality. Nobody wants to accept that almost anywhere in America is about as private as the goings-on in the film "American Beauty"

Adventures with "The Traveler"

In our latest episode, I wagered with a woman I met in a local tavern that I could "write" her well enough for any of her friends to recognize her. I don't know if I'd like that," she said. I promised that it would not be a caricature and even suggested that we agree on an "unbiased" third party to validate my efforts. (I've always been a sporting man.) That seemed to make the notion of being portrayed more palatable for her.

On reflection, I'm surprised I'd take-on such a risky enterprise. After all, I could lose the wager. (Eee-yew!) I've been dancing around putting the words to (virtual) page for days. It's like a flame I use to threaten my own gossamer wings. That's part of the writer's game, I guess.

I'm absolutely convinced I'd have her, in toto, with one more conversation, but now I'm a bit suspect. Like the anthropologist among the isolated people, I've already affected the object of my observation by the act of observing. Still, I have to believe that something of the essence will be captured even from within the new artifice I'm doomed to faceŠ

The trick, of course, is to get her to talk about something/anything else. People reveal more about themselves in what they say about the world than whenever they talk about themselves.

Oh yeah. Her name is Viva. One of the first things I learned was that her parents had seen an Any Warhol film shortly before she was born in which the actress using that name had appeared. During those bad old times when hippies felt their kids needed "unique" names like Moon Unit, unfortunately. (Think about the moment in conversation where a wise-ass like Rod might deadpan, "Thank God your parents didn't witness a decapitation. 'Bloody Trunk! Dinner's ready!'")

Stay tuned.

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I get more play from being out on the porch, I think. That's how I met Kathleen, our next door neighbor --- and all the people between Franklin and Port on Dauphine, when I lived at Casa de Caca. People just walk up, or out of their front doors, and talk to you. They take you as a fixture of the street. You learn things about their lives that you might not otherwise. Sometimes, you end up rescuing them, too. But that's part of the territory, isn't it?

It's reminiscent of the adage about the whole world coming to you if you sit at one place. That doesn't happen in actuality, of course; it's just a way of making lazy people and people who are afraid feel that they aren't missing anything. The truth is that the best way to see the whole world is to get off your ass and go see the world. Ask me. I'll trade a Traveler for five Born-and-raised-lived-here-all-my-lifes and always come out ahead..

My friend Sneza (Snow White) in Belgrade believes that she will "see" the world through Linguistics, learning how our languages shape our thinking. If Levi-Strauss was correct, there may be some truth in that.

Still, I've always been in the camp that

there's no substitute for seeing the same mountains and trees, breathing the same air, feeling the same heat or cold, running ones hands along the grainy dust collected on the mammoth legs of the Sphinx. In that way, I have always chosen the kinesthetic: learning by doing and feeling.

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"So what's The Plan, Gandalf?"

The long range Plan hasn't changed, Kids. It's all about leaving the United States. This is DEFINITELY NOT "Home". It's going in the opposite direction as quickly as its political-juggernaut grinding wheels can take it. Too many other places look spiritually more healthy by any comparison.

It's the short range version of The Plan that is much more complex and unsettling. I have to find/decide on a new Day Job, after all, or to throw myself into being "entrepreneurial" in The New Orleans Way. Why not create a way to work from home again. Or from Down by the Bayou.

That Was Then, This Is Now

23 May, 2002 - I have been extremely stressed-out lately.

I always stress when I receive e-mails asking when the next update of this mag' is going to come out. But there's more.

Rather than the two "live" sessions of 2.5 hours per week I believed I would have with my students at the Novi Sad School of Journalism, I am scheduled for three per week. We meet on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. That means that young Rodja is very busy, but it also means that I have less time for my construction job.

The students are great and its very exciting working with them, but I constantly worry about fulfilling each of their goals/needs adequately as I plan each session. Plus, two and a half hours is a long time to try to be the "font of all (Web) wisdom." I end each session spent. Maybe I need to cut back on the coffee. (Because of the time difference, I have to be ready at 8 a.m.)

Send me good vibes.

Meanwhile, now that I have taken the decision to return to California, one of the most expensive places to live in the country, all sorts of sleep-depriving questions crop up:

1. Who will I stay with when I first arrive?
2. What will I do for work?
3. I know I want to live in northern California, but what city should I live in?
4. Why didn't I choose some place closer, like Texas?
5. Am I doing this too quickly? Should I wait a while longer until more things are "solid"?
6. Should I just go ahead and start looking for a flight back right away?

The questions and fears spin around in my head in the wee hours and keep me awake. As Charles Bukowski once said, I'm afraid of everything.

The muscles of my upper back wad up into tight knots that won't go away.

The child-Rod voice of my internal conversation stamps his feet and yells: "What are you doing? You are NOT the boss of me!"

"Oh, but I am," I reply smoothly. "We're moving out of New Orleans."

That is that. I don't have time to argue. I have a class session to prepare for tomorrow and a new lecture to put up this weekend.

Search www.g21.net [ ] Our Link Partners the Web for

THINGS I WANT THIS WEEK

1. To be the best "distance learning" instructor I can be.

2. Getting more comfortable about the move by working out a job-search plan.

3. . More women contributors at G21.

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Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

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ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

This year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's Day Job is working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and now a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. In his spare time, he chases women.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now. He wants out so bad he can taste it. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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