HOME SWEET CHARIOT
A Passing Glance at Living Spaces on Wheels
by Russell Scheidelman—
In the great Animal Kingdom, those perpetual stay-at-homes who like to drag their homes along with them whenever they feel a bit footloose–like the turtle, the snail, and the hermit crab–seem to be onto something that we humans could learn from. Why leave the comfort and familiarity of your prefabricated Home Sweet Home when you can take it all with you? Among our play-catch-up species, thanks to the invention and reinvention of the wheel, some of us are doing just that.
Of course, being of diverse interests and life-styles, the humans who try emulating their home-lugging cousins do so in diverse ways. Those folks who most thoroughly wed habitat to mobility, I think, do so in ether a residential bus or in a so-called recreational vehicle (RV) that’s called a motorhome. Among the others, their moving shelters run the gamut from the small ‘teardrop’ trailer which offers the barest of necessities and allows only a foot or two of head-room for sleeping passengers, to the grand palatial mobile home which is designed to be grandly occupied only while at rest. This article focuses on just five different approaches to the humans-as-turtle phenomenon, ones I was able to track down and examine in the Seattle area where I am presently grounded in my brownstone apartment.
1. The Box Turtle
It was gratifying for a car-less city-dweller like me to have my first interviewee show up at our assigned meeting-place by driving up in the very house we were going to discuss. It was one of those big white cube motorhomes that enjoyed great popularity in the 1980s and 90s, when gas was still selling for less than a latte per gallon. In the way economic forces counterbalance one another and tend towards equilibrium, the much higher costs of operating such behemoths nowadays have fomented a massive fire sale which has steadily eroded their value, especially on the used market. The big white cubes–yesterday’s icons of shameless consumer excess–have lately become white elephants, and as a result, when comparing the costs of living full-time in such landless domiciles with the land-based alternatives, some folks are beginning to view the former as a more affordable ‘deal.’
Such considerations were among the selling points for Lonn Hagerty, the sharply dressed owner/operator/resident of the land yacht presently under discussion. But those, in fact, carried far less weight with him than some other factors. As a freelance techie and artist, he was by the radical change in life-style and opportunities for telecommuting and travel that such a tradeoff would entail. He was not disappointed.
Besides our afternoon conversation, I was able to glean valuable information for this article from the blog he’s been keeping since he first adopted the nomadic life-style in 2007. (See www.lonnatic.com.) There he explains more fully his personal odyssey from Winnebago to ‘boondocker’ (a particular kind of RV dweller); describes his on-the-road adventures in the company of his two African Grey parrots, Daisy & Boo; provides helpful practical tips to other RV users; and shares his own evolving philosophic take on life, art, dandyism, materialism and the modern motorhome experience.
Lonn & his chariot...
That experience, in the eyes of many, might have the appearance of a fairly self-contained one, and certainly, as a ‘boondocker’–i.e., an RV resident with means to stay unplugged from the main power grid and water supply systems (and hence can live away from urban areas when he wants to) –Lonn used his newfound life-style to satisfy an ingrained streak of independence. However, he soon discovered that owning a motorhome automatically enrolls one in a widespread community and fill-fledged subculture with their own set of rites, customs, values, and even vocabulary and which are underpinned by a vast network of parks, campsites, clubs, dedicated retail outlets, Web sites and a whole publishing industry.
It wasn’t long, then, before he joined what is perhaps the foremost motorhomers association, the Escapees RV Club (whose members are referred to as ‘SKPs’ and whose name must serve as a fodder for jokes in the neighborhood of prisons and mental hospitals). Originally formed in 1978 with a view of maxing out with just a couple hundred members, its membership rolls today have hemorrhaged to nearly 100,000–with Lonn being member #99041. In a body so vast and spread out, it is natural that it should be divided into subunits, in this case “chapters” embracing geographical areas (of original residency) and so-called “Birds of a Feather” groups (BOFs) based on shared interests and characteristics. (Traveling solo, Lonn joined up with the “Solos” BOF.) The SKP club operates 20-odd parks of its own for members to stay in, plus it contracts with over 1000 commercial parks around the country which offer discounts to its members. The organization also puts out a bimonthly magazine, sponsors annual events (called “Escapades”). Provides a mail-forwarding service in cooperation with the US Postal Service, and even offers to help interested members establish legal residency at a permanent Texas address for voting, taxation, and other mundane purposes. During his trips along the West Coast and throughout the Southwest, as chronicled in his blog, Lonn often made use of SKP-sponsored materials (maps, guidebooks, etc.) or stayed at SKP-affiliated sites. With membership dues costing $60 per year (after an initial $10 enrollment fee), it’s a worthy investment, if you ask me.
By hovering between the two modes of camping and hanging out with fellow motorhomers on the one hand, and boondocking with just his two birds as companions on the other, Lonn seems to have hit two extremes of living not normally available to most land-tethered city dwellers. His interactions with the strangers he meets at parks, campsites, and roadside diners are certainly on a more intense level than strangers crossing paths in most urban settings are apt to enjoy. He attributes this not only to the shared interests and concerns that would naturally give RV owners something to talk about, but also to the fact that lots of them are retired senior citizens with a more nuanced and less rushed sense of living, and, of course, they usually have something they want to say. As a result, conversational powwows with newfound acquaintances often take place on the road, where the peace pipe is more likely to be replaced by the hot tub.
When he’s by himself (whatever the external setting for his 23-foot rig might be), he oil paints, works at his computer or on the RV, plays with the birds, reads, or goes for long walks or bike rides to explore the local sights. He says he’s thinking of getting a small trailer for use as an auxiliary painting studio–because his parrots don’t like the smells of paint supplies. When he goes shopping, if it’s not for needed supplies, it’s to the thrift stores in search of vintage clothing. The storage bins of his 1995 Four Winds (Class C) RV are filled with hats, shoes, suits, shirts, ties, and various men’s wardrobe accessories. It’s the only materialistic indulgence he’s allowed himself in his cramped but adequate living quarters.
In compensation, he enjoys the expanse of his new living room–as far as the horizon, he likes to point out. It’s a living room he has the freedom to shift as the mood takes him. If gas prices get too high, then such living room shifts may occur more slowly and/or sporadically, but gas prices and other materialistic concerns can no longer dictate his life the way they used to. He’s simplified his needs, streamlined his habits, and taken himself off the grids that the rest of us can’t seem to do without. In the game of life that we all must play, he’s staked out an extreme but increasingly attractive position: he’s a boondocker.
2. The Snapping Turtle
While the turtle’s attachment to its sheltering shell is a close and permanent one, the second mobile living space reviewed here has a far more tangential relationship to its owner. When Tammy Williams decided to purchase a 1955 Hanson trailer a couple years ago, it did not have the effect of launching her on a whole new way of life (as with Lonn and his motorhome). It did not affect her income career as a lawyer, her singing career with the swing band Tammy & the Bachelors, or the kind of life-style choices she had been making all along. On the contrary, the acquisition fell right in line with her penchant for collecting, and provided an additional means of storing and displaying her collectibles.
The trailer’s design is a classic example of the “canned ham” style, so-called because of its aluminum siding and distinctive ovoid shape. This trailer style was popular from the 1930s through the 1960s and reflects the whimsical streamlined values of Mid-Century Modernism. Pretty much all of the vintage items she’s collected, running from the 1961 house where she lives to her tiniest salt and pepper shakers, show an abiding–even relentless–taste for such values.
Over the years, Tammy has directed and overseen remodeling, repainting, and home decorating efforts designed to bring out or echo the architectural charms of her one-story, space-age era house in Ballard. Whenever possible, she’d used period materials and décor items, but she’s not been afraid to substitute newer elements (which sometimes had to be custom-made) when these would contribute to the desired effect. She’s also extended the quirky iconography into her backyard area by having a period wet bar installed on a specially constructed deck, and surrounding it with matching outdoor furniture. The 6 by 9 foot trailer has functioned as yet another extension of such influences, both in its role as a guest room (for guests who can fit comfortably on the six foot hideaway bed), as a ready made shelter for use on camping trips (which she takes about 3 or 4 times per year), and as a showcase for her collectibles at collectors events.
Tammy is very thematic in the way she has organized the collectibles which ornament her house. The method to her madness is to assign a certain motif to a particular room, and then to decorate the room accordingly. For example, one room is devoted to flamingos, which peer out from framed prints on the walls, march gracefully across fabrics and upholstery, and cut figures as ceramic figurines on side tables and shelves. An ‘Egyptian room’ presses all the ‘Egypt” buttons and even contains a full size replica of a mummy’s sarcophagus. A ‘black panther room’ teems with you-know-what. For the trailer, which she quickly recognized as an added room to the house, she chose a similarly iconic and richly commodified theme: poodles.
Taking advantage of the canned ham’s dual role as not only a space to be occupied but also as a collectible object in its own right, she began the task of turning it into a poodle palace by radically altering its external appearance. Not content with its rather faded and blasé original paint job, she had it replaced by a splashy 3-toned color scheme: black on the bottom, silver on the top, with a zigzag streak of pink in the middle. (Tammy confesses to “hating” pink, but claims she had to use it because of the popular ‘pink poodle’ archetype.) In addition, she commissioned a custom decal of a stylized black poodle which was affixed to the trailer (against the silver area) and captioned by a name in large black Gothic lettering which the poodle wagon would henceforth be christened with: ‘Fifi.” The combination name-gender-look now had the alchemistic effect of lending ‘Fifi’ a curly-furred persona, a personality designed to win smiles.
Even from the time of her conception, Fifi has had her fans.
Tammy likes to tell the story of when she first proposed the paint color scheme to the man she was hoping to hire for the job, a rather gruff-looking worker dude at an RV dealership in Fife (WA), where she found him. When she had finished describing her plans, the seasoned maintenance and restoration expert–who had been giving her a sidelong glance as she spoke–looked her fully in the face and announced:
“If you really want the rig painted the way you just said lady, that’s gonna be fucking adorable.”
She cried: “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I’m sorry for using the f-word.”
“No, you said adorable. I can’t believe you used that word!’
She also got him to paint the two propane tanks pink–an idea he initially resisted but eventually bought into. (“He drank the pink Kool-aid,” Tammy says.)
'Fifi' showing off!
For the trailer’s interior, Tammy soon realized she had to scale back her original plans to display all her poodle memorabilia there on a permanent basis if she ever wanted to use it to take out on camping trips. For that reason, she limited her decorating efforts to affixing some vintage poodle plaques to the walls (with Velcro), having the windows trimmed with lacy pink curtains, and installing a lamp fixture with a vintage pink lampshade. She also laid in a small flat-screened TV for the benefit of Fifi’s modern-day occupants. It is only when she goes to collectors events that she intends to pull out all the stops and unleash the full litter of frou-frou paraphernalia that is otherwise kept bubble-wrapped in Fifi’s storage cabinets.
Mirroring Lonn’s RV experience, Tammy found that trailer ownership provided instant membership in a highly networked order of similarly equipped individuals, and that this far-reaching ‘club’ has subdivisions based on narrow sets of tastes and circumstances. It was not too long before she joined a web-based group of vintage trailer owners assembled under the banner “Sisters on the Fly.” This group, originally started in 1999 by a pair of sisters taken to going on fly-fishing trips, today has more than 1000 members around the country who like to meet up at events called “Cowgirl Caravans” and to display their themed and branded rigs on the web site’s “Trailers” gallery. (See www.sistersonthefly.com.) There you’ll find photos of mostly Western-themed trailers with cute to hokey nicknames conferred by their owners. (Fifi is number 1022.)
Another group devoted to towed-living that she came across was the “Tin Can Tourists” (TCT) club. Originally founded in Tampa, Florida in 1919, this organization of “auto campers” with vintage trailers and “motor coaches” got really huge in the 1930s, only to taper off and disappear completely by the late Seventies. In 1998, however, a Michigan couple renewed the charter; and since then both memberships and attendance at TCT-sponsored gatherings, where the group’s official song “The More We Get Together” is apt to be sung, have increased by leaps and bounds. Among the designated campsites around the country where such gatherings are held, one takes place in mid-August near Bellingham, WA, only 100 miles north of Seattle. Tammy lent me a coffee table-style book with lots of photos that were taken at these rallies. It’s called Teardrops and Tiny Trailers by Douglas Heister (Gibbs Smith publisher, 2008), and the trailers and cars pictured there are both eye-popping and to-die-for. Yet Fifi has never participated in any of these swanky camp-outs.
Although Tammy has pointed out to me that owning and maintaining a vintage trailer is a lot cheaper than owning and maintaining a vintage car (with the silvery Airstream being the high-priced exception), such a rig–no matter how reasonably priced it may be–still requires an accessory vehicle to haul it around; and among vintage trailer buffs, the ideal is to tow one’s rig with a car of similar age and style. Tammy is painfully aware that her 21st Century Kia fails that standard and offers a rude mismatch for Fifi. To remedy that shortcoming, she recently acquired a 1957bFord Ranchero, currently located in California, where an auto-savvy relative of hers is working on its restoration. Only when the restored Ranchero is at hand to serve as a decent escort–that is, when all the aesthetic stars are in aligned–will she be ready to enter Fifi among the lists at TCT and other prestigious trailer gatherings. Then, we can hope, Fifi will spectacularly fulfill her mission as roving ambassadress of the Space-Age-era mother ship, with all of its themed compartments, back in Ballard. Then Tammy can duly feel proud and at home among her fellow collectors as the light up the wilderness with Modernism.
3. The painted Turtle
The same era that produced Mid-Century Modernism also saw the rise of a popular primitivist style based on traditional Polynesian art forms. This style was called “Tiki” (aka “Polynesian Pop” or “Poly Pop”). Seattle artist Dawn Frasier became a fan of this style at the start of the ‘Tiki revival’ that took place in the early Nineties. Applying it to both her commercial work as well as to her personal projects, she soon became a specialist and eventually an expert on Poly Pop style. One such project–the subject of this third section of my pinpointed 5-part survey–is a 1964 Volkswagen van that she’s refurbished as a rolling Tiki wagon.
As with Tammy’s trailer, the van project is part of a larger stylistic makeover of the house and grounds where Dawn lives–known collectively as the “Bamboo Grove.” But whereas much of the former’s activity has involved acquiring and skillfully arranging the placement of collectibles, Dawn–being a designer, architect, and artisan in her own right–has accomplished much of the Bamboo Grove’s transformation through her own handiwork. In fact she sold much of her collection of Tiki objects a few years ago and no longer considers herself a ‘collector.’ When I think of all the diverse skills she’s applied to the making of her West Seattle dream home, which she regards as her magnum opus (or maybe ‘magma opus’) would be a better phrase), I am inclined to call her a creator-of-all-trades– a “Tiki Renaissance Woman.”
Evidence of her artistry and craftsmanship abound at the Bamboo Grove. To cite just a couple of the projects she’s been working on in her backyard area–and which alone must single out her property from all the others on her block and far beyond–there’s the nifty pool she dug and poured concrete into that’s shaped like a small lake, in the middle of which rises a miniature woman-made island with a functional volcano at its center. The pool is surrounded by tropical foliage (which she planted) and Tiki statuary (which she carved). The whole scene can be viewed from her lanai-style deck she recently added to the second story of her house; and here again, she did all the carpentry work herself and applied decorative Tiki-themed shields of her own fabrication. I could go on…
The Bamboo Grove is actually the second home in succession over the last decade that she’s turned into a Polynesian paradise. It was during her stay at the previous residence that she acquired the VW van; and just like everything else she took into her evolving artificial universe, the van was immediately suited up and fitted out to reflect the ideals and atmosphere of its new surroundings. Over the course of one weekend she painted its exterior in tropical Poly Pop colors, repanelled the interior (to which she added bamboo strips, matting, and some original Tiki paintings), and covered the floor with thin slabs of slate, mimicking the floors of various Mid-Century Modernist restaurants and hotels she had visited. Decked out in this manner, the van now allowed her to leave home without really leaving it, an advantage of great value to someone whose very success at refashioning her home in her own aesthetic image was having the further effect of turning her into a homebody.
With its newfound capacity to export Dawn’s domestic milieu, the van could now be put to good use for all kinds of tasks, three of which stand out:
(1) To haul the mostly free or cheap supplies destined for her various art projects. Dawn usually starts the day in front of her computer, scanning for ‘free’ offerings on Craig’s List or Freecycle. She considers the whole process of finding, choosing, and acquiring such materials an integral part of her art work. When tasks are viewed in this way, about 80% of her waking moments can be said to be spent on “art.”
(2) To go on on camping trips, preferably near the ocean.
(3) To participate in Art Car events. ‘Art Cars’ are the products of a modern folk art movement in which ordinary people and professional artists alike change the appearance of their motorized vehicles to make some unique artistic statement–and then drive them around for all to see. Dawn’s Tiki van would be driven in Art Car processions and entered in Art Car contests (though, from what I understand, any attempt to judge Art Cars along aesthetic lines, rating some above others, really goes against the grain of the movement’s underlying democratic principles). After winning a prize (as usually happened), the van would be given a fresh artistic overhaul in order to qualify for the next year’s competition. She says that it’s presently in its sixth metamorphosis.
Dawn, like Tammy, has an affectionate nickname for her vehicle: Jahmbi.” (But less affectionate, I guess, because I heard her only utter it a couple times in the course of our hour-long interview, while Tammy mad frequent reference to ‘Fifi’ when discussing her trailer.) The name “Jahmbi” is taken from “Combi,” which is the Americanized spelling for “Kombi,” which in turn is an abbreviated form of the German tongue-twister “Kombinations-kraftwagen.” Literally translated, that means ‘combined-use vehicle.’ It was the term used by Volkswagen for its second line of vehicles, the first line being its familiar-shaped ‘bugs.’ Dawn’s ‘Combi’ is of the iconic split-window variety which Volkswagen made from 1950 to 1967, and which was adopted by countercultural types in the Sixties and became known as the ‘hippie van.’ In their most radicalized form, these were hand-painted with psychedelic swirls and Day-Glo colors, and serves as precedents for today’s Art Cars. It is noteworthy, then, that the history of Art Cars comes full circle in Dawn’s Tiki-laden van.
'Jahmbi' on the road
When Dawn relocated to her West Seattle “Bamboo Grove” space five years ago, it was the van that did most of the moving. Then, two years ago, she got a truck which took over most of the hauling duties. In the mean time, the annual Art Car procession–which used to precede the Solstice Parade in Seattle’s Fremont district–shut down for some reason, thus dampening Dawn’s enthusiasm for taking part in local Art Car events. As a last straw of sorts, the van axle broke about a year ago, leaving it incapacitated in the carport, where it sits as an ancillary Tiki shrine to this day. A replacement axle has been located, and it’s only a matter of time before she gets that one or finds another for fixing the van. Of course, she plans to do the job herself–as befits a Tiki Renaissance Woman.
4. The Green Turtle
Part of a turtle’s natural defense system (besides its shell) is the ability to blend in with its natural surroundings and to look like something other than a turtle. Not so with the subject of this present section. It’s a house on wheels that looks every bit like what we Americans normally associate with the word “house” –i.e., a 4-sided wooden structure with windows and a peaked roof–propped up on wheels. But at just 117 square feet of living space, this house is small enough to allow for easy hauling. There’s an official name for this diminutive gabled roadster. Hold onto your hats: It’s a “Tiny House”!
As far as I know, there are only two such structures in the Seattle area right now. One was towed here recently from Portland, Oregon, and sits somewhere in Ballard. The other is parked in the Shoreline area, where I interviewed the owner, builder, and newly installed occupant, Zoey Platt.
Like Lonn with the motorhome, Zoey face a major life-style challenge when she made up her mind a couple years ago to build and occupy a Tiny House. Up until that time she had been living in a 4-bedroom house which she shared with other people; when she went camping, it was usually in the RV she owned (and with the certainty that such close-quarters living was only temporary). On the other hand, as part of her job for a publishing company aimed at RV owners, she moderated and online forum where full-time motorhomers would share their concerns; and from this she gained an insider’s knowledge of just what it was like to lead the life of a terrestrial astronaut.
I’d like to add here that she shares with Dawn Frazier a history of involvement with the Art Car movement, even once driving a car she had covered with maps and spinning globes; and she’s been a frequent visitor to the Burning Man Festival, the annual desert art jamboree which attracts hordes of Art Cars and where many of the campsites exhibit an idiosyncratic flair. So I can’t help feeling that her previous experience with quirky-looking vehicles and campsite structures might have given the Tiny House a leg up in her aesthetic hierarchy.
On a more serious level, she maintains that her concern for the environment and her desire to help the human race find a better way to sustain its presence on this planet figured prominently in her decision to give this downsized version of the American Dream a test run.
From Dee Williams, a Tiny House inhabitant for the last five years (in Olympia, WA) whose exploration of tight space living has been publicized both locally and nationally; Zoey not only drew advice and inspiration but also got plugged into the California company that designs and build the miniscule houses. It’s called the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, and you can visit its web site at www.tumbleweedhouses.com. Following Dee’s example, and in order to save money, Zoey chose to purchase one of the company’s design plans (the ‘Lusby’) and to do the construction work herself. That meant learning various skills as she went along, hitting up friends with building trade skills for advice and active assistance from time to time, making frequent trips to stores specializing in salvage materials and cheap building supplies, and finding and collecting free stuff for her project, often by means of Craigslist. The whole of her operation has been chronicled on a blog she’s been keeping at www.togetherweareone.com.
Zoey & 'Larry'
As with Dawn, Zoey puts great stock in the finding and acquisition of free and cheap materials (often used or surplus or about to be thrown out), and she’s been quite successful at it. An early and important coup was the 1966 Komfort Travel Trailer she got–for free (!)– Off of Craigslist. Zoey informed me that trailers are frequent casualties in the moist Northwest climate because once they develop any kind of leak, they’re goners. That was the case with her ‘canned ham’ donation, but she didn’t want it in its original form anyway, so she stripped it down to its base with the two axles and four wheels, which could now be used to carry her Tiny House. From the leftover debris she managed to rescue some valuable treasures, including a functioning oven and stove, along with some sinks, all of which have been assimilated into the gabled bungalow,
Shopping in this way (via Craigslist) has bought her into contact with lots of people who were happy to contribute some cast-off pieces of their own lives to a project that was meant to revolutionize hers. She’s also attempted to revolutionize the process, by finding new homes for her own cast-off remnants rather than consigning them to a landfill. Such noncommercial and somewhat serendipitous exchanges of goods and services have given the house project a more personable quality than if she had purchased her supplies at Lowe’s or Home Depot, or if she had hired professionals to do the labor. Zoey is highly attuned to these personalized aspects of her new home. When she looks around it, she is reminded of the various lives and personal histories that have left their mark there.
It is only fitting, then, that she has dedicated her new house to the spirit of her late father, who passed away right around the time she decided to embark on this new kind of space mission. His portrait hangs in the middle of the home’s main room, which is also its kitchen. (There is a bathroom and shower in back, and two lofts overhead serve as a bedroom and storage space respectively). In honor of his memory, she calls her Tiny House “Larry.”
Thanks to Larry’s underlying trailer framework and tires, he is legally classified as a “restored travel trailer,” which exempts him from many of the regulatory burdens inflicted on similarly sized stand-alone domiciles. A clear indicator of this unusual status is the Washington State license plate affixed to the front of the house near the place one might normally expect a mailbox. (But for privacy reasons, I guess, Zoey deliberately stood in front of me when I took the accompanying photo.) Due to Larry’s peculiar legal status, Zoey has been able to keep him parked in a friend’s backyard. She plans to live there for at least a year, sharing water and (to some extent) electricity use with her neighborly hosts. She also hopes that, by means of solar panels, rechargeable batteries, and the substitution of antique and other mechanical devices for modern electric ones, she can eventually take Larry off the grid.
All this provides good practice for her ultimate goal, which is to relocate Larry to some unimproved property she owns near Hood Canal, about a two-hour drive west of Seattle. There she’ll have to ‘boondock’ on a full-time basis. On the other hand, she also mentions the possibility of taking Larry back East for job purposes. Or perhaps she’ll be tempted to join one of the Tiny House “villages” that are reportedly sprouting up around the country.
Untethered to the land, to the grid, to a mortgage, or to the dead weight of too much stuff, Zoey and her tiny space capsule will soon be set for adventure in the Great Unknown.
5. The Green Tortoise
Like the slow but relentless and single-minded tortoise that won the foot race in Aesop’s fable against the faster but more scatterbrained hare, the persons interviewed here so far all seemed to have some overarching goal they were working towards, and their respective living-space vehicles were deliberately acquired to further this broad purpose. Although Colin Butler, the guy I interviewed for this final section of my long report, claims to have dreamed since childhood of the kind of vehicle- based life-style he has lately been living, it seems more like a stroke of luck–rather than the result of careful planning and foresight–that enabled him to do so. I chose the title for this section on account of the type of vehicle he lives in and because of the way he sometimes uses it. What better name than the “Green Tortoise” for a Seventies-era former Greyhound bus?
I don’t want to leave the wrong impression here. I’m not saying he lacks focus nor has no goals. Quite the contrary! He has many, and they’re all intertwined together in subservience to movement, change, travel–the guiding principles of his life.
His lineage reflects this nomadic turbulence. His dad did air traffic control work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a job which took him to airports all over the country, and the family sometimes went along with him. His mom’s side of the family had helped fill the ranks of the US Navy. Colin moved around a lot, whether inside or outside the familial setting, primarily in the far-flung frontier states west of the Rocky Mountains.
It was in Alaska about a year and a half ago that he came across the deal that would realize his childhood fantasy. He was married at the time, and his wife–a singer whose particular style epitomized “Alaskan folk funk” –was getting ready to go on tour in the Lower 48. This was vat the peak of that ‘fire sale’ in response to high gas prices that I had mentioned earlier; gas-guzzling mastodons were being unloaded left and right. As it happened, a family with four kids was getting rid of its specially remodeled 1970 Vista Cruiser, which had initially operated as a Greyhound bus. To meet the family’s needs, all of the passenger seats had been removed and the bus converted to a home space with three bedrooms, a ‘galley’ kitchen, and a bathroom big enough to contain a tub with shower. It has hardwood floors and beautiful wood paneling throughout. Despite some wear and tear, the bus was still in great shape and the engine ran just fine. The asking price: $10,000.
He went for it, of course.
With the bus now employed to provide transport and housing, the concert tour proceeded down the West Coast, and went without a hitch. Colin drove, provided roady support, and did both sound and lights at the gigs. Once returned to Alaska, he used his engineering expertise to refit one of the bedrooms as a recording studio for his musically prolific spouse, but for reasons unknown to this writer and probably irrelevant to this narrative, the marriage fell apart not long afterward.
In the aftermath, Colin relocated with his streamlined digs to the Seattle area, where he had lived on previous occasions and had various connections. He soon became involved in the indigenous circus and burlesque scenes that he found there. Capitalizing on his recent experience with his ex-wife’s successful road tour, he let it be known that both he and his rig would be available for touring purposes with musicians associated with either of those two scenes. As a result, he and his bus–now christened “The Millennium Tortoise” –have provided touring services for the following acts: “God’s Favorite Beefcake,” a cabaret-style combo with members drawn from the circus troupe “Circus Contraption;” “Orkestar Zirkonium,” a 15-piece marching band with a circus music repertoire; and “Viva Oz Vegas,” a combination circus and burlesque extravaganza.
'The Millennium Tortoise'
To make these trips, often of several weeks duration, he had to take time off from his regular job, where he does highly technical work on electrical systems designed for aircraft, but this was not a problem because he has an arrangement with his employers to allow for such long leaves of absence. From the tour work itself he didn’t stand to make much money, but that was not his intention. He says he does it as a personal contribution to promoting the neo-Vaudevillian art forms exemplified by the circus and burlesque.
I remember how burlesque began its modern revival at the end of the Nineties, tagging along behind the Swing scene, which in turn follow3ed up Lounge as conscious alternatives to the rock and hip-hop styles of fashion and music that dominated America’s youth culture. Lounge petered out, Swing degenerated into a gym exercise, and burlesque was simply not an art form that appealed to me. So it was interesting to hear from Colin how burlesque has developed since that period to the point of having distinct regional styles. The LA branch, he says, emphasizes glamour. The Big Apple variety is hard-edged and raunchy. By contrast, Seattle’s burlesque tends to be playful and comedic. There is also a sub-genre that he claims has been around as long as burlesque itself, but which I’ve never heard of. It’s called “boylesque,” and is what the name implies. The Seattle brand is particularly comedic and prone to gender-bending.
Colin himself has been studying to be a boylesque performer, and recently graduated from a six-week program with the newly formed Academy of Burlesque. In the act he’s put together, he starts out in a sailor’s suit and adopts a Russian persona, calling himself “Captain Jackaloff, the Russian seaman.” I haven’t seen his performance, but the sailor motif and the gender-shifting stunts that I imagine must go along with it–and indeed, the whole stylized transformation that constitutes a striptease act–seems fitting for someone so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of transition and travel.
That spirit also comes out in the nautical elements that he’s used to decorate his tour bus home. At the same time, the long wood-paneled corridor that runs beside the three bedrooms might easily be mistaken for a train’s.
Bus-train-ship, occupied by a guy who works on aircraft by day and does boylesque and drag acts by night, and who takes time off to ferry circus bands around the country in his carnie-mobile: so many elements in one life all pointing in the same direction. Yet a lot of them came together circumstantially rather than by conscious planning, almost naturally, as with our shell-backed cousins in the Animal Kingdom.
The shell-backs constitute some of the world’s most ancient species. Their design template–allowing them to carry their homes along with them–has proven to be an adaptation winner. In the new ‘space race’ that preoccupies an ever-shrinking planet, some of us humans are beginning to pay close attention.