And it all was propelled from one of those incidents that only could happen through a fortuitous set of small coincidences which at any point could have been derailed by one tiny, infinitesimal distraction, turn of chance, just one small thing that happened that maybe would normally have not.
On that day, an impulse, drawn from boredom, drove me to attend a tiny gathering at my friend Steve's house . . .
I normally would have avoided these things out of hand, but somehow, that day, I didn't. I can't tell you why. I don't know myself.
Steve was a good friend with whom, in yet another cosmic coincidence, I had been in the same math class at Las Lomas High during a bizarre six-month stay near my grandmother, in Walnut Creek, while my dad looked for a job after Zaïre.
We had gone on to coincidentally enroll at CCAC, and then we had found ourselves in the same classes, with yet another pal who had been in math class—Miss Wong's math class—at Las Lomas High.
They both went on to comparative fame in the art world—deservedly so, because they were (are) geniuses. And I most decidedly was NOT.
What I was, though, was exotic and intellectual and a bit wild—you know, the heavy drinking, drugging and smoking. I was also the editor of the school newspaper the Spectrum, and they had to take Newspaper class to get their Humanities credit. So I ended up telling them what to do for the paper. They happily complied, because it was always playing to their skills. Steve drew a weekly cartoon and Craig sometimes drew the covers.
Anyway, it was a Saturday, and Steve was having a little gathering, because his girlfriend's sister was in . . . from Japan.
I knew Karen very well, because we were in the same classes as well, so it was interesting to meet her older sister, who was in for a couple of weeks from Japan. And I knew who her father was—and my father knew who her father was.
I had no particular interest in Japan, and not much in meeting anyone—I had just come off a relationship—but Shanna was intriguing.
Well, we got to talking . . . and exchanged phone numbers. There was, of course, no Internet.
But that day, the seed was planted in my brain that I was going to go to Japan.
I believe it must have been in the fall, or even towards the winter, because it didn't take me long to solidify my plans and get things straight with Sarah, although I was not to physically encounter her until November of 1988.
I was living in an apartment on Santa Clara avenue in Alameda . . . I think.
That's when I met Jeff Jones, the air traffic controller, at the racquetball club.
I had a business with a friend of mine, printing T-shirts. We physically built the screen printing press ourselves. Neither of us had printed a single T-shirt in our lives. We rented a garage in Berkeley and printed shirts for the Club, as well as anyone else who wanted them.
It was not a very lucrative business, but it was hell of fun.
A lot of beer got drunk in that garage, and Frank didn't drink very much.
But Jeff had an idea for a racquetball T-shirt, based on my idea of the Evolution stages—you know, where the chimp becomes a man in silhouette. Mine went in reverse, with the chimp holding a racquetball racquet. I printed a whole bunch of those! Jeff wanted just the chimp with the racquet in a repeating pattern all over the T-shirt. That was a tough one (I never actually was able to print it) but through the process we became friends, and I decided I want to become an air traffic controller.
I was 29 years old, and Jeff told me my only chance would be to be a controller at a "station"—meaning in a buttfuck outpost somewhere in the countryside, because I was too old to do the stuff he did. He worked at Oakland Center, which controls the whole Bay Area and everything down to Los Angeles and is actually in Fremont.
But he took me and my screen printing buddy, who was also interested, on a tour of Fremont Center . . . a very, very sobering experience. It was the most sobering experience I've ever had . . . akin to standing next to a thoracic surgeon as he performs a liver transplant.
So in 1987 I had those twin desires . . . as usual. It was always two hard choices, and I'd always take the easier road. Art, or music. Adventure in a strange land, or pushing tin in upper Nevada.
And all the while, I printed T-shirts went to Chez Panisse every week with Frank and made good friends with a waiter who started comping me food and champagne (my preferred drink at the time—I drank it like a whale shark).
Those are my images of 1987. No girlfriend, getting my shit together, and possibly finally settling on the Japan idea before the end of 1987.
Of course, in 1988 I went to Japan in November. But that's for another day.
