How carrying a purse can make you more of a man

The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?

The Dude: Dude.

The Big Lebowski: Huh?

The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir.

The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?

The Dude: Hmmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.

What does make a man? I think Lebowski had it half right, the part about being prepared. I've always believed that a good man is prepared to step in and deal with shit. Fix it, make it right. Lend a hand. But it can be hard to do that if you don't have your stuff. The tools you need to take care of business. Women generally have what they need right there handy, in their purse. They can't always find it, but they usually have it. Men, on the other hand, have long been limited to what they can carry in their pockets. Maybe a messenger bag or backpack, when they have it with them, has a few handy items in it, but these aren't things that men carry with them all the time, the way women habitually carry purses.

After much thought on the subject of preparedness, as well as other considerations, I decided to start carrying a bag regularly. Yes, it's essentially a purse, in its form and function. In addition to wanting to have my stuff handy all the time, I also wanted to figure out a way to carry my wallet without tweaking my spine out of alignment. When I wear cargo pants I can just put my wallet into one of the many non-hip pockets, but I don't always wear cargo pants, and no matter how many pockets you have you're not going to carry everything you might need in your pants. It's just too bulky; you'd look ridiculous and you'd make a lot of noise walking around.

So I needed something roomy and versatile and non-pantslike to put my stuff in, and yes, I wanted it to be something that looked manly and rugged. I'm secure enough in my manhood to make the decision carry a purse, but an ambiguous-looking bag would be pushing it a bit further than I'm ready for just yet. I decided on a military style shoulder bag that I'd originally bought to carry my iPad. I just never figured out a way to integrate a tablet into my workflow, so I still use a laptop, and I carry that in a briefcase that I don't haul around everywhere I go.

I found this bag at Andy and Bax surplus in Portland, but I've seen similar ones elsewhere. It's faux-surplus - nobody ever carried this bag into battle - but it's more or less military spec. Not camouflaged or anything (wouldn't want anybody to think I'm some kind of prepper wingnut or something), just a nice, manly olive drab. Most importantly it has lots of pockets, which I have discovered is an important feature in a man-bag.


I'm going to generalize here. Please forgive me if what I'm about to say doesn't apply to you, or if you know women to whom it does not apply, but in my experience, women's purses are giant, quantum-warped black holes. Heisnebergian containers that may or may not contain everything or nothing that the owner might need, but are guaranteed to produce an endless supply of dirty tissues on demand. This is largely because they don't have the kind of pockets and dividers that my man bag has. It's not enough to have what you need in any given circumstance, you must be able to find it.

"What's in the bag, Goose?"
So what do I carry in my purse? Well, I want to have what I need when I need it, but I don't want to lug around "six tons of crap" (my wife's unit of measurement for any large volume of stuff that she finds to be of questionable value). I also have my own personal needs and priorities, and the contents of my bag reflect this. Should you choose to carry a man-bag, your mileage may vary. Without further ado, here's the inventory of the contents of my purse:

• WALLET. This is a no-brainer if you read the first part of this blog. Mine happens to be a Bacon Wallet because bacon. This goes in the outside pocket of my bag because it's the thing I access the most frequently. The outside pocket has secure snaps and velcro which, while they may not stop a dedicated pickpocket, it should slow him down enough for me to get in a couple of good kicks.
• SUN GLASSES. Also in an outside pocket, because when I need 'em I need 'em quick.
• HEAD LAMP. Because ordinary flashlights are for pussies.
• LOTS OF PENS. Because I lose pens
• NOTEBOOK AND CHECKBOOK. To use the pens on.
• BUSINESS CARDS
• A PACKAGE OF PEANUTS FROM SOUTHWEST AIRLINES. This could be any little bit of food. I had a granola bar but I ate it. Ditto for the little package of jerky. Just keep something edible, either for you or for somebody who gets really difficult to be around if they get hungry. You know who I'm talking about.
• MICRO MAX 19-IN-ONE MULTI TOOL. This tiny little thing is incredibly handy, with little pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches and other tools that all fold up into an ingenious little stainless steel square. 
• SINGLE BLADE FOLDING KNIFE. Because the Micro Max has many things, but it doesn't have a blade. This one's cheap, just in case I forget it's in there and TSA confiscates it at a security checkpoint.
• A BANDANA. Because never in my life have I uttered the phrase, "I sure wish I hadn't packed this bandana".
• TRAVEL PACK OF KLEENEX. So you don't have to blow your nose on your bandana.
• EAR BUDS/PHONE HEADSET
• PORTABLE COLLAPSIBLE SPEAKER. For when you want to share the music on your phone or iPod.
• PHONE CHARGING KIT. With adapters and cords for every need and fitting a variety of phones ("No, I don't have an iPhone, but I do have an iPhone charger!"), including Battery To Go Power Bar, in case I'm not near an outlet.
• TRAVEL PILL CONTAINER. This has aspirin, Imodium. Sudafed, some Advil and a couple of other handy pills in it.
• FIRST AID KIT. Maybe the single most important thing you'll carry in your bag. Mine's from a surplus store but I've augmented it with lots of stuff, including sting relievers, splinter removers, and a small pair of plastic hemostats I got from my dentist. I don't ever want to be in a situation where I have to use hemostats, but my fantasy is that there will be some kind of emergency where someone yells, "Is there a doctor in the house?", and there will be, and he'll assess the situation and say, "If only I had a pair of hemostats I could save this woman", and I'll say, "Um, I have a pair of hemostats". And I'll be a hero without having to get blood all over me.
• SOME DUCT TAPE ON A PIECE OF CARDBOARD WITH A COUPLE OF BINDER CLIPS FOR GOOD MEASURE. If you can't immediately think of a dozen things to do with duct tape or binder clips then you're not a real man. 
• A CIGAR. For emergencies.
• A LIGHTER. For the cigar.
• TOOTHBRUSH AND TOOTHPASTE. Again, for the cigar. And when I get a little bit of spinach between my teeth before an important meeting.
• BREATH STRIPS. Did I mention the cigar? These are tiny and take up virtually no room in my bag, while packing a powerful, minty punch. And using breath spray makes you look like a douche.
• A USB DRIVE. I keep it filled with music in case I need music, but not music that I don't have backed up somewhere else, in case I need the drive.
• COLLAPSIBLE PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE. Now we're getting into the personal preference thing. Many of the above items might have obvious value, but this one and the next have to do with the fact that I really hate plastic. Ever since I saw the Washed Ashore exhibit I've been trying to reduce the amount of disposable plastic in my life. And while there are usually plenty of places to get clean drinking water that's not in a disposable plastic bottle (in the US, at least), there often isn't a handy place to put more than a sip of it. This bottle folds up in my bag, weighs nearly nothing, takes up virtually no space, and has, to date, probably kept me from having to use at least 20 disposable bottles of water.
• BAMBOO UTENSIL SET. I eat to go food a lot, due to work and traveling, and that's just another source of trash. I can minimize the plastic cutlery, at least, by carrying this set, that contains a reusable spoon, fork, knife and chopsticks. These can be had at a lot of natural food stores.
• EXTRA CLIP LINK. Just because you never know when you'll need one.

This probably seems like a lot of stuff, but the whole bag weighs less than 4 pounds. And because of all the pockets and dividers in my bag, I can find every item quickly, and without having to dump my bag out. And the next time somebody says, "I wish I had a bandaid/knife/phone charger/bamboo fork/inch of duct tape" or whatever, I'll be able to say, "Well as a matter of fact, I do", while other guys will reply, "I have one at home", which is a perfectly fucking useless thing to say.

Yule Burn '10 - Chapter 3

We got back to the tree pile at around 5. It was beginning to get dark and it was raining pretty steadily, but I really wanted to give any stragglers a chance to join us.  At that point we started getting text messages - Dave the Horrible asking if there'd be anything left burning by 6 (I said no, there wouldn't. We were wet and cold and the trees would burn at 5:30). Miss Tree informed someone that Sam had just agreed to haul the 7 trees she'd found and accumulated. Still, we were in no mood to wait until who knew when for more trees to arrive, plus, as Miss Tree and Sam are both fellow Cacaphonists, it was entirely possible that the trees would never show up. Nope, 5:30 was burn time, with whatever trees and spectators where on hand at that time.

I have this propane torch that I quite like. I bought it at Harbor Freight Tools, an establishment that is notorious for very inexpensive tools (most of which are made in China) that are not particularly durable. This torch runs on a small, camping style propane torch and is made for burning things on the ground, as it's shaped kind of like a cane. It's great for torching the heads of dandelions, decimating and and termite infestations, and, especially, starting fires. I've used this torch on numerous occasions to start campfires and fires in my backyard fire pit. It emits an impressive flame and a satisfying jet-engine roar. It's usually overkill for the uses I put it to, but the theatrics are half the fun.

So I brought my torch with me to Kelly Point to help get the pile of sodden trees going. It's worked for me many times in the past, helping to ignite things that were reluctant to burn. I had picked up a fresh tank of propane for it that afternoon, and was confident that we'd be able to use it to get a good bonfire burning. Wrong. This time, the torch was not overkill - we were going to need that kind of firepower to get the now soaking wet trees to do anything more than sit there and drip.But grace under pressure is not one of the hallmarks of a Harbor Freight tool. Simply put, the torch did not function. At all. And it was dark. And raining. Rich and I, being the old guys on duty, fiddled with it and futzed with it. there was much hissing and escapage of gas from the tank as we removed it from the torch and put it back on repeatedly. We were unaware that, at the first sign of torch failure, Alan decided to simply hold his lighter in one spot on the tree pile for as long as it took to get the thing blazing.

Right about the time Rich and I had decided to give up on the torch, the tree pile took off thanks to Alan's lighter. I was surprised by the sudden blaze since I didn't know that Alan had been attempting to get is started, and even more amazed that it had worked. So amazed and surprised was I that I didn't notice the fact that I was standing next to a rapidly expanding bonfire holding a hissing, leaking bottle of propane. Rich pointed this fact out to me and I quickly tossed the propane bottle aside without further incident.

Up next: Fireworks!

Yule Burn '10 - the continuing saga

So the location was selected and scouted. I wrote my report to Dave the Horrible, recommending Kelly Point as a viable spot to covert discarded holiday icons into waste heat. I figured at that point that my work was done - Dave would contact folks, point them to Kelly Point, give them pertinent instructions and my responsibility would be to simply show up with a tannenbaum and a lighter. Well, within days I started getting emails from people saying things like, "I'm told you're the guy to talk to about the Yule Burn". I... what? No, I just did recon. My work is done! But no, my work was not done.

Whether by intent, artifice, neglect or indifference, Dave the Horrible had set me up. The Yule Burn was to be my baby, and people already knew about it. Shit. by the time I realized this, I was less than a week away from a road trip to California, so if I was the guy that was going to make this happen, it would have to happen the following weekend or not at all. It was already nearly a week into January and people were recycling their trees at an alarming rate; each day that went by ate away at our fuel supply. So I got on the stick and started emailing people I thought might be interested. We'd previously agreed to keep any talk of the Yule Burn off the Cacophony Society discussion board since it's a well-known fact that local law enforcement and media types monitor the board for information about our various semi-legal activities.

Lots of offers for trees started springing up, but very few offers to schlep them. I own a small SUV that will hold 3 medium trees on top, so hauling a buttload of trees was not something I was going to be able to help with. I just kept forwarding the offers to the various people on the email list and hoped trees would meet trucks somehow. I had no idea if this event was going to take off, but I certainly wasn't going to stress about whether or not I would be successful in gathering a bunch of drunken pyros to light some trees on fire. This thing was going to happen or not, and apart from the "Butterfly Effect" there would be little net impact either way. I took my trip down to California giving the burn little thought

By the day of the event I had only 5 confirmed trees: my own, my friend Jason's, Jason's neighbor's (which I spotted while picking up Jason's tree), and 2 that Mackin had been carting around in the back of his van for who knows how long. Well, 5 reasonably dry Christmas trees could still make a respectable conflagration, so I decided to push on with the event. I paid a quick recon visit to Kelly Point just to make sure there was no better way to get to the beach than the one I'd already scouted. Nope, the 400 yard path was it. So I posted one final email to anybody who had expressed interest, hit up some Facebook friends, and hoped it would all come together.

Rain is a fact of life in Portland, especially in the dead of winter. If you live in Portland and you don't like going anywhere in the rain, you don't go anywhere for 9 months out of the year. That said, last year's burn took place on a gloriously clear, dry day, and everyone involved was able to stand around admiring the pyre without getting soaked. This year we experienced typically wet (if atypically warm-ish) conditions. It was raining when the first of us arrived at Kelly Point at 4pm. It continued raining as other folks started arriving. It rained harder while we dragged the trees to the beach, and harder still as we piled them up amid the ruins of an old dock that had washed ashore.

We had decided we would light the fire at 5:30, just after dark. I had announced that time to a few stragglers via text message, so I felt bound to stick by it. Still, by the time we'd gotten our 5 trees stacked and ready to go it was only about 4:40 (4:20 having already been recognized, with due ceremony) and it was, as I may have mentioned, raining. I remembered (or thought I did) a covered picnic area a little further up the main trail and suggested to the rag-tag bunch that had accumulated so far (maybe 6 of us) that we go there to get out of the rain until more guests (and hopefully more trees) showed up. so we trekked down the trail in search of the picnic shelter which, as it turned out, did not appear to exist. Whether I had seen it in a fever dream or another park or it had burned to the ground leaving absolutely no trace, there was no covered picnic area to be found. We had walked for at least 3/4 of a mile in the rain, looking for a place to get out of the rain. I eventually had to admit my error and suggested we turn back to wait for the stragglers by the pile of trees, where they could find us. All agreed (and, to their credit, nobody threw anything at me) and we headed back to the beach.

Next: Torch Troubles.

Yule Burn '10

Over the past couple of weeks I've helped to "organize" this year's offering of what is becoming an annual event - The Yule Burn. This is simply a gathering of people, discarded Christmas trees and fire. Last year a fellow Cacophonist brought it together at the old abandoned factory below the University of Portland. This terrific spot had a kind of "Scooby Doo" creepiness to it, what with all the gutted buildings and atmospheric darkness. There was a semi-square of concrete traffic barriers set up that created a perfect fir pit, and you could drive right up to it to dump your trees. We ended up with about 35 trees, which made for a spectacular burn. Flames shot 50 feet in the air and the heat was intense.

This year we were all afraid that there wouldn't be a burn, since the U.P. had the old factory torn down and the area fenced off. Then, a few weeks ago, Dave the Horrible sent out an email asking a select few of us miscellaneous Cacophonists, culture jammers and creative miscreants if we had any interest in reviving the burn this year. We were, but nobody knew where we might hold such an event, given the incendiary nature of our little gathering.

Because I have a small speedboat, I have spent no small amount of time cruising the rivers around Portland, and I have visited Kelly Point Park on numerous occasions. Kelly Point is at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, and about as far out on the edge of the city limits as you can get. Back in the day it was proposed as a possible site for the city that would become Portland, but it proved to flood-prone to be viable. That end of the North Portland Peninsula is home to all of the Port of Portland shipping terminals.  The park has numerous wide, sandy beaches and, due to its remoteness, is sparsely visited. It also doesn't get locked at night anymore (perhaps due to budgetary constraints), all of which makes it an ideal place to hold a semi-legal bonfire.

So last week I popped out to Kelly Point on a Sunday night, just to make sure they still left the gates open at night. Sure enough, it was unlocked and empty at 9:30 pm. Perfect, except for the fact that there's no way to pull a car onto or even near any of the beaches. The closest parking lot still left us with about a 400 yard schlep to the beach, which can seem pretty long when you're dragging a dead tree behind you. Oh well - we have been known to go to a lot of trouble for an opportunity to do something stupid - a schlep is something we can handle for a few laughs.

Coming up: FIRE!

Blogging for Sanity

I don't really remember why I started this blog. I guess it had to do with the fact that everybody was doing it and blogging had somehow begun to seem necessary. It didn't matter that I had nothing of value to say - blogging is just what people do, you know? Well, it should be obvious from the lack of posts over the past, what, year? that I really don't have much to say. Not that anyone else would be interested in, anyway.

And yet, here I am. I really need to write, and I need to stop worrying about whether anybody is interested or even reads what I write. I need to express myself so that I don't lose the ability to express myself.

I used to pride myself on my vocabulary, and on my ability to communicate clearly. Well, use it or lose it - I've noticed over the years that I'm slipping with regards to my communications skills. I don't read as much as I used to. I hardly write at all, except for quick emails or text messages. My eloquence is fading. Never mind that concise, thoughtful communication in our society is going the way of the steam locomotive; it's still important to me to be able to express a thought that is clear, creative, to-the-point and worth the time spent committing it to paper (well, to pixels at least - my ability to actually write anything by hand is almost completely gone, perhaps irretrievably so).

It doesn't help that I work for someone who, in addition to his numerous other shortcomings, believes himself to be a far better communicator than he really is. There was a time when my employers would ask me to write things for them and praise me for my impressive vocabulary, my easy way with difficult concepts, my friendly, conversational tone. When I started my current job six years ago I was stunned when my boss told me that I needed to work on my communications skills, and I took the comment very personally. I've had a long time to process this comment, and I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that it's not me, it's him. I think that, deep down, my boss is just a frustrated editor, unable to write anything himself, but equally unable to let others' work go untouched. He will regularly ask me to write something, then proceed to completely vivisect it as I stand watching. The end result is never better than my first draft and is, more often than not, less clear, longer and awkwardly disjointed. Still, he just can't leave anything alone.

Constantly having my writing second-guessed has quashed any confidence I had in my abilities. I don't try as hard to come up with a clever turn of phrase or succinct description., since I know it's going to get butchered anyway. I'd love to have the time and dedication to write creatively, for my own purposes, but the stress of my job and of day to day life just don't leave me with enough energy be creative. Yes, it's sad, but it is what it is. Someday perhaps I'll be able to finish my screenplay about shanghaied sailors in 1890s Portland, or flesh out my idea for an operetta based on the music of The Decemberists. Right now I just don't have it in me.

And so back to blogging. By sitting here, kvetching about the atrophy of my writing skills, I have actually used those old muscles, if only for a few minutes. If I were to do this a couple of times a week, I might forestall literary senility. I might be able to maintain just enough intellectual acuity to be able to do some serious writing someday when I have that kind of time and focus. If nothing else, at least at my next job I'll be able to write the way I used to.