Or, The Hangover to Intoxicating Resolutions
There is the feast before the journey. And then there is trudging out in the dank, cold morn towards a destination whose distance is unknown to you, and the many hours of reflecting, "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, why am I here?" There's the actual work. "Do-It-Yourself" is slick-sounding and is even punctuated to look like purposeful action. It says "things are going to start getting done right now." I think a better phrase would be, "You. Have To Do It." Granted, as an acronym, "Y.HTDI," is unwieldy, but at least it captures the reality of the early stages of DIY. It says, "you're going to spend a lot of time flailing around." If someone were to say to you, "it was a real Y, period, HDTI project," you would get the image of man sitting amongst scattered parts, facing the depth of his own ignorance. It can get emotional. When I sat down to write this post, I realized I didn't even know for sure whether "downside" is hyphenated or not (not usually, but there's enough boobs on the internet that you can get hits on the hyphenated version -- now back to my blog about trying to verify internet claims). Things like that make me feel like it's gonna be a climb.
And that's the biggest obstacle.
Realizing how little you know about the things you depend on is shocking and it's less painful to avoid the notion than to confront it; this can lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of ignorance and shame. The visual language of circuits, the shorthand of mechanical plans, physics equations, anything that is presented in explanatory material as something that does not require explanation but means nothing to you ... can fill you with shame. I keep thinking of Anthony Hopkins' line in "The Edge," "most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame." And it is about survival, the question, "what would I do about X if I couldn't depend on society?" And the notion that there is unexploited energy tech out there presupposes that, in some crucial way, we can't depend on society. You really start to understand anxiety about grid failure. Not surprisingly, there is a good deal of cross-over (hyphenated?) between fringe fuel-tech advocates and survivalists (check out this example).
The Tao of Discouragement
My first "date" on the OUET, which still exists only in my mind, was a guest spot at Dean Street, a bar in Brooklyn, on Mar. 19. It was a hot crowd, and I thought I'd take advantage and get some fun footage of people getting excited for energy independence. What I got was crappy footage of confused people, and I wasted most of my 10 min on new stuff that went nowhere. Finished strong, though, and hit the road, excited to film my first fill-up on the NJ Turnpike, which I also botched ... I'm completely out of frame, and after the attendant says "over-unity engine tour!" for me, I realize I have no cash, and leave without tipping or apologizing.
Still I drove on to NOVA, where my folks live, with high hopes for my guest spot in MD the following night, and with great anticipation of meeting up with my old boss, Tom. I used to drive limos for him. Tom is an expert mechanic, and has decades of experience with cars. I had a wild notion that if one of the manufacturers got back to me, I might get Tom to install my kit in return for getting him a deal for units for his limos ... and my car could be the guinea pig for his fleet. Well I didn't even sniff that proposal, as Tom's reaction to my plan to convert my car for my own purposes, without even involving him, was less than enthusiastic. Though he said he didn't know much about HHO specifically, Tom made some very important general points:
1) the more modifications you make on a car, the more points of potential breakdown
2) experimenting on a car that you drive around town where you live and know a mechanic is one thing; making modifications on a car and then taking it out on long hauls is another, vastly magnifying all the consequences of an unforeseen mechanical failure (which includes potentially missing gigs in my case)
3) other than the people who manufacture conversions kits, who knows how to service them?
The best line from the whole meeting was when Tom asked me whether my 1998 Chrysler Concorde is a 6-cylinder, and I told him I had no idea, he said, "well maybe that's an indication that you shouldn't be doing major modifications to your car." Hard to argue that.
In spite of his reservations, Tom could tell I was still interested in HHO, so he told me about a guy named Art, who is an HHO enthusiast. As he described Art as a bit of an oddball who looks like the library detective from "Seinfeld," a guy who doesn't stop talking once he gets started, I began to get excited about meeting my first strange character in the shadowy world of fuel-saving devices. Perhaps he would install the kit the manufacturers would give me in return for promoting their product. Better yet, he might show me how to build one himself!
But Art's number didn't work, he didn't respond to my email, and only two of the manufacturers got back to me, one to say, "no," the other to spam me (I'm on his mailing list now ... He was offering a free seven-day course in the fundamentals of HHO conversion kits in return for signing up, and now for only $597 I can get one of his newest kits -- BEFORE he starts advertising on Facebook!). I had known that I might just have to gets plans, figure them out, and learn enough about cars to feel comfortable installing a homemade kit -- I just hadn't thought that would become my best option so quickly.
For a laugh, I told my Dad about my meeting with Tom. I guess I also thought he might be excited about the project of investigating alternative fuel-saving solutions, since he's a bit of a penny-pincher. He got straight to the tough question, "well, why haven't the auto manufacturers mass produced something based on this technology?" Now I'm absolutely clear on my belief that reliance on fossil fuels is being carefully phased out at a pace that will ensure maximum sustained profitability for Big Oil, until they've squeezed every last drop out of this rock, regardless of the all damages this policy will inflict. What I realized at that moment is that I am absolutely not ready to debate my father on the subject. Or anyone else, really, I just feel much more confident bullshitting some one other than my father, who does not suffer ill-supported arguments lightly. But of course you can't really give any credence to fuel-saving tech that hasn't been embraced by Detroit without also buying into energy conspiracies on some level. They go hand-in-hand. If I'm going to be an alt energy proponent, I should probably be able to make a better argument for collusion between auto makers and Big Oil than just, "you should watch 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' Then you'll see." Add it to the list.
Oh, and one more thing: on the way down to Atlanta for the Laughing Skull Festival, the car started stalling again. The last round of $600 worth of work was done partly to address the brakes, but mainly to fix this issue. The mechanic said it was time to start asking whether fixing this car is worth it any longer.
Still I drove on to NOVA, where my folks live, with high hopes for my guest spot in MD the following night, and with great anticipation of meeting up with my old boss, Tom. I used to drive limos for him. Tom is an expert mechanic, and has decades of experience with cars. I had a wild notion that if one of the manufacturers got back to me, I might get Tom to install my kit in return for getting him a deal for units for his limos ... and my car could be the guinea pig for his fleet. Well I didn't even sniff that proposal, as Tom's reaction to my plan to convert my car for my own purposes, without even involving him, was less than enthusiastic. Though he said he didn't know much about HHO specifically, Tom made some very important general points:
1) the more modifications you make on a car, the more points of potential breakdown
2) experimenting on a car that you drive around town where you live and know a mechanic is one thing; making modifications on a car and then taking it out on long hauls is another, vastly magnifying all the consequences of an unforeseen mechanical failure (which includes potentially missing gigs in my case)
3) other than the people who manufacture conversions kits, who knows how to service them?
The best line from the whole meeting was when Tom asked me whether my 1998 Chrysler Concorde is a 6-cylinder, and I told him I had no idea, he said, "well maybe that's an indication that you shouldn't be doing major modifications to your car." Hard to argue that.
In spite of his reservations, Tom could tell I was still interested in HHO, so he told me about a guy named Art, who is an HHO enthusiast. As he described Art as a bit of an oddball who looks like the library detective from "Seinfeld," a guy who doesn't stop talking once he gets started, I began to get excited about meeting my first strange character in the shadowy world of fuel-saving devices. Perhaps he would install the kit the manufacturers would give me in return for promoting their product. Better yet, he might show me how to build one himself!
But Art's number didn't work, he didn't respond to my email, and only two of the manufacturers got back to me, one to say, "no," the other to spam me (I'm on his mailing list now ... He was offering a free seven-day course in the fundamentals of HHO conversion kits in return for signing up, and now for only $597 I can get one of his newest kits -- BEFORE he starts advertising on Facebook!). I had known that I might just have to gets plans, figure them out, and learn enough about cars to feel comfortable installing a homemade kit -- I just hadn't thought that would become my best option so quickly.
For a laugh, I told my Dad about my meeting with Tom. I guess I also thought he might be excited about the project of investigating alternative fuel-saving solutions, since he's a bit of a penny-pincher. He got straight to the tough question, "well, why haven't the auto manufacturers mass produced something based on this technology?" Now I'm absolutely clear on my belief that reliance on fossil fuels is being carefully phased out at a pace that will ensure maximum sustained profitability for Big Oil, until they've squeezed every last drop out of this rock, regardless of the all damages this policy will inflict. What I realized at that moment is that I am absolutely not ready to debate my father on the subject. Or anyone else, really, I just feel much more confident bullshitting some one other than my father, who does not suffer ill-supported arguments lightly. But of course you can't really give any credence to fuel-saving tech that hasn't been embraced by Detroit without also buying into energy conspiracies on some level. They go hand-in-hand. If I'm going to be an alt energy proponent, I should probably be able to make a better argument for collusion between auto makers and Big Oil than just, "you should watch 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' Then you'll see." Add it to the list.
Oh, and one more thing: on the way down to Atlanta for the Laughing Skull Festival, the car started stalling again. The last round of $600 worth of work was done partly to address the brakes, but mainly to fix this issue. The mechanic said it was time to start asking whether fixing this car is worth it any longer.
A plan takes shape
Concurrent with these discouraging developments on the OUET front, we're encouraging ones on the comedy front. I had resolved some time ago to finally check out the Austin comedy scene, and had chosen the last 2 weeks of April to go. Now I actually started booking some spots in Austin, and my schedule up until the departure date filled with spots, gigs, an audition, a shoot, and one disappointing but instructive competition. So the plan for now is to continue to read about conversion kits and car engines, in preparation for Austin, where I won't be traveling hundreds of miles every day, and potentially having my car out of commission won't throw a wrench in all my plans. In the meantime, I'm also compiling a lot of data on my fuel use, a sample size that will be more meaningful than it would have been had I made the conversion earlier. I feel the crunchy community calling me, and I believe I will encounter many initiations there, including to the mysteries of Alt fuel tech. And the best part is, the car may be on its last legs anyway, so why not experiment on it when I get it down there? All things turn to my purpose!
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