Traffic

Traffic. The automotive variety not the award winning movie or the gold-record producing British band. For the record (this a digital version) whenever anyone asks me why I moved north from LA in 1974, it will inevitably include the relentlessly building volume of it as one of the top five reasons. Too many people and too many cars. Confined to too small a space and creating an atmosphere both unclean, unhealthy and ultimately stressful. 

I will save the events leading to my first departure for a later re-telling as well as the much more dramatic second escape. I say dramatic in the personal sense as well as the natural because as I sat on a 747 halfway between my birthplace and my future, Mt. St. Helens was erupting. The metaphor for which has been used in myriad metaphoric, lyrical and poetic ways, even showing up in a Haiku or two. That moment in time convincingly taught me to never look back, and in this case because you wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway due to the ashy plume of volcanic spew. 

The infamous traffic of Los Angeles in the rear-view mirror a thousand miles behind the smoke, and a new start at hand. That was 1974.

In video editing we use a technique called the ‘flash forward.’  A powerful digital tool employed primarily when pacing requires a lightening like jump-cut over time (years sometimes) place (sometimes as flashback) and emotion (catharsis, change, loss). As the primary videographer and lead editor at world famous PowerBarn Pictures, I have the distinct privilege of putting the age-old Hollywood rule ‘shoot to edit’ into play. This simply means that when the tally light is on capturing exciting, revolutionary and stunning high-definition footage, the photog has the opportunity and challenge, to consider the post-production flow as it relates to the editing suite. This naturally leads to a ‘what happens next’ bigger picture view hoping for, or ensuring, a smooth transitional segue in the final sequence. Say one from Hollywood to Puget Sound interrupted by a fucking volcano. If I thought that leaving LA because of traffic was going to change my life - with a cataclysmic volcanic transition - to the over-saturated splendor of Puget sound, where everyone rides fixed-gear bikes and strums acoustic guitars, my flash forward might have been premature. Upon landing cars were backed up on a gray tarmac of highly abrasive dust from Vancouver to Portland. And the wind was blowing east! Mamma mia. 

Yesterday after class I am heading out to buy gas, twenty cents per gallon cheaper on the reservation, and to do the usual last minute Christmas shopping. I have decided to turn off the audio book and drive sans aural distraction, mostly because I am mentally working out the details of the report, in proposal form, of my ‘state of the state’ submission to the club. It is a dirty gray day. A Mazda with ski racks and expired California plates has been trying to pass me for five miles. These days I drive with as much attention as I can bring to the chore, keeping an apparently unorthodox extra few yards behind and ahead of other vehicles. I lose focus on the proposal and drift back to the days leading up to my departure from the jambs, re-routes, fender-benders and frustrations of Southern California and how I am now seeing very real signs that a percentage of those realities have also made the move north. They are here. They have found us. The secret is out. Poor Emmett Watson. Poor Boeing. Good-bye quality of life and hello road rage. 

I get about two miles from the boxy store where I will shop and find a steady stream of Fords and their make, model and year internal combustion cousins (with all due respect there are a few hybrids and one or two SmartCars). It appears that there is about to be an automotive convention on our single, and occasionally double-lane ‘highway.’ I can see cars up ahead turning around, giving up, aborting their missions. I can almost hear them compromising: “We’ll just have tuna instead of turkey.” I try my Zen best to rise above the reality that the gas I drove eleven miles to buy at a discount is now providing no movement other than blowing heat through Whitey’s interior. I casually press the turn signal indicator announcing my decision. Enough. Basta cosi. I will have tuna too. 

Traffic. What next, a volcano?