The Sandman’s name is Scott.
He lives on the second leg of my daily bike ride. This is my Myrtle journey (for those of you that have been not been following the Trifling Blog since my arrival in Santa Barbara) begins a mi casa, and goes to the beach and back. It takes the place of my morning run – for lots of reasons. First, when I was in high school my first love was biking. I biked to school every day. Second, I am 52 years old and my knees have given out. This means that biking is far preferable to running as an aerobic exercise.
So, 3 miles of daily run have translated into 12 miles of daily bike. But I digress.
The Sandman. Every day on the second leg of my journey – sojourn (a shameless plug for my employer: www.sojournercafe.com) I run into the sandman parked in the sand at the corner of beach and Cabrillo. Carbrillo is a street. Beach, is a big ass body of water. But I digress.
Daily sojourn. Second leg. Beach. There, that brings us back. I encounter the sandman. He has been carving sandsculptures in the same spot for over 20 years.
He and I are about the same age. Every day, I stop and put a tip in his jar. He and I talk about visual art. He smokes a cigarette that I wish I could smoke. We consider the folds of drapery and the concept of ciaro scuro in sand sculpture.
He has kids. 11 and 12 mine are older. But kids are universal. They make us part of the same fraternity. Art does the rest. I talk to him about the movement of the sculpture. He tells me I am full of shit. Life is good. Then, I shill as a passerby looks on, and Scott tells them that his art cant exist without their tips. He needs help marketing. I am about to intervene. In the interim I look at the tourists and tell them that I have already put five bucks in the jar. And indeed I had.
So, as I sit there thinking about how I can increase The Sandman’s tips and my own….I came upon an idea that is going to require some additional research. Living sand sculpture. Stay tuned for more on that. Thanks to Cary Travanovich for the inspiration and the introduction to mime. All things are connected. All things.
Lots of love to my peeps out there. Shout out to my kids at the Milburn Stone. Hope all is good. Peace out.