Good news

We're getting a lot of hits this morning due to the appearance of my guest post, The Nine Novels that Defined Steampunk, on the Steampunk Workshop. That makes it all the more important that I share our good news in timely manner. A couple weeks ago we received notice that we our Social Security application for Miles had been approved. What that meant in terms of money we did not know until this Saturday when our first check came in the mail. Basically we are getting enough so that between my job and SSI our steady income and our fixed bills met. That means if we continue to live like frugal little homesteaders and reliable people I will not have my wages attached and we will not default on our mortgage. We still have to scramble each month for power, water, gasoline and what few groceries we buy but the house is safe. This is huge! For this reason we are asking you NOT to donate to our Go-Fund-Me fundraiser below. It has served its purpose by getting us through late March and April, when we truly had no way to pay our bills. A hearty thank you to all who helped us when we had no where else to turn!

Down but not out

As everyone who read the last post knows, we are going through some extremely tough times. The only thing I would add to the bleak picture Ingred wrote about is that both are children are disabled. In addition to our youngest being in the autistic spectrum and unable to function in anything resembling a normal classroom, both our sons have progressive hearing loss. The cause is genetic, supposedly a recessive gene on one of my wife’s X chromosomes. It didn’t manifest until after age three. Their hearing got steadily worse until about eight years old, now the rate of decline has slowed. They can get by with high-powered digital hearing aides that cost about three thousand dollars an ear. Some day they will probably need cochlear implants.

Always in the background of the already very challenging task of making our past-meets-future sustainability dream real are the hard realities of raising disabled children. The possibility of income loss was also a threat that has always loomed over our heads. These two factors have collided to create our current crisis, but our DIY salvage, repurpose based steampunk philosophy is giving us a fighting chance to get through this mess. On the Greyshade Estate, “steampunk” means rediscovering an old recipe for Hoppin’ John and washing it down with homebrewed hard lemonade, while reading a steampunk novel barrowed from the library. Outside of this junkyard haven it means something else…

From the local steampunk community I know people who have lost or are losing their homes. My heart truly goes out to them. I would be devastated if this happened to us. Interestingly it isn’t happening to us, at least not yet. On the face of it, that seems strange. We seem far worse off with our disabled kids and one half time job between us than any of the people we know who are losing their homes, so how are we avoiding their situation. Strange as it may seem, it comes back to steampunk and the very different ways we look at it.

While we love the art and literature and music of steampunk and think some of the costuming is pretty neat, steampunk for us is primarily about lifestyle. For us that lifestyle centers on the idea that the past and the future may be more alike than different. We live in the decadent twilight of lifestyles based pure consumerism. Since consumerism requires ridiculous amounts of oil, coal and natural gas a shift to production-based lifestyles is inevitable. That’s what all this DIY, Maker stuff is about in the long run. 

If you are only familiar with steampunk as it has gained popularity in the last few years you may be asking what that has to do with brown shit with gears stuck on it, Internet models who’ve figured out how to make Victorian clothing look slutty, or any of the stereotypical images of steampunk out there. Ideas like mine used to be common topics of discussion in the middle of the last decade when steampunk started to become more than just a few still obscure books. Read the linked documents in the introduction to this blog.  I am taking these ideas further than most I would never call them original.

Today most people have come to steampunk through “fandom.” This is particularly true of Southern California where the entertainment industry sets the tone for everything. By definition fandom is about buying entertainment products and related merchandise. Entertainment franchises are consumer products just as much toilet paper or deodorant. Fans take it further by purchasing props, costumes, action figures and convention tickets. They take it still further by taking vacations to travel to conventions several times a year. They pride themselves on how much money they spend, and for all the imagination they have they can’t imagine themselves living any other way. This is who they are. This is their identity.  They are consumers, and they are addicted.

This is the central tragedy behind the commercialization of steampunk and its absorption into mainstream fandom. The aesthetic pioneered by reuse-obsessed artists has become a brass syringe to inject the same old heroin. Did I just compare fan culture consumerism to heroin addiction? Perhaps that is a disservice… to heroin. Heroin you see is condemned. Those who use it are ostracized. It is against the social order. This habit of buying things you don’t need to define yourself and generally “kill the pain,” is the social order. For this reason, far more lives are destroyed by consumer addiction than heroin addiction. Fandom is just one particular manifestation of this problem. I have a relative who takes luxury vacations to Disneyland whenever she feels depressed. Other people spend so much money on cars they end up living in them. Fandom can be particularly bad addiction though. I’ve seen people tell me they could barely pay their property taxes, and then jet off to another convention. I’ve heard people tell me about their credit cards being canceled and then show off their new Victorian outfit. Then… they lose their homes.

I’m not going to lie. That brass syringe is damn tempting. We used to go to Maker Faire. The whole family misses that, and while most steampunk conventions sound like the same old shit I’ve read descriptions of the Steampunk World’s Fair and a few other events that have really intrigued me. Then there is my fondness for Victorian men’s wear (sigh) the fact is we are so broke that I’m sometimes afraid to go to thrift shops for fear of finding tempting brass bits. But travel, and waistcoats and brass do not define me. What I produce defines me not what I consume.

The fact that I can create and build goes beyond steampunk. The fact that you can create and build goes beyond steampunk. What’s that you say? You can’t create and build. What the hell do you think your opposable thumbs are for? This is about your birthright as a human being and whether you choose to exercise it. Steampunk just highlights it. If you define yourself by what you consume then when times are hard you are truly fucked. You will buy shit to feel better just like any other addict. If you define yourself by what you produce you have sense of grounding that will be with you so long as you have a mind and hands. 

The Greyshade Estate Needs Your Help!

Hard times have hit us here at The Greyshade Estate and it's time to ask for help. As many of you know, we're a DIY, Urban Homesteading family that produces steampunk events in San Diego. Our blog, The Greyshade Estate, documents our lifestyle and struggles. So far, we've been lucky enough to be able to pursue our goals of community building, food sustainability and DIY ethos while working at part time jobs. We've enjoyed bringing steampunk events to the area and pride ourselves on keeping costs low and taking little for ourselves to remain inclusive to everyone. We happily share the bounty of our urban homestead with friends and neighbors and ask for little in exchange. We don't believe everything we create and do has a price tag attached. Unfortunately, our bills don't see it that way.

Over a year ago, Ingred had to leave her job to care for the youngest of our 2 disabled kids, who was diagnosed with Asperger's and could not attend his local school any longer. While we struggled with less, we got by. Late last year, Eric's job at the library went from 40 hours to 30 in September, and then to 20 in December, with no more hours in the forseeable future. After 4 months on living on half of our primary income, just enough to pay the mortgage and home insurance, the wolf is finally at the door. Good news though, is relief is in sight. Our son's disability claim should be granted within the next few months, helping with the costs of staying home caring for him.

That's where you come in. If we can get through these next couple of months, we should start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. If 10 of our friends can find a way to kick down $10, we keep the lights on. If 35 people can give $5, we get to keep the internet flowing (since we don't have cable, this is our link to the outside world). If 10 people could give $20, we keep the student loan collectors at bay. We're well aware that many of our friends are not much better off than us and that this comes at a hard time for everybody. Even if we only manage to raise $20, that's 20 more dollars than we had yesterday and will help keep gas in the car.



How did we come up with the $1450 figure? If we can raise $258, that gets us through the end of March and pays the internet & student loan bill. Increase that to $560 and we'll keep the lights on and our car on the road and be set for mid-April. Add another $727 and our student loan, water and other bills are all paid through the end of April. Add in the fees from WePay and GoFundMe = $1450.

My urbanite runneth over

Urbanite, for the uninitiated, is the recycling and reuse culture’s word for broken concrete. As a building stone it is remarkable in that it “naturally” occurs in slabs of even thickness making it very stackable. When stacked with reasonable care you can build structures that look a lot like unmortared cobblestone.

 The only real problem with urbanite walls is that you need chunks of roughly even size to make a decent wall. That means that if you let a construction company dump urbanite in your yard you will end up with both small rubble you can’t use and a lot of huge immovable boulders that you either have to break up pay someone to haul away. Alternately you can patrol construction sites and grab pieces of the size you need. That can be a tedious process.

When a crew repairing sewer lines in the area asked if they could use the dead-end street out my back gate to dump urbanite I quickly agreed. I can grab whatever chunks I need as I need them and they haul away the rest. It looks like they are going to be working in the area for several months so for now I have a never ending supply of urbanite. I’ve built an herb spiral, two raised bed planters and I’m starting to terrace the hillside in my backyard with urbanite retaining walls. 

A Workshop at Last

I grew up in house with garage and a big workbench loaded with tools. It is in that sacred space that I learned one of the greatest things that my father taught me, the simple lesson that things could be made with hammers and saws and the like. My mother had another sacred space, a desk where a sewing machine sat at all times, ready to be used at moment's notice. Near this desk was a table on which cloth could be spread and measured and cut. It was here that my mother taught me that things could be made with needle and thread.

I have never really had a maker space anywhere I lived other than that house. A few places had enough space for a sewing area, but never a workbench or table, until now. A year ago the Greyshade Estate’s little garage was piled high with boxes. It’s taken some pretty aggressive possession management to clear it out. I built the workbench by repurposing three cabinets left over from rebuilding the kitchen, and attaching two table tops from a set of three cast off tables. Strips left over from cutting the table tops to size became shelves. One table I left unmodified as a cutting table. Beyond it, in the bottom photo you can see our sewing desk, a gift from a friend who no longer had room for it. Next to it is a steamer trunk packed with our accumulation of sewing supplies. There’s even a stereo on the shelves above it, very important to the creative process, especially for a DJ.

Bwah-ha-ha-ha! If you’re a steampunk you know exactly what I mean by that.

Comments policy

After two years I have decided to put comments on moderated status and post a written comments policy. Sorry but this is my soapbox not yours and if you want to stand on it for a moment there need to be rules.

1 No ads. I’ve already stated this but the spammers keep trying. This is an anti-consumerist blog. As such, I am VERY selective about the businesses I link to or mention on this site.

2. No anonymous posts. This is a blog about my life and struggles. It is very personnel. Make some gesture towards self identification if you expect me to approve your comment. Failing to do this is just plain rude.

3. You don’t get to tell me that I, or the Greyshade Estate project, is not steampunk. I realize that many people define steampunk only as a genre of fiction (ironically many of these people can’t be bothered to read it). Other people define it as an increasingly narrow visual style. On this blog, and the fifth of an acre it is named for, we mean something more inclusive.  Feel free to argue against our definition... elsewhere.

Comic-Con 2012 or Will Repair Airships (and DJ) for Food

Comic-Con International, technically it’s a trade show rather than sci-fi convention but you could drop any other sci-fi con into it and lose it. Like most San Diego nerds I have my ways of getting in at reduced or no cost so I go every year no matter how low on cash I am. This year however we were especially broke. Our income has taken quite a pounding since we bought the Estate and so we viewed the approach of Comic-Con with mixed feelings. It’s hard to enjoy the massive dealer’s room with no money. As to dressing up… my wife lost four out of five of her corsets to the mildew of a damp moving box along with several pairs of boots and shoes. My glasses and boots are held together with wire and I’m running out of pants. None-the-less Comic-Con demanded our presence because, for the fourth year in row, we had a steampunk party to promote.

Chrononaut has either produced or co-produced every Comic-Con steampunk after party, although last year this went uncredited. I have also DJ’ed at all of them. This year the event was hosted by San Diego Automotive Museum and was held in conjunction with their spectacular Steampunk the Exhibit. For us this was our first chance to put on an event in nine months and an extremely welcome opportunity to work with people who were interested in Steampunk as art and culture rather than just a way to make money.

Anyway we resolved to just go casual, watch our money, and enjoy the con, while passing out flyers for Friday night’s festivities at the Museum. So at 10:00 am Thursday morning we went to Dina Kampmeyer’s Witty Women of Steampunk panel with Robin Blackburn (The League of S.T.E.A.M.), Anina Bennett (Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel), Gail Carriger (The Parasol Protectorate Series), Kaja Foglio (Girl Genius), and Robin Thorsen (The Guild). Somewhere in the middle of discussion Dina asked a bombshell of question. “The Victorian era was time of enormous class inequality, how does your work address that?”

Most of the panel looked completely broadsided, and while they recovered and made fair go at answering the question it was clearly not something they were prepared to talk about. I found myself thinking “Go Dina!” With one simple question she managed critique a lot of the problems with where steampunk is going both as genre and as a movement. As those familiar the early works of the steampunk genre know, Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor was the favorite reference book of K. W. Jeter, James Blaylock and Tim Powers. This fact showed in many ways. They used the London sewers as a setting far more often than glittering ballrooms. In fact I don’t recall any glittering ballrooms or formal teas in any of their stories. If you add to that the fact that Michael Moorcock’s proto-steampunk works were written specifically as a critique of empire and it’s pretty clear that originally steampunk took class inequity head on.

I don’t want to rehash the old steampunk-is-punk!/no-it-isn’t! debate. Both sides of the argument tend to overstate their cases to the point of absurdity. But given the origins of the genre, and the fact that it exploded in popularity during such economically troubled times as these, the amount of aristocracy worship present in steampunk today is ironic, disturbing, and insensitive. On a related note it’s also been bothering me how steampunk seems to be more and more about what one buys and less and less about what one makes. More about jetting off to distant conventions and less about grassroots organization on the local level. Dina’s question seemed to take on all of that.

The next couple of days were pretty typical of Comic-Con for us. We managed to get into a few panels picked up a couple of graphic novels and a video, and helped our kids make choices as to the disposal of their lemonade sale money. Thursday night Mrs Greyshade and I took advantage of some free babysitting and late night programming (Ric Meyers Kung Fu Extravaganza!) to have one of our all too rare date nights. That may sound mellow but the crowding and sensory overload of Comic-Con make just moving through the convention center exhausting.

By Friday we had to leave Con early and take naps. There was no way we were going to make it through the show without them. I got to the Museum just after 5:00. The party was by all audience accounts a good time but from a performers point of view it was a bit strange. We had to do all of our own sound and set up, which took forever since none of us are experts. There was a lot of “where can we plug in this?” “Why is no sound coming out of the PA?” “Why is this channel so distorted?” “You mean none of us own mic stands?” There was also no stage which tends to decentralize an event as the music just becomes something going on off at one end and not the point of the event. Steampunk parties tend to suffer from this anyway because the attendees are as spectacular as the entertainers!
In the end we made it all work and sound pretty damn good, as the clip below will attest.

Eliza Rickman and the Unextraordinary Gentlemen were both fantastic. I could not have asked for better performers for the event. My spinning was praised. Several people said I was the only DJ in SoCal to get steampunk right. You will get no refutation of this from me. Sadly though, DJs, are the last thing people think of when putting together a steampunk event, and I still haven’t found an appropriate club venue. It will probably be a long time until my next gig.

When we got home I was pretty wired both from a successful gig and the energy drink I’d downed to pull it off. The annual Comic-Con steampunk meet-up and photo shoot was the next day. I wanted to do something memorable. The thing is, I’m not really much of a costumer, I’m more of a clotheshorse. I dress fairly steampunk all the time, even when I’m working on the Estate. Therefore, I have the distinction of owning some of the most trashed steampunk clothes you will ever see. I’d wanted to do something with that for months but I wasn’t exactly sure what. Somehow in the delirium of Con contrasted with the countless number of homeless people camped downtown the phrase “Will Repair Airships for Food” popped into my mind.

Downtown San Diego has had more than it’s share of the homeless ever since Federal funding for mental health services were cut by Ronald Reagan in the nineteen eighties. Since the beginning of this “great recession” the number have swelled to the point where the police no longer even try to relocate the masses. Instead they just make them keep the sidewalks clear enough for pedestrians. Near the curb on many streets, there are villages of improvised tents. If you leave the Convention Center during Comic-Con you can’t miss them. If you drive in and out of downtown you will see more permanent camps in the canyons along the freeways.

At 2:00 am I found an appropriately sized lumber scrap, a bit of string and paint and made the only prop I needed to turn my beat work clothes into a costume. I have not been photographed so much since my wedding, though as usual, Jerry Abuan captured the best image. Like Dina I seemed to hit a rather large nail squarely on the head. The best part for me was the words and knowing looks I exchanged with so many of fellow steampunks and Con goers. They got the serious commentary behind the dark humor.

After the meet-up I joined the many people headed for Gail Carriger’s talk. I haven’t read her books so I went mainly because I heard she was worried that people at the meet-up would be too busy socializing to come to her panel. This did not happen. The other reason is that there is no better way to judge whether or not one should read books than to hear the author speak about his or her work. I found Ms. Carriger to be to be well spoken, charming, and highly intelligent, but her books are not high on my reading list. She lost me when she said, “(her) vampires sparkle because the they are dripping with diamonds.” This, and other remarks she made, makes it pretty clear that all her characters are aristocrats. The Victorian aristocracy were, if possible, even bigger parasites than today’s power elite. True, they dressed better, but even street gangs dressed better in 19th century. I rarely like stories about rich people unless they are being satirized. Putting them on airships is not likely to change that for me.

There was one more steampunk panel on Sunday afternoon but by noon it was obvious that we were done with Comic-Con for the year. So why this rather long post about Comic-Con on a blog that’s mostly about homesteading? Well first this is my blog and I can write about anything I want. Secondly though I'm writing this to acknowledge something: I had a good time running around the con doing steampunk stuff. Well, you might say, that’s the point of doing steampunk stuff. Unfortunately if you are one of the people who makes steampunk stuff happen “fun” isn’t always what you get out of it. The fact is with all the bullshit and backstabbing that’s happened locally, it’s been over a year since “doing steampunk stuff” has been any real fun at all. But Comic-Con was fun. It was fun to DJ again. It was fun to put together costume other than the sort that I wear everyday anyway. It was fun having steampunk mean something other than sweat and grime and calloused hands for a few days. It’s true that the movement is full of people who don’t get why what we’re doing on the Estate is steampunk, but these same people probably couldn’t tell you who K. W. Jeter is so their opinion doesn’t count for much. I think I’ll keep my side-whiskers.