|
The Floating Neutrinos
- continued from home page
PHOTO: Betsy and Poppa in Nova Scotia, 1987
(credit: floatingneutrinos.com)
|
By the early 1970s David was in Oakland California, associating with
a group calling themselves the Fellowship of Souls. The group studied the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff
(1866-1949), an Armenian-Greek man who taught methods for gaining
self-awareness.
David eventually formed a spin-off group of his own and called it the Salvation
Navy. In 1975, he and fourteen others from his group left Oakland and
traveled to the banks of the Missouri River, where they built large raft
atop discarded fertilizer barrels and named it Miss Leslie. Why a raft?
"I just didn't want to pay rent. That's simply it," said David. Money
for other expenses was earned from freelance jobs painting signs for
businesses. That summer, the group sailed Miss Leslie down the
Mississippi River, ending up in new Orleans.
Betsy recalls that around this time she was "hitching on sailboats and
freighters seeking adventure and esoteric knowledge." She met David
later that year in New Orleans, and joined his group.
Both Betsy and David had children from other relationships. Over the
years, they would also adopt and have one child together, raising a
total of five. With her background in education, Betsy provided
home-schooling for all of the children.
A BRUSH WITH DEATH AND THE BIRTH OF A BAND
By 1981, David, Betsy, a few of their children and a few of the
remaining Salvation Navy members were traveling through Mexico. One day
David saw a stray dog lying on the street. "I thought he was dead
and when I found he was alive, I moved him to a beach. I was trying to help
the dog. He benignly looked at me, smiled, bit me and died." That dog
bite would be a major turning point in David's life.
It took about a month before the first symptoms came: hypersensitivity,
vomiting and bleeding. The doctors he saw were unable to diagnose the
exact condition and the sickness got worse, lasting more than two years.
David lost forty percent of his body weight and the ability to earn
money. "We were living in doorways in Mexico," he quietly recalls.
Inspired by necessity, Betsy found an old, damaged saxophone and began
teaching herself to play the 1920s pop tune, Mexicali Rose. David
remembers that the initial sounds were "awful...like a cow." Nevertheless,
Betsy summoned the courage to enter local cantinas and played the only
song she knew for customers, while her five-year old daughter would
dance. They were able to earn enough money for family food and codeine
to ease David's pain.
After a while, Betsy was joined in her musical act by Ingrid, David's
twelve-year old daughter, and two other remaining members of the
Salvation Navy, Donna Londagin, and her son, Todd. Ingrid sang and
danced, Donna played accordion, and Todd played trombone.
The fledgling band slowly developed into a serious endeavor and needed a
name. At the same time, David was finally starting to recover. He was
strong enough to join the band, and felt like he had been given a new
life. An article in National Geographic magazine about physics provided
inspiration. The band was dubbed "The Flying Neutrinos" and in honor of
his new life, David Pearlman would henceforth be known as "Poppa
Neutrino." A fitting sobriquet, since the neutrino, a sub-atomic
particle, is described as something that is in constant motion.
PHOTO:
Playing in the streets of New Orleans, 1980s
(credit: Donna Londagin)
|
Poppa has fond memories of the Mexicans' hospitality during this period.
"(Americans visiting Mexico) would throw gum wrappers in our
(instrument) case. They would say to me 'You wino - get a job!' But, the
Mexicans were wonderful. They gave us enough to get beans and rice and
get on to the next town. We did that for about two years."
They also spent a couple of months performing with two traveling circus troupes, earning sometimes only a few dollars a day.
"One was a real mud circus where they had nothing. They had even less
then we had," says Poppa.
Then, one day on a beach in Mazatlan, Mexico the family started playing
for a group of tourists. Poppa was pleasantly surprised. "They went
crazy and started throwing money at us. We got enough to go to New
Orleans."
In New Orleans the group created black and white costumes and headed to
the town's preeminent location for the most-talented street musicians,
Jackson Square. While the Neutrinos' costumes suggested a highly
polished act, Poppa bluntly states "We sounded like shit! Pure shit!
People couldn't believe we had the audacity to go to Jackson Square and
play."
Despite their underwhelming debut, the family found a guardian angel in
the form of an onlooker, Joe T. Johnson. Johnson, a veteran New Orleans
trumpet player, saw them struggling and started playing with the band,
guiding them and eventually teaching them about music. Over time, his
tutoring made a big difference. One day, when the family was getting
ready to play, they called over for Joe to join them but he replied "No.
You don't need me anymore."
While developing their musical skills in New Orleans, the Neutrinos
built a new living raft. They also took to the road, performing in the
streets of several southern U.S. cities, improving their sound and
earning more money as they went along.
By 1987 the group was ready for a change. They headed to New York City
to play in the subways and were astounded by the reaction. "We made ten
thousand dollars in the first thirty days," says Poppa. Because of
competition for public playing spaces and other factors, this windfall
would not continue indefinitely. For the time being though, the
Neutrinos were able to sleep in the penthouse of a Broadway hotel, a long way from
Mexican doorways.
FOLLOWING DREAMS
A year or so later, the Neutrinos were splitting their time between New Orleans and New York
City when Poppa had a dream. "I had this dream that if we dressed
up as Pilgrims our financial problems would be over. Nobody wanted
to dress up as a Pilgrim, so we decided to go where the Pilgrims
landed."
With that, the Neutrinos headed to Provincetown Massachusetts, where they began
work on a new raft. This one would not only serve as a living space, but
would contain a floating stage for musical performances.
Following their previous tradition of building rafts from scrap, the new
one was constructed atop a condemned barge. Discarded floating docks and
driftwood served as raw materials for the topside, with enough living
space for nine people, plus guests. The raft was named Town Hall.
Poppa and Betsy planned to eventually sail Town Hall to Mexico and offer
it as a floating home to a family they had befriended in one of the
traveling circuses.
In October 1990, Town Hall and the Neutrinos left Provincetown, bound
for Mexico, with some extended stops along the way.
In the spring of 1991, after a storm had left them in shallow waters,
the Neutrinos encountered a U.S. Coast Guard boat.
The Guard offered to tow Town Hall to deeper water, but in doing so,
lines became tangled and Town Hall ended up on a beach with severe
damage. The Neutrinos spent the next few months repairing the craft, and
in August 1991, they had Town Hall towed to New York Harbor, where they
anchored it off the lower west side of Manhattan.
Upon their arrival in New York, the Coast Guard appeared again, this
time issuing a "Stop Voyage" order, declaring that the raft
was
not seaworthy
and would not be allowed to sail any further. For the time being, Town
Hall was stuck.
The odd looking raft immediately became a curiosity for residents of
downtown New York, countless tourists, and thousands of people working
nearby. Carl Glassman, editor and founder of community newspaper The TriBeCa Trib remembers the Neutrinos
as pioneers.
"The local waterfront was a kind of frontier when the
Neutrinos settled here...they were settlers among settlers in the last
days of the wild Westside of Lower Manhattan."
While living in New York harbor, Poppa and Betsy started work
on a new project. The idea had come to them several years earlier: to
sail a raft across the Atlantic Ocean. So, in 1992 construction began on
the transatlantic raft, named Son of Town Hall. They were joined on the
project by Rodger Doncaster, a Canadian whom they had met several years
earlier. Designed by Poppa and built mostly by Rodger, Son of Town Hall
was assembled from logs found in the Hudson River and assorted other
discarded items from the streets and dumpsters of Manhattan.
While Rodger oversaw construction of the new raft, the Flying Neutrinos
band went to Europe for six months, playing in nightclubs
- and on the streets - of Norway, Russia, Poland, Germany, France,
Switzerland, Italy and Spain.
Another, smaller raft was built during the period, named Child of
Amazon. This one, also built from scrap by Rodger was designed to be a
model living space for the purpose of promoting alternative shelters.
The Neutrinos wanted to show that rafts could be a viable option for
homeless people, but the project never really took off. "We had a few
people involved a few times, but nobody ever followed through," recalls
Betsy.
The Flying Neutrinos band continued growing in popularity, but Poppa and
Betsy wanted to focus on their transatlantic project. So, they left the
band in the hands of Ingrid and Todd, who would stay in New York and
focus on their music careers. A few years later, one of their songs
would be featured in a major motion picture called Blast From the Past.
The band would keep the name Flying Neutrinos, and the rafting projects
would now be referred to as Floating Neutrinos.
In 1995 Poppa, Betsy and their two youngest
children sailed Son of Town Hall on a
test voyage to Provincetown.
Rodger remained in New York, along with Town Hall and Child of Amazon.
As they left New York, the Neutrinos were again stopped by the
Coast Guard. This time, however, confident about the quality of their
newly built raft, Poppa and Betsy demanded an official inspection. To
the surprise of the Coast Guard officers, the
inspection yielded a very positive report. Vindicated, the Neutrinos would be
left alone - for the time being - and were free to float again.
Son of Town Hall would be tested,
adjusted and rebuilt over the next two years. During this period Poppa
suffered a heart attack, but rather than resting in a bed, he
went alone into the desert to recuperate and regain his strength. Poppa
returned without trepidation, and finally, in 1997 they began the first
leg of their voyage to Europe.
Rodger rejoined Poppa and Betsy for this trip, having turned over Child
of Amazon, which remained in New York Harbor along with Town Hall, to a
Hungarian artist named Balazs. Balazs would house-sit the two rafts
while the Neutrinos crossed the sea.
By the time of its departure, Son of Town Hall had been thoroughly
redesigned. Its two most important features were the ability to
self-right if tipped over, and to self-steer in storms. The
self-steering feature would keep the raft always pointed in a direction
that avoided the possibility of being tipped over by waves.
Forty one days after leaving the U.S., the Neutrinos reached Newfoundland.
The voyage was relatively uneventful and most importantly, the raft held
up and performed as expected. The next part of the crossing would be
more treacherous though - the deep ocean.
THE DEEP
On June 15, 1998, after a rest and more adjustments to the raft, Son of
Town Hall departed for Europe. Poppa, Betsy, and Rodger were joined by Ed
Garry, who had previously helped out with Town Hall.
Rounding out the crew were Thor, Sigfried and Wille, three
canines. They carried a reserve of simple grains and canned vegetables,
along with just over four-hundred-and-fifty liters of fresh water.
Although the raft had a small outboard motor attached, the entire trip
was powered by sail and ocean currents.
PHOTO:
Son of Town Hall (credit: floatingneutrinos.com)
|
Betsy shared some of her memories of the voyage in a later article,
published in the TriBeCa Trib: "Our first danger was icebergs, which
were numerous close to the coast, and frequently concealed by fog. We
were not afraid of running into one; since we float on logs and foam, we
could not sink. But icebergs frequently roll, and we could suddenly have
found ourselves beneath one."
Initially, the ocean winds were light and progress was slow. Then the
Neutrinos were confronted by storms and twenty-foot high waves. "All of
us were terrified...it was like a roller coaster ride," recalled Betsy.
Poppa later said "there was a moment when that first twenty foot wave
passed under me and it looked like we were going straight down...and I
thought...I'm crazy, I'm nuts!" Yet, the years of redesigning and
rebuilding paid off. The raft continually corrected itself and stayed
above the water.
For sixty days they slowly moved towards Europe, grappling with
isolation and not knowing for sure when, or even if, they would make it.
Passing freighters frequently stopped and offered the Neutrinos fuel,
food and water.
By the time they neared the coast of Ireland, word had spread of their
coming. They were greeted miles offshore by a contingent of ships,
helicopters, reporters, photographers and well-wishers. When they
finally reached the shore of Castletownbere, they were treated to a
hero's welcome. Betsy remembers "...it was an overwhelming experience,
victorious yet at the same time deeply humbling,"
Although at least one other person had previously crossed the Atlantic
in a raft, the Neutrinos were the first people known to cross the ocean
on a raft made of scrap and recycled materials. For Betsy, the
accomplishment was a vivid demonstration that "...if you let go of 'how
it's been done before,' and creatively recycle yourself and whatever
materials are at hand, you can live any dream you can imagine."
Following a stay in Ireland, Son of Town Hall traveled from the north to
south of France, where it remains (unoccupied) today. After France,
Rodger moved on to follow other pursuits, while Ed headed to the U.S. to
begin construction of a new scrap raft called Absolute Absolution.
Poppa and Betsy traveled back and forth between their rafts in Europe
and the U.S. a few times, and in April, 2000 began work on an even more
ambitious project. Vilma B. (named after Poppa's mother) was to be a
world-traveling, floating orphanage. Their largest raft yet, Vilma B.
would house up to twenty-five orphans in individual cabins, and up to
twenty crew members, teachers and staff. The idea for a floating
orphanage had come to Poppa and Betsy a few years earlier when they saw
a documentary about the plight of street children in India.
The crew of Vilma B. would offer abandoned street children in
third-world nations a safe home and education. It would be a prototype
from which, Poppa and Betsy hoped, others would follow. Work proceeded
on Vilma B. for a while, but lack of money and assistance from others
eventually stalled the project.
THE LAST VESTIGE
On May 8, 2000, while Poppa and Betsy were far away working on Vilma
B., a group of security agents dispatched by New York's Hudson River
Park Trust convened upon Town Hall and Child of Amazon in New York
Harbor. The Hudson River Park Trust is a joint city-state organization
responsible for managing the waterfront.
Balazs, the artist who was living aboard Child of Amazon and maintaining
both rafts, was on land when the agents descended, and was prevented
from getting back to the rafts. He, and others, watched in shock as a
towing crew attempted to lift Town Hall using a crane, causing the raft
to split apart and fall into the water. Balazs lost his U.S. Green Card,
thousands of dollars in cash, artwork, clothing, his cat, and even the
ashes of his father. The remnants of the rafts were later junked at a
location in New Jersey.
Poppa and Betsy found out what had happened later, by phone. Balazs
subsequently sued the Hudson River Park Trust and received a reported
settlement of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Poppa and Betsy
did not sue. Poppa says that Town Hall was about more than money. "We
didn't want anything. Rafting is a thing of love and creativity." Balazs
relocated to Brazil, while Poppa and Betsy simply moved on with their
other projects.
Journalist Ronald Drenger later wrote in the TriBeCa Trib "For some,
those rickety boats were unsightly, but for others, they were works of
art that represented a last vestige of independent spirit in Lower
Manhattan."
Ed Garry had begun work on Absolute Absolution after returning from the
Atlantic crossing in 2000. In October 2001, the craft, a sixteen meter
long catamaran constructed from recycled and salvaged materials, was
launched in Port Isabel, Texas. As with other Neutrino projects Absolute
Absolution had a purpose - actually, three of them: To teach sailing and
teamwork skills to people from all walks of life, to empower these
people through the philosophies that the Neutrinos continued to teach,
and to offer assistance to communities that the raft would visit during
its travels.
PHOTO: Absolute Absolution
(credit: floatingneutrinos.com)
|
Absolute Absolution sailed to Mexico and Cuba, then on to South America,
where the craft and its crew have been traveling and adventuring ever
since.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Poppa traveled
there to build rafts for some of those left homeless from the storm.
This project was called the Common Ground Navy.
Over the years, Poppa captured many of the family's adventures on video.
Filmmakers Vic Zimet and Stephanie Silber assembled these into a 2007
film entitled Random Lunacy. The movie won several film festival awards
and received some very good critical reviews.
Also in 2007, Random House publishing released a biography of Poppa
Neutrino, written by Alec Wilkinson entitled The Happiest Man in the
World.
These days, Betsy is back in Provincetown, living on a small sailboat.
Poppa, at age seventy-five, is in Sausalito, California building a new
scrap raft named Dwight and the Chicken Lady. He plans to sail this raft
across the Pacific Ocean from California to China, arriving in time for
the 2008 Olympics.
He says it is still unclear exactly how this project will get completed:
"I don't have any money, but...it's just happening; it's working." I
mention to Poppa that some of his plans seem guided solely by instinct and intuition. "All of them!" he replies, laughing heartily.
MORE THAN RAFTS, MORE THAN MUSIC
The Neutrinos see their various raft projects as a model of what can be
done with creativity, resourcefulness and effort; not necessarily money.
They hope to make people aware of not just the potential for living on
water, but also the potential for living outside of the commonly
accepted norms. Their voluminous website offers many elaborations on
these ideas. One section discusses "the four jailers," and how to escape
them. The jailers are described as the four major forces that entrap
people: landlords, bosses, mates, and the self. Betsy mentions that long
ago, she and Poppa vowed to never take a job working for someone else.
"We consider time freedom essential to the spiritual path."
Another section describes methods for reprogramming one's "inner
software," and how to make positive contributions to the world.
According to Betsy, the rafts, the band and other adventures have been
"merely foils for our inner work," with the higher goal of creating more
meaningful and fulfilling lives.
One doesn't have to directly participate in Poppa and Betsy's projects
to live the Neutrino life. Their website says that anyone who stays true
to their deepest desires and who lives by their own script is indeed a
Neutrino.
Poppa collectively refers to all people who live in this way
as Neutrinoland. He says that Neutrinoland is "an idea whose time has
not quite yet come," but he believes there is a growing need in the
world for freer living. "Something terrible is happening in this
country...the fascistic, cruel, demeaning nature...and it's because we
don't have time. It's because we're all battling for space. We've become
adversaries to each other, and once we get out of the space problem,
then we can take the time to recuperate, rest and think."
To me, the Neutrinos represent something intriguingly primal - a fiercely
defiant and sometimes dangerous independence that somehow overcomes impossible
situations. Buckminster Fuller used to say
that the universe will provide exactly what you need, when you need it,
if you are fulfilling your true destiny. That might explain how the
Neutrinos seem to find just what they need at the most unlikely times -
like Joe T. Johnson - someone who simply appeared and helped them in the
most unpredictable, yet important way. There were many others who helped
over the years, as well. In that regard, perhaps the
Neutrino story is also a testament to generosity, open-mindedness, and
goodwill in the world. If that's the case, may we all be Neutrinos.
The Floating Neutrinos
By
PJ Partridge
(c)
www.mostfascinating.com
Bookmark this story at:
Del.icio.us
Digg
StumbleUpon
Yahoo/MyWeb
Google
Squidoo
Reddit
|
ISSUE
Subscribe
|
