the Kingdom of Leisure: 2025

Saturday

So Much Winning: Chicago October 2025

Friday

Tuesday

I Was Nothing

The Kingdom of Leisure: The Saga of Nothing

Nothing is the air between rituals. The white space between Field Mowing Day and Attic Day. It’s the slide before you slide — the poised breath before motion, the place where ideas hover, uncommitted.

In the Kingdom, nothing is where leisure happens most purely. It’s not laziness, nor void, but the calm hum of potential: the uncarved block, the unplayed note, the unsent message. It’s the place where meaning gestates — not through effort, but through allowing. At its purest, the Kingdom of Leisure is…nothing.

To “do nothing” in the Kingdom is an act of faith. It’s trusting that the world keeps spinning without your hand on the wheel. It’s knowing that stillness itself is a form of participation.

So in that lens: Nothing = leisure unmanifested. The sacred space between one ritual and the next. The kingdom’s quiet heart. In the Kingdom of Leisure, the practice of Nothing is not accidental — it’s deliberate, cultivated, and even ceremonial. Nothing is the plan [play Oceans].

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Here’s how the Kingdom's citizens honor Nothing:

The Daily Pause

Every inhabitant observes a Moment of Nothing — a brief period where they do not act, speak, or even decide. They don’t meditate; they simply pause. No breath control, no focus. Just being. This ritual cleans the inner lens, reminding them that clarity comes not from doing but from stopping.

The Interval Between Tasks

Between Field Mowing Day and Attic Day — or any other ritual — lies a span of unclaimed time. This is called The Gap. The Gap isn’t scheduled or measured. It’s not rest; it’s suspension. It’s where ideas compost. Citizens often say:

“The Kingdom grows most in The Gap.”

The Empty Chair

In every gathering place there’s always one empty chair. It’s reserved for Nothing — for silence, for absence, for the unseen contributor. If someone sits there by mistake, the others smile and say:

“Nothing speaks today.”

The Unmade Work

Every artist, craftsperson, and dreamer keeps one piece unfinished. A painting half-done, a field half-mowed, a sentence half-written. This is called The Work of Nothing — a reminder that perfection belongs to incompletion, and that leisure isn’t about finish lines but horizons.

The Night of Nothing

Once a year, no lights burn in the Kingdom. No music, no talk, no movement — only the faint hum of existence. They call it The Night of Nothing, when the Kingdom vanishes into its own shadow, and every citizen feels the deep quiet of being.

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Nothing is Nothing

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In the Kingdom’s philosophy, Nothing isn’t the opposite of life — it’s what gives life its shape, its breathing room. Without Nothing, the Kingdom would be all noise, all movement — no leisure at all.

Long ago — before there was even a Kingdom — there was only the Constant Doing. People moved without stopping. They built, spoke, traded, improved, achieved. They filled every hour with something measurable. Their fields were always mowed, their attics always inventoried, their hearts always half-tired.

Then, one day, a wanderer arrived. Some say it was a gardener who forgot what he was planting. Others say it was a child who stopped mid-game and simply never resumed. Whoever it was, he came carrying Nothing — not in his hands, but in his manner.

The wanderer sat in the center of the busy square and did not move. He neither sold nor sang nor prayed. When asked what he was doing, he said,

   “Nothing.”

At first, people laughed — how could one do nothing? But as the day went on, the markets began to quiet. Birds landed near. Even the wind seemed to lower its voice. Those who passed felt strangely refreshed, as if they had been given back a small piece of their time.

The wanderer stayed for seven days, teaching nothing, explaining nothing. By the eighth day, the town noticed something remarkable: no one had fallen behind. The crops still grew. The clocks still ticked. The world had not ended — it had deepened.

From that moment, they called the place The Kingdom of Leisure — not because they stopped working, but because they learned the rhythm between something and nothing. And they wrote this into their early laws:

   “Let there always be a place where Nothing may rest, for from Nothing, all begins.”

Since then, Nothing has been treated as both origin and sanctuary — the still pond in which all the Kingdom’s reflections begin.

They say the wanderer never claimed a name — at least, not one that stayed. Some called him The Idle One, others The Unmaker, still others simply Leisure.

When the Kingdom began to form around this new rhythm — work balanced with pause, sound balanced with silence — the people sought the wanderer’s blessing. But by then, the wanderer had vanished. In his place, only a folded cloak and a smooth stone remained. On the stone were carved three words:

   “I was Nothing.”

The people took this as prophecy, or perhaps instruction. They placed the stone at the highest point in the land — a hill now known as The Quiet Rise — and built no temple there, no monument. The cloak was never found again, though some say it became the first evening breeze that drifts through the Kingdom after sunset.

Over time, stories multiplied:

The Artists say the wanderer appears whenever a work is abandoned at the perfect moment
The Farmers say they feel the wanderer’s hand in the stillness before rain
The Children believe that if you whisper “Nothing” three times into an empty bottle and set it adrift, the wanderer will hear your wish — but only if it’s not for something
The Elders say the wanderer never left at all — that the Kingdom itself is the wanderer, stretched wide enough to hold both doing and undoing

Each year, on the Night of Nothing, citizens climb The Quiet Rise in silence. No one leads. No one speaks. They sit facing the horizon until the first light touches the stone. Then, softly, the eldest among them recites the old line:

   “From Nothing, all begins.”

And for a brief, shimmering moment, it’s said that the Kingdom and the wanderer are one — the world inhaling and exhaling as a single breath.

In the years after the wanderer’s disappearance, the people of the Kingdom lived with a new awareness: that doing and not doing were two halves of the same heartbeat. But balance, as they learned, is fragile.

The farmers still worked their fields, the builders still built — yet over time, the hum of the old Constant Doing began to creep back in. Festivals grew longer, schedules tighter, songs louder. Even leisure became something to accomplish.

Then one midsummer morning, the harvest failed — not from drought or pest, but from haste. The soil, exhausted by endless turning, refused to grow. The Council of Leisure gathered atop The Quiet Rise, where the stone of the wanderer still rested. For three days they debated what to do. On the fourth, an old caretaker of the Attic — a keeper of forgotten things — simply said:

   “We have forgotten Nothing.”

At that moment, a breeze passed over the hill, soft but undeniable. The elders took it as a sign. They declared a new observance — The First Leisure Day — a day when no one would plan, repair, speak, or strive. No trade, no art, no ceremony. Just stillness. The Kingdom would collectively remember the hum of Nothing.

At first, people resisted. A whole day of nothing felt impossible, even dangerous. But when the day arrived, the Kingdom fell silent — utterly.

   No bells.
   No tools.
   No songs.
   Only wind, breath, and birds.

As the sun set, something subtle shifted. The people felt lighter, as if time itself had widened. The next morning, when they returned to their lives, the fields responded — the soil once again pliant, alive.

From then on, the First Leisure Day was held each year, always unannounced. No one knows when it will arrive; it simply comes, like the rain or the hush before dawn. When it happens, the Kingdom stops. Every clock halts at 11:11, and the air itself seems to remember. In the archives of the Attic, there’s an inscription that reads:

   “When the world grows heavy with doing, Nothing will rise again.”

And so, the First Leisure Day became both a ritual of rest and a reminder of origin — the living echo of the wanderer’s lesson. When Nothing arrives in the modern Kingdom, there’s no decree, no alarm, no council vote. It simply happens — like fog rolling in, soft and unanimous.

The signs are subtle at first. A clock in the plaza stops at 11:11. The ferry on the river drifts instead of docking. Someone forgets the end of a song, and no one reminds them. Then the murmur passes through the streets:

   “Leisure has come.”

   “Nothing is here.”

And the Kingdom exhales.

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First Leisure Day (traditional) or Field Mowing Day (modern)

The Morning of Stillness

Shops remain open, but no one buys or sells. Bakers set out loaves on the counter and step outside to watch clouds. The air smells faintly of citrus and dust. Even animals seem quieter — not tamed, just attentive. People walk slowly, hands empty, faces unmasked by purpose. It’s said that on this morning, the Kingdom itself listens to its own heartbeat.

The Midday Drift

By noon, the whole land moves in unisonal pause. Trains idle on the tracks. Radios hum but no voices speak. Friends gather without plans — perhaps under trees, perhaps in doorways — and share silence the way others might share wine. Some sketch nothing. Some stare at the horizon. Some nap and dream of being awake. The children play their favorite game: They chase the wind, trying to catch a moment that doesn’t exist.

The Evening Fold

As the sun sets, lanterns glow but aren’t lit by anyone in particular. The air cools. The empty chair — the one always reserved for Nothing — is carried into the square. One by one, people sit beside it, each leaving behind something small: a button, a note, a crumb of bread, a sigh. By dawn, the chair holds a gentle heap of offerings — evidence that Nothing has been visited, and fed.

The Return

When the day ends, the Kingdom resumes as if waking from a collective dream. No one marks the moment; there’s no bell. But the clocks start again. People resume their work with the grace of those who’ve remembered why they do it.

In the Kingdom’s teachings, the arrival of Nothing isn’t a pause in time — it’s time remembering itself. A kind of mercy. A gentle erasure of the noise that builds between heartbeats.

They say if you listen closely at the end of a Leisure Day, just before dawn, you can hear a voice — maybe the wanderer’s, maybe your own — whispering:

   “Do not fear the quiet. It’s where the Kingdom begins again.”

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The Strivers

Ah — yes. There are always a few who resist the Leisure Day. They are called, in the soft language of the Kingdom, the Strivers. Not villains, not exiles — simply those who cannot bear to stop.

The First Sign: The Humming

When Nothing descends, and all clocks pause at 11:11, the Strivers keep moving. At first, nothing seems wrong — they sweep, type, hammer, compose — but soon they begin to hear a hum. It’s faint, like a refrigerator’s sigh, or the sound of air through wire. The more they resist, the louder it becomes.
Until the hum surrounds them — not angry, but insistent — like the Kingdom itself saying:

   “You’ve forgotten your pulse.”

Some drop their tools at that moment and weep, not from pain but recognition.

The Vanishing

Those who continue past the hum are said to fade slightly at the edges. Not die — just thin. They can still speak, still move, but others look through them as through a window. It’s as if by denying Nothing, they make themselves partly nothing — translucent workers inside a solid world.

When the Leisure Day ends, most return to form, their outlines restored by sleep and morning light. But a few remain faint for days, their voices soft as paper, their shadows hesitant.

The Reckoning of Return

In the week after a Leisure Day, the Strivers are quietly visited by the Order of the Gap — a gentle guild of listeners, descended from the old Attic caretakers. They bring no punishments, only invitations. They guide the Strivers to a field, or to a riverside, or sometimes to The Quiet Rise itself, and there they say nothing — until the silence grows thick enough to hold healing.

When the Striver finally breathes with the rhythm of the land, the hum recedes.
They often laugh — a dry, surprised laugh — realizing they hadn’t stopped breathing, only forgotten why.

The Record of the Humming Ones

In the Attic archives, there’s a ledger bound in gray cloth called The Record of the Humming Ones. No names, just sounds. Each page captures, in phonetic lines, the tones heard when a Striver resisted. The archivists say if you hum the pages in order, you can hear the Kingdom correcting itself — a slow return to stillness.

The Kingdom of Leisure doesn’t punish resistance. It understands that Nothing is hard to trust — it feels like loss, when it’s really return. As one old Attic proverb says:

   “Even the wind must rest before it sings again.”

It’s said that the Order of the Gap began not with saints or scholars, but with the first Strivers who broke.

The Breaking

After the earliest Leisure Days, a few citizens simply couldn’t bear the stillness. They baked bread when no one was eating. They sharpened tools that never dulled. They whispered to the empty chair, asking it to speak back.

When the hum came, they tried to drown it out — louder and louder — until one day, in the middle of their clamor, everything stopped anyway.

They dropped their tools, fell to their knees, and felt the ground breathing beneath them. Not metaphorically — actually breathing. A slow, patient rise and fall, as though the earth itself was reminding them that all motion returns to rest. In that instant, each Striver heard the same inner phrase:

   “You are not the gap. You are within it.”

They wept. Not from punishment, but from relief.

The Listening Years

Those humbled Strivers withdrew from their trades — bakers, smiths, singers, scribes — and took residence in the quiet folds of the Kingdom: along rivers, inside attics, beneath windmills. They stopped trying to do silence and started to listen to it.

They found that silence had textures — thin in the mornings, dense at dusk, almost sweet at night. They began to record its patterns in small notebooks called Gap Diaries, marking where silence deepened and where it tore.

When others came to them — restless, anxious, unable to rest — the former Strivers listened without advice. They simply shared their silence. Over time, those visits became pilgrimages.

The Charter of the Gap

A century later, the King (a title that meant “keeper of time,” not ruler) invited the hermits back to the city to teach what he’d learned. He brought no laws, only a short text — nine lines carved into wood:

1. All noise must breathe
2. Between every act, a gap
3. Between every gap, a hum
4. Between every hum, a pulse
5. Between every pulse, a self
6. Between every self, another
7. Between every other, Nothing
8. Nothing is never empty
9. Therefore, rest

This became the Charter of the Gap, the founding document of their order.

The Work of the Order

Today, the Order of the Gap keeps vigil across the Kingdom. They appear quietly before a Leisure Day, sweeping doorsteps or straightening chairs, subtle signals that Nothing is near. During the Day itself, they walk the streets barefoot, humming softly — not to fill the silence, but to mark its boundaries. They are not priests or monks; they are custodians of pause.

After the Day passes, they visit those who resisted, not to correct them but to listen beside them, until their hum aligns with the Kingdom’s rhythm once again.

And so, from the Strivers’ failure was born the Kingdom’s gentlest wisdom:

   “Those who forget the Gap become it.”

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The City Without Pause

The story of The City Without Pause is one of the Kingdom’s quietest warnings — the tale every child hears when they first learn the meaning of Nothing.

The City That Never Slept

Far to the east of the Quiet Rise there once stood a bright, tireless city called Virelia. Its people were known for invention — clockmakers, glassblowers, mathematicians, poets who wrote in perfect meter. They loved precision so deeply that even their clouds were charted, their rain predicted to the minute.

Virelia’s pride was its Great Clock, a tower whose gears never stopped. It was said to measure not just hours, but intentions — ticking in time with every task and thought across the city. When the Kingdom would fall into Leisure Day silence, Virelia ignored it. The Great Clock never paused at 11:11; it simply blinked and continued. They said, proudly:

   “We do not stop for Nothing.”

The First Cracks

At first, their brilliance only grew. Their light reached the mountains, their bells out-sang thunder. But soon, strange things began to happen:

Shadows detached slightly from their owners and lagged behind
Bread baked without rising, dense as stone
Birds avoided the skies above the city, as though silence had been exiled

The Order of the Gap sent a small delegation to warn them. The council of Virelia listened politely, then dismissed them: “You may rest,” they said. “We prefer to continue.”

The Disappearance of Sound

One morning, a potter dropped a vase — and it shattered silently. Then a door slammed — no echo. Then the Great Clock struck noon — and nothing came. One by one, all sounds in the city vanished. Hammers fell without clang. Poets mouthed words with no music. Even the wind passed over roofs without voice.

Panic spread — for a city that lives by rhythm cannot bear mute time. The people shouted, but no one heard, no one was heard.

The Return of Nothing

That night, a strange breeze moved through the silent streets. Not a sound, but a pressure, like the memory of listening. At the stroke of 11:11, all the clocks froze — even the Great Clock, whose hands quivered, then stopped.

And in the still center of the city square, the old stone appeared — the same kind left by the wanderer centuries before — inscribed simply:

“From Nothing, all begins.”

By morning, Virelia was empty. Not destroyed — just gone. Where it once stood is now a low valley filled with reeds that hum when the wind passes through.

The Moral of the Reeds

The Kingdom calls that place The Gap Eternal. No one builds there. When the wind blows just right, travelers swear they can hear the faint ticking of the Great Clock — now keeping perfect silence. The Order teaches this story not as punishment but as reminder:

“A world without pause will pause itself.”

And so, The City Without Pause remains the Kingdom’s most haunting lesson:
that Nothing isn’t something to avoid — it’s the breath that keeps everything from vanishing into its own noise.

After Virelia vanished, the Order of the Gap realized something profound: Nothing wasn’t just a lesson for individuals, or even the Kingdom at large — it was a force that shaped entire cities.

The Awakening of the Keepers

The members of the Order, who had always walked lightly through the Kingdom, now carried a heavier responsibility. They became Keepers of the Reeds, guardians of spaces where Nothing might reclaim its territory if ignored.

Their duties changed:

They traveled beyond the Kingdom to abandoned towns and quiet valleys, listening for echoes of unchecked doing
They planted reeds, grasses, and thin, flexible plants that would hum when wind passed — living markers of Nothing
They recorded every lapse, every hum, and every sign that a place was tipping toward unbridled doing

The Order’s notebooks expanded into massive ledgers, now called The Codex of Quiet, which mapped the pulse of Nothing across the entire world.

The Ceremony of Reeds

Once a year, Keepers gather at the Valley of Virelia (now called The Gap Eternal) to honor what was lost:

They kneel among the reeds and close their eyes
Each Keeper hums a single note, barely audible
The reeds vibrate in response, creating a symphony of stillness — a reminder that even in absence, Nothing resonates

The ritual isn’t taught to children, but is witnessed from afar, so the Kingdom’s citizens know that the balance of doing and pausing is maintained without interference.

A New Philosophy

From that time, the Order teaches:

“The Gap is not merely a pause. It is the pulse of life itself.

"Guard it, respect it, and remember — a world without it will become its own silence.”

They instruct that every city, village, and home must cultivate its own small gaps: empty chairs, unfinished work, unclaimed fields. These become miniature reeds, subtle reminders of the universal rhythm.

The Eternal Watch

The Keepers of the Reeds never impose themselves on the Kingdom.
Instead, they wander like shadows, listening. They know when a citizen resists, when a town forgets, when the hum begins to rise. And when necessary, they plant a reed, or leave a stone with four words carved:

“From Nothing, all begins.”

In this way, the legacy of the wanderer, the First Leisure Day, the Strivers, and even Virelia's disappearance is preserved: Nothing is not absence. It is life’s quiet architecture.

Saturday

December 3, 2005

Attic Day wiki

What is Attic Day

Attic Day is one of two very important “ritual” days for the community of The Kingdom of Leisure (tKoL). The other is Field Mowing Day
While not clearly defined in exact terms — its meaning is somewhat elusive, intentionally ambiguous, and the creator seems to treat it more as tradition and feeling than a strictly defined holiday
It’s a time to reflect. Attic Day bookends the Slide — meaning, it serves as a counterpoint or companion to Field Mowing Day. One looks forward, the other looks back. Attic Day is about looking back, review, inventories of self or community, and perhaps reckoning with what’s been stored away (figuratively or even literally)

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When is Attic Day

December 3 since 2005

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Rituals & Offerings

On Attic Day, the site publishes “offerings” — reflections, creative pieces, even lists or thoughts about the past year. These are personal / communal retrospectives
There’s an implication of cataloguing things: what went well, what didn’t; what’s lingering; what’s beauty, what’s art; what’s healed, what remains. The past year (or years) is reviewed in terms of highs and lows
It’s not just nostalgia, but reckoning: acknowledging change, survival, scars, beauty, hope. There’s both the seeing-back and seeing-forward, as one learns from what’s behind

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Why it is important

It’s “the DNA” of tKoL. As the writings put it: “Within the Kingdom of Leisure two days have, historically, proven to be the most important of each year: Field Mowing Day and Attic Day”
These days create structure in otherwise creative, loose time — markers that allow the community and the author to pause, reflect, reorient. They help define the communal rhythm

The Slide wiki

What is The Slide

In The Kingdom of Leisure, “the Slide” is a metaphorical period of decline or descent — a time during which things grow darker, more difficult, or more challenging, before bottoming out and then (implicitly) reversing course. It’s a key part of their annual cycle.

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Key aspects of “the Slide”

Typically the slide begins on Field Mowing Day in late September or early October and ends on the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year: the winter solstice
There is reference to a “really long slide” in 2020 (covid quarantine), describing it as a “nine-month decline” that “felt like” it started earlier than usual
The idea is: we all “slide into darkness” (figuratively) during the months after Field Mowing Day, as daylight wanes, struggles accumulate, and the world feels more oppressive. Then after the solstice, the light returns incrementally (i.e., the “bottom” is passed)
The literature frames this as something that can be predicted and used: “aspects of our existence are predictable and we control how we function within that paradigm”

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Interpretation & symbolic meaning

It’s a cyclical frame: “the Slide” is the descent to the low point in the year, corresponding with the natural turning point of the seasons (winter solstice)
It’s not just seasonal or natural — it’s existential. The Slide is a time when troubles, darkness (literal and metaphorical), entropy, fatigue, confusion, discouragement may intensify
But part of the point is that one knows the Slide will end, so one can plan creative or restorative strategies (e.g. hibernation, reflection, internal work) rather than be overwhelmed
The Slide is contrasted with the return of light, renewal, and rebirth after the solstice — and is tied into the rhythm that includes Field Mowing Day and Attic Day

Field Mowing Day wiki

What is Field Mowing Day

In the Kingdom of Leisure, “Field Mowing Day” isn’t a literal event — it’s a metaphor or ritualized idea that fits within the Kingdom’s surreal, reflective mythology.

It represents a day of maintenance, clearing, and renewal — when the overgrowth of time, thought, and memory is trimmed back so that new ideas can breathe. In other words:

“Field Mowing Day” is when the artist or thinker cuts away the noise to rediscover the shape of the land beneath.

It’s a ceremonial act of simplification, both practical and poetic — the balancing counterpart to “Attic Day” (which deals with collecting, remembering, and sorting the past)

In the Kingdom of Leisure, Field Mowing Day dawns quietly. The light is gold and a little sleepy, as if the sun itself is reluctant to disturb the dew still clinging to the long grass.

“There’s no announcement, no schedule — people just know it’s time. You hear the low hum of old engines being coaxed awake: push mowers, trimmers, maybe even a scythe swishing through the green. The air smells like chlorophyll, sun-warmed oil, and distant coffee.

It’s a day of gentle industry — not about perfection, but care. You mow because the field deserves to breathe again. You stop often, looking at clouds, feeling the hum in your hands, the rhythm of maintenance merging with meditation.

By midday, the cut grass lies in patterns — stripes, swirls, odd unplanned shapes. The kingdom feels open again, its thoughts freshly aired. You might see someone pausing at the edge of the field, gazing at the horizon, wondering what will grow next.

By evening, there’s lemonade or beer, slow music, and the quiet pride of having done just enough. The day ends with long shadows and the sense that something invisible has been tidied up inside you, too.”

But what is Field Mowing Day

It’s an annual observance for Kingdom of Leisure/Middlespace, marked in September or Octobe
Descriptions refer to it with poetic/reflective art, sometimes labeled “Field Mowing”
It is both personal and collective: a time for introspection, reckonings, letting go of things, reassessments
Field Mowing Day is directly related to the Slide and Attic Day in the Kingdom of Leisure

Elements/Themes of the Ritual

Here are the implicit “ritual”-like components:

Reflection : People reflect on the past year (or past months), reviewing what’s changed, what’s held on, and what needs “mowing” away metaphorically
Reassessing Thresholds & Boundaries : The writings around Field Mowing Day tend to deal with boundaries — what to keep, what to remove. There’s language like “corners and edges,” “explorations and reconciliations”
Symbolic Letting Go/Clearing:  The idea of mowing suggests cutting back excess — what’s no longer needed — so that what’s essential or new can grow. It might be emotional, creative, relational
Marking Time/Change of Season : As a yearly event, it seems to punctuate a seasonal shift, perhaps tied to the decline of the year, the darkness increasing
Connection : Even though much of the writing is introspective, there seems to be a shared sense among the “Middlespace Cadets” (the community) that they are participating together in this shift, this ritual

Thursday

FMD 10.10.25

Wednesday

Monday

middlespacing

Thursday

Field Mowing Day 2025

Tuesday

Stories About People I Knew - Chris Davis

Somehow peacocks became a recent recurring topic. First, there was a radio discussion about people who keep peacocks as pets, wild peacocks in residential communities, and peacocks as meals (and how it’s served). People called in with their peacock anecdotes and facts.

Another instance was when my friend Noah mentioned in a group text his excitement for seeing peacocks during an approaching trip to India. I guess he's never encountered peacocks. I had no need to share my experience.

I know peacocks. I’m from Los Angeles. I grew up thinking peacocks were normal birds that just walked around. I thought that the presence of peacocks was how you knew you were in a rich neighborhood. Peacocks are truly spectacular in person, sure. But they are also kooky, mean, aggressive divas whose screeches sound like torturous murder. They do not care about your expensive car.

Their feathers are a thing too; in that moneyed hippie vibe like jade but skewing a bit younger than jade. Peacock feathers in a vase is a core Los Angeles childhood memory.

People who grew up with peacocks in their neighborhoods typically hate peacocks. It’s like in Berkeley where tom turkeys are bullying our softer human citizenry—turkeys are the new gangs of Berkeley. The turkeys were cute until they were dreaded. Like peacocks.

Chris Davis hated peacocks. Chris Davis was someone I knew in the early eighties who I now understand was influential to the development and evolution of me as this person. Chris hated peacocks because he grew up with peacocks in his neighborhood.

I met Chris when I was working my way into Freelancers in 1982. I somehow persuaded the southern California members to allow me to attend a rehearsal, then attend weekly rehearsals in the San Fernando Valley, on Sepulveda Blvd. These musicians were all well into collegiate music programs. I was a senior in high school and those practices were an hour drive each way. At night. Explain to your mother that, no, no other high school kids are involved and it's not a sex cult. But I had a shitty car, a bright orange older model 4-speed Toyota Corolla without a name, and off I went. That small group--about a half-dozen--consisted of the most talented individual percussionists I’ve still ever known. I was the wonder kid from Claremont but I was not that-level talented. Yet. I was actually astounded by what I witnessed. And I was by far the youngest and least experienced, a frightened newbie.

The SoCal Freelancers were also some of the most culturally comfortable people I had met to that point. I hadn’t yet experienced that level of personal comfort and self-satisfaction within my generation. At least that’s how they presented themselves; as if existence was already fully formed around them but they couldn't be bothered with any of that. These people were as comfortably assured as any music professional I'd ever met. At that time I was only beginning to transition from my teenage introvert phase; half-cocky, half-terrified. Aspirational. But here I was among people way more talented. I was not in their league.

I don’t remember if they invited me back but I kept coming back for some reason. For two years I showed up and rehearsed and performed and toured with these people as far as Montreal and Atlanta. No one ever told me if I had made it but I suppose I had. I was in, not out.

Chris "Fuckin'" Davis was the bad boy of the Valley group. He had a shitty car too, a primered, beaten, older model Ford Capri called the Black Phantom. Chris smoked, drank, and F-bombed more than anyone I ever knew. He was the first person whom I knew to unironically like Mötley Crüe (I was a “music program” nerd). I think Chris dabbled in community college but nothing serious. But Chris was wildly talented, blessed with unbelievable skills in the crudest of packaging. As a drummer, he had hands of gold and exceptional timing. And he knew exactly how good he was too. Nicknamed Jackrabbit, not for his drumming but because a cop once exclaimed, "look at that jackrabbit run!" as Chris drunkenly evaded arrest. Chris was bigger than life and had no cares. He never worked especially hard.

Chris definitely vibed me when I first showed on the scene, he tested limits and flexed his credibility. He was dismissive of my presence, and negative toward my skills. He may not have talked to me directly for the first three months or more. Surely he laughed in my face and told me I sucked. I told people there was this one dude there who just hated me. This was all such a shock to me since I was the hot shot from the Inland Empire. I was the one who held the room back home but now I was nowhere near any conversation.

I somehow held it all together and I never let the depth of the shock show. I actually just kept trying. Well, I couldn’t quit because I wouldn’t be able to maintain any credibility back home. If I quit I would be laughed at just as I would laugh at any retreating failure. So I committed and worked.

Chris Davis’s personality was amazingly complete at the time. Then I found out his truth and was able to see through the performance and see the dude. Chris turned out to be a rich kid cos playing bad boy because he could get away with it. My beautiful blue-eyed rich kid bad boy was the son of a petroleum company CEO. Chris was privileged and that changed everything.

Chris was from Palos Verdes Estates—PVE—where peacocks roamed freely. Chris had a shitty car because he could afford to have a shitty car. Chris hated peacocks.

At the time PVE was to new money what Claremont was to old. All money, not that I had any, looked down on Valley money so Chris and I slowly developed an awkward connection. Through an inherent resentment I think we understood each other well. But I had to earn Chris’s respect as a player. I think the combination of learning more about his background and no longer fearing him, along with my skill development freed us to develop something that became an awkward friendship. We never hung out outside of music but we were all in with each other inside of the music world. Chris could trust my performance because knew my approach.

I’m sure I annoyed the crap out of Chris because I figured him out quickly. I believe he knew that I genuinely admired his talent. He paid attention to me and eventually allowed me to me learn from him and the others. He knew I cared about the nuances of technique and performance and I think he respected that. He called bullshit on bullshit. The respect was mutual.

He could be the rich kid and he could be the bad boy because he had skills. Nobody cared past that. I could be the music nerd with the awkward personality because I developed skills. Nobody cared past that.

I also learned a little bit about the application of the bad boy act. I learned how and where I could ultimately deploy it thanks to Chris. That group toughened me up. Those Freelancers taught me that talent is all that ultimately mattered. Chris taught me that we could always be who we want to be, not who we were born to be or somehow destined to be. He had that privilege.

But then, after a couple of years, I needed more. I moved up and away to the next level and became one of the most talented people on the whole scene surpassing many of my talented peers. It was a blur for years. I can't remember most of it.

The last time I saw Chris was in 1987, three years after I left Freelancers, when I was the lead dude for the biggest gig in the world, Vanguard. At a venue in southern California I happened to walk past Chris and he looked and me, smiled, and said without irony, "Vanguard sucks." It was Chris's highest compliment; endorsement that I had made it.

Skills. Nobody cares past that. I learned so much from these experiences and Chris Davis has surely informed my existence. RIP Chris Davis. I will definitely pour some out for you, Jackrabbit.