Ronnie (he’s like a son to me.)

6 March 2025 Thursday 6 a.m. The Dead Letter Office (Starbucks)

Those of you following me know I sold my Boat to Ronnie. He’s a good kid. He’s fifty two years old. That aint a kid. To me that’s a kid. I say to him, “Ronnie, you’re like a son to me.” He gets a kick out of that. Anyway, Ronnie’s a good kid. Though it took him all last summer to actually buy my boat. I hung with him because I figured he was the one buyer apart from all the tire-kickers and looky-loos out there who think they might kinda sorta want to be a boater and own a big sad ass trawler like Scruffy. Ronnie was the real deal. He came thru in the end. He paid me what I asked for (which is the main reason I hung with him). It took him all summer, but he came up with the money. Quit his job down in L.A.. Got a job up here. Left his wife. He basically abandoned his normal life situation for this new life. The life of a Boat Bum. More politely, a Boat Dude. Not a Yachtsman, mind you. A Yachtsman plays at Boating like your Neighbor living in a house with a garage plays at Golf. A boat bum, on the other hand, is part of the life. The dock life: a sub-culture with a tradition. Boat Bums (Liveaboards) go way back.

Jack London was a Boat Bum, off and on, most of his life…

After the 1906 Earthquake, lots of people became liveaboards out of necessity. They occupied boats called Arks and lived on them full time.

The Ark, Julie Marlow, propped up on telephone pole stilts and attached to shore. Not a boat anymore. This is what Gentrification is all about. Robbing a thing of it’s soul. Well, but it’s a pretty little house, fit for a pretty little Yuppie.

I could go on and on with this historical shit. My point is simply there is a class of people here and around the world, who, through necessity or desire, live on the water, full time.

The True Blue Boat Person exists somewhere between the Yau Ma Tei boat people and this Fraud stepping aboard his inflatable dingy. Living aboard a boat that’s navigable or has the potential to become navigable (whether or not you choose to navigate it) would put you in the true blue category. A houseboat like those above do not under any circumstances navigate.

I’m living the Van Life these days

Which is yet another, you might say, sub-culture, although I hate that term. How about I use the term Fringe Dweller? Fringe Dweller. Yeah, I like that better. Has more of an edge. Fits the Van Life way better than sub-culture. The Van Life is a sub-culture, now more than ever, thanks to YouTube. But the Van Life cuts to the bone…especially if you’re living in a car parked on a city street. Van Life requires a degree of fanaticism. You gotta be like a hardcore minimalist to live in your minivan. And while the Boat Person is more often than not content with the lifestyle choice, a van lifer frequently enters into the contract out of dire straits. People join the Van Life because they lost their job and got evicted from a cherished pad. Recriminations often cloak the Van Life. The Van Life can alter your political thinking. You can go from reading Think And Grow Rich to The Communist Manifesto…like, overnight!

Who wins out in the end? I would argue the discredited and maligned Karl Marx. Not because Van Life has changed my thinking. Because Capitalism is tanked and is sinking fast, especially under this orange headed Maniac occupying the white house….

Anyway, where the fuck was I?

I was telling you how I’m a van lifer now, living in my converted mini van…and doing pretty well. Getting by on the cheap. Paying no rent. Occupying pristine stealth spots, with a pristine public toilet open 24 hours a day, with no cops cruising the van life beat, harassing my ass, etcetera and so on. I’m doing okay. I’m definitely not Van Life’n as a preferred choice, however. I’m doing the Van Life because I sold my boat to Ronnie. I’m living in my mini-van only until I find myself another boat. But why did I sell my boat in the first place, you ask? To be brief. I didn’t sell my boat. I unloaded it. Like you do a truckload of swag. It was a get your money and run deal. And now that I’m free of Scruffy I can find a boat more suited to my minimalist philosophy and negligible repair skills.

So I’ve been looking for a boat for a month and a half two months. Taking Dirk along to check-out the prospects. He’s already saved my ass from four disaster deals. boats I would’ve bought and found myself in much the same repair nightmare old Scruffy presented. This is all part of my plan: sell one boat and buy another. You don’t see a plan, you say? Well…this is how I plan things. No cart before the horse for me. More of a van before the boat thing. Anyway I’m looking yesterday on Craigslist. Hoping I’ll find that one good deal of a boat when out of the blue this post pops up…

CHB Trawler 36’ – $29,000 (sausalito)

Ronnie is selling my boat. Not my boat. His boat. The boat he just bought from me three months ago. Has it been three months? Seems like only yesterday. That’s what happens when you’re having so much fun living the van life. Time just breezes by. So I’m reading the post thinking I oughta call him, see what’s up, when he calls me. I play it cool about the ad I just saw. He wants to know how to fire up the engines. Says he hasn’t started them up in a while. I’m thinking maybe he hasn’t started them up at all. That’s no big deal. I went a year once without starting the engines.

“Do I just push the button next to the key?”

“Yeah.”

“Just like that?”

“First you gotta open the raw water valves.”

“Oh I did that.”

“Good. You’re good.”

“By the way,” he says. “You know anybody wants to buy this boat?”

“Ronnie! Don’t tell me you’re having buyer’s remorse.“

“No, not at all. Well…yeah, kinda.”

I don’t really need to know all the details. I kind of know already. Plus, I don’t wanna put him on the spot. All I can think to say is “Well I’ll be damned.”

“I kind of miss my house,” he says.

I tell him to call me if he has any trouble starting the engines.

Like I said earlier. It’s a sub-culture, the boating life. It’s not for everybody. He’s working stuff out with his wife. I hope it works out…all the way around.