I am in shock; explanation here.
For the next few days I will miss your deadlines, and not return your emails. Todd is all I care about right now, and I’m now in phone contact with people who are there with him. Light a candle and hope with me. An SRL member — a close friend — just put it best in an email,
“Things are looking good.
Modern medicine.
The’re look to stop the coma drugs ’round Weds/Thurs.
We’ll all know more then.
I will keep you in the smallest loop possible.
Fuck the SRL drama.
Todd is more special to you than anyone here.
I know that.
It has been a very hard time for us all.
Much stress and many tears.
And it breaks my heart to tell you all of this.
I don’t believe in God,
But let us all pray for Todd.
Our friend.
Our love.
He will be alright.
He will be.
Alright.”
I’m fighting the urge to dig out all of our old wedding photos. This is Todd’s site, in case you’re wondering who my sweet, brilliant, wonderful ex-husband is.
Hacker Boy is here with Thai food and Resident Evil DVDs.
Update: here is my altar, full of love and healing. I just talked to Todd’s dad, and he’s in optimistic spirits.
Update 9/27: There is a blog for Todd here; a PayPal donation fund for Todd and Alex (his love) here. Todd’s accident was blogged on Laughing Squid and Boing Boing. I have a personal update about Todd, who he is, with video and images, medical details about the injury, and what this all means to me after the jump.
* * * * * * *
The darkness defines the light.
Image: Todd, Dan, Kent and Johnny, as we loaded in for the San Jose show last summer.
According to medical information I’m getting in regular phone calls with Todd’s dad, I’ve learned more about what happened and have a better understanding of his current condition. This post by Eric Paulos explains what happened when the accident occurred, though I’ve also received other first-hand emails from people on the scene that fill in more blanks (the kind of details an SRL alumni like myself would want to know). Eric told me as we both cried on the phone that he “channeled” me, regaling Todd with stories of our trips together and SRL stories, trying to make me as “there” as possible. “Violet, I told him how much you wanted to be here.”
Having more information has made this horribleness much more tactile to process and cope. It’s a shame that due to petty (and now, repulsive) internal SRL politics that I have been kept off mailing lists that have information and updates, despite my repeated requests and pleas to be added to the list; lucky for me many crew members have been forwarding me updates. Also, Todd’s actual family keep insisting that I call them directly, and that’s all I need.
The facts help me cope.
If you’ve peeped the Todd blog, you’ll see that the main focus is on keeping Todd’s internal cranial pressure low. As told to me by Todd’s father, a set (a constructed tower) fell and struck Todd in the head, to the ground. Todd received two acute subdural hematomas; one was evident but from what I understand, the other was not until the surgeons were performing the craniotomy that they saw the second ASDH (again, this is bleeding inside the brain that the surgeons identify, control with suction or irrigation, and control the site of bleeding). They removed part of his skull and a section of his brain; as Todd’s dad explained to me, the neurosurgeons said it’s the part of the brain that’s understood the least, and where they think consciousness is housed. So like everything, whether or not the missing bit will mean or change anything is a huge question mark. (A question we’re all answering with optimism. I plan on asking Todd what he’s going to store in that extra space, or if he can add a hard drive, or more memory.)
They induced a coma through sedation drugs to keep cranial pressure low — and surgical decompression, a drainage tube. That’s why on the blog they keep applauding low pressure numbers; it’s a good thing. Over the next couple days they’ll keep taking him off the sedation drugs and see what happens; make sure his brain takes over its proper functions. If — when — Todd wakes up, he’ll get a a complete neurological examination.
So, who is this guy I married?
I’m sure it’s a surprise to many regular readers that I was once betrothed, though it’s no surprise that it was to someone totally unconventional and brilliant, and even the ceremony was way outside the norm — we had a private ceremony, officiated by someone Todd and I were/are very close to (Laurel True; we have matching tattoos), then we had a huge costume party at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (thanks to old SRL alum Mike Dingle). The party was attended by all of our friends and family; my (now deceased lover and friend) Jesse, Bastiaan Maris and his wife Megan flew in from Berlin, Vordo DJ’d, Todd’s closest friends Tim North and Susan Manu (who later became my friends and extended family as well), Mark Pauline and Matt Heckert saw each other face-to-face for the first time in years, and it was packed, fun, sweet and silly.
Todd grew up in Lawrence, Kansas — and being 12 years older than me, it was quite a while ago. He always regaled me with stories about going to punk shows in Kansas City, and how some of the most beautiful, formative and important moments growing up happened for him while caring for and riding horses in his local stables. He was a city/farm hybrid — and his passion for horses often almost hilariously caused car accidents when we’d be driving somewhere and he’d shout “horse!” and point out the window.
He hooked up with a gal (I think) he met attending KU (he studied social work). They built a little retro hideaway together furnished with tons of vintage (and especially cowboy-inspired) collectibles, and shared a dog. Then they moved to San Francisco where she could pursue her food culture obsessions — and Todd was deeply involved in the early “foodie” scene here in SF as a result, which is another of his passions, fine food. He worked in the wine import business in San Francisco for quite a while (this is why I have the uncanny ability to walk into *any* store and pick a great red for around $10). I’m unclear about the breakup, but I know Todd missed the dog; he also lost a couple close gay friends to HIV/AIDS. Details about the rest of this time for him are unclear for me because when were were together I didn’t want to hear too many details about his exes. Around this time, I believe, he moved into one of the live/work art spaces next to the SRL shop.
Thus began the SRL chapter, and Todd’s entry into the industrial noise scene, and industrial/kinetic art scenes of the 1980s. This became his passion. Todd moved in with performance/noise artist Monte Cazazza, who also recorded some SRL soundtracks. Todd worked at SRL regularly — it was next door — and he had welding and machining skills from the industrial jobs he’d had while growing up in Kansas. At night, Todd would tell me, he’d tell Mark he’d close up the shop, and then stay as late as possible with the lathes and mills and tools, learning and experimenting and playing. SRL was quite different in those days and more people who worked there also lived there; it was a nonstop culture of industrial art creation.
Todd met another girl; this one a Swiss Miss who (actually) lived in Switzerland. I’m not sure how they met (yes, green eyed me, no details on ur exes, thanks), but it might have been when SRL did their infamous Europe tour. Todd told me so many great stories about that tour; hanging machines from inside giant abandoned industrial spaces, crazy volunteers, hard work and stinky payoffs. As befits the teenage-years of SRL, they were as one old-tyme fellow crew member recently told me, “assholes with bad table manners.” Those were the days, indeed.
Todd moved to Europe to be with his (then) sweetheart, and connected heavily with the industrial and kinetic arts scenes in many countries. He participated in and helped organize art festival projects like Time’s Up, and became very close with people like Bastiaan Maris, Eric Hobijn, Laura Kikauka, Gordon Monahan and many more. Todd worked on so many kinetic and experimental sound projects I couldn’t possibly list them all. This is where you begin to understand what those of us close to Todd have known all along — he has truly been the man behind the scenes at all the important junctures of the evolution of kinetic art. He’s just too modest to ever say so.
When I met Todd, it was in January, 1996 at my first SRL show; at the time I was the youngest new crew member and Todd was considering a move back to the US, dating an SRL girl here and still sort of seeing someone else in Europe. And flirting with me. Naughty, sweet Todd.
He moved back to San Francisco in 1996. At the time, I was taking the bus from Lower Haight several days a week (on my days off from retail hell) to go work at the shop and learn from Mark everything I could, and I was often the only person in the shop. I had to take a week off when I accidentally punctured the base of my left thumb with a piece of iron. (I had no insurance, it probably needed stitches, but I was a toughie. I still have a scar and my thumb doesn’t work very well; oddly, it’s been painful and non-functional for the past two weeks but I chalk that up to my failing laptop.) I remember showing up at the shop to show off my post-injury bruising, and walking right in to see Todd’s blue eyes and smiling face. Like sunshine.
We started dating, and the rest was… a hell of a lot of fun. Todd and the SRL guys taught me to drive a forklift. Todd taught me to use a Mac so I could write on something other than my clickety-clack 1930s Underwood. Maybe I married younger than I should have, but we had a blast being one of those SRL team-couples; working on and running machines together (especially the Inchworm and Running Machine). Todd’s day job was managing (then, now NY-based) kinetic and sound artist Chico MacMurtrie, and arranged the Amorphic Robot Works European tour. I was also spending time working a bit in Chico’s shop out in Hunter’s Point, so was invited to go as crew. We ran, broke, fixed, and ran dozens of robots (and dozens of performances) for three weeks in Lisbon (Portugal) and Berlin (we stayed in the east). We were in Portugal for my birthday, so Todd sneakily arranged for a drive down the beautiful coast, stopping at farmhouses to pet horses, and beaches so I could swim (I love being in water).
Berlin was a blast. The robot shows we worked on were in the same building as Laura and Gordon’s Schmaltzvault, an out-of-this-world funky bar decorated top to bottom in fake fur, cheesy Americana and a stage that had nightly bad, comb-over-and-polyester-suit musical performances. One night after the shows were over, Todd and I did a “performance” called “Spill the Wine”, where Gordon (a piano virtuoso) played and sung a bazillion renditions of that awful (I mean, heartfelt) song, and Todd and I dressed up and served wine from the stage. In the front row were a couple of the guys from Einstuerzende Neubauten — old friends of Todd’s as well. They were flirty and sweet. Bastiaan and Meagan were there too, as was Tim Boykett.
Back home again, working for Chico wasn’t going to continue, so Todd got a job working in exhibit services at the Exploratorium. As he put it, he basically would get a bucket of parts and a map of how the exhibit was *supposed* to work, meaning that he often had to make (or re-make) parts to assemble the pieces. Around this time, the dot-com boom hit SF and the house we were living in was sold. I had sold my first piece of writing to Gothic.net (at Todd’s encouragement) and I had started writing at Good Vibrations (also his encouragement). We were financially forced from San Francisco to Berkeley — which wound up working out well for both of us, despite the commute. Our landlord was none other than Thomas Farber, fiction professor at UC Berkeley, who also encouraged me to write and was as thrilled as Todd when I started on my first books.
Over in the East Bay, Todd networked with his friends Barry Schwartz and Barney Haynes, switched jobs to work for Exporatorium’s Joe Ansel — and started two essential, important channels. I strongly encouraged him to do both, of course. With Barney, they formed a new multidisciplinary arts division at CCAC (where Todd became a teacher, putting all those mad skillz to work and encouraging new artists). With Joe Ansel, they proposed, created and Todd curated Phaeno — an Exploratorium-like kinetic art museum in Wolfsburg, Germany. Todd dove into both, but Phaeno was his chance to take all the vast knowledge he has of the world’s most exciting (and in some cases, most unknown) kinetic, experimental and sound artists and get them funding, and into the museum space. I got to meet people like Trimpin and Arthur Ganson, which was really cool. This was about the time Todd taught me to drive a car.
At this point, Todd was in Germany for weeks at a time — and we were realizing we were becoming friends and housemates; our relationship had changed. But somehow, grew closer as we swore, promised, practically put into writing that we’d stay close friends and never forget the love and tenderness, no matter how painful the breakup. We did it.
Then, while we were housemates (post divorce), still working on SRL shows, etc., he met a girl. A really, *really* special girl. It still gives me goosebumps and watery eyes to think about how excited and electric he became when he met Alex. This was it, and we both knew it; they went together seamlessly. I was dating, but Todd was falling head over heels, and interestingly (for me), I was thrilled. That’s probably because she’s so extremely cool.
We both moved back to San Francisco, but into separate spaces and with new loves. Then, Todd moved back to the East Bay into a live/work space with Alex. (Yay!) Todd continued work on Phaeno, which took years longer than they thought, and he developed the CCAC program further. We stayed in touch regularly, and I’d visit his students’ shows, while he’d pop over for dinner or a drink and we’d catch up. But whenever there was an SRL show, we were like glue (even when we bickered).
Todd man-kissin’ John Law.
We’d reached the point of closeness, like with select old-time SRL members, where we could communicate wordlessly while forklifting and loading machines. We didn’t work together much on the San Jose show last year, as Todd was one of the main Zero One organizers (yay!), but for Maker Faire, it was pretty much just Todd and I loading in the machines.
Here’s a video of us messing around after the load in:
Todd really wanted me to go to Robodock, he pushed/urged me to push for it because the show was on my birthday, but that’s a story for another time.
So, that’s who Todd has been, and is, for me, through my eyes. I’m quite close with his dad and I adore/worship his stepmom; they’re keeping me close (via phone) as the days go by.
As Alex put it to me via phone at his bedside, “There isn’t a day Todd wakes up without a smile on his face.”
Wake up, love.
