strange adventure
Years ago, when I went to film/nostalgia conventions regularly, one time I went to one in Baton Rouge with a friend, Cliff Byrd. Cliff was a young freelance artist who had recently gotten married to a beautiful girl whose name I don't remember. He was a huge Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, which was appropriate because the guy who was putting on the convention was Caz Cazedessus, who at the time was considered the ultimate ERB authority on the planet. I was somewhat familiar with ERB (having read a lot of Tarzan books) and this particular subgenre of the whole collecting/fan deal but wasn't terribly interested in it.
Caz and I were friends I suppose, casual acquaintances really; he kept assuming, why I don't know, that I was an expert/huge fan of ERB though I kept telling him I wasn't. Once Cliff and I got to the convention, Caz offered to take us to 'his place' after the convention closed and said we could spend the night there. We both said, sure, why not? What neither Cliff nor I realized at the time was that Caz and his wife were in the process of splitting up, so later that night, Cliff and I and several others headed out in a caravan, not to his house in Baton Rouge, but a little place Caz had out in the woods. WAY out in the woods. It took us about two hours to get there. If you've ever driven through the backwoods of Louisiana or Mississippi, you know what I mean. It was hot and humid and dark and once we finally arrived, the house that was apparently Caz's retreat from the world (and his wife) was the same. No air conditioning, no nothing really. Absolutely miserable.
It was almost midnight by then. Caz and Cliff started going through his collection of ERB stuff and I was bored and tired and yes, a little drunk. I kept thinking, what the hell am I doing here? Cliff, who had stayed on the phone for literally hours back at the hotel with his new wife (sample conversation- I miss you... are you all right? repeat 50 times...) now seemed perfectly content in this backwater hellhole.
Finally, about three in the morning, I asked Caz if there was anywhere to go to sleep. He led Cliff and I up some stairs to a room that had two mattresses on the floor. No pillows, no blankets (not that we really needed any in this jungle) and said, there you go. Somewhat like the time on the hunting trip with Dad and Joe and the others, where I dreamed I was freezing to death in a metal shack and it was true, here I dreamed I was burning to death and being eaten by insects in a Louisiana shed that was slowly sinking into the swamp.
The next day, Cliff and I drove back to Fort Worth and I don't think I've ever wanted a shower so bad in my life.
Caz and I were friends I suppose, casual acquaintances really; he kept assuming, why I don't know, that I was an expert/huge fan of ERB though I kept telling him I wasn't. Once Cliff and I got to the convention, Caz offered to take us to 'his place' after the convention closed and said we could spend the night there. We both said, sure, why not? What neither Cliff nor I realized at the time was that Caz and his wife were in the process of splitting up, so later that night, Cliff and I and several others headed out in a caravan, not to his house in Baton Rouge, but a little place Caz had out in the woods. WAY out in the woods. It took us about two hours to get there. If you've ever driven through the backwoods of Louisiana or Mississippi, you know what I mean. It was hot and humid and dark and once we finally arrived, the house that was apparently Caz's retreat from the world (and his wife) was the same. No air conditioning, no nothing really. Absolutely miserable.
It was almost midnight by then. Caz and Cliff started going through his collection of ERB stuff and I was bored and tired and yes, a little drunk. I kept thinking, what the hell am I doing here? Cliff, who had stayed on the phone for literally hours back at the hotel with his new wife (sample conversation- I miss you... are you all right? repeat 50 times...) now seemed perfectly content in this backwater hellhole.
Finally, about three in the morning, I asked Caz if there was anywhere to go to sleep. He led Cliff and I up some stairs to a room that had two mattresses on the floor. No pillows, no blankets (not that we really needed any in this jungle) and said, there you go. Somewhat like the time on the hunting trip with Dad and Joe and the others, where I dreamed I was freezing to death in a metal shack and it was true, here I dreamed I was burning to death and being eaten by insects in a Louisiana shed that was slowly sinking into the swamp.
The next day, Cliff and I drove back to Fort Worth and I don't think I've ever wanted a shower so bad in my life.
posted by gbj at 6:37 PM
2 Comments:
True enthusiasts of almost any sort are very appealing, but they have a hard time accepting that anyone else could be less interested in the object of their fascination than they are.
I'm about as much of an outdoorsman as you are. My skin got sticky and itchy just reading this story. Florida climate has much in common with southern Louisiana and Mississippi as attested by the spanish moss that is at home in all three.
This is a great story!
Well neither of them was a particularly close friend, this trip was sort of a one-off deal. Caz used to be at all the conventions with a table of his publications and ERB-related memorabilia. He occupied his own little corner of the fan universe and had his followers but not too many really, because there just weren't that many ERB/Tarzan fans around.
But he was definitely the guy everyone called whenever they had a question relating to ERB.
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