I am Not An Influencer

I am not an influencer. I am not among the young and the photogenic. You will not see me doing yoga on an idyllic beach next to my pristine VW Bus. If I get ten likes on one of my Instagram photos (idtao40) it’s a good day. I am willfully clueless when it comes to monetizing any of my online stuff or establishing a “Brand” that connects with a wide audience. I am just a dude in a Japanese minivan traveling around, drinking cheap red wine or Keystone Light, and writing about what he sees. I am not an influencer but I wouldn’t mind if I could do just this, but everytime I try and play nice and use the right tags and all that I vomit up blood for a week and end up sobbing in the fetal position so…

Here we are.

I am not an influencer. I live in a van, sometimes down by a river. I eat hot dogs and salami too often, I believe the last time I ate kale no one had heard of Covid 19. Birds obsesses me, I am always looking around for them and if I hear one calling out, I have to find it. Birds and rocks, which is why it is my favorite place is the desert; I dig that geological shit. Think of the driest, most miserable and barren place you’ve ever experienced; I’ve probably been there and soiled myself with delight when I found it. Most of what I own is in the van (the rest is in a small closet in a medium sized house in a small town). My life is 40 square feet and, for the moment, it works for me. I recently spent four months in my hometown (Sacramento, California) and was reminded that having a normal job/living in a city/commuting does not work for me. But I got a broken tooth fixed and recorded a bunch of songs so the time was productive. And instructional.

I am not an influencer, I do not have a dog with a bandanna (also smiling for the pictures). When I appear shirtless in public people scream in horror and scramble to cover their children’s eyes. Van life is not beautiful, flexible people living in classic German vans and smiling while, after, and before eating avocados or other healthy stuff I could not identify nor do I want to. Van life is sometimes pissing in a Snapple bottle in the middle of the night because there is no cover nearby (like when you’re parked at a truck stop). Van life is being close to nature, the good and the bad: Dealing with solar panels in the wind, doing outdoor stuff in the rain, but also watching the sun moving over the mountains in the desert or watching birds do that bird thing. For the record, my grasp of ornithology is pretty much non existenct; I can identify crows and ravens otherwise it’s “little chirpy dude” or “little finch-like dude” or “some kinda mid sized bukka bukka bird."

I am not an influencer. I am a cranky, not young man with an acerbic sense of humor and a disgust for this modern world, how it dehumanizes us, forces us to live and work at an unhealthy pace. I detest the expectations ground into us about money and acheivements and education and a career. I have seen too many people who play the game and build their 401k and live with all this stress so they can retire at 60 and have a secure retirement and…

They die months or weeks or even days after retirement after all the years of stress on their hearts and bodies. My friends, you can go to a gym and eat kale and free range dirt but stress does not give a flying fuck.

I am not an influencer or a writer or a musician or an explorer, I am just Izaak