The Indelible Robert Kaye

Earth Orbit

Necessary preamble circa 1996(ish): Earth Orbit comprised seven units of two, adjacent, four-unit apartment buildings in San Luis Obispo, CA. Over time it was colonized by friends, coders, futurists, burners and freaks until only one unit was occupied by regular working people (ie “the normals”). The seven units were connected by a LAN network and engaged in all sorts of parties, events and shenanigans.

Basically, the mOOn was a black-lit, oft-filthy, open door communal bong den full of couches, psychedelic literature and a fair few attractive/intelligent/interesting 20–40-something people, either residents of SLO or passing between LA and San Francisco (guilty as charged). Man was I fucked up over there sometimes (cue mandatory penalty hit for saying I was high). True believers were painted naked by the mob in day glow body paint and squished upon the ceiling — a bizarre ritual I never understood though I’m proud to have been “the guy with the boner” above the bathroom hallway.

At the time I was introduced to the scene, the mOOn was inhabited by two big-hearted, whip-sharp, wild-haired unpredictable madmen: Moorlock the Acid Sorcerer and Robert Kaye, Rest in Peace, otherwise known as Chaos & Mayhem. I seem to remember Rob driving a Miata at some point (imagine!) with a license plate reading RUAOK, a phrase Rob could intelligibly belch over the course of ten or so seconds. Here are five indelible memories:

1. The Duck Pâté

One Thursday, late morning, I went over to the mOOn to see if anyone was still around after the Wednesday party. I get there and there’s like three or four reprobates talking shit on the couch, reading zines, smoking weed. Place is a total mess but the vibe is very much triphop chill room so I sit down… and suddenly Rob, this guy I’d only just met — a hulking, bare-chested German dude with green hair, a miniskirt and a nipple piercing — bursts out of one of the bedrooms and thunders: “If you fuckers are still here you can either start cleaning or get the fuck out — there’s the vacuum cleaner, there’s the sink. OH MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE THAT THERE?!”

And he stomps across the room to where Moorlock’s cat is chowing down on what looks to be the contents of a can of cat food but was, in fact, Rob’s imported $40 duck pâté, and he just barehands it off the carpet, shakes it at us like he’s going to throw it (“Dude, I just got here!”), dunks it into the trash, storms back into his room and slams the door.

2. The Jehovah’s Witnesses

This is a story Rob told me: He’s in his room at the mOOn working and he gets a message over the LAN network: the Jehovah’s Witnesses just rang one of the other unit’s door. Rob is giddy with excitement. They’ll be here any minute! He strips off all his clothes, picks up some satanic graphic novel off the shelves, decides what he’s going to say, the knock comes annnnd: it’s the UPS guy.

3. The Potato Cannon

One of my pictures is from Burning Man with Rob holding a pressurized air gun he built out of PVC and a SCUBA tank. He’d made it so people could shoot potatoes at bowling pins from a hundred yards away at Burning Man which is probably the most fun I’ve ever had bowling.

The first time I saw this contraption was at the mOOn where Rob had filled the chamber with ground harmaline (harmine?) seeds which would, supposedly, glow under blacklight. He put on coveralls and paint goggles and had someone blast him full frontal —thoomp!— leaving Rob’s silhouette in seed paste against the wall. Verdict: didn’t glow all that great really. (Sidenote: against all odds they did, in fact, get their deposit back from the landlords)

4. The Underwater Scallop

The last time I ever went Scuba diving was with Rob when he came to visit me on Catalina where I was working. He was always a big, loud lumbering guy on earth (don’t call him fat!) but underwater he was graceful as a fing seal. Economy of movement. Conservation of air and energy. Neutral buoyancy. Confidently weaving along through the kelp.

He told me on one dive he brought a hypodermic needle full of wasabi and soy sauce and when he found a scallop, he pried it off the rock, popped the shell open, injected the soy/wasabi into the flesh and straight up ate the thing underwater. Until we went diving I thought he was bullshitting. After, I wouldn’t put it past him.

5. The Wedding

I hereby enclose a picture from our wedding: see if you can pick Rob out. Dude was a grumbling, capable force of nature October 8th, ’05 on a beach in Cayucos, with Moorlock and Greg Junell as co-ministers. Rob was clearly upset about something — he wasn’t a guy to hide his feelings — but it wasn’t at me (this time!) and he was there to help and had given his word so he not only set up but rectified the whole malfunctioning sound system so we could have music and microphones and just the best time ever. Eternally grateful to Rob for that and many other things besides.

Who him? Oh, that’s just my crazy-haired, tye-dyed, cross-dressed, mismatched, multi-lingual, open-source, half-German psychedelic tech savant buddy saving the day in a bad mood.