Crazy Crap Item #52: The part where I give a shout out to the Potts

Looking at my extended family, it's clear I have the least-likely relatives. Seriously. None of my cousins look or seem like they should be in any way connected to me. They don't look like me. They don't act like me. Nada.

But of all my cousins, the least likely of all were the Potts boys. I use the term 'boys' loosely; all three are well over 6 feet tall. And gangly. And oddly alternative, though not in the tired, flannel-wearing, trendier-than-though Seattle way.

No, I'm talking 6 foot 5, eye-glass-wearing, punk-music-playing, art-school-attending, plumbing store-owning oddness. Fabulous, fabulous oddness.

But perhaps I should back up a bit.

The Potts, consisting of:

Norm Potts: the uncle, my dad's brother-in-law, now sadly deceased. Enormously tall, with a visage like a character out of a Dickens novel. He owned a plumbing supply store, the aptly named Potts Plumbing. It was legendary all over San Gabriel Valley for its remarkable inventory, helpful staff, and sexy stock girls. I should know. I worked there during the summers.

Anyway, Norm was splendid, a quiet, wry giant, with a stealthy sense of humor that sneaked in around the edges. He was slow and meditative, and he'd regularly steal nips from a mysterious bottle he kept stashed in the plumbing store breakroom. He referred to it as his "cough syrup"; when ever he went in for a nip, he'd pound his chest, hack, and declare that he felt a spell coming on. At some point, my sister added a label to the bottle. "Hazardous Material."

Aunt Doris: my father's sister. Sharp-witted, often sharp-tongued, she once commented that her favorite character was Lady Macbeth. She was resolutely non-girly, except when it came to baking. Then, she was all-girl.

The Potts house was a thing of glory and wonder to a small child. They had an abundance of, yes, crazy crap. Such as the dried blowfish on the mantle. And Uncle Norm's stand-up bass fiddle in the living room (I never heard him play). And a rinky tink piano in the dining room. And an authentic pachinko game in one of the bedrooms. And an honest-to-god geodesic dome in the backyard.

And of course, the house was strewed with a variety of art projects created by the Potts boys. My favorite: a terrarium containing a tiny model village, being destroyed by a rampaging monster consisting of parts from a mailman, a dog, and Godzilla.

And since I've introduced their art projects, I might as well get to the boys themselves.

Tom: The eldest, tall and lanky with a big, mountain-man beard. Tom worked the 6am to 2pm shift at the plumbing store. Highly educated, but changed his major so frequently, rumor was they kicked him out before he earned his degree. He also helped numerous friends ace the GREs. A bit of a loner, he joins me in being the only member of our extended family to (gasp!) leave Southern California. A few years after I moved to Chicago, he bought a unibomber style cabin in Montana. Mountain man Tom we call him. From thence, he runs an online business connecting people with faucet stems, in tandem with his brother Joe (see below). Joe just launched their website. Don't miss Joe's cartoon rendition of his brother in the "Ask Tom" section.

Joe: The next brother down, but just as tall and lanky. I recall a sort of outgrown mop-top haircut. In fact, what with the artsyness and longish hair, I remember thinking as a small child that there was some unspoken connection between my cousins and The Beatles. It didn't help that he later married a woman of Japanese-American descent. Sure, she looked nothing like Yoko Ono, but what did I know?

Anyhoo, Joe was artsy with a capital A. He created funky pieces, and may have attended CalArts or some such long-haired institution. He was also part of LA's avantgarde punkish music scene, and made quite a name for himself. I like this write-up, which refers to his "strange sound pieces." Joe, like Tom, also plied his wares at the plumbing store by day. He was a crazy punk artists only in his off-hours.

Unlike Rick, who broke with tradition and forsook plumbing altogether, kind of like when Tevye's daughter leaves the faith in Fiddler on the Roof. Kind of. Like Joe, Rick dabbled in "strange sound recordings" -- both were part of the The Los Angeles Free Music Society, a movement I've never heard of until I started randomly googling all my relatives. Rick once entertained us with an improvised piano piece, in which the left and right hand parts are in different keys. Very freaky. When Rick got married, the theme was dinosaurs. The invitation had a photo of him and his betrothed in front of the Cabazon dinosaurs (near where my parents now live; alarming). The ceremony and reception were held in his parents' backyard; toy dinosaurs dressed as brides and grooms were hidden throughout the shrubbery. The cake had an erupting volcano. Awesome.

So this is a shout out to the Potts. Long may you wave.