The Boont Dusties

Questions no one has ever asked, as answered by Wood Dog (Garrett)

1. What is a Boont Dustie?

In order to understand the meaning of this word, we must start with its history. What better source of reliable information than the Anderson Valley Beer website:

“In the 1800’s, Anderson Valley was an isolated and quite provincial farming and logging community. Life was hard, and entertainment was a luxury. Sometime around 1880, a small group of Anderson Valley residents created a few slang words to use in their private conversations, both for their own amusement, and to confound anyone who might overhear them harpin’ (talking). They created new words as they went, trying to shark (stump) their companions. Over time the vocabulary grew, as did the number of people familiar with it. Eventually, every resident of the valley had at least some knowledge of Boontling (Boonville Language), as the lingo came to be called. For many, Boontling actually became their primary language, and they had difficulty reverting to English when circumstances required it. ”

So roughly translated, the word “Boont Dustie” is a Boontling word that means the Boonville Cemetary, or the people residing there.

2. So what the hell does that have to do with anything?

Let me start this way. I am part of a loose tribe of friends that found themselves in a situation that strangely mirrors this Anderson Valley niche culture. Just like the poor folks of Boonville - I too found myself stuck in a shitty little town called Brentwood, Ca - and as a matter of pure survival, became immersed in a circle of friends who had to create their own cultural identity.

We had a lot of options for how we could have turned out, and thankfully we didn’t all end up worshipping at the altar of Marilyn Manson. One of the things that I think makes us special is that we didn’t really use the default and turn into a bunch of “punks”. That is, we didn’t use words like “diy” or have a food not bombs - but what sprang out of our tribe were things that were genuinely our own. Just like the book we found in our high school library regarding the history of Boontling - we had created our own protected, and quite funny, community.

I don’t mean to be exclusive. However inside our jokes are - I still think that any group of people who feel they have their own secret language, who have a “difficulty reverting back to [the rest of the world] when circumstance require it”, and who value their friends more than anything - are, in essence, doing the exact same thing as the Boont Dusties. This option is open to everyone.

I’m interested in the idea, but I’m not really an authority on how other groups of kids fit this same model. I see similar trends and patterns in other folks in my generation - and I also see moments when my specific group of friends are the only people laughing in the movie theatre. Where is it universal to my generation and where is it specific to just our little circle of 20 or so? I’m in the process of figuring it out.

I think that what I’m really interested in is finding glory in one’s local identity and group of friends and knowing that one day we will all disappear. The people right here around us are the most important things in life - and I want to dwell on the details.

3. That sounds pretty hippy-dippy. Does the word mean anything a little more tangiable?

I’m glad you never asked. The Boont Dusties was also the name of band. Well, sortof. Back in high school Jake and Josh prophesized that their ridiculous musical outfit the Perpetual Elvis Machine(P.E.M.) would record under four different band names - each of which who would be imaginary “influences” on the P.E.M. Back in highschool Anonymous Josh and Captain Inconspicuous(Jake) were pretty intrigued with the idea of Boontling and thought it would be cool to one day create a cowboy/folk band as one of those “influences.”

Then something magical happened. The last year any of us lived in Aracta, when we were all in our early twenties, we chose to actualize this band name and we recorded an album virtually in one night. It consists of our drunk friends playing folk songs we barely knew, one last time before we began to really break apart from eachother. The album that was self-released and never distributed was called “Songs Our Parents Might Like”. The Boont Dusties was just one piece of the puzzle. What happens when all the albums the perpetual elvis machine spoke of are eventually made? Will the planets unite and the heavens burst open? The wierdest thing of all is to think that their idea was some sort of crazy futuristic vision that “created” the past that would be our future! Whoa!!!

4. I said cool it with the hippie shit. Give me something to work with you here. You’ve mentioned your highschool friends and Jake and Josh - but who are these tribesmen you keep speaking of?

Basically my tribe - the Boont Dusties, The Dinosaurs, the Goners, what have you - are just a group of friends from highschool who just can’t seem to really seperate, having moved from the Bay Area, Ca to Humboldt County in one large mass migration, and now trickling up to Seattle over the last year. People have tacked onto the group in the college years in Arcata, we keep growing. It’s all very loosely defined. They are the makers of the all the music you’ll find on the site, and also a great source of my inspiration.

One day I’d like more contributions from them, and to have the site branch off into little parts for each of their individual endeavours to showcase themselves as individuals. The difficulty is getting them to even use email, as I believe that out of the twenty people we’re talking about here, I am the only one with a functional computer.

5. Okay, okay so what is this website really about? It seems like when you do post it’s actually about pretty random shit?

I’ve been contemplating the reasoning behind even attempting a website project like this - Is it really just for my friends to keep as a reference of all our artifacts even though most of them have shoddy internet access? A central location to display my found items? A place for me to cry about my most pathetic moments with girls or to freak out about aliens? All of the above?

I guess I just want to leave some sort of legacy behind, in the off chance it gets stumbled upon by some kid in the future. As humans, we’ve been doing this since the cave-paintings (or even before). Maybe I’m ruining the grandeur by being conscious of what I’m doing - but I think in the long run, I’m not. When I’m dust, and kids are finally getting to ride their hoverboards, and the technopagans are in control of the government - who knows whom might stumble upon my little archived nook on the internet. What will they see when they peruse this site? I’d like to think an inspired portrait of a group of stupid friends who came to this moutaintop union (which sometimes included our minds, and sometimes our genitals) . I’d like to think reading of my failed craigslist love endeavor might one day give someone the chills just like it does for me everytime I unearth some lost photograph or street shuffling love-note.

6. Yeah, speaking of which - What’s the deal with all the found artifacts as of late?

I haven’t figured it out 100% yet - but I guess I’d like to try to figure out the relationship between the things I find in thrift stores and my interests with understanding my group of friends. For me, in this whole fascination with anonymous artificats from previous times, there has always been one lower part of the endeavor that was just trying to find something more revealing and more odd than other people. It was an ego-driven attempt to “outdo” them. I remember reading in a recent issue of Found about how college kids collect tacky shit from thrift stores trying to be ironic, and I definitely understand the desire to scoff. But I think a lot of the time there is something greater about trying to find a genuine human connection to people from a historical past. Or the people right around you. You do not know how many times I’ve be caught by my friends trying to take a peek at their diary shoved under their bed.