Tornado Games

*a relevant repost from 2008, as the season of my idiotic discontent and potential relocation to Oz is fast approaching, meterologically-speaking...*

More than one somewhat aghast work or writing colleague has offered the observation -- after reading my various tornado chasing columns -- that I appear to enjoy "living my life on the edge". And that's the more civil version.

Hawgwarsh. My life is about as exciting as a popcorn fart, long as it's not unleashed in a crowded elevator.

How someone lives their life often differs considerably between reality and perception. To me, someone who rock climbs, hang glides, races crotch-rocket motorcycles, wrestles alligators, runs with bulls, or teaches a class of five year olds...now those people are living their lives on the edge. Comparatively-speaking, my brand of storm chasing for photos is relatively risk-free. Moreso than the offers to give me the business I get from the Nigerian and Russian 419ers; and it's probably safer than my daily commute to work, playing golf, or asking a woman out for a date after 50.

Now that's living my life on the edge, especially the latter, but I digress.

Tornado chasing can be easily and safely done from the comfort of your easy chair, merely by ordering the DVDs of it from The Weather Channel. But for me, that's too boring (and I already have the videos). So I enhance the experience with a little reading, a little research, and a little donating my sparse supply of common sense for redistribution in a future gene pool (according to some of you).

In any event, my other reason for partaking is simple: I want my own photos. It's really no more complicated than that. Call me a tornado art snob if you will; I simply want to shoot, frame, and hang, my own photos. Period.

And don't think for a moment that the storms haven't noticed.

They know that if schedules coincide, I'll be right there, camera in hand and sphincter in check (perhaps), depending on the success of my angle of pursuit. A storm knows this; and a tornadic storm may actually appreciate it.

Uh, not my peeing on it, but what follows next.

Follow my (assumed) logic hyar: if a tornado thinks about it, it will be flattered. It has, at the absolute best, a two-three hour shelf-clearing/flattening/scattering life on this Earth. I think fruit flies might live longer. If I -- or anyone -- catches a particular tornadic image on film, that one storm achieves immortality. Fame. Recognition. It potentially gets air time and honorable mention from Seattle to Miami, from weather babes the likes of Becky Ditchfield or Kathy Sabine (Denver's KUSA 9), as well as highlighted on future National Weather Service/The Weather Channel videos.

Think that most young, aspiring hook-echoes don't dream of this? Think again. What makes you think a tornado has any less desire for it's 15 minutes of fame, than any human lunkhead who goes on Who Wants To Make A Fool Of Themselves On National TV In A Faux Reality Show? Don't you think a tornado -- casually dismissed as a mindless, arbitrary leviathan, a violent anomaly of meteorological Nature -- craves a little limelight and recognition, too?

Count on it.

If lawyers can argue that sand has rights, if vegans can argue that chickens have hopes, dreams and a genuine appreciation for Thanksgiving, wouldn't it logically follow that something far more awesome and powerful than sand or chickens, would wish to aspire to something greater than a mere EF rating on The Weather Channel?

Of course, I don't wish for those rogue leviathans, seeking the kind of fame suggested, tearing into populated areas. Too many achieve infamy with just such demonstrations, and more are sure to in the future (and recently did in 2010 Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, etc).

But hereabouts, there's no need for that: there's plenty of room on the eastern plains of Colorado, plenty of open, sparsely-populated space where a fame-hungry tornado can do all the dusty dirty dancing with the stars, haystacks, fence posts and random farm implements it desires; where it can say to a fellow funnel, "it sucks to be you", and mean it as a compliment; where it can go where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word -- since deer and antelope don't apparently have an audible discouraging equivalent for "oh SH**!" -- and the skies can stay stormy at least some of the day.

Unless it miscalculates and shows up near some inhabitation, and everything Man and otherwise scatters with a torrent of "oh SH**!"s, or whatever the animal equivalent might be after all.

Which could digress to another issue: tornadic psychological problems. But that's another story, one better taken up by Dr. Laura or Dr. Phil, and not moi.

So to those who think I'm living my life on the edge by trying a little tornado photography, I hope you now realize I'm merely performing a somewhat pseudo meteorological service, with a side of self-service therein, for the greater good of a misunderstood creation of Nature and some wall decorations at home.

Though, being thrice-concussed, I will admit I probably have a screw loose. I can occasionally hear it rattling around in there.

Anyway, perhaps one day I shall give up my photo pursuit of the leviathan: some schmuck lawyer might get around to suggesting down the road that I'm shamelessly contributing to the delinquency of a tornado by trying to photograph their antics, and right there will be the ACLU*, peeing in my Wheaties. *Sigh*

*American Cyclonic Liberties Union...some bastard lawyers are into anything these days...