Poppa Neutrino, born William David Pearlman, (October 15, 1933 in
Fresno
Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
– January 23, 2011 in
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
) was a musician, raft builder and "free spirit" who lived his life outside expected norms.
[ He has been called a modern primitive, a nomad, a permanent dropout, raftbuilder and musician.][Kamiya, Gary]
The Nomad ''The New York Times''
March 18, 2007. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
Biography
Inspired by a documentary he saw when he was twelve years old, in which Australian aborigines
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
periodically burnt their homes and walked away naked, free to start a new life, he taught "triadic thinking" and empowerment to people trapped by the concept of job and rent. Thus Poppa Neutrino built his own homes out of discarded materials on free space (public waterways
A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary ...
) and supported himself as a street musician. He changed his name at the age of 52 after surviving a severe illness.[
Neutrino built several rafts out of donated and recycled materials on which he lived and sailed. In 1997-98 Poppa Neutrino sailed one of his homemade ]junk raft
A junk raft is a type of home-built watercraft made of plastic bottles or other recycled materials constructed by artists and community-minded groups organizing recreational flotillas, or by environmentally concerned individuals seeking to draw att ...
s, '' Son of Town Hall'', from North America to Europe, becoming the second person to sail a raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrel ...
across the Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
and the first to do so on a raft made from trash. Betsy Terrell, his wife, was the captain and navigator on the crossing.
In 2008 Poppa Neutrino moved to Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...
to build another raft, this time on Lake Champlain
, native_name_lang =
, image = Champlainmap.svg
, caption = Lake Champlain-River Richelieu watershed
, image_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, location = New York/Vermont in the United States; and Quebec in Canada
, coords =
, type =
, ...
. In 2010, he planned a circumnavigation of the globe, leaving Burlington, Vermont to head first south to Florida with three sailors and their three dogs aboard a new craft, a 37-foot trimaran complete with two outboards, a heated pilot house and four cabins. However, on November 9 their raft was driven onto rocks on Thompson's Point, Charlotte, Vermont
Charlotte is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. The town was named for Queen Charlotte, though unlike Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlottesville, Virginia, and other cities and towns that bear her name, the town's name is pronou ...
. Poppa Neutrino and his fellow rafters were rescued from Lake Champlain.
Neutrino died on January 23, 2011, in a hospital in , of heart failure. Neutrino's jazz funeral was attended by dozens wearing bright costumes.
Married "several times," he had four children, as well as step- and adopted children.[
]
Books and films about his life
Poppa Neutrino's life and travels have been the subject of articles and books, including two by Alec Wilkinson
Alec Wilkinson (born 1952) is a writer who has been on the staff of ''The New Yorker'' since 1980. According to ''The Philadelphia Inquirer '' he is among the "first rank of" contemporary American (20th and early 21st century) "literary journali ...
and a documentary film.[Silber, Stephanie]
Random Lunacy: Videos from the Road Less Traveled
2007. Retrieved on January 25, 2011.
References
Further reading
* Wilkinson, Alec (2007). ''The Happiest Man in the World: An Account of the Life of Poppa Neutrino''. New York, Random House, Inc. .
* Silber, Stephanie (2007). ''Random Lunacy: Videos from the Road Less Traveled'
Home Team Productions
Documentary.
External links
Poppa Neutrino and the Floating Neutrino's
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neutrino, Poppa
1933 births
2011 deaths
Musicians from Fresno, California
Rafting