Drivin’ an Dreamin’

Drivin’ an Dreamin’
(12/14/08 8:33 p.m.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,

"A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step."
Hahhoooo!


Startin’ Out

I have been dreaming about a land where money is no object a lot lately. In this land, I am tattooed from my collar bone to my ankles to my wrists. I got my dog’s creamated remains in a coffee can in the glove box, takin’ him on a drive down South, then up the coast to drop off little bits of him on spots we used to play at. His name was DeeOgee and he was a hoot of a hound.

As I start out on my journey, I’m driving down the Boulevard of raging alarms in my 1959 Ford Galaxie Convertible, the one with the 352 Thunderbird Special under the hood and the Skyliner retractable hardtop that goes down in 60 seconds, faster than Crusin’ Suzie on Prom night, and it’s turquoise with a souped up engine smelling like the open highway. Oh, and I’ve got my Bonzer by Campbell, “Be mindful,” in my warehouse of a trunk that I modified to hold the surfboard. Before I forget, I’ve also got an ice chest filled with some food that I can cook on the engine manifold wrapped in tin foil.

So I’m driving along, pickin’ my nose when a tattooed queer Jewish-atheist working for the Santa Monica Rent Control Board steps off the curb like he owns the street and gets splashed all over my chrome double bullet bumper, doing a loop-de-loop over the Flying Ellipse Hood Ornament.

I hear him go buy yelling counter-culture obscenities, with all due friggin’ apologies to Theodore Roszak, when he catches himself on my Deluxe Rear Deck Antenna, which was an option I liked until it deflected him into my rear seat. So I'm oozing down the street when he arises from the rear seat like the second coming, and says "drive brother, we gots to see my ambulance chaser.”

So I put the Fordomatic Drive into overdrive and hit the gas. I look in the rear view, see Apeneck Sweeney in the back seat with a shit-eating grin on his bearded mug, and tell him “I gots no money Bro, and Merry Fuckin’ Christmas.” His face gets all twisted up like he's gonna’ blow a head gasket, then gets a sour look like I’m something he can’t get off his Birkenstocks, so I drop-kick him off at the do-gooders soup line in Santa Monica, you know, those pious SOBs that pray at the alter of someone else’s neighborhood, then, letting my arms hang down to laugh, I hit the gas.

I figured he’d be right at home, guarding the hornèd gate.

Christ on a Crutch“In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

So, after I drop off my unwanted buddy, I’m gassin up Colorado when I see Christ on a crutch with his thumb out. I throw out the anchor, and pull over. “Where you goin’, I ask. “Eternity bro, see you now and then.”

So, what do you say to Jesus on a crutch, “Want to take a spin,” came out my piehole before I knew it. “It’s a Galaxy with a 352 under the hood. . . Hop in Patio Daddy’0, it’ll give you a righteous ride before the second comin’.”

Jesus, tosses the crutch, jumps into the Shotgun position, leans back, and states “When in Rome . . . hit the gas boyo, I’m ready for a ride.” So now that I got Jesus ridin’ shotgun, I figure I got it covered, so I offer him a brew. “Open container bro, mind the laws.” So, I ask him about eternity, and he say’s, Bro, my Father has many rooms in his house, and cocks an eyebrow at me.

We pass a catholic church, and Jesus says, “Bro, It’s time for me to get out, I have work to do.” Squinting at the Savior, I ask “What’s That Daddy’o?” He looks at me, and his brow shows a slight crease, “I have some pious SOBs to straighten out, remember ‘suffer the little Children for such is heaven made,’ and, Bro, “whoever shall harm them should jump in the lake now with Millstones hung around their necks for I will cut them no breaks.”

I slip my shades down my nose, “Will I see you again, Daddy’o?” JC smiles at me, “Bro, you’ve got miles to go before you sleep, but keep the rubber down… and it’s ok to talk to me, it’s called prayer.” He turns, then pauses, “And Bro, go easy on the Jews for they have the favor of my eye.” I figure he can’t mean the gas bag that ended up in my rear seat, so I pull the Galaxy over. Jesus jumps out, gives me a salute and disappears into the church. All Hell breaks out, I mean it’s as noisy as a car with a dropped muffler. I stick my foot deep in the carb and blast away from there. “Whew,” I let out as I gas it up the street.

Ginger Pasta

Sautee 6 cloves of finely chopped garlic cloves, ginger, some chili flakes and the stems of Italian parsley in ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil in a frying pay over medium heat. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside. Cook up some linguini pasta to the point where it is “al dente” (slightly chewy to the bite). Before pouring off the water, save ½ cup. Then drain in a colander. Add the pasta to the frying pan, the reserved water and cook for 5 minutes constantly turning over the pasta to get it completely covered with the sauce. Grate parmesan cheese over mixture, and mix it in. Serve on heated plates, along with a glass of Malbec wine.

Getting gassed . . .

Time for some gas, Bro, ‘cause the Galaxy doesn’t run on prayers, with all due respect to Padio Daddy’o, so I bump on up to the local den of robbers to pump some ethyl. Oh, and with a 10:1 compression ratio in the 352, the shit they call premium is a joke. So, I throw in some octane boost, insert the nozzle in the ass end, pop the hood, and check the oil.

A bum with a whistle blows out a screech, and Bro it ain’t the Bird. Now that he has my undivided fuckin’ attention, he rasps out “wash your windows?” The smell of cheap wine, piss and bad breath waft over me as he waves a dirty rag at me that I would’t wipe the Ford’s feet with. “Frig off, bumbo..,” then thihking about Padio Daddy’o, “but here’s a sawbuck for your troubles.” I hand it to him with my left hand, which my right doesn’t notice cause it pumping gas. I resume my grumbling tithe to the gas gods of Exxon, may they rot in the temple of the almighty ripoff. Amen.

So, I tear away from the robbers without a gun after paying with my first born for a tank, and head on down the highway. It’s getting dark, so I pop the headlights, stick the Galaxy in overdrive and settle in for a long ride while Pink Floyd smoothes my mood with “Wish you Were here.” I wonder what these limey bastards are takin’ about, “trading a walk-on part in the war for a clean smooth cage.” Hell, they weren’t in the Nam, just a bunch of wiseasses singin’ what that thought would sell. Shit, I like it anyway, to Hell with ‘em cause the bastards have always had our back, ‘cept when they burned down the Whitehouse in the year 12. Hell, I figure they were making a fashion statement.

I’m going south before I head up north cause I want to drop some of DeeOgee’s ashes at San Miguel, Mexico (a little splash at Hosongs Cantina, and work my way up to San Onofre, by way of Trestles and, ahem, Dogpatch. Thank God, they saved Trestles from vanquishment by the toll road. Where were these righteous voices when they set out to destroy Dana Point. At least I got to surf it before it became a friggin’ boat harbor.

Politics

“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” or so says Satin to his followers. John Milton, Paradise Lost. Don’t believe him. Better to serve as a foot soldier in heaven than to be a purveyor of evil.

I was reading a blog the other day, some chick named Marcotte, with a mouth like a truck stop whore, and a wit like the bad end of a 45. Hell, she ain’t no T.S. Elliot, with all due fuckin’ respect, and she ain’t measurin’ her life out in friggin’ coffee spoons either. Shit, a girl after my own heart. And she’s writing letters to Senator Edwards after he fires her, he of the hidden squeeze and the wife who’s putting up the good friggin’ fight, and she calls him on his crap. I mean, laugh out loud, didn’t they vet this gurl before hiring her as their blogmaster. Damn Jimmy Jimmy, there is a G0d in Heaven.

Local Congressman

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)

On a wild hair, I called my local congressman the other day to ask the Master Ass Kisser to take his head out of the current lobbist’s ass. I ring the bell, which tolls loud and long, and ask him to help the little people, you know, the ones who vote, pay taxes, fight our wars, and generally get it up the ass. “Ah, uh, em” he stammers, then “No time . . . put it in writing. . . too small a problem . . . what club did you say your in . . . too blue collar for my attention.” So how should I presume???

The fuckwad is like a cockroach, we just need to shine a little light on him to make him go away. Jeeze, a little Raid would do well in Washington right now. The guy is like a Stepford assbag, big money has its arm so far up his ass they got him talkin’ like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Mark him Paid in Friggin’ Full. How’d we ever elect these fucktards, but then I remember, most people can’t pick out where they live on a map. Oh, fuckin’ well, maybe our forefathers were right. They won’t be bringing his head in upon a platter, he’ll he’d hand it to you for a price.

Spotted Dog

During the seafaring days of the 1800s, the Navy, and especially the British Navy, served a dish called Spotted Dog. It is really a derivative of Irish fruit cake. The recipe is as follows:

4 Cups white flour, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 cup American raisins, currants or sultana raisins, 1 cup milk and 1 egg. Sift the dry stuff, add the raisins and mix. Make a deep dent in the center and add the egg, and the milk. Mix the stuff from the sides inward. The dough should be soft and not sticky. Floor your bread board, put the dough on it and knead it for a little bit. Work the dough into a round shape about 1-1/2 inches deep. Slit the top. Bake in a preheated 450 degree F oven for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 400 degrees F and bake for another 30 minutes or until cooked. Tap the bottom, it should sound hollow if cooked right.

Stop reading right here, make your spotted dog, eat it, let it digest, then read the next blast from the head peanut of the peanut gallery.

Ocean Pollution

“There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”
Ernest Hemingway

Redondo Breakwater at the north side of the jetty is a surf break that I useta like. Legendary surfer Joey “the hatmaker” Cabell has a Chart House restaurant sitting right in front of the break, with pilings holding it above the surf that sometimes breaks under it. What a view. However, I want to stress that I use’ta like this break.

The name of the break comes from a speedy left that breaks across the front of the King Harbor breakwall. Well, nobody said surfers were wordsmiths. This place lives on north and west swells larger than 6 feet. It also has a right in smaller swells that can be some fun. Oh, and you anal types, don’t give me any crap about how you measure the wave. Measure what you’re looking at, what you’re riding, cause you ain’t riding the back of the wave. Oh, and for you gawkers, soakers, and lubbers, left means right from the beach. It’s a left from the surfer’s point of view. Got it, Amen.

Oh, and least I forget, the locals can be a problem, until they figure you know what you’re doing. Snakes need not apply, and common decency prevails. Guys like me are called “Legends” cause of our age, so I get a little respect for jus’ paddling into the lineup without falling off my board. The breakwater will hold up to 20 feet, and as it gets bigger the local buggers fade away into their holes. The wave itself changes direction and is enlarged off the jetty, spinning out long, speedy lefts that end in a suicide shorebreak.

In 1997, the Army Corp of Engineers added some rocks to the bend in the breakwater wall that changed the break, pushing it closer to the shore. This extension of the North Mole was made after the storm of 1988 caused 16 million in damage, major havoc, and jammed up the harbor.

The actions of the ACOE was done to expressly mitigate the wave effect, including the shoreward end of the North Breakwater. The City masters of Redondo Beach were all part of this (Montgomery, Sankey, Schoettger, Bailey, & Ward), and why is it news to some of you people. They were trying to reduce the break! Why did this not generate some major riots in the street. For you readers, take a look at the Army Core of Engineers Final Report (1990) called Redondo Beach King Harbor, California, Design for Wave Protection.

So, on my way down south before I turn around and head north, I decided to paddle out on my Bonzer into some juicy lefts coming into the jetty. As I’m dogpaddling out, I happen to notice how dirty the water is. After some nice rides I amble ashore with a big smile on my mug when realize I have crude oil on my wet suit. Unzipping I find that it has somehow snuck inside to foul my favorite trunks. Fuck me. Then I start looking around the beach, and damn if there isn’t old syringes, bozo clowns, medical debris and little amsy-divy on the shore along with the usual flotsam. What the Hell. I beat a hasty retreat from that place and swear never venture there again. Another site gone bad.

Checking The Pollution Factor.

When I checked around, I found that Surfline has the Redondo Breakwater as a 6 on the poo meter. Bro, a 10 rating is turds in the water. I know the breakwater tends to gather stuff, but outright trash and medical waste? A local yokel told me it was the Navy dumping their trash on the way to Long Beach harbor and San Diego.


Surf Wax
Now some of you dry land types may have seen surfing and think you just jump on a surfboard (aka stick, board, schlong, shorty, etc.) Well for all you kooks, geeks, hodads, and shubees, ya gotta put wax on the deck to keep from slipping off.
In the beginning, guys used to drip candle wax on their sticks. This is kinda crappy since candle wax becomes a little slippery after a while. But before you start laughing out loud at you forebears, remember candle wax is made primarily from paraffin, the same stuff you find in modern wax. Here it stated here, it served well in the early years when a fin was a skag, and new guys were called gremmies. However, it is petroleum based, and if you don’t believe me see the 10-foot rocket a bunch of students at Stanford blasted up some 16,000 feet on candle wax (paraffin) as fuel.

In the 50’s, guys used ta simply buy paraffin wax at the supermarket. It was cheap and you could buy it in bulk. By the bye, it is still cheap. Then, in the 60’s and 70’s various enlightened souls started making the stuff which you could buy in the surf shop. It still contained paraffin, but was mixed with softening agents like coconut oil to give a better grip. Newer organic waxes are made of bees wax and some people are using soy wax. It is becoming popular because it is a renewable resource, biodegradable, can be melted in the microwave, and stays hard in cold weather.
Now, I am one of those kooks who has made various versions of his own surfboard wax. Sooo, here is a recipe for environmentally safe surfboard wax, cause using paraffin is not cool:

Warm water: use 3 parts beeswax and 1 part coconut oil. Cold water, use 3 parts beeswax, 1 part coconut oil, and 1 part tree resin. Melt the beeswax, then stir in the warm coconut oil plus tree resin for cold water applications. Pour the mixture into a mold like a cupcake tray, and enjoy. Last add, Beeswax is naturally aromatic, so it is rare that one would add fragrance. You can buy a pound of filtered bee wax from ebeehoney.com for $7.50 or 10 pounds for $65. You can buy 16 oz. of extra virgin coconut oil for $8.69 from vitaminshoppe.com. Also, you can buy 1 gallon of refined coconut oil for $21 from Mountainroseherbs.com. You can buy a 1 pound order of pine resin from jas-townsend.com for $12.00.

Now for you less handy types, I have always been fond on Mr. Zog’s Sexwax, which is cheap and comes in various types to suit the temp of the seawater. This stuff was made in Goleta California by Fred Herzog, hence Zog, and a fellow miscreant, Nate Skinner. It was originally called Dr. Zog’s Sexwax (Yeah, I’m that old), but some politically correct asshole said he wasn’t a doctor and couldn’t use the name “Dr. Zog’s”, hence, Mr. Zogs. I hope the Assplug that pulled the cord on Zog’s original name has shingles on his every righteous ass. Anywho, I digress.

Waxing your board is a skill. Base coat: Use a hard wax like Zog’s Red No. 5. Wax from rail to rail along the surface that you use. Then wax the long way down the stringer. A base coat should be beading up so that you get a textured surface. Finally, apply the right water temp wax over your base in a circular pattern. Don’t forget to wax the rails where you grip to pop up, or you might slip on your face. Not fun, but a laugh from the beach. Get a wax comb to texture the surface after you have used the board a few times.

For you California surfers, we have cold water. In January, it is in the mid 50’s and in da summer it climbs to the high 60’s with an occasional 70 thrown in. Why so cold, because we get the Alaska upwelling (look it up). So use Zog’s orange cool water Sexwax, which goes from 56 ° to 68 ° F, and will cover most california waters. However, some kooks like a warm water wax for everything. Relegate these morans to the crash zone. I am not a believer in craplogic, sometning immoralized in the the Mike Judge film Idiocracy. Rent it some time. Anyway, find your comfort level, but do not let your wax wear thin or you’re going to be a sea spectacle for the peanut gallery on shore.

Navy Dumping

When I got home, I looked up this bit of gossip, and found that a 1990 Coast Guard study indicated that the U.S. Navy dumped 63,356 tons of raw garbage a year into U.S. waters. For you nose pickers who didn’t pay attention in school, that is 126,712,000 pounds of trash!!! Huh, you say?

Oh, and don’t hook up to the hooka jes yet; lend me your mini-minds, ‘cause it’s no secret that the military has used the ocean off our coasts to dump millions of pounds of munitions into the drink. For instance, the Army admits that it SECRETLY dumped 64 millions pounds of nerve and mustard agents (the stuff to make the gas) into the sea. Then for a little spice to the mix, it added another 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets with just a touch of radioactive waste in the approximate amount of 1,000,000 pounds.

How’d they do this, you ask? Well, in secret for one, and in the holds of scuttled vessels, or by simply dumping the stuff overboard. This has stopped, I think, but remember this was done in secret, then ferreted out. A word to the wise and you fishermen, there are two large dump sites off the California coast (150 miles from San Francisco), which received Lewisite aka “Dew of Death” and Mustard Gas. And in Hawaii, between 1944 to 1945, the military dumped chemical weapons off of Hawaii at three sites, including mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide. Problem is they don’t know where the three sites are located!!! I guess it was so secret that they hid it from themselves. Now, you’ve got to ask yourselves, are these the type of people we want heading up our chemical and nuclear weapons disposal teams. I mean these fucktards couldn’t find their dick if it was tied to their hand. Oh, sorry for the image.
Back to the trash dumping. How is California impacted? Glad you asked ‘cause we have the longest coastline in the continental United States at 840 statute miles. Add to that little statistic Naval Base San Diego, which is the largest base of the United States Navy on the West coast of the United States. Also, Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, consisting of 50 ships and an additional 50 tenant commands. And you got to know that those ships are moving up and down the coast of California, and dumping their trash in U.S. Waters cause they won’t or can’t store it aboard.

I then looked up the definition of “U.S. waters” and found that it is defined as 12 nautical miles from a continuous land mass. This trash either sinks or routinely washes up on our shore line. Then I remembered a tale from Lucky Lindholm’s father, a former marine and LAPD cop, who saw this happen right out in front of him while sailing his boat in the waters off Ventura. I mean he saw them dumping raw trash right in the drink. He immediately raised the captain on the marine radio, and was rudely told it was his right, and, in so many words, fuck off.

Oh, then there is the navy sailor who complained about the trash dumping and got drummed out of the service for his efforts. I guess they didn’t say it was a clean Navy, but you gots to wonder why the Navy thinks it can treat our coastal waters like a toilet. It’s not like their fouling somebody else’s country. I guess some rear admiral figured it was ok, and our brave lads in congress didn’t have the balls to fight the issue, or just didn’t give a flying damn.

What does the Navy say? The Navy says that their ships are prohibited from dumping any plastic waste at sea, BUT they can dispose of biodegradable waste beyond 3 miles of land, thanks to a large machine called a pulper. Supposedly most navy ships have it, which is described as a method to process wet garbage and cardboard. The pulper adds salt water to the garbage, and then it turns into a nice slurry. If the ship is outside three nautical miles it can dump the mess at sea. Remember, that most navy ships deploy for months at a time. And they can accumulate tons of garbage. A 300-person Navy destroyer generates about 35 cubic feet of plastic waste per day. This would be the equivalent to dropping a 3 story house into the ocean with a 35 foot frontage and 35 foot sides. A ray of hope. The Navy is now introducing a system that compresses the plastic waste into disks about the size of a large pizza. It’s a start, if it is true.

But the Navy is only part of the problem, and they’re trying to do something about it. However, fellow ocean lovers, there are lots of ships in the ocean. In 1975, the US National Academy of Sciences [NAS] estimated that ships dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage at sea. BILLION. A billion is a thousand million (1,000,000,000). A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age. Got it. Sit back and think about this a minute or two. Then think about the fact that it is 1.261 billion feet to the moon.
Weak enforcement of the United Nations/International Maritime Organization International Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution (MARPOL) fails to prevent ships from illegally dumping waste oil from bilge and storage tanks into the ocean. A 2001 study from the [NAS) reports that:

“Approximately 10–25% of commercial ships violate MARPOL and discharge more than 65 million gallons of waste oil at sea each year, nearly 3 times the amount spilled in catastrophic oil tanker accidents.” (Note: in weight alone, this equals about 485,500,000 pounds).

What is behind all this crap, well is it that people do not want to be held accountable. As always, it’s take the shortest route, cause it’s cheaper. Well, there is now a garbage patch in the Pacific ocean that is bigger than the state of Texas. It’s called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which the Navy refers to as GPGP.
And then there’s the historic residue from previous dump sites. The Army admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the ocean, and coastal aress of the United States, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels. Mustard gas was dumped in two sites of the northern California coast, one near San Francisco, and the other parallel to Sacramento.

Oh, and if you think were getting off scot free, take a look at Balona Creek some day, and watch all the stuff washing down to the ocean. It enough to put you off your feed.

Baked Salmon

Get some fresh salmon filets, wash and dry them. Chop 3 cloves of garlic fine. Chop a quarter of an onion very fine, and use a tablespoon. Mix both in ½ cup of mayonnaise. Add a tablespoon of dried dill, and some Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning. Spread the mixture over the salmon filets with the skin side down. Sprinkle some paprika over the filets. Pre heat your oven to 350°F, then cook for 20 minutes. Remember, do not over cook the fish. Enjoy.

Decker Canyon Cannonball

Now one day, Lucky Lindholm and me were sitting around bored all to hell. We’d checked out the surf and it was flatter than billiard table. The baja bug was needing a fix, so I decided that it might be a great idea to try to go down Decker canyon on my skateboard.

Now Decker Canyon is named after the Decker Family, a bunch of hillbillies that moved into the canyon when the rocks were young. One of the Deckers was known as “Dynamite Jimmy”, a happy hunting partying fucktard that was also a righteous demo expert, meaning he blew things up. He created a lot of the various road passes around the Malibu and Santa Monica Mountains with his little stick of dynamite. He could blast out a pool without breaking your windows, or crack a haystack bolder like breakin’ an egg.

So up we go to Decker Canyon, and I have a plan. Now I was pretty good on a skate board, having started out with Chicago Wheels when I was a snotnose, and using it as my primary means of transportation for years.

Shoe Dodge Ball

Heard Bush dodged a shoe jus’ before slithering out of office to go back to Texass. Seems some Assrab had enough of war and making “all a desolation.” Two times the charm for Bush, good reflexes for a Fucktard, probably a good drinkin’ buddy when he was drinkin, but who the Hell put him in charge of the friggin’ Freeworld. Oh, shit, we did. This is a guy who failed at everything, even trading Sammy Sosa when he ran a baseball team, then ends up President, proving the Peter Principal is alive and well, with a little help from the Supremes. If the lengthened shadow of a man is history, then Bush is a shadowless vampire. He doesn’t even have the shade of Hamlet’s father to console him as he raises a stink in Denmark.

Loss of Rights

911! . . . now that was a clarion call from the assrabs, and their so called shit-turd leader Osama bendover Ladin. Without that event, my friends, ol’ Bushky was headed straight for a one term presidency. His so called approval rating was headed down so fast, he needed a parachute.

You gotta love us Americans, cause if you attack us we can get more patriotic, more steely eyed, and more determined than anyone, including the Germans in WWII. So, we lined up behind this dickwad of a president, and guess what, he started off by taking away our friggin’ constitutional rights, then attacking a country that had nothin’ . . . nothin’ to do with 911. Weapons of Mass Destruction, yellow-cake uranium, what a joke. Hussein didn’t have anything, and the spy’s husband told us so. As Emerson stated, "The difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is a great difference in the beholder." Oh, and here’s a flash, there wasn’t a single Iraqi among the Assrabs that attacked us, they were mostly Saudis. What the fuck, was Bush that myopic? Oh, Hussein supposedly put a hit out on his father, which never happened, but is this what he used up the lives of 4,182 U.S. dead, and 30,182 wounded? Because he was pissed off at the temerity of Hussein?

What happened to that rhetoric about smokin’ Ben Ladin out, and killing his ass. Well, the only smoke was what Bushkin was blowin’ up our asses. And by the way, the rights that Bushbag and his mealy men were taking away from us were put in place when the country was under serious attack and very close to falling under King George’s fancy boot.

Oh, “it’s an emergency,” we have to limit your rights so we can go after the bad guys. Huh? Huh? Did I hear that right? What the hell did Cheney and Mini-Me think our forefathers were dealing with, a fuckin’ clam bake. The British were the most dangerous battle wagon on the planet, and they were already on our shores. Hell, they paid for the passage, and it was a close thing. Our world was turning on cannon wheel, but, limiting our rights? Hell, our fightin’ forefathers expanded our rights. Didn’t Bush or Cheney get that lesson in friggin’ grade school, or whatever fascist private grammar school they attended? Give me liberty or give me death. If according to Waldo, “God is in every man,” so is the devil in this confederacy of dunces. If the road to Hell is paved in good intentions, then these fuckers were building a friggin’ super highway. Let me end with a quote from Ben Franklin, “He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”

In the play "A Man For All Seasons" by Robert Bolt, he depicts the story of Sir Thomas More, counselor to King Henry VIII of England, who lost his head over refusing to give his assent to the King's divorce and remarriage.
In Bolt’s play, Sir Thomas More is encouraged by his future son-in-law, Roper, to arrest Richard Rich, whose perjury will eventually lead to More's execution by King Henry VIII (1491 t0 1547), the fat goutish fucktard who was leading England by his dick in the fifteenth century. His pursuit of a male heir caused him to break with the Catholic church, and go through a succession of wives who often lost their heads. If there is a “burnin’ Lake of Fire,” good ol Henry is dancing a jig on it. Back to Thomas More, who answers his son in law by saying that Richard Rich has broken no law, "And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!" Roper is appalled at the idea of granting the Devil the benefit of law, but More is adamant. William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Let me leave you with a little quote from Justice William Blackstone:
"To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to goal (jail), where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."

Is this beginning to sound familiar?

Being Critical of President is Unpatrotic?

“We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Have you all heard this little soundbite. "On April 9, 2002, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, President Bush stated:, "You know, I said early on, I said to the people you're either with us or you're against us...There is no middle ground."

What is scary is that Joseph Stalin said something similar, "Remember, Avel, he who is not with me is against me!”

And the Christian right is constantly chiming in on the side of the Repuglians, as if they invented God and our savior, Jesus Christ. What, I didn’t think the wholly trinity had an interest in politics, except the politics of the soul. When did supporting a democratic president become a sin, or an offense against God, or unpatroitic. In the new testament, 1 John, 4:20, it is stated, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

Blackstone said the following: "Christianity is part of the laws of England" but stated that the law of England "gives liberty, rightly understood, that is, protection to a jew, turk, or a heathen, as well as to those who profess the true religion of Christ." This last blast from Ghandi, “you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

When did dissent become heresy?

The Sun King, King Louis XIV of France, known for his furniture and wars in Europe is said to have stated “L’etat c’est moi,” (“I am the state.”) Of course, he believed in the Divine Right of Kings, which advocates the divine origin of kings and, consequently, the lack of civil or earthly restraint of the rule of a king. It is absolutism in its most brutal form, in that it asserts that the King is not subject to earthly authority, getting his right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, and any criticism of him runs against the will of God and may constitue heresy. Holy Crap! Sound familiar.

Theodore Roosevelt, A much better President, and better man, put it in better perspective during World War I as follows: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile but is morally treasonable to the American public." Amen. Bush has slithered back to his ranch in Texas, leaving a legacy that shows a lack of understanding what America is all about. I know that this is not a real newsflash, but he did get elected and the duh factor was plain as his jug ears.

Last add, Freedom of expression is worthless if it is only the freedom to agree with those who govern. Remember, it is an act of freedom and democracy to dissent, for being afraid to disagree, or called unpatriotic for doing so or merely agreeing through apathy by nodding our heads like so many heroin addicts getting a fix is not freedom but acquiescence to totalitarianism. Surely the path to the slavery of the many by the few was charted on this map of history. We just need to get out our compasses to find the right direction.”

PAST WRONGS
”Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field: Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air; Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing, Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years; Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open. And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge; They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream. Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night; For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.”
William Blake, “America a Prophesy” (1793).
However, least I be remiss and make you think Americans have never reacted this way before, let me remind you of what happened during World War I. The government funded a extensive propaganda campaign and a bar-no-holds government attack on civil liberties in the America. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 made it illegal to speak out against the war in any significant way, and this including anti-war protests. The FBI developed a liaison with the conservative businessmen's organization, the American Protective League (APL), to monitor dissent throughout the United States. “Citizen groups” carried out vigilante actions against those considered "un-American", and people were essentially forced to voice their support for the war and give financial support by buying war bonds and giving other material support.
You were called “unamerican” if you didn’t suport the conservation nut jobs or if you did not lend financial support. Various persons were sent to jail , including good ol’ Eugene V. Debs, our own home grown socialist and fearless labor organizer. This character ran for president under the Socialist Party ticket several times, once even from prison. On the downside, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for delivering an “anti-war” speech in June 1918. Now I’m no supporter of socialism or its ugly brother communism. These isms don’t work and they are killers of men’s souls. However, Debs was a man dedicated to helping the working man in America, he was just a little out there on the political left, read left of Genghis Kahn. But he was righteously appalled when the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, struck down a newly enacted child labor law as unconstitutional.[i]
I mean, let examine what our Smithsonian has presented about child labor abuses during this time in history (1918), especially in the presentation of the photographs of Hine:
Over and over, Hine saw children working sixty and seventy-hour weeks, by day and by night, often under hazardous conditions. He saw children caught in a cycle of poverty, often so ill-paid that they could not support a family on their earnings alone, and had to rely on their children's earnings as a supplement for the family's survival. He saw children growing up stunted mentally (illiterate or barely able to read because their jobs kept them out of school) and physically (from lack of fresh air, exercise, and time to relax and play). He saw countless children who had been injured and permanently disabled on the job; he knew that, in the cotton mills for example, children had accident rates three times those of adults.
Justice William Day, a republican, delivered the opionion of the Supreme Court, and, of course he had been a corporate attorney in his privite career. A little note, he was more interested in baseball than in the plight of our children being worked to death. Nothing, nothing can save this scoundral, and his fellow jackel justices who voted with him, from loathing for his part in this dispecable opinion. Hey Dante, I have another canidate for one of your outer rings of Hell.
A little history, Eugene Debs was a railroad man through and through, and he organized and helped run the first industrial union in the United States called the American Railway Union. He then organized a strike of the Great Northern Railway, and stopped this behemoth in its tracks for 18 days (June 1893), at which point the railroad granted the demands of the union for safer working conditions.
The industrial complex never forgave him for this little transgression, and he was in their gun-sites thereafter. When he gave an anti war speech in Cleveland, Ohio, railing against the poor fighting wars declared by the rich (World War I was afire at this time), he was sentenced to 10 years in prison! Whoa, what? Read the speech and it will chill you to think that those words caused a 10-year loss of liberty, and the sacrifice of the man’s health. He died shortly after leaving prison.
What I cannot fathom about Debs is his belief that the fat cats and robber barons in America were going to play nice when he worked to cut their profits by paying the workers more for less work. He was too polite and to naïve. As he so aptly stated in that speach, “it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.” How about this for an anti-war statement, “Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we have been fighting it since the day the Socialist movement was born; and we are going to continue to fight it, day and night, until it is wiped from the face of the earth. Between us there is no truce—no compromise.” This is from the speech that was called seditious and anti-war! Go figure, but they got ol’ Gene good.

Fish Tacos

I used to like to go down to Mexico, especially Ensenada, stopping to surf at some righteous spots along the way, like San Miguel and Stacks. Stacks freaks me because of the cannery and sharks, but it is righteous in windy weather with chunky surf unlike San Miguel which blows out at 11:00 a.m. Like San Miguel, watch your car and stuff while surfing or all you’ll have left is your shorts, your board, and a long walk home. I like San Miguel, also, with its perfect lefts, but the bottom is a bed of rocks with sea unchins covering it (think sticker weeds), and it has a 7 on the Poo meter (10 is poo in the water.) When I say rocks, I mean cobblestone city, so walk tenderly then paddle early. Drinks can be had at the bar of the big pink. Good beer is cheap down here.

There is always Husongs Cantina on which to load up on beer, and run into old friends. DeeOGee liked Mexico, cause he was partial to fish, and fried fish was his favorite. Go figure, and hot sauce was not a problem.

I also like to run, having run track in high school and college. Anywho, the fish tacos in Ensenada are a gift from God, like Mexican manna from Heaven. Even DeeOGee liked them, of course, and they were cheap. So, on one trip, after a six-pact of beers and fish tacos, I got into a pissing match with a friend, who said he could beat me in a foot race, if I spotted him 10 yards in 50. Being bilious on beer, I gladly accepted the $20 dollar wager, which I lost by my buddy’s jutted out knoggin. Moral, don’t eat fish tacos if you want to run anywhere fast, especially if you don’t want to do a rainbow yawn to the utter delight of your friends. Amen.

Our Troops

Here is another little problem, we fight our wars with babies. I mean at 18 to 23 years of age, what the hell did we know about anything. Nothin’ and to top it off we thought we were immortal. Gettin’ hurt or killed, well that happens to the other guy. Why do old bastards in Congress and the White House send babies to fight their wars, cause they need someone who is easily manipulated, thinks that danger is sexy, and because the Old Bastards are essentially cowards. Ask yourself, how many wars would the world be fighting if the Old Bastards had to do the fighting. Not many. So, support our troops, because they had no choice in where they go. AS the old saying goes, “If you can't stand behind our soldiers, then by all means stand in front of them."

Army recruiting is another interesting topic, since how do you downplay the risk of quick and violent death as a normal risk of the job. Army slogans are supposed to get the young and oblivious to say, “Hey, I think I’ll join the army and ‘be all that I can be.’ That way I’ll get ‘army strong.’” Again, such slogans appeal to young folk as in be naïve as you can be. I mean why do you think the Army has a five year Billion dollar marketing contract with McCann World Group, an old advertising firm with the motto “Truth Well Told.” The Army spends at least $200,000,000 a year on advertising with this company, which, in a brilliant brainstorm, came up with the slogan “Army Strong.” Of some note is that one of its earliest clients was Vaseline. Ahem.

I mean this company will have to smooth over nasty recruiting tactics such as obtaining high school records of kids for purposes of direct mail and telephone cold-calling. It couldn’t do worse than the company that came up with the slogan “An army of One.” Huh? The culprit for this dud was Leo Burnett of “Tony the Tiger” fame. Some of its client’s have included Nintendo, McDonalds, and Philip Morris (the cigarette company). Old Leo’s company (he died in 1971) created the aforementioned “Army of One” campaign, which died faster than a fart in a high wind. Here’s a pic of ol’ Leo. Kinda looks like Dr. Strangelove to me.



What happened to the Army Recruiting techniques of yesteryear? “The US Army want You!” It is direct, and doesn’t pussyfoot around with lame slogans.












Rum Baba

Take six eggs and beat with ¾ cup of sugar until very light. Add 2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of baking powder (sift together first), ½ cup melted butter, ¾ cup of room temperature milk and 1 cup raisins. Beat until smooth. Grease and flour an angel food cake pan, pour in mixture, and bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes. Make a syrup to pour over the cake by mixing ½ cup of water, ½ cup of sugar and ½ cup of white rum. I didn’t say it was not a carbo bomb, but it is delicious.
Waterboarding

You know, there has been a lot of crap spewed out by the press and every soapbox gassbag with a audience about waterboarding assrabs for info on their next attack. What the fuck, they’re lucky we don’t use the “coweirdly” bastards like a piñata, jus’ hang em from the rafters and hit the bastards until they burst with whatever it is you wanna know. “But they got rights,” I hear. Kiss my boney ass, ‘cause they lost their rights when they attacked us with human missiles disguised as airliners, and continue to attack innocent people with bombs. Let me tell you Assrabs an’ other apologists for these backward misogynists, if America was really the evil Satan the Assrabs say we are, we’d have nuked their asses with neutron bombs, and simply taken their oil for free. Hmmm, money for nothing, chicks for free. And the bonus, a world without Assrabs, now that’s a thought, with all due friggin’ respect to Abraham, the magic carpet and 101 Arabian nights.

Oh, and least I forget, Richard Land, the Southern Babtist who claims Obama’s health care plan is run by a Nazi, chimed in with this, "I consider waterboarding torture," Land said. "One of the definitions of torture is that it causes permanent physical harm. I can't separate physical from psychological. And I can't imagine that being repeatedly subjected to the feeling of drowning would not, in some cases, cause lasting psychological trauma." Not to put too fine a point on it, but these foreign bastard, coming into our country illegally (entering for an unlawful purpose), killed 2,753 people at the World Trade Center.

"If the end justifies the means, then where do you draw the line?" Land said. "It's a moveable line. It's in pencil, not in ink. I believe there are absolutes. There are some things we must never do."

Passing the Buck

Jeeze, now that Obama has been elected, the Repuglicans are now screeching that all the problems falling down on our heads, sorry Chickin’ Little, were caused by Clinton, . . . and Obama. What the friggin’ fuck, I thought Clinton, of the rovin’ hands, handed Bush, Lord of the Dickwads, a surplus, peace, and a good company store. Obama, give the man a friggin’ break before you stuff your boot up his ass, he wasn’t even in office before they charged him with everything except killing Christ.

Fuck Rush Lambaugh, the drug addled, ass kissin’ Fucktard. He’s been noddin’ so long for the repuglican party, they guessed him for a heroin addict. Close, but no cigar . . . wrong drug, but holy shit, “near deaf from drug use,” I thought he was deaf already. Then they anoint him the new voice of the Repuglican Party. Huh? And don’t even start me on Sean Hannity, the dickwad can’t stop himself from jerkin his own dick while proclaiming “I’m a Great American.” He even got his audience of coolaid drinking asswipes calling in all preprogrammed to say, ”Sean, you’re great American.” Kiss my boney ass. This Lipster is sucking the corporate/repuglican glory stick like a hooka pipe, all glassy eyed, eyebrows looking like two caterpillars trying to mate, and friggin’ fuckin’ happy. Jeeze, it’s enough to make you want to blow chunks into your feedbag.

Then there is Mark Levin, the self-professed “Great One,” who has more hair on his chin than his head, and, if you’ve heard him, tell me he doesn’t sound like Bugs Bunny on speed. “Get outta here you dope,” is his constant refrain. But, go figure, I like listening to the conservative SOB. LOL.

Let me leave you with this: the wind on Venus blows 5 times faster than on earth, with the exception of talk radio and the United States Congress.

You’re too Hard
on the Repuglicans

“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36 NLT).

. . . “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons! For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me anything to drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ (Matthew 25:41-46 NLT).

Don’t tell me I being hard on the Repuglicans, they bring it on themselves. Do you all remember Dan Quayle, our former Vice-President? Well this is what this mastermind had to say about our deteriorating environment, “It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” Oh, and then there’s this blast from Lee Iacocca of Chrysler fame, “We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?” This last add from George W. Bush, “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.” Then, “In my sentences I go where no man has gone before.” ”

Post Pres two-step

And what was he? Forsooth, a great arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife; That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the toged consuls can propose As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise, Is all his soldiership.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 1, Iago


Folks, I have to ask you, how do I top that? Well, have you caught Dick Cheney’s post vice-presidency tap-dance act. Here’s how it goes. The repuglicans paint a pentagram on the floor, chant three times “I summon thee”, and he pops out like a jack in the box. Oh, and he now calls the torture of prisoners “enhanced questioning,” which is like calling bombing a “protective reaction raid.” Oh, we did that, shudder to think. Now I personally have no problem with pulling a few nails outta these bastards (reference my piñata comment), but call it what it was. Over and out.

So, Cheney is now telling all who will listen that what he did to defend the nation from terrorism was legal and honorable. Huh? Spying on Americans without a warrant was illegal at the time, and adding a little torture is just icing on the cake. Then he backs his stand-up by rolling out the chief baker of this bullshit, namely John Woo, a fucktard who stands for the proposition that the Bush administration had the right to override the Constitution as long as it claimed to be fighting a "war on terror."
I mean you have to read the memos this moral pigmy put out, especially the memo of October 23, 2001. One of the bon mots found there is this little statement, “the President has ample authority to deploy military force against terrorist threats within the United States”, and “and that it need not follow the exact procedures that govern law enforcement operations.” How does this lotus-eater get around the Posse Comitatus Act, you ask?

First of all, what does this little act state? It states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (For you studious types, read it at 18 U.S.C. § 1385)

The problem with this little piece of restoration legislation (post civil war period for you people who slept through history class) is that it was passed to pacify southern states who were fed up with the Feds in their states, and who did not want the military to enforce the rights of blacks to equal and fair treatment. Huh? Yeah, that is where this piece of pacifist legislation came from.

Thus, this is an act that has been ignored on a regular basis, along with exceptions carved out like a piranha frenzy. Get this little piece of news, the army intervened in domestic affairs 125 times from 1877 to 1945. One particularly nasty example was when President McKinley deployed troops to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, from May 1899 to April 1901 at the governor’s request to put down labor unrest among miners. There was some violence, but it ceased before the federal troops arrived. Nevertheless, the troops were used as part of a law enforcement dragnet to apprehend “suspects” identified by state officials. In one instance, about 150 Army troops directed by four
state deputies arrested the entire male population of one town, around 300
men in all. In total, the Army helped state officials arrest and detain,
without legal process, over 1,000 union members and sympathizers, and it
placed many under Army guard for up to four months. The overall military commander also helped the state government and mining companies
illegally break the unions by instituting a system of “yellow dog” labor
contracts that made workers promise not to join a union as a condition of
employment. This is what can happen when the military is used in domestic affairs. Bad for the country, and demoralizing for the military. About Mckinley, he was an interesting man, serving just four years as President before he was assinated in 1901 by a the crazed son of polish immigrants, namely. namely Leon Frank Czolgosz, who accused him of being “the enemy of the good people – the good working people.”
The irony is that President Mckinley was a good man who had a lotta of heart, as evidenced by his response to miners who were suffering abuse by mining companies. In 1895, a community of severely impoverished miners in Hocking Valley, Ohio telegraphed Governor McKinley to report their plight, writing, "Immediate relief needed." Within five hours, McKinley had paid, out of his own pocket, for a railroad car full of food and other supplies to be sent to the miners. He then proceeded to contact the Chambers of Commerce in every major city in the state, instructing them to investigate the number of citizens living below poverty level. When reports returned revealing large numbers of starving Ohioans, the governor headed a charity drive and raised enough money to feed, clothe, and supply more than 10,000 people. This was not an enemy of the good working people.
And it says a lot about Cheney that this is his idea of honor. For instance, do you folks really believe that his chief aide leaked the name of CIA officer Valerier Plame without the knowledge of Cheney. This was an act of vengeance for her husband’s failure to support the yellow-cake uranium fib foisted on us by Cheney and Mini-me.
So, I press on the gas and the speedo breaks 80 . . . then I figure I better slow down before the fuzztards scope me on their friggin radar, and I end up in front of Judge Friendly, whom I describe below.
Tickets

Speaking of machines deciding our fate, I blew through a speed camera the other day, caught me pickin’ my nose as a drifted through the yellow at the intersection of misery Boulevard and Grabass Avenue. Got the pics in the mail, not bad if you airbrushed out the hairy finger connected to my schnozzle. Frigit, I think, the damage can’t be that bad, but then I got the damage report. Fuck me . . . $300 friggin dollars, and they ain’t talkin’ Pesos, Bro.

Fightin’ the Ticket

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

James Russell Lowell. 1819–1891

With all due respect to Lowell, I get the bright idea to go down and fight the ticket. Fight the good fight. Let me tell you Bro, they don’t make it user friendly: Per the Clerk, “If you pay now, one fee, if you fight it, a higher fee.” She pauses, then says, “but you have to pay now, then contest the ticket.” So much for exercising your due process rights, and what the frig happened to innocent until proven guilty. So I drive on down to the courthouse, park the Galaxy at a meter robber, and watch while my fellow caught and pinned birdies are flushed down her honor’s toilet one by one. Guilty, next. Guilty, next. Oh, the camera’s not calibrated, Ah, . . . GUILTY, next. I got the picture loud and clear. Again, I am reminded of good ol’ Dylan crying out, “You don’t have to ask the weatherman to know which way the wind is blowin’.”

The judge calls my case, so I get up there, all dressed up in my best Hawaiian shirt and shorts, and tell the judge “No contest,” that I’m just there to get blow-ups of the wonderful pics provided by the LAPD. She looks at me like a 5150, peers at her bailiff while raising her eyebrows, and sneers “Guilty, next defendant. . . Oh, and Bailiff make sure Photoboy is escorted from the building.” Shit on a stick, I needed to get waay down the highway from these fucktards. So, after being duckwalked from the Courthouse by a steroidal bailiff in a shirt one size too small and laboring under a bad haircut, I hop in the Galaxy, put the top down, jam it in drive, and get the idea for a road trip up PCH.

Yep, that’s what set me on my journey, that and my dog DeeOgee kicking the bucket the next day. The little guy had the spirit but his body was just quitting on him. Then he got cancer, the dogdoc said it’s was untreatable, and jus give him these pain killers. I’d stuff ‘em in hot dogs hollowed out with a straw. Maybe San Francisco has some space and quiet, couldn’t be any worse than Los Gangeles. The drive will do me good, and I’ll get to give due respect to my dog. A little Morrison doing the “Roadhouse Blues” ought to do the trick, so I pop the lid on the glove compartment, jam in the Doors, and set it to overdrive. The breeze is already cleaning away the soil of oppressive fuckwads eager to make your life miserable one little cut at a time.

Kurt Vonnegut

I ain’t no Deadeye Dick, with all due friggin’ respect to Kurt Vonnegut, but truer words were never better put, . . “watch out for life.” Before your peephole closes, “watch out for life.” Kurt then said, “all persons living and dead, are merely coincidental.” Huh? Would that include Jesus? He also said, “I am a fool. . .”; he was always the court jester for a society that thinks they have a mandate from God. “I have a message to the future generations, and that is please accept our apologies.” LOL. I loved this guy, was sad when his peephole closed on April 11, 2007 after falling down, just as a storm was hitting Manhattan with rain and lots of wind. Pretty apropos, don’t you think? Folks, a great voice was lost, a voice that came over us like the wind in a cold train yard, stark, but inspiring us to think. Amen. Oh, and Kurt, the joke’s on you because I think that you did make it to heaven.

Illegals

Take Illegal immigration. Now there’s a real circle jerk. Bush or W asked a rhetorical question awhile back, “What you want me to do, order 1.4 million of them out of the country?” Yeah, you Dickwad, and I’ll volunteer to drive the bus. What part of illegal don’t you understand? Oh, I forgot, read that cheap labor for your buddies. I understand the Mexicans, and their more Southern cousins want a better life. Hell, so do I, but cutting to the head of the line by sneaking under the rope is not how you do it. That ain’t the American way.

Give ‘em amnesty! For what, cheatin!? What about the lawful immigrants waiting in line, what message are you sending to them. Oh, yeah, nice guys finish last, the new American motto epitomized by the asswipes on Wall Street. I mean have you every watched those beedy eyed, corpulent, pig fuckers, with all due apologies to pigs, on the trading floor of the exchange. It’s like watching a bunch of jackals at a carcass, yipping and yelling as they pull off their own little bit of flesh.

Special Order 40 is another strange program we have in the Southland. Get this, the LAPD won’t ask an arrestee his or her immigration status, even if they suspect he’s illegal. Hell, that is pretty easy when “no hable Englais” is the answer you get to everything. Shit, they’re not paying taxes, social security, or sharing any of the other burdens of us regular working stiffs. Why is that, you ask? Because most of ‘em won’t work for anything but cash money. But they use the system, oh, yes, especially our ER’s, which they treat like a private doctor’s office.

And what lamebrain decided that an illegal immigrant can run across the border, drop her baby in a US emergency room, and create an instant US citizen. Oh, it gets better, because that newly minted citizen is an anchor baby, allowing the illegal mother to stay in the good ol’ US of Asses. You know that mother ship in V with the babe on the bottom saying “we come in peace,” well it should be a Mexican saying “Hola, ¿que pasa?”

I mean the law of citizenship by mere birth in the States was to guarantee the citizenship of slaves after the Civil War, you know the ones in the 1860’s. Born into slavery, thought of as property, a law was passed to insure birth meant citizenship for the newly emancipated. Not for friggin illegal aliens gamin’ the system! But, what the hell, the democraps want the opportunity for a new democratic block of voters, and the Repuglicans want cheap, exploitable labor without the Union wrapping. Shit when these two organizations agree on something that most citizens are opposed to, better tie your shoes tight or they’re liable to be missing in the mornin’. Again, I am reminded of Dylan’s lyrics, “You don’t need to ask the weatherman to know which way the wind is blowin’.” Hell, it’s becoming the motto of our generation.

Cup of Joe


As I’m driving along, I get the urge for a cup of joe. Coffee that will remind me of cold dawns facing a set of waves pealing off the point. Coffee that doesn’t need fancy creamers or sugar. Coffee that smells like old times, close friends and a little bit of heaven.
Ever wonder where the name cup of joe came from? I think it came from the Stephen C. Foster’s song “Old Black Joe.” This is what some of the fuss budgets think, but some others point to a fucktard Admiral named Joe Daniels who decreed that US Navy ships would be “dry” (meaning no alcohol). I wouldn’t give this sanctimonious bastard the credit, so below are the lyrics for Old Black Joe.
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, Gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.' I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low: I hear those gentle voices calling, 'Old Black Joe.' Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain Why do I sigh that my friends come not again, Grieving for forms Now departed long a go? 10 I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.' I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low: 12 I hear those gentle voices calling, 'Old Black Joe.' Where are the hearts once so happy and so free? The children so dear that I held upon my knee, Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go. I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.'I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low: I hear those gentle voices calling, 'Old Black Joe.'
So, I’m singin Ol’ Black Joe as I’m drivin’ down the highway in the Galaxy trying to imitate Paul Robson, when I spot a beach with campfires. Hmmm, a little cup of joe would go good right now. I pull over, get out my trusted coffee can bar-b-que aka hobo stove, wad up some newspaper, a few coals, and let it get hot. I set my coffee pot on the grill. No filter, jus’ coffee and water. I’d throw in some egg shells if I had ‘em, but I don’t. I let it boil, stand for a few minutes, pour a little cold water in to settle the grounds, and then it’s cup of joe time. I sit in the sand, with DeeOgee’s coffee can of urns next to me and listening to the waves and the tide of old memories that rise up like steam from my coffee cup. I thermos up the rest . . . I carry one like a good little boy scout . . . and get back on the highway.

Divorce Lawyers.

The galaxy gave a little backfire when I let off the gas, making me think of divorce lawyers. Now folks, this is a group of asswipes that should have a bounty on their heads. I mean instead of JD after their names it should read SD, for shit disturbers. These bastards with dime stacks in their shorts make their money by creating strife where none exists, then have the balls to charge $550 per hour to clean it up. Shit on a shingle, there ought to be an outer ring in Dante’s Hell for these Fucktards.

Oh, and this happens on both sides, with a wink and a nod from the judge. Then, when the couple is bled dry, these sanctimonious Shitbirds either withdraw as counsel, since Mr. Green is amissin’ from the Courtroom, or suddenly decide that the case can be settled. Oh, and if you’re the guy and the wife doesn’t work, you pay her attorney’s fees too. Yeah, that’ s right, the ex doesn’t give a fuck, her attorney, with salivating maw, measures you like a side of beef, since no matter how unreasonable the wife/client is, she or he merely says it’s his fault, and pay my attorney bill, Fuckface.

Well, you say the judges wouldn’t let this happen, you know justice is blind and all that stuff. Listen close, the judges on these cases are like a bishop presiding over a bunch of pedophile priests, his boys n’ girls can do no wrong, La La fuckin’ La. What a friggin’ laugh. Somebody ought to flush the entire lot of ‘em, and start from friggin’ scratch. I mean did you see that guy shoot that divorce lawyer on TeeVee, I mean he emptied a clip into this divorce laywer’s carcus and the lawyer survived a serious case of lead poisoning. I mean, even after having his ass shot off, the lawyer is still talking as they’re carrying him away. You’d have to have an exorcism in order to get this group to shut up. Hell, I heard that the hair and nails on people who die keep growing for a year, well these shitbird’s mouths keep working for a year. You got to bury these bastards twice as deep to keep from disturbing the birds and well wishers.

Road Bar ~

Driving on down PCH, I let the Galaxy eat up some road. Thinkin’ about those divorce lawyers has left a bad taste in my mouth. As I’m puttin’ a lot of grief beind me in the rear view mirror, I see a familiar watering hole and pull over to gas up the driver. Ahem. So, I park the Galaxy in a spot away from the fucktards that use your car like a door stop, set the alarm to explode, and wobble on over to the saloon.

I make a sawdust trial to the bar, and the bar tender turns a gimlet eye on me like I might stick a gun in his face. Must be a new guy. I order a brew with a Jack back, God bless those Southern boys, and it seems to calm him down. Served with a drink you could stick a pool umbrella in, I turn to look around at the local yokels playing pool and telling lies to each other.

The boozy broad sitting two stools away, smelling of cheap perfume, cigarettes and too many shots, lets out a hoarse yelp as some fucktard holding a pool cue pinches her flabby ass. The raspy voice that erupts from her pie hole is a string of friggin this and friggin’ that, sounding like an old saw with a missing tooth. My headache comes back with a vengeance. . . time to go. A stiff drink is not enough to ward off these fucktards. . . My local crew is long gone, I’m just playing memory lane, and the new crew is like watching the night of the livin’ dead. What the fuck, I drink up and slither on out into the night.

Before I head the Galazy out and down the highway, I pull some chicken out of the ice chest that I’ve had marinating in barbeque sauce. I wrap the chicken in two sheets of tin foil, pop the hood and place it on the manifold. It’ll take about 65 miles to cook, give or take, and then it’s done. For you wiseacres out there, this is not as harebrained as it sounds. I invite those of you who can read to buy a book called “Manifold Destiny,” which will set to rights any lingering doubts about this method of cooking. I started doing this on long pulls to surf spots, especially since the food will continue cooking after you shut the engine off.

Seaweed

"A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ." (John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley).

As I start out from the bar, the strong smell of the ocean hits me. My headache goes away like the mist. I love that smell, it’s the smell of boundless limits. I pop in Leonard Cohen singing Hallelujah, and relax in the warm cockpit of the Galaxy’s enveloping arms.

I was thinking the other day about seaweed which Galpal says is a close match to our friggin’ DNA. Huh? Go figure, we’re related to a buhch of weeds gowning under water trying desperately to reach the surface for some sunlight. When I think about it, I figure it sounds pretty familiar to the rat race we call civilization. Maybe we are related.

As I pass by Malizoo, I think about the fucktards who flock to this wave that hasn’t been good since the big storm of 69. Hell, the place is populated by guys who think they own the wave, and snakes who think nothin’ about dropping in front of you on a nice ride. Must be cousins to the illegals aliens.

Fuck me, you gotta go out to the Channel Islands to catch a wave unmolested by a bunch of fucktards in wet suits. I’m thinkin’ Ford’s point, Yellow Banks, China Cove, places where the guys in the water are just happy for company, all except the great white, the toothy bastard that calls those waters home ground. Hey, homey I’m just visiting and I taste bad, what with all those big macs, hogies, and tacos I gobble down like some ravenous road wizard gourmet. Don’t bite me.

Shit, speakin’ of the wrath of fast food, I blew a fart the other day that even choked me out, . . . and the top was down! The Galaxy was none too happy with me changing her ol’ car smell by takin’ the cap off my ass. I thought I even heard a growl from DeeOgee’s can of ashes. Hey, it’s only natural. . . yeah, tell that to your gurlfriend when you let off a squeaker on your next date. She’ll think you’re a natural born loser with a big L stamped on you loser forehead.

Parking Meters

Got a ticket the other day while parked in good ol’ Santa Monica. They call this SoCal seaside town “The People’s Republic of Santa Monica.” Hey, I’m not pickin’’ on Santa Monica, just because it’s home ground for rent control, vegetarian waccos pushing hemp clothing, and liberal fucktards who want their social programs paid by someone else; but, let me tell you their real distinction: its the metal robbers that stand guard over their precious fuckin’ parking spaces. These devil devices on a pole really need a reamout with a huge friggin’ dildoe. I mean isn’t that what bothered Cool Hand Luke all to Hell when he cut a bunch of em down.

Oh, and hear this, they just charged some genius in Brooklyn for cutting off the heads to 87 parking meters, LOL until my chin dribbles drool. Problem is, it wasn’t a protest, just a sicko drug addict with a bathing phobia living in his ma’s basement in Flatbush. Dude, the needlebag was just going after the quarters, which they figure came to about $6,000, blow me down an alleyway. Article in the paper says his moms “ratted him out to the Police.” . . . I guess that put’s him “on top of the world, Ma” with all due friggin’ respect to James Cagney. Serves him the fuck right for livin’ in Flatbush, . . .but then again that’s probably what drove him to drugs.

Gettin back to my problem, I put a quarter in one little bastard, and got ten minutes. Ten friggin minutes. hat’s a buck fifty an hour to park on a public street that we paid for!!! When did it get fashionable to charge the taxpayer twice? Folks, a legion of metal fucktards have been spawned in places like Santa Monica, which ain’t saintly, just waitin’ for some unsuspecting goober to make a little mistake. Jeeze, they have more metercops than real cops . . . I wonder why? Then I read all about it in that archaic thing they call a newspaper, which is losing ground so fast to the internet that a giant sucking sound can be heard, but I digress. Meterbitches are plentiful and procreating ‘cause the revenue from parking tickets is a real money maker, . . . and, Folktards, that crap about rotating parking spots for local businesses is a shovel load for the misinformed. Follow the friggin’ money!

Hell on wheels, they even arrested some kind hearted little ol’ lady that was cutting down on the misery and discontent by popping quarters in expired meters. What the friggin’ Hell is that. The sanctimonious assbags in City Hall even suggested she was mentally ill, and should be confined to a fuckin’ padded cell attended by guys in duck soup jackets. Heck, it was her little attempt at charity for the downtrodden, and they shoved it so far up her ass that her hair popped out like she’d spiked it with wax. What kind of country do we live in as we trod merrily into the 21st century?

Just to put it into perspective, I call the meter bitches the roving tax man, since some frigtard small towns along the coast actually survive on the parking ticket rip-offs. I heard some cityfuck call it the lawbreaker’s tax. Unfuckingbelievable. Oh, by the by, long gone is the $5 ticket, no sir, you’re looking at 28 friggin’ smackers. Shiiit, and the meter buzzards hover around just waiting for the time to die on the metal fucktards which then start flashing “over here, over here” for the meterfucks to notice and issue a ticket. No wonder the meterbitches are uniformly hated. Doesn’t take much imagination, since there’s nothin’ like fresh steaming ticket shit on your window to ruin a good evening out, and make you a hater.

Oh, and have you checked out the attitudes of the metermaids? First, they ain’t just women anymore, which used to ease the pain with a pretty face. Hell, what happened to the Fab4’s “Lovely Rita, metermaid, wouldn’t you love to meet her.” Well, here’s a flash, she has been replaced by a bunch of short dicked pimple faced weenies. That’s right, Metermaid is now a euphemistic term for a whole bunch of losers, crumbums, and misfits with no other opportunities, little education and egos so underdeveloped that they have convinced themselves they are not really carbuncles living off society’s hairy ass. Another group for bounty recovery, just present their scabby hides for the reward. Just thinkin’ about it makes me push harder on the Galaxy’s accelerator. I ease off when I spot a fuzztard pointing a radar gun at traffic from behind a sign. What a lovely sight. I whoosh on by doing the speed limit, with a smile on my face as he disappears in the rear view mirror. Good fuckin’ riddance.
Drivin’

So as I speed along, thinking “Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling” cept in my case it’s the Ford’s wanton cry to the Gods of gasoline alley. I sit back to the rush of air on my face and the satisfied rumble of the galaxy under my ass. . . “From glen to glen, and down the mountain side, The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying, 'Tis you, 'tis you must go . . . “

I gander up at the sky, “life,’ I think, doesn’t get much better than this, unless you count sticking the wood to your girlfriend in the hot tub. Then again, the heat in those things is like friggin anti-Viagra, and your gurl firend is all pissed at you for revvin’’ her engine, but keepin’ her in park. 'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.” Oh, Danny Boyo, lets peal the wet off this monster and burn the carbon out; so I speed up the highway with my round taillights burnin’ bright like a set of jet engines tied to the sides, and the dual pipes letting out a howl of approval. Hell, the galaxy is even air conditioned by Ford’s Select Aire, but who the frig needs that with the top down. Damn, Damn, Damn I shout at the sky as my dual headlights bore into the night, and the tuck-n-roll seats envelope me in Detroit nirvana.

Movies

“If we had no faults of our own,
we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Life is like the movies, with you as the director. Some scenes are bad, some are good, some are sad, and some grand. The real problems come from the poor bastard that has nothin’ but bad scenes, and it’s always nighttime, the rain is pouring down, and the place smells like a restaurant dumpster. Bro, you got to get away, lay down on a sunny beach somewhere, watch the waves, let the natural rhythm take you back to yourself. Forget about the faults of others. But, I’m driftin’ again.

Oh, did I say I’m not a critic; . . . I like to point the boney finger like the rest of you cretins. I like the movies. Hell, I was born in Hollywood, go figure. But, pleease, some of the crap they decide to make is like a fart going off at a Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, you have to get financing for a film, and it is a looong process. But it starts with selling the concept. What that means is that a lot of people have to give a pass on a project before it is made, goes to post production, and gets distributed. How the Hell does some this stuff float to the top to stink up some unsuspecting moviegoer’s night with an offering that is better served with a vomit bag. Then, there is the gem, which is often a small independent production company or an independent film maker who has the vision and the balls to keep on going through a shit storm of “nos.” Then, again this is a company town with a buch of shitbirds dovening at the alter of the almighty buck, while they stick their dicks in a prayer wall hoping for a miracle. I have a flash for you assbags, get some fuckin’ taste, and not just in your piehole. Oh, and if you don’t have a clue, don’t think position, who you’re suckin’ and a obscene salary gives you divine inspiration or a sense of story, hire someone who does. Then pay him or her a decent salary, and stop ripping off ideas from the little guy without paying for them with claims we had that idea in pre-production looong before the little guy or girl presented his or her little story gem. The last good idea you had was objecting to the temple charging admittance to get in to attend services. Don’t get me started on the God tax, or I’ll get real ugly.
Kids

Thank God for kids. I have some of the little people for my own. Having lived a sotted live of angst, party time, and cheap beer halls, I am flabbergasted that the good Lord blessed me with this gift. I mean, my karma was in serious deficit, and here I get this reward. Can’t figure it out, but I tell you this, my only regret is not meeting my son and daughter earlier. You think you’re too busy, well that goes out of the window the minute, no the second, you meet your kids. And fellow gasbags, kids are as direct as a steel rod, they see it without the filters the rest of us craptards use to delude ourselves about the truth, and they jus call it as they see it. So, be prepared.

Executive Salaries

Drivin’ up the coast, I pull into Neptune’s net, letting the Galaxy relax with a seaside view before I take her out on the asphalt ribbon for another trot. Used to be when we surfed County Line, we’d amble across the street, dodging the cars on PCH, and grab a good uncrowned meal and a brewski. Now, there’s a hundred Harley’s, and wantabe Harley’s, lined up all over. The biker dudes and weekend badasses with their new leathers and bad bike skills populate the tables with their Hollywood scowls and dime store attitudes on display. Marlon Brando they aint. As I’m taking this in, a limo pulls up to let out some asswipes with an itch for good seafood and some idea that this is the new cool spot.

It gets me to thinkin’ about the executive turds that earn such obscene salaries, then get a bonus that hits the salary ball outta the park. How in the fuck do these asshats relate to the common folk or the people who work for them. Oh, and did you catch the three stooges from the big three automakers coming to Congress with their hats in their hands asking for us poor taxslobs to bail them out from their legendary run of bad judgment to the tune of 30 billion dollars. These conceited pissants, with an attitude right from the French revolution, flew in on three different private jets to rattle the poor cup. LOL, do these assplugs even begin to understand the effect of such a display of arrogance on the American people when they are having a hard time paying for gasoline, thanks to the robber barons who supply it, and our suckhard President giving them a wink and a nod. I mean how did these moral pigmies ever rise to the leadership of a major industry. But then even Cassandra of Troy warned her father not to the friggin’ wooden horse in the house.

Traffic and Maintenance

As I drive along after lunch, I get to thinking about traffic, and the constant amount of it in our beleaguered lives. Rush hour now means all times of day. Hell, when they had the illegal alien strike in California, the traffic was a breeze. What does that tell you? Anywho, I digress like a fart that turns into something else. When you’re sloggin’ it to work, and the road maintainance people have decided to do the roadway at the same time, that qualifies for the middle finger salute with all due friggin respect. I mean, you’re sitting in traffic forever, and these guys are sleeping over their shovels, making you late for work. Also, why is it that one guy in shoveling and two guys are watching. Is this a union thing, or what. The voting public wants to know. Are they checking his shovel technique, or are they just two featherbedding fucktards chillin’ out on the public dole.

Motels

As it gets to evening, I start thinkin’ about a motel and a steak to settle my rumbling gut. Motels, you got to love em. When I was a little kid on one of those road trips my Pop would take us on, which seemed like forever, especially in the back seat with my brother and sisters, one of which made it a habit of tossing her cookies on the slightest curve, and with Mommieo trying to keep us occupied with games any self-respecting kid wouldn’t play on a bet. . . so we’d be ramblin’ along in the old Buick and I’d see that sleepy bear sign with his eyes half shut and his arms straight out like a sleep walker and I always wanted to stay at his place. But, no00, Pops always wanted to put more miles in until we of the back seat were a tangled mess of boozo clowns and akimbo arms . . . just a jumble of sleepy kids oblivious to the road and the noise and little amsey divey.

Now that I am older, ahem, at least in tree rings, I have my pet peeves about motels. I mean, haven’t these guys heard of fitted shits, plain bedspreads and what the hell is up with those colors. Also, get some room freshener into these rooms, or crack the window. And why does the non-smoking room always smell like an ashtray. But fuck-a-doodle doo, if you’re tired enough the rack is all you care about. . . just bring your Lysol.

Breakfast on the road

Fellow fucktards, there is nothin’ like breadfast on the road. Nothing. It’s a new day, the waitress is fresh, clean and only on her first cigarette. The day is new and the road of adventure is laid out before you like a toy you just can’t wait to get the wrapper off. Eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. Nobody can screw up that combo, and the short order cook is the king of this cuisine. You hear some wiener say its “bad for you.” Well, I say fuck the nattering nabobs of “no you can’t.” eat hardy and enjoy cause nobody gets outta here alive. What did the Bard of Bread Street say, “We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” Frig that,” I think. So, I finish breakfast with a smile on my mug, toss a tip on the table, jump into the galaxy, warm her up, and head on down the road of missed opportunities and unmet friends. Even the Galaxy seems to smile in approval as she roars on down the road.

With the wind in my face, I head north with Point Magu up ahead, and I’m met with clouds above and a flat sea below mirroring clouds in orange tinted perfection. I mean it’s enough to make you wanna capture it forever, just put it in a bottle to pull out when you need a happiness fix.

My dog “DeOgee”

Used to take my dog DeOgee everwhere I went, especially to the beach where the little mutt would run straight across the sand, a huge stick in his maw, ignoring the bathers lying on their beach towels slicked up with oil like beached whales. LOL, he’d run straight across their bodies. There were quite a few yelps and screams of “whose fuckin’ dog is that.” I would just play it cool behind my shades, just checking out the surf line. However, there were times when I came in from surfing and was met with a crowd like the one that confronted Frankenstein at the windmill. Shit on a friggin’ shingle, DeOGee had caused another riot. The last straw was when he dropped a steamer right near somebody’s reclining and very asleep head. Lucky Lindholm pointed it out to me, and I was gape mouthed. Of course, my dog was acting like it was someone else’s fault, and generally leaving me to deal with some very uncool beachgoers. Crap, I couldn’t deny ownership since DeOgee had become a minor celebrity on the point. I just muttered, “sorry, . sorry . . . Oh, by your head, sorry about that . . won’t happen again . ...”, knowing full well that DeOgee would do a rerun the next day.

On the way to the beach, DeOgee had a habit of putting his head waay out the window on my VW Bug. Hell, he’d have one paw down outside of the door, just leaning out all to hell and gone with the wind whipping his tongue back like a flapping flag. So one day we were thrashing it through Malibu canyon, and just before the tunnel of the pink lady, we go whizzing around a gnarly corner. I just so happen to look over and see DeOgee’s tail and hind feet disappearing over the top of the passenger door. I guess he went for a little too much lean. By pure reaction, I grabbed his disappearing tail and yanked back, and dog and all came back through the window like I put it in rewind. DeOGee was weirded out, Bro, and for the rest of the trip he kept looking at the window like it was gonna bite his ass. I have no idea what he experienced out there as the road came whizzing by his snout while he was hanging ten out the window, but I am sure it wasn’t pleasant.

Anyway, that reminds me of people who keep dogs in apartments all day then give them a “walk” when they get home. Damn, it’s a muttley penitentiary, with the dogs locked up all day, bladder full to exploding, just waiting for their pissant owners to come home and give them that “walk.” And LOL, watching these shitbirds follow their dogs around with a plastic bag to pick up the huge, I’ve been inside all day, steamers their dogs invariably lay is a sight to make you wanna have cats. Yeah, right.

Wonder Cat

Speaking of cats, I had a dickwad friend that was all askitter about how cats can always land on their feet, “no matter how they fall.” So this genius takes some cat he’s nabbed from the neighborhood up to the third floor of a building under construction, and tosses the tabby out in full gainer mode. Bro, I mean to tell you that cat was turning inward back flips like Greg Louganis on speed. So I’m getting’ ready to kill Dickwad when he gets earthbound, and regrettin’ what I’m about to see, when, just before the ground came up, that cat jinked and landed on all fours. Damn cat gave himself a lick, looked around with distain, then ran off. Fuck me if that wasn’t the greatest display of athleticism I had ever seen. I gained a new respect for the shit burying hair balls. Oh, and by the by, I planted a slap off of the shitbird’s head when he came bounding up to me like he discovered the source of the Nile. Whatta asshole.

Cats and Owls

I live in an area that is kinda rustic, with coyotes, owls, bob cats, raccoons, and any number of country creatures. Cats do not do well in my neighborhood. First of all, you’d think that it’s the coyotes or bob cats that would be a threat. Bro, you’d be dead wrong. It’s the Owls. These birds are death from above on cats, which is why we have very few tabbies in my area, and those never leave the inside of a house. Oh, there’s a few who keep under cars, with grease smudged fur, ears half bitten off and scars from earlier scrapes, but the’re the hardy few. Oh, and some people come up from the City with their cats, all plump and safe feeling, and within weeks they’re plasterin’ signs all over the place, like “Have you seen, Fluffy?,” with some forlorn picture of a cat staring out along with a reward.

I always try to warn ‘em, but I invariably get that “what the fuck do you know” look. . . “we’re cat owners, and “does that that dog of yours bite?” “Who, DeeOGee?” I always say, followed by “he’s harmless,” without mentioning his propensity for dropping huge dog logs just where you don’t want ‘em, like under foot.

So I see one poster offering 1,000 smackers for the return of an orange tom cat, and I know it was just down the street from the abode of a fairly large owl. Sure enough I find owl crap, an orange haired paw and a little bit of tail on his drop rock. They went sideways when I tried to claim the reward for the return of Fluffy, even had his tidbits in a nice little box. Hell, they didn’t say alive, and I thought they might want his remains back. Go figure.

Part’s guys

As I’m drivin’ along appreciating the smooth growl of the Galaxy’s 352, I get to thinking about the last time I tuned her up. That always gets me in contact with a particular breed of asshole known as the “parts guy.” I have been going to confession with these fucktards forever, whether it was with my various doodle bugs, motorcycles, cars, or one of Lucky Lindholm’s creations, they’re all the same fat assed Blowgut with a sense that he discovered air.

I needed plugs, points and a condenser for the Galaxy’s 352, and 1959 does present some preplanning, like calling ahead to be sure the autostore has the parts before I head on over. So, the last time I went through this dance, and like so many times before, I get there and the assplug behind the counter made a mistake. Doesn’t have the parts, can order it, will be in next week . . . sometime.

What the fuck, didn’t I just call? I mean, where do they get these assbags. Oh yeah, they advertise for high school dropouts, with fat asses, little piggy eyes and memories like fireflies. Parts guys. Oh, an’ my favorite is the parts guy who thinks he’s an expert on my 352. Hell, I’ve had that engine spread all over my garage floor, rebuilt it two times, and this dumb fuck who couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map, is gonna teach me something about the 352. Shit, it’s enough to wanna see if he could even find the carb if I lifted the hood. Again, I call on my fellow landsman Dante to find a special ring in Hell for these guys.


Saygas

"Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea." Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea”

I passed Saygas on my way up north, and it brought back memories of surfin’ off the rock. I mean, I gots no love for snakes, you know the guys who drop in on you after you have the wave, but I don’t wish them too much harm. So, I take off on the second wave of a set, and this snake drops in front of me. I cut back and see a guy paddling out in front of me after breakin’ free of the soakers . . he hesitates, then tries to paddle up the wave right in front of me. Havin’ no time, I surf right over the dumb fuck. Skag stops dead on his noggin, and I do a superman. When I come up for air, the guy is floatin’ face down. Shit, Shit Shit, I think I killed the bastard. So I swim over draggin’ my board behind like a dog on a leash, grab him up for air, and start swimmin’ him in. He comes to, clears his head, and wants to go back out. Fuck me, if the guy doesn’t paddle back out into the lineup, blood streaming from his noggin. Surfers, you gotta love em, cause they’re the last of the cowboys.
Latino bathers

Fuck politically correct, but as I’m drivin’ along PCH I can’t help but notice some Latino visitors to our seashore going into the water with their clothes on. I mean a fully clothed baptism, Amen. That’s jeans an all, Bro, an’ this aint the first time I’ve seen this phenomenon. Hell, I saw one fat mommasita sitting on her billboard-sized ass at the waterline with her legs spread out and soaked to her ever expanding gils. What a Fucktardo, I mean que paaaasa, chica. Bro, I mean even DeeOGee knew to drop his stick before wading out into the lofties. Ai yi yi! So, my Latino friends from Mexico and other southern parts, if you’re listening, please enlighten me on this wonder of wonders ‘cause I’m just an ignorant red neck who owns a friggin’ $6 bathing suit.

Yellow Jackets

So, I’m drivin’ along while contemplating the Latino dilemma, my arm cocked out the window, the top down, just noodling the problem, when a Yellow Jacket flies into my little milieu. Fuck me blind and call me Molly, but these little motherfuckers can sting you as many times as they want, . . . plus I’m allergic to ‘em. So, I go bugfuckingcrazy trying to wave the litter bugtard away. Maybe it’s my cologne, but he won’t go. I pull over, jump out of the Galaxy, and the little fucker follows me out.

So, I’m dancing a jig by the side of the road, while this yellow fukcktard is dive bombing me, and some bumbo smellin’ strongly like piss and cheap wine saunters up to me with a beat-up sign made from the side of a cardboard box that says “Veteran, needs money for food, will work.” “Got any money, man?” I give him a harried look, then notice that the yellow jacket has alighted right on this guy’s red potato of a nose. Bumbo looks down his snozz all crossed eyed, and his eyes go saucer like as the yellow jacket stings the taste outta the guys mouth. I mean Bumbo slapps his snozzola so hard outta pure reaction that he nearly knocks himself out. The little yellow bastard is now circling Bumbo’s head for another strike like some German Stuka Bomber. I make a quick escape into the galaxy and roar off in a blast of gravel, a few Hail Mary’s, and a cloud of dust. Whewwe, now I believe in reincarnation, ‘cause nobody could get that fucked up in one lifetime. Why do bums come up to me, it not like I have a sign around my neck or somethin’.

Road Whackos

Back on the road, I pull up to a stop light, and the guy next to me in a sloppy Dodge Duncemobile, revs his engine while looking at me with a shit eatin’ grin on his face. It’s like the night of the living dead. A billow of blue white exhaust exits his tail pipe tellin’ me all I gots to know about his tuning skills. This fucktard wants to race me! For what? Beatin’ him won’t even take a pimple off my ass, and the Galaxy is not in the mood. I give him a middle finger salute, and slide away on the green light like my wheels are made of glass. The fucktard hits it hard, and squeals away like a marathoner with emphysema, his power steering pump screaming like a banshee, and his departing exhaust cloud causing a minor HASMAT situation.

Hallelujah, a friendly Chippy has seen the whole friggin’ display, and speeds after the trowserturd, lights a blarin’ and the wail of his siren going all yippy and yappy. It wasn’t hard, the cop just had to follow the smoke trail. Shieet, I hadn’t seen the cop, and it sorta unnerves me. Hell, I coulda had a wild hair and engaged in a “speed contest” with the duncemobile, but I guess I had a premonition.

So I ease up the road like oily smoke, curling up the coast highway without a care in the world. I pass the duncemobile, which has pulled over for the cop, and the guy is waiving his arms all over the place, then frantically points me out as I pass on by. I give him the royal wave, and the cop barely looks up as he’s writin’ the guy what I hope is a huge friggin’ ticket. Maybe he’ll end up with her Honor, the camera ticket judge. She’ll probably shove a Misdefuckingmeanor up his sorry ass if there is a God in Heaven. Amen.

Drivin’ on the Beach

As I’m passing by Dead End, a body surfin’ break up the coast from Zuma Beach, and I’m reminded of the time my buddy, Lucky Lindholm, and I took his International Scout on the beach. Illegal as all get out, but what a friggin’ thrill.

So, I get the bright idea that ridin’ on the back bumper would be an even bigger blast. I didn’t say I was smart. So, I get back there, and I’m standin’ on the bumper holding onto the rain groove, just hurtling down that narrow area between the tide line and the dry sand at about 40 mph - you know the place where the waves lap up on the shore and the wet sand is hard as a city street. I’m all smiles and giggles, and enjoying the trill.

As we blast along the surfline, I see Lucky Lindholm eyeing me in the rear view mirror. Then I notice his eyes crinkle up in what I recognize is not a good friggin’ sign. Before I can even get out “Don’t do it, Bro,” he suddenly veers into the ocean, soaking the shit outta me as a rooster tail of salt water shoots up my back. I am now soaking, kinda angry and starting to make references to his mother, when he veers into the dry sand. A cloud of dry sand blasts me and now I’m looking like that sandguy from Spiderman. I mean he’s laughing so hard were weaving all over the place, while I’m hanging on like grim death. He finally pulls over, and falls outta the Scout laughing like he’s gonna burst a gut. I walk out into the surf with my clothes on and wash off the sand. Hmmm, just like my Latino friends. God does has a sense of humor after all. I decide to turn around and dump a little of DeeOgee’s ashes at Dead End.

Wetsuits

Most surfers today use wetsuits to keep warm and stay in the water the maximum amount of time. When I started surfing, it was considered less than manly to wear a wetsuit. I thought this was crap, and got myself a Heathway’s top, with a hanging flap or beavertail. I took some ribbing, but I stayed warmer than my mates, and longer in the water.
Hypothermia! This is a condition where your body temperature gets too cold and you start having problems. First, ya gotta know that water robs heat from the body 25 to 30 times faster than air. So, that means that even in warm water, you can get hypothermia, it just takes longer. Here’s the thing, in cold water temperatures of 50° to 60° F. without protection it can take 1 to 2 hours before Exhaustion or blackout, with a survival time of 1 to 6 hours. A wetsuit changes this equation, but staying in too long can still lead to hypothermia.
Mild signs hypothermia are shivering, constriction of blood vessels in skin and extremities; increased blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. If untreated, progresses to apathy, impaired judgment, irritability, difficulty walking, cold diuresis (urination) and dehydration. I have come stumbling outta the surf after hours in the water barely able to mumble and walk a straight line. But, then again, I was an idiot. Get out earlier, since you really can’t surf when you that cold. Nuff said.





In California, we have real cold water, due to factors like deepwater upwelling, Coriolis effect and Ekman transport. In short, Coastal upwelling occurs where Ekman transport moves warm surface waters away from the coast which are then replaced by cold water that rises up from below. Sooo, get a wet suit if you’re gonna surf in California, or the West Cost.

A lot of you chuckleheads seem to be in a fog about wet suits and what type to get for riding the grinders. First, a little background: A wetsuit works by trapping a film of water between the neoprene and your skin. Your body heats the thin film of water and presto chango you’re warm. That is why a wetsuit has to be tight, or it will let in a surge of cold water making you cold. A tight neck will also keep out water when ducking through a wave, but I’m sure you’ve all had a wet wily once in while. The other problem is that a loose neck will allow a bunch of water to build up in your chest and arm area making it a bitch to paddle. If you are seriously caught inside and scratching to get out, your arms can do a serious fizzle with the extra weight. Next thing you know, your zozzled.

About wetsuits, they were invented by a very bright guy who worked on the first A-Bomb by the name of Hugh Bradner. He did this in or around 1951. Jack O’Neal did not invent the wetsuit. But he came close and saw the potential where Bradner could care less. Anywho, Jack O’Neal and his brother Robert were also thinking along the same lines as was Bob and Bill Meistrell of Body Glove fame. All I can say is thank God or we’d be relegated to a very short season, or time in the water, since 55 degrees will freeze the balls off a brass donkey in no time flat.

Back to basics, what is a 5/4, 4/3, 3/2 suit designation refer to or mean for you riders of the grinder? It refers to the thickness of the suit in various areas of the body in millimeters. The higher the number the thicker the material. For California, I consider the 4/3 suit to be the best. The 4 mm material is on the body and the 3 mm material is on the arms and crotch. The thinner material allows for more flexibility, thus easier paddling. This suit is good from 54° F to 59° F, which is the temperature range for most California waters. Stabilizing the thin sheet of water between the suit and your skin is important. Here’s a tip, a O’Neil Dive Skin will stabilize the thin sheet of water and keep you warmer, sometimes too warm. Also, in buying a wetsuit, be sure that you have a flap behind the zipper to keep water from filtering in. I’d stick to the major manufacturers like O’Neil or Body Glove, cause they have some very good suits.

Gay Blades n’ T-Birds

I pull into a roadside diner, and park the Galaxy in a safe spot. “Oh, Neal, look at that car, it’s so me.” I crane my neck and see a couple of guys walking up to the Galaxy with jeans so tight that if they farted their heads would blow off. The one who made the comment ambles up first, and I got to tell you, this Cat was as queer as a plucked bird.

So, they come up and are gazing at the Galaxy, wheh I let loose with “So, what’re you two gay blades up to?” They give me a quizzical look, then burst out laughing. Then the talkee one blurts out, “We’re going to Frisco to get married . . .” (a beat) then, “you have a problem with that?” “Me, Hell no, you want part of this misery boat, jump aboard and start bailing. . . Why should you get off Scott fuckin’ free. . . I’ll bet the divorce lawyers are already sharpenin’ up their knives.” They give me a look, then start laughing again. “I’m John, and this is Neal . . . Where are you headed?” I pause, “Up the coast . . . no place really, jus’
clearin’ out the cobwebs.”

They point out a cherry 55 T-Bird with “that’s our car, isn’t she just deeevine?” I look her over closely, then ask “Who did the restoration?” They look at each other, “Why we did!” states the talkie one with his hands on his hips for emphasis. His friend then offers in a quiet voice, “Being gay doen’t mean being retarded, or mechanically bereft.” I cock an eyebrow at them then state, “I don’t care what you do in your bedroom, but this garage work is first rate my friends. . . . , chapeau,” and I touch my imaginary hat. “Oh, he knows some French, Neal” talkie boy states in a mildly sarcastic fashion served with a smile. I give em a toothy grin back and state, “Being a redneck doesn’t mean you got no teachin’, my friends.” We all laugh, and I bid them adios as I disappear into the diner.

Self-serve Gas Stations

I’m constantly checking the gas gauge on the Galaxy, since the 352 eats gas with the vengeance of times past when gas was 25 cents a gallon. Jeez, I remember a time when gas stations used to pump your gas, wash your windows, check your oil, and generally let you sit in the car while they did the work with a smile. What the fuck happened, and where’d they stash Mr. Goodwrench? Now you gotta walk up to a smudged window to confer with some mumbling assrab or other non-native speaker with marbles in his maw, who sits behind bullet proof glass and gets your money under a curved slot. If you have a credit card, you can do it at the pump, but I don’t believe in the little bastards with their high to every increasing interest rates.

County Line and
Sunset Hamburgers

“GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.”
Robert Herrick. 1591–1674

I have always liked County Line, and so did DeeOgee. He hated Staircase, which was a little South ‘cause he hated the climb down the cliff. I used to ditch school with Lucky Lindholm to catch the break at the Line. Since our High School was near Kanan-Dume Road, we would just hop in the Scout, surfboards pre-loaded of course (“Mom, it’s show and tell day”), and head on out for a righteous point break. Of course, we’d gather up our brothers, and a few local yocals, and head on out on shared gas.

County Line is cooold water, and we’d stay in ‘till we were numb and dumb. It has a good right, but also a left for the goofies. Lucky Lindholm was a goofy, and he used to nest there like a buzzard swooping in on the waves. I hated it ‘cause it was always backside for me. I like turning into a wave with my face, not my back. I could never figure out goofies, and what mental illness caused them to put their feet on a board like that. Our crazy buddy, Coste, used to come with us, and he was the Goofy King of the Snakes. Now I was surfing the left with my back to the wave, and Coste, that happy bastard dropped in on me, so I went low to pass, and his board came right between my legs. I mean, I was knocked into a sitting position on his nose just long enough to realize I was fucked. My board, now floating free, skiddled, swung violently around via the fulcrum created by my leash and we both did a yardsale. What a Bozo, but you just couldn’t get mad at Coste, since he was laughin’ the whole time we were in this particular jam. Never a word in anger. When I paddled back out Lucky Lindholm uttered his usual line, “How’d that feel?” I held up a finger showing him is hat size, and looked out for the next set.

Now the Line is just across the street from Neptune’s Net, which is a seafood place that has gone from near-zero to hero now that the biker set has moved in. These are the guys that never rode a motorcycle, then go out and buy a Harley in their middle-age. They start their hog up with a button on Sunday, ride 10 miles to a place like the Net, sit down on their ever expanding asses gawking, looking tough, and feeding their unshaved mugs. Go Figure. For me, the Net all started and ended with the restroom. It use’ta have a latrine in the back that needed a bomb to clean up. I always thought of that when I got the wild hair to brave a run across PCH to eat there. Remember, PCH is traveled by big iron cages going freeway speeds and looking at the sites not the road or your miserable ass squirting across the highway. So be mindful, Bro.

The break is nice, but it is a party wave, with spooks, kooks, and snakes abundant. Then, you have to steer around the paddlepusses if you get greedy and ride it too far. Don’t. The water is clean, and there are places to put your stuff. Don’t park on the point, cause you can’t see your ride from the beach. Think stolen stereos, and broken side windows. If you want some isolation, go to Staircase just a little south.

As I said, DeoGee loved the Line, since the mutt could run down the long stretch of beach to the left of the point, find lottsa smells to check out, and places to poop. I swear that dog was a poo machine, food in, poop out. The downside was that the pretty girls stayed away, leaving the swamp hogs to populate the beach. Not a pretty site in a bikini and all greased up. What!? I didn’t say I was polite or politically correct, just blunt.

Our salvation was always the Line Shack or Point Burger to satisfy our gut. It used to be called Pete’s Shack, but I always knew it as the Line Shack or the Point Burger. Then, some do-gooder tore it down, I guess for the pelicans or ground squirrels or something having to do with a permit. I can remember sitting in the Scout with Lucky Lindholm after a long day of surfin’, eating point burgers from the Line Shack, watching the sun go down as our two stumbling brothers came up the cliff for warmth and eats. ”It doesn”t get any better than this,” I stated to LL. He just grunted over a mouthful of burger with a happy twinkle in his eyes, and looked out over the dying sunset. So, I looked out and saw the sun dippin’ down, red in the face after watching our antics, slipping quickly away with a riot of color and clouds tinged on their embarrassed bottoms. What’ a day to remember.

Ventura Mission

Coming into ventura, I head to Mission Buena Ventura, and, of course, California Street, or C-Street. The break is a long right that is pretty sluffy, but the ride can be prodigiously long, almost to the pier on big days. The mission, on the other hand, has suffered earthquakes and an accompanying tidal wave in 1812 that forced the similing padres and their Indian neophytes to seek temporary shelter a few miles inland. Six years later the padres and their flock had to remove sacred objects from the church and flee into the hills to elude a pirate who was pillaging the Missions but fortunately was headed off after a "bargaining session" at El Refugio in Santa Barbara. This was the 9th mission of the malorica priest, and it was a difficult one to keep going, especially when the Mexican Government, never too cowardly to cut a deal, cut the ground from under the missions by the process of secularization. Read this as a land grab.



Where have the fish gone?

I like pigs.
Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down on us. ‘
Pigs treat us as equals.Winston Churchill

When we were kids, Lucky Lindholm’s father used to take us in his sailboat from Ventura to the Channel Islands. We’d hit tons of fish in schools, with flying fish coming over the rails and often landing in the cockpit. His dad used to say, “remember this memory, it won’t always be like this.”
Take the fate of the Bluefin Tuna, the last of the great lions of our ocean. It is so popular for sushi and sashimi that it is being fished to death. Take your typical sushi bar in Japan, where, in glassy eyed tupor, they call out Toro or Maguro, lined up like like gape mouthed buttons. Gochiso sama deshita! Ai shiteru. Price is no object. Yet, the raw fish eaters will be jarred from their trance when the fish go extinct, or brought out of their languid stupor by the roar of the world, “Lotus eaters stop, and make fast to your oars, for you are killing the world.” The youth of Japan is it’s savior, for they are saying enough. “A land where all things always seem'd the same! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against the rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.” Enough, enough, enough! “Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.” Stop the killing of the Bluefin tuna, stop the killing of the whales, stop buying the horn of the rhinoceros, or tiger penis, to make your manhood seem real. Stop being pigs, eating all that is around till you starve in your pen.
Reality
According to an L.A. Times article by Joshua Reichert, the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is “in dire straits. The population that spawns in the U.S. waters has declined by 82% since the l970s, as commercial fishing fleets have responded to plunging catches by simply fishing more intensively, as if the supply were inexhaustible.” And don’t give me that crap that it’s the wind, like some eggheads over at Scripps are saying caused the demise of the sardine industry in the 40s. I guess the fact that the fishing industry was fishing the stock into oblivion wasn’t a factor. Jesus in tennis shoes! And how’s about this little fact, “efforts to impose sustainable catch limits on this fish have failed miserably. . .” Why do I find that so hard to believe.
Anyway, the normal size of a Bluefin is about 6’-5” and weighs in at 1,100 lbs. Prices vary but the price record was broken in 2001, when a 444 pound Bluefin was sold in Tokyo’s Tsukiji Central Fish market for $173,600, or $391 per pound. And guess who takes 80% of the EU’s exports? Japan, the same country that allows for the fishing of whales for “scientific purposes,” and who simply ignores the world’s anger at this, unless you credit “lip service.” Give me a friggin’ break.
Kindred Woes: Whales
About whales. Japan is the world's most passionate whaling nation, ‘cause it eats the critters. It doesn’t study them except from a plate. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) permits a country to catch as many whales as it wants for “research.” Japan targets about 950 Minke whales a year for its “research” programs! How many do you need to study, and why do these whales end up on plates in Japanese restaurants. Research my ass. By 2006, the whale meat industry in Japan was generating about 67 million dollars annually. Scientific purposes, LOL.
Research my Boney Ass
Between 1990 and l998, the Japanese took 33,696,320 lbs of Whales products, which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises, for “scientific research.” What fuckin’ research needs this much meat, and why does such research require the killing of the whales? Come on, if you believe this I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in. Thus, the main demand of anti-whaling nations, and this humble complainer, is that Japan must terminate its “scientific” whale hunting programs.
Who and What are we Dealing with?
A little background, and you’ll see a trend. The Japanese, with no excuses being given by me to the Koreans or the Chinese, but being the most prominent of the group, routinely sell the femur and penis of the Chinese tiger for purposes of supposedly curing rheumatism, with the penis serving as a organic aphrodisiac, respectively. What the fuck, are these people simply ignorant fools, or just arognant uncaring bastards ignoring the fact that as few as 10 to 30 Chinese tigers survive in the wild, with approximatley 60 living in zoos. There are less than 100 living on earth today! This doesn’t even consider sustainable stock or lack of genetic diversity. Yet, Japan, which in 1980 signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) bannig the international trade in tiger parts, does not enforce the selling of tiger parts at home. Huh. Who’s supposed to do it? The Japanese government, those face saving excuses for excrement, that pays lip service to the ban by refusing to prohibit trade in tiger parts that are not "readily recognisable". Meaning, chop the tiger up into your tiger pills, call it something else, and olly olly oxen free. Oh, and pre-covention products, or products from tigers killed before 1980 are fare game. Here the catch, radiocarbon dating is only accurate to within a century or two, and can be reduced to say 20 years by using using expensive methods along with other material associated with the sample. Good friggin luck.
Chinese Medicine
That’s not all. Traditional Chinese medicine is a thriving business in Japan with a panoply of dismembered, pickled or desiccated breeds used in the concoction of its pills, salves and tonics. This includes deer penis, monkey hand, monkey head, bear's gall bladder, rhino horn, narwhal tusks, whale foetus and the penises of seals, wolfs and sea lions. The whale doesn’t stand a chance among these cretins.
Back to Whales
The average size of a Minke whale ranges from 23 to 30 feet, and weighs in at around 15,000 to 20,000 lbs. The female is larger than the male, with the Antarctic variety running larger. I have been told that about 70% of a whale is edible meat. Get this, in 2006 a new company was established in Tokyo called Geishoku Labo, to sell whale meat that was caught in the Antarctic Ocean under the scientific research exception. This was encouraged by the Japanese Fisheries Agency. Are you surprised? The whale meat will be marketed as a low-calorie, low-fat source of protein to hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants and to individuals via the internet. This was spurred by a 1,000 metric ton harvest of whale meat caught by the Japanese fleet during a November to March research trip to the Antarctic Ocean. That is, 2,204,622 pounds of whale meat for scientific research headed straight for the dinner plate. This is like studing a toe nail by cutting off the foot.
In 2005, the average wholesale price of Minke whale meat was 1950 yen per kilogram. A kikogram is 2.20 lbs., and 1950 yen is about 22 U.S. Dollars. Do the math. Take the low end of average for the weight of a single Minke whale, 15,000 lbs., divide by 2.20, multiply by 22 dollars, then take 70% of that. You get $104,999 per whale at wholesale. Follow the money.
Responsible Citizens of the World
These bandy legged little shits have got to become responsible citizens of the world, and not merely takers with money to grease the palms of the greedy. Japan sorta stepped up by suggesting a ban on Mediterranean fishing of Bluefin tuna, but it still buys all that the various Mediterranean fleets, illegal and legal, produce. Sound familiar, kinda like it signed the ban on endangered species. This is the definition of speaking with a forked tongue. And don’t think that the EU gets off “as above the fray,” since these often sanctimonious bastards refuse to even back a temporary ban on catching this endangered species, and all for the gullets of sushi lovers. Some scientists are predicting that Bluefin will completely disappear within three years in the Mediterranean, what then happens is not even contemplated. The Bluefin will go the way of the Chinese Tiger.
Here’s another little fact, 40% of the worldwide Bluefin Tuna catch is caught off North-West Pacific. That’s us! And alghough the Pacific Bluefin runs smaller than its Atlantic counterpart, with the collapse of the Atlantic stock the bastards will be off our shores in even greater numbers. When I told gurlpal about this outrage, she told me we need to get some serious fishing gear ready, and how far does my boat go out. Huh? Her eyes were all glassy, like she’d discovered treasure. This is the problem in a nutshell, follow the money.
Summary
Pacific Bluefin Tuna are overfished throughout the world. That is, all populations of Bluefin tuna are being caught faster than they can reproduce. They are hooked on long lines or illegally netted where they swim, and many young bluefins are captured before they reproduce. Longlining (pictured below), is a drop and return system that features a main or central fishing line proped up with floats that can stretch for 50 miles, with drop lines that dangle at intervals with hooks tied on the end. Also, a hook doesn’t discriminate, and all sizes of Bluefin and other types of fish can and are caught. The problem is that live release is almost impossible, and the negative impact is exponential in nature. Purse seining is the other culprit in catching these magnificent fish, and it has the same “bycatch” problems as the long line.

According to various reports, creating effective fishing policies for Bluefin tuna is difficult because they are highly mobile and swim through the territorial waters of many different nations. Data about their movements and high levels of international cooperation are needed to ensure sustainable Bluefin tuna populations. Blueshit, Blueshit, Blueshit, its all about the money. As long as there is a high demand and high monetary reward, the Bluefin will continue to be fished to extinction. I just wish the nattering nabobs in charge would just tell us the truth.
According to one report, 9 out of 23 species of tuna worldwide are “fully fished” – meaning catches should not be increased. Four more are “overexploited” or “depleted,” according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The tuna’s plight is shared by many marine species now being hunted by large, modern fishing fleets that use satellite tracking and sophisticated fishing gear, scientists say.
Despite the fact that regional fishery management organizations have imposed catch limits to try to preserve tuna and other species, global fisheries are in crisis, researchers say. Some 80 percent of commercial fish species are either fully exploited, overexploited, or collapsed, the FAO reports.
“Global fisheries really are in bad shape,” says Daniel Pauly, a marine scientist at the University of British Columbia. “Most of it is due, quite simply, to decades of overfishing.” His research tracks a steady slide in global catches.
Thinkin’ about all this stuff causes me to mash the gas peddle to the floor, which I catch in time to slide back down to cruisin’ speed. Back to drivin’ and dreamin’.
Credit cards.

Now as I’m tooling along, I start thinking’ about credit cards which ruins the vibe of drivin’ and dreamin. You got to love the bastard who let this scourge out on the earth. I mean the credit card companies charge interest rates that would make a mobster’s face red. Did you fellow miscreants know we have usury laws in most States that say YOU can’t charge over 12% interest on a loan. So how do credit card companies get away with 18 to 36 percent interest? Well, think hard about all that money, then think about our elected fuckaroos in the legislature with backbones carved from bananas and the morals of an alley cat. Yep, you got it on the first take, these asskissers that never met a lobbist buck they didn’t like passed a bill giving the credit card companies an exception. What the fuck!? Then, not satisfied with that, the greedy bastards got our federal congressmen to pass a law that says you can’t go bankrupt on a credit card debt. Hell, next we’ll have debtor’s prison all over again. Just who the fuck are these congressional asslickers representing, anyway? Oh, yeah, the all mighty buck. They’d make Boss Tweed look like a piker. Bro, we need to get the money changers outta the temple before they sell us to the highest bidder lock stock and fuckin’ barrel. Oh Shit, they already did!

Bass Thumpers

After belching out that unwelcome train of thought, I’m drivin’ along minding my bidness, when I hear God’s bass drum going off like a bomb right next to me. I mean the Galaxy and I am shaking like a dog shittin’ peach pits. It’s enough to make DeeOgee coalesce into a dog again. I peer around and see some Latino skinhead with a tattoo plastered to the side of a flat backed head that barely peeks above the top of the driver’s door. Fucktardo is bopping up and down to some rant blurted out by a guy who probably has a gold front tooth and enough chains around his neck to make a swing set. What did the Bardman say, “all sound and fury signifying nothing.” So, I yell out “turn up the volume, I can’t hear,” but the fucktardo beanbag can’t hear above the cacophony. Jeeze, where’s a grenade launcher when you need one. Oh, and if you want politically correct, go suck the cold tit of some New England Librarian, cause you ain’t getting’ it here.

Graffiti

Oh, and while I’m at it, what the fuck is up with all that graffiti our Latino visitors and gang pussies plaster on everything available from freeway walls to the side of your house. I mean are their dicks so small that they got to remind everybody they exist.

Here’s a newsflash, you can yell all you want that you exist, and God just laughs. And, by the way, take your art formo or whatever you call it and plaster it all over your own friggin’ country. Oh, I forgot, they beat the frijoles outta you if they catch you spraying that shit on walls in say Mexico. No, leave it to us dickless Americans to let you shitbirds sneak in and make us spend millions of dollars erasing your shit stickers. Oh, and don’t let me hear from some Lotus Eater that it’s art, and we have to respect it. My middle finger to you, and your group of deluded cocksuckers. Go see the Sistine Chapel if you want to see art, or better yet offer up your own miserable digs for a painting surface, I’m sure Hose A or Hose B would be more than willing to oblige.

Melrose Portions and Large Bills

As I pass by Geoffrey’s restaurant on PCH faster than a fart in a high wind, I really gotta LOL the way people pronounce it. I mean it’s just a fancy way of spellin’ Jeffery, kinda like colour rather than color. But, the snobby snots always like to make the mundane seem exclusive. That way they can charge you more.

Hell, that reminds me of small portions and huge bills. Galpal talked me into going to some restaurant in West Hollywood the other day. Shit, all I wanted was Italian. So we go to this place with too many waiters, a little Frank singing in the background, and its THIRTY bucks for a plate of friggin’ pasta, and it’s al la fuckin’ carte. No salad, no nothin’, Bro, and we ain’t talking Pesos or dinari, were talking good ol’ American Smackers. And the waiter, who probably has a fifth grade education, is acting like he knows something I don’t.

When the meal comes, I’m thinkin’ he thought I ordered an appetizer, but nooo, Bro, this is the main course. I give the waiter a sneering look, and he just shrugs his shoulders, leans down and whispers, “go to Antonio’s next time, Piasiano.” Galpal’s happy, though, cause she won’t have to feel guilty about too many calories, and its vegetarian to boot. What a fuckin’ cashectomy.

Rincon

"...there was purity and there was the dream, and the adventure, and there was the counterculture aspect. It was like shove society, shove the nine to five, shove the rules... we're just going to follow our hearts, treat each other well, eat well and enjoy the ocean. It was not for money and it wasn't for fame... that's what we're gunna do... purely because that's what our hearts want to do. That was amazing."> Jim Banks (quote from the Switch-foot book)

Just before Santa Barbara, as I head the Galaxy smoothly up the coast, I see Rincon slowly appearing up ahead with the waves lining up off the point. What a beautiful break for surfin’. . . all ‘cept the local yokels. Bro, THIS is my pet peeve. I mean surfin’ is a beautiful thing, physicality, nature and the thrill of riding down a wave. The only problem is the locals who think they own the beach and the waves. Hell, half of em are renting some beat up room, and working minimum wage jobs to scratch out a living. But the waves near their sloppy digs, that they figure they own, and woe be it to some outsider that wants to catch a few. Bro, I mean it gets real ugly, with guys kicking their boards at you on the wave, fights on the beach, your car getting’ messed up.

Jeeze, you need to bring a squad of marines just to protect your backside, but, of course, I had DeeOGee. Now why isn’t the local DA or pol-lice doing something about this mayhem? I mean it can’t be helping the tourist business, and I’m sure they get a few complaints. Probably too busy with real problems, like handin’ out parking tickets to increase their municipal coffers.

Now, as I mentioned, I had DeeOgee with me at these trouble spots, and he really shined when I was bustin’ the local surf breaks. I mean he’d guard my wheels with a snarl, then meet me as I came outta the water. Any hostile greeters would get an angry bite on the ass, and Bro it was not a nice little nip, an’ it came without warning. He’d just bolt outta the sand and lay a good one on the chief offender’s ass. No bark, no growl, just a snap of his jaws.

Hell, DeeOgee had some sixth sense when trouble was up, and bullies can’t stand it when they’re really confronted; and Bro nobody wants a junk yard dog tying his toothy maw to their keister like a new tail.

I mean some of these miscreants who DeeOgee laid into reinvented the yodel as they tried to get away from him. The problem is that DeeOgee could run at about 30 mph for short bursts, and running away from him would bring up some ancient wolf instinct that prey was on the hoof. I mean this dog had no fear, especially from some barely clothed guy in surf shorts with nothing but a loud mouth.

Hell, after DeeOgee scared off the shitbirds, we’d calmly collect our things, and head on out in the Galaxy, giving the one fingered salute as we ambled off. After a few of these object lessons, I could drop in on local spots and the local yokels would take one look at the two of us, and give us wide berth. The word was out. DeeOgee had gotten us a pass with his toothy notoriety. I loved that dog. I parked the car and dropped a little of his remains at the edge of the water. Time to go, we’ve got miles to go before we sleep.

Seagulls

As I drive up the coast, I spot a few seagulls riding the updrafts. Now seagulls are kinda revered in the collective conscience, but let me tell you a little secret. They are really just flying rats. I mean along the coast, they infest trash dumps, and overrun small boat harbors with a never ceasing rain of crap.

Now, DeeOgee had a thing about chasing these birdtards, especially on the beach where they’d group together in large clumps facing the wind. Bro, he would get up to full speed on the wet sand, and then suddenly veer off with a vengeance into a herd of birds. The birds would be screeching and scrambling to get airborne like a British WWII airfield under attack. But there was one bird that took a liking to DeeOgee at our local break, and it would waddle right up to him and settle down. DeeOgee musta liked him too, ‘cause the two of em would sit side by side for hours. Watta sight.

Horror Movies

As I pass through Santa Barbara, I remember some good times. This is a small seaside town with the Queen of Missions centered in it. Numero dias on Father Junipero Serra’s hit list. It’s the only one the Begging Brothers still run. My family would vacation in Santa Barbara, and, of course, we went to Mass on Sundays. I would sneak DeeOgee into the back garden and tie him to the old oak tree. He could be a patient little bugger.

Now, the old church is there with the cemetery close attached. I mean close. And you have to get a gander of the garden gate to the cemetery, cause it has three skulls in bas-relief with cross bones below ‘em. I swear it’s the same image the pirates use on their skull & cross-bones black flags. It made me wonder if the Grey Friars were sending some sort of message out.

Anywho, the cemetery is supposed to be crowded with stiffs, I mean they even got the first Bishop of California and the first Mexican governor planted down there. Of course, as a kid it always freaked me out, all those ancient stiffs close to where you were going to Mass. I always imagined them coming out at nighttime Mass and going after young bored buggers like me who were trying to sneak out before the service was over. Kinda like a catholic version of Night of the Living Dead. I would imagine a priestly ghost arising with a death’s head and pointing a boney finger at me like the ghost of Christmas past “YOU will say 10 Hail Mary’s or I will take your soul and scatter the limbs of that Damn Dog of yours that’s been desecrating the cemetery with its foul droppings.” Watta vision.

That reminds me of Fright Night on Tv. Now when I was a kid, every Thrusday night was scary movie night on TV. I mean my friends and I would watch some freako host, usually some actor well past any career he had, dressed up in a cheesy vampire suit with plastic teeth, and showing some old grade zzz scare flicks.

These movies were all alike. I mean if the movie wasn’t made before Moses had whiskers, it would usually be about some sexy girl in a dingy old house, all alone, who suddenly hears a straaange noise coming from the basement. Now, she doesn’t call 911, or get the hell outta there, or even lock the cellar door, Nooo, Bro, she opens the door, and we get to look down some dark ass rickety stairs decending into utter gloom. I mean it would scare the pants off Sergeant York.

Then the noise repeats, and its scarier this time around. Now me, Bro, it would be “feets don’t fail me now.” But not this girl, cause she moves right on down these nasty creaky steps clutching the front of her blouse, step by scary step, with a single 25 watt bulb lighting her way. Next thing that happens is she gets grabbed, strangled, beheaded, you name your poison, all the while screaming at the top of her breast popping lungs. I mean these fright night girls could scream the chrome off a bumper hitch. Of course, on the other hand, you’ve been yelling at the top of your lungs “don’t go down the stairs . . . don’t go down the stairs,” but the women is both deaf and dumb. Nobody, and I mean nobody would go down those stairs. It’s a real IQ test. The only thing that I would let peer down those steps is a shotgun and a flashlight. Amen.

So, I stop by the old mission, and walk nonchalantly to the cemetery, sneak in, and dump a little of DeeOgee’s ashes in there. I figure since he dropped enough dog bombs in there, his ashes would be a fitting punctuation mark. Don’t get me wrong on this, the ol’ mission is a righteous place to visit, and if your going to attend Mass do it there, Bro.

Love Potion No. 9

As I get back in the Galaxy, I decide to get a little lunch in the old town. I grab the latest issue of Popular Mechanics from the glove box, ahem, like any good gear head, and wander into an old café. I plop down at a wooden table with coins laminated in the surface, and pop open my mag. Pop Mech always catches me with its covers, promising all types of things inside. It usually delivers, but, often, I say you got me again.

So, while reading Pop Mech, I come upon Love Potion No. 9 in the back pages. I mean laugh out loud, here you have this tacky add featuring some ugly lady with a hairdo from the fifties, pushing this sex pheromone she supposedly invented to stick in your after shave so as to attract the opposite sex. Bro, I mean if I am going to attract someone like the lady in the ad, I don’t want any. Shiiit, if you’re close enough for a gurl to smell the pheromones in your aftershave, you’ve already crossed the Rubicon. The rest is up to you, Bro.

So, I’m reading the mag, and I am delighted to see Jay Leno’s regular column. This guy is a gear head’s gear head, with a jaw you could fit to an icebreaker, and a joke sense to light a dark night. I mean, he’s always collected cars, but when they handed him a dump truck of cash on the Tonight Show, the first thing he did was start buying cars and motorcycles, and he never stopped, jus went hog friggin’ wild and created Jay’s Garage, which is really a museum of everything that rolls. And didn’t every gear head always want his own garage to put his stuff into. Whatta a wet dream. I mean Jay’s got everything from a Stanley Steamer to some old fire engine that he picked up and restored. And he drives these things around, along with an assortment of motorcycles and trucks. Ya gotta love this guy, and he even takes the time to write a column for Pop Mech.

Last add, replacing him on the Tonight Show with Connan O’Brien is like serving a person caulk instead of the cheese. I mean O’Brien is a tall, nerdy guy, who has been trying to be funny all his life. He simply picked the wrong profession. I mean this guy is as funny as a suicide without the ability to die at the end. He is the picture boy for the red headed stepchild. I mean the guy’s as funny as an NRA bomb, or a fart at the dining table. I’ve never heard so much nervous laugher from an audience in my life. It’s simply painful.

Sooo, what were the fucktards at NBC thinking? Well, some shitbird, with a complete lack of talent, and an ego as big as his nose, wanted to keep the reins on Jay and make sure they had this sunset clause to hang on his head. Jay, my Bro, you should go to ABC, and really shove it up the asses of the execushits at NBC. And, LOL, did you see these same oily frigizerds scrambling to explain how they might lose one of the most popular talk show hosts at the height of his powers. I mean these guys were straining their guts so hard they started to resemble a Pretzel. Jeeze, what a cluster fuck . Jay, from a fellow Scottish Italian, good luck to you boyo.

Steinbeck

So, I figure I’d head on up to Monterey, and revisit the sights of so many of Steinbeck’s books. Now this was a guy you had to respect, since he had no illusions about anything. I mean he was ornery, opinionated, and loyal to the hilt. He peopled his stories with characters from Salinas, and stayed to live in the town. That took guts. Read “Sweet Thursday,” “Tortilla Flats,” and “Cannery Row.” If you don’t get a feel for central California from this you should check your pulse and look around for Saint Peter.

Steinbeck had a working man’s credo and a monstrous talent. I mean the guy worked in the fields to support his writing habit, and if you want a lesson on the evils of capitalism, or why regulated capitalism is needed to keep the greedy bastards from stealing your daily bread, read “The Grapes of Wrath,” or as Doc would say life does not always “run on greased rails.” Oh, and for you retardos who think reading is uncool, just rent the movie versions to get a little of the feel for his books. Or as Bob the Bum used to rail at me, “A book, my illiterate friend, is a frigate of knowledge, you just have to crack it open.” I just can’t believe Steinbeck died in New York. New Friggin York!?

Traffic & Cutting In

As I pull out into traffic on Highway 1, some shitbird in the next lane won’t let me in, and I’m not about to dent the Galaxy on this assbag’s rustbucket. Now this brand of Fucktard really ticks me off, and I’m not talkin’ about roadrage. I’m talking about common human decency, and why the fuck do these pussy wipes think that not lettin’ me in will make their dicks bigger. Sorry, but you were born with a party wiener, get the fuck over it. Let my car in, you beanturd. The problem for the backup is a bottleneck created by some street maintenance people holdin’ up shovels . . . oh, oh, oh, don’t get me started again on them.

Getting’ back to the lane huggers, Bro, you have to fool the bastards. Never, never put on your turn signal, since these assbuckets will simply close the door on you, even speeding up to do so. You gotta sneak up on em, act like you don’t want to go into their lane, then breeze in while they have their finger up their nose. But be brave, like taking waves, cause he who hesitates is lost.

Before I leave the hazards of traffic, I gotta say a another little bit on Caltrans, or street maintenance for the rest of you hobgobblins. Why is it that these characters with their little orange vests, always pick rush hour to close a lane or do work on the road. I mean the sheer man-hours lost could light up a city, but don’t tell these asswads, cause they’re union. Oh well, it is like pissing in the wind.

Blow Up Dolls

So up the coast we go, and one of those Mylar balloons shaped like a little man is floating right off the road in my lane, and fuck me blind if it doesn’t get caught in the Galaxy’s radiator. I pull over; all pissed and disturbed, and pull the balloon man from my radiator. Whoever thought of using indestructible high tensile Mylar for balloons ough’ta get shock therapy applied to his balls without a mouth guard. Hopefully, they’ll bite off their tongue and we won’t have to hear from them again. Oh, and get this, these friggin’ balloons have caused loads of havoc wherever they blow, even knocking out power lines.

Pulling the little Mylar balloon boy outta my radiator gets me to thinking about life-sized blow up dolls. Now, you gotta love the fucktards who buy blow-up dolls, ahem. A few years back, a south swell was breakin’ big, bright and smooth, and I diverted over to my buddy’s house to rattle his cage, get him outta bed and have him catch a few grinders with me.

DeeOgee, of course, was the first to fly into his pad as he opens the door, does an instant giro around his place, and runs straight into his bedroom. Hell on wheels, but DeeOGee starts a fight with something in the bedroom, and he’s snarling and growling, and pretty soon you hear a whistling sound and DeeOGee comes out of my buddy’s bedroom with a half deflated blowup doll in his mouth.

This thing looks like a gurl with a big “O” for a mouth, and other lower parts. Now my buddy is looking mighty embarrassed, and DeeOgee is looking proud of his kill, all prancing about with Judy Blow Guts in his mouth. LOL. I’m like, Dude, what the fuck, getta a gurlfriend. I gave DeeOgee a yell and he dropped balloongurl, and came over to me with a look like “what did I do?” It turned into a good day of surfin’ and my buddy got over his shame after the first wave, but not his inflatable reputation.




Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are passing behind me to my left as I leave Santa Barbara, and I realize that a lotta of my personal history happened out there. Lucky Lindholm and I owned a boat together, a 23 foot Searay Weekender, and we would take it out to the Channel Islands to surf and scuba dive with our other buddies. We’d strap on a couple of 18 gallon gas cans to extend our range, which fit very nicely under the cockpit seats, pardon the fire hazard.

So we’re out at Ford’s Point off’a Santa Rosa Island, and this place has a decent swell smacking into a cliff face trailing off to a reverse hook bay that opens up if you can make it around the point which has a barely submerged rock. I didn’t say we were smart. It has another hazard as well, in the form of a blowhole. I mean at high tide it’s like the “Old Faithful” geyser at Yellowstone, blowin’ up about thirty feet at times.

Now, I had a sweet board shaped by Kennedy which Lucky Lindholm fiberglassed for me to be indestructible. He accomplished this by using a lotta cloth, and squeezing out the excess resin to create a very hard surface. I mean we cut down on the resin, and it added to the strength. Fuck the 70/30 rule, but this stick was hard as a rock after the hot coat was applied. So I take off on the last wave of a set, get hit with backwash wave from the cliff, and auger in. Fuck me, but my leash breaks, and now my board is heading into the area of the blow hole.

So I’m swimming after my board, keeping a weather eye out for the next set, when my board simply disappears down a crevice in the cliff face in front of the blow hole. That gets my attention, and I immediately back off. What the fuck? Now, I can hear the blow hole making some unusual thunking sounds like it’s got something caught in its craw. Oh, shiiit! There’s some type of underwater channel down there, and I start back swimmin’ a version of “feets don’t fail me now.”

So I swim into the bay, and then hike along the cliff face. I plant myself next to the blowhole to see if I can spot my board in the hole during a calm. Hell, I had no idea what I’d do if I saw it, maybe rope it or something. So, I’m sitting there when a particularly nasty set rolls in and the blow hole disgorges a part of something that almost hits me as it smacks into the rocks next to me. Oh, frig, it’s the front half of my board, with a bunch of glass stripped off. Crap, Crap, Crap.

I look out and see my buddies on the Searay, cranking back the beers, and falling all over themselves as they watch my saga on the rocks. So, I grab what’s left of my board, and swim back out to the boat with some difficulty as my remainder of a board is largely submerged. Now, my buddies see my dilemma, and Lucky Lindholm digs out his bag of fireworks, and they start throwing fuckin’ fire crackers at me as I’m nearing the boat. Whatta bunch of mental midgets . . . course I woulda done the same thing if the roles were reversed. Ahem. So, we stayed the night and the next day I found the rest of my board on the beach, just so much flotsam. I scuba dived the rest of that trip cause nobody would trust my luck with their surfboard.

Just so you blowguts don’t get too stuffy, I join a long line of people who had bad luck on this point, including the 300 foot steamship “Crown of England” which ran aground in the fog on the rocks in 1894 to a total loss. The crew took a rowboat and rowed all the way to Santa Monica to get help. Now it may be downhill in nautical terms, but damn Jimmy Jimmy that is one hell of a feat.

Oh, a little note on long sleeved
Tee shirts that most surf shops sell with their name blazened across the front. This is free advertising for the shop so I’d think you fucktards would be almost giving ‘em away. And, what the fuck is wrong with the elastic in the sleeves. I mean, you wear the sleeves pulled up once, and they take on the permanent shape of stove pipes. It becomes impossible to get the sleeves to stay up, and, Bro, there ain’t nothing worse than sleeves that keep on falling down. Definitely ruins your cool, distracts from your mojo, and interferes with your meditation. A little fucking elastic, please.

Surfboards and toxic pollution

I have a long board shaped by Midget Smith, who I hear passed away on August 23, 2008 from cancer. I got the board from Zuma Jay, and I was stoked to get it. Midget contracted the same cancer as Lance Armstrong, got over it, only to have another type get him 22 years later. He was a little guy that lived life large. As Yevgeny said in People, “In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight.... Not people die but worlds die in them.”
Insurance wouldn’t cover Midget’s medical bills, ain’t that unusual, and the payments for treatment ruined his business. Another example of our wonderfucking health care industry at work. When are we gonna stick these insurance bastards, and their lobbist dingleberries on capital hill, on pikes along the Apian Way jus like the Romans did with their enemies. And let me tell you, these fucktards are enemies of the state.

Back to Midget smith. You cannot tell me that his exposure to building surfboards was not a factor. Hell, Zuma Jay says Midget shaped 1,000 boards a year by hand, and that he wasn’t a “ghost shaper.” My friends, that is a lot of foam dust going everywhere, and a swimming pool of resin.

Oh, and least I forget, I left a long board at Lucky Lindholm’s house, a Weber ‘bout 9’-6”, and came back about two weeks later and it was a belly board. I mean, LL cut my board in half, stripped the fiberglass offt, shaped it to a belly, added a skag, reglassed it, and presto-chango, it was a blue belly board. But, you couldn’t get mad at this scoundrel, ‘cause he was a barrel of good times who’d give the shirt off his back to you. Jes don’t leave your board at his house.

Back to Miget Smith. Zuma Jay aka Jefferson Wagner, lost a legend, and now he’s running for City Council. And what does he get for 30 plus years running one of the best surf shops in Malibu, while giving out some good advice on everything from surf wax to sun protectant? Dude, I mean to say ZJ wrote a friggin’ book on the history of surf wax. Heck, I could really get off on reading about surf wax, but the mainstream drones would probably keep it by the bedside as a sleeping aid. On the other hand, the politicos are now referring to him as “kelp head,” which, for my money, is a Hell of a lot better than the shit heads sliming ZJ. Mate, here is my middle finger to your detractors, may you forever be a light in the darkness.

Now, I have both shaped and glassed a few surfboards and bellys in my time, and it never occurred to me that I may be subjecting myself to serious health problems. I mean, who knew ‘cause nobody was saying nothing. It was like everybody was blind, deaf and dumb, the Three Stooges on speed.

Shit, we were using Polyurethane foams, and Clark was the King. His blanks were the bomb, baby, and he popped em out like the octoplets mom. But, Hey brothers and sisters, the primary ingredients of these righteous blanks were two toxic compounds called Toluene Diiscyanate (C9H6N2O2 or TDI), a Cat 3 carcinogen and “a well-documented causative agent of asthma” (what the fuck?), and Polyether, another problem child.

I knew the toxicity of the surfboard building process started to reach the public consciousness when good old redneck Orange County, a place that doesn’t know a business it doesn’t like, starting putting pressure on Old Grubby of Clark Foam. That’s when “Grubby” Clark closed down Clark Foam with a bang after 50 years in business. I mean he shut the door so hard, his dentures rattled outta his mouth, and his neighbors thought an earthquake had hit em. Then, he goes and issues a 7 page mea culpa fax, ending with “I also failed to do my homework,” and “there is a very good chance I will spend a lot of time in courtrooms over the next few years and could go to prison” Huh? Huh? Go tell that to Midget, God Bless his soul, and all the others who had health problems from the business.

And guess what, fiberglass cloth is treated with Chromium, a known carcinogen, and components of traditional petroleum based resins include noxious acids and alcohols that emit caustic fumes into the air as they are blended and applied to surfboards. Jeeze, I helped one buddy start building boards, designing his jigs for the fin boxes. I mean you’d shape the blank, and white stuff is everywhere. You’re covered in the stuff. Now I read that it was hazardous, shit, shit, shit. Surfing is about relating to nature, bothers and sisters, and we cannot be part of polluting. Sooo, we have to find a better blank and, Jeeze, what do you do about the resin/fiberglass factor? Where do we go from here? We do not have people like Midget Smith to sacrifice on the alter of the almighty dollar. Amen.

Selling Property on the Moon

As I’m drivin’ up the coast, once again, I turn inland for a jaunt, and start seeing those ever-present road signs we all love so much. The only one I have a jones for is the sleepy bear sign, which goes back to my childhood. I pass a sign that’s hocking real estate in some desolate place that even swamp rats would raise their nose to. That sets off a whiz-bang in my head about that guy selling property on the Moon. LOL. Now this is a real gift giving idea. I hear this dude made a fortune outta doing this. Can you imagine, “Hey we got some sweeet property near the Sea of Tranquility, just a little jaunt up from the cape strapped to a nifty bottle rocket, no problemo. You can even see the footsteps left by Armstrong and Aldrin, oh, but not to worry, for the more adventurous types we have the Ocean of Storms. You won’t even get wet. And suuuch a deal we have for yooou!

Who’s the genius behind this, you ask? He’s got to be a surfer to have such audacity. It turns out it’s a guy named Dennis Hope. Yeah, folks that’s his real name. So the Hopeman goes and registers a claim to the surface of the moon and the eight other planets with the United States Government. He also sends notice of his registration to the Russian Government and the United Nations. LOL. And he did this in 19 friggin 80, and he says the US of A had a limited time to contest his claim!!!

Now the Hopeman’s sellin’ plots of moon land from Rio Vista, California. Last time I checked, this is two-bit town located between Oakland and Sacramento as the crow flies, not the friggin’ moon. I mean if you lined everyone up on their main street, you’d probably get one full set of teeth. But listen to this: “One acre plots are going for $27.” And a commonly asked question on their website, “Can I sue NASA if they land on my property?” You’ve got to be fucking kidding, right?

Oh, and take a gander of the guy on the internet. He looks like a bald headed fat guy from Jersey that hasn’t bathed in a week, kinda like a cop that lost his job. Buzz haircut and too many donuts. Gurlpal calls him a husky beer drinking buffoon that’s always at the bar, making crass statements to passing women that he’ll never have, maybe until now. He calls himself the “Head Cheese” of the Lunar Embassy, and claims he found a loophole. It reminds me of Elmer Fudd, “I found a loophole, I found a loophole, yes I did.” I wonder if Alice got there first via Ralph Cramden’s kapow, “Someday . . . Someday, to the moon Alice” Whatta world we live in. I wonder if he is issuing stamps. But here is the Hopeman’s website: www.lunarlandowner.com

Healthcare Reform

President Obama is swimming upstream with his heroic effort to reform our health care system. Get this folks, out of a population of 301,483,000 in the United states, 46,340,000 people are not covered by insurance. That’s 15.4% of our population. We are supposedly the wealthiest nation on earth, and we let this happen. Of the 255,143,000 people covered by insurance, 97,230,000 are covered by good ol’ Uncle Sam’s health care plans (Medicare, Medicaid, & the Military). That represents 1/3 of all the people in the U.S. of A. Overall, health care in the United States is expected to cost $2.6 trillion in 2009, and we’re not talking pesos. That’s 17% of the nation's economy, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The average cost of a family policy offered by employers was $13,375 in 2009, up 5% from 2008. The average cost of family insurance has risen 107% since the year 2000. Inflation, on the other hand, has only gone up 26% over the same 10-year period. As I stated, the health care insurers are enemies of the state.

Oh, and did you catch the latest from the right wing waccos. It seems that Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, bestowed a "Josef Mengele Award" on President Barack Obama's chief health care adviser. For you grade-A morons, Dr. Joseph Mengele was a fucktard Nazi doctor who conducted cruel and inhuman experiments at the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. When Land was called to the mat on this, he punked out by saying that he did not intend to “actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele." What a wiener.

Power Plants

As I put the twin stacks behind me that mark the midway point between Channel Islands Marina and Ventura Marina, I get to thinkin’ bout surfing the outlet tubes at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. I mean, Bro, the water was definitely warmer in that area, the waves sweet, and with some righteous breaks nearby, like Tressels, Dogpatch, etc. I definitely liked the vibe. But, Shit on a shingle, I have always wondered if I picked up a little radiation while waiting in the lineup. Kinda freaked me out, so DeeOgee and I would only go if the waves were really roaring. After Three-Mile Island did the China Syndrome Cha Cha Cha, nobody should take the word of these nobodysclear engineers at these power plants.

Boogers
While I’m thinking about surfing, as usual, I wanted to say a little blurb on Boogers, and not the type caught on your ever diggin’ finger. Bro, I’m talkin’ about belly boarders using the ubiquitous boogie board, sometimes called speed bumps. Now these hosers are always a little in front of the line up, and taking off late on waves that are already spoken for. As a consequence, these brothers of the waves are the subject of lots of dissing, cussin’ and tearing of hair. But, Bro, when you have kids and are trying to teach the little dudes about waves, you have to start them on a boogie. That means that you have to humble yourself and become a booger. Why, you say? So you can ride the waves with your son or daughter to get them used to timing and ocean sense. And guess what, it is a profound blast and I am forever not going to demean the boogers any longer. Amen.



UFO’s

As I’m settling into driving, I start to thinkin’ about my new issue of Pop Mech which I started to read at lunch a few miles back. They’ve got a whole article on UFO’s. I mean what the fuck, Bro? By the way, I think Einstein closed the door on this subject. Huh, you say? Ahem, he said as you approach the speed of light your mass increases infinitely. Thus, brothers and sisters, you get too fat to jump the hurdle. Then, there’s the problem with relative time, which means that if you take off at the speed of light for say the Andromeda Galaxy, a little hop about 20 light years away, you’ll age 20 years. But, Bro, guess what, everybody on Earth will have aged 1,400 years or some such figure. Either they’ll be fartin’ dust back home or waiting for you when you arrive. Either way you’re fucked.

So, UFO’s are simply a hard sell on earth, but that doesn’t mean there’s not life elsewhere. And, LOL, what is up with all these redneck, double digit IQ’d fucktards supposedly getting abducted by UFOs. I understand Whitley Strieber sellin’ a few books about being abducted, and laughing all the way to the bank. But, Bro, you have to ask yourself what a higher intelligence would possible want with some rube sitting in the swamps of Louisiana or a hick from spitstop, USA, who is so inbred some of his cousins are growin’ tails. And what the Hell is this crap about getting’ anal probes, and whatnot. What a laugh. Galpal says maybe it’s because they “gots no” education, culture or even language. There were spit back out, nothing to get anything from. Fresh bumpkins on the half shell. Tabla Rosa, Bro. It does not make a lot of sense, no matter how many tokes you take on the hookah pipe. Pop Mech says the sightings are mostly military planes and things like flares that spoof the local yocals on the ground. I would tend to agree, especially since my Daddio worked on top secret spy planes.

And with all due respect to Kenneth Arnold, the guy who was flying his airplane in 1947 near Mount Rainer, Washington, when he supposedly saw nine objects flying at more than 1,600 miles per hour, which he described as moving like “a saucer skipping across the water.” This joker is responsible for coining the term “flying saucers, but you’ve got to ask yourself how he estimated their speed at 1,600 miles per hour. Think about it Folks, recreational planes in that era were lucky to keep up with highway traffic, and I am sure he did not have a speed gun. Flying around Mount Rainer is no picnic, what with updrafts and other hazards to keep you occupied. However, people want to believe in something, and flying saucers can be fit over a lot of phenomena.

I can attest to that, ‘cause my buddy, Cliff the motorcycle boy, and I spoofed a whole lot of people one night in Malibu Canyon. I got the bright idea to launch a hot air balloon by rigging a plastic laundry bag up with a cross at the bottom made of straws, with 12 candles spaced on the straw tresses. The bag was clear and when we lit the candles the bag filled with hot air, and off it went. I mean that sucker lofted over the ridge, and floated over Malibu Road, all lit up and glowing. We climbed the ridge, cause we now figured we had a fire hazard on our hands. Whata couple of fucktards we were. See the diagram.






Hot Air
Straws & Candles Candles
Plastic laundry bag







When we got to the ridge top, we looked out and saw the balloon all aglow, and then down on the road we saw cars pulling over and people pointing up. Then the thing caught fire, and went out in a blaze of light like it took off. A real UFO. I mean it looked like a UFO to me, and I am sure the people in the cars below were calling it a mysterious sighting. LOL. We never did that again, especially when we thought about the fire hazard it created. The other thing is that we had to be kinda quiet about our little escapade since we figured we broke a bunch of laws that night.

Car Chases

As I’m doing the two-lane blacktop mombo, a Cooty goes by me like I’m standing still. Where is a friggin cop when you need one. In California, home of drag racing, speed shops and hot rods, we are known for our car chases. I mean some bozo runs a red light, and is caught in the cross-hairs by a friendly cop. But instead of pulling over and paying a fine for his or her traffic mistake, the fucktard speeds away. And I mean these idiots get up to some astounding speeds. I could understand running if you robbed a bank, but a traffic infraction? Don’t these characters have to pass a written driving test before they get a driver’s license? Traffic infraction versus felony. Not a hard choice. It’s an IQ test: how do you outrun a radio. I mean the chasing cop simply radios ahead, and the entire force is waiting for this mental midget up ahead.

Anyway, the police have several schemes for stopping these rolling idiots. The funniest is the spike strip. The cops roll out this strip of spikes across the highway, the rolling idiot crosses over it and all his tires go flat. Problem is these fucktards keep right on going, riding on their rims with sparks a flyin’ and squirrelly as hell since metal slides all over a highway surface. And it happens all the time, I mean it’s like one of our weekly sitcoms. Oh, Honey, turn on the TV, cause the car chase is about to begin.

Generally, the runaways stop, and try to run, or their car blows up and they try and run, or they crash and try and run. And usually, it is some yo-yo in oversize shorts that come below his knees, socks that come up to his shorts, a buzz cut, a wifebeater t-shirt, and taco breath. And once caught, they take the position like they’ve done it before, laying face down on the ground with their arms and legs spread out like a crucifixion. The cops hook ‘em up and drag em away like baggage. Felony time for these assbaggos. And just the other night some pissant was running away in a Rolls Bentley, a long line of cops trailing behind him, and several news helicopters following above. A Rolls Bentley? I mean it got too late to see the end of this saga, but I would have loved to see what poured outta that car at the end of the chase. Hell, the thing cost more than some people’s homes.


Bozo Buckets Bluff

Driving always gets me hungry, and I’m feeling like Mexican tonight. DeeOGee always liked Mexican leftovers till the next day, when the hot stuff would get him howling as he dropped a few steamers on the neighbor’s lawn. You gotta love that dog, ‘cause he never dropped his business on our lawn. And of course, that was before people followed their dogs around with baggies. LOL. Now that’s real dirty business.

With all due respect to DeeOgee now sitting in my glove box, my sister hated this dog. I’ve got to tell you I could never understand her complete loathing for good ol’ DeeOgee, I mean he was one loveable mutt. And don’t think that DeeOgee didn’t know my sis disliked him with a passion. I guess the final straw was when he lifted his leg on the TV while she was watching her favorite Saturday morning program. I thought she was gonna spit her tongue out, she was yelling so loud. You’d have thought somebody had been murdered. DeeOgee, as usual, had that “what happened” look on his happy little bowser mug. Meantime, my sister missed her show, and she aggravated mommamia. So, DeeOgee and me beat a quick retreat to the beach. To make matters worse, it was flat as a billiard board. Hell, you could have skipped rocks to the horizon. Amen.

The thought of having Mexican food reminded me of this game I used to play with my gurlfriend called Bozo Buckets Bluff. It’s a game in the dark with glow cups from the Iguana Grill, and you throw ping pong balls into the cups. Sounds intelligent, doesn’t it. First, you gotta get a snoot full of Margaritas, and then you play your gurlfriend for her clothing. By the by, the Iguana Grill is a little Tex-Mex restaurant situated along a lake in Austin, Texas, with the best tex-mex food this side of paradise. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, belly up to the bar, kick back a few margaritas, and order some food. You won’t be disappointed. Anyway, my gurlfriend was always better at Bozo Buckets Bluff, so I usually ended up woozy, stark naked in just my socks, and stripped of all my dignity.


Ron Stoner

What happened to Stoner, a sublime photoboy, who used to snap the best Surf photos this side of heaven, with all due respect to
Granny and Doc.


I mean was it the LSD, Bro, or simply too much crap from the Misto-Zen hobgoblins of the surfin’ scene at the time. I mean there was some really freaky dickwads pushing all types of stuff our way. But Stoner, well the man had an artists eye, and a knack with the long lense, even when he was stoned or experiencing the split of his personality. Not this digital crap we have today. Then, one day he was gone, kinda like he dropped off the face of the earth, or was abducted by aliens. And what the fuck did they think they were doing zapping him with 50,000 volts to straighten him out. Never let the boys in the duck soup jackets get a hold of you. Hell they did the same thing to Hemmingway, and it affected his ability to remember his stories. Sorry to see him gone, but maybe, jus’ maybe, he’s sitting somewhere in some small town enjoying life with a couple of kids, the PTA, and seeing the real.

Fettuccine Con Aglio E Olio
(translation: Pasta with Garlic,
olive oil and Parmesan cheese)

6 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb whole wheat or spinach fettuccine
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup fresh minced Italian parsley

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile heat olive oil with garlic in it in a small pan over very low heat. The garlic should simmer slowly and never brown.
2. When garlic is golden not brown, remove from heat. This should. coincide with water beginning
to boil.
3. Add a tbsp of salt to water, plus a tbsp of olive oil, and drop in pasta. Cook al dente (pasta should have a little bite to it), and drain in a colander. Add to a warm serving dish.
4. Toss at once with oil and garlic mixture, cheese, and parsley, and serve.

"Buon Appetito"

Surfin and waves

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

Surfing is a sport for delightful idiots. Dolts who worship at the alter of nature’s waves and wind. It is a sport after my own heart. There is a suspension of everything that is called the rat race. You are paddling out, expectation in mind, waves crashing behind you, going over slivery blue mounds, the water washing over your back, splashing your face with salt spray. It crowds out your troubles, and it focuses your attention on what’s at hand.

How many of you idiot savants of the wave know that a wave breaks when it’s height is over .8 times the water depth. So, if the water depth is 10 feet, the wave, in order to break, must be greater than 8 feet. Usually, we are trying to find a dumping or plunging wave, preferably over a friendly sand bar or reef. The angle of the reef, or submerged rocks, will affect the wave and the peel angle (angle of the reef in relation to incoming swells). So, a beach bottom is important to the quality of the break, that’s why, Bros and Hos, a huge storm can change a break for good. Take “Dead End” for an example, and I swear Malizoo is different from when I was a kid.

For those who read more than your bubble gum wrappers, read Mark Schrope’s blurb on “Creating the Perfect Wave.” This little three pager is all about Kerry Black’s artificial surf reefs and surf pools, and you’ll get a better idea. I’ve been thinking about it for years, and why not, and why not before? ? But, watch out for the pale faced fucktards, with their Maynard G. Krebs aversion to water, who bleat out from bobbing heads on pencil necks “you can’t change the natural shore line, it will affect the grunion or something or another.” Fuck them, surf is surf and a righteous wave is king. Frankly, with all the soakers in the water, along with the rudebots and snakeboys, it’s high friggin’ time we created more surf spots.

So, why did I go into this little rant? . . . ‘cause I want to tell you about a twilight zone moment I had at Latigo. Now this place breaks nice in big surf, but it is a bitch getting out, unless you want to paddle a long frigging way. But, I’m impatient, and on a big day, and after taking a wave too far in cause I’m greedy, I tried punkin’ it by walkin out from the point. Now, DeeOgee saw me exit, came over for a pat, then watched me wander over to the point as I started my lazyman’s approach to the lineup. I swear, he just stood there looking at me like he was watching stupidity on a float.

So, I’m out a good way, and the water depth is around my knees and it doesn’t seem to be getting any deeper. I’m on a short board called a Bonzer, and paddling is a bitch in the rocks ‘cause you’re half submerged with your tail draggin. Then I look up, and, Oh, fuck me, ‘cause a huge set is bearing down, and I’m in shallow fuckin water. So, I’m thinking wave theory, . . . wave theory, and why isn’t this set breakin before it reaches my sorry ass. I start calculating my ass off. I’m in 3 feet of water, and this prodigious wall is way over .8 times my depth, the peel angle is right. But, it aint breakin, Bro, it ain’t breakin’ and I’m at a fucking loss as to why, and scared shitless to boot. I’m no mommaluke, but this wall is bearing down on me like a freight train. I can’t run cause it’s a rocky bottom and I sure can’t paddle through the face of this devil. Talk about grinders, this is the real thing and I’m trying to figure out how to run without too much damage, or get real small. Let’s just say I went to the black and blue room on that one. The moral of the story, not all theories hold up, have some friggin patience and take the long paddle out to the lineup.

Finally, know this, fellow riders of water bumps, from the Great Wil, “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” So, keep a weather eye on the surf report, surf like it’s gonna end tomorrow, and pay attention to your dog.

Mrs. G, spaghetti, meatballs,
and barbarians at the gates.

A little blurb about an angel of mercy that looked kindly on our band of little crapsters that surfed like no mananna until we were so cold we had trouble speaking. After we’d finish surfing, having completely drained our reserves, we’d often show up at the Lucky Lindholm’s girlfriend’s house. Once there, her mother, Mrs. G, would feed us spaghetti and meatballs. No questions asked. I mean we were a ragged band of yoyos, and she’d just let us hang around, then fed us. Whadda saint. Of course, we were grateful, but at this time in our lives we felt immortal, and we were as sensitive as frescos. She knew better.

Here is a recipe for this dish.

Sauce:

Chop up one medium onion. Cook in Olive Oil until the onion becomes glassy not brown. This will add natural sweetness to the sauce. Chop up 6 cloves of garlic, mash, and cook with the onion. Do not brown the garlic. Remove the garlic and onion. Add some tomato paste to the pan and cook until it starts to brown, then add onion, garlic, a 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes, one cup of water, 1 bay leaf, one tsp. of oregano, one tsp. of thyme, one tsp. of rosemary, some fresh basil, one carrot chopped fine, two stalks of chopped celery, some chopped Italian parsley. The celery, being a high alkaline food will reduce the acidity of the sauce, as will the parsley and carrots. The carrots will also help reduce acidity and add some sweetness to the sauce. Salt to taste, and add 1 tsp. of pepper. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. If bitter, add a very small amount of sugar. Serve over pasta, with parmesan cheese on top.

Meatballs:

Mix 1 lb. of lean ground beef, one egg, ½ cup of Italian breadcrumbs, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, tsp. salt, tsp. pepper, and palmfull of dried parsely, palmfull of parmesan cheese, and ½ cup of milk. Cook over a medium heat in a fry pan, browning slightly, then cook with rest of sauce.
Cheetos

Gal Pal asked me a question the other day while watching me put a new headlamp in the Galaxy’s left eye while I snacked on some Cheetos, and it had me scratchin. “Honey, what the fuck is a cheetoe?” Huh? . . . Huh? I love em I say, who the fuck cares! Gal Pal gives me that screwy eyed look like I’m some sorta sad case with bad eatin’ habits. I play my hole card, “but, Jack Nicholson ate em in ’The Shining,’ . . . so they gots to be good, Baby.” That got me “you are the mother of all flatulent assbags.”

Kinda stewing after that unfortunate description, I pop a tasty Cheetoe in my mouth, then blurt out “Cartman can’t be wrong, and what about that woman in Missouri that found Jesus in her bag of Cheetoes. She calls it Cheesus. . . . God must love em too, kinda like Manna from Heaven. . . Oh, and don’t forget that DeeOgee loved ‘em like no mañana.” Galpal looks me over like I’m some form of curiosity, then “Oh, brother, that’s right up there with ‘never did learn to spell it, but, brother, I drank it.’” She walks outta the garage shaking her head.

Dumpster Divin’ Frijole

Jus before I left for my little drive up the coast with DeeOgee in a can, I heard a rumbling in my recycling container, and went for a little look. LOL, there were a couple of legs poking out the container and empty plastic bottles were flying out like a geyser.

So, I walk over and say, “Hey, Hey, Hey, what the fuck, lady.” Out pops this mommasita, and I repeat “what are you friggin’ doing?” Well, it’s clear she wanted a fast track method of collecting plastic to turn in from the look of her overflowing car and the already disturbed containers along my street. What the Hell? Then, she says, “No Habla Englais.” No habla englais? What, WHAT? I tell her to get the fuck away from my recycle bin, it’s not her private stash, and she gives me another “No habla englais.”

I give her the one finger salute finished with a jerking motion of my thumb. Get the fuck out. She understood that one. Habla es middle finger. She musta been trying to pay for her fuckin’ green card. And don’t let me hear from you politically correct asswipes; but I’ll tell you what, why don’t we trade her for your miserable ass. She stays and you go back to Mexico, cause at least she is trying to work, not jus takin’ up breathin’ space.

Ginger Pasta

Sautee 6 cloves of finely chopped garlic cloves, ginger, some chili flakes and the stems of Italian parsley in ¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil in a frying pay over medium heat. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside. Cook up some linguini pasta to the point where it is “al dente” (slightly chewy to the bite). Before pouring off the water, save ½ cup. Then drain in a colander. Add the pasta to the frying pan, the reserved water and cook for 5 minutes constantly turning over the pasta to get it completely covered with the sauce. Grate parmesan cheese over mixture, and mix it in. Serve on heated plates, along with a glass of Malbec wine.

Economy
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. Friedrich Nietzsche

The economy is going to pot, and the Rupuglicans are now blaming President Obama. What? I mean what was that little 8-year dance we did with W and his greedy little men. I mean this guy would give Robin Hood a run for his money, ‘cept he was robbin’ from the poor to give it to the rich. I mean his initials shouldn’t have stopped with W. It should rightly be GWB, or grown without brains. I mean how long did the American public think we could spend $341.4 million per day in Iraq without it affecting the economy. I mean, so far we have spent over $601 billion in direct costs for a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map. And guess what, they hate our guts, and make it hard on Christians in their country. So why have we sacrificed the lives of 4,252 service men, mostly 18 to 20 year olds, along with 31,010 wounded. Because GWB didn’t like Sadam Hussein. And here’s a flash, the indirect costs are even greater when you figure in the cost of borrowing money to pay for the war, lost productivity, higher oil prices and the cost of health care for veterans. The cost per family during the period 2002 to 2008 is estimated at $20,900.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives. Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. By the by, the city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
Ah, but war is more romantic, especially when it is started by a bunch of overweight cowards in Washington who grow braver the farther they get from doing any actual fighting themselves and who probably ran from their first and only fist fights. Oh, and add Cheney to the mix, a real hawk who happens to be a 3-time draft dodger called out by Governor Ventura, a dove who was a navy seal with TOD in Vietnam. Unfortunately war is as hard to stop as halting the rotation of the earth.
Home Depot

At the beginning of my little journey with DeeOgee, I stopped by the Home Depot for some things. For those that don’t know, this is the mother of all hardware stores. For a guy, the Home Depot is like nirvana, your are free from what ever binds you, and all karmic debts are settled as you pass into this place.

I find myself wandering around the Home Depo for hours, slack jawed and glassy eyed. This is my A, D. D. kicking in like gangbusters, and brother they have some amazing things to buy in there from power tools to power washers. Oh, yeah! But I have learned, brothers and sisters, to go in with a list, keep my head to the task, and get outta there quickly without a cashectomy. Heaven forbid should you start looking around, for then you are lost, and not to be found. Only fatigue will burp you outta there like a zombie, in need of salt to restore your senses.

Bums at the Median

Now I am sure you’ve all seen the bum in the median at a traffic signal with a cardboard sign stating, “Work for Food,” or “God Bless you.” First of all, these guys do not want to work at all, they’re already working their corner, and, by one study, making a steady income. Of course, this may be some apologist for the rich who can now be guilt free in ignoring these people. I always dig a little scratch for them, cause it could always be an angel testing. Ooh, guilt, it fits like a hair suit.

In India, they made a movie about it called “Traffic Signal.” And LOL, there is a new company called Bumvertising™ that makes money by using sign-holding vagrants to advertise. Their motto, “Advertising on the homeless since 2005.” What the Fuck?

I have to tell you that I get kinda upset at these bums at the same traffic signal day in and day out. I mean they are seriously working the corner. Couldn’t they put that effort into finding a job? To give or not to give, that’s the guilt edged double sword. I mean if you ignore em you’re a cheap, non-caring, sociopath. On the other hand, if you give em money are you just feeding their drug habit, or buying their next short dog of cheap wine. The whole experience upsets my Ch’i ("气) or 氣)

Bouncing Idiots
I am sure you have seen the Hare Krishna zombies jumping up and down at some public place like the airport, and chanting “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.” I mean these people stand out like a dog’s balls. The men have got their heads shaved, and are sporting little dickass pony tails at the back of their heads that look like a chiwawa’s tail, and drapped in diaphanous gowns that are often orange. To top it off, they paint a white two-line stripe on the middle of their forheads. They claim to attain some form of perfection (Siddhi) by the process of chanting and refraining from ten kinds of offenses. Now they may be reaching some spiritual center, but the poor unsuspecting slobs around them are seen to be running away covering their ears. Kurt Vonnegut put it best, “we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”
Now these people can not want to be left alone or go unnoticed, ‘cause they can cause more irritation in a crowed room that a raunchy fart. But, then, something happened, they sorta of disappeared from the scene. Now I kinda miss em, since they gave us something to spice up our day. Maybe I should turn in a missing persons report – orange jumping jacks missing from airport, prone to noisy chants, and .
As Batty tells Deckard on his way out in the Blade Runner:
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.


Sea Walls

Now, when I say sea walls, I’m not referring to wave walls off the shore to prevent beach erosion. No I’m talking about the wall of palatial homes perched right on the water’s edge from Santa Monica through Malibu, cutting off the public’s view and access to the Pacific Ocean. If anything get me goin it’s seeing this wall of fat cats perching their collective asses on the beach and sneering at the rest of us. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. And, to make it worse, most of the son’s of bitches don’t even use the beach, and heaven forbid if they took a swim.

In Europe, it is generally frowned upon to block the public’s access to the ocean or the sea. They only allow villas on the weather side of the road. Now getting back to the fat bastards on the ocean’s edge, every winter it seems that the Lord gives them a wake up call. It starts to storming, the ocean kicks up, and these expensive homes are threatened with washing away. That’s when they ask us poor “relations” to lend them a hand with sandbags, labor, and public services to protect their bird perches from falling into the Pacific. Ahem. Of course, they let us have access to save their asses, but as soon as the danger is over, their memories get short. It’s them against the rest of us. It’s our beach, they say! Shit, the state owns the beach up to the median high tide mark. Oh, and those beach access tunnels that our fuck tard legislator’s required, they are harder to find than a thin man at pie eating contest.

Now, according to the L.A. Times, Malibu's scenic Broad Beach is vanishing between the rising sea and the sea walls homeowners are building to protect their million-dollar properties from global warming.

Ocean levels are projected to rise at least a couple feet in the next century, wiping away this and many other iconic beaches in California, where an inch ocean rise claims 50 inches of land. Scientists suggest developments be pulled inland to let tides chisel a new coastline out of what's now land. But Malibu's high-profile residents won't part with their hefty investments
so easily. They're spending more than $10 million to import sand and build sea walls—which only strengthens wave damage upon rebound. " In the end, Mother Nature and global warming will win," predicts a climatologist.

If it was you, me or John Q Citizen, and not some politician buying fat cat, we’d be used as tidal anchors for an artificial reef. Too bad for yoose guys. I have become increasingly convinced that our woes are caused by greasy, palm itchy politicians, mainly republican ash wipes, and rich fat cats that rip the public off while their political cronies nod like heroin addicts at the alter of mammon.

Sweat It Out Chili

Sautee four cloves of finely chopped garlic in extra virgin olive oil in a deep fry pan. Then, take two Green peppers and one red pepper and cut into slices. Add to pan, then add a palm full of Italian spices (recipe - 2 teaspoons each of dried basil, marjoram, oregano and one teaspoon of sage). Chop up a small onion, throw it in. Add a little zucchini cut into small rounds (optional). Cover and cook down. About 20 minutes. Toss in a can of whole Kernel Corn, a large can of crushed tomatoes, ½ cup of water, a can of tomato sauce, a tablespoon of chili powder, and a teaspoon of Habanero chili chopped fine. Cook for 45 minutes and serve to your unsuspecting visitors. Great for hangovers, since it clears your noggin with a sonic blast.

Letter to Gurlpal re bad sister

Jeeze, it must be tough. As I sit here dangling my toes in the Pacific, and catching some Vitimin D on my tanned and smiling face at Topanga Beach, I was thinkin’ of you all and that fucktard sister of yours. Looking at the waves, cresting then hitting the shore, only to retreat ignominiously back to sea, it reminded me that people are like waves. Their moods shift and turn, then crest before hitting the shore, and only some of the lucky few can ride that wave standing up, smoothly carving an intricate pattern as he or she rides towards a sun blanched shore. At times like this, I always like to quote from Macbeth’s soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, when Macbeth heard of his wife’s death.

She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time,And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing."

There will always be another wave to ride. By the way, this Shakespear dude is worth a read.

~Drew~
Newt Gingrich’s affair

I am not a vindictive man, nor one to laugh at another’s misfortune, but I get the giggles when I think of people like Newt Gingrich. A little background. He had his boney finger way streached out about President Clinton’s blowjob in the White House. The way he was carrying on, you’d of thunk he was a virgin. Then, guess what? The steam came out of the humbug. He was having an affair the whole time. Ah . . . what was that, Dude, not . . . not our rightious Newt!? What a friggin’ hypoccrit.

In Dante's Inferno, the Eighth Circle of Hell, 6th Bolge (ditch or subcircle), was occupied by the Hypocrites.Thus, Dante stated in this Bolge or ditch are the hypocrites, who are "weighted down by great leaden robes like cloaks with hoods pulled low covering the eyes, weary and defeated, in pain they must walk eternally round and round a narrow track. The robes are brilliantly gilded on the outside and are shaped like a monk's habit, for the hypocrite's outward appearance shines brightly and passes for holiness, but under that show lies the terrible weight of his deceit which the soul must bear through all eternity." If the sinner stops walking their cloak becomes hotter and hotter. I think Dante had the Newtman's number.




Recipe for Beef Stroganoff

2 pounds boneless steak
1 /2 cup sliced mushrooms
3 cloves garlic crushed
1 cup chopped onions
2 cups of beef broth
1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons of flour
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup of sour cream
cooked fettuccini noodles

Brown mead in olive oil with garlic, onion, mushrooms, salt and pepper.
Add beef brooth, and cook for 2 hours. Before serving add sour cream. Mix, then serve over Fettuccini. Wowser!

Teachers

“Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.” John F. Kennedy.
One teacher posted this to the internet: “Why are teachers so underpaid and underappreciated when they are considered the builders of society?”
“Let's face it, teachers like myself are considered the most underpaid and most unappreciated professions. My question is: why the hell?”

Another teacher posted this response: “As a university Adjunct Professor, I get the end product of a teacher's twelve years of work. Most of their students do not have even mediocre vocabulary skills, nor can they determine meaning from context. They are ignorant of geography, and cannot find Europe on a map. I stopped giving essay exams because fully half of my students had never seen a 'blue book', nor taken an essay exam before my class. These students cannot even construct a coherent sentence.

Based upon these results, it is no wonder.”

Then, we have Bob Dylan, aka Robert Allen Zimmerman, who chimed in with this set of lyrics from My Back Pages:

“In a soldier's stance, I aimed my handAt the mongrel dogs who teachFearing not that I'd become my enemyIn the instant that I preachMy existence led by confusion boatsMutiny from stern to bow.Ah, but I was so much older then,I'm younger than that now.”

Of course, Dylan stated in a self deprecating manner, "I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man." Then he helped us all out of the quagmire of whether he was a poet, when he quipped in the liner notes to his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Columbia, May 27, 1963) "Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem." God, you gotta love this guy. Oh, and listen to this album, it is a treat.

Getting back to teachers, these comments present a pretty bleak report on our teachers, who are an old beating victim. They are the red headed step-children of society, beat upon like a rented mules. I mean the sport of teacher punching is as old as dirt. For instance, Zenobius, a Greek sophist, had similar sentiments when he wrote 1870 years ago, “He is either dead or teaching school.”

But, then, a ray of light from Aristotle, who stated, “Teaching is the highest form of understanding.” And Donald D. Quinn, gave the most succinct idea of a teacher’s job:” “If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.”

Let me leave you with these words from a few famous guys who had a little wisdom to impart, “The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.” Erasmus. Then, old Abe Lincoln stated, “Teach the children so that it will not be necessary to teach the adults.” Finally, JFK with “A child miseducated is a child lost.”

Gravity

Levitation of a mouse

Hell, there are no rules here; we’re trying to accomplish something. Thomas Alva Edison.

It seems that Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device using a large superconducting magnet to generate a field powerful enough to levitate a mouse. Before this amazing feat, these brainiacts were floating grasshoppers and frogs. I don’t even want to ask how much we’re paying these eggheads for this, but it sounds like it’s millions of taxpayer dollars down a rat hole. Ahem.

The eggheads report that the mouse became agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something. Jeeze, go figure. I bet if you put the eggheads in their little floatation device, they’d become a little disoriented, unless, as I suspect, that is their natural state. At a time when schools are being shut down, when art programs are being scrapped, and kids cannot go to gym class because there is no money, we are paying to float mice. Do I need to comment on this fucked up sense of priorities. Here is my expert on the subject.


Yuk Yuk Yuk.




Pismo Beach
"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard." —Katha-Upanishad (Epigraph to The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham (1944)

One of the things the mighty miscreants used to do was go up to Pismo Beach, which is the sand Dune capital of California. There are 3,500 acres in this area, but two things have happened that get you to scratching about the universe: First, they have set aside 2,200 acres for a buffer zone, and when the Snowy Plover nesting season starts (which is March to September – the righteous time of year), the riding area is reduced to about 1,100 acres; second, they changed the name from Pismo Beach to Oceano Dunes. What!?

Now, the Western Snowy Plover is a little dicky shore bird that nobody really cares a crap about except for the shitbirds that never use Pismo Beach anyway. He’s called the little padre, and is pretty cute, but do I want to give up all those acres of fun for this little tweety bird. Nooo way, Bro. Hey, the offroader is an endangered species too. But, then you have Joe Golling doing a 12 minute documentary on the plover. This is a guy that works in San Francisco, and who lists George W. Bush as one of his heroes. I bet he never set foot in Pismo, ‘cept of course to film his 12 minute masterpiece. Of course, W is a stellar example of an environmentalist. Go figure. The producer of this little piece is Marla Morrisey, who resides in Los Osos, California and seems to live off grants. She was the former director of the Morro Coast Audubon Society, so her interest seems in line with a philosophy of save the planet from the humans. Taking a look at her you know she has never been in a dune buggy, or even has the stamina to lug her supersized body on a long hike. But she knows what is best for the rest of us who use the outdoors. Spare me.

Anyway, we’d run around Pismo in the dune buggies, Baja Bugs and Luckly Lindholm’s sand rail. It was a blast. We’d go up there with the truck towing the sandrail, our various vehicles carrying everything from our surfboards, to our hang glider, and anything else we thought we needed to have fun. It was like the Beverly Hillbilly’s coming to town, or the Joad Family on the road from Oklahoma in Grapes of Wrath. We were a hooting, hollering, risk taking bunch of miscreants, with too much in the way of hormones and too little in the way of smarts.

Just before Pismo Beach is a little town called Santa Maria, an old oil town that Union Oil drained of oil for years starting with “Old Maud” (Union Oil's Hartnell Well No. 1) which produced 1 million barrels of oil in the first 100 days of operation. You’d of thunk all of that oil money would have improved the town, but the greedy bastards simply kept drilling more wells, 1,800 at last count. Usually our troop would stop in this little town for something to eat and to fill up on gas. I’ll never forget stopping in one Santa Maria dive for breakfast, going to the restroom, and seeing on the wall, “Flush the toilet hard, the cafeteria needs the water.” Uh oh. That was a bad omen for the day.

Once in Pismo, we ran around like ants escaping a kicked nest. Being the brilliant yoyo that I am, I hopped into the sandrail, drove it too close to the truck while one of the boys was exiting it. I cleared the open door with the little front wheels, but the big paddle wheel on the back tore the door clean off. Did that stop us? Noooo way. Lucky Lindholm simply said, “give it a little more room next time.” We piled the door into the back of the truck and continued on our merry way.

My first time in a hang glider was at Pismo Beach off of Devil’s Slide. Hell on wheels, but it was hard to launch that thing, then I was hanging in mid air, sitting in the swing seat, and gliding down towards the waves. It was a major e-ticket ride, but I gots to tell you it was a 10 on the pucker scale.

Lucky Lindholm wasn’t so lucky at Pismo. Now LL was a blue eyed blond haired devil that the girls just loved. He loved and loves to build fast boats, cars and dune buggies. This is the guy who built a cannon with a pipe, a battery, and some gunpowder from his dad’s reloader. His sandrail was a typical example, with a built up Corvair engine pushing it from behind.

On one occasion in the Calabasas hills, he had me strapped in the passenger seat while he put his foot in the carburetor so far he singed his shoelaces. We were going so fast, I was floating off the seat, with tears running back into my ears. I couldn’t even speak. Then, a yellow jacket flies up my extended pant leg, and starts stinging the hell outta me. I must put out a homing signal for the little bastards. I start hollering, and LL thought it was yells of joy. When he finally stopped (thank God for tender mercies), I jumped out, doffed my levis and started shaking my pants out. Jeeze, he looked at me like the cheese has slid off my cracker. I coulda killed him.

Anyway, Lucky Lindholm had guts, a lead foot, and a bottomless pit of desire to scare the hell outta himself. Soooo, there he was going over the dunes at Pismo with his foot mashed on the go-peddle, when a sand dune he thought extended out was actually sand blowing over the top of a sharp edged dune. Next thing he knows he doing a superman in mid air, waiting to come down. He hit Hard. His noggin bounced so brutally off the steering wheel that his lip split from his smile to his chin. He could literally stick his tongue through it, which he did to everyone’s displeasure. Believe it or not, he drove that sandrail back, and we had to berate him to go to the doctor to sew his lip up. I mean the wacko was going to tape his mug shut. The doctor at the emergency room sewed him up, but told LL that he needed to see a plastic surgeon to prevent an unsightly scar. Never happened, and to this day LL has a scar from his chin to his lip, which he wears like a red badge of courage. Go figure.

To be continued, …..

Live as if were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Gandhi