So it's into the fucking breach tomorrow. I leave for New Mexico in the morning with bow and arrow in hand in search of the mighty wapiti. Elk hunting, son! Solo! In a mountain range I've never been to before!
I am stupid, small, and scared.
But hey, the tickets and tags and new gear are all purchased and packed so I might as well suck it up and go. What's the worst that could happen? Eaten by a bear? I was probably asking for it. Fall to my death? Serves me right for not paying attention. Fucked up and forgot to bring enough water? Death by dehydration is for the stupid so sign me up. Struck by lightning? Told you there wasn't a God, just impersonal and random Mother Nature.
If it all really works I come back with meat and antlers and a great story. If it almost works I come back with meat and a great story about shooting a cow elk. If it doesn't work I come back empty handed with some sweet photos of my very expensive camping trip in the woods. If it really doesn't work I don't come back. Three out of four odds? I've had worse and been massively less prepared so...
But let's look on bright side: I'm actively adding to my mystique in Hollywood. I'm staying fit and young at heart. I'm contributing the local environment in New Mexico. I'm contributing to the proper management of wildlife and funding for said wildlife programs. And hey, Captain Killjoy Preggers said I could go! Maybe we should change her name. Maybe.
OK, I'm off to give my gear the once over for the forty-seventh time.
Peace out, bitches!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
I felt like destroying something beautiful.
I think I am a very selfish man but at least I'm not a man-child like so many of the Gen Xers I've grown up with. I say this because I purposely, and with malice aforethought, went out into a group of people and out surfed them.
I surfed like an asshole.
To wit, I dropped in on guys because I knew they weren't going to make the wave anyway. This probably didn't help them learn to get waves. I also dropped in and took a speedline just so I could catch up with someone and either shout them off the wave or line a turn up so that it was dangerously close to them. All of this is actually socially acceptable surfing behavior but only if the other person dropped in on you with some proximity. Chasing people down a wave face is an asshole thing to do. After riding the hell out of a wave I paddled right back to the peak and past everyone else just to show them that I fully intended to take the next fucking set wave so stay out of my way you pricks.
Why did I do this? I'm normally a really nice guy in the water. I travel up and down the beach, grab a wave here, grab a wave there, and peace and blessings on everyone. Not today. Today I was in aggro douche mode and I fucking loved it.
I think the problem is that I'm not exercising enough and not surfing enough. Granted, I work out and surf more than most people I know as my wife is very accommodating and, thankfully, the kid is old enough to have stuff to do. I get a fair bit of free time but I suspect it's not enough. This is a problem as we are going to have a baby in February and my free time will evaporate for quite some time.
Lately I've begun to worry about how I'll react to this change. I have a lot of responsibilities and I take them very seriously. I don't slack. Well, I don't slack that much for a Gen Xer. Either way, I get everything done that needs to get done and I generally have a good attitude about the process. All I ask in return is that I be allowed to do the things that make me happy: surf, hunt, eat well, and occasionally get drunk with my idiot friends. It's really not that crazy.
I think I need to establish a schedule so that I don't turn into one of those overweight Dads who spends all of his non-work time servicing everyone else. If I get up at the crack of dawn and surf and run and hit the weights and everyone else gets up as I finish I'll still have time to schlep kids around and clean up after everyone, right?
But what if I turn into one of those middle-aged guys with a midlife crisis? You know the ones, new car, "extreme" hobbies out of the blue, obsessed with being cool. Fuck. That would be so much worse than being a fat bastard who never does anything for himself.
This is what consumes me these days. Well, this and the downfall of American civil society as it battles the evils of neoliberal economics and anti-intellectual religious extremism.
I need an orange flavored Push-Up.
Peace out, bitches!
I surfed like an asshole.
To wit, I dropped in on guys because I knew they weren't going to make the wave anyway. This probably didn't help them learn to get waves. I also dropped in and took a speedline just so I could catch up with someone and either shout them off the wave or line a turn up so that it was dangerously close to them. All of this is actually socially acceptable surfing behavior but only if the other person dropped in on you with some proximity. Chasing people down a wave face is an asshole thing to do. After riding the hell out of a wave I paddled right back to the peak and past everyone else just to show them that I fully intended to take the next fucking set wave so stay out of my way you pricks.
Why did I do this? I'm normally a really nice guy in the water. I travel up and down the beach, grab a wave here, grab a wave there, and peace and blessings on everyone. Not today. Today I was in aggro douche mode and I fucking loved it.
I think the problem is that I'm not exercising enough and not surfing enough. Granted, I work out and surf more than most people I know as my wife is very accommodating and, thankfully, the kid is old enough to have stuff to do. I get a fair bit of free time but I suspect it's not enough. This is a problem as we are going to have a baby in February and my free time will evaporate for quite some time.
Lately I've begun to worry about how I'll react to this change. I have a lot of responsibilities and I take them very seriously. I don't slack. Well, I don't slack that much for a Gen Xer. Either way, I get everything done that needs to get done and I generally have a good attitude about the process. All I ask in return is that I be allowed to do the things that make me happy: surf, hunt, eat well, and occasionally get drunk with my idiot friends. It's really not that crazy.
I think I need to establish a schedule so that I don't turn into one of those overweight Dads who spends all of his non-work time servicing everyone else. If I get up at the crack of dawn and surf and run and hit the weights and everyone else gets up as I finish I'll still have time to schlep kids around and clean up after everyone, right?
But what if I turn into one of those middle-aged guys with a midlife crisis? You know the ones, new car, "extreme" hobbies out of the blue, obsessed with being cool. Fuck. That would be so much worse than being a fat bastard who never does anything for himself.
This is what consumes me these days. Well, this and the downfall of American civil society as it battles the evils of neoliberal economics and anti-intellectual religious extremism.
I need an orange flavored Push-Up.
Peace out, bitches!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Damn John Whorfin and the horse he rode in on!
I am very tired right now. I'm tired of humping cameras and heads and sticks and batteries all over for weeks on end. I'm tired of having a house unfinished. I'm tired of paying bills. I'm tired of a marine layer that makes dawn patrol grey and depressing. I'm tired of people calling the President a socialist. I'm tired of pre-season football. I'm tired of people parking in front of my house in such a way that I can't park in front of my house. I'm tired of taking the 10 to work. I'm tired of waiting for duck season to start. I'm tired of the Tea Party, the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, and the goddamned Democratic Party. I'm tired of Facebook. I'm tired of poor people voting for rich people policies. I'm tired of Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm tired of Rick Perry and he just announced his candidacy yesterday. I'm tired of not having my Man Cave finished. I'm tired.
I've been working a bunch lately and haven't been keeping up with the news as much as I should but I did notice that Rick Perry is running for the Republican presidential nomination. A lot of idiots on the left are saying this is an amazing thing as the man is so country and religious that if he runs as the Republican candidate their guy is a shoo in. These people are stupid. Perry is no fool. It doesn't matter whether or not his religious beliefs are sincere or that his "strategy" for delaying the effects of the Depression in Texas amounted to doing nothing. What matters is that for a frighteningly large percentage of Americans it's comforting to hear a Southern accent from a white man who's promising to get that goddamn nigger out of the White House and put Gawd back into national policy making. That he's a charlatan and snake oil salesman of the highest order makes no never mind. He's one of them. Except for all of that money and power. He understands them. Except that he's never really sweated out a paycheck or failed to get a GED. He's got a plan that worked in Texas and will work everywhere else, by Gawd! Except that the Texas Recovery Story is a fucking lie and wouldn't work for everyone, everywhere and that currently their unemployment rate is right up there with everyone else at a juicy 8.5%.
Discount Perry because he's a God Squader. Discount Perry because he has, at best, a tenuous grasp of grown up economics. Do not, however, take these two things and come to the conclusion that he can't win. The man has never lost an election in his life, which probably includes class president in 4th grade. He's a campaigning beast, a feral dog, a frothing lunatic. Treat him like a rabid dog and deliver a killing blow early if you want to win. Make fun of Gawd and Country and you're done. The worst part is that in campaigning against Perry the President will turn ever more rightward. He doesn't have the cajones to stand up for the small d democrats that elected him. He's a corporate whore and that's going to be his undoing. President Obama's best bet is another corporate smoothy like Mitt Romney as his competition. Neither one of them seems to have strongly held beliefs so they won't really rub off on each other. It'll be like a taste test between vanilla and vanilla.
In the end it won't really make a huge difference who wins. The system is showing its flaws and the cracks are growing ever wider. A system based so clearly on greed and power and so set against the bit players that make it all function can't last forever. If you believe in starving the government in a country that was founded on the idea that said government is the people then who are you really starving?
Peace out, bitches!
I've been working a bunch lately and haven't been keeping up with the news as much as I should but I did notice that Rick Perry is running for the Republican presidential nomination. A lot of idiots on the left are saying this is an amazing thing as the man is so country and religious that if he runs as the Republican candidate their guy is a shoo in. These people are stupid. Perry is no fool. It doesn't matter whether or not his religious beliefs are sincere or that his "strategy" for delaying the effects of the Depression in Texas amounted to doing nothing. What matters is that for a frighteningly large percentage of Americans it's comforting to hear a Southern accent from a white man who's promising to get that goddamn nigger out of the White House and put Gawd back into national policy making. That he's a charlatan and snake oil salesman of the highest order makes no never mind. He's one of them. Except for all of that money and power. He understands them. Except that he's never really sweated out a paycheck or failed to get a GED. He's got a plan that worked in Texas and will work everywhere else, by Gawd! Except that the Texas Recovery Story is a fucking lie and wouldn't work for everyone, everywhere and that currently their unemployment rate is right up there with everyone else at a juicy 8.5%.
Discount Perry because he's a God Squader. Discount Perry because he has, at best, a tenuous grasp of grown up economics. Do not, however, take these two things and come to the conclusion that he can't win. The man has never lost an election in his life, which probably includes class president in 4th grade. He's a campaigning beast, a feral dog, a frothing lunatic. Treat him like a rabid dog and deliver a killing blow early if you want to win. Make fun of Gawd and Country and you're done. The worst part is that in campaigning against Perry the President will turn ever more rightward. He doesn't have the cajones to stand up for the small d democrats that elected him. He's a corporate whore and that's going to be his undoing. President Obama's best bet is another corporate smoothy like Mitt Romney as his competition. Neither one of them seems to have strongly held beliefs so they won't really rub off on each other. It'll be like a taste test between vanilla and vanilla.
In the end it won't really make a huge difference who wins. The system is showing its flaws and the cracks are growing ever wider. A system based so clearly on greed and power and so set against the bit players that make it all function can't last forever. If you believe in starving the government in a country that was founded on the idea that said government is the people then who are you really starving?
Peace out, bitches!
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