Why don't you wish in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills up first.

I am not a fan of Christmas and this fact seems to bug people to no end. I'm not entirely sure why that is as my dislike of Christmas has no bearing on anyone else's experience of the holiday. I generally keep my disdain to myself and happily help out with the tree and the lights and the rest of the attendant holiday bullshit. On the rare occasions that I explain my "meh" for all things Christmas I'm inevitably told that I have no joy in my life or that I should just enjoy the food/gatherings/gifts or that it's ok to just celebrate the Winter Solstice. All of these seems to me to be so beside the point that I often find myself depressed at the impossibility of escaping the gravitational pull of Christmas. Why is it so important for some people that there be this absurd consensus on Christmas? Who the fuck really cares about any of this to the point that they need to seek converts for the cause?

I think the whole thing is bullshit and an environmental and mental health disaster. Fuck it. Next year I'm going to Thailand and eating like a champ while lounging on a beach.

In the end, we all die. Unless you change.

Four months since I almost died for nothing and I haven’t had a drink. Things are exactly where they need to be at this point.

It kind of came as a shock to me  when my life flashed before my eyes and all I could muster was a weak, “No.” A plaintive and pointless cry into the abyss followed by lights out and pain of various and sundry types. I saw my son playing baseball but he was an adult. I saw my daughter crying but couldn’t tell how old she was. I saw my wife smoking a cigarette and laughing. I was dead, of course, and sorely saddend by that fact as I was causing pain and missing so much life.

It’s four months later and I meditate, work, skate, and try to be present for those around me. It’s not easy as I feel myself changing while several around me seem dead set on staying the same. I have no control over any of it but that is o-fucking-k and simply the way of the world.

I heard Bill wither’s “Lovely Day” while skating and dedicated it to my skateboard, one of the few constants in my life. Make of that what you will.

When Griff and I were little, we went to school in the same sea. And the master was an old turtle; we used to call him "tortoise."

I often look at the turtle and realize that he and the dog are remnants of my past life and I love them so much more for that fact. Of all the things in life that are ephemeral they have, despite themselves and their biology, remained constants for me. I've often been told to ditch them both but that will never happen. I will, one day, bury them both (perhaps they'll witness my burial and curse my name) and sing drunken songs of their glory and worth. I hope on that day I will finally become a man.

Aww, lookie here. Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!

I have not published in several years. I have been busy with The Fam.

I am moved to publish because tonight I very much wanted to beat a cracker to death. That's not at all a nice thing to think or say or write but it is the truth.

In my defense, a number of crackers have been asking for it of late. Loudly. Incessantly. In typical cracker fashion they've acted like they haven't earned a beating, what with their White Privilege/Tears/Fragility/Entitlement they should just keep on keeping on.

But they're wrong.

Case in point: While having a drink with my friend we were treated to a voluble and spirited cracker discussion of Mr. Kapernick and his (awesome) protest. One cracker decided to go on a monologue about cornbread and how he "sho 'nuff luuuvs cornbread," while the others did there best impersonations of some race-based memory of Amos 'n Andy.

You see where this is going, right?

I held my tongue. I drank my beer. My friend and I began talking about our deep and sudden desire to be somewhere else. I wanted to say something but what was the use? If you can't silently protest and you can't protest on the street and you can't be the President and say that *maybe* there's a problem... If POTUS isn't supposed to talk about race relations because it makes crackers feel icky then what can you do?

I'm depressed. I'm a POC and I've had enough.

There's no good way to wrap this up. Black Lives Matter.

Peace out, bitches!

I mean, I've seen men stabbed, didn't mean shit to me. I've seen guns, guns too, they don't mean shit. But that's when you gotta watch yourself.

I  received a backhanded compliment at work this week,went to two funerals, and came home to find that the prick who murdered a black teenager was acquitted. You will, of course, forgive me when I say I've fucking had enough.

What's that quote? "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." Not particularly profound but popped into my head when my boss told me, "You're too good a focus puller for me to let you operate," which in English means I'm not getting promoted because I might take his job. One day. Or not. Either way I'm apparently not making any more money anytime soon with this guy. It's a good way to finish a job. I get to work with him again in a week. Not as the operator, of course, since I'm so good translating what he wants into actual action from the crew. It happens. You get good, you get pigeonholed, you say fuck you and burn the place down, dynamite the bridge, and move on to the next gig.

People die. People die every day, every minute, every second. Someone, some where died while I was typing this and while you were reading this. It just happens. It's the inevitable result of being born. If you're really lucky you live a long healthy life of relative happiness and success and you don't bury your children or your grandchildren. That was the first funeral and it was sad and beautiful and felt like the right conclusion to an awesome story, you know the kind that when it ends you feel full and content and sigh to yourself, "Well, of course it ended like that."

When you're not lucky and Life decides to kick your ass you die well before your time and your kids and their kids have to bury you and it's a damn miserable business. It's the kind of thing that makes you believe quite resolutely that every religious person you've ever met is a lying asshole and that if Gawd exists you'd like to kick it in the balls. That was the second funeral. There was crying, there was gnashing of teeth, there was wailing to the heavens and there was, of course, the funny little man in the white smock talking out of his ass about someone he barely knew. At least there were some good memories shared at the reception of a truly wonderful person who I was lucky to know.

Just to cement the whole suckage of it all Florida reassured white America that black lives are worthless. Progress is un-American, dontchaknow?

Fuck Florida.

Fuck a judicial system so blinded to its own prejudices and assumptions about class and race that out of six jurors and four alternates not one person was black. It's fucking ridiculous and it happens all the time and all of the centuries old assumptions about black cocks and sexual desires and the fecundity of black women and the inability of any black person to do anything positive are constantly at work against black defendants. Chips stacked and waiting against. Always.

I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of chickenshit fucks running around with guns looking for people to push around. I'm sick of white people insisting that we live in a post-racial society while they simultaneously gush about dumb shit like gangster rap and say, "YOLO!" I'm sick of chronic underfunding of schools in economically depressed areas while the police department gets to arm itself to the teeth with weapons better suited for combat than "Protecting and Serving." I'm sick of it all.

Peace out, bitches!

If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball.

Work. Lots of work. Pain. Lots of pain. The two seem to go together more and more often with every passing year.

It's been fifteen years of The Suck. At any point along the timeline of my service to The Suck you could have found me wanting to quit and yet here I am fifteen years later. How? Why? What? Or there're the alternates to this: Dammit! How the Fuck did this happen? Goddammit! Why the fuck did this happen? and Fucking goddammit sonofabitch! What the fuck happened?

I have a very bad and persistent case of tendonitis in my right elbow and my right knee is starting to show signs of wanting to secede from the rest of my body. At least I still have all of my hair and can ollie a curb and chew my own food. I'm not completely useless just yet. I had the elbow looked at today. It was humbling. A very pretty therapist massaged my forearm (I'm still not sure this was part of the treatment) while asking me questions about work. In the end, she wrapped my arm with a compression sock and applied kinesio tape from my wrist up to my bicep. I'm to stop trying to lift things with my right arm. I'm to stop having anything in my right arm. I am, in short, to stop thinking that I even have a right arm. It must rest. I must ice it throughout the day. I've already had two Cortisone shots, one more and then the only option is surgery. Whacky doctors.

I may be falling apart slowly but surely I am still nimble enough to dodge the wrench, pull the focus, collect the check, and go home to my hot wife and my kids. That's all you really need anyway.

Well, that and some good surf now and again and duck season.

Peace out, bitches.

For too long I've been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been starving to death and haven't died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea. Nor the warmth of a woman's flesh.

It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm coming apart at the seams. This is not a good thing.

I'm in Spain for work but it feels like I've been kidnapped. We've been down for almost a week. Contracts have changed. Sponsors have dropped out. We have no one to shoot.

I've been trying to keep it together, filling the hours with yoga, weights, running, skateboarding, beer and cigarettes. It's not quite working as I'm beginning to feel the thin veil of sanity that I'm wearing begin to fray. It will tear soon. This is not a good thing.

I've come to realize that among my legion of character defects is the inability to do nothing. Some of the guys on the crew are content with drinking heavily and hitting on whatever woman is unfortunate enough to be near them. Others are diligently working the Interwebs trying to set up next month's jobs. No one is having a good time.

I no longer want to be here. This job is falling apart. I haven't been able to sleep for days now no matter how hard I break myself during the day. Beer? Over it. Smoking? Over it. Skateboarding? Almost over it. Sight seeing? We're not exactly here during the season where anything is actually open. Alicante has been interesting though but...

I'm  not on a vacation. If I were on a vacation I'd have my kids here and my wife and I wouldn't be rambling at 5:30 in the morning. I'm here to work. If there's no work then why am I here?

The added fuck you bonus of the whole thing is that The Company is sure to try and renegotiate our contract to reflect a decline in my take home money due to all of our down days. I'm gone all month and I will have made less than had I stayed home? Fuck you. Send me back now.

In theory we have everything set so that in another day or two (please, blessed holy unicorn don't let it be two days!) we will grind straight through until it's time to leave. All I can think of right now is how much I want to be in my bed with Stretch and Ghost sleeping at our feet and the kids in their beds and what do you guys want to do tomorrow?

It's the down time that's fucking killing me. I can't take the nothing.

Peace out, bitches!

Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

(There are going to be quite a lot of references, or possibly one, to drunk driving through the streets of LA and I'm not at all interested in dealing with your problems with that. Read on or fuck off and know that I love you in the way that only a disgruntled old LA skate punk can "love" another human being. Mostly just fuck off and read on if you want.)

An old man walks down the street and finds himself in front of what once was a glorious jazz club. He blinks. He remembers. He sees himself as a goddamn golden god of the LA night life. He is a fucking king of the night and the city is his. He blinks again and he wonders if he can pry any of the plywood off the doors of this dilapidated building because if he can he will be young again.

An hour later he is standing in a cavernous room. He is dwarfed and old and grey and blind and probably mostly crazy but he is there. And there is where it's at.

The tables and chairs are covered in dusty white linens. The cheap carpet is worn thin and hard and desperate by the waitstaff's countless rounds. Chandeliers once glorious and stunning are strung into macabre beauty by generations of spider webs. The old man, however, is happy and lost in his memories of big bands as a teen and bebop as a man.

I drive through Los Angeles late at night, after work of course as I'm a family man now, and think about the crevices of this city and my mind. They are entwined. My favorite thing to do while drunk-esque and winding my way home is to listen to the soundtrack to "Repo Man." It's perfect for this type of work, really.

The opening track should be a primer for BEING in LA. Not living here. Not visiting. BEING. Being in LA is a daunting task for most people and I think that's because most people lack the creative juice to BE here. Now. Right now. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing in LA you must, at all times BE here. It's hard, I know, and you came here feeling so entitled to be here so really it should be easier.

But it's not.

That's why LA is my favorite. Sure, native born, remember what what with the who who back in the day. OG, triple OG, gangsta whatnot and so on. Fuck me. I'm just a guy who was lucky enough to be born here so I know nothing but I BE. In LA.

So, I was driving drunk-esque through LA and listening to "Repo Man" and feeling like a king. Why? How? Are you sure that's safe, what, with the two kids and the mortgage and the wife and the career? Go fuck yourself for asking. We do this here more than anyone wants to admit but we're quite good at it so... Anyone who tells you this doesn't happen amongst "polite" society here probably doesn't think matronly women didn't earn their Mardi Gra beads the old fashioned way. Go figure.

When you drive through LA listening to "El Clavo y la Cruz" by The Plugz you realize that you rule, that you get it, that you are LA. I say this because I've loved this song forever and it is LA. Don't believe me? Go listen.




Don't get it? I understand.

There was a point to this but I've lost the thread. No. That's not true. I've hit the point where the beers and tequila are making me not give a shit about explaining this to you.

You get it or you don't at this point. Go watch "Repo Man" right now and watch it knowing that it's a quintessential LA movie, right up there with "Chinatown." Or don't. We don't care. We're all going to fall into the Pacific or Angelina's vampire cleavage so fuck us, right?

Point: I love LA and I love watching the bent obsessions of the legions of star fuckers get dashed upon the rocks of reality in LA.

And I think it's time to get a new job as working in Hollywood for the last 14 years has killed me.

Peace out, bitches!

Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamned right unless you were going to go all the way.

I shouldn't have gotten out of bed today.

Love means never having to say you're sorry. However, it is with sincere regret that I must now kill all of you.

If anyone had told me what percentage of my day would be spent listening to the irrational and piercing cry of one Hellboy I'd have laughed and told them there weren't 28 hours in a day. I'd have been wrong, of course, but the fact remains that no one can ever truly prepare you for the hell that is an infant.

Wrap all of the worst characteristics of your average person into the miniature body of a human. Remove all reason from said sack of loud and unleash it on two people who feel immeasurable quilt at every cry that comes from sack. Add in Geneva-Convention-violating amounts of sleep deprivation. That, my friends, that is having a child.

Notice that diapers made no appearance in that list of horrors? Know why? Because only an idiot thinks that changing diapers is the worst of having an infant in the house. The diaper changing is easy. It has a beginning, middle, and end (pun fully intended). There's a reason behind (ahem) it, some semblance of logic: food goes in, poop comes out, diaper is changed and disposed of, new diaper applied. Would you like the undercoating with that, sir? Perhaps and extended warranty? No? Well then, good day, sir. It makes sense, as a man, the changing of diapers. The screaming, the piercing, incessant, mindless screaming, that does not make sense and that you cannot stop it does not make sense.

Couldn't make them sing, eh, Life?

The only off button is the breast milk but you don't have breast milk. You have breasts and useless nipples and a screaming mound of suck. Why on earth don't men produce breast milk? How hard could that have been, eh, Life? It's further proof that there is no God for if there were Men would have fucking milk producing breasts for those occasions when the little bundle of joy won't shut the fuck up.

Cruel joke, Life.

If anyone tells you that having children is a blessing or the greatest thing you can do with your life or anything else flowery or romantic or ridiculous please run away from them. They are either liars, idiots, or grandparents seeking to ruin your life the way you ruined theirs. Yes, children are amazing but mostly when they are someone else's and don't live at your quite, orderly, clean house. Or they're old enough to walk, talk, and wipe their own asses. This whole infant thing is a horrible blight. How in the hell did we ever make it out of the trees with these little bastards constantly alerting every predator for a mile around that hey, tasty helpless meat right here! Come and get your fresh hominid! Bicameral mind be damned, we're louder than hell and easy to catch!

Stunning, Life.

Hellboy. The very moment you're ready to call it quits the little bastard smiles, drools, and does his new dog trick of rolling over several times. He'll finish with some baby gibberish and all of a sudden you love him. You love him and want to hold him forever and teach him how to track game, shoot a gun, light a fire, drive stick, surf, take a photo, catch a ball, skateboard, read, drink wine, and smoke cigars. You want very desperately for him not to ever get hurt but you know it'll happen and it'll be fine but still...

Nice, Life. Worked in a little safety valve, did ya?

It's all so very much to take in and it comes in such a rush. If anyone had actually told me what it was going to be like it might have been easier but I suppose nothing worth doing is ever really easy.

Peace out, bitches!

His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.

Or spending your free time with your baby boy. That's not death, that's victory. Fuck Hollywood.

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.

I had an epiphany the other day while holding my two week old son. It occurred to me suddenly that I might not live long enough to see my son turn the same age I am now, which is 40. I suppose this kind of thought crosses everyone's mind when they're forty. Reflecting on one's life is what you do at forty, right? I came to the conclusion that I've got one overriding regret now.

After all of the lying, cheating, stealing, drug abuse, cowardice, fear, and assorted bullshit my one and only regret is that I didn't have my son earlier in life. Perhaps his existence would have helped me avoid the legion of mistakes I've made in my life. Perhaps not. I suppose I'll never know about that aspect of the whole thing but I do know I wish I we're younger right now. Younger so that I'd have a better shot at being around for everything.

I'm happy that I'm not as much of a dumb-ass as I've been for much of my life. I think I'll be a better father for not being younger but again, one never knows. Suffice it to say I'm truly excited to be a father to both Number 1 and Hellboy and a husband to Stretch. We'll see how it all goes won't we?

Peace out, bitches!

Lawzy, we got to have a doctor. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies.

Think of it as a movie.

Peace out, bitches!

You had the wrong kind? I've never had the wrong kind, ever. My worst one was right on the money.

I woke up today completely bummed out that Hellboy ain't been a'birth'd yet. Then I did some yoga and felt at peace with Hellboy not being born yet. Then I drove through traffic to get to work and was glad Hellboy wasn't born yet so it didn't have to sit in traffic. Then I worked on an interview with Shepard Fairey and was bummed that Hellboy wasn't there to meet one of my favorite artists but at least it didn't have to watch the wretched director act like a spoiled cunt. Then I drove home through traffic with a headache because I had forgotten to eat all day and realized Hellboy was pretty lucky to get all of its food through a fucking tube, automatically. Then I got home, with a headache and needing desperately to pee, and saw that The Kid had made a million red velvet cupcakes and cleaned up after herself and I was happy that Hellboy would have such a cool sister.

Oh, and I shot this on the way home because in spite of desperately needing to pee and having a major headache I thought it was funny.

Peace out, bitches!

Just like the guys in Thrashin'.

I recently remembered I'm a skate punk from LA, or rather, I remembered the skater part of the equation. I started skating again a few days ago and it's fucking awesome. I totally suck. I don't care. I zipped around the Culver City Skatepark today and tried a bunch of tricks that every kid today, as soon as they step onto a board, learns in a day. It was great. I'm a total kook all over again at 40 and utterly thrilled.

A happy accident occurred as well- I started shooting photos again. I shot photos of the wife yesterday. I shot this today:

I think my six years of anti-productivity can be traced to the decline and death of my skateboarding. Or maybe not. Maybe the two are completely separate and I'm just looking for an excuse to make sense of the fact that I walked away,  hobbled really, from two things I previously thought I couldn't live without.

I don't really care. I'm just happy to be shooting my little art fag bits of light and zipping around on my useless wooden toy. If this is my mid-life crisis then so be it. Definitely beats having an affair with a younger woman (translation: you need someone to boss around) or buying a sports car (translation: outward manifestation of your needing Viagra) and acting like a douche. I'm enough of an asshole already so...

Peace out, bitches!

You're the best time I've ever had.

Here are some photos of my hot-ass pregnant wife.

We're due right now and waiting, waiting, waiting. It's ok, though. The baby is doing great so far and we're aren't completely crazy yet so...

I surfed today and felt a thousand times better than yesterday when I didn't surf and got sort of grumpy. It happens says me Mum. Anywhy, the surf was awesome and I kept thinking about how much I'd like to get the 10 year old to surf this summer while I've got the newborn out in the great Ol' Pacific. A bunch of longboards, some sun, and some mellow waves sound like a fantastic way to spend a day. Future possibilities floating around the mush that is my mind. Floating.

We're due tomorrow, on the record anyway, and we're very calm and quiet right now. I'm planning on doing some yoga in the early morning and then going for a bit of skateboardin' before walking the dog. Then we'll all take a walk. Then we'll have a baby? Floating.

Peace out, bitches!

Some day this war is gonna end.

This is the 1st draft of a piece I'm working on for my friend's hunting blog. What do you think?


This Are Duck Hunting: Some thoughts on a season past
By Hassan

Regrettably I’ve washed, scrubbed, and hung up the last of the decoys. The boat has been hosed off and tucked under its tarp. The blind bag is cleaned up and organized and in the closet with the rest of the gear. In short, duck season has come to its end once again and I am feeling rudderless and lost and sad. I guess I should take some small comfort in the fact that hogs, of which I’ve successfully killed none, are year round and spring turkey season is just around the corner. I should, but I won’t take comfort in these two facts. The reasons for this refusal of hope (the audacity of nope?) are complicated but I will, if you keep reading, force them down your metaphorical throat. To wit:

This season was, well, weird. The weather never really cooperated and if you don’t believe me check out the brainiacs at Ducks Unlimited and their weather comparison map for last year versus this year. The cold fronts that any self-respecting SoCal duck hunter relies on for massive numbers of ducks coming into gun range never really materialized. That lack of cold weather meant that to get any good gunning one had to travel up to Sacto for much of the year or, at the very least, Kern. (More on Kern and Sacto later.) I don’t mind traveling in fact I love traveling and hunting. Who doesn’t want to find all new birds to miss? The lack of any real weather had the more disastrous effect of making every hunt in SoCal a test of one’s mental and physical fortitude. When the birds aren’t flying and the mercury or digital gizmo or what have you is hitting 80° it’s the rare duck hunter that can hunker down for the long haul and slowly hit a limit. Even with all of that I’m still going to miss duck season for quite awhile.

I like to think that you can learn something new every day and this season taught me that less is more. When it’s hot and sunny and shade is suddenly a rare commodity it pays to not have 5 million decoys and a ton of other gear with you even if you’re only a stone’s throw away from your vehicle. Sure, at 4am it’s nice and chilly and humping a ton of shit 100 yards isn’t really that big of a deal but come 10am you’re going to regret owning most of said shit. I know a lot of guys might disagree but this season I started carrying fewer decoys and tried to match the decoys to what I thought the ducks might be up to on the day. Fewer decoys also meant that anytime I wanted to pick up and move in the “free roam” areas in Kern, Sacto, Delevan, etc. I didn’t need to start looking for a Sherpa army to help me. The main point of duck hunting is to be where the ducks want to be and if you can’t move quickly you can miss ducks. It’s still a lot of work but I miss it already.

This year’s trip to Sacto for my birthday week of duck hunting went a lot like last year’s: saw tons of ducks, missed a few shots, killed a couple of ducks, and worked my ass off. Can’t complain, the wife lets the dog and me out of the house for a week and I get to shoot ducks and quail and rabbits and not have to do dishes or laundry. Happy Birthday to me indeed! Even though I tend to have rotten luck in Sacto and Delevan I love heading up there as the environs you’re hunting in are just amazing and there really are ducks everywhere all the time, even with the crappy nice weather we were cursed with all season. I miss Sacto NWR.

Kern was a lot of fun this year seeing as I only got up there once the whole season. Like I said, it was a weird season. That one trip made the season for me in a way as I was up there with the one and only Rob Knox and we took my duck boat out for its maiden voyage. We shot a ton of teal, figured out some stuff about the boat, and missed a boatload of ducks. In short, it was a duck hunting trip. Kern is one of those places that if you don’t go there a lot you never really get to know it well enough to hunt it so I think our success was equal parts luck and perseverance. I like to tell myself, and I do this at the beginning of every season, that I’ll go up to Kern more and stop being lazy and going to San Jacinto but it never happens and I’m ok with that, I’ve made peace with my slack. However, after taking the boat up there I’m making a solemn oath to get up to Kern more than once next season. I’ve probably jinxed the hell out of myself at this point. I miss Kern and my duck boat.

The real highlight of this season, besides all of the ducks I shot, was introducing several people to the subtle joys and exquisite agony of duck hunting. Oxwooders Chris Hirt and Rob Knox gamely lit out with me early one morning to stand in the sweat line at San Jacinto only to get denied until around 10am, which is basically quitting time for most duck hunters. We sat around the parking lot for awhile looking at ducks and listening to other people missing until we fell asleep. When we finally got on we got a so-so blind and did our best. I was particularly excited to call in a Northern Shoveler who streaked over several other blinds and had then straight into out blind so that Chris could shoot him. What a civilized bird. Rob waited until Chris and I were collecting the decoys and the sun was going down before he quickly knocked down all of the birds he shot that day. He’s a very efficient hunter, that Rob Knox. I also took my brother and my brand new brother in law out to San Jacinto for an equally ridiculous wait to get into a blind. The guys had a great time even though we got on late and into a sort of free roam area with some deep sections. My brother’s waders filled up at one point but he emptied them out and kept right on hunting. We shot a few birds but mostly we talked shit and had a good time and I tried to show them how you hunt ducks. I even got to take my wife and daughter out on a hunt despite my wife being 8 months pregnant at the time. My daughter took a shot at a duck and missed but hey, she’s only 10! She’s got a ton of missing left to do and some occasional hitting of targets as well. My wife managed to kill her first duck on that trip and sure, it was a Ruddy, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I love taking people hunting and now that the season is over, well, I’ll miss that too.

The dog. What to say about Ghost, the little Brittany ya love to hate. No, I don’t hate him, I just wish I could get him out more often. He fell through the ice a few years back on a pheasant retrieve in South Dakota and he’s been leery of water ever since. Not a good trait for a duck dog but I guess I officially got him for upland hunting so I should give him a pass. We did have a few good days out in the shallow marshes where his hydrophobia didn’t come into play. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching your emotionally disturbed pup charge through the tules looking for downed ducks. That it’s a rarity for me makes it that much more special every season. Again, I’ll be missing you, uh, image of my dog in the water. Or something.

When I look back on this season I’ve got to say I’m pleased. As always I missed a lot of easy shots but when has that ever stopped a real hunter from going hunting again? The weather didn’t cooperate and there weren’t as many opportunities as there were last season but just as in surfing who the hell wants to hear “You should have been here earlier/last year/before it got lame”? Ever forward, right? I got to take in some absolutely gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, watched noble birds wheel overhead and zip through my dekes, listened to the sounds of the marsh, and guided a few people into what I can only hope is an obsession with waterfowling as intense and enjoyable as my own. What else does one really need to make a good season of waterfowling or anything else? Instead of missing the season I think I’ll start planning for next season.


Anywayway, feedback would be appreciated.

Peace out, bitches!

What the hell do the attorney general, the state department, or even the President of the United States know about one god-damn thing that's going on up here in Harlem?

Some facts about my neighborhood:

1. Developed in 1928 by Walter H. Leimert and designed by the sons of one Fredrick Law Olmstead of Central Park fame.


2. Considered to be one of the first comprehensively designed communities in SoCal. Traffic was controlled around around schools and churches, utilities were buried or hidden in alleys, trees were planted everywhere for the middle and upper income families the area was sold to.

3. Host to Project Blowed (longest running hip hop open mic night), several historical theaters and homes, and Tavis Smiley has a studio here.

4. Demographics: 91.7% African-American, 1.7% gringo, 1.4% Latino, 1.2% Asian or Pacific Islander, and .3% Native American. Anyone else here? Sure, probably, but these are the significant populations.

5. Median household income is $21, 443. Median family income is $36, 709. Per capita income is $11, 253.

6. 36.1% of individuals and 33.9% of families are below the Federal poverty line.

7. According to the latest stats from the LAPD, in the last month we've had 51 crimes. The majority of them were smash and grab bs and a few assaults. A finer perusing of the crime stats shows that the assaults were between acquaintances.

8. The level of stupid in this neighborhood is astounding.

I recently read an article about Herman Cain's alma matter, Morehouse College, and some of its current students opinions of Mr. Cain. One young man stated he was probably going to vote for Mr. Cain because, "He is a Morehouse man, after all." I was stunned. How is it that after all these years a modern black man could say something so stupid? Herman Cain has about as much to do with Morehouse's spirit of civil service as W does. It's just as dumb as all of the people who voted for Obama just because he's black. Who gives a fuck?! What in the hell does his race or his college past have to do with a rational argument for or against the man's policies? Nothing. Stupid kid.

Most of the people who drive in Leimert Park drive aggressively for no apparent reason other than they think traffic laws don't pertain to them. I've come to feel that it's part and parcel of a culturally acceptable aspect of African-American life wherein acting like a douche bag is cool. Brash and brusque are cool. Driving like a dick on side streets is cool. Needless confrontation over trifling matters is normal. Why? I'm sure it all goes back to slavery and, more importantly, the Reconstruction but I don't have time or space to deal with that right now.

Many of the young people around here are about as wild as feral cats although always well dressed. I often wonder if their parents even know what their kids are doing. Half the time I want to knock the shit out of the kids around here. The other half of the time I want to knock the shit out of their parents.

I love this neighborhood and my neighbors but there needs to be some changes made. Maybe I need to stop bitching and start a neighborhood committee. I dunno. It just seems like there's a lot of wasted potential. What's a jackass know-it-all to do?

Peace out, bitches!

It real simple... we live back in here... dis is our home, and nobody don't fuck with us.

I shot ducks today and it was glorious.

I got on for the morning flight. I drove. I parked. I packed in. All told that was an hour. Then I set up shop and that consumed another hour. The sun was just beginning to say hi when I sat down for my pre-shooting cup of tea. Glorious.

One of the best parts of being a duck hunter is watching the sun come up while listening to an absolutely beautiful chorus of marsh birds. Everyone rehearses at night, I think. The song of the sun is astounding as it never really sounds like it should all fit together and yet it does. I'll never grow tired of the visual splendor of watching another day start with a sound track straight from Mother Nature. That bitch can play.

As beautiful as the initial spark of sunrise was it was over quickly. The fog rolled in thick and fast. It looked like something out of a movie. It took everything in me not to start making  the crazy nasal whine noise that Lance makes in Apocalypse Now. I had the cammo, the facepaint, the weapon. I didn't do it. It would have been rude.

Shooting ducks in the fog is fucking hard and fun and all other things that wingshooting should be. They come in fast and low mostly and you hear them splitting the air just before you see them and then they're gone. I killed a Shoveler to start. Three rounds, though, as he had the good angle on my position but I put him down hard. The fog thinned out a bit after an hour and another Shoveler came up from behind me but I swung around and dropped him in the dekes. A flight of Greenwing Teal came screaming through like they were on a strafing run. There were so many I opted to let them go rather than take one or two and wise up the rest of the crew. A couple came back so I shot one of them. He died like a real champ: flying low and fast and dodging the first shot and taking the second one as he rose. He spun into the drink in the most dramatic fashion. Such a drama queen, the Greenwing Teal. Next up a Bufflehead decided to dive bomb the dekes. He came in over my head, whistled past, and shot through the dekes. I got on him about 50 yards out and that was that for the little kamikaze.

There were a lot of misses in there as well. Two Mallards almost took my head off while I was having my second cup of tea. I got two rounds off but they were hauling ass and disappeared in the fog as quickly as they had come out of it. A couple of Gadwalls came in low off the south levy but busted me and went vertical immediately. Looked like they were suddenly on a fucking elevator. Good for them. More Greenwings came through and made a fool of me but such is shooting Greenwings, the little drama queens.

When it was all said and done and the fog cleared and the sun came out and I started regretting having thermals on underneath my waders, it was a beautiful morning spent afield. I strongly suggest you do something similar very soon because one day there'll be no hunting in SoCal.

Peace out, bitches!

You ever feel as if your mind had started to erode?

I am experiencing an extended period of frustration with my fellow Angelenos. Every day I'm on the road and stuck in traffic is another day that I feel like pulling away from society. Leaving them all behind and finding somewhere to just be alone. I feel like retreating into the wilderness or what's left of the wilderness.
Everyone else just seems so trivial lately. That's a horrible thing to say but at least it's honest. Last night as I was sitting in two hours worth of traffic to go 20 miles I heard a news report that stated that the latest tech boom was at stadiums. Everything needs to be wired apparently. Pretty soon you'll be able to watch instant replays on your smart phone while placing a beer order so you don't have to wait in line. One woman who was interviewed said she was a huge sports fan and having every replay right in your hands was something everyone would want. Personally, I don't see how you need more than just watching the game that you're physically attending. I guess I'm a Luddite like that, you know? "Hey, I'm watching something in real life! Maybe I don't need the smart phone!"

I dunno. I'm just tired of everyone just assuming a 24 hour news cycle is necessary and that your smart phone should be jacked into your head at all times. Digital doesn't mean instantly better. Five million channels of what? Junk. Anyone really care about the Kardashians? We still can't seem to design livable cities or utilize our resources with any semblance of efficiency or fairness but fuck, we've got instant access to every "famous" person's personal life. Whatever.

I feel like fading away from all of these people and their bullshit. No one cares about real life anymore. Recently I was talking to a friend of mine while fishing at lunch. He asked me how I thought things were going to end since it didn't seem to him that life as it's currently lived was sustainable. I told him that it was going to be like Nicaragua's jungles: all the mammals were eaten during the civil war so now it's just insects and the bush. Humans are going to overbreed and eat themselves out of house and home and there'll be massive die offs and the next thing you know it'll be the bush and the bugs and that's about it for awhile. We ruminated on this for a bit, caught some fish, apologized to them and put them back in the water.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere really. I'm just tired of other people right now. Well, tired of people in the general sense. I'm assuming that this too shall pass but then again...

Peace out, bitches!