I find your lack of faith disturbing.

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!

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!

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!

Well... well, like to get this job. I mean, did you do, or... or were you asked to do anything lewd or unsavory, or... or, otherwise repulsive to your... your person, huh?

Two years ago I was in Miami working on a car commercial. We're on top of a camera car shooting off mounts and hand held and a Technocrane. It was a shit ton of work. The director was a fashionable little idiot who, in a previous life, got stuffed into lockers on a regular basis back in jolly ol' England. I think the English would have described him as "a right cunt." Every few minutes, in between shots, he would start talking about something with the DP (my friend and the reason I was in Miami) and the producer. Every subject he brought up seemed to be something he had an opinion on but knew nothing about. Literally. Nothing. It was an odd serious of demonstrably incorrect statements. The DP and producer didn't correct him or try to really keep the conversations going and I'm not sure if this was due to their ignorance of said subjects or their boredom with the director.

I know now that what I did probably wasn't politically intelligent but hey, I did it. Cry two tears in a bucket, fuck it. I began to engage the director and ever so gently correct him. Apparently this got on his nerves as promptly after lunch when I corrected him on the dates of the American Civil War he looked at me with his hamster face and blurted out, "It must be hard knowing everything." I smiled, looked off into the distance and fiddled with the remote focus unit for the Technocrane. It was hot and sticky humid but occasionally a salty breeze would blow off of the Atlantic. None of that helped the situation. I never said anything after that until we got to the wrap party. Even then I avoided the director or just grinned like the Cheshire cat and nodded when he spoke, eventually disappearing in a cloud of blue-white Camel smoke. It was all so annoyingly awkward and easily resolvable with a brick.

I'm in Miami right now. I got in around 2pm and by 2:01pm I realized I hadn't eaten anything since yesterday back in Los Angeles. As soon as I got to the hotel I wandered around until I ended up at a nice little eatery, sat at the bar, ordered a glass of wine and some food, and who walks up but Hamster Face the Director. The world is a very small and cruel place indeed. After a few minutes of civilized bullshitting a la Hollywood he drops the line I think he'd been rehearsing the whole time. To whit, "So, how's knowing everything been working out for you?" He's grinning now, staring at me with hot little hamster eyes set too close together in his hot little hamster face. I realize that what's about to come out of my mouth is most assuredly not politically intelligent but I'm not working for this idiot right now. I am, I think, the picture of calm as I sip my wine, ruminate and come back with, "It would be easier if I didn't work with so many people who were so sensitive about knowing nothing." I am smiling again, trying to look normal and polite and not at all like I'm laughing like a maniac in my head.

He retreated after that.

I ate my calamari and my arugula and drank my wine.

Work starts tomorrow out here in humid Miami where there once lived a happy Hamster Face Director. I get to go back to my awesome wife and daughter and dog and new house on Saturday. Everything until then is just civilized Hollywood bullshit.

Peace out, bitches!

"It doesn't take a genius to see that the world has problems." "No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for you to handle."

I have been gone for awhile. Not physically. Just digitally. I'm sort of thinking about trying to put together a committee to explore the possibility of beginning to plan on coming back. Maybe.

I love it when comedians do the old, "So what's in the news?" bit. I was thinking about that today while perusing the headlines. Obama and the Dems have shown their true colors: a stripe down the back that's a mix of yellow and green. That he's the first black president of these here United States is laudable. That he's a lackluster soon to be one term surrender monkey is par for the course. I feel that as a country we are collectively engaged in a delusion that serves only the interests of our corporate overlords. Think that's ridiculous? Count the logos on the clothes you're wearing right now. Walk outside and notice how few things aren't branded. Contemplate this: name one country we've tried to democratize or liberate or otherwise save from themselves that some huge multinational didn't already have a stake in. If you're honest with yourself you'll come up with zero. Unplug from the Matrix and eat the fucking gruel already, America! These fuckers are going to bleed you dry and recycle your ass for the next group of suckers coming down the road.

It's okay, though. It'll all be fine. The oceans will collapse, the mountains will collapse, the whole ecosystem that most people are too stupid to realize they're a part of will collapse. We'll be running around like the hairless apes we are, panicked and paralyzed with fear. I hope I live long enough to see it because I swear I will find the nearest Republican or Libertarian or Democrat and slap him silly while saying, "I told you so!" That or I'll find a banker or hedge fund manager and choke him while saying, "I told you so!"

As always, Peace out, bitches!

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.

I have not posted in a bit so here's a bit of photo bullshit. If you have any questions please let me know. I'll answer questions as honestly as possible.

Peace out, bitches!

When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill.

Not one stinking duck body. The whole pond!

I got up early. I drove in the dark and the mud. I listened to redneck jackasses talk about "socialism" and "them faggots in Frisco." I put up with it all because I was number 4 on the lottery line and I was going to get a good blind. I had come through last night and poured over the blind listings and had ranked them in order of how they'd been shooting. It took half an hour and I did it and they all stared while I did it. I had my list.

I got the second blind on my list and I was happy! Finally, I was in the right place at the right time with the right tools and I was going to kill ducks!

First came the walk through the dark with all my gear on my back. Half the time I skated across mud on a trail I'd never been on with no real idea where I was headed. By the time I made it to my blind I only had about thirty minutes to get everything set up: dekes in some semblance of natural order, pit blind cleaned out and brushed up, gear stored away, wet dog dried off somewhat, gun loaded, camo on, lights out. Barely made it all happen.

It was so overcast that ducks would appear out of nowhere. Half the time I didn't even shoot as they were whistling past me before I knew what was happening. The few shots I took I missed which I chalked up to the quickness and utter unpredictability of the shooting. I would later look back at this part of the hunt as the "salad days."

Cut to a few hours later. I'm out about eight or nine rounds but feeling good. Then the sun pops out straight into my eyes. A quick look at the compass and hey, what do you know, I picked the fucking blind that faces the sun all day. Behind me, an active road. In front of me, the pond and the sun. I rearrange the dekes off to the side in the hopes that I can get some shots not into the sun. I do. I miss them. All of them. Including the drake, wings cupped and landing gear deployed, who is inches above the closest deke. I had just dropped Ghost out of the blind so he could pee and as I look up I see the drake. He sees me and starts backpedalling. Silly duck! I can't shoot anymore! I fire twice and miss twice and have to fight the urge to throw the gun in the drink. I curse out loud instead. Several more ducks fly out of the marsh, I'd hurt their feelings I guess.

It all spirals out of control from there. More ducks come at me in increasingly easier patterns which I miss in the most spectacular fashion. My cussing grows loud enough that even I realize I'm being too loud. Around me, other hunters are dropping ducks at a steady clip. I am throwing $1 shells into the sky with no idea why or how or what. Had I simply dumped the whole box into the marsh I'd have accomplished the same thing minus the torrent of curses and the unnecessary discharge of a firearm.

I walked the mile back to the car at one point. I had lunch and decided that Ghost was a jinx so I left him in the car. I swapped out chokes. I made an altar to no deity in particular and burned it after a nondenominational prayer. I made a fake vodoo doll of a duck and stabbed it and then brushed my gun with it. None of this helped but it did keep at bay any of the local douche bags who thought they might want to have a word with me about my "Reading Is Sexy" sticker.

I walked a mile again. If you're keeping count it ends up I walked four miles for no good reason. I guess that's the point of all of this: there was no point. I drove up to the Red part of the state to shoot ducks and I failed to shoot any ducks. There were ducks though, lots and lots of beautiful mallards and pintails and even some gadwalls. It would have nice to shoot a gadwall, they hardly ever travel down to LA. Anyway, I walked back and climbed down into the pit and waited. I missed some more lay-ups and thought briefly about crying. I gave myself a time out instead, for an hour.

It didn't help.

My last three rounds were fired almost vertically at a passing group of mallards. I missed all three shots, shouted "Fuck you!" to the ducks and threw my gun into the drink.

Then I fished it out, got my decoys, and dragged my sorry ass back to my sorry ass hotel in sorry ass Willows, CA. Fuck yeah.

Now pass me that bottle of tequila, will you? My throat is parched and I'm in a foul mood.

Peace out, bitches! (except for every fucking duck in the Sacramento NWR. Y'all can fuckin' kiss my ass!)