In response to a phone call from an unnamed "friend", I found myself waking up at 3:15AM and heading North. In a car. And not for a bike ride.
A helicopter ride to the Farallon Islands sounded like a fair use of a day off. I had never been in a helicopter before, nor had I heard of the Farallon Islands (much less been there). Those of y'all who love birds and live in the Bay Area should prolly get on that. The whole place is literally covered in birds' bones. I imagine at the right time of year it is a birder's paradise. At this time of year it is lots of seals and not so many birds. The biologists who man the place are some nice guys who are wealths of information. They were counting attacks by Great White Sharks on seals. I heard the term "blood pool" used twice in passing. It stuck with me. The conversations were going great until the subject of Orcas came up.Y'all are familiar with my anthropomorphization of Killer Whales- I think they are assholes. Really, they are the worst kind of bullying meatheads. They need to grow up and stop abusing their position at the top of the food chain. Did you know that Orcas predate Great White Sharks? Apparently they love the liver. Anyhow, when the biologist started waxing about Killer Whales' superior predator status, I dropped the turd into the punchbowl by voicing my opinion (not the 1st time that's happened, I can tell you). I even included the self-effacing sidenote about realizing it was bullshit and assigning made-up values to nature...but not even a smile. He just looked at me. Quite speechless. It was exquisite.
My buddy asked me if the day was worth the trade (I assisted, briefly, superficially, whingeingly, with some septic system maintenance) and I honestly answered "No." Well, we did see (from afar) a Great White attack on a hapless, by-standing seal (yeah yeah- everbody's gotta eat) but I could not discern the blood pool.
If you have seen a helicopter ride on TV, you have as good as ridden in one. Anything more exciting would be terrifying to boot, and I pass.
I did have a spirited discussion with said compadre while we sat in heavy 5PM traffic regarding how bad BB King sucks. Surprisingly, it was not a difference in degree, but of kind. My boy feels that BB King is good while I feel that BB King represents the very worst kind of soulless pandering to boozy white folks sitting in an overly hot and dirty field getting sunburned and drinking Coors Lite. I said he was just like Robert Cray- tired, played out, no soul. I said I like my blues with razors and whiskey:
A helicopter ride to the Farallon Islands sounded like a fair use of a day off. I had never been in a helicopter before, nor had I heard of the Farallon Islands (much less been there). Those of y'all who love birds and live in the Bay Area should prolly get on that. The whole place is literally covered in birds' bones. I imagine at the right time of year it is a birder's paradise. At this time of year it is lots of seals and not so many birds. The biologists who man the place are some nice guys who are wealths of information. They were counting attacks by Great White Sharks on seals. I heard the term "blood pool" used twice in passing. It stuck with me. The conversations were going great until the subject of Orcas came up.Y'all are familiar with my anthropomorphization of Killer Whales- I think they are assholes. Really, they are the worst kind of bullying meatheads. They need to grow up and stop abusing their position at the top of the food chain. Did you know that Orcas predate Great White Sharks? Apparently they love the liver. Anyhow, when the biologist started waxing about Killer Whales' superior predator status, I dropped the turd into the punchbowl by voicing my opinion (not the 1st time that's happened, I can tell you). I even included the self-effacing sidenote about realizing it was bullshit and assigning made-up values to nature...but not even a smile. He just looked at me. Quite speechless. It was exquisite.
My buddy asked me if the day was worth the trade (I assisted, briefly, superficially, whingeingly, with some septic system maintenance) and I honestly answered "No." Well, we did see (from afar) a Great White attack on a hapless, by-standing seal (yeah yeah- everbody's gotta eat) but I could not discern the blood pool.
If you have seen a helicopter ride on TV, you have as good as ridden in one. Anything more exciting would be terrifying to boot, and I pass.
11 comments:
Also, traffic SUCKS. I would completely lose my mind if I had to sit in that day after day. Many (MANY) of the surrounding drivers were looking a their phones in the stop-and-go nightmare. And many of the cars had one occupant.
Commuting like that is unacceptable.
Hell ya! Lots of piss and vinegar in this one. Oh how I know the feeling of lobbing out an opinion and having no one take a swing. Funny stuff.
Really? BB? You don't even like the old stuff?
if I were to answer that, OK, BB had some good stuff in the beginning it would only give my pal a leg on which to stand. Everyone knows we cut our friends off at the knees and it doesn't matter anyhow, because of how badly BB has sucked for so long. Particularly because of how highly he's been regarded in spite of sucking so spectacularly and because the version of "Thrill is Gone" (oh! the irony- yes, the thrill IS gone from his shitty elevator blues) that was being lauded was the crappy string heavy later version. I _ucking despise the guy. I SHOULD have compared him to tired-ass Eric Clapton, who has sucked since he left Cream. That guy...
And you would have loved the flabbergasted biologist. He is clearly living a sheltered life and does not deal with folks outside his circle of smart and enthusiastic scientists. I was confusing to him.
Don't need to rehash this.You know how I feel.
Do I ever.
well, i woulda said that i'd have agreed with you about the bb king, but he did play that "blues festival" next door to my house (a blues festival in santa cruz, ca has got to be the whitest event this side of a klan rally, but a tiny, tiny bit more rhythm)and the dude killed it in front of a couple thousand very nice, full-pop-paying, spazzing out white folks for almost two hours.
granted he's been playing the same schtick for however long, but it's his job. he's got a good job, and he's good at it. nobody complains about their car mechanic just "going through the motions" when he's fixing their brakes.
you know bb just saves the whiskey and razors for the after party. hot lines all the way down lucille's neck.
clapton's got no excuse-he used to rule.
orcas are cool.
let's go to coe for the full turd-in-the-punchbowl moon!
Is the Full Turd In The Punchbowl Moon on January 26th? Cuz that sounds like one I could make, and it will be so cold our water bottles will freeze solid. You love that.
AND- while I understand your motivation for the mechanic comment (the fomentation of discord) I respectfully disagree. No one expects their mechanic to uplift, inspire or even plain entertain them. They just want their shitty car's brakes to work so that when they look up from their frenzied and high-speed texting they can rely on them to minimize the impact with the shitty car in front of them in their shitty car commute.
BB King couldn't uplift, inspire or even plain entertain his way out of a paper bag. (I love that expression!)
all right. january it is. let's stay away from sleeping in the drainages this time. last time at mustang mud hole was way too cold.
well, a bit of context for my bb king remark. i was sitting comfortably at my own house, drunk with my friends while we pirated a $80 concert, simply because it was within ear shot of the porch. i was uplifted but, damn, it didn't take much. shit, in past years i thought kenny wayne shepard was ripping and that itself is frightening!
(he was playing a hendrix song)
those paper bags are getting thinner these days.
don't know 'bout you, but i'd be hella inspired about being able to commute to my shitty job to pay for my now-damaged car because my brakes worked.
Rev! Come on man! We need to talk! We need to ride. We need to endure the miles to the BIG rocks. We NEED it man.
Listen to early Robert Cray again but imagine..... he is ...YOU.
:-)
I will take a moment to address the basics.
Eric Clapton is boring and horrible in all aspects.
Killer Whales are total assholes.
Scientists, and especially biologists, are humorless when it comes to their precious kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species nonsense. So boring. The B.B. Kings of science.
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