Stolen Food and Rutger Hauer’s Carrots

 Yesterday at the zoo we witnessed a wonderful tussle. It was the first really hot day we’ve had for a while (eighty degrees) and the keepers responded by passing out homemade chunky icicles to the Great Apes.

We’re lucky in San Diego to have a dual species exhibit of Orangutans and Siamangs and watching the different personalities of the two tribes and their interactions is often compulsive viewing.
The Siamangs are incredibly odd looking Gibbons; they have extremely long arms and hands like hooks for effortless swinging. Watching them move from branch to branch is beautiful; they perform high bar moves with a grace that would make Russian gymnastic coaches weep for joy. On the ground however they are ungainly and comic with odd stilt like legs that seem to be different sizes. Out of the trees their extended arms are a liability and they carry them like awkward sticks welded to their bodies.
The Orangutans outnumber and outweigh the Siamangs but they are so calm and chill that they never hurt them even when the Siamangs are getting in their faces and really asking for it. For the most part they seem to live harmoniously.

A couple of years ago both groups had babies and it was a joy to see them all playing together and helping the kids explore their environment safely. On any given day you might also find the Orangutans helping the Siamangs to use sticks to get at the ketchup and chutney the keepers hide in the artificial ant hills hidden around the exhibit. Siamangs don’t have the finger dexterity or the intelligence to master the anthills, advanced tool use seems beyond them. So they see the Great Apes working the hills and then pester the gentle giants for a lick of the stick. I’ve been observing them for over four years now and they still haven’t worked it out for themselves. 

They are like children compared to the Orangutans. They often want whatever the Orangutans have and sometimes resort to hair pulling, screaming and pinching to try and get their way. For the most part it’s harmless but occasionally they take it too far and the Alpha Orangutan, a gentle giant called Clyde, will sit on one of them and hold him to the ground in a sort of pacifying time out. He could rip the thing limb from limb or throw it out of the enclosure completely but he never does, instead he just holds them down, like a hospital worker subduing a maniac having a fit in the psych ward. After a while he lets them go and they climb to the highest point of safety and partake of a long session of comfort grooming.

Yesterday, with the heat, all the Orangutans were not in a sharing mood. The keeper threw in the lunchtime feed, lettuce heads, carrots and fruit and then tried to pass out the popsicles to just the orange hairy denizens of landscaped cage. The Orangutans knew the routine and they fanned out into space, away and above the Siamangs, holding out their arms to the keepers like football receivers finding free space. The Siamangs ignored their food and of course only wanted the red ice the Orangutans had gotten.

The keeper came out of the cage and explained that the Siamangs weren’t being excluded; it was more a case that they never eat the popsicles and only act like they want them. This didn't seem exactly true and for about ten minutes the Siamangs wanted nothing more than the fruit flavored ice and tried everything to get them out of the hands of the Orangutans. At a couple of points they came close to getting swatted off the high bars. The orange apes sucked on their big wedges of frozen fruit with fat lipped glee and the ungainly Siamangs begged and danced around them like devils, trying to steal them out of their hands. On two occasions they came to blows, the Siamangs lashing out in frustration and receiving lazy smacks around the chops in return.

In one corner, near the glass, the two year old Orangutan sucked on its popsicle with serious intent. It’s the smallest of the Orangutans but still three times the size of the Siamangs. It was left alone for quite a while but you could see what was going to happen. Over our shoulder the keeper explained that the Orangutan primarily being accosted by the Siamangs was the female that was most likely to share her frozen fruit flow with them, the softest touch in the cage. But as she wasn’t for sharing they spied the baby and one of them cautiously left the swing bars to stilt walk over to her to attempt to get her treat. The baby turned its back on the Siamang as it approached and the gibbon feinted to the left but rolled to the right and snatched the popsicle out of the young Orangutan’s hand.

It was kind of tragic; candy stolen from a baby. The youngster loped after the Siamang but the beast kept just out of reach and climbed high into the branches of the climbing frame, taking the high ground and eventually reclining in a small rope hammock. The youngster had to content herself with eating the bits of ice that fell onto the ground from the Siamang and the rest of her family.

‘The Orangutans are so much nicer to the Siamangs than they deserve,’ said the keeper over my shoulder as a large group of spectators cooed over the mugging.

A young boy then told the keeper he’d seen a monkey eating another monkey’s poo in another exhibit around the corner. The boy spoke to the keeper as if telling tales on a classmate. The keeper explained that it was OK.

‘It’s natural behavior; they will often search another animal’s excretion for undigested food. It's a survival technique. They don’t need to do it here since we feed them all a perfectly balanced diet but it’s something they would do in the wild...’

         Later we saw Rutgar Hauer pee on some carrots and then eat them slowly, pleasurably, as if marinating them in this way was his preferred method of preparation. Rutgar Hauer the Polar Bear not Rutgar Hauer the actor. Halfway through his meal of urine carrots he walked over to the mesh hole in the wall and sniffed deeply of the children watching him on the other side. With a nostril full of human child he returned to his carrots, his giant silver head shining in the sun.

An Excerpt From the Barnacle Bible

The Barnacle Bible, also known as the Stoner’s Bible, was discovered in a sealed chest in a sea cave in the Aegean Sea off the island of Rhodes. It is written in Akhmimic, a Coptic dialect, and contains numerous gospels and biblical books not found in traditional translations of the Bible. It contains Gnostic tracts, previously lost writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero and the eight suppressed Gospels of the life and death of Jesus that the Catholic Church sought to destroy. Scientists have dated the Barnacle Bible to around fifty AD. Historians using text analysis have confirmed the authenticity of the book and assert that these missing texts form the long sought ‘Q Document’, the origin material that much of the existing ‘Bible’ is copied from. The following excerpt comes from the Gospel of Eli. It presents a different view of Jesus but given that Christian communities have long accepted many contradictory views of Jesus in the traditional written Gospels and in the oral fabrications of popes, priests and evangelical preachers it has yet to provoke the schisms that many social commentators were predicting. The Jesus of Eli is a lot closer to the Old Testament God than the hippy poster boy of the New Testament. This ‘Newer’ testament therefore upholds a vengeful ideal of the messiah believed in by many Christians who are often confused by having to reconcile the anti-violence exhortations of Jesus with the opaque nastiness of books like ‘Revelations’ and the murderous needs of their own nation states and hypocritical self-interests.  

Eli 26:1

Jesus was taken to the place of skulls and there he was crucified along with a thief and a seller of the law. The centurions mocked him, saying ‘Here is the King of the Jews’.

A great many women did look on with quiet sadness. Among them was his mother Mary and Mary of Magdala.

Jesus cried out in pain, “Father, paint the sky with their blood.”

Mary of Magdala approached the centurions and asked if she could present Jesus with the herb.

“But what shall you give to us?” asked the centurions.

Mary of Magdala offered them of the herb and they took it but still they would not let Jesus partake of the herb. So Mary offered of herself. They agreed and allowed her to give the herb to Jesus.

And Jesus did smoke the herb and he became calm.

“Where is your goodness now?” asked the thief.

“You shall feel my goodness,” said Jesus. And although his arms were fixed upon the cross he did give of the herb to the thief. And the thief became calm.

One of the centurions named Augustus did see that Jesus had managed to give herb to the thief and tried to raise the alarm but his brothers were busy casting lots over Mary of Magdala and they did not listen.

So Augustus fell at the feet of Jesus. “Forgive me Lord, for I know not what I did.”

“No,” said Jesus, “for you have chosen to deal in death over my promise of life ever-lasting. I will see you die of the warty scrof before I let my father forgive you.”

And Jesus did look away and Augustus was full of sorrow.

“What about me,” cried out the seller of the law who was crucified at Jesus’ right hand.

“You will be welcome in my father’s house,” said Jesus.

“And may I not also have the herb?” asked the seller of the law.

“You will get your reward with me in heaven along with all who follow me,” said Jesus.

“Does your father’s house abide with the herb?” asked the thief.

“Ye,” said Jesus, “My father’s house is rife with the herb.”

“And may I too abide in your father’s house?” asked the thief.

“Ye,” said Jesus, “Just as you are now at my left hand so will it be so in my father’s house.”

“How big is thy father’s house?” asked the seller of the law.

“My father’s house has many rooms,” said Jesus, “and all are richly decorated and rife with the herb.”

“And is there wine in your father’s house?” asked the seller of the law.

“Ye,” said Jesus. “There is wine and oxen and lamb and grain and herb and the pastures flow with milk and with honey. As the birds do not hunger for anything nor shall you want for twigs or seed in the house of my father.”

“You can keep the twigs,” said the thief. “Just so long as there is wine and herb.”

And Jesus sayeth a third time, “Ye, my father’s house is rife with the herb.”

“Birds starved during the famine of Herod,” said the seller of the law. “The birds do hunger, sometimes.”

But Jesus did not respond and instead fell silent.

After some time he pointed towards the horizon where the sun did fall and where the centurions had taken Mary of Magdala behind the bushes and the sky did grow dark and turned blood red.

“Where is your father’s house?” cried out the thief.

But Jesus was silent and his eyes did stare vacantly at the earth for he had gone to his father’s house.

 

Some Hunches

It's Monday, it's raining and although I should be working on a new short story that is percolating in my noggin, I have a number of hunches I am compelled to share with you all.

The Wiki-leaks war reports revealing names of informants who have helped the U.S. happens to include many names of people who are agents for the ISI and Al-Qeada who the U.S. would like to see dead. It's a cunning counter-intelligence sting designed to neutralize certain untouchable players. 

Lovie Smith is going to be fired soon.

Our new apartment manager is regretting the high-handed attempt to reassign everyone new parking spots. The sixth or seventh manager in four years, she will not last more than six months.

Fox News is going to 'uncover' new footage of the JFK assassination proving it was a murder-suicide plot, with Nancy Pelosi being revealed as the second gunman on the grassy knoll. Improbable as it may seem, JFK ordered the hit on himself to discredit republicans. In Fox Newspeak, of course, 'uncover' means 'invent'.

There will be a young avant-garde Jazz trio somewhere called 'Goldman Sax'. They will be practicing making music with antique cash registers and adding machines from the Great Depression. The first album will include the tracks, 'The Bush Recession' and 'Blame it on the Black Guy'. After some brief exposure on NPR the group will separate when two of them go to dental school. Years later they will all begin to vote Republican when they become wealthy and feel threatened by the growing miscegenation of America. 

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

  The Dunning-Kruger effect can clearly be seen at work in American Politics and society. The Tea-party. The shameless elevation of ignorance as a virtue. The shameless elevation of faith over facts. The shameless definition of 'Patriotism' as solely white, Christian and Republican. The vitriol and idiocy of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. The idea that the belief in God and the power of prayer, as imagined by white Christians, trumps Climate Change, the science of Evolution or a woman's right to choose.
  The Tea Party claim to stand for less taxes, less government, more 'Patriotism' and the original Constitution. In reality they are a neo-fascist movement who want to elect a dangerous group of right wing idiots into power who don't understand the constitution and think Glenn Beck's crazy resurrection of John Birch society conspiracy theories are valid. 'I'm self-educated' boasts Beck almost daily, grinding his teeth at anyone who has actually gone to college, read a book or got an education. Would they want a 'self-educated' heart surgeon operating on them? Of course not and yet they want the uneducated to be elected to public office. We did that. George Bush lied and took us into two endless and immensely costly wars, one of which against a former ally his father put into power and armed.
  Look at the Tea party, try and understand them. It defies logic, they are just a bunch of racist shills for the mega-rich. Citibank refers to the U.S. as a plutocracy not a democracy. Because of the Dunning-Kruger effect you can not explain how important this is.
  Try and point out that we are actually paying less taxes than under George Bush and they refuse to listen. Try and point out that the economic depression came about because of Bush and Regan and the right's idea that deregulation of capitalism is good and they blink like dumb bovine. Try to point out that Constitution separates Church and State and they clutch their Bibles and renounce their American citizenship saying they obey a 'higher power'. Tell them the constitution defends the freedom of religion and they still rant and rail about an American Muslim's right to pray. They don't understand the constitution. If you analyze their motives you can only draw the conclusion that they are a bunch of racist hypocritical bigots. American Muslims died in the twin towers. The 'Ground Zero Mosque' which is not at ground zero, should be allowed for a multitude of reason not least because this is supposed to be 'the land of the free' and Muslims should be allowed to go and pray and pay respects to their dead, the workers who died in the twin tower attacks. The tea party want to tackle the deficit but they don't want to cut the billions spent daily on the military, they just want to stop poor people, old people, colored people from having health insurance and other social services like Fire brigades. Sick, twisted idiots.
They fear 'sharia law' and yet think it's OK for them to enforce their own 'law of God' that blocks gay marriage. That sounds like 'sharia law' to me. If they were really out to 'protect marriage' they would ban divorce. Rush Limbaugh is on his fourth wife and was a drug addict and yet they claim moral authority. Of course, it's no surprise, to learn that the highest rates of divorce and domestic abuse take place in the bible thumping red states.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is rampant. It's out of control. 
Last week I watched the buffoon in general, Donald Trump, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The man admitted that he is thinking about running for President in a couple of years. He boasted about it, saying he would do a good job because there's nobody willing to fire people like he does so well on his TV show. He then went on to talk about OPEC and the fixing of the world's oil prices. It would have been funny but it was serious. You could see his ridiculous mind working, his slim grasp of the world's political situation revealed in his sly chimpish face. He claimed he could solve it by having the balls to stand up to them and tell them no. 'Gas should be $40 a barrel'. That was it. No mention of pressing the car companies to produce clean, gas free cars. No actual thought. Just chutzpah, old fashioned, will to power. Amazing, like we're not in enough wars already. Like all the world needs is an American man to go into negotiations with threats and the refusal to back down. It's outstanding, truly breath-taking and it's not even noticed so much anymore. There are just too many fuckwits out there, clogging up the media with their bullshit. The president bows to a foreign king and he's hounded for days, Limbaugh and Palin can incite racism and they are applauded.
  The Dunning-Kruger Effect has us in its teeth and we are powerless, for the unskilled and incompetent are being funded by corrupt corporations and the mega rich. And so they scream the rational down like a million howler monkeys in every tree. 

Meg Whitman - 300 million to buy an election?

   Meg Whitman. Um. Ah. I don't know. Just what is this Meg Whitman? She's putting a lot of effort into trying to get elected at the moment. Messages on my answerphone. Face all over the television. Her big argument for political competency being she was lucky enough to ride the electronic flea-market of eBay at a time when the home computer was easily turned into a means of commerce. She actually counts every person who has sold something on eBay as an individual job created. Astounding sophistry. She has already spent 200 million trying to convince people to vote for her and there is still a month to go. The big weekend NFL games with all their juicy advertising segments will surely push her over 300 million. Incredible outlay. What an ego. One Hundred Million, saying nasty things about the imbecilic Steve Poizner. One hundred million trying to convince people she should sit on top of a broken and corrupt state legislature. Now another one million saying nasty things about the straight talking skeletor Jerry Brown. Three hundred million. It's baffling. Me thinks the lady doth promote too much. This at a time when the economy is chugging along like a rusty tractor. An obscene waste. Politics is becoming little more than watching a group of rich people lick themselves.
   But what is this Meg Whitman? What drives her? I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, of course she reeks of Nixon, but that's not it... Wait wasn't she in a film? Didn't she appear with the current governor at some point? Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governator. Total Recall. Yep, that's it I have total recall it was Total Recall:
The creepy thing is when Arnold bursts out from inside her and her head explodes as she says "you're in for a big surprise".

Something Dark is Loose

'America is full of good people, but something dark is loose. There's a free-floating anxiety that easily metastasizes into paranoia and hatred for the same enemies always targeted by authoritarian populist movements: homosexuals, urbanites, foreigners, intellectuals and religious minorities. Rationality is losing its hold; empirical evidence is discounted as the product of a secular world view or a scheming liberal elite.'

 - Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming, p22

'The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will.'

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 10

'And he that hath no sword, let him sell his clothes and buy one'

-Jesus, The Bible, Luke 22:36

They’re Burning Books Again

The fairy tales

Of Imaginary ‘Gods’

Are pounded into the soft heads of children

By a mother's whisper

And so are built the shoddy planks

Of a rotting  reason
On which we sail

Above the frightening void

‘Vanity, Vanity, All is vanity’

It says so in Ecclesiastes

And lunacy sweats out from their pores

Like honey comes from bees

They’re burning books again

This time in the sunshine state

Got the whole world’s media really quite irate

First Black President on the phone

First Nazi Pope on line two

President of Iran waving his shoe

Muslim world rioting

A starving army with nothing to lose

Save the word of their ‘God’

The embodiment of their hope/truth/beauty

Planted in their eye at birth

By their beholders.

Hypocrisy Hypocrisy

All is hypocrisy

The truly devout

Wear silly hats

And prance around in skirts

The truly devout

Rip their flesh and pray until it hurts

In old dead languages

They cry out

A million humbug spells

And in their reaching out to ‘God’

They crush us like eggshells

They’re burning books again

In Florida this time

But if you’re after burning books

For spreading misery and hate

Shouldn’t the Bible
Be the first upon the BBQ plate?

The Nazi’s were Christian

Put Jews in ovens while praising ‘God’

And the Catholic Church killed millions

In its own inquisition

Yet try and hold them accountable

And it’s an outrageous imposition

Christian armies have slaughtered the indigenous

Across the rolling plains of the Earth

So how much more killing
Are these ‘Gods’ really worth?

The subjugation of women

The infallibility of Paul

Wouldn’t it be funny

If there was no ‘God’ at all?

And now we learn of the rape and torture of children

By priests

It’s nothing new

What can we do?

The religious claim Holy sanction

For the evil in their hearts

We should make them join the Skoptsy

And cut off their private parts

And the sheepish flock to them for protection

Casting others into a hell

And the minds of little children

Are thrown down the wishing well

‘How dare they want equality

To marry who they please’

You clasp you clasp your hands together

And fall upon on your knees

If there was a ‘God’ in heaven

Who knew your mind and heart

The reeking contents of your thoughts

Would hit him like a fart

They’re Burning Books Again

This time it’s the Qur’an

Who some believe to be the word of ‘God’

As dictated to Mohammed

A military leader who grew tired of seeing his people put to the sword

By Jewish and Christian armies

So he made up his own Lord

Propped him up on top of Jesus and Abraham

(Even copied the footnote injunctions

About eating pig and lamb)

And began to pay the zealots back

They say 9/11 was an ‘unprovoked attack’

But people have short memories

When it suits them.

The Ku-Klux-Klan hid behind

The burning crosses of Christ

While black men were hung from trees

On Sunday they all went to Church

Singing Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah!

Drop your mind down the wishing well

Terrorists are inspired by the Qur’an

And the Bible

And the words of priests

Popes

Presidents

Mullahs

Charismatic Gurus from California

Five star Generals

Colonel Chicken

Captain America

The Wailing Wall

Television Personalities

Arab billionaires

Social inequality

Fake Buddhists

Real Buddhists

Jewish Settlers

Texas Ranchers

Hungry stomachs

Greedy desires

And a million other

Types of liars.

It’s a Bible law to demand ‘An eye for an Eye’

Mark Chapman killed John Lennon after reading

The Catcher in the Rye

Tomorrow it might be a grocery list

A tax bill

A stoplight

A celebrity magazine…

We’re a violent race of idiots

Easily convinced to kill

The honest admit they do it for money

The wicked for a cross upon a hill

I really couldn’t give a fuck

You go and burn this or that stupid book

The Al Qur’an, The Bible
Or even the Holy book of Spoons

You bunch of dumb baboons

Burn them all if you must

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

Then throw each other

On the fire

So this lunacy can end

And leave the world, Oh please leave the world

For the secular to mend.

A.N.

Touche Turtles

Been swimming with Hawaiian Sea Turtles. The big island is rife with them. Old grumpy looking faces reminiscent of bad poetry and travel delays. Water wrinkled and camouflaged to look like coral and the interplay of light on the water, the volcanic sand on the beaches. The armored shell does not allow them great mobility either on land or at sea. Their beach crawling is invalid and painful while underwater, big waves come and roll them over so they struggle to right themselves with a slow and weary waggling of the flippers that is only slightly more efficient than my abysmal Pinball ability. Fortification or speed? That was the question posed in the distant days of evolutionary development. The tortoise and turtle collective opted on the shell, the body armor, the home body castle. So now they move like old people struggling down the aisles of a baffling and faintly ominous supermarket.
At the Kona Village Resort there is a reef covered with algae just a few feet out from the beach. It's like a big green salad bar and dozens of them hover over it munching as the tide rolls them slowly from side to side.
All around the island are signs issuing warnings to give them room and let them be. There are fines for touching them. You are supposed to stay twenty feet away but there are a lot of them, it's tough. If they ever enforced the ruling seriously, the turtles would be able to herd us all onto the sharp outcroppings of volcanic rock where our feet would blister and our faces twist into Tiki grimaces. 
Other sun bleached signs relating to the ocean that we witnessed: 'Do Not Throw rocks at the Manta Rays', 'Tsunami Evacuation Route this way',  'Do not harass the Dolphins' and 'WARNING: Kraken Sacrificial Area'.

Summer Cycling

   It’s been a strange summer for cycling in San Diego. But then again, I have been cycling more than usual so maybe it’s always been strange and I just haven’t noticed?

   I’ve had four flat tires. I was tupped by a Chrysler Grand Cherokee. A dim witted Grad student locked his beach cruiser to my bike on campus stranding me for a couple of hours. I’ve seen the hardcore cycling community up close. I’ve found a couple of Hobo encampments on the river banks in PB. I’ve been strangled by an orthodox Jew.

   I ride an old orange Huffy that I bought at a garage sale in Chicago five years ago for ten dollars. Big fat tires. The three working gears are as sticky as glue. It’s not good on hills. But still, I’ve started cycling home from work twice a week. It’s twenty miles but it’s amazing. Most of the route takes me down hill, right past the bay. I work in La Jolla (the jewel) and like much of San Diego it’s intensely beautiful. Palm trees wave in the breeze. The bay water sparkles in the sunshine. Jet skis chase each other from pier to pier. Pelican’s circle in the sky. The sea breeze is as tasty and wholesome as a gourmet wrap full of shrimp with lemon and piquant sauce.

   I fixed three of the flats myself with my puncture repair kit and a bowl full of water. I saw my brother do it once, circa 1984, in the front room of our little terraced house in the North of England. He didn’t exactly show me how to do it, there’s four years between us and he regarded as a total annoyance for most of our youth, but I must have seen enough to remember how it’s done. You drown the inner tube in water to locate the puncture hole. Then you sand it down a bit and glue on the bull’s eye sticky patch. After the third time I decided to replace the whole tire, the protective outer layer had worn thin in several places. The novelty of fixing your own bike punctures wears off pretty quick.

At the bike shop in Mission Hills the stoned hipsters who work there joked with me about a naff pop song that was playing on the radio. One of them screamed that he hated the song and wanted to kill everyone associated with the record. He hadn’t realized I’d come in and was stood at the counter and he became a little embarrassed, the roles of shop worker and customer hovered over us, the specter of conformity.

“You’re probably like friends with the band or something…” he said when he discovered me.

“It’s my favorite song of all time,” I joked. “AND I’M NEVER COMING IN HERE AGAIN.”

They laughed and fit me a new tire in about three minutes. It’s a cool shop, a bunch of them work there and it’s like the record shop from High Fidelity, but with bikes. Bike Fidelity. They eat pizza from the great place next door and stand around talking and mending bikes. It’s kind of idyllic. They’re always busy and they really know their shit. They take care of business in a swift and efficient way that is a pleasure to behold.

It took me an hour and a half to get the police to come and cut the lock on the beach cruiser that was chaining my bike to the rack. I would find out later from campus security that the bike belonged to a numb Grad student who didn’t even realize his lock had been cut and attempted to just ride it away right from next to where the cops were gathered, wondering what to do with it. Note to self, a Kryptonite U bend lock is the only thing that will stop a theft, the cop cut through the plastic coated chain of the combination lock with a small pair of wire snips, it was way too easy.

At the bottom of Gilman Drive the Grand Cherokee blocked the bike lane where it enters the cut through to the path by the train line. I had a green light, but I had to dismount to lift it up the curb in front of the jeep. Just as I was doing it the driver took her foot off the brake and hit me up the curb.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING?” I screamed at her. She wound down her window, claimed it was a mistake.

“I didn’t see you,” she said.

It made no sense at all. She was in her 50’s. She was listening to an ipod. She had a pair of big shades that covered most of her face.

The adrenaline turned me gargoyle. I was rightly angry. It could have been so much worse. SoCal drivers are terrible. The jeeps and SUV’s are the worse. They have a reckless sense of entitlement. As a cyclist, at certain intersections and at certain places, it feels like you’re dicing with death. Cars kill pedestrians and cyclists all the time. You know what cyclists do to cars? They slow them down a little bit. It’s not even close to being a fair fight. But I wasn’t hit exactly, more like pushed, jarred.

“Are you OK?” she said. I realized I was and turned away from her in disgust.

I listen to podcasts on my ipod as I ride. New Yorker short stories, This American Life, Radiolab, Wiretap, The Best Show. Sometimes I switch to music. Mingus is getting a lot of playtime.

On the underpass, on the Rose Canyon trail running next to the river and wetlands from PB to the bayside there are a few places where the homeless gather. The camp off Balboa has an edge to it. Alcohol, Meth, I don’t really know. It could be a set from Breaking Bad season two. Desperation hits you like squid ink, there’s always a gathering of sad shark eyed folk, zombie groaning, deeply tanned, passing bottles back and forth. Sometimes they have a little fire going. The underside of the bridges on Grand are the nesting sites of the lost men, bag ladies, Vietnam vets dragging dirty shopping cats. At the corner by the golf course and basketball court a couple of these characters live. Fisher Kings. They stink of urine, dirt, shit. You cycle round a corner and the smell hits you like a fist. In my mind I have called them the Mud Turtles. They are cocooned with all their worldly possessions. So far they have always been asleep as I fly by and I have not clearly seen their faces. I the opportunity arises I will help them somehow but I think they just want to be left alone.

On the cycle path by the bay and along Friars and into downtown I am often passed by the serious cyclists on fast road bikes. They cut through the air like razors, their profile as thin as paper, a harmony of muscle and machine. Sometimes however they are not so thin. Sometimes it’s an old man cyclist with calves like knotted rope but huge bulging bellies of beer. It’s possible to cycle and be very fit and yet still carry an extra thirty pounds of stomach around your waist. These guys have passed me going up steep hills, barely breaking sweat, the energy and appetite of old bulls, of medieval kings. Legs like athletes, stomachs like pregnant gorillas.

After I was hit by the Grand Cherokee I couldn’t help brooding that I should carry a lump hammer on my bike to beat out at the cars when they get to close. They may take me down. But I will go down swinging. Daft. I stopped by the bay, took some deep breaths and waded out into the water, calming myself, clearing my mind, choosing to let it go, enjoy the moment. I was OK. It’s all OK.

Near the Hilton on the bay there is a section of the park with a couple of hills that are perfect for kite flying. The wind swoops in off the ocean and there are always people out clutching string tied to all kinds wondrous multicolored, boxes, birds, and deltoids. There’s the park, about ten acres, then the bike path, then another thin strip of grass verge with palm trees and the occasional BBQ pit and picnic table and then there’s the water. I cycled on the path, mile twelve or so on my homeward ride, and then I was clotheslined. A string suddenly wrapped around my neck. It happened in a second, it coiled like a snake and bit in. I hit the brakes and clawed myself free. The string flew off me up into the air. I looked around for the offender. A man was flying his kite, not in the huge acres of space where everyone else does it, but on the small verge next to the water, right across the bike lane. Nuts. The park has hills. The verge does not. The verge has trees. He was flying his kite at a stupidly low angle, less than forty five degrees. He was with his son. They were orthodox Jews, complete with black suits and yamacas and long curlicue sidelocks. He smiled at me, I can only think it was through nervousness. We looked at each other.

“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted, pointing to the clear open acres of park.

“Sorry,” he said but he didn’t seem to be too helpful. In fact, he continued to fly his kite, struggling with the low angle and the breeze. Silly goofy grin still fixed to his face.

“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted again. He still did not move. Another man, a witness, a Latino doing tricks with a football, shook his head at me in sympathy. Madness. I rubbed my neck, there was a thin rope burn. It was like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm or a Coen Brothers film. He could have moved ten feet and been out of everybody’s way. He could have at least asked me if I was alright. I called him a ‘prick’. He son stared at me like a startled owl. What can you do? Carry scissors for the kites and hammers for the cars?

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein about Majorca, San Diego is paradise, if you stand it.

Good Advice

Good advice from the wall at MOMA. I immediately thought of my brother. He's a very fetal sleeper. I posted the pic to his Facebook page.

Life Sized Chocolate Man

My wife had a dream the other night. We were throwing a party and I had come home in a state of high excitement. I’d purchased a telephone booth with a life sized chocolate man inside. I was so happy that people would be able to eat the man throughout the night.

After she’d told me I couldn’t stop thinking about it for quite some time. It would be a great addition to our next party. I can just see it now, all our friends carving into the chocolate man. I’d borrow a crème brulee welding torch from a neighbor and melt an eye or ear for the dipping of biscotti or fruit slices.

I’ve now completed a search of local businesses and nobody has such a thing for sale. There was a life size chocolate Lionel Messi available in Barcalona but it’s out of my price range and the thought of eating an actual effigy of a person is unappealing. The closest thing to San Diego was a chocolate bust of one of the stars of Twilight. Again, no good. It has to be a full size chocolate man. In a telephone booth.

A new quest has begun. Let me know if you find anything.

The History of Yosemite Through the Medium of Dance

Granite face. Time as comb. The seasons move. Water comes in fluming white God beards. Stones fall. Indians slaughtered in what is now a beautiful Alpine meadow.

The pack represents John Muir filling himself up with acorns in an orgiastic worship of nature. The fedora was much criticized by Isherwood in the Times. It was a daring choice but I answer only to my muse.

Food was stored at all times in bear proof containers. Bears were stored amongst the bushes and fallen redwoods.

Room Service Report July 2010

My recent trip to Vegas allowed me to check on my sources at the front desks of the major hotels. The following is a list of special items requested from room service in the past year. I had expected the recession to impact the frequency and eccentricity of special requests but if anything, the financial collapse has inspired more wanton profligacy than we have seen previously. This could offer further support to Chomsky’s ‘Last Days of Rome’ hypothesis.

Changes in desk staff at some hotels have led to an absence of data for several months from The Mirage, Treasure Island and Binions. The usual problems continue as to the recording of the data. It is a tricky endeavor spanning many hotels requiring the participation of hundreds of employees working both day and night shifts. Where possible I attempt to personally verify the stranger items with the desk staff who took the request but with the staff turnover it is not always possible. I have chosen to add additional comments in speech marks that have come to me from the staff members when they prove illuminating.

Here are the highlights, the complete list will be available from The Bureau in May 2011 for the usual fee.

Caesar’s Palace

One Whole Pig, roasted in the Hawaiian style.

‘A selection of Song Birds that will wake my wife in the morning.’

Unicorn Horn, ‘real ivory not some tacky piece of plastic crap’.

12 whole grapefruits

A bottle of Jagermeister inside a chocolate cake. ‘An actual bottle inside a cake, not a Jagermeister flavored cake, an actual bottle. Hidden like a file being smuggled into prison.’

Basket of live Alaskan King Crab.

Lucky rabbit’s foot. ‘On second thoughts just send up a whole rabbit’.

The Bellagio

Gold plated toilet seat.

A Keebler Elf. ‘One of the real ones this time, not some midget from Omaha in a Santa hat.’

The Koran, in Yiddish.

The Venetian

A Bonfire.

Soiled Underwear

A Pond Witch

The Complete Works of Karl Marx

Canaletto’s disgust at this tacky monstrosity.

Opium, ‘as much as you can get’.

New York New York

Leather pants.

Giraffe Print gun holster.

Bengal Tiger.

Tickets to the Opera.

Top Hats, various sizes. 'From finger puppet up to Rocky Dennis'.

Paris

8 Pints of O negative blood.

A Cherry Tree

Waldorf salad in a tramp’s boot.

Samurai sword.

Cheeze Whiz Icecream

More televisions, at least half a dozen.

The Mirage

A Plankton Sandwich.

A Smug Yoga Teacher.

A smile from an old lady.

Shiny Happy People holding hands.

The Excalibur

Dildos shaped like Impaling Spikes.

Wax apricots.

Frog Buckets.

The Palms

Jackie Kennedy, 'OK, I’ll settle for a Jackie Kennedy type.’

A new hip.

Oxygen.

Donald Trumps stupid goddamn wig.

Luxor

Binoculars

Rope

Hunters Knife

Can of Mace

Jar of Golden Girl Anal Lubricant.

3 Quarter inch telescopic rifle sight.

The Four Seasons

‘The whole four seasons, Summer days on the lake, filled with cold white wine and lazy bumblebees, Autumn, with Keat’s mists and mellow fruitfulness, Winter with snow falling like a bridal veil, words taking form like ghosts, the hardened nipples in the après ski sauna. Spring, pollen and tides and lamb on the menu.’

Binions

MORE TIME

‘Some kind of gifts for my ex-wife’s kids. Nothing too good, some crap.’

Divorce Lawyer.

The Flamingo

‘Please send up an actual flamingo.’