NOTICE:
I just found out about WORD VERIFICATION for comments. I enabled it. So, if you want to leave me a comment, you'll have to go through this small inconvenience of copying a few letters in order to verify that yes, you really are a human being. It's the only way that I can cut out the annoying blog spam that I've been getting recently
Thanks for your patience,
Le Menagerie
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
CAUTION BLOG SPAMMERS
CAUTION BLOG SPAMMERS
I am not going to tolerate blog spam any longer. I don't care about Lesbian dating services or Internet Opportunities to get Paid to Shop.
From now on, I am going to trace any blog spam back to its source and find out who you are and come over there and kick your arse, destroy your servers and put the shoes to your CPU's.
Understand?
Thank you for Complying
Sincerely,
The Management
I am not going to tolerate blog spam any longer. I don't care about Lesbian dating services or Internet Opportunities to get Paid to Shop.
From now on, I am going to trace any blog spam back to its source and find out who you are and come over there and kick your arse, destroy your servers and put the shoes to your CPU's.
Understand?
Thank you for Complying
Sincerely,
The Management
Motorcycle Memories
I was just outside in the garage, working in the afternoon heat with Gib. I was splicing some anchor lines for the boats, and he was fiddling with the carburetor off of one of the four wheelers, trying to get the thing to run. Bored with the task at hand, and insane with the oven like temperatures inside of the garage, it wasn’t too long before we drifted outside into the hellishly hot, red tide air day to take a look at our scooters, glossy black paint and chrome gleaming in the midday sun. I started thinking about bikes I've owned and loved.
It takes another biker to understand.
During the 1970’s I was stationed up in Kodiak Alaska at the Coast Guard Air Station. In those days, there was always a down and out cutthroat war between the officers and enlisted men …I think that in todays military where everyone is in there on a volunteer basis, the distinction between ranks is one of mutual respect and benevolence. During my incarceration in the military, which were the days of the draftee, officers were thought of as “zeros” and fair game for just about anything. We were barely past the days of fragging. There were no scruples…no honor, only abject warfare between the hierarchy and serfdom, a sense of eat or be eaten.
One time we streaked the officers club in the middle of their sit-down dinner time, penis’ painted red; ballsacks, painted white and blue. Just hauled ass through there, with paper bags masking our faces, genitalia flopping about, laughing insanely. It made the base newspapers, and I’m sure, more than one officers wifes’ evening.
My first bike was a little Honda 125 two stroke machine, custom made for zipping around the dirt roads and trails that crisscrossed Kodiak Island. My friend Martin did a lot of work on it, porting the cylinder and tweaking the carb so that it would get maximum wheelies. Then I got a DT-250 Yamaha, a much more powerful machine, and did much the same to it. I bought it fairly cheap because the previous owner had gotten the gas tank stolen by leaving it alongside the hangers where it was fair game to marauding thieves, among who were just about all of us. We ported and polished the exhaust and intake ports, sleeved and put in a new piston and rings, and bolted on a new exhaust...essential items necessary to make it stand on it's back wheel for a block or two.
Finally the time came to get the bike out there on the road and trails. I had a slight problem though, having neglected to order a fuel tank for my machine. Kodiak was, and is an island far out in nowhere, I would have had to order a new fuel tank, and that would’ve taken weeks to arrive via SeaLand. I was impatient.
In the dark and dusty recessed spaces of the hanger, sat stored until spring, a few bikes belonging to officers who thought that they might be safe from predation there. Not so. One of my friends spied a dust covered DT-250, the same vintage as mine, back among the piles of caribou antlers and spare lifejackets. It appeared to be a neglected and homeless machine, one prime for the recycling of clandestine parts. He suggested that I promptly remove the offending part, preferably in the middle of the night, and claim it as mine. I took his suggestion, it was fair game. Late one night, I carefully lifted the tank from the frame, stuffed it into a small duffle bag and smuggled it out of the hanger. Oh, consider the job done.
Over the course of the next several days, I stripped off the glaring purple paint , and primed and painted my new prize a beautiful electric yellow color. I installed it on the bike and went riding, proud of my accomplishment. Kodiak goes from the drearies of winter to the drearies of spring in a season almost unnoticable. The bears wake up and look around for the summer salmon run, and devils club and fidddlehead ferns pop out of brown barren hillsides, heralding the arrival of spring and all of its attendant mud, the time to haul out and dust off motorcycles, neglected during the long winter months.
It was late May, and the weather was improving. Everyone was starting to get out there. Everyone including the owner of the other Yamaha.
One evening he hauled the bike out of the hanger, and went blasting down to the officers club for happy hour. On the way back, the bike ran out of gas, having operated all the way down there and half the way back on a thimbleful of gasoline in the carb. As he was fiddling around with it, wondering why it didn't run…he noticed, yes, just noticed that the gas tank was missing. Jesus God, what a dumbass. And this guy was a C-130 pilot too....I couldn’t imagine taking off on my scooter and not noticing that the friggin’ fuel tank was missing. Forlornly, and I imagine more than a bit pissed off, he pushed the thing back to the hanger and back into the dark corner. The story made the rounds.
By this time I had come down with an extreme case of the guilts, hell, I’m not a thief, and was not raised to be one. The whole time I felt guilty and dirty, so I decided to return the fuel tank. One night I crept down there late and put the bright yellow tank back on.
The pilot who owned the Yamaha later told his friends; “yea, the goddamnest thing happened. I went down there to install the new tank that I bought for my bike (an oversized 2.5 gallon plastic one), and noticed that a new metal tank was back on my frame….Not the old purple one...a NEW yellow tank!!” he announced gleefully. And then somewhat glumly he added; “What am I gonna do with this plastic one?”
When I found that out, I contacted him and played stupid, and offered to buy it. I told him I was looking for a bigger tank for my Yamaha so that I wouldn’t have to refuel on the way out to Saltery Cove. He sold it to me for something like thirty bucks.
I kept that bike for about two more years, never even thinking about swiping another part, and always thankful that my somewhat compromised conscience made me (at least try) and right that wrong.
I made the mistake of leaving it outside the hanger though, when I had to fly down to Honolulu for four days, and some jerkoff stole the carburetor.
I never got THAT back.
It takes another biker to understand.
During the 1970’s I was stationed up in Kodiak Alaska at the Coast Guard Air Station. In those days, there was always a down and out cutthroat war between the officers and enlisted men …I think that in todays military where everyone is in there on a volunteer basis, the distinction between ranks is one of mutual respect and benevolence. During my incarceration in the military, which were the days of the draftee, officers were thought of as “zeros” and fair game for just about anything. We were barely past the days of fragging. There were no scruples…no honor, only abject warfare between the hierarchy and serfdom, a sense of eat or be eaten.
One time we streaked the officers club in the middle of their sit-down dinner time, penis’ painted red; ballsacks, painted white and blue. Just hauled ass through there, with paper bags masking our faces, genitalia flopping about, laughing insanely. It made the base newspapers, and I’m sure, more than one officers wifes’ evening.
My first bike was a little Honda 125 two stroke machine, custom made for zipping around the dirt roads and trails that crisscrossed Kodiak Island. My friend Martin did a lot of work on it, porting the cylinder and tweaking the carb so that it would get maximum wheelies. Then I got a DT-250 Yamaha, a much more powerful machine, and did much the same to it. I bought it fairly cheap because the previous owner had gotten the gas tank stolen by leaving it alongside the hangers where it was fair game to marauding thieves, among who were just about all of us. We ported and polished the exhaust and intake ports, sleeved and put in a new piston and rings, and bolted on a new exhaust...essential items necessary to make it stand on it's back wheel for a block or two.
Finally the time came to get the bike out there on the road and trails. I had a slight problem though, having neglected to order a fuel tank for my machine. Kodiak was, and is an island far out in nowhere, I would have had to order a new fuel tank, and that would’ve taken weeks to arrive via SeaLand. I was impatient.
In the dark and dusty recessed spaces of the hanger, sat stored until spring, a few bikes belonging to officers who thought that they might be safe from predation there. Not so. One of my friends spied a dust covered DT-250, the same vintage as mine, back among the piles of caribou antlers and spare lifejackets. It appeared to be a neglected and homeless machine, one prime for the recycling of clandestine parts. He suggested that I promptly remove the offending part, preferably in the middle of the night, and claim it as mine. I took his suggestion, it was fair game. Late one night, I carefully lifted the tank from the frame, stuffed it into a small duffle bag and smuggled it out of the hanger. Oh, consider the job done.
Over the course of the next several days, I stripped off the glaring purple paint , and primed and painted my new prize a beautiful electric yellow color. I installed it on the bike and went riding, proud of my accomplishment. Kodiak goes from the drearies of winter to the drearies of spring in a season almost unnoticable. The bears wake up and look around for the summer salmon run, and devils club and fidddlehead ferns pop out of brown barren hillsides, heralding the arrival of spring and all of its attendant mud, the time to haul out and dust off motorcycles, neglected during the long winter months.
It was late May, and the weather was improving. Everyone was starting to get out there. Everyone including the owner of the other Yamaha.
One evening he hauled the bike out of the hanger, and went blasting down to the officers club for happy hour. On the way back, the bike ran out of gas, having operated all the way down there and half the way back on a thimbleful of gasoline in the carb. As he was fiddling around with it, wondering why it didn't run…he noticed, yes, just noticed that the gas tank was missing. Jesus God, what a dumbass. And this guy was a C-130 pilot too....I couldn’t imagine taking off on my scooter and not noticing that the friggin’ fuel tank was missing. Forlornly, and I imagine more than a bit pissed off, he pushed the thing back to the hanger and back into the dark corner. The story made the rounds.
By this time I had come down with an extreme case of the guilts, hell, I’m not a thief, and was not raised to be one. The whole time I felt guilty and dirty, so I decided to return the fuel tank. One night I crept down there late and put the bright yellow tank back on.
The pilot who owned the Yamaha later told his friends; “yea, the goddamnest thing happened. I went down there to install the new tank that I bought for my bike (an oversized 2.5 gallon plastic one), and noticed that a new metal tank was back on my frame….Not the old purple one...a NEW yellow tank!!” he announced gleefully. And then somewhat glumly he added; “What am I gonna do with this plastic one?”
When I found that out, I contacted him and played stupid, and offered to buy it. I told him I was looking for a bigger tank for my Yamaha so that I wouldn’t have to refuel on the way out to Saltery Cove. He sold it to me for something like thirty bucks.
I kept that bike for about two more years, never even thinking about swiping another part, and always thankful that my somewhat compromised conscience made me (at least try) and right that wrong.
I made the mistake of leaving it outside the hanger though, when I had to fly down to Honolulu for four days, and some jerkoff stole the carburetor.
I never got THAT back.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Martin Looter King Day
At the risk of pissing some of you off, especially if you don't live in a large metropolitan area with this sort of problem, I feel obligated to pass this story along, because it represents a fundemental ill in our society, one that we are all responsible for by not holding the gum'ment accountable. Our taxes fund countless billions of social programs designed to lift people from poverty. But, as we all know, most of these problems are hand outs, not hand-ups. Hand outs are a powerful drug, as addictive as heroin, with the consequences of that addiction the loss of self respect and motivation.
My friend Sean lives up in Pasadena Texas and had to bug out for the most recent chubasco, hurricane Rita which was taking full aim at Houston, until a series of last minute joggles put it on the Texas-Louisiana border. Sean makes about the best surfboards that I’ve ever seen, and spends a lot of time between his home in Texas and his adopted home on the beaches of western Mexico, chasing the fabled swell. In between we talk a lot, and sometimes he and his lovely girlfriend Michelle even find time to come down here and visit.
Sean called from Spring Texas where they had gone for refuge during the great big evacuation of Houston last week. He said it wasn’t too bad to get there, except for a few spots, because they had taken the back roads. The worst spots were going through the ghettos he said. There, the people appeared unconcerned, and were even standing around drinking “40’s” like it was some kind of party with no consequences. At one point he said a young girl of about sixteen rode her bike right into the middle of the street and handed a package to another girl who in turn, handed her a wad of bills. A drug deal in the middle of the street, because all of the cops were preoccupied. Life as usual as the big storm approached. It was his conjecture that much the same had happened in New Orleans. And the harsh reality was that people died, and who was really to blame? Was it the government, or some infrastructural snafu that didn’t take care of the poor because they were oppressed minorities, or was the system simply overwhelmed with the stupidity and arrogance of people who have been used to being handed things for so long that they simply no longer can even think for themselves ? People who didn't care if they could get out or not. People who waited for the government to take care of them.
Sean returned home yesterday, to find his house still standing, although it sustained a bit of damage that he'll have to work at to repair this week. He called me to tell me some hurricane stories.
He told me a story about what really happened up there in Houston. It seems that the media has been covering things up in order to play down a problem that is much bigger than either Katrina or Rita themselves. He told me about a friend of his whose mother was evacuating by car prior to the storm. Unfortunately, she had not had the opportunity to fill her tank with gas prior to leaving, and found herself in much the same situation as Sean did as she was traveling through the backroads on her way out of Houston in order to avoid the massive traffic jams.
Running low on gas, she turned into a convenience store in the middle of one of Houstons ghettos, and found the store to be abandoned, but taken over by looters. Yes looters. These people were helping themselves to freebies even before the storm hit. I thought about the recent political controversy in New Orleans, the media firestorm comparing a picture of a white guy getting some food, labeled something like “man salvages food to feed family”, and a photo of a bunch of true looters, blacks, stealing TV’s and other “essentials”, and the outrage it inspired in my liberal friends.
Sean went on to tell me that somehow, the looters had found a way to turn on the gas pumps, but were only dispensing gasoline to other blacks. The end result was that his friends mother had to travel on, at the risk of running out of fuel until she was finally able to find a station somewhere in a civilized area.
So I worry today about things like this. I worry about them much more than natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. The fabric of America is rotten, and we’re more concerned with rebuilding the buildings that house it. I see in the not to distant future, a country thrown into chaos by our own notion of survival of the weakest, the lowering of the common denominator, the guilt over things of long ago that has led us to oppress folks by making every opportunity available to them without the necessity of having to work for it, an oppression that’s enslaved them to the government.
Now, can someone tell me what a “tonk rocket” is?.......
My friend Sean lives up in Pasadena Texas and had to bug out for the most recent chubasco, hurricane Rita which was taking full aim at Houston, until a series of last minute joggles put it on the Texas-Louisiana border. Sean makes about the best surfboards that I’ve ever seen, and spends a lot of time between his home in Texas and his adopted home on the beaches of western Mexico, chasing the fabled swell. In between we talk a lot, and sometimes he and his lovely girlfriend Michelle even find time to come down here and visit.
Sean called from Spring Texas where they had gone for refuge during the great big evacuation of Houston last week. He said it wasn’t too bad to get there, except for a few spots, because they had taken the back roads. The worst spots were going through the ghettos he said. There, the people appeared unconcerned, and were even standing around drinking “40’s” like it was some kind of party with no consequences. At one point he said a young girl of about sixteen rode her bike right into the middle of the street and handed a package to another girl who in turn, handed her a wad of bills. A drug deal in the middle of the street, because all of the cops were preoccupied. Life as usual as the big storm approached. It was his conjecture that much the same had happened in New Orleans. And the harsh reality was that people died, and who was really to blame? Was it the government, or some infrastructural snafu that didn’t take care of the poor because they were oppressed minorities, or was the system simply overwhelmed with the stupidity and arrogance of people who have been used to being handed things for so long that they simply no longer can even think for themselves ? People who didn't care if they could get out or not. People who waited for the government to take care of them.
Sean returned home yesterday, to find his house still standing, although it sustained a bit of damage that he'll have to work at to repair this week. He called me to tell me some hurricane stories.
He told me a story about what really happened up there in Houston. It seems that the media has been covering things up in order to play down a problem that is much bigger than either Katrina or Rita themselves. He told me about a friend of his whose mother was evacuating by car prior to the storm. Unfortunately, she had not had the opportunity to fill her tank with gas prior to leaving, and found herself in much the same situation as Sean did as she was traveling through the backroads on her way out of Houston in order to avoid the massive traffic jams.
Running low on gas, she turned into a convenience store in the middle of one of Houstons ghettos, and found the store to be abandoned, but taken over by looters. Yes looters. These people were helping themselves to freebies even before the storm hit. I thought about the recent political controversy in New Orleans, the media firestorm comparing a picture of a white guy getting some food, labeled something like “man salvages food to feed family”, and a photo of a bunch of true looters, blacks, stealing TV’s and other “essentials”, and the outrage it inspired in my liberal friends.
Sean went on to tell me that somehow, the looters had found a way to turn on the gas pumps, but were only dispensing gasoline to other blacks. The end result was that his friends mother had to travel on, at the risk of running out of fuel until she was finally able to find a station somewhere in a civilized area.
So I worry today about things like this. I worry about them much more than natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. The fabric of America is rotten, and we’re more concerned with rebuilding the buildings that house it. I see in the not to distant future, a country thrown into chaos by our own notion of survival of the weakest, the lowering of the common denominator, the guilt over things of long ago that has led us to oppress folks by making every opportunity available to them without the necessity of having to work for it, an oppression that’s enslaved them to the government.
Now, can someone tell me what a “tonk rocket” is?.......
Friday, September 23, 2005
The Osprey on the Post
This morning as I was riding to work, I passed by the large intertidal area just south of the Causeway. It is an area filled with mangroves and salt loving plants with exotic sounding names like Salicornia, Borrichia and Batis. The wind was from the northwest, and there was a feeling of something in the air. Further west the bay glimmered sparkling blue as little whitecaps began to form on its otherwise placid and expressionless surface.
I ride this way almost everyday. During times of big tides, when the water laps around the prop roots of the mangroves, tiny shorebirds; plovers, killdeer and Dunlin forage along the margins of the wetlands while secretive night heron peer from behind the foliage, oblivious to the traffic speeding over the bridge, on the ribbon of blacktop, well on their way to another day of work, people just filling in time before they die.
I always pass the “for sale” sign planted out there, advertising this acreage as prime real estate, and to contact so-and-so reality company for more information. Someday probably, someone will buy this piece of land. They’ll fight and wrestle with the various agencies who administer the regulations which make it difficult for any self respecting developer to “improve” this wetland he now owns, and if and when they finally get their appropriate permits, gleaming buildings will rise up out of the primordial muck, like giant excavated fiddler crab burrows and docks and piers will jut defiantly out into the bay and the developers, investors, buyers and town fathers will all grin a smug self satisfied grin, satisfied in the knowledge that they have “improved” this formerly worthless piece of real estate.
Today I saw an Osprey sitting on an old broken post in a clearing in the middle of the mangroves, watching the water which had inundated the area because of a recent storm far up the coast, watching for mullet or other small fish to prey on. I see this same bird often, sitting on his perch. This is his sanctuary, his kitchen, dining and living room. When the “improvements” inevitably come, he’ll simply fly off and occupy another space, until that one inevitably gets improved, until inevitably, there are few sanctuaries left, and those that do remain will be far back in areas that are worthless pieces of real estate, waiting patiently for the chance to someday be “improved”.
Undoubtedly it will be an area filled with Mangroves and plants with exotic sounding names like Salicornia, Borrichia and Batis. Little plovers, killdeer and dunlin will work along the shoreline, bills bobbing and dipping, foraging like miniature sewing machines, and night herons will peer secretively through the foliage at the whole scene, oblivious to the relentless march of civilization.
I ride this way almost everyday. During times of big tides, when the water laps around the prop roots of the mangroves, tiny shorebirds; plovers, killdeer and Dunlin forage along the margins of the wetlands while secretive night heron peer from behind the foliage, oblivious to the traffic speeding over the bridge, on the ribbon of blacktop, well on their way to another day of work, people just filling in time before they die.
I always pass the “for sale” sign planted out there, advertising this acreage as prime real estate, and to contact so-and-so reality company for more information. Someday probably, someone will buy this piece of land. They’ll fight and wrestle with the various agencies who administer the regulations which make it difficult for any self respecting developer to “improve” this wetland he now owns, and if and when they finally get their appropriate permits, gleaming buildings will rise up out of the primordial muck, like giant excavated fiddler crab burrows and docks and piers will jut defiantly out into the bay and the developers, investors, buyers and town fathers will all grin a smug self satisfied grin, satisfied in the knowledge that they have “improved” this formerly worthless piece of real estate.
Today I saw an Osprey sitting on an old broken post in a clearing in the middle of the mangroves, watching the water which had inundated the area because of a recent storm far up the coast, watching for mullet or other small fish to prey on. I see this same bird often, sitting on his perch. This is his sanctuary, his kitchen, dining and living room. When the “improvements” inevitably come, he’ll simply fly off and occupy another space, until that one inevitably gets improved, until inevitably, there are few sanctuaries left, and those that do remain will be far back in areas that are worthless pieces of real estate, waiting patiently for the chance to someday be “improved”.
Undoubtedly it will be an area filled with Mangroves and plants with exotic sounding names like Salicornia, Borrichia and Batis. Little plovers, killdeer and dunlin will work along the shoreline, bills bobbing and dipping, foraging like miniature sewing machines, and night herons will peer secretively through the foliage at the whole scene, oblivious to the relentless march of civilization.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Chris' Canoe, Part Two
I got this picture from my friend Chris. He finally launched his canoe after about eight or nine years of working on it. Launched it up in central Texas in the Hill country, on the Guadalupe River.
He called and told me that everywhere he went, people asked him; “Where did you get that boat? and “Did you build it yerself?” and inevitably also “….yer not gonna put it in this river are ya?”. You see, the rivers up there are shallow and full of rocks, sharp rocks which could produce gashes of monumental proportion on a fine wooden craft like that. Up there people only float plastic boats, and they all have the deep scars and gouges to prove it. But Chris remained undeterred. He was gonna put that boat through its paces, see what it could do. It’s his boat, and torpedoes be damned…full speed ahead! The Texas Hill Country is a fine place to christen a canoe no matter what. It is an especially fitting place to take a boat like this, a craft that is more a work of art than a vessel. I can imagine the sight of the boat framed by tall cypress and oak lining a river gurgling an inviting melody, the air redolent with the incense of cedar and moss, in the hot Texas day, a canopy of blue overhead. I'm sure it was a joy that made the tedium of construction all worth it.
The years that Chris lovingly studied the plans, worked the fragile wood, and assembled the craft with all the hope and care required a place as special as the hills and the crystal clear cold streams to bring it to life.
My friend Rene and I always get a kick out of Chris' single minded dedication, his attention to some inner song that no one but he can hear. The results are things like large areas of once scarred and abused land supporting lush vegetation and life, masses of unconnected people working together to share a common vision, and things like his canoe. Chris has the training of a botanist and the heart of an artist.
So he told me “I first put the canoe in Town Lake, in Austin, and it tracked as straight and true as you could imagine, turning heads wherever we silently paddled through the water”. “Later I put it in the river and floated downstream…in some places, in the whitewater, I could hear the hull scraping against the rock, and it made me cringe”. “We portaged it a few places, and even the canoe hauler was worried that I might fuck up my new boat.” “ So what, I built it and I could fix it”. “But…. there’s nothing like the sound of wood against rock”. When he took it out of the water and put it back on the roof of his car he noticed that there was not much damage, because he had used epoxy for a final coat, and the damage was in the epoxy layer, cutting down into the mat…not the beautiful wood that he used to create the planks.
Chris’ Dad was a sailor and a man of the water. The stories he tells me, tell me of a man who loved the sea, lakes and rivers, a man drawn to the liquid element. Chris’ Dad died when he was young, but I know that he would be proud of him today, on the day he launched his boat, on the day that he took the tiller of Le Menagerie and felt the power of the wind. Chris’ Dad died when he was young, when he needed him the most, it is a lifelong heartbreak and a cruel fate for a child. I always feel his loss, and know that deep inside he’s trying to please the man, somewhere far out there in the stars. Maybe that’s why Chris is so dear to our family, he understands that value, and is reciprocal to it. He’s learning to be a sailor, has constructed his very own boat, and is listening to the sirens song of the water. It is something that runs in him and through him…not so much now to please his father, but because…that is who he is.
The genetics that rumble along inside of him were given to him by the man, and now they’re being nurtured and developed, with a life of their own – and somewhere out there in the stars his father smiles.
He called me last night with a few questions about putting on another layer of epoxy over the sanded one, to fill in the gouges and dings. He’ll be bringing it over to the bay soon to chase the fall fish, and I can’t wait to go for a ride with him.
He called and told me that everywhere he went, people asked him; “Where did you get that boat? and “Did you build it yerself?” and inevitably also “….yer not gonna put it in this river are ya?”. You see, the rivers up there are shallow and full of rocks, sharp rocks which could produce gashes of monumental proportion on a fine wooden craft like that. Up there people only float plastic boats, and they all have the deep scars and gouges to prove it. But Chris remained undeterred. He was gonna put that boat through its paces, see what it could do. It’s his boat, and torpedoes be damned…full speed ahead! The Texas Hill Country is a fine place to christen a canoe no matter what. It is an especially fitting place to take a boat like this, a craft that is more a work of art than a vessel. I can imagine the sight of the boat framed by tall cypress and oak lining a river gurgling an inviting melody, the air redolent with the incense of cedar and moss, in the hot Texas day, a canopy of blue overhead. I'm sure it was a joy that made the tedium of construction all worth it.
The years that Chris lovingly studied the plans, worked the fragile wood, and assembled the craft with all the hope and care required a place as special as the hills and the crystal clear cold streams to bring it to life.
My friend Rene and I always get a kick out of Chris' single minded dedication, his attention to some inner song that no one but he can hear. The results are things like large areas of once scarred and abused land supporting lush vegetation and life, masses of unconnected people working together to share a common vision, and things like his canoe. Chris has the training of a botanist and the heart of an artist.
So he told me “I first put the canoe in Town Lake, in Austin, and it tracked as straight and true as you could imagine, turning heads wherever we silently paddled through the water”. “Later I put it in the river and floated downstream…in some places, in the whitewater, I could hear the hull scraping against the rock, and it made me cringe”. “We portaged it a few places, and even the canoe hauler was worried that I might fuck up my new boat.” “ So what, I built it and I could fix it”. “But…. there’s nothing like the sound of wood against rock”. When he took it out of the water and put it back on the roof of his car he noticed that there was not much damage, because he had used epoxy for a final coat, and the damage was in the epoxy layer, cutting down into the mat…not the beautiful wood that he used to create the planks.
Chris’ Dad was a sailor and a man of the water. The stories he tells me, tell me of a man who loved the sea, lakes and rivers, a man drawn to the liquid element. Chris’ Dad died when he was young, but I know that he would be proud of him today, on the day he launched his boat, on the day that he took the tiller of Le Menagerie and felt the power of the wind. Chris’ Dad died when he was young, when he needed him the most, it is a lifelong heartbreak and a cruel fate for a child. I always feel his loss, and know that deep inside he’s trying to please the man, somewhere far out there in the stars. Maybe that’s why Chris is so dear to our family, he understands that value, and is reciprocal to it. He’s learning to be a sailor, has constructed his very own boat, and is listening to the sirens song of the water. It is something that runs in him and through him…not so much now to please his father, but because…that is who he is.
The genetics that rumble along inside of him were given to him by the man, and now they’re being nurtured and developed, with a life of their own – and somewhere out there in the stars his father smiles.
He called me last night with a few questions about putting on another layer of epoxy over the sanded one, to fill in the gouges and dings. He’ll be bringing it over to the bay soon to chase the fall fish, and I can’t wait to go for a ride with him.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Mr. Rod
My final duty station when I was in the military was at the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans Louisiana, the eighth Coast Guard District Office, somewhere high above the City.
I was flying a desk. Processing travel and flight orders.
My direct supervisor was a civil service employee, Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rod was a coonass, a true Louisiana Cajun, and as cynical and crusty as they come. I had just arrived from Alaska, with a fine ghostly pallor from not having seen any prolonged sunshine for almost three years, and New Orleans was culture shock. The City was a unctuous caldron of humanity, oddball history and poverty bound together by the oppressive swamp humidity, each lung full of air redolent with the odor of gasoline, automobile exhaust and moldering buildings was excruciatingly painful, as the body struggled to assimilate it into its own depths.
I had been busted just before transferring and reduced two pay grades, and money was tight. Stupid adolescent behavior. I lived in ancient quarters with no air conditioning just outside the Vieux Carre, so working in a climate controlled office was almost like a reward. To pass the time, I practiced pen and ink sketching, and it wasn’t too long before some of my work caught the attention of Mr. Rod, who asked if I would do an eight by twelve pen and ink of an eagle sitting on the limb of a tree. No problem. Mr. Rod was pretty benevolent to me, even before that, so with gratitude I got to work. The day came when the drawing was finished, and I presented it to Mr. Rod unceremoniously one morning before work. His eyes grew wide, and he asked me how much I wanted. I refused, hell, it was just some spare time anyhow, and I figured that it would always be remembered.
That day, at lunch, Mr Rod asked me if I had ever tried a muffalata sandwich before? I didn’t even know what that was, and he said “just follow me”. We walked outside into the blazing heat of the mid day, and over to the French Quarter, Decatur Street, to a store called the Central Grocery, where he ordered two muffalata sandwiches. The woman behind the counter split the round buns, piled them high with meat, cheese and a curious looking green dressing, wrapped them up in wax paper and put them into a paper bag. We walked over to Jackson Square, and sat down on ancient iron benches, and I enjoyed for the first time a muffalata and a Barqs root beer, digesting that wonderful sandwich along with the flavor of the French Quarter in springtime. In the following days Mr. Rod took me to places like Antoines, Furdys and Galatoires for epic lunches, and quick street meals, always reveling in showing a newcomer how good the food was in the City, always giving a bit of history as if throwing largasse from floats during Mardi gras.
It wasn’t long before the sitting eagle, now framed and hanging on one of Mr. Rod’s office walls began to get the attention of other civil service employees on the floor where I worked. So I began to trade artwork for food. Wonderful New Orleans food. One big black woman, kindly took me under her wing, and each Monday would bring me a generous portion of red beans and rice, on special days, jambalaya, gumbo and etouffee. Everyone treated me with kindness and respect, adopting me into that strange gris-gris of Nawlins culture. I learned to eat crawfish (mudbugs) the right way, sucking the pungent juice from the head, gorged on oysters, drank countless hurricanes and juleps, all accompanied by the hypnotic, chaotic jazz that was everywhere in the quarter.
All the while, I did more and more artwork at the eighth Coast Guard District, sometimes for civilians, sometimes for the other Coasties. I did party invitations for the Vice Admiral. I worked by request and suggestion, never charging, knowing that maybe I was going to leave behind something good in New Orleans.
Soon the day for my discharge came. I had made no secret that I just wanted to be a civilian again. During my final week, I was called into the main mans office, the eighth district admiral. I thought maybe I had done something wrong, but he kindly gestured for me to sit down across from a small coffee table in his outer office, as he took a chair directly across from me. He began with; “I’m going to dispense with the re-up talk, because I know that you just want to be a civilian again”. I nodded. He went on; “I don’t know why they had a problem with you in Kodiak, and frankly, I don't care. Here we’ve enjoyed having you aboard, and as a small token of our gratitude….”. He produced two roof slates off of the ancient French Quarter buildings, upon which were decoupaged street scenes of old New Orleans, and handed them to me. “We wanted you to have these”. I was caught by surprise, and could feel pride welling up inside, I knew these were treasures to hold onto. I don’t remember much of the rest of that conversation, other than there was a feeling of warmth and respect between two very different people and ages.
In the ensuing years, most of the artifacts of my life have been lost, carelessly strewn like so much flotsam and jetsam on the beaches of time, but one of those tiles still follows me around as a reminder of my time in New Orleans. I worry each time we move that it might somehow get broken or left behind.
I made gumbo the other night, something that felt strange and yet familiar in light of all of the recent tragedy there in New Orleans. In it’s essence, I remembered my time in the French Quarter, my friends at the Hale Boggs Federal building, and most of all, the experience that was New Orleans, the experience that was the food. I have never lived in another place where food attained a status as holy as there.
Mr. Rod and many of the others are probably long gone, long before Katrina wrought her wrath on that place, because they were old even then. Somewhere out there in the stars though, they watch us and smile each time we do things like make gumbo, red beans and rice or boil up a pot of crabs. New Orleans is by definition a geographic location, and one which will never be the same now that the river and the sea have taken their toll.
For me, that swampy Cajun City will always be the same, an immutable force, a spicy, mischievous cosmic roux of history, people, music and most of all, food.
I was flying a desk. Processing travel and flight orders.
My direct supervisor was a civil service employee, Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rod was a coonass, a true Louisiana Cajun, and as cynical and crusty as they come. I had just arrived from Alaska, with a fine ghostly pallor from not having seen any prolonged sunshine for almost three years, and New Orleans was culture shock. The City was a unctuous caldron of humanity, oddball history and poverty bound together by the oppressive swamp humidity, each lung full of air redolent with the odor of gasoline, automobile exhaust and moldering buildings was excruciatingly painful, as the body struggled to assimilate it into its own depths.
I had been busted just before transferring and reduced two pay grades, and money was tight. Stupid adolescent behavior. I lived in ancient quarters with no air conditioning just outside the Vieux Carre, so working in a climate controlled office was almost like a reward. To pass the time, I practiced pen and ink sketching, and it wasn’t too long before some of my work caught the attention of Mr. Rod, who asked if I would do an eight by twelve pen and ink of an eagle sitting on the limb of a tree. No problem. Mr. Rod was pretty benevolent to me, even before that, so with gratitude I got to work. The day came when the drawing was finished, and I presented it to Mr. Rod unceremoniously one morning before work. His eyes grew wide, and he asked me how much I wanted. I refused, hell, it was just some spare time anyhow, and I figured that it would always be remembered.
That day, at lunch, Mr Rod asked me if I had ever tried a muffalata sandwich before? I didn’t even know what that was, and he said “just follow me”. We walked outside into the blazing heat of the mid day, and over to the French Quarter, Decatur Street, to a store called the Central Grocery, where he ordered two muffalata sandwiches. The woman behind the counter split the round buns, piled them high with meat, cheese and a curious looking green dressing, wrapped them up in wax paper and put them into a paper bag. We walked over to Jackson Square, and sat down on ancient iron benches, and I enjoyed for the first time a muffalata and a Barqs root beer, digesting that wonderful sandwich along with the flavor of the French Quarter in springtime. In the following days Mr. Rod took me to places like Antoines, Furdys and Galatoires for epic lunches, and quick street meals, always reveling in showing a newcomer how good the food was in the City, always giving a bit of history as if throwing largasse from floats during Mardi gras.
It wasn’t long before the sitting eagle, now framed and hanging on one of Mr. Rod’s office walls began to get the attention of other civil service employees on the floor where I worked. So I began to trade artwork for food. Wonderful New Orleans food. One big black woman, kindly took me under her wing, and each Monday would bring me a generous portion of red beans and rice, on special days, jambalaya, gumbo and etouffee. Everyone treated me with kindness and respect, adopting me into that strange gris-gris of Nawlins culture. I learned to eat crawfish (mudbugs) the right way, sucking the pungent juice from the head, gorged on oysters, drank countless hurricanes and juleps, all accompanied by the hypnotic, chaotic jazz that was everywhere in the quarter.
All the while, I did more and more artwork at the eighth Coast Guard District, sometimes for civilians, sometimes for the other Coasties. I did party invitations for the Vice Admiral. I worked by request and suggestion, never charging, knowing that maybe I was going to leave behind something good in New Orleans.
Soon the day for my discharge came. I had made no secret that I just wanted to be a civilian again. During my final week, I was called into the main mans office, the eighth district admiral. I thought maybe I had done something wrong, but he kindly gestured for me to sit down across from a small coffee table in his outer office, as he took a chair directly across from me. He began with; “I’m going to dispense with the re-up talk, because I know that you just want to be a civilian again”. I nodded. He went on; “I don’t know why they had a problem with you in Kodiak, and frankly, I don't care. Here we’ve enjoyed having you aboard, and as a small token of our gratitude….”. He produced two roof slates off of the ancient French Quarter buildings, upon which were decoupaged street scenes of old New Orleans, and handed them to me. “We wanted you to have these”. I was caught by surprise, and could feel pride welling up inside, I knew these were treasures to hold onto. I don’t remember much of the rest of that conversation, other than there was a feeling of warmth and respect between two very different people and ages.
In the ensuing years, most of the artifacts of my life have been lost, carelessly strewn like so much flotsam and jetsam on the beaches of time, but one of those tiles still follows me around as a reminder of my time in New Orleans. I worry each time we move that it might somehow get broken or left behind.
I made gumbo the other night, something that felt strange and yet familiar in light of all of the recent tragedy there in New Orleans. In it’s essence, I remembered my time in the French Quarter, my friends at the Hale Boggs Federal building, and most of all, the experience that was New Orleans, the experience that was the food. I have never lived in another place where food attained a status as holy as there.
Mr. Rod and many of the others are probably long gone, long before Katrina wrought her wrath on that place, because they were old even then. Somewhere out there in the stars though, they watch us and smile each time we do things like make gumbo, red beans and rice or boil up a pot of crabs. New Orleans is by definition a geographic location, and one which will never be the same now that the river and the sea have taken their toll.
For me, that swampy Cajun City will always be the same, an immutable force, a spicy, mischievous cosmic roux of history, people, music and most of all, food.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The Princess
Princess Exstrawment was out trying to surf the other day. I always get a kick out of watching him flop around, standing up in an uncoordinated mess of flailing arms and exaggerated movements, never in sync with the waves. This guys is a fiftysomething white haired little puke who hangs around with Gore (probably one of the few people who will tolerate him). He’s a former wind faggot, which is a truly disingenuous yuppie sport, and one where he should’ve stayed. He operates the local Tow Boats “R” Us franchise, where he charges folks a small fortune to go out and tow them in if they break down, or end up on the shallow spoils of the Laguna Madre. Sort of the twenty first century answer to the good Samaritan who used to help people out in the bay, knowing this was a rule of the sea. You help out the guy in trouble, because the next time it could be you. So this guy helps out folks in trouble, but extorts exhorbitant amounts of dinero from them in exchange. He’s pretty universally disliked around here, not so much for his towboat “service”, but just his general nasty, self centered demeanor. I know of several stories of his getting punched out when he’s shot his mouth at the wrong person. In fact Rocky, of the Night Magic punched him out once, and I hear they were (are?) friends. I’m still trying to get the details on that one. When I finally do, it’ll make a good story I’m sure.
It’s something about guys with the name Rick, or Ric. Whatever. Rick is a dick, as are most of the Ricks I’ve ever met. Now if you’re a Rick, but you’re not a dick, then let me apologize, and forgive my mere stereotyping…..
If you’ve followed the Eye for any length of time, you know that back in July I told you about an incident involving another Rick, the brother-in-law of Mark, who owns Anchor Marine. In an agro, drunken stupor, he mooned the TPWD game warden and got a bunch of folks thrown in jail on the fourth of July. And before that there was Rickthedick from up north…. and, there are other Ricks I’ve known and disliked who have exhibited similar fucked up ethos and egos…..soooo….
The Princess settled here a few years ago after having made a substantial amount of money (at least for this area) running cargo barges in the Netherlands or somewhere. Originally from San Fransisco (with a lisp), he went to Europe during the Vietnam war, dodging the draft. Real classy guy. Later he tried his hand at a number of things including owning and managing a local flophouse and marina, and other quasi- legitimate endeavors. Unlike the other pirates of this area, there are no endearing qualities to this pathetic moron, and really, I don't know for the life of me, why I'm even bothering to legitimize him at all by writing this. Might just be a personal catharsis, so humor me on this one. Always unsuccessful at business, the Princess somehow always manages to prosper by ripping everyone else off. You know the type, only concerned with their own personal aggrandizement.
We had the misfortune of crossing paths with this jerkoff back in 2003, when we rented a small house from him and an adjacent piece of property where we parked the Queen Mary, our beloved motorhome that we had lived aboard for the previous three years. An uninsured fire which occurred as we were about to bug out during tropical storm Claudette destroyed just about everything we owned, and the final result was that this little fella filed a suit in small claims court for “damages to his property”. Now in Texas, a renter is protected from such suits by law, but in small claims court…well one can sue for any reason. To add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure he filed an insurance claim on our loss, because not long after the fire he was driving a brand new motorhome hisself, and later moved to a real nice house over on the bay….but I digress.
We call him “the Princess” because one day, we were behind him at the stoplight and we noticed him fussing with his hair, just like a girl, arranging the front curl with his thumb and forefinger, trying to get it to cooperate just so. I don’t believe that he knew anyone was watching, and when his eyes focused in the mirror behind him and he saw us imitating his primping, he stalled this truck when the light went green in an effort to get out of there real fast.
He has a wife yaknow….do you know what she’s called?.....she’s called….incontinentia….incontinentia buttocks.
I put two and two together after having first met this woman, I mean here's the epitomy of butt-ugly. Wrinkles, gnarly hair, swellulite, veryclose veins and all, a putrification of the living corpse. A gen-u-wine female reflection of the princess himself.
Hell, if I had to fuck something like that on a regular basis, I’d be a pretty miserable bastard too. Probably goes a long way in explaining why he’s the way he is……
It’s something about guys with the name Rick, or Ric. Whatever. Rick is a dick, as are most of the Ricks I’ve ever met. Now if you’re a Rick, but you’re not a dick, then let me apologize, and forgive my mere stereotyping…..
If you’ve followed the Eye for any length of time, you know that back in July I told you about an incident involving another Rick, the brother-in-law of Mark, who owns Anchor Marine. In an agro, drunken stupor, he mooned the TPWD game warden and got a bunch of folks thrown in jail on the fourth of July. And before that there was Rickthedick from up north…. and, there are other Ricks I’ve known and disliked who have exhibited similar fucked up ethos and egos…..soooo….
The Princess settled here a few years ago after having made a substantial amount of money (at least for this area) running cargo barges in the Netherlands or somewhere. Originally from San Fransisco (with a lisp), he went to Europe during the Vietnam war, dodging the draft. Real classy guy. Later he tried his hand at a number of things including owning and managing a local flophouse and marina, and other quasi- legitimate endeavors. Unlike the other pirates of this area, there are no endearing qualities to this pathetic moron, and really, I don't know for the life of me, why I'm even bothering to legitimize him at all by writing this. Might just be a personal catharsis, so humor me on this one. Always unsuccessful at business, the Princess somehow always manages to prosper by ripping everyone else off. You know the type, only concerned with their own personal aggrandizement.
We had the misfortune of crossing paths with this jerkoff back in 2003, when we rented a small house from him and an adjacent piece of property where we parked the Queen Mary, our beloved motorhome that we had lived aboard for the previous three years. An uninsured fire which occurred as we were about to bug out during tropical storm Claudette destroyed just about everything we owned, and the final result was that this little fella filed a suit in small claims court for “damages to his property”. Now in Texas, a renter is protected from such suits by law, but in small claims court…well one can sue for any reason. To add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure he filed an insurance claim on our loss, because not long after the fire he was driving a brand new motorhome hisself, and later moved to a real nice house over on the bay….but I digress.
We call him “the Princess” because one day, we were behind him at the stoplight and we noticed him fussing with his hair, just like a girl, arranging the front curl with his thumb and forefinger, trying to get it to cooperate just so. I don’t believe that he knew anyone was watching, and when his eyes focused in the mirror behind him and he saw us imitating his primping, he stalled this truck when the light went green in an effort to get out of there real fast.
He has a wife yaknow….do you know what she’s called?.....she’s called….incontinentia….incontinentia buttocks.
I put two and two together after having first met this woman, I mean here's the epitomy of butt-ugly. Wrinkles, gnarly hair, swellulite, veryclose veins and all, a putrification of the living corpse. A gen-u-wine female reflection of the princess himself.
Hell, if I had to fuck something like that on a regular basis, I’d be a pretty miserable bastard too. Probably goes a long way in explaining why he’s the way he is……
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Catatonic
Most people think of summer as June and July with August beginning to see a cooling down, a tapering off toward fall. Not so, here on the far south, third coast. August and September are the hottest of all, hellishly hot months, with all of the fury of the earlier summer unleashed at once. Sidewalks can melt flipflops if you stand in one place too long, and even SPF 600 sunscreen isn’t enough as the sun sits relentlessly in the sky baking skin and bone, metal, paint and fiberglass, concrete and asphalt into a searing vision of what a small piece of hell might be like. The Gulf of Mexico continues to be a flat expansive desert, the monotony only broken by the occasional lazy jump of a shell-shocked mullet, or a sea turtle cautiously sticking its head above water to gulp a steaming breath of air before diving back down to the cool of the depths far below the surface.
Yesterday, I went offshore fishing with my friend Don O. and two other guys. Don owns the Catatonic, a 34 foot Baha Cruiser that he takes divers and fishermen out on. He’s traded the sky for the sea and seems to love it, and like a kid with a new toy is always enthusiastic about learning new and vital information about this new home of his.
We fueled up around eight AM and headed offshore, towards a spot out on the continental shelf some sixty miles away called the BFR. Our plan was to get out almost to the area, troll around the shrimp boats laying on anchor and then bottom fish the BFR (Big Fucking Rock) for Big Fucking Snapper and Amberjack. Seas were running only about a foot or two, and the Gulf, even that far out was like a big lake. No birds were in the sky, and only a few puffy clouds dotted the horizon, leaving the sun to chastise us for being so brain damaged as to be out on the open sea this time of year. A few flying fish vaulted into the low air just above the ripples skimming along like scaled kamikazes before splashing down again and disappearing into the indigo depths.
We put out the baits and trolled, cruising along about five or six knots as the white deck heated up to way past unbearable, making it difficult to even walk across without shoes, shiny chrome rails beaconed mockingly, waiting to burn hands if grasped for stability against the occasional groundswell passing lugubriously beneath. Spying a lone shrimper we made several passes, a ring around the rosy, but with no luck. Don set the autopilot to BFR and we continued to haul the baits behind us, until finally one of the other guys, Ike who has a lot of experience trolling out there suggested that we kick up the speed to about twelve knots or so, and soon the lures were skipping over the water at a speed tempting big fish like marlin and wahoo to take a big bite out of the wood and plastic baits .
Even at that speed the breeze generated by the boat was hot as a jen-aire range, and unlike our trip on the Soul Mate, no fish even bothered to look at the spread. Too damn hot. So we trolled past weed lines and other flotsam and jetsam without luck, heading for the BFR some fifteen more miles distant.
Near the BFR we cut bait and bring in the outriggers. It is now high noon, and the sun is brutal. We rig bottom rigs with several pounds of lead, multiple hooks, and drop them down with great anticipation through the crystal clear water. Not even a nibble down there at three hundred feet, and taking a bait-check is a major ordeal. Crank, and crank and crank, a good test for back and arm muscles, and my recently surgically repaired elbow. Several more passes, without success. Don decides it's time to move.
So, we try another spot, with the same non-results. Then another. Finally, about 1600 we decide to move to a spot closer in, and ran full throttle for almost an hour before finding it.
In the fighting chair, gazing back at the churning blue water, I listen to the hypnotic throb of the engines, occasionally staring off at the clouds on the horizon and the vista of nothingness before me. I am inward and introspective. Out here, for me it’s the opportunity to let my brain free spool, abstractly associating any event it wants to pick up on, from early fishing experiences as a child with my own dad, to my life as it stands today. Most importantly, it is my own time to connect with my creator in an environment uncluttered by the things of the land and people. I am in the presence of God, and I am small and unimportant in the great plan, yet as if in oxymoron, I am important enough to have this connection, and a place in the hierarchy of all things created by this inestimable power, important enough to be allowed a glimpse of understanding in this mystery, and the chance to be an eternal part of it. I am always in awe out here. Always reverent and listening, always at peace. Quiet and stilled for a seeming instant.
The engines slow, and we drift over Murphys Hole. Immediately, we all get vicious strikes in the one hundred foot depths. I haul up two big red snapper at a time, twisting and visible far below, white bellies flashing against the inky nothingness. Everyone else is catching fish, mostly keeper size, a few throwbacks. A huge shark lunges at a throwback struggling to head for the bottom, swallowing it in one eager gulp. The next drift over the hole, same results - more fish. The deck is slick with fish slime and blood. A school of cobia gather under the boat taunting us, as the air begins to lose an imperceptible amount of heat, barely a degree or two, but enough to give a sense that the day is waning away, the sun now at shoulder height in the west. Two more passes, and we have our collective limits of red snapper, just as a school of bottlenose and spotted dolphin invade, jumping and playing, chasing fish and managing to finally turn off the bite, as the sun starts to make its grand exit. Tiredly, we haul in the lines.
The run back in is long and rough as a groundswell begins to arrive from a recent tropical storm which lays dying on a distant shoreline far down in Mexico. The boat pounds and shakes, throwing plumes of frothing white water along the sides, and some up onto the back deck, washing the red slurry out of scuppers and back into the sea. About ten miles from town, from the island, the night descends in a sudden coma of pitch black blank, we cautiously reduce speed and creep in using the spotlight, radar, lighted buoys and markers to guide us back to the fingers and Dons boat stall across from where Menagerie sits.
Back inside the boathouse, I tiredly clean fish, thinking about this day and how it really doesn’t matter anymore if I catch anything or not. I thank Don as we leave, and he seems a bit nervous, as if relieved that he was able to finally put us on fish. He's a good Captain, and a true kind hearted human, always concerned with the other person. I assure him that it would’ve been OK either way. It’s fishing, not catching that makes the experience. I caught what I needed to, a moment of fleeting, elusive connection between eternity and existence.
Yesterday, I went offshore fishing with my friend Don O. and two other guys. Don owns the Catatonic, a 34 foot Baha Cruiser that he takes divers and fishermen out on. He’s traded the sky for the sea and seems to love it, and like a kid with a new toy is always enthusiastic about learning new and vital information about this new home of his.
We fueled up around eight AM and headed offshore, towards a spot out on the continental shelf some sixty miles away called the BFR. Our plan was to get out almost to the area, troll around the shrimp boats laying on anchor and then bottom fish the BFR (Big Fucking Rock) for Big Fucking Snapper and Amberjack. Seas were running only about a foot or two, and the Gulf, even that far out was like a big lake. No birds were in the sky, and only a few puffy clouds dotted the horizon, leaving the sun to chastise us for being so brain damaged as to be out on the open sea this time of year. A few flying fish vaulted into the low air just above the ripples skimming along like scaled kamikazes before splashing down again and disappearing into the indigo depths.
We put out the baits and trolled, cruising along about five or six knots as the white deck heated up to way past unbearable, making it difficult to even walk across without shoes, shiny chrome rails beaconed mockingly, waiting to burn hands if grasped for stability against the occasional groundswell passing lugubriously beneath. Spying a lone shrimper we made several passes, a ring around the rosy, but with no luck. Don set the autopilot to BFR and we continued to haul the baits behind us, until finally one of the other guys, Ike who has a lot of experience trolling out there suggested that we kick up the speed to about twelve knots or so, and soon the lures were skipping over the water at a speed tempting big fish like marlin and wahoo to take a big bite out of the wood and plastic baits .
Even at that speed the breeze generated by the boat was hot as a jen-aire range, and unlike our trip on the Soul Mate, no fish even bothered to look at the spread. Too damn hot. So we trolled past weed lines and other flotsam and jetsam without luck, heading for the BFR some fifteen more miles distant.
Near the BFR we cut bait and bring in the outriggers. It is now high noon, and the sun is brutal. We rig bottom rigs with several pounds of lead, multiple hooks, and drop them down with great anticipation through the crystal clear water. Not even a nibble down there at three hundred feet, and taking a bait-check is a major ordeal. Crank, and crank and crank, a good test for back and arm muscles, and my recently surgically repaired elbow. Several more passes, without success. Don decides it's time to move.
So, we try another spot, with the same non-results. Then another. Finally, about 1600 we decide to move to a spot closer in, and ran full throttle for almost an hour before finding it.
In the fighting chair, gazing back at the churning blue water, I listen to the hypnotic throb of the engines, occasionally staring off at the clouds on the horizon and the vista of nothingness before me. I am inward and introspective. Out here, for me it’s the opportunity to let my brain free spool, abstractly associating any event it wants to pick up on, from early fishing experiences as a child with my own dad, to my life as it stands today. Most importantly, it is my own time to connect with my creator in an environment uncluttered by the things of the land and people. I am in the presence of God, and I am small and unimportant in the great plan, yet as if in oxymoron, I am important enough to have this connection, and a place in the hierarchy of all things created by this inestimable power, important enough to be allowed a glimpse of understanding in this mystery, and the chance to be an eternal part of it. I am always in awe out here. Always reverent and listening, always at peace. Quiet and stilled for a seeming instant.
The engines slow, and we drift over Murphys Hole. Immediately, we all get vicious strikes in the one hundred foot depths. I haul up two big red snapper at a time, twisting and visible far below, white bellies flashing against the inky nothingness. Everyone else is catching fish, mostly keeper size, a few throwbacks. A huge shark lunges at a throwback struggling to head for the bottom, swallowing it in one eager gulp. The next drift over the hole, same results - more fish. The deck is slick with fish slime and blood. A school of cobia gather under the boat taunting us, as the air begins to lose an imperceptible amount of heat, barely a degree or two, but enough to give a sense that the day is waning away, the sun now at shoulder height in the west. Two more passes, and we have our collective limits of red snapper, just as a school of bottlenose and spotted dolphin invade, jumping and playing, chasing fish and managing to finally turn off the bite, as the sun starts to make its grand exit. Tiredly, we haul in the lines.
The run back in is long and rough as a groundswell begins to arrive from a recent tropical storm which lays dying on a distant shoreline far down in Mexico. The boat pounds and shakes, throwing plumes of frothing white water along the sides, and some up onto the back deck, washing the red slurry out of scuppers and back into the sea. About ten miles from town, from the island, the night descends in a sudden coma of pitch black blank, we cautiously reduce speed and creep in using the spotlight, radar, lighted buoys and markers to guide us back to the fingers and Dons boat stall across from where Menagerie sits.
Back inside the boathouse, I tiredly clean fish, thinking about this day and how it really doesn’t matter anymore if I catch anything or not. I thank Don as we leave, and he seems a bit nervous, as if relieved that he was able to finally put us on fish. He's a good Captain, and a true kind hearted human, always concerned with the other person. I assure him that it would’ve been OK either way. It’s fishing, not catching that makes the experience. I caught what I needed to, a moment of fleeting, elusive connection between eternity and existence.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The East Cut
Last winter, I did a seagrass survey in front of the remnants of the old Redfish Inn up at Port Mansfield. On the way through the town I looked for old familiar landmarks, like the Windjammer restaurant, which had been moved and is now in a sterile steel building on a back road in a field, instead of it’s traditional location guarding the entrance to the harbor where you could have giant margaritas while watching the boats returning with drunken fishermen at the end of the hot summer days. I looked for the East Cut Bar where I used to drink with my friends R and the Faceman, but it too was gone, replaced with a family Barbeque joint. I thought about my friends and fondly remembered many nights in that bar in a town I consider to be the least friendly in all of Texas.
I get email forwards now from my old friend R. We used to hang out quite a bit together about fifteen years ago. But then he got married and settled down, became a God-fearing man, his new wife wouldn’t allow him to play with me anymore. Today, I’m thankful for those emails, because at least it keeps a thin thread of connection to someone I consider one of my dearest friends in life.
Back when I was learning to fish the Laguna Madre, we used to stay in a fishing shack in Port Mansfield on weekends, a place we called the clubhouse. The clubhouse was an abandoned run down 1960’s vintage flat roofed shack with minimal comforts, a window air conditioner that barely worked, but gave the impression of doing so by periodically belching clouds of wet air like a horizontal old faithful or something, a few pieces of rickety furniture in the process of shedding upholstery, a toilet that would only accept liquid waste, and a kitchen best left to the cockroaches and scorpions that lived in the dark, dank recesses of the place. It was a place to kick back after a long day of fishing from the Land Cut, down to the Saucer, maybe blacken some redfish filets out in the yard on the grill. The clubhouse was about two streets from the bay, and wasn’t much used for anything other than passing out in after drinking the evenings away at the East Cut Bar.
Sometimes we’d fish with our mutual friend, the Faceman, these sessions would generally turn into a combination of matches and gasoline. Faceman was pure crazy in an explosive and chaotic manner. Once we were drinking in a bar in downtown McAllen when he suddenly turns to two ladies at the table next to ours. These women were minding their own business and were obviously enjoying a quiet evening of good conversation. So Faceman casually remarks to one; “Hey baby…I got five minutes if you’ve got five minutes….Why don’t we go out to R’s van and fuck like a couple of rabbits?”. The women promptly left, rather indignant. The Faceman turned to us and said with a leer; “Well, it never hurts to try…”
Those guys could fish. Our trips into the bay were always filled with drinking and carousing but were also always serious, focused events. We were all transformed into predators in the water, relentlessly stalking our prey. Few redfish, trout or flounder were safe from our lures and lines.
At night we’d drink at the East Cut Bar, one of the few true scoadholes left on the coast. A dingy, dark fishermen’s bar, about the most exotic drink that you could order was a cuba libre, which we drank by the gallon. A pool table and a jukebox completed the scenery along with the ever present neon beer signs and cigarette machine. There was one purpose of the East Cut: To get drunk. And most nights that’s just what we did. Sometimes we’d score the phone numbers of women who happened to be there, serious women with the scars and baggage to prove it, promising to call them later. The scraps of paper adorned the walls of the clubhouse like wallpaper. Other nights we’d stagger out, and drunkenly drive around the little town, tearing up flowerbeds and front lawns in Facemans truck.
One night, we were in the East Cut late. The scene turned surreal. I think it was during the infamous “no name fishing tournament” where just about anything goes. The place was jammed with a sea of writhing bodies, and a cacophy of voices obscured the sound of country music wailing from the distant jukebox, ensconced in a dim corner. Yuppies mingled with rednecks and some of the strangest women I’ve ever seen were there. Women with great piles of buffant hair and wild crazy eyes. There was an old woman we just called “the wrinkleneck” at the bar. Rumor has it that she had been the snatch on the side of R’s father in law, back in the old days, the heyday of the clubhouse, long before we started our tenure there. History does in fact tend to repeat itself.
I was in the back of the place staring through the yellow smoky lighting, watching the Faceman cavort on the floor with a young Mexican woman who he was trying to convince of the fact that he was a professional dancer. I think this night he might have been, as he slid his flipflops around the floor in a perfect samba with her. On each pass, he’d look out over the crowd with that maniacal leer, knowing that he had this one in the bag. Over at the bar, R had his head down, cradled in his arms, in an apparent attack of narcolepsy, rum still clenched in his right hand. The wrinkleneck was sitting next to him, and it appeared as though she had her withered old claw of a hand down his pants. I knew he was in trouble, so I sauntered over toward the bar intending to steer him out of there, along with the jitterbugging Faceman. When I got to the bar, the barmaid caught my attention and sternly nodded toward R. “Your friend can’t sleep in here” she insisted. I knew she meant business, as she glanced toward one-eyed Jack, the crooked Sheriff. One-eyed Jack was the only law in town and he had a mean reputation. He had a dollar sign tattooed on the palm of his right hand, and worked during the season for the El Sauz unit of the King Ranch too. He was later stripped of his constabulary when he drunkenly entered the house of a friend and discharged a shotgun, blasting through the ceiling into the second floor and shattering a porcelain commode causing great volumes of water to destroy the entire upstairs of the house. I shook R awake and he regained consciousness for a moment, a thin line of drool escaping from the corner of his mouth. The wrinkleneck looked surprised as she detached her hand from his pants. One eyed Jack, was watching the scene with blithe interest, ready to get his bribe if any trouble ensued. I hissed in R’s ear…”We need to leave….now”….
By now the Faceman had caught wind of the situation and we escaped like the three stooges, and as the door closed behind us, outside the thick hot August air revealed the glassy water of the harbor reflecting a million stars in the black Texas sky. I’m not sure how we made it back to the clubhouse that night, or what sort of catastrophe we left in our wake, but early the next morning over raw oyster sandwiches somewhere along the real East Cut, in a spoil bank pass loaded with cow tongue sized sweet oysters, and tailing redfish we laughed about that evening in the East Cut Bar.
I get email forwards now from my old friend R. We used to hang out quite a bit together about fifteen years ago. But then he got married and settled down, became a God-fearing man, his new wife wouldn’t allow him to play with me anymore. Today, I’m thankful for those emails, because at least it keeps a thin thread of connection to someone I consider one of my dearest friends in life.
Back when I was learning to fish the Laguna Madre, we used to stay in a fishing shack in Port Mansfield on weekends, a place we called the clubhouse. The clubhouse was an abandoned run down 1960’s vintage flat roofed shack with minimal comforts, a window air conditioner that barely worked, but gave the impression of doing so by periodically belching clouds of wet air like a horizontal old faithful or something, a few pieces of rickety furniture in the process of shedding upholstery, a toilet that would only accept liquid waste, and a kitchen best left to the cockroaches and scorpions that lived in the dark, dank recesses of the place. It was a place to kick back after a long day of fishing from the Land Cut, down to the Saucer, maybe blacken some redfish filets out in the yard on the grill. The clubhouse was about two streets from the bay, and wasn’t much used for anything other than passing out in after drinking the evenings away at the East Cut Bar.
Sometimes we’d fish with our mutual friend, the Faceman, these sessions would generally turn into a combination of matches and gasoline. Faceman was pure crazy in an explosive and chaotic manner. Once we were drinking in a bar in downtown McAllen when he suddenly turns to two ladies at the table next to ours. These women were minding their own business and were obviously enjoying a quiet evening of good conversation. So Faceman casually remarks to one; “Hey baby…I got five minutes if you’ve got five minutes….Why don’t we go out to R’s van and fuck like a couple of rabbits?”. The women promptly left, rather indignant. The Faceman turned to us and said with a leer; “Well, it never hurts to try…”
Those guys could fish. Our trips into the bay were always filled with drinking and carousing but were also always serious, focused events. We were all transformed into predators in the water, relentlessly stalking our prey. Few redfish, trout or flounder were safe from our lures and lines.
At night we’d drink at the East Cut Bar, one of the few true scoadholes left on the coast. A dingy, dark fishermen’s bar, about the most exotic drink that you could order was a cuba libre, which we drank by the gallon. A pool table and a jukebox completed the scenery along with the ever present neon beer signs and cigarette machine. There was one purpose of the East Cut: To get drunk. And most nights that’s just what we did. Sometimes we’d score the phone numbers of women who happened to be there, serious women with the scars and baggage to prove it, promising to call them later. The scraps of paper adorned the walls of the clubhouse like wallpaper. Other nights we’d stagger out, and drunkenly drive around the little town, tearing up flowerbeds and front lawns in Facemans truck.
One night, we were in the East Cut late. The scene turned surreal. I think it was during the infamous “no name fishing tournament” where just about anything goes. The place was jammed with a sea of writhing bodies, and a cacophy of voices obscured the sound of country music wailing from the distant jukebox, ensconced in a dim corner. Yuppies mingled with rednecks and some of the strangest women I’ve ever seen were there. Women with great piles of buffant hair and wild crazy eyes. There was an old woman we just called “the wrinkleneck” at the bar. Rumor has it that she had been the snatch on the side of R’s father in law, back in the old days, the heyday of the clubhouse, long before we started our tenure there. History does in fact tend to repeat itself.
I was in the back of the place staring through the yellow smoky lighting, watching the Faceman cavort on the floor with a young Mexican woman who he was trying to convince of the fact that he was a professional dancer. I think this night he might have been, as he slid his flipflops around the floor in a perfect samba with her. On each pass, he’d look out over the crowd with that maniacal leer, knowing that he had this one in the bag. Over at the bar, R had his head down, cradled in his arms, in an apparent attack of narcolepsy, rum still clenched in his right hand. The wrinkleneck was sitting next to him, and it appeared as though she had her withered old claw of a hand down his pants. I knew he was in trouble, so I sauntered over toward the bar intending to steer him out of there, along with the jitterbugging Faceman. When I got to the bar, the barmaid caught my attention and sternly nodded toward R. “Your friend can’t sleep in here” she insisted. I knew she meant business, as she glanced toward one-eyed Jack, the crooked Sheriff. One-eyed Jack was the only law in town and he had a mean reputation. He had a dollar sign tattooed on the palm of his right hand, and worked during the season for the El Sauz unit of the King Ranch too. He was later stripped of his constabulary when he drunkenly entered the house of a friend and discharged a shotgun, blasting through the ceiling into the second floor and shattering a porcelain commode causing great volumes of water to destroy the entire upstairs of the house. I shook R awake and he regained consciousness for a moment, a thin line of drool escaping from the corner of his mouth. The wrinkleneck looked surprised as she detached her hand from his pants. One eyed Jack, was watching the scene with blithe interest, ready to get his bribe if any trouble ensued. I hissed in R’s ear…”We need to leave….now”….
By now the Faceman had caught wind of the situation and we escaped like the three stooges, and as the door closed behind us, outside the thick hot August air revealed the glassy water of the harbor reflecting a million stars in the black Texas sky. I’m not sure how we made it back to the clubhouse that night, or what sort of catastrophe we left in our wake, but early the next morning over raw oyster sandwiches somewhere along the real East Cut, in a spoil bank pass loaded with cow tongue sized sweet oysters, and tailing redfish we laughed about that evening in the East Cut Bar.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Port Isabels Hatfields and McCoys
The City Attorney for Port Isabel owns the Queen Isabel Inn on the Bay. He’s a client of ours, and although I have a strict policy of hating attorneys, I tolerate this guy because he’s a surfer and musician. I figure he just took a wrong turn somewhere.
We recently took a trip up to Corpus Christi to a JEM meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies to discuss his plans for adding some additional docks on the bay behind the Inn. On the way up there, we talked of everything from the impending collapse of society (it’s amazing how almost everybody has this view, but still we go along, drawn in by the media into thinking everything’s swell…but that’s another story), to surfing and how Port Isabel and the Island used to be. The trip up to Corpus goes in a straight line through miles of endless King Ranch, unpunctuated by civilization, a true western vista, and it was a good place for conversation.
When I was a kid, the causeway crossed the bay further south, a small two lane bridge just over the water. Once on the island, there were few buildings and businesses. The Sea Grape motel and the Palmetto restaurant, some fishing shacks along a poorly maintained road heading an indeterminate distance north (depending on how covered by the shifting sands it was), were some of the only features of note. Where I am sitting now and typing this, there were a few cabanas facing the restless Gulf, ramshackle pastel buildings where you could get out of the incessant wind and sun.
Driving back across the bay from the island, on the right hand side was the old Queen Isabel Inn. The hotel was originally built by Robert Kleberg, another attorney from an earlier time, one who gained fame through his association with Henrietta King, widow of Richard King, all principal players in the infamous King Ranch. He built it as a getaway, at the end of the railroad line during the early twentieth century. The hotel was later managed by Doc Hockaday, the towns only doctor, pharmacist and taxidermist. A true renaissance man, Doc Hockaday founded the Tarpon Rodeo, which later became the Texas International Fishing Tournament (TIFT) one of the oldest and most prestigious saltwater fishing tournaments in the state. The hotel still has many of the good doctors mounted fish and waterfowl adorning the walls, and has been lovingly been restored by my client JH, who lives there. The grounds are immaculate, with a pool overlooking the Laguna Madre, and tropical plants and trees, perfectly manicured. Still, with all of the glitter and come on of the Island, and other more modern facilities in Port Isabel, JH says occupancy could be better. He usually only gets fans of nostalgia like myself.
So JH is trying to add a few more amenities to the old Isabel in order to attract more clientele. One of the things he wants to do is add more boat slips. He just improved his boat launch ramp, and added a fish cleaning table adjacent to it, an awesome thing to behold, first class, all brick and cement, covered and lighted with running water- a mini taj mahal. Painted white, it is an integral part of the brick barrier fence he has that insulates himself from the new establishment next door, the Pelican Station.
The Pelican Station is owned by an old nemesis of JH, Mr. Z, who made his fortune in the shrimping business, back during the time that sort of business was profitable, parleying the “brown gold” into various land holdings and subsequently power holdings within the City. Mr. Z sits on the zoning board, so when it came time to zone and tax the shrimp fleet, exemptions were granted and special dispensations were issued.
Construction started on the Pelican Station about a year ago, and the snazzy modern building went up in a hurry. During the construction a series of decorative creosote pilings went into the bay out in front of the building, along with assorted rip rap rubble in the form of large chunks of concrete. Mr. Z thinks these will attract Pelicans, thus providing authentication for his establishment.
JH moans the fact that the kitchen smells from the Pelican Station, as well as the luffing sound coming from the obscenely giant American flag that Mr. Z proudly placed adjacent to the Queen Isabel will prove annoying to his hotels clients, and states; “Can you imagine?”, “Late at night when these fuckers are drunk and stumbling out of the bar over there, they’re gonna wander over here wondering about this place, maybe urinate in my bushes while they comment about what in the hell this old building is…I can’t have that kinda shit”….
Meanwhile Mr. Z isn’t all that thrilled about the white brick fence with the fish cleaning table that separates the two buildings. The demilitarized zone. He’s especially concerned about the area of fence closest to the bay, where he’s sure seaweed will pile up during storms, creating a malodorous condition which will drive off his clientele. He was so concerned about it that he contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, with an angry letter requesting that they do something about the condition, immediately. When the Corps came down to check out JH’s proposal for new boat-slips, they obliged to look at it, even though it wasn’t in their jurisdiction. When Mr. Wong looked at it, a lightbulb went on over his head, like in the cartoons, and his normally placid expression turned into one of anger as he spied the pilings and rip rap in the Bay in front of the Pelican Station, all placed in the water without permit or sanction. A letter later came threatening a fine of up to 10,000 dollars per day if Mr. Z and Whimpy, his contractor didn’t make things right.
This really pissed off Mr. Z, who was sure that JH had turned him in. Now he’s going to really fix the old Queen Isabel, that goddamn fish cleaning table has got to go, because as everyone knows, a fish cleaning facility that might be viewed by his customers eating their seafood meals overlooking the Laguna Madre is bad for business. He checks the survey, and calculates that the fish cleaning table is maybe eighteen inches or so into the City property easement, and so at the next zoning and planning meeting, triumphantly declares that the damn thing has gotta go! By now the whole City knows that the feud is on, and the newspaper even picks up the story, page one. Somewhere JH finds a loophole. A legal loophole (after all he is the city attorney), and when I spoke with him yesterday he says the table ain’t going nowhere.
Somehow though, I don’t think this is the last that we're going to hear of this, and my guess is that some sort of midnight modification might occur in the immediate future. I’ll be standing by. I’ve been staying away from there recently though, at least until the smoke clears.
We recently took a trip up to Corpus Christi to a JEM meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies to discuss his plans for adding some additional docks on the bay behind the Inn. On the way up there, we talked of everything from the impending collapse of society (it’s amazing how almost everybody has this view, but still we go along, drawn in by the media into thinking everything’s swell…but that’s another story), to surfing and how Port Isabel and the Island used to be. The trip up to Corpus goes in a straight line through miles of endless King Ranch, unpunctuated by civilization, a true western vista, and it was a good place for conversation.
When I was a kid, the causeway crossed the bay further south, a small two lane bridge just over the water. Once on the island, there were few buildings and businesses. The Sea Grape motel and the Palmetto restaurant, some fishing shacks along a poorly maintained road heading an indeterminate distance north (depending on how covered by the shifting sands it was), were some of the only features of note. Where I am sitting now and typing this, there were a few cabanas facing the restless Gulf, ramshackle pastel buildings where you could get out of the incessant wind and sun.
Driving back across the bay from the island, on the right hand side was the old Queen Isabel Inn. The hotel was originally built by Robert Kleberg, another attorney from an earlier time, one who gained fame through his association with Henrietta King, widow of Richard King, all principal players in the infamous King Ranch. He built it as a getaway, at the end of the railroad line during the early twentieth century. The hotel was later managed by Doc Hockaday, the towns only doctor, pharmacist and taxidermist. A true renaissance man, Doc Hockaday founded the Tarpon Rodeo, which later became the Texas International Fishing Tournament (TIFT) one of the oldest and most prestigious saltwater fishing tournaments in the state. The hotel still has many of the good doctors mounted fish and waterfowl adorning the walls, and has been lovingly been restored by my client JH, who lives there. The grounds are immaculate, with a pool overlooking the Laguna Madre, and tropical plants and trees, perfectly manicured. Still, with all of the glitter and come on of the Island, and other more modern facilities in Port Isabel, JH says occupancy could be better. He usually only gets fans of nostalgia like myself.
So JH is trying to add a few more amenities to the old Isabel in order to attract more clientele. One of the things he wants to do is add more boat slips. He just improved his boat launch ramp, and added a fish cleaning table adjacent to it, an awesome thing to behold, first class, all brick and cement, covered and lighted with running water- a mini taj mahal. Painted white, it is an integral part of the brick barrier fence he has that insulates himself from the new establishment next door, the Pelican Station.
The Pelican Station is owned by an old nemesis of JH, Mr. Z, who made his fortune in the shrimping business, back during the time that sort of business was profitable, parleying the “brown gold” into various land holdings and subsequently power holdings within the City. Mr. Z sits on the zoning board, so when it came time to zone and tax the shrimp fleet, exemptions were granted and special dispensations were issued.
Construction started on the Pelican Station about a year ago, and the snazzy modern building went up in a hurry. During the construction a series of decorative creosote pilings went into the bay out in front of the building, along with assorted rip rap rubble in the form of large chunks of concrete. Mr. Z thinks these will attract Pelicans, thus providing authentication for his establishment.
JH moans the fact that the kitchen smells from the Pelican Station, as well as the luffing sound coming from the obscenely giant American flag that Mr. Z proudly placed adjacent to the Queen Isabel will prove annoying to his hotels clients, and states; “Can you imagine?”, “Late at night when these fuckers are drunk and stumbling out of the bar over there, they’re gonna wander over here wondering about this place, maybe urinate in my bushes while they comment about what in the hell this old building is…I can’t have that kinda shit”….
Meanwhile Mr. Z isn’t all that thrilled about the white brick fence with the fish cleaning table that separates the two buildings. The demilitarized zone. He’s especially concerned about the area of fence closest to the bay, where he’s sure seaweed will pile up during storms, creating a malodorous condition which will drive off his clientele. He was so concerned about it that he contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, with an angry letter requesting that they do something about the condition, immediately. When the Corps came down to check out JH’s proposal for new boat-slips, they obliged to look at it, even though it wasn’t in their jurisdiction. When Mr. Wong looked at it, a lightbulb went on over his head, like in the cartoons, and his normally placid expression turned into one of anger as he spied the pilings and rip rap in the Bay in front of the Pelican Station, all placed in the water without permit or sanction. A letter later came threatening a fine of up to 10,000 dollars per day if Mr. Z and Whimpy, his contractor didn’t make things right.
This really pissed off Mr. Z, who was sure that JH had turned him in. Now he’s going to really fix the old Queen Isabel, that goddamn fish cleaning table has got to go, because as everyone knows, a fish cleaning facility that might be viewed by his customers eating their seafood meals overlooking the Laguna Madre is bad for business. He checks the survey, and calculates that the fish cleaning table is maybe eighteen inches or so into the City property easement, and so at the next zoning and planning meeting, triumphantly declares that the damn thing has gotta go! By now the whole City knows that the feud is on, and the newspaper even picks up the story, page one. Somewhere JH finds a loophole. A legal loophole (after all he is the city attorney), and when I spoke with him yesterday he says the table ain’t going nowhere.
Somehow though, I don’t think this is the last that we're going to hear of this, and my guess is that some sort of midnight modification might occur in the immediate future. I’ll be standing by. I’ve been staying away from there recently though, at least until the smoke clears.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
That's a Lot of Pills
The last John Wayne is dying.
Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, metastasized to various and sundry other organs and tissues. Primary liver cancer. Inoperative and widespread, a painful and indignant way for a cowboy to die, it reaffirms my own sense of outrage toward this disease. The body is now fighting itself, with him as the loser.
We all lose, with him dies a little bit of us all.
He’s emaciated and small, wasting away, and I am angry and helpless in life again. His son immediately took him to one of the finest cancer diagnostic and treatment centers around, where he’s been in and out of for the last two weeks. Soon it will be time to bring him home and let him go to the ranch one more time.
For now though, instead of jeans, boots and hat, he wears blue warm ups hanging limply from the hulk of a man who I long to hear roar with drunken laughter again, ever ready to lend a smile or a helping hand. Now his boots are replaced by moccasins, his head is uncovered, valunerable, and he's subordinate to the minions of doctors and administrators who attend him like so many techno-mechanics trying to repair an old totaled out pick up truck.
There's still some dirt road cowboy left in this man though.
Yesterday I waited with him at the reception desk where he was handed a pager, like the one we get whenever we eat over at the Pirates Landing, one that lights up with a UFO like circle of LED lights when they’re ready to see you. He hadn’t gotten the news yet, but I think for sure he suspected.
While we stood there waiting for the receptionist to input his information he spied a huge clear plastic bag sitting on a chair, stuffed with maybe thirty five or forty different amber plastic pill bottles, belonging to a cancer treatment patient. His eyes grew big as saucers, he swallowed and croaked in a sort of half whisper;
“Gawdamn that’s a lot of pills”. And then he chuckled.
He’s quiet now, digesting the knowledge that he’s looking at the last chapter of his life. He doesn’t speak much, the fire is gone as he tries to understand what’s happening, and how to handle it with dignity and style.
In the consultation room, the doctor reads his chart and states somewhat triumphantly that the cowboy "liked to drink beer". I detect just a hint of rancor in his voice, because cirrhosis is a big factor in liver cancer. As if making fun of the doctors attitude, he smirks and answers “I like to drink A LOT of beer”, to which the doctor queries; “It says here that some nights you drink as many as twelve beers?", again he replies in a voice strong and confident, eyes crinkling with laughter around the edges; “I like to drink as many beers as I can!”
Just for that brief moment, his spirit returned and I could again see the man in his dirty jeans, dusty boots and sweat stained cowboy hat, arms crossed, bellowing that infectious laugh, spitting in the face of his own death.
Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, metastasized to various and sundry other organs and tissues. Primary liver cancer. Inoperative and widespread, a painful and indignant way for a cowboy to die, it reaffirms my own sense of outrage toward this disease. The body is now fighting itself, with him as the loser.
We all lose, with him dies a little bit of us all.
He’s emaciated and small, wasting away, and I am angry and helpless in life again. His son immediately took him to one of the finest cancer diagnostic and treatment centers around, where he’s been in and out of for the last two weeks. Soon it will be time to bring him home and let him go to the ranch one more time.
For now though, instead of jeans, boots and hat, he wears blue warm ups hanging limply from the hulk of a man who I long to hear roar with drunken laughter again, ever ready to lend a smile or a helping hand. Now his boots are replaced by moccasins, his head is uncovered, valunerable, and he's subordinate to the minions of doctors and administrators who attend him like so many techno-mechanics trying to repair an old totaled out pick up truck.
There's still some dirt road cowboy left in this man though.
Yesterday I waited with him at the reception desk where he was handed a pager, like the one we get whenever we eat over at the Pirates Landing, one that lights up with a UFO like circle of LED lights when they’re ready to see you. He hadn’t gotten the news yet, but I think for sure he suspected.
While we stood there waiting for the receptionist to input his information he spied a huge clear plastic bag sitting on a chair, stuffed with maybe thirty five or forty different amber plastic pill bottles, belonging to a cancer treatment patient. His eyes grew big as saucers, he swallowed and croaked in a sort of half whisper;
“Gawdamn that’s a lot of pills”. And then he chuckled.
He’s quiet now, digesting the knowledge that he’s looking at the last chapter of his life. He doesn’t speak much, the fire is gone as he tries to understand what’s happening, and how to handle it with dignity and style.
In the consultation room, the doctor reads his chart and states somewhat triumphantly that the cowboy "liked to drink beer". I detect just a hint of rancor in his voice, because cirrhosis is a big factor in liver cancer. As if making fun of the doctors attitude, he smirks and answers “I like to drink A LOT of beer”, to which the doctor queries; “It says here that some nights you drink as many as twelve beers?", again he replies in a voice strong and confident, eyes crinkling with laughter around the edges; “I like to drink as many beers as I can!”
Just for that brief moment, his spirit returned and I could again see the man in his dirty jeans, dusty boots and sweat stained cowboy hat, arms crossed, bellowing that infectious laugh, spitting in the face of his own death.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Wesley Van der Sloot
Post Hurricane Emily, and the heat has descended on us like a sick smelly old blanket, causing all life to slow down to a sticky, oozing molasses pace. The seawater is boiling, and the last vestiges of swell and wave are depressingly gone, replaced by a vast expanse of flatness across the Gulf. Water quality is off the scale bad, as tons of raw sewage has found its way down the Rio San Juan to the Rio Grande from distant Mexican towns like Monterrey following torrential rains and floods, courtesy of the remnants of Emily. The sewage plume has discharged from the Rio Grande into the Gulf of Mexico at Boca Chica, now transported by wind and current along our beaches where thousands flock to escape the oppressive heat, playing unsuspectingly in the water, always aware that sharks populate the ocean out here, but never realizing that tiny organisms like Enterococcus pose a far greater risk, lying in wait with huge bacterial teeth….waiting….waiting…..
My son has spied a feces or two merrily bobbing along in the swash zone, waiting to be deposited like nuclear sea beans on the shoreline, waiting for some unsuspecting jogger or beachstroller to run through it. He hasn’t got much time to look for that sort of thing right now because he’s working for the Murphies as a deckhand aboard the Hardbottom. He’s baiting hooks and removing fish for pinche fresas from Monterrey who don’t tip worth a shit.
The other day as we were watching “The Endless Summer” he told me about Wesley and Sara breaking up.
Wesley is just about one of the hottest young surfers on the coast, carving the waves to pieces, catching giant air, and pushing it to the extreme. Sara, his girlfriend is my sons girlfriends cousin. Wesley and Sara have been together for maybe six months or so, but in young adult time, that’s forever.
Wesley broke it off last week. Hooked up with somebody new. Sara was devastated, stopped eating and spent a night or two in the hospital according to my son, who’s pretty sick of the story himself right now. Said it’s wasting his time.
Of course the gossip lines are buzzing. Sara moved back to San Benito, where she continued to be devastated, as rumors flew from both camps. She and Wesley had held a joint bank account, which Sara, although devastated, had the presence of mind to totally loot after the breakup. This in turn devastated Wesley, who had been saving his money as a deckhand aboard an offshore sport fishing boat so that he could make the summers ritual trip to Mexico to get a fix of waves in places with names like Pasquales, Tikla and Punta Mita during this time, which is the flattest time of our season. So threats were made, names were called, and the trauma continued.
Last night my son told me that Wesley and Sara had hooked back up, and that it was on again. Oh, and by the way they’re going to go to Mexico to celebrate.
My son has spied a feces or two merrily bobbing along in the swash zone, waiting to be deposited like nuclear sea beans on the shoreline, waiting for some unsuspecting jogger or beachstroller to run through it. He hasn’t got much time to look for that sort of thing right now because he’s working for the Murphies as a deckhand aboard the Hardbottom. He’s baiting hooks and removing fish for pinche fresas from Monterrey who don’t tip worth a shit.
The other day as we were watching “The Endless Summer” he told me about Wesley and Sara breaking up.
Wesley is just about one of the hottest young surfers on the coast, carving the waves to pieces, catching giant air, and pushing it to the extreme. Sara, his girlfriend is my sons girlfriends cousin. Wesley and Sara have been together for maybe six months or so, but in young adult time, that’s forever.
Wesley broke it off last week. Hooked up with somebody new. Sara was devastated, stopped eating and spent a night or two in the hospital according to my son, who’s pretty sick of the story himself right now. Said it’s wasting his time.
Of course the gossip lines are buzzing. Sara moved back to San Benito, where she continued to be devastated, as rumors flew from both camps. She and Wesley had held a joint bank account, which Sara, although devastated, had the presence of mind to totally loot after the breakup. This in turn devastated Wesley, who had been saving his money as a deckhand aboard an offshore sport fishing boat so that he could make the summers ritual trip to Mexico to get a fix of waves in places with names like Pasquales, Tikla and Punta Mita during this time, which is the flattest time of our season. So threats were made, names were called, and the trauma continued.
Last night my son told me that Wesley and Sara had hooked back up, and that it was on again. Oh, and by the way they’re going to go to Mexico to celebrate.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Profiles in Cowardice
" Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law?
Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty? "
~ Senator Ted Kennedy, 1973
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
