California is on fire again. Its been an ugly week and beyond the haze mixture of smoke and smog, I hear (and read) its getting uglier. Cathleen found some rare ears of corn for us to eat last night. I drove out this morning into rush-hour traffic and cut work early to avoid it on the way home. We try to continue doing it our way here in California, and beyond the enormous guilt and unease, I gotta say I'm enjoying this life.

America is the vampire of myth that can't be stopped with the regular slug of firepower. This devouring machine needs something special to slow it. I don't know which element it'll be that brings it to its knees. I must say that whole Mayan 2012 thing is shaping up nicely.

Road Rage: Quiet style

If you want to see what humans are capable of on the level of shameless and selfish, I recommend you go check out rush hour in the Bay Area. Every day thousands of motorists use light Exit Only offramps until the last minute, before cutting in on thick bumper-to-bumper traffic where cars have been crawling, pushing it back further every minute with cheaters. Sometimes right before they almost plow into your bumper or reduce your one car-length to nothing, they use their blinker. I really appreciate that.

Across the bay in the Walnut Creek area one can witness a stream of jerkoffs exiting to quickly reenter Highway 24, gaining at least twenty carlengths in the process. What ever happened to good old ass-kickings? Who wants to join me? Lets wait for these people. Meet me at the first Orinda exit outside the Caldecott Tunnel. Bring your own weapon. No more anonymity you bastards! I want guilt, I want shame! Blatantly cheating your fellow man and wo-man.

Day One

In the inner recesses of Hayward, California. A flat-out ugly city teeming with traffic and life. I found the office again in the maze of industrial buildings, alleyways and cul-de-sacs. Wandered in to meet a few co-workers and find a seat at my desk. I worked through the morning signing autographs for permits and tax forms and allegiances to the state mandate.

In a back room a grid of caged snakes reach up toward the ceiling. Mostly garter snakes: San Francisco, giant, aquatic, and the especially striking red-sided. All hanging out in their confines waiting for the next meal. In one bucket I have a bunch of goldfish and in a small pitcher I have some tiny minnows. Watching snakes eat fish has to be one of the coolest things ever. I'm use to the squeak and thrash of rats and chicks going down the gullet of our old pet Burmese Python. That's great and all, but can turn a stomach caught unawares. This on the other hand is awesome through and through. I'm holding Mario the office gopher snake and watching this slaughter go down in the serpent highrise. The coast garter snake just ate five large goldfish and has an equal amount of bulges along his frame, Damn!

I'm putting together my field bag equipped with PIT tagging syringes and microchips for implanting the poor slytherines. Scales and probes, loupe and gps. I feel prepared for anything like MacGyver or Jack Bauer. Heading out in the morning for my first field day in the Oakland Hills.

South to the city.

The last week on Angel Island boiling in my Tyvex suit beneath an angry sun. An island of abandoned buildings and fields of thistle, an old immigration station now a historical site, and the empty bases where cannons were placed facing the Golden Gate. Angel Island is wasted. So much for stewardship. Across the water in Belvedere a moderate 3/2 is listed for 37 million. Tiburon prefers to be with like-minded individuals.

I quit again. Tomorrow a new one begins. I have the coffee table littered in plant and herpetology books and filling my brain such as a night before exams. Cramming, what a bittersweet memory.

Tiger and Rocco are facing off in the U.S. Open playoff and soon Euro 2008 will volunteer its distraction. There are always good excuses for letting the mind wander.

Thanks, Mr. Hipster Record Store Clerk.

Date: 2008-02-26, 5:25PM PST
A quality excerpt from a Bay Area Craigslister:

Dear Hipster Record Store Clerk,

Thank you for judging me on the CD I bought yesterday. Our passive-aggressive altercation made me realize how conformist I am for buying an old Rage Against The Machine album. Your condescension was just the intellectual wake-up call I needed.

I discovered a new me yesterday, and my eyes were opened in a new way. Thanks to you, I realize now that the key to enlightenment is reading Pitchfork, watching High Fidelity, listening to Velvet Underground, having a tattoo of a star on the inside of my wrist, growing an ironic mustache, living in the Mission, and wearing a too-small sweater, multi-colored 70’s ski-vest, chunky plastic-frame glasses, a high school sports T-shirt, air-tight black jeans, and Nixon-era Chuck Taylors.

I had it all wrong, man. You showed me that a skilled job and a comfortable living is just a lie. I need to go to art school, have my parents pay my rent, join a Joy Division-influenced band, and wait for a record deal, like you. I’m totally missing out in life.

So thanks again for mocking me. I mean, at first I thought you were just a pathetic, frustrated musician trying to feel better about yourself. But now I see you’re an uncompromising visionary.

No one will ever understand you. You’re so different.

Signed,

Everyone Not Like You