Montana

I've been daydreaming more than usual lately about moving away from San Diego to Montana. This didn't help much:

I have lived and been all over the world and if I were to pick a spot in the USA it would be in Montana. There is so much beauty there that is still untouched and unknown to so many people. The weather is not as bad there in the winter time as you would think but most Montanans would not tell you that. The fires there in the summer of 2000 have touched some of that beauty but it is amazing that where they have scorched the earth it is still magnificent. -Dale Majors from World Is Round

This makes me want to go to Montana even more. The Montana photos on Flickr don't help much with me wanting to stay in San Diego. I don't know which is worse, my newfound love of the idea of moving to Montana or my fast-growing hatred of everything in San Diego. Perhaps it's a coping mechanism for me leaving California, but I highly doubt I'll be missing it too much. Sure there will be a few people I will miss. But about the only thing that will be hard to get over is the good weather and the taco shops on every corner. That's it. I won't miss the traffic. I won't miss the overcrowding. I won't miss the snobby people. I especially won't miss the overabundance of illegal immigrants getting in my way, all the way from the highway, to the supermarkets, to housing which they probably get discounted because of government subsidizing. I won't miss the poor air quality or the crappy neighborhood I live in. And more than anything, I will not miss the extremely high housing rates. To make it short, I won't miss much about San Diego, much less California. I will not be the last one to go. With San Diego having one of the highest housing rates in the country, it is bound to cause somewhat of an outpouring of people hoping to find the American dream somewhere else. America's finest city they call it. My ass.

On the job side, I'll be missing my pay and the time off. I won't miss many of the people and I definitely won't be missing any of the higher ups.

I've got a lot to look forward to. Clean air, nice people, reasonable housing rates, and a lot of open space for which to let it all hang out. These are all basic things that California lacks, and people still buy into it year after year. This isn't just something I noticed. I've known it for a while, but I tried to make the best of a bad situation, thus I didn't think about how shitty San Diego is until now. I've gone into full-blown loathing mode for San Diego. Not that Montana is perfect. But for a while it will be.

Riding 4-Wheelers in Apple Valley, CA

Over the weekend, Morgan and I went to Apple Valley to see her Dad down from Montana and her Aunt, Uncle and Grandma. Her Dad brought down the street legal 4-wheelers from Montana, so naturally the first thing I wanted to do was take them out for a spin. Here are some photos of the Sunday trip to the dry lake bed, where we went riding up in the mountains.




Below: This photo is the aftermath of when Morgan's Dad rolled a 4-wheeler down a hill by extreme accident. He was trying to go up the trail (going to the left), but since he had it in 4WD, it pulled to the right, where he lost balance and it rolled down the hill, missing him, and eventually hitting the boulder and settling on it's side in the creek with one handlebar waterlogged. We're certain this is what caused it to go dead, and we were unable to resurrect it. Trying to drag a dead 4-wheeler about 20 feet up the creek back to the trail so we could pull it out of the ravine with the other 4-wheeler is just about as fun as it sounds. All in all, we got it out and Morgan pulled me with the other 4-wheeler back to the house, while her father rode with her Uncle in the truck. It was a fun day.

RIP Hunter S. Thompson

Goddamnit, another fallen hero brought down by his own hand.

Hunter S. Thompson, legendary author, political commentator and "gonzo" journalist, shot himself to death tonight at his home in Woody Creek, sources within the Pitkin County Sheriff's office have confirmed.

For this tragic news, I poured a Wild Turkey neat and gave a toast to a friend I know only through books. Sunday nights are depressing enough, but this?



I'm going to venture a guess that he was staring down the barrel of some disease or sickness that would have hindered his life considerably. I just read a news story that said,

Another friend told The Post, "He's been sick and down more than usual for the last year."

This is a tragic, horrible loss, but in the face of some life-threatening (and for Hunter, I would say this means anything that would stand in his way of living life to the fullest) disease or malaise, he would rather die by his own hand than at the mercy of nature.

I spent all weekend in the desert, right off of US Interstate 15 where HST made his famous trip to Las Vegas and there were sure echos of Fear and Loathing running through my mind. The desert does that to you. Being pent up in city life can actually make the desert a pretty desirable place to spend a weekend. When I went to Vegas for my first time over the Christmas holidays, I wondered how could anyone live through the depravity of which he described?

You will be missed, you crazy bastard. Give 'em hell, wherever you are.

Patton Oswalt at a Coffeehouse

Patton Oswalt, one of my favorite comedians, has this to say about the recent state of coffeeshops/coffee houses and culture, which I thought was pretty damn funny and true. This is exactly how I feel pretty much everywhere I go. And besides having my own humble abode with a coffee press and a computer to go on, this is also the reason I don't visit coffeehouses anymore.

I'm trying to think. Shut the fuck up, seriously.

During the past week, my computer broke, my iPod went on the fritz, and I had a massive power breaker problem where I live. I was forced to go out—to coffeeshops, libraries, bookstores and internet cafes—to get any work done.

Ten years ago—fuck, five years ago, this would've been fine. In fact, that's how I did all my writing.

I loved being out. Loved hearing the low murmurs of conversation, the city sounds, the music playing overhead—usually a CD I'd missed, put on by someone cool and adventurous, working a day job and trying to make it tolerable for themselves and the customers. At 10 am on a weekday, at the Horseshoe Coffeehouse on Haight Street around the corner from my old apartment, the freaks and outcasts and weirdos and genuinely original would be arguing and sparring and chatting back and forth, and you'd grab the occasional intriguing packet of words or out-of-context phrase that would fuel your own brainwaves, make you surf in new directions. Distant sirens and nearby pedestrians and the occasional crazy homeless person outside the shop (or inside—one time, this tweak-head came in and arranged every napkin container on every table so the paper napkins were facing towards the big picture windows of the shop, muttering, “Done!” when he'd finished, like he'd just won a bet with a demon).

Gone now. Those days are over. When did everyone and everything get so fucking LOUD?

WHA? EH? PLEASE EXCUSE ME, I'M EIGHTY-ONE

I know this is cultural suicide, for me to admit that I can't stand the fucking noise anymore. I have friends who are kissing their mid-40's who've decided, out of desperation and fear of death, that they're 22 years old forever, and could ya turn it UUUUUPP??? Whoooo! They'll sacrifice clarity of thought and peace of mind and a lot of other shit so they can fool themselves into thinking they're still riding the crest of the Youth Wave.

Fucking idiots. I can't wait to be an old man. And to speed that process along, I've got my pair of Howard Leight earplugs and a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones. 'Cuz I'm in revolt. 'Cuz I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

I don't want to hear these inane half-conversations on people's cell phones. I don't want to hear the even MORE inane full conversations between two actual people. Strung-together catch phrases and repeated punchlines from TV shows and movies. SHUT THE FUCK UP!

It'd be fine if people talked conversationally. I don't know what happened these past few years, but now people scream when they talk. They bray and whine and shout as if there's a boom mike recording their every word, and a hidden camera capturing the amazing Indie Film That Is Their Lives.

And what happened to coffee shop employees playing a cool CD at a volume where you could actually listen to it? I spent last Sunday afternoon at the Abbot's Habit coffeeshop in Venice. Trying to read. To write. To think. Chased out of my house, and trying to make the best of it.

Impossible. The dumbasses at the counter, determined that everyone in The Habit experience the sonic glory of the Blaring Drivels and the Deservedly Unsigned, kept the music cranked to ear-splitting levels. Which made everyone talk louder and LOUDER and L!O!U!D!E!R until I forgot my name, where I was, and that I shouldn't punch the bag lady sitting next to me.

Out on the street, huge H2s, empty except for their lone, skinny, blond teenage chick drivers, crawled up Abbott Kinney, pumping Ashlee Simpson and Beyonce and ratting the windows, making the taped-up flyers for dog walkers shake.

Hey, when you're twenty, and still young and sexy, it's a good thing to have the music loud. 'Cuz you're not going to impress anyone by saying something startling or original or truly funny. That's the age when you rely on your looks. Or, if you look the way I did at twenty, you become a comedian, so you have a spotlight on you and a microphone in front of your yap, so you have a fighting chance.

But when you've reached the age of the clientele inside the Abbot's Habit, and you accept the fact that you look like a used copy of Confederacy of Dunces that a lucky wino used for toilet paper after a kindly spinster took him to the Chili Cook-Off - well, you get the point.

And so on. There is more to read here. I agree with every point made here, especially the part where people who use cell phones think they can talk as loud as they want. And of course his cultural observations are telling, something I've been noticing often when I go out in public. I just notice that people are loud, rude and in the way, moreso than they ever have been, or so it seems. Well, at least someone cares about the people who think somewhat like me.

Overheard on a Messageboard

I read this on one of the many thousand "iPod vs. (Insert mp3 player)" arguments on the web. This was a rebuttal to someone who hates the iPod because he thinks it's outdated.

I'm not saying the ipod will last forever but it clearly has miles and miles to go and while you're ready to hardwire flash memory into your nads, the rest of the world is still getting used to the idea of having a couple hundred to thousands of songs at the ready.