Scientists used sedatives to calm and then free a North Atlantic right whale entangled in rope off Florida's Atlantic Coast — the first time a large whale was ever sedated in the wild, according to the federal fisheries agency.
This whale was first spotted entangled in ropes off Georgia on Jan. 14, the National Marine Fisheries Service said in a statement. Georgia officials took a boat out to remove 560 feet of trailing rope and attach a tracking buoy, and teams made four more attempts over the next six weeks to remove the remaining rope, which appeared to be from commercial fishing operations.
GO TO BREAKING NEWS TO READ THE WHOLE STORY!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Blue Whales are Big
Tuesday 7:27pm
Truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YtC-VagE4Y
A confession: when I was a kid... from ages 3-7, I seriously considered the career of being a dolphin trainer.... and it was probably in large part because of Sea World. Which is hard. If not for Sea World my love for the ocean and all these wonderful creatures would never be as potent and vibrant as it is today. I remember after my first visit, complete with miniatures, stuffed animal dolphin, getting splashed by Shamu, I started devouring any and all literature on these massive beauts (pronounced bee-you-ts). Pop-up books, coloring books, interactive ones (those were amazing... they should have pop and interactive-y books for a range of subjects... for adults... from the Sonic Youth story to the dramatic retelling of the Summer of Sam murders to... I dunno, urban legends about tumors in chicken sanwiches at popular fast food chains?) and then on to National Geographic's and text books.
...I remember this one book... I think it was called "ENDANGERED!" and on the cover was a beached Sperm Whale with a bloody front. The cover was so dramatic... seeing an animal of that immensity, so completely out of it's element... powerful in its sheer size and powerless its it's gaped mouth despair. I borrowed that book from the Huntington Beach Public Library probably 8 times, each time hiding it behind boring subject like "The Industrial Revolution: Cotton Gin Power Player" so I can get it again when my mom could take me to the library. It horrified and intrigued me, leaving an indelible burn of images it so dramatically captured in it's pages... I was emboldened by it then, but as a kid, the most I could do was read everything on the ocean, swim in the sea, and cut the 6-pack rings out of the Sunkist we bought from Alpha Beta.
The blue whale is the largest animal on Earth, though humans probably have the largest egos. And the most potential/compassion????
***BOM***
(Percussion hit sound from Lost)
-Mystery Brown Bag Blogger Bloke
Truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YtC-VagE4Y
A confession: when I was a kid... from ages 3-7, I seriously considered the career of being a dolphin trainer.... and it was probably in large part because of Sea World. Which is hard. If not for Sea World my love for the ocean and all these wonderful creatures would never be as potent and vibrant as it is today. I remember after my first visit, complete with miniatures, stuffed animal dolphin, getting splashed by Shamu, I started devouring any and all literature on these massive beauts (pronounced bee-you-ts). Pop-up books, coloring books, interactive ones (those were amazing... they should have pop and interactive-y books for a range of subjects... for adults... from the Sonic Youth story to the dramatic retelling of the Summer of Sam murders to... I dunno, urban legends about tumors in chicken sanwiches at popular fast food chains?) and then on to National Geographic's and text books.
...I remember this one book... I think it was called "ENDANGERED!" and on the cover was a beached Sperm Whale with a bloody front. The cover was so dramatic... seeing an animal of that immensity, so completely out of it's element... powerful in its sheer size and powerless its it's gaped mouth despair. I borrowed that book from the Huntington Beach Public Library probably 8 times, each time hiding it behind boring subject like "The Industrial Revolution: Cotton Gin Power Player" so I can get it again when my mom could take me to the library. It horrified and intrigued me, leaving an indelible burn of images it so dramatically captured in it's pages... I was emboldened by it then, but as a kid, the most I could do was read everything on the ocean, swim in the sea, and cut the 6-pack rings out of the Sunkist we bought from Alpha Beta.
The blue whale is the largest animal on Earth, though humans probably have the largest egos. And the most potential/compassion????
***BOM***
(Percussion hit sound from Lost)
-Mystery Brown Bag Blogger Bloke
RELOCATING CRUELTY WON'T SAVE WHALES!
Since its formation at last year's International Whaling Commission meeting, the small working group on the future of the IWC, of which New Zealand is a member, has held a number of closed-door meetings.
In an attempt to find a solution to the polarised deadlock between the pro- and anti-whaling camps, the group's two chairs have suggested a possible compromise deal.
This deal would see Japan hunting endangered whales in its coastal waters in exchange for a "scaling back" of bogus "scientific" hunts in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. The commission's intersessional meeting opens in Rome on Monday to discuss such a deal.
READ THE WHOLE STORY ON BREAKING NEWS!
In an attempt to find a solution to the polarised deadlock between the pro- and anti-whaling camps, the group's two chairs have suggested a possible compromise deal.
This deal would see Japan hunting endangered whales in its coastal waters in exchange for a "scaling back" of bogus "scientific" hunts in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. The commission's intersessional meeting opens in Rome on Monday to discuss such a deal.
READ THE WHOLE STORY ON BREAKING NEWS!
Monday, March 9, 2009
IWC ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE!
There are fears the body that oversees the protection of the world's whale stocks is on the brink of collapse. As members of the International Whaling Commission gather in Rome for a key meeting, its chairman warns that whaling nations are set to qhit countries unless they receive concessions on hunting. Dr Bill Hogarth, appointed by the US to head the organisation, has hinted minke whales should be hunted in the Southern Ocean as part of a compromise. "Dysfunctional," Dr Hogarth said on ABC Radio, a US AM station, and went to add the IWC is "bogged down."
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Reload, Shoot. MBinaBBB pt. 2
Wednesday 10:04 pm
I’m trying to write about all that I’ve read. I’m getting pretty into it. The scenes where they talk about how the whalers wound the baby Sperm whales so they come to the surface thus luring the mother to the surface to console/protect them only to be shot with a harpoon grenade is really… grim. The first lady of the United States (Jan) is on a submarine now about to sink the ship… things are getting intense. I don’t wanna write anymore. I gotta read. Plus…. crap, I’m starving, I gotta eat something.
Friday 9:15pm
Here is where I am sore: triceps, quads, forearms, where my pecs meet my rotator, the pad of skin that precedes the thumbs… such a weird place to be sore….
Back track, I got one of those 3 day guest passes at LA Fitness with my buddy Tyler, so I felt I should really take advantage of it, going all three days and spending hours figuring out when I got so out of shape… or really knowing how far out of shape I have become. Ughhh.
I go to look for “the Whale Book” and it is no where to be found! Oh shit. And I had just been exchanging emails back and forth with one of the authors who is worried I’m gonna, I dunno, sell his book on eBay? I mean, I’m reading the galley’s which is stuff that not necessarily the final draft so he is worried it’s gonna get out unfinished somehow. I guess it’s the equivalent of having MP3’s leaked online before the release of an album. Some artist are bummed by it because it may not be the most perfect version or they are not getting money for there hard work. Well, I can safely say that ne’er have I not gone and bought an album I really loved that I got the MP3 of first… there is something about having that archiveable, physical copy. I respect the artist. So with that I offer this to the authors of Save the Whales Please (who I know are reading this): I have already pre-ordered your book online, I will not leak this copy out, but all the same, I’m halfway through the book, I’d really like to finish reading it. You both should be glad being that I have 5 books unfinished books I’m still reading (The Rest is Noise, Women, Tropic of Cancer, Man’s Search for Meaning, Last Leg) and I have put them all aside to read yours. Now if I could only find it…
Sunday 10:30am
Phew. It was in my car.
Really, this was a message from a few hours after my last posting, I just got busy and didn’t have time to login. This book is interesting in that I keep returning to how much it reminds of the show “24.” Maybe its because of the dual intersecting plotlines of the political intrigue in Washington with the action/adventure bit in the field. It’s more action packed and surprisingly not so “bleeding heart-y.” And the pacing, I dig it, Danny Boyle pacing, I can hear a soundtrack going with the book. There’s an idea…. what if there was a reading of the book... someone with good voicing, actors playing each part and a narrator like James Earl Jones… or Obama, and a DJ spinning to match the tone of the paragraph! It would be a hell of a more interesting reading then I’ve seen n the pass. That would be cool. Hmm….
I gotta think about that some more.
Sunday, A little while later…
OK. Here are my top 5 songs to be in the soundtrack if there was ever a dramatic reading or film to be made out of this book. You hear it hear first:
1.) Radiohead – How to Disappear Completely
2.) Sigur Ros – Sven G Englar (sp?)
3.) Dirty Three – Deep Waters
4.) Astreal – Xumisitia
5.) Bjork – Oceania
Tuesday 9:07am
Okay, it’s pretty much settled now. If this were ever made into a film, the guy who plays FBI Director Larry Moss on “24” and Agent Renee Walker should totally play the President and First Lady, respectively. Maybe it’s cause I started reading the book just as I really got into the new season of the show…I dunno, I can’t NOT picture them now when I read it. Does that ever happen to you all? People in your lives are persons you just saw on TV remain permanently imprinted with fictional characters you’re reading about, that casting has already been done in your memory and the players are fixed? I can’t remember, for instance what the Amory Blaine looked like when I was reading F.Scott Fitzgeralds This Side of Paradise but I definitely know that the character Goldmund in Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund was a combination of the guy who gave me the book and a another dude we hung out with that met the description by the author. I wonder if we always cast characters while we are reading… Anyways.
Friday 1:15pm
The great about reading a Bukowski novel is that the chapters are so damn short that interest is kept and you can read little slivers, 5 minutes at a time and always have a good stopping point. Same with this book… it’s as if they have been retrofitted for a reduce attention span of the current generation. Works for me, it saves from a lot of rereading to “get” the flow of a conflict or conversation. I like the book in that it’s a good thriller-y read and not too preachy or generic given the opportunity to with the subject matter (saving whales etc…). I wonder how intense conflicts between Green Peace boats and giant whaling ships really do get on the high seas? I mean, really, whats to keep a ship from running over a raft and just say that they didn’t have enough time to maneuver around it? I dunno… I mean people kill each other over money all the time, whats keeping the activist in the little skiffs safe at sea? A noble cause, but not a position I’d want to be in.
Saturday 1:15pm
Oh look, the same time as last. After seeing my friend Rishi spinning yesterday, I wanna DJ again. My friend Ginette in Singapore sent me a mix she had blended and made into a single track. I started messing around with the idea of premixing music on Garage band and playing it on a MP3 player live, and having fake cartoon-y turn tables (ala Michel Gondry) and pretend scratching, swapping, fades per remembering the moments from the pre made mix. Well, that sounds convoluted and started doing it yesterday night. Ummm, yeah, it’s hard.
In other news: I think the threat of legal action has evaporated, the authors have stopped emailing and leaving me message… maybe they realized that a.) I like the book therefore want to keep it, b.) this is a kind of marketing/awareness for the book. Everyone wins. I did tell them that if the book began to suck, I’m gonna write about it. They didn’t seem to take that too well.
Look: I champion the artist. Many people have the luxury of simply being a critic: of food, of music, of things that are hyped, clothing, appearance, mom’s boyfriend, blogs, lifestyles. It’s easy to take apart, sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s affirming of one’s identity, some people love being critical assholes. But I do believe there is a different between discernment and the kind of criticism that is fueled entirely by the ego. Have you ever read that Oscar Wilde piece on criticism as an artform?
aqui: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/480/
-mr.E
I’m trying to write about all that I’ve read. I’m getting pretty into it. The scenes where they talk about how the whalers wound the baby Sperm whales so they come to the surface thus luring the mother to the surface to console/protect them only to be shot with a harpoon grenade is really… grim. The first lady of the United States (Jan) is on a submarine now about to sink the ship… things are getting intense. I don’t wanna write anymore. I gotta read. Plus…. crap, I’m starving, I gotta eat something.
Friday 9:15pm
Here is where I am sore: triceps, quads, forearms, where my pecs meet my rotator, the pad of skin that precedes the thumbs… such a weird place to be sore….
Back track, I got one of those 3 day guest passes at LA Fitness with my buddy Tyler, so I felt I should really take advantage of it, going all three days and spending hours figuring out when I got so out of shape… or really knowing how far out of shape I have become. Ughhh.
I go to look for “the Whale Book” and it is no where to be found! Oh shit. And I had just been exchanging emails back and forth with one of the authors who is worried I’m gonna, I dunno, sell his book on eBay? I mean, I’m reading the galley’s which is stuff that not necessarily the final draft so he is worried it’s gonna get out unfinished somehow. I guess it’s the equivalent of having MP3’s leaked online before the release of an album. Some artist are bummed by it because it may not be the most perfect version or they are not getting money for there hard work. Well, I can safely say that ne’er have I not gone and bought an album I really loved that I got the MP3 of first… there is something about having that archiveable, physical copy. I respect the artist. So with that I offer this to the authors of Save the Whales Please (who I know are reading this): I have already pre-ordered your book online, I will not leak this copy out, but all the same, I’m halfway through the book, I’d really like to finish reading it. You both should be glad being that I have 5 books unfinished books I’m still reading (The Rest is Noise, Women, Tropic of Cancer, Man’s Search for Meaning, Last Leg) and I have put them all aside to read yours. Now if I could only find it…
Sunday 10:30am
Phew. It was in my car.
Really, this was a message from a few hours after my last posting, I just got busy and didn’t have time to login. This book is interesting in that I keep returning to how much it reminds of the show “24.” Maybe its because of the dual intersecting plotlines of the political intrigue in Washington with the action/adventure bit in the field. It’s more action packed and surprisingly not so “bleeding heart-y.” And the pacing, I dig it, Danny Boyle pacing, I can hear a soundtrack going with the book. There’s an idea…. what if there was a reading of the book... someone with good voicing, actors playing each part and a narrator like James Earl Jones… or Obama, and a DJ spinning to match the tone of the paragraph! It would be a hell of a more interesting reading then I’ve seen n the pass. That would be cool. Hmm….
I gotta think about that some more.
Sunday, A little while later…
OK. Here are my top 5 songs to be in the soundtrack if there was ever a dramatic reading or film to be made out of this book. You hear it hear first:
1.) Radiohead – How to Disappear Completely
2.) Sigur Ros – Sven G Englar (sp?)
3.) Dirty Three – Deep Waters
4.) Astreal – Xumisitia
5.) Bjork – Oceania
Tuesday 9:07am
Okay, it’s pretty much settled now. If this were ever made into a film, the guy who plays FBI Director Larry Moss on “24” and Agent Renee Walker should totally play the President and First Lady, respectively. Maybe it’s cause I started reading the book just as I really got into the new season of the show…I dunno, I can’t NOT picture them now when I read it. Does that ever happen to you all? People in your lives are persons you just saw on TV remain permanently imprinted with fictional characters you’re reading about, that casting has already been done in your memory and the players are fixed? I can’t remember, for instance what the Amory Blaine looked like when I was reading F.Scott Fitzgeralds This Side of Paradise but I definitely know that the character Goldmund in Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund was a combination of the guy who gave me the book and a another dude we hung out with that met the description by the author. I wonder if we always cast characters while we are reading… Anyways.
Friday 1:15pm
The great about reading a Bukowski novel is that the chapters are so damn short that interest is kept and you can read little slivers, 5 minutes at a time and always have a good stopping point. Same with this book… it’s as if they have been retrofitted for a reduce attention span of the current generation. Works for me, it saves from a lot of rereading to “get” the flow of a conflict or conversation. I like the book in that it’s a good thriller-y read and not too preachy or generic given the opportunity to with the subject matter (saving whales etc…). I wonder how intense conflicts between Green Peace boats and giant whaling ships really do get on the high seas? I mean, really, whats to keep a ship from running over a raft and just say that they didn’t have enough time to maneuver around it? I dunno… I mean people kill each other over money all the time, whats keeping the activist in the little skiffs safe at sea? A noble cause, but not a position I’d want to be in.
Saturday 1:15pm
Oh look, the same time as last. After seeing my friend Rishi spinning yesterday, I wanna DJ again. My friend Ginette in Singapore sent me a mix she had blended and made into a single track. I started messing around with the idea of premixing music on Garage band and playing it on a MP3 player live, and having fake cartoon-y turn tables (ala Michel Gondry) and pretend scratching, swapping, fades per remembering the moments from the pre made mix. Well, that sounds convoluted and started doing it yesterday night. Ummm, yeah, it’s hard.
In other news: I think the threat of legal action has evaporated, the authors have stopped emailing and leaving me message… maybe they realized that a.) I like the book therefore want to keep it, b.) this is a kind of marketing/awareness for the book. Everyone wins. I did tell them that if the book began to suck, I’m gonna write about it. They didn’t seem to take that too well.
Look: I champion the artist. Many people have the luxury of simply being a critic: of food, of music, of things that are hyped, clothing, appearance, mom’s boyfriend, blogs, lifestyles. It’s easy to take apart, sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s affirming of one’s identity, some people love being critical assholes. But I do believe there is a different between discernment and the kind of criticism that is fueled entirely by the ego. Have you ever read that Oscar Wilde piece on criticism as an artform?
aqui: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/480/
-mr.E
Mystery Book in a Brown Bag: A Shot of Fiction, Multiple Entry Wounds
A Busy Saturday 4:37pm
Let me preface. I just got off a shift at the JOB-THAT-WON'T-BE-NAMED, and sat on a chair outside of Robek's Juice debating whether I should have eaten that burrito with the chicken substitute for the applewood smoked bacon and kept the black beans, are have gone with the my usual subs of ham for bacon, spinach for beans... look, it doesn't really matter. So I saw the most haggard looking dude... kinda hobo looking but somehow dignified, professional looking... I dunno... there was just something really striking about him. And you know, there are a finite amount of weirdos, in this town full of freaks and randoms, that deserve a second look.
He was sitting there with a coffee from THE-PLACE-ETC... (funny thing is, I don't remember him ever coming in) and he was glaring my way as if I was wearing a Michael Buble' Live in Concert shirt.
I get weirded out and turn around to finish my phone call with my friend the pole vaulter turn accountant. I'd be getting some money back this year, but damn you Californian I.O.U!!!
By the time I turn back to see if he was there, he was gone. I don' t think shit of it and go looking for my car. It was an early morning when I parked and I swear I can’t remember the ride over. (Last time that happened was New Years Eve, and I got towed for blocking some asshole’s driveway. And yes, he IS an asshole, I don’t care about the logic, towing sucks and I hope someone padlocks his garage or a bird shits on him seconds before he walks into the most important meeting of his life, this is a my belligerence in full bloom.)
I don’t mean it.
I walk for 47 minutes looking and cursing, searching for the busted tail light that has been taped up, listening for the beep of my car alarm, whishing I hadn’t quit smoking. I walk across where “Captain Hobo” was sitting and noticed a brown paper bag. I would have left it alone except for the big black letter written across it:
GOOD, READ.
What?
I open it carefully, fearing dog crap in a bag, barf, bombs, week old bologne (how do you spell that?) and inside was a book:
Save the Whales Please
Saturday 8:15pm
The cover looks cool. It’s like a dramatic shot of a whale breaching amidst sea spray and profundity, a large boat looms in the background and a tiny skiff is approaching it… must be the Green Peace-ers. Which reminds me: I opted to donate a cool $21.00 to Greenpeace because the girl with the clipboard outside of the Border’s was rejected by like 10 people, rudely and despite that she was ridiculously optimistic. I listened to her spiel, asked her a bunch of hard questions, challenged her to produce proof that my credit card was being stolen etc… She was good, extremely well informed, and earnest. And cute. I signed up for $21.00 and ever since that day, every month Green Peace takes 21 bucks out of my account. Sometimes I lament this because I think, “Damnit, I’m poor. The orangutan’s in Borneo can wait till gas prices go down (Summer 2008 joke, remember those days, yeah, suck-sicle dribbling down your clean white sleeves). That I didn’t completely agree with banning whaling. I love whales, I respect life, but I hate outside/Western/extra governmental agencies dictating culture. Even so, I am aware there is a black market, profiteers hide behind the guise of culture to get rich, not every whaler is an Eskimo that has been doing for generations. And those big lugs are endangered. Still gas prices…)
The cover. I should read this…. mystery book. Do you… have you ever found a CD on the ground and picked up and put it on? I mean 9 times outta 10 its terrible hip hop or ska or jammy stuff that is 78 minutes long and reeeeeally deep. And this book, it could be a preachy book about whales. But I’m curious. I’m gonna read ten pages and if it gets all Robert Redford “I Love Earth”-y, I’m putting it in a brown bag and writing:
Kindling
Saturday 9:01pm
Not bad…
Monday 11:10am
I didn’t get a chance to read “Whale Book” due to work and birthday parties, but I thought about something: I’m gonna Twitter/Facebook status, excerpts from pages from the book. Casue honestly, most peoples Facebook status updates and Tweets are banal/uninspiring/”who-gives-a-shit-y”. Then again… those 25 note things are amazing. I can’t stop reading it. I did one. They should have one where you write 25 things about another person, that way you get a counter balance to all the shit that people want you to know who they are. I’m listening to My Bloody Valentines “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside) right now. What an amazing mess! Well, maybe my idea is no better, but heck, I’m gonna do it. Every day. It will get me to read. Cause I always say I should read more.
Monday 12:17pm
This book is not what I thought it would be. It read like an action adventure… first lady as some kind of eco crusader the first couple… gosh, I just keep drawing comparisons somewhere between the Obamas and the FBI boss Larry Moss from 24, with the first lady played by that delicious Annie Wersching… HOT. The booked is paced really well, the chapters (if you can call them that) are more like location changes, like Law and Order.
Monday 1:30pm
Grenade tipped harpoons. Jeez… and I only hope it’s fiction. It’s probably not.
Tuesday 2:03pm
I really gotta read more. So I looked up this book online and it turns out there’s a website. I send what I presume the staff or the two authors an email saying, “Yo, I got your book, if you wanna see it again I want a brown tube sock filled grape flavored Big League Chew a roll of quarters (never a bad thing to have in LA).” Really, they were happy the book was recovered as it was the uncorrected galley of it, which for the rest of us non-book industry people, means the almost-ready-for-the-public copy (it comes out April 1st… I think on Amazon?) Anyways, I ask if they need it back right away cause I was really into it. They said it’s alright just not to sell it. I say, or leave it in a bag that says: Good, Read. They say, “What?” I say (see entry #1). They say, “No way…” I say “Quite ‘Way’.” They say, “That’s so odd.” I say, “Hey, I’m an online marketer I can pitch this book for you.”
Conversations happen, I convince that I am (ummm… aren’t we all?) and they say ok, you can hold onto it.
Hey, anything for a “good, read”.
Wednesday 10:04 pm
I’m trying to write about all that I’ve read. I’m getting pretty into it. The scenes where they talk about how the whalers wound the baby Sperm whales so they come to the surface thus luring the mother to the surface to console/protect them only to be shot with a harpoon grenade is really… grim. The first lady of the United States (Jan) is on a submarine now about to sink the ship… things are getting intense. I don’t wanna write anymore. I gotta read. Plus…. crap, I’m starving, I gotta eat something.
-Guy who likes to read.
PS: You might not want to make your username and password so easy to figure out.
PPS: I'll give you your book back as soon as I finish it. Don't worry, I'm half way.
PPPS: I have been screening your calls, sorry, it's just that you seem really upset. Relax, I'm not going to do anything to your book, I just want to read it. Nice webpage btw.
Let me preface. I just got off a shift at the JOB-THAT-WON'T-BE-NAMED, and sat on a chair outside of Robek's Juice debating whether I should have eaten that burrito with the chicken substitute for the applewood smoked bacon and kept the black beans, are have gone with the my usual subs of ham for bacon, spinach for beans... look, it doesn't really matter. So I saw the most haggard looking dude... kinda hobo looking but somehow dignified, professional looking... I dunno... there was just something really striking about him. And you know, there are a finite amount of weirdos, in this town full of freaks and randoms, that deserve a second look.
He was sitting there with a coffee from THE-PLACE-ETC... (funny thing is, I don't remember him ever coming in) and he was glaring my way as if I was wearing a Michael Buble' Live in Concert shirt.
I get weirded out and turn around to finish my phone call with my friend the pole vaulter turn accountant. I'd be getting some money back this year, but damn you Californian I.O.U!!!
By the time I turn back to see if he was there, he was gone. I don' t think shit of it and go looking for my car. It was an early morning when I parked and I swear I can’t remember the ride over. (Last time that happened was New Years Eve, and I got towed for blocking some asshole’s driveway. And yes, he IS an asshole, I don’t care about the logic, towing sucks and I hope someone padlocks his garage or a bird shits on him seconds before he walks into the most important meeting of his life, this is a my belligerence in full bloom.)
I don’t mean it.
I walk for 47 minutes looking and cursing, searching for the busted tail light that has been taped up, listening for the beep of my car alarm, whishing I hadn’t quit smoking. I walk across where “Captain Hobo” was sitting and noticed a brown paper bag. I would have left it alone except for the big black letter written across it:
GOOD, READ.
What?
I open it carefully, fearing dog crap in a bag, barf, bombs, week old bologne (how do you spell that?) and inside was a book:
Save the Whales Please
Saturday 8:15pm
The cover looks cool. It’s like a dramatic shot of a whale breaching amidst sea spray and profundity, a large boat looms in the background and a tiny skiff is approaching it… must be the Green Peace-ers. Which reminds me: I opted to donate a cool $21.00 to Greenpeace because the girl with the clipboard outside of the Border’s was rejected by like 10 people, rudely and despite that she was ridiculously optimistic. I listened to her spiel, asked her a bunch of hard questions, challenged her to produce proof that my credit card was being stolen etc… She was good, extremely well informed, and earnest. And cute. I signed up for $21.00 and ever since that day, every month Green Peace takes 21 bucks out of my account. Sometimes I lament this because I think, “Damnit, I’m poor. The orangutan’s in Borneo can wait till gas prices go down (Summer 2008 joke, remember those days, yeah, suck-sicle dribbling down your clean white sleeves). That I didn’t completely agree with banning whaling. I love whales, I respect life, but I hate outside/Western/extra governmental agencies dictating culture. Even so, I am aware there is a black market, profiteers hide behind the guise of culture to get rich, not every whaler is an Eskimo that has been doing for generations. And those big lugs are endangered. Still gas prices…)
The cover. I should read this…. mystery book. Do you… have you ever found a CD on the ground and picked up and put it on? I mean 9 times outta 10 its terrible hip hop or ska or jammy stuff that is 78 minutes long and reeeeeally deep. And this book, it could be a preachy book about whales. But I’m curious. I’m gonna read ten pages and if it gets all Robert Redford “I Love Earth”-y, I’m putting it in a brown bag and writing:
Kindling
Saturday 9:01pm
Not bad…
Monday 11:10am
I didn’t get a chance to read “Whale Book” due to work and birthday parties, but I thought about something: I’m gonna Twitter/Facebook status, excerpts from pages from the book. Casue honestly, most peoples Facebook status updates and Tweets are banal/uninspiring/”who-gives-a-shit-y”. Then again… those 25 note things are amazing. I can’t stop reading it. I did one. They should have one where you write 25 things about another person, that way you get a counter balance to all the shit that people want you to know who they are. I’m listening to My Bloody Valentines “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside) right now. What an amazing mess! Well, maybe my idea is no better, but heck, I’m gonna do it. Every day. It will get me to read. Cause I always say I should read more.
Monday 12:17pm
This book is not what I thought it would be. It read like an action adventure… first lady as some kind of eco crusader the first couple… gosh, I just keep drawing comparisons somewhere between the Obamas and the FBI boss Larry Moss from 24, with the first lady played by that delicious Annie Wersching… HOT. The booked is paced really well, the chapters (if you can call them that) are more like location changes, like Law and Order.
Monday 1:30pm
Grenade tipped harpoons. Jeez… and I only hope it’s fiction. It’s probably not.
Tuesday 2:03pm
I really gotta read more. So I looked up this book online and it turns out there’s a website. I send what I presume the staff or the two authors an email saying, “Yo, I got your book, if you wanna see it again I want a brown tube sock filled grape flavored Big League Chew a roll of quarters (never a bad thing to have in LA).” Really, they were happy the book was recovered as it was the uncorrected galley of it, which for the rest of us non-book industry people, means the almost-ready-for-the-public copy (it comes out April 1st… I think on Amazon?) Anyways, I ask if they need it back right away cause I was really into it. They said it’s alright just not to sell it. I say, or leave it in a bag that says: Good, Read. They say, “What?” I say (see entry #1). They say, “No way…” I say “Quite ‘Way’.” They say, “That’s so odd.” I say, “Hey, I’m an online marketer I can pitch this book for you.”
Conversations happen, I convince that I am (ummm… aren’t we all?) and they say ok, you can hold onto it.
Hey, anything for a “good, read”.
Wednesday 10:04 pm
I’m trying to write about all that I’ve read. I’m getting pretty into it. The scenes where they talk about how the whalers wound the baby Sperm whales so they come to the surface thus luring the mother to the surface to console/protect them only to be shot with a harpoon grenade is really… grim. The first lady of the United States (Jan) is on a submarine now about to sink the ship… things are getting intense. I don’t wanna write anymore. I gotta read. Plus…. crap, I’m starving, I gotta eat something.
-Guy who likes to read.
PS: You might not want to make your username and password so easy to figure out.
PPS: I'll give you your book back as soon as I finish it. Don't worry, I'm half way.
PPPS: I have been screening your calls, sorry, it's just that you seem really upset. Relax, I'm not going to do anything to your book, I just want to read it. Nice webpage btw.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
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