Quicky......

Tell me it is not 12:20......Please lie to me.

If only some Hillary people were around......They could make it be 9:20, because they are entitled to those extra three hours.

If you missed Scott McClellan on Keith Olbermann.....go find it. It was a historic moment in American history....

I missed most of it because I was dredging up all of Nike's community service hours for the past year. We have court tomorrow morning at 8:30 in Salinas.

Nike is set to go off probation tomorrow. Off probation in September she can emancipate herself and escape her dysfunctional Cachagua life. On probation, she is stuck.

Her mom.......the meth addict/whore who seems to only remember she has a daughter at 2am, or when she is out of money for drugs.....called last night to tell Nike that she is going to lie to the judge and tell him that Nike has not been home in three months and needs to stay on probation.

Sample public statements by Mom, in rooms full of people.....

"You are lucky to BE here......you were just a drunken mistake."

"You are the reason I am addicted to drugs......because you won't come home and help me...."

Nike is fifteen. And by some miracle so far not crippled by this kind of abuse. Picture Audrey Hepburn....hiding under that house in Holland, eating roots.

But......It is fine.

Last weekend, a call from Mom snuck through our security because she used Dad's phone. Nike sobbed for six hours.

Dad meanwhile is taking good care of Little Sister....and trying to rebuild the house that Mom burned down last year in a drug induced frenzy. The fire was blamed on the son for having too many computer connections.....the same son who finally gave up and enlisted in the Army last month. He ships out to Iraq in four weeks.

Dad is a highly skilled contractor, but is tied to his own house....doing all the work himself.....and struggling to meet the physical and financial deadlines set by The Bank.

Tomorrow, Dad has an inspection....required by the County and The Bank....and cannot be in Court to defend his daughter from the insane accusations of his drug addicted wife.

You may have read about this stuff somewhere......and not just in "Les Miserables".....

Picture what is going through this poor guy's mind.......trying to save his house, not being able to work because he has to meet the bank deadlines, crazy wife, two beautiful daughters.....son going to Iraq because he couldn't deal......and all of it coming together tomorrow and he can't do shit about it.

We Store Folk have spent five days calling every possible person and agency: Child Protective Services, the Probation Department, the District Attorney, Public Defenders, CASA.......We have no legal standing....even though Nike has been in our house for six months. Safe.

So.....I am driving her to Court in six hours. Poor girl.

Let's see what happens.....Does the legal system really work? Will it identify the real victim?

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile.....tonight we all worked on the beach for a Progressive Branch of the United States Military.

I am discovering discretion late in life.

This progressive branch of the military has an even MORE progressive agency that is devoted to trying to stop the next war......now.

I'll give you a hint. There is water involved. Salt water.

They have given up on Iran....but are working on India and Pakistan.

They gave me a fuzzy with their stupendously ironic and hopeful name embroidered on the chest.....and I left it on British Airways.....and those fuckers stole it. Naomi Campbell was channelling me when she bitch slapped those BA dudes...

Anyway, we have been doing this for years......bringing Pakistani and Indian admirals and generals.....and tons of American spooks....together on Carmel Beach for organic food and a certain amount of distilled and fermented beverages. The parties are huge successes......the folks have fun.....and you can literally watch the tensions evaporate in the resulting mesquite and Johnny Walker Black haze.....

We are not allowed to bill them for anything alcoholic beverages.....because George Bush is an alcoholic....all booze is bad.

So......I, Michael Jones, donate full bar and local Monterey County wines in quantity to the progressive branch of the US Military and their spooks and....not to mention the admirals and generals from South Asia.

Doing my part......Enabling!

The quick part of this post is this: The Yanks involved are at the highest levels of all those guys that supposedly blew the intelligence in 2001.....and with a healthy dose of all the young folks who we are counting on not to blow the intelligence next time. They all seem to know restaurants in Peshawar.....

Blew the intelligence? When we worked for them in June of 2001, the conference was about some obscure Saudi guy.......Osama, Obama......I forget. Something like "Bin Laudin" or something.

Tonight....a lot of the chatter from the young folk was about finishing their MBA's and PHD's this month......and who they were talking to in the Obama campaign about postitions next January. Same with the generals and admirals.....only the young folk seemed disgruntled that their options were more "Homeland Security" than foreign service......

No mention of people talking to the Clintons. Absolute silence about talking to McCain.

Wish me luck in court.

Jesus Trucking Christ.......

And Muslims are crazy because..........?

As PapaRosen and I have concluded:

In the McCain America.....All transmissions will be Manual.....and All Weapons will be Automatic.

Bad for Business?

OK....this is supposed to be a food related blog.....and food is what we do for a living.

In theory, food is an abstract.....independent from the social and political environment. You just order it up......like garbage bags, or printer cartridges.

You eat it....you go home. Done.

Oh, well. Sorry about that....missed that boat.

From our perspective.......food is in the running for the first or certainly the second most important and powerful impulse.....along with sex.

We chefs know things about you punters that we understand must be kept under wraps, just like our allies the sex workers. We are both in whorish professions.

But the hours are long.....and the work is hard....and our exposure to all that raw emotion is something that gives us a certain insight into the good and the bad of human nature.

It is mostly.....not a pretty picture.

Luckily, you gems out there out-shine the scumbags enough to keep us all going.....the hookers and the cooks and waitresses.

It will come as no surprise to you that the sex workers and the food workers get bitter, jaded and de-sensitized.......It take some serious juju to rock our world.

One of my guys.....who I am no longer allowed to indentify on this blog due to privacy issues....works a typical 90 hour week. Most of the money goes to the richest hospital in America, because he is trying to save his credit rating so he can buy some property some day, and he is protecting them from the economic backlash of the bird flu and the motorcycle crash.

His preppy friends are rejecting him because they think he works too hard..........But exhaustion is a sure cure for anxiety-related insomnia.

People talk about long hours glibly. "Oh, I worked a sixty hour week....."

No...this does not include transit time, and lunch in the restaurant, and time in the cocktail lounge winding down.....or time with the hot client after hours.

A ninety hour week with every minute of the ninety hours involving focussed, intelligent, hard-core human labor involving sweat and pain.....is wearing on the body, the mind and the soul. And remember, that all the injuries....minor and not so minor....and the illnesses involved in this kind of work schedule are ignored or dealt with on the side.

Can't possibly go back to the Hospital that you are already paying $750 a month.....on top of the $200 health insurance premium. Borrow some Vicodin.....overload the ibuprofen......try to find some ice for the swelling.

Have another beer........

That is why anything beyond a 40 hour week has been outlawed in all of modern Earth. In France, the legal work week is 32 hours.....and is enforced with helicopter surveillance even in the vineyards during harvest.

It is commonplace in America. And among our young.....entry level ante.

While talking about politics on our jobsite....... in passing, while making fine brunoise Spanish onions.....the Kid allowed as how when he listens to Barack Obama speaking......he tears up. He get goosebumps. His blood pressure rises.....and he tries to figure out how he can work out some time free to go and help the campaign.

I am an old food whore......and I feel the same. I watch these young kids.....innocent and pure and trusting....still believing in the America that we taught them about......

This is what gets my 27 year olds going......and my 15 year olds, that are already working 40 hour weeks in high school to try to save their families.......and my 17 year old, sleeping on the couch, working to pay off his hospital bill and maybe get into culinary school.....after maybe T-Mobile approves him for a cell-phone account.....

When I say "gets them going".....that is old guy talk for "makes them cry......" Tears of hope...tears of ....who knows? Loss? Pain? Anger?

Probably just "Hope". Check out what makes working young people tear up and get goosebumps:

Oh, and I am sorry if this is not business-like. Call the other caterers........Or, call me....and I will give you their numbers.

ZOE KRAVITZ SPEAKS OUT

Get a fucking clue....

It is difficult to define friendship.

Friends that hang around.....and give you props......and say "Yeah, yeah, yeah......" OK.

Friends that are there for a while.....and hit you up for a job or a loan......and then you never see them again.

Friends that say: "Call me. I will be there for you......." and then are not around somehow.

Then there are the difficult friends.....who every time you see them...give you shit. They know you, they understand you.....and they call you on your bullshit.

Yeah, you may seem to be doing well with this and that......but they KNOW that you are lagging where it really matters.....and they know that you know that they know that you know that they know that you are basically full of shit. And they love you anyway, but.......

These kind of friends we tend to hold at arm's length.....especially when they get older.

"Who needs this?.....I gotta job to do......"

Then again......the true definition of a friend in my world is like the Irish defintion of "home": That place where if you go there, they have to let you in.....no matter what.

I have this extremely cranky and contentious friend.....let's call her "Mary Green".

Mary is my political and real estate godmother.......Ask people about Mary, and they either love her or hate her. She has never minced words......and never backed off from a fight. Mary is Old School.....out of Philadelphia....in the sort of circles that knew Fred Waring of Waring Blenders from the golf course. She spent time in Georgia.....and Berkeley.....and married a similar Old School, Old Soul guy who happened to be a 10th Mountain vet from WWII. If you don't know what that means.....stop reading. And her Old Soul husband wrote all the tests anyone reading this post ever took to get into college.......

The first party we did for Mary was a fundraiser for Neon Leon Panetta in 1978......I think he was still a County Supe, or a State Assembly guy or something. Cecil Andrus....Secretary of the Interior for Jimmy Carter, Senator Alan Cranston......they all came to her house on Jack's Peak. It was during the World Series.....and I was distracted enough by the Dodgers-Yankees thing to take a champagne cork in the eye and finish the month in the hospital.....

Mary later turned me into a Gary Hart guy. We ran the campaign locally at a profit....I was even an alternate Gary Hart delegate.....and wound up driving Mrs. Hart around California. I beat out Sylvia Panetta (a Mondale person) for the honor.....and have never been forgiven. It makes it worse that I was a Gary Hart delegate to the Democratic Convention who beat out Sylvia Panetta......and I was a registered fucking Republican. Mary backed my play.......because we ran our campaign in the black, baby......

Mary invested in my restaurants....and when the shit hit the fan......let us pile up a few thousand cases of essentially stolen wine in her garage on no notice in the middle of the night.

Still.....one day she insisted that I accompany her to a Democratic convention somewhere. At the door, they insisted on name tags. I hate name tags. Usually I pick "Kurt Cobain". This time I picked "Jimmy Hoffa".

Mary was a Robert Kennedy guy. She was a Freedom Rider type in the South when no one else would stand up in the early 60's. Depending upon the mythology, she was or was not there at the Ambassador Hotel in June of 1968 when RFK was shot......and the dreams of our young Nation died. Regardless, her soul was there, and her money, her hard work, organizing skills and prestige were there on the line for the dream that was RFK......

When Mary turned to me at the entrance of the political shindig, and saw my "Jimmy Hoffa" name tag......without conscious thought.......turned to me, and with proper weight on her back leg, with good hip rotation preceding the movement of her arm as in that required for a decent five-wood.....hit me right in the chops and knocked me on my ass, and almost knocked me out. She had good follow-through as well. Straight down the middle of the fairway. Directly upon my ass.

"There are some things that you cannot joke about, Michael........"

There are some things that are too horrible to contemplate......like assassination.

People constantly harp on Barack Obama about "experience"......

What about "judgment"?

Please watch this clip. Keith Olbermann says it all...

After today.....Hillary Clinton should not only withdraw from the Presidential race....but crawl under a rock......

And definitely stay away from Jacks Peak, California. I don't want to put words in her mouth......but I promise that Mary Green will kick her ass.......

Valrhona Single Source Shite........

I spent a purloined Saturday in May hanging with the Democrats in Monterey. Picture what it takes for me to get a Saturday off from my crew in May.....

This was the big Demo square dance of the year.....Sam Farr, Gavin Newsome, John Laird, Neon Leon Panetta. All the biggies.

I sort of sneak in by the back door. I am a famous Republican in Democrat circles.....I have been telling people for years that I am a Republican......and Irish Republican, and we have our own army.....

And, at a Mike Gravel fundraiser last year.......all the local weasley Democrats were trying to hobnob with the candidate, drink my wine and eat my smoked salmon.....and sneak out without donating. Can you imagine what face time with John McCain costs. I posted up by the door with a basket, identified myself as the Token Republican.....and hit everyone up for at least a hunsky for Mike before I would let them out the door.

Meanwhile....I am a new Democratic Central Committee member. An elected official.

Actually, not exactly elected....since no one else ran.....but securing the post did involve swearing on Bibles and hanging out at the Monterey County election office and signing lots of forms.

Actually I am probably really a Margaret Chase Smith Republican,......since the IRA won our 1000 year war ten years ago.....I am a throwback to the age when Republicans had morals, values and ethics. And believed in things like the Constitution, and other boring stuff not related to their Net Worth. A time when Democrats were whiny, corrupt fucks.

No wonder I have party identity issues.

I still have an "I Like Ike" button......that I had to hide from my union ship's carpenter grandfather when I was six.

Margaret Chase Smith was known as Moscow Maggie by her Republican peers. She was a Senator for 25 years, and a Representative for eight, and was the first woman ever nominated for President. She was from Maine....and was a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, a reporter, and an executive at a mill. She got the Moscow Maggie nickname from Joe McCarthy when she gave her famous "Declaration of Conscience" speech.....defending outmoded ideas like the Constitution and other annoying plebian ideals.

As a mill executive, Moscow Maggie had the idea that a healthy, intelligent and financially secure work-force would secure her company's success and solidify its bottom line. She thought that a solid, secure middle class....with generations of skilled workers would stake out her company's future for decades. She thought that freedom of speech and association and crazy shit like that were more important than State Security. She thought that party political posturing was inelegant, undignified, and completely out of place in a body like the US Senate.

What a whack job. Hillary would have called her "naive".

Anyway....upon arrival at the big Democratic dinner, all I heard was: "Wow, I thought you were a Republican!".....and, of course "Wow, I didn't know you could publish the word "cocksucker" in a newspaper........"

Ironically....and luckily....I ran into Kera, the reporter who did the big story about Jensen Camp in the Monterey County Weekly. Since MCW hires actual journalists, with actual standards and such....she was not on the Democratic Party list either..... and we wound up surfing for a spare spot at a spare table as fellow outcasts.

This happens at weddings all the time. I try to talk brides out of assigning seats to people on their day.....and no one ever listens. After months of planning and political intrigue, the bride comes up with a seating chart. On the day, her most evil friend or enemy goes around and switches all the names and places......and the "loser" people wind up walking around searching for a place to eat. Or, worse.......the C-list folks wind up sitting alone..... just one couple at a table of ten no-shows, dutifully sitting in their assigned spots, back by the bathrooms.

It was amusing to recognize the other folk at our table: the wife of Shawn Bagely....the hyper-enthusiastic Hillary Clinton delegate who never saw fit to appear to comfort his abandoned spouse (is there a Clinton metaphor there?). Shawn is the guy who drove to Cachagua with a PowerPoint presentation printed on easel paper about Democratic Solidarity after I hosted a Party event entitled "Dianne Feinstein is a Slimy Whore!".....on the possibly correct assumption that we in Cachagua would not have access to actual computers, projectors and screens. Shawn is also the guy that I posited in a post to the Obama people that no New Democrat should ever speak to again if Hillary is nominated, and that no one should ever speak to or buy lettuce from anyone Shawn had ever spoken to or sold lettuce to in his life......again ever in the history of the world.

For some reason, Mrs. Bagely did not speak to me....and looked really nervous.

Also at Reject Table 22 was the mayor of Pacific Grove, Dan Cort.....who turns out to be a really cool guy. He is a preservationist and is coming out with a book about saving architecturally significant shit-holes in P.G. Your dream mayor......and seated at the Reject Table. Go figure.

As soon as Kera and I started talking about Cocksuckers and Obtuse Old Democrats.....no one else at Table 22 made eye contact anymore.....so who knows who they were.

Anyway......the food was horrid, but I bribed the waitress to keep our glasses filled with Mark Chesebro's Syrah......donated by Mark and Caroline. Then, the whole dynamic of the evening changed for me......Gavin Newsome got up to speak, early in the program. He had to leave to be back in The City for The Bay to Breakers loon race.

Sorry, folks.....the guy is magic. A Jesuit raised poly-sci guy out of Santa Clara University. I got to talk to him once two years ago at a party......and he rattled on about the six books he had read about homelessness, while running a big city, and conducting an affair with at least one supermodel.

His talk on Saturday was about raising expectations. Changing the paradigm. Gee.....I wonder who he is supporting for President? San Francisco cut their trash volume by 40% by instituting composting. They are swapping their employer tax for a carbon footprint tax. And the city-sponsored universal health coverage....

Newsome mentioned the old Einstein homily about the definition of insanity being the constant repetition of the same action and expecting a different result. His take, learned from the Jesuits was: if you keep asking the same question.....and you don't like the answer you keep getting....ask a different question.

It turns out that providing Universal Health Insurance is insanely expensive. Providing Universal Health CARE.....not so much. Spain, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy and other backward nations might agree....

He also talked about the gay marriage decision. For a Catholic kid raised by the most right wing religious organization in the history of the world it was a no-brainer.

"You either have true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.....or you don't." End of discussion.

The guy must be Irish.

People say he is going to run for Governor. Fuck that......we should recall Dianne the Horrible...and put Gavin Newsome in a national office. California is not worthy. Orange County would never understand.

Then up-stepped Neon Leon Panetta.....former Chief of Staff of the Clinton White House, and now director of the Panetta Institute.

"When I started the Panetta Institute studies showed that only 25% of the youth of America had trust in the system, or would consider voting or being involved in the process. Now we are dedicated to the something something blah blah blah and 75% of the youth are now involved."

Then he went on to blather about "whichever candidate" is chosen.......

Leon......if you paid any attention to anything.......those young people who are now involved are 80-90% Barack Obama people. That is why they are involved. Obama is paying attention

They, like me.....are tired of people serving us shit on a platter and telling us it is chocolate.

Two hours before George Bush dissed Obama in front of the Knesset as a naive lunatic for advocating talks with Iran......Bush's own Secretary of Defense gave an interview with the Washington Post where he advocated......having direct talks with Iran without preconditions.

Hillary Clinton and her clone/drones have been all over the media talking about how she is the popular choice and has won the majority of the popular vote.....and Obama is dis-enfranchising the people of Florida by his arrogant, elitist, legalistic cant.

Well, this only works if she dis-enfranchises all of the people in the caucus states, ignores the 200,000 Republican votes from Operation Chaos in Texas and Ohio......and reneges on her own agreements to disregard Michigan and Ohio.

I have gagged down some shitty stuff in my time......but that ain't Valrhona. In my limited world, there is no difference between this "chocolate" and the WMD thing, and the tax breaks for the rich thing, and the "high gas prices are because we can't drill in ANWAR thing"......

Or Hillary and McCain promoting a gas tax holiday for the summer...........

And John McCain skipping out on voting for the New GI Bill.....because it is too expensive (about two month's of Iraq war cost....spread out over 2o years). Or John McCain voting against his own campaign finance reform bill.....and pretending to continue to be the reformer while packing his staff with lobbyists.

I don't care what your politics are.....at some point people just want to be acknowledged as not being complete fucking idiots......American Idol notwithstanding.

All we ask is one simple thing: "Don't lie to me......"

So......what are we? Democrats or Republicans?

Valrhona or shit?

Forget Obama......I am a Gavin Newsome Republicrat.......

Moscow Maggie would be right there with me.....

My heart just tingles.....

From John Cole:

Just heard this on Hardball with Tweety. You remember this story:

Everyone who knows 11-year-old Dalton Hatfield sees it. There’s something special about the young man. His mother Vickie says all who come in contact with the Kentucky elementary student look at him and say “He’s going to be something” when he grows up.

Apparently that goes for former presidents, too.

When Hatfield presented former President Bill Clinton with a check for $440 after Friday’s rally at the Williamson Fire Station, the man who was once the leader of the free world seemed to nearly come to tears.

“You sold your bike to get this?” Clinton asked the McAndrews, Ky. native.

The reply was “yes” and a whole lot more.

Hatfield feels so strongly that Hillary Clinton should be the next president he not only sold his bicycle, but video games and anything else he could find that “I could make money with” to donate to the former first lady’s bid for the Democratic nomination.

A charming story. This guy thanks you:

According to the FEC reports, close to $3 million ($2,963,802.00, exactly) of the $22 million raised last month by Hillary went to Penn, Schoen & Berland Assoc. LLC.

Hillary Clinton, always looking out for the little guy.

The Worst Part of Being Paranoid.....

Is Being Right!

So......yesterday I knocked out a post about my friend and former brother-in-law Trips....aka: Triple M....aka: Michael McKenzie Monckton.

Michael barfed on Dianne Feinstein's shoes.....a career move in my world.

Michael lived with my brother Rob at the Howard Ranch in Deep Carmel Valley.....actually Arroyo Seco, since it is on the other side of the Cahoon Grade. Rob had recently been broken out of the University of Chicago psych ward with "main strength and awkwardness" by a relative in the catering business. Rob went on to write at least one novel at the Howard Ranch.

Michael and the Third Roommate had worked out a deal with an LSD importer to babysit the guy's dog. This individual would fly small planes to Holland and buy LSD base.......and then fly even smaller planes around the US and drop off the base to be turned into commercial, street-level LSD. The Howard Ranch was perfect for at least the veterinary part of this because there was a big flat field in front of the old ranch house. Fine for small planes.

The ranch house had been a stage coach stop back in the day.....old adobe with cow-wide walls, and Dutch doors that looked out onto the landing strip.

I grew organic tomatoes on the Howard Ranch.....so I was an un-indicted co-conspirator. None of us had anything to do with the LSD business......we just liked the dog.

As part and parcel of the agreement to watch the dog, the LSD guy would land the plane, drop or pick up the hound, and leave some cash.....and some trimmings from the commerical LSD run.

There was Purple.....and Green. The drug was presented in retail form in a gel....like really solid jello. The LSD guy gave the ranchers film jars full of slivered trimmings from the gel sheets as a tip.

He liked the dog a lot, too.....and appreciated the service.

At this time we were working a lot. In the December of this year we had a party every day.....and many of them were in San Francisco. We would get up, prep, pack, drive......do the party, clean up, pack, drive.....and were left with no hours left in the actual Earth Day.

Coffee worked for a while. Cocaine was out of the question. Meth? Get real.

LSD shavings, though......

We found that a discreet finger-lick would keep you up and focussed long enough to get home safely. And hey.....there are only 31 days in the month, so it would soon be over. And, we could mostly understand what people were saying to us......though there were some noteable exceptions.

Trips continued on with the life-style after December. He was working on the Aquarium.....and driving four miles down a dirt road through two locked gates......and then 34 miles to town on the windingest road in Christendom. Brother Rob worked as a phone operator at the Lodge at Pebble Beach, and had the same routine.

The Ranch Boys actually developed a routine, later stolen by "The Gods Must Be Crazy".....they could jump out of their vehicle, race to the gate, open it wide and watch the truck roll by......then lock the gate and catch up with the truck before it hit the next turn.......

Ranch skills........

The morning routine at the Ranch was: Kahlua and coffee at 4:30 am. In summer, as the sun came up....the ground squirrels would appear on the runway at bare dawn. Ground squirrels could create divots that might wreck the LSD plane.....so Rob and Trips would sip Kahlua and coffee.....dip some Purple from the film can......and cut loose with the Mini-14's at the ground squirrels from the Dutch doors in the early Arroyo Seco dawn.

Dutch LSD......Dutch doors. Perfect.

(Video exists of Brendan cutting loose with the Mini-14 at age 2.....though he was not a Purple Person).

Then.....off to work.

We raised tomatoes....and wild boar.

In the last post I mentioned the Arroyo Seco Wild Irish Pig Company.....and referred to LSD a couple of times in relation to the St. Patrick's Day Parade.....in relation to MMM.

Tonight, when I went to look up the new book about Global Food by Raj Patel.......This is what I found on my Amazon homepage:

68% buy the item you viewed	15% buy this alternative	6% buy this alternative	6% buy this alternative	5% buy this alternative
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual... Paperback by Timothy Leary	The Doors of Perception and Heaven... Paperback by Aldous Huxley	Remember, Be Here Now Paperback by Ram Dass	LSD: My Problem Child Paperback by Albert Hofmann	The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First... Paperback by Graham Coleman, Thupten...

Amazon is reading The Blog....or tracking my keystrokes.

Creepy.

And......

I already own all those books.........

Breaking Wind.....

This is just a quickie......I am trying not to vent over the miserable Bitch from Hell who nearly wrecked our week. No, the BfH is not Hillary......she no longer has that power.

And the BhH is not Dianne Feinstein, either. My friend Keith sent me a foto today (as an amulet) of The Arroyo Seco Wild Irish Pig Company in full regalia at an early 80's St. Patrick's Day Parade in San Francisco.
Note the fine example of American 4wd Technology in our Vehicle of Choice.



As PapaRosen points out today....in our future, the John McCain future that Hillary has envisioned for us in the next four years before She Rises From the Ashes.....all vehicles will be Manual Transmission, and all weapons will be Fully Automatic. (In the foto, you can't see the Chopper....or the Mini-14's stashed under the back seat of The Vehicle.....)

Since this is early 80's....you will notice that our Vehicle of Choice has not been modified to Only Turn Left.....the NASCAR standard that will apply in the McCain Years. McCain's genius energy policy stroke of mandating Only Left Turns will cut America's gas consumption in half. So obvious....and such a Maverick Move. Anyone else on the Republican side would have mandated Only Right Turns. Proof positive that Maverick McCain will unite us all.....with Hillary's blessing.

Once we get rid of That Pesky Negro......

Note also the presence of the roasted Wild Boar Skull Rampant on the front of the Vehicle of Choice.

Shortly after this foto was taken, the driver of The Vehicle......one Michael McKenzie Monckton.....stopped the parade, emerged from The Vehicle..... in front of the reviewing stand.....and vomited all over the shoes of Dianne Feinstein. Irish Whiskey, Guinness and Purple LSD trimmings were involved....but hey, it was 11am. Early, but not to early to recognize a great opportunity for political expression.

It was pouring rain. All of us were soaked to the skin with rain, beer, whiskey....and baby wild boar piss. I dropped the Company off at The Dovre Club and raced downtown in The Vehicle to buy fresh clothes.....Macy's Union Square. I double-parked....it was a Sunday.

I ran in....bought a ton of Levi's and Pendleton shirts....sox and undies.... for The Company. When I emerged....

Someone had stolen the Roasted Wild Boar Skull Rampant from the front of The Vehicle of Choice!

Only in San Francisco.

I am sure it was Nancy Pelosi and her left-wing, Lesbian cabal.........and those damn Jews and Islamo-fascists. I am sure they did not EAT the Boar Skull....they certainly had sex with it.

Anyway.....back to the point. Today, John McCain held a news conference about Global Warming, and his energy policy. Some dim bulb has gone off in the back of his skull and he has realized that not everyone is totally stoked about the George Walker Bush way of doing things....and that not everyone hates Negroes. John McSame needs to get back to that whole Maverick thing.

So, he stands in front of a wind farm in Oregon. Johnny Boy points out that even Polar Bears are doing something about Global Warming.....it is about time that humans get the picture as well.

Irony is officially dead in the Republican Party. What Polar Bears are doing about Global Warming is......

Dying in droves......

Jesus.

The further irony is that the wind turbines this vicious, addled cocksucker is standing in front of are Danish. It is the Vestas Wind Energy Training Facility. Vestas has a quarter of the world market in the wind energy business.....and the country of Denmark already supplies a fifth of its energy from wind.

Vestas has had a huge head start.....because the Danish government (a signer of Kyoto) has given alternative energy a big boost and focus.

The kind of boost and focus that John WindBag McCain has voted against 75% of the time.

We could have had these jobs....all of the jobs, instead of the 400 measly concrete-pouring jobs Vestas has for the entire US.

Not only has McCain and his buddies voted against wind energy research....the pathetic tax incentives that did survive the Clinton years are due to expire in November......and depend upon the Republicans being defeated to pass and make the Vestas Wind Energy Training Facility that WindBag McCain is standing in front of even possible to complete.

This dismal, senile motherfucker and his handlers are so cynical that he has not only not supported alternative energies....but he has been absent for every vote in recent memory.....so that the League of Conservation Voters has no rating for him at all!

And.......As the Center for American Progress reported:

In 2002 and 2005, there were votes in the Senate to require utilities nationwide to generate 10 percent or 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy resources. Sen. McCain voted against renewable electricity every time.

Today.....as I sat in my psychiatrist's office, waiting to re-up my yearly dose of Wellbutrin.....so that I can summon the energy to get out of bed and go to work........I read some random Eco magazine about wind energy in Upstate New York.....my Homeland.

Upstate New York people are gnarly. The weather is awful. Minus 30 to 110 with 100% humidity. Upstate New York has townie rugby teams......and their home fields are in the shadow of prison walls, and abandoned breweries......and there is no grass in sight. Gravel and grit, and working class guys who will kick your preppy college ass for 90 minutes and break your bones.....and buy you a case Stegmaier beer when it was over. And give you a jar of Vicodin for the drive back.....

Meanwhile......Upstate New York is fucked. The Land of Edison and Westinghouse and Eastman and Kodak.....and Genesee and Stegmaier beer....... is done.

Fucking DONE.

The industry jobs were sent to China and India.....Nobody buys big electrical parts anymore.....and if they do they buy them they buy them from Canada...right across the Lake, where the wages are higher and costs are lower because the workers aren't paying off ambulance and hospital bills before they think about rent and education.

The dairy industry has gone Mega.....the little guys are already ground up and being spit out.......and ICE has terrorized the Jamaicans who used to pick the grapes and apples and compost the cowshit and milk the cows to the point where they can't leave the barns they cower in...even to buy food in the villages where the small, local grocery stores are going broke for lack of business.

The Colgate soccer team picked apples all fall to help the local farmers out and get some of the crops in........ and raise money for uniforms and balls.

And trust me, as a former Upstate New York soccer guy....Colgate soccer players need to BUY balls.....since God didn't see fit to give them their own to begin with.......

In a perfect world, the Jamaicans would be playing soccer.....and the white bitches would be shoveling shit and picking apples.

Anyway......there is a program working out along the Lakes where a company is installing wind turbines on dying dairy and apple farms. Each 200 foot (taller than the Statue of Liberty...."give me your tired.....your huddled masses...yearning to be free".....just so they aren't fucking JAMAICANS.....) turbine costs about a million dollars.

The deal worked out is that the company can.....with the right tax breaks, local and national......pay the farmer about six grand per year per turbine. A one-turbine farm can pay for health insurance for one farmer. A four turbine farm can pay for the college education for four kids......spread out over 18 years......

The working farmers can use the money to fend off the mega-dairies.....and still hire locals, and make local cheeses, distributed locally to folks who also have wind-turbines and can afford to buy them......and keep from having to sub-divide and re-develop the lands that have been in their families for 200 years.

And the turbines are all made in Denmark.

And we can afford to buy them......just so the Democrats win definitive control of Congress in November......and the Production Tax Credit is extended....over the dead body of John McCain....who was photographed today standing in front of the turbines he has done his best to defeat and out-source.

Jesus. The land where George Westinghouse figured out that giant generators driven by water power could transform a nation....and did it.....And now the same nation is being farmed out as a peasant land for the benefit of a country 9,000 km away and the size of Manhattan........because of senile retro-pricks like John McCain.

I wish Michael McKenzie Monckton still had some of that Purple Acid.

I could use some.

Otherwise it is hard to keep up with the McCain reality.

Onwards, Whitey!

Thanks to Austin Cline......

The Worst in the World

The US just came in dead last in a study about environmental attitudes and practices.

Done by the National Geographic, for chrissakes......

A study where you can lie.....and we came in behind China and Russia.

Now we can't even lie as well as the Chinks and Russkis? Jesus.

Check it out......here.

Take the test.

Our pathetic household got a 54.

No lying.

Really.

Dear Sam:

Dear Sam:

I apologize in advance for writing you about this. Every political operative in the country is beating you on the head right now.....the last thing you need is for your catering friend from Cachagua to weigh in about your role as a superdelegate.

I am writing to ask you to come out and endorse Barack Obama for President. I am not writing right now because of the whole Indiana/South Carolina thing. The timing is unfortunate....I have been trying to write this for months. This has nothing to do with the current situation with Obama and Clinton.

One of my favorite things about living on the Monterey Peninsula is having you as my Representative. I get twenty emails a day from different groups asking me to write my Representative to ask him to change his vote on something or other.

I rarely have to. You are already there ahead of me. You have done the due diligence and are ready to vote the way I would.

You spend time and learn the facts behind the issues. I am a fishery nut, and you blow me away with your understanding of the problems.

You vote non-politically. You have courage, and come down on the side of what is best for your constituents, the country and the planet. Whether we know it or not, at the time. You speak truth to power, and I don't see much evidence of pandering and deal-making and political expediency in your career.

You get along well with the very wealthy in our weird world, and the bartenders and waiters. You represent the ag guys....and the farmworkers. I have seen you in Pebble Beach at cocktail parties, and fucking with a stubborn chainsaw in Big Creek in the rain.

You have bothered to call me personally and talk to me at length about issues that are troubling me.

You are Barack Obama.....well, what he strives to be, anyway. You have been there before him....and the few people like you in government have paved the way and made it possible for a Barack Obama to exist. Moral, ethical, informed, caring...truthful.

I don't see any of these qualities in Hillary Clinton. I don't see Sam Farr in anything she says or does....and it is sad.

Like you I grew up with Richard Nixon, and the concept that my government and my leaders would lie to me and do anything to retain power and enforce their vision. I lived through repeated iterations of this with Reagan, and GHW Bush.....and even Bill Clinton. The ultimate absurd iteration is of course our current President.

I am saddened to watch Senator Clinton adopt the same policies and tactics as all of these guys: say anything, spin anything, do anything, compromise any principle, take any amount of money from whomever......just get that golden ring.

Everyone else is talking about "Change" in Washington, D.C. We on the Central Coast are supremely lucky to not have that outlook.

I don't want change....I want someone in the White House who acts exactly like my Representative to Congress always does......

And that is Sam Farr.....and Barack Obama.

Let's finish this.

Eighty to ninety percent of our young people feel this same way......

They are our future. Let's get this over with and get to work.

Thanks for your time.

Your friend,

Mike Jones
Cachagua

More News You Can Lose....

News Flash #4: Apple Theft Justice

From The Monterey County Herald:

C.V. woman prevails over Earthbound

Company must pay six figures, transplant orchard

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau

Article Last Updated: 05/07/2008 01:35:15 AM PDT

Priscilla Higuera sued Earthbound Farms for allegedly sneaking onto her property and taking cuttings from a rare apple tree.

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Earthbound Farms is not admitting wrongdoing, but come November workers will bare the roots of the company's notorious pink apple trees and truck them off the property.

The organic farm giant has settled a lawsuit brought by a Carmel Valley woman who accused Earthbound's research director of sneaking onto her Tassajara Road property and taking clippings from her rare apple tree to propagate a profitable orchard.

As part of the settlement, Priscilla Higuera will receive what her attorney described as a six-figure cash settlement to compensate her for the profit Earthbound made from her apple-tree cuttings.

More important, said Carmel attorney Gerald Barron, the company and its parent, Natural Selection Foods, agreed to turn over its entire fall harvest to Higuera, then carefully uproot the 150 trees so they can be transplanted to a location of her choosing.

Michael Korda, attorney for Earthbound Farms and Natural Selection, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Higuera brought suit in January 2007 alleging that she came home one day in 2001 to find someone had hacked clippings from her 75-year-old apple tree, which produces a rare variety of pink-fleshed fruit. It was not until October 2006 that she saw Mark Marino of Earthbound Farms quoted in a local newspaper about how he had heard of a rare pink apple tree in Carmel Valley and sleuthed it out to start a new orchard.

Higuera maintained the tree came from Europe 75 to 80 years ago and was a forbearer of the Pink Pearl apple, though that claim has been questioned by other apple aficionados.

Earthbound had been selling the fruit to upscale local restaurants, including Sierra Mar at the Post Ranch Inn and Marinus at the Bernardus Lodge.

While he originally denied the allegation to sheriff's deputies, Marino later admitted his actions in a deposition for the lawsuit, said Barron.

The case was set to go to trial Monday.

Instead, Earthbound has agreed to pick this year's harvest of the Carmel Valley Road orchard for Higuera, then uproot the trees in a condition conducive for transplanting and deliver them to the location of Higuera's choice.

Barron said she will be free to have some of the trees planted on her property and sell or give away the others. He said a portion of her cash settlement, which he declined to disclose, would go to charity. He estimated the trees could produce more than 5,500 pounds of apples.

Natural Selection agreed that it will never transfer any cuttings from the tree to any other party and will not attempt to clone it on its own.

While Natural Selection and Earthbound Farms admitted no wrongdoing, he said, Higuera is pleased with the outcome.

"Come November or December, when you see 150 to 200 trees being uprooted and prepared for transplanting," said Barron, "a picture's worth a thousand words."

Priscilla lives at the corner of Tassajara Road and Carmel Valley Road on the old Bloomquist Ranch.

Crazy Roger....my dishwasher at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch back in the day.....had been the heir to the Bloomquist Ranch. He posted up there in the late 70's and befriended old man Bloomquist before he died, and got the property. Roger wasn't a gold-digger....he actually cared for the old coot, and probably deserved the piece.

The Ranch is a gorgeous property, right at the top of the Ardilles Grade. Who knows who settled it originally....but as in all things on the Arroyo Seco side of the Ardilles, I suspect Swiss-Italians.

Roger was a nut-ball. He had been a missionary in the Amazon with his wife in the sixties.....which experience probably led to his mental and spiritual undoing. There were natural pharmaceuticals involved, you see. His wife went on to drop him like a bad habit and become an IT exec with piles of dough. Roger became an impoverished ranch owner.......and my dishwasher.

Roger was not without his charms, though. The Tennis Ranch at this time was like some bizarre LSD dream for me. I had worked there for years, and was eventually fired 17 times by the owner. I was rehired 16 times, though. They got me started in the catering business, though.....and I am undyingly grateful.

By time of the Roger era, I was subbing in on Tuesday and Wednesday dinners at the Tennis Ranch. The menus on any given day had not changed in decades. Wednesday was roast rib eye, squash casserole, mushroom soufflee, scalloped potatoes, Caesar salad.....and apricot soufflee with ice cream sauce. I could....and still can.....do it in my sleep.

The LSD part comes in when the richest and most powerful of the richest and most powerful of the late 70's and early 80's were our clientele.....and they behaved.....badly. Our petty revenges on the weirdness they beat us with ran to things like turning the batteries upside down in the feathered dildos of the Texan Democratic vice presidential candidate, rifling Vicodin from the giant jars of the Magnavox guy, "accidentally" tripping and crashing into the pool with the blueberry cobbler, aiding and abetting the Dom Perignon-fueled, five-hour Gloria Gaynor- accompanied grope of someone else's wife by the Prudential Board Chairman......

"I will survive........"

Five hours of replaying a 45 RPM.....over and over. And cracking bottles. The next morning, as he signed his bill......with his wife vainly trying to look over his shoulder.....he said to me: "Michael....always keep your weight on your downhill Gucci....."

The scary, sad and no less weird stuff was things like accompanying the wife of Senator Percy of Illinois back to her room four times a day and searching in all the closets and under all the beds before she could feel safe (her daughter had been kidnapped and murdered by a nut).

And trying to bring her back to Earth after a bat got in the room.....

Not normal.

Anyway, Roger would arrive at work with a pouch full of amusements. Percodan, psilocybin mushrooms, thai sticks, cocaine.....It helped. I distinctly remember losing the ability to speak the English language on the buffet with a group of women from Texas one Wednesday.....but the soufflees were perfect. And they didn't notice. They were used to the little people not being good communicators. Just so we took instruction well.....who cares?

Roger also had a stash of religious chiles still left from the Amazon. Sacred chiles, really. The whole missionary thing did not work well out for Roger down there. Compared to the indigenous gods.....Jesus was basically a polyesther dressed, high-school, network-marketing rep for Amway on the doorstep of your grass hut.

Get the fuck out of here with your wine and water. Try some ayahuasca.....and some religious chiles.

The chiles were a mix. They were arranged in a way that dipping your finger in the chiles and licking it started you on a journey: first the tip of your tongue would light up, then the sides, your palate, you would exhale fire next.....The chiles worked their way down your mouth, esophagus.....through your stomach, your intestines......and yes, the very last part of the chain as well. Holy Shit!

The best steak I ever cooked was seasoned with Camargue salt and religious chiles. I can still taste it.

The most humorous ER call I ever went on was when Roger sneezed while chopping chiles into Camargue salt.....and got them in his eyes.

Anyway.....it did not end well for Roger. Decades after the Tennis Ranch he applied for a job with us at Moveable. While I was waiting for business to pop up where I could use him, he shot himself with a pistol in his truck at the foot (the non-Swiss/Italian side) of Ardilles Grade.

The Ranch wound up with Priscilla.

Meanwhile, among Roger's whack-job friends was Andrew Weil. Don't ask me how....it had something to do with Tassajara, where Roger and I both worked and hung out. If you don't know who Andrew Weil is....go and shoot yourself like Roger. (He will be Surgeon-General under Barack if there is any justice in the world). Andrew knew the Bloomquist place, and his favorite part was this funky old apple tree the pink apples.

Not to mention the religious chiles.....and I have no direct knowledge of the other enticements of Roger's hospitality and Andrew.

Some years after Roger's demise, Andrew came through town and gave a seminar attended by the same Mark from Earthbound in the article. Andrew talked about the apples in a mystic way.

Mark was intrigued.......did some detective work......and tracked the tree down.

Mark wanted to spread the word and the fruit.....but Priscilla is a bitter old lesbian and not into it.

Mark snuck in and stole the fruitwood anyway.

The only reason Priscilla noticed was that she called in two gardening experts friends of mine to fix up the old tree. They tried to talk her into starting her own orchard with cuttings, but she demurred. Too much trouble.

When it came out that Earthbound had cuttings from Roger's tree.....Priscilla sued. You can see that she won.

I expected the local lesbian gardening clique to be rejoicing in the decision of the small landowner against the billionaire mega-corporation.

Nope.

"Fruitwood is always freely available to anyone who can propagate it. The better the tree, the freer you are with cuttings. We tried to talk Priss into starting her own orchard, but she was too lazy. I think what she did is terrible. That tree is a gift to the planet, and everyone should be able to share. Priss looked at the glass and saw it was half empty....and sued. She should have realized it is half-full, and developed her own trees."

My gardening informant is also a recovering chef.

"It is like recipes. Everyone has stolen your wild rice salad recipe. Every caterer in Monterey uses it. Are you bitter? Are you suing? No.....your recipe raised the bar, and you moved on, and everyone is better off for you having invented it."

"I feel bad about the whole thing. Earthbound shouldn't have stolen the cuttings.....but they shouldn't have had to. They had to pay big money......but Priss is going to being paying big karma some day......."

I stole the wild rice recipe from a guy in Pike's Place Market in Seattle..........

I served apricot soufflee with ice cream sauce on Friday night at Cypress Point.

I wonder if Priss will give us some cuttings.......

News you can lose.......

Cachagua Free De-Press

May 7, 2008

News Flash #1: The Black Tow-Truck

Today an black tow truck with no markings was seen prowling around Cachagua. Fears of a stealth tow-run by Officer C. blossomed and the Militia mobilized.

Finally, the driver pulled into The Store. He found Toddy Springs and Amanda out front enjoying the antics of our newly hatched wild baby chicks.

"Can you tell me where Asoleado Road is?"

Huge sigh of relief. Militia stands down. (Asoleado is a gated community off the beat of Officer C).

"It is not a road.....It is a Gated Community."

"Shit....."

"Who are you looking for?"

"I can't tell you that."

Long silence....wild baby chick admiring by all.

"Well.....if you tell me who it is, and it's someone I don't like......I'll give you the gate code......"

More admiration of baby chicks.

"You got a business card?"

News Flash #2: Little Turkey

Eric Lancaster appeared today with a baby wild turkey. Some dogs had run off the mom on Saturday and separated her from her brood. Eric rescued this baby chick from the dogs. He spent a day keeping it warm and watered, and was now tired, and wanted to get drunk. He handed off the chick to Amanda, who kept it in the pocket of her sweater while she worked. We called the SPCA, and arranged to drive it over to Monterey after closing The Store. They would wait while we drove sixty miles over two mountain ranges at $4.29 a gallon.

Amanda handed the chick off to Nike, who spent the next hours successfully teaching Little Turkey how to hunt for bugs in the garden. A small, appreciative crowd gathered to watch and comment.

Kevin Kline.....the star of "George Bush: The Movie"...... arrived for beer and ice cream with his kids. They had just built an incubator for baby birds......

Kismet.......

Little Turkey was tearfully separated from Nike.

We called the SPCA to tell them we were not coming.

They had already gone home.

News Flash #3: Rock Garden Beer Theft

Vicki The Store Lady is turning the small islands of soil by Cachagua Road into little gardens. It has been a long project.

When we first got The Store, the gophers out at the islands were so voracious they were actually chewing on the power pole guy lines. There is a hawk who lives across the road in a tree, and an owl who lives in the bushes.....so we couldn't use poison on the fuckers.

I decided to use methamphetamines and alcohol instead. Well, not directly.

I hired Leslie and Amy to dig our all the soil in the islands and line the beds with double hog wire. Why not? They were up anyway, and with nothing to do....

On the appointed day we had a party to prep for, so we arrived at the kitchen before 7am. Leslie and Amy were already at it.

Unfortunately, they were not so much at the project as at each other. We arrived to see a shrieking Amy do an two hand, overhand smash with a flat shovel on Leslie's head. Les parried the blow with her shovel, two handed.....and smashed the end of her shovel handle into Amy's unprotected ribs.......

Morning in Cachagua. Good Morning, Ladies!

Five years hence, the wire has held, and the islands are full of compost. Vicki is expanding the garden. Hollyhocks, lavender, rosemary, roses.....opium poppies. Hey, it's Cachagua!

Vicki wants a new island, so she cajoled a recent jail-bird into hauling some big border rocks for her out of the creekbed in exchange for a 24 ounce Steele Reserve malt liquor. Mmmmm.

I arrived in the heat of the day to do some compost screening and took away the poor guy's wheelbarrow.

No worries! He was happy to stagger back and forth from creek to road hand-carrying boulders.

For a beer.

In the hot sun.

Jail must suck.

And......Maybe that whole meth thing has its uses? Corporate America won't be far behind this trend.

Oh, wait. Barack is going to be President. Shoots that idea.

Celine the Vacuous Crack-head hung around and watched and provided commentary. She has been more visible since her son and sole support was hauled off to jail for wooing the pre-school teacher with a shotgun and love poems. Turns out they been wrongly billing Social Security for his 5150 Polar Bear stipend....and Uncle Sam had cut her off from most of her funds. We see more of her as she tries to be charming and cadge beers from folks like Grant.....who has an income, but sleeps in the bocce ball court.

Anyway, Vicki brought the guy his ice cold beer and set it on a rock as he staggered back and forth with boulders. Ten trips and twenty minutes went by while I screened and watched.

"Boy is that beer gonna taste good!" he called to me by the compost heap as he went down into the creek for his last boulder.

Celine, over by the new island, was roused from her stupor by this thought, spied the cold Steele Reserve sitting patiently on its rock....... grabbed it....... and drained it in one long 24 ounce pull.......

Question: Do we buy him another beer?

Feet of Clay.....

The Giant has feet of Clay.....

We have all heard enough the Greatest Generation......

If you want to experience it first hand, just come out to Cachagua and watch my 82 year old mom teaching English and Citizenship to recent immigrants from Guanajuato. 4pm sharp on Sunday. You can help.

Meanwhile, we are blowing off our young people. If Hillary Clinton steals the election.....no young person will ever vote Democratic....or probably, even vote....ever again.

Tonight....Fastest of posts ever....even on dial-up.

Nike just snuck off with Alex and Rose......Rose's parents kicked her out of the house the afternoon of her graduation from Carmel High School. They turned her childhood room into a space for an illegal immigrant who could do chores better than Rose.

Rose is now with Alex....one of my sous-chefs. There are stories that I cannot tell about Rose....and about Alex....that would curl your hair, and send you google-searching for hit-men and automatic weapons.

Picture ME not naming names........The guy who launched Officer Cocksucker. Really bad.

Really bad.

Nike is sneaking back up to her parents' house to get some clothes. Last week she went to school in my pyjamas....and pulled it off. It was all she had available. You can do pyjamas in Kansas...but at Carmel Get-High School......the vintage of your BMW determines your status in your class. Nike goes to school in my pyjamas. To honors Physics and Math.....and honors History.

She claims to be fine.

She is fairly sure her family is asleep...we invited them in for dinner tonight, and the interface with actual food probably stunned them.

We invited her family in because her brother Christ-Carrier....just enlisted in the Airborne. He ships out tomorrow.

Christ-Carrier....let's call him Chris.....is a computer and math genius. Two years ago, he and his best buddy...the son of a retired East Coast assassin on our Mountain.....well, semi-retired...applied to B-School in San Jose and bailed. They thought there was a world of possiblility out there.

Last year, when Mom Of The Year melted down, Chris came back to support the family. He even took the hit that the family house burned down because of all his computer connections.....and not Mom Of The Year's crazy drug problems involving ether, glass pipes and open flames.....

After a year of sitting in the dust and ash and wreckage of his home and life......guess what?

Chris enlisted.

Perfect. No downside there. Computer/math genius becomes cannon fodder.

Suicide By Bush.

I suppose it is better than meth-amphetamines......

One more story...

My friend Susan.....best friends with my ex who does not talk to me.....took the time and effort and energy to recommend a Latino kid to me for a worker.

Susan speaks around nine languages. Last time she was here, she was teaching at Edward Alvarez High School in Salinas.

Edward Alvarez is a war hero, former POW. Ed is NOT voting for John McCain, if you are keeping score. And.....he is not saying why.

Anyway....at Alvarez Susan taught Japanese, Spanish, French and Algebra.

That kind of chick. If you look up "polymath" in a decent dictionary......her high school yearbook photo comes up.

Susan moved away, married.....gloriously....... and came back.

And recommended Juan.

Juan has a sleeping disorder. He needs more sleep than most, but wakes up at any tiny sound.....which is why he needs sleep. His Mom and Grandma have the same thing.....so there is no one to wake anyone up in that house.

What you thought there were Latino men around to take responsibility for their kids? You must be from New Zealand.......

Juan had to drop out of Alisal High in Salinas because he could not make it to class....and met Susan in a GED class she teaches in her spare time.

For some reason Jews don't do that whole Mother Teresa thing....but if they did, Susan would be right there elbowing that skinny Albanian crone out of the way. Japanese, Spanish, French, Algebra, GED, Soul Saving, Racketball........

If Susan says JUMP...we say HOW HIGH?....on the way up.

We hired Juan on her recommendation. He had another offer from Red Lobster...but I told him we would work around it.

Juan has to wrangle a ride with friends from Castroville for 40 miles, over two mountain ranges to work for us. We are in a culture that is so removed from his base culture as to be comedic....

The kid is money. He does every thing I say, and despite being so out in the weeds socially, culturally and economically....he can focus and do a good job with a knife and something to cut with good direction. His first day on the job he bonded with Giacamo Agostini....the best and most successful Formula One motorcycle racer in history......

Meanwhile, Juan had problems with his whole sleep thing. He had a breakdown.....in East Salinas. Ambulances were called, and he spent some time in the 5150 ward at Natividad....a hospital that is losing money because of all the care they give to illegals.

Juan is legal. Therefore.......He has bills to pay. He is trying to be a Mensch.

I have so little trust in our world, and am so depressed....that I carry a couple of thousand Euros, and a couple of thousand dollars in my pocket...at all times. Bottom left hand pocket if you ever find me laying in the road. And....I paid taxes on my little stash.

After three perfect days of working with us.....cold start, world change.....Juan needed money. I told him I would pay him cash.

At the end of his third day of work, I fiddled around and arranged a good deposit for the kid against his hours. We left the party and walked back to our van. I had to find the keys, and pull out of a difficult spot before I could get it together to drive Juan to meet his mom, with his pay in cash. I had it all arranged....in my pocket.

As we climbed into the van to drive off, Juan handed me a folded wad of fifty dollar bills.

"What is this?"

"Dude, it was on the floor......"

The "floor" being La Rancheria....a private road in Carmel Valley.

The kid is so clean and so honest that....even though he is in a fucked economic and social position...it never occurred to him to pocket the cash he had just found on a country road.

This is a kid from East Salinas.....a reject from Alisal High.

The wad was $400.....I owed him half. I paid him and he trundled off with his friends.....who had been hanging out waiting for him the entire five hours of his shift.

Because friendship is golden.

Juan really needed the money.

He had to pay the ambulance and the hospital their monthly vig......after his melt-down after not being able to sleep in East Salinas......

I asked him: "Why can't you sleep...what do you think about? What keeps you up? New thoughts that don't stop.....or thoughts about old things?"

Takes one to know one.

"Lots of thoughts about things I should have done.....and didn't."

Juan is SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD......and such a good kid that his only thoughts are about paying off the ambulance and hospital for their bill for the one time he let his guard down.

I knew Susan would not send me a dud.....

We are the only civilized country in the world where this could happen.

Trust me....and trust Susan.....one of the smartest and most intuitive people I have ever met......Juan could be president of GM.

Nike could as well....her brother Chris could be Bill Gates. If he survives Iraq.....and the teenage hormones that have taken him there. Where are the adults?

And we are pissing away our heritage, our progeny....and our possibilities.

Our Hope.

Vote Obama. Send him some bucks.

Cheer me up.

Deep Throat and Officer C.

I have a load of terrible photos I took this morning.....next year I am going to schedule a visit from Bennie, Conall or Jacek at wildflower time.

The damn GWP (German Wire Haired Pointer) will not be denied. I tried to stay in bed past 7am with my obscure Ian Rankin Scottish detective novel.....and the dog barks, bites, tears off covers......and then starts bringing me my boots and shoes and his collar.

So.....we walk. And I read my novel, the Herald.....and count wildflowers. The other day I counted 27 or 28 different species....and as the days get warmer and longer, I could see them drop off one at a time.

Just like with economics....the little ones go first.

The ones under your feet.
'
On our hike we go to a disused private driveway that leads to a glorious flat 10 acres owned by some rich hippies from Marin. They visit every ten years or so. They are part of the tiny water system I maintain for ten of my neighbors.....so I have an excuse to trespass: "Just checking the meter!"

The property is magic.....a flat field of tall grass, old oaks, and a dizzying array of wildflowers. I am not the only one who knows.....there are wild turkeys, lots of quail and pigeons, deer, hares, rabbits.....even a damn badger.

Two days ago....when running up my wildflower count.....I was chuffed to be walking along a country way, crushing myriad wildflowers with each step. Not because I am peculiarly viscious.....just because there were so many it was impossible to step without stomping on dozens.

I decided not to be bummed about this, but to be grateful for an abundant Nature who generously scattered thousands of petals in my path. I mean......I was walking on a road, not some wilderness pasture with the fucking bears. The tiny flowers were flourishing everywhere along the path, and in the woods and roadside. I felt like some corny bride, with six-year olds scattering petals in my path on my way to the altar to meet my beloved.

My East Coast education and that damned Irish irony.....comes back to haunt me with Robert Frost:

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...."

So, now I need Bennie, Jacek, Conall and fucking Robert Frost.......for my morning walk. Can't see a problem there. Low maintenance fellow that I am.

Anyway. Two days hence from the 28 count, with no rain.......the flowers are dying. The little world has changed. It has crumpled in on itself....party over, time to buckle down and survive for the next nine months. My footsteps over the last months have worn out the wild flowers and grasses on my path and there is a tunnel cut along the road that marks my morning wandering. The dogs respect it....and even though it drifts about a bit on the trail while I read while I am walking, they only tread where I have. Xabi the Grandpuppy does it at Formula One speeds......and makes all the corners with only a little skidding......there are turkeys to chase....and that fucking badger.

I was feeling so peaceful this morning....and so bummed at the loss of my little wildflower friends.... that as my thoughts drifted to the whole Jensen Camp/Officer Cocksucker drama.....I just wanted to let it go.

"Why Can't We All Just Get Along?"

Maybe it isn't all that bad.....maybe I could write something.......Oil on the waters....

Phone rings. Caller ID says: "Pay phone. Salinas"

"Are you the owner of the Store? (Older voice). Well, I am an old fan of that Store. I love to come in and have a cold beverage on a hot day, and talk to your store ladies. I know the people in those camps.....and I have artist and poet friends who live there."

I am very disturbed at what I just read in the newspaper."

I can't tell you who I am......because it would cause big problems.... I just want to say that some one needs to stick up for these people, because they are getting a raw deal."

The older gentleman went on to cite County and State ordinances....by the numbers.

"I know Phil Higgenbotham.....and he IS a cocksucker.....in just the terms you described. I know a lot about him...so much so that I can't tell you who I am. He has abused his authority in terrible ways. He has hurt people and frightened them terribly....and he has abused his authority in ways that are actually criminal. He needs to be sued. Government cannot act like this."

"Well, sir....with the greatest of respect....that was my initial impression five months ago."

"You were right. Phil Higgenbotham is a volunteer with the Sheriffs Office......has anyone ever asked to see his credentials? He has no more authority over those people than the Man in the Moon!"

"No, sir. He has actually never introduced himself to me or interacted with me in any official way."

"Well...he hasn't got any. He is a vehicle abatement officer only. He is a volunteer Sheriff. Like a Crossing Guard. He can only deal with derelict, unregistered, nuisance vehicles abandoned on private property that are causing problems for the property owner. He has no authority for health issues, he cannot enter a private residence, he cannot go past a locked gate, he has no authority for code enforcement, planning issues, or building department issues. He is causing innocent people a lot of problems and he needs to be stopped, and the only way to do it is to sue him in criminal court for criminal acts, and in civil court for abuse of authority. And if anyone in the County backs him up for a minute, which I doubt.....they need to be sued as well. One lawyer with a set of balls will set all these terrible people running for cover."

The gentleman went on to state County and State statutes in detail.......

And believe me......I know a lawyer with a giant set of balls. (And he hates Hillary Clinton....personal aside).

"This is a trial balloon. This are some people in the County trying to illegally establish some kind of legal precedent over poor people in violation of the law and all common decency. It needs to stop, and someone needs to stand up for these people. I appreciate what you have done....but it is not enough......"

"I can't tell you who I am, because I am way too close to this and I know way too much about this. Just know that these are good people in Cachagua and they are being shafted by a deranged person with a personal vendetta."

I mentioned historical precedent for these kinds of quasi-legal operations in the name of "The State": Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. George Bush?

"Exactly!"

Oh, shit.

The worst part of being genetically paranoid......is being fucking RIGHT.

OK.....So much for the Peace/Love/TieDye.

As much as I would love all this to go away.......one vicious prick nutball has a self-appointed crusade......that is causing completely needless heartache, loss and anxiety in our little world.

And the general mass of people are so used to abuse from authority.....that they buy into it.....locally and nationally.

A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil....and a hurricane destroys a city. George Bush.....Phil Higgenbotham.

"I have a badge! I need to come in and inspect your floor coverings! You are on probation.....You must comply."

"I have a badge! Your fence is six inches too high! Your property is condemned."

"I have a badge! I smell rats. I can have you shut down because of my olfactory and official superiority."

I must say.....Deep Throat was right. Someone needs to step up and.....in the Quaker sense: "Speak Truth to Power."

We googled the guy. Pay Phone. We analyzed his call and googled his responses.

Verdict: Deep Throat is a retired judge. Or a former Sheriff. A high level guy who is concerned with the tiniest people being fucked over.

"Thank you, Jesus". I mean, "Thank You, Deep Throat!"

And "Fuck You, Officer Cocksucker".

Back to my path......and back to my Eastern upbringing.....and back to Robert Frost and the path in the woods........

Not to mention the crushed baby wildflowers.....

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood....
And longing to travel both.....and be one traveller...
Long I stood.
And looked down one as far as I could.....
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

And took the other, as just as fair.
And having perhaps the better claim....
Because it was grassy, and wanted wear.....
Though as for that, the passing there....
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh! I marked the first for another day.....
And yet knowing how Way
Turns on to Way.....
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh....
Somewhere.......
Ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood...
And I....
Took the road less traveled by.......

And that has made all the difference.

Vote Obama.

And Dave Potter, while you are at it.