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I don’t get starstruck anymore...

The concept of artificial intelligence is troubling...imitation of nature has a long history of failure. All the dudes who tried to fly by making bird-like wings and splattered themselves after ironically failing to discover gravity for example. There is no need for nature to develop a creature that can fly at 700mph at 33,000ft like a 757...theres no food up there. Nature could never develop a flying machine like this, a huge piece of metal with a motor attached...artificial intelligence that emulates human thinking is a weird idea roughly akin to my example, I think. My observation? Mother nature has never needed an intelligent creature and has thus far never actually developed one. Human intelligence has been developed, kind reader, by humans...and artificial intelligence will adapt it’s form to it’s function in ways not analogous to nature itself. I’m just sayin’...

Yeah, technique...not style which emphasizes individuality, but a uniform practiced way of minimizing environmental impact and maximizing ones awareness of the medium of water...an intuitive adaptation of movement within the parameters of pressure, density and volume of air within ones lungs and equipment translated into a form of motion more akin to flying than swimming. Swimming isn’t diving...it’s swimming, and swimmers need to un-learn some (much) of what they know.

Scuba diving is about technique...mastering buoyancy, which is a form of flying in 3 dimensions, always in control of depth and position. Changing gear configuration specifics like wetsuit thickness or adding a camera can radically alter buoyancy...my solution is a retreat into rigidity. I wear either a drysuit or a 3/2 full wetsuit. Summer/winter, one changeover...some people just never get this part of diving because they have way too much shit...hoods, vests, 4 different wetsuits, trying to fight off chill and never really getting the buoyancy under control. My solution was to retreat into simplicity to avoid having to think too much.

Tropical Storm Fay...it rained. The wind blew. The media freaked out. We tied up the boats, the tourists got tossed out, the impact was pretty much financial in a tight economy. If the storm had bitched up, this would look like wise caution...it didn’t strengthen, and the snark is on. Emergency planners are in a no-win situation, the hand wringing news people always seem to run out of banter after 10-12 hours of self induced apocalyptic panic. NBC at least had the Olympics...the others were switching from chic-porn-soap operas to distopia-porn infobabes standing in the wind and rain waiting for something to happen...

I never lost electricity...even briefly. But I sit with the windows open and listen to the wind and trees whooshing and I remember things about these gray days when pressure drops creating feelings that have few words..a bronze coin in my hand, 4 years under my belt.

“What you resist, you become”

Color photos from the 1930’s...interesting.

One D at a time...she is a blurter. And at Snappy Banter World Headquarters, we respect above all things creative sexualized blurters/blurting

The Daily Show behind-the-scenes story you’ve all been waiting for...

Dursban, Diazinon, Malathion...better living through chemistry

Huge aggregations of whalesharks discovered in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Animal portraits...

Free Jenny...controversy? What is the debate here...?

Bitter...cynical...doomed. But FunLoving!

I’ve worked about 3 years without a vacation or time off...other than the forced hurricane days. Storms threaten, we tie everything securely and hunker down. Power will go early in these windstorms, and that makes “time off” seem a bit oxymoronic. So the past 2 weeks, I have stepped down as Chancellor elCapitan and just hung out here in Key Largo smellin’ the roses a bit, pondering little, questioning nothing...speaking softly or not at all.

Back at work...the craziness fires up quickly...one diver doing a compass skill on her 3rd open water dive sets the bezel and starts swimming south at the surface as her instructor watches...she swims, and swims...and swims...and displays no sign whatsoever that she is going to turn around as instructed and do her reciprocal course. HELLno...she’s heading to Havana, baby!

Panic...fear...loathing...dude blows a huge wad of snot into his hand every time he comes up the ladder and wipes his hideous snot all over the boat...I bring this to his attention and he does it again, and again...another honks into his hand and swishes it around in the fucking camera bucket...the German kid is spitting on the fore deck and I watch as it slimes across gear, feet...and he does it again fascinated by his own spit, the Asian snorkeler is puking her royal guts out all over the fuel tanks...people are struggling, people are deleriously overwhelmed by the underwater scenery...from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous, and all of them are talking constantly...a roar of babbleicious noise that shuts me down. I am not, kind reader, feeling the love for humanity, but as always...I will re-adapt.

A non-scuba picture?

Fay, an evacuation in front of a tropical storm/hurricane/apocalypse...and the local Miami news is interviewing the shitfaced drunks stumbling around Key West at 7am. Scintillating.

Lost Tribes of the Sahara...interesting discovery of a stone age graveyard

The UW has put up digitized ephemera from the Vietnam era...a glimpse into my roots...”where is the outrage?” she asked me...”why aren’t people demonstrating and protesting?...”indeed...” my reply.

“My clone has plagarized my memoirs!”

I found your money

“Hope you’re happy, Sandy Allen...hope your garden is blooming. Mirrors never held you back”

The pursuit of history

“Academics” will sometimes use gadzookery to eliminate doubts about their superiority and intelligence ..Galimatious hectoring lacking salubrious stercoration without a trace of the transpicuous driving me to trichotillomania...

Abortion is a slippery slope issue, and the sides are fighting in reverse...Reason number 801 why we need a regime change.

The Cayman trench is an area of the deepest water on earth, almost completely unknown and unexplored, a new British sub expedition is soon to reveal some pretty interesting stuff...

The Bush Legacy will be...?

Confusing words...

Typically Twisted

“I am a deeply superficial man” warhol

Is it possible to take the insulting of strangers to a professionally polished artform? On the other hand, will strangers stop performing near death stunts in my face every day? Will this cease to amaze with it’s infinite variety and inventive creativity, will the irony abate? And I ask you, kind reader...what of the doomed?...well, I say “Fuck the doomed”....One dog barks at something, the rest of the dogs bark at him.

I enjoy getting other people to give me their opinions on things, random, disconnected things, as a device for changing the subject...they’re waxing on about politics or some shit and I ask them “what’s your favorite Batman film?”...

People on cellphones can be irritating, god knows...but this one popped up onto my radar as an extreme case...at a urinal, the dude is carrying on a conversation while holding his dick mindlessly pissing and focusing through his earhole and mouth oblivious to the world around him...bad business, this. He peed on his shoe, and didn’t even notice I was noticing that he didn’t notice he had done something really fucking funny...

Up in the office people were standing there waiting to be signed in for the afternoon dives...I was being accosted by the dog, Saba (the bosses dog), because as a person who generally prefers the company of dogs to people on any given day, I cater to the dogs desire to be fed all the time...I buy these mega-humongous boxes of bone-shaped treats, and Saba goes apeshit whenever she hears the sound of my car, or whenever I walk past a window...and when I actually come into the room, she jumps vertically like 5ft straight up inches from my face (a 60lb+ black lab)...I know the dog is totally about the goddam treats, and is sniffing me out for the potential I may be holding some sort of sandwitch or something....once, I gave her a few dried apricots I was snackin’ on and the next day the boss was bringing in carpets from home because the dog had developed explosive diarrhea and his wife wanted nothing to do with the cleanup...I was totally silent about my role in this shitfest, totally. But I digress...I give the dog a treat, she crushes it on the carpet just vacuumed by Joni...she scowls, and I say “Why do you hate dogs, Joni...? WHy?” and she turns red as the people waiting fail to grasp that I have just thrown her under the bus...they are also wondering “Why does Joni hate dogs”...this also works well with “Why do you hate Chinese people, Joni?” much to her horror and my juvenile amusement...

Scuba picture of the day...and back from oblivion, the orchid

Joe Vaux

The Genius of Charles Darwin (5 parts)

Methinks the Mormon doth protest overmuch...what a story

Dick Tuck, my hero

Am I boring you?

The McCain Arizona knows and loathes

If you need a better reason to read this, it probably isn’t gonna work out between us...

I’m just sayin’...is a phrase I use that serves as a shield, protecting me from the consequences of a blurt, a faecetious device. Yes, kind reader, I’m a blurter...I say shit that I hope is provocative. It’s a form of performance art honed over many years, designed to express pov for all things mediocre and popular...as an outsider and rara avis aficionado, I am drawn to powerful people without the afflictions of ego and aggression, those whose confidence is equally balanced with humility and sardonic facetious wit...

I’m just sayin”...

The images of Paris, Britney and Obama merged into a single message spoke volumes to me...the idea that “pretty people” have it easy, that they are simply empty headed parasites without any real feelings is very much a TV-idea, I think. Hundreds of millions of people watch TV, have been raised on it...as much as 30% of each waking day is spent with it, and not once, ever has any show portrayed real life...and yet, the imagery and falseness of the boobtube “reality” co-opted by the Republican masterminds? Swiftboating worked before, it’ll work again.

supercritical fluids...

125,000 lowland gorillas discovered living in the swamps of the Congo...

Whitehouse tour with Jackie...pure gold.

You too can be on the “watch list”

Religious nutballs in Texas? Nah...too farfetched.

A playful, but guarded mix of fictionalized reality

Crazy week...truly. The big Casino boat announces on VHF that they’re leaving the dock and at the blind corner, they blast the horn...and shit-the-bed, a small boat just keeps coming around...POW. Into the wall he goes. Tough room to play...Key Largo Canal has a lot of professional traffic, and any event brings the private boaters out in huge numbers. US1 has the same problems...a hellish mix of locals on a mission and clueless touristas wondering “How far apart are the mile markers???”, along with paranoid drunks driving 20mph under the limit or 20mph over...push this onto a driving grid like water, and holy shitinski, you got mirth! SOme of the other captains get pretty hostile over the Rules of the Road on the water, but I make it a strict policy to never, ever yell or vent on these hapless blunderers...just deal with it, move on, and if they decide to give a finger or shout I just smile and wave at them...

I slide by the K Mart to renew my lobster license...a group of people is looking at the gear, and they tell me they had been out earlier and had decided “fins would be a good idea”...they had been out after lobster with no fins, no mask, no snorkel, no lobster license, no dive flag...they asked me “is it true you don’t have to have a license if you live here?”...wowza.

The keys...there is a generation aging fast, shadowy, cryptic, inscrutable, they came here in the early days of scuba looking for treasure. They found it, lost it, drank it away...some adapted to the new “gold”, and imported a bit of powder back in the days when the border was more porous...their stories are fascinating, and as time wears on, they are dying...the stories untold. They fought against each other, sometimes destroying valuable archeological sites to hide their sources, betrayal, spies, fear, loathing...it’s a modern day pirate story of the last days of the old-school Keys outlaws. They know things, they have stories to tell and who will tell them?

Almost no one here was actually born here...we all came here because we were running from something, or toward it. As the old ways fade, the new outlaw paradigm isn’t quite as clear cut...it’s kinda hard to affect any kinda of attitudinal dangerous vibe in an eco-tourist economy, but I’m told I am getting it pretty close. And I am struck by how little actual Keys history or knowledge about coral reef ecology my compadres are even aware of...how the fuck, I wonder, can one inspire others to love and revere this amazing place when one has no clue at all??. They come to Margaritaville to drink on the professional level, knowing nothing at all beyond the blabbering silliness of the King of Fools, Jimmy Buffet...getting drunk and screwing are the main attractions...but for me, it is the depth of blue intensity, the feeling I get from the place, a wish that the trees and rocks could talk to me...I drive down US 1 sometimes and think about what it was like here 500, 1000, 5000 years ago... the weathered faces of the “water people”, all with stories to tell, of how they got here, why, what happened...there is a wisdom lurking within some of these people, I can see it in their eyes...they walk around in places like Publix, or K Mart with these distinctive raccoon lines from sunglasses...driving down the hiway in “keys-beaters” (old cars kept because nobody here drives more than 20-30 miles a week so who the fuck cares about cars?)...yeah, people choose to live here, people like me...it isn’t paradise, it isn’t living a dream, it’s a place for neo-outlaws.

And I am staunchly, intransigently convinced that one can’t pose as an outlaw...that would be like some orthodontist milquetoast-motherfucker buying a Harley and some cheesy leather pants or some shit...outlaws are born nihilist non-conformists, not made. You can’t just buy a motorcycle (for example) or move to the Keys, no, kind reader...the difference is obvious. To be a true outlaw, you have to walk the walk...take the bit in your mouth and hoe the row for a while trying to fit in...spit the fucking thing out and piss on it and be what is true, comfortable in one’s own skin...outside the main, without chafing against it.

I had to go cash a check at a bank I’ve never been to...I endorse it and slip it in the drive thru drawer along with my DL...the cashiers are giving me the stinkeye...and she tells me “You’ll have to come in to cash this”...what the fuck? So I do...they can’t believe that my picture and the man they see before them are the same person, so they want to see me sign the check...”You look a lot younger than that picture” they tell me...I smile...yeah, I suppose I do.

I went out with some friends to lobster...it was close to sunset by the time we got out, and as soon as we hooked up I was off the boat...20ft deep, big star corals everywhere, perfect habitat for lobster...but I didn’t see any at all. I move slowly in the dim fading light, and suddenly I see these 5 reef squid. So I settle down and just watch them...they are clearly watching me, nervous at first, then they start this elaborate dance...I forgot all about hunting and just watched for a long time. As I drove the boat back to Port Largo, the stars came out...the air was like warm velvet, the water flat and glassy calm...and I thought about the girl, the tyranny of distance, change, and the rightness of it all...

Carrie Caignet...Florida maritime history like you have never seen.

“Help!” is being restored and released on dvd...

I want to get in on this whole “cat” thing...

Player...what a word. Some would use the word to describe one who is a simple “cheater”, an unfaithful liar, a user...a player, kind reader, is a master of the game of manipulating situations and people into opportunity. Sustainable, mutually beneficial, profitable. Now...you know.

Rappers and Republicans have a lot in common...a democrat and a republican show up at the pearly gates...the republican goes to hell because it turns out god is a lesbian of color...

A Tale of 2 Mary’s...just amazing. Paranoia and guns are inextricably linked.

But is it “Vista” compatible?

Triumph...I love this dog. It’s not just mooks! It’s GOOMBAHS!

Scuba instructor charged in death of student...? Wow. A pool? jhc.

Ted Stevens, Republican. Indicted. Do you get the impression that the Clinton BlowJob fiasco was “overblown”?

On the nature of glass...yet another ordinary thing poorly understood and taken for granted...A NYT article...

I got a huge trophy for being “Most Humble”...

Freedom...is an illusion. A metaphor, an abstract, a dream of carefree release from responsibility and accountability that doesn’t really exist. When you actually have it, you don’t know because you’re eight years old and clueless...freedom is only a memory, or that fleeting feeling one has after the rent check clears. Cellphones are an obvious sign of imprisonment in the tentacled clutch of daily life, a voluntary ball and chain through which anyone with lips and a finger can reach out and fuck up your world. Same with email...if you have it, you check it, if you check it then CLICK...handcuffs are on.

Ahhh, yes, freedom is an illusion. A young man comes here to Key Largo, learns to dive in calm, beautiful weather...he sees us all, working where we do, laughing, a team of volunteers in minimal clothing living a life that we designed ourselves. His life...appears to him like a trap and geography is the solution. 

He wants to work on a scuba boat. <sigh>...and his first day spending the whole 3hr tour topside? He quits. Done. He is completely disenchanted...people panicking, freaking out, puking...pretty much normal. People having fun, diving, spending an hour in submerged blissful ignorance of the mayhem above, pretty much normal. Some days both, some one, some the other...

A couplea Miami beautiful people...they don’t listen to a single fucking word. A DM and his DM-SO from the UK catch them on the line out at the Duane and slow their rapid ascent...they’re both out of air. They come back to the boat, completely ignorant of how close they came. The couple that saved their lives didn’t even get a thanks from them... A boat hooks up, starts up one of those lawn mower things in a tube to supply air on a regulator (they work in shallow water, but this dive is 130ft) and the diver (alone) drops down the line...I’m watching real close, because we’re the only professionals out here on this spot, and I see bad shit happening...the diver comes back within a minute, gasping, panicky, clambering back aboard...they thought this was the Jesus statue. OOPS! Same place same time, the boat right next to us has a compressor onboard (another private boat) and the sound is obliterating all hope of hearing anything but the goddam roaring...as if these peckerheads couldn’t take tanks with them? The one doing the filling is blissfully unaware of the guy at his bowline screaming at him...I am full blown battle ready and screaming at him too...he doesn’t hear a fuckin’ thing...so I throw an apple at him and it thuds on the deck and he looks over at me all pissed off...I am slashing my hand across my thoat and yelling at him “TURN THAT FUCKING THING OFF!”...he shuts it down, and his diver tells him “Joe is in DECO...he has 99minutes at 10ft! We need another tank!”...now in order for such a thing to be possible here requires some serious failure...Serious fucking stupidity. This is lobster MiniSeason week, kind reader, and private boats are swarming everywhere...there is a sense of chaos all over the wrecks and reefs of the Keys. I hear a distress call from a boat reporting a missing diver, and the guy doesn’t know how to use the radio, he’s holding it too far from his mouth, and the back-and-forth with the USCG is excruciating to listen to...”What is your location?” they ask...”My location is the “Eagle”” he replies...this is a wreck off Islamorada, 15 miles to the SW, and I wonder how it is I am receiving the signal so well all the way up at Elbow...the guy tells the USCG that the missing diver had dropped into heavy current and tried to descend but they saw him drifting away as he tried again (note, the drill in current in deep water is to use a mooring ball line to descend. This “try” to “free descend” shit is insane newbie ignorant death wish...just sayin’)...he goes on to say that he and the others went ahead and did the dive anyway hoping to find the missing guy on the wreck I listen in total amazement...dude is drifting the fuck away from you in the deep blue ocean...no doubt, here...and he does his dive anyway? Yup...best part of this? They weren’t in Islamorada at all, they were 15 miles from the Eagle...they were on the fuggin Spiegel Grove. My buddy Jim, from Island Ventures heard the call and put it all together and found the maroon floating straight downcurrent...a happy ending. This is gonna be a long week...

This is a specialized line of work...and one would suppose a level of respect might come with it...but it kinda doesn’t. Maybe 10-12 times a week, a bullet whizes right past our ears...somebody, pretty much every day has a near-death experience, and it becomes part of the fabric of a normal day for folks to assume I’m livin’ the dream...this isn’t for everyone, and the burnout rate is crazy high. The ones who sell everything and move looking for paradise have a 99% dropout rate.

Some are free and they don’t know it yet...dude walks up to the boat yesterday lookin’ like somebody shot his dog...bad vibe. Married 30 bazillion years, wife gets a boyfriend and drops the bomb...”I never saw it coming” he says. “I’m too old for this shit”...wow. He’s free, but he doesn’t know it yet.Numero-Uno-MistakoGRANDE? Go get a girlfriend right away.

Strange TV moments...

“You look like your Mom”...if love is the answer, then rephrase the fucking question.

All in all, it’s just another dick on the wall.

W...hmm. A bit late, wouldn’t you think? With all the blabbering about “experience” and “wisdom” floating like turds on the scummy media pond...

She used to work as a DM here in Key Largo...now she’s here with the SO and his kid diving...she’s pretty much diving on a professional level, her companions not so much. They’re taking the usual forever amount of time to gear up...the ten minute bell rang 20 minutes ago, we’re tied up at the divesite, seas are rolling in beam-to as we turn with the current...sitting onboard in a wetsuit, in the sun, nervous...a recipe for nausea. She is waiting at the line with her camera (a large SLR with double strobes)...the surge gets irritating, so she descends...I see her bubbles around the line for a long time, but hell...I woulda bolted long before she did. The son is with an instructor, and off they go...but the BF is taking forever. Finally he goes in, and a few minutes later he’s back. He isn’t having much fun, apparently, and it’s all her fault. His mask flooded, he couldn’t find her, he’s feeling a bit seasick. She, of course, dives every minute of the time given...she’s lovin’ it, no doubt, and as she comes aboard, he quietly, angrily unloads...”Quit mumbling! You’re always mumbling...you ditched me! I couldn’t see, I couldn’t find you!”...

“He was a boy, I was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?”

Warp drive ‘splained...

 Do you ever find yourself wondering why a blind person would want to climb Mt Everest? Well, I see that same kinda thing sometimes...like, I wonder if people who work at skateboarding parks ever get folks coming in who have always “dreamed of riding the handrails down a flight of stairs”? They have collected donations, got a DOT/org...local TV has sent a crew to tape a weepy-feelgood story as our hero is lifted from his wheelchair onto the board and helped up onto the rail...WHHHEEEEEEEEEE! splat. Hmm. Some dreams crash hard, I suppose.

Next Door Neighbors...interesting stuff.

The true history behind myths is better than the myths themselves

R=V/I, so if V=240V, I=20ma, then R=240/20E-3 = 12k ohms...Ohm’s Law. Voltage above 20mA will fuckin’ KILLya, so be careful, pervs.

Werner Herzog has seen fire, rain, ice, insane gay penguins...

Lighten up, Frances!

Why is it so funny when people puke? I dunno...I think laughing it off is a way of coping...there are some who dive like it’s angry sex...just pounding it, joylessly working it...4 dives a day, day after day after day...arguing, whining, diving...one climbs the ladder after their 5th day, 20th dive...she turns and vomits all over “Lighten UP! <see below>”...a drenching blurt that coats the ladder, the lines, the entire body of this hapless person...YOWZA! Is it wrong to laugh? How jaded I have become...how utterly steely in my body-fluid tolerance...and the bloody-deliciousness of the simple pharse “Lighten UP!”...indeed.

The mix of people is a dizzying, crazy example of “working with the public”...they pay, they ride. Some of them get really angry about weird shit I take for granted. They get told that we have a schedule...I assume they come to dive, so I give a maximum time in the water, over an hour...one guy demands to know “Aren’t we getting a surface interval?” I reply “you’ve been out of the water for 20 minutes...what’s your pressure group?”...now, he’s frustrated AND righteously indignant, along with, of course, ignorant...PLUS, he’s pissed off that we are doing a second dive on Molasses...pissed off royally. Pissed off that the boat is full. I detect a trend, here...beauty part is he does motivational christian based seminars for a living called “Lighten Up!”...yeah. Lighten up, Frances.

Among the ranks of divers we have no shortage of know-it-all pedantics...out on the Duane, this guy is just squirming like Ralphie Wiggums waiting to thrust his hand up...he interrupts my briefing twice, and of course, kind reader, I shut him down. Finally, comes his turn to speak and he blurts: “I want to remind everyone to let air of their BCD as they ascend because air expands as you come up and you need to control buoyancy!!!” 2....3....4....4.5....silent seconds tick by as we all just look at him. Onboard today...3 Virginia State Troopers (also on the dive rescue/recovery team), their spouses, a couple instructors on fun dives...

RubberDoll...power tools...I hope she was wearing protective eyewear. THAT would be really hot.

Mr Rogers

329yr old wreck in Lake Michigan...and a legal battle. <yawn>...who “owns” history?

All Things That Rise Must Diverge...”me and little j-o-e, we’ll be goin ahhwey...”

America’s New Civil War...and the DEA expresses it’s “concerns”

DayStrippers...

A guy I knew long ago called and invited me to his mom’s 80th...the conversation kept veering to the right as it always has for the past several years. I’ve noticed this disturbing and sad trend, many times in the TalkRadio wingnut crowd...they want to trot out the nonsense they hear that day and spin it into conversation. “Did you know that we have the worlds largest oil reserves in offshore water? Congress won’t allow drilling for it! The Chinese are doing it! The Cubans too! Those Democrats just don’t get it...” I was silent. This shit just makes me tired...

The inquiring creationists want to know: Why are there still monkeys?

On the descent of reason...Skin Deep

Your descent is complete; Have a Nice Life!

The LogBook...filled out on the honor system in a world of lies. They don’t fill them out before they ask you to sign it, thats a given...just the date, maybe...I’m lifting 60 tanks at low tide from the boat up onto the dock that seems higher up with every set...it’s over 90f, we have a tight turnaround because the guy with the logbook signature hobby burned us for 10 minutes each dive, and come on now...really. I’m workin’ here. Hard. I ask him if he can wait a few minutes...he seems irritated. So I take the book and he hasn’t filled out the dive data fields, he asks me “What time did I get out of the water? How deep did I go?”...I sigh, and fill in the numbers (which I didn’t actually know for sure) and signed it Capt Mike Hunt.

Another guy, another day.. waving his logbook around like it’s some kinda holy-book of truths...he’s just been told of the policy requiring an “Advanced” certification for an “Advanced” dive on the Spiegel Grove...”I’ve been diving all over the world! I have hundreds of dives! LOOK!” because he doesn’t want to have to pay for a guide...and he’s 350lbs, easy...60’ish, a gigantic red faced red flag if ever there was one...and the flags just keep on coming, one after the other...boasting, loud, slamming other dive ops for the same requirement as if this charming tactic will win us over...I suggest he just take the Advanced course...with all that experience, it should be a walk in the park...but this guy is a bully, and he won’t have it. He snorts derisively and looks at me like I’m a thief...I look right back at him like he’s another meatpuppet/cheapskate with a secret death-wish. Not on my shift, peckerhead, I think to myself...Let’s just keep everyone at body temperature, OK?

The theft of history...artifacts stolen by looters and sold to “collectors”, lost forever.

35 years ago...I heard “Houses of the Holy” in it’s entirety for the first time. I was thumbing my way through California on Hwy-101, the Pacific Coast Highway and these guys picked me up long after dark on their way to San Luis Obispo...a warm, breezeless night, all kinds of bright starry light in the inky sky and the sound of the surf gently hissing over the coarse sand...I wasn’t in a hurry to move through this place, but a cop car had come by three times and they were giving me the “stinkeye”...the unmistakable cop-glare that said “keep movin’, hippie-boy”

Such tension, such hostile vibes, such a beautiful night...a contrast...a ride, music that seemed so important then...”Said there ain’t no use in crying...it’ll only, only drive you mad...Does it hurt to hear them lying? Is this the only world you had? oh-oh”

Listening, no conversation...they had just bought the 8-track cassette and were giving it the “road test”...they passed the joint without a word. The headlights illuminated small pieces of dramatic hills and black bottomless drops to the west into the water hundreds of feet below....another time, a long gone summer...that night lives vividly every time I hear that distinctive sound, a pavlovian memory of freedom, a zen existence with nothing to lose.

So easy it is, when hate and rage and bitterness rule so many, to react to it...a self righteous defiance, an oppositional position reflex, so easy...so, so easy. The harder way is to let haters do what they will, especially when the thing they hate is a thing that can’t be changed...race, language, religion, gayness...smart people. The true nature of a hater is to act out...they can’t help it, it doesn’t make any sense, and ”talking it out” just makes one look like an idiot. I have been an idiot on this level many, many times, so I speak with some authority from that perspective. Sometimes, people just don’t like you...some are just hellbound determined to act out, searching for reasons...the conclusion being drawn first (of course) and the reasons only of secondary bish-use...uncontrollable, headstrong submissives seeking mommy? Dwight Schrute Salute!

She came to me in a dream...just when the best part started, I woke up...she had some sort of mylar strips in her hair all shiny in the same chromed magnificence as a Harley valve cover, and somehow <smirk> the strands were stuck in my teeth...so I woke up in a trance, the kind where the dream is still quite real and my teeth felt weird and I thought “I need to get that shiny stuff outta there”...but the memory of how it got there was on me and I closed my eyes and felt it...the way it felt to breathe what she exhaled, her shiny hair in my face...and then she was gone.

Days with my father...

Texas Tornados...Adios Mexico

Awesome.

Words...weaponized

Love means never having to say you’re sorry...? That line from “Love Story” speaks to the very core of ChicFlick-ishness...Love, in a SnappyBanter sense means having to say you’re sorry all the time.

There sure is an awful lot of “HappyLoveJoy” written about diving...destination “articles” are so often just thinly veiled ads, words like “Easy! Fun! Safe!” and pictures of calm blue water, smiling happy people. That is a thin slice of the reality, kind reader...often, the real world is far from that portrayal of “perfect”...the ocean can be far less inviting from the surface...choppy, sloppy, difficult topside conditions, and from where I sit some of the best dives I have ever been on. “Rough” seas produce ideal circumstances for wildlife encounters that can be unusual...the other day at Molasses, bottlenose dolphins buzzed right in front of a pod of divers and lingered, engaging them directly for several minutes...schools of eagle rays gliding in from deep water, a hammerhead cruising the top of the coral spurs, permit in full hunting mode...4ft seas were making some surge, and a handful of divers were whining about how “rough” it was...they had burned through their air in 20 minutes (not an easy thing to do in 30ft of water) and were onboard complaining about being onboard, irritated that mother nature wasn’t providing the “promised” calm blue ocean...gaining experience requires pushing your personal envelope a bit past “comfortable”...my opinion about diving is that a major part of it is the unknowns, the challenges of adapting to whatcha-got and making it work. That is really a huge part of the fun of it...and sometimes, it is way out of “easy”, the “fun” only comes from a level of experience, and “safe” is an illusion. The way to get comfortable in the water is to pay your dues...dabblers are all too common, scuba has a very high dropout rate. But I do enjoy a day on the water with those who love this sport as much as I do...some days, the boat is full of these types...people might have a lot of needs, or physical difficulties, anxiety...but their motivation and determination to dive is a wonderful thing...I save my wrath for the hopelessly doomed dabblers, the willfully foolish, the ones who will not learn, those members of the general public who would shop for price, bristle at the suggestion they hire a professional guide or take a refresher course...or my least favorite, the parent who would put their own children at risk to satisfy their type “A” perversions...not that I don’t see THAT kinda horseshit on a daily basis...just sayin’.

But truth be told, I see a lot of really amazing steppin’ up types...people who have come to deal, learning curves vertically inclined...they have wanted to do this all their lives, and I really enjoy this part of the job. And it is especially cool to have regulars who come back over and over again.

Every aquarium/pond keeper has known this simple fact for decades. This was one of those “no SHIT, Dick Tracy!” moments for me...

Once upon a time, kind readers, there was a little man with an abiding passion for Machiavellian games...a “high-mach”, no doubt. Puerile motive, no gain, only the fleeting satisfaction of the “game”...everyone knows one of these guys...

Mike Tyson’s mansion, abandoned...creepy.

A kid steps on a syringe, and a plot thickens. What an odd story. And this tidbit about DNA...which the FBI is trying to block.

What is the real difference between animals and humans? Suicide. Bobby Gaylor, a natural born storyteller.

Old Growth Forests...

Sometimes mistaken for speculative fiction...

Her mask comes off at the surface...she freaks. I mean no shit burn down the barn and eat the cow freaks out. The mate jumps in and she tries to climb on him, locking her arms around his neck in a choke hold that has me grabbing the boat hook...my intention is to bash her in the fucking head and then drag her ass back to the ladder. Who certified this person to dive? JHC...go ahead, judge me. I woulda smacked her, hard. At this point, she’s trying to kill my friend here... Puddin gets her under control, all is well, and back aboard she acts like nothing happened...next day, she’s clutching the ladder making these mewling kitty-kat sounds as she attempts to remove her fins...but, alas, she’s missed yoga classes for like, her entire life and she can’t touch her own ankles...I’m pretty sure she knew this before she got in the water...just sayin’.so I hafta step down and hold the ladder with one hand and pull her fins off myself with the other, she climbs aboard (with assistimus maximus) and starts sucking down CaprisSun as if this were just another ducky-fuckin’ day...no wham, no bam, no thank-you-maam.

Out at Elbow Reef yesterday...a guy pops up (not ours, thankfully) and starts shrieking blue fucking murder...slapping his fins on the surface, splashing, after a few seconds I realize he’s trying to get the attention of the buddy he rocketed vertically away from...”AAAAAAAAKKCK! LOOK...AT... MEeeeEE!” he shrieks. I don’t mean just yelling loud...this asshat was really, really shrieking. Other boats were tightly focused, and we were all thinking something really bad had happened, but no...just another fucktard doin’ fucked up shit.

The question was posed...”I’ve been on your boat, several times and even in rough conditions, but I’ve never seen any of this stuff you write about...what gives?”

The answer: You came to dive, and you did. You had a wonderful time, and saw none of this horseshit...that is why I get the big money. We clean the messes up very quickly...when the going get’s weird, Pat, the weird turn pro.

GoGo Juice...

Stepbrothers

It’s all about you

Ama...

Beyond the Wire...the flesh and blood defense

Fuck the Systsem

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