Normally it takes me a little bit of searching to find my title tracks for each post but in this case there was a wealth of options. Here are some of the other contenders:
Through Fire and Flames:
Ring of Fire:
My Ass is on Fire:
Jump in the Fire:
Burning Down The House:
and many more.
So yes. As I spoke of briefly in my last post, we've had a hell of a week. The dry conditions and Santa Ana winds here in San Diego were the right ingredients for what the Governator cleverly called "a perfect firestorm". Evacuations were going on all over the county (some mandatory, some voluntary) and most of us were either displaced or were on the verge of displaced. Many, many people lost their homes. A few lives were lost.
I have to say that the emergency services really seemed to have their act together. Agencies appeared to be well organized, well prepared, and given the scope of this disaster...things seemed to go pretty smoothly. I think there were quite a few houses that were saved this year that would have been lost in the last round of wildfires.
One thing I would be critical of however is the television news coverage of the event. It may come as a surprise to some, but the news coverage tended to be more sensational rather than informative. Most of the news coverage consisted of having people call in live. The graphics on the screen would display the name and location of the caller along with a little "LIVE: BREAKING NEWS" icon in the corner. Meanwhile the actual imagery would all be pre-recorded video from all over the county. So you would look up and see "LIVE: FROM SAN MARCOS" but the video would be 12 hours old from Poway. Really responsible fucking journalism.
My other "favorite" moments of the TV news coverage involved one of the local channels and their "on the scene" reporter. Basically they had this guy running around along-side actual fire fighters and trying to interview them while they were busy...you know...saving homes and lives and shit. Unreal. The guy would seriously run up to some dude in a mask, holding a fire hose and ask shit like, "How difficult is it to fight this fire that has been 0% contained for three days now?" The firefighter would just sorta grunt in disbelief and run off to some new disaster.
Another interesting side-effect from all this was watching how local kids reacted to it. A couple of families who got forced to evacuate ended up at my dad's place down the street. One family had a couple of boys. I don't have a lot of experience with kids, but I can guess what happens to them when they are forced out of their homes and get couped up inside for three days.
They go crazy.
For the few hours I was at my dads house I became a living jungle gym. It's kinda fun for a while but kids with that kinda energy have a lot of momentum and are pretty much impossible to slow down once you get 'em going.
I also saw a number of families at the supermarket. All their kids were going bonkers as well. It just made me realize how much energy it must take to be a parent and that I had better get started soon if I ever expect to have enough "exuberance" to keep up with any kids of my own.
Anyway. Most of the area seems to be safe now. Life is returning to normal for a lot of us. Other people are less fortunate and have a long road ahead of them. I can't imagine it's very fun to rebuild your house and deal with insurance companies. My heart goes out to those families. Help out if you can!
I have lived in San Diego for pretty much my entire life. In most respects I think of myself as a somewhat typical citizen of this county. I try and take advantage of much of what the city has to offer. However, there is one local event that takes place every year that I have always avoided, and that is "The Fair". Despite living here for almost all of my 31 years, I can't remember ever going (although I might have and just blocked it from memory).
Liz takes great pleasure in trying to convince me to got to the fair. Every year she organizes a little posse, and every year I get the same invitation. With sinister cackles and a mad gleam in her eyes she will plead with me.
I always resist. My dislike of the fair is really my stupid and silent protest against the traffic it brings to region. Really I can't think of anything more pathetically ineffectual (other than internet petitions) than my refusal to participate for this reason. As I cross my arms and turn my back on the fair it continues to generate all sorts of tourism and traffic for the region.
This year my resolve finally failed and on a humid, summer night I grit my teeth and entered the grounds....Ready to face my fair.
Unless you grew up on a dairy farm, the first thing you are liable to notice is the smell. There is an intense animal smell everywhere. I actually came in through the less conventional south gate, and as a result my introduction to the fair a face full of trailers, hay stacks, and garbage. I was "backstage" so-to-speak. Inexplicably the "pig races" are buried back here. This was a fun-for-the-whole family sort of event that was probably specifically hard to get to. Whoever sets this thing up may have purposely wanted to keep this attraction on the down-low.
After wandering around lost for a few more minutes I finally made it to "The Fun Zone" where the rest of my friends were waiting. I had been at the fair for about 6 minutes and already I felt dirty. Not dirty in a good, rough-housin in the sand way. More of a shameful, I just got caught picking my nose sort of way.
I was too late to join the crew on "The Zipper" (a fan favorite), but I managed to get on another ride that was a blast. The sense of danger and excitement is heightened by the fact that the same ride that is hurling you through space about 3 storied above the ground is not a permanent structure. It's actually designed to be broken down and come apart for easy shipping. Who knows...It could decide that the fair is over earlier than you'd like a break itself down mid-ride.
The rides were over and so it was time to experience the food. The Fair is the only place where I think deep-fried food is better for you than the other options. You know that any flesh-eating bacteria who's home may have been your chicken-chunk has probably been eliminated in the greasy waters of the frier.
So I had some sort of deep-fried apple-mass and freshly fried chips. The one thing I was determined to shove down my throat was a deep-fried twinkie. The legendary DFT. Let me tell you. That was my first and last DFT. The feeling I got after eating this thing was similar to the feeling I get when I sit down on a public toilet only to find that the seat is unusually warm.
It's really pretty gross. More than you might expect when you really think about it.
Ah the fair! More fun than a public toilet...but just barely.
I did learn a thing or two from the fair though. Mainly that people eat goat. When I asked the lovely woman inside the animal pen who eats goat, she replied, "whoever buys it."
I am starting to suspect that I am a bad driver. Either that or people hate Minis. I'll be driving along minding my own buisness when a car will pull up alongside me. I'll look over and see the guy next to me vigorously waving his middle finger at me. The first time this happened to me, I just figured that the guy next to me was some sort of angry freak. Now that it's happened twice...I mean...there couldn't be TWO angry freaks out there in the world could there?
By the way -- regarding the middle finger and it's origins: Stop talking to me about bowmen and french people. please.
Last Friday I was preparing my morning bagel when I was suddenly whisked back to my college days. The label on the small, single-serving package of cream cheese read: "Real" Cream Cheese.
The use of quotations here struck me as incredibly strange. What was I about to eat? How real is "real"?
I was first introduced to Baudrillard in college, and despite being a philosophy major, I actually only ever heard about him through my friend (and at the time girlfriend) Rebecca. I have only the simplest and most unreliable understanding of the man's works and writings. But I do know that much of it is focused on "The Real".
In the simplest terms I can muster, the difference between "The Real" (which is what we encounter everyday) and real, is like the difference between "The Real World" and the real world. One is basically a copy, or a representation of the other. The idea being that our current culture can not really differentiate between the two. We see the war in Iraq on television and to those of us watching it "is" the war -- even though the real war is taking place far away, being fought by other people.
I'm thinking of all this while starring at this tiny package of cream cheese.
It's a good topic for conversation at your local coffee house. Which segues into my next segment:
Miracles No More
I went out to my favorite local coffee house on Saturday to sit, sip, and sketch, only to discover that it was gone. In it's place was an empty dirt lot. Where there was once outcasts playing Magic, old burnt-out hippies, and that one jackass playing shitty acoustic guitar...There is now just rocks and rubble.
I'm running out of non-starbucks establishments to go and hang out at if I need to get out of the apartment. Plus I loved the ocean-view patio at Miracles. I'll just have to find some other place with decent coffee, weird people, and uneven tables.
-B
PS If I just completely butchered Baudrillard in that short lil paragraph feel free to call me out.
The fires that ravaged San Diego are all but contained leaving thousands of people without homes, but most of us in the Coastal North County had very little fall-out from the disaster. Now that the danger has past the finger pointing can begin. I can't wait to see who'll take the fall.
Heather and I spent the good portion of our weekend with the Spraggs so you can get a good idea of what I did over at his site. It was mostly mellow. I did some Bikram Yoga which felt good, especially since I had been locked indoors doing nothing all week.
Now for a rant.
Here is an ad I found in some free surf mag:
You gotta be kidding me right? I mean...this is a classic example of Baditude. Hot chick, extreme sports, sexual innuendo, and extremely stupid. I mean, where do I start?
Let me just go for the obvious. This is the dumbest use of sexual innuendo ever. Good sexual double talk would be like...naming your beer after my friend "Iwan". Than you could have a hot chick holding a bottle of suds, staring at the camera with bedroom eyes, licking the top of the bottle, and the ad could read "I want IWAN me". That would be a good one.
But this one? It really makes no sense. Can you imagine if you started dating some girl, you start making out and she suddenly rolled over onto her stomach and started begging you to rub your testicles all over her back?
What if you were a girl and you just started getting comfortable enough with your man to get naked with him and he was like, "I really want to just rub my balls up and down your spine". I think that would probably end the relationship right there.
Maybe animals are into that sort of thing...you can tell the dog at the bottom of the picture (the ad silly!) is pretty fired up on the whole idea.
here are some photos of the craziness here in San Diego. These are taken at my work in Mira Mesa...pretty far from where the actual fires are so it's not THAT crazy.
these are taken with my lil palm camera, so it couldn't quite capture everything...I tried to help get some of the whacky colors across in photshop but I didnt do a very good job...but you get the picture...it's gross here.
All that stuff that looks like fog is really smoke and ash.
A few days ago some dumbass hunter got lost (I know I know..."dumbass" and "hunter" in the same sentance is usually pretty redundant) set off a flare in the middle of the dry-brush and pretty much burned down east san diego county. "oops" he might be heard to say.
I head someone on the radio this morning complain that this tragedy also highlights how unprepared the county is for this sort of thing and not to blame the hunter...but I imagine that if my house burned down, or someone close to me died in the fire...it would be pretty hard for me to not blame the hunter.
The air quality even way out bt the coast is awful, and everything has a strange alien-oarange tint to it. There is ash everywhere. It's really pretty serious. So far I am not directly linked to anyone who has lost a home (though I suspect there are a few people from my work who are at risk).
One of the less tragic consequences of this whole fire is that the first monday night football game in San Diego in years...has been moved. I have to tell you that I am pretty dissapointed about this. Don't get me wrong...I have the proper sense of perspective and all...but I had tickets to the game, and I was really looking forward to it. I have been to plenty of football games before but never to a monday night game. Oh well...maybe in two years...because the chargers certainly wont get one next year with the way they're playing.
In other news, my girlfriend just got a new kitten so that their other young cat has someone to play with. At the moment the plan is not working out too well since the old-school cat seems to hate the new-school one. But the new kitten sure is cute (as you might expect). The lil guy is about the size of my fist and belts out the most pathetic lil "mews"...ahh kittens...so much fun.
That's that. No work today so I'm gonna go back and play some more video games. I would like to go out and ride my bike or surf or something, but the air is so disgusting right now that it's actually probably healthier for me to be inside, eat junk food, and play games!
