For Gary

A song for you: The Cure Catch

It goes out Gary Draplin, RIP, 2004-2010. He was a good one.

Speaking of fine fur-bound friends, I got a new chair recently, 100 bux at Vintage Pink—not bad, eh? It's got that Victorian thing going on. Nice to look at but ... haven't been able to use it much. Always seems to be occupied.

Woods Of Red

Spent the past four days in the Redwoods. I capitalize, so you’ll know that the Redwoods I’m talking about are the goliath ancient ones in Northern California and not just any old red-wooded trees. We packed up and drove down there on Sunday morning. By bout 3:30 or so we were wandering around these giant mossy groves, mouths open, no sound coming out, awash with the feeling that we were in a movie, Legend, maybe, or that a brontosaurus was gonna pop its head up over the canopy, maw stuffed with ferns.

Of a morning, we'd wander around in the shady forest, of an afternoon, we'd swim in Smith River—where we found what's quite possibly the king of all swimming holes. Warm water and intensely clear, not unlike the Caribbean or whatever. One of those places you'd think back on in a moment of intense agony and go, "I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place...."

A rare picture of a tree gnome.

Camp coffee tastes better than coffee at home. Not sure why this is.

Due to coastal fog, the sun never comes out in Crescent City. Felt like we were in Ireland or sometin.

Elves live here, if anywhere.

Lots of plaid worn in these woods—it's a prerequisite, right?

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

Watched Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride the other night. You seen it? Another take on the world of Hunter S. Thompson. I’ve read most of his stuff, and for what it’s worth, I like it. So conversational, and full of a kind of eloquent sarcasm. But I dunno. What was he? Lunatic genius? Sane voice in a mad world? Lame caricature of himself? Everyone’s got an opinion. What I took away from the movie was his charisma—what a huge impact he had on many people both famous and talented. Everyone from Johnny Depp to Tom Wolfe to Sean Penn was fluttering around him like moths round a flame.

And then he went out via shotgun à la Hemingway. That's it. He titled his suicide not “Football Season Is Over:”

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax—This won't hurt.”

Did it? guess we'll never know...

all the homeys

You ever have that feeling that no one hangs out anymore? But you can’t blame anybody, cuz neither do you? For some reason, though—only when you’re out of town, there’ll be barrage of fun-sounding BBQs, rad river floats, wild party nights, et cetera. Then you’ll get back and be like, where is everyone, and … crickets.

Anyway, for the first time in a long time, the Koerner-Ansons threw a cookout thingy, and I was in town, and all the homeys came.

Noot was there herding and guard-doggin'.

The firepit session ensued—warm, festive, and kept the bugs away.

P.S. This is from my garden today. The echinacea's out.

the joys of homeowning, part, like, 5

Hi. It's been a while. Not because I've been boring, but because I've been doing construction. Peter Sherowski is in town. That's my dad, you know. He comes out once a year to TCOB at 57th street. It's usually a good time. Lots of power tools, all-day manual labor, chiseling, painting, calking, sawing, cool margaritas at dusk, things of this nature. Above, you'll see a new gutter system we installed, leads down to a rain barrel. Exciting. Harvesting inclement weather. I'm doin it.

Also, new windows. A big job, chiseling out the 100 year old original windows. I'm saving them out in the back alleyway, actually. Not sure why, maybe build something with them. Kinda cool to think about all the history those windows have witnessed.

And we renovated my basement. For those of you who know what it used to look like, namely Traci—my former roomie who lived in its squalor for two years—well, holy shit! Pepto-colored carpet: gone. Fresh coat of paint on the walls. New light fixtures. Plexi glass off the porthole, replaced with a shiny new window. It's swank down there. You know, for a cave, anyway.