yes, there’s more of the wii in mii
ok. all of you out there that received a wii system for christmas, lucky you, as the supply is still short. a more pressing issue is or what seems to be common problems with the wii/ea sports, tiger woods pga tour 2008. there aren’t many in my game but they seem to differ from game to game.
since my last time yammering about this game i finished the tiger challenge stuff. yes, at times an ordeal with regard to the chipping challenges. because chipping is still a crap shoot with the nuances of it being pretty much unfathomable. back when i played the game of golf for real i could chip pretty well. one way around this sometimes major glitch is to play a flop instead of a chip. my friend bubba hipped me to this one and most of the time it works pretty well. it’s still a finesse shot but at least it’s easier to pull off and works very well most of the time. though you must play around with it to get the feel.
the other common glitch is the draw and fade shot. they don’t work. i’ve been at this before and bubba tells me his draw and fade did work but now they have disappeared. it really doesn’t matter in the long run because you can just lay up. even if you end up in the rough it’s usually not that big a deal to still come in at par or under.
the other main glitch that still remains in my game and seems to be getting worse is the par 3 second hole at east lake. the game freezes if you don’t hit the green with your tee shot. it has even froze up when i have hit the green. no idea what’s up with that. but from what i’ve seen out there freezing is a common glitch in the game at some point or another. i just hope my freezing glitch stays were it is and doesn’t travel to other parts of the game. no clue as to what to do about it. or why it happens.
i would highly recommend you finishing the tiger challenge in order to unlock courses and other pro players. even more so because you get money for doing the challenges. just too bad it’s not real as i now have $1.6 million in winnings. yeah, well, i play the damn game for sometimes hours a day. plus i’m good at it. also, by playing the challenges and doing well at them you gain endorsements from companies that pay big bucks when you join the tour. more on that later.
just remember you can play the courses, any of the courses, in the play it now mode. you also get money for doing well when playing in that mode. you will eventually get endorsement money by playing this way too. however, you must play well.
a couple of weeks ago i joined the tour. as an amateur, who already had over a million dollars in winnings, which is not how it actually works in real life. anyways, i was doing well and won more than a few of the tournaments. i should have gone to q school and passed that and gone into the next season as a real pro cartoon golfer. the game knew i was dilly dallying around. this week it messed with me big time. i was afraid the ultimate glitch had hit like in the 2007 game. under no circumstance purchase that game. it doesn’t work. i struggled along for several rounds getting more angry as i played. it finally dawned on me to advance to the q school and play it. once i did that the game went back to what it usually is and i’ve had no problems since. other than you can’t draw or fade and chipping the ball is like rolling dice.
all of this or that being said the more you actually play the game the better you will get. amazing ain’t it? just like anything else in life. i’ve played close to 200 rounds of tiger’s wii golf. i’m at the point where i can control most of the clubs and get what i want from them. it has taken some time but it’s been worth it. virtual reality golf right there in the comfort of your living room. the game plays about as close as you can get to the real thing. what could be better? not much for this old douche bag who spent way too much time on the links or out on the grass in a school yard hitting golf balls around, back when you could still do that, instead of doing other stuff.
this is a great game and one hopefully i can play for a while. stellar graphics. lots of courses to chose from. all kinds of ways to play the game of golf from stroke play to match play to one ball to stable ford to skins. dial it in an go for it. however, just remember finishing the tiger challenge makes things easier for you, game wise. i love this game.
jmh
the bruins and rick slick
my goodness it doesn’t take long in this space age information age to make someone look like a fool. the someone in particular would be ucla’s athletic director. if the story the ’seattle times’ is trotting out about the washington huskies and rick neuheisel are anywhere near true the bruins have bought a pig in a poke. just another don james along or an smu coach that brought the fabled death penalty to that once great football school. june jones will fix that as ty willingham will fix the huskies if the insane rabid dumb ass rich numb nutted alumni let him or june. god, the tangents run rampant. i thought i’d get a break this off season. fine. bring it. where the hell am i? mixing programs, coaches and metaphors. help me, rhonda.
the ‘Seattle times’ is reporting that rick’s 2000 rose bowl winning team was rife with felons and other ner do wells. god, if true it’s almost like don james never fucking left u of washington. doesn’t anyone in college football ever learn anything? guess not.
however, if any of this is true and mr rick the slick goes away and if it is he should. plus probably be banned from coaching any other college football team as well. i mean there’s a history with this guy. starting in colorado. then there’s the history lou holtz had as well. i’m bleeding tangents like some mythical dog from hell. that being said, the bruins have the man there already in camp. norm chow. i say screw the ncaa and their years and years of let’s investigate stuff. sorta like the reggie bush and the trojans deal. yes, well the mr rick the slick deal is different. reggie bush may have been really fucking stupid. did pete know about it? hard to say. did rick the slick know about felons and other bottom feeders on his 2000 rose bowl winning team? ah, yeah, if the times is right.
damn, the bruins were poised to make a sterling comeback in the pac 10. mr rick the slick can coach but he’s of dubious character. yeah, a month or so ago i said, ok, sure, let’s just get on with some football and let’s just forget his past. in light of this, i don’t think so. homey ain’t playin’ that one no moe.
the washington huskie program has been one of gang bangers who can play football since the days of their beloved don james. mr rick the slick signed on to that one. or so it would seem. the huskie faithful should thank god, buddha, and swami vishnu he got canned for something stupid. his participating in a college basketball pool. he skated on that and won millions for a wrongful firing or something. he should give it all back if any part of the seattle times story is true. plus freaking interest.
the huskie faithful should also thank god, buddha, and swami vishnu they now have ty willingham at the helm. a no nonsense and true straight forward coach. no fucking bullshit on his watch. god, i hope so. i love the guy. i’d hate to be blindsided by something untoward from him. more tangents.
mr rick the slick should just slink off to the side lines and let norm chow take over the bruins. now. not 23 months down the road when all this is a proven commodity. mr rick the slick. crap. the dude’s baggage just keeps getting bigger. mr slick. take the high road. or sorta high road and just resign now like lou holtz. become an espn noun sayer just like lou. another fly by night i’ll get away with what the fuck ever i can coach. just like you, mr rick the slick. please, leave the bruins alone.
bruins. wake up. buy him out. whatever. ditch him. scuttle the ship before he sinks it. screw it. let norm take over now before he takes over a team ham strung by mr rick the slicks devious stupidity and years of ncaa sanctions. just do it.
ok. it’s now tuesday night. google ’seattle times’, click on sports then look for…..
a seattle times special report / victory and ruins.
jmh
SoCal Madness, the Final Chapter
the two men in the car full of glass, dead bodies and blood hadn’t said a word until they stopped. ‘what the fuck?’ ‘no shit, what the fuck? we’re covered with blood and no windshield is gonna get us pulled over in a heart beat.’ ‘yeah. ok. i was gonna suggest we drive it up into the foothills and push it off some cliff and down into a ravine but i dunno now.’ ‘that still might work. let’s check the trunk.’ inside the trunk the men found some beach towels and a blanket. ‘ok. we are in luck. we wipe the car down and stick the dead ladies in the trunk. we just have blood on our backsides. if we make it without getting pulled over and don’t have to get out of the car we will be ok.’ ‘man, if we get pulled over we are off to the lethal injection room faster than you can say the lapd planted all this evidence on us.’
the men had been very lucky so far. no sirens sounded in the night other than the normal stuff bit it was off in the distance. nothing anywhere close. they had been lucky indeed. one of the men walked out to the street and told the third man to follow them and if they got pulled over to just keep on going. no sense in all of them going down. the men had decided to take the freeway and hope the late hour wouldn’t have many highway patrolmen out or if there were they would hopefully be busy with drunks. plus it was the quickest way up to the foothills. as it turned out their luck held and they made it up into the foothills in no time.
the road was deserted and they wound their way up into the san gabriel mountains unmolested. they found a good spot after about 15 minutes of driving. a turn out with no guard rail. they pulled in and wiped down the car once more making sure there were no fingerprints or shoe prints in or on the car. even with gloves it paid to be careful. they left the two bodies in the trunk and pushed it over the edge of the ravine. the car fell several hundred feet and landed on it’s roof. thankfully, no explosion like in the movies. with that they all got into the other car and made their way back home. by the time they got back to their homes it was almost 2am. the two bloodied men showered and bagged up their clothes for later disposal.
the insanity of a summer saturday night continued unabated as the men went about taking care of their business. one of the men phoned the other two and they met again near the dumpster. ‘look. i say we do some more of these bastards. we may never get another chance. if we get popped. we get popped. we been through this before. screw it.’ ‘ok. yeah, why not?’ ‘alright. let’s do it.’
almost 3am and the parade of human stupidity was still in full swing out on the street. perhaps even more so at that late night or early morning hour. a night of drinking and drugs having taken control of the already stupid assholes vapid minds. the men were loaded up and ready to go once again. they didn’t have long to wait. the car was moving down the street with more noise than they had heard in some time. the plan worked again perfectly. two more dead and disposed of assholes.
on their way back from the disposal of the last bodies and car. the men decided to do one more job and make it a statement. they would leave the car in the street with the radio blaring and the dead left were they died in the car.
simple enough but would anyone figure out their insane statement? the three men didn’t care. they were high on all the adrenaline and death. ‘only thing is we don’t do the last one on our street. to close for comfort. we can’t take that chance.’ ‘ok.’ ’sure we should be able to find something just about anywhere. and they did find something very quickly in the next town over. it hadn’t taken any time at all.
they had pulled to the curb when they heard a car coming from behind them. radio blasting. 4am on a sunday morning and the soon to be terminally stupid were still working at being the assholes they were. the three friends decided to just stop the car and waste whoever was in it. they got out of the car and stood in the street. 3 abreast. blocking the road with their bodies. the car approached and slowed to a stop. the two shooters went to each side of the car and the third held his ground holding a tire iron he had pulled from the trunk.
the three men had hit the jack pot. the car was full. the two shooters emptied their weapons into the car. it was over in a few seconds. though amazingly one of the occupants in the car made it through the killing zone and ran from the car. the friend with the tire iron went after the kid and caught him with a flying tackle. army training kicked in and he broke the kid’s neck with the simple technique he had been taught many years before. he picked the dead kid up and brought him back to the car and laid him out on the hood. the other friends were in their car and had it ready to go. he picked up the tire iron from the street and joined his three friends. they left the scene and headed home.
the car sat there in the street with it’s stereo blasting and the dead kid on the hood for five minutes or so before another car load of assholes came down the street and found what had been left there. the police were called and they spent well into the the daylight hours of sunday morning trying to figure out just what had happened.
of course they never did. they thought it was this or maybe that but it really wasn’t any of those things. then the other cars started turning up. or more precisely parents started to finally wonder where their stupid children were and called the police. all the cars turned up and the dead bodies found. the last to turn up was the car in the ravine. it took several weeks before some one pulled off into the turnout, got out of their car, and actually looked down over the edge.
all the killings made a big splash in the media. there was the usual tsk tsking, along with smirking feigned outrage at the carnage but it was good for ratings and the sharks that they were kept it up for as long as they could. the late development of the car in the ravine added fuel to their sanctimonious eye brow raising. however, in the end, the story just faded away like they all eventually do. the police gave up and went about their business of trying to quell the turning tide of insanity that seemed to have a death grip on society.
the three friends? they never spoke of that night again. not even when it was just the three of them sitting and sipping a beverage out on the patio during the patio drinking season. they had made their point though no one actually got what the point was. but they knew and that after all that was all that really mattered.
fini
jmh
chinese curry chicken and tiger woods
i wrote this last night. it’s pouring rain right now and has been for hours. the deal might not go down today at torrey pines. but that’s ok because it was over yesterday.
that’s what it was. simple and pure. chicken and chinese curry along with tiger. tiger threw it down today in la jolla at torrey pines. unless the wheels fall off, the tourney is a done deal. tiger doesn’t let that happen or at least he hasn’t yet. the odds favor him. as well as the golfing gods.
tiger owns the pga at the present time and for the foreseeable future. there is no one else. tiger is golf today. these days tiger just doesn’t have much competition when he turns it up and on. the product of his thai mother and his buffalo soldier green beret dad. we should all be so lucky. without tiger, professional golf would in the doldrums of mechanical sorta really good golfers who just don’t…don’t harken back to sammy, ben, arnie, and king jack.
tiger is poised to tie arnie’s 62 tournament wins with this weeks andy williams. uh, no. this weeks buick win. yeah, the rain might make it a short one but it don’t matter. the deal went down today. the eye of the tiger. he is king jack and he is his father. more importantly he is his own man, tiger. with that combo he is un stoppable. trust me.
he’s gonna break king jack’s record at some point. the big time majors deal. plus he’s gonna break slammin’ sammy’s all time pga win total. count on it. yes, of course life can deal you some very real hard hardships. the rest of tiger’s life as a pro golfer remains to be seen. though it would seem the gods are so far fond of him and his quest for golfing immortality.
today i watched tiger pretty much put a clamp on this weeks festivities down in la jolla. yeah, well the coming rain might have a say in the matter. but la jolla, the place of the us open this coming june is his. tiger wasn’t playing the andy williams, sorry, the buick today he was playing the us open. the eye of the tiger, planning 5 months in advance.
i watched tiger come out and feed on the pack this afternoon. nothing more and nothing less. it made me happy. yes, i’m old and i dearly love goff, sammy, ben, arnie, and king jack in particular. however, this young man is something for the ages. tiger woods is throwing down the gauntlet for what just might be a very very long ass pro golfing time.
fine by me. i ate up his round today and i ate up some very fine home cooked chinese curry chicken for dinner along with some nice mexican squash and some very nice california vino. man, what could be better? not very fucking much.
jmh
happy lunar new year, the year of the rat
it’s almost chinese/japanese/vietnamese, among others, lunar new year time. or simply, tet, as the vietnamese call it. i kinda like the viets way of dealing with it. a short and simple way of getting the point across. it’s one of my favorite times of the chinese year. the harvest moon festival being a close second with it’s wonderful moon cakes.
this new up coming lunar new year is the year of the rat. my birth year. yeah, i’m a rat. though in the eastern part of the world the little rodent doesn’t have the same negative connotations to it as it does here in the west. to those in asia the rat or mouse is considered to be very intelligent and resourceful. after all when buddha called for the animals to make the trek across the river and join him in a feast it was the mouse who made it to the table first. he hitched a ride on the horns of the ox and then sped to the seat of honor. the ox or cow being second.
any the ways, the year of the rat will be special for me and all my other rat brothers as well. all of us who were born in the year 1948. it will be our 60th birthday year. a big deal in asian culture. chinese in particular. the first birthday is very important and every ten years there after it’s a big deal. 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. yes, your birth sign year shows up every 12 years but it only shows up on a big time birthday year twice in your life. your first and your 60th. only twice because few if any of us will make it to 120 years old. even if we do that birthday will probably not make much sense. if anything is making any sense at all at 120. even at 59, some days it’s hard to make much sense of anything. i’m starting to veer.
the preliminary judgment for the coming rat year seems to be pretty good for us all. much better than last years pig year. we all seem to be catching a break this up coming year. though that remains to be seen. some rat luminaries include: richard nixon, bonny prince charlie, truman capote, and shakespeare, among others. those mentioned are for my own bizarre reasons and entertainment purposes only.
this will probably not be the last blog i’ll trot out for the coming lunar new year. though it will probably be the last in a sorta serious vein on the matter. happy lunar new year!!
jmh
chow down
that’s exactly what the ucla bruins did this week when they hired former trojan offensive coordinator, norm chow. norm is one of the finest football minds in the country. sure he got canned by some nfl team because things didn’t work out, success wise. he wouldn’t be the first college guru to have a few problems with the pro game. two all time great former trojan coaches come to mind, john mckay and john robinson. though the latter had a bit more success in the pro game.
norm chow brings to the bruins over 30 years of college football coaching experience. over 30 years of having some major input into the game of some of the finest college quarterbacks ever. jim mcmahon, ty detmer, carson palmer, philip rivers, steve young, and matt leinart. i’d let anyone of those guys run my college team anytime.
norm probably should have had a shot at being a head coach at a major university by now but there’s the race deal. norm is chinese. a chinese head football coach? see what i’m saying? probably not. however, norm has seem some shit and probably put up with more shit than most folks in the game. i’m still pissed he left usc. although it probably came down to an ego thing between he and pete. with pete being the main culprit. but that’s ok.
it’s ok because norm is back in town. sorta like lola of song fame. yeah, he’s that hot. football coaching wise. the crosstown rivalry just heated up again. the bruins picked up two good coaches in the space of 2 months or so. the really sweet thing is if, and i’m just saying if…if neuheisel goes sideways or runs off the ncaa tracks again ala colorado then the perfect man for the job is already in the bruin’s house. norm chow.
what could be a more fitting place for the first chinese college football head coach? wags already call ucla, the university of china at los angeles. at any rate, the whole deal is fitting in that the up coming chinese lunar new year, the year of the rat, is supposed to bode well for us all. we shall see. sorta a drift but there’s a point in there some place.
one thing for sure. east coast bias and sec bias just got a shot fired across their collective bows. the pac 10 just got a whole lot stronger with norm chow back in town. i love it and l.a.
jmh
SoCal Madness, part 4
several days later the the car and dead body were finally found when someone passing by noticed a strong odor emanating from the parked car. the death of the asshole barely made a blip on the tv or radio news. though it did manage to grab a few inches of space in the local fish wrap. the police made a cursory attempt at trying to find any witnesses to the crime and the whole matter was seemingly dropped soon after.
the 3 desperate friends were buoyed by this turn of events. ‘it’s like i told you guys. the cops have their hands full. just another dead body among lots of dead bodies. they don’t have the time or the manpower for any of this.’ so with that the next night they shot out three consecutive street lights on the street where they lived. it was a wednesday night and they planned to carry out the next mad part of the plan late saturday night and early sunday morning of the coming weekend. that is if the electric company didn’t fix the lights before then.
saturday came and the lights were still out of order. they caught a break as their wives or girlfriends had gone out of town and off to vegas for the weekend. a simple enough plan and worth the money it cost the three men to send them away. the three men met for their final meeting before the insane rampage was set to begin. ‘i’m still the shooter.’ ‘yeah, fine. but i’ve been thinking we may need another piece. just in case things go sideways.’ ‘hmm, maybe.’ ‘he’s right. no problem, i’ll bring my .22 auto along for fire support.’ ’shorts only.’ ‘yep, and i’ll attach the stocking to the ejector.’ ‘good deal.’ ‘ya know we may need a heavy piece if things really go sideways.’ ‘too much noise.’ ‘if i tape a plastic coke bottle to the barrel of my .357 i can get one good heavy round off with about as much noise as the .22. we might need it.’ ‘ok.’ ‘alright set it up and bring it.’ the three men spent the day as they normally did. however, late that night around midnight, they all crept quietly and unseen from their homes. they met near one of the trash dumpsters not far from the street.
the shooter was dressed in light clothing to make it easier for the cars to see him as he stepped off the curb and into their path. the other two were dressed in dark clothes. as a prop, the shooter also had a six pack of tall buds in cans. they stood around not saying much while they waited for their first victim. they didn’t have too long to wait.
like always they heard the car coming several blocks away. the shooter and his friends got ready. the shooter on one side of the street and the other two along with their fire support pieces on the other. as the car drew closer the loud music thumped and banged like concussions from an explosion. when it was about 30 yards away the shooter stepped from the curb with the six pack in his hand. the .22 in his other and at his side. he wobbled into the street and stood in the car’s path.
the car slowed and stopped. there were two occupants. both males in their 20’s. they stopped and began yelling at the shooter to get the fuck out of the street and out of their way. the music still blared. the shooter walked up to the driver’s side and quickly put two shots in the driver’s face. as he pushed the dead body to the side he put two more shots into the head of the passenger. it was over before it began. the other members of the mad group came out of the shadows and dealt with the vehicle and it’s dead passengers. as planned, one drove the car several blocks away and the other followed. the shooter stepped back into the shadows to watch and wait. fifteen minutes later the other men were back and reported no problems. the car and bodies were left to be found at a later date and time when the smell would make them visible.
not long after their return the familiar blare of another car stereo was heard, this time from the other direction. just like the first time the shooter stepped in front of the car. the car stopped and more yelling for him to get out of the road. he walked up to the driver side window and put two shots into the startled face of the driver. then 2 more into the passenger’s head before he realized there were two more people in the back seat. he got off two more shots into the chest of the third victim as the fire support .22 took care of the last passenger in a similar fashion. they all quickly secured the dead bodies and the car was driven off in an other direction to be parked and abandoned with it’s dead cargo still inside.
when the three insane friends met again, by the side of the dumpster, they were amazed and happy at what had gone down. it had been fairly easy. even their cold blooded murder had been easy, they said. no regrets or sadness at what they had done. they also agreed the fire support pieces had been a very good idea. in the midst of all this happiness a third car was heard.
the three went to their positions and waited. this car had the stereo at levels even they had not heard before. it seemed as if they could hear the studs vibrate in the homes on the street as the car approached. it was one thing to hear them vibrate inside a house but to hear them vibrate while standing out on the street gave them all pause. this car was probably waking the dead. the shooter knew he had to be quick with this one. someone might look outside to see just who this asshole was as he passed by.
there were only two people in this car. the driver and her passenger, another young woman. as the car neared him the shooter stepped off the curb and in front of the car. this time instead of yelling the driver laid on the horn and kept coming. the shooter stood his ground and the car barely stopped before it hit him. he knew time was short. so did the fire support shooter. the main shooter emptied his magazine into the front window. the support piece emptied into the passenger side of the car. the 20 rounds did what they were meant to do. though it was the one round from the silenced .357 that killed the driver. however, the shattered windshield presented them with a major problem.
without saying a word the shooter joined the driver in the car and they drove away from the mad scene. the other friend followed. none of them was sure if anyone had looked outside with all the horn honking and general loud insanity coming from the street. they would know soon enough if sirens were heard. the stereo had been turned off and the shooter, who was in the passenger seat, quickly broke out what was left of the windshield. that took care of the obvious problem. the other problem was there were four people in the front seat. two of them being dead. the driver pulled into an alley behind a small strip mall. fortunately for the men it was a very dark alley. the third friend knew they were in a fix and didn’t follow them into the alley. he pulled to the curb, shut off his lights, and waited.
jmh
a local plein air master
i had seen one of his paintings somewhere before at some point or another. a very lovely oil painting of a local inland empire winery. one of the last to still produce wines from this once great wine producing land of southern california. at any rate, i’d forgotten about that painting.
a week or so ago the brown eyed girl and i did a bit of wine tasting at one of the last old time wineries still around here in socal. i mentioned it to my friend, dfr, and he sent me an email with that very painting in it. it was also the winery we had been at tasting wine.
this is it: ‘j. filippi winery’ by john budicin.
a very striking painting to be sure. just amazing. it harkens back to the old days of guasti when wine was the king of the inland empire. the guasti/cucamonga/ontario area to be sure. over 5,000 acres of grapes on the vine. a staggering amount of acres and grape vines.
i googled the painting and found out it was painted by john budicin. as it turns out a local oil painter of some renown. you can find him on the web at http://johnbudicin.com
i wanted to do a blog with the filippi winery painting as a sorta backdrop. a continuation of my old ‘photographic memories(?)’ blogs from earlier in the year but with john budicin’s paintings instead of the old b/w photos.
the old photos are haunting. at least to me as an aging old timer local yokel. on the other hand, john budicin’s paintings of southern california, grapes, and wine making are a vibrant testament to the wonderful history of those long ago halcyon days of wine making history. along with the the simple yet breathtaking landscape of southern california as well.
mission and zinfandel grapes were predominate here in the inland empire. the old zins were just amazing and they made a rich ruby red zinfandel that those of us that grew up here drinking that wine are still looking for in other zinfandel’s from around the state. the taste of those zins is buried deep in my brain. john’s painting, ‘do not serve before it’s time’, brings me back to the redwood cellar days of my youth and young adulthood. you can almost smell what the wines tasted like with his painting of the old cellar.
‘do not serve before it’s time’ an oil by john budicin.
there was something about those old redwood tanks that imparted something to the already tasty grapes. it’s something you just can’t and don’t find anymore in very many places. i suppose it’s really what wine making used to be all about. though times and methods do change. although most of you all know i haven’t given up drinking my dago reds or my search for the dago red of my youth.
zinfandel grapes on the vine. two more oils by john, ‘evening zins’, and ‘are they zin?’ atom heart mother to any old time, old line inland empire italian or anyone else who grew up here or lived here back in the day. back in the day when grapes were king.
‘evening zins’ an oil by john budicin.
‘are they zin?’ an oil by john budicin.
i’m including a few other of john’s socal landscapes as well. i find them quite nice and refreshing. refreshing because if you travel around southern california you can still find those vistas tucked safely away, at least for the time being. safe so far from the developers and rampant insanity that is southern california today.
‘evening sonata’ an oil by john budicin.
’santa ana wash’ an oil by john budicin.
‘california gold’ an oil by john budicin.
i want to thank john budicin for allowing me to put a few of his paintings here in this blog. i called the phone number on his web page and he actually answered the phone himself. a very nice and gracious man. thanks john, for your very lovely paintings. you’ve done socal very proud indeed.
jmh
the last time i went surfing
not the internet thingy but the ocean deal with a surfboard along with youthful bluster, luck, and guile. those 3 ran out that day. however, before i get there…
one of my friends, mel, did this thing on the polar bear clubs yesterday. i commented that i had done something similar but not exactly like the wackos in the polar bear clubs. i had gone surfing long ago during christmas vacation at huntington beach. yes, it was cold. bone chilling nut numbing cold. of course there was the half wetsuit but the old ones really didn’t work that well other than as a wind breaker. any the ways as a dim witted teenager it was still cold and the one and only time i have gone into the pacific ocean in late december.
another time in the water that was similar was in april and occurred a few years later. we were camping at la costa over easter break and it was so cold you could see the steam coming off our bodies. not even a wetsuit top. hell, it’s april and almost summer we don’t need no stinking wetsuits. yeah, right.
i’ve always been a fan of the ocean, the pacific in particular. i guess it’s just been a part of my life since i was a baby being dragged down to the shore on a regular basis. thankfully both parents loved the beach.
there is something atom heart mother about the ocean. after all, the earth was at one time totally covered by water. probably saltwater. there’s the osmosis that occurs when we swim in the ocean. the salt from our blood mixes with the ocean’s salt and everyone camps happily. regardless of your views as to how or why we are here we probably somehow or another got our collective starts in the world wide ocean. yeah, that was a long long time ago. some of us have always been drawn back to our beginnings. leaf erickson, christopher columbus, magellan, admirals halsey and nimitz, and every surfer just to mention a few.
the ocean and being in it is almost a religious experience. on certain days is it a religious experience. a day when the surf is just right and no wind makes the water like glass or just enough wind blowing from shore to hold the wave up just a bit longer for another few seconds worth of ride. there’s a oneness with something or another that is a part of us and greater than us on those days. even when it’s just a regular day there aren’t many things better. ok, maybe a sunny warm day out on a golf course someplace playing a round barefooted like a young sam snead. but that’s a major drift here amongst the other drifts and veers.
my last day of surfing. board surfing to be exact. because i still body surfed for many years afterwards and that is even more of a religious experience due to the fact it’s just you a swim fin and the ocean wrapped all around you. veers happen.
it was a warm springtime day and several of us made the early morning trip to the beach. it has to be early morning in order to catch the water before it and the wind fully wake up. at any rate, that day we ended up a bit further south than usual for a surfing day trip. san clemente pier.
i remember the day like it was yesterday. bright sunshine. not too crowded. plus two breaks. an outside break and one inside. the outside break would turn into another break several hundred feet from the first break. ocean folk will know what i’m talking about. the whitewater of the first break walls up into another wave and breaks again. capice?
it was my first time in the water surfing since the late summer early fall of the year before. a winter of drinking and smoking had taken a toll. even on my youthful body. although i didn’t know it until it was almost too late.
i paddled out to the first break with my mates. a long paddle to be sure and work. when i reached the waiting area instead of sitting there and resting for a bit i turned and paddled into the first wave that came through. yeah, youthful bluster, guile, and luck came to a crashing crescendo in a few seconds.
i’d caught the wave but when i started to make my turn things went sideways and i fell off the surfboard. now those were the days back when there were no ankle straps to keep your board close by in the event of a wipe-out. i started swimming to my board but before i got there another wave took it and it got carried all the way to shore. there i was board less almost out to the end of the pier.
by the time i got back to shore i was pretty much just this side of being dead. i fell on my back in the sand just like they do in the movies. too tired to do anything else. just happy to be alive.
that was my last time on a surfboard. i’d almost seen the other side and decided right there that morning it would probably be better to forget about board surfing and just body surf from then on.
as a sad sorta coda to the whole abysmal morning we found this small container of something or another on the beach and an old abandoned tire. we combined the two into a sorta funeral pyre. a funeral pyre that belched deep black smoke into the pristine sky. a deep black smoke we could still see after we left and were miles away. yes, i’m one of the culprits who started global warming. sad but true.
jmh
SoCal Madness, part 3
the early spring and summer passed with little change from any other early spring and summer. the three friends sat and drank each evening in the soft summer evening light of southern california. the summer progressed into the hot damp nasty dog days of august. the time when sleep was fitful and restless at best. the thumpity thump of the weekend car traffic made it even worse. sleep became a rare and precious commodity. for the three old friends the lack of sleep, once again, became a part of their daily evening conversation.
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