Day: June 14, 2011

Garberville’s Most Unwanted

Garberville’s Most Unwanted

Checking the cryptic Sheriff’s Log in the Redwood Times reveals a curious euphemism: the “unwanted individual.” As a chubby, balding, middle-aged guy, I don’t think there’s anyone out there with a strong desire for me. One woman tolerates me. How close am I to to becoming the focus of our local Sheriff’s deputies? Like it’s not bad enough, that no one wants you, a cop has to come up and remind you that you’re really unattractive, and let you know that folks around here resent your ugliness. That’s gotta hurt. If that happened to me, I’d probably shit on a downtown door-stoop

 

It looks, from the listings in the paper, that deputies spend about half of their time in SoHum chasing these “unwanted individuals” who always seem to turn up in Garberville. Why they never go to Redway, I do not know. I know of plenty of guys out in the hills, at least as ugly as me, who no woman will tolerate, but, it seems, the “unwanted individuals” right in Garberville keep them pretty busy.

 

I thought cops looked for “wanted” criminals. Like we don’t have enough of them to keep them busy. Instead, our deputies relentlessly pursue these “unwanted individuals”. How exactly do you become an “unwanted individual”? Not that I’m aspiring, or anything. If you commit a crime, then you’re “wanted”. If you witness a crime you’re a “person of interest”.  So, these “unwanted individuals” have neither committed, nor witnessed any crimes. They haven’t broken the law.

 

Do you become an “unwanted individual” by hanging around Garberville all day in a bad mood, doing nothing? That pretty much describes most of our local merchants these days. I don’t see any cops harassing them. I know the merchants in town would like us all to wear nicer clothes, eat out more, and get a haircut every once in a while. Do they decide, at a certain point, that you become criminally unpresentable, and call the cops on you?

 

And the cops respond! Like, they’ve got nothing better to do. It seems like our deputies do an awful lot of stuff that’s really not their job, just because someone asked. Whether they’re inspecting building code violations in the rural areas, checking dog vaccination records of pedestrians with K9 companions, or preemptively evicting a much needed port a-pottie, they always seem to have time on their hands for these activities. I suspect these “unwanted individual” excursions provide some diversion from the tedium of their day, but can we, as taxpayers, afford it?

 

Cops cost a lot of tax dollars. They get fat paychecks, benefits and pensions! Who gets pensions anymore? For that matter, who gets benefits? Long overdue cuts in the Sheriff’s Dept. could save the county millions. Thanks to prop.215, deputies have a lot less pointless work to do, and its time to trim the pork. Providing taxpayer subsidized bouncers to the Garberville Chamber of Commerce seems like a waste of tax dollars to me. Let the chamber hire their own bouncers. You don’t see sheriffs deputies working security at the mall, do you? No, you see bored looking guys in vaguely cop-like uniforms, who definitely are not cops.

 

Then again, Garberville is not a mall, or a theme park. G,ville is an unincorporated area without a single stoplight. All kinds of people pass through here, but our merchants cater to the more upscale. As both the local and national economy sink back into recession, fewer of the people passing through Garberville will purchase dashboard hula dancers, stained glass Harley-Davidson signs or $80 jeans, making our local merchants grumpier than ever about people who just want to relax in the shade or need to use the bathroom. That doesn’t make it a law enforcement issue.

Loud Pipes, Orange Cones and the Redwood Run

Loud Pipes, Orange Cones and The Redwood Run

So, I pull into Garberville this past Friday. I find all but a few of the parking spots on Redwood Dr. blocked with orange traffic cones, and labeled “Reserved for Motorcycles”. Like its not enough for us to put up with those loud smelly bikers, and their motorcycles for a whole weekend, the Chamber of Commerce expects the rest of us to make ourselves scarce while the local merchants seduce them.

I shop in G,ville every week, how about reserving me a good parking spot. No, for me they put up signs reminding me not to spend more than an hour in the Town Square, that restrooms are for customers only, and no loitering! But, they sure know how to roll out the red carpet for those bikers.

Every other week of the year, the Chamber of commerce calls the cops on anyone who doesn’t look busy. But, show up on your Harley, they’ll put out chairs and port a potties, save you all of the best parking and whip you up some barbeque. If local merchants treated me as well, I wouldn’t begrudge them every dime I have to spend in Garberville, and if they treated the kids who roll into town with just a backpack as well, they probably wouldn’t shit on their door-stoop.

I want to sympathize with the G,ville merchants. I know that landlords around here suck blood. Profit margins are razor thin and everyone, it seems is looking to sell out before the economy totally tanks, but I’m sick of local merchants whining about the people in town, especially when they push me aside to make space for those biker douche bags.

I really hate Harleys. Specifically, I hate the noise. As a musician, who’s been run off of numerous sidewalks for busking with a small battery powered amplifier, and drowned out by engine noise when I played acoustic, unnecessarily, unapologeticaly and obnoxiously loud motorcycles really bug me. I’ve seen the bumpersticker that says: “Loud pipes save lives”. Well, not if I can help it.

Even teenagers have learned to respect the commons. You never see kids with big boom boxes, blasting everyone out with their favorite pop music anymore. They’ve all got their ipods or whatever. With little earbuds in their ears and their thumbs on their phones, teenagers today don’t make a peep. I wonder what kids listen to these days. I actually miss the boom boxes.

I’d never miss the Harleys, if they’d ever go away. Maybe they could go the earbud route. Nice quiet motorcycles with headphones built into the helmet that amplify the engine noise for the rider. With digital sound modeling, riders could choose from hundreds of “virtual tailpipes”. The iHarley, that would be considerate.

Engine noise sucks! I don’t know why anyone wants to hear it, or wants to be the source of it, but it is everywhere. Just try to record bird sounds, crickets or frogs in the evening, or anything outdoors. You’ll hear engine noise. Even in the quietest meadow, you’ll hear some engine roaring away in the distance. Does every fucking creature on the planet have to listen to your goddamned Harley?

Harleys make more engine noise than big-rig trucks, but carry less than sports cars. I don’t care if they get good gas mileage. They get terrible noise mileage. I can hear Harleys cruising the Ettersburg Rd. three miles away from my home. I don’t care whether you’re a veteran, cop, or the fucking King of Jordan, when you ride that Harley, you’re just an obnoxious asshole on a loud bike to me.

 

On The Money: Carry Some Cash For Christ’s Sake

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

Carry Some Cash for Christ’s Sake

Ok, So I’m at Redway Liquor and Deli to get a slice of pizza, and this guy who’s behind me in line, fakes like he’s looking at the videos, then cuts in front of me in line. Its an old guy too. I expect that kind of behavior from some of the young punks around here, but this guy looked at least 70 with one foot in the grave. I thought that slice of pizza might just kill him, so I didn’t say anything. But, when he got to the register, he paid for one slice of pizza with a credit card! Here in SoHum of all places! So, while I wait for this clown to swipe his card (three times), stand there like an idiot until the approval code arrives, and then watch him sign that stupid receipt for $2.50, I get a real good look at the guy. Now, every night before I go to bed, I pray to God that he choked to death on that slice of pizza.

Do you want that kind of energy directed at you? If not, THEN CARRY SOME GODDAMNED CASH FOR CHRIST”S SAKE!!!

Some people think that its safer to carry credit or debit cards than cash. Horse Hockey! If someone steals your money, you’ve lost some money. If someone steals your credit card, they can steal money you haven’t even earned yet. They can steal you. You won’t even know what kind of trouble they’ve gotten you into, until its too late.

Need more good reasons to carry cash:

  1. No PIN # to remember

  2. No ugly plastic card

  3. No long number to remember

  4. No expiration date

  5. No annual fee

  6. No transaction charges

  7. No late fees

  8. No hidden fees

  9. No interest rate

  10. No interest

  11. No credit limit

  12. No monthly bill

  13. No receipts to sign

  14. No inscrutable contract written in impossibly small print

  15. Just one sentence: Cash is legal tender for all debts public and private

When you see those “We accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover” stickers on a merchants door, that’s their way of telling you that they charge 5% more for everything. I say, pay cash and demand a discount, or take your business elsewhere.

Why do we allow banks to charge us money to use our own money? Banks used to pay interest to keep your money there. Now, not only do they expect us to bail them out when they lose our money, they charge us more money every year, just to use our own money. Why put up with it?

I say “cut up those credit cards, and cut up the bills too.” And, if you want to avoid the undying hatred of yours truly, carry some fucking cash for Christ’s sake! There’s a view of consumer credit that’s On The Money.

Word Power #4 Suigeneris

Word Power

Building Your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

Suigeneris

su i generis adj (‘sue e ‘gen er us) adj. Constituting a class alone, unique, peculiar

The problem with this word lies in the fact that so little eludes genera. We have as many genres of music as we had recording artists 20 years ago. Even things like Stonehenge, The Sphinx, and the pyramids at Machu-Pichu fall into the category of neolithic megaliths.

Scientists found several suigeneris fossils in some rocks in Canada known as The Burgess Shale. Even suigeneris fossils require Latin names, and scientists named one particularly bizarre specimen Hallucigenia Sparsa. This creature appeared to walk, on jointless spines, waving two parallel rows of flexible tubes aloft, possibly for feeding. You can scarcely imagine a weirder looking creature.

Following Nixon’s famous trip to China, but before all of our manufacturing jobs moved there, we discovered that the Chinese have at least 60,000 Hallucigenia Sparsa fossils, and have studied the creature quite a bit. The Chinese figured out that Hallucigenia Sparsa actually walked on the flexible tubes, not unlike a caterpillar, and used the spines defensively, not unlike a porcupine. And, as it turns out, the creature is quite closely related to surviving species of Velvet Worms, or Onychophorans. The American Hallucigenia Sparsa, may be happy to have met so many relatives in China, but she is suigeneris no longer.

Whether its designer handbags, or pre-cambrian fossils, China can turn the suigeneris into SWAG overnight. So, if you find the opportunity to use the word suigeneris, don’t tell China about it.