Pet Cobra

The Last Breath of Dying Days...

The year ends, this year of war and murder, of malfeasance and corruption, of the harpies and vultures of consumerism and greed coming home to roost.

Anyway. I was thinking about a dream I used to have. This particular one came into spiritus mundi when I was in junior high, all bowl haircut and thick tortoise-shell glasses and D & D and hormones, all of which informed this particular dream. It's pretty straightforward: I am staggering along a nameless shore, wearing battered armor, bruised and bloodied, an angry defiant snarl on my face. I drop to my knees and plunge my sword into black sands, howling as I do so. Then I wake up.

2008, ending with bangs and many, many whimpers. Explosions and cries. A bleak finish to a generally bleak 365 days.

And yet.

Sunday Morning: Monday Morning Edition

Monday morning after a long holiday weekend; up at 6:00 to get ready to go back to work, wishing I was anywhere else.

Prince Caspian - Phish

A Gift For You

Posting this week will be lighter than normal, what with me celebrating the birth of Jesus and all. So if you don't hear from me, have a merry Christmas, and if you're still looking for ideas for my present, just go ahead and get me anything from any of these bands.

Sunday Morning: Winter Solstice

I spent the weekend up in Temecula, drinking wine, and recovering from drinking wine. There was snow on the mountains, and for a while it seemed like anyplace but California. It seemed like winter, like winter ought to be.

Sometime Around Midnight - The Airborne Toxic Event

Once Again, I Open the PetCobra Mailbag

Once again, it's time to open up the PetCobra Mailbag. As always, thanks go out to my crack team of interns who spent hours sorting through mountainous piles of letters, picking out only the best ones, and saving the rest for each other to read aloud to the sounds of mocking laughter, over and over and over again. And as always, these are actual letters from imaginary readers. Yes, I copied and pasted this intro from the last PetCobra Mailbag installment. There's a recession on, people, and I have a family to feed. Yes, this does mean that I killed my interns and made a hearty stew out of them. The secret? Coriander!

Dear PetCobra: "surfers live in many worlds at once"...oh ah...wonder why bloggers try so hard to sound deep and philosophical when all they really do is navel gazing!  - Iris, A Real Life Commentor Whom I Deleted/Banned - And Now I Feel Terribly, Terribly Guilty, Because Who Am I To Squelch The Voice Of Such A Promising Talent, Even Though She (Ironically) Failed To Properly Conjugate The Verb "Gazing"?

Dear Iris - I am now doing navel gazing and will reply to you as soon as I'm done doing navel gazing.

Dear PetCobra: What do you think about the big Detroit bailout? Will you now buy a Ford? - Henry Ford, Fifth Level, Hell

Dear Henry Ford - no fucking way would I ever, EVER, buy a car made by a shitty American automaker. Please note, before you accuse me of being an Evil Jew (I am, for the record, half Evil Jew on my mom's side, which I guess makes me an Official Evil Jew) or whatever, let me say this: American CARS are not the problem. In my life I've driven a Pontiac Phoenix and a Ford Ranger and I drove them both into the ground, well into the 100k mileage range. Both cars were solid, well-built, very reliable. The problem lies with the idiots who run the Big 3. They've been outfoxed by the Japanese, Germans - hell, even the Swedes! BORN FROM JETS, YANKEE MOTHERFUCKERS! - who took one of America's most iconic products,The Car, and made it their own. The real geniuses here are not the German and Japanese engineers. The big brains belong to the PR, advertising, and marketing teams of Nissan, BMW, Toyota, and Saab, who beat the shit out of us on our own turf.  So when I say "shitty American automaker", I mean this: the Big 3 have failed not because they make a bad product, but because they have no clue how to effectively sell the product that they make. We're the company that invented modern advertising and marketing and these guys can't figure this out? Jesus! Rick Wagoner, Alan Mulally, and Bob Nardelli - put Mad Men in your Netflix cue. You might learn a trick or two. (Ok. I might buy a Ford Edge. Henry, why don't you go back and talk to your manager and see what you can do for me.)

Dear PetCobra: What do you want for Christmas? - Santa Claus, North Pole

Dear Santa - I've been struggling with this. The root of my angst: a Sony PlayStation 3. It all began months ago, when Beth hinted that she wanted a Wii, because of the Wii Fit and the Guitar Hero and such. At first I was ambivalent. I'd had a PlayStation, which broke, and an Xbox, which also broke, and wasn't one of those gamer dorks that stayed up until 4 every morning trying to get to the final level of Halo or whatever. But it seems that everyone has a game system, and the Blu-ray player is awesome. But I live in sunny SoCal and should be spending my free time outside playing, surfing, getting exercise. But how kick-ass would it be to have family sessions of Rock Band, with Lucas on the drums? And how cool does Fallout 3 look? But there's a recession on. But the way to get out of a recession is to stimulate the economy, and the best way to do that is to put money back into play via purchasing. But if I'm going to put money back into play, shouldn't I be investing in the stock market? Oh, fuck it, Santa. Just bring me a pony.

Sunday Morning, Evening Edition: Storms Miles Away

Yesterday I surfed. First time in weeks, for an hour or so, in bright blue sunshine and wonderfully crisp water. This morning I woke up feeling like I'd been beaten with a broom handle. The sky was full of clouds, thick, low, a terse indicator of things to come? Surfers live in many places at once; in the here and now, and thousands of miles away. We think of the other side of the world, where distant storms swirl, form swells, bring waves and their attendant joys. Sometimes those storms make landfall.  I spent Sunday with one eye on the roiling skies; after yesterday's time in the sunlight ocean, rain...well. By midday, my mood was as black as the skies. I was downright morbid, glowering, desperately in need of some sunlight.

It didn't rain.

First, I need you to read this, and if you have, humor me and re-read it. That was four years ago.

We're not born to be what we are. We're forged. We are hot malleable steel and our defining moments are the blacksmith's hammer-strikes. We shatter and we are poured back into a crucible and made anew. We are reforged. What was broken within us as we looked down at him lying on that hospital bed was remade. The Japanese swordmasters had a mythical technique of folding steel, hundreds of times over upon itself, so that the razor-sharp katanas that the samurai carried into battle were strong enough to slice through stone, indestructible. We don't think that we have that strength but we do; good steel is supposed to bend, but not break, and it's a surprising truth that we're of the same caliber. Distance and time have not made bearing those memories any easier, but we are katanas, we are swords of legend, and we are not easily destroyed.

The baby who was so stricken has grown. Saturday he suits up in his do-bak to test for his yellow belt. He can kick, punch, chop, and block. He does so with determination, but also with a particular glee. He too was forged on that hospital bed, though it's taken us a while to recognize. His joy is that shared by most four year old boys - the joy of being a child in a big wondrous world. But it's also the joy of one who's known battle, who has faced down a particularly virulent enemy, and who has emerged triumphant.

Of course, we were very fortunate; the disease has claimed far too many victims. For more information about Kawasaki Disease, visit the Kawasaki Foundation website, at www.kdfoundation.org.

Bad shit, people. There are these little red bumps on my left index finger, like I've been attacked by chiggers or nits or some other small parasitic insects. Fleas? Christ if I have fleas where will that leave me? Flea-bitten, that's where. In this day and age for a grown man to be flea-bitten, why, that's inconceivable. I keep using that word and it does mean what I think it means. A flea-bitten man is one to be shunned, and rightfully so. Unless of course he's homeless, in which case, I dunno, cut the guy some slack, he's living in a box. Of course he's gonna have fleas.

I don't live in a box, I live in a house, and although we have a dog, the dog is bathed and groomed regularly and receives his monthly dose of Frontline. So it's probably not fleas. I don't know what the fuck these bumps are, but they itch, they're annoying me, and pretty soon I'm gonna start talking to them like I was a narrator from an Edgar Allen Poe tale. Bumps! Why will you not go away?! I did a paper spoofing Poe in high school; my teacher really liked it, said I had a knack for satire, and boy did I manage to parlay that into a successful blogging career! I just got a check for $60 from my advertisers! SIXTY. 6 OH. That's a trip to the gas station, a pizza, and a sixer of Guinness. Big time operator shit.

Back to the bumps. I get these every so often, and I'm trying to discern a pattern, like the crazy guy on Fringe does. I think I have. See, I'm getting older - in about 6 months I will be 40. FORTY. 4 OH. And when you get old bad shit happens to you. Hair grows out of your ears. Your knees make odd sounds. You start pondering What It All Means. You think of Ozymandias. You look around at people and places and come to the realization that everything is temporary, nothing lasts, and one day even the big bright sun is going to collapse in upon itself and suck the rest of the solar system down with it. So it stands to reason that getting weird itchy bumps on your left index finger is just part of the deal.

Anduril

First, I need you to read this, and if you have, humor me and re-read it. That was four years ago.

We're not born to be what we are. We're forged. We are hot malleable steel and our defining moments are the blacksmith's hammer-strikes. We shatter and we are poured back into a crucible and made anew. We are reforged. What was broken within us as we looked down at him lying on that hospital bed was remade. The Japanese swordmasters had a mythical technique of folding steel, hundreds of times over upon itself, so that the razor-sharp katanas that the samurai carried into battle were strong enough to slice through stone, indestructible. We don't think that we have that strength but we do; good steel is supposed to bend, but not break, and it's a surprising truth that we're of the same caliber. Distance and time have not made bearing those memories any easier, but we are katanas, we are swords of legend, and we are not easily destroyed.

The baby who was so stricken has grown. Saturday he suits up in his do-bak to test for his yellow belt. He can kick, punch, chop, and block. He does so with determination, but also with a particular glee. He too was forged on that hospital bed, though it's taken us a while to recognize. His joy is that shared by most four year old boys - the joy of being a child in a big wondrous world. But it's also the joy of one who's known battle, who has faced down a particularly virulent enemy, and who has emerged triumphant.

Of course, we were very fortunate; the disease has claimed far too many victims. For more information about Kawasaki Disease, visit the Kawasaki Foundation website, at www.kdfoundation.org.

I've Got Blisters on My Fingers, Or, Musings on A Post-Holiday Monday Night

Bad shit, people. There are these little red bumps on my left index finger, like I've been attacked by chiggers or nits or some other small parasitic insects. Fleas? Christ if I have fleas where will that leave me? Flea-bitten, that's where. In this day and age for a grown man to be flea-bitten, why, that's inconceivable. I keep using that word and it does mean what I think it means. A flea-bitten man is one to be shunned, and rightfully so. Unless of course he's homeless, in which case, I dunno, cut the guy some slack, he's living in a box. Of course he's gonna have fleas.

I don't live in a box, I live in a house, and although we have a dog, the dog is bathed and groomed regularly and receives his monthly dose of Frontline. So it's probably not fleas. I don't know what the fuck these bumps are, but they itch, they're annoying me, and pretty soon I'm gonna start talking to them like I was a narrator from an Edgar Allen Poe tale. Bumps! Why will you not go away?! I did a paper spoofing Poe in high school; my teacher really liked it, said I had a knack for satire, and boy did I manage to parlay that into a successful blogging career! I just got a check for $60 from my advertisers! SIXTY. 6 OH. That's a trip to the gas station, a pizza, and a sixer of Guinness. Big time operator shit.

Back to the bumps. I get these every so often, and I'm trying to discern a pattern, like the crazy guy on Fringe does. I think I have. See, I'm getting older - in about 6 months I will be 40. FORTY. 4 OH. And when you get old bad shit happens to you. Hair grows out of your ears. Your knees make odd sounds. You start pondering What It All Means. You think of Ozymandias. You look around at people and places and come to the realization that everything is temporary, nothing lasts, and one day even the big bright sun is going to collapse in upon itself and suck the rest of the solar system down with it. So it stands to reason that getting weird itchy bumps on your left index finger is just part of the deal.