...the 22 things I saw in 2022 (vol. 1)...
“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.”
-Paulo Coelho-
Ahoy & Aloha my wandering wonderful & wuggly wombas. In this the lord’s year of triple twos I done enjoyed myself a doozy of adventures wild, fun and horrendously brutally painfully stupid. The year began with a fridge overflowing with fresh caught crab and rockfish, a sinus filled with virus, and my weenus laid out on the couch watching vampires consider sexing werewolves for ten hours. I hiked grassy hills to rocky cliffs to woody wilds with tremendous trails. I gambled against my favorite basketball team in the hopes my heavy jinxing energy would compel these millionaires to a night of champagne and heavy metal statue holding (and succeeded!).
I hiked 8 of 12 full moons and pondered how in the farting fish we had mercury in retrograde nearly every other month. We got mooned so heavy, going from a super new moon to a wolf moon to a snow moon and a worm moon and a pink moon and a flower moon and a buck moon and a sturgeon moon and a harvest moon and a hunter’s moon and a beaver moon and a cold moon and another super new moon brewing to close it all out alongside a handful of eclipses.
As a monkey in a tiger year, I ate shit in nearly every direction personally, but was able to wash my mouth and seek better flavored tacos along the way. I made a friend from Ghana in Armenia. I saw Dennis Rodman movies in Austin, Texas. Friends and family got wedded and an old man I bought a suit from passed away before I could get the security tags off the silky purple & navy.
I wore shirts filled with furby and flowers and got shit canned with the Pollacks filling the Croatian hall in South Saint Paul, Minnesota. I finished mixing a new record with a new band and developed strong devotion to unpronounceable unutterable impossible unsayables such as Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole which is apparently the name of a Welsh village.
I ran 12+ miles a day for a month, slept with crystals, interviewed the man who wrote bad to the bone, and broke open my Phish virginity with 3 nights of hilly stretches and phlu like symptoms. I lost a friend’s keys in a Chicago bar, made my boss who fired me pay for a last lunch (with extra bacon), and practiced sabering astral energies with the archangel Michael.
I applied for 234 different roles, at 234 different companies, leading to 38 different introductory e-mails, leading to 34 different introductory interviews, leading to 29 different hiring manager introductions, leading to 22 different rounds of peer interviews, leading to 16 rounds of cultural fit interviews, leading to 12 different c-suite introductions, leading to 6 further c-suite introductions, leading to 3 more interview sets that went 7 rounds or more leading to exactly 0 jobs. Then I started a company with a friend and DJ’d roasts at a comedy store while slowly becoming some growing ancestral mimic of the Gallagher clan. I’m just giving the universe its PROPS!
I camped and consulted, swam in rivers and lakes, found dino bones and wildcat homes and almost 65 private detective gigs on craigslist. I journeyed to my past life professions only to find I was an underfunded harlequin living alone in a french farmhouse without chairs. I traveled again into a different past life only to find my happiest moment was being ten years old in the 50’s and staring at the dark blue leather windowsill in a Coupe DeVille as it drove quietly down the prairie freeway. I found that profoundly sad, but then the sadness of it all cracked me up so glass half full of cold vodka, clearly I am living my happiest life at this very moment as I type and reflect for you (tears falling on my slap happy fingers).
Mine eyes have flipped, fluttered and flashed amidst, adrift & amongst such clackering cosmic debris…good, bad and in between, I came, I saw and I 2022’d the hell out of this year…to celebrate here are the 22 things I thunged on this time train…
22. OLD MEN PUKING ON A BOAT
I was hoping to catch crabs on both sides of the year’s start and end, but recession economics have increased the costs of boat fuel by 40% and I also quit bumping pubis with filthy tunnel dwelling unkempt card playing vagrants (we can still play cribbage though). As the 5AM boat journey began I was amazed at how many of my fishing mates were cracking whiskey and michelob for breakfast. Greg, a chuckling rotund bearded man with clobby knees warned me on ship entrance that he would be puking today as he lit a long red smoke. I echoed a chuckle and found a pole position as far from him as I could. Some 3 hours of ten foot waves and icy wind later Greg chose the fetal position at the back of my feet as his hold for the rest of our voyage. Between casting and reeling I’d turn to see him barf gently in buckets and on the saline floor.
The joy of catching rock fish on a charter boat is the endless camaraderie of dropping ten pound sinks hundreds of feet and quickly reeling to find various sized and colored space aliens shocked to a world well above them. Slippery adults get clobbered in the head and tossed into canvas sacks until every fisherman has caught a total of ten, and the babes that make the hooked voyage get thrown bloody lipped back to the sea, hustling home with tall tales of the sky giants on wooded cities with cigar smoked mustaches and vomit stained boots.
There were six pukers this voyage out of a total of 33 fisherpeople. My advice for avoiding a weakened stomach on a deep sea voyage is ginger gum, acupressure wrist bands, lots of relaxing tea, and save your boozing for the damn boat ride home. We caught our share of fish and crab and spent the next week building cakes, ceviche, roasts and brandades with the oceanic fleshes. They feed the crabs fried chicken and squid guts to get them to walk into the traps. Not a bad last meal but I am still sure to say thank you and apologize before boiling the beasts and breaking their legs. If you have extra crab meat, grill it with some garlic and chives and add to fluffed eggs with an avocado topped toasted sourdough side. Splash salt and pepper and take a nap later that afternoon on a couch with a weighted blanket and friends.
21. ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE’S WEIRD WEDNESDAY TRASH ACTION MYSTERY MOVIE SPECTACULAR
As we crowded into the upstairs theater we had no clue what adventure awaited us. But adventure indeed await. American Hunter aka Lethal Hunter is a delightful Indonesian action nugget from 1988 that looks like it was made in a trashcan in 1974. It star’s Robert Mitchum’s son Chris and the less I say about it the better for you because you should just watch it. If this trailer doesn’t compel you at least know that Chris Mitchum's flogging during the torture sequence ranks 60th in the book "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies." Perhaps you can buy that book as a stocking stuffer for your loveliest imp and then watch this film back to back with Night of the Hunter before shooting pixelated Big Buck Hunter Pro antlers at the local bowling alley?
20. MUDDY PAW AND SNEAKER PRINTS around THE BRIONES RESERVOIR
My initial action goal for 2022 was to run each and every trail in the EBMUD district. Beyond the EBPRD (the nation’s largest metropolitan hiking district), the East Bay also has trails curated by the Joaquin Miller and John Muir land trusts and the EBMUD water district. These hundreds of miles of trail offer so much biking, hiking and exploring it is hard to pass up an opportunity to discover each and every section of it.
My first attempt at the half marathon that is traversing the Briones Reservoir in the Lafayette & Orinda hills, it was way too hot and I went in the very wrongest direction. My second attempt to make the round run at Briones I went a day after rain smashed the city. I was more prepared this time, a water backpack filled with gummy snacks, earbuds to keep podcasted on the run, and a change of shirts to deal with weather variance. 2 miles in though I was gummed to the ground, mud sucked so heavy to my shoe soles I was carrying some odd 20 pounds of earth with each attempted high step. Knowing I had ten more miles of these solomon grundy style conditions I had to turn back and plan better.
My third attempt I succeeded. I left at 6AM to take advantage of the morning cool, planned for a weekend day when the ground would be dusty & firm and in a brisk few hours made it through a couple long podcasts and around the entire reservoir. The beauty of the loop is it starts lake level and works to several vistas along the journey giving you time to enjoy the expansive nature. Good elevation, good distance, and only a handful of other souls working the solitude of the inner portions of the trail. If you behave you might catch a coyote and a hawk trading shaggy stories on the shoreline.
19. THE DAILY MAIL’S GREATEST MOST LONG WINDED POORLY EDITED HEADLINE
What I love most about this headline is it does absolutely all the work for you. There is no need for an article. I don’t even want to watch the video. I just want to live in this headline, this headline’s excessive detail, the terrible pun that precedes that detail and any further works in headline from the Mr. Jewers who wrote this. He should change his name to Jewelers because this is such a gem. Also delightful is the straightlaced detail in the subheadings so deliberately narrating the action. In my idealized version of twitter this is the only type of news we get. Future journalists will simply visit tiktok, youtube and substack and report on what they find there. They will come to this article and leave with the headline
LONG HAIRED SASQUATCH LOOKING OAKLAND MAN ELEVATES HIS PUFFY AND POSSIBLY BROKEN KNEE ON A BAR STOOL WHILE WRITING ARTICLE ABOUT THINGS IN 2022 WITH SCOTT PILGRIM PLAYING ON THE TV AND A BELLY FULL OF CHORIZO SCRAMBLE AND SPARKLING CEREMONIAL MATCHA TEA HOPING TO AMUSE THE READERS OF HIS US WRITTEN AND POORLY ATTENDED BLOG LACKING FOCUS, DIRECTION & PURPOSE WITH DEEP DIVES ON UK TABLOID HEADLINES AND AN INEVITABLE POOP JOKE
I mean seriously Daily Mail…bravo…just bravo…
18. STREET ART PROMOTING AVATAR 2 (i think) IN A SNOWY YEREVAN ALLEYWAY
17. ENDLESS WILDFLOWERS in FERNANDEZ RANCH in MARTINEZ, CA
When the rainy east bay winter ends we get a two month period of some of the most popping wildflowers in California. At Fernandez Ranch the quality and variety is truly stunning. I counted over 30+ varieties on my last spring voyage here and can’t wait to go back again. Also if you travel in tall grass season beware the voluminous tick population…strap on your shoe-shoes and hobbit…
16. THIS PIMP ASS LIZARD HANGING OUT ON THE WILDFLOWER RANCH
I actually saw this guy in 2021, but I could never unsee him again, and in 2022 I found the same log on a wet afternoon walk and stared for minutes hoping his sexy gaze would return for me. Alas all I got was wood…
15. NIGHT MOVES & CUTTER’S WAY TCM DOUBLE BUMMER MOVIE FEATURE
Turner Classic Movies has a program called Noir Alley and did this double feature earlier this year. From 1975, Night Moves is a Gene Hackman shamus neo-noir directed by Arthur Penn and featuring a somewhat scandalous performance by a 17 year old Melanie Griffith. Excellent twists and turns and a great sweaty southern Florida setting. Like a lot of my favorite films of the 70’s, this movie has a lived in sleaziness and grit that digs you in. I’ll let the synopsis divy plot for you, but highly recommend this if you are a fan of Chinatown, The French Connection, Klute, Thief, The Long Goodbye or other detective movies of the era.
The movie that answers what if The Big Lebowski but serious. This movie is so good. It gutted me in a way I hadn’t felt in a while (or maybe that was the butt virus I couched with). Sobering, dark, novelistic and thoughtful. A mystery wherein the mystery is if the mystery is even real or not. Such a good back to back with Lebowski if you want to feel horrible then amazing and ponder at how smart the Coen’s are for referencing such a deep old school gem. Helped me soak and sweat out my 2nd covid party of the year. This delightful blog goes deep if you want to read some theory on it as well…
14. A JERRY MAGUIRE T-SHIRT & GOOGLY EYES
13. MY PHONE SCREEN, THEN A SIDEWALK, THEN MY HAND & THE SKY
I’m not sure when I decided running while texting was an actual thing I could get away with. I am certain when I Iearned it was not. Planning to attend a playoff basketball game I matched the excitement of the moment with a long run along the truck routes of West Oakland. Needing to plan drinks and dinner before the game, I texted with my ladyfriend hoping to make a plan, only to quickly toe grip a broken piece of asphalt and almost face plant stumbling off the side of the underpass. My saving grace was my left pinky which took the first hit and the brunt of the fall. I wasn’t sure if I broke it but I was sure my pinky now hurt like hell and was growing in size as it blackened.
Thankfully the fine phone nurses at Kaiser Permanente health care guided me towards a barely sober decision. Sure I could come in for x-rays but if it was broken all they could likely do was tape it up and send me on the way. Missing a basketball game for such expert doctoring was not an urgent need so I skated to the train, ordered cold hoppy beers with bags of ice and complained for two hours while I watched Jordan Poole dribble backwards and make sick layups. I got to enjoy a playoff with with my pal Bob Weir…
And the next day I learned indeed I broke my dang pinky, got guazed and was on the trail complaining again for no one but the bats to hear. Don’t text and drive, don’t text and walk, don’t text and swim, don’t text and drink and don’t text and run on West Oakland truck roads when you are over-excited to watch men toss a leather ball at each other.
12. A BUNCH OF T-SHIRTS I THOUGHT ABOUT BUYING
One of the great treats of seeing baseball games at the increasingly critter infested Oakland Coliseum is a litany of bootleg T-Shirts celebrating local sports teams. I got a Wutang clan’d Warriors logo shirt in 2016, Bugs Bunny & Taz as the bash brothers a few years earlier, and what I think is Klay Thompson as Guy Fieri on a motorcycle cooking pasta saying Bam!, but I can’t tell because the screen print was too blurred.
The world of bootleg t-shirts across ebay, etsy and redbubble is filled with rappers, celebrities, serial killers and memes. As the internet gets weirder and weirder and weirder, finding the actual weird sides of it gets harder and harder and harder. But we got the goods. As Mick Jagger would scowl…”you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”
Which in my case is one of these t-shirts…
11. THE GATEWAY IS A JIM MORRISON DOLL
Well this is the end…my only friend the end…of this volume of this article...
What better way to close the bar than sharing my journey from Jim Morrison dolls to an irish artist who wants to upset all the rich babies in your life. I forget why I was looking at Jim Morrison dolls in July but maybe just to celebrate my freedom or perhaps to open my mind man…
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
-Jim Morrison-
…to be continued, concluded, poorly attended, broken, mistaken, shared, gifted, re-gifted and forgotten about in the next issue…
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA #19
But all of this, on point. An excellent read, can't wait for part 2
Feeling traumatized by that pic of Jonathan Lipnicki 😵💫