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Dear NBC News San Diego,

            I watched your 11-o-clock news show on 2/24/10 and have a couple of questions about the report you did on the death of the whale trainer Dawn Brancheau.

            You presented the tragedy, the response of Seaworld San Diego in canceling their afternoon Shamu show and a short history of the whale’s connection to two other deaths but you failed to mention anything about the growing consensus that imprisoning Orcas and forcing them to splash, tap dance and cuddle for a crowd of braying yahoos is anything other than exploitation and torture.

Beggar’s Banquet

“Can I have seventy five cents,” said the beggar. He’d edged up to us as we waited to get served at our local taco stand.

I never pony up but this guy caught me unawares. He was Mexican and egg shaped with loose jelly like eyes. About forty. There was something strangely soulful about him. Like a street after a carnival, a lone flower in an overgrown  cemetery,  a page of a telephone book lying in the gutter. His music was low Spanish guitar.

The Andy / Jumanji Project

Watched Julie and Julia at the weekend. I had put up some resistance to seeing it but as my wife watched Inglorious Basterds with me, it was only fair. And it really wasn’t that bad. It sounded lame, some blogger trying to make all the recipes in some old cookbook. Who cares?  It seemed a bit like those people who expect you to sponsor them for skiing every Alp or backpacking across China and expect huge applause when really you’re just thinking, ‘I wish I could ski down every Alp… how much money did you really give to Oxfam? I bet it would have been a lot more without the deductions for ski passes’.

Just got around to reading Left Behind by Tim LaHayne and Jerry B. Jenkins. I try and read most of the big bestsellers and anything described as a literary phenomenon. In 1998 it climbed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list with its three follow up books right behind it in positions two, three and four.

For those who don’t know, it’s a book based on the evangelical interpretation of some of craziest bits of the Bible, namely the prophesies of Revelations, Ezekiel and Isaiah. The premise being that just before the end of the world, God calls all the devout ‘real’ Christians up into heaven in an event called ‘The Rapture’. Those who don’t make the cut are ‘left behind’ on earth to fret and pout about this big cosmic snubbing like school girls failing to make the pep team. But that’s not the worst of their problems, while all the ‘real Christians’ are up in ‘heaven’, the devil is taking over the world like a supernatural Hypnotizing Batman villain and society is racked with famine, plague, war and earthquakes killing millions.

I carry a tennis racket
For PROTECTION
A baseball bat
Would be better
But I don't have one

I'm sure you could make
A class assumption
About my ownership of a tennis racket
Rather than a baseball bat

But you'd be dead wrong
It's a cheap tennis racket
It's not like it's a golf club
Or a set of skis

I'd prefer a baseball bat
But a gun might be better
No, maybe not

My Dad is coming to visit. I want him to have a really good time and he wants to go to Las Vegas. He's here for ten days, so I'll show him around San Diego, take him to all the beautiful spots and then head through the desert to the big Neon Nightmare. Not a problem. But I really want to show him a good time. He works hard. he deserves a holiday that will live long in the memory. So I've tried using the reviews on Trip Advisor and Yahoo Travel to check out a few potential hotels.

Bad idea.

Every hotel I've checked out reads like heaven one minute and then hell the next. This goes for everything from the Bellagio down to the cheapest motel:  

We go to fill up the car at the Arco station on El Cajon Blvd. It's in a bit of a run down ghetto neighborhood  but it's the cheapest place around. Today it was $4.52 a gallon. It's gone up about $2 in a year. The Shell station nearby has peaked at $4.99. It wants to go over five but for the time being it dare not. It might cause a riot. They might have lost the big numbers for the sign.

Still, nothing on the UK price eh.

Bush is supposed to be giving everyone $600 as part of his economic stimulus plan. I've not gotten mine yet. Although I did get a letter saying it should be hitting my bank account any day now. That was a month ago. Perhaps he's figured out I'm not an American even though I'm a legal resident who pays taxes and social security. It would be a very Bush thing to do. It would play well in Texas. Ah Texas, where McCain's war record is an actual handicap on top of his handicap, 'you're not supposed to get captured John...' I actually heard someone say this.

Funny dreams lately.

Last night I was with my wife and Bob Dylan and we had decided to go and watch the Cubs play the Padres.

Being poor we went to book our usual centre field tickets on the hill behind the kids sand pit but Bob started looking at the whole ground layout and wanted us to get a prime box in front of first base. The seats were very expensive.

'I'll just put it on my credit card,' said Bob in his nasal twang. The voice was dead right. I heard it in my head perfectly as if he'd really spoken the words out loud.

The C-word

Walking to the Casbah the other night we passed outside The Pogues in concert.

“Do you want tickets?” asked a tout with eyes so far apart he resembled a Hammerhead Shark.

Joy is Incongruous

            I was recently mistaken by several strangers for a religious nutter and I would like to set the record straight.