Bird flu

I walk twenty-some-odd miles a week and suffer any number of geese. I'd like to see one of you plastic goose people put a raincoat on a Canadian goose, or better yet, a postal carrier outfit. Those sonsabitches are mean. I hiss and make faces at them whenever I pass by. They open their miserable black bills and hiss back, the bastards.

I've heard Canadian geese are a protected species. I should stop right here and research that, but frankly, I'm just too damn tired. Someone else can research this crap. In the meantime:

Note to persons protecting Canadian geese: You're wasting your time, the miserable bastards can protect themselves. Don't believe me? Try and dress one up like an Easter bunny.

Houston, we have a problem.

Sometimes in the park, there's a whole flock of your Canadian geese. Twenty? Thirty? Maybe even more. I don't hiss at your Canadian geese when they're hanging out in those numbers.  When you've got Erin vs. 25 Canadian geese, the only one who needs protection is Erin.

Got Tippy Hedren?

If I were ever walking through one of these polite suburban neighborhoods and I saw a plastic goose decked out in a fetish bondage outfit, that would really float my boat. I could really get behind a plastic goose in a fishnet body stocking. Extra points for a gay/black leather & chains theme. Bet that'd get a Canadian goose's attention.

Yesterday four wild turkeys hauled ass in front of me and crossed the street (no postal carrier outfits, no hissing). Your wild turkeys have style. Your wild turkeys have panache.

So, what does a person think when a person sees a quartet of turkeys bouncing across the road? Bet they'd be good eats. (Style and panache only get you so far.) To be honest, I often think the same thing about the miserable Canadian geese, although everyone says this is not so, that they are not good eats. I don't believe them. I say use the trusted cook-the-living-shit-out-of-it-until-the-living-shit-is-cooked-out-of-it method. Throw some wine or beer in there, few shakes of salt and an onion or two. Slop it on a plate with a side of mashed spuds. Your Goat will eat that goose.

Anyhow, what was I saying?

* * *

American splendor

So you pass under the arch announcing the Santa Monica pier and stroll upon its thick timbers past the hot dog stands and guys fishing and skeeball booths. Kids lick ice cream cones and point at the old indoor carousel. Carnival-style facades, with their gingerbread and racing lights, hide oily compressors and pulley works. The trickery does not fool you, but you let it fill the world with possibility nonetheless--if only for a night.

The lazy Ferris wheel traces circles of light amid the roller coaster and the Scrambler, which looks exactly like the one that thrilled you some 35 years ago in a humble park 2400 miles away from where you stand right now. You sigh.

"Come on, kid, let's ride the Ferris wheel."

And then you float up into the purest American ether, with the Pacific breeze billowing your hair and its waters rolling far below. You ride the vertical circle to its crest. The Santa Monica mountains sculpt the horizon before you as the ocean reaches for the end of the world behind you. You sink down. The dusky sky illuminates the bluffs of Santa Monica as they nobly define the western edge of this troubled and beautiful land.

You travel again and again around this ethereal circumference. The three other people in the gondola, to whom you are so deeply connected that even the word love seems inadequate, swoon along with you.

The smooth glory rolls on until it comes to an end in our realm of time, but you will carry it deep inside you from now on. In doing so, you quietly defy your mortality. The tears well inside of you. The American dream spills over you.

You realize you have never understood the word rare until this moment.