“A cat asked Coltrane, ‘When you’re out there doing that wild solo, what are you hearing?’ And he said, ‘The bass.’” –Mike Watt
The four count rhythm between ten and two never worked for me.
Putting a bass line to it kind of does. Jamerson to start and maybe when things get going something else. Or this. Or Shakespeare.
Contrived? Maybe. But it beats thinking about a metronome.
They came to run the bar and eat sand eels and we threw things that to them must have looked like sand eels so they ate them and later probably regretted it.
Bass that ate.
The guy wearing them is a good dude, so his poor choices in footwear will be abided.
I get it: The idea is to keep pushing yourself, to find the bigger challenge, to cast to a fish that tests all of your abilities, or resides just beyond them, and hopefully get rewarded.
But sometimes it’s not such a bad thing to hit up a fish where your cast just has to be good enough and when it sees your fly, actually wants to eat.
Getting geared up, changing out the old backing, we got a big week ahead. That’s right, get out there and stick ‘em.
Today I met Bukowski. Or maybe it was Jim Harrison. Or maybe just someone else with all the manic cravings but none of the talent. He had a brown paper bag and he sat on the park bench without his shirt. He held open a leather-bound writing journal.
The water turned green over the past few days and the only way to see anything was by their tails. The thermometer hit 96 degrees and I stood on dried mud staring at glimpses of fish I knew I would not catch.
I walked by his bench and he tipped his bag at me. He could just be askew or maybe he was acknowledging a parallel situation, or the fact that any passerby would quicken their step to get past either one of us.
I could get out of this. A quick drive home and I’m back in regiment. I doubt he had any means of breaking down his frustrations into four pieces and locking them in a PVC tube under the hatchback.
We like the spots.
Schooling bunker
The Selfish Herd Theory is based on the premise that, when an animal is targeted as prey, it bands together with others of its kind in hopes that the predator will eat the other one. When groups of animals are being hunted, it’s obviously safer in the center than along the periphery of the heard. Put you between me and the beast and maybe we’ll both be alright, but mostly me.
Schooling up in ever-tightening concentric circles of a bait ball serves menhaden well when bluefish are shredding, and old W.D. Hamilton looks pretty smart for his premise.
But this natural defense doesn’t work so well when an Omega Protein boat circles its nets.
Go to Save the Menhaden and see how to help save this integral cog in the oceanic food chain from collapse.
Pete McDonald