That’s all I done.
Tagged: bass
When RFP brought his guitar he played The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and everybody around the bonfire liked it. So the next year ZB checked his guitar with his luggage and flew it all the way up from Florida. As soon as we got off the water he pulled it out and started playing, strumming chords in a tight four count as if he were reading sheet music.
Andy was standing down by the river and he saw this and walked up through the cedars to the deck. Andy was a union electrician and he liked to smoke weed and ride around on his mower and perform acoustic sets on open mic night. Andy sat down and we gave him a beer and he watched ZB work through the song. ZB looked up at us for approval and Andy, who didn’t even know him, laid it down.
“If you’re going to play like that then just go behind the shed and masturbate.”
He took the guitar out of ZB’s hands and growled out a blues tune that made no sense but it was kind of cool and we liked it. ZB never brought the guitar back again.
Tagged: two sheds
“I love that knife,” he said another time. He looked down at the table and shook his head. “I bought it from a kid named Jimmer in the sixth grade.”
It was a little blue utility knife with tweezers and a file and fold-out scissors. Jimmer had told him “Glaxo,” embossed on the side, was the name of an elite unit of the Swiss Army. He found out later Jimmer’s dad gave them out to doctors on sales calls. The five dollars Jimmer got for it was pure profit.
I think he saw me roll my eyes because he got defensive. “I know it sounds ridiculous but I just liked it,” he said.
“It’s not like I dropped it in the water,” he went on. “It just disappeared and I didn’t notice so I don’t know when or where.”
“You could find one on eBay,” I offered.
“I wanted my kids to have it,” he said.
“You don’t have kids.”
He took a sip of his drink and nodded.
The next time we went fishing he brought nail clippers and seemed put out for having to rotate the lever in place. It was amazing to watch his temper build for so minor a thing.
Tagged: Accoutrements
Today is inspirational quote day at the bivouac. Such things tend to happen during hardboiled phases when it’s easier to assemble snippets of something someone else said and be done with it:
“Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it.” –Thelonious Monk
“You do a commercial you’re off the artistic roll call forever.” –Bill Hicks
“If people think it sucks, then so fucking what? You’re going to keep going.” –Mike Watt
“Am I so sane that I just blew your mind?” –Cosmo Kramer
“I examine my skin searching for the pore with EXIT over it.” –Bill Knott (Click link for context)
“Just phase out, breathe in, wear sandals and pretend it’s a fine world.” --Charles Bukowski
“A great many people think of feet. And socks.” –Gertrude Stein
Tagged: pimped content
Six of them walked into the hotel bar and ordered double bourbons. They had already lost their situational awareness and laughed loudly at their own crude comments directed toward the bartender. She laughed along and defused the tension in a way that suggested hard-won poise in handling drunkards.
“George bought a boat today boys,” one of them shouted and they clinked glasses. “Nothin’ gets you off like droppin’ a million.”
They were from Alabama and they run 100 miles out to fish the Gulf and they came to Miami and George found the boat to do that.
A cold front brought in rain and everyone migrated from the boat show to the bars. The chill also shut down the tarpon running the bay and the beaches at night, and that reason to escape from the hotel.
Some of the people inside hid scars earned in the recession and saluted George for his free spending.
Places in Florida bear the scars more openly, from the boarded up apartments behind the hotel to the construction projects way out west that only recently resumed.
The peacock bass that live out west have recovered from the chill that did them in back in 2010.
The fly moved along the drop-off and two little fish fell in behind it. One outpaced the other and charged the fly and dropped it. A big one swerved in and grabbed it and felt the tension and jumped. The fly fell back to the water and another one hit and held fast.
No doubt the result turned out differently than expected.
Tagged: Florida, peacock bass
Overtures are made on behalf of the Fly Fishing Film Tour about receiving a promotional care package.
Your first thought is that your fears of a continued slide into blog irrelevancy are momentarily abated. Or they had a long list.
Your second thought is, you are an outlaw blogger, do they know what they’re getting into? Then you look down and you’re wearing khakis; self-assesment may be in order.
Your third thought is, you’ve already read the post to end all posts about the F3T care package by the Reverend Roughfisher, and what else are you going to say?
Thought number four: There’s beer inside the box. Ensconced in bubble wrap.
Five: Free hat!
Six: There’s no showing in New York City. Lots of people fly fish in New York City. Makes you wonder if there was some behind the scenes discussion reminiscent of Spinal Tap. UPDATE: I’ve just been informed that the F3T Tour is, in fact, coming to New York City on March 20th, hosted by the Urban Angler at the Helen Mills Theater. Details on the F3T Calendar. I’m going to leave the above Tap link in anyhow because I like it. See you there.
Seven: There’s some good stuff on this roster. Submissions from people whose work you’ve admired such as RA Beattie, Travis Lowe, Robert Thompson, Todd Moen, and others.
Eight: The Science of Tarpon looks to be bad-ass, because tarpon are.
Nine: The one that strikes closest to home is Urban Lines, for many reasons:
Ten: The film tour has matured since its early days.
Eleven: I got two tickets. Who wants them?*
*(In the unlikely event of more than one response, no apparent rhyme or reason will be accounted for in the selection process.)
Tagged: F3T, Fly Fishing Film Tour
Stumbled upon this in my research*.
*(pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable.)
