In 1974, the California Supreme Court ruled that pinball was more a game of skill than chance and overturned its prohibition in Los Angeles, prompting a pinball arcade renaissance in the city.
Our local pinball arcade which practically popped up overnight was on the east side of Lankershim Blvd near the corner of Weddington Street, in North Hollywood, California, or NoHo as it is now called. It was almost directly across the street from the old El Portal theater and was located in an old single-level brick building. I don’t remember the official business name of the pinball arcade, but it was definitely not the Funky Flipper which closed in 1973 and was further south on Lankershim near Otsego Street, famous for its proximity to Bill Elkins’ The Basement recording studio where people could catch a glimpse of Linda Ronstadt, or Tom Petty, or Jackson Browne.
The prices were one game for a dime and three games for a quarter and if I added up all of the money that I spent at that pinball arcade, it would have been about $26 over a one-year period. Adjusted for inflation, it would be $163.57. Wowzah—it seemed like cheap entertainment at the time. There was, however, a certain level of social status if you held the high score on one of the machines. It was also a gathering place for locals. My brother Scott, cousin Chris, and I would often walk together to meet up at the arcade with other friends in the neighborhood. We would often play against each other, but it was ultimately about getting the highest score and getting your name on the board.
There were also some older boys and men hanging around who smoked cigarettes while they played pinball (there were ashtrays on many of the pinball machines) and it seemed to be very tense when a few of them would be standing around a single-player machine while someone else was playing with intent, indicating, perhaps, that the gambling rumors were not a myth.
The pinball machines of that era were all analog electromechanical devices and did not have any solid-state components. They were built with incandescent lights, switches, transformers, relays, and solenoids and they were always warm to the touch.
In the summer of 1974, I was thirteen years old and I held the high score of 74,800 points on the Bally’s Fireball pinball machine for two weeks. Fireball was a challenging game. It had a spinning disc in the center, a kickback kicker on the left, two captive/kickout holes (Odin and Wotan), a Flipper Zipper feature that would bring the flipper tips close together allowing you to hold a ball captive, and the usual scoring bumpers. If you were good, you could play three balls at a time and quickly rack up the points. The tilt on this machine wasn’t too touchy, so you could get away with some relatively aggressive table shaking.
I learned all of the nuances of the pinball machine, for example, the exact pullback length of the plunger to give the pinball just enough momentum to drop into the 3,000-point chute. I knew where the dead zones were, and the exact point on the flippers to launch the pinball exactly in the direction where I wanted it to go on the board, and precisely how much shaking I could get away with. I always scored enough points for at least one Replay (a free game!), which were signified by a loud knock emanating from inside the machine, the replay point thresholds of which were 52,000, 72,000, and 96,000. I could play Fireball for about half an hour at a stretch on one thin dime. Indeed, I was the temporary Pinball Wizard of Fireball.
The male arcade manager, a thin, bearded, middle-aged hippie type with long stringy black hair that he parted on the side for a world-class comb-over to hide the top of his balding head kept a blackboard behind the change counter where he tracked the names, dates, and pinball machine scores, and it looked something like this:
It didn’t take long before the pinball arcade manager determined that he was probably losing money with kids playing for such a long time on one dime, so he adjusted the tilt setting on all of the pinball machines to ridiculously low, hyper-sensitive levels that essentially tilted out with the slightest nudge. This made it much harder to get a high score or a replay. Subsequently, the high scores listed on the chalkboard were impossible to surpass and as time went on, the dates were never updated. This may have also been part of the calculus of the arcade manager in that people would spend more money to try and beat the old high scores.
One fall day, as I was walking home from Walter Reed Junior High School, I wandered over to the pinball arcade with two dimes rattling in my pocket with the intent of setting the high score on Fireball once again, but when I got to the building there was a large sign on the door that said, “Business Closed.” I peered into the dusty window and saw that all of the pinball machines had vanished, but the high score blackboard was still hanging on the back wall without my name on it, mocking me.
There were rumors floating around about the arcade closure; it was a front for a gambling operation; it was a front for a drug dealing operation; there was an armed robbery, and the owner/manager was shot and killed; a jealous woman caught her man with another woman and shot him dead.
Rumors aside, I never found out what truly happened there, but it never reopened as a pinball arcade.
It’s all gone now. All of the nineteenth century brick buildings have been replaced with trendy new movie theaters, shiny office buildings, and fast-food restaurant chains.
There is absolutely nothing like celebrating the 4th of July at the beach. Standing there at the edge of the land, with nothing but the expansive, reflective ocean in front of you, fireworks take on an entirely different dimension of beauty.
Ironically, here in Southern California where fireworks are practically outlawed, the acquisition and ignition of illegal fireworks goes on virtually unabated and are generally flaunted in the faces of law enforcement and firefighting personnel. This is not hard to imagine being that Mexico, with its year-round, inexpensive fireworks available nearly everywhere south of the border, is so close to Los Angeles.
One of my most memorable 4th of July celebrations was at Topanga State Beach in 1976 for the bicentennial. Back then there were no designated campsites, and you were allowed to pitch a tent directly on the sand and camp, which we did along with hundreds of other people with their tents which were scattered around the beach but in relatively close proximity. It looked exactly like a modern-day homeless encampment.
I was a 15-year-old punk-ass white boy juvenile delinquent, and my friend Jerry had taught me how to make really good firecrackers – the recipe of which I will not reveal as it may run me afoul of the law – but I made about a hundred of them because, why not. These were on par with the Mexican M-80s but were also waterproofed with beeswax. I would light one and throw it into the ocean and it would still explode underwater – like little depth charges. Although the fuses were cut to the same length, they were a little bit unpredictable with their burn time and sometimes the firecracker would explode before hitting the water or sometimes in midair. It’s not lost on me that I’m lucky that I still have all of my digits…and both hands…and my face.
Down the beach about fifty feet away from us toward the water, a couple of guys dug a pit in the sand – about eight-feet in diameter and a few feet deep – and lined it with rocks from nearby Topanga Creek and then started an impressive bonfire before dusk. When the coals were hot enough, they tossed in a 5-gallon bucket of magnesium shavings from their machine shop, and a few bright, errant sparks went aloft as the magnesium shavings began to heat up. In the meantime, fireworks and firecrackers were going off all up and down the beach; Roman candles; large and small bottle rockets; Buzzbombs (not the beverage); and loud, ear-piercing M-80 and M-100 explosions could be heard every half-second. It was pure mayhem. Happy 200th Birthday, ‘Merica!
Then one of the bonfire guys walked down to the edge of the water and filled his bucket with saltwater and then came back up to the bonfire, paused for a moment, and then started pouring the water directly into the pit. The result of the saltwater hitting the hot magnesium shavings was more than magnificent: It was ephemeral art. The fleeting, white hot fireball and radiating heat were impressive. The gathering crowd of people were oohing and aahing and clapping as the guys threw even more magnesium strips and water into the pit to keep their little show going.
Then there’s always that one guy in a crowd that will one-up anyone no matter the circumstances.
Two tents to our right, another guy, who was standing on the beach and smoking a joint in the glowing magnesium firelight, went into his tent and pulled out a shovel and a black six-foot long by six-inch wide pipe that had handles mounted on the sides. He dug a hole about three feet deep and put one end of the pipe in the hole and then back-filled the sand around the pipe to hold it in place. He tapped on the side of pipe and pointed the open end of it ever so slightly seaward. Then, again, from inside his tent, he pulled out what appeared to be a black bomb with a long fuse in it – like what you’d see in a Spy vs. Spy cartoon in Mad Magazine.
He lit the fuse with his joint, dropped the “bomb” into the tube fuse first, and took a couple of steps back. There was a slightly muffled PHOOM! and it launched that bomb looking thing high into the night sky like it was an artillery shell. Then there was a much louder BOOM! from above and a professional pyrotechnic level burst of red stars went off over the water. This prompted the crowd to cheer and applaud. People pulled their cars over and stopped on Pacific Coast Highway behind us to watch. Then he lit another one. And then another. It went on for about 15-minutes, the duration of which all of the other fireworks up and down the beach had ceased. It was spectacular.
After that impromptu semi-professional fireworks show, all of the other fireworks seemed puny, silly, and totally insignificant. We sadly carried on anyway.
We found out afterward that the guy worked in the pyrotechnics department at a very famous Southern California amusement park located in Anaheim. By all considerations, it was a pro level show, and the crowd loved it.
Then the waves from the incoming tide came up the sand and started flooding the magnesium fire pit, turning it into a hellish fireball which glowed under the surface of the water. Everyone began to scramble, and people were pulling up their tents and grabbing their camping gear and hauling them up to higher ground. It was complete chaos. I managed to save Jerry’s Coleman cooler full of Bud tall boys before it drifted out to sea. With the combined smells of marijuana, hot dogs, sulfur, and burnt arm hairs wafting through the air, we cracked open a couple of beers and gulped them down. They tasted like freedom.
This is an AI generated image that looks remarkably like the Lifeguard Queen of my youth.
Story 42 of 52
By M. Snarky
Late summer, 1974, North Hollywood, Calif. The walk from our apartment at 5342 Cahuenga Blvd to the North Hollywood Pool was about a mile, and for 25¢ you could swim all day. With only our towels in hand and one quarter each in our pockets (Grandma Opal Hess would say, “two-bits”), we walked directly west down the dry and dusty Union Pacific Railroad tracks that paralleled Chandler Blvd to North Hollywood Park, and then turn left at Tujunga Ave where the pool was located on the west side of the street just beyond the public parking lot. When the temperature rose above 100-degrees, it was like walking through the sweltering heat of a desert, but it was always worthwhile because I knew she would be there.
I had just turned 13, my younger brother Scott was 11-1/2, and our younger cousin Chris was 10-1/2. The three of us were accidentally representing the poor white boys of North Hollywood with our holey T-shirts, cut-off jeans, knee-high tube socks with holes in the heels and the toes and our worn out Keds and Converse sneakers. We had no food, no water, no sunscreen, and usually no extra money – not even a nickel for some bubble gum. Our parents were so broke that we would often have to resort to scouring the neighborhood for returnable soda bottles to collect enough money for the pool entry fee.
Whenever we did have any extra change, we would stop by the Winchell’s Donut House near the corner of Lankershim Blvd and Chandler because it was on the way to the pool, and we would have been foolish not to pick up a few 5¢ donuts.
At the front counter of the pool house, you handed over your hard-earned quarter to the attendant for a ticket, then you took the ticket over to the men’s side of the pool house where there was another counter. There was a hand painted sign above that counter that said, “No Cut-Off Jeans!” and, “No Swimming in Underwear!” and “No Urinating in the Pool!” There was another hand painted sign above the door that exited to the pool deck that said, “Rinse Off Before Entering Pool.” Being the ignorant youth that I was, I would have argued that the no cut-off jean policy was dumb and that the no swimming in underwear and no urinating in the pool rules were obvious, but why do I need to rinse off? But rules are rules, and in a public space they must be posted…and obeyed, that is, if you want to avoid getting kicked out.
There was this persistent rumor going around that there was a chemical in the pool water that turned bright red if you peed in it, which signals to everyone in the water around you AND the lifeguard staff that, a) you are a rule breaking savage, and b) you will be promptly removed from the pool, Pissboy will be tattooed onto your forehead, and you will be escorted off of the premises by two burly lifeguards, and banned for life from entering any of the Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation managed public pools. I will tell you unequivocally (although not without some level of embarrassment) that this was indeed just a persistent rumor that I believe was likely propagated by the lifeguard union.
Anyway, you gave the male attendant your ticket and they would hand you a mesh bag with what I can only describe as a large diaper pin that had a number stamped on the end of it which matched the stamped metal number tag attached to the bag. The first time we went to the pool I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the mesh bag or with the pin. After observing what the other men and boys did with them, I quickly figured out what to do, so I put my beat-up shoes, tube socks, T-shirt, and cut-off jeans in the bag, attached the pin to my swim shorts, and handed the bag over to the young man behind the counter who promptly hung the bag on a rack in numerical order.
Scott, Chris, and I, after rinsing off in the remarkably cold water (why was there never a hot water valve?), walked out onto the pool deck like we owned the place. Around the entire pool deck, about every ten feet or so, painted in fire engine red, was “NO RUNNING!” in huge, stenciled letters. More rules. So, with our towels draped around our necks, we briskly walked over to our favorite spot on the deck near the far southeast corner of the deep end where I could observe the high lifeguard chair from afar, which was the throne upon which my Lifeguard Queen sat.
She was a tan, brunette beauty with hazel eyes, wearing Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses, a white sun visor, and the iconic red one-piece Los Angeles County Lifeguard issued bathing suit. Being an official lifeguard, she also had the shiny metal whistle on a lanyard around her neck and a large megaphone by her side. She was a magnificent, powerful sight to behold, and I was crushing hard.
Mind you, I was not creeping on her or staring or ogling – I would simply glance over at her every now and then, hoping that one day she would notice me and smile and maybe wave at me. I had no idea what I was going to do if she ever did acknowledge me like that, but I probably would have suffered a heart attack.
I was comfortable in the water and thought that I knew how to swim, but I truly didn’t know how to swim well. You could say that I only knew how not to drown, just like most other recreational swimmers, I suppose. It wasn’t until I took professional swimming lessons decades later at Los Angeles Valley College for Ironman training with my wife Kim, that I realized how bad I was at swimming. How bad? It went something like this: On the first day of training, coach Stuart directed us (about three-dozen people) to self-seed ourselves along the pool coping thusly, “Advanced swimmers in the right-hand lanes, intermediate swimmers in the middle lanes, and beginning swimmers in the left-hand lanes.” I considered myself an intermediate swimmer and lined up in the middle lane.
Then coach Stuart said, “Okay swimmers, we’re going to split lanes for this drill in a clockwise direction, so we don’t swim into each other. Tom, Frank, Lisa, and Caroline will demonstrate this for you.” The four of them jumped into the middle lane and with a “Yip!” command from the coach, they started swimming in single file along the left-side next to the pool lane divider and when they got to the far end of the lane they turned around and came back along the right-side pool lane divider, passing each other without crashing as they swam in opposite directions.
Coach Stuart continued, “Does everyone understand this?” and we all nodded our heads in acknowledgement. “Now I want everyone to swim a few laps to warm up – Yip!” And with that, we jumped into the water and began swimming as directed. When I got back to the coaches side of the pool after a couple of laps, coach Stuart signaled me to the coping and asked me my name. “Okay, Kent, move down a lane to the left.” I moved down as directed. After a couple more laps, coach Stuart signaled me again and said, “Brad, move down another lane to the left.” I complied. By the time the warmup was over, my name was Norman, and I was standing in the wading pool.
But back in 1974 at North Hollywood Pool, I felt like I was channeling Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Spitz, and I was positive that I caught the queen’s eye once or twice as I swam by her elevated throne.
On the opposite side of the pool from the lifeguard chair were the two glorious springboards – one set at 1-meter, and the other set at 2-meters. These were our favorite activity to do at the pool. We got pretty good at doing jackknifes and swan dives (or so we thought), but big fat cannonball and cherry bomb splashes were our favorites. We mostly just goofed around doing boyish things like belly flops, lazy forward flips, mostly out-of-control back flips, and “Change-your-minds” where you acted like you were going to dive straight into the water but tucked into a cannonball at the last second.
On the last August day of the summer pool season – which was coincidentally also an extremely hot day – a Speedo wearing whale of a man swam right into the diving lane impact zone as I launched myself off of the springboard. I was in midair when I heard the whistle blow, but I didn’t see him until it was too late because I was looking across the pool to the Lifeguard Queen of all my dreams who was blowing said whistle. I collided with him upon entry of my almost perfect starfish belly flop, the impact of which knocked the wind out of me. I involuntarily inhaled a lungful of water which burned my lungs like fire. I began gasping uncontrollably for air under the surface of the water as I started sinking. The last thing I remembered was hearing a muffled splash next to me as I was looking up at the blazing, shimmering sun through the rippled surface of the water.
When I came back to my senses, there she was, smelling like Coppertone coconut tanning oil, leaning over me with the bleach scented chlorinated pool water dripping off of her face and hair and red swimsuit, giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the warm concrete pool deck. Her lips tasted like cherry flavored ChapStick. She was even more beautiful close up. Was I in heaven? I looked into her stunning hazel eyes and smiled. She pulled back and asked, “Kent, are you okay?” She knew my name! THE LIFEGUARD QUEEN KNEW MY NAME! Wait! How did she know my name? What happened? Never mind – let it happen! I started to say, “I love you, Lifeguard Queen!” but before I could say anything, I was rudely awakened by a big splash of pool water. Alas, it was all just a very vivid dream, probably intensified by the heat, hunger, and dehydration. But it seemed so real.
On the way out through the pool house that day she was working the front counter. We made eye contact, and I bashfully looked away. She said, “Cool Tee-shirt!” I was wearing a classic white Coca-Cola Tee-shirt with the red arm and neck ringer bands. I blushed. Then she said, “Have a nice day – see you next summer.” My heart skipped a beat. In an awkward, broken voice, I barely got, “See you next summer,” out of my mouth. At that age, “next summer” always seemed such a long way off and it would never come soon enough.
Summer, 1975, North Hollywood, Calif. This year we had secondhand BMX bicycles that we pieced together to get to the pool faster! On opening day, we raced each other down the railroad tracks from the apartment to the pool. All along the way we kept trying to one-up each other to see who could bunny-hop the highest or ride a wheelie the longest – this turned into a serious competition! Breathless, we locked our bikes to the rack at the pool and rushed to the front counter to get our tickets. The three of us; Scott, Chris, and myself, breathing heavily and dripping with sweat, didn’t even register with the attendant who just smiled at us as he took our quarters and handed us our tickets.
The singular thing that was occupying my mind was the Lifeguard Queen.
This time, the cold shower before entering the pool area was appreciated after riding our bikes so hard in the summer heat. We speed-walked toward our regular corner when we heard “Slow down!” coming over the staticky public address system, clearly directed at the three of us. We complied and slowed down – barely. As we briskly walked behind the queens throne I glanced up to get a brief look of her highness without being too obvious, but this time, the occupant of the throne was not the queen, instead, there was an imposter in her place: the throne was being occupied by one of the male lifeguards. Noooo! Where in the world was my Lifeguard Queen? Wahhhh! Sadly, I never saw her again. The pool days were never the same afterward. I felt an emptiness in her absence and became less enthusiastic about going to the pool.
Although I didn’t learn what her real name was, I imagined that it was something regal like Elizabeth, Genevieve, Catherine, or Margaret.
The summertime always reminds me of those carefree days at that pool with my brother and cousin, but mostly, I wonder about the Lifeguard Queen.
Although my mom was not a Latina, she made killer 6-ingredient beef enchiladas on a tight budget. Slow braised chuck roast with onions, tortillas, lard, Las Palmas red enchilada sauce (“A must!”), and cheddar cheese. The secret ingredient was love.
For the last three months I have been working the overnight shift on a retail store network equipment refresh project for a global shoe brand. Due to contractual obligations, I am not at liberty to disclose the company name, but what I can say is that they’re kind of a big deal and I’m grateful for being part of this project.
However, working the night shift is hard for us humans. It throws our circadian rhythm so far out of whack that what once was perhaps a pleasant samba groove in 4/4 time becomes an offbeat primal sound more like that of a chimpanzee on meth beating on a metal trash can with a crowbar.
Getting out of the familiar 8 AM to 6 PM daytime rat race schedule and into the 6 PM to 4 AM nocturnal racoon schedule – the wee hours of which, incidentally, are the same as those of the tweakers, serial killers, zombies, vampires, and aging rock stars – is certainly not for everyone. I don’t love it, but it is necessary and mercifully temporary.
Your instincts are that when it gets dark outside, you are supposed to be winding down, not up. By 2:00 AM, you find yourself in an epic mental battle between your mind desperately wanting to sleep and your mind needing to stay wide awake and mentally sharp. You oscillate between these wildly opposite mental states. It’s not easy. It’s an eternal battle between Greek gods Hypnos and Argus Panoptes.
But you find ways to stay awake, like reading a book, listening to upbeat music, or playing a newly discovered online version of Whist, a popular 19th century card game that Dostoevsky mentions in The Brothers Karamazov that I had to Google when I read it. Whist was a predecessor of modern Contract Bridge, which is my dad and stepmom’s favorite card game. Sometimes I find myself doing all of these at once.
I feel oddly guilty about pouring a dram of whiskey at 4:00-AM and getting up at the crack of noon. It feels strange going to sleep for 8-hours and waking up on the same day. And even though I do typically sleep for 8-hours, I still feel tired. But why though? I mean, it’s just a time shift, right? I should feel totally normal, right? Well, not exactly…
In 1972, geologist Michel Siffre, one of the early pioneers of experiments on human circadian rhythms, spent six months in Midnight Cave in southern Texas. Siffre suffered both acute and lasting effects, only partially recovering from the isolation physically, mentally, and emotionally. His internal clock shifted to 48-hours, and he completely lost track of hours, days, weeks, and months. He stayed awake for 36-hours straight and slept for 12-hours at a stretch. His Day 63 inside Midnight Cave was really Day 77 above ground.
Siffre later described the experience as: “A slow slide into madness.” He talked to insects for company. He found comfort in his own voice, but silence always returned, crushing and relentless. After 180 days, Siffre’s team removed him from the cave. To him, only 151 days had passed. 29 days were unaccounted for in his daily diary. Time literally slowed down, stretched out, and slipped away from him.
So, from Siffre’s experiments we can conclude that our circadian rhythm is nothing to trifle with or you just might risk losing your mind a little bit. Duly noted. It’s still May, right?
I have one more week to go. I hope I make it. But if you see me talking to insects, you’ll understand why.
Another controversy and another peaceful protest that morphed into a riot in Los Angeles which looks remarkably similar to a Dodgers World Series championship celebration. Some things will never change.
This time, it’s about federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles within the sanctuary state of California enforcing federal immigration law, the media narrative of which is labeled as “ICE Raids.” When the citizens of L.A. got news of this, the peaceful protests began. Not soon afterward, the wolves amongst the peaceful protesters started vandalizing public and private property and then they started flying foreign flags and started burning American flags amongst many other things and then they started looting businesses and hurting people. This is the point at which the protesters completely lost my support for their cause, however noble it may have been.
President Trump, in his usual fascist bullying manner deployed the National Guard to support ICE allegedly without notifying Mayor Karen Bass or Governor Gavin Newsom. Mayor Bass blames Trump for the rioting yet resists cooperating with ICE. Governor Newsom blames Trump for the rioting yet resists cooperating with ICE. And then in Governor Newsom’s perpetual effort to both appear on national television and not let a crisis go to waste (right out of the Rahm Emanual playbook), thumbs his nose at Trump and promises to sue but does nothing to actually deescalate the violence. The idiocy of this is breathtaking.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Well, here we are. Great job everyone.
For the record, I completely reject Trump dispatching military resources to my city – this is not 1930’s fascist Germany or Italy. People are going to get hurt and killed, and this blood will be on the hands of Trump, Newsom, and Bass, the trifecta of disastrous political leadership.
That being said, I don’t see this immigration issue as black-and-white at all; I see this as the culmination of failure of leadership at the federal, state, and city government levels for decades which has brought this city to another boiling point. The only black-and-white that I can discern from all of this chaos is that you have the open border advocates (typically Democrats) on the one side, and you have the law-and-order advocates (typically Republicans) on the other side, and on this illegal immigration issue, the two of these are mutually exclusive.
I am a U.S. citizen that was born right here in Los Angeles. I’m also a migrant every time I travel internationally, and not only do I have to prove who I am with my U.S. government issued passport, I also have to fill out a visa form, letting the foreign government know whether I’m there for business or leisure, where I’m going to, and where and for how long will I be staying. Sometimes they also want to know what my profession is and my annual income, whether I’m married or single, and so on and so forth. My face is scanned. My thumbprint is taken. This is all in an effort to validate that I am who I say I am. In the background, I’m sure that my information is checked with INTERPOL and FBI databases to assure that I am not a terrorist threat, or a criminal, or a person of interest. Only after getting clearance, will I be allowed into their country. Fair enough.
It’s a slight inconvenience, but not insanely difficult. I have no idea what actually happens to someone who is red flagged other than they are taken to a secure area, but it is probably very inconvenient and very likely to include incarceration and deportation, and maybe a strip search and a body cavity check and a beating or two, none of which I want to experience.
But here at the southern border of the U.S. we are not so vigorous as out international counterparts, and this is where things really start falling apart with our immigration policy and law enforcement, and I think that there is plenty of blame to go around.
I believe that the federal government is complicit (dare I say derelict?) when they elected to not vigorously enforce existing federal immigration laws at the porous southern border for decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The state of California is complicit in its effort to ignore federal immigration laws by allowing undocumented migrants to work in the state without proper federal authority or approval, essentially ignoring appropriate lawful identification and immigrant status verification.
The Los Angeles City Council are complicit in their sanctuary city policy prohibiting city resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement. Was this actually approved by the voters in the city, or is this just a flex?
The California Democratic party is complicit for allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and for providing public services at the expense of the state taxpayers like in-state tuition discounts for universities, Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) coverage, financial aid like Cash Assistance for Program for Immigrants (CAPI), food and nutrition assistance like California Food Assistance Program (CFAP), and not requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. This, I think, smacks of pandering to a group of vulnerable people for a voting bloc that will keep Democrats in power. These programs and services also make the state of California a magnet for illegal immigration.
The Republican party is complicit due to their “pro-business” platform (which really isn’t) and wanting cheap labor for their business constituency, so they turn a blind eye to the illegal immigration issue, allowing undocumented migrants to work in the U.S. without proper identification or authority, again, taking advantage of a group of vulnerable people.
The corruptible Mexican government is complicit for not enforcing international immigration law but being that remittances from the U.S. are a significant part of the Mexican economy (around 4%, or $64.75B), they have zero incentive to do so. By the way, this money is not spent stateside stimulating local economies; it is exported U.S. dollars. They are complicit for allowing the drug cartels to cross the U.S. border virtually unabated, providing access for them to sell their deadly drugs inside the U.S. Moreover, having an economy that is so terrible that its poorest citizens choose to leave for better opportunities in the U.S. speaks volumes about Mexico’s domestic economic problems that have been ongoing for generations.
The undocumented immigrants are complicit themselves in that many of them have been here in the U.S. for decades and either let their visitor or work visa expire or crossed the border illegally yet have not applied for a visa renewal or citizenship or a green card or amnesty. To me, this means that they want to remain a foreign national and have no desire to become a legal U.S. citizen or obtain legal permanent U.S. residency – which is fine – but that does not give them a pass to not have their legal documents in order. I’m not going to buy the media narrative that this is because they are afraid of deportation, or that they are poor, or illiterate, or ignorant – it’s paperwork, not rocket science. There are also plenty of free or low-cost public resources available to help them navigate the process, so there really aren’t any excuses not to do it, which begs the question; why haven’t they already done so?
The media are also complicit in changing the language of the narrative from “illegal alien” (a common term used in law) to “undocumented alien” then to “undocumented migrants” or “undocumented immigrants” and then to just using “immigrants” or “migrants,” intentionally blurring the line between legal and illegal status and conflating the significant differences between them and also downplaying the possibility of any criminals crossing the border into the U.S. illegally which may be a low number, like maybe, I don’t know, let’s say a few cartel members here or a few street gang members there or a few murderers and rapists trickling in across the border here and there, but it is definitely not zero. But the fact that we don’t really know this information should enrage Americans of all stripes.
My understanding is that if someone crosses the border of a sovereign country without going through the proper customs checkpoints and processes, they are violating the law. This is known as an illegal entry. If they are a foreigner, they are considered an alien (a term from the 14th century), ergo, illegal alien, the specific term of which has been around for about 100 years. It seems harsh and maybe sounds a little bit dehumanizing, but maybe it should be because they are actually breaking the law! Is breaking the law not a crime? It appears that it depends upon whom you ask.
Twisting a longstanding term like illegal alien into something more generic and friendly sounding like migrant is a serious dereliction of journalistic duty because there is a gulf of distinction between them. It’s like calling trespassing some squishy euphemism like unintentional intrusion. Would anyone call rape overly passionate hyper-sexual activity, or call murder suddencessation of biological activity? No! Rape is rape, and murder is murder, and everyone knows what these words mean, both of which are heinous, serious crimes, but they are factually crimes. Trespassing is also a crime and so is illegal entry. But when facts are politically unpopular and get in the way of advancing a political narrative, the language is changed by the various factions in power to distract from the truth.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” and John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” In essence, facts are truth. Truth has meaning. Truth has weight. Truth cannot be altered. Truth actually matters.
But when truth becomes inconvenient and gets in the way of a political movement, truth must become the enemy. Truth must be entirely disregarded or distorted, dissected, parsed, and contorted into something that it isn’t. Through this process, truth becomes fiction, and an alternate definition (the untruth) is brought forward as a replacement. This is how illegal alien becomes immigrant. This is how the narrative is changed from someone who has factually entered the country illegally and violated the law (the truth) to someone who is just a poor, honest, hard-working person looking for a better life for their family (the replacement), which may have some truthiness to it, but it does not excuse the actual truth. My head truthfully hurts thinking about this.
I think our political leadership across the board need to grow up and deescalate the rhetoric and the finger pointing, and the name calling and take a step back and ask themselves this: How can we cooperatively reform this colossal failure of immigration policy in a fair, compassionate, humane manner? These politicians created this unbelievable quagmire and now it is time for them to clean it up.
I have a few suggestions:
Discontinue the ICE raids. These appear to be too much like a Gestapo tactic. In political speech; bad optics.
Lock down the U.S. Mexico border. Might be hard, but it’s not impossible. Lots of other countries do it.
Allow for a temporary immigration law enforcement hiatus with a hard one-year deadline to allow undocumented immigrants already residing in the U.S. for more than one-year to file appropriate forms. This puts the onus of documentation on their shoulders while also giving them the opportunity to choose whether to stay or to leave.
Make it a felony for U.S. employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers. It’s not asking too much for job applicants to prove their immigration status if they want to work here.
Make it a felony to enter the U.S. illegally. Lots of other countries do this too.
Vigorously enforce immigration laws after the one-year hiatus expires. No more catch-and-release policies.
This, I think, will give undocumented immigrants the time and the space needed to get their legal affairs in order while also deterring illegal entry. If they intentionally choose not to do it, then the full force of the law should be applied to them. No more excuses.
These are not inhumane, unreasonable, or radical ideas, rather, I believe they are sensible and achievable.
Our spineless political leadership just needs to grow the backbone to do it.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, read that again; adulting is NOT optional – it is MANDATORY! It’s time for you to grow up and put on your big boy and big girl panties and stop acting so outrageously childish and selfish. This might come as a shocking revelation to you: The world does not actually revolve around you. Your lack of politeness and social skill deficiencies do not go unnoticed, dumbass, it’s just that people don’t want to correct you or engage with you in public because you just might be the type of person to snap and attack someone. Indeed, we live in dangerous times.
I see you inconsiderate, selfish, self-centered jerks perpetually in a rush and cutting in line everywhere and all of the time. Maybe time management isn’t your thing, but your lack of skill in this department does not make you more important than everybody else. Get in the back of the line like what polite, conscientious everyday people do and wait your damn turn. Or better yet just turn around and hop back onto your dinosaur and go back to your cave, you Neanderthal.
I see you ordering for a dozen people (although it could be just for you) in the drive-through, holding up what was previously a quick, convenient way to get something, but now, because of your inconsideration, you drag the entire process down to glacial speed. Waiting behind someone who not only is ordering food for a horde, but also asking a bunch of questions about the very simple, intentionally limited choice hamburger menu, and making special extra sauce-on-side requests is an unwelcome time suck for everyone else behind you. After that ordeal, we now have to wait for your massive 6-bag food order to cook and get passed through the little window as the line of cars behind you spill out onto the boulevard. Then we have to wait for you to verify that the extra sauce is actually on the side as you quarrel with the person in the window about not seeing it and then getting extra, extra sauce on the side as is your regular ploy. Here’s a nice, considerate rule of thumb: If ordering for more than four people, park your goddamn car, and walk your lazy ass up to the order counter. You just made a million new friends!
I see you driving around like a clown on crack and as if you own the road. Here’s a clue, Barney; Fast & Furious is FICTION! Knock it off with the speeding, tailgating, street takeovers, sophomoric burnouts, and the reckless driving and the crashes that kill people, you lizard brained cretins. In other words, stop driving like a complete asshole, asshole! Better yet, sell your car and get a lifetime bus pass – society will be much safer without you behind the wheel!
I see you double (sometimes triple!) parking and blocking traffic to deliver groceries or a burrito or a toaster oven. Maybe you should consider a career that doesn’t enrage people on a daily basis. How about law school? On second thought, lawyers enrage people too. How about trade school instead?
I see you arguing with the cashier at the supermarket because your Ben and Jerry’s coupon expired a year ago, and yet you still want the discount on the dozen pints of ice cream that are now slowly melting on the counter as you bicker. The incredulous look of defeat on your face when the store manager holds firm, and you have to cough up the extra two dollars – paid for with the change that you dredged up from your dusty old pocketbook – is almost worth waiting the extra five minutes for. No, I take that back – not worth it – my time is too valuable.
I see you throwing trash and cigarette butts and plastic e-cig cartridges out of your car windows and onto the streets and into the gutters. This city is NOT your trash can, idiot. Do you throw your trash on the floor of your house or apartment? No! Or, at least highly unlikely. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but If you do, you need to get some therapy. Anyway, clean up your act. Here’s a clue: trash cans are EVERYWHERE, and you can even get one for your car! Use them as intended. Thank you so much!
I see you having a BF like some 5-year-old child because your double-pump double-shot skinny vanilla latte wasn’t delivered to you “extra hot,” but maybe you don’t know that coffee can only be a maximum of 211 °F, because at 212 °F it boils and becomes steam. It’s science. Also, who actually enjoys sipping scalding hot liquids anyway? Only masochists come to mind, which brings me full circle.
What happened to normal, ordinary, everyday social politeness anyway? Do they not teach Social Studies in school anymore? Have all the parents gone rogue? Is it perhaps because the Karen’s, Brad’s, and Barney’s of the world now outnumber the normies?
Or is it that these people were raised by the Internet?
One hot July night in 1976, we pulled up to the locked Griffith Park gate on Crystal Springs Drive near the Wilson & Harding golf course. It was after 10:00 PM. We were in Mark Flaata’s mom’s massive, dark green, fake wood paneled 1972 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon, the same car I wrote about here. Mark turned off the radio and we were given instructions to “Be quiet.” Actually, his instructions were to “Shut the hell up!” Just to the left side of the gate was an equestrian trail that was barely wide enough to allow the humongous station wagon to squeeze through. Mark turned off the lights and drove along the dirt equestrian trail slowly until we got past the ranger station, and then turned back onto Crystal Springs Drive, flicked the lights back on, and drove to the first parking lot near the merry-go-round. There were maybe a half-dozen other cars parked there too.
Although, from a purely technical legal standpoint, we were definitely trespassing into the park after hours, however, the cars that were already inside the park after hours could drive out of the south entrance at Crystal Springs Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard without being harassed by the park rangers. But, if the rangers caught you hiking or walking around inside the park after hours, they would warn you that you could be cited and strongly encourage you to leave RIGHT NOW, or they would radio in for law enforcement which meant the LAPD. I know this from personal experience. Back then the park rangers were not sworn peace officers and were unarmed, so they were basically LAPD-light.
For us, we just didn’t care whether or not we were technically trespassing with our single-minded purpose of going to the Old Zoo to get high and have some fun. Back in those days, the exuberance of our wasted youth was boundless, and we weren’t going to let any legal technicalities prevent us from achieving our mission.
The passengers were Mark Flaata and his girlfriend Eve Anton, Tom Armstrong, Van Cognata, and yours truly. We brought a couple joints of good weed – well, good weed for the era anyway – and two six packs of Bud tall boys in a brown paper bag that we had to pigeon for over at Circus Liquor at the corner of Burbank Boulevard and Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood (NoHo), famous for its landmark giant clown neon sign and popularized in movies like Blue Thunder and Clueless. I should explain that to pigeon for beer meant hanging around the parking lot of a liquor store where the store clerk couldn’t see you and asking guys that looked like they were old enough to buy beer to buy some Bud tall boys for us, which was about $2.50 back then. It was also a 50/50 proposition at best. I personally hated doing it, but even so, I did it anyway mostly because I liked drinking beer, but also to not get hazed by the guys if I didn’t do it.
We hopped out of the station wagon and slinked across the road over to the Lower Old Zoo Trail, hiked up the trail about three-quarters of a mile to the dilapidated chain link fence on the boundary of the Old Zoo property which was, um, open? Someone had used some wire cutters to cut a gap in the fence just wide enough for a teenager to squeeze through. I was like going through a portal because as soon as you descended down the hill on the other side of the fence, you began to see some of the old overgrown structures looming in the darkness and it felt like you were transported into some dystopian Planet of the Apes future. It was the coolest thing that I had ever seen.
The local story of the Old Zoo (est. 1912) was that when the new L.A. zoo was finished being built in 1966, they simply transferred the animals over from the old to the new and then abandoned it as it was, tucked away in a canyon near Bee Rock. It was already 65-years old when I first saw it.
We walked over to a partially burned concession stand, put the six packs on what remained of the old counter, and we all cracked one open and started chugging them down while Tom fired up a joint and passed it around. It seemed as if we were the only people left on the planet.
Before this first visit to The Old Zoo, a.k.a., The Bear Caves, it was already a local legend in NoHo. There were dark, disturbing stories of people disappearing, rape, murders, dismembered bodies in trash bags, ghost sightings, and people dropping too much acid and going stark raving mad. There were also lighter stories of young people going there just to meet up and party and have a good time wandering around the abandoned administration buildings, concession stands, animal barns, aviary, monkey cages, and bear caves. Obviously, we were in the latter group, but that did not prevent talk of the scary stories which started freaking Eve out a little bit, so much so that every little noise in the periphery made her jump which, naturally, made all of us guys laugh.
We eventually found our way over to the back access road for the bear cave entrances. At the entrances, there were a series of levers and pulleys and cables and sliding metal doors that were used to manage the animals, and surprisingly some of them still worked.
We descended down a couple of steep flights of concrete steps into what could only be described as a black hole. The first flight was to the dark main bear den on the left that reeked like piss. The second flight of steps went to the open viewing area out in front. For the moment, you could say that we were the ones that were on display, Adolescens Americanus, if you will. We drank the remaining beers that, by then, were barely below ambient temperature, and smoked the remaining joint.
We talked about all sorts of things, you know, the sorts of things that factually naïve yet miraculously all-knowing teenagers talk about, like how out-of-touch our parents were, books, movies, music, love, God, Jesus, the meaning of life, what we’ll do after graduation, who’ll go to college and who’ll go to trade school and who will get married first, how many children we wanted to have, where we wanted to live and work, and so on and so forth, all compressed into a lively ninety-minute or so ebb and flow conversation with completely inappropriate jokes being cracked all along the way because no topic was off-limits – not even God.
Suddenly, Tom shushed us with his index finger over his pursed lips and said in a low voice, “I hear something!” We collectively listened and heard a vehicle driving on the access road behind us. We immediately understood that it must be the park ranger and we went into Ranger Danger dead-silent mode. They stopped at the back entrance of the bear cave. We could hear some chatter coming over the ranger’s radio. They got out of their truck, flicked their bright flashlights on and pointed them down the steep steps with a sweeping motion and said, “The park is closed; come out of there NOW!” We were quiet as a mausoleum; you could have heard a pin drop. “We know you’re in there!” More hold-your-breath silence. After about a minute more, the flashlights turned off and the rangers got back in their truck, more radio chatter could be heard, and they slowly drove off. Time to go!
We slowly crept up the steps to the road and could see the taillights of the ranger pickup in the distance to our right. We went left and found our way back to the parking lot as fast as we possibly could. We were high and slightly tipsy and very paranoid about getting busted, so Mark wasted no time in getting us out of the park. It was around midnight. Van said, “Let’s drive down Hollywood Boulevard!” We turned west at Los Feliz and drove past the magnificent homes to where Los Feliz turns south and becomes Western Avenue. We turned right onto Hollywood Boulevard and headed west again. This was a very different neighborhood. We saw bums sleeping in the doorways of the shops, hookers and John’s, drug dealers, drug addicts, and tourists, and rundown buildings in various stages of urban decay. Mark turned right at Highland Avenue, and we quietly drove back to the Valley through Cahuenga pass.
Over the following years, I would take my friends to party at the Old Zoo many more times with whatever party materials we could get our hands on. It was mostly weed and beer, sometimes tequila and limes, and occasionally some LSD to go tripping around the Old Zoo and watch the sun rise over Griffith Park. During that time period, the word got out about it, and it soon became crowded (like everything else in L.A.) and fires, trash, crime, gang activity, and graffiti took their collective toll, destroying all of the remaining buildings, leaving only the bear caves and various chain link and metal barred cages intact but all covered with the various rival L.A. street gang tags, and some stupid token suburban white boy tags like, “Greg Was Here,” or, “I Love Laurie.”
Now renamed Old Zoo Picnic Area, the city cleared out the overgrown trees and shrubs, cleaned up the trash, back-filled the bear cave pit area in front, and welded the metal doors either open or closed, providing limited access to our old familiar haunt, you know, all in the name of public safety.
Nowadays, the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride takes over the Old Zoo area in the fall, hinting at the haunted notoriety of the past.
More Information:
Hadley Meares from PBS SoCal wrote a good article about it here.
January 1983 was a historic month for monster waves in Southern California. My close, very talented friend Bobby Doran (IG: @bobbydoranart) and I were in the thick of it with our newish state-of-the-art yellow topped, slick black bottomed, Morey Boogie Mach 7-7 bodyboards. The pejorative term the surfers used for these was “sponge,” but what the surfers didn’t appreciate was that we could get deeper inside a barrel and get more quality time in the green room that they ever could imagine on their fiberglass surfboards, granted that the bodyboards were not as fast. The animosity between bodyboarders and surfers is legendary, but that is a story for another time.
Our usual breaks were at Leo Carrillo (Primo’s), Point Zero (“Zeroes”), Staircase, and Drainpipes. Drainpipes is located at Free Zuma on Westward Beach Road in Malibu, just northwest of Point Dume’, and it was one of our favorite, most frequented breaks. Also, the parking was free (hence the name, “Free Zuma”), which was great for young broke dudes like us. Drainpipes was a fast, hollow shorebreak that broke both left and right due to the contours created by the huge boulders that were scattered around the sandy bottom. It was also notorious for riptides, but we knew the break and the beach well enough to avoid them. We were living the classic SoCal weekend warrior beach bum life.
When we heard that Drainpipes was pumping at 20-feet, we knew we had to go. Neither of us had been on such a big, heavy wave, and this was our chance to get a North Shore experience in SoCal, albeit without the warm water, reef sharks, sharp coral, and cute island surfer girls. The biggest waves we had surfed previously were double overhead, or about 12-feet.
Being that it was still winter, the water was super cold (mid 50-degrees) so we brought our thickest O’Neill full wetsuits to fight off the chill. We knew it was going to be a short session by default due to the cold water and drizzly, thick overcast weather, but a short session is better than no session.
At Drainpipes, you don’t usually see the waves breaking from Westward Beach Road as you’re driving in from PCH due to the downward slope of the sandy beach, but on that Saturday morning, we saw these glassy walls of water lining up and peeling off. We looked at each other with our jaws agape without saying a word. We pulled up to the beach and there were only a couple of dozen or so people hanging around, mostly watching the three or four surfers that were already in the lineup at the outside break. We got out of my beater, primer gray ’69 Chevelle Super Sport and took cover under one of the lifeguard towers to watch. The waves were absolutely massive, and the ground shook with the pounding of the breakers. The surfers were pretty good as we watched them carve it up. We assumed that they were either loco Malibu locals or maybe some pros.
We were also counting the wave sets and their timing to get an idea of when and where we could paddle out. After about 15-minutes we knew what to do and went back to the car to get suited up. The gawking onlookers couldn’t believe that we were going out into such big waves with our sponges and Viper and Duck Feet fins. We were the only guys on bodyboards. It was a battle to get out, even on the smaller sets. The whitewater itself was 15-feet high. After what seemed like an eternity (but in reality, was maybe all of 10-minutes) we were outside the break and could rest for a few minutes. The thing about gigantic waves like these is that the incoming swell itself moves you up and down so much that it sometimes feels like you’re on a roller coaster.
After a few minutes of rest, we paddled into the lineup. Bobby was to my right, and he found himself in a perfect spot to drop into a right breaking wave and I watched him slide down the face, carve hard right, and disappear behind a thick wall of water. I watched the back of the wave for the telltale signs of closing out, but it kept on peeling, and by the time Bobby flew up and over the back of the wave ten feet above the water, he was about a hundred feet away from me. The smile on his face, and the fist pump, and the loud, extended WOO-HOO were all I needed for some additional motivation.
My first wave was a left, and the exhilaration of sliding down so fast on such a steep face for so long will never be forgotten! I pulled a hard left bottom turn, trimmed up my bodyboard about mid face and carved sharp top and bottom turns a few times inside this incredibly massive, almost perfectly round, hollow wave. On a bodyboard, you are much lower and closer to the water than you are on a surfboard which provides a very different wave experience, and to me, it’s a deeper connection. I could hear the wave closing out behind me and felt the rush of air, so I accelerated across the face and digging hard with my left rail and shoulder, went vertical and punched through the lip for a nice airborne landing on the back of the wave where I slid down for a little bit – it was like getting a little bonus wave at the end!
Bobby and I caught several more individual waves and also a couple of “Party Waves” where we both dropped into the same wave and exchanged top and bottom turns as we crisscrossed each other – our wake looking like a DNA double-helix.
Then Bobby started to show off a little bit, so, naturally, I had to show off a little bit too…but then I got cocky, as young twenty-somethings do with their boundless hubris. I decided to go for a late drop-in and paid the price for it: I got pitched out over the falls, dropped headfirst at least 20-feet in midair, got pounded to the bottom, which knocked some of the air out of me, and then got sucked up the back of the wave and ended up inside the most extreme rinse cycle that I ever experienced – I was basically a spinning human-sized starfish. I could not sense which way was up. My leash wrapped around my neck, and for a brief moment, I thought I was going to drown – this was not your typical hold-down! But then I pulled myself together, detangled my leash and reeled in my bodyboard with it, grabbed the rails of the board with all of my strength, and popped up above the churning foam gasping (choking, really) for air.
But now I was caught on the inside of the break, which is the worst place you can find yourself in big surf. At this point, you only have two choices: Paddle back out, or ride the churning foam in. Make that three choices; the third of which is to die! I decided that I had to get at least one more wave, so I did the paddle-battle to get back out into the lineup. In the meantime, I spotted Bobby tearing it up, which made me both happy and slightly jealous.
When I got back into the lineup, I was cold and exhausted and had to take a break to catch my breath. By the time I caught my last wave of the day, my feet were numb, I was shivering, and my teeth were chattering. That’s when I found myself in the perfect take-off zone and dropped into the most glorious wave of my life. It was a perfect, glassy, seemingly endless left. I tore it up until it started closing out behind me. I turned hard right and let the fast, foamy whitewater push me back to the sandy beach where I was stranded momentarily like a beached whale. I jumped up with still numb feet, which was not a pleasant experience with the pins and needles sensation shooting through them, and struggled to walk up the steep sandy shore with the heavy pull of the retreating water from the massive waves trying to yank me back in. I fell forward a few times in my battle to break free. It was as if the ocean didn’t want me to leave.
I tossed my board down on the sand and plopped my totally spent ass on it, and as the saltwater, sand, seaweed, and maybe a very small sand crab or two drained out from my nose and ears, I watched Bobby take his last wave of the day and shred. He was so good; I truly think he could have gone pro.
As we were walking back to the car looking like a couple of wet stray cats, one of the onlooking surfers asked, “You guys were pretty good out there; are you pros?” Bobby and I looked at each other and smiled. I replied, “No, man, we’re just a couple of rank amateurs; can’t you tell by the holes in our wetsuits?” as I pointed to a hole in the knee of my wetsuit. We all laughed. Someone passed a joint to us. We inhaled deeply.
My old car did not have a working heater, so Bobby and I, exhausted, shivering, and half frozen, drove back to the Doranch in the Valley (another story for another day), listening to KROQ as we drove along Kanan Road toward the 101. We amused each other with the retelling of our epic wave session and what the experience was like on such a terrifying yet magnificent wave. We planned a surfing safari for the summer where we would hit all of the famous SoCal breaks all the way from Malibu to the Mexican border, and maybe plan a trip to the North Shore of Oahu. It was a good day to be out in the water.
BANG-BANG-BANG! – down came the gavel with an overly enthusiastic force during the last legislative session of the year. “H. R. 11,776 2050, the TAIL (Taxing Animal’s Innate Look) Tax has passed with a supermajority vote; this session is adjourned.” And just like that, another expensive, intrusive new tax was imposed upon the people virtually out of thin air, and the formerly considered untouchable direct taxation upon people’s pets was quickly – even eagerly – signed into law by the president. These legislators have zero restraint and are perpetually scheming for new taxes needed to continue funding the ever-expanding Government Industrial Complex, which, by 2050, knows no boundaries. And so, the giant sucking maw of government greed, power, and corruption continued unabated.
As the dissenting nay voters stormed out of the chamber, the minority leader by the name of O’Keefe verbally warned his colleagues, “The citizens of this country will not tolerate this egregious, pernicious, and arbitrary tax on their beloved pets. We should be voting to repeal taxes like this instead of creating new ones! This TAIL tax will be the final straw, and the people will not tolerate it – mark my words!”
The TAIL tax law went into effect on January 1, 2051, and was retroactive for the 2050 tax year.
Unfortunately, this new TAIL tax did not really surprise anyone, after all, by 2049 everything else had already been levied a tax. People were now paying taxes on everything consumable (the list of which is too long and tedious to put down here, but believe me when I say everything), plus other ridiculous taxes like a personal carbon footprint tax as assessed by how much CO2 gas a person emits while breathing, how much rainwater and sunlight falls on their property, how many miles they drive, a per square toilet paper tax (that always spikes during cold and flu season), a keyboard keystroke tax (which always spikes during a breaking news story), a per-email tax, social media account taxes, a bodyweight tax (which is always up and down), a carbohydrate tax, condom tax, per brick tax, phone minute use tax, ice cube tax, firewood tax, a plant and garden tax, grass clipping tax, yard trimming tax, a per tooth tax (rumored to have triggered a massive spike in tooth extractions), fingernail and toenail trimmings taxes, earwax tax, haircut tax, dog poop tax, cat poop tax, human poop tax, toilet tax, fork, spoon, and knife taxes, a sleep tax, a snore tax, flatulence tax (which always spikes on Cinco de Mayo), a per-page book tax, a sporting goods tax, a facial hair tax (both men and women – because equality!) the full list of absurd taxes just goes on and on – let your imagination run wild and you’ll be right! The tax rate was already approaching 80% and rising, mostly to pay for the ever-expanding $100 trillion-dollar federal debt.
In essence, the politicians were perpetually scheming and engaging in financially punishing people simply for being human in order to fund the out-of-control government spending. Absolutely nothing was sacred anymore (not that anything ever actually was sacred to begin with, in the literal term anyway). The government even forced people to install cameras and toilet seat sensors and all manner of environmental sensors in and around their homes and yards and in their cars and trucks to track all of this stuff, all at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
Naturally, many of the tax revenue estimates made by the bureaucracy in Washington DC were entirely wrong, hence the ongoing assault on the taxpayer for more and more of their money, after all, someone has to pay for all of the “free” stuff doled out by the government. Sadly, the people were complicit; they had capitulated because they would rather stay out of a dark, dank federal prison and enjoy what little liberty and freedom and money that they had left on the outside than to rebel against it and end up on the inside of one. All of the politicians knew this, and they used it to their maximum advantage.
Filing the tax returns for all of these new taxes not only costs far more money, it takes four times as much time – proving once again that the government doesn’t care about using up your time as they see fit – but also the punitive punishment administered by the government for getting it wrong will directly result in the seizing of all assets plus jail time, so people are always in fear of an audit. Nowadays, there are more heart attacks during tax season than there are during daylight savings time changes in the spring and the fall, the previous recordholders. “Death by a thousand taxes,” was no longer just a metaphor.
When Mark Armstrong heard the news about this new TAIL tax, he dropped his cup of coffee onto the floor, which made all of his half-dozen or so rescue dogs and cats temporarily scatter from the kitchen where he was standing. As Mark was cleaning up the mess, his pets slowly started returning to the kitchen to see what was going on, and his favorite Pomeranian, Zea, started licking up the whiskey-tinged coffee from the floor. “Don’t’ worry guys,” Mark said to his beloved pets, “I’ll figure out a way to come up with the extra TAIL Tax money.”
Then he stood up and looked out of the kitchen window across the expanse of his hilly, tree studded, hundred-acre property located somewhere east of Podunk where he had other rescue dogs and cats housed in his barn and outbuildings all living very comfortable lives. There were about twenty-five dogs and cats in all. This new TAIL Tax was going to cost him thousands of extra dollars per year – money that he simply didn’t have – which would ultimately bankrupt him. Unfortunately, Mark was a retiree on a pension that he was barely scraping by on, and any new expense – especially involuntary ones imposed by the government – were an absolute threat to his livelihood. He bristled at the thought of another new, unfair, idiotic tax.
Mark also felt deeply in his heart that the government had gone too far this time, and he simply was not going to take it sitting down – he was not going to go along with this death by ten-thousand taxes madness imposed upon the people by the faceless, heartless, mindless bureaucrats in DC. In fact, an intense feeling of rebellion began to swell up in him; one that he could not suppress – he determined at that moment that the time for a tax war had come. But before engaging in a battle with the federal government Leviathan, he wisely decided to check into the language of the new law so that he could better develop some rules for engagement.
Notably, “A $50 per inch annual TAIL tax will be assessed on any cat or dog living within the household, the length of which shall be measured from the anus to the tip of the tail, including the fur, rounding up to the next one-quarter of an inch. All farm animals will be excluded.” He did some quick math in his head; this new TAIL tax was going to cost him approximately $30K per year, and there was no way he could pay it. Then he had a dark thought cross his mind that maybe this law was not really about a new tax, rather, it was a law designed to allow for more civil asset forfeitures because people won’t be able to pay their tax bills, giving the government more ownership and control over private property. This thought sent a chill down his spine, and he was not going to give up his ranch without a fight, even if it killed him.
From reading the entire text of the new law, Mark ascertained the following items which he could use in his TAIL Tax war:
The government was clearly attempting to also get a headcount of the dogs and cats that were living amongst the population, most likely for another tax scheme. Mark reasoned to himself, “And this is why I never fill out the census: The government will use the information provided against me.”
The term(s) of “within the household,” were not clarified, so there was a gray area for an indoor/outdoor pet, like a cat, for example, and whether there was an exemption for a pet that spent more time outdoors than indoors.
Specific language for dogs and cats not living “within the household” was missing from the law entirely, either by design or possibly by mistake, leaving room for interpretation.
There was no language included in the text of the law preventing tail docking or caudectomy, vis-à-vis, removal of the tail, and although this would be an extreme tax avoidance measure, certainly, some people would do it.
There was also some darker text within the law that enraged Mark: “Any citizen that underreports the headcount of the pets living within the household will be fined $50,000 and sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 6–months in jail, and the pets intentionally excluded from the tax return will be taken into custody and a fine of $100 per day will be assessed. At 90-days, if the fine is not paid in full, the animal in question will be destroyed. Financing options are available.”
“Those greedy, immoral, power-hungry bastards! ‘Pay us, or the dog gets it?’ It is now painfully obvious that the government will never stop their assault on the taxpayers unless we force them to stop! Guys: We must be the tip of the spear!” Mark exclaimed to his audience of house pets.
Mark sent a letter to his congressman, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt him. There was no reply.
Mark sent a letter to the President, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to force him to sell his property. There was no reply.
Mark emailed the local news station, eloquently explaining the financial implications and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt many people. There was no reply.
Fuming over being ignored by the politicians and the media and facing financial ruin, Mark decided to make a TikTok video using clips of his rescue animals and house pets and explaining the TAIL tax law and how it allowed for the government to seize and destroy peoples pets and levy heavy fines against them, and it must be stopped by any means. This, fortunately, got the people’s attention. On day 1, he got a hundred views. By day 3, there were 10,000 views. By the end of the week, the video had reached 1,000,000 views and followers. The word was getting out. Zea was the new darling of the Internet. The politicians were getting flooded with phone calls, letters, and emails demanding them to repeal the TAIL tax. They did not budge.
In one protest, a few dozen people dumped a truckload of fake animal tails in front of the White House while holding up a banner that said, “NO TAIL TAX!” The crude, ineloquent message hinted that the people would cut off their pets tails in rebellion to avoid the new tax. This only got national news coverage after the capitol police arrived in force in full riot gear and started bashing the heads of the peaceful protesters.
The TikTok video also got the unwanted attention of someone in power in DC who directed the IRS to audit the last 6-years of Mark’s tax returns and to scrutinize them, “Microscopically.” This was the sort of audit that everyone feared. The kind of audit that nobody could survive with the relentless requests for all manner of obscure receipts, bank records, cleared checks, savings and checking account activity, cryptocurrency accounts and activity, stock trading accounts and activity, non-profit donation receipts, gifts, inheritances, lottery winnings, medical expenses, home improvement expenses, ad infinitum. I was clear that Mark was being targeted by the government, and there was no doubt that they would surely find something. They always do.
Early one morning, just before dawn, the rescue dogs in the barn and outbuildings began barking fiercely, waking Mark up. He got out of bed, grabbed his 12-gauge pump shotgun, which, living on a ranch with bears in the vicinity, was per the usual, walked out into the living room, and peered out of the big front window. He did not notice anything unusual. On his way to the kitchen from the living room to make some coffee, he heard a strange buzzing sound coming from the outside of the house near the back door where the electrical panel was located. He thought there might be an electrical problem, so he opened the back door to go outside and check it out – and there he was met with a large, matte black drone hovering at eye-level, just beyond the wraparound porch, which not only startled him, but it also triggered a split-second defensive response that resulted in the immediate disassembly of said large, matte black drone via a 12-gauge 00 shotgun blast from the hip. After years of collecting and shooting firearms, Mark was an expert marksman and new a few trick shots.
Mark walked over to the wreckage to investigate. There, on what remained of the matte black carbon fiber fuselage that housed the NiCad batteries, hard drive, HD camera, and circuit boards, was the unmistakable logo of the FBI. He took a video clip of it with his phone. At that precise moment, Mark knew that it was going to be a very long day. With the phone video camera still rolling and the sun rising, he discharged a point-blank 00 shotgun blast into the heart of the electronics. Blown to smithereens was an understatement. He looked into his camera, shook his head, stopped the video, and went back inside the house to finish making his coffee and also to prepare for the imminent battle. He reviewed surveillance video from around the ranch and saw that there were a half-dozen black SUV’s plus an armored personnel vehicle at the front gate. “They must have found something really bad in my tax returns,” he said to Zea. He called a lawyer friend.
“Well, Mark, you certainly have them on failing to provide due process, but they are definitely not going to back down now. They will label you as an unpatriotic tax evader and claim that you started the hostilities, destroyed government property, falsified your tax returns, and they will find a way to escalate until you leave the house feet-first in a body bag. Remember what happed in Waco; your house may ‘accidentally’ catch on fire. Unfortunately, today may be your last one. I advise that you take to your TikTok followers and tell the story as it unfolds. I’ll call the media.”
The commanding FBI agent named Johnson who was watching the live HD video feed from the drone camera as it got blasted out of the sky was not amused. “Do you not understand what the meaning of ‘stealth’ is!” he snapped at the drone pilot, who quickly replied, “You saw what happened – that guy’s reflexes were unbelievable – I had zero time to respond!” “Well, now that the stealth surveillance tactic has been compromised, we’ll have to give Mr. Armstrong a courtesy call and allow him to surrender peacefully,” said Johnson to his colleagues.
Mark’s phone rang with “This is the FBI” displayed as the caller ID without a phone number. He started his live TikTok app and answered the phone in hands-free mode. “Hello FBI, this is Mark Armstrong, I’ve been expecting your call. Fair warning: you are being streamed live in front of a million plus TikTok followers.” There was an awkward moment of silence, and Mark thought that he heard a few muffled expletives before agent Johnson responded, in a calm voice, “Mr. Armstrong, it appears that we may have started off on the wrong foot this morning. You see, you’ve been indicted for tax evasion, and we have a federal warrant for your arrest, and we were simply using the drone to determine if it was safe to send up some agents to take you into custody. But now that you shot it down, not only have you committed another serious federal crime you have also escalated the situation with your hostility.” “Hostility? I’m no threat to anyone, Agent Johnson, and you could have just used the intercom button at the gate – I would have let you in. But now I am in fear for my life after seeing that drone spying on me.” “Mr. Armstrong, are you saying that you are not going to surrender to the FBI?” “Surrender to some trumped up charges brought on by some greedy, bloated, ham-fisted politicians in Washington because I informed the public about the ugly truth of the money grabbing TAIL tax? This is absolute tyranny and likely a death warrant based on the FBI’s infamous history of bungling these sorts of things. I’ll need to consider my options, Agent Johnson.” and with that, Mark hung up the phone. The TikTok live stream responses were blowing up.
Mark addressed his TikTok followers, “Friends; I really don’t want to die today, but the FBI is probably going to raid my house at some point and ‘accidentally’ kill me, so I’m going to leave this live stream on, and you can watch how the events unfold in real time.” He plugged his phone into the charger, set his phone on a stand, put the stand on a table, and aimed the camera with the front window and front door of the house in the field of view. That’s when the power went out. Mark got back in front of his phone and told his audience that the FBI had just cut his power, but he had several fully charged battery banks for his phone to keep the live stream going.
Although Mark was on high alert and flinching at every sound he heard outside of the house, the rest of the day was uneventful, perhaps indicating that the feds were planning for something after nightfall.
Sure enough, just after sunset, the dogs outside started barking again. Mark looked out of the front window to see a small tactical robot rolling up the driveway in the twilight. He grabbed his phone and showed his live stream audience what was happening – which had grown to over 3-million viewers – and said, “Looks like they sent up a robot TAIL tax collector! I don’t know what is going to happen next, but please pray for me and my pets!” And at that very moment, his phone displayed, “Lost Internet Connectivity.” Now the FBI was blocking his 5G signal. Mark found himself completely cut off from the grid. He sipped his cold, whiskey laden coffee in the dark.
As the dogs continued barking excitedly in the darkness, and as Mark continued to observe the tactical robot closing in on his front porch (he had already assumed that it had some sort of fatal explosive or incendiary payload, or other armament intended to kill him), suddenly, from the back of the house, there were headlights shining in through the back door window. Mark assumed that it was the FBI driving in with the armored personnel carrier, coming in from the old, mostly unused back gate that was overgrown with black walnut trees and was only accessible by an old unmapped dirt fire road that ran along the back of the property.
He picked up Zea, who was also barking, and went to the back door window to see what was happening, halfway expecting to take a bullet to the head. That’s when he saw the endless stream of cars and news vans and pickup trucks rolling in with huge American and Gadsden flags abundantly displayed. Then he heard the horns honking. Then he saw droves of people walking in with flashlights and their dogs. The cars and trucks and people began surrounding his house. Someone yelled out from a bullhorn, “MARK ARMSTRONG – YOUR CAVALRY IS HERE!”
In that moment, FBI Agent Johnson realized that he missed seeing the back gate of the property during his earlier recon using satellite images, and this error might cost him his job. He also couldn’t believe what he was witnessing through the HD camera on the tactical robot: The people surrounded it and started chanting, “USA-USA-USA!” while pumping their fists in the air. Johnson lamented to his team, “Dammit! We’re done, boys. Pack it up!” And with that order, the tactical robot operator began backing it down the driveway, slowly, all the while the growing crowd of people escorted it to the gate.
The lights on the property suddenly came back on. Mark’s phone rang with the same, “This is the FBI” caller ID with no phone number. “Armstrong; this is Agent Johnson. It appears that you have a lot of friends supporting you. We’re going to disengage and leave now, and best of luck to you.” Mark replied, “Agent Johnson, why don’t you come up to the house for a dram of whiskey, you know, as a peace offering?” “Thanks, Mark, but I’m on duty. Besides, I don’t like big, potentially hostile, anti-law enforcement crowds. By the way, I was on your side the entire time, but I have orders to follow.” And with that, Agent Johnson ended the call, and the convoy of FBI vehicles drove off into the inky black night.
It became known as the “Wag-the-Tax Revolution.” The media reports said that 5,000 people came to stand with Mark. The FBI said that it was only 500. There was a subsequent anti TAIL tax march on Washington where it was estimated that 5-million people showed up with their beloved, well behaved pets. Mark and Zea became folk heroes and made the usual media appearances. Mark wrote a bestselling book about it. Zea became a well-paid spokesdog for a national dogfood brand.
The pushback against the TAIL tax was so intense across the nation, that every single legislator who voted for it got voted out of office. Thousands of arcane tax laws and anti-liberty and anti-freedom laws were repealed. The size and scope and power and expense of the government was reduced to a point where nobody really noticed it anymore, as it should have been all along.
The people flourished with the additional freedom and liberty, and with the heavy tax burden lifted off of their backs, they had more money in their pockets to put to use for their own personal version of the pursuit of happiness.
msnarky 