I feel sick...

I just paid the IRS $509. They even called me a business. I feel sick for real.

Sign of the impending apocalypse #17

AfterMATH

A day after the tsunami, we toured (doesn't that sound so damn official?) the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor. I was immediately underwhelmed by the reports of damage and destruction that had been estimated, at that point, to be $17 million dollars.

In one day's time the estimate had spiked $7 million from the initial estimate of $10 million.

As of today the estimate stands at $26 million. (Note that this is simply the amount of damage to harbor property and not personal property, you know....the boats! 18 sunken vessels add $4 million to the total sum.

You would be hard pressed from the waters surface to account for how this insane price tag could ever be tallied. Aside from a small section called "U-dock" the harbor and its vessels look unscathed.

During the tour it was quite evident that a floatilla of officials from many branches of law enforcement and military were piled into little rubber boats patrolling up and down the stretch of waterway. What wasn't clear...what the hell they were doing (aside from looking so damn official). I'm sure they were busy with something or other....or other.

Today our congressional representative from the 17th district, Sam Farr came to town to assess, with many other important looking people, the damage from the lens of a congressional representative. He too seemed quite underwhelmed in his follow up interview, broadcast on KSBW, but nearly promised that if we could somehow grow that damage estimate to $46 million our county would qualify as a federal disaster zone. I assume that means we then get a shit ton of aid from Washington D.C.

There was an air of promise that we could somehow eclipse that mark. Professional divers from everywhere are being brought in to exhume chunks of steel and plastic from the murky bottom of the manmade waterway. Meanwhile, divers regularly employed by the harbor have been officially sidelined to allow the pros to do their business. Afterall, why pay locals who know the harbor like their backyard to clean up their domain when we can consign the task to far more expensive agents who can really give us a chance of reaching that magic mark....that glowing goal of $46 million?

Oh yeah baby, we can grow that estimate! It's gonna happen!! That's right, U-dock....a federal disaster zone, dare to dream!

Are You Not Entertained?

I am certain that each day on the spinning orb many human souls are rapidly unravelling as their mental illness grows and becomes them. In my town I see evidence of this claim almost daily. Rarely is this private process presented as a spectator sport, but for mega-star Charlie Sheen it would seem like he chose it to be this way.

I had been hearing about it for some time and finally saw a 'Dateline' expose the other night. With media holding vigil in his yard, Sheen is giving interviews to anyone and everyone, one at a time. His lunatic quotes are spilling faster than can be printed on t-shirt canvas and sold as memento. In an article entitled, 'Sheenglish', Christopher Beam dissects Sheen's spell of recent statements categorized by the persona's he has played out in movie roles/L.A. life; Stoner surfer philosopher, Sports commentator, Military buff, English professor, Self-help guru, Cult leader, and Slam poet.

What is it though, that makes all of this so fascinating? Why play into this sad, high profile sideshow (clearly if I'm taking the time to blog about it I have). Yeah, I know, the shelf life for antics of this magnitude is quite short, but a bit longer than the 15 minutes Andy Warhol afforded the common man. If you become a culture jamming folkhero by stealing their arsenal and throwing it back at them I think you get a week and a half of fame. Soon this will be a passe event though memorialized as a bizarre occurrence that stole our attention in the late winter of 2011. The media will pull their tents and move on to the next sideshow that steals all attention from real unfolding news.

Distraction is a sad drug indeed....and bearing witness to a man's slow descension into madness should not be entertaining. So why then am I entertained? Yuck!

Sheenglish: http://www.slate.com/id/2287380/
A quote generator has been built at: http://livethesheendream.com/