A Shot in the Arm

Welcome to the new el-oso.net, now with more nonsense and less seriousness. Hallelujah. First, the world: in South Yorkshire a man blew up a highway speeding detector. Using thermite, a pyrotechnic substance often used in underwater welding, Mr. Moore succeeded in...

Market Viraling, Part I

I wrote this a few weeks back … and then forgot about it. Maybe you know the feeling: It’s 10 a.m., for the past two hours I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, surreal situations, implausible gatherings of unrelated friends....

Echar la Mano, Part I

Motherfucking piece of fucked up useless shit. Hijo de la puta madre. I kick the tire. It doesn’t make me feel any better. How in the fuck is a $30,000+ German luxury car going to come with a jack that could hardly lift a plate of pasta. I had been in such a...

Not As I Do

As if San Diego hasn’t gotten enough negative coverage in the major national press, today we were first column, front-page in the NY Times. A loony anti-immigrant, anti-government, anti-tax representative, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, pleaded guilty to...
Clapping My Hands and Saying Yeah

Clapping My Hands and Saying Yeah

Last night, probably technically this morning, for about one hour on the I-5, the west coast’s most beloved freeway, I reached that sort of fulfillment that can only come around, so I guess, if your brain is literally drowning in seratonin. Call it what have...
Somewhere between lonliness and liberty

Somewhere between lonliness and liberty

Still stalling. Actually, what I’ve been doing – for a minute here and a minute there – is transcribing my old journal from Cuba onto my computer. Boy did I used to be an idiot. I used to care about things so much. sigh. Everything’s been...

Pitching Outside the Strike Zone, Part III

The last time I read El Norte, I suppose I was somewhat suprised to skim over a graph that listed Mexico as the 10th wealthiest nation in the world; well ahead of most European countries. But not that surprised. The problem is, we’re accustomed to measuring wealth by metrics like minimum wage ($4 a day in Mexico, $7 an hour in California) and property value., But, if you were to measure something like purchase of $40,000+ cars per capita, I bet you’d be surprised. In fact, per capita, I’d be willing to bet that Mexico would “win out.”