The last week Santa Barbara has been burning. It seems like it never ends. As soon as it gets just a little bit warm here in Southern California, everything explodes into an inferno. We never get a break, since the next heatwave is always right around the corner. Whether it is Yosemite, Malibu, Yorba Linda, Santa Barbara, Riverside, or as close as Anaheim Hills, it seems like we get jaded and get used to it. We shouldn't have to get used to it. Rarely are fire set by lightning around here, they are almost always set by people. WTF?!
Lately, I have heard this song on the radio more and more (or circumstances allow me to listen more). It's a Death Cab for Cutie song written, I believe about the fires last year, but seems just as poignant this week. Great song though.
(double click for widescreen)
And here is a classic from Bad Religion
It's said Perry Ferrel from Jane's Addiction got the name for his band Porno for Pyros from watching the news coverage of the LA Riots after the Rodney King verdicts and the city of Los Angeles was burning. Seems almost funny that the burning of the southland has been inspirational for the many artists living here. It's just crazy. Oh, and summer is right around the corner. Stay tuned.
6 comments:
Nice post Murf. (comment submitted by Mark) As much as I would like to think that all of the deadly and devastating "Wild" fires So Cal had had in the last few years were started by natural causes it is impossible not to think that they were started by pyro's. I would like to think that at least a few were started by lightning or even the fabled, "Sunlight through the coke bottle" theory and that mankind has not completely digressed in the past 200 years.
I am reading a book written in 1835by Richard Henry Dana. Jr. called, Two years before the mast. In the book he joins a merchant ship which sails to California from Boston. One of the ports he goes to is Santa Barbra which he describes as a small town with a Presidio surrounded by approximately 100 houses. In his account he described the surrounding hills as burnt by a recent fire. The fire was described to him by an inhabitant as, "having been a very terrible and magnificent site. The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days upon the beach."
After reading that (during the current Santa Barbara fires) I could imagine Opra sleeping in a tent down on the beach (Stedman had his own tent of course).
So if that was happening back in 1835! I have to think that is was started by natural causes or that Lowenberg's great, great, great, great, great grandpa was Sheriff of Santa Barbara.
Oops. typo...Oprah :)
Sounds like a cool book. I wouldn't mind being stuck at Rincon while it burned. I also can't believe you can find time to read, Mr. Jamaican with two hellraisers. I remember surfing while San Diego and Malibu burned. An entire week of the best surf I have ever seen, but with a backdrop of utter chaos. Super surreal. I'm sure, or at least I hope, most man set blazes are accidental, but nonetheless crazy as hell.
Sherrif Lowenberg...classic.
Anybody remember the "Brooklyn Syndrome?" We studied it in Psych in the 60's. Short version: as rats were packed more and more densely into cages, rats that had been fairly docile engaged in aggressive and abhorrent behavior. They dubbed it the Brooklyn Syndrome because in the 50's that was one of the densest urban environments known and was at the time pretty violent crime-wise. It could be that the increase in urban density in the southland is bringing out more nut jobs among which are your favorite pyromaniacs. It also brings out more child molesters and transvestites, but thank goodness they at least don't take zippos to the sage brush! Australia has had the same problem, only their fires have been much more severe, worsened by a nasty drought, much more severe than Kali's. They have had widely covered murder trials for arsonists they have caught there. Showing they are as conservative as the US, we execute sick people all the time. People with agendas don't like findings like the Brooklyn Syndrome because they think it could let people off the morality hook, but us nerds just keep trying to figure how life really works. Poor nerds. I probably should be able to, and I am NOT suggesting it is wrong to, because it is NOT, but I would have a hard time surfing with an inferno like that raging nearby. I am anal retentive (it is an actual behavioral type) I tend to not have fun if it's obvious SOMEBODY is having a bad day! So work on me guys! I'll do it yet! Vaya Con Dios (Not god, unless you have his cell, that's a high-end tequila!)
Whoa Dad, slow down. Its not even Jack o clock here....yet. I'm totally unprepared and undergunnedfor this thread. Haha
Jack O'clock! I love that! You young whippersnappers are way ahead of this old geezer! Party on Garth! Get surfing while ya still has that cool back lighting!
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