New Years Eve
I never expected to live longer than 30 but then I also planned on having my own sitcom and ocean front property in Malibu by now. Funny how things don’t work out exactly as we plan.
A New Year is usually good for me. My granddaughter, Angel, was born in the beginning of a new year. My son was born at the very end of the year so I don’t know what’s that means.I became an EMT in L.A. for Schaefer’s Ambulance Company in the beginning of a new year but ended up a shark fisherman by the end of that year. (I’ve had 417 jobs)
It was Schaefer’s that picked up Marilyn Monroe. Rumor among the Old Timers was that Marilyn Monroe was alive when Schaefer’s first picked her up. They were on their way to the hospital when the dispatcher instructed them to take her back home. She was pronounced dead when they returned hours later. Did this really happen? Who knows? Hollywood is rich with celebrity rumors. I talked to a plastic surgeon a couple of months ago who is convinced Michael Jackson is a thawed out Walt Disney. Just what is a guy to believe?
I decided at the end of the year to become a shark fisherman. After "Jaws" came out the price of shark meat on the commercial fishing docks in L.A. skyrocketed from 9 cents a pound to over 27 cents a pound. I guess after watching two hours of a giant shark wolfing down people everybody wanted a little payback. A friend convinced me that if we bought this converted 40 ft. Naval Personnel Carrier we could make a fortune in shark meat. It all looked so good on paper. Well I learned the hard way what many fishermen in Sechelt already know, "A boat is a hole in the water you pour money into." I spent more time working on that GMC 671 bus engine than I did fishing.
Another dumb decision made at the end of the year.It was the beginning of the next year that I finally sold my Naval Personnel Carrier/Shark Fishing boat. Always lucky at the beginning of the year. I was celebrating the sale with a friend when we foolishly decided to go out on one last shark-fishing trip. My friend brought along his Mexican gardener who didn’t speak a word of English. He had never been in a boat before nor would he ever again. We were chumming (Dumping buckets of free tuna guts from StarKist Tuna into the water) for hours and never saw so much as one shark. I was now dealing with both boredom and a hangover. So I went down below to sleep.
Now the last thing you want to hear when you’re sound asleep on a boat is a Mexican screaming into your ear, "We’re sinking! We’re sinking!" And he said he didn’t speak English. I ran to the deck and lifted the cover to the engine. Water was gushing into the bilge. I looked up at my friend who to this day swears he wasn’t crying. Then I looked down into the bilge to see the water was coming from a pipe in the saltwater cooling system. Suddenly there were sparks and all the lights went out. The gardener dropped to his knees, sobbing wildly and praying in Spanish. At least it sounded like Spanish. I was too busy screaming. We turned the motor off. For the remainder of the night we drifted without power not knowing how many sharks were circling us or how big they were at any given time. I haven’t been able to swim in the ocean at night since then.
Well God must love Spanish because we made it through the night and grounded safely up near Huntington Beach the next morning. I learned that night never to go into a business without either working in it for years or doing a great deal of research first. I didn’t know anything about commercial fishing. Or boats. Or sharks. Two days later I sold the boat and haven’t been shark fishing since.
New Year’s Eve in L.A. has always been pretty much like your typical Palestinian funeral. A lot of gunfire into the air at midnight. Unfortunately those bullets eventually come down and hit innocent bystanders. L.A. is the only city I’ve ever lived in where just before July 4th and New Years Eve all the movie theaters play public safety messages from the Los Angeles Police Department warning of the dangers of shooting your gun into the air.
Now the last thing you want to hear when you’re sound asleep on a boat is a Mexican screaming into your ear, "We’re sinking! We’re sinking!" And he said he didn’t speak English. I ran to the deck and lifted the cover to the engine. Water was gushing into the bilge. I looked up at my friend who to this day swears he wasn’t crying. Then I looked down into the bilge to see the water was coming from a pipe in the saltwater cooling system. Suddenly there were sparks and all the lights went out. The gardener dropped to his knees, sobbing wildly and praying in Spanish. At least it sounded like Spanish. I was too busy screaming. We turned the motor off. For the remainder of the night we drifted without power not knowing how many sharks were circling us or how big they were at any given time. I haven’t been able to swim in the ocean at night since then.
Well God must love Spanish because we made it through the night and grounded safely up near Huntington Beach the next morning. I learned that night never to go into a business without either working in it for years or doing a great deal of research first. I didn’t know anything about commercial fishing. Or boats. Or sharks. Two days later I sold the boat and haven’t been shark fishing since.
New Year’s Eve in L.A. has always been pretty much like your typical Palestinian funeral. A lot of gunfire into the air at midnight. Unfortunately those bullets eventually come down and hit innocent bystanders. L.A. is the only city I’ve ever lived in where just before July 4th and New Years Eve all the movie theaters play public safety messages from the Los Angeles Police Department warning of the dangers of shooting your gun into the air.
New Year’s resolutions are a lot like gym memberships. You stick to them for a month or two then drop them like a date with head lice. That’s why I never come up with more than three resolutions.
These were my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009:
1) Try to be more tolerant of inconsiderate morons who make outgoing calls on their cell phones in the middle of a movie I paid $10.50 to see. (Note to myself: Stop taking stun gun to the movies.)
2) Stop giving my business card out to beautiful women. They just throw them back at me anyway.
3) Make an effort to convince myself that my receding hairline is not a government conspiracy. Have you ever noticed that those security surveillance cameras, likethe ones in banks, are always shooting you from above so everyone standing in line can see your bald spot on the TV monitor? What’s up with that? How can that not be a conspiracy?
I suggest you all make a resolution to never move from the Sunshine Coast.
I suggest you all make a resolution to never move from the Sunshine Coast.
Tom Neuhoff
World Humour
"Funnier Than You"
posted by Tom @ 1:52 PM
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