…and Papa said, “Go forth and cast thy rod…”

Last night, I had a vision.  Papa Hemingway came to me in the midst of my detestable sloth, and spoke unto me:

“Look at you.  Pathetic.  You’ve spent the entire Summer sitting on your ass on the couch stone cold sober, when you could have been drunk off your ass in a fishing boat . . . in the rain.”

I looked upon him with bleary eyes, made crossed by the flashing of late-night infomercials, and repented.  Papa then spake thusly:

“This is your last weekend before you have to go back to thinking.  Get out there and gut a fish.  Like a man.  In the rain.”

And when I awoke, and saw Bassmasters at 4am before me, I knew the vision to be true.

So it was said, and so it has been written.  This weekend I go to Lynxsville with my father, get in touch with my Inner Hemmingway, and sit on an old broken down pier hanging over the Mississip’, Hubbard’s Fishing Float and Cafe.  There will be much drinking of fermented barley and hops, and consuming of cheese sandwiches.  And we will return victorious, many walleye and pike strung in buckets too small in the back of the Chevy pick-up.

In the rain.

Bigfoot, UFOs, Ghosts… on CNN

I could care less if people want to believe in these things.  In fact, I find it remarkable that in this world of scientific discovery, we’ve managed to preserve the cultural trend of living folklore.  I find it even more remarkable that the folklore trend is to mystify and present a de-personalized lore.  Instead of named lore figures, like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, our folklore now gives us indistinct shapes and nameless multitudes of creatures.  There are whole colonies of bigfoots and whole starships full of gray aliens, all of whom are impersonal beings that somehow interact with people on a very personal level.

Regardless, the real tragedy is not that people believe the modern (or maybe I should say post-modern) hucksters’ claims of finding a bigfoot body in Georgia, or having been contacted by extra-terrestrial visitors, but that these reports find their way to CNN, of all places.  I will let others chatter relentlessly about the liberal or conservative media (liberal reporters reading reports approved by conservative mega-corporations means you can read either argument into that).  Instead, I will question the validity, the reputation, and the judgment of FOX and CNN by giving even a passing glance toward this rediculous pseudo-science bullshit.

None of these things are news.  They are debunked regularly by reputable scientists.  The most recent bigfoot discovery has been debunked.  DNA evidence came up with human and oppossum DNA, the body the bigfoot hunters had in their freezer looked suspiciously like a particular bigfoot costume one can purchase online, and they failed to produce the body at a press conference they held.  And yet, CNN will continue to report on nonsense like this, now and for days to come.  Even Larry King did a show on UFOs and one on psychics.

Bullshit.  Here are some videos you can watch, and get angry about poor reporting with me:

New Bigfoot “discovery” given more attention than three con men deserve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOKM7r6fq7M&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4rknzC4XKs

Larry King, senile and useless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVoIT3KRYI

Fox News doing its part to make America stupider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLjTRX-Dv9c

And my personal favorite, expert reporting about a bug crawling on a security camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaYnbZmsq0k