Now though it’s time to get back to work, time to close deals and re-sharpen the knives. I’ve been unbelievably distracted for 6 months now about the state of the world. In my daily life I’m seeing something that’s just unreal to me: people are just now starting to figure out what we have known all along: things will never be the way they were. The herd is beginning to thin, culling itself of the weak, those who refused to change with the times presented to them, in real time three years ago. Optimism is 3.63/gallon fuel, pragmatism is the new Hope. I think the learning curve is over, we had 3 years to figure this out and now its time to drive it hard, just the way it is. I’m tired of the whiners and the “good old days”. Sack up, do your job or move over and let the next guy have a go, he will do it better.

Watching the G.O.P. shake out its cup of Nominee contenders has been pretty fun this month and all the reports from all the outlets are saying the same things about the same players and their poll numbers but I have to wonder what the real figures are, in real time. When our President was elected I felt it was the most important election of our time, a thought I abandoned last year; the next cycle will be the most telling one, the next cycle will be the litmus test for this country. Im keen to see what will happen. Something else lately has been interesting me: the absolute backlash and attack on marriage as, dare I say it, an institution. I don’t know what spawned it but every day in the news this month and last there has been someone condemning marriage as a senseless and antiqued thing. I was reading today about the divorce rate in Japan right now, as high as it’s ever been. Post quake/tsunami Japan has been divorcing so fast that now it is high fashion to have full on parties where each couple crushes with hammers their rings, dresses are custom designed for the events, seems like a ridiculous notion to me, celebrating such a thing. What do I know, I’ve never been married….maybe I’m missing something but most likely I am not.

Henry Rollins posted a new blog this week where he talked about his NATGEO experiences, wrapping up travel time with a film crew on an unspoken project involving: swamps/getting bitten/deep jungles/deep voodoo/the list goes on forever. In this week’s note he discussed entering a Pentecostal church that practices snake handling. I’m disappointed to read about it but again hope I am wrong. I saw something last week about snake handlers in Kentucky and it was just stupid, like Squidbillies but worse b/c its actually real. I will hold judgments until I see a trailer and then I will repeat the same statement except it won’t say trailer, it will say film.

Im not going to edit this at all, im not going to proof it either, Im just sending it out unpasteurized and raw, like bad milk. In fact that’s the title of this post now: bad milk.
Music for this effort has been: Bad Brains and Black Lips.
Thanks for reading……Im glad to be back, Im glad we dont have to endure my face under cap’ns orders for a long long time now. Reg’lar broadcast is so much more fun aint it!

goodnight.

The Whitest Boy Alive – Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix) by Fred Falke

No more scoffing at these startups who announce “website coming soon!!” and then weeks later still have nothing to show. That being said I would add this: Shipwreck Honey website coming soon!!! No really!!! I mean it this time!! *sigh.

Actually it is finished, the code is wrapped up, the colors are right, theres a few things left to polish and some text to edit but otherwise its actually complete, UNPUBLISHED MIND YOU but complete. Im relieved….its been hell getting this thing seaworthy…..truly hell. I had all the original text done up but the other processes have taken so long that I ended up scrubbing it all down to nothing and starting over. I really want it to be good, I really want it to be right, I dont want to put anything out there that is garbage. Fair ’nuff then.

Look at this article, Al Quaeda got punked hard, cupcake style: “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom”. Thats the working title of the original piece, these guys are a bunch of homegrown bitches anyways, who builds a sentence like that?
Lets go get a drink in the van of your dad’s.
Losers I tell ya. Every bloody one of em. I think /b/ should take up the sword from here and go nuts on everything, they have the manpower.

What else is new? Lots…..with the website coming to a close I can finally focus on some other things that are coming up, there is a big time meeting later next week with some people who have the ability to very easily change the entire landscape of Shipwreck Honey, Im not going to mention who, but its a good crowd and this idea of ours has some teeth. Once again Im honored, humbled to even be invited to speak to them, more details later next weekend Im guessing. Speaking of change, Nature Sound dot org has asked for Hives as well, another process that has blown my mind. Granted, Ive known Martyn for many years now, but to collaborate with his land is a great honor for me. In my mind the man is a ecological warlord as he continues a lifetime of absolutely incredible achievements for the plant and animal kingdom.
Another big project is in the forge for next year, something really exciting that I cant announce until later this Summer lest I jinx the good fortune of my Honeybees who continue to be placed in more decadent and luxurious environs….
All this to confirm what Ive been mumbling about for the past month: Ive been BUSY making hay.
Check out this jam, its been in my skullcandys for over a week….I cant stop it!

Mr Little Jeans The Suburbs by timmytheterror

The president made the decision to undertake the operation at 8:20 a.m. on April 29th in the White House’s Diplomatic Room before he left to survey tornado damage in Alabama. Tom Donilon, his National Security Advisor, prepared the formal orders and convened the principals at 3 p.m. that same day to complete the planning.

The next day, without giving off a hint of the weighty operation being planned, Obama prepared for and delivered his address at the annual White House Correspondent’s Association dinner. The next morning he played nine holes of golf.

Final preparations were made on Sunday. At 2 p.m., the president met with top advisers for an hour and half, at which point he returned to the Situation Room for an additional briefing. Twenty minutes after that, he learned that bin Laden had been “tentatively identified.” By 7 p.m. he was told it was highly probable that bin Laden was at the compound. By 8:30 p.m., he received an additional briefing. He signed off on the attack after that.

*Buried at sea, my ass. hahahaha.

Ive a fire built, im listening to local boy Robin Pecknold and im nursing not just a cocktail but also numerous bee stings. Bee Week has come and while not yet gone, Ive decided its been a major success. There really isnt much that can properly explain that special thing that happens during Beeweek, its so cliche of me to even say this but what the hell, its the only way I can describe it: Magical. Really. Its like that, really really cool. I have a stunning beeyard here on Alki and another gorgeous spot in the Mountains @ Salish Lodge, seen below. Salish Lodge was kind enough to commission a fence to protect the bees from any sort of imaginable skullduggery and they furnished locks on all gates that serve as entrance to the Hives, its really a cool setup that Im going to enjoy all Summer. The bees in every Hive this year started off really well, I put 30k in each Hive, fora total of 10 new Hives this year and a dozen overall, they say its a big jump and maybe thats true but Ive got the speed and desire for it so I wont be complaining. Some people have been busting my agates about going so big so fast, misunderstanding my intent with something more Napoleonic, its just another example of whats been readily apparant and increasingly annoying from the beginning: everyone knows everything about beekeeping and there arent many who will just sit back and listen without constant injection of opinion. One of my favorite terms is tofu-toughtalk, reserved always for that one guy who never has the juice to back up his own words; im starting to use the term barstool beekeeper more and more. Not just for the bar rats but really everyone who knows more than you and wont listen to anyone tell them otherwise. Anways, this is a fools errand to cogitate upon so Im dropping it for now.
Now that things are quieter than before and everything is settled down, I have more time to man the Helm here, looking forward to blogging alot more than I have been. Right now though its time to refresh the vodka and enjoy the fire on the couch, in the semi darkness. Im alone, its absolutely quiet here besides the ubiquitous music and for the first time in months I have nothing to do. I just wrapped up a brief press release for Shipwreck Honey and once I hit send I realized I was caught up. What a feeling, I dont know how the hell I made it through the first quarter this year, its been insane for me.
Heres a few shots of the weekend and also a toast to you: S’lainte, friends.

Idea-Bank:
Branding for specific strains/labels:
“Henry Pollens”
“SonuvaBee!”
“Honeydew (list)”
“Beelite”
and probably the worst, if you know your lore: “Chainlocker” in honor of the old Salt whose land I so gently use.

And now you know more than you should.
Im going back to the couch and Im taking my cocktail with me.

OK….i am NOT branding anything in reference to cabin boys or the dreaded chainlocker and I assure you, having captained his vessel many times, the good Captain Ceis has no such chainlocker aboard his brig despite his myriad threats, going back years now.
Here I be in fact, with the Captain, looking lively at the Helm (Skip sits on the right)

Hey bee-man you got two phones d’ere by your drink, d’ose yours? Ya know dats whats killing your bees is dem phones, I tell ya what dats eggzactly what it is…d’ose signals burys da gps in dem
bees. yup dats why your not doing good wid em.

hey beeman hows yer beez? ya see that thing thar on KING5 bout how dese bees are all disappearin didja? well hot-damn man I heard you had some gud honey but it was damn dark, now why is that? you think it might be bad news? I bet it is, you better look at that stuff afore ya start sellin it now.

your hives are too far apart, ya better bring em in closer than they are.

you feed em that shugarh syrup then your gonna kill em, might as well burn em down now son.

Naturally none of these experts have ever seen my Hives, nor will they anytime soon. Funny how everyone is an instant expert on honeybees, PARTICULARLY at the ginjoints. I always thank them for their input whilst I grumble on the inside, see Im cantankerous and usually beset upon by an unwillingness to suffer the fools however as the beekeeper, particularly the one with an untested product in an overwhelming market, I simply must behave. At least for now.

Im off now, on this fine Sunday night to build a fire and rebuild a cocktail and not necessarily in that order. Also have some serious reading to do, catching up on “Flashman” by George MacDonald Fraser. A damned good book given to me by a damn-good friend, early last week. Damned good books and even better friends, thats what I say.
To him I say simply: S’lainte’ and Boru.

Before I sign off……

I am on the cusp of “going public” with Shipwreck Honey. Everything is almost done, legally everything IS done, its almost time to break the bottle over the bow and cut her into the salty swell.
Here at ninja I average 100 hits a day, with only 20 or 30 of those hits considered by me to be the core audience. I know most of you in fact and in many ways, I keep this here for you, I like that you like it, I like that you get it. I want to keep moving along here, but its true beauty is its overall …I dont want to say privacy……i reckon the word Im looking for is…….

As I unveil Shipwreck to the masses, hoopleheads and eco-freaks alike…I expect all hell to break loose. NinjaMotorhome and Shipwreck Honey dont exactly “fit” together and frankly I dont know how I will juggle them both, will Ninja will turn into a brine barrel of impassioned expression about my idea of the hippies? I hope not, I’m gonna need those hippie dollars so I can build more beehives next year! Ninja is nice b/c now more than ever and even moreso in the future, it’s a quiet place, it’s somewhere I like to be and I like seeing my core here, that’s you guys, the ones’ who come in a couple times a week and say hi. Keep it up, I enjoy it, im honored by it, by you thinking enough to come in and drop a line. Thanks, many many thanks. Its gonna be a big year, I envision this little blog as the eye of my storm. Should be fun.
Stick around and again, as always: thanks for reading.

Its been busy, damn busy around these parts. I dont know how to hit the brakes, I dont know that i even want too.
Ski Season begins its final countdown with the Ides of March looming; it puts alot of us in the final drive to get as much as we can in before its all over. Fortify your livers if you plan on keeping up, for this is when the magic really happens in the Northwest: Big Storms and even bigger bonfires.
Speaking of storms, look at my block up there; debris everywhere.

Eagles have been lurking all week in the trees of my hood, kinda cool to see them but even cooler watching the reactions they garner from both humans and other birds. People freak out like its something theyve never seen, like a bear-jam in Yellowstone, while in the sky other birds exercise a no-fly zone anywhere an eagle is perched.

Honeybee season is fast approaching, there is ton of work to finish in the beeyard plus a brand new shiny website to launch with an actual SHOPPING CART OMG. I need to sacrifice one weekend in March to the Beeyard/website but I dont know which one yet, y’know: ski season is still open.

Upcoming events of note:

Mayors Rendezvous is at the end of March; its second year now where I lead my caravan of boisterous mountain pirates in thier motorhomes to pillage and plunder Crystal Mountain for a weekend. And by God when I say pillage, I mean it in every sense of the word. Flyers coming soon, save the date: last weekend of March.

Lykke Li is coming to Seattle in May. I dont like the album she is supporting but I know alot of people who do so I thought Id mention it.

Fleet Foxes are playing here soon. Sold out. Tickets online maybe? Wheres the Craigslist killer when you need him.

End of Ski Season means one thing: pond skimming. Watch for relevant updates here. Come enjoy the scene.

This is the best Vodka you will ever have, its a fine Irish grain and in the old days it was everywhere but I was the only one in town drinking it. Try as I might to fill that void and keep the label in town, it was sadly discontinued at all Seattle stores. Last Monday at the SODO outlet I shrieked like a schoolgirl when I saw it hiding in the darkest of corners. I bought a few bottles, in case they sold out before I got my share of the bounty.