Residents of Daytona Beach, Florida were left shocked and outraged after a huge asshole of a bull shark had the audacity to show up in its own habitat and bite 14-year-old surfer Danny Hicks yesterday. The surprise attack was especially alarming considering that it occurred in a buoyed-off area where the shark was obviously encouraged not to enter. “It’s just so senseless,” said Laura Hicks,” Dan’s mother. “You drop your child off to go enjoy a fun recreational sport in the middle of a precarious breading ground for some of the world’s most dangerous fish and he ends up in the hospital. I’m mortified, I really am. Danny was clearly in the buoyed off area, so what the shark did was totally illegal. That thing should be captured and killed, or soon enough, some other person who innocently frolics in that predator’s ecosystem is going to get hurt.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said the bull shark. “I feel bad for what happened. But he looked exactly like a seal, especially on the surfboard. Plus, I have a small brain and bad vision, traits common to every Heterodontus galateus. I’m sorry. I am. Tell Danny the next time I’m at home instinctively looking to eat something high in fat and energy content so I can sustain myself and avoid the extinction of my species I’ll be more careful.”

ORIGINALY PUBLISHED ON JULY 29, 2005 IN VOLUME 3 ISSUE 23

First, a qualifier. I like, no love, California. I mention this because taken at face value, it appears as though the singer has grown weary of CA, and by posting the song, I am attaching my sentiment to it. 

But the song has nothing to do with California. Or San Francisco, Or Oakland. Or anywhere specific. Really, it has to do with everywhere.

Most of us have lived in a place, grew tiresome of it, and remarked to a friend or to our pillow “Fuck [insert city here]” or “Fuck this place.” I have. A few times. I don’t know what that makes me. To my stay-near-home friends, I may be described as “antsy” or “unsettled.” To my mobile friends, I may be described as, well, “mobile.”

So this song isn’t about a specific location so much as it is about a feeling. A feeling when you want to leave a city, a company, a person, a …

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