WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • From The Publishers
  • Summer 1970 - Fishing with Alligators
  • The Fire-Starters
  • Jimi Hendrix Was The Roy Buchanan of Rock & Roll & Other Rural American Stories
  • Real Genius
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • A Blue World
  • Nova Explains
  • Satan's Jr. High
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • The People Who care
  • Jesus and The Red Words
  • Sniffing Out White Supremacy
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • “The Word From The Streets”
  • A Voice from the Crowd
  • How a White-man Became a Black-man In Order To Find His Whiteness—His Alright-ness.
  • Camille Bertault: 2 Views of a Secret
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Last Vestiges of Mueller’s Collusion Case Just Died...and Nobody Noticed
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • "Kill The Pigs!!!"
  • "Another of Trump's Henchmen Falls!!!"
  • Saving ISIS, Killing America
  • Cyrus The Great Strikes Again
  • The Big Lie - "Fear Russia Love China"
  • “The Russians are Coming!” (again)
  • "Impeach This!"
  • “Trump Backs Turkey Down”
  • Congressman Elijah Cummings Died last night at the age of 68.
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • Blind as a Bat
  • "I cannot Tell a Lie"
  • If Only Obama Was Still President, Syria Would Be Swell
  • Impeachment Fever
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • "God Will Do It!"
  • Jeffrey Epstein & The Mysterious Case of The Infinite Pedophile Monkeys
  • The World is Insane: pt 4095 - “What is Less Than Zero?”
  • The Magic Bullet and The Lonely Death of Jeffrey Epstein
  • The Facts about Illegal Immigration
  • Chicago
  • Liz Warren Hits The Road
  • Traitors & Lies
  • “If The World Was Fair”
  • "The Few, The proud, The Insane: The Democrats"
  • "GOD & UNCLE SAM"
  • A Minor Complaint
  • Murder in The Meantime
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • “Jerry “The Toad” & other Sesame Street Lessons”
  • "Riffing in Tongues"
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence Revisited
  • The Few The Brave The FBI
  • Jesus and Liz Warren Want to Forgive You
  • The Witch Hunt Ends? Not Even Close.
  • Divine Guidance
  • The Crocodile & The Politician
  • Uncle Joe Apologizes
  • Why I Hate, Hate Crimes
  • It's Only a Matter of Time
  • Let It Rain
  • Dumb & Dumber
  • ....of Poets & Scientists
  • Goodbye Pork-Fried Rat
  • Hearing Duane Eddy
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • "Hell is Real!!!"
  • Mauled by Reality
  • The Cult of The Secret Unknowing Marxist
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • The Unwitting Socialist
  • Personal Stories
  • The Magula Report 2019
  • "The New Blood & The New Deal"
  • “The Wall"....and other, mostly silly conversations.
  • The War for the Soul of Mankind: “Stan Getz vs Eric Dolphy”
  • The "Others"
  • White Cracker-Ass Niggas
  • New York Gives The Thumbs Up To Mass Genocide
  • Rudy & Nat
  • A Close Shave With The Well-Intended Bigot
  • This is What Happens When My Favorite Band “The Mellow Herb” Comes To Town
  • The Hemispherical Brain Activity of a Wayward Somnambulist
  • Gun "Race With The Devil"
  • “Half Of All Millennials Think Barack Obama is More Important Than George Washington!!??”
  • "The Dow Posts The Biggest One Day Gain In History."
  • Good Morning Comrades
  • Sharks, Zombies & God
  • A Road Home
  • You're Getting Sleepy....Very Sleepy
  • Stupid People
  • Jezebel and Ahab Make a Comeback
  • Stevie Ray Vaughn: Derivitive Hack or Genius
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • “The Giant Facebook Id-Monster Attacks”
  • “Bullshit...it’s a Damned Invasion!”
  • Bobby-Jack
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • For The Love of Krazy Kat
  • How I Came To Understand That Fighting The Power Was Useless. Unless...You Fight The Power By Giving Power to The Power To Fight The Power
  • Within the Lifetime Of The Average American...The U.S. Population Could Realistically Exceed That of China & India
  • The Problem of Blasphemy In a Secular Society
  • The Waitress and The Power
  • A Message From The Democrats After The 2018 Midterms
  • On This Day Before Election Day, These 5 Things Should Be Remembered As You Vote
  • A Lie Is As Good As The Truth....as long as it's a good lie
  • "Evil Republicans Suppress The Minority Vote"
  • The Enemy of Mankind
  • The Mob
  • Why Chinese Tariffs?
  • A Caravan To Nowhere
  • Ant Farm
  • “They’re Coming For Your Social Security!”
  • The Witchfinder Speaketh
  • Eating Sawdust & Voting Democrat
  • Muslims Kill Washington Post Journalist”...and other stories best left untold
  • Orwell's Nightmare
  • The Sobbing Walrus
  • A Telling Lie
  • Tribal Marxism
  • A Pimp and His Stable of Political Whores
  • "Evidence?.... I Don't Need No Damned Evidence!"
  • A Post Modern Lynching
  • Talkin’ Blues: A White Social Justice Warrior Meets a Bluesman
  • Pocahontas Wants To Impeach President Trump
  • A Belated Tip of The Hat To John McCain's Funeral
  • "Colin Kaepernick Fights The Power. My Brothers!"
  • Jack Ryan: Promoting Jihad & The Brotherhood of Man
  • Rediscovering Willie "The Fruitbat" Johnson
  • The Allegation
  • Message in a Bottle
  • A Coven of Witches
  • The Communist & The Exalted Cyclops
  • America vs Satanic Goat Worshipers
  • Forcing Transgender Penis Cakes on America
  • The Iidots Lament
  • Irritating Post: no. 529
  • Irritating Post: no. 642
  • My Brain is a Liar
  • My New Rap "Alligators"
  • Helpful Hints in Logic
  • The Unredacted News
  • A Loss of Composure
  • The Myth of Objective Fact Checkers
  • Surviving Politics
  • The Pit or The Pendulum
  • Do Not Forsake Me. Not For a Dollar. Not For a Dime.
  • Repeller of The Amorites
  • Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child...but only sometimes
  • Welcome To The Freakshow
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • A Sideways Glance at Reality....
  • The Ballad of Trey Gowdy
  • Lies, Spies, and Thighs at The FBI
  • The Ballad of Charlie Crockett
  • Children in Cages
  • A Poem For Clifford Odets
  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • A Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • Bent
  • "There Were No Spies in The FBI and Other Fictional Tales"
  • The New Rules For Radicals
  • Blood In The Water
  • "3000 American Businesses Colluded with Russia For Profit"
  • I Spy (For The FBI)
  • Free Shit—and Bears
  • Cute Dog Videos
  • How The Press Aided and Abetted Terrorists
  • The Iran Deal Myth
  • The Scouts
  • Pinko Muthafuckas
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Johnny Winter and, 1970
  • Happy Days Are Here Again
  • RAGe Against The Machine
  • Carlos and Buddy
    • How The Bird & Darwin Took Flight With a A7#9 Chord
  • Just a Few Glaring Examples Of Media Scummery
  • They Call it Stormy Monday
  • "I Gotta Take A Wiz" or, "How Starbucks Destroyed the World"
  • Who Needs War?
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • 2+2 Really Does = 4
  • The Tangled Web
  • Shadow Banning
  • What Changed?
  • Oblivious But Concerned
  • "Give Up!"
  • Jesus: The Spirit of Man and God That Illuminates The Darkness
  • Mickey Baker: Goin' To Kansas City
  • "Washington Saves America from Pot-smoking Mass Murderers"
  • Nontraditional Thoughts
  • Attack of The Trillion Dollar Omnibus Bill
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Just Words
  • Muddy and Me
  • Racist Debtaes About Terrorsim
  • Fidel's Utopia
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Blessed Assurances and other Iron Clad Guarantees
  • James Brown & the Art of the Indefinite Rhythm
  • If the Bible Say's it, I believe It!
  • Go For a Jog, Go to Jail
  • Life as Theatre and The Well-Intended Sociopath
  • Rory Gallagher & Taste
  • Utopia and the Militant Socialist
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Fight of the Century
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • You Might Be an Idiot if.....
  • How To Interpret Political Speech and other Forms of Gibberish
  • Polygamy and the Search For Morality
  • The "Big" Gulp
  • When a Lie is the Truth and the Truth is a Lie
  • Jim Hall - The Subtle Radical
  • Making Deals With the Devil in Iran
  • Dennis and Mary
  • Thank You Lord For the Good Things You have Done
  • Excersise In Futility
  • Is Obama The Antichrist?
  • The Case for Limited Government (and that includes a limited military)
  • The Weekly Southern Blog
  • Angel: part VI
  • The Esoteric Agenda
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Things I wish the President Knew Pt. 3
  • Really Now, I'm Syria
  • What Will You Do?
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • God Loves Me and Has a Plan For My Life...Right?
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Is God's Grace Ecclesiastical White-out?
  • Jury Duty
  • The Left's Contradictory Love Affair With Gays & Muslims
  • Hee Haw and Grandma and Grandpa
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Gay Marriage: Part II
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Running With The Bullshit In Pamplona
  • Divided By Abortion
  • Gay Marriage
  • Life on the Fault-line
  • Out of the Wild
  • A Generation Out Of Touch
  • Morning Faith with a Cup of Joe
  • For The Children
  • Made up Facts & True Beliefs
  • The Unforgettable - Nat 'King' Cole
  • Slavery Was Big Business....and It Still Is!
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • A Man's Best Friend is his Dogma
  • Voting With Our Private Parts
  • Investors of the World, Unite
  • Good Intentions...bad results
  • The Plural of "You"
  • How to Get God to Give You What You Want: Redux
  • We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight
  • Polls–Divination or Manipulation?
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Crocodiles & Alligators in Florida
Monsters in our Backyard

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Tarzan leaped from a tree into the murky river below.  As soon as he hit the water, a large crocodile plunged off the bank and began swimming furiously towards him.  The croc was at least eighteen feet long and weighed close to a ton, nearly three times the size of its potential prey and ten times its weight.   Before Tarzan had a chance to react, the giant reptile was on him, and within seconds they were embraced in a struggle for life and death.  Inevitably, Tarzan would triumph, after all, if he didn’t the movie wouldn’t have lasted very long.   But, in real life, no man, not even one raised by apes, would’ve survived, not if the croc was hungry. 

Crocodiles and their close relative’s, alligators, have existed largely unchanged for more than two hundred million years.  They are possibly the most successful predators the world has ever known—or at the very least, its deadliest and most effective fresh water predator.  This remains as true today as it was millions of years ago and there are some very good reasons why. 

A crocodilian (the family name for both crocodiles and alligators) are amphibians, meaning they are at home in the water and on land.  They possess the greatest bite force of any living creature, many times that of a great white shark and some scientists believe close to that of a full grown Tyrannosaurs Rex.   A specimen the length of a small bus can disappear in less than two feet of murky water, making them very effective ambush predators.  For short distances, they can move as fast as a sprinter on land and as quickly as a motor boat in the water.  They can slow their heart rate down to as little as four beats a minute, enabling them to stay submerged for up to two hours.  And when a crocodilian seizes its prey it will either drag it into the depths and drown it, or begin to spin like a turbine, ripping it to pieces. 

I have been asked why I have such a fascination with these prehistoric creatures, which is always perplexing.   A better question would be, why not?   Crocodiles and their kin are a holdover from the age of the dinosaurs—the largest of all living reptiles—a glimpse into history before man and a reminder of the true nature of the world.  

I am fortunate to live in South Florida, the only place on earth where large salt water crocodiles and alligators co-exist.   I have spent many hours filming and photographing them in their natural habitat, oftentimes marveling at these magnificent creatures at little more than a few feet’s distance.

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A few years ago, I was in the everglades shooting film of one of my favorite subjects—a twelve-and-a-half-foot, seven-hundred-pound, male crocodile that had staked out the territory in Flamingo at the southernmost tip of the everglades.   During the day, he tended to sit on the edge of the bank, in full view, sometimes he would lay between two logs, his enormous head propped up on the edge of one log, with his body and tail streaming down the other—absorbing the sun’s rays like a giant reptilian solar panel.   His harem of smaller female crocs was never far away, with the other large males off in the distance, keeping a considerable expanse between him and them.  To the right, not more than twenty feet away was a family, father, mother and two small children in a canoe watching this massive creature with awe and curiosity.   People are told that these animals pose no real threat to humans and that only one person has ever been killed by a crocodile in Florida.  Crocodilians are essentially pure instinct, they have very small brains, but have the ability to learn and adapt quickly, altering their behavior when hunting.  They also have sensors over most of their body that allow them to pinpoint prey moving in the water, even in total darkness.  If the small canoe were to tip, something that’s very easy to do in a canoe, the croc would most likely respond to the splashing like it would to wounded prey—and if it was hungry, the outcome could have been tragic. 

Croc populations in S. Florida have never been more than a few thousand, and those numbers were as low as a few hundred throughout most of the Twentieth Century.  Florida’s crocodiles have generally been isolated from human activities, like swimming, where people are most vulnerable to attack.  In South America, where these animals exist in larger numbers, there are a few fatalities every year.

 The lone death by crocodile in Florida occurred in the early part of the Twentieth Century, provoked by a surveyor that had shot a fifteen-foot specimen and then foolishly, assuming that it was dead approached it, only to find that it was just stunned.  The croc woke, turned, grabbed the hunter, and began to spin his enormous body over and over, ripping him to pieces in front of his companions.  Strangely, they chose not to kill the animal and instead captured it, selling it to a well-known Florida attraction (I guess profit won out over revenge)!   Eventually the killer croc was killed by another Florida native, an alligator named Big George, a notoriously foul-tempered, equally large gator that had a tendency to kill anything or anybody that ventured into his territory.  Both animals were separated by a wall keeping them out of the other’s view with the exception of a small hole.  The hole was just large enough for the narrower snouted croc to stick the end of his jaws through (crocs have longer, narrower jaws than alligators).  Big George seeing an opportunity, clamped down on the snout of the croc, and held it under water long enough to drown it, ending the story of Florida’s killer croc.  

photo by John Agnew  http://www.natureartists.com/john_agnew.asp

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Tales of giant crocs are as old as recorded history and very difficult to verify.   No one knows for sure how big they get, maybe twenty-three-feet long and three-thousand pounds, possibly bigger—or even how long they are capable of living—perhaps as long as a hundred years—leaving plenty of room for our imagination to amplify these already mysterious creatures to legendary proportions.  

A few years ago The History Channel and MonsterQuest did a story about recent sightings of super-crocs around the world.   Two teams of biologists, one in the U.S. and the other in India, hunted for the elusive giants, an alleged twenty-three footer in India and an eighteen-foot monster that was said to lurk in the backwaters of the everglades, in and around my favorite stomping grounds.

Only a few months before the History Channel piece aired I was filming in Flamingo and was having a conversation with one of the workers, he told me about an eighteen-foot giant that had been spotted deeper in the outback.  Initially I was skeptical; there are at best two-thousand crocodiles in Florida; the likelihood of an eighteen-footer, a very big animal, even for Africa or Australia, was unlikely.  I assumed it was probably the result of an overactive imagination.  When the MonsterQuest story verified his claim, I was, like any croc lover would be, enthralled by the possibilities.  When my curiosity could be contained no longer, I contacted the two American Biologists from the show and asked about the monster that both had seen, but, was only evident by some fuzzy camera work. 

Joe Wasilewski, the leader of the Florida expedition is a well known biologist who has worked with just about every kind of reptile, from cobra’s to Nile crocs.  If it’s cold-blooded, crawls, slithers and slinks, Joe Wasilewski is your man.  He is one of the few individuals who is allowed to monitor the five-hundred-plus crocodiles that have made the cooling canals in the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Miami their home.   The second biologist was a high school biology teacher named Tony Gerard who has appeared in a number of episodes in the series. Wasilewski said he hadn’t seen the MonsterQuest piece and then told me that the croc in question was possibly a bit bigger that thirteen feet, certainly not eighteen—and Tony Gerard simply said that the MonsterQuest producers lied—so much for super-sized crocs in the Everglades, and for the veracity of the History Channel.  The alleged twenty-three-foot animal in India was never officially verified, although a couple of massive specimens were spotted and filmed, suggesting that monster-crocs probably haunt Bhitarkanika National Wildlife sanctuary.  These animals are protected in spite of having attacked and killed humans and livestock in the area.

Big croc stories are just like big fish stories—mostly anecdotal and hard to verify.  There is occasionally, however, enough evidence to suggest that very large crocodiles are more than a myth.  Massive skulls of a variety of species, Nile, American and Saltwater crocs provide tantalizing possibilities, suggesting that exceptionally large animals may in fact, be lurking deep in the rivers and estuaries of Australia, Costa Rica, Africa and the Philippines—three-thousand-pound, dinosaur-sized monsters big enough to consume a man or large animal in only a few bites
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Recently those big croc stories were brought to life with the capture of a two-thousand-three-hundred-seventy-pound, twenty-plus-foot, saltwater crocodile in the Philippines.  The giant was said to have recently killed a fisherman and attacked and eaten a young girl.   More than thirty men, armed with weapons and traps set out to capture the beast, led by the mayor of the small Philippino town.  When they caught the gargantuan reptile in the first trap, it smashed it to pieces; eventually, a second larger, more substantial, trap was successfully used.  When the animal was finally subdued, it required more than thirty men to move him, but not before he almost broke free and escaped a second time.  It has been reported by the beast’s captors that an even larger crocodile was seen and photographed on their initial hunt. Bunawan creek in the Agusan del Sur in the Philippines may provide a perfect environment for these animals to grow and thrive, away from human activity, with an abundant food supply and no natural enemies.  

All crocodilians pose a potential threat to humans, but only three members of the family are considered true man-eaters, Nile and Indio-Pacific crocodiles and American Alligators.   Those numbers are probably misleading, since most of the other large members of the crocodile family have been hunted to near extinction.  If these animals increase in numbers globally, and humans and crocs come into closer proximity with one another, it’s likely that fatalities will increase.  Currently, the exact number of people killed worldwide is unknown, somewhere between a hundred, to potentially a thousand or more people a year.  Without accurate record keeping in underdeveloped parts of the world, it’s difficult to know.

Alligators are generally thought to be less aggressive than crocodiles.  There are more than 1.5 million gators living in Florida and probably about the same in Louisiana, with a sizable number spread throughout various parts of the Southern U.S.  And yet, the number of fatal alligator attacks is relatively low considering the size of both the human and gator population in these areas.  I’m inclined, however, to believe that there are a number of variables affecting this.  Alligators culls occur annually and they are legally hunted and trapped year ‘round by nuisance gator hunters.  Any animal larger than four feet that is found around human habitat is generally destroyed, with their skin and meat sold for profit.  This encourages trappers to kill them, instead of trying to relocate them, since alligators have an uncanny homing instinct enabling them to find their way back home, even over long distances.  Nuisance hunters can also act as guides for hunters wishing to hunt and kill trophy-sized animals.  This means there is a premium placed on killing the big ones.  A thirteen- or fourteen-foot animal can bring a guide as much as five thousand dollars or more.  Where this is likely to hinder us from ever seeing just how big these animals can get, it probably also saves human life.  On the west coast of Florida, they had for a time, a policy of relocating and not killing large gators that entered populated areas.   Within a few years, the number of alligator attacks increased, including a few fatalities.  In two separate instances a large alligator attacked and killed a woman in her back yard and there was another where an elderly man walking his dog beside a canal was also killed. In both cases the alligators came onto land to attack their victims.  On May 10, 2006 a woman was killed in Ft. Lauderdale while dangling her feet in a local canal.  The woman was attacked and killed on land by a 10ft. animal.  Four days later, two other women were killed by alligators, hundreds of miles apart in different parts of the state.


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Another variable that distinguishes alligator aggression towards humans vs. crocodiles is that gators have very little competition for food by other large predators the way crocs do—especially in Africa, the place where the greatest number of fatal attacks occur.  Nile crocs are forced to compete with Lions and Leopards, among other animals, oftentimes in areas where lengthy periods of drought force animals to compete for dwindling resources. This includes humans who are forced to the water’s edge in order to survive.  When crocs can’t find their normal prey they, like all opportunistic predators will kill and eat whatever and whoever is unfortunate enough to come within their range.  A similar phenomenon occurs with Bull Sharks, which are found in freshwater rivers as well as oceans, meaning greater contact with people—even then, some areas have a much higher instance of bull shark attack than others, even where the number of sharks and the corresponding human population is similar. Heavy competition for limited food means you take your meal where you can find it.  If humans stray into territory occupied by hungry bull sharks, alligators or crocodiles, the results can be deadly. 

Florida appears to be the only place throughout the alligator’s range where attacks on humans is common.  Unlike Louisiana, Floridians and gators live in close proximity with one another and that is the primary difference.  When trying to determine just how aggressive these animals can be towards human’s, statistics can be misleading.   A casual swim in gator or croc territory during daylight is always dangerous, but at night when they hunt and are most active it can very easily be fatal. 

With a little common sense regarding crocs and gators we find that they don’t really pose a significant threat to people, at least, not in the U.S., where our wealth insulates us from having to survive at the water’s edge, unlike many other places in the world.  This give us an opportunity to experience life, at least in a very limited way, as our ancestors did and in some cases as people still do—and thrill to the possibility of living dinosaurs in our back yard.

At a time when modern man has left his imprint virtually everywhere, it’s reassuring that some things remains outside our reach.  I have no desire to experience the world only through the safety of a Disney theme park, a zoo, or from the comfort of my living room.  Every once in a while, I have a need to put myself in harm’s way or, at least, at its fringes.   A much needed wake-up call to our sedentary and peaceful existence—an adrenalin rush that is sufficient to keep at bay the fear of a premature demise.  

As a species, humans have taken the idea of dominion over creation and leveled much of the vast wilderness that is the natural world.  And, as unarguably history’s greatest killers, we have reshaped it in our own image, destroying the beauty of the earth and too much of its incredible mystery.  We have sought our comfort over the wellbeing of every other living thing and justified it as our manifest destiny.  

Crocodiles and alligators are a stark reminder of how fragile life can be—and how mysterious and incredible the world that we live in really is.   


Mark Magula

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