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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Noosa Heads National Park – My Favorite Places #1

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I walked the trail along the headland toward Fairy Pools and Hells Gates.  On either side was a curtain of green.  Pines bordered the path.  To the right the trees climbed the hill toward the top of the head, to the left the trees followed the plunging slope all the way to the rocks and sea below.  The tropical air was warm and humid even beneath the trees where there was little breeze.  It was still and quiet except for the sounds of the birds in the forest. 

As I continued on my way, I was distracted by a window of blue that opened in the curtain of green trees to my left and I paused to look.  As I turned, my eyes beheld the most wonderful, most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life.  There before me was a view from Heaven.  Bracketed by the trees like a picture frame was the sunlit ocean.  The water was the purest azure blue, the exact shade of blue you think of when you think of a clear, blue, tropical sea.  Across the bay was another section of coast identical to my side with pines tumbling down the steep slope to the rocky shore below.  Waves came in from the ocean and broke against the rocks in white foam.

I thought I had been struck speechless but even though there was no one in sight to hear me, the word “awesome” escaped from my lips involuntarily not once but twice.  I thought I had seen everything, but I thought, “God, you have really outdone Yourself this time.”  I stood stunned and amazed, lost in contemplation of the grandeur presented to my eyes.

The place:  Noosa Heads National Park, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.  The date:  Saturday, January 11, 1992.

As of that moment, Noosa Heads became one of my top three favorite places on Earth and still is today.  I have seen many sights, some of them if I told you, you wouldn’t believe, and many of them have been of extraordinary beauty.  But not one of them has ever surpassed Noosa Heads.

 I had arrived by bus from Maroochydore the afternoon before.  Actually, I arrived by accident.  I was supposed to get off at Sunshine Beach but missed my stop and wound up at a much better place.  I immediately took a liking to the area.  More tourist oriented than M’dore but nothing like the Gold Coast.  It seemed to have everything you needed, shops, restaurants, beaches, even a national park.

In the morning, I went down to the beach.  I explored Main Beach and the much less busy but just as nice beaches of the Spit west of it towards Noosa Sound and the Noosa River.  At the end of the spit I left the bay and went inland on trails through the woods to the river side of the small peninsula where I found a few small river beaches.  But since the Noosa River is not as big as the Maroochy River, these river beaches were nothing like what I found in M’dore.

 From there I retraced my steps and headed east.  I only intended to explore the small coves and beaches on the east side of Main Beach, but once I got going I kept going.  Before too long, I found myself at the entrance to the national park.  To get to there I had to take a boardwalk up from the beach into the pine-studded hills.  Among the trees, hotels and apartment buildings climbed the ridges like toys left by a giant, but once I actually entered the park and left the city behind it was like stepping into a different, far away world, light years away from the tourist resorts.  Immediately I could see why the land had been set aside for a national park.

  The trail forked, one track following the coastline and another cutting across the headland to Hells Gates and Alexandria Bay.  A man there pointed out to me a goanna perched in a tree, a huge, fat lizard maybe four or five feet long, including tail.  To my American eyes it looked like a Komodo dragon.  Its skin blended in perfectly with the color of the tree trunk on which it sat, except for the yellow stripes on its feet.  If the man hadn’t been there to point it out to me, I never would’ve seen it.  Of course, I didn’t have a camera with me since I hadn’t set out for the day intending on going into the national park.
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The trail forked, one track following the coastline and another cutting across the headland to Hells Gates and Alexandria Bay.  A man there pointed out to me a goanna perched in a tree, a huge, fat lizard maybe four or five feet long, including tail.  To my American eyes it looked like a Komodo dragon.  Its skin blended in perfectly with the color of the tree trunk on which it sat, except for the yellow stripes on its feet.  If the man hadn’t been there to point it out to me, I never would’ve seen it.  Of course, I didn’t have a camera with me since I hadn’t set out for the day intending on going into the national park.

I took the track that followed the coast and it was there that the picture vista opened up to me like a window in the trees and I beheld Laguna Bay and Noosa North Shore across it, the view of a lifetime for which there are no words.  Beautiful and gorgeous pale by comparison to what I saw and how it affected me then and still does today.  If, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, then that sight right there at that moment in time was worth every word in every language from the beginning to the end of time.  Even now, every time I think about it, I am still overcome by emotion.

 I continued along the Coastal Track, past more picturesque scenery until I arrived at the easternmost point of the headland itself that juts out into the Pacific. 

On the northern tip of the point was the Fairy Pools, small, shallow hollows scattered in the granite platform of the head, filled with crystal clear salt water.  Sand and smaller rocks littered the bottoms and the water was very warm to the touch from sitting still under the glare of the tropical sun all day.  The sporadically spaced pools reminded me of cups of warm seltzer water countersunk into the rock.

From there I walked along the cliff to Hells Gates, yet another sight that made this trip and my life worthwhile.  Hells Gates are two rocky canyons in the headland that terminate in small, shallow caves in the cliff.  I could immediately see how the name came about.  The way the water rushes in on the waves into those two dark, mysterious tunnels, it looks like the ocean is washing souls down into the depths of Hell.  This was another glorious spot to take a multitude of pictures, if only I had my camera with me that day.

As I stood at the top of the rocky bluff admiring the view of the Gates, another man there pointed out to me a large turtle swimming in the sea off the headland.  It had to have been enormous to be visible from the height of the cliffs as it glided beneath the waves of the clear ocean water.

I crawled out to the very edge of the cliff and just sat for a while on an extruding rock formation, mesmerized by the waves crashing on the rocks below.  Something about the ocean always hits a harmonic in me.  I could've stayed there forever.  I thought Noosa Heads was the best place I had seen in Australia and I had seen far more of it than most people.  Eventually, after spending time sitting in the sun on the rocks at the edge of the cliffs watching the ocean, I knew I had to move on or I never would.

From Hells Gates it was a short walk down a trail from the headland to Alexandria Bay, a long stretch of white sandy beach with undeveloped, protected lands behind it and open ocean in front.  On that day it was virtually deserted, offering quiet, peaceful solitude.  I walked down the beach to more rocky headlands where I found Lion Rock, the Blowhole, and the Devils Kitchen, a much larger version of Hells Gates.
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From there I left the cleared and marked national park trails and took some out of the way, smaller, lesser-used trails into the bush west of the coastline.  As soon as the beach and headland were left behind, I was in a scorching hot, dry land of brush.  Without the help of the onshore breeze it was sweltering under a bright, sunny, cloudless sky and I had no water.  It felt as if I was in the desert of the Outback, the true interior of Australia, even though I was never more than a few hundred yards from the tropical ocean coast.  In this small pocket of protected wilderness surrounded by human dwellings I saw more wildlife.  Near the end of the trail I came across a big, long lace monitor, but this beast was not quite as huge as the goanna I saw at the beginning of the walk.  I also encountered a pair of wild Australian brush-turkeys.

After wandering in the empty coastal scrubland I eventually found my way back to the ocean at Sunshine Beach, a small, empty beach much like the one at Alexandria Bay, except this one had been developed.  Beachside houses stretched as far as I could see south of the national park.  I walked down the shore as far as Crank St. where I went inland to David Low Way and headed back to my hotel in Noosa Hill via Noosa Fair and Noosa Junction.

 For the next two days I was forced to endure Tropical Cyclone Betsy.  On the first day she brought overcast skies, strong, heavy winds, and huge, high, strong waves.  Due to the high seas and dangerous conditions, the red flag was out and the beach was officially closed.  But that didn’t stop the surfers and a few swimmers, nor did it deter hordes of people from descending on the beach to watch the waves that totally covered the sand and crashed against the retaining rocks.  There were just as many people there in the wind, clouds, and drizzle as there was the day before when it was perfectly hot and sunny.

The next morning brought more overcast skies and cyclone-force winds for the second straight day.  Although there were a few breaks in the clouds late in the afternoon, the rains began after that.  In the morning I went to explore nearby Noosaville and Tewantin but in the afternoon I went back to Main Beach.

 If the waves were huge the day before, they were gargantuan today.  The scene fairly resembled some dreary nightmare vision of the end of time.  As in other hurricanes and cyclones I have experienced, while it was a tad bit scary and worrisome, at the same time I was fascinated not only by the storm’s violence and potential for destruction but also by its awesome power and beauty.  While the low-lying clouds overhead broiled and scudded by in shades of gray and white, the sky on the northern horizon merged from a dark, navy blue to black.  The combined sound of the wind that bent the palm trees over and the waves as they roared in to pound the coast was deafening like a freight train two feet from the track.  In fact the whole scene resembled a train wreck in slow motion.  You know it is going to happen, yet you can’t make yourself look away.  If you’ve ever lived through a hurricane you know what I mean.



The sea itself had been transformed by the storm from the placid, clear blue of two days before to a roiling cauldron of breaking white foam and a dark, velvety blue almost the color of crude oil.  The enormous waves were like a constant, changing pattern of mountains and valleys that assaulted the besieged shore like an unending army.  Some of them towered up to forty feet and the average was probably at least thirty.  They raced all the way over the sand and pounded themselves against the retaining riprap at the highest point of the beach, a level the water didn’t even come close to touching on the calm, sunny afternoon two days earlier.  The battered shore was losing tons and tons of sand.  The spray created by the collision of wave and rock spattered the curious onlookers like myself along the elevated beachwalk with cold droplets.  And this wasn’t even the eye of the storm.

 They said once a year they usually have a bad cyclone in Queensland.  And this year I happened to be at the right place at the right time.  The entire rest of the state was sunny and warm except for a small slice of the southeast coast from the New South Wales border up to Noosa, where I was.

 The storm was supposed to last until the middle of the week, but the very next day dawned bright and sunny again, like the first day I arrived.  It was also hot, about 93°F, or 34°C as they measure it in Australia.  Not wanting to miss another opportunity I took my camera and headed back up Hastings St. to the national park.  To be on the safe side, I took two additional rolls of film.

 At the very beginning of the trail near the entrance to the park I came upon a group of people intently staring up into the trees off the path.  Of course, as all humans do, I looked where they were gazing.  I saw not one, but two wild koalas in two different trees, motionless and placid.  I took out my camera, switched lenses and took telephotos of the koalas in their natural habitat.

After observing the koalas, I retraced my steps of three days before, following the Coastal Track.  I snapped pictures right and left with such frequency that I threatened to wear out my shutter – Witches Cauldron, Tea Tree Bay, Dolphin Point, Granite Bay, Hells Gates, and the Gates at Noosa Head itself.

 I continued on down and across the beach of Alexandria Bay and this time, instead of using the official, marked track, I went up the cliffs at the south end of the bay on unofficial and unmarked trails to Lion Rock and Devils Kitchen.  On the south side of Devils Kitchen was a small, isolated, rocky cove with a narrow beach and there were no trails down to it.  It was only reachable by a treacherous climb down smooth rock faces or an equally treacherous climb down an eroded gully.  But of course nothing like that every stopped me when there was a place I really wanted to see.  I carefully worked my way down the cliff from rock to rock until I was at the bottom.

 There was no one around.  I had the whole place to myself.  It was magnificent and beautiful, like a South Seas hideaway, with palms, smooth ball-like rocks, sand, and the enclosing cliffs.  The only way out was by climbing the rocky cliffs again or up the slippery, washed out gulley.  Since I had already tackled climbing the cliffs on the way down, I thought I would try going up the ravine to get out.  Though it looked easier, it turned out to be just as hard.  I constantly slipped and slid backwards on dead palm fronds, loose rocks, and sliding dirt, contributing in my own human way to the further erosion of the gulley.  No matter how much the ravine fought back against my efforts, I persevered and eventually conquered it, arriving at the sunny top hot and tired.

I made my way, creating my own trail where there was none to Paradise Cave, a huge grotto in the headland much like Hells Gates and Devils Kitchen except on a much larger scale.  The tide was high and the seas were still high in the aftereffects of the cyclone so I was forced to take a risky climb along the side of the cliff and into the cave itself, made slippery by dripping water and slime on the rocks, in order to reach the bottom to take more pictures.  At the back, in the farthest, deepest reaches of the cave was a glob of white sea foam that looked just like snow in the darkness.  By the time I was finished, the tide had gone out a little and the water level was lower, making it easier to walk out by wading through the surf to a convenient place to climb back out via the cliff.
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On my way up, I saw my efforts were being watched.  At the top I met a very friendly and chatty man from Brisbane who wanted to know how I liked the cave.  One thing I found out about Australians is that they like to talk, especially if they find out you’re an American.  He and I talked for the longest time about sports in Australia and the US, their differences and similarities.  I finally had to take my leave by asking directions or else I think I might still be there talking today.

This time, instead of heading for Sunshine Beach, I trekked back cross country, taking the Tanglewood Track back to the Park HQ. The walk seemed to take forever and though I knew eventually I would return to civilization, I began to wonder how much longer it would be.  As before, once inside the trees there was no breeze and it became stiflingly hot and I got a serious case of cottonmouth before I made it to the HQ.

 The next two days I spent mainly on the beach, one of the best in Australia and supposedly one of the best surfing beaches in the country as well, before moving on to Torquay at Hervey Bay.  But Noosa was a place I found where I could spend another week, or two, or forever.  I know for a fact that if I had grown up there, I would know by heart every twist and turn of every trail in the park.

There were many places I fell in love with when I was in Australia, many places that could be considered paradise – Mackay, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns, Darwin, to name just a few.  Many places where I would be happy to spend the rest of my life but, if I had to choose the grandest, the most beautiful, the most perfect place I have ever been, it would have to be Noosa Heads National Park.

Jeff Vanderslice

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