A monk seal, doing what monk seals do, which is nothing

So, this thing here is called a monk seal. Apparently they wash up on the beach in our area from time to time, and it’s really special because they’re all “endangered.”
These things are like the stupid turtles we’ve got floating around here all the time (one day I’ll explain why I hate turtles, it’s a long story that involves Nicaragua), they don’t do anything, you’re not allowed to poke them or yell at them or ride them or look at them, so as I see it there’s not much point to them at all.
So the other day Michelle comes home and tells me that she got involved with this monk seal group and she’s in charge of mile or so stretch of beach past Haleiwa. I got excited because I thought I’d have a chance to finally play with a seal, and maybe I could teach it to catch fish for me or something cool like that.
Apparently not though. The lazy beasts come up on land to sleep, and then go back to sea for years at a time, or something like that. So, long story short, no seals for Rory.
So, I asked her what the point of the group was. She told me that their job is to make sure no one harasses the seal. They don’t have any legal power, this is just a bunch of kooks that printed out t shirts that say “Monk seal patrol,” and they hang around on the beach yelling at people who get to close to the animals.

Great, I’m in love with a fucking seal narc.

Ryan Farrell, Guttermouth drummer and my former presidential running mate, stayed with us a while back.

michelle

“The practice of head shaving has often been used to punish people, such as criminals or political opponents.[1] Especially for women, the act of shaving off an offender’s hair serves to humiliate the victim and remind them of their offense. For example, thousands of European women had their heads shaved in front of cheering crowds in the wake of World War II, as punishment for associating with occupying Nazis during the war.”

By this point the Pirate Bay trial over there in Sweden, the country that’s home to my favorite ethnically stereotypical Muppet, is in full swing. I’m sure you’ve all been paying close attention to it, and if you haven’t, well, you damn well should. This is important shit happening kids, and the verdict has the potential to change our world in very real ways. Of course, even if the Pirate Bay guys are found guilty of the charges that haven’t been dropped yet, we won’t see the end of file sharing. But, if they are acquitted on all charges we can expect to see and explosion of foreign host tracker sites.

Personally, I expect that they’ll be found not guilty of most of the charges, but they’ll be smacked with a small penalty, just to keep the RIAA and American copyright holders happy.

For the record, I’m against any and all form of copyright protection. Now I know that as I writer I should be for them, because they’re the only thing keeping people from stealing the fruits of my mind womb and pimping them out for profit (theoretically at least), but as I see it, internet piracy is a non crime. Nothing is taken or given, a downloaded song or book or movie is just a bunch of rearranged light particles that represent the theoretical product (or something like that, I’m kind of vague on how computers really work).

So, pay attention kids, this shit matters.

Go check out wired.com, they’ve been covering this shit really well for a while now.

Check out this new website.  It’s for the homies.  It’s got cool interviews and San Diego local hype - but try not to forget about us.
http://www.typicalculture.com

The Letter Below was emailed to us from Cheri Johnson, owner of Urban Boardshop. Chime in with your thoughts below. 

Shitting in your own Backyard

In the month of December, during one of the worst economic holiday seasons we (the entire US) have seen in a long time, I was actually sabotaged by my own vendors as well as the economy. I lost thousands of dollars of business because some of my vendors decided to have HUGE warehouse sales right before Christmas. I know it affected other retailers in the area as well, but I obviously can not speak for them. And in all actuality, I will not be surprised if I lose some of my accounts because I am bringing this very “sensitive” issue to light by naming names. But that is okay, as long as I address how warehouse sales are hurting and will keep hurting Southern California retailers if they continue.

You might think that it is not that big of a deal. And that it only happened in December and it only affected my December numbers, but, unfortunately, it is not just December sales that were and are being affected. Because of warehouse sales by our own suppliers, I have local kids who have informed me that they do not need to buy boards for a year because they picked up a dozen or so at Black Box (Zero, Mystery and Slave Distributors) for $20 each, or Kayo Corp (DGK and Organika Distributors) for $10-20 each.

Well that may not seem too harmful, if decks are all they were selling, especially because we, as retailers, don’t make our margins off of hardgoods anyways. Shoes and clothing are where most of us pay the bills from. But wait, hardgoods was not all they were selling. Vox Footwear had a sale in their warehouse where shoes were $10-20 a pair and Black Box (Fallen Footwear) was selling shoes for $15-20.

Okay, so decks and shoes were sold at a significant percentage below what we as retail stores even have to pay. At least we still have the clothing to make our margins on, right..OOPS…I almost forgot that all the above mentioned vendors also decided to sell a huge chunk of their clothing for these same amazing prices. Tees were 3 for $15, hoodies were $10-20, and hats sold for $7, etc.

At these prices, people were taking home bags full of product. Trust me I saw it for myself. Crap, I was practically ready to buy a ton of stuff myself because it was so exciting to see everyone walking out with so much stuff that they had to make trips back and forth to their cars. Plus, technically the stuff was sometimes up to 50% below my normal cost, so it was even a bargain for me.

I think what bothers me most, is how the warehouse sales were handle. I must admit that I did not feel so warm and fuzzy knowing that none of these vendors had the courtesy to inform their local customers (us retailers) in advance of these sales. I personally found out each time from the local shop rats, who were all excited because they were using all their Christmas money allowance from their family at some of these warehouse sales. They told me they “were stocking up big time.” I also wasn’t that excited to find out about these sales after I just ordered skate hardgoods from two of these same vendors within a week before their sales. And there were probably other warehouse sales out there that I didn’t even find out about.

The vendor’s defense will probably be that the product is at least a season old. Which would be an accurate statement from what I saw when I surveyed a couple of the sales. However, how old the product is does not matter when the prices are so low. I would have preferred the vendors at least sold the product for what they sell it to me for. I don’t even care that they would have made a good profit off of it, because at least the pricing of my inventory would not have been so devalued now and in the future.

I also understand that many of us retailers had to cancel some orders here and there because sales were just not taking off over the holiday season. And that sucks for the vendor because this industry is built on “cut to order”. But I also know that all these vendors have many other means of moving large sums of product through distributors that would not cause so much direct harm to the retail shops in their direct vicinity. There are wholesale distributors both in the U.S and internationally that buys large sums of product and distributes it in smaller amounts to vast areas. Moreover, it would have been nice if the hardgoods were offered to retailers at these amazing prices so that we could have enjoyed either better margins or offered sale prices to increase traffic flow over the sluggish holiday season.

In conclusion, if warehouse sales continue in the future, it will eventually lead to the demise of the local shops in the direct area of these distributors. I have actually heard kids say that they will just wait for the next warehouse sales because they don’t want to pay these retail prices anymore: and I can not blame the customers for wanting to take advantage of these great deals.  But most of us will not be able to stay in business if we have to compete with our own suppliers.