Reflections on Monterey, 2024

A few images from this corner of our world

This year I lost my walking companion. While I prefer to chug along mindlessly during my morning strolls, Buster preferred to smell the smells or to contribute smells of his own along the path. His lollygagging gave me a chance to open my eyes and view the views. Now that he’s gone I’ve had to retrain myself to see again.

Sometimes my head is still in the clouds. Other times the clouds present themselves with the drama of the ages.

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These damn clowns are charming for a week or two, and they’ve lately become yet another tourist attraction, something for out-of-town visitors to see while they walk off their chowder bowls after dining on the Wharf. But the great horde of indolent sea lions are loud and obnoxious; their miserable stink burns the eyes and pollutes the souls of decent men and women.

I’m always happy to see them come, happier still to see them go. (Am I referring to the sea lions or to the tourists? I’ll let you decide.)

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I’ve bopped past the Cooper-Molera Adobe thousands of times but I never saw it look like this until the other night, when a fire truck trundled down Polk Street.

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If you’re looking for iconic old cypress trees in Monterey, follow the silhouettes around Colton Hall.

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I challenged myself in 2023 to capture a unique snapshot of Fisherman’s Wharf, something that the tourists or the Chamber of Commerce would overlook. This is what I came up with. This view reminds me of the madcap set of that old “Popeye” movie, and so I can’t help but think of Shelley Duvall whenever I come across this photograph.

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This marbleized gentleman stands like a statue in my neighborhood. He might be a god of some sort. He certainly adds some class (and ass) to Spaghetti Hill.

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Pride of Madeira is a native of South Africa, but it must have come over on a boat once upon a time. Now it’s a favored landscape bush all over the Monterey Peninsula.

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It might not be native, but Pride of Madeira is a bee magnet and that’s a good thing. So quit your bitching.

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You can’t call yourself an honest-to-Pete Monterey resident if you’ve never paddled a swan boat around Lake El Estero. I’m not much of a swan sailor, so it had been a while since I’ve been out on the lake in a floating fiberglass bird. I got a chance to get back out there this year when my triplet nieces came to visit.

I didn’t fall in and my nieces didn’t throw me overboard, so I can say I survived Lake El Estero.

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Lots of little fishes were chased close to shore during the autumn months of 2024, and they naturally attracted goony birds by the thousands. Each one of these delusional pelicans believes they are the most beautiful creature on earth.

Who am I to argue?

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Beautiful or not, goony birds must dive like Kamikaze, head first, into the frigid Pacific waters if they hope to eat. That’s the hard evolutionary truth of pelican survival. If you ask me, human beings ought to consider the life of an average pelican before they start bitching about how tough they’ve got it. Watch a pelican long enough and you’ll learn that life isn’t all about preening and looking like God’s finest creature.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy my 25-second nature video.

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Buster loved to chase shorebirds during low tide at this little beach behind Fisherman’s Wharf. It was one of his favorite things; he’d rush about like a maniac from one end of the beach to the other. After he died I tried to convince government officials to name the strip of sand “Buster Beach.” but apparently I have no pull in this town. I’ve pestered city officials about this pressing issue until I finally ran out of pester.

But maybe you can help. Next time you see Mayor Tyller Williamson, let him know about Buster Beach.

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