If you arrived here by mistake: please go back to: monkeyfacenews.com
Hey Kelly and Lolly:
I figured it would be easier to put my ideas here than just to wrirte an e-mail. That way I can keep it lite and put some photos in here too. This is a blog I use only for things like this.
Okay here are my ideas for 5 (or more) episodes.
Mike and I came up with a list of possible locations. To which I have offered my own embellishments.
The first thing is this:
Kel., you raised a question when last you were here re: what is the main theme or objective of the show? Is it a show in which we go anywhere to catch fish? Or is it a show where we mainly center around urban areas? From a fishing/travel standpoint I would love it to be the former. But from a logistical standpoint, and I think to make the show have the deepest possible originality and magnitude, it needs to center on urban locations.
That said, i think every episode should have one segment where we drive somewhere within a 50-100 mile radius of the city. IE: in Portland that was Tilamook Bay. In SF it was Pacifica Pier. We call this segment "Road Trip."
Okay. Now that we have honed it down to the urban context and "road trip" here are the areas that Mike and I think we should consider going to:
1. LA and/or San Diego (or just So. Cal)
Because it would be easy, cheap (relatively), fun, and LA is full of hip people doing the urban foraging thing. There's also some great fishing options:
Sand bass: (above) fun, hard fighting, abundant and tasty fish. Thermo-nuclear clamming.Street foraging in LA is basically picking fruit and avocados and aloe vera... but I'd like to do my dandelion coffee, we didn't really show that last time--even though ZI pulled up dandelion roots--it's great stuff. There are many foraging groups down there and I think I could hook us up with good contacts.
Gigantic monster gamefish at the islands.
I was also thinking that we could do a camping trip to Catalina Island (embarcation point: LA). Where there are a ton of fishing and coastal foraging options.
A native Salton fisherman! Note post apocalyptic trailer... maybe we could get this guy as a guide.
Road trip: But the thing that suddenly occurred to me while discussing SO CAL was the amazing possibility of a trip to the Salton Sea. Believe it or not there's actually fish there! Tilapia and corvina (stocked in the 1950s and still there despite massive die offs every year). I think it would be funny as all hell if Mikey and I took a crazy post apocalyptic trip to the salton sea! OMG Kel, this
would be funny as shit. The place is a veritable wasteland. Huge, man made lake so choked full of salt and chemicals it has a 5 million fish die off every year.
And yet people still catch (and eat) fish there! I dunno, I think an LA/San D., segment that ends at the Salton Sea would be incredible. Weird and funny as hell.
Vistas of the wasteland... Fishing the Salton Sea
2. Florida (Miami):
Advanced pier culture.
Ridiculous foraging options for fruits and vegetables: street mangoes, papayas, melons (Mike wants to go to Florida for all the melons! ;)
Florida melons
Brazillian pink pepper-corns: invasive species fucking up local ecosystems, I know! Let's get rid of them by eating eating 'em! (This should be a theme throughout the series: let's fight back against invasives by eating them!)
Check out this guy: Daniel Vitalis: Tho he might be too famous for us.
Mullet fishing with throw nets!
Snorkling lobsters
Stone crab fishing from kayaks
Fishing from shore for the wild and exotic (and invasive) peacock bass!
Florida Fishing Piers. Florida has a number of awesome fishing piers. Crazy Urban fishing cultures. Die hard fishermen in urban areas:
Lots of variety and abundance fish wise. There appear to be a lot of "forage meet" type things going on in South Florida... I'm sure we can find a guide.
Road trip: Florida Keys. Visit the stomping grounds of the former macho forager Ernest Hemmingway. Catch lobsters. I dunno go spear fishing... lots of options and the photo ops would be crazy. Maybe we strike-out on Marlin and then lower our sites and eat grass. As un-hemmingway-ian a thing to do as possible. Lots of ways to make this funny and interesting.
3. Louisiana (N.O.)
Hundreds of edible plants: berries, fruits, roots... wild cabbages etc.
cast-netting for gulf prawns!!!
crawfish!
frog spearing (gigging)
speckled trout (in N.O.)
Red fish (in N.O.)
Redfish
Bass
Oysters
We would have to be the worst foragers on earth not to come up with an awesome show in New Orleans. That's what Mike says. Mikey actually went to Tulane you know, so he has some experience down there. Knows people, knows what to fish/forage for etc. There's also such profoundly awesome stuff and we can even get into the recent environmental catastrophe in the Gulf. I think a show in the Big Easy would rock people's minds. Ghetto foraging in the 5th Ward, yo.
Road trip: Okie noodling (catching huge fish by enticing them to bite your fingers) for monster catfish in the swampy bayou.
4. Washington D.C.
Really? You ask.
"planked" shad a Potomoc specialty
The nation's capital like you've never seen it!
Actually there are a plethora of urban foraging options in DC. Both Mikey and I have a lot of contacts there, and the background shots could be surreal and amazing.
The godzilla of invasives
First of there's snakeheads. Snakeheads are a terrible invasive species that has arrived in America via the Chinese live-fish trade. they are monstrous predators with huge teeth that eat our prized game fishes. They walk on land and can actually leave a body of water walk for a few days and go invade another river/pond/estuary. They are infesting DC's rivers and lakes... and I know two guys who would love nothing more than to try to stop them! Oh by the way: they are delicious!
Road Trip: April puts us on the Potomoc at the height of shad season! The founding fish: George Washington fed his troops shad at Valley Forge. Without the shad run in 1776 we would have lost to the British, plain and simple. The British had broken our supply lines. The troops were starving. Then the shad ran. And with full bellies Washington crossed the delaware. And our fortunes turned.
A Potomoc shad
There is an art to de-boning a shad and there's only three guys left on earth who know how to do it. One of them lives in DC. "Planked" shad is an old American specialty from Indian days.
Mushrooms galore.
Great inner city urban parks for foraging
Fishing under the Ronald Reagan Theater for carp, bass, walleye... think of the awesomeness of this episode. Washington monument in the background. Capital building etc.
Plus which both Mikey and I have mondo contacts in DC.
5. Final episode: Hawaii (The Big Island)
I think for the final episode we should break with the urban thing. This would be funny. We play up how we've been going to all these urban areas around the country and now... it's time for a vacation!
We go to Hawaii. Hawaiian foraging is sitting on a beach and allowing coconuts to fall in your lap while you horse monstrous fishes from the surf from your lawn chair--or is it?
I really love the idea of sipping tropical fruity cocktails and fishing for yellowfin tuna and dorado a la: Hunter Thompson (Thompson lived on the big Island and wrote "The Great Shark Hunt" which is the "Fear and Loathing" of fishing. Maybe we could play that up somehow?) Lots of hawiian shirts in this one.
Hunter Thompson during his legendary trip to the big island
We could even do a Honolulu episode if you guys want to stay urban. But the big island would be incredible and we have contacts there. I know some crazy hawaiian forager/fishermen.
Hunting the elusive opihi
Opihi gathering: opihi (limpets) are like tiny abalones. But to get them we have to scale cliffs and risk life and limb. This is a ccrazy underground culture in Hawaii. More people die going for opihi than doing any other type of fishing or foraging.
Night fishing. there are various species of fish in Hawaii that one fishes at night for.
Night fishing for the hardest fighting fish on earth: ulua
Yes i can do this. But no, I'm not wearing a thong, man cloth or cod piece.
Hunting wild passion fruit and kiwis.
And lots of crazy footage of me and Mikey catching amazing fishes.
Future shows:
Iowa:
Our tour guide Chris Karney's father and uncle
Embracing the red state in all of us:
shooting airborne carp with bow and arrow
Asian carp doing what they do best: leaping
snagging massive prehistoric "paddlefish" and dragging them from muddy rivers
Chris Karney's, brother Jed displays a small paddlefish for all to see.
blasting squirrels from trees
Okie Noodling (catching massive catfish with our bare hands)
Mushrooming
Thousands of edible wild plants
And we have the greatest tour guide of all time: street performer, card sharp, pool hustler, stand up comic, car mechanic, and tour guide from hell: Chris Karney. A man who grew up in Farmington Iowa and can introduce us to a whole cadre of toothless, heavily tatooed, beer drinking rednecks who happen to be some of the best foragers on earth.
Detroit
What happens to a dream deferred? What happens when we wake up from the urban nightmare?
American tragedy? Or inspiration?
Urban farms in abandoned high schools.
road warrior meets Yul Gibbons
Walleye, muskelunge, pike, bass, trout, salmon
rainbow trout, lake herring
chestnuts and sasafras tea
When the urban sprawl dies, nature comes back with a vengeance.
Alaska
Heaven on earth for a forager/fisher.
Digging 10 pound giant gooey-duck clams from the mud (seriously--10 pound clams with necks 3 feet long)
king fuckin salmon, steelhead, silver salmon, sockeye salmon in short:
salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon.
467 pound halibut
Pick your weight in berries.
Mushrooms the size of dogs
... the sky's the limit
Puerto Rico? (it's an American protectorate right?)
New boyfriend for Lolly?
Blue marlin
Tuna
snorkling for queen conch!!!!!
lobster
mangrove fishing: mutton snapper, permit, pompano, snook.
permit fishing
lobster
All kinds of foraging:
Yams, cocoanuts, guaynabanana, star fruit, mangoes. avocado... you name it!
In Conclusion:
Okay guys. Hope this helped you visualize things. I think a lot of the foraging stuff we can research. Or play by ear. These are my main ideas. Let me know what you want to do.
April is good but can't start till 4/3.
Okee dokie.
Bye
--Kirk