Super Spectacle

I watched the Super Bowl last night, one because I love football and two because that's what good 'mericans do on that blessed Sunday in February. It's the last real football game until August, pitting what are arguably the two strongest teams in the foremost league in the world against one another in a game that receives unparalleled herald internationally. You're almost guaranteed some good food and good times with friends, all while witnessing some gladiator-like brutality and athleticism right alongside some well-received hilarity and strategically-placed boob shots, what with the current trend (and our accompanying fixation on) commercials and what not.

So watch I did. And having absolutely no vested interest in the outcome (thanks for NOT stepping up against A-Rod and the Pack when the time came, Vick...), I was able to absorb the game for what it was: a strong football game played between two teams who gave their hearts for the whole 60 minutes in the name of a championship. In the end, it came down to turnovers--as it often does--and a final necessary drive that Big Ben just didn't have in him. Much kudos to Aaron Rodgers: homeboy is good, and he deserves every bit of the Brett Farve-replacement fame that is about to come his way. But that's where the solid, respectable aspect of the evening stopped, for me at least, and the embarrassingly dim, spectacle-based circus began.

Now, it's nothing new that the Super Bowl is a hot bed for marketing, capitalism and the outright exploitation of Americans and the people who entertain them in the name of the almighty dollar. Plenty of people swear year after year that they "only watch the game for the commercials." And that's fine, because usually the commercials are, for the most part, hilarious, entertaining and well written.

But for some reason this year I was much more acutely aware of how dumb they must think we've all become. In lieu of intelligent, unavoidably hilarious commercials--even from the heavyweights like Budweiser and Coke--we were given spot after spot of animated sensationalism, adolescent violence and desperate reconnoitering of Eminem's supposed "talent" from rap star to Detroit mayor (although the cinematography in that ad, right up until Eminem appeared, was solid). The crowning slap in the face for me was the Groupon commercial mocking the plight of the Tibetan people for the promotion of an American-based discount.com. It was shameless, disrespectful, anything BUT funny and represented yet another nail in the coffin for U.S. international relations. No wonder the whole world thinks we're a bunch of imperialist dicks.

Without a doubt the evening's highlight for me was the Volkswagen Darth Vader commercial. Who can argue with the Imperial March and the endearing nature of a fully-costumed six-year-old channeling the motherfucking Force? Damn you, VW with your likable marketing schemes and what not. Makes me wanna go buy a Jetta and a six-year old in a Darth Vader costume. I digress, but that one-minute spot represented not only the highlight of the first half, but the entire game. Then came halftime...

What once could have almost been considered a real hip hop group (before Fergie) has now clearly decomposed in to the musical anti-Christ. I've never been a huge Black-Eyed Peas fan, but after watching that talentless degradation of what were already terrible club hits, I'm positive I never will be. What was with the light-up Tron-themed space suits? Really? I never saw the movie, mostly because I'm positive it sucked, but I'm also pretty certain that it barely made any money, other people thought it sucked too and we sure as hell didn't need to theme the halftime show around it. Why would any self-respecting musical act sign on to a carnival like this anyway? Oh wait. It's the Black-Eyed Peas and they need a pay check. No doubt The Situation and his minions will be macking bitches to the "Super Bowl Medley" for the next 364 days.

I especially like how we can no longer count on the audience--or the band--to pay attention for an entire song, so we've adopted this frantic, stage-morphing flow of artists rappelling from the rafters and popping up out of the floor as myriad artists course through a medley of 30-second mini versions of super hits. Even Slash doesn't get a full song, and after Fergie strutted over to vomit all over Axel's part, one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time is now forever ruined in my memory.

Nor can we count on the audience to be an audience anymore: instead of letting several thousand actual "fans" rush the stage to make this Disney/Fox Productions Cockfight look like a real "concert" as they've done in Super Bowls past, now they simply pay a few hundred professional dancers to further blow our minds as they spring around the field making fun, choreographed geometric shapes out of their illuminated hazmat suits. So does the same dude hold the remote control for the light-up suits on everyone? Man, next year we should hold a contest for some lucky 'merican to win a chance to light up Fergie's boobs on stage.

I'm still not quite sure what the producers of the Super Bowl commercials and half-time show were going for, but I know who they were after. Broadly targeting the overfed and over-sensationalized masses has clearly proven profitable, and these days they're unashamedly stepping up the assault on Joe Six-Pack and his old lady. The current trend in marketing and entertainment is impossible to ignore, and is frighteningly reminiscent of our own demise that was so hilariously predicted in the movie Idiocracy.

Most frightening to me, however, is the fact that as much as I hate to admit it, I think they're right on target. Ohhhhh, shiny, pretty, 'merica. Shiny pretty.

Food Series runs on New West.net

A short edit I worked on last fall regarding "food deserts" that recently appeared on NewWest.net.

Feelin' it. And yet, not feelin' it.

Though I hate to speculate on how something like this could ever happen, this evening I found myself highly caffeinated and listening to throbbing ambient on full volume while I sat at the tying bench. To say I was overstimulated for the task at hand--to reproduce countless replications of relatively mundane fly patterns--with any sort of useful focus and productivity is an understatement. You try tying more than two in a row of any given pattern whilst a few hundred milligrams of caffeine course through your veins and your stereo keeps pumping tracks like this:




Burning Man flashbacks aside, I did manage to produce a dozen fishable bugs. Though in place of one dozen uniformly-tied #10 brown Pat's rubberleg stonefly nymphs, it was more like 12 completely different, freakishly-weird variations on something like this:


What red glitter foam, purple rubber legs and twin chartreuse butts have to do with Skwala stoneflies escapes me at the moment, but rest assured, crazy shit like this usually wrecks 'em, and then we're pissed because I only tied one. I learned that from my buddy Kurt. Thanks for ruining me, bro.

Happy twisting, freaks.

"Those fish are spawning and we will try to get them to take a fly as we roll it past their nose."

Missoulian outdoor columnist and host of the weekly Montana Outdoor Radio Show Mark Ward wrote this article about "fly fishing" for steelhead that ran in the Jan. 27 issue.

Come on, Mark. As a somewhat credible, somewhat locally-known outdoor "personality," try not to come off as a total JONG. It's obvious you don't know jack about fly fishing for steelhead-or fly fishing in general for that matter-but at least have the nerve to sack up and tell it like it is:

"Fly fishing" for steelhead does not involve 11 foot nymph rigs, six BB split shot and two "black and red nymph flies" tethered to 15lb Maxima. Nor does it involve dragging said rig across the faces of a few thousand exhausted fish attempting to spawn in gin clear water while they sit literally trapped at the base of a giant, non-negotiable concrete wall. If you had even the most basic appreciation of the history, culture and inherently existentialist nature of fly fishing for steelhead, then you would know it certainly does not involve yahoos like you and your buddy hooking 20 fish in a day. And I swear on the grave of Roderick-Haig Brown and everything that is holy in this sport: fly fishing for steelhead does not have a goddamn thing to do with "rubbing a little crawdad smelly jelly" on your fly. Fuck.

Hey, that looks like a good hole!

But you know what all of those things do have to do with? Snagging spawning steelhead off of their redds and bragging about it in the newspaper. I mean, the quote of your buddy's you used is priceless. Really? You're lucky the Missoula PETA freaks haven't found you yet!

Now, I'll grant you that the North and South Fork steelhead fisheries have become all-out meat markets, with fishermen from all walks of life throwing every conceivable piece of hardware directly on to the skulls of the biggest fish they will likely ever see. And that's fine. Though I'll never be caught dead setting foot in the North Fork with the intention of fishing for those rotting, doomed husks of what were once magnificent creatures, I have been known to occasionally nymph the muddy ditch we affectionately know as the South Fork and get some steelhead jizz on my waders. But at least I can't see them, and I'm not afraid to admit what it is: glorified snagging with a fly pole.

So if it cranks your stoke to rip the hatchery brats off redds as they bump their faces against the foundation of Dworshak, fine. I couldn't give a damn how you choose to fish for steelhead. Just know that it's unethical, it's sleazy and it is without a doubt anything but fly fishing for steelhead. So please don't write about it like it is, and stay the hell out of the way of me and anyone else fly fishing for them in a respectable manner.

By the way, the technique you described is far easier to chunk on a spinning rod. The rig sinks down "in the zone" faster, and then you don't have to like, fly cast and stuff.

Next time Mark, try these. They work waaaaay better than those silly flies.


And lastly, a priceless second opinion on the matter:

Can I?

Swiped straight from the annals of Chum comes this mother of all functional fishing inventions: whisky in can. That's right angling drunks (remember, only alcoholics go to meetings), it's 12 ounces of premium low-grade, Panamanian-produced whisky in a convenient, crushable and recyclable container. According to the Scottish Spirits Ltd. website, the green aluminum cylinders of goodness will be available worldwide soon, and each 12 oz. can will carry a suggested retail price of $5.00 USD. Where was a six pack (12 pack?) of these babies while we spent five frigid days on the Smith in a snowstorm two Junes ago?

¡Saludos!

Run Off? Is that you?

Nope, it sure isn't. But if you cover one eye and quickly steal a glance at the hydrographs for Missoula-area rivers, you might think it were June. Inches of rain on top of snow the past couple of days have doubled the size of our rivers, and since all this rain is decidedly not rain above 6500 feet or so, we continue to sit in a pretty good spot this winter as far as water is concerned. Bring it on, La Niña.

New Look, Same Fishy Taste!

If you're gonna be stoked about your blog, you better like the way it looks. As an extra motivation to getting BHWM fired up and kicking again, I mixed things up a bit. Not that I disliked the old look, it was just becoming a little stagnant.

This seems a lot more fishy to me—and a lot less dark and scary. Just look how stoked Big Timber and Baker are. If you want to leave me a comment and let me know your reaction to the new steez, feel free. Or don't—I won't reply anyway.

S.A.D.

It hits every year at this time. It's not like it creeps up on you. Those of us who choose to live in this part of the world have seen it coming for months—the warmer seasons inevitably surrendering to the sulking gray ceiling and scattered snowflakes of a long Missoula winter. The summer toys are put away, the rafts stacked half-inflated in the garage, quietly waiting it out like old dogs who know better than to go outside in the cold. The focus doesn't fade, but it changes.

Not that winter is bad—winter means watching the sun rise over decoy spreads bobbing in steaming side channels, football and, if we're lucky, lots and lots of face shots.

Freshly satiated off big game and upland bird seasons, late-season trouting and, again if we're lucky, a few swung steelhead, most junkies manage to keep the fire stoked well in to late December. A waxing ski year and a waning waterfowl season further lend a hand in keeping the shack nasties at bay.

Never is that more true than during a winter like the one we're having, what with La Niña frequently puking her frozen goodness in the high country and all. Two weeks ago, snowfall amounts at several Montana ski areas were ranked amongst some of the most famous snow meccas in the West, at least temporarily silencing the argument that our snow has a tendency to, well, suck. Early season has been deep, if not downright dangerous—avalanches and tree wells have claimed the lives of multiple skiers and snowmobilers over the past few weeks as the snow continues to pile up.

But at some point, as if it's in fact too good to be true, things change again. In western Montana, that all too often means interrupting a perfectly good, crushing snow year with a week of warm weather and rain. This year, the unwanted warm-up and steady rainfall has the nerve to come just after the close of waterfowl season, effectively shutting folks like us indoors with little to do but hunker down and watch it pour while we wait for the snowpack to recover.

Having once again failed to plan ahead and figure a plane ride south of the Equator, I'm forced to break out my best coping mechanisms for this annual outbreak of S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder. An actual clinical term for cabin fever, S.A.D. always seems to hit me the hardest in mid-late January. With bowl season over, our beloved powder experiencing an old-fashioned flogging and every game animal in the woods breathing a collective sigh of relief, NetFlix downloads and used book sales take a decisive jump as Missoulians struggle to pass away the gray without sitting on a barstool—or gnawing their own arm off.

For me, this time of year forces me to start the always-daunting winter fly tying production. Up to this point I had all of the excuses I needed to avoid tying the dozens of these and tens of dozens of those that my clients will need to catch trout, trees and/or my various body parts come summer. But now, with the rain falling and the tying desk fully cleaned, organized and ready to be destroyed, it's time to start cranking.

As inevitable as each winter's S.A.D. outbreak, spring is not far off. It won't take many days of February sunshine to stir the skwala nymphs and the trout that are lying in wait to eat them. Once the circus starts, the rest of the season always seems to have a way of snowballing from one hatch to another, leaving little time to prepare for the next big event. If that weren't enough to get the fingers spinning, I know for a fact there are a few thousand B-run steelhead sitting in the main Clearwater, just begging all of us to come over the hill and hit them in the head with our miniature boat anchors and "flies" when the water starts to bump. The list of old stand-bys and new ideas needing to be twisted in to existence seems never-ending, and no matter how much I get done, I'll still run out of the most basic bugs by mid July, frantically running in to fly shops before my morning meet times to buy handfuls of Pat's rubberlegs.

There's no better time to get going. Then again, I could always watch another episode of West Wing...