Pleasant surprises are few and far between, I feel. But when they do come around, their scarcity just makes them extra special. In short: consider this a friendly reminder that life is fucking hysterical.

So last night Mike and I are driving back from a house party in Santa Monica at about 2:30 AM (fat shout to Chris - anyone who stocks Pabst is a good man), going over the various absurd things we've told people during the course of the night to entertain ourselves or just avoid the average LA conversation (which begins with "Are you in the industry?" goes immediately to "What do you do?" and is usually followed up at the next dead spot with "Where do you live?"). For reference, some of these things included me telling a girl that it was my job to be one of those guys who stands out on the corner with a sign for some condo and tries to attract attention by basically impersonating a drum major with a giant sign instead of a baton of some sort, and more succinctly, that "The Wire" is just like "Stand & Deliver."

Anyway, we're talking about something of this variety as I pull up to the stoplight at Ohio and Veteran. And as I pull up, I see a bushy tail just past a tree trunk blocking my view. And as Mike is in mid-sentence, I just say "Holy shit" and start pointing.

Almost exactly four months to the date of my original sighting, at literally the exact same intersection, was a massive raccoon, tooling across Veteran with an unmistakable swagger.

Cue the mad scramble for cell phones w/photo capabilities in hopes of capturing visual evidence of this tremendous event.

Soon after, cue a wave of confusion and disappointment as we look up only to find an empty street.

I have no idea what happened. I suspect that the raccoon either went down into the storm drain (which I doubt, since the storm drains on Veteran are not large enough to launch a small ship or harbor the raccoon), or else he scurried into the tree on the northeast corner of the intersection. I even pulled over to the side of the road into a fire lane to try to figure it out with Mike for a few minutes. Then we decided that this was a bad idea, that not even the racoon is worth a ticket, and that finally, we feel really empathetic toward all those people who have seen a Yeti but have not been able to get the camera ready in time to let the rest of the world know that we do not rule the animal kingdom.

The only question at this point is: was it the same raccoon? Or is it Raccoon II, Son of Kong? We may never know. But one thing's for sure: if you haven't stashed your gold and spare rolls of Subway bread into a secure location, it may already be too late.

"Raccoon Eulogy"

What follows is the eulogy I would have given the raccoon had his family had a funeral for him...

Although I never met or had a conversation with the raccoon that lays dead on the road behind me, I did respect him.
Actually, I'm not even sure if it's a him or a her, and I don't really want to go "investigate" if you know what I mean. Let's just assume that the raccoon was, and I guess still is, a him. He did, after all, rule the neighborhood, and I find it hard to believe a chick raccoon could pull that off. Gender speculation aside, I feel like I owe a great deal to the dead animal behind me. For months my brother Tim and I chronicled our tet-a-tet with the raccoon on Raccoon Blog. I dare say it was a competition for the ages....Magic vs. Bird, Ali / Frazier, Ohio State / Michigan...Mike and Tim versus the raccoon. And like any of those rivalries, the two competitors came out on the other side, not enemies, but colleagues in the sport of competition - except in this case one of the competitors is dead, but that's neither here nor there. I'd like to feel that together, us and the raccoon brought a rare spirit of excitement to the community of Westwood - in a time (the summer and early fall) when the college students were away, and the binge drinking was down and we all needed a reason to wake up in the morning. Of course the times were also dangerous in spots, like when a police helicopter was summoned on that one occasion the racoon slaughtered a cat...but I think even God would agree that the life of a cat is worth less than a new post on a weblog that will be ready by upward of 10 people.

At times, Raccoon, you were a mystery. We heard your name was "Snowman" and you had escaped from your family. We heard you kill a cat. We watched you escape, somehow, from a full on aerial pursuit. We tried to set a garbage trap for you, but that didn't work. Loren didn't give a shit about you, which put a tumultuous strain on our relationship, but I understood - you were a worthy opponent, and I was neglecting my relationship with her in order to try and stop you. Your death has brought peace to our union...but at night I toss and turn, wondering when or where I'll be able to find another worthy competitor. Until then and beyond, Tim and I remain honored to have stepped into the ring with you. May one day your children, if you have any, follow in your claw prints. We will welcome their challenge.

The king is dead. Long live the king.