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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.

Well, it happened. For better or worse.

We hadn't heard from (or seen) the raccoon for weeks. Which was unlike him. When you own a neighborhood, you flaunt it - whether it's asking for cigarettes from a different species, stealing bread from national sandwich chains, or just taking a dump whenever/wherever you want. That's just the nature of kingship.

At any rate, I was driving back from Historic West Adams late on a Saturday night. I had just transferred to the 405 and was dodging cars to get onto the exit ramp to Wilshire. Traffic was backed up along the ramp...which gave me the opportunity to see it.

Lying along the roadside, dead as a doornail, was the biggest raccoon anyone had ever seen. A tire-sized stripe was caved into its side, and its mouth was just open enough to bare teeth.

It was at this point that I realized that traffic was so backed up because everyone who was exiting the 405 at Wilshire was rubber-necking this giant fallen beast.

I've been hoping for weeks that I was wrong - that the King had perhaps faked his own death to throw us off the trail. Or that one of his mininions had siply taken a cue from him and tried to assert its authority over the residents at an inopportune time and paid the ultimate price.

Regardless, we have had no run-ins with the raccoon for weeks. It's time to move on with our lives...at least, until the next species of giant wildlife pops up.

Thanks for being with us.

I let the trash pile up in the garbage can until it was an appropriate mixture of raccoon-baiting garbage - one bag of Jack in the Box, one bag of Carl's Jr., one Hot Pocket box, two boxes of cereal and thirty six cans of Diet Pepsi. I had done research of the internet variety on what kind of garbage appeals to the raccoons' senses and I felt good about this mixture. As I bagged up the trash, I remembered this comment someone left me on my MySpace that I had previously ignored...

"He's not my raccoon. I don't know him. I don't know his name. I don't know anything about his alleged criminal activities. I've never helped him rape marcupials. And I have no idea why they call him 'Snow Man.' So STOP SNITCHING!"

Why I ignored this comment until this very moment, I honestly don't know. Sure I've been binge drinking and learning how to dance the Chicken Noodle Soup but that's no excuse. Obviously the reveal - if it is true - that "they" call the raccoon "Snow Man" is gigantic, although I'm not sure why yet. I do know that it is also the moniker of rapper Young Jeezy, which very well could suggest a connection between Jeezy and the raccoon. Snow is a slang term for cocaine. Maybe the raccoon is a foot soldier, a trafficker of cocaine. This is all just speculation on my part, but I'd say there's an 85% chance it's accurate.

All of this speculation has left me with a choice. Should I try to trap the raccoon on my own, or should I try to contact the individual who contacted me about trying to contact the raccoon?

Many other, lesser people in this situation would try to be a hero, rent a sniper rifle with tranquilizer darts, night vision goggles and embark on a dramatic attempt to ensare the raccoon. But not me. I remember that we live in a post 9/11 world where Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin can be killed by a Stingray. And if the Crocodile Hunter can be killed by a Stingray than the Raccoon Blogger "lookatthatfuckingthing!" could certainly be killed by a raccoon. I've decided I should go into the raccoon trapping process with as much information as possible. Therefore, I will reach out to this Aram...hopefully for a meeting...where I can interrogate him, get as much info on "Snow Man" the raccoon as possible, and hopefully bring him to his family...or to justice, whichever is necessary.

It's taken me a little over a week to post because I was genuinely upset by Tim's snide comments regarding my last realization regarding the raccoon. Calling my open-minded concern for the raccoon and his family a "love fest" is exactly the kind of anti-emotional statement one would expect from a hipster who goes to see TV on the Radio at the Hollywood Bowl...and then fabricates a raccoon attack to sway public opinion in the direction of "all raccoons are bad."

This is simply unfair.

There comes a time, at least twice a week, that I have to take out the trash. After I tie up the garbage bag and walk out of my apartment, I start thinking about how long of a walk it is to the trash chute. And I think about the fact that the hallway leading to the trash chute is open on one side, looking down on a walkway between our apartment building and one west of us. My next thought is, "Instead of walking all the way down this long ass hallway to throw this bag of garbage down the chute, why don't I just chuck it over the railing into the abyss?" I can't tell you how often I've been tempted by this thought. I've never actually followed through with it though. I respect the ecological health of the walkway too much. This is, after all, the same walkway where Loren encountered the raccoon right before she lit a cigarette. It is also the same walkway that a 19 year old female bum has started sleeping in. Alas, I wouldn't want to fuck up the home of a miscreant.

However, I wouldn't mind ruining the environment or throwing trash at a bum if it's a way to lure in the raccoon. I anticipate the garbage can will be full some time before this coming Thursday...and on that night, whichever night it may be, I plan on chucking our garbage over the railing. Knowing that raccoons love garbage, I suspect this will bring the raccoon to our walkway where I can trap him - in a friendly way.

And the process of getting the raccoon's family back can begin...

I'm really happy to hear that Mike has a love fest going on with the raccoon's estranged human family. Makes me feel like there are Roman candles full of potpourri going off in my heart. Cause meanwhile, I was at the Hollywood Bowl last night, sitting around in a sea of parked cars, blocked in on all sides, waiting for the people ahead of me to come back to their cars and move so I could leave. I popped open my sun roof to let some air in, and I was looking up at the stars through the canopy of trees above this part of the parking lot. And after I was done contemplating the Big Dipper, I refocused my eyes to the trees.

Coiled like an evil spring on a branch directly overhead, I saw a grey and black ball of fur -- and a flash of white teeth.

And before I could actually get the words "Holy shit" out of my mouth, I had restarted the car and mashed the 'sunroof close' button. And thank God I did. Cause there are few scarier things that I've seen in my life than a raccoon dive-bombing toward me with arms and legs outstretched in a furry X of death.

THWACK!

The raccoon hit the sunroof and left the equivalent of a chalk outline (excpet in smog grime -- hooray, LA!) on the barely-closed sunroof -- then rolled off. And while I reached under my seat to grab the Mag Lite filled with rocks that I keep under there for protection, he disappeared.

I waited in the car for another half hour til I could leave. And he didn't come back. But it's not repetition that makes me nearly shit my pants. It's kamikaze nocturnal rodents. So Mike can get all the MySpace comments he wants. I think it's a decoy. I think it's a ploy by the animal equivalent of those tornado chasers, trying to lull us into a state of comfort so that fucker can bust out of some bushes and violate some innocents.


Bottom line: keep your guard up, people.