"It's Venice, man. Ghetto by the sea."

so this post was originally about the "Venice League of Hobo Rollerskaters" a group of degenerates who get together and roller-dance to remixed usher songs, but they've been lazy lately and i don't think they deserve my blog attention. i'm here to tell you about the hot new venice attraction: the "Venice Mutant Seagull"- a breed of gull raised solely on boardwalk food and second hand marijuana smoke. these birds smell food from miles away and have frightening psychic abilities. i know this is true because they somehow manage to congregate en mass the moment the thought "what the hell am i going to do with all these chicken-cheese fries" forms in your brain.

now, this week's mutant gull encounter is brought to you by "big daddy's burgers and more" a fried food restaurant that boasts "free meal with any t-shirt purchase!". and we all know how excited i get whenever the words "free" and "t-shirt" are thrown into a sentence, so you know i inquired about the t-shirt/food combo plan. unfortunately the shirts only came in XXL and i refuse to pay $12 for something that will resemble a day-glo tent once i'm wearing it- but i wasn't ready to give up on the t-shirt dream. i measured the intern and it turns out he's tall enough to wear an XXL and not look like a circus-freak. it was decided he would buy the shirt and get the most expensive meal on the menu for free- the double fish and calamari combo, and i would buy some chicken-cheese fries and a beverage to supplement the meal.

and we discovered we're wimps. halfway through the calamari and fish i felt very full and slightly ill and i think the intern felt the same. i'm betting it had something to do with the fish looking more like a fried corn dogs than anything removed from the sea, but that's just a guess. so the game changed from eating food to throwing food. of course we already had a loyal following of mutant gulls so that was easy. for some reason when things are too easy, you feel the need to take them to the next level. we started throwing larger portions of food. whole potato fries, big calamari rings... and the mutant gulls just swallowed them. so it was decided we would throw the last piece of fish; a piece of fish about six inches long, two inches in diameter. i tossed the fish and a mutant gull that was OBVIOUSLY on steroids LAUNCHED himself at the fish, caught it, and SWALLOWED IT WHOLE. have you even seen a bird eat that much fish at once? i for one have not, and i'm not entirely sure the bird knew what it was doing because it looked panicked for a moment while it figured out exactly how it would move the six inch piece of fish lodged in his throat down to his stomach. his neck bulged like those snakes on wild america after they eat a whole raccoon. i wish i had a picture. it waddled around looking concerned (i can only assume because it couldn't move its head to the left or the right) and contemplated digestion. the other gulls were jealous so we threw them the remains of the cheese fries, but I don't think it gave them the same kind of satisfaction. when the food was gone there was nothing left to do but mock the rollerskaters and wonder if "The World's Greatest Wino" makes more money singing "jingle bells" on the beach than i do in the television industry. but that's venice for you... ghetto by the sea.