Wyland and his plates-gimee my money!

We blogged about this sad event last week. In terms of poor public relations "the artiste" Wyland dropped a media art bomb on California with all the expected results.

Now others in the blog world and even the LA Times has responded with a pithy Op-Ed skewering the artist in a way that only the LA Times can.

Here's a short outtake:

Wyland has his own nonprofit foundation and wanted 20% of the state's profits from his plates -- about $700,000 a year -- donated to it. He worked out a similar deal, for 10%, with Florida, but for California, this is a load of blubber. The Wyland plates have been prettifying cars for years, but the state Department of Motor Vehicles isn't a marketing tool for any individual's ventures, for profit or not. No commissions in return for the use of intellectual property.

"The whale tail is my art and my idea," Wyland spouted off to The Times. "I'm sticking up for artists' rights, for the common person."

Not that common people generally travel the world painting gigantic cetacean murals, but we get the concept. Wyland's donation of the license plate design, however temporary, was a terrific gift -- for the state, its drivers and for him. He's had thousands of free mini-billboards all over the freeways this last decade.

Editors note: Perhaps Wyland should invest in a few "Oompah Loopahs" to help him haul around that massive ego of his.

$1800 for wine on a Shark Shoot? It must be California!

One of the more interesting moments for us here at Shark Diver was the wine order we had to put together for a recent film shoot in the Bahamas.

Turns out the entire crew was French, and stereotypes aside, they loved their wines.

Typically when we put a shark shoot together we get calls for standard shark gear, cages, chum, cameras, what you would expect for a few days at sea with big sharks.

This unexpected 12 case wine order was a chance for me personally to showcase some talents that only Shark Diver seems to possess in the film and television world...in depth knowledge of good California wines.

Needless to say, of the entire film project, this took the most time and needed the most attention. After all there's no way on god's green earth our California based company was going to ship "subpar wines" to a bunch of Frenchmen who would be at sea for 10 days in the middle of the Grand Banks, Bahamas.

The final word? They liked our wines.

Latest White Shark Sightings Report-California

RECENT SHARK SIGHTINGS

March 26
Location: South Pier, Huntington Beach
Surfer Jeff Duncan reports seeing a shark while surfing on the south side of the pier. “I was sitting watching the horizon, for the next set wave, when I noticed something surface just to my right of view and approximately 20 to 30 feet away,” said Duncan in his report. “It took only a moment to realize that it was not a dolphin, whale or other animal…it was a shark. It slowly surfaced only enough to see its side and dorsal fin. I only saw a large triangular dorsal fin and about 4 to 5 feet of the shark’s dorsal/side, which was a very light gray. The large dorsal fin had a somewhat irregular edge which almost looked damaged in someway, though not seriously. It seemed to be swimming north toward the pier and not toward me, but I was the only surfer near the animal at the moment.”

March 22
Location: Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach
Beachgoer Matt Moore reports seeing what appeared to be a shark or sharks circling a small whale 50 to 75 yards offshore. Having seen great whites before in person while surfing, he reported that he was quite certain the dorsal fin was that of a great white. Two surfers nearby concurred with Moore that they’d seen a shark.

March 14
Location: South of Bay Street, Santa Monica
Surfer Dan Burks reports seeing what appeared to be an 8- or 9-foot shark some 70 yards away from him. Burks says that another surfer nearby also saw the shark.

March 7
Location: Dog Beach, Huntington Beach
Surfer Tom Larkin reports having been attacked by a shark, which bit his surfboard. “I was waiting for a set for about five minutes when I felt a jolt down on the tail of my board, immediately followed by a violent bubble cascade, which sunk the board down about another 8 inches,” said Larkin in his report on www.sharkresearchcommittee.com. Larkin then caught a wave to the beach where he “emptied the board [of water] through the apparent bite mark.”

March 5
Location: Trail 1, San Onofre State Beach
Kelly Lewis was walking her dog along the beach at 1:45 p.m. when she came upon what appeared to be a 6-foot-long great white shark “thrashing violently [on the beach] until a set of waves came in to float it,” said Lewis on the Web site. “It then spent another two to three minutes in very shallow water sometimes on its back, eventually swimming into deeper water and disappearing.”

Source: www.sharkresearchcommittee.com