Air-to-Surface Attacks: My Natural No-Soliciting System

Bob the Blade-Living in the desert brings unexpected challenges and beauty, from stunning golden torch cactus blooms to the territorial behavior of morning doves that use my porch as their command center.

• Morning doves create major problems for solar panel owners by nesting underneath and covering them with conductive droppings
• Personal "security system" consists of three birds in my wicker chandelier that target solicitors with remarkable accuracy
• Amazon delivery drivers have developed special techniques to avoid bird attacks when delivering packages
• Experienced public embarrassment at Cracker Barrel when a veteran pointed out bird droppings in my hair
• Brief mention of upcoming episode that will detail a six-month drug binge story

Check out all Blade content at BobTheBlade.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Bob the Blade
• 0:35 Golden Torches Blooming in Desert
• 1:20 Morning Doves: The Desert Menace
• 4:00 Air-to-Surface Bird Attack System
• 9:20 Embarrassing Restaurant Bird Incident
• 10:27 Teasing Next Episode's Drug Story

Transcript

Merced Regent VO: 0:01

You have found him. Welcome to the Bob the Blade podcast. All Blade content is found on BobTheBladecom. Here we go from the Plant City studio.

Blade: 0:13

Well, I'm taking my first couple of sips of coffee. Tell everybody where I live you live in the desert.

Sam Kinnison: 0:21

You understand that. You live in the fucking desert. Nothing grows out here. Nothing's going to grow out here. Come here, you see this. Huh, this is sand. Yeah, it's sand. You know it's going to be a hundred years.

Blade: 0:35

Plenty grows here. Take a look at this. These come from the golden torches. You grow them and eventually, after four or five years, they bloom once a year and you never know when. I always claim it's after the monsoon, because everything happens after the monsoon. But look at this, it's beautiful. Once a year this happens and that flower stays there for about half a day before it goes. And for the first time ever I've got three on one golden torch. All the years I've been here it's always one. Now it's three.

Blade: 1:11

I've got a big problem here in the desert, a very big problem that you may not assume is a big problem, but it is. It's a very, very big menace. Let's go with. Menace is probably a bigger, better term menace, and it's morning doves M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. Morning doves. They sound like you know, owls. Hear them all over the place and they're cute. I mean they're stupid looking but they're cute, but they are all over the place.

Blade: 1:43

Problem is, everybody in Arizona has solar panels, you know, and underneath the solar panels is what Shade? So they build communities underneath the solar panels. Bird shit all on top of your solar panels. I mean this thick bird shit, communities up there, seriously, and that's why they're a menace if you have solar panels. But the idea is and people learned this years ago, like me you put a fence around your solar panel so they can't get underneath them where the shade is. And you have to do it, man. You have to put spikes, you know, around the top of them so they don't, you know, get any smart ideas. People put spikes all over their house. You see them, and that's so. The birds don't make nests there because they're boy. Those things are tough, you know, because their bird shit is really dangerous.

Blade: 2:32

Had my HVAC checked out the other day it's two, because one for upstairs and one for downstairs. And first of all here's a tip. He says doesn't matter what kind you get, they're all good. But I always loved that saying you can't stop a train. Always loved that slogan advertising marketing for those HVACs that are trains T-R-A-N-E which I happen to have, you know. He says they're all the same, don't worry about it. But anyway he checks it out and says it's fine.

Blade: 3:02

Told him a story once about how bad the morning dove bird shit really is because it transmits electricity if there's a lot of it. He said he sent a poor guy out here to work on a guy's HVAC and it was a guy hadn't been paying attention over the years. It was just thinking bird shit morning, dove, bird shit. And he goes in there, tries to scoop it out, kills him. He told me that story. Wow, okay, yeah, I mean, once you start killing people then you go from menace to huge problem. What a story.

Blade: 3:40

But I've got these three guys because I've got this, you know wicker rattan chandelier hanging from my porch. Take a look at it. And I call it that because it makes me seem like again, like I have money, when really what it is is three nightlights from Home Depot and they build I let them, they build their nestests in this Myra Tan wicker chandelier and they fire these air-to-surface missiles at people. And they're accurate. Man, look, take a look, they're all three up there. You know, at any moment now, and I'm surprised I took this photo and I didn't get one right in the lens. Right, they get pissed off. Man, listen, I'm trying to feed my baby here, take that now.

Blade: 4:33

And my neighbor next door she's cool, she's got a sign up that says no solicitors. And because there are a lot of those around here, why do you? Hey, that's amazing to me. I always listen to their pitch just to see how they handle it. You know, yeah, I'm interested in what they have to sell. Until they start talking about selling me solar panels, which I already have. I'm like, dude, take a look, I got 25 of them up there, I don't need any solar panels. Then they start with the upsell. But it's too late at that point, you know, and she's got this big sign on her porch that says no solicitors and she says it's very effective. You know, and I don't have a sign that says no solicitors. You know, I've got three birds up there in my wicker chatan chandelier, which is more than effective. But there's a learning curve. You come by a couple of times, you know, to try to sell me some solar panels or whatever it is you're selling that day. You're going to get it Air to surface. You learn not to come back. That's what I mean by learning curve.

Blade: 5:34

A couple of days ago, water filter girl, you know, rings the doorbell. I didn't know who it was at first. The doorbell rings, the dog goes nuts and I'm, you know. I'm running up to the doorbell to see who, who who is soliciting At this point. I looked through my little peephole and there's this beautiful girl, you know, long, brown, beautiful silky, like auburn, red hair, you know, and she's smiling. You know she's selling something, whatever it is, and I open the door and the dog's barking her ass off at her and I'm like hi, you know.

Blade: 6:08

And then, within eight words of her pitch, plop right in the shoulder. Air to surface. Eleven words, plop other shoulder. I don't know which bird is guilty, one, two or three, I don't know. Twelve words into her pitch. Plop right in the knee, she's looking down. You know what happened. Bop right in the knee, she's looking down. You know what happened. Bop right in the head. All three of them attacked her and got her four times 12 words in. She didn't even look at me, brushes her hair a little bit this way, walks back to her car which is at the curb, gets in the car, takes off. I bet a million bucks and said that's the last day on the job for her Ever. You see what I mean. Now that's menace. Do you see what I mean?

Blade: 7:00

Those guys, they're cute and all that. Now here's the deal. When they take them away, you hire a guy to clean off your frigging. You know your solar panel, you got to do that. So they, you know, produce power so you get your discounts or whatever. You know they had to clean them off, you know. And they come across families in birds' nests and eggs, you know. And the guy said well, what we do is we take the nests with the eggs in them, we take them to a preserve over in Gilbert. Well, they'll be protected and taken care of, and people around here believe them because they want to, even though they don't believe them and they shouldn't.

Blade: 7:52

I'll tell you who's gotten smart about it is the Amazon guys. They've got these. What do the guys say? You could call it Levee dollies. Levee dollies, he calls them. He's going to put the packages on a levee dolly. I haven't seen him do it yet and they push the packages onto the porch so they don't have to go underneath the porch and get hit Direct target, you know. And they take this little stick and they push the doorbell to let you know that they've riven Drives a dog crazy. I hate when they do that. You don't have to. I tell them you don't have to ring the doorbell, it's okay, you know. You know people get used to it. Me personally. That is my no solicitor sign. I know how to do it. I know where they're like boop, boop, boop, I walk around. It's a little maze thing. I walk around till I avoid getting hit with an air to surface.

Blade: 8:44

Now, the other day I'm with Steve Conley, my buddy, and we're at Cracker Barrel and he's got his what is it? You know? He's got his fully loaded sausage casserole and I'm eating the country boy breakfast and this old guy comes up to me with his veteran's hat on and I'm sure he's 75 and he's walking slowly and he's smiling and he says excuse me, do you realize you've got like shaving cream in the back of your head? There's a blob of shaving cream back there. And I turn around calmly and he says yeah, and I said no, I didn't Take a napkin to it.

Blade: 9:25

Take a look at it. Aha, every color you can imagine in pigeon shit right there Gray, black, brown, red, blue, green, white, gray, all in that. So I got it at one point. I don't know how I got it. I thought I was good at it, I thought I was bulletproof. They got me Air to surface Top of the head. I didn't know it.

Blade: 9:52

Now, that's one thing. All right, you get hit in the top of the head with the morning dove shit. That's one thing, and you're parading around town with it in your hair. Most people aren't going to care, notice or even know what it is, but this guy had to ask me. That's the weird thing is why would you ask someone what is in your hair? And thing is, why would you ask someone what is in your hair? And I looked at Conley and Conley looked at me and we just went. Let me just tell you he did not finish his loaded casserole. I did not finish my country boy breakfast either. We just chatted about the weather and about monsoons. Man, I wanted to tell you I went off on a drug binge. Six months, six months drug binge. I don't know what got into me, but I did. I disappeared for a while there I think two people asked about me. Hey, are you still doing that thing? Two people.

Blade: 10:44

No one cares.

Blade: 10:47

And I said one day you know when I get the couch, I just don't want to tell that story today. It's a whole fucking episode I just don't want to tell today. I'll tell you let's go for the shoot for next week. Okay, I mean because it's a story that will knock your socks off. It will. It will knock your socks off any MDs out there that watch this. It's gonna knock your socks off Any MDs out there that watch this. It's going to knock your socks off what happened to me. And this drug binge knocked my doctor's socks off. Usually they're talk, talk, talk, telling you everything you know. This guy sat there and stared at me. That's next time.

Merced Regent VO: 11:31

Regent. Hey, we'll catch you next time. The Bob the Blade podcast is here when he's off drugs. Enjoy these when you can. All Blade content is available right now at BobTheBladecom. Bye, bye.