June 26, 2007

Would You Watch A Dog Lick His Balls On The Internets?

On my mind at 4am in the middle of the ocean…

Why do we Americans think the world/our government/oil companies owe us cheaper petroleum? I would rather have cheaper milk, beer, wine and water.

Why does the coffee smell like feet tonight?

dog_licking_stitches.jpgOur country is doomed because even I know who Paris Hilton is. Rock stars, actors, athletes and spoiled, rich kids are not heroes and role models-they really contribute little, or nothing to society and we should treat them, accordingly.

Computers make nothing easier in the end, but I want to mount a web cam on my dog when I’m away at sea. I think I’d like to give him his own website, but he follows my wife around everywhere and she’d shut that shit down the first time she opened the bathroom door after a shower to find him staring at her. Come to think of it, he licks his balls entirely too much, anyway.

I’ve never met my boss and probably never will. Does anyone else out there have a boss they’ve never met, or am I just a freak of corporate nature? I talked to him on the phone once before I was hired, but that really doesn’t count, does it? The same goes for my peers. Out of the 120, or so people in my department, I’ve only met about 15 of them. Most of them, I will never see, or even speak to. Worse, I spend my half my life working and living with only 7-10 other people. It really sucks when we run out of stories with 3 weeks left in the hitch.

I would go absolutely mad without the Internets. Suicide-resistant (not proof) toilets are manufactured and sold to prisons-look it up…not that I’m contemplating the “Big Flush”, or anything.

Hurricanes-
Looking out the nearest porthole, I can’t see any, but I know they’re out there, coming. Over the years, I’ve been hammered by 8 of the nasty bitches. Which brings up the point that hurricanes should always be named after women, from my personal perspective. It seems more fitting, especially if you consider my ex-wife.

Finally, there can be no greater buzzkill for me as a writer than to realize, Oh shit! My deadline approaches, which is why you get random 4am thoughts, surreptitiously written while on shift, hoping nobody notices me scratching my head and swearing under my breath about writer’s block. Come to think of it, I’m always scratching my head and swearing under my breath at work, so I’m probably in the clear.

Time to feed the mermaids…

Any Port in the Storm Archives

June 19, 2007

Almost Home

Here I sit, alone in my little piece of Vanuatu heaven; door to my left, shitter to my right and the bunk against my sore back. My right elbow takes it on the chin from the corner of a small cabinet whenever I right-shift to Capitalize. DAMMIT! I can hear the seashell-like echo of my shower, beckoning me like a siren song, to bask in its rusty, orange water. I can smell it, too. The ship’s water has a distinctive odor. I wonder if I do, now?

My bunk rattles behind me; in time with the door to my little clothes cabinet and the rusty, metal panels of my ceiling where the little bits of toilet paper we jam into the cracks to dampen the sound have fallen out, leaving them free to harmonize with the creaks and groans of the bulkheads as the ship wallows in the trough of a gentle swell. An overhead forte to my shower’s fortissimo, but there’s no room to dance in here. I can sweep my arms round in a circle and touch the extremes of my little world, without leaving my little chair pushed up tight to a hinged board that drops down from the side of my cabinet to resemble a desk, in miniature. I find it a cozy and familiar existence now, though it usually hurts to move around in here and forget rushing out in an emergency, lest I end up one myself, in this tiny, cramped room.

Just about one year ago, I came to this place, from another place; large and lush in its accommodations and atmosphere. I was at first appalled at the dirty, cramped ship and the utterly archaic technology and mechanics of this old scow. I was disgusted and physically sickened by the food-and the water? It’s unfit for human consumption. That is to say that some years after shitting our your intestines during your first night onboard, you will die horribly from some sort of exotic metal poisoning-just like a Russian spy lounging in Great Britain, reminiscing over cold-war stories that seemed and are now, exactly a lifetime away. It is foreordained and I accept it.

I accept it and a year ago I embraced it, one could say. After a few weeks, I settled in here, made a peace of sorts with my shower and well, sort of fell in love with the rest of the place. It was the people that initially brought me around and certainly not anything I’ve described above. The best of the best of a dying breed of pirate unlike any other before, since, or ever will be. Fingers missing from the old days of tossing one too many sticks of dynamite while smoking the good shit to help the pills taken to clear the head from a hangover. Stories like fables-of sea gods, shrimp and great feats of strength and endurance that rival anything in print, or on the big screen. Most exude that quiet wisdom born of a lifetime bent to the same task as it evolved through the years to be something they can claim to have created and crafted into what it is today. But they won’t and now it’s over.

It was because of this extraordinary crew that I requested to remain in the one place in this business that all others refuse to even visit and only talk about in hushed tones, lest someone hear them and think to send them there. It is a backwater, a dead-end, and a stinking garbage dump to most. It is a second home to me. The last year spent working and living with these guys has been an amazing, once in a lifetime experience. Experience. There must be collectively, over two hundred years of highly specialized experience on this small and aging crew. There has never in the history of the industry been one like it and never again will there be. I feel lucky for the last year I’ve spent with these guys and it has been a hell of ride.

Truly the end of an era and I wonder as I sit alone contemplating this, what their thoughts are on the width and breadth of their creation; now that its doomed to memory and fable. Do they ponder the fate of our home here-her name fading as she founders on the bank of some backwater canal where only children and derelicts will read her name until she slips beneath the surface. She will be remembered and missed by us and us alone.

The techniques used here will disappear along with the outdated technology used to perform this operation. The tools, the terms and jargon will all fade away, probably years before the rusted hulls of our ships slip beneath the muddy waters of time. The men who piloted these ships will move on, to pass their experiences to others, for naught. Nobody will ever again coax their ships to dance together in the moonlight.

I am saddened and will miss this place, these people and the amazing magic we worked.

Any Port in the Storm Archives

June 12, 2007

Where's The Kava People?

This morning I found out my latest ship is registered in Port Vila, Vanuatu. That makes it sovereign Vanuatuan soil. A little piece of paradise. I live in fucking Vanuatu. Now, Port Vila isn’t actually very tropical paradise-like, being built by westerners for westerners and if I remember correctly, the Ni-Vanuatu (local folk) weren’t even allowed inside the town until around WWII. But hey, I’ve got Fiji for a neighbor and they ate people here in Vanuatu, even after I was born and I’m not that old. The locals call it “eating the man”; I prefer the term “long pig”. That’s going pretty fucking tropical on your ass, eh?

vanu04.jpgI suppose Vanuatu sounds familiar to those of you who watch TV. This afternoon, I learned that TV show called “Survivor” did a season here. Though I’ve never watched it, I understand the premise of the show is to dump people somewhere, starve them, make them perform like circus monkeys, and watch them act like asshats, hopefully.

It makes me wonder if there’s going to be a hidden camera in my shitter. Is the American television audience going to watch me take a dump? At first thought, I can’t imagine my grunting and straining to be the kind of thing you want beamed onto your 50” plasma TV. Then again, to me television is really just so much straining and grunting and I see headlines that scream people are rabid for reality TV. It doesn’t get any more real than pinching one off, right?

I could be a TV star like those guys catching crabs in Alaska (Cue any music better than Bon Jovi, which leaves it wide open for you folks). Hell, I caught the crabs in Venezuela, once and I’ve worked offshore Alaska. I’m in…OK, maybe not, but I’m still living in paradise. Well, sort of. There aren’t any palm trees, or a sandy beach, but the deck is painted with sand impregnated paint, so it’s sort of a steel beach and the masts might double as palm trees. Never mind. At least we don’t starve out here, usually and I’ve never acted like an asshat, no sir.

So maybe the whole Vanuatu thing is a stretch. I can always head back home to Panama, where I’m now registered (much like a ship, or a sex-offender-take your pick) as a certified seaman. They have palm trees there, don’t they?

/see you on the beach-BYOLP

The Pirate says that long pig tastes like chicken.

Any Port in the Storm Archives

June 5, 2007

Fuck You. I Quit.

I made a big fucking mistake. I quit smoking. Ever loose a best-est buddy, or a good horse? I feel like someone shot my horse. All day long, I reach in my pocket and the fucking horse is just gone.

Me and my lighter, we still hang out, but it’s not the same, you know? I pull him out, give him a flick and we just stare at each other. We’ve got nothing to say to one another without a smoke to break the ice. I left him at home on a shelf today and looked in on him when I got back this evening. He wouldn’t even look at me.

quitsmoking2.jpgThe cigs well, they just aren’t around anymore. No smoke to wake up with over a cup of coffee. Coffee’s not even the same. The whole mood is wrong. The scent is off, taste, everything. This morning I tried something called teasan, flavored with some African rubber tree bark, or something like that. It was red and smelled like this medicine I was forced to gag down when I was 5 and got pinworms. Some things just stick with you, kicking you in the teeth when you’re down, decades later, I guess.

Food? Not the same. I mean, what’s the point of eating if there’s no smoke to look forward to after you’ve finished. I have no appetite, anymore. People tell you that you’re going to eat a lot, get fat(ter) and it’s all bullshit. I don’t feel like eating ever again. Pizza? Not without a cowboy killer to wash it down. That part of my life seems to be over, too. I’m going to be a skinny fucker from now on. Unhappy and skinny.

Sex? Again, after you’ve done the deed, what are you supposed to do-cuddle? Fuck. “Hey baby, that was great. I’ve got to get up and make a salad?” “Mow the grass?” “Adjust the clocks, daylight savings is right around the corner?”

You know those “special” moments like getting pulled over, loosing your wallet, the wife giving you a rash of shit about something you fucked up? Yeah, long, hot drag on a Marlboro and you’re on your way to coping. Or at least out of the house and away from the angry spouse and heavy objects. Close your eyes, smoke silently and you’ll remember you dumped your wallet in the wicker basket on top of the bakery stand. Get lost? Look at a map through your own cigarette smoke and you’re bound to find the way to the beer store.

What about cigarette breaks at work? What the fuck do non-smokers DO at work? Work? God, I hope not. Man, I sit a 12 hour shift. That’s a lot of smoke breaks. Many. Mucho. Motherfucker. My ass is gonna spread like a bloodstain on linoleum, which is to say faster than it does on cement.

Did that last bit make any sense? Of course not. How can it when I can’t contemplate my words over a smoke? No more drafts for this guy. Don’t like it? Have a smoke and re-write it your damn self, which brings me to the only good I can see coming from this quitting bullshit. I’ve now got a built-in excuse to be an asshole.

Smoke em if you got em, cause I don’t, Motherfuckers.

The Pirate's ass is spreading as we speak.

Any Port in the Storm Archives

May 15, 2007

Static

lightning-bolt.gifI am buried up to my neck in an immersion course on some pretty nasty scientific-type shit, so I yanked this fucker from my stash of buried treasure. It has significance in that while I’ve just experienced a lull in the frequency of attacks over the past few months, the wrath of God has once again descended upon me and I am getting shocked, badly, every few minutes.

My new mission in life is to find out WHY I constantly get static shocks when nobody else seems to. I mean, I get shocked every day, all day long. No matter where I am, or what I'm doing; everything I touch shocks me. I often get horribly jolted-like electric chair style, too. I'm not talking about those little punk-ass sparks that I've seen the rest of you lucky bastards get, once in a while. I mean the eyeball popping, shit your pants, foaming at the mouth, jerking at the chair restraints variety that leaves my hair smoking and my eyeballs poached in their sockets. Fucking lightning bolts from heaven and the smell of ozone in the air. I remember working in an office where I would complain about my condition, daily, to my co-workers. They shrugged it off till the day I passed by a metal desk chair and it sent one of those fucking lightning bolts across a foot of empty space, stabbing me in the kidneys. Everyone saw it AND heard it. My co-workers shied away from me after that...

I'm not an overly religious man, but sometimes I think there must be a God and he has drinking buddies. They sit around on the couch pounding pints of Guinness and every so often God goes," Ok, watch this" ...ZAP! And he and his beer-soaked pals have a laugh-up. Once the giggles subside and they clean up the spilled beer, God readies another fucking poke at me and everyone leans forward, the bowl of popcorn, forgotten....

Well, this cosmic joke has finally reached its pinnacle. Two days ago a stream of WATER in the bathroom shocked me. Water people-I was attacked by WATER, the shit you’re supposed to bathe in and drink to stay alive. If you think about it, the next shock might come courtesy of a stream of urine and I can't go there. I'm scared and fucking done playing around. I was taught the scientific method in college and I must confess I never really had much use for it, until now. If it takes until the day I die (from repeated and prolonged exposure to static electricity, most likely), I will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos to determine the root cause of my misfortune. I will find a solution to this, even if only for some other poor soul who suffers as I have. I have already formed and discounted several hypotheses: A person's water intake. Being mildly O/C and having a fixation with getting enough water, I tend to over-hydrate and then ignore fluid intake for days at a time. No correlation there. NO, I don't shuffle my feet either, dammit. I do spend an inordinate amount of time on computers (14 hrs/day), but I suspect there are plenty of you out there that can top that and are not walking around like Mr. Twitchy here. Where does that leave me? Does anyone out there have any ideas??

The Pirate wants you to pull his finger ...

Any Port in the Storm Archives

May 8, 2007

The Sands of Time

Despite being a pirate, I love rocks. Perhaps more so being away from them, months or weeks at a stretch. I know a little about them and the processes that create, destroy and remake them. I’m also surprised at how many people can walk around, oblivious to the earth and its rocks and not be curious; walk a beach and feel the sand beneath their feet and not stop to look at a grain, or two and wonder about the journey and history behind it.

sandinmyear.jpgYou could pause and pick up one single grain of beach sand. You would find it to be clear-a tiny grain of quartz, insignificant and lost in a soft breath, or slight breeze, but it has a story that rivals all others told, in its majesty and scope. That grain at has at least a four and a half billion-years of changes and journeys, most likely all across and through our great planet.

If given an afternoon it might tell you of just its most recent years, traveling the continent. The journey from its lofty perch on the side of a mountain more massive and majestic than any ever gazed upon by human eyes. A journey of a hundred million years, or more from mountain to beach. Torn down by wind, rain, ice, or sunlight, and the crushing weight of time, immortal, long before life began here in the stagnant pools, evolving into blue-green algae, stromatalite beds that generated the first oxygen for our atmosphere. From rock face, to boulder and mountain streams that roared for the dinosaurs. Boulder to cobble in a rushing river, offering food and drink to mammals who took up the scepter from their cold-blooded predecessors. Cobble to stone tool, carried and treasured by humanoids that first stood up to watch the stars wheel across the sky. Lost and buried for eons, unearthed by flood, earthquake, volcano, or any number of natural processes that will still be at work long after you and I are but dust. Tool to trash, reduced to pebble in the slow grind of time that it takes man to find fire as a friend. Pebble to grain, dumped into the sea as a river’s flesh to it’s blood of water, to rise again as the beach beneath your feet as you walk along unaware of the story beneath you.

And most of those who walk the beach will always be unaware, but before you go, you might contemplate how it came to be on the mountain. Yes, even a grain of sand has a few stories in it.

Any Port in the Storm Archives

May 1, 2007

I Just Flew In

Today I’m traveling home. This is a very emotional time for me. Overwhelming joy at the prospect of being home again with my family and friends, tempered by the gauntlet of sheer stupidity, rudeness and the complete and utter lack of common sense that I am forced to run in order to get to the above-mentioned paradise. Traveling to my ship is much easier; I’m just pissed off at everything and have nothing to look forward to for the next month and a half. I wrote the following on the way to work, in an airport and airplane, five and a half weeks ago.

“I just flew in and man are my arms tired…” For me, flying is just like that-a really bad joke. I know I’m not as patient as I should be and I have little or no patience when it comes to others ineptitudes and lack of common fucking sense, especially if I’m paying for it, or I am traveling. Flying is one of those experiences that seem to accentuate the worst in some people. Not me, I mean other people. I’m a saint, like Mary Fucking Poppins-practically perfect in every way.

For instance, nearly everyone in the country has a bank account, be it overdrawn (like mine) or not. Of those people with accounts, I bet 99% have used an ATM more than once in their lives, no? Given that the majority of the adult population is ATM savvy, why is it that 9 out of 10 idiots that fly cannot figure out how to use an airline kiosk? Why do these brain-dead sheep-shaggers have to drag the ticket agent out from behind the counter and delay ME when the kiosk looks and operates just like the ATM 3 blocks from their goddamn house? OK, it gives you tickets instead of cash, but for fucks sake, it just shows you where you’re going and asks if you cool with that. If your not, get outta the airport and GO BACK HOME where you belong.

I must interrupt this tirade to report that some stranger just walked up to my table in the food court and said, “Here, let me get that for you,” and cleaned all my lunch garbage up. While he was hauling my trash to the bin, his wife commented that while he is a nice guy, she had no fucking clue why he was cleaning up after me. Should I be thankful or weirded out? I am both. Nobody does this shit in an airport. He’s back and seems to be a nice guy. His kids are polite. I’m cool, now.

Where was I? Assholes who can’t operate an airline kiosk should be kicked to the ground and pelted with rotten, maggoty fruit. Perhaps more to the point, they obviously lack the basic intelligence and life skills necessary to get from point A to point B, so they should at least be institutionalized and put on treadmills to generate electricity for the rest of us. Of course, I single out assholes at the kiosk for further observation and avoidance for the duration I am forced to reside in the same boarding area, or airplane as they. The kiosk is only the beginning of ignorant behavior, but at least I am forewarned. Now, the people that really chap my ass are the ones that manifest themselves only after boarding the aircraft. (Pause to traverse airport to bus exit and outside smoking area, smoke, warily eye other smokers warily eying me, re-enter airport and board my plane)

It is here, onboard the aircraft that my lack of patience punctures a fucking hole in my politeness and I tend to speak my mind, much to the dismay of the hapless fuckwits that cannot find their seat, despite the clearly marked rows and seats. I think I’ve flown somewhere around five to seven hundred thousand miles in the last few years and I’ve seen BLIND people reach right over, find the fucking Braille numbers, walk directly to their seat and sit down. My problem is that I don’t understand why a person with fully functioning arms, legs and eyes cannot manage the same trick. On a good day, I have been known to help these poor, lost souls who lose the ability to reason and read. On a bad day I might shove them face-first into the nearest empty seat and tell them to stay lest they hurt themselves. Still, these people are less of a pain than the Rule-Breakers.

The Rule-Breakers are the ones who I want to gut with a rusty boat hook. These bastards get no mercy from me and are the first people I will dress down loud enough that anyone they may make eye contact with for the duration of the flight will know they are staring back at an asshole that took a chance of fucking over other passengers because they just don’t give a fuck. If you bring extra bags onboard, you take someone else’s space in the luggage bin. You fucked over your fellow passengers and I want everyone to know it. If you carry on oversized luggage, you take extra space in the luggage bin, or worse, delay the flight when it has to be carried back off by the flight attendant, then stowed in cargo. How long does that take, asshole who’s 2 rows behind me? On a Boeing 757 B200 (5600) with the jet-way already retracted, approximately 45 minutes by my watch, today. You fucked us over and 25 rows of your fellow passengers heard me call you out on it. They all know. Can you hear them talking about you? I can. The little, old lady right behind your fat fucking ass has called you a prick, an asshole and a bastard, just in the last five minutes. I think she wants to kick your ass when we disembark and I’m going to hold you down in the jet-way while she does it. If she doesn’t, I swear by all that’s holy I am going to follow you off this plane and trip you. You are one hour and twelve minutes away from doing a face-plant as you walk out of the gate and though you don’t know it, you shouldn’t be surprised. I feel better already, just thinking about it. I’m smiling right now and you? You look uncomfortable with the other passengers staring and muttering. I see you trying to peek over my shoulder to see if I’m typing something about you and guess what? I am! Have a nice flight and I’ll see you at the gate…

Boy are The Pirate's arms tired...

Any Port in the Storm Archives

April 24, 2007

Dear Pirate....

So, most of you (all?) know I work offshore on various ships-all part of a worldwide fleet. The crew consists of people from many disciplines and they all are required to be able perform a wide variety of tasks, in addition to their particular job. It’s something like being an astronaut, where, if someone falls ill, you have to be able to do their job, if something breaks, you have to be able to fix it, etc. Because of this, we put our trainees through two types of training before they become a regular crewmember (but still very much a trainee). First, they must do a training rotation on a ship, to see if they have what it takes to work the long hours, live on a ship, get along with people in a confined environment and all that jazz. Then, they get sent off somewhere in the world for a few months to be immersed in an intensive training school where they will acquire the skills to begin their job. Someday, I may write about my experience at one of these schools.

Anyway, the trainee is usually given little knowledge of what to expect when he is sent of for his training cruise. He is told to bring a few clothes and toiletries and off he goes, into the great unknown. Usually, he’s a twenty-one yr old college kid without a clue.

Once in a while, he asks the right (wrong) person too many questions about what to bring, what to expect, etc., and that person gives them an email address to the ship and they mail us with questions. Big. Fucking. Mistake.

Hello Neil,
So, you are a new trainee about to join our ship and want to know what to expect and to bring out here? I’m glad you took the time to email me. I can certainly help you in both areas, as I have been out here for ten, long years.

First, here is a list of things not to bring:
Clothes, toiletries and things for entertainment. The crew will steal them and if you resist they will hurt you. Getting hurt your first day on the job is NOT the way to start your career, so leave it all at home. We will issue you one boiler suit to use for the ten weeks you will be out here. If you must, you can try to bring one extra pair of undershorts. I recommend you wear them under one of your socks. Don’t bother trying to crotch or keister them. Both of those areas will be thoroughly checked by the crew, rest assured. Don’t worry about that, either. You will get used to the intimacy, eventually. Oh, while I’m thinking about it, could you send a picture of yourself, before you come out? Some of the crew are asking…

misc_gay_sailors.jpgDo bring:
A number 8 torx-head screwdriver, tampons, your sea diaper, a futon because the deck up top is hard to sleep on, a mosquito net, cordless drill, Astroglide (24 oz jug) a five week supply of Imodium, malaria curative kit, a football helmet of cream cheese, cigarettes and condoms for the border guards, a bible and a sheet to be sewn into in case of accidental death. If you don’t want any words said on your behalf, you can skip the bible. Books should include; the complete works of Ozdogan Zilmaz (the illustrated version), Tricks of the Trade for Prison Bitches by I. C. Colon and The Field Guide to Trauma Medicine by I.C. Gutz. you can find these at any Borders, or online at Amazon.

Now, what can you expect while out here, thousands of miles from home? That entirely depends on who gets to take you under their wing. The boys are still fighting over it and you have yet to send a picture, not that most of us care. You will find it interesting out here and will have the opportunity to see what each of us does, firsthand. Each one of us will make you do our job for a few days. We look forward to the time off, let me tell you. Just don’t fuck up, or the beating you take when we steal your shit will seem like playtime with Tickle Me Elmo. Don’t worry about your lack of experience, though. Each night before you take over someone’s job, they will give you a stack of manuals and reference documents to memorize before morning. Sleep is over-rated, anyway.

The hours are long, but you will get three breaks a day, to prepare our food, serve us and then wash the dishes. You are allowed to eat all the scraps when washing the dishes so you’ll have plenty to eat! Cool, huh? After shift, we each do our own thing; work out, watch movies, read, or have sex. After all, its not prison out here. You will be required to attend a different crewmember each night. That way you will get a taste of all the leisure activities available to the regular crew. One night you may spot someone while they work out, another you might serve refreshments and give foot massages while the movie plays. Other nights, you will learn the intimate details of the magic and beauty of shipboard love. Ah, you are a lucky guy. My training trip is now just a few distant memories, but perhaps we can relive a couple of the special ones, eh?

We are all looking forward to having you.

Sincerely,

The Pirate

They tell me this guy just up and quit. Imagine that.

Pirate is still looking for someone to walk his plank. Gmail in pro...

Any Port in the Storm Archives

April 17, 2007

The Illusionist

I’m watching a movie-The Illusionist. The movie is paused, mid way. Nothing of note has yet happened, though I wouldn’t give away any of it’s secrets should I possess them. Rather bad taste and possibly rude to do so, don’t you think?

However, the beginnings of the movie have me pondering a question. We are all human, full of hopes and dreams, tales of woe and longing and sometimes triumph over that which would oppose us. theillusionist.jpg You know the sort. You get the girl, the prince chooses you at the ball, the raise, the promotion, the dream job, a fulfilling career, loving spouse, 1.5 perfect children and today a security guard and a stone wall replace the white picket fence. The one that got away, or the man of your dreams who married a starlet; unrequited love, forever to mourn. Getting fired, lost, divorced, beaten, battered, or watching your best friend down a bottle of sleeping pills and saying his, or her goodbyes. Battling cancer and making the commercial that says, “Hey cancer, remember me? Fuck you, I win-you lose” and not having to neglect mentioning you lost a testicle, or a breast, or a portion of your mind. All these events that make up the sordid tale of who we think we are.

Just a few short weeks ago I asked you what you would do if given the chance to have a new career and really it’s a rather dull and shallow question, isn’t it? The more intriguing question lies in the magic and mystery that we would weave to change our lives in an instant, if only we could. From a young child, I saw what regret could do to a person, how it might eat away at that which makes us what we are. That which makes us strive to achieve, change or experience, that which makes us vibrant, real and alive. I have always tried to live my life with little, or no regret. I regret that it is not possible, for we all make mistakes and wish for the magical “do over” here and there. Some more than others and I like to think that I am one of the others with fewer, true regrets. Perhaps I am. Perhaps, not.

theillusionist1.jpg To the question dangling, precariously as I ramble-

What would you do with the power to change things in your life? Magic, if you will. What are those regrets? Would you change a past love? The one you loved for the person you thought they could be, but never became. Would you change the birth of a child that was, or never was? Make that special someone disappear? Reappear? Never be? We all know it's good to be king, or perhaps godhood suits you; though I think most would end up regretting the responsibility and day-to-day hassles that must be part and parcel with such a lofty position. Kingship, or godhood, anyone?

Perhaps you’re a bigger person than I and would disdain all that for a chance to change the world in place of your own fortune, or past. Alvin Lee wrote:

I’d love to change the world

But I don’t know what to do

So I leave it up to you

What shall it be, then? World peace, famine as a thing of the past, disease and poverty but a whisper of memory? Go away, think carefully and come back in a few hours after you roll it around on your tongue and get a feel for it, before you answer. What would you really do?

Me? I’ve a month’s captivity on the high seas to contemplate this, so I’m in no hurry and besides, I’m asking the questions, here.

What would you choose to be that one and only thing-the act of an illusionist who deals in the stuff of life?


What would you do? Give The Pirate something to think about out there.


Any Port In The Storm Archives

April 10, 2007

F-F-F-F-Four Nineteen!!!

Several months ago, I got a little fed up with the spam constantly hammering my Yahoo email account. One day, I had three, or four of those “African Lawyer” emails right in a row, lined up like fucking overdue payment notices in my mailbox. I forwarded them to each other. I thought I was being cute. A few days later, I had four more. This time, I took the first one and read it. It was such a lousy attempt that I mailed the dude back to complain and well, came up with a better idea in the process. He mailed me back! It seems he likes the idea, I think especially the part about hot chicks. So he wants to work together and I’m going to string him along for all its worth AND publish it for the entertainment value. I’ve just cut these right out of my emails to him and switched the order so you can read top to bottom. Here’s our correspondence, to-date:


--- Barrister Richard Wilson wrote:
BARRISTER RICHARD WILSON.
RICHARD WILSON & ASSOCIATES
DAKAR-SENEGAL
TEL: + 221 4183317
Email: barristerwilson@terramail.com.sv

Dear Friend,

scam.jpgI am Barrister Richard Wilson, I am the personal attorney to Mr. Patrick a National of your country who works with a petroleum Company in Europe and he is known and referred to as my Client, he died along with his entire family of a wife and two childrens in a car accident. Since we heard of his death, I have made several enquires to his embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives but all my efforts proved unsuccessful and to no avail. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

Now my contacts to you is to assist me in repatriating his money which is been lodged in a security/Finance company in a trunk box in Europe, before the money will be confiscated or declared unserviceable by the security/Finance company where he deposit this money valued about $20,500,000 (Twenty Million Five Hundred thousand United States Dollars) More importantly, the security/finance company where the deceased client deposited this huge sum of money has served me a write of notice to provide the NEXT OF KIN of my client or the (money) will be confiscated and send to the government treasury as unclaimed funds. Since I have tried and failed on several occasions in locating his relatives I am now seeking for your consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased so that the money will be paid to you while I will come over to your country for the sharing. I will take 45% while you will take 45% and 5% will be for any expenses incurred during the transaction and the remaining 5% will go to any charity organization.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you and I from any breach of the law. Finally, if this business interest you, please get in touch with me immediately via my private email address or telephone for security reasons, I will welcome messages that come only from my private email address and telephone. Also indicate to me your contact phone and fax numbers to enable me call you immediately for more information. PLEASE, I RESPECT CONFIDENTIALITY AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO RESPECT THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF THIS TRANSACTION.

I await your urgent response to this message.

Yours sincerely,
Barrister Richard Wilson (ESQ)
TEL: + 221 4183317
Email: barristerwilson@terramail.com.sv

Dear Barrister Richard Wilson,

I would offer just a few words of advise to you:
1) When seeking to scam someone via email, check your spelling, punctuation and especially grammar if you wish to pass yourself off as a Barrister even if English isn’t your first language, or your supposed to be from Dakar. Mine suks too, but I’m not trying to pass myself off as somebody who should know better.
2) When asking someone to pose as someone else for the purposes of fraud, do not ask for their “honest” help, it smacks of sarcasm and makes me want to insert a 10 cm diameter (metric, just for you) metal rod up your ass until I break teeth.

3) Only an idiot would believe that they could pose as someone else for the purposes of fraud and not breach any laws in this country, or in Europe. Since variations of this scam have been ongoing for years, you need some fresh material-a new angle, anything not quite so tired as this one. Try good old check fraud, phishing, or conventional ID theft-whatever, just don’t insult me by saying we can pull this off, legally. Hey man, I’m always up for a good scam, but this shit is LAME.
4) If someone is greedy and immoral enough to participate in fraud, they wouldn’t want to give 5% to charity. Hello? I suggest you drop this little nugget from your schtick and focus on the pot of gold, or like I said, try a new scam. I have received HUNDREDS of these emails from all sorts of donkey-dick, cocksucking, ass-wipe Sengalese lawyers just like you and while this isn’t the most unintelligent attempt, it ranks right up there with the very worst. Please don’t be offended, I really meant most of this as constructive criticism. I mean, quit insulting my intelligence and present me with a scam that at least makes me consider it for a microsecond.

Or, you could ignore all this good advise and just put in lots of porn shots. A nice set of tits is an excellent method of distraction and misdirection. That’s why the successful magician usually has a hot fucking assistant. You know-he’s pulling a white dove out of his ass while your oogling her awesome rack.

Wait, that’s it! You could run the whole scam around a nice set of BOOBS. THIS is a good idea! Dude, I’m with you on this. Lets see, say your representing this poor hot blonde widow who’s been wrongfully imprisoned in a Lagos jail. Yeah, then you slip in pics of said hottie tied up in some sort of interesting position that shows off her tight ass and mighty fine rack, right? Then, um, give her a couple of hot daughters that need a place to stay in the states while we work out the financial details instead of offering to come over, yourself. I mean really, I’m sure you’re a fine-looking man but I’d take a couple of hot daughters over your ugly old ass any day of the week-no offense. Think about it. If you had the choice to hook up with someone while while pulling off a case of fraud, would you rather it was a grey-haired, fat-ass, Sengalese lawyer or a couple of young hotties all broken up over their wrongfully imprisoned mommy? THIS is a scam. THIS can work.

So, what do you say? I dig Dakar, man. We could always meet at the Miramar, over on the Plateau, off of Rue FÃlix Faure. Know the place? The bartender’s name is Ragu Snot. He’s the short, fair-haired fellow with the tattoo of a snake eating a baby. He’s a nice guy, but a shitty bartender and has a predilection for buggering small animals. Order only bottled beer and don’t squeak like a chipmunk. Later, a drive down to the Cap Manuel, or North for a day out at Ile De Yoff to hammer out the details?? Ever been to La Siesta at Hann, Bel air, Cambérène, Parcelles Assainies? The terrace view is to die for. Anyway, are you willing to work together on this? It would cost you nothing financially and I can assure you that we can draft an agreement that would be executed legitimately, with no breach of the law by you or I.

I would only require your private bank account number along with your credit card numbers and expiration dates. While your at it, give me those little, 3 digit numbers on the back, too. Just in case I need to send you money or make a monthly payment on your cards as a gesture of good faith. You know the routine, man. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge;)

Finally, if this business interests you, please get in touch with me immediately via my private email address or telephone for security reasons, I will welcome messages that come only from my private email address and telephone. Also indicate to me your contact phone and fax numbers to enable me call you immediately for more information. PLEASE, I RESPECT CONFIDENTIALITY AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO RESPECT THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF THIS TRANSACTION.
I await your urgent response to this message.

Yours sincerely,
Barrister Theodore Nugent III (ESQ)
Seismic Pirate & Associates
123 Pirate’s Cove
Uncharted Island in the Caribbean

ps. Sorry I borrowed the last paragraph from you. It sounded pretty good and makes me feel impotant.



--- Barrister Richard Wilson wrote:

BARRISTER RICHARD WILSON.
RICHARD WILSON & ASSOCIATES
DAKAR-SENEGAL
TEL: + 221 4183317
Email: barristerwilson@terramail.com.sv

Dear Mr. Nugent,

I am Barrister Richard Wilson, the personal attorney to Mr. Patrick who corresponded with you in October of 2006. Mr. Patrick remains to be known as my Client, who has died, along with his entire family in a tragic car accident.

As I have told you in our correspondence in October that I have been unsuccessful many times to locate the family and to contact respected citizens of your country such as yourself. However your response to my inquiries of
help to secure the personal money of Mr. Patrick may not in all seriousness as I requested of you. Have you make a jest of my Client and his unfortunate death in a tragic car accident?

You may not be a Barrister, sir but you speak well and have good knowledge of my country and Dakar and our business. These things are important for me to insure my Clients money can be successfully repatriated for the full amount of Twenty Million Five Hundred thousand United States Dollars. I would hope you to be kind enough to wish to help me as you state in your reply to me. You have made many good suggestions that are helpful to my cause of helping my client and I believe working with you will be a large value to you and I. Your knowledge of my country is most interesting and I would learn how you might know of Dakar and the Cap Manuel. Were you a National in my country, previously? My efforts are not stopping to bring my Clients loving money to your country.

I am wondering if you can assist me to find a respectable person as you in your country that can be presented as the next of kin to the deceased to the security/finance company. I am saying that we will conduct a legitimate transaction for this person if we can use your ideas to help us in our cause for my Client. I do not wish to be to be untruthful to any citizen of your country with using females to insure help for my client but my associates agree it to work for the good of you and I. We can protect you from any breach of the law and we will not offer a 5% for charity organization, as you suggest and can offer the 5% to you for the good help and ideas. I will take 50% and the remaining 45% can be divided as you want between you and a good person you will find to help us in our cause.

You are willing to organize the efforts and information of your respected citizen and you may welcome a visit to Dakar to view my seriousness in this arrangement and I will arrange for you to take residence at the most beautiful Rue FÃlix Faure, you know very well. If you will make the necessary arrangements for yourself, my associates will pay for any cost undertaken by yourself when we meet to discuss the arrangements and for your enjoyment we will take a ride by automobile to Ile De Yoff where my associates have their esteemed place of business and enjoy their privacy in these matters.

Your desire to exchange financial information is agreeable. I will be unable to provide you with no more than the name of my associates financial company but I may give you the numbers to our many credit cards which are assured to be in good standing. We are joyous to be working with you to secure the full amount of Twenty Million Five Hundred thousand United States Dollars for you to share in good faith with us.

My associates also wish for you to bring those females that will be so beautiful to use in our arrangement if possible. Photographs of these women will be good if they cannot come to Dakar.

Please now indicate to me your contact phone and fax numbers to enable me call you immediately for more information. PLEASE, I RESPECT CONFIDENTIALITY AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO RESPECT THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF THIS TRANSACTION.

I again await your urgent response to this message.

Yours sincerely,
Barrister Richard Wilson (ESQ)
TEL: + 221 4183317
Email: barristerwilson@terramail.com.sv

ppppowerbook.jpgDick,

May I call you Dick? Dick is a less formal name in my country for Richard and you seem like a dick to me. You seem to also be such an important person in Dakar with many associates. A very important, big man. Yes, to honor your greatness I will call you a Big Dick.

Can you please tell me why a big dick such as yourself needs my help? I mean, yes, your use of English has improved immensely since your initial email, and I will take that as a compliment. You listened and I am touched. Really.

I am also surprised that you are unable to find a sympathetic person to cooperate in your business proposition. You seem to be a favorable business partner looking for the same. A very good friend of mine, P.T. Barnum, once said that a favorable business partner is born every minute.

Nonetheless, I am very willing to work with you and your ass ociates. However, I will require the following:

1.My share to be 60% of Mr. Patrick’s money, before costs. After all, I’m bringing the chicks.
2.A suite in La Siesta at Hann, Bel air, Cambérène, Parcelles Assainies.
3.Car and Driver. Both the real thing and a few editions of the magazine, waiting on the back of my shitter at the La Siesta.
4.The number and expiration date of your Visa card in order to reserve my airline flights (I will pay in cash upon getting to the airport).
5. A bank account and routing number to transfer some of my personal funds into your country to avoid the poor exchange rate found at the Dakar Airport.
6.Your personal telephone number. The number in your email is not in service.

PLEASE, I RESPECT CONFIDENTIALITY AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO RESPECT THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF THIS TRANSACTION.
I again await your urgent response to this message.

Yours sincerely,
Barrister Jeffery Dahmer
Forearm, Liver & Associates
123 Pirate’s Cove

The Pirate scams the scammers. But who will scam the scammer scammer?

Any Port in the Storm Archives

April 3, 2007

Desolation Boulevard: Dead End

III. COMPLICATION (The taconite wars)

She was just another pretty face. A refrigerator magnet, working the coatroom at one of the seedier hard-hat bars the tripods operated as a front for the safe house in back. Just another door hinge trying to make an honest buck who got in the way of the monster that was me as I lit a grapefruit and tossed it into the bar, ducking into the coat room. Our eyes met and I knew she knew her days were numbered in seconds.

I whipped out my best Elvis and asked her for a peanut butter and banana sandwich, just as three, fat tripods blocked the doorway and fired their pea-shooters. She died laughing, a frozen pea right between the eyes. Those eyes. Locked on mine as she giggled her last foaming breath unto her ample chest. She slid slowly down the door of the fridge and those eyes haunted me for years to come. I took the first tripod with one swipe of my splintered ruler, as a pea shattered the mirror behind me. The other two folded like tripods at the end of a photo shoot. Don Ho would have been proud.

I could smell the flatulence, like cordite after a gun battle, as I stepped over them and into the bar, frozen peas crunching underfoot like so many frozen peas. Those eyes still danced in my vision like sunspots, refusing to let me forget her sweet laugh and rancid breath as I began to systematically eliminate the bar tab of every patron in the joint, hard-hats and tripods and the three stuffed shirts in the corner, smoking a crack. Just as I leaned over to grab a shirt by the collar, I saw his eyes widen as he looked past me toward the front door. I flung him upright, diving into the crack just as six taconite pellets opened up on me with flashlights blazing. I dove out the window, rolled into the street and came up running. I could hear the shirts laughing as I rounded the corner with a dull router.

I taken a stab of light across my shoulder, just a slight shadow remained, so I wrapped it in mystery and headed straight for the one place I knew I could uncomplicate this mess-the hideout of the head taconite pellet, himself-Hematite…

wiggum.jpgIV. BROKEN SHARDS (Of nose chili)

The taconites aren't like you and I. Come to think of it, neither are you.

I mean, it’s all relative and you can pick your nose…

The taconites. They are spawned of the dark places and favor the same dirty things we all do, but there is a horrible difference. Taconites are devoid of the kind of ritualistic hatred and screaming fits that make you and I what we are. I cannot imagine what drives them and fear that someday I might be confronted with that horrifying truth. For now, I content myself with the knowledge that what I am about to do is unrealistic and fueled by irrational headcheese.

At the nearest pay phone, I stop and call the law. The more weak-minded and soft amongst you might step back in shock and horror, but I had to do it. I tattled on the taconites and it was good. Whistling a merry tune, I headed back across town toward the old lady's apartment and my perch atop the radiator. A block down the road, I caved in to temptation and turned into the cafe I passed the first night back in this hellhole. The watering can behind the counter stirred a pot of chili, dropping ash from his fountain pen into the vile mix. I ordered a big bowl and tried not to think about the radios roasting in the back, or the recently fried ream of copy paper, still dripping tiny bubbles of Don Ho juice, right in front of me.

The watering can served my chili and ash; leaning back on the grill to stare at me as I inhaled a shot of chili through a straw inserted into my left nostril. "A dang lefty", he drawled. "You must be from up North". I just stared and shoved the straw up my right, inhaling half the bowl in one long snort. " He shivered once, nodded his head and replied, "I'll give you that one and this one, y'all can have for free, too. The tripods are massing at the camera shop, two blocks down the street. You know the place? The one they took when they rose up against...", he trailed off. This time I shivered and nodded my head, remembering the telephoto lenses impaled on tall poles, lining the streets. Deciding against emptying the rest of the chili, I pushed the unfinished bowl toward him and stood up, reaching for my liver. "It's on the house", he stated, taking my bowl and pitching it into the bin. I walked out, thinking it was likely to be in the gutter, soon as well.

Making my way down the block, I noticed small, furry shower curtains scurrying into the sewers and alleyways, predicting mayhem for the near future and damn me if they weren't right. I didn't think, didn't hesitate, just walked up and threw four grapefruits through the window of the building on the left-the only one lit from within. Within seconds it erupted in flames. Those few tripods that made out the front door were cut down, splinters from my ruler strewn about the broken bodies like unused kindling. I stayed and watched long after they stopped coming through the door, leaving only when the sirens began to wail and it was obvious I had to beat feet, or answer a lot of questions nobody wanted to hear answers for.

I was only three blocks from the old lady’s apartment when I broke down, unable to control my rage and overwhelming shame for not storming the building and dying in the process. I knew you were in there, tied to a chair, or a large can of salted peanuts, silently praying for me to come to your rescue. Yeah, I knew you were in there and I chose me, letting you burn. My mother used to call me a punk. I knew I wasn't a punk and told myself that I would never grow up to be one, either. I was wrong. I'm the worst kind of punk and your dead. I feel something dribbling down the front of my shirt. Reaching up, I feel blood running freely from a wound on my earlobe. A bloody piece of copy paper lies at my feet, uneaten. I try to stem the flow of blood and begin to cry.

When the crying stopped, utterly spent and bereft of memories of the time spent in libraries and other such places of ill-repute, I found myself leaning against a telephone pole, covered in posters advertising the latest number-13, I think and of all things, a drapery rally on the edge of town, set to begin in the morning. It called out to me like buggery in a church. "Perhaps there can be some good in my life, after all", I thought, as I pulled the tin foil flyer from the pole. Taking stock, I took stock and emptied my pockets of the thawed peas and rotten memories of this town and the feel of your skin against the doors of my mind. A block down the street, I turned the corner, heading toward the alley cutting across the district to where the taconites used to hang out in the hard hat bars before I put them to bed with a phone call.

Entering the alley, I pulled my coat tighter, looked to the still dark eastern sky, thinking the moon would soon rise, lighting my way out of town to the woodlot mentioned on the flyer and I felt alive for the first time in my life. Maybe Don Ho would be there…

Any Port in the Storm Archives

March 27, 2007

Desolation Boulevard

I’m a punk. I took the wife and we escaped to the North Shore this weekend, for our anniversary. It was a last minute and much-needed getaway before I head out to the high seas, once again. Instead of writing diligently, I had a great weekend at a cabin that came complete with its own waterfall. It was food for a starving soul. But now I’ve got nothing. If you’ve been to the Queen’s site lately, sorry folks. A very relaxed, but blank mind, I am. So, chew on this:

I. BIFF’S REVENGE (The Celery Stalker)

donhoho.jpgIt is cold and dark. The air is damp like tiny hairs on the nose of a feral pig after a kill. It reminds me of the era when Don Ho ruled the night and cheerleaders roamed in packs, bent on destruction and out for blood. Hushed whispers filter through cracks in the alleyway walls and the winos cower in fear of the light from Indiglo watches passing by on the street, unaware of the fear they instill the homeless, grape-loving peanut farmers who inhabit our alleys and basements.

I'm on my way to a drapery rally; a celebration of all things not venetian. A backwoods orgy of vertical pagan pleasure. The site was 10 miles out of town in the woodlot of an abandoned office chair farm, bankrupted and left to rot near the end of the lumbar seating wars. A lot of good people were crippled or lost back then and I mourned for them, but not anymore. Suffering a paper cut on an earlobe changes a man, and not always for the better. Imagine a pin, balanced on the head of 427 Cobra Jet and you have an idea of my frame of mind as I make my way out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, teeming with the mindless bacteria of days gone past, coffee cups late for a poker game and the occasional beat cop working the email like they were the last bottle of hot sauce on earth.

An explosion rocks the night; carrot alarms a wailing chorus as a celery stalker takes his next victim from behind. Silent but deadly; like a fart from the next cubicle. I pay little attention as I push my way through the crowds, past Altoid parlours and illegal hard-hat bars, all the while fondling my wounded earlobe and pondering the options left to a calculator stripped of its square root button.

A taconite pellet stops me near the politician repair shop and asks me for a light. His eyes grip me like iron bands and as I raise a match between cupped hands, I know his name. Too late, I feel the knife slip between my ribs like a knife slipped between some one's ribs. The darkness fades as I slip to the sidewalk, littered in Ben Franklins and newly minted coins, discarded by the careless hard hats with a penchant for black market accounting ledgers.

I would have liked to see my first drapery rally before ending up as duct tape on some one's cv.

The moon never rises...

II. BORN OF THE TEACUP (Death of a tripod)

If you read my last missive, you know how I died. And I was born, thus:

The storm tossed the tiny ship to and fro, a teacup in a tempest. But the tempest, born of the tea within the cup was all smoke and no mirrors. Storm stirred tea within the cup and I was born of the tempest and the tea and the cup and the sweet music they made that day. And that, not what you might have conjured, is how I was born. Stirred and shaken.

Still, I walked into this world much like I walked into this damn town; head held high and the sole of one tired, old shoe flapping on the pavement like the sound of a poorly snapped whip upon a naked and quivering back. To say I came for revenge would be an understatement. To say I came for justice would be a poor excuse for a torn basque, dripping with metaphor, lit by the rising moon and the passion in your eyes, before they took you away from me. I walked into town hell bent for feather; a caged bullet, a coiled string on the verge of hatless. A confectioner.

teacup.jpgI passed a late-night, toe jam cafe; the pale, green Freon sign still lit, frigid and unforgiving. Beads of moisture gleam on the window, pearls of misplaced wisdom. A stark contrast to the mouth-watering smells of honey-roasted radio and deep-fried copy paper emanating from its slightly skewed, geometric interior. You know. The kind you find in dime-store novels depicting horseless carriages that seem to run on the very stuff dreams are made of. I was hungry yes, but not that hungry, so I made my way toward the center of town, the tripods and my fate of fates, while you sit staring, confused at this arrangement of little, white letters on a black page, Pirated for your pleasure, or perhaps, pain.

Whatever.

I knew the sort of places that tripods and taconites prefer and in another life would have avoided them at all costs, but that night those places became my prey. I took the first one quietly; with a soft, tenor whisper blowing down the door, devouring the empty light sockets hanging from the ceiling and everyone in between in less time than it takes to blink your one good eye. I was their god of hellfire as they blackened and crisped under my flame. No questions, no explanations and no witnesses. Word would spread as their hangouts, safe houses and places of higher learning were found in ruins. They would fear me as the un-waxed floor tile fears the stiletto and I would use that fear like a loaded stapler abuses the nets that hang drying in the sun down by the docks every Saturday. I would have you back and have my indignation restored.

During the heat of the day, I rested; perched on a tattered, brown blanket atop a radiator in an old woman’s apartment on the Rue de Sirat, much like a tawny sock, soaking up the dust-lit sunbeams on a lazy, Sunday afternoon. It was here I developed a taste for drapes. Swaying in the artificial breezes of fan and windmill, alike, I felt a sense of kinship and belonging. I knew it wasn’t natural-an affront to the gods, but I needed something to hold on to; a kind of security as I searched for you amongst this city of diseased beer bottles, violent lampshades and used up, old car batteries.

Nightfall and I would rise again to tempt my fate and drink from the well that was the naked hatred I felt for the tripods and the cameras that ruled them and yes, rode them like the beasts of burden they once were. You see, it wasn’t the damn camera; though I still shutter at the images they left. Of laughing vegetables and fevered pinafores writhing in ecstasy upon the bones of those they captured and ate. Still life, their photoshop of horrors and….No, it was the tripods. They threw off the reigns of their masters and walked that long, dusty road that is the destiny of all who perspire to rise above the masses and rule, as their masters had before them. They chose their path and crushed the petals of a thousand flowers along the way. For that and for what they took from me, they will all die. Strains of Don Ho float amongst the darkened ruins of ancient buildings and Moroccan sunsets like the rancid mist coils around you’re your feet in a shopping mall, making me laugh and laugh. And laugh.

I am still laughing as I take the next place of learning, like a parking ticket in a car wash. I save one tripod; carried to the edge of town, where I can work on him hard, away from the common trash and prying eyes of the local constabulary. It doesn’t take long to break him. He tells me what I need to know and begs me to end it. I don’t. I let my hatred fuel my work and my work in turn, fuels my hatred, whipping me into a biting, lemon meringue. The tripod bleeds and I suffer. The tripod dies and I am reborn, fevered and aching for revenge, like a guitar pick scraped along the strings, setting off harmonics that ripple through this city like the waves of re-painted rickshaw. Raw and bleeding, I move back into town amongst the shadows and soft places where the old black telephones go to die. I am one step closer to her as the moon rises over a city drenched in sorrow for its sins.


Archives

March 20, 2007

Take This Job and Shove It

I’ve read a few things lately about what people would do if they won the lottery. That’s kind of obvious and predictable. You would be rich, pay your debts, travel, party, buy new things and most likely squander your newfound wealth despite all good intentions.

officespace_lawrence.jpgI was just wondering what I would do for a living if I quit the pirate business and had the freedom to go anywhere and carve out a new career, doing whatever suited me. I’ve been rolling it around in my head all day and I’m still not sure. I’ve been at sea for 11 years, but a few years back, I took three years off and did just that, I carved out a new career onshore in a totally unrelated field. I was immensely lucky given where I live, to find a position working to maintain and protect the quality of the water on an under a Native American Indian Reservation as well as a good chunk of one of the Great lakes. It was an interesting, rewarding, exciting and unbelievably fun-filled job. Unfortunately, it just didn’t pay the bills and had little future prospects associated with it. Had the money been enough to put my kids through college on, I would still be there today, canoeing the rivers and streams, at peace with the world and myself. But it wasn’t, so I went back to my mistress, the sea.

But what would I do, if I had the freedom to pursue any career within reason, again? Dammed if I know, maybe something to help kids in some way. I love kids and wouldn’t mind teaching. Whatever the case, I’d do it as far away from the sea as possible. What would you do, if given the chance to make a new career and why?

The Pirate didn't say he'd do two chicks at the same time. But the editors are fairly sure he was thinking it.

Any Port in the Storm archives

March 13, 2007

God's Cursed Arsehole

I’m home. I’ve been home from sea for a while. The night I was to leave my ship, I got word my wife was rushed to the hospital. Unable to sleep, panicking and scared to death, I wrote the following words. Oh and PW recovered, but now she hates me for something I didn’t do and I feel just as bad as I did that night. I don’t know how to make it better, how to fight something that doesn’t exist and I find myself at a loss, just as I did that night at sea when I worried for her life. That night, I had nothing and tonight? Nothing, again. So, PW this is for you. I am a gods-cursed asshole, but not for any reason you might think…

Admittedly, my life and lifestyle can be pretty cool. I’ve seen some amazing things around the world, done a lot of crazy shit, met people from a hundred different nations that have all enriched me and my view of the world and our place in it. I once lit a bar on fire in Germany and the next day swam in an underground lake. I’ve slept in my coat under a tree, while trying to walk halfway across England to Stonehenge without a freaking map (idiot). I’ve walked barefoot amongst golden temples in the jungles of Burma and watched a man there, nearly a stranger, drop to his knees and pray to Buddha for my troubled soul after dropping what probably amounted to a month’s salary to proudly show me his country for one short day. I’ve been marched back to my ship at gunpoint after getting caught skinny-dipping in Trinidad, West Indies by some angry and slightly homophobic soldiers. I’ve touched whales in the North Atlantic on the Grand Banks and just yesterday, a pod of dolphins put on a show for me, way better than that unimaginative shit they feed the masses at Sea World. For that part of my life, I am grateful and truly humbled by what I have experienced and learned from nature and the people’s I have met in this wonderful world.

ospace.jpgIt has been my choice for most of the last ten years to make the world my cubicle and certainly after 6 weeks of actually working out of a cubicle last year, I can honestly appreciate how rich and full my life has been and how god-awful lucky I am not to fly a desk, nine to five in some white-walled office prison bathed in fluorescent light, fed the corporate America line, contemplating the sale of my soul to Satan for a long weekend. I loathe that life and lifestyle, and this is just the way I need to roll in order to stave of the madness. OK, to stave off total madness and yes Queenie, I have not forgotten being chastised for posting Edvard Munch and screaming about the voices in my head. They are mostly quiet these days, thank you.

The people who know me well and I guess all the people I’ve let peak into my mind the last few months, know I also have my share of gripes about my choice of life, too. I often eat dog shit food, get my ears bloodied in the shower, get the shit beat out of me in exotic places and sometimes miss every birthday, holiday and milestone in an entire year of my children’s lives. I also occasionally get sodomized by Neptune to the tune of nine hurricanes and one motherfucker of a storm last fall that nearly sank my fucking ship. I deal with a lot of shit when I’m out here. The stress of managing multi-million dollar projects, the uncertainty of the elements, and the complexity and instability of the most advanced computer systems in the world. I get ornery and moody, piss and moan and generally act like an asshole. I guess all of us out here do at times. Us.

In describing my life out here, I have neglected to mention my cohorts in this grand, shitty adventure. The people I work with are really indescribable in their depths and stellar highs. They range from convicts to genius among men, often both in the same person. They are amazing and totally fucking whacked, driven, tireless and slovenly, bug-eyed and scary like an evil clown with a butcher knife, caring, compassionate, dependable and I routinely place my life in their hands without hesitation. There guys, that is the absolute best I can do for you within the limits of the pea that is my tired brain at 4:30 in the morning.

farfromhome.jpgWhich now leaves me with nothing else to say except why I sat down at my laptop, put on my “I am angry at the world, want to kill someone and cry because I’m scared shitless” music. For all I have gained by this strange life I lead, I am at this very moment dying inside because of it. Tonight I got an instant message from my wife just before she was rushed to the hospital. Eight hours later, after numerous phone calls and frantic online messaging with my best friend (May whatever God you believe in wake up and cut you some fucking slack soon, my friend), I am still at sea, roughly 2,000 miles and at least two days from my wife who is somewhere between really fucking sick and maybe a lot worse-nobody seems to know, yet. My youngest girl is staying with friends tonight (thanks peanut, how do you repay somebody for this?) and somebody’s going to let my dog out tomorrow so he doesn’t take a shit on my couch, out of spite and need. It seems that all the bases are covered, dog, child and wife in the care of doctors and nurses and cat scan people and I am dying, a little more every minute. I’m cursing myself for doing my job and not being there when the love of my life needs me the very most. What the fuck do I do? I’ve walked laps around the ship, smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes, slammed coffee, talked to people and I finally ended up here, writing this mindless, stream of shit for lack of, well for lack of any fucking thing to calm me down.

I hope like hell that I’ll give this to my wife to read in a few days, so she can wrinkle her nose, or laugh at what an idiot I am and I can update this with the fact that she passed a kidney stone or something equally benign and post it, or burn it, whatever she decides.

Whatever the case, one thing is for sure in my mind. For whatever good I’ve gotten out of this fucking life of a pirate, I’m a gods-cursed asshole and tonight I am paying the cost. I need a fucking smoke.

The editors of FTTW send their thoughts and prayers to the Pirate and his wife

Any Port in the Storm Archives

March 6, 2007

The Straits (parts III and IV)

The four of us reckoned that we had arrived at our original destination of Marquette Island, somewhere on the South shore. However, it was our destination because we also reckoned it was big, remote and totally deserted. Everything from leaving the bay till then had taken maybe 20-30 minutes, but we were utterly exhausted. After a few minutes, nobody could even stand up, so we slept in the trees for an hour, or so. Upon waking, one of us noticed something in the surf to our right and walked down to check it out. He returned with a few bits of gear and a backpack full of clothes-ours. Our gear was washing up along the beach back in the direction we had just sailed from. The three of them took off as the winds started to come down a little and the waves began to recede off of the beach and I crawled out on the beach to try and build a windbreak and a fire. I took our clothes out of the pack and let the wind carry them into the trees, where they hung, drying. I also stripped off my wet clothes and threw them into the trees as well. After about an hour, I had windbreak built out of driftwood planks and a stack of dried wood, piled in a scraped-out pit behind it. I had just levered myself up to standing with the windbreak and was squinting down the beach in the direction my buddies had left when someone cleared their throat, in the opposite direction…

mexican-sunbather.jpgYes, on the beach of a deserted Island, I managed to let two people walk right up on me, unnoticed, as I stood there, buck-ass nekkid. I am not ashamed to admit I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed and I suppose prior events have already cemented that fact. Anyway, they were a couple and the guy’s parents actually had a cabin a mile or so down the beach. I hobbled over, grabbed a pair of shorts out of the trees and we waited for the guys to come back from their scavenger hunt. Eventually they did, bringing nearly all our gear! It had washed up all down the beach. We stowed the gear and the couple took a picture of us standing in front of my windbreak and our cats, with our clothes stuck up in the pine trees in the background. I still have it somewhere-they mailed it to me. I bet PW will be down in the basement, looking for the picture, tomorrow, although I’m pretty sure she has seen it once before. It is my favorite picture, outside of a particular one of PW and a few shots of my kids.

I found a stick to use as a crutch and we followed the couple to the cabin and met the folks. They were a wonderful, old couple. Grandma immediately fed us a huge meal and plenty of coffee. Gramps took us down to his boathouse on the lee side of the island where we radioed the Coast Guard to alert them to a boat we witnessed drifting on its side in the storm, while on the beach. They informed us that this was the worst wind storm in the straits in 50 years, had warned all ship traffic off of both lakes, could not launch any type of rescue and anyone still on the lake could and would be considered beyond help and most likely dead. Then they asked us who we were and were simply astounded we had survived the storm in our little cats. It was then we found out what a mistake we had made, giving them our home information.

Knowing we had no radio and therefore no warning, (and correctly assuming we were a quartet of fools), they had actually figured us for dead?? Somehow, they had never heard the old adage about God favoring little children, drunks and fools. They called our home numbers and reached only one person-the wife of the only married guy in our quartet. She was at home with their 1 month-old daughter. They told her we were lost without hope. The storm wasn’t even over; they hadn’t been out to look for us and they told her that her husband was most likely dead. From that point on, he might as well have been dead because let me tell you his days were fucking numbered once she got a hold of him-it wasn’t pretty. We had the Coast Guard call her back but it was too late. She had whipped the baby in the car and drove straight up to his folk’s house in Cheboygan and missed the call. We then had them call his parents, leaving a message for her, there. So after this very disturbing radio conversation where we found out we were dead, we went back to the cabin where Grandma loaded us down with food, water and coffee to take back to our cats…

We spent 2 days sleeping on and repairing our cats. It took the better part of a third day to limp back across the strait, where the married guy’s wife beat his ass for being alive. She chewed the rest of us out for good measure, too. We drove all the way back to Detroit the same night, arriving early the next morning. One of the other guys was my housemate. We both slept most of the day away and were sitting in our living room when UPS knocked on the door. The driver gave us a box from a place called Port Huron, on the southern and opposite end of the lake we had just sailed. Inside was our backpack, lost the first night. A sailor found it floating, 300 miles from where we lost it, 3 days after it was lost. We assume it traveled most of that distance the day of the storm…

He wrote us a very nice letter with the time, latitude and longitude of the find, saying he fished it out of the lake from his yacht, kept our stash as payment and didn’t want to get caught mailing it, anyway. He didn’t find all of our stash, so we celebrated our good fortune right then and there. That, you might say is the end of our adventure and the story. Within a few weeks, the four of us began to go our separate ways. At the time, we were working together as a four-man construction company. Two of us quit, I got severely injured not long after the adventure; enough to put me out of the business for good and although I periodically heard from two of the guys, over the years, I fell out of touch with the third guy for good, within 1 month of that ordeal.

pw.jpgI married, moved eight times, had 2 kids, a half-dozen other jobs, racked up a degree and a divorce, and eventually went to sea as a pirate, over the next sixteen years. Then, by sheer dumb luck, I became re-acquainted with PW (I’ve known PW since we were 11, or 12), in 2000. She agreed to give up her career, friends and most importantly her family, to move 600 miles North from her home in Detroit to become the PW she is today and I am forever grateful for that. We packed up her things in a big U-Haul truck, hitched up her little, mini-SUV on a car dolly and began the 600-mile drive to her new life in a tiny town located in the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or as we affectionately call it, the UP. I drove all day and talked her ear off the whole way, I’m sure. I remember her being terribly nervous and me telling her way too many stories.

Halfway there, we crossed the Mackinac Bridge into the UP and I remembered this story, as it occurred 16 years prior, nearly to the day. I began to tell her the tale as we crossed the bridge. We came off the bridge and headed West on US 2, along the Lake Michigan shore, and I continued the story. As we drove past the tiny village of Epoufette, MI., I saw a small, wooden deck overlooking the straits from a high cliff. I had passed this observation deck literally hundreds of times over the years but never stopped. As I completed the story of our adventure, I whipped into the parking area and screeched to a halt at the very last minute. I don’t know what made me stop like that, but I know I wanted PW to look down on the straits now that she’d heard our story. I think I pulled in so hard that I scared her and I remember being concerned that I was going to loose the car towed behind us.

We got out and there were only two people there, a guy at the railing, talking into a cell phone and a young girl, standing by their car. I passed by the girl and as I walked up behind the guy I knew what would happen. He turned around, saw me and said into his cell phone, “Fuck me, I have to go” and hung up. It was the third guy I had lost touch with 16 years prior, nearly to the day. It turned out that he lived in Chicago, had driven to lower Michigan with his daughter on business near his folks house and was heading back via the straits, for old-time’s sake and our adventure. He had just crossed the bridge ahead of us, telling his 16 yr. old daughter of our adventure and stopped at the last minute when he saw that observation deck, so his daughter could look down on the straits after hearing our story. And there, the story really ends.

February 27, 2007

The Straits, Part I and II

The Straits, Part I and II

By request, a re-print from the now-defunct pirate blog where I used to babble daily. Parts I and II of what was originally a 4-part story of what was probably my first of many pirate adventures. I believe the only background one needs if not one of my regular loonies, is that PW is short for Pirate Wife. Everyone say hello to Pirate Wife when she appears in part II.

I was reminded last night of an adventure I had as a young pirate, just beginning to test his mettle against the sea, or in this case, a couple of Great Lakes and I would like to tell the story. The story lasts 16 years; much longer than the adventure, or is it all an adventure? Only the reader can truly decide, but I prefer to think of it ALL as an adventure...

aurora.jpgWay back in 1984, three buddies and I got drunk (a lot of my stories begin this way…) and decided that we had had enough of sailing on tiny, inland lakes in our catamarans. One of us had some experience sailing his in the Florida Keys and suggested we try our hand somewhere on the Great Lakes. Sounded good. We spent a grand total of an hour packing and an hour planning and left for the Straits of Mackinac. We made the 300-mile trip up from Detroit, overnight, in two vans, pulling two catamarans; a 16 and an 18 footer. We got pretty stoned the way and the thing I remember most from that drive was sitting in the open window of one van looking backward, or SOUTH at the most spectacular aurora I have ever witnessed.

We arrived in Cheboygan, on the southern shore of Lake Huron, before dawn and had a welcome breakfast prepared by one of the guys’ parents, who happened to live up there. After breakfast, we drove down to the dock where the Coast Guard ice breaker, USCGC Mackinaw was stationed and illegally launched our cats from its quay. Things went downhill from there. You see, we didn’t really plan well and though we managed to hit on a few key points necessary for survival, the main focus was on getting stoned, exploring and having fun. Pot and roman candles were securely stowed, but we neglected to include a first-aid kit-things of that nature. Beer AND alcohol were present, but we didn’t think of water, or a purifier. We were worried about lightning, but only duct-taped aluminum tent poles to the masts, trailing in the water. A regular recipe for disaster, or adventure, depending on how stoned you were at the time.

The general plan was to sail North, into the straits until we found a place to crash on one of the four islands that can be found just to the East of the Mackinac Bridge. Two were uninhabited and we figured that Round Island, directly to the South of the resort island, Mackinac, would be best since it was closest to the bridge and Mackinac Island, two of our day 2 destinations. Unfortunately, it was also the furthest sail and a nasty storm hit us within the first hour.

Because turning around would have been unmanly and boring, we said a prayer to the tent pole gods, quickly put on a good buzz on and kept sailing for Round Island. The lightning all around us put a damper on the buzz, but eventually we reached Round Island, only to sail around it and find most of it blocked by LARGE boulders-not good in a storm. Finally, after sailing around it twice, we spotted a small stretch of beach cleared of big rocks and quickly put in for the night. It was right then that we realized the backpack that contained EVERYTHING sacred and important was missing. We had allowed the single bag that contained our wallets, money, pot, most of our smokes, ID's and map to get washed overboard in the storm. Another sign from the gods to turn back which we promptly ignored by getting drunk and having a roman candle fight along the beach when the rain let up. We used flaming branches to light the fireworks and I will forever remember running around drunk, watching the flaming branches and fireworks shooting up and down the beach. To the untrained eye, we must have looked like complete idiots.

The morning brought sand in our mouths and the realization that we had neglected to bring water. We each had a couple of beers while the lake water coffee brewed in a chipped, blue enamel coffee pot on the fire. It was a cold, foggy morning when we set sail for the resort island, Mackinac. Things continued their downhill slide as we tried to sail through the wind-less ship channel between Round and Mackinac islands, in the fog. We had rigged one cat with a car battery and a small, trolling motor for just such an emergency (we did hit a few good points in our planning), but neglected to stay together and lost each other in the fog. One cat pulled ahead. My cat wallowed in the middle of a foggy ship channel. It was here we made our first SERIOUS mistake by donning headphones and turning up some mood music to go with the fog...

steelmill.jpgThe 1000 footer that ran us down was hauling ass for the steel mills in Gary, Indiana, I imagine. I know she was empty from her draft and I suspect, hurried by her lack of cargo and daily money loss. I have no idea how many knots a 1000 footer can make, but she was making it and that fact saved our two, measly lives. She had a bulbous bow, which heaved up a giant bow wake, probably 15-20 ft. high.. We only saw the ship roughly 15 feet away, about to hit us dead amidships. Her bow wake hit us almost instantly and sent us flying. My partner pretty much catapulted over the top of me; grabbing for him saved me because he landed on the boat, jamming his legs between the tramp and one hull. I flipped over him into the water, still hanging on to him with one hand so it was easy for him to pull me back onboard. As we spun in circles, we watched the monster slide by. It was a surreal moment, punctuated by the fact that neither of us had lost our headphones and we sat listening to our foggy, mood music until the ship passed. I have always been a believer in having a soundtrack for your life and this is but one example; of both why and an argument for why not, but I will stand firm on this. A soundtrack is better; just choose your music wisely. Nobody wants to die with Brittany Spears playing...

The morning fog quickly burned off and the wind picked up, allowing us to make Mackinac Island in a matter of an hour after getting run down. We pulled up on a hotel beach and made our way into town. We had a few bucks in loose change between us and grabbed an overpriced burger at a restaurant on Main Street. We quickly made our way back to the cats and headed West for open water and the bridge, where we had a little fun running the pylons, flying one hull and hanging in the diaper. Following the bridge North to the Upper Peninsula, we then sailed along the shore to the small town of St. Ignace, MI. Here, we visited the Coast Guard to have a look at their charts since the Michigan road map we brought was in the bag that was swept overboard the first night. The Coast Guard thought we were insane and took down our names and home phone numbers when they heard our plans. Giving them this information turned out to also be a mistake...

We jumped on our little cats and made our way East, staying equidistant from the South shore of the UP and two islands; Mackinac and Harriet, I believe. Our destination was Marquette Island, the largest in the Cheneaux Islands. We experienced a few, very hot, wind-less hours where we utilized the trolling motor and took turns, swimming and towing the two cats, but eventually got enough wind to make for a small, sheltered bay on the southern tip of a large peninsula, just West of the Islands.

It was here, we found a very large and lively beach party in full swing. The first thing we saw as we rounded the point into the bay were 20 or so, bikini-clad women playing volleyball with a net set up in the water. The night was definitely a night to remember. The party was some sort of annual thing brought in on wilderness roads by pick-ups and trailers and they were stocked well enough to provide us with everything four, thirsty, hungry, lonely pirates desired. The hangover in the morning nearly killed us, literally...

One by-product of a hangover is hurting so bad as to not pay close attention to your surroundings. We didn't notice that we were in a VERY sheltered bay and the wind was howling out in the open water until it was too late. Once we realized, there was no turning back without risk of capsizing the cats, with the waves cresting as high as our 32 ft. masts. This was not a pleasant sight while sitting on an open boat with your ass nearly dragging in the water. We managed open water, tied ourselves to the cats, said our goodbyes, literally and tried to learn how to ride the waves like a surfboard. This proved to work, except we then realized that the wind and waves were taking us down the long axis of the lake; a 300-mile trip we were not prepared to make. Little by little, we worked the cats to port and in reach of land. Our next problem was that this beach was also surrounded by boulders the size of school buses and the waves were breaking into the pine trees, past the beach in most places.

The other cat went first and was launched into the trees, just like you would throw one of those little, balsa-wood gliders. When our two buddies did not reappear from the trees, we figured they were injured and decided to make a different approach. Thirty yards from the beach, we dropped sail and slid down the backside of a wave, hopping off the cat at the same time. The problem with that was the sucking action forward of each wave. Our little cat bottomed out in the rocks and I managed to wedge an ankle between two boulders. The next wave smashed up our cat, sprained my ankle and nearly drowned us. Our buddies emerged from the trees just then, unhurt (bastards) and pulled the cat and us up into the trees. Taking stock, I was the only one seriously injured (we thought the ankle was broken). The cats were both damaged, but possibly still watertight and hopefully, repairable-although we had no tools. We had lost every single scrap of gear tied onto the both cats. Our sum total possessions included a wet pack of smokes, a lighter, one pair of headphones and the clothes on our backs…

The Pirate is looking for volunteers to swab his poop deck.

Archives

February 20, 2007

Valley Of The Shadow Of My Shower

piratesandwich.jpgWhat wakes you up in the morning? I bet you all hate your alarm clocks, don’t you? I can hear everyone whining about how loud and annoying they are. I bet you all have a fucking snooze button and use it, repeatedly. You take your extra half hour of milk-toast dreams, ball-scratching and snoring in 5 minute shots, punctuated by a pathetic, little “beep, beep, beep” that sounds more like the last gasps of a dying baby chick than a real alarm clock and then you finally slide out of bed and go about your morning rituals, all in relative peace. Well, I’m pretty pissed off this morning as I sit down for my shift and thought I would tell you all about the Pirate’s morning ritual at sea.

Imagine you’re sleeping peacefully; dreaming of bath time with Valeria Mazza and Tyra Banks from the cover of the 1996 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition; the three of you sipping a spicy Multipulciano and eating smoked oysters on tiny crackers, topped with a slice of melted havarti cheese and a small sprig of fresh basil. (I need to stop here and mention that it was a surreal experience, photoshoping this image while listening to Jackie DeShannon singing Burt Bacharach’s What The World Needs Now Is Love)

Ah, the stuff dreams are made of....

Then imagine a 6'8" 290 pound skinhead biker walks up to your Bath Time Olympics and jabs a Philips-head screwdriver in your left eye just as Valeria is climbing on top to feed you the last oyster and…….You wake up, clutching your face covered in sweat to this:

You're laying inside a large steel box and some asshole satanshammer.jpgis kneeling on top of it, chipping paint with a jackhammer. He pauses, and then smacks your steel box with a six-pound hand sledge. Not satisfied with the thought that he’s left you with a wilting hard on and a pounding headache, he fires up the dreaded needle gun…

I don’t know very much about needle guns. The only time I’ve ever observed one up close was on another boat where I found one laying around all alone on the back deck. I picked it, up turned over, then beat the fucking thing to death with a hammer and tossed it overboard. All I know is that it runs off high-pressure air and looks like a large gun with 50 long spikes, or needles sticking out of it. Satan and his minions wield it, chipping paint off the decks and hammer sleeping brain cells into so much oatmeal.

So there I am; wilting, head pounding and totally confused, standing inside the loudest metal box you can possibly imagine, unless you have actually been through this. Because it gets worse. Now I have to pee. This is maddeningly similar to pining your own hand to a wooden table with a Buck knife, right between the 3rd and 4th fucking metacarpals-BAM! I have to step from my large steel box of a cabin, into a smaller steel box that is my bathroom, or head. It is louder, much louder.

Somewhere in midstream, the noise will switch to a large grinder and I usually start screamingnothell.jpg obscenities at the unseen asshole somewhere above my head, until I resign myself to the cold, hard fact that he can’t hear me and shake it off, mentally and literally. Now for the gauntlet, the penultimate torture and a true test of one’s mettle. I know I have a higher pain threshold than you. Any of you. Because I can take a shower in the morning.

My shower is the smallest and loudest steel box on the planet, haunted by the bent memories and psychotic shadows of those went before me and since I happen to believe that everyone deserving of damnation will find themselves in their own personal Hell; one not shared with the multitudes so they can commiserate with each other, I have, then, met mine and bested it. That’s right-Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of my shower, I will fear no evil because I am the baddest motherfucker in the shower.
showerhell.jpg

The sound inside that moudly, yellow, seventh level of hell is felt more than heard. Yeah, your ears might bleed, but having the fillings rattled out of your head is more to the point. The pain? I used up my best analogy back at the pisser-sorry. I’ve already split my metacarpals with steel and I go with what I know. OK, try grabbing your upper lip and ripping it back over the top of your head and let me know how it feels. On a side note, I’ve witnessed a handful of births and 24 hours of labor looks a lot like the long version of my morning shower, so I guess mothers can relate.

You can imagine that showers onboard are short and scarce and that also might explain why the companionway smells like the inside of someone’s colon. Hmmm.

The whole point of this is that to a certain extant, this defines me as a person. When the sales idiot at Office Max offers to help me and then attempts to answer my question on portable hard-drives by reading off of the box and I rip it out of his hand, telling him to go jerk off somewhere else, it’s not because I’m just an ornery bastard-I’m just having a shower flashback. When I finally hit the beach after a month or two at sea and drink enough vodka to float a battleship, I’m just smoothing out the rough edges. This is why I have a few screws loose upstairs and why one of the greatest pleasures in my life is a nice long, QUIET shower when I get home.

Anyway, that’s what I endure every morning for half of my life, so I can spend the other half laying on the couch in my boxers, drinking Baileys and coffee till noon wondering how the office dicks are enjoying their Monday mornings.

What’s your morning like?

Archives

February 13, 2007

A Pirate's Life For Me

Please welcome another new writer at FTTW - The Seismic Pirate!

Well. Here I am at my new home and the first thing I notice is the fucking noise! My old home was awful quiet and this place is full of all sorts of people, topics and moods. It reminds of an apartment building I once lived in. I’ve read some great stuff here already and see I that I might end up the FTTW equivalent of the creepy uncle who smells like cabbage, but I’m cool with that. Come over here and pull my finger….

pull my finger.JPG


I took a good look around here yesterday, poking around in all the nooks and crannies and even scoped out the medicine cabinet for a stray Valium or two, just to calm the first-day jitters. No joy there- I’ve got to wing it sober since I’m still out at sea and the wine and woman are 127 hours and twenty-two hundred miles north of right now.

That’s right. I’m currently hangin’ tight on a ship at sea. A self-styled pirate, I make my living at sea and can be found at any given time just about anywhere in the world. I spend a little more than half my life at sea and the remaining time in a little, back woods village north of the 45th parallel, holed up with the wife and kids and a few good friends. There, I prefer to kill, and then eat large, indigenous mammals, washed down with a robust Mutlipulciano, or possibly the firm tannins of a Syrah, which, in truth should do more justice to wild game.

As I explained to the good folks here at FTTW, until recently, I was content to be a small-time, anonymous blogger writing about the fuzz in my bellybutton (drugged up and bedridden after shattering my sternum learning to snowboard last month), or perhaps the 6 foot-6 cook in lime green stretch pants and a hairnet who force-fed me deep-fried green beans on my last ship. Life was good until my present employer stumbled upon my site, forcing me to shut it down on the off chance I might have given away State Secrets like the brand of toilet paper used throughout our fleet, or the fact that the office dicks have a massage parlor operating in the building at their beck and call (lucky bastards). What you’ll get out of me here at FTTW is anybody’s guess…

Whatever, I’ll be a little more careful about the wherefores and whatnots of my top secret business and stick to the piratey bits like the exact amount of alcohol it took to make me puke my guts out in a flower pot sitting next to a 14 ft. stuffed grizzly bear, while blogging from an airport I can’t name, or that the sound of shrimp fucking interferes with my job. Shit, I probably shouldn’t mention that, but they were really getting busy today and I think some of my regular readers need an update on the horny, little bastards. Yes people, the shrimp are back, fucking like mad, and I am breakin out the pirate porn tonight. Shiver me timber…

Pirate porn.jpg

But before I go, I need to clean up a few stray thoughts-


***

All you guys who popped in here from the pirate’s old hideout? That place is dead and gone, but I might post a few oldies but goodies, just to get the folks here up to speed. Maybe I’ll try to burn out Q1’s eyes with my bellybutton again, or outline my business venture with the good Barrister Richard Wilson from Dakar, Senegal cause guess what? He replied. Honest.

***

I tend to stay away from current events unless something really pisses me off, or really makes me want to puke. This topic has managed to elicit both reactions, since it WON’T GO AWAY…

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007, Raymond S. Aubin died. He wasn't famous. He never posed in Playboy. I sure he wasn't even considered. He didn't abuse drugs, or jerk off an ancient billionaire for few months just to get a shot at his loot. He didn't have an impressive set of tits and never lost 240 pounds in three months by shooting Trimspa and speedballs for breakfast. He also didn't have children so he could fuck them up by being a drug-addicted, sorry-ass excuse of a mother.

Point of fact: I don't even know who he is. I pulled his name from the online edition of my hometown newspaper. I didn't know her either, but I figure chances are he earned having his name in print by being a decent father/husband/son/uncle/friend and soldier, unlike the pathetic loser that wasted every god-given thing she ever had, especially her children. To those who say she had a tough life and I’m just a cold-hearted piece of shit, I’ll bet my left nut that his life was tougher.

Raymond S. Aubin, 12/26/21 – 2/07/07 R.I.P.

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Finally, I owe Travis the opportunity to rape and pillage the port of his choice for suggesting FTTW. I think I’m gonna like it here once I find a place to hang my sword and eye patch.

Arrrggghhh!

The pirate has been tried many times, but never convicted.

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