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So this is the deal. The new ship is a whole different world man. The new ship will kick your ass if you don't watch out. They had me working a straight twelve in the beginning, 0600 to 1800, and I was sharing a room with one of the fucking snipes. After two weeks of that crap, I got my own room and started standing my own watches. This meant I got put on a six on/six off rotation. I don't think I can actually convey what a bitch 6&6 is. You can't possibly hope for a full six hours of sleep. Christ, you can't hope for four hous of solid sleep a day. At best, if you are actually able to get off the deck when you are supposed to, it still takes a good hour to wind down, and another to gear back up for your next watch. And don't be fooled into thinking that that means you get four hours of rest at a pop. Not by a long-shot. I had tried to make daily updates into a journal so youze could all feel the process of getting used to a new ship, but then one day into the hitch, the cold reality of busting ass all day and never getting enough rest set in. Not only did I cave, I folded and crumpled into a (fetal position) ball in my rack. Unfortunately, because fatigue was the prevailing "mood" I have now managed to forever loose the wonder and simple confusion that comes when someone is being indoctrinated into a new way of life. When someone is learning how to love a new ship that he never wanted to have to love in the first place. So bear with me OK? Sheese! Calm down already.
The first thing that somehow I feel that I should mention is the fact that I forgot that I have buried myself in (quasi)govermental jobs...Government funded jobs....For so long because I really do have a fundamental problem with making money for somebody else. My first couple of days I was amused with all the emphasis on "safety" that this company dribbles out of the corner of their frothing mouths whenever you turn around. Motto #1: "we want you to go home as safe as you arrived" motto #2: "Safety is no accident" (duh!)But the simple disingunity of all this "safety" BS drives me crazy. This safety thing is all superficial and immediate, and without regard for the individual, wholly absorbed with regard to the potential lawsuit and the bottom line. How does all this affect me? It affects me because a good 15% of my working time is spent putting on saftey harnesses and hunting down "guards" for the grinder (the tool, not the sangwich) and then the job itsself becomes all the more complicated when you are actually doing it because you have to deal with guards and harnesses and gloves and dust masks and crap. And the most hysterical thing about it all is that the captain makes a big deal about the guards on the grinder but has me clambering up atop the wheelhouse and tells me not to worry about the radar! Fuck.I'm not worried about the radar, but what if I actually wanted kids someday? What then? Sometimes I have to stop and wonder if people are really that stupid, or if they actually think I'm that stupid.
So. The new boat is 720' long and about fiftysomething on the beam. That is the total length mind you, This is a tug/barge unit. A notch barge, and the tug never leaves the notch. She locks into the barge with giantic eight foot pins. They tell me that the barge, the Marie Flood is the largest bulk-carying barge in the world. I believe it. In fact, because it is a notch barge I feel kind of cheated by the fact that I am working on a unit just as big and just as intense as an actual bulk ship, and only get seatime credit for the tug. But that is all about the Coast Guard. And I really don't feel like talking about all that right now.
It is about ten o'clock local. I pretty much spent the day sleeping. I went out around four(?) for some food: Blackened catfish smothered in etoufee. FanFuckingTastic. and then stumbled back here for more sleep. I want to leave tomorrow, but I fucking slept all day and didn't get in touch with the office to tell them to extract me from New Orleans before I spend all my money and die from a bad liver and a broken heart somewhere in the vicinity of 910 royal st... This is causing me a great deal of stress. So I think that I am just going to get drunk and forget that I have to worry. Dig?
And "yesterday" went like this: I met the russian sitting at the bar at shim-sham. She was, well, russian. This means that I ended up buying all her drinks and taking her out for dinner and didn't have to say a goddamn thing to her the whole time. And her hands were all over the place and I learned all sorts of things about her and her life, and I didn't have to say a goddamn thing before we got to the point when we were making out and falling against urine soaked alley walls before she snatched up her straw hat and told me she had to go. She had to meet someone. She wanted me to go back to Shim Sham at nine. Har! I made it back around 0400...no russian in sight, but the dude with the turntable was spinning good tunes. Stuff that brings you back, like "institutionalized" and "frigging in in the rigging" and so forth. Stuff you love, but would probably never actually buy or even listen to if you have it hidden in your collection somewheres. Yeah, so. Shim sham until, I guess like 0530 or so and then I tried to go to Hideout, but somehow I ended up going into "the whirling dervish" formerly "the crow-bar", formerly something else etc...
So there I am at six in the morning, drinking grey goose because there was no ketel one and I'm thinking that this incredibly handsome woman behind the bar has got to be a man. Because no woman, besides like a freaking model or something, could be this well put together. Models and transvestites baby; and transvestites, good trannies, will trump models every time. Once when I was in Greece (that's Grichenland for our german speaking friends. ShiBe!) I was staying with my oldest sister and her husband. That was the idea behind being there in the first place. Yeah, so the sister and the thanster used to hit the rack about nine or so in the evening. I had made it a habit to totter down to the corner store and buy up about six or five bottles of Amstel in the 32oz size. I would have about one with Nikos Mannis, the dude who owned the store, (and duped me into spending that week on the desolate island on schinoussa) and then spend the rest of the night out on the balcony back at the sister's apartment smoking poorly rolled cigarettes and drinking Amstel. It was a nice routine. It was a good decompression from the madness I had just exctricated myself from out in Czechoslovakia. Yeah, so. So one night the "routine" was altered. About midnight The thanester came out to the balcony all decked out like he was ready to go to town. His english was poor,and my greek even worse, but still he "told" me to get ready to go out. We slunk out of the apartment and into his BMW. First we went out to syntagma (Sp?) square and made fun of the albanians. Making fun of albanians was pretty much our favorite thing to do together. But it was still puzzling to have the thanester drag me out at that hour of the night to make fun of the albanians. So sooner than you would think we were headed out to the middle of nowhere, Athens Greece (Recko for our Czech speaking friends...Hovno!) And I mean the middle of nowhere. The place he brought me to was remarkable for its utter urban desolation. And then quick as turning the corner we were in the middle of, like, a carnival or something. A carnival of the most drop-dead georgeous women you have ever set eyes on in your life. They had this little street packed with 'em. Immediately I felt such gratitude to thanos for bringing me to the midst of such beauty as my jaw hit the deck of the beemer. And then the thought: Why are all these georgeous women out here? Well, sure, they were prostitutes, that was obvious. I guess. But prostitutes this good looking? It took me maybe two cruises down the strip for it to dawn on me that not only were they georgeous, but they were all over six foot tall. Can you see where I am going with this?
Let's just say that the greek arts are alive and well in greece.
Yeah. So. So some of the most beautiful women I have seen in my life weren't even women. And for the more sheltered folks that might be reading this, the phenomonon is not exclusive to greece. Just a little more, er, concentrated there. I am not ashamed to admit that I have been used as a fashion accesory for some pretty dern attractive transvistites on an occasion or two. And by occasion I mean high end art openings and shit. I don't whore myself out for nothing you know. Note: I did not use the word "date". I said "fashion accesory". Dig?
Yeah. So. So back to "yesterday". I figgure that any broad that good looking working the 4-10 watch at the crow-bar, er...Whirling dervish...can't possibly be a real girl. I downed about four before the place completely cleared when the sun was all the way up. And that is when she started talking to me. And hey, guess what? She was a real 6'1" chick. Not only that but she was a real model. In an ironic twist (take note![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
creepingivy) turns out she has even been a Maxim girl. Har! She was well versed in the world of fashion, and luckily, believe it or not, so is ol' Saltdog. I wowed her with my knoledge of fashion design, critiques of fashion trends and so on. She wowed me by saying things like "You are really sexy" and "I like older men" and "I'd take you home but I am living with my parents right now" (bringing someone to this hell-hole I am staying in ain't even an option...). Of course, being a true barroom hero I understand the wiles and ways of beautiful girls, and beautiful girl bartenders who want to boost their tips. But this was the real deal. When her relief showed up, we shared a last drink and shared some smooching. Right there in front of the co-worker. Of course around that time I managed to curl up on the couch and fall asleep. The new girl gently woke me around eleven and pushed me on my way back to the flophouse.
Not a bad day in the life, eh? Now, If I could only remember her name. Or what all exactly I told her. We talked for hours, and I was being pretty fucking candid. Only I don't think I told her about how I thought she was a transvestite. I don't think that girls can appreciate what a compliment that is for ol' SaltDog to make.
But all I really wanted to tell y'all about was the fact that I found it pretty fucking easy to go twenty eight days without booze. That I never really even thought about the whole "sobriety" thing except when I was marveling about the fact that I wasn't thinking about booze. But that was brought on by the attendant effects of sobriety on ol' SaltDog. Effects like "remembering stuff". Remembering stuff you haven't thought about in years because you have been so pickled that it taxes your facilities to remember what you said the night before, much less shit you did when you were younger. Much, much younger...But y'all are going to have to wait for stories like "the girl I raped" and "the greatest unrequited lover in the world" because, quite frankly: I wanna go smooch with a Maxim girl.
Oh, and: drink more booze. Dig?
Having a wondeful time.
Wish you were here.
The first thing that somehow I feel that I should mention is the fact that I forgot that I have buried myself in (quasi)govermental jobs...Government funded jobs....For so long because I really do have a fundamental problem with making money for somebody else. My first couple of days I was amused with all the emphasis on "safety" that this company dribbles out of the corner of their frothing mouths whenever you turn around. Motto #1: "we want you to go home as safe as you arrived" motto #2: "Safety is no accident" (duh!)But the simple disingunity of all this "safety" BS drives me crazy. This safety thing is all superficial and immediate, and without regard for the individual, wholly absorbed with regard to the potential lawsuit and the bottom line. How does all this affect me? It affects me because a good 15% of my working time is spent putting on saftey harnesses and hunting down "guards" for the grinder (the tool, not the sangwich) and then the job itsself becomes all the more complicated when you are actually doing it because you have to deal with guards and harnesses and gloves and dust masks and crap. And the most hysterical thing about it all is that the captain makes a big deal about the guards on the grinder but has me clambering up atop the wheelhouse and tells me not to worry about the radar! Fuck.I'm not worried about the radar, but what if I actually wanted kids someday? What then? Sometimes I have to stop and wonder if people are really that stupid, or if they actually think I'm that stupid.
So. The new boat is 720' long and about fiftysomething on the beam. That is the total length mind you, This is a tug/barge unit. A notch barge, and the tug never leaves the notch. She locks into the barge with giantic eight foot pins. They tell me that the barge, the Marie Flood is the largest bulk-carying barge in the world. I believe it. In fact, because it is a notch barge I feel kind of cheated by the fact that I am working on a unit just as big and just as intense as an actual bulk ship, and only get seatime credit for the tug. But that is all about the Coast Guard. And I really don't feel like talking about all that right now.
It is about ten o'clock local. I pretty much spent the day sleeping. I went out around four(?) for some food: Blackened catfish smothered in etoufee. FanFuckingTastic. and then stumbled back here for more sleep. I want to leave tomorrow, but I fucking slept all day and didn't get in touch with the office to tell them to extract me from New Orleans before I spend all my money and die from a bad liver and a broken heart somewhere in the vicinity of 910 royal st... This is causing me a great deal of stress. So I think that I am just going to get drunk and forget that I have to worry. Dig?
And "yesterday" went like this: I met the russian sitting at the bar at shim-sham. She was, well, russian. This means that I ended up buying all her drinks and taking her out for dinner and didn't have to say a goddamn thing to her the whole time. And her hands were all over the place and I learned all sorts of things about her and her life, and I didn't have to say a goddamn thing before we got to the point when we were making out and falling against urine soaked alley walls before she snatched up her straw hat and told me she had to go. She had to meet someone. She wanted me to go back to Shim Sham at nine. Har! I made it back around 0400...no russian in sight, but the dude with the turntable was spinning good tunes. Stuff that brings you back, like "institutionalized" and "frigging in in the rigging" and so forth. Stuff you love, but would probably never actually buy or even listen to if you have it hidden in your collection somewheres. Yeah, so. Shim sham until, I guess like 0530 or so and then I tried to go to Hideout, but somehow I ended up going into "the whirling dervish" formerly "the crow-bar", formerly something else etc...
So there I am at six in the morning, drinking grey goose because there was no ketel one and I'm thinking that this incredibly handsome woman behind the bar has got to be a man. Because no woman, besides like a freaking model or something, could be this well put together. Models and transvestites baby; and transvestites, good trannies, will trump models every time. Once when I was in Greece (that's Grichenland for our german speaking friends. ShiBe!) I was staying with my oldest sister and her husband. That was the idea behind being there in the first place. Yeah, so the sister and the thanster used to hit the rack about nine or so in the evening. I had made it a habit to totter down to the corner store and buy up about six or five bottles of Amstel in the 32oz size. I would have about one with Nikos Mannis, the dude who owned the store, (and duped me into spending that week on the desolate island on schinoussa) and then spend the rest of the night out on the balcony back at the sister's apartment smoking poorly rolled cigarettes and drinking Amstel. It was a nice routine. It was a good decompression from the madness I had just exctricated myself from out in Czechoslovakia. Yeah, so. So one night the "routine" was altered. About midnight The thanester came out to the balcony all decked out like he was ready to go to town. His english was poor,and my greek even worse, but still he "told" me to get ready to go out. We slunk out of the apartment and into his BMW. First we went out to syntagma (Sp?) square and made fun of the albanians. Making fun of albanians was pretty much our favorite thing to do together. But it was still puzzling to have the thanester drag me out at that hour of the night to make fun of the albanians. So sooner than you would think we were headed out to the middle of nowhere, Athens Greece (Recko for our Czech speaking friends...Hovno!) And I mean the middle of nowhere. The place he brought me to was remarkable for its utter urban desolation. And then quick as turning the corner we were in the middle of, like, a carnival or something. A carnival of the most drop-dead georgeous women you have ever set eyes on in your life. They had this little street packed with 'em. Immediately I felt such gratitude to thanos for bringing me to the midst of such beauty as my jaw hit the deck of the beemer. And then the thought: Why are all these georgeous women out here? Well, sure, they were prostitutes, that was obvious. I guess. But prostitutes this good looking? It took me maybe two cruises down the strip for it to dawn on me that not only were they georgeous, but they were all over six foot tall. Can you see where I am going with this?
Let's just say that the greek arts are alive and well in greece.
Yeah. So. So some of the most beautiful women I have seen in my life weren't even women. And for the more sheltered folks that might be reading this, the phenomonon is not exclusive to greece. Just a little more, er, concentrated there. I am not ashamed to admit that I have been used as a fashion accesory for some pretty dern attractive transvistites on an occasion or two. And by occasion I mean high end art openings and shit. I don't whore myself out for nothing you know. Note: I did not use the word "date". I said "fashion accesory". Dig?
Yeah. So. So back to "yesterday". I figgure that any broad that good looking working the 4-10 watch at the crow-bar, er...Whirling dervish...can't possibly be a real girl. I downed about four before the place completely cleared when the sun was all the way up. And that is when she started talking to me. And hey, guess what? She was a real 6'1" chick. Not only that but she was a real model. In an ironic twist (take note
creepingivy) turns out she has even been a Maxim girl. Har! She was well versed in the world of fashion, and luckily, believe it or not, so is ol' Saltdog. I wowed her with my knoledge of fashion design, critiques of fashion trends and so on. She wowed me by saying things like "You are really sexy" and "I like older men" and "I'd take you home but I am living with my parents right now" (bringing someone to this hell-hole I am staying in ain't even an option...). Of course, being a true barroom hero I understand the wiles and ways of beautiful girls, and beautiful girl bartenders who want to boost their tips. But this was the real deal. When her relief showed up, we shared a last drink and shared some smooching. Right there in front of the co-worker. Of course around that time I managed to curl up on the couch and fall asleep. The new girl gently woke me around eleven and pushed me on my way back to the flophouse. Not a bad day in the life, eh? Now, If I could only remember her name. Or what all exactly I told her. We talked for hours, and I was being pretty fucking candid. Only I don't think I told her about how I thought she was a transvestite. I don't think that girls can appreciate what a compliment that is for ol' SaltDog to make.
But all I really wanted to tell y'all about was the fact that I found it pretty fucking easy to go twenty eight days without booze. That I never really even thought about the whole "sobriety" thing except when I was marveling about the fact that I wasn't thinking about booze. But that was brought on by the attendant effects of sobriety on ol' SaltDog. Effects like "remembering stuff". Remembering stuff you haven't thought about in years because you have been so pickled that it taxes your facilities to remember what you said the night before, much less shit you did when you were younger. Much, much younger...But y'all are going to have to wait for stories like "the girl I raped" and "the greatest unrequited lover in the world" because, quite frankly: I wanna go smooch with a Maxim girl.
Oh, and: drink more booze. Dig?
Having a wondeful time.
Wish you were here.
