::::::::
By Alamantra. 09.05.08
By Alamantra. 09.05.08
c. 2008 (All rights reserved.)
Fresh fish aint always so fresh.
Here's a fish story: Once upon a time, --some twenty-five or so years ago-- my old buddy Jeff and I decided we would go to Florida and get ourselves a gig working on a commercial fishing boat. Though more experienced voices tried to prevail with more sensible suggestions, we were young enough and foolish enough that we were lured by tales that one could make a great deal of money doing this sort of work ...and... well, we'd always liked fishing. How bad could it be?
So we organized a garage sale and raised some money for the trip, packed ourselves up into Jeff's old Chevy and went on down to Panama City. We wound up at Saint Andrews Marina and quickly found ourselves employed on a long-line fishing boat; though up to that point, neither of us had ever heard of long-line fishing or its questionable practices. The first pier where we inquired, the boat was getting ready to head out the next day for what we were told would be ten days or so. All we had to do was be there the following morning ready to go. "Ten days! This will be so easy!"
In addition to the two of us there was the skipper, a first mate named Jim and a cook named Mike. For over a month our lives and well-being were in the hands of these jackals of the sea. Finally, a hurricane forced our little boat to harbor in Galveston,Texas. On board, there was no shower, no toilet and no mercy. We worked a relentless schedule beginning at five or so in the morning until, eleven o'clock, on some nights. The only time we got a break is when a storm made the seas too rough to work and we were able to spend a day getting some badly needed sleep.
The skipper was a salty, old codger who was known around the gulf-coast commercial fishing community as "Grouper Lips." Mike, the cook, was a psychopath and, I suspect, a serial killer; and First Mate Jim was a former Vietnam veteran who had once been in the Special Forces. He often recounted memories of his days during the war, and really, really missed it. He said it was the greatest experience of his entire life. He told me that at night, they'd get high on whatever they could get their hands on and chase hookers around Saigon. In the morning, they would go out to their helicopters and fly off and: "kill the g**ks, all day ...and they actually paid us for it! Unbelievable!"
For that month, Jeff and I were in a danger greater than we were capable of appreciating at that time, but we'd had enough to be most thankful when the hurricane finally drove us to port. We were determined to get off of that boat and hitch-hike from Texas back to Panama City to the car and count our lucky selves wiser for living through our self-inflicted ordeal. They had threatened our lives occasionally; and on one occasion the skipper had physically assaulted Jeff by backhanding him, hard, across his sun-scorched face, which sent his glasses spinning across the deck: "If you want to eat, you're gonna work! I'll cut you up and use you as bait! Out here, I AM LORD AND MASTER!"
The night of our arrival into Galveston, Jim and Mike kept us out by buying us drink after drink after drink. We got smashed and I have no idea what all we did or even where we were. The only thing I remember in that fog was the moment of "the sell." After all, they weren't putting down good money for those drinks and being all buddy-buddy just out of their own natural sense of camaraderie. They weren't trying to "bond" with us. No. They had a purpose: They were determined to SHANGHAI US back out to sea for another tour of hell. Once out to sea, it would be the same brutal routine, the same threats and deprivations. This was a standard ploy of theirs and they were well-practiced at it. They would say or do whatever it took: "It will be different, this time," they told us. "We'll shade you with umbrellas and get you any kind of food you want, --all the beer you want. It'll be great. You wouldn't want to disappoint us,would you?" and so forth and so on. "We're all brothers, now. We love you guys. You'll make so much money! I'd really be upset if you tried to quit, now." It was an intense pressure that mixed overt promises with covert threats, and it didn't relent until we accepted this aggressive invitation to their satisfaction.
I don't remember getting back to the boat. All I know is that I woke up at first light ... by sitting straight up in my bunk and unceremoniously bumping my head. KATHUNK! was the painful sound of me getting a little common sense knocked into me. I was stone-cold sober and knew only one thing: I had to get off that damned boat, no matter what it took to do it. I accepted that we may even have to fight First Mate Jim, Psycho Mike and Grouper Lips and, if that's what it took, I was ready to do it. I woke up Jeff and we discussed it and came up with a plan to depart with as little commotion as possible. We still had hopes of getting paid. With some difficulty, we extracted ourselves from that situation. They gave us a small pittance of what were owed for the road and promised that the rest would be sent from the company to our homes in the form of a check once they had returned to port in Florida. We weren't necessarily satisfied with this arrangement, but we weren't in any real position to negotiate, were we? We caught a ride with the truck driver who had come to transport the fish we had caught to ...a freezer near you! (By the way: "fresh fish" aint always so fresh.) He gave us a ride from Galveston to Lafayette, Louisiana, where we spent the night. After spending another day and a night in Lafayette, we hitch-hiked on over to New Orleans. After a night there we continued on our way to Florida. The trip back was a mini-adventure that evoked scenes straight from the Kerouac novel I was reading while we were "On the Road."
Let it suffice to say that this adventure was the last I had anything to do with fishing for many, many years. Let it also suffice to say that our decisions to get off the boat and take our chances on the road were confirmed in that we were never paid all of the money that we were owed for a month of some of the hardest work I have ever done. The check wasn't in the mail. No, these were not honest pirates at all.
The point of this little anecdotal reminiscence is to qualify that I speak from direct, personal experience when I say that this is what the Republican Party hoped to do to America with their convention: SHANGHAI US. Take it from someone who knows: We've been on their boat for eight years, now --and it hasn't exactly been a junket, has it? --even if we DO owe the Chinese for the ride! All I know is that we have to get off this damned boat. No good can come from staying on it; even when they promise us an umbrella --or to fix our major energy problems through more domestic drilling of the last pristine animal habitats in our country and off of its shores. The check won't be in the mail. It will just be more of the same.
The Republicans have successfully pulled off their convention. They got their stunning photo-ops --much like the Democrats did at their convention. Sarah Barracuda Palin did a very good job in tossing out the red meat for the enraptured congregants. She was, indeed, a regular pit-bull in lipstick. (Her own analogy.) Candidate John McCain was a snore. He tried to acknowledge that the Republicans have some sort of nebulous culpability to the current state of America, while at the same time distancing himself from any actual accountability and any specifics. However, the Republicans were able to overcome the news cycle of Hurricane Gustav and did what, I concede, was a bang-up job in baring their teeth at the Democratic nominees; as well as the media. They have gotten the right-wing base all fired up and ready to go, and have even managed to dust off some of their old tried and true 'wedge issues.' Congratulations.
"It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend." Aerosmith
However, it appears that the Republican party still refuses to acknowledge or answer for the consequences that its policies & practices have had on this country over the past eight years. They, aspire to paradox: They simultaneously verify AND refuse to answer for the shameful travesty that has been done to the American people, and to the world in the NAME OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by a neocon doctrine that can only be described as an abysmal failure. They seem to be gambling that the recipients of their abuses won't notice. Contrary to offering a vision as to how they will reconcile the United States with the other nations of the world, they have carefully suppressed any such substantive discussion at their convention and have displayed unmitigated arrogance by adopting the position that their recent record is irrelevant in this election cycle ...and I quote:
"Our record is strictly off the record." Anonymous Republican overheard at convention.
Though they had an opportunity to show some REAL courage and some REAL integrity, they have fallen short because they are not willing to "own their failure," as Barack Obama challenged them to do in his acceptance speech in Denver. "We the people" are entitled to such a reckoning. We have endured much at their hands. Our country has sacrificed greatly and now they must make all accounts, financed by that sacrifice, good if they can. If they cannot, they must "own their failure." They believe in the ownership society? Well, then, let them "own their failure." They must admit their mistakes, show some contrition and genuine humility. Currently, much like Karl Rove, they still remain in contempt of the people of the United States of America.
They want to show that they've changed? GREAT! Let them force Karl Rove to answer his subpoena to come before congress. They want a real break with Bush and Cheney? GREAT! Impeach them. That just might get my vote, but I doubt it; and I expect the Republicans to be understanding as to why this is so. They have yet to demonstrate any SIGNS of actual accountability. Inaction speaks louder than insults.
They owe it to us to present a coherent plan as to how they will resolve some of the most dire consequences of the failures of THE CURRENT Republican administration; not mere rhetoric about their "opponents;" no matter how flashy and well-delivered. Otherwise, it would be the apex of American foolishness and gullibility to continue to reward them by entrusting them with the decisions and responsibilities of the highest offices in the free world. Even where they've tried to use their convention and the fresh, unblemished image of Sarah Palin to simulate the appearance of change, they have shown that they haven't REALLY changed at all! It's the same kind of thinking: Genuine contrition is NOT standing in front an over-size image of the flag, face painted in make-up to recite humble words from a teleprompter on prime-time. Don't the Republicans understand that they shouldn't talk about an Obama administration's "unknown" potential for failure while in denial of their own "known" failures? They haven't a leg to stand on. Don't they know that? The denial ...the editing of their message... indicates that they do on some primitive and terrible level. It just hasn't yet grown into the practice of conscience. We get it: These things take time.
The one thing that APPEARED to be missing from the Republican Convention was the presence of the Bush-Cheney administration. George "phoned" his speech in this year, using his inexcusable actions from Katrina to excuse his current absence. No one missed him, and the Republican nominee was actually grateful that the Republican president was not there to shake his hand. Of course, one place where George Bush WAS present was in Sarah Palin's "speech" written by Matthew Skully; who was George Bush's speechwriter for five years. I just watched Palin speak at a rally broadcast on MSNBC. The speech that sounded so "impressive" just a couple of nights ago rings so hollow today. Perhaps it's the lack of teleprompters, or maybe it's the lack of any real substance. These days, it's hard to tell.
The Republicans don't really have ANY desire to discuss the issues. They are focused on telling a story, not solving our problems; much less acknowledging the import of our problems. They told us our economic problems were all in our heads and that we should stop whining about it. This is the same old standard ploy and they are well-practiced at it. However, we don't have to stay on their boat. The first rays of the morning light will come and we will wake up sober, knowing what we have to do.
c. 2008 (All rights reserved.)
Fresh fish aint always so fresh.
Here's a fish story: Once upon a time, --some twenty-five or so years ago-- my old buddy Jeff and I decided we would go to Florida and get ourselves a gig working on a commercial fishing boat. Though more experienced voices tried to prevail with more sensible suggestions, we were young enough and foolish enough that we were lured by tales that one could make a great deal of money doing this sort of work ...and... well, we'd always liked fishing. How bad could it be?
So we organized a garage sale and raised some money for the trip, packed ourselves up into Jeff's old Chevy and went on down to Panama City. We wound up at Saint Andrews Marina and quickly found ourselves employed on a long-line fishing boat; though up to that point, neither of us had ever heard of long-line fishing or its questionable practices. The first pier where we inquired, the boat was getting ready to head out the next day for what we were told would be ten days or so. All we had to do was be there the following morning ready to go. "Ten days! This will be so easy!"
In addition to the two of us there was the skipper, a first mate named Jim and a cook named Mike. For over a month our lives and well-being were in the hands of these jackals of the sea. Finally, a hurricane forced our little boat to harbor in Galveston,Texas. On board, there was no shower, no toilet and no mercy. We worked a relentless schedule beginning at five or so in the morning until, eleven o'clock, on some nights. The only time we got a break is when a storm made the seas too rough to work and we were able to spend a day getting some badly needed sleep.
The skipper was a salty, old codger who was known around the gulf-coast commercial fishing community as "Grouper Lips." Mike, the cook, was a psychopath and, I suspect, a serial killer; and First Mate Jim was a former Vietnam veteran who had once been in the Special Forces. He often recounted memories of his days during the war, and really, really missed it. He said it was the greatest experience of his entire life. He told me that at night, they'd get high on whatever they could get their hands on and chase hookers around Saigon. In the morning, they would go out to their helicopters and fly off and: "kill the g**ks, all day ...and they actually paid us for it! Unbelievable!"
For that month, Jeff and I were in a danger greater than we were capable of appreciating at that time, but we'd had enough to be most thankful when the hurricane finally drove us to port. We were determined to get off of that boat and hitch-hike from Texas back to Panama City to the car and count our lucky selves wiser for living through our self-inflicted ordeal. They had threatened our lives occasionally; and on one occasion the skipper had physically assaulted Jeff by backhanding him, hard, across his sun-scorched face, which sent his glasses spinning across the deck: "If you want to eat, you're gonna work! I'll cut you up and use you as bait! Out here, I AM LORD AND MASTER!"
The night of our arrival into Galveston, Jim and Mike kept us out by buying us drink after drink after drink. We got smashed and I have no idea what all we did or even where we were. The only thing I remember in that fog was the moment of "the sell." After all, they weren't putting down good money for those drinks and being all buddy-buddy just out of their own natural sense of camaraderie. They weren't trying to "bond" with us. No. They had a purpose: They were determined to SHANGHAI US back out to sea for another tour of hell. Once out to sea, it would be the same brutal routine, the same threats and deprivations. This was a standard ploy of theirs and they were well-practiced at it. They would say or do whatever it took: "It will be different, this time," they told us. "We'll shade you with umbrellas and get you any kind of food you want, --all the beer you want. It'll be great. You wouldn't want to disappoint us,would you?" and so forth and so on. "We're all brothers, now. We love you guys. You'll make so much money! I'd really be upset if you tried to quit, now." It was an intense pressure that mixed overt promises with covert threats, and it didn't relent until we accepted this aggressive invitation to their satisfaction.
I don't remember getting back to the boat. All I know is that I woke up at first light ... by sitting straight up in my bunk and unceremoniously bumping my head. KATHUNK! was the painful sound of me getting a little common sense knocked into me. I was stone-cold sober and knew only one thing: I had to get off that damned boat, no matter what it took to do it. I accepted that we may even have to fight First Mate Jim, Psycho Mike and Grouper Lips and, if that's what it took, I was ready to do it. I woke up Jeff and we discussed it and came up with a plan to depart with as little commotion as possible. We still had hopes of getting paid. With some difficulty, we extracted ourselves from that situation. They gave us a small pittance of what were owed for the road and promised that the rest would be sent from the company to our homes in the form of a check once they had returned to port in Florida. We weren't necessarily satisfied with this arrangement, but we weren't in any real position to negotiate, were we? We caught a ride with the truck driver who had come to transport the fish we had caught to ...a freezer near you! (By the way: "fresh fish" aint always so fresh.) He gave us a ride from Galveston to Lafayette, Louisiana, where we spent the night. After spending another day and a night in Lafayette, we hitch-hiked on over to New Orleans. After a night there we continued on our way to Florida. The trip back was a mini-adventure that evoked scenes straight from the Kerouac novel I was reading while we were "On the Road."
Let it suffice to say that this adventure was the last I had anything to do with fishing for many, many years. Let it also suffice to say that our decisions to get off the boat and take our chances on the road were confirmed in that we were never paid all of the money that we were owed for a month of some of the hardest work I have ever done. The check wasn't in the mail. No, these were not honest pirates at all.
The point of this little anecdotal reminiscence is to qualify that I speak from direct, personal experience when I say that this is what the Republican Party hoped to do to America with their convention: SHANGHAI US. Take it from someone who knows: We've been on their boat for eight years, now --and it hasn't exactly been a junket, has it? --even if we DO owe the Chinese for the ride! All I know is that we have to get off this damned boat. No good can come from staying on it; even when they promise us an umbrella --or to fix our major energy problems through more domestic drilling of the last pristine animal habitats in our country and off of its shores. The check won't be in the mail. It will just be more of the same.
The Republicans have successfully pulled off their convention. They got their stunning photo-ops --much like the Democrats did at their convention. Sarah Barracuda Palin did a very good job in tossing out the red meat for the enraptured congregants. She was, indeed, a regular pit-bull in lipstick. (Her own analogy.) Candidate John McCain was a snore. He tried to acknowledge that the Republicans have some sort of nebulous culpability to the current state of America, while at the same time distancing himself from any actual accountability and any specifics. However, the Republicans were able to overcome the news cycle of Hurricane Gustav and did what, I concede, was a bang-up job in baring their teeth at the Democratic nominees; as well as the media. They have gotten the right-wing base all fired up and ready to go, and have even managed to dust off some of their old tried and true 'wedge issues.' Congratulations.
"It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend." Aerosmith
However, it appears that the Republican party still refuses to acknowledge or answer for the consequences that its policies & practices have had on this country over the past eight years. They, aspire to paradox: They simultaneously verify AND refuse to answer for the shameful travesty that has been done to the American people, and to the world in the NAME OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by a neocon doctrine that can only be described as an abysmal failure. They seem to be gambling that the recipients of their abuses won't notice. Contrary to offering a vision as to how they will reconcile the United States with the other nations of the world, they have carefully suppressed any such substantive discussion at their convention and have displayed unmitigated arrogance by adopting the position that their recent record is irrelevant in this election cycle ...and I quote:
"Our record is strictly off the record." Anonymous Republican overheard at convention.
Though they had an opportunity to show some REAL courage and some REAL integrity, they have fallen short because they are not willing to "own their failure," as Barack Obama challenged them to do in his acceptance speech in Denver. "We the people" are entitled to such a reckoning. We have endured much at their hands. Our country has sacrificed greatly and now they must make all accounts, financed by that sacrifice, good if they can. If they cannot, they must "own their failure." They believe in the ownership society? Well, then, let them "own their failure." They must admit their mistakes, show some contrition and genuine humility. Currently, much like Karl Rove, they still remain in contempt of the people of the United States of America.
They want to show that they've changed? GREAT! Let them force Karl Rove to answer his subpoena to come before congress. They want a real break with Bush and Cheney? GREAT! Impeach them. That just might get my vote, but I doubt it; and I expect the Republicans to be understanding as to why this is so. They have yet to demonstrate any SIGNS of actual accountability. Inaction speaks louder than insults.
They owe it to us to present a coherent plan as to how they will resolve some of the most dire consequences of the failures of THE CURRENT Republican administration; not mere rhetoric about their "opponents;" no matter how flashy and well-delivered. Otherwise, it would be the apex of American foolishness and gullibility to continue to reward them by entrusting them with the decisions and responsibilities of the highest offices in the free world. Even where they've tried to use their convention and the fresh, unblemished image of Sarah Palin to simulate the appearance of change, they have shown that they haven't REALLY changed at all! It's the same kind of thinking: Genuine contrition is NOT standing in front an over-size image of the flag, face painted in make-up to recite humble words from a teleprompter on prime-time. Don't the Republicans understand that they shouldn't talk about an Obama administration's "unknown" potential for failure while in denial of their own "known" failures? They haven't a leg to stand on. Don't they know that? The denial ...the editing of their message... indicates that they do on some primitive and terrible level. It just hasn't yet grown into the practice of conscience. We get it: These things take time.
The one thing that APPEARED to be missing from the Republican Convention was the presence of the Bush-Cheney administration. George "phoned" his speech in this year, using his inexcusable actions from Katrina to excuse his current absence. No one missed him, and the Republican nominee was actually grateful that the Republican president was not there to shake his hand. Of course, one place where George Bush WAS present was in Sarah Palin's "speech" written by Matthew Skully; who was George Bush's speechwriter for five years. I just watched Palin speak at a rally broadcast on MSNBC. The speech that sounded so "impressive" just a couple of nights ago rings so hollow today. Perhaps it's the lack of teleprompters, or maybe it's the lack of any real substance. These days, it's hard to tell.
The Republicans don't really have ANY desire to discuss the issues. They are focused on telling a story, not solving our problems; much less acknowledging the import of our problems. They told us our economic problems were all in our heads and that we should stop whining about it. This is the same old standard ploy and they are well-practiced at it. However, we don't have to stay on their boat. The first rays of the morning light will come and we will wake up sober, knowing what we have to do.
