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In this issue: 1. Erik wonders'
"What the hell is wrong with these people?"
2. Captain Deep is slackin'
some more!
3.
Pirate Girl plunders the mainland!
What The Hell...
By The Whaleshark
Did you ever stop and ask yourself,
“What the hell is wrong with these people?” Well, that’s
the topic of this month’s “As the Anchor Drags” column.
In the recent weeks, several things have happened which have made me ask
that very question. Our world is an almost amazingly intricate conglomeration
of highways, byways, laws and regulations to make our lives as easy as
possible yet there’s that not-so-few people who are by design, dedicated
to screwing the entire project up.
I’m a frequent flyer. So take for
example my transit through security in Los Angeles. You know, it’s
early in the morning, we’re all on the same damn flight. Most
of us have bugged a friend/neighbor to drive us to the airport at this
god awful hour; some of us have bugged our spouses in to driving us there
personally; while the rest of us have taken a way over priced
shuttle (aka noisy-assed ford econoline van). Yes, we stand in the
same line at the check in. We’re all pissed off because it’s
not even 6:00 am (3:00 am with the time change) and we’re standing
in line like kindergarteners afraid to step out of line to pee because
we would lose our turn and there’s no “buttsies”.
Ok so you’re still with me. So I’m going through security
with my usual pessimistic nonchalance, waiting to head in to the high
security line. Well they look at my ticket and send me to the “special
line”. It doesn’t become apparent that this line is
different until we stop moving. Ok, here we go. If by taking
off my stank shoes, some crazy brainwashed Hamas guy gets caught, so be
it. Most people would be more pissed off if they were blown up in
the air. Anyway this fancy pants in front of me starts to throw
a fit. “I can’t believe this, and I can’t believe
that! The other line is going much faster and why should I blah
blah blah!” Now for starters, it’s not the security
guy at the airports fault that you’re a gay sissy (Not that there’s
anything wrong with that). But now come on… be a man!
Even if you’re a lady, be a man! So the guy turns around to
me as if to get some “other passenger support” and says “Can
you believe this?” So I just respond stoically with “When’s
your flight leave?” “In an hour” he says.
“So what difference does it make where you wait? Here or at
the gate?” So he gives me this “I’ll scratch your
eyes out” look but in doing so proceeds to shut the hell up.
Situation is resolved. End of paragraph one.
So then I’m reading an article in the daily
paper about a woman in Florida who has converted to Islam and refuses
to have her driver’s license picture taken with her face showing
because it is against her religion. Some consider skiing a religion
but none of them want to wear a ski mask on their license photo!
As if freaking god himself came down and said to his people, “Thou
shalt drive a 2003 BMW, while paying tax, license and registration fees,
and maintaining an insurance policy conducive to the laws governing the
state of Florida, whilst obeying all signs and posted speed limits and
not consuming alcoholic beverages at the risk of losing said license,
BUT thou shalt also not show thy face lest it piss of the hairy smelly
guy from Afghanistan sitting next to you under the penalty of eternal
damnation in the fiery pits of Allah’s most horrible torturous chambers
of death… Dare I say again… shut the hell up!
I of course have a perfectly rational solution to this problem.
Civil rights being taken advantage of? Ok why don’t we just
take a picture of you in your hood, give you a legit Florida driver’s
license and then ship your ungrateful ass over to Afghanistan where you
can live as a second class citizen equal to your donkey in your bombed
out “I can’t play nice with my neighbors for the last 2000
years” house, while polishing your husbands Ak-47, relishing in
the Tom Hank’s ice skate-to-the-mouth dental plan. Situation is
resolved. End of paragraph two.
Now on to people and their cars. Ever pull
into the super market parking lot, find one of the only available parking
spots left and as you make your turn discover that some jackass who doesn’t
know how to park (And to be fair to the jackasses of the world, this infraction
is usually the jackass-ettes of the world) has parked somewhat in one
spot and somewhat in another and has just rendered two spots un-parkable?
God that pisses me off! There are two lines that you can put your
car into for free and you’re telling me that you can’t find
the ability to manipulate the wheel of your big ass SUV between them?
It’s so simple people! If you can’t fit your Yukon into
the spot, then perhaps you shouldn’t be driving it, soccer mom!
But it’s not just the SUV people either. Scores of others
with seemingly small enough cars do the same thing. Know what I
like to do? I like to pull into the half spot with my truck
and make sure I’m around 13 millimeters away from the offending
vehicle. Sure, sometimes I have to climb out of the passenger window,
but at the moment it happens to be worth it. Just for the satisfaction
of knowing that that other person has to climb into their passenger window
or wait for me to get done shopping. Of course in a perfect world,
I wouldn’t care about my insurance premiums and I would instead
move their cars into their spots with the rear bumper of my truck.
Ahhh, one day… one day…
This again leads me to the
moral of my story (if there even is one). It’s just soooo
easy isn’t it? Take the change out of your pockets in the
metal detector, park between the lines, and just don’t be stupid.
It isn’t that difficult. But no matter how easy some things
are designed to be, you can count on someone being there to throw a wrench
into the works. I think I just found the topic for next month’s
column. I think I’ll do a piece on my take on political correctness
and the pansies that started the whole movement. It should be quite
insightful. In the meantime I think I’m going to relax a bit.
My plane lands in about three hours, and an hour after that I should be
back in Maui, sitting at the pool under a warm Lahaina afternoon sun,
sportin’ a cool buzz, wearing a fresh tan, and wasting away again…
well, you know the rest. Aloha!
Pirate Problem
One day a pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel hanging out of
his pants. He goes up to the bartender and says, "Yar, Give me something
to drink."
While the bartender is pouring the drink, he looks at the pirate and notices
the steering wheel.
"Hey buddy, you know you have a steering wheel hanging out of your
pants?"
The pirate looks at the bartender and says, "Yar, and it's driving
me nuts!"
It would appear that Captain Deep
Banana has been very busy this month. So busy in fact that we haven't
received an article in almost 2 months! God knows what Steve is
doing with his free time...
E-mail Deep at deep_banana@excite.com
Never fear, Pirate Girl is here with a brand new story
PIRATE GIRL TAKES ON CALIFORNIA
By Pirate Girl
After the fabulous high that
was the Vegas trip, the party at Tommy Rockers, meeting Sunny Jim and
so many parrotheads, getting broken into, and that whole Hula up on the
JB stage thing, I decided that I needed to keep that proverbial ball rolling
(minus the thefts and horrendous hangovers) and keep promoting the “Party
Like a Pirate” tour in California. So that was that. Pirate Girl
takes on California.
I arranged for a few months leave from Maui which
left my central site of operations in Long Beach, California. First things
first, I needed to find a gym. Pirate Girl’s gotta stay in shape
and that doesn’t mean just any shape. No where to ride your bike
around here, unless of course you have a death wish or are part of some
extreme sports reality show where if you did you’d be up for winning
fifty thousand dollars. Or die, in which case you only get twenty five.
(Don’t even get me started on my feelings on these “reality
shows.”) Well, Southern Californians are a different breed. I’m
not even sure that LA is still a part of the United States. First of all,
driving anywhere requires that you bring provisions to last you at least
4 days. In case, heaven forbid, you should hit traffic. Ring any bells?
“…Nine lanes and it’s bumper to bumper on the freeway.”
(A Charmed Life” …song #4 on the new album, of course. But
never mind my wanting to describe my whole existence by quoting lyrics).
Ok, you’ll also need exceptional bladder control (note to self:
remove all foods with a diuretic effect from my diet) and a cell phone.
Of course in LA everyone has cell phones. Little girls are walking around
with cell phones and dolls that have their own cell phones. So I find
a gym. That’s where I was. So imagine my surprise when I walk
in to see women on treadmills talking on their cell phones. Oye
vei! Well, with the rise of brain-tumors supposedly caused by excessive
use of cell phones, and if my math is correct, LA’s population should
drop by about 75% by 2005, leaving behind something that may feel more
like Maui, at which point I might not mind it here at all. But until
then…
So back at the gym, I busted out a steady run
on the treadmill as I mentally organized my strategy for this California
tour thing. Afterwards I took advantage of the large and largely equipped
gym’s yoga/stretch area. Where there were a few other women already
stretching and yoga-ing. Well, I take my stretching very seriously;
apparently TOO seriously. I should have sold tickets. Fifteen minutes
into it, the yoga area became abundant with men who had repositioned themselves
in stations directly behind us as if to get a better seat. I may not have
thought twice about it, EXCEPT these stocky muscled guys were now strapped
onto the “thigh-buster” (you know the one that chicks get
on that has you spread eagle/closed eagle/spread eagle and so on), and
the “just for her” modified ab exerciser for expectant mothers.
Hmmm… That one was a little suspicious. I pondered whether to tell
them to go get some popcorn, or A LIFE. I opted for just cutting my stretching
session short. Well if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane…
Although I started out extremely homesick, being
here to meet venue owners and parrotheads in person has proven very fruitful
for The Whaleshark’s migration to the mainland, and it has also
been extremely FUN. I actually have to say that I could not be luckier.
At a phlocking, I met Mike, Mark, Jim, Dave, and Robbie; the parrothead
brave enough to dance up on the tables. Oh, and I also met Mike, Mark,
Jim and good ole Dave. Yeah, apparently everybody in LA shares these four
names. The women have proven to be a lot more creative… and
lovely… and fun. They wear blue hair to phlockings, and have parrots
swinging from their earlobes (they don’t have to be live parrots
for me to be impressed). And this was just for a Sunday afternoon!
And last but not least, the best thing was finally meeting Greg “Fingers”
Taylor. Who is now one of my favorite people in the world.
I ended up going to ALL of his gigs
for the rest of his time in California, getting to know him, and getting
to hang with the rest of the guys from the Alan Wright band. I think when
we first met I told him something to the effect of “There’s
something I’ve always admired about you but I cannot put my FINGER
on it.” And the rest was history. I didn’t just meet yet another
musician, I made a new friend. (Fingers, if you read this, Thanks
so much for the Voodoo –lounge- and take it easy on the Oreo’s!)
Well, Fingers went back east to his family, and
it inspired me to go see mine. Unlike Fingers, I don’t have any
kids (well none that I know of!) but thought I’d pay my folks a
visit. Well, I should have gotten a bone marrow transplant instead. You
see, I am a recovering catholic, yet by my visiting, I was thrown into
a relapse. I agreed (after being told I could not disagree) to go to church
on Sunday. I made a quick stop at the liquor store, where I actually
met the nicest little Chinese man ever. I didn’t have enough small
change and he presented me with this little bowl labeled “Take a
penny, Leave a penny.” This way, he explained, folks can all take
what they need, and if they have surplus they can leave it there. Ah,
I get it. Help thy neighbor! How nice.
Well, this applies not to the Catholic church
as they pass around this little basket and people put in cash and checks
and change in it. Appaaaaaarently, NOT the same concept of “Take
a penny, leave a penny.” When the basket gets to you, it is
frowned upon when you take cash OUT. So I was escorted outside and
I didn’t even get to drink the wine! (I feel another Whaleshark
LIVE show classic: “…..are you drinking, with me Jesus…I
can’t see you, very clear…”) Back at the house, plotting
my escape, something caught my attention. Right there in my parents’
hallway was a picture of yours-truly all decked out in a full pirate geddup,
with my sword around this man’s neck, and “blood” all
over my face… Well the only thing that makes this a good memory
is that the man in the picture about to get his throat sliced is smiling.
You see, four score and 7 years ago I worked on a cruise ship, and as
the activities co-director, part of my duties were to dress up in the
costume of my choice –I chose the pirate- and go around and “assault”
unsuspecting passengers while my partner in crime, the photographer, took
pictures of the “attack” and the tourists could then purchase
said pictures at steep tourist prices at the end of the cruise.
To think that 7 years later
my destiny would find me again as permanent PIRATE GIRL (Not to mention
how many people’s photo albums I may have ended up in!) Well, California,
here comes Pirate Girl, paving the way for The Whaleshark, who is taking
it over one show at a time. You know what they say, “Behind every
great man, is a woman; rolling her eyes”. He showed us all how to
“Party like a Pirate” Maui Style, and most recently made us
laugh till beer came out of our noses at Margaritaville in Newport Beach
on June 5th; where sightings of a pre-pubescent Captain Morgan were reported
and shouts of “More rum for me men!” were heard for miles.
Keep checking the gig calendar. The Whaleshark is coming to a town
near YOU! Arrrrrrghhhh!
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