As I wait for the order to go out and untie my new ship, The M/V Sulphur Enterprise, it occurred to me that this is the perfect opportunity to reconnect with my readers. How have you all been? Good? Glad to hear it!
Where have I been? Well, I have to say I have been in a bit of a funk ever since LSU lost to Florida. I tried to ease my pain with a trip to Key West and another to Baton Rouge. Both trips distracted me from my misery for just a short time but the depression soon returned. A couple of days of good old fashioned hard work has shaken the cobwebs lose and I am feeling more like my old self than I have in some time.
To be honest, I just had writer’s block. Writing is not easy. What you are about to read was not easy to write. I say that with all confidence and I haven’t even written it yet. For the last month my writing time has been spent sitting in bed writing lousy sappy poetry about women who don’t love me. One thing I have learned in my four years of sharing my written word with others is that nobody wants to read that crap – especially the women who don’t love me! Truthfully, I don’t even like reading it. I can’t tell you the number of times I have read some lousy poem the day after writing it. The horror I feel if I actually sent it is similar to the feeling of waking up having no recollection of the last twenty hours of my life with only one shoe on, an empty wallet, holes torn in the knees of my fancy jeans and a raccoon in my room.
Which leads to the inevitable thought, “Thank God it’s not a skunk this time!”
And I’m scared of raccoons! Alcohol does strange things to you.
Anyway….I need to finish up the Venezuela saga so we can put the past behind us and move onto more exciting things – like me giving rose salesmanship classes to homeless people in Ybor City. However, it is not fair to leave a tale untold. Let’s wrap this up quick!
I realized something last night. Shopping in an IKEA is four times more frightening than what happened in Venezuela. That epiphany took a little luster off the story I am about to tell. Plus, it has been so long since the last installment and really a long time since it happened to me that I just don’t care anymore. Not knowing what to do, I did what I usually do and looked to the Matrix trilogy for inspiration. Nobody needed the third movie. The trilogy peaked with movie two and all the third offered us was some more lousy acting from Keanu, a questionable story line and an unsatisfactory ending. Still, we got to see the hot chic in the tight black clothes for another movie and that was cool. And there were some good special effects. All in all, as much as it was far inferior to the second movie, we needed that third movie to have a sense of completion and fulfillment in our lives.
Think of this blog as Matrix three with better acting and worse special effects.
The nice thing about this blog layout is that you can go back, reread the previous posts and refresh your memory. That will save me from typing 1,000 words to recap where we are. Basically, our Captain had just been taken to jail and the rest of the crew had been told our time was coming.
I hate to ruin the movie for you but nothing bad happened. Here’s why:
That night I broke out my Navy Seal Sat Phone and called my close buddies Steven Segal and Jet Li. They gladly offered their assistance and were snuck into Maracaibo harbor in a Russian sub that was somehow stolen by a paramilitary organization friendly to our cause. Don’t worry about how that could possibly happen. These details are not important to the plot.
Dressed all in black, the three of us snuck through the deserted nighttime streets of Maracaibo. And by deserted I mean there was enough of a break in the congested pollution spewing traffic for us to cross the street. Stopping only for a quick bite at El Gaucho, and once more to have a few cervesas with some lovely senoritas at a corner bar, we stealthily made our way to the impregnable prison that held our Captain.
We made it in easy. Too easy. The guards at the main gate went down with darts tipped in poison that paralyzes the victim for twelve hours. The poison is extracted from a tiny snake found only in the jungles of Peru. Don’t ask why I was carrying this item and no, I don’t know if Peru actually has jungles.
It was when we were searching for the Captain that the trap was sprung. Fifty armed guards came out of nowhere and surrounded us at gunpoint. Segal was ok as he never actually gets shot, but I was worried about Jet Li and myself. I didn’t see any way in which we weren’t going down in a hail of gunfire.
Turns out we were fine. Hugo Chavez had been providing discounted and sometimes free petroleum to Venezuela’s citizens as a way of buying votes without actually buying votes. Clever!! Except it didn’t leave any money for bullets. The hail of gunfire never occurred and Segal, Jet and I made short work of those buffoons.
The Captain was found and we snuck him out of there, high tailing it back to the ship. We were in such a hurry we barely had time to swing back by El Gaucho to feed the Captain and enjoy a few night caps.
Back on the ship we fired up the engines, cut the mooring lines (although with no guards that was unnecessary but so much more exciting) and sailed into the sunrise. Free at last!! Free at last!! The celebration began. And then it ended when the company ordered us to another Venezuelan port to discharge our remaining cargo. It turns out that the cost of not delivering the cargo was higher than simply flying in new sailors to replace us after we were executed. Well, you can’t argue with good sound business decisions!!!
Look – the truth is that for five days we sat around waiting for the guards to come back and take us to jail. The reason we felt that would happen is because they told us that is what they were going to do. Our lawyers told us we were going to jail. The US Consulate told us we were going to jail. And then told us he had pressing matters in another part of the country so couldn’t be there for the questioning. What?!?!?!?!
That was a stressful time. It was even more stressful for our families.
Apparently we hired the right lawyers because those things never happened. The Captain was eventually released with no visible scars and tales of being treated civilly. The authorities that were involved over the last five days were all nice people and seemed as perplexed as we were as to why this BS was happening. I think if it was up to them we all would have gone to El Gaucho and talked about baseball.
I became famous thanks to Forbes. Check out the article if you get the chance.
If you want to read the most accurate news reports of the saga, check out CNN. Sorry. I am a Fox News guy just like you, but CNN has the facts pretty much correct.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/world/americas/venezuela-us-ship/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/world/americas/venezuela-us-ship/index.html
I don’t know who to thank for getting us out of there. I can tell you more than one person told me personally that they were shocked we were leaving. I heard several times that they had expected us to be held for MORE THAN A YEAR! So whoever did what they did, thank you. Personally, I would like to thank Senator Nelson of Florida and his fine staff for all they did and for keeping in touch with my family. I can’t tell you how much it meant to have you all stay in constant contact with my family. I still didn’t vote for you. I’m a Republican. Sorry.
We will wrap up Venezuela like this: If you have any questions, email them to russellyale@piratepooh.com and I will do a Venezuela question and answer blog!! If nobody emails me, which is probably what is going to happen, I might just make some questions up.
One last housekeeping item. When I left I was hawking t-shirts. They are still in the works. Frankly, the demand was less than impressive. I am trying to get them made cheaper but still have a quality t-shirt. They will get made as there are some people who want one, and I want to have one! Plus, I think they are pretty funny. If you want one or have any questions about one, email me.
I am heading to Galveston. See you soon.
Hug an Alabama fan today. It’s not their fault they’re Alabama fans. They were born there.
Russell Yale
PiratePooh 