You know, I became a sailor to see the world.  Well, that and because I had nothing else to do with my life and nobody in the continental United States would give me a job.  Although we don’t get to spend as much time in port as I had hoped when I first made the decision to go to sea, I have greatly enjoyed the world travel.

I mention that because I want you to know that not only do I enjoy seeing new places, I love, absolutely love, meeting new people.  And although 99% of the people I meet are wonderful, everywhere you go there are bad people.  I mean, not at Disney World, but everywhere else¸ even in America.  I don’t want anybody to think I am talking bad about places, such as beautiful Argentina, when I mention one of the countries I have visited in conjunction with some sort of corruption.  It is not the average Joes that are fleecing us, it is the small group of officials that we have to deal with.

Having said all that, and I truly mean it when I say how much I love all the foreign places I have visited and friends I have made (even though there is no place like America) when I tell you that we deal with corrupt goons looking for bribes, I am not lying.  That is how it is.  Sorry if some people don’t like it.

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Blog music is obviously “I Shot the Sherriff.”  You can choose between Clapton or Marley.  Can’t go wrong either way.

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Because of the experience I have had with these people all around the world, I truly believed that we were going to be hassled until a bribe was given and then it would all go away.  Well, I felt that way up until they issued warrants for our arrest and wanted to take us away in handcuffs, but that comes later in the story.

There we are being held in the ship’s office while all of these officials are on the ship when finally a possible reason for all of this nonsense became clear.  I heard the following with my own ears.  It happened two feet from me.  Our Captain, who is not one to put up with a lot of nonsense, demanded to know what was going on and why were being subjected to these searches, which already in the first few hours had exceeded what was normal and customary.  A man from one of the many agencies introduced himself as being from INTERPOL and said that there had been a tip of drugs being smuggled in cargo that had been loaded in Colombian ports.  We had just loaded some cargo in Colombia.

Next, the Captain asked if the tip was about all ships coming from Colombia or just our ship.  The supposed INTERPOL agent said the tip was just about our ship.  I say supposed because the fine folks at gCaptain contacted INTERPOL and they claim to not even have the authority to board ships.  Check out the following link for a good story about our time in Venezuela.  In fact, you should read gCaptain for all matters maritime!!!

http://gcaptain.com/ocean-atlas-released-venezuela/

These days I believe it was not INTERPOL, but Venezuelan government types impersonating INTERPOL agents to get on our ship and cause trouble.  Back then I was like, “INTERPOL!!!  Are you bad word kidding me?  This is more serious than that time my buddies and I had a run-in with the New Orleans cops at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert!!!”  If INTERPOL showed up at your house and said they had a tip there were drugs in your attic, trust me when I tell you that you would trip out a little bit, even if you didn’t think there were drugs in your attic.

We didn’t think there were drugs in our cargo, but who the heck knows?  Does a mailman know everything that is in his truck?  How many FedEx guys have delivered parcels of weed and had no idea what was in the package?  My job is to the steer the ship, not to know what is in the crates and containers.

That started an entirely new line of speculation.  What is my culpability here?  If they discovered a container full of cocaine am I going to jail?  That hardly seems fair to have to participate in the risk without participating in any of the reward.  If I might have to rot in a Venezuelan jail for drugs I didn’t know I was transporting, then I should get thrown a little cash if those drugs I didn’t know we had get to their destination.  But that is not how it works.  At least no mysterious bundles of cash have ever shown up at my door.

We didn’t know who was in charge of all these investigations because as I have stated there were so many different agencies on the ship.  I don’t even think they knew who was in charge because often they were more confused than we were.  Those first few hours many of the national guardsmen and DEA types seemed more interested in having their picture taken on an American ship than anything else.

When the doggies sniffed out the guns nobody gave it a second thought.  Our ship sometimes travels through the Gulf of Aden and other high piracy areas.  Because we have no desire to be held hostage for years in lawless Somalia…..

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This is real and this happening now!!!  Research the story of the M/V Iceberg 1 if you don’t believe me.  Spread the word that mariners have been held for years.  Some have been executed.  The world doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to care.  Sailors are people too.  Thanks for caring.

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Anyway, because we don’t want to get attacked by pirates we hire guards who use guns to keep us safe.  We are merchant marines, not marines.  We don’t have our own guns.  What we do is lock up the guns and ammo that belong to the guards.  When they come on board they break them out.  We don’t have access to them.

Knowing all this is why I wasn’t concerned when the guns were found.  We weren’t hiding them and had a legitimate reason for possessing them.  I am not going to specify what we carry (don’t want to tip off the pirates!!) but it wasn’t enough to invade Venezuela.  I don’t see why these guys were so worried.

Ok, Ok….I will concede that a team comprised of Private Benjamin (I love Goldie Hawn!), Beatle Bailey and the group of guys from the movie Stripes could probably take out Venezuela.  Still, they all had military training.  I work on a cargo ship.  Surely it is just a matter of getting some paperwork taken care of and it will all go away.

Nothing went away.  They ordered that all the cargo be taken off the ship.  They confiscated all the weapons and I was personally questioned by several different officials about their purpose.  Then they started telling me how serious it is to be involved in arms trafficking.

I would guess it is.

At this point things were definitely starting to feel anything but normal.  Our home had been searched multiple times.  Our defensive weapons had been confiscated.  All of the cargo was going to be off loaded the next day.  We were no longer allowed to leave the ship.

I wasn’t worried, but I wasn’t happy either.

Next up, “I don’t mind being held hostage but you better let me out on the town for a steak!”

The elections in Venezuela are today.  I don’t know about you but I am a lot more interested than I used to be.

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Thanks for reading these blogs.  They have been read in more than fifteen countries which amazes me.  For those of you reading in Venezuela, please know that I really like 90% of the people I met there.  The numbers of people that have at least viewed my blog has, to be honest, tickled me a little bit.

If you like it, please take a second and click the like button on the bottom.  There are also links to share it if you think your friends may like to read it.  If you don’t like it, that’s cool, but if you do please click the button.  It is not for my ego, which couldn’t get any bigger than it already is anyway.  It is so that websites will promote my blog.  Thanks.

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Have a wonderful Sunday.  You should call somebody you haven’t talked to in a long time and tell them you love them.  Little things like that make the world a better place.

Russell Yale

You may not be aware of this fact, but the form of monetary exchange most in demand around the world is not the US dollar.  It is not the Euro, not traveler checks, not Master Card or Visa.  It is, believe it or not, Marlboro Red cigarettes.  Ask any sailor and he will tell you that I speak the truth.

The world of merchant shipping is a strange one indeed.  One fun fact of which most people are surely unaware is that we have to give bribes most places we visit.  Maybe I will post one of my old Suez Canal blogs when there is a slow day but trust me when I tell you that if you attempt to traverse that overgrown ditch without having a few cases of smokes handy you are in for a very bad time.

Bribing officials is just way of life.  In some South American countries like, say, Argentina, the officials are referred to as “Black Gangs.”  They force the Captain to complete ridiculous amounts of paperwork and put ludicrous regulations on the ship.  If any of their rules are not met they fine the ship.  Even if everything is in order you will be a long time in clearing customs if everybody isn’t graced with some American tobacco.

It always cracks me up when we sail into some third world country with polluted water and smog-filled air and they demand that all canned food in the galley must be stored at least twelve inches off the deck.  That is just one example of many.  Still, we jump through the hoops and fill out the paperwork so as to escape with a minimum of gratuity.

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Truckin by the Grateful Dead is your song for the night.  Miss you Jerry.

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When things started getting a little strange in Venezuela I caught a lot of flak for writing a letter where I said I thought the authorities were messing with us just because they were waiting on the appropriate bribe.  Well, I was kind of joking.  That is what I do.  But on the other hand I honestly thought that was the case at first.  If the officials down in Venezuela are offended that I would say such a thing then I would suggest they stop walking off ships laden down with free cigarettes and whatever other goodies they can get their hands on.

Don’t let me give the impression that this is unique to Venezuela.  It is the cost of doing business around the world.  In Ghana they took just about all the canned meat from the galley (we never eat that anyway.)  I am trying to explain that when I walked into this “drug search” after my time ashore, I simply rolled my eyes and waited for the Captain to start handing out the donations to the Venezuelan Police Benevolent Association Fund for Widowed Blind Orphans.

I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

To paint the picture – the entire crew, minus the Mate, were standing in a small room which is used as the ship’s office.   An equal number of undercover guys with different badges hanging around their necks where crammed in there with us.  I assumed they were some type of law enforcement because they wore side arms.  In the hallway were men in army fatigues, some with doggies.  When I inquired about the doggies one of my shipmates let me know they had searched our rooms.

This is where I started getting a little concerned.  Not because I had something to hide, although I was a tad embarrassed as my room was pretty dirty just then.   Plus, I didn’t want the Venezuelans to make fun of my Sponge Bob Square Pants blanket.  What concerned me is that the National Guard (I think that is who they turned out to be) was still wandering around the house, and they were unescorted!!  All our doors were unlocked.  There is usually a protocol to having your personal space searched and somebody should be present.

I am going to get lambasted here for suggesting the fine officials in Venezuela would plant drugs in our ship.  I am not saying that at all.  I actually liked most of the people I met down there.  But let me ask you this – If you were pulled over in Maracaibo and some undercover DEA type guy asked to search your car, would you walk around the corner so he could search it without you or a representative of yours present?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Doesn’t mean you hate Venezuelans.  Just means you aren’t stupid.

Right about the time things were dying down (say an hour later) another guy showed up and said they were starting yet another search.  When the Captain demanded to know why they were searching yet again, this guy tapped his badge and said with a cocky attitude, “I am different authority!!”  Different from what, I have no idea.

This lead to a couple of hours of the crew being held in the office and then in the mess hall.  Again, at this point it was just a minor inconvenience.  It would be over in a few more minutes.

Then somebody claiming to be Interpol said that they had received a tip that our cargo may contain drugs, and they were taking it all off to examine it.

Then they found the guns.

I don’t think we’re sailing in the morning after all.

Next up – “I shot the Sherriff, but I swear these guns are just for self defense.”

Poem for the day

I needed to go through the Suez Canal

It cost me four cases of reds

I bought a hooker for my sailor pal

It cost me one case of reds

I sent a postcard to my favorite gal

It cost me a box of reds

I owe Sprint $2,000 for International calls

But they won’t take no reds

Thanks for visiting my little blog.  If you agree that the umpire screwed the Braves tonight, run through the streets wearing nothing but an Indian headdress waving a tomahawk over your head.  If we can get this to catch on, maybe Major League Baseball can be brought to justice.

Till tomorrow

Geaux Tigers!!!!!!

Russell Yale

Maracaibo – Day 1

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I write a lot.  I write long blogs.  I am trying to write shorter blogs but write every day.  I am hoping that by doing this the format will appeal to more people.  Once I start writing, however, I find it near impossible not to write the same way I always have so I find I am having trouble keeping these short.   The following is from the time we tied up to the ship in Maracaibo until four hours later when I returned to find a bunch of weirdness happening on my ship.  I hope it is somewhat entertaining.  Stick around and we will get to the excitement in Venezuela.  Trust me.

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After tying up your ship the first thing you have to do is put down the gangway.  The gangway, if you don’t know, is the “stairs” that people can use to climb up to or off of the ship.  This is important because shimmying up the mooring lines is tricky, although I seem to remember one of Charley’s Angels making it look pretty easy.

I had walked down the gangway and hopped over to the dock so I could pull it over to dry land and something went wrong with the mechanism which controls the raising and lowering of the gangway.  This left me alone on the dock while the engineers figured out how to fix it.  I was gazing at the large city of Maracaibo when a little Venezuelan fella drove up.  He turned out to be the ship’s agent.

Wherever a ship travels there is a local agent to assist in all manner of things, from setting up fuel services to mail delivery.  I try to pin the agent down as soon as he comes on board so I can find answers to important questions before he is bogged down with a bunch of nonsense from the Captain.  You know, things like, “Where is the gate?  How can I get a taxi?  Does anybody speak English?  How do I say, ‘chicken wing?’  Where is the best place to eat?  Is there somewhere to watch football and if so, there won’t be Steelers fans hanging out, will there?”

For some reason, the Captain usually gets annoyed when I interrupt ship’s business with my inquiries so I was glad that the delay gave me the opportunity to pester the agent uninterrupted.  My cross-examination proved to be quite frustrating.  The agent repeatedly emphasized that the only safe place for me to go was the mall and that it was only safe to go during the day.  He relayed a story to me about three sailors who had been robbed and beaten right outside the gate of the port just last week.  Apparently, somebody wanted their I-phones.  One of the poor guys was beaten so bad that he lost an eye.

Geeze.  And I thought the lines at the Apple Store in the Houston Galleria were out of control.  What happened to the good old days when people only killed each other for tennis shoes?

Look – I have been all over the world and everywhere I traveled I have been warned about how dangerous it is.  I don’t give it any thought.  I have been in riots and places that had cannibals.  Heck, I have been to Baltimore!  Anywhere you travel you have to be aware of your surroundings and use some common sense.

Ok….I have to be truthful here.  I am never aware of my surroundings and seldom use common sense.  If you haven’t read my blogs for the last few years you will just have to trust me.  I have been mugged, had multiple cell phones and wallets stolen, been conned in German bordellos and hustled by Nigerians in Japan (yes, you read that right.)  I just didn’t think that I would screw up any worse in Venezuela than anywhere else.

So, in spite of the warnings I went to shore an hour later – the first one off the ship.  I jogged to the gate.  All right, I speed walked.  Really, I strolled.  But I got to the gate and anxiously walked into the city.

Into madness.

I am constantly amazed at how big cities around the world are.  Before I started travelling I assumed that America had most of the big ones, with a few in Japan and China.  I don’t mean in respect to population.  I mean big metropolitan cities with impressive skylines.  Maracaibo has two million people and you could put Orlando next to Jacksonville and I think the skyline of Maracaibo would be a tad bigger.  It consists of crappy buildings and bland architecture, but it is big.

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This would be a good time to fire up Cocaine Blues by Johnny Cash.  Yes, we are sticking with a drug theme.  There is a reason.

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You know how I said there are two million people in Maracaibo?  Well, they are all driving at the same time.  And they all drive American cars from the eighties.  You remember those boxy sedans with bench seats like the Caprice Classic?  That is what everybody drove.  Not nice ones.  They all looked like they had been taken out of the junk yard after having been stripped for parts.  I mean, the few I was inside didn’t have any interior trim.  They were bare metal.  It was just a shell with an engine that sort of worked.

The people that weren’t driving were passengers because there were a ton of people in taxis.  Venezuelan taxis, at least those in Maracaibo, are unlike any I have seen around the world.  The taxis in Maracaibo are the same crappy cars that everybody else drives.  They only way you can tell it is a taxi is because it has a sign on top.  But that sign does not say, “taxi.”  The sign has some word, or maybe it is a name, and they are all different.  I think I figured out that the name on the sign indicates the area of town that taxi can service.  Actually, I am not sure that is it at all because every area of town has taxis with different names on the top.

Before I even had to figure that part out, I had to figure out how to get a taxi.  I was having trouble flagging one down because they were all full.  I waited about thirty minutes and never saw an empty one drive by.  I finally struck up a broken conversation with some guy on the street and I think he agreed to get me a taxi for $5.  He flagged down a taxi pretty quick but it already had four people in it.  I was on the verge of demanding my cash back when everybody in the car started motioning for me to enter the car.  Apparently I was holding up the show.

It turns out you don’t get your own taxi in Maracaibo.  Every car holds five people.  I guess this is why they like the bench seat.  As the taxi man drives down the road he holds up a number of fingers which indicates how many passengers he can take.  Weird.

I had written three places of interest on a piece of paper.  One was supposedly an outdoor market where you could get native Indian artifacts.  The second was a plaza that was supposed to have good restaurants.  The third was the mall.  I never go to malls when I travel.  We have malls in America.  But I wrote down the name just in case I needed a fallback position.

Turns out I needed it.  The driver would not take me to the first two locations.  He kept pointing at me and shaking his head.  I tried to indicate that I didn’t understand, even saying, “no comprende.”  He passed my paper around to all the other passengers.  Each of them did the same thing.  I was getting the impression they were saying, “You will get killed if you go there, gringo.”

We drove and drove.  People would hop in and people would hop out.  It was a flat fare.  For the equivalent of $1.25 you could ride all day as far as I could tell.  After about forty-five minutes the driver pulled over in a rundown part of town and told me it was time to get out.  This was definitely not a mall.  I demanded he take me to the mall but he just kept shaking his head and pointing at the roof of his car.  He kept repeating, “Sambil,” which was the name of the mall.  It turns out it was also on the signs of some of the cabs.

I had no idea what the guy was saying but I guessed that I had to get into a taxi with Sambil on the roof.  I stood awkwardly on a street corner for twenty minutes until I saw the right taxi and flagged him down.  Another twenty minutes and I finally got to the mall.

I won’t bore you with stories about the mall.  It was a mall.  It was ridiculously expensive.  A small ice cream was the equivalent of $12.  The women were amazingly beautiful but they didn’t hablo ingles so I didn’t have any memorably encounters.  Basically, I was disappointed with my outing and wanted to get back to the ship for a nap before my watch.  I made it through another weird cab ride and back to my ship.

The Chief Mate was on gangway watch when I returned, which is unusual.  He said everybody was in the ship’s office and I needed to get my passport and show it some officials.  Didn’t seem like too big of a deal.  I walked into the house, down some stairs, turned the corner and….

What the bad word?!?!?!?!

Remember that scene in Traffic where there is the drug bust out in the middle of nowhere by a bunch of Mexican officials.  That is exactly what these guys looked like – undercover cops that looked like Hollywood had called central casting for a crooked cop.  Then you had uniformed army types.  I felt something licking at my crotch and thought one of the pretty ladies from the mall must have followed me home, but no!!  It was a drug sniffing doggie wearing a vest.

What the bad word is going on?

Find out in tomorrow’s installment – “I don’t think a few cartons of Marlboro Reds are getting us out of this one.”

Sorry we still haven’t made it to the exciting part.  I’ll give you a little poem to make it up to you.

When you visit Venezuela

You better not bring no drugs

Your crotch will be sniffed by doggies

And maybe some of Chavez’s thugs

They will eat up all your ice cream

And munch your potato chips

The doggies will poop wherever they want

‘Cause they just don’t give a shit.

They will make up bogus charges

And give your family a scare

So make sure to leave your dope at home

And stay out of Chavez’s snare

Have a groovilicious day.  Give a dollar to a homeless guy.  You don’t need it all that much.

See ya

Russell Yale

While strolling through the park one day (ok…it was a shitty area of Maracaibo, Venezuela)

In the merry month of May (errrrrr……August)

I was taken by surprise (to say the least)

By a pair of roguish eyes (Actually a battalion of Venezuelan Gestapo types)

I was scared but didn’t run away (Well, I tried but they had guns)

Ok, so that isn’t exactly how it happened.  How what happened, you ask?  You have to read to find out.

Flash back to my mid-twenties, a lifetime ago and a different Russell.  I am ashamed to say that had my parents received a phone call that said I was suspected of smuggling drugs in South America it would have taken something quite a bit more substantial than a feather to knock them over.  Nowadays?  I like to think they wouldn’t believe it.  Or at least be somewhat shocked.  But arms trafficking?  I am pretty sure that would have floored them at any point in my life.

Being suspected of both was definitely a red-letter day in my diary.

Venezuela didn’t start out all bad.  Our first port of call in Senor Chavez’s fiefdom was a little place by the name of Guaranao.  You won’t it find it on most maps.  And don’t waste your effort by trying to prove me wrong because if you do find it, you don’t want to go there.  Still, as far as shitty ports go it was pretty nice.  From where we tied up the ship I could see a stretch of beach with what looked to be a Tiki bar.

Venezuelan women on the beach, fresh seafood and cold beverages?  Sweet.

As is usually the case when we dock in the daytime, I was the first one off the ship.  My watch being the 4 to 8, I was basically the only person that could skip out during the day.  A few American dollars were sufficient to pay a stevedore to drive me to an ATM and over to the beach bar.

You know the strangest thing that I experienced in all of my time in Venezuela?  The exchange rate.  I always use the ATM because that is where you get the best rate.  Bolivares to dollars is basically 4 to 1. However, my buddies exchanged it at some glass and crystal store in Maracaibo at 8 to 1.  Everywhere else in the world you get a worse rate on the black market.  Just another screwed up thing about this country.

The point here is – when in Venezuela exchange your money at glassware retailers.

Back to Guaranao where the story is about to end before it began.  The bar sucked.  There was nobody there.  There were a few families on the beach but none of the many Venezuelan Miss Universe winners.  The beach itself was rocky and the sand was gritty.  Look, I live in Florida.  I don’t tell people from Philly how good our cheese steaks are down here.  Don’t tell me how nice blah blah beach is.  You want a nice beach?  Come to Florida.

I did get to pig out.  They were only offering four items so I picked out the one which had “pollo” in the description.  That is one of the ten Spanish words I understand.  The other nine are all flavors of beer.  The bartender took my order and carried it to another building which had a picture of a pizza above the door.  In fact, it said “Pizza.”  I thought I would get a chicken pizza.

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Shoot!!  I forgot the blog music.  We always have blog music!  Let’s start off with Drug Train by one of PiratePooh’s very favorite bands, Social Distortion.  The best way to enjoy these blogs is to legally download the song of the day and play it while you read.  Sometimes it is also nice to enjoy an ice cream cone.

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I did not get chicken pizza.  What I got was a giant, and I mean giant, platter of fried chicken.  When I ordered it I was puzzled that it cost so much – the equivalent of twenty American dollars.  Looking around I would have thought that I could buy the bar for twenty bucks and realistically expect to receive some change in return. The amount of food they brought me would have fed a small Venezuelan village, or three people in my house, with leftovers for the dog (I don’ have a dog, but my friend does, and he really would have liked this chicken!)

The bottom of my platter was covered with these little fried corn cakes.  When in Venezuela, use some of the money you exchanged at the glass store to buy as many of these as possible.  Yummy!!  Every restaurant I went to served these in some fashion.  Then there was a huge layer of fried chicken and that was all topped with piles of fries.

My kind of meal.

And it was healthy, too!!  There was a slice of tomato and slice of onion served on the side.

Since my momma raised me properly, I cleaned my plate.  Even the onion and tomato.  It was pretty good.  Everything was fried crispy and seasoned well.  Good enough so that I would travel back to Venezuela to get it?  Nope.

Guaranao was a quick stop so I soon found myself back on the ship getting ready to cast of for our next port – Maracaibo.  It didn’t faze me much at the time, but something out of the ordinary happened while we were in port.  Divers came and inspected the hull of our ship – twice – to insure that there were no containers full of drugs welded to our ship.  I was previously unaware that this was a method of drug smuggling and I had never been on a ship that was inspected in this manner.  I didn’t give it too much thought, especially since nothing was found, and my thoughts turned to my upcoming adventures in Maracaibo as I stood at the helm and steered the ship out of port.

Had I known what was coming, I would have stayed at my little beach bar in Guaranao.

Coming up next – “I went to shore in Maracaibo and when I came back to the ship there was a doggie in my room!”

Thanks for reading.  Give somebody a hug today.  One of those really good hugs.  Maybe even squeeze their ass a little.

Adios

(Long term readers will notice that the blogs is shorter than normal.  I am trying to make them readable for the average person.  This way you have something to look forward to every day.  Well, something other than Friends re-runs.)

Some of you have read the stories of my seafaring adventures for years.

Some of you have not and have recently expressed dismay at having missed all the fun.

Some of you may have hot single lady friends who are looking for a chubby balding sailor who writes silly blogs.

This is for all of you. But mainly the ones with hot female friends.

As you are reading this, you know my name is Russell and I am a sailor. The blog is named PiratePooh because I like Winnie the Pooh. The reasons for liking Pooh are too numerous to go into at this point, but suffice to say that I think a life that centers around hunny, naps, hanging out with your friends and keeping things low-stress is a life that I want to lead.

If you haven’t been around for years, you may not know what to expect from a sailor blog. So you know what you are getting into:

Do not expect political commentaries, pro or anti religious rants, financial advice, stories about my kids (I don’t have any), fearful ramblings about the Mayans (not too concerned) or reviews of any sort of reality based TV (I don’t get it.)

Do expect stories of life at sea, stupidity at sea, danger at sea, stupidity in foreign ports, bar fights in 3rd world countries, original dirty rhymes and songs, the secret to six-pack abs in 30 days or your money back, love letters about food, denials of events that allegedly happened but you have no video evidence of so as far as this blog is concerned they happened to somebody else, adventures in various red light districts, tales of valor (these are lies), tales of ineptitude (these are unfortunately true), tales of loneliness and tales of sorrow.

Basically, you can expect stories of shipboard life in the merchant marines and tales of my travels around the world. If you have never been on a ship you may find our lifestyle interesting. If you are one of my fellow sailors, you may find some common ground with me.

If you don’t already know from reading my many past blogs (you had to be on an email list to get those), although I have lived through the events that I write about, I write FICTION. I exaggerate and sometimes make stuff up in order to make a story funny. These are make believe stories that come from real life situations. Like what happens in the White House. So please, if you are a fellow sailor do not throw me overboard the next time you see me on a ship.

These stories are for entertainment purposes only. Any sexual activity that occurs is a decision made by two consenting adults. If you have a gambling problem, stay the fuck out of casinos. Do not attempt this at home. Any resemblance to people real or fictional is a figment of your screwed up imagination, or maybe you are drunk.

Stay tuned for the first blog – “Welcome to Venezuela! I’m being charged with what?!?!”

Thanks for visiting.