(MySpace was down the day I posted this over at FTW. Sorry for the delay.)

All fast, fore and aft.
Let go the tugs.
Midship the wheel.
Secure the helm.
(Tell the Engine Room) "Finished with engines."

This is the sort of shit you hear once the ship is made fast alongside the dock and cargo operations can commence. What it means is that you're officially not at sea anymore. You can go ashore soon. The boatswain can release the Watch Below (translation: those of us called out on deck to handle lines who aren't actually on watch, and were probably fast asleep half-an-hour before the whole docking hootinany began); our boatswain likes to say "Below - below."

"Finished With Engines" is also a sailor-ism meaning "for good or ill, I'm getting off this ship." It's got two connotations: FWE can mean you're going on vacation, or more permanently, it can mean that you're retiring. Going ashore. About to kick back and live the good life.

When I'm almost done with a tour, there are several tells I've got that start to manifest. Clear indications that I'm about to go FWE. Basically, I begin to fall apart. All systems haywire. Brain goes into the deep fat fryer. The Quartermaster of The Universe has gone fucking nuts, and all that. It's not quite Channel Fever (a curious phenomenon I'm almost due for and will probably explain at length in the near future, as soon as I catch a bad case of it), but it's not quite normal operations, either. For example, on one ship, I caught myself dragging a bagful of my dirty laundry up to the bridge with me. I'd meant to drop it off in the laundry room before I went to relieve the watch, but it slipped my mind. So I stood my watch with my dirty laundry stinking up the place, sitting there on the deck beside the helm. And then I forgot it up on the bridge after my watch was over.

Hehehehe...Jesus.

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About two weeks ago, I noticed this tour's first indication that I'm just about done with shipping for a good, long while. I was ashore in Anacortes, walking in the rain, slamming a beer out of a paper bag, talking to Sven on my cell phone. And that's normal behavior. The tell comes later.

Anyway, our conversation went something like this:

(phone rings)
Sven: Hello?
Jb: So I've had this song stuck in my head for the past week or so and it's driving me fuckin' nuts because I don't know who recorded it.
Sven: ...
Jb: It's from the 70's. I figured I'd call you since music from that particular era is your forte.

(Sven nearly made it as a professional Rock 'N Roll Jeopardy contestant except for the small complication that he was never on the show)

Sven: Ah. Then I may be able to help you.
Jb: It goes "if you like piño coladas/and getting caught in the rain/something something something/and the taste of champagne..." Or something like that.

(Again, I was walking down the street, drinking a beer, singing into my cell phone, mind you. Thank God it was raining and I was the only idiot out that night.)

Sven: Oh. That's (song title), by (artist).

(The parentheticals are there because I forgot the information immediately after I got off the phone. That's how fucking fried I am.)

Jb: Ahhh. Good to know. For some reason, I thought it was Jackson Browne.

I should note that I don't recall ever being exposed to the musical stylings of Mr. Browne. I strongly doubt that I could name a single tune he's responsible for off the top of my head.

I should also note that at this point in the conversation, Sven's voice took a condescending, nearly insulting tone.

Sven: Jackson Browne? Why would you think that?
Jb: Shit. I dunno.
Sven: Psshhfff. Jackson Browne.

While Sven was in the process of "psshhfff-ing" me, I was holding my cell phone with one hand, and had set down my beer so that I might rearrange my shopping bag in order to make certain that no one could see the "Best of Jackson Browne" CD I'd just purchased. You know, just in case there was a song about piño coladas on it. Just in case it was one of those songs whose title isn't immediately obvious by listening to the chorus. Just in case it was called "Running On Empty."

The idea that someone might discover my recent Jackson Browne acquisition struck me as extremely embarrassing. Especially if Sven saw it. Never mind the fact that Sven was more than 1000 miles away at the time of our conversation.

Hehehehe...Jesus.

This is why "rotary shipping" exists. Because you really don't want the guy who drives the boat to full-on lose his mind. Especially when the boat in question essentially has the same proportions as a Coke Can. A 200-meter, 40,000 deadweight ton Coke Can filled with 250,000 bbls of gasoline/naptha/jet fuel and is effectively a giant bomb with an engine bolted to it.

Color me Finished With Engines. Very, very soon. In a going-on-vacation sense.




Stamps is also on the verge of being able to declare FWE.

The pumpman known as Stamps hails from from Honduras. When he first came aboard, he was asking around for envelopes. Seems he had some important stuff that needed mailing. He hit up some of the guys in the Engine Room; he hit up my watch partner and the guys in the galley. Nobody had any extras, and I finally capitulated and picked up a box of the damn things for him while I was ashore one day.

I was a bit leery about doing so.

We figured he'd earned his nickname - in the fine seaman tradition of earning nicknames - by being notorious for mooching postal supplies throughout the fleet.

"Dammit, here comes that Stamps guy again. Better hide your...uh...stamps."

Turns out Stamps is his real name.

It's a fact that I found more than a little disappointing.

Anyway, Stamps is one of those characters who's been out here for a while, and has so many good sea stories that I can't steal them fast enough.

"I was on de (ship's name) back before they scrapped her," he told me one afternoon, "and we had dis dog. Ship's dog, you see. Good dog. Always went ashore wit de Boatswain, went off by itself sometime, too. Went off and did its ting. But dat dog always come back before de ship leave de port. He hear dat whistle blow and he come running up de gangway. Dat dog was a real seaman. Didn't do no fuckin' work, and he eat too damn much."

"Dis dog, we don't know what to do with it when dey decide to scrap de ship. It was mostly de Boatswain dog, see, but he live on de ship and don't got no real home to take it to. And he don't have nobody he know dat take care of it for him. So some of the guys tink it'd be a good idea to trow it over de side. But the Cap heard dat and he give de order: 'don't be trowin' dat dog over de side, now.'"

"Finally, we got one of de Oilers to take it. He have a place in Texas wit his old lady, and she look after de dog when he away."

"He manage to keep dat damn dog for two damn years."

"Den one day, he have to go to de Union Hall, and he decide to take de dog wit him. So he put de dog in de bed of his truck, and drive a couple of hours down to de Port of Houston. While he at a stoplight, he see dis cruise ship coming down de channel..."

You can see where this is going, can't you?

"Dat cruise ship was passin' somebody, and dey sound de whistle, and BAM! Dat damn dog, he jump out of de back of de truck and go running after de cruise ship. And don't nobody never see dat fuckin' dog again."

I'd like to think that the dog managed to ship out again. Caught a grain tanker on a Bangladesh run and has promising to retire tomorrow for the past couple years.. One thing I've noticed about the guys in this business is that once shipping gets in your blood - no matter how much you profess to hate it - you always end up going back for more. Kind of like career prison inmates. Or heroin addicts.



Back to Stamps. He's a good shipmate, despite his need for stuff what gets mailed. What makes him a good shipmate is that he always manages to focus on the positive, which is a rare quality to find out here in the fleet.

Case in point: Stamps just got back from New Orleans, where the recent hurricane activity demolished two expensive pieces of property he'd spent a good chunk of his life shipping out to pay for. The storms also washed away his sister's grave.

She died a few months ago.

"Wasn't nothin' left dere but water," he told us, "we stick a probe down in de mud to find de coffin but we don't find nothin'."

Which is a strong argument for cremation or sea burial, if you ask me.

"And all dat shit I was workin' so hard for - dem houses and de car and all de stuff you put in de houses - dere ain't too much left of dem, either."

He said this with a smile. Stamps has a "no more property, no more property problems" kind of attitude. He's pragmatic that way. Out on deck, he assures us that we won't get rained on during our watch, but shows up in his galoshes just the same.

And then his brother died this week.

"Do you come from a big family?" I asked him.

"Not no more!" he laughed. Stamps' family included three sets of twins: two twin brothers, two twin sisters, and a mixed pair.

"Your poor mother!" I tell him, jokingly. But I don't think he's the sort that needs too much cheering up. He's taking it well enough.

"I still got me health. And I got a me place in Honduras. I'm done with all dis."

He goes on to tell me about his 'place' back on the island. Several acres. On the beach. Groves of fruit trees. And a big wall to keep out the riff-raff.

"Kind of hard to ship out of Honduras," I tell him.

"No," he replies, "I mean 'fuck it.' I'm retirin'. I'm going back to Honduras and I'm going to sit in me back yard with me orange trees and me pineapple trees and me breadfruit trees and I'm going to take it easy. Drink me some wine. Have me some friends over. Take it easy."

"You'll get antsy and be on another ship within a year," I kid, "you'll be just like that sea dog you told me about. As soon as a ship goes by your house, you'll be running down the beach with your duffel bag slung over your shoulder."

"Oh no," he corrected me, "I'm Finished Wit Engines."

Whether or not he goes back out to sea remains to be seen. But he's going to give land lubbin' a try, so more power to him. What's important is that in just a few short weeks, Stamps will be sitting under his breadfruit trees, sipping wine, chatting with his friends. Frying up a fat fuckin' pig.

And I'll be in my bathrobe, slugging back sweet Tennessee whiskey on...well...on somebody's couch.

And maybe we'll both have a piño colada, or two.

So this might be slightly premature...but welcome ashore, Stamps. In a permanent sense.

-Jb
CEO FTW, Inc.
Friday, January 13th, 2006




Airy Latin music, McCarthyism, pachucos, urban renewel, character assassination, the history of Dodgers Stadium, and a UFO piloted by a Space Vato bearing an important warning collide on Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine. Cooder's concept album contains elements of Latin jazz, traditional Mexican guitar, and laid-back barrio vocals that combine to create the sort of music that the three Sublime fans I've played it for have hated. The album itself focuses on the story of Chavez Ravine, a low-income stretch of Los Angeles that was slated to be the subject of a public housing overhaul. Back room city politics stepped in, thousands of people were "displaced," and the Dodgers Ball club got the property for pennies on the dollar. Ah, the American Dream.

As for myself, the record brings back a bit of nostalgia - the sights and sounds of my own childhood in hispanic Los Angeles: the slammed El Caminos on hydraulics rolling by blasting mariachi, music, chili-coated tamarind candy, and the fucking dead goat strung up in the neighbor's back yard surrounded by angry pit bulls. Ah, childhood.

I read you loud and clear, Space Vato.