Thursday, January 29, 2015

‘Careless Whispers’


Got this one off an ol’ Gun Forum from a salty bastard way back in 66’…

I was in the US Navy during the Vietnam War and served on a guided missile frigate as an electronics technician. They assigned me to maintain our UHF transceivers that we used to communicate with aircraft and other nearby ships. These transceivers had 19 channels and were in an electronics area away from the radio room. The radiomen used old telephone style handsets with a push button in the center of the handle that was push to talk (PTT). They could hear the other operator and themselves in the earpiece even when they pushed to talk.

The frigate I was on was stationed on the East coast. We made our way through the Canal Zone to Hawaii where we joined up with a New Zealand destroyer that accompanied us to the Philippines. In Hawaii, we received a order to make a ship modification to the handsets to cut off the earpiece when the operator hit the PTT switch. This was done to eliminate feedback due to the mic’ picking up sound from the earpiece. Well, this took several days to accomplish.

One night I was the technician on duty and received a call from a Chief Radioman. He called me to the radio room because he couldn't hear himself when he spoke into the handset. I reminded him the handsets were being modified. But, he insisted that one had not been. When I stepped through the door into the radio room, the Chief was across the room holding a handset. As soon as he saw me, he lifted the handset and blew into it 3 times and said…

"I can't hear myself!"

I again said the handset was probably not modified. He blew into it again and said…

"I still can't HEAR myself!"

He shook the handset at me and blew into it again. As soon as he unkeyed the mic’, this Kiwi voice comes over the loudspeaker…

"I SAY old man, ye've blown in my ear three times, would you like to kiss me now?"



Saturday, January 24, 2015

'Women Love 'Em'


Women love’m...Why?!?  Going through two weeks pay in a matter of hours might have something to do with it!!!

Saturday, January 17, 2015

'The Frills And Thrills Of A Girl In Every Port'


Any Crackerjack who hasn't went to the PI and performed a short time, long time, love you no shit fresh water wash down with Cold San Magoo and his ass parked on a dirty ol’ bar stool wasn’t worth a shit stain on a pair of skivvies back in the ol’ Canoe Club... gauddamn it we had standards to uphold!!!

Too many politically correct blowhards today fail to see what used to be considered a young Crackerjack’s obligation to run the streets of Magsaysay to Subic City like an adult Disneyland!!!

If you weren't there… don't try to understand it! Once you’d become an official card carry’n bottom feeder to the Westpac Fraternal Order of Swashbuckl’n Idiots… there’d be pride in being a Ship to Shore Whore! It showed you were tough enough to stand the conditions of loose panties in the South Pacific while strung out on Mojo, strength testing a few prophylactics here and there, building your immune system against the likes of NGU, Chlamydia… and the Clap... ‘Cause that’s what Swashbucklers do!!!

I mean, what’s sailoring without the frills and thrills of a ‘girl in every port!!!’

Back in the days when every pretty girl back home tried to emulate Madonna or Cyndi Lauper on an MTV video… I had a shipmate, we’ll call him Conrad, who’d ran into quite the dilemma!!!

Conrad was not your typical rollicking, happy-go-lucky swashbuckler! And he sure as hell wasn’t a’kin to the brightest light in the harbor either! He was down on his luck and couldn’t seem to find the girl of his dreams… let alone any girl for that matter!!

“When you’re a virgin… everyone jumps in with advice as they like to tell you the solution to ending your misery would be to get a hooker! Well… I don’t want a hooker! Hookers don’t wake up in the morning and scratch your back or do your laundry!”

“Most people suggest changes I could make that would make me more attractive to women… tell me places I could go where the fish might bite… you know!  I've tried damn near everything but lesbian clubs, nursing homes and biker bars!! Believe me, I've done damn near everything to include mail order brides… nothing seems to work!”

“You know… I look into the mirror when I shit, shower, & shave and say to myself, ‘what a fat ugly son-of-a-bitch that is looking back at me!"

This was the kicker…

“Well, Conrad… you’ll find the right gal, everyone does… she’ll come along!”

“Yeah, social theories are nice but real life isn’t sooo theoretical! I’m starting to believe I just might be gay… If I’m not attractive to women then maybe it’s men!”

“Whoa… wait a minute there shipmate… Are you gett’n excited when you see your fellow mates bending over… experimenting with any of them strange plug in contraptions, and unexplainable doo-dahs for light in the loafer types?”

“…Uhhh no…”

“You got a problem with watch’n sports on TV… talk with a lisp… subscribe to GQ or Red Book… use pet names for everywhere and everything… wear pink stuff much of the time?!?

“No… none of that!”

“Then rest easy shippy… unless you got built in ‘GADAR’… your just a few fruit loops short of a bowl but you ain’t no pillow biter!”

Yeah… Some people don't just have brain farts… but their brains completely shit their pants from time to time!

“Yeah buddy, I don’t think you want anyone going up your shit creek paddling the pink canoe… you’re just a bit confused, about as confused as a baby in a topless bar!”

You see Conrad could fall off the ship and still not hit water he was so clueless! We went out for a night on the town… Pacers, Dirty Dans… & the likes, and I convinced him somehow that he was as straight as an arrow!! Anyone with a nudie mag collection the size of his ain’t float’n up no Hershey highway!!!

“Hey Swinger… you won’t tell anyone we had that conversation… you know about me thinking I might be gay and all?!?”

“I wouldn’t say shit if I had a mouthful!”

And a few months later we were on Westpac!  It was time to concoct some wild and crazy memories!! When we pulled into Subic… most of the fellas onboard were like ownerless dogs living in the street, ready to mount anything that moved… We were gonna make it a liberty Jerry Springer would be proud of!!!

As Conrad and I hit the brow…

“On to heartbreak, loose women, and Momasans filling our glasses and taking barfine requests… Hoorah!”

“Hey Swinger, check out that one over there!”

“Yeah, she could suck start a leaf blower!”

“Hey Conrad… just stay clear of the Benny Boys!”

He just glared at me with an ax murderers stare… like I’d just put choral hydrate in his drink!”

…And the night was on…

Days had gone by and I hadn’t seen Conrad for a while until one duty day on the ship…

“Hey Salty Dog… you having fun on the town?”

“Yeah, Hey… I think I found the one! Her name is Jenelynne and I think I’m gonna ask her to marry me!”

“What the hell?!?  Conrad… you just get here to the Wild, Wild, East… The sanctity of Mango style tatas to sow your wild oats and you wanna marry the first love me long time girl you stick your dick in?”

You gotta realize I’d already had my liberty brief from my Sea Daddy! Getting into relationships with bargirls is a bad idea and you certainly shouldn’t marry one!! Those who do often live to regret it! You don’t wanna be one of those ‘Bargirl-done-me-wrong kinda fellas!!!

I know… I know… I’m sure sometimes it works out! But don’t count on it!!! A bargirl’s very existence relies on bleeding you dry of every last penny you have!!!

Not only that… when you go on deployment… she becomes a Westpac Widow! I mean look at the ‘Trophy Lounge’ back home for Christ Sakes!! It was nothing but a meat market for ‘love you no shit’ girls!! When you’re not around she’ll go back to doing what she knows best… how to be a love me long time hooker!!!

Ultimately she becomes money hungry and you become a gauddamn walking ATM for her and her whole gauddamned family back in the PI!
“What the hell Conrad… you just wake up this morning and decided, I’m gonna marry a hooker and that shit’s gonna work out just fine in the long run? If it floats, flies or FUCKS… it’s cheaper to rent than to own!”

“But I love her!”

“Man… remember that conversation we had before we left the states… you know, you thought you were a homo because you’d never been laid?!?”

“I know but she’s the one!”

“It’s not love…”

“And she’s got a kid from a guy who left her!”

“What are you her knight in shining armor? You gonna whisk her away from all this treachery? Don’t confuse love with horniness!”  

“You don’t understand…”

“OOOH I understand… It’s  ‘I just got laid for the first time and the gates of heaven just sprang open for a few seconds!’ It’s bad Ju-Ju man… a bad idea… don’t do it!”

“But what should I do… I can’t get laid like this back home!”

“Listen… there’s always somebody for everybody man…  but you can’t fall in love with every twinkly-eyed ‘LBFM’ sex goddess that’s given you woody when she walks your way!” This girl’s been banged like a broken screen door in a hurricane for God knows how long!!”

You know the ol’ saying… It's one thing to want an adventure, another to know how to have it?!? Poor ol’ Conrad was naïve and oblivious to what he was about to do!! He tempered down over the deployment… don’t know if he’d realized the error of his ways or was just keep’n quite to keep from being hassled!! We didn’t talk much after that! Kind’a makes me think he got suckered!!!

But you know how it goes… as young’ns we know more than everyone else… and behave with the appropriate amount of reckless stupidity! And just to think Olongapo is now a respectable business area with an address where it was once sociably acceptable to grab women’s behinds and pee in the street!! I hear Barrio Barretto is brighter and better but still much the same as it ever was… maybe one day we shall see!!!


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

'A Good Shave'



An old retired Boatswain walks into a barbershop for a shave and a haircut.

He tells the barber he can't get all his whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled from age.

The barber gets a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf and tells the old Boatswain…

“Put this inside your cheek and it’ll spread out the skin so I can give you the shave of your life!”

 When he's finished, the old Boatswain says…

“That’s the cleanest shave I’ve had in years! But what would’ve happened if I had swallored that there little ball?”

The barber replied…

“Just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else does!”

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

‘And Forever That River Flows’




14-47 was the latitude…

And on Alava Pier we were set to get screwed,
On good old San Miguel we all got stewed,
And tried not to smile when we got blewed!

Subic, Subic Sailors!
Salty young lads of the Sea!
Subic, Subic Sailors!
Just remember, nothing is for free!!

Fed the crocagators outside Pauline’s…
But didn’t bit the heads off ((that was mean)),
Saw the strangest sights that we’d ever seen…
Rather we were Fifty years of age or Seventeen!!!

Subic, Subic Sailors!
Sea Daddy will teach you right!
Subic, Subic Sailors!
Be across the brow by midnight!!

In the sick bay line you’ll take your turn…
If three days later it starts to burn!
A sorry lesson that some lads need to learn….
When the title of ‘Asia Hand’ they wanted to earn!!

Subic, Subic Sailors!
Now just give your soul to God!
Subic, Subic Sailors!
Gotta keep in mind your PCOD!!

Some say it’s legend…
Some say it’s lies!
But to us it’s a memory that will never die!
Aunt Tillie wou8ld gasp… “Oh me, Oh my!”
If she saw the horrors behind your fly!

Subic, Subic Sailors!
Remembering Olongapo!
Subic, Subic Sailors!
And forever that River Flows!!!

-Owyn ‘The Preacher’ Bradford