“Let’s Stop Yooper Discrimination, Eh?!”

Best State Ever?

I’m tired of my big unemployed troll of a brother picking on me.  By “me”, I mean the upper peninsula of Michigan, and by “big brother”, I mean the lower peninsula of Michigan.

Recently, some of my lower Michigan “friends” started sharing an article about ways to piss off someone from Michigan.

http://matadornetwork.com/life/how-to-piss-off-someone-from-michigan/

I would have shared it because I love Michigan, but this is why I didn’t.

Throughout the entire article they omitted the U.P. until the very end when they threw us in as a small anecdote to the great state of Michigan.  This is what they had to say about the U.P.

 

“The Upper Peninsula has its own set of unique culture and customs that make you feel like you’re going back in time.”

Wow, thanks for the compliment? I guess…  You basically just referred to us as your weird drunk uncle with no kids who drives a van and eats at Big Boy.  Or maybe It’s just me and I’m acting like a girl when you try to give her a compliment, but she always responds with “What is that supposed to mean?? Did I not look good the last time you saw me?!”

However, I don’t believe I’m the girl with the complex. I’m pretty sure the trolls that populate the southern portion of the great state of Michigan can be douche nozzles who think they’re somehow better than their redneck little brothers in the north.

People from lower Michigan enjoy to treat us Yoopers like their red-headed step children, only bringing us up as an afterthought.  Hey lower Michigan here’s a hint, You’re no better than we are, in fact, you’re much worse.

If we’re your red-headed stepchild, then you’re our older brother who was captain of the football team in high school and is now unemployed in our mom’s basement playing Sega Genesis and talking about the glory days when you almost won States.

You have completely embarrassed the state of Michigan with your Detroit debacle.  You’ve screwed up Detroit so much that you can no longer be trusted to run it.  It’s like the Mayor of Detroit is a junkie mother and the state had to come in and take her kids away for willful neglect and abandonment.  Seriously, what do you offer that’s better than the U.P? The Lions? Most Yoopers are Packers fans because the Lions organization is a dumpster fire.  The Pistons?  Are they still an NBA team? The Tigers and Red Wings?  Yeah, I’ll give you those two, the Tigers and Wings are pretty fucking awesome.  But, the only reason you have the great Detroit Red Wings in the first place is because of the U.P.  That’s correct. Houghton, MI is the birthplace of professional Hockey.  I’ll bet they didn’t teach you that at Cranbrook.

Jeff Daniels was on David Letterman last summer and the first question Letterman asked him was, what’s up with the U.P?  Daniels replied,

“They do a lot of drinking up there”.

“Thanks for that plug, Jeff.”  Jeff Daniels is sort of the unofficial Michigan spokesman and he just told 700,000 people that all anyone does in the U.P is drink and hunt.  They should put that on the next Pure Michigan commercial.  Maybe that will attract some drunk german tourists or some frat guys.  I actually thought it was funny since it’s kind of true, but a lot of Yoopers took offense to that since we don’t get much face time nationally as it is.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvl1ck1BqPs)

Yoopers like to refer to those from lower Michigan as “Trolls” since they live under the Mackinac bridge.  Which is, of course the bridge that connects upper and lower Michigan. On many occasions I’ve had people from lower Michigan condescendingly ask me if we really call them “Trolls”.  They think it’s cute.  Yeah and I remember it being real cute when General Motors was asking for a government bailout.

There’s nothing more annoying than when someone from lower Michigan doesn’t know where the U.P is.  You tell them you’re from Houghton and they say “You mean Houghton lake?”. No, I mean Houghton, like in the upper peninsula.  They give you a confused look and scrunch up their nose like a Michigan State sorority girl.  Then you have to hold your left hand up in the shape of the U.P and point to where Houghton is.  They reply with “oh, I thought that was Canada.”  Well, that’s why you’re bankrupt and your unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country, Troll.

The U.P is frequently left off national maps as if we don’t even exist.  I just once would like to see a National map with Florida left off it just to make me feel a little better about where I grew up.

 

The truth is that the U.P is great! First of all, no one knows about it.  It’s easy to get away from everyone and have a peaceful thought. We have amazing lakes and rivers to swim and fish in that don’t catch on fire.  Our hunting is incredible. The only setback is that we have wolves now so just make sure to watch your six.  Our high school hockey is some of the best in the state despite having 3% of the population.  Copper Harbor, which is right at the tip of the U.P has some of the best mountain biking trails in the country. They are one of only three U.S destinations to get the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) silver level rating.  The Keweenaw Brewing Company (KBC) in Houghton has outstanding craft beer and gives Bell’s Brewery a run for their money. Mt Bohemia is the best skiing east of the Mississippi with the most snowfall (but don’t you worry about that lower Michigan), it’s for experts only and they don’t groom the trails so just stick to that garbage dump you have, Mt. Brighton.  Our summers are gorgeous and our winters are top notch.  Houghton/Hancock receives the most snow east of the Mississippi which means we have plenty of winter activities to keep us busy year round.  You Trolls just have cold weather with nothing to do but complain about the Lions most recent depressing season or talk about hiring a new head coach at Michigan.  Get over yourselves, you’re starting to sound like you’re from Ohio, which really is the most depressing state in the country.

My Mom races sled dogs.  What are your Mom’s hobbies you Ann Arbor yuppie? Knitting mittens (get it?) Shopping at Whole Foods?  Please tell me more.  We use bear spray to fend off actual bears, you trolls use it to prevent getting raped in Detroit.

I grew up cliff jumping into Lake Superior, I bet you threw rocks at abandoned buildings in Flint.  I had a hockey rink in my backyard, You had a corn field.  We get to enjoy the amazing northern lights from our porches, Detroit can’t even afford street lights.

Even TJ and Dexter knew it was time to leave Detroit in it’s heyday. 

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106315)

Dose Ode Yoopers do taalk kinda funny hey, but that’s just because their ancestors were tough Finnish miners who worked much harder than you ever will on an assembly line.

I realize that I sound like the girl who was never asked to Prom and am making excuses for why it was going to suck anyway, but it really is offensive for someone from lower Michigan to act like we don’t exist when they are no better than us.  I am being extremely cynical and I love the state of Michigan, but right now we have a lot of problems that need fixing.  Maybe instead of making fun of your little brother up north you could embrace us, not because we need you, but because we need each other.  I have a lot of family spread out across our great state and I love nothing more than Michigan State Basketball and Detroit Tigers baseball. A lot of us in the U.P have always viewed lower Michigan with a sense of awe.  Detroit is a 10-hour drive from Houghton, which means it’s a vacation for us to head downstate. The U.P connection is strong with those of us who grew up there, but have since moved elsewhere.  When we meet Yoopers far and wide, us Yoopers will go out of our way to help each other out if we learn that the other person is from the U.P.  I know I’m somewhat of a hippocrite since I no longer live in the U.P myself, but that’s just because I’ve been away defending your freedom from terrorists.  After you finish dodging your own bullets you can thank me later, Detroit.

Editors note: I wrote this back in January and have since seen some major progress in Yooper acceptance.  “Yooper” was added to Websters dictionary and the Huffington Post did publish a great article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/27/yoopers-upper-peninsula-new-word_n_5042423.html) about why everyone should want to be a Yooper.  While these are both great strides in the fight for Yooper acceptance, the war is far from over.  I will not rest until every Yooper can feel equal and accepted both above and below the mighty Mackinac bridge.

 

End Rant.

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I take long poops… Deal with it America

 

 

I was so mature at 21.

I know I’ve already discussed my annoyance with the lowbrow comedy of farting, (only small children and idiots think farts are funny) but now I would like to move on to a more refined topic and that is pooping.  I feel that if I play my cards right someone might just nominate me for a Pulitzer for tackling these oft neglected topics.  No one ever wants to talk about dropping D’s, but we all do it at least once a day (hopefully) and sometimes more (unfortunately).  I would honestly probably put pooping up there in my top 5 favorite activities. I don’t find many things more enjoyable than when I’m at home on a Sunday morning after I’ve finished my coffee and I have a fresh Outside magazine with a hard level of angry birds to tackle.  The icing on the cake is if I have no commitments that day whatsoever.  I can sit comfortably on my throne for as long as I wish with no fear of interruption.  

 I say no fear of interruption because more often than not, this happens.  I was once scolded by a senior military officer for taking too long of a dump in one of the only porcelain potties on our base.  In my defense, he was an asshole and I kept it to under 10 minutes while I finished up the Stars and Stripes crossword puzzle.  I know all of you are familiar with road rage, but for those of you who haven’t been deployed to combat there is something even more terrifying and that is poop rage.  Our bases overseas are at max capacity and thousands of soldiers needing to poop under the stress of combat makes some people angry.  But I digress.

My bowel movements last on average 36 minutes.  My girlfriends are 3.6 minutes.  I think she feels that the quicker she goes the less likely we are to suspect she’s blowing out the plumbing. I actually developed my time consuming habit because of how lazy I was in high school.  I could easily waste a half hour of biology class taking care of business and during the summers my dad would pay me to clear brush on our property. He had a policy that bathroom breaks could be as long as necessary.  I quickly took advantage of this and would frequently clock an hour on the potty reading magazines, putting puzzles together, and eating sandwiches.  

 For all the pleasure I take in losing 2.5 pounds once a day, I really do make sure to count my blessings and thank god I am on a steady schedule.  You see, I have a close friend, Jim Swett (this is an alias he requested I give him in return for sharing his depressing story), who has a pooping predicament.  His system is all messed up and no one really knows why.  He once told me that he’s had upwards of two cameras up his ass and they’re still not sure what the problem is.  He travels with an exercise ball, so that on pit stops he can lay on it to fart, apparently he can’t burp and all his gas must pass out the back door.  After he found a steady girlfriend who was willing to deal this shit show (no pun intended), I told him he should lock her down.  

Once, during a road trip we were on he had to stop in the middle of the Nevada desert to “drop the kids off at the sandbox.”  I, of course, did what any good friend would do in a situation like this and added more stress to his mid-Nevada desert bowel movement by taking pictures.  (On a side note, I believe this is the fundamental difference between men and women, a woman would have felt bad for him and took pity.  My only thought however, was how I could make his situation more uncomfortable) The photos of Jim Swett’s white ass glimmering in the Nevada sun can be seen below

 

I blurred Jim Swett’s face to conceal his real identity.

Later on in our trip, we were staying at our friend Geiger’s house in Park City and pre-gaming before going out on New Years Eve.  Geiger’s roommate had some friends from L.A. at the house with a few hot broads in tow.  We were all dressed to the 9’s and feeling good about life, all that is except one…

Prior to this trip I was relatively unaware of Jim Swett’s predicament and did not know he traveled with an exercise ball to help him fart at his leisure. I had went downstairs to take a leak and when I came up the stairs Jim Swett was positioned behind the pool table out of view from the rest of the party, he was draped across the medicine ball looking like a yogi in the down dog position.  Our eyes locked and in my momentary confusion I did not sound the alarm.  Just as I was about to alert the rest of the party as to what Jim Swett was up to, he begged me like a POW to spare his social life.  I’m still not sure why I took pity on him in this fragile moment, but the shame in his words somehow resonated with me and I, for once, refrained from embarrassing my good friend.

 There’s nothing more stressful than being away from home base and having to “drop the kids off at the pool” or in Jim’s case, the desert.  My Uncle Mike recently explained to me his policy of using hotel lobby bathrooms when he’s on the road.  This really is a genius plan that I’ve now added to my repertoire.  

 I had a friend, Watters, that would make himself a little nest in high school when he had to do business, he was literally “shit break” off of American Pie.  If myself or my buddy, Miller, suspected he was making a nest we would wait for him to get perched and then rain wet paper towels down on his pooping parade.  Once again, we are jerks and we can’t help it. 

 Probably the most feared situation of all is crapping your pants as an grown adult.  I honestly can say this has not happened to me, but I have “Sharted” myself twice and both were when I was already in the bathroom.  I have a friend Max, who told me his policy is that is if it takes more than two wipes he immediately goes to the shower.  I thought that was pretty fair.

 I once bonged a beer while pooping as a 21-year-old dipshit in flight school (depicted above).  I’d like to think that I may have been the first person to ever pull this off, but I’m sure there’s another jackass who was as forward thinking as I was.

The biggest problem there is with taking a half hour dump is standing up after it’s over and having your legs go numb.  My friend Julian just informed me of a new purchase he made which is the squatty potty. It’s a product that supposedly puts you in a better position to take a quicker dump.  I tried it at his house last weekend and I’m still not quite ready to buy stock in this.

 

This guy looks so happy, it must work.

Taking a poop is probably the most vulnerable we as humans, in the year 2014, can be, that’s probably why I take so much joy in pooping undisturbed.  This is what my ancestors worked so hard for.  Can you imagine the stress those bearded bastards must have felt hugging a tree while pinching a loaf?  Any minute a pack of wolves could have disrupted the whole operation.  When I think of my cavemen ancestors and Jim Swett, I have a greater appreciation for my Sunday dumps and I hope you all do too now.

 

 

 

Medevac Cavemen

Medevac cavemen

 I always kept my cockpit immaculate.

 

                 My fourth combat tour (two in Iraq and two Afghanistan) was yet another learning experience for me.  It showed me a whole new side of aviation, and that is flying Medevac.  I never wanted to fly Medevac since their flight times are much less than other missions and I’ve always been concerned with accruing hours so I can one day “make the big bucks “ flying in the helicopter skiing business. Which is of course a joke since no one really gets rich flying helicopters.  It’s kind of like being a ski patroller or maybe porn star, the job is what you love and the paycheck is a nice perk or at least that’s how I’ve always viewed flying. I have always had friends who flew Medevac, but honestly never really gave them the props they deserved for flying such an intense mission. I figured 90% of their mission was just sitting around playing Xbox and spitting game at hot nurses (Unfortunately the former is true and not the latter).  After spending the last 9 months performing this mission I’ve been able to draw a few conclusions about being a Medevac crew member.  I compare being a Medevac crew member to two groups, firefighters and cavemen.  The first is obvious since firefighters sit around all day until they have to jump into their boots and hop on their truck and race to a fire.  That and babes love them just like Medevac pilots (also true). The second cavemen, because I imagine when cavemen were laid back in their caves thousands of years ago and then suddenly were bum rushed by a saber toothed tiger in their sleep, they went running out of their caves like madmen having to pee and not knowing what the fuck was really going on.  That is pretty much what Medevac crews look like when we get woken up in the middle of the night from being dead asleep for a call.  I’ve seen crew members forget their body armor on missions and I once tried to start my helicopter with the gust lock halfway in, which didn’t work out too well for the gust lock or me when I had to explain to my commander what had happened.  I think every Medevac crew member has some funny story of something boneheaded they did while trying to go out and rescue someone’s life.

 

Our fearless leaders trying to get buff.

                        I also have seen way more man penis in the back of my helicopter than I care to discuss and while I know it’s wrong, it still disturbs me just as much as seeing someone’s legs blown off, which is why when my medic tells me not to look back, I don’t anymore.  Being on edge day after day also takes a toll on you.  While most of it may be sitting around golfing and playing xbox, being constantly on edge does wear on us quite considerably.  Especially the medics and crewchiefs in the back who see the most (man penis) and are sometimes haunted by the worst of what this war has to offer.  They are truly impressive men and women who act as cool under pressure as Kobe Bryant on the court after being accused of rape.  I was actually able to see the medics work their magic first hand when we saw a slice of action on base this tour,  I looked like a “fish out of water” flopping around with no real purpose as our medic barked orders at the rest of us while he worked on a few of our guys.  

         To put our flight combat medics job into perspective it would be as If doctors and nurses slept at deer camp and when someone got hurt they were jostled out of their rack, sprinted to a helicopter with some maniac pilots, who flew balls out to a car wreck on the side on of an unlit road, slammed the helicopter on the ground and pointed them in the direction of the patient.  But before they take their headsets off we tell them to be careful since there may be enemy in the area that want to kill them.  So basically all I had to say was they are some of the biggest badasses out there.

Meow.

This mission has taught me to slow down my emotions and control myself when my mind is moving faster than Tiger Woods trying to come up with another excuse for where he was last night.  Our Crewchiefs are of course the oil that keeps our whole mission running smoothly.  Between missions while I’m out back working on my pitiful golf game, they are out on the flight line fixing aircraft I broke and getting them ready for the next mission.  They are the unsung heros’ of aviation and I salute them.  As a side note I do look forward to telling my maintenance officer of any problems I have with the aircraft and seeing him get pissed off, this amuses me to no end and before bed I would sometimes brainstorm of elaborate maintenance problems I could tell him about after my next mission.  He of course enjoys telling me (As an instructor pilot) what is wrong with all of our co-pilots and of how it’s my fault because I’m an awful instructor.

It’s poop again!

The last piece to the Medevac machine is our operations personnel, they man our radios and alert us of missions while managing all the phones, computers, and radios during said missions.  They are always extremely patient as every commander in the army calls like a needy girlfriend for reassurance that we are handling everything correctly.  They always enjoy watching us stumble out of our racks like drunk sailors and I make sure to give them hell when I get back for having the gall to disrupt my beauty sleep.

                  Of course the number one fear for all Medevac crew members is not getting shot down en-route to a call and being tortured by the Taliban, No that fear is getting caught with our pants down pooping or buck naked taking a shower.  For this reason many forego showers while on duty, but unfortunately the former is unavoidable.  This stress alone has given me many sleepless nights and hurried poops.  

 

Did I say this job is really boring?

Another aspect of being a Medevac crew member is the extensive downtime we must deal with.  Many of us are on duty for sometimes weeks at a time.  Fortunately this war is coming to a close and the amount of calls we receive are plummeting.  The problem with this is that now there are multiple motivated grown adults with no outlet for their energy.  Yes, we do have a small gym out back and many take online college courses to help pass the time, but eventually idle hands will bust loose and shenanigans ensue.  We for quite some time had a pet camel spider named “The Rancor” which we would pit against other spiders and insects in a gladiator style death match.  He went undefeated for his entire career until the cold took him at the start of the winter.  Yes it was sad, but not as sad as the untimely death of our first camel spider, who died doing what he loved… eating Slim Jims. Who would have thought that Slim Jims were bad for camel spider’s delicate palates.  We also had a mouse infestation for awhile and we nicknamed the ringleader Mr. Jangles.  He was cute for a while, we would catch glimpses of him perched on someones shelf watching Breaking Bad, but the last straw came when he started to eat our Ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwich bread.  We declared jihad on him and his clan and so far we’re up 5-0 , but we still believe the original mastermind Mr. Jangles is still somewhere at large, watching and waiting.

I know there are many more military badasses out there, but I wanted to bring light to the amazing men and women I spent last year with.  I hope this short read has given you all a window into what life is like for a deployed Medevac crew member and please pass this on to any friends or family you feel might enjoy it.  

 

Medal of Mustache Awards

The Medal of Mustache awards.

 

          In honor of the prostate cancer charity Movember (that’s Mustache November for those of you out of the loop).  I’ve decided to do a follow up to my popular inaugural mustache post to kick off my blog.  As many of you may now be aware, men with mustaches face discrimination in this country every day (Unlike the middle east where the mustache is held up on a pedestal).  I’d like to bring light to some pretty impressive mustache displays in our country’s great history and recommend them all for the inaugural Medal of Mustache award.  

          First I’d like to start out with what will be a little known courageous stache representation that probably went largely unnoticed because you all were too busy reading a yahoo news article about Justin Bieber’s weak stache (more on that later).  I have worked with this man for the past couple years and he is a true great American.  His name is Kenny Brodhead and he was on the cover of Newsweek magazine in November 2012.  Kenny is everything a senior Warrant officer should be grumpy, sarcastic, and a fantastic senior instructor pilot.  

 

 

              While being on the cover of Newsweek for the extraordinary mission his crew flew is in itself impressive, what’s even more impressive in my mind is that he did so while rocking one of arguably the best mustaches the modern army has ever seen. 

If you are reading this and are unfamiliar with the discrimination that the United States military shows mustaches stop reading this now and go back and read my first blog post.

 http://wp.me/p3Xo1Z-4.

For the rest of you let’s proceed. 

Now I am not aware of many soldiers (With the exception of a few Medal of Honor winners) being on the cover of national magazines, much less an Army Medevac helicopter crew,  so it’s something everyone in our unit was very proud of… except for one.  For those of you in the Army can you guess who that was? If you said the Sergeant Major (SGM) you would be correct.  I was sitting next to Kenny when the article came out and the only thing the SGM had to say was something snarky about his mustache.  As an army officer this was a ballsy move and I salute you Kenny for your courage both in and out of the cockpit.

                   The second man may be known only to the Yoopers, Canadians, and die hard hockey fans out there.  His name is Tim “Muddy” Watters and he played in the NHL from 81-95 as a defenseman for the Jets and Kings and then briefly as coach of the great Michigan Tech Huskies before getting canned in 2000. 

What was courageous about Watters mustache is that he used to skate around without a helmet wearing that thing.  Although, I guess it did protect him a bit when he got punched in the mouth (Which is what he may want to do to me after reading this post), but can you imagine how much faster he would have been without that thing slowing him down.  I imagine his coach was giving him grief on a daily basis for his lack of hustle, but it was the 80’s and little did he know that the stache was increasing his coefficient of drag. 

Also, on a side note, his mustache probably did help him bag that babe of a wife Sally Watters, so for that we salute you Tim.

Watters was a stud on and off the ice 

                       The next gentlemen I’d like to honor is Robin Olds.  He was a famous WWII and then Vietnam fighter ace.  He was pretty much the man we all want to be, a West Point football star, Fighter ace jet pilot, and all around badass.  He even married a Hollywood movie star. But what really made him great in my mind was his blatant disregard for the military’s mustache regulations. 

He grew one hell of a mustache as commander of the 8th tactical fighter wing in Vietnam and then shortly after at the Pentagon he reported to the Air Force chief of staff at the time General McConnell.  McConnell walked directly up to him stuck a finder under his nose and said “Take it off”, to which Olds replied “Yes, sir”.  This man was quite literally a war hero in every sense, yet the one thing the general was concerned about was his stache. 

If Robin went to high school with the most interesting man in the world (The Dos Equis guy), he would have been giving Robin his lunch money every day and if they ever had to share a prison cell the most interesting man in the world would be the one who would have to pee sitting down. 

I urge you all to read more about Robin after finishing this post. I can guarantee you women will wish you had bore his children and you men will have man crushes… He’s that awesome.

Robin would have bitch slapped Iceman while giving Maverick a wedgie, before making Goose his bitch and they all would have thanked him for it. 

 

My fourth and final submission for the Medal of Mustache is Justin Bieber.  That’s right I’m putting the Beebs up there with two war heros and a NHL player and this is why. 

It took balls.  

His mustache sucked beyond belief, but you know what? That’s ok.  

Not everyone is blessed with the testosterone of a bull shark (It’s a curse). 

The Beebs gave it a shot and low and behold everyone made fun of him for it.  

Especially you judgmental women. 

How many of you pussy’s reading this tried to grow a mustache when you were 18? 

Probably none of you unless you were on the Baraga, Michigan little league team.  Those kids had full mustaches at like 12 and I can remember being intimidated in the dugout as they warmed up, “Coach those guys already have mustaches”. 

But I digress, The Beebs while subjecting himself to international ridicule raised untold sums of money for prostate cancer research by bringing light to the charity Movember.  But go ahead and hate on him, he writes his own songs, he can dance, and can play three instruments.  Yeah he acts like a douche bag sometimes (actually most of the time), but I’m sure you all would handle millions of dollars and international fame great at 16 too. You can hate on his music, but don’t hate on him. 

Oh and how much have you raised for prostate cancer awareness.  Step up to the plate haters.

Here is a group of American Heros fighting your nation’s war and growing badass mustaches in the process.  

www.mobro.co/sjones275

Prostate cancer reports more new cases each year than breast cancer yet receives about half the funding.

A quick update for my first blog,  We’re still waiting on Mark Paul Gosselar to step up to the plate and be our mustache spokesman.  I think at the very least he should grow one for Movember.  What say you people.  Send him a message and let him know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farts aren’t funny

                  This issue of farting is a tough one for me, because on one hand I think it’s hilarious to fart on my girlfriend and see her get pissed off, and on the other hand when one of my buddies rips one of those disgusting, smells like there’s a dead gerbil in his ass farts, it pisses me off.  One of the reasons that I, more often than not, fall on the women’s side of the fart hating debate is that I’ve never been a great farter.  My body just doesn’t produce a high level of gas so it’s never been a good weapon in my arsenal.  My brother Tony on the other hand is up there with some of the world’s greatest.  In fact he used to fart so often that we had a rule in the car growing up.  If anyone in the car smelled his fart before the window was in the process of going down, he had to pay my dad a dollar.  Why a dollar you ask?  Well, My father did his best to not smack us as often as he was smacked and tried many different tactics to keep us in check.  One of the more famous ones was the three strike rule.  He was a baseball nut and determined that if we got three strikes in one day then we were out which meant grounded, go to your room.  I quickly learned to game this system and would pick and choose just the right times to be a little dick head and start something with my siblings, my favorite time was during church when I knew his anger would be repressed by god.  But, the one tactic that brought us to our knees was penalizing us with money, and so that became the policy.  

 

 

We are pretty sure my brother Tony (on the right) had just ripped one in this photo (You can see my frustration on the left and my sister just looks confused about life).

                  But back to farting.  I do love the comedic aspect of the fart, nothing can quite disrupt a room like a well timed fart, and women of course do their best to prevent their names from ever being associated with such childish comedic endeavors.  They somehow think they’re above farting and that the rest of us are just immature boys who need to grow up.  This snobbishness is what makes exposing a women who just farted one of my favorite things in life.  A few years ago my roommate and I decided to do a thanksgiving dinner at our apartment in Syracuse.  It was just a few couples and with the exception of one married couple most of us were in the early stages of our relationships.  The night was a big success, everyone cooked something, the food turned out great, and all was good in the world, but there was a storm a brewing.  My roommate Julians girlfriend we’ll call her “Blondetasha” is what we all would call a catch.  She’s a gorgeous tall blonde dentist.  If she’s walking by you in the street I can guarantee you will be holding in your fart. That’s what makes her fall from the female farting pedestal so great.  Well, as the night started to wind down and people started going home the only people left were Julian, myself and our two girlfriends.  Blondetasha was laying back on a recliner with her man and I was standing up trying to make everyone laugh by doing some routine describing how much I had ate by pushing my belly out like I was pregnant.  

 

 My Belly looked much larger than this on Thanksgiving.

 

Apparently, Blondetasha though this act was one of the funniest things she had every heard in her life.  She started into one of those deep belly laughs that can be sometimes be uncontrollable… and lose control she did.  She let out one of the deepest, loudest farts ever heard east of the Mississippi.  She must have been holding that thing in for a week and half, because the back pressure could have shut down a diesel engine.  Julian was not amused and I was on the floor laughing hysterically.  I’m still not sure if it smelled or not since I was laughing so hard.  So at least she can still cling to the saying that her farts smell like roses. They are still together to this day which is a testament to their love because that fart could have ended a 50 year marriage.  

                  One of the most liberating things in life can be farting in large groups of people, especially a concert or a packed bar.  Due to the noise and crowd of people it’s impossible to get caught and even if you did it’s hard for most people to get mad because they would do the same thing.  In effect it is the perfect crime. Once during a cross country flight I was on the phone with flight service when my buddy Nels ripped a choice one.  I almost threw up it was so bad and after cursing him out I realized I was still on the phone with the fight service agent and had to apologize.  I did not find this fart funny.  The one time when I do find a fart in my presence acceptable is when a fat guy does it.  For some reason it just seems right, kind of like when you see beavers making dams.  This is exactly what I think they’re doing when I’m not around.  I realize that I am a farting hypocrite, but frankly I really don’t care. It is my right as an American to decide when a fart is funny or not and most of the time, when I smell poop, I don’t find it funny.  So to the rest of you, keep your fart jokes to yourself and if you must pass gas in my presence leave the room… Unless you’re a fat guy. 

 

Golfing Blows

Golfing blows.

               

                   The big guy JB making it look good

                Currently I’m working on my golf game in Afghanistan. I have always considered myself a slightly above average athlete, but this ridiculous sport is kicking my ass and I would have already given up, but there isn’t much else to do.  That’s right I’m attempting to try and learn the sport I’ve loathed my whole life in one of the worst countries in the world.  As a Medevac pilot in Afghanistan I’ve had a lot of down time which is sometimes briefly interrupted by sprinting to the aircraft to go earn my paycheck. All this down time has inspired me to give golf another chance.  All my life I have had plenty of opportunities, but have had far too many expensive time consuming hobbies (Skiing, Fly fishing, Mountain biking) to add one to the mix that makes be look like a douche-bag.  But over here I’ve actually kind of started to enjoy it.  All it took was some free clubs from Calloway, endless free time, and 5000 golf balls my girlfriend’s Dad collected for us at his country club.  I’m also learning about club selection from Tiger Woods golf on Xbox.  I realize by now you all think less of me and my job, but being in the Medevac is a strange beast, we are on call 24/7 and must stay in our AO at all times in order to meet our response times.  If you’re a busy motivated person doing this for 9-12 months will make you go insane. Hence golfing has become our stress relief. I will definitely make another blog post explaining Medevac life at a later date, but until then let me complain about why I hate golf.                   My buddy Jesse once (actually twice) tricked me into playing golf, the first time he told me that there were monster bass in the ponds of the Thousand Islands country club.  He recommended that I bring my fly rod and I could rip lip and drink beer while they golfed.  Well we showed up and there was a tournament going on and it became evident that I would look like a giant jackass fly fishing during a golf tournament. Given not much choice I decided to drink beer and tag along with them.  Afterwards, Jesse once again lied to me and told me I did much better than he thought I would.  I’m not sure if this was a complement for how well I did or a burn for how shitty of an athlete he thinks I am.  Either way it worked because later on that night at the bar I was proclaiming myself to be gods gift to golf (after a half dozen shots of whiskey) and challenged his wife Kristen to a game of skins (which I first thought was strip golf).  She was actually offended that Jesse thought I had a chance against her since she had been taking lessons all summer in an attempt to share another hobby with her man.  Reflecting on this makes me think the two of them may have been playing me all along.  We agreed upon a bottle of scotch for me and a bottle of Kettle One for her.  On to my victory, or so I thought.  Well things started off kind of close I took a few holes and so did she, but around the 7th hole or so she started to pull away and my weak game fell apart like Jose Valverde in the 9th.  I still wasn’t even exactly sure which way I was comfortable swinging since I bat and throw a baseball left handed yet shoot a hockey stick right handed.  The ninth hole was the last one I have ever played.  I teed off and shanked it hard right into a fence, then sliced it hard left into the trees.  From where my ball lay I thought I could just slam the shit out of it through the trees onto the green. Well I hit it hard, but god knows where it went.  I slowly cruised the edge of the tree line in my cart looking like a creeper trying abduct a child when I came upon a gorgeous house and a yuppie couple sitting outside on their adirondack chairs enjoying a glass of wine and a great late summer evening. Fourteen years ago as a jackass delinquent teenager this house would’ve been first on my egging list.  The man said he heard my ball banging around behind his house and offered to help me look for it. As the two of us were walking around searching like idiots, he asked me what I was playing, confused at his dip-shit question I replied “Golf”.  He said “No what kind of ball are you playing?”, now I’m the dip-shit.  I had no idea since I had just been picking up random balls I was finding in the grass along the way.  I declared that had to be mine and took a drop directly in front of their deck chairs.  Now on my fifth shot I was ready to show these country club home owning yuppies how it’s done.  I had about a 75 yard shot onto the green and instead hit a 12 yard grounder that even Bill Buckner could have handled.  Disgusted with myself, I got in my cart and as I’m driving past them my golf bag falls off the back of the cart.  I actually saw the woman spit out a bit of her wine as she tried to hold in her laughter. Bitch. I wanted to rip a hard left and peg my golf cart into their deck chairs like a Greenpeace hippie trying to disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet.  Instead, I sheepishly picked up my golf bag and lined up my next shot.  My sixth shot landed on the green and I three putted my way to whatever you call a six bogey.  After that hole I conceded the cup, proclaimed golf a waste of time, and suggested we put our time to better use and go hit the lake.  That was the last time I played golf until now.

My swing is starting to look a little less like a child with down syndrome is weed whacking and a little more like a golfers, and I can hit the ball solid about 50% of the time.  But what I really enjoy about the game is trying to hit Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs) vehicles as they cruise by in front of our make shift driving range (These are the vehicles that congress impressively pushed through in record time during the Iraq campaign to combat Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) giving a nod to World War II esqe American production might). We even hit a water truck the other day which sent us (adult men at war) scurrying like kids who had just hit a car with a snowball.  Also the other day, a civilian contractor stopped on his gator and started helping himself to our “donated” golf balls like a hobo picking up cans.  We of course did what anyone on a live range and a club in their hand would do, started teeing off on him.  This of course did not go over well, you see this man was a contractor for the special forces team on our base and they of course paid us a visit later that day.  One of the questions they actually asked us was “do you guys even ever go pick them up” to which our sarcastic reply was “No, here in the Medevac we only hit pristine new balls, after our clubs touch them they’re forever tainted”.  Our fearless team leader held his ground in the face of these door kicking, American badass snake eaters (who thought it was necessary to have a confrontation about golfing… in combat).  He said “let me put it this way if some civilian was out stealing balls off your range what would you do?” After a quick discussion it was agreed upon that they wouldn’t steal our golf balls anymore and we apologized for teeing off on their civilian. As they walked out they promised to call off the team of ninjas that were scheduled to zip tie us in our sleep. You know things are going good in Afghanistan when these are the types of conflicts we get into on base.  I can’t wait to get back and challenge Kristen to another game, but this time I’ll make sure my clubs are firmly secured to the cart.

 I’m not sure where my ball went  

Let’s put an end to mustache discrimination

Recently it has come to my attention that my mustache is disturbing some, most notably the women in my life. My girlfriend, mother, sister, and 5 year old niece are unanimous in their decision that it’s horrendous and makes me look like a child molester (Damn you skype).  Fortunately for me, I am in Afghanistan roughly 3000 miles away from all of them, so I really don’t care.  In fact I find it quite hilarious just how much the mustache is hated.  In the army they pretty much do everything they can to prevent soldiers from growing mustaches.  There’s actually a regulation that covers the exact specifications my mustache can be. 

(c) Males will keep their face clean-shaven when in uniform or in civilian clothes on duty. Mustaches are permitted; if worn, males will keep mustaches neatly trimmed, tapered, and tidy. Mustaches will not present a chopped off or bushy appearance, and no portion of the mustache will cover the upper lip line or extend sideways beyond a verticalline drawn upward from the corners of the mouth (see figure 1–1). Handlebar mustaches, goatees, and beards are not authorized. 

It’s a neutered version of the stache and it basically makes you look like Hitler. As an officer it’s become “frowned upon” to grow a mustache and my commander regularly informs me of his disgust with mine.  Of course all this mustache hatred only makes my resolve stronger and my mustache more amazing.  I wonder if Burt Reynolds ever received this much grief about his stache.  I doubt it, it was glorious. 

Can you also imagine one of Teddy Roosevelt’s senior Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) asking him prior to charging up that hill in Cuba “Excuse me Sir, before we go into battle I’d like if you would please trim your stache, you see it’s a discipline thing Sir”.  He probably would have nut punched him and then charged up that hill laughing with the rest of the Rough Riders at what a pussy that guy was.  

In today’s military there’s a sect that somehow believes the length of facial hair translates into lack of discipline in the cockpit, tank, or whatever vessel you may be commandeering (Ironically our best soldiers, the spec ops community, are encouraged to grow beards).  It’s as if having an awesome mustache would somehow empower me to go out and do barrel rolls in my helicopter.  I actually got into a heated argument with a senior NCO recently about the length of my stache (Apparently he thought I looked like Rollie Fingers heading out to the mound to close a game), he felt it was way out of regulations and that I had a lack of discipline that would carry over into our junior enlisted soldiers.  

This person was so upset about my stache that he was actually angrily yelling at me before I pulled him aside and asked him to chill out.  As a side note, I love trying to explain these types of situations to my non-military friends, “You see he was yelling because he was mad at me for my mustache”.  Unless you’re in the military or play for the Yankees you probably will never understand this mentality.  But I digress, back to the judgmental women in my life.  Can you imagine if the next time any one of them got a haircut and I told them it looked disgusting and compared their haircut to a female prison inmate (no offense to female prison inmates).  I would be dubbed the biggest Jerk in the world and promptly stoned in the street.  Yet it is perfectly acceptable for women to discriminate us for our staches.  I’m not sure when this blatant contempt for staches started, but somehow I think it may be Ron Jeremy’s fault, it was him or maybe Saddam. 

 

 

Either way it’s wrong and it needs to be stopped.  Hipsters recently have started somewhat of a mustache resurgence, but I think most people secretly hate hipsters too so they may be doing more harm than good. Truthfully I really don’t enjoy this mustache, I just find it hilarious that people hate it and feel it’s my duty to bring light to the plight of the great American Stache.  I think we need a national mustache spokesman, someone with dark hair and the popularity to bring the mustache back into the limelight.  A man women want and men want to be.  His intense manliness would paralyze women and give them no choice but to embrace the stache.  Personally I think that man should be Mark Paul Gosselaar,

but until he steps up to claim the throne I’ll keep it warm for him.