Dry Humpin' In The Dark

The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music ~Agnes de Mille

Wonder how ol’ Agnes, an esteemed American ballerina and choreographer, would view Jacksonville’s indigenous dance, a down and dirty dry hump performed on a filthy dance floor? What the Polka is to the Poles, what the Lambada is to the Brazilians, the Fishin’ In The Dark is to the residents of Jacksonville.

The Fishin’ In The Dark caught me by surprise. I was ready to blow off some steam on a Friday night and agreed to join my friends at the Tarheel Opry House. Tucked around the corner from La Mirage titty bar on a deserted back road, the Tarheel shares a parking lot with Alexander’s, Jacksonville’s self-proclaimed “premiere” nightclub. In Jacksonville-ese, labeling a place premiere simply justifies a 20 buck entry fee and bisecting the club with a velvet rope as a meager attempt to create a VIP lounge. But I digress; that is for another blog post. I pulled my vehicle to the east end of the parking lot, amid the mud-splattered American model trucks and Jeeps adorned with cute little bumper stickers of Browning deer heads forming hearts.

After handing over my cover charge, I noticed an index card taped to the front desk proclaiming “Please leave your knives in your vehicle.” Charming. I half expected Patrick Swayze to be standing at the bar, arms crossed but ready to rip my throat out Roadhouse style if I stepped out of line. Instead, I spied several geriatric rent-a-cops ambling through the crowd, pausing to chat with pregnant women sucking down longnecks and smoking cigarettes (pre-smoking ban days here, obviously). Bellying up to the bar, my friends and I ordered a round of shots that was quickly vetoed by the steely blond iron maiden bartender. She didn’t have the ingredients required to make our sissy ass shots but promised whip up something good to get the night started.

Around midnight, they unfurled an American flag up on the stage and a fiddle player began his rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”. Look, I am as much of a red-blooded, all-American patriot as the next guy, but I find it hard not to laugh at a bunch of drunk boots attempting to stand at the position of attention, thumbs aligning with pant seams, eyes straight ahead, after shooting Jager all night long. Especially when they start cheering “America! Fuck yeah!” in a seemingly un-ironic manner upon the close of the national anthem.

It was then that I heard the first chords of one of my favorite songs. “Fishin’ In The Dark” by the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band has always held a special place in my heart. It is a cheeky little ditty about a guy taking his girl fishing… except it isn’t really fishing that he is concerned with… at least in the traditional sense. I always appreciated the sly yet innocent double entendre of the lyrics. And it so happened that I had found a repeat dance partner that night who happened to be standing right by my side at the song’s start. A mutual nod confirmed that indeed we would be taking a turn on the dance floor to this song. We sauntered hand-in-hand to the dance floor, me preparing to do the traditional two-step this song demanded when…



HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? I had been momentarily distracted by my dance partner’s blue-grey eyes that I hadn’t noticed a fucking orgy had broken out on the dance floor.

The two-step is just way too classy for Jacksonville. Men were sprawled out on the dance floor with women gyrating above them. Men were dry humping women. Sisters were doing in for themselves by gathering their friends and squatting in pairs four or five deep over one another. People were sixty-nining, throwing legs over shoulders and going to town. I fear that some would have a souvenir of that night nine months later. Seriously… there was straight up baby-making going on that dance floor that night. Those not participating in the debauchery were arming their cell phone cameras and whooping to their friends about how they couldn’t wait to upload the footage to Youtube when they got home. It looked like we had walked on to the set of Caligula. My dance partner and I nervously eyed each other, wondering if we should really go to third base within a mere twenty minutes of meeting each other. My friends, being no help at all, egged me on and flat out dared me.

When in J-Vegas, do as the J-Vegans do. Don’t judge. I still blame the Iron Maiden bartender and those non-sissy shots.

I'm back, bitches!

How time flies! My last post was over a year ago and concentrated on a conversation at the Easter dinner table. This last weekend after unbuttoning my pants to make room for another round of ham, booze and.. well.. even more booze, a random thought popped in to my head. "Hey... didn't I used to write a blog about this shithole town that I reside in?"

Truth be told, I thought nobody was reading it. I sent it out to a small group of friends and regularly begged them to read it. They rolled their eyes and pretended to humor me. Months passed by, nobody left any comments and I crawled in to the fetal position and nursed my wounded self esteem with Vicodin and Jack Daniels. Sunday I stumbled to the computer post-Easter dinner, logged in to the email linked to this account for the first time in over 6 months and HOLY SHIT people were actually responding.



Forgive me. My blogging skills are rusty so I am resorting to this tired ass Sally "You like me!" Fields reference.

Game on, J-Vegans! I am sharpening my tongue once again and not leaving the house without my camera. We are back in business.

Special thanks to the Afghan Lemmings, especially SD who took time out of his busy day of handing terrorists their asses to let me know that the blog was being circulated around his battalion. My ego is now so swollen I may have to celebrate by slamming Jager and slapping a stripper's ass in his honor. Safe return home, gents.



Overheard At My Easter Dinner

My friend "Jenna" had us all rolling with this statement: "I love people from Jacksonville. They can say things like 'Poor Molly Sue. She is butt ass ugly and sleeps with anything with a pulse. Bless her heart.' Talk all the trash you want to... just throw in a 'Bless her/his heart' at the end and you are golden."

Hmmmm.... I am going to give this a try.

I saw a group of women on Camp Lejeune power walking with strollers today. Too bad they were stuffing their faces with ice cream so their snail's pace version of exercise was totally negated. Bless their hearts.

The manager at my gym gave up the juice a few years ago so his body mass has turned to fluff. That faux-hawk he is rocking at the age of forty something doesn't help either. Bless his heart.

That Wal-Mart cashier that checked me out last week has the IQ of a gnat and probably lives in a trailer park in Southwest. Bless her heart.

Welcome Home... Now Get Naked!

Dear Desperate Housewives of Camp Lejeune,

First off, let me say welcome home to your husbands (especially the recent return of those who came back from a deployment in Afghanistan only to turn around less than a month later and deploy to Haiti). I understand you have missed your husbands terribly. In order to prepare for his homecoming, I am sure you have spent countless hours at the tanning bed, nail salon and gym so that you are putting your best foot forward at the reunion. Your cell phone has been glued to your hip as you await news of when you can go pick him up. You might have even attended one of those sign decorating parties with the other wives. Since you are a Semper Faithful Marine Wife, you would never stoop so low to just order a custom made sign online. No... you have made sacrifices dammit and spending a few more hours painting a welcome home sign with members of your Family Readiness Group while gossiping about how fat the Company Gunny's wife has gotten is no great hardship.

Just please, please, PLEASE don't do this:

I realize you haven't gotten laid in a few months. I know you are horny as hell. Go to Adam & Eve and buy a new toy, send your hubby a sexy email where you detail exactly how you plan to make him scream like a girl... just do it privately. There is no need for your husband's buddies, Commanding Officer and anyone else who drives down Highway 24 to see that you plan to fuck your husband's brains out the moment he gets home. It is tacky. Go ahead and make a banner... but a simple "I missed you. Welcome Home" will suffice.

Sincerely,

Viva J-Vegas (and 90% of Jacksonville's population)

And You Thought Your Job Sucked...

Employment in J-Vegas can be hard to come by, especially in these tough economic times. Despite the proclamation via bumper sticker that Marine Wives have the toughest job around, there are much worse ones to be had. Take this one for example:

The Liberty Tax lady

I see this poor old lady every afternoon on the commute home. She has to be over sixty years old, yet she spends her near twilight years on the corner by the Commissary and Exchange dressed in a cheap polyester version of the Statue of Liberty, waving at bored Marines and their spouses in order to entice them to use Liberty Tax's services. The greater J-Vegas metropolitan area (*snort* ... that was fun just typing that term) is no stranger to street corner hawking. There are always people with signs proclaiming low monthy fees at Gold's Gym (totally a scam, by the way), BOGO deals at pizza shops and no waiting for an oil change. Still... the Liberty Lady strikes me as sad.

Blooming Torture

My mother used the saying "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" quite a bit. While driving down the tree-lined streets of J-Vegas in the spring, sneezing and hacking due to all the pollen floating in the air and rubbing my blurry eyes, her favorite old mantra springs to my mind. I suppose some brilliant urban planner thirty years ago attempted to beautify Jacksonville by lining the streets with an assortment of dogwood, azalea, cherry and pear blossom trees, thus detracting folks from all the pawn shops and strip joints.

No, no... don't look at all this!

Look at the pretty blooming trees instead.

Now look back at me...

Invasion of the Backpack Mafia

Happy Friday and welcome to another weekend in J-Vegas. Not only will you have to endure an hour long wait to get in to swanky eateries such as Olive Garden and Logan's but you will find traffic along Western Blvd. at a stand still. While waiting at a stoplight behind a SUV loaded up with half a dozen kids and the ubiquitous I Heart My Marine and His Boots, Her Flops bumper stickers, take a moment to view one of Jacksonville's unique subcultures roaming the streets.

The Backpack Mafia

Their ranks consist of young Marines without wheels. Itching to get off the base, they descend upon Jacksonville in droves by piling in to a Tarheel Taxi that they are splitting the fare with their buddies. The Backpack Mafia receives its name from the backpacks they wear strapped to their backs, loaded down with changes of clothes and a toothbrush (you know... just in case some toothless stripper has a sitter for her four children that night and invites him back to her lovely trailer park home), Ipods, a few energy drinks and room to spare for whatever spoils of war they might pick up that weekend. The Backpack Mafia can be distiguished by their fresh High and Stupid haircuts, Tapout t-shirts and... oh... what's this?... a military issue web belt or pair of Birth Control Goggles? Way to proclaim your greenhorn status there!

No worries. The Tarheel Taxi driver will kindly drop them off at their first stop, The Jacksonville Mall, where the misled youth can pick up a new belt at such choice stores as American Eagle, Aeropostale or (for the more adventerous ones) Hot Topic or head over to Sears Optical for some new frames. After catching a movie and a bite to eat at Red Robin, most Backpack Mafia will move on the Barnes & Nobles to get a Starbucks coffee and make failed attempts at picking up on a Sergeant Major's sixteen year old daughter.

Tiring of these activities, the Backpack Mafia makes its slow descent down Western Blvd., stopping at Skin Art to contemplate getting a sweet new tribal USMC tattoo, running in to other Backpack Mafia members who heard about a bitching party at the Sunset Inn and stopping at Hooters to oogle some other Marine's wives wearing orange hot pants.

Sunday usually finds the Backpack Mafia sitting dejectedly on the curb of Wal-Mart after picking up some essential odds and ends, stuffed with Taco Bell or Waffle House chow and waiting for the Tarheel Taxi to return them to base. Poor kids.