My Virginia Tech Football Memory

Virginia Tech football celebrates its 125th year this year, and the various alumni groups and Hokie Sports sites are asking us to share our memories.  Here is my submission to the so called "Bracket of Memories":

"I will never forget the night that Virginia Tech played against West Virginia on November 20, 2002.

For one, it was a fucking Wednesday. Wednesday!  Why?  I never really understood that one. Wednesday was a bad night for me.  That was the night that my ultra heavy metal band, DeathSpoon, played at The Underground Underground, a sort of concrete bunker underneath the Underground Pub.  But in all honesty, the band wasn't doing so well, and I was just a bass player. Bass players are a dime a dozen after all (it isn't that hard to just go bommma bom bom bom bom bom bommma!  Da bomma bom bom bom bom bom bomma bomma!) and if they really needed one they could just pick one up from the six or seven bass players who kind of camped out in front of the Mish Mish, just waiting for a van to pull up and offer them some work.  Painting, strange bass player sex stuff, even sometimes bass playing, just whatever those guys could get.  Just enough to keep the dream of being a real life bass player alive.  In any case, I could read the reading on the wall.  DeathSpoon would at least go on without me, and perhaps cease to be altogether.

So though it was school night, and I probably had an exam soon to come, and my impending expulsion from the band weighed heavily on mine heart, I decided that a Wednesday night in Lane Stadium (any night in Lane Stadium, really), was worth the cost.  So off I went.

I don't remember much of the game.  Just that at the half, the Hokies were winning.  I am not sure why I decided to leave at half time, aside from maybe the delicious notion that leaving at the half showed my complete contempt for the other team, a real Edward the Longshanks kind of move, retiring with the battle still raging but clearly well in hand.  I also think someone in the stands may have thrown up on my shoes, thereby dampening my enthusiasm for the contest.

So I walked back home, which at that time was a townhouse on North Main.  It was a long walk, and no doubt a thoughtful one.  I suffered with depression on and off through college (as I still do), to the point where at times the only thing I was capable of doing was sitting in bed eating a bag of Krispy Kruellers and reading "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt".  Doing anything else was just too hard.  I don't think I was there yet on this particular day, but I am sure something was on my mind.  I do remember looking in the window of a restaurant, a puddle of light on a dark November night, and seeing a few patrons sitting around a table, some of the few people in Blacksburg who were NOT at the football game.  I admired their cool disdain, their lack of concern that not one or two miles distance the mighty Hokies, THEIR mighty Hokies, were engaged in combat against the Barbarians from the Northern Coal Districts.  I wished for a moment that I had their confidence and comportment (be it ever so smug), and imagined they were interesting artsy people who wore black turtlenecks and read dead French philosophers. For a brief moment I almost decided to walk in and introduce myself, asking them to take me in like a band of jaded soldiers takes in a stray dog, for the sheer pathos of the thing, the idea that anything could be alive in a world so cold.  But the moment passed, and I walked on.

In any case, by the time I got home the third quarter was well underway and Tech was losing.  I was upset, but not really all that surprised.  We ended up losing that game 18-21.  Won't forget that anytime soon.

So yeah.  Happy 125, Virginia Tech Football!  Wishing you many, many more."

Vice President Pence Visits the Schiffkraftwerk!

Oh wow!

I know, I haven't written in a month.  Over a month.  I've been so busy, and so tired, and I've been trying orchestrate a coup within the Peninsula Engineers Council (it failed, but by God did we get close.  So close we could almost taste it).

But I'm back!  And there is only thing that could bring me back out of a long slumber....sponsorship.  So while you're reading this, why don't you kick back with a Commander Sterling's Chocolate Pudding Blast! Commander Sterling's:  We're all going to the same place anyway, so why not enjoy yourself?

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But also is the news that Vice President Pence will be visiting the Shipyard this weekend to be keynote speaker at the INDIANA (SSN 789) Christening.  This is a big deal...normally the most high powered person to attend a submarine christening is the Chief of Naval Operations or his deputies, the head of Naval Reactors, and maybe a few Senators.  Powerful people, yes indeed.  But not nearly as powerful as the Vice President of the United States.
Wait.  Strike that.  Reverse it.  No one potentially as powerful as the Vice President of the United States.  I would argue that a high ranking Senator would beat out a Vice President, as a rook on a chess board is worth more than a bishop.  But then Vice President Pence, like a stretched spring or a boulder hovering above Wiley E. Coyote's head, is full of potential, just one too many buckets of KFC away from the most powerful position in the land, if not the world.

Of course, Vice President looked pretty powerful when he was in the DMZ last week, staring down North Korean guards in his totally sweet bomber jacket.  And, as Pence cannot actually land on the deck of a Submarine (at least this one, as it is currently inside the yard's building outfitting facility) much of speculation around this visit concerns that bomber jacket....i.e. will he wear it?

I know I'd be dissuaded from launching an ICMB with a look like that.

Probably not.  Typically at a Christening Cermemony if you are going to speak or be up on the VIP stage you really wear your best.  Not black or white tie, of course (who does that anymore), but The Navy Personnel on hand will be in their dress uniforms in full regalia, men wear their suits and ties and women wear dresses or....pantsuits.  Are we really still going with pantsuits?  We haven't come up with anything better?  Or at we at the point in our society where a suit is just a suit?

Anyway.  A bomber jacket would be a little out of place.  The toughness aspect of the thing would be welcome, but it really isn't in line with convention.  Pence is a pretty conventional guy, and I'd expect him to follow the rules.

But then this is an administration that doesn't really care much about the rules.  When Trump visited the USS Gerald R. Ford he didn't take his hat off inside the Carrier as he toured the mess decks, which is typically done.  He was in a place where hats, generally, are not worn; but there he was with a big old USA hat...in red no less.  Generally the Damage Control Department wears red hats so that you know...well, you know that something is going down if one of those guys goes running by.  So not only was he wearing a hat in a place he shouldn't have been wearing one, but he was wearing a color that generally should not be worn onboard ship unless you have a particular reason for doing so.

And then of course just last week wunderkinder Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock toured the white house.  Pictures surfaced of The Nuge and The Kid in the white house, leering in front of a portrait of Hilary Clinton along with The Chick, with their hats on.  They were not ball caps, sure, but they were still hats.  And then another picture, of the trio inside the oval office with Trump, and those two paragons of patriotism still have their hats on!!  

 Now listen.  Wearing a hat indoors is bad enough.  I was always taught that inside of a building, any building, if you are wearing a hat you take it off.  Pure and simple.  I have lost a lot of hats this way, incidentally, as in college a few times I took off a ball cap, put it under my desk, and then forgot to put it back on my head again when I left.  Truly.  It wasn't screwed on, so I forgot it.  I'd realize maybe an hour later that I didn't have it, and when I returned to the scene of the crime it was usually gone.

But that is the price one pays for decency.  I know a lot of people don't follow that rule anymore, just as most people don't follow any rule anymore unless they feel like it...but I would think, the White House, where the likes of Lincoln and Roosevelt have sat and made monumental decisions that affected our country, one would at least have enough respect to remove one's hat, hat hair be damned.

All that is to say, simply, that if the basic rules of hat etiquette are out the window, than anything is possible viz a viz Mike Pence and the bomber jacket.  Of course, one problem is that in April it can get rather hot in Hampton Roads, and I wonder what these guys are going to do when it gets warm and they still want to look tough?  I mean, you may be as tough as balls, but if it's 90 degrees and 80% humidity, you probably aren't going to wear a bomber jacket.  If I have a guess, they'll go with a Motorcycle Gang style cut, leaving the arms bare and cool but still telling all your enemies that you mean business.  Plus, there is the added bonus of having plenty of room for patches.  The overall effect:  Don't fuck with these guys, or we'll pop some cruise missiles in your keister.

As the current forecast high is 85 degrees in Hampton Roads on Saturday, I'll put a box of donuts on Mike Pence showing up in this bad-ass Commander in Chief cut.

President Trump visits der Schiffkraftwerk! Part II

INTRODUCTION

Thursday, March 2nd, dawned clear, cool, and windy.  There was a...palpable?  Sure, I'll go with it...palpable feel of excitement in Newport News.  I mean, you could actually reach out and just squeeze the excitement.  It was supple, full, and smooth, like the breasts of a ca. 1980's Playboy Playmate, hair held up with enough hair spray to puncture a small hole in the ozone layer above the little cornfed American town in Iowa where she grew up, emblematic of the time when Trump was King of Atlantic City and a rapscallion robber barron of Real Estate.

But my goodness how the times do change.  That is what someone pointed out to me on Thursday as I walked towards a meeting on the waterfront.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The shipbuilder I was talking to nodded over towards the CVN 72, berthed in the James River, currently in the closing stages of its RCOH.  Every morning the ship puts music on its loudspeakers while the crew carryout their cleaning stages, shop vac and broom replacing Captain Aubrey's Holystones.  "When I was in the Navy, no one spoke Spanish," he said.  "Now the CVN72 is playing whole songs in Spanish".  I listened a little closer and he was right.  "You see," he said again, sheer happiness spreading across his face "times do change."

"Yes," I answered.  "Sometimes for the better."

In this day and age it seems that every act can be interpreted as a political act.  I don't know how the CVN72 picks their music (it isn't always Spanish...one morning it was Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper", with extra cowbell), and I'm not suggesting it was a dig at Trump.  It very likely was little more than a coincidence.  But I found it, nevertheless, an interesting counterpoint to the day, and to the man due to arrive that afternoon.

REPORT

And so he did.  A few minutes before 13:00 there was the massive "fwhomp-fwhomp-fhwomp" that signaled the arrival of millions of rivets flying in formation, three V-22 Ospreys and two Marine Ones, some carrying Trump and his entourage, the others empty, presenting a befuddling shell game to any intrepid would-be-terrorist.  ISIS scientists are wise to it, and apparently have been playing endless versions of a five shell two pebble game of "find the pea", trying to get down into the American psyche and find any discernible patterns.  Luckily, nothing to show for it so far.

Hats off in the Wardroom!!  What, is he cold or something? 

Those of us not at the event all ran to the windows of our buildings like school children to see the huge craft (and the Ospreys truly are gigantic).  The lucky few (about 2500 shipyard workers) at the event all let up a boisterous cheer.  They had been there since around 10:00, milling about in the ship's hangar bay, squeezed in between Sailors and Press.  They had been subjected to long replays of Foghat's "Slow Ride" until an astute officer on the CVN78, professional as always, pointed out that to continue to do so who would constitute a most grievous violation of the Geneva Conventions.  So they switched to Zeppelin, which went down a lot smoother.  The fact that both bands were British was not lost on the few Tories in the audience, still desperately clinging to the dream that America would realize the error of its ways after nearly 250 years of Independence, and come crawling back.

That slim sliver of hope was dashed when Trump, after touring the ship with the CO and other dignitaries, was lowered into the Hangar Bay on one of the Ford's massive aircraft elevators to the strains of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA".  People everywhere felt a collective shiver in their spine, a great disturbance in the Force, as the muses of taste and tact once again screamed aloud in terror, and were suddenly silenced.  That song certainly has legs.  You'd think over the last 37 years we would have come up with something better.  But no.

Trump arrived wearing a recently obtained aviators jacket that made his hands look a little small and a CVN 78 Gerald R. Ford hat pulled low over the eyes, which he had wisely substituted for the red USA hat he was seen wearing after getting off Marine One (and also onboard ship in round table discussion).  To some he looked tough.  To me, he looked more like a baseball manager.

Trump Calls for a Squeeze Play.  Bold Leadership from a Bold Man.  Photo by the New York Times

He stepped up the podium and gave....well, it was a speech. He stood up, he looked sort of Presidential, gave a second grader's cliffnotes report on the Battle of Midway, and he managed not to say anything too stupid. An atypical politician giving a typical speech, as the Pod Save America guys said of his Grand Address to Congress on Tuesday.  There is a reason that Trump's secret service call sign, apparently, is "The Dancing Bear."

We were all very impressed.  He did say that he wanted to build more ships, and more planes, and more boats, and that it was all going to come "very soon."

Oh Trump, you silly, silly man.  One does not simple open the tap and get more ships.  Though the additional money proposed would certainly help.  Sequestration hasn't really caused a lot of job loss in the Shipbuilding industry, at least at NNS, but it has certainly made the work there more difficult, and made the workers more frustrated.  There is not enough money to do the things that the Navy is wanting to do.  It just isn't there.  So I don't necessarily oppose additional spending for naval assets.  I do think that the idea of stripping down other programs (among them the state department and foreign aid, those things put in place to help avoid having to go to war in the first place) seems, to me, to be incredibly short sighted.

Anyways, after 16 minutes of speechifying it was all over.  He got back on the elevator, was raised up (thankfully) to the flight deck, and then he and his merry men fwhomp fwhomp fwomphed away.

ANALYSIS and CONCLUSION

The intent of the speech was to highlight the $54 billion increase in defense spending Trump had asked for in his address to congress.  It think it was also an optics thing.  On the heels of the Tuesday speech, in which the bear managed to dance for over an hour, this should have been an easy win.  Nobody appropriates military hardware for his own grandeur while simultaneously distancing himself from responsibility of sending our military into the fight better than our President, at which the buck stops here, or there, or maybe over there.  Maybe one day he will get it.  Right now he doesn't.  A bust of Churchill in his office, indeed!

But the Ford speech was overcome by other events.  March 2nd was also the day that Jeff Sessions became fully embroiled in questions concerning his contacts with the Russian Ambassador to the point where ultimately he had to recuse himself from any further investigations over Russia, which now seem likely to continue.  As of this morning Trump tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower after the election and before the inauguration, without offering any proof of those allegations.  It's hard to know what to make of THAT, exactly.  I can conceive of various intelligence agencies doing so as part of the their own investigations, but to put that on Obama's head directly (who seemed and seems to me very, very careful to stay out of the the current fray) is bad, and only gives credence to those saying that Obama is trying to somehow have a soft coup and take over the government.  It's amazing to me how the spectre of Obama and..just the naked fear and hate so many people have of him continues to haunt our country - and maybe even our leadership.  Let it go my friends.  Just let it go.

Oh, and he also took a moment to mourn the death of  The Apprentice, which is being cancelled. Christ.  So much for looking, acting, and being Presidential.  Maybe the Bear can't dance after all.

Trump may still well get his money to rebuild the military.  But I would say that, aside from the people at Newport News Shipbuilding, this speech has already been well forgotten, a mere blip in yet another rough news cycle for a troubled administration.

Ultimately, Trump will not be judged on these sorts of silly events, but rather on what he actually does.  So far, in the grand scheme of things, he's done very little.  I fear that if he doesn't pull it together, his administration will be a full stop failure.  While it would raise the prospects of him getting voted out in four years (which so far I would support), there gets to be a point where failed leadership will hurt us all.

POST SCRIPT

Though it won't hurt my prospects for the musical I am working on, simply called "TRUMP!  The Musical".  In the Second Act, Trump goes aboard the Ford and he sits down to the round table discussion, a group of sailors sing an extended aside:

***

SAILOR ONE:  Look at that big shot over there.  

SAILOR TWO:  Yeah, look at him.

SAILOR ONE:  I mean, doesn't he know that you got to...

Music begins, sort of a peppy kind of pop rock high school musical thing

SAILOR ONE (singing):

You got to take your

Hat off in the Wardroom!

You got to take your

Hat off for chow!

You got to take your

Hat off in the Wardroom, yeah

SAILOR TWO (joining in):

You know it's so rude

And he's being so crude 

Yeah, you got to take your

SAILOR ONE, SAILOR TWO, and CHORUS:

Hat off!  Hat off!

Yeaaaahhhhh you got to take your

Hat off! Hat offfffffff......

You got to take it off!

***

It's a work in progress.  For now, I'd call it a sort of tragi-comedy.  Or is it a comi-tragedy.  Not sure.