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Guestpost, Warrant Officer Second Class Sergi Nakhimov of the Russian Federation Navy

Aside

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Greetings Clam Persons!

I am, as you would say, "hot"

Greetings, ladies of Internet!

My name is Sergi Nakhimov, I am sailor on Russian Navy submarine Vladikavkaz which is currently holding position a few kilometers off of your harbor of Gloucester. My job on boat is to monitor transmissions of your area on orders of our Great President Vladimir Putin. He has sent us with single order: get new championship ring off hand of mister Robert Kraft or whole of crew will be hunted on his private island as/with dogs (he was unclear on this part only).

Anyhow, we are not going back to Severmorsk without ring so we sit and wait to hear word of sports-factory owner so Captain can send team of creepy Spetznaz commando guys to go get (they have big scissors, did I say they were creeps?). But mostly we wait.

Is boring.

But I Sergi sit in communication center of boat monitoring your Internet so is not all bad. You have some very funny persons on this Clam of yours! Also I hear you are also communist by what angry people say of you on other parts Internet, so pozdravleniya Comrades!

I, Sergi, am something of a comedian as well, having my own comedy paper which when in port I would send by telex to other submarine bases. It was called “Borscht Belt” because in Russia we eat much beet soup and to “belt” is to hit in face in english language which I study. Laughs, Da?

So now I write something for Clam and editors will publish because anything for to not have to watch TV show of unsafe boat full of sad men who demonstrate failings of capitalism as they try and compete for dwindling resource at the pleasure of oligarchs. Good time.

So let us put the weasels in our asses, as you say, and get on with the joking!

Snow! You have much of it, or so you think. My own mother is from Siberia and in times of big storm she would whisper in low voice, “You know what we call this much snow in Siberia? ‘Quiet Murder’…” On second thinking this expression does not maybe translate well, but is very funny for Siberian people.

OK, I am reading official newspaper Gloucester Daily Times! Wow! I must say it is testament to the world to show strength and resolve of Gloucester Central Party Committee during emergency by not giving out any information to proletariat or anything useful at all except recipe for pizza and results of basketball playing among schoolchildren. Is like old Soviet Communist Party national paper Pravda in this habit of not giving important news, but of course Pravda was free. At least in Soviet Union you got nothing for nothing in return. In America nothing costs money! Ha ha! I slay Sergi, who is myself.

We like very much the editorial page though. Is much humor. Obama is a socialist! That one kills us on board, so hard we are laughing. Socialist who gives billions to car making companies and to huge bank. Maybe instead of “Das Kapital” by Karl Marx he was confused and read book about typical American sex lives 50 Shades of Grey. This would explain much of American monetary policy, in honesty.

This is scene from Russian version of movie

This is scene from Russian version of movie

Your Sefatia is great lady Mayor! We like very much how she orders free citizens of your country not to not go outside their homes during storm! We all know only US Governor can declare martial law under your system, but she can declare “Mama Law.” Is much more intimidating than your heavily armed police brigades with their tanks and machine guns.

I think this is photo taken in your state of Missouri

I think this is photo is of your state of Missouri, no?

Congratulations on becoming more of communist country with your national health care. Not so bad, eh, a little of this socialism? What is next, collective farm? Oh, wait, you have this with your CSA. As Marx said, “Each according to his ability, each according to his need.” In case of CSA, as long as need is a Swedish wagon car full organic kale, you are set.

Dress is gold and white. Whole of submarine agrees, I showed at meal to crew. Some were very passionate about this, even angry that there are peoples who say blue. Tempers are short due to our long confinement off your shores. Do not disagree in comments. Alexi, our weapons officer is touchy man and has access to cruise missiles. Ha ha! I make joke (not really).

In officers quarters they watched all of "Lost" and this happened after finale.

In officers quarters they watched all of “Lost” and this happened after finale.

Ok, this is all for now. I have enjoyed much and has helped to reduce drudgery of playing the quiz of Buzzfeed. It turns out muiscboy of One Direction most resembled by me is Zayn. Both of us enjoy smoking and using much grease in our hair. I get mine from torpedoman in trade of printout pictures of his dreamgirl Jane Lynch.

I have not heart to tell him.

Much happy to you all!

Your friend, Sergi

 

Poem Titles Re-Written for Hipster Audiences

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hipsterpoet

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening to Vomit PBR into a Bush

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night Without a Double-Breasted Peacoat.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Tattoo Sings

Do Not Stand at my 5th Floor Bed-Stuy Walkup and Weep

No Man’s Mustache is an Island

All That is Gold Feather Earrings Does Not Glitter

Oh Captain Hat! My Captain Hat!

“In Flanders Field” Check-in on Foursquare

No Snark Sunday: Japan and Winter

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Two things I love are Japan and winter. Neither is easy.

My first trip was in the mid 90’s, to Toyama, a small industrial city on the opposite side of the main island of Honshu from Tokyo. I was there three weeks. My brain almost exploded.

I remember looking out the window as we touched down thinking “Oh look, they have  streets and Hondas and KFCs. It all looks the same as home. How hard can this be?” Answer: very hard. Because everything in Japan, especially outside the major cities, is all Japanese. Japan is, like, everywhere in that country. It’s sort of inescapable, all the Japan in Japan. Go figure.

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All that Japan everywhere made getting anything done reliant on bending to unique structures and expectations. The equipment we were using was similar, but not the same. The cultural structure of teams and the communication in and between them was impossible to easily navigate for a novice. Even getting materials (this was a building project) was a challenge, but also hilarious as their main supply outlet (sort of like Home Depot but more industrial-focused) was called “Happy Beaver.” My point is whatever it was I had to do in a given day needed to be adjusted to account for the “Japan Factor.” Even those Hondas drove on the opposite side of the road and those KFCs were considered (at the time) to be nice sit-down restaurants, the kind of place you would take your spouse on a night out.

This is how I feel right now, how a lot of us feel, I think at the tail end of this epic winter. We’re doing all the same stuff we normally do; commuting to work, getting kids to school, walking the dog,  trying to get our jobs done and the shopping and the laundry and the rest of it all taken care of, but the conditions are taking a piece of the action wherever we go. It’s hard to adjust to the idea we now live in what is, essentially, a giant strip mine for snow with huge pieces of excavation equipment rolling around everywhere all the time. It’s difficult to get into your head that traveling from downtown to East Gloucester and back can take as long as getting to Boston. It’s tiring. It wears on you.

We’re at the point where it’s not an emergency anymore, this is just day-to-day life. It’s just normal to see people and cars sharing the lanes of the narrow, busy streets, inching out because you can’t see around corners, knowing that public transportation is no longer reliable or how parking is an epic challenge and walking  anywhere is a death-defying process. And we’re just going on with the full knowledge it’s going to snow again, probably a couple more times. That’s just life in the new reality.

It’s the same feeling I remember having after another long day of failing to get across to the the crane operator what we were trying to do for about four hours. I was lying in my micro-scale hotel room drinking my next in the series of large cans of Asahi beer from the vending machine in the hall outside (there were benefits) and listening to the BBC World Service on my small Grundig shortwave (this was pre-Internet). I was thinking, “I just want shit to be normal again. I just want to order what I think is a pizza and not get a flat rice pancake with a pile of what looks like moldy beans on top with two french toast sticks jutting out of it. I just want to get on a train and know that it’s going to wind up somewhere I’m trying to go, not take me to an otherworldly seaside park with these weird exposed tree-roots everywhere and that strange aquarium with tanks of  little fish that swam through hoops.”

people were crowded around this fish like it was Cher

people were crowded around this fish like it was Cher

In retrospect, that first experience was incredible. I still dream about it, especially that particular day where I got lost and gave up on what I thought I was going to get done and just wandered around. However, at the time it was profoundly stressful and exhausting.

But man, those little fish. Those thing were cool.

 

The Clam Salutes the Life of Leonard Nimoy

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Every once in a while a character and and actor blend together to be bigger than the two alone. Spock, as played by Leonard Nimoy, was just such a character. We didn’t know it before Star Trek, but we needed a role to explain to us what a “person” (he couldn’t be fully human) who favored logic over intuition would be like.

As played by Nimoy we learned he had ethics., loyalty, affection and even humor.

No one did more for nerds growing up in the 70s and 80s than Nimoy and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Together they showed us what technological optimism is like. In a landscape of post-apocalyptic storytelling where humanity had just given the fuck up on itself, Star Trek stood alone to say “We’re going to get through this.”

I still believe. Because of them, I still do.

Live long, Prosper.