Hurricane hilarity

Dark clouds mounted over St. Thomas on Sunday morning and you could hear the tree branches next to my house rub against the roof because of the strong winds.

Coincidentally, I was sitting on the couch watching Karate Kid II. You remember the part when the big storm is about to crush Mr. Miyagi's home in Japan? Stellar cinema, indeed.

Then my phone rang.

Scottie H: “Yo, so what's up with this chili cookoff? Is it going to happen?

Aaron G: “It says 'rain or shine.' What do you think?”

Scottie H: “The forecast says a huge storm is coming.”

Aaron G: “Let's get some beer. I'll pick you up in 20. I do not have the fear.”

Scottie H: “Neither do I. Maybe that's why we hang out together...”

I couldn't get Brianna to come because she is blessed with common sense. I put on a bathing suit, slipped on sandals and grabbed the cooler. Three ingredients to a good time.

I picked up Scottie and we drove straight to Brewer's Beach for the Texas Society Chili Cookoff. I was surprised by the early turnout considering the Apocalypse was right around Crown Mountain and it was heading toward the party.

As we pulled up to the parking lot, we saw a fat black lady walking down the street with a plastic, yellow grocery bag on her head to protect the weave.

“That's how you know this shit is serious,” I said to Scottie.

The plan was simple. Emerge from the car with just our bathing suits, a T-shirt and sandals. Leave all electronics in the car. When it rained, get in the water and bring the beer. Relax in the water. Turn around and witness the carnage.

Innocent chilli cookers and eaters tried to have fun but the weather was unrelenting. We stood there and watched as people frantically lunged to secure poles so the tents didn't fly away in the tropical winds. The rain started to pour so the guy on the stage gently talked into the microphone like it was Woodstock.

“Everyone, just hug the person next to you. We can get through this...”

We laughed out loud at people's misfortunes. We pointed at their miserable attempts to close up shop. You've heard of good Samaritans, right? We were the exact opposite.

Eventually, the good people that ran the cookoff called it quits before the storm really got nasty. We frolicked back to my car and sat on my leather seats soaking wet.

I didn't have to make any phone calls. Hurricane Party plans had already been made.

Now one of the coolest thing about living on an island vulnerable to Hurricanes is Hurricane Parties. The key is to gather with a good group before the power goes out, the charcoals cool off and the beer gets warm.

At this particular Hurricane Party, we feasted on delicious shrimp sewers, sausages and cookies. We threw down cold beer, shots of dark Cruzan and I even learned how to play dominoes.



Many thanks to the Wolverine, chef Julie, cookie master Bobbi, the landlord, the lanlord's roommate Sean and the others who made it a memorable night. I couldn't think of a better crew to hunker down with.

The powers that be put an 8 p.m. curfew in place, which made me snicker.

Before I returned home (and before the island turned upside down), I had to drive Scottie and Bobbi back home. He lived almost on top of Crown Mountain – the perfect place you want to be for a Hurricane – and as for Bobbi, she lived back in town.

We were one of the only cars on the road except for the swine. On three separate occasions, they somehow managed to pull up next to me and inform me of the 8 p.m. curfew.

The latest encounter came at 10:23 p.m.

“I didn't know, officer. I figured I could play the dumb car until at least midnight. Thanks for your concern, though.”

And then I would drive off. It was that simple. The next day, my boss gave me a Hurricane Curfew ID so now big URN is finally above the law! (Kingpin quote)

The eye of the storm actually went across St. Croix (45 miles south of St. Thomas) but the damage was very minimal. I've spent the last two days making fun of friends who had called to see if I was alive or OK.

The latest idiot, ehh, I mean good-natured friend was my boy Chico. He even posted something on my facebook page inquiring my whereabouts while I watched the Giants beat up on the Bears at Hooter's on Monday.

I called him back this morning and was surprised he picked up.

Hurricane survivor: “Chico, it's absolute chaos over here. Our house is completely gone and we're holed up in a refugee shelter. This jackal just stabbed me for the last piece of bread so I fashioned a piece of dirty wood into a spear. I'm about to run amok in this place...”

Chico: “C'mon, Urn. Tell me some truth.”

Hurricane survivor: “I'm serious, bro. Pay one of our rich yacht friends from Florida to come pick me up. It's pure anarchy. The carnage is unbearable.”

Chico: “I'm hanging up.”

Now I'm sure there are natural disasters that occur all the time on this planet and many lives are lost. Just like a devastating earthquake in Virginia. So I shouldn't make fun. But I was already warmed up and I couldn't help myself.

From a facebook post earlier this afternoon: Our Hurricane/Tropical Storm will kick your Earthquake's ass any day of the week.

More battle scars

Brianna, my lovely girlfriend, doesn't exactly get mad when I come back home with bloody cuts or swollen bruises. Don't get me wrong. She questions my judgement. My plight. My excessive appetite for awesomeness.

She saw the gashes on my back -- inches from past battle scars -- along with two bloody elbows on Sunday afternoon and once again, she had to walk to the medicine/junk basket perturbed.

On Sunday morning, she hit the snooze button. I couldn't convince her to take part in the awesomeness.


My buddy Thomas "Adventure" Layer snapped this shot of me defying gravity and enjoying life. Elena, Bobbi, Adventure and I charged the cliffs of Bordeaux on the west side of St. Thomas and we crushed it.

I've taken a few Continentals to the same spot before and it usually blows minds. I can't really describe it as a hike, a climb, or a swim. It's a little bit of everything.

A tiny piece of paradise within paradise.

I was so excited that I managed to wound myself in the first five minutes. Yeah, perhaps I was just trying to go big to show off for the girls we were with? Sounds about right. And it looked a lot worse than it felt.

I was in a hairy spot and tried to use the momentum of a wave to push me back onto the rocks. I couldn't snag a grip and what goes up, must come down.

I landed right on my back. Not sure what happened to my elbows. I didn't have a shirt I could use to soak up the blood and the salt water was good for the battle scars.

Small price to pay for awesomeness.

Comedy on the rock

I drank just the right amount of Robotussin to counter a mounting head cold last weekend. It momentarily cured what ailed me and made me a little giddy for the St. Thomas Sport and Social Club's stand-up comedy show at Tillet Gardens.

Went to the Saturday show expecting it to be better than the Friday. I'm smart like that.

Bought "premiere seating" and when I arrived with my lovely girlfriend, and three other friends, we found our way to the front row. We were so close, we could see one of the performers tremble when no one laughed at her jokes.

It was a hilarious event. And living on a rock, hilarious events don't come around too often. Big ups to Joey Trattner, Mandy Kenton and all the others who put on the show. I think it was a success and there are more shows planned in the coming months.

It was great to see local people I've seen in passing -- bartenders, boat captains, bar flies -- get up there and nail it. My homie, Leigh Goldman, was the MC and he looked great. Even after he shaved half of his head at the Friday show...

The headliners were pretty good, too. The first guy had an immediate douche rating because he wore a white sport coat. He turned out to be a total douche when he opened his mouth. The last guy was a short, bald guy with alien ears and he was hysterical.

I had to sip a little Robotussin to get right that night but that final comedian had been partying since he landed on the rock. Apparently, drugs are inexpensive here. I wouldn't know.

Selling the youth

Last week, I spent five straight days chasing 11- and 12-year-old boys around town.

At the baseball diamond, at Pubelo (our local grocery market) -- I even saw the little buggers at the beach.

Two ballplayers from Aruba spotted me at Linbergh Bay and started yelling, "Newspaper man, newspaper man!" As I attempted to waste away the afternoon under strong sun rays, it was just another reminder that I can't escape the rigors of my job.

St. Thomas was the setting for the Caribbean Region Little League Baseball Championships and yours truly was "Johnny on the Spot" with amazing local coverage. The winner would advance to the Little League World Series, which is televised on ESPN, so you know it was a big deal.

I spent most of the week suffocating inside a cramped press box. With sloppy politicians to my right and random, rowdy children to my left, it was just another moment for me to freeze-frame in my mind and ask the question: "So this is my life?"

There were teams from Puerto Rico, Curacao, Aruba, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, St. Maarten and of course, the U.S. Virgin Islands. There were actually three USVI teams involved -- not sure how they pulled off this attempted coup -- but all three faltered and to add a little drama, one of them advanced to the championship.

Since there were teams from all over the Caribbean and I was writing feature stories about these kids, I thought it was important the visitors had a chance to view our tremendous content. They didn't sell the newspaper at the hotel where many of them stayed and I couldn't blame them for not venturing into downtown (St. Thomas is getting a tough guy reputation among the islands these days).

So I threw an idea at my boss. It went a little something like this:

Employee of the Month: "You know, I'm not sure that a lot of these parents even know about the coverage we're giving this tournament. Maybe we should send out a delivery guy to the games or set up some deal with the hotel?"

Boss: "That's a great idea. Let me talk to Ms. blah, blah in circulation and set that up."

E of the M (under his breath): "That's right. Everyone in the world deserves to read my words."

Fast forward to Saturday's championship game. It was supposed to start at 4 p.m. but guess who was at the ballpark an hour before the 1 p.m. consolation game with a stack of 100 copies of the Virgin Islands Daily News?

Apparently, the powers that be acknowledged my earlier suggestion as more of an offer to volunteer my services.

So there I was. Hung over. Sweating my ass off. Standing on the side of the road, next to the stadium, holding up the Daily News so passer-byes will buy them from me. And just like that, I became the very first white person to ever sell the newspaper in the history of said newspaper.

Most of the motorists gave me the double-take because they thought I was playing a joke. A white guy selling the Daily News? You could read the question mark on their faces.

A friend stopped in the intersection and rolled down his window: "Aaron, what the hell are you doing?"

I wasn't really sure. I mean, I didn't have a good answer for him. So I just improvised: "I lost a bet. Wanta buy a newspaper?"

He dug out a dollar bill and handed it to me with a concerned look on his face. It was actually my first sale. I'd been on the street corner for almost 25 minutes.

So instead of getting embarrassed by normal folk on the road, I figured I would work on the baseball parents in the stands (and continue to embarrass myself). The consolation game had just started so the parents that were watching were not very interested in reading about how their teams blew it the night before.

The same concerned look my buddy gave me earlier was shared by all the USVI fans that started to stroll in for the championship game. Many of them recognized or knew me. A few laughed. When others started to bargain with me -- 2-for-1 and hot dog trade attempts -- I knew it was time to hang up my newspaper usher reins.

I ended up selling about 30 copies and then I quit because I had to start focusing on my other job. You know, that whole journalism thing.

In an angry fit, I threw the remaining 70 copies in the back of my car. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and right before I grabbed my camera, note pad and voice recorder, I looked back at the crowded baseball diamond.

"So this is my life?"

The powers that be

We're moving into a new and bigger place down the road so my free time has been spent basically moving crap. It's stressful, any way you dice it. New beginnings. Closure on old digs. One door closes, another opens -- that kind of crap.

I guess I'm saying this because I wanted to justify why I haven't posted to the blog in almost two weeks. That's a good reason and because the latest post was one of my favorites (Happy Birthday, Woody) so I wanted it to breath a little bit.

This happened like three weeks ago but it needed to be documented. St. Thomas has experienced several blackouts recently and all the trauma had turned normal frustrated folk into a full-blown island misfits.

WAPA is the power and water company on island. The only one. There's no competition for these bastards and the government has its hand in the cookie jar, too.

So when rolling blackouts do occur, questions are frequently asked.

The first one is usually "Why?" A couple others come to mind: What in the hell are you guys doing? Do we live on a third world island? And get your shit together! (I know that last one isn't a question but I love yelling that remark to motorists that drive around the island in WAPA cars -- it makes me feel tough).

So Brianna and I had this nice little 2-day getaway planned on St. John. Basically a vacation away from our vacation. We actually won the free hotel night stay during a weekly raffle at one of our favorite watering holes.

We weren't five minutes away from leaving when we hear some jackass honking his horn in the street in front of our house. Like the seldom gun shots I hear, I ignored the first series of honks. The guy wouldn't stop and it wasn't until I walked out the front door and peered down the front walkway before I realized the honks were directed at me.

Law abiding citizen: "Hey buddy, what gives?"

WAPA jackass (while still sitting in the driver's seat, engine running, AC cranking): "Hey mon, you need to pay your power bill, I'm here to shut you off."

LAC: "Wait a second. Honking your horn? Is that how you bastards do business?"

WAPA jackass: "I saw both cars here."

LAC: "We're not even a month late. I've paid the bill on time for the last 15 months and we miss a few days and they send out people to shut it off? Why don't you go back to HQ and figure out why we lose power every other day?"

WAPA jackass: "I need money or I shut it off. Also, $30 late fee."

That's when I turned around and walked back into the house. It wasn't that we didn't have the money. We did. But like hundreds of St. Thomians, we had lost all faith in the company and we were basically boycotting them in our own little way.

When Brianna heard about the intentions of the WAPA jackass, she almost grabbed a weapon. She exchanged some salty words with the man and within an instant, he was out of the car, walked toward our power box and talked on his walkie talkie.

We were ready to pay but there was zero mention of an $30 late fee on the actual bill. We pulled it out for reference. He countered by summoning security on his walkie talkie.

Does WAPA even have security? We can't possibly be the first dead beats to take a stand against these scum.

From there, it was a good old fashioned sit-in. Peaceful. Effective. My ex-hippie parents would have been proud...

We basically blocked his path to the power box and he was out of options. He got a little frustrated, I started to chuckle and then he walked back to his car and left. Maybe it was because I snapped iPhone photos of his lunacy.

We had won the battle but the war had just begun.

Our ferry to St. John was about to leave so we quickly went online, paid the bill (sans any late fee), and taped this little note with a confirmation number on our power box.

We made it to St. John and had a lovely 2-day break off the rock. When we returned to our house, we were delighted to see the power was still on. An hour later, it was shut off and we started to curse but then we realized it was just another WAPA blackout screwing over the entire neighborhood again.

Congrats to you, WAPA. Keep up the good work and the fabulous customer service. Honk, honk.

Anatomy of a chunder session

"You know how many emails I've sent in my life? Maybe eight."

My old friend Woody said that to me in all seriousness while we were sipping cocktails during the afternoon at Morning Star Beach. I laughed at first but I could tell he wasn't joking.

That's why I'm sure he will never see these photos. Well, he would never fall upon them. Someone in our circle is bound to tell him. He may get mad for a second and then he'll laugh. Then, he won't talk to me for like 2 years. It's all good.

OK, so let's begin...

Here's a nice shot of Woody sipping on some whiskey while we hung out on the balcony from Tavern on the Waterfront. A friend was bartending and she was pouring some stiff drinks. By the way, it's Woody's birthday. He was turning 30.

Later on in the night, my old friend decides he wants to lively up the joint at Caribbean Saloon so he proceeds to shotgun a can of Red Bull. I have never seen this attempted before. Remember, the man is turning 30 and he insisted to be at the bar at midnight to celebrate.

So we made it to Iggies Beach Bar and there's really no one out at this point. It's approaching midnight on a Tuesday night. We're sipping drinks and no one really wants to take a shot at midnight but Woody continues to battle.

Now we've all seen this before. After taking back a tall shot of warm Jameson, he straightens up and hopes the Irish whiskey will comfortably find a home in his belly. This man is a drinking veteran. Will his 30-year-old body hold up?

Another tactic I've seen used before. So the shot didn't go down the right pipe, huh? Go ahead and take a swig from your other liquor drink for a chaser. That will surely help.

And we have liftoff! Woody finally gives in and starts to puke in an empty plastic cup. His girlfriend puts her hand on his back to comfort him and shield him from bartender ridicule. I screamed for him to "Puke on the bar! Do it!!!" so every patron was now looking at this 30-year-old man celebrate his birthday with a midnight shot.

It sounds gross but he didn't actually blow chuncks. Basically, the Jameson shot found its way back up. The bartenders heard my rant and yelled for Woody to puke on the beach and not on the bar. He desperately walked over to the beach with his girlfriend in tow but didn't give the dramatic chunder performance everyone had hoped for.

Since he managed to keep the rest of his stomach's contents in his body, he walked back to bar with his hands raised like he had prevailed. The applause was minimal.

Happy 21st -- ehh, I mean 30th -- Birthday, Woody. You are, indeed, a king among men.

No power, no fun

There's something very eerie about driving around a dark island under the clarity of a full moon.

Had some drinks with an old friend for his bday and made it back home at a reasonable hour. But I wake up in the middle if the night because the power went out and the comfortable buzz of the AC unit in my room went deafly silent.

I tried not to think about it. Sweat started to bead on my forehead. This is impossible.

Before I knew it, I was clothed and walking out the door to my car. The plan was to drive down the hill to my office, enjoy the AC from a generator and blog about last weekend's hike to Mermaid's Chair. Incredible photos; amazing time.

When I arrive at office -- the same place we waited out a Hurricane last year because of the generator -- it was pitch black and only my boss' car was in driveway. Was he in there? Can he see me?

I walk up to front door but the power is off because I can push the front door wide open and instead of generator lights illuminating the lobby, there's nothing. Darkness. No security system. Very strange.

I get in car and crank AC. It feels nice. I feel like I'm cheating. Where to next?

After a short cruise down the street, I find the 24-hour gas station is lit up and open for business. You know what, I feel like getting some pizza from a 24-hour gas station so I pull up.

The place is packed. No luting, just packed. Black people talking about how it's hot and they can't sleep. See, I'm not alone. Others can't put up with a sweltering, breezeless night. Just like me.

After I walk out with crap pizza, another islander approaches quickly and asks if I want to buy bootleg CDs. Then he asked if I had jumper cables. I told him I did not have jumper cables but I really did. I offer him a piece if pizza, he declines and I get into my car. Awee, AC.

Can't stay here. They'll eat me alive here. So I start to drive. Through a powerless night under the full moon.

After I park in front of my house, I heard gun shots in the distance. It came from a nearby project. Frustration. I want the power to be turned back on, too. Do you want some pizza?

Another long, hot Caribbean night. I may sleep in my car.