Viva J-Vegas!

I'm Coming Out!

2012-03-27T16:24:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted in a while. A long while. My original plan for this blog was for my identity to stay incognito: just some anonymous person who lived in Jacksonville and loved to skewer its idiosyncrasies. At first I found the cloak and dagger act fun but soon discovered it to be a detriment, especially while wading through emails and comments from irate readers and trying to defend myself from those wanting to know just who the hell I thought I was talking about poor Marine Wives and their love of idiotic bumper stickers (according to Blogger data, my post popular post by far).

And then I got called a coward who hid behind a keyboard. A coward! Them's fighting words.

So people want to know just who the hell I think I am. Please indulge me while I dig in to my bag o' hate mail and use the greatest hits as a springboard to answer your questions.

"I don't care what you say. Jacksonville is a great town. I grew up here and am raising my kids here. I don't know why you hate it here so much but why don't you just go back to Texas or wherever the hell you are from. We would be better off without you."

As much as I would like to blame Texas (because who doesn't love to blame Texas?!?), North Carolina claims me as one of her own. I was born and raised in one of the "Vuhls"; Fayetteville to be exact. Fayetteville is like Jacksonville's wiser big sister. Both are military towns saddled with derogatory nicknames (Fayett-Nam being the most popular choice for my hometown). Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base. The place is crawling with soldiers, military spouses and military brats just like J-Vegas; just swap soldiers for Marines and rinse, lather and repeat. Unlike J-Vegas, Fayett-Nam gave up any illusion years ago that it could survive without the military. Under the old adage of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", Fayetteville caters to its entire population and reaps the benefits. Just visit Fayetteville's revived downtown area on Hay Street then take a stroll down Court Street in Jacksonville. There is a lesson to be learned there.

Now does this qualify me as a true Jacksonville local? As I have been told by numerous drunk locals in bars, Cumberland County ain't Onlsow County and Fayett-Nam ain't J-Vegas. Even though I speak with the same silly accent as them, I am not truly a local. So be it. And don't hate because I know how to properly pronounce Richlands.

" I was slightly offended here and there by what seemed to be a lack of appreciation and patriotism."
"All your talk... aren't you glad that there are people like my husband defending this great nation and allowing assholes like you to write whatever they want?"
" Too bad you never served or else you might have more sympathy."

First off, let me declare that I am indeed very grateful for the men and women who defend this nation and its ideals. Americans too often tout our rights while overlooking the fact that service members make sacrifices on a daily basis in order to ensure those very rights for us.

I do understand those sacrifices. I raised my own right hand years ago. I served* for four years and got out as a sergeant.

* In the Army. Yeah. That's right. Some of you may disqualify me right on the spot for this fact. I will just smile and say "Hooah!" I suspect some of the biggest whiners on this issue are the ones who haven't served a single day of their lives anyways (sorry but Marine Wife doesn't count as service, ladies) so I am still one up on them.

(after seeing a picture from the School of Infantry posted on my Facebook page) "You are probably one of the shitheads that shook the machine and made the 1stSgt file paperwork. You a 0311?"
"Please tell me you are a grunt."

Nope. Not a grunt. Bad enough that I was in the Army but I was also an intel weenie to boot.

"Why did you even come to Jacksonville if you hate it so much?"

After getting out of the Army, I began earning a living as a slimy defense contractor. I took a job at Quantico, which was my first exposure to the Marine Corps. After five years at Quantico, I transferred down to the Camp Lejeune office. Being a North Carolina native, I liked being closer to home. And I don't actually hate Jacksonville. I bought a house here and got married so it appears I am laying down roots. I think Jacksonville has its fair share of ridiculousness and am quick to point out its flaws but, all in all, I have a nice little life here.

"It is obvious that you have a hatred of women. We aren't all whores that cheat on our deployed husbands. But I hope you meet a woman who cheats on you cuz you deserve it."
"You left us hanging, bud. Whatever happened to the chick from the Tarheel? Did you at least nail her?"

This one makes me laugh because I am of the XX chromosome variety. Let me put that in J-Vegas bumper sticker speak: I R Female!

I don't hate my fellow women; I just hate dumb women. I can't stand a woman who acts like pushing a future Devil Dog out of her vagina is akin to curing cancer. I want to gouge my eyeballs out when women try to pull their husbands' rank on others. I want to throw myself in to the fire pit when I attend a party and women start every single one of their sentences with "Well my husband says..." But if you are a woman with her own accomplishments and are capable of forming an original thought outside of your husband, you are cool in my book.

Regarding the "chick" for the Tarheel, read that post over again and note that it is very gender neutral. I had to play a pronoun game while writing that one. True story but I had to work the verbiage as not to reveal that my dance partner was a guy and I was the female in the story. In fact, I played that game a lot with this blog, having to rework posts or completely delete them in order to ensure that people didn't figure out my gender.

So the "chick" from the Tarheel is actually my husband now. We got married last year. And, as a cheeky nod to how we met, we danced to "Fishin' In The Dark" at our wedding. The two-step, not J-Vegas style, as to not give the minister a heart attack.

"Wow!! It's so easy to throw stones when you are on the outside looking in. Thank you so much for completely misinterpreting every single military spouse decal you saw. Please, tell me what's it's like to be perfect and have the right to judge everyone else. The day you walk in these woman's shoes, is the day you get the right to say anything. You can't even imagine what's it's like to kiss your husband good-bye and not know if you will see them again"

The Bumper Sticker post draws the most fire, mainly from wives who say I know nothing about what they go through. Here is the biggest bomb of the day: I am married to a Marine, thus making me a fellow Marine wife (although not a Marine Wife because I refuse to overestimate my importance in his career and appoint myself to a proper noun status). Once upon a time, I was also an Army wife, even though I was also on Active Duty at the time. I grew up an Army brat and watched my mother be an Army wife too. Hope this qualifies me enough to be able to walk in your shoes (although I might have to take a peek at your His Boots, Her ??? sticker to know if I am walking in flops, boots or heels today).

I do really heart my Staff Sergeant Air Winger and he knows this without me having to slap a decal on my car. On his next deployment, he will know that I missed him (and he will probably figure out that he is going to get laid in a few hours) without me declaring it to everyone else driving past the air station via painted sheet. He is a hard-working Marine with many accomplishments that I am proud of... but they are HIS accomplishments. His rank belongs to him. I no longer wear rank on my collar. Sure I think he is a stud in his blues at the USMC ball but, recognizing the seriousness of the occasion, I don't try to compliment his uniform by wearing a red dress so low cut in the back that my ass crack is hanging out and a slit up to my womanhood.

Sure there are challenges being married to a Marine: his hours are long and his schedule is irregular, he faces deployment at any time, the pay kind of sucks, we may have to uproot everything and move should he come down on orders. Here is the clincher though: I knew what I was getting in to when I married him. I have no right to bitch. If I wanted someone with good hours, I would have married a banker or a school teacher.

After receiving our official marriage certificate, it was time for the inaugural trip to the ID card center and DEERS office. Or, as I liked to refer to it as, my GI Man took me to the Land of the Big PX. Here is what I was greeted with in the parking lot:

GI Man just smirked at me and said "Welcome to the tribe." Indeed.

Sinkhole de Mayo

2011-05-04T21:17:00.003-04:00

Jacksonville's three Mexican joints are sure to be packed for tomorrow's Cinco de Mayo festivities tomorrow night. Insipid all-Americana joints like Applebee's and Texas Roadhouse will try to fill the void by hawking their fajita platters and exotic Margarita-esque concoctions (Strawberry-Jalapeno Margarita!! Prickly Pear-Pomegranate Margarita Jello shots!!!!)

But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon from Jacksonville's unofficial (yet much more proactive and creative) Chamber of Commerce...

You just know that legions of young men will come armed with bags of tortilla chips, preparing to scoop guac out of a stripper's ass crack.

Oh, Driftwood... you never cease to amaze me. You always take it to the lowest common demoninator but at least you always manage to give it the old college try.

How To Speak J-Vegan

2011-05-01T23:51:00.002-04:00

One of the most painful exchanges I ever witnessed was a Jacksonville local offering a Californian a nice helping of local cuisine known as Boiled Peanuts.
Local: Hey boy, you want some bawl'd peanuts? Got im at the gas station this murning.
Californian: Uh ok... but what makes a peanut bald?
Local: Cuz you bawl 'em!
Californian (confused): Ummm... but how does a peanut end up bald?
Local: Well they'ums bawl'd peanuts.
Californian (spitting out a mouthful): Those taste like wallpaper paste. What the hell did you do to them?
Local: Bawl 'em. What else would you do to bawl'd peanuts?

In Onslow County, bawl'd equals boiled. You bawl peanuts and, when in season, you bawl a sweet little crustacean known as shrump. Shrump can also be served over a bowl of greetz and slathered in gruvvy, and may be served with a side of soggy cooked greens swimming in ham hock grease known as cawluds.

The lexicon of the greater Jacksonville area consists of words purposely mispronounced simply to separate the locals from those invading swarms of High & Stupids and their Depend-o-potamuses. J-ville locals can smugly point out that you obviously ain't from around here when you mistakenly pronounce winders as windows.

This becomes especially apparent with J-Vegans' pronunciations of neighboring towns. Round here, Topsail is pronounced Top-suhl. Wilmington is mushed together to sound something like Wulmungtun. New Bern is N'Bun. There are the Vuhls: Fayette-Vuhl, Green-Vuhl and our own Jackson-Vuhl. Then there is the one that makes really makes my skin crawl: Rich Lands. Not Richlands... fucking Rich.Lands!!!! Really? If it is supposed to be pronounced that way, the town's founder would have put a damn space between the H and the L. If you spell it Richlands, it will be pronounced as one freaking word. I am not pronouncing it incorrectly; I just know how to read.

Wanting to throw their own dog in the fight, the military has been launching a crusade to change the pronunciation of Camp Lejeune. They lament about ol' John Lejeune hailed from a Cajun family in Louisiana and was subjected to people bastardizing his poor name while serving in the Marine Corps. Uh... wasn't this dude the commandant of the Marine Corps? I think he would have set people straight if they said his name the wrong way. For years it has been pronounced Luh-June. But you are a bag of shit if you say it that way now. Oh no... Camp F'in Luh-Jern! Only a commie bastard infidel would say otherwise.

Dry Humpin' In The Dark

2011-04-28T21:36:00.001-04:00

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!

2011-04-25T23:46:00.005-04:00

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

2010-04-07T16:58:00.001-04:00

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!

2010-04-05T19:47:00.002-04:00

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...

2010-03-31T16:37:00.000-04:00

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

2010-03-30T19:22:00.000-04:00

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

2010-03-26T16:16:00.001-04:00

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.

The Bro Hug

2010-03-21T14:42:00.007-04:00

I get it: you and the other members of your unit are a band of brothers. You have deployed together, endured long stretches of boredom and been in some fucked up situations that most Americans can never fathom. You are bonded for life.

Having said that, is it really necessary to wrap your arms around your brothers and loudly serenade them for an entire concert, only coming up for air when it is time to get another round of drinks?

The Bro Hug is a ritual that is alive and well in Jacksonville, particularly amongst the active duty military population. The bar scene most nights are rampant sausage fests (see Exhibit A above, taken at Hooligan's this past Friday night). Perhaps it is the lack of female companionship or the feelings of displacement after returning from a recent deployment that leads so many men to pound Jagermeister, throw their arms over another's shoulder and sing songs off key and at the top of their lungs before dissolving in to a simpering mess of "I fucking love you man!" Either get a girlfriend or get a room... enough of the Bro Hug.

Country Bumperstickerkins

2010-03-19T00:15:00.004-04:00

What is it about military wives in J-Vegas and their damn bumper stickers? Ancient civilizations used tattoos to show belonging, rank and status. While the Desperate Housewives of Jacksonville feel that same urge to proclaim their allegiances, they are far too lazy to trifle with the ink and needles. Much easier just to slap a trite bumper sticker on the back of their vehicle in order to free up their days for Wal-Mart outings and tanning sessions.

All the preferred bumper stickers offer up a heaping serving of Semper Stupid motivation (especially considering that most of these wives are riding the coat tails of their beloved husbands) but what do they really tell you about the woman behind the wheel?

1) His Boots, Her Flops: A Perfect Pair

These girls are the new freshman class of Marine wives. Their brand new shiny husbands told them that they would begin their marriage in a quaint little hamlet by the sea named Jacksonville.

A quick glimpse in to her mind: "OMG! Isn't my hubs like sooooooo smoking hot?... especially when he is in his blues. LOL! Marines totally have the best uniform. So glad I didn't marry that kid who joined the Army. Can't wait for the next Marine Corps Ball. I am gonna look like freaking Cinderella. Totally going to start working out and get in shape so I can post the pics on Facebook and all the girls back home will be jealous. HATERZ!! Maybe I will start running on the beach. Yay beach! When hubs told me we were coming to Jacksonville, I was all OMG it is like right on the ocean. I can wear flip flops year round. Of course, Jacksonville isn't quite what I expected. There are a lot of pawn shops and some weird dude who does karate on street corners. Nobody wants to hire me at McDonald's cuz there are like 50 million other Marine wives around here. Maybe I will start throwing Passion Parties for all of my new friends... that will make some dollar$. If not.... well... I hear the Driftwood is hiring. LOL! Just kidding. My hubs would like totally kill me if I did that. Speaking of, isn't my husband sooooo hot?"

Where to find them: affixed to the bumpers and windows of Honda Civics, Volkswagen Jettas and Ford Mustangs parked at the mall (natch!), Chilli's, nail salons and the beach.

Honorable mention: His Boots, Her Heels, His Boots, Her Boots (hers being cowboy boots), I put the Ooh in his Oohrah!, I Heart My Jarhead, I Heart My Grunt and I Heart My Lance Corporal.

2) the stick families

The fairytale is over for these ladies. They have been through a deployment or two. Being a military wife is now all about the politics of the Family Readiness Group and picking up the husband's uniform from the cleaners before it closes. It is also serious baby making time. What good is having an ID card and all this free medical care if you don't pop out a kid... or ten?

A quick glimpse in to her mind: "Ughhh... why is he up so early? Oh right... he said something about duty last night but I could barely hear over the wails of Baby Susie. Poor thing is teething right now. Maybe he'll be quiet and not wake... oops. Too late. Toddler Billy just came in to the room and is jumping on the bed. Of course, my husband expects me to get up and take care of those heathens. First order of business is coffee... which he expects me to make, of course. So insensitive! I mean, I got up at the crack of dawn yesterday to feed the kids. Got the school-aged ones off on the bus then dropped the three youngest off at the neighbor's house. Spent three hours at Wal-Mart shopping for groceries and stuff. When was the last time he did anything like that? What the hell does he do all day long? Gawd, I hope I am not pregnant again. Should definitely look in to birth control next time I go to the doctor. Maybe I will invite mom down next time he goes to the field. She should really spend more time with her grandkids. This girl needs a night out on the town!"

Where to find them: haphazardly slapped on Toyota Camrys, Ford Explorers and Kia Sedonas parked at Wal-Mart, Ci Ci's Pizza and the Naval Hospital OB/GYN.

Honorable mention: There are actually several different varieties of this type of sticker. The most Moto is the family swathed in camouflage but other popular options are a pair of flip flops or Browning deer heads for each member of the household. Some mix it up by showing each person's unique personality with soccer players, cowboys and even scrapbookers. Bonus points for including the pets... just don't forget the goldfish and hamster!

Or you could do this:

Still haven't figured out if this was a joke or if they really did name their kids Smith and Wesson. Anything is possible in J-Vegas...

3) Marine Wife, Toughest Job In The Corps

We have now reached the Varsity of Marine wives. Or should I say Marine Wives, since this kind feels that Wife is an occupation and should be capitalized.

A quick glimpse in to her mind: "My husband's success can be attributed to ME! I have made sacrifices. I was never able to have a career because we were always moving around so I became a Marine Wife. Look at that little princess married to the Boot over there. Babies! They just don't understand how hard the Marine Corps really is. And that frazzled woman with the five kids who hasn't even bothered to run a brush through her hair. Ha.. amateur! My life has been tough. I never actually raised my hand and took an oath or had to stand in the yellow footprints or went three weeks without a shower but Marine Wife is a tough job. I went to Jane Wayne PT once with my husband a few years ago and thought it was super fun and pretty easy. I even got up earlier than my husband did just so I could apply make-up. Sure, he does PT every morning but I power walk with the neighbor while pushing a stroller. That is hard core. I have never had to eat an MRE... well except that one time many years ago when my husband dared me to. It wasn't bad... especially washed down with a bottle of white zinfandel. So I totally understand all that he does to be a Marine but he has no clue how tough it is to be a Marine Wife. I am a member of an elite sisterhood. The Few, The Proud, The Marine WIFE!!!"

Where to find them: proudly displayed on Volvos, Lincoln Navigators and PT Cruisers. This kind is rarely spotted off Camp Lejeune and New River but, if forced in to town, they can be seen at Target, Wines and Wares and the USO.

Honorable mention: Anything that reminds you that HER husband and HER children's father defends your freedom, you communist bastard! Bonus points for a license plate frame that says the same.

4) Half My Heart Is In Iraq/Afghanistan/Haiti

Yikes! This one is the trickiest of them all. What probably started out as a sincere sentiment of longing for one's better half has now turned in to the equivalent of rolling out the welcome mat for extracurricular activities while the husband is deployed. That was a nice way of saying these girls are skanks.

A quick glimpse in to her mind: "So bored now that husband is gone. I can't believe he dragged me to this hell hole and then waltzed off to some foreign country. He is probably having the time of his life. This place sucks! I hate him! That's why I put on my finest tube top and my new sparkly lipgloss and am sitting on this barstool. I need to feel loved again. He didn't even call me today. Bastard! There are like fifty guys here totally checking me out. He doesn't even realize what he is missing. The guy next to me is buying me a shot every ten minutes and I can't even get one stinking phone call. Whatever! Shot Guy is way hotter anyways."

Where to find them: Hooligan's, Sharpshooters, The Tarheel, Alexander's, The O House, House of Rock, Priscilla McCall's and Victoria's Secret. No specific type of car.

** Big thanks to the mobile Viva J-Vegas Team for helping me gather pictures of all of these bumper stickers. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

Erin Go Bragh(less) in Jax

2010-03-16T19:10:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day. Since Emerald Isle and Wilmington already had their parades this weekend and the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce has left its residents high and dry once again, most people will just end up hitting the bars and getting shitfaced while wearing green I'm Not Irish But Fuck Me Anyways t-shirts. Sensing this void, Jacksonville's premiere gentleman's club, The Driftwood, is offering up one of its most creative events to date.

If creative = tacky + ridiculous

I must give credit where credit is due. The Driftwood (affectionately referred to as the Dirtwood) knows its clientele all too well. It is a grubby little hole in the wall on Hwy 24, just outside the main gate of Camp Lejeune and one short Tarheel Taxi ride away from the barracks. In a town where the men vastly outnumber the women, sex sells. If a guy can't get laid, looking at the boobs of an 18 year old girl who followed her Marine from Iowa only to get cast aside... well... that's almost as good as getting laid. Looks like tomorrow's festivities go a step further by catering to Jacksonville's love of all things UFC. In the few waking moments that Jacksonville's male population aged 18-29 isn't thinking about sex, it is entertaining homoerotic fantasies of pummeling another man in the octagon. Way to keep the bar raised high, Dirtwood!

I went to the Dirtwood once many eons ago. A group of us were sitting at a table just to the left of the main stage, running through buckets of beer. A young girl whose retainer gleamed when the strobe light display hit it just right was performing acrobatics on the pole. I noticed a slight swelling of her abdomen. "No way", I thought to myself, "maybe she just has a beer gut". I leaned over to my friend Laura, who came along for this excursion for her husband's birthday that we were celebrating. "Psssst...is she....?", I whispered. "Oh yeah. I am guessing about 5 or 6 months along" was her bored response.

Jesus! Not interested in seeing an on-stage miscarriage from the teenager still precariously twirling from the pole, I polished off my beer and hit the door, never to return again.

Guess who won't be at the Dirtwood tomorrow?

The Punxsutawney Phil of J-Vegas

2010-03-14T15:53:00.004-04:00

Winter is definitely not Jacksonville's best season. It is chilly and grey and tends to rain a lot. The beaches are abandoned. The residents of Jacksonville are grumpy and lock themselves indoors until the weather clears. The 5 minute wait at the stoplight of Highway 17 and Western Blvd. offers no entertainment.

Today I saw a sign of hope. While riding on Western to run some errands, I spotted a familiar figure in white sweatpants and a matching white warm up jacket walking towards that famous intersection. His jacket was already half unzipped to expose his bantam chest. The sun that had been struggling to burst out of the clouds all day gleamed off his bald head and glasses. Could it be? Is winter really over? Has Radio returned to entertain the gridlocked masses of J-Vegas?

It was him. I turned in to a giddy school girl, begging my car's driver to honk the horn, waving frantically and yelling his name.

The Jacksonville Ninja. Radio Rahim (or just Radio). His real name is Robert Mattocks. They say he walks from neighboring Maysville. Rumors of his death back in 2007 sent people in to a frenzy. Radio usually sets up shop on the corner of Western Blvd. and Highway 17 right by the Applebee's, although I have seen him elsewhere. Sometimes he carries a huge 80's boom box, sometimes he flies solo. He will be out there for hours, chopping and kicking, fusing karate with tai chi and throwing in some hip hop dancing.

I saw Radio for the first time on a trip to Jacksonville several years before I moved here. Shocked, I asked residents why there was a deranged man high kicking on a crowded street corner in 100 degree heat. The universal reaction I received was a proud smile followed by "Oh that's just Radio."

You rarely see Radio during the cold months. Maybe he hangs out in Maysville practicing this year's batch of kick ass ninja moves. I for one can't wait to see them. Welcome back, Radio and thanks for bringing the warmer weather with you!

The Ville That Puts the Action In Jackson

2010-03-12T13:56:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Jacksonville, NC, a lovely little slice of heaven near the coast of North Carolina (although the flashing lights of the local Pawn and Gun, the snarl of traffic on Western Blvd. resulting from drivers from all 50 states bringing their bad habits with them and the signs beckoning you in to the dark recesses of a bar for midget wrestling may often lead to confusion that you have stumbled in to one of Dante's circles of hell instead).

Poor Jacksonville. It is saddled with several unflattering nicknames: J-ville, JAX, J-Actionville, and this writer's personal favorite, J-Vegas. Try Googling it and see how often it gets mistaken for its much larger cousin of the same name in Florida. This inferiority reeks from every pore of the town like a science nerd on his first date. Jacksonville is an oversexed teen aged boy with an identity crisis.

It has its local population, emphatically claiming it as OUR TOWN DAMMIT!!! There are the old land rich Southern families who attempt Southern gentility by hitting the links at the country club and throwing their daughters in to the cotillion circuit. Do a 180 degree turn and find the trailer park trash walking around Wal-Mart in their finest blaze orange and munching on pork rinds. The bond that bridges the socio-economic gap of both sides? The commonly held (mis)belief that Jacksonville would be a successful commercial fishing town even without nearby Camp Lejeune and New River Air Station. They don't need the military for anything.... except on the 1st and 15th of the month, when payday funds hit.

You can't talk about Jacksonville, NC without mentioning Camp Lejeune and New River. Tens of thousands of Marines and sailors, many of them bringing spouses. Not sure if it is something in the water or due to the free military medical, but they are baby making factories. Car dealers around here make bank selling mini-vans and SUVs just so families can load up their biologically produced fire teams in them.

Then there are the single Marines. Several years ago, Cosmopolitan magazine listed Jacksonville, NC and some podunk fishing outpost in Alaska as the two best places to find a husband. A quick peek at Wiki confirms that Jacksonville, NC boasts an almost 2:1 ratio in favor of the ladies. Median age is 22.9. Picture poor Cosmo readers making a pilgrimage to this town only to discover bars packed with heavily tattooed jarheads who charmingly chant "No balls!" to bait women in to shooting Jagerbombs, dry hump their legs and then offer them a chance to do the barracks walk of shame in the next morning's harsh light while he high-fives his buddies. And they say chivalry is dead.

Not to say Jacksonville is all bad. There are some really nice people here. It is close to the beach which makes it pretty boss in my book. Dig deep and there are actually quite a few fun and unique things to do. We even have a hometown hero who ninja kicks on the corner of Western Blvd. and Hwy 17, never failing to brighten my day (Radio!) This blog won't be all negative. I will try to point out the good with the bad... but mostly the arcane, ridiculous and annoying. Jacksonville has plenty to offer on all sides of the spectrum.

Many dear readers may be wondering just who the hell I am. Well... I live in Jacksonville. That's enough. It doesn't matter if I am male or female, military or townie, married or single. I am aiming for anonymity (mostly due to the death threats I hope to receive when I start skewering the chicks with the "Half my heart is in..." bumper stickers).

Feel free to comment and leave me critiques, encouragment, tips and even death threats. Until then... Viva J-Vegas!