Build Date: Fri Aug 7 00:50:15 2026 UTC
The angels got the voices but the devil's got the rock and roll
-- Richard O'Brien
Imperialist Yankee Go Home!
2000-10-05 19:35:32
Gar! It's fucking FLEET WEEK in San Francisco, and as usual I feel like fucking SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC in his secret bunker or hiding from NATO bombers or some shit. I hate this damn week!
For those of you who have the misfortune of not living in the Most Wonderful City Ever Invented, lemme give you the scoop on Fleet Week. Fleet Week is like this big ol' hairy military celebration that happen in SF the first week of October every year. They have all these nifty military demonstrations and you can go down to the wharf and visit for free all the cool weapons of mass destruction and torture chambers and machines that go "ping" and stuff like that, if you are so inclined.
Of course, if Fleet Week were solely a voluntary event where you had to actively go visit a submarine to have military shit all up in your face, well, of course I wouldn't have a big problem with it. I'm too old and jaded to go protest at Fisherman's Wharf with a big picket sign just to keep OTHER people from enjoying the vehicles of death. Let the proles have their fun, is my motto.
But, see, it's NOT a voluntary event. Everyone who's in the City is shanghaied into participating in this event. Why? Because during the ENTIRE WEEK we are visited for like 16 HOURS A DAY with STRAFING PATTERNS by the Blue Angels. And this sucks major ass.
Some might call me ingrateful. I realize, folks, that out in the hinterland corn farms you're from, the Blue Angels are a real treat. People drive for hundreds of miles and save up all their sorghum profits just to go see the Blue Angels do those fabulous stunts. It is, I'm sure, the experience of a lifetime, and I'm happy for you all, really. But, see, Out There, the Blue Angels are like flying over some Air Force Base or ammo dump or even a fairgrounds or something. It's different.
Here, in San Francisco, they make a great point to buzz the City. [SHIT! They just came by again! I can't explain what a fucking TOLL this incessant ATTACK FORMATION is taking on my already fragile nerves. Fuck!] They zoom past hospitals and make all the old people fall down. They swoop over tiny children at elementary schools and make them poop themselves. They have, in the past, caused broken windows in downtown skyscrapers.
The really weird part is that I have no idea why the City keeps letting them do this. San Francisco has like this long-ago WWII military tradition past, so I guess it's kind of a legacy of that, but STILL. I've never heard a single person say, "Gosh, I'm so excited that our Boys in Uniform are here to entertain us. I only wish I could bring them some cookies to show them our appreciation." NO! This never happens! Instead, people spend their time during Fleet Week COVERING their HEADS and DIVING for COVER every time the Angels pass over. Every San Franciscan I've ever met hates Fleet Week.
So why, then, does it still exist? A widely-held theory is that Fleet Week is the Federal Government's way to not-so-subtly remind those LIBERAL FREAKOS out on the West Coast that any time day or night the U.S. Military could squish them like a bug without even blinking an eye. So perhaps you should shut your traps about military-type stuff, is kind of the implied message, as the theory goes. I dunno about that, but I gots to tell you -- if those Bastard Angels pass over my house one more time tonight, I'm packing up and moving to Russia. Fuck this noise!
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