Probably all of you are bummed that you weren't able to attend the "Live Earth" concert, and somehow ended up watching "Gilligan's Island" instead of the live broadcast of it as well. Well, fear not, since National Review has come up with a play by play review of the concert. Apparently, we all did well to reduce our carbon footprints by neither attending nor watching.
One interesting bit was about a band that performed from the "Ice Continent." For the full interview--and a link to the book--you can visit the article at "Modern Drunkard" magazine. If there is a shred of truth to this article (Mark?), one must ponder what the median BAC for the researchers is when they record their work, as well as whether the recent melting of portions of the ice shelf derives not from global warming, but rather from spills of liquor during parties.
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8 comments:
That's got spoof written all over it. The name of the guy -- F. Scott Robert?
Robert F. Scott was the British explorer who lost the race to the South Pole to Roald Amundsen by a matter of weeks, and died on the way back out.
There's no way this thing is serious. Modern Drunkard doesn't even look like a real publication.
Yes, but is that name indicative of a joke, or merely a meaningful pseudonym for someone who doesn't want his buddies to know he's telling on them?
Believe it or not, it is a real magazine--you can subscribe to it. Whether there is an iota of journalistic credibility might be answered when my friend Mark--who's spent a few months at the South Pole--might post.
Well, maybe I'm naive, but I hardly think that the people who live down there, most of whom are sponsored by governments who are sensitive about being associated with such things even if officially permissive of them, would be bragging about such goings-on even if they were actually happening. Most people, even depraved ones, like their jobs better than almost anything else. Which makes me doubt that the whole thing is anything other than a joke.
I've never been to, or worked in Antarctica, but the story didn't sound that farfetched to me. Having worked on the oilfield in remote locations in Sibera and North Africa, this description of drinking antics sounds quite familiar. I was rather shocked to see just how much alcohol was consumed on a regular basis by people who are lonely and overworked. Although it would not be endorsed by any of the sponsoring organizations, my experience would indicate that the company probably turns a blind eye to such antics in order to retain people at such a harsh location for such long periods of time.
Not that I think it's a good idea, I'm just saying it may well be the reality down there....
Oh, I have no doubts about the range of possibilities of how people might act in a remote location. I'm just a little leery of the idea that one of them would consent to an interview and offer pictures for publication. That makes me think the interview (not necessarily the behavior) is fake. (Though if the interview is fake, it makes it more likely that the behavior is at least exaggerated.) Sponsoring agencies turning a blind eye to things that aren't publicized is one thing; sponsoring agencies dealing with the PR about stuff like this being made public strikes me as quite another. Institutional PR is nothing if not hypocritical, after all. And when an employee creates bad PR, it's easy enough to demonstrate you're "reforming" the organization (which you are shocked, shocked, to discover has such goings-on within it) by the use of pink slips. And employees, particularly people smart enough to be Antarctic research scientists, are pretty aware of that.
I would dearly like to think this is just a bad joke, but unfortunately intelligence doesn't seem to prevent people from making some really bad decisions; a certain Rhodes Scholar comes to mind, as well as the exhibitionism of various people from Hollywood who cannot all be considered to be fools.
Plus, how do they figure out who ratted on them when it's done under ficticious names, and does it make sense to try when it's an obscure third tier magazine?
I was thinking more of the employers identifying the characters in the pictures and dealing with them accordingly.
You may well be right, though.
Hi, I'm the "Mark" that Bert's been waiting for. I spent the "summer" of '91-'92 at the South Pole as a "General Assistant (GFA ;^)" It was one of the best 2.5 months of my life - when I wasn't working or sleeping (high altitude, low oxygen => almost everything done once was done wrong and I almost never finished a whole movie awake :^).
Whilst I didn't drink there (it's entirely too dry to do anything extra to dehydrate yourself (if you're prudent - and I try to be)), there were many people who did. There were parties almost every Friday night where the local "band" would play. There is a very low-cost liquor store (no excise/sin taxes on the liquor), so the bar was always open and free. The bar talked of has since been removed.
I'll bet that the interviewee did this on the assurance of anonymity.
On New Year's Day, there were a handful of people who tried to drink in the New Year in each of the 24 time zones. (If they'd been really industrious, or educated, they might have drunk in the NY in the 1/2 or x/4 time zones that appear in strange places in the world.) These people were not in good shape for a couple of days thereafter!
They had a crew of New York ironworkers down there that summer who got plastered just about every night. They just couldn't stand the boredom. There was (probably still is) a decent little ad-hoc library of books and movies, but you have to be somewhat intellectual for those, I guess. We also worked 6 days/9 hours a day just to keep out of more trouble.
The article and the picture in it seem to be quite genuine. They like to dress up for parties. This is important because you generally only wear the clothes that are issued to you when you check out to fly from Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND down to McMurdo, Ross Island and onto the South Pole. Scientists wear red parkas and black pants with white cartoonish "bunny boots." Workers wear Carhartts.
Air National Guard is something that also rings true. I've heard of and seen Bailey's Pub, too. The doctors are usually nuts, low quality, subject to alcoholism, appendicitis, or somesuch. (Why would you leave the States to make less money? Almost everyone else makes more (not the GFAs, though -- it's a supply and demand thing))
The NOAA "Clean Air" scientists/workers do hold "slushy parties" -- first-hand knowledge here. Though you would only have to stay outside and downwind to smoke, not "a good distance."
One thing that doesn't ring quite true, but may differ due to time and changes in company regs, is that the guy who got attacked by "D" would generally have been shipped out too -- but may not have since it wasn't an actual fight. Probably true.
The FBI story sounds typical. Everyone makes a boondoggle about visiting.
All (generalizing here) the military (male or female) that fly in get naked and are photographed by the Ceremonial South Pole (by the sign that shown with Boozy the Clown). It's a rite of passage or something.
Pentamom, there are a lot of people down there who just wanted an adventure - and the South Pole can run out of that pretty quickly. Then it's a test of your character and creativity to stay "sane" and/or sober.
Boogers seem to have been exaggerated. The hole in the ice for the communal septic tank is not.
Copyright was 2004. The book should already be out if the interviewee actually wrote something by the title Big Dead Place. It would be a "Nicholas Johnson." Never met the man. But it all sounds very natural and "real" -- or he, himself, knew a bunch of people who'd been there.
There is hope. You can go there. I think the current contracts for Logistics are still handled by Raytheon. Sign up. You won't regret it -- Probably. ;^)
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