Biff Calhoon presents: Biff Calhoon in, Take the Long Way Home, a Biff Calhoon production
A long time ago in a town far, far away… (From where I’m at right now)
Take the Long Way Home
EPISODE IV
U.S.S. OREGON
It is a time
Of change for the
Class of ’99. The graduation
Ceremony complete and the paths
Of all diverge to the four corners as everyone
Reaches out to explore their potential and try to make
Their dreams become a reality. It is a time of change for the better.
BIFF CALHOON sets out to live his life on his terms. The easy going way that was his trademark in HIGH SCHOOL remains a practiced way of life in the years after graduation. He joined a group of his friends a year or two later and embarked on an adventure that has yet to end………
I worked at HP Products for a couple of years. I worked in the shipping department of the factory. It was and is still my favorite job I’ve ever had. I had so much fun there and I was really good at what I did. I was dating Scarlet then and I loved her very much. She meant a lot because of the effort I put into getting into her heart. She was a fighter. Probably still is, but I haven’t seen her in years. She was my first adult love. I was nineteen when I was with her and she was one in a million. Her very uniqueness gave her a compelling mystery. I was blown away when we parted ways because it was my fault and I had not planned for things to work out like they did. I basically gave her a my way or the highway ultimatum, and she chose the highway. Didn’t see that one coming. Well at the time I was looking for a place to move to so I could move out of my fathers house so my good friend and yours Dr. Robinson says to me that he needs a new roommate at his place. So I go over that weekend to scope out the place. I drink for the first time to get smashed and the spark lit from there. I was in the house within two weeks. I chose the basement room because I like living in basements and because I’m lazy and didn’t want to move my shit as we lost and gained roommates. The main body of the U.S.S. Oregon crew was Dr. Robinson, Mysterio, Biff Calhoon, Hot Ham, and Tcep. Tcep came later on in my stay on board. This was the roster that got along the most though. The extras that came and went sometimes caused friction in the house. We were all very much of the same easy going live life to the fullest type people. We all had a blast together.
Ham and Dr. Robinson and I all worked at HP at this time while Mysterio worked at the Hoover Company, and Tcep worked on living his Budda-esk lifestyle. Mysterio, Tcep, Dr. Robinson, and myself would jam away in the basement as the band, French Bread Pizza. We covered all kinds of songs from Foo Fighters to Harvey Danger to Green Day to anything from the 80’s, and ultimately Nintendo music especially from Megaman 3. All kinds of fun was had. Most of the fun was had sauced out of our fucking minds. We all loved the drink, none so much as Mysterio, Ham, and the ol’ Calhoon his self, though no one was a slacker in the drunkard department. The following facts are for that very reason probably not in any kind of order. It’s hard to put in sequence that which you learned second hand, even if you were involved first hand. Haha. The good Dr. Robinson will tell a lot of the same stories just from his point of view in his blog on blogspot.com. (Shameless plug) There is a restaurant across the street that we called the Main Street Café but I think it’s real name was Main Street Restaurant. We named it cause we ruled the seas of that neighborhood, our Jolly Roger flying high on our TV antenna. Every morning Mysterio and I would stand on the porch and drink our screwdrivers (the breakfast of champions) and cat call at the old people who were unlucky enough to walk in front of us. The neighbors all began to despise us all but Racist Bob. We believe to this days that he is the reason that the cops weren’t called on us that much. The neighbor directly across the street drove a Frito Lay truck so we called him Frito Lay-all-day. The house next to him was a rats nest of hilljacks. It was like watching clowns get out of a car only it was an unholy river of white trash flowing from a rather small house. They were our nemesis and we did all we could to get the kids in trouble or free their poor dog from the abuse that they beset upon it. The house next to that housed our sister ship in the neighborhood. Five-O lived there and we would party all up and down the street. Bonfires galore. The fact is for as much that went on at the Oregon the cops usually showed up cause Mysterio and I were lying in the street. Come on though can you blame us? Cool summer nights lying on a warm road. Come on, there’s nothing more relaxing. Dr. Robinson and myself would on occasion climb the tree in the back yard with our grappling hooks during a tornado or dump flour all over a table full of drunks playing poker. First off the 25 pound bag of flour was an impulse buy on my part at Wal-Mart. It was only four bucks. Somehow I couldn’t pass that up. One night Dr. Robinson and I are watching TV totally sober and we both look over at the doorway to the kitchen where we can hear the yell of drunkard’s playing cards. At the same time we look at the flour and then at a random squirt gun that was on the floor and the light went off in both our heads. Next thing you know I have the flour in hand he has the gun. One squirt of mist and a dump later there’s flour everywhere. Mysterio comes in and tackles me into the flour on the floor and Dr. Robinson dumps what’s left of the bag on us. One of our friends Sheriff we found out later is allergic to flour. Whoops. That’s six hours of a Saturday I’ll never get back. We went through six vacuums and two carpet scrubbers. Good thing Mysterio worked at Hoover so we never had a shortage. The weird thing is that of the six three were purple and three were green and the green ones just quit working after awhile of flour clean up, but the purple ones caught on fire. That shit was crazy. Another time Joseph head butted our basement door and we found out that it was hollow. So Mysterio and I naturally felt that we should jump through it and tear it the fuck down. We didn’t plan it so well and ended up jumping down the basement steps. Upon climbing back up the steps we would see some door hanging still mocking us and right back down the steps we’d go.
Of course there was also the day that Biff Calhoon was born. There was a new cashier working at the Dairymart that was right behind the house. I had asked her that morning how she felt about drunken idiots being retarded around her and she said that she wasn’t easy to offend. I made sure that she understood that I would be back later that night and that I would be completely wasted. That night it rained and hard. It was the night of “The Rain Boyz”. The Rain Boyz would strip off articles of clothing, as they would get waterlogged and heavy till they were comfortable again. They would do anything to be comfortable except GET OUT OF THE RAIN!! There were about ten to fifteen of us all running around the neighborhood. I made it back to the Dairymart as promised. No shirt, no shoes, but demanding service. Not the kind that’s stocked on any shelves either. Mysterio comes in and yells “Hey I’ve been looking all over for you. We can’t be the Rain Boyz without you.” I said, “ But I’m not done sexin’ her up” Mysterio says, “ Yeah you are”. Okay. That’s all the convincing I needed. Back up to the house there was a fight to be had. In the smallest area of the house, the kitchen, ten to fifteen soaking wet guys wrestling around for no reason. Joseph had hit his head on the corner of the counter and slumped passed out at the edge of the mass of limbs that didn’t seem to connect to any one body. Suddenly I roll out of the bottom of the pile with a look in my eye that wasn’t my own and say,” I’m not the one. I AM the one! Elbow drop!!!!” Thus was born Biff Calhoon. Bane to all things glass! I’ll always remember that back then at Metzgers Hardware storm windows cost twenty four ninety five. Good stuff. One particular night Biff had decided to wage a war on drugs and so with his Axe Handle of Doom he set forth. A bare footed bike riding drunk with a mission. I went over to my mom’s church and told the pastor all about my mission and then I was off to other points in the neighborhood.I next went to Holly’s house to inadvertently scare the hell out of her pregnant mother and then, of course to the Main Street Café. There I was promptly kicked out for not wearing shoes and cause I brought the bike and Axe Handle in with me. Memorial Day weekend was the first drinking binge I had ever done. Not one day that weekend was I sober. That Friday is when we invited over the waitresses from the Café. They were under age to say the least but their flimsy lies were good enough for the likes of us who cared little for the trappings of the law. The months to come they would play a small part in the bigger picture of a group of guys more concerned with their booze consumption then with getting laid. On Memorial Day Little Red, Carolina, Love, Doc Rob, Ham, and myself (at least I think Ham was there) had a huge water fight. The girls started it but were soon bested and their control of the hose was no more. To spite us they locked us out of the Oregon and chucked water balloons at us. Well the side door that went into my room was unlocked and I had my room locked from the inside so the girls couldn’t get to the outside door to lock it. I went in and got my briefcase of ninja gear. A couple sais, a couple on throwing stars, but what I was looking for, of course, was my grappling hook. I came out and it was decided that Dr. Robinson would to climb the house and so I threw the hook through the window by our corner booth and up the good Doctor goes. He gets all the way to the top without anything going wrong and then grabs the windowsill. The sill comes completely off the house and Dr. Robinson falls two stories to the hard ground below where we waited patiently. He lands hard on his wrist and while he rubs it and wonders what went wrong Ashley throws a water balloon that hits him square on the head. While he’s yelling at her I kicked the back door in and we retook the Oregon.
We formed the Council of Evil in those days, Mysterio as Chancellor of the protectorate, Biff Calhoon as Vice Roy, Hat Ham as Man at Arms, and Tcep as our PR guy. The rules were simple, if you wanted to challenge another person in the council for their position the two would fight it out in the contest of, lets see if I can spell this one, Gombay Parry. You hold one leg up behind your back and use your other arm to help balance. However, you cannot use your arms against your opponent. You can only use you body weight. Fun times. The council was formed so that Mysterio and I could stop drinking so much so fast and take a more leisurely approach to our parties. You see everyone had come to expect Mysterio and I to just pound them out one after the other and then we usually ended up hurting each other. So we would take someone who usual drank like a girl and make them drink like we do while we sip our drinks and enjoy a more relaxed environment. Well to this date the only victim of the council was Bob-o. The next weekend no one showed up to our house, which had never happened before. We heard the brothers Bailey had a party and the Council of Evil took their weapons of choice there to lead the sheep away from a police attracting party in the middle of town back to our place where the cops tolerated us. Mysterio with mighty Bo Staff, Biff Calhoon with the Axe Handle of Doom, Hot Ham with Deadly Katana (believe me we all had concerns about that), and Tcep with the Segmented Staff of Bad Publicity sallied forth to the Bailey’s house. Once there we brought forth the people into the Promised Land, cop tolerating womb of the U.S.S. Oregon. Unfortunately, some guys we didn’t usually party with started to fight. I went outside to help Ham break the fight up and keep the peace. My strategy had one flaw…… So I punched Ham. Ham and I start fighting. Mysterio quickly joins the fray. I took a tiki torch and hit Mysterio across the face with it. He does a horizontal Matrix type spin in the air before falling on the cement drive way and lying there for a minute to collect his thoughts. I somehow ended up at Hera's house, who would become my first wife. Weird times.
Now Love, whom I mentioned above during the water fight had started coming over to party with us and we ended up getting together. Biff Calhoon thought he was just using her for a good time. Turns out that I have a hard time not developing feelings with women I’m fooling around with. I guess it’s the romantic in me. That wasn’t to last though. When your main concern in life is partying and having fun you have little to no tolerance for dealing with a relationship. Love went her own separate way.
Another fun night that ended in me being hurt pretty bad was the Cookie Sheet Challenge night. Now the intent was not to do anything that would hurt us but to do the Milk Challenge like on Jackass. Mysterio, Ham, and myself would see who could drink a whole gallon of milk the fastest. Well we spent all of our cash on booze so we couldn’t afford three bottles of milk. So we went looking for something else to do in the kitchen. That’s where we found our three cookie sheets. So we went out to the front yard and took turns hitting each other on the head with it until the person getting hit couldn’t take it anymore. Well to bend the cookie sheet back to being flat we kept flipping it until it burst in the center. The sharp shards of medal stuck out like knives and I took the last hit. Blood gushed out of my head and that was the third time I woke up on the bathroom floor in a pool of my own blood.
Days became weeks and weeks months and the fun times never seemed to dull. Then 9-11 came and knocked the Oregon into dangerous waters. That day changed everything. Not at first oh no. But slowly over the next three months I had to do something. Ham quit HP and gave blood, found a new job and he went that route for a while. Harder times were in store for him. I quit HP and joined the Army to go do something that would change the world. I was ever the dreamer. Now there were way more fun times at the Oregon but this is already running pretty damn long and I need to move on to the next part. The U.S.S. Oregon is my favorite part of my life and if I could repeat it all over again I wouldn’t change anything. The Army took me away from the place I called home and the friends I called family. A piratical group of guys the likes of which are still unique from anything I’ve ever seen since leaving Louisville. That’s saying a lot cause there’s a lot out there besides Louisville but it has something that no place else has. The crew of the U.S.S. Oregon still crazy, if scattered, after all these years. Things were still looking pretty good for me even with me heading into the Army. I was off on my adventure………….
See you further down the path…
Take the Long Way Home
EPISODE IV
U.S.S. OREGON
It is a time
Of change for the
Class of ’99. The graduation
Ceremony complete and the paths
Of all diverge to the four corners as everyone
Reaches out to explore their potential and try to make
Their dreams become a reality. It is a time of change for the better.
BIFF CALHOON sets out to live his life on his terms. The easy going way that was his trademark in HIGH SCHOOL remains a practiced way of life in the years after graduation. He joined a group of his friends a year or two later and embarked on an adventure that has yet to end………
I worked at HP Products for a couple of years. I worked in the shipping department of the factory. It was and is still my favorite job I’ve ever had. I had so much fun there and I was really good at what I did. I was dating Scarlet then and I loved her very much. She meant a lot because of the effort I put into getting into her heart. She was a fighter. Probably still is, but I haven’t seen her in years. She was my first adult love. I was nineteen when I was with her and she was one in a million. Her very uniqueness gave her a compelling mystery. I was blown away when we parted ways because it was my fault and I had not planned for things to work out like they did. I basically gave her a my way or the highway ultimatum, and she chose the highway. Didn’t see that one coming. Well at the time I was looking for a place to move to so I could move out of my fathers house so my good friend and yours Dr. Robinson says to me that he needs a new roommate at his place. So I go over that weekend to scope out the place. I drink for the first time to get smashed and the spark lit from there. I was in the house within two weeks. I chose the basement room because I like living in basements and because I’m lazy and didn’t want to move my shit as we lost and gained roommates. The main body of the U.S.S. Oregon crew was Dr. Robinson, Mysterio, Biff Calhoon, Hot Ham, and Tcep. Tcep came later on in my stay on board. This was the roster that got along the most though. The extras that came and went sometimes caused friction in the house. We were all very much of the same easy going live life to the fullest type people. We all had a blast together.
Ham and Dr. Robinson and I all worked at HP at this time while Mysterio worked at the Hoover Company, and Tcep worked on living his Budda-esk lifestyle. Mysterio, Tcep, Dr. Robinson, and myself would jam away in the basement as the band, French Bread Pizza. We covered all kinds of songs from Foo Fighters to Harvey Danger to Green Day to anything from the 80’s, and ultimately Nintendo music especially from Megaman 3. All kinds of fun was had. Most of the fun was had sauced out of our fucking minds. We all loved the drink, none so much as Mysterio, Ham, and the ol’ Calhoon his self, though no one was a slacker in the drunkard department. The following facts are for that very reason probably not in any kind of order. It’s hard to put in sequence that which you learned second hand, even if you were involved first hand. Haha. The good Dr. Robinson will tell a lot of the same stories just from his point of view in his blog on blogspot.com. (Shameless plug) There is a restaurant across the street that we called the Main Street Café but I think it’s real name was Main Street Restaurant. We named it cause we ruled the seas of that neighborhood, our Jolly Roger flying high on our TV antenna. Every morning Mysterio and I would stand on the porch and drink our screwdrivers (the breakfast of champions) and cat call at the old people who were unlucky enough to walk in front of us. The neighbors all began to despise us all but Racist Bob. We believe to this days that he is the reason that the cops weren’t called on us that much. The neighbor directly across the street drove a Frito Lay truck so we called him Frito Lay-all-day. The house next to him was a rats nest of hilljacks. It was like watching clowns get out of a car only it was an unholy river of white trash flowing from a rather small house. They were our nemesis and we did all we could to get the kids in trouble or free their poor dog from the abuse that they beset upon it. The house next to that housed our sister ship in the neighborhood. Five-O lived there and we would party all up and down the street. Bonfires galore. The fact is for as much that went on at the Oregon the cops usually showed up cause Mysterio and I were lying in the street. Come on though can you blame us? Cool summer nights lying on a warm road. Come on, there’s nothing more relaxing. Dr. Robinson and myself would on occasion climb the tree in the back yard with our grappling hooks during a tornado or dump flour all over a table full of drunks playing poker. First off the 25 pound bag of flour was an impulse buy on my part at Wal-Mart. It was only four bucks. Somehow I couldn’t pass that up. One night Dr. Robinson and I are watching TV totally sober and we both look over at the doorway to the kitchen where we can hear the yell of drunkard’s playing cards. At the same time we look at the flour and then at a random squirt gun that was on the floor and the light went off in both our heads. Next thing you know I have the flour in hand he has the gun. One squirt of mist and a dump later there’s flour everywhere. Mysterio comes in and tackles me into the flour on the floor and Dr. Robinson dumps what’s left of the bag on us. One of our friends Sheriff we found out later is allergic to flour. Whoops. That’s six hours of a Saturday I’ll never get back. We went through six vacuums and two carpet scrubbers. Good thing Mysterio worked at Hoover so we never had a shortage. The weird thing is that of the six three were purple and three were green and the green ones just quit working after awhile of flour clean up, but the purple ones caught on fire. That shit was crazy. Another time Joseph head butted our basement door and we found out that it was hollow. So Mysterio and I naturally felt that we should jump through it and tear it the fuck down. We didn’t plan it so well and ended up jumping down the basement steps. Upon climbing back up the steps we would see some door hanging still mocking us and right back down the steps we’d go.
Of course there was also the day that Biff Calhoon was born. There was a new cashier working at the Dairymart that was right behind the house. I had asked her that morning how she felt about drunken idiots being retarded around her and she said that she wasn’t easy to offend. I made sure that she understood that I would be back later that night and that I would be completely wasted. That night it rained and hard. It was the night of “The Rain Boyz”. The Rain Boyz would strip off articles of clothing, as they would get waterlogged and heavy till they were comfortable again. They would do anything to be comfortable except GET OUT OF THE RAIN!! There were about ten to fifteen of us all running around the neighborhood. I made it back to the Dairymart as promised. No shirt, no shoes, but demanding service. Not the kind that’s stocked on any shelves either. Mysterio comes in and yells “Hey I’ve been looking all over for you. We can’t be the Rain Boyz without you.” I said, “ But I’m not done sexin’ her up” Mysterio says, “ Yeah you are”. Okay. That’s all the convincing I needed. Back up to the house there was a fight to be had. In the smallest area of the house, the kitchen, ten to fifteen soaking wet guys wrestling around for no reason. Joseph had hit his head on the corner of the counter and slumped passed out at the edge of the mass of limbs that didn’t seem to connect to any one body. Suddenly I roll out of the bottom of the pile with a look in my eye that wasn’t my own and say,” I’m not the one. I AM the one! Elbow drop!!!!” Thus was born Biff Calhoon. Bane to all things glass! I’ll always remember that back then at Metzgers Hardware storm windows cost twenty four ninety five. Good stuff. One particular night Biff had decided to wage a war on drugs and so with his Axe Handle of Doom he set forth. A bare footed bike riding drunk with a mission. I went over to my mom’s church and told the pastor all about my mission and then I was off to other points in the neighborhood.I next went to Holly’s house to inadvertently scare the hell out of her pregnant mother and then, of course to the Main Street Café. There I was promptly kicked out for not wearing shoes and cause I brought the bike and Axe Handle in with me. Memorial Day weekend was the first drinking binge I had ever done. Not one day that weekend was I sober. That Friday is when we invited over the waitresses from the Café. They were under age to say the least but their flimsy lies were good enough for the likes of us who cared little for the trappings of the law. The months to come they would play a small part in the bigger picture of a group of guys more concerned with their booze consumption then with getting laid. On Memorial Day Little Red, Carolina, Love, Doc Rob, Ham, and myself (at least I think Ham was there) had a huge water fight. The girls started it but were soon bested and their control of the hose was no more. To spite us they locked us out of the Oregon and chucked water balloons at us. Well the side door that went into my room was unlocked and I had my room locked from the inside so the girls couldn’t get to the outside door to lock it. I went in and got my briefcase of ninja gear. A couple sais, a couple on throwing stars, but what I was looking for, of course, was my grappling hook. I came out and it was decided that Dr. Robinson would to climb the house and so I threw the hook through the window by our corner booth and up the good Doctor goes. He gets all the way to the top without anything going wrong and then grabs the windowsill. The sill comes completely off the house and Dr. Robinson falls two stories to the hard ground below where we waited patiently. He lands hard on his wrist and while he rubs it and wonders what went wrong Ashley throws a water balloon that hits him square on the head. While he’s yelling at her I kicked the back door in and we retook the Oregon.
We formed the Council of Evil in those days, Mysterio as Chancellor of the protectorate, Biff Calhoon as Vice Roy, Hat Ham as Man at Arms, and Tcep as our PR guy. The rules were simple, if you wanted to challenge another person in the council for their position the two would fight it out in the contest of, lets see if I can spell this one, Gombay Parry. You hold one leg up behind your back and use your other arm to help balance. However, you cannot use your arms against your opponent. You can only use you body weight. Fun times. The council was formed so that Mysterio and I could stop drinking so much so fast and take a more leisurely approach to our parties. You see everyone had come to expect Mysterio and I to just pound them out one after the other and then we usually ended up hurting each other. So we would take someone who usual drank like a girl and make them drink like we do while we sip our drinks and enjoy a more relaxed environment. Well to this date the only victim of the council was Bob-o. The next weekend no one showed up to our house, which had never happened before. We heard the brothers Bailey had a party and the Council of Evil took their weapons of choice there to lead the sheep away from a police attracting party in the middle of town back to our place where the cops tolerated us. Mysterio with mighty Bo Staff, Biff Calhoon with the Axe Handle of Doom, Hot Ham with Deadly Katana (believe me we all had concerns about that), and Tcep with the Segmented Staff of Bad Publicity sallied forth to the Bailey’s house. Once there we brought forth the people into the Promised Land, cop tolerating womb of the U.S.S. Oregon. Unfortunately, some guys we didn’t usually party with started to fight. I went outside to help Ham break the fight up and keep the peace. My strategy had one flaw…… So I punched Ham. Ham and I start fighting. Mysterio quickly joins the fray. I took a tiki torch and hit Mysterio across the face with it. He does a horizontal Matrix type spin in the air before falling on the cement drive way and lying there for a minute to collect his thoughts. I somehow ended up at Hera's house, who would become my first wife. Weird times.
Now Love, whom I mentioned above during the water fight had started coming over to party with us and we ended up getting together. Biff Calhoon thought he was just using her for a good time. Turns out that I have a hard time not developing feelings with women I’m fooling around with. I guess it’s the romantic in me. That wasn’t to last though. When your main concern in life is partying and having fun you have little to no tolerance for dealing with a relationship. Love went her own separate way.
Another fun night that ended in me being hurt pretty bad was the Cookie Sheet Challenge night. Now the intent was not to do anything that would hurt us but to do the Milk Challenge like on Jackass. Mysterio, Ham, and myself would see who could drink a whole gallon of milk the fastest. Well we spent all of our cash on booze so we couldn’t afford three bottles of milk. So we went looking for something else to do in the kitchen. That’s where we found our three cookie sheets. So we went out to the front yard and took turns hitting each other on the head with it until the person getting hit couldn’t take it anymore. Well to bend the cookie sheet back to being flat we kept flipping it until it burst in the center. The sharp shards of medal stuck out like knives and I took the last hit. Blood gushed out of my head and that was the third time I woke up on the bathroom floor in a pool of my own blood.
Days became weeks and weeks months and the fun times never seemed to dull. Then 9-11 came and knocked the Oregon into dangerous waters. That day changed everything. Not at first oh no. But slowly over the next three months I had to do something. Ham quit HP and gave blood, found a new job and he went that route for a while. Harder times were in store for him. I quit HP and joined the Army to go do something that would change the world. I was ever the dreamer. Now there were way more fun times at the Oregon but this is already running pretty damn long and I need to move on to the next part. The U.S.S. Oregon is my favorite part of my life and if I could repeat it all over again I wouldn’t change anything. The Army took me away from the place I called home and the friends I called family. A piratical group of guys the likes of which are still unique from anything I’ve ever seen since leaving Louisville. That’s saying a lot cause there’s a lot out there besides Louisville but it has something that no place else has. The crew of the U.S.S. Oregon still crazy, if scattered, after all these years. Things were still looking pretty good for me even with me heading into the Army. I was off on my adventure………….
See you further down the path…
posted by Mike | 7:11 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home