The Nightmare Before Xmas

From the pages yet to come...

    "Brrr, it's cold in here." Newt shivered as he set the pitcher down. "Maybe we should be drinking coffee."
    "Too bad there's no fireplace. That's progress for ya." Chimp shook his hair back, then poured himself another cupful. "But hey, if you drink enough beer, you'll stay warm!" He lifted the cup, pausing abruptly as foam overflowed the lip.
    "Look at that," said Chimp with exaggerated gaiety. "It's Santa Claus!"
    "What?" Newt was pulling on his sweater.
    The sun had settled beneath swaths of coral and salmon, and the waning light angling in through the big lakefront windows gave the Leinie's a rich red hue. "He's upside down, see..?" Chimp tilted the cup, inadvertently pouring more foam onto the carpet. "Oops."
    Newt frowned, massaging his forehead, then ran his fingers through his hair.
    "See, that's his beard on top," Chimp continued. He took a big gulp, slurping foam off his upper lip.
    "Let's not trash the lounge." Newt's head had been throbbing all day and he had little interest in the usual Hoofer antics. They had important business to cover before the next BOC meeting.
    The commodore and head of instruction sat alone in the wood-paneled room, the door closed. An early December dusting of snow outside and the decorative lights inside belied the sordid state of things.
    "So we're going to kick him off the BOC then?" Chimp began.
    "That's not what you said in your email." Newt straightened his neck. "Didn't you say that could be discrimination?"
    "Yeah, well, you have to be careful what you say in an email." Chimp paused. "Other people might get ahold of it." For a moment, Chimp felt as if Newt was probing, testing Chimp's loyalty, but he understood the need to confirm they were on the same page before going any further. It was an unspoken reality in Hoofers, as it is in any organization that employs a military structure—the subtle assertion of standing or authority that infects every interaction, except between equals. The two Hoofer leaders turned in unison as a man in a blue snowsuit shuffled past in the hallway and glanced in at them. They watched the man grab a shovel by the door, then head outside.

To be continued...

Hoofer Sailing Not Found

A scary thought, isn't it. We have heard some of the rumors about the club's future, but we question whether they could disband HSC and make it student-only. Then what, UW faculty/staff couldn't join either..? That would seem to violate the UW's mission. Not to mention taking a great sailing club and turning into a joke.

But check out this eerie foreshadowing of what Union management is trying to do.

The next BOC meeting should be Monday, Nov 21, but knowing Mills, he might very well use Thxgiving as an excuse to move it to a different day. No one is even bothering to announce them on the web any more, nor is there an up-to-date list of BOC members. Just lots of "404" errors. Perhaps a foreshadowing of where HSC itself is headed..? Lists and up-to-date info make it too easy to contact people or to show up at BOC meetings--where we ALL should be--and complain.

The BOC prefers to do things under the table, not out in the open. For those who aren't aware, the "approved BOC minutes" are not the actual minutes. The juicy stuff, and anything that's borderline illegal, gets "cleaned" before the minutes are approved.

With regard to this blog, we don't know how much use it can really be in averting the out-of-control freighter that is crooked Union management. It can at least be used as a forum, and to post BOC emails or other potentially useful info (or they can be forwarded here. Like a newspaper or other publication, we need evidence before being able to say much that is concrete.

Xenophobia

We leave a lot of leeway for comments on this blog, one exception being the use of personal names. Civility is not required, although hopefully each comment will contribute something. Jeff put his name out there himself, which was big of him, but we are still uncomfortable with it. The simple fact is that Jeff got the shaft, mainly as the result of general dysfunction within the club, but he is not the only one. The lack of empathy and of any interest in trying to understand sure doesn't help.

This is to be expected, though, when those in charge are 21 year old white boys who never even saw a black guy (except on TV) until they got to college. Discrimination is nothing new for Hoofer "leaders" or for the UW in general. The further you fall outside the 18-22 year old frat boy/girl demographic, the more trouble you're going to have. Recent comments have helped to reveal the seething xenophobia in Hoofers/the UW. For instance:

It is the job of an older man to be friendly, fatherly, and NOT engage at any other level with college age women than they would with their own daughter. That is sick, twisted, and SO wrong.

It is unclear whether that commenter is just trying to stir things up or if there's been a lot of incest in his family. And what does he mean by "older"..? If I'm 28, can I pursue a 21 year old? What if I'm 35--but don't look a day over 25? Our President-elect was 52 when he met his then-28-year old wife-to-be. Michael Douglas was 56 when he met the very hot 29 year old Catherine Zeta Jones circa 1999. Our commenter would call that "sick". I'd probably call it a good catch by MD--or maybe by CZJ. Things may be different for movie stars and billionaires, or maybe not.

According to that commenter, if you're over 40, sitting under the canopy, and not averting your eyes while female undergrads rig their boards, you're stalking them. That's absurd, of course, and it sounds a lot like age discrimination too. I personally don't think most men join HSC to meet women. They join to sail. On the other hand, the club is advertised as a social organization, and lots of people have met their future spouses in the club. Former commodores Chris Frye and Mike Larsen, for instance. It would be interesting to examine whether or not general club members are just as likely to meet their future spouses in Hoofers. If not, that would suggest some misbehaviour by those at the top.

Unfortunately HSC is run mostly by those spoiled white frat boys who enjoy bullying others--especially people who are different--just as they haze and abuse underclassmen pledging their fraternities. It's why there are virtually no mechanisms for mediation within the club, in Hoofers, or at the UW. Once you get a taste of being the abuser, it's a high that you come to crave. Mediation only helps the abusee, not the abuser.

Nor can the abusers be expected to correct themselves. They must be forced, by more decent people, to stop abusing and discriminating against others.

Idle hands

Big news at last night's BOC meeting. Unfortunately, we can't pass along the details, at least not yet, because they involve libel, slander, and other criminal acts by current BOC members (other than me and my co-author, of course). Suffice it to say that there are going to be some very unhappy campers. Stay tuned.

And always remember: Idle hands are the Devil's plaything!

What does that make idle minds..?

The octopussy

People are still needed for the keelboat work party this Saturday! We have to get things squared away out there asap. Details are here:

https://lessons.hoofersailing.org/event/59008

The end of the season is always a sad time, but with enough people we can get this done in a couple of hours and then go grab some food. Or go sailing--the forecast for Sat/Sun is looking pretty nice.

Remember, "Many fingers, er, thar she blows, er, many hands make light work! (Sorry, I am preoccupied with Donald Trump.)

Try not to run anyone over in your rush to sign up.

For Instructors only

Extra lessons are now available, taught by HOI Dave Elsmo.

Tonight is "Rig tuning" (6 PM on the lakefront) for those who want to learn how to maximize a boat's power and win races. This lesson will cover stay tension, car positioning, halyard tension, weight placement, etc. This is only open to instructors (because most of them don't already know that stuff?).

General club members aren't expected to win races, so they are not eligible to take this class. Of course, they're not eligible for a lot of other instructor goodies, either.... General (i.e. paying) club members are mainly around to provide cash for the instructors.

Next Tues Aug 23 will be "Sail Trim". In this lesson we'll cover proper sail trim for all conditions at all points of sail. Again, not open to paying club members.

Huh. I actually teach all this stuff myself from time to time on the keelboats, as do some of the other KB instructors, so why aren't these lessons open to any Hoofer Sailing Club member..? They're not even full (as of the time of this post), and general club members are the ones who pay Elsmo's salary. Evidently he thinks it makes more sense for him to teach it to the "instructors", and then they can try to pass some of it on to the plebes.

C-Cup Report '16

Many thanks to Jo, Steve, and everyone else for a great party yesterday, and a big hug goes out to Justin for all his help :) To those who though it was too warm upstairs at CK, you should have had more to drink stood under the A/C! But Church Key was not a bad place for the ball, once in a blue moon.

Some pics are posted here (you may have to be logged in to see all of them). We love the composition in the photo at right. Chugging champagne with scantily clad gals (and guys)--who said Hoofers isn't great?

Hopefully everyone has recovered by now, or will by the time you have to terach tomorrow. Pizza was a great idea, too.

Fire up for Commodore's Cup!

In the spirit of of the upcoming festivities, we offer an inside look at the club's rock stars, past and present: The 2009 instructor swimsuit calendar! Two thousand nine was the definitive year—a veritable who's who of the greatest sailing club stars of the past 15 years! Some of those pictured are still instructing, while others are (sob!) now gone.

Warning: some people you might not want to see half-naked are pictured with their shirts off. This is offset to a small degree by a few you'd like to see wearing even less....

You think we're joking about how super-cool HSC instructors are? The theme of this year's C-Cup is (again): We are better than you. That is, HSC instructors are better than you, because you suck. That's not me talking—it's the official Hoofer position, and it's even on some of the flyers.

For more on why HSC instructors are cooler than you, why it's great to be an instructor (if you can manage to get "hired"*), the numerous instructor perks, the club's cash flow, crimes that are being committed, and how it all works, check out some of our older posts.

Note that instructor swimsuit calendars are an instructor perk and are not available to general club members, so please don't share it with them. Unless they buy you a pitcher or two.

*HSC instructor hiring requirements: You must be good looking, super cool, and/or friends with the hiring committee members. Sailing and teaching experience not required.

Pirate's Day report

A week after "Pirate Day" 2016, the Jolly Roger is still flying above Hoofers. Apparently some people aren't sure whether or not the event actually happened yet (and maybe Hoofers is soliciting some real pirate action...)

If you missed PD '16, you didn't miss much. We had a watered down version of a treasure hunt race, union food afterwards, and a few people even dressed up in "pirate" outfits. You could also trek off to the hot, filthy under-construction Union and stand in line to buy beer.

It was nothing like the rollicking PD's of the past. A grand total of 55 people participated (much less than 10% of the club), and the festivities were over and most people long gone by 5 PM. No more raucous boardwalk party going into the night, no more slinging people off piers, no more boats going back out for skirmishes. Overall, a sad reflection of the great PD's of the past.

So what happened? New rules happened. Trying to cover their asses for past negligence--and probably upset that as Union managers they can't participate in the fun at Hoofers--Mark Guthier and other Union staff have worked to make it harder for the rest of us to have fun. New ad hoc rules including the prohibitions on alcohol are their method.

The lifejacket rule (if indeed it is still a rule) is also negligent. On PD, many people wore their lifejackets and risked heat stroke on the sunny, 90 degree, light-wind day in spite of the idiocy of doing so (non-swimmers excepted). As for the alcohol rule, it's easy enough to circumvent, but the overall restrictions including on land serve no purpose except to suffocate the social side of the club.

One can argue that people should be able to have fun without drinking, but then why doesn't Guthier prohibit alcohol at the Union altogether..? It's because that generates big revenue for the Union, and if Guthier did so, the Regents would fire him faster than they'd dig out an Indiana tick.

Instructor profile: Will Beatty

Will Beatty's Facebook page says that he's still an instructor, but all of his most recent lessons have er suddenly been cancelled. Is he still instructing..? And who's the J-fleet captain now? Inquiring minds want to know.

In Hoofers it's a mystery why instructors come and go, although hard partiers are preferred. Often the good ones seem to go and it's the jerks who stick around. Brains and teaching skill certainly aren't valued much. But it's difficult to provide details when administrators cover everything up. In general, people who look or act like they're hiding something are hiding something.

Maybe leaving the scene of an accident, operating an unregistered boat, and so on led someone to conclude that Will isn't responsible enough to be a Hoofer instructor. Oh wait... those are prerequisites to becoming a HSC instructor! No wonder Hoofers and the UW are so protectionist.

Predators and Prey.

*Predators and Prey is an ongoing series focusing on Hoofer Sailing Club "leaders". If you would like to be featured yourself--or if you'd like to see a particular person featured--request it in the comments!

The rape that wasn't

We held off on posting this because of some confusion caused by conflicting reports. Some of you may have heard about the supposed rape near Memorial Union earlier this month. That link describes the sexual assault but also says on the right: UW Police say there's no evidence the sex assault actually happened!

In the video, you can see police urging students to be wary as they walk home, not to walk alone, etc. This is part of UWPD's ongoing effort to create a climate of fear on campus. Of course they sent out a wiscalert to "warn" all UW students at the time. Giving UWPD even more incentive to prop up their own importance is criticism for recent and ongoing screw-ups, e.g. busting into a class to arrest someone--for grafitti.

The real problem is that police are habitual abusers. Many were bullied or abused as children, so in their adult lives, they are attracted to positions of authority by which they can finally control and abuse others. What kind of person would want a job that consists mainly of dealing with scum and writing up reports..? Damaged goods.

Like many Memorial Union employees, the "victim" here was apparently having a flashback or hallucination, or just lying. Other Memorial Union employees have falsely claimed to have been sexually assaulted in the past. This sort of thing is likely similar to what's going on with police: losers seeking attention.

That non-incident aside, there may have been an actual rape around the same time, as well as some hanky panky by a Hoofer employee in a separate incident. More on this soon.

WHY THE PACKERS SUCK

JAN 16 UPDATE: Tough loss for the Meat Packers today, but boy, that A-Rod sure can play. You heard it here first: The Packers will never make it to another Super Bowl with him at QB. C'est la vie.

JAN 6 UPDATE: As expected, the Pack lost to Minnesota on Sunday. At least the Packers have lots of great fans, like those at right. Let's hope for more good news next Sunday in Washington, DC. (And we'll get back to sailing soon!)

Happy New Year and welcome to another non-sailing post. It's January so there's no sailing in Wisconsin these days. Nor do we care about the boys arguing over their toys every other Wednesday evening in the Hoofer lounge. Does it really matter whether the club accepts that poor sap's beat-up Laser or some other junk?

Meanwhile, with the Vikings-Packers divisional championship game looming this Sunday, we thought it appropriate to recall why the Packers suck so much:

1. Brett Favre is gone.

2. Aaron Rodgers, nickname "A-Rod" (you know what the "A" and the rod stand for, right..?) is a jerk. Plus, he looks like a poor-man's Ben Roethlisberger. Rodgers has some talent to be sure, but much of his skill and success owe to the fact that he got to observe Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre play for three years.

3. Green Bay is friggin cold. Like Siberia, but without the gulags.

4. Wisconsin is the West Virginia of the Midwest. For instance, most residents believe that the Earth popped out of hyperspace about 8,000 years ago fully populated with modern humans. That's what happens when you drop out of high school at age 21 and take a job in your family's auto salvage business. Naturally, most of them also believe wholeheartedly in the Packers.

5. The team's name is a salute to meat packing (i.e. the Meat Packers, but they dropped "meat" for some reason). Meat packing is big industry in Green Bay and elsewhere in Wisconsin. That, toilet paper production, and auto salvage (because so much salt is used on the roads here in winter).

And people wonder why the high tech industry struggles in Wisconsin.

Well, be sure to see the movie "Concussion." Football—it's "America's game"! (and especially Wisconsin's)

We'll try to bring you some ice sailing news if and when the lake freezes over.