Diego Garcia

 Diego Garcia: aka Gilligans Island

Welcome to Diego Garcia: 86 degrees, bright and sunny paradise. There is a gentle breeze that keeps things fresh here. I would have been a horrible soldier in Nam; jungle heat is not for me. We had a long plane ride on a D-8 with several other people, and I started thinking there isn’t much lonelier than being on tour on the other side of the planet, and I’m here with friends. There isn’t much communication with the world I know, and this is nowadays. Imagine what an 18-year-old was thinking in NAM or WW2? 

I’m also coming somewhere to have fun and tell jokes about these long flights going to go into jungle warfare- that would have made me crazy. I really look up to anyone who was in a war. I am 29- would it be easier if I was 10 years younger- I don’t know. Hats off to you vets!

We are coming in for a landing, and we are in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I am very excited to be on the island. We go through British Security and watch some videos on safety. A dog sniffed Downey’s crotch at the airport, and he looked over toward me and said, “it smelled like every sailor that went through NY!” that was odd. We have 3 shows here, so we get to stay for a while. We met our contact and went to a fantastic Mongolian BBQ place on the beach and headed back. 


We are all travel logged. On the island, you need to fill jugs up with potable water for drinking. My view on clean water: I’m all about being green I just don’t want to poop that color.

The Philippians send people to work on the island, so the grocery has some weird stuff

 Where the hell is we!

 

The People In Charge

In Order: Command Master Chief Collins, Kevin Downey Jr., Left Tenet Logistics Officer Alex Flinton, Stephan Kruiser, Carol Montgomery, Command Officer Tony Chatan, Leigann Lord, Executive Officer Musgraves, Mark Riccadonna

We met some officers and they where excellent:



Tony Chamtan (sorry if I butcher the names it is off of memory) He is the Commanding Officer, He came across as a movie character of the man in charge. What a cool dude, out of Louisiana.

Musgraves, aka “The Cowboy,” one of the funniest executive Officers I ever met, cracking some great jokes during the meeting.

Collins: He didn’t say much at the beginning, he came across as the strict type, but once the Q&A was over, he cracked us up. He is a Command Master Chief out of the upstate NY area(by the Canadian border)

And last but not least, Logistics Officer from Manchester England Alex Flinton. I thought going in wow a powerful female AND British she must get razzed quite a bit, but she didn’t just hold her own she had us rolling on the floor laughing from busting chops.


 
 
 Leper colony remains (insert joke here)




This morning we woke up (Tues) to watch Monday night football. Its 5:30 AM, and we start making cocktails. Underground comedy tour. “We do more drinking by 6AM than most do all day”. We went to the radio and acted up, I’m a little nervous we were obnoxious.

We touched The INDIAN OCEAN.

We got to tour around after radio: Kevin, Stephan, and I were laughing that the birds outside our door are called Boobies, and the barking sound we hear is gecko lizards. Kelly Harkins (our guide I so rudely didn’t introduce you the reader to) showed us around and explained here the bright blue water is the lagoon (sharks don’t swim there) and dark water is the ocean (don’t swim there). 

There are wild donkeys they call it donkey gate (sounds like a government incident), Turtle cove where sea turtles come to lay eggs. The Brits made a lot of the island a nature preserve.
Because of the location, there are a lot of storms but not bad ones.

THE CREW: Underground All-Stars
 Stephan Kruiser, Carol Montgomery, Leighann Lord, Mark Riccadonna, and Kevin Downey Jr.

The base is a considerable fuel farm and ideally located to be the warning for anyone over here (this side of the marble) thinks of getting out of control- Britain and the US will spank you. The Land is Britons, and the buildings on it are ours. We have a few B-52s here, which was impressive, and France had a leprosy colony here, and we went to get pics, and carol freaked, saying she got leper juice on here. We were dying laughing, she kills me. This will be a fun stretch to do- in one place for a couple days; I hope the weather stops raining.

This is the plane, not the band.. just saying show respect!

Right: B-52. One of my favorite Air Planes EVER. It looks like a vulture.
BELOW: WEAPONS. NAVY STYLE, these guys are badass!

ABOVE: I am really looking forward to the show, but before this happens, we went to the weapons department (Navy) and got a great tour. There aren’t pics for obvious reasons, but believe me when I say there is enough firepower to start a big war on this little island. We saw warheads guidance systems and all the fun stuff

 These two on the left are Medal of Honor holders. They gave their lives to get those medals. the top one looks like Kevin’s brother (famous author) Pat Downey 
Below he looks allot like our fellow average white guy comic DJ HAZARD. We said NAVY guys either look like jolly underage, happy go lucky, or grizzled salty dogs. Below this is the clinic. If you get seriously hurt, it will take 3 days to get you out, OR if you can’t wait, the life vac to fly you out is somewhere around $250,000 just to get you off the island.

SHOWTIME: First show in Diego

In the Island Room all night for 3 nights in a row.



There was a good crowd, and they are the troops who are looking out for the other guys. They said they will get more people out.

 I wish you, as the reader, could view how horrible the color is on this SUV she is driving!

Our DD- Kelly. We only drove 2 doors down in her lime green SUV but we love her anyway for hooking all of us up. Kelly is incredible for getting us some amazing things coming up with the AFE, MWR, and Diego Garcia crew!