…but the effect they just had on the squirrel outside my window—who responded to the sudden roar by freaking the fuck out in five directions at once—almost makes me love them for a split-second.

But then I feel sorry for the squirrel, and my Blue Angels hatred returns.

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...

119 replies on “I Hate the Blue Angels”

  1. On the average, one F/A-18 uses approximately 8,000 pounds or 1,300 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel at a cost of roughly $1,378. That’s per flight, per plane. That’s over 27,000 gallons of fuel just for our little four day affair. Weren’t we trying to reduce our dependence on oil?

    The basic acquisition price of a single F/A-18 A Hornet is approximately $21 million. Great way to spend money in the middle of a friggin recession, when budgets are being cut for everything we might need more than a handful of war machines flying over our homes for an entire weekend.

  2. @51, I guess I probably shouldn’t mention how much it costs every time Obama gets on Air Force One, then. Which he does a lot

  3. “e I’m a refugee from another country – y’know, one of the ones we bomb mercilessly.”

    I know you’re dumber than rocks, but you know that most, say Vietnamese, refugees who fled to this country supported the US effort there, right? THis is why you never see a  communist Vietnamese flag hanging in a Seattle pho restaurant, the only place you can afford to eat out in dipshit.

    Come on, just seeing Seattle hippies and ‘Peace now’ sissies wet themselves and run and hide under their beds with their neurotic tails between their legs for 3 days is worth it.

    You’re not men, you’re shi-tzus with bladder problems.

    Go Angels!

  4. Time for a poll: 1) grew up here and love the angels; 2) grew up here and hate the angels; 3) not from here and love the angels; 4) not from here and hate the angels.
    Full disclosure, I grew up here and to me the Blue Angels are the sound of summer.

  7. @51 I’m guessing they don’t buy a new fleet of F-18’s every year for these shows. And if you seriously want to talk about ways to reduce dependence on oil, an air show recruitment tool for the Navy should be pretty far down your list.

    @54 – I’ll take 5) grew up here and am largely indifferent. I’ve never made a point of seeing them, but on the few occasions I have seen the show, I enjoyed it.

  8. @54 interesting…I usually associate summer with laughter, babies, puppies, bird chirps, fresh cut grass and a nice breeze

    I must be a freak…..doh!

  12. America
    America

    America, Fuck Yeah!
    Comin’ again to save the motherfuckin’ day, Yeah

    America, Fuck Yeah!
    Freedom is the only way, Yeah

    Terrorists, you’re game is through
    ”cause now you have ta answer to

    America, Fuck yeah!
    So lick my butt and suck on my balls

    America, Fuck Yeah!
    Whatcha’ gonna do when we come for you now

    It’s the dream that we all share
    It’s the hope for tomorrow
    (Fuck Yeah!)

    McDonald’s (Fuck Yeah!)
    Wal-Mart (Fuck Yeah!)
    The Gap (Fuck Yeah!)
    Baseball (Fuck Yeah!)
    The NFL (Fuck Yeah!)
    Rock N’ Roll (Fuck Yeah!)
    The Internet (Fuck Yeah!)
    Slavery (Fuck Yeah!)
    (etc., etc….)

  14. Haborview has a Refugee Medicine Clinic because that demographic has some unique medical problems. Every time the Angels fly by there are people who literally throw themselves to the ground. Others scream, duck, or simply cower in anguish. Calls for appointments during Seafair week spike due to increased PTSD symptoms. These people truly suffer.

  16. @54, I’ll take 6) — grew up here, and think the argument about whether the Blue Angels suck or not is the best thing about summer.

  17. Same as every year, jets are cool. So are hydroplanes. Don’t “belong” in the city? Neither do dogs, but I like those too.

    The F/A-18s never saw combat until 1986, in case anyone’s speculating on exactly who’s might be PTSD’ing today.

  21. @70: That was showing restraint. Even if people don’t care about refugees, there are a lot of veterans with PTSD who are flipping their shit right now. I don’t care if these specific planes were manufactured in ’86, I think it’s more about the sound of fighter jets, the fast shadow passing overhead, and the wind whipping by your face as you try to figure out what the fuck is going on.

    I’m glad it’s nostalgic for some people, but please move it somewhere where we can choose whether or not to experience it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

  23. It could be worse, they could sound like vuvuzelas.

    BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz

  25. Couldn’t we have an airshow with acrobatic electric planes? Not loud enough?

    Boeing was working on a fuel cell plane. Maybe they could fly that around a bit.

  27. I am surprised nobody has brought up the point that the fucking roads are shut down for the blue angels to fly around. With how transit oriented the SLOG is I was shocked.

    I-90 is shut down for portions of the day for 4 days. It also goes to show that when you shut down a freeway the whole world doesn’t fall apart after all. It really puts the viaduct issues i perspective.

  28. @76 That arguement works great. It goes just like this; “You can avoid my fist if you just move your face. Surely you don’t mind me throwing punches at you.”

  29. I wonder if there’s an ADA case here. I would never do it, but if PTSD counts as a mental condition… Also, this has to go way over the legally allowed decibel level.

  30. I hate anything that makes loud noises. That includes most of SeaFair. And yes, I’m a native. (I hate hydros and rhododendrons too. So sue me.)

  32. America Fuck Yea! popped up on my iPod’s random shuffle as they were buzzing by. It was the closest I’ve come to enjoying their annual terrorism of my ‘hood.

  33. I live in a town where fists have been a summer tradition for decades. Fists occur each summer, like clockwork, and I sit around and complain. Rather than whining incessantly and getting hit by the fist, I could easily plan ahead and avoid the fist when it is scheduled to occur.

  34. @51, the Blue Angels don’t run on jet fuel, dummy, they run on sweet, liquid freedom. Which is why you can hear all that loud freedom when they fly overhead.

    Only planes from socialist countries need to use actual jet fuel (I’m looking at you, Red Arrows.)

  38. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that only 1 out of 10 people claiming to be worried about some vet’s PTSD ever think of veterans beyond the time they want to make this argument.

  41. Jebus, this thread has 92 replies? I wanted to reply earlier today but was at work… I’m not going to read all these replies now, but I wanted to say something…

    Complaining about the Blue Angels is fucking lame.

    There seem to be two complaints, noise and the eeevvvil military. I find it a little silly that all the slog folks who go on about urban living and how it involves things you might not like such as club/street noise, graffiti/tagging, etc etc but that you should suck it up and quit whining, complain about this. The Blue Angles are here for a couple days a year and it’s loud. Boo hoo. These are probably the same people that complain about fireworks noise on the 4th. Living in the city also means dealing with frequent traffic jams from pro sports events that I have no interest in, but I don’t get all worked up about it.

    But it’s evil military propaganda! O noez! So? They are up front that the Blue Angels are a recruitment tool, it isn’t a secret. Let people make up their own minds. This seems to be a product of a reflexive anti-military stance which is idealistic and naive. We may not like certain things the military does, but they are following orders from elected (well sometimes…2000) civilians. The military itself is not inherently evil and serves some very important functions. As such, they need recruitment just like any other organization. Am I going to sign up because I saw some cool stunts? No, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to do the stunts.

    In short, STFU crybabies. At least try to appreciate the amazing combination of technology and human skill that goes into it. Nobody is making you watch it, but they are hugely popular and aren’t going away.

  42. I love the blue angels because it means that I’m hearing the sound of freedom and it just makes me think of all those little iraqi kids who herd the sound of freedom too and even though some of them dies it means that the others are no free from saddam hussein and his axis of evil.

  43. I don’t like them. “At least try to appreciate the amazing combination of technology and human skill that goes into it.” Ha ha ha ha, that’s a hilarious sentence!

  46. I don’t complain about the noise and I don’t mind it. It is kind of nice because everyone looks up and around trying to find them.

    However, I am pissed that certain roads/bridges are closed because of Federal Aviation concerns for safety of people and the pilots. Excuse me. Those planes were just flying right over heavily populated downtown/pioneer square/capitol hill etc areas with businesses, homes and sometimes packed public parks and the aviation people are concerned about plane crashes on bridges.

    Frak the FAA for fraking with the commuting public.

  47. I find that a little silly too. A couple years ago I was setting up a fireworks show for the Oregon International Airshow and the Blue Angels were performing that weekend. This was shortly after the fatal crash in 2007 and they made us leave the field for practice. I wasn’t too worried about the Blue Angels considering we were setting up fireworks with F-15s flying 100ft overhead (possibly the loudest thing I’ve ever heard).

    I didn’t get a good picture of the FA-18s, but here is their support plane with some racks in the foreground:
    http://amnt.vox.com/library/photo/6a00cd…

  48. @92: As someone who works with veterans and is related to several, I’m glad to be one of the people that actually means it.

    And to everyone comparing the blue angels to normal city and bar noise, I’d like to say it’s both quantitatively and qualitatively different. It’s both louder (decibel-level) and in sharp bursts. At the end of the day, it’s a simple question: is tradition and the enjoyment of the majority more important then sensitivity for the needs of a minority? That’s a question you have to answer for yourself, but don’t minimize the impact it has on others so you can feel better about your position.

    Dismissing people’s experience just adds insult to injury.

  49. David, You’re as old as I am. Almost as old as Dan. We’re at that age when this sort of undergraduate cliche complaining is unseemly. I offer that as a friend, dear.

    Besides, You’ve lived in this city for decades. If you hate the Blue Angels so much, why don’t you plan a nice little trip each year? Go pay your respects at the grave of JD and Alice Ross at the Skagit hydroelectric project, or perhaps visit beautiful Kelso. We live in a vacation wonderland, after all….

  50. I admire the Blue Angeles for the engineering and high “fuck yeah!” factor, but then I imagine myself as a little brown person running in terror as hellfire and death rains down on me, and the “fuck yeah” turns to “hmmm, maybe that isn’t so cool”. At which point I hear the ignorant retort of a god-and-country loving hillbilly along the lines of “fuck those little brown people, they get what they deserve.” Then I start having an imaginary argument with the hillbilly, at which point I realize this is all in my head and I move on.

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