On December 26th, 2008, my fiancée Lydia and I drove to Madison, Wisconsin, to spend the day with my mom and fake dad. Fake dad had been doing some winter cleaning and came across an old floppy disc of mine, God knows from where. He said it contained a word document titled "Psycho," that he had opened it and it looked like a story. I nearly shit a brick. I knew exactly what he was talking about, and was exceedingly excited as I had long thought the physical copy of the tale had been as long lost as the mental version in my muddled mind.
In 1996, I was attending college at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and tending bar at both Benjamin Briggs Pub & Grill (no longer in existence) and the restaurant Pieces of Eight (hilariously no longer in existence; they remodeled, re-invested, and were kicked off their property by the city). Back then, the internet was in its infancy, and email was foreign to most people. Texting didn't exist and public phones were still prevalent, as cell phones were not. The Fox network was still considered a rebellious challenge to the big three networks, and computers used floppy discs to store mobile files (that my mom and fake dad have a system that still accepts floppies tells you how often they update their technology). While modernization has changed the way we look at email and phone use, some things remain the same; not only do I still use the same email address I did back then, but writing out the tale I used a young rising star named Jennifer Aniston as an example of a sex symbol. Twelve years later, I'd probably do the same thing, only now I'd have to add and asterisk to her name and footnote that being involved with John Mayer has given her the same untouchable status as a leper. Some people you want nothing to do with after they make such poor life choices.
(Another amusing note is that this all got started due to what is essentially known today as "Forwarding." Back then, it was amusing to receive a chain email letter. Today, not so much so)
To date, I have had two stalkers in my life, and both instances occurred around somewhere during this period of the nineties. One was an Asian exchange student, someone who had bumped into me while tending bar at a restaurant called Nancy's (thankfully no longer in existence), and the other was a woman from South Dakota. Someday I'll sit down and do my best to recall what happened involving the Asian sensation, but the story "Psycho" was a re-telling of the tale involving the midwestern woman. Back then, in the days before blogging, I would write several long letters a year about my life, then print up and mail them (at a decent expense) to friends around the country who may or may not have been interested in receiving such shit.
I re-post the tale of my second stalker here, written in 1996, with only her name changed. When I first wrote and mailed it out, I used her real name, but I don't think there's any reason to do such a thing today when posting for public consumption to the web.
It started innocently enough. Then again, I suppose it always does, doesn’t it? A friend of mine in Boston, Pete, has a mailing list on his computer. Not a standard mailing list of addresses, but one of those Internet e-mail deals you’ve probably heard so much about. I am on this list, so is she. “She,” is Julia, a thirty-year-old grad. student in South Dakota. This is our story.
Pete's list has a theme to it: humor. If you happen across something amusing, such as a joke or story, you electronically send it in and he zaps to the people on file. One day I decided to offer a story I had written about Pete and I and our contributions to the Sperm Bank of Boston. The story was quite well received; I got many compliments from strangers. Julia was one of the complimenters. Trying to be considerate, I sent “Thank Yous” to anyone who wrote. Julia replied to the thank you, and a dialog was started.
Common interest came by way of "The Tick," a Saturday morning cartoon show. Living in South Dakota, though, prevented her from watching the program as no Fox affiliate existed; South Dakota ranks somewhere behind most Third World countries in this case. I was taping the show on a regular basis and offered to send her a copy. She was ecstatic. I was amused. We began emailing one another daily, and my eyebrow raised itself in curiosity; could this be one of those “Internet Romances” popping up across the country the media was raving about? I sent the tape, and with that she got my physical address.
Two weeks later I received a female condom in the mail. An odd thank you, as our interactions had never been anything more than friendly. Though we got along easily, we never discussed any sort of sexual attraction, and had never even exchanged photos. Regardless, a note was attached to the condom, “Save this, I’m coming to visit.” In my imagination, I figured that should this woman happen to look like Jennifer Aniston, I would be in heaven. No dummy I, I did not believe fortune would smile upon me so and became cautious. I asked Pete if I should be afraid. The single word reply was, “Yes.”
Julia asked for a picture. Playing off Pete's chillingly brief warning, I sent a photo of me skydiving. My head was bowed and the helmet covered my face. It gave no indication of my looks and was half joke, half identity protection. Julie emailed me that she loved the picture and hung it in the middle of the living room she shared with four other roommates. They told her I was “something special,” which alarmed me more than Pete's warning. Not only had I no idea how I was being described to warrant such a compliment, but I hadn't really told anyone about her, because there was nothing to tell. Meanwhile, I was common knowledge to her friends? Creepy.
The condom was followed by a string of erotic messages left in my e-mail account, each more graphic than the previous. They began to detail what she wanted to do to me and how it was going to be “the best night of my life.” Though several weeks had passed since I sent my picture, the favor had not yet been returned, a definite cause for alarm.
The volume with which I responded to her mail decreased by half. Where to this point I had always dropped a decent reply to each message, I now began sending short notes to roughly every third one. A detailed account of actions she was going to perform on my body would receive, “Just got home from work, got your letter, am too tired to write” in response. She used my backing off to double her efforts, sending two or three letters a day. Some would be violently angry, decrying her life and position in it, then do the most bizarre switch into how I would rescue her from her mundane existence. "I hate my job! Everyone I work with is stupid! I need a vacation. Can you perform oral sex for hours on end?” is a direct quote.
I was told my picture was masturbation material and received a second package in my physical mailbox. Nothing sexual this time, thankfully, but instead several small, odd, gifts. According to the accompanying note, she thought of me when she saw each item and decided to buy and send them. One trinket was a bizarre looking plastic mug shaped like a cartoon vampire, another was a Frankenstein refrigerator magnet. As I didn't have a particular affection for old horror movies and had never hinted to her I might, why these reminded her of me I do not know.
I decided I needed to stop being a pussy and just get everything out on the table. Where was she going with all of this, what did she look like, and what did she think we had going on? Her reply was hesitatingly honest, and I felt somewhat ashamed. “I am a little self-conscious because I am surrounded by women who eat red meat all the time and never exercise," she wrote. "It wears off on me and makes me lazy." At the end of the note, she dropped a mini-bomb; "By the way, I'll be visiting friends in Wisconsin in two weeks, and on December 28th we're going to road-trip to Milwaukee to meet you. You better be home, or else..."
The "or else" was probably meant playfully, but my reaction was immediately opposite; I told her was going to be out of town. There was a photography exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art I wanted to see--by Andres Serrano--and several friends and I had plans to spend several days visiting the windy city.
She was furious. “ASSHOLE MOTHERFUCKER BASTARD SHITBAG ASSHOLE MOTHERFUCKER” was left in my inbox the very next day. “I AM COMING TO MEET YOU WHETHER OR NOT YOU WANT ME TO, SO YOU BETTER FIND TIME FOR ME TO DO SO BEFORE SUNDAY!”
Her "How to Win Friends and Influence People" response sealed the near-contracted deal for me. I told her my schedule was full and that there was nothing I could do about it. I received another thrashing. I also received and oddly timed surprise. On the same day her second email of vitriol and spite found its way into my email inbox, my physical mailbox received an envelope from her, something obviously mailed before I told her I wouldn't be around for her arrival. Gathering up great courage, Julia had finally sent her picture, along with the note, “Just wanted to send something so you’d know who was knocking at your door when I come.”
The picture was simply her face, which was enough. As cruel as it sounds, it is a face that created the phrase, "only a mother could love." I probably gave Homer Simpson's fear bleat upon gazing upon it. As much as I knew I was dealing with an easily wounded ego, I was also concerned with the tone of her emails and entirely sure I didn't want to end up in a room alone with her.
Two weeks passed quickly, with Julia continuing to insist she was going to meet me no matter what. My plans to visit Chicago fell apart, and I couldn't think of a thing to do for the weekend. In the least, I figured I just wouldn't answer my door if at home on Thursday.
As if on cue, at one o’clock that very afternoon, I was home alone, sitting in my room reading when the door buzzer went off. Someone was in the lobby looking to get in. I closed the book and frowned; no one ever buzzed my apartment. The door buzzed again--I got up cautiously--the door buzzed. I decided against answering, and instead walked into the living room and sat down behind a plant next to the window. From this vantage point I could see the front porch; the apartment was on the first floor, and when the person left I would know who it was. If friend, I would knock on the window, bid them back and explain my childish behavior. If foe...
The door buzzed. Two minutes had passed since the first sounding. This person was persistent. I remained seated. Two more minutes passed filled with intermittent buzzing. I was now irritated. When phoning, how many rings do you wait before deciding someone isn’t home? Twenty? Fifty? This was absurd. What was running through this person's mind, “Maybe someone’s home, but in the shower. if I keep ringing, they’ll get out and come to the door?” I have no idea.
After six minutes the front door opened. My mystery woman from South Dakota stepped out, shook her head, and walked away. As cruel as it is to say, her description of being "lazy" told half the story; she was roughly 5'4" and topped 200 pounds easily. I could see where the self-esteem problem came from, but the aggression that went with it is what had me on edge. I went back to my room and resumed reading. Moments later the door buzzer went off and was held for ten seconds. While not a long time in most cases, when listening to a door buzzer it is an eternity. I closed the book and wondered; had she somehow seen me step away from the window? Three short bursts filled the air, followed by silence. I began reading again and eventually went to work undisturbed.
This action repeated itself several times a day over the next few days, all the way until December 31st. On that evening, I went to work as usual, and it being New Years Eve my first call of order was to get as much stock ready as possible. The reservation book was full, and we expected to go through liquor like mad. I was in back of the restaurant grabbing bottles when the word came; “Nate, there’s someone here to see you.” My mind went on red alert. Never before had words spoken so innocently filled me with dread. Had I ever told this woman where I worked? Sometime in the beginning of our correspondence? She often referred to my early mailings, so I suspected she saved them. This was not good.
“Who is it?” I asked.
The hostess didn’t know.
“I’m busy,” I said flatly and went back to stocking.
She shrugged. Five minutes later my partner bartender came back; “Nate, your sister stopped by and dropped off some things for you.” I thumped my head against the wall. I was now officially paranoid.
That night I worked, went out with co-workers, and finally returned home and got to bed around six am. At nine my alarm went off; I was driving to Oshkosh for the day to visit a friend. I got up from my nighttime “nap” and called him, checking to make sure he was awake and such. The door buzzer went off in the middle of our brief conversation. I excused myself from the phone and hung up. Something didn’t feel right.
I took my seat by the window and waited. The door buzzer sounded repeatedly over three minutes, then paused. Moments later, I heard my neighbor’s door open; the lobby security door soon followed suit. Two seconds later the other apartment door closed and a knock came upon mine. This was not a knock used to wake a person on New Years Morning, but a cautious one, almost too quiet to be effective. It was repeated several times over the minute it took me to gently tiptoe across my creaky living room floor to reach the door. Once there, I looked through the peephole.
As sunlight was pouring into the inner lobby behind the figure, all I could see was a dark silhouette. It was very large. I couldn’t be 100% positive, but who else could it be? I stood bent over, watching every move, listening to every knock resound a mere inch from my head. My breathing was light. The figure leaned over. It looked into the peephole from the outside. We were now watching each other separated only by two inches of wood. I had to fight back laughter over the absurdity of the situation.
Then the doorknob turned.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Quietly.
This wasn’t a person casually entering a room. Someone was testing waters here, putting their big toe in to check for warmth. The knob reached its crescent and paused. Gentle pressure was applied; the door creaked in my ear. Someone wanted in. The door moved a millimeter, was halted by the lock, held in place a moment, then relaxed. I returned to the peephole.
The figure stood with slumped shoulders; a defeated pose. Its head looked up and to the side, as if in thought. It retreated into the light. Julia looked out the lobby door, back at the apartment, and left. I got dressed in twenty seconds and left out the back, un-showered and unconcerned by that stinky fact.
At 10:32 pm I returned to my apartment; it had been a good day. At 10:35 the door buzzer fired. Fortunately, I do not light the entire apartment when entering. I had walked in, gone to my room, and flipped only that switch on. This cannot be seen from the front of the building, which meant there was no sign of life in the apartment. I stole to my window seat in the darkness. The buzzer rang again. A minute later, my now nemesis left; her waits were growing dramatically shorter. I sat wondering how many times she had repeated this action throughout the day.
The next morning I woke around eight and lay in bed until eight thirty. I heard the phone ring and my roommate Jack rushed for it in a panic as he always did. Something about a ringing phone made Jack trip over himself to answer it, as if one day he would receive the winning lottery call from a beautiful nymphomaniac waiting to give him great sex with his million dollars. Regardless, Jack answered the phone, and moments later, there was a knock at my bedroom door.
“Hey,” he said, a look of caution on his face. “The phone’s for you. Some woman I don’t recognize. Should I say you aren’t home?” Jack knew the situation. How could he not? My South Dakota stalker had been buzzing our door for five days now.
I thought it over. It was Tuesday. Julia had mentioned she needed to be back in South Dakota this very morning. She left so quickly last night it looked like a last ditch effort.
“Nah,” I replied. I had never sent my number anyway, and I wasn't listed. “I’ll see who it is.”
“You sure? I’ll run interference for you.”
I waved him off, which I'll call an early morning "not thinking yet" mistake.
I grabbed the phone.
“Hello,” I stated.
“Is this Nate?”
I didn’t recognize the voice, and therefore knew exactly who it belonged to. Was I fucking retarded for taking the call? Jesus.
“Yup.”
“Do you know who this is?”
There was giddiness in her tone.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.” I said flatly, suggesting this was not interesting to me.
“Ok, well, I’m coming over now.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I’m right around the corner on a pay phone, so don’t even try to get away. I’ll only stay for a minute, there’s something I want to give you.”
I paused. This would be difficult to get out of. Even if I hung up, she knew I was home. I decided she was NOT getting into my apartment. I’d meet her in the lobby.
“Whatever.”
“Ok, great, see you in a minute.”
She hung up. I shook my head. This would all be over soon.
Why hadn’t I let Jack tell the person I wasn't home?
The apartment door soon emitted a knock; the lobby must have been unlocked.
Great.
I walked into the next room and answered it.
There she stood, Julia in all her glory.
She was smiling. I frowned and gave a squint of irritation in greeting.
“DON’T SAY ANYTHING!!” She shouted, raising her hand in alarm. “DON’T SAY ANYTHING!! I don't want to ruin the moment!”
Ruin the moment?
She put forth her hand, in it was a small Tick figurine.
“DON’T SAY ANYTHING! Just take it... NO! DON’T SAY ANYTHING! Don’t ruin the moment... just stand there with my gift. My gift to you...”
I held out my hand, confused more than irritated, accepted the action figure, and watched as she clasped her hands together as if showing the joy of a child.
“DON’T SAY ANYTHING!"
This seemed to be all she could get out.
“I’m going now... I just wanted to meet you and give you that.”
She waved and moved away from the door.
I stood silently, unable to say anything even had I wanted to.
She left.
I closed the door.
What the hell had just happened?
That’s where it ends. Julia never emailed me again, and I had had enough of the anger and erotic pushing from her to reach out to her in either friendship or otherwise. I asked Pete about her once, and he had little to say, so I let it go. The only thing that remained to be explained was her phone call, which Jack had a theory about. I cannot prove or disprove it, and I can’t say that I disagree with his thoughts. Jack said she called two minutes after he walked in the front door that morning. This is the amount of time it would take a person to get to the pay phone around the corner if standing in front of our building. Was she watching? Standing in the cold or sitting in her car, waiting for someone to enter the apartment? Jack was roughly my height and we both had dark hair, so from a distance…
Either way, the phone was in Jack’s name. She must have looked him up after not finding my lovely moniker in the white pages and grabbing his off the mailbox in the lobby. Not much Sherlock Holmes action needed to figure that one out.
So, as Vonnegut wrote, it goes...
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
the death of charity within me
it's taken me a long time to understand that questioning something and chastising it are often perceived as the same action.
lyds donated money to both the obama campaign and npr this year, and each time i wondered aloud why she did so. not that i didn't feel the causes worthy, it's just that for some time, giving has been something i rarely do. until recently, i never sat down to examine why. i cannot say i am either proud or ashamed of this mindset, it simply is what it is.
my initial flirtation with offering aid began in college. one day, without reason, i got a bug in my butt to volunteer at a soup kitchen. i made a few phone calls--this was back in the dark ages, before a google search could net you 10,000 hits in .23 seconds--and found a location in a church several miles from my apartment, one in a seedy milwaukee neighborhood. the shelter gave meals daily, so i simply showed up unannounced one evening. the hall was like any old-school rectory basement; spacious, and able to fit several rows of school-style picnic tables at a length of about ten deep. overall, a couple hundred people could eat simultaneously with enough elbowroom to be comfortable.
i wandered around looking for someone in charge and was brushed off several times by disinterested people, until i finally came upon a cluster of people with a bit of authority. i asked what i could do to help, and was met with an odd mix of suspicion and hostility. i was thrown, but after a few moments spent assuring everyone i was simply there to do what i was told, i was given the glorious honor of wiping down tables after people finished eating, that the next wave of needy could fill their tummies.
a line would begin to form about an hour before service, and i was warned not to hang out outside, as stabbings, muggings and other fun activities took place beyond god's walls. when the doors opened, an interesting influx of arrivals would enter, and even on my first night i could tell who was who. those new to the game had down turned heads and slumping body posture in embarrassment of their need. those who had surpassed this stage walked in with simple acceptance; they were hungry, this is what they had to do, and there was no shame in it. the final ingredient in the blend the actors. usually young men, they walked in with a swagger and sunglasses, dressed like they didn't need the food and making a show of their favor to the church in eating it. the ethnic mix was divided down easy lines; most volunteers were white, most recipients were black. my first couple weeks in, i wondered if this played into the attitudes and slight if not outright contempt many workers had for the diners.
wiping tables was by no means interesting, rewarding or fun, but i began a weekly pattern of riding my bike into the ghetto and doing what i could for those in need of human assistance. i didn't do it for bragging rights, karma or acknowledgement, i only volunteered because it seemed like the thing to do. i had the time, charity doesn't happen by accident and it seemed more productive than playing tetris, my common pastime. over the course of a year, my attitude did begin a shift into negative territory. while i never looked forward to going in, neither did i ever resent it. but toward the end, i did start to feel a hesitation.
when you spend time in any one area of life, you become aware of little nuances that make up the whole of a setting. cracks begin to shine through the foundation you once saw as solid. everything you witnessed but didn't notice initially stands out, and this takes place in jobs, relationships or friendships. after a year, instead of seeing simple need, i saw waste. people would go down the food line taking heaps of everything offered, then sit, eat the dessert and throw all else away. this action was far from rare, it was widely practiced. i began to get irritated by it; the idea people couldn't simply say "not interested" to whatever they weren't going to eat anyway offended me, especially when i noticed the families acting with complete disregard for instilling a sense of value in their children. to not clean your own plate is one thing, but to raise a child under the banner that waste, let alone waste of auspice, is acceptable? i began to understand why my fellow volunteers were embittered. before i could reach their level of apathy or anger, i bowed out. one week i didn't feel like volunteering, so i didn't go. and then i never went back again.
i still had the sense to act in a positive manner in me, though, and gestated a bit over my next move. such meditation eventually ended in deciding to adopt a third-world child in need. i researched a few outfits, centered on one and contacted away. forms were filed, choices were made and before long i was writing to (and sending checks for) a young boy in latin america. thanks to the simpsons, my friends and i diminished my kindness by referring to him as "pepe." but i was still happy to be doing my small part to combat the problems of a destitute nation. i wrote my little "dear ndugu" notes well ahead of the reference just made, and though i tried to be simple and straightforward in my letters--"i hope you are well, i hope your family is well"--i'm sure they were as foreign to my ward as those written by nicholson. i received pictures and crayola drawings in return, hung a few on the old fridge and filed others away in a folder i bought for correspondence.
the particular organization i went through had a graduation age for adoptees, and when it was reached i'd receive a packet of choices for my next child. in my years as a member, i believe i helped three children on three continents--south america, africa and asia--reach maturity, but as with the food pantry, i began becoming irritated by patterns i had dismissed early on. every new packet i received came with the same basic description, "(name) is the youngest of six/eight/ten children, living in abject poverty and in desperate need..." and i would read and wince. six children? eight children. ten fucking children? if these people are living in abject poverty, why the fuck are they continually squirting out more mouths they can't feed? because they need farm hands? because so few will eventually survive? sorry, that's shit logic and works against basic intuition regardless of education or economic standing. yes, once again, my ego got in the way of compassion and i had to opt out of adopting a fourth child before becoming even more of a fuck of a human being than i already felt like.
it was now the late 1990's and i was performing stand up comedy, so several of us decided to throw shows for charity. we would set everything up, practice our craft, and pass the door's take to a different foundation every time. many organizations were kind and giving, both putting out the word to supporters of their cause and appreciative of the money we gave. but an odd, or maybe understandable parallel between the size of the institution and their kindness (or lack of it) soon became apparent. when local groups were promoted, they were the most open and appreciative to our help. the larger the system, naturally, the more the red tape and less support there was.
my first (and worst) experience came at the hands of the make a wish foundation. a local dj heard of our shows, and having an interest in both comedy and the causes we supported, invited me to appear on air to promote the event. sadly, he wasn't aware of my ever-present ignorance when it comes to inappropriate behavior. simply put, i find very few subjects to be taboo in life, and things that somehow make others wince make me giggle. maybe i'm wired wrong, but when i got on the radio this was the exchange heard throughout the metropolis of milwaukee:
bryan erwin, dj: "i've got local comedian nathan timmel in the studio with me, he's part of a group of comics running "comedy for charity" down at stooges comedy club. every week they throw a show and donate the money to a worthy cause. nathan, why don't you tell us about this week's show and charity?"
me, idiot: "thanks bryan. this week we're donating to the very popular make a wish foundation. if you're not familiar, this is a great organization that allows terminally ill children the chance to do something they've always wanted to but never had the chance to, such as visit disneyworld, swim with the dolphins, or have their first homosexual experience."
bryan cut my mic and immediately went to commercial. he didn't exactly chastise me, but did explain that there was a difference between pushing the envelope and going too far, and for radio, that was definitely going too far.
and he was right.
the next morning my phone rang and the anything but lovely head of either the wisconsin (or milwaukee, i'm not quite sure which) branch of the foundation started shouting at me before i could barely say hello.
"how could you say that? did you think that was funny? how could you suggest that we could do such a thing for a child, or that a child would ever..."
what? be a homosexual?
i rarely show restraint in life when confronted with ignorance, but bryan had shown me great kindness and instead of blasting the woman, i apologized. the foundation had recently undergone a massive public relations disaster for supporting the dying wish of a child wanting to hunt and kill a bear (because i suppose sometimes when you're at your end you don't become enlightened to the idea of life being precious and simply want to take it from other creatures because as it was unfair to you, hey, fuck everyone and everything) and was widely rumored to have purchased prostitutes for children who wanted to lose their virginity. i absolutely wanted to hammer back at this ignorant cunt who was angry with me for suggesting a child would actually be--*gasp*--gay, but i tried, and failed, to keep bryan out of the mess i caused. bryan was eventually fired and i received legal notice to never promote anything even remotely involving the make a wish fucks ever again. as if i would want to.
oddly enough, bryan and i became close friends, and a big, blowout charity show was planned. bryan came from the world of bands and music, had connections, and a theater show was to be our grand farewell from the world of comedy and charity. after slight deliberations, the so-we-thought excellent habitat for humanity organization was green lit for fund reception. putting the cart before the horse, we printed posters, placards and got everything in place... and then contacted habitat for humanity. while kind, they claimed that their modus operandi was to remain inconspicuous. they didn't want to "get in anyone's face" with what they did. they appreciated the money, but weren't interested in either setting up a display at the event, or even sending anyone down to collect the money. they couldn't wait to get the check in the mail, but i don't remember being thanked by anyone i talked to. though feeling slighted, with everything already printed we had no choice but to go ahead with the plan and created what eventually turned out to be a standing room only crowd for an organization who wanted nothing to do with us. i will grant that it was our fault for not checking in with them before deciding to support their cause, but it still felt like a slight.
after that i pretty much ended my kind ways. i still donate food to pantries, but even that has become the occasional afterthought, like grabbing a canned item to place in a bin seen when entering the grocery store. lyds reminded me that this year i bought mosquito netting to combat malaria in africa, but that gesture was defeated by my complaining when lyds attempted to donate to npr a second time; "but i gave to the tribesmen this year..." as if giving was something to mark off a to do list but once.
charity should be like an apology; you don't give an apology to hear one in return, you offer supplication for reasons within you. when it comes to my period of giving, though i never did it for karma, thanks or even recognition, over a decade's time, desire to aid was removed from me. i could espouse bullshit about how governments could end all suffering if they would focus on it, but that doesn't forgive me my complacency or my questioning of lyds when she acts in a manner much more compassionately than i do.
today i find it hard supporting much of anything outside of systems involved with helping animals. maybe lyds can wring the old me back out of my current shell, or maybe i'll just donate more to the humane society and groups that focus on furry creatures.
how mother theresa managed to live among people perpetuating their own problem is beyond me.
sainthood truly is for the christ-like among us, and i have never claimed to be a decent human being.
lyds donated money to both the obama campaign and npr this year, and each time i wondered aloud why she did so. not that i didn't feel the causes worthy, it's just that for some time, giving has been something i rarely do. until recently, i never sat down to examine why. i cannot say i am either proud or ashamed of this mindset, it simply is what it is.
my initial flirtation with offering aid began in college. one day, without reason, i got a bug in my butt to volunteer at a soup kitchen. i made a few phone calls--this was back in the dark ages, before a google search could net you 10,000 hits in .23 seconds--and found a location in a church several miles from my apartment, one in a seedy milwaukee neighborhood. the shelter gave meals daily, so i simply showed up unannounced one evening. the hall was like any old-school rectory basement; spacious, and able to fit several rows of school-style picnic tables at a length of about ten deep. overall, a couple hundred people could eat simultaneously with enough elbowroom to be comfortable.
i wandered around looking for someone in charge and was brushed off several times by disinterested people, until i finally came upon a cluster of people with a bit of authority. i asked what i could do to help, and was met with an odd mix of suspicion and hostility. i was thrown, but after a few moments spent assuring everyone i was simply there to do what i was told, i was given the glorious honor of wiping down tables after people finished eating, that the next wave of needy could fill their tummies.
a line would begin to form about an hour before service, and i was warned not to hang out outside, as stabbings, muggings and other fun activities took place beyond god's walls. when the doors opened, an interesting influx of arrivals would enter, and even on my first night i could tell who was who. those new to the game had down turned heads and slumping body posture in embarrassment of their need. those who had surpassed this stage walked in with simple acceptance; they were hungry, this is what they had to do, and there was no shame in it. the final ingredient in the blend the actors. usually young men, they walked in with a swagger and sunglasses, dressed like they didn't need the food and making a show of their favor to the church in eating it. the ethnic mix was divided down easy lines; most volunteers were white, most recipients were black. my first couple weeks in, i wondered if this played into the attitudes and slight if not outright contempt many workers had for the diners.
wiping tables was by no means interesting, rewarding or fun, but i began a weekly pattern of riding my bike into the ghetto and doing what i could for those in need of human assistance. i didn't do it for bragging rights, karma or acknowledgement, i only volunteered because it seemed like the thing to do. i had the time, charity doesn't happen by accident and it seemed more productive than playing tetris, my common pastime. over the course of a year, my attitude did begin a shift into negative territory. while i never looked forward to going in, neither did i ever resent it. but toward the end, i did start to feel a hesitation.
when you spend time in any one area of life, you become aware of little nuances that make up the whole of a setting. cracks begin to shine through the foundation you once saw as solid. everything you witnessed but didn't notice initially stands out, and this takes place in jobs, relationships or friendships. after a year, instead of seeing simple need, i saw waste. people would go down the food line taking heaps of everything offered, then sit, eat the dessert and throw all else away. this action was far from rare, it was widely practiced. i began to get irritated by it; the idea people couldn't simply say "not interested" to whatever they weren't going to eat anyway offended me, especially when i noticed the families acting with complete disregard for instilling a sense of value in their children. to not clean your own plate is one thing, but to raise a child under the banner that waste, let alone waste of auspice, is acceptable? i began to understand why my fellow volunteers were embittered. before i could reach their level of apathy or anger, i bowed out. one week i didn't feel like volunteering, so i didn't go. and then i never went back again.
i still had the sense to act in a positive manner in me, though, and gestated a bit over my next move. such meditation eventually ended in deciding to adopt a third-world child in need. i researched a few outfits, centered on one and contacted away. forms were filed, choices were made and before long i was writing to (and sending checks for) a young boy in latin america. thanks to the simpsons, my friends and i diminished my kindness by referring to him as "pepe." but i was still happy to be doing my small part to combat the problems of a destitute nation. i wrote my little "dear ndugu" notes well ahead of the reference just made, and though i tried to be simple and straightforward in my letters--"i hope you are well, i hope your family is well"--i'm sure they were as foreign to my ward as those written by nicholson. i received pictures and crayola drawings in return, hung a few on the old fridge and filed others away in a folder i bought for correspondence.
the particular organization i went through had a graduation age for adoptees, and when it was reached i'd receive a packet of choices for my next child. in my years as a member, i believe i helped three children on three continents--south america, africa and asia--reach maturity, but as with the food pantry, i began becoming irritated by patterns i had dismissed early on. every new packet i received came with the same basic description, "(name) is the youngest of six/eight/ten children, living in abject poverty and in desperate need..." and i would read and wince. six children? eight children. ten fucking children? if these people are living in abject poverty, why the fuck are they continually squirting out more mouths they can't feed? because they need farm hands? because so few will eventually survive? sorry, that's shit logic and works against basic intuition regardless of education or economic standing. yes, once again, my ego got in the way of compassion and i had to opt out of adopting a fourth child before becoming even more of a fuck of a human being than i already felt like.
it was now the late 1990's and i was performing stand up comedy, so several of us decided to throw shows for charity. we would set everything up, practice our craft, and pass the door's take to a different foundation every time. many organizations were kind and giving, both putting out the word to supporters of their cause and appreciative of the money we gave. but an odd, or maybe understandable parallel between the size of the institution and their kindness (or lack of it) soon became apparent. when local groups were promoted, they were the most open and appreciative to our help. the larger the system, naturally, the more the red tape and less support there was.
my first (and worst) experience came at the hands of the make a wish foundation. a local dj heard of our shows, and having an interest in both comedy and the causes we supported, invited me to appear on air to promote the event. sadly, he wasn't aware of my ever-present ignorance when it comes to inappropriate behavior. simply put, i find very few subjects to be taboo in life, and things that somehow make others wince make me giggle. maybe i'm wired wrong, but when i got on the radio this was the exchange heard throughout the metropolis of milwaukee:
bryan erwin, dj: "i've got local comedian nathan timmel in the studio with me, he's part of a group of comics running "comedy for charity" down at stooges comedy club. every week they throw a show and donate the money to a worthy cause. nathan, why don't you tell us about this week's show and charity?"
me, idiot: "thanks bryan. this week we're donating to the very popular make a wish foundation. if you're not familiar, this is a great organization that allows terminally ill children the chance to do something they've always wanted to but never had the chance to, such as visit disneyworld, swim with the dolphins, or have their first homosexual experience."
bryan cut my mic and immediately went to commercial. he didn't exactly chastise me, but did explain that there was a difference between pushing the envelope and going too far, and for radio, that was definitely going too far.
and he was right.
the next morning my phone rang and the anything but lovely head of either the wisconsin (or milwaukee, i'm not quite sure which) branch of the foundation started shouting at me before i could barely say hello.
"how could you say that? did you think that was funny? how could you suggest that we could do such a thing for a child, or that a child would ever..."
what? be a homosexual?
i rarely show restraint in life when confronted with ignorance, but bryan had shown me great kindness and instead of blasting the woman, i apologized. the foundation had recently undergone a massive public relations disaster for supporting the dying wish of a child wanting to hunt and kill a bear (because i suppose sometimes when you're at your end you don't become enlightened to the idea of life being precious and simply want to take it from other creatures because as it was unfair to you, hey, fuck everyone and everything) and was widely rumored to have purchased prostitutes for children who wanted to lose their virginity. i absolutely wanted to hammer back at this ignorant cunt who was angry with me for suggesting a child would actually be--*gasp*--gay, but i tried, and failed, to keep bryan out of the mess i caused. bryan was eventually fired and i received legal notice to never promote anything even remotely involving the make a wish fucks ever again. as if i would want to.
oddly enough, bryan and i became close friends, and a big, blowout charity show was planned. bryan came from the world of bands and music, had connections, and a theater show was to be our grand farewell from the world of comedy and charity. after slight deliberations, the so-we-thought excellent habitat for humanity organization was green lit for fund reception. putting the cart before the horse, we printed posters, placards and got everything in place... and then contacted habitat for humanity. while kind, they claimed that their modus operandi was to remain inconspicuous. they didn't want to "get in anyone's face" with what they did. they appreciated the money, but weren't interested in either setting up a display at the event, or even sending anyone down to collect the money. they couldn't wait to get the check in the mail, but i don't remember being thanked by anyone i talked to. though feeling slighted, with everything already printed we had no choice but to go ahead with the plan and created what eventually turned out to be a standing room only crowd for an organization who wanted nothing to do with us. i will grant that it was our fault for not checking in with them before deciding to support their cause, but it still felt like a slight.
after that i pretty much ended my kind ways. i still donate food to pantries, but even that has become the occasional afterthought, like grabbing a canned item to place in a bin seen when entering the grocery store. lyds reminded me that this year i bought mosquito netting to combat malaria in africa, but that gesture was defeated by my complaining when lyds attempted to donate to npr a second time; "but i gave to the tribesmen this year..." as if giving was something to mark off a to do list but once.
charity should be like an apology; you don't give an apology to hear one in return, you offer supplication for reasons within you. when it comes to my period of giving, though i never did it for karma, thanks or even recognition, over a decade's time, desire to aid was removed from me. i could espouse bullshit about how governments could end all suffering if they would focus on it, but that doesn't forgive me my complacency or my questioning of lyds when she acts in a manner much more compassionately than i do.
today i find it hard supporting much of anything outside of systems involved with helping animals. maybe lyds can wring the old me back out of my current shell, or maybe i'll just donate more to the humane society and groups that focus on furry creatures.
how mother theresa managed to live among people perpetuating their own problem is beyond me.
sainthood truly is for the christ-like among us, and i have never claimed to be a decent human being.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
the mental retardation of a corporate mindset
when i was in college, i tended bar at a wannabe fine dining restaurant. a corporation that owned fifty or so eateries across the country ran it, but that doesn't mean it was part of a themed chain. each restaurant was its own entity, not a series of red lobsters or olive gardens. that said, no individual location was ever allowed to function in a manner that made it unique to its region. in the three years i worked there, i saw five general managers and more manager-managers than i can remember pass through. each story was fairly similar; the place wasn't pulling a profit, so a gm was replaced and given a new strategy with which to grow business. each strategy was handed down from corporate, written by people who lived across the country and who had zero knowledge of the local market. so each gm would arrive with a puffed chest and the idea they should be respected and listened to, and each would leave defeated as the clientele wanted to be cajoled, not bullied, into eating there. no matter how many times the failed pattern repeated itself, corporate still made sure to dictate everything from afar; from how a manager should manage to what the customers should want, edicts were handed down from above. naturally, the only thing corporate actually succeeded in accomplishing was creating a disaffected staff. my personal revenge was to constantly dump full bottles of absolut down the drain; if a manager yelled at me i'd roll my eyes, wait until they turned their back, then pour their attempted profits away. others i worked with quit by simply not showing up; no loyalty to the business was ever nurtured.
one of my best friends manages a movie theater. like a majority of theaters, it is corporate and he is micro-managed from across the country. right now, many braches of the chain are losing money; my friend's location, however, is solvent. such things do not matter to a corporate head. when they make changes, they do so using a sweeping motion, uninterested in nuancing their way across the country. their solution to the overall loss of money was to implement several policies: cut the first showing of the day, effective immediately. cut payroll, by making one person do the work of three. and of course, raise prices. oh, and to go with those changes, naturally, was the new slogan: "our focus is customer service!" the problem being, of course, that every new policy enacted is in direct contradiction to customer service.
a competing theater chain by my friend's location cut their early show long ago. naturally, senior citizens who enjoy daytime events all flocked to my friend's theater. these would be the same senior citizens who will now be turned away from their weekly routine. by cutting payroll, my friend, who is salaried, has had to pick up the slack. he mentioned having several calls who had been put on hold hanging up because he couldn't get back to them quickly enough; he was trying to sell tickets to a movie starting in five minutes, a movie he needed to get to the projection booth to run. but hey, as those customers were hanging up, $5 an hour was being saved by having a worker cut from the shift! corporate also mandated a nationwide rate at the concession stand, one already gutted of all the specialty sweets the competition didn't carry and replaced with par for the course candy. when challenging the new corporate rate, my friend argued that his market would have a problem with the exceedingly high price. corporate argued back that a flat rate made sense. my friend was furious. naturally a flat rate makes sense on paper, but in reality a two-bedroom apartment in houston doesn't rent for the same rate as a two-bedroom apartment in boise, so why would popcorn in new york city cost the same as popcorn in tulsa? corporate had no answer. but hey, it's for the customer! they should want to pay more! right?
last month, lyds dodged a bullet. fed up with the way corporate new york was running their satellite iowa city business, she up and found a new job. part of her frustration came in the way corporate was panicking this year. for three previous years, the business grew at an amazing rate; every year profits exploded, so at the start of every new year corporate set higher goals to reach. for example, if they demanded "10," the business hit "15." when new york demanded "25," iowa hit "30." until this year.
this year, with the economy slumping, profits slumped, too. the best the iowa satellite was able to do was to near last year's numbers, not grow to new heights. this was a problem for new york, because they wanted to sell the iowa branch and was offering up the business as a profitable powerhouse. so, though in the black, corporate decided to eliminate 20% of the iowa city workforce; lydia's department was decimated. all but four people were outright let go, no notice given. the other four were told they would be training their replacements, people who would be working out of the new marketing department in of all places, new york city. that's right, in an attempt to save money, corporate decided to shut down an already profitable and well oiled machine based in the labor cheap state of iowa, and train a whole new crew based in the ultra expensive location of manhattan. all so several people on top could show better returns and increase stock shares, making the iowa business ripe for sale. never mind the people they put out of work one week before thanksgiving, one month before christmas, and all within the walls of an already profitable company.
these are personal stories and don't even begin to dip into the asshole nature of corporate greed. general motors dismantled its electric car program and destroyed all prototypes years ago; now they beg for billions of dollars in order to restructure its business because they took a hit on gas guzzling hummers this past summer. they beg while flying to and from washington in private jets.
aig received billions and immediately all the top officers ran to a horrifically expensive spa for massages and manicures. before receiving their bailout money, just in case they got shot down they spent the months leading up to asking by securing enormous bonuses for the top dogs.
after 9/11, the airlines were given billions in bailout money, and somehow it all stayed at the top as lower level workers were laid off.
my point, if i have one, is this: write to your senators and congressmen and shout as loud as you can: don't support the corporate mindset. don't bail them out for using backwards thinking that got them into trouble in the first place, let them go bankrupt, because even when they have money, they still don't give a fuck about the workers they claim to be begging on the behalf of. they don't care about workers, and they definitely don't care about customers. they never have, and never will. if they did, they'd understand what a classic song tried to teach the world many years ago: "what might be right for you, may not be right for some."
(sorry, couldn't resist)
regardless, while i may not be a religious person, i do hope there is a special realm of hell reserved specifically for corporate fucks who live their lives off numbers on a piece of paper.
i cross my fingers for it.
.
one of my best friends manages a movie theater. like a majority of theaters, it is corporate and he is micro-managed from across the country. right now, many braches of the chain are losing money; my friend's location, however, is solvent. such things do not matter to a corporate head. when they make changes, they do so using a sweeping motion, uninterested in nuancing their way across the country. their solution to the overall loss of money was to implement several policies: cut the first showing of the day, effective immediately. cut payroll, by making one person do the work of three. and of course, raise prices. oh, and to go with those changes, naturally, was the new slogan: "our focus is customer service!" the problem being, of course, that every new policy enacted is in direct contradiction to customer service.
a competing theater chain by my friend's location cut their early show long ago. naturally, senior citizens who enjoy daytime events all flocked to my friend's theater. these would be the same senior citizens who will now be turned away from their weekly routine. by cutting payroll, my friend, who is salaried, has had to pick up the slack. he mentioned having several calls who had been put on hold hanging up because he couldn't get back to them quickly enough; he was trying to sell tickets to a movie starting in five minutes, a movie he needed to get to the projection booth to run. but hey, as those customers were hanging up, $5 an hour was being saved by having a worker cut from the shift! corporate also mandated a nationwide rate at the concession stand, one already gutted of all the specialty sweets the competition didn't carry and replaced with par for the course candy. when challenging the new corporate rate, my friend argued that his market would have a problem with the exceedingly high price. corporate argued back that a flat rate made sense. my friend was furious. naturally a flat rate makes sense on paper, but in reality a two-bedroom apartment in houston doesn't rent for the same rate as a two-bedroom apartment in boise, so why would popcorn in new york city cost the same as popcorn in tulsa? corporate had no answer. but hey, it's for the customer! they should want to pay more! right?
last month, lyds dodged a bullet. fed up with the way corporate new york was running their satellite iowa city business, she up and found a new job. part of her frustration came in the way corporate was panicking this year. for three previous years, the business grew at an amazing rate; every year profits exploded, so at the start of every new year corporate set higher goals to reach. for example, if they demanded "10," the business hit "15." when new york demanded "25," iowa hit "30." until this year.
this year, with the economy slumping, profits slumped, too. the best the iowa satellite was able to do was to near last year's numbers, not grow to new heights. this was a problem for new york, because they wanted to sell the iowa branch and was offering up the business as a profitable powerhouse. so, though in the black, corporate decided to eliminate 20% of the iowa city workforce; lydia's department was decimated. all but four people were outright let go, no notice given. the other four were told they would be training their replacements, people who would be working out of the new marketing department in of all places, new york city. that's right, in an attempt to save money, corporate decided to shut down an already profitable and well oiled machine based in the labor cheap state of iowa, and train a whole new crew based in the ultra expensive location of manhattan. all so several people on top could show better returns and increase stock shares, making the iowa business ripe for sale. never mind the people they put out of work one week before thanksgiving, one month before christmas, and all within the walls of an already profitable company.
these are personal stories and don't even begin to dip into the asshole nature of corporate greed. general motors dismantled its electric car program and destroyed all prototypes years ago; now they beg for billions of dollars in order to restructure its business because they took a hit on gas guzzling hummers this past summer. they beg while flying to and from washington in private jets.
aig received billions and immediately all the top officers ran to a horrifically expensive spa for massages and manicures. before receiving their bailout money, just in case they got shot down they spent the months leading up to asking by securing enormous bonuses for the top dogs.
after 9/11, the airlines were given billions in bailout money, and somehow it all stayed at the top as lower level workers were laid off.
my point, if i have one, is this: write to your senators and congressmen and shout as loud as you can: don't support the corporate mindset. don't bail them out for using backwards thinking that got them into trouble in the first place, let them go bankrupt, because even when they have money, they still don't give a fuck about the workers they claim to be begging on the behalf of. they don't care about workers, and they definitely don't care about customers. they never have, and never will. if they did, they'd understand what a classic song tried to teach the world many years ago: "what might be right for you, may not be right for some."
(sorry, couldn't resist)
regardless, while i may not be a religious person, i do hope there is a special realm of hell reserved specifically for corporate fucks who live their lives off numbers on a piece of paper.
i cross my fingers for it.
.
Monday, November 10, 2008
good god, it's great to be white
normally, when you go on the road as a comedian, the comedy club puts you up in a hotel. sometimes, however, you get an apartment rented specifically for traveling comedians.
the problem with staying in an apartment is: when it comes time to check in for a flight and print boarding passes in advance, you're shit out of luck.
most cities have a little business called "kinko's" within their borders, but not all, and ocala florida, if you do a google search, is lacking such an establishment.
just my luck, i happened to be performing in ocala, and had little interest in arriving at the airport early just to check in.
what to do...
what to do?
well, when you're a reasonably normal looking white guy, you just find the nearest hotel, wander into the lobby like you're staying there, walk over to the elevator as if to go to your room, then change your mind and meander back to the front desk and say, "excuse me, i'd like to check in for my flight and print my boarding passes, where's the business center?"
not only will they tell you, they'll give you the access code to the computer.
and they'll do it with a smile.
take that, minorities who receive suspicious eyes whenever you enter a business.
:D
.
the problem with staying in an apartment is: when it comes time to check in for a flight and print boarding passes in advance, you're shit out of luck.
most cities have a little business called "kinko's" within their borders, but not all, and ocala florida, if you do a google search, is lacking such an establishment.
just my luck, i happened to be performing in ocala, and had little interest in arriving at the airport early just to check in.
what to do...
what to do?
well, when you're a reasonably normal looking white guy, you just find the nearest hotel, wander into the lobby like you're staying there, walk over to the elevator as if to go to your room, then change your mind and meander back to the front desk and say, "excuse me, i'd like to check in for my flight and print my boarding passes, where's the business center?"
not only will they tell you, they'll give you the access code to the computer.
and they'll do it with a smile.
take that, minorities who receive suspicious eyes whenever you enter a business.
:D
.
Friday, October 31, 2008
i dry my asshole incorrectly, and other observations
i don't really think of myself as a prude person, nor am i a germophobe. that said, when it comes to stepping out the shower and drying my body, i stop at the crack at the bottom of my back and reach for toilet paper. this tp is for a quick, final dab at the delicate, inside pucker. this action makes my lyds laugh, as she says, "you know it's fresh-clean from the shower you just took, right?"
such things do not matter to me, as maybe it's a psychological quirk, but i still don't appreciate the idea of sticking a toweled finger up in there, then using that same cottony-spot to dry my face the next day.
on the subject of towels, i wonder if lyds and i should take two of them to bed for one of our little liaisons. it would make more sense to use a towel apiece afterwards than to continue our process of duck-waddling to the bathroom attached by a single piece of cloth, delicately trying to avoid spilling sputnik on our carpet.
i do wonder what our kitties think when they see us enact this ritual. not the sex part, which they seem to watch with a casual disinterest, thinking "can i get fed soon?", but the towel-attached shuffle into the bathroom afterwards. we're aware we look quite silly, yet continue the act after each and every, well, act. and the kitties tilt their heads to the side and wonder what we're doing every time.
on the subject of kitties, while they don't always watch lyds and i intertwine, they do have rituals for each of us that i don't entirely understand. every morning, lyds showers before work, and, and especially so in winter, every morning the kitties join her in the bathroom. they jump up onto the counter, enjoying a little steam-sauna to start the day, and upon completion of her cleaning, lyds opens the curtain to see them resting contentedly.
meanwhile, neither joins me when i shower. they could get the same little burst of moisture they seem to enjoy in the morning, but they opt not to. simon, however, always, always, always seems to come running when it's time for me to enjoy a relaxing constitutional. as i rest on the throne, i find a gray kitty rushing in to sit at my feet, stare up at me, and meow until i pet him. and when i stand and flush, he always props his front two paws up on the toilet to peer down at the swirling water, his kitty curiosity asking, "hey, what's goin' on in here?"
simon's other fetish is a closed door. at the condo, he would sit at the front door and howl until allowed into the hallway, where he would simply lay down, suddenly satisfied. at our house, the door to the garage is his nemesis. he will sit at it and cry as if in pain, and has even taken to gnawing at the rubber stopping at the base in attempt to get through it. yet whenever allowed into the garage, all he does is sit down. he does investigate, as kitty paws across my windshield have shown, but generally all he does is relax and little else. as it's grown colder and the door to the house is closed behind him, simon's visits to the garage have grown shorter and shorter in length.
on the subject of not having any sort of segue for the next segment, i was paid a compliment last week at the chicago improv. walking up the hallway after the show, my head down, texting and eye-contacted with my phone, i glanced up to see two young women heading towards me.
"oh my god," the first whispered excitedly, "that's him!"
"no!" the second countered, grabbing the first girl's arm and pulling her, "you have a boyfriend."
"awwww," the first finished, defeated.
i smiled as they faded into the distance and told lyds, swaggering that male swagger so laughable to women; "i've still got it!" yeah, because that woman only get to see the "fun" nathan of the stage, she didn't peer behind the wizard's curtain to deal with me the other 23 hours of the day. as lyds will tell anyone, those hours are eye-rolling tests of patience.
but it did enter lyds and i into a discussion of men and women and their protective behaviors. women may be vapid creatures of dissection, tearing down their counterparts at every turn, but when the chips are down, they'll step up for one another. they won't let a friend go home with someone beneath them if they're too drunk to make a judgment call. and if a friend gets sick while drinking, she'll be taken home, have her hair held for the puking ritual, and then put to bed.
compare that to men, where not only will a man not care if his buddy cheats, he'll actually encourage it. especially if the guy has a hot girlfriend, because then the friend on the side will look to be the jilted girlfriend's revenge or rebound fuck.
and for men, looks don't matter at all with drunken sex. as said, if a woman is trying to hook up with a loser, her friends will intervene. if a man is attempting to pick up a woman that looks exactly like brian urlacher, his friends will wave him goodnight with a "have fun with your centerfold, hef!" and then give him shit about it for the rest of his life. i personally text my friend dan goff of tucson, arizona, once a month a mocking reminder of the "girl" i helped send him home with over five years ago.
when it comes to drinking and care, that's a fun one, too. unlike women, men will not take care of a drunken buddy. maybe we'll have his back in a fight, but only if we feel like fighting, not because of honor. other than that, all bets are off. not only will we not hold hair, i personally once spent two hours listening to my roommate and good friend rob baxter drunkenly vomit all over himself in bed. all i remember was thinking, "oh for fuck's sake, will you just choke on that shit so i can get some sleep?"
his comforter and futon the next morning were things of beauty. i think i laughed for weeks off the sight of him waking up in and surrounded by crusted, smelly bile.
in chicago, i stayed at my friend and fellow comedian joe hamilton's apartment. joe is actually jim flannigan, but the first time we met i absolutely could not remember that, and took to calling him joe hamilton. i now encourage everyone, everywhere, to call him joe hamilton. many do.
that aside, after the sunday show i drove home to iowa and crawled into bed somewhere around two in the morning. lyds immediately nuzzled up to me, but this time she paused, then pushed back a little.
"you don't smell like you," she said unhappily.
i hadn't thought about it, but there is a certain security in the scent of your lover, a familiarity that you react to unconsciously, and positively. when we moved into the new house, it smelled like a new house. now i smell lyds when i come home from a long weekend, the same lyds i smelled in her condo and found so comforting when i moved in.
that night, i smelled like joe hamilton's apartment and guest bedding. it being dark and lyds being half asleep, she was relying on senses other than sight to relate to me, and the fact i "wasn't me" set off a confusion in her.
thankfully, the situation was rectified the next morning after a shower in which i washed the stench of other off me, and after which i tore off several sheets of toilet paper for my final starfish of drying.
lyds laughed at me for it and reminded me she herself dries 100% of her body with her towel.
and she wonders why i do the laundry so often.
.
such things do not matter to me, as maybe it's a psychological quirk, but i still don't appreciate the idea of sticking a toweled finger up in there, then using that same cottony-spot to dry my face the next day.
on the subject of towels, i wonder if lyds and i should take two of them to bed for one of our little liaisons. it would make more sense to use a towel apiece afterwards than to continue our process of duck-waddling to the bathroom attached by a single piece of cloth, delicately trying to avoid spilling sputnik on our carpet.
i do wonder what our kitties think when they see us enact this ritual. not the sex part, which they seem to watch with a casual disinterest, thinking "can i get fed soon?", but the towel-attached shuffle into the bathroom afterwards. we're aware we look quite silly, yet continue the act after each and every, well, act. and the kitties tilt their heads to the side and wonder what we're doing every time.
on the subject of kitties, while they don't always watch lyds and i intertwine, they do have rituals for each of us that i don't entirely understand. every morning, lyds showers before work, and, and especially so in winter, every morning the kitties join her in the bathroom. they jump up onto the counter, enjoying a little steam-sauna to start the day, and upon completion of her cleaning, lyds opens the curtain to see them resting contentedly.
meanwhile, neither joins me when i shower. they could get the same little burst of moisture they seem to enjoy in the morning, but they opt not to. simon, however, always, always, always seems to come running when it's time for me to enjoy a relaxing constitutional. as i rest on the throne, i find a gray kitty rushing in to sit at my feet, stare up at me, and meow until i pet him. and when i stand and flush, he always props his front two paws up on the toilet to peer down at the swirling water, his kitty curiosity asking, "hey, what's goin' on in here?"
simon's other fetish is a closed door. at the condo, he would sit at the front door and howl until allowed into the hallway, where he would simply lay down, suddenly satisfied. at our house, the door to the garage is his nemesis. he will sit at it and cry as if in pain, and has even taken to gnawing at the rubber stopping at the base in attempt to get through it. yet whenever allowed into the garage, all he does is sit down. he does investigate, as kitty paws across my windshield have shown, but generally all he does is relax and little else. as it's grown colder and the door to the house is closed behind him, simon's visits to the garage have grown shorter and shorter in length.
on the subject of not having any sort of segue for the next segment, i was paid a compliment last week at the chicago improv. walking up the hallway after the show, my head down, texting and eye-contacted with my phone, i glanced up to see two young women heading towards me.
"oh my god," the first whispered excitedly, "that's him!"
"no!" the second countered, grabbing the first girl's arm and pulling her, "you have a boyfriend."
"awwww," the first finished, defeated.
i smiled as they faded into the distance and told lyds, swaggering that male swagger so laughable to women; "i've still got it!" yeah, because that woman only get to see the "fun" nathan of the stage, she didn't peer behind the wizard's curtain to deal with me the other 23 hours of the day. as lyds will tell anyone, those hours are eye-rolling tests of patience.
but it did enter lyds and i into a discussion of men and women and their protective behaviors. women may be vapid creatures of dissection, tearing down their counterparts at every turn, but when the chips are down, they'll step up for one another. they won't let a friend go home with someone beneath them if they're too drunk to make a judgment call. and if a friend gets sick while drinking, she'll be taken home, have her hair held for the puking ritual, and then put to bed.
compare that to men, where not only will a man not care if his buddy cheats, he'll actually encourage it. especially if the guy has a hot girlfriend, because then the friend on the side will look to be the jilted girlfriend's revenge or rebound fuck.
and for men, looks don't matter at all with drunken sex. as said, if a woman is trying to hook up with a loser, her friends will intervene. if a man is attempting to pick up a woman that looks exactly like brian urlacher, his friends will wave him goodnight with a "have fun with your centerfold, hef!" and then give him shit about it for the rest of his life. i personally text my friend dan goff of tucson, arizona, once a month a mocking reminder of the "girl" i helped send him home with over five years ago.
when it comes to drinking and care, that's a fun one, too. unlike women, men will not take care of a drunken buddy. maybe we'll have his back in a fight, but only if we feel like fighting, not because of honor. other than that, all bets are off. not only will we not hold hair, i personally once spent two hours listening to my roommate and good friend rob baxter drunkenly vomit all over himself in bed. all i remember was thinking, "oh for fuck's sake, will you just choke on that shit so i can get some sleep?"
his comforter and futon the next morning were things of beauty. i think i laughed for weeks off the sight of him waking up in and surrounded by crusted, smelly bile.
in chicago, i stayed at my friend and fellow comedian joe hamilton's apartment. joe is actually jim flannigan, but the first time we met i absolutely could not remember that, and took to calling him joe hamilton. i now encourage everyone, everywhere, to call him joe hamilton. many do.
that aside, after the sunday show i drove home to iowa and crawled into bed somewhere around two in the morning. lyds immediately nuzzled up to me, but this time she paused, then pushed back a little.
"you don't smell like you," she said unhappily.
i hadn't thought about it, but there is a certain security in the scent of your lover, a familiarity that you react to unconsciously, and positively. when we moved into the new house, it smelled like a new house. now i smell lyds when i come home from a long weekend, the same lyds i smelled in her condo and found so comforting when i moved in.
that night, i smelled like joe hamilton's apartment and guest bedding. it being dark and lyds being half asleep, she was relying on senses other than sight to relate to me, and the fact i "wasn't me" set off a confusion in her.
thankfully, the situation was rectified the next morning after a shower in which i washed the stench of other off me, and after which i tore off several sheets of toilet paper for my final starfish of drying.
lyds laughed at me for it and reminded me she herself dries 100% of her body with her towel.
and she wonders why i do the laundry so often.
.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Death Before Dying
It began with a crying mother.
The night before my departure to Afghanistan, I was making a few calls. Giving some "good byes," receiving other well wishes and the like. Though we as humans rarely like to think of the worst that can happen in life, it is still sometimes necessary to dot all unfortunate "I's" and cross all tragic "T's," just in case. While discussing the trip with my mom, she eventually whispered, "What happens if you die over there?"
Sadly, distracted by packing, I forgot I was talking to a parent, not a friend, and answered honestly over carefully. "Fuck if I care. Throw me in a burlap bag and toss me in a ditch with whatever else the Taliban offed that day."
Silence followed, then a choke, and finally tears.
There is little in life more uncomfortable than the sound of a crying mother. Parents say they want to relate to you, to be your friend, but they can't; the bond is too different than that of friendship. Parents like safety. Roses and rainbows. Eggshells to walk upon.
The next voice over the phone was my sisters, demanding, "What did you say? Why did you say that?? That's a horrible thing to say to mom!"
(That I wasn't thinking granted me little forgiveness)
I wasn't trying to be belittling or dismissive, I've just never understood the pageantry of death. When I'm gone, and all that remains is the shell that once was me, who cares what happens to it? Am I not to live on in memories and hearts? Such thoughts don't matter to loved ones; death is about image, and no mother wants to picture her child in a ditch.
Apologies were made, and compromises reached; I allowed permission for a funeral, but insisted in writing on certain conditions. If I was not disfigured, the casket had to be open and a fake, Freddy Mercury mustache fitted upon my upper lip. As funerals are generally somber little slices of life, I needed reassurance mine would contain a little levity.
Not that I feared death on the trip. Just as with my trip to Iraq, my belief was death is for those who have moved beyond the drudgery of day-to-day existence on earth. At that juncture in my life--having recently been dumped and in the lovely pit of depression--I felt I had much more pain and rejection to experience before dying (and miles to go before I sleep). I believed life was exited by the comfortable, those who understood the silly and stupid nature of everything that transpired in the physical realm and were more amused than saddened by it. The downtrodden, such as myself? We suffered on endlessly. Emo, thy middle name was me.
If all trips begin with an omen, then the introduction to my flights with fellow comedian Peter had us cursed by the Travel Demon.
Attempting to check in at LAX for the first leg of our journey--our travel plans had us flying commercial from the states to Germany, then transferring to military planes from Germany to Kyrgyzstan and ultimately into our final destination of Afghanistan--we were told that while the Air Force made our airline reservations, no tickets were actually ever purchased. If we wanted to offer up a personal credit card, the seats were waiting for us. If not? We were welcome to call taxis and head back home. How lovely.
If there is one thing to be understood about the military, it's that it is an enormous living, breathing and messy organism. Everything is filled out in triplicate, and military logic anything but. Liken it to scenes seen in a Hollywood movie; if the cover of a TPS report is missing or a single comma exists out of place, all gears grind to a screeching halt. I always wondered about The Hunt For Red October, where every command was given several times. "Right, full rudder," Sean Connery would yell. Immediately, Sam Neil would bellow, "Right, full rudder," and so on down the line until the schlep at the console would steer the sub to the right. Even thought the schlep could hear the initial order, it had to go through proper channels to reach him. A waste, yes, but absolutely military, no matter what the country. Regarding the problem at hand, while it was obviously known two comedians from the states were flying over, with shows having been scheduled, plane reservations made and official military orders issued to Peter and I, somewhere along the way a brake occurred in the chain of command and no purchase order enacted.
Naturally, a very specific itinerary, with a very specific timeline, was set in place for us. We had to make it to Germany for our next flight, or we'd be stranded there. Panicked, we now had to pray our LA liaison would either be awake or be awoken by his cell phone to take our call at 7:30 AM, and he then had to get on the horn to Germany and pray someone with the authority to release funds was still in the office at 4:30 PM.
After much back and forth between the parties in power, and well after the departure of our flight, Peter and I were re-scheduled onto an afternoon airplane to the Deutschland. To much amazement, we discovered that though we actually arrived in Germany much later than originally anticipated, we still landed a full two hours before our flight to Kyrgyzstan. Sadly, this meant nothing to the Air Force. According to regulations, passengers must be checked in and sitting in the terminal waiting area a full three hours before any flight. Fliers are not allowed to wander the terminal, nor relax in the USO lounge, checking email. A passenger on an Air Force plane has to be in designated areas at designated times--holding area one, two, then three--before boarding a flight. The first moment inside the three-hour departure window, if you have not checked in your seat is forfeit, leaving you stuck waiting for the next available plane. So, while Peter and I could see that our ride had not only not taken off, it hadn't even boarded, we were not allowed to sit for two hours and wait for it. Because waiting two hours is apparently inherently unsafe and absolutely unheard of, and military logic is anything but.
Spending a day in Germany was not an awful thing, however, as we visited a Sound-Of-Music little village, with Hansel & Gretel houses erected among enormous trees in the rolling hills of lush country. Considering a cliché can be a wonderful thing, then the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" is the trump card of them all. I woke the next morning at 3am, a little before my alarm, and it was dark and foggy outside. I stepped to the window, opened it and looked over the blackened forest. As I breathed in the cold, wet early morning air, the radio/alarm clicked to life behind me.
And I was stunned.
As if timed by God, the opening notes to Rossini's "William Tell Overture" played lightly. If there are ever so precious moments in life, those hard to believe or describe, being in Germany, in a dark, fog filled forest with William Tell playing... if you believed in the supernatural, you would almost feel the presence in the room with you, one as tangible as any physical form. The hair on my arms raised as I experienced gooseflesh rippling across me, and I wondered how much of life is extraordinary outside circumstances acting their will upon us, and how much is self-invention inside our heads.
Peter and I caught our make-up flight, and thus spent an entire day without seeing daylight. We left Germany pre-dawn and flew against the sun ten hours on a windowless military plane to Kyrgyzstan, where we landed well into the evening. If the St. Louis Arch is the Gateway to the West, then Manas Air base, Kyrgyzstan, is the mouth into Hell. Manas is a way station; a pit stop between war or home, depending on your direction. Peter and I were going "Down Range." Iraq, it is explained, was "In Country," with Afghanistan being "Down Range." A subtle difference, to say the least.
We landed a little after eleven, ate a midnight meal, took a two-hour nap and shuffled our way over to the loading zone for a 5am flight. Our transportation was a C-17 cargo plane, a cavernous tube filled with equipment and making we comedians officially baggage, not passengers. As with any regular flight, a pre-liftoff safety briefing was given. When flying military, however, added information arises in interesting ways: "In case of a missile attack..." "If cargo should come loose and you have a crate of ammunition flying at you..." Everything was said in serious tones, because flying into a war zone is serious business, so it was to much delight I spied our on-flight guide settling in among his multi-million dollar military computer and radar system and firing up a game of solitaire. Just another day at the office.
Hours later, the video game was off and his game face was on. In preparation for landing, instruments were checked and re-checked. Combat arrival is unlike any commercial flight; in a commercial landing, the nose remains high and the plane eases its way to earth, using wind resistance to gentle the impact as much as possible. When entering into a war zone, no one wants to be an easy target for shoulder rockets or RPG's, so the planes remain high and fast for as long as possible, then nosedive in towards the runway, plummeting at high speed and leveling off at the last possible moment. The next time you hear of a crash during training, know that they were probably doing something very dangerous. With the military, even in peace can you die training for war.
Peter and I were flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan. The international military base erected atop the city's old airport was to be our hub for the coming weeks, but little did we know it would be our home for several days solid. When performing military tours in hot zones, you are generally flown to as many Forward Operating Bases as possible, staging multiple shows per day in order to entertain the largest volume of soldiers available. Sadly, our first day in, October 8th, 2005, this became impossible. For history buffs, that date will ring the memory bell of a great Pakistani earthquake, 7.7 on the Richter scale. Peter and I awoke to CNN announcing Donald Rumsfeld's decision to send military helicopters from Afghanistan across the border on rescue and relief missions. It was surreal, watching helicopters on the news leaving a base, then looking out the window to see the event occurring live several hundred yards away. It was disappointing learning that with no spare helicopters, we had no way of being ushered around for shows and would be sitting squat a while.
The earthquake did provide personal fodder, considering most Americans are not too geographically savvy. I had to explain to numerous friends and family members that Afghanistan is a country quite sizeable in nature, not sub-division tiny. People--my mother in particular--were emailing me incessantly, making sure I had not been killed in a devastation that took place nowhere near me. It's an odd psychological phenomena, that the first thought after a localized tragedy is of your loved one regardless of the odds of involvement. The emails received made me wonder if it would have been appropriate for me to check in with friends in Maine after Hurricane Katrina hit. "Hey, New Orleans got wiped out, are you ok???"
At one point there was a glimmer of hope Peter and I could join a convoy to a nearby base and perform, but no space was unavailable and we remained behind. I was told several hours later the group had been targeted, and I was disappointed to have missed it. The attack wasn't an out an out assault, but a suicide bombing gone wrong. Apparently a car was laden with explosives, then made an end run at the final vehicle in line. Fortunately, there are few fanatics who are very bright; foot soldiers in the fundamentalist world are the easily brainwashed peasants. They are told the reason life sucks is because of America--much the way Americans are told the reason their life sucks is because of illegal immigrants--and being one hundred percent un-educated, they believe it. The dimwitted terrorist fighting for "god" that day bounced his car off the back bumper of the bookend transport, lost control, and blew himself up as he was skidding away from the supply line. The stories of stupidity make soldiers laugh, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and when an insurgent somehow gets his shit together, people die.
The several day entrapment at Kandahar created plenty of time to learn about the area and conflict. I visited the TLS building, headquarters for the entire base and named for the "Taliban's Last Stand." It is the location where the Taliban went from oppressive assholes, governing their country through cruel means, to fragmented fuckheads scattered to the hills. The initial American rout of the Taliban was lightning-fast, and never ones to surrender, the final clump of terrorists banded together and holed up in one building. They fortified it, armed themselves heavily and prepared for a fierce, final battle where no quarter would be asked or granted. They envisioned a room-to-room fight to the death and dreamed of killing Americans struggling to take the structure. Meanwhile, safely outside, those very American soldiers being salivated over inside looked at one another, asked, "How stupid do these idiots think we are," and called in coordinates. An air strike arrived and a new, ventilated roof, created--I laughed as I had the thought, "Well, we'll know Afghanistan is a truly free nation when illegal Mexican immigrants are hired to repair roofs here, too." I walked through the building, marveling at the charred-black inner walls, still adorned with bullet holes from heat-exploded clips the militia had been hoping to fire at our soldiers. A flagpole was erected through the missile's point of impact, and the American flag flew high above the building. In a moment of personal honor, I was presented with a flag of my own. I tied it to the pole, raised it by hand up through the missile-hole, and fluttered it in the light Afghani breeze several moments. It was then lowered, folded, and given to me with a certificate of authenticity stating I arrived, supported the troops, and flew the flag where brutality once reigned. Not bad for a humble white-boy from Wisconsin.
If the TLS building is where initial conflict ended, there had to be a place where it began. That location lay close enough that a field trip gave me witness to the inception of what would eventually be known as 9/11. In the time between that Tuesday in September and our invasion of Afghanistan, the most ubiquitous footage on television was of Osama Bin Laden training angry insurgents on monkey bars. Said footage was shot at Tarnak Farms, ten kilometers from Kandahar. A convoy was created to drive out to look it all over, and though we were eventually allowed to visit the Farm, our trip was delayed by one day. The morning we were scheduled to stand in the aura of evil, evil acted first. Four international doctors were killed while treating displaced peoples at a refugee camp. The doctors didn't want military protection, because being associated with America and the West was "bad," and they thought remaining neutral would keep them safe. This logic would be akin to me thinking I could stroll across the track at the Indy 500 on race day, because pedestrians are supposed to have the right of way. Should matter isn't does matter. In laymen's terms: no good deed goes unpunished. Though the doctors were simply trying to help peasants, insurgents executed them as a sign no one is welcome in the Taliban's world. So, safety concerns, along with--no lie--misplaced paperwork, waylaid our trip that day.
After the proper forms were filed, however, our outing was green-lit and I piled into the point vehicle of the convoy as fast as possible. In any driving chain, the first link is the most susceptible to attack; the idea being that if you cripple the first car, all others following are trapped and wide open for violence. I figured that were anything to happen, I wanted to be front and center, my video camera documenting it all. Though no ambush occurred, my helmet did get put to good use when our Humvee hit a pothole so large it bounced me out of my seat and into the roof, cracking my head against the fortified metal there and giving me a serious case of the giggles. That elation soon faded though, as visiting Tarnak Farms and knowing what who lived and schemed there was a somber event. It was also an eye-opener, as seeing first hand what America was up against in Afghanistan, I could understand the ill logic an angry and confused Donald Rumsfeld used when pushing for war with Iraq. "Afghanistan's got no targets," was his famous quote, and he wasn't lying. We bombed what we could, which was, if you remember the terrorist training videos, monkey bars. We. Bombed. Monkey bars. A playground, if you will. Sure, we bombed the few buildings we could, but overall Osama's assholes were trained in the most primitive ways and under the most archaic conditions. The sensation of standing in a field of nothing, looking at clay huts and little else and knowing that the people here were so obsessed with America, a land so far away from them with technology they couldn't possibly grasp, that they were able to plot to fell two buildings in New York... it literally set my head to swimming.
Being trapped in one location several days also afforded me the "opportunity" to attend a line ceremony. A soldier lost his life in an attack made on a patrol in the Afghani hills, and I was allowed to stand at attention and witness the loading of his flag draped casket aboard the plane home. The Kandahar military base is an international one, having numerous nations with stationed soldiers within its walls. France, England and Romania are but a few of the countries represented, and the military uniform creates a brotherhood that surpasses all differences between governments. Every single unit available turned out for the observance, the majority having never met the deceased, as he was from another FOB, further out in the field. They turned out because though wearing a different uniform, they knew that somewhere a family was tearfully awaiting their child's arrival. They knew a friend of the fallen, a fellow soldier, would accompany the body all the way to its destination, look a mother or father in the eye, and hand over the flag currently covering the coffin. The ceremony is an event precious few civilians see, and one that left me with many emotional layers. Pride, regarding the honoring by all nations and soldiers. Embarrassment, like I was some sort of fucking tourist attending an event I had no business being at. Most of all, sorrow, over the loss. Every goddamn moment had me confused and moved in ways I don't like admitting to.
Fortunately, there is an odd way of life making you laugh through tears, and at ritual's end I was given a respite from the lump in my throat. The soldiers in attendance were respectfully strong, standing tall with shoulders back but technically "at ease," as the stance is known. The call to attention was made, that the troops would exit the runway in an organized manner, so everyone snapped to. An inaudible command was given, and in true Keystone Cops fashion, many of the soldiers turned in different directions. Where all were supposed to turn to the right, some remained still, others turned left, and a few spun entirely around. No one broke formation, exactly, but they looked quite like the night-before-graduation troop from Stripes, unsure of what to do or where to face as they trained for their boom-chuga-lugga-lugga-lugga moment the next day. Though my heart was breaking, I had to smile.
After several days of one base, I was relieved to hear Peter and I would finally begin touring through the country. Travel between FOB's is a fun experience; while I still found Blackhawk helicopters the most fun form of transportation, the Chinooks I despised in Iraq proved to be quicker and more nimble than memory served. We would fly over very obvious poppy fields--whether or not they were growing wild or waiting for harvest into opium and sale was unknown--and mountaintops were skimmed at high speeds, that anyone hiding in a cave not draw a bead and knock us out of the sky. Two Chinooks had been shot down in the region in recent months. Fifteen Marines lost their lives in one, so reporters ran around excitedly, trying to get the biggest and best scoop on the story. Five crewmembers lost their life in the other, and the same reporters collectively said, "Five? That's not news" and shrugged away the importance of human life. How certain people live with themselves, I do not know.
Meeting soldiers overseas is always a funny experience, as "the grass is always greener" is their favorite game. I'd be asked where I just performed, and upon answering defeated indignation emerged from the questioner. "Man," they'd begin, "I'd give anything to be stationed there. They get it so easy, while we're always under attack. They get Thai hookers flown in every week for sex parties, and we gotta jerk-off in the port-a potties. This base sucks." That the base I'd just been at had uttered the exact same phrase concerning the camp I was currently in made me smile silently. The reality of the situation is Afghanistan is one big Groundhog Day; wake up, eat, pick the dust boogers out of your nose (personal experience was several minutes, several times a day), sweat, eat, bed. But, fantasy of the other keeps a soldier sane, I suppose.
Most bases are converted villages, and the soldiers live in clay homes purchased by the American government. Discovering this, I asked one commander what his base cost and received a jubilant, "Are you kidding? It's a steal, only seventy-eight thousand dollars a year!" My response was historical; "We're using money to buy land now? Didn't we used to get it for beads and smallpox?"
One of our first stops was that of the fallen soldier whose ceremony we had just attended. Peter and I were flown in around nine in the morning for a 10:00 AM show. Everyone was asleep, as they had just gotten back from an overnight patrol. Tensions were high, considering the ambush and loss they had just faced, so the commanding officer informed us he was going to issue an order of attendance for the show. Such news made Peter and I uneasy, as not only was the current situation already not too ideal, but mandatory turnout brings in a reluctant audience. The show was to be performed in what served as the recreation room, in essence a converted living room that was maybe fifteen by thirty feet at best. Slowly, twenty tired soldiers with sleep-deprived eyes made their way into the room to sit wherever they could, which meant mostly on the floor. Their faces seemed so very, very young to me. Being nineteen or twenty might make one an adult by default, but when I think about what I was dealing with at that age, compared to the enormous stress and pressure those in front of me were living with daily... words do fail.
Exhausted and forced to be there, those twenty young men made a damn fine audience. They smiled, then laughed, then eventually clapped and laughed as their body posture went from rigid to relaxed. Their commander was a veteran, and knew that sometimes youth has to be told how to deal with stress. I performed my agreed upon twenty minutes, then introduced Peter. Considering the limited space available, I left the room and went outside. With thirty minutes to kill, I figured I'd wander the base and see what there was to see. Within ten minutes, I was approached by a hurried soldier and informed in somewhat panicked manner Peter and I had to get out to the landing zone; the helicopter was on its way and it didn't want to wait for us. I quickly made my way back to the showroom, paused to write a message of explanation, opened the door and signaled to Peter, then passed him the note. Peter nodded, and wrapped up his set a few minutes later.
Outside, after the show, he pulled me aside; "I didn't want to do this in front of anyone, but you need to be more mindful of your time from now on."
"What?" I responded, confused.
"If the show is going to be cut short, you need to be aware of how long you perform."
I rolled my eyes and let it all go, allowing Peter to feel good about scolding me and correcting the "embarrassment" suffered by having his portion of the show cut short. He was the headliner, and on top of that had close ties with the booker who put me on the tour, so I didn't get into it with him. I was still irritated, though. We had agreed to certain set times up front; I did mine, then the circumstances changed entirely outside of either of our ability to control it. That ego would supercede the overall situation, entertaining the troops, irritated me.
To make matters laughably ironic, the rush order to get to the landing zone was simply needless panic. We ended up waiting, bored, forty-five minutes for our helicopter. Keep in mind, the base was very small and the landing zone was at best a three-minute walk from where we had been telling our jokes. In reality, we could have not only finished the show, but been anywhere on base, heard the helicopter echo in the mountains and jogged to meet it before it even landed. But, as said, the military likes it when you wait for flights. Regardless, I was happy to have had the experience. The young men in that room were one of the best audiences I have ever performed for, better by far than many late-night Friday audiences in the states. They actually needed to laugh. No one happened to stumble in drunkenly to heckle or was dragged in by their girlfriend and sullenly sat with arms-crossed the whole evening. They were in need of distraction, and I was honored and humbled to have been it for that day.
As in Iraq, base-to-base travel became a blur. One was notable for being within sight of an old, enormous fortress built by Genghis Kahn, another I remember for its isolation. Upon hearing we were traveling to the FOB, soldiers would laugh, clap me on the back and say, "Have fun with that." Though the country was "won," the most isolated of bases were still considered "behind enemy lines." While the camp with the fallen soldier was small, it still contained a series of individual dwellings within its walls. The most isolated area we visited was so tiny it was but a single structure, something similar in size to a small restaurant and a lone contingent resided inside. Peter and I were informed the Blackhawk would do a touch-drop; as soon as it hit the ground, we were to jump out so it could take off again. Despite the fact the entrance to the structure was a mere 100 yards away, two armed Humvees mounted with 50-caliber guns met us. The soldiers manning them were exceedingly alert, and we were rushed into the vehicles and spirited away behind the blast walls quickly. Considering the size and location of the base, it being alone in a valley encircled by mountains, I asked if they'd ever been attacked "Assault On Precinct 13" style, with a full on surrounding.
"Yeah," the soldier answered. "Our translators started picking up chatter on the radio about ten minutes before it happened, as they got into position. See those black marks up on the hill?" he asked, gesturing. "We lit that hill up like the fourth of July. Sent 'em scurrying like rats."
Boo-yah.
One thing the outer FOB's had going for them was independence; being on the front lines, they were far enough away from central command to be allowed the courtesy of relaxed regulations. Common sense and understanding the rules of tact governed their style of dress, which could be a little unkempt without a ranking officer barking at them to do push ups. As with any institution: the larger the system, the bigger the bureaucracy. On our home base, Kandahar, the rules and regulations were beyond silly at times. One member of the Military Police told me without exaggeration, "This base is out of control!" His reasoning? Apparently there were soldiers who had in their possession, gasp, pornography--some even had beer!
(To quote colonel Kurtz, "The horror...")
While I could understand the military not wanting its soldiers drunk in a war zone, the fact is, alcohol is used to alleviate stress, and who has more stress than someone getting shot at in a foreign country? The problem is their society; Afghanistan is an Islamic nation and alcohol is forbidden in its rules, just like meat used to be by Catholics. As alcohol is also the great equalizer, a substance that levels the playing field, it would be a boon to the Afghani people. Consider its properties using this example: Kobe Bryant is one of the best basketball players alive today. Were I to play him in a game of one-on-one, I'd get my ass handed to me up and down the court. But, were we each to have six to eight shots of Jagermeister, we'd be about equal. Yes, Kobe would still be a better rapist than I am, but I'd be able to take him in a game of H-O-R-S-E. My point is, maybe if the insurgents would get a little buzzed on occasion, they wouldn't be such unhappy dicks, lashing out at the world around them. Oh, religion, is there anything rule you have that makes sense?
What's beyond odd about the "no alcohol" mandate for American's on base is, I thought they were considered American soil. Once on them, you abided by the governing rules of the United States, as her flag flew above the soldiers. In essence, by banning alcohol we were capitulating in order to show kindness to hosts that didn't invite us in. A tad hypocritical, considering we're supposed to be bringing them democracy, which is the right to free will and individual choice.
My two personal favorite regulations were the 10-mile per hour speed limit and the "No Bags In The Chow Hall" sign. The reason the first rule seemed silly because everyone knows how exceedingly difficult it is to drive that slowly. To have to drive a mile or more across base and crawl along at 10-mph is just frustrating. The reason the "No Bags" sign made me smile was its location, existing right next to the "If you AREN'T armed, you CAN'T eat here" sign, which is probably not unlike anything you'd see at a picnic in Alabama. While I understand the order was designed to prevent people from sneaking bombs into the mess hall, it still seemed silly when I was yelled at for attempting to carry my camera bag in with me. I opened it and showed the civilian guard earning a great, tax-free paycheck higher than that of the soldiers surrounding her, the meager contents, yet was still denied entry. I guess it makes sense, though. Were anyone to have an actual bomb on them, there's absolutely no way, no way in hell they could ever detonate it right there on the spot or rush in past her to explode it. I mean, she was built like an offensive lineman, only without the muscle.
One constant comment across every base visited, and something I remembered from Iraq, is something affectionately known as "Thursgay." A weekly ritual, local men across the region celebrated their right to enjoy one another physically, and repeatedly--apparently Islam and Catholicism share more traits than silly rules and the same God. Like a rest stop in America, men pair up, wander off into a field and do what comes naturally to your average San Francisco resident. Every camp and base mentioned the practice, with many having armloads of the unions on surveillance tapes. I am told at one location that the older Taliban prisoners actually staged a mini-riot when the army stopped putting younger insurgent captures in with them. The reason for the separation, it was explained, involved repeated abuse of the younger prisoners and their medical need for "having anuses sewn back together." President Ahmadinejad of Iran famously said there were "no homosexuals" in his country, he's somewhat right. While there are indeed homosexuals in any society, making his comment an either outright lie or wishful denial, what happens every Thursday in the fringe of the Islamic world isn't considered gay. Men having sex with men is simply what God intended. Woman is for baby-making, man is for pleasure. So while women are slept with for production, men are slept with because it's natural. Confusing, sure, but what religion isn't? I wish the practice was reported more widely, and fully believe the media is neither left nor right wing biased, just lazy. Maybe if Thursgay was front page and constant ticker news, fewer angry, un-educated young men would want to become terrorists. "Hey, hate America more than you enjoy controlled pooping? Sign right up!"
The insomnia I first noticed in Germany continued throughout the whole tour; every night I'd wake up somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 AM, be up all day and then go to bed around 10:00 PM or so. Which was nice, as every morning my alarm clock would go off at 5:30 AM. Before laying head to pillow I would look it over, make sure it was in the "off" position, and fall asleep. Hours later, the buzzer would be blaring, the switch still reading "off" very clearly. I never figured that little mystery out.
Being awake in the wee hours of the night was nice, because most of the action the insurgents offered happened then. Four evenings in a row the camp was shelled; once, four mortars landed 200 yards from my place of lodging, a Johnny Lee Hooker boom-boom-boom-boom. Fortunately, the Taliban is more concerned with bearding and boy-love than weapons training or showering, and in the combined attacks only one British warplane was damaged and no one hurt. Standard procedure for rounds landing within the perimeter was for sirens to sound and a mandatory move into protective bunkers, which is why I would always use the opportunity to jump onto a computer, do laundry, or take care of some other activity that usually involved congestion. The night I did laundry was memorable. As everyone woke from their beds and navigated into protective concrete cocoons, I gathered up my stinkables and waddled over to the washing machines, figuring they'd finally be available--on two previous nights, even at 4:00 AM, all washers had been in use. I was reading, listening to the hypnotic chug of agitating clothes, when I heard yet another explosive thud land nearby and the tower guards open fire in response. A situation has to be relatively close for guards to be shooting from the wire.
"NOT CLEAR!" The warning system bellowed. "CONDITION IS NOT CLEAR!!"
Oddly enough, the announcement wasn't clear either. At breakfast hours later, the talk laughingly concerned many people saying they only heard the word "CLEAR" and tried going back to their barracks and into danger. Maybe instead of confusing people by throwing a tiny little "not" in front of a big "clear," the military could use two separate phrases, such as "SITUATION DANGER" and "CONDITION CLEAR," but what do I know? I like simplicity and clarity, unlike the military.
After our tour ended, it turned out returning to America was a million times more difficult than leaving it. Like our arrival to Kandahar, we became trapped on base an extra day due to military competence. Our initial flight back to Manas Air Base on Saturday cancelled, and Peter and I were told the next scheduled flight was on Tuesday.
Tuesday.
The person explaining this emphasized it for us, "Tee-uuu-sss-day."
On Sunday morning, simply for shits and giggles, we stopped by the terminal and asked about flights and were treated like assholes; "What part of Tuesday didn't you understand?"
Later Sunday afternoon, after spending time on the firing range--turns out I'm a damn fine shot with an M-4 and scope and got multiple head-shots--the flight situation was mentioned to a Major who had befriended Peter and I, and he about blew a gasket. Taking matters into his own hands, he called the terminal personally and was told, and I do quote, "Well, we had two flights take off earlier today, both pretty empty, but I'd say Tuesday is your best bet." Upon hearing it, I began wishing the terrorists would shell the base again, but only if they could take out air transport. The Major laid down the law: if any plane came anywhere near the base with seats on it, his phone was to ring immediately. An hour later, while sitting in the housing quarters, a call came in from our "Tee-uuu-sss-day" friend: "Get to the terminal, now! Where are you?! A flight is leaving NOW!"
Hmmm… but it was still Sunday. Suuuunday.
We hurried, but forgot that a flight leaving "NOW" in the Air Force meant it was actually leaving in three hours. Once again, Peter and I sat and waited. Had we known what lay in wait for us in Kyrgystan, however, we would have just stayed put at Kandahar. The Travel Demon that started our journey on a semi-sour note flew into full effect once we arrived back at Manas Air Base, where we were supposed to simply deplane, walk across the terminal and board a night flight to Germany. Instead we found out the next scheduled trip west was on Wednesday. Once again, our commercial tickets back to the states were in jeopardy.
Though the same exact pattern from Afghanistan again repeated itself--such as several missed flights on Monday that we were never told of until after departure--our plight was nowhere near as awful as others around us. The soldier waiting five days for a flight back to America, where his mother lay dying of cancer. One man in need of an operation, and another being one of the "lucky" who had accompanied a fallen friend's body to America and was trying to get back to his company. Two soldiers finished with their rotation, trying to get home to family who, and this is tricky, flew from one base in Afghanistan to Kyrgystan, where they were told to wait several days and catch a flight back into Afghanistan, though to a different base this time, where they could ultimately catch a flight to Kuwait. Basically, it was like flying from New York to Los Angeles, then to Chicago for a flight to Phoenix. Again, "military precision." Peter and I may have been inconvenienced, but these people were being fucked sideways, which pretty much sums up military travel: It's a lot like date rape. You sign up for dinner, and wake up hours later sore, bruised and confused. What's worse is the apathy; those working the terminal couldn't care less what happened. One giggled while telling me a flight was cancelled, it was such a big joke to him.
My personal favorite waiting case, though, was the colonel trying to get back to his troops. He had been at Manas for about a week, couldn't catch a flight, and was exceedingly friendly. We got to dining together, which was funny as passing soldiers would salute him, and I would say, "Damn, here you are getting all this respect, and I'm calling you 'dude.'" He let me get away with it, too. Overall, we had so many flights cancelled Peter and I became a running joke. People would erupt with laugher upon seeing us; "You guys are still here?" My response was we were no longer guests, we'd been deployed. I responded to the situation the only way I knew how, by growing a protest beard. I'm not sure it helped plane scheduling, but it did make me feel my frustration had a voice. An itchy voice, at that.
To ease the pain of soul crushing boredom, a trip off base and into town was organized. The buildup was enormous; "You're going to find North Face jackets for five dollars! Cigarettes for five cents! And purses, oh, the purses! You're going to shop like a king for under twenty dollars." Purses? Under twenty dollars? Only three words could describe such a heaven: Best. Day. Ever. Like any anticipation offered, such as "you're going home," letdown was imminent ("flights cancelled, back to your tent."). Nothing was a bargain, not in the slightest. No cheap jackets, shoes, or purses (dammit).
The military had four rules to follow in town: no underground shopping malls, because they were unsafe. No prostitutes, because it was against the law. No consumption of alcohol, because the military is fucking retarded. Use the buddy system, because two is better than one. Well, as I was civilian, not military, I was left to my own devices and decided to set off on my own. I don't know what I expected to find in the underground shopping malls--maybe the seedy underbelly of a society, with drugs, hookers and unusual pornography involving animals wearing diapers--but it definitely wasn't stationary and soap. Like the ubiquitous Starbucks in America, every underground shopping mall had a dozen stores selling sharp looking writing materials and lovely scented body washes. Very dangerous to the military, apparently. I could see why the underworld was off limits.
I figured a brothel would be too cumbersome to locate, so I wandered around until I found the more squalid section of town and bingo, hooker row. All lined up and ready to spread disease. Of all the prostitutes I've been around in my life, which isn't too many but probably more by quadruple than your average person, these were easily some of the most mannish. I actually wouldn't have been too surprised to find they were either tyrannies or operations gone wrong, actually. Naturally, each refused to take a picture with me, which is an odd commonality among call girls. They all offer to blow you for fifty bucks, but won't ever capture a slice of life in photograph. They all get pretty huffy when you turn their services down, too.
I almost bought a bottle of vodka, simply to break the final of the four rules, but since I don’t drink there was no point. Dinner amazed me, that much I can share. Not because Kyrgyz food is either delicious or not, but because of all the places to choose from, after everyone re-joined the group we went to an Italian restaurant and ordered pizza. It also cost twelve dollars, just like in the states. What a bargain.
The rest of the delay days were days spent in boredom. On the plus side, extra comedy shows were added for those stationed or passing through the base. On the minus side, I kept begging to be allowed to bundle up in a protective suit and have video taken of the K-9 dogs attacking me, but no one would go for it. An email from Afghanistan told me Kandahar hadn’t been shelled since our departure, which created the obvious joke, "The Taliban doesn't hate Americans, they hate comedians."
Eventually, a flight home was found, and it was an actual military passenger plane, a nice change of pace. The colonel escaped several hours earlier, and I believe the soldier on emergency leave got on the plane with Peter and I, but my memory fails me now.
I'd give just about anything to go back. Whatever whining I've done, it's all for fun of the writing. The experience was absolutely a highlight of my life. I was able to meet many people, blow my vocal cords out performing shout-shows without a sound system, and see a chunk of the world oft talked and reported about, but rarely seen by outside eyes.
In 2005, Afghanistan was just starting to slide; a shifting of troops due to the idea of Iraq had insurgents getting frisky again. According to reports, it's only gotten more violent since then. When in power, the Taliban ran the country into the ground, ruling with a book of religion over human rights and common sense. Today, we are doing our best to re-build it for its residents--ironic, considering every election cycle our own ignorant fanatics take a book of fairy tales into the booth with them and vote against scientific fact and for ancient ideas. Either way, soldiers wearing the American uniform are in a foreign country, far from home, and building schools, hospitals, roads... they are protecting women's rights and trying to provide clean water and democratic ideals to an entire nation.
All while being shot at and undermined by an angry minority.
If that doesn't deserve a magnet on your fucking Escalade, I don't know what does.
Special thanks to Robert L., Joe I., Major Bob M. and John P. for their guidance, safe keeping and most of all company during my visit.
quick video of the trip.
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The night before my departure to Afghanistan, I was making a few calls. Giving some "good byes," receiving other well wishes and the like. Though we as humans rarely like to think of the worst that can happen in life, it is still sometimes necessary to dot all unfortunate "I's" and cross all tragic "T's," just in case. While discussing the trip with my mom, she eventually whispered, "What happens if you die over there?"
Sadly, distracted by packing, I forgot I was talking to a parent, not a friend, and answered honestly over carefully. "Fuck if I care. Throw me in a burlap bag and toss me in a ditch with whatever else the Taliban offed that day."
Silence followed, then a choke, and finally tears.
There is little in life more uncomfortable than the sound of a crying mother. Parents say they want to relate to you, to be your friend, but they can't; the bond is too different than that of friendship. Parents like safety. Roses and rainbows. Eggshells to walk upon.
The next voice over the phone was my sisters, demanding, "What did you say? Why did you say that?? That's a horrible thing to say to mom!"
(That I wasn't thinking granted me little forgiveness)
I wasn't trying to be belittling or dismissive, I've just never understood the pageantry of death. When I'm gone, and all that remains is the shell that once was me, who cares what happens to it? Am I not to live on in memories and hearts? Such thoughts don't matter to loved ones; death is about image, and no mother wants to picture her child in a ditch.
Apologies were made, and compromises reached; I allowed permission for a funeral, but insisted in writing on certain conditions. If I was not disfigured, the casket had to be open and a fake, Freddy Mercury mustache fitted upon my upper lip. As funerals are generally somber little slices of life, I needed reassurance mine would contain a little levity.
Not that I feared death on the trip. Just as with my trip to Iraq, my belief was death is for those who have moved beyond the drudgery of day-to-day existence on earth. At that juncture in my life--having recently been dumped and in the lovely pit of depression--I felt I had much more pain and rejection to experience before dying (and miles to go before I sleep). I believed life was exited by the comfortable, those who understood the silly and stupid nature of everything that transpired in the physical realm and were more amused than saddened by it. The downtrodden, such as myself? We suffered on endlessly. Emo, thy middle name was me.
If all trips begin with an omen, then the introduction to my flights with fellow comedian Peter had us cursed by the Travel Demon.
Attempting to check in at LAX for the first leg of our journey--our travel plans had us flying commercial from the states to Germany, then transferring to military planes from Germany to Kyrgyzstan and ultimately into our final destination of Afghanistan--we were told that while the Air Force made our airline reservations, no tickets were actually ever purchased. If we wanted to offer up a personal credit card, the seats were waiting for us. If not? We were welcome to call taxis and head back home. How lovely.
If there is one thing to be understood about the military, it's that it is an enormous living, breathing and messy organism. Everything is filled out in triplicate, and military logic anything but. Liken it to scenes seen in a Hollywood movie; if the cover of a TPS report is missing or a single comma exists out of place, all gears grind to a screeching halt. I always wondered about The Hunt For Red October, where every command was given several times. "Right, full rudder," Sean Connery would yell. Immediately, Sam Neil would bellow, "Right, full rudder," and so on down the line until the schlep at the console would steer the sub to the right. Even thought the schlep could hear the initial order, it had to go through proper channels to reach him. A waste, yes, but absolutely military, no matter what the country. Regarding the problem at hand, while it was obviously known two comedians from the states were flying over, with shows having been scheduled, plane reservations made and official military orders issued to Peter and I, somewhere along the way a brake occurred in the chain of command and no purchase order enacted.
Naturally, a very specific itinerary, with a very specific timeline, was set in place for us. We had to make it to Germany for our next flight, or we'd be stranded there. Panicked, we now had to pray our LA liaison would either be awake or be awoken by his cell phone to take our call at 7:30 AM, and he then had to get on the horn to Germany and pray someone with the authority to release funds was still in the office at 4:30 PM.
After much back and forth between the parties in power, and well after the departure of our flight, Peter and I were re-scheduled onto an afternoon airplane to the Deutschland. To much amazement, we discovered that though we actually arrived in Germany much later than originally anticipated, we still landed a full two hours before our flight to Kyrgyzstan. Sadly, this meant nothing to the Air Force. According to regulations, passengers must be checked in and sitting in the terminal waiting area a full three hours before any flight. Fliers are not allowed to wander the terminal, nor relax in the USO lounge, checking email. A passenger on an Air Force plane has to be in designated areas at designated times--holding area one, two, then three--before boarding a flight. The first moment inside the three-hour departure window, if you have not checked in your seat is forfeit, leaving you stuck waiting for the next available plane. So, while Peter and I could see that our ride had not only not taken off, it hadn't even boarded, we were not allowed to sit for two hours and wait for it. Because waiting two hours is apparently inherently unsafe and absolutely unheard of, and military logic is anything but.
Spending a day in Germany was not an awful thing, however, as we visited a Sound-Of-Music little village, with Hansel & Gretel houses erected among enormous trees in the rolling hills of lush country. Considering a cliché can be a wonderful thing, then the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" is the trump card of them all. I woke the next morning at 3am, a little before my alarm, and it was dark and foggy outside. I stepped to the window, opened it and looked over the blackened forest. As I breathed in the cold, wet early morning air, the radio/alarm clicked to life behind me.
And I was stunned.
As if timed by God, the opening notes to Rossini's "William Tell Overture" played lightly. If there are ever so precious moments in life, those hard to believe or describe, being in Germany, in a dark, fog filled forest with William Tell playing... if you believed in the supernatural, you would almost feel the presence in the room with you, one as tangible as any physical form. The hair on my arms raised as I experienced gooseflesh rippling across me, and I wondered how much of life is extraordinary outside circumstances acting their will upon us, and how much is self-invention inside our heads.
Peter and I caught our make-up flight, and thus spent an entire day without seeing daylight. We left Germany pre-dawn and flew against the sun ten hours on a windowless military plane to Kyrgyzstan, where we landed well into the evening. If the St. Louis Arch is the Gateway to the West, then Manas Air base, Kyrgyzstan, is the mouth into Hell. Manas is a way station; a pit stop between war or home, depending on your direction. Peter and I were going "Down Range." Iraq, it is explained, was "In Country," with Afghanistan being "Down Range." A subtle difference, to say the least.
We landed a little after eleven, ate a midnight meal, took a two-hour nap and shuffled our way over to the loading zone for a 5am flight. Our transportation was a C-17 cargo plane, a cavernous tube filled with equipment and making we comedians officially baggage, not passengers. As with any regular flight, a pre-liftoff safety briefing was given. When flying military, however, added information arises in interesting ways: "In case of a missile attack..." "If cargo should come loose and you have a crate of ammunition flying at you..." Everything was said in serious tones, because flying into a war zone is serious business, so it was to much delight I spied our on-flight guide settling in among his multi-million dollar military computer and radar system and firing up a game of solitaire. Just another day at the office.
Hours later, the video game was off and his game face was on. In preparation for landing, instruments were checked and re-checked. Combat arrival is unlike any commercial flight; in a commercial landing, the nose remains high and the plane eases its way to earth, using wind resistance to gentle the impact as much as possible. When entering into a war zone, no one wants to be an easy target for shoulder rockets or RPG's, so the planes remain high and fast for as long as possible, then nosedive in towards the runway, plummeting at high speed and leveling off at the last possible moment. The next time you hear of a crash during training, know that they were probably doing something very dangerous. With the military, even in peace can you die training for war.
Peter and I were flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan. The international military base erected atop the city's old airport was to be our hub for the coming weeks, but little did we know it would be our home for several days solid. When performing military tours in hot zones, you are generally flown to as many Forward Operating Bases as possible, staging multiple shows per day in order to entertain the largest volume of soldiers available. Sadly, our first day in, October 8th, 2005, this became impossible. For history buffs, that date will ring the memory bell of a great Pakistani earthquake, 7.7 on the Richter scale. Peter and I awoke to CNN announcing Donald Rumsfeld's decision to send military helicopters from Afghanistan across the border on rescue and relief missions. It was surreal, watching helicopters on the news leaving a base, then looking out the window to see the event occurring live several hundred yards away. It was disappointing learning that with no spare helicopters, we had no way of being ushered around for shows and would be sitting squat a while.
The earthquake did provide personal fodder, considering most Americans are not too geographically savvy. I had to explain to numerous friends and family members that Afghanistan is a country quite sizeable in nature, not sub-division tiny. People--my mother in particular--were emailing me incessantly, making sure I had not been killed in a devastation that took place nowhere near me. It's an odd psychological phenomena, that the first thought after a localized tragedy is of your loved one regardless of the odds of involvement. The emails received made me wonder if it would have been appropriate for me to check in with friends in Maine after Hurricane Katrina hit. "Hey, New Orleans got wiped out, are you ok???"
At one point there was a glimmer of hope Peter and I could join a convoy to a nearby base and perform, but no space was unavailable and we remained behind. I was told several hours later the group had been targeted, and I was disappointed to have missed it. The attack wasn't an out an out assault, but a suicide bombing gone wrong. Apparently a car was laden with explosives, then made an end run at the final vehicle in line. Fortunately, there are few fanatics who are very bright; foot soldiers in the fundamentalist world are the easily brainwashed peasants. They are told the reason life sucks is because of America--much the way Americans are told the reason their life sucks is because of illegal immigrants--and being one hundred percent un-educated, they believe it. The dimwitted terrorist fighting for "god" that day bounced his car off the back bumper of the bookend transport, lost control, and blew himself up as he was skidding away from the supply line. The stories of stupidity make soldiers laugh, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and when an insurgent somehow gets his shit together, people die.
The several day entrapment at Kandahar created plenty of time to learn about the area and conflict. I visited the TLS building, headquarters for the entire base and named for the "Taliban's Last Stand." It is the location where the Taliban went from oppressive assholes, governing their country through cruel means, to fragmented fuckheads scattered to the hills. The initial American rout of the Taliban was lightning-fast, and never ones to surrender, the final clump of terrorists banded together and holed up in one building. They fortified it, armed themselves heavily and prepared for a fierce, final battle where no quarter would be asked or granted. They envisioned a room-to-room fight to the death and dreamed of killing Americans struggling to take the structure. Meanwhile, safely outside, those very American soldiers being salivated over inside looked at one another, asked, "How stupid do these idiots think we are," and called in coordinates. An air strike arrived and a new, ventilated roof, created--I laughed as I had the thought, "Well, we'll know Afghanistan is a truly free nation when illegal Mexican immigrants are hired to repair roofs here, too." I walked through the building, marveling at the charred-black inner walls, still adorned with bullet holes from heat-exploded clips the militia had been hoping to fire at our soldiers. A flagpole was erected through the missile's point of impact, and the American flag flew high above the building. In a moment of personal honor, I was presented with a flag of my own. I tied it to the pole, raised it by hand up through the missile-hole, and fluttered it in the light Afghani breeze several moments. It was then lowered, folded, and given to me with a certificate of authenticity stating I arrived, supported the troops, and flew the flag where brutality once reigned. Not bad for a humble white-boy from Wisconsin.
If the TLS building is where initial conflict ended, there had to be a place where it began. That location lay close enough that a field trip gave me witness to the inception of what would eventually be known as 9/11. In the time between that Tuesday in September and our invasion of Afghanistan, the most ubiquitous footage on television was of Osama Bin Laden training angry insurgents on monkey bars. Said footage was shot at Tarnak Farms, ten kilometers from Kandahar. A convoy was created to drive out to look it all over, and though we were eventually allowed to visit the Farm, our trip was delayed by one day. The morning we were scheduled to stand in the aura of evil, evil acted first. Four international doctors were killed while treating displaced peoples at a refugee camp. The doctors didn't want military protection, because being associated with America and the West was "bad," and they thought remaining neutral would keep them safe. This logic would be akin to me thinking I could stroll across the track at the Indy 500 on race day, because pedestrians are supposed to have the right of way. Should matter isn't does matter. In laymen's terms: no good deed goes unpunished. Though the doctors were simply trying to help peasants, insurgents executed them as a sign no one is welcome in the Taliban's world. So, safety concerns, along with--no lie--misplaced paperwork, waylaid our trip that day.
After the proper forms were filed, however, our outing was green-lit and I piled into the point vehicle of the convoy as fast as possible. In any driving chain, the first link is the most susceptible to attack; the idea being that if you cripple the first car, all others following are trapped and wide open for violence. I figured that were anything to happen, I wanted to be front and center, my video camera documenting it all. Though no ambush occurred, my helmet did get put to good use when our Humvee hit a pothole so large it bounced me out of my seat and into the roof, cracking my head against the fortified metal there and giving me a serious case of the giggles. That elation soon faded though, as visiting Tarnak Farms and knowing what who lived and schemed there was a somber event. It was also an eye-opener, as seeing first hand what America was up against in Afghanistan, I could understand the ill logic an angry and confused Donald Rumsfeld used when pushing for war with Iraq. "Afghanistan's got no targets," was his famous quote, and he wasn't lying. We bombed what we could, which was, if you remember the terrorist training videos, monkey bars. We. Bombed. Monkey bars. A playground, if you will. Sure, we bombed the few buildings we could, but overall Osama's assholes were trained in the most primitive ways and under the most archaic conditions. The sensation of standing in a field of nothing, looking at clay huts and little else and knowing that the people here were so obsessed with America, a land so far away from them with technology they couldn't possibly grasp, that they were able to plot to fell two buildings in New York... it literally set my head to swimming.
Being trapped in one location several days also afforded me the "opportunity" to attend a line ceremony. A soldier lost his life in an attack made on a patrol in the Afghani hills, and I was allowed to stand at attention and witness the loading of his flag draped casket aboard the plane home. The Kandahar military base is an international one, having numerous nations with stationed soldiers within its walls. France, England and Romania are but a few of the countries represented, and the military uniform creates a brotherhood that surpasses all differences between governments. Every single unit available turned out for the observance, the majority having never met the deceased, as he was from another FOB, further out in the field. They turned out because though wearing a different uniform, they knew that somewhere a family was tearfully awaiting their child's arrival. They knew a friend of the fallen, a fellow soldier, would accompany the body all the way to its destination, look a mother or father in the eye, and hand over the flag currently covering the coffin. The ceremony is an event precious few civilians see, and one that left me with many emotional layers. Pride, regarding the honoring by all nations and soldiers. Embarrassment, like I was some sort of fucking tourist attending an event I had no business being at. Most of all, sorrow, over the loss. Every goddamn moment had me confused and moved in ways I don't like admitting to.
Fortunately, there is an odd way of life making you laugh through tears, and at ritual's end I was given a respite from the lump in my throat. The soldiers in attendance were respectfully strong, standing tall with shoulders back but technically "at ease," as the stance is known. The call to attention was made, that the troops would exit the runway in an organized manner, so everyone snapped to. An inaudible command was given, and in true Keystone Cops fashion, many of the soldiers turned in different directions. Where all were supposed to turn to the right, some remained still, others turned left, and a few spun entirely around. No one broke formation, exactly, but they looked quite like the night-before-graduation troop from Stripes, unsure of what to do or where to face as they trained for their boom-chuga-lugga-lugga-lugga moment the next day. Though my heart was breaking, I had to smile.
After several days of one base, I was relieved to hear Peter and I would finally begin touring through the country. Travel between FOB's is a fun experience; while I still found Blackhawk helicopters the most fun form of transportation, the Chinooks I despised in Iraq proved to be quicker and more nimble than memory served. We would fly over very obvious poppy fields--whether or not they were growing wild or waiting for harvest into opium and sale was unknown--and mountaintops were skimmed at high speeds, that anyone hiding in a cave not draw a bead and knock us out of the sky. Two Chinooks had been shot down in the region in recent months. Fifteen Marines lost their lives in one, so reporters ran around excitedly, trying to get the biggest and best scoop on the story. Five crewmembers lost their life in the other, and the same reporters collectively said, "Five? That's not news" and shrugged away the importance of human life. How certain people live with themselves, I do not know.
Meeting soldiers overseas is always a funny experience, as "the grass is always greener" is their favorite game. I'd be asked where I just performed, and upon answering defeated indignation emerged from the questioner. "Man," they'd begin, "I'd give anything to be stationed there. They get it so easy, while we're always under attack. They get Thai hookers flown in every week for sex parties, and we gotta jerk-off in the port-a potties. This base sucks." That the base I'd just been at had uttered the exact same phrase concerning the camp I was currently in made me smile silently. The reality of the situation is Afghanistan is one big Groundhog Day; wake up, eat, pick the dust boogers out of your nose (personal experience was several minutes, several times a day), sweat, eat, bed. But, fantasy of the other keeps a soldier sane, I suppose.
Most bases are converted villages, and the soldiers live in clay homes purchased by the American government. Discovering this, I asked one commander what his base cost and received a jubilant, "Are you kidding? It's a steal, only seventy-eight thousand dollars a year!" My response was historical; "We're using money to buy land now? Didn't we used to get it for beads and smallpox?"
One of our first stops was that of the fallen soldier whose ceremony we had just attended. Peter and I were flown in around nine in the morning for a 10:00 AM show. Everyone was asleep, as they had just gotten back from an overnight patrol. Tensions were high, considering the ambush and loss they had just faced, so the commanding officer informed us he was going to issue an order of attendance for the show. Such news made Peter and I uneasy, as not only was the current situation already not too ideal, but mandatory turnout brings in a reluctant audience. The show was to be performed in what served as the recreation room, in essence a converted living room that was maybe fifteen by thirty feet at best. Slowly, twenty tired soldiers with sleep-deprived eyes made their way into the room to sit wherever they could, which meant mostly on the floor. Their faces seemed so very, very young to me. Being nineteen or twenty might make one an adult by default, but when I think about what I was dealing with at that age, compared to the enormous stress and pressure those in front of me were living with daily... words do fail.
Exhausted and forced to be there, those twenty young men made a damn fine audience. They smiled, then laughed, then eventually clapped and laughed as their body posture went from rigid to relaxed. Their commander was a veteran, and knew that sometimes youth has to be told how to deal with stress. I performed my agreed upon twenty minutes, then introduced Peter. Considering the limited space available, I left the room and went outside. With thirty minutes to kill, I figured I'd wander the base and see what there was to see. Within ten minutes, I was approached by a hurried soldier and informed in somewhat panicked manner Peter and I had to get out to the landing zone; the helicopter was on its way and it didn't want to wait for us. I quickly made my way back to the showroom, paused to write a message of explanation, opened the door and signaled to Peter, then passed him the note. Peter nodded, and wrapped up his set a few minutes later.
Outside, after the show, he pulled me aside; "I didn't want to do this in front of anyone, but you need to be more mindful of your time from now on."
"What?" I responded, confused.
"If the show is going to be cut short, you need to be aware of how long you perform."
I rolled my eyes and let it all go, allowing Peter to feel good about scolding me and correcting the "embarrassment" suffered by having his portion of the show cut short. He was the headliner, and on top of that had close ties with the booker who put me on the tour, so I didn't get into it with him. I was still irritated, though. We had agreed to certain set times up front; I did mine, then the circumstances changed entirely outside of either of our ability to control it. That ego would supercede the overall situation, entertaining the troops, irritated me.
To make matters laughably ironic, the rush order to get to the landing zone was simply needless panic. We ended up waiting, bored, forty-five minutes for our helicopter. Keep in mind, the base was very small and the landing zone was at best a three-minute walk from where we had been telling our jokes. In reality, we could have not only finished the show, but been anywhere on base, heard the helicopter echo in the mountains and jogged to meet it before it even landed. But, as said, the military likes it when you wait for flights. Regardless, I was happy to have had the experience. The young men in that room were one of the best audiences I have ever performed for, better by far than many late-night Friday audiences in the states. They actually needed to laugh. No one happened to stumble in drunkenly to heckle or was dragged in by their girlfriend and sullenly sat with arms-crossed the whole evening. They were in need of distraction, and I was honored and humbled to have been it for that day.
As in Iraq, base-to-base travel became a blur. One was notable for being within sight of an old, enormous fortress built by Genghis Kahn, another I remember for its isolation. Upon hearing we were traveling to the FOB, soldiers would laugh, clap me on the back and say, "Have fun with that." Though the country was "won," the most isolated of bases were still considered "behind enemy lines." While the camp with the fallen soldier was small, it still contained a series of individual dwellings within its walls. The most isolated area we visited was so tiny it was but a single structure, something similar in size to a small restaurant and a lone contingent resided inside. Peter and I were informed the Blackhawk would do a touch-drop; as soon as it hit the ground, we were to jump out so it could take off again. Despite the fact the entrance to the structure was a mere 100 yards away, two armed Humvees mounted with 50-caliber guns met us. The soldiers manning them were exceedingly alert, and we were rushed into the vehicles and spirited away behind the blast walls quickly. Considering the size and location of the base, it being alone in a valley encircled by mountains, I asked if they'd ever been attacked "Assault On Precinct 13" style, with a full on surrounding.
"Yeah," the soldier answered. "Our translators started picking up chatter on the radio about ten minutes before it happened, as they got into position. See those black marks up on the hill?" he asked, gesturing. "We lit that hill up like the fourth of July. Sent 'em scurrying like rats."
Boo-yah.
One thing the outer FOB's had going for them was independence; being on the front lines, they were far enough away from central command to be allowed the courtesy of relaxed regulations. Common sense and understanding the rules of tact governed their style of dress, which could be a little unkempt without a ranking officer barking at them to do push ups. As with any institution: the larger the system, the bigger the bureaucracy. On our home base, Kandahar, the rules and regulations were beyond silly at times. One member of the Military Police told me without exaggeration, "This base is out of control!" His reasoning? Apparently there were soldiers who had in their possession, gasp, pornography--some even had beer!
(To quote colonel Kurtz, "The horror...")
While I could understand the military not wanting its soldiers drunk in a war zone, the fact is, alcohol is used to alleviate stress, and who has more stress than someone getting shot at in a foreign country? The problem is their society; Afghanistan is an Islamic nation and alcohol is forbidden in its rules, just like meat used to be by Catholics. As alcohol is also the great equalizer, a substance that levels the playing field, it would be a boon to the Afghani people. Consider its properties using this example: Kobe Bryant is one of the best basketball players alive today. Were I to play him in a game of one-on-one, I'd get my ass handed to me up and down the court. But, were we each to have six to eight shots of Jagermeister, we'd be about equal. Yes, Kobe would still be a better rapist than I am, but I'd be able to take him in a game of H-O-R-S-E. My point is, maybe if the insurgents would get a little buzzed on occasion, they wouldn't be such unhappy dicks, lashing out at the world around them. Oh, religion, is there anything rule you have that makes sense?
What's beyond odd about the "no alcohol" mandate for American's on base is, I thought they were considered American soil. Once on them, you abided by the governing rules of the United States, as her flag flew above the soldiers. In essence, by banning alcohol we were capitulating in order to show kindness to hosts that didn't invite us in. A tad hypocritical, considering we're supposed to be bringing them democracy, which is the right to free will and individual choice.
My two personal favorite regulations were the 10-mile per hour speed limit and the "No Bags In The Chow Hall" sign. The reason the first rule seemed silly because everyone knows how exceedingly difficult it is to drive that slowly. To have to drive a mile or more across base and crawl along at 10-mph is just frustrating. The reason the "No Bags" sign made me smile was its location, existing right next to the "If you AREN'T armed, you CAN'T eat here" sign, which is probably not unlike anything you'd see at a picnic in Alabama. While I understand the order was designed to prevent people from sneaking bombs into the mess hall, it still seemed silly when I was yelled at for attempting to carry my camera bag in with me. I opened it and showed the civilian guard earning a great, tax-free paycheck higher than that of the soldiers surrounding her, the meager contents, yet was still denied entry. I guess it makes sense, though. Were anyone to have an actual bomb on them, there's absolutely no way, no way in hell they could ever detonate it right there on the spot or rush in past her to explode it. I mean, she was built like an offensive lineman, only without the muscle.
One constant comment across every base visited, and something I remembered from Iraq, is something affectionately known as "Thursgay." A weekly ritual, local men across the region celebrated their right to enjoy one another physically, and repeatedly--apparently Islam and Catholicism share more traits than silly rules and the same God. Like a rest stop in America, men pair up, wander off into a field and do what comes naturally to your average San Francisco resident. Every camp and base mentioned the practice, with many having armloads of the unions on surveillance tapes. I am told at one location that the older Taliban prisoners actually staged a mini-riot when the army stopped putting younger insurgent captures in with them. The reason for the separation, it was explained, involved repeated abuse of the younger prisoners and their medical need for "having anuses sewn back together." President Ahmadinejad of Iran famously said there were "no homosexuals" in his country, he's somewhat right. While there are indeed homosexuals in any society, making his comment an either outright lie or wishful denial, what happens every Thursday in the fringe of the Islamic world isn't considered gay. Men having sex with men is simply what God intended. Woman is for baby-making, man is for pleasure. So while women are slept with for production, men are slept with because it's natural. Confusing, sure, but what religion isn't? I wish the practice was reported more widely, and fully believe the media is neither left nor right wing biased, just lazy. Maybe if Thursgay was front page and constant ticker news, fewer angry, un-educated young men would want to become terrorists. "Hey, hate America more than you enjoy controlled pooping? Sign right up!"
The insomnia I first noticed in Germany continued throughout the whole tour; every night I'd wake up somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 AM, be up all day and then go to bed around 10:00 PM or so. Which was nice, as every morning my alarm clock would go off at 5:30 AM. Before laying head to pillow I would look it over, make sure it was in the "off" position, and fall asleep. Hours later, the buzzer would be blaring, the switch still reading "off" very clearly. I never figured that little mystery out.
Being awake in the wee hours of the night was nice, because most of the action the insurgents offered happened then. Four evenings in a row the camp was shelled; once, four mortars landed 200 yards from my place of lodging, a Johnny Lee Hooker boom-boom-boom-boom. Fortunately, the Taliban is more concerned with bearding and boy-love than weapons training or showering, and in the combined attacks only one British warplane was damaged and no one hurt. Standard procedure for rounds landing within the perimeter was for sirens to sound and a mandatory move into protective bunkers, which is why I would always use the opportunity to jump onto a computer, do laundry, or take care of some other activity that usually involved congestion. The night I did laundry was memorable. As everyone woke from their beds and navigated into protective concrete cocoons, I gathered up my stinkables and waddled over to the washing machines, figuring they'd finally be available--on two previous nights, even at 4:00 AM, all washers had been in use. I was reading, listening to the hypnotic chug of agitating clothes, when I heard yet another explosive thud land nearby and the tower guards open fire in response. A situation has to be relatively close for guards to be shooting from the wire.
"NOT CLEAR!" The warning system bellowed. "CONDITION IS NOT CLEAR!!"
Oddly enough, the announcement wasn't clear either. At breakfast hours later, the talk laughingly concerned many people saying they only heard the word "CLEAR" and tried going back to their barracks and into danger. Maybe instead of confusing people by throwing a tiny little "not" in front of a big "clear," the military could use two separate phrases, such as "SITUATION DANGER" and "CONDITION CLEAR," but what do I know? I like simplicity and clarity, unlike the military.
After our tour ended, it turned out returning to America was a million times more difficult than leaving it. Like our arrival to Kandahar, we became trapped on base an extra day due to military competence. Our initial flight back to Manas Air Base on Saturday cancelled, and Peter and I were told the next scheduled flight was on Tuesday.
Tuesday.
The person explaining this emphasized it for us, "Tee-uuu-sss-day."
On Sunday morning, simply for shits and giggles, we stopped by the terminal and asked about flights and were treated like assholes; "What part of Tuesday didn't you understand?"
Later Sunday afternoon, after spending time on the firing range--turns out I'm a damn fine shot with an M-4 and scope and got multiple head-shots--the flight situation was mentioned to a Major who had befriended Peter and I, and he about blew a gasket. Taking matters into his own hands, he called the terminal personally and was told, and I do quote, "Well, we had two flights take off earlier today, both pretty empty, but I'd say Tuesday is your best bet." Upon hearing it, I began wishing the terrorists would shell the base again, but only if they could take out air transport. The Major laid down the law: if any plane came anywhere near the base with seats on it, his phone was to ring immediately. An hour later, while sitting in the housing quarters, a call came in from our "Tee-uuu-sss-day" friend: "Get to the terminal, now! Where are you?! A flight is leaving NOW!"
Hmmm… but it was still Sunday. Suuuunday.
We hurried, but forgot that a flight leaving "NOW" in the Air Force meant it was actually leaving in three hours. Once again, Peter and I sat and waited. Had we known what lay in wait for us in Kyrgystan, however, we would have just stayed put at Kandahar. The Travel Demon that started our journey on a semi-sour note flew into full effect once we arrived back at Manas Air Base, where we were supposed to simply deplane, walk across the terminal and board a night flight to Germany. Instead we found out the next scheduled trip west was on Wednesday. Once again, our commercial tickets back to the states were in jeopardy.
Though the same exact pattern from Afghanistan again repeated itself--such as several missed flights on Monday that we were never told of until after departure--our plight was nowhere near as awful as others around us. The soldier waiting five days for a flight back to America, where his mother lay dying of cancer. One man in need of an operation, and another being one of the "lucky" who had accompanied a fallen friend's body to America and was trying to get back to his company. Two soldiers finished with their rotation, trying to get home to family who, and this is tricky, flew from one base in Afghanistan to Kyrgystan, where they were told to wait several days and catch a flight back into Afghanistan, though to a different base this time, where they could ultimately catch a flight to Kuwait. Basically, it was like flying from New York to Los Angeles, then to Chicago for a flight to Phoenix. Again, "military precision." Peter and I may have been inconvenienced, but these people were being fucked sideways, which pretty much sums up military travel: It's a lot like date rape. You sign up for dinner, and wake up hours later sore, bruised and confused. What's worse is the apathy; those working the terminal couldn't care less what happened. One giggled while telling me a flight was cancelled, it was such a big joke to him.
My personal favorite waiting case, though, was the colonel trying to get back to his troops. He had been at Manas for about a week, couldn't catch a flight, and was exceedingly friendly. We got to dining together, which was funny as passing soldiers would salute him, and I would say, "Damn, here you are getting all this respect, and I'm calling you 'dude.'" He let me get away with it, too. Overall, we had so many flights cancelled Peter and I became a running joke. People would erupt with laugher upon seeing us; "You guys are still here?" My response was we were no longer guests, we'd been deployed. I responded to the situation the only way I knew how, by growing a protest beard. I'm not sure it helped plane scheduling, but it did make me feel my frustration had a voice. An itchy voice, at that.
To ease the pain of soul crushing boredom, a trip off base and into town was organized. The buildup was enormous; "You're going to find North Face jackets for five dollars! Cigarettes for five cents! And purses, oh, the purses! You're going to shop like a king for under twenty dollars." Purses? Under twenty dollars? Only three words could describe such a heaven: Best. Day. Ever. Like any anticipation offered, such as "you're going home," letdown was imminent ("flights cancelled, back to your tent."). Nothing was a bargain, not in the slightest. No cheap jackets, shoes, or purses (dammit).
The military had four rules to follow in town: no underground shopping malls, because they were unsafe. No prostitutes, because it was against the law. No consumption of alcohol, because the military is fucking retarded. Use the buddy system, because two is better than one. Well, as I was civilian, not military, I was left to my own devices and decided to set off on my own. I don't know what I expected to find in the underground shopping malls--maybe the seedy underbelly of a society, with drugs, hookers and unusual pornography involving animals wearing diapers--but it definitely wasn't stationary and soap. Like the ubiquitous Starbucks in America, every underground shopping mall had a dozen stores selling sharp looking writing materials and lovely scented body washes. Very dangerous to the military, apparently. I could see why the underworld was off limits.
I figured a brothel would be too cumbersome to locate, so I wandered around until I found the more squalid section of town and bingo, hooker row. All lined up and ready to spread disease. Of all the prostitutes I've been around in my life, which isn't too many but probably more by quadruple than your average person, these were easily some of the most mannish. I actually wouldn't have been too surprised to find they were either tyrannies or operations gone wrong, actually. Naturally, each refused to take a picture with me, which is an odd commonality among call girls. They all offer to blow you for fifty bucks, but won't ever capture a slice of life in photograph. They all get pretty huffy when you turn their services down, too.
I almost bought a bottle of vodka, simply to break the final of the four rules, but since I don’t drink there was no point. Dinner amazed me, that much I can share. Not because Kyrgyz food is either delicious or not, but because of all the places to choose from, after everyone re-joined the group we went to an Italian restaurant and ordered pizza. It also cost twelve dollars, just like in the states. What a bargain.
The rest of the delay days were days spent in boredom. On the plus side, extra comedy shows were added for those stationed or passing through the base. On the minus side, I kept begging to be allowed to bundle up in a protective suit and have video taken of the K-9 dogs attacking me, but no one would go for it. An email from Afghanistan told me Kandahar hadn’t been shelled since our departure, which created the obvious joke, "The Taliban doesn't hate Americans, they hate comedians."
Eventually, a flight home was found, and it was an actual military passenger plane, a nice change of pace. The colonel escaped several hours earlier, and I believe the soldier on emergency leave got on the plane with Peter and I, but my memory fails me now.
I'd give just about anything to go back. Whatever whining I've done, it's all for fun of the writing. The experience was absolutely a highlight of my life. I was able to meet many people, blow my vocal cords out performing shout-shows without a sound system, and see a chunk of the world oft talked and reported about, but rarely seen by outside eyes.
In 2005, Afghanistan was just starting to slide; a shifting of troops due to the idea of Iraq had insurgents getting frisky again. According to reports, it's only gotten more violent since then. When in power, the Taliban ran the country into the ground, ruling with a book of religion over human rights and common sense. Today, we are doing our best to re-build it for its residents--ironic, considering every election cycle our own ignorant fanatics take a book of fairy tales into the booth with them and vote against scientific fact and for ancient ideas. Either way, soldiers wearing the American uniform are in a foreign country, far from home, and building schools, hospitals, roads... they are protecting women's rights and trying to provide clean water and democratic ideals to an entire nation.
All while being shot at and undermined by an angry minority.
If that doesn't deserve a magnet on your fucking Escalade, I don't know what does.
Special thanks to Robert L., Joe I., Major Bob M. and John P. for their guidance, safe keeping and most of all company during my visit.
quick video of the trip.
.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Your LCD Eliminates Me
The older I get, the more apathetic I become. I remember being passionate about politics; election season would bring out the worst in me. I would be impassioned by the ideas involving "truth" and "justice" and other so-called ideals I felt were important. Now? Not so much so. As I age, in every election I see the same patterns played out again and again by both sides, and I want nothing really to do with any of it.
When this election cycle started, I liked two people: on the Republican side, Ron Paul, because he was bat-shit insane, but honest, and on the Democrat side, Bill Richardson, because while I didn't know anything about him, when asked a direct yes/no question, he always gave a direct yes/no answer. As both men were eventually eliminated by those giving better sound-bites or more willing to pander to the masses, and we the people were left with Barack Obama and John McCain, I thought to myself, "You know what, I'm not going to play the two-party game this year. I'm going to write in my candidate of choice." Yes, I knew I would be throwing my vote away, but fuck it. The older I get, the more I want to do things based on principle, not desire.
I've never been fascinated with Obama the way his cultists are. I find his speeches to be halting at best, and in debates his answers are vagaries of air over substance, given with a slick politician's delivery. His choosing of Biden over Hillary seemed to me the ultimate move in an ego run amok, saying "I know I could take this moment to unite the party and give America what it wants out of the Democratic Party, but no, I'm going to show the world I don't need her, that I can do it entirely on my own." Hell, I actually like Biden more than Obama, but even I knew he wouldn’t be a boost to the ticket; the lack of significant post-convention bounce proved that. Regarding the Democratic Convention, all throughout Democrats were mocked justly by The Daily Show as being good-natured, but loopy and unfocused. They bleated "CHANGE" like the sheep they were, and looked silly doing so. I shook my head, smiled, and was happy to not be a part of it.
Then came the Republican Convention.
I'm not sure what upset me more about the RNC, the vitriol in just about every speech given, or the cheering of the ignorant masses lapping it up. Instead of creating a positive launching pad from which to propel McCain to victory, a slanderous foundation was created, and since then it's gone nothing but downhill. Today, instead of speeches involving the problems we face as a nation and the solutions the Republican ticket offers, we have Palin mocking reporters to shift attention from her inability to answer any question thoughtfully, a fetish-like obsession with William Ayers (which is amusing in the hypocrisy considering Palin's husband's ties to secessionists) and outright lies in campaign ads, such as the now infamous one involving Obama's support of legislation designed to protect children from molestation or the one even Karl Rove (the father of all things evil) called going "one step too far" on Obama's tax plan...
When negativity is your core value, then you will draw in those who respond to fear and intolerance, and I believe it is absolutely why I spied a sign today that read: "STOP ABORTION AND GAY MARRIAGE, VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN!"--Odd issues to push against, considering the right-wing is supposed to be about less government, not legislation of what adults can do with their body or in their bedroom. Such a sign seems only one step away from "VOTE RIGHT, VOTE WHITE: MCCAIN/PALIN," which is an undercurrent many campaign stops are showing these days.
The sign is also a reflection of those most damaging of voters out there, the single-item idiots. "I don't care about the economy or the world, but if a candidate says he is pro-life, then he gets my vote!" "I don't earn enough to get a tax-break from the McCain plan, but dammit, my biased, integrity and mostly fact-free NRA website says Obama wants my guns, so I'm voting against him!" "The bible contains loosely translated passages about them homos and how they're bad, so I'm voting Christian, and Obama's a Muslim!"
(The only real single-issue I can think of on the left is the silly "NO WAR!" chant. "How do you feel about the economy?" NO WAR! "Ok... how about social security, any thoughts?" NO BLOOD FOR OIL! "Ok... how about you kill yourself?)
Overall, I'm not sure where this leaves me. I'm still not really impressed with Obama, but I'm absolutely disgusted by McCain. I don't know that either has any real answers, but the thing is, at least Obama is attempting to offer them. Maybe he is in over his head, and cannot deliver on everything he's promising... but wouldn't it be something if he did? Or even came close?
When this election cycle started, I liked two people: on the Republican side, Ron Paul, because he was bat-shit insane, but honest, and on the Democrat side, Bill Richardson, because while I didn't know anything about him, when asked a direct yes/no question, he always gave a direct yes/no answer. As both men were eventually eliminated by those giving better sound-bites or more willing to pander to the masses, and we the people were left with Barack Obama and John McCain, I thought to myself, "You know what, I'm not going to play the two-party game this year. I'm going to write in my candidate of choice." Yes, I knew I would be throwing my vote away, but fuck it. The older I get, the more I want to do things based on principle, not desire.
I've never been fascinated with Obama the way his cultists are. I find his speeches to be halting at best, and in debates his answers are vagaries of air over substance, given with a slick politician's delivery. His choosing of Biden over Hillary seemed to me the ultimate move in an ego run amok, saying "I know I could take this moment to unite the party and give America what it wants out of the Democratic Party, but no, I'm going to show the world I don't need her, that I can do it entirely on my own." Hell, I actually like Biden more than Obama, but even I knew he wouldn’t be a boost to the ticket; the lack of significant post-convention bounce proved that. Regarding the Democratic Convention, all throughout Democrats were mocked justly by The Daily Show as being good-natured, but loopy and unfocused. They bleated "CHANGE" like the sheep they were, and looked silly doing so. I shook my head, smiled, and was happy to not be a part of it.
Then came the Republican Convention.
I'm not sure what upset me more about the RNC, the vitriol in just about every speech given, or the cheering of the ignorant masses lapping it up. Instead of creating a positive launching pad from which to propel McCain to victory, a slanderous foundation was created, and since then it's gone nothing but downhill. Today, instead of speeches involving the problems we face as a nation and the solutions the Republican ticket offers, we have Palin mocking reporters to shift attention from her inability to answer any question thoughtfully, a fetish-like obsession with William Ayers (which is amusing in the hypocrisy considering Palin's husband's ties to secessionists) and outright lies in campaign ads, such as the now infamous one involving Obama's support of legislation designed to protect children from molestation or the one even Karl Rove (the father of all things evil) called going "one step too far" on Obama's tax plan...
When negativity is your core value, then you will draw in those who respond to fear and intolerance, and I believe it is absolutely why I spied a sign today that read: "STOP ABORTION AND GAY MARRIAGE, VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN!"--Odd issues to push against, considering the right-wing is supposed to be about less government, not legislation of what adults can do with their body or in their bedroom. Such a sign seems only one step away from "VOTE RIGHT, VOTE WHITE: MCCAIN/PALIN," which is an undercurrent many campaign stops are showing these days.
The sign is also a reflection of those most damaging of voters out there, the single-item idiots. "I don't care about the economy or the world, but if a candidate says he is pro-life, then he gets my vote!" "I don't earn enough to get a tax-break from the McCain plan, but dammit, my biased, integrity and mostly fact-free NRA website says Obama wants my guns, so I'm voting against him!" "The bible contains loosely translated passages about them homos and how they're bad, so I'm voting Christian, and Obama's a Muslim!"
(The only real single-issue I can think of on the left is the silly "NO WAR!" chant. "How do you feel about the economy?" NO WAR! "Ok... how about social security, any thoughts?" NO BLOOD FOR OIL! "Ok... how about you kill yourself?)
Overall, I'm not sure where this leaves me. I'm still not really impressed with Obama, but I'm absolutely disgusted by McCain. I don't know that either has any real answers, but the thing is, at least Obama is attempting to offer them. Maybe he is in over his head, and cannot deliver on everything he's promising... but wouldn't it be something if he did? Or even came close?
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