I had the chance to get in my car, drive ninety miles, meet you on your doorstep and sweep you off your feet.
I didn't. I said "see you later" instead of "see you soon."
Three and a half years later, I still have not seen you...
...and it still sometimes keeps me up at night.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Fisher's Hill: Reserve
The sinking feeling was back. No matter how many times he heard the echoing report of a far off rifle fired in anger, his nerves always seemed to collect in a glowing, pulsating ball located just behind his navel. It glowed brighter with every shot, sent a tingling jolt up his spine and out to his extremities, a single impulse reaching the brain that registered what the sound meant. The single impulse touched off thousands of other impressions, some fleeting, some burned into his mind: the colonel he had helped to carry off the field at Antietam, screamingly gutshot and not to live out the day, his fine coat dripping dignified red, his moustache matted with spittle and blood that was bubbling from the corners of his mouth, the fiery commanding eyes now imploring help me, boy, help me, I am afraid, I have not known this awful certainty - young George running to help the grizzled man on the side of the mountain at McDowell, head snapping back and dropping to the ground; how he had dropped his musket and ran for the boy, the bluecoats holding their fire while he struggled to lift the prostrate form onto his shoulders (a soldier? but he can't be over twelve years old) - Sean stumbling and falling on the first day of the fiasco at Gettysburg, picking himself up with a high-pitched laugh and blessedly free of blood, though he displayed the spot where the spent ball had hit him long after the bruise had faded.
Another shot, followed by a doublebang from the pickets on his side of the valley. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and rummaged in his haversack for his pipe.
From their vantage point near the crest of the hill, they could see faint wisps of smoke rising from the picket line.
His matches were damp and he broke three of them before giving up, carefully knocking the unused tobacco back into its pouch and tying it shut. He would have given anything for a light, but his squad was perpetually short on matches and fires this close to the line were forbidden. Theo and Greg produced some cheese, which they sliced into small pieces and passed around; one of the other men shared his crackers. He felt isolated, separated from his usual mess. Jess, always looking for a fight, had gone forward into the picket line; Sean had vanished as well, presumably detached on a sharpshooting detail. He did not know these other men, did not feel comfortable with them, and still the incessant picket fire drove small spikes into his skull.
The squad turned at the sound of hoofbeats. A group of cavalrymen, disparately armed, was moving up to the line with a casual arrogance, looking down at the infantry with ill-disguised contempt. The infantry returned the looks with interest.
"Whoever seeeeeeeen a dead calvryman?"
"Picket post four, ten o'clock an' heeeere's yer mule!"
"Flicker flicker!"
The cavalry refused to rise to the bait. They dispersed into groups of four; three dismounted, handed their reigns to the fourth, and loped off towards the sound of the firing with the unsteady, swaying gait of men who are more accustomed to riding than walking. The men disappeared into the tall grass, and soon the sounds of shotguns and carbines replaced those of rifles. The horses rolled their eyes and jerked away from the sound of the guns, one whickered nervously.
Another shot, followed by a doublebang from the pickets on his side of the valley. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and rummaged in his haversack for his pipe.
From their vantage point near the crest of the hill, they could see faint wisps of smoke rising from the picket line.
His matches were damp and he broke three of them before giving up, carefully knocking the unused tobacco back into its pouch and tying it shut. He would have given anything for a light, but his squad was perpetually short on matches and fires this close to the line were forbidden. Theo and Greg produced some cheese, which they sliced into small pieces and passed around; one of the other men shared his crackers. He felt isolated, separated from his usual mess. Jess, always looking for a fight, had gone forward into the picket line; Sean had vanished as well, presumably detached on a sharpshooting detail. He did not know these other men, did not feel comfortable with them, and still the incessant picket fire drove small spikes into his skull.
The squad turned at the sound of hoofbeats. A group of cavalrymen, disparately armed, was moving up to the line with a casual arrogance, looking down at the infantry with ill-disguised contempt. The infantry returned the looks with interest.
"Whoever seeeeeeeen a dead calvryman?"
"Picket post four, ten o'clock an' heeeere's yer mule!"
"Flicker flicker!"
The cavalry refused to rise to the bait. They dispersed into groups of four; three dismounted, handed their reigns to the fourth, and loped off towards the sound of the firing with the unsteady, swaying gait of men who are more accustomed to riding than walking. The men disappeared into the tall grass, and soon the sounds of shotguns and carbines replaced those of rifles. The horses rolled their eyes and jerked away from the sound of the guns, one whickered nervously.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Fisher's Hill: Reveille
He could fly.
He hadn't tried hard enough, hadn't wanted to badly enough before; days of watching the birds and daydreaming couldn't grant him the lightness he needed to hover above the trees looking down at his sleeping friends, couldn't grant him the nerve to ascend higher and higher until they were just specks, faint outlines on a great patchwork cloth spread beneath him until it disappeared into mist on the horizon. His nature nearly bested him, nearly sent him crashing back to earth. He was a quiet, unassuming, sensible man, not often given to flights of fancy, a voice of calm reason to his friends. Yet here he was, surprised and delighted in the lower atmosphere. Tentatively, he moved his arms and legs, tried to make sense of the experience before realizing there was no sense in being able to fly, and in that moment he was free.
Something tapped his foot.
He looked down; nothing below him for at least fifty feet. Treetops, faint curls of smoke, the distance of knowing the impossible could happen-
"Private."
Hell-
"Git up. Come on. You all got five minutes."
Everything vanished. He was in purgatory. The world was a gray, hazy, pounding denial immediately behind his eyes.
Another voice.
"Shit, come on boy. We gonna get chewed good if we miss roll call."
He surrendered, opened his eyes and was earthbound. Sergeant Myers was moving down the line of prostrate forms, giving each protruding foot a kick and a sharp warning. Beside him, Sean was wincing in the morning sunlight, and Jess had his arms crossed resolutely over his eyes.
Sean was the first to move.
"Alright, guess he ain't fucking around this morning. Le's go."
Resignedly, the three men threw off their blankets and unwrapped their long, heavy rifles from their groundcloths. Long experience had taught them that sleeping with their weapons was preferable to leaving them stacked; the discomfort was balanced by keeping the weapons free from rust, and by this September only one of them had a bayonet anyway.
Myers was calling in the distance.
"First company - fall in! Canteens and haversacks! Drop yer packs, boys, we're not going far."
The cartridge box slung over one shoulder, belt fastened, haversack and canteen hanging under his left arm, short jacket half-buttoned, rifle in hand and cap on head, he trailed after his friends as they made their bleary, hungry way into line.
He hadn't tried hard enough, hadn't wanted to badly enough before; days of watching the birds and daydreaming couldn't grant him the lightness he needed to hover above the trees looking down at his sleeping friends, couldn't grant him the nerve to ascend higher and higher until they were just specks, faint outlines on a great patchwork cloth spread beneath him until it disappeared into mist on the horizon. His nature nearly bested him, nearly sent him crashing back to earth. He was a quiet, unassuming, sensible man, not often given to flights of fancy, a voice of calm reason to his friends. Yet here he was, surprised and delighted in the lower atmosphere. Tentatively, he moved his arms and legs, tried to make sense of the experience before realizing there was no sense in being able to fly, and in that moment he was free.
Something tapped his foot.
He looked down; nothing below him for at least fifty feet. Treetops, faint curls of smoke, the distance of knowing the impossible could happen-
"Private."
Hell-
"Git up. Come on. You all got five minutes."
Everything vanished. He was in purgatory. The world was a gray, hazy, pounding denial immediately behind his eyes.
Another voice.
"Shit, come on boy. We gonna get chewed good if we miss roll call."
He surrendered, opened his eyes and was earthbound. Sergeant Myers was moving down the line of prostrate forms, giving each protruding foot a kick and a sharp warning. Beside him, Sean was wincing in the morning sunlight, and Jess had his arms crossed resolutely over his eyes.
Sean was the first to move.
"Alright, guess he ain't fucking around this morning. Le's go."
Resignedly, the three men threw off their blankets and unwrapped their long, heavy rifles from their groundcloths. Long experience had taught them that sleeping with their weapons was preferable to leaving them stacked; the discomfort was balanced by keeping the weapons free from rust, and by this September only one of them had a bayonet anyway.
Myers was calling in the distance.
"First company - fall in! Canteens and haversacks! Drop yer packs, boys, we're not going far."
The cartridge box slung over one shoulder, belt fastened, haversack and canteen hanging under his left arm, short jacket half-buttoned, rifle in hand and cap on head, he trailed after his friends as they made their bleary, hungry way into line.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
an old battlefield
"You can always tell an old battlefield where many men have lost their lives. The next spring the grass comes up greener and more luxuriant than on the surrounding countryside; the poppies are redder, the corn-flowers more blue. They grow over the field and down the sides of the shell holes and lean, almost touching , across the abandoned trenches in a mass of color that ripples all day in the direction that the wind blows. They take the pits and scars out of the torn land and make it a sweet, sloping surface again. Take a wood, now, or a ravine: In a year's time you could never guess the things which had taken place there.
I repeated my thoughts to my wife, but she said it was not difficult to understand about battlefields: The blood of the men killed on the field, and the bodies buried there, fertilize the ground and stimulate the growth of vegetation. That was all quite natural, she said.
But I could not agree with this, too-simple, explanation: To me it has always seemed that God is so sickened with other men, and their unending cruelty to each other, that he covers the place where they have been as quickly as possible."
- William March
(Company F, Second Battalion, 5th Marines - 1917-1918)
"Company K"
I repeated my thoughts to my wife, but she said it was not difficult to understand about battlefields: The blood of the men killed on the field, and the bodies buried there, fertilize the ground and stimulate the growth of vegetation. That was all quite natural, she said.
But I could not agree with this, too-simple, explanation: To me it has always seemed that God is so sickened with other men, and their unending cruelty to each other, that he covers the place where they have been as quickly as possible."
- William March
(Company F, Second Battalion, 5th Marines - 1917-1918)
"Company K"
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The Man With The Pigeons
you said you want
the man
with the pigeons
i can give you
his image
in black and white
a freeze frame
blurred wings
i can give you
his image
in color
a spoken word
sharp memories
what i can't give you
is the feeling
figures
that's what you live on.
[2003]
the man
with the pigeons
i can give you
his image
in black and white
a freeze frame
blurred wings
i can give you
his image
in color
a spoken word
sharp memories
what i can't give you
is the feeling
figures
that's what you live on.
[2003]
Saturday, August 9, 2008
on the roof, 2005
Sitting on the roof, in the light from my window so I can see to write things, I love the breeze and think about my shadow. It's not a very distinguished one, like you might think Einstein or Lincoln or maybe Bill Murray have distinguished shadow, or maybe the shadow of the statue of the Thinker, or even someone like Ann Landers. It's just a regular shadow, cause by blocking the light source, and shows rounded shoulders, poor grip on a pen, loose hair getting in my eyes and a pair of glasses. The fact that I can't see my shadow without turning to look at it reminds me of the quest I had when younger to see what I looked like in a mirror when I wasn't looking at it. This could be partially accomplished by getting right up close to the mirror and looking slightly aside, demurely, to catch yourself out of the corner of your eye....
....I want to lie on rooftops in hoodies with her and look at stars and not talk.
I'll never make it to cynic level. I always have the last hope of a romantic.
No signs from the sky tonight. A cloud-map of the eastern seaboard over to Russia and a shooting star, which I did wish on, despite their poor success rate in the past. Peepers, distant traffic, a windchime that's managing to toll [bell-like] and fragments of a poem that I probably won't write; black pen, blue book, blue jacket, black shirt socks and shoes, brown pants and shingle grit. A faint smell of lilacs and the red light of the radio tower.
...How badly do I hope she sees things painfully like I do.
How badly do I hope I find someone I can relate to who isn't ramped up on antidepressants.
I quit mine. And started smoking again.
Balance and harmony and lung cancer.
The way of the world.
Sarcasm is probably the best passive-aggressive defense mechanism ever evolved.
Maybe I am getting closer to cynicism. It's getting much easier to deal with a letdown. Follows the by-now horribly recognizeable pattern. Resignedly recognizeable. It sucks. Give me something new to deal with instead of the gradual waning. Explode. Just do SOMETHING.
I need to go do something destructive or visceral.... I never do. Just let it settle like sediment in a glass. Waiting for something to come along and mess up the layers. And there's a lot of layers.
It's not exactly cynicism. It's just getting progressively more and more bitter. Sour taste washes out with stronger and stronger substance.
This is the last summer of my life.
I don't know what that means yet,
but there's some truth somewhere that I am missing.
I wonder how so many people can so easily classify themselves as happy.
Maybe I'm just more fucked than I thought.
How do you see me?
and, similarly,
how do you see yourself?
I see needing other people as a weakness because I'm not good at dealing with needing other people.
....I want to lie on rooftops in hoodies with her and look at stars and not talk.
I'll never make it to cynic level. I always have the last hope of a romantic.
No signs from the sky tonight. A cloud-map of the eastern seaboard over to Russia and a shooting star, which I did wish on, despite their poor success rate in the past. Peepers, distant traffic, a windchime that's managing to toll [bell-like] and fragments of a poem that I probably won't write; black pen, blue book, blue jacket, black shirt socks and shoes, brown pants and shingle grit. A faint smell of lilacs and the red light of the radio tower.
...How badly do I hope she sees things painfully like I do.
How badly do I hope I find someone I can relate to who isn't ramped up on antidepressants.
I quit mine. And started smoking again.
Balance and harmony and lung cancer.
The way of the world.
Sarcasm is probably the best passive-aggressive defense mechanism ever evolved.
Maybe I am getting closer to cynicism. It's getting much easier to deal with a letdown. Follows the by-now horribly recognizeable pattern. Resignedly recognizeable. It sucks. Give me something new to deal with instead of the gradual waning. Explode. Just do SOMETHING.
I need to go do something destructive or visceral.... I never do. Just let it settle like sediment in a glass. Waiting for something to come along and mess up the layers. And there's a lot of layers.
It's not exactly cynicism. It's just getting progressively more and more bitter. Sour taste washes out with stronger and stronger substance.
This is the last summer of my life.
I don't know what that means yet,
but there's some truth somewhere that I am missing.
I wonder how so many people can so easily classify themselves as happy.
Maybe I'm just more fucked than I thought.
How do you see me?
and, similarly,
how do you see yourself?
I see needing other people as a weakness because I'm not good at dealing with needing other people.
stargazing
I swear I saw a hemisphere tonight
in nighttime cloudy bas-relief.
From West Pennsylvania to maybe Moscow.
Ocean of dark and stars
Norway, fjords drifting, full of shooting stars,
Ireland, misshapen.
As Washington and Baghdad disappeared behind black trees
Britain whispered "Ave" and melted in the blackout
And I swear the frogs across the pond behind me
Laughed louder; and freedom kissed.
[2005]
in nighttime cloudy bas-relief.
From West Pennsylvania to maybe Moscow.
Ocean of dark and stars
Norway, fjords drifting, full of shooting stars,
Ireland, misshapen.
As Washington and Baghdad disappeared behind black trees
Britain whispered "Ave" and melted in the blackout
And I swear the frogs across the pond behind me
Laughed louder; and freedom kissed.
[2005]
Monday, August 4, 2008
August 4, 2003. 11.53 AM
when our lives connect they will be changed. for better or worse is uncertain.
I hope that it is
for the better
though I've never been accused
of being an optimist.
I hope that it is
for the better
though I've never been accused
of being an optimist.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
July 29, 2003. 6:50 PM
I am content
to sit on my roof
in my beat-up old pants
black shirt
and no shoes
and watch
hummingbirds.
to sit on my roof
in my beat-up old pants
black shirt
and no shoes
and watch
hummingbirds.
Monday, July 21, 2008
July 21, 2003
The humidity is broken, or rather is in the process of breaking, by means of a lovely thunderstorm. It's evening dark outside and the rain is soakingly torrential, the way rain should be. Thunder is rippling across the sky. Lightning flashes. I love this weather.
The rain is coming down in sheets, sweeping over the garage roof. There's even the hint of a tornado warning. Flicker flicker flash. I remember last year stripped to the waist, playing Eggy with the guys over by the elementary school.
There was just one of those flashes of lightning that makes you cringe in anticipation of the thunder, and it smashes over the neighborhood.
Ernie used to hate these. He'd always hide underneath the computer table, next to the power cords for whatever reason.
Further rumbling, growing distant. From my military studies I can't help but think of artillery explosions.
Gram used to tell me that thunder was the sound of the angels bowling.
I always used to wonder if my grandfather was a good bowler.
Someone just split the sky in half, anyway. Zeus rolled a strike, is getting cheers from Apollo and Aphrodite, while Athena keeps score and Hera wonders when exactly Zeus will be home to feed the dog and maybe get the kids from soccer practice. Except all the kids are watching the Old Man bowling cause damned if he ain't all kinds of good at it.
The sky is clearing up in the west. The storm/game is almost over. My stereo and computer are both broken, which is good because it got me out onto the porch to watch the rain.
A few last desultory rumbles, and it's all over. Everything washed clean, the air clear, the sky turning light, and all things shining.
The rain is coming down in sheets, sweeping over the garage roof. There's even the hint of a tornado warning. Flicker flicker flash. I remember last year stripped to the waist, playing Eggy with the guys over by the elementary school.
There was just one of those flashes of lightning that makes you cringe in anticipation of the thunder, and it smashes over the neighborhood.
Ernie used to hate these. He'd always hide underneath the computer table, next to the power cords for whatever reason.
Further rumbling, growing distant. From my military studies I can't help but think of artillery explosions.
Gram used to tell me that thunder was the sound of the angels bowling.
I always used to wonder if my grandfather was a good bowler.
Someone just split the sky in half, anyway. Zeus rolled a strike, is getting cheers from Apollo and Aphrodite, while Athena keeps score and Hera wonders when exactly Zeus will be home to feed the dog and maybe get the kids from soccer practice. Except all the kids are watching the Old Man bowling cause damned if he ain't all kinds of good at it.
The sky is clearing up in the west. The storm/game is almost over. My stereo and computer are both broken, which is good because it got me out onto the porch to watch the rain.
A few last desultory rumbles, and it's all over. Everything washed clean, the air clear, the sky turning light, and all things shining.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Confirmation Of Assignment
At my job, I have to send out emails whenever one of our candidates is selected for an interview or for hire.
I hate these things. They used to scare the piss out of me, since any mistakes potentially impacted the freelancer (which is bad) and resulted in shrieking vengeance upon me (which is worse). The probability for error is compounded by the utter lack of communication between the members of our division, with the result that I can be told to send one thing by one person, then get in trouble with another person for sending that information. Usually, somehow, it winds up being my fault, and I am told dismissively that I should have "worked with so-and-so" before sending the damn thing out.
The emails themselves aren't complicated. There's a template to fill out, or, once one has accumulated a good supply of them, you can take an older one and swap out the name, date, time, and special instructions. This saves time but can be risky, since if you're going fast (as one usually is when one is flipping old emails) and you forget to change the time, you're in for it.
Anyway, parody is one of the things that keeps me going at the godawful place.
***PLEASE REPLY ALL TO CONFIRM RECEIPT OF MESSAGE***
Hi Jack Of-All-Trades
Thank you for being available to work with [our staffing agency] at The Immortal 300! You should ask for King Leonidas, Ruler of Sparta when you arrive. Please bring 2 forms of ID and any relevant bardic songs chronicling your merciless vengeance with you. You will also need to have an sharp sword and an interlocking shield. Remember to dress to show off your muscles, and not to bring up the possibility of survival, just defer that conversation to [our staffing agency]. Here are the details you will need to know for this assignment:
CLIENT: The Immortal 300
DATES / DURATION: 480 BC / expected duration until all Persians are dead and Sparta is free
TIME: There is no time to waste
ADDRESS:
The Hot Gates of Thermopylae
CONTACT: King Leonidas
CONTACT'S PHONE NUMBER: You need no phone where you are going.
RATE: Slaughter is its own reward CONFIDENTIAL – Please do not discuss your rate with anyone but [our staffing agency].
DIRECTIONS:
Exit gates of Lacedaemon
Journey south with a group of good friends
Turn Left at the Hot Gates
End at Phocian Wall
Keep in mind most projects have the potential to be extended past the original projected end date, especially in the event of the Persian dogs retreating. Please inform us of any changes in your availability so we can keep the client best informed.
If you are running late or have an emergency, you are unworthy.
We want to make sure you have a pleasant experience killing for our clients, so please give us a call a few hours after you have repelled the first wave.
If at any time you need time off, you are hereby reminded to return with your shield or on it.
If you have any questions please call your recruiter. If you have questions about payroll or timesheets, please contact Demosthenes, who will whip you into submission. We are here to help you and make sure you do not turn traitor like that coward Ephilates.
Demosthenes – 3rd Phalanx. The one with the big whip.
demos@accessnyc.com
I hate these things. They used to scare the piss out of me, since any mistakes potentially impacted the freelancer (which is bad) and resulted in shrieking vengeance upon me (which is worse). The probability for error is compounded by the utter lack of communication between the members of our division, with the result that I can be told to send one thing by one person, then get in trouble with another person for sending that information. Usually, somehow, it winds up being my fault, and I am told dismissively that I should have "worked with so-and-so" before sending the damn thing out.
The emails themselves aren't complicated. There's a template to fill out, or, once one has accumulated a good supply of them, you can take an older one and swap out the name, date, time, and special instructions. This saves time but can be risky, since if you're going fast (as one usually is when one is flipping old emails) and you forget to change the time, you're in for it.
Anyway, parody is one of the things that keeps me going at the godawful place.
***PLEASE REPLY ALL TO CONFIRM RECEIPT OF MESSAGE***
Hi Jack Of-All-Trades
Thank you for being available to work with [our staffing agency] at The Immortal 300! You should ask for King Leonidas, Ruler of Sparta when you arrive. Please bring 2 forms of ID and any relevant bardic songs chronicling your merciless vengeance with you. You will also need to have an sharp sword and an interlocking shield. Remember to dress to show off your muscles, and not to bring up the possibility of survival, just defer that conversation to [our staffing agency]. Here are the details you will need to know for this assignment:
CLIENT: The Immortal 300
DATES / DURATION: 480 BC / expected duration until all Persians are dead and Sparta is free
TIME: There is no time to waste
ADDRESS:
The Hot Gates of Thermopylae
CONTACT: King Leonidas
CONTACT'S PHONE NUMBER: You need no phone where you are going.
RATE: Slaughter is its own reward CONFIDENTIAL – Please do not discuss your rate with anyone but [our staffing agency].
DIRECTIONS:
Exit gates of Lacedaemon
Journey south with a group of good friends
Turn Left at the Hot Gates
End at Phocian Wall
Keep in mind most projects have the potential to be extended past the original projected end date, especially in the event of the Persian dogs retreating. Please inform us of any changes in your availability so we can keep the client best informed.
If you are running late or have an emergency, you are unworthy.
We want to make sure you have a pleasant experience killing for our clients, so please give us a call a few hours after you have repelled the first wave.
If at any time you need time off, you are hereby reminded to return with your shield or on it.
If you have any questions please call your recruiter. If you have questions about payroll or timesheets, please contact Demosthenes, who will whip you into submission. We are here to help you and make sure you do not turn traitor like that coward Ephilates.
Demosthenes – 3rd Phalanx. The one with the big whip.
demos@accessnyc.com
Sunday, July 13, 2008
July 13 2003, 1:40 PM
"Think I can jump across this, Em? Think I can jump across this?"
A small boy in jeans and a multicolored tshirt yelled this to his even smaller sister as they ran along the bank of the stream in Congress Park. The stream is probably twice as wide as he is tall, but he still wants to try, and only a yell from his mother dissuades him until he notices the carousel and begins begging for a ride.
A squirrel just started to climb noisily down the tree I'm sitting under. He looks very confused - what right do I have to be under his tree? A confused squirrel looking at you upside-down can't help but be comical. He didn't take kindly to my laugh and scampered off through the branches to try another tree.
This is a great spot for people watching. Little kids and ducks have quite the symbiotic relationship - the kids provide the ducks with food, and the ducks provide the kids with entertainment, fuel for their amazing drive to try and do everything in the world and still be home for macaroni and cheese in the evening.
Everyone wants to be small again, to feed the ducks that are half as tall as you when they stretch their necks out for stale bread.
Sometimes I think: what's the point of life? Why are we here if we're just destined to die, our species become extinct, our planet disappear inside the supernova of the sun or get blown out of existence by a reckless madman with weapons of unnecessary and grotesque power?
But right here is an answer, in front of me. Life should be about waving hello to the ducks in the park on a Sunday afternoon, breathing the still air that seems to mean impending rain. About sitting next to a stream watching sparrows hunting bugs, or the dachshund romping about on its ridiculously short legs.
A white feather floats down the stream as a woman in a white bridal gown trailing a veil flows past with a page and three bridesmaids.
Life should be as intensely simple as that. Breathtaking as being in love in the park, simple as a white feather coasting downstream turning lazily in the current, or a sparrow taking a drink & disappearing.
Because really, what's so wonderful about having a point? Tiny ducklings scuttling through the grass and splashing into the stream have it all figured out, so what's taking me so long?
In complexity there lies potential destruction.
Live simply and fully; more one cannot do.
A small boy in jeans and a multicolored tshirt yelled this to his even smaller sister as they ran along the bank of the stream in Congress Park. The stream is probably twice as wide as he is tall, but he still wants to try, and only a yell from his mother dissuades him until he notices the carousel and begins begging for a ride.
A squirrel just started to climb noisily down the tree I'm sitting under. He looks very confused - what right do I have to be under his tree? A confused squirrel looking at you upside-down can't help but be comical. He didn't take kindly to my laugh and scampered off through the branches to try another tree.
This is a great spot for people watching. Little kids and ducks have quite the symbiotic relationship - the kids provide the ducks with food, and the ducks provide the kids with entertainment, fuel for their amazing drive to try and do everything in the world and still be home for macaroni and cheese in the evening.
Everyone wants to be small again, to feed the ducks that are half as tall as you when they stretch their necks out for stale bread.
Sometimes I think: what's the point of life? Why are we here if we're just destined to die, our species become extinct, our planet disappear inside the supernova of the sun or get blown out of existence by a reckless madman with weapons of unnecessary and grotesque power?
But right here is an answer, in front of me. Life should be about waving hello to the ducks in the park on a Sunday afternoon, breathing the still air that seems to mean impending rain. About sitting next to a stream watching sparrows hunting bugs, or the dachshund romping about on its ridiculously short legs.
A white feather floats down the stream as a woman in a white bridal gown trailing a veil flows past with a page and three bridesmaids.
Life should be as intensely simple as that. Breathtaking as being in love in the park, simple as a white feather coasting downstream turning lazily in the current, or a sparrow taking a drink & disappearing.
Because really, what's so wonderful about having a point? Tiny ducklings scuttling through the grass and splashing into the stream have it all figured out, so what's taking me so long?
In complexity there lies potential destruction.
Live simply and fully; more one cannot do.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
XM Satellite Radio: Round Two
Because it's just that kind of day.
* Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
After much careful thought and due consideration, I'm replacing Colbie Caillat's song "Bubbly" in THE TRINITY with this piece of audio dreck. The fact that this little ditty won a Grammy has greatly reduced my desire to win a Grammy for myself.
* Michael Buble - Lost
Ah, the mental image of a ringletted chanteur wearing sunglasses, a striped leisure suit, and one gold earring sitting behind his piano and wailing away. The cameras whirr around on their booms, crossfading when they catch the hired gun bass player rolling his eyes. People attending the concert are underwhelmed, yet the live DVD sells a few thousand copies.
* Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles
Another Stewart's flashback. When I hear this one, I swear I can smell an overabundance of ice cream mixed with the faintest whiff of stale hot dog. A warning, dear reader: never eat the hot dogs at Stewart's. I know where they've been (mostly just in the steamer) and how often they get changed in the steamer (never). Actually, just kinda stay away from the prepared food at Stewart's anyway. I don't think I ever saw anyone changing the chili, but then again, I never worked the opening shift.
* Sheryl Crow - The First Cut Is The Deepest
Deep enough to cut this single in half and throw it in the garbage. Next!
* Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
Let us give credit where 'tis due: in 1997, James Cameron's Titanic was the most historically accurate depiction of the sinking. (I am not, of course, referring to the storyline, which we will get to shortly and acidly). Cameron has personally visited the wreck site and is known as one of the foremost scholars and researchers on the subject; depictions of the ship going down were based on the latest evidence of the time. Notably different is the older (and, in my mind, superior) film A Night To Remember, based on Walter Lord's book of the same title. What made A Night To Remember most interesting, I think, is that it depicts the sinking as the survivors remembered it. Interviews were conducted, and Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall served as the historical consultant to the film. The wreck hadn't been found by the time ANTR was filmed, so that was, for the time, the best possible account of what had actually happened, despite the omissions and contradictions that we can now prove. Neat, eh? So we have two different versions, each with their own merits - as it was remembered, and as it was scientifically thought to have happened. (We now postulate that even Cameron's 1997 version is inaccurate, that the stern did not actually stand straight up in the air and various other changes - but that's for another time). So, what I'm mostly saying is that the film Titanic is not without detriment, both from the historical standpoint and the 13-year-old-boy-sees-Kate-Winslet's-boobs-on-the-big-screen standpoint.
However. The needless drama added by the storyline (seriously, it's the TITANIC, it's hard to get more dramatic, you don't need to add all that rubbish) is punctuated by the inclusion of this crap song slams what could have been a fantastic historical epic into the realm of sappy romance. Thanks, Celine. This is your fault.
* Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind Of Love
If you want to hear a TRULY Groovy Kind Of Love, find this song as performed by The Hippos. This version is about as groovy as plain mashed potatoes. Zero gravy train, baby.
* LeAnn Rimes - I Need You
I almost wiped LeAnn Rimes out on the streets of New York, and I'm regretting that I didn't have better aim. Although, given the size of her security guards, I'm probably better off deriding her music from the safety of The Internets. LeAnn and all her ilk should bow down before Allison Krauss, and that's my final word.
*Aaron Neville - Everybody Plays The Fool
And the DJ plays this song. Humbug! I can't even think of a good rejoinder for this one. Next.
* The Band Outside - We Drown Out XM Satellite Radio
There's some riotous cacophony going on outside at this very minute. Every Wednesday, a band gathers somewhere in Midtown and rocks out for an hour or two. I haven't been able to locate exactly where, or why, or who, but what the hell, it means I can't hear Band On The Run for the nth time, and that'd good enough for me. Someone give those boys a record deal
* Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
After much careful thought and due consideration, I'm replacing Colbie Caillat's song "Bubbly" in THE TRINITY with this piece of audio dreck. The fact that this little ditty won a Grammy has greatly reduced my desire to win a Grammy for myself.
* Michael Buble - Lost
Ah, the mental image of a ringletted chanteur wearing sunglasses, a striped leisure suit, and one gold earring sitting behind his piano and wailing away. The cameras whirr around on their booms, crossfading when they catch the hired gun bass player rolling his eyes. People attending the concert are underwhelmed, yet the live DVD sells a few thousand copies.
* Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles
Another Stewart's flashback. When I hear this one, I swear I can smell an overabundance of ice cream mixed with the faintest whiff of stale hot dog. A warning, dear reader: never eat the hot dogs at Stewart's. I know where they've been (mostly just in the steamer) and how often they get changed in the steamer (never). Actually, just kinda stay away from the prepared food at Stewart's anyway. I don't think I ever saw anyone changing the chili, but then again, I never worked the opening shift.
* Sheryl Crow - The First Cut Is The Deepest
Deep enough to cut this single in half and throw it in the garbage. Next!
* Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
Let us give credit where 'tis due: in 1997, James Cameron's Titanic was the most historically accurate depiction of the sinking. (I am not, of course, referring to the storyline, which we will get to shortly and acidly). Cameron has personally visited the wreck site and is known as one of the foremost scholars and researchers on the subject; depictions of the ship going down were based on the latest evidence of the time. Notably different is the older (and, in my mind, superior) film A Night To Remember, based on Walter Lord's book of the same title. What made A Night To Remember most interesting, I think, is that it depicts the sinking as the survivors remembered it. Interviews were conducted, and Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall served as the historical consultant to the film. The wreck hadn't been found by the time ANTR was filmed, so that was, for the time, the best possible account of what had actually happened, despite the omissions and contradictions that we can now prove. Neat, eh? So we have two different versions, each with their own merits - as it was remembered, and as it was scientifically thought to have happened. (We now postulate that even Cameron's 1997 version is inaccurate, that the stern did not actually stand straight up in the air and various other changes - but that's for another time). So, what I'm mostly saying is that the film Titanic is not without detriment, both from the historical standpoint and the 13-year-old-boy-sees-Kate-Winslet's-boobs-on-the-big-screen standpoint.
However. The needless drama added by the storyline (seriously, it's the TITANIC, it's hard to get more dramatic, you don't need to add all that rubbish) is punctuated by the inclusion of this crap song slams what could have been a fantastic historical epic into the realm of sappy romance. Thanks, Celine. This is your fault.
* Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind Of Love
If you want to hear a TRULY Groovy Kind Of Love, find this song as performed by The Hippos. This version is about as groovy as plain mashed potatoes. Zero gravy train, baby.
* LeAnn Rimes - I Need You
I almost wiped LeAnn Rimes out on the streets of New York, and I'm regretting that I didn't have better aim. Although, given the size of her security guards, I'm probably better off deriding her music from the safety of The Internets. LeAnn and all her ilk should bow down before Allison Krauss, and that's my final word.
*Aaron Neville - Everybody Plays The Fool
And the DJ plays this song. Humbug! I can't even think of a good rejoinder for this one. Next.
* The Band Outside - We Drown Out XM Satellite Radio
There's some riotous cacophony going on outside at this very minute. Every Wednesday, a band gathers somewhere in Midtown and rocks out for an hour or two. I haven't been able to locate exactly where, or why, or who, but what the hell, it means I can't hear Band On The Run for the nth time, and that'd good enough for me. Someone give those boys a record deal
Monday, June 23, 2008
guess what?
I've decided.
I'm going to go for an MA.
Not in theater.
In military history.
Yes.
Stay tuned.
I'm going to go for an MA.
Not in theater.
In military history.
Yes.
Stay tuned.
We're All History
Two comments in the past two weeks have been causing a little bit of thought.
The first (with genuine interest): So, I can't figure out your position on the military.
The second (with ill-concealed derision): Dude, you are such a nerd.
***
To address the second one first: the Amazon.com Marketplace is a very dangerous thing.
Since working on The Company A Blog, I've realized a need to widen my range of research materials, and as such, went hog-wild on the Marketplace about two weeks ago. Packages have been arriving in spurts; days will go by as I anxiously check the mailbox, then four or five will show up all at once. The coffee table in the living room is covered with books on the Marine Corps - firsthand accounts, the easily identified Osprey books on specific uniforms, organization, and battles - and the DVD player has a new stack of documentaries on top of it.
The comment was made by a friend of mine as I expressed excitement over the latest arrival - two collections of original footage shot during the battle of Saipan, one of which had been made into a very detailed USMC training film, and the other (with the sinister title "Saipan Uncensored") containing interviews and sounds recorded during the fight, as well as a large amount of color footage - some of which has never been aired anywhere due to its extraordinarily graphic nature. (We'll come back to this in a little bit).
These films are really invaluable, I think, especially as a research tool - they were shot by trained USMC crews who hit the beaches with the first wave, and while they couldn't record sound on their cameras (the audio was picked up different team) you almost don't need it. The scratches and imperfections make them seem all the more real (which, of course, they are) - especially when they are over- or under-exposed and you know whoever loaded that film had no time to fiddle with their camera adjustments. They provide an interesting and shockingly up-front look into situations that are most often described in words, and no matter how evocative the word, a picture will always be worth a thousand of them. (And speaking of pictures, it's also interesting to see how many famous images are actually still frames from the film crews - someone who has always been frozen while jumping off his amphtrack now appears over the side, rolls over, lands awkwardly on his stomach, then collects himself and stumbles inland). The combat Marines didn't always appreciate the intrusion - some coming off the line glare at the camera with a look that could stop a train - but you are still seeing them there, moving, talking, running, and sometimes bleeding and dying - and it is real. This has not been staged for Hollywood, these guys aren't actors, and you wonder about each face you see pass in front of the camera.
Anyway, I was really excited to get these, and then was promptly deflated by that one comment. I've been called a nerd before (many times) and this particular friend is one of my most caustic (and yet oldest). We're used to quibbling, we've had serious fights in the past, but for the most part we just rib each other and it rolls off like water on a duck's back. He had an edge in his voice, though, which was unusual, and while I'm not taking the fact that he said it seriously, the stigma attached gave me pause.
History, and particularly military history, has been my primary area of interest since I was old enough to play with toy soldiers. Almost every young boy is fascinated by the action aspect, the building of forts, the racing around with cap guns, arguments over who shot who. My friends and I built countless forts in our backyards - endless competitions over who built the best one, who had the best supplies, the design changing by location - by the small pond in my backyard where we dug a stream to provide a natural barrier; by the creek down the hill behind Mike's house where we threw stones at fleets made of tinfoil and built big reservoirs guarded by little plastic men. Mike and I, being voracious readers, picked up book after book on tanks, soldiers, battles, and wars, and while he gravitated towards the modern, I took interest in the past, how the lumbering catapults of medieval times eventually led to the Abrams tank and everything in between. Even then, I thought how important armed conflict and the army had been in shaping the world's history; if a British private soldier had shown less compassion to a wounded German there would have been no Second World War and Adolf Hitler would just be a name on the rolls of the missing on the Western Front; how a Confederate sharpshooter at Monocacy missed picking off Lincoln by the barest degree of error; how my older family members survived or died on what seemed like a whim.
As we grew older, the differences began to tell. Mike, enamored of airplane technology, dreamed of a career in the Air Force. I looked at the pictures of young men grinning as they left their homes, then lying stark and staring in the mud, and wondered why anyone joined the military anymore, especially if they could see such pictures. It seemed like there should be a better way to resolve problems than periodically killing off the youth of a nation.
Some boys never fully outgrow this phase; those who want to keep pretending become reenactors, those who find truth in it join the actual military. I went into reenacting at 16; Mike went into ROTC at 18 and is deploying to Iraq at age 24 (though, luckily, not in a combat capacity).
I'm digressing here. The point is, I have been fascinated by the minutiae of the military for almost as long as I can remember, and I don't consider myself to be a war-positive person. I do think, though, that like it or not the country (and human society as a whole) was created by people killing each other for whatever cause they thought right. This appears to be a basic, underlying precept of human nature - we are a combative species, not content to coexist, and no matter how long or hard we may campaign to do away with warfare, I think it will always define us and always has, from the first club and spear fight between Neanderthals until the day when some uniformed figure pushes the red button on his Doomsday Device. It's an unpleasant reality, but a reality it remains. And whenever the drums start beating, the sabers start rattling, and the speeches get eloquent, people like me are going to drop what they're doing and learn to kill because they think it is right.
(I'm going to just say right here that I do believe in the notion of a Good War. It's not a term that can be used lightly, of course, and the term "good" is relative inasmuch as destruction and death will occur as a result. My chief example, and it's a bit of a cliche, is the Second World War, which for my money absolutely had to be won. While the post-war squabbling launched us into the Cold War, nuclear paranoia, and fears of international Communism, the liberation of occupied countries as a primary goal of an invading force is, I think, one of the best causes that could justify fighting - and, of course, one that is begun on no uncertain terms, which is another kettle of fish for another time).
Digressing again. The question is: why?
Going to war, shooting and killing and the mindless terror it engenders are not something that I can ever imagine happening to me (and this is something I'm very thankful for). I understand that anyone who hasn't experienced these things first-hand cannot possibly know what they're like, and should count themselves lucky. However, I am curious. I want to know as close as possible how people not so different from me felt as they faced possible destruction for an ideal. I want to know what they saw, how their clothing was covered in sand, how minor things like a hot meal became the most important thing in the world; how an eighteen year old kid could go overseas with a gun and come back aged wildly beyond his years; how my ancestors could hide in the trees like I did when I was little, then take aim and kill another human being. I want to know these things because I don't want them to happen to anyone again, as foolish as that sounds and as impossible as it is, I want to learn these things in their detail and try to pass them on so that others will simultaneously realize what a great sacrifice soldiers have made for this (or any) country and by illuminating that sacrifice make people think about where their children are going with the courage in their heart and the fire in their stare.
There is also, I'll admit, a hint of guilt that so many kids have been killed while I can sit here in my office and write about them. Likewise, a hint of jealously that they could believe in something so strongly that they were willing to risk their lives.
This brings me, in a roundabout way, back to the "Saipan: Uncensored" film.
I do think that it is detrimental to exclude scenes of death and devastation from documentaries. I'm not talking about showing a house that's been knocked over, or a line of graves. These images, while evocative, don't pack the same punch as a filmed image of a head lying in a field. Just a head. No body, no equipment - just a head, lying on its side, the eyes still open and staring. Or a short image of a graves registration team, some using long-handled spatula-looking tools, some using hooks on long poles, to detach decomposed corpses from a pile where they fell. Rigor mortis has set in, the arms and legs no longer obey gravity, but what was once a young man now resembles a frog that has been run over on the highway and left to rot in the sun. Pictures of casualties are one thing, and are terrible enough, but it's far too easy to think "Oh, the poor guy" and move on. Filmed images, somehow, are a whole new level.
I've heard the term "war porn" bandied about with regards to such explicit material, and it's one of the most inaccurate terms I have ever heard. Although there are doubtless many people who take a morbidly ghoulish interest in pictures of the dead, I think it's wrong to label them as inappropriate for display. Honestly, people do not learn through subtlety. As John Doe said in the movie Se7en, you have to hit them with a sledgehammer to get their full attention. Certain pacifist groups in Germany, France, and Britain hit upon this idea immediately after the First World War, and collected the most gut-wrenching photographs they could find; these were published in book form in the hopes that people would look at what had been and work together to keep it from happening again. To label such images of reality as pornographic seems to indicate a desire to cast aspersions upon the greatest certainty of warfare - people WILL die, and die violently. When a sergeant from A Company was hit by a machine gun on Saipan, his captain thought the following:
I used to wonder what the people back home thought when they saw the name of someone they knew on a KIA list. Did they think the corpse looked like the one they'd seen in a funeral parlor back home? Because if they did, they were sadly mistaken.
It's this kind of mistaken that leads to the glorification of warfare, and adds in part to its perpetuation. To see someone laid out in state in their coffin does not compare to seeing a body without a face lying alone and far from home as flies and maggots eat away at the tattered flesh. I had nightmares after watching part of Saipan: Uncensored, and I know I won't be forgetting the sight of the head in the field any time soon. To ignore this sort of brutal imagery, or to defame it by labeling it as "porn" is, to my mind, an affront to people who have seen or caused these things to happen in real life and who will be remembering it for the rest of their lives. To shudder and turn away, that is acceptable, but before one goes about glorifying warfare, one should SEE the result.
The ability to remember, to study one's past and interpret its implications for the future is another of those inherently and exclusively human traits, just like organized warfare. Activists are fond of saying that humans are the only species that routinely engages in massed slaughter of their own kind, but it is also true that we are the only species to have any cognizance of what happened to generations before us, and it is foolish BEYOND REASON to discount this second trait in favor of the first.
I guess I am a nerd after all, but I'm a nerd that knows a lot about guns, so watch out.
***
Heading back to the first line, my position on the military. This has never been an easy question to answer, and it's a favorite with people who want to call me out on being a reenactor (though this particular instance was a genuine question, not an attempt to catch me in a contradiction).
I have had family in the military. William Emerson in the 1st Massachusetts in 1861; Phil Wood Senior and Hamilton Wood in the First World War; Phil Wood Junior, Ned Billings, Linc Richardson, Tom Willams, and Ralph Gillett in the Second. Private (later Captain) Emerson received a debilitating wound that left him unable to use his right arm; Phil Senior landed in the quartermasters while Lt. Wood survived fighting with the 307th Infantry; Lt. Phil Wood Junior died with the Marines on Saipan, Lieutenant Commander Billings disappeared with his burning ship at Guadalcanal, neither Linc Richardson the Merchant Marine nor Tom Williams the pilot were willing to talk about their service, and Ralph Gillett, my grandfather, died before I was old enough to know where Indochina was.
World War Two was a wakeup call for my family, and we haven't been in uniform since.
I have had friends in the military. Eric Wisbeth was a gunner on a Humvee in Al Faw, Iraq. My friend Corinne's brother Paul is flying Apache helicopters overseas. Mike, who I've known since kindergarten, is due to ship out in August. Bobbie Small went overseas with the Army. Lindsay Pfeiffer married a young 1st Lieutenant out of West Point; her cadet brother was in the honor guard. Some have been luckier than others. Joey Walsh got posted to Alaska, where he and Linds have been perfectly content. Paul Neal's gun camera footage was used in a segment by Fox News, so his sister and friends could see tracers streaking by his cockpit as little infrared people fell under his bullets. Mike is working with a damage assessment team, having decided that he wasn't made to kill after all. Bobbie Small came home with wounds and health concerns. Wisbeth wakes up in the night sweating because he looked down the barrel of his M16 at a four year old girl and hesitated just long enough to recognize the difference between a scared child and a screaming insurgent.
Meanwhile, I was raised in a peaceful family, had a hippie babysitter, learned mistrust for the government when young, went to a very liberal school; read and read and read military history and spent money I didn't have on reenacting equipment and trips to Virginia.
It's hard to get into a discussion of feelings towards the military without sounding like a hypocrite about the Iraq war. I don't think we should be there at all, I don't think there was ever a reason to go, and I think that no matter how we try to push up the "liberation" aspect, people there are not really all that much better off. They may become so in time, but it will take many many years to repair the infrastructure. That said, since we DID have the poor sense to go, we owe it to the people whose country we've destroyed to stay and fix it, and that unfortunately is going to involve a military presence.
What the men and women have to do on the ground isn't pretty, but it is now necessary. I don't like why they have to do it, but recognize that it's not their decision. They believe enough that they were willing to go, and for that they should be respected. The way this country has treated its veterans in the past has been nothing short of shameful, especially those coming back from Vietnam. I have never been able to understand how the United States, celebrated champion of equality and fair treatment, could turn her back on the very men and women who secured that safety. Sure, the people might disagree (as is their right, one of the rights those in uniform are ostensibly protecting) but for the government to betray them as well, to deny them opportunities and leave some of them to fend for themselves on the streets is a treason beyond anything Benedict Arnold might have dreamed. Pacifist or hawk, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, those young people who forsook being a carefree eighteen year old and picked up a weapon to fight for you - there are few people more deserving of respect. Understand that I am for world peace - I think it's improbable that we'll see it in my lifetime, or even in the span of humankind, yet I support the idea - but listen: respect the hardship that those in uniform face, because those soldiers are not so different from you. If you must apportion blame, most of it belongs with the politicians whose families have never been touched, who have never been affected when the "purple testament of bleeding war" has been opened, who apparently find the entire thing an adventure.
Tell them about the lone head lying in the field, eyes open and staring, flies buzzing around, maggots already devouring the eyes. Don't tell those who are willing to take the chance on being the faceless corpse far away in the mud. Are all soldiers blameless? Certainly not. The environment created for them robs some of their decency and leaves the rest to handle what is left on their own.
As Sage Francis says: "You support the troops by wearin' yellow ribbons? Just bring home my motherfuckin' brothers and sisters! 'Cause they don't call the shots, but they're right in the line of fire..."
This is enough tirade. Just remember this: there are legions of people your age who are willing to shoulder the responsibility of killing and take the chance of dying to protect the life that you know. Even if you can't endorse it, appreciate and remember it.
The first (with genuine interest): So, I can't figure out your position on the military.
The second (with ill-concealed derision): Dude, you are such a nerd.
To address the second one first: the Amazon.com Marketplace is a very dangerous thing.
Since working on The Company A Blog, I've realized a need to widen my range of research materials, and as such, went hog-wild on the Marketplace about two weeks ago. Packages have been arriving in spurts; days will go by as I anxiously check the mailbox, then four or five will show up all at once. The coffee table in the living room is covered with books on the Marine Corps - firsthand accounts, the easily identified Osprey books on specific uniforms, organization, and battles - and the DVD player has a new stack of documentaries on top of it.
The comment was made by a friend of mine as I expressed excitement over the latest arrival - two collections of original footage shot during the battle of Saipan, one of which had been made into a very detailed USMC training film, and the other (with the sinister title "Saipan Uncensored") containing interviews and sounds recorded during the fight, as well as a large amount of color footage - some of which has never been aired anywhere due to its extraordinarily graphic nature. (We'll come back to this in a little bit).
These films are really invaluable, I think, especially as a research tool - they were shot by trained USMC crews who hit the beaches with the first wave, and while they couldn't record sound on their cameras (the audio was picked up different team) you almost don't need it. The scratches and imperfections make them seem all the more real (which, of course, they are) - especially when they are over- or under-exposed and you know whoever loaded that film had no time to fiddle with their camera adjustments. They provide an interesting and shockingly up-front look into situations that are most often described in words, and no matter how evocative the word, a picture will always be worth a thousand of them. (And speaking of pictures, it's also interesting to see how many famous images are actually still frames from the film crews - someone who has always been frozen while jumping off his amphtrack now appears over the side, rolls over, lands awkwardly on his stomach, then collects himself and stumbles inland). The combat Marines didn't always appreciate the intrusion - some coming off the line glare at the camera with a look that could stop a train - but you are still seeing them there, moving, talking, running, and sometimes bleeding and dying - and it is real. This has not been staged for Hollywood, these guys aren't actors, and you wonder about each face you see pass in front of the camera.
Anyway, I was really excited to get these, and then was promptly deflated by that one comment. I've been called a nerd before (many times) and this particular friend is one of my most caustic (and yet oldest). We're used to quibbling, we've had serious fights in the past, but for the most part we just rib each other and it rolls off like water on a duck's back. He had an edge in his voice, though, which was unusual, and while I'm not taking the fact that he said it seriously, the stigma attached gave me pause.
History, and particularly military history, has been my primary area of interest since I was old enough to play with toy soldiers. Almost every young boy is fascinated by the action aspect, the building of forts, the racing around with cap guns, arguments over who shot who. My friends and I built countless forts in our backyards - endless competitions over who built the best one, who had the best supplies, the design changing by location - by the small pond in my backyard where we dug a stream to provide a natural barrier; by the creek down the hill behind Mike's house where we threw stones at fleets made of tinfoil and built big reservoirs guarded by little plastic men. Mike and I, being voracious readers, picked up book after book on tanks, soldiers, battles, and wars, and while he gravitated towards the modern, I took interest in the past, how the lumbering catapults of medieval times eventually led to the Abrams tank and everything in between. Even then, I thought how important armed conflict and the army had been in shaping the world's history; if a British private soldier had shown less compassion to a wounded German there would have been no Second World War and Adolf Hitler would just be a name on the rolls of the missing on the Western Front; how a Confederate sharpshooter at Monocacy missed picking off Lincoln by the barest degree of error; how my older family members survived or died on what seemed like a whim.
As we grew older, the differences began to tell. Mike, enamored of airplane technology, dreamed of a career in the Air Force. I looked at the pictures of young men grinning as they left their homes, then lying stark and staring in the mud, and wondered why anyone joined the military anymore, especially if they could see such pictures. It seemed like there should be a better way to resolve problems than periodically killing off the youth of a nation.
Some boys never fully outgrow this phase; those who want to keep pretending become reenactors, those who find truth in it join the actual military. I went into reenacting at 16; Mike went into ROTC at 18 and is deploying to Iraq at age 24 (though, luckily, not in a combat capacity).
I'm digressing here. The point is, I have been fascinated by the minutiae of the military for almost as long as I can remember, and I don't consider myself to be a war-positive person. I do think, though, that like it or not the country (and human society as a whole) was created by people killing each other for whatever cause they thought right. This appears to be a basic, underlying precept of human nature - we are a combative species, not content to coexist, and no matter how long or hard we may campaign to do away with warfare, I think it will always define us and always has, from the first club and spear fight between Neanderthals until the day when some uniformed figure pushes the red button on his Doomsday Device. It's an unpleasant reality, but a reality it remains. And whenever the drums start beating, the sabers start rattling, and the speeches get eloquent, people like me are going to drop what they're doing and learn to kill because they think it is right.
(I'm going to just say right here that I do believe in the notion of a Good War. It's not a term that can be used lightly, of course, and the term "good" is relative inasmuch as destruction and death will occur as a result. My chief example, and it's a bit of a cliche, is the Second World War, which for my money absolutely had to be won. While the post-war squabbling launched us into the Cold War, nuclear paranoia, and fears of international Communism, the liberation of occupied countries as a primary goal of an invading force is, I think, one of the best causes that could justify fighting - and, of course, one that is begun on no uncertain terms, which is another kettle of fish for another time).
Digressing again. The question is: why?
Going to war, shooting and killing and the mindless terror it engenders are not something that I can ever imagine happening to me (and this is something I'm very thankful for). I understand that anyone who hasn't experienced these things first-hand cannot possibly know what they're like, and should count themselves lucky. However, I am curious. I want to know as close as possible how people not so different from me felt as they faced possible destruction for an ideal. I want to know what they saw, how their clothing was covered in sand, how minor things like a hot meal became the most important thing in the world; how an eighteen year old kid could go overseas with a gun and come back aged wildly beyond his years; how my ancestors could hide in the trees like I did when I was little, then take aim and kill another human being. I want to know these things because I don't want them to happen to anyone again, as foolish as that sounds and as impossible as it is, I want to learn these things in their detail and try to pass them on so that others will simultaneously realize what a great sacrifice soldiers have made for this (or any) country and by illuminating that sacrifice make people think about where their children are going with the courage in their heart and the fire in their stare.
There is also, I'll admit, a hint of guilt that so many kids have been killed while I can sit here in my office and write about them. Likewise, a hint of jealously that they could believe in something so strongly that they were willing to risk their lives.
This brings me, in a roundabout way, back to the "Saipan: Uncensored" film.
I do think that it is detrimental to exclude scenes of death and devastation from documentaries. I'm not talking about showing a house that's been knocked over, or a line of graves. These images, while evocative, don't pack the same punch as a filmed image of a head lying in a field. Just a head. No body, no equipment - just a head, lying on its side, the eyes still open and staring. Or a short image of a graves registration team, some using long-handled spatula-looking tools, some using hooks on long poles, to detach decomposed corpses from a pile where they fell. Rigor mortis has set in, the arms and legs no longer obey gravity, but what was once a young man now resembles a frog that has been run over on the highway and left to rot in the sun. Pictures of casualties are one thing, and are terrible enough, but it's far too easy to think "Oh, the poor guy" and move on. Filmed images, somehow, are a whole new level.
I've heard the term "war porn" bandied about with regards to such explicit material, and it's one of the most inaccurate terms I have ever heard. Although there are doubtless many people who take a morbidly ghoulish interest in pictures of the dead, I think it's wrong to label them as inappropriate for display. Honestly, people do not learn through subtlety. As John Doe said in the movie Se7en, you have to hit them with a sledgehammer to get their full attention. Certain pacifist groups in Germany, France, and Britain hit upon this idea immediately after the First World War, and collected the most gut-wrenching photographs they could find; these were published in book form in the hopes that people would look at what had been and work together to keep it from happening again. To label such images of reality as pornographic seems to indicate a desire to cast aspersions upon the greatest certainty of warfare - people WILL die, and die violently. When a sergeant from A Company was hit by a machine gun on Saipan, his captain thought the following:
I used to wonder what the people back home thought when they saw the name of someone they knew on a KIA list. Did they think the corpse looked like the one they'd seen in a funeral parlor back home? Because if they did, they were sadly mistaken.
It's this kind of mistaken that leads to the glorification of warfare, and adds in part to its perpetuation. To see someone laid out in state in their coffin does not compare to seeing a body without a face lying alone and far from home as flies and maggots eat away at the tattered flesh. I had nightmares after watching part of Saipan: Uncensored, and I know I won't be forgetting the sight of the head in the field any time soon. To ignore this sort of brutal imagery, or to defame it by labeling it as "porn" is, to my mind, an affront to people who have seen or caused these things to happen in real life and who will be remembering it for the rest of their lives. To shudder and turn away, that is acceptable, but before one goes about glorifying warfare, one should SEE the result.
The ability to remember, to study one's past and interpret its implications for the future is another of those inherently and exclusively human traits, just like organized warfare. Activists are fond of saying that humans are the only species that routinely engages in massed slaughter of their own kind, but it is also true that we are the only species to have any cognizance of what happened to generations before us, and it is foolish BEYOND REASON to discount this second trait in favor of the first.
I guess I am a nerd after all, but I'm a nerd that knows a lot about guns, so watch out.
Heading back to the first line, my position on the military. This has never been an easy question to answer, and it's a favorite with people who want to call me out on being a reenactor (though this particular instance was a genuine question, not an attempt to catch me in a contradiction).
I have had family in the military. William Emerson in the 1st Massachusetts in 1861; Phil Wood Senior and Hamilton Wood in the First World War; Phil Wood Junior, Ned Billings, Linc Richardson, Tom Willams, and Ralph Gillett in the Second. Private (later Captain) Emerson received a debilitating wound that left him unable to use his right arm; Phil Senior landed in the quartermasters while Lt. Wood survived fighting with the 307th Infantry; Lt. Phil Wood Junior died with the Marines on Saipan, Lieutenant Commander Billings disappeared with his burning ship at Guadalcanal, neither Linc Richardson the Merchant Marine nor Tom Williams the pilot were willing to talk about their service, and Ralph Gillett, my grandfather, died before I was old enough to know where Indochina was.
World War Two was a wakeup call for my family, and we haven't been in uniform since.
I have had friends in the military. Eric Wisbeth was a gunner on a Humvee in Al Faw, Iraq. My friend Corinne's brother Paul is flying Apache helicopters overseas. Mike, who I've known since kindergarten, is due to ship out in August. Bobbie Small went overseas with the Army. Lindsay Pfeiffer married a young 1st Lieutenant out of West Point; her cadet brother was in the honor guard. Some have been luckier than others. Joey Walsh got posted to Alaska, where he and Linds have been perfectly content. Paul Neal's gun camera footage was used in a segment by Fox News, so his sister and friends could see tracers streaking by his cockpit as little infrared people fell under his bullets. Mike is working with a damage assessment team, having decided that he wasn't made to kill after all. Bobbie Small came home with wounds and health concerns. Wisbeth wakes up in the night sweating because he looked down the barrel of his M16 at a four year old girl and hesitated just long enough to recognize the difference between a scared child and a screaming insurgent.
Meanwhile, I was raised in a peaceful family, had a hippie babysitter, learned mistrust for the government when young, went to a very liberal school; read and read and read military history and spent money I didn't have on reenacting equipment and trips to Virginia.
It's hard to get into a discussion of feelings towards the military without sounding like a hypocrite about the Iraq war. I don't think we should be there at all, I don't think there was ever a reason to go, and I think that no matter how we try to push up the "liberation" aspect, people there are not really all that much better off. They may become so in time, but it will take many many years to repair the infrastructure. That said, since we DID have the poor sense to go, we owe it to the people whose country we've destroyed to stay and fix it, and that unfortunately is going to involve a military presence.
What the men and women have to do on the ground isn't pretty, but it is now necessary. I don't like why they have to do it, but recognize that it's not their decision. They believe enough that they were willing to go, and for that they should be respected. The way this country has treated its veterans in the past has been nothing short of shameful, especially those coming back from Vietnam. I have never been able to understand how the United States, celebrated champion of equality and fair treatment, could turn her back on the very men and women who secured that safety. Sure, the people might disagree (as is their right, one of the rights those in uniform are ostensibly protecting) but for the government to betray them as well, to deny them opportunities and leave some of them to fend for themselves on the streets is a treason beyond anything Benedict Arnold might have dreamed. Pacifist or hawk, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, those young people who forsook being a carefree eighteen year old and picked up a weapon to fight for you - there are few people more deserving of respect. Understand that I am for world peace - I think it's improbable that we'll see it in my lifetime, or even in the span of humankind, yet I support the idea - but listen: respect the hardship that those in uniform face, because those soldiers are not so different from you. If you must apportion blame, most of it belongs with the politicians whose families have never been touched, who have never been affected when the "purple testament of bleeding war" has been opened, who apparently find the entire thing an adventure.
Tell them about the lone head lying in the field, eyes open and staring, flies buzzing around, maggots already devouring the eyes. Don't tell those who are willing to take the chance on being the faceless corpse far away in the mud. Are all soldiers blameless? Certainly not. The environment created for them robs some of their decency and leaves the rest to handle what is left on their own.
As Sage Francis says: "You support the troops by wearin' yellow ribbons? Just bring home my motherfuckin' brothers and sisters! 'Cause they don't call the shots, but they're right in the line of fire..."
This is enough tirade. Just remember this: there are legions of people your age who are willing to shoulder the responsibility of killing and take the chance of dying to protect the life that you know. Even if you can't endorse it, appreciate and remember it.
Monday, June 16, 2008
XM Satellite Radio; or, The New Hit List (In More Ways Than One)
One must inevitably take some bad with the good. Generally, the two balance each other out into the monotony of everyday living. Your subway arrives just as you set foot on the platform, but you forgot to charge your cell phone. You pull off a sweet Matrix-style move to get around slow people on the sidewalk, but you bump your head on your desk. Your breakfast apple has just the right blend of tart and sweet, but you step in a puddle. The universal system of checks and balances is just that - universal - and often raises no more notice in one's daily routine than a private celebration or an inaudible curse.
Occasionally, though, something gets out of balance, and a situation is thrown off-kilter. Your subway arrives just as you drop your cellphone on the tracks; your Matrix moves send you falling down an open manhole; and your delicious apple somehow manages to give you Ebola (if salmonella can come from tomatoes, there's no telling what other fruits are up to - perhaps they're all bathed in raw eggs and packed in chicken for transport, but that's a topic for another time).
The point I'm trying to make here is that while my office provides me with air conditioning in the hot summer months, it also provides XM Satellite Radio.
Specifically, it provides XM 25: The Blend. I don't know what the statistics are for people being driven mad by Light Adult Contemporary (or, as the site says, "a perfect blend of pop"), but Science has shown that music has a terrific impact on human emotion, so surely it must impact our reason in some way.
The primary problem with XM 25: The Blend is the playlist. I am a bit of a music snob - I'll be the first to admit it - but I do tend to keep an open mind about different genres. And, yes, XM 25: The Blend will occasionally play a song that I like. The Beatles, Billy Joel, and some song whose title I don't know - it's the one they play in the movie Donnie Darko when the camera goes on a trip through the school.
The advertisements don't lie: they play songs from the superstars of pop from the last thirty years. However, you'd think that each of the superstars of pop had written ONE SONG and then sat back upon their laurels. (Undoubtedly this is the case with some artists, but I refuse to believe that everyone on XM 25: The Blend is a one-hit wonder). I have been in this office for almost a year now, and apart for a few memorable occasions where a different radio station was on (the Celtic Trance station was interesting) I have heard the same bland, insipid, uninspiring excuses for music every single day. And when I say "the same" I don't mean similar. I mean THE SAME SONGS EVERY SINGLE DAY. "Only the biggest hits from the artists you know and love!" trumpets the website. True enough, I suppose, "for those who like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like" and heaven forbid anything should change.
Let's have a look at what's on the playlist. (I blame daytime DJ Mike Kaufman for most of this auditory regurgitation as he has the 10 - 5 shift; the morning and evening shifts are equally as culpable as they are responsible for all the repeats, but fortunately I'm out of the office most of the time).
* Matchbox 20 - If You're Gone
As far as I'm concerned, The Onion hit the nail on the head when they described Matchbox 20: "Grab a chair, America! The most uninteresting band in formulaic, corporate radio is back!" You really can't say enough about them - simply because there isn't anything to say in the first place.
* Madonna - Borderline
I blame Madonna for the sudden disappearance of Guy Ritchie from the Awesome Movie scene. Where once there was the man who gave us Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, there's now an empty shell married to the woman who wrote this song. Thanks, Madge.
* Jordin Sparks - Tattoo
This song never fails to get Rihanna's "Umbrella" stuck in my head. I suspect thievery on someone's part.
* U2 - With Or Without You
I actually kinda like this song, though when Bono really lets loose with the "WAAAAAH-OH OH OH" part I can only think about the Axies, drunk as skunks, performing this at a capella concerts back in college.
* Michael McDonald - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher
Aside from the song itself, there are two problems here. Tammy Faye Bakker did a song called "Disco Jesus" which consists of 1% annoying disco beat and 99% caterwauling "A-Jesus keeps-ah liftin' meh higher an higher/ Higher an higher / Higher an higher" - another little-too-close similarity. Michael McDonald is also fined for Excessive Use Of Parenthetical Titles in a Non-Metal Band.
* Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
Maroon 5 shot their wad on "Harder To Breathe," an infinitely superior song that one never hears on the radio. After that, they're just another Matchbox 20.
* Avril Lavigne - Complicated
I remember when this song came out. It was during high school, I was working at Stewart's, and I heard it at least five times per shift because it was on heavy rotation. The song has not aged gracefully; rather it remains a shining reminder that people will listen to terrible songs and that Avril Lavigne, despite how punk rock princess she tries to appear, will someday get her comeuppance.
* Train - Drops of Jupiter
A sterling example of a band trying to sound deep and meaningful while actually saying nothing at all.
* Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
There's something about a spirited young lady singing "release your inhibitions" to people in an office that just seems fundamentally wrong. There are few more inhibited environments, and the people here who appreciate irony certainly don't make it a habit of showing it.
* The Eagles - There's Gonna Be A Heartache Tonight
Come on, man. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!
* Daughtry - Home
Chris Daughtry can go fuck himself. This song makes me angry, but not quite enough to put it in The Trinity. This is the kind of song that a moody 13 year old would quote in his AIM profile to look extra dark and along. I should know. I was a moody 13 year old who was into bad song lyrics too, and if I could meet that me now, I'd punch him in the face.
THE TRINITY
* Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Okay, I know a lot of things happened in the 80s that people regret (the sideways ponytails, the acid-washed jeans, Ronald Reagan, etc). Outside of the plague of 80s-themed parties most events that transpired between 1980 - 1989 are viewed with anything from gracious good humor (Ah What Young Fools We Were) to outright hatred (They Killed The Fuckin' Seventies, Man). This song is one of those iconic anthems, but an icon of what was wrong with the decade. And I don't mean that from a sexist standpoint - yes, girls should go have all the fun they care to - but come ON. My first reaction to this song is a sharp mental picture of a mildly overweight woman at a receptionist job somewhere, with bright pink fingernails, dangling earrings, and pictures of horribly cute baby animals all around her desk, snapping her gum and thinking about what it was like to be a go-go girl in 1983, except she wasn't actually one, she was too shy and gangly and thus spends the rest of her life living vicariously through Cyndi's shrill voice.
As far as I'm concerned, the best thing that happened to the eighties was that they had the good sense to eventually become the nineties.
* Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
One day, Weird Al will do it better, that's all I'm gonna say.
* Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Legend or not, this is one of the worst songs I have ever heard. Mercifully, this one only shows up when the DJ is feeling extra special.
THE ULTIMATE
* Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
Oooooooh Gwen. Why she left No Doubt is beyond me - actually, why No Doubt left their ska band roots behind and swung into the pop mainstream is even further beyond, though I guess when the nineties and the ska revival started to die, certain Nervous Nellies tried to jump ship (I'm looking at you, Monique Powell) and we saw what happened there. Gwen goes from a totally respectable semi-rude girl to another bleached-blond pop starlet with her own clothing line. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Gwen Stefani seems to be more famous now for simply being Gwen Stefani, and when that happens you can believe the quality of someone's music is gonna take a turn for the worse.
This song... you ever have one of those songs that just ruins your day? That's what this song does to me. As soon as that little guitar line and tambourine starts up, I can feel my shoulder muscles tense; when the "weeeee-ooooh, a-WEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOH" starts up the red bloody mists descend over my vision. In a past life, the Viking Berserker version of me would have charged forth with a big axe killing every living thing within reach. Within the corporate constraints, all I can do is glare murderously at the radio speaker and will it to shatter. This hasn't happened yet.
Somewhere in The Blend lives the world's most feeble guitar solo (which, actually, I think somehow managed to ooze out of Carlos Santana - I can only imagine he must have in the middle of recording a different, better guitar part at the time and had to play this one with his toes; either that or he was mid-concussion).
Almost enough to make you long for a Kenny Chesney marathon.
EDIT: Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana - The Game Of Love
Santana, you're in trouble.
Occasionally, though, something gets out of balance, and a situation is thrown off-kilter. Your subway arrives just as you drop your cellphone on the tracks; your Matrix moves send you falling down an open manhole; and your delicious apple somehow manages to give you Ebola (if salmonella can come from tomatoes, there's no telling what other fruits are up to - perhaps they're all bathed in raw eggs and packed in chicken for transport, but that's a topic for another time).
The point I'm trying to make here is that while my office provides me with air conditioning in the hot summer months, it also provides XM Satellite Radio.
Specifically, it provides XM 25: The Blend. I don't know what the statistics are for people being driven mad by Light Adult Contemporary (or, as the site says, "a perfect blend of pop"), but Science has shown that music has a terrific impact on human emotion, so surely it must impact our reason in some way.
The primary problem with XM 25: The Blend is the playlist. I am a bit of a music snob - I'll be the first to admit it - but I do tend to keep an open mind about different genres. And, yes, XM 25: The Blend will occasionally play a song that I like. The Beatles, Billy Joel, and some song whose title I don't know - it's the one they play in the movie Donnie Darko when the camera goes on a trip through the school.
The advertisements don't lie: they play songs from the superstars of pop from the last thirty years. However, you'd think that each of the superstars of pop had written ONE SONG and then sat back upon their laurels. (Undoubtedly this is the case with some artists, but I refuse to believe that everyone on XM 25: The Blend is a one-hit wonder). I have been in this office for almost a year now, and apart for a few memorable occasions where a different radio station was on (the Celtic Trance station was interesting) I have heard the same bland, insipid, uninspiring excuses for music every single day. And when I say "the same" I don't mean similar. I mean THE SAME SONGS EVERY SINGLE DAY. "Only the biggest hits from the artists you know and love!" trumpets the website. True enough, I suppose, "for those who like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like" and heaven forbid anything should change.
Let's have a look at what's on the playlist. (I blame daytime DJ Mike Kaufman for most of this auditory regurgitation as he has the 10 - 5 shift; the morning and evening shifts are equally as culpable as they are responsible for all the repeats, but fortunately I'm out of the office most of the time).
* Matchbox 20 - If You're Gone
As far as I'm concerned, The Onion hit the nail on the head when they described Matchbox 20: "Grab a chair, America! The most uninteresting band in formulaic, corporate radio is back!" You really can't say enough about them - simply because there isn't anything to say in the first place.
* Madonna - Borderline
I blame Madonna for the sudden disappearance of Guy Ritchie from the Awesome Movie scene. Where once there was the man who gave us Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, there's now an empty shell married to the woman who wrote this song. Thanks, Madge.
* Jordin Sparks - Tattoo
This song never fails to get Rihanna's "Umbrella" stuck in my head. I suspect thievery on someone's part.
* U2 - With Or Without You
I actually kinda like this song, though when Bono really lets loose with the "WAAAAAH-OH OH OH" part I can only think about the Axies, drunk as skunks, performing this at a capella concerts back in college.
* Michael McDonald - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher
Aside from the song itself, there are two problems here. Tammy Faye Bakker did a song called "Disco Jesus" which consists of 1% annoying disco beat and 99% caterwauling "A-Jesus keeps-ah liftin' meh higher an higher/ Higher an higher / Higher an higher" - another little-too-close similarity. Michael McDonald is also fined for Excessive Use Of Parenthetical Titles in a Non-Metal Band.
* Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
Maroon 5 shot their wad on "Harder To Breathe," an infinitely superior song that one never hears on the radio. After that, they're just another Matchbox 20.
* Avril Lavigne - Complicated
I remember when this song came out. It was during high school, I was working at Stewart's, and I heard it at least five times per shift because it was on heavy rotation. The song has not aged gracefully; rather it remains a shining reminder that people will listen to terrible songs and that Avril Lavigne, despite how punk rock princess she tries to appear, will someday get her comeuppance.
* Train - Drops of Jupiter
A sterling example of a band trying to sound deep and meaningful while actually saying nothing at all.
* Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
There's something about a spirited young lady singing "release your inhibitions" to people in an office that just seems fundamentally wrong. There are few more inhibited environments, and the people here who appreciate irony certainly don't make it a habit of showing it.
* The Eagles - There's Gonna Be A Heartache Tonight
Come on, man. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!
* Daughtry - Home
Chris Daughtry can go fuck himself. This song makes me angry, but not quite enough to put it in The Trinity. This is the kind of song that a moody 13 year old would quote in his AIM profile to look extra dark and along. I should know. I was a moody 13 year old who was into bad song lyrics too, and if I could meet that me now, I'd punch him in the face.
THE TRINITY
* Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Okay, I know a lot of things happened in the 80s that people regret (the sideways ponytails, the acid-washed jeans, Ronald Reagan, etc). Outside of the plague of 80s-themed parties most events that transpired between 1980 - 1989 are viewed with anything from gracious good humor (Ah What Young Fools We Were) to outright hatred (They Killed The Fuckin' Seventies, Man). This song is one of those iconic anthems, but an icon of what was wrong with the decade. And I don't mean that from a sexist standpoint - yes, girls should go have all the fun they care to - but come ON. My first reaction to this song is a sharp mental picture of a mildly overweight woman at a receptionist job somewhere, with bright pink fingernails, dangling earrings, and pictures of horribly cute baby animals all around her desk, snapping her gum and thinking about what it was like to be a go-go girl in 1983, except she wasn't actually one, she was too shy and gangly and thus spends the rest of her life living vicariously through Cyndi's shrill voice.
As far as I'm concerned, the best thing that happened to the eighties was that they had the good sense to eventually become the nineties.
* Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
One day, Weird Al will do it better, that's all I'm gonna say.
* Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Legend or not, this is one of the worst songs I have ever heard. Mercifully, this one only shows up when the DJ is feeling extra special.
THE ULTIMATE
* Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
Oooooooh Gwen. Why she left No Doubt is beyond me - actually, why No Doubt left their ska band roots behind and swung into the pop mainstream is even further beyond, though I guess when the nineties and the ska revival started to die, certain Nervous Nellies tried to jump ship (I'm looking at you, Monique Powell) and we saw what happened there. Gwen goes from a totally respectable semi-rude girl to another bleached-blond pop starlet with her own clothing line. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Gwen Stefani seems to be more famous now for simply being Gwen Stefani, and when that happens you can believe the quality of someone's music is gonna take a turn for the worse.
This song... you ever have one of those songs that just ruins your day? That's what this song does to me. As soon as that little guitar line and tambourine starts up, I can feel my shoulder muscles tense; when the "weeeee-ooooh, a-WEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOH" starts up the red bloody mists descend over my vision. In a past life, the Viking Berserker version of me would have charged forth with a big axe killing every living thing within reach. Within the corporate constraints, all I can do is glare murderously at the radio speaker and will it to shatter. This hasn't happened yet.
Somewhere in The Blend lives the world's most feeble guitar solo (which, actually, I think somehow managed to ooze out of Carlos Santana - I can only imagine he must have in the middle of recording a different, better guitar part at the time and had to play this one with his toes; either that or he was mid-concussion).
Almost enough to make you long for a Kenny Chesney marathon.
EDIT: Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana - The Game Of Love
Santana, you're in trouble.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Gonna Turn It Around On Ya
Another personal peeve (this one not necessarily to be a crime when I'm president of the world):
The use of terms such as "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism."
Okay. Let's have a look at the terms here. When one hears the term "reverse racism," at least in this country, it is usually applied to a member of an ethnic minority group who discriminates against a Caucasian; hence, a black man who denies a white man something because you can't trust Whitey is said to be employing "reverse racism."
There's nothing reverse about this. That's just racism. According to the dictionary, Racism is a noun that means:
As they go on to sing (wittily but with more than a grain of truth) "If we all could just admit / That we are racist, a little bit / Even though we all know that it's wrong / Maybe it would help us get along."
The same goes for "reverse sexism." Reverse sexism only ever seems to be employed when a woman is oppressing a man, implying that to be sexist is the sole capability of men. Women can be equally as sexist.
Actually, this does kinda piss me off. Maybe this will be illegal... these people can be cellmates with folks who overuse the words "dichotomy" and "I feel that..." instead of "I think that."
The use of terms such as "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism."
Okay. Let's have a look at the terms here. When one hears the term "reverse racism," at least in this country, it is usually applied to a member of an ethnic minority group who discriminates against a Caucasian; hence, a black man who denies a white man something because you can't trust Whitey is said to be employing "reverse racism."
There's nothing reverse about this. That's just racism. According to the dictionary, Racism is a noun that means:
NOWHERE does it say that racism is the exclusive property of Caucasians. I mean, let's call a spade a spade here and note that yes, we Caucasians haven't got the most sterling record when it comes to race relationships. In fact, historically, we've been some of the most intolerant people no matter where we live (in the broad generalization sense). HOWEVER. If we remember the musical Avenue Q: "Bigotry has never been exclusively white."
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
As they go on to sing (wittily but with more than a grain of truth) "If we all could just admit / That we are racist, a little bit / Even though we all know that it's wrong / Maybe it would help us get along."
The same goes for "reverse sexism." Reverse sexism only ever seems to be employed when a woman is oppressing a man, implying that to be sexist is the sole capability of men. Women can be equally as sexist.
Actually, this does kinda piss me off. Maybe this will be illegal... these people can be cellmates with folks who overuse the words "dichotomy" and "I feel that..." instead of "I think that."
Friday, May 30, 2008
Minor Regulations for When I Become a Benevolent Leader of Humanity, Part 1
After the inaugural ceremony, after the last of the tickertape hits the sidewalk in Times Square and while the revelers are shifting gears from beer to whiskey, my vision for a better world will take its first steps. They will be small steps - not the abolition of armed conflict, the conversion to sustainable energy, or the legalization of gay marriage; those are big steps and best done slowly if by doing them slowly they may be done properly. No, the first acts of my Benevolent Reign will address that class of heinous behaviors that just rub me the wrong way.
We'll call it the Abolition of Petty Irritants Act, and it shall read in part:
More edicts shall follow. We'll start them off slowly.
We'll call it the Abolition of Petty Irritants Act, and it shall read in part:
- The use of unnecessarily large umbrellas on sidewalks shall be prohibited.
- No person, no matter how young, old, or nattily attired, will utilize or cause to be utilized, any umbrella whose span when extended is more than twice the width of the user's shoulders.
- Violations shall be punishable by a verbal warning and dirty look, followed by confiscation of the offending implement. Serious violations (such as using a beach umbrella to guard against rain, failure to collapse or otherwise secure umbrella when under scaffolding, obstruction of the pavement causing the Benevolent Leader to walk in the street) shall be punishable by the destruction of the offending implement; the violator shall be placed on a probationary status with all umbrella privileges revoked for a period not exceeding six months. At the discretion of the courts, they may be allowed a sheet of newsprint in lieu of umbrella.
- Exceptions may be made in the case of people who composed entirely of sugar. Preliminary research has shown that your mother was right; you ain't so sweet that you're gonna melt. Confirmation of a sugar-based human must be verified by a reputable medical professional.
- It shall be a violation to stand sheeplike and blankly staring in the middle of doors on the subway while people are trying to exit the train; it shall be a misdemeanor to bull your way onto the train while people are in the process of exiting.
- A specially appointed task force shall be created and authorized to use any force necessary to enforce this policy.
- Violators shall be made to stand in the back of the subway line. Repeat offenders shall be made to commute with the Militant Rastafarian for a period not exceeding six months.
- In extreme cases, the violator shall be strapped to the front of the subway, since they're in such a damn hurry to get to wherever they need to go and absolutely have to be the first one to arrive.
- The use of "buzzwords," whether in or out of the office, shall be STRICTLY prohibited. These include, but are not limited to:
- "Out Of Pocket" as used to signify unavailability.
- "Reach Out"
- "Next Steps"
- "Best Practices"
- Any other phrase determined to lack real-world application.
- Violators will be required to attend an elocution workshop and read three works of literature widely agreed to be "classic."
- The use of the phrase "Moving Forward" shall be punishable by the permanent closure of the mouth, by whatever means necessary.
- Shower curtains shall be sold with the necessary rings, instead of in separate packages. Rings may be sold in separate packages if a change is desired, but no shower curtain shall be sold sans rings.
- Misspellings and grammatical errors on printed signs shall be corrected, at printer's expense, within 14 days of notice. Handwritten signs may have their errors corrected by any person in possession of a pen.
- Exceptions to this rule include: instances where the error is intentional (for the purposes of advertising, etc), or instances where the resulting statement causes great hilarity.
More edicts shall follow. We'll start them off slowly.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Pearls Of Wisdom from a Militant Rastafarian
A new apartment means a new commute means new characters on the subway.
Gone are the troupes of dancing kids who haunt the express from 59th to 125th, the ones who know all the same dance moves and begin by shouting "Showtime, ladies and gentlemen! What time is it? Shooooow time!" The kids set up their boom box in the center door bay, and some of them really can move, though after the third or fourth time it loses a little of its charm. You know someone will turn a backflip, one of the smaller children will be flung up in the air to hit the ceiling (to the gasps of maternal ladies and tourists), and if the guys really know their stuff, two of them will hook shoulders-to-ankles to make a human circle which will roll expertly from one end of the car to the other, avoiding poles and shopping bags on the way. I like these kids and usually give them some change.
Also gone (thankfully) is the religion gauntlet at 42nd Street. There, one is more often than not harangued by evangelical Christians, whose lectures about Sin and Fornication and The Coming Judgment fall on deaf ears at ten-minutes-to-nine. Just in case you do start to worry about your soul, sympathetic, well-dressed people have a table set up where they administer free stress tests and information on Scientology. The commuter-cum-pilgrim barely has time to catch their breath before a smiling young man in orange robes and Birkenstocks offers them a paperback Bhagavad-gita and sends them on towards their transfer. Only three minutes in the station, and you've been offered three conflicting choices for the hereafter, as well as some dynamite reading material - there's always a copy or two of Dianetics floating around, and the acolyte of Dubious Subway Religion will doubtless want a few of the free Jack Chick tracts (since taking the cardboard signs or the giant poster of multitudes in Hell is frowned upon). One wonders where the Pagans and Atheists have their setup. Perhaps somewhere in Brooklyn.
Also gone are the familiar panhandlers - the old Chinese woman who sits across from the evangelicals and never fails to draw more sympathy, even through the preachers won't give her the time of day - the stooped, middle-aged man who never really learned to play the violin but has one anyway and saws valiantly upon it - the nasal-voiced woman with a beat up snare drum, you've seen her, she latched on to someone else's gimmick about two years ago and for a while they were working in competition; then this woman teamed up with a guy who had a keyboard and the other drummer disappeared. Now she's gone solo, which is a shame because Mr. Keyboard was possessed of creativity, tonality, and charisma - talents not shared by his former counterpart, who preps the audience with the usual "I'm sorry to disturb ev'rybody" before launching into a drum solo that would send Neal Peart racing for the nearest window. The eternal line "It ain't no joke, for real I'm broke" makes an appearance at least once; on one memorable occasion I was treated to the album version (rather than the abbreviated radio edit) and got to hear it twice. O frabjous day.
This morning, a mid-sized man with angry eyes and a Rastahat got on the train two stops from my house. He certainly didn't look like your everyday commuter, but little did I suspect that this man was a visionary. He was more than a prophet, he was a True Subway Crazy.
My encounters with True Subway Crazies have been limited. Mostly they turn out to be simple drunks (as the gentleman who swore to protect everyone on the subway car because they knew his cousin, just as soon as he swept all the trash out through Chinatown), or their level of nuttiness doesn't quite qualify (as the woman with the teal Spandex dress). The True Subway Crazy knows EXACTLY what they're talking about, and more often than not have a burning desire to share their knowledge with others, willing or unwilling.
I spent a very educational 40 minutes on the train with our militant Rastafarian, during which time I learned the following:
- Haille Selassie is the black man's God. All praise and power to Haille Selassie.
- Black people should wake up.
- The white man will teach you to believe in Unity. There is no such thing as Unity. If black people grow their nappy dreds, they will realize this, and praise Haille Selassie. The Rastafarians already know this.
- Black people are stupid, and should wake up.
- Growing your nappy dreds will make the white man fear you. The white man will thus be less likely to put you on your knees, in chains, in the cotton field.
- The white man created the Church as a haven for pedophiles.
- Priests are uniformly pedophiles.
- So is Jesus.
- The earthquake in China was the last sundering of Heaven and Earth. The Rastafarians are angry about this. We will all die.
- Tibet does not just mean "Tibet." It is a code. "TI" stands for Tie, and "BET" stands for Between. Thus Tibet is the Tie Between Heaven and Earth, which is why the United States wants to control it.
- Wake up, black people.
- You should not trust the white man's government. The average black man does not have enough food on his table, whereas George Bush has rice on his table every morning. You know what that's called? Condoleeza Rice. (This got a round of laughter from the car).
- You should not trust the Vice President because his name is Dick. Do you know what "dick" means? It's a penis, specifically a penis that resides in a young boy's anus. Half the problems of the country can be traced to the name "Dick."
- You should not trust Hillary Clinton. She was not good enough to run the country until there was the possibility of a qualified black man becoming President. The white man is using women to combat the black man.
- Barack Obama is not Barack Obama. The "O" in "Obama" stands for "O Say Can You See." Try and stop him. You can't. You are all going to die.
- If you look at the left eye of the Mona Lisa, you will see an image of Jesus molesting a child. This is why the Mona Lisa is worth fourteen million dollars.
- Also, if you look into the "left eye of the Last Supper" you will see Mary giving birth to Jesus and interrupting her career. This is why the Last Supper is worth fourteen million dollars.
- "Career" is a code word for something as well.
- Jesus was crucified in the year 911, so the attacks on September 11 were not a coincidence.
- 9/11 was an inside job.
We learned all this by the time we reached the bridge. Evidently, we were not taking heed closely enough, and the Militant Rastafarian threw caution (along with any further references to Rastafarianism and most of his continuity) to the four winds.
- Secondhand smoke is a myth. The real danger is from "secondhand poof."
- "Secondhand Poof" is an affliction propagated by gay men engaging in unprotected anal intercourse. Ejaculate combines with some unknown chemical to produce malicious little particles, each carrying the AIDS virus. If a gay man so much as farts in your vicinity, you are at risk of contracting HIV.
- If anyone on the subway can produce a more tangible God than Militant Rastafarian, would they please step forward now.
- Militant Rastafarian is, in fact, bigger than God. He does not need God. He has quit God. Militant Rastafarian is capable of quitting anything he wants.
- Militant Rastafarian is outraged that mothers hide their children because he smells like weed. Weed should not be illegal. (Commuters suspect that perhaps Militant Rastafarian has been partaking in something a little stronger than marijuana).
I got off at 42nd Street (far away from the evangelicals, the Scientologists, and the Hare Krishnas). Militant Rastafarian was still going strong, spreading his message of madness to the masses bound uptown. As the doors closed, cutting off his opinion on a homosexual teacher (negative), I couldn't help but think: in a certain day and age, someone like this would have found followers. Instead, he's a lonely visionary, a prophet of the uptown express. If that's not a sign of progress, I don't know what is.
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