Versa Vice

Aura

2012-01-20T07:51:00.002-05:00

Third upload of this song to youtube, a cover from the album Priest = Aura. I felt like it needed more improvement with the first couple versions. They've been deleted. This one is a first take.

There's always room for improvement, but I just sat and played and it worked well. Still not quite fully confident with the lyrics near the end. And indeed, this could be a folk song, with it's story line and fabled conclusions, only ancient and futuristic. Classic Church.

Lo-fi Video Collection

2012-01-13T20:31:00.003-05:00

Couple of notable lo-fi youtube vid representations.

An earlier project of the late Mark Sandman. Treat Her Right was a Boston band in the mid-eithties, pre-Morphine. I was fortunate enough to witness Morphine live at Firestone in Orlando before Mark died on stage in Italy on the same tour. There is a new documentary about him called Cure For Pain.

I have been a fan of Smog/Bill Callahan for years. His style is a challenging listen, but lends well to this video, and to a certain mood that I used to find myself in.

Just plain weird. Can't stop watching. Somehow reminds me of Crystal Castles...I don't know why. Perhaps it's just that Post L.A. - L.A. Anti-American Idol approach that feels, in this case, like it could have come up from some dive club, an unpolished gem, between 1979 and 2015.

I love Wooden Shjips. Multi Functional. Road trip, poolside, skatepark, study room, hangover, party tracks...

One of the many Will Oldham incarnations. An early '90ish Palace tune. That certain lost mood again. Faith in love lost, the pros and cons.

Crystal Castles

2012-01-03T10:13:00.006-05:00

Music writers have used words like industrial, punk, and electronic in attempts to describe. Crystal Castles are everything but pop. Perfect. These videos are "unofficial," but reflect the devoted and artistic fan base. I try out a lot of new music. Seems, almost always, that stuff becomes a lasting favorite when it doesn't sink in automatically at first listen. CC on ipod at the skatepark...even better than long walks on the beach at sundown.

While We Stood In Line

2012-01-02T09:59:00.025-05:00

Something about fast food lures and repulses me at the same time. A couple times a year I get the urge and end up in line. Usually the person before me uses the same phrasing.

“I would like the…this” or “the that.”

And it doesn’t matter what variation of burger, size, or numbered combo, it’s the use of the word, “the” that I find most odd. “The,” The Big Mack, The Big Rib, The Sausage Biscuit, et cetera... As if there really is only one, sitting in the back, just like the picture, never manufactured, frozen and packaged for millions served, just waiting for you, Mr. Person Before Me. Don Draper put a sword through your gut, you didn’t even notice. You smiled while he did it. That marketing blade is a misguided American pride, in action.

“Fer here or to go?”

The cashier’s weary tone is all the hint we should ever really need. She’s on the other side of the counter. She’s seen the boxes come in. The nuggets in reconstituted splendor, the meat varieties of multiple animals reformed in manufactured cost effective genius. If she works at Arby’s she’s seen the roast beef arrive in its original uncooked liquid form. Getting hungry? There is no The about it. We are not individuals. We are a sheep in sheep’s clothing. The man before me holds the tray with pregnant privilege and smiles as he looks for a table. He chews in slow motion on the power of pride while Old Glory flaps outside near the playground…

“Can I help you sir… Can I help you!” ...startled from my trance.

In my head I hear myself ask the cashier, why did I come here? But that quick rational voice of a neurotransmitter fired rebuttal says in a flash…just order for now, and then never come back. So I do, I order, and I eat. On occasion, I eat fast food. I used to be mostly vegetarian. I’m one of those people. Still processed food in many cases. What’s more processed than soy and other ingredients made to look and taste like meat?

Link: In a recent news story I heard about a Bull that escaped from a slaughterhouse while waiting his turn in line, but he broke free of the plant, the machine, the rage, the revolutionary bovine courage! Rejecting the system of fast food oligarchy! He was later gunned down less than a mile away. Same fate? No, the writer concluded with an awe shucks tone, “…but the animal’s meat could no longer be processed due to lead poisoning…”

I grew up in Palm Coast Florida, a place I used to think of as the real geographical south Jersey, ripe with retired Yankee snow-birds. Not the soft voice NPR kind of Yankee. More so the “I’m Waukin’ Heah!” kind of yankee, permanently scarred by old habit big city shyster capitalism. My family moved to Florida when I was 12, I moved away from Palm Coast when I was nineteen. So, seven years of weirdness for a Kentucky boy with a natural fondness for my visions of California. In Palm Coast, at the grocery, Wal Mart, it didn’t matter, while in the checkout line I often got the same question,

“Ahh’ You in Line?”

What was it about my standing in line that made it look like I wasn't standing in line? I learned there was apparently, more than one way to stand in line. I was too relaxed! I noticed my elderly friends from the north often glared at the cashier, tapped their feet, had quickening respirations, stood as close as possible to me or whoever was in front of them, had their checkbook already in hand, and were quick to use the plastic conveyor-belt separator-stick to avoid excess conversation at the transaction point. In spite of all this the customer behind would never hesitate to ask a person like me, no matter how obvious the shortest distance between two points, the same concerned question, “Ahh’ you in line he-ah’?”

I learned three things in basic training. In the three months of my life wasted at Fort Sill Oklahoma in 2006, I learned to hold my tongue, hold my piss, and hold a rifle. The first part was the easiest. I had been holding my tongue my whole life. Rather than peer pressure, this was part of my initial attraction to alcohol when I was in my 20’s. It seemed to help me make up for lost time. But basic training was a sobering experience, in a wasted time kind of way.

Standing in platoon formations, waiting for extended periods of time for accountability, I had no trouble with silence. The exceptions came when the morons standing around me with stupid jokes and grab ass entertainment pushed me to the point of screaming. They weren't even talking to me. It was the fact I had to stand there trapped. I think I made one, maybe two friends in Basic. Otherwise, I hated them all. I was for all intent and purposes, Private Caulfield. We were a wild mix of civilians dressed up as soldiers waiting to go take our turn at an awkward war that was going down the tubes, but in the meantime we were supposed to bond with our peers and develop teamwork. Instead, for me, I agreed with the Drill Sergeants when they screamed derision, and took pleasure in getting “smoked” when the formation’s shenanigans pushed the D.S. too far. I found the NCOs likable compared to my fellow privates. This was backwards, but reversed after basic.

I’ve spent a lifetime of trying to figure out where I stand in formation. Maybe we all do this. I just feel like I have only learned where not to stand. In the front? In the back? On the left? The right? What formation am I falling into? Is there a formation? Is there more than one formation? Can I leave the formation? Can the formation change? Can I change regardless of the formation? Am I just standing in line? A group of individuals? An individual group vs. another individual group?

It makes sense though that Libertarians are such a full spectrum group. This is a group of people who believe first in individual liberty. This as the main priority is my understanding. I’m not a Libertarian, I think. There will be shades of grey and even darkness in any formation. It’s still new to me. Libertarians are made up of church going, pot legalizers, pro-military, anti-war, anti-establishment, constitutionalist, Main Street, 99% ers who are against corrupt banks controlling a corrupted government. Unfortunately, when it comes to Libertarians, too many think of the incredulous Radio show host Alex Jones, or of bible belt rednecks who drool over owning guns and talking about a constitution that they have never read but swear by like it’s a book of the bible. Alex Jones in particular does more harm than good. He mixes in bits of important under-reported news with heaps of hyperbolic nonsense and sounds insane as he jumps from subject to subject several times per sentence. Perhaps he does have good intentions, but he has spent too many years saturated in the subject and his own ego to convince a clear headed newcomer. In spite of the large radio audience I think Ron Paul should steer clear of AJ.

The way I see things has changed recently, and without Alex Jones. Overall, for the last 4 years, I have been amazed that the same people who think Obama is a crook think Bush was a hero. This by proxy has made me an automatic Obama supporter. Support for Bush at this point is the sign of a person who studies sports or pop culture too much rather than the reality of the world's current condition. The only weapons of mass destruction we will ever find are, and were, red white and blue. We in America are thousands of times more likely to get hit by accidental celebratory fire from a single shot into the starry New Year’s night sky from miles away than we are to ever get a scratch from a well marketed phantom terrorist. The more I learn about Link: President Obama, the more it seems his is as corrupt and basically the same “leader-puppet” as Bush in his day. Both are figure heads that actually have little to do with anything. KRS-1 explained it well by describing the president as a fast food manager, with the real government being the franchise owner. You’ll only ever get to field your complaints to the manager. You never see the real owner who may not even live in the same state.

Nowadays when asked about anything "Republican or Democrat" I tend to reply along the lines of, Checkers or Sonic? All four are of the same sugar and lard filled false dichotomy. Distractions in action marketed to make us feel good because we picked one over the other. Seriously, for real, what do people really assume that Romney would do different in the next four than what we have seen in the last four? The current political system is very unhealthy. We need to change out diet. We need health care reform, but Obama’s plan will contribute to the same corporate boondoggle that already is in place. The AMA = FDA. That intermingling of things Fed titled with things of profit power is what needs reform. A good place to start in learning about the current sickness of this private industry having negative influence(link): Dr. Burzynski Basically, the FDA at the behest of the private cancer industry attempted for more than 10 years to stop a medical practice that cures cancer because it wasn't a money maker for the established industry. There is a documentary by the same name. But that's only a starting place.

In the coming months of the new year, starting tomorrow, we will find ourselves standing in lines. Some of those lines and formations will be political in nature. My current inclination, with what I have to go on, is for Ron Paul as President. At this point I would encourage others to consider his message and voting for him when you find yourself standing in line for the voting booth.

Goodbye 2011

2011-12-29T13:24:00.002-05:00

Skate Video

2011-12-17T11:42:00.003-05:00

Video from November. Possum Creek Skatepark, Gainesville Florida. The music is The Mag Seven .

Summer Music Video Picks #2

2011-07-19T08:33:00.006-04:00

More music videos, some current trenders, some flashbacks, summer only because it’s summer as I seek, find and post. I plan to provide further evidence, here on Versa Vice, that there is great music, and even music videos out there, often neglected, ignored, even shunned by the mediocre pop conglomerates. MTV has remained the underbelly of American society, even wallowing in its own ephemeral excrement…but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an art form survive and thrive. Enjoy.

Perfect starter vid, with a blast-off. Atlas Sound, takes us forward by looking back.

Speaking of a “look back,” the best live concert video ever made from any genre, or era, Stop Making Sense, as we all should…so take me home.

In spite of mixed feelings from song to song, I’m a Ladytron fan. A lot of great output over the years that allows me to look past the occasional cheese dud.

I’m new to Violens. But Hell be damned if they don’t rock and have, what should be, great melodic pop appeal. Where remain the deafened masses?

For those who can recall Portishead and the mood they could make sonically, this could be a considered a child of, or lasting echo. Great multi-period reconfiguring…or simply put, a great song.

Remaining my all time top video, it speaks for itself, Doves. Extracted from one of MTV2’s earlier and more legitimate carnations.

Summer Music Video Picks

2011-07-11T19:59:00.010-04:00

New(ish) music, needing further attention...

This is Cloud Control, from Australia, not signed to a major yet(the original definition of "indie.")

A personal favorite for a while. Groovy, rock and roll as it was once meant to be, Wooden Shjips from Cali.

Fun, good mood, just got a phone number on the city bus music, Toro Y Moi.

More of the by-the-above-ground-pool music for my fans, as i ipoD Dj on Sundays. Love maybe, leisure first, lessons later, life always, Twin Shadow(s).

Same as Above, only Memory Tapes.

Crystal Castles, if the voice seems familiar, it's because it isn't. You would know if you knew.

Often ripped on as rip offs, but the music holds it's weight, sometimes one man's voice sounds like another, dead and/or alive. So be it, Cold Cave.

And, one of the weirdest vids ever...from "Cults." And be damned if it ain't, otherwise, as upbeat as a pig-tailed Laura Ingals runnin' down the hillside to Paw and the Little House.

(Nancy) Grace for Casey

2011-07-05T16:17:00.003-04:00

When an attractive girl comes around the corner, and I’m hanging out with the guys, I’m the kind of person, rather than ogle and comply with what’s expected of me, I look to see their reactions. I don’t know why I do it. As well, I have sat near the front of the theater at a movie so I can look back and see everyone staring and reacting at the same thing, simultaneously. In particular, a movie I’ve already seen, and when I know what’s coming. For some reason this is more interesting to me. So, when I listened as the verdicts were read in the Anthony case I started thinking about…what people would say and think. I took a look at Facebook. No surprise. Reactionary emotional outrage fueled by an honest need for justice in the case of an apparently murdered and certainly dead little girl. The real fuel on our feelings came from other sources though.

For 3 years American’s have been listening to Nancy Grace spew her ignorant speculation like she’s in tight with the big guy upstairs and rewarded her with a career based on her rhetoric, and with no further merit. Who the hell is she? Where did she come from? Did anyone ever ask this? Over time the Nancy Grace clones have popped up and are just as bad.

Do I think Casey Anthony is Guilty? She is not innocent. It’s clear with every sound that comes out of her mouth. That’s not evidence though is it? She is guilty on some level, that’s clear in my gut. I’m also sure that the Salem Witch trials were driven by the same gut feelings, and I don’t doubt my feelings have been influenced by the perpetual media machine who have maintained their ratings by exploiting news instead of reporting it. We’ve gotten used to the megalopinionated (an intentional misspell) news folk who wear the hat of reporter and entertainer interchangeably as it suits the moment.

Casey will be around for some time. Her own show…or some sick bizarreness. And we’ll just eat it right up, or maybe we won’t. Maybe things will change. It will take a hard honest look at ourselves at least as much as we judge televised strangers. We do tend to celebrate narcissistic party animal celebrities though don’t we? I also think it’s a safe bet she’ll be back behind bars again someday. She’s myopic and at least a little nuts. Getting out of this jam will only embolden such pathological behaviors. The mood of her parents as they left seemed so much more appropriate than the joy of the accused and her "team" after the decision.

My real beef remains with Nancy Grace, her clones, and that whole cheesy exploitative mode that media has embraced. I can remember the old days when calm reporters delivering the news in a neutral format was all we had. I prefer that, and miss it I guess. I think Nancy should go back to wherever she came from. Just disappear for good. She’s just as bad as Casey or whoever killed her daughter. She has misused a sad horrible incident to her own gain. Guilty on some level too I think, and in an ironic twist it may just turn out her types emboldened the investigation and prosecutors with a false sense of confidence. Grace for Casey, imagine that.

Communism

2011-06-24T19:30:00.007-04:00

Two papers I did, on the subject, this past semester.

Marx Lenin and Mao

Various figures and their philosophies have shaped the ideologies of Socialism and Communism over the past 200 years. Three names, Marx, Lenin and Mao, respectively, an economist, a revolutionary and a philosopher, each developed and altered the original hope and idea of utopian society till, over time, the underlying theme was nearly forgotten. Parts of the world, rattled and inspired by two centuries of industrialization and world war, began to see the new and unique conditions created for the individual growing worse and unacceptable. This not only added to the appeal of socialism but created the vacuum in which communism eventually came into being in much of the east and other parts of the world.

The first to collect his thoughts and develop a pragmatic philosophy in a way that could transcend culture and make his theory known on a broad scale throughout much of Europe was Karl Marx. Marx, a Jewish German born in 1818 lived during prime years to see first-hand the state of the proletariat under increasingly mechanized conditions. He lived in different parts of Europe in his lifetime. As he spent time in Germany France and England and studied the history of society and its origins, his interest in socialism expanded as he developed his own progressive theories. Collectivism, materialist conception of history, labour value theory, economic determinism, the dialectic, and social evolution are all Marxist tenets that have been both consumed and redistributed by radicals and academics alike.

Based on the socialist intent of “abundance for all” Collectivism is the idea that personal ownership of material things is wrong, in particular any occasion where individuals having more than enough when another has nothing. Behind this thought is the core philosophical idea that all people are equal. The only true ownership according to Marx is one’s own labor and the value that goes into the goods that come from that work. The efforts of the underpaid and mistreated proletariat (the working class) taken and sold for profit by the greedy bourgeoisie (the business owners) is the ultimate injustice and something that grew to be common in the industrial age. The utilization of assembly lines and large scale import-export wholesale-retail made the gap between classes and fairness grow larger. This idea that material value came from the hands of the worker, not from the sales pitch of the market place is what developed into Labor Value Theory. The value of goods produced by society, and the value of life lived by the laborers in society were both becoming less and less. The gap between the bourgeoisie and proletariat and the conflict it created is what Marx called “The Dialectic.” A dialectic is traditionally the outcome between two philosophical views in debate and discussion. Marx applied this mode of thought to his ideas of economy and its influence on the rest of society.

Marx’s theory of Economic Determinism was based on the importance of economy as it affects all the other facets of social life. Overall Marx felt that the means and mode of agricultural and industrial production were the predicates of life in society. Even when it came to education, politics, religion, culture and family, the methods of an operating economy were the first influence on everything. The thoughts and ideas of the individual and nation alike were first set in motion by how the individual worker spent his day in production, how the business owner went about his sales, and how the larger organ of society continued to live based on each cell of society making the system work. Only from there could other ideas begin or old ideas develop.

Marx’s approach to the philosophy of socialism was a rational and scientific one. Social Evolution is the proposition that society has its own natural evolution to follow through stages in a strict linear fashion. Looking at history Marx concluded that any society and its governments begin with an early communal and agricultural system and over time there will be a rise to power and an empire is established. With the dialectic relationship in place the outcome is feudalism from the empire state as is best seen in the British history. Further along over time the feudal model is naturally replaced with capitalism as in The United States rising from British origins. But before the return and implied goal of a mature and more sophisticated version of communism, is the evolution of capitalism into socialism. As in Darwin’s theory of evolution, for Marx, this was a purely linear and scientific model. Less scientifically he saw this progression would require a revolution of the proletariat, with or without violence. Marx died before his ideas took to the streets. Russia the first society to take to his ideas and attempt socialism was not yet a capitalist one. The dilemma for socialism is that it appeals to countries which lack the wealth to use it, and does not appeal to productive ones.

At the turn of the century the vast Russian landscape was mostly rural, agricultural, and a feudal society. The Russian nobles in the service of the Czar were expected to do military or civil service but still owned the land and for all intents and purposes owned the workers that worked the land. Russia remained, for the most part, uninfluenced by western thought. That said, the writings of Marx and his ideas of a better world for the working class made their way into the hands and hearts of people and a movement began to coalesce till in 1898, after political reforms were put in place by the czars themselves, a Socialist Democratic Party was formed. It was formed out of what Marx would have considered the Bourgeoisie. After a Duma (Russian Parliament) was created in 1905 the socialists themselves began to divide into two groups. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin (Vladimir Illich Ulyanov) broke from The Mensheviks, led by Jues Martov. The Bolsheviks were the more radical of the two, and Lenin in particular felt that a revolution could not take place without violence. This is different than what Marx thought. In fact looking at what Marx published, it was too soon for Russia to even consider socialism. Marx established the formula of capitalism naturally taking place within a society before socialism in his theory of social evolution. Lenin was forced to dismiss this fact and had to act as things unfolded as they were. His country was in an upheaval and needed Socialist action.

Meanwhile, the First World War continued with Germany in Poland. The people grew tired of the fighting and the government till eventually the people took to the streets hungry and inspired by socialist ideas. The military, disenchanted with their leaders after years of pointless war, joined the Russian people instead of attacking them upon orders from their superiors. From there revolution took place in 1922, The Union of the Soviet Republic took over and Lenin was their leader. Unlike Marx, Lenin said that revolution is born in the cities, and in this case it was true. Lenin had the challenge of taking his broken home land and turning it into the first Socialist country ever on earth. He had to run and establish a government and develop a plan of recovery from the revolution. This is something Marx never faced. Marx was the philosopher and the idea man. Lenin now had to be a leader after being a revolutionary. With the Czar Infrastructure gone, and Russia needing to harvest its resources, and feed the people, Lenin came to a conclusion in his new economic policy that went against Marxist thought, land ownership for the people. His slogan was “Land Bread Peace.” Instead of the peasants and proletariats being owned by the land they themselves owned the land where they lived. No doubt Lenin had to make other compromises to the manifesto, but as this too seemed a necessary compromise, it went against the means by which Marx proposed, which was that any private ownership was as flawed as capitalism and capitalist means of production.

Even as Lenin lived and died another revolutionary began to take the long and winding road to power to establish Marxist based ideals in another country, China. Mao Tse-tung, like Lenin was born into a life that would have been considered bourgeoisie by Marx, and also like Lenin Mao lived in a land ruled by a distant centralized government with a huge disparity between upper and lower classes. Unlike Lenin however Mao came into a communist movement that was already afoot when he began. Mao entered into the Communist party of China at a low rank in 1921 as it was just beginning. The de facto ruling party in China at the time was not directly connected with the emperor or political parties at all, but was rather the warlords who exercised their power throughout China. The Communist and Kuomintang (KMT) parties formed a shaky alliance against the warlords. Eventually the Kuomintang attacked the Communists and in smaller numbers was forced to flee in to the northern rural communities of China. This is where Mao began to develop as a leader and what would later become his policies. He traveled and lived among the peasants with the existing Communist party in a retreat from the Kuomintang in what is known as “The Long March.” His thoughts had already been established in his writings that the backbone of China was the peasant society. Here though Mao makes his first established side step from Marxist theory and says that the peasants rather than the proletariat will lead a revolution to establish Communism. By 1934 Mao was the head of the Communist party in China. As the Japanese began attacks against China in World War 2 the Communist party again established ties with the Kuomintang to fight the common threat. Eventually, by 1945 the Japanese were defeated and the conflict between China’s two main parties resumed till eventually the KMT fled to Taiwan, and by 1949 Mao was China’s new leader. Much the same way as Michael Collins did in Ireland during the same period, Mao squashed the larger numbers of his opposition, both Japan and the Kuomintang with Guerilla Warfare. Mao believed in a perpetual revolution, a mixed bag form of evolution perhaps, where over time things were to take their course, with and without violence, and for the good, under Communism.

Mao was different than Marx. Not only did he rise into the leadership of a country, but he did so by appealing to the peasants with ideas, teaching the philosophy of communism rather than changing or trying to change the economic structure first as Marx thought. Like Lenin, Mao skipped over capitalism and began to seek out stability by planting socialist thought throughout the land and put land in the hands of the poor. In his first Five-Year Plan he had the peasants take over farm land the landlords were exiled. Unlike any communist leader Mao improved the status of women in his country and made them legal equals, something that was not common anywhere in the world at this time. Eventually Mao accomplished the goals of his first Five-Year Plan, but over the years that followed China has been forced to deviate from the Marxist and Communist ways when the economy soured relying on a moderate position of market socialism where workers get paid based on productivity.

In essence, Socialism and Communism are part of a philosophy that is easier said than done. Finding a way to improve the lives of everyone within our reach is a huge task to tackle. A person has to see beyond themselves. Some see religion as the answer, some see politics, some see education as a way, and some see a need for revolution. My surfing friend Zack told me a long time ago, at the beach one day, “Capitalism works because it’s based on the bad in men, Communism never will work because it’s based on the good in men.” I couldn’t understand what he meant then. Seemed a deep sentiment for a teenager, still does. In an irony I became privy to, five years ago, I saw him living on the street. I tried to talk to him as he wandered behind a building. He didn’t remember me, but I never have forgotten what he said that day years ago. Some ideas can be so much more powerful than any government, it’s believing in an idea that’s the hardest.

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm
Baradat, Leon, Political Ideologies: Their Origins and Impact (10th Edition) [Paperback], Prentice Hall, 2008

Communist Revolution: The Big Wheels Keep On Turnin

What can be seen or heard of the revolutions fought nearly a century ago that so many lived and died for? Like our American revolution, the revolutions in both China and Russia can seem both perpetual, and non-existent.

The Russian revolution in 1917 led by the Bolshevik Party, saw the removal of the monarchy as it was replaced by the first ever Communist government known to man. At the time of the revolution the government had grown weak in part because of World War 1, and the parties calling for revolution grew strong. Subsequently, Russia became the Soviet Union, and Lenin became its new leader. In true communist fashion, based on the ideas of Karl Marx, redistribution of wealth and the removal of land ownership both came to fruition. The aristocracy was replaced with the intellectual sector of the sub-czar Russian upper class. Revolution and all that goes with it sunk deep into the psyche of the masses. This fact is evident even today. The political manifestos of Red Russia may have been abandoned but the reality of pre and post revolution oppression and tyranny remains today when it comes to the people, the press, democracy and economics.

Democracy was something Lenin and the Bolsheviks allowed as long as it served their purposes (1). The first election after the revolution was an upset as the Bolsheviks expected an easy win but lost to the less extreme Mensheviks or “Socialist Revolutionary Party.” This required the provisional incumbency to use force to remain in power and Lenin began to trumpet the Marxist idea that democracy was placation tool of the bourgeoisie. This is ironic considering his lack of resistance to elections before losing and he himself being bourgeoisie by definition. Once Communism rose to the top the Soviet Union became and remained a one party system till the fall of 1991. The Lenin years included austerity and violence but nothing like what came next. After Lenin’s death Joseph Stalin came to power and confronted the Nazis and his perceived internal opposition with further militarism and secret police (what later became the KGB).

The Russian people have had generations of psychology and culture shaped by government actions. After a century of living with dictatorship and repression the opposite of what was promised by the efforts of revolution has remained the only constant. Rather than equality fairness and the elimination of poverty, there remained an oppressive class which left the proletariat without food and without individual liberty. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 Russia looked as if it was on the brink of a new democratic and free market era. Within a year the KGB was gone and an independent press emerged. But this did nothing to help the economy.

After a decade of economic difficulty in the 1990’s, Russia has experienced a gradual increase in productivity and prosperity, particularly over the last 10 years under Vladimir Putin. Industrialism has increased since the beginning of the 21st Century, but privatization and capitalism have only had the last 20 years to get traction. Ironically it seems to be the ghosts of the revolution that have delivered the stimulus needed. Vladimir Putin’s leadership harkens back to those days with a decreased emphasis on human rights and a return to heavy retaliation against government opposition. Those who speak out against corruption or against poor working conditions may find themselves in jail or victims of “mysterious attack.” This happens to those with money as much as it does to those without. There are outside investors, but their motivations seem to be driven by the profitable advantages gained from the stability that comes from the overreaching power of the government rather than any democracy, if any, that is taking place. So, rather than lingering signs of the revolution existing in Russia through the ideals of Communism, there is more obviously the militarism and fear of speaking one’s own mind that sees is way into the daily workings of the proletariat.

Most recently, Yelena Bonner who died this past week, and was a well know and highly respected Russian dissident, declared that “Putin Must Go! (2)” This could have only happened from outside the country. But even being outside Russia was not enough to protect Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who was poisoned in 2006, after defecting to Britain (3). He did so after investigating the death of a journalist who spoke out against the government only to then speak out himself against his the injustices of Putin’s government. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and most recently Mikhail Prokhorov, two well known Russian billionaires have been jailed after being associated with opposition to Putin ( 4). Putin who is still Prime Minister after being President for two terms is a former KGB officer and is still seen as the true leader of the country. His roots if not planted in revolution, are unquestionably buried in Communism. So the legacy of a real revolution can only be the overpowering capacity of a government which sees violence and covert operations around democracy as a means to an end? Another country to consider is China.

In comparison to the Russians, the Chinese revolution, if not quite peaceful, appears more just. Mao Zedong appears to have kept the needs of the Chinese people as the head of government priorities. Successful at being a philosopher and a revolutionary, Mao saw much more difficulty implementing the ideas of Communism, and being an economist. Mao believed in “Constant Revolution” but meant this more as constant change to greater outcomes over time. Violence although sometimes necessary was not a long term necessity of revolution itself. In fact, when Khrushchev’s speech against Stalin revealed atrocities Mao and the communist government of China began to de-Sovietize and began to distance themselves from the USSR. Mao also was interested in women’s rights and improved the lives of all Chinese women by making them legal equals. This was not the case with Lenin, and wasn’t even on the radar with Stalin.

So where does China stand to today? What is left of the great red revolution? Well, for starters, China is still Communist but with modifications. In 1978, after the death of Mao there were economic reforms put into place to help the country improve in production and wealth. Communes and collectives were disbanded which allowed growth for individual farmer, the state stopped collecting and managing industrial profits, and private business was allowed. Eventually foreign business investments were also allowed through joint ventures in “economic zones.” The shift from the peasant as China’s symbol to the industrial businessman as the icon of a new China, although not a stated objective, is something that Mao would have never proposed.

China has in the last 10 years experienced economic improvement even beyond what has happened in Russia. This has happened in a different way though. The Government has found an almost zen-like balancing act on the fence between communism and capitalism and between democracy and the lack there of. Having embraced foreign investment and industrialization in the coastal and port cities the face of the population has seen a national shift, not only from “peasant” to the more socialist styled proletariat but at the same time and actual geographical movement to these areas. The life style of the Chinese worker has never been glamorous, but now the rights of the work place have been replaced with the means and demands of production. This is revolutionary sacrosanct. While the government retains almost 200 state-owned companies it does so not out of some attempt at fairness, but for profit, and does so while countries from across the world invest and take advantage of the low wage landscape. Democracy exists in China. Elections are held, people vote, but in essence the vote for people that go into regional pools, and from there are narrowed down and eventually picked individually by the government. Again, the zen-fence.

So where does the Chinese worker stand? Where are the fruits of his father’s revolution? How does he or she see the benefits of Communism, or Capitalism? He (or she) doesn’t. Thousands of workers protest and die in revolts because of dangerous and unsuitable working conditions every year. Beyond the point where we’ve been let in, it’s hard for us in the outside world to tell how long this has been the case, and we only know now, not because of the proximity of our corporate representatives, but because of the internet and the world wide communication it makes possible (5).
As or evidence of communist revolution in China, like Mao’s portraits and red-stars, it is almost everywhere, but only symbolic. As for the remnants of revolution in Russia, they remain almost hidden, but also…everywhere.

1. http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/russianrev
2. http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Soviet+dissident+fought+Putin+dies/4971575/story.html
3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110618/en_afp/russiapoliticstaxcourt
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/23/russia.world1
5. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b2239ad8-9a9e-11e0-bab2-00144feab49a.html#axzz1PkqLw2QY

Heliopolis

2011-06-10T14:54:00.002-04:00

Heliopolis from Unearthed by Steve Kilbey. Empty Sunday morning curiosity cruise in a Gainesville (Fl) car garage. Gravity killing random ipod boom box bicycle speeding lip sync. Almost a week after and i find the vid on my phone. Jazzed it up with era appropriate effects and replaced the windy original with the actual SK track.

How The West Was Won?

2011-05-02T08:15:00.034-04:00

I went to bed last night when the big news was still the Alabama tornadoes. This morning the headlines are that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and buried at sea. Before sunrise there was a celebratory crowd at the gates of the white house and at ground zero. The president says justice has been served. If OBL’s goal was to lure us into jihad he clearly won a long time ago. To be clear, I'm glad we got him, but his death is only a side note to the fact that the United States of America has spent 10 years starting and fighting in 2 wars in 2 countries that had less to do with terrorism than the governments of their geographical neighbors, Iran and Pakistan. I can only say I'm surprised by all the public celebration. Could the last two days have happened without what has happened in the last ten years? I don't know. It's a question worth asking.

Discussing this with my mother this morning she said hindsight is 20/20. It certainly is, if our eyes are open. Now more than in times past America has been needing some good news but the planet's dilemma of world powers clashing is no football game. There are no winners, and there will be no winners. There's no score to keep no matter how hard we crave it to be so. This isn't a movie. There are no happy endings and there is no form of heroic justice. It is war, not just the military's war, our war, and it continues without a clear end.

Right now around the globe, as people die, military and civilians, even because of our efforts, we revel in patriotic colors. In a few days we'll go back to Trump's hyperbole, Snookie's face paint, and Charlie Sheen's psycho-babble, because it's what makes us happy. We are too quick to party. What may come next could show that we, in the global war on terror and the terrorists alike, have only begun to battle. There's nothing I would love more than to be as wrong as a person can be.

Afghanistan

American Military Casualties (05/1/11 11:23 am EDT), Total In Combat:

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 4452
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 4311
Since Handover (6/29/04): 2876
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 224
Since Operation New Dawn: 15

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total Wounded: 33023
Latest Fatality April 29, 2011

As of April 21, 2011, there have been 2,340 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001. In this total, the American figure is for deaths "In and Around Afghanistan" which, as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense, includes some deaths in Pakistan and Uzbekistan and the deaths of 11 CIA operatives.

In addition to these deaths in Afghanistan, another 29 U.S. and one Canadian soldier were killed in other countries while supporting operations in Afghanistan. Also, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan died in Turkey on May 26, 2003, when their plane crashed.

During the first five years of the war, the vast majority of coalition deaths were American, but between 2006 and 2010, a significant proportion were amongst other nations, particularly the United Kingdom and Canada which have been assigned responsibility for the flashpoint provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, respectively. This is because in 2006, ISAF expanded its jurisdiction to the southern regions of Afghanistan which were previously under the direct authority of the U.S. military.

Casualties in Afghanistan as of Aug 10 2010:

Afghan troops killed 8,587
Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,813
Afghan civilians seriously injured 15,863
U.S. troops killed 1,140
U.S. troops seriously injured 3,420
Other coalition troops killed 772
Other coalition troops seriously injured 2,316
Contractors killed 298
Contractors seriously injured 2,428
Journalists killed 19
Journalists seriously injured unknown
Total killed in Afghanistan 19,629
Total injured in Afghanistan 48,644

Iraqi Casualties
As of March 31, 2011
US Soldiers Killed, 4,444
Seriously Wounded, 32,051
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq 1,487
Journalists - Iraq 348
Academics Killed - Iraq 448
Other Coalition Troops, 318

Sources: DoD, MNF, About.com and iCasualties.com

Iraqi Civilians
100,000 to 110,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

All Downhill

2011-05-01T12:06:00.001-04:00

Older video, fall 2010. Longboarding hills at Ft. Bragg.

2011-04-28T16:33:00.003-04:00

All but the very first shot (the bike) are mine, with captions, overdubs, and music from Sun Hotel added.

Lyrics:

little island in the street
you pay the rent and the heat
while i am lying through my teeth
i just sneak out after you fall asleep

it's been this way since the fall
and i don't need a crystal ball
to show you how i love you
and show you how i want to
but i've been waiting so long
to sacrifice my favorite song
and show you how i love you
and show you how i want to
as soon i get home from church
i'll laugh until the future hurts
to show you what i'm gonna do
just to get even with you
i'll never leave the suburbs
and i'll play your passion in reverse
to show you how i love

it's the biggest compliment now that you've gotten so old
it's my brand new testament that i'm gone shove down your throat
and it's one of my best friends pissed at the suburban clones
forget religion i've got a prison at home

The Kids In Sumar

2011-04-21T17:33:00.004-04:00

Music, Neko Case, Vengence is Sleeping. Video, I took, the kids in Sumar Iraq.

Counterflow

2011-04-11T19:54:00.004-04:00

Part One

Counterflow: So Love May Find Us. This is a long song/short film cut into two parts. Youtube and every other site I've looked at have a 15 minute time limit. The song is almost 20, so here's 10 and 8 in two parts. The footage and photos are mine, the music - Australian band extraordinaire ,"The Church."

Part Two

Iraq And Magic Tricks

2011-03-30T01:53:00.000-04:00

mySpace Oddity

2011-03-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's the Youtube version with some enhancements.

Myspace Oddity

2011-03-08T17:33:00.004-05:00

Had the idea since downloading the chords to Bowie's "Space Oddity." Seemed an obvious crossover, a folk parody. I know my mom won't get it, but most will. I love you mom.

And I fancy myself a film maker as of late. I spent more time on lighting, editing (or lack there of), and camera position than I did practicing the song. This was take two maybe, so yes, that's me, in my room, this past weekend. Amazing the things you can get done with no car on a rainy day. Enjoy.

Tame Impala

2010-12-20T10:23:00.001-05:00

The best band I've heard in a while. From Perth, but intergalactic. Yes, the vocals are like Beatles, the guitars are like Hendrix, but after that initial impression the songs are so good! I haven't listened to a single band nonstop for a week in over 10 years till now.

Dry Docked

2010-11-20T12:53:00.009-05:00

everything now aloft
nothing is official
i'm as unsure of next week as I am of next year
this makes the hours of a single day seem scattered as 24 shades of half light
the army might ground me, but I already have
boots on the ground as the best case scenario, but even heading home?

i had an eerie run in with a sergeant who just came to Bragg from the unit i have orders for in Drum: April deployment to an area near Kandahar, south Afghanistan he told me and added: "...the worst a.o. in theater...better keep your finger on the trigger from the time you walk off the plane..."
but i don't know what's gonna happen now

once i left for good, when i joined, i finally had a home
after all the years
the family all in one town, once again
now that there is somewhere to return to, i can't
or is that the direction things are going?
the wilderness is for wandering, and i'm feeling kinda lost without it
years in the wilderness, wasted years
i can't imagine reality
as i face my blindness

sober at dawn, sober at dusk
just sleep for my bed rather than sleeping it off
last night was a big deal
and only i knew it
i sat at a table, socially awkward with friends, various bottles about, and me, the only one drinking water
perhaps the first time in my life this has ever happened but...
i did it

but it's just a bust balloon
a victory that felt like an exercise
could smell their beer and wine the whole time
even after an expensive steak arrived in front of me
there is never a thrill in doing the right thing, just the boring prudence
the mundane avoidance of recovering from thrills

could be this is the humble adulthood i've sometimes pretended
but grounded?
no flying, no falling, just earth, my feet, and relentless gravity
not getting any younger, just getting old a little less quickly
just as my ducks are in a row
i let the chicken cross the road

i live with the qualitative shift of a rational recovery that only i know by heart
the heads in battalion want to quantify my progress with incidents and attendance
sergeant major asked why i joined the army
part of my explanation was that at the time i was
"...looking for a rudder..."
he said im about to be lost at sea without a jacket

i know better
but have no proof
anchored on time
i'm not hiding a weapon of mass destruction
just opening up a history of self destruction...

...releasing it

and i know my progress is real

Green Grass, Running, Barefoot

2010-11-06T10:47:00.011-04:00

What have you been up to? That's what people always ask us. We always say, "Not much. Mostly work."

Somewhere out there there's another me that has done all I feel I should have done. And he's just as dissatisfied. He's been to exotic surf spots, had books published, married a wonderful woman and has wonderful healthy kids. A nice car and home. Maybe a jet ski. He lives in California, Hawaii, Hossegor France, Okinawa, or Australia maybe. He has never had an issue with addiction.

Still, he wonders what life would have been like if he had managed to stay single longer, and without children. He can't help but feel in the back of his mind, on occasion, that that would be a better life. And the grass remains greener, no matter where we stand, in all seasons...over there. He long wondered about being a cop or a soldier since childhood, but somewhere over the years dismissed those thoughts as overly romantic and misguided, but he can't be for sure. That road left untraveled. Maybe if he had just tried more and different areas in school, he wouldn't feel so locked in. He stuck to the requisites like a robot. He feels he should have spent more time on art and music. Now he hates the books he's published. The voice of a stranger as he reads his own work. He should have written at least something more free and expressive in his prime, but only these happy publisher kept deadline hunks of paper that he secretly loathes. Wait, am I still painting a picture of the me I might have been? Or am I just analysing his imaginary discontent?

Is there satisfaction in imagining the probable dissatisfaction of another? And even better the ennui of the other Me - the one who took all the right turns and made the best choice at every fork? What's he doing right now? Taking the kids to soccer? Reading a book on his back porch? Sleeping in on a Saturday morning with his wife and the kids at grandmas? We look the same. We started out with the same biological package, only I imagine he made better choices. But somehow, he is malcontent as well. Perhaps my life is now somehow better. Maybe if he gives himself this same assignment, he sees himself in a denim jacket, on a day off, in a coffee shop, single, at a laptop writing freely on a blog, as an unknown, in public, an army medic, a few bills, but no heavy mortgage, never having kids so...not missing them? He sits, writes, and thinks about the liquid day. Buy another cup? Go see a movie? Mountain biking. Go Back to my room and play guitar? Well. Since he can't. And I can. I will. I hope we both find some of the greener blades within reach today.

I've come out of my fog and but for an occasional undramatic slip, I've been sober. I'm not sure why it was getting so bad this past summer. I was feeling incredibly trapped in a loop of self loathing and self medication that I never fully realized then. As well, I've listened and noticed others and lessened my envy. I've become precocial and opened my ears, eyes, and arms, all as wings, and left my shell. It's almost as if alcohol had less to do with my state than some other hidden factor. I know a guy, in the army. He's happily married with kids and would seem to be free of having a single sleazy bone in his body. But he manages his family, and an affair, and seeks more. What's he really looking for? For some reason it has bothered me, like a jealousy. Beyond this though, my own married, father of two brother says I take my single life for granted. Someone might say we all take life for granted.

I haven't worked the steps. I don't have a sponsor. This is recovery sacrilege. I've allowed myself an occasional drink and I haven't had the landslide relapse that is dogma in the rooms. I'm not dismissing the organizations of rehabilitation. In fact I see a huge value in them and know the numbers of people who succeed when working the program. I haven't been to a meeting in a few weeks...and I feel better. I'm not denying I have a problem. Perhaps I needed to find another location. The spot where I have been going leaves me depressed and craving no less. I know it's wrong to think that an AA meeting or two will have an instant and magic effect. But the retro-whine of groups and constant dredging up of ol' drunken times and lost days and hours, and reading the same ol' intro and outros...it doesn't work for me. Not at this point. Not in this group. Not now. Maybe I'll come back to it later in life, or tomorrow. And though I believe in a higher power, it's most obvious in the ocean when I'm out surfing, and seems to have little to do with recovery meetings. But I'm not dismissing the idea. I'm sticking with what's working now. "Now" may be different later.

For me the return of craving lessens so far, only when I find positive (usually outdoor) things to do, and practice a mindfulness where forward right thinking is first and strongest, and renunciation of the "stinking thinking" is concurrent and equally as active. So, in context, I stop myself of thinking about the me I might have been. About the things I'm not. I take note of the value of being me. I don't dwell on making amends. I'm not anything other than well off. It's true. One day at a time, I'm physically healthy, and I'm making amends by focusing on maintaining that. Let the dead dogs lie and you can run with the horses. This is the mantra for now. I will allow it to change as needed.

Photo of my nephew Levi, Gainesville Florida October 2010
Art by Steve Kilbey

Sobriety: Life On Life's Terms

2010-10-11T14:08:00.013-04:00

A long 20 minutes in this mood. That’s how long the upload was supposed to take according to the Facebook estimate. I’m downtown. I figured I’d get a burger and a diet coke and upload some pictures from my leave to Florida for family to see. The city worker in the street is gonna have a heart attack. He can’t understand why nobody knows where to go. The traffic light is out and the truck in the middle of the intersection blocks the view of his hand signals on at least one side at a time. He starts to look like a dog chasing his tail. Above the truck, in the bucket, the other worker works on fixing the lights. I gotta piss again and I hate the sound of Harleys.

The upload’s been over a half hour now and watching this hard hat’s frustration is killing me. Meanwhile, I’m not in the sun. I’m on the south side and the building on the deck alfresco. It’s blocking the cool breeze that beckoned me from my room over an hour ago. The fries and burger arrive. The only thing fresh about either is that they are freshly thawed. This is a good location to go for lunch downtown according to the local paper, but this is Fayetteville North Carolina, and for different reasons, maybe people here don’t know any better.

Almost 15 bucks. My mood worsens. I fail to take pleasure in the fact that I didn't just order a pitcher of beer. I had only one diet coke and it was .50 extra for the cheese on my already 10 dollar cheeseburger. Thanks to the glowing endorsement in the Record perhaps they get away with this. In Florida the restaurant business in tourist retiree and college areas is so intense Huske Hardware would be out of business in a month. But my fault I guess. I didn’t even look at the menu because of the delicious pictures of cold beer. The waitress asks me “how is everything,” and I say fine. That’s when I started writing this. I had to do something. I still gotta go piss, and I will. She came out with my refill minus the straw. One of the other Huske Hardware waitresses keeps looking out the window at me like I’m either someone important, or someone unwanted. I can’t tell, but I can say this: I’m Specialist Holden Caufield, all grown up, and always a beer or two from making it better. But one's too many and one-hundred's never enough.

I finished the upload. I took a leak. But there’s still something lodged in my teeth that my tongue can’t shake. I walked over to the library, and so I continue to write. Something put me in a horrible mood this morning and I know exactly what it was. For one thing I’m not in Gainesville anymore. While home on leave, mostly sober, and spending time with family, it was something I wanted and needed. Now I’m back at the joke also known as “the center of the military universe.” Seriously, on any given day you can wander around Fort Bragg and hear a high ranking army officer make this reference and say it with a straight face. It may even be true, but it’s just a horrible concept to me, and to think, that’s where I live. While I was on leave there were welfare inspections and walk-thrus in the barracks. A crack down you could say. From within, finally, there’s a growing unease with the increasing number of suicides in the military. In reality it’s the unease of having a much higher ranking soldier pushing his “…just fix it Sergeant!” down through the ranks to the individual. And in the usual “work harder not smarter” motif of the US Army, things like barracks inspections take place and increased hovering over troubled soldiers become clearly visible to the E-4s and below.

Effective? The poncho I hung up and used as a wall, that was my only physical separation from my roommate, a metaphor for my thin comfort of living in the barracks has been removed in my absence during the welfare crackdown. Meanwhile, the work order I submitted to fix the toilet two weeks ago, before I left, to the contracted civilians in charge of “barracks maintenance” has been ignored. I remember when I turned it in the woman behind the desk yelling at someone for not locking the door. It was my lunch break, also theirs, convenience for them, not for soldiers. As I left the contractor told me he would “submit a work order.” Funny thing is I was silly enough to think that that was what I was doing.

The other thing that’s under my skin, making it hard to not go have a drink in this hour: This morning I watched the movie my roommate suggested last night. He was asleep when I got up this morning so I crept around in stealth ninja mode making coffee and toast and slid it in the player but when he was still asleep at 10 this morning, when I finished “Get Him To The Greek” I gave up and gave chase to the my needy unknown on this truly pleasant fall day. The leaves are just starting to turn here in the piedmont but I couldn’t turn my head from the film until it ended, just as I wouldn’t be able turn from the sight of an aggravated city worker lose his cool in a mildly busy city intersection hours later.

“…The Greek,” a comedy that made me feel horrible, also made me feel like I’m either from another planet or should be. I'm a guy who enjoyed The Hangover which was well made. The Greek is no Hangover. The thin thread of a lesson to be learned coiled around an even thinner thread of humor wound me tighter and tighter as I watched, and as the script flopped back and forth on the theme of pros and cons of drug use, drunkenness, infidelity, talent, art, and integrity in the music industry. It was like watching some kind of godless blasphemy that both a theist or atheist could understand simultaneously. As an example, somehow , the film concludes that a song, “The Clap” (entendre singular – the STD), which is one of the “last real rock star” character’s older hits - is real rock, and a better choice to play live rather the recent flop of a single “African Child,” which was deemed racist within the film. The character played by Russell Brand makes a mockery of anything genuine in music (one of my genuine interests) and of drug and alcohol addiction and recovery. On film he drinks and takes drugs constantly, has random sex with strangers, and offers his advice and desperation to others while trying to save his marriage and keeping his clear, awake, and unslurred white eyed sobriety. Any real addict will call bullshit, and nothing can be funny along with this

This aspect may be the thing that really really got me. I’m in recovery and the whole drinking and drugging part of this film and its extremely shallow portrayal is the worst part, put in a comedic format, while pretending to maintain both sides of the coin, the cool high and the hot crash, at the same time. Since July I’ve been in the ASAP program (Army Substance Abuse Program). As are others very nearby, here in the barracks. For the month of August I was at Twelve Oaks, an institution in Pensacola where I began my recovery, paid for by the army. And honestly, as aggravating as it can be sometimes, being a soldier in the barracks (especially at my age), my chain of command has gone beyond my expectations in terms of my desire to stop drinking. I can only hope the same reception will be afforded to any other soldier who is willing to come forward to admit there is a problem. In fact, Fayetteville isn't so bad either, really. One should always look at the price they're gonna pay before they do, and be willing to speak up if something isn't right.

So now "the poncho wall" is gone, I’m broke because I bought a burger, I’m indoors making blog confessions when I should be outside enjoying the blue sky, and I’m still in the army instead of with family in Florida. It seems I'm in a better mood though, better than I was. I mean it. I got that movie out of my head by getting it off my chest. And I can for a second, snap out of it at least, and be thankful to a higher power that I’m stateside and out of a war zone, well fed, employed, able to go on leave and watch a movie, see and be loved by family, and most of all, be sober, one day at a time. If that last part fails, down goes the rest, and I know it. There but for the grace of God go I.

Blue Velvet and North Carolina

2010-06-12T13:49:00.033-04:00

I posted here previously about Wilmington NC. This, while watching Twin Peaks during the same period, and knowing nothing of the David Lynch connection between the DVD series and Blue Velvet the movie, which was filmed in Wilmington. Note the owl in the window in my old post by clicking on the link embedded in the word Wilmington above. If you've seen Twin Peaks, you know what I mean.

As I watched this movie again recently, for the second time, I was really fascinated. Not only at how good it was, but with my memory of how much I hated it the first time I watched it, 8 or 9 years ago.

Blue Velvet, filmed in 1986, was made just a few years prior to the production of Twin Peaks, also filmed on location (the Town of Twin Peaks is fictional) in Washington state. Featuring many of the same actors, both are centered around Kyle MacLachlan, the lead investigator, slowly unraveling unsolved crimes and serving as David Lynch's doppelganger both in facial features but also as the vehicle for Lynch's imagination. In Blue Velvet the story begins with the discovery of a human ear, just as Twin Peaks begins with finding Laura Palmer's body on a rocky lakeside, right off the bat, right in the first chapter of the film. There are more than a handful of similarities between the two works which are obvious to those who have seen both. These elements serve as the David Lynch stamp as much as they serve the aura of the plot and footage.

The further slice of irony is that on the same evening I switched to watching Blue Velvet after trying to watch the 1981 Pink Floyd film The Wall, I used to love. Both movies probe madness and the darkest back rooms of the human mind, but Blue Velvet holds a counter balance, a parallel line of mystery through out the movie that The Wall lacks. I later watched the special features on The Wall DVD and was quite pleased and satisfied to hear a recent day Roger Waters himself say that it's a "...flawed film, not a single chuckle or smile..." I agree, though when I was 16 I didn't see it that way.

When Blue Velvet first came out, the large level of violence (for 1986) and other shock elements caused the movie a lot of negative reviews. I don't want to spoil the movie by adding too many details, and yes, I watched the BV Special Features as well, so many of my exo-film facts come from that.

The formula of the quirkiest of all American characters wrapped around, and eventually with, vice filled plots has served Lynch and his fans well, but is certainly not for all viewers. As an additional note: This film also showcases the talent of Dennis Hopper who recently died. Mostly known for his roll in Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet is an additional testament to his abilities. Unfortunately his difficulties with drugs and alcohol kept him back from what could have been as he fully admitted in a recent recast of an excellent interview Teri Gross had with Hopper on NPR, which by the way, didn't mention Blue Velvet.

The following, I took from my two trips to Wilmington. These shots weren't in my original Wilmington post, but now in light of the movie, are much more interesting.

This fountain, as seen in the film, is in the middle of an intersection and is indeed something to take a picture of, as I did, as Lynch did, but this drive-by shot is only interesting to me now because of it being in the movie, and recognizing as I watched the movie.

One of the famous film quotes, by Dennis Hopper, "...Heineken! Fuck that! Pabst Blue Ribbon!" occurs in this very doorway, only 25 years earlier. This I also discovered through watching special features in a chapter titled "Barbary Coast." Blue Velvet is officially "set" in nearby Lumberton, but shot in Wilmington.

This last one is from the movie.

Barbie In Iraq: Update

2010-06-12T13:34:00.003-04:00

I previously reported on Barbie In Iraq, from Iraq, in my 09 April 09 post. Here is an update of sorts, from AKO.

U.S. Army Soldiers hand out hundreds of pink backpacks filled with school supplies and toys to students at a girl's school in Iraq, March 25, 2010. The Soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division's Company C, 1st Battalion 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, delivered about 2,400 backpacks throughout the day. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Bryce Dubee (Photo by U.S. Army)

Attack On Global Energy Resources (1985)

2010-06-12T12:52:00.003-04:00

GI Joe, a VHS tape from 1985. The plot, perhaps so rediculous then, 25 years later, not so cartoonish. The irony is obvious.

Needing An Oil Change?

2010-06-05T15:37:00.006-04:00

I feel sick watching the news. I have been a news junkie in times past but I can't stomach the images, and the rhetoric that have been the product of newscasts in recent months. The humorless irony of those who preach a political "federal hands off" perspective now, without batting an eye, up in arms because the feds aren't acting fast enough to jump in and clean up a corporate mess is enough to make me doubt there is anything at all real about the theory of common sense. There are drill baby drill folks out there that would have objected with all their hearts to the government regulating this industry and/or requiring the very same safeguards that would have prevented this disaster - now - turning on a dime, requesting to have their cake and eat it too, and blaming Barack Obama's administration for not "doing enough."

The contradiction is apparent, and even more apparent is the fact that this is a bigger disaster than anything any foreign terrorist has ever inflicted on the USA. Yet we will continue to lube, gas, and fuel up - because we have to. We are in the words of George W. Bush, "...addicted." No kidding. The gulf coasts of 4 + states, and the east coast of North America will soon be ruined and the raw spilled petroleum sludge will destroy life and lifestyle alike, and there's nothing we can do about it except continue to drill for more...

...because we have to, we need it, like a junkie in Trainspotting, looking past the dead baby on the floor and requsting another hit. Too dramatic? Not really.

Or do we NEED it? What will it take to make the earth's society look at itself and see we need to find something better than petroleum, the petro-dollar and drilling for more and more oil - when it comes to energy? There's such a lucrative machine so dug in, and deeply in place, that will not likely budge. We have gone to war over it, and now blood spills for oil again, as it is proving to be the real weapon of mass destruction. The highest price is not at the pump.

Si, Como No?

2010-06-05T15:17:00.005-04:00

Photos from my recent trip to Flagler Beach - where I grew up.

Beach House

2010-05-29T07:35:00.001-04:00

I'm In Love. With what - not sure, but sure of something akin while listening to Beach House.

HWY 301: Wide Open Road

2010-05-28T08:14:00.013-04:00

An old video by the Triffids, a little known Australian group that surfaced in the early eighties and whose vocalist seems to have absorbed an obvious Brian Ferry M.O.

Also some recent photography of Highway 301 which runs through my hometown in Florida and up through North Carolina. These were taken in early May after my trip home, as I came back to Bragg as the sun went down. The video and pics seemed to go well together as a blog.

A singlewide and my shadow.

A red truck that reminds me of Leo in the early nineties series Twin Peaks.

Truck trailers.

The impressionistic solid center/outer smear effect in most of these pictures I discovered while in Iraq, taking shots of the landscape from the back seat of a speeding humvee. I pick a subject in the center and try to hold a point, moving the camera on an imaginary axis as I go by. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, this is one that worked well, a house and van along 301.

White house and white wild flowers on the lawn.

Distant fixture, swirling fields.

Yardsale

Powerline

Mile 33

Dog in the driveway.

A near empty BP station.

An All American Amber Field.

EFMB Fort Bragg

2010-04-19T19:19:00.008-04:00

EFMB is an army abbreviation for Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a competition available to soldiers of all ranks in medical occupations. At this competition, in Ft. Bragg, ranks from Private through Major were in attendance. I did well on the written test and felt pretty confident about testing on "the lanes," but missed the mark on the land navigation test, something I haven't done since basic training, 3.5 years ago, and is done with army, methods, maps, compass and protractor. The Test Lanes are much as it sounds. Soldiers progress along a path, in this case, the North Carolina forests of Bragg, and demonstrate skills and competence in various tasks, medical and military alike. The photos are of the train up and course orientation in fairly casual situations. The actual testing went unphotographed and involved a far more serious scene and stressful scenarios.

I enjoyed the experience, and look forward to my next attempt, perhaps in August. Doing things like this competition, and other forms of non-deployment training and and self development have been unavailable till coming to Fort Bragg. The first three years of my army career were spent in Basic/AIT, then assignment to a line unit - a military police unit that had the development of medics low in its priorities. Then there was 15 months in Iraq. Now I'm working at Womack Army Medical Center and I've had time to sharpen my skill set in clinical and field environments.

Some Random Febuary Photos...

2010-03-19T20:56:00.002-04:00

...for the sake of a month not abandoned, while left behind.

Some Random March Photos...

2010-03-19T20:05:00.001-04:00

...for the sake of a blog not abandoned.

Back to Bragg

2010-01-24T09:27:00.007-05:00

Not in order, almost in reverse order really, recent shots of leaving Florida in the early morning hours and driving north to Ft. Bragg. Though not really that far away, North Carolina feels like a world away from Florida. Funny that I say that after spending most of last year in Iraq. One could say - close to home is still NOT home.

Clouds clear on Bragg Boulevard as I come into the last couple miles before reaching post.

A couple of Fayetteville.

This is Womack Army Medical Center. I usually work in one of the associated clinics at Ft. Bragg. Everyday usually requires a trip to WAMC for one reason or another.

In South Carolina, near the state line, the historic NY/Florida I-95 mid-point, "South of the Border" . It's still there. How they afford to keep it open I have no idea. With all the lights they run at night the electric bill must be huge.

Georgia.

I-295, near I-95, on the northend, about 0600.

SK8

2010-01-16T14:11:00.009-05:00

Been a while since I posted any pics, or anything on skateboarding. So here's a few after my recent holiday visit to Gainesville Florida. These shots are from the Municipal Westside park. Much to my pleasure, nephew Noah has a huge early interest in the art/sport. In the first photo, that's my brother Ben skating with Noah in the foreground. The shots of Noah and the other skater I took. The ones of me, Ben took.

2009: Remembering May

2009-12-31T07:38:00.007-05:00

2009: Remembering February pt.2

2009-12-29T09:38:00.006-05:00

At Zazzle.com, I made a couple T-shirts from a few of my favorite photos. One of the shirts is in this shot of me with my brother in Gainsville Florida over this holiday vacation.

2009: Remembering April

2009-12-24T16:50:00.007-05:00

Roadside Camels, on the road to Nefer, west of Diwaniya.

Downtown Diwaniya, smiling girls.

Two boys in Nefer. While parked and waiting we were usually treated with youthful curiosity, varied requests, entertained by antics, and occasionally taunted.

During my deployment I took a lot of pictures of the HQ kids, downtown. Very photogenic. They show up in several of my old entries, April and other months.

"...weather today: blue skies and hot with a mix of kids and Humvees."

2009: Remembering March (pt. 2)

2009-12-23T15:32:00.004-05:00

It was bittersweet to see the way kids were unafraid of us, the Americans, but while just as curious, timid toward the soldiers of their own country.

Out in front of the Police Department.

A lone traffic cop, as our convoy rumbles through his intersection of swarming traffic.

A female beggar, on a bridge in Diwaniya.

2009: Remembering March

2009-12-22T09:21:00.006-05:00

I don't intend to spend my whole leave this holiday season working on the computer. That said, there is a great number of recollections photographic and otherwise I want to review while I have time. I'll be going month by month here on Versa Vice over the next two weeks posting selections from the images I've collected in 2009.

I jumped head first into my March folder and it took me over an hour to select, optimize and post these five photos. I realize now what a productive month March was. There are a huge number of pictures to publish here, and I'll get to it. First though, I need to spend time with family.

2009: Remembering February

2009-12-19T17:39:00.008-05:00

Over the past several months I've had various images of the past year pop up on my screen saver. I've been astonished at the number of pictures that are really good but still unseen on my blog or elsewhere. Over the next few days, till next month, in 2010, I'll reselect b-side images of the previous months, from the year 2009, and publish them here, like a rarities collection of tunes by a favorite band.

This one was among a series of "beyond a shadow of a gun" shots that I took. My vantage point, as a medic, in the back seat of a Humvee, waiting for traumatic action and reactions that never happened, but for one occasion, left me in the perfect spot to capture images that may never be seen by my the people in these pictures, but nevertheless left for me to publish on the Internet for a whole world to see. A tiny glimpse into another world.

This gal, this little princess or Diwaniya, still makes me think of "Angel of Harlem," by U2. Like a vibrant little rose, rising from the cracked concrete of a lost world. I can only imagine the life ahead of her and her friends.

All of these shots were taken in the more metropolitan areas of Diwaniya Iraq. My back-seat vantage point served my photographic tendencies well.

Fayetteville NC

2009-12-12T18:42:00.006-05:00

I've come to a point where I've realized, North Carolina's OK, and in spite of a crash course on F.V.vice, on terms that I did not expect or enjoy, this town's ok. As with everything, it's a matter of perspective. Just because I haven't shaken off my youthful tendencies for short-sighted foolishness, it's no fault of this Carolina town situated between the coastal and mountain attractions.

I've found plenty of scenery to go with my continuing photography hobby. Downtown has enough to make me miss St. Augustine, and Gainesville Florida, where I'm from, but also plenty enough to make me curious and interested in the local scene, here, between Wilmington and Ashville.

There's plenty downtown, from Husky Hardware to Rude Awakening. Husky H. is a bar with excellent food and in-house brews, whereas RA is a perfect little downtown coffee shop, both with WiFi, even as I write this.

The long shadows at dusk near this common colder solstice. We pretend Chrismas means something more than commercialism and mundane group think, but the fact remains, the strip(s) of strippers and strip clubs. All blocks within blocks of family attractions, but our hours fade, so does the landscape, and this is our America. It's not the fault of Fayetteville, not the fault of MTV. Blame it on Desperate Housewives or Reality TV, Bush or Obama, America has changed. No matter if you prefer CNN, or Fox, our constitution has changed. Our better documents collect dust. Our youth are wasted on the younger. America, 2010.

Wilmington NC

2009-11-28T09:02:00.007-05:00

After posting something here with a negative tone, I've developed a pattern of then needing to post something more positive, a counterweight within the same subject. So, after my Fayetteville rant I'll offer up my experience visiting Wilmington North Carolina.

Wilmington is situated south-east of Fayetteville, and is a long 2 hour drive on a 2 lane road (87) through 3 or 4 small towns, but mostly I encountered endless November brown trees on each side testing my faith that I am heading anywhere at all, much less a scenic historic and artsy hipster-friendly city near the Atlantic Ocean.

The area with all the shops, restaurants, and pubs is Front Street, and the streets that surround it. Here, even a vacant building receives an artists consideration, if only a sketch or idea outlined.

On the river is the U.S.S. North Carolina Memorial Park, decommissioned and open to visitors

There were three different weddings in progress as I walked around town last Saturday. Here are three passing shots of one. This is also along the river. The battleship memorial is on the opposite side.

The following shots are of various shop windows along Front Street. The shopping season is in full swing already, a week before the ultra hyped "Black Friday."

Giving Thanks, From Fayette'nam

2009-11-26T15:59:00.022-05:00

The following account has been toned down (28NOV09), and subsequently more coherent than it was a few days ago when I posted it, on Thanksgiving. It took me almost a month to come to a point where I felt like writing about the incident, and in the original version my emotions surfaced. A good thing to get out of one's system, but not to leave as a lasting public document, viewable to the world.

Strange to think, for a couple of days, how though I was safer in Iraq. I came to Ft. Bragg with a mix of expectations, but I didn't expect to get carjacked - shot - and stabbed in this small city outside the U.S. Army's "Center of the Military Universe." This was far outside my expectations in spite of my fellow ex-N.C. soldiers at Ft. Carson CO giving me warnings before I left for home on the east coast, "be careful in 'Fayett'Nam' and '...stay off the strip.'" Now I ask - "what part of Fayetteville isn't the F'k'n' strip!?" Miles and miles of "strip" in this "conservative" area. I asked in one establishment why being a customer required a membership. "Cuz of the government, you know, fees and taxes." Sounds conservative a la cart to me. Conservative used to mean conservative use of government, now the word tends to apply more to social issues and a conflict results.

Fayetteville North Carolina, a place that would, by the mouth of the average church going local, consider the liberal big cities to be sinful satanic hubs. All the while Friday nights are big here, and Saturday nights are a close third to any given weekday night as the average 6 day patron has to make it to church on time. This is the only place on earth where I've seen on the signs outside retail shops, "Dancer Discount" along with the more common, "Military Discount."

I've had poor experiences with the locals in regular interactions as well. For example, as I bought groceries at a local store here recently, the cashier asked me as she rung up my reusable $1.99 Green Grocery Bags, paper or plastic? This is not just an indicator of a single person's lack of insight, but moreover an alarm to the lack of awareness in the general population. I was apparently the only person who ever bought the reusable grocery bag at her register.

Growing up near Daytona Beach, which I had always considered the seediest place on earth, with the highest homeless person per block ratio, at least in my experience, I thought these warnings about a little place in North Carolina to be the words of country folk. I often considered my fellow small town soldier, no matter the rank or combat experience, to be much less seasoned in the ways of street people and the like than myself.

I found myself lost, on the south side of Fayetteville, the same day I picked up my vehicle after it was recovered and repaired, I stopped inside a convenient store and asked for directions toward Bragg. The woman behind the counter quipped, "Jus' keep goin' strait!" Indeed. I asked for details on "strait," and with aggravation she obliged, "...strait up 301!" N? S?E?W?!! WTF!

But my perceptions have always been a bit outside of reality as well. Of course, just as it is for everyone, each of us, singular and lost from time to time. As close as I may ever get to truth, I find again and again how un-bespeckled within, and short-sighted I am. Dare I be critical of the locals when I'm the one who let himself be suckered into a violent carjacking, at 36 y.o.a., and fresh back from Iraq? But the sun comes up. I pull on my trousers. We go to work. You live to see another day. One gives thanks. From Bragg N.C. giving thanks, on Thanksviving, as things could have been worse in recent times past. A long road home, away from home, wherever that is anymore.

Houston Smith author of World's Religions

2009-11-23T19:18:00.004-05:00

(CNN) -- Huston Smith sat at the bedside of his firstborn child, watching her life ebb away.

"I have no complaints," Karen Smith told her father. "I am at peace."

During their last moments together, Karen told her father that she was thinking of angels. She told him not to cry. She told him how much she loved the ocean.

"Religion," Smith once wrote, is "the call to confront reality; to master the self." Smith had strived to answer that call for much of his life.

He had trained with Zen masters in Japan, camped with aborigines in Australia and dropped peyote with Native American shamans. He didn't just study religions; he lived them.

In time, Smith became known as the sage of world religion. He introduced the Dalai Lama to the West; befriended mythologist Joseph Campbell and was the subject of a five-part PBS series hosted by Bill Moyers called "Wisdom of the Ages."

But as Smith sat at his daughter's bedside, the wisdom of the ages offered little consolation. "I would sob uncontrollably, crying in anguish," he said.

Smith had to confront a new reality: Who does the sage turn to when he needs help?

Smith's daily prayer

A hip has been replaced. He can no longer hear well. The man who has helped people find answers to their deepest spiritual yearnings now needs help just to get around. Smith, 90, recently moved into an assisted-living home after living with his wife, Kendra, for 66 years.

Yet he whispers the same prayer to himself several times a day: "God, you are so good to me."

That spirit of gratitude pervades Smith's recently released autobiography, "Tales of Wonder." In it, Smith talks about growing up as the child of missionaries in China, becoming enthralled by the faith of other cultures, and his global travels and friendships with everyone from folk singer Pete Seeger to author Aldous Huxley.

He reveals the story behind his signature achievement: the publication of "World's Religions" in 1958.

The book, which has sold 3 million copies, helped change the American religious landscape. In vivid and poetic writing, Smith took readers on a tour of the world's major religions. The book helped make it OK for Americans to not only learn about but be dazzled by other religions.

Smith said he never stopped being a Christian ("God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus"). But his faith has been deepened by his immersion in other religious traditions.

"Anyone who is only Japanese or American, only Oriental or Occidental, is but half human," Smith wrote at the beginning of "World Religions." "The other half that beats with the pulse of all humanity has yet to be awakened."

An unusual glimpse of Smith's private world

It is the pulse of Smith's humanity that breathes life into "Tales of Wonder."

Smith's public persona has long been established: He is the tall, thin, affable scholar who can distill the essence of the most esoteric religious subject in concrete language.

But it is those moments in "Tales of Wonder" when Smith doesn't have the answers that are the most riveting. Smith won't elaborate publicly on some of the more personal passages in the book. Nor will his wife. Only his youngest daughter, Kimberly, talked at length about those moments.

Smith nonetheless had plenty to say when he sat down to write.

He talked about the time when Kendra threatened to leave him.

"There are infidelities worst than sexual," he said.

He talked about the murder of his granddaughter, Serena, during a tragedy at sea that involved a famous NBA player and led to international headlines.

The most searing revelations, though, come just four pages into the book. That's where Smith talks about the loss of the oldest of his three daughters, Karen, in 1994.

Karen was born nine months after Smith married. He said her birth marked "my second love affair."

Karen grew up in a home full of music, learning and fun. The Smiths staged mini-operas in their home. They filled notebooks with their children's funniest sayings. One night, the family played a game in which every sentence uttered at the dinner table had to contain a cliche ("That was easier said than done," said Kendra, Karen's mother).

"We all grew up with a tremendous faith," said Kimberly, Smith's youngest daughter. "We all believed in an afterlife."

Karen, though, also grew up with a "fiery" sense of self, Smith said. When she was 7 years old, Smith overheard Karen telling her sister in their room: "They talk so much about God. I don't get it."

When Karen became a teenager, she informed her father that she would no longer attend church. He was aghast.

"If Karen gave up religion, I thought, morality will go next," Smith said.

Karen found a taste of her cherished freedom on the water. She loved being on the water; "it symbolized life to her," Smith said. Karen took sailing classes in high school and learned to windsurf.

Karen eventually found religion again, but it was not the Christian faith of her father. She converted to Judaism after she was married and gave birth to Smith's first grandchild, a son, Isaiah.

Smith wrestles with spiritual crisis

Then, after Karen reached her 50th birthday, she received a call from her doctor.

She had recently had a hysterectomy. After the surgery, the doctor told her that tests had revealed something: She had a rare form of sarcoma and had two months to live, possibly four.

Karen didn't accept the doctor's prognosis, said Kimberly, her youngest sister. She agreed to undergo chemotherapy. Her body shriveled, and her hair fell out, but Karen was defiant.

Kimberly said she still has a photo of her sister -- bald and weakened from chemotherapy -- happily windsurfing.

"She fought her hardest and pursued all the avenues of life she could," Kimberly said.

Still, the cancer spread. The sarcoma tumors grew so large and concentrated and a needle couldn't penetrate them, Smith said. Karen was eventually confined to her home in Santa Rosa, California.

Her sister Kimberly remembers visiting her.

"When I drove up to see her, I kept saying to myself, 'I'm not going to cry,' " Kimberly said. "The second I walked in, I started bawling."

Kimberly apologized to Karen, but Karen ended up consoling her and the rest of her family.

"We were crying, and she was saying, 'It's OK to cry,' '' Kimberly said.

Smith said his daughter battled "heroically." She once cheerfully told her father: "It's a red-letter day. I had a bowel movement."

As Karen's body weakened, other senses seemed to sharpen, Smith said. She told her parents that as her body suffered, she became more aware of the natural beauty that surrounded her. She talked about angels.

On one unforgettable day, the family took Karen on a drive through Napa Valley. The valley is wine country, full of creeks, wineries and fields of wildflowers. Smith called it a drive on "the last beautiful day in the world."

The drive gave Karen new energy. That night, she was talking with her mother and husband for so long that they told her she had to get her rest.

"But we're having such a good time," Karen said.

Smith, though, was struggling. He said his daughter's illness forced him to call upon the spiritual traditions he had studied for much of his life.

He thought about the "Five Remembrances" that some Buddhist monks chant each day: I will lose my youth, my health, my loved ones, everything I hold dear and, finally, life itself by the very nature of being human.

Smith said those remembrances told him that the transient nature of life does not mean people should love others less but more.

Smith then recalled a quote from Buddha: "Suffering, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the furthest shore."

Karen died one night as Smith sat beside her bed. Smith sobbed uncontrollably. He said that at the moment of his daughter's death, he had trouble believing in what he had long written about: God's "justice and perfection."

Yet even when he was doubled over in anguish beside his daughter's bed, she seemed to be reaching out to him. As he sat alone with Karen's body, in the moments after her death, he suddenly stopped crying.

He could somehow sense her presence in the room.

"The sensation was so palpable I almost turned around, expecting to see her," he said.

Smith said his daughter is still reaching out to him. He often thinks about her last days as he approaches his 91st birthday.

"Nobody wants to learn from a child how to die well, but I learned it from Karen," he said.

Smith traveled around the world to study under some of the most famous spiritual masters. But it was his daughter who became one of his greatest teachers.

"She taught me nobility of spirit," he said.

He said Karen's courage continues to "console" and "guide" him as he draws closer to his furthest shore.

He can still hear Karen's final words as she slipped away in her bed.

"I hear the ocean," she said. "I can smell the ocean now."

Gold Dust Man

2009-11-17T00:35:00.007-05:00

Gold Dust Man: Amy Hendrickson and the Prime Directive (hint: click on "Gold Dust Man"). September '09, Saint Augustine Florida.

and click here -
Amy Hendrickson and the Prime Directive

All Downhill

2009-11-16T23:17:00.005-05:00

A various collection of my clips, skateboarding and Iraq, set to the music of Subeena. Click on the word "collection" in the prior sentence.

Fort Bragg

2009-10-24T13:45:00.011-04:00

Well, I'm all settled at my new duty station, Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. I planned, while in Iraq, to go into an Airborne unit, and eventually 160th SOAR, a medical special operations unit. I submitted my airborne packet and reenlisted for Bragg. This I was told, should be more than enough to set me on the road to my listed goals.

As it turns out, the airborne packet I sent ahead of my return to the states, didn't make it any further than the bottom drawer of some PAC clerk's desk back at Fort Carson. My unit failed to further any and all forms and paperwork submitted, and lost my 4187 to change my report date to Ft. Bragg twice. So in less than 2 months after returning from Iraq, I'm was left with no choice but to PCS (change locations) and out process in less than half the time normally allotted. So be it. It was better in all aspects to get away from the 110th MP Co. as soon as possible. And I did.

Within the recent days, just shy of two months total, I went on block leave, came home to Florida, drove out to Colorado, after having my car broken into in Dallas, out processed, drove back to Florida, cross country (see the previous VV entries), and made it to Bragg to in process and get settled in with my new life.

My past imaginations are oft the pains and chagrin of times come to toe the line. Fruition fails expectations and I settle for less, but only as a step back from hope, as chance filters, wedged between. So now, I'm working in a clinic, at the "center of the military universe," sitting at a computer, looking up medical records as soldiers come in and leave out. I get a 1.5 hour lunch and ease is the way. I'm perhaps an ungrateful bastard to claim, but this is not what I hoped or planned for. To add to the quiet mental scream, after glancing through my personnel files I find my "lost" airborne packet lying there, lost and sleeping, to be handed to my new unit, far after the fact.

Yet, all in all, all is not lost. From my new spot, my new position, this new "unit," I'm told that I can apply to all and as many "schools" desired. A new perspective, since I'm no longer with an outfit about to deploy or redeploy, I can take advantage of the calm and missionlessness, and put myself forward. This is quite a change. The "whisky 1" school I wanted (Special Operations Medic), who's building is ironically a stone's throw from my barracks room, on Combat Medic Blvd. is in some ways even more available now, as is getting Airborne wings.

First things first though. My EMT certification ran out while downrange and I'm going to the recert class in a couple weeks. This is certainly something I need to get back in place first and is easier said and done from my new low key vantage point of my slow flow clinic bunker.

We'll see what happens next. I've been unsure of what to do with this blog. I changed the header and image. I'm no longer in a line unit, or in Iraq, so I'll keep the new Plain Jane header up top for now and see what comes next, but I recognize that it's important to keep writing. At my core, more than a soldier, medic, photographer, music lover, surfer or whatever, is my need to write. Nothing else feels like a religion or spiritual than writing, lining up and spitting out all those thoughts in my head. Knocking 'em down like karmic carnival bottles, one by one.

So, from time to time, unattended, my computer screensaver jumps to the random slideshow of all those pictures taken in Iraq of children, trucks, and soldiers and I can almost doubt my own memory that I was even there. But the blog stands for that reality, and stands for those scenes, those lives, and though it's a huge change from that world, now where I stand, as a long growing shadow, I'll see what evolves and report.

Home in America: West to East

2009-10-08T10:56:00.008-04:00

The PT uniform, familiar to soldiers, and a youngster with her pet toy at Ft Carson.

Pikes Peak as seen from Colorado Springs.

September sunrise at Ft. Carson.

Left Colorado on the 2nd of October, leaving the mountains behind.

I lived in Flagler County Florida for many years, strange to see, so early in my journey home to Florida, signs by the same name, Flagler in East Colorado.

Kansas

An old abandoned church off the beaten path in Kansas, as I left the interstate to avoid toll roads.

View to the west, in Nevada Missouri, the sun...

...and to the east, same place, a moonrise.

Cutting through mountains in NW Arkansas.

Cutting deeper.

A boat yard on the Missippi River.

The next two are Panama City at night...full of "attractions" but empty of tourists on a late Monday, out of season.

Home In America: East to West

2009-09-25T14:25:00.010-04:00

After nearly a month of leave in Florida with family I took my trip west back to Ft. Carson. I flew home to Florida but bought a vehicle and drove back to Colorado. The following are a few of the "behind the wheel photos" from that trip.

Mobile Alabama at sunset.

Texas

New Mexico

Colorado

Home in America: Leave in Florida

2009-09-24T13:07:00.009-04:00

First of a series. I traveled to Gainesville Florida, home of the Florida Gators, for leave and had a wonderful time visiting family and going to the beach in St. Augustine. Next I went back to Colorado by car. I took a lot of "drive-by" photos as I did in Iraq. Soon I'll be off to Florida again before reporting for duty at Ft. Bragg N.C. So I'll be posting shots of my travels during this period as I figure out what to do next with Versa Vice.

Amy Hendrickson and the Prime Directive - excellent up-beat energetic music. Went with friends to a little club off the beat (path and otherwise) called Fraternal Order of Orioles in St. Augustine. The music was a wonderful unplanned suprise.

Ceiling tile art at the F.O.O.

Another of the band. I took several shots, but all unfortunately are of the talented and attractive Amy blurred but in action.

My motel room in S.A.

St. George Street in St Augustine.

My Brother Ben bodyboarding. We got a disposable waterproof camera and took some shots.

Ben, his wife Michele, and my nephew Noah, kayaking at Anastasia State Park.

I enjoyed kayaking so much as an ocean lifeguard, before joining the army in '06, that one of the first things I did was buy my own when I got back.

Florida sunset over the intercoastal on A1A.

My nephew Noah has a natural inclination towards music that continues to grow. He wandered into the kitchen and set his kit up all by himself. I watched him one evening walk in circles around the table on the porch for a half hour, strumming a plastic beach shovel and singing to himself as his own audience, in his own world as only children can be.

Young and old at the beach in St Augustine.

A taste of old Florida - Magic Beach, Vilano Beach, in St. Augustine.

A look south towards Anastasia Island.

The Next two are two different mornings in Vilano Beach. Although I adjusted the saturation, those are the actual hues.

Meanwhile, back in Gainesville, other noteable scenery. A flock of sorority girls. As annoying as they can be in certain situations, they do catch your eye (which often is the important part to them anyway).

Driving through old familiar streets of Gainesville, a place where I lived for 8 years, I looked with nostalgia toward the house of an old girlfriend only to see an equally familiar couch out on the curb. At once it felt like more time had passed than I thought, and less, at the same time. Second Hand Furniture, a song by the Go-Betweens came to mind.

Clinging to my windshield, a Florida wasp, seeming larger than life.

Another insect, barely visible, a butterfly over the flowers, by the hotel pool.

A familiar 13th Street location to locals - Golden Arches, Doughnuts and bikini joggers - only in Gainesville.

Samaurai Mind Modern Soldier

2009-09-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

By BONNIE ROCHMAN Bonnie Rochman – Mon Sep 7, 6:20 am ET

Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."

Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different - dare we say harder? - than pounding out the push-ups. (See pictures of ninja warriors.)

Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home. She also delved into the science behind mind training to analyze how meditation tactics could help treat - and maybe even help prevent - post-traumatic stress disorder.

Rooted in the ancient Samurai code of self-discipline, Warrior Mind Training draws on the image of the mythic Japanese fighter, an elite swordsman who honed his battle skills along with his mental precision. The premise? Razor-sharp attention plus razor-sharp marksmanship equals fearsome warrior. (Read about the samurai film version of King Lear by Akira Kurosawa.)

The Samurai image was selected after careful deliberation; it was certifiably anti-sissy. "We took a long time to decide how we were going to package this," says Ernst, who moved to North Carolina in 2006 and teaches classes at Fort Bragg as well as Camp Lejeune, a Marine base near the coast. "There are a lot of ways you could describe the benefits of doing mind training and meditation. Maybe from a civilian approach we would emphasize cultivating happiness or peace. But that's not generally what a young soldier is interested in. They want to become the best warrior they can be." (Read a story on the health benefits of meditation.)

The benefits of Warrior Mind Training, students have told instructors, are impressive: better aim on the shooting range, higher test scores, enhanced ability to handle combat stress and slip back into life at home. No comprehensive studies have been done, though a poll of 25 participants showed 70% said they felt better able to handle stressful situations and 65% had improved self-control.

The results were intriguing enough that Warrior Mind Training has been selected to participate in a University of Pittsburgh study on sleep disruption and fatigue in service members that will kick off early next year.

For now, success is measured anecdotally.

On patrol in Iraq two years ago, John Way would notice his mind straying. "Maybe I should be watching some guy over there and instead I'm thinking, 'I'm hungry. Where's my next Twinkie?'"

With privacy at a premium, he'd often retreat to a Port-A-Potty to practice the focusing skills he'd learned from Ernst at Fort Bragg. "To have a way to shut all this off is invaluable," says Way.

The importance of the mind-body connection is being acknowledged at the highest levels of the military. The West Point-based Army Center for Enhanced Performance (ACEP), which draws on performance psychology to teach soldiers how to build confidence, set goals and channel their energy, has expanded to nine army bases in the past three years since the Army's chief-of-staff praised the program.

"The Army has always believed if we just train 'em harder, the mental toughness will come," says Lorene Petta, a psychologist at Fort Bragg who works for ACEP. "A lot of times with this population, because they're so rough and tough, they tend to say, 'This is too touchy-feely for me. No thanks.' But we talk about the importance of being a good mental warrior too."

Free to members of the military and their relatives, Warrior Mind Training classes are offered at 11 U.S. military installations and veterans centers across the country; an online option opened up this spring. At Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California, for example, Warrior Mind instructors prep elite Navy SEALS candidates for Hell Week, when potential newbies are vetted in a 5 Â½-day sleepless trial of physical and mental endurance. (See pictures of the U.S. troops in Iraq.)

Beefing up the brain for combat is one aspect of the training; another is decompression. If one day you're dodging snipers in Iraq and the next you're strolling the aisles at Wal-Mart, Warrior Mind Training techniques can ease the transition.

"It's kind of like a reset button," says Erick Burgos, a military paramedic who takes classes at Coronado. "It's a time-out for you to take a break from the chaos in your life."

If the Army's new mental-toughness initiative, set to kick off in October, is to be successful, it needs buy-in from the people it plans to train. It can be a tough sell. At Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in N.C., Adam Credle, who teaches military, law enforcement and Coast Guard personnel how to drive boats equipped with machine guns really fast, has encouraged his students to try out the meditative techniques. So far, he's been rebuffed, though he continues to try to persuade them to give the discipline's central exercise a chance. The mental focusing technique is called deep listening and it sounds super-simple but - unless you're accustomed to meditation - it requires exquisite concentration.

To help develop this skill, Warrior Mind, relies upon music. The idea is to listen, really listen, to the wail of the guitar or the staccato tap of the drums instead of letting your mind wander. In athletics, this concept is called being in "the zone."

As with anything, practice makes perfect, which is reassuring for rookies - like me - who find it next to impossible to rein in their thoughts at first. During the course of one five-minute song, I thought repeatedly about whether I'd remembered to lock my car and turn my cell phone to vibrate. And, because I'm a reporter, I thought about what everyone else might be thinking about, which, if they were doing it right, should have been nothing at all.

Redeployment to America

2009-09-01T09:24:00.008-04:00

Redeployment is the army word used when a unit returns from a deployment. It can be confusing because it sounds like deployment-again, which it is, only back to a stateside duty station. This happened for us 4th thru 13th of August, so these picures are a little dated and in reverse order, beginning with our escort to Ft. Carson from the Colorado Springs airport, on back to Kuwait Baghdad, and Camp Echo.

Checking in...to being home, and weapons turn-in.

First early AM view of Colorado from the plane.

Soldiers on our chartered commercial jet home which took us across Europe and Canada.

Over Kuwait, and good bye to the Arab wonderland.

Soldiers will be soldiers, notice the face of the air steward.

Kuwait International Airport

Watertowers in Kuwait.

We couldn't leave for good without one last dust storm. Crunch, crunch, yummy.

Waiting for a flight and sleeping in 115F heat, in Kuwait, outside a Pizza Hut...in a hut.

Earlier that morning, before the ordeal of passing an army unit through navy customs, like a square peg through a tiny hole, we wait for our buses to take us from Camp Virginia to the airport.

We lived in tents for a few days at Camp Virginia.

Loading a C-17 to leave Baghdad.

Waiting, periods between the bus-tent-bus-plane-bus-tent movements are spent outside in the heat waiting for connections et cetera.

American Soldiers

2009-08-06T03:04:00.008-04:00

A couple of friends asked me about my blog this morning. So I "tweeted" that I'm taking a break, on Twitter. Mostly because I'm in-between places right now, in transit, and on my way home. It's nearly a two week process, moving an entire army company from Iraq back to the states through Kuwait, and that's with all good weather. But this morning with a wireless connection and little else to do, I figured I'd post a counter balance to my previous theme.

It may or may not need to be said, but I'm proud of being a soldier and of the people I work with. I was primed to get stuck on the Hero/Soldier theme as I encountered those Facebook groups right after a couple weeks of hearing a lot of silly talk from soldiers on the subject of returning home. Some guys (and girls), particularly the younger set, see the return home as a license to do whatever they want when they get back. As if going crazy is something they deserve, like a spring break from school amplified. Perhaps it's all just, could it be?, me dealing with concerns or even worry for these guys doing something dangerous or regrettable? Am I really growing up finally?

But I've gone on enough about all that. What follows is a selection of photos taken over the last 15 months of my fellow American soldiers from the 110th MP Company, one of the very last units in Iraq (if not the very last) to begin and complete a 15 month deployment.

Gunner Spc. Amato giving a wave.

Sgt. Anderson and PFC Smith, we did a lot of training with ASVs (the vehicle), but barely used them at all in theater.

Spc. Chambers, a meet and greet with locals. Even if the young guys talk big, we're still fortunate that our mission involved this kind of contact, and not the kind of "contact!" we train for in basic.

Spc. Hackler

It was often interesting to watch how receptive, or not, the Iraqi Police were to our assistance or advice, particularly coming from an American female. Sgt. Irlbeck with the local cops.

Pfc. Johnson with the tough guy look, I think he forgot there was a purple bear on his vest.

Spc. Ward while at an IP station. The "shoulder pads" are called DAPs by us, only used by gunners by the end of the deployment.

This is a picture I got from another soldier's Facebook. Judging by the DCUs this was most likely '04-'06.

Ever curious, the local kids who have lived their entire lives with American presence, gather around whenever we would show up.

A muddy field the day after a day of rain, I think it was April, the only time I saw any precipitation in Diwaniya. The black mask is worn by an Iraqi interpreter.

Deployed Soldiers: Fully Automatic Heroes? Part 3

2009-07-31T02:37:00.006-04:00

The following are excerpts from Facebook group, "Soldiers Are Not Heroes." I have voiced my opinion on each of the opposing sites.

As a soldier I agree...

...that it's absurd that soldiers feel entitled to hero status. I had several jobs before joining the army and this has been the easiest. They shouldn't all be called evil or murderers either. This is simple obvious logic, and somewhere in this mess of posting the same point must have already been made, hopefully more than once.

Most soldiers, if giving honest answers about the other soldiers they know would admit that a lot are "stupid," "gay (usually meaning weak rather than homosexual)," or "pussies." But point a finger at the group and we get defensive for other soldiers. That is after all, how it all works, a team effort for survival.

There are good people who want peace in spite of history and the impossibility of it in the future. I would like to hold the same dream. But people within this site seem to be spewing more hatred than what I've ever heard from the most hateful of soldiers.

What gets lost is a good point - a lot of soldiers returning home from "combat" do not deserve any kind of hero status or special treatment, in particular...violent criminals. A lot of soldiers are big babies, and make excuses for their stupidity by playing the war card.

It's very true. Got drunk with a buddy of mine at a bar before deployment and in his lit condition announced that he was a war veteran and while in that condition expected to be treated heroic...till we were kicked out for his being an ass. Fact is, as a mechanic, I know he never went out past the wire but for arriving in Iraq, and when leaving. It was embarrassing.

So to all the overly excited jumping on the band wagon...chill, or nobody will listen to the intelligence beneath all that Jerry Springer talk. To soldiers, you know there's a good point. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

SPC Burkley

Benjamin Bradford

Please explain why a well-educated and thoughtful person like yourself would want to engage in acts of war? Not a wind-up question, I am generally interested.

Mickey Caster (Syracuse, NY)

Absolutely. After being in for 10 years, I can say I know enough soldiers that it would be ridiculous to consider them all to be heroes. Heroic acts make someone a hero, and there are very few who fit that category. However, soldiers are like everyone else, capable of heroism, but also capable of cowardice.

Me -

The only acts of war I've engaged in are treating trauma injuries, American and Iraqi patients at Ibn Sina, Baghdad Iraq. As far as the acts of war you have in mind, thankfully I haven't encountered a situation where that's been necessary. If by "act of war" you mean joining the army, I did so for a complicated mix of reasons. I actually posted on that very subject at my blog, www.versavice.blogspot.com, if interested. There you might also find another view point as to what soldiering is. It's not just Rangers killing babies - which does happen BTW - and can never be justified.

Agnes Ng

In the past decade,millions of innocent people have been killed in barbaric wars. History shows that wars are driven by greed and ideologies that conflict with justice and human rights. Despite that, wars are well packaged, for the mob and the naive among us, under the guise of religion, defending democracy and freedom, patriotism, national security, and recently TERRORISM. Those factors are the drive for the gullible among us to believe, participate in a war and die, or get maimed, or scarred for life (emotionally, physically, or both).

At this point there were several varied posts with opinions on why peace is better than war, which were redundant and I omitted here.

Me -

No war. Great. Great Idea. Not a new one though. The idea of peace is as old as the act of war. As far as history reaches war is the most consistent and natural thing for humans. Natural, but not green eh? There are plenty of discussions elsewhere for that.

What's new is the discussion on members of the military feeling entitled to an elevated status, something that actually irks me, from within the military, as a soldier myself, and the public's self made obligation to give this special status.

It hurts the discussion to imply wild things like what I've seen elsewhere on this site. Soldiers as murderers and mindless killers. If for no other reason - nobody really thinks that's true. So they'll throw your baby out with their bathwater. Don't let them. Stay steady, focused, and non-emotional.

Fact is - the majority of the military are proletarian middle income middle class who lack a political voice in most discussions, and are too busy with daily tasks like paying bills and feeding kids to give much thought to these issues in any detail.

They'll simply except the free drink with a nod, or say thanks in return if you say thanks for their service.

Unfortunately there is a huge shitload of vain and extremely non-heroic vets who are going back out into the military and civilian population with a chip on their shoulder, a hand out, and getting sympathetic reactions to both.

This is a dishonor to the handful of truly brave, men and women who served beyond the duty of the average soldier. They deserve that recognition. They are the ones you'll almost never meet, the very same people that may never even mention their prior service.

Be aware of the difference. It's real.

Deployed Soldiers: Fully Automatic Heroes? Part 2

2009-07-31T01:59:00.006-04:00

This subject continues to interest me. It's mostly the wide range of opinions on the subject and the conviction that individuals have for their different positions. The other issue is free speech, even when one has an unpopular view that is deemed unpatriotic by another group, the right to free speech still exists. Am I a big proponant of Soldiers Are Not Heroes on Facebook? No, there's a lot of low-wit angry baby talk from anti-military people. But that doesn't mean there's no valid issue.

I've noticed that it's the older non-military that insist all soldiers are heroes, and the younger within the military that feel the same way. Whereas the older current or former military members that agree that every joe is not a hero.

Just to make it clear, I don't argue over the book read definition of the word - I have an issue with an individual feeling entitled to elevated status, and the false obligation of others to honor that entitlement.

The following is an excerpt from "Petition to remove Soldiers are Not Heroes" on Facebook. It's a direct cut and paste so there are original typos et cetera. Since the forum is public, I left the names in.

Me -

As a soldier I have to say that there is a point in stating that "soldiers are not heroes" just by virtue of the fact alone, I mean, obviously. You don't get a damn hero card for serving or deploying, and you shouldn't either. There's a good point to be made for someone pointing this out, on the internet or anywhere. The freedom and the right to burn a flag, or have a "soldier's are not heroes" web site is what it means to be American. To shut them down would be very unAmerican.

These seem to me, to be obvious points, that someone somewhere here must have already made. I'm a "group member" here as I am on the SANH site only so I could post and make comments on both.

SPC Burkley

Keith Matthews (Atlanta, GA)

actually there is no "right to burn an american flag" . just like taxes there are federal guidlines as to how a flag must be treated and flown. this comes out of great respect for those that have died defending the flag. when someone burns a flag it isnt a show of discontent for our government, it is a slap in the face to all the gave thier lives for that government.

Me -

Ok, there's no law against burning a flag, and you have to be left alone by the police till they have probable cause to arrest you. So, no there's no explicit right to burn a flag, but being free to have an opinion and demonstrate it is protected by law.

Greselle Ramos (Chicago, IL)

I know that you say that we should not have the "soldiers are not heroes" page shut down, but I think your wrong. We have that right, soldiers are heroes, and freedom is not free, every war, every fight, every deployment, I am not a soldier but the ones that are out there fighting for me are my heroes. I know that freedom of speech is clear but this page is just wrong. Our military people are just doing what they are told, they do it because they have to. We need to keep there moral up and not let these petty infantile people harass them. It is not right.

Me -

How can all soldiers be heroes? That's just mindless. Most soldiers don't even think that. Acts of heroism make heroes. You lessen the word when you give it away to every joker in the ranks.

On the other side of the coin - Calling us murderers and killers is almost comical, but there are fruit loops who do think like that, so it isn't funny. Most soldiers are just regular people like non-military people, no better no worse, we deserve no special treatment, respect yes, hero treatment no.

As an aside too many scumbag soldiers are returning to the states and becoming violent criminals, and using the war card as an excuse. This is unacceptable by any military standard.

Marshall Chriscoe (Winston-Salem, NC)

Hear hear. As former mil myself, I can attest to the nausea that overwhelms me when I consider some of the guys I've been stationed with are being called "heroes". As you said, brudda, we're not all heroes, and we're not all psychopaths. I'm sure there's some of each at every command, but for the most part, we're all normal folks.

Greselle Ramos (Chicago, IL)

Wow, I was not rude to you! I have two uncles that were in the military for 25 years each. They are my heroes, I understand that not everyone in the military are good people. You need not have said that my statement was mindless. That was very dismissive, how is it that someone who is preaching about freedom of speech can turn around someone else's opinion. I made the statement that soldiers are heroes, I never made the statement that all soldiers are heroes. I stated the ones that are fighting for me are, maybe you should reread the statement and not react to a phrase in such a manor. I thought you might have had an opinion on the part of the comment where I stated that the sanh page was wrong. But I guess you did not think that was important, you just wanted to make a statement the way David does by belittling my opinion and not even getting the statement right. Thank you I see what type of people are on this sanh now.

Patrick Kent (Davenport, IA)

HERO: a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

it’s all in ones opinion on who is a hero or not and I am in the military and I have seen many that I would not even come close to calling them a hero but others yes they have the will the and the mind to do whatever it takes to defend this country that we call home I can say that not all should be called heroes but most can be or just brave men and woman

Nathan Clauss (Saginaw / Bay City, MI)

no were not but what u been saying is point less your a fucking retard who need to shut the hell up hey the first mother fucker who burns a flag infront of me will not live to see tomarrow i will rip there head of there shoulders and shit in the neck

Charlotte Barfield
and their is a right its called the first admendment look up Texas v. Johnson

Deployed Soldiers: Fully Automatic Heroes?

2009-07-28T12:16:00.009-04:00

Of course not. A question raised originally from facebook groups.

1) Petition to remove "Soldiers are not Heroes."

2) Soldiers Are Not Heroes

To me, it seems obvious that being a soldier and being deployed doesn't make one an automatic hero. America after the Vietnam War offered the opposite reception to men and women of the military returning home. The populous now seems to have an unstated obligation to welcome with open arms. It also should go without saying that not everyone returning from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan is a criminal or murderer as is suggested by the Anti-Hero site. Though it does happen, very low are these numbers in fact.

Below is a dialogue, a dialectic on the subject. This is something different for Versa Vice, but I think this issue could become a larger one as more and more veterans re-enter the population. Soldiers with opposing views, along with a civilian, are copied directly from the discussion.

Me, on Facebook, on the sites/links above:

Burning the flag is only as un-American as saying you can't burn it. Both are protected acts in America. We have the freedom to be as smart or stupid as we can possibly be. In reference to the Petition to shut down “Soldiers Are Not Heroes:” Petitioning against a site because it challenges your entitlement to automatic "hero status" when you get back from Iraq is also un-American and an act of hubris.

LC (US Soldier) - think some angry firefighter that wasn't getting enough praise, and lost his wife to a soldier returning from iraq made that group. with or without that group, the hero status will be there regardless, so I don't care

Me - That's the problem. I don't think you read what I wrote.

LC - i did but im confused. either way, im going to have a lot of free drinks due to this hero status, as will you, so forget I said anything

DS (US Soldier) - i see it as we're just doin our job..don't really care much about a hero status...

LC - true DS... but whatever gets drinks in my hands and me on the floor by the end of it, will be fine by me :]

RP (US Soldier) - Ugh. I already went through this. Use your common sense when it comes to this crap.

The definition of hero.

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.

So who is being arrogant.

TB (US Soldier) - I agree. A lot of the stuff on that board is kind of silly, but I save myself a headache by choosing not to read it. If anything, the 'soldiers are not heroes' group gets more attention *because* of that petition than if it were just ignored. In the end though it is free speech and the 'soldiers are not heroes' group should be allowed to exist regardless of your position on the issue.

RP - Just as it is there freedom of speech to say it shouldnt exist. haha. Isnt that hypocritical?

TB - I think the issue is rather than challenging the beliefs of the group, they're trying to get it shut down completely. Freedom of speech, used to argue against freedom of speech? You're right, it is hypocritical.

"I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Me - BTW RP, I just read your definition, I didn't mention arrogance, but you're demonstrating it quite well. Folks - you don't have to be a hero to be a good soldier. It's commendable that you joined the army and were deployed...it's not heroic.

RP - But you did mention hubris. Im not saying im a hero. I am merely saying that your definition of hero is different from others. It is not very clear. Your making a lot of assumptions. And we all know, assuming things can make you look like an asshole. Once again, you are pushing your opinion of what a hero entitles onto other people. Why cant you just let them decide. The definition says, admired for his brave deeds. Isnt joining the army brave?

Me - Society offers too much hero worship. It's a mixed bag, commerials making you feel bad about yourself without certain products, then Hollywood et cetera putting unrealistic figures on the screen and in the media. There's no need to live up to the bullshit. I'm not pushing any of it. Fact is and remains: any clear thinking adult knows soldier = soldier, not hero. This is so rediculous. An argument I never thought I would have.

RP - Why do you keep ignoring the definition. Haha. You wont even acknowledge it. You just think that your interpretation of it should be everyones. Well im sorry to say but it is not. That is ignorant. Should I explain what I mean by arrogant?

Me - You're being arrogant young man! Read your own unsourced definition and you'll see it still remains in the eye of the beholder, a point it seems like you might be trying to make, so why defend with your "definition" your entitlement to heroism. Absurd. Show me the word "soldier" or "entitled." How is the fact that I'm arguing against being an insta-hero, make me the arrogant one? You're out of your fucking mind.

KF (my family) - I'm not in the military, but I would have to say that joining doesn't have to be about bravery. IN fact sometimes it is about cowardice as I have found quite a few people that signed up because a family member was military and they felt they had to. It was easier to kowtow to their father than to stand up for what they really wanted. Also my dad ... Read Morejoined back in the day and it had nothing to do with a moral compass and everything to do with having no direction in life. And since his parents demanded that he make some kind of decision about his role in the world, I can't even say he was brave for making a decision. I am not getting into the argument about the website, as I honestly can see both sides points to a certain extent. But I just couldn't keep my mouth shut about that "Isn't joining the army brave?" line.

RP -Ugh Burkley. The definition came from websters. Im not going to repeat myself over and over. Your arrogant to think that your interpretation is supreme over everyone elses. Why cant you have an open mind and see that point. KF, I was just throwing something out there. We cannot however ignore the fact that someones perception of what a hero is might be as simple as joining the army, or as complex as jumping onto a grenade to save his/her buddies. That is all im trying to say.

LC - how about we are doing what every civilian in the states right now is not. that sets us apart from them, because they don't have it in them, the end. anyways, in someones eyes we are heroes. get over it. I mean, why even be upset or argue about something like that? sure training Iraqi Police is fucking retarded, or PSD for the president of iraq ...

KF - LC someone has to be in the states doing what you are not because otherwise you would not be getting paid. You guys are making "hero" seem very common. I sure hope people have higher expectations out of their heroes than that they joined a group or are doing something that some other people are not doing.

What make's you think you speak for "everyone" RP? I.E. - "your interpretation is supreme over everyone elses."

And I'll say it again, your definition, wherever it came from makes my point. Seriously, take what it says, can you say that it applies to every soldier in our unit? Any soldier in our unit? Cerainly not to every soldier coming home from a deployment.

RP - But that is just the thing we are arguing. What a hero is, is different to every person. Also that is not what LC meant. I guess you just didnt realize it.

Burkley, you choose to ignore what im saying. I already posted the definition of hero. If you dont think they are right. I suggest sending them a complaint? Haha.

a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

I believe that this can be applied to every single person. I think... Read More you are a hero, based on what you have done here in Iraq. I think according to the dictionary definition you can call every single person a hero. That is just my opinion.

LC - I have a giant headache. ill just say it, since apparently everyone thinks they are, with those assumptions being thrown around. everyone in the military is a hero because they show courage you people in the states will never show. I wouldn't be getting paid? I'm hardly fucking getting paid stateside as it is, lady. I made more delivering floral wholesale goods to shops throughout Kansas. Maybe even more or the same delivering pizzas and earning tips. and joining technically doesn't have to be about bravery. yea, sure, it could be the person just was done dealing drugs and needed a job (I). was 30 years old headed nowhere, and needed something to get done in life. wanted a head start. needed college money. wanted to make something of themself. all different reasons, but with the same result. a person joining the military is brave, because it takes a brave person to serve. fuck this. I can't believe I just spent time dealing with this. I have a broken or sprained or simply just hurting pinky toe and a wisdom tooth coming in burkley. but I know there's nothing you can do for me, so I just wanted to tell you that so you can laugh about me being in pain to get your mind off of this retardedness that has taken over our lives the past couple hours.

ME - As I look back at the whole thing, above, I think DS and TB were making the most sense, and nobody paid any attention because it didn't push an emotional button.

KF - LC, so sorry for helping cause your headache. I'm sure you will get many drinks in the states and I hope you enjoy them. I just enjoy thinking and appreciated a conversation on FB for once instead of the standard quizes and games.

LC - shaw always makes sense that's why every time he sees me, I don't even have to say anything and he shakes his head. it's just natural, he knows I'm thinking of something stupid. anyways, thanks for all the fun, I gotta be up at 4 in the morning. adios

Me - Hey KF, thanks BTW, and I apologize, they're not bad guys, we're all just stewing in our juices with little to do, and too much to think about.

Versa Vice

2009-07-27T02:11:00.019-04:00

It's only appropriate that, after the last blog, on the 25th, I do something more inward here, something vain, or superficial even. Keep the balance. As if writing your opinions on a blog isn't vanity enough, I'll look at Versa Vice itself. I've noticed my little counter counting up a range of views, from 2-5 per day a few months ago, and now 10-60 per day. Since that time I've spread the word amongst family and friends, put my ego on the twitter block, put a link on my Myspace and Facebook, and had an on-air interview with Mark Parton in Canberra Australia about Versa Vice. I get an occasional comment from Jenn Adventures in Palestine, Hi Jenn, or from brother Ben, back in Florida, who's the proud father of a second son, Levi. But I know my Mom, Uncle Mike and cousins are looking on as well. All in all though, I write for myself.

As far as the blog goes, it's almost 3 years old, and requires a bit of history and explanation. The name came from a music project that I had back in Gainesville Florida. If we ever got to the point where we played live, we were going to call ourselves either Mechanism, or Versa Vice. That was 2004-2005. Shortly after that I got fed up with Gainesville, the rut I was in, and the way I was living and got a job with the USPS. I was a rural carrier and moved to Saint Augustine where I went in early every morning, sorting mail non-stop till noon, and then delivering till 5 PM. It was a great job, I made good money, I had escaped from Gainesville, I was living closer to the beach again, surfing on a regular basis, and everything seemed perfect...but I hated it. In my gut I was terrified at the thought of doing THAT job as a career, and for the rest of my healthy life.

During this time I ran into an old High School aquaintance. She was newly divorced and had two kids. We were both in our own personal kind of pickle. I began to theorize that the lost feeling I had was from not being further along in my adult development, being 32 at the time, with no wife or children. My subconscious saw Amber and her two wonderful kids as a quick way to catch up. I had "empty nest" and she had no nest. It's obvious now, but you can't make short cuts like that. And certainly, it didn't make sense to quit the Post Office job soon after, and then take a new one as a lifeguard on the beach. Clear as day now, this behavior is the classic conflits of mid-life crisis acted out. I wanted to grow up and stay young at the same time.

The old 2006 Versa Vice was born into this period. Pre-Post Office, I attended community college in Gainesville, off and on, from 1999 to 2004, living off student loans and grants, studying English, Psychology, Philosophy, Graphic Design, and any other class that suited my whims from semester to semester. I drank a lot did a variety of drugs, from time to time, and wasted time and money. As well, I managed to squeek out a book during this time period, The James King Version, which is about Gainesville, drugs, music, and other such self centered existentialist ennui. I saw myself as a genuine beat poet. A Kerouac Black Jack. An invisible rock star. But ol' Jack died a miserable drunk didn't he? His gut rotted and he died in his mother's house. The only person who would take him in the end. This is the life (and death) I was moving toward, feared, and was weary of when I joined the Post Office.

Anyway, "the old stuff" written in Versa Vice is a combination of the beatific drug influenced Gainesville writing, and my maladjustment to sudden family life. So there, in 2006, when the going got tough (as it would), when the diapers hit the fan, and when I couldn't move in any direction, gripped with raw and painful confusion, I did what both my dad and I always did, the only thing we had in common, I hit the road. I went to see The Church (a long standing favorite band of mine that has manages to put out plenty of music to match my 20 year afficianado status)in Orlando, and then Jacksonville. This was a lot of driving, and it left me broke and Amber more than perplexed I'm sure. An odd thing to do, mid-fight, take off, and disappear for a week, but as my mother knows, this is family tradition. Amber is a wonderful person whom I will always owe the world, now happily remarried, and has a new baby girl.

So how the hell did I end up in the Army?! The answer is, "all the above." That's why when people ask me, why did you join? I hesitate, I don't even know where to begin. Fact is, I was at the end of my rope and I knew I needed to do something drastic. In early 2006 the war (in Iraq) was coming off the hinges and I heard on NPR that the military had raised the age limit for enlistment. This combined with the influence of a fellow Beach Rescue Lieutenant, Mr Hans Embry, who was a Navy Corpsman, I soon found myself in the recruiter's office, in Saint Augustine, looking for papers to sign. Everyone thought I was nuts. I knew I was nuts. I had to get away from myself. And I did.

The navy recruiters, weren't there two visits in a row, and the army sergeant in the joint branch office roped me in the second time. The rest is history. The rest is Versa Vice: Versing my vices and the pendulum swinging between them. A metal between magnets, just out of range, no full contact, no fountain of youth, no ultimate high, no satisfaction, no glory on stage after a double encore show, no interview with Charlie Rose about my silly book, which sold a whopping 50 copies. Just life, sunrise, and sunset, day after day. Taking a hard look at reality. At how to see one's place in the world, seeing the way other people live. After seeing life in Iraq for Iraqis, I will forever be careful with the word hardship. As a platoon medic, I've been on stand-by daily to help soldiers with a sprained ankles, a new rash, headaches, real and imaginary. They even feel free to come knocking at two in the morning (and have done so without apology), but I honestly, wouldn't have it any other way.

Something Less Superficial

2009-07-25T07:03:00.013-04:00

I don’t like going to the gym, and I can’t stand hearing some people describing trips to the gym with enthusiasm like they’re on the verge of discovering a magic combination of reps and protein supplements that will unlock the ultimate human shape of eternal happiness. I have enjoyed being healthy and appreciate this gift by finding physical activity outdoors. For me, why pay for a workout indoors when there’s a better, free, and all natural scenic workout in the mountains, ocean, and forests?

Gym or no gym it seems we spend more time taking care of that thin surface layer of dead skin than on any other organ in our bodies. “Taking care of our head” is likely a matter of doing something with our (dead) hair rather than any kind of learning. Then there’s the obsession with clothes et cetera. Even deeper within, beyond our used but unseen organs, lies the less tangible and further underdeveloped consciousness. There, unexplored emotions, unutilized instincts and innate wisdom remain on the back burners while the societies we live in thrive on quantifiable intelligence that has evolved into the dogma of marketing and the religious usury of spirituality.

Articles in Time, and Newsweek, and on CNN say today’s generation of self-centered youth are part of narcissistic epidemic. The compounded effects of a youth obsessed pop culture constantly focusing on teens and college age people who feel entitled to automatic satisfaction is deemed a sure sign of humanity in decline. Young adults equipped with parental plastic feel entitled to the best in personalized product demographics.

Human history is decorated with a long list of individuals who became wayward souls due to the distractions of vanity. The introductory lesson in the Old Testament is of Eve breaking the only rule in the universe at the time, only to follow reptilian advice on how to accessorize the human ego.

The Greco-Roman lesson of Narcissus described a young character being so impressed with his appearance that he ignored the love, emotions, and thoughts of others till cursed by the gods as a result, and became catatonic and lost in a fatal reflection of himself. He reduced himself first to his image, and then was further reduced to isolation, and then the further solitude of death.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it is suggested that we are all born into an environment where we see superficial shadows as reality rather than the source of the light, and the forms between that cause the shadow shapes. But picking any one piece, the light, forms, or the shadows, and saying it alone, along with the metaphorical meaning we assign is the true reality, is still superficial. Taking all components in and seeing past the horizon is difficult, but not impossible.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, tells of a young man who is much like Narcissus, recognized as beautiful while in an age of hedonism, and hopes to sell his soul believing the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and desires. Fearing time and its effects on his appearance, he trades the aging process off to a portrait of himself only to lose his moral compass, sanity, and eventually every remaining shred of happiness.

A non-mythological version of the characters I’ve listed is the Spanish Explorer Ponce De Leon who lost track of his original mission and died searching for The Fountain of Youth. As the first governor of Puerto Rico, he heard stories from the natives of a spring that offered eternal youth to those who drank from it. See the pattern here? He took off to an area that he felt was described, and ended up in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida, one of my hometowns. He never found the Fountain of Youth, and the one you visit in town is based on nothing but the story.

Are we more obsessed with ourselves than ever before? Like anyone else living in these times, I can only speculate on the vanity level of any past generation in history. It's safe to say though that there is a support system in place for the vain like never before. Becoming self-centered seems to be part of our natural psychology. It's as if our primordial survival instincts wander astray and self preservation becomes self love. But even that's a misphrase. The vain are miserable. Michael Jackson, just as an example, had a clinically narcissistic, if not solipsistic view of reality. Pedophile? Musical genius? I don't know, but he was lost in illusions of himself that made him miserable, and if today's youth are in an epidemic of selfishness, they may "feel good" from time but they're not happy for any lasting period. Not knowing the difference between happiness and feeling good might just be the very root of our problems.

Night Moves

2009-07-22T02:25:00.003-04:00

Restrictions as a sign of progress. Anymore, our missions take place at night. This is how it's been for almost a month now, and in the next couple weeks of being here it will stay the same. Various objectives, as simple as moving personnel, or other night moves of a more tactical nature, have to be done with IP escorts within the city. A mission that takes place along main routes still moves without Iraqi escort. This may be difficult to picture back in the states, but it makes sense. Main routes have long since been established and are typically busy like a major interstate back home with supply and fuel convoys.

The restrictions for me mean limited photo opportunities and a lessened opportunity for any kind of contact with locals. But the following set of pictures are fairly interesting. The blurred lights of travel after sunset could be almost any city, and in fact at times, as I'm dreary eyed, and on a mission long enough that I've even become bored with my ipod, it can appear, for a moment, in that lapse of full consciousness, that I'm back in the states, in Colorado Springs, Jacksonville, or passing through Daytona.

A Look Back: My April '09 Favorites

2009-07-16T06:45:00.003-04:00

A Look Back: My March '09 Favorites

2009-07-12T12:58:00.006-04:00

Chicken Tastes Like Karaoke

2009-07-11T04:03:00.008-04:00

I've been guilty of singing Karaoke a few times...well, more than a few times, I've played open mic night alone and with groups over the years as well. Versa Vice was originally the name of one band years before I joined the army or had a blog. But typically, no matter how many times I've done it, singing, speaking in front of people, or playing guitar, I'm always nervous at first. But I've found something out about myself over the years. Things that I'm nervous about are the things I enjoy the most, and tend to actually be good at.

Ok, I know, "good at karaoke!" That's almost an oxymoron, but I do get into it, like I said, by the end of the first song and afterwards. Serious medical situations as well I get a loud "aaaah!" echoing through my head at first. Just for a second or two, that seems to last longer, but then I refocus on the task at hand and the fear becomes an energy, sort of how people channel anger.

So, two nights ago, I did an interview with Mark Parton about this blog and the kids and situation in Iraq. I got the usual lump in my throat, with words coming out all weird at first, but by the end, when I got loosened up, I was chatty like an old lady with friends at a bingo table. Check out the interview and Mark's blog:

http://2cc.net.au/

http://partonwords.blogspot.com/

Summer Music Selections

2009-07-11T02:29:00.005-04:00

1) Wooden Shjips: Spelled with the j, by the way, recorded with one or two burning as well, one could safely say (accidental poetry). I first heard "We Ask You to Ride" on an UNCUT magazine collection titled Interstellar Overdrive.

WS jams a live in the studio feeling via guitars rich with acid distortion, but only overtop a deap seated base layer of a rhythm section droning along in the way that rock drone can be good, rather than boring. The resulting hypnotic atmospheric jam will have you travelling to your destinations in no time flat. Wooden Shjips is code for time machine.

Dos, and the self titled CD are the two I have. I would start off with Dos.

2) Viva Voce: This band is a bit like Low or Yo La Lengo. Basically built around the male/female vocals, delivered with casual emotion, and taking a back seat to the guitars which are often toned in a reverbed surf/spy effects setting. It's not as ambient as that might sound though. Rose City is a rock guitar album and was made for the long or short drive to the beach...and to think...I'm within two months of doing just that!

Iraq: T-Wall as Monolith

2009-07-08T05:58:00.019-04:00

I'm a fan of Space Odyssey 2001. It is a love it or hate it kind of film. Still, most are surprised to learn it was made in the mid-sixties rather than the 1980s, and no matter how one feels about the abstract and somewhat over-long movie, it paved the way for Star Wars which came 15 years later.

Everywhere here, these Stonehenge-headstone-monolith T-walls that block scenery even as they provide protection create islands, safety zones, and subsequently contain and become targets. They go unnoticed until an artist stops with his/her pallet/spray can, or these slabs of concrete catch your eye when damaged by explosions. Unseen for now, like trees for the forest, these t-walls, seen first in this conflict and none other, industrialized human separators, may just become a deeper symbol over time.
The Wall, the '79 album, and '82 movie by Pink Floyd held symbolic meanings pertaining to WW2, War itself and the Berlin Wall, but led to more abstract conclusions as the Kubrick Monolith did. These days the Berlin Wall which separated east and west Germany is something that seems to have left the zeitgeist altogether. Most college students would know little of it even though pop culture adopted the dilemma in the 80's. It was perhaps President Reagan presiding over the walls destruction, at least in a single ceremony, that stole the thunder from the standing advocates of "tearing down the wall."

mono·lith·ic
Function: adjective
Date: 1825
1 a: of, relating to, or resembling a monolith : huge, massive b (1): formed from a single crystal, a monolithic silicon chip (2): produced in or on a monolithic chip, a monolithic circuit
2 a: cast as a single piece, a monolithic concrete wall b: formed or composed of material without joints or seams, a monolithic floor covering c: consisting of or constituting a single unit
3 a: constituting a massive undifferentiated and often rigid whole, a monolithic society, b: exhibiting or characterized by often rigidly fixed uniformity, monolithic party unity

A Monolith is often the symbol for concepts that suggest a single and indivisible truth. Platonic concepts of synthesis rather than analysis. Something like the scientific paradox of quantum physics and string theory, a seamless unified field between things that exist in opposition to each other but independently. What is the commonality? Throughout the country of Iraq there are thousands of monoliths, like hadiths, separate and singular, unmoving, and waiting to be broken.

When I visited ancient Sumarian ruins here in Iraq with my unit (see: Temple of Enlil, Versa Vice, June), I actually thought about Space Odyssey 2001. The scene where the scientists descend a ramp onto the site simultaneously representing the distant past and the not too distant future. It was a real and terrestrial version of this movie scene, costumed with digicam body armor and helmets, sifting and drifting through ziggurat halls, and squinting at cuneiform, it felt a lot like being from another planet.

Simple and lost, but right in front of us, in all of our histories of war an theory, the individual. The unescaped existentialist format of pleasure, pain, and daily living. Peace and war world over, with everything in between, every human at any age remains an island, walls, often unmoving monoliths, pretending to be forever.

July 4: Kalsu

2009-07-08T02:21:00.006-04:00

Last July 4, in Baghdad, no fireworks were planned or expected. The joke was that any fireworks at all would be unwanted and of another sort. This year, at Kalsu, I didn't know what, if any festivities were planned, in fact, I was in my room watching season 1 of Battlestar Galactica when I heard the fireworks. Earlier in the day I did take a look at what was going on for the fourth: cookouts, loud country music, strangers in "civies," but still felt out of place.

FOB Kalsu

2009-07-08T01:29:00.007-04:00

I spent the last 9 days north of Camp Echo with another soldier from my company and many military strangers. A quiet little place called FOB Kalsu. At the last minute it was determined that I needed to go with a soldier/patient (impacted wisdom [not just the tooth]) to Kalsu. I grabbed my bag, threw in socks and a t-shirt, and took off. Above Iraq, in the noise of a UH-60 blackhawk minutes later, we braced ourselves, strapped in, against the open window heat bath of wind in silence. By the next morning dust storm atmospherics grounded the air, and the SOFA deadline constricted nearly all ground movement.

Most of the time, while stuck at Kalsu, the sky looked like this. Known as "shamal" to the Iraqis these afternoon summer wind and dust storms are the desert version of the PM thunder showers I'm used to back home in Florida. Interesting in a photograph, but "red skies" are a pain in the arse to walk around in and even more so for getting off the ground in a helicopter.

This is where most of the waiting game takes place. Be here/there with all your gear, ready to go, only to get cancelled, once or twice a day. Military has priority and it took me and the other soldier a week to get out. There are private contractors who have been waiting for a month just to take as few as two weeks break time.

In the mornings it often looks like this. Nice out, even in a hall of t-walls. Walking on gravel all the time is not something I'll miss about Iraq.

For the first 3 days...no PX. This meant no soap, no toothbrush, et cetera. On the fourth day I got some courtesy shampoo from the MWR and washed with that, only to find the PX had reopened.

Like the terrorist threat level, a nearly comical reminder that it's hot out. Perhaps brought to you by Ashcroft and friends.

This is a mural, on FOB Kalsu, of what I typically take pictures of and post on this blog, from the back seat of a Humvee to the WWW.

Ahh, to dine alfresco in 120 degrees, a rare opportunity, few takers.

Iraq: T-Minus 1

2009-06-29T09:23:00.005-04:00

Leonard Cohen who wrote Bird on a Wire, also wrote Love Leaves No Trace. I looked up the Bird... lyrics first, but they didn't really fit. I kept looking at Cohen's lyrics, and forgot that I was in the middle of a blog post, for half an hour. Then these words reminded me of the picture.

True Love Leaves No Trace - Leonard Cohen

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will
Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no targets
Like shackles made of snow

True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun

As a falling leaf may rest
A moment on the air
So your head upon my breast
So my hand upon your hair

And many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So we will endure
When one is gone and far

True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun

Iraq: T-Minus 2

2009-06-28T13:43:00.011-04:00

Another mix of weather, people, sights, and sounds (use your imagination) today in the small towns and rural areas of South East Central Iraq. Bikes and riders (spot the AK-47), roadside and drivers, reeds and swimmers, kids and camels, cars and a helmet. The dust storms returned after a few days of clear skies.

Iraq: T-Minus 3

2009-06-27T05:51:00.006-04:00

Dressed and off to work.

The rarity of passing a lawnscape.

The Arabic word for camel is jamal.

It appears our passing trucks remain the highlight of the day for the young shepherds bored with sheepish company. Sooner than later they will have to make due without the show of our heavy khaki war trucks on the over-cooked horizon.

Setting up shop, roadside, watermelon season.

Bricks, before, during, and after.

Iraq: T-Minus 4

2009-06-26T06:38:00.007-04:00

T stands for toy today. Toy guns. Little kids walking around with fairly real looking handguns, from a distance. The oldest of the bunch, in the orange shirt, walked around in a more casual way, but the little ones even had the celebratory dance down. They must have seen and learned this from gatherings such as weddings, or sporting events, where celebratory firing of weapons into the air is common. This is what I like to think. Still could give one a chill to see Iraqi kids going through these motions with toys.

Iraq: T-Minus 5

2009-06-25T06:11:00.003-04:00

In Iraq on Wednesday:

My little brochure on cultural do's and don'ts while deployed in Iraq (printed in 2003) says to never point with a finger, and a thumbs up is considered particularly vulgar. I've found this incorrect along with bits of suggested language in the pamphlet. For instance, Yes = "ee" not nah'ahm, stop = "awgaf" not mao-kiff.

Most two wheeled vehicles have multiple rear-view mirrors, but they usually face the sky more than the rear.

Ali and his sister in the distance. Introduced in Versa Vice months ago.

Riders.

A family of mothers, past present and future.

Trucks.

Truck.

T-minus 8 and Counting

2009-06-22T12:41:00.007-04:00

In this case T = Turnover

Startled by this peaceful visitor. Only because I was about to piss in a bottle, looked over and he was there.

Cool and cooler in the shade.

Double take. A Pepsi truck. Very few sights like this of purely western commercialization. Never see Coke though, and I've been told that since the Coke products that service this area are "bottled" in Israel, Pepsi is the cola of choice

The Real Thing.

More common sights, donkey cart and a white/orange taxi, only together and up close.

"Ambulance." Got a shot of this truck months ago, but this is a better photo.

Adults usually don't look at us but for a glance. Children usually stare openly and uncorrected.

Kids with a box for a toy gun, no gun.

I almost didn't post this. Not sure why I'm doing it anyway, but this is a donkey just outside town and near the road. He was standing in the same spot alone, hours later, as we headed back to camp. Abandoned and dying. I prefer pictures of kids smiling but that's not reality. All I could do for him, zooming by, was take his picture.

Ok, this one I can't explain. Trucks moving huge chunks of boy and girl colored foam...I could only guess but I'm clueless.

Melons in season, a roadside market.

Selective Selection

2009-06-20T05:02:00.006-04:00

This month I've gotten a decreased number of photographs. We've been leaving Camp Echo less and less in a fairly gradual "hand over" to elements of the Iraqi government. As well I've taken a much more selective approach to photographs. I concentrate on the people and landscape which are far more interesting than IPs and soldiers anyway.

In the distance, far off the road, a Bedouin herding settlement.

A small town, city street.

Did some mediocre photoshop touch up on this copy. The truck windows were filthy and proximity photographs get obvious spots. I like the positioning though and how random spontaneous scenes often offer a better pose than a prepared and positioned picture.

Sneaker Arab.

Imagine construction workers in the US covering their faces at work. This is so common here but one of these guys on the street in America doing nothing would no doubt cause 100 911 calls in less than a minute.

I like this shot. It's a cropped copy. There are spots in the sky on the original, so I cropped it out to see what effect it would make. Your eyes notice the cross in the road and the matching crossed legs more so it turned out kinda cool.

Another Bedouin settlement.

The Brit Box

2009-06-19T02:41:00.009-04:00

The full title of this music collection is: The Brit Box: UK Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium. I guess it's a tad difficult to "box" a single short title for 78 songs that were released from 1984-1999. Music that preceded and led the pop music into and then back out of alt-rock Britannia over the same period. I ended up with this box-set in Iraq of all places after it was suggested several times by Amazon in one of those little side-boxes on my screen. This after making several music purchases, my cookies were tracked, and put through the marketing filters when I finally clicked and took a look. Being a fan of the genre, I knew several of the tracks already, but there were many more songs and musicians listed that I knew nothing or little of, or just lost track of over the years. This and the price, which was right as rain , made the decision pretty easy. Finding good ways to occupy myself in down time has been essential.

As for the product itself: There's a great book and the overall design is pretty unique. The four disks, made to look like ash trays have one thru four cigarettes depending on the disk number. This very Liverpoolish subtlety is a contrast to the Londonesque sticker-tacky feature on the front boasting, "...first box set of it's kind and the only one with an on/off switch!"

The switch through a cut out in the back turns on a flashing white light visible only inside when open, and I imagine, perhaps, a confused persnickety shoppe customer who may have poked a finger through the plastic to see what the switch does and found nothing.

The music is no surprise. The full description is in the box title alone, but for the sake of thoroughness, my mother's readership, and others, I'll explain a few things just from my own head, not from the book in the box:

"Indie" is shortened for independent. The phrase didn't get widespread use till the late '90s but is now used retroactively for groups whose music is/was released on independent/non-corporate labels, the result being more artistic less controlled production.

"Shoegazer" refers to music from a period '88-'92ish that had vocals taking a back seat to effects-laden droning guitars and was usually described as "dreamy" or "hypnotic" by those who liked it (myself included), but redundant and boring by those who didn't. Bands like Ride, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine fell into this category. These bands were stuck with the name when someone in print somewhere noted that guitarists tend to stand motionless and staring down at their shoes while playing, interviews were known to (un)develop in a similar fashion.

Still, most of this music stays in the center lane with popular names such as New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, Oasis, and Blur. These play next to more obscure groups like Felt, Bleach, Cash, and Rialto, which are new to me. So far, with all the music on my ipod and on random I've only skipped to the next track once. So I'm thinking that if my reader friends like this kind of music at all this collection will fit in well with their larger one as it does mine.

Fire as Earth as Air as Water

2009-06-19T01:11:00.010-04:00

Empedocles, a Greek philosopher who came before Socrates, said that all of earth's substances were part of four basic elements, air, fire, water, and earth. These became the four classical elements of Greek philosophy and were also adopted by Plato. Yesterday as I looked outside it appeared as if the four were trying to combine into one element. The 110+ temps of the previous day mixing with precipitation and atmospherics draw up the dust. Then the sky-dirt unites with the moisture above, again, and you end up with a cycle and specks of dust drops on everything like rain.

I figured out how to dust off the pictures with my computer but they were usually more interesting with the dust and grainy after being fixed. This one, with the girl looking out the window benefits from the adjustment.

Stephen Colbert

2009-06-14T14:47:00.006-04:00

By Linda P. Campbell, photo: paste magazine

Who else but Stephen Colbert would submit to a buzz cut by a four-star general after getting the president of the United States to make fun of his own big ears before thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of late-night TV watchers?

This definitely was not Bob Hope's USO show. Sure, during episodes of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" filmed in Baghdad and airing this week, Colbert carried a golf club in homage to Hope, the comic who entertained troops overseas for six decades. But Colbert's comedy wasn't a chuckle-fest morale booster with the obligatory babe trotted out for ogling. It was a patriotic embrace of men and women in uniform still doing the hard slog in Iraq, all right. But it was wrapped in the usual biting social and political commentary disguised as satire that's made the "Report" one of the smartest shows on TV. Yes, there are brains at work amid the rude and raunchy stuff that passes for humor elsewhere on cable.

For the uninitiated, Colbert the comedian portrays Colbert the blustery, self-satisfied TV commentator modeled on Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. It's a piercing parody. Or is it?

Ohio State University researchers concluded this year that strong conservatives were more likely than liberals to perceive that Colbert shares their political beliefs. The researchers interviewed 332 undergraduates after showing them a 2006 episode. Liberals, the study concluded, tended to believe Colbert was only joking, while conservatives tended to believe he only pretended to be joking and disliked liberalism. Of course the absurd notion that college researchers would study the science of late-night TV humor is one that Colbert might make up — or surely make fun of.

Part of the show's genius is that no one is safe from skewering. Colbert was merciless to Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who so obviously didn't get the joke or even try to play along when he was one of the first interviewees for "Better Know a District." That subversive segment sort of educates voters about congressional districts around the country while doing its best to embarrass their elected representatives. Even though Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel, when he was in Congress, told Democratic members not to go on Colbert's show, a number have. Obama has made several appearances, including one by big screen Monday night when he ordered Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, to cut Colbert's hair.

The soldiers cheered heartily for the hair-shedding show of solidarity and video of Colbert's abbreviated "basic training," which included him and a barking, straight-faced drill sergeant chanting during a run in fatigues and boots. But this wasn't all about safe guffaws; with Colbert it never is. He argued with himself about the don't-ask, don't-tell policy on gays in the military. He interviewed a female soldier and an Arab-American who enlisted after 9-11 and works as a translator.

It's not surprising that this wildly popular political satirist would venture to Baghdad. His Web site, www.colbertnation.com/home, links to donorschoose.org, through which contributors can help classroom projects in schools attended by children of military parents. And he's generated more than a quarter-million dollars for the Yellow Ribbon Fund's assistance to injured veterans through his WristStrong campaign, which turned a broken wrist into a fund-raiser by selling red plastic bracelets and auctioning his cast signed by celebrities.

Funny that Colbert isn't a favorite of the Washington press corps. They weren't impressed by the brutal irony and political incorrectness of his 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner antics.

"I stand by this man because he stands for things," he said about then-President George W. Bush. "Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares."

And there was this about the press corps: "Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out."

The military will play along for the sake of the troops, but members of the national media can't take a joke.

Now, there's irony.

Linda P. Campbell is a columnist and editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Transfer to the Iraqi Army in Mosul

2009-06-13T05:41:00.006-04:00

By Jack Dolan, Mcclatchy Newspapers, Fri Jun 12 (photos are mine)

MOSUL, Iraq — The Iraqi Army colonel glowered at his newest captain. Looking small and lost in his oversized new uniform, the captain conceded that he was an untrained civilian who'd been sent to Iraq's most violent city by one of the political parties in Baghdad that's vying for control of the country's security forces.

The Iraqi division that will assume responsibility for security in a swath of Mosul when American combat forces withdraw later this month has been assigned 69 such political appointees recently, said Col. Abdul Aziz Salahuddin. Then he made a pistol of his fingers and pointed it at his temple. "I'll kill myself if the Iraqi Army is starting down this path," Salahuddin said. "This man has no experience; he's no use."

While political leaders in Baghdad hail the scheduled June 30 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq's major cities, many Iraqi soldiers in Mosul say they're not ready to defeat the insurgents by themselves. Some complain that the Army is so politicized that it lacks the leadership necessary to fight a determined insurgency. Others say they don't have the weapons and ammunition they need to defend themselves from al Qaida in Iraq fighters who retreated north to Mosul after a nationwide security crackdown. Last week, an Iraqi soldier guarding city workers in one of Mosul's most violent neighborhoods showed an American platoon his Kalashnikov rifle. "It doesn't work, and we don't have bullets for it," said 28-year-old Sgt. Salam Omran.

Nevertheless, U.S. forces have begun to withdraw from their combat outposts in Iraq's cities to more secure bases on the outskirts. Camp Marez outside Mosul will be welcome relief. It has soft beds, an air-conditioned gym and a well-stocked dining hall that offers made-to-order fruit smoothies. For most Iraqis, tormented by the collapse of civil society after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and humiliated by six years of foreign occupation, June 30 will be an even greater reason to celebrate.

"The joy and happiness should spread in Iraqi ceremonies," Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told hundreds of military and police commanders at a Thursday meeting. "The plan of withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraqi lands is started."

However, the security conference in Baghdad's Green Zone came a day after a car bomb killed 35 people near Nasiriyah , one of the safest cities in the country. Maliki blamed the attack on Sunni insurgents trying to reignite the sectarian bloodshed that engulfed Iraq from late 2005 until the end of 2007. Maliki warned that violence could increase as American forces withdraw and insurgents test the Iraqi army, but he vowed that the relative stability gained during the last year and a half would hold. Politicians in Mosul are more skeptical. "The issue depends upon the cooperation of the citizens with the security forces," said Osama al Najaifi , a Sunni parliament member from Mosul . "I cannot say that we are satisfied with their training or arming, but if these gaps can be filled and if the security forces can stay away from politics, I believe they may succeed."

Col. Salahuddin, however, isn't confident about what will happen after June 30 . "I will cry; everything we worry about will come true," he said. "The Iraqis can't help the situation. The problems are already starting."

As cautious celebrations begin elsewhere, the key questions are far from settled in Mosul , which sits on the fault line between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, and is considered al Qaida's last stronghold in the country. Last Monday, Iraqi Army Capt. Dhiya Hussein Saadoon refused to join an American platoon to patrol a neighborhood in eastern Mosul where security will depend entirely on him in a few weeks. Saadoon said that 6 p.m. , when the Americans arrived at his headquarters, was too late to trouble his superiors for permission to venture out into the streets. Saadoon also politely declined invitations to train with the Americans, who offered his men courses in first aid, search techniques and combat vehicle maintenance. He did, however, ask an American lieutenant for ammunition and some of the M4 carbines that coalition forces use.

"He is afraid," said Khaleel Said , an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. platoon, as the American unit walked back to its armored vehicles. "He doesn't have enough weapons or ammunition. When the Americans leave, he can't protect himself."

Likely to depart with the Americans is the cop-on-the-beat strategy that that left them vulnerable to attacks with roadside bombs, but also helped quell the sectarian violence that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority who thrived under former dictator Saddam Hussein .

"The Iraqis believe in setting-up checkpoints on main roads, but they don't believe in patrolling, which is our bread and butter," said Lt. Carl Runner , 26, of Diboll, Texas , a 2006 graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington . He was packing up gear to move out of a joint U.S.-Iraqi combat outpost last Monday, as officials from the two armies exchanged speeches during a hand-over ceremony.

"Things are going to get a lot more dangerous, we've seen an up tick in attacks already," Runner said. "You have to let the bad guys know you're everywhere."

Some Iraqi commanders embrace the strategy of frequent patrols. After failing to persuade Iraqi Capt. Dhiya Saadoon to venture into the streets with him, Lt. Nathaniel de Kock of the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team , a 2007 West Point graduate from Hudsonville, Mich. , paid a late night visit to Col. Salahuddin.

"Any patrol you want to do, I'll give the order that they can go without any permission from me," Salahuddin said. His only condition was that the Americans refrain from arresting or detaining anyone unless an Iraqi officer was with them. The American commanders in Mosul tell their Iraqi counterparts not to worry, that U.S. helicopters and huge Mine Resistant Ambush Protected personnel carriers, or MRAPs, will be only a phone call away.

That's true for the time being, because the U.S.- Iraq security agreement that was signed in December allows U.S. forces to leave their bases if Iraqi officials invite them into the cities. Whether an Iraqi commander would risk looking so weak that he needed to seek help from the occupiers is another question.

"I'm not hyperventilating right now," said Col. Gary Volesky , the commander of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team from Fort Hood, Texas , responsible for Mosul. "I have no doubt that if the Iraqi generals need assistance, I'll hear about it."

Even the make-work projects that are designed to keep potential insurgents employed seem fraught with obstacles in Mosul. Last Tuesday, a convoy of four U.S. armored vehicles rumbled through the city streets in broad daylight on their way to check on 100 men who were being paid to clean trash and sewage from an abandoned lot.

Taller than most of the houses, and so loud that the soldiers inside need headsets and microphones to communicate, the American vehicles could be seen and heard blocks away. Even so, only about 20 workers were at the site when they arrived. Most of them sat in the shade smoking, and some were boys as young as 10.

"We catch them like this all the time," said Lt. Joe Lamb. "It used to be worse."

After about half an hour of negotiations, the foreman of the crew rounded up another 30 men for the official headcount. Men and boys in their street clothes — not the program's uniform blue coveralls — materialized from side streets and around corners. Some carried broken shovels; others arrived empty-handed.

"The key for us is to get as many employed as we can," Volesky said. "So you pay for a 100 guys and get 50. What is the acceptable level of corruption? It's a question we ask all the time."

A lot of men take the money then send their sons to do the work, Volesky said.

"When they first started doing this, there were so many threats they had to attach guards to the work crews," Lamb said. Omran, the Iraqi soldier with the unreliable Kalashnikov, stood inside the cordon made by the American platoon as the workers gathered. "Some of the people from Mosul don't like the army," he said.

"When they pull out," Omran said gesturing to the American soldiers around him, "The people will fight us."

(Dolan reports for The Miami Herald . McClatchy special correspondents Jenan Hussein and Sahar Issa contributed to this report.)

The Endless Summer

2009-06-10T23:47:00.011-04:00

Bruce Brown's 1966 film Endless Summer famously documenting a global surf trip may have had more of an effect on me than I realized. The film, about two surfers on "surfari" around the world visit Africa, Australia, and elsewhere with voice over narration in the footage. As well, surfing and reading surf magazines growing up, with adventure trip reports, and then the words of Jack Kerouac in college, I've come to generate my own story lines to what I see. But often my photographs speak for themselves or are best left without any sort of suggestion at all.

We, my unit and I, have been here over a year, and although it did get cold half way through, it's hard to imagine winter now. It feels like one long summer. I imagine different things I want to do when I get back. I'll visit family in Florida, and get to the beach fer sure. I wanna be in the water, surfing, swimming, or kayaking. It's the only thing that makes summer heat fun or bearable - and there is no water of any kind here.

My leave dates will be similar to the ones I had for my mid-tour leave last year, only a year later. In conversations, while back home, my job and the war would come up and the question most asked from friends and strangers was, "what's it like over there?" It always sounded a little silly and I couldn't ever give an answer that felt sufficient. I think maybe this blog has become my one big packaged answer to the question. So now, when I get back home, I can get some cards made with the web address and when someone asks I'll just give 'em one and say, go see for yourself...just kidding.

Sometimes I wonder what Rick Steves would say about traveling here? Or maybe Alby Mangles would be better suited to travelogue this country. He'd have to put on a shirt though. Rick Steves is the nerdy but kind and squeeky voiced Mr. Rogers type character you see on PBS on weekends suggesting a hidden money belt as you leave the beaten path for "less touristy" spots of various European cities.

Alby Mangles was the Australian adventure man that preceded Crocodile Dundee and Steve Erwin. He wasn't satisfied with the Aussie outback and was typically found on the tube Saturday mornings topless riding an elephant in Africa or traversing a barren dunescape in Egypt with his beautiful girlfriend/wife eye-candy sidekick in a roofless Range Rover meeting up with local guides and going where no white man has gone before! ...or at least since the last time.

This has not been anything like that kind of adventure. Iraq has been a matter of going from one safety zone to the next and taking pictures of people who never even knew I was there. Most never even knew they were photographed. Being deployed in a military unit means being part of the unit, so the mission and the unit take precedence in everything. Getting home safe and with the mission accomplished is the ungiven and desired end state. There's no singular GI Joe or lead character in the show.
The Army used to have the slogan, "Army of One." It meant two things: You are an army of one, to appeal to the yet-to-join, and the whole of the army is one to the already enlisted and commissioned who were a part of this one whole. "One" had two meanings. The slogan is long gone now. It faded away somewhere during this war and was replaced with velcro name tags, digi-cam, and "Army Strong." But hell, my point must be that the adventures of summer are still elsewhere for now. Someday perhaps an Alby, Indiana, Erwin or Rick Steves will be able to go out to the Temple of Enlil, Ziggurat of Ur, Tower of Babil, or elsewhere in Iraq and document his adventure safely without the threat of violence and play with the snakes and spiders safely for the word's enjoyment. Till then, on with the mission.

Still Back in May

2009-06-09T01:37:00.005-04:00

I still have a lot of pictures from May and the months before that were never posted.

Curiosity in children is universal. Perhaps the core element of learning.

Same corner, different perspectives.

An out-of-focus soft shot that has it's own accidental aesthetic.

The same corner again, a small town in Iraq.

A pink 2009 twist on the old world image of women moving cephalic cargo.

The same bag? Later going the opposite direction.

A little Iraqi Captain.

A street scene.