| Code Red and Home on the Range |
[Jul. 29th, 2007|11:45 pm] |
FOB-Forward Operating Base
Okay loved ones and attentive readers. Some of you know I'm in Iraq for the second time, two years after the first journey. This time, like the last, I'm traveling with two other comedians, both from LA.
It's Sunday night and this is the first time I've had an opportunity to miss a meal (the midnight/after thought one) and get on a computer. We're accompanied this time by two female military escorts - a captain and a sargent. Don't ever believe women are not on the front line in this war. Women in combat is old hat, helmet in this case, and they're definitely pulling their own weight...and ours along with them.
Unlike the last trip, the dust is down and we are not taking convoys on the ground. However, every time we travel by Chinook or Blackhawk helicopters, it's never alone. Today, we flew a short flight for about twenty minutes with the doors off the helicopter. What a blast! Of hot desert air.
Again, it's been 120 and 117 and up in the upper reaches of the thermometer's range. The amount of sweat my bra's absorbed finds me freezing in our Conex's as I finally start to cool. Iraq in July and hot flashes. I almost can't tell the difference. I just know hell doesn't smell as foul as it should. The whole "dry heat" testimonial always conveniently forgets to mention that it's still wet sweat.
Gatorade and liter bottles of water make the luggage even heavier but the dehydration headaches and muscles cramping charlie horses in the night require constant watering of the body.
I say night as if I know it. I've been here or traveling six days and I've yet to sleep a full three hours for a night. I gain a half hour every night and catch a nap in the afternoon for an hour and a half.
Hey...why is it so hot at night? Does the desert absorb so much heat that it radiates? Why isn't that the case in the American desert southwest? It can be blistering in the day and cooling relief at night. Maybe I'm wrong.
Tonight was our fourth show and I'm finally hitting stride. We've performed every night. My delirium the first night resulted in a show all over the map of my material including a one minute break of forgetting the beats of one of my better bits. The next night I was the first up and I definitely made up for the previous night, albeit with a microphone that cut out halfway through and then two other shorted-out mics for the rest of my act.
That evening was a first. After the show and signing autograph cards, we were all sitting on the tour bus in the air conditioning. A siren went off, twice and announced, "Code Red. Code Red.. All personnel on the FOB take cover immediately." Seven years of this work and that was the first time I'd heard a "code red."
The nearest bunker was behind a row of port-a-poddies and bookended by garbage dumpsters. All the hot scenes I'd ever fantasized about bunkers and my first time in was the wrong end of funky. Others gathered with us asked if we'd heard the sound and we only reported hearing the sirens. "How could you miss the mortar explosion?" Well, we did. And that was all we processed during the fifteen minute stink-out. That was in Kirkuk.
The next day we Blackhawked over to Balad to a really small FOB. Oddly, we got there early and had time during the day. So I lobbied for some time on the range and our sargent, Carrera, yo Gorge! made it happen. We shot a 9mm, an M-4 with a laser scope that still didn't improve my accuracy, and M-14 - the Vietnam gun that was more like a rifle. Jeezus, how'd we win that one? Oh yeah. I remember. We didn't and we're repeating our unlearned mistake.
The two final guns were first, an M-500; a twelve gage shotgun with a pistol grip like the one Linda Hamilton shot in Terminator which we were assured was a model as it takes someone really giant to cock a real one in the air. Everyone who tried it, got bit in the thumb. The thing kicked and both of our personal warriors hurt themselves. One even incurred something close to a fracture. My take was to shoot it once, drop it yowling, "Oww!" and then ask to shoot it again.
After repeating my yowl, I moved on to the last gun. A Berret (spelling?) 50 caliber gun. The one the gunners in the sling seat of the Humvees use. It was on the ground on an attached tripod. The metal of the stock was really hot and I about burned my face. Combined with a helmet that would not stay on and was held on by PFC Helms, I focused into one of those strange scopes that's dark until you find the cross-hairs. I listened to Carrera's directions, pushed the stock into my shoulder, aimed, breathed and pulled.
I hit the target EXACTLY where I'd aimed. Exactly. I jumped up and said "I can't believe it! I should quit right now while I'm ahead! I hit it!" So I laid down and popped the target four more times. I'm just that good. If you need a sniper, get me that scope and that gun and I'll cover you.
I don't know if I could ever shoot anybody though. Maybe I'd just shoot out the light on the table lamp. I'm good enough I now know, to do that. |
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| Refused Entry to Japan |
[Nov. 10th, 2006|03:37 am] |
Okay, this is great. Is even Japan freaked out by Mexicans or anyone with a Spanish surname? I'm on a trip abroad to Japan and Korea for just a couple of shows. I didn't obtain a visa because I don't need one since I'm not making money from their country. I'm working for the US within their country. Here's what happens when a paper-pushing bureaucrat gets a chance to shine.
Like I've done for the past six years worth of overseas trips, I checked off reason for visit: business; address in country: US Military bases in Iwakuni and Yakota. The first immigration clerk flagged me. I ended up in immigration with one officer and an interpreter for THREE AND A HALF HOURS. I made three calls through the officer and the interpreter to my American contact in Iwakuni who was very helpful and supportive. The interpreter agreed with me but could not make the immigration officer understand that I DON'T NEED A VISA to "work" for the US military. The officer gave me three choices:
1) return to the US
2) appeal his decision - the result of that appeal could take up to two weeks; if it is decided against me, then a permanent negative notation will always appear on my passport in Japan
3) leave the country (go to Korea or anywhere, just get out of Japan on this trip and come back at the end of it checking off transit on the disembarkation sheet)
After hours of going over the options and why I had to choose from them in the first and last place, I knew I had to get on with the show for what I could salvage. So I said I'd go to Korea since I had a ticket to there.
GET READY FOR SOME GORY HORRIBLE DETAILS NOW
In order to continue on to Korea, I had to take the first ANA flight there which wasn't until the next day at 10:45am. It was 8:45pm when they told me that. An ANA representative and a Security Guard came to fetch me. The ANA rep told me the price of the hotel - first he said $60 US and the price of the guard 14 hours @$20/hr. YUP-$260 for the guard! I told them forget it! I could pay for the hotel with my credit card but not the guard! He said I had to pay. I said no way, that I can't afford it. He changed the subject.
They insisted we go down to baggage to get my bag which had been there for five hours. Glad it was still there. Customs went through everything I had. Including a small wallet where my mileage cards, credit card and $100 dollar bill were. And then a female security guard patted me down and asked to see the money in my front pocket. So ANA must have asked to see what cash I had on me. Which they didn't find.
I went to the bathroom to wash my face after 30 hours of travel while the guard waited for me. For the next two hours I petitioned the next security guard assigned to me who spoke English and acted as translator between me and the ANA agent. I told them I could not afford $400 for one night in a hotel. They showed me international air rules which say someone who is detained is responsible for all meals, hotel and security fees. I kept saying I didn't have the money. I showed them the $38 in my pocket and they kept reminding me of the $100 they saw during the customs inspection.
Insert frustration, shock and awe at this moment. At one point, he demanded to see my wallet. I told him to get a warrant. I asked them to put me in a cell without a guard. Why not detain me all night in the immigration room? The guard said I was not a criminal and they could not send me to jail. And the airport was closing for the night. Ever heard of that? I kept saying I'm not paying $400. Then ANA said the hotel was actually $80. Freaking out yet? I kept petitioning the two guys assigned to me. What got through? Asking the guard who couldn't believe that I'd travel with only $138 that I bet with his bills he couldn't just come up with Y40,000. Somehow, these two young guys heard that.
Here's how they settled it: The ANA guy got permission from his senior to use the cash he saw me with - $138 - and apply it to the total cost and the airline would make up the difference to the security. Sound suspicious? It sure did to me. Like, let's take her cash. But they did give me receipts. And they left me with $8 to purchase water or food.
Of course, I have other cash, but why give away almost all of it? I held firm, kept suggesting they arrest me or do something different and they insisted on their rules of immigration when refusing entry to someone. When we got to the hotel, four guards were camped out and smoking in the hall. What a racket! And the room was pretty skanky - the carpeting and mini sofa had stains, cigarette burns and gashes in them.
So they got $130 of my money and I've got the receipts. Remarkably, they didn't charge me any money for the ticket change.
I couldn't get my passport until landing in Korea today and being the last one off the plane. When I got to Incheon, I went to the military welcome desk on the first floor and they totally helped me. I talked with my contact in Osan who said he'd call in for me at Capital Hotel. And I spent $25 on the bus from Incheon to Osan. And here's where I am. I'm found some pizza and English on the wide screen tv in my room and tried to comfort myself on the routine of familiarity in such a long-distanced place.
Perhaps it should be mentioned that Mercury is retrograde and has been since the end of October. But won't be by the time I leave!!!!! |
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| Did I say rockets? I meant friendly rockets. |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|11:31 pm] |
My bad. Years of blocking out garbled subway announcements numbed me from hearing what the speaker system on the FOB declared five minutes beforehand: "Attention on the FOB. Attention on the FOB. S...... range is going hot. S...... range is going hot." This means indeed you will be hearing machine guns and rockets but they'll be from US aircraft emptying the rounds loaded in their chambers during flight.
The next day, they did it for hours during the changing of the guard at that base. And thankfully, the new general had room on his Chinook which allowed us to leave and get back to Bagram. We knew we might not make it back to Manas and we needed any ride available. The Chinook got us back through the foothills and it was mighty cold even during the day since it had snowed the night before while we got the rain.
Let's just take a moment to discuss the mission and the mountains. How in the world are we going to find Osama's Been Hiding in the freaking Hindu Kush mountains? Stop me if I written this before. But come on. These are the Mt. Everest mountains. These are people who've known them for millenia. It would be like me dropping a quarter in the Rockies and telling you the south west corner of Colorado. Now bring it back. A 1972 quarter. From the Philadelphia mint, not the Denver. Don't bring a 1969 or a 1992. It's a 1972. And that's worth $20 million.
It seems rather unlikely.
Only got a moment on this computer before being up in six hours to be ready for our flight two hours before departing for home. Let me just mention someone who made an impact and a difference. Lt. Col Russ Cutting. I'm down with LTC. Russ is one of those guys who wants to do a good job because it's important to him and it's important that he make the soldiers comfortable here in Manas.
He's in charge of services and last week's routine about the size of the spoons in the DFAC has resulted in teaspoons and ceramic coffee mugs. I poked fun of him during the show and he got right on it, took action and made changes. We had a great laugh about it today.
The shows require that we don't sell merchandise, so the one t-shirt I bring on the trip is something I can't sell. But I like to give it to someone for appreciation for the work they do. And Russ is that guy. Now here's an Iron Man competitor who actually blushed when I gave it to him! I can only hope his wife says he deserves it (the shirt) and that she can vouch that he is capable of full-arm push ups. At least 80 of them.
More later from home...and thanks for tuning in. |
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| Incoming. Don't let it wake you. |
[Mar. 13th, 2006|04:09 am] |
Our last show in Afghanistan was last night. This one was outside on the basketball court. The one the night before was back in a clam shell (a temporary, soft-sided structure large enough for a plane) and went really well. It was great to finally be on the base we'd been trying to get to for a few days. Unlike Bagram, both of the shows here in S------ were preceded by a unique introduction.
The standard comedy club introduction is: "Please turn off your cell phones. Keep your talking to a minimum and your laughter to a maximum." I guarantee, you've never heard how our last two shows began. "Just a quick briefing before we begin. The latrines are there and there. If we take incoming mortar or fire, the bunkers are located on your right or back and to your left. Okay, for your first comedian..."
"If we take incoming fire?" That was reassuring and part of my first five minutes which really made them laugh. The other new opening involved the way the Afghani men who work on these bases look at the women. It's unbelievable. An American man will clock you up and down, store the information for later and move on. These guys get completely lost in seeing a female not on a leash. They're fascinated. They can't believe they see your face. Or maybe it's the elbow that gets them going. "I used to be a wrist man, but now, oh the elbow. The pointed end of an elbow!" That really got the crowd with me.
Not that I'm totally calling all Afghani men the same. Yesterday morning I was up at five and made it to the bakery by seven. There's a bakery on base where three local men make flat loaves either plain, cinnamon and sugar, or garlic. I went in and they let me take pictures while I waited for tea and a fresh cinnamon-sugar bread. Their operation was so simple and ancient.
On one wall, was a trough where a fifty or one hundred pound bag of flour was mixed by hand with three buckets of hot water, half a package of baking soda, two handfuls of yeast and a package and a half of salt. Mixed by hand and sheer arm strength of a very skinny man. The process of raising was something I didn't stick around for but along another wall, small pieces already formed in circles awaited the next step. A young man oiled a metal tray, flattened them out and then pounded them with a designed circle that gave breathing holes. He laid these out and the third man pushed them onto a leather pallet that looked like a bar stool seat. He then picked this up and slammed them onto the inside of the clay oven's walls. They cooked on the walls until he removed them with tongs. The same tongs he used to pull the boiling water pot for my tea.
This guy was the strongest and was very interested in what I did. I asked to take pictures and the man who the bakery was named after said, "Sure. Sure." The oven man asked if I was a journalist. I said "No, I'm a comedian."
"What is...?"
"Comedy. Jokes. I tell jokes and people laugh. Laughter. Ha, ha, ha?"
"You write."
Huh? He brought out a pad of paper and asked me to write for later interpretation. So I wrote, Comedy, Comedian, Comic, Jokes, Laughter. He said he was learning the language, English, to get a better job, make more money. I gave him the thumbs up. During the time I was there, soldiers and local workers popped their heads in the open window to order. Four loaves for a dollar. The shop was in constant motion. The youngest one asked me "How much that camera?"
"Oh. A lot. Eight hundred dollars."
"A lot!"
Then I said,"So expensive. My apartment in New York is one thousand every month."
Handsome oven man said, "One thousand? I don't have one thousand one year!"
"I know! It's too much. One thousand for a month is twelve thousand in a year!"
Their company was pleasant and I felt honored to have watched them work and to have been able to take pictures. I bought two more breads and paid them $2 for the tea and three loaves and they were happy.
What would a nation of people be like that was filled with only agriculture and no education? One of the soldiers on another base in a remote area said the people would walk in sneakers without socks through the snow with only a sheet on them to get to the base. Walk all day and then walk back. He said they lived in homes that were clay brick with dirt floors. Why don't the people who make these beautiful rugs and weave with camel and sheep hair, cover their homes in their own crafts? He said they had no electricity and no one was educated. What would that life be like?
One that made them vulnerable to being constantly attacked and exploited. But no army who's come here has been able to take them. Inevitably the mountains win. The Taliban is only the latest attempt at seizing their land and these people are joining the US and the Coalition forces to free themselves from the latest intrusion.
The base I'm on right now is one that's bordering Pakistan. And reportedly, before it turns into Sabbath, Friday is fireworks night - meaning incoming shells and mortars. This requires this location to be a "black ops" base. There are no lights on at night. You can't walk with a white light either. It has to be any color other than white. So a red or blue laser attached to your clothing can pass you in the night. The moon has been out and has made the evening visible without our lasers. But the base is rather large and anyone wanting to aim in, whether it's dark or not, has an obvious target.
This morning I was up at four since I'd gone down last night at ten-thirty. As I walked to the latrine, I heard helicopters. Then some rapid fire from a gunner! I'm sure that's what it was. I sat on the commode, reading, then heard a rocket! But nothing after that. A rocket? Should I get to the bunkers? Should I open the latrine door? Should I just keep reading? I chose the latter and returned to the tent. No one else was up in our row of tents. No one had given it concern or had alerted the base to take cover. I guess I shouldn't either.
Now we wait to leave in hopes that last night's rains won't have made the dirt runway too muddy for a fixed-wing aircraft to return us to Bishkek. Wait and wonder. Learn it, live it. |
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| Ground Hog Day after Day after Day |
[Mar. 11th, 2006|12:08 am] |
Ground Hog Day. Think the Bill Murray movie. That is the term the military folks use to describe life on the base. And after having spent four days and three nights at Bagram, where we were supposed to have left after one night, we were fast bonding with the term ourselves. After two days longer than expected, we were reaching our threshold of DFAC, MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation - the branch entertainment usually comes through) movies, internet access when there's time and we're not taking it away from soldiers and more food. I'll hand it to Bagram's DFAC though, I had crab legs on the way out. I was loading up a to-go box and explaining to a contractor when we'd be performing next when Fab, our tour manager came up and said "It's go time."
That means now. You are summoned and given small windows of opportunity to catch your flights and if the slightest thing goes wrong, it will. The night before we were on steel beach (where the helicopters land and park and depart) and something went wrong, we may have not made it on to the manifest in time or whatever, but we had to go back and spend the night again.
We half expected it. It did allow us to get to the Friday Bazaar where the local nationals have a chance to sell metal sculptures, rugs, pillow covers, blankets, scarves, leather coats, onyx carved vases and drinking glasses, wooden boxes, jewelry, gemstones and the ultimate: a picture of a camel. Or a picture of you on a camel or you next to the camel. Of course, I had to have me on a camel but the ultimate was the picture of the camel's official ID, which had the camel on it! Hysterical.
It was a great distraction and opportunity to feel this truly foreign place. The land is not surprising. We have the Rockies and they reach into Canada with even more impressive height and power. But really, land formations are not what makes a place foreign. What don't we have in America? Plains, mountain ranges of varying ages: Ozarks to Cascades, waterfalls, ocean shores, badlands, canyons, deserts high and low, forests of hardwood and evergreen only, even rain forests! We've got everything in America as far as landforms. It's the people that make a place different.
They're harder to get next to. There are only male third country nationals working on the bases in the kitchens and in custodial positions. They look at me with awe since I'm not a soldier in uniform but a female without a leash. One soldier described the level of respect the local culture has for "its women" which keeps them out of view. But how much respect is involved in total control of another human being? Not much if that person is considered inferior. Perhaps it's control over a mouth to feed that doesn't tend sheep or bring in income that infuses this cultural characteristic.
So I bought a burka at the bazaar. And back at the tent, I put it on and started taking pictures and cracking jokes: I'm having a bad hair day and you can't tell! Does my butt look to big or too small in this burka? My husband thinks I laugh at all his jokes but under here, I'm reading! No! No! I'm not reading! I can't. Remember? It is almost impossible to see through the burka. It may be a great technique to protect the eyes from dust, but you're not running anywhere fast without hitting a tree or tripping in that armor of disappear.
Graffiti in a port-a-john: someone had written "I (heart-love) defending freedom" in all of the portos near the tent. Then in one, "I (heart-love) defending freedoms I don't have." And what freedom is that resentment expressing? The freedom to control a woman? The freedom to be hungry? The freedom to defend your country from constant marauding invaders? I didn't understand it. Maybe it was the freedom to go home and watch cable in air conditioning or heat.
I felt so invisible under the burka. So I convinced a soldier to loan me his unloaded M-4 and took some pictures of me with the burka on and the gun in hand. We were out of view of anyone so as not to send the local males into a frenzy of disrespect. But I'm going to call any routine I do with the burka on, "The Burka Payback Tour."
We finally left that base for another FOB (forward operating base) which is closer to the mountains and deeper in. Only helicopters can land here as it's not a big enough base for fixed-wing aircraft like Bagram or Manas which are air bases. I've flown in a Chinook (and owned a Toyota camper version) before and like the back where the tail's down and a gunner sits at the ready. But it was night and it's still only March 10th. And that meant it was freaking cold! Thankfully the soldier next to me loaned a spare pair of gloves he had. Thank you mysterious kind one! Then later let me peep through his night vision monocular.
Wow. That is so effective. There was a half-moon out last night and everything was blue-light lit. But through the night-vision, everything is really lit with green radiant light and all stones and shadows are visible. It's amazing technology and I can't even wonder how they made it but I surely appreciated it. Emphasis on radiant, perhaps? I would have appreciated some radiating heat blowing on us but that was not to be. It was cold on that flight in the middle of the night and when we landed - which is also amazing in a Chinook because it is the smoothest feeling of not even knowing you've come down - we "assembled at the six o'clock position." At the back of the helicopter, around twenty or thirty feet behind, you can easily get warm by standing in the jet-engine exhaust. Yup, stood right there breathing deep the fumes of diesel. It was a strange scent too: kind of sweet like beer and jelly fried. It was warm.
This FOB is really bare bones. There isn't really a PX even. And the buildings look like an old prison. It's stark. But I will say this for the kerosene latrine - for a toilet without water, it wasn't bad. There's definitely water for showering and flushing here, but close to the bunks, that was the choice for the middle of the night. And despite the resentment of being awoken by a full bladder at 4:30 am, I was grateful for what I saw on my way to the latrine, stars.
The moon was gone and the stars were everywhere. I haven't seen that in years. In New York and LA, the light pollution is so bad, there are anywhere from 12-20 stars in the night sky. How big and disconnected from the universe do we feel when we can look out and count the stars in the sky? But last night...oh the light and abundance. There were so many stars, it took me a long moment to find the big dipper. A glittering proliferation of what is good and bigger and geometrically perfect to remind us here, what we're a part of. I was so grateful to see the stars again.
Not sure if we'll get a chance to perform at this base. Gotta go catch another Chinook ride but this time, at least it's during the day! |
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| Half-Hour Time Zone? |
[Mar. 9th, 2006|04:04 am] |
Or is it Zulu? Why is it Zulu? Are the hands of the clock spears? No. It's basically Greenwich mean time which means to one constant 24 hour clock which is the same time all over the world. Where we are now, it's Zulu plus 4.5 hours. A half?
We flew from Manas (pr: ma-nas, unless you're a comedian like me and then it's Man-Ass) air base in Bishkek, Kyrgystan a couple of days ago. I think. I can' keep track of what day is the date I'm in, came from or slept through. How do you travel in a time zone that changes not by the hour, but by the half-hour? Perhaps these mountains surrounding the Bagram air base in Afghanistan are so high, (they're a part of the Himalyan range) they collapse time in an upwardly spatial movement? All I know is I sleep in four-hour segments and none of them yet has been through the night.
The theme for the military is always hurry-up-and-wait. We arrived on Sunday, March 5 at 5 or 6 in the morning and had a show that night. Then we were supposed to leave at 1 am on a flight only to have that canceled. Yay! We get to sleep, if we can. The next day at breakfast Sheila Van Dyke, a funny lady I worked with in New Hampshire and recommended for this run, is also a chronic flirt. She says yes to an 8 am show for the shift that just got off and is returning to base. So the two of us gave a show to 24 people in the same clam-shell where we'd performed for over 400 the night before. Do what you're told is part of the drill.
We went to go shopping in Bishkek. Kyrgystan is a former Soviet Socialist republic and it shares some border with China. They won their independence from Russia in 1991 around the same time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of the people speak Russian though and everything is written in cyrilic (How the hell is that word spelled? It's Cyrillic. Thanks spell-check.). There are two races of Krygys. Asian and White. You think a clerk is Chinese, but she's really Russian and speaks to her Caucasian countrywoman in the same language.
It would have been fascinating to enjoy the dialogue between the young, White interpreter with me and the young, Asian clerk in the market where we were, but suddenly we were called to return to base. We got back to the Manas A/B and started packing for a flight show-up time in :40 minutes. Only to be told :35 minutes into our preparations that we were now off that flight and had to do a show in four hours; again at Manas.
Comedy is not a sing-along experience and when you tell the same jokes to half the same people you told them to the night before, they know what's coming. The element of surprise is gone and they watch you perform. So you have to get live. I made fun of the DFAC.
What's a DFAC? Nothing is done in the military unless it can be made more efficient - so acronyms rule. The dining facility is a DFAC. Your person of contact is your POC. Manas DFAC had just experienced a management change and consequently, it wasn't living up to its past reputation. My routine about eating with spoons that were meant for serving - as if the stereotype about American big mouths needed to be fed that way - was a hit.
We assembled at 12:30 am after that show for a 4 am departure to Bagram. Yup, get there, check in, hang out then hopefully leave. I've flown on C-130 cargo planes but this one was a C-17 and it was huge. Two stories high and open on the inside. And you don't have to sit on mesh chairs face to face amongst intertwined knees with someone across from you. And there wasn't even a honey-pot, there was a lavatory. Which was so foul smelling I found a new use for my ear-plugs and shoved them in my nose. Good for a laugh. This time, necessity became the mother of comedic intervention.
What's a honey-pot you wonder? Another cute military misdirect. It's a bucket on a pedestal behind a shower curtain in the back of the cargo plane. Hey, I'm from Michigan and I've done a lot of camping. And my lentil bladder demands relief no matter the conditions. So in the past, I've stood for urinary freedom on that pedestal and relieved myself.
Bagram came into focus and we landed here two mornings ago after a short two hour flight. Then we had a show in the clam-shell which was attended by a couple of hundred Air Force and Army personnel. It was a great show too and we signed lots of autographs afterward. Then a first on this, my seventh military tour. Someone with my last name. Gonzalez? No, I meet a Gonzalez everywhere I go. The name's as ubiquitous as Smith. Actually, it is the Smith of Latino names and Rodriguez is the Jones. And even in Manas I met a gorgeous, muscled up and square-headed Puerto Rican future cop named Gonzalez. Hey Eddie!
But after the last show, I met a Barillas! You have to know that as a Latino, my name does not consist of simply two words. No, I'm Latino. My name has to be long enough for generations to cross the borders of time as well as land. This brown woman came through the line and I looked at her ID tag to see a last name I was sure would end in EZ. But there it was, my second last name. I jumped up and asked her if she was Cuban and she said her parents were from Nicaragua. Unbelievable. She gave me the ID patch off the back of her cap and promised to send an email. I look forward to sharing with her about our name, the way an unknown second cousin who's a retired teacher from the DC area found my branch of the family tree and explained her trace of our roots to the 1600's in Santander, Spain when the name was de Varillas.
Connection and communion. What makes Creation keep creating. |
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| Coney Island's "Shoot the Freak" |
[Jul. 25th, 2005|12:04 pm] |
My dear friend Magu came to see me in New York this past weekend. It was his first time back in fourteen years and he came with his beautiful and lovely wife Dani. Lois loves Magu and accompanied me to their wedding last year. She couldn't wait to ogle Magoo and was the funniest element (as usual!) of our group. Everyone indulged my request to attend a town hall meeting where Congressman Hinky, Treasurer Holzman and Randi Rhodes were making the case for impeachment based on the provable causes of treason, torture and theft. It was held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture who must believe freon gases are unethical and human sweat is supreme as the theater/auditorium had no air conditioning.
Before the Q & A began, we departed to reward our hunger by revisiting one of our old favorite New York haunts for dinner: DOJO. You cannot eat healthier nor cheaper in the city and I will wonder for the rest of my life how in the world the Japanese carrot tahini sauce is made. Dani wanted to go to Coney Island so we walked off some of our veggie-filled bellies from the NYU location toward the F train.
The new Dojo is located kitty-corner from the former Bottom Line. Former because NYU has now absorbed the space. It was hard to avoid the feelings of contempt for "progress" that cost this musical institution its lease. So on the way to the train, we stopped by CBGB's, the other birthing room for so much original punk rock and roll and took pictures underneath "Joey Ramone Way" on the Bowery. There was a photo exhibit on the gallery side and we went in and paid homage. Of course, Magu was the perfect fount of punk information and could describe in detail why Patti Smith had a neck-brace on and who the Dead Boys were and why Joey Ramone was the perfect misfit. "If someone who looked like him could be rock and roll, it wasn't about what you looked like, it was about the music and what you were saying."
Magu-my first and only true punk friend whose self-taught breadth of literary knowledge is now dispensed for free at Baker Books in New Bedford, Mass. where they're lucky to have him!
Summer in New York is not complete unless you've made a stop in one of the many saunas available for free in the subway. This is one of the finest and safest ways to taste hell's heat. Threaten to light up a smoke of any sort and watch what happens: the train (or Blackhawk as was recently evidenced) will immediately appear. The ride out to the end of the F line emerges from the Manhattan tunnels into the bright Brooklyn sky and its outdoor platforms. Dani'd picked the perfect activity for their one full day in the city.
A beach with readily accessible boardwalk food and amusement park rides and public transportation to get there in the most populated city in the country adds up to crowds of teaming, steaming, sweating masses. We blended into the flow and deposited ourselves at the Freak show and watched the barker try to entice the crowds all the while a screwdriver rested snugly up to its handle in his nose. We thought we'd save that for later and headed in to the land of screaming adults and children.
The first ride that attracted us was of course a reflection of Dani's Goth soul and we found ourselves in front of the horror house, along with a glass case where a dummy was bent over revealing a shredded and bleeding rectum and thighs through his torn pants. He repeatedly genuflected over a toilet and "vomited" water which by this point in its operation was more a dribble than a spray. The most captivating thing about this exhibit was the look on the children's faces as they wondered at his illness rather than recoiled in any horror. The joke of botulism or food poisoning was lost on them.
We wandered from the end of the park that contains the NY Aquarium to the other end with the boarded up building and the beautiful sea creature inspired borders, sills and sconces. Along the way were so many people of working class culture. None more obviously new to America than the dark Central American Indian people whose shortened stature and Mayan faces reveal their origins. They were at the beach along with all the other kissing, dancing, running, dating people and their children and the well-dressed strolling retired people. The most distinctive feature of the new immigrants is that they were at the beach, also accompanied by their children, but they were engaged in the one American enterprise that will keep them here: selling. Their carts offered toys, fruit or drink. At their stage of embracing the American system this was their form of a "working vacation."
The most disconcerting "game" on the boardwalk was surrounded by a crowd under a sign luring them to "Shoot the Freak." What was this? Some target shot game at monsters or creatures? It was located within the empty space between two buildings on the boardwalk which had been filled with targets of bowling pins, fifty-gallon drums, bottles, picket fences and bulls-eyes. Ducking in and out of them, pacing slowly around the four corners of the created space was a young Black kid in a padded black jumpsuit and helmet. He tried to seem like a moving object at which the rifleman? hunter? sniper? gunner? could aim and arrive at some sense of mastery. Or the self-satisfaction derived from shooting at fish in a barrel.
It was sickening. "Shoot at a live human!" "We're all targets!" "He's a 'freak,' not one of us. Shoot at him!" The barkers said none of these things. The only thing they could repeat was "Shoot the freak. Shoot him with a paint-ball gun. Come on. Shoot the freak." The kid looked bored and listless as he wandered back and forth waiting for someone to take a shot at him. I couldn't watch the game proceed.
I haven't seen war. I've been on its periphery. The closest I've ever come to live rounds of fire were not in Baghdad, Kosovo, Croatia or Bosnia. It was on the street in front of my home in San Francisco in 1994. And it was terrifying to look out the window at one group of Chicano guys in white baseball jerseys with red stripes taking aim at another group of guys who looked just like them but wore jersey's of blue stripes. I called 911 along with everyone else in the neighborhood according to the operator. But still there were no cops. I gave my name and eventually testified and made the jury laugh when asked on the stand, "What do you think of when the gangs are fighting on your street?"
"I wish they'd go to the park and do it."
"Why should they go to the park?"
"Because most of them are terrible shots and they usually miss their targets."
War, targets, dehumanizing a person and the event of pointing a gun at someone and shooting at them as entertainment was the most disconcerting thing I'd seen at Coney Island. Even the presence of numerous fire trucks and their flashing lights lined up to attempt a rescue of someone possibly drowning was more natural than this display of violence as entertainment. Perhaps the customers who stepped up were "Masters" at video games like "Grand Theft Auto" and wanted to take the game a step closer to reality. Or maybe they were people trying to kill something in themselves. |
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| Azra lost her arm - joyfully? |
[Jul. 15th, 2005|06:51 pm] |
We left Kosovo yesterday and had to return to Vienna. The flight would have taken twenty minutes but because there is airspace restriction between the neighboring countries and they don't fly to each other, we had to yo-yo out from one to go backwards to the other.
The flight to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovenia from Vienna was one I shared with a remarkable woman. When I sat down in my aisle seat, I saw her pushing her bag under the seat with her left arm. She looked up and smiled and said in accented American-English, "I hope the flight isn't full so no one sits here between us, for more room." She smiled and I could see her right arm was missing. I offered to put her bag in the overhead and she was appreciative of that.
You know how you don't want to talk to people on a flight? You just want to read your magazine and maybe fall asleep? That's what I thought but I knew I was sitting next to someone who'd possibly been injured directly by the war in what was probably her country. She had short hair, glasses and the most open expression and manner about herself. Maybe she was 45 or 55. I couldn't tell.
What she told me was an amazing story of recovering, determination and flourishing despite the terrible tragedy of experiencing war in your home. Azra had been a social worker in Bosnia. She was Muslim and also volunteered at the Red Cross. It was on a day volunteering that the Red Cross became, along with hospitals, a target for bombing and she lost her arm. She didn't lose it, the hospital would amputate what was left of it because of the tremendous amount of injuries that day. A hospital that had been set up in a hydro-electric facility because the only safe place was underground.
Even though recovering and reattaching her arm may have been an option in an American hospital, it wasn't even considered on the day she and all of the wounded others came in. In a war, there is only the emergency measure of addressing the situation immediately and moving on to the next victim.
A month later, she was sponsored by an African-American family in Virginia Beach for her initial rehabilitation and spent several months living with this family of five while speaking no English.
She eventually made her way to Chicago where she again volunteered at the Red Cross. Her presence was welcome but she was only a volunteer. She needed to earn money and her degree wasn't recognized by the US so she couldn't work as a social worker. Then, a television reporter covering that Red Cross included her in the story.
A videotape of that segment was taken to the psychiatric lab on one of Northwestern University's campuses because they were looking for someone to interview refugee victims of the Serbian war. She landed a job which eventually paid after three weeks. It required translating their testimonies into English for the staff. Azra didn't even speak it but she took a free class offered in the Chicago area and was a member of mixed-body of students that included Latinos, Asians and Africans.
The entire time she related her story to me, she laughed and was so light hearted. I couldn't understand her free and open nature. When she was taken from the hydro-electric plant to the US, her family had no contact with her for two years and seven months. During that time, she didn't know who among her closest relatives and friends had lived or died. Nor did they know of her status. She would learn that her mother and brother and sister had lived and been sent to Switzerland. "A place," she said, "is the dream of all refugees. It is the greatest country in the world. You don't even need to be a citizen to vote! They take the best care of you in the world!"
"How can you be so happy? How did you survive and maintain such a healthy and open attitude?" I asked her. I couldn't understand how anyone could keep optimism and hope alive in themselves after having been brutalized by the monster that is war. She easily answered, "Because I want to live!" She knew immediately that there was something worth living for: life.
"When I'm in the hydro-electric hospital, I told them to give me paper and pencil. I begin writing with my other hand and started making lines only. I knew this is what I must deal with, so I had to begin then. There were young people all around in the place. Eighteen, nineteen who lost leg or arm. I told them to live! 'Look, I have lost my arm and I am alive!' But so many of them die. They died because they DID NOT WANT TO LIVE."
This woman simply chose her future by demanding it of herself. She chose to live. She goes to Winterpark in Colorado to ski because there is a facility for disabled people "and we get a discount too!" she roared with laughter. She has managed to buy a home in a northern suburb of Chicago. She listens to Suze Orman. She laughs and loves this life. When she has every reason to rage against it. She felt like a piece of the sun sitting next to me on an airplane. Her life is a blessing to any life she touches and she touched mine. |
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| Kosovo Redux |
[Jul. 13th, 2005|12:19 pm] |
I hope I've used French correctly in the title. Anyone feel like correcting me? Please help yourself. Funny that I'd use French considering the anti-French attitude that persists. The Albanians aren't fans and we all know America's blame game. What's really ironic is the Army's change in uniform right before the war. From the baseball cap to the beret. I wonder if anyone saw the frown it makes as it lays on the side of the head? I'm not seeing ANY berets since we've been out here.
Being in Kosovo for the third time in my life is actually inspiring. The last time I was here was for Thanksgiving 2001, right after September 11th. It still looked war-torn: garbage everywhere, dust and dirt and smoke in the air, sadness on the local's faces who are the hired contractors on these bases, markets on the side of the road selling not food or clothing, but gravestones.
Today, four years later, there is a definite success to the NATO/UN peace-keeping presence. The houses are being finished. The people were enjoying a day at a public pool. Children were playing off the side of the road and didn't even bother to wave at the military convoys. Junkyards are kept in pristine order, cars stacked and parts organized in an easily retrievable fashion. Crops growing and stacks of hay in the yards. Tractors and agricultural tasks being accomplished.
The last time I was here, it looked like Iraq looked last week. Dry, dusty, smoke and fear the veil across everyone's face. Now that has been lifted and despite the centuries old conflict faced by the ethnic Albanians who live in Kosovo and are trying to establish their own country separate from Serbia and Montenegro, both who want to claim it as their own, the people of the country have some sense of hope for their future. They live with the knowledge that for four hundred years, they've been fought over and ruled by someone other than themselves.
Ah democracy. "Democracy is fragile," said the young Mexican-American private at the PX three days ago. We arrived and were getting settled and I told him we'd just come from Iraq and Baghdad. He told me he'd already been but agreed to a paper-pushing job upon reenlisting and came to Kosovo. He voiced a common thread I'd hear from officers to enlisted people: where are the weapons of mass destruction? Why are we there? This question is becoming the prevailing thought especially for those witnessing the dangers of trying to bring democracy to an ancient dictatorship/theocracy in the Middle East.
But, like another young Chicano from Los Angeles, it's not as hard for him as for others. We saw him at the R & R camp we entertained at on the fourth of July. I spoke with him for a while and discovered he was enlisted, 24 years old and single. He said what he faced in Baghdad was similar to the aggression he saw on the streets where he lived in East L.A.. He also said the National Guard people who came to serve weren't ready for the experience for which he was responsible to train them.
"I show them how to frisk and check a 'Haji' (the generic American term used to refer to an Iraqi) and then take them out. As soon as I give them one to check, they all turn and ask me how to do it. They're so scared." Yeah, they're so scared because they're Americans who signed up to guard our nation, within our borders, at HOME. This young man was happy to be single and without children so that he could do his job unencumbered by concern for anyone but his own safety. How understandable is that?
If Iraq can someday become a full democracy, what a gift to the region it would be. And yet, democracy is something wrought by the people themselves. America's was paid for by the slaughter of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, wars to free itself from Britain and France and internal wars among its own citizens to form a uniform idea of common good through individual freedom. How is that going to be possible in Iraq when the people are used to being brutalized by a dictator?
Or dictated a prescribed way of living by their religion? How do you teach someone an idea they have to have themselves?
Jen said she'd done a cruise ship tour and one of the speakers on the tour was Carol Mosely Braun, a congresswoman from California (and one of the only representatives to vote AGAINST the war in Iraq). Do you know what Carol Mosely Brawn dared ask? How do you set up a democracy in another country and include as a part of its constitution that twenty-five percent of the representatives must be female? How do you require that America, when we only have fourteen percent in our own? |
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| SPF-B (for Burka) |
[Jul. 8th, 2005|06:07 pm] |
That's Jennie McNulty's joke. Sun protection factor, burka. We had the entire day off in Kuwait City and we went to the Persian Gulf, or Arabian depending on who's claiming it. And we, as females exposed, were the highlight of the beach. Even if Jennie was wearing surf shorts and a jog bra and I was wearing shorts and an athletic bra as well, we couldn't be further from the bikini babe set you see on television broadcast here on the soft-core porn channel called FTV, fashion television. But we still roused attention and long gaping stares from the third-country males working here in Kuwait.
Indian and Phillipino men stood transfixed watching us swim and skip stones. The opportunity to see female flesh without a leash on it must have been too overwhelming for them and they had to stand nearby for as long as we were out there. Thankfully, Yoursie came with us and was the male presence we needed in order to at least be left alone to be able to enjoy the water.
It's Friday, but for the Muslim Arab nations, that marks their Sabbath or Sunday. So the area was deserted of locals. Toward the end of our day, some Muslim Indian females approached us asking to take our picture. The mother was in a colorful sari with a loose head scarf and her adolescent daughter was wrapped like a nun in black with her face exposed and her younger sister was dressed like any other kid, prompting the wonder if a woman becomes under wraps once she enters the mark of being female. We gladly complied with their picture request and asked if we could take one also. It was hard to communicate as they had very little English.
Their men, talking with Yoursie and Jeff, our tour manager, then asked to take our picture. We begrudgingly agreed but I kept a sour look on my face and didn't smile. Look, we're women in a country that keeps women hidden. Or advertises for marriage arrangements in the newspaper! here's an example from the paper under the classified listing, "Matrimonial:"
"Proposals invited for a RCSC girl 25/5'4", law graduate (Thrissur Dist) on visit visa, from qualified and employed RCSC boys."
Okay, so most of the ads are from Hindi workers, but it's advertising for a marriage partner!
Anyway, at the beach, after mosque let out, there were more Arab people there. Arab men. But an Arab woman in her burka and yes folks, she too wants to enjoy the delights of swimming in the salt water. And how does she do it? Fully clothed. That's right, wade right in and try not to drown on the material that threatens to billow up and swirl around your throat. Who could blame her for wanting to cool off? If it's 110 degrees and you're wearing all black, from head to toe, really, you might want to take a dip. Maybe the material being wet is the best way to wear it and let it air dry on you while you walk in the heat.
We leave for Vienna and bid goodbye to the Middle East in a four hours. Honestly, I don't know what the draw would be to come here as a tourist destination unless you were visiting museums which housed things like what we'd expect in Babylon and Baghdad. Then again, there may be someone in America who really wants to see sheer desert, the architecture that oil riches can buy and the many forms and worship a mosque can take. The women swimming in burkas, a religious intolerance that forbids alcohol by law, a rigidity borne of the institutionalization of that belief system. It reminded me of the early 20th century in America where women swam in outfits similar to dresses just for the beach. And the level of noise created by religious intolerance in my own country demanding the legislation of their agenda.
Oops. Are my politics showing? Along with my thick American-Latin booty. |
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| A "General" Mistake |
[Jul. 6th, 2005|08:07 am] |
Okay, it's the last day in Baghdad before we return to Kuwait City and I've just made a goofy mistake in the dining facility. For the past few days, I've been making fun of the insignias and rank identifiers. A sergeant with stripes, rockers, diamonds, stars, parenthesis. Who the captains, majors, bars or flowers are. At breakfast I saw one I couldn't identify until realizing my mistake. "What's the star for?" I blurted out as a man passed me. He laughed and leaned over and dismissively said about his rank, "It's just means general officer."
General. I mistake a general for a regular person. How could I have forgotten the obvious? A star is a star and they're fabulous! He was really gracious and came over and enjoyed breakfast with me and we had a conversation about the rebuilding of Iraq because he's in the Army Corps of Engineers.
Yesterday's rides were wild. First, when I was summoned from the computer, it was because our enhanced convoy had assembled. Then, when we got in the vehicle, the lead one!, our commander and navigator was a female sergeant! AND it was her first time leading a convoy! So it was a really soothing and relaxing ride to the next base we went to. She was in constant radio contact with others and was in full battle command with the gunner who had other work to do.
It was his job to clear traffic by blowing his horn, throwing rocks and yelling at the top of his lungs, "Awba! Awba! AWBA!" Which sounded like <> and made sense since we were going to their base which has little water. How that guy was able to retain a voice for all that yelling was beyond me. And how are you supposed to clear traffic from a crowded highway? It was really intense.
We had a moment to gather ourselves and I grabbed a three-minute shower before jumping on stage. You just can't go on when your shirt is dripping wet from sweat from having ridden in a Humvee whose transmission was going and radiating fresh waves of heat every time the driver accelerated. Plus the Kevlar vest weighs and compresses your chest and the helmet's not letting any heat out. No wonder our sergeant told us she'd lost 15 pounds so far on her tour!
After the show and autograph table, we jumped back in and headed to the final show on a base with a precision strike. We were at the former ministry of defense and its communication building was completely destroyed. Still standing, yes, but collapsed and aloft only by cement counter-balanced rebar ribs. Reminded me of Detroit. Jennie (McNulty-a former Detroiter and comedian friend who's also on the tour) said as soon as we landed, "Looks like Devil's Night in Detroit doesn't it?"
We were in a theater and gave a great performance, our last in Iraq and were delighted to discover we'd finally be flown back to the main base by Blackhawk. So we sat there in the dark and watched one fly by after an hour. And they are the definition of stealth. There are no lights on and they know just what they're doing.
Several soldiers started to come to the Blackhawk stop and wait to go on leave. I heard the lieutenant (a Jewish girl!) quietly say to our capitan, "Do you think you have room for seven?" What!? We'd have to spend another night away from the initial base?! Dang. Then, when it had been almost an hour and a half, despite the distraction of listening to Muslim imams singing out prayers in the night, I announced to Jennie, "I'll make the helicopter come." And proceeded to pull out the Cuban cigars I had purchased from Camp Falcon.
Before I could pull one out of its protective plastic, our ride came. And it was so awesome. I sat behind a gunner with the hot air blasting in from his open window as we crossed Baghdad and came back to Camp Victory. Our two personal warriors, as we'd come to call the soldiers assigned to us on security detail, were psyched too.
Josh Tolman and Joe Sens had been in theater for five months and had only suffered a minor shrapnel incident. This is what they'd used to sooth any concerns when it became clear we'd need to travel by convoy and not helicopter. We put our faith and safety in the hands of the young people serving and jumped in two days prior. After the first run, Josh and Joe then told us the incident was two days prior. Bastards! But it was good comedy material to open with.
But it's over. We're leaving today and we've accomplished our mission without incident. It's on to Kuwait this afternoon. |
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| Combat Civilians |
[Jul. 5th, 2005|10:48 am] |
We are now officially, "combat civilians." This means, if we were enlisted, we'd have earned the right to wear the combat patch representing our division on our right arms because we'd been in an active military theater. How'd we do this? By being grounded from the air and still getting to the FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) only by convoy. An FOB is the place front-line soldiers go to resupply before heading out on their missions and patrols.
Yesterday's shows started with the news that we'd be driving on the "most dangerous road in the world" to get to the first show. And that would also include driving right through Baghdad, crossing the Euphrates and Tigris rivers at points. You'd think, from all the news coverage of insurgent car and suicide-bomb attacks, that that would be the scariest thing in the world to do. But it wasn't.
First off, because we're in up-armored Humvees which are the most protected those vehicles can get. Secondly, we're surrounded by the US Military which provokes a sense of security. A gunner sits on top and points outward and he's also got a sidearm. As do the driver and navigator. Thirdly, and most importantly what I recognized this morning in the middle of what was supposed to be night, if you spend your time thinking about what could possibly happen to you, you're sunk. You can paralyze yourself with possibilities when the truth is only what is happening to you at the time. The only truth is the present.
Perhaps that is the strongest thought a soldier can arm themselves with in order to inspire what we'd recognize as bravery. Do what's in front of you and put aside anything else that is not. Now isn't that the message of many schools of spirituality? Be in the present because it is the only thing that is.
Our 4th of July was spent in dining facilities draped with red, white and blue ribbons. When I asked the guys on the patio at our original location who were preparing to celebrate the day through a barbeque whether we'd be seeing any fireworks at any of the bases they laughed. Why? I asked, "Would it be culturally insensitive to the Iraqis to celebrate an American holiday?" "No," one of the soldiers answered, "Fireworks wouldn't be anything other than a perfect mortar magnet." Oh! Duh.
We're assigned to two shows a day at different bases. So our second show took place in an area within the green zone which is filled with major installations from S.H.'s regime. We were at an FOB formally designated for his Republican National Guard's Officer's Club. There was a beautiful swimming pool and an Olympic diving platform. Someone said SH used to be an Olympic diver. To swim and play in a pool and off a platform we're sure women never used from their own choice, made us revel in an American sense of freedom.
Diving and playing with guys and girls after our show in the pool was transposed against an idea in my mind that the interplay of men and women is something so enjoyable for an American and something so unknowable for the women of this culture.
We had a moment this morning so we went to S.H.'s former stadium where he'd watch his troops pass. It was a place where he'd built a tomb for the unknown soldier, crossed swords at either end to mark entry and his viewing platform which actually had air-conditioning tubes to shoot at those seated. Jennie and I gladly sat where he and Tariq Azziz had sat again marvelling at the position in which two women were now seated. The security guard was a young man of 20 who'd marched at 18 past S.H.
Right now, we're waiting for the convoy to bring more vehicles to us to get to the next FOB. In the meantime, fine dust covers everything. Rub your eye and dust scrapes against your palm. Swallow and it's ...time to go! ride's here! |
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| Independence in Iraq |
[Jul. 4th, 2005|08:23 am] |
There's so much I've been recording in the writing journal I'm traveling with - usually a day later. But internet access is sketchy. Sometimes it's up and sometimes it's slower than a dial-up on a Flintstones phone. Last night, I kept falling asleep while I waited for a page to load.
And of course, there's little time this morning before heading out to the PX for some postcards before hopefully being able to Blackhawk it to today's two destinations. Yesterday's were grounded by dust storms and we made the supreme risk (in our civilian minds) of taking a convoy for about twenty miles to entertain at a notorious base. A place whose shows had been canceled for months who wanted us to come so badly, they sent their own convoy of Hummers to come and get us.
That was an appreciative audience. Even if the only activity they could provide for us was a tour of their base which is all about redemption through incarceration. We went into a small building known as the death house where over 20,000 had been shoved off this mortal coil through firing squad or hanging. Yes, we were exposed to the room and the sound of the steel doors slamming open in a demonstration of how these executions of "justice" were carried out. It was really hard to "enjoy" this exposure but that's all this one base had to offer and they wanted to show what they're doing here.
We're staying in a "hotel" which is really an outer building to one of Saddam's big palaces in Baghdad. We were taken into the palace itself, which is now a headquarters for the multi-national operation. What struck me most about the opulence and marble columns and designs was how magisterial the edifice seemed. America has buildings of this grandeur, but ours are common spaces for judiciary or artistic pursuits - court houses or museums. I could only hope for the day when the Iraqi people would reclaim one man's delusion of grandeur for their common glory.
Time to head out. |
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| America's finest swimming hole |
[Jun. 10th, 2005|11:32 am] |
West Fork, Arkansas - just southeast of Fayetteville in the northwest corner of the state
Now, this is the place for the perfect summer swim. The first time I discovered it was six years ago on my third big tour around the country. It was my first time working for Heffron and I was in town for four nights. I was driving the Chinook and during that run at the Fayetteville club (which is now gone and a furniture store), I'd meet and appreciate the post-punk hipness of Allyn Ball.
As was my habit, I'd hike every day if possible. And I'd discovered West Fork on my way to somewhere else. It's hard to miss this river swim bordered by a sandstone cliff on one flank and the inviting municipal park on its other. The twenty foot cliff is visible from the road and filled with kids in the mini caves and crevices blown out by the wind, all taunting and resting before returning to the water. Ah, the beautiful water.
It's a fork of the White River and because of a river's nature of constant motion, it's a beautiful clean green. The temperature is the perfect coolness to wash off the hot summer drive in an un-airconditioned car. Which is kept so because the mileage is saved by not turning it on, $2.08 a gallon, thankyouverymuch. The day before, I stretched my miles per gallon to 34.7 by driving 72 miles per hour.
The journey to rediscover the swimming hole was complicated by my six-year-old memory of it. I knew it was near Fayetteville and began with an E. I'd confused the outward reaching arms of the letter E for the upward pointing ones of the W. Four different people and directions in two hours later, I finally made it.
First, an older man mowing his ditch on a rider mower helped me out. And because I was operating from an E, he gave me directions to Elkins a town he referred to as a "poke and plum town. You know what that is? It's a place by the time you poke your head out the window, it's plum gone!" His directions, which were easy and long, I did not follow. The temptation to be self-directed and faster (an American curse) found me on the receiving end of a quick-sketched map by a woman in a four-door Subaru. Taking one wrong turn from her deposited me back at a home where a landscaper was working. He reconfirmed hers and on my way to damned Elkins where nothing looked familiar and became increasingly more frustrated with every mile that passed not revealing the cliff!
I made it to Elkins and turned behind Harp's grocery down to a municipal park just like the woman told me only to realize - this is not the place! Thankfully, a young mother of two who was wet from her own dip in the river was pushing her kids on the swings. Her rainbow tie-dyed shirt was an invitation to friendliness and I announced mine as the lone person in a car driving up to her seemingly "private" park. "I'm lost!" I smiled and approached. She laughed and repeated, "You're lost." When I described the cliff, she knew exactly where I needed to be and sent me off to West Fork.
The twenty foot cliff can't be missed. The beautiful sea green river awaits any who bother to stop; along with all the local folks who recognize how easily and naturally their children can be entertained. Arkansas calls itself, "The Natural State," and nothing makes me feel more natural and alive than jumping into this water, free of charge thankyouverymuch, and swimming upstream and away from all the folks and kids. The current's so easy, the scenery passes as quickly as I swim up. And once I'm winded and need a break, what better respite that to crab-paddle-tread on my back looking at the cliffs and their crevices. Gray, red, beige and washed black are the muted colors of the rock with bright yellow lichen accents. The cypress-like trees and root systems hang on and establish their toeholds in the wall.
What could be better than floating in clean water, resting in it up to my covered ears, and watching the clouds take that so often form of ever-changing faces?
Exit 53 from I-540/170 E into West Fork |
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| The hand of Michigan |
[May. 18th, 2005|12:11 pm] |
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I can't imagine it's time to move. It might not be. But I recently bought a few acres and a fieldstone cabin in Michigan and I feel like I'm having a crush or I'm "in-love" because it's all I think about. When I'm chanting (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo) I'm only visualizing the trees I just planted with family and friends. Four hundred trees. Mostly white pine, but some sugar and red maple and tamarack and white and norway spruce. I've put my roots in and now I can feel myself wanting to watch those little saplings grow. Plus there's so much work to be done on the cabin and I could live so much cheaper there! The $1500 I spend every month to pay my rent in New York would buy a furnace and good wood stove and, in the words of my brother Oscar, a Cuban singer who's sung with Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, "For that much money, you could have your entire place remodeled in six months!" But New York and LA are where it's at for entertainment. Yet, I know so many comics who work consistently and don't live in either location. Michigan is shaped like a hand and I swear it's pulling me back. |
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| Sisterhood is Powerful! |
[Oct. 23rd, 2002|01:12 pm] |
Last night I had the fortune to entertain the Ms. Foundation Benefit held at Caroline's on Broadway. I met Gloria Steinem who, I learned from Kate Clinton, originally moved to New York to write comedy for a show called "The Week That Was." Of course she did. Gloria Steinem's the woman who first said: "If men could menstruate, abortion would be a sacrament and tampons would be federally funded." Who says feminists aren't funny?
I told Ms. Steinem what an honor it was to meet her and she insisted I call her Gloria. This from a woman who used to answer every request for her autograph with the same. She wanted your autograph too! The feeling of being treated as an equal among the heavy-weights in the women's movement and in comedy (Caroline Rhea, Aisha Tyler, Kathleen Madigan, Robin Montague and Vicki Shaw were among the other featured performers) felt so unfamiliar. But any discomfort I experienced from being respected was offset by inspiration.
I showed Gloria my idea for the Latin version of the title of "Ms." which I assumed came from shortening the marriage identification of Mrs. or Miss. She informed me that in the 12th or 13th century, school children were referred to as "master" or "mistress." And it was also an abbreviation in secretarial handbooks from the 40's and 50's. That's where Ms. came from. Then I showed her my idea for the Spanish version of Ms. which is to drop the end of Senor, (yes, I'm aware I'm missing the ~ mark over the n's) Senora and Senorita and create the new title: Sena. She liked it so much she suggested I say it on stage.
But I'm a comedian and I don't have a joke for it. Yet. Stay tuned. |
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| TO Cuba! |
[Oct. 1st, 2002|01:38 pm] |
Hurricane Lili sambas across the western portion of the island, following the path of Isidore last week. My family's history is being mimicked by the weather as a welcome. I follow my father to the land where he was born, almost 80 years ago. He hasn't been back since 1958. My cousin returned two years ago and she says it'll be the same as he left it...only all the people he remembers will be gone.
I want to meet this land, the people, the music, the smell of the sun there and look for a reflection of myself in their faces. Like what Miami felt like the first time I played it four years ago: finally a sense of place and belonging. If only for a projection-filled moment. I bought a mini-DV camera and will record as much as I can and hopefully turn it into something to share. |
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| College Gigs |
[Sep. 24th, 2002|10:38 pm] |
Somethings any entertainer should know about performing for the college "market." First, they don't even know they're a market. Second, they're just "starter humans" so give them a bit more room for the leftover growing pangs and spurts of adolescence. Third, they sure wish they could buy their own drinks. Finally, don't get mad if they keep looking at your boobs, see "second" above.
Gotta love 'em! And I do. Especially when I walk the "God-Squad," who thought I was too secular. Had they given me a chance, they'd have heard my favorite answer to "Who's your daddy?" The Lord. |
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| Greetings from a year later |
[Sep. 11th, 2002|09:50 am] |
This is a strange first entry but I am apocalyptically challenged when it comes to integrating new technologies and their corresponding responsibilities.
I awoke before 7am, showered, did morning gongyo then wondered if there'd be enough time to walk downtown. Not if I wanted to observe the moment of silence at 8:46am. I took the E train to its final stop: Chambers St. WTC. Naturally, the police blocked the exit which emerged in front of the former viewing platform. Most of us slowly exited onto Church at Barclay and were met with the warm and close press of so many others listening to the bagpipes and drums finishing "Amazing Grace." I kept walking.
On Broadway, people simply moved their way down, many stopping at satellite trucks on side streets. We looked over to the World Financial Center where people were standing on each of its external tiers. One "crazy" older woman flapped her arms, cried, babbled loudly and expressed her distress nearby. The mirrored walls of the WFC reflected back only one thought: I'm not supposed to be seeing you. You should be blocked by the towers.
I looked up into the sky and tried to imagine them there again. Then I remembered the last thing I watched on television last night, on "Nightline." A French aerial artist, Philippe Petit, was featured . In 1974, before the towers were opened, he trespassed and strung a wire between the rooftops of the two towers and walked back and forth between them several times. According to him, one of the reasons he did it was (and I paraphrase) "so people would look up and not just walk around the way people always do, their gaze and focus down. Look up to the sky and open their vision, open their heart. Take a full breath and feel what it is to dream."
It was hard to imagine today. |
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