New Song - Bastrop

My brother added another song of mine to the sound page. It's called "Bastrop." For want of a better name. I also wrote this one a while back. I'd been meaning to buy a mandolin for a few years, and finally scraped up some money for a cheap one.

On Day 1 of having my mandolin, I worked out most of the chords. Mandolin strings, like violin strings, are essentially the top 4 strings on a guitar flipped upside down: G D A E (and doubled for a total of 8 strings). So if you are good at guitar, you can figure your way around a mandolin.

On Day 2 of the mandolin, I learned Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore" which was a hell of a lot easier than I imagined it would be. But it still sounds awesome.

On Day 5, I decided to write a song. The first step was to get a guitar rythmn. I already had written this particular rythmn for my 12-string accoustic several months before, and it was kind of like a little orphan. I thought it would be a good fit for a tune featuring my new mandolin, so I recorded it on my four track and then switched to the mandolin to figure out a lead. I started out by writing out the pentatonic scale in G (again, figured out manually, since I have no mandolin books). Then I just kind of screwed around for a couple of hours until I came up with this.

I had a few early working names for it, but then was listening to it in my car one day after hiking at Bastrop State Park in Texas. I was driving 60 mph in my favorite stretch of road in Texas, a six-mile stretch along Highway 21 where the road literally vanishes beneath a canopy of pine trees, which stretch out on either side and meet up over your head. The cool, etherial beauty of the trees, the speed, and the primitive, raw setting seemed appropriate for this song.

A mandolin is psychologically a mystical, primative instrument. Guitar may have been that way, but it's become infused with other concepts and meanings over the years. When you think of guitar, you think of a host of forms of music, from Carlos Montoya to ZZ Top to Robin Trower. Even accoustic guitars have been washed clean of any historic associations through the hippy faux folk music of the late 60s. Somehow a mandolin has remained much more pure. No one's ever done an electric, distorted mandolin. Even the rock songs where it appears fall in limited categories, specifically, the mystical, almost medieval songs and the neo-country/folk sound. A good example of the former would be Evermore, and a good version of the latter would be "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart. A somewhat more difficult to classify song would be the Beatle's "Here Comes the Sun" which I also learned and which is my favorite mandolin song.

It's much more common in country music, and also common, at least historically, in Italian folk music and Mexican - particularly Norteno - music. But what all these genres have in common is a traditional authenticity. A purity which rock music has all but washed out of the guitar.

That's why I like the Mandolin. Of course, I'm still basically a beginner, but with 20 years experience on guitar, even a beginner can do some pretty cool stuff. That's what I was experimenting with in "Bastrop." So here you go. Have a listen:


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=795352&content=music
(To play the song, click the arrow next to the title)





P.S. Around the time I was typing in the paragraph that starts with "Day 5" the sirens went off and the recorded voice blared, "incoming...incoming..." There were four people in the room here at the MWR, three Tongans and me. We all looked around at each other and shrugged. I went back to typing. They went back to their web surfing. I guess if we had heard booms, we could have gotten under the table, but most of the times the alarm goes off these days, it's a false alarm.

Sure enough, before I was through with the next paragraph, another sound rang out, followed by the words, "This is the command post...all clear...all clear...personnel should return to their units and conduct personal acountability. I repeat, "all clear...all clear..."

Some funny pictures

This one kind of speaks for itself.

Most of the contract workers on the base who clean,

run the chow hall, and some of the facilities, are foreign.

Their English is not always good.

Hearing the laundry ladies sing "Dancing Queen"

in half English, half Tagalog is funny enough.

Then they write instructions like "Stay Closed the Door."

Of course, "Mop Water - You don't drink" does get the message across.

Musical Interlude

O.K. folks. Now for something completely different. Some original music.

I've been playing guitar since 1987, and it's still my favorite hobby. I even bought a cheap accoustic guitar over at the Iraqi bazaar. More about that place some other time. Don't get too much free time to play, but I can usually be found sitting on my front steps once or twice a week playing The Eagles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Miller, Rush, Led Zeppelin - even some obscure stuff like Michael Reno Harrell or Cat Stephens.

In terms of my own writing, my favorite stuff is Texas Country/Americana music and blues. But I think it would be excessively charitable to say that I have a mediocre singing voice. Hence most of what I record, when I do record, is instrumentals.

Of course, I couldn't lug a 4-track recorder over here, so the best I can do is post a few songs that I did back in Texas. My brother*, who's 10 times better as a musician and 100 times better as a producer, is being kind enough to throw a few onto the Internet for me to share.

The following is a brief little jazzy number I wrote from scratch and recorded all in the space of about 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon about 3 years ago. The recording was rough, but not bad. However, shortly before I came over here, my brother cleaned the recording up, jazzed up the drums somewhat, threw in some bass and extra rythmn guitar, and it sounds a whole lot better.

I never did come up with a perfect name for it, so I'm sticking to my working title, "Slinky." I'm not sure why, but it's kind of smooth, cool and jazzy. In a word...Slinkyesque.

Hope you like it. I'll try to do some more later on.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=795352&content=music

(To play the song, click the arrow next to the title)

*My Brother's songs. Much of it's HeavyMetal, which I'm not that into, but the coolest stuff there are his more traditional rock songs. The ones that I think are real gems and recommend are "The Other Side" and "Soaring" (That's me on the second guitar in the intro).

Snow, rain and...mud.

It snowed here in Baghdad this week - a very unusual event. Not that it isn't cold. It's been bitterly chilly at night for the last month. As for rain, we'd only had a little drizzle here, once in October and once in December. But we knew something was coming before too long.

It was still dark when I came back from breakfast, but about an hour later, we got the word that there was snow. So I went outside to have a look. The flakes were coming down, rather large to me - I pin that one on the pollution. But it was undoubtedly snow. Of course, it was cold enough for it, but the ground was just too warm to let anything stick. So the white flakes drifted down until they hit the ground, where they instantly withered into water.

An Air Force buddy of mine was nearby and he snapped a picture. You can't really see the snow. Digital cameras lack the shutter speed to really capture it. If you look close, you might barely catch a white fuzzy streak. But take it from me, it is snowing.

Here's another look:

Iraq has a pretty notorious rainy season, from what I've heard. When it starts, it can be miserable for several weeks. So far this year, we've avoided that stuff. But it looks like it may be creeping up on us. After the sun rose and the air warmed up a little, the snow was replaced by rain. Certainly not an old-fashioned Texas gullywasher, but a good drenching that turned everything into mud.

A tree reflected in a pool of rainwater. Because everything here is sand, when it rains, it pools up in these sickly looking puddles. They look like someone took a handful of yellow pigment and dumpted it into a vat of chocolate.

In a few well-trafficked areas, KBR has put down some sidewalks, or repaired the old ones from the Ba'athis party days. But since 90 percent of the base is sidewalk free, they soon vanish beneath the mud as soldiers and contractors can carry several pounds of the muddy mess congealed on their boots.

When I first got here, you'll remember I complained bitterly about the gravel that they threw everywhere. To them it was gravel; to me it looked like a hell of a lot of good shrapnel, should a rocket land nearby. But once it started raining, I appreciated the gravel like never before. As you can see here, the gravel paths become the only walkway for many parts of the base. Here, a soldier walks back to Dodge City North. The sun is out by this time, but the mud is nonetheless ubiquitous.

This is the walkway through Dodge City. Now if I were in charge, they would use a bunch of old recycled pallets, maybe nail a few boards on top of them. But they chose gravel, and the going can be really tough, as your feet sink in a way similar to walking on sand.

Of course, the gravel isn't everywhere, and eventually, you have to cross a muddy space. Then, when you return to the gravel, it sticks to your muddy boots and you began to throw off rocks at each swing of your leg. This tends to make those around you unfriendly, as small rocks begin to ricochet off their ankles.

The building above is where we take our showers. It's a 2 minute walk through mud and cold, and it isn't fun under normal circumstances. On bitter nights like this, you're often tempted just say "screw it" and pull out the old baby wipes. It just isn't worth it to slog out into the mud and cold, go take a shower that may or may not be hot, slog back through the mud to your trailer, and change into your uniform.

At least we do have showers. My boss spent a year in Fallujah back in 2004, and for the first six months, all he had was two bottles of water a day. He often had to make the choice between drinking or bathing, and well, drinking usually won. Of course, none of our troops live that primitively these days. Even the most remote FOBs have tent showers, if nothing else.

The alleyway next to my trailer. After passing through this mess, I usually wrap my boots up in plastic and place them just inside the door. Can't leave them outside, because they'd get wet and probably freeze.

But hey, bad as this is, this is paradise to the sort of conditions that American soldiers went through at Bastogne, Chosin and Fredricksburg. Times change. Back then, they slept in miserable, unheated tents placed on the ground. Today, we sleep in tiny, but comfortable trailers raised a foot off the ground. And we have heaters. Or at least devices that blow luke-warm air and are called heaters.

Back then, they kept warm by heating their hands over makeshift fires. Today, I get into work and shake off the chill by warming my hands over an overheated computer server.

Such are the times...

It is a miserable mess, but there's a silver lining in everything. The bad guys don't seem to like the rain either. Digging holes for roadside bombs is a little difficult. Your homemade explosive powder gets wet. And as the temperature sinks below freezing, I keep getting this odd picture in my mind: a parody of the movie "A Christmas Story," where one insurgent is daring the other insurgent to stick his tongue on the metal shell of their anti-tank mine, to see if it will stick.

Some random photos

For today's post, a few random photos which don't fit an overall theme, but which I thought I should nonetheless share:

The palace compound, seen from the balcony.

The Al-Doura Refinery on fire off in the distance after an attack. This is an important source of revenue for the Iraqi people, yet some folks will target any infrastructure, from bridges to power lines, to water treatment plants, because in their twisted view of Islam, starving and penniless Iraqi people are better than prosperous Iraqi people.

That's an Apache helicopter patroling above.

Just a random street scene here on base.

During World War II, American servicemen started tagging abandoned building with paint in this unusual fashion, featuring a bald guy looking over a ledge,

adding the words "Kilroy Was Here."

This is probably a couple of years old and heavily faded, but it's good to see some old traditions are still kept up. This is painted on one of the bunkers that we're supposed to jump into whenever things start exploding. Not sure why they put windows on this one, though.

And below is the insurgent "Killroy was here." Not sure what it says, but it probably means "Yankees must die." Of course, back in the 1860s, my great-great grandfather serving in the Confederate Army was probably saying the same thing, so eventually these guys might come around like we did. Unless they're referring to Major League Baseball, in which case I heartily agree with the sentiment.

Below are some various Hummvees, including my favorite,

the Hummvee pickup truck (closest). I need one of these back home.

This is me standing next to the impact point for the rocket which perforated my trailer a while back. Most of the impact was absorbed by the retaining wall. Score: Concrete 1, rocket 0. For all those people who criticize Halliburton and KBR (the folks who put this here and saved my trailer from much greater destruction), I say these were tax dollars well-spent.




A closer view.


This is another impact point across the road from my place. (I don't give locations because then the bad guys might figure out whether or not they're falling short, overshooting, or just right). Not sure which attack caused this, but it was probably in November or so. That was the last attack we had here that I can recall, and I'd been by this area before and hadn't noticed this.

Saddam's Skeet Range

The Abu Ghraib Palace Complex is a sprawling area the size of a small city. In it's heyday, it was the private club and resort of the elites of the Ba'ath Party. For Saddam Hussein, his sons Uday and Qusay, as well as other high-ranking party officials, it was a private retreat. They even staged canned hunting expeditions on the grounds.

One day, while cutting across a part of the base I rarely traverse, I came across this small underground structure, enclosed inside a little fence. Fences, of course, were made for hopping, and I did my best Huck Finn leap over it to get a better look at what I'd found.

One glance was all it took for this Native Texan and shooting enthusiast to realize what he had discovered. It was the palace's very own skeet range. Here, no doubt, Saddam and his insane followers likely shot a few clay pigeons while smoking cigars and discussing where the next palace would be built, how he would drain the southern marshlands to starve out the Marsh Arabs, or how much of the treasury would be robbed for caviar, champagne and private yachts. One is reminded of the scene of comedic tyranny in the movie "History of the World, Part I" where a perfumed and powdered Louis XVI, played by Mel Brooks, goes skeet shooting and calls "pull!" At that moment, rather than a clay pidgeon, a peasant shoots out, and the arrogant leader blasts him out of the sky.

Saddam's Iraq, of course, was no laughing matter. So this site, to me, was somewhat surreal. After hopping the fence, I took an inquisitive look inside. But rather than the hollowed out shell I had expected, I was surprised to find it relatively untouched, despite being in a relatively accessible area of the base.

In fact, as you can see, many of the bright orange sporting clays are still there. Stacked up and ready to use. Just as they would be arranged for a tournament.

The whole place, it seemed was frozen in time, probably ready for an Early March, 2003 outing by the Ba'athist bigwigs. A much-anticipated afternoon of fun and sun, which was cancelled at the last minute due to inclement weather. In that foreboding Springtime, Iraqi forecasters no doubt predicted heavy showers of cruise missiles and JDAMs, converging with billowing dust storms from the south, which followed a squall line of steadily-advancing M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks.

Looking through one of the open portals, at the massive - no doubt expensive - electric skeet tossing machines, I thought that my hunting buddies back in Frelsburg, Texas would kill to have something as cool. It would certainly be something they'd oogle at the Bass Pro Shop in Katy. In fact, it was probably even worth shorting your wife with a cubic zirconium anniversary ring just to stock up the needed cash.

This Ba'athist boondoggle was a small, but facinating glimpse into life at the top in Old Iraq. In America, such a facility would hardly be considered excessive. But in America, it would be open to all, not built with public funds for the sole benefit of an elite, single-party politburo. Nor would it be part of a palace compound of grandeur built in the heart of a land where most people starved.

At the risk of engaging in bad taste, I cannot help but recall the irony that it was just over one year ago this week that Saddam Hussein met his grisly end. As he finally faced the moment of truth for the incredible pain he caused these people over the course of three decades, standing atop the gallows' trap door, it is somewhat ghoulishly appropriate that among the last words he heard was a simple order from an ordinary Iraqi.

"Pull!"

This, should it survive a Trans-Atlantic journey,

will be one hell of a souvernir.

Books

A lot of folks who come over here get serious withdrawal from television. Many, indeed, can’t survive without it. The concept of going without T.V. for a year to a year and a half no doubt fills them with dread. My neighbor’s like that. So it wasn’t surprising when I saw him walking into his trailer, struggling with his friend to carry in a brand-new wide-screen television.

Sure, they sell those here at the PX. I haven’t priced one myself, but I’m sure they’re not cheap. And once you get them, you’ve also got to buy a satellite dish in order to get service, unless you plan to watch local T.V. All that and you don’t get more than 2-3 hours of free time off of work a day anyway.

This amounts to an obsession, and frankly baffles me. Mao had it wrong. It isn’t religion that’s the opiate for the masses, it’s television.

Not that I never watch it myself, but it’s pretty rare. Back home I bought a used big screen television when I moved into a new apartment, but other than the occasional VHS tape, I never watched it for 6 months until the college football season began. Only then did I discover – to my shock - that the internal antenna was dead, and all I could get on network T.V. was snow.

Mostly, my ambivalence towards television is a product of my upbringing. My parents didn’t let me watch television on school nights, and when I was in college, I was too poor to afford a set, and too crunched for time. It was in college, when I was first living day-to-day with T.V. junkies, that it really hit me how much of a huge waste of time it is. Just do the math. The average American lives to be about 70. Let’s be generous and say we make it to 80 (just to make the math simple). That means that if we were to watch T.V. for three hours a day – one eighth of our life – it would add up to a total of 10 years. Add that to the one-third of our lives (26 years) we spend sleeping, and boom – nearly half your life is gone.

Certainly, T.V. isn’t completely without merit. It’s relaxing. It entertains you. But that’s about it. And there are tons of other ways to relax or entertain yourself that aren’t so insanely mind-wasting.

In contrast, I’ve always been a big reader of books. It was something I kept to myself when I was younger, as if it were something to be ashamed of. But now, I generally don’t care if people want to label me as a nerd or whatever. Because ultimately, I judge my own worth based on my standards, not those of others.

I don’t even fit that mold, truth be told. I’m a strong believer in the ethos of balance, and I’ve tried to engage in lots of physical activity to go along with my intellectual pursuits: hiking, kayaking, running, biking, carpentry and working out at the gym. All brains and no brawn is just as useless as its opposite. To me, the idea of having to be one or the other is a false choice. Not that I’m perfect in either field, but since I graduated from college, I’ve tripled my bench press weight and – in the same period of time – read just under 400 books.

Both activities are actually very similar. Ultimately, the mind is like a muscle, and the more you use it, the more flexible and more strong it becomes. You can also learn techniques to improve your retention and your speed. I initially developed some speed reading techniques in college in order to improve the efficiency of my cram sessions. But after school, I ditched those techniques. Only in the last couple of years did I revive them and implement them on a wider scale. Much like in the gym when you find a new workout for a particular muscle group which is more efficient, good reading techniques can be learned.

(Oddly enough, the best reader I've ever met is my brother. He's never graduated from college and is the world's biggest redneck, but he can somehow read a 300 page novel in about 2 hours. I only wish I was so good.)

* * *

This year has been a record-breaking year for me on the book front, as I successfully knocked down 54. Twelve were in January alone, when I was under-employed and, due to a lot of bad weather, indoors most of the time. I averaged about four a month in the summer, and then saw my reading plummet during my army training and my first month or so in Iraq. As you can tell, I keep a running list of what I read. It serves both as a kind of trophy case and also as a mental refresher. Just reading the name of the book I read a few months reminds me suddenly of all sorts of things I experienced and learned when I read it.

My biggest passion is History, and the vast majority of my reads have been historical or biographical. I read two biographies of Winston Churchill this year, one of Hitler, and one of George Washington. The latter I read as part of my traditional Fourth of July book, which is always dedicated to a biography of a founding father. Over the years I’ve done three bios of George, two of Thomas Jefferson, one of Franklin and one of Alexander Hamilton. The John Adams one was on my list for 2008, but it was a little too big to lug over here.

Similarly, since March 2 is Texas Independence Day, I read at least one but usually two books on Texas History during that month. This year, I read “A Successful Failure,” by Odie Faulk, which is a history of the Spanish colonization of Texas. Wanting to study that period more closely, I also read "Spanish Texas, 1519-1821," by Donald E. Chipman.

When I decide I want to know something about a particular subject, I find it very informative to read multiple books like that during a short period of time. It’s like taking a mini college course. You gain impressions or insights from the first book, which are then challenged or enforced by the next book, and the entire process imbeds the essential information deeper into your subconscious. This year, I did three books on the German Luftwaffe in World War II. One was a general history, another was the memoirs of a dive-bomber pilot, and the third was the memoirs of a fighter pilot.

Another period I took a special interest in was World War II in the Pacific. A good general summary was "Triumph in the Pacific by" E.B. Potter and Chester W. Nimitz. A fun and compelling book on the little known battle for the Aleutian Islands was “The Thousand Mile War” by Brian Garfield. I then moved on to a book on Pearl Harbor, and then segued in to a series of books on 9/11. The similarities between the two events – and the tragic errors and unpreparedness that led to them – are fascinating.

Since my normal job is politics, I try to keep up on current affairs. I try to mix it up a little. I read a book on early 20th Century diplomacy, a book or two on gambling in America, and Bill O'Reilley's “Culture Warrior.” As part of my general reading to improve my understanding of terrorism for my Navy career, I read “Intelligence in War” by John Keegan, which details the history of my profession. I also read a great book on tactics and historical reflections on fighting modern insurgencies called “Modern Warfare” by Roger Trinquier, a fascinating study of the Algerian conflict that France faced in the 1950s. Many of the lessons Trinquier suggests – it was written in the middle of the Vietnam War and ignored – are actually being implemented here in Iraq now. I also read a couple of War on Terror books, including “Holy War, Inc.” by Peter Bergen, and “Terror and Liberalism,” a fascinating view of terrorism from a liberal named Paul Berman who laments how many of his political viewpoint ignore the real danger from militant Islam. I read a couple of books on the Muslim world in general, including “The Middle East” by Bernard Lewis. Actually, I listened to that one – and a half dozen others – on audio tape.

I also found time for a little fiction here and there. I love fiction, and I like to write short stories on the side, but the number of books I want to read to improve my knowledge base usually crowds them out. Among the fiction books I did read this year: “People of Darkness” by Tony Hillerman, “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, “Nights in Rodanthe” by Nicholas Sparks, “Man and Superman” (a play) by Bernard Shaw, "Next" by Michael Crichton, and “Fire Ice” and “Blue Gold” by Clive Cussler.

Cussler's probably my favorite novelist, though it's a love/hate relationship. Much like when I read the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, I find myself enjoying it immensely, and then coming to a part so damn annoying and illogical that I want to throw the book in the trash.

As important a part of my life that books are, I do have to say I've been disappointed in how little time I have to read. I was hoping that reading would be the one major hobby that I could bring with me over here, and even thought I might be able to read more than I was reading back home. Unfortunately, work hours are so long, and I'm reading so much stuff there that I am usually so mentally exhausted when I get back home. I've read seven books in the three months I've been in Baghdad, and frankly, I don't know how I was able to do that much.

Still, it helps to keep me sane and to escape from the rigors of work, which is both repetitive and at times quite emotionally stressful.

I know all this sounds kind of self-absorbed (reading it back to myself, that's how it reads to me), but (a.) this is a blog, and I can do that kind of stuff, and (b.) I just want to give folks a sense of who I am and who - by extension - we are over here. We're not just a bunch of high school drop-outs as say...John Kerry...would have you believe. Every day, I run into tons of really bright guys, like my friend Velko from the Bulgarian Army or my friend Stephen, a Southern U. grad and lawyer who works in the JAG corps. They run the gamut from the young guy in my section, Sgt. A., who is working his way through college in his off hours and is never anywhere without a book on history or literature, to the top two generals in the entire country, who I've seen in action and can attest are both incredibly smart.

After all, this is not the kind of war that can be won by a bunch of dolts. It takes folks who can think outside the box, innovate on the fly and constantly learn. When it comes to military knowledge, for all my reading I'm a dozen years behind most of these guys. But if there's one thing I discovered over the course of my intellectual development over the last 12 years, it's that it's never too late to start loving knowledge, and it's never out of reach to improve yourself.