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massive blog
middle east blogs
sharp minds and useful idiots |
Flint: Ho Ho Ho Yo
During my stay in the tundra circa '88, the Authorities on Adak, Alaska had tsunami education literature with the do's and don't of managing a tsunami event. I thought it was strange, not knowing what the fuss was about: Big waves? Big deal. I'm from Michigan, and the Great Lakes don't behave that way.
Nonetheless, I was surrounded by a tsunami culture constantly during various stops and trips around the Pacific Rim, and as constant exposure is wont to do, my ignorance on the subject became less monolithic and more haphazard. The folks in Alaska had good reason to fear tidal waves. In 1964, a gigantic 9.4 quake, centered in Prince William Sound, off the south coast of Alaska, shook loose all land within several hundred miles and generated tsunamis up to 67 meters high (that over 200 feet for you folks allergic to the metric system). It erased coastlines and killed people from Adak, Alaska, to Mendocino, California. That's coverage. Hundreds died, and a tsunami warning system was developed for the Pacific Rim.
That event was known as the Good Friday Quake. The one that just laid waste to all things coastal around Sumatra and half of everything lining the Indian Ocean, will go down as the Christmas Quake, or Christmas Tsunami. The toll will not end up in the hundreds...it will end up in the tens-of-thousands. Absolutely terrible.
During an interview with a Thai politician, some talking head Yank reporter asked why an early warning system was not in place, and the Thai politician said that, with the limited funds available to countries lining the Indian Ocean (India, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka etc.), there is not enough political will to put together a system that will be needed but once or twice a century.
That's some cold hard logic, and tough to swallow. The price for all this death and destruction will be many times higher than what we might have seen if four-fifths of those now dead or missing had a couple hours (in the case of the Indians and Sri Lankans) to reach higher ground. I've spent a fair amount of time on south asian beaches, and know several people who probably still are, or were, there. We'll see.
One hell of a way to globally close out 2k4. It's been that kind of year...macro capules coming forth soon.
- k
I was going to write about Christmas shopping, as I've just finished it, and so I have some observations to share. But that'll have to wait for a day or two, because I need to write a bit about this:
Mosul
Had a dream a couple nights back that legions of Iraqis were marching serenely through Baghdad on Christmas day, singing Modest Mouse's The Good Times are Killing Me...so what if the song speaks to the dangers of drugs as opposed to car bombs.
Somehow, the bloody mess-tent bombing in Mosul seems worse now that we know it's from the hands of a suicide bomber. Speaking of the term suicide bomber:
Sorry FoxNews, but your homicide bomber label is asinine beyond words or gestures. Of course they're bent on homicide, you freaking morons, that's why people go into the bombing business...to kill people, unless it's to blow up dams or party with Hunter S. Thompson on the 4th. Suicide bomber works because it specifically tells you that the bomber not only wants to kill others, but he is gleefully willing to dust himself in the process. Damn I hate that kind of labeling...almost as bad as the UK Guardian blaring headlines like Insurgents Execute Election Workers. Executed? No, it's murder. Rebels Murder Election Workers...that's what it is. An execution can be between combatants, between government and citizen, or the result of several additional scenarios. To embrace the kind of moral relevance necessary to affirm out the rights of nihilistic thugs to whack pro-democracy election workers means you are not only an idiot, not only unserious morally, but that maybe valuable resources are being wasted by your very existence. Syntax and semantics are closely related. Okay? Cool?
Now, it's safe to say that the carnage will get worse between now and the elections, and it'll still be plenty bad after that. We are in a box, my friends. We were sold a bogus bill of goods by a morally unserious administration not to the task of a most morally serious undertaking. All the sober phrasing and posturing by Bush and Rumsfeld doesn't change the facts on the ground. The window of opportunity has not closed for a good outcome, mainly because there will be enough Iraqis who see enough benefit in consensual government to make it work...by any means necessary. However, the window of opportunity has closed regarding how history will judge the Bush Administration's prosecution of this war. Of course I might be wrong, given the average attention-span these days runs the length of a drug commercial.
One thing that continues to hearten me is the overall support our military, the personnel that is, have received from even anti-war Americans. In that respect, we have learned an important lesson from Vietnam. Which is just as well, since most other Iraq - Vietnam analogies break apart with even the most gentle of proddings, except the one I just mentioned, and one more. Escalation.
Judging by the relative quiet and or somber demeanor of the conservative press along the last week or two, even those edge-of-the-envelope Neo-cons understand that we need new troops over there, and that the longer we put it off, the more the insurgency hampers our noble goals. Of course that in itself might not keep too many rightist pols awake at night, but if Sunni militants keep snuffing out American and Iraqi soldiers and blowing Shiite Mosques, there's going to be one hell of a Civil War...which is what Osama wants because to his crowd, chaos creates opportunity. There are several well-ordered and well-armed Shia militias in Iraq who would like nothing better than to kill just about every living thing in the Sunni triangle. Our quietist Shia friend, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has held the Shia militias back-- I write down his long-form name down out of respect and the knowledge that without him, Iraq would be lost by now, completely. But Shia militants can only be held back from going at the Sunni's for so long. Then there are the Kurds, the best trained faction, and with plenty of scores to settle. It really behooves us to ratchet up our troop strength for a couple years to a level where security can truly take root, and Democracy can truly flourish. Sounds familiar on many levels, I know.
Another 150k should do it, which, funny enough, is about what our generals originally asked for.
- k
It's zero outside. Not that wussy 0° Celsius, and not zero with the wind chill. It's effing 0° F-f-f-Fahrenheit...-25° with the wind chill. WTF. This is not how someone who has spent the last seven winters in Cali ought to be acclimated. Around lunchtime today, I helped a friend move a refrigerator from one place in Flint to another place in Flint, via a vehicle of course. While dragging this appliance from some fellow's garage into the back of my friend's pick-up I thought, gee this manual labor isn't warming me a bit. It's been awhile since I've sucked down air so cold it burned my lungs. But hey, when a buddy has a busted fridge, during a stretch you could freeze a bottle of Boone's Farm by setting it on the porch, well, ya got to make sure he get's his freon-enhanced chill space. I got back to my place in time to watch about 75% of the Lions game.
28-27. Damn.
What really makes the Lions special, I think, is the sheer variety of methods they discover to boot a game. One day I fully expect to see a Lions' player pull a Mr. Slave and stick the ball up his ass in overtime (fallout from a long night in the company of acid, ether, blow, and hookers) leading to a forfeit. Seriously, it could come to that in my lifetime. Earlier today, after playing their asses off against a fairly determined Minnesota team, led by an especially determined Dante Culpepper, the Lions lost on a flubbed extra-point snap in the game's closing seconds. Steve Mariucci at that moment looked like he'd just caught his O-line pulling a train on his wife-- a deft mix of horror, rage, and shock. But Mooch composed himself in about 2.3 seconds and consoled Don Mulhbach (the long snapper who whipped a worm-killer that holder Nick Harris couldn't grab). A brutal loss, even by Lions standards. My eyes still roll to the back of my head when I think about it, and I have to count one...two...three. My coffee table took a beating today, which is why I buy sturdy furniture.
The important thing here is that Joey Harrington proved himself to me, Mooch, his team, and most of Ford Field. He played they best game of his career while hobbled with the flu. His eyes were yellow, and was too wiped to actually think about what he was doing. He just did it. True, the game should not have come down to the final minute for the Lions to blow, but that's beside the point. There was an instant consensus around the D this afternoon that maybe Joey is the man after all. I've called him plenty of foul names over the past couple months, and I had basically written him off, and maybe he's just stringing us all along. Who knows. At any rate, I'll never question his toughness again. This season is shot to hell, and even if Detroit were to somehow sneak into the playoffs, it's been clear for awhile that they are not a top tier team. Even if they were 9-5 instead of the other way around, folks know that this group is a year away.
I never thought that I could be warmed and heartened by one of the most crushing loses in Lion's history, but I am. That's how the Lions work though, something most fans will never understand. The Detroit Lions are forever the team that makes you think, oh they are so close, just a little here, a little there. It's really a perverse cycle, and as I've said, it's part of what gives Southeastern Michigan it's rather gritty character. Disappointment washes down easier with enough booze and properly tossed vulgarities.
- k
Gym Rats
One of the first things I did when I dropped down into my Michigan sabbatical was join up at downtown Flint's Y. It's a nice place, mostly. The pool and the gymnasium are top notch, and there's the added pleasure of getting my ass kicked across the court by unknown yet madly talented b-ball acrobats who seem to grow on trees around these parts. Flint's like that.
But the reason I'm really into downtown Flint's Y is the weight room. It's a dungeon. It's in the basement-level of the building, there's two mirrors (one is cracked), half the weights are rusty, there are stained drop-down ceiling tiles, and the place smells. Not quite as bad as SF's Tenderloin after five months without rain, but bad. It's the perfect place to lift, no bullshit, no preening. Just man-up, bang the weights, shower up inside the nearby locker room, and leave. Not much talkin or rubberneckin inside, yet everyone is congenial. Perfect.
In San Francisco, I spent 4 years as member of Gold's. Their Brannan Street location was about 100 yards from where I worked, so in that way it worked out great. But let me be clear, the SOMA Gold's Gym is gayest spot on the face of the planet, even gayer than the Castro Gold's, which goes against conventional wisdom, but I've worked out in both spots, I know.
The atmosphere comparison between the Flint's downtown Y and SF's SOMA Gold's is like the difference between a Sturgis biker bar and the 1015 on Folsom Street Fair weekend. At Gold's I usually had the headphones on, cracked on max, unless I wanted to hear about who was blowing who for how much money. People pointed across the gym at their conquests and everyone slapped asses like they were handshakes. That was just entertainment, though, no harm no foul, just a little distracting when I'm trying to finish a set of squats and some dude five feet away groans, Jimmy, no, not till your tests come back.
The only aspect of Gold's SF that really irked me was the proliferation of assholes who did a lame set on a machine I was hoping to use, then spend three to five minutes either reading the paper or talking to someone on their cell...still sitting or resting on the freakin machine, then, doing their next set. There were some huge people at Gold's and plenty of them worked out hard, but the atmosphere was frivolous.
I prefer the dungeon at the Y, much as I prefer Crowbar or Melvins over Daft Punk. So it is.
I'm yapping about this because I've recently returned from a nice workout at the downtown Y, and I've just finished my first large glass of wine...there will be more. Therefore, I'm not so interested in ripping into politicians or the horror of Iraq, or the fact that you can't rip a fart in this town without gassing a dollar store. There's always time for those trips.
The Pistons looked nice last night against Cleveland. King LeBron is 19 years old and already a top 5 NBA talent. Recockulous. Tayshaun and Rip shut him down, though. King James was something like 4 for 19 with 9 points. The Pistons have two, maybe three years to win titles and thus make a little dynasty for themselves, because anyone with half a basketball brain knows that LeBron's going to win titles at Cleveland. Dude's making Drew Gooden look nice for crying out loud, making Jeff McInnis look like an all-star...and again, LeBron's only 19. Folks like Magic and MJ were not making their mates look truly triumphant until they were a few years deep into the NBA. Well, Magic had Kareem, but still. LeBron's a freak, and the fact that Detroit knows how to contain him, for the time being, bodes well for the next few years, after that, the Choosen One shall reap his rings...and he's gonna want more than MJ.
And he's gonna get it.
And...there's no use talking about the Lions. No point, no freaking way. Wait till next year...new quarterback, more hope.
- k
It was sunny outside today! For three hours or so at least, and never mind it was well below freezing. I've spent many winters in Michigan's grip, but being a kid then I think my instinctive outlook was brighter. But, bright photos of phat cats with bitchin' lawn ornaments, in Flint...see we're not all crackheads and pole dancers. Really. Some of us even read hardcover books for leisure.
There is something of a blog-catfight between Juan Cole and the boys at Iraq the Model and their legions of supporters, including myself. I sent Professor Cole an email a week back explaining that I often feel buyers remorse regarding this war. The human cost is so much higher than projected, and for any non-absolutist, that's an important point. Yes, every life is precious, but, the difference between a few thousand deaths and several times that are vast, especially when the lives of Arabs are given so little weight, by us and the Jihadists. Again, for the record and for the millionth time, booting Saddam was a good idea...but for Christ's sakes! The post-war administration has been run so poorly that we have moved from war (aka shock and awe), to post-war, and now we're back to war...in the same freaking country. Normally positive Iraqi bloggers like Ays and Hammorabi are slipping into the doom cycle...and these folks were pumped after the liberation.
Again, I can't get my head around how rotten we've been to the Iraqis for so many years. Why should they not hate us, objectively speaking? Will free elections this January make it all cool? Seriously. Anyway, Professor Cole is a wet blanket regarding all this, as he is from the Edward Said school of Middle Eastern scholarship. We need that in our midst, because not everything is Mel Gibson on top of the grassy knoll screaming 'freedom' and everyone presuming that means clean slate to follow. As Professor Cole said today, actions have consequences. Personally, I wish he would insert something positive regarding Iraq's painful crawl towards modernity, it's there if he looks, but I don't loathe and ignore the man because of this. He makes a lot of great points, and the Andrew Sullivan-types ought to recognize that.
That said, I am in the Iraq The Model and Andrew Sullivan camp when it comes to the Iraq war and the war on terror. It's a rotten place to be, because so much of this mess is of our making, which of course makes it our responsibility to clean it up. The Falhid Brothers of Iraq the Model are patriots who understand what a precious gift freedom is, and how important it is to make sure Iraq turns out okay. I was one of their first regular readers, and highly highly doubt that their motives are contrived by dictates of the CIA. Conspiracy nuts give our spooks too much credit, if one bothers to consider landmark clusterjobs from the Bay of Pigs onward. No, Iraq the Model is a needed point of reference and an unpretentious drink of humility and hope in a hellish desert of nihilistic conflict. If our Administration took the Iraq project as seriously as Mohammed, Ali, and Omar, the news coming from Iraq would be better under any partisan's light.
- k
Flint: Destitution and Seratonin-Sapping Grey-Cold Climate. Come Party With Us.
I've debated, in my head at least, whether I should replace the image atop this page with something, well, brighter. It is the Christmas season after all, and there are tons of bright displays all over Flint, some outside, more inside artificially lit and heated dwellings. The image above, while representative, is dark, very dark. It'll stay up there for at least another week. Then maybe I'll go Charlie Brown Holiday Special on yo ass.
The weather here has been abysmal, just totally stinking awful. Of the last 14 days, 1 has been mostly sunny, and I spent a good part of that day taking pictures of new and old and destroyed factories (which you will all see shortly, with my 8,000-word piece on Flint...just in time for the holidays). I also spent part of that day Christmas shopping, and working out indoors at the Y. I'm still not used to being in a climate where it's possible and in fact likely that I'll constantly deal with doom-like cloud cover with rain-snow-fog hybrid slush greyness uber alles that'd turn Mister Rogers into Charles Manson. On top of that, the non-stop grey-gloppy gloom weather is happening in Flint. Seriously folks, if there was a God, any kind of reasonably caring and loving God, Flint would have at least been the beneficiary of predominately sunny weather since all that post-industrial fallout picked up speed 30-something years ago. How many clues do these people need? Seriously? Mid-Michigan is typically overcast 70 percent of the time, a damn sight worse than California, even the Bay Area, which has some serious fog issues, but nothing like this level of blah.
Adak, Alaska's weather is worse than this. I know, because I spent over a year and a half of my life up there on the volcanic tundra of Adak Island, right between the eastern tip of Russia and the western tip of US. With location like that, one might expect some meteorological balance, you know, to help remove the chill of the cold war...again, assuming there might possibly be something like a God figure out or up there that gave a rat's ass about us hairless, big-headed apes. Nope. Adak was cloudy and cold 29 days out of 30, the entire time I was up there. You had to pass a psychological fitness test to go there, and some folks still whacked themselves after a few months of darkness. It's hell on the mood. Being on a submarine for six months is worse, but at least you get to travel. On Adak, we passed the time by killing huge rats with rakes and broomsticks, drinking, bowling, and fishing for Dolly Varden...a tasty breed of trout that inhabited many of Adak's mountain streams, and snapping photos of seas otters getting their mollusk-meals in Clam Lagoon. Still others wondered drunk around the base of old volcanos and blasted caribou. It was a small island community, and an interesting one.
Next to Flint, Adak was gorgeous. All the mountains, oceans, coves, sea otters, eagles, and caribou combined for a serious wilderness experience. When the sun actually came out, it was reason for celebration, with long hikes that included necking with your girl in the tall grasses behind Mt. Moffett. Flint's full of winos, predatory divorce lawyers, crackheads, cockroaches, vermin raccoons, and thousands of abandoned structures, that, when cobbled together with nasty gray cold wet do-nothing weather that surrounds it, tends to bring the locals down. Thank goodness we have mood-altering substances to salve all that.
Today it is about 35 degrees outside, with rain and grey galore. It darkens the spirit, no matter the season, and I'm sure that liquor and crack distributors throughout the region know this, and are grateful. I'm going against the grain by writing diatribes, but I'd as soon shoot something, or shoot up, but of course that would put me squarely in the company of animals and the good Lord says that ain't cool. Who am I to argue with the all-knowing, do-nothing? I don't want to be one of those pointless dingbats who wonders around downtown, talking to myself and shaking my fists at the sky. Them are the trademarks of someone who comes across the major realizations way too late on the road of life, and I do take solace in the fact that I haven't been really surprised in many years.
So, yes, the image atop this page stays put for a bit, because lately, it is exactly how this place looks...without the booze or God-goggles.
- k
R.I.P. Dimebag
Damn, first Ol' Dirty, and now this. Hearing about one of my favorite metal guitarists getting smoked while playing a freakin' song is messed up, severely messed up. In the strange but phat year of 1993, Wu Tang and Pantera were way up there on my gin-soaked mental list of favorite groups. With ODB, his death, likely a drug-induced heart-attack, could be blamed on lifestyle choices. That man was simply nuts, and that was part of his edge in the business, and why he was so entertaining, even when he wasn't rapping. But Darryl Abbott, while not a saint in regards to the substances, was always a productive, non-insane, wickedly good guitar player, and I'm not even talking about his solos...which are not the reasons I listen to the heavy shit anyway. The chuga-chuga-chuga opening of Mouth For War says it all. It was heavy yet accessible metal when most everyone else was putting out crap...early Nu Metal, late grunge, and all that other reeking garbage. Even Metallica had fallen off by this time. Next to possibly Melvins, Pantera were the defining metal band of the early and mid-90s. Dimebag Darryl was a huge part of that. Now, some pointless dickhead (and now dead) assailant in Columbus, OH, put an end to him with four slugs to the head...in a place where metalheads had simply gathered to hear some music. There should be some solace knowing that Darryl died while doing what he loved, but he was only 38, and he died from the hand of a total piece of shit...that makes it tough to reconcile.
- k
It's Pearl Harbor day, the OG day of infamy, when a very dangerous adversary learned the hard way not to trifle with the U.S.A. We are a nation of terrible vengeance when angered. The Japanese wrecked half our Pacific Fleet during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, and killed over 2,000 servicemen and some civilians. In turn, we leveled every major Japanese city via firebombing or nukes. We destroyed their military, and in all killed some three million Japanese-- military and civilian. Ill.
Afghan Whigs
Hamid Karzai has been sworn in as the first democratically elected president in Afghanistan. Think about that for a moment. Four years ago, the Afghanistan's people were under the toe-screws of maybe the most backward and asinine regime of the last 1,000 years. It appears that after a generation-plus of non-stop warfare, tyranny and or anarchy, Afghanis have had enough of the bullshit and wish to participate in humanity's great march forward to a brighter future. The very fact that Afghanistan even has a future with smiling about (albeit with some reservations) is astoundingly good news. Obviously, much needs to be done. Militant remnants of the Taliban, widespread illiteracy and backwards ideals, and poppy cultivation-- 87% of the world's smack will come from Afghanistan in 2k5-- needs to be dealt with. From that, we also know that widespread poverty needs to be addressed so farmers are not compelled to grow illicit crops to put food on the table for their families. Also, the political culture there is still in its infancy and needs many years of nurturing. But there is hope, a lot of it. Many a wise person has said that great things sprout from great tragedies, and it appears that Afghanistan's U.S.-assisted assent up into the brotherhood of enlightened nations will be a great thing to come from the horror of 9/11.
Lionz
Detroit looked serviceable against woeful Arizona on Sunday, but a win is a win, right? One thing I think that's safe to say is that Champagne Joey Harrington is not our quarterback of the present nor future. It's too bad, because I think he has the requisite skill set, but he's missing that certain something that great, or even very good quarterbacks seem to have. Once, just once, I'd like to see the hometown Kittens land a quarterback who at best doesn't remind me of Neil O'Donnell. Is that so much to ask? Maybe Joey snaps out of it someday, but in the meantime, Mooch needs to grab a quarterback in the first round, or pull one from free agency, or trade for whoever San Diego will not use. One way or another, just stop the madness. Joey's in his third year, and I swear if it were not for Kevin Jones suddenly turning into Earl Campbell with lateral moves, we would have lost, at home to the freakin' Cardinals. No more needs to be said.
Kevin Jones is finally reminding everyone why the Lions drafted him in the first round. He was a beast on the field against a mediocre defense, but anyone can tell that he's finally onto something. If we had a quarterback too, the offense would be shaping up real nice about now. The defense looked better too, but Arizona's offense is maybe the worst in the NFL right now...they'd get crushed by Auburn right now, so it's hard to tell. This Sunday, the Lions go to cheese-land to play the Packers-- who just got smoked Philly. I want to be the optimist here, but it's likely I'll be watching Detroit v. Green Bay with one eye closed.
- k
Objectively, why are so called 'God-given' physical gifts lauded while scientifically-given gifts despised? Specifically, cast aside for a moment the long-term physical dangers of steroid use, er abuse, and ponder for a second what is so wrong with it? Why is it cheating, while someone with perfect genetics is simply blessed? What is that about? Does a natural supermodel really merit more praise than someone turned into a supermodel via The Swan? Does a boozing, naturally gifted Babe Ruth deserve more praise than a steroid using Barry Bonds?
I've seen Bonds play many times over the past six or so years. If he had never touched the juice, he'd probably retire with a tad over 600 home runs, 500 steals, all the gold gloves, etc. In other words, he'd still be one of the 10 best players of all time. However, we damn the new generation in part because folks like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth never benefited from steroids, or nutritionists, or andro-- and please, you know that they would have tapped into some of the aforementioned resources if they were available, health issues be damned.
The only solid and sound reason for steroid-revulsion is consequence to health. You say steroids, I say Lyle Alzado. But too much of anything will crush you. You say booze, I say Micky Mantle. I have a very strong feeling that Barry Bonds will be healthy for a long time. I think he's smart enough, and he's done enough research to know how much of a given substance he can put into his body without killing it before 50. Bonds, remember, wants to be remembered as a legend, but also keep in mind that he's a self-important bright Cali guy who wants to do lots of stuff after he retires. I've known folks who have gone onto periodic steroid cycles to help with a stretch of intense training, or simply to heal from an injury...not a big deal. Sports medicine is the leading frontier of all medicine when it comes to the holistic knowledge of the body's workings.
I have a good friend right now who is dealing with a rather nasty form of brain cancer, and steroids are a large part of his medical regimen. Steroids keeps swelling down around the tumor / surgical areas, at the expense of weight gain and other issues, but to my friend it seems like a reasonable trade-off. No one would dare say such treatment is unethical. Medical types and ethical types in and outside of sports see such treatments as necessary, but of course such action for enhancement purposes only is vain, and cheating. Someday, playing ball with a bionic limb might be cheating. Corked bats are cheating. But, strengthening the body via widely available resources?
A lot of sportswriters out there make me ill. They praise this dicked up notion of purity in sports, waxing poetic about how players get paid too much, don't kiss the asses of fans enough, are too big for their britches, don't play hard enough, don't play hard when they are hurt, talk too much, talk too little...whaa whaa, effing whaa. The ESPN crowd has been treating the baseball steroid issue like the folks using are criminals who debase the game. I understand the gut feelings that lead to such conclusions. As humans, we have a natural aversion to placing too much power in the scientifically known. Performance enhancement, via steroids, growth hormones, and as yet unnamed or undiscovered substances, are with us to stay. If someone wants to shoot a pint of HGH in their ass every day, fine, that person will be dead in a couple years, and balance is cast. Conversely, if someone like Barry Bonds wants to enhance his gifts via science, fine. Pro sports is cut-throat...we need to be made aware of that on more levels. We also need to understand the nature of stats better. Achievement and record setting are very nuanced things. The steroid debate is going to help us see that.
- k
Christ almighty, December already, upon you, upon me. Dang.
Sonic Fear
CIA Psy-ops has the habit of playing Judas Priest or AC DC super loud in and around Iraqi cities that are due to be flattened by the Marines and or GI's. I guess they don't play Metallica for fear of being sued. I'm not sure how well this is working because the families certainly flee, but the insurgents remain, happy to fight and eager to die. I'm not even sure if a dose of High On Fire or Melvins could alter the dead-enders, but it would be interesting to find out. The difference between Highway to Hell and Baghdad (the first track off High On Fire's The Art of Self-Defense) is the difference between an annoying frat-boy neighbor with a yang for late-nite volume issues and God himself coming down your street in full smite-your-ass mode, holy chainmail and battle-axes and fresh spikes ready for freshly lopped heads. Maybe the CIA needs to know this.
Back in the salad-day 90s, I experimented with apartment-tower living for ~2 years while I was getting my learn on at Maryland. My friend and I shared a two-bedroom ground-level flat at a place called The Chateau, about 300 yards off the Beltway in Takoma Park. We soon discovered that we were surrounded on three sides, left right and above, by neighbors with questionable tastes in music; happy jazz, hair metal, and Garth Brooks, specifically. Now, these people were never obnoxiously loud with their stuff, just loud enough to wake me up every damn morning around 6:30, and I never took a class that started before ten. The neighbors all had day jobs and all got up about the same time, and they all played the same crap: Kenny G to the left, Poison to the right, and Friends In Low Places raining destruction from above. Dave could sleep through all manner of chaos, so this was not his problem at all.
Dave and I had combined our best audio components in the living room of the apartment, which added up to a 300-watt-per-channel system with pristine sound. We were nice kids and never cranked the volume, so no one around us had any idea what we possessed. I'm not the kind of person to knock on someone's door with a noise complaint, and I'm definitely not the kind of wuss to call management. But there was no getting around the fact that 6:30am is simply too damn early for a city lad in his early 20s to awake to the world ...especially to poo music. So after a couple weeks of this musical annoyance from our neighbors, I warned Dave that I was going to send a message to these folks at the next time I found myself awake at 5:30am...back then it was at least twice a week. Well, on a Friday morning my neighbors will never forget, I stumbled into my apartment after an evening of DJing and afterhour activities and promptly slipped Melvins' Bullhead into the ol' hi-fi. What leapt from the speakers sonically destroyed everything within a 150-foot radius. I kept it cranked for but one song, the opening monster-sludge-stomp Boris. Lots of complaints to management, but no more crap music at 6:30am to screw with my beauty sleep henceforth. Again, the CIA needs to know about this.
Holiday Cheer pt1
The Christmas lights and lawn santas are multiplying across Flint's landscape. One thing no one can take from the Midwest is the sheer mind-spliting brilliance of Christmastime in the land of genuine snowflakes and earnest Evangelicals. Seriously, there's very little of the white light vs. colored light debate around these parts...whole subdivisions glow like Vegas at night. It's tacky, but awfully heartwarming. Taste issues aside, I rather enjoy displays that say, in essence, 'I love my family, God, deer hunting, and fixing cars.' Yeah, exactly the kind of folks you want in pinch...solution providers.
- k