xtcian

4/12/03 Columbia County, NY If you

4/12/03 Columbia County, NY

If you want the perfect snapshot of your fellow Americans' tastes, look no further than Yahoo's Most Emailed Photos page. Lars Lucier turned me on to this aspect of Yahoo! some months ago, and I don't think there's a better barometer of American temperament. The photos fall into three basic categories: grisly pictures of something horrible happening in a godforsaken part of the world, paparazzi pics of models wearing something that threatens to show nipples (but never does), and just the cutest little kittens you've ever seen.

These days, there are a lot of pictures of anti-American rallies around the world, in varying degrees of rage. It makes you wonder who is actually emailing these pictures anti-war moms who need validation, or evil uncles writing to their family's listserv with the side note: "look at what these commie motherfuckers are up to now."

We drove through Great Barrington, MA today en route to Pittsfield, and came across a pretty large, vocal anti-war gathering that had hijacked a major intersection. We honked our horn and waved, and they all screamed jubilantly back at us. Then, in the rear view mirror, I saw a sign that said "NO WAR FOR SUV'S!!!" and realized that I was driving Ol' Bessie the Land Rover (mpg=12, if you're going downhill).

But my chagrin won't last long; we went straight to the Toyota dealership outside Pittsfield and spent half an hour test-driving a Prius (mpg=52, even in the city). I thought it was a great ride, very solid, and of course, featuring the trademark silence when stopped on level ground. The dashboard controls are all in the center of the car which was weird – but I thought it handled better than the Honda Civic Hybrid. Tessa, weirdly, felt the opposite, but there's no accounting for taste.

Having driven two hybrids now, I just have to ask: why isn't every small car a hybrid? I mean, I know they're still working out the power issues on bigger cars, but there is NO DIFFERENCE between these hybrids and cars that get 30 mpg less. Even the price is the same. If we get this car, I'll be able to drive to California on four tanks of gas. If everyone had a hybrid, the Yahoo! Most Emailed Photos page would be nothing except puppy dogs and kute li'l kitty kats.

Oh, and scantily-clad Brazilian models, too I guess you have to have some vices.

why isn't Chopes a Most Emailed dog? is it obvious he's a little stinky?

4/11/03 Columbia County, NY Since I

4/11/03 Columbia County, NY

Since I made my blogoversary yesterday, I'm going to let another night's work do the talking. Turns out that my piece on Colin Soloway had the bad luck of being finished the day after Baghdad fell, and in the news world, that makes you about as relevant as last week's batch of donuts.

Still, it's a cool piece that would have wowed 'em last week when things were still desperate, unsure, and the ghost of fallen journalists as well as Peter Arnett's career – hovered menacingly in the ether.

So I thought I'd print it here, to give you a little glimpse into a young guy our age, smart but curmudgeonly, stuck in the middle of Iraq, talking to me from the front seat of a Humvee while the dust storms rage in the background.

For those who don't know Colin, let me refresh you: he's an old buddy of mine and Tessa's from college in North Carolina. He cut his journalistic teeth in Bosnia during the Balkan wars, but his breakthrough moment came in December 2001, when he discovered John Walker Lindh - the "American Taliban" - while stringing for Newsweek in Afghanistan. Book deals, frequent spots on Larry King, and a Letterman gig followed - but soon enough, he was back in the Middle East. After a week of swapping around satellite phones ("a shady business," he called it), we finally got to talk the day before Baghdad went "ploink!" So here it is:

Colin, it's Ian!

Hey dude, what's happening?

Are you ready for some Q and A?

Yeah, no problem, man. I've been alternately horribly busy and desperately bored.

Where are you right now?

I can't tell you exactly, but I'm in an Iraqi desert right now, not far from Najaf. Nothing but scorpions, snakes and big-ass lizards.

The signal's so clear, it's crazy.

I know, isn't it a great satellite phone? I'm sitting in the Newsweek bureau, which is the front seat of a Humvee belonging to the artillery.

You sound tired as hell.

I am, but today was a great day, actually I managed to do laundry, hand-washing, and then I got my first shower in over a week.

What outfit are you with?

I'm with the 1st battalion of the 101st aviation brigade, which is part of the 101st Airborne division. It's a little confusing, because it's the 1st of the 101st of the 101st. It's an attack and aviation brigade, so it's made up of Apache Longbows, regular Apaches and Kiowa Scouts, which are basically scout helicopters with a videocamera on top of them, and a few guns on the side.

How are you holding up emotionally?

The biggest emotional strain has been watching and reading about the war from a distance. An Apache aviation unit tends to sit pretty far behind the lines they either support infantry attacks, or they go deep, far behind enemy lines and launch attacks.

The problem with the Apaches is they're two-seaters, and they require two pilots, so there's no way you can ride along with them. All you can do is wait for the pilots to come back and go over the gun footage with you, and talk about what happened. It's great for stories, but you're usually far removed from the action.

Have you gotten a chance to encounter any Iraqi civilians while you've been there?

One the roads, as you're driving by. Anyone who comes by gets checked by "quick reaction" forces to make sure they're not terrorists. I went into Najaf yesterday with a liaison officer to talk to the infantry guys, and it was packed we've been out in the desert non-stop and it was a shock to drive into this town and see thousands of people on the street, everybody waving and giving thumbs up.

So the reaction has been positive?

Yeah, in Najaf anyway, it's been very, very positive. You sort of wonder, in the back of your mind are they waving saying "hey, it's great the Americans are here" or are they waving thinking "for god sake wave! Otherwise they might shoot us!"

Well, there's also the Arabic thing where "thumbs up" actually means "fuck you"-

Yeah, it does, but I think they've learned from TV shows and probably from all the Americans doing it. They're all smiling while they do it, so either they're very sarcastic or they understand it. Almost without exception, everybody was waving, everybody was yelling "Hey George Bush good!"

Do you feel like you're dealing with a cousin of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in that the troops are behaving differently by your being there and observing them?

To be honest, no. I've been lucky with this battalion. The battalion commander sets the tone, which is, "fine, you're included in everything we're doing. You can do everything except ride in the helicopter." So I'm in on all the planning sessions, all the rehearsals. On the last mission, I flew up in the commanding control helicopter which has all the hot radios and computer screens in it, and tracked the mission.

People are very, very open about what they're doing, about how they feel. Sometimes the colonel will say something and then say "oh god, please don't write that" or whatever, but very rarely. Basically they trust me. There's a lot of griping and complaining in the military feeling that your unit is not getting the missions it ought to get, but it's not a systemic problem or anything like that. I don't report the penny-anny politics that go on within the brigade.

Have you heard about what happened with Peter Arnett?

Yeah. I've not seen the interview, but I think Arnett's a very good journalist, and certainly as far as war correspondents go, he's a very brave guy and really is one of the greats in the profession. But I think his mistake was misjudging the mood in America.

Right.

Arnett was a lightning rod in the last war because he was reporting from Baghdad and giving that side of the story, and he got a lot of shit for that. I think his mistake was not judging what the reaction would be in the states to that. It's not uncommon while working overseas that local TV will want to interview foreign reporters about their perspective. In terms of what he said about the Bush administration's war plans having failed - I think a lot of people were saying that. It was nothing that anybody in Washington wasn't saying. At the time, it was clear that "plan A" where everyone was going to throw up their arms and say "we love America" as soon as we arrived – was not going to work. It was going to be a fight.

Arnett was simply speaking the truth on that. It's not his responsibility to be patriotic or be passive or to make Americans feel better about themselves, it's his job to say what's going on. Ethically, I don't think it was a problem. Journalists go on TV all over the world talking about what the hell they think is going on. Professionally, it was a mistake. If he wanted to keep working for an American network, it was a mistake, given the sort of pressure that they would come under from the administration and the rah-rah crowd. You know, he's going up against Fox and its perpetual boosterism.

Do you feel like what you write may not be "Ameri-centric" enough?

I'm living with a unit, and I'm writing about a unit, so I don't feel any constraints in that way. I simply tell it how it is, but frankly, you're a little bit isolated in the sense that you're living with these guys, you're working with these guys, and you're seeing things through their eyes.

Apache pilots are very sensitive about the whole issue of opinion, because after the last Gulf War their gun camera tapes were scrutinized. They fly low and slow, and they shoot things from pretty close up, and those videos are pretty disturbing. When you shoot someone with a 30mm cannon, their body blows apart, and it's pretty gruesome stuff. As a result, unlike a lot of Air Force hits, their stuff gets looked at very closely.

So are the Americans "team players"?

It's the battalion commander's job to make clear to them that nobody's going to go in [alone], nobody's going to be a hero here, nobody's going to push farther than they're supposed to push. That was really driven home for them, even before their first mission, when the 11th Aviation Regiment went into Karbalah and got the shit shot out of it. Every single one of their aircraft came back with holes in it, except for one which was shot down.

That made it a lot more real for our pilots. The great concern for Apache pilots is to get in too close, to get into what they call a "knife fight" and get caught up in urban fighting, so it gets impressed on them that if they can shoot stuff from a long way away, do it.

What kind of differences are there between the career military officers and the new guys?

Well, I'm in an aviation unit. In the infantry, the focus is on the infantry soldier, because the individual rifleman is the weapons system. So their sergeants and their officers will not eat, will not sleep until their men have been taken care of. In aviation, the focus is the helicopter. The important thing is keeping those helicopters flying. The pilots are mostly warrant officers, and the enlisted soldiers basically maintain and fix the helicopters, gas them up, arm them and keep them running.

And the enlisted men live on a pretty rough schedule, because as soon as those helicopters come back from a mission, they work on those things until they're fixed. They really work their ass off. Pilots want to go out and shoot stuff, but for a lot of the enlisted soldiers, they understand their job is to keep these birds going. Some kids who have come out of the infantry have certainly complained about "the big baby," how the focus is entirely on the helicopter. For some of them it's frustrating, because they fix them and they fly and they break, then they fix them and they fly and they break...

Like being a dishwasher.

Yeah, except on a thirty million dollar aircraft. But some of them are really proud and really happy to be doing it. It's sort of a mix, it's like that in every unit.

Are the soldiers worried about a chemical attack?

Yeah, especially when the war started, they were very concerned. We had Iraqi missiles landing near our base in Kuwait, and just last week they shot down an Iraqi missile just over our assembly area. As the ground forces were closing on Karbala, there was a lot of fear that there could be some chemical attack.

Do you have a chemical suit?

Oh yeah, yeah. For the first ten days, we never took them off. You wore the bottoms, at least, at all times. Which was pretty awful and hot during the day. Nice and cozy at night, actually.

And masks?

Everyone carries them on their hips at all times. I do. I don't really have to follow uniform code, but if I'm moving around, you get used to wearing it. If there is an alert, if there is gas, you've got about eight seconds to get it on. There have been a number of false alarms [around here], but apparently they found some mustard gas in Najaf yesterday - while I was there, but we didn't know about it it was only a kilometer away from us. So when we came back, everyone said "uh-oh, they found this stuff – are you guys feeling okay?" because the effects of mustard gas aren't immediate.

Are they sure it was mustard gas and not pesticides?

I don't think you've heard about the mustard gas yet. It's the real deal. At least that's what the chemical officers [are saying].

On another note, do you think Iraqis will be better off or worse off from this war?

It's tough for me to judge. Having talked to a lot of Iraqis outside Iraq, I don't think the lives of most people can be worse than it was under Saddam. That said, nation-building is a very difficult process... this idea of developing a liberal democracy in Iraq on the cheap is going to be very difficult. It's not a bad goal to have, but the long, difficult trouble is going to be as soon as the war is over and this administration has shown no track record in terms of being willing to stick it out and really commit to nation building. If you look at their record in Afghanistan, it's been dismal in terms of their involvement. Iraq is obviously a lot more important to them, so they may try it.

Americans don't do this sort of stuff very well. We don't deal very well in the subtleties of these societies. I don't see them drawing on the expertise of people who have actually worked on these issues before in Kosovo, Bosnia and East Timor. I think they're going to re-invent the wheel a million times, but that's my personal opinion.

Have you been scared since you've been there?

When we were coming up to our assembly area in the desert, when we crossed into Iraq, we were in a large convoy of vehicles. We had no security in the form of infantry or professional killers. We got into Iraq twenty-four hours after the ground war started, and we just tooled on up there with no security. At night you could see Iraqi fire off in the distance, at times ahead of you even, and we were very much aware that we were at risk of ambush.

I asked them "what do you do if we get shot at?" and they said "we just drive." And I was like "we have a convoy five miles long and we're just going to drive through it?"

Pretty much everyone on those convoys agrees we were pretty lucky not have gotten shot up at some point on the road. There were still a lot of dudes running around, out in the desert, coming out of the towns and hitting convoys.

What's your least favorite thing about Iraq?

Once you get away from the Euphrates River valley, which is quite beautiful and green, it's just desert it's dusty, it's hot. We've endured just the most horrible dust storms anyone has ever seen, including guys who had been back here in the last war. Three days of virtual zero visibility where you had to use a GPS to move from helicopter to helicopter, much less go to the latrine. And we were sleeping outside in that.

We think we've had it bad in New York it snowed six inches it's been barely above freezing-

Oh man, well, it's been 100 up to about 110 every day this week. It's been pretty horrible-

How about the people?

Going to Najaf yesterday, it was a shock to see [civilians] again... on the road, coming in, the only people we saw were Bedouin, who seemed reasonably happy to see us. Especially when the American vehicles were breaking down and [we were] abandoning them, the Bedouin were stripping them for parts.

And it's nice to see people in the city saying hey, great, thumbs-up, that sort of stuff. At what point that honeymoon ends, and it ceases to be exciting to see Americans on the street, I think will probably come pretty soon. The worst thing you can do to an American is not love him. The troops like the idea of everyone being happy to have them here, because they know the rest of the world is not particularly happy about having them here.

On to the important stuff: Matt Doherty "resigned" from the [University of North Carolina our alma mater] basketball team-

I know! Charlie Rose told me!

Who do you think should be the next coach?

They should get Dean Smith back, actually.

That sounds like a good idea.

I lived the first twentysomething years of my life with Dean Smith as coach, and I just couldn't think of anyone else.

****

4/10/03 Brooklyn, NY Today, my

4/10/03 Brooklyn, NY

Today, my dear blog, is our blogoversary. Exactly one year ago tonight I wrote from my dad's excellent digs in Napa Valley, and made a solemn pact with myself that I'd write in you every night for a year. And without exception - even during the throes of despair, or in the ecstasy of life-affirmation, or stuck in Cut & Shoot, Texas, or swimming the delirium of Percoset - I have still talked to you every night. I wonder, blog, has it been worth it, for you and I?

The reason we started our relationship was simple: I wanted to keep a daily diary of going on the antidepressant Celexa. After a few weeks, however, I started realizing how important it was to actually force myself to write every night, and I could feel my slightly-atrophied writing muscle becoming erect once more. Since then, my dear blog, youve gotten me into trouble: you accidentally "outed" one of my friends, you made my dad upset, you pissed off Tessa's family, and because you are infinitely searchable, you've ruined my senatorial campaign for the year 2024.

Tessa and me, April '02…………..................and April '03

But I can't deny you've made me a better communicator, or at least, a better writer. I've met incredible people from 10 different countries through you, and if my "web statistic" page is correct, you've even been hit by someone on Christmas Island. Why anyone would choose you from the 207,983 blogs currently out there is anyone's guess perhaps your clean, close shave? Is it because I put lotsa pictures on you, making you easier to digest? Or does everyone still think that "xtcian" is some sort of Christian rave drug?

In a year, I have melted away much of my depression and anxiety, and it is because of you, Celexa, therapy, and this cool chick I'm living with. Our movie has gone from being an unfunny, messy jumble to a boisterous, frenetic joyride that only needs a few more scenes before it's finished. I started freelancing again, my basketball game has remained frustratingly obtuse, we've had another war, and we beat Duke. Most of all, however, I still get to be with the most incredible woman I've ever known. She truly makes every day fun, and though I may someday run out of things to say to you, I'll never tire of talking to her.

hm... wonder who's been here

4/9/03 Brooklyn, NY Nobody ever

4/9/03 Brooklyn, NY

Nobody ever said being a sensitive liberal would be easy.

It's almost impossible not to get caught up in the American triumphalism following the fall of Baghdad; I actually swelled a little when the statue came down and Iraqis flooded the square to pound his face with their shoes. And the pictures well, some of them are downright charming (like this one or this one). The changing of the guard in Baghdad looks like what happened in the 70s when my parents accidentally got a stoned babysitter – us consuming mountains of Fruity Pebbles mixed with Strawberry Quik, peeing off the roof, and staying up 4 1/2 hours past bedtime to watch Monty Python on PBS. It does feel, on days like these, that there are a set of possibilities in this world, not all of them necessarily horrible.

At first, liberals wanted to avoid the war, then when the war started, we wanted it to end quickly. And now that it has, we're left wondering: will Republicans rule America until the year 2027? At first, we were scared to attack Afghanistan, then it was a fairly easy romp. Then we warned that Iraq was no Afghanistan, and then Iraq fell quicker than Afghanistan did. Now the hawks have set their sights on Syria, and possibly Iran. I mean, seriously, why the fuck not?

The most important thing a history professor ever said to me was this: "something doesn't have to have happened in order to be true." I have also used its inverse: something doesn't have to be fictitious in order to be false. I didn't believe any good could come of this war, and now, as victory seeps through the Tigris, Euphrates, Hudson and Mississippi, I can only enjoy the briefest flashes of triumph and relief, because like all sensitive liberals, I only feel truthful when my mind is in motion. We are pilloried as vague, waffling, even feminine, but in a world of merciless certitudes, we are occasionally going to be the only friends you have.

"no Mom, we want KENT to babysit!"

4/8/03 Brooklyn, NY One of

4/8/03 Brooklyn, NY

One of the animators for the Pink House movie came over this morning (by the way, I know it seems cheesy to keep linking to the movie site, but any p.r. is good p.r.) and he is ordinarily one of the sweetest, most understated guys you'll ever meet but his rage at the war, and specifically the Bush administration, was a study in hidden fury. I saw wrinkles, furrowed brows, twists of sentences - that I never thought he'd be capable of. He never got out of control; his anger was well-documented and came with footnotes, and it was impressive.

It felt great to hear another person say these things, because it truly seems like the rest of this fat, sated country could give half a Christ about it. And I'm not including the internet in this, because let's face it, the net doesn't carry 1/9th the emotional weight human contact does. There are plenty of places to go on the web for exquisitely-well-written manifestos of left-leaning rage, but you really need to see the saliva of your fellow man to be reminded that the whole thing isn't some kind of dream.

It also made me wonder what had happened to my own fury, because once the war started, I found it hard to talk about it. I pretty much retreated into our movie, my freelance writing career, another script, and buying stuff for my bike. Today I saw the images of the Iraqi boy whose arms had been blown off by American bombs, and all I could think was "jesus, please spare my family from the reprisals of this."

But I don't want to march against the war. I am resting, saving my strength. I'm dedicated to one cause only: ousting George Bush in next year's election. I'm not trying to be overly dramatic or swooningly histrionic when I say this, but it's the only thing that will save this country. It's simple. Everything else is just bickering, futile jabs into the sky, windmill tilting, frosting and gravy.

I spoke to Colin today, me in my Brooklyn apartment watching the ice freeze on the trees, and him in central Iraq, barely able to walk from the chemical suit and the 120-degree heat. Sometimes it's nice just to talk basketball, which we did.

4/7/03 Brooklyn, NY the view

4/7/03 Brooklyn, NY

the view outside our bedroom window (click for bigger)

Prince had a song on the Under the Cherry Moon soundtrack (you know, the one that had "Kiss" on it) called Sometimes It Snows In April. I always think about that song this time of year, mostly because it always snows in April, especially in Minneapolis, where Prince is from. But I think I speak for all New Yorkers when I say this shit has GOT to STOP. The first snow of the season was on November 2nd, and I know because I bloody well took a picture of it. That's more than five months of snow, and easily six months of it being too goddamn cold.

Now, I grew up as a wee lad in eastern Iowa, and you'll rarely find winters as sucky as those were. And I know I'm 35 now, and crochety, and so far removed from youth as to think that the weather is an interesting blog topic. But whatever, I'm finally beginning to understand why old farts all move to Florida. Today I had to walk two miles through blinding ice needles flying at my retinas just to pay my phone bill – and I've fuckin' had it.

Which means, yes, my phone was turned off for the first time since I actually lived in the Pink House in 1997. I paid the wrong amount whilst on the massive road trip a few months back, and been unwittingly way behind ever since. Which sucks because I was supposed to call Colin Soloway on his satellite phone in Iraq today, in order to finish this article about "embedded soldiers." Colin's with the 101st Airborne, Charlie Company, and I'd like to get some zingy answers straight from the curmudgeon himself. If you think I bitch and moan a lot, wait until you hear Colin from the middle of a desert.

4/6/03 Brooklyn, NY It was

4/6/03 Brooklyn, NY

It was a little break in the action, today was, a tiny shot of pale sunlight before another goddamn blizzard hits us tomorrow. Even though it was about ten degrees below Nice outside, the entire town of Brooklyn flocked to Prospect Park in order to soak up as much ultra-violet light as possible. People have really had enough of winter around here. If tomorrow's storm is bad, expect to see a slight surge in domestic violence and suicides in the Northeast.

I got involved in another bit of obsessive minutae: after my sister Michelle raved about how much easier biking was with toe clips, I decided to try them out. Fortunately, Chapel Hill is home to the bike Mecca of America: Performance Bike Shop, a place I never noticed because it was right next to the pizza joint where I drove pies for a year.

Anyway, everything there is insanely cheap, and it's some of the best in the business, and everything was 40% off so Tessa and I bought the "clipless pedals" and the "SPD® compatible shoes" to go with both our bikes.

I always avoided toeclips because when I was a kid, that meant a basket shoved around your Keds that would guarantee a major injury when you invariably got your tires caught in the slits of a water drain. Again and again I would find myself heading towards a tree and unable to get my feet out of the pedals. But that was the 70s, and shit's more advanced now, yo.

As long as you know how to bow your ankles just right, you can slip out of these guys in a hurry, and the shoes look pretty cool too. What began as a test ride on a plot of grass turned into a full-on jaunt around the entirety of Prospect Park; the clipped shoes made the hill a lot easier. So in the interests of trying new things and always maintaining an open mind, I give this product a thumbs-up, and I'd like to say I'm sorry to all the clipped bike shoes I so casually disregarded before. Huzzah for new experiences.

Up next: butt sex!