The Steve Earle Guitar

Several years ago, I sat in a renovated mill in downtown Greenville at a charity auction held by the local classic rock station, Rock101. It was a time I didn't have a lot of money in my pocket and probably shouldn't have been bidding on anything.

I didn't need another guitar. I have my old Alvalrez acoustic/electric I've been playing since I was a teenager. I have a beat-up Peavey T-60 I've been playing since then, as well. What's more, I would soon have a 12-string and a mandolin. The last thing I needed was the guitar that sat on the stage. It wasn't an expensive guitar and had nowhere near the kind of tone I would want. Still, I bid, bid again, and bid again. I took it home with me that night knowing I bought it only because it was signed by one of my songwriting heroes, Steve Earle.

That guitar has been here ever since and took on the likely name "The Steve Earle Guitar." It got played, to be sure. It usually came out when I had friends over and we took to musical silliness. The best night I remember was a Bradoween celebration. My cousin, a friend named Kebin, and I all sat in my driveway for way too many hours and traded songs.

That guitar isn't here anymore. It's now somewhere where it's going to get played all the time. I bought a hard shell case for it so it would survive the trip and had a packing company send it off. To the credit of the U.S. Postal Service, the entire journey took less than a week and the guitar arrived in one piece.

That guitar and its future are now in the hands of a friend. I know it is in good hands. I sent along only one request: Make sure the guitar stays there until everybody gets to come home. I know my friend, known to many as Dr. Chako, will make sure that happens.



For more, visit Dr. Chako's website.

Patriots with broken thumbs

I was questioning my own patriotism. I wasn't sure a red-blooded American would've had a spinach fish wrap for lunch on Veterans Day. Yet, as planes flew overhead and the small town parade inched its way down the main drag, that was what sat in my stomach. The least I could've done was have a meal with red meat in it. Maybe a rare burger or something. And I called myself an American.

Sated, though, I stood on the sidewalk and watch the parade pass by. Grizzled Vietnam vets rode on Harleys. World War II soldiers sat in the back of convertibles. Girl Scouts walked to their cadence. Each passing group got a round of deserved applause as it passed. I stood with my back against a storefront and thought about my friends. One of them drove humvees through rainstorms of gunfire. Another, a doctor, is there saving lives. One good buddy is on his way back to Iraq for yet another in an endless series of increasingly dangerous tours.

A high school marching band played "Tequila" and I thought about how I could use a shot myself. I wondered about my dad's buddies. They were Vietnam-era fighters. One drank, the other did not. In more than 30 years of knowing them, I never once heard them talk about their time during the war. There was a time I thought about asking. Now I know that people are quiet for a reason.

A few weeks before, I had taken my son on a hike through the woods. It was a tricky trail, tangled with tree roots and jutting rocks. My son is three and I have eleven lifetimes on him. Neither of us had an easy time standing up. Along the way, we passed a man who could not have been younger than 85. He and his wife moved slowly along the trail. I wondered how they could manage the hike. We stopped to talk and I noticed the man's cap. He was a veteran, as well. He didn't talk about his service and I didn't ask. Instead, he complimented me on getting my boy outdoors. As we walked away, the old man called, "Keep that boy in the woods!"

The parade was nearing its end when a group passed by on foot. The group was made up of of young and old, male and female, and just about every other descriptor you could come up with. They held signs that read, "Support the troops. End the War."

I nodded to myself as I heard applause begin to rise from the streetside crowd. I was impressed and held a moment of hope that we were all going to be okay. I pushed myself off the wall and headed farther onto the sidewalk. That's when I saw the 70-something lady a few feet away. She was waving? No, her hand was in the air in motion that is almost universally known to mean, "Get the hell out."

"Grandma's a war hawk," I muttered and started walking back up, almost in step with the "Support the Troops" group. I hadn't walked a block before I saw another lady--this one closer to 60--literally standing on her chair at a corner restaurant. Her hand was in the air and jerking. Her thumb was pointed toward the sidewalk. That is how some people recognize and honor our veterans. They boo the people who want the war to end.

The parade wasn't over, but I saw little reason to stay longer. I turned and walked down a side street. If supporting the troops and wishing for an end to war is a reason to boo, I am obviously in the wrong place.

Tuning Up

I learned during a trip home to see my family that intelligent public opinion on America's current foreign policy issues is more divided than I thought. It started with a lunch discussion with my father. He's an intelligent man with firm opinions. I respect him and model a lot of my life on his character. Five minutes into our discourse on the war in Iraq, I was nearly screaming. I'm not a very passionate guy when it comes to matters of politics. Or, at least, I didn't used to be. Yelling at my dad is something I never do. I ended up declaring, "I'm not talking about this with you anymore."

Five minutes later I was yelling again.

When I posted Tuning In, I expected very little response. Based on the e-mails and comments, I was wrong about that. Because I think talking about it is the only way we'll ever get close to consensus, I thought I'd bump the discussion up to a post of its own.

Mike M. wrote:

What are you talking about? Mexicans booed the US soccer team just weeks after 9/11 in Mexica, chanting Osama...Osama throughout the match. This is not a "wake up" call, at least not to most of us.

Everyone hates us and they have for decades before 9/11. Are you ready to change America so that the world loves us again? Ready to sell out Israel? That will gain lots of friends.

Mature people worry about doing the right thing. Teenagers worry about being liked.

I responded:

1) Being mature and being liked aren't mutually exclusive.

2) I said "most of America" woke up with the beauty pageant. You might forget that most of America doesn't watch soccer and missed that other Mexico incident.

3) There's a difference between actively trying to be liked and actively working to be hated.

Zippy backed me up:

As for Israel, I'm pretty sure it can take care of itself these days. They can always use those nuclear weapons that they don't have that they didn't build from nuclear material we didn't give them or have taken from us in the late 60s.

Mike was having none of my liberal ranting. He responded:

C'mon, Otis. Are you kidding? Do you think this is a "wake-up call" to even 5% of Americans, the ones who have been in comas?

I think you are simply rejoicing in the humiliation of an American woman. I think you feel Americans have it coming to them for not voting the way you would vote.

And I *know* that if an American crowd acted as the Mexican crowd did, you would have no problem recognizing the unforgivable racism, xenophobia, and hatred on display by ugly Americans. There would be no "wake up call for Mexicans" for you to point out if a Mexican girl was humiliated on an American stage. It would be all about the racist American pigs who made racist taunts and jeers at a brave contestant.

I didn't respond to that at the time. I guess I should now.

You're right, Mike. I would call the American crowd xenophobic if they booed a foreign contestant. It's an ugly way to treat people who are not at fault for the world's problems. Further, it does nothing to further the cause of peace and harmony (and, lest you think that sentence is all "Come on people, smile on your brothers," I'm not really riding a Flower Child trip here--I just think peace and harmony are decent, if futile, pursuits).

What you might have misinterpreted from my thoughts about the Mexican booing is this: I wasn't applauding the Mexicans. I was simply saying that a majority of America pays more attention to beauty pageants than it does news about the war. I guarantee you that more people discussed the Mexican Booing incident than discussed how many Americans died in Iraq that same day. I'd suggest that sucks and I suspect you'd agree. The point isn't that Miss USA got wrongly humiliated. The point is that America at large is shocked by the fact that the people of other nations dislike us enough to boo our pageant queens. The point is we should be taking a critical look at why other nations dislike us. If it's because we're free and rich, well, then I don't care if they like us either. However, if it's because we use words like "crusade" when we attack lands of different faiths, well, then I think we have a problem.

The biggest part of the argument I had with my dad was over whether America's reasons for war were justified and if, even in the face that our initial stated reason was false, whether our continued involvement was just, fair, and smart. I'm not sure I have the answer to that (at least well enough to write about it). However, I think it's a question we should all be able to answer before we support or actively fight our continued involvement in Iraq.

Which brings me to Random101. He is a friend, and an intelligent one at that. Rarely outspoken, he has taken this opportunity to offer me a thinking exercise. He commented:

My reaction to the Iraq/world opinion stories ran contrary to your comments. I would like to make a request to the best writer that I personally know. You are President/King Otis. It is 9/11 or whenever. What do you do? Do you stop enforcing the “no fly” zone in Iraq? Do you pull all of the 100,000 or so troops out of the Middle East? What would be the reaction of other countries? What are your counter actions? If you capture real terrorists, what do you do with them?

I don’t want to argue or trap anyone. I just want someone describe the alternative path. People sound so hopeless. What possible series of US/world events leads to people sounding hopeful?

It is 9/11 or whenever.

I'd first take issue with the characterization of "9/11 or whenever." Not to be glib, but it reminds me of that line from "Sixteen Candles."

The Geek: How's it going?
Samantha: How's what going?
The Geek: You know - things, life, whatnot.
Samantha: Life is not whatnot, and it's none of your business.

September 11th could never be compared to any point that could be described as "whenever." September 11th was a moment that galvanized America and showed us how vulnerable we are to the people who hate us. No other event since Pearl Harbor had such an effect on America at large. I shudder to imagine that it could become so commonplace that we'd describe it as "whenever." So, I'll assume you were just being colloquial and you can forgive me quoting John Hughes.

What do you do?

Without question, I hunt down the organizers of the terrorist groups and I kill them. I kill them in such a way that there is no question that I intended to kill them. I continued to kill them until there are no more to kill.

So, most supporters of the current war would suggest that's what we're doing in Iraq. We're working to kill the people who tried to kill us. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to support that. I've yet to see evidence that Iraq provided serious support to Osama Bin Laden or his people. I've yet to see serious evidence that Saddam had much success in building weapons of mass destruction. So, launching an assault on Iraq and deposing Saddam might have been a good idea. I'm not saying it wasn't. What I'm saying is, 9/11 wasn't justification for it. What I'm saying is America is in the middle of a crisis of its own making and the only people winning are the Haliburtons of the corporate world.

People sound so hopeless. What possible series of US/world events leads to people sounding hopeful?

Maybe I'm being naive. Maybe there was reason to occupy Iraq for four-plus years in an effort to fight terrorism. Maybe the trillions we've spent destroying and rebuilding Iraq is actually making my family safer. However, I don't think that.

I have an in-law who once said, "If we don't find them over there, your son will have to fight them over here."

My question: Who is "them?" Iraqis? Muslims? Middle Eastern people? Brown people?

Supporters of the war seem to draw a clear connection between The War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq. I don't see one.

So, what of hope? What would make me hopeful?

Hard to say anymore I guess. Looking back, I wish we would've spent trillions in covert missions and undercover work to find and kill terrorists. I wish we had not gone to war in Iraq. Had we decided to depose Saddam, I wish it would've been a CIA mission as opposed to a full-scale military assault. I wish we would've listened to the intelligence about the insurgency problems we were sure to face. I wish thousands of American soldiers hadn't had to die for a war with no clear goal or exit strategy.

But, hope in one hand, yada, yada.

So, what would give me hope now?

A gradual drawdown of the American presence in Iraq.

A clear timetable for our eventual exit.

If we're to stick to a strategy of pro-active war, I'd be hopeful that America is given clear and accurate reasoning for such future battle.

The end or reduction of no-bid contracts.

Clear accounting of money spent during times of war.

For-profit mercenary firms being held to the same legal standard as American military troops.

A recognition that our espoused noble war is operating, if not at the expense of, at least in the ambivalence about such tragedies as the genocide in Darfur.

***

I am not a foreign policy expert. I don't claim to know even 25% of everything I need to know to have an educated opinion about this. I'm speaking largely from my heart. I believe in democracy. I believe in freedom. I believe in America. However, no one has given me any reason to believe the war and continued occupation of Iraq is helping America or the people of Iraq. To the contrary, the war has injured my belief that America works in the interest of peace and democracy. I can only hope that my belief is restored. War is sometimes necessary. This kind of war, however, is not.

***

When I left my hometown, I sat in a small airline gate with my kid at 6am. A clean-cut, tough solider in fatigues stood almost at attention. He looked through the glass windows out into the insecure area and did a lover's version of sign language to his girl on the other side. For nearly 30 minutes, they signed back and forth in their own unspoken longing. When the gate agent called for boarding, the guy turned on his cell phone. With tears running down his face and a waver in his voice, he said, "I love you, baby." And then he walked in tears onto the plane that would start his journey toward Iraq.

If he was your son, your husband, your boyfriend, or your brother, what would you say if he died in Iraq tomorrow?

Would he have died for a reason? And if so, please tell me what that reason is.

Tuning in

I spent most of the last eight days tuning out. I ate a lot of food, played precious little poker, spent time with good friends, and enjoyed my family. It was a much-needed reprieve from everything. Upon my return, I spent a few minutes looking over what I've missed.

* Mexico boos Miss USA -- It's not enough that Rachel Smith is clumsy. She also got booed by a Mexican audience at the Miss Universe competition. I find it pretty amazing that it takes a beauty pageant for most of America to realize that the rest of the world hates us. But, whatever it takes, I say.

* Lindsay Lohan back in rehab -- Oh yeah, on a day when eight American soldiers are killed in Iraq, the fact that a no-talent actress can't stay off the booze and coke makes it above the fold on the front page of CNN.com You know why? America can feel better about itself if it pays less attention to the honorable people who are dying and more attention to the dishonorable people who are merely killing themselves. At least Britney Spears can get back to lipsynching work.

* Even Cindy Sheehan is giving up -- You know you're on the losing side of the battle when even the Sheehans are headed for the house. I, for one, would like to welcome our leaders from Haliburton and Blackwater USA.

* Sad because it's true -- My friend Geno directed me to this one. It nearly made me cry. This is probably the best paragraph from the entire thing:

"Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent."

Holy shit, that should be on the base of the Statue of Liberty right now.


Rural southwest Missouri storm or a more significant harbinger?

Critical thinker

I'm tired, mired, an uninspired today. So far the only thing I have accomplished is...well, nothing. I have, however, read Boy Genius' most recent rant. In a couple thousand words, he pretty much summed up what I've been struggling to write for a while. It's not for Republicans. It's not even really for Democrats. It's for everybody who cares about the Bill of Rights.

As BG wrote, "The Bill of Rights is at risk, and I'm less willing to lose these guaranteed freedoms than I am to lose my own life to a dirty bomb attack."

Go check out his post: Oh No He Didn't.

Friday Mental Massage: What Antonella Barba and I have in common

Antonella Barba, at a glance, is a pixie. She's the girl from your home room class that is pretty and knows it, but doesn't act like it. She's the girl that your mother believes would be a good girl to ask to the Homecoming dance. What mom doesn't know is that Antonella Barba likes to get half naked on war memorials and go topless with her girlie friends. You know, the kind of stuff that makes her more the girl you'd like to date and the kind of girl your mom wishes would develop a bad coke habit and end up in Internet reality porn.

Well, now she is one of the unfortunate members of the American Idol legacy who will be remembered more for her "talent" than her talent. I'm no fan either way, nor will I admit actually watching American Idol. Regardless, it's all got me thinking about the unlikely (read: never gonna happen) event I become some sort of 14-minute celebrity. I'm fairly certain there are no half-naked pictures of me out there, save the one my friends published in the University of Missouri student newspaper The Maneater as a birthday prank. Video, however, is another issue. I've tried to go back in my memory and think about existing embarrassing video tape. Here's the list:

* I'm sitting in a dorm room in Laws Hall at University of Missouri. I'm drinking from a 40 oz. bottle, pretending to smoke a dart (yes, an actual dart that you would throw at a dart board), and telling the story of my friend Marty's pet eel that died after jumping out of an aquarium. (Humiliation level: Low)

* I'm in a suburban neighborhood and serving as the master of ceremonies over a footrace. This race takes place after dark and in front of a crowd of very intoxicated people. (Humiliation level: Low)

* I'm hosting Bradoween and pretending to speak for the hibiscus bushes in my back yard. (Humiliation level: Medium)

* I'm hosting some other party and singing Rocketman. (Humiliation level: Off the charts)

* I'm hosting some other party and dancing with a friend's wife. (Humiliation level: Medium)

* I'm at Al Can't Hang's Bash at the Boathouse. I'm impaired. I'm standing in a crowd and talking to a friend who also happens to be the wife of another friend. I threaten to--but, mercifully do not--expose myself for the benefit of the crowd. (Humiliation level: High)

* I'm in a diner at the Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas. I've been playing Pai Gow poker and earning a "free" meal of steak and eggs. Pauly offers me $400 if I'll eat two of the Keno crayons sitting on the table. Without thinking about it, I do it. When asked what it tastes like, I respond creatively, "Crayons." (Humiliation level: Low)

That list was a lot shorter in my head than it came out here. Such are the dangers of a misspent youth and liberal attitudes on malted hops and barley. Fortunately, only one of those videos has appeared on the internet and, apart from the mild embarrassment at being stopped in public and asked "Hey, are you the guy that ate the crayons?" it's not been that bad. I'm not sure who is in control of the video from college, but the rest are in the hands of people I trust not to humiliate me or sell me out.

***

For some reason, I've been thinking about 2003 a lot recently. I'm not sure why, exactly. Nothing in particular stood out, other than March of 2003 was about the last time my life was exactly...I dunno...normal. On this Friday, I decided to take a look back at March four years ago.

On March 10, 2003, I wrote this:

It's hard to write this without seeming falsely modest or overly boastful. So, I'll leave it at this: I won an award. People tell me its pretty important. I don't know how much of that is true, but from what I can tell, Peter Jennings won it in 2000 and Ted Koppel won it in 2001.

That was the beginning of the end of my career in traditional journalism.

Six days later, I, for the first--and thankfully only--time, completely blacked out and severely injured myself. The doctors called it orthostatic hypotension. I called it one big hole in my face and my bottom lip nearly being ripped off.

It is sort of easy to let ourselves forget that in March of 2003, we sent our country to war. Now, it's easy for me to say we're involved in one of the ugliest blunders of our country's history. In 2003, I think there was a part of me that saw it coming. As I sat nursing my busted face, I wrote about the pending Iraq war:

I'm wondering if my tete-a-tete with the carpet knocked more than my lower face astray. As hard as I try (and believe me, I'm trying) I can get neither excited nor worried about the possibility of war, retaliation, victory, or defeat. It just doesn't seem real.

There comes a great burden with being the world's only superpower. I figure a healthy part of that burden is knowing when to go and when to stay home. I don't have that answer.

A man of thought (as I like to consider myself) should have some opinion or feeling about his country leading a charge to war. I feel incredibly shallow for feeling very little in the way of anxiety or patriotic fervor.

Perhaps when my as-yet unconceived child turns 20, there will be no need for war.

That's a nice thought. But, I'm sure when my dad's buddies were stuck in Vietnam 30 years ago, he was probably saying the same thing about his as-yet unconceived child's potential world.

On March 19th, as it all started, I had false hope, writing:

Outside my window, the wind screams like an air raid siren. Lightning flashes in the sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance. At times, the entire house sounds like it will implode on itself. It is the first real storm of South Carolina spring.

On my TV set, Peter Arnett is watching the skies over Iraq. The President's spokesman just announced our nation's leader will speak to the country and world in about ten minutes.

It seems the rumbles, flashes, and wails will not be limited to my little mountain in the Blue Ridge foothills.

May both storms pass quickly.

Just a few days later, I was writing about people who were dying in Iraq. Rather than quote the whole thing here, I'll just link to it. It's not fantastic writing, but I think it was around the last time my head and heart felt young.

Willin'

That year aged me more than any year previous or since. My dad's near-death and unlikely survival, the realization I was going to be a father, and the everything else started turning me into someone that I had never been. For the most part, I can admit I have matured and benefited from what I experience that year. Still, I can't help but miss that young part of my soul, that part that lived in stupid bliss and rarely felt those twinges of true regret.

I wonder if I'm right in thinking our country has aged past its years, too.

***

So, maybe that's a little too heavy to end the week.

Try this. Sometimes things, in the face of all logic, just work out. Like when you're falling from 12,000 feet and your parachute doesn't work.

Yeah, sometimes things turn out okay.