Musical Autobiography

Making movement toward home. I get mixed up sometimes and call this place home. I gotta stop coming here so my brain doesn’t get confused. In celebration of my escape from this place I wanted to put together a song list that would embody my plight over here for the past couple years. This is tough because its all other peoples’ poetry, but I wanted something that carried with it my thoughts and experiences. Not a small challenge, and I... Read More

Home Sweet Home..?

(3 days to go) This is probably going to sound crazy. I have no idea what the reason is behind this, but I am feeling like nervous about coming home. I can’t explain why and it doesn’t make sense to me. Don’t get me wrong here, I am totally pumped about coming home. I mean, I really really really want to come home and never look back on this shitty fucked up place, but I feel nervous about it. This feeling is pissing me off because... Read More

Tracers in the Sky

(7 days to go) The locals are going crazy right now. Its Eid-al-Fitr – the holiday that celebrates the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Gunshots are everywhere, you can see the red tracer rounds float pendulously over the city before they go dark. We have like 15 giant boxes of special Eid dates to give out as gifts and almost as much special “middle east pastries”. I think I’m gonna go sprinkle rat poison over the stuff for... Read More

Insomnia

(10 days to go) Its 3 oclock in the fucking morning and I can’t sleep. Again. God DAMN it. I don’t think its stress, maybe excitement about coming home… I dunno about a million thoughts are all swimming around in my head about work and relationships and money and life and I can’t turn off the sound of my own gears turning. Its crunch time here. Thats what I call it anyway. Whenever I get short over here I really focus on getting... Read More

The White Plank

The seasons change like a punch in the mouth.  One minute you are hunched over, eyes squinting in the light, shamal blowing dust in your eyes, bowed before the sun.  The next minute you are shaken by thunder, wind, and mud that falls from the sky.  Not sure what is really happening, you are half dressed, exhausted fingers desperately groping for your rifle at 4 am when a massive thunderclap explodes overhead, only moments later to stumble outside... Read More

“Luxuriating”

Thought i had the day off today, but you know how that goes. My boss came into my room at around 12:30 and was like “dude!? what the hell are you doing still in bed!?” I was laying in bed reading my Howard Hughes biography with incense burning, the AC pumping out full power, and a fresh cup of coffee sitting next to me. My one word response ” luxuriating ” Apparently there was some last minute shit that got spun up so I had... Read More

Churning Gears

I haven’t been able to get to sleep until like 4 or 5 in the morning the past few days. Gears turning in my head keeps me up. Seems like nobody can sleep. The good news is that its Ramadan right now so there are like 28 good movies on all night long. First couple nights I tried to sleep, wrestled my sheets for hours, gave it my best effort, but when you hear the speakers in the minarets crackle to life for prayer time at 315am you know you’re... Read More

Madhouse

The helo came in and we got resupplied recently and man did we need it. It seemed like I’ve been living off cans of tunafish and beans for the last week now. Don’t even have an opener and my leatherman got punked so I’ve been forced to use a fucking wrench. Fuck it… I’d use a clothes hanger if I had to – hunger kicking in the way it has. The only thing we had here besides canned food is peanut butter and a shitload... Read More

Pregnant With Celestial Fire

Quick update here, my head is totally swimming this morning. You heal me to death, by Jen is an expression of frustration and disappointment in regards to less that honorable corporate practices of one of America’s largest drug companies. I also put up a gallery of photos from my trip to a dying coal town in west virginia in the freak show section. Hopefully I can get over this sickness and get some more going here before too long. Just as a... Read More

Sick as Shit

Well I’m sick, with fever, and the 120 degree heat is making it totally miserable. I’ve been watching MTV India non-stop for the past few days and it finally caught up with me last night. I had the most creepy fever dreams of all time. There was all this sitar and flute music and these people (that I couldn’t see) were shouting, talking, and whispering in Hindi . You know how fever dreams can get, half asleep, half awake, sweating,... Read More