Hey Emma Stone, Sorry I Was So Awkward

Hey Emma Stone, sorry I was so awkward.

My stupid hair and I were sitting, minding our own business, waiting for a meeting at Imagine Entertainment on the afternoon of Friday, November 20th. I was quite nervous, as this was my first "Hollywood" meeting. Furthermore, I was in the offices of the guys behind "Arrested Development" which is probably my favorite thing ever made by anybody. Well, except boobies, but even though it only ran for three seasons, I've seen far more AD than boobies. Somebody's baking frownies :( :( :(

Anyway, I was playing with my iPhone when I heard someone check in for an appointment. I thought, "Wow, that girl sounds like Emma Stone." I realized a scant twenty seconds later that the one place that a girl who sounded like Emma Stone may in fact be Emma Stone is the reception area of a Hollywood production company. I pulled myself away from Cartoon Wars just in time to hear you--the real Emma Stone--chatting with your friend about chicken and waffles. So that's when the awkwardness began.

"I love chicken and waffles!" I blurted out. Wow. That was fucking retarded. My voice was at least three octaves higher than normal, probably the result of me trading my balls for that flop sweat pouring from my forehead. We had a quick discussion about the guy who invented chicken and waffles (seriously, I have plenty other more interesting things I could have talked about--Star Wars, Magic: The Gathering, my retainer, fantasy football--however I chose to discuss your lunch), which culminated in this exchange:

Emma - "It's so weird loving someone you don't even know."

Me - "I've got a little bit of that going on right now..."

OK, now I realize that this may have sounded stalker-ish, but honestly, I thought that was funny. You didn't really laugh though and I don't blame you. It's about as bad as me saying, "It's also weird that I cry in the shower." Yeah, it's true, but it doesn't make it appropriate.

You, to your credit, were very nice to me. I assume it was because I was meeting with a production company and I was neither immediately recognizable nor attractive enough to be an actor, so you must have assumed that I was a producer of some sort. Unfortunately I shattered that illusion rather quickly. You asked what I did and I mentioned that I was a pilot in the Air Force. Again, you seemed really interested and instead of playing it up (because honestly, how cool is it to be a goddamned pilot?), I responded with Debbie Downer shit about how much I hated the military. Later when you told me that the new city I was moving to was your favorite city ever, I just whined about how I missed Seattle. Seriously, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Looking back, I even think that you were giving me an open to invite you out next time you were in town, but I totally missed that. So, um, awesome. Even after that, you kept talking to me and asked what I was doing at Imagine. I said I was, "working on a story or something." Then I was going to ask what you were doing, but halfway through the question I stopped myself and said, "never mind, I shouldn't ask about gossip." I know that was weird, but I figured you might think that I would ask too much about a project you were working on and then go back and write it on some website or talk to TMZ about it. I won't, don't worry. Unless you count this, in which case that was very clairvoyant of you. Anyway, the moral of that whole thing was that the worst part of over-thinking something is that it looks like you aren't thinking at all.

At this point, I feel pretty bored typing this, so I can’t imagine (Imagine—get it?—teehee lol!) how bored you are reading this. Watch this adorable video and please begine making associations with me:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnd we’re back!

Really, though, where this thing went careening off the rails was when I started talking to your friend. I noticed that you and I were excluding her a bit, and since I was failing so miserably at flirting, I figured that I would include her (yes, that was flirting. I know...). I'm very inclusive; I've always said that about myself. Well, stupidly I did not introduce myself. I know we had been speaking for over fifteen minutes and introductions would be customary, but I was more concerned with the fact that I had sweat through my shirt which, to be honest, already looked and smelled like a homeless guy's grundle. Also, I knew who you were, and I figured you knew that I knew who you were, and I knew you knew I knew who you were, so I skipped you and asked your friend:

Me - "And what was your name?"

Her - *mumbles something incoherent*

Me - "Shuh?"

Her - No, Sug. Like Suge Knight. Short for Sugar."

OK, at this point I think I should mention that Sug seems like a cool enough name, but pardon me for not getting it on the first try. She seemed peeved. In retrospect, she was quite peevish. It was like she was Princess Leia and I was Han in Ep. 4. See, I told you I was cool. Anyway, at this point I felt the need to make an unfortunate joke about Suge Knight. It was a reference to this an incident in which he was shot in the leg at a party. I got it slightly confused with the time he got in a fight at the Vibe Awards. Despite the fact that my joke was topical humor from four years ago, I decided to say anyway, "Sug, huh? So did you also get shot at the Vibe Awards?" Um, so neither you nor Sug had any idea what I was talking about (Google it!), and you replied, "Wait—what? You want her to get shot in the leg?"

No, no, no no noooooooo, no. That was not what I meant. I was about to explain that when that lady came over to ask you what you wanted to drink. At that point I decided it was best to not talk for awhile, and you and Sug whispered secrets and giggled, most likely about me. So that went well. After that I went back to looking at my phone and working on my werewolf drawings. I texted five people to let them know I was talking to you. My friend Kyle wanted me to tell you, "It's SUPERBAD that you're making me as stiff as one of the zombies in ZOMBIELAND." I told him I would say that to you, but I never did. Does it count now? I would have said it because, honestly, how much worse could it have been? But instead, I sat sweating under that heat lamp I chose to place myself under. Also, I never saw Zombieland and I didn't want you to figure that out. As penance, may I present two pictures of Zombie Cats:

So you're probably wondering why I came on here to write all this. Well, I have a proposal. I want to prove that I'm not as awkward as I came off. I don't want to date or anything, you're much too young and you always wear your hair over that one eye, so I'm convinced that there must be something wrong with it (see attached photos).

Instead I want to meet under similar circumstances and take another stab at small talk. We can meet alone (no offense to Sug, but I really feel like she was the reason things went to poorly. She's a game-killer) on a neutral site to talk. I figure if you need to go to another production meeting somewhere or even if you need to go the ophthalmologist to get that wonkey eye checked out, I could just meet you in the reception area and we could take another shot at the small talk (should I have used the word 'shot'? I know what sort of flashbacks that must bring for Sug). I believe this to be the most equitable recourse to our situation. If you are unable, maybe you could talk to Michael Cera for me. He's an actor I'm sure you know, and I was thinking he could help me film a re-creation. I know Jonah Hill was your love interest in Superbad, but I feel Michael Cera would bring the right level of awkwardness to the role of me. You would be played by Isla Fisher. She's another redhead, but she's actually much higher on my list. Can you imagine awkward I would have been had you been her?

So Emma, if it is you please contact me (lanceuppercutt@gmail.com) with the name of the city I am moving to. You should probably remember since you said it was totally your favorite city ever. Let me know if you want to meet at some neutral reception site so I can have a second shot or if you just want to get me Michael Cera's contact information. Also, if you have any contact information for the following people, it would be much appreciated: Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie, Isla Fisher, twenty other hot Hollywood starlets, and lastly you. OK, well I think this has been productive. Thanks for indulging one guy's awkward attempt to become less awkward. Remember, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Funny thing about my back, it's on my cock. Haha, see that's from Superbad. Do actors ever quote movies they were in? No? OK. But you should. It's a very funny movie. Well, good talk.

A Somewhat Less Than Comprehensive Plan To Save Our Sonics

I live in Seattle, and on top of crappy weather, awful traffic, ugly women (who are far less likely to sleep with you than you think. I mean what’s a nice guy who occasionally picks his nose while alone in the car and who has the sexual stamina of a skinny highschooler on prom night gotta do to be rewarded with some seriously top shelf kitty? Um, not me, but this guy I know…call me ladies!), we are about to lose our NBA franchise. For those of you who didn’t realize, the new owner of the Seattle Supersonics, Clay Bennett, wants to pack up and move the team from the Great Northwest to the near-retardation-inducing Okalahoma City.

Who cares, right? Screw you, I care. A city without a team representing each of three major sporting leagues (NFL, MLB, and the NBA) is about as useless as a drunk college girl who isn’t coming home with me (that would be all of them). Now most of you are probably saying things like, “but Portland doesn’t have any other teams but the Blazers!” or, “what about hockey—that’s a major sport, right?” or even, “what’s wrong with Oklahoma?” I’ll answer all three: fuck you hippee, your city sucks more dick than a coked-up Lindsay Lohan; hey Canadians, just because your dollar is worth more than ours doesn’t make your country relevant—go drink some maple syrup and fuck a moose; and lastly, Oklahoma sucks. Need proof? Go there and prepare to be underwhelmed by all the nothing. Farmers’ daughters sound good until you realize that each Oklahoman female is about 3 teeth short of a baker’s half dozen. Carrie Underwood, you are the exception, but even you had to go whoring south of the border with Tony Romo. Call me once you rid your mouth of the taste of over-hyped post-season fumble machine.

So why would Clay want to move the Sonics to that shitty, God-forsaken piece of rat crap known as OKC? Well for starters, he’s from there. But according to him, they didn’t plan on buying the team just to move it, they were really going to try to make it work in Seattle. Oh wait—

"We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here"; and, "We know it's a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it's great for the community and if we could break even we'd be thrilled."

--Aubrey McClendon, Sonics part owner, full-time Bennett dong massager

http://saveoursonics.org/Default.aspx?tabid=346&mid=856&ctl=ViewEntry&EntryID=435

Obviously ol’ Aubrey here will only give happy endings in a land-locked state. Their latest gripe was that Key Arena, a facility that had undergone a serious renovation in 1995, was inadequate. Despite the fairly recent renovation and my hatred for the current Sonics ownership, I will admit that Key Arena fellates Milton Berle-sized manhood. Because of this, the Bennett’s ownership team wants out of their lease, and/or a new arena funded by the taxpayers. Most of the overly-literate, underly-(it’s a word, look it up—okay, wait, don’t.)-sexy, Seattleites are hesitant to pay. Don’t even get me started on how crappy this city is for a sports franchises. We’re too busy swimming through a sea of our sense of self-importance hopped up on caffeine to realize that part of being a city is cheering the home team to victory. Or cheering Shawn Kemp to illegitimate fatherhood. Whatevs.

What Seattle does have, though, is money. Lots of it. I believe Paul Allen owns nearly half the Western Seaboard and at least one, if not two underground volcano lairs. But he can’t buy the Sonics because he already owns the Blazers and the Seahawks. I guess he could dip into the kitty and fish out some cash for the Sonics, but then he wouldn’t have time to digest Johnny Depp.

Honestly, this guy is worth billions and he still can’t get those fangs filed down? Come on, brotha. Well, without Kraken-sized money Bennett will likely move the Sonics to the land of cattle and cowboys. But pirates won’t be there because there is no water. Butt pirates will be plentiful though, which is why I think Clay wants to move there in the first place.

So how can we fix this debacle? The Sonics deserve a new arena, but they don’t deserve to move to Oklahomo—not that there’s anything wrong with that (see how I used that old Seinfeld line to sidestep any controversy? It’s not my first gay rodeo.). Here’s my idea:

XBOX ARENA

Yes, that’s right. We attempt to woo the only guy in Seattle with more money and more nerd-juice (half the calories of jock-juice, drink up ladies—seriously, I need a date) than the Kraken. Right now he’s busy saving the world from AIDS or whatever, but why can’t he throw a couple of bucks at the city and get rid of the Key Arena eyesore? I think kids dying in Africa would be totally pumped if they knew such a thing as Xbox arena existed that they could look down on from heaven in two weeks when they die. And if not, maybe we could give some proceeds from the team revenue to AIDS research or something else far less brutal than what I wrote in the previous sentence. Here’s an artist rendering of what it could possibly look like.

Seattle now:

Not too shabby. But let’s get rid of the Key down there and inject some high-powered electronic cocaine.

Look at how awesome that shit is. Those green lines are just excess awesome coming off Xbox Arena. Look at how much ass-kickery it has to spare. I know it doesn’t say “Xbox Arena Motherfucker” in the sky right now, but I have to assume that the city will employ round-the-clock skywriting services to accomplish this feat in light of how fucking awesome that arena is. That sweetness is reaching almost all the way down to Tacoma—but not quite, Tacoma will always be the red-headed stepchild with fetal alcohol syndrome that we chained to the basement radiator years ago and refuse to talk about.

Look out!! The awesome made its’ way down to Mt. Rainier!

And now you’re probably wondering if I’ve ever heard of a little program called Photoshop. The answer is yes, but if it can’t be done in MS Paint it shouldn’t be done at all. Anyway—

All that awesome made Mt. Rainier blow its’ top. Even better, all the meth labs in Lakewood are catching fire and setting off secondary explosions! Woot! Tacoma will be gone by dawn. Perfect. God, I’m pinging more than a speed freak on the 15^th of the month. Look at that, Xbox Arena in one fell swoop has saved the Sonics AND improved the shit out of the already great Pacific Northwest.

Seriously, every picture of the city will be a huge advertisement for Microsoft’s gaming console. How can this be anything but a great move for Xbox? The tie-ins with games alone would be amazing, and you could have Kevin Durant challenging fans to games of Guitar Hero at the half. Kid Delicious (Daggers? The Durantula?) does partake in a little gaming after all.

So here it is: Bill (and Melinda) Gates, I appreciate all the work you guys are doing to cure FDR of his polio posthumously, to give a Prius to all the polar bears so that they can drive to cooler weather when we melt most of their icecaps, to end AIDS in Magic Johnson’s lifetime, and to finally feed all the hungry men and brave women fighting for our freedom from terror in Iranistan, but this is more important than all of that combined. Times a million. Before you think of all the starving children with scary diseases, think of me and the other 14 Sonics fans. Okay, maybe not before, but at least around the same time. That check to UNICEF or whatever could be a check for Xbox arena. And maybe a little could go to me. If not, I’ll just settle for a Sonics Dance team member. How about Kelsey? And keep in mind I’m settling here, so maybe you could throw in Talor for good measure.

Lance Wants To Fight The War

WarBlog 8

9 May 2007

Perspective. It kills me. I know I don’t have the right perspective on this war because I never seem to grasp anything about it other than what’s right in front of my face. You can run numbers about it all day, but as good as they are about expressing value, you just can’t count on numbers to express the magnitude of war. My $250,000,000 jet. $70,000 in jet fuel. $1,000,000 in training each for us 3 pilots. An $8,500,000 Chinook in the back. All heading to Iraq at the same time as countless other aircraft from countless other locations. It’s like me telling you that the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, can be as wide as 15 miles, and as deep as 1.6 miles. So fucking what? It sounds huge, but you never get the idea of just how big that is until you actually stand on the edge of that enormous hole in the ground and realize, “Shit! This is a huge effing canyon!” The problem with war is that no one will ever get the chance to have that perspective—to stand at the edge of the canyon.

Since we can’t wrap our heads around it, we don’t even try. Our flights to and from combat are comprised of the type of detached, inane chatter reserved for most frat houses. A recent flight to combat started with all of us comparing the various currencies we had in our wallets in order to prevent the constant white noise in our headsets from dissolving into our brains and making us fall asleep. As aircrew we fly to all sorts of countries (mostly shitty ones, thanks Uncle Sam!) with all sorts of different types of money. It’s a waste of time to remember that Turkey has Lira, most of Europe has Euro—except Great Britain—and that Kyrgyzstan has… umm… Dinar? Rubles? Fuck if I know, but that’s the point. To make things simple we call all foreign money doobers. That way when you’re stuck in BFE and scrambling into a taxi following a fight at a night club all you have to ask each other is, “Do you have enough doobers to get us back to the hotel?” On this flight I had 3 different types of doobers. Someone else had some Turkish doobers and we noticed that the guy on their money looked like some sort of creepy Houdini substitute whose only trick was making his sausage disappear in a windowless van parked near local playgrounds. Our discussion continued like this until the changing pressure in the cabin made someone fart. No one claimed the Howdy, so I finally asked, “who the hell farted?” Rebb finally owned up, to which Sharp responded, “I thought it smelled like semen.” After that we started putting on our body armor and running our combat entry checklist, chuckling to ourselves the whole damned time. We’re not running away from the realities of combat, but we’re not exactly embracing them either.

I’ve been shot at a few times in my short Air Force career. You’d think it’d be either one of those things that I’d block out and never want to talk about again, or it’d be one of those things that I’d brag about at the bar to get free drinks. Knowing my extreme hatred for my liver, you’d think it’d be the latter, but it’s actually neither. I nothing it. I couldn’t care less about being shot at. I guess it’s both a by-product of the fact that I know it’s not an extremely exclusive group to be a part of and also that I’ve never really felt threatened by it. What’s most disappointing about being a target of opportunity is the lack of feelings it has generated in me. I thought that if I was being shot at that I would discover all these reasons that I wanted to live. Fuck you, Hollywood, that’s not the case. All I could think of the first time I got shot at was, “I hope that doesn’t hit us. I don’t want to have to spend the night here in Iraq until our plane gets fixed. It’ll probably only hit the engine anyway. We can fly out of here on 3 engines, right? I wonder how much each of our engines cost. They’ve gotta be expensive. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I do not want to have to spend the night here in Iraq. Oh good, we’re landing.” Seriously, these were my life-affirming, character-defining thoughts in the heat of battle. There were no thoughts of getting back home to see some wife or kids or parents or anything. Granted, I don’t even have two of those aforementioned things (fingers crossed on that second one), but it would have been nice to at least have the thought of something cross my mind. My friends, my family, Guitar Hero 2, that hot girl I saw in the gym the other day--even the NBA. I would have realized that I really wanted to live to see LeBron bring a title to Cleveland. It’s pathetic, but at least it would have been something. Instead, all I’ve realized is that I’m dead inside. How’s that for perspective?

I’ll take this opportunity to remind myself that I could have it much, much worse. My whiny, self-centered, and self-loathing ego is once again slapped across the face with the fact that my life is much safer than that of the guys on the ground. They face real life-threatening dangers on a daily basis and it probably causes them to gain some real perspective on their lives and lets them know what’s important, be it God, their families, or their buddies right there in the shit with them. Maybe that’s the only real way to stand on the edge of the canyon. I feel like a fraud. However to those on the outside looking in, I’m a hero. Perspective makes all the difference in the world.

Lance Uppercutt Wants To Fight The War

WarBlog 7
5 March 2007

Growing up is tough. When you're a teenager you think you know everything and try to convince everyone who believes otherwise. In reality, you know a lot less than you think. You start to figure that part out in your twenties, but you look around and realize that it's the same for everyone else. Grown-ups are no longer infallible deities who get to make the rules, they're actually people. You can see that all the traits you attributed to other people as teenagers still hold true as adults. Adults can be unintelligent, assiduous, duplicitous, humorous, slovenly, sharp, dull or any other variation or combination possible. I guess this realization is why we start calling adults by their first names. The first time a drinking buddy becomes a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher you start to lose respect for the establishment as a whole. It's like the first time you notice that you're older than a Playboy centerfold, just less creepy. You start to see people in positions of respect and admiration more for their foibles rather than their great talents. I guess after enough of this people in their thirties think they could do a better job and start to run for office. Who knows, we'll see. One day I'm sure I'll start to think I really do know what's best and I'll start to vote, too. One day. Until then I'm more concentrated on getting my own shit so together that I'll have ten pounds of it in a three pound sack.

Part of the problem of growing up, for me, though is that I've had the opportunity to meet some extraordinary people who will go on to do some great things. Some of these people I can even count among my friends. They are the hard-workers, free-thinkers, and just pure geniuses of our time. They may have incredible insight into an academic endeavor, or just the ability to explain it to an average Joe like me. These are the people who will get rich or lead the country or both. So why is this a problem? The problem is that having met a few such people (and I stress few), I know that I'm not one. I don't have the drive to succeed where others have failed, the eloquence to move the masses, or even the intelligence to make breakthroughs in any field. Jack of all, but Ace of none. I do know, however, that some other people make it to the top. Through hard work, innovation, or fortuitous connections some people just find the knack to succeed. I wouldn't mind being one of those lucky SOBs that makes that jump. I just think that the Air Force isn't really giving me a leg up on the situation. I'm killing time spinning my wheels while I could be out achieving more. I'm not too enticed by the possibilities of those I'm serving with, either. Most of them are good people, but I don't think we're going to come home and become the next Greatest Generation. The call we answered was too abstract a form of evil to ever beat completely. The problem that we have to solve will be mental, the Generation of the Disenchanted maybe. Some of us will have the opportunity to go forward and make the best out of things; it's just that I'm just ready now, and I don't want this war to set the schedule for me. Don't mistake my delusions of grandeur: I don't want to change the world, just be very comfortably wealthy within it. And maybe have a hot wife. No one ever said I wasn't shallow.

I have had a few chances to meet some leaders, both in the military and civilian world, and for the most part I have to concede that each person got there through more hard work and competence than I am capable of. However I'm always interested to see whether or not a lazy goof off like me can slip through the cracks. Like someone just woke up one day and said, "How the fuck did I become a US Senator?" Here's me crossing my fingers.

On the morning Saddam was hanged I was on the ground in Iraq. Our engines ran in reverse idle over the sands of Fallujah while we waited for a Distinguished Visitor to arrive for a free ride to Germany. I hate waiting. We talked about who it might be and why they were holding us up. After about an hour we noticed two blue helicopters come in from the southeast, set down near us, and taxi our way. Their rotors kicked up dust towards our engine intakes as they moved behind our jet. They stopped about a hundred feet behind our tail; the passengers were loaded into black Tahoes and shuttled to our ramp. A few colonels got out and huffed designer luggage into our cargo hold. I figured if full birds were being personal bellhops, then this DV must be pretty important. Out hobbled an older Iraqi gentleman and his wife. One of the colonels walked up to me and asked who was in charge. I looked around and told him that I was and he introduced me to the Iraqi National Security Advisor and his wife. I shook their hands and asked the loadmaster to show them to their seats.

During the flight, as passengers are wont to do, the National Security Advisor and his wife requested to come up to the cockpit. In this case we accepted and hurriedly cleaned up our food wrappers and magazines. They stayed up there for awhile and asked all manner of questions. At one point they asked me where in America I was from. I told them I was born in Ohio but now lived in Seattle. I asked them where they were from. I don't know why I asked; mostly it was just the thing that you said to people after they asked you where you were from. I figured they might answer something like Mosul and I could say I had been there. They answered that they'd lived in London for the last 25 years, but were originally from Baghdad. I asked how that was (yes, I hate myself for asking). The NSA's wife told me that "Baghdad is a wonderful city. Well, it was." Awkward. I fiddled with radio knobs and pretended that the flight plan needed attending to while I thought of a recovery from that. A few minutes later I asked why they were headed to Germany. They told me they were on their way to London to visit with family for the New Year. They were scheduled to go a few days earlier but with Saddam's impending execution, there was much work to do. Thank God for our greatest export—capital punishment. Just then I wanted to know if they had been there, if they had seen him hang, but it was not a question that could be asked. The question was answered two days later though when I read a story on CNN.com that had a quote from the National Security Advisor who recounted Saddam's last words to him before he was led out to the noose. I thought that being separated from such a major world event by only one person and a few hours would be weird, but it wasn't. Underwhelming to say the least.

After that the couple gave us some homemade candies and asked us about flying. First the NSA wanted to know how far our radar went on the jet. We explained that we only had weather radar and that it only went so far. He seemed unsatisfied, but even if we had some sort of offensive radar, I wouldn't have told him. We're friends with those Iraqis, but not that good of friends. He then started asking about the countries we overflew. He wanted to know how we got clearance to fly over them. I explained that you got diplomatic clearances with each flight plan and that you also radioed for permission prior to entering their border. He wanted to know who arranged such clearances and why they would be granted. I told him that most clearances, as far as I knew, were hammered out in treaties between countries. I figured that most NATO countries would probably let us fly in their airspace, but I wasn't sure. He asked who made those arrangements, ambassadors, diplomats, or members of the military. Finally I told him that such information was far more into his realm of work than mine. He should be the one that could tell me about such things, more than I him. He looked a little bit sullen and soon returned downstairs with his wife for the remainder of the flight.

When we pulled into parking in Germany, five generals and five BMWs were waiting. The NSA and his wife left with their military aide. The other pilot and I couldn't help but wonder aloud how Iraq was going to succeed when their leaders weren't really leading. The man was nice enough and intelligent enough, but you could tell that he wasn't one of the great ones. Growing up is never easy, and it looks like it will be no different for Iraq.

Lance Uppercutt Wants To Fight The War

WarBlog 6
1 February 2007

Hatred. Dark. Cold. Breath hits the air and freezes, falling and swirling as it dissipates. Sleep until hungry; begrudgingly trudge through unyielding mounds of snow to the chow hall for what passes as food. Eat until tired; slip on the ice back to your tiny, frigid room without windows that you hate. Days turn imperceptibly to nights, nights to days. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days and nights again. Sleep until hungry, eat until tired. Seconds, minutes, hours. It's impossible to tell how long I've been a prisoner in communist Russia—a year? Two? Oh, 30 hours? It felt longer.

Well, it's not exactly communist Russia, but it used to be. I've been shipped to Manas, Kyrgyzstan for the remainder of the deployment, destined to fight that other war, the one in Afghanistan just a few hours away. The bleak horizon to the north points to barren Kazakhstan and the enormous rugged mountains to the south lead to hundreds of miles of impassable terrain. There is no escape from the cold tents, the dirty latrines, or the solitary hours spent huddled in bed praying for an end to the cold. Manas is a wonderful cure for the will to live.

Nearest I can tell the purpose of a military is to make you hate anything and everything in your life and then focus that hate onto the enemy. They're doing a bang up job at the first part, but I can't for the life of me figure out who my enemy is supposed to be. I'm not sitting in a foxhole aiming rounds at Al Qaeda members, I'm not battling insurgents in Iraq, I'm battling my own mind's inability to understand what I'm still doing in the Air Force, I'm fighting my urge to go crazy. I hate everything. I hate Manas as I hated Turkey, probably more so. I hate the cold and I hate the useless mountains without ski lifts. I hate the food I eat and the books I read. I hate that I'm not a better man. I hate that the Cavs are becoming a terrible basketball team. I hate existentialism. I hate Jessica Biel for not knowing that I exist. I hate my worthless space heater. I hate that I flirt with this girl I work with (the one with the perfect nose) despite having no more than a passing interest in her. I hate that she reciprocates because it means I'll have to tell her at some point that I don't really like her. I hate that she told me that she once tried to take me home with her but I was too oblivious or drunk to notice. I hate missed opportunities. I hate my prison cell of a room. I hate waiting for my plane to be de-iced. I hate that I can only get two beers a day and that neither of them are free. I hate the BX and everybody on this base. I hate that I can't remember enough Russian to thank the guy who mops the floors. I hate the Air Force and I hate the C-17. I hate not being in Seattle and I hate not having a TV. I hate that I haven't had a decent conversation in three months. I hate all the things I'm flying into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I hate the ammunition, I hate the soldiers, I hate the diplomats, congressmen, and generals, I hate the fuel trucks and the helicopters. Most of all I hate the fucking Red Bull and Starbucks Espresso Double Shots and Girl Scout cookies.

The only bit of cargo I can't find it in my heart to hate are the emergency patients we routinely bring out of the combat zone. I don't hate the marine with burns over every part of his body except what his body armor covered. I don't hate the special operator with the hastily stitched and stapled gash that started from the right side of his face and continued down to the left side of his beltline. I definitely don't hate the grunt with the head wound whose two best friends died when the Humvee he was driving hit an IED. I do hate that he asked me—and whoever else would listen—where his buddies were. Were they okay? You can't expect yourself to answer those questions, but you also can't help hating yourself for knowing the truth and withholding it. I don't hate these pieces of damaged cargo, but I do hate that it's been so long since I could remember what they're dying for.

I figured I could sum up all this hate with a single counterpoint of something that I love—or even like—and this would turn out to be a pretty endearing passage in an otherwise tirelessly vain exercise in self-pity. Except I can't. My mind is numb and my blood is running cold from the useless nature of my work. Here in my government issue room, in my government issue running suit, under the government issue watch cap that hasn't left my head in days, my government issue brain is crapping out. While I'm stuck here, isolated from anything or anyone I used to care about, I can no longer think of anything that means shit to me.

Sign me up for war, I guess that means I'm ready to die. And I hate it.

Lance Uppercutt Wants To Fight The War

WarBlog 5
7 January 2007

Before I left for this deployment my girlfriend, current Miss USA Tara Conner, was quite upset with my impending absence. She kept saying things like, "Do you have to go?" and, "When you leave, who will I hang out with? Miss Teen USA? What are we going to do? Drink like crazy and partake in sexy hi-jinks? I can't do that without you." I guess we know how that turned out, but what really upset me is when she would constantly say how she was worried for me and how she was going to miss me. It made me feel like I was terminal. The looming deployment was more like a quickly declining white cell count as the cancer of war metastasized into my life. OK, probably a little melodramatic, but I there are times when I feel like the war has become some sort of ailment that is doing its' best to shorten my life.

We all get pretty worn out over here, so in our free time we play poker, drink, or play sports. We've been playing a lot of basketball which is hilarious on quite a few levels for me. First, despite the fairly racially-enlightened atmosphere of the military, the one black guy always gets picked first. He's a decent athlete so he's alright, but the kid wrestled his whole life so you know he didn't play on the basketball team (both being winter season sports). He's also the guy that everyone assumes would make a good running back when we play football despite the fact that there are at least five people faster than him. What's that book about? Oh, it's just a scathing attack on stereotypes, but you probably didn't notice since you were too busy judging it by its' cover. Whatevs, I'm probably just jealous. I'm sure I'll get picked ahead of him if we have a hockey game or a swim meet. The second thing that makes me giggle about basketball is that no one has a jump shot. Not a single one of us. Because of this the lane is a jungle of sweaty, out-of-shape, middle-aged men and home to more hacks than a… (okay, right here I was going to make a joke about either the writers of some crappy sitcom or the staff of an awful magazine like Stuff or Maxim, but then I glanced up at my previous couple of lines and decided to leave well enough alone). One time Mike was attempting to power through the paint when he stepped on the foot of one of the defenders. I watched as he rolled his ankle pretty good, and the resulting sprain took him out of commission for almost a month. I guess I could consider my military career a sprained ankle: it hurt a lot at first and lasts longer than expected.

Mike isn't the only casualty of this trip. There's this guy in the squadron who is almost universally despised, but despite my penchant for hating people, I had no opinion on him prior to getting out here. After speaking with him at length I discovered that no one had given him a fair shake. He isn't a jerk like everyone says; he's actually just the worst human being alive. He's conceited, lazy, boring, irritating, and his workout shirts are all sleeveless. It's amazing how he (along with many others in the military) has the uncanny ability to look you in the eye while he's screwing you in the ass. I guess the Air Force employs a lot of contortionists. He once tried to pull out the hairs from my mustache instead of saying hello. I would have punched him but I really don't feel like becoming a hero to everyone I work with. A hero to the hordes of Victoria Secret models who were never before able to know the meaning of the word love? That's another story. Anyways, he had been showing up to work looking worse than Britney's hoo-ha (Did you see that thing? Was there a C-section scar in that picture somewhere? Gross!) for a couple of weeks and finally decided to see the doctor. It turns out that he has dysentery. Dysentery! I thought you only got that shit playing Oregon Trail on the Commodore 64. Bury me by Chimney Rock, paw. He must have contracted it after his attempt to ford the river resulted in his Conestoga wagon being washed away. Just pay the damn Indian guide next time, jeez. So everyone was abuzz with the talk of this strange disease striking this poor asshole. When I found out about it I promptly asked, "So you can catch dysentery from karma?" Anyways, since he's been burning the candle at both ends they sent him to a hospital in Germany where I'm assuming they have better plumbing to handle all his, ahem, needs. On the plus side, he's a thousand miles away. High Five! Some would probably say that this deployment is dysentery: it's so much crap that it makes you nauseous. (And the award for Most Disgusting Metaphor of the Year goes to…)

I used to fly with this pilot whose wife was also out here flying with our squadron. I liked him because for the most part he was a super-laid back aircraft commander (AC) and easy to get along with. He didn't make us wear our helmets into the combat zone and hardly ever checked to see if I put my seat armor in. That armor stuff is about as comfortable as a prostate exam from Edward Scissorhands, so you can understand why I'd want to forgo using it. I figure that if some Hadji gets a bullet from his AK-47 to track all the way up to hit my plane as it scoots along at 350 mph and then that round magically finds its way through 12 layers of metal to make it to my ass, then it's just not my day. I've always wanted a Purple Heart. I hear they can get you free drinks, and chicks dig scars. Problem is that one day this guy's wife was flying north of Baghdad and somebody decided to shoot a missile and a buttload gunfire her way. I didn't think anything of it the next day during combat entry as we discussed the seat armor. The third pilot on the crew, a 6 foot 9 giant, tells me and the AC that since the armor would put him so high in his seat that he wouldn't be in a safe position to fly and that he wouldn't use it due to his height. I said I wouldn't be using the armor due to my length. I chuckled at my dick joke, but the AC turned around and raged on me about how unsafe flying into combat is and how we all needed to be more serious because people were down there actively thinking of ways to kill us, his wife included. I never thought how war probably affects those sending loved ones into combat more than it affects us—you can't protect someone forever. I would say something about how war can be a lot like heartache, but I doubt that I'll ever actually know or care what that is like.

That situation taught me that no matter how detached and lackadaisical I am about this whole situation, tensions can run high for others. I found this especially true in the days leading up to Christmas when two pilots in my squadron were pre-flighting a jet before a day of flying. One of the pilots had a radio navigation aid tuned to a local station that was playing Christmas music. The other pilot, a humorless twatwaffle working behind him on the flight deck, told him to turn the shit off or he would cut his throat. The first guy countered with, "You don't have the stones." A 'whose dick is bigger?' contest ensued with the twatwaffle bitching how he would cut the other, and the other repeating how the he didn't have the stones. I don't think the first pilot even flinched when the angry guy had the knife to his throat. He still repeated, "You don't have the stones." We're only two months in and guys are trying to kill each other, I don't know how those army guys survive a year and a half in the desert. I guess when you compare our short stint to their near life-sentences in the sandbox you could liken this deployment to a slit throat: it's painful and draining, but at least it's pretty quick.

It's not all getting shot at or having your life threatened out here. Being in Turkey we have the ability to wander into the little village outside the gate to buy whatever shitty wares the Turks are peddling. "You want hookah? I sell you hookah. You need watch? Real Mr. Rolex, bling bling. You need rug? You need new suit? Come see my cousin. Come on, ahbee. My kid, he need the money. My wife, she need the money. My girlfriend, she need the money. Joke, joke. You like?" A couple of the guys I work with have developed a friendship of sorts with some of the locals and have agreed on multiple occasions to field a team against them in soccer. I finally got a chance to go see one of these matches on a cold Tuesday night at their village soccer field. At about one third regulation length and width, quarters get tight. Add to that the 30 foot high (in play) chain link fence and netted top and you can see why we call it the Thunderdome. The field has a few lights but is mostly lit by the headlights of cars ringing the exterior of the fence. On your left kids climb the fence to shake it as a distraction to the American players; on your right a guy jumps around and bangs on a 50-gallon drum. This surreal shit seems more like the setting for an underground fight to the death than a soccer match. I swear to God I think I saw Blanca fight Zangief here before (What the hell was Blanca anyway? A Brazilian green gorilla with a shock of bright red hair that could zap you with an electric field? Come on.). The problem was that our team was short one player; we needed a keeper. Despite my spectator status I was corralled into service. Remind me to burn that draft card. I had on jeans, a snowboarding jacket, my devastatingly good looks, and my 6 year old blue skate shoes with no grip that Lisa hates. This wouldn't have been a problem except the playing surface was cement with an ultra-thin layer of Astroturf that in their great Turkish wisdom they covered with a light dusting of sand—no wonder these guys can't figure out how to industrialize their country. Or how to cook something that doesn't look like's already been digested. Or showers. Between the slipping and my overall non-athleticism I had less game than a 30 year old computer programmer who lives with his mom. By the match's end I had bruises, scrapes, and an 11-9 loss at the hands of the Turks. As we were walking out one of the Turkish spectators yelled out, "My grandma play better than you!" I yelled back, "I can't believe she had time to play any soccer in between all the dick-sucking she taught you." "You are the one who sucks!" "Yeah, well at least my house has electricity!" The Turks looked down in a sullen silence. What started out as a light-hearted exchange mutated into a nasty insult that left the locals angry and speechless. Sometimes this war is like xenophobia: it's just plain ugly.

In spite of the busy schedule out here, I still find a way to get about an hour of TV watching in per day (10% of Daily Recommended Allowance). All we have is AFN, the American Forces Network, an excruciatingly painful 'morale raiser'. There are eight channels, and at any given time two of them are showing The View, Doctor Phil, or Oprah. It's so much estrogen I'm starting to grow bitch tits. I shit you not, I once saw Stargate playing on three different channels simultaneously. Ridiculous. Unfortunately their unique programming schedule is not the worst part of this debacle; that honor goes to the AFN commercials. You see, AFN gets some sort of discount on the shows it buys as long as it doesn't air the commercials that come with it. Not even for the Super Bowl. So you might get lucky and catch a football game that helps you forget you're stuck overseas for about 5 minutes before you're snapped back to reality when a commercial reminding you to wear your reflective vest comes on. Seriously, they actually let the military pump its' propaganda into our rooms in commercial-form. There's the X-files rip-off that informs you how to look for a military clause in your lease. There's the Terry Tate: Office Linebacker rip-off who tells you to work harder on Operational Security (OPSEC) or the pain train's coming. There is the Minority Report rip-off. There are the pigeons who talk about change of address cards for your move. The driving tips with Squeakers the Hamster. The OPSEC Cat. The list goes on. Worse than ripping off ideas real advertisers and movie-makers had in the nineties is the fact that they use whatever songs they please. I actually wrote an e-mail to the program director and pointed out that plagiarism and copyright infringement aren't cool in a hope to get regular commercials on the air, but was told that they get permission from everyone they borrow from. Right, I'm sure Green Day, Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine signed off on having their songs broadcast on the mouthpiece of the Evil Empire. Whatevs. Anyways, a bunch of us were watching television together when something miraculous happened. AFN forgot to switch to its own commercials during a break. We got a full minute and a half of pure, unadulterated capitalistic commercialism. It was glorious. By the time the Guinness guys came on screen to yell "Brilliant!" our stunned silence had turned to outright cheers. We had all seen the advertisement countless times before but we laughed our asses off just the same. When it was over we looked around and realized how pathetic we really were. This was actually the highlight of our day. Just then I couldn't figure out when I had last had a good time. I missed real life more than I ever expected. That's when I realized that for me this deployment, above all else, is actually a lot like a broken rib: it only hurts when you laugh.

Lance Uppercutt Wants To Fight The War

WarBlog 4
19 December 2006

Dashing through the air
In a jet-fueled war machine
O'er the death and despair
Anarchy -- what a scene!
(Ha ha ha)

Generals now appear
Needing photo ops
What fun it is to kick your ass
With work until you drop!
(Oh!)

Jingle bells!
Turkey smells!
The U.S. lost its' way!
It's called Iraq
And it's under attack
The troops are here to stay!
(Hey!)

Ah, the holidays are here again. It's that special time of year when families come together in the spirit of passive aggression, office parties make for awkward couples smooching in the copy room, and generals and politicians take time out of their busy schedules to visit the deployed troops so their bosses and constituents can pat them on the back later. Just make sure they're home by Christmas with their families or there'll be hell to pay. So we roll out the red carpet, line up in formation (really), and fake a smile while we shake hands with the people responsible for having us miss our holidays at home. I wonder if any of these important men realize that the steely dedication in our eyes looks a lot like mild aggression. Or that when they shake two hundred hands in twenty minutes no amount of Purell will kill all the germs they'll encounter. Merry Christmas! Enjoy the dysentery! The real problem, though, is that these visits that supposedly raise troop morale really make us angrier than Carmelo Anthony at Madison Square Garden. We all have to scurry around preparing the base and our squadron for a self-serving visit from some old fogey that most of us could care less about. A lot of people are in awe of these guys, but not me, and I think I've figured out why.

The term 'larger than life' has stuck with me ever since I was a little tyke, but no one important or famous that you've ever met is actually larger than life—it's always a letdown. They're all as regular as Metamucil. I guess I'll be impressed if I meet Ryan Reynolds or Naomi Watts and they turn out to be fifty feet tall and only sustained by the nutrition obtained from eating a small car. I'll be so amazed, in fact, that I will donate my Nissan without hesitation. That aside, I'm not impressed by these politicians and generals because I've met or seen hundreds of people with more intelligence, charisma, talent, and common sense than the majority of these leaders. Some of them were even in the Air Force. It's just that those kinds of people don't stay in the military. They get sick of every tool in the shed kissing more ass than a toilet seat and towing the party line through the ranks while their creative thinking and innovative leadership nets them reprimands and lessened responsibility. These people who you would follow into the fires of hell—laughing all the way (ha ha ha!)—end up leaving the military for greener pastures in the business world. Who does that leave? All the uptight geeks who will eventually become the generals sporting high-and-tights causing you an ass-pain during the holiday season, that's who. They'll come over for a few hours to see the base, get all the military nerds worked into a frenzy, and have you all line up in formation while they tell you to fight hard and come back safe for everyone that cares about you back home. That's not what I do; I fight hard and come back safe for chocolate pudding.

You see, when we fly into Iraq or wherever, most—if not all—of our day is spent on the jet so we bring flight meals with us. I always order the same thing, chicken sup 2. That's two chicken sandwiches with a supplement of fruit, pasta salad, juice, water, and a pudding cup. I normally eat the pasta salad on the flight over to Iraq, the chicken sandwiches when on the ground over there, and I save the pudding for the flight back to Turkey. Call it my 'Mission Accomplished Pudding." Some are motivated by the thought that we're doing the right thing over here. Some are motivated by rank. Some are motivated by the love of their life waiting for them to come home safely. I'm motivated by Snack Packs. I know if I don't deliver that cargo, get that jet off the ground safely and pointed back towards friendly skies I won't get my pudding. And if I don't get my pudding, then the terrorists win. I can't think of a better reward in the world. In fact, I think that I would be able to stomach more speeches from my leaders if there was a chocolate pudding cup waiting for me at the end. So to everyone out there facing unenviable tasks this holiday season (and I'm sure you are), happy holidays, do it for the pudding!