Neil Young: Man with the Mutton Chops

I mentioned in my previous entry, Punk is Dead, that you don’t need to sound pretty or particularly talented to be an honest rock n’ roller.

No one demonstrates this better than Neil Young.

                       

Don’t get me wrong, the guy can play guitar pretty well, but this Canadian folkie isn’t going to win a singing contest any time soon.

His voice can best be described as… whiny, he isn’t pretty, and he’s got a reputation for being insufferable to work with.

He’s made a career about playing the music he wants to play, regardless weather it sounded awesome or completely sucked.

         He’s the guy who played guitar on Buffalo Springfield’s, For what it’s worth. If you bothered to watch the video, he’s the Mutton Choppy dude in the yellow and green sweater.

That’s the guy Kurt Cobain dubbed the Godfather of Grunge. Why? This might have something to do with it.

Yes Young is considered one of the best “singer/songwriters,” but he also encompasses everything it means to be a true, badass rock n’ roller.

Forget the booze and the boobs and the bullshit. He has never been about loud guitars, heroin, and dying a young tragic death, Neil knows this is all just window dressing.

In his damn near 50-year career, Young has demonstrated a destructive streak to match the hardest of punk rockers, a lyrical depth comparable to Paul Simon or Bob Dylan, and a dedication to the spirit of rock n’ roll second to none.

I won’t even get into all the weird and varied ways he’s trying to save the world, it would take too long and he wrote a book about it anyway. (I’d link it, but I don’t get paid to endorse Amazon, steal a copy for all I care.)

Neil Young knows rock is about shoving a grease-stained middle finger the establishment’s nose, living life on the terms you set for yourself and taking the consequences like a man.

Rock is alive and well, and will stay that way so long as people remember the man with the whiny voice and mutton chops.

Anticipation

As the readers who know me personally know, (And lets face it, if you don’t know and love me you probably aren’t reading this), my work has taken me to a not so hospitable place.

         Lets just say, it’s hot and sandy, and leave it at that.

What bothers me more then the heat and sand, though, is that I lost access to all of the new music, television shows and movies that are coming out in the next few months.

You see, due to local morality laws and the general slowness of my employer’s Internet contract, I can’t download these new releases, and it’s not like I can walk into a local store and buy them.

  For a guy who loves music as much as I do, this is a big deal. It pisses me off that I can’t just get on itunes or a torrent site and download the new BRMC album or Dave Grhol’s new project.

I can’t even stream the next episode of the Walking Dead!

I’ve been moaning about it for the past month. To be honest I’ve been a bit of a bitch about it. So have a lot of my co-workers.

We need to get over it.

I mean, how spoiled is this generation?

On my external hard drive I have literally thousands of hours of music, over 100 movies and more then a dozen complete television series ranging from Game of Thrones to M.A.S.H.

I literally have enough music to play continually for months without hearing the same song twice. And I’ve been complaining.

Back in the day, it could take a music lover months or years to build up a record collection comparable to what I can download in an afternoon. (Yes I download music. I also buy it, and borrow it, and this entry isn’t about the morality of stealing from the record companies.)

   Brothers and sisters, I know you’ve heard it before, but we have become a generation, hell, a society, of spoiled little bastards.

We want what we want when we want it, and God help the poor soul who gets in the way of our Fast food mentality.

Do you know who else acts like that?

Two-year-olds and sociopaths.

I’ve been a two-year-old once already. The memories are fuzzy, but I seem to remember getting my ass spanked when I threw hissy fits for not getting what I wanted, why should now be any different.

I’ve also known a couple of sociopaths in my day, and I’d rather be a two-year-old.

I want to remember what it is like to wait for something, be it a piece of music or an Arby’s roast beef. I want to get excited about that sandwich, and when I finally have it, truly savor it.

So, for the next few months, sequestered from a few of my western comforts I’m going to take a break from the now, now, now mentality that permeates our society.

I have friends and family back home who love me enough to send me care packages every now and again, and if I ask real nice, they might even slip in a CD or DVD…. Please no sandwiches. 

PAO goes insane

For those of you who don’t know I served for a year in Iraq as a journalist with the Headquarters element of the 4th Infantry Division.

The hours were long. The heat was grueling and to be honest I was so focused on my mission, I might have gone a little nuts.

There was one week, however, when there were no missions to write about, no MWR events to take photos of and no partnership training events with the Iraqi Security Forces to cover.

After 6 months straight of busting my ass to get as many stories approved and published as possible, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I actually stressed out about not having any work to do.

I thought I was cracking up.

How did I cope?

I wrote a fake news story about cracking up, the soldiers I as embedded with at the time liked it so much they insisted we take photos to go along with it. I cannot emphasize enough that these shots were staged and while real no weapons were loaded in these photos. 

I hope you enjoy my insanity as much as I did. 

Spc. Andrew Ingram

Ft. Leavenworth Public Affairs

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE WARRIOR, Iraq – Two soldiers received minor wounds when two public affairs specialists lost their minds and began assaulting people earlier today.

            Staff Sgt. Robert Dedeaux and Spc. Andrew Ingram stormed into the headquarters of the 101st Brigade Support Battalion on COB Warrior with a battering ram.

Weapons drawn, they demanded that everyone get on the floor. Then, one-by-one, they began to question the hostages.

            “It was completely insane” said Spc. Walt Anderson, who declined to mention his unit or job description, but was very proud to say he was from Granit Bay, Claif. “They came in the door with a battering ram! I don’t know why they did that ‘cuz the door wasn’t even locked!”

            The deranged soldier’s questions seemed to mainly revolve around basic information about the hostages’ daily lives and duties during deployment.

            “The Specialist kept screaming ‘What’s your full name!? What unit do you belong to? ALPA WHAT!?’” explained a shell shocked Pfc. who started crying when asked for her identity. “Then the big Staff Sgt. started shouting ‘GIVE ME THE FORT RILEY TIE-IN! HOW ARE YOU CONTRIBUTING TO OPERATION NEW DAWN!?  I’ve never been so scared in my life! I thought we were all going to die.”

            Several sources corroborate that when Dedeaux was not demanding command messages from his hostages he continually muttered the word “chicken” under his breath.”

            “It was really weird,” said a guy from 2nd Platoon, Company C, 101st Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st infantry Division, who’s name I forgot to write down.

            10 minutes into the fiasco members of the Kirkuk Police Emergency Response Unit’s raid team and soldiers from the 12th Iraqi Army Division’s commando battalion launched an assault on the 101st headquarters to free the hostages.

            During the ensuing firefight the looney public affairs soldiers managed to shoot each other in the kneecaps, presumably so they could get purple hearts.

            Both madmen were taken alive. As they were dragged away by MPs, Ingram screamed over and over at the top of his lungs through fits of maniacal laughter and weeping, “THE NEWS NEVER SLEEPS, THE NEWS NEVER SLEEPS!”

              The psychotic duo traveled by police pick-up truck to the EMEDS where a confidential source said they were treated for their kneecaps as well as severe exhaustion and caffeine withdrawal.

            “That stupid specialist stopped drinking coffee half way through a deployment,” said the source, who could be demoted and sent to work in the commandants office for revealing patients information. “That’s the message we want to tell the soldiers on the ground. Caffeine is an essential part of a soldier’s warrior diet. How can you expect to stay in top killing shape if you aren’t jacked up on Rip-its and espresso all the time?”

            Maj. Mini, the dimwitted duo’s OIC said he realized he was probably working his soldiers too hard when he assigned the task of writing this story to the very soldiers who perpetrated the crime in the first place.

            Aside from minor grammar errors, pointed out by an unnamed source, the story was submitted at 11:59 Thursday morning, just in time to make the front page of the Ivy Leaf before the idiots were put on a plane for Ft. Leavenworth.

  

Staff Sgt. Robert Dedeaux and Spc. Andrew Ingram stack on a friendly building in preparation for an interview.

“So I'm going to need your name your rank your unit home town and why don't you just throw in your bank account info and your mothers maiden name,” demands Spc. Andrew Ingram, public affairs psyco as Staff Sgt. Robert Dedeaux chokes out the interviewee.

Spc. Andrew Ingram searches for interview subjects

The departure of Master Sgt. Daugherty

So things with my job are crazy right now, and unfortunately I do not have the time to focus on my writing as much as I would like. However I know all of my readers have been eagerly awaiting my next entry so I decided to dig into the vault on this one.

To preface this entry has nothing to do with music. I wrote it during my deployment to Iraq in 2011. I wrote it as a joke for my supervisor as she returned to the states early to attend the Sergeants Major academy.

Although the individuals in this story are real people, their quotes are not; none of these events actually happened, and this should not be taken as anything other than a lark on my part.

Please enjoy.

Spc. Andrew Ingram

U.S. Division-North Public Affairs

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq – Master Sgt. Carmen Daugherty, noncommissioned officer in charge, public affairs office and all around social butterfly, 4th Infantry Division and U.S. Division-North, departed Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, May 6.

            Even as the wheels of the C-130 left the tarmac headed to Joint Base Balad and America, things started to go wrong for Task Force Ironhorse.

             Immediately moral dropped as the number of parties thrown plummeted, and as a result AFES could not afford to keep the PX open, further depleting the already depressed moral of the COB Speicher Soldiers.

            “We didn’t realize how important she was to the mission,” said Sgt. or Staff Sgt. Brad Baker, (He really wants to be a staff sergeant). “I work on night shift so I never saw her, but now when I show up for work everyone is grouchy.”  

            Additionally USD-N team found it impossible to complete their assigned tasks, because supply never seemed to have paper or printer cartages. It turns out Daugherty was responsible for some under-the-table deal that insured supplies made it to the company supply rooms on time.

            None of the DSTB’s 92Y would comment on the kerfuffle.

            Without Daugherty’s ability to wheel-and-deal the public affairs shop soon grew to be hated by the rest of the staff. Every time a soldier came in looking for a photo or photographer Sgt. 1st Class Brent Williams would reply with “Rucka, rucka, rucka, command information, rucka, rucka, no special favors, rucka, rucka, kill.”

            When the PA shops new hardliner mentality butted heads with the G6 shop’s love for red tape it started a chain reaction which lead to an all out riot. (Spc. Fabian wanted glamour shots for his portfolio, Spc. Ingram wanted to put World of Warcraft on his NIPER computer and things kinda snowballed, next thing you know G1 has declared a blood feud against the division engineers and the commandants office went on strike, it was a messy affair but I digress.)

            “I see any of them Div. Engineer SOBs, whoowee I’m gonna bust some heads,” said Spc. Jacob Upchurch, admin specialist and G1 hit man. They can’t talk good and their mothers dress them funny.”

            In the end Sgt. Maj. Dailey had to karate chop everyone into submission and article 15s were dropped from command group onto the JOC floor like confetti.

            The new chaplain, Lt. Col. Keith Goode, will hold a memorial service for the soldiers killed during the madness next week.

            The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin…. But I will tell you that most of the deaths took place during the Great G7 Fire. (Michael Bay is already showing interest in turning this tragic event into a multimillion-dollar blockbuster.)  

            Fed up with how crazy everything had gotten at D-Main without her, Maj. Gen. David G. Perkins personally flew to States to plead with Daugherty to return.

            “We realized that the 4th Infantry Division needs good senior NCO’s like Master Sgt. Daugherty,” said Perkins. “Please come back and fix everything!”

            Perkins offered Daugherty a battlefield promotion to Sergeant Major, but Daugherty said the only way she would return to Iraq is if she was allowed to bring her trusty dog Tripper with her.