Warri Festival

Writing and War

Read Nate's short essay about creative writing and war at this link HERE.

Watching the Fight

I drank Coors Light when I watched the fight on a t.v. set up outside a garage-lined backstreet off Front Street, Philadelphia. Felix "Tito" Trinidad versus William Joppy at Madison Square Garden. Men got off work to see El Gran Campeon. Men who worked under the hoods of cars with their hands and had hard greasy stubs as fingers. Men with suntanned arms who drove trucks and cranked gears. Men who were detectives who carried guns under their shirts. Men who knew someone that had got shot. Men who married their ex-girlfriend's sister's cousin at Edison High School and when things didn't go well, they went back and married their ex's. Everyone met at baby showers. I cried and looked at my own hands. Soft, smooth, the only thing that they worked on was my jagged nails. I rotated between standing outside the periphery of the men's huddle and swaying off to piss beer water behind the garage. These men were real, what I wanted; I could never belong here, but I could try, pretend to, and drink Coors Light.

-by David Ocasio

Cyros Amiri #66: Bye Bye Uncle Saddam

When I came to the U.S. priority number one was getting a job. My family told me to ask my uncle. I didn’t want to, though. I didn’t want to rely on family, especially my uncle. He knew all about my situation, but I never got the sense he was all that interested, so I sure did not want to ask. He’d been here in the States for thirty years and was pretty successful. He was second in command of a large, respected, national company with many employees. I sure did not want to ask him for help, though. No way.

Then the U.S. attacked Iraq. Shortly after my return, America's military attacked to Iraq. That brought back memories of the Iran-Iraq war I fought in. We didn’t win that war. But Uncle Saddam lost, too, that’s for sure. A lot of my friends were killed in that war. Saddam Hussein was a monster. He committed crimes against us, the Iranian people, but also against the Iraqi people, too. Anyway I tried to volunteer to join the American army and resume my fight against Uncle Saddam. I talked with my friend, Sami, about my decision, and asked that he find out how I could join up. Sami was a good friend. I lived with him for a while. Sami promised that he would find that how I can join the army. A few days later he told me that because I didn’t have my green card yet, I couldn’t join. That seemed weird because I knew that a lot of people joined up in order to get their green card. I thought maybe it was different for me because I was Iranian. I tried to join up two more times. The second time was after I got my green card. Some NGO worker I asked told me I was too old, so I couldn’t join. The third time I tried to be hired as a translator as for an Army contractor. But in the end I decided that I didn’t want to work for a contractor, so quit that process. Anyway, no one loves war, and people die in war all the time.

But to me, the American attitude towards this war seemed really strange. There was a lot of talk about Iraqi freedom, but that was all talk. I didn’t hear anybody talking about U.S. national interest. That seemed really weird. On the other hand, when I talked with people who opposed the war, they said that because U.S. Army did not find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the war was obviously a big mistake. To me this argument was ridiculous! From the time the war started it was clear to me that they would not find this particular type of “WMD” in Iraq because Iraq never produced this particular type of weapon.

But with respect to chemical or biological weapons, it was no secret that the Iraqi army used them. I saw it with my own eyes, used against me. I had lost many friends because of those weapons. Large number of Iranian troops, due to inhalation of toxic gases used by Iraq, were hospitalized in many European countries. It seems that genocide in Hallabcha by Saddam was not enough for people; they still whined about why the U.S. army did not find weapons in Saddam's storage closets, as some kind of evidence for the “mistake” made by the Bush administration. In the meantime, nobody, neither those who supported or opposed the war even bothered to discuss the U.S. national interest. And those who were against the war on humanitarian grounds totally ignored the atrocities committed by Uncle Saddam. The whole debate was nonsense.

Anyway, I was convinced that my world be a better place without Saddam Hussein. I thank the American military and their families for what they did. I wish I’d participated, my own self. I didn’t, though. I asked my uncle for a job as a bartender. Being a bartender was a pretty fun way to waste three years of my life.

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How'd We Do?

Lightning Strikes

Check out Bernardo. He walks the streets of Bogota. Sometimes when he's walking, he saves someone's life.

Can't Help It

These guys are still my favorites, after all these many years.

Cyros Amiri (Part 55): My Father's Murder

I was repeatedly arrested, imprisoned, and tortured over the years but the authorities could never get any proof of my activities.  But eventually they figured it out, when I hid a fugitive political activist and helped him escape from Iran.

Anyway, then my father was murdered and his dead body was found by his gardener at his home.  That was the last chapter of my life in Iran.

The police initially said that the killer's motive was robbery.  Police identified signs of forced entry and claimed that those signs were intended as a decoy.   They believed the killer was a person familiar with the victim and entered without a problem.

Police showed everybody an old picture of me, claiming I was the murderer. They asked my sister where I lived, but she hadn't known for years!  They told my sister that the neighbors had identified me as the killer.  At that time my sister thought that I was in Germany and so she denied the accusations against me.   She asked the police to continue the investigation and arrest the real killer.

I was informed about this story by my other sister.  This confirmed to me my suspicion that my political activities had been discovered. At the time I was hiding at a secret place called "Shahrestanak". I was hiding because of how I had helped a wanted political activist escape from Iran using my passport. Unfortunately, the regime found out about that, through the arrest and interrogation of that political activist's family, so they were seeking to arrest me, too.

My sister wasn't totally wrong.  I had been in Germany, but I was back.  In Germany I met someone who had dedicated his life to political prisoners in Iran.  His greatest concern was about the families of political prisoners. Because of my past relationships and activities with a number of prisoners' families in Iran, he and I were soon able to trust each other and share information.  Through him, I became aware of  a man in Iran who had political difficulties.  His siblings had been arrested in 1981 and were executed in the massacre of 1987, but he had escaped and went into hiding.  His condition was very difficult, and his family was under great pressure by the regime.  So my friend in Germany was looking for a way to get him out of Iran.  I volunteered to return to Iran and help him.

Our initial plan was to organize a program to take him to Turkey. This is typically the easiest way. Unfortunately, when I visited him I realized that he was not physically fit enough do this. For my plan, he needed to be able to walk long distances and climb across the border into Turkey, but he was unable to do that. The alternative, then, was air travel.  I let him use my passport.

Because of their political background; his family were under surveillance and were not allowed to travel without permission from the security officials. We secretly arranged their travel to Tehran for a last visit with their child.  Unfortunately after that they were arrested.  But because by that time their child had already left the country they said everything.  I was therefore in danger and had to go into hiding.

My father was killed a few months later. They accused me, in an attempt to smoke me out of my hiding place, to pressure my family into giving them information about me.

Anyway, a few years later the killer was arrested and confessed to the crime.  The court sentenced him to death, but my brothers and sisters pardoned him and saved him from the death penalty.

Unpublishable Haiku #17

gray mist
one crooked post
under the red balcony

Such a good book

Denis Johnson's new book, Train Dreams. So good. Remember the last time you read a book that kicked you in the gut?

Take it Easy, Take it Hard

Take it Easy, Take it Hard
For Bubba
In the winter I wait for summer. In the thick of summer, it seems like cooler, more tolerable weather will never circle back around. Days and weeks are spiraling past, while simultaneously the bus never seems to round the corner. My friend, you write: Innocents, awaiting the divine, suddenly propelled forward on the edge of an alien tsunami. Fifty years gone in a blink.
And knowing that fifty days and fifty years can blink and drag and blink and drag... how can I argue? How can I deny it?
Instead I will say this:
Go get Marly, walk down and let him splash in the river and shake his natty fur. Sit in the garden near Phebe's witchy thistle patch. Sit in the grass, lay down in the grass. Rest your head on the belly of that smelly precious dog. Light a bonfire, drink wine from a coffee cup on the darkening porch. Dance until the record skips then tell jokes in the kitchen, mosquito slapping. Scratch your beard, take a swim and shake your natty fur. Let your grown son be a child. Take it easy and take it hard. Go get Marly and walk down to the river, I will watch for the bus finally rounding the corner and find myself aboard.

                                                                                                                        -by Angel Hogan

New YouTube Channel

Okay, so at the suggestion of my old newspaper editor, "The Names of Places" has a new YouTube channel.  It is linked to the blog and will be replete with audio posts, slideshows, and Bub songs.  Here's a repeat of a recent Bub song, now available at YouTube.

My favorite Bub song

Perhaps it's a bit sentimental for a half-baked ditty, but what can you do?

You Don't Say

Anyway, there you have it.  Another half-baked Bub ditty.

Insufficient Chairs

Another weird memory.  If anyone can correct or corroborate the details, or add to them, I'd be much obliged.  Chris, Arlen, Primetime Sean; was there anybody else?  Aron, were you there?  Anyway, so as I remember it, we were on a canoe trip down the Sanaga River, in Cameroon.  We were laughing real hard about stuff, like when one of the canoes hit a whirlpool and flipped over.  Then, that night Sean was drying his shorts on the grill and burned a big hole in them.  Man, we laughed so hard.  Arlen kept on yelling: "Prove it!" every time anybody said anything, making some kind of hilarious point about epistemology or something.

After a while we figured out that if we stopped at the riverside villages, the local chief would be obliged to sit down with us in the center of the village and serve us drinks and send us off with armloads of fruit.  As soon as we figured this out, we stopped every time we saw a pirogue tied to the reeds in hopes of coming away with mangoes, guavas, avocados, and lemons.  We'd be paddling away, scanning the forested shoreline for evidence of people, water lapping, long-tailed birds flashing in the green.  When we saw a trail or froth in the water where people washed their clothes or a pirogue, whoever saw it first would shout, and Arlen would yell "Prove it!", then we'd double over laughing as we we made our way cross-current to the shore.

I seem to remember a deserted village.  We wandered up the trail, mouths watering in anticipation of palm wine and fruit.  We came upon a silent cluster of mud houses.  Then a woman scurried into view, waving her arms.  She grabbed us and pulled us around the village, showing us house after house.  "Uncle used to live here.  Brother used to live here.  Cousin used to live here.  Come!  Let me show you!"  She yelled for her son.  A skinny, scared looking boy came into view.  "We have guests!" she said.  "Do you want to see the plantation?"  We followed her at top speed all through the plantation, trees heavy with cocoa pods and oranges.  Then she said, "Come! Let us sit."  So we followed her back to her house and she yelled at her son once again to go find some chairs.

There were not enough chairs.

The Best Company

Listen to Bernardo's story about friendship and fire and what the direction that a house faces can tell you about it's inhabitants.

Bernardo's Point of View

These photos are from Bernardo Morillo's Public Privacy Collection.  Bernardo also tells some great stories. 

 title - bride

title - caledoscopio

title - beso
                                                                                  -by Bernardo Morillo

Blue Grotto

I took this photo on a small motor boat on the Napoli sea off the island of Capri, Italy. It was October of 2011. I remember taking it and liking how simple it all seemed. Just one old guy; one small boat and one little flag. Stark contrast to the horde of tourists on little motorboats and rowboats staring him right in the face; though most outside the range of my camera/phone. I like this picture not only because I secretly wish I was this guy and had this boat and that little flag, but because it reminds me of that particular day. 

The day started off normal enough in the coastal town of Sorrento. I got up when it was still relatively dark. I had a weird fried egg for breakfast which had a round yellow yolk that refused to run. I also mixed some type of cereal with some type of yogurt, had very strong coffee and a piece of bread or Danish probably. The weather was cool but promising. It was early but the sun was already fighting its way into the sky.

I took a taxi with my mom down to the port with an eye toward getting to see the “blue grotto”. I had no idea what the “blue grotto” even was but I figured why not. I like the water. I like the color blue. Sounds like a plan.  The people we were with decided to walk down to the port. Our taxi driver blew right past them as he whipped the taxi around a few scary switchbacks on its way down to the water. After we got out I walked around the port taking a few pictures as mom looked into getting boat tickets. I came back and she was talking to this strange man with an odd look to him. I didn’t pay much attention. I was on vacation and I make a point not to think too hard or worry too much. 

This odd guy ends up leading us down to where this boat is moored. This boat was huge and probably could hold about 200-250 people. I was a little skeptical about being able to get on it because all that I saw were steps. Our odd friend wasn’t as put off. He simply led me around the twenty or so people in line to this side gate that had a ramp down to the loading area. This was no ADA ramp. The grade to this thing had to have been somewhere close to one foot for every one foot of drop. Plus, it was slippery as all hell. Not my idea of a good time but it got the job done and I didn’t fall on my face. We got down to the boat and the folks working the thing loaded us up no problem. Our odd friend disappeared. Apparently, he was trying to sell my mom on a private tour but wasn’t convincing enough. Too bad for him. Again, I really wasn’t paying attention to the details. The way I figured it, even if this boat ride turned into a Gilligan’s Island type “three hour tour”, it beat being at work. So they loaded everyone else aboard and we sailed off the Sorrento coast for Capri.

The trip took all of about twenty-five minutes. It got interesting when a second odd and somewhat creepy old man approached me and my mom. This time, we were both sitting at the back of the boat. ( I wish I knew if this was the bow or the stern but I really have no clue.) Anyway, this guy was trying to sell a private tour too. Only he took it personally when we brushed him off. He scoffed at our plan to get to the blue grotto.

“The grotto is closed!” he said in a sort of half angry, half amused way. “You’ll never get to the grotto!”

This guy was serious. You’d think we insulted his mother or something.  When we finally got to Capri and headed off the boat, he made a point to confront us one more time as he stood with a group of people who apparently took him up on his tour offer.

“You will have a very unhappy time should you try to get to the grotto! You remember that I say this!”

You see what I mean, intense. I felt like I was in some horror movie for a second there. I felt like he was that old person that tells the kids not to go to crystal lake because some killer with a hockey mask is loose but they don’t pay any attention to him and end up dying as a result. At this point I was fully preparing myself for the “grotto monster” should we even get there. It was not to be though- the monster that is, and we never did run into our intense friend again. Instead, we were able to find a second small motor boat that took us out of Capri’s  docking area and back out into the Napoli Sea. We skirted around the rocky edges and stone cliffs of Capri until we made our way out to where holes, both large and small, began to open up in the cliffside of the island.

I remember thinking that the boat we were in had no chance of getting into one of those holes. This boat could only seat about twenty people but it was obvious that you would need a boat much smaller to make it work. Sure enough, when we pulled a little further around the island, we came upon an area full of these little rowboats that were going in and out of these little holes no problem. When it came our turn, I had no idea how I would even get into one of these things. I mean these rowboats sat right on top of the water. They had to. It was the only way you could fit through the openings that led to the grotto. It ended up not being a problem though. I think they specifically waited for this rowboat that had this big, solid mountain of an Italian man handling the paddles. He basically took one look at me, extended an arm and hoisted me from the one boat to the other without so much as a minor hesitation. Under normal circumstances, I think I would have taken a pass on the whole grotto thing if it meant pulling off a stunt like this. But if this guy wasn’t showing any fear, why should I? The rest of the trip to the grotto was subjectively uneventful. It involved the small rowboat, an even smaller cave, some admittedly pretty blue  water and some Italian opera singing. Oh yeah, and there was the inevitability of being tossed back into the motor boat by that same Italian paddle man.

                                                                                                      -by Mark Collier

Unpublishable Haiku # 16

silent street:
snow gathers
on my beard

                                                                              by Jeffrey Stottlemyer