"A Simple Paper Job, Part I"

When I signed up to join the Navy in 1995 (and later went to Boot Camp in 1996), I got a decent score on my ASVAB and I picked the job rating of “AZ” or Aviation Maintenance Administrationman. I know what you’re thinking, “Hey, Todd… that’s an obnoxiously long title for a paper-pusher job!” Indeed, young grasshopper… you have struck the vegetable on the head! I graduated from boot-camp in late April of ’96 and we all got split up to go to each of our respective schools, and I remembered: My A-School was in an armpit of a town called Meridian in Mississippi, and summer was quickly approaching. For those of you that have been to the “Deep South”, you already know what I’m going to address in regards to the sheer hellishness of the summers there. For those of you that haven’t, however, let me describe why there shouldn’t be any obese humans in that area of the country.
Imagine that you just got out of bed, and you amble over to the bathroom and take a shower to get a fresh start to your day. You take a warm, prolonged shower and dry yourself off before putting on your “Working Whites”, or as we called them, “The Good Humor Man Suit”. You walk out of the door of your dorm room to the little lounge that rests at the center of three adjoined dorm rooms. Now, as you step outside you feel a blast of heat that would make even the Devil say, “Fuck! It’s hot out here!” and then notice that your ass-crack has erupted with sweat the likes of which can only be seen in a low-rent XXX porn movie filmed in a walk-in oven. And before we go any further, look at your watch: It’s only 7:00 AM! Now you start to regret ever signing up for the service in the first place, and understand what I’m talking about.
I can take extremes of hot and cold weather, after all; I grew up in the High Desert of Southern California, spent summers in Jacksonville, North Carolina and even went to High School in Sturgis, South Dakota during the winter. But this was a new kind of heat that I had never experienced before. Humid is not a word that can properly describe what it was like there. No, humid is too small of a word for this type of warmth, as are the adjectives tepid or moist. No, this is the heat of a Biblical sort; I’m talkin’ about the ninth ring of Dante’s Inferno hot. The kind of heat wherein you find yourself looking for lakes of fire or little demons scampering about with the souls of the un-baptized; that kind of hot.
Upon arriving at my new station in Meridian, we had to go log-in as present and accounted for at the Phase II barracks on base. The young female 3rd class Petty Officer standing behind the counter looked at my billet, started chuckling and said, “Man, I hope you like running” and told me where my dorm room was in the Phase I barracks. I walked down the path that connected the two areas and went upstairs to the West side of the building to meet my two room-mates. Sean was from Louisiana and Jason was from Texas. Sean was already attending his “AZ” classes, and Jason was taking his classes to be a “PN”, or Personnelman. I asked Sean what the lady at the desk meant by saying that I better like running and he said, “Aw, man… we gotta do our PT with the Marines and shit.” I couldn’t believe it, so I asked him why, and he told me, “Y’see, we’ve got a ‘Cross-Branch’ rating. That means that both the Marines and us have the same job, that’s done in the same way, with the same paperwork. I guess they figured that if we learn together, we should train together, y’know… the whole ‘Unit Integrity’ thing.” After telling me that, Sean said that he and Jason were going to the base club, so I finished putting all my stuff away in my locker and went the Mess Hall to get something to eat.
Being that I got there on a Friday afternoon, I didn’t have a class until Monday, so I decided to sock away the thought of running until Monday, and Monday came quicker than I thought it would. Me and my future classmates met down at the area between the two class buildings a little after 6 AM in our uncomfortably short running shorts and Boot Camp T-Shirts in order to meet our Core Instructor, Master Gunnery Sergeant Michael Pritchett. Gunney Pritchett has a lazy eye, but exudes authority in a way that is almost uniquely Marine, and welcomed us to “AZ” A-School. He said that he would start us off with some light calisthenics and a “Short Run”. We were all looking at each other and thinking, “Great, a short run and then we can go get something to eat at the Mess Hall before going to class!” Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that a “Short Run” was “Short” in Marine terms; a little over three miles long… chalk it up to Naval intuition.
As we started our run, it wasn’t so bad; after all, it was still kind of cool outside and the sun was still down. But about thirty minutes into the run, I was starting to burn out… after all; we only had to run a max of two miles in Navy Boot Camp, so we weren’t conditioned for this type of running. And on top of all that, the first half of the run was done on a gravel-and-soft-sand-covered road that wound its way through the forest area behind the class buildings. After we finished the run, we had barely enough time to take a shower before running to class, or we would have been late.
Towards the end of the first day of class, Gunney Pritchett started calling each of us into his office, one by one, to have a quick chat to familiarize himself with his new pupils. I was towards the bottom of the list, being that my last name is “Tobin”. That’s typically how it’s worked out for most of my life, so I wasn’t all that surprised. Gunney stood up as I came in the office and shook my hand. He had a grip like a frickin’ vice, much like my Dad, who also was a Marine but had retired after 20 years of service upon returning from the Persian Gulf War. He looked at my face and then at the stencil of my name on my shirt and asked me who my Father was.
I looked him in the eye that I thought was his good eye and told him, “My Dad’s name is Calvin…” his face brightened up and he shouted, “Buzz Tobin is your Dad?! That fucker saved my life a time or two, back in the day… a good man and a good Marine! So why didn’t you join the Corps?” I figured, why bother lying to him? So I said, “My Dad told me not to join the Marines because I have a brain between my ears.” Which is exactly what both my Father and Grand-Father told me (they were both Marines) word for word. He straightened up and slapped me on the shoulder and said, “That sounds like Buzz! I’ll be damned, Buzz Tobin’s kid is in my class… well, if you need any help with anything, you let me know, Tobin.” And opened the door to let me know to get out without telling me verbally. I walked out into the hallway to find my classmates were staring at me like they were astounded that I was still breathing or something.
I looked at them, shrugged and walked down the hallway to get a soda, and a guy I went through Boot Camp with named Jason Wimbrough asked me what all the noise was about. I told him that Gunney knows my Father from way back, which probably meant that Gunney was stationed at either Cherry Point or Lejeune in North Carolina during the 1980’s. He thought that I would have it easy by having an old war buddy of my Dad supervising my classes. I told him that it would be likely that my Dad would try to set me up to take advantage of the situation, to test my character. Jason asked me why he would do that, and I told him, “Because that’s what I would do.” He didn’t get it, but then again, he’s from Jackson, Mississippi, and wasn’t a very deviant or creative thinker.

"Elderly Authorities"

Why do people (especially old people) say, “I’m going to alert the proper authorities” when something happens near their house? What is a proper authority, the cops? So would improper authorities be the EPA, the CDC or PETA? I imagine the phone call would go something like this, “Yes, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? I have a problem here.” “Go ahead ma’am, I’m listening.” “Well, we have a couple of kids outside loitering on the sidewalk.”
The PETA representative is silent for a couple of seconds, and then asks “So you have a group of young goats on the sidewalk? We’ll alert the local Animal Control office to go pick them up.” The old lady responds, “No, they aren’t goats, they’re kids… you know, children.” The Rep sighs audibly and replies, “Lady, what the hell is wrong with you? Call the cops, not us… we deal with ethical breaches concerning animals, not children.” The senior citizen pauses and then says, “What if two of them are pooping on the front lawn like dogs, does that count?” “No, ma’am, that doesn’t count.” “Okay, so since the kids aren’t animals, what’s the ethical response to me rubbing their noses in it?”

"To All The Popes I've Loved Before..."

Pope John Paul died a couple of months ago, and I was astonished by how the media and people in general responded to this guy dying. I would be considered Christian by birth, but not by faith… so to me, all this whoopdidoo was completely unnecessary and quite frankly it was all shoved down our throats. I know that there are a metric shit-load of Catholics out there in the world, and that’s great for them, but keep in mind that I’m not. I could give a flying crap about the Papacy, and I would rather have the news networks that I have to pay to watch show a little more than 24 hour coverage of a corpse! What exactly is this man’s relevance in the world that we live in today, other than to encourage others that using a frickin’ rubber is a sin (think about the AIDS pandemic, and how it has spread so extensively in countries such as Thailand and the entire African continent, and the large number of African Catholics and Coptic’s that strictly adhere to the dogma that is taught to them) or that two men shouldn’t lay together in greasy, sensuous congress (I threw that in just to get homophobes to squirm a little in their seats).
This is one of those things that in particular irritates me more than severe case of chafing induced by wearing a pair of corduroy jeans that are a bit too tight on a hot day. This country may be largely Christian, but not all of us are… so I feel that the whole “Death of the Pope” media extravaganza is an imbalanced representation of America’s views. His death was viewed with the grandeur of the death of an actual World Leader, which he wasn’t. He was a little man given bogus authority over a sea of sheep-like followers who truly believe that he has God on speed-dial. How can any rational Human Being think that this guy – whom I can guarantee you is chemically and biologically no different from you or I – is so damn important? He’s like the Queen of England, but unlike the Queen he actually talks and people actually listen to him! Next up in the line is the new Pope, Benedict XVI (why do these idiots give themselves new names, anyway?) aka Joseph Ratzinger who was once a Nazi Youth, for Christ’s sake!
Most people know that the Catholic Church went out of its way to not get involved in the Holocaust and was once not opposed to the slave trade when it came to largely Catholic countries, such as Spain and Portugal, but openly condemned owning slaves in public forums. We also know that many of the present denominations of Christianity exist solely because of the many layers of corruption of the early incarnation of the Catholic Church. Lutherans, Episcopals and the like are, in reality, not all that different from your run-of-the-mill Catholics when it comes to ceremony and tradition. But, that doesn’t mean that the news organizations should go out of their way to make such a garish and ostentatious display of the death of a leader of a religious group. Did we have a round-the-clock series of coverage of the death of Yasser Arafat? How about Ronald Reagan? Oh, that’s right… they had the whole “Reagan World Tour” of his corpse for five days… my bad. You see, as much as I didn’t like either of the previous two men that I mentioned earlier, they were at least leaders in one capacity or another.
The Pope is the same as the Queen of England; but instead of being a literal figure of authority, he a leader of spiritual matters, a figurehead for others to look up to. How many normal people can say that they had a meaningful conversation with the Queen or the Pope? Not many, unless you include all the media hype-men that are constantly writing reports and taking filmed interviews with them to keep people thinking that somehow these two people still have any relevance in today’s world. Think of the Pope as the king of Catholicism, and it’s the 21st Century; I think it’s time for what the Republicans would call a “Regime Change”. Time for the Catholic Church to move on from making others feel inferior and ashamed for being who they are and be more progressive. I mean, do you really need an old man telling you that contraceptives are bad in a time when, by simply using a satellite you could count the hairs on the top of his head and send him an e-mail about his liver spots? I don’t think so, either… time to move on.

"Hiphop Amalgamated"

For those of us who’ve been Hiphop for more than twenty years, we often find ourselves looking down at the culture as it moves away from individuality and towards an amalgamation of corporate interest and “Street Values”. I started listening to Hiphop music in the early 80’s and haven’t stopped since. Most white guys who listen to Hiphop now didn’t listen to Hiphop in the “Golden Era” of the late 70’s to the mid 80’s. I should know, I was one of that unpopular minority and got to experience the backlash of the “normal” white kids whose interest was primarily occupied by listening to nothing but Rock or Metal, wearing Neon outfits and riding skate boards. Often the use of the “N-Word” would be thrown around as casually as a large red ball at the fat kid during a game of Dodge Ball regarding their opinions of the music I listened to.
Not to say, however, that I never listened to Rock and the occasional Metal band from time to time… I like “The Who” and “Rage Against The Machine”, but you wouldn’t find their CD’s in my personal collection. Not because I believe that the music these artists produce is inherently lower in intellectual value than Hiphop music, but because to me it’s pretty damn grating on the nerves to listen to a white guy from a nice, upper-middle class family who live in a big house with a pool in a relatively crime-free area of the country (Fred Durst) screaming about how his girlfriend left him because he was an asshole in their relationship. Hiphop music is a form of music that infuses all of the varying forms of American music, such as Country, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Gospel and (sadly) even Disco. This form of music came from the first generation of American kids that had to raise themselves due to the fact that their parents either weren’t there due to working double-shifts at crappy jobs or because of the massive boom of divorces that occurred during the 70’s and 80’s.
My parents broke up as soon as I got out of intensive care at the hospital, and then my Mother divorced my first step-father in the late eighties, so as you can imagine… I might have been in the same boat as these guys. My mentality isn’t one of a white guy that wishes he grew up in a crappy neighborhood surrounded by gang members because I did experience that growing up. I already had the added incentive to listen to what I wanted to listen to because my Mother knew that I wouldn’t do whatever I heard on my favorite records (no matter how misogynistic or violent) due to the fact that she raised me well, to respect women and try to use violence as a last resort.
Now we have an entire generation of people who grew up listening to nothing but NWA, Easy-E, Too Short, Master P and, with the exception of NWA, the majority of these artists are cookie-cutter attempts at Hiphop music; solely focused on the aspects of life that are the most negative and detrimental to American society, which takes away from the spirit of Hiphop. Hiphop is about expression, as all forms of music are, but wasn’t intended for anything like what it is now. If you live in an extremely violent area of the world, you typically don’t maintain your sanity by focusing on the negative experiences in life, but instead you strive to remain positive in order to further grow as an adult. This attitude typically isn’t reflected in the Hiphop music that many people see videos on TV shows and hear on the local radio stations.
So what can be done if you love Hiphop and wish to support truly talented artists that struggle to remain individuals in a sea of worker-drone wannabe emcees? Going out to local shows, look for the underground artists on the internet and visiting other cities will probably help to expand your horizons. But that doesn’t stem the tide of untalented performers who only entered into the arena of Hiphop music on the premise of making lots of money off of stupid consumers who don’t know anything about real Hiphop, and couldn’t tell you who DJ Kool Herc and KRS-ONE are, but know Nelly’s favorite color, or 50 Cent’s aunt’s special seasoning for her home-made Buffalo Wings. I guess the only way to cure what ails Hiphop music is by going back to the early 80’s when there weren’t any Hiphop videos on the air, so we can re-boot an incredibly flawed system of checks and balances of crap versus quality. Maybe I'll write another post on just the artists that I like if you guys out there give me some input... keep it Hiphop, people.