(October 28, 2005)     THE BURNING ISSUE (military.com op-ed)

     I apologize for my long absence from this blog.  My life has been insane over the last few weeks.  I took over the editor job at military.com and am now working in San Francisco one week per month while maintaining my residence in southern Maryland -- quite a commute, obviously.  In the spirit of this new role, here's my latest military.com op-ed (available on this site first, I might add):

THE BURNING ISSUE

By Ward Carroll

You hear the public outcry over the burning of the Taliban fighters’ bodies?  That’s right; there really isn’t any.  That’s not to say the average American condones the practice.  Even with the confusion about whether it was psyops or hygiene, people are repulsed by the notion of wantonly constructing a human bonfire, but what the experts had postured as Abu Gharib Redux has had all the impact of the E-Ring television series.  And in this under-reaction lives yet another lesson in Just War Theory for the Bush administration.

     I’m familiar with Aquinas, the Legalist Paradigm, and the Weinberger Doctrine.  I know the legal definition of assault and what constitutes a threat.  But until 2003 I’d never heard of “preemption” as a reason to go to war.  Self-defense is a historically accepted reason to go to war.  Presaging (and poorly at that) the future possibility of a justified response under the heading of self-defense is not – or at least it wasn’t until a couple of years ago.

     But did the American public ever really buy the notion of preemption?  I’ll admit I had a little trouble with it.  I’d spent two carrier deployments flying over southern Iraq ensuring that the status quo was maintained, and except for the occasional SAM that the locals lobbed to keep things from getting too boring, the vibe was pretty laid back.  Heck, the most exciting part of the flights was the in-flight refueling from the Air Force tankers (and we weren’t even over Iraq when we did that).  So I took it as a personal failure that suddenly the beat my buddies and I had patrolled for years and years was an imminent threat to the American way of life.  Boy, did we screw up.  But, in our defense, we weren’t intelligence experts.  Those guys are smart.  There’s WMD in them hills, boys.  Saddle ‘em up!

     So when the Chem Rush turned out to be a bust, the impetus abruptly shifted from self-defense to the spreading of freedom.  But what the administration didn’t understand was that forcibly spreading freedom comes with certain protocols not found in your garden variety “you attacked us now we’re going to kick your butt” type of war like the one in Afghanistan.  Spreading freedom is tricky; it’s about winning hearts and minds – touchy-feely stuff, the sort of topic an expert lectures you about at an off-site (after your company makes you buy his book, of course).  When you’re in the spreading freedom mode you can still kick butt; you just have to be more considerate about it.  Humiliating prisoners is just plain inconsiderate.

     Just how much Americans cared about Abu Gharib was evinced by the surest of barometers:  CNN booked Brigadier General “Don’t Blame Me” Karpinski on Larry King Live for two weeks straight (or so it seemed).  And the Army listened, too, and exclusively hammered Private Lynndie England, the mastermind behind the scandal.

     Unfortunately for the neocons, spreading freedom is more chess than football; it also demands a shedding of whatever arrogance might be left over from the self-defense war, the one that had that definitive closure – which reminds me:  I used to think that the "excellence without arrogance" motto was soft, the stuff of the mid-90s PC wave. In fact, when I taught at the Naval Academy a few years ago, I found “Excellence Without Arrogance” posters all over the place.  They bugged me, enough that I started to tell my midshipmen that arrogance was okay as long as it came with excellence.

     I was wrong.  I think what I meant by "arrogance" was actually "confidence" or "brio" or something like that.  I'd even allow "cocky."  I want my leaders and heroes to have a swagger, but that swagger shouldn’t be vindictive.  In some cases, arrogance is overcompensation for the underlying doubt about being right.  Arrogance is the touchdown celebration with Sharpies, cell phones, and pre-planned dance moves.  Arrogance can overwhelm the meek and apathetic -- but not forever.  They’ll figure it out.  (They have figured it out.)

     Americans accept that war is an ugly business; they just want the nation to play by the rules, the rules that we put into effect.  They know the difference between Baghdad and Bagram.  In fact, the only public outcry heard in the wake of the most recent videotaped revelation in Afghanistan was, “Taliban?  They’re still around?”

     Americans are smarter than the administration thinks they are, and the public’s reaction to the conduct of war – conduct shown via videotape, digital photos, or whatever – is a good litmus test for the fundamental justification for going to war.  The administration should listen to the people.  The people will get us out of this.

(September 21, 2005)     SHOULD'VE BOUGHT A LOTTERY TICKET INSTEAD

  Yesterday I was on my way back to DC after a trip to Indiana for a convention . . . hold it, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Leaving DC the day before, I bought 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg in one of the bookstores at Reagan National Airport.  I couldn't put it down.  It's very funny and pretty close to dead-on throughout.  So anyway, I was sitting at the gate at the Indianapolis airport reading the book when who should I see strolling down the jetway but Bernard Goldberg.  I couldn't believe it.  I ran over to him waving the book like an idiot (he got a kick out of it at least) and got him to sign it and chit chatted for a few seconds, comparing notes as we writers tend to do when we gather.  (He had no clue who I was, of course.)  Now remember, we're not talking about New York or Chicago or LA here.  We're talking about Indianapolis.  Put odds on that, please.  Some people win millions; I meet Bernard (I call him Bernie) Goldberg.

(September 2, 2005)     THE BANDIT YOU DON'T SEE IS THE ONE THAT'LL GET YOU

Fighter guys have a saying (actually they have many sayings and this is one of them):  "The bandit you don't see is the one that'll get you."  Regardless of airspeed, turn rate, weapons loadout, pilot ability, etc. an airplane can't defend against a threat the crew is unaware of.

In many ways it strikes me that Hurricane Katrina was the bandit we didn't see.  Of course I'm not suggesting that we didn't know the hurricane was coming.  Anyone with a computer, a TV or a radio knew she was the Big One and she was going to hit.  I'm saying we didn't accurately presage what would happen on the back side of the weather catastrophe.

Since 9/11 we have viewed the threat to our "freedom" as singular.  Meanwhile matters of domestic infrastructure, internal security, and standards of personal conduct to a man and woman have gone wanting.  The trick to survival in a democracy is keeping all the plates of crisis spinning on their respective sticks.  (I'm of a mind of the old Ed Sullivan show for some reason; probably mental comfort food of sorts.)  Make no mistake:  We're one-deep in a lot of places in America, and that's a big surprise to most of us.  Who knew about the Colonial Pipeline before this?  Also people need more than cable television to flourish.  They need parents who raise them right (and have the means to do so) and they need a decent education.  They also need a society that cares.

So now we have another Third World country to repair.  Who would have thought it was going to be New Orleans?

(August 29, 2005)     GUEST ENTRY:  ROCK 'N ROLL CAN SAVE YOUR SOUL

by James Barber

Sam Phillips, in 1957, argues with Jerry Lee Lewis about whether  
they're going to hell during the recording session for Great Balls  
of Fire.  Jerry Lee does not agree.

I fell in love with music in the early '70s, a time when no one could  
conceive of a day when rock and soul wouldn't rule the earth. Growing  
up out there in the middle of America, rock & roll was a secret  
language, a lifeline that let a precious few of us know that there  
was life beyond whatever backwater town we lived in and that,  
somewhere, there were other people who understood.

ZoSo, Darkness On the Edge of Town, You're Gonna Get It, Some Girls  
and London Calling were my Golden Tickets, secret passes that helped  
me survive every day until I could set out on my own and find those  
other people who knew the magical things nobody else around me could  
hear.

But now it's 2005 and everything that once seemed like undisputed  
truth has gotten pretty murky. Loud guitars are no longer the profit  
center that drives the record business. My own experiences over the  
last few years have made me question whether the music I love still  
matters.

Atlanta's The Tom Collins gives a jarring and definitive answer to  
that question on their new album Daylight Tonight: not only does rock  
still matter, it's still a matter of life and death. And it's saved  
my soul all over again at a time when I wonder what I'm doing every  
single day.

I'm probably not obliged to tell you this, but I will: I spent a year working with this band, producing recordings and trying  to get a major label to give them the big recording contract that I was certain lay just around the corner.

We recorded three sides at Stratosphere Studios in NYC. Geoff Sanoff  
did a brilliant job engineering tracks that sounded every bit as good  
as the songs he recorded for the first Secret Machines album.

We were ecstatic. The Tom Collins played a spectacular showcase in  
Atlanta shortly after and then got absolutely zero interest from any  
major labels. And I mean no reaction whatsoever. Have I gone  
completely deaf or has the business I love just completely jumped the  
tracks?

The Tom Collins is one of the best live bands I've ever seen. There's  
the unbelievable tension onstage that only lives in a power trio.  
There's no rhythm guitar to cover up the dodgy parts; everything  
depends on the interplay between guitar, bass and drums and there's  
never a moment for anyone to break concentration.

The Tom Collins' chemistry is cut with equal parts respect, love and  
hate. No member really wants to be in this band but each one knows  
he'll never find another like it. Every show teeters between  
implosion and redemption and somehow they manage to find the strength  
to go back out and do it again.

Kyle Spence is as good as any drummer I've ever seen and has the most  
natural sense of that loping "Bonham time" since, well, John Bonham.  
I had the thrill of seeing Kyle play with J. Mascis and Dave Schools  
(bassist from Widespread Panic) last year and it was the most amazing  
set I've seen J. play since Dinosaur Jr.'s legendary 1987 Anti Club  
show in LA. Brilliant drummer. Check.

Craig McQuiston may be the real genius in The Tom Collins. Left with  
the task of forging some balance between a drummer everyone notices  
and an ultra-flashy guitarist, Craig's bass manages to glue the whole  
thing together. I'm continually amazed at his ability -- both in the  
studio and onstage -- to really listen to his bandmates and keep the  
train from jumping the tracks. It's an unbelievably constant  
heartbeat that gives both Kyle and Fran the room to take risks that  
would be impossible without Craig's unshakeable foundation.  
Incredibly in-the-pocket, no flashy garbage bassist. Check.

Fran Capitanelli has always been known as a hotshot guitarist on the  
Atlanta scene. He somehow manages to graft a Jimmy Page thunder onto  
Mike Campbell-style chiming melodic leads. He puts as much precision  
and love into his riffs as he does his leads and sometimes it sounds  
like he's doing the work of the entire Skynyrd guitar army all by  
himself. What's changed on Daylight Tonight are his vocals. In the  
past, singing was almost an afterthought, something he did so the Tom  
Collins were more than an instrumental band. These new songs are  
infused with a vocal passion and phrasing that finally measures up to  
the guitar playing he's always been known for. Add this to our list:  
certified guitar hero and expressively powerful lead vocals. Check.

This lineup released an album called Deep Cuts four years ago that  
showed what great players they are but didn't have the songs that  
were going to change anyone's life. Some part of me suspects that  
record companies heard that album and just filed the band in a "good  
band/no hits" category where they were doomed to stay for all time.

But something happened to Fran after the release of Deep Cuts. Me, I  
have some insider information and I know it involved one of those  
secret relationships with the kind of woman who's destined to  
permanently alter your DNA. Having some experience with those women  
myself, I was lucky enough that these new songs were the first music  
I heard from The Tom Collins.

The great thing about art (as opposed to gossip or celebrity) is that  
it truly doesn't matter who that woman was. In our new instant,  
online, worldwide game of telephone, the meaningless details of those  
kinds of stories have been given a weight they can't possibly  
deserve. Who fucked up Fran and gave us these songs? I'll never tell,  
but anyone who's ever taken any real emotional risks will find plenty  
to identify with on this album.

Fortunately, in this case, we just get to live through the wreckage  
of a doomed romance and take in twelve songs about a life transformed  
by love, sex, loss and redemption.

Daylight Tonight was recorded in Kyle's garage under incredibly  
primitive conditions. I'm not sure whether the Athens, GA summertime  
humidity or the winter cold makes for a more difficult recording  
session, but they pieced this album together over two years whenever  
they could scrape together money and time.

Which leaves us with twelve songs that can change your life. After we  
hit the wall with the record companies, I put their music away and  
spent my time recording other things. Kyle studied our New York  
recordings and the band quietly went back to work on the original  
demos. The entire situation was just a memory tinged with mild regret  
and frustration until I visited Atlanta in early August and Fran  
handed me a finished copy of this album.

I put in the CD and, after two songs, I pulled over on the side of  
the road and just started shaking. All of the compromises and hustle  
and white lies I tell myself to keep working in music and deal with  
my car wreck of a personal life were stripped away. Daylight Tonight  
was like an acid bath that stripped off three years of soul corrosion  
in less than 47 minutes.

There are two albums here: one is the musical powerhouse that refuses  
to apologize for an undeniable debt to Led Zeppelin, but it's a  
cryptic sort of debt that imagines that Jimmy Page was ripping off  
Television's Marquee Moon when he was making In Through the Out Door.  
This is a power trio: echoes of Cream ripple through the album, but  
the Tom Collins is also undeniably Southern, somehow conjuring Tom  
Petty, R.E.M. and the Allman Brothers all at once.

The other album is a singer/songwriter's confessional buried under  
the rubble of a dynamite blast. And that's the one that saved my soul.

I've played Daylight Tonight at least 50 times in the last 3 weeks.  
The album doesn't just hold up; it gets better every time I play it.  
In my career, even I've played the "gimme 3 singles and then who the  
hell cares" game with bands and this album is just an entirely  
different animal: a completely grown-up meditation on the  
consequences of infidelity told by a rock band with staggering prowess.

Through all the struggle and grind that comes with scraping a living  
out of music, it's hard to remember the mystical power that attracted  
me as a fierce and lonely kid. I passed on all the opportunities that  
my college education apparently presented because I couldn't imagine  
a life without music, a life where I made records that gave other  
kids the same sense of escape, hope and belonging that got me through  
the hardest years of my life.

Now that my livelihood depends on getting along with record companies  
and the delivery of a "commercially acceptable" product, there are  
thousands of tiny compromises I make every day with recordings,  
arrangements, mixes, masters, artwork, marketing and everything else  
that goes with making a record succeed in the big machine.

Daylight Tonight has cauterized my soul. Its refusal to compromise,  
its fearless exploration of complicated and sometimes unhealthy  
emotions has helped me make sense of my own life at a time when my  
faith in my work, my personal relationships and even the validity of  
values I thought I shared with people I loved has been shaken to the  
core. The Tom Collins doesn't offer any easy answers but they ask  
fearless questions about spiritual connection and fidelity, somehow  
managing to tap into the fundamental power of rock while they're  
doing it.

I didn't produce any of this album: the band reworked their demos  
into these final masters and the additional recording, mixing and  
mastering bears a lot of resemblance to what we recorded together in  
New York. I'm incredibly proud of that influence but I'm also proud  
of Fran's refusal to Autotune his lead vocals (which is something I  
would have done whether he liked it or not). Daylight Tonight is a  
defiantly independent record, a finely crafted but unvarnished  
portrait of a truly great rock band.

Ten years ago, I would have signed this band to Geffen Records, put  
the band on tour support and had faith that radio would have  
eventually seen the light. We don't live in that world now and bands  
like this have to find other ways to connect with their audience.

This love letter is an attempt to find a way to make that connection.  
If you know me and know what I like, then I hope you'll trust my  
taste enough to track down a copy of Daylight Tonight and decide for  
yourself.

If you live for Television and Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and the  
Stooges, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Ramones, then Daylight Tonight could  
save your soul. Or at least make you remember why you loved rock in  
the first place.

When I was 21 and "threw my life away" instead of pursuing a  
responsible career, this was exactly the kind of record I aspired to  
make. And now, when the powers that be have deemed the music I love a  
marginal proposition at best, I desperately want people to hear this  
music and understand why so many of my friends have devoted our lives  
to the idea that rock and roll saves souls.

I don't mean this as an indictment of anyone I know who works at a  
major record company; almost all of them still know what music is  
supposed to sound like but the system no longer trusts them enough to  
let them follow their instincts and do their jobs.

The best anyone can hope is that enough people in the real world  
discover The Tom Collins and create the kind of buzz and energy that  
forces a big label to sign a band this good.

Daylight Tonight comes out October 4 on Terminus Records.

If you're one of my rock writer friends, you need to review this in  
your damn magazine because you can't hire me to write it for you.  
Their publicist is Ariel Hyatt and her email address is  
ariel@arielpublicity.com.

If you work at a radio station, do something against the rules: play  
"Back of Your Mind" just because it's great.

If you're a regular human being, check out their websites:

http://www.myspace.com/thetomcollins

http://www.thetomcollins.com

Then pay money for the record. If I'm wrong, track me down and make  
me buy your copy off you. But I'm betting that you'll be buying more  
and giving them to your friends.

http://www.myspace.com/jamesbarber

Ward's note:  I have lived vicariously through James Barber since 1989.  You can go to his website and read some of his accomplishments, but what you won't see is the unfiltered story of a man who pursued his dream unconditionally.  Rock ain't free, friends; Jim has the scar tissue to prove it.  And I can tell you that any band he likes this much is worth seeking out.

(August 24, 2005)     ONE OF THOSE EMAILS

After four novels and countless magazine articles I have finally arrived:  "Sunset Glows on the Tomcat" has become "one of those emails" -- the kind those with email trees labeled "Jim's A-list Amigos" and "Bill's Bubbas" send out.  As a result I have heard from folks all over the place.

     Feedback, especially positive feedback, fuels a writer, and I'd like to thank those who took the time to check in and, in many cases, offer some of their own remembrances of an airplane that was special to them.  Only when I hear from a reader, even a reader of a 1,000-word essay, do my efforts behind the written word make any sense.

     In the meantime, keep reading; I'll keep working on the next novel (due very soon to my publisher).

(August 3, 2005)     SUNSET GLOWS ON THE TOMCAT

They're coming one after the other now. Each day seems to bring another heartache – articles in professional journals, invitations for “the last of” events, order forms for coffee table books. I'm beginning to realize that there's no putting off the fact that one of the most revolutionary, capable, and elegant airplanes ever to dominate the skies is going away.

I refer, of course, to the F-14 Tomcat. Over the next number of months the grand old boy will take his leave. With the F-14 goes the notion of swing wings, variable geometry intakes, radar intercept officers, and 1.8 indicated Mach number on the airspeed gauge. And with the F-14 also goes a big part of what made my life noteworthy, dare I say, the stuff of novels.

The Tomcat had an amazing run: thirty-plus years, three wars, dozens of brushfires and contingencies, and one popular – albeit hokey as pozz – moved called “Top Gun.” Few airplanes in the history of aviation have adapted as well to the tactical landscape over their years in the inventory. The F-14 was designed around the AWG-9/Phoenix missile system, a long-range air superiority fighter that pushed out the boundaries of fleet defense. The early portion of my flying career was about launching on the Alert 5 and escorting Soviet bombers and transports. Those were the days of the 1+45 cycle, the days when the Tomcat was the fuel critical jet in the air wing. The thought of dropping bombs was anathema to us then.

But the threat changed as the post-Cold War defense budgets shrunk, and the F-14 morphed into an attack platform. A few years after that the LANTIRN pod was strapped onto a wing station and strike planning doors that had once been shut to the Tomcat community came flying open. Suddenly the Tomcat, with its two-man crew and newly received high-resolution displays, was the platform of choice for culturally sensitive or hard-to-find targets. System by system (including the flight controls), an analog airplane turned digital.

And none too soon. Precision bomb delivery along with the refinement of the photo reconnaissance mission and the addition of roles such as FAC(A) came just in time to serve in the wake of 9/11. Six-hour missions to Masir-e-Sharif? No problem. Same goes for the way the airplane was employed during the opening months of the Iraqi War. A flexible, capable platform combined with resourceful aviators is a great pairing in the face of a dynamic battlefield. Ironically, perhaps, as the Tomcat got older, it got better. In sum, it's safe to say that the American taxpayer was well served by this asset.

But now the F-14's time is nearly over. Emotions stir in the face of this reality. Thousands of hours of my adult life were spent strapped into the back seat of the “Big Fighter.” It was there that challenges were met, friendships were forged, and the nation's will was carried out. From that lofty perch I looked up at the heavens and down on hostile lands. I didn't always realize it then – youth, of course, is lost on the young – but each sortie was a gift.

So, too, was the time spent in the company of greats. I think back on chain-laden plane captains who loved the airplanes as much as we did, those who kept the aviators going with their enthusiasm in the face of long days that promised nothing but more hard work. I remember the maintenance master chiefs who taught me not just how the Tomcat works but how to be an officer and a man. And for their caring they asked for nothing in return. In their countenances I saw my responsibilities.

Anyone familiar with my Punk series of books knows that the years I spent riding in the back gave me a de facto doctorate in pilot personality types. Any RIO with 1,000 hours or more in the airplane possesses a similar degree. And as I flip through the pages of my weathered logbooks and read the names – Orr, West, Davison, Owens, Daill, Alwine, and hundreds more – I think of their skill, skill that boggles the mind even now, and the teamwork between cockpits that made flying the F-14 rewarding. I know few things as surely as I know that U.S. Navy carrier-based pilots are the best in the world.

And what of the down times between sorties? In my mind's eye I conjure up a gathering in the eight-man stateroom where problems are broached, dissected, and solved. This is where I learned about trust. This is where I realized I could survive the trial that was life at sea – hell, life period.

Now I close my eyes and hear the clack, clack, clack of the shuttle as it moves aft for the next launch. The exhaust from the powerful and reliable F-110 engines fills my nostrils until we drop the canopy and bring our jet to life. Air roars through the ECS. Systems power up. Soon we're parked behind the cat, waiting our turn. I roger the weight board – 68,000 pounds, buddy, 68,000 pounds. Grasp that, if you can. The jet blast deflector comes down and we taxi into place, my pilot deftly splitting the cat track with the twin nose tires. And then – even after decades of doing the same thing – the adrenaline starts to flow as we go through the deck dance unique to the Tomcat: The nose strut compresses, giving the fighter the look of a rail dragster; the launch bar comes down. Wings spread. Flaps lower. Outboard spoiler module circuit breaker goes in (a RIO gotcha). Our hands go up as the ordies arm the missiles, bombs, and gun.

There's the signal from the catapult officer. My pilot puts the throttles to military power and wipes out the controls – stick forward, aft, left, and right; rudder left and right.

“You ready, Mooch?” he asks.

I run the fingers of my right hand across the top of the lower ejection handle (for orientation purposes) and answer, “Ready.”

He salutes. We both lean forward slightly. (No self-respecting Tomcat crew would take a cat shot with their heads against the headrest, not to mention that would be a good way to get your bell rung because of the way the airplane surges down before it starts moving forward.) A couple of potatoes later we're off. Airborne.

And for the next hours we stand ready to bring this machine, this manifestation of American know-how, to bear however it might be required. Or maybe today isn't our day to save the world, so we accommodate one of the small boy's requests for a fly-by or break the sound barrier just because we can (and we're far enough above our fuel ladder to get away with it).

We're flying a Tomcat. And we're getting paid to do it.

Alas, I speak of days gone by. What remains of what once gave my working life purpose will soon only be found in front of main gates, aviation museums, and VFW halls around the country. In the blink of an eye I have become the guy with the ill-fitting ball cap and the weathered flight jacket who bores young ensigns (and anyone else who happens to make eye contact) with his tales of derring-do. “VF, dang it!” I rail. “Those were real fighter squadrons.” And they were. Swordsmen, Pukin' Dogs, Grim Reapers, Diamondbacks – mascots of an adventure. At the center of it all was the airplane itself, and when an airplane has so much heart, personality, and character it ceases to be inanimate to those who climb into it on a regular basis.

So it's goodbye, dear friend. Forgive my depression. I've heard the promises of a brighter future, but my time in the arena was with you. I watch you zorch into the sunset and wonder how it all could have passed so quickly. It doesn't seem like that long ago when we were together, inextricably linked, one defining the other. Ours was a world of unlimited possibilities and missions accomplished. Ours was a world of victory.

So goodbye, Big Fighter, blessed protector of the American way and our hides. We who knew you well will miss your class, your swagger, your raw power. Even in the face of technological advances you bowed to no other. Thanks for the memories. They are indeed the stuff of novels.

(July 26, 2005)     A GREAT QUOTE FROM THE NEW CNO

(July 20, 2005)     THE GEAR JUNKIE'S BURDEN

There is a tipping point with every hobby where exposure to the details becomes a dangerous thing.  That's when lark becomes obsession.  I didn't care about what sort of golf ball I was playing until I marvelled at the way my first Balata backed up when my approach shots hit the green.  Never mind that they cost $15 per sleeve.  I had to have them.

     The same is true for the guitarist, especially the electric guitarist.  Tube amps sound better than solid state amps.  Tube amps have tubes, both preamp tubes and power tubes.  There are many different types of tubes.  And even the same types of tubes are made in many different countries.  They all sound different, or at least I am now convinced that they sound different, so I make a big deal about what tubes I put in my amp.  I care about what the speaker cabinet is made of and the weight of the speaker magnet.  I'm bullish on a certain brand of strings and a certain gauge of that brand.  I'm picky about the gauge of the speaker wire inside the cabinet.

     When I was younger I didn't care, or rather I didn't know to care or what to care about.  I just plugged in and wailed away.  But now I know too much . . . or do I know too little?  Or is a hobby ultimately about the journey and not the destination?

(July 18, 2005)     JACK OR TIGER?

John Feinstein, sports writer and on-air personality, has an editorial in today's Washington Post that compares the personas of Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, at once an apples and apples and apples and oranges undertaking considering the landscape that was the 1969 sports world and now.  Feinstein is guilty, as are many others, of forgetting that Jack was not a man of the people in his prime, rather quite the opposite.  Arnie was the approachable one, the one who was willing to show a human face.  Jack was the stoic, the one singularly focused on being the best in his sport, the one not beyond being rude or short if caught at the wrong time.

So Tiger seems too polished?  Insincere?  Calculated?  So what?  Was Jack as altruistic in his day?  (Was there such a thing as a golf star with charities back then?)  Were sports on TV all day long in 1969?  Was there an Internet?

I was as moved as anyone (except maybe Tom Watson) as Jack walked up the 18th fairway at St. Andrews for the final time as a competitor.  He earned the adulation.  But Feinstein's editorial holds Tiger to a standard set by Jack at age 65, not at 29.

Give Tiger a break.  He's raised the bar for golfers everywhere and in the process saved the sport.  Without him golf goes the way of tennis.  Quick, who won the Wimbledon men's final this year?  Yeah, I can't remember either . . .

(July 14, 2005)     JUST RESIGN . . .

See the headline.

(July 8, 2005)     THE LESSONS OF LONDON

If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting London you know what a cool city it is.  That's what makes yesterday's attacks even more tragic for me on a personal level.  The images of the double-decker bus ripped to shreds tears at my guts and makes me want to put the crosshairs on the forehead of any Islamic extremist who would even consider doing harm to innocents.

Enough with the distractions.  The last few years in many ways has caused us to take our eyes off the prize.  Let's refocus.  Let's find the enemy and make them into the grease spots they deserve to be before they cheap shot us again.

And what does this do to the impact of Live 8?  Does it seem trite and quixotic now, or does it remain a beacon of hope?

(July 5, 2005)     THE STATE OF ARROGANCE

I used to think that the "excellence without arrogance" motto was soft, the stuff of the mid-90s PC wave. In fact, when I taught at the Naval Academy a few years ago, I would tell my midshipmen that arrogance was okay as long as it came with excellence.

Current events have shown me that I was wrong.

I think what I meant by "arrogance" was actually "confidence" or "brio" or something like that.  I'd even allow "cocky."  I want my leaders and heroes to have a swagger, but I don't want that swagger to be vindictive or mean-spirited.  Watch Fred Couples as he walks around a golf course or Derek Jeter as he steps to the plate.

Arrogance can overwhelm the meek and apathetic -- but not forever.

A leader's highest obligation is to be right.  So lose the attitude.

Neocons (however unfashionable they've quickly become) continue to nod with each sibalent (s) even in the face of unfathomable entropy.  Do things always have to get worse before they get better?  If you read Bob Woodward's first book on the topic you'll see that the woodpile had been arranged well before the match was struck.

I saw the other guy on television a few days ago.  He made sense, which scares me probably as much as anything about now.  The grass is always greener.  It's lonely at the top.  Et cetera, et cetera . . . wow.  Wanna take you higher.  High up on a hill, let's try it one more time.

I've also sensed the presence of the answer while looking into the eyes of heroes.  They walk among us, you know -- men touched by God, a circumstance wholly separate from the debate that consumes the airwaves.  That's the truth that at once transcends and mocks.  Stop talking and listen to them.  They'll get us out of this.

They were going to be the next big thing, the next Pearl Jam.  Their debut album was amazing.  Songs like "Messages" and "Watershed" were soaring epics rife with powerchorded hooks and spine-tingling emotion.  The album artwork was thought-provoking and connoted a thinking person's approach to the form.  They were poised for grunge greatness.

They toured in earnest.  They recorded a second album and toured some more.  They got nowhere and eventually disappeared from the face of the earth.

At the same time a band called Stone Temple Pilots flew to the top of the charts and stayed there for a few years until their drug-addicted lead singer self destructed (cliche, I know).  STP wasn't as good as 700 Miles.  They weren't as original or honest or talented.  But they dominated the airwaves while 700 Miles languished in cult obscurity before fizzling out altogether.

Every fan of music or sports or literature has his or her own story of a favorite artist who should have been great but fell short.  The reasons for these failures are many:  Timing was wrong, label or publisher didn't support the effort appropriately, whatever.  The bottom line is that trading in pop culture is a dicey proposition, one that is most likely doomed from the outset.

Good luck to you, champions.  In spite of the odds, you must honor the muse.  That remains the last great hope of the 24-hour news cycle and the WalMart shopper.  May you break through the noise.

Karl Rove thinks Michael Moore and those at MoveOn.org are weaklings who would let bad guys run all over them without so much as uttering, "Hey . . . stop that."  Liberals think Karl Rove is a boorish fat cat who has co-opted a president and therefore a nation.  Conservatives are Hawkish Jesus freaks who want to take away your freedom to watch HBO and listen to Howard Stern.  Liberals are ignorant, self-centered soccer moms who don't want their children to join the Army and get sent to Iraq.  Dick Cheney is on the right.  Howard Dean is on the left.  Ralph Reed is on the right.  Hillary Clinton is on the left.  Fox News and the WWF are on the right.  Every other media outlet except the Wall Street Journal is on the left.

Life is so easy in America, isn't it?

IT'S ALL PART . . . OF MY ROCK N' ROLL DREAM

The Beatles wave from the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show after performing "All My Loving."  Four smiles radiate a signal through the black and white television perched on a creaky table in the far corner of a den in southern California.  The signal is received:  Music matters.