Cy's Film

(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))

From June, 2007

Got some news from reggae musician Fitzgerald in Malawi today:

"Hello cy
Fine
thanks for the cash you sent it reach me and helped to pay hospital bills
for my son.
my silence is b coz l went out now am back but my son condition has improved
lhave restarted my album kadundulu 3
6 english songs 3 chichewa 1 tumbuka songs lwill be in studio from first week of
august you will haer more soon how isit there. fitz and edo
tisanganenge."

Thanks to those who kicked down and bought Kandandulu 2. I'm going to help Fitz out a little more to get him through the rest of the record. If you haven't seen it yet, the video I made with Fitz is in the April 07 archive.

Also, a big enthusiastic thank you to everyone who bought a copy of The Troubles in Zolokere. To date the DVD has raised $1300 dollars, most of which Jake has already put into the school project (see the Malawi Jake link). The story behind the DVD is pretty good. One of Jake's closest friends funded me to make the DVDs and he's been selling copies out of his family business: an auto body shop in Newark, New Jersey. Damn I love that. An artsy advocacy film about women's issues in Africa and a Peace Corps volunteer being hustled out of a body shop in New Jersey and out of a closet in Imperial Beach toward the same end. Tony, I love you man. Thanks for helping me help out. Jake, I'm going through the footage and there's lots of the school in there, be proud man, be really proud.

So around here things get weirder and weirder. As I got ready for work yesterday there were three explosions.

I'm learning to identify incoming by direction and these were definitely incoming, but the sirens didn't go off so I continued watching the BBC cooking channel until then. Five minutes later when the siren finally did go off, I bailed for the shelter. About ten of us stood in there waiting while some nervous-acting-calm-true-believer-in-this-war went on and on about what to do in an emergency blah blah and all the stuff he's seen in the Green Zone, WHEN, I look over and standing right next to me is a guy I know from Peace Corps who I haven't seen in about five years. "Mike?" "Cy?" "Holy shit, what are you doing here?" Bumping into people, in bomb shelters, in Baghdad - triiiiipy! Was great to see him. He's with USAID, over here for a couple months. We had a long talk, was really good to see a familiar face and talk about this whole thing. He gave me some interesting insights, and together we ragged the stupidity of this whole thing pretty thoroughly. This evening I took him out to see the palaces and it actually seemed...normal.

Today is my day off. I woke up around 4pm and turned on the TV. I sat for a while watching this melancholy bio about Rock Hudson, it was full of butterfly collars and faded 16mm film, god it was heartbreaking and it triggered a moment of crisis for me, one of the moments when I think I may be making a huge mistake trying to be a filmmaker. All this work, sacrifice, debt and at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of pictures on a screen that eventually fade away. Anyway it was a moment, I went to the gym and got my head straight.

Here is the latest hearsay from the rumor mill, you decide what's true cause I have no idea:

The water supply in the Green Zone is being contaminated by all the dead bodies being thrown into the river.

There is a lot of talk about Iraqis being trained by the US, selling info to the insurgence, and that's why they are getting so much better with the mortars and rockets.

One of the reasons the insurgents are video taping their attacks is because Iran is paying 200 dollars per attack, so they tape it as proof.

Like I said, pure rumor mill, I have no idea what's true.

For the readers out there, Catch 22 is not an exaggeration, I always thought it was. This place is like Star Wars meets Catch 22. That said, Conrad still gets the conclusion, from Heart of Darkness:

"It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage." "The horror! The horror!"

comments (4)

Bridgett:

I'm not kidding, is there anything I can send you?

Posted by Bridgett | 07. 1.07

Cy:

If you really want to send something Bridge, a little Jack Daniels would be pretty nice.

Posted by Cy | 07. 3.07

Please give me the address to send it. I'm not kidding.

Posted by Bridgett | 07. 3.07

Yo Briget,

That would be amazing, but before you go for it, you should know that to mail to me requires filling out a customs slip. You can't mail
alcohol, if you were going to do such a thing, which I know you never would, you'd have to say it was something else, like a book or if it was a huge bottle, a bowling ball . But I know you'd never do that. Here's my address in case you want to send religious literature or patriotic show tunes:

Cy Kuckenbaker
Sully Compound
Dos/Gso/Usis
Apo, AE 09321

Posted by Cy | 07. 4.07

post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)




	Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 7 (These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!)) From June, 2007 Got some news from reggae musician Fitzgerald in Malawi today: "Hello cy Fine thanks for the cash you sent it reach me and helped to pay hospital bills for my son. my silence is b coz l went out now am back but my son condition has improved lhave restarted my album kadundulu 3 6 english songs 3 chichewa 1 tumbuka songs lwill be in studio from first week of august you will haer more soon how isit there. fitz and edo tisanganenge." Thanks to those who kicked down and bought Kandandulu 2. I'm going to help Fitz out a little more to get him through the rest of the record. If you haven't seen it yet, the video I made with Fitz is in the April 07 archive. Also, a big enthusiastic thank you to everyone who bought a copy of The Troubles in Zolokere. To date the DVD has raised $1300 dollars, most of which Jake has already put into the school project (see the Malawi Jake link). The story behind the DVD is pretty good. One of Jake's closest friends funded me to make the DVDs and he's been selling copies out of his family business: an auto body shop in Newark, New Jersey. Damn I love that. An artsy advocacy film about women's issues in Africa and a Peace Corps volunteer being hustled out of a body shop in New Jersey and out of a closet in Imperial Beach toward the same end. Tony, I love you man. Thanks for helping me help out. Jake, I'm going through the footage and there's lots of the school in there, be proud man, be really proud. So around here things get weirder and weirder. As I got ready for work yesterday there were three explosions. I'm learning to identify incoming by direction and these were definitely incoming, but the sirens didn't go off so I continued watching the BBC cooking channel until then. Five minutes later when the siren finally did go off, I bailed for the shelter. About ten of us stood in there waiting while some nervous-acting-calm-true-believer-in-this-war went on and on about what to do in an emergency blah blah and all the stuff he's seen in the Green Zone, WHEN, I look over and standing right next to me is a guy I know from Peace Corps who I haven't seen in about five years. "Mike?" "Cy?" "Holy shit, what are you doing here?" Bumping into people, in bomb shelters, in Baghdad - triiiiipy! Was great to see him. He's with USAID, over here for a couple months. We had a long talk, was really good to see a familiar face and talk about this whole thing. He gave me some interesting insights, and together we ragged the stupidity of this whole thing pretty thoroughly. This evening I took him out to see the palaces and it actually seemed...normal. Today is my day off. I woke up around 4pm and turned on the TV. I sat for a while watching this melancholy bio about Rock Hudson, it was full of butterfly collars and faded 16mm film, god it was heartbreaking and it triggered a moment of crisis for me, one of the moments when I think I may be making a huge mistake trying to be a filmmaker. All this work, sacrifice, debt and at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of pictures on a screen that eventually fade away. Anyway it was a moment, I went to the gym and got my head straight. Here is the latest hearsay from the rumor mill, you decide what's true cause I have no idea: The water supply in the Green Zone is being contaminated by all the dead bodies being thrown into the river. There is a lot of talk about Iraqis being trained by the US, selling info to the insurgence, and that's why they are getting so much better with the mortars and rockets. One of the reasons the insurgents are video taping their attacks is because Iran is paying 200 dollars per attack, so they tape it as proof. Like I said, pure rumor mill, I have no idea what's true. For the readers out there, Catch 22 is not an exaggeration, I always thought it was. This place is like Star Wars meets Catch 22. That said, Conrad still gets the conclusion, from Heart of Darkness: "It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage." "The horror! The horror!" Cy Kuckenbaker :: 03. 8.09 :: Permalink comments (4) Bridgett: I'm not kidding, is there anything I can send you? Posted by Bridgett \| 07. 1.07 Cy: If you really want to send something Bridge, a little Jack Daniels would be pretty nice. Posted by Cy \| 07. 3.07 Bridgett: Please give me the address to send it. I'm not kidding. Posted by Bridgett \| 07. 3.07 Cy: Yo Briget, That would be amazing, but before you go for it, you should know that to mail to me requires filling out a customs slip. You can't mail alcohol, if you were going to do such a thing, which I know you never would, you'd have to say it was something else, like a book or if it was a huge bottle, a bowling ball . But I know you'd never do that. Here's my address in case you want to send religious literature or patriotic show tunes: Cy Kuckenbaker Sully Compound Dos/Gso/Usis Apo, AE 09321 Posted by Cy \| 07. 4.07 post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)	This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on March 8, 2009 2:15 AM. The previous post in this blog was Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 6. The next post in this blog is Drinking the Tigris: Final Reminder. Many more can be found on the main page or by looking through the archives.

Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 7