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Your Eyes

snow, ice, the rasp of the skis beneath my feet, fleeting, ephemeral, passing like time past the serene faces of slumbering children, the whispering scent of the pine trees clothing the silent hills, a blue sky above, limitless and unknowable and perfect,

like your eyes

I’m flying, silently, carving signatures on the steep side of the mountain, following gravity and the wind and you. Here I simply will it, and the earth slides beneath me, spinning and turning with an arctic chuckle. I slide to a pirouetting halt, amid a rasping shower of diamonds, to watch you zip by, a blurred glimpse of ponytails and a flashing smile,

And your eyes

Sharp, piercing, a flash of azure that takes the breath from my lips swifter than any January wind, and I turn to chase your laughter down into the waiting valley below. Even trapped on the chair lift, quickly freezing and contemplating a jump to the run below, my eyes were continually drawn to yours—starburst eyelashes, the exquisite slash of your eyebrows, and that impossibly electric burst of blue when your gaze met mine. It wasn’t just the cut of the wind that was making me shiver.

Your eyes

haunt me–lying in bed, chasing sleep down twisting tunnels of midnight insomnia; working out in the gym, pressing iron amid the supplement high and Ipod-charged adrenalin; riding my Harley down frigid city streets, the cold sun blazing between the steel mountains, the World unraveling beneath my wheels, and yet, behind it all, the memory of your face, half glimpsed in darkened bars, intoxication more heady than any gulped shot of liquor, and far more addictive.

Your eyes….

feel like hope

Posted by opowell | February 17, 2009 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New York Times article

Just a quick post–I have an article being published in the New York Times this Sunday, May 18. It will be in the Style and Fashion section, and is titled <snicker> “I’ll Never Dance the Lambada with Natalie Portman”.

A couple of months ago I entered the Times’ annual ‘Modern Love’ essay contest–even though Modern Love is not exactly my usual sort of topic. The piece is about my stay at the spartan Combat Outpost Callahan last year, on the east side of Baghdad, and the perfect dreams of Natalie Portman I had while stuck there. Perfect NON-SEXUAL dreams of Natalie Portman, I should say (geez, your mind is in the gutter…) Oh, and it also covers the nature of celebrities in American culture, and the dichotomy between adventurous youth and content aging.

Or something like that.

Check it out at newstands this weekend, or this Sunday at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/style/fashionandstyle/columns/modernlove/index.html

if you’re too cheap to shell out the four bucks.

Posted by opowell | May 14, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: author, essay contest, Modern Love, natalie portman, new york times, Owen Powell, published article | Leave a comment

Liberty City meets New York City

Like 14 million other Americans this past week, I plunked down my precious sixty bucks and walked out of Gamespot with a freshly wrapped copy of Grand Theft Auto 4. For the non-video gamers out there, GTA4, as it’s commonly refered to , is the latest installment from Rock Star Games, and it offers a city in which you can do anything that you want. Particularly if that something would be ill-advised or fraught with lengthy prison sentences. Or other unpleasant results.

And when I say ‘a city’, I mean an entire city–full of people, cars, buildings, restaurants, businesses, helicopters, Mafia dons, prostitutes (somewhere, I haven’t found them yet), all fully interactable in real time. Unlike most video games which offer vignettes in evenly spaced intervals, or small enclosed areas in which you can operate for a limited time, GTA4 provides an entire metropolis in real time. You have to drive the streets (this version has a GPS included to help you get around), talk to people, buy greasy hotdogs from sidewalk vendors to stay alive, dodge creditors–just like real life.

With a difference.

Real life frowns upon you shooting said creditor in the head to avoid paying your hefty debts. In GTA4 you can. See a nice new sports car pulling up beside you as you munch on that hotdog? Pull out the driver, beat his ass, and take it. If you see a nicely appointed hooker trolling the streets of Harlem, pick her up and have your way with her (it was much easier in GTA2). Want to steal a snazzy UH-60 helicopter from the federal government and then fly it down Broadway at streetlight level? Go right ahead! Just be sure that you can either outfly the LCPD choppers–either that, or have a useful cheat code stored in your character’s nifty new cellphone.

Yes, the police are in the game, and yes, they will chase you down and lock you up if you get caught breaking the law. However, it is possible to outrun them, and even if they do catch you, they will only throw you in jail overnight, and fine you a chunk of your hard earned pay. Unlike with the NYPD, who will simply shoot you 51 times and then sneer at your family in court for three months. Well, the police in the game will shoot you, but somehow bullets are cured with a brief stay in one of Liberty City’s sparkling new hospitals. It’s amazing what technology has brought to gaming–who would have thought you could find competent medical coverage in NYC?

Now, I can hear the grayhairs out there saying, why would you want to run around breaking the law at will? Because it’s fun! Particularly when it is realistically portrayed, and it’s only in a video game. I’ve told myself that exact same disclaimer after doing any number of deplorable acts in the game. I suppose it all holds a certain amount of appeal to rebellious 15 year old teenagers–or to 40 year old soldiers with too many tattoos and an overdose of testosterone.

GTA4 is set in the fictitious metropolis of Liberty City–which bears a striking resemblance to New York City, along with Brooklyn and Albany. The last two GTA games have similiar tie-ins: GTA-Vice City took on Miami Florida, and GTA-San Andreas blended together Los Angeles and San Francisco. And as for ‘striking resemblance’, I mean amazingly accurate. In Liberty City, not only are there the usual tourist spots–the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, but even obscure portions of the boroughs. There have been times, motoring around the digital town, where I swear I recognize the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, or Bay Ridge (the part of Brooklyn I live in).

And this is where it gets a bit more interesting, or surrealistic. Having just arrived in NYC, and still well into the exploratory side of things, it’s very strange to be investigating the nether regions of Liberty City on the Xbox on rainy days, and then riding through the exact same places in real life the next. The two realities keep overlapping, and the effect is something like a binary version of deja vu.

Last week, in the game, I rode a stolen chopper across GTA4’s version of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the very next day, rode my Springer Softail across the real one. In the game, no tourists took my picture as I roared by, as they did in real life, but to be fair, unlike my alter ego, I wasn’t packing a fully automatic MP5 submachine gun.

It was in the shop.

To add to the mental confusion, Manhattan is dotted with simply massive ads, painted on billboards, and most strikingly, the sides of buildings.

So I here I am rumbling along 7th Ave, images of GTA4 fresh in my head from the night before, astutely trying NOT to run over clueless pedestrians (like in the game) and then I come across something like this and I have to question reality all over again. It’s hard work, when you’re trying to balance a massive hog in rush hour traffic, and simultaneously avoiding Gotham’s infamous potholes.

Now, if GTA can include the smell of the city and the feel of fetid air on your face, we’ll have some pretty realistic VR going on.

I give it ten years.

Thanks to Kuniochi 女 at www.flickr.com/photos/10564709@N08/2422923623 for the images!

Posted by opowell | May 14, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: billboards, Grand Theft Auto, GTA4, Harley Davidson New York City, Liberty City, Liberty City meets New York City, Manhattan, New York City, Springer Softail, video games | Leave a comment

New York by Springer Softail

The other day I took the new Harley out for it’s first real run. Just a short ride around town, since it was the first day that we had both sun and temperatures in the high 50’s. I rode out of Fort Hamilton, down to Coney Island, and then out towards West Long Island. I was shocked at how delapidated Coney Island is; far from the amusement park glories of the past, it is now largely a collection of projects and rusting little businesses. Brighton Beach isn’t too bad, although I was sort of disappointed not to see any evidence of the Russian Mob that supposedly runs the place these days.

Further down the road, I stumbled across another relic from the past, Floyd Bennet Airfield. Opened in 1931, it was the first airport in the New York area, and at the time, was the most space age aerodrome in the country, with it’s concrete runways and electric lighting. Nowadays, it too is falling apart; supposedly operating as a heliport for the NYPD, nothing seemed to be there except for some ancient hangars and a squadron of resentful seagulls. I motored on.

I decided to cut across the north end of Brooklyn, and see if I could find the Brooklyn Bridge. In Germany, I would take off on the weekends, without a map, and do my best to get lost. Well, try to, anyway, I never really did, mostly due to the excellent German habit of dotting the landscape with very detailed and clearly marked road signs. That, and the internal cranial map that I’ve developed after a childhood of wilderness exploration and an adult life of land navigation courses. New York is a good test of this, though, particularly when you only have a fuzzy idea of the lay of the land.

It can be interesting, in a way that Germany wasn’t. I never found a ghetto in Bavaria, but here, where the neighborhoods can blend instantly from one extreme to another, you can find yourself in some pretty dicey areas with little or no warning. Between the ‘normal’ squalor of Canarsie, and the yuppie-fied brownstones of Brooklyn Heights, there are a couple of real gems to be found. Crown Heights. Bedford-Stuyvesant. Flatbush. East New York.

Last night, on duty, I asked a group of our D.A.C.P. officers, all of them retired NYPD, where I should absolutely not go, regardless of the time of day. They thought pensively for a minute, and then rattled off a couple of names. All of the ‘hoods above were on the list, with East New York the number one advisory.

Needless to say, I didn’t know this on the ride. I became aware that something was off, however, after a little bit. Looking at boarded-up storefronts and groups of tough looking guys on the street corners, it became apparent, in a Mozambique sort of way, that I was the only white person in sight. This, and the fact that I was sitting on a brand new 20,000 dollar motorcycle, dressed in full biker regalia, made me a little nervous–that, and the fact that a lot of people seemed to be staring at me. In a city where the Golden Rule is not to make eye contact. Traffic was thick, and the going was slow. The feeling reminded me of patroling Sadr City.

Relax, man, I thought. You’ve got 32 tattoos, and you’re a big guy. You’re a combat vet. You’ve explored most of Europe and a good chunk of Korea on a Harley. Besides, didn’t your mother always tell you that you could pull off just about anything if you look at ease and fully confident?

Suck in your gut. Stick out your chest. Light a cigarette, and smoke it with a sneer, like John Wayne on a Chopper. Or at least a cutrate version of Peter Fonda. Adopt the biker persona that let you party with Hell’s Angels in Austria just a few months ago. Yeah. I got this. I started feeling pretty good about myself, although I kept an eye on the rear view mirrors in case anyone tried to bumrush me from behind. I can do this. Just look like you belong here, or at least are some crazy whiteboy biker who no one in their right mind would mess with.

I stopped at the next traffic light, slowly exhaled a wreath of cigarette smoke in a Clint Eastwood snarl; a Western theme song in my head. “Wah wah-wah.” Which is when I heard a little voice to my side say, “Hey, Mister.”

I looked down, to the sidewalk on my right. There was this little black kid standing there, wrapped in a grubby bubble parka, clutching something that may have once been a candy bar. Five, maybe six years old. His eyes were clear and wide, without malice, but with the sure knowledge of someone who has seen more than I have. And he said, in that voice that all children have; y’know, the kind that you can hear above whatever traffic noises are around you–the sort of voice that everyone can hear:

“Are you lost?”

Posted by opowell | April 7, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Brooklyn, Grand Theft Auto, GTA4, Harley Davidsons, Liberty City, Liberty City meets New York City, Manhattan, New York City, NYC, Springer Softail, video games | Leave a comment

Fun with Pepper Spray!

On Monday morning, having working a 12-hour graveyard shift on patrol, I got to particpate in one of the new rites of passage for MPs and police officers around the country. That’s right, it’s time for…..Fun with Pepper Spray! Yaaaaaay!!

To be perfectly honest, pepper spray is not terribly much fun, unless you are the one doing the spraying. On the morning in question, we would not get to experience that delight, even though we were the ones getting certified in it’s use. You see, in a particularly sadistic twist, in order to be allowed to carry and use pepper spray, one has to experience the privilege of getting a full dose sprayed directly into your face.

Which is why you may detect a certain uneasiness in the faces of the victims–uh, soldiers in the picture below.

Yep, that’s yours truly, second from the left, showing off his new celtic tattoo in a vain attempt to intimidate the cackling hordes that had gathered to laugh at the new guys. My fellow victims, from left to right, are Specialist Mazzone (one of my soldiers, i.e. I’m his team leader), SPC McCain, and SPC Contessa. Good guys, all of them–all veterans of combat tours in Iraq; in fact McCain was there at exactly the same time I was, only on the other side of the Euphrates. None of us are looking forward to the ‘certification’, a fact that was not improved by the horror stories that our buddies had been regaling us with for the previous hour of past certifications.

I don’t know what it is about soldiers and the military, but any event that has the slightest amount of discomfort or pain instantly gets inflated and exagerated, and then told to people that haven’t experienced it, complete with wide eyes and graphic depictions. This was no exception. We heard about guys that panicked and freaked out, requiring ambulances to be called. We heard about civilian cops that quit on the spot after watching their buddies go through it. We heard about migraine headaches and hours that stretched into days with acidic burning and projectile vomiting. We heard about a myriad of techniques used to beat the pepper spray, involving vaseline smeared faces and milk baths, none of which anyone had actually tried, but all of which were supposed to work marvelously.

Naturally, I was all out of vaseline and buttermilk. I never was a very good boy scout.

The horror stories continued all through the classroom instruction, and the little video they showed us about the nasty goop. Through the legendary gore, I actually did learn a little. Turns out that pepper spray is really called OC spray, short for oleoresin capsicum, or in English, simply ‘oily resin of the cayenne pepper’. Police OC spray comes in a 5 to 10% mix, and it’s heat level is measured in S.H.U’s, or Scoville Heat Units. The strength of police OC spray is between 500,000 to 2 million SHU’s.

In an admirable display of professional care for our adequate instruction, the department had procured 10% OC for us, at the full 2 million SHU’s. Oh, joy.

Turns out that they did not simply want to hose us down, but that we would actually be required to do something after getting zapped with the stuff. After standing still and taking the spray directly to the face and eyes, we were expected to retrieve a training pistol from the ground, cover a suspect, and then take him to the ground and handcuff him. Only then would we be allowed to seek relief from our cohorts. Said relief was pretty straightforward–a big trashcan full of cold water, and some paper towels.

Oh, there is an antidote spray available, and we even had some on hand in the police station. That’s reserved for the bad guys. Wouldn’t want that violent criminal to turn around and sue the department, now would we? In any case, soldiers don’t rate the good stuff :)

Like any good NCO, I volunteered to go first <sucker>. Have to set the right example for the troops, especially when one of your soldiers is with you.

Here I am, a second after getting sprayed in the face by one of our civilian police Lieutenants, LT Seijo. Note the red stain of the pepper spray–it sticks very well to skin, and burns instantly. The red effect also helps to identify perps after they’ve been sprayed, in the unlikely event that they initially get away. Trust me, your initial reaction is to drop to the ground and to start clawing your eyeballs out. I was pretty happy to stay on my feet at this point.

At this point I’ve retrieved the training pistol, and am advancing on my subject, ordering him to get on the ground in my best SRT command voice. I kept blinking in order to keep my bearings and target acquistion on him, and with every blink, the burning effect increased exponentially.

Now I’ve taken down the subject, SGT Thomas, one of our MPs, who ‘volunteered’ to be the bad guy. By the time I had the first cuff on, the spray was working pretty well in my eyes. I didn’t want to let on, though, and also wanted to assuage some of the soldier’s concerns, so I looked up and said “This stuff ain’t shit. Hit me again!” Which caused SGT Thomas to yell ‘No, no! You’ll hit me!” just in case LT Seijo took me up on my offer!

And this is what we did for the following hour or so. Turns out that water is NOT the best thing to dilute pepper spray with, since the water reactivates the OC. It actually gets considerably worse while you are trying to clean the stuff off. I was able to force my eyes open about 15 or 20 minutes after getting zapped, and it kept getting gradually better after that. The OC reacts strongly with any mucus membranes, so, along with the eyes; your nose, mouth and lips are the parts that really burn.

To be honest, Contessa (on my left) seemed to get the worst of it. While I was splashing water in my face, I kept hearing this pitiful moaning to my side. I finally said, “Whoever keeps moaning like a bitch, please, for God’s sake, shut up!” I got a muffled ‘Fuck you’ back, and realized it was Contessa. Like I said, he’s a good troop, and that’s exactly the response I would expect from a combat vet. I got a good chuckle out of it. After we were all done, I checked him out, and the poor guy was red over his entire head, and his eyes were almost completely swollen shut. LT Seijo told us that we all handled the certification better than any previous group, which made us all feel pretty good about the whole thing.

Turns out that some people are more sensitive to OC than others, and apparently people that like spicy food generally have a better tolerance to the stuff. So, Dad, thanks again for all of those spicy nachos you used to make for us in New Mexico!

So, that’s pepper spray certification for you. Anyone who wants to be an MP or a Police Officer on a department that uses the stuff, this is what you have to look forward to. Honestly, it’s not too bad, but it is no walk in the park, either. CS or CN, the original tear gas, is absolutely nothing compared to this stuff. And getting hit with it on the streets, with nothing to dilute it with–well, that just isn’t a pleasant thought. You might want to think twice about bitching out that meter maid next time!

Posted by opowell | April 2, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Ft Hamilton, military police, MP training, pepper spray, police, police training | Leave a comment

Wanderings within the Village

Yesterday Barbara and I took the subway into the City and spent the afternoon wandering around Soho, Tribeca and the Village. I’m still at the stage where I have virtually no idea where anything is in the City, or what the different parts have to offer, so this was little more than a dismounted recce.

Soho and Tribeca, and to a slightly lesser degree, the Village, are the stomping grounds of various stars, millionaires and other illuminaries. Brad Pitt shows up occasionally, along with his wife-of-the-moment. Heath Ledger lived here, until he confused his various prescriptions, with reasonably predictable results. And yes, Natalie Portman lives somewhere around here, so naturally the true mission behind the day’s romp was to accidentally bump into her and have a serious conversation as to why she should never make anything nearly as abysmal as ‘Closer’ ever again. More on that later.

The unexpected truth of the area is this, though. Everyone is a nobody here, and at the same time, everyone is potentially ‘someone’. Once you have adopted the unwritten uniform of the City, which is basically anything dark and therefore non-tourist, you submerge into the grimy backdrop of the place. Perhaps this explains the attraction to Hollywood’s elite. Simply throw on a drab hoody, perhaps some cheap sunglasses, and <bing> you’re just Joe New Yorker. Instant anonymity.

The only thing that might set you apart from the average NY-ite is the way you carry yourself, and apparently, if you are tall. New York seems to be populated largely by vertically challenged troglodytes, and apparently anyone over 5’9″ is unusual enough to suggest a touch of immortality. I kept getting wierd looks from the occasional passerby–y’know, that questioning glance of “Are you someone noteworthy?”, which lasts for the whole 20 seconds until you pass them by, or they decide that you are merely a 40 year old soldier masquerading for the afternoon as someone interesting. The only difference in my demeanour, that I could tell, was proper posture and a somewhat aloof confidence, born of living overseas for the past ten years, one of which was in a war zone.

Not that you would react if you did notice someone possibly famous. The most impressive person I saw all day was the 7 foot tall black guy I passed on W. Houston Street. He was wearing an all-white tuxedo, replete with white top hat and white feather boa. Rupaul, perhaps?

Now, that was impressive. I had to blink in order not to do a double take, and by the time my eyes reopened, he was gone. I wondered for a second if I was finally having an acid flashback, or if I had imagined the whole vision. I’m still not sure. In any case, I am reasonably sure that I managed to ignore it as completely as any other jaded denizen of the Village.

Barbara amused herself by counting out loud the number of Starbucks we came across. I would not be surprised to learn that Dick Cheney was the Vice President of the ubiquitous coffee shop, since they are literally everywhere, and quietly seem to be pursuing a strategy of strangling the city in a mix of green awnings and over-sweetened beverages. Not terribly different from our tactics in Iraq, come to think of it. In any case, there is no escape from them. Across from City Hall, I marked two of them, one of each side of the same intersection. At what point do you concede the possibility of market saturation?

One must be careful, though, in actually patronizing these establishments while walking around the City. Apparently there is no such thing as public restrooms, and indeed, the only accessible bathrooms, for less than the price of an average mortgage payment, is, you guessed it, inside another Starbucks. Which means that you have to purchase another Vanilla Latte for the privilege of tinkling in their W.C. Talk about a vicious circle….

So, there I am, wandering around the West Village in my ill-fitting Harley Davidson boots, secretly on the look-out for Natalie Portman. And I found her.

Te Casan Facade

Well, not exactly. I found her shoes.

Her fall collection of vegan shoes is at Te Casan, down on West Broadway. Yes, you read it correctly, vegan shoes. What the picture above doesn’t show is the 20 foot high profile of Natalie in the store window. Barbara wouldn’t let me take a picture of it. Actually she was too busy pulling me away from licking the fabulous pair of tofu stilletos just inside the doorway. Delicious! Much better than the brocolli pumps I tried first, but then, what do I know about coutoure? I would like to think that the soybean flats had actually been chastised by her angelic hands, but I suspect that they were produced by an army of starving, pre-teen Malaysians, the same as any other over-priced shoe in this country. Although apparently all profits go to the Nature Conservancy, so you can assuage your white guilt, born of sporting a 2500 dollar pair of wheatgrass sneakers, from the knowledge that your hard earned bread is going to support something vaguely high-minded.

All I know is that I was hungry an hour later.

Posted by opowell | March 26, 2008 | Categories: Things I've Learned About New York | Tags: Dick Cheney, Greenwich Village, natalie portman, Soho, Starbucks, Te Casan, Tribeca, vegan shoes | Leave a comment

Brooklynese

Oh, and apparently you don’t have to worry about Brooklynites thinking you’re making fun of them when you speak Brooklynese. I keep speaking in a clipped manner, adding the occasional ‘Fuhgedaboudit’, and expecting to get called on it. Nope. The conversation continues on, apparently with no one the wiser.

I don’t think being 6′ 3″ and 250 pounds as anything to do with it…..

Posted by opowell | March 25, 2008 | Categories: Things I've Learned About New York | Leave a comment

My New Favorite Term

‘Fuggedaboudit’ is a legitimate word in Brooklyn, and is used in everyday conversation. As a soldier, I actually understand it’s use pretty well. It’s very similiar to ‘hooah’, which is routinely used in the Army, and essentially means everything except ‘no’. Fuggedaboudit is even more versatile. It is a comment without equal, in that it can be utilized as both a positive and negative. E.g.–“Did ya see that hot goil walkin’ down the street? Tight jeans, tits like bowling balls? Oh brudder, fuggedaboudit!” Or conversely; “I can’t believe that guy, what a jagoff! Fuggedaboudit…..” The only clues to its meaning is the tone of voice, the general subject of the conversation preceding it, and the way the ‘fuggedaboudit’ is actually used. Drawn out and more emphatic for the positive; usually low and trailing off for the negative.

Try it out. It’s pretty useful.

Fuggedaboudit.

Posted by opowell | March 25, 2008 | Categories: Things I've Learned About New York | Leave a comment

Ready to Roll?

Hey all! After years of reading my brother Hugh’s excellent blog, I decided to have a go at it myself. In deference to his surf.bird.scribble, here is biker.dog.ramblings, and I hope it’s half as good. I have no idea where this is going, but perhaps it will at least be a outlet and an exerise for my writing. See you on the road!

Posted by opowell | March 25, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

biker.dog.ramblings Ramblings on motorcycles, tattoos, alternative everything, politics, war and life in New York City.