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March 12, Today super ginny Luigi Babe
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A day with Luigi
March 13 I got up that what I did today what did you do like i real care becasue are onmy website
We spent the first day of the trip in Washington DC, getting ready to go. We started in a large auditorium/gymnasium on a base that I can't remember the name of. Sorry.
The bands all rehearsed and did sound checks. We were all fitted with body armor and helmets. Dino and I couldn't stop giggling at how crazy the whole thing is. We also started realizing how incredibly boring this might be and I got scared Dino might bail out.
The tour manager and promoter, who's name is Jeff, gave us a briefing where he told us some of what we might expect. We then were taken to the Ritz Carlton in Chrystal City Maryland to spend the night. Dino and I went to the bar and drank. Dino also went and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Listerine. The reason for this is that there is absolutely no alchohol allowed anywhere in Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan because those are Muslim countries and it's illegal there. He had been told by a friend that a listerine bottle was a traditional place to hide booze.
While in the bar, I ran into Lewis Black, who was going on a tour of all the same countries with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I went to my room and tried to sleep. I think I got about one hour.
We were woken up at about 5am to head to Andrew's airforce base, where we would be Wheels Up at 6:00am, on our way to Kuwait, by way of Germany. That's as far as we were told.
While at Andrews, we met all the people that we'd be spending the next ten strange days with. SOme of them are...
This guy is a badass and immediately impressive. He's also very soft-spoken, kind and a good listener. He greeted me very warmly at Andrews and thanked me for coming. I don't think he'd ever seen my act.
I told him that I had visted some wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center the last Christmas and he and I shared some observations about how military people recover from wounds and support each other. I like this guy a lot. He really took care of us and he clearly gives a big old shit about the regular enlisted people in his Army.
The Sergeant Major has a small and competent staff of Sergeants. Here are some of them...
Sergeant White
This guy was very serious but you could totally make him laugh and he was also very honest. He told me a lot of interesting things about Army life over the next days.
Sergeant Ratner
This guy was so basically Army. Very southern accent. Very much a stay out of trouble cog in the machine. But he had a very dry sense of humor and made me laugh a lot. Dino and I would say something to him like "Ratner, are you a fucking giant retarded idiot?" and he would, with an amazingly straight and sincere face, say "Yes sir." More on him later.
This dude
I never learned this guys name but he was really cool. he was clearly a dangerous guy with combat experience and we all felt safe around him.
Mark Wills
Mark is a country Western Singer. I know zero about that kind of music so I had not heard of him or any of the other country acts on the show.
Craig Morgan
Another Country Western guy. He has a big hit called "Redneck Yachtclub". He was also a Army Ranger at one time.
The rest
Alright I'm already getting sleepy so I'm going to use this group picture, taken by Fred Greaves who was the trip photographer, to rattle off the rest. The lady on the end is Leanne Tweeden. She was the emcee for all the shows. She has been on a lot of USO tours. She used to be on the Best DAmn Sports SHow.
The guy with the dark hair is Kenny Thomas who was the other country act and who was also in the Army. Kenny was involved in the whole "Blackhawk Down" incident. The three ladies in the front are three of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders. Their names are Lily Robbins (blonde) Adrianne (dark straight hair) and Kaileigh (frizzy dark hair and also not entirely white) the fat red headed douche in the back is me.
Okay so that's everybody. We all hung around a lounge at Andrews Airforce base. It was stil before Dawn. The Sergeant Major arrived with all his people behind him. He introduced himself and thanked us for coming on the tour. He asked us all to go around the room and say our names and what our roles were on the tour. Everybody went around and did this. I realized during this process that Dino was standing in such a way that he would introduce himself before me. I already didn't know what the hell he would say when it was his turn. Every single person in the room had a legitimate role on the tour. People brought supporting musicians or roadies or whatever. I was the only person who brought someone who was just a friend, just for the fuck of it. Moreover, Dino and I were the only people in the room who weren't ever in the Army and weren't country western singers and we were DEFINITELY the only non-christians and DEFINITELY (wish there was an even cappier caps to use there) the only non-republicans in the room.
As the introductions made their way towards us, I pulled Dino gently to the other side of me, so that at least he would have my introduction as context.
The cheerleaders went right before me. "My name is Lilly Robins and I'm a member of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders." they said one by one. Then me. "my name is Louis CK and I"m a member of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders." Ha ha. It was a small laugh. Well it was a pretty small joke. I went on "I'm a standup comedian." Then Dino. "Hi. I'm Dino. I'm Louie's friend. But I'm open to being anybody else's friend here too!" Huge laugh. Including the Sergeant Major, who instantly liked him.
When that was over, we went out on the flightline and boarded our plane. A C17. An enormous Grey monster of a plane with four engines larger than a house on each wing. We climbed metal stairs and went inside.
I have never, in my life, been inside of some shit like that...
The C17 is not built for comfort or passengers. It's just an empty plane with a hard metal interior with no ceiling or walls. Just wires hanging all over the place and metal beams and shit. All of our gear was locked down to the floor on pallets in the back. They'd rolled in a pallate of seats for us and a pallate with two bathrooms on it. Along the sides of the fuselage were simple seats facing in and some cots for sleeping towards the back.
Soon after boarding, the Sergeant Major approached Dino and I and asked us if we'd like to sit in the cockpit for the takeoff. We said yes.
We climbed a metal ladder to get up there. This was a view back down into the passenger area from the back of the cockpit...
The first thing that impressed me about military air travel is how casual it all is. there's no seatbelt, item under the seat in front of you, turn off your cell phone, nothing. You get in the plane and fly. People throw their shit down wherever, you grab a box lunch off the pile. If you want water there's a cooler strapped to a wall somewhere.
I had never been inside a cockpit of anything, let a lone a giant Airforce transport plane. We were greeted by the pilots, Neil and Chris.
Two young guys who look like Buck Rogers or Chuck Yaeger, but talk like scientists. As soon as we arrived behind them they said "Hey, Lucky Louie!" They were all fans. They sat us in seats directly behind us with big 5 point harness seat belts and gave us headphones so we could talk and listen in on their flight communication.
A member of the flight crew immediately handed me a handful of my DVDS. Lucky Louie, Shameless, my Half hour, and asked me to sign them all for their buddy who is an aspiring comedian and a fan.
I signed them gladly. In a few minutes we were taxiing down the runway. This was not like other times I"ve taxiied down a runway. As Dino and I watched and listened, we gathered that Neil had flown this plane many times and was training Chris on it. They went over everything in very fast pilot speech, peppered by regular person speech. "You gotta keep the trim down when you're climbing at a hig vector or you'll be really fucked."
It was still dark, but in a few bizarre seconds, this Grey monster just tilted up and pushed us right into the daylight above the clouds....
After the takeoff we watched for a while longer as the pilots learned from each other. At one point, Chris flipped a switch and Neil said "Don't do that." Chris did it again and Neil said "Dude. Seriously. Stop doing that or we're fucked." We laughed about that a lot later.
**PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE**
By the way, on the subject of photography, for comparison's sake, here is a picture of the pilots taken with the digital camera...
And here is a picture taken seconds later withe film camera...
I'm just sayin...
Okay it's past 1am. My kids are waking me up in about 5 hours so I have to stop. That's pretty much it for day one anyway. Dino went downstairs to sleep after a while and I stayed because i LOVE airplanes. I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid but I can barely be a comedian let alone do somethign like that.
I stayed for a few hours and peppered the guys with questions. So interesting. Neil said his goal was to someday fly Airforce One.
These pilots are extremely intelligent guys with just guts up the ass.
After a while I went downstairs to sleep. The pallate seats were far too small to sleep in. So I made a bed out of my jacket and tried to sleep on the cold metal floor. In about ten minutes the whole under side of my body was FREEZING. I was about to give up and go back upstairs when an enormous bald soldier got out of one of the wall cotts. He looked at me and said "I had it for three hours. YOu take it now." and gestured to the cot. I climbed in and went to sleep in the giant crater his body had made.
The next morning, after 8 hours in the air, during which I slept for maybe 50 minutes in that cot, we woke up in Germany, where we ate at our first DEFAC or Dining facility. Basic carb-heavy army food. Actually very good and comforting. Then we got back into the C17 and flew another 8 hours to Kuwait. It was too late for Dino to back out now.
That's it. Gotta go. More tomorrow.
LCK
Posted by Louie in on March 10, 2009 | Comments [ 5 ]
USO Tour weblog. Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Hello.
Last December (2008) I went to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the Seargent Major Tour for the USO. I did shows in Army bases all over the Middle East. I had never done anything like it before and it left me with a lasting impression. I took lots of pictures and wrote several emails back to my family throughout the trip, mostly to let them know that I was okay, but they were very detailed. I have intended since then to post these stories and pictures on my site but I am a lazy idiot.
Today I feel four percent less lazy and stupid than usual, so I am going to try to start posting these stories. What I intend to do is post an entry each day as if I was there doing those things now. The reason for this is that it means I have to do less work to edit the emails that I sent my mom and sisters. I don't have to change all the present tense stuff to past tense.
So this will start tomorrow. But let me just add the caveat that... I might not do it. I have a lot of energy right now and I'm all excited about this but tomorrow I might just lay in a pool of my own vomit instead.
First a few words about this trip...
The Saergent Major's tour is organized every year by the Sergeant Major of the Army, Kenneth Preston. The Sergeant Major of the Army is the highest ranking enlisted man in the Army. He is the Sergeant of all the Sergeants. he works in the Pentagon and represents all enlisted soldiers to the Army Chief of staff.
Every year he assembles a group of musicians, one comedian and some cheerleaders and takes them, along with the Army Band, throughout the war theater, during the days leading up to Christmas. All I was told about this tour is that I'd be flying to Washington DC on December 14th, and I'd be back on Christmas Eve.
I was also told I could bring someone with me. I called Dino stamatopoulos.
Dino and I wrote together on the first staff of the Conan O'brien show. We also wrote together on the Dana Carvey Show, Letterman and he wrote for Lucky Louie. Dino is probably my best friend but I'd have to ask him because that's usually a two way thing. Also I have other friends I talk to a lot more. But he knows everything about me and he's told everybody too. Because he has a gloriously big mouth. I love Dino a lot. he even asked me once if I was attracted to him sexually. He asked me very nervously. I said no. Because I'm not. Anyway, Dino is not like other people. He is a tall man with an incredible Greek face and hair all over his head.
I called Dino and said "Do you want to go with me and just keep me company while I entertain soldiers in the War Zone? I think we're going to Iraq. I don't know where else. We'll be gone for ten days and we'll probably ride on some helicopters. It could be really horrible. Do you want to go?' He said "I actually think I want to."
Eventually he said yes and there we went. Bringing Dino on this trip is one of the smartest things I ever did in my life.
I take a lot of pictures. I am very, very into photography and I was certainly going to take this opportunity to take some. I'm going to show you all the equipment I brought with me. I'm not showing off here. I'm not rich. I just spend all my money on cameras. It's important to me. I am sharing it with you because to me it's part of the story.
Leica MP 35mm Rangefinder film Camera
This is the main dude. A film camera. A range-finder. I only really shoot film, though I do use a digital camera just to record moments, to take snapshots. This Leica is handmade in Germany. It is encased in painted brass and has all mechanical parts. It has no automatic settings. There is a light meter but the battery was dead when I brought it on this trip so I shot the entire trip manually with a hand light meter. The Leica MP is made exactly the same way Leica made Rangefinders in the 60s. It's not even an SLR. you have to line up images in the rangefinder and hope for the best.
The main reason to use a Leica is the lenses. Leica lenses are hand ground and they just do amazing things with images applied to film. I really love shooting film because there are an infinite ammount of combinations aof types of film (black and white, color, fast, slow, grainy, fine, high contrast, low), ways of exposing the film (pushing, pulling, over-exposing) and lenses to use. Small adjustments to the exposure, like changing the apeture, make dramatic differences from one picture to the next. Shooting without an in-camera light meter forces you to really look at the light you are shooting with, to notice when it changes and to think about what each apeture means and how it will effect your picture. Having prime lenses means you work with one focal length at a time and think and learn about the different characteristics and strengths of each lens and instead of zooming in and out you use your legs and body to frame the photo, which makes you do it more carefully. Comparing this to most digital photography, where you just sort of pump the lens back and forth till you get the framing you want, and snap, letting the camera decide how to expose it. Even with manual and more proffesional digital cameras, the sensors of these cameras are what they are. Theyr'e very limited and you can use photoshop later but it just ain't the same. Not in my opinion. It's just my opinion so save your long comments in defense of digital photography. Or don't. I don't care.
As I just mentioned, I only use prime lenses, meaning the lens has one size, fixed. It doesn't zoom. If you want another focal length, you have to change the lens. I brought three lenses with me. The one on the camera is a 50mm Sumilux. It opens to f1.4 which makes it very good for low light and takes incredible daylight pictures when wide open, because of the extremely low depth of field, meaning only the object you focus on is in focus,the enviroment around it is not and the way a Leica Lens treats that area is part of what makes them grat.
The other two lenses were an old 90mm lens and a new 35mm aspherical lens. Aspherical means it's not roundish and so you can take a wide angle picture without getting a distorted rounded image.
Leica lenses
This is the light meter I brought, very basic..
Seconic light meter
And here is the digital camera that I brought, a Leica Dlux 3
This Dlux fits in my pocket and truth be told it could completely replace all the crap that I just described and it's somethign I could just whip out and get a picture with, as opposed to the very heavy Leica which I have to get out of the bag, take a light reading with the seconic, set the exposure on the camera, frame up the photo, focus and shoot. But the harder way is more fun and the pics are better. I did use both, so you'll see for yourself in the coming posts which I'll never probably put up. What a fucking mess this all is.
I also brought two flip-cams. One for me and one for Dino. These little cameras are an amazing way to record video specifically for the internet...
And here is the bag that I carried all of that shit in, along with about 20 rolls of film of various speeds, some black and white, some color.
I also brought this Macbook laptop, which I used to edit the digital photos and videos and send the emails to my mom on the trip.
The stickers on the macbook are: a sticker of the Squadron that the C17 that took us around the middle East belongs to and a sticker that says "Barak Obama" in Hebrew.
The last thing I want to say is that Leica cameras are stupid expensive. even really old ones. But you don't need one to take film pictures. You can get an amazingly good Nikon SLR, (I reccomend the FM2) and good Nikon lenses for very cheap.
So that's it. I will hopefully not reneg and these posts from the front (not really the front) will start tomorrow.
Baghdad Airport
Posted by Louie in on March 9, 2009 | Comments [ 7 ]
Everything's Amazing. Nobody's happy
This was my last time on Conan (ever, I guess, in the "Late Night" era). It went pretty viral back in October but NBC took it down off of Youtube because they are very very smart and they know that when people start spreading a clip around that raises awareness and popularity of their shows, that is a bad thing.
Anyway, some people put it back up and for some reason, the last few weeks, it has really blown up. It seems that Facebook was the main propellant.
I have been trying to decide what to say about it. Well, Vanity Fair did an interview with me about it, more specifically a fellow named Eric Spitznagel. I have to give him credit because I remember sounding like a dolt but he formed my thoughts in the following article in a way that makes me sound smart. This article pretty much says whatever I have to say about the clip and what it's about.
I'm glad people are enjoying it. If you come and see me on tour you'll see a much longer, extended version of this, as I"ve been developing it greatly since that appearance, when it was only a few weeks old.
Posted by Louie in on March 2, 2009 | Comments [ 10 ]
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