Dogbrother
(aka Dogger, aka Dog, aka Dawg)
[ Update Jan, 2013 » I posted an updated treatise on the Dog » here.
and another piece » here (Feb, 2015).
]
A
Dogbrother is more than a best friend. It's someone who will be there for you -
no matter what. It's somebody
you can count on, 24/7/365 .. someone you like,
enjoy, respect, care about, but
most of all, trust.
A Dogbrother is somebody who's got your back, who will do you
no harm, and who
has the sac to confront you when you're screwing up, cuz he has your best interests
at heart.
He's somebody you
connect with, from the moment you meet .. like
you've known him
all your life. Somebody who knows your faults &
shortcomings .. and still accepts you.
It's somebody you can discuss
anything with. Somebody who believes in
you, even
when you doubt yourself.
Proverbs 18:24 says: A man
of many friends comes to ruin, but there is a Friend who
sticks closer than a
brother. "A Friend who sticks closer than a brother" .. you might
say that's the King James version of a Dogbrother. |
Ralph Waldo
Emerson said: "The
glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; rather it is the spiritual
inspiration
that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is
willing
to trust him."
It's fashionable now for gangsta rappers to call each other "Dawg," but the Dog
and I
pre-dated this popular trend by at least two decades.
Everybody needs a dogbrother.
***
The
Dog and I were both born in the Chinese year of the Dog - but that's not where
we got the name. The name Dogbrother came from the
Conan the Barbarian
series.
In
the summer of '79, in Hawaii (when/where I met the Dog), our roommate
(Courtland)
was reading a Conan book. Courtland was several years older
than the Dog and me, and
lightyears more mature. He kept us out
of trouble.
One day, Court said we reminded him of Conan's dogbrothers ..
the way we looked out
for each other. We began calling each other Dogbrother the moment we heard it.
It seemed natural and stuck like a bad
habit. Over the years (20), it's been shortened
to Dogger, and eventually to Dog.
I
read
that special friendships are sometimes forged in the crucible of war. We weren't
in a war, but I
did meet the Dog while in the military - in the Navy. That's what we were
doing in
Hawaii. We were both stationed aboard one of the Navy's ballistic missile
submarines,
home-ported in Pearl
Harbor:
a nuclear-powered ballistic-missile
submarine.
When
asked 'the question,' the Navy instructed us to respond
like so: I can neither confirm
nor deny the presence of nuclear
weapons aboard this Naval vessel. They made us recite
it over repeatedly. A recent PBS television special described the firepower of an FBM
(fleet
ballistic missile) submarine this way: more firepower
than all the bombs dropped in all the
wars since the beginning of time immemorial.
***
I
liked the Dog from the minute I met him. Not sure why. I felt comfortable with him.
We
seemed to operate at similar wavelengths. I felt like I could trust him. He is
one of those
people that everyone likes.
The Dog
biggest liability is that he's a Jersey boy
(Hoboken) -
something I never let him
live down. He loves The Sopranos and Saturday Night Live .. cuz
they make him feel at
home.
He's quick to let you know that both Frank Sinatra &
The Boss, Bruce Springstein, are
both Hoboken bred boys. I grew up in Connecticut, so we were both
East Coast boys
enjoying the Aloha spirit, and learning new
Hawaiian words, like Mahalo, MaiTai, and
Book 'em, Dano. =)
***
Our
sub had two crews:Blue & Gold. We were on the Gold crew -
the good crew. The
'Bluies' were a bunch of dipshits. When the Bluies had the boat, we kicked
back in Hawaii,
on Oahu, beginning our time off with 30 days of R&R (rest & relaxation).
During
the "off-crew", the Dog and I got a
place together downtown Waikiki (with
Courtland to keep us out of trouble), on
Ala Wai
blvd.
Two
Vegas strippers - Sandy & Bambi - lived above us, in an
identical apt. It felt
surprisingly comfortable hanging out at their place, maybe cuz of the layout identical.
When the girls moved in, the Dog & I carried their (big, heavy) chests up four flights
of stairs.
They rewarded us with
front-row tickets to one of their performances (at the Chinese
Cultural
Center, downtown Honolulu). The Dog even got pulled up on stage for the
famous
airplane stewardess skit (we were barely 21).
We
were in Hawaii for a couple years .. '79 & '80 .. when we weren't at sea. Every
100 days
or so, the government would
fly us 1/4 the way around the world, to Guam,
USA - Where America's Day Begins,
and we'd take over the boat from the Bluies.
We heard that the way the
government came up with the 100-day number is cuz that's
the maximum period of time
humans can be confined in an enclosed environment, like a
submarine before they
start cracking. The crack rate begins to accelerate after 100 days.
Submarine
life is not for everybody. We have some great stories of people weirding-out.
There was a 5-day turn-over period,
where the Blue crew told us everything about the
boat we needed to know. Each
person on the Gold crew has a counterpart on the Blue.
During the turnover
period, the on-coming crew sleeps on a (refrigerated) barge, kept
colder than a
meat locker.
Everybody
got sick, cuz we kept going for sweltering-hot Guam
weather to the barge's
refrigerated meat locker .. working 20-hr days. It's amazing how long and hard you can
work
when you're 20 years old.
Guam is on the other side of the International
dateline - near Japan, in the South China
Sea. It's twice as close to the
equator as Hawaii is. Hawaii is 23 degrees north latitude,
Guam is 13.
Flying to
Guam, we lost a day. But when we flew back (to Hawaii), we were able to live a
day
over.
Some of the guys were able to relive New Years Eve - once in Guam, then again
in
Hawaii.
I got to the boat a few months late for that, but remember leaving Guam 6PM
Sunday
eve, and arriving at
Honolulu International Airport (12 hrs later) at 6AM .. Sunday morning,
just as the sun
was coming up over Diamond
Head. That was cool.
***
We
both worked in the Engineering dept. Official job description was operation,
maintenance
& casualty-control of US Naval nuclear propulsion plant.
We were in charge of starting up,
shutting down, and running a General Electric
reactor plant, connected to a Westinghouse
steam/propulsion plant.
Nuclear
power - especially US Navy nuclear power is different from most industries in
that it's extremely intolerant of (any) errors. In other words, nuclear power does not
do
mistakes well. It's not like a graphic designer who may try several different
approaches
before finding one that works.
If
you make a serious enough mistake, you have to go talk to the black box.
Needless
to say, working in an environment that doesn't
tolerate errors can be stressful, requiring
creative ways to relieve that stress.
The
Navy owned us & worked us like dogs (actually dog have a much better life).
We
used to compare our lives to prison life, and note how prisoners at least got to
see
the sun once a day, and probably worked less than half the hours.
We were on an older
submarine, which
typically need more work/maintenance than
newer ones. The hours were relentless.
I can't recall how many times we worked
around the clock, from 7AM one day, to
4PM the next, with zero sleep.
The main thing
that kept us going was knowing that, when you wake up tomorrow
morning (provided
they actually let you get some sleep), you have one less day to go.
A lot of people didn't make it.
The the attrition rate between day one of boot camp,
and the end of the standard
6-year enlistment was 6 out of 7. In other words,
the Navy had to input seven recruits
to get one to the end of six years.
You lose a lot of good friends along the way.
***
After
the Navy (6 yrs), the Dog applied for and was accepted at Columbia University
(Ivy
League school, NYC), where he got a degree in
Industrial Engineering. He worked
for Arthur Anderson Consulting for a while,
but not being one to sit still for long, he soon
headed West, to LA, and wound up in
Hollywood. He lived 5 minutes from the
landmark
sign.
I still remember calling his mother, and asking where he was.
She said, "Tommy quit his
job and left for California. He took his girlfriend." I said, "Does he have a job
there?"
Mom said,
"No, he's gonna find work when he gets there." That's typical for the
Dog.
Just pack-up and head out for territories uncharted. Right now, he just
quit his job
and is heading to Ireland. That's the Dog.
While
working in LA, the Dog got his Masters at USC (in Safety) - same school
Wendy's
going to now. Ironic that the Dog is now in Safety .. cuz when, I knew
him back in the
day,
he was anything
but safe.
Dog moved to San Jose a couple years back. Lately he's been talking about
pulling a Leary,
turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Maybe he'll open a pub on the outskirts of Dublin,
and search
for 4-leaf clovers. Packing up & moving to different parts of the globe
is one
of the Dog's signature trademarks.
The
Dog came *this* ][ close to starting his MBA, but first decided to take a
couple of
Writing
classes (at Stanford). He made quite an impression. He has many unique
experiences
(to put it mildly) from which to draw.
Most notably, he's intimately familiar with the dark side of
life. He's able to describe, with
remarkable clarity and detail, things which
most people are unaware of, while keeping
one
foot in the cogent world of reason.
I posted another one of the
Dog's pieces - titled Roadtrip - here at my site, but received
a request to remove it
(long story) .. which I
did. Never before (nor since) have I ever
been asked to remove anything posted at my
site. The
Dog has always been a lightning
rod for controversy.
to be cont'd ...
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