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The Progressive Sublimation  Archives

Joseph Cali, Chief Archivist

Pedagogical Wisdom:

• Frank Adler Quotes
• Dan Freidman Quotes
• Andrzej Bloch Quotes
• Hassan Rahmanian Quotes
• D.A. Masolo Quotes
• Hassan Nejad Quotes
• Bob Devine Quotes
• Joe Cali Quotes

• Cosmopolitanism and its Discontents: the Pop Culture of International Political Economy
• An Account of Postal Employment in the Winter, 1997
• Some Dialectical Shit
• The Jungle Fighter's Last Stand: "Invasion USA," "Red Dawn" and "First Blood" as Political Weltanschauung in 1980s America
• A Secretly Taped Interview with the Infamous "Map Pee"

• A-Ska-Show (a.k.a. "The Mercenary From the Balkan Wars")
• A-Ska-Show II: Electric Boogaloo (a.k.a. "The Return of the Mercenary From the Balkan Wars")

• "Fishin' For the Face Of My Father" by Nolyn Mason
• "King Shit Melodies and the Long, Lonely Road" by Robert Sabin
• Commentary on Nicotine Addiction by Paul Poverty
• "The Story" by Kip Winger and Le Boss

Part 2--The glorious Page of Dan Freidman Quotes!

--"It's a terrible world out there, that doesn't give us an adequate method of rubbing against reality"
--"A good way to die is to eat something that's going to kill you"

--"Nice sun" (on the chalkboard)
--"Nice agenda" (the Republicans' budget proposal)
--"I don't want to be capital; I want to be a human"
--"You don't have to have a war to buy bombs"
--"You know, those losers in the middle class"
--"I hope that everyone will do the readings, because those German professors are very exact"
--"If you are well-educated, why do you want to join a union?"
--"Immigration money exceeds drug money" (Gudrun) . . . "You'll have to change your line of business" (Andrezj to Frank)
--(about The Economist) "It's not at all about economics . . . it's just high-class newspeak"
--"I hope she's not Teutonic" (Andrezj regarding guest professor)

--"That A-Ha theory, if you believe in it"
--"Many of you, Ed probably as a leader, don't like quantitative statements"
--"In this society, you can't enjoy a sport without knowing its statistics . . . the guy at bat . . . what does 3.2 mean?"
--"I don't want to say that, as someone said, I'm Saddam Hussein standing here"
--"One death is a tragedy . . . 1000 deaths is a statistic . . . that is cold"
--"A Native American who uses just touching horses and cattle-prod"  (to predict weather)
--"My kid is sick . . . I take her to some voodoo system of medicine"
--"Your co-op in 1956, and you're president of JC Penny"
--"I think I did enough dosage of these things . . . therefore I will stop"
--"If the bird is free and the stones are free, why don't you throw as many as you want?"
--"Men used teething and women used squeaky dwarf" (in a study on weaning methods)
--"Well, as I said, we could spend a whole hour on this, and tear it apart, but thank you for sharing it with us"
--"You see, that's against my religion" (buying beer for the class) . . . "No, let's go with an easier and less trendy things"
--"I'm totally confused . . . I call that cultural imperialism"
--"Now about a year ago, she burned herself in the public domain . . . she made a statement" (an Iranian dissident)
--"Beyond 'wows', do you have any significant comment on this report?"
--"Okay . . . that's craziness"
--"I give you all sorts of complicated formulas and weird symbols, and you basically just . . . give up"
--"I ask about religiosity, and I get those faces"
--"I'm not in your head" (to Lottie)
--"The question of legitimacy that you raised is a political one" . . . "uh-oh"--(the Machine)
--"I feel like I'm doing sorcery now . . . opening all those wounds and seeing if the logic is communicated"
--"If there is a very slow growth of bathtubs, since that is the reason for this death"
--"As is said, this is a fascinating discussion, but we all get spatial . . . space-related"
--"I probably have the least experience among this group" (regarding drug use) . . . "you've never drank Ny-Quil?"--(Lottie) . . . "oh, I forgot about that"--(Hassan) . . . "what else did you forget about?"--(Suchitra)
--"I usually don't put these graphs up there, but since you are nice people . . . well"
--"You see, I have to read Lottie's handwriting . . . she does a little bit of this, a little bit of that"
--"It is too much for one session, I agree, and it doesn't bother me if you look at me like that!"
--(On drugs) "You ask me so many substantive questions.  I am not an expert in Coke!"
--Cliff:  "I am still confused as to why there can't be a Venn diagram"  Rocky:  "That is your problem!"
--"We're at a party, and it's one of those crazy parties, and I come up to you and say 'I have ESP'"
--(After seeing "Marx, Lenin, Lundgren" on the board) "All my life I thought I was a dialectician, and now I don't know"

--"I managed to catch my plane after my nerves nearly broke my veins"
--"I wish I was an old baby when my grandmother was possessed" (by spirits)
--"If I wanted to kill Melinda, and believe me my dear, I've never considered it"
--"If a person is beaten by a snake, and remains untreated" (they will die)
--"It borders very much on ideological yapping"
--"Dungeons and Dragons . . . are these people anthropologists?"
--"You can imagine what a naughty little boy I was"
--"Not Michael Jackson the singer . . . Michael Jackson the anthropologist and philosopher"
--"I must finish what this is falling into very soon, before somebody strangles me"
--"Cocks fight because two big cocks met and were having fun" . . . (Jude laughs) . . . "Jude, you have never carried a cock before?"
--"You have to pray to the gods when you hear Frank Adler say something positive . . . you have to run to the synagogue . . . these are one of the blank pages of happiness"
--"If I were to close my eyes like a typical metaphysician"
--"Jude, why are you forcing us to take the break early?" (because he was falling asleep)
--"George Wilhelm Friedrich von Hegel, the gentleman . . . but not to me"
--"This is the most exotic pen that I have ever seen!"
--"Why are you trying to underdevelop me more?" (to Jim Mann about being given a shitty computer)
--"Philosophers are very interesting human beings . . . of course there have been some lunatics, such as Plato . . . of course there have been some equally lunatics, such as the empiricists"
--"Where do you go when you stand between two mad people, assuming that you are not one of them?"
--"You get people like Immanuel Kant, claiming that they were very sane people"
--"It would be good to know what Japanese people think of apples after they tested American apples this morning"
--"When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers"
--"Oh yes? . . . well I have hunted lions with a spear"

--"World Court judges travel a lot and party a lot"

Part 7--The Glorious Page of Bob Devine Quotes!

--"I see bloodsucking midgets on dope . . . why? . . . I don't know, it looks nice"

--”Get back to work”
--”Second-laziest guy I ever seen”
--”Talking big again”
--”How come you didn’t correct me?”
--”The idea boys workin’ overtime”
--”This guy’s crazy”
--”This guy’s so stupid”
--”You’re the worst guy I’ve ever seen”
--”Get over here”
--”Louie, Leo, Chester, Filler, Fat Freddy Fitzsimmons”
--”What’s your name?”
--”What are you doing wrong?”
--”What did you do?”
--”Where have you been?”
--”What are you doing here?”
--”What’d you forget to do?”
--”This guy’s nuts”
--”You’re so stupid, it defies the imagination”
--”Excuse me” (push)
--”This guy’s okay”
--”Don’t fall down”
--”How’d you get in here?”
--”At this point, your best bet is to pick another topic”
--”Here’s the scoop”
--”What is wrong with you?”
--”That’s nice”
--”This guy’s alright”
--”Eating again”
--”Eat, eat, eat”
--”You people are always eating”
--”Don’t take initiative”

    Okay, so we’re all familiar with the tired rhetoric of economic globalization and its cultural counterparts; especially the intense amount of media noise that is made regarding the implications of our high-tech “age of communications” in the global village.  Indeed, we’ve all been subjected to the cliches since the late 1980s.  When they are viewed positively:  breaking down the borders and bringing people closer together; and when they are viewed negatively: subsuming all forms of entertainment and shared discourse under one almighty advancing wave of made-in-America pop culture (a “McWorld”, according to Benjamin Barber), complete with icons, heroes and (of course) lots and lots of products to be snapped up by eager youths in the developed world, not to mention young elites in the less-developed countries.
    And while all of this rhetoric obviously has SOME basis in fact (yes, globalization is occurring at a rapid and sometimes alarming rate) it is the quirks and exceptions to the general rule of globalization which stand out as illuminating points to be studied.  While nearly all human societies on the globe have been affected by American-style pop culture in SOME way, these specific ways are often unique and unpredictable.  Amalgamations are formed, in which familiar American concepts are reworked in some completely new and “foreign” way, or else foreign concepts are taken and reworked in the style of American pop culture.  Form is re-shaped according to its content, and vice-versa.
    As we all know, the Japanese are the masters of this process, and have been ever since their collective decision, in the mid-1800s, to frantically import Western knowledge and technology to suit the national interest.  The implications of this nationwide “opening” to the outside go far beyond the millions of Sega video game systems, japanimation cartoons, and Karaoke nights at bars around the world.  In fact, this amalgamation of American and Japanese pop-art-culture forms shows us the true form that cultural globalization will take.  Merger, synthesis, and collage.  Of course, the actual material and productive reins of this process will be held by a privileged global elite, conditional upon American military supremacy, as always.  The economic and material base will not change.  Only the cultural superstructure will be re-shaped by the new McWorld, and it is this superstructure which will be explored in the several examples to follow.
    So the other day I was watching my satellite dish (ah, the satellite dish, that great pioneer of McWorld--that idol, altar and icon of pop culture--with dishes springing up on the rooftops of repressive regimes around the world, bringing frightening new ways that pull in bored and disaffected youth like some electronic pied piper, much to the befuddlement and worry of old-style dictators who haven’t yet learned the sound-bite or the televised “town hall”).  I was tuned in to one of my favorite channels:  MTV Latin America, the south-of-the-border arm of our favorite pop culture kingdom.  The video that was on at that point was a Mexican-American hip-hop number (Mexican-American hip-hop being equal parts Guadalajara and Los Angeles) complete with a sampled mariachi trumpet line from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ “Lonely Bull”, one of the catchiest mariachi tunes of all time, with a bumpin’ beat to back it up.  The Lonely Bull riff was being played by an entire mariachi band, in traditional garb, standing in a desert while Spaghetti Western-style scenes of dirty-faced cowboys and dusty saloons were flashed on-screen at a bewildering speed.  The Mexican rappers were superimposed onto actual spaghetti western footage (Forrest Gump and Weezer style) inside a bar where a midget skateboarded on a miniature half-pipe, a dreadlocked breakdancer in Adidas sweatsuit did the helicopter, and Selma Hayek-bartender look-alikes served beer in frosty mugs.  A true blend of foreign and domestic if ever there was one.
    Having completed my Mexican hip-hop experience, my thoughts immediately turned to the world of French rap, somewhat more developed and well-known than its Mexican counterpart after the trans-Atlantic hits of MC Solarr and the film “La Heine”.  France, as a nation, is a vanguard of pop culture globalization on a par with the Japanese, being equally enchanted and disgusted with American influence on its youth culture.  This self-contradicting attitdue can be seen in the way that the French pass impractically restrictive language laws which do things such as limit the number of English words that can be heard on the radio, and then turn around and do things like presenting time-honored cinematic awards to Sharon Stone for her on-screen “presence” in Basic Instinct and other such notable hits, or else snapping up millions of copies of David Hasselhof’s epic musical journeys.
    Many of you might be familiar with France for being another modern-day vanguard--that is, a vanguard of political fascism.  Nowhere in the developed world has a blatantly and unapologetically fascist political party captured as much electoral support as Jean-Marie LePen’s Fronte Nationale.  And with the National Front railing against rap, American pop culture and all things foreign, at the same time that a political movement of disaffected youth from the French colonies abroad grows within her borders, something was bound to happen.  Happen it did, in the Southern town of Toulon, when the National Front actually got elected to municipal power in 1995.  The French rappers Supreme NTM (NTM stands “Nique Ta Mere”--“fuck your mother”) played a concert that year to protest the local NF regime.  And it seems that the local police force didn’t like some of Supreme NTM’s lyrics, because incredibly the group were sentenced to six months in prison and banned from rapping for six months after their release.  All because they insulted some cops.  To use the word “fascism”, in this case, is not an exaggeration or an overstatement, but really the only term that can really describe what happened that year in Toulon.
    But again, the reactionary clampdown on Supreme NTM is another example of cultural amalgamation; an example of a pop cultural context that seems pretty familiar to most Americans (disaffected, politicized urban rappers going up against a conservative, reactionary, racist police force) which just happens to be taking place in completely unfamiliar surroundings; that is, among the sumptuous villas and charming little narrow streets of Southern France.  While French hip-hop does not hide the enormous debt which it owes to its American counterparts, do not think that artists such as MC Solarr and Supreme NTM are merely exact replicas of their Trans-Atlantic comrades in rhyme.  The nuances of the French language and sociopolitical environment see to that.
    On the other hand, if we’re looking for a rare sampling of a pop cultural context that has absolutely nothing, subtly or not, to do with the familiar semiotics of the West, one only needs to turn towards the last truly isolated “Second World” communist society remaining--North Korea--where the culture that passes for popular bears absolutely no resemblance to anything emanating from television sets, stereo speakers and computer screens in the rest of the world.
    It’s hard to say how long this fiercely independent culture can hold out these days, since North Korean society has become increasingly unstable since the onset of heavy famines caused by drought and flooding, as well as the death of its “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung in 1994.  Robert Young Pelton writes that North Koreans are still taught that Kim invented everything from centuries-old scientific and physics theories to such modern conveniences as the automobile and the toaster.  Some believe he’s walked on the moon.
    The Great Leader’s pride and joy, his son Kim Jong Il, has now followed in his father’s footsteps by assuming the North Korean presidency with a resume of qualifications almost as strong as dad’s.  He is reputed to have written hundreds of books, all epic masterpieces.  He can stop rain and predict the discovery of natural resources.  He’s even a successful filmmaker, since he once kidnapped a South Korean actress and film director and held them captive for nearly a decade while he shot a series of anti-Japanese films about World War II.  Kim Jong Il’s face fills the television screens every night, at all times and on every channel.  The man who claims “socialism is not administrative and commanding” may have a different relationship with communism and alcohol.  He is reported to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars a year on Hennessy cognac, specifically the Paradis line.
    But forget about these western speculations about the insanity of the North Korean regime.  Let’s hear it from the source!  In an article taken from the web page of the Korean Central News Agency (a highly recommended site, which can be found at http://www.kcna.co.jp), we can learn from the North Koreans themselves just how great a man Kim Jong Il really is, and how he has “completely solved the issue of education”.  He was even awarded an honorary degree from Yacambu University in Venezuela!:

Title of honorary professor awarded to G.S. Kim Jong Il

Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- The title of honorary professor of Yacambu University of Venezuela was awarded to Secretary Kim Jong Il on the occasion of the holiday of February.  An awarding ceremony was held at the university on February 25. A decision of the university on awarding the title of honorary professor to Secretary Kim Jong Il and a diploma of honorary professor were read at the ceremony. Then, the President of the university handed the diploma, decision, medal of honorary professor and badge of the university to the chief of the DPRK trade mission. The diploma said, "the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Venezuela, Yacambu University, the Council of the University and President of the University Prof. Juan Pedro Pereira respectfully present the title of honorary professor to Marshal Kim Jong Il, the leader of the DPRK, in high appreciation of the great exploits he has performed with his tireless efforts for great development in education for society." In his congratulatory speech, the President of the university said that Marshal Kim Jong Il is a great man who has made great contributions to the Korean revolution and the world revolution and a practician who has developed and enriched the Juche idea with his energetic thinking and pursuit and applied it to the Korean revolution. Marshal Kim Jong Il is the great master of human education and culture, the speaker said, and stressed:  Under his wise guidance, Korea has become a country which completely solved the issue of education.

 But lest you think that all this adulation and achievement has gone to his head and created some kind of inflated ego, you can rest assured.  Kim Jong Il has always been a simple man of simple tastes.  You just have to look at his jacket to know that this is true:

General Kim Jong Il's simplicity

Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- Voices of admiring the popular traits of General Kim Jong Il rang out loudly at worldwide celebrations of his 56th birthday, February 16. The jacket General Kim Jong Il usually wears shows well his traits as the people's leader who has always led a plain and simple life. Several days before a New Year's day, officials presented a new suit to him who had always worn plain clothes. He refused to wear it, telling them that if they wanted to do something for him, they had better work hard to solve the clothing problem of the people.  Later, he called at a light industry goods exhibition.  Officials let him know that cloth of good quality was being massproduced and wanted him to wear a new suit. He said that he liked to wear the clothes he had usually worn and that it was his wish to sufficiently supply good cloth to the people. Some ten years have passed since then. He, however, is taking the lead in the forced march of socialism for the final victory, still in the jacket. He has had such simple traits from his childhood. He put on an undergarment his mother Kim Jong Suk knitted with military woolen underclothes after the liberation of the country. He went to school right after the ceasefire, in the same clothes with other pupils and with books wrapped in a cloth. His simple life was shown in the military camping days of his university period. He took part in a tactical training, weapon cleaning and cooking together with other students, as required by the military regulations. A revolutionary anecdote about a nail-clipper he made a habitual use of for more than 20 years, which is known well among the Korean people, shows part of his great popular traits.

 But what about the popular culture of the North Korean masses?  They can’t spend all of their time coming up with revolutionary anecdotes about the Great Leader’s nail-clipper, can they?  Luckily, they have other pastimes to content themselves with, such as the ever-popular “sea of blood” opera dance:

A new type of Opera dance

Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- Dance is an indispensable medium for operatic expression in the Korean opera. It helps to bring the theme of the opera into bold relief. Of course, dances had been incorporated in operas. But their role had been simply complementary, that is, solely for the creation of mood. General Kim Jong Il, leader of the Korean people, went carefully into the nature of the world opera and the interrelations between opera and dance. On this basis, he gave a clear solution to all theoretical and practical problems arising in the creation of opera dance. Under his direct guidance the choreographers created a new form of opera dance, called "the sea of blood"-type opera dance, in the 1970s. This type of opera dance is based on the traditional Korean dance and brings the dramatic development of opera and the spirituality of the main characters into focus with its own language that suits the feeling of the Korean people. Here the dance is incorporated in opera, not as a complementary part. It is closely combined with orchestra and Pangchang (sung by the actors and actresses off-stage) to bring out the rich and deep message of the opera. Proof of this is provided by the moonlit scene from scene 2 of act 3 of the Korean revolutionary opera "the Flower Girl". The scene began with the flower fairies slowly standing up and surrounding the leading character got bun. Ill-treated and humiliated to save her sick mother, she is now sold to settle the debts she owed a landlord. The flower fairies dance as if expressing the pain in got bun's heart. On the other hand, rich women are enjoying themselves on a swing in the full moon. Then follows Pangchang: One moon shines up in the sky. But different people gaze upon it. Some are happy to see the moon. While others grow most melancholy. The dance in this moonlit scene reveals a society which is full of contradictions, while bringing to life the noble spirituality of the leading character. At the same time, it shows a turning-point in her ideological development. Like this, the Korean opera dance, in close combination with the music and stage arts, plays an independent role in the opera, thus enriching the mental quality and raising the artistic development of the opera.

 “So back in Vietnam, the guy was in a horrible explosion one day, and had major damage to his face--it was basically ripped apart.  So, back at the field hospital, the army surgeons were getting ready to do reconstructive surgery on the guy, and they needed a picture of what he looked like so that they could have something to go on.  They searched through the guy’s wallet, and found a picture of the dude’s father as a young man, which they ended up using as the model for his plastic surgery.  So this guy now has to go around for the rest of his life with the face of his father.  I actually took to calling him “face of my father”, although not to his face of course.  But talk about an existential dilemma, eh?  Jesus Christ!  This guy used to drive around with a giant-size “tin man” (from Wizard of Oz) doll sitting in the passenger seat of his mule.  I guess the tin man symbolized his own life, or something.”

    Another gruesome story has got to be the time when a load of human heads (for medical samples) were being shipped to the OHSU lab and one of them began to leak.  That’s right--the box began to ooze human-head fluid.  They had to take it down to the “dangerous parcels” department, which is where they take suspected bombs and such.  Whew!  Glad I didn’t get any of that human head-fluid on me.

Philosophical background:
    Chapter 1: Poor little Max Weber in his German overalls never realized the degree to which the bureacracy of property rights would be solidified and worshipped by the Americans. Poor little Karl Marx in his baggy, wrinkled worker garb never realized the degree to which unreconciled conflicts of industrialism and power relations lay at the core of his argument, festering in it like an oozy gangrene wound full of pus, and the degree to which anti-alienation opposition would itself become alientated.
    Chapter 2: Jean-Paul Sartre had a shitty childhood. And so did all the existentialists for that matter. They claimed to have found a universal truth that life is false and pointless, and that all hope was lost. Could they not have been simply expressing repressed anger and frustration--Repressed because they could not act on their natural impulses? They feared the consequences that their actions would bring, having had their true wills broken in childhood, so that they merely thought them out, instead of acting on them, but as they watched life pass them by and could not take action, they began to feel down, but then interpreted this down feeling as man's ultimate predicament? Existentialism presupposes a hypostatized, totalized individual, removed from their social environment. Hegelian phenomonology presupposes an interactive and dialectical social world, where human beings are merely the players in a "cosmic drama," and are products of their social realm. If the existentialists admit that they are only products of their own background and culture, and not spokesmen for humanity, then why don't they get into the social roots and evolution of their conclusions more? Why aren't they more into pscyhology? What is the relationship between existentialism and psychology? Sartre was into Freud, but did he analyze himself? If so, how could he still believe that his philosophical conclusions had any basis other than sublimation. And why the fuck did he become a Maoist?  What the hell did Sartre see in agriculturally-based Imperial Middle Kingdom Stalinism?  Why not Buddha instead of Mao?

     “DON’T CRY!!!!  HOLD IT IN!!!!  Let it turn to something else.  Let it turn.  Let it turn!”  So says a charismatic Colorado cowboy quarterback named Jed (Patrick Swayze), and while his immediate mission was only to steel the killing nerves of Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, and the other assorted Wolverines gathered around the campfire, he might as well have been addressing the entire American nation at some kind of militaristic pep rally/football game during the Reagan years.  The message is something like this:  Enough of the lingering collective pain from Vietnam.  Just hold it in.  Wear a huge grin while you’re gettin’ the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Russky bastards, and everything’s gonna be alright, lil’ darlin’.  If the truck runs out of water, you just get up there and PISS IN THE RADIATOR!!!
     As a cinematic/political smart bomb, the stark juxtaposition between Swayze’s all-American, .45-packin’, truck-drivin’ tragic hero and the sniveling, whiny, politician (obviously democratic) son of the mayor (Calymette Student Body President and a member of the elite paramilitary organization “EAGLE SCOUT”)--who proves in the end to be a communist sellout rat--is enough to make a good leftist sick to their stomach.  I had a skater friend in high school whose parents were socialists and who forbade him to expose his violent juvenile brain to the right-wing ravages of Red Dawn.  If only they knew that this blatant piece of Reaganism was actually a beautiful expose of the shortcomings in Pax Americana, they would have bought him tickets and some popcorn to boot.  Along with the Chuck Norris film Invasion USA, Red Dawn provides us with an illuminating glimpse into the darwinistic cold war psychology of “kill or be killed.”  As Powers Boothe, a downed fighter pilot, posits to the Wolverines in an incisive geopolitical hypothesis on bilateralism:  “Two biggest kids on the block.  Sooner or later they’re gonna tangle.”
     In contrast to the air strike-like surgical precision of Red Dawn, Norris’ star vehicle is an absurd sledghehammer (perhaps one like a clown would use, made from bright red plastic), bludgeoning our brains into a goofy submissive fear of terrorism and a worshipful adoration of guys with feathered blond hair, grim, constipated facial expressions, and wearing over-tight action karate jeans (slim, trim, good looking pants.  You can stretch, jump, kick—do any activity—the Action Jeans will never bind your legs and won’t rip out).  Together, these two examples of cinema verite throw down a philosophical gauntlet to First Blood, Stallone’s noble plea for the little guy—for the long-haired vietnam vet with the dirty green army coat who has been left behind and forgotten by gentrification, the Texas oil boom, and the kinder, gentler nation.
     Brian Denahy (one of America’s most-loved character actors), who plays a “king shit” cop in a small Pacific Northwest town, says it best when asked by Rambo, “why are you pushin’ me?”  Denahy’s response is a brilliant summation of the insidious fascist collectivism lying at the root of our nation’s alleged “rugged individuality”, and serves to provoke the heroic rallying cry of Rambo’s gallant non-conformism:

“First of all, you don’t ask the questions around here.  I do.  You understand?  Secondly, we don’t want guys like you in this town.  Drifters.  First thing you know we got a whole bunch a guys like you in this town.  That’s why.  Besides, you wouldn’t like it here . . . this is . . .  this is a quiet little town.  In fact, you might say its boring.  But that’s the way we like it, and I get paid to keep it that way.”

    A challenge indeed.  And the battle table is set.  Before it’s all over, Rambo will have outrun, outwitted, and seriously crippled a dozen sadistic police officers (as well as a few good family men), a whole platoon of national guardsmen, and a few tracking dogs to boot.  Rambo is a monster, a Frankenstein, created by the masters of war in the Pentagon, and now they’re reaping the fruits of their bitter harvest.  However, this is one Frankenstein that fights his battles in a half-hearted manner, dragged down by an inner conflict of will.  We see in the film’s opening sequence that Rambo has not felt grounded in reality since returning from the ‘Nam.  The “junk in your pockets” that he complains about is apt symbolism for the collected junk inside John Rambo’s tortured mind.  I modify Colin Wilson’s writing slightly:

“Freedom posits self-will; that is self-evident.  But Will can only operate when there is first a motive.  No motive, no willing.  But motive is a matter of belief; you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful.  And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say, it concerns what is real.  So ultimately, freedom depends upon the real.  Rambo’s sense of unreality cuts off his freedom at the root.  It is as impossible for Rambo to exercise freedom in Jerkwater, U.S.A. as it is to jump while you are falling.”

    Chuck Norris’ bayou warrior, on the other hand, is the “good dog”, the Oliver North doing the bidding of his masters (albeit in a renegade and unorthodox fashion—I mean, what idiot fires a LAW anti-tank rocket from a shoulder-held launcher at a coked-up Russian operative named “Rostov” from a distance of ten feet inside an office building?).  This servility and straightforward sense of purpose contrasts dramatically with Rambo as the outcast prodigal son, returned from a Southeast Asian prison rathole to show America its tarnished image in the mirror.
     This tarnish, however, is clearly an alien concept to the naïve young minds of the Calymette high school students who metamorphose into Wolverines in the image of their local sports “collective”.  While Denahy’s “boring” little town is really a sick breeding ground for Nazis of all varieties, the good people of Calymette rally to each other’s cause, and even have the balls to sing “America the Beautiful” in cracked voices as they are mowed down by revenge-bent Russian machineguns.  Amidst the gunsmoke and screams of the wounded, we begin to see that small-town America is a monumental historical force, to be harnessed for good or evil, and these films are a vicious tug-of-war for the soul of this powerful political locus.  Raoul Vaneigem summarizes this tug-of-war well:

 “In such a conflict, the tidal wave of fanaticism carries away the most stable values; no-man’s-land eats up the whole map, establishing everywhere the interregnum of ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted’.  History, however, offers not one example of a titanic conflict which was not opportunely defused and turned into a comic-opera battle . . . the agreement on matters of principle which is implicitly reached by the warring powers.”

     Hmmmm.  Comic-opera.  In a way, we can see all three of our subject films as comic-operas, making us laugh even as they hammer home the starkly prevailing balance of power during the 1980s.  In all three movies, fanaticism has carried away the most stable values:  Denahy’s fear of outsiders manifests itself in a self-destructive war with a one-man army.  Sellouts within Calymette, Colorado hand over God’s country to the communists and the swaggering, laid-back Latinos, prevented only by a bunch of scared kids living in the hills on olives and rice krispies.  Arabs, Russians, and assorted other dark people drive through peaceful suburban neighborhoods with bazookas, stupidly ignoring sites with strategic military value (like bridges and power stations) in favor of maximum innocent body counts.  They even attempt to blow up a yellow school bus full of kids with Partridge Family lunchboxes, for God’s sake.
    But in all of this madness and cold war paranoia, one thing becomes clear:  If you’re a true jungle fighter, you can hunt anything with a knife, no matter what the King Shit cops say; no matter what the odds stacked against you.  You only need to remember the face of your father, and it can’t hurt to follow Chuck Norris’ articulate advice from his 1996 book The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems:

 “As an actor-producer-writer of my own films and television series, I am often confronted with situations involving many people, some of them angry, belligerent, or defensive, and everyone looking to me for a solution to the problem.  When that happens, I control my breathing, and it always restores calm, confidence, and strength.  It also allows me to bring my emotions and thoughts under control, so that I can concentrate on what’s at hand.”

    Whatever, Chuck.  You name it.

Me:  That’s pretty wild stuff!
MP:  Oh, yes, right . . . gives you nightmares.
Me:  (insincerely) Yeah.
MP:  I mean it really does . . . I mean if you think in depth about it.  I had one last night . . . I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but it was an awfully suspicious dream.
Me:  Uh-huh?
MP:  But it involved actually many of these things taken to their extreme.
Me:  Huh.
MP:  And I actually had an opportunity to see the effects of nuclear mutation.
Me:  (somewhat shocked) my God!
MP:  And . . . they’re pretty bizarre.
Me:  Huh.
MP:  See, where that information comes from is the abstract memory.  It’s very graphic.
Me:  I guess!  So that was a pretty shocking . . . uh . . . dream?
MP:  Yeah, boy, I’ll tell ya.  Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and I had a good memory printout of it . . . I could recall it . . .
Me:  Hmmm.
MP:  . . . the needles and devices and chambers and stuff where this stuff is going on . . .  and they had an actual laboratory and it looked to me like what was happening was these genetically mutated organisms were participating in the manufacture of newer and improved genetically mutated organisms . . .
Me:  My god.
MP:  . . . building them stronger and tougher and they came out resembling us but with some different physical features . . . and they basically took a human being and built him up into something more resembling a very, very . . . um . . . like a strong Roman soldier.
Me:  Huh.
MP:  . . . with dark skin . . .
Me:  (stifling laughter) Uh huh, yeah?
MP:  . . . and kind of armor protection over the head . . . and the effects of the nuclear fallout began to bring this about over a period of about a  hundred years
Me:  wow, wow, and so
MP:  and were sort of like being channeled off into some mutations
Me:  a super-race, kind of?
MP:  yeah, sort of, something like, I don’t think we would want to encounter
Me:  (laughing) really?  Uh-oh.
MP:  but some of the equipment was really fascinating.  They had a chamber in there that had a large circular door and, uh, basically what this thing looked like was a cat . . . a cat-scanner
Me:  hmm . . . wow . . . what do you think it was used for?
MP:  (pauses thoughtfully) probably locating defects and correcting them, ‘cause it’s tied to what appears to be a very large computer system, and the computer systems were on-line automated devices which led into these various chambers that were built onto these extensions and it was all done in large gangways with tunnels going in about nine different directions and hallways built onto these tunnels . . .
Me:  hmm . . . man . . . crazy stuff!
MP:  (pauses) mmmm . . . perhaps . . . it may be crazy, but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s fiction.
Me:  yeah, hard to say . . . the world’s looking more and more like sci-fi
MP:  yeah, and becoming increasingly dangerous
Me:  yeah
MP:  because there’s simply . . . there’s so many people who want to exploit this stuff for ruthless purposes
Me:  yeah
MP:  and the idea of creating a master race is insane, but you’d be amazed at the number of people that’ve had that idea . . .
Me:  sure, it’s a very . . . uh . . . the lure of that idea is pretty strong.
MP:  and, what would they do with the rest of us?
Me:  (laughing) yeah
MP:  well, I got a little glimpse of it last night
Me:  uh-huh . . . geez . . . interesting
MP:  yeah, well, you know, you get your exposure to these things over a period of time . . . a little bit of, like you say, Tom Clancy . . .
Me:  yeah
MP:  and I spent fifteen years in the service working on this stuff and getting into some of the more advanced computer systems that are used in making science fiction real
Me:  uh-huh?
MP:  and it really boosts your psychological awareness of a bunch of stuff, ‘cause all that information remains somewhere, and a dream is just basically a depth recall . . .
Me:  hmm . . .
MP:  they’re always activated by something . . .
Me:  yeah . . . okay.
MP:  yeah, this . . . unfortunately, science is a powerful tool that can also be extremely ruthless.
Me:  yeah . . . of course . . . it’s a double-edged sword.

OLD MAN:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

ALL:  Oh.

REPORTER:  Thank you for your insights into this situation.  The people back home will love to hear from you.  But, off the record, isn't your family still trapped in Tanzania?

OLD MAN:  Yes, but they're with friends - you remember Major Stevenson from the, uh . . . from the Capetown thing?

REP.:  Of course.  I couldn't believe that with Smythe running things, anyone could take power that quickly (laughs).

O.M.:  (seriously)  That's right.  You didn't arrive until after . . . Dazka.  You see, Lewis stepped down because Nakroli threatened to expose the truth about his aunt.

REP.:  I couldn't have been happier when I heard that Nakroli had been ripped apart and his nose sent to the French embassy.

O.M.:  But what you may not know is that it was Drager who planned it all in the first place.  And the idea came from higher up . . . maybe it would have been better if Smythe never arrived . . . Lewis had Stevenson in mind when he stepped down.

REP.:  No one could have know that Smythe went to Angola with Drager.

O.M.:  But I did know.  You have no idea what it's been like to have the . . . Dazka incident on my shoulders for the last thirty years.  But maybe the bureau was right . . . that anyone in Smythe's position would have had to do the same thing.

REP.:  I'm sure that Stevenson might have, and there's no telling what Mitchell would have done.

O.M.:  Poor Mitchell . . . he was so eager to cover up Drager for me.  But it had to be done.

REP.:  He wasn't that great of a swimmer anyway.  But piranhas in the Indian Ocean . . . ?

O.M.:  Anyhow, Drager wanted to avenge his childrens' death before he went on the mission, knowing that he might not return.  He killed Nakroli so that Smithe would not have to take charge.  When Drager returned . . .

REP.:  Yes . . . Dazka. (pause)  We couldn't find you . . . no one could find you until after the hearings . . . where did you go?

O.M.:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

REP.:  Oh.

OLD MAN:  You're right.  That guy plays just like Bob Zurke.

OWNER:  He may not be original, but he keeps these Parisians happy.  Contrary to popular belief, the French aren't too into the progressive movement yet.  (pause)  I got a letter from Drager.  He's back in Angola.  Says he's with Stevenson and five-hundred men strong.

O.M.:  He'll blow it like last time if ol' Lewis can't pull the right strings back in London.

OWNER:  No, he's got some Arabian officer with him, too.  Some "Lt. Colonel Lakwa."  He . . . (waiter brings some drinks and fries, leaves) . . . played trombone in Jack's band.

O.M.:  "Lucky" Lakwa?!  He played with me in Baron Nickel's band, back when we got stranded in New Jersey.  Remember that number I did playing those two string basses at the same time?

OWNER:  Do I?  It must have been six years ago . . . that was a classic.  Where did you learn to play like that?

O.M.:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

OWNER:  Oh.  (pause)  Well, what do you think of the place?  I've had it for almost a year now.

O.M.:  It's nice.  Reminds me of . . . New York.

OWNER:  Unfortunately, everything is like New York here now.  (tears fall)  Except for the German recon.  Planes buzzing overhead. (gathers himself with a sense of duty)

O.M.:  Which reminds me of why I came up to see you.  I got a message from Von Meiers, from Austria.

OWNER:  He played with Baron also, didn't he?

O.M.:  Yeah.  Tambourine!

OWNER:  He wasn't in Capetown too, was he?

O.M.:  Not until after . . . Dazka.

OWNER:  I was going to say . . .

(third man, OFFICER, enters, pulls up chair)

OFFICER:  (to OWNER)  Mr. Donne?  And our friend from the little piranha incident some time ago?

O.M.:  How can I help you?

OFF.:  (flips badge)  Tanzanian Intelligence.  We are going to have a little talk . . .

OFF.:  We've been watching you, ever since Drager died last summer.  We know that you've captured Stevenson, and are holding him in Graz.  And we know that your brother, Lakwa, has been missing for three months.  All we need to know now you can tell us.

O.M.:  I haven't seen Lewis' aunt in years.

OFF.:  You lie.  You were in Angola again last week.

O.M.:  If you were following me, why don't you know yourself?

OFF.:  You are quite aware that I could turn you in to the international authorities right now, all for the problem you had in Capetown.  Oh, and another thing.  You didn't happen to be with Baron Nickel in Angola after Dazka, did you?

O.M.:  No.  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

OFF.:  Oh.  (pause)  Then you couldn't have met Mitchell after he resurfaced in Tanzania, I suppose?

O.M.:  You know the answer to that.

OFF.:  Yes.  I do.  Your little piranha plan didn't go so well, did it?  Only now I know something you don't.  Mitchell really is dead.  Smithe had him killed this morning.  Inflatable straw to the toenail.

O.M.:  Damn!  (shows remorse, sunken heart, etc.)  All because Dazka worked a little too well . . .

OFF.:  Cards?  (pulls out a deck)

O.M.:  Sure.

OWNER:  O.K.!  O.K.!  I'm in.  (wipes sweat)  Here's the deed to the club.  (throws papers into pot)

OFF.:  Surely you're not backing out of a half-million-franc pot, are you old man?

O.M.:  I'm in.  And raise you forty grand.

(WIFE enters, shoots OLD MAN once)

WIFE:  There you are, you scummy bastard!  You left me in . . . Dazka!  But I've found you now!

O.M.:  No!  Lewis' aunt . . . she's in Paris.  (lying on floor now)  My brother's father-in-law was Jack . . . we met in Angola.

WIFE:  Liar!  (shoots OLD MAN many times)

OFF.:  So you're Von Meiers!  (pulls out shotgun, shoots wife, she flies to floor, etc.)

(WAITER/ASSASIN and REPORTER enter with guns)

REP.:  Thank God we came in time.

O.M.:  Yes . . . Reynolds is your man.  At last I can rest with a free soul.

WIFE:  Oh, I was wrong.  That night in Dazka . . . the moon, the romance, the birth of fascism!

ASSASIN:  (jumps on table)  No!  Anarchy reigns supreme!  (shoots everyone, all on floor now except ASSASIN)

OWNER:  So it was you, Nakroli, who sent the letter . . . who freed the prisoners . . . who slept with the Baron's sister!

ASSASIN:  Yes.  It's me.  And now we can dismantle governments . . . overthrow authority . . . make the Earth a truly swell place.

O.M.:  Yes, we can.  Let's go.  (gets up, starts to leave)

OFF.:  You too?  But why?!

O.M.:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

WIFE:  Oh.

OLD MAN 1:  (in clever disguise)  We ask you again . . . when was the last time you saw the Old Man?!

WIFE 1:  March 12, as I said before . . . in Angola.

O.M.:  But we all know that he was in Graz on that very date!!! (all men slap wife)

GIRL:  Maybe she's telling the truth . . . maybe there are two Old Men . . . that he has supernatural powers . . .

(chair whips around, revealing waitress with cigar)

W./A.:  Ridiculous!  (flips switch on desk, GIRL is electrocuted in his chair, death wails, etc.  He dies.) . . . Wiggins, Smythe . . . bring me the Old Man's head . . .
(lights fade, "James Bond" music)

OLD MEN:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

ALL:  Oh.

(couples will be dancing during music, with occasional pauses in spotlight on center stage, music quiets for conversation, they go on, music back up, etc.)

(OFFICER, WIFE 2 forward, O.M. 2 listens in)
OFF.:  I'd forgotten what a beautiful dancer you were!

WIFE 2:  We have not danced since we traveled with Johnson in . . . Dazka.  But I haven't seen you since the Paris incident -- you're . . . different.

OFF.:  Yes, I never fully recovered from the brain damage.  But I have begun a new life as Rodriguez-Boris Ernestivalio . . . international playboy.

WIFE 2:  (serious) Lakwa and Stevenson are back in Greenland.  Smythe believes . . .

OFF.:  Never trust Smythe!  Especially after what he did to my foyer* last summer!

(O.M. 1, GIRL forward -- O.M. 2 listens again)
O.M. 1:  I've been waiting to meet with you for over two years.  After Drager found out you were still alive in Graz, he told me that he gave you the map of his expedition before . . . Dazka.

GIRL:  Go - to - the - post - with - no - top.  The - way - is - silent - like - ninjas.  Listen - to - some - Lester - Young.

O.M. 1:  (epiphany)  Of course . . . the post with no top!

(light shifts to REPORTER, W/A at table -- O.M. 2 listening)
W/A:  I can feel his presence . . . he is near.

REPORTER:  (mechanical arm spills drink) Yes.  And he has met with Bernards.  (O.M. 2 is startled)

W/A:  Drat!  He was in Tanzania after . . . Dazka, too.  (emotionally)  How can this be?

(lights back to center on OWNER, WIFE 2 -- O.M. 2 listens)
OWNER:  How do you like the addition?  It was not easy with these (tears fall) damned krauts occupying the city of my blood and breath.  (gathers w/ sense of duty)  Some beef jerky?

WIFE 2:  (takes jerky)  I love the band, Rosco.  Reminds me of one I heard playing with Baron Nickel's band, before he left with Thomas* to Montivideo.  My, that sax player sounds nice . . . modern.

OWNER:  I HATE THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT! (shoots into audience -- 10 sec. -- at imaginary band member, music stops, shreiks in background -- 5 sec. pause) (speaks cooly) Continue.

(music starts up again)
(lights up, everyone dances to end of song . . . crowd cheers, raises drinks)
OFF.:  (slightly drunken) I, Rodriguez-Boris Ernestivalio, invite everyone to my 'little summer hideaway'!

OFF.:  Yes . . . I had to bring all my friends 'back to my cave*', so to speak.

W/A:  And right into my trap!  You . . . (whips out spear/cattle prod thingy) follow me.  I've tracked you since . . . Dazka.  Now you shall meet your end in the Tanzanian wilderness.  (whips out straw, gives sinister laugh)

(W/A pushes O.M. 2 at spearpoint, OFF. and WIVES jauntily, yet reluctantly, follow -- O.M. 1 and OWNER remain)
O.M. 1:  (in hushed voice) Barney . . . it's me (whips off mustache)

OWNER:  Mon Dieu!  At last I have the opportunity to repay you for saving me from Stevenson!  Some beef jerkey?

O.M. 1:  (takes it, savors) What happened to you after the Paris incident?  Is this (w/ great understanding) . . . your new life?

OWNER:  Well, let me tell you a little story . . . (pulls out guitar and sings song) . . . and that's how I am.

O.M. 1:  Come!  We must save the Old Man.  (gets up to follow W/A)

OWNER:  I am as your brother . . . save the Old Man I will (O.M. 1 walks off, OWNER starts to think of something, then continues)

W/A:  (still threatening with spear) Shut up and order!

WIFE 2:  I'll have the L'Aiguillette de Canette Poelee aux Pleurotes en Ragout.

OFF., WIFE 1:  I'll take Le Carre d'Agneau Roti a la Puree d'Ail Doux*. (OWNER, O.M. 1 enter -- tense situation)
(lights fade)

(more moaning, then silence)
O.M. 2:  What ever happened to Enrico?  As long as Reynolds saw to it that the funding was all very secretive . . . not even the chief could say how much Lakwa had sent.  Ever since the Chinese got hold of the codes in '28, Mitchell had hoped that they assumed the switch had been made.  But Bernards was too smart for all of us, wasn't he?  After . . . Dazka, the New Delhi office never knew what had hit them. (numerous improv. possibilities for O.M. 2)

O.M. 1:  He left for Angola with Lewis.  When Lakwa switched to soprano sax . . .

W/A:  Jack knew he had to go.  The ambassador to France* left Capetown for good as soon as the drop was made.  How could one package have that much impact on the future of anarchy?

WIFE 1:  Only Nakroli could have known that.  After Capetown, such a delivery was inevitable.

OWNER:  But the package never reached its destination . . . no thanks to Thomas.

O.M. 2:  Sand!  In my eye.

OFF.:  Ha!  How can you all be so foolish?!  It didn't matter what instrument he played . . . that was the beauty of it all!  Ever since the Paris incident, my men followed Enrico.  He led me straight . . . to Reynolds!

O.M. 1:  No . . . we met in Plovdiv.

WIFE 2:  Impossible.  How?

O.M. 2:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

W/A:  Oh.

OWNER: (accusingly) Then you couldn't have been behind that hostile takeover of the Santa Fe Railway, could you?

ALL:  . . . Yes . . . to the East.

W/A:  Here is your . . . ginger ale.

OLD MEN: (looking at respective wives) Remember when we first got married?  Ah . . . the days were so romantic.  We thought the honeymoon would never end . . .

OFF.: (in tears) I think I'm . . . going to . . . write a letter to my grandmother (goes to window, starts writing)

OWNER:  (pulls out phone) Jacques . . . sell the club . . . oui, I'm going to give the money to the children's hospital.  You know the number.

(ALL hold hands, start to sing along -- 5 sec. -- knocks at door.  WIFE 2 goes to door, gets package, turns around -- rest of cast stares, music stops.  Yelling, pandemonium.  OFF. lunges at package, ALL draw guns, box spills various contents, wild shooting, bloodbath, etc.)
W/A:  No!  Not the package!  Not now!

O.M. 1:  Golly!  Look in the box (he does).  A post with no top!  (more shooting until ALL out of bullets)

OFFICER:  I'm finished.  When my superiors find out, I'm as good as dead.

WIFE 1:  That night in . . . Dazka.  Why am I so bound to that horrible memory?

OWNER:  We are all guilty.  You know that as well as I.  Drager never planned it like this!

O.M. 2:  Maybe it was my fault.  Maybe (lets off a few more shots at people) my mission was more important that any pitiful lives of yours.  If I could live life over, I wouldn't change anything . . . not for Stevenson, the Baron's sister . . . not for me.

WIFE 2:  What is our purpose?  What is our path?  Where do we search?

OWNER:  Who was the package addressed to?

W/A:  The Old Man.  But why?

OLD MEN:  I was a mercenary in the Balkan Wars.

OFF.:  Oh.

ALL:  But which is the real old man?

     Little Billy was coming home from school one day, a day like most days.  He had done well at school, despite the little incident where he had defecated into a potted plant on the class trip to the Arbo.  Everyone was pleased at the refreshing odor of pine and feces, and Billy was the most celebrated child on the bus coming back. But nonetheless . . . Trying to ignore the at times serious case of jock-itch he had picked up on a weekend binge at "Busters Celery Patch", Billy happily skipped home from school.
     It was when he walked in the house that he made a shocking discovery. As he quietly came through the back door, just a few minutes earlier than normal, he spied through the crack in the kitchen door something unusual. His mom was dressed from head to toe in a Lebanese army uniform, and bound by nylon cord at her feet was a strange man Billy did not recognize. He wore a prominently displayed CIA badge, and was not wearing pants. The several burn marks on his genitals were visible as he hunched over, urinating into a stove-pot. Just as Billy was about to begin whooping around with whooping cough, his newly ferocious matriarch began furiously whipping the CIA man's neck and shoulders, spitting and cursing like a banshee Billy had never seen.  The medals on her army uniform nearly leaped off the fabric and impaled themselves in her hapless victim, so unbridled was her rage.  All at once, before he could stop himself, between whooping coughs, poor Billy cried feebly "NO, mama, nNO NOOOO NNNNOOOOO!".  She whirled her head around rapidly, not quite believing her ears.  She looked in her “son”'s face quizzically for a minute, as if trying to judge how much he had actually seen.
     Deciding the game was up, she smiled at his quivering mass of trembling terror, huddled in the corner, and pulled a rubbery mask off her face, revealing the dripping, bulging face of a clearly extraterrestrial being.  Billy screamed in sheer horror, as the CIA man, looking  startled, ripped off his ropes and tackled the alien woman, screaming something about national security and giving away secrets.  This was when a commotion could be heard outside the front door, and suddenly uniformed and heavily-armed government agents burst in with guns drawn.  One of them, obviously the leader, turned to Billy with a look of recognition.  Pulling out a new highly secret experimental raygun, he said, in a thick Central European accent, "you have been erased".
     Billy, wiping tears out of his eyes, watched as his alien mother and the panicking CIA man were led out in chains by the jackbooted thug squad.  Billy, obviously a full-grown midget, turned to the eraser and said "why the fuck did you jokers take so long to get here? that piece of shit almost had me!"  The eraser turned to Billy and said , "well boss, you're a sick little man, and we had give you enough rope to hang yourself, stupid freak!"  The G-men proceeded to take the kicking and cursing midget under an arm and tied him to the grill of a '78 tan Buick. "Shut your hole you filth!" the agents cried as they stuffed a large wad of "REDMAN" chewing tobacco in the dwarf's mouth, then sealing it shut with duct tape. The faint muffled cries of "We had a deal!!!" were audible as driblets of tabacy juice began oozing out of the miny mouth. "All right boys, the night belongs to Michelob!" the leader yelled as he began to rev the engine of the car.  Skidding off at high speed, the Buick raced toward the freeway, a midget tied to the grill, and the Austrian driver clearly taking in swills of "Le Boss" from an open container.  It was not until the lights of a Korean produce truck were already upon him that he realized he had gotten on the freeway the wrong way, the car smashing into a flatbed full of spoiled lettuce.
        The midget formerly known as Billy woke up to the faint screams of an unknown good Samaritan yelling from a distance "GET OUT OF THERE!!"  Luckily the accident had freed him from his steel confinement, and although he had swallowed the tobacco, the yells were enough to bring him around.  Struggling free from the fiery tomb, the pain and realization of his injuries came upon him.  He tried to scream, but he had no mouth!  The accident had amputated his lower jaw.  Billy collapsed on the pavement and let his mind slip into a fairy tale world of horseback and rainbows, and as he lost consciousness, for the fourth time that day, soiled himself.
        "My God, look what they done to him!" screamed the member of the Alabama women's chain gang that had been breaking rocks quietly when the mutilated midget suddenly fell into their rockpile.  The Royce County Sheriff, who liked the "ladies" to call him "Cool Hand Luke" was busy bobbing his head and rocking out to the crazy sounds of Guns 'n Roses' "Civil War" and screaming "I don't need your civil war!" in a shrill, high-pitched Southern accent, which was quite ironic since Luke's great granddaddies had killed each other over a bottle of "Johnny Tough Shit" bourbon in 1866 during the burning of Atlanta.
        Luke and Axl were soaring together on the Astral plane, and therefore the dim-witted but noble sheriff did not happen to spot Loretta Lue, Royce's toughest prisoner, slam little Billy over his big injured head with her shovel, hoist his limp and twisted midget's body into her personal duffel bag, and throw a menacing look to the other she-convicts that implied absolute silence, or else someone was gonna get a beatin' and do a little "lickin'" that night.  Suddenly, with his razor-sharp law enforcement instincts, Luke spun around, sawed-off 12-gauge in hand, but only in time to see Loretta gazin' at him with a saucy grin.  He cocked the gun, and went off to hide in his trench.  Later he would rape their women, but what the hell. He was Battalion.  Dun du du dun du du dun.
     "Waoah, for a minute there I thought I was back in 'Nam, blowing away the gooks at the May-Kong delta, better be more careful huffin' on the Job!" Luke's unexpected utterance caught the prisoners off guard, but things really returned to normal when deputies Lice and Cooter came back from behind a shed (where they had been taking turns wrapping themselves in cellophane and lowering each other down the hole of the female latrine with the flash light) and hollered "Time to get on the bus!"  The ladies began to board, just as Billy began to awake from his coma.  The small maimed creature began to muffle out strange words that Loretta couldn't make no sense out of.  "JUUDE EYE, I WANT TO SUCK!"  It was then that the most intelligent prisoner "Doc" (she was so named for her involvement in the 1982 take-over of the Kraft Food company by the Moonies, and the subsequent Shining Path assassinations) approached Loretta.  "This midget of yours," she began, "is obviously vicariously living in an alternate reality, evidenced by his convictions that he is going through some level 4 reversion therapy, accompanied by delusions of what we call in the field "Scanlan Disorder."  This kind of a case in a dwarf will win me the Nobel Prize!"  Loretta snapped back "Shut your filthy little mouth, you good for nothin' hole!" Suddenly the bus lurched to a halt...
        Confusion reigned on board as some sort of gaseous substance swarmed around the prisoners.  Choking noises could be heard, as inmates and deputies alike began clawing at their throats and spitting incoherently. Doc began to crawl out of the bus, the now-sleeping "Baby Scanlan" Billy tucked under her arm.  In a drainage ditch by the side of the road she lost consciousness, while dreamlike visions of her past swirled before her eyes.
        It was 1945, and good old FDR was president of the good old US of A. Charlie Chaplin was about to make the "Little Dictator", and optimism reigned all across the country.  Factories were movin', and swing bands were be-boppin'.  Doc was a little boy (that's right, a male) who had been one of the many war orphans that kind-hearted and infertile Americans had taken under their belt.  Doc's parents were Hungarian Gypsies, who were both thieves and Opium addicts.  One day, driving off, they left him in a cute little bundle at the steps of the local Catholic mission, with a note attached that read--"take him, he's yours.  Smack is better".
        Now here's where the story gets really interesting, for now Doc could have become just another raped and abused victim of savagely brutal Catholic monks wearing burlap sacks and drinking cheap wine.  Instead, a different fate was in store for our brilliant, history making, gender-bending hero(ine).  At that moment, the circus happened to be passing through Budapest, living off the generosity of fleeing Nazi stormtroopers and drunken, Mongolian Red Army soldiers.  The prize attraction at the circus in Hungary that year were a couple, married in fact, of Jewish midgets named Freda and Mansfeld, whose well-rehearsed act consisted of putting pieces of barbed wire up one nostril, and then out the other, and tying it around the waists of large aggressive animals such as mountain gorillas and elephants, and then firing a starter's pistol.  Needless to say, their nostrils resembled those of Leim "no septum" Mai, and had been painfully reconstructed by the kind circus doctor many times.
        Anyway, Freda and Mansfeld, after years of painful awkward sex, had given up on a little "schmaltzer" of their own and had turned towards the Catholics for help, after becoming devout "Jews for Jesus" during that group's big Hungarian recruitment drive in 1944.  Well, Doc was handed over to Freda and Mansfeld, who promptly quit the circus forever, in search of a better life, and decided to travel abroad (as there wasn't much work anywhere in Europe for a couple of midget Jews). They ended up in Africa, doing Jews for Jesus missionary work in a small pygmy village deep in the jungles of the Belgian Congo.  Doc was well-loved by the entire village, and brought up by everybody.
     All was well, and all lived peaceably, until one day, the village witch doctor, named "Ooga-Booga" began shaking a rattle at the sky and talking about how the tree spirits were really angry and would take their revenge on the village very soon.  All the pygmies were frightened, and so was Freda, being a superstitious, intuitive woman. Mansfeld, however, as a devout and rational Jew for Jesus, thought the whole thing was ridiculous, until one day the fates (or perhaps the tree spirits) proved him wrong. A convoy of rebel soldiers, from young general Mobutu's anti-Lumbabaist camp, arrived in their jeeps at the village and began lining the pygmies up against the wall, asking where the white people were.  The frightened pygmies were stalling the soldiers as long as possible, while Freda, Mansfeld, and Doc huddled in the main lodge, under a straw pallet.  It was then that Mansfeld made a crucial decision, and one that would seal the fate of little Doc for all time, or at least until little Billy's arrival at the Georgia women’s chain gang . . .

CHAPTER II: "THE LONG RIDE HOME"

        "Damn these twist-off beer cans!" the agent shouted angrily at the now broken top of a can of Miller "High Life" as he waited in the sedan for his partner to come back from taking a leak in the tundra.  He only knew his partner by the code name of course, "Bosco", as was custom for the organization, but he was always disturbed when she made him call her "Doc", especially during the ritual sex acts that were permitted on the off days, the hot and dusty days, spent on the road in cheap inns and motels along the interstate. The agent knew well that your best friend was a color TV, a full ice machine, and a partner you could fuck up the ass while watching MASH at 3:30 AM at the "Back-up/Shack-up" Motel in Jugminton, WA.  After all, it was 1978, and things weren't like it was when his daddy held this post, and the organization was always trying to evolve with the times, even though their goal was always the same.
        Damn, these days it was mandatory for an agent to spend at least ten whole days a month with his cover family, and for him that was a nightmare.  He hated the ungrateful little bastards he was forced to sire with that hog of a woman the State recognized as his wife.  She was as stupid as the kids, just easier to kick around, and despite his constant bringing home of instructional literature, her "tongue flick" was like that of a retarded school boy.  But at least for him, he had his career, and a purpose so glorious he wanted to shit in the ear of Christ himself and say "you should have listened when you had a chance!"
        "You know you're not supposed to drink on a stake-out, dammit!" Bosco had returned from her relievement, and yelled at Agent E forcefully, as the deep scar at the base of her neck shone just for a moment in the flickering light of the open car door.  "What of it? we got nothing better to do," He replied.  "Tell me more about your step-son, I'm interested to know why he is still breast-feeding at age five, and his refusal to not defecate anywhere except in potted plants," Bosco inquired.  "I've told you this all before, and I don't know why you're so interested, but I'll say it again. Mark is an ungrateful little cunt of a boy, spoiled rotted by that naive slob of a mother. Just can't say no to him.  When he gets a bit older, I'm going to start whippin' him good, but what can I do now when I'm on assignment most of the time?"
        Bosco paused and thought a moment before responding "Have you checked on the 'cargo' yet?"  "No, I'll do that now," E replied.  He stepped out of the car, and felt his faux snake skin boot sink into the mud.  Bosco also got out of the car, and they both walked around to the trunk. They opened it slowly, and were greeted by the usual stench of a bound midget covered in beans, salsa, and stale beer.  "I think we've waited as long as we can.  Signal or not, it's time to begin," E declared. It was fortunate they were on the completely deserted backroads of central Idaho, for what was about to take place was too dangerous to be seen by any other being.
        Bosco's work-scarred hands roughly plucked the midget out of his putrid nest in the trunk and tossed him like a gunny sack full of potatoes into the tumbleweed and dust by the side of route 86 through Idaho.  Tomato salsa and cubed onions scattered like cow's innards into the dirt.  It flicked through Doc's well-educated and honed mind that Karl Marx had something to say about sacks of potatoes . . . what was it? . . .oh yes, Marx thought of the European peasants as a sack of potatoes . . . potatoes bouncing around in a sack, with no inter-subjectivity whatsoever.  She realized that midgets had been getting it pretty bad lately.  And Jews too.  Thinking back to her dear departed Jewish parents, as well as her fuck-off Jewish nephew up in Quebec, she shed a few quiet tears to herself, and also tears for the plight of all stumpy little short people around the world, yet keeping the tears to herself--knowing the cocky sneer that would cross the weather-beaten face of Agent E if he knew she had been showing such depths of emotion.  She looked forward to taking peyote with E that night back at the base camp.  Maybe she could help him deal with some of his unresolved anger towards his former employers at the Portland International Speedway.  He was always muttering about those "bastards" and about how the guy just wouldn't "get out of there".  Doc, a.k.a. Bosco, was very concerned for E.  Never mind how he treated his cover family.  She was worried that one day he might just explode.  And God help the man or boy or midget that stood in his way.
        They dragged the midget over to the drop point, waiting for the familiar hum of the helicopter rotors.  The scientologists had been shaking down their cargo lately, so both agents were well-armed.  Bosco carried her customary twin MAC-10 submachineguns, slung in holsters at the waist, while E was equipped with the longer-range Chinese-made Kalashnikov Assault Rifle.  Both had the usual contingent of smoke grenades, throwing stars, and Ninja powders as well.  If there was going to be trouble that night, at least they would have the gear to meet it head-on.
        E checked his watch, thankful that he had read the instruction manual on how to set it properly.  He made a mental note to have Mark do the same when he got back to Portland.  Bosco lit a Nat Sherman and propped up against a cactus, lost in her own thoughts, remembering that day in Central Africa.  She could still see the Witch Doctor's severed head propped awkwardly on that wooden stake, with the line of fierce red army ants drawing a path to the dripping eye sockets.  Painfully, she stroked the remnants of that old wound on her neck.
     Minutes drifted by, and both wondered why the helicopter had not shown.  What the fuck was wrong?  the midget was beginning to stir, the drugs wearing off.  E cursed, and began to prepare another sedative injection for the little guy, when suddenly the earth shaking roar of B-12 rockets and exploding cans of mustard gas rocked E's primitive brain, and hurled him 20 feet in the air.  When he had come to his senses a few moments later, the black night sky was an inferno of ammunition and bellows of holy terror.  Bullets whizzed by as E dashed himself behind a stump and began scanning for Bosco and the midget. "Goddamn son of a shit carver!"  His comrades were nowhere to be seen, and God only knows half the damn Red Army was on his ass now.  He had a jack shit chance of getting out of this alive, and Jack was hurling mustard gas at him.  His gun must have been blown clear of him during the initial strike, so E pulled out what he considered to be the ultimate weapon of the warrior: the $14.99 stun-gun.  E Shrieked out a battle cry, "UUUHHHUHNNGJEEZUS!" and stormed the field of battle.  The fight was still fresh, but already there were countless corpses saturating the tundra with bile and plasma.  E raced over to the first soldier he saw, some kid who couldn't have been more than 19, and stunned him in the groin.  "Sorry, punk.  Nothing personal!" E began to dispose of enemy personnel quickly and efficiently, arousing sides of his personality he hadn't felt since May-Kong, or that time he hurled Judy into traffic for giving Mark the last of the oreos.
        It was clear that there were at least three different groups involved in this mad skirmish, but could all this be for one midget?  Even if that apparently friendly scientologist with the E-meter couldn't be trusted after all, this kind of blatant para-military activity was too risky even for that psycho-junkie Marcenko.  The battle raged as E made his way back to the initial rendezvous point.  Chaos reigned as the gas and artillery began to induce mass hallucinations in the infantry men.
        Suddenly E spotted Bosco's torso sticking out of a ditch.  He went running to her, only to find her unconscious.  His mind raced to try and find a way out, when E made a startling discovery.  Two small wounds, maybe an inch in diameter each were visible on Bosco's body, revealing the shiny metal exoskeleton underneath. It would no longer be possible to hide the fact that Bosco was a ROBOT from others or for that matter to deny it to himself.  E was immediately reminded by an inner voice that his partner's true identification was R. Bosco Olivaw, and fuck only knows how he would be able to smuggle her, he, IT, out.    The mustard gas began to take its toll, and E began imagining himself turning into a kind of wolf-man just before he lost all vision.  He knew he would shortly black out.
        Meanwhile, a few hundred yards across the wreckage-strewn, smoking battlefield, over a gully and down a ditch, Specialist Klaus Kinske (also known as the ERASER) of the Austrian Whermacht 12th Army Corps, under command of UN Brigadier General Hans Hacken, was having severe problems.  The muscular Kinske was at that time serving as one of the infamous "blue helmets", UN troops illegally in the United States attempting to implement the "One World Government" that would unite all governments under the command of the Vatican-inspired socialist conspiracy.  Unluckily for these boys, the "Central Idaho People's Unified Freedom Militia" had spotted Hacken's black helicopters moving in to intercept Bosco and E, and had rallied to the scene first in a cloud of dust and dirtbikes.  The lead militia member, Cockfightin' Johnny, was an avid Nazi skinhead.  Right behind him was Half-Breed, his part-Indian right hand man.  Half-Breed was fond of telling jokes such as, "why did the Indian cross the road?--to pass out in the other ditch", completely denying his heritage and the spiritual wisdom that his Nez Perce grandfather had tried to impart to him during his ritual circumcision in the tribal housing project at age 12.
        Cockfightin Johnny had come screeching in on his Harley, just as Kinske was slithering down a rope from the black helicopter, his sinewy German biceps propelling him down onto the desert floor.  As Johnny took aim on the Sauerkraut-eatin' socialist bastard, figurin' to bust his head open like a jar of pickled pig's guts in Tabasco sauce, the assembled Scientologist agents on the nearby ridge, laying in ambush, let loose with canisters of BZ, the highly potent mass hallucinogen developed by US Army scientists during the Cold War, to use on Soviet water supplies.
        But the gas worked just as well on rednecks and Austrian weightlifters, as both respective parties soon found out.  That's why Kinske was stumbling around on the ground, muttering incomprehensibly in German as little colored letters and numbers danced in the air in front of him.  His unit had been completely wiped out, unable to comprehend that they were being blasted from the sky by Scientologists who were as ruthless as they were numerous.  The same fate had happened to the militia, and now the scattered survivors were stumbling around, being picked up by the Scientologist mop-up mission.  Kinske climbed out of a dry riverbed, and came face to face with Agent E and the robot, flat on their backs.  In his confused and agitated state, still hallucinating madly, he had no idea what he was looking at, or what was about to happen.  After uttering the words “Mien Gott . . .”, Kinske collapsed into the ditch.
        Meanwhile, the midget Ralfus was slowly beginning to regain consciousness when he found himself in a small grease-filled hole, covered by the body of a severely bleeding, blue-helmeted infantryman.  He pushed the injured man off of his small midget body.  He quickly scanned the area to try and figure out what the hell was going on.  His shackles had somehow come undone in the explosion, and from what he could tell his captors were nowhere to be seen.  Instead, he was gazing upon what looked like Hell itself.  The countryside was an inferno of molten metal and charred remains, unidentifiable men staggered about, the constant buzz of artillery rang out. Still, his new freedom was enough to make the midget do a funny little dance, and laughed out loud "wee, wee, to the victor me," at his escape. He suddenly recognized the smell of good ol' BZ, and quickly stole an oxygen mask off of one of the fallen troops.  The mask was extremely large, and to an outsider Ralfus appeared to be nothing more than a gas mask with two stumpy little legs, frolicking in the brothel of blood.  Ralfus moved quickly, for he knew if those scientology bastards got a hold of him, it would be back to Munchen, and the treatments.
        Our little helmeted star trotted across the battle field as a helicopter crashed into a ravine nearby.  He was almost run over when an enormous fat man someone was calling "Tiny" went running over to help, with his pants falling down, displaying his formidable ass crack in the process. Suddenly Ralfus came across something that made his heart stop.  There, in front of him, writhing around on the ground was that double-crosser Ellsworth, and that Kraut son of a bitch Kinske, who Ralfus had met in an apomorphine clinic in Cologne in '67. They were both disabled by the gas, and sat there playfully eating bark, and chewing on the fingers of a dead soldier. Even more shocking was a woman lying in the dirt, and.. My God, she looked to be apparently half machine!?!  If he was staring at what he thought he was, namely a mechanical being, then maybe the prophecies of the Halle Bop comet in '97 were incorrect, and the aliens had come now to escort him and the rest of the dwarf sect of "Heaven's Gate" to the next dimension. He was suddenly very glad he had gone through with the ritual castration after all, despite the infection, and the silver fish he had to deal with in the wound after the procedure. He carefully approached the machine, knowing Mr. Applewhite would be so proud to know he was making first contact with our heavenly protectors.
        Ralfus reached out a stubby little finger to poke the exoskeleton of the being, and as his frumpy appendage felt the smooth, cold metal of a robotic brain, the machine jolted upright, its exposed electronic eye instinctively charged, and began to glow a fiery red.  Ralphus jumped back, witnessing the Robot returning to some sort of life, even though its skin-like covering was hanging in pieces off its face. The midget was so amazed that he didn’t even hear a half Indian sneaking up behind him.  Half-Breed grabbed the dwarf by the scruff of the neck.  He was obviously so used to being drunk off the Nez Perce white lighting that the gas (which was now begging to dissipate) had no effect.  He admired his catch, and had not yet noticed the almost fully charged robotic being to his left, nor did he have any notion of what it was about to do.
        The now-exposed circuit boards inside of Doc's, a.k.a. R. Bosco Olivaw's, punctured robotic skull began to buzz and glow as the robot sent a remote communication to the nearby mobile Scientology communication center and portable auditing room that had been quickly established early in the battle on a desert plateau by the elite Travolta strike team.  As the battle wound down, with the last of the UN troops and beer-bellied militia weekend warriors being rounded up, the battlefield auditors stayed busy with their e-meters, going around to the survivors and the wounded to remove any traces of the reactive mind that had popped up because of the BZ gas hallucinations.
        Doctor Olivaw had a sudden flash of robotic insight as orders came in via satellite from Hubbard's boat.  She commandeered length of rope from one of the auditors and proceeded to bound the legs and arms of Ralfus, Kinske and Ellsworth.  Olivaw knew at this point that the terrible secrets of their meeting must be revealed.  It was time for a SUMMIT MEETING.  She brought the Austrian bodybuilder, the sadistic midget, the drunken Indian, and the still-unconscious Ellsworth to an underground conference room, where they would be revived with truth drugs and made to tell the entire story.  There was a missing piece here somewhere, and Olivaw was going to get to the bottom of it, even if she had to put them all through grueling hours of Baby Scanlan therapy.  Maybe that midget Billy would be able to help.  But before beginning the conference, she had to call up her damn Jewish nephew in Montreal.  Putting the four helpless prisoners in a common cell in the underground bunker, she strode off to the satellite phones.
 

CHAPTER 3  "FROSTS OF DAWN"

     The air rose with the stench of filthy burned prison garb, and the fecal matter crusted all over the mangled face of the midget DOC held in her arms.  As consciousness slowly returned,  she quickly scanned the surrounding area, seeing the prison bus on its side and in flames, Lice and Cooter reduced to hulking masses of soot, several survivors running toward the horizon, and a broken radio missing half its speaker sputtering out the end of a late 80's glam rock anthem.

     "...My gypsy road, can't take me home.
      I drive all night just to see the light..."

     Doc was bleeding from the forehead and from a deep gash in her leg, (She often wished during times of injury that she could trade her weak and akward body for that of a machine, but she never knew why.)  The midget bundeled in her arms was convulsing in spasms of pain and delusion, fumbling on its face for a lower jaw it didn't have.

      "...I keep on pushin 'cause it feels all right..."

     The gas was still causing intense dizziness, causing Doc's brain to float along the smoke-filled horizon, soaring through the black and purple smoke that was concealing the setting sun.  She was suddenly lurched back to reality by a frantic hand on her shoulder.  "COME ON GATES, WE GOTTA GO!"
    Through blured retinas she recognized the hunched torso of Ian, a Jordanian Extraterrestial Whirligig, (or J.E.W. as they were often reffered to). In a weakened tone She tried to explain something important that was left on the bus, "....I think we need to go back, ...vital, ...if we don't get the..."
     Ian was quick to interrupt: "Your opinion has no legal basis, we have to leave now.  The entire outcome of that damn 1978 Scientology Summit Meeting could come down if we can only make it back in time!"  Ian lifed the wounded pair to their feet just as Billy coughed wildly, causing part of his large intestine to shoot out of his anus.  The two looked in disgust, through the twisted flesh, as something became visible in the dwarfs rectal canal, past the inflamed-red patch of jock itch picked up at Buster’s Celery Patch, and past the hemorrhaging wounds from the two car accidents that the hapless midget had already been through that day, a day very much unlike any other.
    Ian and Doc Bosco looked at each other, mouths agape, scarcely able to comprehend the magnitude of their discovery.  Shining, glinting in the sunlight, right up the dwarf’s ass, was clear evidence of an implant.  But the question they were both asking themselves was: “who had gotten to this midget’s ass first?”  The implant could have been homing or behavior-modification, neither one could tell right away.  And to complicate things even further, they couldn’t tell from the design of the implant whether it had been stuck up there by the scientologists, the U.N., or some third party.  Ian and the Doc knew they had to get to a safehouse fast, and make some telephone calls.  Some armaments would be nice, too, as neither one had much in the way of firepower or gear.  Ian tucked little Billy under one of his fat, hairy arms, and was about to step over the moaning face of Loretta Lue, when he happened to glance over at Cool Hand Luke, writhing about on the ground.  Upon closer inspection, the J.E.W. realized that Luke was fumbling for his holster.  Before Ian and the Doc could even react, Luke had pressed the glittering barrel of his weapon deep into his temple and began to mumble some

    Measuring in at 335 feet the F/T Alaska Ocean is one of the world’s largest fishing boats.  I was a processor on the boat for the b and c seasons of 1999.  F/T stands for factory trawler; there are somewhere in the range of 50 to 60 such fishing boats operating in American waters, most of the them in the Bering sea in Alaska and off of the Oregon and Washington coasts.  They fish mainly for pollack along with small catches of hake, crab and sole bottom fish.  Whatever your impressions of fishermen are, they probably don’t apply to factory trawlers.  Most people on a F/T wouldn't even call themselves fishermen anyway although the F/T's do indeed fish, but it’s no Gorton’s yellow slicker-wearing cod fishermen working on dories awash in the seas of the North Atlantic.
    F/T fishing is factory fishing much like modern farming of pigs, chicken and cattle, farming the seas with huge nets that can bring catches of up to 300 tons at a time, feeding the onboard factories that run around the clock, workers working 16 hr. shifts for up to 30 straight days.  Run run run, never stopping for more than a few hours.  This work is not for everyone as the high turnover on some boats can attest to.  Here are some of my impressions of my 60 daze aboard the F/T Alaska Ocean.

    --Best Western Hotel, Highway 99, Seattle
Check into the best western august 13th, along with
about dozen other greenhorns new to the boat we are
required to undergo safety orientation, i take this to
be a good omen that Alaska Ocean is one of the better
boats because the last boat i was on was piece of shit
run down boat that didn't take an interest in
retaining employees, my roommate is an older qc
(quality control) who's got some good stories about
working in russia on huge ships, he's abandoned ship
twice so he's no stranger to working on the high seas,
he gets really drunk that night indulging in the
traditional getting fucked up before going out to sea
ritual, the next day we sit through a thorough
presentation on survival at sea and jump in the pool
hotel with survival suits on that are suppose to keep
you alive for up to 24 hours in the chilly north seas,
a dozen greenhorns kicking up water in the warm water
of the pool is as close as we'd like to get to the
actual real thing, there just aren't many other jobs
that prepare you to jump into the north pacific as a
possible liability of the work and that's one of the
reasons im here, the sliver of possibility that danger
lies around the corner in an otherwise mundane
existence.

    --Seattle to Dutch Harbor
we've all signed contracts guaranteeing us of company
paid for transit to and from Dutch harbor alaska, when
we step on the plane were on the first step of the way
there, turning back now we'd be in breach of contract
and owe the company for our travel costs, locked in to
the reality of sixty days at sea a whole different
attitude is required to work on a fishing boat,
narrowly focused the mind must be cleared of
unnecessary comforts and even thoughts of normalcy that
exist in the normal 9 to 5 work world, de-sensitized
to pain and to social skills such as being nice to
people, your thoughts retreat inward as concentrating
on simple repetitive tasks is all that is required.
lift pivot turn lift turn pivot lift turn pivot lift
turn pivot,  your most challenging intellectual task if
you can count to one hundred and understand emergency
stop.

    --The Aleutian Chain
fly to anchorage, catch small commuter jet out to
Dutch Harbor, this flight is famous for its roller
coaster descent into Dutch, the Aleutian islands
stretching out like a long arm from the alaskan
mainland are made of nothing boat solid fucking rock
rising several hundred feet out of the north pacific
with barely any soil to speak of and little flat land
therefore landing a plane is a challenge, as we are
descending i look out my cabin window and see nothing
but clouds, we are descending rapidly banking to the
east for our approach to the runway, yet i can see
nothing but clouds, still descending and no sight of
solid ground, 1000ft, 900ft, 800ft, 700tf, 600ft,
500ft, 400ft, 300ft 200ft, still clouds, finally at
what seems like less than 100ft the clouds dissipate
revealing the calm surface of the ocean just off shore
of unalaska island in the distance skimming along the
bay we touch or more appropriately slam into the run
way, immediately the brakes are applied throwing every
passenger no matter how heavy set forward seat belts
holding them back as the plane comes to a wild
shuddering shaking stop, and this is a normal landing
in what would otherwise be considered an emergency
landing at any other airport, welcome to Dutch Harbor
have a safe fishing trip, we collect our baggage at
the airport jump into the back of a pickup and are
whisked away to the American Presidents line container
dock where the F/T Alaska Ocean awaits us.

    --The boat
More like the love boat, carpeted, a bathroom in every
crew cabin, tv's in every cabin with four movie
channels playing movies 24-7, weight room, big screen
tv and video game system, all you can eat, crab legs,
salmon, jumbo shrimp you name it. Six separate levels
which are Cargo hold, factory deck, trawl deck,
forecastle 1 2 and 3. Two different satellite phones for
shore communication. E-mail for all crew. Football
pool and lotteries.

    --The Crew
a few old timers have been with the company for the
entire 9 year history of pollack fishing by american
boats, otherwise an odd collection of lifers who've
been on lots of boats and greenhorns who don't know any
better, ex-navy, ex-convicts, high school
graduates/dropouts, foreigners, tweakers, cranks,
"cowboys", no skills, highly skilled, flakes, loners
neurotics of all shape and size crammed into the
boat 2,3,4,6 to a cabin totaling about 120 in all,
mostly men, about 10 women, a dozen filipinos, four
pollacks, 10 japanese, six mexicans, one african, one
real alaskan, the rest an assortment of misc.
americans.

    --The Hierarchy
Captain, when at sea he has all say in matters
concerning the boat, not even the owner can override
the captain. Chief engineer second only to captain in
importance. Factory manager is responsible for the
quality of the product which on the Alaska ocean is
surimi, fillets, roe and fishmeal. Chief steward
responsible for galley, crew comforts, some
communications.  Medic, sees to crews health and
communications between crew and family. Deck boss
works directly under captain overseeing deckhands,
maintaining nets and decks. Head factory mechanic
oversees all mechanics who keep factory and ship
running. Assistant Factory managers work directly
under factory manager and oversee all processing
personnel who process fish. This comprises the
hierarchy of the boat, working under these various
department heads are in order of importance, mate and
second mate who are in charge of the boat when the
captain is sleeping or if he should become
incapacitated, assistant engineer in charge of engine
room when chief engineer is sleeping, the fish master
who finds the huge schools of pollack rumored to be as
big as small counties, mechanics and  an electrician
who keep the boats vital life support systems,
refrigeration, and processing machines running around
the clock that make modern factory fishing possible,
processors who make up the majority of the crew and
operate machines and pack the surimi, fillets and roe
for storage in the cold storage hold, processors work
in three different areas, the wet end where the fish
are dumped from the deck into storage bins and then
run across a labyrinth of belts into machines that can
cut off the heads, cut out the guts and cut out the
spine at rates of up to 200 a minute, where the meat
and eggs are sent to tables where processors hand pack
and inspect every fillet or roe. The surimi department
where most of the meat of the pollack is sent and
mashed up in a variety of machines that spit out the
finished product known as surimi (a soft white meat
made into 20 pound blocks) and consumed mainly in asia
where they do i don't know what the fuck with.
Packaging (where i work) where the surimi, fillets and
roe are frozen in the plate freezers that are
essential to factory fishing because without freezing
technology most factory fishing simply would not be
possible, on the AO there are 16 freezers that each
hold 160 20 pound blocks of fillets, surimi and roe
that is usually flash frozen in  2 and a half hours by
the magic cold gas. The processors in packaging work
in the plate freezer room removing the frozen blocks
from the freezers placing them on belts that transport
the block to a crew of processors who break the blocks
out of the pans that the blocks are frozen in and
package two blocks into one box which is called a case
and stack the cases onto a pallet ten high weighing
one ton that is taken by elevator one level below the
factory deck to the freezer hold where one or two
processors stack each case helped by cranes until the
2300 hundred ton hold is full. Filling the hold
constitutes one trip which usually last about 30 days
straight.

    --Gear
Grundens and Helly Hansen are the most common brand
names. I swear by Grundens. The boat sells everything
you'll need. Fishing gear is all about keeping you dry
and not ripping. Most greenhorns are identifiable by
their land lover yellow rain gear that rips at the
site of a sharp corner. Every crew member is suppose
to have a survival suit stored away in a centralized
location in case of an abandon ship order form the
captain. Survival suits are made if thick as material
called neoprene which insulates the body from the
effects of hypothermia and is suppose to keep the
wearer of the suit alive for up to 24 hours in the
30-40 degree waters of the North Pacific. The suits
are extremely bulky and cumbersome, if not shown how
to properly get into one it can be a very difficult
task.  But even if you do manage to get into one and
jump into the Bering sea if the coast guard does not
find you within 24hr your are as good as dead.

    --Hours
On the AO i regularly worked five 16 hr daze and two
12 hr daze in a work week, other crew member have been
known to work 30 straight 16 hr daze on the AO, but on
most boats the work day is 16hrs a day the AO is an
exception.

    --Living and Working Conditions
All of the above described takes place at sea in the
months of August, September ,October, January,
February, March and July mostly in the Bering sea. The
boat is constantly moving swaying tilting bumping
grinding against the ocean and in the winter months it
is especially rough in the bering sea sinking a few
crabbers or longliners every year. So far no Factory
trawlers have sunk. The constant movement of the boat
makes walking a challenge, waking up in the morning to
start my shift I would time my jump from my top bunk
to coincide with the roll of the waves, propping myself
up against the walls of the shower, stumbling down the
hall and stairs to the galley, eat, down another
flight of stairs to the factory level all the while
the boat is rocking and rolling each step timed
carefully with the next roll, and if your a greenhorn
all the motion will eventually screw your equilibrium
up causing you to puke for days until your body gets
use to it, and there's no time off for sea sickness you
are just suppose to work through it with no complaints
puke and work puke and work and if you don't ever get
your sea legs then working on a boat is out of the
question which is not unknown puking for thirty days.
The rocking and rolling of the boat lends further
danger from falling objects such as unstable upright
machinery and supplies that are stored on shelves and
on slick wet floors lubricating heavy equipment, i've
seen heavy stacks of pans topple over missing people
working nearby by inches, worse yet are the perilous
stacks of cases of surimi in the cargo hold stacked as
high as 20ft nothing but their own weight holding them
back which has been known to give way in a particularly
heavy wave sending dozens of 40 pound cases raining
down on hapless cargo hold workers although I've never
witnessed a catastrophic collapse of cases it is known
to be a source of some of the most serious injuries on
many boats. Most injuries though are the result of
repetitive tasks, if you work 16hrs on the fillet line
or roe lines you job usually consists of standing in
place hunched over a table moving you hand and fingers
as fast as possible handling roe and fillets,
carpal tunnel syndrome is not unknown. To say the
least of the mind numbing quality of repetitive tasks
for 16hrs a day clearing the mind of all thoughts or
leading to an incredible zoning out of the mind
almost trance like dream state that from my experience
separates the mind from the body to the point where
your hands seem to have minds of their own as your
mind day dreams  only to be woken up suddenly to
reality like the sudden blip on a hospital flatline.
Mostly i work in packaging which is less constricting
than the wet end but pays the least. Packaging is
made up of young guys, everyone in their 20s, lots of
lifting and adrenaline. Unloading the plate freezers is
called breaking out and is the primary job in
packaging, moving as fast as possible guys throw 20
pound blocks of surimi onto a conveyor belt without
stopping until up to 1200 blocks have been packaged
into 600 cases, the rhythmic sound of pans of fish
banging against belts echoes throughout the boat as
the process of hauling up the net, processing the
fish, freezing the fish, and packaging the fish is
like a cash register ringing of off the hook,
supposedly the sacrifice of being out at sea for
sixty daze is about earning enough money to chill out
at home with in between seasons or send home to the
Philippines or pay off debts or just experience and a
good story to tell.

     Nothing is over . . . . . . nothing!  You just don’t “turn it off”!  Or haven’t we been listening?  Mr. Jerry Goldsmith certainly was aware of this calamity of crosscurrent incompatibilities as demonstrated by the subtle overstatements in his score to the enigmatic cinema de vive First Blood.
    Starring Brian Denahy and Sylvester Stallone, the film startles us with the bombastic intimacies of the post war human condition, and guerilla cinematic vertigosities.  “Uhhh . . . he was a friend of mine . . . this junk in your pockets . . .” is surrounded and encompassed by the gentle and foretelling guitar melody that soon fades along with the only rays of sunlight filmed for the movie.  The minor, pseudo Ethno-Spanish-European intervalic consonances indicate all but a wistful hope for a turn-off on a long road that is never to appear.  As certain as the trouble the timpani signals, Rambo decides to cross the bridge (the absence of melodic weight highlights the space the viewer feels, wondering what could have been if Stallone had taken the 20-mile walk to the diner).  This is the last goodbye, and the first and most important appearance of the justified violent intolerance of social injustice felt by our protagonist.  What do you hunt with a knife?  With a touch of the orchestral paintbrush, Goldsmith brings in the low brass as the hunting character of the score, building with each fresh kill, and the spilling of the blood of ironies growing in the woods of Jerkwater U.S.A. like so many rotting stumps.
     You might even call it boring.  But that’s the way we like it.  A king-shit cop trying to turn a blind eye to the unpleasantness of war and an obsessive need to inform people of their need to bathe is another vein which Goldsmith serves to highlight.  The score reflects the Biblical implications (the 2 obvious bathing remarks, the scene with the fire hose, the river of rats, the rocks by the river where Gault finds his gravtivonous death, and the constant presence of rain) with its almost St. John the Baptist-like use of dynamics, built from the belly up.  Secluding significant symphonic palates, Jerry keeps up the hunted, indeed, persecuted plight of the hero.  The main turning point of the film, Rambo crashing through the roadblock of police cars, brings with it a titanic tutti transition of the main theme to signal the protagonist’s rise from that of the hunted into that of the hunter.  What do you hunt with a knife?  You name it.  When the hunting themes return, they have been transformed, like a gunnysack turns to armor, to fit Teasle.  But like a child in his mother’s high-heels, the sherriff’s inevitable course, as if his own long road, was then beginning.  Silence grips the audience, as Stallone’s momentous neo-Wagnerian soliloquy:  Back here there’s nothing.  No longer the hunter or the hunted, there is nothing but to confront the silence and the realities of not being able to keep a job parking cars, or being able to find your buddy’s legs after being dismembered by a pre-pubescent gook with a shoeshine box.  It’s over, Johnny.  The main theme returns, this time in the form of an early 80’s hair-band arena ballad.  Indeed now we realize as we witness Rambo walking with his head high, (as he did in the opening, despite his certain incarceration and slow institutional demise to come) that is is a long road, when you’re on your own.

Human beings are the only animals on the fact of the earth that ingest
smoke into the lungs for pleasure.  Thus, smoking is a demonstration
of our superiority over the  many stupid creatures around us.  Last
month I quit smoking  -- a brilliant idea, or so I thought at the
time.    Following a particularly intense evening of decadence
involving two and a half packs of ciggies, multiple hits of the bong,
a prostitute and  a unicycle, my usual nine-in-the-morning-smoke
tasted like an old shoe and set my tonsils aflame.  A few puffs into
it,  I hacked up a wad of phlegm that was green like Kermit the Frog
and had the diameter of a table coaster.  While watching it jiggle on
the hardwood floor below my feet, I decided to kick the habit.
Imagine: seven years of addiction and endless hours of pleasure, done
with in a single spontaneous moment, my own bodily fluids not far from
my nose.  Hardly poetic, eh?  I withdrew my DuMauriers -- a unique
Canadian brand -- from my pocket and on the inside flap wrote ³Last
Pack:  Montreal, July 3 1998.²  I then signed it, three cigarettes
remaining inside, and placed it above my door.

My reasoning that morning went something like this:  ³I¹ll save money,
preserve my health, even whiten my teeth!²  Bullshit.  Like Christ on
the Cross, I would suffer.  For weeks.  I once read an article by an
ex-junkie who insisted that while she had kicked heroin, she couldn¹t
quite quit smoking, even after several earnest attempts.  An Arab
merchant in East Jerusalem swore to me last summer that, after 15
years of not smoking, he was still overcome by the occasional urge. I
also recall a study in a psychology journal which established that
nicotine was one of only two drugs starving, addicted rats would
choose over food (the other being crack cocaine).  The same study
tested to see if withdrawal-crazed rats would cross an electrical
field to get their fix.  They did, yet again for nicotine and crack
only.    Scary stuff, no?

Days one through five of my no-smoking campaign (my own personal
Operation Barbarossa) were a blur, and were probably harder on me than
most given that I am a Mediterranean male who is culturally
predisposed to the habit.  A friend of mine suggested avoiding
activities that I associated with smoking to ease the transition.  I
took his advice and was soon constipated.  After all,  my favourite
smoke of the day was while perched on the throne, so shitting was
eliminated from my schedule as per his instructions.  I avoided
coffee, too, which induced caffeine withdrawal. I no longer play
backgammon with my Morrocan neighbour since the absence of a cigarette
in my left hand to compliment the dice in my right makes the whole
activity seem pointless.  What¹s more, I¹ll never see the inside of a
Montreal cafe again.  Although over fifty days have passed since I
took my last drag, I salviate and pop a woody whenever witnessing a
stranger lighting up.

When one quits smoking, success is measured by time. Time is filled
with desire.  Mathematically, when length of time without smoking
increases, the desire to do so is reduced.  In theory (as my doctor
explained it, anyhow) a threshold measurement of time (usually between
six months to a year) should yield in the subject an actual physical
aversion to smoking that gurantees he/she will remain a permanent
non-smoker.  Perhaps many of you know of a one-time smoker who is now
a Nazi about not smoking, lobbying Congress on behalf of the American
Lung Association and shit like that.  I can assure you that will never
be me.   I loved smoking far too much to ever question one¹s
addiction.  For me personally, the habit went far beyond a craving for
nicotine.  I loved the whole culture of smoking, like huddling in a
small circle with complete strangers outside of a restricted building.
Experimenting with unheard-of brands was always a big part of the fun
when travelling abroad.  I loved the way a lit cigarette accentuated
my hand gestures, and the way it jumped up and down between my lips
when I talked.  I loved collecting various cigarette paraphenelia,
like lighters and special edition packages.  I especially love the
meaningless slogans tobacco companies inscribe on the front of their
packs.  My favourite?  Peter Stuyvensants, a South African brand,
which boast:  ³Your Passport to International Smoking Pleasure.²
About the only thing that keeps me from taking up the habit again is
the Hell I would face quitting a second time.  I can state confidently
that I would rather roam the earth with the face of my father than
experience the agony of nicotine withdrawal again.

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