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BLACK HELICOPTERS EPISODE 50 SUNDAY the NINTH - "...and
blue balloons." The console operator glanced from the monitor on which Masty Hall convention footage was replaying with a
grudging nod. "Nice color scheme.
Patriotic..." "Guess
we've got our lead," Nelson allowed, lighting a fresh Dominican. The
once-quiet studio now buzzed in busy anticipation of Eleven... anchorpeople,
techies and hangers-on brushing past one another in a delicate, perennial
ballet, never quite spinning out of control into abject chaos. |
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Eleven's
sportscaster rearranged his coiffure, using the lens of a remote camera for a
mirror as stacks of thumb drives, DVDs and even older videotapes were shuffled
like playing cards by the two console operators. The program director sidled
into the studio, slapped Nelson on his back.
"Howzit going?" The PD
never raised his voice, never lost his temper and touched Nelson only on
important occasions, two or three times a month. If an Eleven man did his job,
it was well done... if not, one day he'd just be gone, gone as Noah, Conan, Corden. Like Bill O’Reilly and like Brian Williams,
Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer. Like Les Moonves...
"Get
a load of this," Nelson replied, gesturing to the number three monitor.
Over their shoulder the punk, Dannie, tried squinting at Masty
Hall footage while pretending not to. "There's your wisdom, strength and
goodness!"
"Huh?"
the PD puzzled.
"Obviously
you haven't read any of the fuckin' Catfish
books," Nelson grunted.
"And
you have?" the program director smirked.
He nodded at his troops and departed the studio, headed for his office
upstairs.
Dannie,
stifling a giggle, watched the live camera feed one panning across the VIP
booth at Masty Hall... CNC power brokers circling and
cooing as Catfish Jack Parnell mounted the podium, tapping his knuckles on the
microphone. Faces… strange to him except
for the unmistakable Austin Tillerman, newly
announced Republican challenger for the Presidency… O'Neraghty
and Ratso, Burt Weston, Rayna and Congressman Morton
Scow... with Paul Rinker, who turned, reached upwards to pat Andy on the
shoulder and then wink at Anne.
"He's
an idiot!" Andy's lips could be seen, plainly speaking across Anne's smile
on feed two.
"But
he's your idiot!" Rinker finally smiled back.
"Save
that clip when you edit," the Program Director ordered. "Might come
in handy, some day, after you've taken out your Conk membership..." he
smiled, insinuatingly... "Tillerman and Trump
are going to keep us in headlines along with the mouse-hater, fat guy and The
Donald until the convention, and probably after and Parnell, well he won’t wake
up Sleepy Joe, but he will be there, good for some exotic, quixotic comment to
wrap…"
And
then that was when Dannie made a mistake, tugging Nelson's sleeve and asking
"What about the East End?"
"What
about it?" Nelson replied.
"Aren't
we going to report on the riots?” he asked, pointing to Monitor Eight. “United Nations peacekeepers were assaulted!
Maybe it was one of them who got
killed. A helicopter was trashed!"
Nelson
glanced at the ceiling. "Kid, we're trying to attract
business to this town. Business means
jobs and jobs mean people buying stuff and we’re the ones who tell them what to
buy, for which the people who make stuff pay our own bills. Those Iraniacs on
the Supreme Court letting Jesus take the wheel, Seattle having those riots and
their automatic zones, whatever, and the computer geeks started pulling out,
spreading themselves around, even though most of 'em
went broke within a year. That fuckin’ mess in Orlando? Not to... to mention St. Louis and even
Minneapolis! Do you think the biotech
people at the U. or the business community wants it shouted out from the
rooftops that people here are beating up on United Nations peacekeepers?"
"Uhhh..."
"Hey,
probably more of them do than not,” Nelson allowed, savoring a
draught of the stogie. “But that decision ain't mine
and it's been made upstairs. Bobby voices over that a bunch of antifah troublemakers have been rounded up, anarchists from
the U. We do some purple hair, nose rings being dragged away to jail... people
think 'nuts!', just getting’ what nuts
deserve. America goes back to sleep and
our advertisers – they go back to sleep happy. That's it!" And he lifted
an eyebrow towards the ceiling again – then his gaze drifted towards the clock
on the wall, back down to the hemorrhoid commercial wrapping up on the monitor.
Marla,
the imperiled anchorwoman, tossed her hair and then tried to look fierce and
important. “The Coalition for a Pew
Consensus is convening in Nasty Hall at this very moment,” she rehearsed, “oh –
my bad, I’ll just continue… and we’re going to take you to Tom and Bobby
inside, where retired Congressman Jack Parnell has just taken the podium. There!”
The PD
flipped another switch.
The
Catfish, putting on a soulful mask for the masses, also looking heavenwards on
Eleven's main studio monitor, feed one, raising his arms again and shrugging to
chop off the applause, as suddenly as he had conjured it up.
"Thank
you! Thank you!" his image began to speak as the takeup
reel began revolving, saving the politician’s words for posterity five minutes
into the future. "What wonderful people... you're beautiful. Beautiful! A
year ago, like many of you, I was more or less resigned to years and years and
years of numerous decent but wholly disorganized people mounting the same
highly principled but hopeless campaigns. All the while slouching towards a
future where the rich got richer, dictators strutted and murdered, loathsome
diseases ran rampant and the poor died in the streets. American values were
being mocked overseas, our allies traumatized by eight years of disrespect and
four more of floundering, China and Russia ascendant, environmental crises
droving even the wealthy into the shadows... shadows of class, racial and
religious strife as reared their ugly snakeheads wherever desperation and
despair ride roughshod over people's legitimate aspirations. Candidates who abandoned, or reversed, their
principles, once elected.”
Nelson
made a speed-it-up gesture with a revolving finger and the candidate droned on.
“Then Austin Tillerman... our candidate for the Republican nomination
against President Trump, I might remind you... stood up and said: 'It doesn't
have to be this way!' He... and you... realized that the old solutions to old
problems weren't going to work anymore. President Obama and his little puppet
in the White House now said Made in America was dead... that the new frontiers
of production were slave labor camps in China and Honduras or the robotics labs
of M.I.T. and Stanford, and that the only future left to us was that of
retailing their crap at minimum wage, being prison inmates or their guards in
prisons or monitoring surveillance cameras and downloads or standin'
on the car title pawn line. This President... as won, his quote unquote, those
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by pulling our chestnuts out’n
the fire and leaving millions to be butchered by fanatics and trusted allies
like the Kurds in the lurch and exposing America as a weak, frivolous tower of
decadence... he staggered into office by conquering a Republican Chief
Executive under cloud of corruption, escaping impeachment… correct that, was impeached and escaped conviction
only by a partisan and broken Congress… twice!... while the Attorney General still dithers over indictment; then ol’
Joe wound up messing things up so badly that the UN had to come in, giving them
the notion it could also start throwing its weight around our own cities. Now
he's so mad at Mexico and Venezuela for driving their people towards our border
that he's got us marching off to Costa Rica, ‘cause our military forces are
spread thin as margarine over a supermodel's Swedish toast on account of
cutting taxes in half for the rich makes for a lean Defense Department and a
mean deficit. Not quite as bad as Nixon... but getting there, with the IRS and
NSA as his personal score-settlers! The time was ripe for people to step in
where experts had failed; decent, honest Americans and… since MAGA had sold out
to the oilies, the Tea Party had sold out to the
Armageddon lobby and the Democratic Party to Goldman/Sachs… time for a revitalized
America that brings back fiscal responsibility, the military draft and... I
agree with Austin on this... the whipping post for juveniles to teach them to
respect the law. A shakeup in the old
order as will be genuine, not fake, time for a Coalition for a New
Consensus!"
"Do
you believe this shit!" Nelson told
the PD. "Wants to run for President... he's nuts, only one nuttier's that other windbag with the hair who wants to run
for the Republicans! Again! Christ! – I’m glad our viewers won’t have to
hear this! They said Florida was a joke, California...
now the whole fuckin' country's gone mad!
Slap a mask on it, fill up a needle with government cyanide and inject! Lemme see what's on
the backup camera, Gus was doing crowd reactions. Uh oh... get a load of
this!"
As
the applause in Masty Hall tapered off, the second
Eleven camera behind Parnell panned from the audience to the backside of the
VIP booth, lingering on Monitor Three as Andy Morrison - brushing Anne from her
left side - placed his right hand behind her back, pressing it tightly and
beginning to migrate downwards...
On
the first studio monitor, the Catfish beamed, waved to his adorers and
continued...
"And
I was, and am, honored to have been able to make my small contribution. What is
any Government but chaos being put in order, competently or not? Some would say
that it’s our master... its royal prerogative being to enter into and dominate
every aspect of our lives, to command and to kill and, of course, to impose new
taxes whose revenues drop straight into the pockets of the termites in
Washington and their friends up on Wall Street and across the globe. Others
would make it their slave... with no function other than as a police agency of
a private social order that is distant and remote from the many problems as
confront the ninety-nine percent of Don Joneses in
"Jeez,
what was Gus trying to prove?" said the PD. "Does he think we're the
Playboy Cable Channel or something? Look at that old fart! Not the hippie grabbing his piece of ass, the
other one, the suit…"
On
the second monitor, Paul Rinker, just to Anne's right, had been caught in the
act of placing his left hand firmly on her rump. He squeezed affectionately,
and then the hand began slowly migrating upwards and leftwards like an
independent entity… a discrete, severed monster of persuasion.
"We
have a different solution!" the Catfish continued. "To those who
maintain that corporations, banks and special interests run the country... we
say: let's elect a people's President and have a people's administration of
pioneers and visionaries! A government of and for law and order... from and for
America’s damned, the disrespected and dispossessed... of love and for the
loyalty to country and community as has guided me in my thoughts, action and
life. A striving towards that higher order of which we are all willing,
enthusiastic agents... awakened, assembled
and ready to attack..."
"Isn't
this wonderful?" the PD and Nelson, Dannie and the newscasters worrying at
their hair all heard Anne gush; all but the kid turning away with a smirk...
The
hands of Andy and Paul Rinker migrated closer and closer, towards their
inevitable collision.
"One
minute to showtime.
Here's where we cue," Nelson pointed. "Get two of the three
big stories in off the bat, get ten seconds of recap from Bobby, then Marla
comes in with the rest, teases with the riot and murder. Last chance, anybody
hear whether they identified the vic? No? Black, white? Nameless bum, fuck ‘im then! Sex, politics, violence... as perpetrated by
those damn anarchist kids from the U, easily put down by valiant law
enforcement... and a pathetic little moppet getting money for her operation, as
announced by a candidate for the Presidency. Shit, if only every night went
like this! I deserve a drink!"
The
lead console operator checked his watch. "Want me to get the network feed
with a talking head from
“What
wonderful people!" said the Catfish as Nelson manually sped up tape until
the candidate's voice sounded as if influenced by
On
the other side of the glass, Bobby the anchorman patted his hair one last time
and gave the thumbs-up that had, a few months ago, replaced his trademark OK
gesture after the ensuing mortification when it was unmasked as a neo-Nazi dog
whistle.
Five...
four... three... Nelson advanced the Masty Hall tape
a half inch with his finger as the Eleven at Eleven logo began flashing. "Andd... noww..." began the
Catfish… clearly cognizant of the time… groaning at a quarter-speed, one hand
rising slowly towards the phone in his left ear... “wait…”
The
PD cued Bobby, who promised drama from the convention, live from Masty Hall, Baby Claire and riots... then switching to
Marla, who chimed in that weather and Ray Jefferson's weekend sports would
follow. Only Dannie remained glued to the forgotten Monitor, on which the two
hands gripping Anne's gluteal tissue were now visible - inching ever closer,
closer... three inches distant, two, one, half an inch...
Nelson
personally threw the switch and a red blinking light indicated that footage of
the Catfish, addressing his adoring throng, was being beamed out across
Eleven's coverage zone and through its myriad cables to the thousands of
restive and questing Americans...
"I've
just learned wonderful news from Florida," a hundred thousand televisions
in the Eleven viewing area and, certainly, millions more across the country
heard the politician crow... "Doctors in
NEXT WEEK, THE ADVENTURE RETURNS with EPISODE ONE
RETURN to "BLACK HELICOPTERS"
directory
VIEW CURRENT
COLUMN by JACK "CATFISH" PARNELL... "ENTROPY and RENAISSANCE"
HAVE A
GLANCE at the
current episode of our occult serial, wherein a young American encounters
bizarre foreign artists and occultists – from Aleister
Crowley and William Yeats to Alfred Jarry and a
young, feral Adolph Hitler…
SQUIRM! as insurance salesmen gather at the boss’ home
to compete for the position of a dead Vice-President… where their ordeals will
soon include giant lobsters, fire, escaped slaves and savage bounty hunters, a
mousetrap and bottles of the insidious blue champagne from Bad China, in…
And THRILL!… to the
story of the last successful Native American revolt in the jungles of
southeastern Mexico where an implacable tribe of rebels ousted an imperial army
under the command of a mad General in…
“THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ”