Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

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Thuggee Slang

August 15th, 2011

It’s always interesting to note how much criminal slang, which is designed to defy common comprehension, eventually finds its way into the popular vocabulary. I believe this is a testament not only to the (arguably lamentable) glamour of transgression, but also to the accidental linguistic genius of those who rob and maim for a living. Words from the underworld manage to pack a lot of meaning into a modicum of characters, plus they often exhibit a certain visual flair that is lacking in more mainstream language. Which of these, for example, is more evocative of the notion of a fatal stab wound: “puncture” or “Harlem sunset”?

If you share my fascination with the lingo of the professionally malevolent, I highly recommend you spend a few sweet moments zipping through Ramaseeana: or, A vocabulary of the peculiar language used by the thugs, which documents the slang employed by India’s notorious stranglers of travelers. Because the Thuggees were such a superstitious lot, many of the words and phrases have to do with omens. Kalee kee manj, for example, is the non-fortuitous sound of fighting cats, while bara muttee is the welcome ululation of lizards in the night. Yet there are also much more prosaic pieces of the lexicon that deserve adoption by modern society, including sewalee (a fox), narta (a cop), and kootha (a thief who steals from other thieves).

The word-nerd stuff starts here. Also, it seems that the Thugs, despite their murderous ways, were not totally averse to paying their taxes on time.

(Image via Jonas Liveröd)

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A Sailor’s Life for Me?

August 12th, 2011


Many moons ago, one of my good friend’s older brothers spent a summer on an Alaskan fishing boat. He returned with a pocketful of money and some truly harrowing tales of the seafaring life, which included a comrade abandoned off the Aleutian Islands and much drunken thuggery. The anecdote of his that I remember most involves the way in which he and his best friend passed the nights: playing poker and shaving little pieces of their heads, until they ended the voyage completely bald.

I thought of that story upon coming across this account of an Australian helicopter pilot who went “sea crazy” after two months aboard a Taiwanese fishing vessel. He was fortunate in that he had the means to flee to Nauru for a spot of chocolate; most crewmen have no option of seeing land for many months, no matter how bad their psychological ailments become.

I plan on exploring the issue of sailors’ mental health in the coming days; I’ve always been fascinated by the lives of modern seafarers, whose culture of toil and trouble is one of the planet’s least chronicled. For the moment, though, I’ll start with a rare spot of good news coming out of England: since 1915, the suicide rate for that nation’s seafarers’ has plummeted (see above). The main factor in the decline appears to be the industry’s growing intolerance for drunkenness:

Alcohol and drug abuse are strongly associated with suicide risks. Many of the suicides in this study involved seafarers who had been drinking heavily in the hours leading up to their deaths. A previous Swedish study reported similar findings. However, since the 1970s, there has been a general reduction in the culture of heavy alcohol consumption among seafarers, which has coincided with several factors, including faster turnaround of ships in port with more limited opportunities for seafarers to socialize ashore in foreign countries, reductions in ship crewing numbers, increased use of Asian and other non-European crews, more extensive medical examination procedures and increased implementation of alcohol screening.

And yet I can’t help but think that moderate alcohol use has some place in the life of professional seafarers. Didn’t the crew of the submarine from Das Boot enjoy the occasional glass of sherry or half bottle of Beck’s?

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Combat in Charcoal

August 11th, 2011


Along with the transmission methods for mass psychological illness, one of the main themes I’ll be exploring in my next book is how traumatized Vietnam veterans coped with their homecomings. As such, I’ve been digging into the history of post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly the ways in which the condition was glossed over by the medical establishment after World War II. Though there’s a good argument to be made that certain aspects of the Vietnam conflict made PTSD unusually pervasive—the evidence for which I’ll be exploring in future posts—it’s folly to assume that hundreds of thousands of World War II vets were never able to reintegrate into American society because of what they’d endured.

One of the threads I’m following is how the media representations of combat affected those depicted, not just the non-fighting folks on the homefront. We all know that the televised images of Vietnam’s carnage helped fuel the American protest movement, but how did this new form of documentation change how vets perceived themselves? That line of inquiry has naturally led me to examine the popular images from World War II, many of which were created by artists’ hands rather than photographers or filmmakers. I’ve previously covered various pen-and-paper chroniclers of era’s military exploits, such as the cartoonist behind Corporal Gee Eye and illustrators who chronicled America’s H-bomb tests. Now I’ve gotten turned onto the haunting work of Kerr Eby, who accompanied the Marines to Bougainville and drew some of the war’s most lasting images of human suffering. The one above has stuck with me for days now: it’s entitled “War is Hell (Shell Shock),” which really tells you all you need to know.

Third-party images play such a fundmental role in shaping our memories, especially as we age. I have to think that World War II vets remembered things different than their counterparts in Vietnam, solely because of the aesthetics of the conflict’s artifacts.

Even if you don’t agree with that assessment, I highly recommend that you check out Eby’s work. And peruse a couple of Robert Benny naval paintings while you’re over there.

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The Utter Mess in New Caledonia

August 10th, 2011

British Prime Minister David Cameron can take some small measure of solace in the fact that his government is the only one in Europe to be vexed by violent protestors. His French counterparts are suffering through similar civil unrest, though with an asterisk: the nation’s pocket of trouble is located several thousand miles away from Paris, in the overseas department of New Caledonia.

For those who aren’t entirely up-to-date on their Melanesian politics, New Caledonia’s airport is currently being blockaded by protestors who object to a recent increase in the Air Caledonie’s airfares—a huge deal in a place so isolated from the outside world. The situation has gotten bad enough that the French minister in charge of the country’s overseas departments has returned to Paris from her August holiday—no mean gesture in a nation where end-of-summer vacations are generally considered sacred.

There is, alas, absolutely nothing surprising about the situation in New Caledonia, a place that—like a certain AA+ superpower—suffers from total political dysfunction rooted in ideological inflexibility. I actually meant to post about this topic two months ago, when the New Caledonia narrowly averted its fifth government collapse of 2011. Since then, of course, the gridlock between Left and Right has only grown worse—and for the most idiotic of reasons:

The French supreme court has annulled last April’s election of New Caledonia’s Congress president, Roch Wamytan.

The court in Paris upheld a complaint by the Caledonia Together Party leader Philippe Gomes, who claimed that the process of choosing Mr Wamytan was in breach of the rules.
In a sitting which two parties boycotted after deeming it to be illegal, Mr Wamytan was chosen by 32 of the 35 members present.

A majority, however, decided to ignore the official closure of the session by the Congress vice-president and proceeded with Mr Wamytan’s election.

Mr Gomes and his supporters had left the sitting after bringing down the collegial government for a third time in four weeks amid a yet unresolved dispute over which flag the territory should adopt as part of its decolonisation process.

Do I hear echoes of the whole shape-of-the-table fiasco from the negotiations to end the Vietnam War?

(Image via this exhaustive collection of airline safety cards)

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The Maya Moore of Fish Cutting

August 9th, 2011

I’m rarely impressed by the talent portions of beauty pageants. Yes, I realize that baton twirling went out with leaded gasoline, but the mediocre singing and dancing that are now commonplace in such contests have done nothing to convince me that budding artists eschew the pageant circuit.

But just when I’m nearly secure in my bias, along comes Marjorie Tahbone to destroy my preconceptions. The reigning Miss Indian World wowed the judges at this spring’s contest by demonstrating the entire range of Eskimo-Indian Olympic games—a far, far cooler talent than reeling off yet another sappy rendition of “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Yet Tahbone wasn’t just doing a demo—she is a tremendously badass athlete, something she proved at last month’s annual World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Fairbanks, Alaska. Tahbone took gold in four separate events, totally annihilating the field in both fish cutting and the greased pole walk. She thus earned the title of Howard Rock Outstanding Athlete, which I consider a much greater achievement than her beauty pageant crown.

A photographic tour of this year’s WEIO Games here. And more shots of Tahbone here.

Previously from Microkhan’s WEIO coverage: the agonizing secrets of Drop the Bomb.

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Transition Game

August 8th, 2011


One step forward, two steps back with the book project, alas—try as I might, can’t quite seem to make the first-chapter transition from my opening scene to the requisite view-from-30,000-feet riff. Dedicating all of today to hammering my way through the wall, no matter how many thousands of useless words have to get deleted in the process. Wish me luck.

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More Than Words Can Say

August 5th, 2011


Back in 2009, I meditated upon the question of whether or not wartime propaganda leaflets are actually effective at weakening an enemy’s resolve or ability to flight. The main takeaway was that design really mattered, as only certain kinds of leaflets—those with clear messages that eschewed graphic imagery—made a real impact on recipients.

Ever since writing that post, I’ve been interested in the nuances of propaganda leaflet design. So imagine my joy upon discovering this stupendous collection of leaflets from the Korean War. My favorite of the lot is depicted above, an appeal for North Korean soldiers to lay down their arms and enjoy a nice, hot meal provided by the decent folks at the United Nations. A bigwig from the Psychological Warfare Division, Albert G. Brauer, explains the simple rationale behind the cartoonish approach:

One problem we were confronted with was how to reach the large (80 percent) illiterate target audience. This so-called “Sad Sack” leaflet, named after a popular G.I. comic character of World War II, proved to be the answer.

In this companion critique of the military’s leafleting program, Brauer claims that approximately 70 percent of the materials produced by his division were wholly ineffective, primarily because they conveyed messages that couldn’t be parsed by North Korean and Chinese soliders. The most common misstep? Portraying the concept of “death” in a way that didn’t make sense to the intended recipients. That, and trying to convey messages that were just way too complex to get across in a single sheet of paper. A case in point was a leaflet that tried to explain that soldiers should be skeeved out by the fact that their commanders forbid them from reading foreign propaganda. Big mistake, confesses Brauer:

Intelligence reports indicated Communist officers and cadremen were continuously forbidding men to read UN leaflets. This leaflet was designed to counter this. It was considered such a good leaflet by me and others that it was not tested on POWs prior to dropping. Later a survey was conducted and to the question: What does this leaflet mean to you, a large percentage of POWs answered, “If you read leaflets your officers will punish you.” Needless to say, we stopped dropping it.

Worth noting that Brauer later became a high-school government teacher. I bet his propaganda experience actually served him well in dealing with hormone-addled American teenagers.

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Screentime

August 4th, 2011


Just got back from a morning spent shooting a Canadian documentary about pharmaceutical marketing. I’m one the film’s talking heads, on account of a 2002 piece I did for Mother Jones about the marketing of Paxil. Strange to discuss a story that I hadn’t given a second thought in nearly a decade, but hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself in the process. I did, however, discover (thanks to the director’s off-hand comment) that I have a problem with looking excessively “forlorn” on camera. Which might explain why I got cast as “Serf #3” in my sixth-grade class’s production of St. George and the Dragon.

Rest of the day’s about catching up. Back tomorrow, perhaps with a post discussing white supremacists and the foolish girls who love them. Or maybe I’ll finally get around to that riff on the porcine economy in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Time will tell.

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“Liable to Abuse by Excitable Persons”

August 3rd, 2011


Inspired by a post delectably entitled “A Short History of Weaponised Umbrellas,” I decided to delve into the existing literature on the topic. What I found was a prime example of early 20th-century prose, notable for ornate turns-of-phrase that are sorely lacking in today’s self-defense manuals. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the intelligent-yet-florid glory that is the chapter on umbrella assaults from 1911’s Broad-Sword and Single-Stick:

As a weapon of modern warfare this implement has not been given a fair place. It has, indeed, too often been spoken of with contempt and disdain, but there is no doubt that, even in the hands of a strong and angry old woman, a gamp of solid proportions may be the cause of much damage to an adversary. Has not an umbrella, opened suddenly and with a good flourish, stopped the deadly onslaught of the infuriated bull, and caused the monarch of the fields to turn tail? Has it not, when similarly brought into action, been the means of stopping a runaway horse, whose mad career might otherwise have caused many broken legs and arms?

If, then, there are these uses beyond those which the dampness of our insular climate forces upon us, it may be well to inquire how they can be brought to bear when a man, who is an expert swordsman, or one who has given attention to his fencing lessons, is attacked without anything in his hands save the homely umbrella.

It is, of course, an extremely risky operation prodding a fellow-creature in the eye with the point of an umbrella; and I once knew a man who, being attacked by many[Pg 113] roughs, and in danger of losing his life through their brutality, in a despairing effort made a desperate thrust at the face of one of his assailants. The point entered the eye and the brain, and the man fell stone dead at his feet. I would therefore only advocate the thrusting when extreme danger threatens—as a dernier resort, in fact, and when it is a case of who shall be killed, you or your assailant.

Strangely, the authors come out against the umbrella dagger, a concealed weapon much loved by martial-arts enthusiasts. They claim that the proliferation of such devices would be likely to lead to excess violence in the streets of their native London. Not an unreasonable fear, based on present evidence.

More on umbrella-fighting techniques here.

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What’s Yours is Mine

August 2nd, 2011


King George Tupou V of Tonga is a man accustomed to getting what he wants, regardless of his desire’s impact on his people or his ability to govern. So it is somewhat heartening to learn that the monocle-wearing monarch was recently pressured into dropping plans to add another seven-figure sum to his already burgeoning coffers:

The once-impressive Tongan royal residence in Auckland will be stuck in time after protesters successfully stopped moves by the King to sell it.

A New Zealand-based group opposed King George Tupou V’s plans to put the property – known as ‘Atalanga and valued at about $9 million – up for sale. They have been campaigning against the sale for about a year.

King George, known for his extravagant lifestyle, rarely visits Auckland and does not stay at the Epsom residence, preferring upmarket hotels when in town.

The dispute began because the group believed the property was not the King’s to sell as it had been bought with state money.

However, the King claimed that it was bought with the royal family’s own private funds and did indeed belong to him personally.

The last line there gets at the essence of what bugs me most about monarchies: even in constitutional settings, there is an absurd conflation between private and public wealth. Does the king honestly believe his family somehow earned that Auckland mansion due to its hard work? And beyond that, can he really expect to have it both ways—to bill his opulent habits to the Tongan treasury, but then to claim certain possessions are personal property when it suits him? He is surely not the only modern monarch who has attempted such slight of hand, thereby strengthening the (small-r) republican case.

For more on King George’s lavish spending, I suggest this 2006 piece. Terrific lede:

As the classic London taxi chauffeuring Tonga’s new King sweeps through ornate gates and turns left towards the shabbiness of Nuku’alofa, a small boy squats nearby in the roadside dust and heat, hoping to sell tendrils of slimy octopus.

The boy is too busy fanning flies with a scrappy palm leaf to notice the shiny black cab or its passenger, His Majesty King George Tupou V, reclining on cream leather upholstery behind partially drawn curtains. It is the closest the boy is likely to get to the new monarch, renowned in Tonga as much for his distance from commoners as his eccentricities and odd behaviour.

Granted, anyone who rides through squalor in a limousine makes for an easy target. But King George gives his critics additional fodder by insisting on that dang top hat.

(Image of King George’s 200 coronation via The Big Picture)

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Leisure Defines the Man

August 1st, 2011


Coming off a hugely frustrating weekend of writing, in which I ended up deleting hundreds upon hundreds of words that seemed cold and lifeless upon the screen. After much thought and a few of these, I figured out a big part of my problem: In an effort to make the story more vivid, I was layering on minor details that coalesced into one huge confusing mess. That, of course, is not the master’s approach—quality beats quantity when it comes to narrative details. ‘Tis better to have a single, booming anecdote than lots of ancillary descriptions that are thrown against the wall in the hopes that they’ll unify into something worthwhile.

A great example of the master’s approach is a detail used by Mark Bowden in Killing Pablo. Whenever I mention this book to folks seeking non-fiction recommendations, I invariably bring up this passage, which does a better job of conveying Escobar’s complex combination of lunacy, malice, and megalomania than articles that have droned on for thousands of words:

To entertain his closest friends, Pablo would hire a gaggle of beauty queens for evenings of erotic games. The women would strip and race naked toward an expensive sports car, which the winner would keep, or submit to bizarre humiliations – shaving their heads, swallowing insects, or engaging in naked tree-climbing contests.

It isn’t just the strange abuse of power that gets to me here; it’s the creativity of Escobar’s sadism, the way in which he took such great pleasure in seeing Colombia’s paragons of beauty laid low. A reporter less enterprising than Bowden could surely have dredged up some anecdotes about prostitutes or strippers, the standard vices of the fabulously wealthy and amoral. But beauty queens forced to climb trees while naked? Say no more—I get where this Escobar cat is coming from, and I fear for the safety of anyone who crosses his path.

(Image via Colectiva)

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Spirited Away

July 29th, 2011


One of the most interesting aspects of researching my slot-machines yarn for Wired was the whole extradition angle. In fact, I’d daresay that’s what attracted me to the story in the first place—the fact that the United States government deemed the crime grave enough to go an fetch someone from Latvia, a country that had never before shipped one of its own into the maw of America’s judicial system. There were obviously some deep political considerations at work here, as well as a strong desire to send a message to Latvia’s criminal subculture. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the raid on Rodolfo Rodriguez-Cabrera’s business took place, quite literally, mere hours after the signing of the first post-Soviet extradition treaty between Latvia and the U.S.

Since tackling the Wired project, I’ve taken a keen interest in extradition cases, especially those in which a serious crime in one country is nothing more than a misdemeanor in another. A perfect example is the ongoing case of Brian and Kerry Ann Howes, a Scottish couple who once ran a chemical supply company. The U.S. government alleges that they sold red phosphorous and iodine to many methamphetamine manufacturers on these shores, and it now looks like the Howes will be extradited to Arizona to stand trial:

Brian and Kerry Ann Howes, from Bo’ness, near Falkirk, are said to have sold legal chemicals which were then used to make illegal drugs in the US. The pair maintain they ran a legitimate business and have been fighting extradition for more than four years.

The pair were arrested by Central Scotland Police in 2007, amid claims they supplied more than 40 chemicals to dealers via the online company Lab Chemicals International. The charges against Mr and Mrs Howes allege they used their internet company to supply red phosphorous and iodine to 400 customers in the US, most of whom were producing methamphetamine, also known as crystal meth.

Red phosphorous and iodine are legal in Britain, but regulated in the US.

The case falls under the 2003 Extradition Act which allows the extradition of people to the US without any trial taking place in the UK, removing the need for US authorities to provide prima facie evidence of criminality…The allegations include deliberately mislabeling chemicals sent to the US in a bid to avoid detection.

To understand the case, it’s essential to read the American indictment, which contains specific details regarding the Howes’ alleged efforts to avoid detection. One major complicating factor is that the Howes initially responded in the legally correct way when confronted by an undercover DEA agent claiming to be running a meth lab: they cancelled his order. (When asked to ship to the same address some time later, however, the Howes complied.)

Based on my experiences reporting the Wired piece, I do think it’s impossible to make blanket statements about when extradition is appropriate and when it isn’t. Furthermore, if the information in the Howes indictment is correct, I think it’s safe to say they had a pretty good idea of how their wares were being used Stateside. Yet the fact remains that they were operating within the confines of British law. Wouldn’t American legal resources be better served trying to mend that discrepancy, rather than focusing on a single case that will do nothing to clear up the ambiguity on the books?

(Map above shows nations with which the U.S. has extradition treaties)

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The Human Fly, Cont’d

July 27th, 2011


Though I can’t quite claim to have solved the mystery of The Human Fly’s identity and current whereabouts, which I wrote about a month ago, I’m happy to report that Microkhan has at least uncovered another thread to the tale. Canadian film director Steve Goldmann popped by the blog to point us toward his documentary short about The Human Fly (above), which focuses on the impresarios behind the operation: Joseph and Dominic Ramacieri, pepperoni-making brothers from Montreal. Bored with the processed meats business, they dreamed of having their names attached to a daredevil enterprise that would exceed Evel Knievel’s in terms of fame. But that dream came crashing down, quite literally, one unfortunate night when The Human Fly revved up his motorcycle behind a long line of school buses…

Seriously, watch the whole thing—well worth your eight minutes. And let’s hope Goldmann is able to make good on his plans to turn The Human Fly’s story into a feature. I’d love to see Zach Galifianakis tackle to role of Joe Ramacieri.

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The Art of Seeming Like You Care

July 26th, 2011

As I believe I’ve mentioned in this space before, the best teacher I ever had was a rotund, sweaty Jesuit who presided over my 10th-grade history class. Among his many wise lessons was one that invoked Napoleon’s rise to power as a case study. He argued quite convincingly that the French Consulate was designed with only one objective in mind: to fail utterly. The ludicrously complex system of government allowed Napoleon and his supporters to claim that they were interested in democracy, when they were in fact counting the hours until the perilous house of cards collapsed.

Ever since, I’ve always thought back to that lesson when I encounter a political solution that has no credible chance of succeeding, yet provides some cover for a figure who wants to appear like he’s doing his job. The latest case in point is the new amnesty scheme from Kenya’s beleaguered Anti-Corruption Commission. Check out the details and ask yourself how many larcenous members of the nation’s elite will step forward to forfeit their ill-gotten gains:

Those willing to take up the offer are required to fully disclose and declare the wealth illegally acquired and pay it back with an extra 12 percent of the value of the wealth, in return for amnesty.

According to KACC Director PLO Lumumba, not all cases will warranty amnesty, but those that pass the test as set out in the law will be considered.

“This is an offer that we are making to Kenyans that have illegally or improperly acquired money or property. Once you give us the list of property then we will publish the names in newspapers and invite Kenyans to raise objections,” he told journalists at Integrity Centre.

“Not all every applicant will qualify. Each case will be considered on its own merit,” Dr Lumumba said as he assured that the disclosure of illegally acquired wealth and property will be done in an open manner.

“Once you give us the list (of illegally acquired assets) then we will use it to track your other assets either registered in the name of your spouse, relatives or companies in which you have got interests. If you think that you have stolen Sh1 billion then you will declare Sh100,000 and celebrate then you are in for a rude shock,” he further stated.

So, if you are honest enough to step forward and say, “My bad,” you a) have no guarantees that your apology will be accepted, b) must pay 12 percent interest, and c) get called out in public, thereby opening yourself up to the threat of vigilante justice or worse. Your only benefit is exemption from prosecution that you’re almost guaranteed to evade anyway, given the Anti-Corruption Commission’s terrible track record of enforcement.

How about we set an over/under on the number of Kenyans who will take advantage of this law? Does six seem right? Seven?

(Image via Kikulacho)

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Passing Through the Membrane

July 22nd, 2011


Sweltering weather here in the County of Queens, but can’t let it make a bother—gotta pass through what John McPhee termed “the membrane” and get to thinking only about writing. So signing off ’til early next week—might not circle back to y’all ’til Tuesday, when I’ll return with tales of Kenyan anti-corruption efforts, anti-psychic laws in Massachusetts, and (finally!) the porcine economy in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. ‘Til then, please enjoy the classic cut above, via the latest Bastard Jazz Radio show. Judging by her lyrics, Ms. McCreary appears to be having a harder time than you.

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Truthiness

July 22nd, 2011

As I try and focus on the painful act of book-writing, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the unwritten rules of non-fiction‐or, rather, the fact that those rules seem to vary by creator. While I spend time agonizing over which version of a remembered quote to use, other writers seem to have no problem inventing details out of whole cloth. Am I dooming my project to obscurity by obsessing too much over accuracy, or do the slightest journalistic feints discredit the entire enterprise?

With that conundrum occupying far too much of my mental bandwidth, I took a keen interest in the just-released appellate ruling in Bustos v. A&E Television Networks. The medium here is TV, but the issue is the same: can the truth be fudged even a little in the service of storytelling? Or as the judge put it:

Can you win damages in a defamation suit for being called a member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang on cable television when, as it happens, you have merely conspired with the Brotherhood in a criminal enterprise? The answer is no. While the statement may cause you a world of trouble, while it may not be precisely true, it is substantially true. And that is enough to call an end to this litigation as a matter of law.

Jerry Lee Bustos is a longtime inmate at the federal supermax facility at Florence, Colorado. Back in 1998, he was chatting with a few acquaintances on the prison yard when another inmate — who seemed to be walking along minding his own business — punched Mr. Bustos in the back of the head. Mr. Bustos wasn’t one to back down from an unprovoked attack and the pair quickly squared off as other residents of Florence looked on. After a few minutes, baton-toting prison guards stepped in, but by then Mr. Bustos had caught a few good punches and was no better for the wear.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bustos, the entire episode was captured by a prison surveillance camera. And worse, A&E Television Networks got a hold of the footage and featured it on its national cable television show, Gangland: Aryan Brotherhood. The program paired images of Mr. Bustos with a stentorian narrator who described the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, its white-supremacist views, and its violent history.

Mr. Bustos complains that this in-all-ways-unsolicited television appearance has caused him an acre of difficulty. He says the program’s suggestion that he is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood has devastated his popularity around the jail. The Brotherhood, it turns out, did not appreciate his publicly appearing as a member without their invitation. And other gangs have also apparently become leery that Mr. Bustos might be a clandestine member of the Brotherhood. So now, Mr. Bustos complains, he has received death threats and for his own safety can’t be transferred to a less restrictive form of custody. Despite his best efforts, he just can’t convince his fellow prisoners that he’s not actually a member of the Aryan Brotherhood.

The court ultimately concluded that program made a charge that, while not wholly accurate by prison standards, at least had a substantial kernel of truth: Bustos had been involved in a drug-smuggling operation with AB members, and had apologized to one of the organization’s leaders when he messed-up a delivery. Perhaps he had never been formally tapped into the gang, but guilt-by-association was good enough in this case.

The decision cites several cases from the publishing world, notably Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, which found that “minor inaccuracies do not amount to falsity so long as the substance, the gist, the sting, of the libelous charge be justified.” In other words, liberties can be taken. But are readers aware of this wiggle room when they read a work labeled non-fiction? How much “creativity” does the typical reader expect when they delve into a narrative?

I’m really struggling with this. I never want to invent dialogue or describe details that have no zero in fact, but sometimes a scene seems dead on the page if there isn’t enough visual richness. Do decisions like Bustos indicate that writers who resist the Sirens’ call of slight-of-hand are dinosaurs these days?

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Tall J Speaks

July 21st, 2011

Though Microkhan can’t claim to be the most journalistically rigorous blog on The Tubes, we do strive for a certain amount of fairness. And so we feel compelled to publish a response to last week’s post regarding the Tall J Foundation, they mysterious American mining concern that recently drew the ire of Bougainville’s president. He accused the company of misleading members of a tribal group involved in negotiations to reopen the long-shuttered Panguna copper mine. In our account of the controversy, we specifically called out one Stephen M. Strauss, and noted that his name appeared in court records involving a Securities and Exchange Commission case. Much to our delight, Mr. Strauss saw fit to offer a defense on Microkhan—it’s reprinted verbatim below:

I wanted to clarify a couple of mis-statements that you have made in your article. I am the Steve Strauss that you are speaking about and yes that is me in Olive Branch, MS. Other than that your story is very inaccurate. Tall J has been involved in Bougainville for the past 18 months. I have lived with the Me’ekamui for 9 of those months in Panguna. During that time i have never met President Momis nor has any of the people that are associated with Tall J. This has been confirmed by Ruben Sierra who is an attorney and works with the ABG -Ruben ran for President against President Momis and came in third. He approached the President and confirmed that we had never been introduced (our other partner spent 4 weeks awaiting a meeting with President Momis but he was unavailable). [Read more →]

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The Unsung Hero of Slots

July 19th, 2011

After a gestation period that lasted nearly a year, my latest Wired story is finally out. It’s a tough one to summarize, but the tale centers on a Cuban-Latvian engineer who figured out a way to replicate the slot machines manufactured by International Game Technology (IGT), the S&P 500 company that has long dominated the slots industry. I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot beyond that, lest I ruin the reading experience for y’all. Please, check it our for yourself and, should it give you some small dose of pleasure, help spread the good word.

But I’m happy to offer some extras throughout the week, as is my wont when major projects drop. The detail I’ve been dying to share with y’all is the one about the invention that has come to define modern slot machines, a patent that vastly improved casino revenues by convincing players that their eyes could allow them to accurately assess a machine’s odds. As I explain in the story:

Slots didn’t truly become America’s favorite casino pastime until a Norwegian mathematician named Inge Telnaes came up with the most brilliant gambling innovation since the point spread.

The problem with slot machines, as Telnaes saw it, was that their jackpots were limited by the number of reels they could use. Since players expected each reel to have no more than 10 to 15 symbols, a machine needed many reels to make the odds long enough to justify a huge payout when all the cherries or bells settled into a row. But the more reels a machine had, the more players were reminded of the fact that their quest for riches would likely end in futility; no one wanted to try their luck on a machine with dozens of reels (or, alternatively, hundreds and hundreds of symbols on enormous reels).

Telnaes’ solution to this conundrum was US Patent Number 4,448,419, awarded in 1984. His invention called for slot machine results to be determined not by the spinning of reels but by a random-number generator. The reels on such a machine would display only a visual representation of the generator’s results, lining up when a winning number spit forth or (far more frequently) settling into a losing mishmash of symbols. The patent made possible the development of slot machines that could offer extremely long odds—and thus enticingly massive jackpots—while still appearing to have just a few tumblers.

The fact that random number generators power all modern slots suggests that any money spent on tip books is money completely wasted. Yet there is no shortage of media that promises to teach paying customers how to beat those dastardly one-armed bandits. In the end, of course, playing slots requires no more skill than playing Candy Land. Less, even: you have to count the spaces in Candy Land.

Please, read on, and I’ll have more story extras as the week progresses.

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“Success in Work, Comrade”

July 18th, 2011


Searching for motivation to once again get cracking on my book for an eight-hour stretch, I stumbled across this excellent trove of East German labor propaganda. These particular images were produced at the tail end of Communist Era, and they reflect the nation’s struggles to keep pace with the West. There are plenty of mentions of the concept of “competition,” though the propagandists seem to want to stoke rivalries between individual workers, rather than between companies. I guess we all know how that approach turned out.

The collection is part of a larger Calvin College archive, which includes some priceless relics from East Germany’s 30th anniversary as well as satirical cartoons that dared to gently mock the country’s pollution woes. In looking at the posters and leaflets that feature photographs of actual humans, I have to wonder whether certain East Germans were able to make decent livings as models—not because they were particularly attractive, but rather because their looks were judged to represent the Communist ideal. Like this happy lady fresh from her shift at the factory—surely she was sort of a Carol Alt of the proletariat.

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The Maestro Has Entered the Building

July 15th, 2011


I was all set to write a thoughtful post about the declining fortunes of cemetery towns, but looks like there just isn’t going to be enough time today. I’m already running late for Microkhan Jr.’s first violin recital, at which he will allegedly do a solo in “Three Blind Mice.” The morning’s more exciting musical news, however, is that the kid prepared for the gig by listening to his new favorite song. How sweet it is to hear him bounding around the yurt, singing in a faux baritone, “If you base your life on credit…”

Apologies for the absence, per the usual. Spend today’s Microkhan time on this compendium of candid shots from Papua New Guinea. Love the bovine safety billboard above; my goal is to someday have enough scratch to hang a high-quality copy above my desk.

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The Book is the Boss

July 14th, 2011


Moving from Atlah to Queens has been an arduous process, but the act of sifting through one’s detritus has not been without its small pleasures. I’ve had occasion to stumble upon various old magazines that I kept around for one reason or another, and flipping through their pages has often reminded me of why I saved these publications from the rubbish bin. One of my favorite finds was a 2006 issue of The Paris Review, which I preserved on account of this fantastic Stephen King interview about the art of writing. I was deep into bringing Now the Hell Will Start to life when I bought the mag, and I remember being greatly comforted by King’s descriptions of his daily struggles. This passage, about the trials and tribulations of revision, makes the whole issue worth the price of admission:

Every book is different each time you revise it. Because when you finish the book, you say to yourself, This isn’t what I meant to write at all. At some point, when you’re actually writing the book, you realize that. But if you try to steer it, you’re like a pitcher trying to steer a fastball, and you screw everything up. As the science-fiction writer Alfred Bester used to say, The book is the boss. You’ve got to let the book go where it wants to go, and you just follow along. If it doesn’t do that, it’s a bad book. And I’ve had bad books. I think Rose Madder fits in that category, because it never really took off. I felt like I had to force that one.

There’s also a bit about how King spent the early part of his career revising while twisted on liquor and/or drugs—something I find tough to process, as my rudimentary experiments with non-sober editing have always proven disastrous. My problem with such an approach is that intoxicants totally strip away my sense of judgment—after a couple of Crown Royals on ice, I think the most florid, artificial prose sounds spot-on. Maybe my particular neural chemistry would respond better the Murakami approach to downshifting from writing to revising.

(Image via Looking for the Magic)

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The Allure of Meat

July 13th, 2011

The crime rate in Bermuda is not particularly high, but I’m still surprised the island nation’s police force had time to solve a five-year-old cold case that was far from dastardly: the theft of $70 worth of meat from a home. The perpetrator of this not-so-sinister act was finally nabbed last month, after Bermudan cops finally linked his fingerprints to those found on the victim’s refrigerator. The exact nature of the stolen meat is not mentioned in the newspaper account of the mystery’s end.

It might seem curious that a burglar would swipe only a few steaks or chops from a house, when there were surely more valuable baubles ripe for the plucking. But as I discussed in this 2007 Slate piece, meat is arguably the item most coveted by small-time criminals, particularly those who engage in retail theft rather than burglary. This is in large part because meat has symbolic heft as an aspirational item:

Loss-prevention specialists note that a large number of meatlifting incidents, if not the majority, involve the pilfering of meats associated with luxury dining: rib-eyes, filet mignons, or lamb chops, among other treats. Stores have had particular problems with cuts bearing the Certified Angus Beef brand, which are often displayed near ostensibly less succulent offerings. With only enough money to purchase an ordinary chuck-eye roast, many otherwise ethical shoppers make a snap decision to lift the Angus instead. Store detectives speculate that these meatlifters feel entitled to have steak instead of hamburger on occasion, as a reward for their hard work; swiping an expensive bottle of dish soap doesn’t provide the same sense of satisfaction. Though men and women shoplift in equal numbers, such aspirational meatlifters are most likely to be gainfully employed women between 35 and 54, according to a 2005 University of Florida study; men prefer to lift Tylenol or batteries, often for resale and often to support a drug or alcohol habit.

I now have to wonder if we’ll ever reach the point where consumers feel compelled to affix security devices to meat products that they take home, in order to prevent incidents like the one in Bermuda. And if lab-grown meat ever does become a staple of America’s diet, will it have the same cache among crooks as the stuff that comes from actual animals?

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Mass Hysteria in Bangladesh

July 12th, 2011


One of the issues I’ll be exploring in my next book is the notion of psychological epidemics. How do certain behaviors go viral, and how do the arcs of such epidemics mirror those of their physiological counterparts? To this point, a lot of my research has focused on incidents of mass hysteria, which are endlessly fascinating and predictably weird. My weekend reading included this 2009 paper about a day-long hysteria epidemic in Bangladesh. Like so many instances of mass hysteria, the illness arose without warning:

Approximately 25 minutes after arriving at the Jaforabad high school on saturday , August 4th, 2007, a student of 8th grade noted ‘feverishlike’ feeling in his classroom; shortly thereafter he experienced vertigo, headache, nausea, burning in body, tingling sensation in limbs and dizziness. Similar symptoms soon developed in several students in his room. As the classroom was being evacuated, more students of different grades reported symptoms, and high grades of the school became panic area. Emergency medical personnel from nearby health complex, naming hathazari, rushed to the school within half an hour. The student who first reported symptoms (index case) and two other students were transported
to the hospital by taxi, in view of other students and teachers. Classes were canceled for the high grade from 6th to tenth grade, and that day, a total 15 learners went to the Headmaster room reported symptoms they believed were associated with exposure at the school; 3 of these learners were admitted to the hospital for observation overnight. The index student was among those hospitalized, but no explanation for his symptoms was found. Over the next two days, the school was examined by the Staff of health department including Consultant of Medicine and Upazilla Health and Family Planning Officer(UHFPO), the Local Education Officer, and state officials of the Upazilla Nirbahi Ofiicer, none of whom could detect a problem.

The authorities never did determine a root cause of the brief epidemic, but they did make one critical observation: every single affected student became ill after seeing another ill student, while no one who failed to witness a victim with their own eyes was stricken. In other words, the “virus” was transmitted by what the paper’s authors term “line of sight.”

This makes me think of the work now being done by Nicholas A. Christakis, well-known for his theories regarding the transmission of obesity and other lifestyle-related ailments along social networks. I wonder now if his model might extend to conditions that have much shorter life cycles, such as hysterical illness, as well as afflictions that are exclusively psychological in nature. In other words, if I witness one of my friends fly into a rage and punch out a window, does this raise the chances that I will do likewise over the next 24 to 48 hours?

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The Single Step

July 11th, 2011


So pretty momentous day here ’round Microkhan’s new-ish Queens headquarters: after many weeks of inventing excuses to procrastinate, I’m finally starting to write my next book. It’s due in April, so I reckon I have just enough time to craft the tale and fill in the remaining research gaps. But right now the endeavor seems truly daunting, as I try and dream up the perfect opening line. I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to remember how I concocted the opener for Now the Hell Will Start. (For the record, that book begins: “It is best to use discretion when confronting an emotionally shattered man, especially if he’s holding a semiautomatic rifle.”) But try as I might, the process seems to have slipped from my memory. Guess I have no choice, then, but to resort to trial-and-error; given what I know about that approach to writing, I expect the ensuing eight hours to be filled with little save pure frustration.

As I begin my proverbial thousand-mile journey with a single step, brighten your day with a little vintage Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, taken from an old In Living Color episode. Yes, that is a permed-out Jennifer Lopez doing the intro.

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The New Filibusters

July 8th, 2011


When last we checked in on Bougainville’s Panguna copper mine, there was considerable talk of reopening the long-shuttered operation—much to the consternation of indigenous groups who have long fought for a more equitable distribution of the proceeds. Now comes word that a few Americans might be sticking their nose in the island’s business, thereby threatening Panguna’s future:

The president of autonomous Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville, John Momis, says a shadowy American group, with links to a militant rebel group, is de-stablising his government.

The rebel group calling itself the Me’ekamui Tribal Nation, which refuses to acknowledge the government’s legitimacy, reportedly has the backing of the so-called Tall J Foundation.

Mr Momis says he’s met the Americans who he understands want to begin extracting alluvial gold in Bougainville.

“I don’t know very much about them. All I know is that they’re a menace. They are trying to sabotage all our efforts to create unity and a sense of responsibility, to get ourselves prepared for re-opening of the [Panguna] mine. They are more or less carpetbaggers, running around misleading ignorant people.”

Okay, then, so what is the Tall J Foundation? Records are spotty, indeed—I couldn’t find a corporate listing in the United States. This forum post from 2010 suggests that Tall J has been soliciting investors for some time now, with a fantastic promise of 500 percent returns. If the poster is to be believed, the company’s director is one Stephen M. Strauss, with addresses in both Texas and Olive Branch, Mississippi. I got another pop on that exact name through a recent SEC case, in which a Stephen M. Strauss stands accused of orchestrating a pump-and-dump stock scheme while head of the Chilmark Entertainment Group. (One of the press releases alleged to have played a role in that scheme can be read here.)

Coincidence? Well, Chilmark was headquartered in Southhaven, Miss., just a stone’s throw from Olive Branch, so I’m thinking the answer is “no.”

The only other easily accessible trace of Tall J is this LinkedIn listing for one James Blackmore. But I can find no connection between Blackmore and Strauss—at least not yet.

The bottom line is that it seems that a tiny, shady-seeming investment concern actually appears to be wreaking genuine havoc on the Bougainville peace process. That immediately made me think of such infamous 19th-century filibusters as William Walker, who fomented great chaos in Latin America in the service of making fortunes. This is why private interests really shouldn’t be permitted to assume roles that might destabilize shaky governments; corporate self-interest is typically more at odds with international order than diplomatic self-interest.

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Keeping It Far Too Real: The Blackjack Ward Story

July 7th, 2011

While snooping about some old Google-able papers the other day, I stumbled across this true-crime tidbit about a 1940 murder case involving a pair of Hollywood extras. The killing took place in Gower Gulch, a street corner where former cowboys would gather in hopes of being picked to appear in B-grade Westerns—much like day laborers now congregate in shopping-mall parking lots with an eye toward scoring sheetrocking work. The Unsung Joe picks up the story from there:

At any time of day, between 25 and 50 characters in Stetsons and checked shirts could be seen on the sidewalk, killing time and — because all these men had once been genuine cowboys, unlike the cowboy stars like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry — reminiscing about the old days before the great ranches of the west had been broken up into farms and homesteads, when they’d been able to get real work driving cattle across the open range…

Blackjack Ward was one such man. He’d been a range rider most of his life, and claimed to have served as Pancho Villa’s right-hand man in the Mexican revolution of 1910(1) but, by 1927, when he was in his late 30s, the scarcity of work on the range had brought him to Hollywood. His skill on horseback kept him busy in the hundreds upon hundreds of westerns that required competent riders, and his villainous scowl and expressive eyes secured him plenty of work as background henchmen…

On the morning of February 23, 1940, around 50 cowboy extras were standing around outside the drugstore on the corner of Gower and Sunset. Blackjack was there, and so was Johnny Tyke, another western bit-part player who had an impressive criminal record and was currently wanted by the police in connection with a string of hold-ups.

“I had known Tyke for quite a while — I fed and helped that varmint for years,” said Blackjack. “A few months ago, he was in jail for drunk driving, but I didn’t go to see him and, when he got out, he kept pestering me because of it. We had arguments and he threatened me. One day he said he was going to beat me to death or else use his Bowie knife on me.

“Well, we met in the drugstore where the boys hang out, and Tyke started in again. He got real abusive and called me names no man worth the powder to blow him to hell will take back where I come from in old Arizona, but I says, ‘Look here, you’re bigger than me and you probably could whip me. There ain’t no sense to this anyway, and I don’t want no trouble.’

“I got in my car and started to drive away. Tyke jumped in front of the car and yelled, ‘No you don’t. Let’s settle this right now.’

“Well, I usually carry my old gun with me; just a sort of habit a man gets into when he spends a lot of time riding the range. When Tyke tried to get in the car, I shot at him once through the windshield and drove off.”

Read the rest of the account for details on how the killing divided the henchmen community, and how Ward could never quite escape the claws of justice after his run-in with Tyke. The piece leaves me wondering, though, about the economics of the Hollywood system back then. What sort of life could one lead on a henchman’s salary? And how might it compare to what modern-day bit players are able to eke out?

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Justice Too Swift

July 6th, 2011


Years back, in an effort to quell football fan violence, authorities in Philadelphia set up a courtroom at Veterans Stadium, so that drunken brawlers could be punished within minutes of being arrested. Sure, such a legal arrangement wasn’t in the constitutional spirit, since the accused weren’t permitted legal representation or a chance to review the charges against them. But no one could get too worked about the plight of Eagles fans, who are far from a popular bunch.

The same cant be said for Bangladeshi protestors, who are now taking to the streets to voice their opposition to a key electoral change. One of the government’s key weapons against these strikers is a system of mobile courts, ostensibly set up to enforce the nation’s anti-tobacco laws. In reality, though, the courts are being used to route around the rule of law:

It is well and true that the Mobile Courts Act 2009 gives almost unfettered discretion to mobile courts to “hold a person guilty”. It is in this unrestricted discretion that the illegality and unconstitutionality of this system lies. The “super power” given under the Act to mobile courts means that these courts are absolved of all the procedural and evidential requirements that exist to protect the rights of an accused person – the right to consult a lawyer, the right to defend himself, the right to cross-examine the prosecution’s evidence, the right to produce his own witnesses, the right to make a closing argument explaining his story to the court and so on. None of these rights exist for a person whom a mobile court has got a hold of and, unfortunately for him, the age-old principle – “Innocent until proven guilty” stands corrected as “Guilty until proven innocent”.

The courts remind me of something I reported on for Now the Hell Will Start: the military’s use of special courts-martial during World War II. The proceedings were designed to be as expedient as possible, so that the Army could get on with its main job of fighting the Axis. But in practice, the utter lack of legal protections for defendants meant that commanding officers could effectively punish at will for any minor infraction. In Bangladesh, that power is now in the hands of riot police, whose accusations obviously carry the most weight at mobile court proceedings. No good can possibly come of that.

(Photo for Reuters by Andrew Biraj)

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Dodging Zeus

July 5th, 2011


Virtually every ancient mythological system included a deity who was fond of hurling lightning bolts at unfortunate humans. Concocting the notion of such violence-from-above certainly took little imagination on the folklorists’ parts, since lightning fatalities were commonplace in bygone times. In fact, as the chart above shows, it is not until quite recently that the American population has become urbanized enough to make lightning deaths a true rarity. The equation is fairly simple: the less time a nation’s people spend toiling in the fields, the less likely they are to be killed by lightning.

That axiom is cold comfort to countries that still experience high numbers of lightning-related fatalities and injuries, of course. A Nigerian tragedy recently made headlines, but it is Bangladesh that bears the brunt of the world’s misery here: a quarter of the 24,000 deaths attributed to lightning each year occur in the massive South Asian nation. (See how lightning stacks up against other natural disasters here.) Assuming that urbanization in Bangladesh and similarly afflicted countries continues apace, the problem should decrease over the decades. But in the meantime, is there a quick-and-easy solution to saving thousands of rural dwellers each year?

This is one of the rare instances in which my skepticism about public-education campaigns melts, and I see the wisdom in simply spreading the word about the dangers of electrical storms. As emphasized in this account of Cambodia’s recent bout with lightning, farm workers remain appallingly unaware of both the hazards of the phenomenon, as well as the appropriate ways to minimize their chances of getting hit. Perhaps there is a role for NGOs to play, by sponsoring the building of simple lightning-proof lean-tos where farmers can take refuge when caught out in the fields. (Anything beats hiding under a tree.) But the humble pamphlet or (give literacy rates) public lecture may be the real savior here.

More on historical trends in lightning fatalities here (PDF).

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Turning the Corner

July 1st, 2011


A million things to do before the long weekend kicks in, starting with a journey back to Harlem to snake a drain. (No, this isn’t a euphemism.) Hope y’all have something special planned for the holiday, and see you back here next week. If you have a spare moment before then, though, I highly recommend this vintage (and sadly unembeddable) video of Dutch motoball circa 1982.

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“The One That Shall Not be Named”

June 30th, 2011


Friend o’ Microkhan Tristan Patterson is the man most responsible for hipping me to the post-baseball travails of Pedro Guerrero. He is also an immensely talented writer and director whose latest project, Dragonslayer, justifiably took home top honors at the latest SXSW Film Festival. Patterson himself provides a summary of the film that makes it sound nothing short of irresistible:

I met Josh Sandoval at a party in an abandoned airfield off the I-10 in Chino, California. He had a lime-green Mohawk and was wearing a matching Screamers T-shirt, in honor of the L.A. punk band that never recorded an album. He looked malnourished and lost, and claimed he was on 5 tabs of acid. It was impossible to talk to him. His head was lost in the clouds. Then I saw him skate. I think Josh is like a lot of kids from his generation–smart enough to know a potentially bleak future looms and scrambling to figure out a way to survive in it. He’s also on a wavelength all his own.

Dragonslayer is my attempt to capture this wavelength and preserve it: a portrait of a new generation of kids from the rotting suburbs of inland California, and a celebration of what makes one of them so unique.

Great Los Angeles Times write-up here. No release schedule yet, as the movie is still making the festival rounds. But follow Tristan here for word on where to catch his fuzzed-out masterpiece this fall.

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