March, 2010
SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE
"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"
29 March 2010: Me and the Lone Ranger
When I was a kid on the 1950s, the Lone Ranger was on prime time television. And, as many were with the Cisco Kid and Hopalong Cassidy, children of all ages were mesmerized by the black and white box in their living rooms. The first years of my life I grew up in tenement style, claptrap apartment in Union City, New Jersey, in the New York Metro area. It burned down one Christmas, taking with the fire, my Zorro and Lone Ranger gun sets. Masks, capes, everything…GONE! This of course, deeply scarred me for life, I guess?
Anyway a big highlight for me was going to Madison Square Garden in NYC, to a “cowboy show,” and appearing was the Lone Ranger and Tonto, shooten' blanks and riding in circles, doin' horse tricks, whatever they did at these things. Wow! Then my dad took me a couple of times to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades. From my superior vantage point atop his shoulders, I saw ALL the western stars ride by on horseback. Bonanza guys, Paladin, Josh Randel, all of them. Even Matt Dillon. Of course-the Lone Ranger and his faithful side kick, Tonto trotted by.
“Who was that masked man?”
Then they left. Because - well….their work there was done.
When I talk about body guarding/security work of famous folks, I usually never mention the ones I did as a police patrolman or detective. I was assigned those jobs, not like latter years as a private investigator, when I had to hunt and get selected for such work. As a cop, I was assigned to people like Coretta King, Dallas Cowboys and….yes, the Lone Ranger….
In 1980, a huge, new shopping mall was built in our city in Texas and the grand opening was a big event. The company hired stars to come. Let's see if I can name them. From Star Wars- that black guy from the second movie? Played the part of Philo Calvillion? Candor Valvo? What? Who? I don't know. I can't remember his name. Phyllis George was there - a former Miss America born in that very city. Ahhh…two others famous dudes and then, The Lone Ranger.
As fate would have it, I was assigned to Clayton Moore. Now, Clayton thought he was the Lone Ranger. He never appeared in public without that mask. When MGM made a new Lone Ranger movie about that time, they sued Clayton to get him to remove that mask for good. They wanted their new Ranger movie, the new star to be the famous Lone Ranger. That was sure low-down, wasn't it? But Clayton bought a pair of big, curved dark sunglasses and wore them everywhere. The kind people wear these days when they have cataract surgery. This eyewear thumbed his nose in the face of MGM. I imagine they cussed their specific, “mask” verbiage in that court settlement. (In his very last years, he really needed to see and gave up on the sunglasses.)
The "mask" lawsuit put ol' Clayton back in the news instead of banishing him. The Texas Ranger ball team felt sorry him and hired him as kind of a mascot. He would ride out on horseback, the park bathed in his theme song of heroic trumpets, at the seventh inning stretch and it would whip me and the crowd into a complete frenzy! So, back to the mall opening- he was popular at this grand opening. Clayton was decked out in the blue suit and legendary gun belt, hat and mandatory sunglasses. He sat at tables and signed autographs and walked the mall shaking hands and talking.
At the first break we wandered back into the mall offices. He took his hat and gun belt off and hung the black leather, double, six-gun rig on the back of a chair. I stood before the belt and its silver bullets and was transformed into a kid again. It glistened before me like Christmas morning.
“The last time I saw you, was in Madison Square Garden in the 50s,” I told him.
“Yes,“ he said, "Tonto and I were there in 1957 for the rodeo show.”
Therein lies his obsessive commitment to the character. He didn't say Jay Silverheels and I, he had to say- "Tonto and I.”
Anyway the day was a blast and a blast from the past. Thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger is still on TV somewhere in the world. There were 221 television episodes. Clayton Moore died in 1999. I can only guess…his work here was done.
Hiyo, Bubba. Hiyo.
Adios Amigos
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27 March 2010: Ever been in a fight?
While in Australia, we (Tim Llacuna and I) received a tour of the Victoria Police Academy, meeting with several staff trainers on a whole host of issues and topics. One subject was their eventual, state-wide transfer over from revolvers to semi-auto pistols, something I thought they had done years ago. Not yet! Other states have done this.
One of the management staff discussed how much older new recruits were getting. Into their 50s! Or how young and green they are. He decided to routinely ask a series of questions to all of them. “How many of you have ever been in a fight?” Very few raise their hands.
“How many of you have ever stood in front of a very angry person?” Very few raise their hands.
“How many of you have ever done shift work?” Very few raise their hands.
He went on to say he quizzed the 50-plus year old recruits, asking them about shift work and wondering if they had ANY idea what that does to a body, even a young body. They did not.
You know, I am not interested in getting any “contracts” with the Vic Police or any Australian, or for that matter any police agencies anywhere in the world, as I just pass through for informal Police Judo style, problem-solving, work-outs/seminars with bona fide vets, which I had done and will continue to do. This always helps staff relax when they hear this as they are use to hard-sell, we-are-the-best, pitches (usually from people who have never been cops and have NO IDEA what they are talking about). They relax because their official programs are highly regulated and structured and simply cannot be changed.
Tim Llacuna, now head "chef" of the UFC Gym police and combatives programs to be implemented throughout the world as these gyms grow, is on the hunt for police officers trained in our Police Judo material. Our worldwide contacts are helping to set this up.
(Llacuna on the right at the Vic)
Adios Amigos
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24 March 2010: The Bad Ballad of Jimmy Skew's Gun | Part 2 Sure, at first people were worried, then all the loose ends needed burning up. They wondered where his badge was, but it was found pinned into his wallet at the hospital. Then the company armorer at headquarters wanted to know where Jimmy’s snub nose pistol was. The armorer went straight to the Provost Marshal - the military equivalent of a Police Commissioner and complained. Small-minded, powerless men like any chance to exercise power.
By late afternoon, we did learn that one new fact. Skews pistol was missing! Our sub nose .38 revolvers were issued at our headquarters armory and since we worked so often on and off base, we just kept the weapons 24/7, unlike our uniform patrol officers, who checked their .45s in an out of the armory on a daily, shift basis. The time clock for info on Skews and the gun started ticking. That soon became a watch on my wrist.
“Jimmy is still in a coma. That’s all we know for now.” our Sgt. Ross told us.
“Ross!” barked the MPI Captain from up the hall. “You, me and Staff Sgt. Bunyon are requested in the Provo’s office at 4 pm.” Requested meant ordered and ordered meant harshly. ANd we knew that sudden session was about Skews.
“Backtrack his night,” Ross told three of us while he snatched up his jacket to leave. We nodded.
This meant starting at the hospital and working backwards in time. The ambulance. The location. Who made the call. And as much as possible about all events before that. Three of us drove downtown in one car and went to work at the city hospital. Thanks to the records we found the location, a residence and the caller. We drove to the house, which was more like a big dorm for off-base housing. A cheap place for soldiers to live to couldn’t stand the constant hassle of living under the eyes and ears of the people in the “orderly room” - more small-minded, powerless people looking to exert power and control anywhere they could. Rented rooms with common places. We knocked on doors and shook down occupants. Questioned alone, these folks sometimes talk.
By midnight we collected a sad tale. Skews was with some nefarious guys there, bought drugs and disappeared into a back room with a bed. These guys discovered him hours later, gagging, coughing and near dead. Was Jimmy hanging out regularly with dopers? Was Jimmy a doper? Was he set up? He bought a lot that night and used it all up, as best we could tell. Toxicology on his blood would take about a month to tell us exactly what he consumed.
We drove back to our office and my partner called Ross at his home with the news. He nodded a lot and listened to Ross. He hung up with the scuttlebutt.
“Heat’s on about the gun,” Ross said
“The gun?” I asked. There were still a lot of other questions to be answered.
“Yeah. Skews overdosed. That case is done. The Provo wants the gun back in the armory. Sgt. Bunyon promised the Provo that he himself would personally find it.”
“We’re done?” I asked.
“We’re done.”
I spent the next few days working my regular drug cases, with the Skews matter nothing but a gossip distraction. Skew's pistol was still on the ‘missing-in-action” list. I'd heard Bunyon and the Captain searched Skew's apartment. No pistola. They took our report back to the rent house and talked to everyone again. I never thought Bunyon had much brain power and the Captain was transferred into this MPI job from some other non-police unit. I didn’t have much investigative experience at the time? But from what I saw and heard, I gathered they didn’t either.
Then one afternoon a few days later, I got a call from some private in a transport unit. The caller asked for me specifically and would speak to no one else. I took the message and spun out the numbers on the rotary phone at my desk to call him back. A man answered.
“This is Agent Hochheim. You called for me earlier?”
“This Hock?”
“This is Hock. Short for Hochheim.”
“I need to see you,” said the voice.
“Why?”
“I have something for you.”
In a world of confidential informants, such meetings were not unusual. Informants come forward like this for a whole host of reasons, most often for some level of revenge as motive. Women. Drug rip offs. Business revenge. Any motive. Always look for the motive. It helps you figure out what in hell is going on in a crazy world. And if they want to talk in person, you've got to go. These modern days, there might be some paranois, protocol for such meetings, but back then - and my guess is today too in mnay places- sometimes you just go alone. There aren’t enough police to turn every meet into a team event. I got the address and room number of the unit and the where and when in the building I should meet him.
I was there in an hour, standing in an all-wooden office, looking right at the caller. This soldier was tall and thin but with a hairdo that was a short version of a "hippy hairdo." How's that? Hard to describe. Ya’ gotta' see it. Think of the comedian Carrot Top's hair trimmed down to an inch. This guy was a freak that was stuffed into fatigues and in the Army. You could tell.
“You, Hock?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, here…” he reached under a stack of paper files and slowly pulled out a revolver by the barrel.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Jimmy Skew's gun. Right before the ER people took Jimmy out of that house? He handed my buddy his gun. He told my buddy to give Hock his gun.”
“Me?” I took the gun. I opened the cylinder. Six bullets sat in place. “Who is your buddy?”
“I'd rather not say. Let's say it was me, if you have to say who, say it was me. Jimmy said you were cool.”
“Cool.” I mumbled. I shut the cylinder and dropped the gun into my jacket pocket. Not sure I wanted to be considered cool by a doper cop in a coma.
“He knew you dudes would be after his gun. He said you were cool and to get the gun to you.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“There was a party, man. Jimmy bought a shit load of downers from some dude and he disappeared into a back room.”
“He party there often?”
The private only smiled.
“Did your buddy say Jimmy was depressed or something?”
“Or something.”
Silence. That pretty much signaled the end of the conversation. The Hughes case was officially over, anyway.
“It may come to pass, “ I said, “that the powers-that-be, may come to talk to you.”
“Whatever, dude. I don't know nothing. Like...I don’t even know what I just told you.”
I drove back to our Military Police Investigation building, half thinking I could go straight to MP armory and turn the gun right in where it belonged. But, I recalled the mounting daily pressure Bunyon was under to find this gun. I walked into MPI, down the hall and knocking on Bunyon's partially open, office door.
“Yeah, come on in.”
“Sarge…” I said, as I pulled the gun from my pocket. “A guy gave me Jimmy's gun.”
“A…guy…..”Bunyon stared at me and his face turned red. His features flattened out and he looked like a man who lost a big bet on his favorite, football team. He took the gun and pulled out a piece of paper. He compared the serial numbers. He started asking me the details in a voice of forced politeness, inspecting the weapon. He didn't ask to talk to my informant.
“I'll take care of the gun,” he said. “See ya' later.” He pulled on his sport coat and we left the room.
Well, there was no "good job." No "good work?" I left the SSGT's office with mixed feelings. Back in the drug office, I told the others what had happened and one of them told me Bunyon had worked non-stop trying to find that gun.
“Hooooo-boy!” Ross said. “and YOU found the gun?”
“Well, someone gave me the gun. Its not like I dug it up with a shovel.”
“But Bunyon should have found the gun. Not you. Bunyon’s kind of...funny about stuff like that.”
The others just stared at me. This helped explain Bunyon’s red-faced, almost hostile reaction when I showed him the piece. But, I thought, surely he can't be that shallow?
I sat at my desk and thought about it. I could easily imagine how that Bunyons/Provo meeting went-
"I returned the gun to the armory, sir." Bunyon would say.
"Great work, Stan. How ever did you do it?"
“My superior detective skills,” he would have suggested in so many words? Not - "Well, Sir...some jack-ass, virgin, rookie of mine had already created an intel network superior to mine and some guy just called him up and handed him the gun, and after I looked for it day and night for four days."
“Hooooo-boy!” Ross repeated, shaking his head as he sat at his desk and started shuffling through some paperwork.
I never saw Jimmy Skews again. None of us did. He recovered and received a medical discharge. Jimmy was just a depressed cop who tried to do himself in, then left us. His reasons were his reasons. But he had left me with an internal problem. I had just created an enemy in my office, and he was my boss! This came back to haunt me a few times. I had to cover my back not just from the thugs below, but from the shallow jerks above. Such is the Army. And you know - such is life.
But, this brought a deep and vital lesson to me. Your network of information. It is a life blood of an investigator and a street cop. You never knew who you meet might and who knows something you need. Now or later. This creates a rule of thumb for you to treat everyone, victim, witness or criminal, fairly and without malice. This can be very hard and I even have failed at this sometimes, but as a professional you have to keep trying. This includes co-workers, as Skews thought of me as the person to turn his gun over to. The network. How big is your network?
Oh yeah, and try not to accidentally shoot your co-workers. Its a real network shrinker.
Adios Amigos
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20 March 2010: The Bad Ballad of Jimmy Skews’ Gun | Part 1 I almost shot Jimmy Skews. It happened in the first month of my detective assignment working MDDS - Marijuana and Dangerous Drugs Section for the US Army.
I had been in General Investigations. I liked it there and could see that the guys across the hall in MDDS were always working their asses off and in weird hours too. But one day the orders came down and several us reported to that busy office across the hall. You go where they tell ya’. For training in this new position, they bounced me around with several of the other narcotics guys to learn the ropes. Eventually, there was an Military Police Investigations School. This post-Vietnam army was chock full of drugs, drug dealers, and civilians and hookers/dealers working their trades. We had a heroine problem and cocaine was around then but still very expensive. The heroin and coke we found must have been cut down for affordability. Needless to say, there was tons of marijuana everywhere. Tons.
In MDDS, we worked drug cases. Mainly we were supposed to generate drug informants, arrests and respond to drug calls and also help for MP patrol men and women making drug investigations and drug arrests in the field. We were, sort of the first-filter, first-investigator, responders to the drug world so that the CID (officers and warrant officers) might stay in their cozy beds at night. This working relationship alters from base to base, but that's how it usually works. I presented numerous cases to CID expecting them to take over, but was usually met with an ambivalent “Ok, keep me posted.” As a rule, were not to reveal our Army rank while investigating crimes, so that we could deal with generals and enlisted folks alike, leaving them to guess our rank. A natural rebel, this suited me just fine. This also suited one of the other MDDS investigators, a Jimmy Skews. He was E-5 buck sergeant underneath his sport coat and tie. He was about eight years older than me, and a natural con man, fast talker and method actor - all essential skills of the drug investigator, well, even for that matter, even a car salesman, huh?
One night we received a phone tip from an informant that Jimmy was working that a soldier was selling drugs to a group on the second floor of an infantry barracks. Jimmy slammed down the phone and said, “Let's GO!” We hopped in his unmarked Rambler Ambassador and darted across the base. The barracks was typical - a large, two-story building, shaped in a way, like a giant country barn. At 7 pm, it appeared abandoned as the inhabitants all had better things to do than sit around in this barren, wooden place, unless of course you were picking up your drugs from your friendly, neighborhood, soldier/doper.
“You go in there,“ Jimmy ordered, pointing to the front door. We pulled out our issued, snub nose .38s revolvers. "I'll go in another way."
“Okay,” I said, and dashed inside the hall, and then mounted the two long flights of stairs. I had already learned from past mistakes to take very DEEP breathes on these or any stairways, else you will need scuba tank of air if you suddenly took action when you reach the top. Stair climbing for Action Guys class and Gals? BREATHE deep and slow as you climb fast.
As I topped the stairs I saw groups of soldiers milling about the center of the bay between two rows of beds. Kneeling and standing. It was getting dark and the stairway and attached hall was dark. They could not se me easily. They were either shooting craps or spreading out drugs! I moved across the stairway hall and suddenly a man with a gun came though a hall window! The pistol was pointed at me, and I turned to him and pointed my gun. Squeezing....!
It was Jimmy Skews! I unsqueezed. He aimed his pistol away from me. He had climbed a fire escape and scaled the outside of the barracks. I could see his face. I think he almost shot me, too! But, we ignored the moment and charged into the room. So after the stairway rule? Action-Guy rule number 2 is don't shoot your partner when he comes in from another entrance. This is easier in a planned raid, but life is so...sudden.
“Hands up! Police!" I yelled to the group. And Skews and I arrested 6 guys. On the floor was hash, marijuana, needles, pipes, etc. We called the MPs for transport and did about 6 hours of paperwork and evidence processing. We questioned each soldier for Intel info. I can't remember what they told us, hell, it was over 35 years ago. But, we always tried to develop leads and cut deals with everyone we arrested to find the dealers. The motto was, “work up the chain. Get the dealer. Then get his dealer.” This work ethic lead to a number of rather large drug busts.
Skews and I worked quite a bit together, so it was quite a surprise for me when I walked into work one afternoon and learned Jimmy tried to kill himself, rushed to a critical care unit the night before. He tired to do himself in via drug overdose – a handy method for a narcotics officer, huh? The rumor mill at headquarters and the Military Police Investigation building ran amok with juicy and sinister ones. Did he skim enough drugs over a period to make this attempt? Was he being paid off? Dirty? Did he buy the drugs illegally? Did he just overdose? Was he set up?
Part 2 coming soon...
Adios Amigos
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 15 March 2010: The Punishment Arm Break
As kids in and around the New York City Metro area, we use to see a guy in a raincoat and hat walking around a lot. He would use the pay telephone in "Mike's" corner store and one time we saw this guy pass Mike some cash. Word was the guy paid Mike a little "geetus" for the use of the phone. The guy would call in the bets he collected. Of course, anyone can use a public phone but when you start giving the location owner a bribe or extra money? Then you hook them into the enterprise and they can trust you better. Now you have something to lose, too. I don't know if our local cops were in on all this, but it was Hudson County, New Jersey. FAMOUS, back then for being one of the top corrupt counties in the country. Just like on HBO, much of the mob lived in Jersey and worked in the city.
One day my dad saw this guy and he said, "Son, you see that guy there? He takes gambling bets from people on the horses and sports. Plays the number. The guy behind him? Carries a baseball bat or a gun in his pocket." There was no guy actually "standing" behind the bookie at the moment. My Dad was warning me that this was a bookie, and behind him was a serious network of armed folks.
My dad knew well about them. My whispered family history disclosed that before World War II, my dad was a bookie in New York City. He and his best friend ran book and had a wild, carousing "zoot suit" life style. But his friend double-crossed the mob by skimming money and they killed him. My dad was loosely involved in this mess and he fled the city and ran upstate for awhile, then enlisted in the Army. Did four, full war years and was assigned as infantry in Patton's command. Hit the beach on the D-Day and invaded Germany. he became the salt of the earth of the "Greatest Generation."
He gave up the bookie life and become a quiet factory worker. But my Uncle Essy? Nope. Uncle Essy dodged the draft somehow and worked for a major auto manufacturing plant in a New England State. Essy ran the book for the plant as well as worked on the assembly line. There were a thousand or two employees and many gambled. It was a great cash business for Uncle Essy. He wanted more. On weekends for quite a few years, he ran a hot dog stand in a New York state park and he ran book from the stand while spreading mustard on the "douwgs."
Essy would keep some of the longshot money, knowing that the bet would never win. Strange sports things and upsets would happen and Uncle Essy would get in trouble. Lets say a lot of people bet on a loser. Essy collected their money and assumed they's lose. But Essy never officially turned in this assumed money into his next his chain of command - betting the losers would lose and he could keep ALL the money. This is also skimming, but if the Mets lost to the Dodgers anyway, no one knew. Once in awhile, the losers would win and Essy would have to come up with a fortune fast.
As a kid, my Grandmother lived upstairs from me. I remember Essy showing up in the middle of the night sometimes, begging for money, for thousands to hold off this or that pending doom. I remember he hid out at our house for about a week once while Irish thugs looked for him up north. This brings heat down on everyone. I remember the thugs knocked on our door. They had long overcoats and fedora hats. My dad lied that Essy was not there. All this from a guy with four kids, a wife, a job at the car plant and hot dog stand, all what would appear to be a normal life. This as they say, "broke my grandmother's heart" and she coughed up money to help. Money usually never repaid, by the way. I guess my nana didn't have any henchmen with ball bats?
Of course, Essy had to collect unpaid gambling debts too. And, he would help other gamblers collect money. Then he became the "thug at the door," like the "micks" that came to my house.
On a New Years Eve in the 1960s there was party in the basement of our house. Uncle Essy, drunk with a bourbon in one hand and a cigar in the other, (always acting like a bigshot) explained to me, barely a teenager, how to do a "punishment arm break." It went something like this...
"Furst ya gotta' weaken the arm. Hit the arm muscle up here with a fist or a club," he pointed to his biceps," or hit it wit' ya' forearm. Dis weakens his strength in his arm that protects the arm. Den you break the arm back, Hold him face down on the floor. Use your knee against his elbow, or sit on it. Yank his wrist back with your two hands. Hard. Snap. See? Then? Always reach over to the other hand and break at least one finger. Two maybe. Den he has a big freggin' cast on his right arm, and a little cast on his left hand. He can't even wipe his own ass! Dats punishment."
Adios Amigos
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11 March 2010: The Value of a Tactic
On face value, a tactic, or technique is a series of steps to accomplish some level of diminishment of your opponent, be it a sting through a knockout, onto death. On face value, you might really like a certain tactic because it seems easy and successful, based on your skills and expertise. However, there is another level to review before we list this move in the “personal top ten.” Conduct a study on how many practical counters exist for this tactic. There are two types of counters;
Type 1: Natural and reflexive
Type 2: Trained
Obviously, the natural and reflexive counters are your worst problem when fighting an enemy. Most of the population is untrained and will react to you in this spontaneous manner. Trained counters are efficient responses that aren't necessarily instinctive, but learned, smart and effective. In some cases, these trained counters seem foreign and strange. For example, if you are caught in an ambush, one major counter is to charge the ambush while firing. This is a trained response and hardly natural, yet vital when solving the common military, rattrap called an ambush.
If your favorite tactic has eight easy, reflexive counters, and eight trained counters, that is a bit high and maybe shouldn't be in your top ten.
The good news is while working on these list with research and development, you are processing a lot of material and becoming quite savvy about tactics, counters and evaluation. This pro and con testing takes a broad spectrum of hand, stick, knife and gun knowledge.
Adios Amigos
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8 March 2010: Charlie Wilson’s War, Continues?
Back in the 1990s, infamous 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace called national radio show host Don Imus and told him about a book. Mike told Tom he knew of a published book, an amazing story that was just not getting proper national attention and asked if the I-Man would help spread the word. Imus asked for copy, read it, thought also that the true story was amazing and kicked off a campaign that lifted the book in the bestseller lists. That book was Charlie Wilson’s War.
I read the book in the late 1990s, was duly amazed, and was glad to see it made into a movie with Tom Hanks a few years later. Its about how Texas Congressman Wilson got the funds to get the Afghans shoulder-fire missiles to shoot down Russian helicopters. This tool was a catalyst that beat back the Russians from the territory and some will conclude lead in part to the financial end of Soviet Union.
A few weeks ago, Charlie Wilson died, with very little fanfare. Click here and read news
To say that he was an entertaining, unique, innovative American would not do him justice. But as I read the news I couldn’t help but think what of the CIA was left alone to handle the Afghan situation as they planned - to bleed the Russians over the years. Without the missiles dropping the Hind helicopters, would Russian still be there today? Wrestling with the locals just as we are year aftyer year? The scourge of the Afghans? Would 911 have ever happened? Would the USA, UK and other allies be there now? For Charlie, beating the communists and winning the Cold War was the right thing to to at the time. The end of the movie, a CIA agent tells Charlie a Zen parable that sums up the whole situation. That each action we take, seems right at the time, but the Zen master always says “we’ll see...”
Adios Amigos +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3 March 2010: Make Mine Crappacino by Buffalo Nickels The line was too long. Me want coffee.
That's all. One cup of black coffee.
I was a stranger in a strange land. I took Mrs. Buffalo to work, as her 1965 Mazeratti had broken down again. I usually run in a small convenience store and grab a cup of Joe on my way to the sweat palace, but now, in a different hood, I wandered into a coffee shop, or should I write shoppee, or shopaaah?
Three freaky, hippy-looking people worked behind the counter. One girl's hair was about a quarter of an inch long, and she cut dime-sized, bald circles in it to, you know, make herself more attractive. Red and blue hair. I had that disease in the jungle once, and now it's a hairstyle. They stood in front of a pipe machine that looked like the well, polished engine room of the Titanic.
"What would you like, sir?" Spaz-head asked the yuppie wearing a suit in front of me.
"I'd aaaaahhh ... .I'd like a mocha, oka, java, ala latte, molay. Mucho grande, decaf."
She turned to prepare his coffee feast, fondling and tugging on the brass Titanic pipes with enthusiasm, maybe even a fondness. Machines sucked and swirled. Milk steamed and hissed. Something sputtered. She looked up at him and asked," Did you say, leche de la lache, lock ness?"
"Yes. Lock ness. Make that tros.
"Duo."
I don't know what in hell he ordered, but it sure was a sissy, freaked up way to drink coffee.
A beanpole of a kid asked the two cackling, dames next in line what they wanted. They rattled off a bastard mix of French, Spanish, Creole and voodoo ingrediants. The beanpole nodded his head as if he knew exactly what they needed and began concocting these elixirs. Hiss! Splat! Swoosh! Minutes and minutes passed.
Finally, FINALLY, they got to me. A chick wearing 16 pieces of metal pierced through her face asked me what I wanted.
"Black coffee."
She smiled .... like I was a big dumb, castrated ape in the zoo. "What size?" she asked. "Fat? Short? One-Legged? Grande? Windpipe? Or Douche Soup? I pointed to a cup on the counter that I recognized as a medium, like I was in a foreign country or something. There were many sizes to choose from. There was a guy in there reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee the size of my dog's water bowl. It had some kind of a short, brown, gnarled wooden stick in it. If I drank that much coffee, I would die.
"Two dollars and forty-six cents, please."
Two dollars and forty-six cents! What has happened to coffee? What has happened to the people who drink coffee? In the military I had all kinds of coffee, but it ranged from thick to thin, good to bad, hot to cold, not all these styles. Our American coffee used to come from just a few places that Juan Valdez and his donkey had discovered in the earlier part of the 20th century. I don't know where? South America? Like Ronald Reagan once said when back from a trip down there, "you know, there's a lot of countries down there."
Unfortunately, Juan was kidnapped by the narco-rebel bandits and held up for a fat phenomenal ransom. If the South American pushers ain't selling us coke and Mary J, it's friggen coffee. Hey, I'm in line for it every day!
Recently, I heard the worst news ever about coffee. Coffee-making has spread to Asia. It involves monkeys. Coffee drinkers are going bananas over a brew called Kopi Luwak, made from berries that have passed through the digestive system of Indonesian monkeys. The berries emerge intact and this renders into what Europeans refer to as an "earthy" taste. Did ya get all that? This coffee is made from monkey shit. Employees of these plantations sit and pick the berries out from the monkey poop. The monkey-like creature is known as the Palm Toddy Cat - a happy little feller who lives on a diet of alcoholic tree sap (I knew there was drinking involved in this somewhere), and coffee berries. The animal is technically a Palm Civet, a dark, brown tree-dwelling cat-like, simian creature found throughout Southeast Asia.
According to the Manila Coffee House, (who trusts anything they would say?) the Palm Civet just happens to like to ingest the ripest and reddest coffee beans, which also happen to be the ones best for brewing. This cat/thing/monkey eats the outer covering of the beans, which accomplishes the same thing we humans do with depulping machines. Something happens to the beans in the magic roller coaster ride through the monkey intestines and asshole that gives it a flavor that is celebrated by effete coffee drinkers. As you might imagine, this coffee is in skosh supply, as only 500 Ibs...of it are harvested per year - that it is virtually impossible to get hold of in Britain and has only limited availability in the States and Japan. This makes it cost more than gold and worse - more than computer printer ink! There are only so many civets, so much of their monkey shit, and so many dumb-fucks who sit around and finger monkey shit.
Chris Rubin, a food critic says, "it's the best coffee I've ever tasted. It smells musty, but it roasts up real nice." Gee now, I wonder where the musty smell comes from, Rube? Could it be from right up the crack of a tree monkey's ass?
What will this from all come to? Can you picture the coffee shoppees of the future? Buck Rogers walks in and orders Monkey Butt coffee. There, hunched on the Titanic pipes are several kinds of advanced, bred monkeys reading the newspapers. Spaz-Boy pulls the tail and...hiss. Splat! "There ya go Buckoo. Welcome to Shangrala!" I tell you what, I am glad I am getting old and will die soon. Back when I was a teenager, I bought a record album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It had a tracks on the album that lasted several minutes long with nothing but silence. Nothing. You could see the grooves on the record and the needle turning though them. They recorded silence in the studio. Artsy huh? Not to some. Like an idiot, I told my Pops this. Pops was a WW II vet, a longshoreman on the Jersey coast and a long hau, truck driver. He looked at me, snarled his lip and said, "If you'll buy that, you'll buy a bag of shit in the supermarket, you stupid little son-of-a-bitch." Thanks Pops!
I guess it's come to that. But come to think of it, I think I heard that Lennon/Ono track playing back at the coffee shoppee.
Frappa-Zappa -Crappa!
Bye-bye.
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