A mysterious author has been spotted at cafes around town with a paper bag on his head. Wafer-thin incisions are cut in the paper bag where his eyes are because he doesn’t want to see too much of the world.
Bag Head as he's called stares at an empty page primed to get started on a new story. Full of sadness, he’s taken aback, realizing people aren't reading his work. He Feels somewhere between, getting the wrong end of the stick, is my writing flawed? Should I change my storyline? Or, does wearing a bag on my head put people off?
Henry’s life priorities went like this—
having enough money to live,
health,
people reading his work,
writing.
The remainder of his life priorities were in flux, akin to a crapshoot— eating well, codeine, jazz, blues, dreams, joy, sorrow, women, laughter, staying out of jail, hospitals, asylums, no haircuts, humanity, dogs, birds, ganja, sea, trees, clean air, fresh water, and sunlight.
Writing is like playing a musical instrument or painting a picture, writing is fundamental, it's junk.
A bonafide writer works if he is, drunk, hungover, sober, happy, or sad.
The year is 1986 and it's close to noon. The tribe, Henry, Lucia, and Summer Wynd, are at Puerto Vallarta International Airport.
They’re sitting on Spartan hard plastic chairs in the departure area waiting for Northwest Airlines flight 257 to Key West International Airport, it’s a 3-hour flight.
Summer Wynd has 7 grams of Michoacán pot wrapped in tied condoms inside her vagina.
She’s playing dope smuggler for kicks, knowing she'll enjoy the rush of going through Florida customs with dope in her twat.
Getting caught with 7 grams of pot in Florida is a misdemeanor, the court system can’t prosecute all the cases.
Pot being illegal on the federal level is silly. Marijuana is an unprocessed natural herb like oregano or anise. People have been smoking it for years, long before the 60s.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper, grew and smoked marijuana saying,
hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.
After 1776, around the time of prohibition, the Department of Justice and the US Federal Government became unglued, restructuring the government branches in the centralist tradition, hellbent on controlling citizens' lives and encouraging conformity.
You can bet the ranch J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI mufti, had a Kosher salami up his patootie and liked it. On odd nights in his Georgetown chalet, Edgar would dress up as Mary Todd Lincoln, standing on a chair, reciting the Gettysburg Address by rote, delighting his lover Clyde Tolson.
Cannabis was outlawed federally for any use, including medical, with the passage of the 1970 Controlled Substance Act— CSA.
Richard Nixon was president in 1970.
As Nixon signed the CSA bill in the Oval Office, a bill that would put a shit load of ordinary Americans in jail for possession of a single joint— he smiled broadly, his signature full toothed beaver smile with jowls full of wood chips. Dick was flying high after the signing, so he walked outside to the White House lawn and chomped on a log.
Hunter S. Thompson went head-on with the system from the ages of 13 to 67. He hated Nixon more than any American president saying,
It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children, is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close...
The Thompson versus Nixon fizz was a woeful antibiosis but it spawned Gonzo journalism. Hunter owed Nixon a debt of gratitude.
Henry's Libertarian, Lucia who lived in Cuba most of her life is a Socialist, Summer Wynd didn't care, and Hunter S. Thompson was a Gonzo Socialist.
Libertarianism is a scream for freedom by ordinary people rooted in fear and ill will towards the garrison whose job it is to corral them.
Government contrives to control individuals, who should have the right to exercise sole command over their own lives, and live whatever way they please, so long as they don’t forcibly interfere with the equal right of others.
We are living in a skinner box manipulated by social media, media, and government. If you produce you will be rewarded with assets equivalent to the level and skill of your production.
Outcasts who mutiny because they don't want to produce, don’t care or are mentally ill, end up living on the street or in their Mothers basements.
William Burroughs put it this way,
Citizens are like bulls in the ring charging the cloth. That is what government is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaching him to follow and obey the cloth.
It’s boarding time at Puerto Vallarta International Airpot. Henry, Lucia, and Summer Wynd wait until the other passengers board, then walk through the airbridge to the stern of the jet, sitting next to one another in the last row of seats and buckling up.
The 737 taxis to the runway, the pilot, who's half in the bag, pushes the throttle forward with gusto, imagining he's in a drag race.
With the power of a dragster, the jet speeds down the runway, hitting speed bumps that cause the plane to clatter. Then, lifting with aerial grace into the clouds. Summer Wynd is petrified, holding Lucia’s hand throughout the take-off and saying,
thank God some part of the plane didn’t fall off. Jets are held together by tiny rivets no bigger than screws, rubber, and glue. Luckily, we’re sitting in the last row, I read in The Village Voice or Popular Mechanics, one, that the last row is safest. Henry and Lucia roar with laughter, and he says,
I’ll tell you this, if the plane goes down, as the passengers are doing their Mia Culpas, I’ll go to the galley and down as many miniatures as I can and then lift up the stewy’s dress and cop a feel. Lucia can’t believe what she’s hearing, saying to him,
for a gringo writer, you say the dumbest shit! Do you have an intelligent switch you turn on when you write and turn off when you’re with us?
Drinks are served, The threesome orders 6 miniature bottles of tequila, paying through the nose because they’re in coach.
By 4 PM the plane lands at Key West International Airport. The tribe deplanes last.
At customs, a dope sniffing dog whose name is Sleuth hustles to Summer Wynd, putting his nose up to her crotch, barking once. She says to Sleuth's handler,
oh, nasty boy, he likes the smell of my bloody Tampax, isn't that cute?
The customs agents, all men, don't want to be bothered with it and let her pass.
Outside the airport at a payphone, she calls Gay Johnson, who she had taught dance with at The Martha Graham Dance Studio in Key West asking,
darling, can you pick us up at the airport? Gay's queer, Black and a dancer, he answers pleasantly,
of course dear, where'd ya go? By the way, your job is waiting for you if you want it? She answers,
I contracted for a month with the New York City Ballet to dance Candide. I’d love to teach again, Gay answers,
that’s marvelous darling, see you in a jiff, love you!
The tribe waits on the sidewalk of the departure area, Gay Johnson shows 20 minutes later driving a powder blue Volvo wagon. The car is on the list of the top 10 automobiles driven by gays and lesbians. You have to wonder, who put the list together and why?
Is there a need in the world to compile The Guinness World Book of Records and Ripley’s Believe it or Not?
Maybe, there's a bit of idiot savant in all of us, and of course, the freak show sells.
In minutes Gay drops the tribe off at their bungalow on Cypress Ave, fortunately, it’s still there, Summer Wynd tells her friend,
Thank you, Gay, let’s get together for dinner soon, bring your partner!
Lucia lifts the straw mat at the door on the porch of the bungalow, where the house key is hidden. A dumb place to hide a key and the first spot a burglar would look.
Inside the living room, all 3 of them say, practically in unison,
it’s good to be home.
They bring their bags inside and throw them on the bed. Henry grabs his car keys off a rack in the kitchen, goes outside, and gets into his 73 Chevy Malibu wagon, putting the ignition key into the lock switch, hoping it'll start.
The engine stalls, but the battery has plenty of juice. He gets out of the car and goes to the garage, grabbing a can of a starting fluid from an old wooden shelf. The shit is called JET FUEL, a favorite inebriate of Bowery bums.
Outside, he lifts the Chevy’s hood, taking off the18 inch air filter and spritzing some JET FUEL in, then replacing the filter and closing the hood.
Inside the wagon, he turns the lock switch to start and pushes the gas pedal down slightly, the engine roars.
As the engine idles, he yells out the driver's side window to the girls who are in the house,
come on let’s pick up the babies at The Pet Resort!
The tribe piles into the 73 Malibu wagon, it takes 15 minutes to reach The Pet Resort. Henry parks in the front, they feel a rush of excitement as they get out of the car.
At the front desk, Summer Wynd asks,
we’re here to pick up our Chihuahuas, Che and Mia, and Pedro the woodpecker, how are they? The attendant, a lady wearing an apron that reads,
THE PET RESORT
BABY CARE FOR YOUR PETS!
Says,
Your babies are fine, the Chis swam in the pool every day, and, occasionally, Pedro flew the coop. We figured he needed to peck on trees, but he always came back, he’s attached to the Chis.
Che and Mia run from the back of The Pet Resort at rapid speed, quivering, full of joy as they see Henry, Lucia, and Summer Wynd. Then, Pedro, the woodpecker flies to Lucia, landing on her shoulder and stroking her hair with his beak, as if he was grooming her or searching for bugs to eat.
Henry pays the balance due, a hefty sum, and they all get into the Malibu wagon, Pedro’s still perched on Lucia’s shoulder.
Back at the bungalow in the kitchen, Lucia cooks chicken with rice for the Chis and places a bowl of shelled sunflower seeds and fruit on a tabletop for Pedro the woodpecker who has already flown the coop.
Henry decides to order Chinese food from Flower Drum Cantonese in downtown Key West. The tribe will eat as they watch cable TV.
He dials Flower Drum Cantonese, an older Chinese man answers saying,
Wu here, can I help you? Henry goes on,
Wu, let me see? How about some fried rice, orange duck, egg rolls, wonton soup, and sweet and sour pork?
Everyone is relaxing in the living room and they're on their second pitcher of mojitos, the doorbell rings, Summer Wynd yells,
come in the doors open!
It’s Charlie Wu, 1 of 2 brothers who run Flower Drum Cantonese. He hands the warm bags of Chinese food to Lucia who places them on a wooden cable spool that serves as a coffee table. Wu says,
I’m Wu from Flower Drum Cantonese, thank you, enjoy dinner. Henry answers,
How bout a drink Wu? How much do we owe ya? Wu answers,
$33.95, Wu works, no fun time, our family work every minute day and night. Henry chuckles saying,
we foreign devils play all day, then we drink and screw all night. Wu chuckles saying,
you happy hippies!
Henry pays him and Wu heads back to the plantation.
The tribe eats like New Yorkers, with chopsticks out of takeaway oyster pails.
Lucia turns on the TV, HBO’s showing the film 1984, based on George Orwell's novel, which he insisted wasn’t futuristic, but, was about the time he wrote it— England’s desolate years after WW2 when Brits were hungry and food was still being rationed.
When Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, he had a hideous vision, thinking— as Hitlerism decayed into the ashes of WW2, Stalinism and capitalism would become one in a world of centralism, consequently, the planet would become a vast dystopian society where conformity was ordained with media brainwash and the heavy hand of the garrison.
The backdrop of 1984 is a black bomb shredded city like Berlin after WW2, rooms coated with grey slim, furnished with broken down spring beds without mattresses.
Big Brother wears a fascist tunic as he reads the state's vision from a censored script, phony news about a phony war transmitted to tubed TVs throughout Oceania.
The state spies on the industrial working class, who are required to watch the only TV station, through hidden cameras in the Prole's rooms as Big Brother TV transmits signal.
1984 opens as Winston Smith, played by John Hurt, who's stick-thin, looking soiled and pale as though he will drop dead any minute, is working in a box-like cubicle rewriting history to fit the party line for the Ministry of Truth.
One day as Winston treks through the idyllic countryside he meets a fellow member of the impotent and artificial middle class or Proles, a vixen named Julia and of course, they fall in love.
Winston rents a room over a pawn shop which is unique because there’s no surveillance. During their free time, the couple has sex and discusses taboo subjects which are banned by Big Brother, topics such as love, freedom, abstract art, and jazz.
The Prole lover's surreptitious affair comes to an abrupt end one night when their room is raided by the Thought Police and they are arrested.
Winston is sent to the Ministry of Love, where he’s brainwashed to think right by O’Brien, played by Richard Burton, who looks awful in the film, dying in real life a few months later.
Winston’s psychological resistance to O'Brien's brainwashing earns him a stay in room 101. Where nonconformists must fall in with the party line or be forced to confront the thing they fear the most— for Winston it's rats!
He's locked up in a room full of wild rats and the torture does the trick. He becomes single-minded, adhering to the party line. No longer double thinking he goes back to work at the Ministry of Truth. Lucia asks Henry,
what kind of film is this? I lived in Cuba all my life, gringos think it's a totalitarian state, but, we're free to fuck, drink, and dance, we just keep our mouths shut about Fidel. Henry explains 1984 to her.
It’s a film from the head of a writer who was on the edge because he fears the dominion of world governments over their citizens. As a Libertarian, I agree with Orwell. Summer Wynd not buying it says,
cut the bullshit Henry, you’re a hedonist who hasn’t filed taxes in 10 years. Do you think claiming to be a Libertarian justifies being a tax dodger?
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