A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE SET OF THE NEW TOOL VIDEO,
OR,
THE TERRORIST FROM THE GREEN CATHEDRAL

"...Something quite unpleasant happened today. On Friday the postman delivered a postcard on which you had marked some obscenities about Texas and about Bush. The postman told me that any mail showing anything hostile had to be reported immediately to the FBI. I thought he was joking. He told me that he was not joking at all. I told him it was from my son and while I did not approve, I was not going to bring that up to the FBI. He said to me 'We did it already!, we had to, we had no choice.' Your mother did not believe me, but today while she was at a church luncheon I had two gentlemen at the door. They spent over an hour with me. It was, I think, amicable. They presented me with the problem. I told them I knew why they were here, told them the postman had informed me already. I told them you never know how children react sometimes, but that Alex had only bad memories of Texas and simply hates it. He is a confirmed Democrat and his remark about Bush was to annoy me and whoever in Texas saw the card, and particularly his Republican, pro-establishment law enforcement brother. I told them that I had indeed another son who was a policeman in ******* and this made a tremendous difference to them. It seemed to appease them... thank God for small favors. I told them that you were an artist, a free spirit and your mind worked on a different level. One of them seems to appreciate art and he thought your picture was beautiful, which I also think it is by the way... He told me that they had to investigate ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING AND NOTHING WAS TOO SMALL, because terrorism can be home grown too like the anthrax problem, which they pretty much admitted was not Bin Ladin related... They asked me my telephone number, your telephone number which I told them I did not know as my wife was more in contact with you than I was... my e-mail and your e-mail which I did not remember either... I asked them their number to give them the info when your mother would return... they gave me their cards and they said they did not think it was worth passing the information on to *** *****, but to warn you not to be careless if you want to enjoy the outside world. NOW THEY DETAIN PEOPLE FOR THE LEAST SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR... They wanted to know your age, if you were married, engaged, who you went out with, any suspicious friends I would know of? I told them we only see you twice a year, and saw you in October in Los Angeles."

Alex had been sent by Adam Jones to pick me up and drive me to the set where the new Tool video was being shot. (NOTE: I was to serve as a consultant of sorts for a particular series of shots. Although I can’t reveal any details about the video (it is Tool after all), from what I saw at the various locations, and considering some of the other people involved, this appears to be the most ambitious of the numerous videos directed by AJ, and, so far as videos go, could be considered epic). While on the way to the location, I found out that Alex was a friend of Adam and some other people involved with the video, having also worked on “Aenima.” I noticed that he had what a Hollywood casting director would call the classic surfer look, and soon found out that indeed Alex was a surfer, having just stepped from the green cathedrals of Costa Rica to spend a month working (detoxing) on the video.

Between critical sessions in the waves and getting festive on balmy tropical nights, Alex was an artist and made his living painting surf boards. As he told me this he showed me a postcard of an art exhibition that featured his work. He then told me about the markings he wrote on the card he mailed to his folks. This consisted of a f*** Bush, and f*** Texas. And that’s when the feds got involved.

The reason I posted the e-mail (with Alex’s permission) was to assure my readers that everything’s definitely UNDER CONTROL. Although the suits may have been asleep at the switch prior to the events of 911 (this despite their Starbucks fix), it’s evident from the e-mail that they’re now working around the clock to fight against terrorism and preserve those freedoms we Americans cherish so dearly. I don’t know about you, but after reading the e-mail, I certainly feel better about the way the government is spending my tax dollars. So now let’s take a good look at what six months ago would have been a harmless piece of artwork, but what recently so alarmed those close-cropped, hotel-barbered FBI heads.

At the bottom of the postcard we have the skyline of a city. Perhaps an American city, perhaps even NYC (without its famous twin towers) - so thought the agents in charge of the case. Rising from the city, according to the FBI, were faces in a reddish-orange conflagration - these being the very souls of those killed in the attack on America (although one of them looks a bit like Homer Simpson). Next we have a middle-eastern figure. To my untrained eye this looks distinctly Indian, like a cross between the famous statuettes of Kali (with her multiple arms) and a blue Tara the Savioress, but not to those FBI agents from Texas. Blue or not, this is middle eastern. How the six DJ turntables fit into their Jihad imagery of a terrorist I don’t know - but I’ll bet they’ve figured it out at the bureau. If the painting on the front of the card wasn’t damning enough, the back truly sent red flags up the pole. One of the e-mail addresses of the surfer-artist was destroyallmonsters@hotmail.com. This evidently referred to the terrorists desire to destroy the evil Satan that is America. The other e-mail address was 911art.com! With all that, the terrorist in question was stupid enough to write f*** Bush and f*** Texas on the card in bold red ink! You would think by now that most people know how the FBI feels about someone causing a stir in Texas. Yet, the e-mail from Alex’s parents said that the hour spent with the agents was “amicable”, so I guess this time they didn’t knock on the door with flame-throwing tanks.

Personally, I’d like to praise the alert mail carrier as well as the FBI agents involved. Before this happened, I must admit that I never thought of surfers as terrorists. But now things are beginning to make more sense - things I remember some of those young surf-rebels saying when I lived up in Santa Barbara. In fact, I once remember this guy pointing to the Channel islands that were faintly visible in the distance. While doing so, he said to his surfer bud: “Dude, it’s gonna be another burgery (flat) summer. They’re gonna kill anything decent out of the south. So, it flashed on me the other day - wouldn’t it be great if one of those missiles from Vandenberg - a NUKE - would go off course and totally atomize the Channel Islands.” I’ll never forget the look on his face. He seemed fiendishly pleased as he scratched his ill-shaven chin.

This surfer claimed to be a “Petroleum Transfer Engineer.” Even though his friend said that this meant that he “pumped gas at a gas station for gas money” I now believe different. There is more. The use of the term “assassin” - those new fish that drop in on a fellow surfer as he is about to carve up a wave. What do they REALLY mean when describing this wave-clogging, dropping-in little shit? These surfers have hocused (meaning tricked in the code known as surfer baffle-gab) the feds for long enough. Many are terrorists in disguise. With this in mind, to “throw some spray” takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? And now we know why they travel to so many exotic locals. Whether doing “a dance with death” in Hawaii, or “addressing the gods” in Australia, it’s not just to hunt unridden surf. And what about all the surfers in the middle east? Ever heard surfers use the term “intense sparkle factor?” What do you think they’re talking about? So the next time you’re about to board a plane, don’t just look for beards and turbans (you profilers), look for treads and day-glo trunks (stained with the ejecta of some Daisy Fuentes wet-dream), look for the blond hair and blue eyes of a goddamn trust-fund surfer. They’re all around us, focking haoles dominating all the primo “tube” chips.

“Surfers” and others interested in Alex’s art may contact him at the e-mail address given.

What, did you think I was making this stuff up?

E-MAIL

“... I am by no means an avid follower of sports, but I just read your latest online newsletter and I couldn’t help but notice your comment about the Patriot/Raider game being called badly... Maybe I am seeing this simply because I want to see it, but it looks like some group of people really wanted the Patriots to win the superbowl. Goodness, I sure hope it wasn’t with the intent of demonstrating subliminal patriotism in the wake of the 9-11 tragedy...”

And...

“At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I have to wonder if this past season was somehow contorted into the long-shot conclusion we all witnessed last weekend. The thought first occurred to me when a friend of mine mentioned how fortunate it was for a team called the Patriots to be NFL champions just after the most tragic of attacks on the US. It does seem a bit odd that a team that has been counted out by virtually everyone, save Patriots fans, managed to overcome such great odds with a second year, second string QB, and win what was one of the closest Super Bowls in history in the final seconds. This revelation forced me to look into some of the things that happened earlier in the season to see if a caper of this magnitude could actually be pulled off.

Evidence A- We all know about the crap call that changed the course of the game vs. Oakland. What’s really interesting is the fact that not a single penalty was called on New England during the entire game. Also consider the fact that not a single penalty was called on the Jets the week before while playing Oakland. Could this be a coincidence? Could this be a slap in the face of Al Davis which has, as everyone knows, always been crossways with the league? Or was it an attempt to change the outcome of the games all together to allow the Patriots to advance?

Evidence B- The Patriots begin their season 0-2 under the helm of Drew Bledsoe. Then a couple of planes run into the WTC, one into the Pentagon, another goes down in PA., and Bledsoe suffers an odd inner-body injury on what seems to be a harmless hit. The Patriots then go on an amazing 11-2 warpath under Tom Brady, an inexperienced backup QB.

It seems to me that if you’re going to try to sell a complete turn-around to the American people, a major change in the line-up would be necessary. A different QB would be different enough...”

I wouldn’t have believed such a thing, but now, after what happened with the Olympics, you never know. And speaking of the Olympic games, I saw a clip in which a leader in the Mormon Church said that the LDS was one of the fastest growing religions in the world. The beautiful thing about this is that the Mormon Church, as pointed out by some UFO researchers, was probably started due to a technological glitch by an extraterrestrial/extradimensional intelligence. This has to do with founder Joseph Smith’s visions of the angel Moroni who appeared in a radiant beam of light “three times the same night and unfolded these things.” The date was September 21, 1823 when the heavenly apparition (holograph?) evidently disappeared mid-sentence, only to reappear shortly later REPEATING EXACTLY the same words. This occurred at least three times, keeping the young farm boy up all night so that he couldn’t even finish his chores the next day. You’ll have to admit there is something humorous about a malfunctioning “angel” that inspired a major and ever-growing religious movement. And to give the Mormon religion an even more sci-fi flavor, the “Book of Mormon” itself was allegedly translated from engraved gold plates that were unearthed as per the shining being’s instructions. Could this be why the Church of Rome once stated that Mormon baptisms were not valid?

(NOTE: These plates are somewhat similar to the Dropa Stones discovered in China and said to be of extraterrestrial origin. Recently, our own Camella Grace traveled to China to check out, among other things, the elusive artifacts of Bayan Kara Ula. I will write about her adventures in a future issue.)

COMING IN THREE WEEKS:

“2416175”
Two years of unusual coincidences and the mysterious events surrounding the making of the video for “FAAIP DE OIAD.” (NOTE: This is NOT the new Tool video, but was to be and may still be a special video released on a future DVD.)

Also, coming in the March newsletter:

A SUGGESTIVE INQUIRY INTO AL-KHEM-ICAL VINEYARDS
with MJK.

‘Till then, ALOKE and I want to thank everyone for coming to see SWATI play at the Temple Bar, especially the “Shakkti” with the long brown wavy hair and Tool tattoo on her butt. We hope to see all of you again the next time he plays in Southern Kali-fornia.

And finally, my favorite e-mail - sent to us by Olivier: