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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu
We're in a war with the hedge funds and with wallstreet and basically the root of corruption in America with our GME short squeeze proxy war, and if you autists want to win this war, you need to know the enemy, and know yourself.Firstly, education is KEY, so if you're new, you DEFINITELY need to go learn at least what a short squeeze is and a short ladder attack is.
What the enemy is doing:

1. Price manipulation: With short ladder attacks, they use high frequency trading to make the price artificially lower.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la4pji/gme_volume_still_low_with_positive_cmf_which/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la5updont_panic_and_just_look_at_the_fucking_volume/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/laak53/for_those_of_you_getting_scared_look_at_that_tiny/This can be seen with sizeable price movements that have tiny amounts of volume. There are several reasons why they are doing this:
   1. Scare off paper hand bitches: They prey on people who jumped on GME without even knowing what a short squeeze is; they see price fall, they paper hands and they get out.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la6vcb/wall_street_plan_trying_to_psychologically_scare/
   2. Make it cheaper for them to cover their more costly short positions.
   3. Price manipulation will fail ultimately because while they are able to drive prices lower with their short attacks, when they eventually have to cover their short positions and buy, they will again drive prices up due to purchases of almost none existing stock (cuz we be holding), sending prices up as high as before they shorted or even higher. All the while hedge funds will continue to eat fees and interest on their short positions, making this cycle not doable indefinitely.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la7bhj/gme_mms_have_until_tomorrow_22_to_buy_shares_it/
2. Media manipulation
   1. Most if not all American main stream media is clearly serving corporate and wallstreet interests, simply by the false narratives they are reporting.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la1022/hmmm/They are not to be trusted and if seen, can dishearten and shake the will of those who don't have diamond hands. Best to avoid if you are a paper handed bitch. Some examples of false narratives are:
      1. Reddit is made up of alt-rights, or idiots, or gamblers, etc. -> We're not idiots, because we're the ones who were able to grab wallstreet by the nutsack. We're retards and autists who love the stock and the company. That is all.
      2. Reddit is moving on to silver. -> SILVER CANNOT BE SQUEEZED!!!!! With a market cap of more than $1.5 Trillion, there is NO WAY for retail investors to be able to make a dent in that. The only possible short squeeze play is GME because it's a small cap company with a market cap of only $250 million as of July 2020, so it is definitely doable for a bunch of retards on WSB to affect the price of a small cap company stock. Literally all the posts on reddit promoting SLVR are from bot accounts that have sus creation dates and karma and post counts. Plus, Citadel owns a giant amount of silver so silver prices going up higher is gonna benefit them and give them more fuel to fight this GME war. You're shooting yourself int eh foot if you buy SLVR. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la1xhf/guess_who_owns_tonnes_of_slv_options_fuck_citadel/
      3. "XXX IS THE NEXT GME" -> This is also a false narrative. NOTHING can be the next GME, because NOTHING is shorted as much as GME, which is STILL over 100% shorted. GME IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY GAIN FOR US, AND LOSS FOR THEM!
      4. Shorts have covered their position. -> Another false narrative. Short interest is still over at 100%, and there are multiple WSB posts that explain this. Another metric that correlates to short interest is cost of borrowing for opening short positions, which would increase if it is harder to find shares to short.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/la7d94/no_more_shares_to_short/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/laaai8/gme_short_interest_is_currently_sitting_at_12297/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l5d6sk/gme_short_interest_increased_to_7141m_after_jan/
3. Breaking the law: Some if not all of the things posted above are pretty much border line illegal, but there has been clear signs of breaking the law and market manipulation, IE: freeze buying of select stocks and only allow for selling. They can spin it however they want, but as far as I know, it has been unprecedented for a majority of brokerages to simultaneously alter the way a stock can be traded with cash. And if the situation is desparate enough, they'll break the law again and again if it ends up costing them less than to just let the price get to $69.420. Expect them to fight dirty until the bitter end.
4. Social Media Manipulation: Hedge Funds now employ bots to spread doubt and misinformation in order to weaken your hands. Some places they target is WSB itself, other stock trading subreddits, facebook, and on sites / apps like Webull and Yahoo Finance. Don't believe in random comments. Always believe in WSB posts with huge amounts of likes (top posts are vetted by the 8 mil users here / by mods too to make sure they're factual)https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/lafh4d/in_case_you_needed_proof_that_there_are_imposters/
5. Their Current Strategy: Wallstreet calls us "dumb money", because they think we are unsophisticated and just chase after a quick buck, and we have short attention spans. They'll try and continue to manipulate the price so that the stock will trade sideways, or continuous short ladder attacks, trying to scare paper hands into selling, and bore diamond hands into selling as well. They will also try to tempt us with other "NEXT GME" type plays and may even artificially raise prices of a stock or two (IE: SILVER) to try and get people to hop off the GME rocket. They'll use media to continue to push narratives that the GME short squeeze is over, short positions are covered, and redditors have moved onto something else. If this fails, then they may simulate a "SQUEEZE" by suddenly letting the price go up to $700 or $800, then unleash a short ladder attack unlike which we have ever seen, to simulate the sell off, so idiot retards will be scared into thinking they missed the top, so they will all sell. But if people just look at the volume, they'll know it's all a ruse.

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What we're doing, our advantage, and why the enemy can't win.

1. This is a movement: This has become more than a few people of a subreddit trying to make a quickbuck off of a short squeeze. This has become a movement that represents the struggle between the corruption of wallstreet and the 1% vs the 99%, the common people. News agencies from all over the globe are reporting on this and have their eyes on this. We have ape brothers and sisters all over the world buying and holding this stock together. We even have a few outspoken whales on our side as well, as well as politicians from both sides of the spectrum speaking out for our side as well. We have billboards being bought all over the country, airplanes flying banners about GME. A global movement will crush any hedge fund.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l5mt6n/gme_short_squeeze_the_whales_have_arrived/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l9qtey/kjetill_stjerne_is_da_real_mvp_he_his_friends_are/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l8rf4k/times_square_right_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
2. We are holding, and we're continuing to buy: We are getting smarter, tougher, and slowly but surely paper hands are turning into diamond hands. We managed to hold during the short attack to ~$110 on Thursday, and that was when they froze our ability to buy across many brokerages. They will never have another chance to do this again now with everyone watching. The volume trading these days is getting smaller and smaller. Any price decrease is strictly from short ladder attacks, and not us selling, due to tiny tiny volumes. Also, we are continuing to buy calls on GME to increase upward pressure. No one here has stopped buying. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/labvei/volume_is_low_dont_believe_the_news_no_one_is/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l83ctf/the_volume_of_gme_has_plummeted_the_past_few_days/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/lagd2m/millions_in_gme_calls_bought_today_at_800_hold/
3. Nuclear Bomb still undetonated*:* Short Squeeze still coming, it hasn't happened yet. We know this because the volume of shares bought is not nearly enough to show the shorts have bought enough to be covered.https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l1q9hy/l2_nyse_quotes_for_gme_volume_the_squeeze_hasnt/https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l66kcl/gme_volume_is_low_shorts_arent_covering_hold/
4. Enemy loses money everyday, we don't: It costs the hedge funds billions to continue to fight this war of attrition becauase they continue to eat insanely high fees and interest on their short positions because the cost of borrowing remains high because the short interest are remaining high. Melvin down over 50% just this month alone. You think they can hold on much longer and keep eating fees?https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/labq1a/this_is_so_satisfying_to_look_at/Meanwhile we don't have to pay anything for holding our stocks. We can literally just hold and not have a short squeeze and just from the cost of borrowing alone the hedge funds will run out of money, so that's why there will come a time where it's cheaper for them to cover their positions rather than just keep on bleeding until they die out. I don't think they can hold out for another month of trading sideways with no progress. I believe in Feb we will see some major action. It could even start as early as tomorrow, because that's the last day shorts have to cover their 1/29 puts that expired.
5. We're not breaking the laws, they are: Recent rumor mills are saying that there are a lot of counterfit stocks circulating and the hedge funds and clearing houses are all in on it, and once they need to start to find shares to buy to cover their short positions, things are going to explode in a way that is unprecedented. Basically by taking advantage of a situation wallstreet has set up (insane short interest set up for short squeeze) we may have uncovered one of the biggest financial crimes in the history of the stock market. You bet that the government and SEC will be involved soon if this is true, and things will explode to the stratosphere. Read the following and ponder yourself, I'm not a financial advisor, just a dumb ape. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l97ykd/the_real_reason_wall_street_is_terrified_of_the/https://www.reddit.com/usebcRIPstecomments/labq6u/follow_the_crumbs_gme_exposed_the_meta/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
6. We're getting smarter: Everyday we get new DD on WSB and more and more people are reading these DD's and understand how to diamond hands, and can now filter out fake news from mainstream media. We've just hit 8 mil subs; our subs are going exponential. We've recovered from the RH fiasco and we're primed and loaded on other brokerages like Fidelity. We are more ready than EVER to continue this war and this fight.
7. An Ape's Move this week: Again, not financial advice, but hypothetically if there was an autistic ape, the autistic ape would buy the dips, ESPECIALLY at this insane discount price of around $100. The autistic ape knows that basically it is paying $100 for a ticket to ride the GME train past $1k, easily 10x their bananas. Those apes who bought in at $300 will only get to 3x their bananas at the end of the month. The autistic apes will also understand that this is not a 1 day thing, but the events leading up to the squeeze can take weeks. But the autistic ape will ask itself, is it willing to wait a few weeks to at least 3x their bananas? Most apes will answer yes. But the ape knows if they buy it, they should be prepared to see red in their banana tracker for a month. But those red number are just fake numbers generated by HFT short ladder attacks, and not due to other apes actually selling their bananas, because apes together STRONK.

TL;DR = 💎🙌 🐵 = 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🌙PS: You only lose if you sell. Stock stays down for a month, then rockets up in March = no loss, only historical profits for retail investors.

I'm sure some of you, like me, follow WSB and other places, if for nothing more than entertainment. It got me thinking about Gamestop today. I'm mildly annoyed with myself that I didn't do the legwork to understand it when I looked at it in 2019. Being the lazy person I am I saw eh, weak/negative earnings history, outdated business model, and didn't put any more effort into it. I typically don't pay any attention to short percentages. The concepts in play aren't especially hard to understand, and when at that time it was in the $2-5 range it was not unreasonable to think it had a lot more upside than downside, especially with the console cycle coming, even without the benefit of the short pressure.
I'm not much into these kinda of asymmetric longshots with potentially huge upsides, because they tend to get into distributions, probabilities, long-tails, the weakness in black-scholes, all that jazz. I get it on a macro concept level but my math skills revolt and my brain ends up saying too hard, too easy for you to be wrong, leave it alone. Looking back when Gamestop was at $2 with the balance sheet strength it had left and the amount it was shorted at the time, this was a real wide-margin intelligent speculation. A speculation, but one with heaps of implied upside. Whether I could have held on throughout the unknowns of the pandemic, I don't know. And if congress hadn't acted or the fed acted differently, who knows. The outcome could have been very different.
But now is a very different story. The stock isn't $2 anymore, it's $100 or $200, depending which minute of the day your ticker updates. The proposition has changed, not just for the next speculator looking to buy in, but every earlier speculator who already took a position.
So what's a person to do who did take a flyer and gamble on it, or recognized the opportunity early and levied an intelligent speculation? How do you decide when it's time to cash your golden ticket and call your accountant. This is a classic prisoner's dilemma. Assuming the float reported is still accurate, and there is more than 100% of the outstanding shares sold short, then naked short selling has occurred and the short positions are really in the ditch. Last report I read, shorts borrowed several billion dollars to meet margin requirements and pray the GME holders flinch soon.
Logically there has to be a ceiling, some price at which the last dollar is be extracted from the richest short seller, after which their lender of last resort has refused, and the bankruptcy's begin. Price appreciation beyond this is simply the greater fool chasing a story. I don't think there's a way to determine this empirically, since even if you could get all the necessary numbers and guarantee they were accurate, and you could nail down appropriate probabilities and the accompanying profit margins from each scenario, this involves not only a lot of human psychology but a good deal of politics, propaganda, lawyerly wrangling and the potential for backroom dealings. Not exactly the stuff of certainty or traditional value investing, but fascinating (to me, at least) as a spectator. This is a prisoner's dilemma.
Every person who now owns GME long is a prisoner, and every short seller is a prison guard. As long as the prisoners stick together, up to the limit of bankrupting the collective short sellers the squeeze should continue and increase the collective payout. But as soon as the guards are able to flip a big enough holder or enough small holders to knock over that first domino, the formula tips and the second domino caves in, and so on down the line. This is the basis of the theory Malcolm Gladwell outlined in The Tipping Point. So each holder has to consider his or her own selfish interest of cashing out now before that occurs, versus the risk/reward of betting that the group isn't going to tip yet and staying in for a greater amount of price pressure upward, hoping they aren't left to catch a falling knife later.
When is it going to tip, at what price, and how much yoyo action might occur in the meantime, before the final short is settled. I wouldn't even pretend to try and model this. That's Nassim Taleb territory, higher probability mathematics. I'd be fascinated to read about it, but not my bag.
It did get me thinking about options. Is there an opportunity to buy a put option cheaply right now, which might possibly be priced very improperly at this moment. I don't know if one month is far enough out, but things seem to be moving reasonably fast now, so perhaps the dust is settled by then. If you could spend cheaply enough to buy a put option to sell at say $50 a month from now would that constitute a intelligent asymmetrical bet? At some point the shorts will either be liquidated or cover, the "ryan cohen" die-hard believers may stay for the turn around story, but the price pressure is off and all the gamblers start heading for the exits so they can participate in the next gamble. The prisoner's dilemma domino's will start falling. Even if the price eventually settled higher, the downward swing might very well spike down well below $50, or less, during this time.
Looking at cnbc's put options for Feb and March the answer for me was no. Prices look too high for comfort, a lot of people smarter than me have probably already considered this and driven the price up, perhaps as hedges or speculations in the same vein as outlined above. I don't have the skill to figure out at $7 if a $40 PUT option one month out is an intelligent speculation to pick up, so for me it would still just be gambling. If that same put was 75 cents, I could accept it's likely at least a smart speculation, and if not it's cheap enough to take a flyer on. At $6 to $7 I can't. Long tails and options are a fascinating world. Shame I didn't pay more attention in math class.
Curious who else has been ruminating on this, if you have any other perspectives.

I’ve been a cop for a little over 15 years now... damn, time really flies. I grew up in this town knowing my mailmen by name, going to the farmers market on Saturdays for my vegetables, and actually attending our monthly town halls- it’s quite the small town life. My rookie year on the job for the most part involved DUI arrests of the same five guys and traffic control for local parades. However, one night I was driving down the road and noticed a red reflector in the bushes on the side of the road. I eased my foot off my gas and coasted towards the light before realizing it was a laid down motorcycle. A second later, I saw the lifeless body around the guardrail.
My heart sunk to my floorboards as I slammed on my brake and came to a screeching halt. I jumped on my radio as I leapt out from the car, “112 Alpha to Base. I’m out on Route 76 with a motorcyclist who is unresponsive. Send medics and backup.”
I didn’t need to check his vitals to see he was unresponsive. His body was ripped to shreds. The guard rail did less guarding, but rather acted like a cheese grater against his fragile skin. His jeans were ripped apart as easily as paper. The image is still ingrained in my mind when I close my eyes.
It was quickly apparent there was nothing I could do to help him. In a matter of minutes two additional officers and medics arrived on scene. I was surprised the medics didn’t announce time of death on scene but instead hauled the body on to their gurney and hurriedly drove away.
Since I was first on scene, I took the report. We got notification that our John Doe didn’t survive and we treated it as a death scene. By the end of an extremely long shift, I still had to identify this guy. I searched his motorcycle and found a wallet in the stow away compartment. Jason Dunes. He was only 22 years old and came from a nice part of town.
My Sergeant tasked me with notifying next of kin so after tracking down this guy’s parents, I started the drive to their house. Ugh, notifications are one of the worst parts of this job. His parents were heart broken and assured me that he would never drink and drive and absolutely did not use any drugs. They were so persistent that he was so cautious and safe on his bike, they pushed and pushed to make sure we did our jobs correctly.
I couldn’t get their persistence out of my head and my instincts told me I was missing something. I went back to the scene and drove a few miles down Route 76. I proceeded through a green light, past the accident scene, and slowed down around the appearing neighborhood. I skimmed the houses and noticed one with a huge spotlight and... could it be? A camera!
I knocked on the door and an older man in his robe answered. “Now, what’s with the ruckus, officer?”
I explained to him that there was an accident and I noticed he had a camera outside of his home. “Does your camera reach the street?”
“You bet it does! I’ve had my mailbox hit three times now and I wanna make sure the damn city pays for it when it’s their dump trucks!”
I was able to get a copy of the tape and as I drove back to the station, I approached the traffic light again. Despite the green light, I slowed down. Again, I looked around and saw there was a camera.
With much legal effort that I won’t bore you with, I got that footage too. I watched as Jason drove his motorcycle through the intersection, followed by an older blue pickup truck. Then, a few minutes later, I watch the older man’s footage and see the blue pick up truck- no motorcycle. I rewind it and slow it down. The truck had a broken headlight. I jumped back to the traffic light footage and saw the truck had not one, but TWO headlights.
This was a hit and run. I immediately took the evidence to my Sergeant, who subsequently took it to our Chief. They thanked me for my police work but said they would take it from there. Again, I was a rookie cop at the time and wasn’t surprised they didn’t want me to take lead on a death investigation.
I tried to follow up and all they said was that it was untraceable and they never found the blue truck, so it just wasn’t going to be solved.
This is where things get weird.
I’ve been working our front desk for the past few weeks while I heal from some minor shoulder surgery. A woman came into the station today and asked for the police report for Jason Dunes’ accident in 2005.
“His accident was November 14th, 2005,” she clarified.
“Wow, I was actually on that call. Was that your son?”
The woman gently closed her eyes and nodded her head. “Hard to believe it’s been 15 years.”
She looked much different than I remembered. To be fair, she didn’t seem to recognize me either as being the one who notified her of her son’s death. Perhaps it was my shaggy beard I’ve been growing since working the desk, or perhaps my receding hairline.
“I’m sorry to say, but since it’s still technically an open case, we can’t release the details to the public.”
“I’m not the public, I’m his mother!” She attested.
I sympathized for the woman, truly. I suggested, “You should have access to the official Coroner’s report if that could be of help to you.”
She huffed. “I already tried that first. They had no record of my son and told me to obtain the police report to see if that would help them with locating his autopsy report.”
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll have to talk to my Chief, but maybe we can try to help you sort this out.”
She appreciated my efforts and I handed her my business card. After she left, I logged in to our report system and searched for Dunes, Jason.
No Results.
I tried searching by report date next- 11/14/2005.
No Results.
“What the hell,” I muttered to myself.
I tried nearly ten other search options before finally searching by reporting officer and typed out my name- Gullifty.
9, 872 Results.
I went to the last page and slowly worked my way backwards towards November 14, 2005.
It wasn’t there. I stared at my screen, in shock that the report seemingly went missing.
I stopped in my Chief’s office and told him the entire situation and asked him where the report could have gone.
“Hm. Maybe there was some system glitch or you didn’t enter it right.”
I entered the report right. It was signed off by my Sergeant at the time, who has since retired. I sensed distance and a lack of care from Chief Hawkins. His phone rang and he was quick to shoo me out of his office and closed the door behind me.
I was at a lost of words. I had to call Mrs. Dunes back but I didn’t know what to say.
She answered, “Hello?”
“Hi Mrs. Dunes. This is Officer Gullifty. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get much information on my end either that would help you. I really wish I could help more. I remember the case quite clearly.”
“It’s very frustrating,” she responded. “I’m honestly relieved to hear you at least say you remember him. Everyone else treats me like I’m crazy and like there was never an accident.”
“I’m sorry, that must be so frustrating. I am curious though, If you don’t mind me asking, what makes you reach out for the reports now, 15 years later?”
I heard her take a deep breath through the phone. “Oh, you’ll think I’m just crazy.”
“Try me.”
“I recently saw a local psychic. I’ve been having a bizarre dream where Jason yells for help and hands me a lottery ticket with letters and numbers on it. I told the psychic all about my dream and she asked me if Jason died in a car accident. I told her yes. She said Jason was trying to solve his murder through my dreams.”
I didn’t want to insult the woman, but I also don’t believe in that bullshit. I just said, “Mhm.”
“Well, I wrote down the numbers and letters that show up in my dreams and asked her what they mean. She stared at the paper and then looked me right in the eyes and said I had written down the license plate of my son’s murderer.”
My natural investigative mind blurted, “Tell me the license plate number.”
Part 2

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            “What I don’t get,” Draevin told Grrbraa as they started off for the arena, “is if the plan is for you to kill Caelnaste if she kills me, then why do you need to follow me around? Wouldn’t it make more sense to follow Caelnaste?”
      Once they passed through the front gates of the human camp and into the chaotic mass of bodies that normally occupied the entirety of the campground Draevin gained a new respect for what the humans had accomplished. Their fortress might have been subpar, but it was a huge step up from the general disorganized sprawl. At least the humans were smart enough to post guards, dig latrines, keep paths clear between tents and arrange an outdoor kitchen and fire pit. The majority of the campers in this section just laid out their tent wherever they found room for it and called it good. He held his nose as he passed more than one stinking sewage-filled hole in the ground.
      “I have to know if you get hurt,” Grrbraa said after thinking about Draevin’s question.
      “I guess so,” Draevin conceded, “but do you even know where Caelnaste is right now?”
      Draevin watched Grrbraa start sniffing the air with his snout until a noise interrupted. “Wait up,” he suddenly heard from behind. Draevin turned to see Sylnya jogging out the front gate of the human camp. “Mind if I walk with you for a bit? I’m going to need to head straight for my match, but Peter said he thought it would be best if we avoided each other until after.”
      “Oh that’s right,” Draevin said. “I forgot you two were facing each other today. Neither of you have said a thing about it.”
      Sylnya pulled out a schedule and handed it over for Draevin to look at.
      “Yeah, we’re up first thing,” she said. “I don’t really know what Peter’s got planning, but there isn’t much for me to do. I’m just going to cast True Sight right away and hope he concedes.”
      “And try not to kill him, of course,” Draevin prompted.
      Sylnya pulled one of the knives at her hip halfway out of its sheath and then put it back. “That’s really up to him. I won’t go out of my way to hurt him, but if he’s going to be a stubborn mule-headed oaf like you I might have to get stabby. The medics can patch him up after.”
      Draevin sucked in a breath between his teeth. “Tough lesson to learn, but it may be what he needs.”
      Sylnya patted her dagger. “Again. His call.”
      “I know her scent,” Grrbraa said.
      Draevin looked back over his shoulder at the hulking werebeast and saw that he was still sniffing the air. “Oh. Caelnaste, right?”
      “Yes,” Grrbraa said. He was staring intently in the direction of the arena and a light red mist had flared up around his nose. “I know her scent and she is that way.” Grrbraa pointed with one claw straight ahead in the direction they were walking, toward the East entrance to the arena.
      If she was actually waiting there Draevin couldn’t be certain. It was much too far to see. “You know what?” Draevin said. “I’ll take your word on that. Why don’t we head to the West entrance instead?” While Draevin adjusted their trajectory, Sylnya continued forward with a tense set to her chin. “Syl, can you not? Worry about her later. For now I say we just keep our distance.”
      She aimed a glare at him. “Fine. But for the record, now is probably the best time to take her before she finds a way to convince Istven to give her back her bow.”
      They continued on their way, reaching the outskirts of the campgrounds and thankfully leaving their stench behind. “That doesn’t seem likely. If anything Istven’s probably planning to keep that thing for himself.”
      Sylnya raised an eyebrow at Draevin. “Since when do you trust that guy?”
      “Since never. But Peter’s right; his goals are pretty simple and understandable. As long as we’re moving contrary to the queen he’ll probably keep helping us out of spite. It’s when we eventually part ways that I’m worried about. We shouldn’t be getting too dependent on him or let him get any more hooks in us in the meantime.”
      “Speak for yourself,” Sylnya said, “some of us aren’t so easily controlled.”
      “What are you looking at me for when we’ve got this doe-eyed puppy with enough power to take out a whole platoon of—”
      “Someone is coming,” Grrbraa rumbled. He stepped forward and let out a low growl. Draevin was thankful not to be on its receiving end.
      Sure enough, a lone figure was headed straight for them down the path skirting the outside perimeter of the arena. Appearing this early and so far from the ticketing counters marked the stranger’s presence as unusual. There weren’t many people following their path, sure, but this was the only person headed in the opposite direction of the crowd. Who would be headed away from the arena when the matches were just getting ready to start? There wasn’t even anything of importance the way they’d come.
      The morning sun was coming in from the East, leaving this side of the arena in shadow. The path was a wide walkway and when the non-descript stranger—an eldrin by the look of his eyes—got close, he waved to them. “Greetings and good morning to you.”
      Grrbraa was still growling. “Afraid my friend here doesn’t like you,” Draevin warned the man. “You might want to give us some space as you go by.”
      “Not to worry, not to worry,” the man said in an excited voice dripping with charisma. “He will soon enough!”
      “Oh?”
      “Oh indeed!” the man said. “I saw your friend there from a ways away and I thought, ‘This is serendipity if I ever saw it!’ You see, I work for Laerder’s Smoked Meats.”
      “Never heard of them,” Draevin replied.
      The man flashed a smile and stepped a little closer. Grrbraa growled a little louder and even his hackles started to rise which was quite the sight to see as it made him look several spans taller. “Lotta fire in this one.” The man reached into a pouch at his side and pulled it from his belt. He drew it open with two fingers and Grrbraa suddenly stopped growling. It was like a switch had been flipped. The werebeast started sniffing the air excitedly. “I got just the thing for him. I know how much these beasts eat and we sell all types of meats.”
      A salesman. “Yeah, we’re good, thanks.” Draevin nudged Grrbraa in the side of the arm but the beast didn’t budge.
      “It smells really good,” Grrbraa whispered to him in a pleading tone.
      “I’ll get you some food later,” Draevin promised. “We’ve got somewhere to be, remember?”
      The man lowered the drawstring to reveal three balls of dried meat. “How’s about a free sample then? I promise once your boy here tries our product he’ll be begging you to buy some more.”
      “Yeah, I’d really rather not deal with that right now,” Draevin insisted. He tried once again to give Grrbraa encouragement to keep moving. As a rule he didn’t like pushy salesmen.
      “What about shadow stalkers?” Sylnya asked. “You got anything special for them?”
      Draevin looked at her like she’d betrayed him but she just rolled her eyes at him and kept her attention on the meat merchant. “Oh, no special formula needed! Any animal as likes its meats will gobble our products right down. We smoke ‘em so they stay fresh for weeks and soak ‘em in a secret glaze… I can’t really say what’s in it without divulging company secrets, but there may or may not be some honey.”
      Sylnya smiled. “That sounds great! I’ll take a free sample.”
      Grrbraa whipped his head around to look at Draevin. “Can I have one too? Please?”
      “Uhh. Grrbraa. I’m not one of your moms, I don’t know why you’re asking for permission.”
      Grrbraa blinked slowly once, then his eyes got wide. “Really?” His tail started flapping uncontrollably. “I want one, please!” he told the merchant.
      Sylnya called Kot with a sharp command and the shadow at her feet started to swirl… then it started to swirl some more. Kot didn’t immediately emerge like he usually did, but Grrbraa and Sylnya didn’t seem to notice. Something felt off to Draevin and he reached for his wand.
      “Fantastic!” the meat merchant said. “I promise, after just one bite you won’t want anything else.” Draevin was about to say something about the swirling shadows at Sylnya’s feet when a lance of solid darkness shot out of them and impaled one of the merchant’s shoulders. “Gaah!” the man cried.
      A dark figure emerged from the ground and congealed into that of an equally dark person with a familiar crown hanging from a chain around his neck.
      Draevin pointed his wand in the newcomer’s direction. “What are you doing here, Istven? And why are you terrorizing this poor merchant?”
      Sylnya stepped back and whipped out a dagger. “And where’s Kot?”
      Istven calmly walked over to the struggling meat merchant. “My my, with friends like this, who needs enemies?”
      “We’re not your friends. I thought we’d been pretty clear about that.”
      Rather than respond, Istven gently took the small packet of meatballs from the merchant and wagged a finger at the man. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. This was very sloppily done.” The eldrin was sweating profusely from the forehead and Draevin was starting to doubt it was entirely due to the pain of the solid shadow impaling his shoulder.
      “What’s this about, Istven? Just because we’ve worked together doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore you assaulting civilians on the street.”
      Istven held up a finger in Draevin’s direction then placed his hand on the merchant’s shoulder. “I will deal with you later,” he told the man. Shadows slithered out from Istven’s feet and coiled around the merchant’s ankles. With the steady pressure of Istven’s hand the man slowly started to lower into the ground and get sucked into a tiny maelstrom of shadows.
      “No, no! I’ll talk!” the man pleaded. “It was just a job. She paid me!”
      “All in due time. All in due time,” Istven told the man as his shoulder and then head disappeared into the darkness. It looked like Istven had just used Shadow Pocket on an entire person, which wasn’t supposed to be possible for a number of reasons, and somehow he hadn’t needed so much as a hand sign. The rapid improvement in Istven’s spell crafting of late was not something Draevin had failed to take note of.
      Once his captive was taken care of, Istven turned back to face the group. “Where the fuck is Kot,” Sylnya repeated. This time though, the shadow stalker dutifully emerged from her shadow like normal and rubbed up against her leg.
      “So sorry,” Istven said. “I had to borrow his portal for a moment. It is very well established. You two certainly have a strong bond.”
      Sylnya merely glared at Istven and stroked her pet’s head when she saw he was fine. “Don’t make a habit of it,” she warned.
      Istven had already turned his attention back to Draevin. “We are not merely ‘working together’ as you so inelegantly stated. Without my Feeder every one of you would be dead right now. You owe me your very lives.”
      “That was you? Peter said—”
      Istven smirked. “Peter? Come now, did you really think a human could buy an eldrin Feeder of such a high caliber?”
      “I…” Draevin couldn’t think of a retort. It actually seemed more than likely that Istven had had a hand in that acquisition now that he mentioned it.
      Istven held up the little pouch of meatballs in Grrbraa’s direction. Though he’d returned to a defensive stance at Istven’s arrival, the meatballs once again got Grrbraa’s tail wagging. “To show I mean no harm,” he said. Rather than take one from the pouch, Istven pulled another meatball out of a front pocket of his shirt and tossed it underhanded to Grrbraa. The werebeast snatched it out of the air.
      “Thank you friend-Istven!”
      “Hey!” Draevin objected. “He’s not your friend, just because he gave you one treat!” Draevin hadn’t noticed precisely when Grrbraa had started calling him “friend-Draevin,” but he liked the way it sounded. So easily using the same title on an eldrin like Istven undermined the significance of it to Draevin.
      Istven held up another treat for Grrbraa. This one from the pouch he’d taken from the merchant. “Do you want this one too?” He asked him.
      “Stop that, you’re spoiling him,” Draevin told Istven. “He just ate breakfast.”
      Istven waved one hand dismissively at Draevin. “Relax elf, I am not trying to spoil him. I am trying to educate him.” He held the second treat out in his hand, lying in his palm. “Do you want this treat too?” He asked Grrbraa again.
      Grrbraa approached cautiously and sniffed at Istven’s outstretched hand. His ears pulled back. “May I please have the treat, friend-Istven?”
      Istven crushed the treat in his hand, dropped it, then ground it into the dirt with his boot. “No,” he told Grrbraa firmly.
      “Hey! That was uncalled for!” Draevin shouted. Grrbraa’s tail stopped wagging and drooped down between his legs. He looked longingly at the remains of the treat.
      “You like those treats?” Istven asked Grrbraa with a sneer. “I bet you do! They use those in Eldesia to train werebeasts. I have seen werebeasts kill a dozen men for just one of those. Is that what you are? A dog who follows orders?” He reached out and grabbed Grrbraa by the snout to force him to lock eyes. Grrbraa let out a threatening growl. “That treat on the ground? It was poisoned!”
      “Wait what?” Draevin said in surprise.
      Grrbraa backed away. “I didn’t—” he started to say.
      “I was waiting in the shadows. Watching. As soon as you left your silly camp Caelnaste suddenly decided this beast needed to be taken off the board,” Istven told them. “Why is that?”
      “Peter told me to—” Grrbraa started to answer.
      Draevin interrupted. “Stop talking! He is not your friend, Grrbraa!”
      Istven smirked at Draevin. “Better,” he said. “Now you are getting it.” He turned back to Grrbraa. “These games are far above you, little dog. You best do as you are told; do not accept treats from strangers.” He looked next to Draevin. “I have better things to do than babysit fools, so try not to fall for something so obvious again.” He backed away from them into the shadow the morning sun was casting against the side of the arena’s outer walls. Without another word he melted into the shadows and disappeared.
      “Master-Istven is not nice,” Grrbraa told Draevin once he was gone. Draevin was a little relieved to hear that Grrbraa had already reassessed his assignment of the “friend” title to Istven.
      “No, but he’s not wrong either,” Draevin admitted.
      Sylnya cooed softly to her shadow stalker and eased him back into his shadow. “It’s pretty fucking annoying when he’s right,” she complained. “His ego doesn’t need it.” She stood up. “Let’s go.”
      They continued on their way, heading closer to the more populated sections of the arena grounds. “Grrbraa,” Draevin said, “I think it’s best we not talk to anyone we don’t know from now on.”
      The werebeast nodded. “Yes. Mother-Taelshin says so too. I just… forgot.” His ears drooped.
      “We all did,” Draevin commiserated.
      They reached the entrance and made their way inside without issue. Draevin kept one hand at his holster the whole time and kept a particular eye out for any dark-skinned shadowmen or bright-eyed eldrin. This was far from the happy-go-lucky experience he normally had on tournament days.
      “You know if every year was like this I would have never become a tournament wizard.”
      “No shit,” Sylnya agreed.
      “I might take a few years off after this one.”
      Sylnya stopped them. They’d reached the service tunnel entrance that led to the tournament grounds. “My retirement idea not sounding so dumb now, eh?” She clapped Draevin’s hand in a firm embrace. “This is me. I’ll see you after.”
      “Try not to kill him,” Draevin advised again.
      “Good luck,” Grrbraa said.
      She nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” She gave them a lazy wave over her head as she turned away to enter the service tunnel. Draevin had never seen her so relaxed in a third round fight before. He supposed they knew all Peter’s tricks by now and it was unlikely he was going to use his Fireball scroll to kill his friend so there wasn’t much to be concerned over.
      Maeve’s voice echoed down the corridors from all around. “The first fight of the day will be starting soon. Please make your way to your seats. Will Peter please check in for his match.”
      Draevin chuckled at hearing that last bit. It seemed Peter was planning to push his luck today after all. It would certainly prove whether his theory about the rules was correct. “Come on, Grrbraa,” Draevin said. “Let’s take our seat.” He glanced around one more time and saw an eldrin noble in the nearby crowd. “And keep your eyes and ears peeled for trouble.”
      “Yes, Friend-Draevin,” Grrbraa said. “I am very good at extra security.”
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Continuing… (It's Part 6 in the saga, I fucked up. Sorry.)
So, after a few re-fueling and impromptu cigar-purchasing stops in South and Central America, we wheel up to the deserted jetway at LAX.
“Thought we were going to Elmendorf?” I asked.
“This isn’t it?” the pilot replied, feigning worry.
“No.”, I replied, “Looks like California. Fruits and nuts. All around. What’s going on? One minute we’re off to Texas, then Cali, then Texas again, now we end up here at the California airport of the iconic tower.”
“Yeah, it’s confusing enough haulin’ civilians around. But when we get a call from Virginia, we tend to comply without any questions,” the pilot explains.
“Aw, shit!”, I sort of exclaim, “Rack and Ruin called?”
“Yeah”, the pilot replies, “Figures you’d know these guys. They said they were closer to LAX rather than Texas and had us divert here. In fact, you look over there, see that dark blue Chevy? That’s them; and evidently, your ride.”
I tipped the airman from earlier a couple of cigars as he helped me with my gear off the plane and into the trunk of Rack and Ruin’s plain-Jane blue late modeled Chevy. Had to move the Sidewinder Missiles off to one side, though.
“Most honorable Agents Lack and Luin!” I quipped in my faux-racist greeting. “What the hell, guys? I’ve got to get to Japan and get some newly rigidified digits.”
“Let’s see your hand”, Agent Rack asks. “Nasty.”
“Yeah”, I sigh “And with the medicos in South America and their penchant for plaster, I don’t so much have a left hand as more of an ankylosaur tail.”
“Or Thagomizer”, Agent Ruin tittered. “Anyone gives you grief, and one upside the head should set them right. Or dead.”
“You’re a riot, Ruin.” I replied, “But not entirely incorrect.”
We all agreed that I really didn’t need any extra accouterments to make myself look more dangerous. I mean with my severe haircut, stern beard clip, and perpetual ‘Go fuck yourself’ scowl.
“Yeah”, I replied, stroking the aforementioned beard, “I just can’t get that. I’m such a people person.”
After Agents Rack and Ruin finished drying their eyes from laughing what I thought was en extremis, we finally got down to business.
“So, what’s the skinny, guys”, I asked. “New marching orders?”
“No. Not as such”, Agent Ruin said, still sniggering over my ‘people person’ comment.
I see we’re moving. Agent Rack is just driving casually, like Chewbacca when they were waiting to see if the Empire went for that expensive Bothan code.
“Then, what?” I asked, getting a slight bit piqued.
“Well”, Agent Ruin noted, “When you went to South America, you took some of your artillery collection with, correct?”
“You know I did. You even made some snide comments about my personal choice of sidearms and their ‘excessive’ calibers, if memory serves”, I reiterated.
“And if you are proceeding normally, as you always do, they’re all nestled in the trunk of this very car. All cleaned, quiet, unloaded, and smelling sweetly of Hoppe’s Number 9 and WD 40, correct?” Rack inquired.
“Yes?” I cautiously venture.
“Well, ya’ big dummy, do you think they’re going to let you saunter into Tokyo armed like the Third Fleet?” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Um…well…I do have a Diplomatic Passport.” I ventured.
“That’s not going to work this time.”, Agent Ruin said, shaking his head. “They’re tighter than Dick’s Hatband about sidearms. Want to bring in your Rigby SXS .500 Nitro Express double rifle? Not a problem. Sidearms, especially in your alien hunting calibers, nope.”
Well, that’s just….*dandy!”, I reply, semi-put out. “Now what the hell am I going to do?”
“Ever think that’s why Ruin and I are here, now?”, Rack asks.
“And here I thought it was just so you could bask in the warm glow of my fucking wonderful personality. Or that you actually cared about me as a real goddamn human”, I joshed.
“Ummm…yeah”, Rack replies, “There’s no way we can answer that without going on some Deadpool list. “
I agreed.
“OK, here’s the deal: you get your sidearms, ammunition, speed loaders, brass knuckles, Asp, laser range finders, Sap, Zeiss scopes, Kukri, Wisconsin Cheese Whittler, Buck folding skinner, Marine K-Bar, those two ultra-illegal Cheburkov Cobra titanium switchblades...”
“Three. Olga the KGB lady sent me one for Geologist’s Day.”
“Ahem. Those three ultra-illegal Cheburkov switchblades, that Wyoming Speedholer, your MASER Time-Distance Computer, garrote, pocket rail gun and whatever else lethal you carry and deposit it in the iron box in the trunk. We’ll ensure that it’s delivered to Esme post-haste. And by post-haste I mean one of our guys will deliver it personally.”
“Well…I suppose”, I conceded, “But best send someone who’s been to the house recently. I don’t know how much bigger Khan has grown since I left on this little fantasy trip. Wouldn’t want a star on the wall in Langley for someone eaten by a mastiff. Want to see a picture….Oh, bother. That’s right. My phone’s at the bottom of fucking Lake Maracaibo.”
“Good point”, Ruin interjects, “Guess we’ll do a little road trip and deliver it ourselves. Best call Esme and let her know what’s going on.”
“I have no objections to your proposals. Please give Esme this when you see her. I had some luck in the Calaveras Casino and if I don’t send her some mad money. Ouch. She’ll never forgive me for not taking her along to Japan.” I asked.
“But I thought Esme hated Japan? Too crowded and too ‘fussy’, I believe was her estimation.” Ruin asked.
“Yes, but once she saw the Ginza, all bets were off. Shopping the likes of which even Allah himself hasn’t seen.” I replied, slowly shaking my head.
“I see”, Ruin said, “Well, since you’re off to Sapporo, perhaps you can do a recon for Esme on the shopping there.”
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”, I smiled, “Now I know why I let you guys hang around with me.”
So, as advertised, I am now standing on the tarmac at LAX, basically feeling naked.
“Can’t I keep just one switchblade?” I moaned to Agent Rack.
“Go ahead, if you’re really keen on donating it to Japanese customs”, he replied.
“Fuckbuckets.” I groused.
“There, there now. That’s the usual Dr. Rocknocker of which we’re all so fond.” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Remember, you do have that wallet-sized credit card gizmo from the Company. So you’re not entirely ‘naked’. Think of it as an emergency breechcloth.” He smiled.
“I’d like a larger model if you don’t mind. It’s chilly out here.” I joshed.
After Agents Rack and Ruin stripped me metaphorically naked as they de-weaponized me, they handed me a Business Class ticket to Tokyo, and a pass to the Japan Airlines Hospitality Suite and Lounge.
“So sorry you guys can’t hang around and have a few farewell snorts”, I chided, “But you’ve got a bit of a drive, so best be off before the weather turns to shit.”
“Who says we’re driving?” Agent Rack asked as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ready and waiting C-130 cargo plane currently taxiing slowly in our direction.
“Well, in that case”, I smiled even more broadly, “Let’s invite the flight crew to join us. That’ll make the flight home all that much more interesting.”
After near tear-jerking farewell sentimentalities, i.e., “Piss on you”, “Get stuffed” and “Take a fuckin’ hike”; Agents Rack and Ruin, my weapons and the Agency’s plain-Jane Blue Chevy were all nestled snugger than buggers in ruggers in the belly of the thundering C-130.
Now truly on my own, I trudge the hundred thousand or so centisteps to my departure terminal, make a quick recon that my flight’s still slated to go in a generally westward direction, and hightail it to the nearest courtesy desk to ask for a motorized cart to take me and my remaining luggage to the JAL Hospitality Suite.
Hey. I’m old, infirm, and currently among the walking wounded.
Anyone that disagrees risks an Ankylosaur tail club swat or Thagomizer to the skull.
Finally ensconced in the JAL Hospitality Suite, Polo Lounge of course; I was drinking Tokyo Teas (3 oz. vodka, 2 oz. gin, 2 oz. rum, 1 oz. triple sec, 1 oz. Midori, good splash of lime juice, a slight splash of 7-Up (diet, of course), over ice with a lime wheel) with Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra 1844 chasers and Hangar One’s “Fog Point” vodka on the side, hiding from the brutish realities of this foul year of two thousand and twenty-something, Common Era…
I’ve already called Esme and we’ve had a good, long chat. She still managed to give me her shopping list for whenever I find myself bored on the Ginza.
She’ll be shocked when she learns that I’m not going to be in Tokyo long, but have 1st class tickets on the Bullet Train to Sapporo. Still, I’ll probably find myself in Pole Town or the Stellar Place there, trading piles of US greenbacks for locally produced Japanese curios and clothing.
I can hardly wait.
I order another round of drinks, as the wonderful attendants in the Hospitality Suite were bored out of their skulls because of the COVID-induced drop-in customers flying anywhere that requires a hospitality room stay, and I was virtually the only one around. They tried their level best to outdo each other when it comes to Japanese efficiency and friendliness.
After a couple of hours, they ask if I would like something from the grill, as the day chef had “the COVID” and the night chef just arrived. A quick perusal of the menu and I chose a 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse and another round of drinks.
I usually don’t like to eat too much before I fly, but JAL tells me the flight is going to be virtually empty, something like <121 pax, all told, so restroom availability shouldn’t be too much of a concern.
Plus, who am I to say no to a free, blue 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse?
There was a bit of difficulty conveying to the chef through the intermediaries of the hospitality just how I wanted my steak.
“Blue,” I said.
“Brue?” was the reply.
“Rare. Very, very rare.” I continued.
Look of total bewilderment.
I drag out my Personal Language Pro, speak “Steak, very, very rate” into the infernal gizmo, and hand the contraption to the attendant.
“珍しい、非常に珍しいステーキ?”[ Mezurashī, hijō ni mezurashī sutēki?]
“Raw! Nama!” I say, louder than need be.
They toddle off to find the chef.
“How is it sir, that you would like your steak cooked?” he asks.
“Very rare. Just a minute or two per side. Inside still cold.” I instructed.
All I got for the trouble was a puzzled smile.
“Give me the language gizmo…” I type in a few words…
“お尻を洗い、角をノックオフして、ここから出してください”
[O shiri o arai,-kaku o nokkuofu shite, koko kara dashite kudasai.]
“Wash its ass, knock its horns off, and walk it out here.”
“OH!” as the lightbulb pops. “Rare. Got it! Excellent!” the chef laughs and zips back to the kitchen.
Like I always say, I’m nothing if not the international ambassador of amity and goodwill.
“Crack tubes!”
Dinner was fantastic. I do wish I could have somehow mailed the Porterhouse bone back home for Khan. After that hambone incident, he might even taste it.
Finally on the plane, in an almost empty Business Class, the flight captain informs us that we’re headed to Haneda Airport Tokyo and anyone not headed in that direction better ‘haul ass off’ the flight or forever hold their peace.
Late-night international flights tend to be a bit more wooly than your average Chicago to Omaha gig.
Especially when the flight’s damn near empty and we have the next 12 hours or so to be best friends.
We taxi, turn and head into the wind. I’m doctoring up a couple of dossiers and keeping my personal cabin attendant, Luna since there were two of us in Business and two business flight attendants, busy with her trying to play ‘Stump the Geologist’.
“I’ll bet you never had this before.” She beamed and handed me a tumbler of very dangerous-looking brown liquor.
I cautiously sniff, take a modest gulp, swirl and glug the rest down.
“Ohishi Single Sherry Cask”, I say with a muffled belch. “Light. Fruity. An Englishman’s drink.”
“Oh. You knew. Let me try again.” She smiles beatifically.
“I have no objections to your proposal.” I smile as nicely as this crotchety old Komodo Dragon could.
She returns with another flagon of spirits; it smells of obsidian, leather, and earth.
I just had some of this back in LAX. I take a snort, smile, and shotgun the rest.
“Hibiki Japanese Harmony…lovely stuff.” I smile. “A little light for my jaded palate, but I’d never turn it down if it were free.”
“Oh, you win again. Wait. One more.” She smiles and skitters off to the galley.
She returns with another soupçon of some more dangerous brown liquor.
“Here, try this. It will make you very popular at social gatherings”. She smiles.
Sniff. “Splendid.” Snort. Swirl. Smile. Shotgun.
“Kanosuke New Born, if I’m not mistaken.” I smile back. “Very nice. I really do like this one.”
“You too good at this. One more!” she stands and stomps off defiantly. She returns in a trice and hands me the glass.
“Hmm…brown. Light notes of earth, leather, dating your daughter, and Kentucky…
“Beam Suntory, right?”
“You know them all!” she says, feigning irritation.
“And I thank you. Those were all excellent. Now, anything in the dangerous clear liquor category? I asked.
Luna smiled as I palmed off a 20k yen tip.
“Oh, no sir. Wait until we land.” She demurred, referring to the gratuity; which is know is not de rigueur in the Orient, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Just in case we never make it to Tokyo”, I laughed, unknowingly presciently.
We both chuckled about that last line as she tried out various sakes and shōchūs and an actual Japanese ‘White Liquor’ (ホワイトリカー), which were all excellent as was the company.
I tell her that I need to get some work done and could she bring me a tall Rocknocker. After explain the origins and construction of the eponymous drink, she brings me one that must tip the scales at 1 or so liters.
She settles down to an empty seat and I get after the work that I need to finish before we land. I’m about ½ way through my drink when it felt as if the plane hit a brick wall. She quivered and quaked and clutched at herself while I made some comments about the pilot’s mental health.
We dropped like a paralyzed falcon, then just as suddenly, felt like it was an express elevator to Angel’s 11. The plane bucked and shimmied, wickedly. Then we slam-danced right and fell a few more stories. It was like we were in a Mixmaster and the owner was trying out every speed.
The emergency lights in the 777-300ER popped on, and the fasten seat belt sign barked loudly so even sleeping travelers could enjoy the show.
Rinse. Spin. Shudder. Repeat.
Finally, the ride smooths out and we hear the captain on the blower.
“This is your captain speaking…ah, we seem to have hit some uncharted turbulence back there.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious”, I muttered.
“Everything’s A-OK. “ he reports.
“That’s good”, I note.
“But…”
“There’s always the but…” I groan.
“…we have a couple of warning lights for which we can’t quite account. So to just be safe and certain, we’re going to divert to Hawaii, get a clean bill of health and resume this flight once we make sure everything here is hunky-dory.”
There were scattered groans and applause. Add them together and divide by two and the average response on the flight was “Meh. Whatever.”
Except for the other guy in Business, with whom I hadn’t shared two words. He began to absolutely lose his shit.
“Oh, man! We’re so screwed! Mechanical malfunction? What does that mean?” he positively fizzed with fear.
The flight attendants tried to calm him down, to no avail. They basically gave up and said they’d report his misgivings to the Captain.
I motioned over to my personal flight attendant, Luna, and asked if I could be of service.
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled at me, “If you could speak with him. You are so calm, and he is…”
“Losing his bloody mind”, I chuckled as I finished her sentence for her. “Of course, I’ll take a stab at it.”
So, I grab my drink and ease over to my Business Class partner and introduce myself.
“Hey, pal. How’s it going? I’m Dr. Rock, gentleman, scholar, and connoisseur of cigars and things alcoholic. You doing OK?”
He looks at me with an ashen face and his eyes the size of bloodshot dinner plates.
“Yeah. I’m Todd Schotts. I’m flying to Japan for business.” He mumbles
“No surprise there,” I reply calmly and take a slug of my drink.
“But now we’re all going to die. The plane is busted and we’ll crash…” he started off again.
“So, Todd is it? Good. You drink?” I asked.
“Yeah?”, he stammered back.
I asked Luna to make us a fresh batch of my eponymous cocktails.
“OK, Todd, listen up”, I began after the drinks were served, “I have flown literally millions of miles over the last 4 decades. On Aeroflot when it was still the USSR. On TACA (Take A Chance Airways), on Chalk’s in the Caribbean, on Bob’s Verrifast Plane Company in Rhodesia, on regional carriers that don’t even exist anymore. All over the world. Had some bad experiences flying, and me ol’ mugger, this ain’t one of them. This is nothing more than the glitch for this mission.”
I chuckled lightly and complimented Luna on a fantastic drink.
“Yeah…yeah…yeah…but we have to land and check out some lights…” Todd squealed.
“Well now, Todd. It would be rather difficult to do any external assessment while in flight, don’t you agree?” I asked.
“But we’re diverting. We have to land and that adds more risk. We’re going to crash and die!” he was coming more and more unglued.
“I will bet you every cent you have on your person and home bank accounts that that will not happen”, I chuckled.
That took him by surprise. At least it shut him up for a while.
“Look, Todd. This is Boeing’s latest model. They have the most incredible safety record. And if a little clear air turbulence were to be knocking planes out of the sky, don’t you think we’d hear about it as the press went berserk?” I asked.
“But they don’t know what the lights mean! What if one of the engines’s out? How far can we fly on one engine?” Todd stuttered.
Having my fill of a supposedly grown man with inane childlike fears, I calmly replied,
“All the way to the crash site.”
He went white.
“...hope we hit something hard. I don’t want to limp away from this.”
He went limp.
Then I went to my seat and motioned for Luna to prepare a reload.
Of course, 45 minutes later, we land without incident at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu Hawaii.
We were told to just wait around until they figure out what the problem if any, was.
They had officials waiting at the end of the jetway to check our COVID status and passports before they let us loose in the terminal.
I asked Luna if she knew this airport. She noted that she did.
“Is there a JAL hospitality room here at this airport? I asked.
“Yes, Doctor. It’s the Sakura Lounge. It is located on the third level above The Local, Terminal 2.” She replied.
“Please notify whoever needs to know that that’s where I’ll be for the duration”, I smiled and handed her my business card. “See you soon, I hope.”
“Oh, Dr. Rock”, she replied, “I am sure it is nothing much. We’ll be back in the air within mere hours.”
“Well then”, I smiled, “Guess I’d better get ready to hoof it to the lounge.”
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled, “No rush. I will call for you a courtesy cart. You are injured, you are Business, you are priority.”
“I love that Asian efficiency.” I smiled back and toddled down the jetway.
At the terminus of the jetway, I show my COVID-clear papers, dates and times of my Anti-Virus vaccine administrations, the letter from Virginia clearing me of all detention, and my red Russian diplomatic passport.
While in the cart, whizzing our way to the JAL lounge, the driver said “Man! You must be some kind of VIP. You were through that welcoming committee in less than two minutes!”
“Me? Nah!”, I chuckled, “Just an old phart of a geologist that they didn’t want to mess with. Not on such a bright, sunny day as this.”
“I see you’re not wearing a mask.” The driver quipped.
“Very observant. There are reasons for that.” I replied.
He careens around a corner and if this were a normal pre-Covid day, I’m certain we’d have killed hundreds. However, the airport, as I’ve come to grow accustomed to, was virtually deserted.
“Yeah? Like what?” he asks.
“Well, Scooter, 1. I have an active and hardworking immune system that I let off the chain every once in a while for exercise. Got to let it know what it’s up against, right? 2. I’ve had all my shots and some that were experimental. They seem to have worked. And 3. I find it difficult to drink and smoke cigars while wearing a mask. However, if you’d prefer, I will mask up. No problem, though it still is optional.”
“Nah, man”, he said, “I was just wondering if you were one of those religious idiots or conspiracy nuts.”
Nope”, I smiled back, “Just another geologist out in the world plying his trade for cash. Y’know, whorin’ around for money.”
He laughs aloud as we skid to a stop right in front of Lounge.
I slip the guy a $20 and ask if he’d listen for the JAL flight I was just on. If we’re going on ahead today, I’d need him to scoot by and putt-putt me back to the plane.
He laughs and pockets the $20 as quick as a mink ruts.
“No worries. I’ll just hang around this area. I hear anything about the flight, I’ll come and let you know.” He grins.
“Good man”, I say, as I hand him my card. “I’m Dr. Rocknocker. Call me Rock”.
“And I’m Kapula Mano, call me Kap” he replies.
“Good man”, I say again, “Hope to see you in a while.”
He grins, floors his electric cart, and peels out at speeds approaching 4.5 MPH.
I wander into the lounge, show my credentials, and am escorted to a post up on Mahogany Ridge.
The bar is very quiet. Besides the bartender, I can’t see anyone else in the darkened and Smooth Jazz-infused drinking emporium.
I order a local drink, a Mai Tai, just for the experience and something a bit different.
It’s served in a goldfish bowl on a stem, bedecked with a slice of lime, a sprig of mint, a stick of sugar cane, a polychromatic orchid, and the obligate paper umbrella.
“Ah. Mai Tai. I will enjoy it.” I said to no one in particular.
One was enough, and I decided to go back to the old standard. Once I explained to the bartender what that was, he made them heroic and enthusiastically.
I’m reading up on a random dossier, making notes in a new file, and puffing away on a Fuentes Onyx double Maduro Churchill cigar.
I hear a slight cough coming from my right, and this here lovely lady, she sat to my immediate starboard and looked at me semi-quizzically.
Not in the mood for shenanigans of any stripe, I give her the obligate Baja Canada nod and tilt of the drink. I return to my dossiers and continue to read and take notes.
“Excuse me!” I hear.
Fearing the worst, either the woman is Karen-oid anti-smoking or a religious fruit-and-nutburger, I slowly turn to face her and reply, somewhat glacially, I have to admit.
“What?”
“That cigar…”
“Here we go…” I mutter, eyes rolling northward.
“Smells exquisite. Could you tell me the brand? My husband would enjoy some like that.” She notes.
Instantly my demeanor switches 180^0.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s an Arturo Fuentes Onyx. Churchill size, or 60 ring x 7” length, double Maduro. Here, take one for your husband. I have an ample supply.” I smile.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. Could I?” she asks.
“Please. I insist.” I smile the best I could given the circumstances.
“Thank you. You’re too kind…umm…Mr….?”
“Doctor. Doctor Rocknocker. World traveler, oilman, and international ambassador of amity, good drinks, and fine cigars. Call me Rock” I said.
“Oh! A Doctor?” she brightens.
“Yes, of Petroleum Geology and Engineering. Not medicine.” I chuckle.
She chuckles back.
“And I am Hella Aaberg”, as she offers her hand for a quick shake.
“Interesting name, Hella. Scandinavian or Old German heritage?” I ask.
“On my father’s side. He’s Finnish.” She replies.
“But I’ll wager your mother is not Scandinavian, correct?” I ask.
“She was from Truk, an island…”
“In the South Pacific, Micronesia. Was she from Weno city?” I asked.
“Why yes. How could you possibly know that?” she asked.
“Oh, I’ve been there. Great diving amongst the WWII wrecks. I think it’s actually called ‘Chuuk Lagoon’ or something like that now.” I said.
“That’s right! Amazing. Where else have you been?” she asked.
“Anywhere there’s oil, strife, booze, cigars, heavy explosives and typically long distances from whatever most normal people call civilization,” I replied with a chuckle.
Suddenly, I hear a voice booming out behind me.
“Why don’t you save that rapier-like wit for those musky-fuckers back home, Rocko?”
My expression changes. My eyes pop fully wide open.
“Hella?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“May I ask you a favor?”
“You can ask…”
“Thank you. Now, looking over my shoulder, is there a hulking goon of a person, thin up top, paunchy halfway down with the most ridiculously tiny sized shoes you’ve ever seen for a so-called grown man?” I ask.
“Yes. Yes, there is.” She replies.
“I thought so. Many thanks.”
I spin and launch off my barstool and grab Toivo by the hand. He hadn’t seen my left-hand Thagomizer yet.
“Toivo! You old sumbitch. What the flying fennec fox fuck are you, of all people, doing in Hawaii?” I laughed.
“Just keeping an eye on you, Rock!” he laughed equally as loud.
“No, fucking-A, seriously. What the actual fuck? What are you doing in this actual nice place?” I asked.
“Just headed to Tokyo to conduct a bit of service company business. I walked into the lounge and smelled a foul cigar. I figured it can’t be the venerable Dr. Rocknocker. He’s back at some school up north terrorizing geology and engineering grads and undergrads.” Toivo laughed.
“But there I was. Surprise!”, I laughed and pumped his hand.
“What the fuck, Rock. Now what did you do?” he asks, referring to my Ankylosaur tail club left hand.
“Ah, fuck. Long story. Oh, pardon me. Toivo, this is Hella. We were just talking about the South Seas Islands.” I said.
“Planning on running off together?” Toivo laughs, to the amusement of neither party.
“Oh, and this idiot is Toivo, a man with a congenital foot-in-mouth disorder. He’s mostly harmless.” I noted to Hella.
Greetings were shared all around. Hella made some small excuses and said she needed to depart. I gave her another cigar for her husband, shook her hand, and wished her well.
“Here’s my business card. If your husband has any questions, have him drop me a line.” I noted.
Hella smiled beautifully. She said she would. Then she thanked me shook our hands, and like that, there she was, gone.
“Well Toivo, you old bastard. Don't just stand there in the doorway like some lonesome goddamn mouse shit sheepherder, get your ass over here and have a drink.” I motioned over to my perch on Mahogany Ridge.
“Don’t mind if I do”, he says as he deftly winds his way to a seat to my left, snagging a cigar out of my pocket on the way over.
“You might want these”, I say in an exasperated tone, and hand him my gold Dunhill Hobnail lighter and V-cutter gizmo.
He cuts and fires up his heater.
“What you drinkin’, Rock”, he asks.
“Anything with alcohol, as usual. You know that Toiv.” I reply.
“No. I mean right now.” He clarifies.
“Well, I had a Mai Tai. Very nice if you like fruity, flowery drinks. It’s the locals’ favorite.” I reply.
“Sounds good. I’ll have several. And you?” Toivo asks.
“My usual. The bartender is already apprised of the situation.” I reply.
Toivo smiles the smile of one knowing his sobriety is going to be taken out for a swim. Hell, taken out and tossed into the deep end.
Toivo and I sit there, swapping lies, smoking cigars and sipping at our toddies.
Hell, Toivo was slurping them like a sump-pump during an extra-wet summer.
We chattered about family, work, whether or not Tokyo was going to host the Olympics or if the COVID-boogie man scared everyone off.
Toivo, always one afflicted with TB (“Tiny Bladder”) got up to go to the loo for the third time that hour. He left his pocket organizer on the bar and I swear on a stack of Origins of Species, I didn’t touch it.
I reached over to his vacated seat to retrieve my cigar lighter when I looked down and saw in his organizer a tab that reads “Rack & Ruin”.
“Oh. No. Fucking. Way.” I recoiled as I’d just reached out and petted a 6-foot hungover scorpion.
“One of my best friends? Secretly allied with the Agency? No. Not possible.” I drained my drink and called for another.
“No. No. No. It can’t be. No. No fucking way…” as doubt began to dissolve when I thought back to all those times I had just ‘run into’ Toivo.
“But he’s oil patch as well. That could be chalked up to coincidence.” I ruminated quizzically in my brain.
I quickly reflected back on J.M. Darhower: “Yes, you see, there’s no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents in life. Everything that happens is the result of a calculated move that leads us to where we are.”
She may be the author of the execrable New Adult Sempre series, which Esme likes and I loathe, but she might just be right on this occasion.
Toivo return, lighter in the bladder and good sense. He never even noticed he’d left his organizer out in broad bar light for all to see.
“So, Toivo, when’s your flight?” I ask.
“Oh, man. Was I lucky. The JAL flight to Tokyo from Los Angeles had mechanical trouble and had to divert here. I got a ticket on the plane for that flight, when it continues.
“You mean ‘if it continues’,” I replied.
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Hey! Was that your flight?” he asks innocently. He’s really innocent of fieldcraft.
I decide to have some fun at my old friend’s expense.
“Yep. Hit some CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) and the JAL pilots reported some lighting problem. No apparent ruin to any of the systems. They relay racked their brains to figure it out, but they couldn’t that’s why I here.” I said, waiting for the words to swim upstream in Toivo’s coconut and make some sort of connection.
“Yeah. Double lucky. No problem with the plane and I get to go to Japan early.” Toivo crookedly grins.
“So, no trouble with the plane? Then why haven’t I heard that the flight’s going to resume?” I asked as I pushed a fresh, seriously strong drink to Toivo.
“Oh, must have heard it in the john.” Toivo countered and tried to cover his tracks by taking a huge gulp of his drink and damn near dying coughing.
I pound on Toivo’s back.
“Heimlich time?” I ask.
Toivo signals ‘no’.
“Jesus Christ, Rock. What was that?” he asks.
“Just my usual”, I innocently replied.
“Holy fuck. No wonder you have the reputation of…” Toivo realizes too late that he’s said too much.
“Yeah. They can rack you out. Really ruin a person if they’re not careful.” I reply icily.
“Why, Rock. Whatever do you mean?” Toivo slurred as he realized he’s been caught out.
“The jig is up, you turncoat. You know Agents Rack and Ruin from the agency. Right? You keeping tabs on me for them? You Quisling! You Benedict Arnold!” I almost was on the verge of losing my cool.
“It was nothing. They approached me years ago as I kept being mentioned in your reports. They asked me for some information. One thing leads to another…” Toivo was ready for an Ankylosaur tail club swat to the bean.
“Oh, put your fucking hands down, you asshole.” I smiled and chuckled.
“You’re not mad?” Toivo slurred badly. I had the bartender make him another special drink.
“No, Toivo. Not mad. Just disappointed.” I said, smiling like a Komodo Dragon just finishing up a fortnight-old wildebeest.
Toivo sat there and puzzled and puzzled until his puzzler was sore.
“You’re not going to kill me or anything rude like that?” Toivo asked, half-assedly trying to inject humor into the proceedings.
“Nah. The paperwork’s too ridiculous for me to do another liberation. But, Jesus Fucking Christwagons, Toivo; you could have mentioned it to me. Fuck, I thought we were friends to the end?” I said, dejectedly.
I was really getting through to Toivo. I could tell he was loaded; feeling like shit and massively deplorable.
Great fieldcraft, indeed.
I told him things “are what they are” and that I won’t blow his cover nor his honorarium.
He began to feel better. I often wonder if he was serious about the sanctioning thing.
Then I delivered the strategic missile strike.
“Just remember, Toivo. I wrote your dossier for the Company…”
He swivels to look at me.
“And one for the KGB. Olga says ‘howdy’.” I grin evilly.
Toivo short-circuited at that. Russia is his company’s bread and butter. Now he has the KGB as well as his best buddy looking over his shoulder at every move.
I bought him a few more drinks and continued to needle him about his ’leading a double life’. He was well and truly fuckered when the electric tap-tap driver from before came looking for me to whisk me back to the plane.
Seems it was simply some knocked-out wires on the plane, or slammed bulbs that were generating a false positive, indicating something other than the system that alerts one to something haywire went haywire.
Toivo was pretty much down for the count. I got him sober enough to hand them his ticket and ensure that he was really supposed to be on this flight. Thing was; h e was in Economy, and I was, as always, in Business.
I spoke to Luna, and the plane was going to be even less crowded than previously because some folks could or wouldn’t wait, or didn’t want to go on with the rest of the trip on a ‘damaged’ aircraft, or were just stupid and superstitious.
“Luna, could I pay for the difference between Business and Economy for my less than 100% conscious friend here? He’s had a rough day.” I asked.
“Dr. Rock. Just put him into Business. No one will be the wiser. Luna says so.” As she gave us a grand smile.
“Luna, I owe you. Thanks so much.” I said.
“Now get on board. Your friend looks like he needs all the downtime he can get.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I said and saluted here be best I could which dragging a schnozzled Toivo down the jetway.
I dumped Toivo in a window seat well away from my seat. I know Toivo. He snores like a semi-load of live hogs rocketing downhill locking up the brakes at 88 MPH.
Surprise! There was no one else in Business. Luna looked at me, at Toivo, and gave me a thumbs up.
Whatever I can write to further her career at JAL, she’ll have it before I deplane.
We finally get everyone settled, and with Captain Kangaroo at the helm, we bounced gracelessly off the tarmac, into the warm, tropical Hawaiian air, finally headed for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Toivo was snoring like a chainsaw hitting rusty nails as I worked on the various letters, communiques, and dossiers which needed updating before we reached touchdown. I gave Luna a thick letter with instructions not to open it until we were on the ground and Toivo and I were well off and away into the terminal.
We left Hawaii at 1300 hours, so we should arrive at Tokyo Nareda around 4:00 pm, the previous day. I was so bereft of time and time zones, I couldn’t figure out what time it really was, as judged by my biometric rhythms, so I asked Luna for a stiff drink as I was kicking off my boots and going to attempt to get some kip.
She brought me another liter or so eponymous drink. I was sawing logs by the time I slurped the last swig of that nifty drink.
Suddenly, or later, I have no idea really, some loudmouth drunk asshole from way-the-fuck-back in economy-land toward the ass end of the plane staggered into Business demanding free drinks.
Luna was nothing but civil, and asked him to both shut up and return to his seat. His air cabin hostess, or whatever the fuck they’re calling them these days, will attend to his needs.
“Naw they won’t! They want me to pay for more drinks! I’m broke but I demand more booze! You fucking owe me.” railed the asshole. “I sat at the bar in Hawaii for four hours. Them fuckers charged me an arm and a leg!”
“No, they don’t owe you shit”, I said in a voice that unmistakably loud and clear.
“Fuck you, old man! You stay the fuck out of this!” he bellowed. “Shut up or I’ll do ya’!”
“’Old man’? ‘Do me’? Excuse me. Luna, may I have a word alone with this individual?” I asked sweetly.
Luna shook her head in the affirmative, and I stood up to confront this flagrant asshole.
“Now look, Scooter. You have gone way, way over the fucking line. You are loud. You are abusive. You are obnoxious. And you stink. Plus you insulted a person who is just barely containing his righteous wrath right now. So, I’m giving you one and one only chance to shut up, sit back down before your body spontaneously develops all sort of bruises, contusions, broken bones, and unconsciousness.” I said calmly, evenly, and threateningly.
“What da’ fuck you think you’re going to do…old man?” he screeched, trying to inflate himself into full mammalian threat posture, all 5’ 9” of it.
He didn’t notice Toivo walking up quietly behind him, as Toivo was returning from the head, quiet as a moose.
“Well, Scooter, I am an Air Marshall. Duly appointed, fully trained, and properly pissed off. Right now, I can arrest you, physically detain you, turn this flight around and take you to the Hawaiian police, at your cost for the inconvenience of the entire flight. Or I could arrest you, physically detain you, and turn you over to the Japanese authorities when we land. It’s really your choice. Choose wisely.”
To be continued…⇝

As we continue the month of Banuary with our focus on bands with the letter B, we’ve come to a biggie. So big. Very very big. Like, so big they are like BIG, with a bang, and a capital B-I-G.
Not small.
BIG.
So big are they that we are going to do our first-ever two week focus on one band. This is especially timely right now, because their last-ever concert was on January 30th, 52 years ago.
For the purposes of these write ups, we are splitting their music into the Red Album and the Blue Album.
If you get it, you get it.
This week we will focus on their formation and their first seven studio albums: Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles for Sale, Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver.
Next week will be all about when their music gets all concept-y and experimental, and we will then focus on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (which most people call the White Album), Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be, as well as the dissolution of perhaps the most important band in Rock history.
So there you go. The next two weeks are all about a little known underground band from Liverpool called THE BEATLES.
About Them
You may be a fan. You may not. But you have definitely heard of the four lads from Liverpool who revolutionized music in the 1960’s.
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. At age 12, while attending grammar school, he met George Harrison. The two connected immediately. Harrison was a year younger than McCartney (which can be huge when you are kids) but the friendship was an immediate and life long one.
Though McCartney was encouraged to take piano lessons and was given a trumpet as a child, he preferred to learn music by ear. He was in a church choir as a youth. But it was not until he started listening to Rock music that anything stuck. At age 14, feeling inspired, he traded the trumpet for an acoustic guitar.
He sucked at it. Things just did not feel natural.
One day, walking home, he saw an advertisement for a concert by Slim Whitman. He noticed that in the picture, Whitman was playing left handed. After a proverbial light bulb moment, he went home and re-strung his guitar to be just like Whitman. Reversing the instrument was the ticket. He quickly learned to play and began to compose. At age 15, he had already written the melody to When I’m Sixty-Four.
John Lennon was born in 1940, making him two years older than McCartney. His middle name, Winston, was after the famous Winston Churchill. Lennon, who notoriously became a terrible father and husband, unsurprisingly had awful examples as a child. His father, Alfred Lennon, was in the merchant navy and would be away for up to half a year. During one of these absences, his mother, Julia, got pregnant from an affair with another man. When his dad returned, the parental relationship absolutely disintegrated.
His father wanted to take him out of Britain entirely to go live in New Zealand. After a blowout with his now estranged wife, the elder Lennon took his son to Blackpool to leave England. But mom followed, and confronted the pair. What ensued was a scarring moment where Lennon was forced to choose between his mother and his father. According to accounts, he twice chose to live with his father - but when his mom burst into tears, he changed his mind and stayed with his mom. His father then left and would not see his son again for over 20 years.
John Lennon was five years old at the time.
So, growing up, Lennon’s example of parenting was a shitty one. But nonetheless, he grew deeply attached to his mom, as she was the only constant in his life. On the other hand, he grew into that kid that was a complete shit disturber. Envious of others who had a dad around, and angry that he did not, he became the archetypal rebellious teenager with a chip on his shoulder.
His mom bought him a guitar when he was 16. He started noodling around with it, and found quickly that he had some proficiency with it. That year, 1956, he started his first band, The Quarrymen. This was the band that would later become The Beatles. A 15 year old Paul McCartney joined the band as a rhythm guitarist in 1957, and convinced Lennon to let the even younger George Harrison join later that year.
Unfortunately, Lennon’s mother Julia never saw the success her son would have in music. She was killed when she was hit by a car while she was walking home. So Lennon really did have awful parental examples and tragedy as he grew up: an absentee father who abandoned him, and a cheating mother who loved him but was killed far too young. This broken home would scar him and poison his future relationships. But the immediate reaction to the tragedy of his mother’s death was a deep dive into alcoholism, rage, fighting, and trauma. You know, positive things. Lennon dropped out of the Liverpool College of Art, where he went to school. All he had left was the guitar his mom gave him, the friends in his band, and the ability to maybe make some music.
George Harrison, in contrast, had a terrific, stable upbringing in a loving home.
Jackass. You don’t need to flex on John that hard right now, George.
The youngest of four children, he was a bright student who enjoyed school but was somewhat disappointed in the lack of music education. Like McCartney and Lennon, he got a guitar in 1956 and taught himself to play. Harrison turned out to be by far the best guitarist in the band, and a gifted songwriter.
Unlike the affable McCartney or the rebellious Lennon, Harrison would be called ‘the quiet Beatle’. He would pour all of his energy and emotion into his instrument. Harrison could certainly sing, and in any other band he would have likely been the lead singer - but somehow, instinctively maybe, he knew that Lennon and McCartney were both better singers and both better songwriters. Where someone with more ego would probably have left the band to find a different creative outlet, Harrison looked on this as an opportunity instead to become the best musician in the band. Loyal, creative, industrious and gifted, he was the perfect addition to The Quarrymen.
Stuart Sutcliffe was working as a garbage man when he met John Lennon at the Liverpool College of Art. It was how he paid for his own tuition. Sutcliffe was not really a musician - but he was a talented painter. He remained close with Lennon after Lennon dropped out of school following the death of his mother. Despite not being deeply invested in music, Lennon leaned into Sutcliffe to get him to join The Quarrymen. Sutcliffe managed to sell one of his paintings and used the profits to buy a bass guitar. He and Lennon moved in together in 1960.
Sutcliffe’s playing was rudimentary at best (insert your shot at bass players here). But even by playing 1-4-5 on a chord he was able to add to the sound of the band, and to anchor the rhythm section.
Perhaps Sutcliffe’s most lasting impact on the band - aside from his friendship with Lennon - was his influence on the name. The Quarrymen did not sit well with the young artist. He instead insisted that they rechristen themselves as ‘The Beatals’ as a tribute to Beatal Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The band toyed with this alternate spelling and then instead went with The Silver Beetles, and then The Silver Beatles, finally settling on the spelling we know the best with The Beatles.
The newly named band was only lacking one member: a drum machine.
But it was the 60s, so they had to settle for Pete Best.
Best also grew up in Liverpool, but unlike his bandmates, he was born in Madras, India to British parents. The family left there in 1944 during the WWII in what can only have been the worst possible time to go on a cruise. They settled in Liverpool, where Best grew up. Best’s mother Mona apparently won a bundle of cash on a wild bet at the races and decided to use the money to purchase a large house in Liverpool. The place had previously been the home of a private club, and had a large entertainment space below. Best convinced his mother to open this space and turn it into a club.
The Quarrymen played this venue, called The Casbah Coffee Club, on a number of occasions. Best fell in love with the idea of being a musician. He got his mom to buy him a drum kit and formed his own band. Unsurprisingly, since his family owned the place, they became the house band at The Casbah.
But while Best had his own venue and lots of work, his band was quickly going nowhere and broke up. The Beatles, on the other hand, just got a manager and a ton of road gigs in Hamburg, Germany. They needed a drummer, and they needed one quick. Best gave up a chance to become a teacher to go and drum for the band. Turns out he was the only one in the band that spoke passable German, so he was invaluable.
It was Malcolm Gladwell that famously pointed out (and used The Beatles as an example) that it takes about 10,000 hours to become really, really good at something.
For the next two years or so, the band lived for extended periods of time in Hamburg, making their living playing live music. They became seasoned performers and musicians. They were able to hone their craft in small clubs, playing the same venues night after night after night.
During this formative period, Sutcliffe decided that this particular grind was not for him. He tapped out to go to art school in Germany instead.
Yes, there is a German art school joke there. You know it and I know it. But instead of that humor, there is only tragedy. Sutcliffe died in 1962 of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. Unsurprisingly, the death hit Lennon the hardest. He kept pieces of Sutcliffe’s art in his home until his own untimely passing.
McCartney moved to play bass. The Beatles were now a four piece. They finished their second year in Hamburg and came back home a far more polished and professional group, possessing the kind of credibility only experience can bring. They started playing local gigs, most notably at the famous Cavern Club.
Very soon, the buzz around them was huge. At the Cavern Club, they were seen and ‘discovered’ by a local music writer and record store owner named Brian Epstein. He convinced the band to let him be their manager.
Epstein got the band signed to the EMI record label, and under the tutelage of legendary producer George Martin.
Martin knew - just knew - that The Beatles were lightning in a bottle. But he was just as sure that one of them was simply not as good as the others. Martin had the band in to do a recording session and it was abundantly clear that Best’s drumming style was not going to transfer well to vinyl.
According to one version, Best had learned to play drums as loud as possible at the urging of McCartney and out of necessity in the venues they were playing in Hamburg. Because of this, his style was completely unsuitable for studio work. According to another version, he never really gelled with the band, despite all those concerts in Germany. He would not get the signature haircut. He would not wear the signature outfits of those early days. Either way, Martin told McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon that in order to make a record, they needed to hire a session drummer instead.
After some deliberation among the three, they asked their new manager Brian Epstein to fire Best.
The Beatles were not without a growing fan base in Liverpool. What makes this even more interesting, according to some accounts, is that Best was at the time the most popular Beatle, with tons of young fans. A bitter Best would speculate that this was the real reason behind his dismissal - that Lennon especially could not stand being overshadowed and being less popular than someone else in his own band. The boys themselves would refute this story, and say that even in the beginning, recording music was really at the core of the band - not just performance - and for that reason alone, Best did not cut it.
Either way, Best was out.
So now they needed a drummer. Again.
Richard Starkey was born in Liverpool in 1940. He was an only child. He was raised by overprotective parents who were fixated on his upbringing. Either by coincidence or consequence, young Ritchie was a sickly child. This caused stress in his household. His father did not cope well with this, and simply pulled a Homer Simpson and went on benders lasting several days. Predictably, his parent’s marriage collapsed.
Starkey was 6.
But the divorce of his mom and dad was not the worst thing that happened to the kid at age 6. He had to go into hospital for an appendectomy. The operation went poorly, and he contracted peritonitis and lapsed into a coma which lasted for days. He was bedridden for 12 months during his recovery. He fell behind in school and it took him years to catch up. Just as he did, in 1953, he contracted fucking tuberculosis (for which there was no vaccine at the time) and had to go into isolation in a sanatorium for two years.
Because tuberculosis patients are notoriously incapacitated and weak, part of the treatment for them is constant activity. Starkey joined the hospital band and learned to drum. He fell further and further behind at school, but became a better and better drummer. As he really had nothing else to do, he took to drumming like an octopus to a garden a fish to water. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison all came to their instruments in a kind of haphazard way and got their 10,000 hours in Hamburg; Starkey literally spent two years drumming before any of them had even touched a fretboard.
He got his own drum kit in 1957, a second hand affair. He joined a couple of local bands and it was here that he took the stage name Ringo Starr. His drum solos were billed as ‘Starr Time’. One of his bands, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, were given top billing over The Beatles at a show in Germany. Starr met Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Best there. They all shared a Liverpool background and heritage, though Starr’s illnesses had made it impossible for him to have moved in the same circles.
So when The Beatles fired Best and needed a new drummer, Starr was the right man from the right place at the right time. He was asked to quit The Hurricanes and join The Beatles.
In what can only be described as the best decision of his life, Starr agreed.
Starr’s dynamics and feel were perfect for studio sessions. The final piece of the band was in place - the line up was set. George Martin got the band into the studio to record their first single, Love Me Do. They followed that up with Please Please Me.
Both songs were released as singles in Britain and got immediate buzz and airplay. Their label, EMI-Parlophone, knew they had a good thing on their hands and really, really wanted an album. George Martin went to the boys to ask what other material they had. They only really had their current live set. Martin decided to get them into a studio. Please Please Me (1963), their debut album, was recorded in less than 13 hours and was essentially their current live set.
The record was an absolute smash.
Consider the songs on it that are now classics: I Saw Her Standing There. Please Please Me. Love Me Do. Do You Want to Know a Secret. Not to mention the hit cover (and Ferris Bueller dance tune) Twist and Shout.
Very few debut albums have ever been as popular. It immediately went to number one on the British charts. The tour in support sold out at every venue. The band had arrived, and soon demand was high for a follow up.
With the Beatles (1963), their second record, was the first one released in North America. Like its predecessor, it was a mixture of covers and original material. Whether by accident or design, this made the album appealing to both European and North American audiences. The cover of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven was a particular hit, was sung by George Harrison, and was a favorite of Lennon and McCartney. It showcased the Rock influence and allowed the kids from Liverpool to put their own spin on a new classic. Add to that the covers of Smokey Robinson’s You Really Got a Hold on Me, Barrett Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want) and The Marvelettes’ Please Mister Postman, and you had instant American appeal.
Of course, not every song was a cover. All My Loving was a Lennon/McCartney tune that hit number one on some international charts. Critics called it “...arguably the best LP-only track the Beatles did before 1964,” and stated that if it had actually been released in America, it would have easily hit #1.
No matter. The follow up to their debut was strong. The songs got amazing airplay. Kids in America loved the band and sang along. There was nothing even close to them in Pop and Rock. The only act that was even a parallel in popularity was Elvis Presley. Famously, Ed Sullivan had the band perform on his late night show. It turned out to be a TV moment bigger than anything before. Fans screamed and lost their minds. Their haircuts were suddenly everywhere. Their musicianship, their good looks and their fresh takes on American tunes meant that they were almost instantly popular.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) was their first complete album without any covers. It is much more Poppy than the 50’s-inspired Rock records that preceded it. Here, The Beatles captured the hearts of their teenage audience and became international stars. Right from the signature chord that opens the title track on the disc, listeners knew that they were hearing something brand new. The title of the song and album came from a malapropism that Ringo once said, and that everyone picked up on and loved.
Several songs from the album shot to number one on the charts, one right after the other. I Should Have Known Better was a catchy little number that got lots of airplay by being a B-Side to the title track. And I Love Her became that slow song that got played at school dances around the world. And Can’t Buy me Love became one of the biggest songs of the decade.
The Beatles did not just support the album with a tour - there was a film that was part of the package as well. Not only were the Fab Four writing new music, touring and performing - they were “acting” in movies.
So you might have picked up on this, but The Beatles were doing pretty okay. At this point the band were everywhere. The radio. The TV. The cinema. They were on products. You could buy action figures. There were comic books and lunch boxes and wrapping paper and coloring books. This was Beatlemania. The boys from Liverpool were now more than a music group - they were a cultural phenomenon who, in America, led in music what has come to be known as The British Invasion.
Beatles for Sale, their fourth record, came out later in 1964. In contrast to previous releases, the Fab Four appear on the cover looking more sombre. Everyone was waiting for another record. But the band were tired - not just because of the grind of recording, touring and performing, but because what they thought was going to be a modest career in music had absolutely ballooned beyond anyone’s expectations. Lennon and McCartney were an incredibly prolific songwriting team, George Harrison was an incredible songsmith in his own right, and Ringo was the drummer. But the band simply did not have enough new material for an album.
Instead of waiting, they did some covers. Chuck Berry’s Rock and Roll Music was a made-for-radio track that got heavy rotation in the USA. Honey Don’t was a Carl Perkins cover sung by Ringo. Words of Love was a Buddy Holly cover, with the band paying homage to the artist who inspired their name.
Ironically, the two biggest songs from these recording sessions didn’t even make it on the album. I Feel Fine became a non-album single. It was recorded during the sessions for Beatles for Sale but did not make the cut. And Eight Days a Week made it onto the European version of the album, but was omitted from the American version. In retrospect, the album seems more like a release to meet the needs of the label to continue to cash in on Beatlemania than a creative project by the Fab Four.
The peak of their run as a group of teen idols - and really the peak of Beatlemania - was 1965’s Help! It was accompanied by the movie of the same name, and was presented as a film soundtrack. The movie was a hit, as was the single of the same name off the album. Notably, only one song on the record was over three minutes in length.
But what was really interesting about this particular release is that even though the songs were short, made-for-radio affairs, the complexity and depth of those songs were unlike anything else that the band had written so far. While the title track was pure bubblegum Pop, and tracks like Ticket to Ride were much the same, Lennon’s You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away most certainly was not. This song was sombre and sad and full of regret, and was either about lost love or the death of his mother, depending on your interpretation.
But even that great song was not the standout on the album.
If The Beatles had never created any other music, Yesterday would still be an incomparable masterpiece of songwriting. This McCartney tune, just over two minutes in length, holds the record for being the most covered song in all of history.
ALL OF HISTORY.
Jesus.
The melody famously came to McCartney in a dream, and he was panicked that it may have belonged to someone else. The song’s working title was ‘scrambled eggs’, and the music came before the lyrics. Just think of singing Yesterday with the working lyrics of ‘scrambled eggs...oh my baby how I love your legs…’ McCartney stitched down the real haunting lyrics, and the band tried to perform the song with their lineup.
It didn’t work.
It wasn’t until producer George Martin suggested recording it with a string quartet that everything clicked with the song. McCartney did the vocals and a true classic was created.
Another important landmark had been reached with Yesterday: the band learned that they could do things in the studio that could transcend what they could perform live. Nowadays, it is no big deal for the studio album to sound different than the live performance, and to have various session players come in to tweak the recordings. In fact, the band had had backing instruments on other songs, but never to this extent. Until the album Help! - and really, until the song Yesterday - The Beatles had been a standard four-piece Pop band cranking out hits. Now they became songwriters who were able to explore ever more complex arrangements and emotions in music.
This transformation of the band from teen idols to actual serious musicians took place largely on the album Rubber Soul, which was released in 1965. It also marks the beginning of their open relationship with recreational drugs, though the influence of those substances on their music is somewhat muted. Retrospectively, it is easy to see that the songs that are on the album are not simply Pop tunes. Day Tripper is not about going for a car ride (It took me soooooo long to find out -- but I found out…) and Norwegian Wood is about an extramarital affair that Lennon was having that went very badly. McCartney would say about the ending of that song that it “...could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn’t the decor of the house wonderful? But it didn’t, it meant I burned the fucking place down as and act of revenge…” Norwegian Wood was also the first truly popular song to incorporate a sitar.
Simply put, Rubber Soul showed that The Beatles were maturing as artists. Even more, it was clear that the band were thinking about albums as concepts, rather than just a group of catchy songs. Everything on the album was more sophisticated and complex. Nowhere Man and Michelle and Girl and the hauntingly sad In My Life were clear evidence of this.
After a long period of grinding, the band had levelled up.
All of this work peaked with The Beatles’ seventh studio album, Revolver, which was released in 1966. Seven albums in four years. For perspective, QotSA have only released seven studio albums in almost 23 years as a band, and August 2021 will mark 4 years since the release of Villains.
Revolver saw the boys from Liverpool mature as artists and begin to truly experiment with music. It is considered by many to be the band’s greatest album, surpassing even Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. To many, it is a capstone to their career and their artistic high water mark. In 2004, one critic went so far as to say that this was the “...best album the Beatles ever made, which means the best album by anybody.”
This would also be the last album that they toured behind.
What is clearly different on Revolver is the band’s liberal use of imagination tablets LSD. I mean, just think of the concept behind the Ringo Starr song Yellow Submarine. Hey boys, if that song is not influenced by acid, then no song is. And if you watched the cartoon movie (which I personally believe set animation back by about 20 years and did not come out until 1968) you know I am correct. Revolver opened the doors of music for Psychedelic Rock and for the use of drugs to influence the creative process. Not that using drugs was particularly new; but now going out and getting high to create music was an open and acknowledged practice.
Hmm. I wonder if any bands ever went out into the desert and did something similar.
Anyways, catchy tracks like Taxman (which was the first beatles song with political undertones ) and Good Day Sunshine and Got to Get You Into My Life make the album a true Lennon/McCartney classic, but it is the haunting gut-punch of [Eleanor Rigby] that presaged all of the sadness and loneliness that bands like Radiohead are still doing today.
Revolver was a masterpiece. The challenge was to follow that album up.
And that’s when things got really interesting.
Links to QOTSA
Josh Homme and Sir Paul McCartney both worked on the Dave Grohl project Sound City.
Apparently, McCartney was almost a member of Them Crooked Vultures - but learned from Dave Grohl that John Paul Jones already had the gig.
McCartney also went out of his way to play a show out in the desert for Josh and 300 fans. Imagine Sir Paul McCartney performing a show just for you. That is just amazing.
Their Music
Please Please Me
Love Me Do
I Saw Her Standing There
Twist and Shout - The famous Ferris Bueller scene.
All My Loving
A Hard Day’s Night
Can’t Buy Me Love
Eight Days a Week
Help!
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
Yesterday
Day Tripper
Norwegian Wood
In My Life
Yellow Submarine
Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
Show Them Some Love
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/TheBeatles - almost 26,000 members.
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The community I live in has a speed limit of 25mph. It also has a connecting street to another development which leads to a main road, so people tend to cut through my neighborhood to get there. Many drivers enjoy speeding through the streets rather than following the speed limit. The local police department therefore decided to start implementing surprise speed traps right by the main entrance. I have never been stopped by one as I like to drive safely and not get tickets that I can’t afford, but I often tend to end up in front of drivers who like to drive recklessly and get angry when those in front of them don’t do the same. Our story begins when my car’s cruise control button finally got fixed. I had long been waiting for this, because then I could finally enact Operation pettyrevenge. There’s a gentleman who regularly cuts through my neighborhood who owns a Dodge Challenger. For those who don’t know, Challengers can get LOUD. Consequently, this fellow enjoys revving the engine every 100 yards or so to inform everyone nearby that this is a Dodge Challenger and its driver likely has a less-than-average-size endowment. This morning, I found myself pulling out of my driveway right as the Challenger turned the corner and approached. And you bet your ass I booped that cruise control button and meandered at a comfortably legal 25mph the entire ride through my neighborhood. And the driver behind me was pissed. Revving that engine, riding my bumper, the works. I was loving it. The piece de resistance was when we turned onto the street right before the main entrance. Sure enough, a police car was there. Now, normally, the police puts a car there without an officer inside just to spook drivers into slowing down, but today the universe was on my side. In his haste to pass me and continue on his merry way, the driver of the Challenger apparently didn’t notice the upcoming police car, because he revved the engine one more time, scooted past me on a squeal of tires (and across a double yellow line, might I add), and for good measure, screeched a cordial “FUCK YOU!” to me out his open passenger window. The police car, that glorious, glorious police car, flipped on its lights and whipped out onto the street, and pulled that moron over. I haven’t laughed that hard in years.
TL;DR: Lord Dipshit passes me on a double yellow line along with a proud "FUCK YOU!" only to discover that he's just yeeted right past a speed trap.
Edit 1: Formatting. Edit 2: Added TL;DR. Edit 3: Holy shit, >2k upvotes, 12 awards, and nearly 150 comments in 5 hours? Wow! Glad you're all enjoying this lovely story. Edit 4: Holy shit! Thanks u/eleveneleven47 for the gold! Edit 5 (11/16/20): Oh hi, u/rSlashYT!
UPDATE: Something hilarious happened this morning. Side note: I'm quarantining at the moment due to having been exposed to COVID-19, so I've been WFH since last week and will return to work when I'm allowed to. Anyway, I was working on my living room couch earlier this afternoon when I heard an oncoming cacophony of vroom vroom accompanied by whee whoo. I looked out the front window just in time to see that lovely Challenger zoom past my house, followed soon after by a police car with its lights and sirens blaring. Some folks never learn. ;)