The Trilateral Commission Gave Us Permission

The Magic Bullet Theory

Big Bobby, an old drinking buddy of mine, used to lecture me on how the “American Empire” is about to fall apart in a distinctly Roman fashion.  “The Huns are at the gate but we call them Commies or Islamists.  We allow anyone to come into the country and have built roads so they can take their bullshit anywhere they want in the country.  And just like the Romans, we don’t understand how we’re killing ourselves so we blame it on every other group imaginable, just like they did to the early Christians.  Fucking conspiracies on every block these days,” he’d say throwing back his double shot of rail bourbon is a tall glass.

Although I think BB (I hope he’s still around.  That rail booze will eat right through your stomach) is more than a little paranoid, he does make one interesting point: there are conspiracy theories for everything these days.  9/11, the Fed, both Kennedy assassinations, Martin Luther King’s death, the latest car accident on I-5 in LA all have had some unseen hand associated with a New World Order at the helm; according to the scared punter who has no handle on the world as it changes around them.

On the other hand, your average conspiracy theorist gives is endlessly entertaining.  Witness the HMS Bounty just three nights back.

I spent the night in a sort of angry fix mode, looking for a pirate themed bar on Wilshire near New Hampshire.  It turns out the pirate themed dive bar I was looking for was really a pirate themed Korean restaurant with no bar.  So after walking a two-block stretch of the street for an hour stubbornly refusing to admit I’d been hyped by bad information from both Yelp and the street, I stomped over to the Bounty to get a Jim Beam and a can of Tecate.

Sure enough, the barmaid asked me how The Magic Bullet Theory was faring and some guy next to me began spouting off on the Mason’s, the Fed and the New World Order.  The Bounty is directly across the street from what used to be the Ambassador Hotel, in whose kitchen Sirhan Sirhan assassinated RFK.  So I’m used to dealing with Conspiracy inclined in one of my favorite LA dive bars.

After 10 or so minutes of his ranting he finally got around to asking me about the play.  After the small talk about reviews, plot, character, who did what and when he looked over both shoulders and asked his ‘most important question.’  “Did anyone try to stop you guys when the play went up?”

“Oh no,” I replied.  “My co-writer and I made sure we got permission from the Trilateral Commission before we wrote the thing.”

“Really.”

“Oh yes.  And they were so happy we did the right thing they told us we could remount anytime we wanted too,” I said.

He shook my hand and patted me on the back.  “Smart, very smart young man.  You went about it the right way unlike that Oliver Stone moron,” he said.  My drinking buddy went back to watching the NBA playoffs and let me be for the rest of my drink.  Although as I left I’m sure he looked under my stool to make sure I wasn’t wired for sound.