Last weekend saw myself, Chris, Emily and Robert at a wedding. This was not a really quick fruition of our plans to marry Emily off to some rich friends – Chris had known the groom’s parents for a long while through the jewellery trade. It was quite some time since my last appearance at a marital event, and was only my third since graduating in 1987. The previous one saw a former flatmate at university get hitched, up in Aberdeen and was a fully fledged Scottish ceremony, with kilts a-flying and much Eightsome Reeling being done.
This one could hardly have been more different, being not only in Pomona, California, but was for an Indian couple, with the son getting hitched to a woman who’d come over from India. We presume this was an arranged marriage, but were too polite to ask – this may seem like an anachronism as we head into the third millennium, but it can’t be argued that the divorce rate in India is a good bit lower than that for America. We weren’t quite sure what to expect: would we feel like the last remnants of the Raj? And would there be chicken tikka masala on the menu?
Such thoughts occupied our mind as we flew into a Los Angeles so heavily smog-bound you couldn’t even see the Hollywood sign, and made our way to the hotel – a little too close to South Central for my liking! Perhaps this explains why we had to ask for a telephone to be put in, ended up swapping a bulb from the refrigerator so we could have some light in the room, and – worst of all – there was no remote control for the television. “This is barbaric!”, shrieked Robert, deep in shock at the prospect of having to actually get up to change the channel.
We hit the freeways, admiring the beautiful complexity of the junctions, where lanes flew overhead like con-trails, without visible support, and applauding the relaxed nature of California drivers and their willingness to let uncertain tourists like ourselves cut them up without retaliation. On arrival at the reception venue, it was an unnerving experience; we arrived shortly before the doors opened, and were virtually the only white people in the car-park – you could sense them wondering if we were in the wrong place.
Strangers in a strange land, we were glad to sit down inside, where we were joined by other light-skins, just in time to stop us from circling the wagons. For sheer scale, this was jaw-dropping. We only went to the third day of festivities, and there were 650 people at that alone. The previous day, elsewhere in the state, the more religious/spiritual events had taken place (we were advised to skip this, and took heed), and even these paled into insignificance with the ceremony in India, where the attendance would have shamed many Scottish First Division football teams, at two thousand. No wonder there were three wedding cakes; if there’d been just one, it would have posed difficulties to local air-traffic.
We began to relax, realising that we were not being stared at and, in many ways, this was no different from a Western event. As well as the traditional cake, we had the best man making fun of things and acting as MC, the dresses worn by the bride and her maids of honour (or the Indian equivalent) were as stunning as any veil and gown, and there was a live band pumping out their versions of popular songs. Except, of course, these were popular Indian songs – except for one glorious moment, when I recognised the tune as Cliff Richard’s Congratulations, staple of all the weddings I went to as a kid, and shocked the hell out of Chris by singing along to the bhangra beat.
The differences were, however, striking. Firstly: this being a Hindu occasion, there was no alcohol. This was perhaps a shame, as given a couple of beers, I might have been up for the Indian dancing; as it was, powered by Diet Coke, it was all I could do to prevent myself from my usual caffeine-crazed trick of impersonating a dolphin. Equally, the menu was completely vegetarian, but even to this religious carnivore, not so bad, with enough spices to hide almost completely the taste of the actual vegetables.
Also had to be impressed with the entertainment, the highlight of which was a musical revue, in which the bride’s and groom’s friends acted out their lives before the wedding, by miming to sections from Indian pop tunes [cue obvious jokes about ‘Ndian-Sync]. This ended with the best man on his knees, surrounded by children clamouring for attention, with his wife out shopping with all her friends. Seeing this really brought home that there wasn’t any difference. Sure, the trappings may have changed, the scale might be different, and I might be bouncing off the ceiling after one two many caffeinated soda, but marriage is really marriage, no matter where you are.
The heat in Phoenix is something so omniprescent that you can’t fight it, and the best defence is running away. Last weekend, we did just that, having been invited by friends to visit their compound (a word which, I will admit, triggered thoughts of something Branch Davidian) a couple of hours drive North of Phoenix. North = higher = cooler – since moving here, I’ve become somewhat familiar with things like the “dry adiabatic lapse rate” which, fact fans, is the way rising air cools at about 3C per 1000 feet.
In Arizona, this translates to a migration to higher ground at every opportunity, and we had picked a good weekend for it, as the temperature in Phoenix reached 44C on Saturday. This trip, however, ended up visiting ground a little higher than even we would have liked. We’d not been to visit our friends’ country mansion before, so had received detailed and beautifully-drawn instructions – unfortunately, they were also fatally-flawed, in that they confused Highway 89 with 89A. “You tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the even-higher road…”
Because Chris had a pinched nerve in her neck, I was the driver on this leg, and Chris’s role was largely dealing with Robert. He is clearly an urban boy, and pretty much as soon as we left Phoenix, the steady whining began coming from the back seat: in addition to the usual bleats of “Are we there yet?” and “Is it much further?”, he was also suffering a constant fear of us running out of petrol, even though the tank never dipped below a quarter-full. Passing a significant number of cars, apparently stalled by the side of the road, didn’t improve matters.
Pretty much as soon as we made the fateful turn onto Highway 89A, we realised something was wrong. This road had curves on it, something I hadn’t seen in the previous six months driving round Phoenix. I struggled to remember what you had to do to go round them…something involving the steering wheel, wasn’t it? And the road also continued to climb: three thousand, four thousand feet up, and still no sign of the promised turning which would take us to Shangri-La.
If it had been daylight, the views would no doubt have been delightful and impressive; as it was, it was probably a good thing that the darkness prevented us from seeing the precipitous drop on the other side of the guard-rail. Chris, on the passenger side, was getting up close and personal with the chasm below us, and I began to wonder if she’d taken Nietzche’s comment about gazing into the abyss to heart. She was certainly brooding in an appropriately silent manner, but might just have been petrified with fear – Chris prefers her roads straight, three lanes in each direction, and possessing a central reservation between you and any oncoming juggernauts.
Me, I was actually enjoying it. In the North of Scotland, where I learned to drive, even the A-class roads are rarely more than one lane each way, curves go with the territory, and you also have to dodge the world’s dumbest creatures, sheep. Having all but drifted off to sleep on the freeway, I was somewhat revelling in 10 m.p.h. hairpins. I remember thinking that the distances on the road signs must have been both as the crow flies and vertically. It may not be the best mindset, but I felt like I was playing an incredibly realistic video game, albeit with one life left, no saves and no continues.
It was thus with a slight sense of regret that I went over the brow of the mountain, at around 7,500 feet, and we fell down the other side, albeit not quite literally. We passed through the almost-deserted town of Jerome, and headed for Cottonwood where we drove into the first hotel we found. Never has a Quality Inn been more welcome. I used a tyre lever and gently pried Chris’s fingers free from the dashboard, where they’d been gouging grooves for the past twenty miles.
On the bright side, when we did finally reach our destination on Saturday, it made the relaxation all the more worthwhile…
On the whole, I’m beginning to get settled into this parenting lark. For one thing, it allows you to play unlimited amounts of computer games, under the guise of “bonding” – even if you do have to pretend to be no good, and get your ass severely kicked, so as to promote their feelings of self-esteem. At least, that’s my excuse, Robert, and I’m sticking to it. But it’s not all Dead or Alive 2. Saturday was Emily’s dance recital; not in itself a bad thing, since she’s a good dancer (and I will stab a steak-knife into the eye of anyone who says differently – I believe this is also part of parental responsibilities), it was the sixty or so routines she wasn’t appearing in that were the problem.
We have had differences with the dance school before, since they seem to be largely a machine designed for separating us from all our wordly goods. Apart from the fees for the dance class itself, there are the shoes, the pom-poms and the costumes – which will be worn for the recital and then never again – all of these, specially made and horrifically expensive. We were seriously contemplating selling Emily’s used leotard on Ebay to defray the costs. And if that wasn’t enough, there were the tickets: eight dollars a pop, not only for us, but friends and family too.
Because she had to be there an hour before kick-off (or whatever the dance equivalent is: tap-off, perhaps), so did we, so we snagged an entire row of seats for us and the relations, fighting off the steadily more frenzied attempts of the other participants to evict us. The lights went down, and still they were nowhere in sight: finally, just as I was about to sneak out myself, the tidal-wave broke and they turned up. Unfortunately, by this point, they’d missed Emily’s first spot: all seventy-five seconds of it.
The theme was Hooray for Hollywood, and so I was looking forward to dance routines based around Basic Instinct perhaps, or Schindler’s List, but no such luck. About the closest we got was The Matrix, and that had a complete lack of PVC, bullets or running up of walls. The Charlie’s Angels one was pretty good, however, though Chris reckoned a lot of the dancers’ future careers were more likely to be gyrating on tables, rather than waiting on them. At the other end of the spectrum were the Very Small Children, bless their little hearts. Barely out of nappies, there always seemed to be one dancing to the beat of a different drum, though the result was merely to make the entire audience go “Ahhhh” and start lactating.
But there is a limit beyond which even waiting for someone to fall off the stage will pall – and after Emily’s other routine (nearer number 50 than 30 – another 75 seconds or so, though very impressive with it. See my earlier remarks about steak-knives), we gradually adopted a kind of artistic rigor mortis, interrupted sporadically by clapping. You enter a twilight zone where the dumbest thing would trigger us off into peals of hysterical laughter: those of us that were left, anyway.
For the realisation that there were fifteen Emily-free routines to go triggered a lemming-like response from our row. They’d seen her dance; what more did we want from them? “The kids are acting up,” they said. We wished fervently for more kids of our own to provide such an escape excuse, and credit must be given to Chris’s brother Leo, for being the only one to make it all the way to the end beside us. If it hadn’t been my daughter, I’d have gone to the bathroom during the interval, and kept on running [suddenly, it makes sense why they chose a high-school in the middle of the desert – to prevent escapees…]
The applause for the finale was enthusiastic and brief. We picked up our little darling, and headed off for dinner at her favourite restaurant. I never want to see a small child again; perhaps they could incorporate dance recitals into aversion therapy for paedophiles? When all is said and done, I think that next year, we’ll encourage Emily to take up a slightly cheaper pastime – something like polo, or racing powerboats.
It is perhaps appropriate that at the same time as the Bilderberg Group, those notorious bastions of the New World Order, were holding their annual get-together in Sweden, on the other side of the planet Conspiracy Con took place in Santa Clara, California. Quite possibly, some of the same topics were covered – only, here, it was from the outside…
Equally auspiciously (or suspiciously, depending on your point of view) the event shared convention facilities with another group whose initials were CC – the Charismatic Catholics, to be precise. The layout, with our lecture theater at the opposite end of the building from registration and the dealers’ room, required a substantial trek through enemy territory, and I imagine much peering around doors went on by both groups. I know we certainly were tempted to engage in a spot of infiltration, but suspect that the standard issue Trash City “nekkid babe with weaponry” T-shirt might tip them off. We had visions of pointing and shrieking – see Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the sort of thing we imagined. On our arrival, there seemed to be very few attendees, but it seems you’ve got to get up early to be a conspiracy theorist. We meandered in at about 10am, only to discover events had started at 8:30 am, and so most of our co-conspirators were already listening to the first talk.
We hurried back to the theater, just in time to catch professional victim Cathy O’Brien and her “mentor” Mark Phillips. They were practically begging the audience to buy their book, so I strongly suspect they trotted out their usual lurid (and utterly unproven) tales of her sexual exploitation by everyone up to and including Ronald Reagan. Having just eaten breakfast, I feel kinda grateful to have missed it. I’d already ordered the book from Borders – hell, I like pornolibel as much as the next man – but the Thursday after the con, got the following email from them: “After researching your special order, we have found that we will be unable to obtain the title you requested. As a result, we have canceled your order for this item.” Hmmm… Was this merely innocent out-of-printness – hard to believe, given the piles on sale in the dealers’ room – OR SOMETHING MORE MALEVOLENT???!!!
11 am – Willam Lyne. Lyne’s specialist field is supposed to be the inventions of Nicolas Tesla, a scientist of the early 20th century who showed the thin line between genius and madness. But this was mostly a rambling, if not uninteresting, biographical essay, in which Lyne saw flying saucers, discovered a Soviet spy cell, was harassed by intelligence sources before being recruited by them, and had prior knowledge of JFK’s assassination. I think it was about the last of these which convinced me to stop looking for any useful information, and just sit back and enjoy the entertainment. This approach proved far more satisfactory. Rating: D+
Each speaker was given two hours, which is actually a good bit of time – I personally would have preferred one-hour slots, and this might have helped some of the speakers who were inclined to drift, with iceberg-like relentlessness, off-topic, as well as allowing for more viewpoints (including perhaps some sceptical ones). But at least they had the good sense to break for half-an-hour between speakers, giving the audience a chance to browse in the dealers’ room, stretch their legs and acquire more food and drink to be smuggled, thanks to the “no refreshments” policy into the lecture hall.
2:30 – Jordan Maxwell. Government – Religion – Commerce. In Maxwell’s eyes, none of them much good. This was refreshing and thought-provoking, stoning every sacred cow within reach via a mix of lexicography and sarcastic cynicism. We learned about the pagan origins of Christianity, what “holocaust” actually means, and how America became a literal corporate state not long after the Civil War, as well as techniques for avoiding speeding tickets. Probably the most widely-ranging talk of the convention, the audience left more world-weary than before, having spent time with a very interesting man. A-
Most of the speakers had tables in the dealers’ room to sell their books, etc. and there were also a number of independent traders, magazine publishers, and so on. These covered virtually the entire spectrum of views, from hippy New Age (getting your aura read, and some holistic technique which seemed to involve having a candle stuck in your ear) to neo-fascist (I spotted copies of both The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The International Jew). A refreshing burst of humor was provided by Mr. Mystic and his Alien Abduction Survival Kit. We bought two.
5:00 – David Icke. As if two hours weren’t enough – keynote speaker Icke got 150 minutes each day to expound his philosophy, which gives some idea of how all-encompassing it is. Having ripped into him last TC, we opted to sit towards the back, just in case he recognised us. He’s certainly an entertaining speaker, and a lot of what he said here made sense, not least because in this part, he steered well clear of reptilian shape-shifting members of the Royal Family. Powerful bloodlines run through history, there seems little doubt – whether this proves anything beyond “if your Dad was powerful, you probably will be too”, I am less certain. The suggestion that Antz is a thinly-veiled New World Order tale was nice though. B+
The final event was an “all you can eat, meet your speaker” party, which really failed on both counts. Tickets were $30, which for two beers and a selection of hors d’oeuvres didn’t really cut it. And we never met any of the speakers, though we did chat to some other con-goers. Going by them, conspiracy seems to be largely a white, middle-class activity – presumably working-class people are too busy to worry about it, while the upper-class are in on the whole plan.
Separated at birth? Roman Polanski – William Thomas
We quit early, but still missed the first speaker on Sunday, William Thomas – who bears a strong resemblance to Roman Polanski (as the photos show). His subject was chemtrails: how the government are using planes to dose the population with…well, we bought the book, but haven’t had time to read it yet, so we don’t really know yet. It’s unlikely to be good, whatever it is. My sleep had been disturbed by a dream which ended with me being shot in the back of the head – a swelling pressure, and a descending cloak of darkness, though this does at least disprove the theory that if you die in your dream, you die in real life.
11 am – Leonard Horowitz. This was particularly freaky, as Horowitz started off by asking for his prayers; he was flying off to Africa, and he’d had people telling him to watch out for his life. This developed into an excruciating 50-minute religious rant, which left us wondering if he was an agent for the Charismatic Catholics, and we almost bolted before half-way. When he finally got onto his subject – evolving viruses – he had some good material, albeit laced with kabbalistic numerology, and it was great to see the murals at Denver Airport. These are bizarre, surreal and nightmarish paintings of death symbolism, most unsuitable for an airport…except one run, according to a floor plaque, by the New World Airport Commission… C-
2:30 pm – “Victor”. Didn’t catch – or at least, can’t spell – his surname; he was a mate of Jordan Maxwell, largely promoting a scheme to convert your citizenship of the United States of America into a citizenship of America – which would free you from the need to pay taxes. This felt dubious at best – if it really worked, they’d be changing the law – and was also touted as a way to escape credit-card debt. Here’s an even better way: don’t use the damn things to start with. Had it’s moments, such as more nice anecdotes involving speeding tickets (a little legal knowledge goes a long way!), but was too much of a sales pitch to be interesting, especially to this British citizen! D-
Fashion item of the convention has to be a T-shirt, parodying the Sex Pistols LP: “Never mind the filthy lucre, here come the reptiles”, with the famous picture of the Queen, doctored so as to give her lizard eyes. Someone was giving these away in exchange for “donations” in the dealers’ room: would have asked questions as to their agenda, but was too concerned with acquiring the shirts. Essential wear should we ever get invited to a garden-party at Buckingham Palace.
5 pm – David Icke again. As expected, while still good fun, this was rather less convincing, even though he soft-pedalled the reptiloids more than in some of his books. I’ve met Edward Heath too, and he didn’t seem the baby-eating personification of evil he struck David Icke as, on first impression. At the end, he drifted well into metaphysical territory (reality is a hologram, etc.) and his final message appeared to be that we have to love the reptiles – okay, Mr. Icke is clearly a clever double-agent working for them. It seems to me that wiping out the entire Windsor bloodline would be just as effective, and a good deal more fun. B-
We had been hoping to go and get some food after this one, but a late start, Icke’s verbal diarrhoea (he spoke for nearer 3 hours) and a decision to bring the question and answer session forward put a damper on that. Defeated by the blanket ban on the movement of food, it was thus tortilla chips and salsa for dinner… to follow up on the tortilla chips we’d had for lunch. It will be some time before I can face them again, I think.
9 pm – Q&A panel. We’d seen only one speaker taking questions after their lecture; here was a chance to catch up with five of them. Overseen with no small degree of wit by con organiser Brian Hall, Icke was the main target, and came up with a fabulous story of a barrister whose little daughter had seen a senior judge shape-shift into a reptiloid, and whose career and life were being threatened as a result. Hollywood, hire this man! What I want to know is, why “they” leave all these signals and symbols about for us to find; it’s a bit like Blofeld telling 007 his plan for world domination in great detail. Despite the presence of a dickhead from Stuff magazine, asking a question about hair, perhaps most affecting was actually one questioner – a woman from Seattle – with a tale of harassment and intimidation which certainly convinced me. B
That was the end of the convention: a fabulous trip through the outer edges of knowledge, and plans are already afoot for ConCon II next year – if the powers that be don’t clamp down on such subversive events. Certainly, for both education and entertainment, it was a weekend that was hard to beat and we staggered out into the darkness, our minds reeling from the torrent of information poured into it over the previous 36 hours. Picking the bones out of it all, separating the wheat from the chaff, was going to take some time, and I resolved that the next book I read would be one about fluffy bunny-rabbits, purely for a change of scenery. “Let’s do this again,” said Chris, adding with some conviction, “next year.” I nodded. Right then, I just needed to lie down in a dark room for a bit, but maybe that was just the tortilla chips.
