I Got the News

Journalism's Holy Grail..."the Big Story." The kinda story that involves intrigue, brings down the mighty and serves readers or viewers a tangy taste of retributive justice. The WoB flirts with the big story, sometimes takes it to bed and, very rarely, gets busted. Funny, but like most practitioners of that ancient profession, time in jail is minimal and there's always a pimp at the courthouse posting bail.

Woodward and Bernstein grabbed the Holy Grail. Watergate was that, and then some. That chalice was filled with an intoxicating brew of scandal, money, power and lies. The nation drank big gulps. We were drunk with justice and outrage. The hangover got Carter elected. And then we moved on. Or moved backwards. Hello, Ronnie.

Journalists wandered the countryside during those years, looking for the Grail. Then came the story of a lifetime--a story so big, with so many other stories emanating out of it that it could sustain a dozen Woodwards and Bernsteins. Iran-Contra. It had illegal arms deals, gung-ho crypto-fascists, a beautiful shredderette and so much more--election surprises, drug smuggling, perception management. One of the reporters who broke that story--Robert Parry--had the Grail right in his hand. And he's never stopped drinking.

I talked to Parry extensively about another story--Plamegate. He's been a stellar investigative journalist for two-plus decades--AP, Newsweek, Frontline, Bloomberg.

The mainstream media won't touch his work

It's obvious that the WoB has, since Iran-Contra was effectively contained, figured out how to turn it's tricks and not get caught. Parry runs a website: http://www.consortiumnews.com/. It's the only way to read what he's been doing. Rove ran a seminar back in 1973, during his College Republican days chumming with Lee Atwater, on how to run Watergate without getting caught. Rove can put out any story, any time.

Many of those Iran-Contra luminaries are in this Administration--Negroponte, Reich, Abrams, Poindexter...and more. Parry's got the goods on most of them. There are still untold stories--at least untold in the mainstream media. Not to mention the "scandals that never were" since the 2000 election. Many big stories are left untouched, questions unasked. Who needs the grail when you can have "access" or simply keep your job?

The Holy Grail is empty and tarnished, the quest for it merely a legend of days of yore. Let's at least mythologize that quest, pass down the story to future generations and, perhaps, stoke the imagination of some future Parry. Right now, it's all we've got.

Just Say Yes

The Yes Men. If you don't know about their antics--posing as a WTO technocrat and appearing on TV or at economic confabs to speak with the true voice of international free trade--you're missing something special. The simply titled DVD documentary-The Yes Men-is not some Leni Riefenstahl groundbreaker, or some Michael Moore indulgence It's a simply-filmed look at a small group of guys who set out to use intellectual jujitsu on the free trade community.

It works, both as a film and as a method of poking back at the powers that be. Go to Netflix now and pop it into your queue.

We live in a matrix of absurdity. Saying one thing, doing another. Denial of obvious truths, of history and of the price others pay for our luxurious lifestyles...these things have made us into a neo-colonial globalization gorilla, 800 pounds and armed to the teeth. How do you fight off that ape when unenlightened self-interest is the apex, when the bargains are so good and the widgets so disposable? The cost of all that "wealth" has been "off-shored" to far and brown-skinned lands, or yellow-skinned lands. We don't see the working poverty, visible pollution or squalid lifestyles that cluster like flies around the factories. We see clean, plastic products in Wal-Marts and Costcos. It's so much cleaner here. Isn't that nice?

Well, the Yes Men have found a way. They use the WTO's words and ideas--unvarnished with the attendant spin--to reflect back at them their true image. They dress up like the 800-pound gorilla and dance around, singing and yelling . The gorillas don't really get it, but the Yes Men give the rest of us a frame of reference by which we can see the gorillas for who they are.

And they are funny. Really funny. Just pray that you don't get a "Re-Burger" next time you go to Mickey D's!

The arguments for "free trade" are intellectual "Re-Burgers," tired and recycled. They get associated with freedom while the actual policies strip it away. They are thought to lift all boats, when they actually monopolize the shipping lanes for the biggest oceanliners. The conitive dissonace is intense, the absurdity almost comical. Absurdity is best fought with absurdity, with satire and biting humour. Just say "yes" to The Yes Men...it is absurdly funny.

The Cognitive Leap

"There's a lot of evil in the world." A Peabody-winning producer friend, a great friend and script partner has said it many times in response to my ranting about this strange coincidence and that blatant corruption. True enough. It's obvious that there are forces at work in our strange and violent world. Be they man or metaphysical, those forces are ascendant. Is there any doubt?

So, how do we make sense of it all? I make sense of it by...making sense of it. Or, at least, trying.
Dots get connected, lineages get uncovered, events scrutinized, histories read. There are patterns. It's really not that complicated.

It's funny to find so many here in the WoB who despise what is happening, those who are doing it and the inaction of those who might try to stop it, but when the question of "why" comes up--the crucial question of motivation--they refuse to make the leap. After careful reading of ignored history books, declassified CIA papers, weird plans like the "Operation Northwoods" document (look it up!) and Rebuilding America's Defenses (by PNAC), it is quite obvious to me that "things happen for a reason."

For instance, Greg Palast blew open the 2000 election scam in Florida--replete with documentation--and it aired on the BBC's prime newscast. CBS bought the exclusive rights to the story and...killed it. They refused to run it. The scoop of the new century...poof!...gone.

Why?

I know enough from my time here, from watching hard questions not get asked, that there is a pall hanging over the media and journalism--the mainstream stuff, that is. The corporations that run it all often have interests that conflict, CEOs and socialites have cocktail parties to lure editors into complicity and there is a general fear of being deemed unpatriotic...or worse.

It has a long history--Project Mockingbird, NBC-GE, "perception management," and...well, I could go on. And on. And on. Just ask Peabody Producer.

It all comes down to how far you are willing to go. Dig deep enough and you'll find it. But what you find are the corpses of American idealism: truth, fairness, equality, justice, compassion, rule of law. They are rotting and the worms of greed, avarice, power and elitism feed on the flesh. It's an ugly picture. There is an ugliness behind the stark white facades of this city. We glory at the facades while the ugliness carries on. We sometimes turn away from the ugliness, not out of fear or ignorance or indifference...but self-preservation. It's too grand a lie before us. Too much depends on the lie having some chance of being true.

As for the Peabody Producer and many of my cohorts in this city, they know someting's gone terribly wrong. But they have lives to live, children to raise and are unwilling to toss hope into the open grave where those worms feed on the corpses. It's self-preservation. I have to respect that. It makes sense. It makes life livable.

Then again, I might be wrong. Perhaps he and others forced to listen to my barrages are simply trying to shut me up. I guess it is self-preservation!

Babble-on Blues

What's wrong with DC? Beautiful vistas and stark white monuments, political possibilities and personal ambition, tourists and interlopers...DC is unique. It's a great place to make some money and to meet educated, interesting and committed people. And it's a short jaunt from NYC.

So, why does it rub me the wrong way? Why did I come back? Yes, it's true...I miss my beloved California--the Bay Area--and long for a ride on the NYC rollercoaster. Or would hop across the pond to live in London faster than you can "pint o' bitter." But I'm here for a reason. I'm exorcising demons.

First of all, I'm finally making some real money...not that funny money I had to use last time I was here, struggling to make a career in the wasteland that was TV journalism. The 2000 Election, Chandra Levy, 9-11--in NY and here--and the Sniper. I sloshed about in that sea...and each new boat I jumped onto sprung leaks. Oh, how the gentle shores of the Bay Area called me.
Then there was my health...an incapacitating nightmare of TMJ and tinnitus. And my relationship...the struggles took a toll on us both. She was gone...traveling...a lot. I mean, a lot.

Two years in California healed some wounds, but opened another. Demons popped out of that bitter cut in my self-esteem. I exorcised some of them. Then I was alone. And it became obvious that I had to make my stand, and confront those demons that remained.

DC is about demons. The demons of our collective past: a Capitol built by slaves, a city without a vote, an entire race mired in poverty and segregated into sections of the city, the booming war industry and bloated bureaucracies...and the posh, self-satisfied party scene of Georgetown that brings together the journalists, politicians and lobbyists into an incestuous stew of self-righteousness. It's the source of many ills.

My personal demons are stoked by the grander ghouls, but it is me who is at issue. The money has finally come. One down. The work has fallen into my lap, thanks to an amazing, award-winning friend with an "off center" view. Two down. I got a glimpse of love. Alas. The imp still sits on my shoulder...but hope is always around the corner, or so it seems.

Life ambles on.

And so now I make that life, alone. It's another demon to expel. Loneliness, or the fear of it. If I can live here alone, I can live anywhere, right?

While the grander ghouls dance gleefully, mocking the residue of an idealism I once made into my undoing, I am slowly spitting forth the froth of devilry that drove me out of DC before. That was a devilry of my own making...the great expectations that rose too high for even Atlas to hold up. DC is more real than ever to me. And the demons are not kocking on my door...at least not too often.

Dude, What the Hell are You Doing?

I'm back. Technically, it's the Second Coming. I first came to DC--the Whore of Babylon, or WoB--back in September of 1999. It was the Fall before the fall. Dreams, idealism, ambition...propelled by the love of a good woman and the desire to make a difference...I had it all. The Lord giveth, the Whore taketh away. After four years, I fled back to my Promised Land--Northern California. But the Whore's reach is long, and the consequences of rubbing up against her follow you no matter where you flee. The shockwaves of my first stint here cost me that good woman, my health and my good sense. Now I am back. More to come on those adventures....

How many young people come to the WoB with similar aspirations only to find that the currency here is the local scrip--the Soul Dollar? We all have to sell off little bits of our souls from time to time, but the denizens of this town often give it away freely and unashamedly for fame, money, power, presitge. Hollywood Babylon has a twin. The motivations are essentially the same, although the effects are mutliplied here by tanks and bombers and men with guns, and by that one thing that those Hollywood Harlots do not control--policy.

This is Babylon and Rome, a place where history is converging and mutating. Where our morals and values become Foucault's plaything and who's doing what to whom is merely a matter of political perspective. All things are possible here, as long as you have a good, slightly wholesome looking blond gal as your PR person, a slick Gucci-Gultch guy to do your lobbying, a huge corporate bank account and the will to believe the lies you tell yourself and those around you. It's all Hollywood make-believe, but not nearly as genuine. As least the Hollywood Harlots admit to themselves through endless cosmetic surgery that they are malliable, plastic pretenders. Here, an old school tie, a hand-me-down Ivy League diploma and the aura of patriotism embue this place with the ultimate illusion: What's good for me is good for America.