When I arrived at Emerson College in the fall of 1990 I was a wet-behind-the-ears, entitled and privileged white boy with no idea of the world around me.
When I graduated from Emerson in 1993 I was still a privileged white boy but a little wiser about my place in the world and how it had gotten that way.
That was all because of one man: Rev. John Coffee.
—

I don’t remember if I was told to take a class with him by my advisor or anyone, but the general word around campus was that if you were at Emerson you shouldn’t graduate without taking at least one of his classes. By my senior year I’d taken six and the final semester of 1993 I was taking two at once.

The thing I loved about John (it’s hard for me to call him that because for so long he was Dr. Coffee or Rev. Coffee until I had graduated and then he asked me to call him John) was that he got me. He saw the naive kid and I suspect took a certain liking to me. But then he may have done that with everyone. I used to sit right in the front row so I wouldn’t fall asleep (honestly) and also so I could record lectures for transcribing later (I still have some tapes of these that I may dig up and put online). He approached me once and asked what I was doing and I told him and he just smiled. He either thought I was young and earnest or just amused at someone taking so much care with his words.

But his lectures − my god! The man spoke beautifully and eloquently and really entertained you and along the way if you weren’t careful you learned more than you thought. I loved to hear his description and back stories and untold anecdotes. When he spoke it was as if he had been there and was describing events from memory having witnessed it in his tweed jacket, tie, brown loafers and yellow oxford shirt. His stories gave me a whole new outlook on everything from God to the Bible to the Constitution to the second World War and beyond.
As I sat there in the front row – for every day of every class I took with him – I got to notice a few things over the years. His notes – I’d kill to get my hands on those even more than the Dead Sea Scrolls or anything else – were neatly typed then scrawled over with his peculiar script. I grew to recognize a few lectures re-used from other classes but I didn’t care. He was always fun to listen to, I learned from him and always left his classes thinking.

He had a few rules for his students. If you were there you were quiet and listened. He took attendance the old school way by name. If you made every class you didn’t have to take the final exam (I used this option every class of his I took. I think I only took two exams of the six classes I had with him. He even let me off when I missed class due to my dorm room being flooded). He was strict about that and I wasn’t angry when he said you missed such and such a day because we both knew he was right.

His exams were essays but also had spelling quizzes. I’m ashamed to admit how I got certain words wrong twice but to this day I thank him every time I have to spell accommodate.

He did assign papers and he was fine with the use of foul language which at 21 I found awesome but now look back and find a bit childish. John Coffee was more interested in getting you to express your real self than just spit back something from the textbook like other teachers might have you do (he didn’t use textbooks. I loved that).

—

After graduation I’d see him every so often and would get very shy because he was like a god to me. I mean, this is a guy who so impressed Stephen King that he wrote a character after him! And when it came time to get married I could think of only one man for the job. John agreed and invited us to his apartment to discuss the particulars.

This had always been a dream of mine since the first day I met him. I imagined he lived in an old Victorian in Brookline with polished wood everywhere and a library rivaling that of the Vatican (but far more catholic in its contents). Some of my friends had been his assistants for work study including my good friend Steve. John loved Steve as many did for the way he excelled despite coming up from a rough background and his sharp mind (many thought John was gay which made him chuckle and was perhaps the reason he assigned the word catamite so often for his spelling quizzes. But he was not gay. There was a woman and she was dear but there was only the one). Steve described it as much the way I thought it would be. Lots of books and tidy but cluttered in the way a scholar’s home should be.

When we met with him at his apartment I felt I was being let in behind the curtain by Oz himself. He lived in a modern building but a very nice one. His study had a window overlooking the southwestern edge of the city and the D line. I was right about the books and there were many. He had enormous stereo speakers (as big as a medium sized refrigerator. No kidding) and a reel-to-real that he played classical music on. He told us all about his father’s time in Congress, his mother’s life and even showed us a picture of her sitting with a lion or a tiger.
I think we talked about the wedding for about fifteen minutes out of the hour we were there. WHen I asked him to come to the rehearsal he emphatically said, “No. I don’t need to.” As it was my wedding I was nervous but when the day came he did not disappoint. He was prompt, ready and performed a ceremony as moving as his best lecture.

Then he got his envelope of cash, shook our hands and was out like a shot in his brown Lincoln Town Car.

——

I told my wife she would have hated me had she met me before college. And the reason was that I had yet to be spoken to and challenged as I was by the words and voice of Rev. John Coffee. He is one of the people who made me the man I am today.
I can’t help but think that wherever he is now, he has a broad smile across his face as he looks around in wonder, adjusts his glasses, clears his throat and cackles with laughter before saying, “So this is what it’s really like!”
Thank you, John. I miss you.

M+M

Ultimate brother of destruction and home piece Jungle JMC was a big fan of MArtha and the Muffins back in the day.  I confess to being like sucker contemporaries and not heeding the word of the guy who has helped shape a lot of what I like for the past 26+ years.  Well, last week I finally got religion.

It all started when some cats over on AHOT said to check this out:

ANd I was all like SWEET! Then another cat was like yo check this:

And I was like DAAAAAAAAMN!!!!

See I dug M+M but never enough to slap down for vinyl or plastic. What a dummy. Well, I rectified that by J hooking me up with all their output from 81 – 84. Good stuff. I knew them from these two tracks that I love back in the dazzle.

Issa nice lil’ bit o’ Canadafunk. Then there was this one which just kills me:

That is just a divine piece of music and man does the image of Martha carrying Mark just kill me every time. Glad I finally got on the wagon before I died. Thanks, J!

DAVID BYRNE @ WEST 54TH STREET & INNA BUSHA GOATS

I’m a fan of David Byrne’s from way back in the dizzle which should surprise no one. I remember seeing this on TV back in the day and just being blown away. Still pretty hot 15 years later.

Of course this led me to a wee bit o’ poking and I discovered someone put all of MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS up with the extra tracks. Worth a listen, too. Now.

It kills me how this is still fresh and relevant well over 30 years after being put out. I can’t be the only sucker seeking to cover it still, right?

Piece out with your greasy self!

Oh.  Thank you.

So here’s this post by the good folks at Dangerous Minds.  To me it proves that out of nowhere you suddenly find yet another gem from these guys that makes their sudden and painful end all the more horrible.

Dangerous Minds | Previously unseen Beastie Boys video from the ‘Chappelle Show’.

Gutted.  Absolutely gutted.

Beastie Boys Co-Founder Adam Yauch Dead at 48 | Music News | Rolling Stone.

So sad.  Devastated.

This is as hard or perhaps harder for me than when John Lennon was shot.  The Beastie Boys were immensely important to me.  The sheer wildness of LICENSED TO ILL then the sample heavy amazing PAUL’S BOUTIQUE.  Those two were the tops for me.  Then when TO THE 5 BOROUGHS came out I was psyched.  listened to that all the time when I was going to teach yoga.

Yauch might have been my favorite due to his love of the bass, Tibetan Buddhism and his softening in later years.

I’m truly not sure how I’m going to get through this day.

Oh, well.  SO it goes…

Thanks for your patience while I considered your query and for your interest in our agency.  Unfortunately you’ve caught me at a time when the demands of my current clients leave me with very little time to devote to exploring new talent and unfortunately in this case I have to pass on the opportunity to pursue this.  I’m being extremely, and likely unreasonably, picky so please seek many opinions since my decision may have little to do with the salability of your work.

Sincerely,
Rich Henshaw

Let’s get to it.

THE BUDOS BAND

I have had a long lasting love affair with Ethiopian music since I borrowed a couple of Mahmoud Ahmed CD’s from a guy I worked with at Whole Foods way back in the day.  The majority of it I’ve heard from the amazing Ethiopiques series of releases.  My favorite is still Mahmoud Ahmed.

Though the piano works of  Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou.

I was in our locals market the other day (the wonderful Rosemont Market) as I am at least once or twice a day.  They usually play pretty awesome music and today was no exception.  I try to be all hip and say who it is that I think is playing with one guy because we seem to like similar stuff.  What I thought I heard was Antibalas.  I was wrong.  Twas The Budos band.

I know The Budos Band from a photographer who was playing them during a shoot but this sounded totally different.  It makes sense that they are part of the Dapkings group with there semi-nostalgic vibe and sound.  While “Ride or Die” and much of the Budos Band II album around like something out of the 70′s, the 1st one sounds a but murkier, like it was recorded partially underwater.  It gives the sound a nice hot vibe, a little sleazy and funky.

This hits a nice groove between Afrobeat, NEw Orleans funk, jazz and something Quincy Jones would write for a soundtrack in the 70′s.  It’s also a Sly & The Family Stone cover.  They do some amazing covers on Budos Band II.

Check that out!  They invert the melody of Day Tripper!!!  It’s like they took Mahmoud Ahmed to New Orleans and let him loose there.  Also…

Again they turn it into their own song by giving it this crazy Ethiopian vibe with some hot Afrobeat elements in it.

I have to say they kick Antibalas’ ass in terms of funk.

As I said to the guy at Rosemont if you have the money I would suggest buying ALL the Budos Band stuff you can get plus all the Ethipiques discs.  You will not be disappointed.

Go forth and funk thyself and others to death.

P.S.  One should not confuse The Budos Band with Badume’s Band as I have.  Both rock.  But differently.

P.P.S.  I just remembered this song and love it so much I hadda add it!

Folks forget this but 5 years ago today a wonderful thing happened to many people and a thing of much suck happened to another.

On April 12, 2007, Howard V. Hendrix said… Well, I’ll just let Wikipedia tell you:

Hendrix created a stir among science fiction and fantasy fans and authors with a LiveJournal posting on April 12, 2007. The purpose of the posting was to explain, in part, why he would not be seeking the presidency of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America after having served as its vice president. He criticized authors who offer their works for free on the internet, either as written works, or recorded as podcasts. His comments have drawn criticism from a number of other authors, such as Michael A. Stackpole,[1] John Scalzi,[2] and David Wellington,[3] and resulted in International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.

You gotta love when a skiff author can’t see beyond their own god damn nose. Hendirx now publishes some e-books here and there but may not own the means to read them.

Anywhelp…

Hendrix’s wet fart of inspired inspience led many to put their work for free on the web, thus inspiring the name of this great day.  In honor of today, International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, I hereby give some of my work up for grabs. This story is called “The Empty Vector” and is the first story I wrote following my time at Viable Paradise. It was actually my homework for John Scalzi who told me to go write a story with “zero percent snark, sarcasm or humor in it.” I think I nailed it.

Thank you for reading.

The Empty Vector 

 

 

Yuri sat naked on the edge of the bed, emptied of poison, thinking of the ancient postcard on the desk a few meters away.  Sleeping beside him was an exquisitely beautiful woman, the curve of her naked form a landscape he had conquered to their mutual satisfaction.  Her name, as well as her boyfriend’s, was printed on the back of the postcard over on the desk.  Head in hands, Yuri allowed flashes of this particular coupling to roll through his mind; the anticipation as they strayed from a group in an observation lounge, the stumbling entrance into his state room, hands on each others body, collapsing to the nearest piece of furniture, the manic thrusting, their respective climaxes.  He knew he’d forget the details of it within an hour of her leaving with expensive shoes in hand, dress re-slung over her impossibly taut frame, and a smile draped on her face.

The deed finished, he allowed his wound to open, feeling the cold draft from nowhere sweep in, causing his stomach to quiver.  Thoughts long sequestered behind the veneer of menace, confidence and swagger he kept in place, were allowed to seep out.

The flash of another woman’s face smiling at him in sunlight overtook the remembrance of tonight’s sex.  A child’s smiling face, a fragment of laughter, faded by decades of careful remembrance came to mind.  He smiled and tears welled until he tamped it down.  Not yet, he said to himself, clenching his teeth.  Too early.  Too soon.

Yuri imagined the gaudy airship gliding over the Earth, its lazy path guided by nothing more than his whim plotted into a navigation AI.  People on the surface would look up, seeing the peculiar airship with its red and gold exterior, the shining fifteen-meter long tassels hanging off the corners.  Perhaps they’d wonder if it had come loose from a parade, never guessing at the activities inside it.

The Karjala Cup 2455 was a floating party ship named after one of Yuri’s most spectacular hockey victories.  Known only to inhabitants of the shadowy intersection of politics, entertainment and interplanetary finance.  Gaining entrance to Yuri’s vessel sated the desires of the most decadent polygarchs completely.  A staff of one hundred-fifty attended to at least five hundred people.  Yuri absently remembered a party of well over one thousand, when he forcibly ejected some stalwart partygoers when the bloated airship nearly plummeted into the ocean.

Yuri was going to kill them all.

Slowly, one by one, even though like the hydra, another would pop up in their place.  Another powerful man and another whore in another city; Yuri had long ago stopped wondering who the whore was.

The woman stirred. Yuri closed the wound, restoring his composure and turning towards her.  She rolled on her back, a mixture of sleep, narcotics and champagne making her smile all the more languid.  She reached out to touch his thigh; Yuri sensed invitation in the gentle grip of her fingers as they moved towards his groin.  Yuri sighed, shaking his head, not bothering to speak; this one spoke a Chinese dialect so arcane his translation module rendered most of her words as silence.

Yuri hardly cared what she had to say.  He was more interested in the portly man she arrived with, the other name on the card; a fusion magnate from Lodz with holdings in energy production on five worlds.  Word of Yuri’s twenty-four hour floating soiree traveled far to bring a man like this to the backwaters of Earth.  He came to the airship looking for what they all sought:  food, drink, drugs, outlandish sex and networking.  He’d leave having sated himself with all that and bawdy stories for the boys back home.

Plus a small parting gift working its way through his lover’s nervous system like an ugly rumor.

Yuri stood, ignoring the gentle pleadings of the woman in his bed.  Barely smiling, Yuri found her dress, tossing it to her.  He stepped into the bathroom, relieved himself and returned to see her dreamily sliding the flimsy dress over her body.  A small, reptilian part of Yuri flexed with a flush of blood, wanting more.

But Yuri had somewhere else to be.

Always a gentleman, Yuri showed her out.  Kissing her cheek, a hand that held her shoes brushed lightly against the tip of his glans in an attempt to gain re-admittance to his bed.  Yuri smiled and clucked at her, waving a finger as a bodyguard opened the door.  The woman left with a salutation that meant nothing to his interpretation module.  Yuri closed the door.

At least there was satisfaction in knowing her lover would be dead sometime shortly after their next coupling.

Returning to the bedroom, Yuri donned a robe and stepped into the depths of his walk-in closet, past rows of suits, shoes and tailored shirts.  At the far wall he parted a stack of sweaters and flicked a switch.  Stepping back, Yuri rubbed an eye as the rear wall opened onto a concealed room.  Yuri entered, the walls closing behind him.  Having built the room, only Yuri knew of it.  Long hours would go by with no one knowing where he was.  In a ship was as big as Yuri’s mythical reputation the unexplained absences fueled rumor and speculation about which woman he’d bedded where.

In the small room was a chair, a simple leather bound album upon a table.  Yuri sat and took a breath, reaching behind him for a bottle and two glasses, pouring equal measures of the expensive off-world liquor into each.  Placing a glass in front of him, he placed the other at the opposite end.

Yuri opened the album to a picture of the woman he allowed himself to see earlier whilst next to the sleeping girl.  Her eyes were as full of love as her smile was for Yuri, the photographer.  Next page, he saw a younger version of himself, minus scars and broken nose, sitting next to the woman, their hands intertwined and clutching a small blond girl between them.  All three were smiling.  Every picture after this was a variation of the same thing:  a man, a woman, and the manifestation of their love evident in the small child with them.

Yuri’s lids grew heavy.  He put the glass down and closed the album, knowing what would come next.  The liquor, drugged with something to negate the chemical sleep that kept him perpetually awake, cut in like a tactful servant.  Yuri let his guard down, slumping and crossing his arms for a pillow.

This was his reward.  After every card was received, after every coupling was over and the woman departed, he came to this place to open the wounds and feel.  Every once in a long while, Yuri let himself endure true sleep to dream and remember.

# # #

He grew up poor in a desolate corner of the wasteland in Russia.  What men remained after mandatory education and military service either drank in solitude, worked the few non-automated factory jobs or played hockey.  Yuri showed an aptitude for the rink, along with a playful willingness to fight.  Not a brutal thrasher with a stick, Yuri was quick to come to the aide of his teammates in such a way that made him a hit with the men in the stands as well as the women.

It was during an away game in Orshas that he met her.  They got to know each other better during a after-party in a nearby hotel.  Arkadina was a student at the University, majoring in, as she put it, “open studies.”  Her dark hair falling about her shoulders as she cheered the Bears on set her apart from her drab friends.  They fell in love and Yuri got himself traded up to the Orshas Bears, a jump in pay and status.  They moved in together and Arkadina came to every home game and as many away games as her education would allow.

A few months into his time with Orshas that Yuri was asked to throw a game by his coach.  When he asked why, the coach handed him a few thousand rubles in cards and gestured with a thumb at the ceiling.  That night during the game, his stomach a bottomless pit but for the knot tying it up, he noticed a group of men occupying a floating skybox near the roof of the arena.  Heavyset, surrounded by thugs and expensive hired women, Yuri knew he was no longer playing hockey but a different game.

Yuri ignored his newfound knowledge of his beloved sport and immersed himself in life with Arkadina.  She became pregnant and postponed her education for the birth of their daughter.  “I can resume my studies when she’s older.  There’s not much happening in my field right now,” she said to Yuri’s laughter.  Tsveta arrived in early spring, sunshine in the midst of the lingering cold.  Yuri played with occasional intervention from The Owner in the skybox, growing in popularity with fans and team.  He and Arkadina talked about going to Moscow to the professional league or perhaps even the IP hockey league, where they could travel offworld as a family.

It was in his third year with Orshas he was asked to throw a huge playoff game and lose against a weak rival – the Elets Ravens, no less.  Yuri knew it would stink, with fans, teammates and media.  Someone would have his head, be it The Owner or the others.  That night Yuri played like a professional, ignoring the radiation of glares from that skybox as he soaked up the crowd’s adulation, leading the Bears to victory.  After a brief post-game party with his the team, Yuri returned home.

He knew it was time for his little family to move on, lest the wrath of The Owner come down on them.  Yuri knew better than to thwart The Owner’s plans without protecting himself.  The day before the game, he moved Arkadina and the baby to a small apartment in a quiet part of the city.  The next day they would embark on a shuttle for the Jovian Rings where Arkadina had an uncle who could put them up.  Yuri would become a farmer like his father.  Perhaps he might step into the ring again after a few years absence.

Upon finding the apartment door burst from its hinges, splintered apart in the entry hall, he realized he was too late.

The Owner sat in the dining room, sprawled in Yuri’s throne-like chair with a glass of his whiskey in hand.  Large men well over Yuri’s two-meter height stood at attention behind him.  Yuri noticed another pair as he rushed into the dining room.

“You were asked to be a team player,” said The Owner.

“I was asked to fail when victory was easier.”

“You obviously do not understand the coaches instructions.”

“I understand clearly.  It’s you who do not.”  Yuri looked at the behemoths next to him, augmented to resemble fleshy columns of muscle packed into expensive suits bulging with concealed weapons.  “Perhaps you should come onto the rink and play while I lounge up there with your whores and yes-men.”

“Ha!”   The Owner grunted out this one syllable and took a sip of the whiskey.  “Speaking of whores, your wife has potential in that department.”

The two men stepped away from The Owner and disappeared into the bedroom.  They emerged with Arkadina held between them.  Her eyes were red with tears and bruises blossomed on her chin under the tape.  She struggled upon seeing Yuri.  He called out her name and with strength he’d never felt before tried to pull free of the grasp of the giants holding him.  But nothing could pry their hands from his arms.

They raped her there in front of him on the floor.  When Yuri attempted to hide his eyes or look away, one of the monsters next to him slapped and swung him to face her.  Then Yuri held his gaze despite wanting to flee for the first time in his life.  He Arkadina’s gaze even as they violated her. The room grew hot and white like he was staring into the sun, everything washing out but for the horror before him.  Every movement, every sound was burned inextricably into his cells.  He would never be free of the sight of it and how could he be?

Upon finishing up, the last thug pulled his pants back up, fastened his belt and kicked Arakadina’s naked immobile form.  He took his place behind The Owner again as if nothing had happened.  The Owner took a pistol out from his coat and shot Arkadina in the back of her head.

A sound emerged from inside Yuri like nothing he’d heard before.  He fell, his legs wilting underneath him.  Everything disappeared in that moment; their dreams, their escape from everything they knew, from The Owner to their freedom.  He fainted only to be roused roughly by the hoods.

He stared at The Owner with tear-filled eyes.  The Owner regarded him as if he were buying fruit and gestured at the men behind him.  They proceeded to wrap Arkadina’s body up in the rug she lay upon.

“Your wife suffered greatly so that you will understand the seriousness of my requests.  Next time, you will accept the coach’s specific instructions.  I will not charge you for the disposal of her body.  Consider it a gift.”

For a few minutes Yuri could say nothing.

“Tsveta?” Yuri said, throat tight.

“The child?” The Owner said.  “Yes.  Very sweet.  She is safe and will be taken care of while you play by my rules.  Pity she should grow up without a mother, but so it goes, eh?”  Yuri struggled to get at The Owner, imagining his hands around the man’s fat throat, but the brutes held him fast without effort.

“Tch, tch, tch.  Yuri, I’m not a depraved soul,” said The Owner.  A smile played across his face. “Though I cannot speak for my associates here.  You have my word that the child will remain unharmed for the rest of her life.”

“I’ll…  I’ll do anything.  Please give her back to me.”

“Oh, I know you’ll do whatever I say.  Especially after they are done with you.”   The Owner downed the remaining whiskey in one slug and dropped the glass, denting the table.  He left the room trailed by the goons.

“I want him alive, but…  utterly convinced of my sincerity.”  The Owner left they broke both arms simultaneously.  Each went to work on Yuri with fists and boots.  Yuri let the beating happen, crying for his wife and child the entire time.  The thugs laughed and cooed at him like a baby angered at a diaper changing.  With a final kick each they left him.

Yuri lay for several hours upon the floor.  He awoke and opened one cracked and bloody eye  as the events of the last few hours pounced like animals on prey.  Fighting back tears, Yuri dragged himself to his jacket and tugged out his phone with his unbroken fingers. Speed-dialing a number he waited while it rang.  After a few rings there was a sudden burst of noise in Yuri’s ear.

“Yuri!  You still up?  Shouldn’t you be asleep so you can change nappies in the morning?”

“Plamen,” Yuri said.  He spat blood into the phone.  “Help…”

“Jesus Christ!  I’ll be right there!”

“I’m not at home,” said Yuri and he gave him the address of the dacha.

Plamen came quickly and took Yuri to a discreet physician after Yuri made him promise to tell no one of finding him. In the doctor’s office Yuri told his friend the first of a series of lies that would begin his new life.  Though the beating was mercifully short, it was thorough enough that he couldn’t play for six months. During his recuperation, left with time alone to think, he worked at something deep inside him, cold and growing until it overran his whole person.

Yuri concocted a story suitable for a man in his line of work, a story he’d heard before and seen before.  His slow recovery, addiction to painkilers and the desertion by his wife and child added veracity to it all.  The six months he spent off the ice allowed for rumors to fester and grow in their impossibility.  A sordid tale of this young man perverted by the lure of fame and women made for a sellout crowd at his return to the rink.  Yuri showed up swaggering with a trollop on each arm and played flawlessly, breaking the jaw of an Elets forward and knocking out a total of seven teeth as he led the team to victory.  Yuri Ovechkin was back with a vengeance.  Even The Owner was impressed, sending champagne with a note commending him as well as noting how Tsveta was becoming quite an excellent little singer.  Yuri spent the night after that game in a drunken rage, tearing apart his hotel room.  Teammates knew something was different about Yuri thought they dare not confront him about it.

In public, Yuri’s cavalier and flashy lifestyle catapulted him into the world of shady men like The Owner.  Parties with celebrities, beautiful women and polygarchs allowed him to study the ways of clandestine business.  In private, Yuri plotted slowly, taking his time to memorize which polygarchs owned which team, resource company or politician.  He developed his own network, currying favor here, supporting a deal there, working his way into the world that tore his life apart.

Getting close to The Owner was only part of the reason.  Tsveta’s health was his main concern and The Owner gave him regular updates on the girl’s life.  Yuri in turn wrote her letters about her mother and how much he loved her.  Yet every time Yuri felt he might be out from under the thumb of The Owner, a new picture would arrive showing a girl with Arkadina’s face and Yuri’s blond hair along with a new request.  Yuri kept these in an album, along with photos of Arkadina herself.  The goal was getting Tsveta back safe and sound.  Dealing with The Owner could wait until he was safe.

After ten years, Yuri had amassed a great deal of information.  Laying the groundwork for his post-hockey career, he began to act on the information.  A tipoff to the police led to the arrest of an illegal cloning operation of fighters for warehouse deathmatches.  Yuri bought up the illegal cloner’s holdings at bargain prices and turned them around to make an even tidier profit.  Thus began Yuri’s transformation into a polygarch himself.  On and on it went for years, Yuri working the underworld against each other from the inside.

Yuri retired at the height of his game after twenty years of playing hockey, the last few preparing to rule his empire of legitimate and half-legitimate businesses.  The Owner threw an enormous party for him at the Metropol hotel in Moscow.  Yuri slid right out of his hockey gear into a suit and his new life.  His tendrils worked deep into a system he had patiently infiltrated years before.  Now, with enough money and power, he could buy back his daughter’s freedom or overtake The Owner.

One day The Owner disappeared.

Just like that he was gone, leaving no trace.  His villas were still full of furniture, fine foods and his many cars.  But The Owner was nowhere to be found.  Yuri pushed his men to find The Owner in his usual haunts but they came up empty.  Dust in his wake, no one knew where The Owner had fled to.  The only shred Yuri could turn up is that he left with a young woman around twenty years old, tall and blond.  Yuri fumed and cried over this in the depths of his mansion, refusing to emerge for several days.

I have been weak, he thought as he brooded in the darkness at his desk.  I thought I could play this game with honor and integrity and without blood.    He has slipped out of my reach when I could have had him several times over and Tsveta would be mine again.  Yuri thought long into the night until dawn brought him to a new mind.

No one was safe anymore.  Not The Owner, not his henchmen, not his friends.  No one.  Yuri would hunt them all down and kill them.  One by one or in a group, but he would kill them all.

Yuri left his mansion that morning and began living in hotels, traveling with a few trusted associates and bodyguards.  City to city he conducted business while looking for The Owner.  Those who showed signs of holding out were beaten, killed or worse.  Yuri found this upset him less than he thought it would.  A part of him wondered if he should show mercy while the other would twist an arm back further or cut off another finger.

A few years into full time polygarchy, a compulsive gambler who couldn’t pay back his debts gave Yuri his airship.  A rarity in these days, he was ethnic Chinese and owned several hundred hovercar dealerships plus a thriving prostitution ring.  He was also a low level acquaintance of The Owner’s.  Yuri had been watching him for some time, waiting to act when the opportunity arose.  Arriving on the airship to collect his debt, Yuri was reminded of a toy airplane of Tsveta’s.  Its vast halls, luxurious décor and air of decadence was something that left Yuri cold; but the newly awakened predator in him knew it was highly attractive to his prey.  The debtor signed the papers and was thrown from the landing deck minutes later.  Yuri changed only the name.

He held a party to celebrate the newly acquired airship Karjala Cupp 2455.  Seeing the hundreds of polygarchs, Mafiosi, yakuza and triad members eating his food, drinking his liquor, pawing their tawdry hired women while milling around his halls, Yuri came to a sudden realization.  How could he possibly hope to kill off The Owner’s associates without attracting attention?  One or two deaths would be enough to arouse suspicion and before long his party ship would be empty, the prey scared off.  Seeing one particularly corpulent man with his hand up the dress of a pneumatically enhanced woman, Yuri saw the solution.

A few days later the airship stopped over one of the man-made island cities floating off the Chinese coast.  There, Yuri met with a circumspect doctor of some renown.  Skilled in the more obscure augmentative surgeries favored by polygarchs and their girlfriends, he was known for discretion as well.  Yuri explained his idea while the doctor sat surrounded by plaster molds of dissected human features; a half mouth with teeth gaped at Yuri’s suggestion while a giant ear listened.

“So,” said the doctor, when Yuri had finished, “you wish to be the vector, yes?”

“Vector?” asked Yuri.

“Vector.  The means whereby the ‘material’ is transmitted.”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm.  An interesting idea.  It can be done.”  The doctor turned away to an AI terminal and spoke to it in Chinese.  Yuri’s translator gave up, informing Yuri the doctor spoke in an encrypted Chinese dialect.  After a few minutes he turned back to Yuri.

“Come back tomorrow.  Eat nothing until then.”

Yuri returned the next day and the doctor put him under a local anesthetic for the brief operation.  Yuri never spoke during the operation and the doctor only spoke to his assistant and a medical AI.  When finished, Yuri felt a certain soreness around the area but nothing vastly different.  The doctor let him dress and finally spoke to him before he left.  “Rest for the next forty-eight hours.  Then you can resume your normal activities.  The storage receptacle is just inside your right thigh.  One would have to search very hard to find it.”

“How does it work?” Yuri asked.

“Think of semen as a toxin,” said the doctor.  “In this case, a long-delayed toxin keyed to skins cells of an XY human.”

Yuri thanked the doctor and left.  Returning to his airship, he received word the doctor’s office had mysteriously exploded shortly after his visit.  The doctor and his entire staff were killed and all records destroyed.  The local authorities would be reluctant to investigate.  Those under his care would breathe a sigh of relief before searching for a new surgeon.  None of them would like the specifics of their care made public.  Many secrets burned with him.  None would weep for the doctor – least of all Yuri.

He waited a few weeks for when there was a throng of party-goers on the airship before he tried out his enhancement.  Yuri spied a man he’d been observing for years, an AI manufacturer and owner of several illegal mines in Africa, a bronze woman draped on his arm.  When her eyes lit upon Yuri, he immediately knew she would be the first.  Several times during the night, they caught each other’s eye.  Coming closer and closer to him, she was finally drawn into his orbit like a star drawing in a helpless moon.  They spoke in small talk, Yuri pouring on charm and she hanging on his words, laughing too much.

Yuri kept her in his sights while attending to the rest of his guests.  Eventually Yuri found her alone by an observation port, observing a monsoon over Thailand.  Their idle chatter turned to more intimate discussion until finally a kiss brought things to a new level.  They fucked in an alcove nearby, she up against the wall, legs wrapped around Yuri’s shoulders.  Yuri was concerned about the efficiency of the doctor’s work and the fact that this was the first sex he’d had since Arkadina’s murder.  Playing the part expected of him, Yuri was just rough enough for her excitement.  He came fast and she shortly after.  Yuri was hardly acting when he abruptly left her and returned to his quarters.  Yuri felt sickened and left word that he was called away on business but the party must go on.

Neither of them was missed.  The woman and her benefactor left in a few hours.  A few days later, sitting at his desk while disinterestedly listening to a pitch for undersea casinos, Yuri received a message: the woman’s boyfriend had died of a sudden heart attack during sex.  Yuri smiled and deleted the message. For the next week he kept an ear tuned to rumor, listening for any suspicion of his involvement.  But there was nothing.

Yuri tweaked the mechanism and tried it again.  This time it was the girlfriend of a close associate of The Owner’s.  Yuri met and wooed her, taking her on one of the specially built couches he’d had installed in the long mezzanine of the airship.  The couches automatically conformed themselves to the positions of bodies, guessing which position they might be in or assuming a shape most conducive to their particular sex act.  The couch became a third partner to Yuri and the woman, to her obvious satisfaction.  Weeks later he received word the man had died of a cerebral hemorrhage while at a dogfight.

So it went for several months.  Yuri was carefully selective.  Once a month he would choose a target and when they arrived on board he would seduce their women.  He knew it was less his good looks and more the eagerness of the women to climb a rung up the ladder.  During a brief sexual encounter, the woman became the unknowing carrier of potent nanotech that lay dormant until the next time she had sex, hopefully with the polygarch she was attached to.  Each time Yuri fine-tuned the nano to the specific weakness of each polygarch.  Some were good candidates for heart disease, other stroke or cancer.  The women always escaped unscathed and the men died of natural causes. Such was their profession.  Several times Yuri killed different men via one single woman making her way around the circle of polygarchs.

Yuri hoped for the day when The Owner would reappear.  His murdered body reappearing later in an ignominious locale usually resolved a sudden exit like his from the shady world he operated in.  Yet no one had seen The Owner for years.  His disappearance was so total that Yuri imagined he’d gone off world to some tropical planet or perhaps become a monk.  As time wore on, Yuri grew less confident he would get a chance to avenge the death of his wife and the kidnapping of his daughter, though he never gave up hope entirely.  He knew Tsveta was alive in a way only a father torn from his daughter could.

Years wore on for Yuri and his quest.  During an especially bad run of stormy weather, Yuri had the airship anchored near London for a month for repairs and upgrades.  The party took on a more European flavor with guests from all over the continent.  Had he not been so interested in the new blood, he might have missed meeting his daughter.

A group from the European Parliament stood gathered near a bar in the starboard ballroom.  Music was blaring, something newly popular that Yuri didn’t care for.  He made his usual rounds, outwardly socializing; inwardly noting names and faces, comparing them to dossiers accessed via HUD, noting connections to The Owner.  Passing close to the bar, he felt a hand on his arm.

Yuri turned towards a tall young woman with blue eyes like his.  Her straight blond hair was long, highlighting the cool angles of her cheeks.  She wore light makeup and a man’s red jacket over a white cocktail dress.  She wasn’t attired at all like the cheap social climbers the polygarchs brought in.  The hand on his arm was strong, the skin tanned.   She wore a gold ring with a large stone.

It was the eyes that caught him off guard; seeing Arkadina’s face stare out at him from that blond hair loosed Yuri from the present to somewhere miles and years away.  It was a party like this in a crowded hotel ballroom.  The young woman there asked him the time.

Yuri blinked himself to the present.  This woman in front of him smiled, holding a cigarette to her mouth and flicking her thumb up and down.

“I…  I’m sorry?” he said.  The words seem to cram into his mouth, rushing out like drowning passengers to sinking liferafts.

“A light?  You got a light?” she asked in clear European English.  Yuri felt in his pocket with suddenly cold hands, his fingers closing dully around the platinum lighter.  He offered it to her and she smiled, holding the cigarette out and leaning towards him.  With the cigarette lit, she leaned back and blew smoke in a plume over her head.  Yuri wanted to hug her and never let go, while scolding her for smoking.

How old was she?  How many years had passed?  Yuri tried not to keep count, waiting for her return by his patient tracking down of The Owner.  He realized that it was over twenty years.

“Some party, huh?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.  Yuri forced a smile onto skin that felt cold and tight.

“Who you here with?” she said.  Her accent was without a trace of Russian.  Yuri tried to keep his voice free of his thick, homely pronunciations and hoped his Euronese was up to snuff.

“Friends,” he said, waving dismissively around him.

“Pretty cool ship, huh?  Simon says the guy who owns it is around here somewhere.”

“Really?” said Yuri.

“Yeah,” she said, dragging on her cigarette.  “Who’re you then?”

Yuri’s heart sank. He wanted to cry out “Your father!”  How many letters and photos had he sent over the years to a blank drop box?  Hundreds?  Thousands?.  She’d never gotten a single one.

“Michael,” he said, holding out his hand, hoping it was not too cold.

“Liz,” she said, shaking his with a strong grip.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he said.  He wished the ship would plummet to earth right there.  “What brings you here?”

“Oh, Simon brought me and a bunch of the others from the Parliamentary Council program.  We’re assisting in the Atlantis treaties and needed to blow off some steam.”

“There are nightclubs in London for that, yes?”

“Yeah,” she said, dragging from the cigarette and laughing.  She looked around, already bored with him.  “But Simon’s got a friend who’s in with some people who know this guy, blah, blah, blah.  Long story short, we got in a caravan and came up here.”

“What do you think?” he asked.

“S’alright,” she said.  She wrinkled her nose as if a bad odor had crept up.  “Bit garish if y’ask me.  Like a bad restaurant or something.  Still, the people and the music are great.”  She looked at him and leaned in a bit closer.  “Simon says the owner’s a gangster.  Some kind of polygarch out of the old Russian system.”

“Really?” said Yuri.  He opened his eyes wide and looked around.  “Aren’t you afraid someone will hear you talking like that?”

“Nah.  Simon’s too connected.  Says you’re safe unless you own something he wants.”

“Well, listen to you.  Sounds like you know something about that.”

She shrugged and it was still like a little girl’s.  Yuri’s heart tore open some more, leaking and sinking deeper.

“My dad’s in business offworld,” she said.  Yuri froze up.  “But he used to deal with those people.”

“Oh?” Yuri fought to keep himself from shouting out his next words.  “And where is your father?”

“Papa?  Oh, he’s on – “

A small, wiry-haired man in a shiny shirt and holographic pants interrupted her.  Sharks, barracudas and other predators of the deep cavorted on his trousers as he leaned in and rose up on his toes to kiss her, laughing.  She whooped, slapping his hand off her rump and kissed him back.  The man was smaller than her, beaky and gaunt like most of the British Yuri had met.  He beat down his disgust, eager to keep  – Liz?  Tsveta? – talking.  All he needed was a name, a planet, anything.

The Englishman looked at him and slowed down his laughing.  Yuri knew the look, and turned away, muttering, “Would you please excuse me?”  He left them before Simon could recover and pretend to not know who Yuri was.  Yuri knew he was of interest the world over.  The overall awkwardness would be bearable.  But not the impatience while he waited for another opportunity to ask her about her…  father.

Yuri stormed off through the crowd, knowing that Simon – for no doubt he was the bird-like Englishman who groped his daughter – would be informing her about the man whom she asked for a light.  Do you know who that is you were talking to?  Her eyes would widen like Yuri’s and she would suddenly take a corner of her beautiful lips in her teeth like Arkadina did when she was anxious.

Yuri fought off growing nausea.  His quarters were distant for security reasons but he hated the distance now.  Her father?  The words poisoned, stabbed him, tore at his clothes and spat on him.  Her father?  The Owner had taken everything from him.  He had totally subsumed the role of parent.  An owner himself of a vast empire and this glorious, gaudy airship, Yuri had nothing now.  What lies had The Owner told?  Did Tsveta – Liz! He said to himself.  Horrid English name – did she even remember Yuri or her mother?

Arkadina, her mother, long dead, violated and gone forever.  Yuri relived the memories of that day once again.  The cowards hadn’t let him see her one last time, even in death.  They would pay again and again, begging for death, knowing Yuri’s patience would ensure their old age was one of torture and constant suffering.

At last he came to his quarters and burst past the bodyguards locking the door behind him.  He threw up long before reaching the bathroom where he collapsed on the cold tiles and lay crying.

Through his HUD he ordered an aide to notify him when the group Liz had arrived with left, and to send out a couple of men to tail them.  Yuri cleaned himself up, set a charbot on the mess, and left word not to be disturbed.  With a handful of pills downed in a swallow of vodka, he lay on his bed and waited for sleep to overcome him.

He awoke twelve hours later.  Checking in he saw that Tsveta’s group had left a few hours after he fell asleep.  The men sent down in a shuttle followed them as they departed in a trio of huvvies.  Their caravan dropped members of her group off at several different locations around the posher sections of London.  Tsveta and Simon were dropped off last.

After that, Yuri’s men never reported back.

Yuri didn’t have long to wonder why.

A postcard arrived with documents brought up from the surface.  He was rifling through them when it dropped out on the table.  Yuri had never seen one outside of antique shops.  This one had a picture of an old post-Soviet Russian city.  Yuri, never a historian, figured it was from several hundred years ago.  In old Cyrillic it read, “Greetings from Beautiful Oshar!”

Yuri flipped it over.  In simple black script someone had written, “Try to find me and I will kill you.  Try to talk to her, I will kill her first then you.”  Yuri dropped the postcard as if it stung him.  He looked at his hands for any residue.  Then he snorted, disgusted with himself.  If there were poison, sniffers would have detected it long before the postcard was placed in the shipment.  And if The Owner wanted him dead, Yuri knew it would already have happened.

Yuri reached into a drawer and withdrew a pair of tweezers.  He slipped on gloves and picked up the card, dropped it onto the clear plate of glass behind him and flicked a finger at his desktop AI.  The glass plate slid under the AI as the screen lit up.  A second long analysis took place but Yuri knew the answer before the AI’s screen showed him the results.  No fingerprints but his own, no residue but that from London’s atmosphere.  The card was antique, made several hundred years ago from a factory now long gone.

Suddenly, Yuri knew the game he’d been playing for the past two decades was someone else’s design.

The next week was spent in a daze of drugs and alcohol.  The airship left London and drifted through Western Europe.  Yuri kept to his room, dulling every waking moment down to a fog with whatever he could get his hands on.  Staff and aides left him alone for fear of getting caught in a flying rage.  They had never seen Yuri like this, unanchored and at the mercy of his demons.

Another postcard arrived a week after London.  It was a picture of an ancient lineup of the Orishas Bears from 2090.  Ancient hairstyles adorned the blocky heads of men who could have been Yuri’s teammates.  He sat at the desk and flipped the card, peering and waiting for his eyes to focus.  Sorry to hear you aren’t feeling well.  Have enjoyed your work of late and look forward to more in the future.  Get well soon.  Need you on the team.”  Yuri threw the card under the analyzer again, knowing even in his drugged mind that it would turn up no trace of the sender.

Yuri rose from the desk, stripped off the soiled robe he’d been wearing for days and went to the bath.  He loaded himself full of lucidogenics to cut through the fog, and sat in the scalding shower.  After an hour he toweled off, called in his counsel and began to take over day-to-day business.  Crew and staff were relieved to see him back in command, but knew something wasn’t right.

A few weeks later, another card arrived in a packet of documents from his Estonian interests, picturing the pathetic, rocky excuse for a beach Orishas had on a polluted lake.  Yuri was amused to see it had once been green around the edges, as if it were living.  He flipped it over and read a name and the date at which Yuri’s floating party was to be in a city.

Yuri burned the card in an empty ice bucket.  Watching the flames he wondered absently which toxin to inject the polygarch’s woman with.

# # #

He awoke, face sore where the stiff pages of the album had dug into his check.  Yuri rubbed it and wiped drool off the table.  Closing the album, he left it on the table while replacing the bottle on the shelf.  Inhaling deeply, he rid his mind of the memories and closed the wound again like a drawer of keepsakes.

Yuri stepped from the chamber, hanging the robe on a golden hook.  He perused his clothes, finding a loose fitting white shirt and pale yellow trousers.  White loafers with a small gold buckle slung on his feet, Yuri stepped into the bath to wash his face and comb his hair.  Satisfied with his appearance, he tried on a charming smile or two until they seemed to fit his face.  He was presentable for now.  There was no one to impress out there at the moment.

Back in his bedroom, Yuri straightened out the sheets, noticing the scent of the woman who had left it hours before wafting up.  The bed made, Yuri cleared the side tables of wine glasses and cracked pellets of goldspark she left there after snorting the glowing, powdered contents, swiping the debris into a wastebasket.

At his desk, Yuri checked the pedia for updates.  No one had clamored for his presence during the time he had slept.  The non-stop party on the ship was running smoothly.

Yuri turned to his AI.  There on the glass plate lay the postcard with the name of the polygarch whose lover he had just bedded.  Yuri frowned, knowing he usually burned them right after running them through the AI.  He was getting soft.  Letting a woman come to his room was a mistake.  He’d need to tighten things up a bit for there were more postcards to come.

Man, I took a staycation last week and didn’t plan it nor tell anyone. So I’m in recovery mode this week. Pardon me while I speed!

Record Store Day Re-Cap…

It was Record Store Day this past saturday. This was founded by the owner of a local chain of indie stores, Bull Moose, and they are awesome. RSD was cool here and fortunately I missed all the bands. Me and home piece Jungle JayMC went out and scoped the bins. I bought DVD’s, books and some toys. Homie got hisself the Devo Live 1981 LP he’d been pining for and all was right in the kingdom.

Tom Baker is the best Doctor but the wackiest figure ever.

JAY licks him some skiffy.

One thing’s for certain: I need to get myself a turntable of some sort. USB or regular RCA but I am in need of some spinning vinyl. Only where to put it? That’s some valuable real estate!

Okay… the music

LEAD INTO GOLD

Back in the dazzle, there was Wax Trax. And all that came forth from WT was good and purchased by yours truly. Often-times I sold it shortly thereafter but suffice it to say there was frequent and brisk trade in Chicago based industrial back in the days of 1987-91. Recently I got a hankering for some o’ that and didn’t have any because I sold that shit to buy some other shit. Well, a text to my money griff JUNGLE JMC and by the miracle of dropbox this gem appeared in iTunes. Please note in the video everyone is out of sync and looking bored. Al’s strumming his guitar with a cigarillo in his teeth as if thinking, “I’m only doing this because you’re the only sober one in the band and things will suck when you leave.” Bill Rieflin is totally phoning in the drums but of course this is because he’s aping a 1 bar-loop programmed by Paul Barker on the Fairlight. Don’ matter. It’s still a tight, doom track.

MINISTRY

I suppose no mention of Ministry is complete without mentioning my favorite song of theirs and of course the awesome video for it (this video doubles as a cooking instruction on how to make the world’s worst omelette). I love that this was filmed in the UK (witness the grocery store, small cars and general UK-ness of it). But Al looks awesome and the song is an amazing Adrian Sherwood remix. Whenever this comes on and I’m at the gym I run 2,000 times faster. Dig it!

EL GUINCHO

My local indie market is staffed by twenty/thirty-something hipsters who are finally learning to smile at me when I come in. They’re almost always playing some amazing new stuff I’ve never heard or something I own and have forgotten about. I was in there last week and this was playing and it’s pretty awesome. A tropical/afrobeat vibe with a lot of cool weird uses of “world” music samples. ONe astute YouTube commenter says the song is “SO good when you’re high as fuck.” As I rarely find myself in that condition anymore I can’t comment but I can say that I dig it sober.

UPDATE!!!

I guess I didn’t realize that El Guincho did this awesome track and video.  There’s a clean version out there butr i included the full version with nudity because I can.  So hide the kids if you must but check out the track because it’s good and the video is equally good.

Well, if you’ll excuse me I have a date with an elliptical machine and hopefully some episodes of Bernie Mac. Stay dry, kids. It’s yucky in New England.