Fugue dreams

I had a dream. When I woke before dawn today all I could remember was a word: Fugue. While I don't believe that every dream is significant, that's an oddly specific word or symbolic element to recall.

fugue
1 a: a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a continuous interweaving of the voice parts.

Hmm... interesting, but not necessarily significant, at least not in terms of coming up with blog filler. Probably just heard it in my sleep since I often doze off with the overnight classical station playing. But the implication of a recurring theme seems to resonate with us.

1 b: something that resembles a fugue especially in interweaving repetitive elements

Ah, now we're getting somewhere...

2: a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed.

Psychiatry: A pathological amnesiac condition during which one is apparently conscious of one's actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state. This condition, usually resulting from severe mental stress, may persist for as long as several months.

(From Wikipedia): Dissociative fugue usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity.

• sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, with inability to recall one's past,
• confusion about personal identity, or the assumption of a new identity, or
• significant distress or impairment.
  

Oh, I see what you did there, noggin. Trying to remind me to get back to some of the topics proposed in the first Tales of Radio Paranoia entry:

• 2011 NASWA Winter SWL Fest story.
• Friends getting knocked up.
• Leporidae dissembling.
• Wars and rumors of wars.

Alrighty then, the Fest story is coming along nicely, almost done, still waiting for BNtP's fourth and final entry in the Fester trilogy.

Stations getting The Knock from the FCC... hmm... this one may need to wait, at least regarding specifics. At least one station operator with whom we've discussed the incident prefers not to identify itself in conjunction with any public reports about the investigation. For now let's just say that RP is aware of three U.S. shortwave pirate station operators being visited by the FCC during the past year. Reportedly all three received what the agency calls a "verbal warning" (technically an oral warning, according to the descriptions given by affected operators, but we're parsing linguistics here with the government). Since that type of warning does not appear in the publicly available records on the FCC website, the site is not entirely useful as an indicator of current agency activity. From what we've been able to discern from studying recent records, the FCC only refers to "verbal warnings" in retrospect as part of their affidavits when pursuing official actions such as Notices of Apparent Liability, and forfeitures (which is how the FCC describes citations that include monetary penalties). RP may attempt a Freedom Of Information Act request to see if we can shake loose any information regarding these verbal warnings, but we are not hopeful. Field notes and internal memos are notoriously difficult to obtain via FOIA from any federal regulatory agency, unless the requesting party is involved in legal representation of the party.

Leporidae dissembling... the recurring theme of dissociative identity disorder is tempting to pursue but, eh, been there, done that. Still don't have the t-shirt, however. RP doubts His Hareness will see the humor in our blog. But if he does, we'd like a large.

Wars and rumors of wars! Yes, that's a good 'un. We'll tackle it soon. It's about time to offer an alternative perspective on the infamous Summer 2008 pirate war as well. So far we've refrained from publishing anything specific, here or elsewhere, out of consideration for three particular individuals who were subjected to some rather unpleasant attentions between the summer and fall of 2008.

And the most recent snit - which involved a grotesque confabulation by the lagomorph in response to relatively mild satire drifting downward from the North - makes the topic relevant again. The continued theme of piratical bunnyfolk labeling enemies as "child molesters" goes far beyond mere hyperbole, slander or libel. It seems to hint at some deep seated anxieties. At the very least it should not go unchallenged by reasonable people. Not that RP counts itself among those reasonable people. But you might qualify.

A recent alt.pirate.radio newsgroup post seems to be an attempt to put some perspective on the most recent spat:

"At this point, who said what or provoked whomever else really just
doesn't fucking matter..." --(Marconi's Ghost)

But we're inclined to agree with John Poet of The Crystal Ship, who countered that at this point attempting to smooth over or downplay the most recent spat between His Hareness and our Canadians friends amounts to the unacceptable compromise of "...a 'false moral equivalance'..."

To be continued.

By the way, as always, feel free to check off the Zeitgeist as LOL, meh or Fail, as you wish (beneath every blog entry). Points are not being scored and we have no idea who checks which box. It's only there for your amusement. Likewise, feel free to comment anonymously or via your Google or other account, whichever you prefer. If you have suggestions for blog articles or material to contribute, feel free to e-mail us.

---

Music video of the now: Dissociative Fugue by composer Stretta. In particular we liked his comments regarding collaborative projects and Creative Commons.

Book of the now: The Narcissist's Confabulated Life, by Dr. Sam Vaknin. "Moreover, he imposes his personal mythology on his nearest and dearest. Spouse, children, colleagues, friends, neighbors - sometimes even perfect strangers - must abide by the narcissist's narrative or face his wrath. The narcissist countenances no disagreement, alternative points of view, or criticism. To him, confabulation IS reality.

"We dare not confront or expose him, despite the outlandishness of his claims, the improbability of his stories, the implausibility of his alleged accomplishments and conquests. We simply turn the other cheek, or meekly avert our eyes, often embarrassed.

"Moreover, the narcissist makes clear, from the very beginning, that it is his way or the highway. His aggression - even violent streak - are close to the surface. He may be charming in a first encounter - but even then there are telltale signs of pent-up abuse. His interlocutors sense this impending threat and avoid conflict by acquiescing with the narcissist's fairy tales. Thus he imposes his private universe and virtual reality on his milieu - sometimes with disastrous consequences."

(Quoted in good faith cooperation with the author's stated conditions.)

Fester, Part 3: Furpocalypse Now!

After a couple of weeks in rehab to recover from over-Festing indulgence, Brown Nose the Pirate returns to file what he describes as part 3 of 4 in his Winter SWL Fest 2011 trilogy.

RP wonders whether he was released too soon.

---

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar"
--The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot

---

A big guy with an even bigger head wearing a cheese hat opens the door. For some reason I'm thinking Riff Raff from Rocky Horror, only gone to pot. Maybe it's the slack white hair and overhanging forehead. "Enter freely and of your own will," he says without any hint of welcome, "and leave behind your happiness, eh?"

I don't wanna seem too suspicious so I take in the room, casually, over his shoulder. The light's dim, greenish, and I can't see clearly, just shapes moving around. I move toward the threshold for a better look and walk into, I dunno, like a wall of soft putty. I tap my palm against it. It makes a hollow plonk with a low reverberation, like an untuned kettle drum. Transparent stuff, like glycerin, but the view through it is warped and twisted. I squint at Riff Raff.

Riff Raff snorts and says "I can't help you. If you want to enter the rabbit hole, you're on your own."

I poke the stuff with a finger. Won't quite go through, but feels like it might with a pen or knife. I don't have either one on me. Thanks, TSA, can't carry anything sharper than a crayon on flights now. I'm fishing through my jacket pockets and find a small piece of plastic card with some wires. I pull it out - a Tiny Tenna. Hadn't worked in years since the wires all pulled loose from the sloppy solder joints. Thought I'd thrown it away. I use the edge of the raw circuit board to slice open the pwdre sêr, enough to slip in one hand. The wound is trying to close so I let go of the Tiny Tenna and use both hands to pull apart an aperture and slip through as the slit closes with a flubbering bloomp sound. The Tiny Tenna is stuck in the goo, leaving a gash in the portal. Just as well, first time the piece of crap was useful.

A couple of Scrats - Mosby and Thumper on their collars - dart past my ankles, shinny up the portal and vomit up ectoplasm to patch the gash. That's what I just crawled through? Again I feel the tequila and beer doing the backstroke up my throat.

"Take these," says Riff Raff, shoving beer and cigarettes toward me.

"I don't smoke," I say, trying to wave him off but he pushes them into my hands anyway.

"Then don't inhale," he growls, "but you'll want 'em to kill the stink. This hutch hasn't been cleaned all week."

Soon's I grab the brew and smokes he's reaching up into a hole in his cheese hat and pulls out a pad of paper and thrusts it toward me.

"What's this?" I mutter, turning the pad around, trying to read in the dim green light.

"Signal reports. Official WBNY signal reports."

"They're already filled out," I say, flipping through the pad. "Every one of 'em. 'SIO-555. Beautiful AM signal! Perfect audio! Brilliant programming! No one does it like Commander Bunny!'" Only thing not filled out are the check boxes next to the dozens of relays listed. "The dates and times are already filled out for these relays. They haven't even been aired yet." I point to the pads.

Riff Raff snorts dismissively. "Just fill 'em out and turn them in. Don't make trouble. Just check the boxes. Don't make things worse for me here, awright? Don't be a smartass. Just work with me." He stalks back toward the door.

"Hey, where is he?" I call toward his back, but Riff Raff is gone. I don't see anyone else I recognize. I'm thinking I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.

I look around and try to get a fix on the huge, dark, hazy room. I can see animals milling around, some in small packs, all on hind legs. Furries. Fucking place was full of 'em. I'm wishing Boomer was here. Only sane furry I knew of in the whole pirate radio scene. And even he was crazy, had a rep as a demolition expert, homemade grenades or some crazy shit.

A wild-eyed hippie with a grizzled beard scuttles toward me from across the room, three or four Nikons dangling from his neck and shoulders, clattering together, his ponytail flailing behind him from beneath a paisley bandanna tied around his head. "Hey, friend! Hey, hey, howya doin', howya doin', now watch out for those socks... on the floor! on the floor! Right, and watch out, those goddam Scrats bite, I tell ya, worst case of rabies and mxyomatosis you'll ever see. Hey, I'm Zoidberg, a Decapodian, Decapod DXer, photojournalist, and you got the cigarettes and beer and that's what I've been dreaming of, they won't give ya shit in here unless you're a furry, I dunno how you got so lucky," he speed talks as I hand over the smokes and brew.

As my eyes adjust to the dim light I can see bodies on the floor. Headless bodies, at the base of short antennas. A head impaled atop each antenna. Hotel note paper stuffed into their mouths, with "Nasty signal report!!!" scrawled on the notes. "Ruining it!" on another. "Nasty attacks!" "Destroying pirate radio!!!" Crude drawings of apes sketched on the death warrants.

CB is close. He's real close. I can't see him yet but I can feel him.

"The heads," Zoidberg mumbles, sounding embarrassed. "At the heads, you're looking. He even put Fansome's head up there. I, uh - sometimes he goes too far, you know - he's the first one to admit it! Well, I mean, not him, per se, but, umm... Pat, you know, Pat always... smooths things out after CB, y'know..."

"Fansome's not dead," I say.

"Yes, he is, I mean look, the head, the sign..."

"Take my word for it," I say, "he's not dead. He's not a human. He's more of a ca... anyway, that's not his body," I kick the body, and straw pops out. I look closer at the impaled heads and tap one - hollow. Fake. All the bodies, fake. Straw men.

---

"Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men."

---

"Who are all these peop... furries?" I ask, looking around the room.

"His children, all his children, far as the eye can see. They think you're here to attack, umm... destroy... nasty, uh, y'know, um, ruin, ah, ruin it... all... and, uh... I hope that isn't true," he's babbling. Guy sounds like he's reciting a script, political talking points, and not doing a good job at it. I'd heard this Zoidberg character was smart but right now he seems like another buzzed up publicity flack.

"I'm just here to talk with him," I say. "He asked for me, so..."

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Commander. You listen to him. CB has enlarged my mind... well, my QSL collection, anyway. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense that, um, Bill O'Reilly is a pleasant guy or Tiger Woods is a faithful husband. I mean sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say 'Hey, I heard your show last night', right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you, no QSL, nothing. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll access your IP information and expose your identity and home address, call you a child molester, insult your family, and he'll say 'Do you know that "you" is the middle word in "ruin" and "ass" is the middle word in "nasty" and "hole" is the middle word in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Get it? YOU... ASS... HOLE.'

"I mean I'm no, I can't - I'm a little DXer, I'm a little DXer, he's, he's a great rabbit. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas, whoop-whoop-whooping in search of a stink gland..."

"Shut the fuck up," I suggest. "If you talk again I'll punch you in the nuts."

I shrug off the sense of dread and move toward the center of the room. It smells like slow death in here, myxomatosis, madness. The floor is covered with urine soaked cedar shavings, droppings that look like brown M&Ms... and socks. Everywhere. Dirty socks. I nudge one with my toe. It sticks to my boot like it's covered in jizz. I bend down to look... fucksake, it is covered in jizz. I stagger backward, scrubbing my boot toe in the cedar shavings to wipe off the stuff, and step on another sock, this one stiff and stained.

"STOP KICKING MY FRIENDS!" a voice booms from a darkened corner across the room. I can just make out a pair of long ears through the dim haze.

"The socks, man, watch the socks, why don't you!" Zoidberg yells. "They're his friends... his best pseu... his friends... they speak, um, for him, you know? They help him communicate complex messages, uh... about his... superior philosophy and..." He trails off to gather his thoughts, then grabs one off the floor and holds it out at claw's length.

"Look! This is one of his favorites, see, it's still wet and sticky, he's used it a lot lately to rub out, umm, work out some, uh, complex problems about the FCC and government shutdowns and... radio... free speech, and... stuff."

"PUT BILLO DOWN!" roars the voice from across the room.

"Hrrrng poots!!!" comes a muffled voice from my left.

I pivot left, bumping my knee into someone's extended leg. It's covered in gauze... the whole body is covered in gauze, stained, soaked in yellow-green and suddenly I recognize the stench. Pus. Festering wounds. Seen it before, the last Great Pirate War of 2008, the one that never seemed to end.

"HRRRNGG POOOTSSS!!!" the mummy man wails.

"What's with him," I ask Zoidberg. He covers up his crotch with a camera bag. "Go ahead, I'm not going to punch you in the nuts."

"RF burns," he says. "Worst case anyone's ever seen. Can't be around a transmitter more than 10 watts now. He thinks that's huge power, thinks it can be heard at SIO-555 all around the world, but don't try to tell him any different. He's dying of terminal butthurt from it."

"Ppp hrrrng poots..." the mummy mumbles.

"What's he saying?" I ask.

"'Stop hurting the pirates!' It's pretty much all he says. Nobody knows beans about what he means by it. Pieces of him fall off, maybe?"

"Hey, hey," Zoidberg calls to a passing furry. "Fluff up his beanbag chair, get those beans arranged better to make him comfortable, why don't you? You gotta get the beans just right or he'll whine and cry all the time, try to hit you when you're just talking with the guy. Hey!" yells Zoidberg, way too loud, "Beans bag pus covered grouchy mummy guy, it's been years since medical school, so remind me: Butthurt in your species, fatal or non-fatal?"

While he's distracted by the mummy man I notice a zombie Elvis impersonator shuffling toward the door. I grab him by the arm. The arm comes off, still clutching a tote bag full of WBNY pogey bait. He stares transfixed at the QSL swag.

"Hey, Elvis, Evil Elvis," I whisper. He looks at me and grins. At least I think he's grinning... hard to tell with zombies - no lips.

"I need a favor, buddy," I say, and hand him my iPhone, loaded with a custom BCS app. "These are the co-ordinates for an air strike from Canada. If you don't see me back downstairs at the bar in one hour, call it in. The code is Furpocalypse, coordinates 6925. That's the order for the Canadians to drop a massive payload of butthurt trollbombs and begin the Psy-Fudd campaign. Can you do that? There might be a pennant in this for you."

Evil Elvis just grins and nods. Or maybe his last neck sinew just popped loose, I can't tell. I hand him his arm, still attached to the WBNY tote bag. "Sorry about that, buddy, you can probably glue that back on."

Evil Elvis shuffles toward the ectoplasm portal and just melts right through. There are advantages to being mostly dead.

(To be continued - Part 4 of the Fester trilogy.)

---

Video of the Now: Sick of sockpuppets? You won't be after Sifl & Olly declare monkey love to be crescent fresh! But Bouncer? Not cress.

Fester, Part 2

As we resume our tale, RP remembers why we seldom approve per diem for Brown Nose the Pirate's freelance DXpeditions.

The ICOM elevator stops, but we're between the sixth and seventh floors. I can hear a garbled, whining voice coming from the hallway. I'm reaching for the emergency phone when the Jay-Kracker hybrid calmly raises a hand to indicate I should wait. "Our destination is between the sixth and seventh storeys," he explains.

With one hand he gently pats the Kracker-shaped lump under his tent-sized t-shirt and mutters "Shhh... shhh... my little feejee mermaid." With the other hand he slides open a hidden compartment on the control panel to reveal a tuning knob labeled "Jog Storey." He turns the dial slowly and the digital display reads 6.300... 6.350... 6.400... "This old ICOM elevator is slow," he says. "The internal backup battery died last year and the software was screwed up. We're hoping for an upgrade from ICOM by next Fest."

"You should get a software defined elevator," I suggest.

He glares at me. "Those things without real knobs? No, thanks."

The shrill voice outside the door is still mostly garbled and unintelligible, but seems familiar.

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a few stations. That is not the case!"

I tilt an ear toward the elevator door, trying to recognize the voice. It seems familiar.

"Yes," Jay replies, "it's him. But no one ever hears him clearly until we reach nearly the seventh storey." He continued fine tuning "6.900... 6.915... 6.925..." and the voice snapped into sudden clarity.

"...have taken over frequencies, and now they must give them back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! These are the enemies. There are no pirates but me! There are to be no slack-jawed, lip-drooling, knuckle-draggers! You will serve as vice president at my pleasure! Don't tell me about your Bowling League. Did you really believe they'd have any say in this? There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion...

The elevator door slides open, obscuring the shrill keening for a moment.

"...of me!"

I look up. We're on floor 6.925, a hidden storey between the 6th and 7th. I step toward the hall but Jay urgently waves me back. It's only been a few minutes since my last shot of Cuervo and Mickey's chaster but I'm getting antsy. And that suckling sound under Jay's carnival sideshow of a t-shirt is grating my nerves.

"Wait!" he hisses. "Listen!" And I do. The oddly pitched voice careening down the hall toward us is scouring my ears like a steel wool Q-tip dipped in Comet cleanser.

"My QSL packages will determine the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Kracker? You get up on your little 10 watt Corsair and howl about Bozo and Fansome and asshats and free speech and how you won't QSL and then you play Grateful Dead songs that nobody gives a crap about. There is no Bozo! There is no Fansome! There is no free speech! There is only WBNY and our affiliates and our mighty 8-watt International Relay Service!" (The voice is like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, when he was dissolving in Dip. Only more annoying, if that's possible.)

"But people will think I'm an asshole." (I'm hearing another voice... like Kracker's voice... but it can't be... he's in here, under Jay's shirt...) "I mean, just this week I accused Mr. Announcer of being a sockpuppet for Radio Ronin Shortwave and I fucked up. I forgot that Mr. Announcer is the op for CYOT. So I had to delete my post to cover my butt. Maybe he'll quit, I don't know. He seems so polite. I shouldn't be such an asshole all the time..."

"You are an asshole! Never forget it! It's what you do best! As my vice president your job is to troll my enemies, flame them, discourage them, chase them away from my Furry Rodent Network, For Rabbit Nuthuggers only!"

"But Pat always told us to never attack another pirate..."

"DOES PAT SEEM LIKE HE'S IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING ANYMORE?!?" (Came the shrieking voice.)

"I guess not. But why me?"

"Because you're on the radio, dummy. Six people listen to you every time you broadcast. Consider yourself lucky that you're not one of my designated nut polishers. That job is for Mosby and Thumper."

"I have seen the face of God."

"You're goddam right. Never forget it. Now get the fuck out of here and sell some of my t-shirts. Take plenty of extra large. The lobby is full of overweight middle aged DXers."

Jay motions me out of the elevator. A door slams open and shut again, toward the end of the hall where the shrieking voice seemed to be. A haggard 40-ish guy wearing aviator sunglasses shuffles past, shaking his head. Suddenly I recognize him - it's Kracker. "Fuck you, Bozo," he mutters without enthusiasm as he passes.

"Love you more," Jay replies gently.

Fuck me again, I'm thinking, and nearly swivel my head off spinning around to look at the lump under Jay's shirt.

Jay chuckles, bitterly. "You thought this thing suckling from my belly was Kracker? No. It's a clone, one of Dr. Benway's experiments gone horribly awry. Benway made it for me after culturing bits of spittle from Kracker's roaches and beer bottles and droplets of bile from his vomit. I suppose Benway thought I would punish and torture it as the real thing has tormented me." He paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"It's as cruel as the real thing, and even more effective at manipulating me into feeling sorry for it and putting up with its abuses." Jay looked down and rubbed the squirming lump. "My little homunculus. My little bit of revenge." He looked up sadly and muttered "Be careful what you wish for."

Benway, I'm thinking... I should have known he'd be mixed up in this. I watch the real Kracker shuffling dejectedly down the hall where he raps out a coded knock on a door. A few muffled words are exchanged and the door is opened. After Kracker enters the room a lank-haired guy peers out into the hallway with nervous, ferretlike energy. He looks like Robert Crumb. I'm half expecting Fat Freddy to show up next. He catches my glance and vanishes like his head was yanked back on a leash, leaving a cloud of smoke and Ozium behind.

"Cosmikdebris," Jay says, behind me.

I nod my head. "Sure, makes sense."

"This way," he says, indicating the room from which the shrieking voice had come. The coniglio di tutti conigli. I'm thinking of my Sheridan Blue Streak .20 cal. pump back home. One pill to the head always did the trick on lagomorphs. But this one had a serious mean streak. It had survived several assassination attempts and seemed to thrive on venom, bile and spite. Only the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch would do, and the nearest armory was in Pittsburgh at Our Lady of Perpetual Hostility.

I'm thinking back to my days as a covert anti-therapist/debriefing specialist for Benway, back when major medical insurance covered T.D, Total Demoralization. That was before Kaczynski, before the media found out what we really did. I remember Benway's theory:

"An agent is trained to deny his agent identity by asserting his cover story. So why not use psychic jiu-jitsu and go along with him? Suggest that his cover story is his identity and that he has no other. His agent identity becomes unconscious, that is, out of his control..."

Yeah, I'm thinking, why not. It might work. Rumor had it the bunnyman was a spook in a former life. Rumor had it he'd broken, lost the veils between his multiple cover aliases and his true identity... if there ever was one. Probably already primed for a post-hypnotic suggestion. All I needed was the key word or phrase. I mentally sorted through the triggers we'd been using to provoke predictable rages. Had to be one of those... maybe an offhand mention of a Canadian pirate radio station was all it took.

Jay rapped out a peculiar pattern on the door: .-- -... -. -.--

I'm looking down and see a shadow break across the green light under the door. The door cracks open. An acrid odor wafts by... old cedar shavings, urine and something hellish that seemed familiar.

Jay gestures for me to go in. For a moment I'm transfixed by the growing wet splotch on his t-shirt where his little Kracker-homunculus is suckling on... what? I shake my head, take a deep breath and move toward the door.

"Be careful what you wish for!" Jay hisses sharply, then turns and stalks away.

(To be continued.)

Fester, Part 1

RP couldn't make the Fest this year and began worry we'd have no story at all. We'd heard certain veterans behind the interminable rabbit hype machine were invigorated by last year's SWL gathering (the hangover from which was certainly evident throughout 2010), but would not be attending this year. Didn't seem like we'd miss much so our friend and confidant Brown Nose the Pirate promised to attend in our stead and fill us in on anything interesting.

When we didn't hear from BNtP by the usual Wednesday filing date we assumed he'd flaked out again and prepared some filler dredged from HF Underpants. Nice folks but let's face it, looking for rumors on HFU is like gossiping with an accountant who moonlights as a pastor.

Turns out Brownie detoured through Disgraceland to and from the Fest. Lord knows what sort of reality altering experiences occurred after exposure to Evil Elvis's back yard psychefarm.

BNtP files this report:

"First of all, buddy, after grazing through EE's garden I'm lucky to be sane enough to write at all. I'm not sure any of this stuff I think I remember even happened. Talk about down yer rabbit hole. This is down yer rabbit hole, through the looking glass sideways, skin the rabbit with a jagged piece of looking glass and smoke it.

Ennyways, sometime late Friday night, the 4th, I'm in the Doubletree bar downing Cuervo Gold and Mickey's chasers tryin' ta clear my head. I feel this tap on my right shoulder, guy says "I got a message for you" in this baritone pro radio guy voice. No surprise, joint is full of radio guys. I look up. In the mirror I see this guy Jay S., everbody calls Bozo. But sumpin' ain't right, I don't know what. Then I put it together. Not only does the voice not match what I've heard on the radio, but his gut is missing. He's got the same sideshow tent sized white t-shirt as always, but it's baggy where his ginormous gut should be. And this creepy feeling crawls up my neck like that feeling you get when a WBNY QSL package of pogey bait arrives, but you never sent in a signal report, and the package is ticking.

"Fuck off," I suggest and toss down a fourth Cuervo. I'm curious what he wants, especially after the coin drops that the whole Bozo act is a sham. But I need a minute to think because his eyes ain't like in the photos I've seen, the kind where the lights are off and nobody's home. Nah, this guy's eyes, not only are the lights on but whoever's home, I don't wanna know.

"You want to hear this message," he intones with great precision. "It's from the bunnyman."

Yeah, he's got my attention now. I'm trying not to show it. But I feel my throat tense up as I chug half a pint of Mickey's and it makes this ploink! sound like the echo of a dry turd hitting the deep end of the bowl. And I'm pretty damn sure he's heard it too.

I'm studying my thumbnail to buy another moment. Sudden like, I feel this sharp gnawing pain on my left ankle. I look down from the bar stool. It's Kracker. Fuck me, I'm thinking, he's a goddam leprechaun. Guy can't be more than three feet tall, and most of that is head.

"Listen up, pally," he insinuates with that too-familiar nasally whine. "Boss wants to see you. Now."

Just when I'm thinking Kracker can't get any more annoying, he deftly dodges the swipe from my Herman Survivor size 11. I swivel around looking for another shot, just in time to catch him shinnying up Jay's legs. In a flash he's under Jay's baggy t-shirt and wraps himself crossways just above the waist. And sudden like the infamous Bozo gut is there... the Kracker-shaped gut. I'm staring, slack-jawed, suddenly aware of the irony of an all-too-familiar Bunny rhetoric about slack-jawed, lip-drooling, knuckle-dragging fill-in-the-blank for whatever or whomever the AnthropoMorphyBunny is pissed off about this week.

"Shall we?" says the Jay-Kracker thing. I can tell from his voice it's not a question. I slug down the fifth shot of Cuervo, finish the 40 of Mickey's and slide off the barstool. I fish a twenty tip out for the bartender. He seems genuinely surprised. I want him to remember my face, in case I need some sort of assurance later than any of this shit really happened.

On the elevator ride up I'm hearing this slurping sound. It's coming from underneath Jay's t-shirt. I'm tryin' not ta look but outta corner of my eye I notice this wet spot forming on the t-shirt. That last pint of Mickey's and fifth shot of Cuervo is gaining traction toward my throat and actin' like it's gonna skeedaddle. I grab a chaw of Juicy Fruit and give silent thanks to Current Time Radio as my gut settles. The elevator and my stomach both lurch to a stop."

(To be continued...)

3's & 7's at the FRN

So much abuzz on the shortwave pirate radio scene over the past few weeks it's not easy to choose a starting point between the just completed Fest, wars, rumors of wars, friends getting knocked up and leporidae dissembling. Let's begin with the bumbling bunny, shall we?

Our old friend BNtP tells us that despite Billo fronting a show of bravado on the Furry Rodent Nutwork ("Ah ain't skeert" declares Billo, from the Ted Kaczynskiesque Montana one-holer he calls home, "ain't been no FCC busts since nigh unto nineteen ought '98!"), secretly the rabbit is running scared over rumors of FCC enforcement actions... as many as four ops getting The Knock within a year. We're told that Commander Bunny is frightened out of his fur, begging listeners not to log WBNY shows until after the broadcast is complete... but not frightened enough to curtail the usual confident self promotion for logs of his QRP signal (fortunately his usual crew of leg warmers will pitch in with assurance that, yes, his signal can be heard outside the confines of his hutch).

So, Fabulous Rodent Nuthuggers, which is it? What are you hearing privately about the FCC that has fallen on deaf ears on the For Rodents only Network? According to sources, ComBun has been privately warning pirate ops since February 24 that real-time logs might endanger WBNY, while as of February 27 Billo and Pat* publicly declared "All is well"?

We also hear the myxomatosis carrier is spreading one of his favorite diseases - hysterical slander - north of the border, in an attempt to infect our Canadian friends. Is that the smell of Beans burning? Moron that... pardon, more on that later.

What happened to that spirit of camaraderie and pirates looking out for one another... oh, wait, this is the rabbit we're talking about. And it's all about the rabbit, isn't it? As the song goes:

"Lie, lie to my face
Tell me it ain't nothing
That's what I wanna hear
Take the lie to the grave
That's what an old friend told me
Look what it did for him"
3's & 7's - QOTSA

*Oh, BTW... your socks are showing.