A few bloggers have asked me how it feels to arrive at and hang out at a major drug cartel compound in Mexico. How are you treated?
Keep in mind that in each case, the bad guys knew that I was from the US government and that I was only there to talk.
I’ve done this more than once and at different sites, and have had difficulty explaining it properly, I will turn to art to provide a more realistic comparison (sans jungle and river) than is easily conveyed with mere words.
And yes, one of my recruited assets was beheaded in Guadalajara about three years ago, the head left at the opening to the Anteres Mall.
Enjoy the realistic metaphor.
“Sometimes he goes too far — but he’s the first one to admit it.”
Oliver Stone thought Apocalypse Now was a documentary….
I think that after a fashion, it was. Tony Poshepny was the character they used to pattern the Colonel Kurtz character after. He died in San Francisco about ten years ago maybe twelve. A lot of us knew him (WoFat, did you go to the funeral? Tom Perdue, Wild Bill and Mike Watson were there)
I don't remember. I do seem to recall there was one I missed, where the victim had an after dead party lined up and paid for. The picked bar closed about the time of his death. I was told that going to the USO, or whatever, to drink him away, wasn't the same. No naked Bambis, no gunshots, etc.
The scene looks tense. Or maybe that's me.
That was Tony Po's funeral. But there were gunshots and naked Bambis at the after funeral party. (the after wake-wake) I think that most of the people were speaking Chinese by that time even if they didn't know how to speak Chinese. Tom Perdue's bar – I'm trying to remember the name of the place – with all of those Chinese bar girls trying to console patrons – was open clear through the night and well into the next day.
Well, that's part of the ambiance of a drug kingpin's rancho.
Some of the Hmong who were there brought firecrackers so there were a lot of those, but then some of the San Francisco Police officers (who had been drinking Jack Daniels) got a hold of some AK-47's and blazed away at the street lights (near Tom's Bar).
memories… like smoke from a distant fire…
Just thinking: Tom was killed in December 0f '98, so this funeral had to be sooner than that.
Yeah, it would have to be something like '96 – and I can't believe that it was 18 years ago, but I'm sure that it is.
I just remembered that the name of the bar was called Bosco's. So it's not surprising that I got the year wrong. Bosco and the bar have been gone for quite a while now too.
Yeah.
Bosco's. Lord yes. Very nice chap. We had a grand time there – or two, or maybe more.
Bosco was the local Triad rep, but he was a heck of a nice guy. Which may be counterintuitive to some — but when you're reared on the media feed, reality appears skewed.
Different world, different way of doing business that John Q can NEVER understand…
Tony Poshepny was one tough guy, but despite the Col. Kurtz reputation, he had a lot of respect in many quarters. Odd that he'd end up in San Francisco. But the eclectic circle of people that Tony Po orbited around (Tom Perdue/Wo Fat and the Prince of Darkness, for example) were no less eclectic. The Prince literally lives in a cave in the Mojave Desert these days. I visited him last Tuesday. WoFat is on this blog. Tom is dead and that's a genuine sorrow to those who knew him. Mike Watson is in the Land Down Under mostly but I think that he's in Thailand at the moment.
To tell the stories to John Q, nobody would believe them so I don't try. They'd think that it's all fiction…and bad fiction at that. WoFat can confirm a lot of that. Seeing the Monkey King (Purdue) in action – or the Prince of Darkness was poetry. And the Prince always said that Mike Watson was the most dangerous man he knows – though most people consider him a teddy bear.
The world moves on without knowing or understanding, but that's just fine. And I know that you (old NFO) know what I mean.
Not nice to tease ol granny, she would love to hear the stories. Don't be giving her your easy out John Q excuse, bucko!
LL – John Q doesn't want to believe. If he did, he'd take the gloves off the rough men that H.G. Wells referred to. Oh no, we can't have that kind of unpleasantness thankyouverymuch.
Better that we all wear flowers in our hair — sort of like HG Wells' "Eloi".
The reference deals with HG Wells' "The Time Machine" where, by the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi served as food for the Morlocks.
(The Eloi are the childlike, frail group, living a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground. The novel suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes. The Eloi have undergone significant physical and mental deterioration and as a result they have slowly become dissolute and naive.)
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