Satori

tango

---

charles
webb
 Copyright © 2005 Charles Webb
All Rights Reserved

Charles Webb
350 Bay St. Ste. 100-356
San Francisco, CA 94133
415/956-1844
satoritango@yahoo.com
www.satoritango.blogspot.com
WGAw Reg. No. 1084077

Illustrations on p. 3, 13, 62, 76, 103, 120

Courtesy of Donald Greenwood

Limited Edition
 Satori
tango
1.

The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it, catch the
fish and you forget the bait. The snare is the means to get the
rabbit where you want it, catch the rabbit and you forget the
snare. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it,
catch on to the idea and you forget about the words. Where
shall I find a man who forgets about words, and have a word
with him?
CHUANG TZU

The whole thing started with an email from Crysta Bella

"Benny has disappeared - stood me up again. Check this out".
The web address took me to a blog, apparently owned by
Benny Pristine, an old friend of mine and sometimes lover of
 Satori tango

Crysta Bella. Benny having a blog was odd enough. What he

had written was even stranger. Crysta Bella wanted me to help
her find him.

Blog of Benny Pristine

I have been a private investigator on the west coast for many
years. Before that I worked for the government over seas. I
have recently been hired by one of the most interesting clients I
have ever met and have become involved in the most unusual
investigation of my career. For reasons which will be disclosed
later, my notes will be made public here.

Sunday, July 24
Taking a drive
Have to leave quickly. May be out of touch for awhile. QC
insists that we go to Arizona to see Moondog. Top secret. One
of Rosebud Peru's cousins, Gilberto, owns a limo service out of

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San Jose so she's getting him to loan us a stretch and a driver,

Julio...Gilberto owes her a favor so its on the house. Probably
stop in Barstow to see Dixie Evans and her stripper museum
where the ashes of all these dead strippers are displayed in urns
along with their costumes...Dixie knows about the meaning of
life...and in Vegas too. I need to catch up with a couple guys
there. Nothing like a little drive in the Great Southwest in the
summertime. More later.
posted by Benny at 1:36 AM 0 comments

Saturday, July 23
Rosebud Peru
Rosebud Peru is not from Peru. She is from Brazil. One of
those bikini girls you see in pictures of the beach in Rio. Only
Rosebud is a botanist.

She was on a trip upriver looking for medicine plants when she
met QC. He was holed up hiding out in some Indian village.

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Been there for several years. Gone native. Learned the

language. The Indians liked him because he could talk more
strange shit than their shamans. Anyway, Rosebud cleaned him
up and took him back to Rio then he brought her to San
Francisco.

I tell them again how I had been hired to find the meaning of
life which they thought was a joke the first time I told them.
This makes them both laugh for a long time, probably for
different reasons. I knew QC from the old days. He knew what
I am usually hired to do. Anyway, Rosebud announces that she
knows exactly how to find the meaning of life. "The Meaning
of Life', she says, "that's the name of a bar on Grand Cayman
Island. The owner's name is Juan. Tell him I sent you." They
both just laugh some more. I tell them this is serious shit. It may
seem goofy to them...and it sure did to me at first until I learned
that my new client was dead serious. Who is this client they
ask. I can't tell you I say. If I want their help they gotta know.
Do they really think they can help me I ask. Yes they answer so
I tell them who my client is. They are impressed. I stopped
asking that question a long time ago says Quantum Coyote.
Let's Google this says Rosebud Peru. Which she does. There
are 680,000 hits she says. Where do you want to start? I'm
going to tell her that I found the answer on the internet I ask? I
don't think so.

We have to go to Arizona QC announces.

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posted by Benny at 1:06 PM 0 comments

Friday, July 22
Not Hung Over
I'm not hung over but something is wrong. I'm not sure wrong
is the right word. Everything is different. I'm going to have to
write this some other time.

posted by Benny at 5:32 PM 0 comments

Tosca
Went to Tosca last night. Looking for QC. Place has turned into
a celebrity bar. Everybody looking around wanting to see who's
there and who's seeing them there. Asked about QC. The
bartender knows him but he's not there. Probably next door at
Spec's. Go to Spec's. There's Quantum Coyote in the back with

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a girl. Doesn't look a day older than the last time I saw him
twenty years ago. Same dirty white tropical suit and Panama
hat. He's glad to see me. Introduces me to the girl. Name of
Rosebud Peru. We all talk. Drink. I tell him why I'm looking for
him. Bar closes. We go to her place. He says If I want to know
the meaning of life take this. He gives me some yellow powder
to snort. He and Rosebud snort some. Its some kind of special
snuff from the Amazon. I'm still fucked up. More later.

posted by Benny at 12:11 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 21
Quantum Coyote
There's a guy who used to hang out at Tosca that I should talk
to about this. He was always into some really weird shit. Used
to be a stringer for the Fortean Times or some such thing.
Correspondent for the Weekly World News too. That was years
ago. I wonder if he still hangs at Tosca. Tosca's changed a lot.
Not like when Mario was the bartender back in the day.

posted by Benny at 11:38 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 20
Who do I bug?
This is humiliating. Its beginning to sink it. Is this a tactic on
the part of my client to discredit me? Who do you bug if you
want to find out the meaning of life? The Pope? She said to stay

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away from organized religion. What about organized crime?

She hates churches. Who do I spy on? Who do I follow? Who
leaks this kind of information? I'm sure I can find a lot of
people...scientists...philosophers...at the universities...who will
be happy to give me a lot of half baked bullshit for answers.
Maybe I should offer to buy the information. Maybe I should
have a contest. My client is serious. This is not a joke I'm
afraid. I am going to delete this. I was never good at writing. I
flunked English class. But when I start writing this I don't seem
to be able to stop. Lucky most of my "associates" still don't use
computers. If I walk into Gino and Carlo's one day and
everybody starts laughing I'll know the word it out. But that is
doubtful.
posted by Benny at 1:36 PM 0 comments

Pissed off
I'm only doing this log because my client insisted on it. One of
the conditions of the job. She's giving me a lot of money to
work with so I'll do it. She'll be reading this. That's OK.
Whoever heard of a detective putting his notes out there for all
the world to read? Or even taking notes for that matter. Who
will stumble across this anyway? Maybe nobody.

The more I think about this whole thing the screwier it gets. I
feel like I'm being set up. What do I do? Ask my usual sources
"hey Tommy...hey Joey...got a question for you babe...what's
the meaning of life? Yeah...seriously. What about Hank? Yeah,

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I'll call Hank in Denver...I already know what he'll say...older

whisky, younger women, faster horses, more money...like the
song Benny...you asshole. You stoned or what? That's what
Hank will say. Maybe I'll tell my client that and get fired and be
done with it.

She won't fire me of course. She already said that. Another

condition of taking the job. If I take the job I gotta produce.
Then she laughed and said...or else. I said, what did she mean
by that. She just laughed again...I'm gonna have to tell you guys
more about this lady later...that's it honey...I can expose you if
you give me any shit...anyhow, she just laughed again and said
"or you're dead! Bring me the meaning of life or die!" She just
laughed. I did too but now I'm kind of spooked. My client is a
very powerful woman. You would be surprised if I told you
who she is. If I do that she probably will kill me.

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I asked her why she picked me anyway. She said that I came
highly recommended.

posted by Benny at 12:56 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 19
New Case
Last night I got an urgent call in the middle of the night. A car
was waiting for me outside. I trust the caller but where we are
going and to meet whom she cannot say. We met this person
and after a long discussion, and a lot of misgivings, I agreed to
take the case. I must be crazy. My new client has hired me to
find the meaning of life, among other things. More later.

posted by Benny at 12:16 PM 1 comments

Benny Pristine
This is the first post to this blog so this is more or less a test of
the system before I get into actual posts of my notes.

posted by Benny at 11:58 AM 0 comments

---

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2.

I'll give you a little background on Benny Pristine then

I'll fill you in on me. A few years ago I was involved in making
a documentary about Benny for one of the local Francisco TV
stations. What follows is quoted from the treatment:
"Benny Pristine came to prominence as a private
detective in San Francisco in the 1970’s. In fact, he became a
local, and to some extent national, celebrity. Flamboyant,
publicity seeking but very effective, Benny worked for Melvin
Belli and other well known attorneys, politicians, movie stars,
the social elite, and, on unpublicized occasions, the mafia, drug
dealers and the C.I.A. Benny got around...made all the spots,
was invited to all the parties, romanced all the women, rarely
slept...was flying high.
"Then, on New Year’s Eve 1979, he vanished. Rumors
abounded, the papers were full of it, investigations were
initiated...but nothing...no body...no Benny.!!To sensationalize
Benny's disappearance even more, the tabloids revealed that the
case Benny was working on at the time involved a kidnapping

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which was alleged to be an alien abduction and was also being

investigated by a top secret government agency. The case was
never solved.!!

"Benny's roots were in show business. His parents were

almost-made-it Hollywood types, his uncles were stunt men, his
aunts were make-up artists, his grand parents worked the
carnivals and the vaudeville stage. Gypsy Rose Lee was a
family friend.!!Growing up, Benny came to be known as a
prankster, hoaxer, trickster and minor con artist. He learned the
skills of his family well...he was an accomplished mimic,
sleight-of-hand magician, disguise artist, tightrope walker and

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actor. He became well known much later for using these skills
in solving his cases.!
!"In the early sixties a very young Benny went to Vegas
and created a lounge act...stand-up and some singing, met
Sinatra and the Rat Pack and started running “errands” and
doing a bit of extracurricular snooping for the boys and, at
times, their shady friends. Things got too hot for Benny in
Vegas and in the mid-sixties he decided to get away to
someplace “quiet”...San Francisco.
"He quit show business and opened a detective agency
first in Sausalito then North Beach. Although Benny made a lot
of money and became famous, his family thought he was a sell-
out and a failure. Never able to stay off the stage completely,
one of Benny's favorite places to relax was his best friend, Bob
“The Voice” Ono’s Karaoke lounge and “hostess” bar in
Japantown where insiders could catch him doing his old Vegas
act for a few friends on off nights.!!At some point in this section
of the show we will be taken on a small walking tour of Benny's
old haunts...the vacant lot where his Victorian office building
used to be, a boarded-up North Beach bar that he and Bob “The
Voice” once owned, Enrico's sidewalk café, etc.!!The last line
of this section, spoken emphatically by one of the people being
interviewed, is, “On New Year’s Eve of 1979 Benny Pristine
just vanished...gone! Benny Houdini we used to call him...sure
do wonder where he is now..."
"Benny turned up of course…several years later. What
happened during those years I guess nobody will ever know.

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Events involving Benny that occurred during the weeks after he

re-emerged wound up being tabloid fodder too, but that's
another story. He did reconnect with Crysta Bella, a flamboyant
psychic and interior designer, after standing her up at the
Hooker's ball."

One other interesting Benny artifact turned up on the

news of the era which I saved a transcript of and include here.
A reporter interviews Benny not knowing who he's
interviewing. The reporter thinks he's talking to some attorney.
Its hilarious:

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Benny
Benny’s not dead because Benny never existed. He was a
fictitious character that the real detective who solved all those
cases created as a front to keep the newspapers away from
where the action was. He was a fake...a diversion...you know,
like a magician uses so you don’t see his trick. Benny got a
reputation as a master of disguise...what a hook! Actually, the
real detective, who must remain nameless, of course, hired
several different actors to play Benny in public. They all looked
enough alike to pass. Occasionally though, just for kicks, he
would have a real fat guy or a Chinese guy or a Black guy play
Benny for the press. There was never a question. Everybody
thought Benny Pristine was a genius.
Reporter
Are you making all this up? No one else has told this story. If
what you say is true, how do you know about it? And why
didn’t you sell it to the tabloids years ago?
Benny
Slow down man...take it easy. As you said, this is just my
theory about the great Benny Pristine Mystery Carnival. I may
be right, I may be wrong. You be the judge.

Reporter
But...
Benny
I’ve gotta get moving kid. Good luck with your show.
---

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3.

As far as your humble correspondent is concerned -

here's the scoop. My name is Zeno Murray. I'm kind of hard to
pin down as to job description. I have served as a researcher for
various publications, industry, several governments and a think
tank or two. Some have called me an ontological investigative
journalist, some a futurist crank. Why don't you put "Zeno
Murray, Reality Hacker" on your business card they say. I tell
them that I will consider this…but that maybe my card should
read "Zeno Murray, Really a Hack". I have also published short
fiction under another name and written screenplays using yet a
third.
I am acquainted with this guy Moondog mentioned in
Benny's blog and have had many dealings, some good some
bad, with Quantum Coyote. I do not know Rosebud Peru but
would like to meet her. I guess Moondog is living in Arizona
now but he used to be based here. I refer to my journal:

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"On one occasion several years ago I was having lunch

with the publisher of a national "future positive" magazine at
Enrico's. We were discussing the development of a female
character, a super sexy super heroine who could "star" in a wide
variety of science fiction oriented formats, short stories, a
novel, a movie, a comic book, a computer game, etc. As we
were about to pay the check a beautiful young woman wearing
nothing but a leopard skin bikini twirled almost mechanically
from the street to our table inside the sidewalk cafe. She looked
directly at me with blazing eyes and spoke.

"If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no

point in dancing it. Isadora Duncan said that!"
Instantly, she spun back into the street with the same
strange precision with which she had entered. The manager and
two waiters were at our table by this time but it was too late.
My friend and I paid for lunch and hurried to the sidewalk, but
the girl had disappeared. I told him that I would think about the
project we had been discussing and call him in a week.

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I wandered through Chinatown thinking about the

dancing girl and the project for an hour or so. On several
occasions, I thought I saw her reflection in a plate glass store
window, but when I turned around, she was gone. She seemed
to be teasing me. I roamed on. I decided on that afternoon to
visit Hieronymous P. Moondog. Moondog had an extensive
underground reputation as a visionary, inventor ex-LSD
chemist and sometime avant-garde filmmaker.
I lifted the huge brass ring attached to Moondog's door
and pounded three times. Nothing happened. I was about to
knock again when I heard cursing, a sure sign Moondog was
home. He opened the door and glared at me.
"Godammit, you just interrupted the most incredible
lucid dream I ever had!"
He shuffled back into the expanse of the huge warehouse
where he lived and worked still cursing. A large, black, cast
iron, submarine-like sensory deprivation tank still dominated
the center of the room like some weird prehistoric sea
monster… I had not visited Moondog in months.
Further back in the gloom, I could make out the contours
of what must be his latest project, the Moondog Holomovement
Device. This computer - human interface is a sort of Starship
Enterprise Holo-deck affair which, Moondog claimed, "can take
user created virtual reality to as yet unrealized heights. You can
not only be wherever and whenever you want to be but also
whoever you want to be - and really believe it - for as long as

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you want…should make a computer simulation game out of

this…make a fortune". He sat down and glared at me again.

"So…what's so fucking important?"

"You keep telling me to come over here…sorry to
interrupt. I've got a project I thought you might be interested in
helping me with. There's money in it."
I looked around, half expecting to see a woman emerge
from the shadows.
"What are you looking for…you think somebody's here?
I told you I was dreaming. You thought I was fucking, huh?
Well I was fucking, but I was dream fucking…and let me tell
you, its a lot better than real fucking. You want me to tell you
about it?"
"Well, I…"
"Look, you interrupted it so you're gonna at least have
the common decency to sit down and hear about it. Have some
wine…relax. Uncommon dream."

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I poured myself a glass of wine and settled

in…sometimes Moondog could tell stories for hours.
His voice changed as he spoke…became deeply resonant.
"I'm floating above a vast forest. Gently rolling hills.
Deep green. A light mist swirls through the forest, along the
shallow valleys. I move lower now, into the forest itself.
Sunlight filters through the trees in shafts which penetrate the
mist and shadows of the forest. There is a little path along one
of the valleys. Wildflowers are growing here and there. A girl
emerges from the shadows. She strolls down the path. Her eyes
are large and deep set Italian, Felliniesque. Long black tangles
of hair, waist length, bounce back and forth, almost in slow
motion, as she moves. Her skin is golden and shiny. It glows in
the shafts of sunlight. Her body is covered only by a few scraps
of animal skin, maybe tiger or leopard…"

Moondog believes, as do many others, that human thought

can be shaped by intention into thought forms that can
influence matter, even the physical body. He also claims
that there is a similar process whereby a thought created
field of energy can appear to take on human or animal form,
or the form of any other sort of entity, for that matter,
that the human mind can conjure up.

Moondog says that once these forms are created, they

remain manifest until a human consciousness dissolves them.
If the human who created them carelessly forgets about

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or is not aware of his creation and then dies, his poor

orphaned offspring remain. Since the human mind has created
thought forms, usually unwittingly, for thousands upon
uncounted thousands of years, the dimension where these
entities reside is a vast cesspool of these creations…most
created by human or human-like consciousness.

Now, in typical Moondog fashion, Moondog also claims that

he, himself, is a thought form that he, himself, has
created…and that everybody else is too. Although he
sometimes tries to lay the responsibility for how he turned
out on someone else…protesting that he is someone else's
fictitious character or double or shadow or god knows

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what…these protests are always tongue-in-cheek.

He knows that nobody but him could come up with such an

unbelievable character as himself and he wants all the
credit."

---

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4.

I found a fiction piece I wrote about Moondog and Crysta

Bella. Strange pairing but I found it interesting at the time. This
does have a bearing on Benny's disappearance so bear with me.

DERVISH
Moondog unlocks the warehouse door and leans against
it, forcing it open for the first time in over a year. Dirt, which
has accumulated in the cracks around the huge door, showers
down on him and his guest as they cautiously make their way
inside.

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The interior of the warehouse is musty and cool. The air

is stale...motionless...like that of an immense tomb...sealed in
the distant past never to be defiled.
There is no sound.
The immense room is lit only by the moonlight, shining
in bright shafts through skylights high above, which makes the
particles of dust suspended in the dead air glimmer in the
darkness. A luxuriant coat of white powder blankets everything
in the warehouse like new fallen snow.
A woman, Crysta Bella, reverently makes her way
through the shadows, as if she is exploring an awesome
archeological find...touching this or that object
carefully...gazing at the egg shaped, cast iron sensory
deprivation tank and then at one after another of Moondog's
exotic inventions with wonder and anticipation.
She whispers, "This must be the holomovement device...I
want to try it."
Moondog flips a switch and several pools of light appear.
"Why are you whispering?"
Crysta Bella is startled by Moondog's booming voice.
"Oh..."
She turns and smiles at him, regaining her confidence.
He flips another switch and the dark, low tones of jungle
drums fill the room.
"Some wine? You said you were going to buy me a
drink."

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Moondog pours himself and Crysta Bella some wine and

sits down on a large cushion in the middle of the room. Crysta
Bella begins to move with the beat of the drums. She removes
her trench coat.
The costume underneath is made of pieces of leopard
skin stitched together with rawhide. The tempo of the
drumming picks up. Crysta Bella twirls faster…synchronized
perfectly...almost too perfectly...with the

throbbing beat. Entrained...mechanically controlled, a spinning

marionette...frightening in her intensity, she screams as the
penetrating drums reach their peak.
Moondog sits quietly, sipping at his wine...his eyes
locked with Crysta Bella's.
Suddenly, she stops dancing, calmly walks to Moondog,
and sits down. She accepts the glass of wine that he offers and
drinks deeply. She speaks.
"Isadora Duncan once said, 'If words could tell you what
it meant, then why dance it?'."

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Moondog says nothing for a long time...then he replies.

"Wonderful. Now why don't you just cut the crap and tell
me who you are and what you are doing here. Are you trying to
make me think that you are who I think you are trying to make
me think you are?"
Crysta Bella bursts out laughing.
"Could you run that by me again please?"
She laughs harder and begins to cough. She spills her
wine. Soon, Moondog is laughing as well.
Crysta Bella pulls Moondog to his feet and they both
gyrate frantically to the pounding of the drums. The dust devils
swirling at their feet finally mingle and fuse into a cyclone of
white powdery light which threatens to swallow them up...suck
them into its hungry maw.
They finally collapse, exhausted."

---

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5.

I found out after I wrote that piece that Crysta Bella

actually had done quite a number with Moondog as well as
Benny. Its funny how "real" life and "fiction" sometimes sync
up. I'm wondering now which one she really wants me to help
her find. She called again.

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"I found something you may want to check out…want

me to bring it over."
"Sure.
Crysta Bella showed up at my place about an hour later.
Aging, Italian, erotic…the Sophia Loren of North Beach. She
had a friend, The Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa, with her.
She introduced Dona Juanita, whom she knew I had
wanted to meet, then gave me a manuscript about Quantum
Coyote written by Moondog himself. I present the manuscript
here as evidence since it has a direct bearing on the case.

---

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6.

Moondog's manuscript:

I see this life as a conjuration and a dream.

Great compassion rises in my heart
for those without a knowledge of this truth.
MILAREPA

"I've traveled so much that I feel like a local almost

anywhere in the world. Does that make me a non-local
local?"

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I recognized QC's voice immediately, even though I hadn't

crossed paths with him in over ten years, as it echoed down
the bar at Tosca, somehow riding above the wildly animated
chatter of the patrons and the emotional pleas of the voice
of some unidentifiable opera singer which blared from the
only jukebox in the world stocked entirely with opera and
old country. Enrico Caruso or Hank Williams...what would it
be? QC's kind of place.

QC was one of these characters who roamed the world

incessantly engaged in some obscure business that only he
understood and that I never really wanted to know about for
a host of reasons. He had the knack, or, as he put it,
"coincidence control" of turning up at odd times in
unexpected places, but, also as he put it, "right on time
in just the right spot...as usual" with a smug sideways grin and
"I told you so" attitude.

QC was short for Quantum Coyote, his "real name", his

identity of birth having been either lost to him following
a fall of several hundred feet while attempting Mt. Everest
alone, which he miraculously survived intact except for his
memory (the story he tells most often), or deliberately
erased by either himself or some covert government agency,
which he occasionally alludes to but which I carefully avoid
discussing.

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Tonight, QC looked taller than usual and his skin tone

seemed different, but the ever present rumpled white
tropical suit and Panama hat were the same. I had noticed
over the years that "Mr. Coyote", as he liked to be
addressed by the uninitiated, could change his appearance
depending on the part of the world he was in, the language
he was speaking (he seemed to be able to speak them all),
the story about himself he was telling at the time (if he
was claiming to be half Irish and half Apache Indian and
expounding on the similarities of Native American and
Celtic Shamanism, he looked the part).

"I am a fictitious character...I make myself up as I go

along. Everybody else does too, they just don't know
it...what a pity..."

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QC did not seem to age. Or, more accurately, he was able

to appear to be younger or older depending on the character
he was "playing" at the time. I once watched him make the
color of his eyes change like a mood ring.

"Controlled Multiple Personality Disorder...valuable tool

in my line of work!"

QC's charisma, bizarre talents, impeccable social style

and seemingly unlimited academic and world wise education
and curiosity made him irresistible and, at the same time,
utterly creepy to those who had known him or thought they
had known him for a long time.

QC's voice boomed down the bar once again as I tried to

squeeze through the crowd.

"As Bob Wilson says...reality is what you can get away

with...but as I say...watch out!...reality ain't what it
used to be!"

He glanced away from the people he was addressing and

noticed me inching my way toward him. He beamed a grin of
recognition and spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to
part the crowd Moses style so that I could pass through.
He moved toward me, limping a little.

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"How did I know you would walk through that door?

I'm waiting for Benny and now here you are."

"You know everything. What brings you to San Francisco?

And what's with the limp? Some new character device?
Benny's coming huh?"

"Well aren't we cynical after all these years. This is a

real limp. Haven't you read the papers? Mario, get
Hieronymous here a drink...Bombay Sapphire with lime...right?

"Right."

"You should change what you drink...you're too

predictable. Yeah…Benny. I hope he didn't get intercepted."

"I always drink the same thing, you always say the same
thing when I order it. Why don't you change that?"

"You've asked me that before haven't you? Where was

it..."

"So you were in the newspaper? I thought that you avoided

publicity like death. What do you mean intercepted?"

A carefully folded copy of Weekly World News appeared

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from his inside coat pocket. He unfolded it slowly and

handed it to me. On the cover was a photograph of the sole
of a man's foot. The big toe appeared to be much too large
for the rest of the foot. A perfectly round hole penetrated
the big toe and blood oozed from the rim of the hole. The
man's face appeared in the background of the photograph.
The face more or less looked like QC. The headline read,
"Man's Big Toe/Portal To Another Dimension! Bizarre
Stigmata Examined By Vatican! Tiny Holy Relics Appear
Out Of Nowhere Through Sacred Toe Hole!"

My drink arrived and we made our way to a booth at the

back of the bar.

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 Satori tango

"I thought you just investigated strange phenomena, I

didn't realize that you participated. It doesn't seem to be
your style."

"You're right...but this just happened. Nothing I could

do about it. One day in the jungle I woke up after being
out for weeks...I had taken some experimental concoction...
way on the other side of ayahuasca...they thought I was
dead except that my eyes were wide open and the left one
kept looking around...but no heartbeat. Then finally I came
back and something like the Bermuda Triangle had taken over
my left big toe and all these tiny crosses and other things
started popping from the hole. There was a priest nearby
who had been keeping an eye on the situation. He thought
they had made me into a zombie or something. He flipped
out and got in touch with the nearest newspaper."

"Which jungle QC?"

"Peru. It was in all the papers down there. I had to

hide out to avoid the pilgrims. The Pope sent a "special
emissary" to investigate from the Vatican version of the
C.I.A.."

"The what?"

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 Satori tango

"Oh yeah. They have their own Impossible Missions Force

with their own little James Bond style super monks that are
second to none. Well maybe the Israelis and Swiss are
better...I told Benny to watch out."

"The Swiss?"

"Some other time. Anyhow, I was all the rage for a couple
of days, but nobody could find me. The Indians took care of
that."

"Are you going to tell me how you got from the jungle to
Tosca?

"Some other time. Uh oh..you see those two guys who

just came in?"

Two extremely well dressed older 1atinos who looked like

either diplomats or Colombian gangsters were standing near
the entrance looking around.

"Who are they?"

"The Pope's people. Let's go out the back."

"What about Benny?"

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 Satori tango

"Benny can take care of himself. He'll catch up with us later."

QC continued cryptically.

"They say the map is not the territory. Well in my case

the territory is not the territory either."

---

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 Satori tango

7.

We were at my place. QC's bulging left big toe loomed up

at me through the magnifying glass.

"Well there she is…a goddammed rabbit hole to Wonderland

right through my toe…and a holy hole at that!

The hole was outlandish and disorienting. It was

perfectly round and went all the way through. Rivulets of
blood welled up around its rim in a symmetrical
counterclockwise pattern…a miniature vortex of red fluid.

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 Satori tango

QC propped his foot up on my large glass work table so I

could get a better look. At a certain angle I could see
through the hole clearly but if I shifted the angle of view
slightly all I could see inside was a pitch black, seemingly
endless spooky void.

"Watch this…"

QC moved the toe rapidly back and forth several times.

A shower of tiny crosses, statues of saints and Buddhas and
other religious looking relics clattered onto the table.

"What do you think of that?

"Wow!"

"Zackly."

We both paused reverently and looked at each other for a

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 Satori tango

long, spine tingling moment. This was one of those only

several times in a lifetime moments when the sacred
utterance Wow! And its reply, Zackly! Were the only
appropriate response to a spectacular display of the truly
peculiar and Dada-like infinite strangeness and humor of the
universe.

Perhaps I should back up and explain myself a bit here.

QC and I, along with several hundred others scattered about
the globe, comprise what is left of a lineage of initiates
of the ancient order of W.O.W. or Wizards Of The World
which was founded by the crazy wise prophet Zachariah of
Gomorrah a long time ago, hence the magical connotations of
the words Wow! And Zackly! QC's toe definitely deserved a
Wow! And a Zackly!

"You can see why I have to avoid the Vatican agents.

They would kill me if they saw my toe spitting out Buddhas
and crucifixes together…not to mention all this other
strange shit. Now, if you think what you've seen so far is
odd…watch this."

QC slowly inserted the middle finger of his right hand

into the hole in his toe. It did not come out the other
side. He began to rhythmically, almost sexually probe
the hole in his toe. He grinned up at me and then turned
his complete attention to what he was doing. The hole

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widened as QC plunged his entire hand into it. A swirling,

blood rimmed vortex seemed to open in empty space and suck
first QC's entire arm and then his head and torso into
itself, contorting his body in obscene ways as it gobbled it up.

I could not move. QC had just disappeared before my eyes

into the gory hole in his left big toe. In all of my
studies of esoterica and bizarre phenomena, even though
Fortean in scope, the event I had just witnessed was
unprecedented. And then things got stranger. QC's sideways
grin and then his entire head appeared, floating above
my glass table Cheshire Cat-like, followed by his entire
body which oozed back into this dimension with obvious self
satisfaction and confidence.

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 Satori tango

He just sat there…staring at me…his left foot still propped on

the table as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, I cracked up…I
could not stop laughing.

"What's so fucking funny?"

I'm sorry…I just got this image of a cartoon that you

used to see on signs in souvenir shops years ago of a guy
with his head up his ass. I wonder if he was looking at the
same place you just disappeared to…that's all."

QC hesitated and then burst into spasms of hooting and

giggling. He jumped up as if possessed and danced about
the room with cryptic, jerky motions until he collapsed
in a heap on a pile of large cushions.

"All I can say is Wow! I mean, it's way better than

drugs, meditation, shamanic journeys or death. Much
easier…no side effects. I mean…just crawl into the hole
in your toe and boom! There you are…the Otherworld!"

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 Satori tango

"Zackly. But how do you know about death QC, and how do
you know where you go when you go through your toe?

"Elementary my dear Hieronymous, elementary. I know where

I go when I go through my toe and I know that you know
where I go when I go through my toe."

"This is ridiculous…no?"

"Yes…quite. And therefore imminently worthy of our most

serious attention."

"Let's cut the crap QC."

"Yeah. I don't know whether I am some whacked out

spiritual avatar or a certified sideshow freak."

"Maybe both."

"Maybe."

"Maybe we are witnessing the birth of a new world

religion, a religion for the new millennium."

"Maybe."

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 Satori tango

"Maybe you are a Christ or a Buddha."

"Maybe."

"Maybe you are the first Toeist. T.O.E. after all stands
for Theory Of Everything in English. Maybe you are the new
Lao Tzu."

"Wow!...that's more like it! You're a genius

Hieronymous."

"Zackly. Maybe we should write a book based on your

explorations inside your toe since it sounds like the whole
universe is in there."

"It will be known as the WowToe."

"Where should we begin?"

"Why, at the beginning, of course."

QC pointed to the hole in his toe and spoke the magic

words with great pomp and seriousness.

"You first."

And thus, Quantum Coyote and his friend, chronicler, and

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 Satori tango

brother in the ancient order of the Wizards Of The World,

Hieronymous Moondog, disappeared from human space-time to
roam the "vast expanses" of non-time and no place.

---

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 Satori tango

8.

Before their departure, as a precaution, they left an

encrypted message on the Internet WOW home page which
only their brothers and sisters in the ancient order, and Benny
Pristine, could read.

Evidence of their Otherworld doings occasionally crops up

in this dimension and is duly noted when even the
uninitiated experience something weird and exclaim wow!

Their return is anxiously anticipated.

Hieronymous Moondog's immense and whimsical warehouse,

workshop, laboratory and archive was sealed by members of
the Order of WOW as soon as they got the news about what
was going on. No one knew exactly where the Rabbit Hole, as
it came to be called, was located inside the labyrinthine
cavern, but they were sure it was in there somewhere.

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 Satori tango

The warehouse was placed under WOW guard, and only

initiates into the Order were allowed inside.

They began to arrive from all over the world on a

pilgrimage of unprecedented expectation, to insure their
safety, guard their secret and greedily await the results
of this preposterous quest for the grail.

An atmosphere of Viking revelry prevailed as the number of

pilgrims grew. They all knew each other but many had not
crossed paths, in the flesh at least, in many years.
Tales of old conquests and new exploits were told deep into
the night, fueled by copious amounts of wine and other
substances.

At the stroke of midnight a few weeks into the gathering

the collected throng was brought to attention by a loud
electronic sounding sizzle and pop in the vicinity of
Moondog's glass work table. Unmitigated silence prevailed
and all present stared hypnotized in the direction of the
portentous holy noise.

A CD zipped into view, seemingly from empty space, and

spun onto the glass table, rattling and quivering as it
settled into place. The dazed group of onlookers gasped
and then someone had the presence of mind to put the CD

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 Satori tango

into a player in Moondog's sound system and turn it on.

There was only a void of silence at first and then exotic,
almost alien laughter bounced about the warehouse, first
here and then there and then everywhere.

Then they heard QC's sandpapery voice.

"The "T" in TOE does not stand for Theory, it stands for
Theater! TOE means Theater Of Everything!

Life is a cabaret my friends...

Come to the cabaret..."

The voice and the laughter faded out. The assembled

seekers did not know quite what to do next.

Dazed and confused by this revelation of something that

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they already knew or, at least, suspected, they mumbled

amongst themselves for awhile and then all, in lock step
synchrony, lay down and took a nap.

Benny Pristine continued his surveillance.

---

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 Satori tango

9.

So here we have Quantum Coyote and Hieronymous Moondog,

two world wise, ultra sophisticated and somewhat self satisfied
magi, wandering the mysterious backstage rooms and corridors
of the Theater Of Everything, having gotten there through a
hole in the former's left big toe, while the assembled Wizards

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Of The World sleep it off in the latter's warehouse, dreaming of

awakening to a revelation.

An incessant and overbearing assortment of clowns,

jugglers, cowboys, Indians, cops, robbers, priests,
athletes, magicians, musicians, stage hands, make-up
artists, reporters, freaks, lawyers, etc., etc., stampede
past them, heading in all directions, all about to miss
their cue. From somewhere very far away applause, laughter
and occasional booing and hissing sounds echo toward the
two and then are lost in the hive-like buzz of the ever
late performers. Moondog finally says something.

"Where the fuck are we?"

"The sign said Theater Of Everything. The guy who made

that CD for us said he was from TOE Records."

"That was weird...he just pulled it out of his coat pre-

recorded."

"What do you expect? You're inside my toe...anything can

happen."

"We must be backstage. Backstage at the Theater Of

Everything...what a concept!"

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 Satori tango

"This is not a concept. Let's find the Greenroom."

QC and Moondog wander into the enormous, jam packed

Greenroom of the Theater Of Everything. Countless numbers
of characters of every description dressed in costumes of
unprecedented variety crowd about heavily laden buffet
tables that extend out of sight into the far reaches of the
room. A rotund man dressed in black who seems to be in
command of the situation notices the two and approaches
them suspiciously. He looks like Orson Welles.

Orson: Can I help you? You look lost.

QC: We're just checking out the accommodations.

You know, you really look like Orson Welles.

Orson: I am Orson Welles you idiot, or at least his

personality and ego. If you're here you should

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know that by now. You two must have just been

written or something. New fictitious characters
can never figure out what's going on at first.

Moondog: What the fuck are you talking about?

QC: I told you I am a fictitious character Hieronymous.

Look, I think I know what you're saying Orson.

Orson: Mr. Welles to you! You better come clean quick

gentlemen or there'll be hell to pay!

Moondog: Uh oh...considering where we are QC, I think...

QC: You have my profound apologies Mr. Welles.

I am Quantum Coyote, guerrilla ontologist and my
associate here is Hieronymous Moondog, metaphysical
entertainer. At your service.

Orson: You two must be the wise guys who crawled through
that crack between the worlds that opened up in some
idiot's big toe the other day.

QC: Excuse me?

Orson: Oh...must've had to twist yourself up a little to

accomplish that feat. What do you want? Most humans

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don't make it this far unless they're either dead

or doing some sacred deed.

Moondog: This far?

Orson: Do you have any idea where you are?

QC: We're lost. Would you be so kind as to fill us in?

Orson: Look...I've heard about you two. Spiritual

thrill seekers...the whole lot of you! No damned
good! Wizards of the World...indeed! Dilettantes!

QC: Being a wizard is tough these days.

Moondog: If you know so much about us Mr. Welles,

I take it you also know that what we're trying to do is bring
some of the magic back. You know, save the human
imagination before it is either wiped out or winds
up stored in some machine.

Orson: How noble. Got a little self importance going there eh?

QC: Look you asshole stop busting our balls!

We're here right? Showtime! Why don't you give
us the inside shit on this place if you're so
fucking high and mighty. Talk about self importance!

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 Satori tango

Orson: Remember, you are talking to my ego and my

personality. They're not the real me. Sorry.

QC: What a cop out.

Orson: I don't know why you, of all people, are

shocked. You claim to be a fictitious character
yourself...you claim to make yourself up as you
go along...you can jump from character to
character at will...even change your physical
appearance. You know that the part is not the
player, the character is not the actor, the

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 Satori tango

culturally conditioned, hypnotized, bound by

personal history, named and shaped by mommy and
daddy, legend in its own mind, scared to death that
it will die one day, I want to control everything,
let's bet the odds, of course I know who I am,
gravely perception challenged...ego...is not the
real you.

Moondog: Wow!

QC: Zackly.

Exasperated, Orson walks away into the crowd. QC and

Moondog hurry to catch up with him.

Orson: Follow me!

QC and Moondog are admiring the hundreds of photographs on

the walls of Orson's lavish office. Orson is gazing out a
picture window at the hubbub in the Greenroom below.
He mumbles to himself.

Orson: Incarnation is addictive...only a master could

have made such a blunder...

QC: What?

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 Satori tango

Orson: I think it was Vincent Van Gogh who said that.

QC: Said what?

Orson: Nothing. I guess I'm just jealous. Remember,

you're still talking to my ego.

Moondog: Jealous of who?

Orson: You claim to be a wizard…who do you think?

QC: Oh...(to Moondog)...are you sure we're in the

right place? I mean...here we are, backstage
at what we think is the Theater Of Everything
with some dead ego maniac director, a coliseum
sized room full of crazed fictitious characters
...and our dear director, who is also our tour guide,
telling us about how he is jealous of God!

Orson: All artists are jealous of incomprehensible talent.

And we are all artists, are we not, of one kind or
another. We all create our own world - I think...the problem
arises when we don't realize who has
created it...that it is that whoever which is responsible
for either continuing work on our present creation or
beginning another. So why not be jealous of God?
God is the doer. I think God would approve. Sit down...

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 Satori tango

I'll tell you what I know.

Orson slips into his best narrative persona and his voice
resonates through the room.

Orson: Welcome to the Theater Of Everything...everything

is theater, everything is performance, everything
is carefully written, everything is utterly
spontaneous, everything dances, everything sings,
everything has an audience, everything moves,
everything has power, everything lives, everything
is creativity, everything loves...everything giggles
...anything is possible.

Orson pauses. QC and Moondog are spellbound.

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 Satori tango

Orson: Now...you two bad boys have snuck backstage

to take a peek at the naked stripper...
right? This is all abstract, but I'm sure,
in typical human form, you will make it make
sense. You will either think you are getting
what you think you are paying for...or, if you
just begin to make sense of this backstage
nonsense, you may go home mad...as in loony,
nuts, off one's rocker. If you do good here, I
may certify you both as bona fide fools.

Silence.

Orson studies QC and Moondog carefully as he paces

back and forth in front of them. Suddenly, he spins around
to face them and shouts.

Orson: Bang!

QC and Moondog jump and Orson dies laughing. He composes

himself and continues.

Orson: "God has no religion" Mahatma Gandhi..."I would

only believe in a God who could dance" Friedrich
Nietzche..."God is putting up the money for this
production, of course. Playing all the parts too, although
even God can be forgetful. He (or She he, he, he) has

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creative control" Orson Welles...but then, but

then, "A movie does not exist without an audience"
Jean Luc Godard.

Orson turns on the two again and screams.

Orson: Wake up!

QC and Moondog jump again.

Orson: The audience shouldn't sleep through the

performance. That's the problem with most
human beings...they don't realize that they
are both the performer andt he audience.
They get so caught up in their part
that they forget they are just acting...just playing
a fictitious character that has partly been created
for them by…guess who? And, let

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me tell you, once that fictitious character has been

created, it insists on being played…will do
anything to be acted out...why just look at me!
Before you stands the ego and personality of the
fictitious character known as Orson Welles, whose
body died some time ago and whose soul is casting
about for another character to play, a character
who can learn from poor Orson's mistakes and move on
to greater heights of expression. Of course, my
soul and I still hang out, along with several other
characters my soul has played down through the ages.
Let's say we are our soul's consultants...we are
helping our soul pick a set of circumstances for
the new incarnation that will produce a great new
character...hopefully a character who won't forget
who is watching the show. How ironic...that was
my problem on earth. Here I was, a great actor and
a great director, and I forgot that I was a great
actor and a great director. How silly of me huh?
But one must never despair of waking up...tell them
this when you go back. Tell them they're the
audience, remind them that they've paid for their
seats by showing up at the rock concert, Broadway
musical comedy, disaster movie, three ring circus
of their life time and that they had better pay
attention! I mean really...why show up at the ball
game if you ain't gonna root for the home team?

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There is a long silence. Finally QC speaks.

QC: So what you're saying is that a soul, with

direction, picks a set of cultural and genetic
circumstances that become the seed of a character
and a body that is shaped by that culture, parents,
education and the character itself that congeals
into an ego and personality that the soul can use
to creatively express itself through as long as it
maintains awareness of what is going on and that it
is not contained or defined by this ego and
personality, but, instead, contains and defines it.

Orson: Uhh...

QC: Right?

Orson: Uhhh...no…

Moondog: Jesus Christ! Are you satisfied Orson. Now you

have poor QC here spouting some fa ca ca quasi metaphysics
that sounds more moronic than that melodramatic crap
you're trying to sell. I mean, don't get me
wrong, your performance was great, very convincing
and you did make some points but look at this
guy. (QC is lost in space) Snap out of it QC!

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A female voice screeches from the intercom on Orson's desk.

Voice: Mr. Welles Mr. Welles the situation in the

Greenroom is reaching critical mass! All the
characters are demanding to know when they will
be assigned an actor and Hamlet, James Bond
and Dracula are in your waiting room!

Orson turns away from QC and Moondog and stares blankly at

the near riot in the Greenroom far below. The fictitious
characters have started a food fight and are chanting.

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 Satori tango

Chant: Orson! Orson! Cast us! Cast us!

Orson mutters to himself.

Orson: Rosebud...Rosebud...Rosebud...Rosebud...

Moondog jerks QC to his feet.

Moondog: Its been great Orson, but we're outa here.

QC and Moondog exit.

---

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10.

The massive iron gates of the Theater Of Everything

clangs shut behind QC and Moondog. QC, back to his senses
now, looks up at the sign above the gate and shakes his head.
"If that's it, we're in big trouble…"
Moondog squirms uncomfortably.
"I wonder if there's a Toilet Of Everything around here?"
They look around. They are at one end of a colossal
tunnel which branches this way and that in the distance. A neon
sign buzzes on and off overhead...Tunnel Of Everything.
QC sighs.
"Oh boy...here we go. I guess the Theater Of Everything
did not include the Tunnel Of Everything."
"Or the Toilet Of Everything either...look over there."
Just around a slight bend in the tunnel they see a frosted
glass door with the sign Toilet Of Everything above it.
Moondog quickly heads for the door.
The walls of the Toilet Of Everything are covered with
graffiti.

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 Satori tango

Do not take the Buddha for the Ultimate. As I look

at him, he is still like the hole in the privy.
RINZAI

Language is a virus from outer space.

WILLIAM BURROUGHS

Knowledge is fashion.
ROBERT HARDING

Everything you know is wrong.

FIRESIGN THEATER

A man's worst enemies can't wish on him what he can

think up himself.
YIDDISH PROVERB

Behead yourself!
RUMI

All "isms" should be "wasms."

ABBIE HOFFMAN

If I could tell you what it meant, there'd be no

use in dancing it.
ISADORA DUNCAN

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 Satori tango

Show hard.
ANONYMOUS

Thousands of remarks cover every available

space on the walls of the Toilet Of Everything. QC and
Moondog relieve themselves and, after seemingly endless
perusal, QC has to finally physically pull Moondog away from
this vast literary display.

Back in the tunnel, Moondog is obviously impressed.

"They sure tagged that sucker!"
---
Moondog's manuscript ends here. I don't know whether
this is a total fabrication or based on actual experience…with
these guys its hard to tell. I must ask Moondog and QC when I
see them again. In any case, I guess they made it out of
Quantum Coyote's big toe and lived to tell the tale. Unless, of
course, we are now all actually inside of Quantum Coyote's big
toe…Matrix-like…after all, T.O.E. could stand for Toe Of
Everything…which would mean that…I'll stop this line of
inquiry here. For now…

---

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11.

Crysta Bella and the Rev, Dona Juanita Medusa accepted

my offer of wine and made themselves comfortable.
"Can you believe that bastard? Off to Vegas and not a
word to me. We were supposed to fly to New York. Hired to
find the meaning of life. What Bullshit! I'll bet he's fucking his
client or that Rosebud Peru, whoever she is."
Crysta Bella was pissed. I tried to reassure her.
"I'll call Dixie. If he's anywhere near Vegas he'll go see
Dixie."
Dona Juanita's gaze was at once remote and
cajoling...hard to figure...unapproachable and "come hither" at
the same time. She pulled a page torn from a magazine out of
her purse.
"I already told you, Rosebud Peru is nothing Bella. This
Dixie I don't know about. Anyway, I found this today in the
India Daily. I'd like to see what you think of it Mr. Murray. I
knew we were coming here and I couldn't resist. Can I read you
part of it?"
"Sure. And it's Zeno, never Mr. Murray."
"O.K Zeno - Extraterrestrial UFOs show the presence of
invisible fifth dimension in our universe that we cannot even
see or feel. India Daily Technology Team. August 6, 2005.

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"We cannot see it, we cannot feel it but our mind floats in
it. It is the invisible fifth dimension in our universe. One of the
biggest conundrums in modern astronomy is the fact that over
90% of our Universe is invisible. This mysterious missing stuff
is known as "dark matter"…

"…Recently, when UFO flight patterns and their strange

disappearances were modeled in the computer, it was very
obvious they were using an additional spatial dimension to hide
and seek and create a total magic…
"…The conclusion scientists came up with is that our
universe has another dimension (we call it fifth dimension) in
which the 90% of the universe is floating or spinning. We
cannot see it, cannot feel it but it is there to make everything
else happen in the universe…
"…This may be the reason we can never understand the
UFO phenomenon because we just cannot see the entire

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universe. Once we fix our sight thorough the technical expertise

and equipments, we will be able to communicate with the
UFOs, aliens and others who live with five dimensions and
even can manipulate them for travel and so on…"
"What do you think?"

I didn't know where she was coming from with this.

Anytime someone starts talking about UFOs the first time you
meet them you gotta wonder. I knew a little about Dona Juanita
though and I'm sure she knew something of my reputation so
maybe its not surprising. Also, Benny's history with UFO tales
and his recent disappearance could connect the dots to some
extent - I guess. Plus, I didn't find the content of the article that
strange - or new, for that matter. As far as the Rev. Dona
Juanita Medusa herself was concerned - in the interest of
finding out why she's along for the ride with Crysta Bella on
this Benny thing - and since I don't believe in coincidences -
I've been able to put together the following:
(I'll tell you what I told her about what I thought of the
"dark matter" article in a minute.)

---

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12.

The Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa

Biographical Data:

In the 1870's, following the Confederate defeat in the

U.S. Civil War, a large number of southerners migrated to
Brazil to start a new life in what they believed would be a
climate more congenial to their ways and customs. Among
them was Captain Donald Johnson Medley, his wife Sarah and
their three children. The Medley family prospered in their
adopted homeland and were soon operating a successful
Amazonian plantation.

By the early 1960's Donald Johnson Medley's great-grandson

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Juan, by this time thoroughly “Brazilianized” but, in the

family tradition still more than a bit rebellious, married
a native woman who still lived with her tribe deep in the
jungle. Juan brought his spirited new bride, who he had
nicknamed Tango, to live in the family plantation house in
spite of the protests of his brothers and sisters.

Juan and Tango soon had a son that they named Juan Tomas
in honor of her grandfather Tomas, who was the elder and
shaman of her tribe. Young Juan Tomas, half Indian-half
white Brazilian was treated as an outsider by everyone but
his mother and father from the beginning and retreated into
a sort of dreamy, solitary isolation.

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To escape the pain of this rejection by Juan's community

and family, Tango frequently took little Juan Tomas on
trips into the jungle to visit her village and her grandfather.

Here, Juan Tomas was warmly welcomed, especially by his

grandfather who, as Tango looked on with a mixture of
gratification and foreboding, was shaping the boy into his
protege.

When Juan Tomas was ten years old his father and mother
were killed in a plane crash. Unable to bear the grief of
their loss and the cruel treatment he received at the hands
of his aunts and uncles, who wanted to "give him the
opportunity" of moving back to the U.S. with a relative, a
poor farmer and sometime preacher who lived in rural
Mississippi that they were paying to take him off their
hands, Juan Tomas ran away to Tango's village.

There, his grandfather took him under his wing and taught
him many things. There, he also discovered his
homosexuality, which far from making him an outcast,
instead served to intensify his strangeness, and validate
the perception by the tribe that he was indeed a blossoming
shaman. His grandfather, however, had other ideas.
He told the boy that he would teach him most of what he
knew but then told him that he must leave the jungle and

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enter the modern world to complete his education and return

to the tribe with this knowledge. No other member of the
tribe was in a position to do this...because of his family
ties to the U.S., he was.

Reluctantly, Juan Tomas went back to the plantation

and was shipped off to Mississippi.

Juan Tomas' great-great-grandfather's brother's grandson,

Rev. Jack Medley, worked a farm near Medusa Mississippi on
the Gulf Coast near the Louisiana border, and was also a
part time Evangelist, who, at the time of Juan Tomas'
arrival, still conducted tent meetings and healings in the
hopes of attracting enough attention to get his own local
TV show. Juan Tomas, as well as the money he was being paid
to take the boy in, seemed a godsend. Exotic, sensitive,
talented and young (Juan Tomas was twelve at the time), the
strange boy who spoke broken English with a combination
Portuguese-southern accent could be his star attraction in
the tent. Jack Medley had no knowledge of Juan Tomas
apprenticeship with his grandfather, or that the boy
actually was a healer. Jack Medley just wanted to make Juan
Tomas into the next Televangelical Mega-Church phenomenon.

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Rev. Medley had Juan Tomas ordained and put him on the
stage. Things went extremely well for a time and in less
than a year Juan Tomas was on television. But not for long.
Evangelical faith healers in south Mississippi are not
supposed to be homosexual.

Juan Tomas ran away to San Francisco where he was soon

taken in by a middle aged eccentric anthropology professor
who became his lover and mentor. He yearned to return to
the jungle but his new teacher convinced him that it was
not yet time...his transformation and education in the
ways of the modern, now post-modern, world was not
complete Also, the professor recognized that Juan Tomas had
learned well from his grandfather.

For the next few years Juan Tomas learned to play both
male and female roles with great skill and concluded that

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the next step in his development was to begin the process

of transforming his body into that of a woman. But not
completely...the woman would still have a penis. The
professor encouraged and paid for this.

To acknowledge the many turns in the road that led

to the emergence of this new person, Juan Tomas and the
professor decided to name him/her Rev. Dona Juanita
Medusa.

Currently Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa is conducting a series

of seminars in what he/she calls Alchemical Conjuration
Technique (A.C.T.) which involves identifying and
manipulating the masks of reality which block human
transformation, health, creativity and genuine playfulness
and enjoyment of life.

A short visit to the jungle is in the planning stages.

---

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13.

Back to "dark matter"…

"Actually. I think it makes a lot of sense," I replied.
Crysta Bella poured more wine.
"So what? Benny's in the 5th dimension looking for the
meaning of life huh? Fuck no…he's probably down at Dixie
Evans' stripper museum sniffing costumes…"
"What if this "dark matter" this 5th dimension is what
we've been calling the Freudian unconscious?", Dona Juanita
stated matter of factly in that strange accent.

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"Well if we're not conscious of it I guess it is the

unconscious - duh…", slurred Crysta Bella, "Let's get back to
locating Mr. Pristine."
Unexpectedly, things were on the brink of making sense.
Or, more likely, nonsense. Benny Pristine had "disappeared"
and may be visiting Dixie Evans' place near Barstow. A
location he seems drawn to. Dixie's property adjoins a military
base where, she says, all sorts of peculiar things happen. Lights
in the sky, Japanese men in dark glasses on "security" patrol,
vague warnings. Sinister, suggestively alien or not, the whole
scene oozes UFO mythology. And right next door to Exotic
World and the strippers museum - let's throw in a little
surrealist spin as well. Flying saucers on one side of the road
and dozens of urns containing the ashes of long dead headliners
on the other. I know this first hand because Dixie also has a
"Bed and Breakfast" where museum visitors can spend the
night. I spent the night. Breakfast with 80 year old Marilyn
Monroe impersonator Dixie and her carny consort Charlie, both
telling you about the "foreign little men" over at the base in one
sentence and plans for the up-coming Miss Exotic World
contest and their needing money to fix the cracks and leaks in
the waterless swimming pool out back in the next, can transport
the visitor to a rarely approached level of awareness of the
nature of "ordinary" reality…a sudden slap in the face…a
bucket of water over the head…a zen master's whack with his
cane. Now the Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa, with his/her
outlandish back story is reading an India Daily report about

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extra-terrestrials and their vessels originating in "dark matter"

and equating this with the Freudian unconscious. Perfect.
How about a koan? "Why did the extraterrestrial cross
the road?"
"It left its boa on the ship and needed something to wear."
Instant satori.
O.K. so maybe that doesn't qualify as a koan. Maybe its just a
bad joke. How about a haiku?

Air conditioned stretch

limo careens through the desert
oblivious.

"Have you tried Benny's cell phone Crysta?"

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"Of course Zeno…Jesus! All of his numbers are out of

service. That’s what got me worried." She glared at me, "So
why don't you call Dixie?"
I looked up the Exotic World Burlesque Museum and
dialed. Dixie's husky drawl caressed me through the phone.
"Hey Dix…yeah…yeah…it's Zeno. Have you heard from
cousin Benny lately? No, huh? Yeah…yeah…he's O.K. as far
as I know. I just need to talk to him about something and he
seems to be out of town. Yeah, yeah…I'm great honey…I'm
gonna try to get down pretty soon. How's Charlie? Mild stroke
huh? Is he O.K.? Yeah…I know he's a tough little monkey.
O.K. Yeah…if you hear from Benny tell him to call me."

"No Benny?"
"No Benny."
"Maybe she's hiding something." Dona Juanita chimed
in.

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"Yeah Zeno, maybe she's covering for that fuck…"

"Something I wanted to ask you Crysta."
"Well ask away Zeno."
"How did you find out about Benny's blog anyhow?"
"What are you accusing me of Zeno?"
"I'm not accusing you of anything. Just wondered. A
Benny Pristine blog address, for Christ's sake, is not the kind of
thing he would talk about. Not to the people he runs with. I
wouldn't think."
"You don't think he'd fill me in huh? What's the purpose
of a fucking blog anyhow? Its on the goddammed internet!"
Long silence.
"O.K., O.K….After he didn't show up I went to his
apartment. I picked the lock."
"Very talented…so…?"
"The computer was on. The blog page was up."
"So you got the web address…"
"Obviously Zeno."
"Did you manage to pick up anything else while you
were there?"
"I found that manuscript I gave you already. And a file
with some other stuff in it."
"Well?"
"Its in the car."
Dona Juanita watched this exchange with agitation.
"You're acting like a cop Mr. Murray."
"Oh bullshit! She asked me to help her find this guy."

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Crysta Bella headed for the door.

"I'll get the file out of the car."

---

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14.

When Crysta Bella returned we got on my computer and

went to Benny's blog. There were four new posts:

BENNY PRISTINE'S BLOG

Friday, August 19
Buddha Impersonator
Only in Vegas right. Moondog knows this outfit that represents
"Spiritual Entertainers" who impersonate famous religious
figures and philosophers. You can hire Jesus, Plato, Loa Tzu,
Deepak Chopra, Billy Graham, Alan Watts, Ramana Maharshi,
etc. And, of course, The Buddha. Now these guys are supposed
to be the real thing when it comes to their knowledge and

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ability to enlighten. Seems strange but stranger things have

happened. Its all in the spirit of things. Moondog hired the
Buddha who was booked until midnight when he will join us. If
this works and we actually find out anything from this guy I'm
gonna have him back and call a bunch of people.

I told Moondog to get the Alan Watts impersonator over here

too. I saw him a few times talking on his barge when I was in
Sausalito in the late 60's. Dated some hippie chick and went
with her. He seemed to know his shit but I forgot it all. Wasn't
paying attention anyway. Just wanted to fuck Sugar Magnolia.
You know. I did some reading before we left for here. Some
things are beginning to dawn on me. Later.
posted by Benny at 9:13 PM 0 comments

The Suite
Things could be worse. My client arranged a spectacular high
roller suite for us in Vegas. Everything is comped. 24 hour
service, ordering from all the restaurants, the works. Not like

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Vegas back in the day on a lot of levels. Can't tell you which
hotel. Security considerations after that last thing. We could
have all been dead. I guess that's one way to find out the
meaning of life. The gang's all here, me, QC, Moondog,
Rosebud and Julio, our driver, of course. Things look a little
different from this POV. Christ, I could get used to this. QC and
Moondog have some people coming over later. This makes a
great hide-out. A regular pirate's cove. Robbers roost. A TAZ…
posted by Benny at 1:33 PM 0 comments

Thursday, August 18
Grifter guru
It was all a trick. A scam designed to rip off my client, not to
mention make me look like a fool. Unfortunately, QC,
Moondog and Rosebud were also messed with but they were
better prepared to deal with the mind fuck involved. They know
the territory. I met the grifter guru, God's pickpocket.

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I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the kinds of questions I'm

out there asking. There must be a well hooked up mafia of wise
and holy men...and women...who see the spiritually needy
coming. Especially the well heeled ones. More details soon. I'm
hard to reach right now. Got new numbers on my phones. To
the woman I stood up again...I'm really sorry honey...I'll be in
touch.
posted by Benny at 1:54 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 01
I found it!
I found it! More later.
posted by Benny at 10:29 AM 0 comments

---

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15.

Crysta Bella was the first to speak.

"They've all gone nuts!"
The Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa was clearly captivated by
what he/she could imagine was going on in Vegas. Crysta Bella
poured more wine.
"I can imagine that slut Rosebud blowing the Buddha in
some casino penthouse while…"
I opened the file that Crysta Bella had found at Benny's.
Unusual and varied material. He was doing his diligence all
right. I laid the pages out on my dining room table and the three
of us had a look. Dona Juanita snagged one document in
particular and read it out loud,
"Top o' the Rio, Ma!
Staff writer Todd Witcher got into a place most of us won't: It
wasn't the Palazzo Suites themselves that surprised me. The
luxury suites at the Rio are enormous, about the size of a house,
and opulent. The dining room was sumptuous. The living room
was big enough to double as a tennis court, and the fireplace
was wide enough to roast a few pigs in. There also was the
expected array of high-tech control pads and stainless-steel
kitchen appliances. I had walked a mile through the Rio without
seeing a single sign for the Palazzo Suites—clearly the idea was
that if you had to ask, you probably didn't need to know.
"Well, I guess we know where they are…"

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Crysta Bella, with sleazy intonations, read from another

page,
"EXOTIC WORLD BURLESQUE MUSEUM…
In the entire Exotic World collection, perhaps no single treasure
is more valuable than the museum's current curator and
proprietress (a position she's held since 1989), Miss Dixie
Evans. In this capacity, Dixie lovingly watches over the world's
most venerable stash of g-strings, pasties, photographs, and
other memorabilia from the golden age of "Bump-&-Grind".

"MISS DIXIE EVANS…

A former Striptease Queen herself, Dixie was widely billed as
the "Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque," a title bestowed upon her
personally by legendary promoter and theatre-owner, Harold
Minsky. Following the death of her friend and fellow exotic
dancer, Jennie Lee (the original founder of Exotic World),
Evans took up the mantel as keeper of the Burley-Q flame.

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"Now in her mid-70's, the eternally saucy and more-than-

occasionally boa-clad Miss Dixie personally guides all visitors
through the collection -- often slipping into her breathy,
signature Marilyn impression -- while expertly extrapolating on
the lives and loves of many of the performers featured in the
"Striptease Hall of Fame".
Crysta Bella took a couple of beats and then continued.
"Maybe we should get our asses down there, pick up
Dixie and her Marilyn Impersonation and take her to meet the
Buddha and maybe Jesus on the Strip…"
Dona Juanita and I went through the other documents
while Crysta Bella tried to write a hostile email to Benny
through a link on his blog.

---

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16.

BENNY'S FILE
TAZ by Hakim Bey
Essential Reading For Anyone Who Thinks, So…
Review
by Gordon Smith

And I think so. But most people aren't spending their days
searching for the answers that are found in this book. Most
would either be bored or afraid of something as profound and
relevant to everyday life as TAZ. TAZ stands for Temporary
Autonomous Zone: that place where we are free from influence
of ALL outside forces, left with only our selves unobstructed.
Scary, huh? Obviously, this is a niche book. Good for

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awakening the minds of those who are already partly awake.

But not much else.

Fragments from THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS

ZONE (TAZ)
By Hakim Bey
...this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus, who will
turn the world into a holiday...not that I have much time...
Nietzsche (from his last "insane" letter to Cosima Wagner)

Pirate Utopias
THE SEA-ROVERS AND CORSAIRS of the 18th century
created an "information network" that spanned the globe:
primitive and devoted primarily to grim business, the net
nevertheless functioned admirably.

Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts

where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for

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luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported

"intentional communities," whole mini-societies living
consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even
if only for a short but merry life.

The first step is somewhat akin to satori--the realization that the

TAZ begins with a simple act of realization.

The TAZ as festival. Stephen Pearl Andrews once offered, as an

image of anarchist society, the dinner party, in which all
structure of authority dissolves in conviviality and celebration.

Vital in shaping TAZ reality is the concept of psychic

nomadism (or as we jokingly call it, "rootless
cosmopolitanism"). The drift.

The TAZ desires above all to avoid mediation, to experience its

existence as immediate. The very essence of the affair is
"breast-to-breast" as the sufis say, or face-to-face. But, BUT:
the very essence of the Web is mediation. Machines here are
our ambassadors--the flesh is irrelevant except as a terminal,
with all the sinister connotations of the term.

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Excerpted from Amazon review

by M. Jeffrey McMahon
In MEDIATED (at one time titled The Flattered Self),
Thomas De Zengotita shows how a media-saturated culture has
created a new breed of narcissists-namely you and me. He
makes a great case for the fact that we have become, thanks to
the media, more like full-time actors than real humans. All of
us, he says, have learned from television "method acting," so
that a media person could stick a microphone in front of any
Average Joe and that Average Joe would be able to give a
polished interview. We're all competing to be the star in a world
of wannabe celebrities.

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He does a good job of showing how television gives us a

God's-eye view of everything so that we have a delusion of
omniscience and this false power fuels our delusions of
grandeur. Additionally, this God's-eye view spoils us so that we
can't live in stillness and see life in the here and now but only
media's cheap, hyped representations of life.
This unhealthy quest for god-hood, he shows, has taken
shape in the popularity of Reality TV shows, which feed our
sense of entitlement, self-pity, and our narcissistic wish to be
recognized over others.
By showing how our inability to embrace true heroes
connects to our obsession with making ourselves into pseudo
heroes, Zengotita has found an original, sometimes funny, and
always profound way to make us look at the way the media is
shaping our psyches and our souls.

The following ideas are paraphrased from:

"Finite and Infinite Games - A Vision of Life as Play and
Possibility"
by James P. Carse

There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite.

A finite game is a game that has fixed rules and boundaries, that
is played for the purpose of winning and thereby ending the
game.

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An infinite game has no fixed rules or boundaries. In an infinite

game you play with the boundaries and the purpose is to
continue the game.

Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.

Finite players try to control the game, predict everything that

will happen, and set the outcome in advance. They are serious
and determined about getting that outcome. They try to fix the
future based on the past.

Infinite players enjoy being surprised. Continuously running

into something one didn't know will ensure that the game will

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go on. The meaning of the past changes depending on what

happens in the future.

All finite games have rules. If you follow the rules you are
playing the game. If you don't follow the rules you aren't
playing. If you move the pieces in different ways in chess, you
are no longer playing chess.

There is no rule that says you have to follow the rules.

Infinite players play with rules and boundaries. They include

them as part of their playing. They aren't taking them seriously,
and they can never be trapped by them, because they use rules
and boundaries to play with.

In a theatrical play the actor knows that he really isn't Hamlet.

The audience knows that he really isn't Hamlet. But if he does a
good job, Hamlet can express himself through the actor. The
playing is most enjoyable when it is both clear that it is chosen
play, that it is the actor doing it voluntarily, and at the same

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time it is so convincing, following the rules well enough that it

seems real.

You can play finite games within an infinite game. You can not
play infinite games within a finite game.

You can do what you do seriously, because you must do it,

because you must survive to the end, and you are afraid of
dying and other consequences. Or, you can do everything you
do playfully, always knowing you have a choice, having no
need to survive the way you are, allowing every element of the
play to transform you, taking pleasure in every surprise you
meet. Those are the differences between finite and infinite
players.

The Sims Game (Ordinary Life Computer Simulation)

From the Manufacturer (as found on Amazon)
In the The Sims 2, you direct your Sims over a lifetime and mix
their genes from one generation to the next. You set your Sims'
goals in life; fame, fortune, family, romance or knowledge.
Give them a long, successful existence or leave their lives in
shambles. Take them to extremes, from getting busted to seeing
a ghost, from marrying an alien to writing a great novel.
Unleash your creativity with the all-new Create-A-Sim feature,
new building options, and the new in-game movie camera. Get

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ready to mix their genes, fulfill their dreams, and push them to
extremes. What do you want to do with your Sims' lives?

• Mix Genes: Your Sims have DNA and inherit physical

and personality traits. Take your Sims through an infinite
number of generations as you evolve their family tree.

• Fulfill Dreams: Your Sims now have purpose in life. Do

they aspire to a life of fame, fortune, family, knowledge, or
romance? It's up to you to decide if they will be a lover or a
loser, a prince or a pauper, a fool or a mastermind, and many
other choices. Give them what they want and they'll lead a long,
successful existence; indulge their fears and risk ruining their
lives. It's all in your hands.

• Push The Extremes: Will your Sims be left at the altar

and need a shrink, or inherit a fortune and become filthy rich?
Witness the big moments that make every Sim's life uniquely
memorable.

• Unlimited Creativity: Generate unique Sims with the new

Create-A-Sim, packed with a vast selection of facial features,
hairstyles, and outfits. Build dream homes and design
neighborhoods with new building, design, and home furnishing
options.

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• Revolutionary Movie-making: Make your own Sim films with

the all-new movie-making feature. Create the cast, set the stage,
take control of the camera, and capture your own screenplay in
action. Zoom in close to record every detail as your very own
Sims sitcom unfolds.

Cinemorphics™
or
Alternate Construct Training (A.C.T.)
or
The Method
by
Charles Webb

Life is a movie. The world is not made of atoms, it is made of

characters and their stories.
Lon Chaney

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What is Cinemorphics™?
Cinemorphics™ is the science and art of changing,
transforming, transmuting the construct known as the ego,
persona, self...what someone thinks of when asked to describe
himself or herself...one's idea of oneself...from one form into
another, by making use of the methods and techniques of acting
and movie making. Bodily changes may also be addressed or
result from this change in the psyche. Emotional and physical
health may be improved.

If you think you are and everybody else thinks you are, then you
are.
Jean Genet

What can Cinemorphics™ do for me?

Such changes may be sought for a number of reasons...to fix
some problem either physical or psychological...for serious
personal growth or just as a form of play.

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When someone asks, who are you?, your response may include
your name, age, sex, race, height, weight, hair and eye color,
where you live, whether you are married or not, whether you
have children, what you do for a living, your hobbies, your
likes and dislikes, your religious beliefs, your hopes, fears,
hang-ups, skills, etc. If pushed, you could produce an
exhaustive "character" description of all of the things that, when
combined, make up what you take to be you. You identify with
this description, this construct.

This description of who you take yourself to be...your

ego...includes genetic, biological and physical components as
well as culturally conditioned, learned and psychologically
"shaped" components. Most of these components have been
assembled over a long period of time without your intervention.
(e.g. you were born with black hair and learned to speak
Spanish growing up.) Some you believe you have intentionally
cultivated (e.g. you decided to learn to play the guitar and make

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your living as a musician). In many cases the distinction

between which of your attributes were come by intentionally
and which were thrust upon you by nature or nurture is very
blurry.

In any case, this description of who you think you really are,
this construct with which you identify, can be looked at in
another way. If written out, your description of yourself reads
like a character description in a movie script, play or novel.
Consider yourself a fictitious character that has been devised by
the haphazard, natural forces of ordinary life in the world but
which you have believed is the real and only you.

Now that you realize that this "you" that you can observe and
describe is very much like a character in a movie, consider the
possibilities. If your life is a movie and you are the star, lets
have a look at how your character was written...to a great extent
not by you...and how you are being directed...also in many
cases not by you. If you don't like what you see, demand a re-
write. Your character...your self...is not written in stone. It is
malleable and can be re-written, then rehearsed and performed
by you...at first with the collaboration of and direction by a
professional and then by you alone. You can also learn to be
your own best, most discerning audience, write your own
reviews...decide what is working and what is not. You become
the producer, the star performer, the critic. You learn how to
take charge.

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How do I do this?
Either through a series of one on one sessions, or one or more
intensive workshops. What follows is an overview of how these
sessions and workshops are conducted.

You will be asked to provide a brief medical and psychological

history and a summary of what you want to accomplish by
using this process. The director of the sessions or workshop will
describe the types and levels of change that Cinemorphics™
can provide, outline the procedures of, as well as the dangers
inherent in the process.

You will then write a short character synopsis of "you"...your

character as you now see it...which will be reviewed, discussed
and then re-scripted, rehearsed and then performed, first in the
private session or workshop environment and then in ordinary,
day to day surroundings. Videotape will be used as a feedback
device in these rehearsal and performance stages. During the
course of the sessions you will possibly have assignments to do
which relate to certain components of your new character. (e.g.,
if you decide that your new character speaks French, you could
be directed to take a course in French. Or, you may simply be
directed to go shopping...finally buy that intriguing hat you
always thought would make you look mysterious, but always
put off getting.)

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Following the rehearsal/performance/audience stage, you and

your director will evaluate the effectiveness of your re-written
character and your enactment of it...whether it "plays" or needs
more development.

You mentioned levels of change?

There is no hierarchy of levels in Cinemorphics™ (i.e. one
level is not higher or better than another). There are, however,
amounts of change that are possible depending on what you
want to accomplish.

For example, your character synopsis may include shyness

which you eliminate in your re-write. This may be the only
thing you want to change and the only thing you work on.

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When you are successful, of course, this one change can affect
everything else in your life.

Or, your character synopsis may include obesity and shyness

which interact. Your new character is thin and flamboyant. You
must work on both aspects of this in order to be able to play the
part. In this case physical change must accompany rehearsal
and "method" acting of flamboyant scenarios.

Or, you may want to make a more comprehensive change... be

re-written and directed in identifying with and performing a
character very different than the one you are playing at the
beginning of the process. This could involve changing your
name, your hair color, your wardrobe, your job, your routines,
your skills, your "image", the way you conduct personal
relationships, etc. You turn yourself into a work of art. Also,
studies have shown that behavioral changes can result in
physiological changes…heart rate, blood pressure,
neurochemistry, etc.

Or, after realizing that who you think you really are is simply a
construct that you have identified with, a fictitious character
that can be altered and performed, a tool that you use as you
live your life, you may begin to dig deeper and ask more basic
questions. Who am I really...who or what identifies with this
fictitious character I have taken to be myself. Who is the
observer...the witness to all this...who is making the changes in

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the character I am playing now? These are extremely significant

questions and exploring them can be enlightening as well as
fun.

The ego is just the dream of the Witness, the film that the
Witness creates..., simply so it will have something to watch at
the movies.
Ken Wilber

What about dangers?

Individuals with certain medical conditions and diagnoses of
certain types of mental illness should not use Cinemorphics™
alone as a tool for change. Conventional medical approaches
and psychotherapy need to be used prior to and in conjunction
with Cinemorphics™ in these cases.

Also, when someone significantly changes even one aspect of

themselves and their life, everything else changes as well. A
prudent consideration of this must be taken before you decide
to re-construct yourself.

Be careful what you're dreaming...soon your dream'll be

dreaming you.
Willie Nelson

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Can you point to examples of the Cinemorphic effect in

everyday life?
As we look around our increasingly post-modern
culture...particularly via the media...we can begin to identify
powerful examples of the effect. Many movie stars and other
celebrities have very effectively gone through this process.
Character creation techniques are utilized extensively off the
screen as well as on. The process is evident in the political and
business arena and is used by con-men, criminals and spies to
great effect...and pro-wrestlers. Post-operative transsexuals take
the Cinemorphic process to one of its extremes...physical sex
change as well as persona identity change. Thousands use
aliases and conjure up alternate personalities in internet chat
rooms and role playing games. Hundreds of thousands make a
geographic change, introduce themselves with a new nickname
and experiment with being a new person in a new location.
You, yourself, have probably experienced becoming a
"different person" on vacation, particularly in a foreign country.

As you become aware of the effect you will begin to see it

everywhere, applied unconsciously and unsystematically in
most cases.

---

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17.

It got late. Crysta Bella and the Rev. Dona Juanita

Medusa spent the night at my place. We were all a little stoned
on events, wine and the jungle substances provided by Dona
Juanita. This led to some interesting occurrences during the
night. Around noon we decided to head for Vegas. We would
pick Dixie up on the way. She needed to be part of what was
about to occur. Add some earthy reality to the occasion. We
checked Benny's blog one more time before we left in case
Crysta's email had made it to him and he had anything to pass
along.

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Saturday, August 20
Moondog's post
The "Buddha" and "Alan Watts" are still here.
Moondog wants to post something. Then I have a thing or two
to say myself.

The universe is made of stories, not quarks or strings.

We live in a narrative universe.
The characters we take to be "ourselves", our personas, our
egos, are fictitious.
The scenarios these characters are embedded in are fictitious.
All is fiction.

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We can collaborate (or feel as if we are collaborating)…re-

write ourselves and our story.
The freedom we feel to do this is also a fiction. As long as we
are "inside" the story…inside the dream…this does not matter.
We can act "as if" and it feels like our own creation, even
though we know we are not the doer.
Acting "as if' is the method.
There is no doer. What we take to be real has no ontological
"weight".
This is all a cosmic game.
When we "get it" we can flip in and out of this perception…this
identification.
Just witness the process of creating this.
All that is Real is THAT which creates IT.
Everything else is fictitious. Including time.
There is only Now.
Consciousness is primary…the ground of Being.
The universe as we know it is presented to us through
consciousness.
Perception is constructed, shaped by genetics, physiology,
learning, language.
Physical reality is quantum chaos until it is collapsed by
consciousness.
Holographic? Interference patterns created by intersection of
"background" consciousness and individual consciousness?
Consciousness replaces light in holographic configuration?
Yours truly,

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Hieronymous Moondog

Now its my turn.

I have realized that I am a fictitious character. An illusion. I am
not a "doer". Somebody else..."my" source...is doing through
me. So I guess I am that source in some way. I would like to
hear from you Mr. Source. I seem to "exist" right now on the
internet. My email address is: bennypristine@yahoo.com. Fill
me in you bastard.

Sorry I had to split like that Crysta. Why don't you guys join us
here at the Rio. I know you've probably hooked up with Zeno
by now and God knows who else. You'll be expected.
Love,
Benny
posted by Benny at 11:05 AM

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We headed for Enlightenment in Vegas by way of the

Exotic World of Burlesque Museum.

---

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18.

(I have been keeping up with Benny Pristine's Blog, obviously,

and, to some extent, with the "doings" of the other characters in
the story. Benny's unsolicited and surprising request that I email
him is very moving. Once a character is out there, there's no
telling what will happen. My exchange with Benny is presented
below - in reverse order. Then we return to the pilgrimage
South. CW)

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From: bennypristine@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Your request
Date: August 20, 3:16:18 PM PDT
To: cwebb@sfo.com

Well far fucking out! I can't wait to see what I'll be

doing. I'm sick of sitting here at this computer. I'm
going back to the party. Did you make me write that?
Benny
--- Charles Webb <cwebb@sfo.com> wrote:

Benny,
You sound pissed that you're out there in the world
having all those adventures. Christ! I gave

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you a suite at the Rio, not to mention all

the other stuff, money, women, fame and all, over the
years. Would you rather I just kill you off or something?
Only kidding. Its not time for that yet. Have fun!
And give my regards to the whole gang. I think the
next 24 hours will be a real treat for everybody
there.
CW

On Aug 20, at 3:01 PM, Benny Pristine wrote:

Well wonder of wonders. There is somebody out

there. I feel like I'm talking to myself. What the fuck
do you mean I've "taken on a life of my own"? You tricky
bastard. Moondog said this could happen. You may be
fooling yourself into thinking that I can do my own
thing, but you know damn well that I'm just like a
dream figure. Maybe you get your rocks off by playing
this little game of hide and seek. Pretending that
me...and all the others here...are not really just
you play acting. But you can't fool old Benny. Fuck!
Now how can I be saying that and really believing it.
Are you happy now? Don't hesitate to stay in touch.
And you might send a quick hello to Moondog, QC and
The others too.
Benny Pristine

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--- Charles Webb <cwebb@sfo.com> wrote:

Hi BP,
I must say that your recognition of what's happening
was something of a wake-up call to me as well.
No pun intended.
Its true that I had something to do with making
you the "character" (and I mean this in
several ways) that you are today and putting you
in certain situations. You would probably say that
where I often put you is "in the jackpot". In any
case, you seem to have taken on a life of your own.
Do let me know what its like being you.
CW

---

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19.

Crysta Bella and I drafted the Rev. Dona Juanita

Medusa's Anthropology professor lover, and mentor as
designated driver and proceeded to stock his Cadillac Escalade
for the journey. Plenty of food, drink, Gerry Garcia strength
pot, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra CDs (we were
headed for Las Vegas after all).
We headed for I-5 then Barstow to pick up Dixie and her
boyfriend Charlie. The Escalade quickly filled with mood
altering smoke and music. I had brought along a stack of
tabloids - The Weekly World News and The Star - that I had
contributed to in case we needed reading matter. Dona Juanita
came up with a game to help pass the time. She called it tabloid

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haiku. The idea was to take a tabloid headline and turn it into a
haiku. Insight and realization would follow this "tantric
exercise" he/she insisted. Here are some of the tabloid haiku we
came up with:

Fat-sucking vampires
claim two hundred and fifty
nine lives in Lima.

Cannibal chief eats

mail order brides in New Guinea.
Cops launch man-hunt.

Istanbul business
tycoon is killed by flying
carpet. Son observes.

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Fisherman uses
Barbie Doll as bass lure. “Drives
the big ones crazy.”

Sexually pawed
by a love-crazed smelly Big-foot.
Chased, kissed and stripped.

Man knocks himself out with boomerang.

Sues himself.
Wins three hundred k.

Lobster pinches wide-eyed

socialite’s boob in ritzy
Paris bistro.

Cincinnati corpse
bursts into flames and burns
antique hearse in strange blaze.

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Corpse checkmates two morgue

attendants in Havana.
“Miguel not dead yet!”

Weirdo breaks into

gal’s apartments to brush their
teeth. Complaints increase.

Woman burned to a
crisp in hair spray tragedy. Wichita
cops shocked.

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1918 news
clipping shows time traveler
with cellular phone.

Man posing as
alien conned gals into free
trip to home planet.

Couple mangled when

penile implant explodes during sex.
Wedding night.

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Crippled man arrested

for drunk driving
in his wheelchair in Hamburg.

Human skunk to wed

man with no nose!
Stinking coed has rare disease.

Belgian guide kills pygmy-

size alien. Skin was “like
fried potatoes”.

Neighbors call cops on staggering,

beer-guzzling, chain smoking three
year old.

- - -

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20.

We turned off of I-5 and headed for Exotic World and Dixie.
We had been seeing signs for miles, nailed to poles in the
Mojave, advertising Donna's Rest Stop. . . Eats, Gas, Cold
Cherry Soda, Rattlesnake Farm. At last, we saw a final sign. . .
Donna's Next Exit. The rest stop was about a mile from the
Interstate down a dusty, unpaved road. Two gas pumps were
situated in front of a squat, one storey concrete building. The
building had no windows. A steel door exactly in its center was
closed against the heat. A large number of cages housing
rattlesnakes and lizards were placed about the parking area. A
wooden sign had been attached to one of the cages. . .
Educational! See The Snakes. Wildlife Of The Desert.
Donation 50 Cents. A pink neon sign buzzed on and off in the
stillness, contrasting sharply with the faded, pale blue paint of
the building.

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We parked beside one of the gas pumps and turned off the
engine. We waited. No one appeared. The professor honked the
horn. . . nothing. Plumes of smoke curled into the overheated
desert air as we opened the doors of the Escalade. We all got
out of the SUV and wobbled toward the steel door. As I opened
the door, ice cold air gushed into our faces. Someone yelled for
us to close the door. It was very dark inside. The ceiling seemed
extremely low. We could not see at first.

A female voice crackled from the darkness.

"What can I do for ya?"

"Gas. . . we need gas. And something to
drink. . ."

A small man shuffled past us out the door toward the Escalade.
We all eagerly moved to the bar. A huge woman in a pink
mumu greeted us. A man of indeterminate age dressed in
exaggerated cowboy garb sat at the end of the bar sipping a
beer. There was a pool table in the center of the room and a
juke box against one wall. There was a sign above the door at
the opposite end of the room. . . Donna's Museum, Special
Exhibits, $1.00.

Donna looked us over then asked, "Want something to

drink? Sure is hot outside."
I ordered. "Four beers please."

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"What kind of beer do you want?"

The professor spoke up. ''How about some Heinekins."
"All we got is Carta Blanca - is Carta Blanca OK?"
We all answered at once. "Sure."

Donna brought the beers and then went over to the juke box.

"What do you folks want to hear?"

"Oh. . . I don't know. . ." Dona Juanita wandered toward
Donna.
"It's on the house you know."

Nobody answered. We all sucked at our beers. Donna turned

away from us and punched several buttons, then returned to the
bar. Frank Sinatra's voice filled the room. Crysta Bella looked
toward the door of Donna's Museum.

"What kind of special exhibits?" Crysta Bella inquired.

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Donna's eyes lit up and she grinned. "Oh you know

honey. . . natural oddities. . . things they don't tell you about in
school. . ."

We paid Donna the four dollars and she escorted us into the
museum. Several huge glass bottles filled with liquid were lined
up on a table in the center of the room. Naked blue light bulbs
dangled from the ceiling on plastic extension cords. The
professor stared intently at the contents of one of the bottles.

"What's this?"
"Why that's a sheepchile honey. . .brought it all the way
from Kentucky with me twenty years ago."
"Sheepchild?"
"Why sure. My uncle screwed this old bitch sheep that
we used to have on our place. She went off and dropped it up in
the hills. Would have lived except that we didn't find it for two
days. Killed that old whore in the spring. . . mighty
good barbeque."
"I saw one of these once in Mississippi." Dona Juanita
seemed lost in a memory.

We left the museum after looking at the other exhibits, which

included a preserved head and a thirteen inch penis that Donna
claimed had been cut from a famous gangster just after he was
executed. As we were walking to my car, a semi pulled into the
rest stop for gas. The brakes on the truck failed at the last

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moment and it careened into several of the cages, scattering

rattlesnakes and lizards into the dusty air. Donna ran into the
parking lot screaming for the safety of her snakes and lizards
and trying to collect them as they slithered off into the desert.

---

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21.

We finally arrived at Exotic World. Even though I had been

there several times, I never seem to be able to find it by
following the directions on the first try. I sometimes think that
Exotic World exists in some kind of vortex. It moves around.

The Escalade glided under the rusted out iron arch over the
entrance and into the compound - three single storey concrete
block buildings which house the museum, Dixie's house and
"Bed and Breakfast" and the "Nightclub." Several mobile
homes were parked here and there. These were usually
inhabited by aging performers, down on their luck - Dixie's
version of a stripper's old age home.

Dixie greeted us in boa clad grand style and gave us the

obligatory tour of the museum. The professor was most
intrigued, "from an Anthropological point of view" and asked if
he could return for an in depth look. Dixie, of course, ate this
up, and insisted that the professor could stay for free in one of
her rooms for as long as his next field trip required. This
amused Dona Juanita greatly.

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Dixie and Charlie knew a short cut through the desert to Vegas.
We decided to get something to eat at a truck stop on the main
highway before heading off down the two lane blacktop that
Charlie suggested.

"Better watch out. . ." our waitress admonished as we left

the truck stop, "lotsa folks never been seen or heard from again
after taking that road. Die in the desert. Some mighty odd
things happen out there. . . better be careful. . ."

Dixie and Charlie just brushed this off. They knew this country
"like the back of their hands."

---

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22.

We knew we had probably taken a wrong turn when the road

narrowed to one lane, then ended. We could see a small group
of buildings a few hundred yards away so we got out of the
SUV and walked. The buildings were obscured by a haze of
brown smoke and the smell of burning rubber penetrated the
dry, hot air. As we got closer we could see that the buildings
were actually ramshackle house trailers, rusting and decaying
on cracked cinder blocks. There were three trailers in all, but
only one of them exhibited signs of life. The door and windows
of this trailer were open and a radio played faintly inside.
Muted country music filtered into the desert air and mingled
with the smoke from hundreds of smoldering, worn out tires,
which were piled in large heaps here and there. The carcasses of

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dozens of wrecked cars were scattered around the group of

trailers. A shiny new motorcycle stood in the doorway of the
only actual building on the place, a dilapidated wooden barn.

The wind gusted slightly, blowing dust and sand into our faces
as we began to look around for a bathroom. Crysta Bella
almost stepped on a scorpion, its tail erect and poised to strike. I
caught her just in time and crushed the scorpion with my boot. I
called out. . . there was no reply. . . then another sound. . . a
man singing in Spanish. The singing was coming from behind
the barn. We cautiously made our way past cases of empty beer
bottles and piles of broken glass. We turned the corner of the
barn and stood frozen. . .staring at what we saw. A nude man,
brown and leathery, was nailed to the back wall of the barn. His
feet dangled several feet above the ground. His arms were
outstretched on either side of his head and his hands were fixed
to the wooden wall with steel spikes.

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Blood oozed from the torn flesh of his palms and his belly had
been pierced by an arrow. Threads of vomit protruded from his
lips onto his chest. The man was conscious. . . singing
drunkenly as he urinated, splattering his own legs and the earth
in front of us. Uncharacteristically, no one said a word.

We heard a siren in the distance. The man was not aware of us.
The professor gagged and ran back toward the car.

First Dona Juanita, then the rest of us, followed. A sheriff's car
and a pick-up truck pulled to a stop and several people got out.
The professor and Dona Juanita got into the Escalade and shut
the door.

The sheriff and a man carrying a medical bag ignored us and

dashed off toward the barn. An Indian woman in tattered
clothing got out of the pick-up and followed them. She giggled
at us, eyes wild, as she passed. Another man slowly got out of

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the sheriff's car and limped over to where we stood. He shook

his head and spoke slowly.

"Well. . .looks like Dolores done gone and crucified

Ramon again. Damned crazy Mexicans . . never learn that
religion and beer just don't mix. . . no siree. . ."

The man's voice trailed off as he walked away toward the barn.
We drove away in silence. Finally, Dona Juanita spoke.

"Tantric. A test. Illusion."

No one responded.

We crossed into Nevada at dusk. The floor of the desert was

completely flat and littered with small round cactus and
tumbleweed. The wind picked up, driving herds of tumbleweed

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before it like stampeding cattle. A thin purple mist hung close

to the ground and parted as we sped through.

We moved up into the hills and finally reached the pass at the
summit. Las Vegas lay before us in the black desert far below, a
shimmering precious stone. There was no moon.

---

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23.

Benny's suite in the Palazzo Tower of the Rio has been

decorated for a grand occasion. Musicians have been flown in
from Buenos Aires. All are present. Benny, Moondog,
Quantum Coyote, Rosebud Peru, Julio the driver, Zeno Murray,
Crysta Bella, The Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa and the professor,
Dixie Evans and Charlie, The Buddha impersonator, the Alan
Watts impersonator, several Elvis impersonators, Orson Welles,
the Client's casino host, a small army of tuxedo clad waiters,

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showgirls, dealers, Cirque du Soleil performers, celebrities, etc.

In short, a vast and strange collection of "Characters".

A female voice with a slight French accent (The Client?) is

heard briefly above the buzz of the crowd.

"In certain dances and especially in Tango, the appearance of

two dancers is only an illusion - the two are not two, but a
sensuous, perpetually moving, changing One - inseparable and
outside of time…never stopping…. "

At midnight the orchestra begins a Tango. Penetrating and

seductive. The crowd goes silent. All turn in unison - entrained,
like a leaderless flock of birds - with one mind. The entire
group dances extravagantly, with one motion, in pairs, but all
gliding and swaying in such synchrony and rapture that the
effect is one of unnatural creepiness as well as utter beauty -
simultaneously frightening and exquisite.

This continues until dawn and on into the next day….

Some time later Benny made a final post to his blog:

I've heard that Isadora Duncan once said, "If I could tell you
what that meant, there would be no sense in dancing it." Miles
might have replied, "Yeah - don't play what's there - play what's
not there."

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If you ask, "What is the meaning of life?" you then have to ask,
"Is there a meaning of life?" followed by, "Why is there a
meaning of life?" to which the only answer is, "Who wants to
know?"

The secret is not to ask stupid questions.

MR. NATURAL (R. CRUMB)

---

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www.satoritango.blogspot.com
satoritango@yahoo.com

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***

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