Interview with a Vampire

As many of you old-schoolers know, I've been wary of giving interviews since that fiasco with Barbara Walters. These bloodsucking journalists just waste your time and make you feel like an asshole.

But that said, I did relent yesterday and sat down for a few minutes with Alex Beam of the Boston Globe; I decided a little advance pub for Loot the Church couldn't hurt. Plus, at some point as World Hegemon I'll be giving press briefings, and I figured it would be a good idea to start exercising the ol' bullshit-and-stonewall muscle.

The full transcript of the interview will run in today's Weekend section, but here are some highlights:

* * *

Q. Phutatorius, you describe yourself as an Internet Personality, but I've never heard of you. What gives?

A. Well, it sounds to me like you need to bite the bullet and finally buy yourself a computer. For beginners, I recommend one of those cheap-ass Dells. And of course you'll need an ISP. America Online is like a set of training wheels for the World Wide Web; I'm sure you get their CDs in the mail. Give AOL a try, and join us in the 21st century.

Q. What do you think qualifies you to take on this challenge?

A. Well, I've taken a few correspondence courses in event planning —

Q. No — not the fundraiser, Phutatorius. The ruling the planet bit.

A. Just the planet, Alex? Why limit myself? But seriously: I had a Moment last September, and a kind of clarity of purpose descended on me. It was like a visitation. Since that time I've turned my body into a kind of temple. I've gone to a remote mountain redoubt and learned the arcane wisdom of the Elite Incan Dance Fighters, and at home in the mornings I do a lot of strength and agility training. I keep in touch with my EIDF mentor over the Internet. You really should get yourself connected, Alex. There's so much potential in it.

Q. Some people say you're too impetuous a character — that you make enemies easily. Is that the sort of personality that the world population really wants as its leader?

A. Well, first off — I don't know how true your assessment is. The Cardinal and I had some knock-down, drag-out negotiations going on over this church rental — he's a screamer, by the way, and at one point he threw a ball-point pen at me — but when it was all over, we went out for a few beers, he and I, and it was all good.

Q. I thought you said your body was a temple.

A. Yeah. And?

Q. But you're out drinking beer —

A. I don't get your point. But while we're on this subject, I'd like to let you know that our temporary liquor license went through, and we'll have Harpoon and Miller Genuine Draft on tap at the fundraiser on Saturday. We're still talking with the people at Heineken.

Q. On the subject of the fundraiser —

A. Just a minute, Alex — I want to finish my answer to your question about my purported personality flaws. Suppose your lying ass is right, and I do make enemies easily. What of it? That might be a problem if I'm leading a country, and I'm dealing constantly with other heads of state. That's the kind of situation that leads to a war. But if I'm running the world, what meaningful person am I going to butt heads with? The President of Mars?

Q. You have interesting logic.

A. You like me now. Wait until I hire my full-time Logic Minister.

Q. Now to the fundraiser. Some say —

A. What's with all this "some say" crap, Alex? Name names or knock it off.

Q. All right, fine. Everybody says —

A. Better.

Q. Everybody says that it's exploitative and obnoxious for you to take a sacred space, a religious space, and use it to appeal to people's basest instincts so you can make money. What do you say to that?

A. You've just described every priest, every minister, pastor, rabbi, imam, swami, prelate, and pope. The only difference is that with me, the people know their money is going to a good cause — the Phutatorius & Co. World Domination Fund.

* * *

Well, what do my Brothers and Sisters think? How did I hold up against Mr. Beam's obviously hostile lines of questioning? I think I did terrific — maybe a little edgy with that last bit, but whatever. That's the kind of snarky attitude that will bring the kids to church on Saturday, and you've got to appeal to every demographic.

Anyway, back to work. We're baking up a storm here at the apartment. PePe's got a bitchin' Tollhouse cookies recipe, and the off-duty Stenos are rolling the dough for pecan and rhubarb pies. We'll sell the cookies for $1.25 apiece tomorrow. Ten bucks for the pies. Hand over fist, I tell you. Hand over fist.

Well, I hope to see you all tomorrow at the church. I am stoked!

En Español

PePe's working up Spanish-language fliers — rough word-for-word translations of what I posted in English below — to distribute in Latino neighborhoods.

No reason why Anglos should have all the fun, right?

I've also been making calls this morning trying to track down someone who knows Mandarin. Sometime in the next couple days I have to go down to the DMV (license renewal); I figured I could do a quick leafleting circuit round Chinatown while I'm there.

I had this guy Li Duk on the phone a few minutes ago, was testing him: I'd throw out a sentence in English. He'd translate it back to me. It seemed to go well, but for all I know he was just making random sounds.

Maybe I'll just cut Chinatown altogether and stick with PePe as my lone interpretador. Though it's obvious he plans to skim a little off the top with the Latin customers (even I know "cuarenta" doesn't mean "thirty-five"), PePe's the devil I know —

and a hell of a Piper, too.

"Loot the Church" Set for July 1!

Took some time to hammer out the details, but we finally have a date, and that's July 1. I'm wary of getting too close to the Independence Day holiday, but so it goes. The Archdiocese wouldn't let me have a Sunday, and they played hardball on that point. I told them my rent check would more than cover what they would take from their Sunday collection plates — but churches are churches. They wanted my rent and the Sunday offertories.

Sons of bitches.

I'm still sanguine about the fundraiser's prospects, notwithstanding that there's some kind of event downtown at the Aquarium on the same day, and the Rotary Club Carnival will run through the weekend in Quincy.

PePe and I are printing up circulars as we speak; by tomorrow there won't be a telephone pole in Middlesex or Suffolk County that doesn't announce it:

LOOT

THE

CHURCH!

Turn St. John's UPSIDE-DOWN for BIG PRIZE MONEY!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Put on your best Visigoth costume and

PLUNDER PLUNDER PLUNDER!

>>> $35 buy-in gets you 20 minutes to rip, hack, tear, pry, and strip your way to newfound wealth and satisfaction. Children under 5 get in free.

>>> Are you mad as hell at the Catholic Church? Can't shake off that nasty Spanish Inquisition? Take 20 minutes to fight back. We're offering a 10% discount for gays, lesbians, Northern Irish!

GUARANTEED: $60,000 in cash* is hidden somewhere in this church! All you have to do is FIND IT!

WHEN: July 1, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

WHERE: Church of St. John the Revelator, Boylston Street, Boston.

>>> Balloons for the kiddies! Funnel cakes, lemon shakes, Italian sausages!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

All proceeds to THE PHUTATORIUS & CO. WORLD DOMINATION FUND, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

*Figure may include cash-equivalent coupons of corporate sponsors.

To/From Burping Squid, re Church & State

Well well well — would you believe I got an email just this morning from the long-lost, not-missed Burping Squid?

It seems Burping Squid is an ardent believer in the separation of church and state, and he/she is troubled by my choice of fundraising venues. He/she has written, and I quote:

You suck, Phutatorius. I was just coming round to supporting your candidacy for Sovereign Ruler of Earth, but now I find you suddenly in bed with the Catholic Church.

The single most crucial component of a sane and rational government is that it sequester itself from the influence of fanaticism and superstition. That's a first principle, you jackass. And here you are, barely on the way up, selling your soul to the Vatican for a couple of hundred grand. Phutatorius, you suck.

--BS

To which I reply:

Dear "BS":

It's been a while, you punk-ass bitch. I was just coming round to missing your particular brand of verbal abuse when I got your message of June 2. Now I find myself longing for more cross-eyed silence from Squidville. I appreciate that it's become the idiom of our relationship to trade barbs with one another, and while I hope that I give as good as I get, I've never taken any of your flatulent criticism to heart. That is, until now.

I get your point, Brother/Sister, about church and state. And I'm strongly committed to it. Strongly. Committed. In fact, it's part of why I got into this business. I truly believe that I can be that Sane and Rational Governor you were describing, precisely because I am the LEAST SPIRITUAL PERSON EVER TO WALK ON THIS EARTH. That's a big part of my platform.

But here's the thing: you don't make the jump from Internet Personality to Sane, Rational Governor of the Planet without compromising, TEMPORARILY, on certain principles in the process. For example, I don't believe in regicide. I'm dead-set against it. I think it's destabilizing, and it sets a bad precedent, as people may make the logical leap of concluding that what's good for the King goes double for the World Hegemon. But notwithstanding my position on regicide, it's highly probable that I'm going to have to kill off a king or two — possibly even all of them — during my period of ascendancy.

Likewise here. I assure you: the Catholic Church will be powerless and pleading before me, by the time all this is over. We'll be screening The Da Vinci Code in the Sistine Chapel, and the crowd will be allowed to throw food (because I heard the movie sucked). But in the meantime, the Church needs money, and I need a gimmicky fundraising venue. So it's a great fit: peanut butter, meet chocolate.

And furthermore, it is a bit of a stretch to characterize this transaction as the formation of an alliance between myself and the Archdiocese. Quite the contrary, in fact — this is a contract negotiated at arm's length. And let me tell you, the Cardinal isn't exactly pleased with my intentions for using the facility. I have the guy over a barrel, though, and he'll take what I give him.

So how's about it, BS? Why don't you come on down to the fundraiser (date still TBD, people), and I'll give you one free shot at any piece of religious iconography in the church. You can take a hack at the altar, kick out a stained-glass window, whatever you want. I'll make sure Security knows you're coming, so you don't get hassled. Good?

I'm engaging you on this issue because you're a future constituent, and for once you've actually come to me with a decent bit of substantive criticism. You piss-ant.

Sincerely,

Phutatorius

"Loot the Church" Fundraiser!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Brothers and Sisters — where you see a far-reaching clergy sex abuse scandal, I see opportunity. It just takes a brilliant, World Domination-worthy mind to tap into it.

So here's what I'm up to, Bees 'n' Esses:

As you may know, the Boston Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church is — how to put it? — hard up for money these days, what with the dozens of million-dollar lawsuits naming the Church as a defendant to sex abuse claims, and the offertory plates around town filling up with indignant congregationers' pocket fluff. Cardinal O'Malley, himself a vow-of-poverty kind of guy, needs to gin up some money straightaway, or a number of his Indoctrination Centers (my umbrella term for churches and schools) will be turning into Jiffy Lubes.

Enter the Catholic Church's latest Savior, Francis X. Phutatorius. All right, all right — maybe "Savior" isn't quite the word to use here — but you have to admit, the "Francis X." I just appended to my legal name is a nice touch. It really helped build trust with Father Sean during the negotiations process —

Cut the self-celebratory crap, Phutatorius, and tell us what you're up to.

Fair enough.

Just this morning I wrote the Archdiocese a check for $20,000 — in exchange for a single day's rental of one of its bigger and cathedral-y churches in Boston. This figure bargained down from Father Sean's initial quotation of a full $40K — it's really a testament to my dealmaking acumen, I tell you, B/S —

But for what, Phutatorius? You rented out the church for what?

I'm kind of digging this Socratic Method we're falling into, B/S. Question, then Answer. It's kind of catchy. And rhythmic.

Well, I'll tell you. I've rented out the church for a fundraiser — a fundraiser like you've never before experienced. No fancy-pants $500-a-plate dinner-and-speech planner am I. I've crafted a fundraiser that will appeal to the Everyday Joe.

Here's the concept: you hide big bags of cash all over the building, and you challenge the public to come in and find them. You sell tickets (say, forty, fifty bucks a pop), you admit 200, 300 people at a time, and you give each group of looters ten minutes to turn the place upside-down and find the money. It's an anything-goes, rules-are-there-are-no-rules kind of environment inside the church — there will, of course, be waivers to sign, and I'll hire a security detail to keep people somewhat in line — you're basically buying yourself a chance to loot a sacred place for good-sized chunks of money. And who hasn't always wanted to do that?

This will be the can't-miss event of the season, B/S. Date TBD, as we have certain details to hammer out in the coming days.

Right now I've got PePe working the numbers: i.e., how much to charge, how much money to make available at any given time, that sort of thing. You want to maximize your returns, which means calibrating your ticket-price-to-prize-money ratio just right. And of course you have to factor in incidentals, like the outlays for security and the ads I'm gonna run in the Herald and Globe. But PePe's a whiz with the adding machine — he's already spit out fifty yards' worth of paper tape running his calculations.

For my part, I'm setting myself to the task of mapping all the fun little nooks and crannies in the church where I'll be hiding the money. I'm also getting in touch with some local institutions — Dunkin' Donuts, Gillette, D'Angelos — about sponsorships. I'll scatter voucher and coupons around the joint, too. Every paid entrant will take home at least something with him.

I'm so excited about this project, I can't even think straight. There's no way I don't at least double the money in the World Domination Fund by the time this thing is over. But first, organization and planning. More to come, Bruthas & Sistas, as I deem necessary and appropriate to divulge. Watch for it!

Investigation Update

All right. What can I report?

No real progress re my investigation into the mysterious and coincidental deaths of Stenographer Kin. My PIs have turned up nothing, but not without incurring significant expenses in the process. Mark my words, B/S, I'm going to give these receipts a good going-over before I pay these characters a cent. I don't see why a private detective needs to stay in the Hilton President in downtown Kansas City while he beats the streets — it seems to me a Red Roof Inn or Motel 6 out by the Interstate would have done just fine. I think a reasonable rule to follow is that if the hotel has flags hanging in front of it, you shouldn't expense a client for it. Nor am I quite clear on how the six hours of Jet Ski rentals fit into my Florida detective's investigative strategy. Or the $200 "raw bar" charges. Whatever happened to the days when investigators ate cheeseburgers out of the bag while on stakeout?

Note to Self: Revise "Independent Contractor" section of Policy Manual; eliminate expense account protocols in favor of per diem allowances.

At any rate, I've got no real leads and no evidence the two "accidental deaths" were linked. By now I'm about six thousand dollars out of pocket, and I've got all these pissed-off Steno Families in lockdown at these hotels. For a while they were happy enough taking room service and watching the in-room movies. But now we're going on six weeks, and I've got something close to a full-on revolt on my hands. One unhinged brother-in-law unscrewed the piping from his bathroom sink and assaulted a check-in clerk. Clubbed her senseless, broke into the supply closet and drank all the single-serving bottles of whiskey from the minibar stocking shelves. So I've got the clerk's medical bill to cover, along with cleanup for the flooded hotel room and this shithead's "bar bill."

Brothers and Sisters, you can only send people so many placatory pizzas. At a certain point, if people want to come out of hiding and face certain death just to "resume their normal lives," you can't stop them. I wouldn't deserve to govern the planet if I were the type to try to lock people away from their own bad judgment.

More than anything, though, I just want to do right by my employees. So this morning I convened a meeting of the Stenos to discuss the matter. I laid out the risks of releasing their families into the general population, told them to go away and think about whether I should settle up with these hotel chains and check these people out. I catered them a Bertucci's lunch — I just love that Silano they do, with the lemon-cream sauce and broccoli — and they came back and told me to free their families, that they could take care of themselves.

I suppose I'll have more to report as my Steno's peeps are systematically killed by my enemies. As they say, you can lead a horse to water . . .

Imperial Logic

I know, I know. It seems like half my posts are devoted to apologies or justifications (an Internet Personality/World Domination Aspirant does not concern himself with making excuses, B/S) for not writing. And that's kinda crummy, I admit.

Think about it, though: if I didn't spend all this time not blogging, my posts would go down by half. Then where would we be? Huh?

I call that Imperial Logic, Brother/Sister, and I find it to be a very effective way of settling complaints — and I expect to do a lot of complaint-settling once I come to power. After all, when you get right down to it, isn't the job of "maintaining the public order" really just complaint-settling? Tear gas and truncheons have their merits, but I've always favored winning arguments with logic, particularly the sort of logic that briefly disables the mental functioning of the complainant, affording the complainee valuable seconds to escape. Someday I hope to hire a Staff Philosopher to work full-time on the subject of Imperial Logic, but right now I don't have the dollars.

Anyway, I know you're on pins and needles, B/S, so I promise you: I'll write with actual news in the next couple days. I just can't do it in this post, because it would screw with the "half my posts" premise up there in the first paragraph. That would in turn debunk the Imperial Logic in the second paragraph, rendering the third paragraph nonsensical and causing me to have to rewrite this fourth paragraph midstream. And I've already got a lot of momentum going in this fourth paragraph.

So please accept that actual content is forthcoming, but content yourself (ha! pun!) now with my apologies and justifications for the delay. More tomorrow. Or the next day.

Some Quick Enumerated Points

I have a few points to cover — just to get out of the way, before too much of a backlog accumulates:

(1) I have set up a program that provides temporary tucked-away housing for family members of staff, until we can get a handle on the apparent threat. All they have to do is produce photocopies of documents evidencing kinship with active personnel. (Don't think, Mr. Homicidal Perpetrator, that you can just go to the Motel 6 closest to these people's houses. We'd be damned fools if we relocated at-risk persons to the Official Budget Hotel Chain of the Future Regime. And we're not damned fools, pal.)

(2) Not much progress on suspects, but it's an ongoing investigation, and if there's one thing I've learned from my days in Human Resources, you never comment on an ongoing investigation.

(3) You're taking this the wrong way, Gloria. You should be flattered that I wrote what I did. Remember: I was surprised that you were that old; that's what prompted my reaction. You don't look a day over 45, which to me is the perfect age for a woman. A woman at 45 is experienced and world-wise, but still spry, and with a lingering capacity for wonder.

(4) To the Shadowy Dude on My Doorstep: there are more water balloons where that last one came from. And next time, it won't be water. So think about that when you take up your post tomorrow morning. Ya prick.

(5) I'm in talks with the Boston Archdiocese about renting space for a fundraiser — moving my peeps' extended families into hiding costs money. I'll keep you posted on the details.

(6) I've created a new blog that documents certain highlighted correspondence. I've lodged a permanent link over there on the right. Click it and keep pace with History, B/S.

FIFTY-NINE?

I just saw this article in the Globe, and yes — I find it troubling indeed.

But Phutatorius, are you sure you're being objective? Why SHOULDN'T the Filipinos rally against a regime that oppresses them? Honestly, just because you're SLEEPING WITH the President —

No, B/S. You misunderstand me. That's not it at all. It's that I had no idea Gloria was fifty-nine years old. Well, of course she wasn't 59 until just recently, but I didn't have a clue she was even close to the Big 6-0. Shoot: I had her pegged at late 40s, max (I mean, look at the photo. She's a babe!).

That's it, then. I have one year to break it off. Here's hoping that I can get control of her army by next March. Because there's no way I'm going to get it on with a woman (no matter how good she is), if I know she's over 60.

My Renowned Statisticsologist Says . . .

Here's the analysis I just got back from My Renowned Statisticsologist:

(A) Well, first calculate the probably of one acquaintance having an accidental death in the family. This — in the long run — is simply the number of families that have accidental deaths in the average week divided by the number of families (this is in the world, in the US, in your state — whichever you think is most relevant).

Now, two calculate the chances of two in the same week, you need to define your terms a bit more explicitly. (1) Do you mean in one particular week (e.g., what's the probability of two such occurences in the week of March 3-9)? (2) Or do you mean at some point in your life two will happen in a week? (3) Or do you mean that given one happened, what's the probability of another happening within 7 days?

(3) is easiest because we can make a reasonable assumption about independence because we will clearly be talking about two separate events. There might be some correlation, but it's probably small. Then the answer would simply be whatever you got for (A).

(1) is next easiest. If we assume independence (a big assumption) then you just square (A). If we think there is some positive correlation, i.e., acquaintances' family members might often travel together in the same car, then this will be closer to just plain old (A). Or, if accidental death includes things like death by earthquake, then there's certainly some positive correlation. If you really mean, a safe dropping on someone's head or falling down the stairs, then these are probably close to independent and your answer is (A)^2

(2) This is the hardest. Since the chance is so small you can approximate it by 1 - ((1 - "1")^N) where "1" is the answer you get in the above paragraph and N is the # of weeks you live in a year.

Did you get all that, Brother/Sister? Well, just in case you didn't, here's the upshot: the odds are ASTRONOMICAL that my two Stenos' family members would suffer near-simultaneous mortal "accidents." Like a gajillion-and-a-half to one. So I'm going to proceed on a double-homicide theory.

And Brothers and Sisters, please do let this insider's access I've given you into my management of this crisis inform your understanding of how I intend to govern the planet, once I take over. A Benevolent and Wise World Leader does not act willy-nilly — he consults with trusted and knowledgeable advisors and makes rational policy conclusions that incorporate and reflect their analytical expertise.

That, people, is how you govern.

Whether or not I decide to formalize the position of Renowned Statisticsologist — er, Statistician — into my regime structure, you can bet I will be relying heavily on this aforequoted gentleman's number-crunching insights well into the future.

Death by Dune Buggy/File Cabinet

Somebody — I think it was Rodrigo from Valladolid — wrote in to ask whether I should be concerned that the relatives of two of my Stenos had died so suddenly and coincidentally.

Well, now that's a good point. And I've been making calls, following up.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities: (1) Opie and Big Cheese are playing hooky, and they've gone down south to take in some spring training baseball and get some sun; or (2) somebody hell-bent on derailing my Bid for Power has been targeting family members of my staff.

I can tell you that I've already ruled out (1), because I've had Opie and Big Cheese tailed by private investigators. Big Cheese is where he should be right now, with his bereaved sister in Kansas City. Opie is down in Venice Beach — in the sunshine, admittedly — but only because his parents had retired there, and it was his mother's wish that her body not be returned to North Carolina for burial, but set to sea on an inflatable (and presumably inflated) raft.

On to (2), then. I think a good point to start here is to consider the Circumstances of Death. Opie's mother, age 75, run down by a dune buggy (police are guessing, based on the tire tracks coming and going) while she walked the beach at sunset. The hit-and-run perpetrators have not been caught. No known enemies, no gambling debts or money trouble. She had embroiled herself in a protracted squabble with neighbors about the color of their mailbox, which she thought detracted from the uniformity of her gated community. But those neighbors drive a Cadillac Coup de Ville.

Big Cheese's brother-in-law was hit by a file cabinet that fell from a fourteenth-floor window just as he left his office. This sounds completely suspicious to me, and I told the police that I thought so. They begged to differ, on the ground that a file cabinet takes some time to fall a full fourteen stories, and what is more, it's a difficult object to aim. The odds of successfully hitting a target with a file cabinet from fourteen floors are slim:

"If you wanted to kill a guy, why not hire a sniper?" the lieutenant asked me.

I asked him if the building had a 13th floor. You know, Brother/Sister, how triskaidekaphobe contractors will "elide out" the 13th floor when they build a building. They'll actually call the 13th floor the 14th floor — as if that fools old Beelzebub.

The policeman confirmed that the building did not have a 14th floor.

"Aha!" I said. "So the file cabinet only fell thirteen stories!"

"So?" said the lieutenant.

"So it was 7.14285% easier to aim than you think."

"Wait a minute. who are you again?" the lieutenant asked.

"I'm Phutatorius."

"And what do you have to do with this investigation?"

"I employ the deceased Mr. Woczniak's brother-in-law on my staff up here in Massachusetts. I'm a famous and controversial Internet personality, and I have reason to believe that somebody killed Mr. Woczniak to get at me."

"Are you kidding?"

"I absolutely am not, Lieutenant, and I encourage you to speak with Sergeant Huntington at the Venice Beach Police Department in Florida. They're investigating another homicide down there, and you may find some leads worth exploring by comparing notes. In fact, you might check the surveillance video, see if there was a dune buggy parked near the building when the accident happened. With Florida plates, maybe?"

"Yeah — yeah, I'll totally look into that," the policeman said, in that uninspired way that policemen have.

I don't expect much in the way of results from the KCPD, but I owe it my Stenos to get to the bottom of this. I'll keep these private eyes on the case in Kansas City and Venice Beach. I also intend to contact a renowned statisticsologist (right word?) I know, just to see what the odds are of two acquaintances suffering accidental family deaths in the same week.

Statistician, PePe says. He's right. Sometimes I think he knows the language better than I do.

The Other Thing Is . . .

I forgot to tell you — the other thing holding me back these days is that two of my three Stenos (Opie and Big Cheese, if you're keeping score, and I'm not sure certain Shadowy people out there aren't) have had sudden bizarre accidental deaths in the family. So I gave them both bereavement leave, plus a few days to sort through estate issues.

No sooner had I dismissed Opie and Big Cheese, when Dead Eye came down with mono. So she'll be out for about a month. To her credit, she tried sticking it out, but on-the-fly stenography is a difficult job even when you're 100%. I'd say right now Dead Eye is functioning at about 15% of her estimable capacity. Her 15% is certainly better than most people's 30%, but I don't want to push her.

The upshot for me — not that I'm thinking about me, mind you — is that I have very limited Steno coverage these days. So I try not to do or say anything monumental. Dead Eye has loaned PePe her Stentura (who knew those machines were so pricey?), and he's slowly getting up to speed on it. You have to have fast fingers to play the pipes like he does, so I figure he'll be a natural once he gets a feel for how the machine works.

Anyway, these days I'm learning that there's more to being an employer than the simple pleasures of hiring, firing, and sexual harassment. You really have to look out for people. They get sick, they suffer losses . . . and now I'm hearing that I have to make all these periodic payments to Social Security and Medicare for them, and I have to fill out all kinds of forms. What a pain in the ass that is.

Expect all that government crap to change, Brother/Sister, once I come to power.

Springtime Is Here!

I know, Brother/Sister. You're demanding to know what's taken me so long to write another post — as is your right, since transparency and trust go hand-in-hand. And that goes double when you're dealing with a would-be World Hegemon. No doubt some of the more cynical among you will have read nefarious designs into my radio silence:

He's gone underground. He's planning a surprise attack.

I even got an email from someone alleging that I'd been spotted in Belarus, inquiring about an industrial-grade wood-chipper. I'll leave it to the Peanut Gallery to fill in the gaps of that mysterious plan.

The fact is, I've gone the Way of the Groundhog this past month, after it became abundantly clear, from an accumulation of cigarette butts and cough-drop wrappers on my front porch, that I had acquired one or more Shadows. Some of my Brothers and Sisters know what I'm talking about here. They've seen the men standing casually outside their houses and places of business, waiting. Sure, to the innocent observer they might look like they're delivering the mail, or the daily paper. But that's not what they're doing all the time. That's just the role they assume when a passer-by — a witness — happens down the road. They produce a mailbag, a stack of Boston Globes, change quickly into a government-issue uniform, and get suddenly busy.

But the rest of the time they're watching, waiting. Lurking. Like shadows, they do nothing independently. They fade into the background and are invisible at night. And like shadows, they attach themselves to you the moment you step out into the sunshine, and they follow you wherever you go. There's a perfect symmetry to their tracking efforts: when you walk, they walk. When you get into a car, they conjure up a car of their own.

I know they're out there. No, I can't see them — when I pry open an eye-slit in the blinds to look, they duck quickly under the porch overhang. But every Friday morning, when I take out the trash, I find their detritus on the stoop. I like to think there are at least two of them, because if it's one man, he's chain-smoking his way through a six-week respiratory illness. Unfathomable to me, but then I've never been addicted to nicotine. Or Menthol-Lyptus, for that matter.

Who are they? Who could say? I've made my share of enemies. Could be Ortega's people. Could be local muscle hired by Bobo the Intern Chimp. Could be the government — I am, after all, on a watch list (last I heard, anyway). And it could be a process server waiting to slap a complaint on me for any number of negligent acts, intentional torts, breaches of contract, property liens, quantum meruit, what-have-you.

Suffice to say, because of My Shadow(s) — and because it's frickin' cold outside — I'm playing it close to the vest these days. Sitting in the dark a lot, brooding, biding time, fending off PePe when he comes at me with these pills. So I don't have a heck of a lot to report. I've fallen behind with my daily training modules from the Master. I'm eating a lot of corn chips and ramen noodles. PePe keeps dropping hints about depression, paranoia, agoraphobia. But he just says that to undermine me. He doesn't know what's out there, and it makes me sad. I've got plenty of time to retreat inward and turn psychotic after I take over the world . . .

Kidding! B/S, I was kidding with that last bit. No, the bit about the retreating inward as World Hegemon. I was kidding about that. I mean, I can see how it would happen to certain people. The isolation of power, insecure personalities, all that. But that's not me. You know that. I mean, hell, does Kim Jong-Il have a weblog? All right, then.

In any event, tomorrow brings the vernal equinox — the First Day of Spring. Day and night — and with them the forces of darkness and light, good and evil — draw into equilibrium. The groundhogs, the bears, the Boston-based Internet Personalities shake off their Seasonal Affective Disorders and come out of hibernation. Any minute now I expect to spring open my door, take My Lulled-Into-Indolence Shadows by surprise, beat them down to the ground and demand some answers. I'm just not quite there yet.

Email from the Master Trainer

So the Master Trainer dropped me a line today, from his Gmail account. Just wanted to check in, he said, she how things were working out with PePe, and tell me that he's setting up "Distance Learning Modules" on the Internet, which will enable me to continue my training in the Ancient and Very Very Lethal Art of Incan Dance-Fighting — but by remote.

How friggin' cool is my Master Trainer?

He went on to say he's been in a bit of funk since I left the Secret Mountain Redoubt, that I had livened up the place with my American impetuousness, and he feared he'd missed out on something big when he lost the opportunity to complete my training. What's more, he feels a gnawing responsibility for sending me out into the world, only half-taught, and having incurred the enduring wrath and enmity of Master Ortega's splinter group of dance-fighting ideologues. If I were ambushed and killed by these wicked, wicked men, he would never forgive himself.

So he tells me he's hired a digital videographer to record his morning training sessions, and he's posted them online in Real Player and Quicktime formats. This way I can keep up with my lessons, no matter where my travels and adventures take me. All I need is a laptop, a Net connection, a Piper, and a set of six or more crash-test dummies. He had to file an assload of paperwork with the Council of Elders to get the necessary permissions for the project. As a result, the website is heavily encrypted and password protected (so don't think, Brother/Sister, that you'll be able to find it and hack into any of the centuries-old secrets of the Elite Incan Dance-Fighters).

The Master Trainer flatters me. He really does. He's a standup guy, a pillar of wisdom, and I plan to appoint him to my Board of Trusted Advisors once I take power.

I have to say, I've let myself slip out of fighting shape a bit over the past couple weeks. We've been living a bit high on the hog. Word from the Master Trainer was just the sort of thing I needed to get me to buckle down. After all, no one ever took over the world by sitting around dropping acid with his stenographers. No — it takes discipline, organization, self-denial. You have to conquer yourself before you can get on with conquering others.

So as I continue to devote the next couple months to fundraising, I'll be sure to spend at least two hours every morning in training. I want to make my Master Trainer proud — and to vindicate all the time and effort he has expended (and continues to expend) on my behalf.

Oh, Right: Steno #3

I can't believe I forgot to introduce my final archivist hire. Big snaps to Josephus from Dunkirk for writing in and reminding me. My third stenographer signed on before the auction and has already become a valuable member of the team. His name is Francis Gardocki, and he does the morning shifts. Not a court reporter, but a transcriber of CNN pundit shows. Francis has a special expertise in recording the statements of two, sometimes three people speaking simultaneously (and at increasing volume).

Francis owns a timeshare in a Vermont dairy farm, and three weeks a year he goes up there and makes his signature Gardocki™ Sharp Cheddar. That dairy farm is in a secluded area way up by the Canadian border. So if the shit ever hits the fan, I've not only got a crack steno by my side, but I've got access to a naturally fortified strategic hideaway.

Everybody give a belated welcome to "Frankie Big Cheese" Gardocki.

Absolutely!

I know. I've been delinquent in writing. It's been a week and a half now since the auction, which netted $159,000 for the World Domination Fund, with one of Gloria's emerald bracelets held over for me to send to Flora Pachado, the Most Beautiful Girl I Ever Saw in Peru.

What's that — gauche, you say, to give one lover's gift to another? Well, how about when the first lover is wealthy and powerful beyond your wildest dreams, and the other lives humbly in the Andes mountains, and her father has to sell cheap blankets to eke out a living for the family? How gauche is it when the first lover loved you basically for your body, and the second lover for your mind? Does that alter your opinion at all?

Yeah, see, Brother/Sister: it's not healthy to deal in absolutes. Take, for example, that ABSOLUTE killer of a three-day post-party we had in the Marriott Marquis after the Sotheby's gig. I'm still hurting, B/S — today's the first day I've been able to sit up and eat anything other than hot cereal. And I'm strongly considering burning Dead-Eye's transcripts from Friday and Saturday night: some things are best stricken from the record.

After factoring in all the damage and cleanup costs, we're looking at a $10,000 hotel bill from Marriott. I don't know what to say on that score: sometimes you just have to let off some steam, and smashing the hell out of that toilet really did seem like a good idea at the time. Looking back at the transcripts, I see now that I didn't make the strongest case as to how that particular act of vandalism fit into my grander scheme of taking over the world. But that's 20/20 hindisight. The logic of it was perfectly clear to PePe and me at the time.

Like I said, Bro/Sis — you need to be careful with Absolut. But hey — we're in the money right now, and a ten grand party won't exactly put us into bankruptcy.

Naturally, everybody in the crew threw up on the Acela train back to Boston last Sunday. It's a smooth ride, but not that smooth. Did you know you can get a ticket for puking in a railway compartment? They have these railway cops on Barf Patrol — it's friggin' absurd. The stenos are just going to waive process and pay the fine; PePe and I are going to court. We had the car to ourselves, and no one saw any of us do it. They can't prove anything.

Remind me, Brother/Sister, to tell you about all the connections we made with wealthy elites at the auction. Many of the guests at the reception viewed the World Domination Project with skepticism, but lively debate ensued, and I managed to win a number of them over to my side with wild promises of exclusive timber and natural gas extraction contracts. The champagne was flowing, the credentials flashing, and deals were taking shape. Whew! It was exhilarating, I tell you.

Two Down, One to Go

I filled two of the three stenographer positions yesterday. What can I say? I'm a "strike while the iron is hot" kind of guy. The CW among Human Resources types (so I hear) is that you don't hire until you've interviewed every candidate, but I know talent when I see it, and I couldn't pass these two up.

So now I introduce the two newest members of The Entourage —

(1) Vernon Calaveras, age 41. In addition to his expertise in stenography, Vernon is a certified French and German language interpreter and a committed triathlete. He grew up in North Carolina and has a shock of red hair, so I've nicknamed him Opie. Welcome aboard, Opie Calaveras!

(2) Susan Granderson, age 34. Susan earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering but bagged a career in research for court reporting because she wanted "more human contact." Susan is an accomplished longbow archer. Let's everybody put their hands together for Dead-Eye Granderson!

The third guy was a total loss. He wrecked coming off the zip-line — clunked his steno machine and sprained an ankle. Cried like a baby, and he apparently threatened to sue me as he was getting into his cab. I didn't hear that last part over all his blubbering, but it showed up in Dead-Eye's transcript (she and Opie don't officially start work until tomorrow, but I had her cover that last interview — I just had a bad feeling about the guy).

Whatever. This won't be the first time I've been named a defendant in a preposterous lawsuit. I drew up an IRONCLAD liability waiver before I set up these trials, and the guy signed it before we got started. So I have to think I'm covered.

Anyway, we'll see what comes of today's trials.

I should add that barring any further postponements, the Gloria Collection auction is on again for Friday in NYC. Seeing as how I have to put all these newbies on payroll, I'm anxious to get the cash in hand.

Wanted: Stenographers

Much time has passed, B/S, since last we spoke. And with every second that lapsed incommunicado, I felt a distinct pang of remorse for the lost opportunity. On so many occasions in these last twelve days, I experienced some small but enriching life detail, or some fleeting but (at the time) momentous single-frame thought flashed across the silver screen of my consciousness.

But these earthshattering ephemera always occurred to me when I was away from a computer — and they naturally would flit away into oblivion (as ephemera tend to do) before I could take a seat in front of my terminal, pour myself a Diet Coke, and get to typing. My PowerBook is handy, I grant you, but it only helps so much. What about when I'm driving? Or scooting? Or negotiating an arms sale in an abandoned warehouse in Southie?

I've decided I need to keep Archives. I need to maintain a more complete record of my utterances during this rise to power than I am making available to you folks now, in this weblog. Don't get me wrong, B/S — the weblog is not going anywhere. You'll still get the highlights here. But the Archives will have it all — every word I utter, at breakfast, lunch, dinner, in the bath, in my sleep. Everything I say between next Monday and the end of my life will be recorded for posterity's historians and journalists to consult and review.

So right now I'm interviewing stenographers — court reporter-types who can take down on their little machine thingies everything I say during an eight-hour period, then go back and massage their shorthand type into a definitive transcript for my signature later in the week. I'm looking to hire three people, each of whom will work one shift a day.

Qualifications? No formal requirements: I'm basically just looking for skills here. Notary certification would be a plus. And obviously an ability to handle changing work conditions. Most of these people set their apparatus up on a tripod and sit down. I'm going to need people who can follow me everywhere I go. They'll have to be able to rig up their machine so they can type while they walk, or while they're in a car or a helicopter — or crouched in hiding nearby while I'm fighting off some of Ortega's Incan Dance-Fighters.

So that's the plan. I'll be interviewing four candidates this afternoon, and six tomorrow. First an informal conversation, then the skills test. PePe and the intern are setting up an obstacle course/steeplechase for me to run with the stenographer beside me. I'll be reciting Latin poetry as I step through the tires, legal disclaimers while I climb the rope to the diving platform, and baseball statistics during the 100-meter swim sprint.

Entourage status will be awarded to the three stenos who can keep up!

Auction Postponed

So we're going with Sotheby's, but the auction is put off until at least the weekend. Some woman just stepped out of the woodwork with what purports to be JFK's bathrobe, and all our contacts in the auction house are in a tizzy over it. They've got forensic experts testing hairs found in the terrycloth in hope of authenticating the lot for a Friday evening showing.

And they've invoked some sort of Special Exigency Clause in our contract to requisition all the hors d'oeuvres our caterer was making for the Gloria Collection event. (I've been assured we will be compensated for that.)

Suddenly we're small potatoes.

PePe says we might be better positioned if the source of our presidential memorabilia were not alive. I told him this was just the kind of thinking out loud that a Philippine intelligence operative picks up on a sound dish and utterly misinterprets. Let me therefore state clearly for the record — Gloria, my darling, you're worth more to me alive than your entire estate — even with a Kennedy-esque post mortem markup.

And, of course, I hasten to add the further disclaimer, that everything I report on this website is fictitious, anyway. So whatever that Mindanaoan spy technician thinks he heard, he didn't really hear. I haven't even spoken to PePe today. He's been at the dentist getting a crown fixed.

Accounts Receivable

I know, I know, B/S — I've been way too preoccupied with money in my last handful of posts. I apologize for that, but I'll ask you to bear with me for just a bit longer.

After all, the last few months have been a bitch from the standpoint of fundraising, but one thing I haven't done yet is log on to Blogger and ask you directly for money. And that's a hell of a lot more than you can say for National Public Radio. Those people are relentless — they want you to pay for their news, whereas I serve up mine for free.

Anyway, I wish I had something nonfinancial and interesting to report, but I don't. I'm just grinding the gears these days to keep this Project afloat, and I haven't had time for the usual bout of Incidents and horsing around.

Here's the state of things: right now I have exactly $2218.42 in the World Domination Fund checking account down at Citizens Bank, earning a measly 3% APR, but I'm also in negotiations with Sotheby's and Christie's to auction off what I've dubbed, for marketing purposes, "The Gloria Collection" sometime before the end of the month.

The thing is, these auction houses are real pennypinchers — they want a 20% commission on the first $100 grand I make. I've asked each of them for a five-point reduction, a paltry concession, in my view, in exchange for down-the-road recognition as the Official Auction House of Phutatorius, World Hegemon. But neither house will budge even a single percentage point off their "standard" commission rates.

In fact, when I made my proposal to Christie's the other day, their negotiator went so far as to sneer at me and say, "That'll be the day." Well, I never! Now I know that getting attitude from the personnel is supposedly "part of the package" when you deal with an upper-crust place like this, but I thought that blast of negativity was a bit much.

If I didn't already have an independent, benevolent motive for doing it, I'd take over the world just to spite the guy. And then I'd see to it that he was fired. As it stands, I may or may not let him keep his job once I've acquired absolute power. Let's just say that right now he's on probation and leave it at that.

I should be choosing one or the other house in the next couple days. Unless Christie's comes in under the competition by tomorrow afternoon, Sotheby's wins on the politeness tiebreaker. I hope to cash in on The Gloria Collection by Friday.

If any of you are interested in buying, write me directly and I'll clue you in on the time, place, and date of the auction, once they're settled. Right now I don't have any of the details, except that it will be a "black-tie optional" affair (which I've read somewhere is etiquette-speak for "black-tie mandatory" — who knew?).