Documentaries

I met a guy the other day who claimed he was employed by the CIA for over twenty years to make fake documentaries. It was the funniest thing. Apparently in order to keep tabs on Latin and South American countries during elections and insurrections they’d send him in with a pony tail and some Bermuda shorts and tell him to get coverage of all the main players. He told me those were the days when you could just blag your way into a coup if you had the right look. He said his angle was the casual one. To walk right in off the street stinking of grass and claiming to be super-simpatico to the cause. Apparently you could do that in the sixties. I will admit that his collection of artifacts was impressive. Lots of photos. Documents with original seals. A signed copy of Carlos Franquis’ book. With great solemnity he told me that it took him twenty years to quit because the money was so good. When I mentioned John Perkins his comments made me laugh. He painted Perkins as a teachers pet to his back of the bus kid. But they were in the same racket. When I first met him it was in an apartment off Houston that looked like Ali Babas cave. It was filled with computer parts and televisions stacked on top of each other. He was just like one of those smoking gun types constantly tinkering with technology and a old pot of chicken soup. He even served me some with some bread from Dean and Deluca that he said he’d salvaged whilst dumpster diving. Every Friday or Sunday he does it in this bright orange biochemical outfit that looks exactly like the one that Marty McFly wears when the Doc gets shot in Back To The Future Part One. When he told me that he’d washed the sour dough only half an hour previously I almost spat out my noodles. But so what, food’s food.