THE INFORMATION #1296 MARCH 8, 2024

THE INFORMATION #1296

MARCH 8, 2024
Copyright 2024 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

TYRANT KING: THE IMPLAUSIBLE RISE OF PRESIDENT GILBERT NILE
PART SEVEN

FIVE: GILBERT NILE AND CROMWELL JONES: PART ONE    
Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool that holds his tongue.–St. Francis De Sales

Though spoken of not at all in any of his campaign biographies or press releases, some time in the early 1970s, Gilbert Nile took the quintessential beatnik-inspired “road trip” with his closest childhood friend, Cromwell Jones. At that time Jones was a bearded and rather dashing fellow, a blonde-haired blue-eyed scamp who in his younger days was said to physically resemble Errol Flynn. (He certainly also had Flynn’s knack with the ladies, if the numerous paternity suits drawn up against him were any indication.)
Little regarding this road trip would be known had I not, when looking through my papers, stumbled across a long-forgotten manuscript that Jones had sent me nearly forty-five years ago; his attempt, I suspect, at putting into fictional form some of his early experiences.  
In my recollection, Jones also appended a note (since lost) asking me to “look it over” and, “if it’s any good,” to ask that maybe I could suggest some publishers “who might be interested.”
For the first time I shall reveal the contents of this manuscript; I am begging the (putative) reader to understand that, while reading the following choice excerpts, that the style is entirely that of Cromwell Jones.  

Initially, I read no more than the first chapter. Mostly, my inanition stemmed from the fact that I felt my I.Q. lowering with every ill-formed paragraph. This “novel,” if you could even call it that, was a mish-mash of sententiousness, sensationalism, and self-righteous “radical” rhetoric, and it seemed as though it had been written by a person on drugs, and entirely spontaneously, with no planning. forethought, or even proofreading.  
The manuscript is titled “Down By the Roadside” and in it, Jones writes, in a rather overheated, juvenile (and highly derivative) fashion, of the cross-country trip taken by his hero, named, none too imaginatively, ‘Lord Smith,” and his boon companion, named, with a similar paucity of wit, “John Amazon.” (I have taken the liberty of eliminating some of the more egregious misspellings and solecisms–old habits die hard!)
The opening paragraphs of the novel essentially set the tone for the entire work, and are worth quoting in their entirety (though I couldn’t resist adding my own bracketed commentary):  
The sun rose over the city. [As opposed to what? one might ask. The anti-sun?]  
However, as the rosy-fingered rays of that star kissed the countryside and the city alike, there was at least one place in the Western Hemisphere that the warmth of that celestial body did not reach.
Was it Gibsonia? No, the sun shone brightly on all the rich white people.  
Was it Trad College on ‘The Hill’? No, the complacent college students and their bigheaded professors were still dozing in their warm warm beds, fat from beer and too much book-learning.
Was it the town of Scabee, where the miners worked sixteen hours a day even though a law had been passed prohibiting miners from working more than eight hours?
Or was it the village of The Dawnland, where ancestral oak trees the Indians viewed as holy were mown down by rapacious loggers with their blatant chain-saws?
Or was it the town of Bund, where fat Germans ate their sausages, worshipped Hitler, and goose-stepped in the town square?
Or was it the groovy commune in Moontown, where righteous brothers tried to make a new world free from all the old hang-ups, only to discover that the worst parts of the old world–lies, cowardice, and jealousy–still followed them there?
Or was it the far-out set-up in Akashic, where mystics and followers of the old-time faiths that were older than Christianity and the Bible came to get back in touch with the natural world, only to discover that even the power of the Old Gods could not protect them from the corruptions of the priests, who were and always will be everywhere the same?    

Or was it between the high towers of Bigtown where the sun did not shine? No, there, the businessmen drank their wine and many still slept, fat as hogs, bloated from feasting off of their illegitimate wealth, sapped from the wallets of the working man.  
True, terrible, terrible things took place on every floor of these towers of Babylon. War pigs busy snorting with glee over selling still more of their guns and weapons and other profit-making machines of death to kill the yellow man. Pig bankers with their greedy snouts sucking up the poor people’s money. Greedy policemen looking with their pig’s eyes at the pockets of the greedy politicians stuffed with money taken from greedy criminals. And evil priests with the faces of skulls dancing abound the bowed heads of the worshippers who prostrated themselves at the altars of Mammon.
And yet, the sun shined brightly on all these pigs. But it never shined on Jimtown.
That’s right–the one place where the sun refused to shine was in Jimtown. Jimtown. A slum area of four-story wooden tenements surrounded on all sides by the cruelly indifferent skyscrapers of capitalist pig Amerikkka, which ignorantly prevented the sun from shining on the Negroes.
Jimtown. And as the dawn failed to illuminate the cold garbage-strewn streets, a prostitute and a shoe-shine man plied their trades in the early-morning half-light of 6am. Watermelon vendors and fried-chicken merchants began to prepare for the day’s traffic, and druggists arranged their displays of knives, razors, and dice in the windows of their shops, while liquor store owners yawned and set out the bottles of Sneaky Pete, Thunderbird and Ripple, which the Negroes loved.
Negro families fed their children  Aunt Jemima pancakes and Uncle Ben’s rice for their poor breakfasts, and some children whose parents had no money went to school with no breakfast at all!
Heading toward the streets of Jimtown were two men. White men. Each with a different mission.
 
One was a decent, law-abiding and idealistic young man, six feet tall, handsome, strong, with long brown hair and snapping brown eyes; a man who came from a broken home, knew what it was like to be hungry, and who therefore sought to help his ghetto brothers by running a soup kitchen. Although he was a “Honky” he had “soul.” His name was John Amazon, and his heart was as broad as the river, though his mind was full of shallow platitudes about “self-respect” and “getting ahead” and “pulling yourself up by your own boot-straps.”
The other man was a lovable rogue and anti-establishment rebel, also six feet tall, with long blonde hair and a clean blonde beard, white teeth and shining blue eyes. His name was Lord Smith, and although he was not always on the right side of the law, he, too, was something of an idealist; decent, courageous, and stubborn in opposing all those who sought to keep the little people down.  
Both were in their early twenties. And although the two young men knew each other, and had been fast friends and even house-mates, they had lately grown apart. On that day in Jimtown, where even the sun refused to shine, they were about to embark upon a collision course that would rock their worlds, and those of a good many other people besides.
The story I am about to tell here, about these two men, their travels down by the roadside, and what they learned there, is largely based on fact and utterly true; if not in the literal sense, then certainly as a chronicle of a certain time and a certain place. Sometimes, after all, there is a story that, though the details are partially invented and partially based on fact, can, eventually, be said to reveal a larger truth than a mere newspaper story.  
This story takes place in 1970 and is torn from today’s headlines.  
After all, future historians will agree that the sixties were a one-time cosmic event, and though it is too soon to say, they may well conclude that the seventies were, in their way, even more sensational.

*1 SALUTATION

NEW ORDER

SHAKE IT UP

https://youtu.be/q8yc2emYheg

ALSO SEE:

THE CARS:

SHAKE IT UP

https://youtu.be/K3SA5Z-cbC8

2*REFERENCE

BORIS SPASSKY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Spassky

3*HUMOR

WHITE HOUSE CHERRY ICE CREAM
https://www.icecreamnation.org/2012/06/white-house-cherry/#:~:text=White%20House%20Cherry%20is%20basically,a%20simple%20Philadelphia%20style%20base.

4*NOVELTY

FREE ONLINE TAROT READINGS

https://tarotoo.com/free-tarot

ALSO SEE:
BIDDY TAROT
https://community.biddytarot.com/free-tarot-readings/

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST

The Black Muslim Concept of Tricknology

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakub_(Nation_of_Islam)#:~:text=However%2C%20they%20had%20learned%20to,the%20first%20slaves%20to%20America.

6* DAILY UTILITY

THE MOD 4

OPEN UP YOUR MIND

*7 CARTOON

GEORGE CARLSON

THE PIE-FACED PRINCE OF OLD PRETLEBURG

ALSO SEE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_L._Carlson8*PRESCRIPTION

MASTER LIST OF LOGICAL FALLACIES
https://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm

9* RUMOR PATROL

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-lennon-life-happens-quote

10*LAGNIAPPE

LUSH

DELUXE

https://youtu.be/aKrw5wOlSng

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

“Oak Tree You’re In My Way”

https://genius.com/Lynyrd-skynyrd-that-smell-lyrics

*11A BOOKS READ AND REVIEWED

BARNSTORMERS. LOTAY & SNYDER. ***

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. DOBLIN. *****

BIG GAME. MILLAR & LARRAZ. ***1/2

BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. CHAZE. ****

THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE VOLUME 3. GONICK. ****1/2

DEAR MINI. BOOK ONE. NORRIS. ****

FAT CITY. GARDNER. *****

HEX AMERICANA. WOLF. **1/2

IF HE HOLLERS LET HIM GO. HIMES. ****

LEFT TURNS. ROSS. ***1/2

NEW X-MEN: ASSAULT ON WEAPON X. ****

NORWOOD. PORTIS. ****1/2

OLD CITY BLUES. MILONOGIANNIS. ****

QUENTIN BY TARANTINO. ***1/2

THE TALE OF TOXIC POSITIVITY. MAGRS. ***1/2

TASTY. ELLIOTT. ***1/2

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. CHAFFEE. ****

TOP 10 COMPENDIUM. MOOSE, HA, & CANNON. ****

UNENDED. BAYER. ****

WALK ME TO THE CORNER. FURMARK. ****

WAR & PEACE. POLTORAK. ****1/2

WILD’S END. ABNETT & CULBARD. ***1/2

X-MEN: THE BURNING WORLD. ***

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

OF MICE AND MEN
All about a brainy hobo whose partner is a musclebound simpleton.

SEE:
Rags, Riches and Rye: Hobohemian Practice in Twentieth Century American Literature  
https://scholarworks.unr.edu/bitstream/handle/11714/2099/Forsberg_unr_0139D_11988.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

ALSO SEE:THE NOBLE-SPOKEN HOBO

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=101571&type=lnf

THE INFORMATION #1295 MARCH 1, 2024

THE INFORMATION #1295
MARCH 1, 2024
Copyright 2024 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

TYRANT KING: THE IMPLAUSIBLE RISE OF PRESIDENT GILBERT NILE
PART SIX

GILBERT NILE: THE “COLLEGE” YEARS: PART TWO

A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys.–Edith Wharton

Now, lest you accuse me of setting up Gilbert Nile for a scenario out of “An American Tragedy,” let me put you straight. By the age of 20, Nile was already a fair-to-middling golfer, an excruciatingly skillful poker player of an almost demonic talent, and a natural born politician who traded upon his mother’s spurious family connections for all that they were dubitably worth and, in all likelihood, far, far more. A supposed family connection to Millard Fillmore was certainly not the most dazzling pedigree for a would-be prince of the realm, but it was far better than nothing at all, or, worse, than an utterly fabricated lineage that would have been absurdly simple to have seen through.  
In Gilbert’s case, whether his mother’s distant, or even all but non-existent connection to the Filmer/Fillmore family meant anything or not, the important thing is that Gilbert believed that it did.
Plus, as I have mentioned, he had…the magic ring.  
And so it was that Gilbert Nile, son of a recently deceased ne’er-do-well drunk and a long-suffering mother who took in boarders, managed somehow to invade the precincts of college society without ever matriculating at Ivy at all. Later on he would claim to have taken a few “extension” courses to “keep his hand in” but I know full well that such was not the case, for I was there.    
As I may have already implied, I had already pegged Mr. Nile as a likely lad, and so it was that I watched with interest and no small (albeit cold) amusement the way in which he contrived to discard one maid after another and slowly, inexorably work his way up the ladder to social glory. He first selected a fine-haired, rather horsy faced redhead, daughter of a French-Canadian mining magnate, one Nelda Charbonneau. She was given to classical music and opera, two things about which young Gilbert knew nothing. He was, however, a quick study, and was soon pretentiously
discoursing about La Traviata and “the sublime ‘Eroica’.”
Unfortunately, Nile’s incorrigible skirt-chasing was instrumental in driving this already neurotic lass over the edge, and she quit school toward the end of her Sophomore year and spent a good year recovering in the Arcadia Hospital and Home for the Mentally Insane, a world-famous clinic.
Next, Nile turned his sights on a sweet, if rather plain brunette named Brenda Stahl, a merit scholarship finalist who was one of my protégés in the English department.  
While seeing Miss Stahl, Nile put down his Poe and Frost and Edgar Lee Masters and learned to gush–rather too volubly, the sure sign of an arriviste– regarding the “sublime Edward Arlington Robinson” and “the crucially underrated Thomas Hardy,” and was even given to reciting “Richard Cory” and “On the Departure Platform” from memory. She caught wise to his cheating ways almost immediately (yes, I did warn her), and quickly off broke off their relationship, though (I later heard) she was always available to Nile whenever he needed a shoulder to cry on, or some eminently sound advice. She went on to teach at some Midwest college and made quite a splash about forty years ago with a volume of her selected verse, a small portion of which was written, I am proud to say, under my tutelage.

At this point, Gilbert Nile zeroed in on a rather chubby blonde social climber named Bea (yes, that’s correct, Beatrice) Lawless. He behaved in the most utterly shabby way to her, yet she was so smitten by his charms (and perhaps so hypnotized by his magic ring) that she introduced him to every mover and shaker on campus. Bea’s father was a lawyer, and, consequently, a busy man, and in lieu of lavishing affection upon her, he gave her a blank check and told her to spend whatever she wished. He could always earn more. It is rumored that the law firm of Banks and Lawless of which Lawless was full partner had (not unironically) some rather shady clients with
rather deep pockets.
It is in this relationship that perhaps Gilbert Nile proved his mettle. Fine suits, shoes and watches were soon his. No more dingy rayon shirts and thrift-store jackets for young Mr. Nile. I’m afraid that Miss Lawless, at best a mediocre student, spent much of her Sophomore year dreamily practicing writing the signature Beatrice Nile, Beatrice Lawless Nile, and Mrs. Gilbert Nile and covering the inside front cover of her English Composition notebook with these monikers with all the practiced dedication of a woman who had set her sights on a certain prize and meant to have it. Gilbert was also much taken with Miss Lawless; or, at least, with her daddy’s wealth and
influence. Unfortunately for Nile, Daddy didn’t get to be a top Mob mouthpiece by betting on a losing hand. A mid-semester trip abroad for Miss Lawless and, it is rumored, a fifty-thousand dollar check for Mr. Nile soon put an end to that fledgling romance. I heard that the ever-practical Nile  deposited the money in a six-percent interest-bearing account and never drew upon the principal. This gave him a tax-free income of two-hundred and fifty dollars a month, back then at least equivalent to the starting salary of a clerical worker. This sum undoubtedly made life a good deal easier for him than it otherwise might have been. (Whether he intended to someday return the principal and elope with Miss Lawless is a question that will never be answered, for six months after she had decamped to England Miss Lawless married on the rebound an impecunious but undeniably fecund English Baron and over the course of five years bore him three lovely daughters and a son.)  
In the third year of his harum-scarum “residency” at Ivy College, Nile decided to drop  what he undoubtedly thought of as the stuck-up sub-debs and instead blazed through a succession of young ladies of a decidedly liberal and bohemian bent.  
It was, however, Nile’s fourth serious relationship, toward the end of that third year, that all but broke his heart, and it served him right.
The girl’s name was Claudette Sayles. She was an exchange student from England and she found Gilbert Nile to be perfectly amusing but, as a lover or even a companion, utterly infra dig. “I can never,” she was reported to have said, “be persuaded to be seen with a boy I cannot respect.” On another occasion, fending off his proposal of marriage, she was rumored to have said, “I can’t marry you, Nile. You’re nothing more than a thug.”
Perhaps it was because she proved so resistant to his dubitable charms that Gilbert pursued her all the more strenuously. Perhaps he simply wanted to have the cachet of being the first to turn the head of this haughty raven-haired midinette, who was the talk of the campus, mainly because of her beauty and evident wealth. Whatever the reason, Nile embarked upon a strenuous campaign to win her over.  

First, he made a very big stir among the campus radicals by starting a safe house and opening a soup kitchen for the many teenage runaways who were at that time flocking to Knob Hill and other neighborhoods nearby in the aftermath of the so-called “Summer of Love.” He apparently did so out of no selfless love for his fellow man, but to show that he was possessed of a spirit of noblesse oblige. (I’ll wager that having a magic ring certainly didn’t hurt when it came to rounding up fresh produce and meat to fill the stew pot.)
Next, he spent as much time as he could at Claudette’s usual haunts, the high-toned poetry and chamber recitals that were a part of civilized campus life even in the late 1960s. Being able to talk knowingly about music and poetry certainly didn’t hurt his cause with Claudette, who was known to deplore the level of culture available even at an elite College like Ivy.
Finally, he engaged in both of these occupations as though they were second nature to him. Such insouciance is a large part of impressing a lady fair, or so I have been given to understand.
They had a brief affair. It ended in June. She graduated and went back to England, and made it abundantly clear that she would prefer that they went their separate ways.
Gilbert Nile was devastated.
It was then that he embarked, accompanied by Cromwell Jones, upon a road trip, during the course of which he apparently found, both himself, and, it could be said, his future destiny.

*1 SALUTATION
JOHN LEE HOOKER & BONNIE RAITT
I’M IN THE MOOD
https://youtu.be/Si0teRtHY8o

2*REFERENCE
NSC-68
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSC_68

3*HUMOR

Nina Simone
I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl
https://youtu.be/Sg384whVQzc

4*NOVELTY
MUSHROOMS
…might be legal in Massachusetts soon.

ALSO SEE:
THE TRAITS
HIGH ON A CLOUD
https://youtu.be/ABodywkt7ks

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
WILD STARES
THE GREAT BARRIER
https://youtu.be/IkSOnHFmljc?t=389

6* DAILY UTILITY
Mit brennender Sorge
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge

11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are “as a drop of a bucket”.

*7 CARTOON
THOMAS KALMUKU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kalmaku

8*PRESCRIPTION
The  gastrocolic reflex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrocolic_reflex

9* RUMOR PATROL
DEGAULLE ON THE JFK ASSASSINATION
“Everything leads me to believe it,” he replied. “They got their hands on this communist who wasn’t one, while still being one. He had a sub par intellect and was an exalted fanatic—just the man they needed, the perfect one to be accused. . . . The guy ran away, because he probably became suspicious. They wanted to kill him on the spot before he could be grabbed by the judicial system. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen exactly the way they had probably planned it would. . . . But a trial, you realize, is just terrible. People would have talked. They would have dug up so much! They would have unearthed everything. Then the security forces went looking for they totally controlled, and who couldn’t refuse their offer, and that guy sacrificed himself to kill the fake assassin—supposedly in defense of Kennedy’s memory! “Baloney! Security forces all over the world are the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare that the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to assassinate an innocent man than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder. “America is in danger of upheavals. But you’ll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They’ll do everything to stifle any scandal. They will throw Noah’s cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to find out. They won’t allow themselves to find out.” These astonishing observations about Dallas were captured in Peyrefitte’s memoir, C’était de Gaulle (It Was de Gaulle), which was published in France in 2002, three years after the author’s death. Snippets of the conversation appeared in the U.S. press, but the book was not translated and published in America, and de Gaulle’s remarks about the Kennedy assassination were never fully reported outside of France.”― David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles and the Rise of America’s Secret Government
www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/44215740-the-devil-s-chessboard-allen-dulles-the-cia-and-the-rise-of-america-s
jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/D%20Disk/deGaulle%20Charles%20Attitude%20Toward%20JFK%20Assassination/Item%2003.pdf

ALSO SEE:
JACK RUBY
“And I wish we had gotten here a little sooner after your trial was over, but I know you had other things on your mind, and we had other work, and it got to this late date.”
— Earl Warren, explaining to Jack Ruby why it took over 6 months for the Commission to conduct their single interview with him.
www.maryferrell.org/pages/Quotable.html

10*LAGNIAPPE
NEW ORDER
WAITING FOR THE SIRENS’ CALL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1u5zspRzA&list=OLAK5uy_nQo6lKMuOfiAO6h6Tt3mbynwywX3045uA&index=3

CRYSTAL
https://youtu.be/VBmZl3shvHs

AVALANCHE
https://youtu.be/gynbtKFMwVE

GUILTY PARTNER
https://youtu.be/qogxGA86_WM

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
We can nearly all agree that the Lavender-colored thespian Snagglepuss was gay. In spite of this evidence to the contrary.
https://vintagegeekculture.tumblr.com/post/161442461131/snagglepuss-had-a-girlfriend-in-his-original
https://hanna-barbera.fandom.com/wiki/Lila

Where did they come up with a name like “Lila”?

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
THE NOT-SO-INCREDIBLE HULK
The Hulk was initially a dud. Marvel cancelled it after six issues.We have DC’s distribution agreement to thank for that.
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b6874af68a1252bd16060a436f03d0a3.webp

THE INFORMATION #1294 FEBRUARY 23, 2024

THE INFORMATION #1294
FEBRUARY 23, 2024
Copyright 2024 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

TYRANT KING: THE IMPLAUSIBLE RISE OF PRESIDENT GILBERT NILE

PART FIVE

FOUR: GILBERT NILE–THE “COLLEGE” YEARS: PART ONE

My proper Parrot, my lyttyl prety foole;/With ladyes I lerne, and go with them to scole. –John Skelton

In the late 1960s, Gilbert Nile “attended” college for a few semesters, though the circumstances regarding his educational credentials are ambiguous, as we shall see. His roommate?

None other than his boyhood friend Cromwell Jones.

Cromwell Jones’s early life is not exactly an open book. We do know that he was born in the same year as Nile, 1947. We also know that he was a child of privilege and attended numerous boarding schools; in fact, he was kicked out of four. Finally, a military school named General Drummer took him in, but it is not quite fair to say the experience “straightened him out”. If anything, Jones became even more intransigent and rebellious, although this time he managed to graduate with a high-school diploma, albeit “by the skin of his teeth.”  Then, miraculously, he got
into Ivy College. As a matter of fact, he was one of my students, in both Freshman English and History. And therein, as they say, lies a tale.

Because, for a time Cromwell Jones’ college roommate was none other than his best friend, Gilbert Nile. Even though, as I have stated, Gilbert Nile was never so much as matriculated at Ivy.

Nile would sit in on a history class that I also taught. I had been enlisted as a stopgap measure; the department was looking for a qualified tenure-track successor to take the place of the department head, who had recently retired, and, as a then-Junior Professor, I was called upon to teach a course called ‘American Civilization’. This was not as much of a stretch as one might imagine; my specialty was in American Literature, and I was well-known for my many articles dealing in great detail with the life and times of crucial American authors; notably, Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. (There is of course, the nagging question as to whether America has truly ever had a civilization, but I leave that one for the cynics and smart-alecks to debate.)

Even at that relatively young and tender age, I believe that Nile (which is what all of his friends and even casual acquaintances, called him–he professed to loathe his given name, ‘Gilbert’) possessed certain charismatic qualities that drew people to him. Some might say he was born to be a politician.

As for Cromwell, I frequently had to scold him for sneaking his despicable comic books into class. Cromwell was older than most Freshmen–he was twenty, I believe, having taken two years off to travel the world and “find himself.” He would tell impressionable freshman and sophomore girls at nearby Elmhurst College all manner of ludicrous tales of how he had been shipwrecked on a desert island and had had to survive by hunting wild game with a home-made bow and arrow. It sickened me to see these sweet young girls sitting on his lap and drinking in his despicable lies. Had I tried to warn them, however, they most likely would have seen me as merely an old interfering busy-body and fuddy-duddy, so I kept my counsel.

 Of course, in some ways, I was pretty “green” myself. My own upbringing hadn’t exactly educated me regarding “The Way of the World”.

I recall at one faculty dinner for the Department, about one month after I accepted the position, October of 1961, how the department head advised me to leave a tip, “And make it twice what you would usually leave.” He then showed me the bill, and I panicked. It was for nearly 700 dollars! Twenty percent of that was 140 dollars, and my week’s salary at the time was a paltry $180! Choking back my exasperation, I prepared to add $140 dollars to the pile, but the department head took my money and solemnly walked over to the other end of the table, in order, I thought, to do so on my behalf.

Let me tell you, I spent a rather sleepless night!

The following morning, at 10am sharp, the department head summoned me to his office and handed me back 130 dollars. “That was a most generous gesture you made last night, Holton,” he said to me. “But I don’t think you intended to tip for the entire table. By my calculations, 700 divided by fifteen is roughly forty-six dollars. Twenty percent of that is nine dollars and twenty cents. A ten dollar tip was more than ample. And let me make another suggestion, if I will. Never carry your week’s pay in your pocket. It is best for a young man like you to bank roughly twenty per cent of his weekly salary. If you like, I can draw up an automatic deduction plan for you with
the personnel department.”

Well, I did as he suggested, and banked thirty-five dollars a week, and was never sorry about it, either!

Another amusing incident occurred about six months into my tenure. It was a cold February, and I was in the Card’s Department store elevator, planning to go to the third floor to put a winter coat on what was then known as a “lay-away.” I got into the elevator on the first floor and a lady was already on the elevator. As the machine began its ascent, she said to me, in a peeved and concerned tone of voice, “Please turn your head and stop the elevator. I have something I need to adjust.” So I threw the emergency switch between the second and third floors, expecting her to
finish her “adjustment” in a speedy fashion. But, five minutes later, she was still “adjusting” whatever it was that needed tending to, and I heard angry voices on the third floor muttering about the stopped elevator. Then, in a loud and aggressive voice, I heard a man bellow, “This is the fire marshal. There is a fifty dollar fine assessed for stopping any municipal elevator in a non-emergency situation.”

Well, I began sweating bullets! I immediately pressed “two” and re-started the elevator, and it descended and the door opened at the second floor and, I, with my hat covering my face (surely I was the very picture of guilt), contrived to hastily leave the elevator, and the store.

I never did buy a coat, that day or any other that season, and suffered for it by catching a dreadful cold not more than a week later.

I share these amusing anecdotes to show that even at that stage of my career, I didn’t exactly possess the type of “savvy” needed to flawlessly maneuver that intensely competitive environment.          

But Cromwell Jones certainly did, for he was as one “to the manner born.”

Indeed, young Mr. Jones apparently had quite a bit of clout with all the right people, because his roommate Gilbert suddenly found himself in the company of the sons and even the daughters of important and influential people. It must have been a heady experience for one who was, until very recently, a glorified grease monkey; a rich man’s cat’s paw; a poor man’s Bus Riley.

But Gilbert had one significant advantage.

Gilbert had the ring.

He must have, by then. How else to account for his precipitate rise in both caste and estate?

*1 SALUTATION

FAITH NO MORE

THE GRADE

https://youtu.be/kfb_zL8lMxo

WOODPECKER FROM MARS

2*REFERENCE

FIBONACCI SEQUENCE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_sequence

ALSO SEE:

MANDELBROT SET

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set

3*HUMOR

Busy? With those reefers I’ll bet!
https://dimenno.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/6326b-rco021_w_1591375171.jpg

https://comiconlinefree.org/teen-aged-dope-slaves-and-reform-school-girls/issue-tpb/full

4*NOVELTY

THE POST-TWITTER ERA

How Twitter’s descent into chaos is paving the way for a new web

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST

Neal Stephenson’s Most Stunning Prediction
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/02/chatbots-ai-neal-stephenson-diamond-age/677364/

6* DAILY UTILITY

THE FIRST ROTARY

https://deldot.gov/Programs/roundabouts/index.shtml?dc=history#:~:text=It%20all%20began%20around%201905,Canada%20and%20the%20United%20States.

ALSO SEE:

Cape Cod: Home of America’s First Rotary

*7 CARTOON

Mother please! I’d rather do it myself!
https://youtu.be/GshovE9F3F8

Re-Edit:
https://youtu.be/y2G8FNrRouo

8*PRESCRIPTION
ROASTED CHICKPEA-CURRY BOWL
https://www.eatingwell.com/best-high-fiber-lunch-according-to-dietitian-8567536

9* RUMOR PATROL
JOHN BOLTON
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4439620-john-bolton-world-leaders-trump-laughing-fool/?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral

10*LAGNIAPPE

PATTI SMITH 

RADIO ETHIOPIA

https://youtu.be/2aAWQVAIB84

Oh I’ll send you a telegram
Oh I have some information for you
Oh I’ll send you a telegram
Send it deep in the heart for you
Deep in the heart of your brain is a lever
Deep in the heart of your brain is a switch
Deep in the heart of your flesh you are clever
Oh honey you met your match in a bitch
There will be no famine in my existence
I merge with the people of the hills
People of the Ethiopia
Your opiate is the air that you breathe
All those mint bushes around you
Are the perfect thing for your system
Aww clean clean it out
You must rid yourself from these these animal fixations
You must release yourself
From the thickening blackmail of elephantiasis
You must divide the wheat from the rats
You must turn around and look oh God
When I see Brancusi
His eyes searching out the infinite
Abstract spaces in the radio
Rude hands of sculptor
Now gripped around the neck of a Duo-Sonic
I swear on your eyes no pretty words will sway me
Ahh look at me look at the world around you
Jesus I hate to laugh but I can not believe
Care I so much everything merges then touch it
With a little soul anything is possible
Ahhh I never knew you how can it be
That I feel so fucked up
I am in no condition to do what I must do
The first dog on the street can tell you that
As for you you do as you must
But as for me I trust
That you will book me on the first freighter
Passage on the first freighter
So I can get the hell out of here
And go back home back to Abyssinia

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
Questioning Faces

The winter owl banked just in time to pass
And save herself from breaking window glass.
And her wings straining suddenly aspread
Caught color from the last of evening red
In a display of underdown and quill
To glassed-in children at the windowsill.
–Robert Frost

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

H.R. PUFNSTUF

H.R. Pufnstuf
Who’s your friend when things get rough?
H.R. Pufnstuf
Can’t do a little ’cause he can’t do enough

What the hell does that even MEAN?

THE INFORMATION #1293 FEBRUARY 16, 2024

THE INFORMATION #1293
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Copyright 2024 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

TYRANT KING: THE IMPLAUSIBLE RISE OF PRESIDENT GILBERT NILE
PART FOUR

THREE: GILBERT NILE–YOUNG MANHOOD              

A paradox arises when premature insight clashes with prevailing nonsense.–Karl Kraus 

After joining the Army Air Force in 1965 and successfully completing basic training,  Gilbert Junior served for fourteen months as a mechanic, not as a pilot, after which time he went into commercial aviation, for the firm of Halifax Airlines. He did, indeed, serve a short stint as a tester and mechanic for pilot simulators, but for the most part he was a simple nuts and bolts apprentice mechanic. 

There is only one surviving account of how well he got along with his fellow workers. Only one man who knew him then, one who refused to speak for attribution, has told. And that, over the telephone. Here is his story: 

“Yeah, Gilbert Nile Junior, I remember –we all teased ‘im, called him Gilly–he didn’t like that at all, you bet–but that fella was an OK guy–when he wasn’t loaded. But he did like to take a nip at work, and don’t think the boss, he didn’t notice! But those were different times, and as long as Gilly kept it under control, everything was fine and dandy. But, problem was, he didn’t keep it under control. He was rude and insulting to people who wudn’t on the job as long as him. They hired a few Orientals to work on the line, and Gil, he got on his high horse about th’ pie-faced yellow monkeys taking a white man’s job away. Like I said, just a mean character. Hey, maybe I’m just as bad, I didn’t say anything. I hate to say it, but he could be a real bastid. Anyhoo, Gilly was involved in a few drunk driving scrapes, but far as I know, never went to jail or anything, y’know? Back then, y’know, they wasn’t nearly so rough on drunk drivers, you see. But our boss got wind of it and finally told him to cut out the drinking, or else.”  

Or else what? I asked. 

“Or else get out, y’know. So for a while there he was extra careful. He played it ex-tra cool.  He’d have a beer or two after work, and that was OK. But then he’d really cut loose on the weekends, and that’s where he ran into trouble. Got into a couple of bar-room brawls. Kid stuff, y’know? Blowin’ off steam. Ordinarily, the boss, he owned the plant, he might of overlooked it. Gilly was a solid, dependable guy, ‘specially when he wasn’t lushin’. But then he started calling in sick, every Monday, and the boss just got tired of it, I guess. Came down on him, and hard. Him and Gilly had some words. Boss cut him loose, I guess. I heard a little later that Gilly had a rough patch there for awhile. Finally, he got a job as an auto mechanic. Quite a comedown from working on planes. This was in 1967. Then his family just kind of dropped out of sight for a while. Never heard from them again until…until, well, you know. One day he calls me up, out of the blue. From the White House! I thought it was a joke. But no, it was him all right. Asks me if I need anything! Imagine that! The President–asking me if I needed anything! Hell, I’m 84 years old, I don’t need diddley. I told him, you know, well, Mr. President, I’m retired, got my pension, spend time with the great-grandkids, a little golf. I’m, I’m, uh, happy, y’know? Got everything I need. Then we have a little chat and he asks after the wife, she’s still in good health, thank God, and he asks about the kids, and then he, he asks me again if I need anything, if there’s anything he can do. I said, Hell, Gilly, uh, Mr. President, I’m fine. I’ll, I’ll write you a letter, y’know, if I ever need a favor. He says, well, that’s fine. Then he says he’s got some work to do, and he excuses himself. Me, I’m, well, I’m doing great. Never did send him any letter. I mean, what’s the point? He’s a busy man. Weight of the world, y’know?”    

Strangely enough, the man, who categorically refused to be a mentioned by name, grew steadily more agitated as he told this story, which leads me to suspect that somehow President Nile, or, more likely, one of his factotums, had somehow “gotten” to him. Although I pressed him for any further details he might be privy to regarding Gilbert Nile or his family, he demurred. Said he had already told me all he knew, and asked that I not contact him again. He didn’t say anything as banal as “I’ve already told you too much,” but the timbre of his voice betrayed the aspect of a man undergoing enduring agitation.   

The preceding interview was conducted relatively early in President Nile’s reign, before he had managed to consolidate his great power. As we shall see, all uncomplimentary references to himself and to his father were later expunged from the public record.

*1 SALUTATION

PUBLIC ENEMY

SHOW ‘EM WHATCHA GOT

2*REFERENCE

The Tarboosh (Arabic: طربوش)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez_(hat)

3*HUMOR

THE GODFATHER

‘YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqcgUDoV_M
4*NOVELTY“As Funny as a Smitty on a Hearse.”–Elvis
A Smitty was the Memphis name for a device designed to make a teenager’s motor roar.
SEE:

ELVIS AT THE INTERNATIONALhttps://www.elvisinnorway.no/elvisinternational.html

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST

ESCHATOLOGY

According to Google, there sure are a lot of people who are committed to eschatology.

https://www.google.com/search?q=end+times+&sca_esv=602411484&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS960US960&sxsrf=ACQVn08xRufRKGXSl2n8Sz52jbQ6ftyE7A%3A1706553284204&ei=xO-3ZdyLDOmkptQPp-eysA4&ved=0ahUKEwjc_a2ynoOEAxVpkokEHaezDOYQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=end+times+&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiCmVuZCB0aW1lcyAyChAjGIAEGIoFGCcyBRAAGIAEMhAQLhiABBiKBRhDGKMDGKgDMgoQABiABBiKBRhDMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyCxAuGIAEGJwDGKgDMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAESJ0NUN8KWN8KcAF4AZABAJgBdqABdqoBAzAuMbgBA8gBAPgBAcICChAAGEcY1gQYsAPiAwQYACBBiAYBkAYI&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

6* DAILY UTILITY

THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS

MY MIND CAPSIZED

https://www.lyricszoo.com/the-holy-modal-rounders/my-mind-capsized

*7 CARTOON

THE PEANUT VENDOR (1933)

8*PRESCRIPTION

DEAN MARTIN, LUSHWhen his son Deano (!) died, Dean actually did turn into something of a lush.  

https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/what-really-happened-to-dean-martins-son-deano.105724

9* RUMOR PATROL

COLIN WILSON

THE HISTORY OF MURDER

Book Review: The History of Murder by Colin Wilson

10*LAGNIAPPE

ANDREW GARLAND

THE OLD WOMAN’S COURTSHIP

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

ROY ORBISON

THE FASTEST GUITAR ALIVE

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061652/

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

THE TRAGIC STORY OF SCATTER THE CHIMP