Chapter Five:     Suit & Tie


Transcribed from dictation, ADAM narrating--

All right, Adam here, recording a note.

Art told me he's started assembling a continuation of our common story since we ended the AooE documentation last year and has asked me to contribute with a personal update. At first I wasn't sure I really wanted to, I mean, we haven't even published the first "book" yet, since there's too much stuff we still need to keep secret. Do I really want to be committing more secrets to documentation? Even though AooE only exists as an encrypted archive on our own offline computer, several people have read it and know about it, so it could be hacked and pirated at any time. And. let's be realistic, it probably will be.

But as an anthropologist, of course I understand the value of documenting such a unique historical event as the arrival of Nohontli into Western Civilization, personally described by those of us most closely involved. Besides, it IS pretty entertaining. Although when I started doing these recordings it wasn't to write a book, but as the easiest way to let my family know I was still alive after having been incommunicado out in Squatchland for so many months. Now it's been months since I've done this, and it's hard to recall every detail of whatever I should have been reporting.

Well, most of the music & media stuff has already been reported by others, no point my repeating their chapters. And I personally haven't been off adventuring farther away than the Monroe-Seattle area, busy with variations of NNP details, ranging from political negotiations with Washington State and Federal authorities; to physically getting my hands dirty helping build an infrastructure for our "Refugee Camp" and "New Lost Lake" projects, so I have no exciting tales to tell. Nor time to tell them, or so it feels.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a break from all this duty and responsibility. Dambaraggan has been talking about going back to Aket for a while, since he still has his own duties in the squatch "school system", so I'm half-considering escorting him there. Not that Dambaraggan needs any protection-- he may be big and fat, but nothing he outweighs is going to give him any shit, and that includes grizzly bears. It's more drunk hunters one might have to watch out for, but I can usually talk them out of becoming murderers since they know who I am. Actually, I'm just making up excuses to go to Aket, so I can spend a few days learning magic and visiting some friends-- if any of them are still there, since it's mostly a rotating student population. At some point I do need to go there... but now is not the time.

Although not having been back to Aket since the revolution last August, I have been kept up to date by a fresh supply of squatches coming out of the woods to check out our Nokhon Nation setup, most of whom have studied at Aket. Our "decadent new society" appeals more to intellectual Nokhons rather than those who prefer following the rules. But Aket seemed mostly unchanged, thousands of years of tradition don't just go away.


So at the moment, I'm stuck here where the American Way prevails: we have a lot going on, between our music and the Nokhon Nation Project, although the NNP business has been taking up more of my time than I'd planned. I just spent most of yesterday in Seattle wearing a suit and tie and arguing with some very antagonistic lawyers about the land grants we've received, which was not fun.

The suit is Doug's idea: camouflage. I wear it because it's supposed to make me look something like a normal human, maybe even a successful young executive. Anything but a Bigfoot. Well, it does cover up most of my body hair (and the hair on the back of my hands is close-trimmed, although I refuse to shave them). But I'm not fooling anyone: they always check out my shoes to see how Big my Feet are and smirk a little. I think they only take me seriously because I'm the biggest guy in the room at 8'3" and over 500 pounds, so they might be a little bit scared of me. Fine, whatever works.

But they're not scared enough to refrain from making some pretty nasty accusations. Basically, they are still after me about my relationship with Melly, even though most of the world now seems to have accepted us as a cute couple-- except for the KKK and their racist pals. But I understand why the lumber companies harp on that: they really have no case, so they use the same old ploy; the lecherous Bigfoot monster smokescreen. For some reason, they haven't even considered moralizing about Lissandra yet, probably because she's not quite as white as Melly.

The hearing was concerning a complaint from Riverside Lumber, a rather small father & son lumberyard in Aberdeen, because NNP had been granted cutting protection for a small corridor of forest land from one national park to another. It is meant to provide an unspoiled route for the squatches to travel through without being cut off by the constant encroachment of civilization; new roads and shopping malls, as well as clear-cutting. We had already been issued the grant by the US Forestry Department last year, but now Riverside wants to annul it, claiming that it's right where they had been planning to harvest trees for the next 10 years and now they have nowhere to go. Therefore we tree-hugging conservationist radicals in the NNP are causing them to go bankrupt.

Riverside Lumber can only make that claim because Holtz Lumber, a large conglomerate backing them up, had ostensibly "offered" them the land to cut--even though neither of them had ever had any legal rights over the area. Doug and I knew that this was all a-- hmm, dare I say it?-- conspiracy. Especially since a team of expensive corporate lawyers were waiting to ambush us at the courthouse, obviously on Holtz Lumber's payroll. Riverside could never afford them.

In fact, I wondered why Holtz had chosen Riverside Lumber as their front; they could have found a much better class of "noble American lumberjack family" to elicit some sympathy with the public: "Pa" Willers and his three sons definitely have more of an "ignorant white trailer trash" ambience. But then, they didn't do the talking, the professional lawyers did.

I don't really think they can win the case. The whole thing seems to be a waste of time for us. Although not for the lawyers, who get paid anyway. Maybe Pa Willers & Sons do too. Anyway, no decisions were made, pending yet another hearing to take place in yet another courthouse (Aberdeen) later. Man, was I glad to get that suit off!


So our band, Squatch & Friends, has been put on the back burner for a while. Except for the Rose Bowl concert planned for October in Los Angeles, we've been turning down all offers due to time restrictions. Actually, we haven't been doing any major public performances-- just some local parties, spontaneous events, all very low-key. Also while in LA we do intend to spend some time and effort making about seven music videos for MTV. But they'll just be re-dos of our twelve original songs. We've had no time to write any new material.

Or maybe we have had time-- we do practice regularly, but mostly just for fun. Still, none of us have managed to become inspired. Or at least, not me.

But now we agree that it's time to start putting together a new album. Actually, according to Si Bintzen, we HAVE TO make a new album and should be putting it together already. The first/last one has been funding the NNP and it's had a good run, but is just about milked dry now.

But maybe the song-bank in my head has been milked dry as well. I've been trying to think up new songs-- hell, even ONE new song-- but all I'm getting is uninteresting drivel. I'm beginning to wonder if I can do it again. Oh, I know, all artists suffer about that until a glorious inspiration suddenly pops out of nowhere, but it just seems to me that I've been suffering about it for too long now. Months.

Last time I had a magical vision to go after-- and an equally magical guru to push us all into orbit. Dagrolyt got us really spaced out and we wrote most of those songs in one night, and they WERE inspired. All the incredible amounts of money they have brought in proves that. But now my vision is all used up and my guru seems to be lost in the Himalayas.

I don't really care about the money-- although actually I sort of have to: the NNP needs it. But the PR generated by that concert album has been just as important to our project as money; it put us on the map. But apart from the business of it all, I just yearn to create some music again, something even better than the first album. I don't think that's just for my own ego (although it might be); I want my music --my art-- to reflect well upon my Nokhon race. Hey, everybody, look-see: Sasquatches are culturally creative people too. Although Masnia seems to be taking care of that for me.

But I don't seem to be able to write any songs of the standard that I want just now. Oh sure, I can make rhymes all day long, but they need to be ABOUT something. And that something needs to be IMPORTANT. Or at least universally relevant in some way. Sure, I can easily write crap: croon to the moon in June, while sitting on a ruin, and very soon. But the good stuff is eluding me. Jeez, am I really washed up at 21 years old?

I need a new vision. Maybe I should just go back into Squatchland for a while. If I only had time. But there are more meetings with the killer lawyers coming up... Gotta put on the suit again; be dignified, be convincing. Gotta talk them into believing that I actually represent all these squatches coming out of the woods to join the USA. Maybe I'd better talk myself into believing that first.

Or maybe I've been bummed out by having to deal with all the NNP politics, I've always been put off by how billionaires and giant corporations have corrupted the entire political system with money, buying politicians and employing unethical lobbyists to make big-buck deals against the public interest. And now here I am, all caught up in it myself.

My own public interest is, of course, how to protect virgin forest areas in Washington State from absolute destruction by large scale clear-cutting lumber operations, which horrify me every time I come across them. I happened to mention that and Holtz Lumber by name during a TV interview, back when I was still in High School.

The lawyers at our local branch of Holtz Lumber reacted immediately, tried to get a court injunction forbidding me to ever again speak against their often-illegal lumbering activities. They were poaching trees from national forests before they had permission to do so, cutting in the night before anyone could stop them, so that-- "oh well, it's too late now, may as well just finish the job..." Seems I was expected to keep my mouth shut about that, because nobody wanted to hear the sub-human ramblings of a boy Bigfoot even if he could talk.

But then I met all these young activists from the various nature conservation movements, whose volunteer lawyers informed me that Holtz was out to violate my 1st Amendment Right to freedom of speech exactly because I AM a Bigfoot-- someone with a legitimate claim to protect his native forest homeland --and as such could generate a lot of very negative propaganda for them. Which I did, and it's been a battle ever since.

But I also learned that there were some good people working in American politics, like those activists. Even as a kid I came to admire the intended policies of Berti Sanvers and other progressives who were trying to get money out of politic, but also learned that America was a very conservative country where the capitalistic profit ideology was so often at odds with any kind of empathy or kindness. The Republicans were evil and the Democrats were weak, I remained disenchanted with politics as I saw them.

Now that I'm old enough to vote all my political activity is focused upon the Nokhon Nation Project rather than human affairs. It's just that the Spirit Vision I had during my Nokhon purification rite informed me that I was to form a band with three of my friends, become a famous media success in the human world, make a lot of money to finance the NNP and eventually become some kind of authority in politics between squatches and humans. So far, everything except the political authority part has come true.

Accepting that I may have to get involved and therefore looking for some political hero as a role model, I couldn't help but notice one young woman standing out from the crowd of Bertie's idealistic volunteers. She was nicknamed "AEC" because her Chicago-Latina-roots name was just too foreign and complicated for xenophobic Americans to learn. Clever with words, brilliant with well-considered arguments, good at debating and defining complex issues, her fellow volunteers always nudged her forward to present their agenda. Which was hopelessly radical, of course, even the Democrats were scared of her. But I liked her, felt some kind of connection, but figured she'd be considered too extreme to succeed. Being a brown-skinned woman was even worse than being a squatch.

Seems I wasn't the only one who liked her: she got voted in to be the youngest congresswoman ever. Some considered her Presidential material, although she'd been too young until now. But that was then; this is an election year and Alejandra Eleña Coronada is on the ticket. I always thought I'd vote for her, and in November I can.

I... no, that's enough rambling and recording for now. Over and out.







Chapter 6

Adam Into Babylon