If this shit were true ...

Date created: 11/12/2007 9:30:00 PM

Posted date: 11/12/2007 9:04:00 PM

In October of 2001 I read Command Sergeant Master James Gallagher's book Low-Intensity Conflict , a tactical manual on topics such as Peace Keeping Operations, Counter Narcotics, and of course Terrorism.  CSM Gallagher's book, published in 1992, addressed terrorism in its overseas manifestations only.  That's understandable since in our country the unthinkable of Sept. 11, 2001 had yet to occur.

The book introduced me to a concept called 'Threat Model'.  Constructed from the information available, 'Threat Models' are scenarios where the modeler anticipates attacks by looking for vulnerabilities through a terrorist's eyes.  In The War On Terror it's a handy concept, and most certainly our government uses 'threat models' in some form.  After Sept. 11, I started working on my own personal threat model.  When I tossed in some of my experiences, my threat model coughed-up some intriguing ideas in a connect-the-dots sort of way.

I've introduced the reader to Joe Tamboola, I fellow I became friendly with while working the cash drawer at a swing dance back in 2000, a guy who in April of 2001 gave me a smiley face cup as a gift right before leaving in his van for Los Angeles.  Here's what's funny - Joe looked liked that there anthropologist cult-figure Joseph Campbell, author of 'Hero With A Thousand Faces' and scads of other books, subject of that PBS series 'The Power of Myth' (taped at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch), purported Anti-Semite, and Mr. Follow-Your-Bliss.  I would have wanted to ask old man Joe, 'What if somebody's bliss was raping little boys?  What then?'

Well, I'm not going to get any answer since old man Campbell passed away in 1987.  And because he willed his scholarly papers to George Lucas, I sat down one evening and watched the first episode of 'The Power of Myth'.  My God, the resemblance between Joe Campbell and Joe Tamboola was astonishing!  Red hair, pale skin, even pronouncing some words with the same semi-lisp.  I would have sworn a family resemblance.  So with this 'One big happy family' senario I'm presenting here, I have another 'Joe' question: 'Is Joe Tamboola in the George Lucas movie 'American Graffiti'?'

I was watching my tape of 'American Graffiti' one night.  About a third of the way in there's this high school dance sequence, and at 38:32 one of the dancing bit-players looks straight into the camera, a guy with red hair and a fair complexion and goddamn if it didn't look just like Joe.  This movie was released 1973 and I'll be the first to admit that was a long time ago.  But since Joe loved to dance and claimed to be 57 years old, I keep asking myself, 'Is that him'?

Joe once said to me cryptically, "You look but you don't see."  When I knew him he wore glasses.  So I'm watching this movie when the red haired dancing bit-player does something contrary to that old piece of moviemaking advice, 'Don't look into the camera' - he looks into the camera.  I hit the VCR pause button then took off my own glasses and put them up to the TV screen over the dancer's face.  I think I said, "Holy Cow."  Actually I might not have said 'cow'.

Perhaps you're wondering how I got to the point where I'm looking at 'American Graffiti' and maybe finding little Joe?  Well I'm a big movie fan and I recalled that the character John in 'American Graffiti' had a license plate with THX 738, (and Lucas John Helder had a license plate with EZL 873.  Do you remember Luke John, a Midwest Pipe Bomber of May, 2002 who by blowing up mailboxes wanted to draw the world biggest smiley face across the United States?) 

So what does this have to do with George Lucas?  Well his first feature film was 'THX 1138' released on March 11, 1971.  Then two years later in his 1973 movie 'American Graffiti', there's the license plate on John's yellow hot rod - THX 738.  Now I played with these two sets of code and numbers and came up with 11-7-38.  November 7, 1938, (11/7/38), the date when Reinhard Heydrich issued orders for Kristallnacht.  And two days later on the night of November 9 (11/9), Brown Shirts trashed Jewish Shops and Synagogues all over Nazi Germany.  Kistallnacht was in retaliation for the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a Polish Jew.  The Brown Shirts are also known as 'Storm Troopers.'

It almost seems like George is up to a bit of crypto-fascism here.  I hope that's not true.  That would be sad.

(November 7, 1983, by the way was the day a bomb was set off in The US Capitol Building, forty-five years to the day.  I don't see any connections here, do you?  But if you do find some please Email me at E2thepowerz@aol.com.  I'm always happy to hear from my fans.)

Now I qualify everything I say with 'there could be nothing here', and if that's true I deserve my seat at the little kid's dinner table watching The Three Stooges.  However, if there is something here, could this be the biggest scandal in human history?

Welcome to Alex's Threat Model.  We're vulnerable because if this shit were true ... who'd believe it?