NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Albrecht’s black Hummer stands out above the sedans in the parking lot outside the H-bar, with large red, white, and blue stickers, back and front and on each side, “MIGHTY MAC 4 24.”
Lou’s 2004, Hyundai Elantra is parked in the next row. It has been sideswiped. The mirror on the right side is hanging off the door by a shred of metal and long scrapes stripe the faded Gold Savor Hazelnut Metallic paintwork from front to back.
I find Lou sitting on the banquet by the wall with Albrecht on a chair opposite. Out of the cold glare of the winter sun coming in through the bow window.
They have two, pint glasses of beer and a glass of water on the small round table in front of them.
“How, are you doing, Fred? Glad to see you.”
Albrecht’s weapon is out of sight.
“Albrecht, Lou, sorry to be late.”
Lou moves one of the beers in front of me.
“When did you get sideswiped, Lou?”
“Yesterday, I came out of the SnazE Gold Emporium and there it was.”
“Hit and run huh?”
Lou looks at his phone.
“Yeah, got to get to the body shop by two.”
“What happened to you? Did YouTube get you again?”
“No, this time it was a dispute with my credit card company.”
“Here come our burgers.”
“Thanks, Lou.”
We pick up our glasses and the waiter carefully positions our three plates in the small space. The edges of the plates overhang our laps precipitously.
Albrecht raises his glass of water.
“Here’s to Mac in 24.”
Lou takes a long swig of his Spatenbrau, newly on tap at the H-bar.
“May he lose gracefully!”
“No way Lou. We aren’t going to have another election stolen from us this time.”
“Albrecht, you know as well as I do the vote was clean.”
Lou takes a bite out of his burger.
“As long as enough voters believe it, the steel is as good as real!”
“Election campaigns have kind of lifted off from reality.”
“Reality is whatever we make it, Fred.”
“No, deluding people is not making reality.”
“Mac just tells his people what they want to hear.”
“True enough, a little nativism, and racism here, some antisemitism there, and fearmongering about the borders, and so on.”
“Sure, that brings in the support!”
“As Diddlie said, it’s about popularity, not policy!”
Lou squeezes ketchup on his fries from the red tomato-shaped dispenser our waiter just brought him.
“That’s entertainment!”
He holds up the red plastic tomato bottle.
“Ketchup anyone?”
Albrecht takes the ketchup and decorates his fries with a well-controlled spiraling red line.
“There is no room on the table for this thing!”
The couple next to us get up to leave. The woman with purple hair flashes us a smile as she zips up her yellow leather jacket gathered at the waist with a black belt. Her companion’s long black beard masks any sentiment.
Albrecht puts the ketchup on the now vacant table next to us, still piled with plates.
Lou is looking down at his fries.
“Elections have been entertainment ever since they were first televised.”
“Remember Mr. McLuhan’s dictum: ‘The medium is the message’.”
“Yeah, Fred, haven’t heard much about that guy lately.”
“I think we are living with a good many of his predictions.”
“Macadamia is a brilliant entertainer, and he has mastered the medium.”
“Did you ever watch his show, ‘Mac’s Medley’ on Friday nights?”
Lou is picking at his pile of fries with reddened fingers.
“I remember seeing him insulting his guests to great applause, and never tuned in again.”
Albrecht sips his water.
“I remember him at the Republican convention, years ago.”
“You mean 2016?”
“That’s it. He told the delegates they didn’t need a platform.”
“That’s when I tuned out.”
“Lou, you should have stayed with us, all we needed was his Twitter account!”
“That is where things changed!”
“Fred, the elite liberal media have lost their dominance.”
“Too true!”
Lou has finished his burger in a ravenous hurry.
“Now we live in PR-Land, where people respond to persuasion rather than reason.”
“Come on Lou, when did voters and shoppers ever respond to reason?”
“Well, up until politics became a PR game.”
“Lou, I am sorry, but you are in Liberal La-La-Land!”
“I sing my song and you sing yours.”
“Which is?
“You are singing Larry Winter’s economic myth of the rational agent.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Winters is quoted as saying; ‘I have always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted‘.”
“Yeah, we export our stuff where the fewest people will be poisoned!”
“Isn’t there something wrong with that?”
“Well, is it better, that millions of us die or a few of them die?”
“Albrecht, the us and them thing misses the point.”
“Hey, the point is life and death, and life ain’t fair.”
Lou has taken off his glasses to polish them with his napkin. His unruly eyebrows are trimmed and seem out of place. Albrecht takes swigs more water.
“Winners will always come out better off and that is who we need most, winners!”
“Albrecht, survival of the fittest is all very well, but we can do better!”
“Maybe Fred, just show me a way that isn’t devolution into Socialism.”
“Economics can’t be separated from morality, Albrecht.”
“That’s just philosophy, Fred.”
“Well, it is still regarded as a progressive notion.”
“They have always been separated and have to be.”
“We are developing technological alternatives to those polluting the world now.”
“You ever see a philosopher in a commercial?”
Lou has put his glasses on again.
“Sure, Plato’s Potato Chips!”
“Wrong Plato, Lou.”
“Plato’s Potato Chips, they used to sell them in my hometown.”
“If you say so, Lou!”
“I do, Plato Castorius made them in the back of his store, on Academy Avenue, right opposite my high school.”
“Okay Lou, I am with you there.”
“Albrecht, we are surrounded by influencers.”
Lou holds up a reddened fry.
“Why are so many of us, ‘influenced’?”
“Think about it, Lou. TV commercials have been influencing America for generations.”
“Yeah, I saw those screens down at the Hadron Shopping Center.”
“Great, aren’t they? Mounted on the roofs of the arcade, twenty feet wide, pumping it out 24/7!”
“Where’s sound?”
“Tune in to 13o5 kHz, on your AM dial or find us online at, ‘Freedom’s Home’.”
“It is an ugly intrusion on my shopping experience!”
“Sorry Lou, ah, when did you get so interested in that concept?”
“Right then and there. I never thought I would remember Muzac so fondly!”
“It’s, Dreamscape Media, now, Lou.”
“What happened to good old Muzac?”
“We own them now!”
“We?”
“NAE, New American Enterprises.”
“Oh really!”
“Yeah, Private Equity, and highly profitable, my friend.”
“Are you invested, Albrecht?”
“I am paid for my political work in shares, and they keep on going up and up.”
“Well, I haven’t heard much good about that outfit.”
“You wouldn’t Lou. You are tuned in to the wrong channel.”
“What is your work, Albrecht?”
“Right now, I am coordinating publicity and events around here for ‘Mighty Mac’.”
“Like those things at the Hadron center?”
“Oh yeah, Lou, my contacts down there were useful.”
“Albrecht, how, do we know if Mac is real?”
“He is there, isn’t he, Fred? Making appearances.”
“Something like him is there.”
“What do mean Fred?”
“I mean we may be seeing a deep fake!”
“No, he appeared in person, a few days ago, at his rally in South Carolina.”
“Yeah, at SnazE Super Stadium, but the sound was coming out of speakers.”
“It always does Fred. It’s called amplification.”
“It may also be called a deep fake.”
“You can call it what you like.”
“Look, Mac made his first fortune in Russia in the 1920s. Then he had that TV show on NBC in the early 2000s. He must be way over a hundred if he is still around.”
“He is one powerful dude!”
