Secretary of State John Kerry: “Burning Man Has Not Jumped the Shark”

Mary Harf - always a hit at the Burning Man

John Kerry looks forward to Burning Man 2015

     “I’m so fancy…you already know…I am in the fast lane….from L.A. to Tokyo…” Secretary of State John Kerry sings along to the lyrics of the hit tune by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX, shaking his hips and spilling some of his scotch.

     At this point in the story, he is already full-tilt into the fifth day of the Burning Man festival in the high desert of Nevada.

     Yes indeed — he and his entourage, including his mistress of propaganda, Mary Harf, have had quite a jolt in the “Kerry Prankster” camp —  a fortified compound of 5 Starline trailers encircled to create an impregnable fortress.

     VIP only.

     The rest of you rabble need not enter. Don’t even think about it.

     Anyway, the good Secretary of State has opted for some Pharma-grade Israeli ecstasy, and everything has become quite acceptable to the former riverboat sailor.
   
     “This is what it’s all about. Booze, women, and a vision….  I like being hiiiiiiip!  You think I should tweet a photo of me getting my groove on with this day-glo thing?”

     “I don’t think you should fall for that Russian propaganda.” Mrs. Harf blurts out.

     “Good god, woman — you’ve had a kernal panic! You haven’t said anything but those words the entire time you’ve been here! Must’ve been the psylocibin/GHB combo. It shorted out your wetware.  Here — have a sip.”  He takes her gently by the head and spills some of his booze down her throat.

      She chokes and coughs and mumbles “Bergdahl’s platoon-mates are big-fat liars…Putin personally shot down that airliner — I saw a facebook post with a picture of him with the bazooka…  ISIS es muy peligroso…freedom-fighters, er terrorsists…my propaganda is better than the Russian propaganda…ERROR INVALID DATA 13 OxD…Beezlebub twirk twirk who dat I thought you knew dat knew dat knew dat lions and tigers and bears oh my….”

     Secretary of State Kerry tosses his now twitching and incoherent deputy State Department spokesman onto the 1756 silk settee couch he had imported from Toulouse, France just for this occasion.

     Kerry summons his personal assistant, “Get me that bozo Bill on the horn!”  He takes another sip of scotch and checks his twitter feed, snaps a selfie, then checks the pic. “Hmm, I do share a semblance to Lurch. I will consider that a compliment. Yes indeed. Keep it together, John. You are a survivor and a thriver. You are a champion!”

     He snaps off another selfie: he toasting himself.

     “Silly Valley camp. What’s your query?” the geeky male voice (or is it female? John Kerry cannot tell) over the speaker-phone says.

     “This is the Kerry Prankster.  Get your sonofabitch honcho Bill on the line, stat!”

     “Bill Gates of Hell? Okie-doke. Un moment, por favor.” In the background is heard robotic trance music, glasses clinking, laughter, a sheep baa-ing, and a firearm discharging and what Sec. of State Kerry imagines to be a Tesla coil arc emitting electricity in multiple directions, followed by the nasally sound of a voice: “Who?! That slime-bag?  What’s he want — he’s interrupting…screw it.  Pause it! I’ll be right back…(the fumbling of the phone is heard)…  Yes, what is it John? You are aware you are interrupting the Ritual of Appeasement of the Deity Baba-Yaga?”

     “Terribly sorry to bother your ceremony, Bill. But that goddamned system you pawned off to the state department is a giant pile of shit. What are you installing Windows ’98 operating systems into refurnished units and offloading ‘em to Uncle Sam?  Get your pasty ass over here and fix my deputy spokesman or I’ve got two words for you: ‘predator drone’!!!”

     “Are you threatening me, John?”

     "G-D’d right I am! I was in ‘nam you two-bit pirate and I do not take shit from dorks like you — not now, not ever.”

     “Easy, Johnny, easy. We’re pals. You sound like you’re on the verge of a drug and booze induced psychosis. I got a shot I can give you for that — loaded it into mosquitoes to help with overpopulation in Africa - er, I mean diseases and stuff, heeheehee…”

     “Just get over here and fix my problem!”

•

     Precisely 12 minutes and 45 seconds later a helicopter comes hovering over the “Kerry Prankster” camp, causing quite a bit of dust to kick up into the lavish Alain Ducasse $10,000 party spread.

     “There’s a waste of perfectly good caviar,” says Sec. of State John Kerry as he watches three figures repel down. Well — two repel down and one is lowered down because he is clad in an 1800’s diving bell.

     The chopper leaves and the three approach Mr. Kerry, who lays upside-down on an inversion table smoking a cigar.
   
     The one wearing the diving-bell motions to his crony on the left — an unkempt sort whose belly hangs forth from the T-shirt with the words “MAY THE MASS TIMES ACCELERATION BE WITH YOU” (in Star Wars font) on it and over his skinny jeans — who opens the visor of the helmet of the diving bell.

     “Bill Gates you money-shot maestro, what is that unholy get-up you are sporting?!”

     Bill Gates clears his throat. “I am currently under the influence of an experimental nanobot nootropic that is rewiring my brain and putting forth the sensation that I am deep underwater. If not for this suit, my ear-drums would rupture and my noggin would explode. Now, to the unit.”

      John Kerry flips right-side up, unbuckles from the inversion table, and motions for them to follow him to one of the Starline trailers — the one painted with a bedazzling array of colors in the spirit of a cheesy airbrushed version of a Jackson Pollack.

      They enter the trailer and Kerry points to his deputy spokesman Mary Harf, who now sporadically yells “turned down for what?!” and dry-humps miscellaneous items and furniture and the air about the trailer.

     “What have you fed this one?” a concerned Bill Gates says.

     “What haven’t I fed this one. Booze, G, X, Yage, Shrooms, Xanex, Colorado Cannabis, with a bit of speed to keep her honest.”

     “You fool! You didn’t read the manual — this model is only designed to be loaded with boxed Chablis and Prozac… Ritalin with an upgrade.”

     “Spare me your techy mumbo-jumbo and fix it or give me a new system!”

     Mr. Gates turns to his other assistant — a clone of the other guy except his t-shirt says “BACK IN MY DAY WE HAD NINE PLANETS” on it — and snaps his fingers.

     The clone unzips his backpack and brandishes a syringe and plunges it into the neck of Mary Harf while the other one opens up a laptop and begins typing.

     “Welcome!” says Mary Harf. She smiles. Her eyes are vacant but spinning hour-glasses could be seen in her pupils if one were to look closely. “Well, I certainly hope everybody is having a swell time. Is it time for the press briefing yet?”

     John Kerry nods his head, satisfied. He turns to Bill Gates. “If this ever happens again, you twerp….”
(while John Kerry was saying this, Bill Gates had snapped his fingers over to his assistant on the laptop, who had typed in some code and rendered Secretary of State John Kerry inert, mid-speech.)

     “Thank you, Lazslo. Wipe last hour’s memory and fill it with something nice, like him receiving a blow-job or something.”

     These political models need to be junked, thinks Bill Gates.  Perhaps a mosquito with a vaccine that inflicts these shabby political units with syphilis.  I’ll have to think about that one. Ahh — Burning Man….where visions are designed and universes co-opted.

He closes the latch to his helmet.