141 - Valparaiso (1st sneak peek)

Valparaiso is a beautiful city in Chile, on the coast, about 75 miles from the capital city of Santiago. It is renowned for its street art, or more accurately, its building art. Murals and scenes are painted on buildings throughout the city. The example below might become a part of the book cover when this book is ready to be released sometime later this year.

I found the city to be the perfect place to set my first entry into the spy world - well, it's sort of in the spy world. The sample below is not from the beginning of the book. As you'll see, it is from Chapter two.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 

Valparaiso, Chapter Two:

CIA Director, Eric Dobbs, stood in front of the room.
 

Agent Lynn Jeffries sat in a chair at the side of the table.

 

Dobbs brought up a picture on the large screen at the front of the room. It showed a crunched, wrecked motorcycle.

“You recognize that,” he said to Lynn Jeffries.

“Scott’s motorcycle accident in Chile,” Lynn said.

Dobbs nodded. He brought up a second picture.

It was Tommy.

Lynn did a double take. “It’s him.”

Dobbs nodded.

“I mean, it’s been a couple years, and he’s let his hair grow longer, but that’s him.”

“He goes by the name Tommy Sands,” Dobbs said. “Runs a restaurant in the town of Valparaiso, about 75 or so miles from Santiago.”

“He faked his death?” Lynn asked.

Dobbs nodded again.

“Since you’re his ex,” Dobbs began, “I can only have you involved in a management roll. I’m not sending you there in person.”

“What’s the plan?” Lynn asked.

Dobbs brought up another picture. “This is Brenda Davis.”

Agent Davis looked to be in her 30s. Attractive. Smart.

“What’s her history?”

“Three field assignments,” Dobbs answered. “Good record. A couple minor things. Arguing a little with supervisors. A little too flirty with a target.”

Lynn looked over at Dobbs with a jaded look.
          

“Don’t tell me you’re having her seduce him.”

Dobbs cleared his throat and did not answer. Lynn laughed a sarcastic laugh.

“Scott’s going to fall for her,” Lynn laughed.

“We hope so.” Dobbs looked at Lynn with a half-smile. “We’re counting on it.”

Lynn exhaled and twisted her neck. “Ok,” she said. “Bring her in.”
            

Dobbs turned to a console and pressed a button. He turned to Lynn and presented as fake a smile as he could.

            

Brenda Davis walked in the door, the perfect picture of someone in control. She closed the door behind her. It opened a half second later as Agent Lionel Miles followed her in. Agent Miles closed the door, and they all sat calmly around the table.
            

Dobbs brought up Tommy’s picture again.
            

“This is Scott Jeffries,” Dobbs began. “Agent Jeffries ex-husband.” He nodded toward Lynn. “Scott was career CIA until two years ago, when he disappeared. He sold classified info on the international black market.”

            

Dobbs looked intently from Brenda to Miles, to Lynn.
            

“Then he faked his death.”
            

Dobbs brought up the picture of the crumpled motorcycle.
            

Brenda Davis was rapt with attention. She soaked up the information as Dobbs revealed it.
            

Agent Miles scrunched his face a little. “What’s stopping us from picking him up?”
            

“We are,” Dobbs said. “There’s more here than meets the eye.”
            

The four agents were silent for a moment.
            

“What’s our mission?” Brenda asked, matter-of-factly.
            

Dobbs cleared his throat. “Become a friend, gain his trust.”
            

“I’ll give you background on him as a person,” Lynn said.

Peter Wick

January 14, 2025

140 - Green River '84

 (NOTE: I definitely did NOT intend to do another 'blast from the past' post this month. I was all set to write some sarcastic satirical piece about how President Trump does not understand basic 5th grade math. I was mulling over and over in my mind exactly how I would expose Trump for the moron he truly is. But... then something happened inside me...I discovered that I did not have the stomach, any longer, to write anything about politics. Any  -  ANY politics. Coincidentally, this week I also stumbled across this little 'band profile' I wrote in 1984, for the final issue of Attack Magazine - you can look it up, but it turns out these days there is also some kind of dance magazine with the same name, but you'll find the right one if you look deep enough. You can also look up the band Green River on Wikipedia. The short history is that they are considered a formative band in the creation of the 'grunge' movement. My old friend Mark Arm asked me at the tine to write him up as Mark Thomas for this - Thomas is his middle name. He told me in an email recently that he did not remember doing this, and was back to being Mark Arm shortly afterwards. The 'Stone' and 'Jeff' mentioned here are Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who have spent most of their rock and roll lives in the band Pearl Jam. Mark and Steve of course formed Mudhoney, so together this band Green River did quite a lot to lay the groundwork for what was to come a handful of years later. This was early for them. It's a fun little piece, I think, made even more fun when you realize where they were once the 90s hit. -PW)

Band Profile - Green River (Attack Magazine - final issue, December, 1984)

"We want to rock the hell out of this city," says the smiling Green River guitarist, Steve Turner.

Green River is a Seattle based band formed last May in the wake of Mr. Epp and Splui Numa. Mark Thomas, former guitarist of Epp (with Turner) and Green River's lead singer, met us at his house one Saturday recently while he was cooking breakfast at 1pm. The rest of the band had not arrived yet, one or two calling up to say they had just gotten out of bed.

Mark lives with three roommates in the University District house, and showed us his room, which had a poster from the last Epp show hanging on the wall. He did not express regrets at the breakup of Epp. He keeps the memorabilia as a reminder.

Stone, Green River's second guitarist and the youngest member of the band, at 18, arrived first, with a beer in his hand. "I think I needed one this morning," he said to Mark. "Did you have a hangover?"

"Nope," said Mark, who later revealed that he had made it to bed at 3:00 the previous morning.

Steve Turner arrived around 1:30 and began skateboarding around the living room and out onto the deck.

Mark entertained us by reading Joe Bob Brigs from the previous day's Seattle Times, a tongue-in-cheek column about Charles (Chuck) Bronson's new movie, "The Evil That Men Do."

"We're kind of a funny band," said Steve, as he disappeared on the skateboard out the front door and made a sound as if he were falling down the front steps.

Stone wandered around the living room, sipping his beer and making jokes about Charles Bronson.

Alex Vincent, Green River's drummer, arrived around 2:00 with the bassist, Jeff Ament, and we made the three-block trek to Liz Schmoe's house, where the interview was to be conducted, because she had some Alice Cooper videos which the band wanted to see.

After Epp's last show, in February, Mark and Steve decided to stay together and approached Alex, former drummer for Splui Numa, the band Steve was in before joining Epp, and later asked Jeff, who was merely an acquaintance prior to the formation of the band, if he would like to play bass. 

We played the same riff for three practices in a row," Jeff said, laughing.

"It was a good riff," said Mark.

Regarding Stone's entrance into the band, jokes were mixed with the truth in such a way that the truth itself seems somewhat vague. According to various band members, they let him into the band because he had, a) a Marshal, b) a car, c) carpet, d)  because he brings treats to practice.

"Actually, we haven't decided if he's in the band," joked Mark.

"Yeah, I'm just brown-nosing it," Stone said on his own behalf. "I bring treats to practice so they'll let me play."

"Tootsie Rolls again, oh boy!" said Mark.

At any rate, he was on stage with them as they opened for Black Flag on September 25, and for the Dead Kennedy's on October 19.

"Why were you dumped off the DOA bill?" we asked, in reference to their scheduled opening for DOA on September 15.

"Because of Dismal," Jeff said.

"This town isn't big enough for us and Dismal," Steve said.

Green River lists The U-men as their favorite local band.

they also pay heavy tribute to Alice Cooper, and became restless the longer they had to wait to see the videos.

Peter Wick

November 15, 2025

139 - Academic Words Explained

 (NOTE: this is another blast-from-the-past post I did one earlier this year, something from years ago, that I thought could survive seeing the light of day now. this was actually printed in my college paper back in the 80s (this should explain the reference to people asking me about 'this quarter'). Then, after being printed in the college paper, it made its way into a little collection titled, ALL MESSED UP - And No Place to Go, published (maybe 100 copies or so) by my friend Smitty's Box Dog Press, in 1986. A copy of this little thing - which will stay out of print - is archived at the Seattle Public Library, downtown Seattle branch, along with most (not all) issues of Feminist Baseball Magazine. Here's a picture I took of the little book encased in protective archive plastic, the last time I visited:

ACADEMIC WORDS EXPLAINED

A number of people have come up to me since the beginning of the quarter and asked, "Do you know what such and such a word means?"

While I can understand their confusion over certain large words in the college texts, I find it difficult to answer this question in any way other than to say, "What do you mean by 'such and such a word'? Be more specific." Then I slap them around the room hoping to knock some sense into them.

After several weeks of this I was finally inspired to plunge into the field of academic words and give what help I could to those in the dark.

By "Academic words" I refer to words found in college classes, but found nowhere else in the world.

Keep in mind that some of these words I could not find in the dictionary. In point of fact, I only found one listed there, and in an effort to remain consistent, I disagreed with the dictionary over its meaning. And with that, let us begin.

NEMERTINEA (nem-er-tin-ee-u) noun. 1) The name of the third ship in Columbus' fleet.

Historical development: It followed Columbus home one day and his wife let him keep it, on the condition that he hide it in the garage and resist the temptation to lug it into the living room whenever friends came over.

Suggested conversational use: The Nemertinea has sunk.

NOTE: Do not use it in this way unless it is true. If the Nemertinea has not sunk, talk about basketball instead.

IPRONIAZID (I-pro-nee-aht-zid) Adjective 1) Very small 2) Greek for nazi sympathizer.

Historial development: During World War Two many Greeks could not pronounce 'Nazi' and more often than not it came out 'niazid.'

NOTE: There is a growing school of thought that maintains that rather than 'sympathizer' it really means 'Nazi Synthesizer,' and refers instead to early experiments in electronic sound torture, later perfected by 1980s music.

Suggested conversational use: It is important that you never ever use this word in conversation! Just trust me on this.

OLIGODENDROCITIES (shoe) adverb 1) A statement about a person's manners. 2) Infatuation with feet. 3) Getting hit in the nose

Historical development: Galileo discovered it one day in his microscope and knocked it silly for having snuck into his favorite and most expensive microscope.

Suggested conversational use: I am guilty of oligodendrocities

NOTE: In most cases it is probably best to simply use another word, such as 'perspiration,' or 'over-eating.' If you do, however, insist on using it in this way, you had better expect to be ostracized.

GLIA (glee-u) verb. 1). The act of gliing. 2). To gli.

Historical development: It originally wanted to be the word 'glitter,' but it was roller skating in the castle one day, so the King struck it with his scepter, injuring it terribly, and leaving it to go through life as a cripple.

Suggested conversational use: Must you always glia when I'm trying to read the paper?

HYPOTHALAMUS (og-lee-bor-shnick) noun. 1). Ancient ancestor to the modern day hippopatamus 2). A tennis ball without air.

Historical development: Fossils of the root 'thal' have been dated back to 3,000,000 B.C,, but being that the bones are mangled terribly, scientists speculate that 'Thal' was a jerk and disliked by everyone except a weird guy named Gark. Gark had three legs and no head.

Suggested conversational use: I can't eat that. I've got hypothalamus.

We have only scratched the surface with these five words, but the surface needed scratching, so that's okay. It feels much better now, and should be up and about in a few days.

An in-depth study of academic words would take considerably longer than we have time for.

I trust you have been taking notes, because we have a test on Monday, and anyone who fails it will be ipsalateral for the rest of the week.

Peter Wick

October 15, 2025

138 - Artificial Intelligence, Art, and Comedy

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Soviet/Russian rebel and author, once said, "Live your life, not because of the prevailing politics. Live your life in spite of the prevailing politics."

But this post is not about politics. It is about artificial intelligence, and the salesmen and billionaires who think they are entitled to tell us how we will live in the not too distant future 

So let me adapt Solzhenitsyn's quote. Live your life, not because of the prevailing sales pitch. Live your life in spite of the prevailing sales pitch.

Let me state, though, as clearly as I can, that I am not anti A.I. 

A.I. is a tool, a simple technology that we can use, the way we have used every new technology, from the wheel, to the aqueducts, to the automobile (which many Victorians were certain would 'ruin' society)

I AM very pro human, though. Very pro humanity. And this is the focus of what I am writing. I want to focus on what I am in favor of. I don't want this to come across as being anti-anything (unless it is anti the jackasses who are selling us snake oil).

As a tool, A.I. will be in our human tool box, along with all the other tech we incorporate into our lives every day. I should also say that this is not about anything I have written. I know, this is coming from someone who has satirized and lampooned - not so much the technology - the billionaires who hope to get even richer from it.

Now, let's focus on being human and celebrating our collective humanity.

It is on us - humans - to always re-claim our place as Earth's most creative and imaginative species. And we can certainly step up to this current challenge. I am focused primarily on the creative and cultural aspects of life, because this is my field. Artistically speaking, A.I does not have a chance. A.I. could never have written Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." A.I. could never have made Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove."

A.I. could never have created the satirical chaos and hilarious anarchy that is Monty Python's "Life of Brian."

A.I. could 'write' some of these things now, because they already exist, and A.I, is pretty good at plagiarizing what already exists. But human artists and comedians paved the way. Soaring imagination is a uniquely human gift.

As a creative force. A.I. will simply regurgitate things that have already been done. Maybe that's good enough for Marvel movie sequels, but it is the job of the human artist to imagine something uniquely new and daring. If we do this, A.I. does not have a chance.

Now, a little admission; I have used a little bit of A.I. myself. I've been digitizing old video tapes - video tape deteriorates in a unique way, different from, say, old film stock. I paid for a little bit of A.I. cleanup of a couple old tapes I sent in to digitize. The results were...only okay. Not brilliant or anything. Maybe SLIGHTLY better than the original version. Nothing exciting, just a little bit better. So, yes, A.I. is a tool we humans can use. But creativity, imagination, originality, these - I am convinced - will remain the sole territory of human artists.

So, let's stop freaking out about what A.I. will change, and get on with the business of being human!

I was lucky enough to witness first hand the growing 1980s punk scene, that eventually blew up into the early 90s 'grunge' explosion. No one in the music business knew what to do with it. It totally and completely turned what the executives thought they knew, on their heads. It was a genuine, human, emotional and heartfelt movement that caught all the business guys, all the 'experts' completely off guard. This is a good example of something uniquely human - something that defied what everyone THOUGHT was supposed to be popular.

The same went for the French 'Impressionist' art movement of the 1870s and 1880s.

What about all the other ground-breaking creative movements of the past 100-plus years?

Jazz. The early days of Hollywood movies. Pablo Picasso. Beat poets. Rock and Roll. French New Wave Cinema. Andy Warhol. Catcher In The Rye. Street rap music from the early 80s (dismissed by cultural experts) that turned into the foundation of so much music recorded today. The new Hollywood of Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola, of the 70s. The indie film explosion of the 90s.

Humans created these movements. Humans will always be the ones to turn the establishment on its head.

So quit worrying. Start imagining. Create new movements, in that unique way that only humans with human imaginations can. Put A.I. in its place, as an over-hyped, over-sold, limited, slightly dumb phenomenon.

Everything else is just a sales pitch.

Let's put new technology into perspective and roll our eyes at the religiosity in the sales pitch.

My motto going forward is:

Question the rules.

Be creative.

Leave 'em laughing.

Peter Wick

September 13, 2025

137 - Delirium sets in - One More Anza Borrego Sneak Peek

On June 22nd, Robert Silk and I sat in the desert.

Ok, I'll be honest. We both sat in the desert, but only one of us sat from sunrise to sunset.

I took breaks. I went back to the hotel and had a real lunch. But I returned. I sat. I experienced a day like I've never experienced before.

Silk sat from sunrise to sunset. Below are a couple pictures.

We filmed the entire proceedings, and are currently editing what has become our second 'Desert Documentary,' titled Anza Borrego. The desert we sat in is California's Anza Borrego Desert Sate Park.

Sitting in the desert, all day, does funny things to a person. The video clip below is just one example of what we hope will be a fun and often funny documentary. This is what happens to a person late in the day, sitting under the blazing sun...

It will be a while before the full film is ready to watch. But I feel comfortable making one claim this early in the process. This film will have one simple objective...well, two simple objectives. This film's two objectives will be to be both fun and beautiful.

Stay tuned.

Peter Wick

July 14, 2025

136 - Anza Borrego - raw uncut sneak peeks

As I write this, we are about a week away from Robert Silk's full-day sit in the desert, in California's Anza Borrego State Park. Many of you reading this are familiar with the adventures of Robert Silk, but I am appreciative of the fact that this blog finds many new readers each month, and with this in mind I want to introduce the newcomers to something unique and interesting.

Robert Silk is truly a world traveler. As a writer for Travel Weekly magazine, he has been to places I can only imagine traveling to.

Two weeks before this planned sit in the desert, he flew half way around the world, to the city of Delhi, India. Delhi is a city with more than 20 million people, and a seemingly haphazard approach to traffic safety, as this video will confirm. This is video shot by Robert Silk himself as he made his way from the airport to his hotel. As a disclaimer, these videos are uncut. Only a moment of this video will actually end up in the final cut of the film, but I find it fun to watch the whole thing with little context:

 As a fun side-trip, Silk travelled a few hours away from Delhi, to visit the famous Taj Mahal...

Without committing too specifically to how we will introduce the story in the film, let's just say, in general terms, that we will start with a little comparison. I live near Venice Beach, California.

The desert vs. the beach. Seems like an interesting comparison. So I went out to the beach with a camera, expecting to grab a scenic shot, only to be caught off guard by someone we will call, "Eccentric old beach guy." You won't be able to hear any of our conversation in this video. I could have hooked up a remote mic to my shirt collar, but I was pretty darn sure no one else would be in the shot. I liked Eccentric old beach guy enough, though, that maybe, just maybe, he'll make the final cut of the film also:

I'm not going to embed any other videos in this post, although you can watch our previous documentary on the Youtube channel, if you are so inclined (https://www.youtube.com/@juventinopw )

One final note. If you have also watched (or feel a strong, undeniable NEED to watch) the 'Rough Cuts' video on this Youtube channel, you'll see Silk's previous trip to Antarctica. Some version of this Antarctica trip will also be featured in the early moments of Anza Borrego. And the beautiful, cool, trippy music in the 'Rough Cuts' Antarctica section is by a 'band' (who is really a single person, I believe) named Kooma. We have made contact with Kooma - who lives in Finland - and he has given us his blessing to use more of his music in the soundtrack for Anza Borrego.

This is starting to be fun!

Peter Wick

June 13, 2025

135 - Resorts Interspatial's Encahanted Vacation Bonanza! (a blast-from-the-past post)

 NOTE: I am calling this a blast-from-the-past post, because it was originally written in the early 1990s, and originally published in the now-defunct magazine, Feminist Baseball. This was a magazine published and edited by my friend Smitty (AKA Jeffrey Smith, AKA Jo Smitty). It ran from the mid 80s to the early 2000s, and there was a period of time in there, when he made enough money to live on from this little 'Zine'. Several issues are archived at the Seattle Public Library 'Zine Archive,' kept at the downtown Seattle branch of the library. I have visited this archive - they are missing some of the issues, but when I showed a picture I took to Smitty he said, "Wow! They have more issues than I still have." There is not currently any existing online archive of the magazine. Maybe that is a project for sometime down the road. (P.W.)

RESORTS INTERSPATIAL'S ENCAHNTED VACATION BONANZA!

Dear vacation lover;

You have been selected to sample Resorts Interspatial's most exciting vacation package ever.

As a member in good standing, and one who has fallen for our many scams in the past, you have been selected specifically from thousands of potential vacationers. If you enjoyed our seven-day campout in the lobby of the New York Stock Exchange, or the fourteen month hike through Siberia, you'll love our newest offer; an entire month in an authentic enchanted land. Impossible, you say? "Impossible" is not in our vocabulary. Neither is 'Fleurdellis," but that's another matter.

The amount you spend for another boring week at a seaside resort trapped in reality will pay for an entire month in the enchanted land of Gar (or longer, if you wish, as time is relative there) bringing you face to face with the countless pleasures that await you in a land of enchantment.

You may be transformed into a dragon-slaying hero by Galfen The Magnificent, or changed into a slain dragon, by Bobbin The Confused.

You and your family may set out on a five-day wilderness trek, hunting for mythical beasts, at the end  of which Thagnor The Magic Healer will be happy to bring all slain family members back to life.

Anything is possible in the Enchanted Land of Gar.

The trip begins with a simple phone call. Resorts Interspatial offers the cheapest vacation packages nationwide and adds special discounts to its enchanted travel packages. Once in flight you will enjoy the comfort of TransWestern Airlines extra leg room and cordial service. your plane will travel at an altitude of 15,000 feet until crossing into enchanted airspace,  where altitude ceases to be a measurement of distance from the Earth and instead become a smooth, golden beverage.

First class passengers will be served a complimentary glass of altitude. Coach passengers, on the other hand, will have to sneak glances down the aisle and salivate quietly.

After the plane touches down softly, on a runway of marigolds, passengers will disembark and claim their luggage.

Each person will be assigned an Elf, who will lead him or her personally to one of the many splendid hotels placed throughout Gar. (Pay no attention to the comment in your brochure about Elves being lazy hoodlums who like to pour mead on arriving tourists. This is a typographical error. It ought to have said they are overbearing busy-bodies who frequently rub tartar sauce in tourists hair.)

Certain hotels are no more than hour's walk from the airport. Others are an invigorating three-day trek through the forest. What's more, most Elves speak no English, so it is an exciting mystery to guess where yours is taking you and how far you must walk before arriving.

Only a few tourists have remained missing in the forest, failing to arrive at any of our lovely hotels, but we are forced to assume that they brought on their own deaths by rudely weighing down their Elves with luggage, not leaving them free to ward off evil swordsmen. The forest, alas, is no place for callous behavior toward your Elf.

Once at the hotel your Elf will carelessly dump your luggage on the bed. He will then lead you downstairs to the rustic old beer joint, there to keep you up all night, singing annoying songs with his wrinkled friends about ancient journeys in which they hiked for eighteen years non-stop to retrieve a ring or a magic sword, or maybe just a pair of shorts.

The party will wind down around 5am and you will stumble off to bed for a solid half hour of sleep.

At 5:30, when your Elf drags you out from under the covers, barking at you to get ready for your five-day beast hunt, your initial reaction will not be to kill beasts, but to kill your Elf. This is natural. It is, however, an impulse which should be resisted. Many who have done this in the past have later found their families turned to salt.

On the other hand, many who have gone along on the beast hunt have cracked up in the woods and killed their Elf anyway, so it's really up to you.

There are several rules to beast hunting which you should know ahead of time:

1. Take a weapon along. Beasts, both mythical and real, have a significant strength advantage in hand to hand combat.

2. Always remain quiet, except when being torn in half.

3. Learn to distinguish between mythical beasts and real beasts. Mythical beasts are the more prestigious and challenging kill, but they don't cook up well for dinner. You will eat and eat but get no real food value. Real beasts, on the other hand, are just brimming with protein.

4. Do not stand around arguing with an evil swordsman over who killed a particular beast. If he says he killed it, he killed it. Just nod your head and run.

5. If, once you are out in the forest, you do break down and kill our Elf, suddenly realizing that you have no idea where you are, do not panic. Lay your dead Elf on his side and spin him three times while chanting the names of your Great Aunts. A dead Elf will always face due East after such a spinning.

When and if you make your way back to the airport, you are free to leave at any time, unless the Dark Lord has gained control of the airfield again. If this is the case you may have to wait three to five months for the Forces Of Good to wage battle and regain the landing strip.

This, however, may be the most exciting moment of your entire trip. Daredevil heroics and dazzling magic make enchanted battles some of the most fascinating anywhere.

In fact, you yourself may be recruited into the Army.

After the battle has been won, you may board your plane and re-enter reality, refreshed and invigorated.

Call your Resorts Interspatial travel agent today. this offer won't last long.

And remember, if you haven't been to Gar, you haven't seen enchantment.

Peter Wick

May 14, 2025