What’s in Your Duffel Bag?

Since Dom asked, I’ll pull a Thomas Pynchon and write out some big honking lists of stuff to serve as characterization.

I had two bags at Orycon that were almost always with me. This might seem like a ridiculous amount of stuff for a weekend trip (and this doesn’t include the suitcase with clothes) but I was trying to be ready to be simultaneously well-prepared program participant and panelist; freelance interviewer/audio guy podcaster; and SF fan having a good time amongst his peeps. I might amend this list a little if I find new stuff unpacking.

First, the backpack:

14″ iBook (my main laptop for the last 2.5 years)
OEM charger for same
Cheap multi-card reader (essential for managing the CF cards I use in the Marantz)
Multi-USB cable, the kind with swappable plugs
iBook to VGA adapter
mobiBLU cube
USB cable for mobiBLU
spare in ear headphones
several SD cards
Kodak EZ Share digital camera
CVS Camcorder
Books (the Andelman biography of Will Eisner and a recent Bruce Sterling)
New issue of MAKE Magazine
Altoids (essential for interviewing people all day without grossing them out)
Seemingly non-working Lexar MP3 player
Miscellaneous bric-a-brac that has accreted in the bottom of the pack, paper clips and bits of crap

Next, the duffel bag:

Marantz PMD670 and shoulder strap
Charger for Marantz
Marantz AA battery adapter (8 required) for emergencies
3 Audio-Technica ATS35s lavalier microphones
2 1/4″ stereo to XLR adapters (required for the lavs)
2 12′ XLR mic cables
1 Radio Shack snowcone mic (same model I use in the regular podcast)
1 homemade mic cube
1 set of big over the ear headphones that are almost too broken to fit on the human head anymore
Assorted business card, pens and office supplies

I had considered and then abandoned a plan where I’d do the interviews with the snowcone mic for the interviewees and wear a lavalier mic for myself. I decided against that because then we might get weird sound differences between the two. Besides, by using the one mic and moving it back and forth, I could use DLR mono on my Marantz where it records two tracks, one regular and one attenuated by 20 dB. This way, if the regular channel gets overloaded and clips, you can use the other channel for that portion. Fiendish!

Overall it all worked and wasn’t that bulky to carry around. Switching from mic situation, which was lav for sit down interviews, snowcone for walking around, and internal condensor mic for panels, was the biggest drag. That, and continuously untangling cables despite having velcro cable wraps that should have kept it all together.

Creative Commons Filk

Lazy web request from an exhausted and overwhelmed man. I hope to put together my first Orycon episode of the podcast in the next few days and I’d like to get some good filk and/or fannish music to go along with it. I would appreciate it if someone could please point me to a resource with such music that is offerered under a Creative Commons or other reuse friendly license. I know I could look this up myself but I’m up to the keister in crocodiles. Thanks in advance, friends and fen.

Back to Normal Life

I’ve been back home for almost 48 hours and I’m still a little tired and my voice still sounds like Tom Waits. Three days of solid talking, much of it in loud rooms, will do that to a person. I’m delighted I went to Orycon. I hadn’t really been planning on it until they invited me, so thanks to Bobbie Dufault for making the effort to reach out to me. With the holiday weekend, I want to do my writeup of all the panels I was on as well as do my first podcast episode with interviews from the con. The work never stops, it just moves from coast to coast.

Panel Rundown: The Great Writers Blog

Place: Orycon 2006
Sunday, 12 PM
Panelists: Cory Doctorow, Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal
Moderator: Me

Jay and Mary were both people that I met as we sat down at the table and people that I liked quite a bit. I had a chance to talk to both in hallways later on and carry on the conversation a little further. At the absolute last minutes, as I was leaving the con Mary and I chatted about her growing up in North Carolina. I suggested she try to make Converge South next year, but she lives in Iceland so that’s a big issue for her. She’s got the same difficulties as I do in going to lots of cross-country cons, except hers is far longer international flights.

To be perfectly honest, this is the panel I feared the most as a moderator. That Cory is a blogger of repute and reach that swamps out the other three of us I thought might be an issue. To his enormous credit, he did not pull rank or in any way condescend to the other panelists or anyone in the room. I found that highly classy and egalitarian, treating us all as equal peers and partners in the blogosphere and the present conversation.

I did some audience calibration to begin this panel. I asked for shows of hands for a number of questions: who wants to blog but doesn’t know how; who blogs; who writes or wants to write professionally; who writes and blogs; who uses their writing as a topic in or as snippets of their blog. There were only three people out of maybe 40 or 50 that were in the “need to learn” camp so I asked them to reraise their hands for someone knowledgeable near them to volunteer to buddy up with them and talk to them after the panel to help them out. Then we began.

Because I’m not a working writer I laid back for several swatches of time in the discussion, doing traffic control but not really adding much. The one thing I really wanted to throw out there was the story of my work blogging rules of the road and how I had the discussion up front before I blogged the first thing about my present company. Because people can and do get fired over this, I felt that dominating the conversation for a few minutes might be a necessary evil. I contended that getting fired over blogging is stupid, and your first responsibilities are to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Keeping you and your children fed is a higher priority than your post. As much as I love it and don’t want it removed from my life, I could live without blogging in a way that I couldn’t without food or shelter. Cory took exception to that and thinks I’m giving the act of self-expression short shrift but we have to agree to disagree on this. I think it’s the very definition of a higher level Maslowian act.

Mary had some fascinating stories about how she has used her blog for her artistic endeavors and also how she deals with the blog/work membrane. Cory talked about a common theme of the weekend – the collapse of multi-faceted identities to a single point and the problems that can cause when your home life is public and it make cause friction with your work life and how blogging can be the mechanism for that collapse. Jay and Cory both talked about using their blogs as repositories for their work in progress and the materials thereof. There was discussion of the “personal brand” and lots of talk about whether to have separate blogs for different topics, whether to be pseudonymous or use one’s real name. We talked about the blog as a tool for engagement with ones audience and the Neil Gaiman approach of chatty blogging vs the Neal Stephenson opproach of conspicuous absence from the web and blogosphere.

At the end, Cory tried to teach me something about moderation that I was just too slow on the uptake to do effectively this time but that I’ll be doing every panel I ever moderate from here on out. When we ran low on time, we got all the people with pending questions to just all ask them one at a time. Then we went down the row and each panelist answered one of the questions on the floor. It worked like gangbusters once I finally understood what we were trying to do. I thought that each question would get a volunteer to answer it, which was upside down from the real thing. At the panel he moderated he did this (much more smoothly) and it worked very very well.

Bottom Line: I enjoyed this panel a lot, learned a lot, was enlightened with a dose of reinvigoration for the value of what we do, and hope my moderation was as good as the topic, panel and audience deserved.

There and Back Again

So I did make it in (see other post for my minor blowup about it) and then made it in to work around the tail end of lunchtime. I was weary and I’ll admit I nodded off at least once, but in my delirium got something to work that I was wrestling with all the time last Wednesday and Thursday up until I left for the airport. It’s odd, the break and then being in a wiggy state let me see a problem that I couldn’t before.

All told, it’s probably not the worst deal in the world that the exhaustingness of last weekend is followed by a short workweek and then a long weekend. I loved pretty much every second of my trip from when I touched down until when I left, but man was it tiring. It wasn’t until I really started thinking about it that I realized it was four years since my last SF convention of any kind, and that was Orycon 2002. I didn’t go to the last few Dragon*Cons. Even though dear Lois Tilton begged me to come and I should have, I begged out of the one Chicago con they had (Windycon?) when I lived up there. I was just busy and tired that weekend and it was cold so I stayed home, but I regret that decision. As the Butthole Surfers said “It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t done.”

I hope it isn’t four years before the next one. This is who I am and I really like this. I also find I have a tolerance for all levels of fandom I used to not have. There were times I was sniffy about dorks in chain mail or dressed as Klingons. When I was a teenager attending the Atlanta Fantasy Fairs, I was snotty that I was a fan of Will Eisner and Scott McCloud and Howard Chaykin and Los Bros Hernandez and boy, wasn’t I more urbane than these Star Wars fans. I don’t feel that anymore. I enjoy all these people and it doesn’t matter what their fandom makeup is. If all they care about is SCA and LARP, two things that don’t matter to me, it’s no hair off my ass. You love your thing, I’ll love mine and the good thing is that we’re all happy together.

Thanks to everyone that helped pull this Orycon together. Even though I saw far fewer friends than any previous one I attended, it was probably my favorite so far. I made lots of new ones, and that’s also good. Let’s all fly our freak flags together, and if I’m reading the zeitgeist right it will probably have a Jolly Roger on it.

Orycon Day 3

More panels, one I moderated and one on which I was along for the ride. Both were good, a little bit of profundity was talked at each. I said some smart things on both and also some dumb on both. In short, it was a lot like life. I’m in the wind down stage and checked out of the hotel and just ready to meet friends who will take me to dinner and then the airport.

I’m delighted I came, very edified and also exhausted and completely ready to hop on a plane and go home. There was an extremely high activity density, covering basically 8 AM to 2 AM on average with almost no slack time in between. I’m amazed at the number of people attending the con that I didn’t see once but that I’d have loved to. That’s my only regret. I also found that despite my program participant “status” here, I spent very little of my time in the pro path, mostly hanging with the fen. I don’t know what that means, if anything, but that’s how the game played out.

Soon there will be much slacktime and waiting time, and I’ll write up the thorough notes. If I can catch some wifi in Seatac, I’ll post some of it. Until then, I’m off the grid for a while. Keep the intarnets warm for me, compadres.

Orycon Day and Night 2

Things are going pretty swimmingly. I got to see a lot of my friends from the PDX last night, and even bridged the gap from conventioneers to mundanes by taking my friends around to room parties last night. I got to see my former vice-president of publishing for whom I worked hanging out at the Pirates of the Columbia party. That made the whole trip worth the price of admission.

All the panels yesterday went well, one moderated by me and two not. I also did something like 15 or 20 spontaneous interviews, as well as one pre-planned long one with Cory Doctorow. More details on all this later. I’ve got to get myself organized and ready for the noon panel today, packed up before it because of checkout time. Depending on the wifi situation between here and my final destination, I might get more posted today or I might do a data dump when I get home. I’ll try to write up a trip report tonight on my red-eyes while details are fresh.

Thanks to everyone at Orycon that took the time to talk to me. If my schwag handout rate is at all productive, some of y’all should be hitting this blog. In a lot of ways, this is possibly my most pleasant con experience ever.

Orycon Night 1

Dinner and drinks at Rock Bottom Brewery with Jon Groff, followed by a short stint of party hopping and then in bed pretty early for a convention. I slept from about midnight to 8 AM PST, which is pretty long for me. I went to the Pirates of the Columbia party, in which they had set up a tiki bar in one room and were playing Tiki Bar TV in the other. Most of the people were wearing eypatches, tri-corner hats, bandanas, puffy shirts, etc. I love it!

Now I’m just gearing up for my 10 AM panel, “RSS and the New News”, which is today’s moderation stint and my first one with Cory. I just checked the recording of yesterday’s panel and it sounded remarkably good. Not only could I hear all the people on the panel pretty clearly, I got a lot of the audience as well. We’ll keep this experiment going.

Orycon Day 1

I’m here, all is well. I landed in PDX at 10:30 PDT and was absolutely amazed and delighted to find that my luggage had made it. I’d have been willing to bet the other way. (Speaking of betting, I defrayed $2 off the cost of O’Hare wifi by moneying in a poker tournament. Ahhh, wifi + time to kill.)

I made it to the hotel by about noon, checked right in, showered and by 12:30 was on my way to lunch at the bento place outside the Bally Fitness on 2nd Avenue. Brown rice and steamed veggies with a heaping helping of this wonderfully gooey Thai peanut sauce. I’ve been waiting four years for that lunch and by god I was going to have it today one way or another. Afterwards, I checked in at the con and got my packet. I was startled to see that my 3 PM panel today “Computing in Science Fiction” was to be moderated by … me. The email I got about programming lost the key formatting element that told me that. I took an hour and addressed my Hipster PDA notes on this panel, and thought about the structure and flow of the conversation much like I would for one of my interviews. It worked pretty well, the panel seemed to go alright and got plenty of audience participation. I taped it with the Marantz just with the built-in mike. It might sound good, it might sound like shit. I haven’t listened to it yet.

Lots of milling around after that. I saw a lot of people I hoped to although far from everyone yet. I ran into Mary Rosenblum, Eileen Gunn, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Rose Prescott who used to do the toy panels with me and J. Steven York (before we all got tired of toting boxes of toys to the convention) and others that I’m blanking on at the moment. Tomorrow, I’m going to hook up mikes and walk around interviewing people. I’ll interview everyone manning a table for conventions or organizations, I’ll talk to writers and fans and gamers and nerds and costumed people and whomever I can find. The days when I’m ashamed of participating in things like this are long over (if they ever existed.) These are my people, they are nerdy and so am I. We’re all engaged in our passions and having a great time at it. If you want to make fun because some are dressed as Klingons, you are invited to kiss their bumpy asses.

Dinner and drinks with friends, hitting room parties, and so forth in my immediate future. This might be an early night. I’m still on Eastern time and I haven’t really slept much in several days. We’ll see how it goes.

My Orycon Schedule

I believe this is the most panels I’ve ever been on at a convention, six in total over the three days. I’m kind of pleased by that – if I’m flying across the country I want to be worked hard. I’m up to it. Here’s my wrapup of some good panel experiences from the last time I attended Orycon.

I’ll have the Marantz with me, and I’m planning on interviewing my ass off the whole way through. I went down the list and there are at least a dozen people that I’d be comfortable doing an impromptu interview with (many of whom I know or have previously interviewed). I’m even going to go so far as to look up all their web pages and get a little familiar with their recent work. I also plan on interviewing a lot of random fans, filkers, gamers and what have you. If you see me walking around with a microphone and want to go on record, come talk to me!

Here is my schedule. Because the email I got lost the bold formatting, I’m not sure which ones I’m moderating but I do believe at a minimum I’m moderating the writerly blogging one. I’ll have my grab bags of EGC and/or AmigoFish schwag with me at all times, so feel free to approach me with your hand out anywhere and I’ll schwag you up, boyeee (or girleee!) Note that pretty much every panel I’m on is computer related. Also I hope Cory Doctorow and I get on, because half of my panels he is a co-panelist.

Fri Nov 17 3 PM Computing Science Fiction
Room: Salon B
How computers have been portrayed in science fiction and the way
that this shows the power and limitations of science fiction as a
forecasting medium.
L. Pierce Ludke; Frank Hayes; Dave Slusher; David W. Goldman

Sat Nov 18 10 AM RSS Feeds and the New News
Room: Salon B
Where do you get your news? In this digital age you can have your
news fed right to your homepage. Maybe you want to produce your own news and
feed it to other interested parties. Our panelists will explain all the
possibilities
Cory Doctorow; Dave Slusher; David D. Levine; Joe Julian

Sat Nov 18 5 PM Computer Viruses Then and Now
Room: Medford
What has changed from the day of Melissa, Chernobyl and Michelangelo
to the present and how do you keep your computers virus free.
Michael Pearce; Ben Yalow; Frank Hayes; Michael Ehart; Dave Slusher

Sat Nov 18 6 PM The Myth of the Intelligent Machine
Room: Eugene
Our sci-fi writers and scientists team up to discuss the real and
imagined future of robots and androids and the limits of machine
intelligence with regard to concepts of free will, consciousness, etc.
David W. Goldman; Rick Lindsley; Dave Slusher; Michael A. Martin

Sun Nov 19 12 PM The Great Writers Blog
Room: Salon A
Blogging — everyone’s doing it! And blogs are a great way for
writers to chronicle their creative process and track their progress,
interact with fans and other writers, and get free publicity. So, what are
the keys to a great writer’s blog? Come to this panel and listen to some
veteran “bloggers” talk about what they’ve learned.
Cory Doctorow; Dave Slusher; Jay Lake; Mary Robinette Kowal

Sun Nov 19 2 PM Social Interaction on the Internet
Room: Portland
Everybody seems to be doing it; blogging, My Space, instant
messaging – is this the best way to keep track of family, friends and the
daily going on’s in your community in our digital age?
Cory Doctorow; Dave Slusher; Rick Lindsley; William B McDermott

OryCon

I wanted to go to Orycon, but things didn’t work out this year. I was set up on panels, but I won’t be there. Too bad. It’s been a bad, stressful week and I would have loved to have gone to Portland, hung out with my friends and generally made a time of it. Maybe next year. The worst part is not getting to see Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge. If Kelley wins the Endeavour Award, I’ll be bummed at my inability to help her celebrate.

Orycon Schedule

Today I saw my program schedule for this year’s Orycon. I have not been 100% if I would make it although I really want to, if just to hang out with Portland buds, go to Powells and see Kelley Eskridge at the Endeavor Award ceremony. This program schedule rocks! I would have been up for more, but I like all three panels. Two of the three were based on my suggestions, so it is poetic justice that I’m on them (solo at the moment.) This makes it much more likely that I’ll go, because it is cool good programming, which if the program is this organized to have a solid schedule together 2 months before the event, that suggests that maybe the convention will be quite good. I always have a good time there, even when everything falls apart, just because of hanging out with fun people. Now, even better than last year I have months to prepare for these two solo panels. I can bring an iRiver full of good OTR stuff for the Old Time Radio on MP3 panel, I can think about the Golden Age of SF panel and possibly try to recruit some other folks. Robert Sheckley will be there and I know him a little, maybe I can get him on the panel. Hell, even Hank Reinhardt of Museum Replicas will be there – he’s another person I have met in Georgia fandom. This is shaping up to be fun, folks!

Pat’s Dragon*Con Photos

My friend Rob sent me a link to these photos of Dragon*Con 2003 taken by Patman (who I envied for graduating from Georgia Tech and then making his living as an online comic book dealer). I would liked to have gone, but when you subtract hanging out with friends and the people you only see at conventions (some who live within miles of me, but I only see at cons) there is a sameness to them. These pictures are cool, but most of these photos could be from any year. Hell, some could be from every year.

Conventions without Me

I wonder how Dragon*Con went. This same weekend that I wasn’t there, I got an e-mail from Orycon about the programming survey. They are saying this is a second or later reminder, but I never got any of the earlier ones. I’m going to make a good attempt to get to Orycon again this year. I like to get back to Portland when I can. I’m not sure if my heroine Kelley Eskridge is on the final Endeavor Award ballot, but if she and Nicola Griffith are going to be there, that’s that much more reason to get myself up there. I like to have that weekend to see my friends, hang out and actually pretend to be an SF pro for a few days (the Orycon people make that easier than D*Con, that’s for sure.) My panel last year about Luddite Science Fiction remains one of my most pleasant convention experiences ever and I’d like a shot to duplicate that experience. I only wish that the convention didn’t happen out in the wilds of Jantzen Beach and was closer to downtown. More good stuff happens downtown. I do like to get back to Powells every year or two. It was amazing when I worked a short walk from there, and I never took it for granted that I was a lucky bastard that I could just take my coffee breaks at this wonderful place.

No Dragon*Con for Me

I’ve been to most Dragon*Con’s of the last decade. I missed one or two while I was living in Portland, but I went to all of them when I was doing Reality Break. That was my thing. I did live remotes at 6 in a row, as well as recording interviews for later episodes. This year – even leaving the Chicago stuff aside – I just wasn’t that into it. I had the guest paperwork which I never bothered to fill out and send back. For many years, I dutifully filled it out only to not be on any panels. The last panels I were on was in 1996, I believe. I was on one with Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies, who was a really nice guy in fact. Since then, nada. I filled out the surveys, sent them in, would get the badge but nothing else. After a while, it became kind of like a joke. I’d show up, get the free badge, hang out with my friends and drink for free in the VIP suite and that was it. I know it seems odd to not want to go to this event for free that costs $75 or $100 for everyone else, but I don’t. It’s weird. I always liked it better when Ed Kramer was in charge. For me, things were better and more fun in those days. For whatever reason, Ed always championed me and my silly radio show. He offered me the position of head of media relations in 1996, which I declined because I thought it would be tough to do from Louisiana. Silly me, you can get and send emails, faxes and phone calls from anywhere.

From a congoing perspective, I’ve been on panels at most of the OryCon’s I’ve been to, and they are uniformly better, more fun and better audiences than at D*Con. I wrote about my experiences last year in this weblog. I’m not sure if I’m going this year. I’ve stalled out on my ebook project, so I haven’t had anything to push in years. It’s more out of inertia than anything else that I keep doing this stuff. Perhaps, with the change of scenery I’ll spring back to life, have my ebook prepared by November and go to Orycon to promote it. Wouldn’t that be nice? Anyway, some of the business of decomissioning our life here had me downtown last night. Until I saw chunky people in black t-shirts walking around the streets of downtown, I had forgotten that the convention starts today. I always got my badge Thursday nights, when the VIP line was never more than 2 or three people deep. If I was going, I’d have been in the same spot, but just doing different business. Last year may have been the last I’ll attend in a while, perhaps ever. Things change, and some things just stop seeming like a good idea. I wish everyone there well and hope 20,000 people of the tribe have a great time. I’ll be having my great time in a different place, not among them.

Howard Dean Weblog

The Dean 2004 presidential campaign has a weblog. It makes for interesting reading, being able to see into the workings of a campaign like this. My small yet exhausting efforts for the Max Cleland senatorial campaign left me with great respect for the people who can pull these things off.

No Title

Another major label artists defects from the ranks: Natalie
Merchant opts to put out her own CDs
(note this is a heinous
registration required link – just put in fake info and don’t check any
of the boxes). I got this link via Boing Boing. Years ago as a
young man, 10,000 Maniacs was one of the first shows I saw at the
Cotton Club on the WREK guest list (one of at least 200 free radio
passes of my college career.) Frankly, if this new material sounds
more like My Mother the War era Maniacs and less like
pop hit Natalie, I’ll jump up and down and buy it.

No Title

I just had a sneezing fit that lasted 5 minutes, I swear. A few days ago
I was marvelling that I had remained so healthy all winter and
wondered if the flu shot had anything to do with that. Today, I feel
snotty and sneezy. Guess that answers my question.

No Title

This is something writer
Bill Shunn
posted in his group on SFF.net. He said it was making the
e-mail rounds but I’ve never gotten it this way. I can tell it is a
pretty good spoof, because when I forwarded it to myself for posting
here, SpamAssassin caught it as Nigerian spam.

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED : HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE
YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I
CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON
TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE
TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM
CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR
ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN
ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED
STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES
OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE
SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL
VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO
SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING
EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST
OF SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST,
THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS
PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF
MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN
AND JAPANESE PARTNERS. BUT MY FATHER’S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER
REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM
RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL
OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM
ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM
FROM POWER. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO
SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE
MAY COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS
($100,000,000,000 – $200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION
AND IN LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO
ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND
OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR
DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE
SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD
CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD
OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE
PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING
OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER. I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A
SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY
INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL
REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR
TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE
FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE
APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL
AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I
ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS
100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION,
PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE
MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES
WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE
CONTACT NUMBERS BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,
GEORGE WALKER BUSH

SWITCHBOARD: 202.456.1414 COMMENTS: 202.456.1111 FAX: 202.456.2461

EMAIL: PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV