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I KNOW YOU AND your ingenius plan have been mocked and some critics have even set up an Operation Tips Web site to encourage people to spy on the very people who would spy on other people. But I want to help.
My problem is that in my current occupation—my job description refers to me as a “Guy Who Sits Around Commenting on Everything”—I really don’t come in contact with people, and if I did, they certainly wouldn’t be the really nasty people who are secret al Qaeda operatives.
Or wouldn’t I? Recent census data indicate that my neighborhood in Brooklyn is home to more writers, artists, musicians, and other cultural elites than any other area of the country. Clearly, I live in the middle of a seething hotbed (is there any other kind of hotbed?) of liberal, anti-government orthodoxy.
If that’s true, Mr. Attorney General, there must be dozens of would-be terrorist operatives living around me, people who look like patriotic Americans but are really evil-doers. So given my proximity to these would-be terrorists, I decided to drop by my friends’ houses to do a little Operation Tips-type snooping. Here’s my report:
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Apartment of E.Z., Jane Street: Just one look at my friend’s record collection and I knew I was in a nest of anti-government hate. E.Z.’s CD tower was filled with maudlin singer-songwriters from the folk (read: agitprop) tradition. I’m talking angry young men like Freedy Johnston, Billy Bragg and Aimee Mann (who’s not a man, at all, but she’s really bitter about men). In E.Z.’s bathroom, there was a towel stolen from the Plaza Hotel. (First a towel, then what? A vial of smallpox from the Centers for Disease Control? Don’t underestimate this threat. Have you ever successfully gotten a towel out of the Plaza? If you can do that, you’re capable of anything.) In her closet, I even found a feather boa, which may not be evidence of terrorism, but it does confirm a rumor that my friend stars nightly as a woman playing a man playing a woman playing a man in an all-gay “Victor/Victoria” theme show on Christopher Street. I realize she’s gotten good reviews, but what do the critics know?
Apartment of D.S., St. Johns Street: My friend D.S. has filled his upstairs “office” with guitars that he claims he’s using for some upcoming “music project.” But a quick check of his record collection revealed a lifelong affinity for The Grateful Dead. Do I have to spell it out, Mr. Ashcroft? Guitars plus Dead equals marijuana. Not to tell you how to do your job, but if you pin a pot rap on this arty wimp, he’s just one secret military tribunal away from spilling the beans on everything.
Apartment of E.B., Front Street: This place once had an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center. Now it’s chock full of tips, starting with a glass case containing an action figure of a professional wrestler named, ominously, The Iron Sheik. The doll is wearing trunks that say “Iran No. 1” on the side and E.B. has arranged him so that he is performing a drop kick on a much-smaller Ronald Reagan doll. That’s really nasty, if you ask me. In another cabinet I found the full, five-hour tape collection of the week John Lennon and Yoko Ono hosted “The Mike Douglas Show” and made a mockery of the entire talk-show format. A copy of Machiavelli’s “The Prince” was sitting on a little table next to the toilet. If that seminal work of politics and power is this man’s bathroom reading, imagine what he’s capable of. E.B. even has a map of the world from the 1940s that does not include Israel on it, clearly evidence of Palestinian cartographic leanings. And he has every CD recorded by Yo La Tengo, which, as you know, roughly translates to “I Hate America.”
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Apartment of S.D. and P.L.: First, I checked out the medicine cabinet, where I found over-the-counter treatment for P.L.’s notoriously weak stomach. I checked the active ingredients and then found a popular neo-Nazi Web site that said that if you grind up Lactaid and Beano pills and mix them with common garden fertilizer, you get a powerful explosive. Later, I noticed a pair of S.D.’s mirrored Giorgio Armani aviator-style sunglasses. I’m not sure if that’s evidence of terrorist activity, but it is an indicator of a dated fashion sense. And throughout my inspection, I couldn’t make one move without this huge, hyperactive cat jumping all over me, clear evidence that al Qaeda has moved on from experimenting on dogs and is now tinkering with local felines.
Apartment of R.S., 9th Street: Forget about the obvious evidence of clandestine activity, I could not ignore the fact that my friend is paying close to $1,500 a month for what is basically a closet with running water. If she could be so easily bamboozled by a real estate broker, clearly she’s an easy mark for other terrorists.
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Newsweek.MSNBC.com
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Click on a section below for more News:
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Oh, and one other thing, Mr. Attorney General: Every single one of my friends had their original, double-album copy of “Frampton Comes Alive!” Were it not for Operation Tips, I might have ignored this critical piece of evidence, but the song titles from this seminal live album of the 1970s jumped out at me. Suddenly, I saw the hidden meanings behind the hits “Do You Feel Like I Do” (obviously an al Qaeda loyalty oath that you can dance to), “Show Me The Way” (clearly a sing-a-long tribute to that hip dude, Allah) and “Baby I Love Your Way” (most likely a heartfelt, if awkwardly phrased, love ballad from Osama bin Laden to one of his wives).
As you can see, all of my friends are potentially members of sleeper cells. I hope this information has been useful to you and your ceaseless struggle to make America safe.
Yours,
Gersh
Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His Web site is at http://www.gersh.tv
© 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
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Perspectives
