The Man in the Marlene Dietrich Pose and other ironies and eccentricities

The Man in the Marlene Dietrich Pose
and other ironies and eccentricities

I am sitting in a place called Tekserve. I’m waiting for my number to be called. I hold on to a green ticket with the number 19. There are also yellow tickets and red tickets and pink tickets. Every color represents a different function of Tekserve’s business. The yellow tickets, for instance, represent previously purchased computers. The red tickets represent previously purchased iPods and other accessories. Both the yellow and red ticket holders emit a sense of delight despite the waiting. That’s what Apple inspires: delight despite the waiting.
     Tekserve is otherwise known as “The Old, Reliable Mac Shop.”
     The green tickets represent repairs. In other words, major problems with expensive equipment no longer under warranty and prematurely failing. That’s what Apple inspires too. Despair, particularly in our age of nano-technology.
     I’m number 19 on the list of major problems.
     The color ticket scheme reminds me of a different time and place. If the tickets were triangles and if this were Mittel Europa some sixty years ago, the colors would represent slave populations at death camps. A yellow triangle identified a Jew. A pink triangle identified a gay man. A green triangle identified a criminal. The color codes of Auschwitz and Treblinka have become the color codes of customer service.
     Speaking of pink triangles, a gay couple sits in the Tekserve customer service area. One man – Bruce, I later learn – spills pills into the other man’s palm. Both men begin a round of pill popping, zinc and iron and magnesium and vitamins A, B and C and whatever else might be in the stash. Illicit drugs too, I later learn.
     Round two commences immediately after round one, Aspirin and Prozac and an anti-inflammatory of some kind. The two men look like a couple at the movies, sharing a bag of popcorn.
     Tekserve’s customer service area seats some twenty-five people. On this day, it’s packed. Every chair taken. Every wall space occupied. There’s a heterosexual couple with a child; both parents wear ski hats despite the sunny, 60-degree day. There’s a nanny with a sleeping baby. The man sitting beside me reads the newspaper. He wears nifty shoes. I’m tempted to offer a compliment. I’m tempted to ask where he purchased them.
     I do neither. I’m feeling very anxious and I don’t really want the conversation. My computer crashed this morning. I think the hard drive quit for good. I’m concerned about a series of files I haven’t backed up.
     I’m not the only nervous person in the customer service area. There’s a man against the wall mumbling to himself. Mumbling and slightly swaying. “How many thousands of dollars?” he mumbles. “How many thousands of dollars?”
     That’s the question on a lot of our minds.
     Green 16, the Tekserve representative shouts. Yellow 34. Pink 3.
     Three people step to the counter. Three people, previously standing against the wall, fill the empty chairs. Three new people assume the wall space. Meanwhile, in the seating area, a quarrel begins between the pill-poppers. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the sound fills the space. The issue at the core of the dispute is pill digestion, specifically the blue blob. The argument goes like this:
     “Please, Paul. It’s important.”
     Paul answers, “I can’t stand it, Bruce. I can’t stand what these pills are doing to me. I feel like a freak.”
     “What do you mean?” Bruce responds. “You’re stunning. Look at you. You’re gorgeous.”
     Paul says, “I take heavy doses of vitamin D. That causes constipation. To loosen up, I drink gallons of Metamucil. So I’m constantly urinating, or trying to. It feels like a bladder infection.”
     Paul realizes that his voice carries. He lowers the decibel level, slightly. He continues, “I’m on prescription steroids that you prescribed. I feel a difference in both my muscle mass and my mood. I take Prozac to take the edge off. Both of them kill my sex drive. Now you have me taking Viagra. Where does it stop?”
     In my effort to ignore the quarrel, I look around the space. Tekserve offers an eccentric view. There are Apple computers of all sorts for sale. There are Apple products not related to computers for sale. There’s a fish tank in the middle of the room. The interior of the tank looks like Park Avenue. Lots of space. Lots of greenery. Few inhabitants.
     There’s a functioning antique Coke machine. Ten cents for a squat-shaped bottle. There are bicycles hanging on a wall. There’s a sign in French. Je t’aime, George Bush. I love you, George Bush.
     There are three huge photographs of three original thinkers on another wall. All of the original thinkers are men. Two of them are bald. Both of the bald men are shirtless. One of the shirtless, bald men spins cotton. The other bald man places his hand against his head, striking a pose made famous by Marlene Dietrich. In their day, these two men were neighbors. Mohandas Gandhi lived in Gujarat, in western India. Mohammad Mossadegh lived in Tehran. For most of Gandhi’s life, and a good chunk of Mossadegh’s, there wasn’t a Pakistan.
     Green 17, the Tekserve representative shouts.
     The photograph of the third man offers a stark contrast. This man wears a suit. This man glows Americana. The smile on his face is radiant, translucent, knowing. He looks like he’s just won the Nobel Prize, or turned down the award as the case may be. His name is Thomas Alva Edison and in fact he rejected the Nobel Prize in physics. He didn’t want to share the award with his hated rival, Nikola Tesla. Edison could be a very cantankerous fellow.
     Green 17, a Tekserve representative shouts again. Still, nobody steps to the counter. Nobody fills the emptied chair.
     We all look around. My neighbor with the nifty shoes, the nanny with the sleeping baby, the mumbling man, myself – in fact, virtually everyone looks toward the Tekserve representative. Green 17 once, he shouts. Green 17 twice. Green 17 gone. Green 18?
     The heterosexuals in ski hats step to the counter. Their seats open up. Their seats are instantly filled. Two wall spaces open up. Two wall spaces are instantly taken.
     The quarrel between the gay couple escalates. The argument goes like this:
     “I don’t want that one,” Paul says, still reacting to the blue blob.
     “Why?” Bruce responds.
     “I just don’t.”
     “What does that mean, Paul? Listen, I want you to eat it. I like you big and buff and burgeoning.”
     “No,” Paul says.
     “Paul,” Bruce pleads.
     “No,” Paul says.
     “Paulie-lolly.”
     “No.”
     “Paulie-dolly.”
     “Stop it,” Paul says. “People are watching.”
     True. We all are.
     “Good,” Bruce responds. “I’m going to sing.”
     “You’re embarrassing me,” Paul says.
     “‘I want you to want me,’” Bruce sings.
     “Shut up,” Paul says, though without any kind of authority.
     “‘I need you to need me,’” Bruce sings.
     “Shut up,” Paul says, and he’s nearly laughing.
     “‘I’d love you to love me,’” Bruce sings.
     “Stop already,” Paul says.
     “Only if you swallow,” Bruce answers.
     Paul looks at the pill in his own palm. His eyes seem to drill into it, to rip it apart. “‘I’m begging you to beg me,’” Bruce sings.
     Paul lifts the pill to his mouth. “I hope you’re happy,” he says. He tosses it in and swallows. A Coke chaser follows the Viagra.
     Red 63, the Tekserve representative shouts. Yellow 35. Green 19. He sounds like the quarterback for the local football team, calling out signals at the line of scrimmage.
     I step to the counter. I don’t notice the action behind me. Who takes my seat? Who takes that person’s wall space? My thoughts are now specifically on my hard drive. The computer expert takes my computer to the diagnosis corner. My eye goes back to the man in the Marlene Dietrich pose.
     For a good chunk of Mohammad Mossadegh’s life, Iran was a carved nation. The British in the south, the Soviets in the north, a young emperor – a puppet placating the occupying forces – named Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, or the Shah of Iran, administering to the native population.
     Mossadegh helped to change the fractured structure of his country. He won a national election – a democratic election as free as any American presidential vote. Mossadegh became prime minister. The year was 1951. Mossadegh was a nationalist. He wanted an Iran for Iranians. He wanted Iranians to own the country’s oil. He found support in the government of Harry Truman. Time Magazine named him Man of the Year.
     In the United States presidential election of 1952, Harry Truman decided not to run. When Harry Truman left office, the last of the anti-colonialists left too. Truman’s successor, Dwight Eisenhower, promised to end the Korean War. Behind the scenes, his top administrators, the Brothers Dulles (John Foster as secretary of state, Allen as director of the CIA), revised the policies of Cold War America. To counter the expansionist-minded Soviet Union, the United States turned expansionist-minded. The once colonized became the colonizer.
     In 1953, the Brothers Dulles, at the behest of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, decided to move against Mohammad Mossadegh. The reason was simple. Mossadegh wanted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the future British Petroleum. That would have meant major losses for Britain.
     The Brothers Dulles implemented the first CIA-led coup, known as Operation Ajax. CIA agents went around the main bazaar in Tehran handing out $100 bills. Anyone who shouted, “Long live the Shah” received a Benjamin Franklin. A mob mentality ensued. The CIA had a skeletal crew in place. The mob mentality could have spiraled in any direction.
     Meanwhile, the Shah of Iran fled to Rome. He feared his own head might roll, if the mob mentality spiraled in that direction. The mob mentality didn’t spin that way. The Shah returned to Iran once he got the all clear from the CIA.
     While the mob mentality ruled the streets, a Colonel named Nassiri, who would later direct the Shah’s brutal police force, arrested Mossadegh. Mossadegh spent the rest of his life in house arrest. He died in 1967.
     Ajax became the apex. From here, the CIA set it sights on Lumumba in the Congo and Allende in Chile and Castro’s exploding cigar. Just to name a few.
     Pink 4, the Tekserve representative shouts. Red 64. Green 20.
     The computer expert returns from the diagnosis corner. My hard drive is somewhat salvageable, it turns out. Not totally defunct, as I’d anticipated. My logic board is totally defunct. My computer is visually impaired. If it sounds a little like a drunk driver, the computer expert even makes a joke to that effect. I laugh.
     I decide to buy a new computer. The Tekserve computer expert walks me over to the Tekserve sales representative. The eyes of Edison, Gandhi and Mossadegh follow my movements. As Tekserve dings my credit card something severe, my eye again goes to the man in the Marlene Dietrich pose. What would Iran look like today without the CIA-led coup of 1953? Without American support, would the Shah have been able to consolidate power? Or would the popular and populist Mossadegh have instigated a democratic culture? In that eventuality, with a deposed Shah living in Europe, what would have happened to the Khomeini revolution? Would an Iranian democracy have been strong enough to hold off the Ayatollah and the age of Sharia? Would there have been American hostages in 1979-1981? Without American hostages, would Ronald Reagan have become president? Would the Reagan years have become the Bush years have become the Bush years? Would America become the colonial power in Iraq?
     Je t’aime, George Bush.
     The irony is thick. In the buildup to his invasion of Iraq, George Bush promised to bring democracy to the Middle East. And when detractors argued that democracy wouldn’t work in the Middle East (witness war-torn Lebanon), George Bush couldn’t even point to the one successful democratic election in the extended region. Had he, George Bush would have been admitting that a past Republican administration brought down a democratically-elected leader in favor of a totalitarian regime for nothing other than oil.
     The ignorance is even thicker. If George Bush walked into Tekserve, would he be able to identify the second bald man (I’m assuming he could identify Gandhi)? Has George Bush ever heard of Mohammad Mossadegh? Overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggests an answer. George Bush lives in a world of other Mohammads: Mohammad Atta, Mohammad Atef, Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Mohammad Omar. His knowledge of history begins on September 11, 2001.

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The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher

The Man in the Marlene Dietrich Pose and other ironies and eccentricities