Slashdot Mirror
Little Green Men
John O. "Jack" Banion is a man of fearsome power. A combination of Larry King and Bill O'Reilly, he hosts a pompous Sunday morning "issues" talk show that is the hub of Washington media. Politicians hate him, but need him. The dowdy matrons of beltway society fall over themselves to get him to attend their dinner parties. He has the luxury of dismissing millions of dollars in endorsements as beneath his lofty station. In an early scene, the President appears on his show and gets treated with righteous disdain, about which he privately muses "Presidents come and go."
Banion's life is filled with stifling protocols that he has fully embraced. He has few passions -- his wife seems happily neglected, the arts bore him, he doesn't even truly care about the politics he is immersed in, except to the extent that he wields influence over it. Even his cynicism rings hollow.
Enter one Nathan Scrubbs, a frustrated, mid-level, black-ops bureaucrat and professional alien abductor for an unmentionable government program called MJ-12. For years, Scrubbs has located prime abductee candidates: those who are personally reliable and believable, yet have the social and educational standing that would cause the media to doubt their veracity -- that is to say, trustworthy rubes. He orders their abductions with bored detachment, then monitors the media reaction to ensure that there is just a subtle but consistent undercurrent of belief that can be used for various manipulative purposes (bolstering the defense budget, scaring the Russians, funding satellites, etc.).
But Scrubs is bitter. He dreams of being a CIA field op, but was rejected by the agency. His job is a dead end. He can't advance, can't transfer, can't even talk about it with anyone. So one Sunday morning, blind drunk on Bloody Marys, while watching Banion's talk show, he authorizes a rogue abduction of Banion.
Banion goes public about his abduction and finds himself outcast from his elite circles while Scrubbs flees for his life from his own agency. Not surprisingly, events spiral out of control and the fates of Scrubbs and Banion intertwine. No more hoaxing unsuspecting rednecks, or manipulating meaningless government policies; for the first time in their lives they find there are deadly serious consequences to their actions. The collision of the contemptuous gravitas of the political actors with the madcap world of UFO conspiracists provides ample opportunity to compare the two and leave us wondering which one is sillier.
As a former speechwriter for Bush the Elder, Buckley, the editor of Forbes FYI, is very assured in lampooning the Washington DC aristocracy he is undoubtedly familiar with. He perfectly captures the egos behind the noble facades in the degrade-or-be-degraded Capitol high society. After his on-air flaying of the President, Banion is greeted by other power players at an elite dinner party.
But here was Tony Flemm, host of the second-rated Washington show, trying not to look jealous. "Jack. Nice show."
"Do you think? I don't know."
That's right, torture the poor bastard, make him explain, make him elaborate in front of everyone on just why he though it was such a good show. But wait, here came Burt Galilee, beaming, shaking his head in mock horror at Banion's ruffling of presidential eagle feathers. And here, just behind him, came the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and behind him, the French ambassador. A triumph.
Buckley is equally sardonic with the abductee population, yet, perhaps because they are painfully sincere despite their silliness, they are treated with a bit less vitriol.
Another of [hypnotherapist Bart Hupkin's] regressees shared her breakthrough of wrapping herself in cellophane, which, like panty hose, made it more difficult for the aliens to drive home their vile phallic probes. She noted that this also helped with weight loss. Another abductee announced that she was depressed because she missed her alien children. The father had, contrary to their joint custody arrangement, taken them off to the Pleiades with a "slut" from Aldebran. Hupkin said she should not take this personally. Aliens were notoriously problematic when it came to commitment.
Banion left the workshop unable to shake the feeling that there was something lacking in these people's lives...Banion had to keep reminding himself that the early Christians must have been an odd bunch, too.
As with any satire of length, the droll commentary can only take you so far; then you need characters that can carry the story. Though both are essentially passionless cynics at heart, Banion and Scrubbs flesh out fairly well. A central irony: Banion finds zeal for the abductee movement that he never experienced in the "serious" world of politics, and Scrubbs finally gets a taste undercover agent life as he flees the wrath of MJ-12. The plot runs a bit low on steam towards the end, but by that time we are, if not sympathetic for, at least interested enough in Banion and Scrubbs to want to know how it all ends.
Buckley takes an unbiased approach to satire. He is non-partisan regarding politics or social standing; he punctures the pretentious and skewers the self-important wherever he finds them. If you would rather be amused than disgusted with the inanity you read in the news or see on TV, Little Green Men is for you.
You can purchase Little Green Men from bn.com; (Note the remaindered price of $3.99 for the hardcover). Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
REAL (mac) nerds will remember little green man or LGM as the abbreviation for the BOLO dude that you could send out of your tank.
:-)
Those wree the days. Nothing more fun than locking the LGM between 4 blocks
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Why are they little *green* men? Why not blue? Where did that start?
Learn how a CPU works before you learn to program. Seriously.
I actually forgot I read this book for a moment till I started reading the review. Slashdot needs to examine its flux-capacitors, there must be some sort of time shift going on here.
Greetings, Earth being! I am an energy-based life form. I have transformed myself into this message so that I might communicate with you. Right now, I am having fun with your eyeballs. I know you are enjoying it because you are smiling!
Please moderate me to a +5 so that I may have fun with as many Slashdotters as possible.
I live in a giant bucket.
by same author (here)
A *much* better read in my opinion, and funny as hell.
Art Bell is modeled after the now famous Happy Harry Cox. Harry Cox is a new age investigator from the Firesign Theater album Everything You Know Is Wrong.
You want satire? Get a copy today.
Harry Cox lives in a trailor house, so does Art Bell.
Harry Cox broke news of a comet coming, so did Art Bell.
The album was made in 1975. Firesign Theater is and was years ahead.
Actually I think it was 1999. If you want to read something even older and I think better from Buckley check out 'Thank You for Smoking'.
I think Thank You For Smoking is a better (and funnier) book by the same author. Good stuff: "death" lobbyists, advertising, evil plots, dangerous nicotine patches, etc. etc.
Seconded. What a fun book. :-)
For something slightly newer, check out "God Is My Broker", also by Buckley. It's a short novel formatted to spoof self-help books.
One of the things I found really amusing about "Little Green Men" is that the main character, while partly based in Tim Russert and David Brinkley, he was obviously also drawn heavilly from William F. Buckley, the author's father. The idea that he would subject his well-respected dad's fictional proxy to an alien anal probe, for the sake of a cheap laugh, somehow strikes me as even funnier because of this context.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I wouldn't bother coming to Earth.
Why not? It's mostly harmless.Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
... Little Green Men is a great book, as is Thank You for Smoking. Christopher Buckley is a master of taking all the things we know about our ridiculous society and placing them in front of us so clearly that we cannot help but laugh at the satire. I highly recommend him to anyone that doesn't mind poking a finger at life in America.
Liora
And thus America & England began their meddling in the middle east. One of the first missions of our CIA and England's MI-5 (6?), around the same time as the creation of Israel, was to "neutralize" Iran's democratically elected President. A movement was born, and 26 years the Islamic Fundamentalists took over Iran. We couldn't have that, so we armed Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile we were still arming and funding Israel, so Saddam turned on us. There's a similar story with bin Laden & other mujahadeen. What a fucking comedy of errors this has become.
But none of this can possibly be true, since Bush informed us that Arabs are just jealous of our freedoms. Keep driving your SUVs, you fucking sheep.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Is that because Timothy thinks the elder Buckley is funny, too, or is Timothy a right wing nut?
What the... I believe some of us are 3 years ahead of this article...what's a jigowatt?
Timothy is only capable of dealing with one Buckley at a time. Perhaps when William F. Buckley Jr. kicks the bucket, he can transfer his monogomous Buckley interests to Christopher...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Oh no! Someone is trying to distract us with...with...the TRUTH! Quick--somebody start waving the flag or something! The American Way of Life (TM) must be preserved! Won't someone please think of the economy?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
To avoid confusion with the Blue Men Group maybe...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Fortunately, no humans (except dead humans) are grey, so that skin tone was available.
I guess you haven't met some of our IT staff here. I think a few of them haven't seen the sun in several decades, and have a nicotine coating which dulls their skin hue. That or they ARE aliens, I just always assumed that their personal quirks were an old IT-admin thing...
That explains that odd probe-like tool in the PC fixit kit - phorm
shit, rory?
Timothy probably likes left-wing nuts too. After all, Buckley may be funny, but Noam Chomsky is pure comic genius!
N/T
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
If you don't stop that, I'll go blind.
-- clvrmnky
Wasn't Majestic 12 (MJ-12) the big bad organization in Deus Ex? I realize that game borrowed form conspiracy theories in general, and Illuminati stuff specifically, but did it and this book come up with MJ-12 separately? Or is this based on another black ops conspiracy theory, independent of the two stories, I've not heard of?
I wouldn't bother coming to Earth.
Why not? It's mostly harmless.
We get it, you've read The Hitchikers Guide.
Christ.
This book came out three or four years ago. Slashdot a bit behind the timeS?
nein, ist karl
Many people have remarked that had he never entered the field of political commentary, he would perhaps been even more successful as a novelist. John Kenneth Galbraith, who is nearly WFB's political opposite, amusingly put it this way:Even barring WFB's excellent political works (which all exhibit the unerring logic and rationality of the true conservative position as opposed to that of the fickle and weak-willed Republican party), there is much here for all that enjoy good literature: His collection of books chronicling his several ocean crossings under sail are unlike anything else, and positively overflow with the joy he finds in life. His series of spy novels centered around the fictional Blackford Oakes, while not the absolute best of thier genre (I prefer Forsythe and Ludlum), hold their own quite well against others that have managed to claim the number spot on the NY Times bestseller list.
So, bottom line, there's good news for those of you that have not done the rigorously rational and thorough thinking required to become a "right wing nut": Even liberals can enjoy the work a a gifted wordsmith. (Or perhaps even socialists, to the very limited degree they're able to enjoy anything at all...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Why does this remind me about a certain Norman Spinrad book?
I think it was called "Bug Jack Barron" though i might be wrong...
Let me second that. Thank You for Smoking is very sharp, very funny. Was perhaps a little more topical in the months leading up to the tobacco lawsuit, but it'd still be a great read today.
Thank You for Smoking, a biting satire of the cigarette industry.
dark green ones come from the left,
light green ones, come from the right.
Right?
Rwe obliged 2 save our future by choosing:O3 hole-greenhouse effect instead of accepting everydays gossip-nonsense chat?