Strip Club Flag Wars

n the days since the National Tragedy of September 11, when real estate prices in lower Manhattan took a tumble, every business and home in the U.S. has been displaying the American flag in an effort to show their patriotism and shame anyone without a flag into running to their local Wal-Mart or Raley's in hopes of finding some cheap Taiwanese facsimile of the Stars and Stripes. Here in San Francisco, the Flag Wars have erupted between two competing strip clubs within a block of each other, and the fighting promises to get nasty as the weeks wear on.

At the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater, three full-size flags have been flying proudly above the marquee, which announces the latest show as "Red, White and Nude." We spoke with owner Jim Mitchell, who said "Actually, it's more correctly known as the Mitchell BROTHER Theater these days, ever since I shot ol' Artie back in the early '90s and spent a few years in the joint for it. But anyway… yeah, we figured the right thing to do was to fly the flag in honor of all those potential lap-dance patrons that will now never know the pleasure of having a fine peroxided blonde with silicone hooters sit down and try to cajole twenty-dollar bills out of them for a minimum of sexual contact. It seemed like the least we could do, given the circumstances."

To that end, Mitchell installed two flagpoles on either side of the existing one above the marquee, and is now flying the flag in triplicate. "We've got three," he pointed out, standing on the sidewalk in front of the theater, where two of his surgically-enhanced bimbos and a male bouncer were taking a cigarette break. "That club down on Larkin," he added, referring to the New Century Theater, "only has two."

At the New Century, no one would comment, except to say that they were "just as goddamned patriotic as that bastard Jim Mitchell, who can come down here and kiss my red, white and blue ass." This reporter did note, however, that there were only two American flags flying above their marquee, which advertised "Girl on Girl Shows" and "Bachelor Parties Welcome." It also appeared that one of the dancers at the New Century was wearing a G-string with a stars and stripes motif, but it was extremely dark, so it could have been something else.

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If reader email and misguided public graffiti is to be taken as any indication, all the hullabaloo and carryings-on in Haiti lately have left most Americans feeling like they just walked in during the middle of a bad action movie with no idea why these strange people are shooting each other. Is it good? Is it bad? If they make it into a movie will they be able to put Tom Sizemore in blackface? Slow down with the questions, anxious readers, I'm only half-listening.

The history of Haiti is a fascinating story with plenty of R-rated action and a weak love interest subplot to please the ladies in the audience, the story of a country that Earl Dittman of Wireless magazine called "Heaven on earth. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll laugh at all the people crying." Though if you only like stories where the good guys win in the end, you might want to read about Germany instead. I won't hold it against you.

Haiti started out as a big tropical ball of fun whose main exports were beach volleyball and smiling people. Things stayed pretty much the same until 1492, when Christopher Columbus cruised up in his boat and hopped out to take a piss. Columbus had this weird thing about not pissing in the ocean, because he figured eventually it's all part of the water cycle and he didn't like drinking piss. So needless to say, all of Columbus' voyages took forever because he was constantly stopping off at every island along the way that looked like it might be an okay place to take a leak.

But what might have been an inconsequential pit stop in the annals of history turned into much more than that when Columbus looked around and realized he was pissing on a tropical paradise. Lush and beautiful, 13th century Haiti (then known as "here") was something of a Garden of Eden, populated by natives Columbus described as "the best people in the world. Just really fucking nice." Loving, agreeable and above all trusting, the native Taino ("We live here") people didn't even mind that Columbus was pissing on their beach.

Columbus was so impressed with the natives and the beautiful island that he returned in 1493 and killed nearly everyone there. Those who managed to hide under rocks through the Spanish invasion and genocide heaved a collective sigh of relief when the French took over in 1697, a tactical mistake since the sighers were found out, tortured, and killed under the equal tyranny of French rule. By then it mattered little, however, since the population at that time was made up mainly of slaves imported from western Africa to work on the island's plantations.

A slave rebellion in the 1790's eventually lead to Haitian independence, which survived through multiple coups, assassinations and general bastardry until 1915, when the US decided to put the Haitians out of their misery by occupying the country and keeping the profits for themselves. Despite the fact that the US pretended to leave in 1934, not much changed in the next sixty years, with one US-supported insane bastard after another controlling the country and killing everyone who looked like they thought the system sucked.

Numerous attempts at free elections occurred during the 1980's, each falling just short of success due to the fact that anyone attempting to vote was shot dead by the army. Haiti made People Magazine's prestigious "100 Most Hellish Places" list for the first time in 1982, coming in just behind North Korea and "that pollutiony town from The Lorax."

Despite the US spin that "everything was cool" in Haiti and the production of placating educational films with titles like Rockin' in the Nineteen Haitis, rebellion continued as Haitians stubbornly insisted on crawling out from under the crushing boot heel of Western occupation. By 1990, Haiti had decided they would no longer model their elections on the example of the US South circa 1954, and finally succeeded in electing a president who wasn't killed during Election Day. Parish priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the surprise winner, despite his support for the poor and lack of US permission to be president.

The US acted quickly in response to Aristide's election, revealing that the 1972 Carly Simon hit "You're So Vain" was actually a biting critique of the self-absorbed Catholic priest. Unfortunately for the US efforts aimed at discrediting Aristide, nobody in Haiti could understand the song because it was in English, and a French-language version of the song was scrapped because it sounded really fruity.

Failing at ousting the elected Haitian ruler through song, the US resorted to its old tricks, backing a military coup to have Aristide removed from power in 1991. Despite seven months of freedom and representative government, Haitians had to wonder if it was all worth it when everyone who'd voted for Aristide was killed after the president's fall in 1991. The coup regime was so nasty, in fact, that it inspired an international embargo so strict it allowed only US companies to do business with Haiti thereafter, resulting in record profits for US interests.

US businesses had long been attracted to Haiti because of ridiculously low wages, thanks to Haiti's brilliant ploy of not paying workers anything, instead just sending thugs to collect money from anyone who didn't work in the whoopie cushion or dog bowl factories. Haiti became basically one big magic company, cranking out baseballs, rubber snakes, and those little plastic donkey toys that collapse when you press the button on the bottom, all virtually for free. Those annoying "I exploited impoverished workers in Haiti and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" shirts became very popular among the elite and were seen on golf courses across America all through the 80's and 90's.

Eventually the coup regime got too insane, declaring Tuesdays as "shoot everybody" day, and the US decided to install Aristide back in power, as long as he didn't have a problem with continuing US military occupation of Haiti or unending economic exploitation. Aristide was happy just to see the sun again, as he'd spent the last three years in a lead box dangling over the ocean.

So what in the hell is going on now? Why are all these guys running around with machine guns and funny hats? Apparently Aristide pulled the boner move of increasing Haiti's minimum wage, building schools and investing in the Haitian infrastructure and agriculture. Such hubris had pissed off the Bush administration for years, leading this month to another US-supported coup and the covered-up kidnapping of Aristide himself.

So now that the insane coup regime is back in power, where does Haiti go from here? Yikes, don't ask me. Just don't go to Haiti on a Tuesday and you should be fine.

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Like many of you, I was quite thrilled to see the final installment in the Star Wars prequelogy, a word I have just now made up. Not only because I'm the world's biggest Star Wars fan, a fact which I have long concealed so as to be spared from the Star Wars jibes of my enemies, but also because I anxiously await to see all the chronology errors Lucas creates with his prequel changes. But this you may already know.

I waited in a long, long line with my midnight-showing ticket, carrying my own homemade lightsaber (actually works) and dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi (young version, of course); I was not dressed, as the two pricks in line behind me joked, as "the galaxy's fattest Jedi." But regardless of the opinions of two pricks, I had quite a nice time, really enjoyed the movie, and was happy to see it made so much money over the weekend. Can you imagine what it would have made if Internet Pirates hadn't cut into the proceeds by releasing an illegal copy?

As someone who hates to pay for things, I have always advocated the free trade of music and other materials. But I draw the line at Star Wars movies before they have even left the box office—even finished their opening night take. I have it on good authority from some guy whose name I didn't catch that George Lucas has lost his ass on all the Star Wars movies, trading off what could have been a fortune for useless "merchandizing rights." Tsk-tsk. Worse than that even, the studio paid him all the gross in Republic credits, which were, of course, about as useful as confederate money after the Empire took over. A damn shame.

The plot grows even more insidious. Up to two weeks before the movie even came out, I found a version of it available for download—you heard me right. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was on the Net two weeks before it premiered in theaters. The version I found starred all Lego people, and ended with a gratuitous homosexual love scene between Anakin and Chewbacca. You can imagine I, as a Star Wars purist, was quite outraged, sir, which prompted me to call Skywalker Ranch and get it verified this was not the authorized print. My faith was renewed, even if Lucas just rushed out a different cut with the homosexual love scene removed, and starring flesh-and-blood people. But to be scooped in such a fashion must have been very frustrating for Mr. Lucas.

Perhaps the industry has a point about the dangers of Internet Pirates. I remember all the problems we at the commune had with Internet Pirates years back, when we were launching our first commune site. A filthy swab by the name of Nanobeard came in and stole all our swag before we had a chance to even publish. Two years worth of my columns were plundered, and brutally gutted for verbs right before my eyes. I sat back with our tech programmer Cubby and watched the brutality as they tore holes through our firewalls and made short work of our defenses. If you ask me, Mazie the Chicken's Fortune 500 Cookies made a lot more sense before those pirates scared the bejesus out of her.

Still, I can't bemoan the past. A later addition to our tech team, Glynis Pogue, is quite the Internet Pirate hunter, and usually it turns out up to 75% of them were former Net boyfriends of hers. We're pirate safe—at last. It doesn't mean Hollywood is yet pirate-proof against the likes of Nanobeard and his ilk.

So please, don't watch your movies on the Internet—you could be taking the gruel right out of some millionaire Hollywood producer's mouth without even knowing it. And word to the wise: the homosexual love scenes are often removed when they go to the theaters.

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