Author Archives: Delores Grunion

Katie Stalin in UFO Country

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stalin

Back at the bus station, I was playing poker for vending machine sandwiches with this guy who said his name was Eddie. After I cleaned him out by winning two tuna fish and one ham-and-cheese, he told me a really weird story about how aliens came and abducted him and put a microchip in his head. He even showed me his scars. But when he offered to show me other stuff, I hit him in the jaw with a hot sauce bottle and went to catch my bus to San Francisco.

I was really excited to be heading out to the City by the Bay. Not because of Alcatraz or gay, Chinese hippies, but because I had six hours of McLaughlin Group podcasts on my D-Vice™. I just love the way he says “bye bye” at the end of each show. He’s old and wrinkly, but, hell, I’d shack up with him just because he’s so weird. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like if he took you out to dinner? I bet he drives waiters nuts.

Then I got to thinking about what Eddie told me about the aliens. Questions danced through my mind; you know like the watusi or the mashed potato. Were there really such things as aliens? Real aliens, from outer space, not the Mexican ones, which are from Mexico. I figured I would need to make a stop in Roswell, New Mexico. Back in 1947, an alien space ship crash landed there and the government lied about it. It seems that the same type of big-headed gray aliens have been coming to Earth for years to abduct people and stick medical instrument in them, kind of like dentists, but not as scary.

Unfortunately, the bus stop was thirty miles from Roswell. It seems that New Mexico is made of desert, which is like the beach, except that there aren’t any oceans nearby and there definitely aren’t any cute life guards. So, I hitchhiked for a bit. Showing a little leg worked, and I got a ride with this guy named Colonel Stevens, who told me he worked at Groome Lake and said he was in Roswell to visit relatives and not for any official purpose. He had a stupid mustache that kind of made him look gay.

Speaking of gays, I was supposed to be in San Francisco, which seemed like it would be more fun than a bunch of sand. So, I had him drop me off at the airport and I bought a plane ticket with his credit card. Maybe I shouldn’t have had his credit card, but since he totally tried to look down my shirt I stole his brief case and it had his credit card in it. I bought myself some cool stuff from the airport gift shop, too, including a decorative Las Vegas spoon made of melted poker chips.

I looked through his papers on the plane, but it was just a bunch of boring crap about “reverse engineering of alien thruster control nozzles.” Sounds stupid. Why not regular engineering? Well, I didn’t solve the mystery of aliens, but did you know that in the first class section they totally give you these awesome hot towels to put on your face? I took two and then stole all the magazines from the chair in front of me. They also give you a ton of liquor without checking your ID.

I made it to San Francisco okay, but I had to listen to this fat dude bitch about how they charged him for a second seat just because he was fat. I was pretty happy he was sitting across the aisle. It was worth it, though, because the guy sitting next to him ended up clocking him around the second hour. His name was Mark and I got his phone number before we disembarked. I’ll probably meet him at one of those places in San Francisco with a Spanish name in a couple of days.

So Roswell was pretty cool, because had I not gone there I wouldn’t be able to read this great magazine I took. It has an article about turtles and turtles are way better than aliens any day.

What’s a Telenovela?

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When I give you my money / I wanna hear you say what I want you to / And act like you mean it baby / or I won’t believe you.
Telenovela Star – Le Plum Deux

music review

I was not paid to write this review. It might seem that way because it’s glowing, but the truth is I really dig this record and I think you will, too. Now, most local bands I find intriguing see me at virtually every show they perform. Not so Telenovela Star. In the two years of their present incarnation, I’ve seen them twice; once at their debut in the trash can that is the Sibera club’s basement and once this past January at The Delancey, a wonderful club that also just happens to be in a basement.

Four years ago, when you could still enjoy a musical revue and a cigarette at the same time, I caught the previous iteration of the band, Telenovela. At the time the trio was two scruffy dudes on guitar and drums, and a chick with her hair in her face on bass. By the time I grabbed a friend for that Siberia show, two years had passed, they’d tacked “Star” onto their name and dropped the dudes. Here now was Telenovela Star with bassist and vocalist Hanna Klein, Nikkie McLeod beating the skins, and Maggie Argyros on guitar and vocals.

This past January, with a free Saturday in my pocket and braving arctic temperatures, I caught their Delancey show. There, one year after its release and directly from the band I received my first hard copy of their music: The Telenovela Star EP. Since then those tracks have accompanied me everywhere I go. I’ll tell you why.

Their vocal stylings aren’t spectacular and they’re not a flashy ensemble with themed outfits at every show or musicians who spout some bullshit concept when asked about their music. But, Telenovela Star is the epitome of “band.” Each member is a talent in their own right. No, they’re not virtuosi, but they are incredibly good. Few groups, live or recorded, possess their ability to play together, to sound like one instrument with purpose.

At the same time, their songwriting and musicality enable them to showcase one another individually. They’ll give the guitar space in one song, or emphasize the bass-percussion unit in another, or blend the instruments and vocals in such a way as to highlight the best of each. In many ways, each woman as an instrumentalist takes the styles of music prevalent around them and carries those styles forward in startling directions.

Often current guitarists are boring and uninventive. With this beautiful modern history of amazing players to learn from, you still don’t often hear great melodies or a good riff. Modern rockers present neither adaptation nor ornamentation. If you want to go local and find out for yourself, just search the rock section of MySpace, or turn to your favourite major music outlet and listen to what’s popular. It’s pathetic.

Maggie is none of these things, plus she’s from my own neighbourhood of Astoria. It’s sad that technical ability would be something notable merely for its presence, but I find it truly impressive. She’s not flashy, but her style is perfect both in and out of the context of the band. Her full-on guitar lines are hard and always to the point. And another thing: distortion. She doesn’t overdo it, she does it just right. I love distortion done just right.

telenovela star

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So You Want to Invade Long Island?

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There is only one real reason you would attempt to land a large expeditionary force in Long Island, and that is to seize New York City and possibly the port facilities in Brooklyn and New Jersey. Therefore, the following ideas will assume that that is your goal and that to achieve that goal you would need at least an Army Group (let’s say five divisions plus support and transportation units) and a large fleet of transport vessels and escorts, including a carrier group and plentiful ground-support gunships or fixed-wing craft.

The best time for an invasion would be around late summer in order to have good weather conditions for an autumn campaign. Ideally, you want to be able to seize control of New York City before the deep winter begins in January. The urban environment would provide excellent winter billets for a large army group as well as easy access to food and fuel supplies. A bitterly cold winter would be a good time for digging in, destroying bridges and establishing a defence perimeter. Snow and other adverse weather would make major sorties by enemy troops into your position difficult at best and will help to prevent overflights of your airspace by enemy units.

The first wave off the LSTs will need to be infantry or possibly marines. Thus, the Army Group should be composed of two divisions of infantry, two divisions of mobile infantry and one armoured division. The first division will secure the beachhead and allow time for some heavier equipment to be brought up. While armour will be important to repel any heavy counter attack, for the most part heavy armour will be a hindrance in the densely populated urban areas. It would be best to have light tanks and self-propelled artillery, with a few heavier tanks available to conduct coordinated attacks on strong enemy positions.

An ideal landing spot can be found just east of Northport Bay at the adjacent Crab Meadow Park, Indian Hills Country Club and Sunken Meadow State Park. While the south-eastern portion of this coast-line is marshy, the north western areas, around the golf-courses, have large open areas and massive parking lots just off the beach that will allow for easy movement of heavy equipment. Once a beachhead is established, smaller elements will need to move north to capture the US Coastguard Station on Duck Harbour Island, while other units will move south down Fort Salonga Road to secure the rail station and lines off E. Northport Road in Kings Park.

Sunday the 19th of August would be a good D-Day, as the tide will be almost seven feet just after 4am which will allow your first wave LSTs to get fairly close in to the shore. Within a few hours, once a beachhead and foothold are established, elements of one mobile infantry division will seize Macarthur airport, while the armour and other mobile infantry move via the Long Island Expressway through to the west before splitting up to take control of the ConEdison power plant and LaGuardia Airport on the north shore, as well as the shipping facilities located in New York Harbour. Engineers and support troops can then be brought up to the airports, allowing supply and reinforcement to be deployed by long-range transport aircraft.

invasion plan

Air support will be utilized to destroy bridges, rails and roadways leading into New York City, especially those that lead across the Hudson River, while fleet based gunships can be used for recon as well harassment of any enemy troop formations in the open.

In this campaign, the most important thing to remember is speed; get ashore, find your means of transport and move west. Only key points like airfields and port facilities need to be held. Other infrastructure can be destroyed, though it will be important to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties.

It is likely that there would be little resistance, allowing for high mobility. Your forces should be able to reach the East River within three days and begin setting up a first prepared position near the Hell’s Gate bridge in north-west Queens. This is the only rail bridge between Long Island and the mainland that is strong enough to carry your heavy armour. These, acting in concert with mobile infantry and air support, will be able flank north into the Bronx, to surround the island of Manhattan. With all automotive bridges and tunnels bombed, Manhattan will be effectively isolated. Heavy air support, operating from LaGuardia can establish air superiority over the harbour, allowing ships to move up the Hudson.

At this point, the civic leaders of Manhattan should be offered the choice of surrendering the city without bloodshed. This would be ideal, as the close, urban areas of Manhattan would make for chaotic CQC, which would make air or artillery support impossible. Should the city resist, it will be necessary to invade. This will slow you down. Two to three weeks of shelling, coupled with air bombardment and sorties by air cavalry troops will weaken the city and its infrastructure.

There should be few enemy troops in New York City, though there may be a large, but poorly armed and disorganized insurgency. One solution to this problem would be to order a civilian evacuation; round up all the citizens and force them to march along all major roads out of the city. Not only will this clear out many insurgents and make them more easy to identify, it will also choke the roads with refugees, delaying any enemy counterattack.

At this point you will have succeeded in your invasion. Congratulations, you have conquered New York City. Secure all important infrastructure like power plants, storage depots and communications centers and procure supplies and billets for your troops. With New York’s harbour and airports secured, the Theatre C-in-C will be able move more reinforcements and supplies with ease. Now that your objective has been met, you should probably discuss this with the Theatre Commander and find out the best way to proceed.