Every time I read over that February 1986 speech by President Reagan about Jack Dempsey, I "remember" something Jim Shea said. In my artificial and symbolic memory, my roommate off-base and USS Wainwright co-worker Jim Shea, native of Hollywood, Florida, bought a fish tank. He told me how fun it was to throw in a fish that was called a Jack Dempsey and to watch that big Jack Dempsey fish eat the other little fish in the tank. He said it was better than watching cable television. I suspect it has something to do with me being forced to fight in a cage when I was a POW in Libya and they were televising the fights on satellite. I guess they were broadcasting the fights to the Soviet Union and the U.S. military was intercepting the signals and President Reagan was monitoring the broadcasts.
Remarks to Citizens in St. George's, Grenada
February 20th, 1986
Thank you very much, Prime Minister Blaize, Governor-General Scoon, distinguished Prime Ministers, and my dear Grenadian friends. I bring you the good will and affection of the people of the United States. It is my honor to be on this platform with these Caribbean leaders. We stand before you as friends who share a fundamental belief in democracy. Our commitment to humane and representative government is stronger than any tyrant's chains. And I'm certain that my colleagues approve when I say to you, we are grateful to God, today, that Grenada is once again safely within the ranks of free nations.
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There is a story, perhaps it's a legend, that in 1933 a group of young boys were in a swimming race across your harbor. And in the midst of the race, according to the story, to the horror of the crowd that watched, a shark appeared and surfaced directly under one young swimmer. For a few terrorizing minutes, the boy was carried on the back of the shark until the shark hit a wharf, and the boy was knocked to safety and pulled out of the water by his friends and neighbors. Well, dear people of Grenada, for a time it appeared that you were like that boy riding on the back of a shark. Your friends held their breath hoping and praying for you. And it was our honor to help you get off the shark. And we're—all of us up here—we're just glad we got here before it was time for his supper.
Address to the Nation on National Security February 26th, 1986
My fellow Americans:
I want to speak to you this evening about my highest duty as President: to preserve peace and defend these United States.
But before I do, let me take a moment to speak about the situation in the Philippines. We've just seen a stirring demonstration of what men and women committed to democratic ideas can achieve. The remarkable people of those 7,000 islands joined together with faith in the same principles on which America was founded: that men and women have the right to freely choose their own destiny. Despite a flawed election, the Filipino people were understood. They carried their message peacefully, and they were heard across their country and across the world. We salute the remarkable restraint shown by both sides to prevent bloodshed during these last tense days. Our hearts and hands are with President Aquino and her new government as they set out to meet the challenges ahead. Today the Filipino people celebrate the triumph of democracy, and the world celebrates with them.
One cannot sit in this office reviewing intelligence on the military threat we face, making decisions from arms control to Libya to the Philippines, without having that concern for America's security weigh constantly on your mind. We know that peace is the condition under which mankind was meant to flourish. Yet peace does not exist of its own will. It depends on us, on our courage to build it and guard it and pass it on to future generations. George Washington's words may seem hard and cold today, but history has proven him right again and again. "To be prepared for war," he said, "is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." Well, to those who think strength provokes conflict, Will Rogers had his own answer. He said of the world heavyweight champion of his day: "I've never seen anyone insult Jack Dempsey."
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So, our defense program must rest on these principles. First, we must be smart about what we build. We don't have to copy everything the Soviets do. We don't have to compete on Soviet terms. Our job is to provide for our security by using the strengths of our free society. If we think smart enough, we don't have to think quite so big. We don't have to do the job with large numbers and brute force. We don't have to increase the size of our forces from 2 million to their 5 million as long as our military men and women have the quality tools they need to keep the peace. We don't have to have as many tanks as the Soviets as long as we have sophisticated antitank weapons.
This means something too, but I can't remember what it is precisely. It has something to do with me as a POW in Libya but I can't quite remember what it was he wanted to point out. Something about how I kept winning no matter what they threw into the cage with me.
Remarks at a White House Briefing for Supporters of United States Assistance for the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance
March 10th, 1986
Thank you very much. [Applause] Why do I wish you were all in the Congress? [Laughter] Well, the matter that brings us here today is, of course, a very grave one. I know how hard many of you've worked on this issue and how strongly you agree with me about its importance. As a matter of fact, here I am preaching to the choir.
But looking around this room today, I can't help but remember that story about the fellow who in later life was the only living survivor of the Johnstown flood. And he was frequently asked to speak, and finally he got to being out on the lecture tour and was practically making his living just telling his memories of that great disaster. And then came the day when he met his heavenly reward, and he went up there. But pretty soon he kind of began pestering St. Peter about maybe setting up a date or two up there so that he could tell about the Johnstown flood. Well, St, Peter said that the people up there did like to hear from recent arrivals about how things were down here, so he set it up for him. He got all the saints and prophets and seraphim and cherubim together to hear the Johnstown flood story, and then he, St. Peter, introduced this veteran of the flood. And as the veteran stepped up to the podium, St. Peter whispered in his ear, "That fellow in the first row, second from the aisle, is named Noah." [Laughter]
Well, looking around this room today, I see a lot of Noahs when I'm talking about the Communist menace in Central America, so I don't think any of you need a long lecture on the realities at hand. This is an uphill battle in which we're engaged, but we're making progress. You can sense that the tide is turning in favor of the democratic resistance. Farsighted Democrats and Republicans are coming together in a realization of the common danger, and this is not some narrow partisan issue. It's a national security issue of paramount importance: whether the Soviet Union will be permitted to establish a subversive base camp and military beachhead on the mainland of North America. On this issue we must act not as Republicans—or not as Democrats, but as Americans. As Scoop Jackson, who led the charge on Capitol Hill to save Central America, reminded us: "In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics." So, I think it's very important to put this current struggle in clear perspective, to realize that there is an exciting, hopeful dimension to it all.
This is the day I think they bombed the Libyan prison I was in in a gamble that I would survive and escape. President Reagan turned 14 years old on 2/6/1925, which was a day 34 years, 3 weeks, 4 days, before 3/3/1959. I noted also that he mentions working in the summer of his fourteenth year and to follow a random thought, I note that 7/4/1925 was 33 years, 34 weeks, 4 days, before 3/3/1959. That could be a 0.59 week clue because 7 time 0.59 equals 4.13.
This also reminds me of that artificial and symbolic memory of my father building a ladder to use as he reshingled the roof on his house outside Asher, OK. That was the time I wrote about where he killed the snake that was in the creek and asked me if I really wanted to go swimming in that creek after seeing that snake. That particular "memory" might have something to do with me trying to survive for a year in the African desert and sometimes all I had to eat was snakes. I think all that is the artistic basis for the introduction of the "Nibbler" character in "Futurama." I have had more dreams about that as well but I can't fully articulate what I have dreamed. Some of the dreams are very clear, but others fade quickly as I wake up.
Remarks at a White House Meeting with the Associated General Contractors of America
April 14th, 1986
Somebody must have told you that my first job was with a contractor who was remodeling old homes. [Laughter] I was 14 years old and before the summer was over I'd laid hardwood floor and shingled roof and dug foundation and all those things. Well, I thank you very much, and welcome back to the White House. I always add the word "complex." They keep telling me that this is part of the White House. You know, I haven't had a cup of coffee here. [Laughter]
This album might be a 1335.9 week clue from my wife's birthday. It also reminds me of the notion that I survived off the land when I was lost in Africa in 1986 and 1987. Sometimes I had a fire to cook the wild animals I caught for food, sometimes I did not. I also "remember" very clearly when Jim Shea was listening to this album. I believe that Jim Shea is actually some kind of memory-standin for my real life and that his beautiful girlfriend, Phyllis, is actually Phoebe, my wife.
From 7/16/1963 to 2/20/1989 is: 1335 weeks and 6 days
7 * 0.9 = 6.3, or 1335.9 weeks.
Released February 20, 1989
The Raw & the Cooked is the second album by Fine Young Cannibals. A remixed version was also released as The Raw and the Remix. Selling over two million copies, The Raw & the Cooked included number one songs "She Drives Me Crazy" and "Good Thing". Originally appearing on the soundtrack for Something Wild two years earlier was the cover of Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love?" The title of the album comes from the book of the same name ("Le Cru et le Cuit" in French) written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
Track listing
"She Drives Me Crazy" – 3:37
"Good Thing" – 3:22
"I'm Not the Man I Used to Be" – 4:19
"I'm Not Satisfied" – 3:51
"Tell Me What" – 2:47
"Don't Look Back" – 3:40
"It's OK (It's Alright)" – 3:32
"Don't Let It Get You Down" – 3:23
"As Hard As It Is" – 3:14
"Ever Fallen in Love?" – 3:54
Fine Young Cannibals
She Drives Me Crazy
I cant stop
The way I feel
Things you do
Dont seem real
Tell you what I got in mind
cause were runnin out of time
Wont you ever set me free?
This waitin rounds killin me
She drives me crazy
Like no one else
She drives me crazy
And I cant help myself
I cant get
Any rest
People say
Im obsessed
Everything thats serious lasts
But to me theres no surprise
What I have, I knew was true
Things go wrong, they always do
She drives me crazy
Like no one else
She drives me crazy
And I cant help myself
I wont make it,
On my own
No on likes,
To be alone
She drives me crazy
Like no one else
She drives me crazy
And I cant help myself
Uh huh huh
She drives me crazy
Like no one else
She drives me crazy
And I cant help myself
Uh huh huh
She drives me crazy
Like no one else
She drives me crazy
And I cant help myself
