The Trouble with Hawaii

Several years ago, I wrote a column detailing certain mysterious and unholy goings-on in the state of Alaska. Murders, car bombings, kidnappings, concentration camps and a carefully choreographed scheme for the invasion of the lower 48 states. Or something like that. The fact that most of my information on these matters came by way of a couple of paranoid schizophrenics?and the fact that the invasion has yet to take place?is irrelevant. These things, after all, take time, and I'm a patient man.

Now, however, I'm starting to think that Alaska was just the start of something much larger?something a few of us have been waiting for for a long damn time. And it only makes sense, when you think about it.

At about noon on Friday, Feb. 16, I received the following communication from my friend John. John, I might add, is an extremely intelligent and unerringly rational man, not prone to hysterics or wild, unfounded speculations:

Jim,

What the hell is going on in Hawaii these days? Civilians driving nuclear submarines into Japanese fishing boats, army helicopters crashing into each other, and now, apparently the whales are getting into it!

I heard this morning, that off the coast of Hawaii, an enraged humpbacked whale jumped on the back of a whale-watching boat (ala JAWS), where it broke some woman's knee.

Jim?this is the beginning of the end... I think that a Pacific-based Lemurian sub-nautical supercivilizaton is causing all sorts of mayhem in order to begin their world takeover, ABOVE the water.

At first I laughed, I thought he was joking. But I'm not laughing anymore, and I don't think he was to begin with.

Looking at the facts, I think I would make a few minor corrections to John's theory. Not discount it at all?just make a few minor corrections.

First, the angry whale. It sounds to me more like an Orca-style incident than a Jaws-style incident. This was later confirmed by another friend of mine. And as those 16 of you who sat through all of it know, Orca begins in temperate waters, but climaxes in the frozen seas of the Arctic Circle?near Alaska.

Next, the fishing boat. The important thing to remember here was that it was a Japanese fishing boat (which, for some strange reason, was lurking just off the coast of Hawaii). As another friend pointed out, not only are the Japanese notorious for their whale hunting?thus pissing off the whale population?but if you see enough movies, you realize that Japanese fishing boats, by their very nature, are inevitably doomed. What were they thinking, anyway?

Which brings us to the submarine. Working with the theory that life really does imitate cheap monster movies, it doesn't take long to figure out that submarines normally appear in only two kinds of films. First, submarine pictures. A submarine picture without submarines would just be silly. That's sort of a given. But submarines also appear in damn near every Godzilla movie ever made. Even that awful American version (which wasn't a Godzilla movie at all, but that's another story for another time) had submarines in it?and, I might add, doomed fishing boats. Within the first half hour of any Godzilla movie, you can bet that some submarines are going to run into trouble.

And that brings me to another minor modification I would make to John's theory. It doesn't sound like the work of Lemurians to me. Nosir, to me, this sounds more like the evil Seatopians are acting up again. Back in the mid-70s, the Seatopians (who inhabit the undersea city of Seatopia), in an attempt to destroy land-based civilization, unleashed Megalon?a giant cockroach with drill-bit arms.

Megalon, as many of you who were 12 at the time probably remember, was eventually defeated by Godzilla (after several submarines and fishing boats were destroyed). It was only our Western arrogance that led us to believe that that was the end, that our troubles with the Seatopians were over with.

Now, it seems, everything is coming together again. This is where things get complicated?and scary. I'll try to be as concise as possible.

First, the Alaskan threat of a few years ago. Taking into account that the stories I heard were told to me by crazy men, we might be able to overlook the details. I don't think there's any denying, however, that something strange was going on up there. Considering the fact that Godzilla occasionally emerges from inside an iceberg, well?you make the connection.

I think the submarine colliding with the fishing boat is obvious enough.

The breaching, knee-busting whale might well be pissed at Japanese whalers?or?think about it?he might be controlled psychically by the Seatopians (I wouldn't put it beyond them!).

And the misdirected helicopters, well, again?watch damn near any Toho film and you're going to see colliding helicopters, which usually go down in flames while doing battle with some giant monster or another.

Put those facts?facts, mind you?together with the number of devastating earthquakes that have been striking (land-based) countries throughout the world, and I can't help but wonder if the Seatopians have already unleashed a new monster on us?a monster with the power of invisibility!

Now things get scary. The Seatopians, you see, being a clever race, left a few clues about their ultimate intentions last time around. Well, apart from that whole "giant monster" thing.

When Godzilla vs. Megalon was released in the United States in 1976, one of the posters showed the two behemoths on the top of the Twin Towers?not unlike the posters for the Dino De Laurentiis King Kong, released that same year. Thing is, at least the De Laurentiis film actually involved a climactic battle atop the WTC. The Toho film, as they all do, took place in and around Tokyo?a city that, at the time, so far as I'm aware, lacked any twin towers. Was it simply a cheap marketing ploy to cash in on the giant monster hysteria that was sweeping the country then? I don't think so.

No, I think it was a subtle prediction on the part of the Seatopians, disguised as a cheap marketing ploy.

My evidence? Ignoring, for the time being, the fact that all the events of recent weeks have taken place along or off the West Coast of North America, last July?as reported in New York Press?a dead man was found at the intersection of 25th and 3rd. He wasn't just any dead man, though?he was a radioactive dead man. Less than a week after we reported the story, another radioactive body was found, this time a woman. The stories were buried, of course, so there's no saying how many more radioactive bodies have been discovered. And given the mountain of evidence piling up now, I think those bodies can point to only one conclusion?giant radioactive Japanese Seatopian invisible monsters have not only been to New York (remember the mild earthquakes we had here shortly after the first quake in El Salvador?), but they're probably on their way back, with Godzilla in hot pursuit.

Way I'm figuring it, they'll probably be here soon, too?after some kind of wacky, cross-country car chase.