Pyrotechnics

It is no surprised that the word from the West electrified me this morning. The word is that Tommy Lee, famed sex partner of Pamela Anderson and rock drummer extraordinaire, was tragically burned when pyrotechnics went awry in a show in Casper , Wyoming .

A lot of things go wrong in Casper, and it is just good luck all around that the oil and gas fields were not involved or the whole state could have blown sky-high. Tommy was able to continue for an additional song, but his band Motley Crue had to cut short their set in order to transport the aging rocker to the hospital.

Accounts from the scene indicate sparks landed on Tommy while he was suspended over the stage by a harness and wires. I felt for him, since I often feel I am in the same position.

There was no immediate word on the state of his tattoos, but authorities were quick to point out that there was no apparent connection to the constitutional referendum in Baghdad tomorrow.

Pyrotechnics make me nervous. Two years ago, the aging heavy-metal band Great White started their show at The Station nightclub in Providence , Rhode Island. The place was packed. Their pyrotechnics set fire to  the plastic false ceiling. More than a hundred people died in the ensuing inferno.

It was a mess. Our agency sent disaster personnel to the scene to deal with the consequences, and ever since, I have resolved to stay away from things that are likely to explode. The way things have been going, danger and destruction are likely enough to appear unannounced at your door.

There is no reason to go out looking for trouble.

So I think the aging rockers should just stay home, Rolling Stones excepted. They appear immortal, and explosives apparently have no effect on them.

The next catastrophe is reported to be in Turkey , and moving this way. The Bird Flu has arrived there, and once abroad in the world, it is probably landing at JFK or Dulles as I write. I will be on the lookout, but the flu is much more subtle than explosives, and the weather is dank and chilly outside, perfect for transmission.

It will require constant vigilance, and I would stay home to do it, if I could.

But some of us cannot. I was not surprised to hear that Governor Bill Richardson is packing to go back to North Korea for the fourth time. I talked to him last year in Santa Fe , where he took time from governing New Mexico to address a conference I attended. I thought there might be some business we could do out there, or at least that was the excuse.

I just wanted to see him again. Traveling with Mr. Bill was the most alive I have ever felt, before or since.

I had the chance to be his travel agent for two wild legislative seasons on the Hill when he was a Congressman. I won’t bore you with how it all works. I get bogged down with diagramming how the money flows. So for the purposes of brevity, suffice it to say that the office I worked for had the cash and the resources, and Mr. Bill had the means to access it.

By turns, we were in Haiti and the Dominican Republic , Grand Turk and Cuba, Burma and Vietnam,  Taiwan and  Thailand , and all the Chinas. We would swoop out of the sky and race around, talking to people with improbable agendas and unprecedented access.

I was just the bag-dragger and visa-getter, but Mr. Bill travels light, and often there were just Calvin the Staffer and Mr. Bill and me at the strange meetings.

The most amazing trip I went on with him was to Pyongyang , the capital of the Stepford Country. It was Mr. Bill’s second trip, and he was hammering out a relationship with the reclusive branch of the Korean family.

I took over the travel portfolio from an Air Force officer who had done the first trip to the Hermit Kingdom. I was charged  getting the visas through the North Korean UN mission, since they have no official presence in Washington , and then coordinating with the Chinese here in town. The Air Force guy grimaced, and recommended I have ten grand in cash with me at all times, just in case. 

To get things done, I commandeered a Government car to get it done, speeding from embassy to clandestine office, collecting stamps on the black diplomatic passports, and procuring airline tickets and all the rest of the administrative minutia that it takes to go to places you shouldn’t.

And what a wild ride it was! My admiration for Mr. Bill knows no bounds. I would go anywhere with him, any time. He has no fear, and he has a good time trying to do the right thing.

You can’t say that about a lot of politicians.

Mr. Bill is going to take a delegation of experts to help cement the Five Power negotiations on the North Korean weapons program. The Communists trust him. He is leaving tomorrow, and I can feel the old excitement in the pit of my stomach. The time we were there in 1995, we made some progress on a thing called The Agreed Framework, which put the North Korean nuclear pyrotechnic program back in the bottle for a few years.

It wasn’t easy. One night, after dinner at the Presidential Guest Palace, we were standing in the eerie dark of the capital. Pyongyang has few lights at night, and something with metal treads was clanking off in the distance.

Mr. Bill offered me one of the fine Cuban cigars he smokes overseas, and looked out into the night as though he owned it. He leaned over and whispered that he thought he might have to send me out that night with a message for Washington , something he could not say on the phone, which was undoubtedly tapped.

I nodded, my mind racing. Of course! I would whistle up a North Korean Staff car, and ride in the back through the minefields to the most heavily defended border in the world, and then walk out of North Korea and over the Bridge of No Return and into the field of fire of the crew-served weapons in the American positions on the hill.

As it turned out, he did not ask me to do the impossible that night. But he is the kind of guy for whom I would gladly have tried.

If he runs for President in 2008, there will unquestionably be fireworks. Even if I am an aging rocker, I think I would like to help set them off.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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