"... beginning to encounter puzzled looks from the operatives ... At this level of security you didn't even call them people anymore. And they were probably doing stuff that only operatives would do. When they went home to their families in the evening they became people again, and when their little children looked up to them with their sweet shining eyes and said, 'Daddy, what did you do all day today?' they just said, 'I performed my duties as an operative,' and left it at that."
          -- Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams

"Happy f*ckin' New Year."

The operative sat down at his desk, glowing Motorola StarMax gleaming its happy Mac OS symbol at him, looked at the files he had to email to the Commissioner. It'd been a hard job, but Damage Control had been achieved ... for now.

The Chopping Block had been kept busy by elusive machinations by Microsoft fuhrer Bill "I'd-Be-A-Virgin-Without-a-Billion-Bucks" Gates and his erstwhile archenemy, Apple Computers' Steve "Fired-But-Back-For-Revenge" Jobs. This eluded much of the Black community because clues were buried deep on unknown web pages (www.macosrumors.com, www.macinsider.com, etc.) -- and because most people of color have enough on their minds. Nevertheless, between these two men, the divine operating system, Macintosh, had suffered blows to its perfection with backroom business deals and shutting down proven achievers (Power Computing, we barely knew thee). Both Bill and Steve have horse's heads on their pillows, with more to come should they endanger the very computers that make magazines like this possible -- they'll "think different-ly."

Similar treatment was given to comic book artist Rob Liefield, who singlehandedly shifted the indistry from relying on well written stories to banking on glossy art. MacDonalds was similarly lambasted for their Calvin and MacNegro commercials, good enough for Moesha but not good enough for Friends. The operative wondered if they'll miss their kneecaps.

Efforts to clean up the airwaves on the West Coast were heavily opposed. In Seattle, KUBE-FM switched its format so often many observers caught whiplash, going from top 40 in 1991 to near urban contemporary in 1997, hitting several points in between. Even worse was 92.3 the Beat in LA, reaping enough from its shlocky programming and base pandering to the lowest common Black denominator to pay its white morning man John London and its afternoon Asian pimp-ling Theo a cool million a year, each. KUBE was disciplined by the mere assignment of stooges to pistol whip several station execs -- in LA, a substantial reward (including a date with the Commissioner and gift certificates to Magic Johnson Theatres) was offered for slapping London and Theo on videotape, and further action will be initiated per the Commissioner's review.

Yawning, the operative flipped through the citations and channels on his archaic, cable unready TV. He quickly flipped past "Vibe," noting that show bassist Byron Miller had been more than pleased to slip Crazy Glue into the underwear of host Chris Spencer for promises of publicity on his smooth jazz CD, Until ... The operative wondered if Spencer was as dry as his hosting.

Bill Bellamy had received his citation via US mail, a picture of him as a spindly prepubescent getting beat up by tuff guys, with the caption, "cut the pretty shit." Dramas and life itself delivered retribution unto Hologram hampton, so that left less work to do, and Gwen Priestley of All American Records was forced to sniff mercury and hafnium fumes, rendering her sterile, in a visit to the bathroom of her office building. A few other people on site were rendered sterile, but no one will notice if The Comradez never reproduce.

Email sent, the operative looked at some of the next targets with glee: first a Valentine's Day special; then Jerry Seinfeld, Heavy D, Keith Richards, Ward Connerly, Jim Carrey, Will Smith and George Clooney. Grabbing his PowerBook case and a Heckler & Koch submachinegun, he paused to give shouts out to the Chosen (Billy Johnson, Malik Singleton, the Commissioner, Gabe "Flaco" Alvarez, Brent "Asparagus" Rollins and Jay W. Babcock) and the Trustees of Soul Review Board (Inpu Ka Mut, Brandi Nicholson, and Denzil Xavier) before heading back out to perform his duties ... as an operative.