-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/wolffiles/wolffiles.html <A HREF="http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/wolffiles/wolffiles.html">ABCNEWS. com : Weird News: The Wolf Files </A> ----- Meet the CIA Joker Plus: The History of the TV Dinner John Alejandro King says the CIA is trying to can him because he is publishing the "Covert Comic" Web site. The agency won’t comment on King’s claim. But is he funny? (ABCNEWS.com) ABCNEWS.com COVERT COMEDY If you believe John Alejandro King, he’s the biggest joker at the CIA. King claims he’s a 15-year CIA veteran who builds computer databases and is privy to classified information. But after quitting time, King puts down the cloak and dagger and picks up his rubber chicken, calling himself “The Covert Comic.” “As a CIA employee, whenever I hear that the agency is programming people’s minds I have to laugh,” he says. “I don’t want to laugh when I hear this, but I have to because that’s the way the CIA programmed my mind.” At least that’s part of his schtick. Like all newbie comics, King never really steps off stage. His act right now is confined to a Web site, www.covertcomic.com, which he launched a few months ago, much to the ire of his bosses, he says. But he hears the stage calling. Is he really a spook? The rule in show business is “anything for a laugh.” For that matter, Woody Allen might not be Jewish, you never know. For now, it is a bit of a mystery. Keeping to its image, the CIA won’t confirm or deny whether King is one of theirs. “I’m aware of an article about him,” says spokesman Tom Crispell. “But it is our policy not to comment on employment status.” Crispell is referring to a Jan. 28 Washington Post article, in which an unnamed intelligence source is quoted as saying that King works for the agency and that he’s gotten in trouble with his bosses for matters unrelated to his punchlines. “That said,” the source told the Post, “his jokes are not funny and, in many cases, tasteless.” King says his bosses went through the roof when he began publishing and are just looking for an excuse to dump him. “They tried to fire me,” he says. “But I got a lawyer to reinstate me.” If he is for real, his Web site certainly does dish the kind of gossip that would rankle the squares. It reveals bizarre secrets about other CIA agents, including a female agent who keeps male “sex slaves” and a male agent known as “Jesus Jr.” who performs faith healings in his spare time. “Why would I risk it?” King says. “”Because national security is too important not to be joked about.” A former bass player in the disco bands Sylvester and The Weather Girls, King, 40, says he entered the CIA as a career trainee, and has received technical training on, among other things, chemical-biological weapons. He claims to have a GS-14 classification and an annual salary of $72,000. But everybody wants to be a comedian. Should he keep his day job? You judge. Here are some bits: On alien abduction: “I don’t think the CIA is abducting aliens.” On experimental surgery: “Ever since he got that complete body transplant, it’s like my father isn’t the same person anymore.” On meddling in foreign affairs: “The two criticisms we at CIA hear most frequently are, first, that CIA intelligence is inaccurate, and second, that CIA officers are selling CIA intelligence to foreign spy agencies. … So what’s the problem?” P.S. Keep your day job. TALKING TURKEY Click here to see Swanson TV Dinner Slideshow. (Swanson) All hail the TV dinner — the Julius Caesar of pop culture cuisine. It came. It thawed. It conquered. Mann’s Chinese Theater this month paid tribute to the meal that made Swanson’s famous. Gerald Thomas, the 77-year-old genius who revolutionized frozen food, left his handprint — and an aluminum tray print — in the cement outside the Hollywood tourist trap. To appreciate his spot in history, consider that his etching will lie between those of Ron Howard and Sean Connery. But let’s not forget the TV dinner’s humble origins. Back in 1954, Swanson’s, then a five-man commodities brokerage, was simply trying to unload half a million pounds of surplus turkey. “There was just no refrigerated warehouse space,” says Thomas. “We were faced with dealing with a lot of rotting poultry.” For weeks, the turkey rode coast-to-coast on 10 railroad cars. “We had to keep them cars moving because in those days, railcars needed to move for the refrigeration generators to work.” Then, in a moment of clarity, Thomas saw the experimental single-compartment metal trays that airlines were testing for in-flight meals. He devised a three-compartment aluminum tray, and Swanson’s became a major player in the frozen food industry. These days, it sells 3 million TV dinners a week, 160 million a year, and enough over the last 45 years to stretch from here to the moon and back, according to company flacks. “Funny thing is, everyone knows about TV dinners,” Thomas says. “But I never met anyone who admits to actually eating them.” P.S. Thomas says few people had TVs when he came up with the name. “It was just one of those hot business words everyone was using,” he says. “If I invented it today, I'd call it ‘Digital Dinner.’” Buck Wolf is a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is a weekly feature. Search for more on: S U M M A R Y The weird news you may have missed. “As a CIA employee, whenever I hear that the agency is programming people's minds I have to laugh. I don't want to laugh when I hear this, but I have to because that's the way the CIA programmed my mind.” John Alejandro King “The Covert Comic” Copyright ©1999 ABC News Internet Ventures. 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