November 27-December 3, 2003
pretzel logic
Bones of Contention
by Howard Altman
The man from the Reform Party is obviously agitated as he leaves a couple dozen messages on my voice mail, cackling the mad cackle of a cartoon uber-villain.
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"Howard, baby, you are a kosher cocksucker," Reform Party interim Chairman Dave Shrier says in one of his kinder moments. "Bwahahahahahahaha!"
"I am going to beat the shit out of you," he says in another message, which also ends in a Riddleresque outburst.
"You are vulnerable," he says in the last of nearly 30 messages left last weekend. "You donât know how vulnerable you are. By the time Dave Shrier gets through with you, you wonât be at the City Paper anymore."
What set off Shrier, one of Phillyâs kookier political gadflies?
Iâll never know for sure. But I am pretty sure it has something to do with Geronimoâs bones.
Wednesday night, the rain is coming down so hard it soaks right through my trench coat and drenches my shirt.
The dusty, musty, cluttered old bookstore on South 13th Street is a welcome respite.
I am out on this proverbial dark and stormy night at the behest of a guy named Kris Millegan, the son of a CIA operative who is in town to hype his self-published manifesto about the Order of Skull & Bones, a well-connected "secret society" at Yale University.
Itâs not by accident that I am here at Robinâs Bookstore to hear Millegan talk about an organization that counts as its members three U.S. presidents (including Bushes I and II), three U.S. Supreme Court justices and 20 U.S. senators.
Back in the summer of 1989, when I was working at the New Haven Advocate, a short, wiry guy with a craggy, weathered face walked into the office and announced to me that he was Geronimoâs great-great-grandson.
Iâd also heard from Elvis and space aliens, but I listened to the man, who said heâd been in the special forces and killed people.
He told me that his name was Phillip Romero and that Prescott Bush, father of the first President Bush, dug up Geronimoâs bones and transported them to the large, stone tomb on High Street that Skull & Bones calls home.
Romero said he was an Apache and had come to New Haven to see if I could help him get the bones back.
It was one of my first encounters with the shadowy world of conspiracy theories and it would lead, about a dozen years later, to an electronic encounter with Millegan, who runs a Yahoo group called CIA-Drugs.
Long story yadda yadda, and Millegan -- whoâs been researching the dark connections between the society and world events -- asks me to write a chapter in his book, Fleshing Out Skull & Bones.
Which brings me to Larry Robinâs bookstore on a rainy Wednesday night.
Soaked and tired and ready for a nap.
After browsing through a shelf of true crime books, I am greeted by a reed-thin man with a ponytail who shakes my hand vigorously.
It is Millegan.
We make some small talk and wonder how many people might venture out in this mess.
Eventually five people show up, which is about four more than I expected. The soon-to-be-outraged Dave Shrier -- a seemingly harmless crank of a senior in the mold of Grandpa from The Munsters -- is one of them.
Millegan riffs about his fatherâs involvement in the CIA and how that shaped his worldview, which sees dark alliances all over. Then he talks about the overwhelming influence of Skull & Bones, how its member have steered world policy for years and how the society -- created in the 1830s by German immigrants -- thrives on necromancy.
Very interesting stuff, but the previous night was a late one and my eyes begin to shut.
It happens after a long day. I even dozed off at the Merlino trial.
The next night, Shrier begins his barrage of phone calls.
He is angry that we havenât covered the Reform Party as much as he would like.
"Iâm pissed, baby," he says with a menacing laugh.
"Fuck you," he shouts. "Fuck you."
And that is merely the warm-up.
"Iâm not going to try and jew you down, Jew," he says, referring to advertising rates, not understanding that I neither know nor care about who advertises or for how much. It is odd behavior, to say the least, from a fellow Yid.
The only time I respond, I tell Shrier to please not call again and, oh yes, do take your medication.
The calls continue.
"I am completely convinced that your emotional detachment from everything seems to indicate to me that you are indeed a junkie," he says before going all cartoony with the evil bwahahahaha.
Then he turns maniacal.
"If you print one word about me or the Reform Party, you will be physically impaired," he shouts into the phone, his voice rising steadily until his words fade to a shrill scream. "Do you get my message, Howard? I still want to advertise, but if you print one word, Howard, about me or the Reform Party or any of our candidates, uh, physically, you will be marred."
There is more deeply disturbing cackling.
"Oh, ahahahaha, cold-fish motherfucker. You Kosher cocksucker, hahahahahahaha, fuck."
Compelling political dialogue.
This is what I get for digging into Geronimoâs bones.
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