9. An Interview With Alexander the Great

PEACE PIPE 1984 I

The year 1984 of Orwellian infamy was fast approaching, the Reagan military buildup was underway and I felt I had to say something. The result was a tank and a gunship. In this pipe stand the bricks are made from left over small chunks of meerschaum. The spent artillery shells are .22 caliber shell casings. The powder from them was used to scorch the wall. Inside the house is the charred remains of a doll house needlepoint saying "...e Sweet Home". Tank is 6" (15 cm) long. Bowl is on the bottom. circa 1982

The $ insignia is a price tag. No matter how you slice it, they're expensive toys.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDER THE GREAT

ARTY> Much has been recorded about you. You're one of best known humans who ever lived. Even your horse Oxhead is still famous. Given the luxury of hindsite what would you do different?

ALEX> I'd have waited till fifty years ago to be born and I'da gone into banking. No armies to feed.

No really, I just wanted it all. Not just wealth and power and glory but knowledge. I grew up in a time and place, well, back up a little. My father Phillip was Greek at heart but not by birth so he figured that he had to be more Greek than the Greeks. He got me a Greek philosopher to tutor me and I grew up with dad's Macedonian army of the best shock troops on the planet at that time. He was about use it to avenge wrongs done to Greeks by Persians. Go figger.

But you are what you are. Mom told me I was the son of Zeus and if you knew her like I knew her you'd believe her. She could really make dad crazy. They were married for political reasons but I believe that for a while he really wanted her. She reminds me of Medea. (Google her) In mom's religion the women tore animals and sometimes humans apart with their bare hands and ate them raw. I'm sure she thought she was a supreme seductress. When I see her now in my memory's eye as a woman in her prime she was one smokin, hot bitch. And dangerous. As dangerous in her way as dad was in his. But dad just refused to give in to her brand of religion. He was a Greek wannabe from Macedon just like Hitler was a German wannabe from Austria.

ARTY> Much has been made of your bisexuality. You're so famous that even your lovers are still well known.

ALEX> Hey, sex is sex. I had sex with people. There were times, especially right after a battle or a good hunt when your right hand man saved your life, that you want to reward him or visa versa. You're nowhere near home, maybe with little to eat or drink and you want to give your very best friend at that moment a little pleasure out there under the stars. Any warrior culture is very homocentric.

But I remember Roxanne. Oooh. What lines. Beautiful undulating lines. She was as bad as my mom in her own way but she was no threat to anyone but the slaves. She surely could purr like one of those wildly exotic Egyptian cats even though she was no Cleopatra - my sister or the Pharoah. My mom on the other hand may have had a mother's love for me but I was also just a male. Remember, we were just coming out of a long era of prehistory when THE deity was a female. Woman were superior because they made babies. In the old days a nation killed a man every spring so his body could be used to fertilize the earth. What an orgasm! My mom was old school.

ARTY> You had a special regard for The Goddess.

ALEX> The day I was born in Macedon somebody burned down the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which is now Turkey. At the time it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was certainly one of the biggest temples, probably because Artemis was so primeval and her fertility rites were so much fun. When me 'n the boys crossed over into Asia Minor, we visited the ruin and I pledged to restore it to it's former glory.

This is too good a story to not tell it. The temple was torched by a guy who wanted to get caught. When brought before the authorities he said he wanted to be famous. So before he was executed he was told that part of his sentence was the striking of his name from all records. Justice was served. 'Course, some real miscreant did record his name but not before he died, so the effect was achieved. For myself, I refuse to know the man's name even though I have heard it.

ARTY> So tell me where you fit in pantheon of Greek Mythology.

ALEX> Oh, super hero for sure. I used to carry Homer's books like you modern Americans carry the Bible. For show. Why read something when you've got the good bits memorized? I like them all. Achilles, Hercules, Ullysses, they all had different powers that I wanted to achieve. For a while I thought I was a God like the upper crust on Mount Olympus but I died. It wasn't fair. I was still in my prime, but too many people wanted me dead. There were just too many wagon trains loaded with treasure headed in MY direction.

But then again, I made the same choice as my biggest hero, Achilles. He chose glory over long life and so did I. 'Course, I always thought I'd be killed in battle. You saw how many charges I led. To die in bed was such an anticlimax. I wanted to be surrounded with the bodies of all my friends who had died defending ME. I wanted them to be surrounded by mountains of screaming, moaning, dying enemy soldiers, royalty among them. Oh, that would have been awesome! But I just wasted away and died in bed with my beautiful boy friend Bagoas at my side. Took days. Could have been disease or poison. Bagoas, who came of age in the Persian royal household, thought it was the latter.

ARTY> You made a statement earlier that if you had been born 50 years ago you'd have gone into banking. Care to elaborate?

ALEX> Well, sure. I had to do this world domination thing retail. Kill, kill, kill. One person at a time, one kingdom at a time, marching, marching always marching. If I'd been born 50 years ago I could have done it all from a comfy desk chair and gone adventuring as a hobby. Lot less messy. I lost too many old friends doing it the old fashioned way. Not just that, but my life's work killed me one wound at a time. I used myself up. I hurt for so much of my everyday life. It was worth it at the time though. You don't know the Joy of Battle if you haven't done it the way we did, face to face, one on one. If you want a vicarious look at it, the LORD OF THE RINGS battle scenes portray it the way it was very well minus the fountains of blood gushing from all those fallen. Desperate times call for splendid heroics. That was my specialty. I wrote the book on splendid heroics. I did it for real. It was my job. No stunt men, no digital manipulation, just hand to hand combat till you were just bathed in hot blood.

You got to know your enemy by the way he fought you. There were many that I admired for their bravery or skill but they still had to die. 'Course the best way to make a true friend is to fight them to a draw and then throw your arms around them and laugh and party with them the way Theseus did. (Google him)

ARTY> Well, you've told 20/20 hindsite what you would do to build an global empire today but that hardly sounds like the general who led men into battle. I want to thank you for stopping by today. One last question for the road. Who, today, do you see as best representing that Homeric ideal?

ALEX> Oh, hand's down, no question Professional Wrestlers. We used to do it before battle too, strutting, preening and shouting just like they do today. The difference is today's fighters come out of the same dressing room, have it out in the ring and afterward return to the same dressing room and they do this like a job. Looks like fun but it's just not world domination. 'Course, in my day and age everyone acted the way pro wrasslers do now, except for peasants who did it behind my back I'm sure. Styles change. Now we don't all shout about how many people we've killed. Do you know how old I was when I killed my first man in combat? 14. Now 14 year old boys conquer the universe every day on TV.