Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

Walking tightrope between networks, sponsors, masses, FCC (two commissioners in Foundation’s pocket) Jack Barron. Bread-and-circus gladiator, with paper-sword image of power, Bullshit Jack Barron.

Nevertheless, Benedict Howards reached out, turned on the TV set, waited stomach-knotted, through color images of Dodges, network emblems, Coke bottles dancing, plastic piece of ass starlet smoking Kools Supreme, station emblem, waited frowning tense in the cool night breeze, knowing others waited, bellies rumbling with his in the quiet air-cooled vaults of power in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington waited for three words (scarlet on midnight-blue background) to begin the hour’s ordeal of waiting, glancing at dead vidphones, pustules of Harlem, Watts, Mississippi, trip City, Village niggers, loafers, losers randomly popping—a hundred million cretins, hunched forward, smelling for blood, blue venous blood from circles of power:

“BUG JACK BARRON.”

“BUG JACK BARRON”—red letters (purposefully crude imitation of traditional “Yankee Go Home” sign scrawled on walls in Mexico, Cuba, Cairo, Bangkok, Paris) against flat dark-blue background.

Off-camera gruff barroom voice over shouts: “Bugged?”

And an answering sound-collage as camera holds on the title: students heckling People’s America agitator, amens to hardrock Baptist preacher, mothers crying soldiers griping sour losers outside the two-dollar window. Barroom voice in cynically hopeful tone: “Then go bug Jack Barron!”

Title becomes head and shoulders shot of man against uncomfortable dark background (semisubliminal whirling moire pattern flashes seem to hang on brink of visibility like black Indian ink over kinesthop underpattern effect). The man is wearing fawn-yellow collarless sportjac over tieless open-necked red velour dress shirt. He looks about forty? thirty? twenty-five?—anyway, over twenty-one. His complexion seems to hover between fair and gray, like a harried romantic poet; his face is composed of strangely hard-edged softnesses, tapestry of stalemated battle. His hair is reminiscent of dead men—sandy JFK cut about to grow down the back of his neck, flank his ears, spring wild curls upward, and become Dylan-like unmade-bed halo. His brat-eyes (knowing eyes) smolder with amused detachment as his full lips smile, making the smile a private ingroup, I know-you-know-I-know thing with latest Brackett Audience Count estimated hundred million people.

Jack Barron smiles, nods, becomes Acapulco Golds commercial:

Mexican peon leading burro up winding trail on jungle-covered volcanic mountain, a fruity-authoritative Encyclopedia-Britannica voice over: “In the high country of Mexico evolved a savory strain of marijuana which came to be known as Acapulco Gold in the days of the contraband trade.”

Cut to same peon cutting a stand of marijuana with a sickle and loading it onto burro: “Prized for its superior flavor and properties, Acapulco Gold was available only to the favored few due to its rarity and…”

Roll to border patrolman frisking unsavory Pancho Villa type Mexican: “… the difficulties involved in importation.”

Aerial view of huge field of geometrically-rowed marijuana: “But now the finest strain of Mexican seeds, combined with American agricultural skill and carefully controlled growing conditions, produce a pure strain of marijuana unequalled in flavor, mildness… and relaxing properties. Now available in thirty-seven states: (Cut to close-up of red and gold Acapulco Golds pack.) Acapulco Golds, America’s premium quality marijuana cigarettes—and, of course, totally noncarcinogenic.

Back on screen comes Jack Barron, seated on old school arm-rest-desk-type chair, desk of which holds two standard white Bell vidphones; white chair and white phones against black wash over moire pattern background make Barron look like knight in front of forms of darkness dancing.

“What’s bugging you tonight?” Jack Barron asks in a voice that knows it all—knows Harlem, Alabama, Berkeley, North side, Strip City, knows it all knows clean-painted cement walls of a thousand Golden Age Projects urine inside jail cell knows check twice a month just enough to keep on dying (Social Security, AID, Unemployment, Guaranteed Annual wage pale-blue cyanide Government check), knows it all and knows what the fuck but can’t stop caring, the outsider’s insider.

“What bugs you, bugs Jack Barron.” Barron pauses, smiles basilisk smile, dark eyes seem to pick up moving shadows of kinesthop-through-black background, Dylan-JFK-Bobby-punkid-Buddha. “And we all know what happens when you bug Jack Barron. Call collect. The number is Area Code 212, 969-6969 (six-month fight with Bell-FCC over special mnemonic number), and we’ll take the first call right… now!”

Jack Barron reaches out, thumbs audio of vidphone (vidphone camera and screen face away from studio camera). A hundred million television screens split. Lower lefthand quarter shows standard black and white vidphone image of white-shirted, white-haired Negro, vague gray vidphone-washed-out background; the remaining three-quarters of the screen is occupied in living color by Jack Barron.

“This is Bug Jack Barron, and you’re on the air, friend. It’s all yours until I say stop. A hundred million fellow Americans, and all of ’em waiting to hear who you are and where you’re from and what’s bugging you, man. This is your moment in the old spotlight—your turn to bug whoever’s bugging you. You’re plugged into me, and I’m plugged into the whole goofy country. So go ahead, man, high from the image of white-shirted, white-haired Negro, vague gray lip, and damn the torpedoes— bug Jack Barron,” says Jack Barron reeling it off with a big let’s-you-and-me-stomp-the-mothers smile.

“My name is Rufus W. Johnson, Jack,” the old Negro says, “and as you and the rest of the country can see, out there on television, I am black. I mean, there’s no getting away from it, Jack. I’m black. You dig? I’m not colored, I’m not of dark complexion, not a mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, bassoon, or baboon. Rufus W. Johnson is a black nig—”

“Cool it,” interrupts the voice of Jack Barron, authoritative as a knife; but with a tiny hunch of his shoulders, a little smile, really cools it as Rufus W. Johnson smiles, hunches back.

“Yeah,” says Rufus W. Johnson, “we mustn’t use that word, man. Uptights all them Afro -Americans, colored folk. American Negros, what you call ’em? But we know what you call ’em… Not you, Jack. (Rufus W. Johnson laughs a little laugh.) You a shade, but you a black shade.”

“Well, maybe let’s make that sepia,” says Jack Barron. “Wouldn’t want to get me canceled in Bugaloosa. But what’s happening, Mr Johnson? I hope you didn’t call me just to compare complexions.”

“But that’s where it’s at, ain’t it man?” says Rufus W. Johnson, no longer smiling. “That’s where it’s at for me anyway. That’s where it’s at for all us Afro-Americans. You black, even down here in Mississippi, what’s supposed to be black man’s country, that’s where life is at. Ain’t nothing but what you call it—a comparison of complexions. Wish you could vidphone in color, then I could go to my TV set, screw around with the color controls, and see myself for once as red or green or purple— colored folk, y’know?”

“When do we get to the nitty-gritty, Mr Johnson?” Jack Barron asks, a shade of a degree colder. “Just what is bugging you?”

“We is at the nitty-gritty,” answers Rufus W. Johnson, gray-on-gray image of black face—lined, hurt, scowling—expanding to fill three-quarters of the screen, with Jack Barron in upper righthand catbird-seat corner.