Arthur Paik



This has been an awesome summer: perfect weather, great tunes, cruising around with the top down and the shades on. Yup, a real laid-back, great-for-grilling kind of summer. The kind of summer you dream about, right?


Wrong.

Open your eyes, people, because that's exactly what they want you to think. I happen to know for a fact that the CIA has been working from the shadows and running elaborate black ops to make sure this turned out to be a seriously bitchin' summer—one for the ages, in fact. A summer where the waves were perfect and you could just sit back and soak up the rays all day with your best buds.


The whole thing was a lie.

Think I'm crazy? Here's what's crazy: June 26, 2010. Just your normal summer Saturday, right? Pretty interesting that no one ever brings up the fact that it was supposed to rain that Saturday. Eighty-five percent chance of showers, they said. Strong winds out of the northeast. So why on that day was I enjoying a great company softball game under bright blue skies, with a cool refreshing breeze in the air and an ice-cold beer in my hand? Could it have anything at all to do with the fact that just 12 hours prior, CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell took a confidential meeting with President Obama himself?


That's right, people, the conspiracy to make summer 2010 full of babes, buns, and fun in the sun goes all the way to the top.

How long is it going to take for people to realize that the volleyball games, the picnics, and the lazy rafting rides down the river with your pals didn't just happen out of thin air? You've got to follow the money.


Let me paint another picture for you: At noon on the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, we have Defense Secretary Robert Gates visiting Afghanistan to monitor the military's progress there. At 3 p.m., Leon Panetta meets with high-ranking officials in Pakistan. And at 9 p.m., Vice President Joe Biden boards a plane headed for…where exactly? Either nobody knows, or nobody's talking. Now, are you seriously going to look me in the eye and tell me there is no connection between the disappearance of three high-ranking U.S. officials and the fact that I was at an uncrowded water park on an 85-degree day going down the 90-foot slide as many times as I wanted because there were no lines?

And where was Adm. Mike Mullen during all of this?

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, folks. CIA, FBI, NSA—they're all in on it. Don't sit there and tell me that this being the most rockin' summer since 2003 was a fluke. Believe me, high-level intelligence agencies had everything, everything to do with my father and I finally reconnecting on an emotional level during the wonderful fishing trip we'd been meaning to take for the past decade.


Still not convinced? Chew on this. The general counsel of the CIA has remained silent on the matter of the Boulder, CO farmers markets of Aug. 7, 14, and 21—yes, the very ones where they were selling that great summer squash and organic sweet corn that was so good it was like the kernels were exploding in your mouth. The first question you should ask is: Squash that delicate and creamy that late in the season? Second, is it a mere coincidence that there was a real barnstormer of a banjo player on hand to entertain kids and adults alike mere hours after Obama ordered a drone attack along the Pakistani border?

The dots are out there, people. You just have to connect them.

Do you think the potato salad at my family reunion was fresh because of dumb luck, or because Kevin Concannon—that's right, you don't hear that name often, but remember it because he's a key player in all of this—the undersecretary of agriculture, met with Tom Vilsack last April to discuss "conservation," when in reality they were discussing chemtrails to keep mosquito bites down? Hmm. I wonder!


If we don't do something, these bastards won't stop at summer. Next thing you know, we'll have a beautiful autumn with an explosion of color on the hillside, and just when it gets a little too chilly, your favorite sweater you thought you lost will mysteriously turn up. Are you really going to sit back and pretend Israel and Palestine suddenly opening up direct peace talks isn't just a smoke screen for your government's creation of the perfect conditions for drinking hot apple cider? Are you seriously going to enjoy that poignant changing of the seasons knowing that every crunching leaf underfoot is part of some elaborate intelligence-community ploy?

Well, not me, people. I have a life to live.