We here at the Main Street headquarters had a good chuckle with this one. We hope you will too. Jesse and yours truly (this magazine’s editor) had an entertaining conversation about conspiracy theories some time ago that then resulted in Jesse taking pen to paper, err, fingers to keyboard rather. There are so many theories out there. Some are just beyond entertaining while others are absolutely ridiculous! A few will make you question what you think you know and go “hmm” while doing a thorough Google search while others are just so far out in left field. That all said, before you deep dive into Jesse’s words here, take it all with a grain of salt and some good old-fashioned humor. But feel free to reach out to Jesse with your own theories, and he might have to write a part two… just sayin’. 

Silencio! I’m sitting here watching and listening to Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney conjure up a new tune together, and I don’t want to miss a single note. What did you think they were doing? After all, they need something to do all day rather than sit around eating doughnuts, smoking cigarettes, and staring at the boob tube.

Elvis is dead, you say? Well, duh, of course he’s not dead, although most observers seem to think Paul is doing a better job of resembling an animated human being. But it was an ingenious career move to get everyone believing it, was it not? Now everyone is off their backs and, golly gee, look at how well sales have done ever since their respective – ahem – demises. Recordings. T-shirts. Wall hangings. Blankets. You name it. 

Okay, then who was that if not Elvis depicted in a horizontal state in a casket on the cover of a supermarket tabloid following his alleged demise in 1977? Oh, come on. That was his body double, of course, of which there were several, one of whom grew up in Hopewell Junction and later attended nearby Marist College, I have on good authority.

Code name Zephyr

I’ll admit it right up front. I am a product of a conspiracy my parents concocted, and now I am a living, breathing psyop all my own. I kid you not. Back in the day, in my post as a reporter for a small upstate New York newspaper, the Psyop Conscription Crew from the great land of Zzzywytzzzz3 approached, offering a king’s ransom that would make a PGA Tour golfer being lured by the LIV Tour blanch if I would join their endeavor. Bazillions, I say! 

My mission? To perpetuate what the world has been convinced are conspiracy theories by making things seem at least conceivable. My code name? Zephyr. And, they issued me my very own velociraptor, which has really come in handy.

Oh, crud. Hang on. I need to change the battery for the tracking chip implanted when I received my first COVID-19 vaccine. What a nuisance. Maybe it’d’ve been smarter to simply catch the damn virus and croak, rather than deal with this aggravation every six months or so. 

Sometimes even my “handlers” surprise me. How did they know that, in all good time, Taylor (also known in the underground as “Zephyr”) Swift would spring forth and take the music world by storm? Did Mr. and Mrs. Swift even know? How about the parents of her current squeeze, Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce? But they knew, and that’s all I have to know.

Illuminati secret meetings

Let’s work this one backwards. Following my psyop co-option, it was time for a vacation. At the time, I couldn’t think of a much better place to touch down than the Denver International Airport, where, as any dimwit knows, the Illuminati regularly conduct secret meetings hundreds of stories below ground in their ongoing effort to keep the world running as they see fit. 

Okay, some might ask, in particular myownself, why would anyone want to undertake such a project? But for the Illuminati, this is important, and I’m not prepared to return my bazillions.

After checking in with the Illuminati, I left Denver International in a black helicopter, a Bell 206 B3 Jetranger, for those keeping score at home. Seems it was time for some football! Where to? Why, Kansas City, naturally, where we can check in on the progress the aforementioned secret agent Taylor Swift has made with wrecking the National Football League since she began dating Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce.

Agent Swift and the NFL

I willingly confess to being completely in the dark with the logic here. Either the popular musician has utterly failed at her assigned task, or someone in the corner office made a major miscalculation, but instead of razing the place, it appears TV ratings have skyrocketed since Swift appeared on the scene as she, according to most reports, drags an entire contingent of female fans who previously could not have cared less about football onto the scene. Next thing you know, Kelce’s divorced mom, Donna Kelce, now catapulted to a position of distinction, will be dating quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who will promptly take full ownership of the Las Vegas strip and lead his Raiders to five straight Super Bowl championships before eventually becoming the President of Everywhere.

This whole pro-football-as-farce thing, as it’s become, I’ve personally observed. In the early ‘90s, bro-in-law and I got ourselves New England Patriots season tickets. This was in the day when the NFL still seemed to espouse athletic competition. By 2015, I’d eliminated what I now refer to as the NFWWE (at least the WWE has the decency to admit it’s scripted) from my life because it’s crookeder than a stick in water and nothing but an entertainment vehicle. I haven’t watched a single down since, but I have maintained a fervent desire to see the whole thing crater. 

There’s no question in my mind of the NFL’s orchestration abilities. In 2002, we were selected in the ticket lottery to attend the 2002 Sooper Bowl in N’Awlins between the Patriots and the Rams. While sitting in the stands that day watching a “game” inexplicably won by the Patriots, it was difficult to ignore the growing sensation in my gut that things weren’t quite right on the field, a sensation that had begun to develop several years earlier. It would take a few more years to fully convince me of the ongoing shenanigans.

The ruler of all

From its exalted perch as America’s national religion, football now momentarily gives way to the country’s primary preoccupation and ruler of all: $$$. Time to jump off the chopper and climb aboard a boat, where we will uncover the mystery of how American fat cat and White Star Lines owner John Piermont Morgan managed to get the Titanic to steer into the iceberg that maimed it, ultimately leading to the deaths of fellow richies/rivals Jacob Astor, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim.

Why was this action necessary? Astor, Straus, and Guggenheim were opposed to the formation of a central bank in the United States, which would become what is known as the Federal Reserve, while ol’ J.P. Morgan thought it one mighty fine idea, to the extent that he canceled his spot on the Titanic’s ill-fated voyage and set about finding himself a worthy iceberg and single-handedly pushing it off into the direction of his shiny new boat on its maiden voyage. Done. We are able to look upon this as a conspiracy because moneybags surely needed a little help with the iceberg end of things, for one, considering he was no spring chicken by that time.

The theory thing

Which brings us to the whole “conspiracy theory thing.” What, according to Merriam-Webster, is a conspiracy theory? “Noun: a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.” A theory is “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.”

I’ll be hornswoggled. Nowhere in there do I detect the notion that an idea, which may indeed be the truth but that may otherwise seem out of the mainstream pattern of thought, automatically makes one a wild-eyed, bonkers-in-the-head conspiracy theorist, two words designed to instantly disqualify from consideration as a member of the human race anyone who might have possessed the audacity necessary to even conceive of it, all of this perpetuated by what we consider the mainstream media. Let’s try this. Let’s cast an inquiring eye on those doing the perpetuating. •