An Interview with Rick Anything, part one

I had often heard tales of the mysterious Rick Machete and his legendary adventures. Mostly I had heard that he was a bigoted narcissist, that his adventures were largely throwbacks to an era when colonialism was considered God's holy work, and that he habitually munched his cuticles. When I finally met Mr. Machete, I found two of these things to be true. He never munched a cuticle, though, and for that at least, I can be glad.

The opportunity to interview this atavistic elephant came round when Machette returned from his most recent raping of Africa to promote his second memoir (MACHETE IN THE CONGO: A NEW HERO FOR A NEW WAR). I caught up with him in a small coffee shop on the edges of downtown east Tangiers. After waiting for him to show for about 20 minutes, he burst into the place reeking of khat and musty body odor, his legendary mane of dirty brown hair tied back into an obscenely greesy pony tail. After shaking hands, Mr. Machete whipped his chair around backwards, squatting over it, letting his worn leather jacket hang open, exposing what can only be called an vast array of ridiculous trinkets and accessories hanging from his vest.

What follows is a short excerpt from the interview:

SL: People, myself included, have accused you of treating Africa like it was still the land of boundless adventure that we find in the tales of H. Rider Haggard and others. How do you think of Africa?

Rick Machette: She's like a big beautiful woman, eager to engage you, undeniably sexual but complicated, violent. And black. She's a black woman, definitely. And for a man as potent and virile as myself, her darkest corners are irresistible.

SL: I see. Don't you think that's a somewhat overplayed metaphor? That something is like a woman?

RM: Not if it is true.

SL: True or false: You have killed Zulus?

RM: True. Zulu sorcerers actually. This will make it into my third memoir, tentatively entitled MACHETE HACKS: ANECDOTES FROM THE DARK CONTINENT, but I'll give you a little taste. I was running vital medicines to the native inhabitants of deepest Congo, when I beset by a small party of Zulu sorcerers, hired by a rival medicinal supplier. Do to an unfortunate sexual encounter the previous night, I was without any weapons to speak of, save a long straight razor and even that wasn't particularly sharp.

SL: You killed Zulu sorcerers with nothing but a dull straight blade?

RM: I'm here telling you the story now, aren't I? It ain't easy killing Zulu with anything, let alone when they have summoned up spirit armor to protect their black hearts. The secret is knowing how to swing the blade so it hits the ghostly shell in a particularly senstive area. The balls of the ghost armor, that's where you cut.

SL: Nevermind the ghost balls, Zulus have black hearts?

RM: If a sorcerer chooses to sell his abilities for profit? Hell yeah, I'd say that's black hearted. But I'll tell you what: some of the survivors of the massacre that ensued are among my best drinking buddies now. Real men, man's men, man's men who desire man deaths, and men who have killed man's men for simply looking too masculine. Something you'll never be. I abhor you snivelling journalists...

SL: You don't find us like a lithe and sultry woman, nosey but eager in our inquiries?

RM: No, I find you to be filled with weakness and eager only to spew platitudes like so much Taco Bell-induced shit. What do you know of blood and tears? Of the chants of the natives as they summon their dark creatures from beyond the...

The full interview, which I barely survived, is available in the January 17th issue of the East Tangiers Gazette Magazine.