Mark Gottlieb/TMG

 Submitted 10/11/2020

Wales Literary

 

Submitted query on 10/11/2020

I Queried Nora Long at Writers House on October 2, 2020.

 I queried Nora Long at Writers House on October 2, 2020.

Update: 10/11/2020.I do not see a Nora Long listed at Writer's House.

Ashley Herring Blake Submission

 

A Brief Biography

 Biography:

Frank Lee Rio is the real-life Kilgore Trout who has worked absurd job after absurd job to support his writing habit. You might have talked to Frank if you requested a mental health evaluation or a termite inspection. You might have purchased a pizza from Frank. Your medicine cabinet might contain products once tested on Frank during his professional human guinea days. If you read medical texts you might see close-ups of Frank from his days as a wart model. There is a good chance that you already have some familiarity with Frank Lee Rio.

Backstories and Recurring Characters

 

Backstories and Recurring Characters:

The Josephs:  Despite their massive wealth, the Josephs have been excluded from America's aristocracy. They shun Ivy League schools, secret societies, Bilderberger gatherings, clubs. councils, and most organizations. Joseph and Geneva are parents to three grown children.

The eldest Joseph child, John Joseph, has the Midas touch. He drops out of an engineering program as a teenager to devote full time to currency speculation. He duplicates the Apollo 11 mission with robots. He creates a powersat empire that makes him the richest man on Planet Earth.

John Joseph promotes a social agenda that is slightly libertarian and somewhat libertine. This draws the wrath of entrenched interests who first try to ruin him and later try to assassinate him.

James Joseph writes or co-authors dozens of books, including "The Fluffy Manifesto" and "The Cult of Leftism Versus the Not-Left Coalition." quotes from these two books introduce chapters of books written by Frank Lee Rio that share the same title.

The Johnsons:  Tecumseh Sherman Johnson, Sr. is the patriarch of a secret and successful African-American criminal enterprise. He has risen through the ranks as a probation officer to anonymously of the most skilled and most daring criminals in the greater Houston, Texas, area.

Three of Pearl and Tecumseh's grown children became probation officers, another worked as a public defender, and another daughter married a missionary who decided to spread the Word in a comfortable tax haven.

Tecumseh and Pearl are playing the long game. They seek racial supremacy and unlimited prosperity. Unbeknownst to the world, Senior Johnson is one of the most influential people of his era. He uses biological weapons to thin the herd of the law enforcement old guard, knowing that most of the replacements will be young African-Americans who might Senior from one of the civic clubs he founded long ago.

Among the witnesses to the successful biological attacks on greater Houston's criminal justice personnel are a series of imitators. Pandora's Box is ripped open. Welcome to New Pandoria.

Mindy Watkins: Mindy Watkins (nee Watson) is a successful private prison entrepreneur who is revolutionizing the industry. Amerijail containment centers feature wallscreens made of unbreakable material.

 

The Internet is foraged for childhood and adolescent pictures of each inmate. Where none can be found, Amerijail can interpolate what an inmate looked like at an earlier stage of life. The inmate's head and face are morphed onto the bodies of actors, and they view "themselves" in all their blissful histories when they enjoyed Precious Memories (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amerijail, Inc.) cereals in the company of loving family and admiring friends. Deprived of human contact—the corrections officers wear large mascot bodysuits, and inmates have minimal interactions with their peers—the client reshapes his worldview and self-image.

 

An unstated goal of Amerijail is to return ex-criminals to a world where they will purchase and enjoy Precious Memories cereals (as well other product lines still in development), but there is a darker side of their agenda as well. Dr. Steven Wu, Amerijail Director of Rehabilitative Services has refined, if not perfected, methods to extract false confessions and fraudulent testimony. Amerijail is believed to have extraordinary growth potential.

 

Eva Marie Taffy: The low-level politician became the brightest star in John Joseph's Eclectic Party. She survives an assassination attempt to be elected governor of Mississippi. In return for pardoning all consensual crimes past or present, John Joseph invests large sums in the Magnolia State. Entrenched interests attempt to tilt the scales in Mississippi's bold social experiment.

 

Mary Elizabeth Jones: The Federal Probation Officer has made some dangerous choices in men. First, she opened up her office's database of criminal talent to Ulysses Johnson and then gave him a son. Jones would later team up with the underworld rising star, Jim Garfield, who is also provided a son. When she teams up with Garfield to launch a chemical attack on the nearby Waller County criminal justice complex, things go horribly wrong.

 

Jones spends much of her time looking over her shoulder. She knows more about the Johnsons and Jim Garfield than she ever hoped to know.

 

Leo Kelly, Walter McVey, et al.: Leo Kelly is officially employed by DEA. Walter McVey is officially retired from DEA. Both men support the merits of supplemental governance and auxiliary supervision. Recognizing that their objectives cannot always be reached through standard methods, they compile and revise an Enemies List of people they view as bad actors.

 

The cabal spends a lot of time planting kiddy porn on the devices of designated enemies, but they have other methods at their disposal, including assassination.

 

Plot Synopsis of "The Fluffy Manifesto"

 

Plot Synopsis of “The Fluffy Manifesto”

 

Khalid Christopher and Kathy Kane:

Khalid Christopher is a banker for the Organizers, a California Gang that has established a foothold in Mississippi, following the state’s implicit legalization of lucrative crimes. A friend and associate, Rabi Dog, has dropped off a large sum of cash. Minutes after Rabi Dog departs, three men raid the home of Khalid and Kathy. They rob Khalid and inflict wounds that result in Kathy’s hospitalization.

The robbers wear hoods but Khalid’s security system detects enough thermal imaging to make capture facial images. With the help of an Estonian facial recognition cyber search he is able to identify one of the perpretrators as DEA agent, Steven Gouger, and another as Mississippi State Police Narcotics Agent, Roger Roy. The third man is not identified.

Khalid is certain that Rabi dog betrayed him. When his brother, Ahmed, is sent from California to investigate the matter for the Organizers, Khalid is relieved that he will not be killed for his lapse of security. Ahmed, nonetheless, delivers bad news. Khalid will be demoted. He will make restitution. He and Kathy will be stripped of all luxuries. He might be ordered to perform high risk operations until such time that restitution is completed.

Rabi Dog’s status as a traitor is confirmed. Khalid regains some status by planting a professionally-made bomb under Rabi Dog’s car and activation the explosive. When he learns that an Organizer boss (Pharaoh) has stolen Kathy away from him, he parts company with his second family.

Fearing that the Organizers would turn on Ahmed if he avenged Pharaoh’s breach of law, he turns his attention to the other men who shattered his dreams, Roger Roy and Steven Gouger. Khalid plants a homemade bomb in roger Roys’ car that results in minor burns.

Khalid stalks Steven Gouger to his home where he is moving items from his garage to his new storage shed. On the Saturday before the presidential election, Khalid shoots and kills Steven Gouger and rides away to safety.

 

Amerijail/Mindy Watkins/Delbert Wayne Duncan/Denise Finnagan/Norman Nelson/Dr. Wu

In “Mississippi Sizzling” we see Delbert Wayne Duncan being bailed out for the sole purpose of delivering buried treasures to his mother and father. Knowing that his life is in danger if he is to remain on house arrest without weapons, Delbert Wayne voluntarily returns to jail and ultimately ends up on a private unit operated by Amerijail.

In  “The Fluffy Mainifesto” Mindy Watkins discovers Delbert Wayne Duncan strapped to a confession machine in an unauthorized application to muscle a conviction for US Attorney, Norman Nelson. Differences are ironed out with Attorney Nelson as he agrees to persuade family members to run for public office with campaigns run by Mindy Watkins’ husband.

Rumors sprout concerning Amerijail’s covert methods of influence. Delbert Wayne’s newest lawyer, Denise Finnagan, confronts the federal prosecutor about his use of the device. Rather than acting in her client’s best interest and exposing Amerijail’s track record of extracting false confessions, she considers the career advantages of working with a federal prosecutor who she can blackmail for years to come. She agree to persuade her client to accept a guilty plea in return for time served, allowing Norman Nelson to maintain a perfect conviction record.

Following the murder of DEA agent, Steven Gouger, three days before a presidential election, the US Attorney General has placed a moratorium on all plead deals involving drug crimes.

 

Walter McVey:

Walter McVey has moved up the supplemental governance ladder and now sits with the legendary Mr. Smith as well as a schmoozer named Thomas Weldon. Walter hopes that Mr. Smith will crash one of John Joseph’s jets, killing him and his inner circle. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith wants to bleed Joseph with legal hassles and scandals.

Every effort at harassment fizzles. A performance-enhancing drug choreographed by Walter McVey backfires when it ensnares several players from rival football teams but leaves Joseph’s Christmas Elves intact. Thomas Weldon, the third member of the committee develops health problems and Mr. Smith misses a meeting to attend “something like” a Bilderberg meeting.

The committee concludes its business after John Joseph’s DC Pentagons win the World Series in just their third season. Mr. Smith, a rabid fan of all things baseball, takes a liking to Mr. Joseph. Walter McVey seethes and vows to takes his war with the Joseph Family to a new arena.

 

Steven Gouger/ Ronnie Delvecchio/Roger Roy/Rabi Dog:

Steven Gouger and his wife, Lauretta endure the scourge of infertility. Steven meets an agent transplanted from Massachusetts named, Ronnie Delvecchio. Coincidentally, Ronnie and his wife also struggle with infertility. To pay for the expensive fertility efforts, the two men team up with state Trooper Roger Roy to rob drug dealers.

Roger Roy persuades the trio to bring in an off the record informant named called Rabi Dog into the mix. In what might have been a lucrative job, Ronnie Delvecchio aborts the mission when he catches Rabi Dog raping one of the female hostages.

This event sets Roy and Delvecchio on a collision course. Roy believes that Rabi Dog is no rapist and Delvecchio sees him as a time bomb, a curse and a vile predator. Roy is pressured to consume cocaine for the first and only time in his life and it results in a minor stroke that enhances his paranoia.

When Rabi Dog is killed in a bomb blast, Roy blames Delvecchio. When a homemade bomb burns Roy’s legs, he blames Delvecchio. When Steven Gouger is murdered, Roy blames Delvecchio.

At Steven Gouger’s funeral, the two men walk away from the crowd where hug and whisper insults and death threats in each other’s ears as newspeople in helicopters film their actions and extol their special camaraderie.

Plot Synopsis For "Mississippi Sizzling" aka "Welcome to New Pandoria"

 Synopsis of  “Mississippi Sizzling” aka "Welcome to New Pandoria"

 

Jim Garfield: Jim Garfield is a rising star in the world of organized crime. As a young inmate, he was adopted into The Scholars, a Texas prison club e\devoted to the study of lucrative opportunity. His parole officer, Ulysses Grant Johnson, recognizes Garfield’s prodigious talents and shares ideas and sensitive information with his glowing prospect.

Along with fellow Scholars, Ray Bohm and David Hunter Duncan, Jim Garfield orchestrates a designer drug empire, believing that designer drugs will attract less attention than things like methamphetamine. The bulk of the unnamed triumvirate’s revenue stems from an illegal but highly effective, intelligence-enhancing drug appropriately labeled as “Smart.”

Inspired by previous bioterrorist attacks directed against Houston law enforcement and persuaded by mad chemist, Joe Fungo, Garfield and Federal Probation Officer, Mary Elizabeth Jones orchestrates a chemical attack on neighboring Waller County. The plot goes awry, resulting in a higher than anticipated casualty list as well as the deaths of two small children.

Garfield blames Fungo for the collateral damage and plots to put a bullet in his scalp. His plan is interrupted by a phone call from his close associate, David Hunter Duncan. David announces that his son has been arrested in Northern Mississippi on drug charges.

Duncan is in a bind. As a lottery winner, he could raise bail for his son, Delbert Wayne, but Delbert insists that he would be a sitting duck if he were to remain on house arrest without weapons. Without the knowledge that Garfield was behind, the Waller County attack, David Hunter Duncan quizzes his friend about the fate of the Waller County inmates.

Hoping that a similar chemical attack on Memphis, Tennessee will result in his son’s release, David and mutual friend, Ray Bohm launch an amateurish chlorine gas attack on Shelby County, TN. Frightened by the ineptitude of the operation that Garfield believes could lead authorities back to him, Jim decides to temporarily spare Joe Fungo’s life and to introduce him to David Hunter Duncan.

The reclusive chemist and the brain-damaged biker hit it off better than Garfield expects they would. Fungo informs Duncan that he is capable of manufacturing methamphetamine; a product that Garfield thought would draw too much attention. Fungo upgrades the attack operations, launching a biochemical attack that hospitalizes Delbert Wayne’s lawyer who dies as a result of hospital malpractice.

Fungo launches a second attack involving a stolen airplane loaded with nerve gas. This resulted in further collateral damage but does not improve the fate of Delbert Wayne Duncan. Fearful that David will attempt something even more outrageous, Garfield sends a team of amateur assassins to Northern Mississippi to kill the only witness <   > who can keep Delbert Wayne behind bars. This plan is foiled by the witness’s eleven-year-old daughter who nullifies the home invasion with her .410 shotgun.

Ulysses:  Ulysses Grant Johnson is a Harris County probation officer who has shown an aptitude for organized crime. He carries a bipolar diagnosis that contributes to his flamboyance, his impulsivity and his recklessness.

Ulysses accepts treatment overseen by his father but Senior Johnson suffers a stroke and Ulysses is left to the tender mercies of his older brother, Tecumseh Sherman Johnson, Jr. Junior escapes his brother’s imprisonment, and visits old associates in an effort to establish his own criminal franchise.

Ulysses fails to recruit any major players until he reads about an attempt on the life of a “super snitch” in Northern Mississippi who happens to be the sole witness to the crimes of Delbert Wayne Duncan. Delbert Wayne is the son of David Hunter Duncan, a former Harris County parolee and lottery winner. It will later be revealed that Ulysses has played a part in getting Delbert Wayne and other Houstonians to move to the Memphis, Tennessee area in an effort to expand the Johnson empire.

Ulysses strikes a deal with David Hunter Duncan to eliminate the super snitch and hires an amateur hitman to shoot James CharlesPearce during a Sunday service at an underground church. The hitman in turn recruits the nine-year-old son of his girlfriend to complete the task. The child wounds but does not kill Pearce. A car chase ensues, and Sheriff Leonard Drain and FBI agents Bob Henderson and Judy Hunnsicker crash head-on into the small Chinese care containing the juvenile shooter, his mother, and their ringleader. The law enforcement personnel survive the crash, but the budding crime family perishes.

Without medication, Ulysses' grandeur progresses rapidly. His renewed flamboyance is accompanied by religious insight. He purchases a purple Civic that he takes to the <Dailey> County street drags. As he contemplates his life’s purpose—to harmonize the yin of Eden with the yang of reason, the true message of Christ—Ulysses crashes his Civic, resulting in his death, as well as the death of a young pregnant woman.

 

Kurt Olson: Kurt Olson is a DEA agent whose career has stalled. Having been caught in an act of petty theft, he greatly overestimates the trouble he is in and secretly goes to work for “The Enemies List.” He oversees two computer geniuses who plant child pornography on the devices of bad actors. Completing the operation with flying colors, he is surprised to learn that he has been assigned a follow-up mission in Mississippi.

Olson’s new assignment is to surreptitiously place narcotics in the trunk of a car belonging to the son of a gubernatorial candidate. That plan is foiled by a security system designed and marketed by the target. Olson is then given the order to assassinate the gubernatorial candidate.

As Olson stalks Eva Marie Taffy, he notices that she is also being followed by a trio of Central Americans. They, too, seem to want to harm Taffy. Olson gains access to Taffy’s home and plans to put a slug in her skull, but he is unnerved by a photo of Taffy’s deceased daughter, who seems to be staring at him.

Convinced that his life is in shambles but that he can gain status as a law enforcement folk hero, Olson continues his mission to assassinate a candidate who wants to eliminate all drug laws. He catches up to Taffy two days before the election in the parking lot of a football stadium.

Moments before pulling the trigger, Olson spots the trio who had been stalking Taffy. Before he can figure out their intentions, one of the team shoots Taffy’s state trooper bodyguard in the back of the head. Olson reacts. He slays the killers as he endures a nonfatal would. Eva Marie Taffy also suffers a nonfatal wound at the hands of the Central Americans and receives the sympathy vote to elect her governor two days later.

Judy Hunnsicker: Judy Hunnsicker is a divorced LDS FBI agent who cultivates a relationship with a senior FBI agent via a shared sexual fetish. She wins the heart of the married Bob Henderson and while participating in “The FBI’s D-Day,” the roundup of thousands of members of the Mexican Alliance scattered across southern states, things go awry. Agents Henderson and Hunnsicker visit the home of Sheriff Leonard Drain where a message comes across the scanner that there was a shooting at a nearby church whose congregation consisted entirely of law enforcement members and their families (see Ulysses synopsis.)

The sheriff loads up his LTD with his two guests and rightly predicts the shooter’s escape route. They give chase, and shots are fired. The tiny Chinese car suddenly reverses course and straddles the centerline. Sheriff Drain does not budge, and the two cars crash at a high rate of speed.

The three LEO’s survive the head-on crash, but the passengers in the other car are not so fortunate (or possibly unfortunate, given the severity of the wounds and injuries suffered by the survivors.)

Plot Synopsis Of "The Cult of Leftism Versus The Not-Left Coalition"

 Plot Synopsis for “The Cult of Leftism Versus the Not-Left Coalition”

 

Jamal Johnson:

Jamal Johnson, consigliere of the Johnson Family, receives a stroke of good fortune when the new DEA Houston field office head honcho (Curtis  Cream)asks him to serve as his personal attorney. Cream asks for a personal loan from his attorney and it soon becomes clear that Johnson Family associates can operate with impunity.

The family’s brilliant PI, Stan Barber, discovers that Cream’s wife, Katrina, has a longstanding romance with an immigration attorney who has fathered two of the Creams’ three daughters.  The Johnsons repeatedly try and fail to break up the affair.

Katrina tries to poison her husband but is unsuccessful.  Stan Barber later learns that she has ordered a hitman off the dark web. The Laughing Caped Zombie will shoot and kill the only guest dressed as Superman (Curtis Cream) at their daughter’s costume birthday party. The Johnsons counter by flooding the zone with fake Supermen, prompting the enraged Curtis to change costumes. Ultimately, the Laughing Caped Zombie persuades the four Supermen to line up against the wall and claim their cash prizes. He then executes the foursome with a sawed-off shotgun and flees the party, never to be seen again.

 

Phil McDaniel:

Phil McDaniel, the earnest smart-drug manufacturer is betrayed by his two chemists who set up a second lab on the premises to manufacture meth. They inadvertently produce a toxic cloud that draws the authorities’ attention. 

McDaniel is pursued by a fleet of spy drones and correctly assumes that his arrest is imminent. He carries a plastic capsule loaded with cyanide that he intends to swallow if he is ever captured.  His cousin and associate, Jim Garfield, devises an exit strategy that will follow McDaniel’s escape from the drones.

Reasoning, that the Feds have limited resources and a finite number of spy drones, Jim Garfield organizes an effort to shoot down the Gumshoes with shotguns on the first Saturday in November (Saturn’s Day). With much effort and unforeseen difficulties, the crew flees from and eventually destroys four Gumshoes. At the removal of the fourth drone, McDaniel and his driver are pursued by a helicopter.

Reasoning that McDaniel is of greater interest to their pursuers, a meth-snorting contractor known only as Turbo forces Phil out of the car at gunpoint. The helicopter initially follows the car but then doubles back to chase McDaniel across a field as he desperately seeks cover in a wooded area. When McDaniel is hit by a tranquilizer dart, he assumes that he has inadvertently swallowed his plastic capsule of cyanide.

Phil McDaniel wakes up chained to a hospital bed, initially thinking that he is in Hell.  After much screaming and panic, his nurse assures him that he is alive but that he will face charges for acting as a meth kingpin.

 

Joe Grieve

Officially, Joe Grieve works for a low-profile consulting firm. Unofficially, he is a hitman for a government agency that recruited him out of a clandestine Air Force program that specialized in high-tech assassination. Grieve initially declines the offer to assassinate the world’s richest man but is persuaded to accept the assignment after he is shown fabricated photos of John Jospeh sexually abusing small children.

Grieve’s specialty is bringing down aircraft by remotely seizing control of the plane. On a scouting mission to Central Kentucky, he stumbles upon a man he wrongly believes to be John Joseph, engaged in an intimate act with another man. Grieve improvises and immediately removes his pistol to kill both men.

Sorry for his error but determined to satisfy his mysterious employer, Grieve attempts an elaborate scheme to slay John Joseph with a nose-diving Duckhawk drone at the Kentucky Derby. The killer drone is also fooled by a Joseph lookalike and an entomologist is harpooned on live television.

Grieve spends the next six months tracking John Joseph across the country, trying to crash his plane. He is thwarted repeatedly due to last minute flight plans, faulty intelligence, the inclusion of an innocent passenger, as well as Grieve’s distraction by the premiere of a fetish video.

At last, the stars seem to line up. John Joseph’s baseball team is set to sweep the World Series ahead of a hurricane that is set to hit Washington, DC. John Joseph and his wife plan to evacuate in a four-seat Diamond jet at the conclusion of the baseball game and Grieve is prepared to crash the plane shortly after take-off.

As the game progresses, Grieve is mesmerized by the world premiere of a fetish star who has only recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday. He is unaware that the Joseph family dynamics are blowing up. Joanne Joseph lobbies ber brother’s girlfriend, Amber Wayne, to allow Joanne and her boyfriend to fly in the Diamond so as to avoid her estranged mother and father.

Geneva Joseph, mother of the three Joseph children, John, Joanne, and Jeff, advocates for Geneva and her husband to be awarded the use of the four-seater. Minutes after the DC Pentagons clinch back to back World Series championships, Jeff Joseph’s wife, Jojo, receives word that her father had passed away earlier in the day.

John Joseph makes the executive decision that Jeff and Jojo fly back to Jojo’s family in Iowa in the Diamond. Meanwhile, Joe Grieve pulls himself away from his livestream Nirvana, unaware of the plane’s change of passengers. Shortly after takeoff, Grieve attempts to bring down the jet, but he encounters a resistance he has never before experienced.

Unsure if he has failed yet another mission, Grieve drives his motorhome back to Maryland through mountain roads, racing a landbound hurricane. Shortly after returning to his Maryland home, Grieve learns that he has inadvertently killed former child star and philanthropist, Jeff Joseph, his wife Jojo, and their pilot, Steven Foust.

 

 Amerijail/Mindy Watkins/Delbert Wayne Duncan/Denise Finnagan/Norman Nelson/Dr. Wu

In “The Cult of Leftism Versus the Not-Left Coalition” we see an updated Delbert Wayne Duncan. Amerijail has refined their techniques of persuasion. Having received notice that a Joseph Family news service is releasing an expose on the confession machine that forces innocent people to admit to crimes they did not commit, they disassemble Dr. Wu’s invention and scrub all references to its existence.

Amerijail inmates remain in constant social isolation. In their tiny pods, they watch wallscreens that display wholesome stories featuring the inmate’s head morphed onto the bodies of the child actor, the adolescent star, and the young adult who claims a supermodel wife and three trophy children, all of whom bask in majestic wealth and splendor.

The morphing technology grants prosecution other options. By grafting the head of a friend or colleague on the trunk of an actor who then repeatedly thanks the inmate for snitching on him and helping him turn his life around. Seeing his contented friend sitting in the lap of luxury with his model-beautiful family, the inmate is willing to fabricate crimes to help his friend.

Mindy Watkins, CEO of Amerijail, executes a suave PR campaign to refute the expose. She isolates the whistleblower and uses a feared gang leader to intimidate him and his family. The whistleblower is strongly encouraged to retract his previous statements and to accept an Amerijail promotion.

David Hunter Duncan and his wife, Hope, have grown dissatisfied with their son’s lawyers. Reasoning that Denise Finnagan will fear a protective mother more than a hardened convict, she successfully persuades Finnagan to become more assertive in her legal proceedings. With plea deals back on the table, Finnagan tries to revise their prior deal with Norman Nelson.

Sensing that Amerijail’s new, refined techniques of persuasion has tilted the case in his favor, Norman Nelson raises the stakes. We see him viewing a secretly-taped sexual encounter with Denise Finnagan.

When it seems that the Duncan Family’s two and a half year struggle has concluded, David Hunter Duncan receives an emergency text from Jim Garfield. He has been pressed into service to help their associate, Phil McDaniel flee a pack of Gumshoe drones.

Mati Belford submitted 9/16/2020

 

Mitchell Waters 9/12/2020

 

Emma Sweeney Agency