The BILLY FONG Foundation

Having had our offices ransacked twice, we’d been laying extra low hoping something, anything would come over the telegraph wire. The road to Fong had two dead Matrix journalists on it and one Andy Harpoon with a knife wound from a record store mixup with Russians thwarted in an attempt to assassinate the child prodigy.

The clue unexpectedly came in the form of a note to Harpoon at a Wolves in the Throne Room show in Toronto, written in braille on the back of a ticket. Whoever left the clue knew that Harpoon’s mother was blind and could decode the message. Naturally I was not game when I got the call from Harpoon with GPS coordinates and a plane ticket.

The flight was eight hours with a brief layover in Miami. That’s all I can tell you. I’m in Latin America now at an undisclosed location on the coast of the Pacific. What I can tell you is this. I have located Dr. Rodrigo, a local ethnomusicologist and esteemed colleague of famed underground ethnobotanist Prof. McGillicutty. Dr. Rodgrigo is fearless. So fearless in fact, that he is currently in the process of constructing none other than the Billy Fong Foundation, a seaside center where he plans to invite musicians and artists interested in discovering the potential energy of music, and one day uncovering Fong’s sacred musical key to free energy. In the meantime, the good doctors is devoted to decoding the songs of whales just off the coast.

Needless to say, the journey here was perilous. I was instructed to meet a pilot who took me by horseback across the mountains until we were picked up in a pickup truck and driven blindfolded to the site of the foundation. He spoke three words before saddling the horses: “Trust no one.” And so we didn’t. He was paranoid and traveled the way I imagine Osama Bin Laden traveled through the mountains in Pakistan. Above the clouds we rode, until we decended into a valley where we were given shelter by local Indians. From there we rested the horses and waited out two weeks of rains.

Sydney S. Pistol with The Pilot. All identities have been hidden for protection.

Descending into the valley. At this point we were above the clouds.

Proof that information of our journey had been intercepted, hence the pilot’s skittishness and insistence we carry no electronic devices.

Billy Fong Foundation construction under way.

By the time the rain had cleared and the ground had hardened again, we were able to leave the valley and enter the small town of X (again, I can’t tell you.) It was there that we met Dr. Rodrigo and he explained his plans for the foundation.

Artist residences

Sydney S. Pistol with Dr. Rodrigo

Dr. Rodrigo is not at all shifty, and unlike the pilot, he did not require us to conceal his identity. He claims not only to have met Billy Fong but also know the whereabouts of his only surviving ancestor. I tried to pry but the only information I was given was that she was an enthusiastic dancer. Sure it was a bold claim to know both Fong and his only surviving ancestor but when he spoke of the sacred code, he did so with such excitement and optimism that it was hard to be doubt his connection to Fong. The Foundation property is large. Very large in fact, with about half a dozen cabanas for musicians and students to apply themselves to the code. The actual foundation headquarters are much larger and built atop a literal mountain of bricks overlooking the Pacific. Dr. Rodrigo predicts the Foundation could be operational by Fall.

View from BFF

We’ve been forced to lay low and can’t show our faces. In a day or two, once I am fully rested, we will load the horses and take to the mountains again. It will be sad to go. I’ve come to love it here and could easily stay. Doctor Rodrigo has invited me to come back once the construction is nearly done. To do this I will have to actually know where we are and this could compromise the safety of the editor and Harpoon back home so I’ve opted not to know. Instead I will seek the pilot who only rides by horseback in the night some time in the future. That is, if Fong wants me back here.

More BFF.

The beaches here are secluded and this seems one of the last pristine places on earth untainted by franchise hotels and underpaid staff forced to smile at tourists. I regret having to go back. There is an energy here I will miss. It’s as though Fong is nearby. He could be for all I know. He’s been underground for so long, he could be anywhere.