WILLIAM ARTHUR HOLMES (contact me here)

Dobie Pokorny was on tour in support of his manifesto, Another Way: Beyond the Status Quo. He started in Tennessee, then north through Kentucky and Indiana before escaping an angry mob and veering southwest. After stops in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, things got weird in New Mexico.

His latest book was an anti-corporate diatribe born of a lifetime of people-watching and corporate jobs. He never had a career, per se. Just jobs. One after the other, never quite fitting in anywhere, never believing in the company he worked for.

The manifesto was something he did believe in, and spouting off for a living would be his career from now on, despite those who did not like his message or its messenger.

There were plenty who did, though, and word was spreading. Crowds were growing with each passing week. Well into his tour, he was filling up those previously half-empty hotel conference rooms, even the occasional small concert venue, as he shared his plans to save the world.

He was feeling good about things by the time he made it to New Mexico. Despite a rough start, he was doing exactly what he wanted: staying sober and saying what needed to be said. Selling more books online, in stores, and in person now, he had himself convinced he was winning the war against those who would shut him up.

He was a reluctant hero. Nobody's savior. And, he said so repeatedly, refusing to pretend otherwise. Several seminar attendees had suggested he take himself more seriously. Be more respectable. Act like a proper leader. And, he noticed, it was almost always a woman.

He knew he had no business giving lectures and solving the world's problems, but the world had gone crazy and nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Nobody he trusted to get it right, anyway. Someone had to inject some no-longer-common sense and decency into the conversation. Why not him?

"The fatal flaw of most would-be saviors," he said, "is to take themselves too seriously. Take your principles, intuition and beliefs seriously, sure. Not yourself. This isn't about me, it's about getting people to think for themselves. Stop being followers! I'm the leader who doesn't want followers. We all need to be responsible individuals!"

He hated corporations, especially those bent on convincing people to buy things they don't need. Before being fired from his last job and starting this tour, he had put copies of his magnum opus in strategic locations around the office. He wanted his co-workers to read it, like it, tell their friends, and everyone would buy a copy. He likened his approach to Johnny Appleseed. It was the closest thing to marketing that he would allow himself. The process had to be organic.

The book laid out who and/or what was running things on this planet. He tried to focus on the who over the what, but there were times he had to wonder if there was not something out there, unseen, manipulating things.

There was nothing much new in his book for anyone well-versed in the prevailing conspiracy theories – international banker scams, staged "false flag" terror attacks, CIA/military drug-running and mind-control, etc. – but Another Way had solutions. From better toilet seat design to new forms of government and everything in between – assuming there was an in-between – he had some real answers.

"Best of all," he liked to say, "none of my solutions require anyone's assassination!"

In Las Cruces, he and his girlfriend, Kaylie – beautiful, dark-haired, blue-eyed – unwittingly shared a dream about a little blue alien. Neither of them was into aliens or science fiction – or drugs – so it was a bit of a mystery where it came from.