Space Force 7

Editor’s note, we transcribed this interview from a somewhat worn and aged cassette tape, of a conversation between Rick Yukon and Tomas “Stumpy” Lefkowitz. The recorder was placed sufficiently far from Rick that we were unable to discern his side of the conversation, thus the words you hear are all Stumpy. We added ellipses where we could hear that Rick spoke, but we were unble to hear him well enough to transcribe his words. This transcription is the only known record of the birth of the Dirty Dishwater. The Unbender was previously unknown before this interview. The recording started mid-conversation.

He and Eddie used to have a little side business with those fish. By the time you opened them up and took out the guts, they were all bones. I have no idea how that fish survived being nothing but guts, and bones and skin, but that lake was full of those fish. Great cover though, I could move ten, twenty thousands dollars worth of weed a day just while sitting there with my fishing rod. Weed was big back then, the Chicano boys bought my weed, the Black guys bought my weed, the Yeshiva boys bought my weed, and that was my market. If I saw some cracker from Denver trying to score, I told them I didn’t have any. I didn’t need the aggravation, and I was happy with my market, I found what worked. It was the same drug transaction as all the other guys, but while they stood around the trees and picnic tables looking suspicious, I sat on the bank with my fishing rod, trying my best not to catch anything, but still making it look like I was trying. So I would get a customer, the cops knew what we were doing, but Sloan’s Lake was a rough neighborhood after the Smaldones left, they kept that neighborhood peaceful. Once they got into … Checkers was a reasonably patient man, he understood that people had to make a living, but he didn’t tolerate what happens these days, old people getting pushed over, these young guys stealing purses, getting in fights in the part when there children around. … yeah, he kept that neighborhood fairly peaceful … I don’t know what happened, I only know that when we stopped seeing Checkers, that’s when we saw fights in the park, and purse snatching and all that mishugas … No, they were inedible, they were just nothing but bones. At first I used to bring a few home to throw the drug cops off of what I was doing … that was Eddie who said that, not me … I don’t know what he told you, but I can tell you why I think it worked, it was because the cops didn’t have enough patience to watch someone sitting down fishing with a cigarette, and then wait to see a drug transaction. I never had a problem, but I also didn’t make any problems. I never sold coke or pills because those customers weren’t reliably calm like my herb customers … I know for a fact that they knew I was selling because this nice Denver cop came over to me to ask about this crazy drug dealer who beat up someone’s kid from Cherry Creek High School. This cop tells me “we know you sell drugs, but you don’t give us any problems.” … I think it was more like some kid from Creek got mouthy with the guy he was buying his coke, and the dealer let him have it. I only know what The Lincoln told me … The Lincoln? … He and I were the two most famous drug dealers at Sloan’s Lake back then, but everyone knew The Lincoln, he was a tall fellow, and he wore an Abraham Lincoln stovepipe hat, that was his trademark, it was how everyone found him. And I was the guy fishing over by the tennis courts. It’s all about recognizable branding right? …

I can tell you what I remember about them, but the exact mixtures, I don’t remember them to the ounce, you’ll need to adjust a little bit to get the balances right. Which one do you want to do first? … I thought you wanted to know about both of the drinks from The Frigate United Crushing, no? … There were two of them, Moishe. (editor’s note, “Moishe” seems to a nickname that Stumpy used for Rick, here, and as far as we can tell, nobody named “Moishe” was at this interview.) We had the Dirty Dishwater and the Unbender. The Dirty Dishwater was for the divers before they left, and the Unbender was for the divers when they go back. I never gave a departing diver an Unbender before they left because it had caffeine in it from the Pepsi, and they had orders of no alcohol, tobacco, caffeine or even any medicine twenty four houses before the dive. The Dirty Dishwater seemed to help them. I gave a Dirty Dishwater to a diver after he returned one, first and only time, great big fellow from Wyoming, he asked for it by name, I gave it to him against my better judgement, he said it tasted metallic. I assume that had something to do with the Heliox … Then you want me to do the Dirty Dishwater first, and then we’ll do the Unbender. How do you want me to start it? …

Dirty Dishwater, for Rick Yukon, by Stumpy Lefkowitz. … okay, Take One. I think we’ll only need one. We designed this without alcohol, due to the restrictions on the United Crushing. Given that, … I’m in no hurry, take as long as you need … is that Cassandra? Tell her I love her. Wait, ask her if she’s going to be in Androrra la Vella next month. We promised each other we would meet there and raise some hell … okay, but ask her if she’s still going … tell her “be there or be square.” … tell her “be there or be square. Tell her that … what did she say? … tell her I love her. Okay, so Dirty Dishwater, we knew from the original design specification that it couldn’t have alcohol, we had assumed that we would just port the drink to a regular bar drink when we got back, I figured it would be either gin or silver tequila, but we tried both of those and the sugar balance was thrown off, we never could find a way to make it work with any booze, that’s why it took so long to get it in the bars, because most bars weren’t set up to make drinks without alcohol, there was no money in it for them. And also, we added magnesium on Crushing, because the spec called for magnesium, it was the only supplement we found that produced a steadier hand in the welders. And at the time, bars weren’t allowed to any kind of nutritional supplement to their drinks unless it was already an ingredient in the unopened can … V-8 was allowed, we used that one for the bloodies, but the supplements were already in the can. So they couldn’t serve it at the bars, and we tried for a while to get it into a chain of juice shops, but it wasn’t sweet enough, it was fundamentally a bar drink, about the same flavor profile as a regular gin and tonic … You need one big can of the Mexican coconut water, the kind with a little sugar added to it so it tastes more like real coco frio. If you use the healthy coconut water it won’t work, the flavor is all wrong. If that’s all you have, you can add a little simple syrup to bump up the sugar, but it’s easy to add too much, so it’s better to just use. the Mexican coconut was with the sugar . But it’s actually not from Mexico, I think it’s from South Korea or somewhere near there. It comes in a tall aluminum can and looks like something you would buy at a Mexican grocery store on Federal, the design on the can isn’t too modern. You fill up the martini shaker with about a third crushed ice, then pour in the whole can of the coco frio, then add one unflavored packet of Natural Calm magneisum. We found that we had to use the packets, so we had a lot of extras, because they only put one unflavored one in each box. The unflavored one is the best because it doesn’t screw with the flavor. They also put a few other flavors in the box. The orange and lemon flavors were better than nothing, we used those when we didn’t have any of the unflavored packets. But the raspberry lemon and the cherry flavors were useless for the drink, they overpowered the flavor. You add the envelope and then shake it hard. Then you pour into a rocks glass, if you don’t have a rocks glass, then you can use an old fashioned glass, but it isn’t the right glass. Fill it a little more than halfway, then add club soda to the top. That’s it … some of the guys didn’t care, they just took the magnesium packets in water, the Dishwater for the guys would couldn’t stomach the plain magnesium. And we usually gave the sweet flavors of the magnesium packets to the divers who didn’t want the dishwaters. But I think the coconut water must have added something, because the divers who asked for the dishwaters, I found out later they had a lower weld error rating, so they performed better. But that was the point of the magnesium, lowered the jitters, steadier hand. But the unbender, that was all the divers. I went through about sixty different trials, nothing really worked until we hit on that …

The directive on the Crushing was Vitamin C after a dive. I don’t know why, but that’s what they wanted. And since it was after the dive, caffeine was allowed. But alcohol still wasn’t allowed. But unlike the Dirty Dishwater, the Unbender paired find with most every alcohol we tried, it worked with whisky best, but we had the same problem with that on in the bars as with the Dishwater. The Unbender had the Emergen-C vitamin packets in them, and those weren’t allowed in bars, we never even tried it in a juice bar. So when they pulled the Emergen-C packets in the bar, it was just a weak whisky and coke, and that went nowhere … we used Pepsi though, we couldn’t get the profile to work to United Crushing with Royal Crown, or Coke, we tried Dr. Pepper, we tried Sprite and that grapefruit one, Squirt, that one worked pretty well. But Pepsi tested highest, so rules of the ship, that’s the one we used. The Unbender also used the rocks glass, but an old fashioned glass would have worked equally well for that one, it may have even been better. You fill up the martini shaker about one-third with crushed ice, add the Emergen-C packet, then add about 12 ounces of club soda or seltzer, they both work. Hold the lid tight and shake it, the carbonation will push the lid off. Pour into the rocks glass about two-thirds of the way, top with Pepsi, but a rough pour, because you want it to mix. … it had nothing to do with the bends! No … Moishe, if you shut your yap I’ll tell you where we got the name. It had nothing to do with the bends or with underwater welding, the Unbender was named because of a little side-effect with the magnesium from the Dirty Dishwaters. That magnesium had a laxative effect, and after these divers got back in the pressure chamber, to the man, and once to the woman, they came back aboard and they all needed the head. The mechanical engineer was a Newcastle kid, he catches me in the companionway, I still remember what he asked me, I’ll try to do his accent … “oy, Shtoomp, what air ya feeding them divers, mate? When they get back aboard, I got u-bend straighteners all up and down the head lines.”

That’s what he called those massive magnesium shits from the divers, he called them “U-bend straighteners” as if the logs of crap were so formidable that they pushed the u-bends under the heads into straight pipes. So that name of course stuck, and the divers ended up calling the Dishwaters the “straighteners”. Eventually the antidote after the dive was the Unbender.

But those were the two drinks from Crushing, we never designed them to have any alcohol in them. They were similar to gin and tonics in that the company specified them to deliver necessary nutritional supplements or medicine in a way that the workers didn’t mind getting their dosages. But unlike the quinine gin drinks, they didn’t have alcohol because it wasn’t in the company specification. We found out later that our formulation either didn’t need the alcohol or worked better without it.

We were able to use the recent press release from Dr. St. Clair to transcribe the original PFW article about Rick Yukon. Apologies for editing errors, the article was not completely clear in the video.

United Crushing Corporation Halts Search For Missing Employee

Scientist Rick Yukon presumed lost at sea

by Franz Calphke

The public information office for United Crushing Corporation has issued a statement regarding former employee Rick Yukon, who was reported to have been arrested by authorities in Martinique. This report contradicts an earlier report that Yukon was taken from the frigate in handcuffs at the port of Fort-de-France in Martinique. The updated statement yesterday claims that Yukon never made it to Martinique and was lost at least when the ship was in the North Atlantic. The statement provided no information about a search and rescue effort for Yukon, however company spokesperson Yves Rachin told PFW that all efforts were made to find Yukon after it was discovered he was missing from his duty post on board the frigate. Rachin also stated that with this release, United Crushing would halt all further search and rescue efforts.
Yukon was previously under investigation by Canadian authorities for a pressure-vessel explosion aboard the United Crushing frigate that caused a reported CAN$2.5 million in damage. No injuries or fatalities were reported from the explosion, however an associate of Yukon’s Cassandra St. Clair, who was on-board the same ship and had personal knowledge of the incident, claimed the explosion was not due to negligence. Dr. St. Clair could not be reached for futher comment.
Yukon’s employement with United Crushing began approximately six months prior to the voyage in which he was lost. An investigation by PFW suggests that Yukon did not have necessary credentials to operate the pressure equipment on board the frigate, although United Crushing public records indicated that they in fact hired Yukon to design the novel on-board system. Previously repoted in PFW, Yukon was

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the continuation of the article. If anyone can find a printed copy in their archives, please let us know, we are offering a $500 reward for a photocopy. Thank you.

This is the machine that puts the sour cream & snonion flavor on the chips. Each of our flavors has its own production schedule and its own flavor management. We don’t add the flavoring to the regular chips, we add them to the base chips. The flavorings are all unique, but the base chips are exactly the same for every flavor in the production line. The only exception we’ve ever had for that was with our Pineapple & Shrimp flavor. The best flavoring variant that we had for that one had an odd ability to absorb humidity from the air, which wasn’t a problem for our application process, but as the water evaporated again from our pre-packaging bake, the flavoring tended to clump to outside the tolerance of our product line. We found that we were able to cook the chips about 8% longer at a slightly lower cook temperature, which solved that problem. But that flavor was always a headache, mainly because we couldn’t use base chips to make them. Integrating that chip in the assembly process was always extra work, but management wanted to keep that flavor on the shelves until after Neighbor Day because it had become something of a flagship for the brand. So we just kind of muddled through. But then when the shortages finally came after the paper-cut scare, we had no choice but to eliminate it. We’ve had more complaint mail about that decision than any other in the history of Chipgasm. And it wasn’t an easy decision because our pilot operation manual requires that we place the customers’ needs ahead of our direct internal profitability within the magin of operational safety. But we had no choice once the rations began, there was no way for us to meet our quota for the core-four chips of regular, barbecue, sour cream & snonions and the fourth, which our floating flavor. That’s the one we typically use for nutritional delivery. We don’t currently have a way to incorporate the nutritional delivery into the regular, barbecue of sour cream & snonions because it changes the taste, and our pilot operation manual won’t let us change more than 75% of the product line if the complain letters exceed 12% over standard response. The floating flavor is essentially designed to accept the nutritional or pharmaceutical delivery, so we have a lot of latitude with what we use. In my opinion as a taster, the floating flavors will never equal the taste experience of the other core-four flavors. Part of the work we do on the core-four is managing the constantly changing components of the ingredients to maintain the taste experience. People don’t realize how difficult it is to maintain the flavor profile when every component we buy is subject to the same rations as we are. I might have to buy my cheese powder from Mexico on Tuesday and from Madagascar on Thursday. The rations might be able to supply me with our prime maltodextrin this week, and a sub-prime maltodextrin next week. A lot of the ingredients that you see on the label are mainly to allow some flexibility in the surface moisture, flavor retention, packing variances, and everything else that will change the flavor of that chip.

I’ll know about a new directive from High Coast Brands when suddenly all of my prime suppliers are available. They seem to pull some strings for me when they introduce a new nutritional or pharma, because it gives me more worker hours to focus on the getting the floating flavor out the door with the new additive. Generally, I don’t know what in the bulk additives. The entire month’s supply of additives come in a single envelope, it’s about as much micronized powder as you would fit in about five of those little packs of sugar. Figure about three grams of sugar in each, so about fifteen grams total micronized power. It’s hard to imagine that only fifteen grams is enough to supply a quarter of the country’s population for a month, but that’s the seed envelope. We cut that power with mostly cornstarch, then we add the stabilizers and matrix lock ingredients so the micronized powder doesn’t bind too much or create secondary structures. But that original fifteen grams, that’s the actual additive. So figure our territory is say ninety million people, and our current penetration is one-third, or thirty million people customers. Our average adjusted delivery is nine chips per customer per day. Take that fifteen grams, convert to kilograms, divide that by our thirty million customers, you get five hundred times ten to the negative twelfth kilograms per customer per month. Then divide by thirty, and then by nine chips, and you get about two times ten to the negative twelfth kilograms of micronized power per chip. That comes to about two trillion molecules of the additives per chip. That’s far more than is actually needed to produce the clinical result, but when it’s broken down like this, it’s easy to see why they only need to send us such a tiny amount. The envelope is normal, the micronized powder has tracers in it that are keyed to the production facility. So when I get the envelope in the mail, I shake up the internal packet and feed a sample to the sensor. It reads the tracer mark, and then I call up High Coast Brands and read the mark over the phone, letter by letter to the agent there. If it matches, then the machine gets the unlock signal, and then that month’s powder is authorized into the manufacturing. The tracers will continue to check for contaminants through the manufacturing process. As far as I know, this method cannot be tampered. But I’ve had a few young criminals who we employ to find security holes, and they’ve found two different ways to circumvent the security. So it’s possible. Hopefully the concentrations are low enough that this isn’t an attractive option, and the Lentilevers will make trouble for someone else other than me. And while I don’t know what’s inside of each powder shipment, I can get a rough idea by looking at the mass spec analysis, which has to be supervised by a human under both our rules and the national rules. It’s usually a cocktail of inoculations, some biometric tracers, some test pharmaceuticals and the mass psychology patches. The biometric tracers are easy to recognize, because they spike at the same mass number each time, they haven’t really started to hide the signature on those because there has been no tampering. The inoculations are easy to recognize after a few years because I’ll see those spikes show up before flu and tuberculosis season. The test pharmaceuticals are easy to find because they always load them into the statutory limit of no more than twenty percent mass. The psychology patches are whatever is left over.

I hope that answers your question. If you want to avoid the additives, purchase the flavors from the core-four, but not the floating flavor. If total purchase of the additive flavor falls below seventy-eight percent though, then we will have to start adding it to the other three flavors. If you and your friends don’t want to be dosed, then just buy a lot of the floating flavor and eat them when you don’t need a clear head.