The Genesis of the Ongoing Jim Palmer-Bryan Adams Deathmatch

Faithful minions will know that I routinely place my life and well-being in mortal peril to battle ninjas, zombies, supply-side economists, attack-trained birds of prey, intelligent air-breathing giant squid, and any number of other nefarious threats to the Republic. But there is one foe who towers over the others in both innate malevolence and immediate threat to the values we true Americans hold so dear.

That threat is Bryan Adams.

Every hero has an archenemy. Sherlock Holmes had Moriarty. Superman had Lex Luthor. The Doctor has The Master. The Duke Boys had Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane. So naturally, it stands to reason that I'd have one as well. I hate him beyond all rationality. But how did it begin? Whence this deadly grapple that will not end until one of us is completely and thoroughly killed? To death?

The full story, even at this late date, cannot be revealed... but I can give you the broad strokes. We turn now to the dusty, moldering pages of ancient history, for this epic struggle originated in the misty past... a time when giants still walked the earth, before history had faded into legend, and legend into mythology.

The year was 1990. I and a brave band of fellow luminaries of the International Left were deep in the jungles of Ecuador on a mission the sensitivity of which, even now, prohibits full disclosure.

It was me; General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH GORBACHEV; First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of Cuba FIDEL CASTRO; and the British Socialist publisher of the Daily Mirror, chairman of the Maxwell Communications Corporation and former Labour MP for Buckingham ROBERT "THE BOUNCING CZECH" MAXWELL.

At the time, I still had a magnificent head of hair.

The jungle air was thick with mosquitoes, humidity, and international intrigue. The jungle was eerily silent. Aside from the buzzing of insects, the chatter of monkeys and the screeching of macaws, the grunting of tapirs, the occasional sound of a helicopter passing overhead, the singing from a nearby peasant village, and the constant bickering in four languages of my associates, there wasn't a sound to be heard. In retrospect, come to think of it, things were actually pretty noisy. But my finely-honed, razor-sharp combat instincts told me something was amiss, and I raised my fist in the international symbol for "shut up."

Suddenly, however, all hell broke loose as Fidel was caught up in a tree-spring noose trap; Maxwell in a net trap; a tranquilizer dart struck Gorbachev in the neck and knocked him right out. Only I had remained free--but it wouldn't do me much good.

A low chuckle cut through the shouts and grumblings of my incapacitated comrades. I spun around, my Walther PPK pointed straight at the heart of a slim, good-looking man in his early forties--Canadian singer/songwriter of terrible songs BRYAN ADAMS.

"Well, Mister Palmer, eh," he said, grinning Satanically, "the four of you, eh, seem to have stepped quite neatly into the snare I set for you, eh?"

"Bryan Adams?" I said, dumbfounded. "You're behind all this? I mean, I'm a little surprised. Your music sucks, sure, but I figured you were just profoundly untalented, not evil. Frankly, I was expecting Elton John. Or maybe Poco."

"Untalented, eh?" he said, his thin smile disappearing in a twisted grimace of rage. "And whose album 'Reckless' hit #1 on Billboard, eh?"

"I believe it was H.L. Mencken who said that no one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American public," I said. "Which may be true, but it's still no excuse for inflicting 'Summer of '69' on us."

"Enough of this mindless repartee, Mister Palmer, eh," the nefarious Canadian hissed. "Time for you and your fellow pinkos to see what I've got in store for you, eh."

I simply can't reveal any more without risking the complete and utter breakdown in flames of world civilization, but it was a rather subdued desperate band of Lefties winging its way back to Palmerwood aboard my private G-4 that evening. The celebratory bottle of Krug I'd bought in anticipation of a successful mission went unopened, but boy, did we go through a lot of Stoli. We sat and drank in silence. The hideous import of our mission's failure hung heavily on all our minds. The future looked bleak.

Well, that was in 1990. The next year, Adams would release his sixth studio album, Waking Up the Neighbours, and  "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"  would hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and would remain #1 for sixteen weeks on the UK Singles Chart.

But by that time, Maxwell would be dead, an apparent suicide, having "fallen" (maybe) from the deck of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, into the Atlantic ocean just off the Canary Islands amidst the wreckage of his business empire. The Soviet Union would be no more, its sterling revolutionary ideology replaced by the rapacious capitalistic anarchy of the New Russia; and as a consequence, Cuba, of course, would be deprived of its biggest trading partner, and would slip inexorably into Caribbean irrelevance.

The release of "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" and the collapse of world socialism. I can't go into the details, but I'm sure I don't have to. If you can't do the math, I can't help you.

But I remain undaunted. He may have won that battle, but the war continues. And the next time we meet, Bryan Adams, the advantage will be mine. You bastard. You maple syrup-slurping, round bacon-eating bastard.

Summer Break.

Who on earth, I can hear you asking, in his or her right mind would ever want to leave Palmerwood? Isn't living in this sprawling, rambling, super-luxurious, deeply historic country estate located in the gently rolling hills of suburban St. Louis like being on vacation all the time?

Well, yeah, sure it is. But even Palmerwood, the garden-spot of the Midwest and the epicenter of everything interesting that goes on in our benighted region, is none the worse for a change of scenery. And so, every so often, the Palmers of Palmerwood decamp for more tropical climes--places where palm trees and heliconias replace pin oaks and pine trees on the horizon, where sand replaces loam between our toes, and where soft Island accents replace the broad, flat tones of our native Heartland region.

The children were so excited! They simply couldn't WAIT to get the hell out of Dodge, and had their Lil' Louie (the junior line of Louis Vuitton) luggage packed before you could say Rock Jabinson. However, inasmuch as I am attempting to raise responsible young'uns who will, someday, shoulder their hereditary responsibilities with the noblesse oblige of those of our exalted station, I informed the lil' poppets that, prior to dashing off to the land of sun, sand, and surf, some chores needed to be done.

First, a bit of housekeeping. A few pesky zombies had managed to worm their way inside the estate's perimeter--no doubt helped by the fact that they are themselves somewhat wormy--and once you get one, then the whole bunch follows. Can't come home to a luxurious, historic country estate overrun by the Undead.



And then a quick check on some of the livestock before we go. Now, I'm the last fella on earth to get his incredibly expensive, super-luxurious, 400-thread-count Egyptian cotton boxers in a bunch over GMOs and organic yadda yadda, but I will cop to being a little dubious about the long-term effects of Monsanto's new "Yum Yum Chicken Chow."

However, we left with full confidence in the ability of our doughty and redoubtable gamekeeper, Oliver DeBaliviere, to handle any exigency that might arise in our absence.

And then we were off!



The children have always been appreciative of the wonders of the natural world, both above and below the waves. Here are the little Palmerlets doing a bit of spear-fishing and scuba-diving.

The scuba tanks and spears were a gift from Grandmere. How the old dear dotes on those imps. "Now, you little pishers get to the ocean floor and don't come back without a species previously unknown to science, and preferably quite dangerous!" she exhorted them. "Grandmere will have the help procure a lovely selection of petit-fours for when you get back."

The Palmerkins are independent little beasties, and on their own precious lil' initiative, tackled a wide range of Salt Life activities, like catamaraning...



...and Intrepid Stella A. even mastered a somewhat arcane maritime pursuit known as "shark-surfing." That child sure loves her animals. And what a way she has with them!



But all good things, like vacations, must come to an end, tragically. As we watched the sun set over the crystal-clear, azure-blue waters of our magnificent private Caribbean cay, our thoughts turned to home. Tomorrow, we'd board our private hovercraft, which our captain, Cap'n Stabbin (if he could be bothered to leave his cabin--what he's always doing in there I simply don't know and don't care to guess) would pilot north--around the Keys, through the Gulf of Mexico, and then up the Mississippi until reaching Palm's Landing on Palmer Creek.

Good-bye, ocean. We'll think of you often as the Palmerlets return to school, the leaves begin to turn, the days begin to shorten, and autumn, Satan's own season, descends upon the Midwest.