By GILBERT WONG
Okay, I admit I was once a fan of The X-Files. And while agent Scully accounted for much of the attraction, part of me also liked the rich paranoid conspiracies hatched by the writers. These boiled down to the satisfying idea that somewhere in a dark room, a handful of faceless and powerful men rule the world. Aha, I thought so.
Ronson went looking for that room. He didn't begin that way, but as his series of interviews with extremists lengthened, he couldn't help but notice the web of connections between such fringe-dwellers as the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the very strange David Icke, a former British television sportscaster who now makes his living lecturing on his belief that we have been infiltrated by disguised 12-foot lizards who secretly rule the world. Icke's lizard list includes George Bush jnr, the now deceased Queen Mother and Kris Kristofferson, among others.
Ronson discovers that the link these groups share is the belief the world is ruled by a secretive group called the Bilderberg Group - rich, powerful men, who hold an annual retreat in northern California at a place called the Bohemian Grove, a sort of scout camp for corporate execs, which peaks with outdoor urinating and the ritual burning of a giant owl effigy.
I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. Ronson writes in the same deadpan manner, his tone a necessary antidote to the mad raving he encounters. In response to the raving, his matter-of-fact manner earns their trust and hilariously deconstructs their paranoia.
