Planificación de un Cluster

Now that the feds have outlawed fireworks, you'd better save all the M80s you can find. Extremely versatile devices, M80s are excellent propellants for other substances. For example, this stunt started out as a dorm prank at Clapper Packer University but soon escalated into more deadly sport, which went like this. Put some fresh feces, the looser the better, into a large Baggie. Gently break the glass on a large-wattage lightbulb, but do not disturb the filament. Even more gently attach the filament to the fuse of the M80. Screw the bulb carefully back into a ceiling socket. Finally, move the bag of feces up and around the light fixture. Be certain the fuse and filament do not touch the feces, but see that the M80 is into the substance. Tape the bag to the ceiling.

Naturally, all this presupposes you have access to the mark's room or to a room where the mark is likely to be the one who comes in and turns on the light. One cautionary note: Be sure the light switch is off when you screw in the bulb. If it's not, you have about four seconds to avoid getting nasty coverage from the M80's blast. Done correctly, this is a spectacular stunt. As the designer of this one, George Dierk adds, "You don't have to limit your spatter substance to feces. Paint, cheap perfume, acid, and CS gas all have their place."

Gun powder has a lot of uses in addition to filling up a portion of cartridges. If your mark has an outdoor barbecue, you could sprinkle a cup of old-fashioned black powder around the bottom of the grill. When the powder ignites it will do so with a huge, whooshy flash, accompanied by a great white cloud of smelly smoke. I would hate to imagine the multiple effects of such a pyrotechnical display on one of those fancy grills powdered by LP gas. Wow!

Don't let your imagination rest with the cookout grill. Remember fireplaces, wood stoves, ovens, etc. The experts suggest you use black

powder rather than the more modern smokeless powders. Black powder really works!

If you can't get a regular smoke-bomb device, a smoke grenade, or something real from the military, make your own. According to Doctor Abraham Hoffman, the noted chemist, you combine four parts sugar to six parts saltpeter (potassium nitrate). You heat this mixture over a very low flame until it starts to blend into a plastic substance. When it begins to gel, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. He suggests you stick a few wooden match heads into the mass while it's still pliable. You also add a fuse at this point. The smoke device is non-explosive and nonflammable. But a pound of this mixture will produce enough thick smoke to cover a city block. Watch which way the wind blows.

John E Warrenburger likes to mess up people's nervous systems. One of his favorite non-lethal tricks involving non-explosives is a good bit of cardiac theater.

John says, "I bundle a few of those road flares -- the ones in the red jackets -- together and wrap them with black plastic tape. Connect this with some coiled wiring to a ticking alarm clock and place it so your mark will get the full visual and aural effect.

Fillers

Trickster Aynesworth Belin is thrilled with the recent introduction of the super-foam products. These are urethane-and-resin compounds, usually in a spray can, which billow out and expand into a mass at least thirty times the original volume. They harden quickly, often within five minutes. Another version is a two-part liquid that when mixed does even more astounding things. One quart will give you the equal of 150 pounds of plaster.

A gallon of super foam will make eight cubic feet of the ultra-strong material, which is water, erosion, and corrosion proof, as well as heat and cold resistant. The irony is that these products have been marketed by major corporations for various legitimate filler jobs. They rely on advertising and societal brainwashing to make certain the lulled citizens use the product only for its duly intended purpose. If there was ever a product that belongs in the arsenal of the dirty trickster, this one is it. I took an informal survey of fifteen hardware stores in my area. All had the product in stock. Yet one clerk told me, "Most [buyers] are young kids...got no good use in mind."

I bet some of them have a very good use to mind. What can I say but, "Try it, you'll like it," even if the mark won't?

Forgery

Forgery is a fine art form, very useful to the trickster. During World War II, for example, the British Security Coordination often forged letterheads, documents, and official cables to thwart Hitler's efforts in the early dark days of 1939 through 1941. Some of their efforts were spectacular, especially in South America, working covertly with sympathetic American officials, officially neutral at that time. Some of their tactics are highly adaptable to today's dirty trickster. Full details are yours for the reading in A MAN CALLED INTREPID. Another excellent reference is THE NEW PAPER TRIP, which will give you everything you need to know about forging to get even.