2022-02-01 Vanity Fair

More than 300 years after its sinking, the San José has “I WON’T BE SURPRISED IF,
become embroiled in a battle of a different kind, no less vicious,
involving international high finance, treasure hunters, archae- AS WE SPEAK, THE SAN JOSÉ
ologists, accusations of corruption, and elaborate conspiracy
theories. At stake is not just a nation’s ransom in riches, but an IS BEING PLUNDERED. I THINK
archaeological godsend: As long as it is excavated with an eye THERE’S PROBABLY A 50-50
toward science rather than lucre, the wreck can deepen our
understanding of a period of colonial history that helped shape CHANCE THAT IT’S
the Western Hemisphere. HAPPENING TODAY.”

In a radio interview shortly after his announcement, Santos country’s cooperation in salvaging the wreck while also invoking
offered tantalizing clues about the person behind the discov- the principle of sovereign immunity, according to which a war-
ery of the San José. “I will tell you the tale,” he teased. During ship sailing under a nation’s flag remains that nation’s property
a consular event outside the country, he recalled, Santos had even after it has sunk, regardless of how much time has passed.
been accosted by “a man who looked like Hemingway…with The Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo,
white hair and a white beard.” The man had asked the president issued a blunter warning: “If this cannot be resolved on friendly
for two minutes of his time and offered him a framed copy of a terms,” he told the press, Colombia “must understand that we
large antique map. “He told me, ‘This map is not known to any- will claim it and defend our rights.”
one,’ ” said Santos. “ ‘This site’—he showed me the site—‘does
not appear on any other map and that site almost guarantees Santos didn’t back down. “There are a lot of owners who
that I know where the galleon is.’ ” are now popping up,” he said at the time. “No sir, this is the
Colombian people’s cultural heritage.” Rattling the ghost of
Santos, who had been a sailor in his youth and made no the Spanish Empire has long been a winning political strategy in
secret of his love for the ocean, clearly relished the swashbuck- Latin America, so there was little incentive for Santos to give in.
ling quality of the story. But when the interviewer pressed for But what of other claims from Spain’s former colonies? Most of
more details, Santos allowed only that the mystery man “is not the gold and silver on board was loaded onto the San José in Pan-
a treasure hunter. He’s not after money and he genuinely has an ama and had been mined in what is now Peru and Bolivia. Peru
anthropological, historical, and cultural vocation.” had sued for its right to sunken Spanish gold before, arguing
that colonists had stolen it from the land’s previous occupants.
Questions abounded in the weeks that followed. Whoever What was to stop it from doing so again?
“Hemingway” was, he had determined the search area, found
the financing, and gotten into the president’s head. But who was The most troublesome claim, however, came not from a for-
bankrolling his operation? How much did it cost? Who stood to eign government, but rather from the North American treasure
benefit? Was Colombia selling off its cultural patrimony? Was hunters who contended that they had already located the wreck,
it even Colombia’s to sell? 34 years earlier, and were entitled to half its value.

Since the wreck had reportedly been found west of Cartagena
in Colombian waters, Santos believed his government had the
strongest claim to the galleon and its contents. Within days of
Santos’s announcement, Spain’s minister of culture offered his

M ORE THAN 8,000 Spanish vessels are believed
to have been lost during the colonial era,
between 1492 and the early 19th century. Sink-
ing in battle, as the San José did, was rare. Most
were dashed against reefs during storms. If

Modern underwater treasure hunting was born in the 1950s,

survey technology. What began as a hobbyist’s pursuit had by the
1970s become a subaquatic gold rush, involving mostly Ameri-

New York–area stockbrokers named Jim Bannigan and Jim Malo-

actor Michael Landon, of Little House on the Prairie, and disgraced
Nixon adviser and Watergate mastermind John Ehrlichman.)

FEBRUARY 2022 89

Glocca Morra secured a permit from Colombia’s main fighting the Colombian government for the rights to half the
maritime authority, Dirección General Maritima, to search a San José treasure in both American and Colombian courts.
1,100-square-kilometer area off Cartagena. The first two phases
of the search were conducted from a surface vessel equipped “There’s no doubt that they (the Colombians) are trying to
with side-scan sonar and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to steal the treasure,” Harbeston told the Huntsville Times in 1988.
identify any man-made objects on the seafloor. The team found “The value of what’s down there could double (Colombia’s)
a single cannon and located a few possible targets but ran out of foreign reserves.”
money before it could pinpoint the wreck.
In 2007, Colombia’s Supreme Court ruled in his favor, declar-
Locals in Cartagena paid close attention to the vessel’s com- ing that the treasure didn’t qualify as cultural patrimony and that
ings and goings. “My biggest fear was always that some of the Sea Search Armada was entitled to 50 percent of whatever was
banditos would think we already found [the treasure],” recalls found at or around the reported coordinates. But the govern-
Bob Smith, the U.S. Navy veteran who led the operation. “We ment has refused to allow Sea Search Armada to return to the
were shot at a few times.” area to verify the coordinates, threatening to use force.

The third search phase took place aboard a civilian submarine “It’s been just kind of a standoff,” said Harbeston, speaking
called the Auguste Piccard, built for the 1964 Swiss expo to take from his home in Bellevue, Washington, in a Zoom session with
tourists to the bottom of Lake Geneva. (The mesoscaphe was surviving members of the expedition. At 89, Harbeston continues
named after the famous Swiss inventor and balloonist—an inspi- to fight. Sea Search Armada has sued the Colombian govern-
ration for both Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard and The Adventures of ment in U.S. courts and envisions further litigation. Harbeston
Tintin’s Professor Calculus—and designed by his son, Jacques has taken up the matter with Congress, where it has caught the
Piccard.) In early December 1981, according to members of the attention of, among others, Senator Robert Menendez, chairman
crew, the side-scan sonar mounted on the Piccard picked up a of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It would seem that
large, shiplike anomaly on a ledge about 200 meters deep. The the debate was settled definitively when Colombia’s Supreme
vessel returned to the site several times over the next few weeks, Court issued its decision in 2007 in favor of Sea Search Armada’s
often resting on the seabed so the team could shoot video of the claim,” Menendez wrote in a statement to Vanity Fair. “If there is
target or hide from nosy Colombian Navy submarines. After one one thing I have observed over the last two decades of work with
such occasion, the crew surfaced to discover that a piece of wood the Colombian government it is that due to its turbulent past,
from the site had been lodged in the Piccard’s propeller shaft. Colombia is a country that values the rule of law and decisions
Subsequent analysis determined it was consistent with wood by their Supreme Court cannot be ignored.”
used in the construction of a late-17th-century galleon, says Roy
Doty, who served as the mission’s archaeologist. The Colombian government, meanwhile, argues that since,
by Sea Search Armada’s own admission, the reported coordi-
This evidence was enough for Glocca Morra’s investors to nates were incorrect, the Supreme Court’s decision is irrelevant.
declare that they had found the San José. In early 1982, they “There is no margin of error,” said Camilo Gómez, the general
reported the coordinates of the target, which they said was director of the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the State.
“in the immediate vicinity of 10°10’17” N–76°00’20” W.” The
head investor, a Chicago financier named Warren Stearns (who Harbeston has vowed to give a portion of the treasure (or what-
died in 2010), met with a Colombian government commit- ever settlement he might receive instead) to Indigenous causes in
tee in Bogotá to discuss how the treasure would be divided Latin America. Spain’s gold and silver was taken from those who
once salvaged. He had understood that it would be split evenly lived on the land before, he argues. “I don’t really have a plan,”
between Glocca Morra and the government. But when it came said Harbeston. “I just said it’s the right thing to do.”
time to sign the paperwork, Colombia offered Glocca Morra
only a 25 percent cut. T REASURE HUNTERS USED to be seen as roguish
heroes, dreamers, risk-takers, literal venture capi-
Stearns refused. Perhaps believing it would give him a better talists who spent decades in pursuit of unimaginable
negotiating position, he told his interlocutors that there had been riches. But as maritime archaeology developed
an error in the reported coordinates. “Which put a very negative into a serious academic discipline, the glamour
atmosphere on the meeting,” recalls the Piccard’s captain, an even- of treasure hunting waned. To call someone a treasure hunter
keeled Englishman named John Swann, who was in the room. today is essentially to call them a grave robber.

When they stepped out of the meeting and into a downpour in “I analogize it to elephant hunting,” said James Goold, a law-
the streets of Bogotá, an agitated Stearns told Swann to immedi- yer who has successfully fought American treasure hunters in
ately demobilize the operation. A few days later, upon surfacing U.S. courts on behalf of Spain, forcing them to return millions
from a dive to recover the transponders they’d dropped on the of dollars’ worth of salvaged coins. “It used to be something
seafloor, the Piccard was intercepted by a Colombian gunboat that people thought was really cool and adventurous,” he said.
and its crew arrested on what Swann believes was the trumped- “Not so anymore.”
up charge that they had no license to operate a submarine in
Colombian waters. One major turning point was UNESCO’s 2001 Convention on
the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. The agree-
In 1984, Glocca Morra’s cut was slashed even further when ment aimed to prevent the plundering of shipwrecks and other
Colombia passed a law—applied retroactively—reducing the archaeological sites that have been underwater for more than
ownership rights of a shipwreck’s discoverer down to 5 percent 100 years and prohibits the selling of salvaged artifacts.
of the wreck’s contents. By this time, Glocca Morra’s stake in the
San José had been taken over by a company called Sea Search But until recently Colombia remained open for business.
Armada. Its CEO, Jack Harbeston, has spent the last 35 years The country never signed the UNESCO convention, in part
because doing so would have granted Spain ownership rights

90 VA N I T Y FA I R

THE MOST TROUBLESOME This was a far cry from Santos’s triumphant first press confer-
ence three years before. The swagger was gone. Here was a man
CLAIM CAME FROM THE defeated but defiant. He attributed the decision to sustained
activism by “concerned citizens,” to which he affixed a disdain-
NORTH AMERICAN TREASURE ful pair of air quotes.

HUNTERS WHO CONTENDED In hopes that his successor would restart the partnership, he at
last introduced the nation to the discoverers of the San José (and
THAT THEY HAD LOCATED THE made no mention of Sea Search Armada). The effort had been
bankrolled by a previously unknown English company called
WRECK 34 YEARS EARLIER AND WERE Maritime Archaeology Consultants, or MAC. Though he didn’t
identify the principal financier, whom he referred to simply as
ENTITLED TO HALF ITS VALUE. “the originator,” Santos name-checked the search expedition’s
main participants, describing them as a “dream team.”
over the San José, as well as the hundreds of undiscovered
colonial-era shipwrecks believed to lie in Colombian waters. They found the wreck, he said, with assistance and technology
from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the internation-
The Santos government further defied the spirit of UNESCO’s ally renowned Massachusetts-based research organization that
convention in 2013 by passing a law that allows private contrac- helped locate the Titanic. But the driving force behind the effort,
tors to salvage wrecks and then keep “up to 50 percent of the the person who cracked the mystery of the San José, he said,
value of those objects that do not constitute the Cultural Pat- had been an archaeologist named Roger Dooley. After the press
rimony of the Nation.” According to the law, artifacts of which conference, Santos played a short video documenting the search
there are multiple interchangeable examples—such as uncut effort in 2015. The moment Dooley appeared on camera, it was
gemstones or coins of the same denomination from the same clear: white hair, white beard. Hemingway.
year—don’t count as patrimony beyond the first few specimens.
The rest would qualify as treasure, and the contractor could D OOLEY WELCOMES ME into his 21st-floor condo
keep up to half of it. in Aventura, Florida, and shows off his spectac-
ular view of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the
The law sparked outrage among a number of observers who dazzling celebrity properties across the canal,
saw it as sanctioned looting. “The robbers are going to flee the including Lionel Messi’s over to the right in
bank, escorted by police,” said Francisco Muñoz, a Cartagena Sunny Isles Beach.
historian and self-appointed San José watchdog, in a recent
interview. A former state’s attorney named Leandro Ramos You’d be forgiven for taking him for a treasure hunter at first
has referred to the law as a “criminal plot.” glance. It’s not only the look, less Hemingway than Ancient
Mariner, with deep-set eyes, flowing gray hair, and a scar on
Others were more pragmatic, recognizing that Colombia his hand from the bite of a moray eel. His walls are covered
likely didn’t have the means to finance ambitious search and with yellowed maps and images of galleons; his shelves contain
salvage expeditions on its own. Nevertheless, critics feared numerous books on treasure hunting; on his coffee table is a
the ambiguity of the law—especially that “up to 50 percent” special edition of National Geographic all about pirates; on a side
provision—would be an invitation to graft. table is a miniature treasure chest.

“I really didn’t like that because that opens the door for Nevertheless, Dooley dispels the myths of treasure hunting:
countries like ours that are prone to corruption,” said Daniel Gold coins were never kept in chests except in novels and movies;
De Narváez McAllister, a nautical historian who helped shape they were stored much more sensibly, in small, portable boxes.
the law but had lobbied for an even 50-50 split. And X never, ever marks the spot—except that one time it did, on
an old map he found of the Cuban coast that marked the location
De Narváez says the law was “obviously” written with the of an early 18th-century shipwreck with a Maltese Cross.
San José in mind. And just two years after it passed, the galleon
was found. Dooley, 76, says he has found more than 100 shipwrecks
since the late 1960s but insists that he’s no treasure hunter—
More than 100 archaeologists and academics around the that he loathes the practice. “I’m an archaeologist,” he said. “I
world signed an open letter, published in the Spanish newspaper have never found gold. I have never touched a gold coin.” (Most
ABC, urging the Santos government to ensure that any excava- colonial-era coins were silver, but it doesn’t seem like he’s trying
tion be conducted with the strictest archaeological rigor and to get by on a technicality.)
in total transparency, avoiding “a debacle that keeps wealth in
the hands of few.” He concedes that if there’s as much treasure on the San José
as many historians believe, he will have found more sunken
The longer the government went without revealing any gold and silver than anyone in history. The suggestion doesn’t
details about “Hemingway” or his backers, or their plans for faze him. He has long been obsessed with the San José and
the excavation, the louder the critics grew. seems more interested in the number of bronze cannons on
the galleon—62, he says, not 64 as is commonly reported—than
Santos had hoped to see the excavation of the San José begin the amount of gold, which he says is unknowable and only a
before the end of his presidency, in August 2018. On July 23 of small part of the story.
that year, the day he was supposed to announce the public-
private partnership to excavate the wreck, Santos returned to Should MAC be granted the contract to excavate the San
national airwaves to make a different, more regretful declara- José, an undertaking he estimates C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 9 2
tion: He was suspending the process.

FEBRUARY 2022 91

What Lies Beneath miles east of Havana in 1698. He looked will say nothing about the originator except
forward to conducting the first rigorous, by- that he’s “a genius” and has not balked at
a tC O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 9 1 b e t w e e n the-book excavation of a galleon in Cuban any cost.
$70 million and $100 million, Dooley says waters. But his boss—who, according to
he will not take any share of the treasure and Dooley, considered the job an opportunity Together, they founded MAC in the early
would refuse it if offered. to drink whiskey all day and feast on freshly 2010s, with the sole purpose of finding and
caught lobster—had no interest in archaeol- excavating the San José.
“I don’t want to be rich,” he said. “I’m nev- ogy. He planned to use any means necessary,
er going to be rich. I just want to lead a nice including explosives, to get to whatever gold While Dooley claims he doesn’t want to
normal life…. With my salary [from MAC] it’s or silver coins the Spanish might have left benefit from the treasure, the same can’t
enough.” He pauses. “Of course, they might behind on the Mercedes. realistically be said about the originator. Yet
give me a bonus, give me a gift, I don’t know. the possibility of tremendous profit is not
What am I gonna do, throw it away?” When he heard of these plans, Dooley flew the only reason people invest in shipwreck
into a rage. “I said, ‘You know something, I salvage—nor is it simply about vicarious
Dooley speaks frenetically, in a desiccated quit,’ ” he tells me, and feels compelled to add adventure or a love of history. Treasure hunt-
rasp, with a thick Cuban accent that belies that his former boss died, years later, drunk ing is an objectively terrible investment, with
his childhood in Brooklyn. He never knew at his desk. high operational costs and very low chances
his father, who was of Irish descent. His par- of finding the loot, let alone getting to keep
ents divorced when he was an infant, and his But Dooley longed to know more about it. That may be the point: In the likely event
Cuban mother remarried a Cuban man by the Mercedes, to imagine the excavation that that an expedition fails, savvy financiers
the name of Montañes, who moved the fam- could have been. He flew to Seville, Spain, to can sometimes write off the totality of their
ily to Havana in 1957 and found work as night the General Archive of the Indies, a notori- investment to reduce their taxable income.
manager of the new Hilton hotel. ously labyrinthine trove of records dating to In 2012, British fiscal authorities investigated
the beginning of the Spanish Empire. 129 people suspected of taking part in salvage-
After forcing President Fulgencio Batista related tax-avoidance schemes, including the
to flee the island on December 31, 1958, Fidel “You could spend 20 years there and not TV adventurer Bear Grylls and billionaire
Castro and his Marxist rebels nationalized find what you’re looking for,” Dooley tells hedge fund manager David Harding.
the Havana Hilton—which they considered me. “It’s not like there’s a shipwreck section.”
a totem of capitalism—and renamed it the Dooley steers the conversation away from
Havana Libre. It became the unofficial head- While rummaging through bundles of any discussion of financing. Asked how many
quarters of the revolution. Castro took over a paper, he chanced on a curious document, investors MAC has, he says he doesn’t know
whole floor and occasionally snuck into the a sewn-together collection of letters about and doesn’t care to—“It could be one, it could
kitchen after hours. (“Castro loved to cook,” a different shipwreck—the San José. As he be four….”
recalls Dooley.) read about the dramatic circumstances of its
sinking, he grew transfixed. And he began to With money behind him, Dooley was now
Almost overnight, Roger Dooley, the believe he could find it. ready to act. After failing to make headway
Brooklyn teenager who spoke bad Span- with underlings in the Santos government,
ish, became Roger Montañes, aspiring The task would involve almost 30 years of Dooley decided his best shot—perhaps his
Cuban revolutionary. He says he trained to research in multiple countries. At the British only shot—would be to win over the presi-
become a MiG pilot but, being American- Library, Dooley discovered a key source: a dent himself. For that, he needed to leave a
born, was deemed untrustworthy. Instead, mariner’s handbook—or derrotero—written memorable impression. But he had an idea.
he found his vocation underwater, becoming by a pilot of the San José. While he did not take
a skilled diver. part in the galleon’s final voyage from Porto- A few years earlier, at the Library of
bello, Panama, to Cartagena, the pilot knew Congress in Washington, D.C., Dooley had
The many shipwrecks he encountered the route well. Dooley says the handbook, found a map of the Cartagena region from
inspired him to study marine archaeology. He combined with meticulous study of winds, 1729 that contained a curious detail. In the
matriculated at Cuba’s Academy of Sciences currents, and firsthand accounts of the battle, general area where the San José was thought
and was soon representing Cuba at interna- allowed him to map out six search areas in to have sunk was a grouping of islets labeled
tional conferences on underwater heritage. which he believed he had the highest likeli- “Bajo del Almirante,” or “shoals of the admi-
hood of finding the wreck. ral.” The name appeared on no other known
To Dooley’s disappointment, Cuba map. Dooley was certain it was a reference
lacked the resources to conduct proper exca- Throughout the early 2000s, he hounded to the English commodore Charles Wager,
vations. In the early ’80s, he went to work for lawmakers in Colombia for updates on what of the HMS Expedition, who had attacked the
a new government company called Carisub, would become the law of 2013, allowing pub- San José and whom the Spanish would have
whose raison d’être was to extract wealth lic-private partnerships in the excavation of referred to as The Admiral. There was surely a
from the ocean, including by harvesting historic shipwrecks. When it seemed like it connection between these shoals and the site
black coral for jewelry and prying treasure was on the verge of passing, he sought an of the battle, he thought.
from colonial shipwrecks. investor to bankroll the search.
More importantly, it was just what you’d
It was at Carisub that Dooley made his The richest families in Colombia seemed imagine an old treasure map would look
first major discovery, a wrecked galleon like a good place to start. He showed his plan like. He downloaded the map, cleaned up
called the Mercedes, which foundered a few to a few and offered them the chance to sign the image, had it framed, and in December
their names to one of the nation’s most endur- 2014 brought it to a consular event in New
ing legends. After they politely declined, he York that he knew Santos would be attend-
considered the Mexican business mogul Car- ing. He waited all night for the opportunity
los Slim, then the wealthiest person in the to speak to the president and present him
world, hoping to keep the financing in Latin with the map. In the wee hours, after nearly
America. No success. everyone had left, he got his chance.

Finally, he found a willing backer in Eng- Dooley is vague about how the map helped
land. “The originator” is a phenomenally him locate the wreck, but as a piece of theater
wealthy 40-something London financier it worked brilliantly. Santos was dazzled by
who’s as passionate about naval history as the man with the white beard and arranged
he is about guarding his anonymity. Dooley

92 VA N I T Y F A I R

to have him meet with Colombia’s minister storms over hundreds of years. Whatever Glocca Morra claims to have spotted sev-
of culture, Mariana Garcés Córdoba. Within is left is typically covered in sand and coral. eral woodpiles and at least one cannon, so it
six months, MAC had its permit and Dooley MAC’s photographs of the San José, by con- is quite possible the team found debris from
began to assemble his team. trast, reveal a vessel in a remarkable state the battle of 1708, perhaps even from the San
of preservation. It is nestled into the mud José, though that has never been established.
Hired as a contractor, Woods Hole pro- at a depth where currents exert little force. Whether the company found the galleon
vided the search technology. But Dooley’s The masts and rigging are long gone, but itself is less certain. Harbeston says a broad
closest collaborator was a veteran underwa- the contours of its hull are easy to follow. margin of error should be applied to Glocca
ter surveyor, one he’d worked with before, Twenty-two bronze cannons are scattered Morra’s coordinates, since GPS wasn’t wide-
named Garry Kozak. on and around the deck like pickup sticks, ly available in the early ’80s, and the radio
alongside ceramic jars, cooking pots, enema navigation system the company used was far
“I gotta tell you, when I first met Roger, syringes, Dutch gin bottles, and hundreds of less accurate.
I thought he was a little bit of a crackpot,” Chinese porcelain cups—vestiges of a com-
Kozak said. “He was very flamboyant. My plex, globalized society. In 1994, seeking to verify those coordi-
first reaction was like, man, I don’t know nates, the Colombian government hired
about this guy. And then as time went on And after three centuries in seawater, the American explorer and treasure hunter
and I learned more about him, I realized this pretty much all that glitters is gold. A sur- Tommy Thompson to investigate the spot
guy really knows a lot more than some people prising amount of it is visible in the photos, and surrounding areas. He found nothing.
think he does.” concentrated at the stern of the ship in the “There’s not the slightest possibility the gal-
form of coins and finger-size bars, hinting at leon is there,” Thompson said at the time.
The search began in the spring of 2015, the untold riches buried below.
aboard the aging Colombian research ves- (Sea Search Armada argues that Thomp-
sel ARC Malpelo. Day after day, the Woods To Dooley, the site also tells a story of son is far from a credible source: He has
Hole crew released the Remus 6000, a horrific violence. The blanket of mud dips spent the last six years in a federal prison in
torpedo-shaped autonomous underwater steeply toward the front of the galleon, indi- Michigan for refusing to divulge the where-
vehicle (AUV) mounted with a side-scan cating that the entire bow of the ship had abouts of gold coins he salvaged from the SS
sonar, programming it to travel back and broken off, likely as the result of an explosion Central America, worth an estimated $2 mil-
forth over a given area of the seafloor in a in the powder magazine. Once that hap- lion to $5 million.)
pattern called “mowing the lawn.” Then pened, the galleon was no more seaworthy
Dooley and Kozak would peruse the sonar than a sideways bucket. Water would have So what, then, was the shiplike object
data for any anomalies. quickly filled what was left of the hold, and picked up by the Piccard’s side-scan sonar?
the San José would have sunk before most Since we now know that the bow of the San
After several weeks, they had found noth- men could abandon ship. The only survivors José broke off, could that section of the ship
ing. The search was paused until the end of would have been those high up in the rigging. be buried beneath the coral?
the year because Woods Hole had another
job. Though he tried not to show it, Dooley WHEN JACK HARBESTON heard that Dooley Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz, a marine archae-
was worried. had found the San José, he immediately sus- ologist at the University of Southampton
pected foul play. In the early 2000s, Dooley who has closely followed the San José affair,
Garcés, the minister of culture, began to had worked on a project for another salvage is doubtful. “If this was a shipwreck and not a
doubt whether Dooley actually had any idea company Harbeston ran, Iota Partners, over- natural rocky outcrop, I would say that it could
where the wreck was. seeing the excavation of a colonial Spanish be more a metal hulled ship,” he told me in an
shipwreck in the Pacific islands. email after analyzing the sonar image.
“If I don’t find it, I’ll cut my head off,”
Dooley told her, dragging a finger across his “When we were routinely cleaning out the Harbeston believes there is an interna-
throat. The gesture became a running joke. computers at the end of the work season,” tional plot to rob Sea Search Armada of its
said Harbeston, “I found on his computer right to the galleon’s treasure. “This scheme
The time and money hadn’t been wasted, notes about the San José.” Harbeston believes to steal at least SSA’s share of the San Jose had
however. In a systematic search, it’s crucial to Dooley had access to Sea Search Armada’s to involve political figures in Colombia, the
know where something isn’t. When the survey computers while on location, and could have U.S. and Great Britain,” he wrote in an email.
resumed that November, it took just a week stolen the coordinates of the San José.
for the AUV to pick up a promising object on This notion of a nefarious conspiracy to
the seabed, more than 600 meters deep. Dooley has called the accusation “absurd abscond with the riches and cultural heritage
and irresponsible.” At his condo, he rolls out of the San José is echoed in the reporting of
“Now, I’ve been analyzing sonar data for a large map of the Colombian coastline on Spanish investigative journalist Jesús García
45 years,” said Kozak. “And when I saw that the dining room table. He points to a red Calero, who has covered the saga for the
signature, I knew that it was almost certainly dot labeled “SJ,” where MAC found the newspaper ABC. He has traced elements of
the remains of an old wreck.” San José, then puts a finger on the location MAC’s corporate structure to the Cayman
reported by Glocca Morra in 1982, several Islands and alleges that some of the people
That same day, November 26, Dooley miles away. (When he caught me trying to affiliated with MAC have been involved in
ordered a higher-resolution scan of the area. eyeball MAC’s coordinates—still a state the disreputable kind of treasure hunting.
The images the AUV recorded were electri- secret—he quickly rolled the map back up. (No representative for MAC was available
fying. Dooley saw jars, bottles, and other “Okay, that’s enough.”) for comment because, according to Dooley,
artifacts that appeared to date from the turn the company has suspended its operations
of the 18th century. But what jumped out at There’s ample evidence that Glocca as the originator continues to negotiate with
him first was the presence of bronze cannons Morra and MAC located different objects. the Colombian government. “I don’t work
with two dolphin-shaped loops on the barrel, The anomaly that the submarine Auguste now for MAC, nor [does] anybody else,”
and another one at the breech—a rare design Piccard investigated in 1981 lay at a depth Dooley told me.)
the archaeologist was specifically looking for. of about 200 meters, on hilly terrain, while
Dooley knew that he had found the San José. MAC reported that the wreck of the San José Calero has also repeated the rumor, now
was found on a flat expanse of mud and silt gospel among critics of the Santos admin-
When he saw Garcés next, he slashed a some 600 meters deep. istration’s deal with MAC, that one of the
finger across his throat and smiled. masterminds of this supposed conspiracy
is former British prime minister Tony Blair,
Many colonial-era shipwrecks no longer
look like ships. Wooden hulls often smashed
against reefs during hurricanes, their frag-
ments dispersed by currents, swells, and

FEBRUARY 2022 93

What Lies Beneath The most likely culprits, he says, are larger where it is,” said Juan Guillermo Martín, a
fish, who flap their fins to move sand around professor of archaeology at Colombia’s
a close friend of Santos who has been scru- in search of food. Universidad del Norte and one of the most
tinized for his lucrative consulting work in outspoken critics of the Santos-MAC project.
Colombia, among other countries. Calero THE TRUE VALUE of the treasure is impos- “It’s been there 300 years, well conserved,
has offered no concrete evidence to sup- sible to know. The coins are worth whatever and can surely last for centuries more until
port the imputation, which a spokesperson collectors are willing to pay for them: It is a we acquire the technology, the experience,
for Blair vociferously denied: “We have no legendary ship because its treasure is esti- and the resources to do a suitable job.”
knowledge of, nor had any involvement with, mated to be worth billions, and the treasure
the deal you refer to. To suggest otherwise is a is estimated to be worth billions because it Garry Kozak, the maritime surveyor who
pure fabrication based on ill-informed gossip comes from a legendary ship. But it is not helped Dooley find the San José, begs to dif-
and wild speculation.” exempt from the laws of supply and demand. fer. “Archaeologists, for the longest time,
A single rare silver real or gold escudo from have promoted this inaccurate philosophy
One well-connected San José special- the San José might sell for hundreds, if not that leaving something in the ocean is the
ist refused to discuss the politics of it on thousands, of dollars at auction. Yet if all best preservation,” he said, “and that’s
the record. “Just do a quick read on Jorge 7 million to 12 million pesos were to hit the so much bull crap. Because the ocean is a
Enrique Pizano and his son Alejandro…,” market at once, the price of the coins would destructive environment, and everything
he wrote to me. “That’s the way things work quickly approach the meltdown value of the that is in it is degrading and will disintegrate
here [in Colombia].” I looked up the case: gold and silver. and go into the bottom. Titanic is a classic
Pizano was a whistleblower in a far-reaching example of it.”
corruption investigation into a government In 2020, Colombian vice president Marta
deal with Odebrecht, the Brazilian construc- Lucía Ramírez—serving under President Advocates of leaving the San José
tion giant. Pizano was found dead of a heart Iván Duque—declared all the contents of untouched for the moment say that, unlike
attack in 2018. Three days later, his son Ale- the San José to be “objects of cultural inter- the corroding wreck of the Titanic, the gal-
jandro drank from a bottle of water he found est.” What that means, in practical terms, is leon is largely encased in mud, which keeps
on his father’s desk and died of poisoning. that “nobody, neither MAC, nor Sea Search it in a state of relative equilibrium. But there
Armada, nor another contractor, can take is another reason to salvage the San José as
Dooley tells me “a couple people insinuat- anything from the galleon San José,” said soon as possible, says Daniel De Narváez,
ed” that they could help him move his project Camilo Gómez, of the National Agency for the nautical historian. The idea of leaving
along in exchange for a kickback, but that he the Legal Defense of the State. shipwrecks in situ, he says, “is very roman-
“never got into that.” He had managed to tic. I love it. It’s really nice. But it doesn’t
entice Santos personally, so no intermedi- But the resolution has only led to more work when you have people that are starv-
ary was needed. uncertainty. A relatively poor country, ing. Once it’s been found, who’s not going
Colombia has lately been shaken by unend- to go there and see if I find a gold bar or an
The secrecy surrounding the project has ing protests sparked by a revolt over taxes. emerald, or a ring or something? I won’t be
only fueled suspicion. “Normally, between The government may thus find it politically surprised if, as we speak, the San José is being
archaeologists, we share our stuff, and we unsound to fund an ambitious deep-water plundered. I think there’s probably a 50-50
talk about it,” said Pacheco-Ruiz, the South- excavation—likely costing more than the chance that it’s happening today.”
ampton archaeologist. “But these guys don’t entire annual budget of the Ministry of
share anything.” Pacheco-Ruiz has ana- Culture—with public money. Let alone a The Colombian Navy patrols the waters
lyzed the few images of the site that MAC new museum. above the San José 24/7, but that wouldn’t
has released publicly and admits they are of discourage a resourceful pirate equipped
“very high quality.” But he has pointed out Dooley argues that the measure, while with a long-range ROV or a small subma-
what he considers to be troubling discrepan- well-intentioned, is self-defeating. By outlaw- rine, presuming they know the coordinates.
cies between photos taken in 2015 and those ing the sale of objects of which there are many The Titanic lies more than two miles deep—
from 2016: slight but noticeable changes in nearly identical specimens, the government almost five times deeper than the San
the topography, the arrangement of shells, will be saddled with the cost of conserving José—yet thousands of its artifacts have been
the mounds of silt and mud. At a depth of more artifacts than any museum can possibly pillaged and sold on the black market since
600 meters, such changes are likely not due display. “What are you gonna do with a million the wreck was discovered in 1985.
to the current, which is almost nonexistent. coins?” he asks.
Purist archaeologists say what makes the
Pacheco-Ruiz is careful not to allege Some have suggested that, since the San San José the Holy Grail of shipwrecks is not
any specific wrongdoing by the MAC team. José is part of our global cultural patrimony, the gold and silver it carried but its cultural
“What I can say is the site is not the same,” he the excavation and conservation should be significance to the people of Colombia. Yet,
tells me. His caution hasn’t prevented critics an international collaboration. But Spain, undeniably, one of the main reasons it looms
from concluding that MAC has already tam- the country with the strongest historical ties so large in the Colombian consciousness is
pered with the site and perhaps taken objects, to the galleon, has shown little interest in its formidable treasure. That is what Com-
which would violate the firm’s agreement paying for a project that will redound to the modore Wager was after, what the Count of
with the government. glory of Colombia. So why would the United Casa Alegre gave his life to defend, and what
States, France, or Norway be more inclined? fired Gabriel García Márquez’s imagination.
Dooley asserts that no artifact has been
touched, and attributes changes at the site Gómez says negotiations with the origi- Kozak believes archaeologists are not
to natural phenomena. “Our wreck lies in nator are still ongoing, but Dooley doesn’t immune to Cortés’s disease of the heart.
an area that is almost flat, compose[d] 95% believe any progress will be made until after “They’re a bunch of hypocrites,” he said.
of silt and clay (like mud),” he wrote in an the next president takes office in August. “The reality is what motivates everything
email. “Therefore, once our wreck arrived Faced with the certainty of a judicial free-for- is the gold and silver on board.” While
it create[d] like an oasis, in the desert, like a all the second the first ingot of gold reaches searching for the San José, he says, the team
small reef, with plenty of wood, hiding and the surface, the next government may well encountered another shipwreck, probably
protecting places, holes, etc., therefore it decide to leave the San José on the ocean floor. Spanish, probably just as old, but not likely
was invaded by many marine organisms.” to contain any treasure. “Does anybody give
For many archaeologists, that’s just as a shit about that wreck?” Q
well. “The best would be to leave the galleon

94 VA N I T Y F A I R

“Who the Fuck Cares About for comedy shorts, the most famous of which country,” he says. “I went full-on opera. I
Adam McKay?” was “The Landlord,” starring McKay’s then went, ‘No irony, no cleverness, no sense of
toddler daughter Pearl as a drunk landlord humor.’ I just fucking had the funeral. And
l i k eC O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 7 1 a s k i n g demanding Ferrell’s rent. The bungalow got there were some people that were really
screenwriters to get on their knees before so crowded with comedy writers, the health moved by it, that were like, ‘We’re with it,
writing and beg the universe for inspiration. department shut them down. So they moved yes, I know what you’re doing.’ And then a
In their first session, McKay told Michels to bigger offices and when that got too small, lot of eye rolls, like, ‘Give me a break.’
he was having a recurring dream in which they moved again. In 2008, McKay, Ferrell,
a bear was chasing him. “It got to the point and Reilly made Step Brothers, a slapstick “And so my only regret on that movie,” he
where the bear was trying to write me [script] gross-out movie that made $128 million but says, “is that I forgot to keep a smile. I forgot
notes,” McKay says. “I was getting these also seemed to play out the possibilities of to keep a little sense of humor throughout it,
crudely written notes from the bear like, ‘Are what McKay and Ferrell had been doing for toward the end.”
you kidding me?’ ” a decade.
McKay was bothered by the mixed
Michels laughed at McKay. “He goes, ‘Are After they produced the Broadway show reviews and accusations that he got some
you fucking for real?’ He’s like, ‘Your shadow featuring Ferrell as Bush, You’re Welcome facts wrong, even as the film was nominated
is screaming for you.’ That was it.” America, in 2009, the partnership began to for eight Academy Awards (it won for best
hit, for lack of a better analogy, the Laverne- hair and makeup). One afternoon while
McKay says he felt a great weight lift off and-Shirley-go-to-Hollywood phase. McKay working out with his trainer, McKay had a
his shoulders. But…what was the bear? was producing more and more movie and minor heart attack and was rushed to the hos-
TV projects, often without Ferrell, even if pital. “It really did almost kill me,” he says.
“The bear was, I was denying my shadow Ferrell’s name was on them as an execu-
self and my true power because of probably a tive producer (like HBO’s Succession, which Meanwhile, Ferrell was struggling to
couple different things, but on the surface of McKay cast and produces). Ferrell was less make a comedy called Holmes & Watson,
it, it was an embarrassment of this essential interested in producing than in making Will about Sherlock Holmes, with Reilly as John
tremor, that I get shaky.” Ferrell comedies. As Ferrell recently told The H. Watson. The movie, a Gary Sanchez pro-
Hollywood Reporter, he didn’t have the “band- duction that was written and directed by Etan
But it wasn’t just the tremor. width” for producing while McKay wanted a Cohen, was in shambles when McKay was
“There might have been a little part of me “sphere of influence.” brought in to attempt a resuscitation. “I came
that’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ ” in and tried to help on the edit on that,” he
McKay recalls. “ ‘Are you really doing what “The whole time we were doing Gary says, “but that thing was just in rough shape.”
you should be doing? Are those little political Sanchez,” says McKay, “I was saying, ‘I don’t (It has a 10 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.)
elements in Talladega Nights really enough?’ ” care what happens so long as this company
doesn’t fuck with our friendship.’ ” That same year, McKay quit Funny or Die
The Bentley that McKay pulls up in sports a after the company took sponsorship from
personalized license plate reading “OscrWnr.” Af- In 2015, McKay cowrote and directed his Shell Oil, a move that he had openly called
ter giving the valet a hundred-dollar bill to “take first non-comedy, The Big Short, from a script “the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
care of my baby,” McKay turns to me revealing based on the best-selling Michael Lewis book
a Democratic Socialists of America T-shirt. about the 2008 financial crash. It was also McKay and Ferrell discussed break-
McKay’s first attempt at a more politically ing up Gary Sanchez Productions at least
“I guarantee no one has ever worn that shirt direct movie, using voiceovers and postmod- three times, often at Ferrell’s suggestion.
in that car,” I say with a light chuckle. ern editing to explain and damn the capitalist But McKay hesitated, he says, because he
frenzy that nearly destroyed the world. It was afraid that going through with it would
“What exactly is your point?” he says, a dis- featured top-tier dramatic actors (Christian ultimately hurt Ferrell’s feelings. Factions
tinct vein with a heartbeat now appearing on his Bale, Brad Pitt) and no Will Ferrell. It grossed formed inside the company, with McKay’s
forehead. “JUST BECAUSE I HAVE BELIEFS $133 million and was nominated for five people at odds with Ferrell’s. In 2019, Fer-
I CAN’T DRIVE A NICE CAR?!!” Oscars, winning best adapted screenplay. rell and McKay released a joint statement
announcing their split, saying, “The two of
AS WE MAKE our way down Franklin Avenue, This was necessarily going to bring McKay us will always work together creatively and
we see the L.A. chapter of the Upright Citi- to a crossroads. But untangling the partner- always be friends. And we recognize we are
zens Brigade, around the corner from where ship with Ferrell was going to be complicated. lucky as hell to end this venture as such.”
he used to live and not far from the offices For one, they shared the same manager, Jim- But it wasn’t exactly true. The last time they
of Gary Sanchez Productions, the company my Miller, whom McKay began to see as an talked was a curt phone conversation agree-
he and Ferrell formed in 2006. It was named impediment to his career. “Everything kept ing to break up. “I said, ‘Well, I mean, we’re
for a fictional “Paraguayan entrepreneur and steering back towards ‘Well, when are you splitting up the company,’ ” recounts McKay.
financier” that Ferrell used for his phone going to work with Will?’ ” he says. “And then “And he basically was like, ‘Yeah, we are,’ and
ID and became the umbrella company for finally I was like, ‘Jimmy, come on. Clearly basically was like, ‘Have a good life.’ And I’m
McKay-Ferrell productions like The Other I’m going in a different direction. Hopefully, like, ‘Fuck, Ferrell’s never going to talk to me
Guys, The Campaign, and Tammy. it’s no hard feelings.’ ” again.’ So it ended not well.”

On the same street is the bungalow that “I’ve learned some lessons,” McKay adds. That was just the end of their business
once housed Funny or Die, their web start-up “It’s always hard feelings.” relationship—the break in the friendship
came next. McKay had been making an HBO
McKay dropped Miller in 2015 and began limited series about the Los Angeles Lakers
work on Vice, which McKay says was the most in the 1980s based on the book Showtime, and
difficult creative experience of his life. While Ferrell, a huge Lakers fan, had his heart set on
struggling to make the movie, he gained 25 the role of Jerry Buss, the legendary ’80s-era
pounds and chain-smoked American Spirit team owner. After Gary Sanchez dissolved,
Ultra Lights. He also began to lose his sense however, the Lakers show moved under
of humor. “I was so upset and so emotional McKay’s new production banner, Hyperob-
about the Iraq War, about what we had lived ject Industries. And Ferrell, it turns out, was
through, about what was happening to our never McKay’s first choice. “The truth is, the

FEBRUARY 2022 95

“Who the Fuck Cares About of speaking in a constant bark. His cleanly Devastation, about the end of the world, that
shaved head and piercing eyes place him some- he hopes will appeal to people of all politi-
Adam McKay?” where between a young Ben Kingsley and UFC cal persuasions. “That’s why we made Total
head Dana White. Devastation,” he says. “It’s a popcorn movie.”
way the show was always going to be done,
it’s hyperrealistic,” he says. “And Ferrell just “Life isn’t just the here and now, it’s also the As much as he wants to make a “populist
doesn’t look like Jerry Buss, and he’s not that then and when,” Telmos says, his hot breath hit- movie,” McKay says he doesn’t believe in the
vibe of a Jerry Buss. And there were some ting me in the face. “Through my 24-hour-a-day possibility of “consensus movies” anymore.
people involved who were like, ‘We love Fer- work with Adam and a regimen of 16 different There will never be another Network or Dr.
rell, he’s a genius, but we can’t see him doing medications, we’ve fused the then, the when, and Strangelove, he says. “That’s not the way our
it.’ It was a bit of a hard discussion.” the now. It’s a truly remarkable achievement.” society works anymore,” he says. “I didn’t
make this for critics. I didn’t make this for
The person McKay wanted for Buss was McKay starts to speak, but the doctor silences my career. I didn’t make this to look cool. I
Reilly, who looks more like the real thing, and him with a closed-fist hand gesture. didn’t make this to be hotshot Joe Director.”
who is Ferrell’s best friend. McKay hesitated.
“Didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” he says “This is really interesting, Doctor…but may If there’s a perch for greatness left in
flatly. “Wanted to be respectful.” I have a little time alone with Adam?” I suggest. American movies, McKay makes his best
bid in Don’t Look Up, which features the
In the end he cast Reilly anyway— “This interview is over,” Dr. Telmos says, and most unexpectedly powerful scene he has
without telling Ferrell first. Ferrell was before I know what’s going on, two men in black ever made. It’s a dramatic and emotional
infuriated. “I should have called him and jumpsuits are ushering the blurry-eyed director dinner-table sequence where a family prays
I didn’t,” says McKay. “And Reilly did, of of Step Brothers into a tan conversion van. together as the comet looms, partly notable
course, because Reilly, he’s a stand-up guy.” for what it can’t help but reference: McKay’s
(Ferrell declined to comment.) After I leave L.A., McKay sends me his other great dinner-table scene, from Talla-
series of fictional openings, all of them send- dega Nights, when Reilly, as the best friend
Back at McKay’s house, he points to a Step ups of himself as an entitled Hollywood prick to Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby, gives a free-form
Brothers poster in his living room and shows whose wealth and success have turned him prayer to “Lord Baby Jesus.” This time, McK-
me his bathroom lined with pictures and into a hypocrite or a mental patient. It doesn’t ay’s American prayer—offered by Timothée
posters from Anchorman and other Ferrell take Barry Michels to see they’re versions of Chalamet, who plays a skateboarding street
productions. McKay says he’s written emails Adam McKay that McKay fears he may have punk—isn’t funny anymore. “There’s no
to Ferrell attempting a rapprochement but has already become. question when I got to that moment, when I
never heard back. “I fucked up on how I han- was like, ‘He’s got to say a prayer,’ I couldn’t
dled that,” McKay laments. “It’s the old thing Endings can be messy. McKay even left believe it,” McKay says. “It surprised me.”
of keep your side of the street clean. I should Michels a couple of years ago. “I was like,
have just done everything by the book.” ‘I think I’m full of shit now,’ ” he recalls. “I “Well, I mean, I believe in God,” he says.
called myself out: ‘I think now I’m putting “I just feel like, at that point, I probably would
“In my head, I was like, ‘We’ll let all this on a front.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, you might be.’ I want that guy at the dinner table with me.” (If
blow over. Six months to a year, we’ll sit down, go, ‘I think I’m going to stop seeing you for a you fear this might be spoiling the film, well,
we’ll laugh about it and go, It’s all business little while and just go see another therapist it’s about a comet headed directly for Earth
junk, who gives a shit? We worked together so I can just strip it down again.’ ” and therefore somewhat spoiled.)
for 25 years. Are we really going to let this go
away?’ ” But Ferrell, he continues, “took it as The ending of McKay’s new movie is also A friend of McKay’s suggests the scene
a way deeper hurt than I ever imagined and I messy. “Some people are going to be very captures McKay’s imagined reconciliation
tried to reach out to him, and I reminded him mad about the ending,” he says. “That’s with his mother, a religious Trump voter
of some slights that were thrown my way that definitely coming.” with whom he’s had a rocky relationship
were never apologized for.” in recent years. But McKay says it’s not just
McKay relies heavily on test screenings to his mother—it’s everybody, including Fer-
McKay and Ferrell became the thing they edit, sitting in the middle of an audience so rell. “That’s my mom,” says McKay. “That’s
most disliked: a Hollywood cliché. “The he can hear the reaction. For Don’t Look Up, some other family members. That’s some
whole time it was like I was saying it out loud, he made the provocative decision to test the friends. That’s my friend’s brother.”
‘Let’s not become an episode of Behind the movie in conservative Orange County, south
Music. Don’t let it happen.’ And it happened.” of Los Angeles. “I was shocked,” he says. In the end, McKay wipes the smile off our
“Like, ‘What’s your political identification?’ collective faces—and his own—to find the
Here perhaps was McKay’s shadow self ‘Republican.’ ‘What’d you think of the movie?’ film’s emotional core. And it’s a risk that pays
again. Imagine the bear played by Ferrell. ‘Funny as hell.’ ” off. It’s not funny, but it’s wise. And maybe
“Maybe there was a little shadow in there even…important.
where I wasn’t able to confront a harsher, He describes another recent test screen-
darker side of myself, that would ultimately ing in which a woman became so emotional Or maybe that’s just some bullshit you
err on the side of making the right casting after seeing Don’t Look Up that she acciden- read in a personal profile.
choice over a lifelong friendship,” McKay tally backed her car into a telephone pole
ventures. He sighs. and couldn’t sleep all night, reporting that In truth, McKay doesn’t really believe in
she was “looking at her whole life in a dif- endings—not even ours. “If I were in a casi-
“What are you going to do?” ferent way,” he says. no and I had to make the bet and look at the
It wasn’t the end of the world. That was odds,” he says, “I would still bet on us solv-
the next movie. It was a dream response. ing [the climate crisis].” This would be good
McKay is trying to keep his hopes for Don’t news for the upright apes, but also very con-
MCKAY MOSTLY STARES at the floor while Look Up in check. “I made this from a really venient for McKay’s movie career. Because,
we talk. Occasionally he moves the egg whites raw place, and I just have to be okay with climate change be damned, Adam McKay
around on his plate with a fork and looks across whatever happens,” he says. “Who knows?” loves making movies and he’s got more com-
the dining room as though expecting a friend to The social satire can be hit-and-miss, but ing. At one point, I ask him how he can still
enter the restaurant. when it hits, which is most of the time, it’s so get excited about making a basketball series
sharply observed that it’s painful to watch. in a world headed for extinction.
Dr. Telmos, on the other hand, never breaks McKay doesn’t even spare his own movie: At
eye contact with me and is engaged to the point one point, a self-satisfied movie star (Chris “Come on,” he says. “It’s the Lakers.” Q
Evans) promotes a new movie called Total

96 VA N I T Y FA I R

Becoming were further colored by the idea that I was a can be fleeting and may not be visible to any-
failed heterosexual man, and I experienced one else. The beautiful image I sometimes
C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 8 4 made on the major discomfort around my usual social set, see in the mirror is immediately undone if I
rebound, which eventually revealed itself to primarily made up of heterosexual couples. try to take a picture. But I am much happier
have been unsuitable for both parties? Did it, than I can remember being, more centered,
as some of my friends wondered, have any- But I still had to acknowledge that gen- many many times more social. A few years
thing to do with the enforced seclusion and der dysphoria, in its more general sense, before my transition, I had undertaken
introspection of the COVID era? That wasn’t explained a few hundred mysteries about to sell my papers to the New York Public
so far from the seclusion and introspection my personality. I didn’t realize how uncom- Library and realized, dimly, that I was pre-
in which I normally dwelt, but was it perhaps fortable I was in my body until I started paring for death. Now I want to put off the
that I finally felt safe enough? transitioning and suddenly felt comfort- final curtain for as long as possible.
able—this with no reference to primary
In those days I was spending unreasonable or secondary sexual characteristics. I had I don’t know what it means to be a woman,
amounts of time taking selfies and gender been clenched, off-balance, prickly, never of course. Yes, I am binary, but that is simply
swapping them on the app. I had just got- knowing how to stand or what to do with because of the amalgamation of cultures I
ten back one that I thought looked plausibly my hands, because I was unconsciously come from. I’ve gotten much more relaxed
enough like me as a woman that I could show guarding against postures and expressions about a host of things: I’ve decided not to
it to everyone and they would immediately that might read as too femme. I didn’t know mess with my voice, which is my instru-
understand (note: I can no longer see the how to act as a man. I hated sports and dick ment; I no longer wear padded bras; I wear
resemblance). That was the tack I decided jokes and beer chugging and the way men little makeup; I take no interest in how I am
to try with M. She’d think it was cute! Maybe talked about women; my idea of hell was an viewed by passersby; I am unconcerned
that would soften the shock. The day after my evening with a bunch of guys. about being misgendered; I don’t particularly
session with Dr. G, I pulled it out after dinner. care about pronouns.
She was confused. What was I showing her? Over the years, from force of necessity, I
“Um, well, it’s me as a woman.” Huh? created a male persona that was saturnine, Some of this is due to the influence of my
cerebral, a bit remote, a bit owlish, possibly “trans mother,” L, with whom I’ve spent
I explained. She didn’t see the resem- “quirky,” coming very close to asexual despite a great deal of quality time walking public
blance, but she listened. I told her about my my best intentions. I was endlessly lovelorn streets and being visible in public places. L,
dark secret and how I had kept it hidden for and had only a handful of successful liaisons; all of 24 years old, has somehow acquired
upwards of 55 years and how it had suddenly I had little priapic drive. And I had always kept wisdom far beyond her years. She is as bored
come bursting out of my chest like the alien people at a distance. For14 years M served as as I am with “the discourse” that afflicts the
in Alien. She was taken aback, but she was my social shield. I made her do all the reach- trans community—its stifling rules of lan-
moved. She offered support and encour- ing out, all the casting of plans, because at guage, its micro-territoriality, its insipid
agement, praised me through all my early bottom I was terrified of people, even close bromides. We realize that we are flying into
awkward attempts at presenting as female, friends of 40 or 50 years—confiding fully in the unknown, that the more we learn the
gave me a jazzy 1970s striped wrap skirt. anyone was impossible, because it might lift more we realize we don’t know, that gen-
Sometime later, though, she said, “I can my iron curtain. Back in late adolescence, dur- der is a concatenation of physical, mental,
think of you as my romantic partner or as a ing the most drug-intensive period of my life, emotional, and cultural factors we will never
woman, and it seems more important that I I had two intensely bad trips on LSD. The first, master, because no one does.
think of you as a woman.” during my senior year of high school, was bad
because I was afraid of being transgender— Most of the time I feel normal in my new
My heart fell to my feet. We were no lon- afraid I’d be sucked in by it and never return. identity. I walk the dog, go to the hardware
ger a couple. A major reason for my long The second, during my first year of college, store and the supermarket (COVID masks
repression was my fear of losing women, went dark because I was scared that some- help in the more fraught circumstances),
who beginning in late adolescence had con- thing I’d say or do would reveal to the people teach class, take the train or the bus, go out
stituted three quarters of my closest friends I was tripping with that I was transgender. for dinner with friends, give public readings,
as well as all my romantic interests. I thought all without trepidation. The existential crisis I
they’d be repelled by my presumption—I did IN THE FIRST week of March, I came out to my feared from my dependence on a wig (male-
tend to put women on a pedestal. That didn’t inner circle, some 20 people. Everyone was pattern baldness has decimated my noggin
happen with M, but I had failed as a roman- supportive, although a few were clearly pole- since I was 17, when I thought it was divine
tic partner to someone who meant the world axed; some had always thought there was punishment for my yearnings) did not hap-
to me, and that was almost as bad. I spent something off about me; a few swore they’d pen. I can’t sleep or shower in the wig, but
months in misery around M, becoming fur- guessed closer to the truth; three women other than that it has simply become my hair.
tive once more, hiding my new clothes as friends wrote that they had happy tears in I am generally at peace, patching up my sor-
they arrived in the mail, only presenting once their eyes. I began to plan my coming-out in rows and white-knuckling through my fears,
or twice a week despite the pleasure and affir- widening rings: a second group of friends in although now and then I am transfixed by the
mation it gave me, mulishly somehow trying May, in July the faculty and administration deep strangeness of it all. Here I am at 67
to have it both ways. My bouts of dysphoria of the college where I teach, Instagram and years of age, undertaking something enor-
the wider world in September. Along the way mous that should have been done decades
I began to hear from people I hadn’t seen in ago. Certain changes are superficial, but oth-
decades, who maybe learned about my tran- ers are metaphysical. Earlier in my transition
sition thirdhand. Nobody gave me any guff, I felt this tidal shift acutely. I experienced awe
although I was fully braced for it. Somehow I and dread; I spent entire days literally quak-
found myself receiving unexpected affirma- ing. Now I am aware that I live, as we all do,
tion from unexpected quarters. in a cloud of unknowing, where certainties
break down and categories become liquid.
Now, nine months into hormone replace- None of us really knows anything except pro-
ment therapy, I can see significant changes visionally. Now, as Lou Reed put it, “I’m set
in my face and body, although the sightings free/ to find a new illusion.” Q

FEBRUARY 2022 97

The House That Porn Built Traffickinghub’s approach made her feel how much bigger Antoon’s house was than
“violated, exploited, used, then discarded.” those around it, how much it encroached on
C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 6 5 Antoon and (Mickelwait told me, “I never directed or tried them. He’d built his mansion so close to one
Tassillo. “What the CEO and the COO do,” to influence [Kalemba’s] decisions but rather particular property that the neighbor “could
she declared, “is try to attack…[and] silence supported her choices and always responded turn the steak over on Antoon’s barbecue.”
advocates who are telling the truth about to her requests for assistance.” )
their site.” She said she’d been “gaslight- Poletti drove around the corner to observe
ed” by MindGeek, the same verb some sex Adult-industry leaders I interviewed insist- the half dozen homes on either side of Mafia
workers use to describe her Traffickinghub ed that campaigns such as Traffickinghub’s Row. Antoon’s property dwarfed them all.
campaign. “The public is so easily gaslighted aren’t simply disingenuous but dangerous. Poletti then stopped in front of the stately
by these evangelical groups that want to get “Faith-based anti-trafficking groups, in their Tudor-style manor that had been Vito Riz-
rid of porn,” Cherie DeVille told me. A board zeal to eradicate pornography, have created zuto’s before his death in 2013. Next door was
member of the Adult Performer Advocacy a climate where violence against sex work- the kingpin’s sister’s former place; next, the
Committee, DeVille ran for the U.S. presiden- ers is encouraged,” explained an adult film assassinated father’s digs; across the street,
cy in 2020 (with Coolio on the ticket) to raise star and advocate named Ruby. “There are a home that had belonged to a capo. Their
awareness for issues affecting sex workers. people in this country that would be very consigliere had also lived on the block—
In our discussion, she seemed incredulous happy for it to be a theocracy—and to see until he was kidnapped. “They never found
that Traffickinghub was being granted legiti- me swinging from the end of a rope.” the body,” Poletti muttered. The remains of
macy—and that few questioned their stated another neighbor were found: Rizzuto’s right-
position as “nonreligious and nonpartisan.” Antoon saw a direct link between funda- hand man, Giuseppe “Big Joe” LoPresti,
mentalists’ exhortations and the fire at his wrapped in plastic and left near some train
Traffickinghub and Exodus Cry, to put it home. “Could the extreme religious groups tracks. His son Lorenzo LoPresti (motto:
plainly, are abolitionist endeavors related to have incited and encouraged someone to do “Money is everything”) was also shot dead.
a Kansas City church called the International this? Absolutely,” he argued. “When you use “They’re all cousins,” Poletti said, coming to a
House of Prayer—a point Melissa Gira Grant extremist language and QAnon sentiment magnificent estate at the head of the street, its
explored in her 2020 New Republic investiga- toward child trafficking, your words are going topiaried courtyard decorated with sculptures
tion into the “Holy War on Pornhub.” Grant to attract and mobilize some of the darkest of cavorting giraffes, horses, and elephants.
methodically outlined connections between corners of the internet.”
Mickelwait, Exodus Cry, and IHOP, exposing That said, the proximity of Antoon’s
how the organizations downplayed their larg- “IT BRINGS BACK memories,” said my com- property to those of mafiosi did not prove
er aims through a covert “strategy to reframe panion, Pietro Poletti, a retired lieutenant guilt by association. And neither Poletti nor
conservative ideas of sexual purity.” detective with the organized crime unit of his contacts had evidence of Pornhub’s own-
the Montreal police force. We’d just turned ers being mob-connected. Tassillo, for his
The new crusaders aim to outlaw the com- onto Mafia Row, where Poletti—who spent part, told me that the company had never
mercial sex industry altogether, regardless of his career tracking mob-related criminal- had any dealings, or difficulties, with under-
how that might affect sex workers, already a ity—used to carry out undercover operations. world elements.
marginalized group. The main outcome of When I’d contacted him to inquire about how
credit card bans on Pornhub—which Mick- law enforcement might go about investigat- I INTERVIEWED TASSILLO at MindGeek’s
elwait considers an important victory—was ing the arson case, he agreed to scope out the six-story office building in Montreal, which
that content creators stopped getting paid. crime scene with me. overlooks an abandoned horse racing track
The fallout extended to OnlyFans, the and an orange julep joint. Tassillo, in his mid-
booming subscription-based platform Poletti sported a black Adidas tracksuit 40s, emerged wearing a hoodie and jeans,
that connects users directly with content and spoke in a low, raspy, Don Corleone with a five-o’clock shadow. It was noon.
creators. In August, OnlyFans threatened voice. He’d become familiar with this neigh- His dark hair, slicked back, was just start-
to remove all “sexually explicit” content, borhood, he explained, while “following Vito ing to thin out. He had a calm, world-weary
which would have had a chilling effect on free Rizzuto for months.” Rizzuto was the godfa- demeanor.
speech, open expression, and private digital ther of a Sicilian Canadian syndicate known
commerce. Under pressure, the company as the Sixth Family, closely tied to New York’s Almost none of the company’s 1,000 or
reversed that decision. five families. In a secret NYPD operation, so staff members were in the hushed offices;
Poletti arrested Rizzuto in 2004 for his role everyone was working from home. Many
At that time, a trafficking survivor named in the 1981 assassination of three made men employees are engineers; others work on
Rose Kalemba, whose underage videos had for the Bonanno family—a slaying reenacted editing or moderating content. No video
been previously posted on Pornhub, spoke out in the film Donnie Brasco. production, he noted, was done in-house.
about her experiences with Traffickinghub, “People expect a super-erotic vibe, but
which she claimed was profiting off victims Behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee, it’s like walking into a bank,” Tassillo said.
and treating them as badly as Pornhub did. Poletti pointed out how Rizzuto’s backyard Indeed, the only indication that the complex
She called out Mickelwait as being “just one was directly connected to Antoon’s. And, as housed Pornhub was a scrawl on a chalk-
more person who exploited me,” saying that Poletti recounted, it was in that forested area board describing a new MindGeek website:
right behind Mafia Row that a hit man aimed Squirted.com.
a rifle at Rizzuto’s 86-year-old father, Nicolo,
and assassinated him in his kitchen. Tassillo had never done an interview
with a reporter. Antoon said they’d agreed
We came to the ruins. Lacy motes of ash to cooperate after so many years of silence
floated over the debris. “No question this because continuing to avoid the press “could
was intentional,” he said. “Whoever did it come off as wanting to be dodgy. Now we’re
knew what the hell they were doing.” Polet- at a place where it’s important to be transpar-
ti doubted that Pornhub’s foes—or Antoon ent. I think when you don’t hear people speak
himself—arranged the blaze. Instead, he on behalf of the company, it’s easy to assume
argued, it might well have been a message that we’re just ‘shadowy porn guys.’ And that
sent by one or more of Antoon’s neighbors. couldn’t be further from the truth.”
As Poletti spoke, he couldn’t help noticing

98 VA N I T Y FA I R

Why hadn’t they spoken out before? “We regulators and “with anyone looking to make traffic spike.) Meanwhile, making porn has
[just] always felt the brand, and what people the industry safer and better, anyone that has become America’s “side hustle,” Ruby told
saw on the site, would speak for itself,” Tas- the same goal as us to eliminate all of this me, describing an expanding movement of
sillo replied. from the internet and outside of the inter- makers selling their sexuality online. “People
net—because that’s where it all starts, right?” figured out that they could just document
Gangbangs and throatpie compilations that part of their lives and earn an extra two
speaking for themselves? Odd as it seems, Regarding accusations that the com- or three thousand dollars a month and feed
that’s part of what had landed them in this pany had profited from CSAM, Tassillo their families.” Pornhub, OnlyFans, and
mess. A hands-off management approach and Antoon were adamant that they had other digital portals played an integral part
had allowed users to post whatever they always done everything possible to combat in that phenomenon.
wanted, which inevitably led to a rise in it. “There’s zero value” in having it on the
problematic videos—which spoke for them- site, Tassillo told me. “If my goal is to become Toward the end of our meeting, I asked
selves. Now, after the ethics hearings, the that household name that represents adult Tassillo what he thought PornHub’s impact
Canadian government insists it will create content and I allow this stuff to be on—I’m has been on the world’s erotic life. “I honestly
a watchdog position to monitor platforms shooting myself in the foot. SNL would never think it’s been a positive one,” he answered.
like Pornhub. And ongoing court cases still feel comfortable making a skit about us.” “We created a platform that allows any con-
seek to determine whether the company’s tent creator to create whatever matters to
pre-2021 procedures amounted to criminal KRISTOF, WHO WROTE the Times’s Pornhub them. Through that, people [can] experi-
negligence. takedown, left the paper in October and ment and see things they might not even
announced an Oregon gubernatorial run. know they might be into. I think it’s actually
Were Pornhub’s executives preoccupied One nagging detail, though, that many of allowed people to be a little more honest
by the litigation? “As a business owner, those interviewed for this story brought up, about themselves.”
obviously it’s on your mind,” Tassillo said. is that in his column he’d neglected to dis-
“But as something that is going to destroy close the extremist beliefs of those trying to The porn prohibitionists certainly
the business? No, I’m not worried about silence Pornhub. Grant, in The New Repub- wouldn’t agree. Nor would legislators who
that…. I’m not going anywhere. We’ll keep lic, characterized this lack of transparency continue to draft anti-porn laws. (The porn
striving toward that goal of becoming even as “journalistic malpractice.” Porn activist industry retaliated several months ago
more of that brand.” And how did he define DeVille, for her part, questioned how it was by hiring lobbyists in Washington, for the
that brand? “The new Playboy,” he said. possible that the Times had quoted a “hate first time ever, to advocate on its behalf.) It
“A responsible brand working in the adult group”—meaning Traffickinghub—without won’t be easy to curb content that exploits
space.” Antoon echoed this view, saying he acknowledging its wider views. (Kristof the underaged, exposes the nonconsent-
wanted to create “a household name that declined to comment.) ing, or disseminates acts of sexual violence.
destigmatized porn…an adult-entertainment But perhaps porn purveyors are starting to
company that operates with equal parts irrev- Even so, one undeniable outcome of realize that part of the cost of doing busi-
erence and professionalism.” the Kristof article—and Mickelwait’s cam- ness should involve recognizing their social
paign, for that matter—is that Pornhub now responsibilities.
Why had it taken so long to take down has improved safeguards and other sites are
and guard against illegal material? Tassillo also reconsidering long-standing practices. How do sex workers themselves see it?
bristled at my phrasing before insisting, In hindsight, it seems astonishing that an “Pornography is a depiction of human sexu-
“We felt the need to expedite it based on industry dealing with such volatile content ality meant to arouse,” Ruby told me. “It’s a
what was being said,” contending that, even hadn’t implemented tighter security earlier. mirror of human sexuality. We’re a barom-
before the Times piece, MindGeek had spent eter. When humans get more violent, their
$10 million on “software, human modera- While the internet continues its Wild West porn gets more violent. And when humans
tors, legal opinions, how to block it, how to resistance to law and order, porn keeps get- get more peaceful, porn does the same. It’s
stop it.” Today, no one can upload without ting ever more mainstream. (When Facebook human nature, and it’s a human drive—and
having their verified identification on file. and Instagram both went down one day last it has been since we could paint it on cave
He said the company wanted to work with fall, for instance, Pornhub saw a 10.5 percent walls.” Q

Generation Gaza The bombing began on May 10. On May He and his brother, to support their fami-
19, Abu Halima rose early and decided he lies, went to work on a local farm doing
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 79 time, Abu was going to “sneak onto my own farm and handyman chores. If he could get his own
Halima explained, he would be able to check the plants.” He found the farm leveled, fields back, he said, he’d hire more work-
harvest six crops instead of three, using the solar panels shattered. Many of the pipes ers, expand the operation, and export these
less farmland. “On an area of 3,700 square he had imported for irrigation, he recalled, products to the rest of the world. But now
meters,” he said, “I could grow lettuce, broc- looked “like blackened bones.” Over the all he is left with are row upon skeletal row
coli, beans, parsley, green onions, and other course of a week, his vision of several years of broken pipes—and a dashed pipe dream.
vegetables.” of research and hard work had been oblit-
erated. “Everything. The greenhouses. The I PLACED A call to Yousef Aljamal, 32, a
cooling room. They left nothing to work on.” Palestinian academic now in exile in Tur-
(One senior U.N. official based in Gaza told key. One night 10 years ago, he stayed up
me: “Every time we build a school or fix a past midnight reading an alarming United
water supply station, it gets bombed again. Nations report. The study contended that
You begin to feel everything is pointless.”) the year 2020 would be zero hour in the Gaza
Strip, a time when the place would become
Abu Halima’s farm cannot be easily completely unlivable. The slow-motion
restored. “I owe about $20,000 to people,” “de-development” that Roy had described
he calculated. “There’s no electricity. No was especially evident in dwindling health
NGOs helping me. No regular income.”

FEBRUARY 2022 99

Generation Gaza Independence, up through the present-day of the Israeli public “don’t see Palestinians
Israeli occupation. Aljamal remarked with as human,” explained Sara Roy. “They see
care, employment, power, and fresh water. a heavy heart, “You leave Gaza, but Gaza them as a nuisance. I think most Israelis wish
(Only about 5 percent of the water supply doesn’t leave you.” they would just disappear, so they can pur-
is potable.) With unemployment climbing, sue their own agenda.” Through this lens,
fragile infrastructure, and electricity only THE DIFFERENCE WITH this generation is the Gaza is deemed a humanitarian problem
available two to four hours a day at the time internet: It has helped open up a new, pre- that needs to be managed, Roy stressed,
(now 13 hours, on average), Gaza was swiftly viously inaccessible world. Gaza Sky Geeks not solved.
deteriorating. (GSG)—as in “the sky’s the limit”—came
into being in 2011, as a Mercy Corps pro- “Gaza is a bone in our throats,” one senior
Aljamal’s story is not unique. He grew up gram founded in partnership with Google. government official admitted to me from his
in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, near the The loose group of compatriots run coding office in Jerusalem. He was friendly, polite,
Mediterranean coast, with a close family: camps out of a small warren of offices in and articulate but firm: “We can’t swallow
five brothers, seven sisters. His memories downtown Gaza. The Sky Geeks workspaces it and we can’t spit it out. It’s there—and it’s
of childhood often pivot around conflict and are named after cities its members may never choking us.”
deprivation (street fighting, Israeli military get a chance to visit—Berlin, Barcelona, New
incursions, power blackouts, and water York, Paris. Their goal is to propel the Gaza Dani Rahamim, 67, lives in Nahal Oz, an
shortages) as well as senseless tragedies. Strip’s digital economy and train future tech Israeli kibbutz situated 800 yards from the
His eldest brother, Omar, was 17 when he leaders. They are seriously impressive. More Gaza Strip, not far from the fields being cul-
was killed in 2004 by an Israeli sniper. His than half the Geeks are female; most free- tivated by the Green Girls. His was among
eldest sister, Zeinab, a teacher, was 26 when lancers who have trained here have gotten the first such Jewish enclaves, established in
Israeli authorities denied her an exit permit jobs online. Collectively, the alumni from 1951. Rahamim served in the Israeli Army
for a simple medical procedure. She died their freelance academy have earned nearly and settled in Nahal Oz in 1975 to raise his
shortly after. $5 million. three children. He recounted pleasant mem-
ories of going into Gaza every day (there was
Aljamal decided academia would be his I paid my first visit to GSG in 2019. On a direct bus line between Beersheba and
salvation. He passed rigorous exams to get this trip, the pandemic has reduced the Gaza City), often meeting with Palestinian
into a university, taught himself languages, workforce to a skeleton staff. I had an early friends, five of whom would later attend his
and worked as a translator for the U.N. and morning meeting with Asmaa El Khaldi, wedding, in 1983. The uprisings, however,
various publishing houses. The day after he a 25-year-old video storyteller, who was put an end to that. “After the first intifada
read the U.N. report, he began to prepare already at her desk, chic in a bright pink we stopped going to Gaza,” he said. Once the
a workshop for 100 people to discuss the shirt, pearl jewelry, and a pale pink silk 1993 peace accord was signed, he went back
implications. “I was hoping this would be hijab. Comfortable with a video camera with a group of Israelis. “A short, wonderful
a wake-up call to the international com- since she was a teenager, she comes from trip. But that peace didn’t last very long. In
munity,” he said. “I thought some people the educated classes of Gaza: Her father has 2001, the first [Hamas] rocket hit the kib-
would care.” But only one person came to a law Ph.D.; her mother is a scientist who butz…and since then we’ve been in circles.”
his seminar. runs a lab. She’s one of six children, all of
whom speak Arabic and English. “I started In May, Rahamim and his family spent
“The sad reality,” he insisted, “is people my first year at the UNRWA school,” she told the 11-day war in an underground shelter.
get used to the life in Gaza. They never saw me, referring to the U.N.-run nonprofit that Gazans, on the other side of the fence, have
the outside beyond the Strip. They get used assists and advocates for Palestinian refu- no official shelters and nowhere to hide.
to living in crowded places with no human gees. “I knew it was a gateway to the world.” Most of his other kibbutzniks fled to the
rights. They get used to living under siege. north, according to Rahamim, but he and
They don’t accept it—but they live with it.” In Along with her twin sister, Saja, an archi- his family were determined to stay. When
his way, he was echoing the fatalistic adage tect, she launched a YouTube channel, and I asked him why, he had a long explana-
from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The House during the May bombings, she was sought tion that despite longing for peace—he
of the Dead: “Man is a creature that can get out by international journalists to provide was a member of the Israeli organization
accustomed to anything, and I think that is on-the-ground reports. “We tell stories of Peace Now—he felt compelled to assert his
the best definition of him.” resilience,” she said. “But we are trying right, as a Zionist, to what he considered his
to own our voice, own the narrative.” She homeland. “I hope one day they understand
Aljamal emigrated in 2016. “I had this doesn’t want Palestinians to be seen as vic- that we will never leave our place,” he said.
absolute feeling there was no light at the tims—or as terrorists, a frequent depiction “When they realize this, they will agree
end of the tunnel, economically, politically,” in the foreign media. Her videos, instead, to come and make peace, or a cease-fire.”
he noted. “I saw things escalating in a bad are about Palestinian culture, heritage, his- Nonetheless, he is worried for Israel’s future
way, day by day.” Today he is finishing his tory. (A writer’s collective in Gaza, We Are prospects as a democracy. “Israel is being
Ph.D. in political science in Istanbul, one of Not Numbers, was founded for precisely the called an apartheid state. When people tell
25,000 Palestinians, mainly Gazans, who same reason: to share tales of Palestinians as me this, I say that Israel is a sick democracy.
have made their way to Turkey. While he individuals, falling in love, navigating family You can’t say that you are a democracy when
enjoys freedom of movement—something dynamics, experiencing life as young people, so many millions of people have no human
he never had before—he fluctuates between not as people to be pitied.) rights…. We must finish the occupation.”
his personal quest for a better life and a nag-
ging sense of “survivor’s guilt.” At times during my visit, I heard Gazans ON SUMMER AND autumn evenings, when
express their concerns about Israelis in the heat subsides, many Gazans head to the
Like other expat Palestinian intellectuals general—as well as the media—for brand- seashore. The beaches in Gaza are glori-
before him—Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi ing Palestinians en masse as terrorists. And ous, and I have often thought, ruefully, of
among them—he has a profound longing while many Israelis are deeply disturbed by the tourist opportunities that could take root
for his family and homeland. It is a legacy the plight of Palestinians in the Strip, there here. Families flock to the beach, set up tents,
that began with the 1948 nakbah, or catas- are others who regard Gaza, first and fore- stoke their barbecues, make tea, greet old
trophe, when Palestinians were expelled most, as a security threat. Certain factions friends. Some stay overnight so the children
from their land following the Israeli War of

100 VA NI TY FA I R

can go to swimming lessons at five or six in lyrics are wrenching, exploring the desire to Late at night on my last day, I went to
the morning. I often wake up early in Gaza to move from hate and oppression to freedom: see my friend, Mosab Abu Toha, a poet who
see this surreal but cheering scene: parents just finished a year as a distinguished guest
making breakfast while scores of kids dot Destroy every brick of every wall at Harvard and has been trying unsuccess-
the shoreline, learning to swim. The fish- Dig deep inside throughout my soul fully to get a visa so he can accept a job as
ing boats head out to sea as the sun glints We’ll scream our pain; can you hear an M.F.A. teaching assistant at Syracuse.
on the surf. Like most of the people I spoke with, he
the call? grew up in a refugee camp. His first love?
Thursday nights mark the start of the Knock knock are you listening at all? Books. In books, he said, he found an escape
weekend, and in Gaza towns they are often Conquer every corner on this Earth from the violence and sadness outside his
joyous. One Thursday I went to see Osprey V, Bullets rain down, cease us all house. Seven years ago, after an intense
a rock band started by five friends and rela- Release the hate, in flames we’ll crawl bombing raid that shook Gaza to its core,
tives who practice and perform in a studio Knock knock are you listening at all? he decided to found the Edward Said
above an electrical store owned by one of the Libraries in Gaza, named after his hero,
member’s fathers. This land is my home the writer and public intellectual. The Said
This world is my home libraries hold more than 2,000 books in two
I had come to this studio on past trips, and This universe is my home locations, places for children and adults to
it has never ceased to amaze me because it Every broken dream, every broken heart is read, become computer literate, and get
seems to be one of the few spots in Gaza music lessons.
where the purely whimsical is allowed to home sweet home
flourish. In a nondescript building on a bro- One Thursday night, Abu Toha and I sat in
ken-down Gaza street, Raji El-Jaru, 29, has “In 2014, during the last war,” El-Jaru an ice cream parlor in downtown Gaza City, a
created a musical fantasy of pianos, Dean remembered, “I saw a father shielding his shop packed with families eating the propri-
and Martin guitars, speakers, ouds, synthe- son against bullets. Rock music is the real etors’ famous lemon ice. The scene in front
sizers, keyboards. It’s like an oasis where way to illustrate the destruction of Gaza.” of us felt almost Dickensian: donkeys pulling
wannabe rock stars can come, pick up an There are love songs, emo songs of alien- carts of melons and peaches; cigarette ven-
instrument, and pretend to be a Palestinian ation, but also songs about “beloveds” being dors haggling with groups of men; teenage
Jimmy Page. “Every time I’m depressed, I killed. “It’s a global message,” he said. girls in hijabs, laughing and walking jauntily,
come here and I immediately feel better,” unescorted. The city was alive and vibrant,
one unemployed young Gazan told me, sit- In other studios, I met with young artists with little hint of the occupation.
ting happily in front of a drum kit. in other disciplines who were experiencing
a similar plight. At the Shababek art center, I departed the next morning, crossing
El-Jaru, who started listening to Metallica sculptors who were teenagers during the first through Erez after daybreak, feeling the
as a child, put together Osprey V in 2019, intifada use the materials from the war—bro- usual tug whenever I leave Gaza: relief to
and the makeup of the band is a micro- ken concrete, splintered wood. They all share be safe; saddened by the powerlessness of
cosm of Gaza: Two members are lawyers, the same desire: to travel to meet other artists, so many who remain. I recalled the words of
one a sound engineer, one a sales manager, to exhibit their work, to have a live audience. Yousef Aljamal, the student in Turkey, who
another a humanitarian worker. The night had relayed his own mixed emotions upon
I popped in, they played acoustic sets and One afternoon, I sat in on rehearsals with leaving: “I grew up in a refugee camp—but I
heavy metal, their own compositions plus a talented young theater troupe, Theatre Day loved my camp! It made me what I am.” He
tributes to Linkin Park and Pink Floyd. They Productions, as they practiced for a TEDx expressed confidence, even from his perch
sang in New York–accented English. Yet performance. The budding actors described 725 miles away, about his peers in Gaza, the
they are sealed in their geographic bubble, dealing with the lack of electricity and sup- West Bank, and the Palestinian diaspora: “I
yearning for comradery, for support, for the plies. Ahmed al-Aydi, 26, who has been acting do believe in the power of young Palestin-
chance to play gigs anywhere other than with the group since the 2014 war, observed: ians to bring about change. They are taking
Gaza. Their inspiration comes from every- “In Gaza, everything around us changes, we matters into their own hands.” Q
day life but also from their inner angst. Their have no control. But when we act, with theater,
we can change things because we control it.”

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FEBRUARY 2022 101

 Proust Questionnaire

SNOOP DOGG

The rapper and business mogul on
smoking weed, coaching peewee football,
and performing at this year’s Super Bowl

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Everybody around
me is happy, my spirit is right, and just nothing but peace and
tranquility in the building. Which words or phrases do you
most overuse? Ya digg. Where would you like to live? Wakanda.
What or who is the greatest love of your life? My wife and my
kids. Shante has been by my side since before I was Snoop. I was
rapping to get her feedback on my songs before anyone would
listen. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Cassius Clay, a.k.a. Muhammad Ali, the people’s champ. I’ve been able to explore my many passions and interests:
What is your greatest extravagance? Old-school cars. When making spirits with Indoggo Gin and 19 Crimes, entering
and where are you the happiest? I am the happiest creating, the fashion game with my G-Star denim line and Snoopy’s
whether I am in the studio recording my next song, onstage Clothing, entering the metaverse with Sandbox, and perform-
performing in front of my fans, on the football field coaching ing with Dr. Dre at the Super Bowl this year. What is your most
kids in my Snoop Youth Football League, or on set filming. treasured possession? The key to my mother’s casket. A car,
What is your favorite occupation? Football coach. Which jewelry, or a house can’t match that. That’s the key to the
talent would you most like to have? To play the piano. If you queen. What do you most value in your friends? Work ethic.
What is your most marked characteristic? Smoking weed.
could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Who is your favorite hero? Bruce Lee. That man means
the world to me. He was the first guy that I wanted to be like.
Nothin’. All my experiences, talents, wins, and L’s make me He was little, he was calm, and he could kick a whole lot
who I am today. I am constantly evolving, learning, and of ass. What is your greatest regret? There ain’t no two Snoop
working toward not just being great, but also staying true to Doggs, and I ain’t got no twin brother. So he could do half
who I’ve always been—just a kid with a big dream from the this work that I’m doing. If you were to die and come back as
LBC. What is your greatest fear? Heights. I love being high, a person or thing, what do you think it would be? An angel. Q
but I don’t like being up high. What do you consider your
greatest achievement? My business portfolio and my kids.

102 VA NI TY FA I R ILLUSTRATION BY R I S KO FEBRUARY 2022