IVIV: The Feds II

[John Bailey]

Doc is interrogated beneath framed pictures of Nixon and Hoover. The
coffee is cheap. The feds seem to have been newly arrived from
Washington D.C. - Washington is alluded to frequently throughout IV,
never nicely. One of the biggest villains boasts that he was married
in St Johns' Episcopal, the Presidents' Church, just across from the
White House.

Doc's seen these types before: they either remain removed and immune
to California charms and head back east, "or else with blinding speed
found themselves barefoot and stoned, putting their stick in the woody
and following the surf off wherever it might roll. There seemed no
middle range of choices."

Excluded middles, etc...

"putting their stick in the woody": stick = surfboard, woody = the old
wood-panelled Plymouth station wagon

(thanks wiktionary glossary of surfing!
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_surfing_terms)

"It was hard for Doc not to imagine these two as surf Nazis doomed to
repeat a film loop of some violent but entertaining beack-movie
wipeout"

Surf Nazis - surfers overly-protective of their patch, sometimes to
the point of violence.

-----

Doc is still playing amiable, acting interested "Ronald Reagan style"
(cos that'd please the feds) and surprised that there is a federal
file on him.

The file is left with a bunch of others on a credenza. Interesting
wiki fact: "Originally in Italian the name meant "belief". This was
because in the 16th century the act of "credenza" was the tasting of
food and drinks by a servant for a lord or for another important
person (like popes and cardinals). By tasting it they made sure the
food was not poisoned. The name passed then to the room where the act
took place, then to the furniture"