The Final Incident

Joseph L. Flatley

Jesse Hicks

Matt Stroud

(editors)

aBarbary Shore

book

This compilation is licensed under the Creative

Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-

No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit::

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or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor,

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All content © its respective authors.

Published by Barbary Shore, Pittsburgh.http://barbaryshore.com

barbary.shore@gmail.com

START

3. THE FINAL INCIDENTJoseph L. Flatley

5. A MAN OF WEALTH AND TASTETom Bodine

WAR AND POLITICS

21. HOW TO KILL OR MAYBE, NOT KILLMatt Stroud

29. A VERY UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE WITH A SOLDIER

Matt Novak

39. STATE OF THE FRAUDJesse Hicks

53. STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR YOURNON-BELIEFS.

Jesse Hicks

SEX AND DRUGS

79. RAPID DETOXJessica Robin

95. RETURN OF THE MILFCornelius Blackshear

101. STEALING SEXJoAnne Heen

107. TERA PATRICK HAS A COLDJesse Hicks

113. TO THE SIRENS FIRST SHALTTHOU COME

Joseph L. Flatley

121. GOOD FRIDAY IN PITTSBURGH'S CULTURAL DISTRICT

Mikhail Stafford

131. WHOREZelda Getz

137. LOVE AND LUST IN THE AGE OFMECHANICAL INTRODUCTION

Jesse Hicks

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

159. HOW NOT TO FIND GOD WHILE WATCHING THE PASSION WITH A HEAD FULL OF ACID

Constantine J. Warhammer

169. LARS VEGAS: TERROR OFTHE SUBLIME

Carl Weathers

181. THE STRANGE TALE OFHUNTER S. THOMPSON'S SUICIDE

Joseph L. Flatley

191. REVIEW: MY NEIGHBOR'S BREAKUPAce Hurler

197. TUTTI FRUTTIJoseph L. Flatley

205. PHILIP K. DICK: GHETTO PROPHETJesse Hicks

215. THE HORROR OF BEING HUMANJesse Hicks

221. ORSON WELLES, THE UNREPRENTANTCHARLATAN

O.W. Jeeves

229. AN INTERPRETATION OF TIMOTHY LEARY

Joseph L. Flatley

239. A CONVERSATION WITH ROBERTANTON WILSON

Jesse Hicks

BRUTALITY

251. THE SEXUAL SADISTS OF CALAVERAS COUNTY.

Joseph L. Flatley

259. SNUFFOCATIONMatt Stroud

297. WHAT CHARLIE SAWJesse Hicks

START

The Final Incident

Joseph L. Flatley

Deek Magazine lived for a few years in the

middle of the “roaring 2000's.” This was a

tumultuous decade, even for sleepy Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. A needless war, an imploding

worldwide economy, disasters both natural and

man-made, and the return of that early-80s

phenomenon “punk-funk” were on everybody's

mind. And for a time, Matt Stroud and his gang

were plugged into the zeitgeist. Each issue of

Deek Magazine revolved around a specific

“incident.” War, Madness, Sex and The Future

were among the topics explored, dissected and just

3

plain ridiculed.

It has been a couple years now since Deek

announced its demise. Having not been there at

the inception, I have no idea what the original

inspiration for the publication might have been.

But as a fan, and eventually a contributor, I

recognized in it the same spirit as that of Barbary

Shore Publishing Company. Deek was a flawed,

impatient, do-it-yourself conspiracy. At its best,

the writing was bratty and insightful and skewed.

Deek Magazine is no more, but I am happy to

present you with a handful of my favorites from its

short, happy life.

4

A Man of Wealth and Taste:

How The Devil Tells It

Tom Bodine

“He’ll be right with you, I promise,” smiles

Thad Chimaera, the Devil’s assistant, from across

the lobby. “When you’re dealing with the Big Guy,

everything runs on Satan Time.” He has a slight

lisp, so it comes out, “Sthatan Time.”

The Los Angeles lobby of Lightbringer

Industries, the devil’s multinational conglomerate:

high ceilings and dim lighting give it a cavernous

feel, enhanced by a cool breeze from hidden A/C

vents. A Saarinen “tulip chair” adds a touch of the

modern. Thad’s desk is polished ebony, lit from

5

above by a single recessed spotlight.

The place oozes a hyper-cool, business-like

atmosphere. But the Devil’s ironic touches are

there, too, from the wall embroidery reading,

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” to a

twenty-foot paint-by-number rendering of

Bruegel’s The Triumph of Death.

Between calls, I pick Thad’s brain. Thad’s

been with the company since the 1980’s, when the

Adversary made his big push into Wall Street, and

is Satan’s eyes and ears within the company.

Like nearly everyone I’ve interviewed, Thad

is intensely loyal to his boss. A strangely beatific

look comes across his face when he explains what

a “fierce competitor” is Lightbringer’s CEO and

guiding visionary. His eyes don’t glaze over,

exactly, but they do open wide and take on a shine.

It’s all a bit cultish, really.

For almost an hour I’ve been waiting here,

flipping through back issues of Esquire and

Outdoor Living or staring at myself in the high-

6

gloss obsidian floor. Halfway through my fifth

article on men’s spring fashion, I hear the distant

growl of a sports car and what sounds like Outkast

playing at ear-rending volume. Thad looks up from

his computer, silently mouths, “That’s him!” and

makes exaggerated pointing gestures toward the

door. I can’t help sharing his excitement.

A minute later, the engine shuts off, the music

stops.

Silence.

The staccato of expensive shoes on pavement.

Then the door opens.

My first thought is, “Jesus, he’s big.” Six-six,

easily, and not just tall but solid, like he’s made of

denser material than the rest of us; light bends to

accommodate his form. He swaggers like the

popular kid who understands the power of being

noticed. He flashes Thad a smile, tosses him an

apple that seems to materialize out of nowhere.

Then he turns to me.

The Devil is all straight lines and sharp

7

angles; there’s not a curve anywhere. He’s wearing

a dark Richard James wool two-button suit

($1,100), a turquoise cotton shirt and matching silk

tie, also by Richard James ($225 and $110,

respectively), with black Calvin Klein shoes. A

pair of wrap-around Oakleys hide what I later find

out are piercing blue eyes. He’s grinning, a

welcoming smile that seems to reach all the way to

his meticulously disheveled, flaming-red hair.

He extends a well-manicured hand and says,

in a voice my eardrums file somewhere between

Vin Diesel’s and glass being crushed underfoot,

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my

name.”

Of course, he doesn’t always look like this.

He’s dressed for business, a piranha among men.

When he’s not working – if there’s ever a time –

you might find him lounging around the house in

sweatpants and a wife-beater, watching Tivo’ed

episodes of The OC on his high-definition plasma

8

screen.

But it’s not just that. The thing I realize about

Mephistopheles is this: you never know what he

looks like. Richard James suit, Calvin Klein shoes,

Colin Ferrell smirk – it’s all part of the persona,

the mask. If you look directly at him, nothing

stands out. He’s just Joe Businessman in a fancy

suit. But every now and again during my time with

the Devil, I see him out of the corner of my eye.

It’s there that he wavers, like heat waves on a

desert highway, never quite still. He takes on a

dozen forms – the CEO, the politician, the

neighbor, even, at one point, the high school

cheerleader. What stands before me now is only a

glove; the hand that acts remains hidden.

Which is fitting for an entity who was around

before time was invented. He’s survived –

prospered, even – by constantly transforming

himself. For the ancient Sumerians, he was a she:

Ereshkigal, mistress of death and ruler of Aralu,

the Land of Darkness. Zoroaster’s Devil was

9

Ahriman, the Lord of Lies and evil twin to

Ohrmazd. Faust knew him as Mephistopheles;

Richard Nixon just called him “Papa.”

So just who is Apollyon, Belial, Beelzebub, or

whatever you want to call him?

“Oh, you are going to burn for that, bitch,”

seethes Lucifer, giving the finger to a tan, blonde

woman who cuts him off on Sunset Boulevard.

We’re screaming through the streets at high speed

in a raven-black Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

that, the Devil informs me, boasts a 600 hp, 5.4-

liter V-8. Honestly, I’m just looking for the

seatbelts as his Satanic Majesty sparks a joint with

one hand, dials his cell-phone with the other, and

negotiates the hellish LA traffic by force of will

alone.

He dials the home office for an update on his

media liaison, Ann Hanga, who’s supposed to be

shooting a new infomercial in Brazil. Infomercials

are a big part of Lightbringer’s success; they bring

10

in converts faster than Mel Gibson epics and are

far more cost-effective.

Between calls I get a kind of running-

commentary on the state of Heaven and Hell,

mankind, and the eternal battle between good and

evil. Of course, Satan doesn’t see it that way.

“Look at this – everywhere you go, it’s

‘Atkins-friendly’ this and ‘Atkins-friendly’ that.

Jesus. You’d think these people had never heard

the phrase ‘fad diet’ before. Do you think I’m the

one who made carbohydrates? Let’s not blame me

every time a housewife in Atlanta decides to treat

herself to that third helping of Rocky Road. Take

some personal responsibility, people.”

So you’re not behind the evil and suffering of

the world?

He snorts with laughter. The smell of

brimstone fills the car. “I wish I could take that

much credit! I don’t sit around thinking up new

ways to torment the human race. You guys are

good enough at that without my help. I’d love say

11

Carrot Top sold his soul for popularity, but I’m not

forcing anyone to buy tickets.”

What about disco music?

His eyes narrow. “You’ve done your

homework,” he smiles, sheepishly. “That was a

side bet between Loki and I. Back at the tail end of

the Sixties, I was big with groups like the Rolling

Stones. So Loki comes to me one night and says, ‘I

bet you can’t fuck up music for a whole decade

without using any supernatural intervention.’ Well,

I took that bet, and the next day I formed a band

called Fistful of Rainbows. We cut a 7” and next

thing you know, disco is blowing up! We even got

the Stones on board!” He cackles gleefully.

So you do contribute to the evil of the world.

He sighs. “Ok, listen. This is how it is.

Humans think the world is a battlefield, with God

and I both trying to rack up the most souls. Come

on. The universe isn’t a pinball machine. God and

I aren’t trying to see who can get the high score.”

Pausing to take another hit from his joint, he

12

turns up Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” saying, “Hate

me if you gotta, but I love this song.”

“Here’s the real deal. Most of the stuff you

want to blame me for – pain, suffering, all that jazz

– I didn’t choose to bring all that into the world.

We’re pawns in a chess game, with all the moves

plotted out in advance. Me, you. Everybody, man.

I fell for three fucking days! Do you want to see

where He ripped my wings off?”

He takes a sharp turn, pulling into his

nightclub, Inferno. Yanking the emergency brake,

the Devil brings the car to a screeching stop. He

turns and looks me right in the eyes. “Only a

fascist or a child would take the blank slate of

creation and start carving rules into it. I’m the

democratic response – that there be no

commandments, that’s my first and only

commandment. God’s a traffic cop; I’m an artist.

I’m not going to play the game anymore. I’m

gonna flip the board right the fuck over.”

Then he smiles and says, “Let’s go get some

13

drinks.”

Inferno is a renovated two-story warehouse,

decorated in red and black, with graffiti-art flames

licking their way up the walls. We enter through a

side door to the cheers of a well-dressed

Hollywood elite. I catch a glimpse of Ethan

Hawke talking to Paris Hilton. They both wave;

Paris blows an air kiss. Satan pretends to catch it

and clutch it to his chest, then winks and smiles.

Paris giggles in response.

Satan orders a Red Bull and vodka, then leads

me to the other end of the bar. An impossibly tall

man in an undertaker’s suit stands talking to a

dreadlocked, top-hat-wearing black man. Both are

drinking red wine and look up as we approach.

“Reporter man, this is Ghede and Ankou. We

go way back – they’ll keep an eye on you while I

run upstairs to take care of some business.” With a

hardy clap on my back, he’s gone, and I’m staring

awkwardly at the two men, who stare back. I don’t

14

even have a drink.

“Pleased to meet you,” says Ghede, the top-

hat man, with slight Haitian accent. He smiles and

I see the wine has stained his teeth.

Ankou leans forward to shake my hand. “And

I as well,” in an upper-crust Briton accent that

creaks like the binding of an ancient manuscript.

“So,” I stall. “Are you two Satan’s wingmen

or something? I see a lot of eligible ladies here

tonight.”

“Something like that,” smiles Ghede. I get the

feeling he’s sizing me up. For what, I don’t know.

“I imagine it’s pretty easy for him to walk in

here and have his choice of companionship for the

night.” They’re staring again, and I can’t think

straight with the multi-colored lights stabbing into

my eyes.

“Certainly he could,” answers Ankou. “But

he’s never really ‘rolled’ like that, to use one of

your clever American phrases. There was a brief

dalliance with Lilith back before your time, but

15

since then he’s poured himself into the work.”

“Is he lonely?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t say ‘lonely,’ per se. More like

driven. He puts everything into his Grand Project.

He, like all sons, is trying to impress his Father.

This whole rebel posture is just a way to get God’s

attention. I’m not sure even he believes it, but he

pushes on, talking about the ‘palace of excess,’ and

‘escaping the shackles of a flawed creation.’ I

think he smokes too much weed, frankly.” Ankou

looks suddenly bored with the notion of

conversation, sipping his wine and casting a

disdainful glance around the room.

After a few moments, Satan returns, with a

supermodel-quality woman on each arm. The

blonde, blue-eyed one on his left he introduces as

Jenny; the exotic Indian-looking one on his right

his named Thalia. He explains that they are part of

his plan.

“Bred without the limits of conscience,

created in my own image to be the ultimate party

16

girls,” he smiles again. “Girls, lift up your shirts.”

They do. No bellybuttons.

Twenty minutes later, we’re again roaring

down Sunset Boulevard. Jenny and Thalia giggle

in the back seat, unable to keep their hands off

each other. I’m due to catch a flight out; Satan has

agreed to drop me at the airport. We pull into

short-term parking and I look back at the two girls,

for the first time noticing their forked tongues.

I pull my suitcase out of the back and Satan

catches me by the arm. Again fixing me with those

piercing blue eyes and sharklike smile, he says,

“I’m going to win, you know.” He laughs, and his

girls laugh with him. Then he drives off.

Standing there alone in the dark, watching the

Devil’s tail-lights, like a pair of glowing eyes

retreating into the distance, it’s hard not to believe

him.

17

WAR AND POLITICS

How To Kill or Maybe, Not Kill:

A conversation with an unknown Marine.

Matt Stroud

Stroud: What would they teach you,

specifically, before the war?

Marine, eating, sitting across a restaurant table

from the Deek representative, chewing with his

mouth full, says: Well, ‘ey’d ‘ell ‘ou what (he

swallows) a bad guy is, what to do... rules of

engagement.

What, uh... what is a bad guy?

Well, they gave us an official... I guess you’d

call it a Bad Guy Identification Card, describing

21

what and who you were allowed to shoot and so

on. But, what it said was, basically, Aim for

anyone in an enemy military uniform... which was

brown, obvious looking. And the card described

the uniform in useless detail... It basically said,

Shoot any Iraqi that presents any threat to you.

What does that entail?

If they have a gun, shoot ‘em.

No shit?

No shit. If you ask someone on high if that’s

how they worded it, they’ll deny it till they’re blue

in the face, but that’s what they said. If you see a

gun in someone’s hand, shoot that person.

Fuckin’ crazy.

Yeah. And they had these white pickup trucks

that they told us to shoot no matter what. Because

that’s what Saddam uses, like Hummers. Our

original rules of engagement before we crossed the

22

border were, if you see a white pickup truck, blow

the fucker up. For real. But, when we crossed the

border, we were up shit creek, cause everybody

and their fucking brother drives a white pickup

truck.

So that went right out the fuckin’ window.

You gotta realize, the war did not happen how it

was supposed to. They can have Plan A through D

through Z through a hundred twelve, but they

never really know how anything’s going to

happen. They just never know. The white pickup

truck thing: I mean, if we would’ve shot everyone

in one of those trucks -- if we would’ve followed

commands exactly, we would’ve been killing men,

women, children, dogs, you name it. But we

didn’t.

Did someone in your unit have to fuck up

before they realized that?

Well, I know the first white pickup truck I saw

had twelve women in the back, in the bed... So it

23

was kinda obvious from the beginning. Someone

else may have (fucked up), but no one from my

unit.

Alright, you were in Iraq when the war started.

I want to know the first moment in the desert

when you pointed to God and said, It’s your

show now.

Okay... dramatic. I’ll tell you how we got the

wakeup call. So, we’re sleeping in these big tents –

the whole company’s in there – and, uh, they wake

us up at like three in the morning... And we knew

this was coming, mind you, but, uh... Here ya go –

this is the line.

Listen... you say and write the craziest things

before you go to war. People were writing death

letters next to me, black jackets... If I die, tell my

parents so on. Death letters; people writing letters

to girlfriends and wives and saying things you

normally wouldn’t or shouldn’t say. Like telling

girls that are going to have kids in 5 months that

24

you love them, or that you cheated or... stuff like

that. It was tense. A lot goes through your head

when you know it’s coming.

What did you write?

Well, just letters really. Telling people that I

don’t know when I’ll be able to write again. Cause

we didn’t know. But I wasn’t being fatalistic about

it. I had some faith that we’d be alright. But after

all, we didn’t know what the war was going to be

like, or what we’d see or run into. We didn’t know

how fast we were gonna be moving or if we’d

even get another chance to write, so...

Write to your mom?

Yea. My mom, Christine... Your mom. I wrote

one to work saying, uh, well, I’m going to war

today, so I won’t be in on... Saturday.

25

Yea, uh, could you guys pick up my paycheck

for me?

(laughing) Yea. Fuckin weird. I got a prior

engagement shooting people in hot sand.

Incredible... But anyway, it’s three in the morning,

right? And they call Revile Revile Revile; and they

say You are now on Zulu Time -- which

standardizes everything so the president can say,

you know, hey Marines, at... I don’t know, 5

o’clock in the morning, bomb the fuck out of this

spot. And you other Marines bomb the fuck out of

this spot. It’s just to keep everything synchronized.

Right.

So, we crossed the border after eating chow

and packing up all our shit... we didn’t cross till

like 9 a.m. The grunts crossed at, like, three. We

spent about 6 hours just packing, getting ready. I

mean... we knew that Iraq was one of the most

heavily mined countries in the world. There’s just

fucking mines everywhere. So the bulldozers and

26

the grunts went in and plowed through all that shit.

And we, uh... well, we followed, taking the

prisoners they captured, putting them into custody.

You should’ve seen the fucking border, man. Just a

giant hole forty feet deep around the entire border.

Fucking amazing. And inside the border, the grunts

had plowed a lane in the sand, real narrow... and if

you went outside that lane, chances are you were

going to hit a mine and blow up. But, so anyway,

we head in and there are DANGER signs

everywhere and then we hit the demilitarized zone.

And we just plowed right though that shit, no

problem. But... where was I?

I was wondering that, too. You were talking

about the first trek over the border.

Oh, right. So, we follow them in and it was

just fucking incredible. The oil fields as we entered

Iraq were lit on fire. Giant, unbelievable... like,

spouting fire just fucking erupting hundreds of

yards into the air. So we cross into this little

27

town... and one of the first things we see is this

crowd of probably fifty Iraqi soldiers held at

gunpoint, walking with their hands above their

heads toward a base that had been set up by MPs

that went in a few hours before us. We kept

driving, and, I didn’t see any bodies yet... not at

that point, but you see carnage –- blood on the

ground, parts of uniforms, and piles of ammo

casings –- the brass –- and weapons and piles of

clothes and other stuff that lets you know that, I

don’t know... That this is serious. And this is war.

So, just a quick question before you go on. Did

you, uh... Did you kill anyone?

Dude, you know I can’t tell you that.

Why not?

Does it really matter?

28

A Very Unpleasant Experience With A Soldier

Matt Novak

Drinking at a gay bar, I’m here to be

entertained by a friend’s variety act on Casio

keyboard. There’s a nonchalant, laid back sort of

verve, but it’s not as if flamboyancy has no place;

the way these guys are swinging their hips when

they walk, tick-tock, back and forth like a

pendulum timepiece, is making me... aware. One

guy stands out from the others, obviously straight

-- crew cut, buff (as in bulk and not sculpture).

He’s having a hell of a tete-a-tete with the keep,

demonstrative and voluminous, flushed, rousing

29

himself to guffaws. So I needle in a little. I’m

drunk on special L.I. Ice-T’s and gin.

There is a softness about him from the start,

but he is contrary and abrasive with a grating voice

and glare. We get to talking. “I just got back from

Iraq,” he says to me. Rapport develops by degrees.

“This guy,” he testifies, motioning the keep, “is

one of my best friends. He’s one of the greatest

guys in the world. See, I don’t care if you’re gay,

or straight, or Puerto Rican... whatever the hell, it’s

the same.” Equanimity. He tells me he’s come

from a strip club across the street.

“You mean in the back of that magazine

shop?,” I ask, ignorant, enticed.

“My girl,” he continues, “she strips over

there...sits on my lap. Head like you wouldn’t

believe.” He pauses to sip his drink, a vodka and

juice. I suppose I looked scandalized. “I take what

I want. Fuck you.”

I try not to let on anything, move on. “So you

were...”

30

He ignores me, shows me a scar on his

forearm. “Have you ever been shot?,” he fires at

me. “I was shot. Killed twenty-seven men.” It’s a

nasty, drawn-out tissue, lots of curlicued hair

lapping the outline. I must say no, I’ve never been

shot. I’m about to tell him I’ve shot a gun when he

interrupts me. “Are you gay or straight?,” he asks.

“I thought that didn’t matter,” I contend. “All

the same.” It pisses him off when I quote him. He

presses me, menacingly. “Straight,” I say, loudly,

eyes on the plain, featureless drywall behind his

head.

He asks me again. By this time there is a

smile in his eyes and a gut punch in my heart.

“You gonna go over there?” He gestures at the

strip club -- at his girlfriend. “You want some of

that?”

I nod, acquiescing, merely retreating from this

unsolicited onslaught. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow

night over there. And if I don’t see you....” he

leaves off.

31

“I just never heard there was a place there,” I

say weakly.

“We’ll see then if you want it,” says he. “I

take what I want. I do what I want.” He lifts his

shirt to show me the scar in his belly. “If someone

threatens me, I’m not gonna cross myself and pray

to God,” he illustrates; “when someone stabs you

in the belly, you shoot him. I nailed him.” He

smiles pleasingly. “Killed twenty-seven men.”

I wonder if he’ll ask me if I’d ever kill

somebody. I’ve often wondered on it. I’ve been

made to wonder on it. Clint Eastwood, Luke

Skywalker, Bruce Lee. It is the measure of a man.

I still don’t know if I could do it if I was thinking.

If I didn’t feel anything, as that seems best, would

it be because my heart had been seized in the vice

of my iron will, or because I was simply

paralyzed, my mind crippled by whatever ran

rampant through its fickle trenches?

“You won’t show up tomorrow night. And I

know that,” he reports. “You probably like

32

computers,” he waves, reducing all information,

all stories and reports and studies and pictures and

digitally conveyed art, and the so-called power to

the pen to a single, impotent meme. “Just stick to

your computers and wacking off.” He makes the

up-and-down claw with his hand.

“There’s a lot of that,” suddenly wistful,

distant, I admit, trying to hold with truth, brazenly

denying shame.

“Yeah,” he affirms, and runs his rough digits

through the shroud on my scalp. Toussels my hair,

petting me on the head. Who does this guy think

he is? I shrug and laugh it off.

Here I toss out my las t chance at

egalitarianism, that evenhandedness laudable in so

many estimable journals of the literate and

reasonably liberal, lending respect, and

believability, hell, likeability; gently encouraging

discourse, bestowing responsibility as a gift on the

reader to make up his own mind. Here I pick up

my stick and start beating with it. So I’ll borrow a

33

trick from those hypocritical bastards O’Reilly and

Limbaugh, and those cursed sons of bitches in

Washington, consummate professionals all, and lay

down a disclaimer before I go on tirade, which

nonetheless I don’t mean to be entirely insincere: I

fight all the time with notions of stereotype and

hold no court with didactic reductions and the

epidemic of oversimplification. I believe in the

notion of the individual, and the variety of the

species. That said:

This is precisely the profile of the American

civilian in the New World Order. Feckless, feeble-

minded, indifferent. Unable to concentrate.

Morally ambiguous. Tired, tired all the time,

watching the TV. Vegging out in front of the tube.

There is no memory of what was watched the

night before, and there likely will be none after

tonight is over. Why bother? People know

disposable. Nothing is said, and there is nothing

done. All’s done is done, papers filed, bills filed,

interest calculated, paper clips squirrelled away,

34

untangled, neat in a scrap of Chinese plastic,

stapler filled, pencils sharpened, calendar on the

close wall in the office, desk Windexed, porn in

the bedroom, bed made, ready for bed. Kids

washed, fed, in bed, sleeping, dreaming of getting

things, how childish; adults get what they have;

tired of desire, tired. Gotta get up early, do it

tomorrow, fight traffic.

This is precisely the problem with the

American soldier. Trained to kill, to hunt, not as an

instance, as a practice, but drilled, drilled and

cursed, so that it is a way of life. Sent to die, oh

vanity, oh vain, glorious valor. These men and

women do not think of themselves as sacrifice,

trained to consider killing in terms of numbers,

death in terms of bland euphemisms and double-

speak, stripped of this patriot poesy bullshit

bandied about on the nightly news by cush cush

patsy anchors with wet dreams of tear-jerk

emotional rhetoric, looking down on journalistic

integrity as the dreams of an insouciant, naive

35

child. Discouraged from a humanities education,

equanimity, enlightenment, sense of history,

consideration fomenting dissent, soldiers are

trained, trained and built, tough and taut, in using

tools and technology of war, without remorse.

Hunters. Not Seals, really. Wolves, spiders, snakes.

These are mascots of our boys’ divisions; these are

creatures of prestige, shock, and awe. Stalked,

stung, bitten, our enemy, beaten. What of the

civilian? What of this faithful, this hopeful, this

patriot, sentimental, model of civilized restraint,

Protestant self-control, carefully tallied expenses,

morally rationed appetites? What of the good flock

under President, under God, under Rule of Law?

What of these, sheep?

Which is to say that I’m there in a gay bar

sipping Long Islands on special and watching a

middle-aged funny gal play with electric keys and

stuffed animals, and the American soldier’s tossing

back a Coke, showing me scars, and then marching

off across the street to pick up his blond, pert-

36

tittied stripper and fuck her senseless. After petting

me on the fucking head. Bring our boys home, all

right.

37

State of the Fraud

Jesse Hicks

Episode 1: Home on the Range

White House officials do not deny that

they craft elaborate events to showcase

Bush, but they maintain that these events

are designed to accurately dramatize his

policies and to convey qualities about

him that are real. (The Washington Post,

December 4, 2003, referring to President

Bush's Thanksgiving Day appearance in

Baghdad, armed with a golden-brown,

fake turkey.)

39

Pay no attention to that man behind the

curtain. (The Wizard of Oz, 1939)

In 1999, Connecticut-born George W. Bush,

who grew up in affluent Midland, Texas and

Houston (pop. 5,180,443 as of 2004) before,

among other things, attending Yale, decided to buy

a ranch. In those early days of his first Presidential

campaign, then-Governor Bush purchased a 1583-

acre plot of land just outside Crawford, Texas.

(The ranch is actually closer to Waco, Texas, but

you seldom hear White House Press Scott

McClellan say, "The President is vacationing on

his Waco ranch, which, incidentally, was built by

members of a religious community from nearby El

Mott, Texas." Nor will McClellan refer to the

ranch as a "compound.")

The property, known as Prairie Chapel Ranch,

is a former pig farm. According to Deputy Press

Secretary Dana Perino, there are now "four or

five" cattle on the ranch. (Ranch, n. "An extensive

40

farm, especially in the western United States, on

which large herds of cattle, sheep, or horses are

raised.") The President, who wears a cowboy hat

but cannot ride a horse, paid an estimated $1.3

million for this rustic "slice of heaven," as he calls

it.

His home there is a 10,000 ft² limestone

single-level with a pool, just like the cowboys of

yesteryear used to have. Though its completion

was planned for November 7th, 2000 -- Election

Day -- the house didn't open until after the

President's inaugural. In 2001, President Bush

explained his "Western White House" governing

style by saying, "I think it is so important for a

president to spend some time away from

Washington, in the heartland of America."

Not coincidentally, historian Douglas Brinkley

explained to The Los Angeles Times, "…[A] lot of

Americans like seeing him in blue jeans with a big

belt buckle, walking down a dirt road or clearing

brush. It's become a stage set for him."

41

It would be unfair to mention here that

Charles Manson, another controversial leader, also

lived on a movie set, the Spahn Ranch in the San

Fernando Valley. Unfair and irrelevant, because

Manson -- who once said, "I may be Jesus Christ. I

haven't yet decided who I am" -- implied that he

knew the will of God, and by combining the White

Album with the Book of Revelation and heroic

doses of LSD, predicted a coming race and nuclear

war. On the other hand, President Bush, like all

American presidents, is a secular humanist who

considers religion at best a comforting

superstition. He is a man who would never tell a

group of Amish leaders on July 9, 2004, "I trust

God speaks through me."

An entirely unfair comparison, so let's not

make it here. A question one might ask, though: Is

there a problem when the President of the United

States, whose job, one might argue, is to confront

reality in all its complexity and inconvenience,

spends much of his time on a movie set, a place by

42

definition unreal?

Episode 2: The Faith of a Patriot

But as specific orders began arriving to

the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50

Monday morning quickly was ushered

onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The

crew's first assignment: to stand beside

President Bush as he tours devastated

areas. (The Salt Lake Tribune, September

12, 2005, detailing FEMA's use of over

1,000 firefighters as unpaid extras in the

wake of Hurricane Katrina.)

Stay behind my aura! (Zardoz, 1974)

President Bush's cowboy swagger has a long

lineage in American politics; Teddy Roosevelt is

its first and perhaps most famous incarnation, an

asthmatic Eastern aristocrat who went into the

Dakota badlands and emerged a full-fledged

cowboy, able to rope and ride. Lyndon Johnson

43

owned and operated a 2,700-acre cattle ranch in

south Texas, and his country-plain way of speaking

clearly influences Bush II. Ronald Reagan also

knew how to ride a horse; as President, he often

cleared brush on his 688-acre California ranch.

So President Bush takes his place in this cycle

of diminishing returns. A faint echo of Teddy

Roosevelt, his character also borrows another

iconic bit of Americana: the Resolute Man of

Faith. Just call him God's Cowboy.

In combining these two resonant American

myths -- with a dash of the modern "CEO-as-

leader" trope -- into one convenient package, the

President offers Americans everything they want

to believe about themselves. With all respect to

Frank Norris, who once wrote that "California

likes to be fooled" -- and who can argue with their

Governator, a cybernetic organism sent from the

future where politics is one big special-effect -- it's

America that likes to be fooled. We liked to be

fooled, mostly about ourselves. We want to look in

44

the mirror and see something greater than simple,

human flesh -- we want to see a nation more

powerful, more loving, more just, and more

merciful. We want Sean Hannity to greet us all as

"great Americans."

And why not? The idea of America has

always been more powerful than the reality; the

phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

sounds like nothing so much as the license to

dream, to build castles in the air. In an age of small

myths, when for most religion has lost its narrative

force, community ties have dissolved leaving us all

strangers in the crowd, and the great economic and

political battles of history all seem decided, it falls

to post-9/11 politics to revive that most comforting

of American myths: that of the great city upon a

hill, exceptional, with the eager eyes of the world

focused on its example.

The problem arises when you try to live in

those airy castles, in a land built entirely of

righteous abstraction. Just as the President's stage-

45

ranch helps him believe he is a cowboy, the myth

of American exceptionalism helps us believe that

we are that nation we want to see in the mirror. It

helps us forget that Abraham Lincoln's view of

America as the "last best hope" was not the picture

of a country already accomplished in its goals, but

of one still striving towards them. That's the

meaning of the word "hope." And hope has no

place in a fantasy where noble belief trumps

reality.

It's worth quoting the rest of Lincoln's thought

here: "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we

shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we cannot

escape history." No matter how many armored

fictions we send marching across the world, we

cannot stop the turning of the clock; when you try

to set up camp in Disneyland, eventually the world

comes knocking. We cannot remake our world

without unmaking someone else's, nor can we

unburden ourselves of reality, choosing instead to

live in a fortress America ruled by a seductive lie,

46

with actors manning the ramparts.

So as Sean Hannity tucks you in snug and safe

-- no terrorists under your bed, my quiet

Americans! -- remember that for all his

storytelling, "utopia," in Greek, still means

"nowhere."

Episode 3: The Bl inded Leading the

Blindfolded

The [senior Bush] aide said that guys

like me were 'in what we call the reality-

based community,' which he defined as

people who "believe that solutions

emerge from your judicious study of

discernible reality.' I nodded and

m u r m u r e d s o m e t h i n g a b o u t

enlightenment principles and empiricism.

He cut me off. 'That's not the way the

world really works anymore,' he

continued. 'We're an empire now, and

when we act, we create our own reality.

And while you're studying that reality --

47

judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again,

creating other new realities, which you

can study too, and that's how things will

sort out. We're history's actors ... and

you, all of you, will be left to just study

what we do. (“Without a Doubt,” The

New York Times Magazine, October 17,

2004.)

There is nothing wrong with your

television set. Do not attempt to adjust

the p ic ture . We are contro l l ing

transmission. If we wish to make it

louder, we will bring up the volume. If we

wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a

whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft

blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We

will control the horizontal. We will

control the vertical. For the next hour, sit

quietly and we will control all that you

see and hear. You are about to

experience the awe and mystery

which reaches from the inner mind

48

to... The Outer Limits (The Outer Limits,

circa 1963)

Unfortunately, you don't have to just take my

word for it. The ship of state, rechristened the SS

Unreality, its engines stoked by ideologues and

True Believers, has already beached itself upon the

rocks of uncomfortable reality.

I'm talking, of course, about Iraq.

President Bush has faked us -- and himself --

into believing he is a cowboy, specifically one in

the Dirty Harry rather than Gene Autry mold. A

studious examination of the Book of Revelation

has convinced him of the righteous inevitability of

his triumph over evil. Reality notwithstanding, he

seems to think it's going pretty well. Some people

disagree, but the fun in making your own worlds is

that we each get one. You stand over there, in your

world, where the liberation of Iraq has become a

q-------. I'll be over here in mine, where every time

an insurgent car bomb goes off, it sprays

bystanders with daisies. That's called "having

49

faith." Otherwise known as "staying the course."

And now we come to the final stage of the

trick. It's one thing to live on a fabricated ranch

and imagine yourself a cowboy. It's another to

blindly parrot the "this is the greatest country in

the world, bar none, without exception, all the time

every time!" line and resist even a sideways glance

into the shadowed corners of the American psyche.

Keep the world in soft focus and you can live your

dreams forever.

Just be careful when you try to make those

dreams into reality. The two don't mix well; the

final and most dangerous delusion is that naked

power and indomitable will can bend the world to

your whim. That's a rarity, and as Pol Pot and Mao

can tell you, people usually wind up dead. Or, as

George Packer puts it in his new history-thus-far

of the war in Iraq, "firepower and good intentions

would be less important than learning to read the

signs." No matter how well-armed your illusions,

they'll always bump up against something you

50

can't fake, or spin, or ignore. In short, the cosmic

bummer that is the world as it is. But as Lenny

Bruce once said, "Let me tell you the truth. The

truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a

terrible, terrible lie someone gave the people long

ago."

This is a lesson that President Bush and

innocent Americans are just now learning. It's a

difficult one, and I don't envy their painful return

to the reality-based community. It's fun to believe

things. More fun still to trick others into believing

them, then line your pockets with the money they

didn't really deserve anyway. But like a visit to

Disneyland, it eventually comes to an end. You can

only ride the teacups so long before you get sick.

When I last saw President Bush, he was

having an "unrehearsed" (scripted! Ha! Words are

meaningless!) conversation with a group of US

soldiers stationed in Iraq. He stumbled through his

lines, fumbled for the right words, and was

generally out of his depth. He looked like a man

51

disoriented and empty, as though the string

connecting his soul to his body had been cut. He

looked like a man no longer able to fool anyone.

Not even himself.

52

Stand Up And Fight For Your Non-Beliefs

Jesse Hicks interviews R.U. Sirius

R.U. Sirius is probably best known as the co-

founder and original editor-in-chief of Mondo

2 0 0 0 magazine, the subversive cyber-culture

magazine that pre-dated Wired and featured writers

such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Rudy

Rucker. Mondo 2000 pioneered a unique blend of

computer culture, psychedelia, avant-garde art, and

sex that put the term "cyberpunk" on the map.

His latest book, Counterculture Through the

Ages, a historical survey of counterculture themes

in everything from early Judaism to the

53

Enlightenment, was just released in paperback. In

addition to hosting weekly podcasts on his

mondoglobo.net website, this November R.U. will

teach a course at the Maybe Logic Academy

(www.maybelogic.net), called the Question

Authority Project. He talked with Deek about the

countercultural spirit, the future of cyber-culture,

and finding passion in non-belief.

I read that one reaction you'd hoped for from

the more hip, less mainstream section of your

readership was passionate "objection." Have

you gotten much of that response?

No, not as much and not as interesting as I

would hope it would be. I think the environment

for public discussion changed when the internet

moved away from the bulletin board model --

where lots of different people would post topics

and create discussions -- to the blog model, where

an individual has his blog and people come in to

read it, and possibly post responses, and to engage

54

in conversation around that. That may be part of it.

I was on The Well for a long time, which I got

a little bit tired of, but there would be really

detailed and intricate discussions on The Well. I

did appear on The Well representing the book, and

that was kind of interesting, but on the whole

there's been less passionate response than I'd

hoped for. I think people's attention these days is

so distracted and drawn to so many different

possible areas that a lot of discourse tends to lack

real depth.

Mostly what you get is people whining about

the commodification of hip culture. That's the big

bugaboo of people who identify with alternative

culture: that the subcultural movement and

expressions that they like get fed back to them in

television advertisements and that sort of thing.

That's an interesting enough topic; Tom Frank

has written interestingly about it. But it's also a

pretty limited topic. I'm trying to show people

links between a certain type of spirit that's existed

55

between Sufism on the one hand, and the

European enlightenment on the other hand, and the

post-Christian transcendentalists on the other hand,

and Zen Buddhism in Asia -- you have all these

quotes from all these people, really manifesting

similar attitudes expressed around completely

different paradigms and focuses. To me, that's

pretty interesting. To always hear people complain

about Iggy Pop songs being used in television

commercials, and to always get hung up on that

discussion -- that's a little depressing, actually.

It's interesting that you mentioned blogs,

because in the book you intentionally shy away

from the lone iconoclasts in favor of true

counterculture communities. It seems that with

The Well and the early bulletin boards, you had

a true counterculture community, while blogs

are typically broadcast-style, iconoclastic sites.

It's a mix. Most blogs do have an area for

response, and there's some degree of back-and-

56

forth discourse, but the general vibe around that

isn't as strong as it was in the earlier virtual

communities. It seems to me that the idea of

virtual community is something that hasn't been

taken to its most interesting place.

I think that's the same problem with social

networks. There's a space for discussion, but the

environment, the vibe that's created around these

places, is more like, "Hey, come in and sign my

guestbook and I'll sign your guestbook and we'll

see how many people we can collect."

These things are all temporary shifts. I'm sure

deeper virtual communities will continue to exist

and will emerge in other forms.

That seems like a fairly obvious case of the

more consumerist aspects of cyber-technology

taking over.

People go where the money goes. While there

was some money in the creation of completely

non-heirarchical communities, there's more money

57

in the social networks. Although with the blogs,

people were just following their impulse to take

the medium and communicate in a way that

previously had just been vouchsafed for those who

had a publisher or an editor who they could

convince that what they had to say and write was

valid.

I totally support the idea the every individual

has the right to be a complete multimedia

broadcasting company. I strive to be one myself.

But I want to point out that this other thing seems

to have taken a backseat for a while.

Do you think the "everyone an author, everyone

a multimedia company" helps or hurts the

reincarnation of what you called the spirit of

counterculture?

I don't know that there's any need for a

reincarnation at this point. I think throughout

human history there's been an ebb-and-flow in

terms of whether there are people who fit the free-

58

thinking, free-willing, flexible, changeable, non-

ideological notion of counterculture that we

convey in the book. There may be periods when

there aren't any countercultures, and then there are

plenty of periods where there are, but I don't think

there's any question that spirit continues to exist on

planet earth today in the twenty-first century.

There's really no need for a reincarnation; it's just a

question of where we want to take the energies. Is

there some way to coalesce the energies into

something that helps to make the world a better

place? Or is that something we even want to do?

Or do we want to "stick apart," like the

Discordians -- you know, "Us Discordians must

stick apart."

I think everybody having their own media is

countercultural in essence, in the way we

described it in the book. Instead of having three or

four mediated realities managed by CBS, NBC,

and The New York Times, with a few people

reading Mother Jones or the National Review,

59

you've got tens of thousands of different realities

that people might subscribe too.

I've long said that the 'net represents a real

defeat for consensus reality. So in that sense it's

very positive in terms of what we described as

counterculture. One of the questions we raise in

the book is whether "counterculture" is really

"counter" -- when I talk about counterculture, I'm

talking about a particular set of values that I

ascribe to counterculture, but one doesn't have to

ascribe to it the requirement of being that far

outside the mainstream, anymore. It's a different

way of approaching the world. We see it through

history, and it probably has three billion

subscribers on the planet at this point.

The three ideas you define as the essence of

counterculture -- individual ism, anti -

authoritarianism, and the belief in the

p o s s i b i l i t y o f p e r s o n a l a n d s o c i a l

transformation -- you see those as far back as

60

far as Abraham, Socrates, and Taoism. Those

movements cast a fairly great shadow down the

ages. Today, obviously you see that animating

spirit, but do you see something comparable

that will cast a great shadow on the future?

I'm sure there are a lot of things going on right

now that will cast a great shadow. I think things

are thickening up to such an extent -- some people

talk about the singularity, where the rate of change

will reach a level beyond which it's almost

impossible for us to understand what being a

human being is. I think the work that people are

doing wiring together human beings through the

nervous system of the Internet casts a long shadow.

That emerged out of counterculture sensibilities.

That's woven into the technology -- the idea of

giving individuals power, of decentralizing the

power of thought and the power of communication

-- that's really written into the technology. I think

the biggest political shadow will be cast by the

"open source" idea, which is kind of a non-

61

coercive communism in some ways. It's post-

communism, post-capitalism. It says, "We have an

abundance of this stuff we call programming, or

thought, or whatever it is that underlies all the

things that we might create, and we're going to

share it openly. People can use it to make a profit,

or use it to make a commune, or use it anyway

they want."

I think that's a place where we're headed as

human beings. Hopefully as an economy, we're

headed towards a gift economy. Open source really

models what a post-scarcity economy should be.

Technologies like nanotechnology hold forth the

promise of actually eliminating scarcity, so when

you put those two together, you have a potential

model for the future. Why can't money be open

source? Money is a program. That'd be an

interesting leap for someone to take.

Other things that are going to cast a big

shadow on the future are the experiments with

maximum lifespan and the potentials for

62

performance enhancement in the human mind,

including the psychedelic levels of consciousness,

the potentials for pleasure, insight, and

compassion. I think the self-enhancement

movement -- which in many ways comes out of

the counterculture spirit -- is another arrow

pointing towards the future.

It seems as though you see present technology

as having a greater affect than present ideas.

The ideas go into the technology. There's a

feedback loop there. I'm sure the technology will

in turn create ideas. In the chapter on the

Enlightenment, we talk about how the change in

technology caused the distribution in literacy, and

then the distribution of knowledge, which

previously had been held by a small, elite group. It

ended up being distributed by the encyclopedia.

There's always this kind of feedback loop between

the technology and science of a time and the

philosophy of the time. But I do see technology as

63

being the thing that helps us to change the world at

this time.

Can you tell me a little about your Maybe Logic

course, the Question Authority Project?

Basically it's, "Stand up and fight for your

non-beliefs." The Maybe Logic Academy is based

around Robert Anton Wilson's idea of "model

agnosticism" -- the idea of not buying completely

into any model of reality, any particular paradigm,

but maintaining an experimental attitude towards

it. I think the Question Authority Project is an

attempt to model that idea as a form of activism, as

a counteraction to the tendency towards theocracy,

theocratic beliefs, and other very rigid forms of

politics that are becoming attractive to a lot of

people living in a very complex and confusing

time.

The idea came out of a course I was teaching

called, "Counterculture Through the Ages," about

the book. In the process of the course, we thought

64

rather than just talking about counterculture,

maybe we should be doing something. We batted

around some ideas for pranks and for creating fake

counterculture characters -- modeled on Hakim

Bey or something like that -- putting them on the

web and seeing what kind of perturbations that

would create.

I had this idea in the back of my head for the

Question Authority Project, as a political and

social organization. I threw that out there and

everyone, somewhat to my dismay, went for it.

This course is an active course to see if people can

work together to realize something like this. The

basic idea is really just to create a website that

brings together anti-authoritarian activists, to get

into non-denominational blogging that would be

interesting to anti-authoritarians or non-

authoritarians. Something that wouldn't be just a

libertarian blog or an anarchist blog or a civil

libertarian blog -- not something designed to

appeal that one particular slice of anti-authoritarian

65

reality, but something that would have a broad

appeal to people open to non-authoritarian

positions.

The basic idea is to create a sort of

clearinghouse, with links to non-authoritarian

websites, and to people who would be willing to

speak out and act out as non-authoritarians.

Possibly to create a pressure group to get anti-

authoritarians into a national dialogue, so when the

lunatic talk show host Joe Scarborough is having a

discussion of this or that, rather than always

having left vs. right, sometimes it might be more

appropriate to have the authoritarian and the non-

authoritarian view.

So we're going to work on it, work with the

class, and see if we can develop some manifestoes,

see if we can build the website. We'll see what

happens. I don't necessarily think the class will

succeed in starting something, but we'll all learn

something from the process.

66

It seems like now is both a very important time

for that kind of work and an extremely difficult

time to do it, given that mainstream culture has

so absorbed the "question authority" idea in

the service of selling shoes. Do you think it's

necessary to take back that idea, reinvigorate it,

and give it a new life?

In some ways it has been absorbed by the

mainstream, but it certainly hasn't been absorbed

to any great extent by the mainstream political

discourse. To some extent there's been some

reaction to some of the stuff that's happened since

the Bush administration got people objecting to the

PATRIOT Act and so on. I think probably for the

first time since Richard Nixon's war on crime in

the 1960's, you have some mainstream politicians

talking about civil liberties. Up until the Bush

administration, there was no help for a politician --

it did them no good to talk about being in favor of

civil liberties. The way for a politician to get ahead

was to be tough on crime, which is precisely the

67

opposite of that.

I think there's an awful lot of room for

questioning authoritarian assumptions that are

made by the mainstream of this society: that it's

good to send teenagers who disobey their parents

to boot camp-style places where rough, muscular,

bull-necked man scream at them to teach them

how to behave, for example. There are so many

ways in which the notion that people should

impose their will on other people is woven into our

culture at the political level.

In fact I think that's what makes this project

worthwhile. At the cultural level, the "question

authority" attitude is a pretty mainstream point of

view. At the political level, I don't think it is. In

specific ways, like being against the President or

against the war, being Michael Moore or Cindy

Sheehan, that might qualify as a sort of anti-

authoritarianism, but if you scratch Michael

Moore, you'll probably find he has an authoritarian

point of view himself.

68

So this question of coercion -- how much

coercion should be tolerated, if any, and under

what circumstance, is certainly not part of the

political discussion.

I can't think of any political movement that

meets the ideal of model agnosticism. How do

you go about translating that idea to the

political realm?

I think it would be a mistake to try to define it

too much, because then that becomes a model.

I think there's plenty of room within a strong

civil libertarian, democratic movement for a model

agnostic view to have its place. Certainly within

libertarianism and anarchism -- though people

within both those movements like to have

complex, Byzantine, highly-abstract, intellectual

ideologies that they cling to tenaciously -- there's

certainly room within those philosophies for a

model agnostic view. I know people in both the

libertarian and anarchist movements that hold

69

those kind of views.

I think it's something that a lot of people

subscribe to but don't know they do, because you

don't hear it expressed. Even at the level of

religion, mostly you hear arguments between

believer and non-believer, between believer and

atheist. The idea of agnosticism -- which seems to

me really obvious; you'd have to be an idiot not to

be an agnostic, to assume that in terms of the

nature of cosmic reality and all-and-everything, we

have the equipment or the information to know

one way or another -- but you don't hear that. You

hear the believers and the atheists going at it.

We don't seem to have a place for that third,

doubting voice, anywhere.

It's like I say, "Stand up and fight for your

non-beliefs." (Laughs) It's not that easy to be

passionate about not buying it.

70

You point out in the book that the focus on

transcending easy dichotomies has almost

a l w a y s b e e n a m a r k e r o f t h e t r u e

countercultural movements.

I think that's exactly the case. That's implicit

in all the riddles and koans and teaching lessons

that you find in Zen, Taoism, and Sufism. You

even find it in Voltaire and other places. Socrates,

the great doubter, the great questioner of

everything -- they want to put you in a place where

there aren't answers. There are just questions or

there's just raw experience. That's definitely a line

that runs through the book.

That's a necessary aspect of what I would like

in a countercultural movement. I think a lot of

what has been labeled counterculture has not been

that. A lot of it has been another form of true-

believership: New Age forms of spiritual

absolutism, political forms of absolutism, various

expressions of a lack of tolerance and so forth.

There's a strong tendency towards purism within

71

countercultural movements, which brings us back

to consumerism and seeing Iggy Pop ads on TV,

rather than wanting to have a more expansive

dialogue.

In the book you come down fairly harshly on

the 60's and 70's "revolutions" as anti-

authority, rather than non-authority, and really

full of itself, to the point of considering itself the

revolution. Why do you think that particular

strain of counterculturalism has become the

counterculture in many people's minds?

I think there's a majoritarian impulse toward

concretizing a movement around a dogma, rather

than constantly changing and allowing a creative

flow. Everyone wants to hang on to something,

saying, "This is the new one, and I'm going to be a

part of this movement or this reality," and then not

wanting that to change.

It's a fairly elitist thing to say, but it's probably

true, that the majority is not that creative. I think

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probably larger groups of people are becoming

more creative, but over the course of history that

hasn't been the case.

There's that and then there's real problems. In

response to real problems, people will find it

important to organize in a very hard, feet-on-the-

ground sort of way, and that will lead to a rigidity

of the mind and spirit. It doesn't have to -- one can

organize against a war or against a President or

against a war on civil liberties without becoming

part of a new, "alternative" regime. But it's much

more difficult. True believers organize much better

than non-believers.

Then it comes down to the "meet the new boss,

same as the old boss" phenomenon.

It's hard to believe Huey Newton being a

leader of America. Nothing against him --the guy

in his own way was a great spirit, but he just

wasn't ready to be the Supreme Commander or

whatever. (laughs)

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Do you see the Question Authority Project as

sort of a continuation of your earlier foray into

politics with The Revolution?

Well, in some ways it came out of that. Trying

to think about that idea of starting political party,

which I felt had become moribund. It was

probably stupid in the first place, and proved to be

way too difficult. This seemed to be something

more plausible.

In some ways it comes out of a little burr I

have in my saddle to do political work, just

because I look for things that nobody else is doing.

I think Buckminster Fuller said find something

that you think should be done that nobody else is

doing and do it. This idea of a non-rigid, non-

ideological, non-conformist, non-, non-, non-, etc.,

seems like something that ought to exist and

doesn't, so maybe I'll give that a try.

I generally regret having anything to do with

anything political at least nine times a day. I'd very

much like to just read science fiction and

74

contemplate philosophy and maybe write my

biography. Again, I get this little burr in my saddle

that says, "Hey, here's something that's not being

done," and I try to do it.

Politics as a system often talks the talk as far as

tolerance, civil liberties, and giving people the

room to be individuals, but no political groups

really live up to that promise. None right now,

at least.

They would prefer not to have to. We talked

about the tendency of the majority to cohere

around rigid ideologies, but that's not the entire

story. There's also the tendency of those with

power and authority and wealth to want people to

cohere around rigid ideologies. That's another

means of control. So you have those two forces:

the majority and the elites both working very hard

to maintain those kinds of rigid systems.

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So can we expect a Question Authority Project

candidate for 2008?

No, nothing like that. I hope this will create a

clearinghouse for non-authoritarian views and help

to open up the national discourse. And I hope that I

don't have to be the leader of it. Hopefully with

this class we'll create something, a meme that will

go out there and people will be drawn to it, like

filings to a magnet.

76

SEX AND DRUGS

Rapid Detox

by Jessica Robyn

I might be a little on the naïve side. My dad

didn't really marry that bitch; my ex-boyfriend

doesn't ever like other girls; Pop-Up Videos will be

back someday. And detox? Rehab? Withdrawal?

It's all in a Saturday morning spent on my futon,

Gatorade and aspirin at my side, curtains drawn,

watching On-Demand and cursing Molson Triple-

X. Every once in awhile, however, I get a stabbing

reminder ignorance doesn't guarantee bliss. I've

seen the wedding pictures; I've heard about the

thing he had with the bartender; I've watched Best

79

Week Ever. And, upon being asked to check out

the local methadone clinics for the magazine to see

just what rapid detox was all about, I had the

unwelcome feeling that I was again about to

swallow another unpleasant spoonful of reality -

something I generally have little patience for. I

reached for my box of crayon-colored Nat

Sherman's. I'm not a smoker; the first half-pack of

cigarettes had lasted me nearly a week. I wondered

whether the second would last me through the day.

I called the Health Department and asked for

the numbers of relevant local clinics, as well as

any information about heroin withdrawal or rapid

detox that they could give me. I was given neither,

only a number for someone who supposedly had

what I was looking for. Dialed it; same response.

(And this one was rather rude. Bitch.) Dialed that

number, got the numbers for five local centers, but

no direct information. So far, I was half-way

through a jade-colored cigarette, smoked more out

of frustration than nervousness. Maybe this

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wouldn't be so bad. I picked up the phone again.

Two of the five centers were closed for the

day (one of them closed at 1:45 each afternoon, or

so said the recording; who does that?). The

remaining three refused to talk, regardless of my

shameless attempts at charm, wit, and proverbial

dick-sucking. Not much for media coverage, eh?

Undaunted, I flicked around on the internet to see

what info I could find - more clinics, national

hotlines, articles. Finished the green, finished a

pink, and started working on a blue when I tried

calling the clinics again. Got the same reaction

from two of them - one asked me not to call again.

Why wouldn't they talk? What did they think I was

going to expose, unearth? I've got dirty little

secrets too, but I at least converse with the people

who fucking call me. Discouragement was setting

in; if I couldn't get anything out of the

receptionists, I was never going to learn anything

from the people administering the actual treatment,

much less the people being treated. I was pissed; I

81

was on a mission, and these people were making

me fail. I had one center left to redial. I never

called.

The Narcotics Anonymous meeting was held

in the basement of a Baptist Church in Western

Maryland. Pittsburgh has its own local chapters,

but after the trouble I'd already had, I wanted to

see what was available in some other neck of the

Allegheny woods. Plus, I had a friend at my old

university who volunteered at these things. At the

very least, I was hoping she'd up my comfort level;

I was still apprehensive, and I was running out of

cigarettes.

I got lost on my way to the red brick building,

and got lost on the inside (ironic when you realize

that the people coming are looking for guidance

and direction) but finally wandered into the room

where the meetings were held. It was painted a

pallid and sickly green, the same moldy color that

will forever remind me of an elementary school

gymnasium. I read once that they use the color in

82

public buildings because it induces a sort of calm.

Upon entering the room I decided that was

bullshit. What was I so uneasy about? Fortunately,

the only other person there so far was my friend

Becca, an undergraduate social work student doing

her senior thesis on drug intervention. We had

some time to kill, so I told her about the trouble I'd

had back in Pittsburgh - no one wanted to give me

any information. On anything.

"I'm not too surprised," she said, taking a red

cigarette out my box and lighting it. I followed

suit. (When in NA, do as the...) "Rapid detox has

only been around for about 15 years, and has only

been in its present form for less than half of that.

It's still a young treatment. And as is the case with

most medical procedures still in their adolescence,

it's surrounded by a lot of controversy. A lot of

places shy away from interviews and media

attention because they don't think any good will

come of it. Either their center participates in rapid

detox programs, and they don't want any criticism

83

for doing so, or they don't offer it, and they don't

want any criticism for doing so. These are people

who do what they do because they believe in it and

want to help; they don't want their names or faces

attached to any sort of stigma. They practice a

different kind of medicine; it's not about money

and attention and trying to attract more patients."

And I can understand that. Except for her

comment about the money - at about $15 grand a

pop, someone's certainly raking it in, and I doubt

it's the receptionists - most of what she had to say

fell in line with what I had read. Rapid detox is

essentially just what it sounds like: Literally, a

qu ick f ix . A he ro in add ic t a t t empt ing

detoxification opts for an intravenous blue

chemical cocktail of naloxone (an opiate blocker)

and anesthesia to inhibit the body's ability to be

further affected by the drug (a permanent result, if

the patient follows up with a daily dose of

naloxone, in pill form, for a year). Simple enough,

yes? The procedure itself takes less than half an

84

hour; recovery, no more than a weekend. This, in

contrast to classic cold-turkey, wherein an addict

suffers pain, depression and some GI turbulence -

sometimes for a matter of weeks. I worked things

out in my head - a little pain (and excuse me if it

sounds like I am belittling anything here) for a

couple of days, versus veritable hell for the better

part of a month. And the problem was?

"Eh, you know. Some law suits back in the

early days, ethical questions about whether it's

right to speed up a natural withdrawal process so

quickly, the matter of the cost." Becca didn't seem

to have much more to say about it, and I didn't

have time to ask. Becca's weeknight crew had

arrived. It was meeting time, and what was more,

it was cigarette time. I lit a gold one. Seeing their

faces made everything very, very real. We weren't

talking about addicts, anymore; we were talking

about people.

Eh-hem. Sorry.

Aside from Becca and I, there were only four

85

others in the room. Two non-descript, blue-collar,

blonde-haired, twenty-something guys in work

boots, ripped and paint-adorned jeans, and t-shirts

who we'll call Keys (because he couldn't let go of

his all meeting) and Boner (because he couldn't let

go of his all meeting). There was Mama, a

pregnant woman of indeterminable age whose

stringy grey hair made her look much older than I

suspected she really was. She was soft-spoken

around the bubbly sorority girl who I recognized

from a class I had taken when I attended the local

university. I sat hoping she wouldn't recognize me,

although it didn't matter; Becca introduced me, and

told her four faithful attendants why I was there,

and that the first half of the meeting would be

devoted to my questions, should they feel

comfortable enough to answer them. I thought

they'd be disgusted, nervous, angry. I expected the

blonde to leave; old friends aren't people you hope

to see in rehab. Surprisingly, it was the sorority

sister (I'll call her Delta) who had the most to say

86

to me - for better or for worse.

Of the four there, only the two women had

gone the rapid detox route; Delta, twice. The boys

had each quit cold-turkey - Keys had been clean

for two months, and Boner for four, but had quit a

total of three times in as many years. All of them

had been addicted to OxyContin.

Since rapid detox was of the most interest to

me, I dove right into the subject; however, before

either of the girls could speak up about their

experiences, Keys caught me off guard. I hadn't

expected him to have much to say, so I only gave

him half of my attention - at first.

"I wish it wasn't so fuckin' expensive," he

lamented. For such a primitive sentence, my

attention has never been so commanded. The guy

had presence, and passion, and pain. I liked it. "I

quit, just quit, all at once, on my own, because I

couldn't afford that detox thing. It was hell. Nothin'

has ever hurt so bad. If I could go back and do it

the easy way, I would, but hell - $14 grand?

87

Something like that. Shit. I'm lucky if I make that

in a year."

"Sure, it's a lot," Mama said quietly, looking

down. "But it was just so, so worth it. I feel like I

can do anything now. I feel brand-new. I feel

almost scared, because I don't know what life is

gonna be like without the drugs. I'm wandering

into some real unfamiliar territory." I could

certainly relate; my nerves had yet to subside. "But

when you think about it, it's $14 or $15 thousand

dollars for the rest of your life."

"Exactly." Delta was joining in. "It's not about

money; it's about freedom from the Oxy. Whatever

it takes, you find the money. It's just something

you gotta do." I ask her where she managed to

scrape up $30,000 - remember, she'd done this

twice. "Oh. My parents. But I mean, still; to them,

it was just something that had to be done. If I ever

needed it again, I'm sure they'd do the same thing

for me. You can't put a price on your life, you

know?" Keys and Boner make some barely-

88

audible noises of disgust; a part of me can't blame

them. Boner sulks down into his seat and quickly

slips his hand over his erection; I pretend not to

notice. I ask what the rapid detox itself was

actually like. I didn't want to hear about Daddy's

money any more, and I didn't think that the guys

who couldn't afford a rapid detox session of their

own had much interest in the story, either. Mama

interrupts Delta's attempt at answering my

question; I'm amused. Thatagirl.

"They put you under, so you don't remember a

whole lot. When I woke up, though, it was the first

time in forever when I wasn't dying for a pill. I

kept waiting and waiting for the urge to come back

and I kind of still am. I know it won't come back,

as long as I keep taking my [prescribed] pills, and

I've still got two months left. it's still strange to

me." I want to ask whether the naloxone pills have

any projected effect on her unborn baby, but I'm

not comfortable enough to. I shouldn't have

hesitated; Delta jumps at the pause in conversation

89

to speak. I almost interrupt her but change my

mind - why am I being such a bitch? This is her

story too, and without hers, I wouldn't have mine. I

try to tolerate, try to listen.

"The first time for me was like that, too. I kept

wanting to want one [an OxyContin] because it

was just what I was used to. I mentioned that to

my nurse or my caretaker or whatever the hell

those people at the clinic are, and she just laughed.

She said I should be thankful. The second time,

though, was a lot different. I was in a lot of pain.

And I kept wanting an Oxy, but I don't think it was

because I was still addicted; I think it was just

because I knew it always made everything feel so

freaking good." I wonder if the pain is common in

repeat-rapid detoxers. No one has an answer for

me. Boner mentions that a friend of his reported a

dull ache after his treatment, but he'd only done the

rapid detox once. "No," Delta interrupts. "This was

no dull ache. This was like all of your bones were

swelling or on fire or something. It fucking hurt ."

90

It was the only time in the entire meeting when she

made a comment without a smile on her face. Keys

mutters, "Now you know how we felt," glancing at

Boner before looking back at her. "A little."

And what about NA? Did it help? What was

the first time like? And how could they be so

open?

"I wouldn't have been able to stay clean if it

weren't for the NA," says Keys. "I don't have any

of those follow-up pills the rapid-D people've got,

so I need something. And it's this, or the

OxyContin."

Boner agrees. "The first time I tried to quit, I

didn't go to any meetings or anything. I think that's

the reason I went back to the pills in the first place.

But now, with the meetings and [Becca] and the

rest of the group, I'm doin' better. Hopefully I'll

stay better."

"It definitely helps, even with the naloxone,

the meetings help. But it was tough to come in

here for the first time." Delta's saccharine smile is

91

back. "I'm so young, and I'm not local either - I felt

like I would feel so alone. But then you realize that

everyone's got the same problems as you, and age

or hometown don't matter anymore. It's a matter of

support, and there's a lot of it here." She's like a

poster child for this. Her gushy praise for the

m e e t i n g m a k e s e v e r y o n e n o t i c e a b l y

uncomfortable; fortunately, Mama speaks up in the

squirmy silence.

"Of course it helps. And of course it was scary

coming for the first time. But new things always

are, and they don't usually turn out to be that bad.

Just like going in for the detox made me nervous,

coming here on the first day did too. But hey, 'no

pain, no gain,' right?"

Becca calls for a break; the first hour is over.

Most of us head outside to smoke. (Why we chose

to stand in the rain when smoking was allowed in

the building is unclear, but I blame that fucking

green paint). The first hour had raced by -

surprisingly - and I felt like I had so much more to

92

say (or really, to hear). I know they've got business

to get down to, though, and I don't want to take up

any more of their meeting time. I fish out my keys

and my box of cigarettes. Only one left - a pink

one. I ask to borrow Delta's lighter.

"Oh I love those cigarettes. I smoked,

seriously, like half a box before I came here for the

first time, I was so shaky and nervous. Scared of

that, can you imagine?"

For the first time all night, I don't hate her.

Another choking dose of reality - this girl and I

aren't so different. Both a little green on the vine,

but sometimes more scared of it than we should

be. I remember the empty box of designer

cigarettes in my hand and laugh. "Yeah. I can

imagine."

93

Return of the MILF

Cornelius Blackshear

Editor's Note to the Readers of the Future: You're

probably probably reading this by candlelight,

America having long since descended into post-

apocalyptic chaos. We will not ask who you killed

to get that candle, nor will we judge you for

having done what any rational human would do

simply to survive. To better your enjoyment of the

following piece, however, we encourage you to

replace the asterisk-marked names (*) with those

of the pop-culture hotties of your day. You do still

have pop-culture hotties, right?

95

Recently I was forced to watch several hours

of MTV Hits, as a freak encounter with a hay baler

had left me temporarily armless and unable to

operate a remote.

Eventually the sound of my own screams died

away, and as the blood cleared from my eyes, I

realized this could be an informative, if

traumatizing, experience: I’d learn something of

about the youth of today, about their habits and

mores, their tastes and fears. Most importantly, I’d

learn how to successfully bed them.

What I found was horrifying. Ye, I have

looked into the eye of the abyss and seen staring

back: the MILF-centric video storyline.

The MILF, from the Latin milfus proclivitus,

meaning, “mommy makes me feel tingly, down in

my pants,” has been with us for a long time, from

Oedipus – the original, if unintentional, MILF-

hunter – to Freud, whose MILFing about seriously

derailed male psyches for generations to come. But

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the MILF-obsessed have always been a small

subset of the population, the ones sitting alone at

the prom, gazing lovingly into a picture of your

mother.

These days, though, the MILF Hunter has

gone mainstream.

Watch MTV Hits and it’s obvious. Exhibit

One: The venerable “Stacy’s Mom” video. This

Fountains of Wayne video stars Rachel Hunter* as

– you guessed it – Public MILF Number One. She

undresses while the band sings, “I’m not the little

boy that I used to be/ I’m all grown up now, baby

can’t you see?” ‘Fraid not, fellas. You may be

scraggly-alterna-rockers on the outside, but inside

you’re still 13. Say, is that your puberty floating in

my pool?

Next up, Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved,”

which opens with the lyric, “Beauty queen of only

eighteen,” making us think M5 is driving the

barely-legal bus to Paradise City. Don’t be fooled!

The post-pubescent poontang parading past singer

97

Adam Levine is just a decoy! I will boil this video

down for you, thereby saving you the discomfort

of another display of painfully earnest “emotion”

from these tastefully disheveled “neo-soul rock”

genitalia scrapings: “Hey, I’m with a pretty hot

lady friend right now, dancing real close-

like….WAIT A MINUTE! Who is that fine Mature

Honey? I bet she has squeezed a child through her

uterus, and that makes me want her…want her

BAD. Time to find a rainstorm where I can look

poetic. Then she will be mine.”

Sure, maybe we expect this kind of emotional

retardation from a band originally named Kara’s

Flowers (now, was that written on your high

school notebook in glitter, or pink highlighter?),

who is produced by the same guy who brought you

Michelle Branch and that number one reason to

repeal the assault weapons ban, the Goo Goo

Dolls.

But the MILF virus has infected our

bubblecrap punksters, too! Busted, a British

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“band” whose photogenic, twenty-something

members aspire to look thirteen, catches the MILF

express at the “hot for teacher” stop, with “What I

Go To School For.” What they go to school for is

Miss MacKenzie, a thirty-three year-old middle-

school teacher. I know she’s a middle-school

teacher because I, unlike the members of the band,

recognize the sweet fruit of just-blossoming

womanhood when I see it, and that class is ten

pounds of fine in a five pound bag. (With perhaps

an extra three pounds of underage naughtiness

busting out the top. Ha! Busting!) Unfortunately

for the girls, who swoon in vain, the boys of

Busted have eyes only for the pear-shaped Miss

MacKenzie. That, my friend, is a bitter, bitter fruit.

What is going on here? Have the events of

9/11 so shell-shocked our collective wang that the

only safety is the comfort of Mommy’s teat? Have

these musicians' genitals, already shriveled and

small, retreated entirely into their body cavities,

turtle-like, at the sharp existential thwack of the

99

War on Terror? Or is this just another variation of

the old, “Yeah, your mom’s pretty hot, but if you

take off your bra…well, that might get my

attention…” strategy? Perhaps more relevant:

Does the singer of Maroon 5 sleep with a blue

teddy-bear, or is it pink? (Excuse me, rose.)

It’s impossible to say, if only because I will

probably never get to ask the members of Busted,

much less murder them.

But that’s all a side show, really, next to what

I really learned. I learned that while the scrappy

Brit-punks of Busted, the artsy white-soul-meisters

of Maroon 5, and the tiny little Fountains of

Wayne are out stalking Stacy’s mom, Stacy’s home

by herself, with a broken heart.

And in this case, Stacy’s name is actually

Hillary Duff.*

Hillary, call me.

100

Stealing Sex

JoAnne Heen

When the fourth armed robbery in two weeks

culminated in a customer being shot in the parking

lot, the owners of the dirty book store where I

worked decided it was time to replace our current

security – a couple of Korean War vets – with

someth ing a b i t more , okay, a b i t less

grandfatherly. Not that Mitch, whose ability to

knock perps flying with his walker was not truly

awesome, but Dave, who set up surveillance on the

bus bench outside the store, spent too much time

negotiating blow jobs with the hookers who

101

worked that corner.

Soon the Guns appeared – five of the most

gorgeous testosterone-laden hunks of man-flesh

I’ve yet to see outside of a Chippendales show.

“Mine, mine, mine!” I chortled happily as the

store’s only female employee.

Since the company that supplied us with the

Guns hired only ex-military and law enforcement

personnel, I could pick between a State Trooper, a

Marine, a couple of police officers, and my

particular favorite, a mysterious Ninja-assassin

who told me his Number One Priority was to save

my ass.

“I’ll take a bullet for you, babe,” he said.

Encased in bullet-proof vests and wearing Batman-

like tool belts weighted down with all sorts of

crimefighting devices, I certainly expected all of

them to take a bullet for me; still, I baked him a

pie.

R o b b e r y , m u r d e r a n d m a y h e m

notwithstanding, probably the biggest problem at

102

the store was dealing with shoplifters. Since the

store was big and crammed full of stuff, it was

almost impossible for the one or two clerks on

duty to police the entire area. Other than the tell-

tale sounds of a customer coughing up a lung to

mask the noise of a bag being ripped open and

shoved into a purse or coat pocket, there was little

else to indicate crimes were being committed right

under our noses. Okay, the guy who bent over to

retrieve a penny and had fifteen copies of Double

D Housewives spill out of his shirt was a gift, but

this was a rare thing.

“Where can I stow this guy?” asked my Ninja

late one evening, as he gently guided a very well-

dressed gentleman aged about fifty into the store.

I thought the man was sick until I heard the clink

of chains and realized he was handcuffed.

“Caught him stealing, babe. Where can I stick

him while I do some paperwork?”

“How about the break room? You can chain

him to the fridge.” I guess there are things more

103

embarrassing than spending two hours shackled to

a major appliance inside a porn store, but at the

moment, I’m hard pressed to think of any.

When the local cops arrived to take him away,

they made Mr. Well Dressed empty his pockets

and open his pants. Stuffed inside his slacks were

five pair of silk panties and a package of glow-in-

the-dark condoms. In his jacket pocket was a copy

of the novel Mrs. Porter Spanks the Milkman, and

in his left sock was a bottle of cinnamon flavored

massage oil.

“Did you steal this stuff?” one cop asked. I

thought it was obvious that he did, but apparently

the law walks a very fine line. If he had enough

money to pay for everything, he could claim he

was merely carrying it in an eccentric manner.

Luckily for us, he only had $6 on him, and he had

taken $88 worth. The cops led him away after

reading him his rights and it was just like being on

TV.

A few days later, I heard shouting out on the

104

sidewalk. When I peeked out the door, I saw two

of the Guns struggling with a little skinny guy. The

air was cloudy with pepper spray and invective.

“Want me to call 911?” I yelled, and one of

the Guns shouted back, “Ya think?” It looked like

pro wrestling, with the two big Guns twirling the

guy around over their heads. Every time they’d hit

him – POW – like a piñata, another item stolen

from the store would fly out of his shirt. Suddenly,

with a heart-rending shriek, the shoplifter threw

himself in the air, squirted through the Guns’

fingers like mercury, and was gone, disappearing

into heavy rush hour traffic.

105

Tera Patrick Has A Cold

Jesse Hicks

Tera Patrick has a cold. She's had it for weeks,

she explains as she changes out of her pasties and

into a black top and jeans. Its slowed her down:

Last month, during filming for her interactive sex

video, she was just too worn out to finish the day's

shoot. She flew home to New York and missed

four feature shows that weekend. She coughs

dryly. Moving from the faux-marble dresser,

talking, she heads to the bathroom and keeps

talking. She's a storyteller; she admits it. Finally

she sits on the edge of the bed, atop a pink

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comforter, and even though she's stopped moving,

it's as though all her kinetic energy is poised, just

waiting to be released.

If her cold robs Tera Patrick of that

uninsurable jewel, her aura of sexuality, it doesn't

show. Ask the men downstairs, who pay ten dollars

a head to be near her, to cocoon themselves in

wood-paneling and smoke, under dim, forgiving

lights, and watch her dance - they come to gaze at

woman who admits, "For a long time, I couldn't

dance. I thought I had to be in a chorus line. Now I

entertain myself up there. I'll go out and do

cartwheels, maybe do a split." Ask those who stay

for autographs, who smilingly give over $50 to

have a Polaroid taken with her and watch it

develop in their hands. Ask her husband and

manager, Evan Seinfeld, who dumps a pile of bills

- her haul from tonight's show - on the table and

begins to count it.

By any measure, Tera is doing ok,

moneywise. She's under thirty and bi-coastal, with

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homes in both Los Angeles and New York. She

drives a new Corvette and a customized Hummer.

She travels the world, though still wants to visit

Easter Island. She's chatted with Paris Hilton and

is good friends with a Baldwin; party organizers

pay her thousands of dollars to simply show up

and have fun.

Porn's been good to the woman who once

thought she might never work in the industry

again, after a bad contract left her with virtually no

income. It took a year-and-a-half of legal

wrangling and over $50,000 in lawyer's fees to get

out of it, but she did. She formed a company,

Teravision, which produces all her movies. She has

a personalized line of erotic toys and is pitching a

reality-tv series. Now she controls her own

destiny; the British-Thai girl who grew up in

Montana is now that newest of American Dreams:

the superstar entrepreneur who is her own product.

The "tangible celebrity" - the very-real yet

indefinable quality she exudes - translates into

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millions of dollars, and as her husband puts it,

"This is America. You can buy your own freedom."

"We're weird to people. People still think, 'Oh

my God, what's she like? She must be so weird

because she has sex on camera.' They think I must

be some kind of alien or something, because of

what I do." When she talks her eyes go wide with

emphasis, those brown eyes a little glassy, dimmed

by her cold and last night's long flight from LA.

She talks about the business of porn, of appealing

to her fans and her "couples demographic," and of

how many experts are consulted in order to turn

her into every man's fantasy. She loves her fans -

"They pay my bills. They throw money at me, so

what can I say?" I listen for over an hour to this

methodical dissection of the mechanics behind

porn, the calculus of sex and desire, and the only

thing I really wonder is: is this really you, Tera?

What is it you really want, now that you've bought

your freedom?

"I have a little dog, and I'd like to knit clothes

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for little dogs and open a little dog store. I'd call it

Dog One."

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“To the Sirens first shalt thou come...”

Joseph L. Flatley

To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who

bewitch all men…

(Homer, Odyssey.)

It is not too difficult to ignore the fact that

there is a war going on. Hell, society is predicated

on the fact that whatever we’re giving our

attention – whatever lay in front of our nose – is

what is real, and whatever lay safely at arm’s

length might as well not exist. This country will

give you a war if you want it, and it will give you

all the consumer benefits of a system that creates

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war, if you want it, while keeping the war itself

safely stashed away. And if you’re not satisfied,

you can always find a distraction. It’s not at all

difficult to pretend that you’ll find whatever it is

you’re looking for at Anthony’s Lounge, if

Anthony’s Lounge is all you got.

I was there last week. It was cold. The girl

behind the bar was wearing a sweater and big

warm boots. The other girls were topless, but the

cold didn’t seem to bother them much. The

bartender was the prettiest one in the room,

“leaving something to the imagination,” as they

say. The only customer was an African American

gentleman in Bill Cosby's sweater.

I stayed for an hour or two, marking time by

the song, by the drink.

Towards the end of my second Budweiser

someone called Lita walked out of the back room.

She had bare feet and a gym bag over her shoulder.

The manager assured her that she would no longer

be on the schedule. She just shrugged,

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disappearing from the security monitor above the

bar as her co-workers checked to make sure their

stuff in the back hadn’t walked off with her.

“Crack addicts will sell anything,” the girl

behind the bar says.

That’s not very sexy.

The sexual impulse is the favourite child

of nature; no matter how great the

demands on a man’s energy, the sex

impulse must have its share.

(Colin Wilson, Origins of the Sexual

Impulse.)

Everybody has their reasons for going to a

strip club. Of course, it all begins and ends with

sex… but how is that, when you’re not getting

laid?

According to Skye, an author and poet that

has worked strip clubs and peep shows on both

coasts (including a stint at the legendary Lusty

Lady in San Francisco), “the woman that makes

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the most money is often older, out of shape. She’s

also caring, affectionate, nurturing.”

“For these men,” she said, “it’s not about

idealizing a person’s body. The regulars are aping

a domestic situation. These men are paying for a

person’s time, paying to drink with them, make

small talk.”

“Guys want to feel like women are interested

in them... they just want someone to act like they

like them,” says Scarlet, at Pittsburgh’s own Club

Elite. “Saturday night is a much younger crowd. I

prefer the weeknights. We get to know the regulars

pretty well, and they definitely seem to be

interested in friendship much more than any kind

of sexual thrill.”

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I would have touched it like a child

But knew my finger could but have

touched

Cold stone and water. I grew wild

Even accusing heaven because

It had set down among its laws:

Nothing that we love over-much

Is ponderable to our touch.

(W.B. Yeats, “Towards Break of Day.”)

The most basic expression of the sexual

impulse is the one that most objectifies sex. The

adolescent male is Homeric, seeing life in the

terms of the epic. There is always a Hero, a

Villain, a Virgin, a Feat of Strength. This epic

involves exploration but is ultimately self-centered

and self-defined. Women are reduced to Playboy

pin-ups.

Everybody passes through this Homeric stage,

but we do not live in a heroic age.

At Club Elite, somewhere around 10:00 p.m. a

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co-ed birthday party makes its entrance. This is a

consumer crowd, the party as odyssey, the hero’s

journey from the suburbs; the men in khaki pants

and their women with the big ol’ birthing hips and

bad haircuts. They all seemed to be quite pleased

with themselves. The wives are having a real

“Girls Gone Wild” and crazy night, one they’ll

surely be talking about over coffee, come Monday.

And the husbands will be given plenty to fantasize

about, later, in bed with the missus.

A heartland-pretty blond girl takes a seat to

my right. She’s an actress, she says. I’m a writer. I

search those blue eyes for a connection, but

between my confusion and her “cool” there is a

language barrier. After a moment or two of

awkward silence, she asks, “Would you like a

private dance?”

Finding expression for your sexuality is the

burden of being a sexual being. The method of that

expression is up to you, in the broadest sense; it is

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a product of genetics and accidental “imprint” in

the strictest sense. But mostly, if you get it, it is a

lot of fun.

I’m thinking about all of this, at a café, as the

cutest blond doll keeps looking in my direction.

Hers is a smiling, open face, not burdened by the

detritus and dry rot of the sex business.

Of course, just because I am clutching a few

dollar bills, it doesn’t mean she has to be nice to

me.

Still, I think I’ll go say hi.

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Good Friday in Pittsburgh's Cultural District:

or How and When I Learned I Was A Panty-

Sniffing Stalker

Mikhail Stafford

Good Friday nearly gouged my eyes out with

a sharp image of nearly 3,000 14-year-old girls

screaming bloody-frigging-murder for a band

called The Click Five. But first, they screamed

louder for another band called Pepperville or

Pepperghost or Pepper's Ghost or Glasnost, or

something like that. Later, Ashlee Simpson

p e r f o r m e d . T h e s c e n e w a s g e n e r a l l y

overwhelming. Couldn't make heads or tails of it

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from the beginning, and was left tired and fragile

at its end. The drugs didn't help at all. Came down

hard before Ashlee finished her antics. And when

it was over, I felt paralyzed and astounded, like the

huge electric shock I had just experienced was

actually harmless.

But then I was tapped on the shoulder by a

little girl who asked me: "Are you a panty-

sniffer?" I knew it was done on a dare - she had to

be less than 12; and she sniggered toward her

friends after she asked. I laughed.

"Fuck off," I said, smiling. Then I took into

consideration the cashflow initiating this wave,

this harmless electric shock. Yeah, I thought. It's

initiated by all the little girls in here, paying

upwards of $50 a ticket. They're probably

wondering why a man in a Hawaiian shirt and

fisherman's cap, chewing an unlit Marlboro, is

hanging around the Ashlee Simpson show.

But then again, so am I.

The pornstar, Gauge, said "Hi" as she

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smirked, looked into my eyes, and pulled my face

close to hers. "You like my tits, huh."

"Well, uh." I had eaten sedatives beforehand

to prepare (shrooms had fallen through). But, in

retrospect, nothing could've easily prepared me for

this. Because, as I watched man after man

humiliate himself for this girl (at least 50 guys

forked over $20 for a Polaroid with Gauge, saying

the dumbest shit imaginable, like: "Can I lick your

ear, sweets?") it was as if the entire basis of

capitalism had materialized into a dildo, and I had,

in consecutive hour-long humps, sat on both ends:

Ashlee Simpson on the unused end, then Gauge.

The pornstar and I chatted. The first part of the

interview was not recorded because she didn't

want anyone to hear her voice on tape. "Yeah.

Your tits are nice," I said.

Ashlee Simpson's karaoke-quality live

performance didn't exemplify what you'd expect

from a triple-platinum artist.

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But you could've probably guessed that.

You could've guessed, too, that she giggled a

lot between songs; and that she didn't have an

acid-reflux attack. You could've also guessed that,

judging by the thousands of screaming teenagers,

her status didn't dive-bomb in one evening. Nope,

it seems that she is, instead, moving along with a

successful (however, probably short) career, in

accordance with Risk -like plotting by her father.

Her daddy's a former minister, by the way, who

has, from all indications, the intention of

overtaking pop music (by force, if necessary) with

his seed.

You could've guessed these things, yes.

They've been reported everywhere. She's been

panned, torn-down and mocked. Her father's been

ridiculed for everything from using his kids as

dollar-magnets, to looking funny on camera. And

since Ashlee's SNL lip-synching incident, The

Heartless Bastard Media (which doesn't include

Tiger Beat, et al) hasn't let up on either Ashlee or

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her father.

And it's really not fair.

But do you know why they haven't let up?

Do you know why every serious review of her

music seems negative?

Because [drum roll] Ashlee Simpson has no

talent.

See, Jessica, her half-wit sister, was bred to be

a performer from the beginning - she's a talented

singer and has obviously trained to fit the trite

celebrity role.

Ashlee, however, just fell into this shit. Her

dad was sitting around plotting, trying to figure out

some way to find someone to compete with Avril

Lavigne (who's also, since we're on the topic, evil).

And the only thing he could come up with was:

"Let's get my other daughter, Ashlee, on stage."

She's out of her element.

And:

She has co-opted the Anarchy symbol into her

logo (for fuck's sake).

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She said things on stage like, "This is about

finding your identity and being yourself," before

singing a song she almost certainly did not write

(no matter what her co-writing credits might

indicate).

And last:

She was somehow brought into town by the

Pittsburgh Cultural Trust - an organization with the

intent ion of encompassing "a complete

transformation of Pittsburgh's Downtown; from a

'red light' district with only two cultural facilities

to a vibrant animated area with over fourteen

cultural facilities, public parks and plazas, and new

and proposed commercial development."

Which brings us back to Gauge, who was

performing a block away, also in the Cultural

District, at Club Elite.

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So like, what do you think about when you're

getting Chinese-finger-trapped by two

random...uh, fuckers...?

Fuckers... yyyeeah... well, um, I like to be

professional so I just think about the scene, where

to go next - what looks best, you know?

Yeah, but do you ever get bored on that front?

Sometimes you look bored. Do you ever think

about, like, what's on TV while you're having

sex on film? Do you contemplate President

Bush's foreign policy decisions? Start

making...like, shopping lists in your head?

No, I just give head.

Ha ha, nice. Oral communications major, right?

Right! How'd you know?

Lucky guess. [she ranted about college minutes

ago, explained that she spent a stint in an

Arkansas community college before moving to

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Los Angeles. She got into porn by responding to

an ad looking for someone to perform sexually,

on film.]

Yeah right. Are you a stalker?

Well, kinda, yeah. That's my job. Sorta.

Stalker?

No. More like reporter. But, see, it's reall-

Cool, whatever. Do you want a t-shirt?

The point, I guess - cause I'm struggling to

find it - is that there are minimal differences

between a performer who signs autographs by

pressing her painted breasts against a white t-shirt,

and a performer who fakes her way through a

career, pretending that there is some musically-

oriented reason she's on stage, charging $40 for the

cheap seats.

Granted, Gauge can't sing. But Ashlee can't

dance.

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And, by my calculations, that makes them

even.

Actually, Gauge wins.

And I need to find better things to do with my

time.

129

Whore

Zelda Getz

One guy wouldn’t stop talking about his 14-

year-old daughter, how pretty she was, and how

she looked like me. He’s the one who’d said he

could’ve come just eating me.

I wished he would have.

But that’s not what he paid for. And in the

end, they always got what they paid for.

Looking back on it, I’m floored at having

been so heartbreakingly naïve, but in a way,

astounded by my courage, my sense of adventure.

I’m only just coming to terms with the fact that I

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can count prostitution among the myriad sins of

my youth.

The ad, seeking “attractive young women,

with or without transportation, quick money”

appeared in the back of the college newspaper. I

think, to me, that lent it a certain degree of safety. I

mean, the school paper – it couldn’t be a sinister

thing.

Stumbling upon that ad couldn’t have come at

a worse time in my life. I was a college freshman,

new in the big city. I had been badly raped about

three weeks into school, bent over a 34 th floor

bathroom window. The money that relatives had

given me for high school graduation had almost all

gone to support my raging binge-and-purge habit.

Men paying money for my body seemed like the

ultimate stamp of approval, which I craved

desperately.

So I arranged to meet Shabir, owner, CEO and

product tester for Starr Escorts. I hopped a bus

Downtown, and he picked me up in a sleek black

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sports car. The “interview” was in his shitty little

storefront in the Strip District – three private

rooms had curtains across the door, and a stereo

that got turned up to drown out itinerant moans.

I met the other “girls”: a thirty-five year old

single mother with a broken toilet at home and a

fading bruise high on her cheek, and a mean,

pretty, clever girl of about 20 whose high ponytail

would have looked about right on a cheerleader.

They showed me where the extra sheets were, and

how to work the washer and dryer after every

client.

They asked what I was doing there, and when

I said I just really liked sex, they laughed at me,

coldly and without pity. I thought they were

laughing with me, because it was such a

precocious thing to say.

Shabir told me I was beautiful, but in his

wolf’s eyes, I was a commodity because I looked

like a child. Hell, I was a child; a skinny little girl

with jutting hipbones, tiny breasts and no idea

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what was going on.

Shabir told me I didn’t have to do anything I

didn’t want. There was a pricing scale, and full

intercourse would net me $75 and would net

Shabir $225. He said I had to bring my own

condoms if I was planning to fuck. I said I wasn’t.

Of course, I did, eventually.

My first customer was a regular – a fat guy

named Glen who liked having his nipples licked.

In a sense I felt sorry for him, for the way he

smelled of nervous sweat and Ivory soap and

wanted to fuck me more than anything, but

couldn’t afford it. His hatred was a shy, fearful

kind. He wanted love, and would never, ever get it.

Instead, he paid to eat my ass.

Another John wanted anal sex. I’d done that

once or twice before with a boyfriend and lots of

lube. I didn’t want to. He kept insisting, and told

me he’d give me a tip. For $100 extra, he plunged

into me, tearing me. I cried so much he finally

stopped, and threw the bill on the bed and left –

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but only after he came in my pussy. I had to

scramble and hide the bill, because Shabir forbade

tipping.

The other girls in my dorm wanted to know

what the hell I was up to, getting myself dressed

up like it was Saturday, leaving late on weeknights

and coming home with giddy amounts of cash.

I lied, and said it was like dancing. I think I

believed myself. I had a denim wallet in a drawer

in my desk that just kept getting fatter and fatter.

Finally I sort of cracked. I confessed, rather

hysterically and breathlessly, what I was up to to

the guy I was seeing. I hadn’t fooled him, as it

turns out. We rehearsed the phone call I knew I

had to make.

I called Shabir, terrified, to tell him I was

through. He told me I had an appointment that

night at a hotel party, and that the payout would be

phenomenal. I somehow stood firm. He let me go,

but called my dorm a few times in the ensuing

weeks to offer to take me back.

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The money tormented me – the physical

presence of all that cash was a palpable indictment,

quantifiable proof of my filth. I purged it, buying

extravagant gifts for my friends – I only bought

one thing for myself, and always hated it. It’s gone

now.

Seven years have come and gone since then,

bringing many addictions, lovers and shrinks. I’ve

come a long way. I have an acceptance of my body

that I never thought would be mine. It’s peaceful

not to hate the flesh you inhabit.

But there is no erasing the past. I could enter

into a convent, but there it would still be, branded

onto me with a permanence that my tattoos would

envy. There are things I’ve done that I am more

ashamed of, but none of them carry with them the

weight of that single word:

Whore.

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Love and Lust in the Age of Mechanical

Introduction:

or Adult Friend Finder and the Infinite Sadness

Jesse Hicks

One. Baby It's Cold Outside

The dream behind the Web is of a

common information space in which we

communicate by sharing information.

[…] There was a second part of the

dream, too, dependent on the Web being

so generally used that it became a

realistic mirror (or in fact the primary

embodiment) of the ways in which we

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work and play and socialize. (Timothy

Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide

Web)

On the left side of the web page is a picture.

This picture is an extreme close-up. The picture is

both low-contrast and slightly out-of focus, its left

and right sides defined by two tapering pillars a

color somewhere between ivory and almond. They

meet in the center of the frame, forming a "v." At

their nexus is a darker area, an arrangement of

vertical folds in russet and pink, labyrinthine but

without a center. They meet at the top, forming a

small ruby. Above sprout tiny, well-coiffed hairs

that from this Lilliputian perspective seem to loom

in mystery.

To the right of this below-the-waist portrait,

with its labial mountain ranges rendered in

satellite-imagery detail -- the overall package

about as erotic as a colonoscopy -- is the heading,

"Looking for Mr. Right."1 A short introduction

1 First reaction: "Holy fuck! A talking vagina!"

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follows.

Welcome to AdultFriendFinder.com, which

bills itself as "The World's Largest Sex & Swinger

Personals site." AdultFriendFinder (AFF) is part of

FriendFinder2, Inc., a collection of personal

networking sites that includes FriendFinder (a less

risqué version of AFF), ALT.com (for BSDM

aficionados), and Amigos.com (bringing together

Spanish/Portuguese members).

AFF boasts 18,654,919 members3, who find in

it an electronic version of the "key parties" and

swingers gatherings that have been around since at

2 Here it might be interesting to note the use of the word "adult" to mean "sex included" -- "adult industry," "adult entertainment," "adult situations." Is it surprising, then, that kids thinking fucking makes you mature? Or, if sex=adulthood, that we "adults" spend a lot of time being confused and insecure about it, even as it's supposedly our gateway into the grown-up world? Just askin', is all.

3 How many of these members are actual people is debatable. Personal experience leads the author to believe many of them are spammers and/or cyborgs. Also, this number is heavily weighted towards men.

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least the 1950's. The goal is typically quick

hookups with people who are clean and discreet,

and who know exactly what they want. Members

fill out a lengthy personality profile (used to find

potential matches), describe who they are and what

they're looking for, and typically post a picture. All

this and $19.95 a month (discounted for 3-month

and year-long subscriptions; more gets you a

"Gold Membership") earns you access to AFF's

database of eager swingers, many of whom are in

your area!4

AdultFr iendFinder, then, i s another

fascinating beast in the strange menagerie that is

the American dating scene. Through the wonders

of technology, you can make new friends and bang

them hardcore, with just a few clicks of your

mouse. (Well, not the banging -- not yet, anyway.)

You can participate in message boards with like-

4 With that exclamation point I may have veered into blatant promotion. Seriously though, YOU CAN GET LAID TONIGHT! I'm kidding. Or am I?

140

minded swingers; the Pittsburgh board promises a

failed orgy at least once a month, and you'll thrill

to multiple postings of "April 1 gangbang -- who's

in?" followed by what seems to be, to the author's

ears anyway, the longest, saddest silence ever

captured in text form. And of course there're the

explicit pictures, many with blurred out faces if

that's your thing.5

Take out the sex, though, and you're left with

a site not all that different from more mainstream

Internet dating services such as Yahoo! Personals

or Match.com. AFF may be more up-front about

its members' end goals, but if you compare the

actual profiles, after correcting for the sex angle,

there's not a lot of difference. You'd be hard-

pressed to tell a profile on AFF from one on

5 I wanted to meet one of these girls and when she showed up with a (presumably) unblurred face, react with shock and horror. "By Allah's beard, this is not what I had in mind at all! I thought you had some sort of Ring-like deformity going on! That's what Poppa likes!" Sadly, those girls never responded to me. Touche, blur-faced girls. Touche.

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Yahoo! Personals.

In its single-minded pursuit of convenient

hookups, AFF has more in common with dating

services like It's Just Lunch or Speed Dating --

those that promise no-stress meetings with like-

minded people, typically professionals, who just

don't have the time for the inconvenience of the

dating scene. Eight Minute Dating, for example,

promises that you'll spend no more or less than

eight minutes with 8 different successful

professionals. Or, to express that in a more

efficient way that won't waste any more of your

motherfuckin' time: 8 Great Dates - 1 Fun Night!

If you're getting a weird little tinge at the back

of your head, something along the lines of, "Eight

minutes? I spend more than eight minutes test-

driving a car…then again a car is a big investment,

and this is just a night of fun dates and great fun

and probably some fun booze, which helps kill the

emptiness that sometimes wells up when I realize

I'm unable to feel anything beyond the need to be

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constantly fucking entertained by the world around

me, and should that entertainment fail I think I'd

just totally die!" then in that, at least, you are not

alone.

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Two. The Extremely Difficult Realization That

Someone Other Than Oneself Is Real6

Sex is not love. Love is not sex. But the

best of both worlds is created when

they come together. … The best way

for human beings to show love is to

love one another. It's the way we

spread love in the universe: one to

one. Love is something we make.

Madonna (not the Virgin), Sex)

You also wouldn't be alone in thinking AFF

looks a lot like eBay, or maybe Buy.com. You put

in your search terms, click a button, and a bunch of

matches pop up, be it for "antique Hummel

figurines" or "Pittsburgh, PA + female +pulse

-fatties." Then you may lean back. Put up your

6 Some sort of extended typo in this heading. This is supposed to read, "Daddy Goes Shopping For Love and Comes Home With a Bag Full of Nuthin."

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feet. Smoke a pipe, or pole, or pope. Realize that

before you scrolls a near-infinite variety of

consumer choice. The Internet is your shopping

mall, for love, for Hummel, for meat and for

sporting goods. Turn up your iPod, check the lock

on your gated community, double-check that your

Ford Armored Personnel Carrier is safe and

comfortable within its garage. This is your castle;

here before a crackling fire you are comfortably

numb -- you will find an Adult Friend, and it will

be one of your choosing, tailor-made to your likes

and pleasures.

And that, my friends, is really all we ask for

from love, isn't it?

For a nation of individualists, we are

surprisingly afraid of being alone. Yet we're also

afraid of being in the world7 -- we armor ourselves

7 Check out this advertisement for True.com. Look closely (she's not just a lithe, shapely ass, people) and you'll realize it's a picture of a brunette peeking out through the slats of her Venetian blinds. This is for a dating site. "Love might be out there, but for the love of all that's

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with iPods to shut out the noise of other people, sit

alone in our SUVs to avoid public transportation,

use caller ID on our cell phones to decide who we

talk to and when.8 This is the consumer paradise,

where every choice is up to you and your wallet.

Can't we just choose love, then; open up our

cocoon just enough to sneak another person in,

that we might not be so lonely in our fortress of

solitude?

Well, no. Here's how Clementine responded to

that idea in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,

"Joel, I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm

a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make

them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is

looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign

me yours."

Clementine's spiel -- easily found on AIM and

Facebook profiles everywhere -- is partly right: If

holy, don't go outside!"

8 Max Frisch, "Technology is the knack of so arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it."

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you think you're incomplete, sex and/or love

p r o b a b ly w o n ' t ma k e y o u w h o le , a n d

AdultFriendFinder has little to offer you. (But if

we adopt Clementine's view as a life philosophy,

does that mean everybody runs around looking for

his or her own peace of mind while simultaneously

refusing to consider anyone else's? So, uhm, do we

just all retreat to our rooms to play solitaire,

leaving a note on the door saying, "Mind at Peace.

Do not disturb."?)9

T h e r e ' s a n o t h e r w a y, t h o u g h , t h a t

Clementine's speech is, if not wrong, certainly a

little sad in its impoverished view of love.10 Every

way of talking about love is unrealistic -- we either

end up talking nonsense or poetry or both -- but

how is Clementine's view unrealistic?

9 The other famous peace of mind comes, ha ha, in "Rest in Peace."

10 The l-word (and sex) often seem to dwell in that realm of "what we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence" which is transgressed, with varying degrees of success, by poets and fools.

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"I'm just a fucked up girl looking for my own

peace of mind."11

Peace of mind being the same thing used to

sell cars12 and insurance; peace of mind being, let's

be honest, the selling force behind every piece of

crap we're told will make us whole, or at least

enable us to cope with day after day of bone-

wearying monotony long enough to catch the new

episode of Law and Order. Hooray for love, then,

which promises us…peace of mind.

What's sad about Clementine's stance is that it

masquerades as a kind of hard-eyed realism. "I've

looked at myself," it says, "And I've realized I'm

just so fucked up. The world's fucked up. You're

11 Peace of mind being neither agony nor ecstasy. In other words:

© DC Comics12 Too much? How about this snippet from a

Saturn commercial: Girl complains about all the boyfriends she didn't love, then says, "And then I met Ben. I realized that you don't have to compromise. And that's why I bought a Saturn." Cue sound of author throwing up all over television.

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fucked up." Then it has nowhere to go. Once she's

stripped love of all its "illusions" -- denied the

fairy tale of white-horse-riding princes and long-

haired princesses -- she can't seem to believe that

the world might offer more possibilities than a

choice between fairy-tale delusions or her

"everything is dirt" "reality."

In other words, she thinks like a 15 year-old.13

In other words, by focusing on her supposed

"fucked-upness," she turns any relationship into a

salve for said fucked-upnesss -- exactly what she

chooses Joel of doing.14

13 See "adult" note above.

14 This is one of those scenes that works in context -- in the movie, Joel sees through Clementine's pose, and she, disarmed, is able to laugh about it. In real life, wearing your fucked-upness as a shield against having to feel anything -- well, that's just a refusal to admit that life is messy, people are complicated, and sometimes you're going to get hurt. It's a bit like cutting out your heart so you don't have to feel anymore. (See Prozac and self-narcotizing society.)

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Here you might be getting another one of

those twinges, something along the lines of "Wow,

it's almost as if we can relate to one another only

as pre-packaged products, the choice of which will

both define who we are and rid us of the burden of

this constant low-level anxiety15 brought on by

consumer overload.16 Unable to feel past our own

ineffable dissatisfaction, we make our lovers into

just another accessory, bit players in the Play

Called Me17…hey, is that a new Nokia cell

phone?"

15 No surprise, then, that Ambien and Prozac, the Nyquil-Dayquil tag-team of peace-of-mind prescriptions, are among the most successful drugs in history.

16 To learn more about American capitalism's vested interest in churning out generation after generation of emotionally crippled "adults," visit your local library.

17 Did you know the Greek goddess of love, Eros, is also the sum of all instincts for self-preservation? I have no idea what that means!

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Three. The Futile Pursuit of Happiness18

You're looking for the wrong person.

But not just any wrong person: the

right wrong person--someone you

lovingly gaze upon and think, 'This is

the problem I want to have.' I will

find that special person who is

wrong for me in just the right way.

(Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions)

The old joke is that, for men at least,

overdosing on pornography (say, 30-40 straight

hours) always ends with a guilty, sheepish phone

18 "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness," New York Times Magazine, September 7, 2003. The study of "affective forecasting" -- people's ability to predict what will make them happy and for how long -- reveals that human beings are pretty shitty at predicting their own happiness. Yet we all make decisions based on what we believe will make us happy in the future, or what will at least give us "peace of mind." See irony.

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call to Mom.19 (And this is a stretch, but you

explain it…) there's some primal need to reassert

the possibility of a woman as another, separate

human being, rather than simply a flesh-fantasy

playground.

Overdosing on AdultFriendFinder profiles20

19 "Hey son, what's up?""Not too much, Mom, just called to see what you were up to…I love you, you know.""Oh for God's sake. If you rented Rear Entry XII with my Blockbuster card, I better not be getting any late charges."

20 Say, when you're surfing AFF @ your shitty 11 PM - 7 AM job that probably, ha ha hmmm, didn't help you keep a girlfriend in the first place, and after sending your 250th email that month get a message saying you're over the limit and must send to the Gods of Customer Service the following plea:

From jesse@deekmagazine.comSubject Arrgh! I've used all my emails!To gold@adultfriendfinder.com

Hello. I seem to have used all my emails for this month. Admittedly I did go a little crazy trying to hit every available woman within 75 miles of Pittsburgh. But God Help Me, I'm so lonely.

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provokes a similar feeling, but one not exactly the

same. If a porn OD is like the inevitable crash after

a week-long coke binge, leaving you listless and

borderline suicidal, AFF profiles are more like an

acid-trip that starts out fine, then slowly, sneakily,

creeps out of your control and into a bleak,

existential void. Porn promises escape; AFF is all

too real. There's the attractive blonde from Ohio,

25, who's unhappily married and looking to find

real love in a hotel room (daytime rendezvous

preferred); there's the woman in Warren whose

husband is a sad loser who cannot satisfy her. She

quotes Ayn Rand, "I swear by my life, and my love

of it, that I will never live for the sake of another

man, nor ask another man to live for mine," before

challenging anyone who's not a "two-pump

chump" to take her on.

The more romantic profiles also seem

poignantly out of place. To the woman who writes,

"I'm looking for a Romeo to my Juliet," there are

two questions: First, you know how that play ends,

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right? One hint: it's not "happily ever after."

Second, are you sure you'll find Romeo on a site

whose "purity test" includes the question, "Have

you ever engaged with a hooker or gigolo?" Not to

be judgmental of either you or AFF fans, but this

might not be the place for Montagues and

Capulets.21 Unless that's your fetish; there's

probably a bulletin board for that.

Spend enough time reading profiles like, "I

made a New Year's resolution not to be lonely

anymore," and you start to feel you should call up

that one ex-girlfriend -- you know, the one who's

written you out of her life, your only connection

the fading ellipsis of things left unsaid, but when

one day you see her walking on the street with

another guy, his hand on the small of her back as

they pass, you crack into infinite jagged reflections

of that touch, the fingertip language of lovers, and

though you can't see her face because she is

walking one way, your bus going another, you

21 "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou purity rating a mere 48%?"

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hope she is smiling, and the silence in your chest is

the sound of your heart not beating -- and say

something. Anything. Apologize for the state of the

world, for being who you are, maybe -- apologize

that there are so many lonely people in the world

and then hang up.22

Then you go back to clicking away, still

searching for that one perfect vagina with the

personality that will make you complete.

22 This is probably best done at a time you're sure to get her voicemail.

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ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

How not to find God while watching

The Passion with a head full of acid

Constantine J. Warhammer

He was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities; by His wounds

we are healed. (Isaiah 53, 700 B.C.)

Mmmm, yawnnnn….and a stretch…crawl out

from under those pizza boxes and shake the

crumbs from your hair. Feel a dusty shaft of

afternoon sunlight hit your unshaven face. Smack

your gummy lips together – what is that taste?

Cigarette butts and alcohol?

It’s Sunday, 2 PM, and you know what that

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means: time to get high and fuck around with the

didgeridoo. Or: a leisurely perusal of this month’s

stack of pornography, a cup of tea and a baguette.

Survey your Xanadu, a one-bedroom apartment

with Green Day posters on the walls and dirty

needles on the back porch, and realize the world is

your candy machine. You can do anything you put

your mind to, and it’s time to put your mind to

conquering that last level of Splinter Cell: Chaos

Theory before taking a nap and then watching the

Simpsons.

Whoa, hold fast the reigns of your

imagination, Mr. Junior Captain of Industry! This

isn’t just any Sunday! It’s Easter Sunday! The day

we (chosen people) celebrate Jesus’s return from

the Afterlife, which according to Scripture looks a

lot like the fluorescent-bleached dreadscape of

LAX at 3 am. Jesus walked through the valley of

the shadow of death, came back and brought us

delicious chocolate bunnies. (Also: died for our

sins.) Did Zoroaster ever do that? No he did not, so

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kiss the ring! Kiss it! Close your robe! You never

know who might be watching. (God.)

It’s Easter Sunday and there’s only one proper

way to celebrate the death and rebirth of Our

Savior: take these two hits of acid and watch The

Passion of the Christ, or as I like to call it, “Teach

Yourself Aramaic in Three Hours.” Take two

because they are small and The Passion is very

long.

You’ll want to fire up the multimedia

projector so Christ will tower above you, 81”

across your wall. Remember when you first bought

that? Sure, the A/V geeks on the Internet said its

400:1 contrast ratio was unacceptable for the true

home-theater aficionado, but you knew how damp

the ladies get in the presence of a big TV. What

was that song you made up? “Let the Panties Hit

The Floor,” wasn’t it? How did those lyrics go?

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Let The Panties Hit the Floor

(to the “tune” of “Let the Bodies Hit the

Floor,”

by Drowning Pool)

Let the panties hit the floor

Let the panties hit the floor

Let the panties hit the floor

Let the panties hit the ...

FLOOR!

You are not very creative. You are the Weird

Al Yankovic of Suck.

About an hour into Mel Gibson’s theological

snuff film – no no no, that is too generous! Call it

“a 30 million dollar Faces of Death video drawn

out over two hours” – you feel the acid crawling

up your spine like two black electric umbilicals.

You must relax at this point. The room is about

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120 degrees, Jesus’s ribs are visible through his

bloody, flayed side, and you realize Mel Gibson

can’t get anything right except violence and pain.

He knows know other tone. His movie is small,

petty and self-righteous. He is a child playing the

symbols of religion without understanding the

meaning behind them.

As the acid claws its way into your brain, you

might feel on edge. Your teeth may grind, and you

may be reduced to a babbling Lady MacBeth,

“blood….so….much….blood!” This is how Mel

Gibson wants you to feel. His Jesus is a near-mute

slab of meat, scourged and bloody, ready to make

you feel guilty for simply existing. Resist this

impulse! You must endure!

And if you do find yourself deep in the pit of

existential discombobulation, do not turn to the

teenage girls on Instant Messenger for help. Their

hearts are too full of love and Hoobastank lyrics

for the likes of you. You might try IM’ing God,

though.

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RepententSinner69: u there?

Auto response from GDawg420: brb,

cleaning the many rooms of my mansion

RepententSinner69: how about now?

God is Permanently Away, and if we’ve

learned anything from the apostolic tradition, it’s

that religious experience in the age of mechanical

reproduction is nonexistent; our connection to the

divine is nothing but a copy of a copy of a copy …

and men in robes and pointy hats are guarding the

Xerox machine! Not even LSD can sidestep the

Pope when it comes to direct religious experience,

because the Pope knows the very best in Shaolin

kung-fu, including the Flying Tiger Claw and the

Palsied Shuffle.

No, God speaks to us through movies, and

Mad Max is His messenger. And if the torture of

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Jesus in The Passion is oddly reminiscent of that

scene in Lethal Weapon where Riggs (Mel Gibson)

is hung from the rafters and tortured with electric

shocks; or that scene in Payback where Porter

(Mel Gibson) has his toes smashed with a hammer;

or that scene in Braveheart where William Wallace

(Mel Gibson) gets drawn and quartered – well,

maybe it’s a sign of God’s divine plan for Jes…I

mean, Mel. Why, then, does Mel not get tortured

even a bit in What Women Want? Because that

movie was written by Satan, who takes the form of

bewitching temptress Helen Hunt.

Unfortunately, Mel’s Christ is a bit of a

bummer. He doesn’t smile much, laughs even less,

and his main teaching – “Love one another” – gets

lost in the fact that he spends over two hours

getting murdered. If this is the height of religiosity,

you might want to stick to drugs for your “spiritual

awakening.” Mel Gibson’s Christianity is a cult of

death presided over by a Morrisey-like dark poet

who seems sensitive and sincere at first, but turns

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out to be just a brooding, self-important loner

longing for crucifixion. [Note to former

girlfriends: If you were writing in to suggest I’m

projecting myself onto Jesus, beat you to it! Still

those furious pens, ladies!]

You’ll reach a point where Pilate, strangely

cast as a thoughtful, caring ruler instead of the

cruel warlord history marks him as, asks, “Can

someone explain this madness to me?” And by

now, drenched in sweat, shuddering in a fetal

position, you say, “Yes, Pilate! Yes, that is a good

question! What madness is this? Why don’t we ask

that of the snakes that’ve been crawling out of my

wall for the past half hour?”

It’s the madness of a religion that doesn’t

celebrate life, but worships death. It’s a madness

that can find meaning only in suffering, which

means its art can never be enjoyed, only endured.

In that sense, LSD is probably not the best drug for

experiencing The Passion. Better to deal with it –

if you must – the same way you would deal with

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church: by systematic, methodical application of

bourbon and painkillers.

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An Easy Drinking Game for Watching

The Passion of the Christ.

1. Drink a carbomb every time Judas

betrays somebody.

(That dick!)

2. Drink a cosmo every time Jesus

forgives somebody.

(That Messiah!)

3. Do a shot of Jameson every time

someone speaks Aramaic.

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Lars Vegas: The Terror of the Sublime

Carl Weathers

"I'm going to need the higher-wattage

halogen," the hanging man yells up to me, his

voice echoing off the surrounding cement.

Right now it's 2:37 AM and Lars Vegas [not

his real name; that's a whole other complicated

question we'll get into later] just went off the roof

of a 12-story abandoned book bindery. Black-clad,

with a miner’s light strapped to his head and a

customized paint sprayer slung across his back, he

disappeared over the side of the building like a

SWAT leader ending a hostage crisis.

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Meanwhile, I’m left shivering on the roof to

keep watch over the rappelling equipment and

lighting gear.

The muse has descended to Vegas -- 20

minutes ago we were aimlessly cruising in a

nondescript white van, listening to Mahler’s Tenth

and searching for the perfect canvas. “I need

something ruinous tonight,” he says, his ice-blue

eyes busy as he speaks. Mostly he drives in

silence, nestled into a pocket of introspection that

breaks, typically, in a wave of speech; he’s a solar

battery of ideas, picking up the resonances in his

environment and unleashing them in new,

unexpected forms.

That, of course, is the definition of art. But

where most artists work on a scale of feet, Vegas

works in yards. Where others create in a studio, he

turns the entire outdoors into his workshop. His

specialty: multi-story, abstract murals painted

under cover of darkness. He shows up in a

different city almost every month, does his thing

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for a while, then takes to the road again. People

wake up the next morning, go to pick up their -

Post-Gazette or Los Angeles Times, and Vegas's

work is there, an alien artifact dwarfing all who

see it.

Tonight I ask him, for perhaps the tenth time,

to explain his work. What comes out is, “Cities are

the nodal points of the collective unconscious. In

this great density of humanity, dreams take on new

shapes; it's in cities that our new worlds are born.

My work taps into that, as a kind of psychic

acupuncture on the collective unconscious. I

midwife new realities into being." This is the tenth

different explanation I've heard from him.

Then he silently pulls into the gravel lot, eyes

the broken windows and rusting metal hulking

before us. Satisfied, he starts unloading. In fifteen

minutes we're on the roof, and he is asking for

more light.

This all started two months ago. In my

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neighborhood I started noticing a series of ornately

cartoonish slogans: "Wake up and smell the

chaos!" "Dieses ist Seelemord." "Reality is

provincial." "Who is John Galt?" There seemed

nothing spectacular about the content, but the

presentation caught my attention. No matter where

these little bits of urban enlightenment appeared,

they were styled to look as they whey belonged

there. More specifically, each was a miniature

trompe l'oeil that seemed to rise out of whatever

surface it'd been painted on. I'd find "Exterminate

all rational thought!" protruding from a park

bench. A bus seat would read "Evolve!" as though

the sentiment had pushed its way out of the fabric.

I started searching graffiti message boards,

avant-garde list chat rooms, Situationist discussion

lists, anywhere I might find a clue. Eventually I

came upon a group of people who'd noticed the

unique style in metropolitan areas across the U.S.

No one had any idea who had made them or why;

some speculated it was a new marketing ploy;

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others thought it must be a nationwide collection

of graffiti artists. We traded pictures and theories,

scrutinized the most minute details. It all got a

little cultish, honestly.

One Monday, while at work, I trolled through

the usual postings. "New sighting -- NYC,"

"Lichtenstein influence?", "Avant-pop marketing

meme/old hat" -- the usual collection of

conjecture, hunches, and little new information. It

seemed more important to talk about the mystery

than to solve it. I mentioned this on one thread,

adding that I'd considered writing an article about

the whole thing if I ever met our mysterious

author/authors. I posted the message and went to

lunch.

Two hours later, came a response: "Where &

when?"

A week later I met Lars Vegas in a downtown

parking lot. He was there before me, even though I

arrived 15 minutes early. I don't know who I

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pictured, but the truth stood in front of me, maybe

six-feet tall in a black motorcycle jacket, thick

dark hair hanging down to his shoulders. Even

with the sun setting behind him, he wore black

aviator glasses -- later, he confessed his eyes were

overly-sensitive to sunlight. His face had the

slightly sallow, greasy appearance of a chronic

fast-food indulger.

He didn't move until I was almost directly in

front of him. Not a nod of recognition, or any sign

that he was breathing. I must've looked quizzical,

because he stepped forward, extended a gloved

hand, and said, "I'm Lars Vegas."

"Is that your real name?" I blurted.

He cocked his head, "It is now." Then he

walked to the driver's side of his van and opened

the door. "Are you coming?"

The first thing I realized about Lars Vegas:

this van was his headquarters. Along both sides

were row after row of spray paint; shelves

underneath held his customized tools. A laptop

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whirred away in the back. I saw where he'd

worked out new ideas, covering the van's interior

with phrases such as, "Art is terror. Sacrifice

yourself to the sublime." Then he pulled out of the

parking lot and put on The Doors's Waiting For

the Sun.

I started with the typical questions: how long

have you done this? Why? How'd you get into it?

For the first few hours I didn't get much of a

response; we drove through Waiting For the Sun,

the entirety of Tristan and Isolde, and The Velvet

Underground and Nico with only monosyllabic

dialogue between us. As "The Black Angel's Death

Song" came on, I tried another variation on the,

"So how does a guy end up driving across the

country leaving cryptic slogans in his wake?"

question before he cut me off.

"I used to be in day-trading," he said, in a

Te x a r k a n a d r a w l . " N u m b e r s . S y m b o l

manipulation. Lines of green, numinous signs

crawling their way across my terminal for eight

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hours a day. Pattern recognition. Turning faith into

gold."

I waited as the Velvets moaned about stone

glances and split didactics.

"I was very good. I could always see the

wheels behind the numbers. Intuitively. A good

trade was like a piece of music. Precise," he said.

"On another level I began to suspect I was

part of a wide-scale experiment in emotional

vivisection. The people around me had a

perpetually glazed look. The dead eyes of addicts.

I didn't know why. They'd stop talking to the

person in front of them to take a phone call, no

matter who was on the line."

"One day I came to work and found myself

physically unable to hear. It was like being

underwater. It terrified me. So I hunkered down in

front of my terminal and lost myself in the wash of

green light. I sat like that for the rest of the day.

Then I closed all my positions and walked out," he

said

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"That was, what, four years ago. I took the

money and walked out. It's not difficult to

disappear in America, if you want to. I've become

a connoisseur of non-existence."

When he talked about himself, it came out

halting and detached. Yet, when he talked about

h is work , i t was in a long s t ream of

techno-/psycho-/art- babble that would give L.

Ron Hubbard pause. Stuff like, "Cities speak to me

in my dreams. I let them in. Our collective

unconsciousness has been sandblasted smooth by

banality and repetition. I make the global brain my

canvas. In scribbling in the ruins, under cover of

darkness I remake the world."

I couldn't tell how much of it he believed. It

was like speaking to a swirling collection of

affectations in the shape of a person. He'd begin a

sentence with a slow, measured drawl somewhere

between Austin and Omaha, lapse into stoner argot

half-way through, and finish in the meth-fueled

discourse of a long-haul trucker. I had the feeling

177

our conversation was one long parenthetical within

the larger conversation inside his head.

He said, "I don't know what to say when

people ask about me. I made up an acronym to

give it credibility. IDD -- Identity Deficit Disorder

-- a kind of low-level, reverse autism. Rather than

being unable to identify with the minds of other

people, I'm unable to identify with myself. I wake

up feeling like a ragged jigsaw puzzle. I pick up

bits and pieces from here and there, remaking

myself out of the tools that present themselves.

People have difficulty understanding that. Women,

especially."

He paused to make a sharp turn, a streetlight

catching the momentary play of a rueful smile

across his face before it returned to shadow.

"Whoever I am at a given moment gets

splayed across a dead building and goes unsigned."

So why "Lars Vegas"?

"That's what you call someone built in the

middle of the desert, half mirage and half

178

wasteland."

And then he showed me his portfolio. The

sloganeering was a distraction, something to keep

him occupied until night fell. His real work

happened after dark: the portfolio was filled with

glossy blow-ups of murals two or three stories

high, each an intricate design of near-fractal

precision. Yet they were organic, the internal

repetition a natural rather than algorithmic

outcome. Each took on archetypal, suggestive

figures. In short, they were astounding.

To himself more than you me, Lars Vegas

said, "I believe not in epiphanies, but in

eventualities. In the short term, reality prevails, but

in the long run, bet on art. The universe's long arc

bends toward the improbable."

Dawn breaks and Vegas applies the finishing

strokes to tonight's work. It's a maelstrom of color,

the two-story testimony of one man's soul. I

simply have nothing to say; Vegas steps forward

179

and adds a two-foot long stretch of cerulean blue.

He steps back again, taking a long look at his

creation. At this moment he is completely

unreadable. He could be filled with awe,

satisfaction, despair -- any combination of these

and more. The moment stretches long and

impenetrable.

Then it passes. He turns and goes back to his

van. In a flurry of gravel Lars Vegas leaves,

heading east on a black asphalt vein into the

welcoming rays of the rising sun.

180

The Strange Tale of Hunter S. Thompson's

Suicide

Joseph L. Flatley

Hunter S. Thompson, celebrated journalist and

author, took his own life in his home on February

20, 2005, at the age of 67. Sources close to the

family have credited age, failing health and a

desire to "go out on top" as factors in his decision.

Still, this is the Information Age and every real

news story seems to have its own conspiracy

theory...

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One. Was it murder?

Conspiracy theorists have gotten considerable

mileage out of unconfirmed reports that

"Thompson seemed in good spirits and was not

known to be depressed" prior to his death. This has

since proven not to be the case.

One even ing , f o r example , a round

Thanksgiving, he matter-of-factly told me that

he was not afraid to kill himself - as his

authorized biographer, he wanted me to know

that for the record. (Douglas Brinkley in

Rolling Stone)

sources: "Suicide Fuels Conspiracy Buzz," New

York Post, Mar 4, 2005; "Contentment Was Not

Enough: the Final Days at Owl Farm" by Douglas

Brinkley, Rolling Stone, March 24, 2005.

182

Two. Hunter S. Thompson: "snuff auteur."

Years ago a former state senator from

Nebraska, John DeCamp, wrote a book titled: The

Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and

Murder in Nebraska. This book is a favorite

amongst the conspiracy fringe for its “expose” of

Satanic sex cults and Republican homosexual

orgies.

In other testimony, Bonacci said that Larry

King was smiling and laughing the whole time

the film was shown, and that "the men with

hoods" were a Satanic group which planned to

use the dead boy in some sort of ceremony. He

also named the director of the snuff film,

whom they picked up in Las Vegas, as "Hunter

Thompson." (The Franklin Coverup, pg. 105)

source: http://abelahsimmons.gnn.tv/

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Three. Killed by the Saudi Royal Family.

According to an interview Thompson gave in

2004, Saudi Prince Bandar, who lived next door,

was a "pretty good neighbor."

Thompson's last words were "Counselor"

typed in the middle of a page. A counselor with

Aspen Counseling Center, a local organization that

provides support for victims at crime scenes, has

seen members of Thompson's family. Over the

years HRH Prince Bandar has donated upwards of

a million dollars to the Aspen Valley Medical

Foundation, which operates the Counseling

Center..

Following the logic of many a conspiracy

researcher (and many a schizophrenic), the

Thompson-Bandar link has thus been established.

"Bandar Bush," as he is known in the White

House, could certainly be counted on by the Bush

family to administer a hit, if required. But why

would the Bush family want Thompson killed?

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source: http://trunews.blogspot.com/

Four. Thompson was silenced before he could

blow the lid off the Satano-Republican

Pedophile Conspiracy.

In this version of the truth, Thompson is not

involved in the child sex rings (see above) but has

risked his life to expose them, with deadly

consequences. The "factual basis" for this theory

is a radio interview with Canadian author Paul

William Roberts.

JONES: Well let me just add this. I mean, we

have the New York Post: 'Top gay porn star

services moguls at Bohemian Grove ... I mean

I have Parade magazine articles, Spy magazine

articles from the '80s where, as I said they bus

in the gay prostitutes like Beluga caviar for

our "Christian conservative" leaders ... And is

that what Hunter S. Thompson was on to?

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ROBERTS: He certainly knew all about that

and I believe had written about it. I don't know

whether there was a book in the works, but he

certainly had published columns on it...

JONES: Well it certainly looks pretty

suspicious. Man let me tell you.

source: http://www.total411.info/

Five. Thompson was silenced by the shadow

organization that bombed the World Trade

Center and blamed it on terrorists.

We also have a dramatic re-interpretation of

Paul William Roberts to thank for this theory. In a

piece by Williams that appeared Feb. 26 Globe and

Daily Mail, Roberts wrote:

Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night

before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn't

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always easy to understand what he said,

particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet

when there was something he really wanted

you to understand, you did. He'd been working

on a story about the World Trade Center

attacks and had stumbled across what he felt

was hard evidence showing the towers had

been brought down not by the airplanes that

flew into them but by explosive charges set off

in their foundations. Now he thought someone

was out to stop him publishing it: "They're

gonna make it look like suicide," he said. "I

know how these bastards think..."

That's how I imagine a tribute to Hunter S.

Thompson should begin. He was indeed

working on such a story, but it wasn't what

killed him. He exercised his own option to do

that. As he said to more than one person, "I

would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't

know I could commit suicide at any time."

Thompson has always voiced his anger and

confusion over the events of September 11, 2001

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(in print and other media), but no such article has

surfaced and no mention of any article has been

made by him. This story may be compelling, but

that's all it is—a story.

source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com

Six. Thompson was a pederast! His own son

said so. In code, of course. Sort of. And in Latin.

This is my favorite, due to its absurdity. In a

testament to the power of the 'blog, this theory

started as a comment on Canadian author Jeff

Wells's website, "Rigorous Intuition," but has since

taken on a life of its own.

That this quote by HST's son Juan has some

sort of meaning beyond the obvious: "He

stomped terra", which on the surface says

Hunter stomped the ground. But the word play

is obvious. He STomped has HST's initials

encoded. If you re-arrange it, it can say: "He's

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Tom PED Terra"... what could that PED refer

to? As for terra, you can combine it with PED

to get Ped-Terra, which is similar to pederast.

Pederast = pedterra? From the Oxford English

Dictionary: "Ibid. 332 A boy alleged to have

been abused *pæderastically."

People familiar with Thompson's work realize

that Juan Thompson was quoting his father's

obituary for Timothy Leary, "Mistah Leary - He

Dead." But apparently you don't need to be

familiar with Thompson's work to research the

"conspiracy" behind his death.

source: http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/

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Review: My Neighbors’ Breakup

Ace Hurler

With last night’s staging of It’s Over (Get

Your Stuff Out My Apartment), the My Neighbors’

Repertory Theater of 223 S Millvale Ave, Apt 2D,

concluded their trilogy, Our Gradual Decline Into

Mutual Disdain and Self-Loathing. Like the earlier

installments, it was a bold, draining performance, a

poignant lament for the fragility of the human

bond. Such a shattering comes along once in a

lifetime; it’s one this reviewer suspects will be

their last.

Sadly, many critics misunderstood our

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Players’ first two installments, and are likely to

have missed out on this daring conclusion. The

opening chapter, You’re Drunk, Again, went almost

unnoticed among the mainstream theater press.

Even Charles Isherwood, in a mixed review in The

New York Times, deemed the conclusion “too deus

ex machina.” He complained that, “The cops

show up, everyone goes home. Where’s the

resolution in that?” Isherwood’s devotion to

traditional (read: stale) theater once again blinds

him to the subtle intricacies of the work in front of

him. (Watch the play you are watching, Charles!)

Of course the police show up, but in You’re Drunk,

Again, there is no deus, only machina.

Audience members, too, seemed baffled. My

upstairs neighbor and unrepentant philistine, Jim,

for example, begged, “Would you two please shut

up? Some of us have to work tomorrow!” Jim and

I obviously differ on this point -- where I found

You’re Drunk, Again to be a provocative jaunt that

successfully melded Brechtian satire with a

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genuine, almost Tennessee Williams-like

sensitivity, my colleague heard only the constant

screaming and shattering of glass. Alas, Jim, our

aesthetic sensibilities may never find common

ground. Please, do all of us in the world of theater

a service and go back to your Andrew Lloyd

Webber.

Those not on board for You’re Drunk, Again

were probably even more mystified by the follow-

up: Where My Money At [question mark omitted].

Where You’re Drunk, Again offered the possibility

of meaningful resolution, only to yank away that

possibility in the third act, Where My Money At

refuses to offer even that narrative fig leaf. The

first installment leaned heavily on Brecht and

Beckett, but part two seemed almost Dada in its

refusal to cohere into a recognizable whole. Lines

were muffled, sensed more than heard as the make

their way through the uncooperative media of

drywall and faux-wood paneling; audience

members are left to project their own responses

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upon the flattened affect of our two players. A

sense of timelessness and dislocation hung over

the proceedings as, again, an unfamiliar male voice

repeated “Where my money at, bitch?”, the

audience was left adrift, wondering: Who is this

man? Where is his money “at”? Is there an implicit

critique of capitalist hegemony at work here? Is

the apparent absence of his money in fact a

presence? Heady questions to contemplate at 3

AM on a Tuesday.

The delayed resolution of parts one and two

finally paid off in Part Three: It’s Over. A near-

epic, it lasted a grueling three hours, from 8 to 11

PM on Sunday night, with no intermission. Yet in

contrast to the intensity of the first two

installments, it was remarkably understated – the

sign of a mature artist is the confidence to whisper

when appropriate. Some breakups are like an atom

bomb: one minute everything seems fine, the next

your clothes and comic book collection are out on

the grass, flaming. Others are more like a coal

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mine fire smoldering underground for months

before one breath of air ignites an inferno. It’s

Over is the latter type; its heat is just below the

surface, always threatening to ignite. The restraint

is fitting, then, with whispers, silence, and

miscommunication a recurring motif; the female

half of our doomed lovers, in response to queries

unheard and unremarked upon, simply utters,

“Whateva, whateva…whateva!” In that bare

repetition we can hear the passion, the loss, and

finally, the resignation that marks the trilogy’s end.

Kudos to the male lead for not stepping on that

line, even after the thirtieth time.

After three hours, the combatants are

exhausted, two weary boxers leaning on each other

as their arguments become increasingly

nonsensical. Toilet seat operation, inappropriate

restaurant glances, the constant presence of

hectoring Mother -- all the trivia gets dragged out

in a last-ditch attempt by both parties to score

points.

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The play concludes with our male protagonist

wondering aloud, “How did this happen?”

The woman responds, “What the [police

siren] did you expect, melonfarmer?”

When he answers in a low, surprised voice, “I

don’t know,” of course he means, “I expected us

not to end like this, in this moment I want to arrest

but cannot, should not, the puncturing evanescence

in which the gravity of need fails and we are so

obviously two once more, two foster-children of

Silence and slow Time, aglossia’s offspring with

the distance of an ellipsis between us, swaying

weary and wary at the end of semaphore’s long

and futile march, umbra sumus, two silent separate

shadows now again lost to one another and fading

into the gloaming.” I admit I cried.

Bravo, neighbors. Bravo.

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Tutti Frutti

Joseph L. Flatley

Little Richard was born Richard Wayne

Penniman on December 5, 1932 in Macon,

Georgia. The Deep South was a wild place in

those days. Richard’s father was a preacher and a

bootlegger, selling hooch and salvation as an

adherent of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church – a

sect of Christianity founded by a farmer named

William Miller, who once wrote a book with the

unwieldy title, Evidences from Scripture and

History of the Second Coming of Christ about the

Year 1843.

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Richard spent his youth on the dirt street

where hustlers of all types would hang out in the

hot, dusty Georgia afternoons, singing to snare

marks and move merchandise. There were old men

with vegetable carts, ward heelers making the

rounds, soap box preachers selling religion...

people hustled whatever they had to get by.

From an early age, Little Richard was too

damn wild to worry what others thought about

him. His queerness made him an alien in the

straight world, his blackness an alien in the white

world; but he possessed a sort of trickster quality

and manic exuberance that he used to lift himself

above racism and poverty. And his spirit was often

a strain on those close to him.

“Richard would holler all the time,” his

brother remembers. “I just thought he couldn’t

sing anyways, just a noise, and he would get on

our nerves hollerin’ and beatin’ on tin cans and

things of that nature. People around would get

angry upset with him yelling and screaming.

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They’d shout at him, ‘shut up yo’ mouth, boy’ and

he would run off laughing all over.”

Little Richard, the youthful bundle of energy,

grew up fast. At fourteen he ran away from home

with Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show. By fifteen he

had made a name for himself as a drag queen,

working for Alabama’s own Sugar Foot Sam. No

parent I know would want their lovely little boy

singing in blackface or prancing around in a dress

with someone called Sugar Foot, but these were

some of the few options available in the south in

the 1940s.

In 1951, at the age of eighteen, Richard won a

talent contest and was signed to a four disc deal

with RCA Victor. Those songs did little, some

becoming local hits before disappearing from view

forever. This is not to say that Richard was not a

dynamic presence; when he performed, it was

obvious that he possessed a measure of greatness.

But he had so far been unable to transform his

greatness into either Art or Money.

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Four years after his “big break,” Richard was

still plugging away… he was a popular musician

and had plenty of work. He was a rare talent,

playing to both black and white audiences. The

black crowds seemed to prefer a rawer, bluesy

edge to the music; the white cats didn’t mind

hearing something a little more whimsical. Little

Richard and his full-time band, the Upsetters,

could do either. But it was proving impossible to

capture that energy on record. “Bumps” Blackwell

was determined to change that. As an A&R man

with Specialty Records in New Orleans, he heard

promise in the tapes that Little Richard had sent

him. Hoping that perhaps he might have another

Ray Charles on his hands, he scheduled a session

for September, 1955.

Bumps booked a room in New Orleans with

Fats Domino's backing band. They spent days in

the studio, jamming, trying to find just the right

sound. Richard was a sight: face powdered, eye-

liner applied, hair piled high onto his head. And he

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was pretty, no doubt about it. But as the session

wore on, Richard’s legendary anarchic

performance simply could not be captured on tape.

He was mortified when they played the

performance back and he heard how polite he

sounded.

At some point, on the third day of the session,

the group broke for lunch. Inside New Orleans’

legendary Dew Drop Inn, Richard spotted a piano.

He pounded the keys, out of frustration more than

anything. He started playing a song he had written

while washing dishes at the Greyhound station in

Macon, Georgia, where he worked in between

tours.

And he sang: A wop bop a loo mop a good

goddam! Tutti Frutti, loose booty… if it don’t fit,

don’t force it/ you can grease it, make it easy…

The lunch crowd broke into laughter and

Bumps realized that he had a hit on his hands. The

music was perfect: joyful, exuberant, rushing with

the kind of manic energy that everyone who knew

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Richard instantly recognized. The lyrics, of course,

would need to be re-written.

Richard was skeptical, but he was under

Specialty Records' employ. Bumps got a local

songwriter called Dorothy LaBostrie to sanitize the

lyrics and soon enough the record was bounding

up the Billboard R&B chart (which had only

recently been renamed from the “Race” chart) to

the number two spot, and even scored number

seventeen on the Billboard Pop chart. This record

jump started the career of one of America’s most

beloved entertainers.

Little Richard remembers, “We decided that

my image should be crazy and way-out, so that

adults would think I was harmless. I’d appear in

one show dressed as the Queen of England and in

the other as the Pope.”

Rock historian James Miller, in his book

Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and

Roll, 1947-1977, has what may be the last word on

the subject: “Emboldened by the success of his

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recording, Richard intuitively grasped the issues at

play. Being black and being gay, he was an

outsider twice over. But by exaggerating his own

freakishness, he could get across: he could evade

the question of gender and hurdle the racial

divide.”

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Philip K. Dick: Ghetto Prophet

Jesse Hicks

"The whole government is a fraud and the

President is an android."

Drug companies market their newest wares

with the slogan, "God promises eternal life. We

can deliver it."

"A paranoid incompetent has schemed his

way into the White House and convulsed America

in a vicious war against internal enemies."

These are the worlds of Philip K. Dick -- from

The Simulacra, The Three Stigmata of Palmer

Eldritch, and Radio Free Albemeuth, respectively.

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Reading Philip K. Dick's work -- much of it almost

a half-century old -- in the year 2005 provokes a

feeling of vertigo, of passing rapidly through a

kaleidoscope of perspectives, each offering a

unique kind of truth. With his paranoid

metaphysics, dry existential humor, and ultimate

generosity of human spirit, Philip K. Dick offers

us a roadmap to a future not only stranger than we

imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.

Philip Kindred Dick was born in 1928, in

Chicago, with his twin sister, Jane. Jane died

shortly thereafter -- a trauma that haunted him for

the rest of his life. Soon after, Dick and his mother

moved to California, that last outpost of the

American Dream.

He briefly attended the University of

California, Berkeley, with a major in German, but

before long he realized college wasn’t for him.

Before dropping out, he’d taken a class on pre-

Socratic philosophy, which asked: What is real?

What does it mean to be a human? The class

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articulated questions he'd often asked; he began

writing, exploring those questions through the

"genre ghetto" of science fiction.

In 1952, he published his first short story,

“Beyond Lies The Wub,” in which a crew of space

travelers discuss mythology with a large, pig-like

creature -- the wub -- who they then eat. The wub,

offended not in the slightest, genially continues the

discussion from beyond death.

The story might seem more cute than

challenging, but Dick described his aim as creating

an “alien lifeform that exhibits the deeper traits

that I associate with humanity: not a biped with an

enlarged cortex -- a forked radish that thinks, to

paraphrase the old saying -- but an organism that is

human in terms of its soul.”

In 1953, Dick published twenty-eight stories,

including those about a dog who thinks garbage

men are invaders come to steal his family’s

precious treasure; a group of astronauts (again)

who encounter God, only to realize it’s not their

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God; and an android who believes himself to be

human.

It’s those early stories that Hollywood has

most easily grasped: Minority Report, Paycheck,

Screamers, a n d Impostor are all adaptations of

Dick’s pre-1956 work, stripped of their

metaphysical doubt and retooled as action-

adventure blockbusters. It took Ridley Scott to get

Dick right, in adapting 1968’s Do Androids Dream

of Electric Sheep? as Blade Runner, which critic

Andrew O’Hehir called, “The movie that invented

the future.” Yet for all its stylishness, Blade

Runner dropped Dick’s philosophizing in favor

of…Harrison Ford.

Still, Dick’s worldview has permeated our

culture, with Hollywood increasingly reflecting

that. The Truman Show, so widely praised for its

satirical take on our media-saturated culture, owes

a great debt to Dick's 1959 novel Time Out of

Joint, in which the main character lives on a

simulated early-60’s suburb, unaware that his

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world is an illusion created to keep him working

for the government. Eternal Sunshine of the

Spotless Mind’s selective memory manipulation

echoes 1966’s “We Can Remember it For You

Wholesale,” previously adapted as Total Recall,

and Sunshine screenwriter Charlie Kaufman wrote

a script of Dick’s A Scanner Darkly -- the 1977

novel now being filmed by Richard Linklater of

Waking Life fame.

If Hollywood strip-mines Dick's work (he

ranks second only to Steven King in cinematic

adaptation) it's because his stories -- long-form

thought experiments, really -- predicted a future

that we are only 50 years later coming to

experience. His anxiety about the very nature of

reality presages our own increasingly anxious

2005, a world of fake “authenticity” in which a

hyphenated contradiction like “reality-tv” -- the

ontological equivalent of combining matter and

anti-matter in the pursuit of higher ratings -- has

become commonplace, even trivial. When the

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ability to create reality -- through media,

technology, and genetic manipulation -- outstrips

the ability to comprehend it and, most importantly

for Dick, remain human, we are on our way to

becoming something else -- for better or worse.

It would have flattered the PKD of 1953 to

know the rest of us would catch up eventually. But

you can't eat prophecy, and in those early years

Dick made money selling stories to cheap pulps;

he eventually turned to amphetamines to speed his

output, bragging that he could type 120 words a

minute. He cranked out novels in weeks, locking

himself in a room with his typewriter and a supply

of speed.

The combination produced some of his best

work, and his worst. The Dick canon is notoriously

uneven: the great works, like A Scanner Darkly, in

which an undercover drug agent suffering from a

split-personality disorder is asked to spy on

himself, have to share shelf-space with the less

impressive Solar Lottery a n d Vulcan's Hammer.

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His Hugo Award-winning The Man in the High

Castle, an alternate future story in which the Axis

powers won World War II, is followed the next

y e a r b y Clans of the Alphane Moon, best

summarized by "blah." The real tragedy of Dick's

confinement in the genre ghetto is that had he been

better paid, more of his 44 novels might rise to the

level of his talent.

Even so, virtually all of his work stands above

his contemporaries' rayguns and scantily-clad

astrowomen creations. Ubik, one of his best

novels, features a spraycan cure-all, named, of

course, Ubik. Ubik is the weapon of choice against

entropy, the force of time that grinds us all done

into nothingness. Dick opens each chapter with an

advertising jingle invocation of this miraculous

product: "Has perspiration odor taken you out of

the swim? Ten-day Ubik deodorant spray or Ubik

roll-on ends worry of offending, brings you back

where the happening is. Safe when used as

directed in a conscientious program of body

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hygiene."

Where Ubik predicts the creep of advertising

lingo into every facet of our lives, The Three

Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch satirizes our

increasing reliance on consciousness-tweaking via

drugs. Palmer Eldritch is the anti-Prozac, a weird

pilgrim who invents a new drug, Chew-Z, which

promises to free users from their mundane lives.

Instead, it plunges them into a world controlled

entirely by Palmer Eldritch.

Eldritch is a frightening figure, Dick's

personal incarnation of the Adversary. But even in

his darkest novel, Dick, who died in 1982, well

ahead of his fame, offers our world some solace: "I

mean, after all; you have to consider we're only

made out of dust. That's admittedly not much to go

on and we shouldn't forget that. But even

considering, I mean it's a sort of bad beginning,

we're not doing too bad. So I personally have faith

that even in this lousy situation we're faced with

we can make it. You get me?"

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Maybe not the most eloquent expression of

hope in the face of strange, grim realities, but an

honest one, worth remembering as we head into

whatever future waits to embrace us.

213

The Horror of Being Human

Jesse Hicks

Japanese director Takashi Miike doesn't make

movies about "normal" people. His characters are

always lost souls and outsiders. From brainwashed

Yakuza hitmen (Ichi the Killer) to near-insane

detectives (MPD Psycho) to shattered, incestuous

families (Visitor Q) and love-starved women

(Audition), they are people on the fringe, making

their homes in the dim margins of society,

respectability, and even sanity.

Perhaps best-known to American audiences is Ichi The

Killer, the story of a hypnotized Yakuza hitman.

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Our introduction to Ichi comes from a squad of

Yakuza goons who complain they've been reduced

to cleaning up after the superstar murderer. The

next scene finds them in the hotel room of a rival

boss, marveling at the floor-to-ceiling explosion of

blood and entrails. It's always like this, they sigh.

With his comic use of gore and violence,

fascination with the criminal underworld, and

whip-smart dialogue, it would be easy to dub

Miike the Japanese Quentin Tarantino. But where

Tarantino's characters meticulously follow the

Elmore Leonard Handbook of Cool, Miike's

protagonists are often desperate failures; far from

romantic outlaws, they are outcasts and losers

looking for a place to belong. In Ichi we expect a

hyper-cool Yakuza assassin -- an Asian Leon of

The Professional -- but instead we find a pathetic,

emotionally stunted victim.

Again like Tarantino, Miike has made a

number of what would be called "genre films."

Ichi is his Yakuza crime movie; MPD Detective his

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police thriller; One Missed Call his by-the-

numbers horror movie. But where Tarantino, ever

the obsessive video clerk, seems to have slipped

into a quagmire of too-eager film in jokes with

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, at the expense of his

characters and audience, Miike makes genre films

that fit no genre. Tarantino's strength, most notable

in Pulp Fiction, is his ability to reconfigure genre

tropes to create something relatively new; Miike's

total disregard for genre opens up entirely original

spaces.

His "horror movie," for example, One Missed

Call, begins as a Ringu knock-off and by its

(admittedly oblique) conclusion has morphed into

a meditation about the scars every family inflicts

on its members. Conversely, 2000's Audition

masquerades as a romantic comedy. For the first

two-thirds, we get to know a Japanese widower

who is finally ready to love again. He begins

dating a pretty, demure young woman, both

suffering the exhilarating awkwardness of love's

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first blush. They seem destined for happiness, and

we want them to be happy. Only in the movie's last

20 minutes does it become truly horrific. Which is

not to say Miike plays the M. Night Shyamalan

card, turning all of his films into an ego-stroking

exhibition of his own "cleverness." They often

move strangely, unpredictably, but not in a way

that's illogical or dishonest.

Nor does Miike belong to the realm of

exploitative "shock cinema." Visitor Q, perhaps his

most taboo-breaking film, opens with an incest

scene. Shot on a handheld digital video and

punctuated with still frames, it's brutally real, but

doesn't revel in the apparent depravity of its

subject matter; in Miike's morally challenging

cinema, the "sick' and "depraved" are merely a

starting point in the search for essential humanity.

Visitor Q continues a satirical riff on the

reality-tv phenomenon, as the failed reporter who

has sex with his own prostitute daughter returns

home to an abusive son and drug-addicted wife.

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Accompanying him is a mysterious visitor, who

simply watches the decaying family. It would be

easy to turn that scenario into a plodding morality

play -- think Requiem for A Dream -- but the

director shows a genuine concern for his

characters. They prostitute themselves, get bullied

at school, continually fail to live up to their

dreams, but they remain human. It sounds strange

that the most comic necrophilia scene ever filmed

is the catalyst for healing this broken family, but

that's the kind of surreal logic Miike employs.

In an interview with midnighteye.com, Miike

explained, "There are terrifying things in life, too,

and they are all made by human beings.

Everybody has those things inside themselves. So

by filming human beings, it naturally becomes a

horror movie."

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Orson Welles, the Unrepentant Charlatan

O.W. Jeeves

In 1941, at the age of 25, Orson Welles co-

wrote and directed his first movie, Citizen Kane.

Welles, who’d already made a mark on radio and

the stage, was wooed by RKO Pictures into

c o m i n g t o H o l l y w o o d , w h e r e h e h a d

unprecedented creative control, including final cut

on Kane. The film, which many consider to be one

of the best and most influential in cinema history,

received nine Academy Award nominations;

Welles, in his first starring role, was nominated for

Best Actor.

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At the Academy Awards ceremony, it was

booed during each of its nine nominations.

William Randolph Hearst, whose life the movie

had been in part based on, banished its mention

from his editorial pages. Commercially, the film

did poorly; Welles’s three-picture, no-studio-

interference contract quickly soured.

His next film, The Magnificent Ambersons,

was hacked to pieces by RKO’s studio heads and

has never widely appeared in its original form; his

third RKO movie, It’s All True, had its funding

abruptly pulled, and the studio ejected Welles from

their headquarters. Word got around Hollywood

that Welles was a tempestuous genius who’d never

turn in a commercially successful movie.

Without major studio backing, the director

bounced from project to project, hustling where he

could, using acting jobs to pay for his own

projects. He spent decades in the wilderness,

practicing his art in solitude, or with a handful of

close friends. He later reflected, “I started at the

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top and have been working my way down ever

since.”

This brings us to 1974 and F for Fake. The

final movie Welles would both write and direct

before his death in 1985, it was finally released on

DVD this year, in a double-disc Criterion

Collection set. The two films bookend his career in

both chronology and theme: Where Citizen Kane is

a pure expression of Welles the artist, F For Fake

is a revealing portrait of the man behind the art. It's

a love letter to magic from a man who spent a

lifetime worshipping it.

The film began as a project by François

Reichenbach: a straight-forward documentary

about the infamous art forger Elmyr De Hory. De

Hory, a mysterious Hungarian who lived on the

island of Ibiza, had become known as "the man

who holds the art world to ransom" after

authorities traced a large number of impressive

forgeries back to his brush. The elderly fraud

carried himself like a landed baron, throwing great

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parties for Ibiza's jet-set while French and

European police worked to put him in jail.

Among those party-goers was Clifford Irving,

who'd wri t ten Elmyr 's biography, t i t le ,

appropriately, Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory,

the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. With a title

that bombastic, it's hard not to assume the contents

were an equal mix of fact and fantasy; Elmyr was

a notorious self-promoter -- as his fame grew, so

did his legend. Irving, perhaps enamored with that

degree of self-reinvention, later hatched his own

plan: he would rise from the ranks of b-list writers

to become the "authorized autobiographer" of

reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

He wouldn't do this by actually meeting

Hughes, of course. Instead, he'd fake everything --

i n t e r v i e w s , l e g a l d o c u me n t s , p e r so n a l

correspondence supposedly from Hughes. The

billionaire, Irving reasoned, was so publicity-shy

that he'd never come forward to denounce the

fraud. He sold his publisher, McGraw-Hill, on the

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idea, and soon they had a draft and were selling

excerpts to news magazines.

It didn't last long, though. Soon Hughes

responded, via telephone, saying he'd never heard

of Irving and certainly hadn't hired him to pen an

autobiography. The voice on the telephone

convinced the media and the authorities; Irving

soon found himself in jail for fraud.

When Welles saw Reichenbach's footage of

all this, he couldn't resist. He took to the editing

room and created an entirely new movie, a "film

essay" on the power of art, magic, and the need for

lies that finally tell the truth. Elmyr, Irving, the art

world and its experts -- it all became a backdrop

for Welles's thoughts on the fine line between

fraud and magic. In the hands of a lesser talent it

would've fallen apart, but the great director's touch

is on every frame of the film.

Even more interestingly, for 1974, Welles

makes no bones about showing you exactly what

he's doing. In several scenes he breaks through

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Reichenbach's footage to show himself sitting at

the editing dock pondering his next move. He

doubles-back, digresses, drops in blunt

foreshadowing and camera tricks, but never does

the movie lose its playfulness, its need for

mischief. The often smirking Welles puts every

ounce of his boundless enthusiasm into the frame.

At the same time, in playing with the divide

between stories and reality, fakes and facts, he

emphasizes the power of great art to transcend

those divisions. One of his characters asks, "If

there weren't any experts, would there be any

fakers?" but he knows the real joy lies in their

interaction, the constant struggle to define

humanity, because, finally, that too will end.

Welles intones in his deep, famous voice, "Our

works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some

of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two,

but everything must finally fall in war, or wear

away into the ultimate and universal ash -- the

triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes."

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Time makes ash of us all, but it's good that we are

here.

One has that same bittersweet sense of hope in

watching Orson Welles: One Man Band, one of

Criterion's extras. It recollects Welles's career as a

cinematic maverick and innovator, but it also

implies the great what if: What if he'd actually

been able to do it his way? Viewed from the

outside, his career looks like a series of

heartbreaks, plans left unfulfilled, promises

rescinded. Yet he never lost his enthusiasm;

commenting about his own outsider status, he

identified with those who shared his passion if not

his path. "In other words, I'm crazy," he said. "But

not crazy enough to pretend to be free."

Freedom's a relative thing; this is not a world

of absolutes. If Orson Welles was never free

enough, we can't blame him or the world as it is.

But in his unparalleled creativity, his drive and his

refusal to be compromised, he was freer than most.

Most importantly, he was free to see in a way that

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most of us don't. As the man himself put it, "There

are never many, never enough of them, but there

are men born into the world with a gaze fixed on

the widest possible horizon. Men who can see

without strain beyond the most distant horizon,

into that unconquered country we call the future."

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An Interpretation of Timothy Leary.

Joseph L. Flatley

Did Robert Greenfield Do His Homework?

I saw my therapist again yesterday. She asked

me if I did my "homework." Cognitive Behavioral

Therapists love that word, "homework." I hate that

word. But who cares? She's hot.

"Yes, I did." My homework being to write for

at least an hour, three times that week.

"Really? What did you work on?"

"My blog."

After much tsk-tsk-ing, I promised to actually

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write this week, and not just dick around on the

internet. Of course, this summer at the height (low

point) of my chronic medical-grade depression,

my writing was virtually nonexistent. But I could

read like a motherfucker, sometimes topping off

five books a week. I knew that I was in trouble

when I sat down on a Friday night with Robert

Greenfield's Timothy Leary: A Biography and

looked up Sunday night to realize I had read all

seven hundred pages.

The f irst exhaustive look at Leary,

Greenfield's book begins with a poignant opening

scene (where a young Timmy hides on the roof to

escape from his drunken father), and ends on a

note of righteous indignation. In between those

two poles lay a phenomenal amount of scholarship

and a phone book's worth of vitriol. Greenfield

obviously has some kind of searing hatred for

Timothy Leary, which he may be too much of a

gentleman to mention, but which nonetheless

bleeds onto every page.

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One could read the entire Greenfield book and

think that Leary never had an original idea in his

life… let alone author over thirty books (The

Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary itself

weighs in at over three hundred pages). True,

some of his work reads like mud, but even that

stuff will yield gold if you were to dig in.

A Holy Mess.

Timothy Leary's unindicted co-conspirator

Robert Anton Wilson writes (in Prometheus

Rising, his book-length exploration of Leary's, er,

theories) that the founder of Christian Science,

Mary Baker Eddy, “was fundamentally naive and

unaware of most of philosophy… she never

realized that you cannot speak or write about the

Ineffable. She therefore wrote about it at length. If

her writings are hard to decipher, if they often

sound like 'the ravings of a disordered mind'

(Aleister Crowley's description of mystic writings,

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including his own), they also have moments of

astonishing lucidity.”

Leary - who at times possessed perhaps a

willful naiveté - was never unaware of Philosophy.

I think that, like Aleister Crowley, he assumed that

everyone who read his work would be on his

wavelength. Either that, or he just didn't care.

And I think that the inability of many people

to get anything meaningful out of his work, along

with sheer scapegoating (let me ask you, Mr.

Nixon; how does Leary, whom you called “the

most dangerous man in America,” compare to

Vietnam? Cointelpro? Watergate?), has been at the

root of Leary's continued rough handling by the

media.

Really, what did Leary expect? He was part of

a tradition of neurological adepts, spelling out a

philosophy that could only appeal to a minority of

people, a philosophy that would necessarily

register as extremely dangerous to the vast

majority of folks (“status quo”), and he was taking

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it to the masses, pushing it right in their faces.

Perhaps at first he was naive enough to think that

the sheer beauty of his message would transform

those who would hear it. And perhaps, by the time

of the great backlash, he was too addicted to the

media spotlight to let it go.

The High Priest and the Great Beast.

It seems that in Robert Greenfield we have the

same kind of biographer as John Symonds, author

o f The Great Beast: The Life and Magick of

Aleister Crowley.

Israel Regardie (in The Eye In The Triangle:

An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley), had this to

say about the Symonds book:

[Aleister Crowley] has too long suffered from

misrepresentation at the hands of uninformed

biographers. It is time finally to set the record

straight. This must be done, not merely out of

regard for the man himself, but even more

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importantly, because of the profound effect he

has had on countless thousands of readers, and

will yet have on countless thousands more.

John Symonds, his major biographer, evinces

t h r o u g h o u t h i s n a r r a t i v e a t o t a l l y

contemptuous attitude towards Crowley. This

attitude altogether invalidates his attempt at

biography. His book The Great Beast could

have been excellent since every opportunity in

the world was given him through access to

diaries and a mass of hitherto unpublished

material… However his personal prejudices

got in the way. His writing is cynical, showing

no glimmer of insight or the slightest trace of

sympathy.

Timothy Leary considered himself, after a

fashion, to be a reincarnation of Crowley, so it is

quite fitting that the above excerpt could just as

easily been written about Greenfield's Leary book.

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I Have America Surrounded.

I have finally read the other Tim Leary book,

I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy

Leary by John Higgs. If anything, his account is

more fair, and a hell of a lot more fun.

Forgotten, But Not Gone.

Where does that leave the Timothy Leary

legacy? In his Rolling Stone obituary, “Mistah

Leary - He Dead,” Hunter S. Thompson puts it like

this:

We sometimes disagreed, but in the end we

made our peace…

He is forgotten now but not gone.

The first time I read this ten years ago I really

had no idea what the hell Thompson was talking

about; but after Thompson's suicide it began to

235

make sense for me. With his final act Thompson

was released.

His legacy became part of all of our legacy.

And so it goes with Timothy Leary. Perhaps

the question is not: who was Timothy Leary?

Perhaps we should be asking ourselves what he

had to teach us… because I have found his work to

be endlessly entertaining and inspiring and every

time I open one of his books, or hear an old radio

interview or seem him on the television, I learn

something new.

So, will the legacy of Timothy Leary be that

of a defrocked Harvard Professor, a lousy parent

and bad actor? Or will it be that of a philosopher

and a teacher, a rebel in the grand tradition?

Because he will be with us always. That genie has

been unleashed. The only question now is, which

Timothy Leary will we remember… or which will

we forget?

Or, as Tim himself used to say, "everyone will

get the Timothy Leary they deserve."

236

John Higgs' book, I Have America Surrounded, is

now available in the US from Barricade Books.

Robert Greenfield's book, Timothy Leary: A

Biography, is published by Harcourt.

237

A Conversation with Robert Anton Wilson

Jesse Hicks

The Illuminatus! Trilogy seems to keep finding

new generations of fans since its publication.

How would you describe it to someone who's

yet to read it, and what do you think explains its

enduring appeal?

I like to call it guerilla ontology. If people

look blank, I explain that it's a Zen riddle in the

form of a detective story. In other words, a mystery

without a solution. What keeps it in print? I

imagine that every generation a few clear-thinking

people discover that the governments that rule us

239

just do not make sense rationally. And then they

hear about this weird book that knocks down every

attempt at a reasonable explanation of how this

planet operates and proves 1001 ways that only

insanity does explain it. Incidentally, as if to prove

this, sales have improved every year since George

Bush got appointed president. Sanity cannot

fathom such a sinister joke, but Illuminatus! buffs

can.

How does the world of Illuminatus! compare to

the "real" world these days? Much of the book

satirized politics on The Planet of the Apes;

lately you seem less oblique about the state of

American politics, calling Dubya "exactly the

ideal president for this time in history. Most of

the public is made up of C-students who are

incurious and uninformed. What Bush says

makes sense to them because they don't know

any more about the world than he does." Do we

live in a Wilsonian satire?

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I'd like to think so. The only alternative would

hold that we live in a Kafka allegory. Since my

"paranoia" contains more humor than his, I appeal

to a less morbid audience.

Kafka's "There is hope, but not for us,"

definitely appeals to a darker sense of humor.

How do you maintain a sense of optimism?

Pessimism seems to me a luxury I can't afford.

For instance, at age four, I became crippled with

polio for the first time, and got cured, or mostly

cured, by the Kenny method. Pessimism just

would not have helped at any stage in my therapy.

We don't walk on our legs but on our will, as the

Sufis say.

At 69, the damaged muscles quit on me and I

got crippled a second time. Once again, pessimism

and whining would not have helped.

My second partial cure proceeded nicely for

four years --until last month, when I suddenly

landed on the floor and stayed there conscious but

241

unable to move a muscle, for 30 hours before my

daughter found me and called an ambulance.

Pessimism has great value if you want the

praise of New York intellectuals, but I prefer to

fight my battles rather than whine about them. I'll

probably never get reviewed in the bon ton literary

journals, but I might get into the Guinness Book of

World Records as the first man to learn to walk

four times.

You mentioned the Kenny method for polio

treatment. How did your early encounter with

an "unorthodox" cure lead you to question

"orthodoxy"?

Well, I grew up with hard evidence -- every

step I took -- that the Kenny method worked, while

all the Experts continued to denounce her as a

quack and a charlatan. That did not encourage

ardent faith in Experts....

And did that lead into Maybe Logic?

242

Partially, but it could have led to a single

heresy -- the Kenny method -- in a brain otherwise

still confined to dogmatism.

I know many people like that-- they believe in

one unorthodox idea, but remain stuck in either/or

logic. Maybe Logic came from reading some

scientific radicals [John von Neumann, Anatole

Rapoport and Alfred Korzybski], plus some

Buddhists.

That includes von Neumann's three-valued

logic [true, false, maybe], Rappoport's four-valued

logic [true, false, indeterminate, meaningless],

Korzybski's multi-valued logic [degrees of

probability] and also Mahayana Buddhist

paradoxical logic [it "is" A; it "is" not A; it "is"

both A and not A; it "is" neither A nor not A]. But,

as an extraordinarily stupid fellow, I can't use such

systems until I reduce them to terms a simple mind

like mine can handle, so I just preach that we'd all

think and act more sanely if we had to use

"maybe" a lot more often. Can you imagine a

243

world with Jerry Falwell hollering "Maybe Jesus

'was' the son of God and maybe he hates Gay

people as much as I do" -- or every tower in Islam

resounding with "There 'is' no God except maybe

Allah and maybe Mohammed is his prophet"?

How does Quantum Psychology offer a counter-

viewpoint to that kind of anxious grasping at

what you've called "fictional certainties"?

Quantum Psyche offers a variety of linguistic

reforms that condition the mind against premature

closure. Some of these techniques come from

General Semantics, some from Nuero-Linguistic

Programming, and some from Buddhism. These

techniques used consistently over a period of fifty

years have made me, I dare say, a lot less stupid

and a lot less frightened than my condition in the

1950s. Those not as dumb as me can learn even

faster.

What do you think explains the current

244

resurgence of "faith-based" worldviews?

The robber barons imported "cheap labor"

from Europe in the late 19th Century. In other

words, they flooded us with an ocean of ignorant

and superstitious people, who could not

understand research-based organizations but

formed an ideal market for faith-based con artists.

Do you see any deeper explanation behind it,

other than faith-based worldviews being the

dominant mode of thinking for those currently

in power?

The acceleration factor in information systems

[documented by Korzybski and Shannon] means

that social changes happen faster and faster every

generation. People not trained in Maybe Logic feel

more and more confused, which leads to anxiety,

which means they'll swallow any line of hogwash

if it promises some certitude in a world they can't

understand.

245

Does it seem to you that other countries have

more fully embraced ideas present in Quantum

Psychology than has America?

I would not claim that, but the civilized world

in general has shown much less hostility to

research-based groups and has no Bush-style

revival of faith-based groups.

How does the Guns and Dope Party fit in to

American politics?

Our platform has 3 major planks:

1. Free access to guns for those who want

them; no guns forced on those who don't want

them [Quakers,Amish, pacifists etc.]

2. Free access to drugs for those who want

them; no drugs forced on those who don't want

them [Christian Scientists, homeopaths, Natural

hygienists etc.]

3. Equal rights for ostriches. (for further

details see gunsanddope.com)

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What do you see for the future, in the short

term? In the long term?

In the short term, more power by faith-based

organizations. In the long term, the eventual

triumph of research-based organizations.

Inquisitions, whether by popes or presidents, only

slow progress in limited areas. They never stop it.

Stem-cell research, for instance, still moves along

rapidly, overseas in the civilized world.

In Reality is What You Can Get Away With, you

wrote, "The right wing will have nightmares in

the late '90s that will make the 62 Satanism

pan ics o f 1982-1993 seem sedate by

comparison." How much of the current political

environment would you attribute to the

inevitable right-wing response to that

nightmare, and how much to "Future Shock"

in general?

"Future shock" started with the first stone axe,

bu t due t o t he acce l e ra t i on fac to r, i t

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discombobulates more people every decade. When

the civilized world, where research-based

organizations will soon start curing everything

with stem cells, our faith-based organizations will

want the U.S. to declare war on damn near

everybody.

248

BRUTALITY

The Sexual Sadists Of Calaveras County

Joseph L. Flatley

Officer Daniel Wright thought he was

answering a routine call, a misdemeanor

shoplifting. Soon police would learn that Leonard

Lake and his partner Charles Ng had raped,

tortured and killed at least twelve – maybe as

many as twenty-five – men, women and children

in the mountains north east of San Francisco.

Officer Wright approached a young Asian

man who’d stolen a vice. The man – later

identified as Charles Ng – took flight, disappearing

on foot into traffic. His bearded companion, who

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seemed older than his identification indicated,

apologized and tried to pay for the vice.

Suspicious, Officer Wright conducted a search of

their car, a 1980 Honda Prelude. In the trunk he

discovered a .22 caliber handgun outfitted with an

illegal silencer. He brought the man in for

questioning. Soon, police traced the Honda’s

registration to Paul Cosner, who had gone missing

in San Francisco nine months earlier, and found

bloodstains on the front seat. When they

questioned the suspect about the blood, he asked

for a pen, paper, and a glass of water.

“Are you going to write a confession?”

“No, just a note to my wife.”

With his handcuffs removed, the man

scribbled a short note and placed it in his shirt

pocket. He then identified himself as Leonard

Lake, a fugitive wanted by the FBI. Then his eyes

rolled back. As officers watched, he began to

convulse. Lake had swallowed the two cyanide

capsules hidden under his lapel; he never regained

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consciousness, dying in the hospital a few days

later. “I love you,” the note in his pocket read.

“Please forgive me. I forgive you. Please tell

Mama, Fern, and Patty I’m sorry.”

The bizarre suicide led police to Claralyn

“Cricket” Balasz, a teacher’s aide and Lake’s ex-

wife – the two had met while working at a

renaissance fair near San Francisco. She took

authorities to the remote cabin Lake had rented

with Charles Ng. The two self-styled “survivalists”

believed in an imminent nuclear holocaust. To

prepare, they’d built a bunker and filled it with

guns and food.

Investigators found a bedroom torture

chamber fitted with chains, shackles and hooks. In

a number of underground prison cells, they

discovered video tapes Lake and Ng had made of

their “sex slaves” – women they had tortured and

sexually abused before killing them. Police

estimated that at least twenty-five people died on

253

the property, including Lake’s best friend, two co-

workers of Ng’s, and two entire families.

Among the evidence were Lake’s voluminous

personal journals. From these, and from interviews

with people close to him, we begin to understand

Lake’s overwhelming misogyny. “The perfect

woman is totally controlled,” he wrote. “There is

no sexual problem with a submissive woman. Only

pleasure and contentment.” While his “end times”

philosophy gave Lake an excuse for his sadistic

brutality, at the most basic level he was a textbook

case of what psychologists call a “sexual sadist.”

At an early age, the sexual sadist begins to

retreat from reality. It is hard to say why, exactly,

though there is typically a history of both physical

and sexual abuse. A percentage of these criminals

also have a history of head trauma. The sadist’s

sexual impulse becomes intertwined with an

intense desire to inflict pain; as this desire grows,

so does the need to express it through elaborate

254

and grotesque fantasies.

At first, the sexual sadist will pursue his

fantasies with a willing person: a prostitute,

perhaps, or in the case of Lenny Lake, his wife,

who during their marriage participated in the

S&M-themed movies he wrote and directed. But

when the fantasy inevitably wears thin, the

irrepressible sadistic impulse finds other outlets.

As Mary Ellen O’Toole, a profiler for the National

Center for Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico,

Virginia, describes in Jim Fielder’s book Slow

Death: “once the predators start forcing

themselves on unwilling women, they continue to

repeat the same brutalizing rituals over and over

until they are caught.”

The sexual sadist is hopelessly miswired; he

has become conditioned to demand whatever the

pleasure of brutality, and Lake’s survivalist

philosophy merely enabled him to justify his

sexual sadism. Healthy human minds need self-

respect as much as healthy human bodies need

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food and water; if he couldn’t find self respect in

the real world, Lake would find it in his fantasy

world. As he put it, he would live life “with death

in my pocket and fantasy my goal.”

“The picture that finally emerged,” wrote

Colin Wilson in The History of Murder, “was of a

man who spent most of his time living in a world

of fantasy, who indulged in grandiose daydreams

of success without any realistic attempt to put

them into practice.” Lake lived a fantasy in

which he and Ng would be the only survivors of

the coming nuclear holocaust. What sort of state

was he in if he could find “nuclear winter”

preferable to his life?

Joel Norris, in Serial Killers, writes that “[in]

his final journal he described the unraveling of his

life after he moved to Blue Mountain Road [the

site of the compound]. His dreams of success had

eluded him, he admitted to himself that his boasts

of heroic deeds in Vietnam were all delusions, and

the increasing number of victims he was burying

256

in the trench behind his bunker only added to his

unhappiness. Lake had reached the final stage of

the serial murder syndrome: he realized that he had

come to a dead end with nothing but his own

misery to show for it.”

Lake’s partner, Charles Ng, fled to Calgary,

where he was arrested in another shoplifting

incident. After more than four years in Canadian

custody he was finally extradited.

Ng was something of an expert at delaying his

trial, and it wasn’t until June of 1999 – fifteen

years after his crimes – that he was found guilty of

eleven murders and sentenced to death. He is

currently on death row in California.

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Snuffocation

Matt Stroud

We were confident that right and truth

would prevail, and I would be acquitted

and we would devote the rest of our lives

working to create a justice system here in

the United States. The guilty verdict has

strengthened that resolve. But as we’ve

discussed our plans to expose the warts

of our legal system, people have said,

“why bother,” “no one cares,” “you’ll

look foolish.” 60 Minutes, 20/20, the

American Civil Liberties Union, Jack

Anderson and others have been

259

publicizing cases like yours for years,

and it doesn’t bother anyone... (the final

words of R. “Budd” Dwyer)

Robert “Budd” Dwyer was a state treasurer of

Pennsylvania who, on January 22, 1987, killed

himself during a press conference on live

television. It’s something you might’ve seen

randomly on the internet, or in The Many Faces of

Death, Part 6, or… somewhere else.

Story goes, Dwyer was scheduled for a court

appearance on January 23, 1987. He was to appear

before a federal judge to face charges of bribery

and conspiracy to commit fraud. If convicted, he

faced up to 55 years in prison, a fine of up to

$300,000, and the loss of his position in state

government.

On the day before his court appearance, at the

press conference, he insisted on his innocence, on

the hypocrisy of his government – “as we’ve

discussed our plans to expose the warts of our

legal system, people have said, ‘why bother,’ ‘no

260

one cares.’” – and then he handed papers to his

staff. In a matter of seconds, he pulled a .357

Magnum revolver from a manila envelope, and

shot himself in the mouth.

I’m thinking about this on a Sunday night in

2006.

I’m standing in falling snow on an uncovered

stoop just off Eighth Avenue in Homestead, PA.

I’m wondering about Dwyer’s wife – where she

went the night he killed himself. Did she cry? How

forcefully? Had she been expecting it? I wonder

about this. I wonder about the ensuing cleanup

after Dwyer killed himself. After the media fled,

who mopped up? I wonder about his kids and their

lives, and how they were affected. And I’m lost in

t h e s e t h o u g h t s , t h i n k i n g a b o u t t h e

commercialization of his death and how it’s been

distributed over and over again for profit. And, as

I’m thinking about this, I realize that, without full

consent from my brain, my index finger is actually

ringing the doorbell to a house that may or may

261

not contain a living person who may or may not

have a video tape documenting the actual murder

of a human being. I am looking for a snuff film.

And I’m wondering if I’ll find it.

Earlier that week, I had placed an ad on

Craigslist1 looking for “ rare and unique

pornography.” In the ad, I sort of referenced snuff.

I wrote: “I’m mostly interested in locating

extremely rare films and, if you got ‘em, films

where people are brutally murdered.”

This was not smooth, I know. But considering

1Craigslist, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple years (as I tend to), is an online classified ads resource. The following is from New York Magazine: “Craigslist.org is changing everything. A simple and free online classified-ad service started by the gnomish Craig Newmark in San Francisco [in 1995], Craigslist is (a) where young urban people conduct much of the traffic of their lives, including renting apartments, finding lost pets, and getting laid in the middle of the day, and is (b) thereby destroying classified revenues for big-city newspapers, which are already in crisis, and so it has become (c) the symbol of the transformation of the information industry.”

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what a snuff film is,2 I couldn’t quite think of a

better way to explain what I was looking for

without getting too windy… or too weird. It’s

debatable whether or not I succeeded.

More background: I had scheduled three

interviews for that week, on consecutive days,

after work, all with “collectors” who had implied

that they owned vintage movies, and nothing

more. Via e-mail, when I said I was writing an

article for a magazine, they all asked to remain

anonymous. This was the third of those interviews.

The first was with a tattoo shop owner who

collected fake snuff – movies like Guinea Pig:

Flower of Flesh and Blood, Cannibal Holocaust,

and the more recent Meat for Satan’s Icebox,

which I watched and came to the following

conclusion: Fake snuff is often pretty dumb.3

2It does not, necessarily, have anything to do with sex.3From Video Universe: “A slaughterhouse in the town of Satan grinds its meat from human prey in this brutal shocker. A teenage couple wind up there after some unfortunate events occur in their lives,

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The second interview was scheduled and

cancelled, but I later found the potential

interviewee’s website, and noticed that he mostly

specialized in early 60s nudie mags.

So anyway, I’m staring into this house

through a screen door and a broken window and

I’m rubbing my hands together, shaking my head,

wondering why I’m here. I hope no one answers

the door…

But I know someone will. Because, inside, I

see that there’s a black man rocking back and forth

in a chair facing away from me, next to a kitchen

with tile and cabinets.4 He’s watching television –

a football game – but I can’t tell who’s playing.

but the tragedy is only just beginning as they look on in horror at the deviants who greet them in Satan!”4Remember Videodrome? It’s a David Cronenberg film about a cable TV operator (Max Renn) who discovers a Snuff broadcast on Channel 83. Max initially thinks the broadcast is based out of Malaysia. He later finds out it’s based in Pittsburgh – where I am, right now, looking for Snuff. HAHAHA! Haha! Ha. Oh, coincidence.

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In a second, he’ll stand up and keep his eyes

on the television (walking backwards, trying to

catch one final play before he answers the door).

But when he does this, he’ll get tripped up, and

he’ll accidentally step on what looks like a pink

and yellow stuffed animal on the ground behind

him. That’s when he’ll bump his head on one of

the cabinets, clumsy, like he’s on a sitcom, trying

to keep his balance. In pain, he’ll yell loud… but

I… I am totally detached. I won’t care if he’s hurt

or not. He’s in there; I’m out here. But as he

approaches, it begins to hit me: I am not a fetishist.

I am not sure why I’m here. This is all a very

elaborate sociology project. I’ll be too scared to

think. I’ll be too confused to move. And I’ll be too

shocked to laugh as he staggers toward the door,

swearing, holding his head in pain…

But, again, I don’t know this yet. I don’t know

anything at this point. All I see is a television, a

huge black man, a white door and brightly-colored

stuffed animals.

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“Snuff” is defined as “a filmed account of an

actual murder, specifically commissioned,

recorded and supplied for the gratification of the

paying spectator(s).”5

The concept has been attributed to Ed

Sanders, who wrote a book called The Family: The

Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack

Battalion. “Brutality film” was Sanders’ initial

term for snuff, as a concept. The expression “snuff

film” was later mentioned in the book – an

extension of the word meaning “to die” (“snuff

it”).

I n The Family, Sanders claims that the

Mansons actually filmed murders for personal

entertainment purposes. But this is uncorroborated

– none of these Manson films have ever been

proven to exist.

For that matter, no snuff film (under the FBI’s

5David Kerekes and David Slater, Killing For Culture: An Illustrated History Of The Death Film From Mondo To Snuff (London: Creation Books, 1995)

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most stringent definition of the term) has ever been

proven to exist. In the past quarter century, there

have been countless rumors that such films have

been produced,6 but none have actually surfaced.

Which arguably makes snuff an urban legend – an

interesting rumor – and nothing more.

So the question then becomes: Why is snuff,

as a concept, so widely discussed, so often the

topic of (generally bad) films, articles and

discussions? Why is snuff so inherently

interesting? And, more importantly, since it seems

so obvious that someone, somewhere, a t some

point would’ve arranged and filmed a murder, why

6Examples include, but are not limited to 1) John W. Decamp’s The Franklin Coverup, which reports that a man named Paul Bonacci filmed himself raping an underage boy. He further alleges that the boy was murdered on film, and that he and a different boy were forced to have sex with his dead body. 2) In 1982, Susan Hamlin, a resident of El Dorado Hills, outside Fresno, California, intimated that members of a Satanic cult tortured her for three weeks straight. She claimed that her abductors had a stash of child pornography and Snuff films. Neither claim was proven.

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have none been found? How can we possibly

accept that none have been made? Are we missing

something?

It's after I’m invited into the collector’s home

– after I find out his name’s George; after I’ve

shaken his hand; after I’ve told him my name –

that I become truly aware of how ridiculous this

pursuit is. I am not in a movie. I am not a private

investigator hired by a rich widow. I’m not even

getting paid. And, beyond that, if snuff exists, will

some random peon (me) be able to publicly extract

the first ever real snuff film from an arbitrary

private collector (George)? Answer: not likely.

I know this.

It’s at this point where I start to understand

why a snuff film has never been found. First: if

one surfaced, chances are, the director would be in

some deep, deep shit – in prison for life or hanged.

No one wants to set the standard for the breed of

punishment that crime would cause. Second: if

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y o u have one of these films and you haven’t

shared it yet, you’re probably not going to share it

or flaunt it to anyone you don’t completely trust.

And so on. I have thought these things out. I’m

aware that, chances are, no one’s going to show

me a snuff film for the asking…

But my larger, more abstract goal, is to find

out why the so-called Snuff Urban Legend

continues to surface in our society. My plan is to

basically act dumb, visit with avid pornography

collectors, ask to see a snuff film, see how they

react, then talk about the concept of snuff and the

dehumanization these kinds of films represent

(regardless of whether they exist or not). It’s all

supposed to lead into a discussion about the way

we look at (and share our experiences of) life.

And, I’ve come up with this whole grand scheme

here about the state of violence in America, about

our unending, underlying national pursuit toward

hidden vices and veiled emotions and blah blah

blah, and it all seems workable in my head, but

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George is heading toward me, so it’s time to perk

up.

He answers the door politely, laughing,

holding his bald head. “God damn man, I hope you

didn’t see that.”

I smile and tell him: “I didn’t see you hit your

head on the kitchen cabinet.”

He laughs and invites me in, offers to take my

coat. We exchange brief pleasantries – “It’s damn

cold out there,” et cetera – before he asks what he

can do for me.

“Actually, I guess I’ll just cut to the chase

here.” I hand him my coat. “Do you have a snuff

film I can watch or buy?”

He stops. “What?” He’s not a big man –

maybe 5’9”, 160 pounds. From what I can tell,

he’s alone in the house, though that doesn’t explain

the stuffed animals.

“I’m not a cop or anything.”

“You’re askin’ me if I got snuff movies?”

“Well… yeah.”

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“Real ones?”

“Yeah. I mean… I realize it’s illegal. I’m just

more or less interested to see one. I figure that—”

George shakes his head no, stops me. “That’s

not what I collect.”

“Oh, I know. I was just curious if—”

“No, man. I’m into sex. Not murder.” He says

this slowly, deliberately.

I say “Oh, alright,” but I guess my tone

indicates something close to disbelief because his

gaze quickly turns cold.

“What do I look like to you,” he says. “A

killer? Someone who watches killers”

“No, I just—”

“You just what.” He’s angry now. “You think

just ‘cause I collect movies I’m into some sick shit

like that? Man, that’s fucked up. And that’s not

what I’m into.” He pauses for a second to gather

himself, reaches up and rubs his scalp again.

“Listen. If you was lookin’ for somethin’ like

that you shoulda told me before you showed up

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and I’da let you know I didn’t have nothin’.”

“Yeah,” I say, realizing that I have misjudged

the issue. My confusion is based in something very

simple, fraudulent and invalid. All film, literature,

and art, attempts to take us to a place we’ve never

been before. And since I assume that anal sex,

bondage, masochism and even (what I would

consider) torture will be prominently featured in

his collection, I assume that, as a collector, he will

be interested in what I understand as an extension

of those acts – murder. This is untrue. This is not a

generalization one can make. What I don’t

understand right now is that, for this collector –

and for many collectors – there is a rigid barrier

between what I consider dehumanization and

killing. Regardless of the victim’s concession. And

there’s also, along those lines, the implication that

violent pornography doesn’t necessari ly

dehumanize; there is always the probable

possibility that, not only do actors agree to their

work, but they also find joy in acts considered

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taboo – that they derive pleasure from abuse,

torture, bondage. Whether this is a legal or moral

issue…? Well, that’s debatable. And I’m not going

there. But what’s not debatable is that everyone

has varying interests. And that you can almost

never tell what’s appropriate and what’s not. And

after going through all this in my head, all I could

muster for George was a pitiful “Yeah, I know.”

“You do now,” he says. Then he adds: “And

don’t you know that if I had one, I sure as hell

wouldn’t show it to you?”

He laughs after he says this. I’ve got nothing

to say in response.

“Now do you want to see what I got or what?”

Movies are a flexible medium. It’s

easy to simulate death on film, which

is partly why people think snuff films

exist. They’ve seen simulated

versions and believe they’re genuine.

I think it’s conceivable these films

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exist, but whether they do or not is

less important than the public’s belief

that they do – their willingness to

believe in an evil fantasy. That’s

what’s interesting here. Paul

Schrader, director of Hardcore.

According to Killing for Culture, there are

fairly strict definitions for movies that feature

actual death on screen. They are:

The Death Film.

Centers on the depiction of dead and

dying people … for shock value. The

difference between this and the Snuff

film, is that in the death film the victims

would have died anyway, (i.e. an

execution, for instance.) the filming

having no bearing on the act.

Examples: The Zapruder film of John F.

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Kennedy’s assassination; autopsy films such as

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes; driver

education films; incidents where people commit

suicide live in front a camera (like the case of

Budd Dwyer).7 These films don’t “count” as snuff, per

7More info on Dwyer (because it’s fucking interesting). The following is from Wikipedia.com: “During the early 1980s, employees of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania overpaid millions of dollars in FICA taxes. As a result, the Commonwealth began requesting bids for the task of calculating refunds to each employee. One firm, California-based Computer Technology Associates, was owned by a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania native named John Torquato Jr. Torquato used his Harrisburg-area connections and a series of bribes to obtain the contract, worth $4.6 million. An anonymous memo then reached the governor’s office, describing the bribes that had taken place. In late 1986, Dwyer was charged as having agreed to accept a related kickback of $300,000. Dwyer never actually received any money. A plea bargain made for Torquato and William Smith [Torquato’s attorney] required them to testify against Dwyer. This coupled with the government’s refusal to name unindicted co-conspirators in the case, made it difficult for Dwyer to defend himself, though the unindicted co-conspirators are believed to have been

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se, because, again, they are accidental – the death

is not choreographed specifically for film.

Republican staffers who ran the Dauphin County Republican Party. During this time, the local United States Attorney offered Dwyer a plea bargain that carried a five year maximum sentence in exchange for a one-count guilty plea, resignation, and cooperation in the investigation. Dwyer refused the offer, and was later convicted but continued to vehemently protest his innocence. Under state law, Dwyer would continue to serve as state treasurer until his sentencing…” He killed himself before this could happen.

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The Mondo Movie.8

Contains general documentary

material from around the world,

generally aimed at shocking the

audience with scandal. As the years

progressed, competing film makers

had to out-scandal the competition.

This one-upmanship led to the

inevitable inclusion of already-dead

bodies, and ultimately actual death

on screen.

8 Also from Wikipedia: “The fad started with Mondo Cane (1962) by Gualtiero Jacopetti and proved quite popular. Mondo films are often easily recognized by name, as even English language Mondo films included the term often “Mondo” in their titles. Over the years the film makers wanted to top each other in shock value in order to draw in audiences. Cruelty to animals, accidents, tribal initiation rites and surgeries are a common feature of a typical Mondo. Much of the action is also staged, even though the film makers may claim their goal to document only “the reality”. Today, Mondo films are generally considered to be camp.”

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Examples: The Mondo Cane Collection,

Faces of Death, Shocking Asia, Part 1, Real TV.

These movies are not technically snuff because 1)

they often feature campy, fake representations of

death (or other “shocking” topics like Strip Clubs

for Fatties and Granny Sex), and 2) the “real”

death they present is recorded rather than arranged.

The goal of these films is to elicit shock before

you yawn and turn off your DVD player (because

you are completely detached).

The difference between a Death Film and a

Mondo Movie is, essentially, that Mondo is made

to be feature length. Mondo is a collection – it is

meant to be put together and sold in a neat little

death package you can show at parties. Mondo

movies are often comprised of many Death Films.

The sad part is that one can imagine the

reaction to Mondo films or Death films wouldn’t

be much different than the reaction to true snuff. In

terms of genre and topic, the discrepancies are

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minimal – “Death Accidentally Caught On Film,

Then Collected Into A Movie And Sold To

Blockbuster Video” (Mondo) versus “Orchestrated

Death Funded By Some Very Rich Person For

Personal Gratification” (Snuff).

The Snuff Film.

We’ve been over this.

Examples: Supposedly none.

Ken Lanning, cult expert at the FBI training

academy at Quantico, Virginia, said: “I’ve not

found one single documented case of a snuff film

anywhere in the world. I’ve been searching for 20

years, talked to hundreds of people. There’s plenty

of once-removed sightings, but I’ve never found a

credible personality who personally saw one.”9

It should be mentioned here that we are

absolutely not, as a matter of course, considering

9Ibid.

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feature films like Snuff10 and 8mm11 as anything

even close to “real snuff.” These films help

establish the concept of snuff in popular

consciousness,12 but they’re fiction – they help fuel

the belief that real snuff exists when, from all

indications, it doesn’t. Their existence is more

10Tagline: “A film that could only be made in South America, where life is CHEAP!” Directed mostly by an unaccredited Michael Findlay, Snuff began life as a cheap Argentinean feature entitled Slaughter (1971). Allan Shackleton (head of distributor Monarch Releasing Corporation) added a coda directed by porn filmmaker Carter Steven, in which a female cast member is seemingly murdered on camera.11“Joel Schumacher’s excrementally piss-poor thriller … finds Nick Cage farting around in his most stylish disheveled chic as a private investigator attempting to track down a ‘real’ Snuff movie. This is a well-trodden path for low-budget, exploitation B-flicks, and anyone who’s seen such straight-to-video bilge as Final Cut, Fatal Frames, Cutting Room Floor, et al will already be familiar with the material.” – Mark Kermode, BBC film critic12Neil Jackson, “The cultural construction of Snuff” (Kinoeye online, http://kinoeye.org/03/05/jackson05.php)

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fueled by, as Shrader says, “[the public’s]

willingness to believe in an evil fantasy.”

But this brings us to an interesting point:

That word: fantasy. We want to believe snuff

exists because Snuff exists in our fantasies. Why?

Because, as previously discussed, you can look at

snuff as the logical extension of what all film,

literature, and art, attempts to do – take us to a

place we’ve never been before. Death is the final

chasm of the unknown. A century ago, people used

to believe that the eyes captured the last moments

of the dead person’s life; detectives would

photograph the eyes of murder victims in hopes of

catching a glimpse of the killer. It seems like snuff

films are similar, in an attempt to catch death at his

appointed errands. In controlling the moment of

death, snuff attempts to bridge that gap between

life and death. We cling to this – this glimpse of

final terror; this concept of evil (and life) captured

in an instant.

And movies like 8mm are produced because

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we can not look away from that ultimate human

snapshot. And, to go further, we’re infatuated with

the idea of truly evil humanity – with a person

willing to kill without guilt. And yet, 8mm is a

perfect representation of how Hollywood deals

with America’s penchant for horror and death:

Specifically, Hollywood is forced to turn 8mm

into a battle of “good” versus “evil.” Nicholas

Cage is the “good guy.” He has an attractive wife

and a small child. He is hired to find the “evil

man” who created a Snuff film for an old widow’s

dead husband. The story unfolds, and you can

probably guess the ending (I’ll give you a hint:

Everything works out just fine). Main point: The

good guy is a necessary evil – he allows us to

explore the more interesting character (who

happens to be “bad”).

But real Snuff theoretically eliminates the

“good guy” from the equation. And it eliminates

sympathy, too. It eliminates pathos and

consideration and condemnation and politics and

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money and CGI and… everything emotive a

director or production company can potentially

offer. In theory, it brings the viewer to a point

where she or he is forced to supply their own

emotions. And that might be the scariest (and most

alluring) aspect of Snuff – that there is not an

emotional template in place for the viewer.

Religion and social mores tell us that, when we see

someone killed, we should react with horror and

revulsion, disgust and dread.13 But how would you

honestly react if you saw someone really killed on

screen? What if you weren’t prepared to see it?

13All you need is that one moment where one person snaps; where one person decides that all of our most revered morals – I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, you shall have no other gods besides Me; Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above; You shalt not swear falsely by the name of the Lord; Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy; Honor your father and your mother; You shall not murder; You shall not have sexual relations with another man’s wife; You shall not kidnap; You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor; You shall not covet your neighbor’s house – are worthless and meaningless and vapid.

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What if you didn’t know it was coming? What if

you were alone? What if you knew their death was

commissioned?

Would you find it hideous? Would you turn

away? Or would you be curious? I don’t mean to

imply that you’re a sick individual, I’m just

saying: Would you want to see what happens at the

moment of someone’s death? Would you want to

watch the victim’s eyes turn back into his head,

knowing that you had nothing to do with it – that

you were completely innocent; that you had

randomly stumbled across a video of his untimely

demise? Would you want to know the victim’s last

words? Would you want to know his name? His

last thoughts? His last inclinations? Would you be

curious about these things? Would you wonder if

he had done something wrong? If he had done

something stupid? If he had deserved it? If he

hadn’t deserved it?

Would you rewind it and watch it again?14

14And I guess I should have some sort of conclusion to offer here – some answer to these

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Nicholas Evan Berg was a 26-year-old

American businessman. He sought work in Iraq

during the U.S.-led occupation. He was captured

and beheaded in May 2004 by Islamic militants.

His decapitation was the first in a series of

questions; some sort of direction you should go; some rationale for why murder happens, or why we wonder if it happens on film… Or why we’re so obsessed. But I really don’t have anything concrete to offer you. Because, to me, there is no tangible solution. And I find myself awake at 4:30 in the morning, knowing that I have to finish this article as soon as I can so I can get just one hour of sleep before I go to work; and I’m trying to understand why these things happen, and I’m surfing MySpace and I’m stuck in webs and webs of links leading to people from my high school – people I haven’t seen in years – and I’m wondering as I pass by each one of them, realizing that we’ve all taken the exact same direction in life – high school, college, confusion, alcoholism, acceptance, settling – I’m wondering how much it would really matter if one of us died, or was killed, brutally, and who it would affect. Would it affect me? From The Third Man: Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims? Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things.

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similar killings of foreign hostages in Iraq. Berg’s

beheading received worldwide attention, not only

because it was filmed, but also because the footage

was widely distributed on the Internet. The

rationale for the murder? His killers claimed that

his death was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi

prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.15

Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

Only, I’m thinking, if I was killed. And so I’m left here in this story, wondering how Snuff films happen, and then, in a similar moment, wondering why more don’t happen. And it leaves me nowhere, questioning, confused, hopeless, wanting to give you something more. And I wait for that to happen... I wait for that moment. And then it hits me.15For the purposes of this article, we are assuming that the Nick Berg decapitation video was genuine. The following quote ran in La Voz de Aztlan, five

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His death gives us much to consider – a lot to

throw into this stew of information. Searching for

a Snuff film seems a lot like waiting for some sort

of depraved Messiah: After so long, after so much

debate, it’s almost as if you’re not sure what

you’re looking for. And when something remotely

genuine comes along, you’re conditioned to

believe you’re looking at a fake, simply because

days after the Berg film was released: “There is now ample evidence that the video showing the decapitation of 26 year old Nicholas Berg of Philadelphia by purported Al Qaeda members is a complete fraud. The real Nick Berg may or may not be dead, but the heavily edited video is nothing but a fake. This is the conclusion of La Voz de Aztlan after a frame by frame analysis and the conclusion of hundreds of film, medical and other experts world wide who downloaded, viewed and analyzed the video as well. Literally thousands of persons world wide requested the video, which is rapidly disappearing from the Internet, after our news service published “Nick Berg decapitation video declared a fraud by medical doctor” on Wednesday May 12 and which was linked by other independent news services on the World Wide Web.” Its disputed existence well fits the Snuff discussion, doesn’t it?

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you’ve built up the moral and semantic

stipulations so high that they’re almost impossible

to reach.

Could Nick Berg represent the first real snuff

film?

Here’s the definition we set earlier:

“‘Snuff’ is defined as ‘a filmed account of an

actual murder, specifically commissioned,

recorded and supplied for the gratification of the

paying spectator(s).’”

“a filmed account of an actual murder” (Nick

Berg was killed on camera.)

“specifically commissioned” (We are lead to

believe his death was choreographed for filmed

production.)

“recorded and supplied for the gratification of

the paying spectator(s).” (This is tricky. Who is the

paying spectator? On a base level, it would

probably be The Guy Who Filmed It. But because

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of its political implications,16 because it was so

widely distributed, because it was so widely

discussed, the paying spectator becomes… you.

And me. And everyone else who saw it. I know

this because it was posted online.17 And because,

when released, it received substantial coverage

across mediums. So it was used to sell

advertisements. It acted as a top story, a main

headline, a way to capture your eyes and ears. And

I want you to consider this. Consider that the

internet brings the search for Snuff to a new level.

There are more avenues available today for

personal thought distribution than ever before.

Anyone with a few dollars can get online and

share. And while this is generally constructive,

giving us more information to consider, affording

16Remember when Fox News commentators suggested everyone should see it, to know the horror of what “we’re fighting” [in Iraq]?17 On May 11, 2004, the website of Islamist group Muntada al-Ansar allegedly broadcast the Nick Berg video with the opening title of “Abu Musa’b al-Zarqawi slaughters an American.”

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us the opportunity to learn more, it also expands

the already sizeable avenues we have for viewing

mayhem and terror and evil. If the internet didn’t

exist, would Nick Berg have been killed?

Probably, but maybe not. The beauty of the

internet is that it’s virtually boundless – it

transcends continental barriers. Would his killers

have bothered to kill Nick Berg on tape if they had

merely planned on sending it to a television

network? Again, speculation – maybe. But it’s

interesting to contemplate – maybe the web’s

enormity encouraged Berg’s killers to produce

something vile, just because they could. Just

because the internet allows us to see it, rewind it,

tell our friends about it. And so, yes, I suppose it

could be argued that, if no one were looking at the

internet, this video would’ve gone hidden, unseen.

But because so many people wanted the

gratification of seeing Nick Berg decapitated by

masked men – because we want to be taken to a

place we’ve never been before … well, that makes

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it significant. That makes it real. That makes it

Snuff.

…because we so desperately want

[snuff] to exist and there is no way to

prove that it doesn’t exist, snuff – for

all emotional and intellectual means

and purposes – exists. And it only

stands to reason that the existence of

a demand – particularly a demand

over two decades old – has already

or will eventually lead to a creation

of a product to fill that demand.

(“The Morbid Urge,” Daniel Kraus,

Gadfly, July/August 2000)

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Snuff is the Frankenstein monster of

the media age, the boogeyman that

lurks at the crossroads of unchecked

media freedom and commercial

demand. Each time a new technology

makes questionable entertainment

more accessible and moral standards

are questioned, the monster is

awakened and the angry villagers

ignite their torches. With the new

world of the web, the myth seems

ready for an upgrade. (“Final Cuts:

The History of Snuff Films,” Geoff

Smith, Fringe Underground)

So is Nick Berg the easy answer? Yeah, I

guess he is. It definitely would’ve been more fun

to battle George, the Big Black Guy with the

Stuffed Animals and the Porn. It would’ve been

fascinating to step into his basement and hand him

ten thousand dollars to purchase a film starring

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someone killed on tape…

But that’s the idea, isn’t it? That’s precisely to

the heart of why snuff is so captivating: because

it’s senseless; because it’s vile – because, in terms

of Western morality, it’s absolutely the worst thing

one person can do to another person. It trumps

whatever evil we’ve ascribed to terrorism or other

arguably unnecessary forms of extreme violence.

Because not only is there no sentiment behind it –

not only is the act, in theory, based on a complete

disregard for life; not only is it the ultimate

example of dehumanization – but it’s also

inherently capitalistic. It’s done, in concept, pretty

much solely for money or fame or, in the case of

Nick Berg, just to prove a point to millions of

people.

Which brings us to this:

Unfortunately, living in a society where war

and sex and celebrity dominate our headlines,

murder captures our deepest, most sheltered

interests. Why else would serial killers captivate

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audiences so thoroughly – in fictional portraits, as

well as real life? It’s because transgression,

especially towards a degree of control not afforded

ordinary members of society, always captivates.

Killers act as god.

And heartbreak sells magazines. And death is

the basis of horror films. Depravity and sadness

are the bases of heart wrenching books, soap

operas, even reality television….

Unfortunately, what we’re dealing with here –

with snuff – is potentially the idea that anything

can be bested, and that we, as a society, constantly

desire to leap into the next level of evil – to not

only kill someone, but to film it as it happens; to

distribute that visual document for all to see; to not

only watch someone get hit by a train, but to see it

from their perspective, in complete, true reality.

So does Snuff exist? Yeah, I think so. But

what matters is that we’ve come to the point in our

development where you can readily access the

real, hired killing of a human being online – in

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Torrent files, or if you search hard enough on

Google – whenever you want. It also matters that

there’s a market for everything…

The screen shows five men wearing mostly

black, covered head to toe with cloth, accept for

their eyes (which we would see if the film quality

wasn’t so poor and grainy; the scene looks like it

was filmed on a cheap home camera).

In front of these five men, another man – a

prisoner, dressed in what look like orange scrubs –

sits on the ground with his feet tied together in

front of him. His hands are tied behind his back.

The man on the ground introduces himself

eight seconds into the film. He says his name is

Nick Berg. Shortly thereafter, one of the masked

men reads a pronouncement in Arabic.

After more than four minutes, one of the

masked men attacks Berg with a knife. Berg is

then surrounded; we hear screams; he is held down

and beheaded.

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Five and a half minutes into the film, the head

is presented to the camera, dripping blood. It is

then laid on a headless dead body, wearing orange

scrubs. The tape ends in coarse blackness.

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What Charlie Saw

Jesse Hicks

It was hot.

One hundred and ten degrees in the sun,

ninety-eight in the shade – Texas-hot, the sticky

end-of-summer heat rippling the morning air. As

the sun approached its apex on August 1, 1966, the

horizon blurred and shimmered, a distant

unreachable mirage. The sky was cloudless blue.

Under the Austin sky Thomas F. Eckman

walked with his girlfriend, Claire Wilson, a

freshman anthropology student at the University of

Texas at Austin. Eight months pregnant with the

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couple’s son, she’d just finished her morning class;

afterwards, the two 18 year-olds sat drinking

coffee at the Chuckwagon, the student diner and

café. Deciding they'd better put another nickel in

the parking meter, Thomas and Claire passed from

the oak-shaded perimeter of the university’s South

Mall onto the open cement of the upper terrace,

where the punishing sun awaited them.

They passed the heart of campus, the Main

Building bearing the inscription, "Ye shall know

the Truth and the Truth shall make you free."

Above them rose Paul Phillipe Cret's 307-foot

Spanish Renaissance monument to the spirit of

human achievement, the University of Texas

Tower, iconic centerpiece of the University and of

the Austin skyline.

On the Tower's 28th floor observation deck,

Charles Joseph Whitman, Eagle Scout, former

Marine, and University of Texas architecture

student, lowered a bright blue eye to the M8-4X

Leupold Scope mounted on his Remington Model

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700 bolt-action rifle.

Inside he'd left five bodies. Edna Townsley, 47,

the observation deck receptionist (mother to sons

Danny and Terry), lay unconscious and bleeding

on the floor, her skull caved in by Whitman's rifle

butt. Marguerite Lampour and Mark Gabour lay

dead in the blood-splattered stairwell, victims of

Whitman's shotgun blasts. Mark Gabour's brother,

Mike, his shoulder riddled with shot, lay

unconscious next to his critically-injured mother,

Mary. Above them, Whitman had barricaded the

28th floor door with a heavy desk and chairs.

How long he looked down from the

observation deck is uncertain. Those moments are

lost, beckoning lacunae, always slipping through

our restless sifting of history. How many students

his crosshairs passed over before settling on Claire

Wilson: this is also unknown.

Claire Wilson and Thomas Eckman held hands

as they walked. This we know. How they looked at

one another, what possible futures their eyes held

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on that end-of-summer morning, how they were

and might have been: this we do not know.

At 11:45 AM, as measured on its gold-plated,

12-foot clocks, the Tower's 17-bell carillon rang 12

times. Over the campus resounded the Westminster

Quarters, with their echoing supplication, "Lord,

through this hour/Be thou our guide/For in thy

power we do abide."

What Charles Whitman, former parishioner

and altar boy of Sacred Heart Catholic Church,

Lake Worth, Florida, thought as he heard those

chimes is unknowable. Whether, as he chambered

the 6mm Remington cartridge, his mind raced or

was still, sere and blankly serene as the Texas

badlands; whether his thoughts were collected,

methodical, or the white-noise rush of unhinged

rage; whether his actions pivoted on impulse or

calculation: these questions have no answers.

There are other answers. Other facts can be

excavated. Pfc. Whitman's United States Marine

Corps shooting score, for example: 215 out of a

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possible 250. Recognized with the degree of sharp

shooter, he was "an excellent shot who appeared to

be more accurate against moving targets."

The sun beats down on Charles Whitman as he

sights down the scope. A white headband keeps the

sweat from his eyes. The Tower clock stands at

11:48 as he takes a breath, holds it, a caesura

before beginning. He sights and slowly slides back

the trigger, exhaling with the rifle's delicate wisp

of smoke, a low, whimpering report, and lead

launched on fire spirals downward at 3,000

feet/sec, outpacing explanation, accelerating past

comprehension, meaning, toward Claire Wilson,

becoming now an electric lance moving through

her, searing its path through her hip, her stomach,

her colon and uterus before claiming its target, the

skull of her unborn son. Claire Wilson screams and

falls. Her blood pools on the hot cement, drying to

a deep crimson.

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“No se puede mirar” (“One can’t look”)

(Francisco de Goya, Disasters of War)

This is bright young Charlie, age 12, playing

piano. His limber hands dance across the white

and black keys; at each touch of his fingers a

hammer rises, striking steel strings and making

them quiver. The vibrations are inaudible as they

pass through a wooden bridge to the long, thin

soundboard. They spread through the soundboard's

mass and into the air -- the motion of quarter

notes, half notes, whole notes that begin his

reading of black-and-white marks on a page. He

sees; he translates; he acts, and there is music in

the world. This is how Charlie conjures.

The notes coalesce into a lyrical, melancholic

tune, the third movement of Claude Debussy's

Suite bergamasque for solo piano. The movement,

titled “Claire de Lune” is an Impressionist piece in

D-flat major played mostly in pp -- pianissimo,

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quietly, with tenderness. Charlie's song wanders

through the rooms of the house in middle-class

Lake Worth, Florida.

This is his father's house. Large, wood-framed,

best in the area, with impressive awnings shielding

its windows from the heat; the landscaped front

yard dotted with fruit trees and immaculately

maintained; the backyard swimming pool, the

finely furnished rooms and the upstairs apartment:

this is what Charles Adolphus “C.A” Whitman has

provided his family. He does not hesitate to remind

them of this fact.

He is a self-made man, who grew up in an

orphanage to become a driven entrepreneur. A

strict disciplinarian, he satisfies his family’s every

material need, expecting only obedience and

excellence in return. “With all three of my sons it

was ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir,’” C.A. says later, in

early August of 1966, “They minded me. The way

I looked at it, I am not ashamed of any spankings.

I don’t think I spanked enough, if you want to

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know the truth about it. I think they should have

been punished more than they were punished.”

C.A’s use of physical punishment extends to

his wife, Margaret. “I did on many occasions beat

my wife, but I loved her … I did and do have an

awful temper, but my wife was awful stubborn,

and we had some clashes over the more than

twenty-five years of our life together. I have to

admit it, because of my temper, I knocked her

around.”

This is Charlie’s family. Pictures of them hang

on nearly every wall of the house. Next to many of

those pictures hang guns, rifles mostly. “I’m a

fanatic about guns,” C.A. tells reporters, “I raised

my boys to know how to handle guns.” Charlie

and his two younger brothers, Patrick and Michael,

learn to shoot as soon as they’re physically able;

before he enters grade school Charlie has shot his

first gun. “Charlie could plug a squirrel in the eye

by the time he was sixteen,” the father boasts.

Charlie begins piano lessons at seven, just

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before enrolling at Sacred Heart Catholic Church’s

grade school. By twelve he has mastered the

instrument. In 1952, at his father’s prodding,

Charlie tries to join the Boy Scouts. Told the

minimum age to join is 11, he attends meetings

anyway. Fifteen months after his eleventh birthday,

Charlie attains the rank of Eagle Scout, having

earned 21 merit badges in just over a year. (Later

he claims to have been the youngest Eagle Scout

in the world, though no such record exists.) To

make money – and to satisfy his father’s demand

that he be financially independent – Charlie takes

on one of the largest Miami Herald paper routes in

the area. To his teachers he’s a model student with

an IQ of 138.9 – “Very Superior,” according to the

Stanford-Binet intelligence scale. He ranks in the

top 5% on national standardized tests.

For all these early accomplishment, Charlie’s

high school years are relatively undistinguished.

He’s just one of the guys by his friends’

recollections, neither particularly good nor bad,

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and not particularly memorable. Maybe a little

more eager to take a dare, a little more eager to

please. Ray Roy, a friend from Saint Ann’s High

School, later recalls Charlie’s need to impress:

“They had a tower at Saint Ann’s with some sort of

circus act. It was a real tower and someone bet him

he wouldn’t go up; we were in the tenth grade. He

went all the way to the top.” His sense of humor

tends toward the morbid, but he has normal

relationships with several girls and while not the

school’s most popular student, has no trouble

making friends. He grows into his father’s ideal,

becoming a pitcher for the high school baseball

team and manager of the football team.

But like many high school students, Charlie

slacks off in his final two years. His grades suffer;

his attendance falls. When he graduates in 1959,

his final GPA is 3.30.

To celebrate his graduation, Charlie goes out

with a group of friends and gets drunk. When he

returns home, C.A. is waiting. There’s yelling,

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violence. C.A. loses his temper. He throws Charlie

in the pool. Charlie, drunk and unable to swim,

nearly drowns. Soon after, on June 27, 1959, just

three days after his 18 th birthday, the fed-up

Charlie enlists in the U.S. Marines. This is how

Charlie escapes.

He enters the Marines, trading one system of

regimentation for another. Again Charlie finds

comfort in ceding responsibility to another, larger

force. After basic training and a stint at

Guantanamo Naval Base, Charlie qualifies for the

National Enlisted Science Education Program and

received a scholarship to the University of Texas-

Austin.

There, in February of 1960, he meets Kathy

Leissner, an education major. He would later write,

“Her eyes are like twinkling stars, they are what

fascinated me on our first meeting … I can

honestly say that she is the most versatile women I

have ever known.” This is how Charlie falls in

love. On August 1962 the two get married.

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The next four years are a strenuous time for

the newlywed Whitmans. Charlie, with no one to

instill a sense of responsibility in him, lets his

grades slip once more, and the Marines revoke his

scholarship. He finds himself back in active duty,

hating it, and missing Kathy. C.A. eventually steps

in to have Charlie’s military commitment

shortened. Charlie returns to school with a new

dedication.

Then, in early 1966, Margaret Whitman leaves

her husband. She flees to Austin, putting Charlie

between his mother and father. C.A. is enraged;

Charlie’s studies again begin to falter. At one point

he decides to abandon school completely, leave

Kathy behind, and simply bum around the country.

Only the intercession of Professor Barton Riley,

himself a former Marine, keeps him from leaving.

At Riley's house, Charlie returns to the piano.

For a long time he'd refused to play, even when

urged by family and friends. This time, though, for

whatever reason, he can’t resist. He sits down at

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the baby grand and again plays Claire de Lune.

Debussy’s movement is based on a poem by Paul

Verlaine, a stanza of which reads:

The while they celebrate in minor strain

Triumphant love, effective enterprise,

They have an air of knowing all is vain,--

And through the quiet moonlight their

songs rise

But Charlie’s notes come out all wrong. They

don’t dance, but thud loudly and too strong. Yet as

he plays, Charlie's stress seems to ease, and

Debussy's lyricism returns.

Only a few months later, on the evening of

July 31, Charlie's hands move across the keys of

his typewriter. "I don't quite understand what it is

that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to

leave some vague reason for the actions I have

recently performed," he writes. "I don't really

understand myself these days. I am supposed to be

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an average reasonable and intelligent young man.

However, lately (I can't recall when it started) I

have been the victim of many unusual and

irrational thoughts."

He mentions failed attempts at professional

help with his rising violent impulses, how he's

tried to face his demons alone and lost. He writes,

"It was after much thought that I decided to kill my

wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from the

telephone company." So he does, stabbing her five

times in the chest as she sleeps. She dies instantly.

"I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife

to me as any man could ever hope to have." He

continues, "I intend to kill her as painlessly as

possible."

"Similar reasons provoked me to take my

mother's life also. I don't think the poor woman

has ever enjoyed life as she is entitled to." Charlie

visits his mother's apartment just after midnight on

the morning of August 1, where he strangles her

with a piece of rubber tubing. On his unfinished

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note Charlie scribbles, "8-1-66, Mon., 3:00 AM.

Both Dead."

He spends the morning preparing. He loads his

Marine footlocker with ammunition, his

Remington bolt-action rifle, a Sears 12-gauge

shotgun, a Remington 35 caliber pump-action rifle,

a M-1 30-caliber carbine, a .357 Magnum, a 9mm

Luger, and a 6.35mm Galesci-Brescia automatic

pistol. He rents a dolly and dons a pair of overalls.

As he wheels his dolly into the elevator at the UT

tower, everyone assumes he is a janitor. Vera

Palmer, the elevator attendant who would've

replaced Edna Townsley at the observation deck

45 minutes later, says to Charlie, "Your elevator is

turned off." She flips the switch to enable elevator

#2, and Charlie mumbles with a polite smile,

"Thank you, ma'am. You don't know how happy

that makes me." The elevator begins to climb.

This is how Charlie comes to his Tower.

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SOME POSSIBLE CAUSES?

[1] DRUG ABUSE AS PSYCHOLOGICAL

DETERMINANT.

Overwhelmed by a 14-credit college

schedule, his part-time job as a research

assistant, and an increasingly fractured

family life, Whitman began binging on

Dexedrine, a powerful amphetamine that

he used to stay awake, often for days at a

time. Whitman took the pills “like candy”

in order to have time to complete his

studies; perversely, the lack of sleep

ruined his concentration and he fell

further behind in his schoolwork. When

he could, he took another pill, Librium, to

help him sleep. Though it’s uncertain just

how extreme his drug use became, he

often suffered headaches, mood swings,

and extreme nervousness – his nail-biting

habit returned and worsened. He seemed

oblivious to the danger of the drugs he

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took; even unaware of the effect they’d

have on his body. Armchair pharmacists

have suggested that August 1 found

Whitman in the grip of “amphetamine

psychosis” brought on by his drug abuse.

As his bodily fluids were not

substantively analyzed during the

autopsy, evidence for this is lacking.

[2] THE TUMOR AS PSYCHOLOGICAL

DETERMINANT.

The autopsy revealed, in addition to

an “unusually thin” skull, a grayish-

yellow brain tumor 2 x 1.5 x 1 cm in

dimension just below the thalamus. The

Connally Commission, a task force

assembled by the Texas governor to

review the events of August 1, concluded,

“the relationship between the brain tumor

and Charles J. Whitman’s actions on the

last day of his life cannot be established

with clarity. However, the highly

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malignant tumor conceivably could have

contributed to his inability to control his

emotions and actions.” This verdict failed

to quell the speculation that the tumor’s

compression of the amygdaloid nucleus –

the area of the brain most related to

emotion, especially fear and rage –

eventually propelled Whitman into his

killing spree. The killer himself made a

final bid for biochemical absolution,

writing in his final note, “After my death

I wish that an autopsy would be

performed to see if there is any visible

physical disorder. I have had tremendous

headaches in the past and have consumed

two large bottles of Excedrin in the past

three months.”

[3] PSYCHOLOGICAL DISINTEGRATION.

On March 29, 1966, Whitman met

with University of Texas psychiatrist Dr.

Maurice Dean Heatly. Heatly’s notes

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describe a “massive, muscular youth …

oozing with hostility” who believed

“something was happening to him and he

didn’t seem to be himself.” During his

first and only visit to the psychiatrist,

Whitman, “self-centered and egocentric,”

complained about his inability to surpass

the domineering father he hated. Despite

having reached a level of education and

marital success that his father never had,

Whitman envied C.A.’s financial success.

He spoke vaguely about such feelings.

He did, however, make “a vivid reference

to ‘thinking about going up on the tower

with a deer rifle and start shooting

people.’” He wept. Dr. Heatly scheduled

a follow-up appointment for the next

week. Whitman never appeared.

[4] DISREGARD FOR SANCTITY OF HUMAN

LIFE.

A. MARINE CORPS: The USMC,

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some later argued, turned Whitman into a

killing machine. The Marine Corps

training installed in him the belief that he

could take lives at will and without

consequence. This attitude is satirized in

Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket,

when Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

commends the skill of Whitman and

Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald,

saying, “Those individuals showed what

one motivated Marine and his rifle can

do.” To make the connection among the

God of Death and Marines even more

explicit, he says, “God has a hard-on for

Marines because we kill everything we

see! He plays His games, we play ours!

To show our appreciation for so much

power, we keep heaven packed with fresh

souls!” Whitman, from his perch in the

high tower, became like a vengeful

demigod, an architect of fear packing his

“heaven” with souls.

B. RELIGIOUS BELIEFS:

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Following his abandon-ment of

Catholicism, Whitman developed his

own religious worldview. It was a

mélange of Hindu pantheism, St. Thomas

Aquina’s proof of the existence of God as

the Uncaused Cause, and the Law of

Conservation of Energy. Since energy can

neither be created nor destroyed,

Whitman speculated, it must have a kind

of omnipotence. Human beings partake

of this energy; therefore, God is within

mankind, in the form of individual

conscience. And since energy cannot be

destroyed, there must be an afterlife to

which a person’s energy returns after

death. This was Whitman’s heaven; his

hell was Earth. Death – for his mother,

for his wife, for him – was a gateway to a

better place.

317

[5] FAMILIAL EMOTIONAL PRESSURE AS

PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINANT.

Since the beginning of 1966, the

score to Whitman’s life had descended

into a minor key, his future ambitions

played in perdendo. As his parents’

marriage disintegrated, he and Kathy

were caught in the middle. C.A. called

constantly, demanding to speak to his

wife. Meanwhile, Whitman’s vague buy

seemingly always-frustrated ambitions

gnawed at him – his diaries are filled

with life plans and money-making

schemes that never went anywhere. He

worried that his wife provided more

financially for the couple than he; he

worried that he’d never best the father he

hated so passionately. The note Whitman

wrote after killing his mother, addressed

“To Whom It May Concern,” lays

responsibility for the murders directly on

C.A.: “The intense hatred I feel for my

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father is beyond description. My mother

gave that man the 25 best years of her life

and because she finally took enough of

his beatings, humiliation and degradation

and tribulations that I am sure no one but

she and he will ever know - to leave him.

He has chosen to treat her like a slut that

you would bed down with, accept her

favors and then threw a pitance [sic] in

return.

“I am truly sorry that this is the only

way I could see to relieve her sufferings

but I think it was best.

“Let there be no doubt in your mind I

loved that woman with ^all^ my heart.”

The father’s sins of domestic abuse

and pathological ambition had become

the son’s, and on August 1 they erupted.

[6] UNHEALTHY OBSESSION WITH

FIREARMS.

He grew up with guns; an infamous

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photo published in Life shows a two year-

old Whitman at the beach, balancing

himself on two rifles that stand taller than

he. C.A. Whitman said after the shooting,

“Those guns aren’t to blame for

anything,” but had his son’s rage been

channeled into less innately violent

avenues, or had Charles Whitman been

unable to stockpile such an arsenal, the

argument goes, August 1 might have

passed as any other day.

[7] PREDESTINATION

A. HEART BORN DECEITFUL: By the

Hyper-Calvinist doctrine of double

predestination, Charles Whitman is an

egg with a rotten yolk, destined for

damnation. Psychologically, he’d be

diagnosed with antisocial personality

disorder: incapable of feeling empathy,

disdainful of social norms, and prone to

impulsive behavior. The high-functioning

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APD individual learns to imitate a

concern for others, but knows no aim

other than self-satisfaction. Reporter

Zarko Franks wrote soon after the

shooting, “The mad sniper was a

chameleon. He was the boy next door

you’d want your daughter to meet. He

had poise, looks and intelligence. And he

had a club foot in his tortured mind.” The

Charles Whitman known to others – the

one with “all the standard appellations of

a high school yearbook. He was easily

the ‘Best Looking,’ ‘Friendliest,’ and

‘Most Mature,’” as his college English

professor put it – was, in this view, a trick

of the light shrouding his heart of

darkness.

B. THE STARS: In Whitman’s

astrological chart, Mars -- the planet

associated with action and aggression,

named for the Roman god of death and

war -- dominates the top half.

Specifically, it draws energy into the 12th

House, the realm of psychological

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disturbances and self-undoing. Even

more ominously, Pluto, the planet of

extremes, of all-or-nothing ambitions,

forms a Square Aspect to the Ascendant

Mars. Two planets in the Square Aspect

oppose one another, causing unhealthy

stress within the individual. By the star

charts, while the specifics of Whitman’s

disintegration could not be divined, that

he would tear himself apart is obvious.

[8] "MAYBE HE WAS JUST MEAN AS HELL,"

WRITES GARY LAVERGNE, AUTHOR OF

THE SNIPER IN THE TOWER.

[9] HE WAS MAD AT THE WORLD.

[10] HE WAS CRAZY.

[11] HE WAS EVIL.

[12] IT WAS HOT.

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Crutches have long figured in Dali’s

paintings. He has said they represent

dualism, the world split into opposites.

They also serve to open windows

between realities, as in the Tower. There

the crutch holds up a section of the

crumbling dark stone, allowing us to

glimpse the light of a further mystery

beyond the images we know and think we

understand. (Rachel Pollack, Salvador

Dali’s Tarot)

What in the midst lay but the Tower

itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's

heart

(Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the

Dark Tower Came")

Hier ist kein warum.

(Guard, Auschwitz.)

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Is there meaning here? In On Aging:

Revolt and Resignation, Jean Amery writes that

“death cancels the sense of every kind of reason.”

In the face of death’s absurdity, reason shivers.

What are we looking for within this collage of

grim explanation? To enter the yearbook eyes of

Charles Joseph Whitman, penetrate the too-thin

skull and illuminate the shadowed spaces of his

mind – what would it offer us, the survivors?

Consolation?

Reconciliation?

At some point this stops being about Charles

Whitman. His bullet are simple, their paths straight

and easily traced. They promise clarity,

predictability. They promise the possibility of a

proper accounting in which, when every fact is

assembled and in its rightful place and context, a

picture will emerge. It will remain appalling, but it

will be whole, comprehensible. It will be

powerless to beckon with its dead zones and

known unknowns, a picture in which all shadows

324

are named and thereby made impotent. The

shadow of death will yield to the judgment of

reason and we, the humans, will once again be in

control. As Susan Neiman writes in Evil in

Modern Thought, “To seek a frame in which to set

evil is to seek something less than a full theoretical

explanation for it. For an exhaustive theoretical

explanation would restrict our room for freedom.

To claim that evil is comprehensible is not to

demand a full account but to make a commitment

to naturalism. It is also to claim that our capacity

for moral judgment is fundamentally sound.”

And yet still there is Charles Whitman, shade

without color, another mirage in the overheated

Texas air, climbing the tower like a man ascending

a throne, dark sovereign of the twilight kingdom.

From his Tower he held Austin hostage,

firing round after round from the 28th floor. When

Claire Wilson collapsed, her boyfriend knelt beside

her and said “Baby--” just before Whitman fired

325

his next round. It caught Thomas Eckman in the

shoulder; he fell dead next to his girlfriend. But

Claire was alive. She spent the next horrific hour-

and-a-half on the hot cement as bullets impacted

seemingly everywhere within a 500-yard radius of

the Tower. Dr. Hamilton Boyer was the next to die,

as a 6mm round tore through his left kidney.

Whitman moved around the observation deck

as he shot, leading witnesses to believe there were

multiple snipers. Many others were slow to realize

the popping noises coming from the Tower were

gunshots. As a result, for the first fifteen minutes

of his spree, Whitman had his choice of virtually

any target he could see. And if he could see it, he

could hit it. He shot Thomas Ashton, a Peace

Corps trainee, in the chest. Ashton died at

Brackenridge Hospital.

When reports of gunfire reached Allen R.

Hamilton, Chief of University of Texas Traffic

Control and Security, he dispatched two policemen

to the Tower. They reached the 27th floor by 11:55

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AM, but neither was armed. M.J. Gabour, father to

Mike and Mark Gabour, husband to Mary Gabour,

staggered toward the two, saying, “Give me a gun,

he has killed my wife and family.” The offices

closed all Tower exits and warned people to stay

out of sight.

Meanwhile, Austin Police officer Houston

McCoy made his way toward the campus. All he’d

understood of the dispatcher’s garbled radio call

were the words “University Tower” and

“shooting.” On arriving he too assumed multiple

snipers. The possibility that Austin was under

attack by a well-armed radical group crossed his

mind.

In the time it had taken him to reach the

university, Austin’s citizens had taken matters into

the i r own hands . Wi tness Bi l l Helmer

remembered, “A friend of mine was glued to the

TV at the San Jacinto Cafe, near campus, when a

guy with a deer rifle ran in, grabbed a six-pack of

beer, and ran back out.” Shooters peppered the

327

Tower with bullets.

Whitman, though, had the high ground. He

used the observation deck’s concrete parapet for

cover, firing through rainspouts, which made him

nearly impossible to hit from the ground. He fired

another 6mm round in the direction of policeman

Billy Speed. The bullet found a narrow opening in

Speed’s own concrete cover, mortally wounding

him.

Houston McCoy was getting impatient. The

Austin Police Department was in disarray; nothing

like this had ever happened before. Though dozens

of off-duty officers had arrived to help, there was

little communication among them, and no coherent

plan.

McCoy reached the 28th floor reception area,

where he met fellow officer Ramiro Martinez.

They both eyed the observation deck’s glass-

paneled door, having no idea what awaited them

outside. Martinez kicked the door repeatedly,

eventually dislodging the dolly Whitman had used

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as a barricade. They waited, listening to the

gunshots and trying to decide their next move.

Martinez had a 38 revolver; McCoy a 12-

gauge shotgun. As shots rang out from the

northwest corner, Martinez resolved to open the

door and enter the deck from the south. McCoy

backed him up as the moved around the southeast

corner. Martinez warned the tall, lanky McCoy to

stay low as ground fire struck over their heads.

Martinez rounded the northeast corner and

saw Whitman seated with his back to the

northwest corner, carbine aimed at the observation

deck door. Martinez fired a quick six shots from

his revolver as Whitman brought the rifle around.

He fired.

Yet this time he missed. The bullets

disappeared into the blue Texas sky. Houston

McCoy turned the corner and looked Whitman

directly in the eyes. Then he pulled the trigger,

aiming for Whitman’s white headband. The 12-

gauge roared and the pellets tore through

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Whitman’s head, through his blue eyes. McCoy

chambered another shell and fired again. Martinez

grabbed the shotgun and charged, firing a third

time into Whitman’s now prone body. Blue-eyed

Mr. Death didn’t move. At 1:24 PM, 96 minutes

after it had begun, Whitman’s spree came to an

end. In his last, desperate act, he had taken 15 lives

and wounded 33 others.

In his diary Whitman once wrote, “I have

thoughts [sic] very much about the concept of

‘death.’ When it overtakes me someday I must

remember to observe closely and see if it is as I

thought it would be.” Whether it was as he thought

it would be is unanswerable. What he thought as

the 00 buckshot silenced his mind; whether he

went to his death like a soldier; whether he felt

himself transform into a form of pure energy;

whether he, having plucked the gossamer thread of

history and knowing he was now of consequence,

felt all his ambitions satisfied: this is unknowable.

Maybe he thought nothing at all.

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Charles Whitman is dead; his body laid to

rest in a simple ceremony, an American flag

draped across the former Marine’s coffin. His body

and his secrets are buried beneath a simple metal

plaque in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is dead

and we are alive. Just as Claire Wilson survived

his bullet, Austin, America, the human world

outlived Whitman’s rage.

But Claire’s son did not survive. The

possibilities his life held have vanished, and with

that death a different world replaces the one he

might have known. Charles Whitman with his

crosshair benediction gave us a different future,

one in which the low, attenuated echoes of his

shots are still felt at Columbine and Jonesboro, in

the flippant turn-of-phrase “going postal,” and by

every high school student who cringes at the sound

of a car backfiring.

William T. Vollmann, writing in the voice of

the revolutionary terrorist, captures the

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hopelessness of Whitman’s thinking: “The fewer

possibilities I have, the more urgently I must

imagine.” Whitman’s world of possibilities had

shrunk to the size of a gun barrel, and his revenge

is a final act of conjuration, of making imagination

manifest: with a single bullet he moved the world.

The culmination of his urgent imaginings is an

enlargement of what sociologists call “the social

script” – the historically- and culturally-defined

collection of possible human actions. Where once

we could not imagine a lone gunman in a tower

firing at random, or a disgruntled postal clerk

taking violent revenge on a system that’s betrayed

him, or a pair of misfit high school seniors plotting

to destroy the school whose students refused to

accept them – envisioning these acts is no longer

beyond us. They are options available to every

angry young man whose incandescent rages flames

from the inside out until, like Charlie, it burns us

all. It’s impossible even to recapture the horror of

Whitman’s act, because the world it ended is so

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alien to us, so fast-receding, that it might very well

seem “utopia” – “nowhere.” We cannot even feel

bitterness, or anger, or sadness, as the wound of

August 1, 1966 fades to a pale white scar on the

collective unconsciousness. Yet it remains. From

that reality reason offers no shelter.

From his high tower Charlie saw a future,

and with his bullets he pushed us into it. But here I

want to counter his dead imagination. He was

human, but we do not have to forgive him, or

overestimate his power. He did not birth a new

kind of evil; epochs do not turn on one angry man

with a gun. Postlapsarian worlds are not born with

the whimper of rifle shots, and Charlie is only one

more flower of evil on humanity’s long, snaking

vine. But as long as we are alive and human, we

can imagine bigger than he could. We can imagine

Charles Whitman and Claire Wilson – C.W. and

C.W., Claire and clair obscura – twinned at the

moment of a world’s conception, linked down the

barrel of that Remington Model 700. In this

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moment “if” becomes a talisman, the focus of our

yearning for that other unscarred world, the one

that didn’t happen, where Whitman’s ambition and

rage failed him and Claire and Thomas complete

their walk across the South Mall. That other world,

most directly, is one inhabited by Thomas Eckman,

Paul Sonntag, Claudia Rutt, Robert Boyer, Billy

Speed, Roy Schmidt, Edna Townsley, Marguerite

Lamport, Mark Gabour, Harry Walchuck, Thomas

Ashton, Thomas Karr, Roy Dell Schmidt, Margaret

Whitman, Kathy Whitman (linger over their names

if you can, an incantation for the dead and the

nameless). It’s a world with an impoverished

vocabulary of violence, a place where the phrase

“going postal” has no gravity. This is the world of

that morning, August 1, 1966, where the heat

shimmers in the air and couples walk hand-in-hand

over green grass and under shaded trees. It is a

world very far away in time and possibility, but as

all doors to the past are only windows, it is a world

still visible, if only through shattered glass, darkly.

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