The Final Statement Of A Dead Man

The Black Iron Prison never ended...

After the Collapse and the after the Riots, the Plague and the creation of the Control Government, there was the moment called the Naked Lunch, in which a social order that was broken into levels, each level consuming those beneath and being consumed by those above, and that which was thought was the bottom was in reality feeding on the top... and everyone, everywhere simply stopped. The Naked Lunch was the awful, frozen moment when everyone saw what was really at the end of every fork.

The Control Government as was run in Mishawaka, Indiana had taken over certain existing buildings and structures to be used in a manner not originally intended.

The old Methodist Church which had been specifically designed to replicate the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris had become the Hall Of Justice. A building that was nearly completed before the Collapse and had stood empty was made into the Clear Central, publicly a mental institution but actually a place of torment and pain.

A gazebo built upon a hill was transformed into a gun turret. An empty high price condominium was a prison, the House Of Correction.

Those found to be Enemies Of The State were brought to the Hall Of Justice. Under the Control Government law, any lawyer who allowed the accused to plead innocent and later found to be guilty would suffer the same fate as their client. The plea of innocent never ceased to exist but it did cease to be heard.

The accused could do so, but in doing so, the lawyer would ask to be recused, often revealing into the public record information that was still thought to be covered under the Client/Attorney privilege but under Control Government law that was considered an act of patriotic virtue and was protected. The accused would then stand trial as guilty with innocence needing to be proved, and without representation.

Thus, the only two pleas heard in court were the rare guilty, but the most common, insane.

Insanity as a defense was accepted, as any questionable behavior would then be considered through the lens of sanity, sanity defined as the rule of law, and the law was of the Control Government.

If found insane, the accused was then remanded to the custody of the Clear Central for treatment. Here the accused was tormented flesh and spirit until the replies given to questions were completely in order with the world view of the Control Government. It was also here that the place of pain, Room 101, was used to take that one terror, that deepest id secret would be brought forth, the greatest fear held by the accused would be turned against them, making all prior agonies become happy memories.

Once the accused was cured, it was the province of the Control Government to determine if the accused was at core a threat to the state. Should one be found to be such a threat, the torments of the damned were visited upon them, day into night, night into day, world without end. Once the clarity was finally achieved, the accused became the guilty, and from there they would be sent to the House Of Correction, to await the time that would come, the call to the Great Owl Bridge.

Upon their final hours, the guilty would be lead into the open air, would be allowed a last statement, and then be summarily hanged. Not in the traditional means of hanging, it must be said, but via the placing of the noose about the neck and then raising the accused into the air. Death was always slow, and the soon to be corpses would kick and thrash, much to the delight of the gathered crowd.

There was always a gathered crowd. This was law. All executions were mandatory in attendance. Gathered also would be the wide variety of media. On that day, the usually weeping prisoner would beg forgiveness, and bless the state for their coming demise.

As was the tradition of the Control Government, those awaiting execution would be also required to watch the executions from their House Of Correction. Tradition also held that within the last week prior to their own death, the prisoner would be allowed to walk outside again, to record their last thoughts in the event of a lack of coherent thought or speech at the penultimate moment.

They would be heavily sedated prior. Their freedom was an illusion, a thought that was planted and replanted again and again under chemical hypnotherapy.

These final videos were more often than not discarded, as the spectacle of the crowd and media often inspired the most entertaining speeches, and always drew the highest ratings.

The video that became known as The Final Statement Of A Dead Man was kept after the speech given by that Hero of freedom that day, to be examined fully for hints and clues as to how the method had failed. The ending of his speech is still not on the tape, which he recorded as a rehearsal of sorts (although this has never been confirmed). That day, as is known, he began to speak, and sounded at first precisely as the Central Government had hoped.

As is well known, all recording by the media had been cut off at what had later become the rallying cry of the Truth Movement, all cell phone coverage was severed. What came out later, and the moment of the Naked Lunch, was when the aftermath had been discovered. The entire community was executed shortly afterwards, the turret in the gazebo became the burning lead rain of the wrath of the Control Government. The entire city was burned to the ground, bulldozed over, and offically was removed from all maps of that time.

The shrine of The Dead Man stands there now, a gigantic statue of his face in the final visual image seen by all the world, and beneath his legacy, carved in marble six feet in height:

You have been lied to.

The Final Destination series

Currently the series appears to be over and this is in the face of the 4th film in the series, which was wrongly titled The Final Destination, suggesting it was going to be the series finale. The main problem I have is that, with the release of Final Destination 5, that was a fools' errand at best.

This series has been maligned and misunderstood by just about everyone, and while not maligned usually misunderstood by its fans, of which I am one.

Each film runs the exact same pattern: a collection of characters are shown, mostly young, gathering together such that all parties involved will be in one place at one time. Something goes disastrously wrong, everyone dies a horrific death and then Zip! Into the eyeball of the character whose path we will then follow to the end we fall, and that person comes to the sharp, sudden understanding that they have just had a premonition, panics, and in their panic saves the lives of the rest of the cast members. Throughout the film to the end, each of these characters will die in a manner that has not been seen outside of a Rube Goldberg cartoon: extravagant circumstances lead to a sudden (and often literally) splashy demise. At the end, we are given usually one last Big Splashy Death, and the credits roll.

Those who do not comprehend the genre of horror at all, or possess the slightest understanding with no respect for the genre, are befuddled about this series. It has been called The Dead Teenager Movie, a bit of flick that exists for nothing other than the depiction of gruesome human demolition.

One non-word explains it all: Duh. If I must elaborate, then: Ya think?

Dumbass....

All horror films do this. All. Barring none. Some are captives to the era in which they were created, those times in which the open depiction of body parts and blood had to be kept to a minimum, or in the dark, all agonies in shadow.

Consider then the film Theater Of Blood, starring Vincent Price and featuring a goodly portion of the Royal Shakespeare company. The entire film is based on the works of Shakespeare and death upon gruesome death stacks up along with a rather impressive body count. Both Price films in which he played Dr. Phibes do the same.

What makes the Final Destination films worthy of attention is this: the essence of tragedy is placed throughout each of the (currently) five films. By using the term "tragedy" I think the actual nature of the original term as used by the ancient Greeks must needs be re-examined and removed from its current incorrect usage and for that we need return to Aristotle, The Poetics and the myth of Oedipus.

When Aristotle wrote that the play Oedipus Rex was the greatest tragic play written, what was used as a yardstick for that assessment were the six basic elements in all true tragedy. The first element, and it is first because it is the most important, is plot. This term, "plot," is the basic format, the tale told, the story. In the L. J. Potts translation, published by Cambridge University Press, the term "plot" is replaced with "fable."

Now plot and fable mean two separate things, and in reading Potts' footnote, the original Greek term was mythos. This is of interest here, as the term "mythos" (from which the term myth is derived) has begun to mean That Which Is Not True, a silly little thing with which to entertain children. This level of disrespect is the actual cause of this article.

The myth of Oedipus is currently misunderstood, and once that is clarified, the Final Destination series becomes much, much more interesting.

Oedipus has been reduced, by Freud, as the story of the man who loved his mother and killed his father. While that is indeed the truth, and is the focus of Oedipus Rex, there are layers of importance that the ancient Greek society would have understood that lends a deeper and more powerful impact to the play.

Oedipus was born to the king of Thebes, and as tradition held at the time, the newborn was taken to the Oracle to have the future of the child be foretold. There, the Oracle advised that the Fates had decreed the following: that the boy would grow to kill his father and marry his own mother.

The issue is not the action, but the source: the Fates. In Greek mythology, the Gods themselves bowed to the Fates. Once the Fates had unveiled (however cryptic it may be) what destiny awaited, it was so. There was no argument, no debate.

What makes Oedipus Rex a tragedy of the highest value is that from prior to the opening curtain of the play, the audience knew the story. Aristophanes just did a "cut to the chase," opening the story as close to the action as possible.

The parts of the myth NOT in the play though, continue after the king hears of the destiny of his child, and performs an action that pushes the rest of the play deeper into tragedy with every line and event. The king decides to defy Fate: he has both of the child's Achilles tendons cut, writes out the warning of the Oracle, puts the scroll and the child into a box and throws the babe into the ocean. From there, the box washes ashore, and a childless couple finds the baby, reads the scroll and decides to raise the child as their own. When the boy becomes a man, the adoptive parents decide he needs to know his Fate, and tell him that he can stay with them. Before they can do so, Oedipus finds the scroll, reads it, and decides to flee, so that he can avoid his Fate, not knowing that the man he thought of as his father was not. In his travels, he comes to a crossroad, there meeting a wealthy man who decides to demand the right of way, there is a struggle, and Oedipus kills the wealthy man. Going onwards towards Thebes, Oedipus finds the Sphinx has taken control of Thebes due to the death of their king and presents a riddle, which Oedipus solves. He is shortly thereafter made king of Thebes and marries the widow of the king, the beautiful Jocasta.

It is here that the play begins. A plague has spread throughout Thebes, a curse brought from the gods as a man has slain his father and married/lay with his own mother.

Everything that happened prior to the beginning of the play would have been as familiar to the ancient Greeks as the story of Christ prior to His crucifixion to current Christians.

The tragedy is not the murder of the father and marrying the mother: the tragedy comes from the hubris of man in attempting to thwart the decree of the Fates.

And that takes us back to Final Destination.

Fate decrees that a plane will explode, that there will be an horrific multi-vehicle accident, that a roller coaster will come off its tracks, that a series of collisions at a raceway will enter the stands and that a bridge will collapse. People will die: so the Fates have decreed. One person will have a premonition of each event and will attempt to thwart Fate. They will fail, over and again.

Each of the five films in the series does this, and does it fairly well with a certain consistency. The sneering comment that these films are "Dead Teenager Films" is not only wrong, but dismissive. Granted, they are not high Art, but the films approach an understanding of Fate that has been long absent from film.

The major failing in the series is not the gore but rather the notion of using the tragic element of Fate for nothing more than mere suspense.

The major success in the series is that the suspense works.

Deconstructing the Conspiracy Theory

William S. Burroughs once wrote that language is a virus and we use it to infect others. I have said that paranoia is the only known communicable mental illness. These two things are closely related.

One of my earliest memories was wanting to watch a program on TV, which may well have been the Mickey Mouse Club. It was not on that day, but instead, all stations had the exact same program. An ominous drumbeat was the soundtrack, and a slow, steady parade passed by the cameras. In the front was a man leading a horse in sidestep, and in one stirrup was a boot, placed backwards, so the the heel faced the front of the horse and the toe faced the rear. This was the funeral march of John F. Kennedy, our murdered president.

My mother purchased every copy of Look and Life magazine that came out, focusing on the now-infamous Zapruder film. I remember distinctly looking at the images, frame by frame, laid out in 3x5 images. They chose not to publish the final head shot, showing the President's head exploding. Mom also purchased, and read cover to cover, the paperback release of The Warren Commission Report, and later, Mark Lane's book Rush To Judgement.

I was born in 1959. JFK was murdered in 1963. Do the math: I was about 4 years of age.

The Conspiracy Theory was thus introduced to me at an early age. As I grew older if not wiser, the notion that there is a Secret Plan in place was part of the background. When I began to read the countless volumes of books, stacks of magazines and articles, then web sites, dedicated to that one crime, I began to gather a rather jaundiced eye: people, it seemed, would believe anything. Fools, all.

I widened my search and examined all other forms of Conspiracy Theory. All manner of madness came across my view: FDR stood by and allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor; International Bankers financed Hitler; behind every curtain was a man we were supposed to ignore, we were all blind and ignorant.

For me, though, everything was turned on its head by my finding the MKULTRA plot. In a nutshell, it reads as follows: the CIA was attempting to manufacture a Manchurian Candidate, a means of deep hypnosis that would allow an agent to be programmed to commit murder, but to never be aware of doing so. Further, the CIA had purchased the entire supply of the then-legal drug LSD in an attempt to further this attempt, then used questionable means to have the drug declared illegal first in the United States and then the world. Pursuing it further, the CIA then went on to purchase the then existing world supply of LSD, and began using it in in-house testing, often without the subject's knowledge, to see if it could also be used as a truth serum. Once that was in place, it was a short step to begin "dosing" unsuspecting US citizens, most if not all males, who were in the process of procuring a prostitute, the citizen being dosed in hotel rooms where behind a two way mirror, their behaviors would be studied.

The level of raucous laughter that I emitted bordered on hysteria: as my friend Scot says, "you just can't write that shit."

My pattern at the time was to read as much as I could find about such matters, then spend most of my entertainment time of examining the source material. For many, it boiled down to "researchers," individuals with a questionable amount of time on their hands, who had always managed somehow to dredge up the most peculiar of sources. He said, she said, they said: actual evidence, any trail that would lead to a smoking gun, never in sight.

The shock came when I found the source of the MKULTRA conspiracy: a US Senate sub-committee... public acknowledgement from the CIA itself. They admitted it openly, publicly and as a matter of public record. The reason: one of their own agents was dosed and he committed suicide, and his wife filed a lawsuit... one thing lead to another.

That which most resembled a fool's parade suddenly came into sharp focus... and if this one is true... then what of the others?

The point here is not to inflict this mental "instability" onto you, dear reader, but instead to go deeper, into, as the subject lines states, deconstruction.

You see, the point is simple. Anyone who professes to believe in a conspiracy theory is often derided and mocked, a simpleton that has allowed themselves to be deceived.

Ayn Rand, the objectivist, said that mythology was the first attempt at philosophy. It was an attempt to make sense of the world as perceived.

The Conspiracy Theory, then, regardless of its content, is in my less than humble opinion, an attempt to grasp events that are seemingly random and place them into a comprehensible package... like religion.

And science...

When I began writing my novel The Third Event, I was in the mindset that suggested, as Bruce Springsteen said about his first album Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, that I may never do it again, so throw everything into the pot and see what happens. On the back of my novel, instead of a simple blurb, I put in three separate sentences in Latin.

Peto primoris verum.
Panton alius mos insistuo.
Fabula est in nomen.

Seek first the truth.
Everything else must follow.
The story is in the names.

Truth, it would seem, is a rather interesting concept. As written in the Bible, and Jesus Christ, Superstar, Pontius Pilate asks our Lord and Savior: What is truth? Are mine the same as yours?

There are two main characters in my novel, the first has the surname De La Tour, and the other Towers. The first is French: of the tower. Thus, the novel, at its heart and core, are The Two Towers.

I recall distinctly where I was and what I was doing on 9/11/2001. I had traveled to Las Vegas to take a weeks vacation visiting a brother by another mother (a friend so close as to be as near blood bond as possible). My flight came in at about 1 AM, and he was on a night shift schedule. For a day, we both attempted to mold our times into one another, and early on that day, we were both all but unconscious. The phone rang, and a friend in Mishawaka, IN had called, telling us to turn on the news because a plane had struck one of the Two Towers.

So, there we were, for all the world looking like two boys, in our tighty-whiteys, blearily watching the video of the burning building. While we watched, the second plane came in. We both snapped fully awake.

"One," said my brother by another mother, "is an accident."
"Two," said I, "is a conspiracy."

While the world kept turning on its axis, day into night and night into day, the reality of that day stood stark and clear. We were under attack. Then came the Pentagon, and the fate of United 93.

As I write these words, it is 9:11 AM. Jung called it Synchronicity. Indeed.

Everyone saw it. We all saw the same thing, and for the most part, in unison. All over the world: a communal experience.

Sort of...

See, this is where everything starts to turn sideways.

After the collapse of the Two Towers, there was the collapse of Building 7.

Here, then, is the interesting part: after the fact, there are those who have come forward to define, using their collective specialties, what actually happened, the physics involved, the chemistry, etc.

Some said: you saw what happened, and here is the hard science from professionals, that state unequivocally that what you saw is exactly what happened.


Some said: you saw what happened, and here is the hard science from professionals, that state unequivocally that what you saw is NOT exactly what happened.

There was evidence provided by both groups, the chemistry of the fuel, the architecture involved in the building of superstructures like the Two Towers, testimony by demolition experts, etc.

Yet, somehow, there were two differing viewpoints on the reality of what happened. How can that be?

Those who accepted what is the majority opinion scoffed at those who believed otherwise, because the Truth Movement, as they called themselves, were nothing more and sometimes less than mere (drum roll, please): Conspiracy Theorists.

In my novel, I then was writing about the two Towers (De La Tour and Towers) in conflicting realities. I also mentioned the notion of the Uncertainty Principle and Schrodinger's Cat or the idea involving multiple realities... and the 2 Towers in my novel were separate sides of one coin.

I also quoted, at length, from the film The Happening, often disregarded as a commercial and artistic failure. To condense: Science will look at an event and develop the best possible theory to explain it, but at the core, it is always going to be a mystery.

Think otherwise? Then ask someone that is fully into the materialistic, non-spiritual belief system to explain, in as precise a means as possible, how gravity functions... and how it fits into the notion of Physics...

It just does...

I do not mock those of that mindset. Not now, not ever: rather, as Robert Anton Wilson wrote in The New Inquisition, I mock the closed mind. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, there are more things under Heaven and Earth than fit into philosophy.

The Conspiracy Theory, then, not to mock but to clarify, is an attempt to comprehend the world, history and events as they unfold... much in the way mythology does in the mind of Rand.

The Conspiracy Theory attempts to eliminate the very concept behind the phrase: Things Just Happened...

Was JFK murdered? Yes. By whom? Someone with a gun... do you really need anything else? What about Bobby Kennedy? El-Malik El-Shabazz (formerly Malcolm X, Detroit Red, Malcolm Little)? Watergate?

To openly deride all conspiracy theory as mere bunkum is to suggest that Things Just Happened Like That, that No Man Is Responsible... other than The Enemy.

Who is the real enemy of rational thought? The conspiracy theorist or the one that mocks them? The one that accepts the Official Version or those that mock them?

A Modest Proposal

Once again, we begin to wind up into the national frenzy of politics, the cheapest and most demeaning form of entertainment available. Personally, while I go headlong Hunter S. into it all with the savage frenzy of the gambling addict, I see that the time has come to actually face the facts and the true situation. I make no suggestion to the Federal Government, nor to any of the potential candidates for President or any other office up for sale, but choose here to focus on the state in which I reside: Indiana.

If need be, the following would be my platform, should I be drafted to run, or drafted into the office of Governor via write-in vote.

1) Make the Indiana State Police the single most well-equipped, well-staffed and highest paid police force in the history of Earth, third planet from the sun. The reason? The police force of this state is sadly none of the above. No officer of the law should ever, for any reason, be paid so poorly as to cause them to rely on outside aid for their family. Being in a position of constant stress, any officer that has to be concerned with the next meal their family may or may not be able to have tends to make them (or any human) rather grumpy, and seriously, do we need armed, uniformed peace officers to be grumpy? No. We give them a badge, and a gun, so why not put them in a more calm state of mind.

2) Any illegal immigrant found within the borders of this state will be given the following options: become legal or leave. If they choose to stay, they must become citizens by following all of the normal means. Any assistance needed for this, i.e., education, will be paid for by the state of Indiana (50%) and their current employer (the remaining 50%). Once a month, they will be shown on television, being sworn in as legal citizens of this state, and of the United States Of America. Those who chose to not become legal citizens will be shot. Along with their employers. Just to make a point.

3) Eliminate the welfare system as currently known by increasing employment by 100% within the borders of the state. The means by this is to work with the Habitat For Humanity group, all of the service groups currently in place for the homeless and indigent. If someone is on welfare and is capable of service or work in some manner, their pay, complete with benefits, will be based on the work done. Those who simply refuse to participate and are capable of work will be shot. Along with their families. Just to make a point.

4) The sanctity of marriage must be defended at all costs. Marriage is the common bond that holds all of society together, and the single greatest threat posed to the institution of marriage is divorce. Thus, ending divorce as it is now is the single greatest means of protecting the institution. While eliminating divorce in its entirety would be best, it must be understood that under the saddest and most extreme cases the health of the populace if not their lives are in jeopardy. So, to defend it further, then, those trapped in a marriage of violence and abuse will be given the authority to report such matters to the police, and the offending party or parties will then be shot. Any person accusing someone of violence and/or abuse that drops the charges more than three times will be shot. Any person shown to use an accusation that is unfounded will be shot.

5) To further protect the sanctity of marriage, effective immediately, all married persons in the state of Indiana will pay no taxes whatsoever on the first $150,000 made per year. That being said then the most obvious next step would allow anyone who wishes to become married, regardless of the gender of those wishing to become married, can do so within the state of Indiana. All parties must agree to live within the state for no less than five years to use the tax break. Those who become married within the state of Indiana and do not remain within the state for that length of time will be shot, regardless of the gender of the parties involved.

6) Any corporate entity currently existing within the borders of the state of Indiana, or wishing to do so, must agree to stay in the borders for no less a time period of ten years. During that time, there will be no taxes whatsoever levied against any corporate entity. If the corporate entity wants to leave prior to that ten years, or leaves without assuring that their existing staff has some form of gainful employ will be charged a back tax of 100% of the corporate gross effective immediately, will lose the land ownership rights of the properties involved and all means of production left within the state borders. All parties within management of these corporate entities, regardless of their location anywhere on Earth, third planet from the sun, will be brought before a televised panel to explain why the actions were taken, giving them a chance to explain the causes and reasons. They will then be shot. Along with their families. Just to make a point.

7) Reducing a state deficit being mandatory, as well as living within the budget, each member of Congress, both representatives and senators, will be held accountable for their performance. The entire state must be considered, not merely a portion of it. To ensure the clarity of mind of each elected official, the following changes must be made effective immediately:

A) Representatives will be paid the average wage of the district from which they came.
B) Senators will be paid the median wage of the district from which they came.
C) The Governor will be paid the average wage of the entire state.
D) The Supreme Court will be paid the mean wage of the entire state.
E) No elected official may remain in office more than three terms.
F) All members of Congress will be required to use the largest medical care provider from the district from which they came, the Governor and Supreme Court will be required to use the largest medical care provider from the state. All will be required to pay for their own medical care coverage out of pocket.
G) Any elected official that does not live by the above standard will be shot. As well as their families. Just to prove a point.

8) Raising income and reducing costs at the same time would be the best of all possible worlds, so effective immediately, marijuana will be legal in the state of Indiana. Not for medical purposes, not decriminalized but legal, produced and marketed solely by the state of Indiana. The product will then be controlled tightly. All revenues from the sales of the product are to be used to fund the Indiana State Police, the schools of the state, the state highways and the improvement of border control. The use of any motorized vehicle while under the influence of marijuana will be treated as if the offender was under the influence of alcohol, which traditionally in the state of Indiana is called a felony but is treated more like a misdemeanor. To increase public awareness of the seriousness of this matter, anyone found operating any form of motorized vehicle while under the influence of marijuana or alcohol in the state of Indiana will be given the option of assistance in returning to their home. If refused, or if damage of any manner to property or injury to anyone, the offender will be shot.

Thank you for your attention, and remember: vote early, and vote often.

Emotional meltdowns and malfunctioning relationships

Oh, what a wonderful world it is. To be free and alive and happy, friends and family; to love and be loved in return; to look at another human being and rejoice in their uniqueness and be as accepted for who and what I am, warts and all...

I wonder what that is like. Recent events have suggested that I am indeed about one bad hamburger away from going full on Joker.

I often wonder why we cannot hear the delicate fragile tethers that connect us together as a social animal begin to tear and rend.

To be true, I am not as social as I had fantasized. Truth be told, I have a deep ingrained hatred of myself, and a near complete lack of self-respect that is reflected onto everyone else. I know myself and my weaknesses, I see my dark side and am aware of what goodness exists within, and when confronted with a slight I have given, I become heartbroken: when will I cross that line that allows me to Love Others fully, which then would allow a form of Loving Myself.

Well, again, to be true: some go out of their way to just frankly piss me off. I try to go along to get along, and then someone says or does something rude or condescending. Having a limited amount of self-respect, I can take a joke. God help you if you cannot, because once I have had enough, I am done, caution to the wind, raise the red flag of rage and gird your loins. Once started I must finish else the residue builds into the assault level of anger and blind unreason that will eventually collapse into suicidal depression.

Worst thing I know about my life is this: Sadly, my "friends and family" just cannot wrap their sad, meager (lack of) intellect around one single fact of reality....

Occasionally, like it or not, I am right and worse, I know what I am talking about.

That should be acceptable, but no. I find that it is not so.

A sense of self-deprecating humor is mistaken for error in every judgement.

I have lost friends in the past, and may be doing so again. So be it, selah. There isn't enough of "me" left to focus on anything other than mere survival. The ground beneath me is unstable, the simplest of pleasures are denied for the best of reasons, but they are the things that make life worth living, and make fighting the good fight acceptable... with the little happy things gone, all that is left is toil...

Fuck Sisyphus: the myth that explains my lot, and I think that of so many others, is Tantalus, placed in the Greek Hades with all pleasures forever just out of reach. This is the now: this is the commonplace. Our reach can no longer match that which we would grasp.

Snarling and growling, demanding not the bread and circus but pizza, beer and American Idol.

Demanding respect without ever matching it in delivery.

Demanding acceptance without accepting others...

I feel that kinship, that understanding: no more into the realm of what I could be but instead that lowest level of anarchy, that sense that the watching the world burn makes much more sense than bothering to help, or love...

Some men just want to watch the world burn. Some men just want to make a meal of the rest of us.

So be it. Selah.

Seeking redemption is pointless when it is not available. I will never apologize for those actions and words (are they not the same?) that are unforgivable.

Angels are flawless, and being flawless have no need of shame. If I have no shame, do I then become angelic?

My father and my mother never followed me to Dream Time... and I will not come back from that Dark Carnival of Unmentionable Delights.

Have a nice motherfucking and fatherfucking day!

Keeping a cheery positive attitude

Having a positive attitude, so I am told, is of vital importance. One should smile, and face life with a brave countenance. On those unfortunate moments that are not the norm, as Life Is Beautiful, we are to make lemonade from lemons and remember that God does not give us more than we can handle.

Should you be one of these empty-headed morons that believe that worthless bullshit, here is a charming note for you: I am coming over to your home. I will bring a posse of the most unpleasant "human beings" I can find: unclean, diseased and quite mad.

We will then collectively gang rape you. Any opening on your body, we will stick something in it. Once done, we will then remove your eyes, and thus having created a new opening, we will gang rape you again. We will do this to you only after you have been forced to watch as we gang rape your family.

Parents, children, grandchildren, cousins... why, we will even torment the flesh of your best and closest friends.

Yes, this would include pets.

Now. Make lemonade out of them lemons. Remember: God thinks you can get through this with no problem, so long as you go through it with Him (or Her, or It, whatever).

I like to entertain myself with these vile, loathsome fantasies every time I hear some self-righteous pigheaded Praise Jesus Glory type go on and on and on about how Everything Happens For A Reason. Equally entertaining to me are the times that some arrogant pissant Positive Thoughts Change Everything goes on about how people with negative mindsets Bring Shit On Themselves... well, what until I show up with my full on Joker, knives and pliers, hammers and blowtorches. Get Positive on that, dipshit.

The best part about this blog: few read it. When the time comes and I ultimately go totally batshit insane, this I am sure will be entertaining.

Nothing like using a public forum... ah, and the blessed peace of ignorance...

Ignorance is not stupidity. Ignoring a thing makes all those words above so much more pleasant. Denial. It is standing on the deck of the Titanic and saying, What a lovely night! We should go for a swim.... nothing wrong here, right?

Spinning more and more wildly out of control, life is an amusement park, a Carnivale of dark pleasures and questionable practices. BUT if I only keep a happy face, all will be well...

Right? Right?

Ever see the photo from Viet Nam with the young naked girl running screaming towards the camera? She was in a village that had been napalmed out of existence and had torn her burning clothes off. Napalm, which sticks, continues to burn. So tell me: How much lemonade should she have made, then? Hmmm???

No. Fuck you. I am dead fucking serious. How much would her life have changed with an upbeat attitude?

Watching others in the course of my existence, I can see where some did indeed drive the car off the cliff, lifestyle choices made that ended all Thelma And Louise. These souls, like me, apparently are here for everyone else, for the collective amusement of the self-righteous. See, children? Don't act like Jim or you will get hurt! He didn't keep a Positive Attitude...

These are the people that I love to be near when everything falls apart. When cancer strikes, when the job is lost, when someone dies: Here, fuckhead, have some lemonade. I put cyanide in it.... Let's all head to Jonestown, shall we?

For the record: No. I am dead fucking serious. It is what I mean, what I think. People that honestly believe that just keeping a Happy Place is enough to get through the most difficult parts of their lives deserve the razor blades and gasoline that life has to offer them.

The Control Process

Nothing which follows is original in form or content, but a mere reminder of that which has gone before.

Part 1: The greatest trick the Devil ever performed was convincing the world that he didn't exist.

All fiction, by its very nature, is a lie. Were it truth, it would be called non-fiction. Q.E.D. The problem, of course, is in the nature of truth itself. To use hyperbole to make an exaggerated point, then, imagine two separate volumes by two separate authors. The topic is the same: the history and impact of the musical genre referred to as rap and/or hip-hop.

Volume one is written in the form of a memoir, a life spent creating the music. Volume two is written by a white supremacist.

Both purport to be Truth, or at least non-fiction. Having suggested nothing more than describing the authors in the two volumes, one can see not only how the author would be using language in a manner that most powerfully supports their own pre-existing notions but, and here is the rub, also the notions of you, the reader.

Truth, when presented by a polemicist, is at best doubtful. Sadly, this but the tip of the iceberg that threatens us all.

From a course in basic sociology: The definition of a situation is that which is determined to be real with determine actions regardless of the veracity of the reality.

That concept (pretty much the basis of my first and as yet only novel) is the point, the actual crux of the matter. With the instant access to any and all data, those who wish to sell a reality and create a collective consensus need do no more than go trolling for those who seek a mental form of real estate that is already plotted out.

Bottom line, then, to refer back to #1: That which can be called a "conspiracy theory" becomes nothing more than a means of diverting the attention away from the Real Satan (if you will): there is no real political separation. The facts that do not conform to the theories are ignored.

Selling it is easy, and time tested, which leads us to...

Part 2: Shout It! Shout It! Shout It Out Loud! Over and over and over again!

The current viewpoint expressed here, so far, has used in the only example as hyperbole. Hyperbole has become so ingrained into our collective political discussions to do nothing more than make a point has become the standard means of debate.

You are wrong if you think the political right are fascists.
You are wrong if you think the political left are communists.

The two statements above will infuriate some to the point of blind unreason. However, the fact is that if you, the reader, chooses one label or the other for yourself, and you have been called one or the other long enough, you might be feeling that twinge of response: Oh, yeah???

The desire to communicate a difference of opinion is gone. It is no longer an acceptable means of communication, one must destroy them as do not agree, heaping abuse on abuse while wondering why that brings about a reaction equal to or greater than one's own.

Is it the labels? Or the fact that both statements begin with "You are wrong if you think..."

By doing that, I have created an intellectual environment in which the acceptance of either viewpoint, by my own definition, is wrong. It only appears rational, but in a sense, I am shouting at you. I have in those two sentences eliminated any form of debate by suggesting that any and all who would dare question me are... wrong.

If we are shouting at each other, then we are not listening. Shouting drowns out the words spoken.

The Control Process then has been to bury rational discussion and to live by labels. While it is self-inflicted, I have seen this in places one would not anticipate, like the community that calls itself Punk. The issue at hand is: what is Punk? Are you as Punk as I?

While that is a form of hyperbole, extend it out, and then the divisions suggested above become even more interesting. You are not as right wing (or left wing) as I... can you be trusted?

The Control Process to this point is at its most obvious and it can, and does, escalate to violence, both physical and emotional, words become weapons. The pen is mightier than the sword and can inflict the same damage.

That should not make one less mindful of the sword, as the damage done by words is often invisible, but the damage of the sword can be literally permanent.

Forcing and/or badgering others into accepting one's worldview is bad enough: concentration camps were used for more than mere murder (as if that weren't evil enough), they were also used as re-education camps. It was an actualization of the old joke: The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Using rage and violence is bad enough, but it is visible. One has but to stop, listen and watch. The issues are before us. The real horror and the greatest threat is Soft Control...

3: It's just Kool-Aid.

Soft control is insidious. It is the quiet, and genteel form of inflicting addictions, addiction to sugars and fats in the diet, addictions to body modifications, addictions to addiction.

It takes the handcuffs and puts them on the table. The lie is bold: it is not a pair of handcuffs, it is a fashion statement. We succumb to the Soft Control when we allow ourselves to pick them up and put them on.

Soft Control suggests, whispers. It is usually rather blatant, holding before us a heap of steaming feces, which we know is feces, but the Soft Control says, no, it is breakfast. We buy into it, and eat.

Disgusting image? Yep.

Consider something so obvious but so bold that it is impossible for me, personally, to not think of it as a deliberate attempt to undermine the populace of the United States.

Two televisions shows (television being indeed the Drug Of The Nation) offered two comedic views of life, on two separate networks. Consider them, and consider them well. The Cosby Show and Rosanne.

Which of these two families would you, the reader, consider to be middle class?

If you immediately thought The Cosby Show, then let us look at it. Cliff and Clair Huxtable live in New York with a small army of children. Cliff is an OB/Gyn, while Clair is an attorney. They have a two story home in the city, plus vehicles to take their small army of children to whatever event they wish. There is never a discussion of finances. While cutting in their humorous comments to one another, they are witty and urbane.

Rosanne, featuring the Connor family, has Rosanne and Dan Connor and their three children. This largely dysfunctional group of people is harsh to the point of brutality to one another and pretty much the world at large. Rosanne is a factory worker, loses that job, tries to start her own business, then becomes a waitress. Dan's employment history is shaky, and the two can barley keep the roof over their heads.

Which family is middle class?

A pair of college educated professionals? Really?

This is the evil of the Soft Control. The constant insinuation that There Is Something Wrong With You If You Don't Want To Be The Huxtables.

I have nothing against them, or those that want that level of comfort. Calling them middle class is wrong, just plain wrong. They are not. It is a matter of color, but it is the color of the money, not the skin. Do that many black Americans have access to those levels of affluence and education?

The new car we HAVE to have year after year, the gadget from iMoney, the latest trends and fashions...

How about a world where the emotional collapse of a Famous Person is presented as if it mattered to anyone other than that persons' immediate family? Is that not a form of control in itself?

What controls you?