Mark Allen

My friend Coye alerted me to a delightfuly surreal limerick/photo boob book he discovered in his late brother’s bedroom, entitled Treasure Chests. It was created in 1967 by two people named Mel Norman and Arthur Benwood, and published by the Alexicon Corporation (who specialized in sex/humor ephemera during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s). He handed it over to a friend at the preposterous LandOfTuh.com, who scanned the entire thing from cover to cover. Hallucinatory, goofy cleavage from yore anyone? Why not. Coye felt that one of it’s strongest points of interest was that it was created in the days before Photoshop (although that never stopped Man Ray… or Russ Meyer or Benny Hill, for that matter). You can see the whole thing starting here.

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In the Catalonian mountains of the Serra de Montserrat, the tradition of Santa Claus is too boring. At left is an example of the Catalonian Yuletide mascot Tió (also called Caga Tió, Tió de Nadal or Tronca). The figure is an anthropomorphized wooden log with a Mr. Potato Head-like face assembled on it’s cut end, and is often propped up on little sticks. But don’t let appearances fool you; this adorable mascot has secret masochistic tendencies, and a magical rectum. Over the days leading up to the holiday, the Tió log becomes part of the household – sitting nearby, participating in gatherings and is even given food to “eat” during meals… always smiling. The family gives it a red cloth at night so it doesn’t get cold (and to aid with it’s digestion). But, according to tradition, on Christmas day things suddenly turn violent. The Tió is tossed near (or sometimes actually into) the lit fireplace while the family shouts at it and orders it to “shit” out gifts of candy. If the log does not produce, the family threatens to beat it with sticks, which they have at the ready. They then sing the traditional song (translated); “Shit log! Shit torrons, hazelnuts and cheese, if you don’t shit well I’ll give you a blow with a stick! Shit log!” as they beat it senseless. The terrified Tió excretes nuts and dried figs if the family members have been good, or salt herring, onions and garlic if they have been bad. Whatever the outcome, they reward the Tió at day’s end by incinerating it. There are many variations on the character, and many traditional “shit log!” Catalonian Christmas songs. The Tió derives from Catalan Mythology. Here is more info, here is an educational film about the Tió.

(thanks to Bryce for the merry tip)

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The Mad Gasser (a.k.a. ‘The Anesthetic Prowler’ or ‘Mad Anesthetist’)
The case of the “Mad Gasserâ€? serial killer is actually (well, probably) an extreme and outrageous case of mass hysteria. Despite not even existing (exactly), the Mad Gasser kept two entire cities paralyzed with very real fear, suspicion and dread during two separate periods of time. The first was in Botetourt, Virginia, during December 1933 to February 1934. The second wave of attacks happened in Mattoon, Illinois, during September of 1944. The Mad Gasser’s purported appearance and motive rivaled the most hair-raising villains in science fiction, crime fiction and comic book stories of the time – as well as melded traditional fears of ghouls-in-the-dark with more modern, subconscious apprehensions about changes in technology and medicine that were perhaps not tangible on the surface at the time.

The assailant was apparently a man dressed in a strange, “futuristic� black outfit (sometimes reported as ‘rubber’) with large eye goggles. He crept into unuspecting rural homes in the middle of the night and sprayed an unidentified gas into rooms, or actually on sleeping victims (or in some cases, just through the home’s open windows). The phantom was also sometimes witnessed in double disguise: as a woman in high heels, wearing the black outfit and goggles (there were many other wacky variations reported). The gas he used seemed to cause people to become very ill, or have symptoms common to an allergic reaction… supposedly. Samples of the gas were kinda-sorta obtained, but never really identified.

Was he real? The Gasser’s existence as a night-roaming death phantom, leaping across lawns and targeting random slumber victims in people’s very real homes and neighborhoods, had people very concerned. But much like the Loch Ness Monster or Chupacabra, the Mad Gasser’s fame relied solely on eyewitness accounts, rumors, accusations, paranoia, speculation and no real credible evidence. This was obviously compounded by lots of media snowballing, and perhaps a few overly enthusiastic pranksters.

The people that experienced the attacks or witnessed the phantom sprayer swore by what happened, but no real evidence, clues or real suspects were ever collected. The endless stream of local (and national) newspaper clippings from both time periods are plentiful and often hysterical.

Did all these shuddersome goings-on really happen? Was the Mad Gasser a deranged scientific serial murderer? A cocaine-crazed anesthesiologist? An insomniac exterminator with a mean streak? A bored perfume counter worker with weird ideas about fashion and a sick sense of humor? Was he actually a socially inept University of Illinois chemistry student named Farley Llewyllen, who had an inclination for fantastical revenge and the help of two bizarre sisters? Or was he really a super hero-like mad villain spreading unrest to good American citizens during the witching hour… or even someone who traveled from the future in a time machine to perform experiments on unwilling human guinea pigs… or perhaps even someone, something, from another planet? The case of the Mad Gasser will forever remain in the annals of creep-out lore. I’m hardly touching on the very Harry Stephen Keeler-esque details of this mind-bending legend. For everything and anything on the Mad Gasser legend, and the very real reports, I highly recommend reading everything starting here. Of course there’s lots and lots more here.

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Donald Harvey (a.k.a. the ‘Angel of Death’)
At the onset of his life, Donald Harvey earned the reputation of a friendly, quiet boy who liked to spend his time “…reading books, and thinking about the future,� according to his mother. After landing work as a nurses’ aide at a young age, he developed the same reputation as an employee… for a while.

Over the years of employment in hospitals (as well as other professions), he murdered approximately 30 to 70 patients, as well as other people in his life. His tool of the trade: secret cyanide poisonings placed in food (or sometimes other methods such as disconnecting life support, or injecting air into a patient’s veins). He began his anointed “mercy� murders on the feeble, terminally ill and dying. But it didn’t take long for his ego to get the best of him, as he took the leap from sainthood to All Knowing God And Ruler Of All Time And Space… killing anyone who annoyed him, got in his way, or that he simply disliked. Actually, Harvey’s habits of murdering patients apparently sparked with someone he considered an offensive “hassle.� His first killing was a stroke victim he spontaneously smothered after the patient smeared feces on Harvey’s face while under his care. Harvey had earned the nickname “Angel of Death� long before he was convicted (or even suspected) because he always seemed to be around when people passed on.

A gay man, Harvey actually tried to murder his own lover at one point. He even tried to secretly poison his lover’s parents after a squabble with them, which landed the father in the hospital with a stroke (which only allowed Harvey to secretly kill him again later with poisoned banana pudding) The mother miraculously survived, despite years of repeated poisoning attempts by him.

Despite several arrests and investigations over the years (and an ever-growing mountain of rumors and bad reputations in various cities), Harvey always lucked out and was able to continue his killings, leaping from location to location. He was not fully apprehended and convicted until 1987, when he confessed to everything during several trials and convictions. He is currently serving out four consecutive life sentences in Ohio, and avoided the death penalty via plea bargaining. He does not work in the prison cafeteria. Lots more here.

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The Axeman of New Orleans
Anti-black, anti-Italian, anti-German, anti-War, and most of all: anti-grocer…. the Axeman of New Orleans committed a string of brutally vicious axe murders in the 1910’s, with the hysteria surrounding the crimes prodding almost every area of public paranoia at the time.

The killer’s only real calling card was a hole chiseled out of his chosen victim’s kitchen doors. The hole would be whittled in the quiet of night… after which he would enter and attack his sleeping prey in their beds (usually starting right with the face). When authorities investigating the messy scenes began noticing that many of the kitchen door holes were a wee too small for a human to fit through, yet the doors had remained unlocked… anti-supernatural being, anti-zombie, anti-midget and anti-evil-super-intelligent-baby hysteria was added to the public’s list of gasping fears.

Despite being horribly maimed, many of the victims survived the attacks, at least for a while. However, theirs and many other eyewitness accounts got tangled in a maelstrom of warped speculation, finger-pointing, race-baiting, anti-American spy suspicion, adultery punishment, Mafia speculation, grocer competition, war-fueled anti-German hysteria, general witch hunt-mania and supposed opportunistic copycat-ing (even claims that it was the return of the real Jack the Ripper on American shores). The unsolved murders eventually stopped and, despite some specious theories, the killer …was never caught. More here.

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Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka (’The Ken & Barbie Murder Team’)
Earning the nicknames “The Barbie & Ken of Serial Killers� deserves recognition in the annals of something, at least.

As usual in these kinds of stories, newlyweds Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka seemed the ideal pair in their friend and family’s eyes. Paul was a masculine, strapping, “take charge� entrepreneur who made friends easily. Karla was an outgoing person with a fun disposition and a reputation as a real party gal. Together they were seen by many as the perfect, “fun� couple.

During their relationship and marriage, they secretly and willingly tortured, raped and murdered several young girls (including Homolka’s own younger sister), videotaping all of the incidents.

The couple were eventually caught, and in 1995 Bernardo was convicted in one of the murders (he is currently in prison awaiting trial for the other killings). More on him here. Through a combination of plea bargains and extenuating circumstances, Homolka was able to wrangle free of any maximum conviction, and served 12 years. More on her here.

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Spring Heeled Jack
He’s tall and thin, wears an oilskin suit, helmet and a cloak, has pointy ears and nose, glowing orange eyes, claw-like hands that are as cold as ice, can spit blue flame, can’t resist goosing the ladies… and he leaves three inch-deep footprints in the dirt because he has the ability to jump great heights in the blink of an eye (which police at the time determined is the result of an ingenious pair of spring-like devices built into his shoes). Why it must be Spring Heeled Jack! Or, more boringly… S-A-T-A-N. This non-murdering but creepy legend, which could have been everything from an brainy inventor in a wacky outfit, to an actual supernatural anomaly… kept authorities and citizens in England looking over their shoulders at rooftops during the mid-1800’s. Of course lots and lots more here.

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Cameron and Janice Hooker
In 1977, timber mill worker Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice (with their 8 month-old daughter in tow) picked up the then 20 year-old Colleen Stan (a.k.a ‘Carrol Smith’) when she was hitchhiking. They drove her to a remote area and, at knife point, bound her hands and feet and placed a strange wooden sensory depravation box over her head that locked into place around her neck. They then casually drove to a local diner, where Stan sat in their car like that while the three members of the Hooker family ate lunch.

The Hookers kept Stan imprisoned as a ritualistic slave in their home, completely breaking her down and brainwashing her. Cameron Hooker, a fan of The Story Of O and sadomasochism culture, kept Stan locked away in a variety of small, home-constructed boxes and surreal, torture-like devices that were often hidden within the home itself. They would occasionally let her out to perform strange S&M rituals and weird, minuscule, repetitive tasks. Stan was informed that there was a national organization called “The Company� that was watching her, and would harm her family members if she did not follow their directions. Cameron and Janice had her sign a slavery “contract� they told her was from “The Company.� One of the compartments they kept her in was built under the bed that the Hookers slept in at night. She was held captive like that (mostly) for seven years, and was brainwashed to the point where they allowed her to leave for periods of time, and even hold down a part time job at a local hotel. But she always came back to the box.

Over time, things got complicated; Stockholm syndrome, poorly-constructed dungeons, spousal jealousy, male ambition, desperate Bible-thumping, Janice’s two young daughters’ questions, and guilt… began to weave until the whole deranged scenario imploded.

Stan gained enough mental clarity to escape in 1984. Cameron Hooker was eventually arrested, convicted and sentenced to several life terms for the kidnapping, and for the earlier murder of another woman in a similar, failed scenario (that of 18 year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, a case that was never concretely proved but wrapped up for all intensive purposes due to Janice’s highly detailed confession), as well as the expressed intent to acquire more women like Stan. Janice Hooker escaped any conviction due to her help in getting Cameron caught and convicted, and her subsequent testimony. Stan obviously survived the weird ordeal, and is doing pretty OK today. The entire story can be followed here and here.

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The best way to describe the human nervous system? Compare it to an office job. A job where you work on a floor in a cubicle, amongst a sea of other cubicles. And all these cubicle farms are cached on many floors, that when stacked – make up a large skyscraper. The most important and powerful offices? On the top floors. The worker bees? In all the other parts of the building (where you are).

The human nervous system, and a multilevel corporate work environment run on the same types of information systems, schedules and hierarchies.

How do I know this? Because I’m in one right now, an office building that is. I’m actually hiding in the 14th floor custodian’s closet of that very mega-corporation, writing this all down on memo paper with a little pen-light that came with a box of cereal I had for breakfast in the company cafeteria this morning. I am crouched down here, scribbling in near darkness, deeper inside a massive, multi-storied building that holds the corporate headquarters where I work, or well… might not work anymore. My boss (who’s office is in the penthouse office of the top floor), is extremely angry with me for going over his head about some organizational and personnel decisions I was making in my department (which I am in charge of), and acting on my own.

I’m apparently fired now, and he’s hired a rooting-out firm to find me and extract me from the company because he knows I’ll resist. Or more likely, since he now sees me as an enemy, he probably thinks a good offense is the best defense… so I’m kind of playing along guess. Hiding and writing all this down for you while the boss’ hired goons hunt me down is a good example of the analogy I am about to lay down for you, and may help me figure out how to escape being found out, terminated from the firm, and kicked out of the building. I don’t want to cause trouble or make waves here at the company… things are too messy already. So here I sit, transcribing to you in the last moments of my existence… my existence as one tiny part of this body of concrete, steel, drywall, industrial carpeting and fluorescent lighting. This very structure that I once belong in, no… belonged to… and that is now about to get rid of me. I wonder if they’ll find me? I wonder if I’ll have enough time to tell you everything…

If you were to directly compare this building i’m in to my nervous system which lies deeper within me (in terms of scale), I would be hiding somewhere near my spleen. Looking outwards; my body itself, with it’s working nervous system, is a minuscule replica of that corporate headquarters I am within. Yep, universes hidden within universes hidden within universes… backwards and forwards, the old Carl Sagan cliché.

For starters, I’ll explain the actual real mechanics of the human nervous system expressed in layman’s terms. The system as a whole is made up of two parts:

1. The CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (or CNS, as I shall refer to it from this point on) is housed within the brain and spinal cord.

2. The PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (or PNS, got it?) is made up of everything else.

They work together. No, I mean they really, really work together. Large corporations should be so lucky as to run an information, production, service-providing and profit-making enterprise based on the deftness of the human body’s nervous system, with it’s infinite highways and limitless corridors of information processing efficiency.

The CNS is paid to think, while the PNS is paid to work. The CNS is housed inside the lush top floor offices of the brain and spinal cord (which have a lovely view) and spend their time processing and de-coding what the remainder of the nervous system, the PNS, gathers, records, and stores to send to it later – in a schedule that the two have worked out beforehand. The PNS is, obviously, housed within the lower cubicle farms, cafeterias and janitorial closets inhabited within the veins, muscles, organs and bowels that make up the rest of the body (strictly functional spaces). The PNS are the busy little worker bees constantly tasking and following orders, while the CNS sits upstairs and sends directions back out to the PNS and decides what to do with the information that comes back through it, and weighs that information with the PNS’ observed behavior. The PNS and CNS may be robotic in their own respective ways (in various degrees according to time and circumstance), but together they make up an organic.

Now, to clarify some gossip that I’ve overheard in the company washroom: as I pointed out above, the spinal cord is essentially part of the CNS, but really it’s just an over-paid, ass-kissing, PNS-er that acts as a glorified conduit for information meant to the real meat of the CNS; the brain (everybody in the office knows this but of course no one says anything). It’s just that the spinal cord is so close up there to the boss, and spends so much time near it, that it gets lobbed in with the CNS’s crew. Of course, I’m sure it does what it can to keep the brain thinking that it is somehow protecting it from the riff-raff of the PNS (lie!). The spinal cord is PNS, darling… through and through, no matter how it tries to dress up, or what kind of airs it thinks it’s putting on. It’s like Mr. Smithers’ relationship to Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons.� We all know the spinal cord is that sniveling, sycophantic, ass-kissing boss wannabe that we have all know at one time or another while working in offices; placed by luck in close proximity to the boss, and ready to do anything to protect it’s position. We know what’s really going on: it’s got it’s head all up inside the brain’s rectum (literally!) all kissing and sucking and massaging it and getting it’s nose a million shades of brown and saying “Here brain, here’s some more lovely info from all the underlings downstairs, can I massage your cells and rub your neurons while I regurgitate it to you?� and the brain is all like “Yes OK whatever thank you.� I mean, who does the spinal cord think it’s kidding? The brain is just stringing the spinal cord along because, as the brain knows (naturally) and the spinal cord does not (duh!) the spinal cord will never, ever be able to usurp the brain and take it’s place. But the brain needs the spinal cord for various reasons, so it just keeps letting it get all up inside it so it can use it. So distressing, really… isn’t it? Unlike Eve Harrington who eventually usurped Margo Channing in the film All About Eve, the spinal cord, sadly, will never accomplish the goal that most boss’s assistants sometimes do. It will never be the brain. Born PNS, die PNS. Your body is a cruel place isn’t it?

OK, so even though we all know the spinal cord is just a sycophantic PNS, for the practical purposes of this example the spinal cord is categorically CNS.

Now, back to the matter at hand: the PNS in the body always knows that the CNS is boss. It knows this informally by understanding, but at it’s root by the nature of it’s very existence. It must do what the CNS tells it to – the PNS worker’s existence is function, and it is subservience, and to rebel against that is to stop existing. Without it’s “placeâ€? apart from the CNS, the entire body and system would fail.

There are times however, when the CNS and PNS act as one equal entity, collectively in the pursuit of one goal (and no, it’s not the annual office Christmas party, where the two entities reluctantly get together and pretend to like one another – which only strengthens the walls separating them). These instances are swift, explosive, unexpected moments when the system of defining borders and ceilings vanish for a micro-second in the quest for one goal. And when do these swift moments occur? When the body as a whole is unexpectedly threatened. It’s kind of like a disaster movie where several people of different classes, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds are forced to ban together as equals in the quest for survival during a crisis.

If you see a wasp land on your arm, your PNS has just told your CNS this information. Whether or not you slap your other hand down on top of it and kill it, or let it live, is the choice of your CNS. The PNS just sends the information along, waits, and then carries out the orders about whether or not to slap it or, perhaps shoo it away and let it live (for karmic reasons which the CNS would have specified).

Even more revealing: lets say this wasp landed on your arm without the PNS knowing. Then let’s say the wasp stung your arm. Technically, the PNS does send the information to the CNS for processing and waits for instructions. But, the action is so fast that the difference between the CNS and PNS blend into one swift, blinding resolve: EXTERMINATE THE THREAT. The CNS doesn’t get bogged down in red tape (conscious rational and weighing of morality) and think “Well, the wasp is a simple animal and only doing what comes naturally, and I should let all living animals be as I’m a buddhist.� It just tells the PNS to destroy what is causing the intense pain, which is most likely a menace (or at least feared as one). Int appears that the PNS almost overrides CNS habit of “meeting� and “group thinking� decisions… and just pulls things forward and goes for the goal, but the CNS is in control of all of this. It’s just that the borders between the two in that moment become irrelevant. They pull together, or at least appear to pull together as one for a primitive, animalistic bulls-eye stab at surviving. Even someone who refuses to kill a wasp, even one that has just stung it, cannot control (without great mental preparation) the swift impulse to slap or pull away or jerk. The human nervous system under swift stress does not suffer sensitive or intellectual types in war time.

So, during moments like this, everyone from the higest-paid executive in the luxury suit offices of the upper cranium to the lowly mail room clerk in the small intestine come together as one efficient, non-partisan super weapon of efficiency and swiftness – with no internal structure (just one very simple switch that operates in only two modes; ‘on’ and ‘off’). If elements and conditions (and luck) outside the body are in agreement, the CNS and PNS acting as one usually get their way. It’s an admirable revolution of sorts, actually.

But unfortunately, right after the threat and ensuing class revolution, the simple, efficient device that the two had become becomes complex once again; with it’s endless internal structure and hierarchy. A bad reality? Nope, because without these complex structures and hierarchies in the long-term… the body as a whole ka-put.

The swift efficiency of the PNS and CNS working as equals in a threat should only come together in emergencies. Otherwise, they should work as usual… with all the bullshit politics and ridiculous red tape and some-people-being-better-than-others-just-because and egos (just like an office). This is just the way things are.

Imbalances in the system can unfold during other situations as well. When the CNS doesn’t have enough to do… dysfunction on a massive scale can set in. The CNS can start to anticipate fear responses before they are even there. It can start to send messages to the PNS to tell the glands to sweat, or tell the intestinal tract to create processes to make the CNS feel nauseous. Why? It’s thinking too much… it’s sending the PNS all into a tizzy because it’s anticipating things that may indeed not happen, or even exist at all. This is normal, like feeling like you’re going to throw up before going on stage for the first time, or stuttering when you’re introduced to that person you’ve had a crush on for months. Your CNS screws up the normal efficiency of your PNS by over-thinking and over-guessing what is needed or routine in certain situations. Without visiting the nitty gritty real world that the PNS deals with daily, at least once in a while, naive, paranoia and fantasy-based decision making processes set in and the whole thing becomes poisoned. Your CNS cannot afford to live in an ivory tower away from your PNS. In these situations, the strange thing is that it would almost be better for the PNS to just take matters into it’s own hand. Your PNS would do best to handle going on stage for the first time, or meeting that crush by itself, without the CNS’ help (in this state). But that’s impossible because without your CNS, you would just be a PNS (a jelly blob) – and wouldn’t that be sad? Plus, even beyond that… the fact remains that, no matter how screwed up a CNS becomes, it will never allow the PNS to usurp power from it, ever. And if the PNS really wants to infiltrate the CNS and start a war against it and overtake it, victory for the PNS would mean death, because death for one would be death for both. So… for your PNS to be sent into over-drive by your CNS in tense situations is normal, it keeps your body on it’s toes and, in an ironic twist, shows the CNS by example it’s own fallibility. This develops character which is good for your ego (which is kind of like an invisible God that secretly controls the CNS), which it knocks down a peg, in order to keep it from running amok and making all kinds of stupid decisions based on fantasy logic. See how it all connects?

This ego balance thing can also swing too far in the other direction: when the ego that controls the CNS is taken down and disrespected too much, and at a very low point (for whatever reason, usually from factors coming from outside the body as a whole), it can send even weirder directions to the PNS (as listed above, inappropriate sweating, nausea) so as to give something for it to react to and control, something that it knows it can handle. It can create these little (or big) internal “dilemmas� in the office so as to come down and throw it’s weight around and feel more in command, so it feels like it has a handle on something. It works, but is very unhealthy for the corporation as a whole because, much like the ivory tower-syndrome, the CNS begins to live in an entirely internalized world, and the PNS crumbles under it’s direction.

Dysfunctional company overrun too long by a lack of checks and balances that result in gonzo politics that cause ridiculous reactions and decisions to be made upstairs? The same thing is happening in a human body that suffers from anxiety or mental disorders, or even physical disease in some cases. With the CNS given too much free reign and the PNS with very little to do, or too much… things spark up and go haywire.

How well does upper management know the problems and conflicts facing the lower working levels? How in tune is the CNS with the PNS workers? Maybe your brain should spend a shift or two sloshing around next to your liver to see how things are really operating, rather than getting all it’s information in memo form from that bootlicking spinal cord (oooh how I hate him!).

I would continue, but the door to the closet I’m hiding in just opened and I have to stop writing. They’re here. The rooting-out firm that the top brass from CNS hired to find me, has done just that. They’re wearing white uniforms and have on cloth face masks, and have metal instruments. All my coworkers don’t even seem to notice at all what’s going on… like me getting kicked out of the company is all part of the process. All I wanted to do was set up my own little branch on one of the floors here, to get some stuff that I was in charge of taken to – you know, another level. Expand things a bit. Is that so wrong? I know it would have upset things, and interrupted the “flowâ€? somewhat, but I was using materials and resources from within the company. Alright, you know, whatever… from my perspective it was very much the right thing to do. I had my own ideas I guess.

OK, they’re hauling me out to the ground floor now, they’re handling me swiftly, I’m practically being dragged. They’re telling me that I’m never allowed back into the building, ever.

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Over at WorldNetDaily.com, Jim Rutz has blown the whistle on America’s hidden enemy; the dratted soy bean, and how it is rotting our country’s values at the root by turning the world’s male population into wimpy, Hell-bound homosexuals. In his essay A Devil Food is Turning Our Kids Into Homosexuals, Jim writes:

“Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because ‘I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.’ No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.”

He also adds that soy sauce is OK.

(NOTE: check out the comments section about this article at Pandagon.net)

(thanks to Hatch for the tip)

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It was apparently a sunny day when Sodom first met Gomorrah. Here’s actual footage of Ozzy Osbourne and “his new band Black Sabbath” playing atop the back of a heavily decorated flatbed truck at a 1970 San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, courtesy of Warner Brothers. The unfortunately sound-less footage was shot on super-8 by gay historians Henri Leleu and Paul Bentley (aka Luscious Lorei). There’s a bit of a mix up as to what festival this actually is (and exactly when?) The YouTube link notes this as the famed outdoor leather-romp Folsom Street Fair, even though that particular festival didn’t begin until the 80’s. There is an “official” listing of the first gay pride street parade ever in SF, which was in 1970 and called a “Gay-In,” which this may be. The first real pride parade in SF was in 1972 (also, I’m no super-Sabbath expert, but where does this fall in the chronology of the band?) Nevertheless, the camera doesn’t lie… Ozzy and proud pals are shown in all their record company-sponsored glory, playing amongst mustached spandex dancers and outer space drag queens on roller skates – fists raised high.

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A few days ago, the news about Adrienne Shelly’s death was perplexing and sobering. But today’s news, rather than being a relief – is just awful. I was a huge fan. Bye.

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I’m still amazed at the things they never taught us in history class. Did you know that in 1908, in Siberia, one of the most catastrophic and mind-blowing (and mysterious) gigantic cosmic impact catastrophes ever in the history of civilization occurred – and yet it wasn’t widely known outside Russia (save for a few astrological and research scientist enclaves) until around the 1970’s?

Even interested research parties didn’t learn about or even set foot on the scene of disaster until 1921. It wasn’t made front page news in the papers when it happened because of the extreme remoteness of that region of Siberia. Also at play was the secretive, unsettled nature of Russia at the time (which of course only heightened the many conspiracy theories surrounding it today).

Even though there is much speculation and controversy amongst the fringes about what exactly the mysterious Tunguska explosion of 1908 was, here are the presumed and most widely agreed-upon theories amongst the most level-headed experts: On June 30th, 1908, at 7:15am, in Tunguska (an extremely remote and almost zero-populated area of the central Siberian plateau) a hugefuckingmngously-gigantic meteorite (or perhaps comet) of some type exploded (at 40 megatons) six to eight kilometers above the earth’s surface (presumably after coming in contact with the atmosphere layer) and it’s subsequent impact instantly devastated 1,000 square kilometers of forest… felling trees outward in a radial pattern. The immediate fires burned for weeks …eventually destroying a total of 2,150 square kilometers of forest, all of which remained scorched and flattened for decades (the immense damage is still easily visible today).

According to recordings at meteorological stations at the time, the seismic activity measured 5.0 on the Richter scale, and according to devices worldwide, the air compression wave went twice around the entire planet (bouncing both times). The blast itself, in whatever context it might have occurred, is estimated have been 40 megatons, which is 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. Even the asteroid impact that caused the great Berringer crater in Arizona (some 50,000 years ago) is only estimated to be 3.5 megatons. The mass of the object has been guessed at about 100,000 tons (and about 60 meters in diameter), but what exactly made up this mass is unclear (most agree it was probably a loose ‘glob’ of rocks and ice).

Tungus tribesmen and Russian fur traders who happened to witness the event from a relatively close range (it was a cloudless and clear day) reported seeing a bright, flaming object coming in from the sky at and angle, and then a giant, bright blast. According to some eyewitness accounts, a giant column of flame and smoke arose in the air from the impact spot. The force of first the heat wave and then the wind blast was enough to flatten huts and knock (burning and scorching) people and livestock airborne, and then back down to the ground again. Forty miles from the blast center at a town called Vanavara, people were thrown into the air by the shock wave. According to reports there, it shattered windows and collapsed ceilings. Near the town of Kansk (375 miles from the blast center), at a stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a train screamed to a halt when the engineer feared it would be thrown from its tracks by the violent shaking as passengers were jolted from their seats by the movement. The sound was deafening (there are reports of some people close by actually becoming deaf from the event). A series of thunderclaps could be heard even 500 miles away. And, although there were some serious injuries, to date there have been no records of human deaths from the event.

A “black rain� showered the immediate area afterwards (the substance was probably condensation mixed with dirt and debris sucked into the swirling vortex of the explosion and then spat out again). The event caused all kinds of climate changes around the planet. Dust in the air at heights of from 40 to 70 kilometers caused high altitude noctiluscent, or “night-shining,� clouds that illuminated much of the visible sky, mostly in Eastern Siberia and Middle Asia. Even in London at the time are newspaper account records of a night sky so luminous that “…one could read by it.� Decreased visibility was reported worldwide, and in daytime of the most polluted atmosphere cased visible rings around the sun’s glare. Also, obviously… brilliant sunsets were reported worldwide for weeks.

The site of the impact has been escavated numerous times (Russian scientist Leonid Kulik was the first to brave the area in 1921), but no evidence of a huge meteorite has been found, although fragments of meteorite-like elements have been found in the area. More importantly… no impact crater of any type has been located. The trees in what is believed to be the impact site’s exact center were stripped of their branches, but were oddly left standing amongst the miles of charred and flattened ones surrounding out from them (exactly like the effect of the bomb dropped at Hiroshima – which was also an airborne explosion). In the 1960s, a research troupe identified four smaller epicenters within the larger one. Each of the smaller epicenters has its own radial tree-fall pattern, and each presumably was caused by individual explosions during the chain of bursts. Most agree that all this adds up to a meteorite that was made up of loosely conjoined materials (ice, rocks, etc.) that exploded upon reaching the earth’s atmosphere and obliterated into a zillion untraceable pieces… the force of this impact causing the immense destruction.

The size and magnitude of the blast’s destruction, and it’s location and timing, are frightening to ponder. If it was a meteorite, it is the only event in the history of civilization when Earth has collided with a truly large celestial object (although what occurred before recorded civilization, and are likely to in the far future, are up for grabs). If the object had waited a mere few hours, the rotation of the Earth would have placed it’s impact somewhere in Europe. Boom… half a million people wiped out in seconds, who would not have been able to see it coming at all. The historical ramifications of such an epic catastrophe (not to mention the theological ones) are incalculable.

Of course… this all is a UFO, and time-travel-government-weapon-conspiracy-theorist’s wet dream (an entire string of episodes of The X-Files was based in Tunguska). Although most “solid head on their shoulders-types� boringly agree on the loose meteorite theory.

The most notable theories throughout the ages have been the following:

1. The loose comet/asteroid theory. The most obvious and logical cause (discussed above).

2. Anti-matter: “Anti-matter� is like stuff from Superman’s “Bizarroworld,� where everything is opposite. It classifies as material with a reversed charge at the sub-atomic level. It is theorized to exist in very small quantities floating around in our universe, and has actually been created by scientists in laboratories. However, when anti-matter meets up with real matter; KA-BLOWIE! The theory here is that some wayward, drifting anti-matter came in contact with Earth and exploded when touching our thick, lower atmosphere. An explosion of this type would behave very similarly to one created by an atomic bomb. This idea was ruled out in the mid-60’s as an anti-matter explosion of this classification would have lead to a significant rise in the amount of radioactive carbon-14 in the air. Researchers studying carbon rings on trees at the site did find a rise in the level of carbon-14 at the time… but no where near enough to signify an explosion of this category.

3. Mini Black Hole: some cosmologists theorize that “mini black holes� were created at the birth of our universe, and are just floating along aimlessly like little whirlpool ripples… not big enough to swallow whole galaxies, but powerful enough to wreck havoc with anything they come in contact with. Apparently some feel the Tunguska explosion could have been cause by one of these mini black holes passing through our planet like a ghost (imagine a giant botox needle penetrating David Gest’s whole head), the entry point obviously being at Tunguska. This of course would mean that the black hole would have to come out the other side (which would be somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean assuming it went straight through the middle) where it would have produced a very similar explosion. Do botox needles go all the way through and come out of the other side of David Gest’s head too? Anyway… this theory has been debunked by everyone as being hopelessly naive for a lot of scientific jargon-y rules, plus there are no records of any explosion anywhere else in those areas of the planet at the time (and yes they were on and measuring stuff… even back then). Do scientists use instruments to measure seismic activity on David Gest’s head when he’s getting botox injections? Imagine the seismograph.

4. Blaming Nikola Tesla: Some theorize that everyone’s beloved nutty professor, Nikola Tesla, was testing out some sort of weird, fantasmigorical communication device, or super-scary “energy weapon� or “death ray� and made a big “…oops!� Tesla was known to be working on a sort of wireless torpedo, called an “telautomaton,� which was a remote controlled boat he offered to the U.S. Navy for the purpose of carrying explosives to naval targets. An airborne version of the telautomaton device was under development as well. Some also believe that if there was a Tesla connection, and it was a weapon test… that he may have been pressured into it and then kept quiet. This is of course just heaping extra drama onto a theory already wrought with ridiculousness. Even though the 1908 time frame does match up for Tesla working on such devices, for him to be testing out such inventions in such an apocalyptic manner is quite a stretch, not to mention he was nowhere near the area at the time. Even funnier: the theory that Tesla inadvertently caused the massive explosion when he was trying to get the attention of an explorer friend in the area. Tesla was always fascinated with the concept of wireless propagation, and he was known to work on “projected wave energy� processes that could create microscopic, invisible particles of concentrated energy that could be beamed great distances… often resulting in electric fireballs, spherical plasmoids, or ball lightning. Why not use it to get someone’s attention who’s not near a telegram service? Of course this falls into the “secret weapons test� category as well. The theory that he was using it to try and get the attention of a friend halfway around the world is hilarious, but adsurd: *K-A-B-O-O-O-M!!!* —“Albert… this is Nikola, please call me.� Here is a link to some New York Times articles where Nikola speaks of such devices, which date from 1907, 1908 and 1915.

5. A UFO inadvertently crashing into the Earth, and it’s nuclear-powered engine exploding into smithereens. This is the most obvious “wild� theory about the Tunguska explosion. The idea of highly intelligent extraterrestrials coming to Earth (even crashing on it) long before the technological revolution (or even the idea of UFOs and aliens) was widespread has always been a kind of comforting thought. Kind of like the theory that space aliens helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids for the good of the human race, it’s weirdly reassuring to ponder such giving, super-intelligent beings from another galaxy. Makes you want to forgive them for crashing into your front lawn. Some have even claimed that the remote location of the explosion was obviously an act of “humanitarian kindness� on the part of the aliens, who realized they were going to crash and quickly guided their careening craft into an area where there were almost no civilians. So the equation is: the explosion happened in a remarkably remote area + all aliens are good and watching out for us humans, and would obviously steer their doomed craft in this direction out of that good faith = the Tunguska explosion MUST have been a crashed alien spacecraft! No doubt. Here is a funny, imagined dialogue between two benevolent aliens just before crashing into Tunguska. There has been some recent activity in this thought realm.

Thinking of visiting the spot? Today, the Tunguska region remains a not-too hospitable, desolate area of mosquito-infested bogs and swamps (nestled between sort-of beautiful hills). To reach the center of the site, you are dropped off by helicopter or you have to hike in. (note: The X-Files episodes that were set in the Tunguska region were actually filmed in Canada).

There have been a series of weird, ongoing biological consequences in the Tunguska region, presumably from the 1908 explosion. Following the blast there was accelerated growth of biomass in the region of the epicenter, and this accelerated growth has continued today. There also was an increase in the rate of biological mutations, not only within the center… but along the trajectory. Creepy abnormalities in the “Rh blood factor� of local Evenk groups (a native people to the area for centuries) have been found, genetic variations in certain local ant species are now being looked at, and genetic abnormalities in the seeds and needle clusters of at least one species of pine have been discovered there.

To learn even more, type “Tunguska explosion 1908” into Google…like this.

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Tolerance.org gets all neighborly, with an all-inclusive, interactive United States map o’ malevolence, which lists all organized hate groups in your state, categorized by their particular detestation or group-think. Need directions? Oh just drive past the second burning cross, turn right at the skinhead riot and keep going past the burning abortion clinic until you reach the guys standing around in white hoods with rifles (keep your windows rolled up)! Who needs Mapquest? Oh… and aren’t those little icons just adorable?

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Drywall is a man-made building material used in the construction of the interior walls of homes and buildings. Also sometimes called “gypsum board,� “plasterboard� or “sheetrock,� the material is made from forming a mixture of gypsum plaster mixed with fiber (usually shredded paper and/or fiberglass), a foaming agent and mildew and fire-resitant additives with water. The mix is sandwiched between two sheets of tough paper mat or fiberglass, and when dried becomes stiff enough to use as a building material. The use of this material is the world-wide status quo. North America is the largest user, with a total wallboard capacity of 40 billion square feet per year. And in developing countries, it’s demand as a construction medium is rapidly accelerating.

But at the beginning of the 20th century, the insides of homes and buildings were obviously not made of drywall. Interior walls were routinely plastered – at the time a ritualistic, laboriously tedious (and expensive) process. To plaster the interior of a structure, elaborate wooden lathes had to be installed along every wall and ceiling surface. These lathes acted as a kind of casting mold. Three separate layers of plaster (a ’scratch coat,’ ‘brown coat’ and ’skim coat’) were thickly packed into them at separate times, with the drying time between each layer being anywhere from four days to over a week. Each layer had to be completely dry before the next could be started. When done correctly the effect was beautiful, but the process was a brunt. Wall plastering prevented any work from being done in the home while the drying took place – halting overall progress for a month or more. Also, if mistakes were made (which wouldn’t be apparent until the whole thing was completed) it all had to be started again from scratch.

At one point in 1916, the Chicago-based United States Gypsum Company had quietly introduced a new building material called “pyrobar,� a gypsum-based, fireproof material sectioned into tiles. This eventually transformed into larger, multilayered paper and plaster sheets called “sackett board� (a result of them purchasing the Sackett Plaster Board Company in 1909, who had technically invented the layering process). Eventually U.S.G.C. changed the board into just one layer of gypsum sandwiched between two sheets of tough paper. Thinking of the product’s image, the company decided to name the product “sheetrock.� U.S.G.C. tried unsuccessfully for two decades to introduce sheetrock to a wide market, even convincing the creators of the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair to use it in the construction of its universally-gawked buildings. But in the 1920’s and (remarkably) the 1930’s, the wide-spread use of sheetrock for home building was held back by it’s reputation as an anti-status symbol; nobody wanted to live in homes surrounded by a “cheap,� quick-fix walls.

When World War II hit, the government’s need for an inexpensive and streamlined building process became a priority. Suddenly “cheap� and quick-fix became the ultimate status symbol; patriotic. Homes began to go up in one-hundredth of the time. A large sheet of drywall could be nailed up to the inside of a home’s frame, tape could cover the nail holes, and a layer of plaster (or just paint) could be quickly trowelled on to hide the process. What took an eternity before suddenly took several hours. Whereas a contractor beforehand could construct maybe four or five homes a year using the old paster method, the use of drywall meant that he could now make hundreds, maybe even thousands

The popularity of drywall had originated as a temporary stop-gap when a quick, efficient substitute was needed amongst America’s focused priotities in wartime. However, when the war ended, business-minded home builders were in no rush whatsoever to return to the old, time-devouring plastering method (which survives today as a specialized craft). Coincidentally, fate was eventually even more generous to drywall; its acceptance had arrived right at the first introduction of popular modern architecture styles, and the suburban boom. Home buyers were suddenly passing over pre-war decorative structures with exacting, fussy moldings – and enthusiastically seeking out homes with flat, minimal surfaces. Drywall was now unstoppable.

The proliferation of tract-home “sprawl� neighborhoods (which exploded in the 1950’s and continues globally today with the wide-spread popularity of “McMansions’) was immeasurably fueled by the slightly premature, but eventually triumphant introduction of this unique building material by the United States Gypsum Company in 1916.

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Photo: “Harmodius and Hoti at Castro Street Fair August, 1975″ by Dan Nicoletta.

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I spend a lot of time out on my 5th floor fire escape, taking in all the surroundings and looking at all the people in my neighborhood. It’s a way for me to relax. My fire escape is the equivalent to a front porch for most people. If I had a rocker I would sit on it and rock back and forth, waving at everyone as they passed by five stories below.

My years of hanging out there on sunny, good-weather days has earned me many friends and acquaintances on my block. But there is one acquaintance in particular that has always left me with a sense of unease…

Beatrice. Beatrice the white toy poodle. I often see Beatrice being walked proudly in the neighborhood by her septuagenarian female caretaker. Everyone loves Beatrice. All the kids run to pet Beatrice the poodle as the woman parades her around on a pink leash. She’s become the block mascot. Beatrice has typical poodle hair that is bright white, and is fluffed, sculpted and cut into one of those pouffy “toy poodle� cuts that look so good in photographs and dog shows. Except in Beatrice’s case… her human caretaker, her “master,� is an elderly woman with semi-poor eyesight… so Beatrice’s sculpted fur is slightly off balance, off kilter. She also has years of accumulated dirt staining the white fur around her feet, mouth and behind. This is actually an interesting contrast to the pink toenail polish that Beatrice’s master slathers onto her toenails… which are too long and “click� on tile pavement when Beatrice walks on them. Beatrice, who is probably about eight years old herself, looks loved and cared for but slightly unkempt.

This combination only makes Beatrice more loved in the neighborhood; makes her less than perfect and more human, as it were. There is slight pity in the admiration projected on Beatrice, and this is a favorable thing for the dog. In a few years this lovey-dovey commiseration will be heightened when glaucoma will set into one of Beatrice’s eyes, a sign of her age in dog years. But old age, lopsided fur, soil stains and sloppily-painted clicking pink toenails are cursory fractions to Beatrice. Horrible, horrible, horrible Beatrice. Why, you ask?

I know Beatrice better than most. I see the way she looks up at me on my fire escape from way down on the sidewalk, and I’ve learned things about her over years of observation. Beatrice is a flesh entity of pure evil. Her body is just a living cell and molecule “drag� for a astronomical force so benevolent that it pre-dates the human mind. This force has been ruling the dark half of the universe’s ying and yang for an eternity. When our world is snuffed out, this entity will find another dimension to inhabit… in whatever disguise it needs (it transcends time). But right now it’s in our dimension. And this inter-dimensional force of infinite evil, this unspeakable anathema, inhabits Beatrice the wobbly, lovable poodle on my block. What’s more, Beatrice knows I posses this knowledge about her, and that means it’s just a matter of time before I pay for my knowledge.

I’m out on my fire escape right now. It’s a beautiful spring day. As usual, Beatrice has recently arrived out on the sidewalk via her caretaker, and is making the rounds. Soon, or perhaps inevitably… I see Beatrice dancing to salsa music. Yes, dancing. Beatrice’s owner leads her by her leash near a radio placed on a card table where some old men are playing dominoes. Leads her like a ciruc animal. Beatrice wiggles her butt and yaps and yips and dances for little pieces of scrap pizza cheese thrown by enthusiastic kids who have gathered to watch. It’s an amazing trick for a dog to be able to dance and keep a beat to music for scraps of cheese – but for the infinite, all-knowing inciter of foreordained chaos, death and ruin that I’ve already explained to you that Beatrice actually is – it’s nothing at all, really. Oh… look at all of them down there. They all gather around her with simpering, open mouths, clapping along and buoying her pantomime. How perfect. If they only knew. Beatrice doesn’t care about them. Dance Beatrice, dance your silly canine sock hop… you cruel destroyer.

The only human you are concerned with in this vicinity is me, because you don’t fool me. I know you. I see you dancing for them, using them as a cover. Keep dancing Beatrice, work your poodle ass to the salsa music Beatrice. All the while I’m still up here. I’m the one missing piece in your apocalyptic jigsaw puzzle. Oh… if only I would fall into place Beatrice! If only! Ah-ha… but I won’t! At least, for now…

Your pitiful, cutesy-cuddle hypnotism and oh-love-me block mascot-erade and sinister frolicking doesn’t distract me from my prescience for one second. My prescience about YOU! From your cheese yapping charade to look up, and meet my eyeballs on the fire escape. You steal a peek here… another peek there. From five floors up those black, beady, bat-like eyes can penetrate right up through me. At me. ME ME ME… the end goal of your evil plans. Every time our glances meet I look into The Abyss itself, I know what my destiny is. You terrorize me… but you complete me too, Beatrice. I must deal with you in the same way I will one day deal with my own demise. My own death. You are death Beatrice. But the death of a human being is a mere blip of a pebble in the vast ocean of evil that you are Beatrice. Oh if only those people saw what I see in those eyes! They see cute poodle eyes of Beatrice. I see two black voids as wide as the universe and as deep as the accumulated collective human consciousness of one trillion years of mankind’s regret, hate and despair. I see an impenetrable curse in your little black eyes Beatrice. And I know you’re looking back Beatrice.

I’ve always known Beatrice.

For a moment, I begin to suspect that my dark thoughts about Beatrice and her secret are summer-tinged madness. But my momentary relief is snuffed out. Suddenly… at a moment just as Beatrice’s eyes have briefly locked with mine in mid-salsa… something unbelievable happens. Time stops all around me. The clapping street people freeze… the birds in the air freeze… the trees blowing freeze… cars… children… the very air… everything around me freezes. It’s as if time has stopped… yet I can still move. I’m amazed. l look all around. Everything is still… a three-dimensional photograph. What happened? In the moment, I catch myself from leaning in mid-faint against the metal bar railing of the fire escape. The button from my shirt sleeve clicks on the metal bar. It’s tiny sound echoes in the endless quiet all around me. A vacuum of quiet. It’s like God pressed the pause button on reality, but for some reason I’ve kept going. What… who could have done this? Oh my God… no… it couldn’t have been…

I perilously look down at the circle of street people who were clapping and feeding cheese to a dancing Beatrice. They are frozen in a perfect circle, looking down… at nothing. Beatrice is gone. My eyes dart around the frozen street for her. I can’t find her.

Chimerical fear becomes real. I try to swallow but can’t. Then, amongst the immense quietness… I hear a sound… a single sound. It’s a tiny clicking sound coming from deep inside my apartment building, behind me, below… down in the stairwell. In contrast to the muteness all around me, the clickity-clicking sound is deafening. I’s coming closer… *click clickity click* …it seems to be coming up the stairs. My subconscious knew all along, but soon it hits my cognizance. It’s Beatrice! Beatrice the most evil force of dread and oblivion, Dark Mother of the Unknown, Mistress and Creator of Fear! Coming up my stairs …for me! Coming alone up my stairwell in a world where she and she alone can stop time and space itself and make me her next target. Me, her next victim, her next conduit to pour whatever unspeakable blackness she may deem necessary into… *click clickity click* closer… closer… oh God in Heaven, no! Please don’t let it be Beatrice. But I realize God is nothing compared to Beatrice. *click clickity click* …closer it comes. I want to move from my fire escape, but I can’t seem to will myself to. What is the point of will against a malevolent force like Beatrice? *click clickity click* …closer… closer… the sloppily painted toenails hop up each and every step, without hesitation. Somehow… even as a child, I always knew it would end this way. I would be wiped from the face of the universe by the most evil poodle in the world.

The clicking has now stopped. I know Beatrice is in my hallway, behind my front door. She just sits and waits. She knows I’m scared. She senses my fear, she’s known it all along. It pleases her.

I still face outward into the stillness… the bright sunshine-y but frozen and life-less world which Beatrice has caused and that, in her doing so, has claustrophized the world all around me and made the very outdoors seem as closed-in and as indoors as a locked closet… a fetid basement… the locked trunk of a car. Outside has become inside… concave has become convex… the vacuum has become it’s opposite… day has become night… or the difference between the two has become irrelevant. There is no need for balance or ying and yang in a numb world where light and dark have become the same thing. Beatrice’s stopped-time world where her and I are the only ones moving is the worst possible reality to know… but it’s home sweet home to Beatrice. These are the dimensions of her arena. Hell. Worse than Hell.

I hear a clickity click on my front doorknob. It’s Beatrice’s hand opening my door. I hear her clickity click feet walk into my apartment and shut the door behind her. I have no need to turn around and look through the living room to see if it’s her. I know, and I know she knows. She has paused… still. She is sitting up and looking across my apartment at me out on the fire escape. I can feel her. Beatrice is milking my trembling fear for every depleting drop it is worth. As a pathetic kind of consolation, I start to imagine a world or reality without pain or pleasure. If light and dark have become one in Beatrice’s frozen-time world, could pain and pleasure cancel each other out? I feel a tiny flame of hope inside my soul as I contemplate this… but it’s snuffed out instantly, and appropriately, by the very slow clickity click of Beatrice’s toenails on my kitchen floor walking slowly towards me. Beatrice could sense my thoughts of hope and has acted upon eliminating them… letting me know she’s the one allowed to do so. I hear the clickity click enter the living room… the bedroom… and stop right below me… inside the window… behind my turned back. Right behind me!

I sit, having still not moved. Or can I move at all? What’s the use… escape? Man has been trying to escape death for centuries. I would call Beatrice “death� itself, but she has removed that option for me. “Death� doesn’t exist in the parameters she has created. I can only accept Beatrice. A new kind of death. Beatrice sits quietly behind me, feeding off of my churning mind, my dread, gaining nourishment from it. I look out and see several small children frozen in mid-play on a jungle gym. I weep for them. Beatrice… how I loathe thee.

I try to clear my mind… but it’s too filled with fear to purge. but… wait! Perhaps… as I sit here in petrified stillness… if I allow myself to get frightened enough, I will actually pass out from fear, become unconscious! Then I will not have to endure the…

My grasps at hope are once again snuffed out by the tiny front paws of Beatrice. I feel her small poodle arms reach from behind me, around my ears, gently placing themselves on my eyelids. I feel her paws. I feel the rough… black, pebble-like soles under the fur on her feet… the long, cold, pink toenails… the dirty fur. She gently closes my eyelids and then slowly pulls my head back. I smell her stinking dog breath. I feel the warmth of her panting on the back of my neck. She pulls my limp body through the open window and onto the bedroom floor. She grabs my hair with her paws, and pulls. She begins to drag me across the floor by my hair. My head is turned sideways as I move. I open my eyes again and watch the bedroom wall move horizontally across my field of vision. I want to speak, say something… anything to Beatrice. Fear has turned to resignation. I want to tell her I’m sorry, sorry I failed her. I want to tell her I will do anything for her no matter how humiliating. But I have nothing in the face of Beatrice the evil poodle. A man with no hope can barter nothing… and one in total control by another cannot bargain. Why even contemplate apologizing or groveling with Beatrice? She knows all. She owns all. This makes me feel almost calm.

I hear Beatrice’s clickity-click toenails on the floor as she drags me along the floor like a bag of garbage. She drags me out of my apartment door and into the hallway. She tugs me over each step down the winding flight of stairs. *clickity* *thud* *click* *thud* I wonder if Beatrice has feelings? Emotions? Perhaps a higher plateaux of feelings and emotions that we mortals cannot even fathom? No… probably not. Those concepts don’t exist in her capacity. Feelings, emotions, pain, fear, loathing… these are sates of being experienced by other living things because of her. Beatrice is a force, and a force runs on pure instinct. She is a resolve, a reality, my new unspeakable reality. I begin to leave trails of moisture on the black tile stairs as my head bumps against each one. It is not blood… but tears. My tears. I’m sorry Beatrice… so sorry.

*click* *thud* *click* *thud*

She drags me down further and further, flight after flight. We reach the ground floor. I hear her clickity click paws as she drags me to the back of the building, past the mailboxes… to the back entrance. Beatrice works without haste or pause, but every moment feels like an eternity. I hear Beatrice open the door to the back stairs. I see the sun beam in and hit my face, but it does not feel warm or good… it’s frozen like everything in Beatrice’s numb macrocosm. She drags me past the rancid garbage cans… which look like gentle fields of blowing wildflowers to me now. My head clangs on each metal step as Beatrice drags me down the stairs that descend to the basement door. My limp, malleable body follows suit. Beatrice stops at the basement door and opens it. It squeaks and clangs, I can finally hear another sound! A sound besides Beatrice’s hideous clicking toenail feet! The door swings open with a groan… Beatrice drags me into the darkness… the blackness of the basement. She shuts the door behind me. I hear the clickity click of her toenails and see her white, puffy frame bounce around me as she does each thing. Busy as a bee… the busy little poodle… busy wiping me off the face of the world.

Beatrice grabs me by the hair again and begins dragging me through the dark hall towards the furnace. I see her flickering shadow against the brick wall as she drags me closer and closer to the hot, stinking furnace. The only thing in Beatrice’s Hell world that is not frozen.

Beatrice stops me at the feet of the furnace. I cannot move, I am without motion or will. Paralyzed. Beatrice is my master and my death at her hands is an extension of her will. Beatrice moves into my field of vision. My head is sideways against the concrete floor. I see Beatrice’s face… close-up and clearly for the first time. Her poodle puff hair, the balls of fur at the end of her ears. I see her cast in relief against the orange flickering light of the shadows from the furnace on the wall behind her. I see the tiny yellow reflections of fire refracted in each of her black beady poodle eyes. I think I see what is behind her eyes, but I do not know it. I do not want to know. I want you to teach me Beatrice. To show me the way to destroy me. A tear rolls down my face sideways and penetrates the hot concrete floor.

Beatrice knows I am ready. She takes a razor from the floor into her little white poodle paws and begins to carve into my face. She works quickly and economically… but I am the machine. The pain is sharp. She cuts and removes my eyelids – so I can watch everything. The pain is excruciating, I feel it in every molecule of my body. But I cannot react. She knows this, and I am happy to serve her. I want her to do this. I want her to correct my appearance… to make my death a sculpture in her poodle paw hands. I am wet clay in Beatrice’s paws. The searing hot pain and humiliation are like sweet caresses from Beatrice. I welcome her fate like a mat. Tears and blood gush from my eyes now, each indistinguishable from each other. Beatrice reaches down further on my face with the razor an begins making cuts. She removes my nose. She wants to disfigure and humiliate me before the end… remove my pride, so hating myself is the last thing I ever experience. She then reaches down with her stinking mouth and grabs my removed nose with her hideous, yellowed dog teeth. She chews the nose like any dog chews on a dead, discarded rat. She wants me to watch this. I feel happy to be consumed by her, to nourish her… I want her to use me to further herself. Beatrice then moves across the floor, taking a small mirror from across the flickering, orange shadow furnace basement room and props it up across from my face. I see myself… I am forced to stare through removed eyelids at the mute, hideous monster I have become. Thank you Beatrice.

I try to move my tongue to speak, to thank Beatrice. I open my mouth and my tongue slowly unfurls onto the dirty basement floor, anticipating. Without haste Beatrice automatically reaches down with a paw and slices my tongue off with the razor. She then slaps my limp, flaccid tongue on the concrete in front of me. She takes oneskinny poodle leg and steps on my tongue with it. She squashes the dead muscle, twisting her leg to pulverize it with her paw. I see her pink painted dog toenails splay out as she grinds and destroys it on the hot concrete floor. I am not allowed to speak.

I see Beatrice then quickly moving all around me in the flickering light. She is using the razor to sever all my major tendons. She works with a surgeon’s precision. She does this to prevent me from being able to move at all. I am now a puppet. Beatrice takes her paws and drags my hideous, disfigured, obedient vessel into the furnace. Thank you Beatrice. She shoves me inside the little furnace door, feet first… then stuffs the last of me inside with her little poodle paws. She faces my head outside the door of the furnace and shuts the little door. I can watch her… through my removed eyelids… through the slits in the iron door. She moves her tiny, puffy, white body across to the other side of the orange, flickering basement. She stops on the other side of the room, and for a moment I cannot see her. She is behind a table… and on the wall behind that table is the “on� switch to the furnace. She turns around and looks at me from across the room. I only see the upper half of her head now, poking up from across the top of the table… her white poodle head and the puffy white ball of hair on top. And the eyes. Just the eyes. She looks at me for a length of time, paused. Her eyes look right at me. I see the flame of the lower part of the furnace fire reflected in them but, I also see… me. I see myself reflected in her eyes, inside her. Beatrice keeps her head facing me and her eyes locked with mine, as she slowly reaches behind her and places her paw on the switch to activate the fire in the main part of the furnace I am in. I gaze into her eyes. I hear her pink toenails click against the knob of the metal switch as she places her paw on it.

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The gargantuan CampBlood.org is a website devoted to everything homosexual in horror movies. This absorbing lodestar excavates more write-ups, features, gags, interviews, contests and galleries concerning its niche perspective on the genre than you could ever possibly fathom, and avoids “gay representation” political poses. They just love everything about horror movies. Check out their bafflingly infinite (gay-slanted) review database. Eek! Oh and when you load the site, turn down your speakers unless you think the theme to The Eyes of Laura Mars is just the greatest thing in the world ever, even ironically.

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People were aghast in 1989 when The Andy Warhol Diaries was published without an index (Spy solved the horrible problem by quickly publishing one in their magazine). Now, similarly antsy fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 can finally exhale as well. An already very impressive annotation project of the television series is underway; The Annotated MST. Of course there was always The Distributed MST3K Annotation Project, begun a few years ago. Entire episodes of MST3K are viewable at The Digital Archive Project (many are on DVD too).

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Viva, Patty and Ann sing their top hit bottom miss “Why Do You Think You Are Nuts?” on an unidentified cable show. Is this the best hopefully forgotten 80’s cable access nightmare, cruelly recusitated through the web, since Lucille Cataldo performed “Hairdresser, Hairdresser” on Stairway To Stardom? Of course, this other YouTube re-discovery clip, The Horror of Bodyflex, is also notable. Do you think exercise is nuts? It can be.
– thanks to Lady Bunny, and Andy at WFMU’s blog blather box

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Take a gasp-inducing look at Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury’s unknown last image: in a wheelchair, close to death from AIDS due to drug use. Hey… if you don’t like it, move to Russia! Illegal drug use in Russia really took off after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991; particularly injectable drugs like heroin and, amongst children and teens, the use of chemical inhalants. The numbers of cases appear to be tapering off somewhat in these last few years, perhaps partially due to a touring anti-drug wax figure exhibition traveling the country since 2002. Called “On The Brink,” (click for gallery) the odd series of grisly/surreal dioramas was created by the country’s Federal Drug Control Service, and has had a steady schedule at schools and town halls. As with most anti-drug propaganda, the point is to show by example the horrid consequences. Typical frozen scenarios focus on a drug user’s last moments; cold, alone, unhappy and looking too old for what age they are supposed to be. Besides the mise-en-scènes, visitors are shown a dozen jars of formalin containing damaged internal organs of drug addicts, and a the preserved fetus of a deformed baby born to a drug-using mother. The organizers even provide liquid ammonia, to resuscitate anyone who faints from revulsion at the sight of disfigured wax faces jones-ing for ‘ludes. Georgii, a 20 year-old man recently told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news after leaving the exhibit; “I am in a kind of trance, especially after the video we had to watch. I can’t find words, I can’t think straight. This hasn’t happened to me for a long time, I just can’t find the words.”

– (thanks to Jim for the tip)

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I have the vaguest memories of seeing The Unknown Comic on TV as a child; subconscious recollections of a comedian in a leisure suit, with an upside-down brown paper bag over his head, pacing back and forth across an orange and beige 1970’s prime time TV variety show stage… twitching out jokes with exaggerated body language while canned audience laughter came out in waves all around him. He was like The Comedian of Sleepy Hollow. How could a kid forget something like that? It was scary and surreal for a child, not funny. The jittery paper head, the way he was always using his hands and legs too much (which he was forced to do since he couldn’t use facial expressions), those creepy mouth and eye holes where you caught vague glimpses of eyelids and lashes (like a terrorist mask)… him holding a microphone up to where there wasn’t a mouth but sound seemed to come out. He jumped around the stage like Magilla Gorilla – but with a Ku Klux Klan hood. Or maybe he was like the Elephant Man on laughing gas. Trust me, at that age most adult stand-up comedy goes straight over your head. But dress like a cackling Batman villain – these are the kinds of things that grab a child’s attention. I’m pretty sure I caught other subconscious-penetrating glimpses of him on The Gong Show (or was it on The $1.98 Beauty Show?) At the time, I probably thought it was just another comedian with a grocery bag on his head. I guess as a tyke, I thought the whole thing was a trend in stand-up. Maybe everybody did it. Like smashing watermelons with sledgehammers or singing along to a Mighty Mouse record.

I also remember seeing a “centerfold” of him in the poster rack in the beaded curtain-separated back black light room at Spencer’s Gifts, circa 1979 (remember that place? …now I’m really showing my age). In the poster he was nude save for the bag over his head, and one over his genitalia. No doubts as to why that image stuck in my head. But was it all the same guy? Was The Unknown Comic a real comedian in the 1970’s or was he just the giggling, headless brunt of a childhood dream?

His real name is Murray Langston, and he’s famous to the point where today almost anyone in their thirties and older instantly remembers him. The story of how he stumbled upon his act is a typical show-biz success template. Before the bag, Langston had success as a regular stand-up comic for many years, appearing as a beloved regular on Laugh In, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Bobby Vinton Show and other big-time slots of the era. At one point in his career he invested in a comedy nightclub, which tanked and took all his savings with it. Soon after, he was offered an appearance on The Gong Show as Murray Langston. Needing the money, but embarrassed to be seen on “that” show, he decided to appear with a bag over his head and work the “anonymous comedian” shtick into the routine. It became a surprise smash of sorts. People instantly loved (and instantly remembered and talked about) it, quickly turning him into a household name as The Unknown Comic. He made over 100 appearances on The Gong Show during the height of it’s notorious popularity. He became parodied, and his name turned up in other comedian’s jokes and in TV news comentators’ between-segment banter. During the kooky t-shirt slogan craze of the 70’s; “I’m The Unknown Comic” became a popular seller. This second career became phenomenally more successful than he had been as Langston – vaulting him into the larger arena of Hollywood, even if only for several years.

The Unknown Comic became popular perhaps because people looked at him and said “I could do that!” Imagine being able to sidestep your opening night jitters and embrace your footlight dreams, only because you’ve finally figured out a way to avoid altogether the quivering-lip/jittering-eye combo that are the NERVOUS WRECKAGE signs of performing solo in front of an expectant audience. I’ll bet Debbie Reynolds’ character in Singin’ In the Rain was secretly happier before she could no longer hide behind the curtain as Lina Lamont’s fake voice. Being on stage without being on stage is it’s own blissful, fantastic comfort zone. The Unknown Comic was the man behind the curtain in his own gimmick-y head.

Here is a brief YouTube clip of him on The Gong Show (I can’t believe there aren’t more). Here’s the short version of his whole story at his Wikipedia entry. Here’s a recent interview with him at RetroCrush. Here’s a photo of him during an apperance on Sha-Na-Na. Here’s Murray Langston’s imdb.com entry.

At some momentous point, perhaps on one of the last Gong Show appearances, the grocery bag came off (KISS would wait another ten years to take off their make-up for cameras). Later in his career, he produced a big Las Vegas comedy show, as well as The Unknown Comedy Hour for the Playboy Channel, and writing screenplays for people like Linda Blair, Yakof Smirnoff and Ruth Buzzi (Night Patrol, Up Your Alley). After dropping out of show biz for a while to raise his daughter, he recently resurfaced in the films Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Levity, and is working on other projects, as well as a book.

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Wikipedia has a mindblowing-ly comprehensive account of the history of every unused, unreleased, almost-ed Madonna song ever. Literally hundreds of titles are listed and described – traced year by year, producer by producer, session by session, album by album. The exhaustive write-up even hunts down songs that were discussed in remembered conversations with producers and engineers who worked with her – then divides those rumors into works that can be attributed to traceable fact (an anthem titled Working My Fingers To the Bone, or an early New Wave-er called Fuck You Right Back) and those that were just hopeful rumors (a heartfelt ballad called Call Me Mr. Telephone …or how about a techno cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train?) United States Copyright Office records are even plundered; “Take A Holiday, US Copyright registration PAu-505-502 for original 1983 demo of Holiday written by Lisa Stevens and Curtis Hudson formerly of the disco group Pure Energy. Publishing rights given to House Of Fun Music in 1986 on registration PAu-905-744.â€?

Session tapes that were “stolenâ€? or that have fallen into the hands of obsessed fans over time are described in detail. Even 5-second snippets of Madonna just talking into a microphone, perhaps discovered on dusty tapes unearthed from dumpsters behind a recording studio – are analyzed and traced to a source, perhaps finally debunked as a “fakeâ€? (who would go to the trouble?) Some of these little crumbs are even collected on bootleg CDs(!) On a cassette obtained from the Erotica sessions, the writer describes:

Jitterbug: (song fragment, about 30-45 seconds) Included on the same Erotica demo sessions cassette tape submitted buy Shep Pettibone to the U.S. Copyright Office as his other “Rain’� album songs. It was mostly taped over, but showed up between two of the other tracks. It is listed on the handwritten tape label, but it has no copyright registration of its own. The title was originally spelled with a “G�, but was written over darker with a “J� in blue ink. It features typical generic Shep Pettibone dance music with Madonna finishing up with “Jitterbug, Jitterbug�. She stops singing but the music continues. She says into the microphone “Ya, that one has some good ideas to it�. The music still continues, and she says “How long is this one going to go on�? The music still continues and she finally demands “Isn’t anyone going to turn this damn thing off�? It abruptly ends.

Stupefying list is probably destined for a box set release in the year 3000. Actually, a large number of these recordings are already hear-able, shared by fans on the web and on bootleg collections. Oh, by the way, check out this cover photo that almost-was for her first album (eek!), switched at the last minute for the black & white photo one, and the title Madonna instead of “Lucky Star.� I have to admit this was a pretty fascinating read for me. What does that say about my soul (see title of this post)?

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