“Fuck man, I don’t. I wanna move to Pennsylvania.”
MAKERS OF THE MUSIC AND THE DREAMERS OF THE DREAMS
Wake up covered in cat hair on a pillow pyramid arising from the kitchen tiling. I can’t believe I
actually made it to 5am. The boys kept feeding me booze at The Patriot; I was nodding off,
having fragmented conversations…
It had been a Heavy Metal Illuminati parade – tour managers, label heads, PR guys,
photographers, journalists. Even Joe Cortese was there, owner of the progressive metal/industrial
label Vendlus Records. In the past year they’ve released material from Havok Unit, And Oceans,
Agalloch, Zweizz, Sin Decay, and a half-dozen other cult acts. In town from Washington DC, I
watched him smoke more Cloves in one evening then the entire crowd of a triple-live gonzo Cure
performance…
The PATH train back to Jersey mirrors the magical, mystical boat ride. Swaying back and forth to
the rhythm, hung-over yet blessed with salvation. Even though the human traffic was exploding
in NYC, everything moved calmly.
I look back on this week, and the only real moral of the story is that New York is
anything you want it to be. There is so much occurring at every given second with the supreme
homogenization of all cultures combined that you can live a thousand different lives while
reprimanded in one body. It is the ultimate playground of the human chameleon. Dave said that if
you’re unsure whether you love or hate NYC that only indicates you’re head over heels for The
Big Rotten Apple. I’d fancy to court this princess one day, but for the time being, I think I’ll root
my pastures somewhere less hectic...
As for Jeff and Eddie, there was no grand finale. There was no monolithic interview, no big-bang
to our course of destiny. I fell asleep at 7pm and when I woke up everyone was gone. Eddie was
packing his bags about to catch a taxi to the airport. He left me with one brilliant story though,
something that totally changed my perspective on a fellow Detroiter.
“You remember that lame Von Bondies band that got signed to a major and then bombed
out hard? Well that singer, that tight-pants fuck with the emo hair, you know that Jack White
jacked him in the face at The Magic Stick right? He gave that Von Bondies fucker a black eye,
and the sissy sued him for like a hundred grand.”
“Well, here’s the reason – they were both backstage, and Jack was avoiding him ‘cause
he could never stand the guy. They had that rivalry forever, you know? Anyway, the Von Bondies
guy was in the backroom where everyone parties, and Jack overheard him talking shit on Judas
Priest. Everyone thinks it was about money, or about jealousy, or some scenesters, rock star
bullshit. It was about Rob Halford dude. He fucking socked him for K.K. Downing…”
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PART IX: PURGATORY
(CRUSH & BURN & RISE AGAIN)
JUNE 9TH-AUGUST 8TH 2007
THE NEW PETER VENCMAN
The absolute worst feeling in my life is when I wake at night in a sharp surge of displacement –
when I am a stranger to everything and to myself, lost and fragmented, devoid of time and the
physical awareness of my own body – and all that is the absurd life that I have created and that
has forged me, with all its passions and deficiencies, remains wholly asleep…
For two minutes I am someone else, something else, like a soul hinging partially from the
body and observing its surroundings in mute panic that isn’t panic but is the defining of a
characteristic unexplainable. All the circuits flare, and all that was and is floods back in sub-
atomic reaction. The memories, humiliating and mad, return like demons with razor sharp talons.
I am then a lost child, searching for parents who’ve long abandoned me if they ever did indeed
exist, and a cold wave of terror eclipses like a black nova of ice. And all I feel is fear…
This is what stirred me to this pen, to this paper, to this cold bottle of Brand X tropical
punch. 6:30am at the Villa Winona, everything as it never was, a new beginning which has
eluded me, alone in these thoughts which bind and cripple…
So I purge. Let this ink be my release. Far better than the electric typewriter ‘cause its
vibrations send every cockroach running towards the shifting ribbon. They are everywhere, as is
the curse with San Diego, and no one has money to fumigate. The Wendy’s dollar menu is far
more important then household hygiene, because everyone is starving. The homegrown remedy is
to leave five cups half-filled with Kool-Aid on the kitchen floor. Usually obliterates a dozen
roaches overnight. Expect nothing else when you live in a quasi-squat with a bunch of street
people.
It’s the strangest thing. When the authorities aren’t at the helm, the crazies corral
themselves together. No one has jobs, all but Brandon are on social security because they are
criminally insane. Together we form the nucleus of a commune in which all give their personal
share to the collective. Don’t think I’m poking fun. I am, of course, one of them, and a vital
component of the operation…
One neglected subject thus far is “Ryan The Ghostbuster.” This guy was discovered by Mr.
Skinner laying face down in a field with purple hair and a black trench-coat that read
“EXORCIST” in white painted letters. Ryan is a 59 year old man that never halts perpetual
motion. We are unsure if he even sleeps or if it’s an otherworldly form of meditation. He might
be a closet tweaker, but we’ve never caught him in the act. Onyx has a theory that the ghosts
Ryan sees are actually demons of his past constituted as his fears. Therefore he registers his
thoughts as evil electrical impulses and tries and contain them.
Before losing his mind Ryan was a master electrician. Years ago he was contracted by the
government to complete work on a nearby military instillation. His psychosis bridged over that
very day and he started rewiring everything in the base so it would electrically re-route and
destroy all its ghosts in his self-styled processing grid. For this deemed act of Cold War
espionage Ryan was facing life in prison, but was instead deemed criminally insane and
institutionalized for a long stretch.
Thereafter he lived on the streets of San Diego for 15 years, becoming strong as an ox by
dragging around a cart with a full entertainment center (TV, Panoramic Stereo & DVD). He’d
power it by rewiring the sides of buildings and have outdoor bashes with all the bums in the
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neighborhood. He was also arrested and institutionalized for rewiring the electrical grid to 6 city
blocks. He is like MacGyver with that little toolbox.
Ryan’s birth-date is sometime in December 1947. He is 5 foot 7, the caricature of a
worked-to-the-bone Yugoslavian mine worker from a National Geographic photo session
following the post-Tito crash. He moved into The Villa Winona shortly after my first visit in
2006. Since then, Ryan has completely rewired our flophouse.
Everywhere there are chicken wire mesh grades, broken glass, sheets of metal, fans and
mirrors strategically placed to deflect and trap ghosts -- all of which runs through an opening in
the electrical current that reroutes demons into a loop. This loop filters all currents together into
the slice-and-dice blade of a master fan which is electrical taped together. It looks like a cross
between Egon Spengler’s backpack and a stage prop from Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
Ryan sits in front of it as the air blows the shredded up ghosts inside of him, and his
exorcist powers grind up the ghouls and send them right back to hell. Technically he is an “in-
house Exorcist,” and claims he had to become one because he was sick of “shiesty priests
hogging all their abilities for themselves.”
He also waters the house, sprays disinfectant over the walls and couch, leaving a thick,
lingering Pine Sol smell which makes us hallucinatingly dizzy. It’s so strong it drifts into the
alleyway and has made cops show up thinking we were running a meth lab. Ryan’s room glows
from yellow construction lights and its walls are covered in aluminum foil. He sleeps on the grass
outside face down or stretched out in an enclosed cot that’s covered in chicken wire and
electrified by a car battery.
He spends nearly all his monthly Social Security check on horror and sci-fi DVD’s, and
our days are spent in film marathons. He buys brand new TV’s and Playstations and immediately
drills holes in them, gladly installing ghost grids. He also lived in the attic for a week last
scorching summer, combating the Aztec demigods and mummies he knows are hiding up there,
and we are all terrified to actually pop our heads in the crawlspace to view his grand design.
Whenever Ryan gets too out of hand, Onyx just chases him around with a spray bottle, squirting
blasts of water. Other then that he’s gentle as a lamb, ‘though poised for atonement…
So just imagine going on the road for 6 months, showing back up phenomenally primed for a
non-stop blur of manic writing, but not only does your computer keep dying every 20 minutes
because of some flawed Windows a methed-out hacker created and can’t fix for 3 weeks, you
have to deal with this guy in a bike helmet covered in aluminum foil walking around spraying
chemicals and babbling crap like: ‘What are we sharks? We don’t fuck with two dicks.’ Kerouac
never dealt with this shit. He just took speed and pissed in mason jars at his aunt’s house…
THE GOLDEN SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON ONYX
“Tell me about your bondage theory.”
ONYX: “Well I just have this theory when women are brought up by controlling mothers
they have a hard time having sex without feeling ‘I’m a dirty little girl, mother wouldn’t
approve.’ So they search for somebody to take the choice away from them. They have to have it
where they get hurt otherwise they’re unable to come to grips with the fact that ‘I have no control
over this.’ They have to reach that point where ‘this isn’t me anymore, this man has control over
me. This wonderful orgasm is being pushed upon me. I have no guilt here.’”
“What’s your favorite psychological game as a power master? Or are you like an artist
with a palate of colors and you can’t choose which shade is the best?”
“That question is hard to answer because I have my favorite positions and my favorite
torture devices. My favorite looks, like the look of complete helplessness. Everyone looks down
on that, but I have a feeling my grandmother put that there in a kind of off-handed way cause she
always used to watch the news and you’d see this pretty woman who got slain, being tortured or
whatever. She’d be like “ah, that poor girl.’”
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“Do you feel dirty about that or do you revel in it?”
“I’d say more dirty. It’s been a real conflict for me because it’s something I truthfully
love, I mean LOVE. I had a real hard time with girlfriends doing it. I could tie 'em down, play
with them but there was always that after we’re done load on my head. Am I doing the wrong
thing? But when I charged for it… Well, they really want this. Just flip through the money, its all
there.”
“What’s the most you made in one session?”
“I made $7,000 once. She was whack… I justify it to myself like, ‘Well, god would want
you to make this person happy. This person is very depressed. This person’s begging you to do
this.’”
“So you’re a pervert shepherd of your flock?”
“It’s been something I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure out myself. When I see a
woman getting smacked, that’s not attractive. When I see a woman crying, that’s not attractive.
It’s when I know that I’m in complete control that they won’t get hurt, yet in their mind that fact
is gone. That mind is empty of what’s going to happen next. I can just… those eyes…”
“When did you start doing this, ‘cause I know you were a virgin until your early 20’s.”
“I was 5 or 6 years old. I saw Return Of Benji, they had a scene where the kids were
caught and tied to a chair. Because it was a children’s movie, the kidnapper was nice to them. But
the girl, her eyes, the way she couldn’t move… The niceness of the kidnapper was all she had. It
did something to me. After that I started playing a game with people – ‘kidnappers.’ We’d tie up
somebody, a different person every day. I was like the GM [game master] of it though. It always
had to go my way.”
“So you were the master of your own torture?”
“Yeah (weird goat laugh). It just kinda followed me.”
“When did it really start for you?”
“I went to meet someone at a gay bar and this guy was like ‘I got 75 bucks for ya.’ The
guy was in a wheelchair. Sounds strange to me now, but I felt like I had to do something. He had
this big fucking bag of toys. That thing was loaded with vibrators, dildos, whips. He had some
cuffs in there. Some of the things in there I remember saying no to. And he listened like I was
important… Now the girls didn’t start to happen for a long time, and they started off as
girlfriends. Tell the truth I’ve only had about 3 or 4 actual clients that were not attached by a
girlfriend. One was an attorney. She told me every night she went home to get fucked -- but in
order for that to happen she needed to have the shit whipped out of her for the sins she was about
to commit. I had no sex with her whatsoever. She’d come over, strip naked, I’d smack her thighs
with a paddle. Pretty much the corporal shit -- spankings, slaps. When we met I was scared. ‘Well
how much do you charge for something like that?’ Well, I don’t know. Uh, $500 for a half hour?
‘Ok.’ What??? I wasn’t expecting anyone to go for that. That was kind of my ‘I’m scared but I
have to say something’ response.”
“What about the midget?”
“The midget was fun. She was more into the sensory depravation and hard bondage. One
time I hog tied her and I tossed her in my dresser