William Blake. The Red Dragon.
Great gosh almighty."What am I becoming?"
If you're a theist, and a modern theist, the human mind exists as a result of, and higher too, the human, biomechanical, brain. So that when the brain dies, the mind that has arisen from the sum of a human brain's parts, continues to exist. And, as such, many theories have arisen;
You choose your path --
be it "heaven" or "hell,"
unlike the idea of crime an punishment, the human mind, (henceforth know as, and be interchangeable with "the soul") actually "chooses" which direction it will go.
Up to a "higher" level of existence in Heaven.
Or down to an existence which preserves the personality or "self" of the soul, called here "Hades." And by no means the Baptist Christian "Hell."
Like unto "Jacob's Ladder" which, in it's turn, may be an actual circle or cycle of the human soul (as well as angels) along it's boundaries.
Better termed as Heaven and Hades, there is no "good" or "evil" beyond the physical, biological, human brain, so that souls are almost entirely independent of any kind of "sin" which may have occurred due to a misguided and perverted "good" or "evil" found only within the brain's "physical" workings:
the expression of good or, in cases, very close to most peoples "homes," "evil," (which is entirely a construct, just as "good" is, of the human electro-chemical brain) human evil is foundationally and a true thing to fear and to root out and destroy in a human world.
There is no question here. And the "death penalty" will find no deniers with me. Whether for "revenge" or for the safety of humankind, death is the final defeat of human evil! Let them have their appeals upon deaths row. But in the end, let them be put down like a rabid dog, fast and to the point.
The "physical being," which has the distinct ability to being corrupted by "human" evil, or brought up, to enlightenment, to the "human" good of man, holds not eternal connection to the self above the brain, the soul beyond the body.
[In an attempt to find a finality to this somewhat philosophical religious diatribe I will say;]
There is no "good" or "evil" beyond human existence of the physical bio-chemical electronic brain made up mostly of the basic digital language of computers within it's synapses, i.e. 0's and 1's, on and off... evil and good...
Therefore it is impossible for a Satanic group or church to be "evil" (or even good) beyond the physical human brain, based upon these ideas.
In the end, at the end of your days, of your judgement "you" are the "judge"
and you choose:
a "higher reality" where the self-soul becomes higher, above what it was in terms of personality, than what it was on Earth. Beyond the physical brain.
or,
you choose a reality "one step back" where you are almost a "shadow" of your former self, a "shade." And yet you retain your "personality," you're "self," which defined you as "you," in life, in this new Hades (free from torment or torture! you "Bible thumping bangers.")
The choice is yours.
Not an ancient, tired old ridiculous "judgement" against your "soul" based upon "human" good or evil.
As as a wise man once said:
The "truth," as it is:
Love is the the law. Love under "will."
And that shall be the whole of the law.
Love is the ultimate expression of good.
And yet, in terms of the human "brain" which is below the ascending (or descending) human "mind."
Hate can be the ultimate expression of evil.
We may, ultimately, choose resurrection in the term of becoming a "human" soul in an embryonic baby.
But that way, madness lies.
For if you do achieve thus, the knowledge of your true, past self might get lost, in the hierarchy of the human development, trapped inside the human brain.
For those, I pray a good journey. And I pray some day you will awaken to your true self. Well beyond good and evil, into a kind of "super human." One who might lead a cult, or even a nation, towards the ultimate truth. None of us are human... we are simply souls, rising from the bio-chemical human brain, to become. To. Become.
I have always thought it quite strange, and at first, thought it was made up... pretense. No one seems to want to become a werewolf, or a vampire, okay, I understand zombie, no one wants to become a zombie, but a demon of any shape or form, nope, not gonna have it, but a Skinwalker? Immortality, a life only in the night. See history change, mutate, grow and die over centuries (I've already lived a half of one, how much worse would another half and another half be?)
They cheer on the were wolf killers wielding their silver bullets. They cheer on the Vampire killers with their wooden stakes and crosses. Guns and axes for Zombies, I still understand that. But to destroy what would otherwise live eternal? Who had the right to do that.
When I was a child in Chickasha Oklahoma in the early 1970's I used to watch weekend horror movies. I though Dracula was cool, never the enemy. I thought the wolf-man was "the" man, Frankenstein's monster, a happy go lucky dude.
The Gargoyles, misunderstood misfits of eternal life. Godzilla, a hero.
I had "some" friends who agreed. Agreed Michael Myers should keep coming back to Halloween at Haddonfield. Freddy Krueger should get to dream-kill all the messed up teens he wanted.
So, when "Nightbreed" came out, it was an epiphany. Finally a film which celebrates the monsters. Finally a film where the resurrection "within" death was celebration.
Boone encompassed all the times I wanted to "become." To become the monster, a monster, the messianic monster who would save all the other monsters.
And in the "director's cut" when Boone makes Laurie part of the "Breed," sheer joy. A big smile on my face. Fuck the humans, I'll be a monster, please.
"You are no longer "Boone." Now you are now... "Cabal."
One of the greatest movies ever made, in my eyes. Finally a novella, and a movie directed by it's author, which addressed my yearnings, my longings, my desperation at becoming something beyond humankind. The "Breed," the "Tribes of the Moon" embrace you!" Skinwalker, Storm Caller, Night Flyer, Drinker of the Blood of the Living. Mutilator of those who would stand against me.
Fuck all you humans! I now live in the night!
During the COVID lockdown in the U.S., I was deemed an "Essential Worker" because I worked at a grocery AND "hardlines" store (Wally World). I even had a special paper, signed, and explaining that I was not "sheltered in place" because the government deemed my work "essential." And I had to carry that in my pocket at all times!
I was, quite frankly, scared shitless that I was going to get the virus. It had gotten my Uncle very early on and he nearly died, respirator and all. But he made it through. Then we lost a coworker. You know how there's those coworkers who were either so generic they blended in with the background, or, were assholes, well, this guy was a really good man. Everyone liked him, he had no enemies. So his death hit everyone hard, and ramped up our fear of getting it.
Then my brother got it. Loss of taste and smell, and the flu-like symptoms. He ended up getting it twice, which was not unusual in my circle of experience. But he never ended up on a hospital stay. And best of all, never ended up on a respirator.
Then one day my boss of my department (Garden Center / seasonal), another truly good, positive, very well liked employee, told me he was going home because "man, I feel like shit. This is supposed to be my day off. I'm going home." Then it was boom boom boom; hospital, respirator, dead in like 4 days! I felt that one hard, he had been my direct boss. Of all the people for the gods to take, why him? He was even a military veteran!
So, after that, it was all bets off. Everybody was either broken up by these two coworkers deaths and realized they could get it at anytime. Or, on top of that, they had friends and family who had it, and some who had died.
We were open that whole time. Masks, Temperature readings before entering the building. Heavy stuff.
But this is the really crazy thing. All that time I was exposed to not just hundreds of coworkers, but hundreds and hundreds of the regular population a.k.a. customers. Many of them, when you couldn't understand them through their mask, took it off and got up right close to you to ask their question. I knew for certain I'd get it. The company was going to give 2 weeks paid vacation for anyone who had it. And a lot of stupid people pretended to be sick just to get 2 weeks paid off. I said, "okay, now what if you really get it? And you have to miss work. No money. What then?" You know how people are, especially those ignorant or young or uneducated or some of or all three of those, they simply think "it isn't going to happen to me" and "I'm immune." So, "I" knew it was coming for me. It was just a waiting game.
And I waited. A year or two go by and I don't get it. The company then pulls back and eliminates the 2 free weeks off, so I'm gonna get fucked there. And then, day after day, month after month, year after year; I don't get it. I started to think, man, the amount of things that had to take place to prevent me from being infected must be in the millions, perhaps billions, of possibilities. And somehow I ticked off all the boxes and was just lucky and would get it late in the game. But then, NO COVID. Zero. Nada, Zilch...
Eventually the mask mandate was lifted, then the "shelter in place" was lifted. Then the war stories of who had what and what was it like came in. And a constant, unbridled stream of hundreds and hundreds of customers flowed in.
And I STILL didn't get it.
Now, today, right as I write this, it's July 5th, 2025 with no COVID.
And I've had the two vaccine initial dose. And then two vaccine boosters after the fact when everyone was acting "normal" again in an open and free world.
So, there are two possibilities here;
1) (the most unlikely) I have managed by sheer insane luck to avoid getting the virus. Now, if you crunch the numbers, that's just impossible. I had to have been exposed at some point. There were hundreds and hundreds of times, especially on the city bus, that I was exposed to sneezing and coughing and all that fun stuff.
Which leads into;
2) I got the virus, but for some still unknown reason it did not make me sick. I was, as they said, simply a "carrier" of the virus without actually getting sick. Which means I could have infected other people, but I was randomly, in the DNA lottery, naturally immune to the virus.
They came up with a name for my kind; "NO-VID-ERS"
Medical websites asked for participants in studies. I signed up, sent off info, and so forth... but no one ever contacted me.
So, I feel like Charlie in the Chocolate factory. Out of all those millions of kids stuffing their faces with Wonka bars, "I got a golden ticket." (sing as in the movie).
"Cause I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way. And with a golden ticket, it's a golden day."
Charlie Buckets, I got one too!
Up the Hill Downward.
Up the Hill Downward. In the scene where I was sort of eavesdropping into -- my friend was straight up goth, I hung out with him all the time, so I was "in" the goth/industrial scene without actually being "in it." So, to MANY of the people in the "scene" at that time (we're talking people who had been immersed since about 1984-1985) were basically considered "second generation" goths, as the first gen was around '78 to '84 riding through the streets of East Berlin in a trumped up Pathfinder we opened up with lots of assault gear along with with the sudden machine gun stutter of Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Bauhaus, Coil, The Cure, Ministry and Siouxsie and the Banshees, just to name the top groups (in the U.S. scene.) The U.K. had The Cult, Fields of the Nephilim, P.I.L (sort of). But, at least for me, no one out did the out doers, Skinny Puppy. The had all the pomp and circumstance, with the performance art, industrial, but more specifically, actual inarguable "techno goth" music. Plus all the goth Uniforms and face paint. For me, no one out pupped the Puppies. I think I stumbled into the scene, friend in hand, around 1986 or so. So in 1989, when Nine Inch Nails came out, we were three years before that, on the true cusp of dirt and grit gothic punk. NIN were in an instant love/hate relationship with the "scene"; as a person in the "social" part of the scene, NIN was pure commercialized crap. They sounded like what a band would sound like if some pop song producer got ahold of a pseudo industrial band and then filtered them through the "pop machine." So, there was a lot of instant hate for NIN at that time in 89. They were Ronald Regan's pet Industrial Band, not one of the antichrists spewing hate and social recriminations on the other end. However, if you went to some of these peoples homes and hung out in their bedrooms, listening to them play their favorited songs, and if they got up to go do something out of the room AND you snuck into their music crate to flip through their LP's, almost without exception you found at least an EP of NIN, even though they'd swear eternal hatred upon them to the group amassed, all the while reaching dizzying heights with "Terrible Lies" when those synth strings took you over. But then; I was in a strange in-between state where my "goth" street-cred was not put into question because I didn't wear the uniform: all black, Jeanie pants, doc martins, teased up black dyed hair, and, craziest of all to the straights, black eyeliner. To me it was just another social strata identical to the jocks or preppies where; you had to wear this and couldn't wear that, and you had to have these albums but could have those. This was why I had been an outcast at school, I didn't buy into all the manufactured b.s. rules that existed solely in the minds of the zombies who followed them. So in the "goth scene" I was into the "music", not the "scene". If you played me a Bauhaus song I could name the song, name the album, and name which side it was on. Exact same with Skinny Puppy. Never was much of a fan of the Cure. Sorry, to me they sounded more like goth soap commercial jingle music than anything as heavy and artistic as Bauhaus, themselves named after the infamous and still relevant school of architecture from Weimar Germany in 1919, called, duh, The Bauhaus. The Cure had this undeniable happy go lucky pop sensibility in their major hits that all of the others viciously attacked. Their lesser known efforts, like my favorite of theirs, "Faith" were true goth. Goth deserving of a place at the table next to Bauhaus and Coil (with songs like "Dancing at the Funeral Party" just wiping the floor with the silly dilly "Love Cats") I mean, how can you elevate a band that does "Caterpillar" and "Love Cats" to anything more than a pop group grasping desperately to the U.K.'s "Deathrock" scene (later called Gothic Rock or Gothic Punk and finally just plain ole "Goth.") Meanwhile when I mentioned Skinny Puppy's "Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse" to those people even "deep" in the scene they would give me that glazed over look like they had no idea that I was talking about. Especially when I'd pull out the "M:TPI" on them. However, back to the main subject at hand... I was still pretty hot/cold on NIN until I was flipping through cd singles a year or so later and found a NIN single produced by Dave "Rave" Ogilvie! who had been so deep into Skinny Puppy's production they even listed him as a band member on "VIVIsectVI"! That was the "Reptile" remix for the upcoming "Downward Spiral" album which just about killed all the goths because it became this huge hit and you could go to your College campus and hear sorority girls blasting it out of their Volkswagen Rabbits. (Oh, and when they started wearing Doc's... oh shoot... hehe! It all hit the fan then.) So, I liked about a third of the songs on "Downward Spiral," about another third bored me, and a final third I just thought sounded like self absorbed b.s. (Like the brutal "Hurt" which the legendary "man in black" himself, Johnny Cash, along with the Oscar worthy video (for short film?), made that song the theme to Cash's entire career, and entire life for that matter, instead of an "end credits" bit that Reznor whined his way through ("Whine Bitch Wails" was a common term of dis-endearment for him.) at then end of his concerts on the "Downward" tour. But I didn't outright dismiss NIN like other's did. And, when "Se7en" came out with a remix of "Closer" by the kings of actual real "pagans" in goth music, "Coil," then the shit hit the fan. (Apparently it was much more insane for Coil because "Sleazy" [ex-Throbbing Gristle, ex-Psychic TV) had done the remix for a Nine Inch Nails "EP," not for a "movie," and as far as he knew no one he knew gave the greenlight to it being the "opening theme" to a twisted serial killer film. He must have spent the next two hours fuming (shoot, wouldn't you?) Then the overdone, woe is me, dark poetry b.s. Reznor tried to corner the market on began to wear thin and songs and singles and videos like "March Of The Pigs" began to sound more like someone making fun of Industrial as opposed to someone presenting it to the masses. I mean, come on! the piano break in that song, it was pure Charlie Brown Schrodinger. You could see all the kids in the mosh pits doing that Charlie Brown head bop dance. It came to a point where some of the tracks on Janet Jackson's liberating "Rhythm Nation" were more akin to Skinny Puppy and Manufacture than any self indulgent narcissistic song from The Downward Spiral. But we come back out of the "wayback" machine and find Reznor has won not one, but two Oscars for music scores, one from a friggen Disney picture! and one from a movie about geeks ripping off other geeks to become millionaire geeks (never saw it, sounds like crap, never will see it, so there, hehe.) By his third album his music became a revolving door of over produced bleeding heart b.s. with very little salvageable as something approaching a real "good" song. "The Perfect Drug" was astoundingly brilliant, while the rest of the excessive two disc release was just a mish mash of self absorbed synth garbage. A kind of mirror of the L.A. Glam Rock nightmare of Guns n' Roses "Use Your Illusions 1 and 2" (which had an overt nod to Reznor, who "briefly" and disastrously toured with them) with the G 'n' R song, "My World.") Aside: in OKc I saw them and they were, and still are all these years later, the worst firkin band I've ever seen! At that time, the somewhat "self indulgent" Smashing Pumpkins were the opening act, and all the numbskulls in Okc booed them off the stage before they could even play a single song! They said something about "it must get lonely out here with all the cows, and the sheep," funny, hehe, yeah, if you weren't so self absorbed and took a look around your arena to see a large downtown with skyscrapers, a genuine "canyon" as they call it, and in the top of the top cities when it comes to population of the metropolitan area. Either way, they played a song where they chanted "f-you" over and over as if that was going to have some effect on the crowd. It must be duly noted that the next year when the Pumpkins were headliners their tickets sold out, in the same town, in about 2 hours! Poetically, they should have played the "f-you" song for three minutes and then left! That would have been sublime. As for the last mention of G 'n' R (and Toys 'R' Us) their show consisted of Axel singing a verse, running off stage confusing the hell out of the band and the audience, then appearing for another verse, only to disappear again. WTFF? Worst S**t ever!
Best ever? The Moody Blues (whom my ex's bridesmaid's father actually bought be a ticket "after" he had bought theirs because I went overboard on what a fan I was of theirs. Her father is eternally cool just for that.) The Moody Blues were just the coolest most professional brilliant, not a dead moment music I've ever seen! However, back to Nine Inch Nails (lets face it, basically Trent Reznor) on a solid and unfaltering positive note: the album "With Teeth" solidly blew me away, especially as a soundtrack for my life at the time, living next door to some hyped up PTSD vets who were buying and selling drugs in the apartment next to mine (one time, two of them beat the shtuff out of each other in the parking lot, and called an ambulance so they could get hospital quality pain killers!!!) that album absolutely, and I say this in spite of my problems with Reznor's narcissisms, that album helped keep my brain together during all that. And for that, Reznor gets the keys to my internal city of OZ and a lifetime's supply of "yeah, all right, you're one of the good ones!" for all time! And the concert tour with the ultra unique "TV on the Radio" then "Bauhaus" supporting their then Newest and also Last-est album, and then... f- me sideways, that NIN show with the red light strings hanging around the stage. It was like you liquified my brains and then sucked them out of my ears with an industrial strength vacuum. Sure Front 242 is a live show I'll always treasure, Peter Murphy is an incomparably intimate genius of a musical artist, and no one can beat down my Puppy. But I gotta lay down a wreath of dead roses for the long running NIN, no matter how much one of my synth heroes, Bill Leeb, will always despise him (and be looking out for him to pounce on, hehe.) "Pass a cup to the dead already, hurrah for the next to die." Dracula
Inspired by; First Time Hearing The Smiths, And It's Not A Boy Band?! "How Soon Is Now" Graces My Ears!
I'm not a huge "Smiths" fan. That doesn't mean I don't think they're good, in fact I think they're legendary, it's just that at that time I was double obsessed with Bauhaus and Skinny Puppy (never was much of a Cure fan. I always thought their "hit" songs sounded like commercial jingles for soap or cleaning agents.) And Siouxsie Sioux was a bit too overly dramatic and lacking in music "quality" for me. And it didn't help when they were featured in an Anthony Michael Hall flm!) Anyway, I had two prep school friends who were really into The Smiths, and at that time I just didn't get it. Looking back it's because I just didn't give them a chance. I had always dismissed them as a silly flavour of the weak band ("Vicar in a Tutu" and all that).
CLICK ON "read more"
Each Blog is presented to you, the User "usually" in an abbreviated / abridged form
so,
you have to select the unassuming little link in the tiny preview they give you called:
read more
that's it, the entire post is now visible, and these are placed on EVERY entry:
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Upset at first, I have to admit that squishing posts down to a title and perhaps a few sentences and then putting read more is simple enough for people to understand. And then they are able to list more Posts on the screen.
(Immediate removal upon request of Ms. Anita or
her representatives for any reason whatsoever.)
To see Sweet Anita (<---YouTube link) in action. Hear her take on life.
And witness the sometimes funny, sometimes horrible aspects of Tourette's within a living human being as opposed to a bunch of writing. It's not romantic, it's not a fetish its a disability that sometimes can prevent a person from even getting out one coherent sentence.
To learn a boatload about Tourette's Syndrome for the layman, follow this link to its WIKI entry.
To watch the actual video of this transcript (and then get addicted to the things she has to say, and watch more) follow the link below:
(Immediate removal upon request of Mr. Ellard or his representatives for any reason whatsoever.)
But there is no "Hell" in this story, the "shades" of the dead in "Hades" are not punished and do not burn. They remain as they were when their bodies were still alive, they remain themselves, or, a shadowy version thereof, despite what Milton, or Dante, or the many authors of the Old and New testament have to say about the matter.
(Draft)
"Mind Moves Matter" -- Virgil
I am my self (my mind) and myself is my soul (my mind is my soul) And therefore self and soul are the same, not two things equal to each other, but one thing in the same. There is no separation between myself and my soul.
How could I sell my soul independently of my mind. Why would it matter to me to sell my soul, assuming it were possible, to the Devil. If I am not my soul, then it is a thing separate from me, my mind, and so why would I care if the Devil takes my soul. He could just as well have my car, or my house, or my favorite synthesizer; and none of that, after the death of the body (and the brain with it), none of that makes any difference anymore when you have "given up the ghost." The only thing that matters is how you choose to move on in this vast construction of the universe (perhaps to a more intense, bright, "heaven" or to a less intended "shadow" or "shade" (not "utter darkness" or the "abyss" as yet [notably named "The Gulfs" in the works of Clive Barker]) in "Hell" or better for my arguments, "Hades" or "the land of shades" as these souls have chosen to retain the personalities and memories of their previous life, but in the absence of a grip on that life, the only way to hold on to it is that fall away, back, down, to a lesser light if not a lesser truth. But if the soul craves the light and "love" of God in "heaven," to move up and away, into the light and the greater truth, then one follows that tunnel to the light at its end, and joins the 2/3rds of the angels, in the company of God, the Holy Ghost (modern: "Holy Spirit") and his son whose name is actually Yeshua or "Joshua," a bizarre mis-translation from the old Hebrew "Yeshua" which is most definitely not "Jesus." It reminds me of the "Jehovah's Witness" movement. They mistranslated, mispronounced the name of God, YHWH, or Yahweh as Jehovah and then stuck with it even when it was pointed out to them that they were saying it "wrong" (who can really said to be "wrong" about these things? Perhaps "incorrect" is the better term.) There's also some dispute among theologians about the original version of the birth of Jesus. Some say that when Mary was called a Maiden, which can mean "a virgin" OR just mean "a young woman" that the translators mis-translated it to mean Mary was a Virgin and therefore the only way she could have been impregnated and given birth to Jesus was if "God" and his angels did so (not at all unlike the Greek god Zeus who impregnated a "few" women in his time (quite a few if you look it up), which may be the origin of the drastic mistranslation and subsequent near (or up close) "worship" of Mary in the Catholic Church (which was originally just called "The Church." --egad, what heresy does he spew?!) Her near deification has always bothered me, even when I was a Christian. It seemed so "pagan" which actually did come in handy when converting the "heathens" to Christianity by Missionaries across the globe who found the plethora of primarily female deities an easy way to slide Mary, mother of the Christian god, right in there. And today, it's become a distinct, actual deification by the "feminists" who claim she is a goddess, and is the feminine side of God, thus "resurrecting" the motives of the missionaries.
But then who's to say that there aren't "higher" or "lower" places than Heaven and Hades (once again, in modern Christian theology: Hell, in my version: Hades)? Perhaps an infinite of both directions, like a Jacob's ladder leading up to heaven, or down to earth, or lower, down into hell. And what if what he perceived as an infinite up and an infinite down are actually one great wheel that meets itself again, coming and going, the worm consuming it's tail, eternity, so much so that with "human good and evil" out of the picture, it would not be impossible for them to meet, or for every equal or opposite place on the ladder wheel, to be light into darkness, or darkness into light.
And so, if my brain and my mind were independent of my soul, then I could sell a thousand souls to hell and still ascend to heaven. For why would heaven need a soul either, if it were separate from the self. I, myself want (or choose) which direction my mind-soul will go, up or down, light or dark, (but no, no good or evil, these things are constructs of human beings, they are more akin to the baser nature of the robotic human brain. Hunger, pain, sickness, health, full, fat, fight or flee; all these things are physical attributes of the brain, and therefore the body, which are necessary to keep us alive or, if ignored, drag us down to the death of the body and the brain.
But the soul does not hunger for food. The soul does not eat too much or drink to much, or depend on drugs or take sex to excess. The soul "seems to" have an opinion of fight or flight, but that's just chemicals in our body, specifically to adrenaline pushing the body in its best direction, towards or away. And so the same for a human's good or evil. They are pushed one way or the other based on what they feel is right, even in the face of alternate facts. Even if everyone else can see it's evil.
Evil is when one or more humans consciously inflicts bodily or mental harm upon another human or group of humans. Consciously, or sometimes by a lack of action where action is needed.
Was Hitler moved by supernatural evil, was he possessed by a devil, or pushed by The Devil? Those who fear the facts about human nature would prefer to think that no man could do the deeds he (and Stalin) did to their own people, their own race. Forget not that Hitler's father was a wealthy Jewish man who spurned his mistress and their bastard son. And Stalin was a Russian who was perhaps more power hungry than Hitler, who knows if he was part Jewish, or even Asian, who's to tell? The fact is he killed "more" humans than Hitler, but humans prefer to deal with Hitler because he's easier to wrap our "heads" around.
So, Hitler wished to bring back the glory and honor and riches that Germany had before the first World War. And he blamed the incompetent coward Kaisers and the rich conniving Jews for the loss of this. And so he was motivated, almost more than any man in history, to move forward with war, conquering, and killing all enemies from within and without.
But there was no devil that did this. No soul of his bound for hell. This was done by a man, a human, and at the very base of it was the desire for comforts, political and bodily as in rule and physical excess. And so we would like to believe Hitler burns in Hell. And if the self, the soul, had any part in this (which I must believe it did) then he is indeed in a place "removed from the light and the love of God) if not necessarily "burning" in "hell."
Incomplete: First Draft
Oldest: Sister (from left), Middle Son (second from left), Mother (white dress), Oldest Brother (upper right), And that's me (Philip Haggard Berry) (lower right) in the pinstriped jacket, brown shorts, and silly shoes.
Hunt Souls: “This gives us the situation of the disciples he called: for they were from Bethsaida. And this is appropriate to this mystery. For ‘Bethsaida’ means ‘house of hunters,’ to show the attitude of Philip, Peter and Andrew at that time, and because it was fitting to call, from the house of hunters, hunters who were to capture souls for life: ‘I will send my hunters’ (Jer 16:16).”
My father was a priest and was constantly searching for his own church and his own way so we moved around a lot. I started out 1st and 2nd level Primary, then 1st and 2nd grade at a Christian Episcopal prep school in Oklahoma City, OK.
The Right Reverend Dr. Max Bright Berry Jr. Lieutenant Commander USCG BA MA PHD
(Doctorate in Divinity [Theology])
I know you're really too young to make judgements like this, but I was very popular as a kid at that school. Endless friends, crushes on girls maybe a little too early for that (though I never did have a "girlfriend" back then.)
Moving from Oklahoma City---
----short but necessary interruption: people are so freaking dumb and ignorant, Oklahoma City has a population of roughly 750,000 in the "metropolitan area" and ranks 20th in the most populated cities in the U.S. Now think about this, there are approximately 19,405! cities in the U.S. and Oklahoma City is in the top 20. So pull your head out of your ass, we don't have teepees. . . I could go on...) ----
---so we pulled out of the big city and moved to the city of my birth, second largest in the state, Tulsa Oklahoma (population just over 400,000 [i.e. around half a million] not small)
It was culture shock going to a public school with hundreds of kids where you could quickly be swallowed up by anonymity. It was the opposite at that small prep school. Everyone knew everyone. I found out very quickly that you couldn't just walk in and become the popular kid. I didn't know how to adapt, I'd never had to do it before. People began to dismiss me as "weird," a description I would carry for the rest of my life.
On that first move I was very rapidly tossed down the rungs of the social ladder until I was at the very bottom, in the dirt, and had almost no friends except a few very cool ones who lived in my neighborhood.
(as an aside: my school was directly, like a few steps, across the street from my house. It was exceedingly strange. But one benefit I had was that I just had to cross the dead end road to have access to the playground, the cent of which was one of those big wooden forts with sand at the base called a "Big Toy." I had the coolest time playing Star Wars figures there with the entire place to myself. A had recently been gifted a action figure sized Millennium Falcon which made it all the more cool [and a little prescient considering the "final" film of the actual factual "trilogy" began on Luke's home world, the dessert Tatooine (reminder, the big toy was on a big sand box.)]
Anyway, back to my shit show life (great name for a tv show) I learned pretty quickly, through changing schools about every few years, that people hated the class brain, and the teachers pet. So, I became the class clown, the comedian, embraced the "weirdo" way. In doing impersonations and acting out movie (or cartoon for the best laughs) scenes.
This got me a free pass from the bullies. They could yell at one kid down the hall, "meet me after school on the playground, I'm gonna kick your ass." And then turn around to me, "oh, Philip, do that British accent."
So, my advanced IQ and my natural ability to do well in all subjects became buried. I did poorly at schoolwork on purpose. A feat easily done by just not studying for tests, and not doing homework. And who would ever think the class clown was a genius? And this became so ingrained in my personality I couldn't shake it, even at college. I skated through classes (with the great exception for Literature and Art), faking my way along.
I was shocked and really really pissed off that we had to take "electives" (I didn't elect these wastes of time!) which were basically reruns of high school. I went there to learn how to be a writer, not be a "Renaissance" man who could master Biology and Physics and Sociology along the way. Fuck all that!
It wasn't until my four semesters at the Masters level in the Creative Studies Department of the Liberal Arts college that I finally was doing what I wanted to be doing in every single class after 5 years of fucking about as an undergrad (oh, failed to mention, I ended up with a B.A. in English Literature and Criticism, and a stupidly "undeclared" minor in Art and Design (the head of the Graphic Design "wing" asked me to switch from English Lit to Graphic Design. He told me I had the right kind of mind for it, as well as the artistic chops. But I was set on becoming a writer. I wished I could be both.
So, back to Masters school: this was what I had imagined college was. It was unfortunate, and quite expensive, to fart around as an undergrad drowning in classes I despised. Here I was right were I belonged, class after class of perfecting my writing skills.
(They'll tell you, and should tell you, in both Liberal Arts and in the Art Program, that you can't have "talent" taught to you, no matter how many classes you attend or how hard you try. Talent for a subject (or subjects) is something you're born with. You go to school to "perfect" your talent, to "sharpen" it. But by no means can anyone "teach you a talent."
Apparently the Art School had waded out into some deep waters by allowing people who didn't have any of these talents they so wanted to have, graduate with a degree. Graduates were coming back to the school to complain that they were unable to find any work based on their submissions and portfolio. They were being told, quite frankly by many prospects, that they just didn't have the raw talent necessary for the job. Not even an Art teacher at an Elementary school! You actually do have to be an artist to land that job... at most schools (sometimes they randomly shuffle someone like one of the sports coaches to fall in and teach out of a text book. Thankfully I always had wonderful art teachers who were actual artists and encouraged me on my own artistic path.)
So, starting fairly early into my weird journey through the Art School I was running in to classmates who had been counseled to leave the Art School ("you're just not working out as an Artist, and we can't give you a degree just because you attend all the classes. We believe its in your best interests to feel around and find something else that you have a talent for.")
(shh... so we don't get sued by people we handed a degree but without the ability to land a job or otherwise use said degree.)
I counted myself lucky in both "schools" that Liberal Arts wanted me to remain in Liberal Arts, and that Art and Design wanted me to leave Liberal Arts for Art and Design (specifically Graphic Design.) It was a nice ego boost, but also, for a time, very very confusing.
Flash forward to Grad School: things, everything, went into the shitter by the end of the 90's and I never recovered.
When I returned to Oklahoma City from living with my parents in little (but cool as hell) Muskogee Oklahoma (birthplace of my father, and location of his last and favorite church, over which he was the Priest, Grace Episcopal Church. Muskogee population roughly only just 50,000, relatively small compared to the other cities listed, but not small compared to ALL the cities in the country. . . I've lost my self again, oh, I went back to Oklahoma City to finish out my Masters... and fuck all, they refused to give me anymore student loans. I only needed ONE more semester for my Masters in Creative Studies. But even after an appeal with notes from teachers I was told no. There was no way for me to pay for it myself. After going straight from Highschool in to College as an Undergrad and then into Grad school I had never actually had a "real" job, i.e. one that you could live on. Much less make enough money to also pay for Grad school!
After moving to Muskogee, Oklahoma, then back to Oklahoma City, then back to Muskogee again, I finally moved down to Austin, Texas (population [this is becoming a fixation] 1 million! number 11 in the top twenty most populated cities in the U.S. ...P.S. in this list Oklahoma City was not included in the top 20... ah well.
I was on my way to L.A. (to be a professional writer, of course.) But my brother convinced me to first move down to Austin with him to get a feel for what a major move is like, and then move on to L.A.
Well... I never made it to LA, but the unofficial town slogan of Austin is "Keep It Weird" so I figured it was a sign from the gods that this would be my knew home (and perhaps final home, at the rate I'm going).
I finally found out why I was so eccentric, weird, and sometimes had brief, and not so brief, psychotic episodes growing up, when I was eventually diagnosed with "Bipolar 1" AND "Extreme Panic Attacks" (which often had a crippling "Agoraphobia" just to add some spice to the panic) and all the medication I take (six kinds) sucked all my creative energy dry: several unfinished screenplays, a novel only just over half finished, art work abandoned, and the biggest casualty for me, my music has remained untouched for about 15 years now.
Oh, growing up, I did have great parent's who truly loved me, showed it, and told me so. Typical older siblings who only mildly, as per usual "bullied" the baby of the household, but always came together as, not too too close, but descent friends. I developed my own group of friends in middle and high school when we'd settled back in OKC even though I changed schools "four" friggin times by the time I graduated high school in 1990. We were all the outcasts at school which brought us closer together than the constant power struggle among the popular kids.
But flash forward to 53 years old and I've become imprisoned by my own mind and the meds it requires to keep me sane (you know, that thing necessary to hold a job, pay rent and bills and food and clothes and housewares) I've worked at a "big box" store for nearly 25 years, stoned out of my gourd every day on 6 different medications. No friends, no girlfriends, it's all just blech! One big Shit Show. And now really really stuck in a hole in terms of finances.
Father died of Alzheimer's and now my mother is batshit crazy from Dementia (she's 81). Oldest brother (who "tricked" me into movie down here) died of alcohol poisoning after a life of severe drug and alcohol abuse.
I have my older sister and brother (the middle son but about 4 years older than me) they are still around, but they're about a 9 hour drive north of here, straight up I-35 into Oklahoma City with complicate lives of their own (my sister basically takes care of my mother. I don't know how she does it but she's a freaking SAINT!)
I have Bipolar 1 a.k.a. "Manic Depression" (a great Jimi Hendrix song, by the way) with both Mania and Depression, and sometimes both at once called a "mixed episode" which can make you feel like your personality has splintered and you are viewing something or thinking about something from two or more points of view at the same time!
I also have "Extreme" Panic Disorder which comes along with a little friend called "agoraphobia" where I become convinced that if I leave my apartment I'm going to be murdered.
I used to have very mild psychotic episodes as a teen, WAY before I was diagnosed. And have, luckily thus far, only had one major psychotic episode as an adult which I can currently remember (a few others one would consider "minor" like believing the video game "Silent Hill II" was designed exactly for me to take me to a higher level of existence. And I began to see parts of the visuals all over the place. From a foggy/misty day where the swimming pool area of my apartment complex was covered in a white cloud (similar scene in the game) to the look of one of the trucks we were unloading which had a roof which let in light through what looked like animal skin.
But back to that "major break," one morning, after being off my opioids for 5 days, I became convinced that my brother, in Oklahoma City, had called a mental institution, down here in Austin, to send an ambulance out to get me and put me away. It finally resolved after my mother talked me down and we did some yoga breathing, and particularly when I got the 5 day delayed medication I was missing.
So, anyway, all that aside, I have, since at least teen-hood, had minor and far apart physical tics and twitches but they are NOT Tourette's but rather fall under "Tardive Dyskinesia" (which is now known to many people due to a heavy scattering of commercials for a drug which supposedly treats it) which can be a side effect of a mental disorder.
It also happens when I'm very upset and very depressed, and it can be very embarrassing when people see it. But man, oh man, it's nothing like the constant torment of Tourette's syndrome, sheesh.
And, last but not least, it's not uncommon for people without any disorders to have a nervous tic when they feel very stressed. I.E. if you twitch, or have occasional tics, this is probably not Tourette's, but you might get a checkup by a Psychologist or Psychiatrist just to be on the safe side.
(The difference between: a Psychologist: is usually a person with a degree or degrees in psychology, "talk therapy", and general counseling whom you go to to "discuss" your mental health and or any disorders.
Whereas a Psychiatrist is most often a "Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine" and is mainly geared towards "medication management" in the treatment of a "chemical imbalance" which is most likely causing your disorder. And you will seldom, if ever, discusses any behavioral problems you're having in any great detail (with the exception of something brief like, "I feel depressed" or, "I feel anxious") which the Dr. (with your input) will help decide what chemical paths [medications] one should take [and be prepared to be patient with it, it takes some experimentation to find the right balance for whatever "chemical imbalance" you have.]
I also used to have a verbal twitch going on back into my mid teens. (Once again, NOT Tourette's syndrome.)
If I thought of something I didn't want to be think of, or if the thought just popped up independently, then I would often whisper (loudly? can you whisper "loudly"?) the word "Death" which usually dismissed the thought, although sometimes it took a repetition of three, "death death death" to banish the thought.
On a few occasions I was not careful and said this when someone I had not noticed was there, or they came around the corner just as I said it. But it was very easy just to pick up a tune saying "Tick Tock Tick. Doot doot doo doo." (from "Fly Like An Eagle") and only occasionally got a quizzical look. And one time at work a coworker said, "what was that?"
"What do you mean, I'm humming a song," and gave him some examples. But he still looked at me funny.
I was shocked? amazed? relieved in a way? when I stumbled upon a film on cable (and later, the complete uncut version on a "Criterion Edition" DVD remaster) of one of my all time favorite films, "The Ruling Class" starring Peter O'Toole as a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he's Jesus, but is brought to his family estate after his father dies to take his position in society and the House of Lords. About 75% in, the film takes a sudden dark turn, as he no longer believes he's Jesus (according to everyone; "he's cured!"), but now thinks he's an evil serial killer whose first name is known as "Jack" i.e. "Jack the Ripper" "Spring Heeled Jack" (Jack is his character's real name in the film.)
Anyway, when he was confronted by an idea when he thought he was Jesus and he rejected it he would say, "I put that into my galvanized pressure cooker. Whoop, Zang, and it's gone."
I knew exactly what that was like.
(M anipulated still from the director's cut of Clive Barker's "Nightbreed.") The ending we all wanted. "Everything...
