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MY GOAT ISSUE NUMBER FIVE
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SPECIAL HOLIDAY EDITION
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"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week.” - Charles Darwin.

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WALL MANIACS
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WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS:
THE TRUE STORY OF KAREN CARPENTER
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"The primary duty of the Seraphim is to sing without ceasing- 'the lintels of the doors were moved at the voice (of them) who cried to one another.'" - from the book "Beyond Space" by Fr. Pascal P. Parente

LIFE WITHOUT KAREN



It is 2012. The home of the Carpenters, the illustrious musical family who stuck to their roots in Downey, California to worldwide acclaim, is in disrepair. The parents, who were the owners of the worldly and palatial estate, have been dead for some time now. Beautiful Karen Carpenter, the guardian angel of adult contemporary pop music, died in this house, in her brother's closet, long ago. Movies were made, tribute albums wrought upon the Earth, and multitudes of fans have visited the spot. Her brother, Richard Carpenter, now tours the world with a "sound-alike" of Karen from South America named Claire De La Fuente. She doesn't look anything like Karen (who could?), but she does a mean vocal imitation of our girl, and the audiences enjoy it. All over the world.
But Karen is gone. And her brother cannot bring her back, no matter how many times he re-records the bridge to "Top Of The World." Or tweaks the back-up vocals on "Lovelines." Her vocal cords are silenced.



BUT, KAREN CAN'T DIE

"In your mind you have capacities, you know, to telepath messages through the vast unknown. Please close your eyes, and concentrate, with every thought you think, upon the recitation we are about to sing." - Carpenters, "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft."

SARAPH (To Burn)

The music that Karen and Richard Carpenter created together during the lifetime of the former is an extraordinary accomplishment. This accomplishment is sometimes overshadowed by the shocking nature of Karen's unfortunate demise at the young age of 32. Her passing was greatly sensationalized, used by major media outlets to promote the realities of anorexia nervosa. This was a heretofore unknown eating disorder stemming from negative body image, disproportionate to one's actual appearance. Unfortunately, her death and illness has come for many to define this amazing woman, who accomplished great things in her life during a time when women (in the music industry and elsewhere) did not have an equal status to men. Beyond her rich, syrupy voice and natural beauty, Karen was an extremely talented drummer who was acknowledged by fellow percussionists such as Buddy Rich and Hal Blaine for her impressive intuitive drumming skill. While her older brother showed great talent as a keyboard prodigy (leading him to spend several harsh semesters on the East Coast at Yale studying the instrument), she played baseball with the local boys, favoring the position of pitcher. Her youthful desires to play music alongside her brother were encouraged by their teacher in Downey, California. He attempted to teach her to play the glockenspiel, but she found the instrument to be less than inspiring. She quickly switched to drums after being observed on the instrument by a mutual friend, who recognized her natural sense of rhythm. Karen and Richard were heavily inspired by popular music of the day in their music-kaing, in particular the Beatles. The singing/songwriting duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney would prove to be an enormous influence on Richard. He wished to create a musical group with his sister that could have the same sort of appeal as those Liverpudlian cultural avatars. Due to his prodigious talent, Richard was enthusiastically encouraged to perform and write music by his parents, studying and practicing constantly. He was fascinated with the concept of "musical arrangement" from a very young age, after seeing a television special starring Liberace (the 1960s heartthrob to the Pepsodent crowd). Liberace's glamour had a huge impression on Richard. Although he was musically influenced somewhat by the "acid rock" of the day, the spirit of showmanship exhibited in what became the Carpenters shows great influence from the campy and eager presentation presented by Liberace. In his determination to be a success in the music industry, Karen's brother was already taking notes from popular performances even in his youth. With Karen on the drums, they formed the Richard Carpenter Trio with a friend of theirs playing the bass. It was a learning experience, but did not bring them much success or attention. It was during this period of time that a local LA musician named Joe Osborn noticed Karen's amazing vocal talents, encouraging Richard to allow her more opportunities to use her voice. Initially starting out as a more rock-oriented group called Spectrum, they teamed up with songwriter John Bettis to embark upon a series of demo recordings. These tapes would be consistently rejected by the various labels that they were sent to, but the process of recording and editing the tapes was invaluable experience for the young musicians. These were very experimental recordings, with Karen playing drums alongside her brother's instrumentation... very likely incredible material that has been lost to time.
The two consistently refined and restructured their approach as Spectrum, but each subsequent appeal to record labels was rejected. An unfortunate side effect of this was that the young musicians became extremely discouraged with their tapes, which eventually were discarded and in fact (accidentally) destroyed. It was obvious that Spectrum's style was not going to work out for the duo, but they were not daunted in their quest for domination of the pop charts. The two began to practice constantly, with Richard hurriedly searching for the right songs that would propel the duo to the top. He eventually settled on a theme of choosing already successful songs from other songwriters, which he would arrange and interpret for Karen to put lead vocals and possibly drums over. This setup, with Richard as the "man behind the curtain" and Karen as the face of the group, suited the duo perfectly. The secret weapon was Karen's magnificent, lush voice. People who watched her sing would comment that they heard emitting from the the scrappy teenager's tiny frame a world of emotion that was said to be "far beyond her years." Under the direction of her brother, Karen eased into the role of singer with the relaxed attitude of a pro, laying down many hours of music to tape in an effort to hit the big time. Her brother's work ethic fit perfectly with Karen's deep-rooted desire to be the best she could be. In the meantime, Richard got work performing with co-songwriter John Bettis at the original Disneyland in Florida as official "street performers." The two would deviate somewhat from the expected material and ramble into pop music territory - in the process developing the squeaky-clean pop-star image and presentation that the Carpenters would become famous for. Richard's friend John would become an important and vital aspect of the Carpenters, co-writing some of the songs that are most dear to the group ("Goodbye To Love," "I Need To Be In Love"). Leaving behind the psychedelic trappings of their early work, Richard, Karen, John, and several other musicians created a new backdrop for Karen's amazing vocal presence, this time called simply "Carpenters." The music of the Carpenters (including such hits as "We've Only Just Begun," "Top Of The World," "Close To You," "Superstar," "We've Only Just Begun," and a multitude of others) would become an iconic, generation-defining force that would define the lives of many lonely souls.



"Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Common sources of EVP include static, stray radio transmissions, and background noise. Interest in the subject normally surrounds claims that EVP are of paranormal origin, though there are natural explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language), equipment artifacts, or simple hoaxes which are offered to explain them. Recordings of EVP are often created from background sound by increasing the gain (i.e. sensitivity) of the recording equipment" - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

After rejecting several previous demo tapes from the Carpenters, Herb Alpert (former leader of the Tijuana Brass Band) of A & M Records liked the new direction and signed the group to his label. Part of the groups transformation included pressure on Karen to lose weight after an early producer of theirs (Joe Osborn) referred to Karen as "chubby." Under pressure from the label and her parents, Karen was put on a diet (ominously called the "Stillman diet") that reduced her weight from a healthy 145 pounds to a health-defying 95 lbs. Even before her success, Karen was put under an immense pressure to lose weight, which would have deep psychological implications for her life. The initial Carpenters LP was titled "Offering," later to be re-titled "Ticket To Ride" after it's sole hit, a somber meditation on the classic Beatles tune. The arrangement of their version was completely unique, with Karen's distinctive vocals a stark presence over a slowed-down and intricate arrangement of the upbeat classic. Listeners were impressed with the unorthodox arrangement and highly ornate orchestration (courtesy of Richard), and equally they were impressed by the soulful and emotive voice of Karen. The two had found a formula that would make sense for them, throughout their career interpreting a variety of other songwriters' work in order to express their own unique voice. The first two Carpenters LPs contain some of the finest examples of Karen's drumming on tape (although it does not make up for the fact that the material that they made as Spectrum seems to have been lost to time). After the success of the single version of "Ticket To Ride," Karen and Richard followed that up with their breakthrough second LP, titled "Close To You." This record also features four songs co-written by Richard with his friend John Bettis, with whom he used to work at Disneyland. Over the years, the album has proven to have a lasting appeal, going far beyond the cultural zeitgeist it captured during its initial heyday.
The LP opens with "We've Only Just Begun," a slow-paced ballad that sets the tone for the prevailing image of the Carpenters, presented by the A&M publicity team as existing somewhere between being a married couple and identical twins. Richard had heard the song in a wedding-themed bank commercial, and had a feeling that it could be a successful track for the group to cover. He was right. The song, written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams, presents a romantic take on the concept of life's long and lonely road, extolling the possibilities that arise when partnering through life with another person. This would be a long-running theme with the songs that were chosen for Karen to perform. In fact, Karen very rarely (if ever) was allowed to choose the material that she wished to perform, although there are several instances (such as their version of the song "Rainbow Connection") where she put her foot down and said that she just didn't like the song. For the most part, Karen found herself doing what she was told in order to make the people around her happy. Not only was it making them happy, however, but it was also making them a lot of money. Another notable track is a Richard Carpenter/John Bettis ditty called "Mr. Guder," which is a completely undisguised diss track dedicated to their former boss at Disneyland. The Carpenters were not above burning a few bridges in their newfound path toward success. The lyrics extrapolate on the issues that the two men shared against their former employer, depicting him as an Ahrimanic entity seeking to turn people into automatons. The track uses an interesting multi-tracking technique during a vocal section in the middle that is similar in tone to the 1960s work of the New York street performer Moondog. Karen's voice combined with Richard's vocal arrangements and production often created a bombastic, pop-operatic production style that would go on to be a great influence on experimental rock groups like Queen and Pink Floyd (see the vocal production on "A Night At The Opera" and "The Wall" for instance compared to the earliest material by those groups). Karen was adept at recording her voice to tape in a manner that seemed to come as natural as breathing, but it was the result of tireless efforts in the studio, including many pieces that never made the final cut. Another significant track on the album is the group's original tune "Crescent Noon," an eerie piece about the transformation of the seasons. Karen sings these words that Bettis wrote for her:
"Green September turned October brown.
Bare November led to December's frozen ground.
The seasons stumble 'round;
our drifting lives are bound to a falling crescent noon."
The record closes with a more up-tempo number called "Another Song," which closes the album with an uncharacteristic rhythm driven psychedelic-influenced rocker. It shows off some great drumming and tight musicianship in an uncharacteristic style, perhaps more like some of the material that they had recorded as Spectrum. The album pushed the group directly into the limelight with hit after hit climbing up the charts. The public couldn't believe the immense power emitting from the diminuative frontwoman of this tight and professional ensemble. The Carpenters' music had become so ubiquitous that there was a huge demand to know what was behind the group. The "bread and butter" clean-cut sort of attitude that the two had inherited from their parents was strikingly absent of irony or pretentiousness. In particular, Karen's personality shone brightly in interviews, as star-struck reporters asked her if she enjoyed her new-found fame: "Oh yeah. It's a kick. At times, it's just a little...well, you have to walk very fast! sometimes you just want to go out, go down the corner and buy a hamburger. But you really can't do that. That gets me sometimes not being able to walk around on my own! Sometimes you get tired of being protected 24 hours a day but..."
It was apparent that all eyes were on Karen from the very beginning, as her powerful spirit was fiercely evident in all aspects of the group. From her otherworldly and uncommon beauty to her intoxicating singing voice and intuitive smarts, Karen seemed like she could conquer the world: "For myself, when I decided what I wanted to do, I went ahead and did it. Nobody got in the way. If they did, you had to figure out a way to get around them. I think anybody who has enough self respect and enough brains can do what they want to do and the bit about blaming it on somebody else is just garbage! There's nobody that's going to stand in the way of somebody if they really want it - male or female!... Its stupid you know, just because you're a girl...so what?... We've got as much brains as anybody else. You see a lot of dumb guys around too! This bit about me being a successful girl drummer. I'm not a successful GIRL drummer, I'm just a drummer that happens to be a girl that's happy! I have a ball!"

"Although she has been successful in what is generally considered a man's field (drumming) she has little patience for "women's lib" and feels it's a wife's duty to cook for husband, because, 'Well, I like to cook. And just look at him,' pointing to her brother, 'he can't even cook water. . . just say that I certainly plan to cook for my husband.'" - Karen, quoted in The Washington Post in a 1973 article titled WHOLESOME IMAGE NO PUT-ON FOR POPULAR CARPENTERS.

Coming out of the turbulence of the 1960s and the Vietnam War era, American pop music in the late 1960s had moved toward a more raw and protest oriented sound (not unlike the "grunge" era of the 1990s that followed the initial Gulf War, under former CIA director George Herbert Walker Bush). Blues-rock and mod were the styles that were hip in the UK, more so than the sort of pop being peddled by the Carpenters. Songwriters like Burt Bacharach (who penned "Close To You" and other massively successful Carpenters songs, along with fellow hebrewish man Hal David) couldn't get arrested for their efforts. The Carpenters changed this, with Richard adeptly utilizing a dinosaur-like record industry's rules against itself to buck the norm, and in the process made a great deal of money for himself and A&M. A large part of this sales effort came from the fact that the group had been molded into shape and sold in such a manner as to be completely inoffensive pop music, theoretically from a couple of wholesome teenagers. Despite the sunny image of the Carpenters, the content of most of their songs actually dealt with the issues of severe depression and loneliness. The "perfect" appearance of the group was pushed as a major selling point, appealing to a desire to return to the suburban values of the 1950s. America wished that it could turn back the clock on the acid-drenched preceding years, and the Carpenters seemed to be the perfect solution. The group had come to represent a movement back toward a time that never actually existed, with the siblings coming to represent an impossible-to-attain perfection that seemed to be the goal of that era. Richard Nixon invited the group to perform at the White House for a dinner with the leader of West Germany, declaring that the musicians represented "the best that young America has to offer." The group came to represent the wholesome values that Nixon wished to actively associate himself with. Although Nixon's White House would soon come under attack for participating in espionage and mafia-like behavior, Karen and her brother continued to flourish as some of the most influential and popular entertainers of their time.

"Calling occupants of interplanetary craft... you've been observing our Earth, and we'd like to make a contact with you. We are your friends." - Carpenters.

Throughout all of this newfound fame, Karen and Richard's mother Agnes was careful to guide them through the trials and tribulation of success. She encouraged them to invest in local real estate, and they used the money from their first two hit singles to purchase a pair of apartment complexes in Downey. Everyone in town knew the family and was well-aware of their worldwide success, but for the most part Karen did her best to continue a normal existence in her hometown. She was known for frequenting a local Bob's Big Boy restaurant (she loved the black bean soup there, and she was a prolific imbiber of iced tea). Even after becoming wealthy and famous, Karen would always do her own shopping, whether it was for home appliances or clothing from a thrift store. She remained, at heart, a small-town girl, partially because she was discouraged by her mother from pursuing a desire to move to Los Angeles. She would spend her entire life as a resident of Downey, where she lived an ideal suburban existence that rivaled that of the fictional Cleaver family. Far from living in seclusion, the famous family continued to throw parties for the neighborhood at Karen and Richard's parents house. Karen was known for her fun-loving, even rambunctuous behavior, excited to cut-up like a teenager in the presence of company. Karen always put her best face forward, and despite some difficulties with her mother (including many disagreements about who she was allowed to spend time with) she always wanted to make everyone happy. Throughout the 1970s, the Carpenters made several television specials, as well as a multitude of appearances on a variety of television programs (including a memorable spot on ultra-creepy proto-reality show "This Is Your Life"). Richard's great talent and enthusiasm always shined during the mostly lip-synched performances, but it was Karen who America would become enamored with. Her large, beautiful brown eyes sparkled with an angelic radiance, and she read words from a cue card like she was speaking off the top of her head. It was clear that Karen had the face and personality of a "superstar." The bulk of the pressure on the duo's physical appearance would weigh upon her. Richard began to grow tired of the 'schtick' that him and his sister would perform in the specials, a sickly-sweet dramatization of often supposedly true events of their lives, delivered in a schmaltzy, Lawrence Welk-like manner. Nonetheless, audiences ate it up, and Karen became one of the most watched performers of her day, an otherworldly beauty, with an unforgettable voice.
Karen and Richard had a lot more up their flowing silk sleeves than a bunch of showtunes written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, however. Richard knew how to play the game, and he adeptly participated in the A&M marketing machine, while still maintaining a bit of artistic independence. The two were frank and easy-going in interviews, both openly declaring their opinion that marijuana should be legalized ("It's no worse than alcohol," said Karen in a People Magazine article from 1976) and maintaining that their main focus was on music and not making any kind of statement. The group recorded what would be two of their most successful releases, the self-titled "Carpenters" LP and "A Song For You." Both of these albums venture into a country/Americana sort of sound, and contain some of the most recognizable hits that the band ever produced (including the massively popular Leon Russell-written ballad "Superstar"). "Superstar" would become a Carpenters anthem, with Karen's lead vocal pleading to a rock star to come back to her, plaintively asking "Don't you remember when you told me you loved me, baby? You'd said you'd be coming back this way again, maybe..." Interestingly, because of a concern over the audience being unable to separate the performer from the song, Richard changed a line so that instead of singing that she can't wait to "sleep" with her lover again, she says she can't wait to "be" with them. There is much speculation that Karen's mother Agnes (who was a devout Christian) would have been upset with the notion of Karen singing about pre-marital sex. Even into adulthood, Karen was forced to report to her mother, and placed under intense scrutiny, especially after the onset of stardom. The fact that the words that were chosen for her to sing were so intricately analyzed and weighed upon each other shows the immense control that others had over Karen's life and performance. The song "Rainy Days and Mondays" would typify her appeal to the masses, taking clinical depression and condensing it to a three-minute catchy bit of purchasable pop. She seemed to be singing what many women and men in America were already thinking, and A&M Records and Karen's family were riding her emotions to the "Top Of The World" in financial success. By the time of the album "Now And Then" (which was, in fact, given its name by their mother Agnes), Karen was no longer a singing drummer but a bona fide frontwoman to one of the worlds most successful musical ensembles.

UNDER PRESSURE

1974 sent the Carpenters on a tour across the entire planet Earth. "Goodbye To Love," with its surprisingly powerful arrangement (including an uncharacteristic electric guitar solo) became another enormous hit for the group, crossing over somewhat with rock and metal audiences. Critics coined the term "power ballad" to describe the intensity of the track. Guitarist Tony Peluso thought that a friend of his was pulling a prank when he had received a phone call from "Karen Carpenter" asking for him to lay down an electric guitar track for an upcoming single from her group the Carpenters. It seemed like at this point that the group were completely unstoppable, steamrolling through the charts in the early 1970s with the force of a great white shark. So many people were depending on Karen and putting pressure on her that it began to take its toll, however. In a strike back for independence, she began to noticeably fluctuate in her physical weight, at times appearing unhealthily thin. Also during this time, Karen began to seek outside influences beyond her overbearing mother and the record label system that her brother's loyalties sided with. She became friends with people such as Dionne Warwick (whom she greatly looked up to before becoming a star herself) and the goddess-like disco maven Olivia Newton-John. The presence of these other famous ladies was a warm and positive influence on Karen's life, and provided for her what must have been an oasis of calm and support. Her mother was still controlling of her life during this time, however, and tended to view Karen's newfound friendships with suspicion. In the meantime, Karen and Richard held an almost militaristic level of band meetings and practice sessions, desperate to keep the Carpenters machine operating. Karen's deep and intense self-control was a focused energy that she emitted from her body during live performance.



"The Beatles, who incorporated the techniques of concrète into their recordings, were responsible for popularizing the concept of backmasking. Singer John Lennon and producer George Martin both claimed they discovered the backward recording technique during the recording of 1966's Revolver; specifically the album tracks "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "I'm Only Sleeping," and the single "Rain". Lennon stated that, while under the influence of marijuana, he accidentally played the tapes for "Rain" in reverse, and enjoyed the sound. The following day he shared the results with the other Beatles, and the effect was used first in the guitar solo for "Tomorrow Never Knows", and later in the coda of "Rain"." - from the Wikipedia entry on Backmasking (Redirected from Backwards Message).

The Carpenters next released a record titled "Horizon," the cover of which depicted the duo among a stark rocky landscape, mirroring the emotional terrain dealt with inside. Reviewed poorly upon its initial release, tracks such as "Solitaire" and "Desperado" have stood the test of time as poignant and gripping ballads about human emotion. Both of those tracks examine an emotionally barren person trying to love after a series of deadening events. It seemed that the joy and excitement of early fame had given way to an intense sadness, an emptiness represented by a strong distance from others that both Karen and Richard were both feeling at the time. One of the more upbeat tracks, the synthesizer-filled "Happy," showed a potential futuristic direction that the Carpenters would dabble with but unfortunately never fully explore. The album did not share the enormous success of the previous efforts. The group found that their own track record was stark competition, and they were unable to regain the immense relevance and popularity that took them over the top at the beginning of the decade. The seams were beginning to show in the Carpenter empire with both siblings experiencing personal strife and turmoil. Karen was increasingly looking for an outlet for her own personal voice, while still pleasing the people around her. Unfortunately, some of those who she wished to please did not have her well-being in mind.

"The name Seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles; their heat and their keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assessment of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all-consuming flame, and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant, and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness." - Pseudo-Dionysus the Aeropagite, "On The Divine Names, On The Celestial Hierarchies."

1976 brought "A Kind Of Hush," an innocuous record from the group that saw them covering a Herman's Hermits hit from the 1960s as the title track. Richard was determined to keep the group a successful hit machine by any means necessary at this point, and Karen would be dragged along through the process due to her necessary presence as the star. Although Richard sang lead on a couple of songs from the self-titled "Carpenters" record, it simply was not a Carpenters record for real without the dominant vocal presence of Karen. At this point, she was all but forbidden to play the drums, constantly finding herself lip-synching the same songs over and over for various promotional appearances and publicity junkets. Increasingly, the group found themselves less relevant with each year going further into the more liberal era of the late 1970s. Jimmy Carter's America was becoming more enthralled with cocaine, disco music, and New York culture than the "peace and love" good California vibes that the Carpenters came to represent. This album contained a song that Karen would count as her favorite Carpenters track, a ballad co-written by her brother and Bettis called "I Need To Be In Love." It is a sad and lonely track of searching for an unattainable love that seems to define the aura of heartbreak surrounding the work of the Carpenters. It was a personal success for the group, but, unfortunately, did not translate into the astronomical record sales that the group was seeking. Richard regrouped his efforts for one last push towards success with a slightly experimental approach in song choices. Although this effort did not equal the success that he perhaps was aiming for, it did make for one of the strangest albums that the Carpenters were to create, titled simply "Passage."

"Some EVP enthusiasts describe hearing the words in EVP as an ability, much like learning a new language. Skeptics say that the claimed instances are all either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. EVP and ITC are seldom researched within the scientific community and, as ideas, are generally derided by scientists when asked." - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

While other groups were topping the charts with disco or punk-inspired material, Richard stuck to what he did best: complex and ornate arrangements of saccharine pop balladry. He definitely knew how to pick an interesting track for Karen to sing, and the choices that top this one are rather curious. "Passage" shows Richard trying out some arrangements of musical styles not usually broached by the duo, including light-jazz and calypso. An overlong cover of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" is fiercely out of place, and paints a tragic picture of Karen that her brother very possibly saw coming in some capacity. He had certainly noticed her rapidly decreasing weight and related health problems, puzzled that she seemed to be intentionally avoiding nutrition. During family dinners and meals away from home, Karen had become adept at finding ways to avoid eating the food on her plate, including giving it away to others at the table and hiding portions to be disposed of later. She appeared to be headed down an unhealthy path, but no one around her could seem to get close enough to help. Coinciding with an increasing interest in the subject of extra-terrestrial visitation to Earth, the Carpenters released the single "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft." The track, and the accompanying video, feature the duo pleading to extraterrestrial intelligences to bring justice to the Earth and destroy the "adversaries" of the Carpenters. The song has an intricate orchestral arrangement that shows great care and effort, but it failed to connect with American audiences, who could not at all relate to what the duo was laying down before them. It seemed that the group was being sincere in their way, but they were not creating the sort of material that the public wanted. The Carpenters made their way through another television special called "Space Encounters," banking not only on the recent single but also the current (at the time) popularity of sci-fi films Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Literal-minded audiences who had embraced the saccharine flavor of "Top Of The World" and "Close To You" could simply not relate to hearing the same group sing about attempting psychic communicating with extraterrestrial entities. Karen's vocal performance presents the subject calmly and seriously, intoning matter-of-factly to the listener the process of telepathy: "With your mind, you have ability to form and transmit thought energy far beyond the norm. You close your eyes, you concentrate, together that's the way..."

"The term Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) was coined by Ernst Senkowski in the 1970s to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jürgenson (whose funeral was held that day) was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiasts also look at TV and video camera feedback loop of the Droste effect." - From the Wikipedia entry on Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

MAL'AKH (The Messenger)

Deeply concerned with his sister's health, and the groups faltering status as pop royalty (along with his own personal concerns), Richard soon committed himself to a rehabilitation program for an addiction to Quaaludes. While Karen had her own health issues, he had been harboring heavy Quaalude use throughout the previous years in order to maintain himself during the periods of high stress. After their initial breakthrough success, the duo had purchased two large apartment complexes and Richard had been staying in one throughout their fame. Karen had been kept under more control, with the mother Agnes seeming to be harshly judgmental of her and unhappy with her friendships. She was especially controlling over Karen's friendship with other women, and was threatened by the influence that the successful artists she was hanging out with had over her. For these and other reasons, Karen was forbidden to move away from home until the age of 26. Karen's father was loving and understanding during all of this, but Agnes Carpenter ruled the house and had extreme jurisdiction over many of the choices that Karen was allowed to make. Although Karen's lack of identification with the "women's lib" movement on one hand shows her independence, but also it is likely that if she had been exposed to feminist literature she would likely be alive today. As an unmarried and "unspoiled" female child of strict, she was held under lock and key by her family, with Richard being encouraged to have almost complete control over Karen's every artistic decision. The two met every morning in a militaristic regimen for an "o'eight-hundred" breakfast where Richard would discuss the important matters of the day with Karen, who would sometimes grow weary of the constant control. Because of the deep love and respect that she had for her family and their values, she had allowed them to dictate her life for her well into adulthood.
A good example of this dynamic is Karen's short-lived marriage to real-estate magnate Tom Burris. Burris was an opportunistic man who was introduced to Karen by her family as a man that she needed to meet. Karen often sings in her music of having a romance that could last the test of time, and marriage was a childhood dream that she had always hoped to fulfill. Burris took her on a "whirlwind romance," proposing to her and offering her the picket fence existence that she dreamed of. She wanted to have children and be a homemaker for a nice man, and Burris offered to provide this for her. Unfortunately for Karen, he was simply an opportunistic person who was manipulating her emotions, like so many others around her. He lied about his affluence, constantly hitting her up for tens of thousands of dollars to make up for failed investments. To add insult to injury, he revealed several weeks before their scheduled marriage that he had lied about his intentions to have children with Karen. Less than a month before their wedding day, he revealed to her that he had a vasectomy and was unable to father children. She felt completely betrayed by Burris and those who had influenced her to submit to his control. She told her mother that she wanted to cancel the ceremony, and she responded by telling Karen that it was going to happen no matter what. The cameras were coming, "People magazine would be there," and the wedding was happening whether she liked it or not. Karen was forced to endure a sham for the benefit of the "good face" of her family and their interests. She was forced to swear loyalty a man who cared not one iota for her. They would be separated only one year and some months later, with an irate Burris yelling at her family that "you can have her!" He showed up to her funeral only to throw his ring into her coffin before the beginning of the ceremony. She looked incredibly beautiful throughout the ridiculous charade.
Karen, meanwhile, sought to expand her artistry to more adult concerns than those which the Carpenters had become associated with. She had grown distant from her family, feeling controlled by a domineering mother who always treated Karen as being inferior to her industrious and talented older brother. Although she felt independent of it, Karen was defined in the eyes of her family and the world by her gender. She sought to overcome the control over her life by traveling to New York and working on a solo record with producer Phil Ramone. She had agreed also to seek treatment for her eating disorder, which had at this point caused her to collapse on-stage and exhibit drastic changes in her physical appearance. Artistically, however, she greatly flourished during this period, managing to put together a phenomenally powerful solo debut record with a strong disco flavor. Along with having a great professional repoire with producer Ramone, she became very close friends with his wife Ichi Ramone during this time. Ichi would continue to be a good friend to Karen all the way to the end of her life. Noticeably, many of the songs featured an unexpected sexuality to them, an aspect of the album which would prove incredibly controversial to A&M executives (and her brother) once she tried to release it. During the beginning of the recording sessions for the record, Karen returned home to Downey briefly and played the tracks she had worked on for her mother Agnes. Both of Karen's parents fiercely disapproved of the overtly sexual lyrics to the music, and when she returned to the studio to resume recording she had dropped to 80 pounds. It seemed that the disapproval of her parents had a great effect on her physical well-being. The sessions for the record were very successful, and Karen recounted the time she spent working on it as the happiest time of her life, but meanwhile her physical appearance was growing more and more disturbing to those around her, clearly Karen was not nourishing herself. "Karen Carpenter" is an impressive record, the release of which would have made a great transition into solo artistry and future relevance for Karen, but the forces around her simply would not allow this to happen.

"It depends what the girl wants and if she wants it bad enough. She can figure it out for herself if she's going to stick to it. And if a guy is really in love with her, he would stick with her. I mean, if a guy was really hung up on a chick... like if a chick wanted to do something really bad, the guy would give of himself and let the chick do what she wants. That's only natural." - Karen on relationships.

After a listening party for the record in New York (accompanied by supportive friends and co-workers in the recording industry), Karen very confidently returned to California to face the scrutiny of label executives for A&M. Herb Alpert and Richard Carpenter stared ahead unemotionally as each song went by. The two men fed off each other's coldness and indifference to Karen's warm and beautiful music that she had created without either of their input. They cruelly disregarded her efforts, pretending to dislike the album because of a supposed lack of quality. This is laughable, considering that both men cannibalized the release for years to come after the death of Karen, endlessly remixing many of the tracks from the release to appear on a multitude of posthumous "Carpenters" records. What they did not like was Karen's fierce independence, which they sought to crush under their heels so that they could continue to use her to increase their own fame and wealth. Executives at A&M and Richard canned the record, sending Karen out of the room in tears. It is possible that she never recovered from the incident, a stone-cold reminder that she was under the yoke of people who had no interest in letting her be her own woman. New A&M employee Quincey Jones offered to add some remixing to the record, believing that it should be released, but his suggestions were ignored. He later created the "Thriller" album with Michael Jackson, one of the most successful pop recordings in the history of the music industry. She was charged $400,000 for the cost of the record, an amount of money that was levied against future Carpenters royalties, putting increased pressure on her from her family and the label to return to the unattainable success of the first Carpenters music, in order to catch up with what her controllers deemed an immense financial mistake. The emotional damage had been done, and by the next television appearances, Karen had become a skeletal shadow of her former self. She was put on an intravenous drip at a California hospital that unnaturally increased her weight by twenty pounds in an attempt to make her better.
On the day that she died, Karen had an argument with her mother over wanting to spend the weekend hanging out with Olivia Newton-John. Karen, who lived with her parents until the age of 26, died in the closet of her brothers childhood bedroom. She was staying in that room because there was a VHS player in there, and she enjoyed watching tapes of dramatic television programs, such as Magnum P.I. (a crime drama starring Tom Selleck). She had spent a night escaping into entertainment, and then she walked into the closet, laid down peacefully facing the ground, and allowed her heart to stop beating. Her mother found her unconscious, passed out from heart failure without any sign of struggle. Her eyes were wide open and she was unclothed, facing the carpet. Karen's spirit had left her mortal form just shortly before her 33rd birthday. Her body had given up. Karen again made international headlines, but this time those words of news brought intense sorrow to her legions of fans and supporters.



Many have wondered how this could have happened to someone with paid body-gaurds around them and a severely overprotective family dynamic. There were a lot of people around Karen who noticed that she was not eating. They told her that she needed to eat. That she needed to nourish her body. She made her body weak through malnourishment. She didn't dislike food, some of her favorite dishes were black bean soup and a nice big hamburger from Bob's Big Boy with a shake. According to an interview, she "detests water." She was very opinionated about her body as well, and had strong opinions regarding whether or not she looked good. Because of this, she would starve herself or take on unhealthy habits in order to obtain a never attainable "perfect weight" that she felt pressured to achieve. When anyone wanted to try and intervene, she protested intensely, knowing exactly what she wanted. She was a powerful, forceful woman in many ways, just like her mother. She stood her ground and got what she wanted in most situations that did not involve her family, and although she was not closed minded she was indeed determined. She looked the way she wanted, whether or not it was what she needed. In reality, she felt completely malnourished of what she felt that she truly needed, her deepest desire that she sang about so often. The words ring true because she was singing the truth. What she needed was love, and she felt a million miles away from it.

"Please come in peace, we beseech you... Please interstellar policeman, please give us a sign that we've reached you." - Carpenters.

Previous to Karen's battle with anorexia, there was little public awareness of the existence of "anorexia nervosa." The glamourization (through television and print media) of excessively skinny women, combined with the real-life oppression and silencing of female sexuality, has led to the development of an epidemic of eating disorders that continues to this day. Women, young and old, who have been exposed to the particular manner of body enslavement so peculiar to Western society, are simultaneously discouraged from exploring the sexuality promised them by the unattainable body image. Karen was put under immense pressure to maintain her weight at a particular level by her family and her management, to the point that she could not look into the mirror without seeing something that she was made to feel bad about. When her appearance dipped to a point of a deathly skeletal shade during televised interviews for the "Made In America" record, she had already begun to leave her desires for this life behind her. Because of the way her label and family treated her after she made her solo album, she knew definitively that she would not be allowed to express herself artistically in any true capacity. She faced $400,000 worth of debt for simply taking seriously her status as a recording artist and making high-quality, sellable work. Richard had a lot on his plate to deal with at the time, and was most certainly thinking about his own career for his part. He seems to have regretted his decision somewhat, and when Ichi informed Richard that she had dedicated her solo album to him he broke down in tears on the phone with her. Herb Alpert's selfish decision to not allow Karen to release the "Karen Carpenter" LP most certainly lead to the despair that she felt in those final days. Karen's parents came from a time when women were not expected to do much but cook and clean, and her mother seemed to actively seek to keep Karen in that mindset. Agnes died in 1995, and in 1996 Karen's solo record, featuring songs adult fare such as "Making Love In The Afternoon," was finally released to the public. Agnes Carpenter would never in her lifetime have to deal with the idea of her daughter having an independent adulthood, filled with the desires and imperfections that all people share, her mother included. Whether or not she directly had any part in the withholding of the Karen Carpenter record from the public, it is extremely significant that Richard chose not to release the album until after her death. Although the music was not an enormous departure from the Carpenters, the free and energetic spirit of the album proved that Karen had a side to her that was boldly independent. It sounds completely non-controversial today, but compared to the image that had been cultivated for Karen it was an unacceptable departure. Although things would change drastically for acceptable subject matter by female artists on major labels in the 1990s (see Hole, PJ Harvey, Alanis Morrisette etc), Karen would be forced to suffer as a martyr for the cause of gender equality within pop music. Wishing to protect her from the realities of the world, her mother had cultivated a highly controlled world for her that she ultimately escaped through the wearing out of her physical form. Through this process, a growing awareness of the reality of eating disorders (as well as the negative body image projected in the media, and its affect on women) became public knowledge, likely leading to many women not as famous as Karen whose lives were saved by the awareness and sensitivity generated by the unfortunate example of her death.

"NANCY: Are you close to your parents today?
KAREN: Oh, yes, they're right downstairs." - 1976 interview excerpt

Karen's life was plagued by the good intentions of those around her. The Karen Carpenter solo album contained within it many songs that expressed a vibrant and adult sort of sexuality that both her family and her record label sought to withhold from the public. Beyond this, the record label executives and Richard were afraid that the open sexuality of her solo effort would forever taint the clean and wholesome image that the Carpenters had developed (note that Richard followed up the aborted record by orchestrating Karen into the uncharacteristically patriotic and blander-than-ever "Made In America" record, a blatant attempt at making a money-grubbing appeal to the most common of denominators, blind nationalism and international pro-USA sentiment). "Made In America"'s promotional photos look like a funeral photography, and it proved to be the worst-selling Carpenters LP of all time. Richard would go on to remix and re-present most of the tracks from Karen's solo record, which were repackaged with additional recorded material (and certain parts removed) as new "Carpenters" songs for many years into the future. In the meantime, he has completely continued to disregard the quality her chosen mixes and demos. He continues to remain in denial about her musical and creative contributions to the group, continuing to choose anger for her "poor business decisions."

KAREN HITTING THE COSMIC DANCEFLOOR IN STYLE, NEW YORK 1979, SHINING WITH THE STARS, GLITTER AND NIGHT LIFE

Karen lives on through the music that she recorded, much of which is readily available for consumption. Every new generation that discovers her plaintive and haunting voice through the polished presentation given by her brother and the executives at A&M records is invited to a mystery of beauty and sadness. Her constant search, her "Need To Be In Love" was an existential cry for meaning in a world full of deception and hypocrisy, love going beyond the greed and selfishness causes us to judge and hurt one another. The accomplishments that were achieved by Karen during her short life live on in ways that are little understood but widely felt and appreciated. This world is just a station, and at this station we learn to truly "love" and give of ourself in a way that is inclusive of death. Our consciousness is meant to go beyond, to leave behind this shell and traverse the "vast unknown."





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RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS:
THE STORY OF JEFFERY DAHMER
PART THREE (CONCLUSION) -
THE BOYS OF SUMMER
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"I found a (dead) dog, and cut it open just to see what the insides looked like, and for some reason I thought it would be a fun prank to stick the head on a stake and set it out in the woods. And brought one of my friends back to look at it and said I’d stumbled upon that in the woods. Just for shock value." - Jeff Dahmer.

It is a misconception that serial killer Jeffery Dahmer tortured and killed small animals as a child. Although torture and murder of smaller creatures is not uncommon behavior in the youthful activities of some sadists and sociopaths, Dahmer himself was both scientifically curious about deceased animals and altruistically inclined to help the injured or harmed. One night, while a very young Jeffery Dahmer and his father Lionel were out bike-riding together (Dahmer was so young that he had just moved past riding a tricycle), Jeffery spotted a nighthawk that was injured and lying on the ground. They took the bird of prey home and Jeffery himself cared for it, nurturing the creature back to health and releasing it back into the wild with his parents. The boy recalled a feeling of pride and happiness at being able to nurture the creature back to life, finding joy in his ability to help another living being. At the age of four, he went under the knife in a painful operation for a double hernia that had him asking his mother if the doctors had removed his genitals (do the the excessive pain that he was feeling down there). He became sullen and withdrawn at this point, a characteristic that had not been observed in him before this point and which would remain with him to his final days. Not long after being cut apart by doctors, Jeffery became fascinated with some animal bones that were swept from under his parents house by Lionel. Dahmer examined the bones with such an intensive curiosity that his father thought that the young man might have a future in medical or scientific fields. The boy described the bones as being "like fiddlesticks." Most of his childhood was spent in solitude, and the games that he would play with friends involved themes that would echo with Dahmer's solitary nature. In particular, "Infinity Land," a game where stick figures floating in an existential space send each other spiraling into an abyss (once they come into contact with one another), eerily echoed Dahmer's adult interests. He would draw this game on a piece of paper and play it with classmates during his youth. It would be during his 25th year of life that he would put his games to practice, spiraling through a world that would be for a time his own private Infinity Land.

"Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." - Charles Darwin

Dahmer's time in the military was ultimately fruitless. He obviously learned a great deal during this experience, especially in regards to the technical functions of the human body as they relate to his training to be a medic. After a discharge and some hazy events occurring in southern Florida upon his arrival back into America, he found himself living at his grandmother's house in Wisconsin, working the late shift at the Ambrosia Chocolate Company full time. Multiple arrests relating to drunk and disorderly behavior led the young man to seek solace in his grandmother's church, becoming "born again" and aligning himself with the Christian religion openly for the first time since his youth. He sought to once again be a "good boy," to overcome and move past the indiscretions that were already committed (including at least one murder and an alleged series of rapes while in the military) and look to Jesus Christ for his own personal salvation. However, like a shirtless hitchhiker on the side of the interstate, Dahmer's urges constantly flagged him down and attempted to pull him away from his newfound attempt at religious conservatism.

Jeffery discusses his first murder, committed shortly after finishing High School:
"I was driving back home, after drinking; and I wasn’t looking for anyone but, about a mile away from the house, there he was. Hitchhiking along the road. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was attractive; I was attracted to him. I stopped then passed him and stopped the car and thought, “Well, should I pick him up or not?” And I asked him if he wanted to go back and smoke some pot, and he said, “Oh, yeah.” And we went into my bedroom, had some beer, and from the time I spent with him I could tell he wasn’t gay. I, uh, didn’t know how else to keep him there other than to get the barbell and to hit him, over the head, which I did, then strangled him with the same barbell... I was very frightened at what I had done. Paced the house for a while. Ends up I did masturbate... After the army, after working for about a year in Miami. When the rest of the family was away, while they were at work, I opened up the drainage pipe, took the bones, smashed them into small pieces scattered them in the underbrush."



It is at this point in his life, around a quarter of a century old and living in relative solitude with his grandmother in peaceful Wisconsin, that Dahmer first began to experiment with picking up men at gay clubs, local bathhouses and "bookstores." It is not uncommon for "men's spas" and workout centers to double as meeting places for discreet homosexual activity to occur- in the days before AIDS this was especially widespread. Often an "adult bookstore" would have as it's main attraction a series of "glory holes" or booths where men could have discreet sexual activity with one another. Dahmer would frequent these locations during this time of his life, completely inexperienced in the world of "cruising." He found it to be a cold and frightening place. Lonely people searching for companionship, unable to meet outside of a dehumanizing and pleasure-based anonymous structure, under which the poor souls simply show up achieve orgasm and go on their depleted way. This was not enough to satisfy Dahmer, who desired to have companionship for longer periods of time. He wished to be close to another in a way that was unfathomable to many of his partners, deep within himself seeking to keep them as servants and sexually pleasure himself with their internal organs. As a holdover from a youth spent dissecting animals, and as a result of a burgeoning sexuality developing at that time, Dahmer had developed a paraphilic association with sexual stimulation and the internal organs. Something within him sought to make a sexual fetish out of the idea of a taking apart a human body and pleasuring himself with the contents. Through a desire beyond his control, Dahmer found himself compelled to transform into the "monster" unfathomable to those around him that he became. He must have at times cursed a God who supposedly loved him so for giving him desires that were beyond explanation to the poor boy. It was a compulsion that would remain secret until he was finally caught, but until then Dahmer lived a fascinating internal world, fluctuating between self-suppression and reveling in his desires. This is a common contradiction in American sexuality, the desire to "binge and purge," and for Dahmer it was a life-long struggle with an aspect of guilt and sympathy that he did feel within himself. In order to deal with this, he tended to view his compulsions as coming from an "other" outside of himself, a personification of evil that led him to commit acts of violence and morbidity that would go against the prevailing moral codes around him.

Dahmer on his awareness of his own sexuality:
"In the township where I was at, homosexuality was the ultimate taboo. It was never discussed, never. I had desires to be with someone, but never met anyone that was gay, that I know of; so that was sexually frustrating."

In the bathhouses and adult bookstores that Dahmer frequented, he found the sexual satisfaction he desired from the bodies of others, but not the companionship. It was a repeating cycle- shame would push Dahmer to a point where he was unable to make lasting relationships. He could not get clse to any of his partners for mutual fear of being discovered, among other reasons. Dahmer, for his part, never let go of her murderous desires and past, which he would have to keep secret from any potential boyfriend that he would try to associate with. The literal skeleton in Dahmer's closet was a huge barrier in his being able to be close to another human being. Several times, Dahmer came home with young men who would spend the night, to the judgmental curiosity of his grandmother. Although he would excuse himself by saying that they were partying and his companions simply had too much to drink and nowhere else to go, but his family was suspicious of Dahmer's nighttime activities for a variety of reasons. At one point, Dahmer's grandmother Catherine found a complete human mannequin in Dahmer's living space that he seemed to be sleeping with. She was greatly disturbed by this and asked him to remove it, which he complied, saying that he had just taken it "as a prank" and was having "some fun" with it, "nothing weird." In reality, he was using the dummy to live out the sexual fantasies that would cost the lives of at least sixteen more young men by the beginning of the next decade. Dahmer was in the process of developing what would become an extraordinarily insatiable appetite.

"PARAMOUNT PULLS 'BODY PARTS' ADS: (The) Paramount Pictures Corporation says it has pulled television ads for the upcoming horror movie 'Body Parts' in the Milwaukee region after this week's gruesome discovery of at least 11 dismembered bodies in a local apartment. In addition, Wisconsin's largest chain of movie theaters was said to be pulling the movie that is scheduled to open nationwide next Friday." - from a July 26, 1991 Los Angeles Times article by David J. Fox.

In reality the mannequin could not possibly satisfy his sexual desires, and Dahmer found himself frequenting the bathhouses more and more often. He found that he could rent a locker and have a room to himself, and drug a sexual companion with sleeping pills in order to utilize his body for the night. Dahmer was much more interested in achieving his own personal enjoyment from a situation than developing any sort of lasting friendship. In the darkness, and with the aid of drugs, many men became unconscious lovers to a man who would go down in infamy as one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. Although Dahmer was attractive enough to get "dates," he desired an unconscious, possibly even unwilling sexual partner. Because he could not have his ultimate desire, the insides of his victims for his pleasure, he instead comforted himself with an illusion of "complete control" enacted through the unconscious but still-breathing body of his victim. He ultimately desired to create an indifferent, zombie-like sexual companion as his ideal partner, someone who could neither protest nor judge the slightest whim of the sexually unsatisfied lover found in Jeffery. It was during this period of time that Dahmer began to obsess more intricately on the innards and body parts of his sleeping companions. After acheiving orgasm, he would spend long periods of time listening to the heartbeat and digestive sounds of his sleeping companions, reveling in his complete control over their body. One day, after making a habit of this, Jeffery drugged one of his partners a little too heavily, and the paramedics had to be called. Although charges were not pressed against him, Dahmer found himself barred from any similar establishment in the area. He had severely messed up a somewhat comfortable situation, and finding adequately submissive partners to his specifications for compliance would prove to be far more difficult to Jeffery from this point onwards. It is for this reason that Dahmer would find himself once again compelled to take the life of another, a bubbling rage beneath the surface waiting to show itself to the world around him. Dahmer said that he began to fetishize "the excitement and anticipation of meeting a stranger in the night," almost exclusively from the perspective of one stalking prey. Dahmer saw himself as a man apart from society, an inhuman sexual predator.

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we would expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” - Charles Darwin

Dahmer had other hobbies during this time as well. After reading an obituary of a young man that he deemed attractive, Dahmer decided to visit the funeral services of the cute boy whose picture he saw in the paper. At the event, he found the young man so attractive that he had to relieve himself onanistically in the men's room of the funeral parlor. He waited for nightfall and attempted to dig up the newly-buried corpse for his own pleasure (in order to abate his urges to kill), but alas the ground was frozen and beyond puncturing by Dahmer's shovel. In sadness and rejection (even from the dead), Dahmer turned morosely back to his grandmother's house, dissatisfied and filled with confused energies. Dahmer began to form an obsession with the character in "Return Of The Jedi" of the Emperor, particularly in the form of the Emperor's powerful thrall over Darth Vader and his son Luke Skywalker. Dahmer found the scenes of the Emperor torturing Luke to be extremely erotic and triggering to urges to have power over other men. It was in September of 1986 that these urges would boil up in a recorded incident of public sexual exposure on the record of Jeffery Dahmer. Although he had exposed himself to children in the past, this time he was most assuredly masturbating in the presence of two 12-year old boys near a riverbank. Amazingly, his charges were dropped to "disorderly conduct" and he was sentenced to one year of probation. Dahmer's father was extremely disappointed in his son and believed that from this point on there was no hope for the young man except to be a ne'er do well with violent and pedophilic inclinations.
It should be obvious from Dahmer's actions that his flirtation with Christianity was again waning. Much like in his childhood, Dahmer would spend long hours brooding and thinking, staring into the air and floating mentally in an existential limbo. Dahmer lived an intense and private inner world that he did not believe others could tap into or understand, and surrounded by the hypocrisy and fake kindness of those around him he assimilated into adult society with a similar facade of normality. He imitated the world around him, becoming a passive enigma who simply wished to please on the surface level. Beneath this, he operated as his own independent nation with his own set of rules, waging a quiet and subversive war against the status quo and simmering in hatred and spite for humanity combined with a passionate desire to share some sort of intimacy with another. It seems that his urges were so overwhelming that he began to convince himself of various excuses for his behavior, feeling that he was hard-wired to sexual perversion and murder deep within himself. His probation put him in a position of subordinance that he despised, as he ultimately envied the authority and power of the police. He began to feel increasingly victimized, and perhaps in many ways abandoned by the aid of God and religion. He saw himself as an incurable sinner, one who had no choice but to satisfy his compulsions. It would be during this time of intense scrutiny from the law that Dahmer would commit his first admitted murder since hitchhiker Steven Hicks in 1978.

"Put them back, under the crawl space. Took the head, washed it off, put it on the bathroom floor, masturbated and all that, then put the head back down with the rest of the bags. Next morning we had a large buried drainage pipe, about ten feet long put the bags in there, smash the front of it down, and leave it there for about two and a half years." - Jeffery Dahmer describes the disposal of his first victim, hitchhiker Steven Hicks.

In the Hindu religious and philosophical system, there is talk of a demonic attachment that one can have with a particular sexual desire, where the indulgence therein will result in nothing less than the total spiritual and physical destruction of the individual. Driven to commit acts that they cannot explain or justify to others, the recipient of this parasitic desire obsesses over the concept until being driven to act out the script like a performer in a stage play, compelled by the sexual impulses stimulated by the parasite who attaches to the host and feeds from the sexual energies and subsequent guilt and feelings of remorse and depression after their expulsion. The act is repeated time and time again, until finally the actor is stopped by outside forces and decried as a monster by the local community. Many schizophrenics report hearing voices, commands from outside of their own consciousness to commit acts of deviancy from the norm, or for that matter compulsive violence. In many ways, we are all schizophrenics, compelled by voices that seem to come from outside of us that we must shut out or welcome, depending on our inclination. Perhaps these voices come from an inner compulsion, an ancient, Reptilian Brain aspect of fight or flight relating to early human survival that exists now in the form of whispers to our mind about the most horrible things imaginable. The "voices," the compulsions that convince an otherwise gentle and happy child to kick a dog or hurt their siblings out of curiosity. Children, onto adulthood, will often have playful, seemingly innocent impulses to suffocate and experiment with other living beings. It does not make it right, it just makes it "so." The foibles that make us human, that we must overcome in order to become ourselves, hopefully something greater than the total of our chemical makeup. It is our ability to decide that makes us culpable for our actions. Jeffery Dahmer, for his part, was definitely not insane.
On November 15, 1987, Dahmer took a young white male named Steven Toumi from a gay club to a nearby hotel for some alone time. He had secretly put sleeping pills in Toumi's drink after convincing him to go to a hotel later. Jeffery Dahmer had very little trouble getting other men to come home with him, at the time he was a thin, good-looking young man who was very well-kept. He had on the surface a shy and sensitive demeanor that must have come off as quite endearing to many of the young men who went home with him, and in fact before this point had gone home with many others without incident (according to Dahmer's testimony). He claims that he awoke to find himself in Toumi's dead arms, the young man bludgeoned to death in the chest cavity by Jeffery's fists during a drunken rage. Toumi likely woke up briefly from his drug-induced slumber to see Dahmer pummeling him to death, greedily reaching for the young man's internal organs. He claims that he was overcome with a desire to hold Toumi's heart in his hands (not unlike the villain in the then-recent "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom" film). He cleaned up the blood from the incident in a panic, even utilizing the assistance of the hotel help to get the body out of the hotel in a large suitcase (without their knowledge of the contents). It is an amazing feat that Jeffery managed to consistently come to his senses and cover up his impulse actions in time to save himself from capture or suspicion of improper behavior. Although loneliness and depression would be the driving factors pushing Dahmer towards murder, a prevailing sense of calm and self-control enabled him to get away with his actions time and time again. He had woken up in shock at having committed murder yet again (despite his claims that he had not taken Toumi to the hotel with the intention of killing him), but very quickly regained his composure. Dahmer's youthful excursions in fantasy, and his ability as a youngster to skirt the rules and deceive for his own purposes, had seen the boy grow into a man able to fully justify any deception in order to get his way. God became more and more distant of a concept to Dahmer in these years, and his lack of perception that he would be punished by a higher power led him to believe that he was simply an evolved predator who existed for the purpose of exterminating others and living out his compulsions. Later in life, he remarked to authorities that he "should've just gotten a fish tank" instead of pursuing his early efforts at murder, suggesting that he viewed his human prey as entertainment. When he moved into his final apartment, he had purchased a fish tank that he populated with tropical fish, placing it on a long black table that he would later plan to use as part of an altar. He found a great deal of joy in the fish tank, but at the point that he acquired it he was sadly already on a compulsive path toward self-destruction. His desire and curiosity about life pushed him to become as close as he could with his companions, and something within him desired to be so physically close that it would in fact be impossible for his partner to survive. The sexual fascination with severed heads and innards, and the desire to be close to those things, made it impossible for Dahmer to have any hope of continuous sexual fulfillment from a partner. In order to satisfy his needs, his sexual partner must be killed.

"Lonliness is such a sad affair, and I can hardly wait to be with you again. What to say to make you come again, come back to me again..." - Carpenters, "Superstar"

With the body of the young man in his luggage, Jeffery took the corpse back to his grandmother's house in a fit of lustful excitement. Unfortunately for him, Thanksgiving weekend was coming soon, and family was going to over at the house, leading Dahmer to store the body in the fruit cellar for a particularly anxious week. As the family got together and recalled stories of the past, Dahmer silently waited for the house to be empty again so that he could tend to his decaying would-be lover deep below their feet. The following Sunday, while his Grandmother went to church, Dahmer stayed home and made preparations for his long-awaited ritualistic deconstruction of the human body, which became an addictive, re-occurring practice for the next several years. His first step in the process was to remove the head from the body. This was a major part of Dahmer's personal sexual exploration. Although it is at times reported that his major sexual fetish involving the head was to physically use it as an object of pleasure against his genitals, in fact he seemed to get an even greater thrill from the actual act of simply pleasuring himself in front of the severed head as he observed it separate from the body, knowing that he was responsible for what he saw before him. Beheading is a symbol of power that goes back to ancient times, where power was determined by physical violence and beheading was the ultimate symbol of control over another person's body. Although Dahmer was lonely, he decided to overcome it temporarily by committing an ancient act of domination that was hard-wired into some subconscious, prehuman understanding of our physical relationship with the personal space of others. For this reason, the ritualistic removal of the victim's head is an extremely significant aspect of his domination of the chosen subject. He desired, deep within himself, to turn these people into victims in a greater manner, some form of eternal victimhood where he kept their skulls in a shrine and fed from their power. In this way, the murder of Toumi was ultimately a failure for Dahmer: he attempted to retain the skull of the victim, but due to deterioration it had simply crumbled into a multitude of pieces. This surely was incredibly disappointing to Dahmer. Upon his capture, he had shown authorities diagrams extrapolating on a plan to build an altar out of his victims remains (including several skulls and two human skeletons). When asked what he would do in front of the altar, Dahmer matter of factly stated "It was a place for meditation, where I could feel I was drawing power from an outside source... I was trying to get in contact with the spirits," also stating that it would be "...a place where I could feel at home." He interestingly didn't consider the prospect that local spirits he contacted might not be that happy with the man. The plan was rather elaborate, including ten human skulls and two complete skeletons, lit by atmospheric blue lighting and flanked by two griffin statues. The ideology behind the building of the altar is similar in spirit to statements made by the Zodiac killer, suggesting that he believed that those that he killed would live on as his slaves that he could contact from beyond death. When the puzzled investigators asked Dahmer who or what the altar would be in exultation of, he replied unhesitatingly, "Myself."



“Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” - Charles Darwin

It was at this point in the event, after masturbating in front of the severed (likely quite rotten) head of his unfortunate victim that Dahmer would move onto his second part of the menu, the guts. It is on public record, due to interviews with court-appointed psychiatrists, that Jeffery Dahmer had a deep and abiding sexual attraction (generating from a young age) to the intestinal and coronary systems of the body. He was noted as a child nd young man for his propensity for listening to the heartbeats and digestive tracts of his classmates in a way that seemed almost prurient, even for a young child. He operated then from a standpoint of naivete and a genuine desire to see "how things work," but even then the intensity and focus seemed to creep out his friends (of which there were not many). Perhaps this rejection led to his further curiosity/desire to transform others into part of his larger scientific exploration. For, whatever Dahmer abhorred in the prevailing authority, he greatly respected the institutions of science and the military (an avenue he attempted but could not ultimately stick with, much to his chagrin and familial shame). Toumi was to be the first in a series of exploratory executions that Jeffery would embark upon during his illustrious criminal career. Although the head had crumbled, he could still pleasure himself with the innards of the remaining corpse. An interesting fact about Steven Toumi, besides the fact that he is the second guy named Steven to be reported murdered by serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, is that his remains have never been found. The only reason that we know that Jeffery killed the guy is that Dahmer himself gave a generous testimony in regards to Toumi's death. So here he is, Jeffery Dahmer, literally deep within the large and small intestines of another human being in his grandmother's basement. He is having a blast, satisfying to the utmost degree the VERY SPECIFIC plan that his sexual drive had been encoded with. Keep in mind that this is a constant obsession which Dahmer has up to this point spent almost all of his time actively suppressing. Feeling deep within himself that he is hard wired to kill. Who must find pleasure in the intestinal tract of another human being. The small intestine of a human being is actually much longer and larger in mass than the "large intestine," an irony that the medically educated Dahmer must have found quite plain to observe during his moments of pleasure with the week-or-so-old body of the unfortunate and dearly departed Mr. Steven Toumi.

"…if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior, to keep it within acceptable ranges, that’s how I thought anyway. I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – they are the only true God." - Jeffery explains how his understanding of atheism influenced the consummation of his desires to kill.

In January of 1988, despite his later claims that he killed men and not boys, Jeffery took home a 14 year old Native American boy named James Doxtator. He had promised the boy that he would pay him to watch videos together and take sexually explicit, which was perhaps his original intention. According to Jeffery, he liked the boy so much that he wanted to "keep him." James was given sleeping pills and, shortly after passing out, was strangled to death in his sleep by Jeffery. This was Jeffery's preferred way of murder because he seemed to dislike the idea of being looked at while committing the act of murder. His inmost desire was to administer a "painless" death to his prey, and to preserve them for as long as possible as his objects of pleasure. In fact, Dahmer is quoted as stating that at a certain point in his life that he trained himself to view people "simply as objects of pleasure." However, a sadistic intent to cause pain was not a part of this urge. For this reason, he sought to extinguish the life of his prey while unconscious, exerting his desires upon them once stricken of life (and therefore individuality). It seems as if he wished to pleasure himself with the empty shells of people he found beautiful, and that living spirits themselves were not desirable and simply to be set free. And set them free he did. James Doxator's skull once again suffered from a brittleness that made it unable to be kept by Dahmer. He realized that he would have to streamline the process if he was to be able to retain a skull for his personal collection in the manner that he so deeply desired. Like Toumi before him, Doxtators muscle and flesh were removed from bone through a process involving long hours in the basement experimenting with corrosive acid. After this somewhat lengthy process, the bones were pulverized in a frenzy, all evidence turned to dust. Dahmer became like some personalized mafioso god of death, greatly speeding up the rate of decay and deterioration and getting a personal cut for himself out of the deal. Dahmer's dealings with death would not leave him without his own fair share of personal hauntings, and the concept of "living with the dead" became part of his personalized fetish. He had such difficulty bringing himself around to disposing the bodies of these early victims for one simple reason: he loved the company.
Two months later, Dahmer finally finished his probation and decided that it was time to celebrate. For the first time in his life, Jeffery hit the night life with the full intention of committing an act of murder. He met a young man in the doorway of a hangout called the Phoenix Bar. Not wasting any time, Dahmer invited him back to the house to hang out and fool around. After some consensual sexual activity, Dahmer drugged and strangled the young man in his sleep. For the first time, Dahmer had perfected his skin-removal process for the human head, diluting his skull-whitening bleach solution to leave behind an intact and non-brittle skull, proudly keeping the skull as an artifact. Not long after, Dahmer was stunned to see the face of the boy that he had murdered on a local newspaper reporting on a missing person story. It was only at this moment that Dahmer learned the young man's name: Richard Guerrero. Like the other men who met a similar fate from the hands of Dahmer, Guerrero's body was dispatched as efficiently as possible, keeping the boy's skull and disposing of the remains in the garbage. Jeffery performed the task of putting out the garbage for his grandmother several times a week, and it was during these instances that he would dispose of extraneous parts of his victims, piece by piece.



GHOSTS

Dahmer's family was not completely blind to the bizarre goings on surrounding the now 27-year-old young man. His father had been making a point to visit the house, fearing that Dahmer was somehow up to no good. The grandmother Catherine repeatedly asked Dahmer about the horrible smells coming from the basement, which he would excuse with various explanations (such as spoiled food or an unattended cat litter box). At one point, she began to strongly suspect the credibility of his excuses, and after some prodding Lionel Dahmer arrived to investigate. He went into the cellar, likely instantly recognizing the stench of decay, and he discovered that parts of the floor were covered in a viscous, black liquid that shimmered in the basement light. Although it appeared thick and sticky like oil, the smell was a nauseating combination of rotten organic matter and chemicals. It must have appeared quite surreal to Lionel, to see this black shiny liquid with such a horrifying smell, completely out of the norm of anything that he had expected to find. Dahmer explained to his father that he simply was performing the same sort of experiments that he had done as a child with dead animals, dissolving their flesh and muscle to leave behind bones, and that this liquid on the floor was the result of that. Lionel accepted this explanation, but suspected that something deeply wrong was occurring under his mother's roof. The distance, the passive demeanor with which Dahmer's family faced one another was an impenetrable barrier to the exposure of the truth of Jeffery's activities. An incident with Dahmer carousing with a drunken, drugged man at the house caused a family discussion about Dahmer's nighttime activities and his alcoholism. With his family bearing down on him, Dahmer would move out on his own for the first time in his life since he was expelled from the Army.

"Rituals such as these were common practices associated with necromancy, and varied from the mundane to the grotesque. Rituals in necromancy involved magic circles, wands, talismans, bells, and incantations.Also, the necromancer would surround himself with morbid aspects of death, which often included wearing the deceased's clothing and the consumption of unsalted, unleavened black bread and unfermented grape juice, which symbolized decay and lifelessness. Necromancers even went as far as taking part in the mutilation and consumption of corpses. These rituals could carry on for hours, days, or even weeks, leading up the eventual summoning of spirits. Often they took place in graveyards or other melancholy venues that suited specific guidelines of the necromancer. Additionally, necromancers preferred summoning the recently departed, citing that their revelations were spoken more clearly; this timeframe usually consisted of twelve months following the death of the body. Once this time period lapsed, necromancers would summon the deceased’s ghostly spirit to appear instead." - from the Wikipedia entry on Necromancy.

Jeffery moved into an apartment in Milwaukee that was closer to his job at the chocolate factory. He brought with him several items that he would eventually plan to utilize in his planned shrine, including the skull of Richard Guerrero, a long black table, and two statues of griffins that represented to Dahmer a dark power that was guiding him through life. Dahmer was constantly under scrutiny, getting into trouble for a variety of petty crimes, while constantly eluding any suspicion of the nightmarish reality that he was living out. He believed that he was under the thrall of a demonic power that spoke to him through his thoughts and the media. In particular, he was deeply enthralled with the story of the Sith, the dark forces in the universe of the Star Wars films. Dahmer deeply identified with the character of the Emperor, and would watch a video tape of "Return Of The Jedi" with the same compulsive viewing as his tapes of Chippendales dancers and other male-centric pornography. It is worth noting that almost all of Jeffery's admitted murders fit a certain physical body type. He was enthralled with the physique and structure of the male body, and in particular he seemed to prefer muscular and more well-built men, although an important aspect of his choice in prey was his ability to overpower them once it came down to Dahmer's increasingly ritualized procedure of capture and execution.

"He liked the way he moved. You know, whatever was in his mind at that time, he wanted Eddie and he said he just was going to - he was determined to get him." - Theresa Smith, sister of Edward Smith, after speaking face-to-face with a jailed Dahmer about her brother's murder.

Not long after moving into his new apartment, Dahmer made a very telling mistake. The newfound freedom of having his own apartment caused Dahmer to overstep his luck considerably, bringing home a fourteen year old boy named Sonsack Sinthasomphone for his usual offer of payment for taking nude photographs. Dahmer drugged the boy and, at a moment of indecision, found that he could not bring himself to kill the young Sinthasomphone. After listening to his stomach while sleeping, Dahmer awoke the boy and, inexplicably, sent him back home. Once Sinthasomphone arrived to his house, his clearly drugged state caused alarm to the parents, who brought him to an emergency room immediately. Doctors discovered that the boy had been given sleeping pills and sexually violated. Police arrested Dahmer at his job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Company, exposing his bosses and co-workers to an aspect of their fellow employee that was extremely unexpected and shocking. His house was searched by police thoroughly, but they failed to find the skull of missing person Richard Guerrero, which was hidden in the bottom part of a chest of drawers. Dahmer was finally, inexcusably exposed to his father as a homosexual and a pedophile. It was at this point that Lionel completely lost all hope in the idea of his son being anything more than a criminal and a sexual pervert. It is possible that somewhere inside him Lionel could imagine the truth of what was occurring, but that it was simply unfathomable to entertain. For her part, Dahmer's mother seems to have almost completely abandoned the young man after the divorce from Lionel, and the adult relationship between Jeffery and his brother David was non-existent. Dahmer was in jail at this point for several days until being released on bail ($2500) after pleading not guilty. It is possible that he faced negative repercussions for his prison status as a child rapist. While waiting for the trial to happen, Jeffery stayed with his grandmother again, deep in a state of shame and regret. Although he surely was relieved that no evidence of his murders was uncovered, the shame of being exposed for his pedophilic inclination (even just one small portion of his sexual life) weighed heavily upon him.

"MILWAUKEE ACTIVISTS ARE CONCERNED OVER HIGH PROPORTION OF BLACK VICTIMS. SOME CRITICIZE OFFICERS' RESPONSE: MILWAUKEE — The city's grief over a grisly murder spree was compounded Sunday by questions of whether authorities could have stopped the killer sooner and concerns that race played a part in the lack of responsiveness. 'What do you do when the people that are supposed to be protecting us are now letting us die?' demanded the Rev. LeHavre Buck, a black community activist and pastor of the Church and Kingdom of God in Christ... Dahmer, 31, has admitted killing and butchering 11 males in his apartment.
Nine of the victims were black and one was a 14-year-old Laotian boy, who was seen naked and bleeding on May 27 outside Dahmer's apartment." - from a July 29, 1991 Associated Press article.

Later, once his crimes were discovered and exposed to the world, Dahmer was asked why the majority of his victims were of African descent. Until the time of his murder by an incarcerated African-American male who believed that he was a reincarnation of Christ, Dahmer maintained in prison that he did not hate black people but was in fact fascinated with them. Much like the early European doctors examining the skulls of different African people and comparing them to those of deceased Europeans, Dahmer saw himself in a fine tradition of scientific exploration that he had embarked upon from a very young age. While Jeffery was out on bail, Anthony Sears, on March 25th 1989, became the first to fit the soon-to-become-legend Jeffery Dahmer victim profile: "young, athletic, muscular African American male." He dismembered the body at his grandmother's house, just like in the previous years. It must have been a comforting feeling to him, like cleaning the garage for the first time again in a year. Sears would be the last of his subjects to be exterminated and disposed of in that particular house. Jeffery got on the phone with a local taxidermist in order to get proper instructions on the preservation of a head without it getting brittle. It seems that Guerrero's skull, once a prized possession of Dahmer's, had become brittle and useless to him. Also, Dahmer made the distinctive choice of preserving Sears' genitals as well, in his words keeping them "as a trophy." It seems that the preservation of the head and genitals of Sears was extremely important, and like many of the others Dahmer had sex with the corpse before dismembering it and disposing of the parts that were not to be kept. His necrophilic inclinations stemmed partially from a desire for total control over a body, but it is interesting that his inclination for complete control in this manner excluded the human presence, the life force of a victim. As much as he enjoyed listening to the living organs of others, it was the lifeless body that he craved. Sears' body (minus the head and genitals) was the last of Dahmer's companions to be put out with the garbage at grandma's house. Although there was an overpowering element of lust and desire to the crime, this one in particular, amidst the humiliation of being exposed as a pedophile and threatened with jail time, has the earmarks of a man lashing out in a distinct and fetishized manner.

Jeffery discusses his time at High School:
"I was up visiting a friend’s, and was walking back home in the evening, and saw these three seniors, seniors in high school approaching. I just had a feeling that something was going to happen, and sure enough, one of them just took out a billy club and whacked me on the back of the neck. For no reason. Didn’t say anything, just hit somebody... And I ran."

Jeff kept Sears' head in a small locker with his belongings. Lionel at one point pried into Dahmer's possessions, drilling him on what was inside the safe. Dahmer, for his part, had been caught in possession of an illegal firearm by his father, who was perhaps worried about his son's violent inclinations. Dahmer lied to his father, saying that there was child pornography in the box and that he did not want his father to see it because it was "too upsetting." He then hid the head in a locker at his workplace. Due to his loyalty working the graveyard shift at the chocolate factory, he was allowed to keep his job, stating to his employers that he was not guilty of the charges. The head would remain in the work locker until Dahmer's return to work from his prison sentence for child sexual assault in 1990. Dahmer would later skin the head by hand, preserving the skull for use in his altar.

"I can feel your anger." - The Emperor from "Return Of The Jedi"

At his trial, Jeffery was found to be delusional and unaware of many of the problematic aspects of his behavior toward Sinthasomphone, seeming to only believe that his crime was doing what he had done with a boy so young (for which he was extremely apologetic). He seemed completely unaware of the negative aspects of driving while intoxicated, drugging others, and picking up people in bars to offer them money in exchange for sexual favors, all of which were completely illegal activities that Dahmer did not seem to feel any recognition of guilt about before. His prosecutor saw him as a sexually deviant alcoholic who needed to be placed under probation as well as receive counselling for his alcoholism. In addition to this, he was in prison for a year under a work release program that enabled him to leave the jail for part of the day and continue working at the chocolate factory on his usual schedule. By doing this, the court ensured that Dahmer's locker would not be emptied, and the now-mummified head of Anthony Sears contained within would not be discovered.

"Everyone knows what happens to a child molester in prison. I don't know if that's what happened, but when he came out he was hardened, and he hated black people." - Dahmer's stepmother Shari.

During this prison stint, Dahmer was allowed a twelve-hour release during the Thanksgiving holiday, ostensibly to visit his family. Unable to deal with the pressures of a family meal, Dahmer instead chose to spend his time getting completely wasted. He blacked out and awoke to being sexually assaulted with a candlestick by a man that he did not know, after which he showed up back to jail late. After this, a miserable and depressed Dahmer successfully made a plea to the judge to be released several months early, telling the judge that he wished to be a productive member of society. Ironically, while stating that he was contrite for his crimes, he is quoted as saying "The world has enough misery in it without my adding more to it." It seems that a part of him did truly feel bad about harming children, perhaps due to the contested (by Jeffery himself) story that Lionel told of Jeffery being molested by a family friend at a young age. Perhaps Dahmer was contrite and unwilling to create more people out there in the world like him, and from this point on he indeed stayed away from children (partly due to a court order banning him from their presence). He would remain on probation for the next few years, developing a close and even friendly relationship with his parole officer Donna Chester. His friendship and close consultation with officer Chester is astounding in that it would remain a constant thoughout the next few years, which would prove to be Jeffery's most prolific period of serial murder. She saw before her a suicidal man, depressed and filled with deep remorse for his life. He had no friends or even light acquaintances, a lost soul in a world filled with people he could not relate to. She was one of the only people that he spoke openly with about his sexuality, displaying a deep sadness and self-loathing over his preference for men. Chester took pity on him and attempted to help him reconcile his urges, perhaps causing even further conflict within him.



924 NORTH 25TH STREET, APARTMENT 213

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” - Charles Darwin

After a brief transitional period back at his Grandmother's house, Dahmer moved into his final apartment in a heavily African-American populated neighborhood in a "bad area" of Milwaukee. He was the lone white man in a community that paid him little regard or notice. The owner of the apartment complex that he moved into was an African man who spoke with a strong accent and viewed his new tenant with suspicion, although he could not put his finger on exactly what about the young man seemed off to him. He, like many peripheral characters in Dahmer's life, has attempted to sell a book of his recollection regarding the man over the years. His relationship with his neighbors seemed to be defined by distance, suspicion, and fear of the mysterious stranger. In fact, shortly after moving into the apartment, it was robbed several times. In a particularly sad and telling incident, Dahmer took home a young man with the intention of drugging and killing him only to accidentally drink the drugged mixture that he had prepared for the young man. After passing out in front of his would-be prey, the man pilfered Jeffery's pockets and robbed his apartment of a miniscule amount money and valuables contained within. Somewhere during this period of time, Dahmer came under the sway of two films that would be hugely influential to his thinking during his stay at Apartment 213. The first of these was a video-taped lecture on Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution. Dahmer would later state that this video completely changed his views on the idea of a creationist universe, and influenced him to believe that there was no God, and that our actions were simply a "survival of the fittest" where the weak were weeded out by the strong. Another piece of film that would be incredibly influential to Dahmer would be William Peter Blatty's adaptation of his own novel "Legion," which was titled "Exorcist III" by the studio that released it (due to the fact that Blatty's novel contained characters from his novel "The Exorcist" and one sequel had already been made. The character in the film of the Gemini Killer (played masterfully by Brad Dourif) would be extremely influential on Dahmer's thinking.

"Medieval practitioners believed they could accomplish three things with necromancy: will manipulation, illusions, and knowledge. Will manipulation affects the mind and will of another person, animal, or spirit. Demons are summoned to cause various afflictions on others “to drive them mad, to inflame them to love or hatred, to gain their favor, or to constrain them to do or not do some deed.”[18] Illusions involve reanimation of the dead, food and entertainment, or conjuring a mode of transportation. Knowledge is discovered through demons. Demons provide information on various things including identifying a criminal, finding items, or revealing future events." - from the Wikipedia entry on Necromancy.

In the original book "Legion," we follow a Jewish police Lieutenant named Kinderman (an intentional pun on Blatty's part, meaning "kinder man") who investigates a series of murders perpetrated by a killer who seems to be operating from beyond the grave. Throughout the story, Kinderman goes through a series of philosophical queries as to cruelty within the universe and the quandary of why a loving God would allow evil. Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that all life in our sphere of existence is broken pieces of the fallen angel Lucifer, and that we are gradually making our way toward redemption through this life. In the film version, we get roughly the same story, but the conclusion is left out in favor of an oddly out-of-place exorcism that was inserted by the studio, during which the character of the Gemini Killer's eyes become inflamed and yellow, much like Dahmer's beloved Emperor from "Return Of The Jedi." The character murdered people in ways that were brutal and ironic, favoring decapitation and bizarre bodily experimentation (such as draining a victim completely of blood) seeming to get an almost sexual thrill from his actions. The first victim in the story is a young black boy who is decapitated and left for discovery nailed to a cross, with a blackface-painted head of Christ in place of the boy's head. The Gemini Killer's persona appealed very greatly to the prankster nature within Jeffery. The Gemini was depicted as being possessed by a demonic entity, driving him to commit acts that shocked the world and caused them to doubt the existence of God. For a variety of reasons, the film spoke to Jeffery in a very specific way that compelled him further into his inner justifications for his crimes. Although his views toward the world were swaying more toward a godless universe, the strong depiction of supernatural evil and the film's blasphemous content (not to mention the intimations of body mutilation and decapitation, surely sexually triggering for the young man) greatly appealed to his prevailing sensibilities. It was after viewing this film, and becoming obsessed with it, that Jeffery would quickly ramp up his murderous actions, killing more people in the next year than any other period of time that he admitted to. The character of the Gemini Killer would in fact become so influential on him that he would take to wearing colored yellow "reptile eye" style contact lenses while going out to cruise for prey. It must have been an extremely disturbing sight to see the lanky and sullen individual staring across the room, scanning for prey with inhuman, yellow eyes.

"DAHMER BELIEVED HE WAS SATAN, DEFENSE SAYS: MILWAUKEE — Jeffrey L. Dahmer's bloody pattern of sexually motivated murder, dismemberment and cannibalism led him to feel that he was the devil, his attorney said Thursday. 'He became enamored, overwhelmed, caught up in the character in the (horror movie) 'Exorcist III.' The character... was the personification of evil." - from a January 31, 1992 Los Angeles Times wire service article.

INFINITY LAND

"You're a hard one, but I know you you've got your reasons. These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow." - Carpenters, "Desperado

In June of 1990, Dahmer met a young man named Eddie Smith at his old hangout The Phoenix Club. Eddie was a 27-year-old gay black male who was deeply loved by his sister Theresa, one of the few family members of a Dahmer victim to confront him face to face (after his arrest). Eddie was known for his flamboyant, impressive dancing style and his colorful, turban-like head-adornment that earned him the nickname "The Sheikh." Eddie was murdered and dispatched in the same manner as those before him, but because Dahmer was unable to properly preserve the head and genitals he considered the act a complete failure, going so far as to destroy the photographs of the body (which usually provided much pleasure to Dahmer after the body was gone). The photography of dead bodies became a major part of the ritual for Jeffery, who began to develop a prolific collection of images of the dead and de-limbed bodies of his victims. Something about the murder of Eddie Smith furthered the depression and sadness within Dahmer. It is interesting to note that although Dahmer told Eddie's sister that he murdered black men simply because of his location in a black neighborhood, Eddie was picked up at the same bar as Richard Geurrero many years earlier. Dahmer had not changed his stalking grounds, but simply his choice of victims. With deep sadness, Dahmer told Theresa that he truly desired to be with Eddie and that he was deeply attracted to him. It seems that Dahmer, the confused and lonely soul that he was, had been cursed to hurt the ones he loved.

"A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone." - Charles Darwin

In his next attempt at procuring a companion, Dahmer found himself in a bizarre situation that would prove to be a dark comedy of errors. While attempting to procure his next victim, Dahmer had neglected to restock his sleeping pills that he typically used to sedate his prey. For some reason, Dahmer purchased a rubber mallet to solve this dilemma. They had agreed on a time for the boy (12 o clock, noon) to show up at his apartment, but Dahmer was saddened to find himself stood up. Later that night, by coincidence Dahmer encounter the boy and was told that he thought Dahmer meant 12 midnight, and the boy was actually biding his time waiting to go to Dahmer's apartment. Dahmer asked the boy to lay face down while he was supposedly being photographed, and went for his mallet. He hit the boy in the back of his head several times to no avail, and the confused boy decided that things were getting kind of weird and left, leaving Jeffery perplexed at the turn of events. Ten minutes later, he was knocking on the door and asking for ten dollars for a cab fare, terrified at the neighborhood that he found himself walking around in. It is important to realize that Jeffery (with the intention of being invisible to the police) lived in an extremely poverty-stricken black community that was rife with crime. He was living in the "bad" part of town that he was likely to have been taught to avoid as a young person. Dahmer took the boy back inside, and continued to attempt to assault and even strangle him, but relenting. He later told investigators "I just didn't have the ability to do him any harm, I don't know why." He eventually gave the boy his cab fare home, and for his part the boy reported the strange tale of the weird man with the rubber mallet. Due to the unlikely nature of the story, Dahmer was not investigated in the matter. Several weeks later, he re-acquired the needed sleeping pills and successfully killed and dismembered a young man named Raymond Smith. He was able to pleasure himself with the severed head and retain the man's skull for his own later use, and managed to dispose of the body by soaking it in acid for hours, after which it turned into a "slush" that he could simply flush down the toilet, a gallon or so at a time. Dahmer kept Smith's bones around his apartment as decoration. The skull was painted gray so as to lend it an artificial or "commercial" appearance to allay suspicion from visitors. During this time, Jeffery lied to his parole officer about his extracurricular activities, claiming that he spent all of his time at home reading books and sitting on the computer (an unusual hobby in 1990, but one that would excuse his lack of social activities to outsiders, making Dahmer seem like a harmless bookish computer geek). Dahmer also revealed to his parole officer a deep-rooted animosity toward the rich. He seemed to envy the wealth and financial security of the elite of society.

Dahmer describes his ideal partner:
"A well-developed white guy, compliant to my wishes. I would have preferred to have him alive and permanently staying with me."

CANNIBALISM

"It was just another step... just an escalation, something new to satisfy. And I would cook it, and then look at the picture and masturbate." - Jeff on his practice of cannibalism.

Jeff met an athletic, muscular young male named Ernest Miller outside of an adult bookstore that fit into his ultimate idealized fantasy. Miller was the exact body type that Jeffery obsessed over, and was instantly enamored with the man, wishing to "keep him" as he had done with others. Possibly due to the large size of Miller, instead of attempting to strangle him at the apartment, he slit his throat there, photographing Miller in the process of death and dismemberment. He was so enamored with the physique of Miller that he desired to consume parts of his body in order to make him physically a part of Dahmer. He removed Miller's heart and parts of his calf muscles. It was a continuation of the sexual affinity that Dahmer had with the digestive system, but now Dahmer was putting his victims through his own digestive system, joining with them in his body. He kept Miller's head in the refrigerator for some time so that he could masturbate in front of it and use it to pleasure himself, a long-time preferred activity for Dahmer's sexual satisfaction. He also consistently masturbated into the intestines and other internal organs of most of his victims, a practice that he has difficulty talking about but which was a vital part of his necrophilic fantasy.

"...And solitaire's the only game in town, and every road he takes it takes him down. And by himself it's easy to pretend he'll never love again. And keeping to himself he plays the game... While life goes on around him everywhere, he's playing solitaire." - Carpenters, "Solitaire"

He soon killed again, but this time it was a mistake. He found himself with the dead body of a person that he was completely not attracted to. He dismembered the body of David Thomas, 23 year old black male, and disposed of it entirely. The boy died for no purpose whatsoever, not even providing satisfaction to Dahmer in his death. Dahmer's methodology of dismemberment was streamlined and efficient. He would sit in the bathtub completely nude with the dead body (in order to get no blood on his clothes) and use a hand-saw to dismember it, piece by piece, draining the blood wit tap water down into the plumbing below. At this point it seemed that Jeffery was rapidly killing simply out of rote habit, seeming to find it as the only opportunity for company. Thomas' body was positively identified in Dahmer's photo collection by his family members during the court proceedings. Dahmer would kill three more individuals (Curtis Straughter, Errol Lindsay, and Tony Hughs, a deaf-mute gentleman that Dahmer communicated with through notes) during this time, seeming to crave going through the experience again and again, and each time he would keep their skulls behind as a souvenir of the experience. Along with homosexual pornography, Dahmer would usually watch a video tape of "The Exorcist III" with his companions. Whether he was trying to share his mania or simply pump himself up for the kill is unknown, but from the testimony of one individual he would begin to chant at the televisions screen while watching the film in a manner that would frighten his guests. A notorious police report from the escaped Tracy Edwards describes a man who was nice and polite upon first meeting, and then who "completely changed" into another, more sinister person who chanted to himself and seemed enthralled with evil. There were many occasions where he would bring someone home and simply change his mind after talking to them, no longer finding them attractive any more after having them over. None of these visitors seemed to notice the charnel-house atmosphere that Apartment 213 was beginning to emit. The odd smells and bizarre, all-night banging and clanging coming from Dahmer's attracted intense scrutiny from his landlord, Sopa Princewill, who received various bizarre explanations that only made Dahmer seem stranger and stranger to him. At one point Princewill smelled what he was told was "rotten meat" due to a refrigerator gone bad, the middle-aged man lept back at a stench that he felt almost knocked him out. What he was smelling was instead a human torso langishing in a bucket of acid. Dahmer was able to explain his way out of situations solely using his ability to garner sympathy from others and appear that he was just a harmless eccentric, and the reality of what was actually occuring in his apartment was unfathomable. The only ones who knew the truth of what was happening were Dahmer and his goldfish, neither of which were prepared to tell authorities the truth of what was going on there quite yet.

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment." - Charles Darwin



JEFFERY DAHMER, DOUBLE FISTING IT

Dahmer stalked the streets like a cat stalking a fish tank. Hitting the club scene with a beer in each hand, one drugged and one regular. Which one will he drink tonight? After thousands of years of human existence as prey for big cats, wolves, and other creatures, it was when man became a hunter, and began to use weapons, that he could defend himself and build civilizations. Jeffery Dahmer had become for his part a human trapper, a pioneer in a particular art that was unique to his experiences. He had dreams of doing things bigger than just killing people over and over again and keeping their skulls. It is not known if Dahmer continued to listen to heavy metal with the same fervor as he did in his military days, but with his drinking regimen he appeared to be the world's lonliest party animal to outsiders. It is intriguing that in prison Jeffery cites Charles Darwin's philosophy as an impetus to murder. It seems that Dahmer truly never let go of his Christian ubringing in his mind, but that the philosophy of scientific atheism appealed to his curiousity, compelling him to live out fantasies/experiments that otherwise would have not been conducted. On one hand, he was still loyal to Christianity's concepts of evil and simultaneously justifying his actions to himself with the rhetoric of scientific atheism while not identifying with the idea of pure evil.
Never being resistant to the allures of a young boy, he saw Konerak Sinthasomphone hanging out at the mall and asked the boy if he wanted to come to Dahmer's apartment and hang out. Dahmer took the boy home and drugged him, without realizing that he was the younger brother of Sonsack Sinthasomphone, whom he had gone to jail for molesting just a year and some months before. He had formulated a plan to create a living "zombie slaves." After drugging Konerak, instead of strangling him Dahmer drilled a hole in the boy's head and injected muriatic acid. The boy passed out from shock and after raping him, Jeffery went out for a beer to calm his nerves. When he arrived back to his house, he was greeted with Konerak sitting on the sidewalk and several neighbors noisily declaring Dahmer's guilt to a duo of police officers who made it onto the scene. Dahmer inexplicably managed to convince the officers that Konerak, who was visibly bleeding from the anus and half-naked (with a hole drilled in his head to boot), was his 19-year old boyfriend, and that the two of them were engaged in a lovers spat. The officers walked the boy back to Dahmer's apartment, where they neglected to engange in an even light search of the apartment (which would have revealed dead bodies, trophy body parts, and a multitude of photographs of missing persons and corpses). The officers also neglected to do a background check on either Dahmer or Sinthasomphone, which would have revealed that Dahmer had actually been to jail for molesting the older brother of Konerak (whom he also drugged before his escape from the apartment) and that he was actually still on probation for the crime. The officers (who were later fired and the subsequently re-hired after much controversy) left Konerak with Jeffery, who that night delivered a second, fatal injection to the boy and had sex with his corpse. He had decided that Konerak was too much of a liability and that he had to be disposed for the sake of Dahmer's safety. The head was removed for Dahmer's personal enjoyment, defleshed and kept as part of Dahmer's growing collection of skulls (some painted, some natural). Konerak was dispatched efficiently and incorporated into Dahmer's collection without Konerak, Dahmer, or the police realizing that he was the younger brother of the very same boy that Jeffery was on probation for sexually assaulting not long before.

“Wherever the European had trod, death seemed to pursue the aboriginal.” - Charles Darwin

During the times when Dahmer did not have an actual body to peruse, he would use the pictures and trophies of former companions to satisfy his urges. This would generally lead to dissatisfaction and compel him to go out and live through the experience of being with another person. He went out to Chicago to a Gay Pride parade and met a sympathetic young man named Matt Turner. Turner was a particularly sweet and kind boy who simply thought that he was going to be hanging out with the nice, well-adjusted polite white guy that Dahmer seemed to be. For this instance, he brought the man back to his apartment, but abandoned his recent strategy of attempt to create a "zombie slave." Instead, he strangled the drugged Turner and utilized his severed head for his own pleasures, keeping it in the refrigerator for preservation. Dahmer purchased a fifty-seven gallon barrel of hydrochloric acid to dissolve the bodies of his victims in. Large sections on the body, such as the torso, would be tossed into the barrel in order to dissolve the evidence. This is where Turner's torso ended up. He then met a young man named Jeremiah Weinberger who seemed to genuinely have an affinity for Dahmer. Of all of the men that he killed, Dahmer seemed to feel the most remorse for his first two victims (who were both killed in a fit of anguish, and not intentionally chosen for death) and Mr. Weinberger. Dahmer had fully intended to act out his usual routine on Weinberger, but the two men had such an incredible connection and affinity for one another that (unusual for Jeffery) they ended up spending a consensual night of passion together in Jeffery's apartment, with Weinberger apparently never checking the refrigerator and never seeming to suspect the horrors lurking in the house. The two spent an erotic weekend together, after which Dahmer abruptly drilled a hole in Jeremiah's brain and injected boiling water into it. Dahmer had abandoned the muriatic acid method due to the fact that he used it on Sinthasomphone and the boy was still able to retain his will, attempting to get help from the neighbors. This method of "zombie slave" creation seemed to work temporarily, but it was all for nothing as the young man was soon dead on the floor. Dahmer had killed one of the only people to show him genuine affection, someone who would stay with him even after he drilled a hole in their head. He dismembered the corpse naked in the bathtub, in his usual method, taking pictures the whole time. He would sit in the stark emptiness of the bathroom and often commit acts of sodomy with the at-times headless cadavers as he lay in the tub with them, alternating between extreme pleasure, moments of guilt, fierce determination, and finally the cold resolve required to get the job done.

Jeffery discusses the theory of evolution, and his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, after his arrest and incarceration:
"Thanks to you for sending that creation/science material, because I always believed the lie that evolution is truth, that the theory of evolution is truth, that we all just came from the slime, and when we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing. So, the whole theory cheapens life, and I started reading books that show how evolution is just a complete lie. There’s no basis in science to to uphold it, and I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true Creator of the heavens and the earth. It didn’t just happen, and I have accepted Him as my personal Lord and Savior, and I believe that I as well as everyone else will be accountable to Him."

FEELING SUICIDAL

"Don't your feet get get cold in the wintertime? The won't snow and the sun won't shine... It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day. Your losing all your highs and lows, ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?" - Carpenters, "Desperado"

Amidst Dahmer's prolific excursions into murder, he finally heard from his mother again after many years of silence. She was working as a counseler in another state, and they had a likely tear-filled conversation where Dahmer came out of the closet to her, which she accepted. Despite this openness, the two did not strike up any further conversation, and in fact Dahmer subsequently ramped up his killing operations. It is possible that the boy held a deep-rooted rage to his mother that was somehow connected to the killings, and her coldness seems to be a trait carried on in her eldest son. Of all of Dahmer's family members, she remains an enigma. Dahmer's grandmother Catherine contacted him at work one day out of the blue, asking how he was and expressing love. This temporarily made him happy, but likely reminded him of the guilt that he felt for the extremely antisocial existence that he had been living out. At this point in time, Dahmer had begun to miss significant amounts of time at work, as well as a multitude of meetings with his parole officer. His hobbies, and the disposal and subsequent periods of thought and meditation, began to take up large periods of Dahmer's time. Not only did he begin to miss necessary engagements, his strange behavior and consistently horrible-smelling apartment (which he contantly made up bizarre excuses for) made him a target for eviction by his landlord. Soon Dahmer received terrible news- after almost half a decade of employment, he was being given the pink slip from the Ambrosia Chocolate Company, the job that enabled him to go about his activities. When Dahmer told police of what his ideal sexual partner would be, he described a man that was not unlike himself: a muscular, passive, white male with a gentle aura. Although his victims gradually were chosen from people who appeared different and "other" from him, racially and personality-wise, the deep sadness within him was expressing in a suicidal urge that murdered a part of himself with each incident of passionate crime. Dahmer had gradually been becoming further and further from himself, further away from any ability to love or continue his life with each companion that he sought to incorporate into himself. Despite his attempts at cannibalistic indulgence and constant necrophilic self-satisfaction, Dahmer was far removed from the companionship and connection that he sought, deep down inside. His relationship with his probation officer Donna Chester (the closest person in his life to a friend) became more strained, and his resources were beginning to run dry. They arranged an emergency meeting, where Dahmer revealed that he no longer was working and was facing eviction. His appearance was appalling, he smelled terrible, and admitted to Chester that he was suicidal and hadn't bathed in several days. She could not have imagined the truth of the situation beyond that, which was that Dahmer had spent much of that time laying with the corpse of a man named Oliver Lacy, whose heart he had removed for later consumption. Lacy had come over to the house for a sexual experience with Dahmer, and the two shared a passionate evening giving each other sensual body massages. He was drugged and executed in Dahmer's now-streamlined manner of strangulation, which was now more sophisticated and include the use of a black leather garrote that he purchased for this express purpose. Dahmer was at this point planning the set-up for his altar, which he seemed to believe would give him power and enable him to improve his situation through black magic. Part of the plan was to include the entire skeleton of Oliver Lacy on his altar.

"It just came from within." - Dahmer, on the impetus for his desire to kill.



SHOWERING WITH CORPSES

Jeffery was depressed. He found himself now without the job that had given him the confidence to embark on the life that he was living. He saw no option in the workforce that would enable him to continue on his existence. If he was evicted, it was possible that he would be caught with the massive amount of evidence left behind in the apartment. There were bloodstains on the walls and floor. He became desperate and lonely, laying besides the remains of one of his companions as if they were still alive to show affection to him. The only responsibility that he still attended to was his fish tank, and he would spend long periods of time just observing his aqutic roommates. He showed his tropical fish a love and devotion, a gentleness, that no other living creature saw from Dahmer during this time. They silently and unjudgementally swam about, being there for Dahmer no matter what mood he was in. It is possible that caring for his fish was one of the only aspects of his life keeping him grounded in reality. Walking the streets in his sorrow, Dahmer spotted a young white man named Joseph Bradehoft standing at a bus stop with a six pack of beer. Bradehoft would prove to be Dahmer's last victim. Offering Bradehoft a place to hang out and party, he went willingly to Jeffery's apartment much the same way as Steven Hicks so many years ago. Dahmer wasted no time dispatching Bradehoft, whose head was also soon separated from his body for the pleasure ritual that Dahmer had grown accustomed to, perhaps even bored with by now. Even if the two would have gotten along, it seems that the intention of picking him up was to kill him and use his corpse for pleasure. He was now a soon-to-be homeless person revelling in the world that he had constructed for himself. In addition to this, locals began to notice the weird man stalking about for prey and wonder if he was connected to the prolific amount of disappearances of black men. One of the reasons why it took so long for him to get discovered was that his victims at this later point were all for the most part undesireables to society. One of the victims' sister called to report that she was receiving strange anonymous phone calls from a man who claimed to have killed her brother. When she brought this to the police's attention they could not even find the initial missing persons report on her sibling. She believes that they disregarded her initial report once they realized that he was gay, believing that for some reason the city police department had a "hands-off" approach to cases involving homosexuality. The treatment given to Konerak Sinthasomphone seems to suggest that this could in fact have been a reality in relation to the case. Dahmer began at this point to randomly proposition people on the street to come back to his apartment, and spent his free time showering and laying about with corpses in an effort for companionship. He sought more and more power, and had at this point completely grown out of touch with his ability to truly love or be in touch with other people. He had become completely cold and within himself, his own spirit finally consumed by the forces that had driven him to acts of bizarrely antisocial violence.



"BODY PARTS, VAT OF ACID FOUND IN APARTMENT: CHICAGO — Milwaukee police arrested a 31-year-old paroled sex offender Tuesday after finding a gruesome collection of mutilated human body parts, severed human heads and a vat of acid in his north side apartment... Said John Batchelor, a neighbor of the arrested man, 'It is really wild. This is worse than 'Friday the 13th.'' Several neighbors said a stench had come from the apartment off and on for months.
'It smelled like something dead in there,' said Eli Vickers, who lives in the building next to the three-story apartment complex where the suspect lived. Police said the suspect, whom neighbors described as a quiet loner, had recently been fired from his job at a candy company and had served a year in jail on sexual assault charges for offering $50 to a teen-age boy to pose nude. Arreola said it had not yet been determined whether the murders were the work of one man or several or where they were carried out." - from a July 29, 1991 Los Angeles Times article by Bob Secter.

Tracy Edwards, a young black male who fit Dahmer's preferred physical type, was hanging out at the Grand Avenue Mall in Milwaukee, the same spot where Dahmer had picked up one of the Sinthasomphone brothers. Edwards and some friends were hanging out and wasting some time when they were approached by a thin, lanky white man with glasses and an unshaven, nervous demeanor. The young men had never seen the guy, and he seemed nice enough, saying that he was a photographer and that he would pay them each one hundred dollars to pose nude. This was a ruse, as Dahmer had practically no money left at this point. Edwards left with Dahmer, who gave Edwards' friends an incorrect address.
Edwards was puzzled by the seemingly intellectual, artistic, but obviously internally tortured man whose apartment he entered. He surely must have noticed the stench of death and decay, which Dahmer attempted to cover with incense. Endearingly, Edwards was struck by the care and attention that Dahmer paid to his tropical fish. Jeffery was hypnotized and enthralled at his watery companions, observing their movements in the tank like souls trapped in a glass box. Edwards saw before him a deeply dissatisfied and sensitive man. Dahmer offered Edwards a drink while they waited for his companions to arrive, although only Dahmer knew that they would never show up. They continued to talk for some time, with Dahmer discussing his recent unemployed status with great fear and regret. He seemed to be coming slightly unhinged, and Tracy began to wonder when and if his friends would ever show up. Soon, Dahmer snapped, pulling out a large knife from under his bed and hand-cuffed Tracy Edwards. According to Edwards, Dahmer then forced him to watch "Exorcist III," at certain points in time chanting strange gibberish and rocking back and forth while doing so. Edwards began to realize that he was in a situation that was far beyond what he had initially ascertained, and at this point frightened for his life. Dahmer talked about ripping out Edwards heart and eating it, laying his head on the young man's chest in the same manner that he often did to his classmates as a young boy. Edwards was horrified at the sudden transformation and attempted to placate Dahmer by performing flirtatious activity, attempting to get alone time by going to the bathroom. Edwards was shocked to find that the majority of the windows and doors were locked such that one could not escape from inside. Realizing that Dahmer's apartment was rigged to keep people in rather than out, he assessed the situation and knew that he must escape. While Jeffery was distracted with complaining about his financial woes, Edwards attacked Dahmer, kicking him and managing to flee out the front door while still handcuffed.
Edwards was panicked and could not believe he had managed to escape. As he ran out of the apartment complex, filled with adrenalin from his near fatal experience, Edwards could hear a drunken, sobbing Dahmer yelling in desperation, far behind him, as he ran out of the apartment: "PLEASE... DON'T LEAVE!"

AT LAST

"Light will be thrown onto the origin of man." - Charles Darwin

The police didn't know what to make of the shirtless, intoxicated man in handcuffs that they saw before them. He was telling them about a Satanic white man with locks on his windows, who threatened to cut Edwards' heart out with a knife. Initially they assumed that the man had escaped from another officer, and was making up a story in order to get out of trouble. They attempted to release him from his handcuffs, but once they realized that their keys did not work, they knew for certain that he had not escaped from another officer. They had to believe the rest of his story as well, and when they went in to investigate the situation in Apartment 213 they found a sullen man standing in the darkness, waiting for them with an agreeable, pleasant demeanor. Both officers instantly noticed that the place smelled like rotting organic material. The officers asked Dahmer where the keys were to the handcuffs on Edwards, and he motioned them into the bedroom. In the bedroom, one of the officers found strewn about an enormous wealth of poloroid photographs of nude men, some dead and dismembered. The officer looked around the room and recognized furniture from the bedroom that he was searching in the very same photographs, instantly calling to the other officer to arrest Jeffery. Jeff screamed at the other officer that he would eat his heart, threatening that he had supernatural powers. It took the combined effort of both officers to pin down Dahmer and arrest him. While waitng for backup, the officers opened the refrigerator to be greeted by the severed head of Oliver Lacy staring back at him. Dahmer's bevy of tropical fish were likely saddened to see their master being dragged away, perhaps wondering who would feed them next. They would soon forget about it all not long after, as scientists have found that fish have almost no lasting ability to remember events. They are non-judgemental and always existing in the moment, much the way that Jeffery operated in those final days of activity. Soon, he would be thoroughly questioned and prodded at the police station, while officers and Environmental Protection Agents went into Apartment 213 wearing oxygen masks and hazard suits. Camera crews caught these agents bringing out with them the refigerators and vats of acid that stored the bodies of the missing young men to the astonishment of the rest of the world. Soon, the quiet loner from Wisconsin was the nation's biggest news story, capturing the imagination of the world with what was dubbed by hungry press as a "real-life Silence Of The Lambs." In reality, Hannibal Lecter appeared as an unrealistic concept once faced with the reality of Dahmer's life and its effect on those around him. He was the real thing.

Partial list of content found in the apartment of Jeffery Dahmer upon arrest:
- Dahmer's bedroom walls had bloodstains on them, and his matress and pillows were also stained in human blood.
- A metal filing cabinet containing three painted skulls, an entire human skeleton, polaroid photographs of victims in various stages of dismemberment (often posed in erotic position sans head or limbs), a dried scalp and a set of male genetalia.
- a large metal drum filled with acid, containing three human torsos in various stages of decomposition.
- a "King James" bible
- a VHS copies of homosexual-themed pornographic films, a lecture on evolution, "Return Of The Jedi," and "The Exorcist III."
- a hand saw, a claw hammer, a hypodermic needle, several sizes of drills and drill bits, boxes of soilex (used to boil the bones and skulls), muriatic acid, formaldehyde, ether, choloroform, jugs of bleach, and large quantities of odor-suppressing chemicals and incense.
- a kettle containing human hands and several sets of preserved male genitals.
- human skulls on display, painted to appear decorative.
- a freezer (seperate from the main refrigerator) containing human heads, a torso, and internal organs.
- a bloodstained refigerator with a human head, a heart, and portions of muscle shaped into a meat patty.

Dahmer's trial was a public circus, with angry family members yelling at the unemotional and sullen man during the proceedings. For his part, Dahmer was helpful and compliant with investigators, telling them that he himself was relieved that the whole affair was over. Much speculation was made regarding the racial element of his crimes, with the politically correct crowd obscenely painting the shy and reserved man as a "nazi." Growing up in the midwest, raised in a suburban neighborhood when black and white people did not usually mix with one another. He seemed to have a genuine fascination with this "other" element in society that went far beyond victimization. The complex relationship that Dahmer had with some of his African American neighbors was not different from that of many of our founding fathers, who would often have bizarre sadistic/masochistic relations with their enslaved African companions that were kept in nearby houses. Dahmer's desire for a "love slave" was a cultural imperative going back to the earliest emperors and kings, and his fascination/victimization of the descendents of Africans living in America today reflects the very foundations of the United States of America. His case was a vital explosion of racial tension and a desire to reach out to what was to him an alien culture. That his approach was predatory is fitting with the rest of Dahmer's life- at some point in time it seems that he felt that he was no longer able to love, and from that point on love objects for him became synonymous with prey. Compare the reports of Billy Capshaw (Dahmer's former Army bunkmate) with those of Tracy Edwards (Dahmer's final would-be victim). Both men tell a story of a man who trapped them in a threatening situation, only to tearfully break down and tell them all sorts of sad stories about his own life. Jeffery, feeling trapped and victimized, was compelled to ascend to the status of victimizer. Only then, like many men, could he reveal his true sensitivity.



SUFFERING LIKE HIS BELOVED CHRIST

He was extremely embarassed at his newfound infamy, mortified at the idea of his grandmother Catherine reading about his activitis in the newspaper. He could not imagine any future for himself, and to be put on trial for his crimes seemed a fitting next step. Many have argued that in his depression that he allowed himself to be caught, no longer wanting to live the way he had been living. He recieved mountains of mail from sad and lonely people reaching out to Dahmer who related to his tortured urges. The influx of mail was astounding, and the media attention seemed to grow exponentially as people grew more and more fascinated with each individual aspect of the case. Many people related to Dahmer's desire to become physically closer to others, feeling deep within themselves a dissatisfaction with corporeal reality. In prison, he had a "return to Jesus" that was accompanied by an official baptism in the prison facility's heated pool. At the same time that Jeffery was baptized in prison as a born again Christian, Chicago's "killer clown" John Wacy Gacy (who was, like Dahmer, a homosexual with pedophilic inclinations) was executed in another facility during a total eclipse of the sun (which neither men could experience from inside their prison walls, but an interesting co-incidence nonetheless). Unable to have his beloved beer in prison, he instead chose to get drunk on the cup of the Lord. Dahmer was murdered at the age of 34 while on bathroom duty by a man who believed that he was an incarnation of Christ, beaten to death in the toilet stall. Dahmer was one year older than his beloved Christ was as the time of his own crucifixion, and both lives ended tragically after a great deal of suffering. His story is one of disconnection and inability to meet with others halfway that all can relate to. Dahmer lived in his own infinity land, where he chose to write the rules in a way that gave him no escape. By understanding the reality of the situation, the reality of the supposed "horror" as a simple, mundane cry of emptiness, we see a lack that gives approval to man's cruelty, his dispassion. Jeffery is gone. A bright light shining across the Universe, questioning the nature of our existence. He is the human enigma that makes life, the hope for something better and the frailty that makes us feel alone. He is the very root of the question "why are we here?," his path a terrible violence, existing always throughout the universe without beginning or end. His tears are the tears of humanity, dragged kicking and screaming out of the womb on a constant slide toward death.





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OLD
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Why are we here? Are we just here to do "good works"? What are "good works"? Is it good to help someone, to make them warm? Is it good to educate a person, to make them cold? Do we only look for things within each other that satisfy ourselves? Then what of altruism, those who openly aspire to do "good works"? Don't they just want what's best for them, some reward for what they do? Does it cheapen life to see things on these terms? And how can life be valued anyway? Is worth a universal concept? Are we weighed and balanced against one another by an altruistic god like slaves at a market? Wouldn't that very reduction of preciousness "cheapen" the very process? Are we measured against each other like dollar bills and coins by some higher power?
Or is there nothing? And what is nothing? How can our minds even begin to understand something as infinite as nothing? Something so all-consuming that it contains within itself the possibilities of anything that might ever happen, can this be measured? If we are measured against nothing, could it ever weigh against us?

In America, we are encouraged to be separated by age. Culture is dictated by the youth, who are led by the rich (and old) to folly or fortune. Like everywhere else in the world, children are born into a world of hierarchy that they could not have ever dreamed up, yet something inside of them was so "precious" that they manifested into physical form into this world. We do not like to feel pain, but it undeniably is a necessity for human existence. If we did not feel pain, we would forget to adjust ourselves when we are sitting funny, we would crush our own limbs and joints eventually. It would be terrible. We need pain. It is a mystery of life, the other side of feeling good (orgasm, culinary pleasure, etc). If we did not have one, we could not understand the other. It is a balance.

RIVER OF TIME

There is no healthy way to view this world except as a station. If this is the end, it is truly a miserable universe. We must love, and create, and suffer, and destroy. If you, reading this, are thinking that you didn't ask for this life, I'm here to tell you that you are wrong, as wrong as you could possibly be. We must live with time and do what we can to increase the kindness, the love that we can create. It is the only thing that works. "There is nothing besides the Universe." There is nothing that is not vast. There is nothing that is not infinite.



------
OH HAI
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Some of the articles that were promised last time didn't make it to this one. The Dahmer article ended up expanding quite a bit from the original conception (as a one-part article for the "True Crime" edition of MY GOAT that came out last September). It was a painstakingly researched and hopefully thorough take on the story of Jeff Dahmer. The project has become one that has been very personal to me, and in fact has been a rather emotionally painful thing to write. It's a relief that it is finished and up on the screen. At the root of the conflict within Dahmer is the desire for closeness to another person, unabetted by sympathy or moralistic ideals.
I was also going to write some "political" type of commentary in this issue (which was gonna come out in November for Thanksgiving originally), but frankly I was probably just listening to the radio too much. Best not to concentrate too hard on political matters, as it leads to a distorted view of reality. I am taking a break from the blog for the rest of the year to work on stuff not relating to people who masturbate inside human intestines, including a script rewrite for a very exciting project that I hope to lend some "new legs" {$$$} to.
Always look forward, working towards the future! Happy holidays, and if you cannot find any love within yourself it's not because it is gone, but because you are simply not looking hard enough. Be kind to each other, and be nice to animals. Ignore news reports that compel you to buy things that you don't need and push other people over in the process. Also, don't listen to anyone trying to sell you the end of the world - it's not the first time people have said that the sky was falling, and it won't be the last. Be good and do good, and one day hopefully you'll get off this whirligig thrill-ride of a planet, hopefully in better shape than the tattered shell that you leave behind.



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UNLISTENABLE MUSIC
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HEAVY METAL PIZZA PART TWO:
THE RETURN OF YARMULKER
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Kevin didn't know what was going to happen next... He had walked into a business called "Hot Dogs, Sausages, and Pizza Inc." on the pretense of a sign outside that read "OVERSTUFFED PO-BOYS," which seemed to be in error. After an episode of particularly terrible service, it seemed he was facing a brutal ending to his life. About a dozen small children wearing overly tight clothing were running at him from all sides, each holding a spinning blade in each hand.
He reached for a moldy can of mace knowing that these kids were going to tear him apart. It was like something out of a nightmare. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a package was thrown through one of the glass windows, shattering the entrance of the building. The small, cylindrical package read SLIGHT OF HAM in all caps, and began to emit a thick gas that was the color of raw hamburger meat. The children immediately began to suffocate and die in front of Kevin. He briefly began to choke on the air around him in terror, grasping at his throat.
"Relax, buddy. It's a pedocide. It only affects children," grunted a muscular, gruff man who emerged from the mist to greet Kevin. His large frame was clothed in a cut-off T-shirt with a giant skull on the front, with a caption reading BOB'S SKULLS and a phone number underneath. His black, ripped pantalonas were held up by an enormous belt buckle that said "BELT BUCKLE" on it. On one knee was written "Knee," and on the other, "Other Knee."
After hearing the man's words, he calmed down and began to breathe deep and relaxed breaths. It looked like even though there was no hope for the chance of getting to eat one of those overstuffed po-boys. He wanted to eat a delicious roast beef sandwich on lightly toasted french bread, fully dressed (lettuce, tomato, a pickle may and gravy) with an additional dash of hot sauce. He stood there staring into the nothingness, the haze and fog. It seemed that the "pedocide" that this man had sparyed into the room had a rather grotesque effect on the bodies of the workers at "Hot Dogs, Sausages, and Pizza." He looked on the ground, to see the children writhing and twitching, their bodies doing an exaggerated butoh dance as they randomly bounced off the ground. The twitching of the bodies on the ground caused the children to repeatedly slam their faces and limbs into the ground, pulverizing their bodies.
"I'm Yarmulker. Get in the jeep, Rumplepussy." He was standing on the other side of the shattered glass of the store entrance behind the wheel of a large military-grade jeep. "What are you lookin at? I got this thing cheap, it's a hunk a junk. I ain't gonna tell you twice."
"What?" said Rumplepussy, skipping a beat. He then jumped in the jeep. "My name is Kevin."
Yarmulker couldn't hear him. He had taken his HERO TABLETS and all he could see was flags flying and all he could hear were the sounds of fireworks. "Don't worry... we're getting the heck out of here," he intoned to Kevin/Rumplepussy. The strange and violent man explained to Kevin/Rumplepussy that all of the "HD, S, and P" (Hot Dogs, Sausages, and Pizza) businesses were run by robots who would just set up shop, kill all the local residents, and brainwash the children to do their bidding. The children would work in the store and lure in unsuspecting customers with promises of food advertised on hand-made signs, lending the place a humanoid credibility. The little children would then attack the prey from all sides and dismember the meat of the would-be customers in order to sell it as cheap "Steaks For Real People" advertised on late night television programming advertised by the company's public name, "HD, S, and P." It was a joint effort between the robot-run intermediary government as a combination depopulation method/business venture. Kevin though of what a fool he had been. He should have guessed something was horribly wrong when he had noticed that all of the children's clothes were several sizes too small for them. The robots don't know how to buy clothes, it was one of their major design flaws. Only now, in hindsight, could he see his error.
Rumplepussy and Yarmulker went travelling at light speed towards the nether regions of the universe. Rumplepussy couldn't believe the aspects of the universe that they were driving past. He felt a vastness encompassing him, pushing Rumplepussy forward until he was reaching for the stars. Someday he would attain this staus, not letting anything stand in his way. He would make it some day, and nothing would stand in his way. Nothing mattered except for the future, and the future was happening now.
The jeep stopped. They were in front of a building with a large neon sign that read "Heavy Metal Pizza." There were signs all over the building advertising "Worst Pizza In Town" and "Garaunteed Worst Service In Town." On the wall in front of him, Rumplepussy saw a poster with a woman's face on it. It was Katy Keene from the Archie Comics, but she had stubble on her face, and there was a red and black, Nazi-like logo over her head that read 'ULTRA BITCH.' This was some strange artwork possibly related to a local gang or something, he wasn't sure what. He got really freaked out by this, and was completely quiet as his new friend Yarmulker led him outside of the vehicle. A tiny, birdlike creature greeted them in a narrow hallway.
"About damn time," he squeaked.
"This is Nuggit. He will be your rendevous point at this juncture."
"Hello, Nuggit," said Rumplepussy. Nuggit didn't say anything, just staring straight ahead with his beady little bird eyes. He was blue and shaped kind of like a Christmas ham, but all covered in light blue feathers. He had a little beak and tiny beady black eyes. He was wearing an aviator's helmet with attaching goggles, and a stogie was hanging out of his mouth. Kevin/Rumplepussy figured that he wasn't saying anything because he didn't want to drop his cig. In fact, he was starting to wonder how the little guy had lit his cigarette, since he just had tiny little wings. Before he knew it, he was in a large barroom that smelled like mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce.
Rumplepussy looked around. He saw a room full of heavily armed, Amazon-looking women. They appeared to be the staff of Heavy Metal Pizza. On the wall, there was a large picture of a short Italian man with a bald head and a curly mustache. He was wearing a chef's outfit, and twirling a pizza. Below him was an inscription in gold: "Our Founder, Peter Pizza."
One of the women approached the confused looking man and laid a photo down on the table before him. "Kill him," she said. She had laid down a picture of Jewish/American comedian Adam Sandler. "Kill him. We will send you back to 1991, before he began to do harm to the Earth. Pull out his regenerative organs and spread them on the ground. Do it in the shape of Christmas."
"Yes, I will do this for you," replied Rumplepussy. All the sudden, everything began to make sense. That man's comedy was so incredibly insulting that it completely lowered the bar of humanity. Culture dipped from what scientists had ascertained to be the "Sandler Effect." It was now time to make things right.
They snuck him into Adam Sandler's apartment, and he unleashed a time egg, which deleted the negative atoms that Sandler had been composed of. On live television during their most viewed moments, from outside of time both Sandler and his future film companion Russell Brand died in a manner akin to a piece of human excrement going down a toilet, from outside of time. The time egg had done it's trick. Everyone laughed at the two men's horrid demises, projected on a big screen in the future back at Heavy Metal Pizza. All of the workers were proud of Rumplepussy for his impressive efforts.
All the sudden, a Christmas miracle had occurred.
The nuclear fallout was replaced by snow,
and the headless fear mutants stalking the plains turned into snowmen.
The evil floating brains that hovered overhead
were transformed back into mistletoe,
and everybody was filled with joy and holday cheer.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Ho ho ho.



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VIOLENT VISIONS
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50 Capsule Movie Reviews (Conclusion)
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"Go into the light." - dialogue from Poltergeist

HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN - Rowdy Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman (from Conan The Barbarian), and Cec Verrel star in this picture (which led to Piper's starring role in John Carpenter's "They Live"). After a nuclear war, the Earth is barren and infertile, and so are many of its inhabitants. A "provisional government" is in place that is dominated by a female-run and operated branch called Med-Tech. It's Med-Tech's job to find fertile males with which to re-populate the Earth, and rapist Sam Hell (played by Piper) impregnates the daughter of a prominent military official, quickly making him a vital asset to Med-Tech. Due to the rarity of fertile males, Piper (playing the titular character Sam Hell) must save the human harem of a mutant frog man with three amphibian/reptoid phalluses and impregnate them, for the greater glory of the state. Running a slim and precise 88 minutes, I found this film to have an interesting racial undercurrent that is not often commented on by critics. Piper's performance as Sam Hell is actually quite charismatic and in fact far superior to his more "stoic" heroism on display in the more popular Carpenter venture. After watching this movie, I was astounded at how such an awesome movie was made with such a low budget, and was actually astounded to discover that the thing actually cost over a million dollars to make, a great deal of money in 1987. Sandhal Bergman is rather versatile in this one, and her much-humiliated character comes off with dignity thanks to her brave performance. Cec Verrel is a goddess as Med-Tech strongarm Centinella, looking like a cross between a supermodel and a hard-ass but constantly amused desert commander. When she smiles, the screen lights up, and my heart fills with joy. Worth a look for her performance alone.



TOONCES THE CAT AND FRIENDS - This is not actually a movie, but in fact a television pilot written and produced by Saturday Night Live writer Jack Handey. Like many others, at the time of Handey's prominence as an SNL writer, I assumed that he was some sort of an alias for a more well-known person like Al Franken or Steve Martin. This was largely due to two factors, namely that most of the non-performing SNL writer's names are never heard or seen on the show, and that Handey's name sounded like either a squeaky-clean or possibly very dirty joke. Nevertheless, he is a real person who continues to sell multiple volumes of his "Deep Thoughts" series of books, and at one point in time made this one-off "Toonces The Cat And Friends" pilot episode. This was pretty funny, but ultimately I was disappointed that this was not strictly a compendium of Toonces-related skits. For the unfamiliar, "Toonces, The Cat Who Could Drive A Car" was a re-occuring skit involving a cat named Toonces who would drives a car off a cliff, which was represented throughout multiple skits with the same stock footage of a car crash. Steve Martin starred in the first appearance of Toonces as his male owner, to be replaced by Dana Carvey from that point on. The skits interpolate a live cat actor with a cat puppet for the more dangerous stunts in the production of the (pre-taped) Toonces segments. Unfortunately, Toonces appears on a minority of the time taken up on this tape, and instead we get some strange and unpleasant skits from Handey involving black humor surrounding a little league baseball coach (played by Randy Quaid), and space aliens who inadvertantly kill Earth children by opening or closing the door to their space ship too fast, among other subjects. I was pleasantly surprised to spot an appearance by Bob Odenkirk (of the brilliant, amazing Mr. Show) in a skit, but for the most part the lack of Toonces is the most apparent aspect of this VHS release. Would be interested in seeing a box set compendium of Handey's contributions to SNL ("Deep Thoughts," "My Big Thick Novel," "Fuzzy Memories," "Toonces," "Tales Of Fraud and Malfeasance in Railroad Hiring Practices," and more... there must be hours of great Handey SNL material out there).

BABY MAMA - Wow. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have such an amazing chemistry in this film that it makes up for a completely inane premise and setup. Despite the fact that this is ostensibly a film about surrogate childbirth, it is more an ode to fertility and female partnership. Poehler and Fey portray an "odd couple" who are thrown together as two strong women finding an important place in a crumbling male-dominated world. The family structure is throughouly torn apart and lampooned throughout the script, leading to an overall message leaning toward the concept of "it takes a village to raise a child." The banter and physical comedy between these two masters of American comedy makes for an entertaining ride, with compentent supporting performances from the male actors involved in the picture. Look for Steve Martin in a biting send-up of a corporate CEO of a Whole Foods-like organization who is deeply in touch with his inner potential. Amy Poehler is an amazing and hyperactive screen presence who dominates the frame with her charm. Definitely one of the best ever "Saturday Night Live" related films, superior to the many single-skit themed productions that flooded the market in the 1990s. I am an unapologetic fan of both Fey and Poehler, who are some of the most important people in the comedy world at the moment. It's a shame that so many interviewers focus simply on these two performers' political impersonations rather than the amazingly versatile improvisation abilities that they both possess. Both Fey and Poehler seem to be able to write their material as easily as breathing, the mark of a hard-working and extremly studied intuitive performer. Hopefully there is more to com film-wise from these two as a duo. I enjoyed this one! Amy Poehler is great.

HOUNDDOG - This stylized portrayal of youth from director Deborah Kampfmeier was promoted to America unfortunately as the "Dakota Fanning rape movie," but like Fanning herself said, "It's called acting." A decidedly adult film discussing some very true aspects of youthful sexuality from a feminine standpoint, Fanning's character is a girl who is discovering her independence and youthful sexual energy at a pivotal point in development, which is exploited by the others surrounding her. In the end, however, she discovers power and independence within herself, and her own ability to harness that power. Kampfmeier does a fantastic job with this picture, and the surrealist touches and deeply personal atmosphere make me curious to see herdebut feature "Virgin." The director is currently listed as working on a project with a working title of "Lonely Hunter," possibly (hopefully) an adaptation of the amazing existential Americana novel "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers. Dakota Fanning is one of the best actresses working in Hollywood today. Her and sister Elle Fanning are like two brilliant feminine faerie homunculi sent to educate the rest of the human race about our maximum potential.

CATWOMAN - Ok, now this one gets a lot of hate out there in the world, but ask yourself this: how many truly horrible movies (starring men) stack up sequel after sequel, raking in the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue ("Fast And Furious" for example) while being promoted as great mindless popcorn entertainment, compared to the volume of harsh criticism delivered against this movie? Halle Berry and Sharon Stone deliver a brutal cat-fight finale that is veritably a special effect onto itself. Also, the whole Catwoman character is completely removed from the Batman universe and rogue's gallery etc- the film attempts to create a completely unique Cat-paragdigm based more on Egyptian Goddess imagery and a strong anti-cosmetic industry viewpoint. If you have any desire whatsoever to watch Halle Berry senselessly whip people while wearing an S+M catsuit in an attempt to take down an evil cosmetics corporation (or scenes of CGI cats emoting) this movie will appeal to your sharpened sensibilities.

SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY - This is a widely acclaimed "documentary" made by Todd Haynes and starring Barbie (tm) dolls. It purports to tell the story of the years leading up to the death of singer Karen Carpenter. The film exploits not only the music of the Carpenters themselves, but also the nature of Karen's death and the surrounding ills of anorexia and bulimia. This is an extremely unpleasant short film that ultimately seems like it would be triggering for women suffering from those two particular disorders. The tone of sarcasm and cynicism has an ironic weight that has influenced many things to come, such as Robot Chicken and the Family Guy. The fact that actual people are represented ironically through unmoving mannequins is disturbing enough, but inferences and assumptions are placed into the story unneccessarily as if they were fact. After essentially exploiting the entirety of the early Carpenters catalog for dramatic effect, it unsympathetically depicts a stylized first person view of Karen's death and the reactions to her troubles proceeding it from family members. A cynical and ultimately exploitational bit of clever editing that packs a punch, albeit pulling some rather cheap and accusatory strings. Still, the project shows an impressive level of production value and awareness of the power of subliminal storytelling. Horrifying, repulsive, and in fact illegal.

CONEHEADS, THE MOVIE: PART TWO - For this one, we will have to update this for all of the new people. Of course Ashton Kutcher will be the dad Mr. Conehead, and maybe Demi Moore can make her come back as his wife, the lady cone head. Either Miley Cyrus or maybe Jessica Alba would be the daughter cone head, and the original actors will all play supporting roles. In preparation for the film, Kutcher will have to study the original film and live as a cone head for weeks at a time even through the script writing stages. It is a difficult process, and although the final process was done with CGI the harness and helmet that had to be worn by the actors was still excruciating. So in part two, the Coneheads have to go back to their planet for an emergency meeting of all cone headed people. It will open in space and we will not see Earth at all in the film except for a view of the planet at the beginning. The cone heads planet is struck with some alien disease where many of the cone people are wiped out. We follow our cone head family and see from their perspective that for all they know they could be the last cone heads left on their planet. Things are bleak and grim for the cone race, it looks like almost total extinction for cone heads. They flee the planet in their spaceship and go through a series of planets where different things are happening. On these planets there will be guest appearances by some people who were involved in the original era of the cone heads appearances on SNL. Our cone head family end up on a planet where Garrett Morris lives as a king over a multitude of tiny CGI-created green people. He explains that is where he moved to after his appearance in "The Stuff" (Morris plays himself). Candace Bergen makes an appearance as a Barbarella-like woman living on a planet run by women. In a final battle between the womens planet and evil alien guys that all look the same, many battle of the sexes type of jokes are bandied about. In the end, the Cone Heads help all of the people to create peace with their draconian pragmatism, appeasing the masses with the suffering of the few. Also, guest appearances by Halle Berry as a woman military commander, and Christopher Walken as the evil bad guy. Christopher Walken will be the leader of some really evil guys who tried to wipe out the coneheads, and then at the end it turns out that right after the coneheads left their planet a cure was invented, but many of the cones had evacuated to planets all across the universe. Whenever cone headed people planetarily are near each other from now on their cones will vibrate and light up, a signal of solidarity to all coneheads.



BARBIE ROCKERS - "Barbie Rockers" is a half-hour long program made by Mattel in order to promote a series of futuristic rock-and-roll oriented Barbie characters. Her and her friends have giant teased hair and perform glam-influenced new wave rock music oriented toward a message of feeling good and looking pretty. Although I have seen other Barbie-related entertainment before, usually the production value and level of creativity is quite low, whereas this film is not only exceptionally well made but also rather imaginative in its dramatic recreation of the Barbie ideal. Barbie and her friends perform a sold out world tour of their sugary brand of pop, causing a global emergence of world peace. As proposterous as this sounds, when watching this video it becomes palpable that this lone rock group could somehow unify the planet. They get a case of the post-tour blahs, and so Barbie tells the gang to cheer up and dance, because there is always more stuff to do. After this they get a phone call and are invited to play the first ever concert in outer space. The space station that they are booked to play at is shaped like a giant pink flower. Also, Ken wears a pink scarf, and has a close male friend who is also in the band with them. Needless to say, the gals and guys bring their rocking prowess to the outer limits of space and potentially bring peace to the entire universe. Available on VHS from Hi-Tops Video, Highly Recommended!

GUINEA PIG PART TWO: FLOWERS OF BROKEN FLESH - Charlie Sheen saw this movie at a party and reported it to the United States government, thinking that he was somehow witness to a criminal snuff film production. What American authorities discovered instead was a semi-realistic, mostly aestheticized dramatization of an ancient Japanese story of a demon who possesses a man and influences him to dismember beautiful women. The dismemberment is depicted in excruciating detail, with a comically enthused samurai-looking gentleman spouting deranged poetry throughout the proceedings. The rubbery detachment of the limbs should have been an alert to Mr. Sheen of the fictional nature of the proceedings, but presumably he was not too familiar with gore cinema at the time. Actually, this film is the live-action directorial product of a brilliant Japanese cartoonist whose work has not quite made it to the American mainstream (outside of the infamy shared by his contributions to this legendary series of faux-snuff motion pictures). It is a shame that this is known more as a supposed "snuff" film rather than as a weird bit of cultural satire from an extremely imaginative and under-appreciated (in the US at least) Japanese artist and director. He has made a series of films in the nineties with a surreal horror feel similar to some of the more manic work of Takashi Miike. Very intense filmmaking interwoven with (extremely dark) humor and a small bit of history. Definitely necessary viewing for fans of extreme gore, far superior to the bland first volume of this series.

AIRPLANE 1975 - Before actually seeing this movie, I had seen it parodied many times. It always creates a strange viewing experience when your first exposure to the concepts that it presents is through parody. I imagine that there is a generation now who have had this experience with "The Exorcist" and now possibly the "Star Wars" series of films. From the same era as those classics though, came this rather overblown airport thriller that uses an old-timey thrill ride format to promote heavy drinking and sexual promiscuity. Excellent turns from Karen Black as the fabled stewardess who must fly a plane after the pilot is blinded, as well as Gloria Swanson (who plays herself!) in an interesting appearance. The sleazy 1970s vibe of this one makes it a lot of fun, and be sure to look for Charlton Heston at the beginning and end of the thing as the brave guy who is airlifted onto the plane to land it to safety. I don't say this often, but this one is a genuine piece of Hollywood Crap.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (REMAKE) - I am absolutely not a fan of the whole remake thing that is happening- I usually refuse to watch this sort of thing. Although I really like the depressive, grainy sleaze feel of the original "I Spit On Your Grave," to be perfectly honest, it is a severely flawed film and, frankly, Meir Zeirachi is not a very good storyteller. If you don't know already, the plot of this one is about a girl who moves out to a little house in the middle of nowhere to get some peace and quiet. Local weirdos start paying attention to her and want to make themselves a part of her life. After a series of miscommunications and tense moments, the fellows inevitably get all riled up to commit a really long rape sequence. In the original film, the rape sequence seems to take up about 1/3 of the entire film. You wonder, is this ever going to stop? Are they just going to rape this poor girl (Camille Keaton, descendant of long ago funnyman and overall genius Buster Keaton) for the entire duration of the film? But no, then in the original she takes a relaxing shower and then seduces and kills all the dirty rapers one by one. In this remake, the story is set in rural swamp country in Louisiana, and the rapers are a bit more realistic than the weird caricatures depicted in the original. Overall, the entire production is much more gritty and palpable, but something is lost still in the modern, digitized look versus the purity of the grainy old film reel. Still, the story changes that were made to this make the whole thing far more realistic than the original, making this something like a cross between the original and a modern noir Americana realism film like "Winter's Bone." I hate remakes, but I was curious about the Louisiana setting, and it really wasn't badly made at all. Some really nice cinematography. Should have a different title and be it's own standalone film- I think more people would appreciate it if it wasn't supposed to replace a beloved classic.



BLUE VELVET - Let's see them try and remake this one. David Lynch showed the world what he was really thinking about with this grim and humorous look at the mysteries of sexuality. College student Jeffery Beaumont (Kyle Machlachlan of Twin Peaks, Dune, etc) becomes obsessed with the enigmas surrounding a severed human ear that he discovers in a vacant lot. In the meantime, he explores the thin line between voyeuristic perversion and legitimate detective work. An extremely stylized view on violence, sexual obsession and power, love, attachment, and our place in the world. Lynch combines techniques from horror, comedy, classic noir, and art film genres into a unique visual palatte that is as unique as his paintings. The characters come to life with an oozing emotional resonance, constantly torn between the dark and light aspects of themselves. Ultimately this tells the story of the duality of man in a style of visual poetry designed to resonate with the American audience, bringing 1950s suburban values crashing together with the upheaval and realizations of the modern urban experience. A landmark film that echoes throughout all of Lynch's feature film work ever since, with extremely high production value for such a fiercely independant-minded feature (thanks to Lynch's friend Dino De Laurientiis, a Hollywood giant who very recently passed on). Great score from Angelo Badalamenti as well.

PONYO - Saw this in the theater a few times with my wife (one time was with a friend of ours and her young son), she is a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki's work. Not as adult-themed as some of his more recent film work, this one is definitely a return to the carefree innocence of "My Neighbor Totoro," but seems to be aimed at an even younger audience. This movie tells the classic Danish story of the "Little Mermaid," but instead of being a tale of a girl of courting age turning into sea foam, Miyazaki weaves the story into a more gentle tale of a love based around friendship. The ending didn't really make a heck of a lot of sense. Better to listen to this one in Japanese (subtitles are available) without the Americanized voice dubbing- it has unfortunately been rogered a bit in order to push an environmental agenda not intended in the original script. Excellent movie for children with lots for adults to enjoy, and the depiction of the family unit was very positive and unconventional. Nice.



ROBOCOP - Nice satire on dystopian logic and the military-industrial police state. With the kind of robotic drones and unmanned technology that is being utilized abroad these days by the US military, "Robocop" is way ahead of its time in suggesting a concientious collaboration between the law, technology, and human sensitivity. Heavily influenced by the vigilantism of Batman and the Charles Bronson archetype, Paul Verhoven weaves a bleak comic tale of the future that was as over-the-top with gore for its time as it was socio-economically sound. The main thrust of the film is to depict a world not unlike our own, where the mafia and the rich conspire to control technology and the police force for their own purposes against the masses. Robocop is programmed to protect his corrupt bosses, but against his programming turns them in to the authorities, and in the end he regains a bit of his humanity while serving the greater good. Although generally viewed as a very dark satire mixed with violent action, it is the heart and well-thought out economy of the world around those events that makes this a compelling and powerful film. Robocop himself as a character represents the fusion of law and "the system" with individuals who choose to serve a greater good (such as law enforcement and military). He observes and protects for the sake of all law-abiding citizens, and suffers greatly in the process. Although the film is stylized and often over-the-top, it ultimately serves to put the viewer into a sympathetic mindset of those who dedicate their lives to service. A few actors from "Twin Peaks" are in this, including an eerie turn from Ray Wise (aka "Leland Palmer") as a maniacal henchman who hangs out at techno dance clubs. Unlike "The Terminator," when Robocop visits a techno dance club, he manages to apprehend his man without opening fire in the crowded space, allowing the grateful patrons at the club to continue dancing the night away. Excellent "popcorn" movie.

DEADTIME STORIES - Watching this made me really aware of subliminal intentions within filmmakers. It is difficult to ascertain whether the pedophilic implications of the wraparound sequence are intentionally placed to trigger a disturbing reaction from the audience, or simply the reflection of a disturbed mind erroneously trying to depict naivete. This late 80s horror movie has several sequences that are based around fairy tales, as well as a wraparound sequence of an Uncle Mike talking to a kind of annoying kid who demands a bedtime story. There are some really cool special effects in the first sequence, a parson having his hand turned into a Hand Of Glory and a dead person forming back to life from a bunch of squirming slime and ropes. Nice! Second story is kind of silly, but the sheer beauty and grace of the actress who plays Red Riding Hood makes up for this asinine plot and soundtrack stuff that happens in this section of the movie. Finally, a Troma-esque satirical romp through American family values happens at the end of the film, and despite some really goofy comedy, the depiction of Goldilocks as an insane girl who lives in a house full of rotting corpses that she talks to is pretty ill. Overall, this is some really bargain bin 1980s horror with rubber monsters and the like, and if you can deal with that then you will be in for a few yuks here. Worth it for the rare focal appearances of some very cool actresses.



THE HAUNTING - Classic Robert Wise triller set in a haunted mansion where paranormal investigators and a skeptic (played by Russ Tablyn, Twin Peaks' Dr. Jacoby) get freaked out by possible happenings at night, in the dark. Freaks out viewers in a more sincere way than many modern scare-hungry ghost tales. A mysterious and influential movie, especially on Kubrick's "The Shining" and many others yet to come. Based on the classic story "The Haunting At Hill House," which has been remade several times. The original is still the best however. Not to be confused with the non-supernatural extortion chiller "The House On Haunted Hill," a movie which exploits a famous title in a way that makes little to know sense. The Robert Wise picture is the one to see. Check your local library.

IRREVERSIBLE - I remember seeing this in the theatre during it's one-weekend run at the Canal Place in New Orleans. A one hour and thirty minute film, the whole thing is the story of a young couple who find that they are expecting a child. They go to a party and the man acts like a total dick, running around on ecstacy and hitting on a bunch of girls in front of his preganant lady. She gets pissed off and runs out on him, taking the local crimson-walled subway. Unfortunately, before she makes it there, a really weird guy rapes her at knifepoint for about eight minutes and brutalizes her face and body in an excessively violent manner (during this time, an observer walks in the background briefly, to pause and quickly turn and walk away from the scene). Her fella and his friend found out and see her all fucked up on a hospital gurney (mind you this is all in French this whole time) and her fella gets really pissed off. He starts going around beating up random people and yelling and stuff like that. Eventually for some reason they end up at a nightmarish gay sex club and a guy who may or may not be the rape guy's friend (or the rape guy, but probably not) gets his head violently smashed in with a fire extinguisher for all their trouble. This is all told backwards and was created with a script that was only a few pages long, with most of the events improvised by the actors (including real-life couple Vincent Cassel and Monica Belucci {meow!!!}). It is not the story that is the hammer, but the telling, and this one comes down like a ton of bricks. Beautiful filmmaking from a gifted artist. Irresponsible? Maybe. The film equivelent of the music of Whitehouse and the writing of Peter Sotos. Low frequency sounds, evil editing, and heavy fonts are used to disorient and upset the viewing audience. It works!

"Don't go into the light!" - dialogue from Poltergeist.

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listening playlist for writing this issue:
TEENAGE WITCH - HIGH MOON
LUDWIG BEETHOVEN - SYMPHONY NO. 7
KAREN CARPENTER - SOLO LP
CARPENTERS - THE SINGLES 1969-1973
ABRUPTUM - EVIL GENIUS
SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES - ONCE UPON A TIME "THE SINGLES"
TURBONEGRO - ASS COBRA
MARIAH CAREY - MUSIC BOX
PSYCHIC TV - ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES
RODGER STELLA - KOSMISCHE DUB / RIECH/RILEY
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Thanks to Karen and Jeff for their help.

So there you have it, the first five issues of MY GOAT for your entertainment. Print 'em all out and see if it all makes any sense to you after these past few months (excluding the occasional typographical error, but you gotta bear with me here- aside from non-existent advertising revenue, this writing gig has a non-profit endeavor [so far I have made .97 dollars in ad revenue- you people are obviously not supporting Phoenix College or the "sexy t-shirt" people! Not that I blame you...]).
I bid you a very cordial "Auf Wedersehen." See you next year.

(Send all correspoondence to: harshhumanignorance@gmail.com )

WE WILL FIGHT FOREVER UNTIL THE END RELEASES US
"IN THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD" STILL PENDING... MAYBE FOREVER!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUN.
WELCOME BACK QUEZTECOATL!!!!