memories...
When I was a freshman at the U of M in 1986/7 there was a campus fad for building "shanties" or little makeshift shacks in the outdoor student gathering place (the "Diag") at the center of the main campus. This mainly had to do with activist efforts to end South Africa's policy of Apartheid. One warm Friday night a couple of friends and I decided that we would build a "Free Charles Manson" shanty. As stupid and offensive as that might sound, we thought it was hilarious. We were in the small segment of world population who believed that Manson was a political prisoner of sorts who had been judged and sentenced not for anything he had done but rather for what he thought and, even worse, said to impressionable young people.
I kind of think the whole OJ Simpson thing is like the Manson thing turned inside out and upside down. It just sucks to me when the wrong people get punished for things. Also, I think it sucks when the rule of law allows or enables (as in the addict-in-recovery term "enabler") stupid, irresponsible behavior on the part of societies and the individuals who inhabit them.
Whatever. Go ahead and disagree with me if you like.
Here's a short documentary in three parts that I think is really very good.
part 1
part 2
part 3
Manson eloquently speaks for himself from 4:47 of part 3.
The "social Darwinists" or "satanists" could benefit from a bit of interpretation, I think...
Nikolas Schreck and Boyd Rice (personally I like Boyd better, maybe just because of his deliberately well-maintained boyish good looks) I think are awesome because they so carefully and purposefully allow (and enable) themselves to be misunderstood by those who would be predisposed to do so.
"Those who would be predisposed to do so" in my way of thinking includes not only the impressionable goth-or-neonazi-or-whatever kids (who think Boyd and Nik are saying "kill all the people we decide are assholes" or "kill all the handicapped and sickly" or "kill this or that ethnic minority" and then think "yeah, dude, that's awesome"), but also the grown-ups of the world (who think they are saying those same things but find it terrifying).
As I see it these guys (especially Boyd, from stories I've read) are two of the sweetest and most caring people you could ever hope to meet who see the world falling apart around them because of assholes who are destroying first themselves and second-through-last all the people who are stupid and ignorant enough to fall in line behind them (whether that "falling in line" looks like discipleship OR blind, reactionary, and worst of all futile "opponent-ship" - like the Democrat/Republican coin that people who know better would like to see tossed to the bottom of history's wishing well).
Their actual and heavily encrypted "point" is that some humans are really capable of wising up and taking care of business as reasonable, caring, honest women and men, and those who are not - well they're fucked and they deserve what they get. Actively, forcefully disregarding and alienating those zombies (as they see them) is just necessary for human evolution because trying to negotiate with zombies is a dead-end, if you'll excuse the pun.
And its okay that the message is heavily encoded and hidden because the self-styled "rebels" of the world who get the wrong message at first but still think it's awesome at least have a better chance of coming around to the real thing than the zombies.
AND maybe a few of the zombies will have such a blinding fit of rage in confronatation with nice-guys Schreck and Rice and others like them that the scales will fall from their eyes and they'll wake up from their trance.
Well, probably not.
Our shanty got torn down by some drunken frat boys who were edging closer to beating the crap out of us when the campus cops (who were sent to our rescue by some other, more sympathetic drunken frat boys) came to break it up. To their credit, the cops didn't taser us for thinking bad thoughts. They didn't care one way or the other about our "political statement" (LOL). They helped us put the shards of wood and cardboard into a dumpster and went on their way.
It takes all kinds.
I kind of think the whole OJ Simpson thing is like the Manson thing turned inside out and upside down. It just sucks to me when the wrong people get punished for things. Also, I think it sucks when the rule of law allows or enables (as in the addict-in-recovery term "enabler") stupid, irresponsible behavior on the part of societies and the individuals who inhabit them.
Whatever. Go ahead and disagree with me if you like.
Here's a short documentary in three parts that I think is really very good.
part 1
part 2
part 3
Manson eloquently speaks for himself from 4:47 of part 3.
The "social Darwinists" or "satanists" could benefit from a bit of interpretation, I think...
Nikolas Schreck and Boyd Rice (personally I like Boyd better, maybe just because of his deliberately well-maintained boyish good looks) I think are awesome because they so carefully and purposefully allow (and enable) themselves to be misunderstood by those who would be predisposed to do so.
"Those who would be predisposed to do so" in my way of thinking includes not only the impressionable goth-or-neonazi-or-whatever kids (who think Boyd and Nik are saying "kill all the people we decide are assholes" or "kill all the handicapped and sickly" or "kill this or that ethnic minority" and then think "yeah, dude, that's awesome"), but also the grown-ups of the world (who think they are saying those same things but find it terrifying).
As I see it these guys (especially Boyd, from stories I've read) are two of the sweetest and most caring people you could ever hope to meet who see the world falling apart around them because of assholes who are destroying first themselves and second-through-last all the people who are stupid and ignorant enough to fall in line behind them (whether that "falling in line" looks like discipleship OR blind, reactionary, and worst of all futile "opponent-ship" - like the Democrat/Republican coin that people who know better would like to see tossed to the bottom of history's wishing well).
Their actual and heavily encrypted "point" is that some humans are really capable of wising up and taking care of business as reasonable, caring, honest women and men, and those who are not - well they're fucked and they deserve what they get. Actively, forcefully disregarding and alienating those zombies (as they see them) is just necessary for human evolution because trying to negotiate with zombies is a dead-end, if you'll excuse the pun.
And its okay that the message is heavily encoded and hidden because the self-styled "rebels" of the world who get the wrong message at first but still think it's awesome at least have a better chance of coming around to the real thing than the zombies.
AND maybe a few of the zombies will have such a blinding fit of rage in confronatation with nice-guys Schreck and Rice and others like them that the scales will fall from their eyes and they'll wake up from their trance.
Well, probably not.
Our shanty got torn down by some drunken frat boys who were edging closer to beating the crap out of us when the campus cops (who were sent to our rescue by some other, more sympathetic drunken frat boys) came to break it up. To their credit, the cops didn't taser us for thinking bad thoughts. They didn't care one way or the other about our "political statement" (LOL). They helped us put the shards of wood and cardboard into a dumpster and went on their way.
It takes all kinds.
Labels: boyd rice, charles manson, charlie, jr bruun, labianca, murder, nikolas schreck, serial killer, sverre kristensen, tate
posted by pajkossy | 9:27 AM
2 Comments:
of course i agree that in the manson case we have the epitome of hypocracy -- at the height of the vietnam war, the US is maiming, torturing, and slaughtering "gooks" by the thousands, business as usual, but when a tiny handful of rich gliterati get the same treatment, oh no!
i tell people, if manson is in jail for ordering people to kill (a flimsy reason to send someone to jail the truth of which is even dubious at best), then every president of the US in the last 100 years should have been put in jail.
at the same time, i fervently do not agree with your take on these manson idolaters. you decry the two sides of the same coin, yet by making such inflamatory statements and shoving them in people's on such "talk shows," these guys are not trying to be helpful.
they are every bit the impudnet, puerile youth you were, with your shanty.
you know what enlightened, beneovelent people look and sound like, jim. such people see the good in others, and want to help people -- all people. they don't revel in "final solution" type sloganeering.
it's just shock tactics by the alienated and disafected, designed to benefit no one else but them.
holding manson up is hardly productive. he might not be a devil, but he is far from a saint. he is what he himself says he is, a punk who never learned how not to be in jail, to have his face rubbed in shit.
When I first read your comment I thought "Oh yeah, I guess you're right," with my typical pull to feel like other people are sharper than me in their analyses.
But then I thought, wait, I did end my post with the line "it takes all kinds." And I really meant it.
I wasn't impudent, or puerile, at least not in the bad sense of those adjectives. And neither are these guys.
I think you're right that they're not trying to be helpful. We weren't trying to be "helpful" to anyone either when we were building that shanty. We were just goofing around, but in the process we were presenting some ideas to the world that we thought were important.
Maybe not in the most accessible or "helpful" way.
Maybe not in a way that was useful to anyone at all.
Sometimes I think a good way to live is just to act as "straight from the heart" as possible on a day-to-day basis. "damn the torpedoes" and all that.
And don't forget to review and revise your plans once in a while.
I think that's what Manson "stood for" (to the extent that he seems to have stood for anything), and I think that Boyd and Nik are working on this level too.
Maybe they're not especially "benevolent" people, and if I were personal friends with them I'd probably have some sharp words with them at one time or another. But I really do think they're interesting and funny and I think they're pushing some ideas that are worth pushing
Post a Comment
<< Home