Before I go any further, let me define the term "crackpot"-- a crackpot is defined as "a mentally unbalanced or eccentric person." Not that I have anything against crackpots, I do tend to gravitate to crackpots at social functions. Some of my best friends would be considered by many to be crackpots. This article is just about some notable crackpots I have known.
A few months ago, 74-year-old Don sent me his utterly confounding treatise on Bio-rhythms called "The Answer to Relationships." In and of itself, it wouldn't be a bad thing to review as a kind of personal zine. There are 8 hand-written sides explaining how our entire lives are controlled by the date of our birth, followed by two more typewritten pages which seem to be a summation of everything written in the last eight pages. Following that are some charts to help the reader figure out their own biorhythm. I always find it sad when people get taken in by silly superstitions like Bio-Rhythms or Astrology (of course, the only true fortune telling method is phrenology), and reading his story is sad indeed.
With "The Answer" was the letter below. At first, I thought it was a copy of something that someone had sent to him, however, upon closer inspection it seems to be Don's very own "Mein Kampf." What confused me was that it seems to be addressed to him and someone named Bill Blackolive. From what I can gather, Mr. Blackolive publishes something called "The Last Laugh" and may or may not have been who the letter was originally addressed to. A week later, I got another envelope from Don, which contained nothing but another copy of this same
3/30/98
Bill Blackolive & Don S.
I love a lot about zines so I sent stuff to POP SMEAR and DID those fucking Pollacks [sic] from Worcester, Mass. (I'm from Quincy, MA) smear me. Then when they said to be yourself and I did - silence.
SO then I sent Dinhilism to Seth [Freedman] which main message is that jews in the form of their right and wrong, to say nothing of Israel and other things have ruined the world (watching basketball), Seth damned me with faint praise - 2? requests. So then I sent a sine in on my favorite subject - bio-rhythm. Did Seth ever trash it calling it crazy astrology, etc. Jews have fucked me over so many times, I should write a book, but the holacaust [sic] white-washed them forever. Pissed before I started Donihilism, now I'm livid! So I throw together a GEntile Eclectic Defense which still had the best stuff in it. Seth MISSPELLS the name! In spite of the mis- 8 are ordered to two of the other two. My message will never get out.
Then Doug [Holland] starts up. That faggot Alden Scott says he can't even read it (The Answer To Relationships) yet mercilessly tears it apart. So, I send in my criticism to Doug. He, the proponent of free speech won't even print it. I am TOTALLY vicious. But, I ask you, what is the difference between the pollacks [sic], the jew and the wasp?
Now as for you two, you the same, man! In fact, your marriage if of opposite sexes, would be better than probably 90% of all. Your defect is because of your low physical, you tend to bully when crossed. Thus, Doug bullied me, You both and myself emotionally are adults but you are what is known as a child/adult, thus your humor. I'm 15%- low physical but need to express myself mentally, to you leaders.
If Doug had any guts, and he's a bully, he'd give us the birthdates of all his reviewers to we'd know where they were coming from.
Now, my first impulse is to fire off an angry, equally hateful piece
of shit to put Don in his place. Reflecting on
this, I realized that the best way to deal with someone as
obviously mentally unbalanced as this would result in him
sending out letters like this about me to people. So, instead I decided
to give him something to think about...
This experience reminded of my experience with another crackpot, named Roger, at the art supply store I used to work at.
Roger was a 60-something schizophrenic guy who would come into the store from time to time and tell us the most bizarre tales imaginable. He would claim that he worked as a scuba diver for the CIA, recovering gold bullion off the Florida Keys. Most of the employees found him to be quite annoying because he would talk to you for hours on end, but I found his tales interesting and would press him for more. One day I was wearing my Bill Simon T-shirt, and Roger asked me who was on it. I told him that I wasn't allowed to talk about it. He kept asking me, so I answered, "He's the leader."
"But who is he?" he asked.
"He's the leader, Bill Simon," I said. He seemed confounded by this and stared at me for a long time. Eventually he left.
A few days later, he wandered back in and said "I want to ask you more about that guy."
Since I was really busy that day, I replied "He told me that I'm not allowed to talk to you any more, Roger."
Roger furrowed his brow and wandered away. A few minutes later, the manager of the store rushed up to me and said, "come with me!" and quickly whisked me into the back office. "Roger threatened to kill you!" she said, as she dialed 911. It turned out that he had told one of my fellow employees that he was going to "get that Bill Simon with an atomic bomb." To prove that he was serious, he pulled out a little cigar cutter that he had. Unfortunately, for some reason, he became convinced that I was Bill Simon, and he directed these threats at me.
When the police arrived, they told us that there really wasn't too much they could do about a guy threatening to get me with his atom bomb. "If he said he was going to stab you, we could do something, but threats like that aren't taken seriously."
Anyhow, when deciding what to do about Don S., I remembered Roger and, despite my better judgment, I sent him the letter on the right.
Owen Parks, who portends to be Chief Designer of something called Parks State of the Art Systems ("Designing Tomorrow's World") sent a package to the magazine my wife edits. This hefty tome is entitled Theory of the Anti-Object & conflict of emotional definitions. Inside, Mr Parks provides solutions and theories for nearly all of the world's problems:
According to Mr. Parks, World War I & II created a "DNA Vacuum," by destroying possible combinations of genetic material which ultimately caused the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
This is the name of the new monetary unit he has developed in which the actual amount of work someone does is recorded on a card, and then this is how much "money" they have to spend. Included is the UK Patent application for a device called the "Parallel Democracy Transactions Interface" which verifies the identity of the person and allows them to decide how and where their tax money is spent. If this sounds confusing, it's because it is rather confusing. He goes on to explain the structure of a new constitution which would be written by 1,000,000 university graduates and 1,000,000 prisoners of poverty.
This is his very own three-dimensional radar system which tracks aircraft using Anti-Object technology. Mr. Parks submitted this one to NASA, and claims that it could prevent aircraft collisions. There are all kinds of schematic diagrams of these devices which show a passing knowledge of electronics, along with complaints about the government spending multi-billions on aircraft which become obsolete objects.
This is a new kind of automobile seat designed by Mr. Parks, and he's quite serious about this one. Enclosed is the patent application and rejection letters from no less than twelve auto manufacturers who all essentially say that they can't even consider looking at someone's idea until it's actually patented. There's also a copy of an article about the crash which killed Diana, obviously implying that his seat would have saved her life.
Reading this document is like listening to an insane person ramble on and on about this or that, the whole time offering outrageous solutions based on not too much technical know-how. I did find his monetary system to be quite logical and sensible, unfortunately it doesn't seem too practical. I'm rather reluctant to publish any of his actual writings or diagrams because throughout the document he keeps writing how his work is copyrighted and that he would like the editor to call him to negotiate a "license fee" before publishing any of the material.
There's a wonderful touring art exhibit from the Museum of American Folk Art called "Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century" which might as well be called "Notable Crackpots of the 20th Century." These are seemingly normal people who had normal jobs and when they went home, they created art of amazing beauty, naivety and insanity. Included are such reclusive, unknown geniuses as A. G. Rizzoli, who created fantastic blueprints and architectural diagrams for structures which symbolically represented his mother. Also featured is Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, an amateur erotic photographer whose only subject was his wife, a talented painter and a sculptor in such mediums as chicken bones and concrete. There's also a large selection of works by Henry Darger, King of the crackpots. Darger was a mentally ill hospital janitor who wrote a 10,000 page manuscript with incredibly gruesome mural-sized illustrations featuring a bizarre story about hermaphroditic little girls being enslaved and slaughtered, but ultimately gaining their freedom in "The Realm of the Unreal."
So, whether you love 'em or hate 'em, crackpots are here to stay. As long as they're not dangerous, I say the more crackpots the better. They make life so much more interesting! All hail the Crackpots!
