Postcards From the Bowels of Hell...

I feel a bit sluggish posting this...now that the book is almost done, it's about a half millions words about all the lies and bullshit that held me down for so long, and in a way, it is ironic that the last of the bullshit...religion...should co-incide with Xmas.  I couldn't have planned it any better if I tried.  

So...actually, I'm sluggish about posting this because I guess...now that I have gotten all this nonsense off my chest, it kind of feels...redundant.  I am still keen to publish the book, because, well...because it is my life's work- for good or bad.  

BUT...I really want to get on with the next book...& the next chapter of my life.  My hypothesis is that no matter how badly done by you are...or feel you are...it is possible to come to terms with it, face it, unload it like so much dirty water, and move on...concentrating on contributing something to society.  

I still feel that is correct, and I look forward to proving it.  

So now...it almost feels like...

For the first time in my writing life, I actually feel down with it.  I mean, that is what is supposed to happen.  Therapists agree, that once you write it down...indeed do a thorough and searching personal inventory...then theoretically, you should be able to see where you went wrong in life, exactly WHY...& do something about it...in order to move on.  So...yeah, I admit, this last little bit feels a bit painful.  

But I wrote it...I promised certain parties a look at some of the photos of where I was raped in the bowels of the school...oh hell.  Here is the original thing.  I will let what I wrote last year (but didn't post) speak for itself. 

Bear in mind...it is rough as guts, but I suppose you could say I save the discipline for my books.  

OK...here tis...

        

I was lamenting the fact that I had posted an incomplete version of the last blog, but really, it was just a couple of details and a photo lifted from the documentary we have been working on, (thanks to Mark Savage for capturing the whole thing on film; it really helped) where I go back to the location where it all happened…

in the ‘sheet room’, the laundry storage dungeon where the priests kept their own secret dirty laundry.  

I thought I might go back and air it out…

But I couldn’t go in.  I mean…it was locked.  & of course we did not have permission to be there, but access was gained easily enough because it was a cadet parade, so there were a lot of people coming and going. 

Anyway…I missed a few details.  I was going to say that many of the children in my year who were raped died of alcoholism and suicide, etc.…well; maybe I will just include my actual comments in a thread to a friend.

I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Or was I? Sometimes...I’d rather be dead. But...the writing helps. & the kindness of strangers. (I actually posted a draft version of this...I am kicking I didn't post the full version. I was really pleased with it. it had stills from the documentary, where we go back to the dungeon where they raped us. it was...weird. very weird. seemed like...another country. I find...when I go to post things like this...I get all funny and lightheaded...& my hands shake...it's just PTSD. I’m not alone. That’s...something, I guess. alone bad. friends good. as Frankenstein said..

Interesting; I picked up a copy of a folio version of Frankenstein in the second hand store the following day!  Co-incidences! 

I seem to refer to it in the book...you know, me the monster, god, who created me out of bits and pieces of rubbish cadaver, and then the world is startled I behave like a monster...well, there is something about writing that helps me do something about that; it is kind of like...alchemy.  a process of turning base matter into...well, gold. 

Refinement.  Rejecting god's plan to make us monsters & attempting to find some way of...transcending god's horror, that we might step fully into our...

purity of being. 

Anyway…I will include the rest of the exchange, because I wanted to say something about the strange, disjointed nature of the writing when I talk about this stuff.  

Again...It’s a bit like Frankenstein… ‘Alone bad…friend good!’  I noticed… a lot of my stuff here is similarly fragmented, and at times inarticulate.  

Something happens when I try to talk about my molestation.  

It is as if I am a monster, made up of fragments and pieces, and of course who wouldn’t be inarticulate.  And after I post the stuff…I always want to ‘fix it up’, because really, let’s face it…like an alchemist, I am...actually trying to save my own life.  And make it a life worth saving.  

There are times when I would rather be dead…& I have tried to finish myself off, much to the delight of my critics, and they are out there (the same ones who find my work tiresome, ‘why don’t you just get it over with and neck yourself!’  & a part of me thinks, perhaps they are right. But I noticed that they keep coming back.  & so do I!  It’s a bit like…the film director Alan Rudolph; people get very angry at how obtuse his work is, how inaccessible…I mean, I have seen people gouge out their own eyes at screenings of ‘Choose Me’!!  & yet…they KEEP coming back!  

I am like…one of those books you are not sure you like or not…but you keep on going, just to see how it all ends!  Well…not yet…I hope…) 

But then…another part of me wonders if it is not indeed possible to transcend my Frankenstein monster persona.  What if it was possible to correct the terrible errors in god’s so called ‘perfect plan’, and correct what is incorrect?? 

In other words…what if it was possible to go against ones damaged personality and ones flawed, some might say ‘evil’ deeds, and do some good?

What is there was some good left in me??

This is what I try to do, in my own imperfect way, in my writing and my life.

In order to make this ‘goodness’ manifest, certain refinements need to be made.  & that means thrashing out some anger.

From time to time…I express my anger at having been ignored.  As a child…I felt ignored, as if no one cared. 

But as an adult…I have no evidence for that.  I lost pretty much all my friends when I became ill recently, but that is just reality; human nature.  I know for a fact that when human beings become ill, their friends will head for the hills.

There is no point getting upset about that…that is just the way life is.

Plus…I think as a writer, I am mostly better off alone.

But from time to time, the CHILD inside me still complains and whines.  & it sounds like the adult.  This is what my writing is…an attempt to make peace with the child.  So…I give him free reign, as I have said previously.

This is how the child sounds, as lifted from a thread.     

Thank you so much. That means a lot...most of us are ignored. That’s why we murder ourselves. So..your words mean the world to me. If there is a god, when I am dragged before him, I will have my say, express my disgust, & go where I am sent. But to my mind...he's an absent father. In that room...I asked for help...& there was nothing. So...I buried it. I thought forever. But...funnily enough...the older I get, the more it burns.

This is true…& it is valid…but it is an angry child…basically crying, pants full of shit.  Tantrum.  No help to any kind of evolution.  

It is unrealistic.  There is no way someone who communicates in this manner will be tolerated long term. 

But remember…these are the sentiments, nay the tantrums of a child that never had the chance to have a de-brief. 

It is bad enough to be raped and tortured in childhood…but never to have had a de-brief?  Never had any kind of treatment?

You could argue, ‘so what’…who cares??

I will not argue with you.  Law of the jungle, Darwinian exigencies, and all that. 

BUT…we claim to live as civilised human beings.  I hear it all the time, from judges at the bench; ‘you must learn to live in a civilized society. 

OK then; if this is indeed the case, then how civilised is it, that a child be raped and tortured, and then sent out into the world like a monster, trying to live decently, but achieving nothing of value nothing productive…indeed damaging others??

What critics of my work fail to notice is…that this is an abused child…trying to effect his OWN rehabilitation…without ANY kind of skills?

So if my work at times seems tiresome, disjointed, flawed, repetitive, boring…

Then the reason for that is…my idiom of choice HAPPENS to be personal reclamation of my health and well-being. 

So…all I can say if I seem to be quite poor at it, is I am doing the best I can with what little I have; a rudimentary set of writing skills, and inexplicable yen for personal refinement at all costs, and an ill formed but no less evident desire to learn from what has happened in my life, form strategies for self-healing and growth, and pass on what I learn about myself in this process to others.

I learned…just how angry I am, and how much was buried, all those years ago. 

Of course I buried it…I had no way of knowing what to do with it. 

We are put here by a hateful god…and are tortured and raped, and left to figure it all out, with no help whatsoever. 

This is unforgivable. 

But I wrestle with my atheism…I like having something to be angry at…but it is not sustainable. 

Sooner or later…the anger will have to burn out, and I will have to find something else to focus on. 

Besides anger…latent, or obverse. 

         

The anger…finally…is burning itself out. 

After all this time buried…I have fracked into it, and am burning it all off. 

It takes time. 

The child lets go of the ‘god hates me’ thing.

It essentially means...the thing that made all this...all of it...& tells us he can stop it...hates us. I will no doubt mature as I get older...but for now...I need to get it all out of my system. I know there is no god...no god could be so cruel...I just don't believe it. But for now...it is something to be angry at. After all these years. & posting this...I know I am not alone! I had no idea so many of my readers have been through the same thing! If there is an upside to this...it would be that. Connection. & with you. I guess...the child in me still hurts.

It is totally unacceptable. I do bang on about it at times...but my motto is 'do not go gentle into that good night'. If I didn't talk about it...it would kill me.

So…it is one thing to be angry at ones creator, but it is another to do something about it.  And this religion thing…the molestation…these are two lies that came to the surface last of all.  I dealt with the lie of religion, and the lie that I was worthless, impregnated into me from a young age. 

These two lies are the last in a series of fallacies I have been debunking in my book, the lies that have enslaved me for a lifetime.

Fact; one cannot live an authentic life, until these lies, myths; fallacies have been isolated, & debunked.  And when they have…

We can evolve, and contribute some good to society.

The trick is, when you are an artist, to find a way to do this work, and at the same time make it palatable, valuable to others. 

I like to think something can be gleaned by other abuse sufferers from the work I am doing…but this is not the only reason I do it. 

I do it for myself, first and foremost, because there is no point trying to help others unless we are right with ourselves. 

& also, there is no point writing self-indulgent twaddle that is dark and dour, and has no positive value to anyone else. 

There are times I do come across as dour and depressive. 

But really…this is part of a persona. 

The wolf story. 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Frankly…I don’t know which of the wolves I am.  The reader might have an opinion…but frankly?  I feel as though I am both.

The movies…most Hollywood movies…say that things are as simple as this. 

And for most movies…they have to be. 

Most viewers cannot tolerate a message in their movies. 

But with me…in my work, my writing…

Ricardo Piglia said of the film director, Hector Babenco,

“Babenco tries to distance himself from mere representation and to construct a direct and personal vision.  In this sense, his cinema is very near in spirit to certain modern novelists; Camus, Knut Hamsum, Henry Miller, Kerouac these were his true influences.  These heirs to Kafka and Dostoyevsky speak in the first person and tell of their lives. But not their lives as writers, not even their real lives, but their lives as abandoned children, as homosexuals, as delinquents- their lives as vagabonds and expatriates.” 

This sums me up perfectly; frankly…if you don’t appreciate these writers…you are not going to like me much. 

It is…an idiom. 

It is…a persona. 

Woody Allen makes the same movie every time…the trick is to do the same, without looking like you are doing it. 

His is a character, all the authors I mentioned above…

All characters.

Bukowski was a character. 

I talked to his barman…Jimmy, at Musso and Franks Bar and Grill in Hollywood... 

Who told me Bukowski was nothing like the persona he wrote himself to be.

It was mostly bullshit.  

But who wants to know that??

Print the legend.  

It's kind of...what writers do.  So they can keep a respectable distance from the painful stuff...& for the love of Mike...make it READABLE!~!

People often get worried about me…

My readers are not all critics, out for my lynching. 

They read what I write, and they get genuinely upset. 

I am not going to divorce myself from my work…how could I?

To say about my writing ‘oh this is not me’ would be disingenuous. 

And untrue. 

But frankly…it is not ALL of me. 

No one could live the way I write…in a metaphoric sense. 

No one could survive if my life was the sum total of the existential crises that goes on in my mind. 

It simply isn’t sustainable. 

It is a tempest…a dramatic device, through which I can articulate certain ideas, certain emotions, certain belief…

Without having to put my hand in the fire and leave it there…

I can stand in the midday sun for a while, and bask in that heat…

Rather than live in a furnace. 

In other words…my words…I try to make them burn. 

So that I can have some peace when I am NOT writing. 

Or thinking about my life. 

It is like…letting kids run around during the day, so they will sleep at night. 

I burn myself out with my writing…

So I can sleep at night.

Here is one last excerpt from the exchange on my wall.

 

I will no doubt one day make my peace with it...but I have some more writing to get out of it yet! I need to get some goodness out of the darkness, right? So...thank you for understanding. That’s all we want. I would add one more thing...our suffering is no worse than anyone else’s. Suffering is just that...suffering. But to a child...you are being raped and tortured by a representative of the CREATOR. That can burn an especially deep dark crevasse in your soul. 

The end of my blog…I said I would threaten god. 

This is what happens when my writing puts me under pressure. 

In the refinement process…

I squeeze out the diamonds. 

The book…is where I articulate the big work. 

The blogs…

Are where I play with the material, the random ideas, and although it is vague, often haphazard, and certainly rough as guts like Frankenstein’s monster…

Sometimes, I am left with killer ideas for new works of art. 

This time…it will be a film script about a man who does die, and then confronts god. 

It will match up with a previous idea, about a priest who is beaten to death by a gang.

I needed two ideas…and I got them. 

The great thing about writing is every time I do a blog…there is always something good come from it. 

At the end…I had the idea for a movie. 

So this year…I will write that. 

It is a version of what Heller did in Catch 22. 

The stuff about Descent into the Underworld.

God is actually the devil, because he fools people into thinking he loves them, when he hates and abuses them.  Like an abusive father. 

Our job is to break free from the programming. 

I must remember not to edit these things; they are not a book…blogs are just vomiting. 

& they might piss people off, but people keep coming back. 

It is a bit like...showing off my poo…

but I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t going somewhere. 

Life is what happens when you are making other plans. 

Writing is what happens while you are trying to figure things out…

 

 & when the book, the film, and all the other work is finished...

I will be free to do my charity walk from one coast of the states to the other.  

Basically...make my dreams all come true in the one year.

So I can finally talk back to the god of horror, and his pedophile hordes,

Rise above them, and create something of true beauty.  

Something to be proud of.  

Thank you for coming with me on this weird journey!!

Amen.  

xo 2017