Mark Allen

[NOTE: read the latest on the criminal case here]

Letter quoted verbatim:

December 2006

Dear Ms. Ono,

As you know, I have loyally served you in many capacities as your driver, bodyguard, assistant, butler, nurse, handyman and more so your lover and confidant over the last ten years. During the course of these years, our relationship has also deepened into a very emotional and physical one as well.

Unfortunately, as you know, your mood swings and dependencies have drastically eroded our relationship, and led to a continual stream of abusive statements and treatment from you. Ranging from personal insults to demanding acts of great sacrifice by me, your systematic and continuous physical and psychological abuse has caused me to become a different person, stripped from any kind of dignity and self respect.

Your constant demands on my time, for both your and your family’s professional and personal needs have greatly and perhaps irrevocably hurt my relationship with my spouse and children. My wife has now left me because of the relationship between you and me. This is solely due to your excessive demands on my time, demanding my companionship for over 15 hours daily, seven days a week for the last six years. My life has been connected to yours to a point where basic chores and activities such as taking my wife to the doctor’s office or having an engagement party for my son had to wait for months on end for you to leave the country so that I could attend the needs of my family.

Additionally, our relationship both in the public eye and private has caused a significant degree of defamation to my character. People, including your own son and daughter have voiced their opinions regarding our relationship. Every day I endure countless demeaning looks and comments from people at work, on the street and most painfully at home. This continues and will continue to cause indescribable pain for me and more importantly my family.

Under all these circumstances, I decided to contact my lawyer in order to put an end to this string of events. After discussions, we decided to pursue a “quid pro quo” sexual harassment suit against you. There is more than enough documented instances in which you harassed me in this manner and I’ve been advised that the case will be more than easy to file and prove. The case will not only involve you and I, but will also include Sean, Kyoko, Bijoux, Jan Wenner, Michiko Meyers, Sam Havatoy, Dakota residents, Paul and countless others as they will be forced to testify about things that will shock the world. I will make sure that upon filing of the suit, the NY media (members of which I have gotten to know very well over the years) will be all over it and we will all read the details on page six and other tabloid magazines for quite a while.

Such a trial, regardless of if I win or lose, will provide me with a significant amount of publicity that I will use to promote a number of books that will portray You, Sean and John. These books will be written using information obtained from ten years of listening to you as well as pictures taken with hidden cameras and literally thousands of hours of recordings I have been compiling since 1996. Within these tapes, there are recordings such as the ones below that will quite frankly, astound the world.

– Sean, while speaking to his girlfriend Carmella, calling John “a wife beating a——“;

– Your political statements against the British and US Governments;

– Your numerous critical comments about your son, daughter, the Beatles, and your friends (such as Jan Wenner, J. Onasis Kenedy, Elliot Mintz, Brian Hendel, John Hendrics, Michiko Meyers and many more);

– The story of you getting raped during WW II in a Japanese farm and the effects of this act on your relationships with men including John;

– Your numerous fights with Sam Havatoy …

Depending on the outcome of our dealings, I will not only write about these recordings but will also distribute them to European Broadcasting Stations throughout the future. You and your legal advisors may think that I am bound by the confidentiality agreement. Be informed that I am moving back to Turkey permanently and will publish my book in Turkey and will distribute the prints through the internet where I have already secured e-commerce capabilities.

All of the above mentioned items will in fact become a reality unless you compensate me and my family for all of the pain and suffering you have caused. If you want all of these pictures, recordings, emails, conversations and memories to vanish from the face of the earth and never hear from me again, all you have to do is send me a certified cashiers check from a New York Bank for a total amount of $2 million.

Thank you very much,
Koral Karsan

(Read the latest on the case here).

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Can you think a fate worse than being trapped in a bad early 90’s cartoon? I’m sure these two girls can’t. Can you think of a better/worse “Early 90’s” caption for this cartoon? If so, email it to me, or put it in the comments section.

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Indent is the way to go that’s so funny. I know it seems weird you know it is. And why? What is the point of such nonsense? I don’t drive. The wheels turn. Turning asnd turning thare is the best of lands. Best… best of lands. The turn of turns is turnit;s in the bag the cat? Hmmm? The cat is in the bag of oh that’s too loud. The mall. Malls of malls and an endless mall tube you f ff f f ffff f fffffffffff float inside and rotate XBNSDBNC SDKU J sj circumference radiant sales oh bitchg of air conditioned bliss blue skies through plaxiglass crystal i palace-faux windows. toRN NDown Pro Printersclosed on the days sosBliss of the delt. And on star strat the delt green start. Styreetosphere. in the feun., , < (more…)

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Behold the “proof certified” trademark showcasing style and genius business acumen of Ebay seller Shop4uby4me (aka: ‘Successfuleb Businessman’) – a modeling extraordinaire… a marketing demigod! Is he from Texas? Why of course (Tyler, Texas to be specific)! Interested in a skirt? What about some ties? How about a Mu mu with “…the feel of nylon, the comfort of Christmas?” 60’s vintage Mod Op Art? A Mexican ensemble? Scroll down on each auction page and witness his endless make-love-to-the-camera-red-hot-photo-sessions, just past the exquisetly comprehensible prose about each item (the real treat). Our friend Brian dubbed him “…the lost sibling of Gerard Malanga and George Wendt.” When I first saw his auction pages, he was actually selling handmade paper doll kits (of himself), but that particular auction appears to be over. Enter “Successfuleb Businessman’s” whole world of wonders here.

(thanks to Robin for the tip)

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An article from the January 13, 1884 edition of New York World and New Jersey Daily recounts in fascinating detail an elaborate stay-over dinner party thrown at the Newark, N.J. home of the renowned inventor William J. Hammer. Mr. Hammer (a friend and associate of Thomas Edison), titled the mind-boggling evening “Electrical Diablerie,” and made his home itself the primary source of entertainment, fitting it with a complex array of automated electrical devices and futuristic doodads, all of it resembling something out of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. The concept pre-dated the 1940’s/50’s “automated home” phenomenon by more than a half century. An excerpt:

“When the guests arrived and entered the gate, the house appeared dark, but as they placed foot upon the lower step of the veranda a row of tiny electric lights over the door blazed out, and the number of the house appeared in bright relief. The next step taken rang the front door bell automatically, the third threw open the door, and at the same time made a connection which lit the gas in the hall by electricity. Upon entering the house the visitor was invited to divest himself of his coat and hat, and by placing his foot upon an odd little foot-rest near the door, and pressing a pear-shaped pendant hanging from the wall by a silken cord, revolving brushes attached to an electric motor brushed the mud and snow from his shoes and polished them by electricity. As he was about to let go of the switch or button, a contact in it connected with a shocking coil, caused him to drop it like a hot potato.”

Read the entire article here.

(thanks to the awesome Rich Hazleton for the tip)

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Yep.

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The controversial Pentecostal strain of “Holy Laughter� or “Spiritual Drunkenness� involves becoming so possessed with the power of the Holy Spirit that one yelps in uncontrollable fits of spastic laughter and guffaws, acts animatedly intoxicated, falls all over fellow congregationers, and moos (literally). Sometimes the effects are so great that it is considered dangerous for the person to drive home from church afterwards. The extroverted practice is disavowed by most in the church, for reasons that aren’t too hard to figure out. The late Texan pastor Kenneth Hagin and others are seen in this must-see video clip at a 1997 conference, contagiously spreading the word of “obnoxious God ha-ha’s.� This six-minute video is very baffling; a fascinating study in the effect of crowd social signifiers, “mob mentality� (and the fake smile/laugh) on top of everything else. Many, many more highly enjoyable video clips of such stuff can be found on this anti-Holy Laughter site.

(thanks to Ken for the tip)

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“Insanity, and the death wish, lurked deep in his murky, twisted mind.�
– The Houston Chronicle September 16th, 1959

On the morning of September 15th, 1959, a mysterious man entered Poe Elementary School in Houston, Texas with his seven year-old son saying they had just moved into town and he wanted to enroll him. The school’s principle met the man and his son in her office, and began the process of enrollment. During the interview, the principle became suspicious that the man didn’t have any identification, and didn’t seem to know the name of the school his son was previously enrolled in, the name of the town or street where they previously lived, or where they actually lived now… he only seemed to know that they came from New Mexico, and that he worked in the tile industry. As his behavior and speech became more and more erratic, she became alarmed and thought it would be best if he was off the school grounds. She told him that since he didn’t have the proper identification papers for his son, he would have to return another time with them. She watched him as he and his son left the building. On his way out, he approached one of the teachers who was bringing a class of students into the building from recess. He handed her two hand-written notes (quoted verbatim below) and instructed her to gather as many children around him as possible in a circle, and began talking about the “…will of God.” The penmanship on the notes was so bad that she couldn’t make out what they said. She noticed that he was carrying a cloth-covered suitcase which he began slowly shaking (and referred to as ‘the power of God in a suitcase’), and his son was carrying a large paper bag with a doorbell-style button attached to wires hanging out of the bottom. She instructed all of her students to go inside the building as more faculty members, including two other teachers, the custodian and the principal, joined her in trying to order him off school grounds. The two largest groups of students who had been outside were ushered into the building, along with the original teacher that the man had given the notes to. In the ensuing awkward scuffle, the man began waving the suitcase around and saying that he had to “…follow the children.” Suddenly and without warning, both containers were detonated, causing a massive explosion that blew a six inch-deep crater in the asphalt playground where they had been standing. The blast killed one teacher, the custodian, two seven year-old male students, the man and his son. Over the next few days, a bedlam of law enforcement, investigators, media, mourners and gawkers descended upon Houston. Later that week, the man’s right arm was discovered on the roof of a two story building across the street from the school. Although it was not the first school disaster on record (the New London School gas explosion in New London, Texas, 1937 was), it was the first intentional school “terrorist” attack in U.S. history. A detailed account of the event, as well as what subsequent investigations uncovered, can be found here (scroll down a bit), as well as here.

Please do not get excite over this order I’m giving you. In this suitcase you see in my hand is fill to the top with high explosive. I mean high high. Please believe me when I say I have 2 more (illegible) that are set to go off at two times. I do not believe I can kill and not kill what is around me, an I mean my son will go. Do as I say an no one will get hurt. Please.
P. H. Orgeron
Do not get the Police department yet, I’ll tell you when.—

Please do not get excite over this order I’m giving you. In this suitcase you see in my hand it fill to the top with high explosive. Please do not make me push this button that all I have to do. And also have two 2 more cases (illegible) high explosive that are set to go off at a certain time at three different places so it will more harm to kill me, so do as I say and no one will get hurt. An I would like to talk about god while waiting for my wife.

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Texan artist Bill Thomas created a great series of fake self immolation photographs (in the 1990’s), which are documented in an online gallery here (you can click each image for a slightly larger version). Here is his statement.

Thomas, at the age of five, witnessed the famous (but rarely talked about) madman bomber explosion at Poe Elementary School in Houston, Texas – which occurred on September 15th, 1959. He credits the lingering lifelong turmoil caused by the unresolved memory of that event as the inspiration for these screwy, nightmare-y documents. Of course, when it comes to offing himself, Thomas has nothing but style, style, style. And why not?

If you’re going to choose the final solution, why not do it Rube Goldberg-like? Has “suicide as a performance piece” become a lost (undiscovered? under-used?) art form? Ending-it-all while hidden away in some apartment or in the woods just seems so cold. Going out in some sort of elaborate, un-ignorable scheme involving lots of props, planning and stagey-ness is (ironically) less self-centered. Why not allow your death to be that little extra spice that makes life extra nice for everyone else? It’s like hugging the world one last time and saying “Thanks anyway…” before you dump it forever.

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My friend Coye alerted me to a delightfuly surreal limerick/photo boob book he discovered in his late brother’s bedroom, entitled Treasure Chests. It was created in 1967 by two people named Mel Norman and Arthur Benwood, and published by the Alexicon Corporation (who specialized in sex/humor ephemera during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s). He handed it over to a friend at the preposterous LandOfTuh.com, who scanned the entire thing from cover to cover. Hallucinatory, goofy cleavage from yore anyone? Why not. Coye felt that one of it’s strongest points of interest was that it was created in the days before Photoshop (although that never stopped Man Ray… or Russ Meyer or Benny Hill, for that matter). You can see the whole thing starting here.

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In the Catalonian mountains of the Serra de Montserrat, the tradition of Santa Claus is too boring. At left is an example of the Catalonian Yuletide mascot Tió (also called Caga Tió, Tió de Nadal or Tronca). The figure is an anthropomorphized wooden log with a Mr. Potato Head-like face assembled on it’s cut end, and is often propped up on little sticks. But don’t let appearances fool you; this adorable mascot has secret masochistic tendencies, and a magical rectum. Over the days leading up to the holiday, the Tió log becomes part of the household – sitting nearby, participating in gatherings and is even given food to “eat” during meals… always smiling. The family gives it a red cloth at night so it doesn’t get cold (and to aid with it’s digestion). But, according to tradition, on Christmas day things suddenly turn violent. The Tió is tossed near (or sometimes actually into) the lit fireplace while the family shouts at it and orders it to “shit” out gifts of candy. If the log does not produce, the family threatens to beat it with sticks, which they have at the ready. They then sing the traditional song (translated); “Shit log! Shit torrons, hazelnuts and cheese, if you don’t shit well I’ll give you a blow with a stick! Shit log!” as they beat it senseless. The terrified Tió excretes nuts and dried figs if the family members have been good, or salt herring, onions and garlic if they have been bad. Whatever the outcome, they reward the Tió at day’s end by incinerating it. There are many variations on the character, and many traditional “shit log!” Catalonian Christmas songs. The Tió derives from Catalan Mythology. Here is more info, here is an educational film about the Tió.

(thanks to Bryce for the merry tip)

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The Mad Gasser (a.k.a. ‘The Anesthetic Prowler’ or ‘Mad Anesthetist’)
The case of the “Mad Gasserâ€? serial killer is actually (well, probably) an extreme and outrageous case of mass hysteria. Despite not even existing (exactly), the Mad Gasser kept two entire cities paralyzed with very real fear, suspicion and dread during two separate periods of time. The first was in Botetourt, Virginia, during December 1933 to February 1934. The second wave of attacks happened in Mattoon, Illinois, during September of 1944. The Mad Gasser’s purported appearance and motive rivaled the most hair-raising villains in science fiction, crime fiction and comic book stories of the time – as well as melded traditional fears of ghouls-in-the-dark with more modern, subconscious apprehensions about changes in technology and medicine that were perhaps not tangible on the surface at the time.

The assailant was apparently a man dressed in a strange, “futuristic� black outfit (sometimes reported as ‘rubber’) with large eye goggles. He crept into unuspecting rural homes in the middle of the night and sprayed an unidentified gas into rooms, or actually on sleeping victims (or in some cases, just through the home’s open windows). The phantom was also sometimes witnessed in double disguise: as a woman in high heels, wearing the black outfit and goggles (there were many other wacky variations reported). The gas he used seemed to cause people to become very ill, or have symptoms common to an allergic reaction… supposedly. Samples of the gas were kinda-sorta obtained, but never really identified.

Was he real? The Gasser’s existence as a night-roaming death phantom, leaping across lawns and targeting random slumber victims in people’s very real homes and neighborhoods, had people very concerned. But much like the Loch Ness Monster or Chupacabra, the Mad Gasser’s fame relied solely on eyewitness accounts, rumors, accusations, paranoia, speculation and no real credible evidence. This was obviously compounded by lots of media snowballing, and perhaps a few overly enthusiastic pranksters.

The people that experienced the attacks or witnessed the phantom sprayer swore by what happened, but no real evidence, clues or real suspects were ever collected. The endless stream of local (and national) newspaper clippings from both time periods are plentiful and often hysterical.

Did all these shuddersome goings-on really happen? Was the Mad Gasser a deranged scientific serial murderer? A cocaine-crazed anesthesiologist? An insomniac exterminator with a mean streak? A bored perfume counter worker with weird ideas about fashion and a sick sense of humor? Was he actually a socially inept University of Illinois chemistry student named Farley Llewyllen, who had an inclination for fantastical revenge and the help of two bizarre sisters? Or was he really a super hero-like mad villain spreading unrest to good American citizens during the witching hour… or even someone who traveled from the future in a time machine to perform experiments on unwilling human guinea pigs… or perhaps even someone, something, from another planet? The case of the Mad Gasser will forever remain in the annals of creep-out lore. I’m hardly touching on the very Harry Stephen Keeler-esque details of this mind-bending legend. For everything and anything on the Mad Gasser legend, and the very real reports, I highly recommend reading everything starting here. Of course there’s lots and lots more here.

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Donald Harvey (a.k.a. the ‘Angel of Death’)
At the onset of his life, Donald Harvey earned the reputation of a friendly, quiet boy who liked to spend his time “…reading books, and thinking about the future,� according to his mother. After landing work as a nurses’ aide at a young age, he developed the same reputation as an employee… for a while.

Over the years of employment in hospitals (as well as other professions), he murdered approximately 30 to 70 patients, as well as other people in his life. His tool of the trade: secret cyanide poisonings placed in food (or sometimes other methods such as disconnecting life support, or injecting air into a patient’s veins). He began his anointed “mercy� murders on the feeble, terminally ill and dying. But it didn’t take long for his ego to get the best of him, as he took the leap from sainthood to All Knowing God And Ruler Of All Time And Space… killing anyone who annoyed him, got in his way, or that he simply disliked. Actually, Harvey’s habits of murdering patients apparently sparked with someone he considered an offensive “hassle.� His first killing was a stroke victim he spontaneously smothered after the patient smeared feces on Harvey’s face while under his care. Harvey had earned the nickname “Angel of Death� long before he was convicted (or even suspected) because he always seemed to be around when people passed on.

A gay man, Harvey actually tried to murder his own lover at one point. He even tried to secretly poison his lover’s parents after a squabble with them, which landed the father in the hospital with a stroke (which only allowed Harvey to secretly kill him again later with poisoned banana pudding) The mother miraculously survived, despite years of repeated poisoning attempts by him.

Despite several arrests and investigations over the years (and an ever-growing mountain of rumors and bad reputations in various cities), Harvey always lucked out and was able to continue his killings, leaping from location to location. He was not fully apprehended and convicted until 1987, when he confessed to everything during several trials and convictions. He is currently serving out four consecutive life sentences in Ohio, and avoided the death penalty via plea bargaining. He does not work in the prison cafeteria. Lots more here.

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The Axeman of New Orleans
Anti-black, anti-Italian, anti-German, anti-War, and most of all: anti-grocer…. the Axeman of New Orleans committed a string of brutally vicious axe murders in the 1910’s, with the hysteria surrounding the crimes prodding almost every area of public paranoia at the time.

The killer’s only real calling card was a hole chiseled out of his chosen victim’s kitchen doors. The hole would be whittled in the quiet of night… after which he would enter and attack his sleeping prey in their beds (usually starting right with the face). When authorities investigating the messy scenes began noticing that many of the kitchen door holes were a wee too small for a human to fit through, yet the doors had remained unlocked… anti-supernatural being, anti-zombie, anti-midget and anti-evil-super-intelligent-baby hysteria was added to the public’s list of gasping fears.

Despite being horribly maimed, many of the victims survived the attacks, at least for a while. However, theirs and many other eyewitness accounts got tangled in a maelstrom of warped speculation, finger-pointing, race-baiting, anti-American spy suspicion, adultery punishment, Mafia speculation, grocer competition, war-fueled anti-German hysteria, general witch hunt-mania and supposed opportunistic copycat-ing (even claims that it was the return of the real Jack the Ripper on American shores). The unsolved murders eventually stopped and, despite some specious theories, the killer …was never caught. More here.

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Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka (’The Ken & Barbie Murder Team’)
Earning the nicknames “The Barbie & Ken of Serial Killers� deserves recognition in the annals of something, at least.

As usual in these kinds of stories, newlyweds Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka seemed the ideal pair in their friend and family’s eyes. Paul was a masculine, strapping, “take charge� entrepreneur who made friends easily. Karla was an outgoing person with a fun disposition and a reputation as a real party gal. Together they were seen by many as the perfect, “fun� couple.

During their relationship and marriage, they secretly and willingly tortured, raped and murdered several young girls (including Homolka’s own younger sister), videotaping all of the incidents.

The couple were eventually caught, and in 1995 Bernardo was convicted in one of the murders (he is currently in prison awaiting trial for the other killings). More on him here. Through a combination of plea bargains and extenuating circumstances, Homolka was able to wrangle free of any maximum conviction, and served 12 years. More on her here.

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Spring Heeled Jack
He’s tall and thin, wears an oilskin suit, helmet and a cloak, has pointy ears and nose, glowing orange eyes, claw-like hands that are as cold as ice, can spit blue flame, can’t resist goosing the ladies… and he leaves three inch-deep footprints in the dirt because he has the ability to jump great heights in the blink of an eye (which police at the time determined is the result of an ingenious pair of spring-like devices built into his shoes). Why it must be Spring Heeled Jack! Or, more boringly… S-A-T-A-N. This non-murdering but creepy legend, which could have been everything from an brainy inventor in a wacky outfit, to an actual supernatural anomaly… kept authorities and citizens in England looking over their shoulders at rooftops during the mid-1800’s. Of course lots and lots more here.

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Cameron and Janice Hooker
In 1977, timber mill worker Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice (with their 8 month-old daughter in tow) picked up the then 20 year-old Colleen Stan (a.k.a ‘Carrol Smith’) when she was hitchhiking. They drove her to a remote area and, at knife point, bound her hands and feet and placed a strange wooden sensory depravation box over her head that locked into place around her neck. They then casually drove to a local diner, where Stan sat in their car like that while the three members of the Hooker family ate lunch.

The Hookers kept Stan imprisoned as a ritualistic slave in their home, completely breaking her down and brainwashing her. Cameron Hooker, a fan of The Story Of O and sadomasochism culture, kept Stan locked away in a variety of small, home-constructed boxes and surreal, torture-like devices that were often hidden within the home itself. They would occasionally let her out to perform strange S&M rituals and weird, minuscule, repetitive tasks. Stan was informed that there was a national organization called “The Company� that was watching her, and would harm her family members if she did not follow their directions. Cameron and Janice had her sign a slavery “contract� they told her was from “The Company.� One of the compartments they kept her in was built under the bed that the Hookers slept in at night. She was held captive like that (mostly) for seven years, and was brainwashed to the point where they allowed her to leave for periods of time, and even hold down a part time job at a local hotel. But she always came back to the box.

Over time, things got complicated; Stockholm syndrome, poorly-constructed dungeons, spousal jealousy, male ambition, desperate Bible-thumping, Janice’s two young daughters’ questions, and guilt… began to weave until the whole deranged scenario imploded.

Stan gained enough mental clarity to escape in 1984. Cameron Hooker was eventually arrested, convicted and sentenced to several life terms for the kidnapping, and for the earlier murder of another woman in a similar, failed scenario (that of 18 year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, a case that was never concretely proved but wrapped up for all intensive purposes due to Janice’s highly detailed confession), as well as the expressed intent to acquire more women like Stan. Janice Hooker escaped any conviction due to her help in getting Cameron caught and convicted, and her subsequent testimony. Stan obviously survived the weird ordeal, and is doing pretty OK today. The entire story can be followed here and here.

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The best way to describe the human nervous system? Compare it to an office job. A job where you work on a floor in a cubicle, amongst a sea of other cubicles. And all these cubicle farms are cached on many floors, that when stacked – make up a large skyscraper. The most important and powerful offices? On the top floors. The worker bees? In all the other parts of the building (where you are).

The human nervous system, and a multilevel corporate work environment run on the same types of information systems, schedules and hierarchies.

How do I know this? Because I’m in one right now, an office building that is. I’m actually hiding in the 14th floor custodian’s closet of that very mega-corporation, writing this all down on memo paper with a little pen-light that came with a box of cereal I had for breakfast in the company cafeteria this morning. I am crouched down here, scribbling in near darkness, deeper inside a massive, multi-storied building that holds the corporate headquarters where I work, or well… might not work anymore. My boss (who’s office is in the penthouse office of the top floor), is extremely angry with me for going over his head about some organizational and personnel decisions I was making in my department (which I am in charge of), and acting on my own.

I’m apparently fired now, and he’s hired a rooting-out firm to find me and extract me from the company because he knows I’ll resist. Or more likely, since he now sees me as an enemy, he probably thinks a good offense is the best defense… so I’m kind of playing along guess. Hiding and writing all this down for you while the boss’ hired goons hunt me down is a good example of the analogy I am about to lay down for you, and may help me figure out how to escape being found out, terminated from the firm, and kicked out of the building. I don’t want to cause trouble or make waves here at the company… things are too messy already. So here I sit, transcribing to you in the last moments of my existence… my existence as one tiny part of this body of concrete, steel, drywall, industrial carpeting and fluorescent lighting. This very structure that I once belong in, no… belonged to… and that is now about to get rid of me. I wonder if they’ll find me? I wonder if I’ll have enough time to tell you everything…

If you were to directly compare this building i’m in to my nervous system which lies deeper within me (in terms of scale), I would be hiding somewhere near my spleen. Looking outwards; my body itself, with it’s working nervous system, is a minuscule replica of that corporate headquarters I am within. Yep, universes hidden within universes hidden within universes… backwards and forwards, the old Carl Sagan cliché.

For starters, I’ll explain the actual real mechanics of the human nervous system expressed in layman’s terms. The system as a whole is made up of two parts:

1. The CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (or CNS, as I shall refer to it from this point on) is housed within the brain and spinal cord.

2. The PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (or PNS, got it?) is made up of everything else.

They work together. No, I mean they really, really work together. Large corporations should be so lucky as to run an information, production, service-providing and profit-making enterprise based on the deftness of the human body’s nervous system, with it’s infinite highways and limitless corridors of information processing efficiency.

The CNS is paid to think, while the PNS is paid to work. The CNS is housed inside the lush top floor offices of the brain and spinal cord (which have a lovely view) and spend their time processing and de-coding what the remainder of the nervous system, the PNS, gathers, records, and stores to send to it later – in a schedule that the two have worked out beforehand. The PNS is, obviously, housed within the lower cubicle farms, cafeterias and janitorial closets inhabited within the veins, muscles, organs and bowels that make up the rest of the body (strictly functional spaces). The PNS are the busy little worker bees constantly tasking and following orders, while the CNS sits upstairs and sends directions back out to the PNS and decides what to do with the information that comes back through it, and weighs that information with the PNS’ observed behavior. The PNS and CNS may be robotic in their own respective ways (in various degrees according to time and circumstance), but together they make up an organic.

Now, to clarify some gossip that I’ve overheard in the company washroom: as I pointed out above, the spinal cord is essentially part of the CNS, but really it’s just an over-paid, ass-kissing, PNS-er that acts as a glorified conduit for information meant to the real meat of the CNS; the brain (everybody in the office knows this but of course no one says anything). It’s just that the spinal cord is so close up there to the boss, and spends so much time near it, that it gets lobbed in with the CNS’s crew. Of course, I’m sure it does what it can to keep the brain thinking that it is somehow protecting it from the riff-raff of the PNS (lie!). The spinal cord is PNS, darling… through and through, no matter how it tries to dress up, or what kind of airs it thinks it’s putting on. It’s like Mr. Smithers’ relationship to Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons.� We all know the spinal cord is that sniveling, sycophantic, ass-kissing boss wannabe that we have all know at one time or another while working in offices; placed by luck in close proximity to the boss, and ready to do anything to protect it’s position. We know what’s really going on: it’s got it’s head all up inside the brain’s rectum (literally!) all kissing and sucking and massaging it and getting it’s nose a million shades of brown and saying “Here brain, here’s some more lovely info from all the underlings downstairs, can I massage your cells and rub your neurons while I regurgitate it to you?� and the brain is all like “Yes OK whatever thank you.� I mean, who does the spinal cord think it’s kidding? The brain is just stringing the spinal cord along because, as the brain knows (naturally) and the spinal cord does not (duh!) the spinal cord will never, ever be able to usurp the brain and take it’s place. But the brain needs the spinal cord for various reasons, so it just keeps letting it get all up inside it so it can use it. So distressing, really… isn’t it? Unlike Eve Harrington who eventually usurped Margo Channing in the film All About Eve, the spinal cord, sadly, will never accomplish the goal that most boss’s assistants sometimes do. It will never be the brain. Born PNS, die PNS. Your body is a cruel place isn’t it?

OK, so even though we all know the spinal cord is just a sycophantic PNS, for the practical purposes of this example the spinal cord is categorically CNS.

Now, back to the matter at hand: the PNS in the body always knows that the CNS is boss. It knows this informally by understanding, but at it’s root by the nature of it’s very existence. It must do what the CNS tells it to – the PNS worker’s existence is function, and it is subservience, and to rebel against that is to stop existing. Without it’s “placeâ€? apart from the CNS, the entire body and system would fail.

There are times however, when the CNS and PNS act as one equal entity, collectively in the pursuit of one goal (and no, it’s not the annual office Christmas party, where the two entities reluctantly get together and pretend to like one another – which only strengthens the walls separating them). These instances are swift, explosive, unexpected moments when the system of defining borders and ceilings vanish for a micro-second in the quest for one goal. And when do these swift moments occur? When the body as a whole is unexpectedly threatened. It’s kind of like a disaster movie where several people of different classes, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds are forced to ban together as equals in the quest for survival during a crisis.

If you see a wasp land on your arm, your PNS has just told your CNS this information. Whether or not you slap your other hand down on top of it and kill it, or let it live, is the choice of your CNS. The PNS just sends the information along, waits, and then carries out the orders about whether or not to slap it or, perhaps shoo it away and let it live (for karmic reasons which the CNS would have specified).

Even more revealing: lets say this wasp landed on your arm without the PNS knowing. Then let’s say the wasp stung your arm. Technically, the PNS does send the information to the CNS for processing and waits for instructions. But, the action is so fast that the difference between the CNS and PNS blend into one swift, blinding resolve: EXTERMINATE THE THREAT. The CNS doesn’t get bogged down in red tape (conscious rational and weighing of morality) and think “Well, the wasp is a simple animal and only doing what comes naturally, and I should let all living animals be as I’m a buddhist.� It just tells the PNS to destroy what is causing the intense pain, which is most likely a menace (or at least feared as one). Int appears that the PNS almost overrides CNS habit of “meeting� and “group thinking� decisions… and just pulls things forward and goes for the goal, but the CNS is in control of all of this. It’s just that the borders between the two in that moment become irrelevant. They pull together, or at least appear to pull together as one for a primitive, animalistic bulls-eye stab at surviving. Even someone who refuses to kill a wasp, even one that has just stung it, cannot control (without great mental preparation) the swift impulse to slap or pull away or jerk. The human nervous system under swift stress does not suffer sensitive or intellectual types in war time.

So, during moments like this, everyone from the higest-paid executive in the luxury suit offices of the upper cranium to the lowly mail room clerk in the small intestine come together as one efficient, non-partisan super weapon of efficiency and swiftness – with no internal structure (just one very simple switch that operates in only two modes; ‘on’ and ‘off’). If elements and conditions (and luck) outside the body are in agreement, the CNS and PNS acting as one usually get their way. It’s an admirable revolution of sorts, actually.

But unfortunately, right after the threat and ensuing class revolution, the simple, efficient device that the two had become becomes complex once again; with it’s endless internal structure and hierarchy. A bad reality? Nope, because without these complex structures and hierarchies in the long-term… the body as a whole ka-put.

The swift efficiency of the PNS and CNS working as equals in a threat should only come together in emergencies. Otherwise, they should work as usual… with all the bullshit politics and ridiculous red tape and some-people-being-better-than-others-just-because and egos (just like an office). This is just the way things are.

Imbalances in the system can unfold during other situations as well. When the CNS doesn’t have enough to do… dysfunction on a massive scale can set in. The CNS can start to anticipate fear responses before they are even there. It can start to send messages to the PNS to tell the glands to sweat, or tell the intestinal tract to create processes to make the CNS feel nauseous. Why? It’s thinking too much… it’s sending the PNS all into a tizzy because it’s anticipating things that may indeed not happen, or even exist at all. This is normal, like feeling like you’re going to throw up before going on stage for the first time, or stuttering when you’re introduced to that person you’ve had a crush on for months. Your CNS screws up the normal efficiency of your PNS by over-thinking and over-guessing what is needed or routine in certain situations. Without visiting the nitty gritty real world that the PNS deals with daily, at least once in a while, naive, paranoia and fantasy-based decision making processes set in and the whole thing becomes poisoned. Your CNS cannot afford to live in an ivory tower away from your PNS. In these situations, the strange thing is that it would almost be better for the PNS to just take matters into it’s own hand. Your PNS would do best to handle going on stage for the first time, or meeting that crush by itself, without the CNS’ help (in this state). But that’s impossible because without your CNS, you would just be a PNS (a jelly blob) – and wouldn’t that be sad? Plus, even beyond that… the fact remains that, no matter how screwed up a CNS becomes, it will never allow the PNS to usurp power from it, ever. And if the PNS really wants to infiltrate the CNS and start a war against it and overtake it, victory for the PNS would mean death, because death for one would be death for both. So… for your PNS to be sent into over-drive by your CNS in tense situations is normal, it keeps your body on it’s toes and, in an ironic twist, shows the CNS by example it’s own fallibility. This develops character which is good for your ego (which is kind of like an invisible God that secretly controls the CNS), which it knocks down a peg, in order to keep it from running amok and making all kinds of stupid decisions based on fantasy logic. See how it all connects?

This ego balance thing can also swing too far in the other direction: when the ego that controls the CNS is taken down and disrespected too much, and at a very low point (for whatever reason, usually from factors coming from outside the body as a whole), it can send even weirder directions to the PNS (as listed above, inappropriate sweating, nausea) so as to give something for it to react to and control, something that it knows it can handle. It can create these little (or big) internal “dilemmas� in the office so as to come down and throw it’s weight around and feel more in command, so it feels like it has a handle on something. It works, but is very unhealthy for the corporation as a whole because, much like the ivory tower-syndrome, the CNS begins to live in an entirely internalized world, and the PNS crumbles under it’s direction.

Dysfunctional company overrun too long by a lack of checks and balances that result in gonzo politics that cause ridiculous reactions and decisions to be made upstairs? The same thing is happening in a human body that suffers from anxiety or mental disorders, or even physical disease in some cases. With the CNS given too much free reign and the PNS with very little to do, or too much… things spark up and go haywire.

How well does upper management know the problems and conflicts facing the lower working levels? How in tune is the CNS with the PNS workers? Maybe your brain should spend a shift or two sloshing around next to your liver to see how things are really operating, rather than getting all it’s information in memo form from that bootlicking spinal cord (oooh how I hate him!).

I would continue, but the door to the closet I’m hiding in just opened and I have to stop writing. They’re here. The rooting-out firm that the top brass from CNS hired to find me, has done just that. They’re wearing white uniforms and have on cloth face masks, and have metal instruments. All my coworkers don’t even seem to notice at all what’s going on… like me getting kicked out of the company is all part of the process. All I wanted to do was set up my own little branch on one of the floors here, to get some stuff that I was in charge of taken to – you know, another level. Expand things a bit. Is that so wrong? I know it would have upset things, and interrupted the “flowâ€? somewhat, but I was using materials and resources from within the company. Alright, you know, whatever… from my perspective it was very much the right thing to do. I had my own ideas I guess.

OK, they’re hauling me out to the ground floor now, they’re handling me swiftly, I’m practically being dragged. They’re telling me that I’m never allowed back into the building, ever.

Comments Off on The Nervous System: An Office Building

Over at WorldNetDaily.com, Jim Rutz has blown the whistle on America’s hidden enemy; the dratted soy bean, and how it is rotting our country’s values at the root by turning the world’s male population into wimpy, Hell-bound homosexuals. In his essay A Devil Food is Turning Our Kids Into Homosexuals, Jim writes:

“Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because ‘I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.’ No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.”

He also adds that soy sauce is OK.

(NOTE: check out the comments section about this article at Pandagon.net)

(thanks to Hatch for the tip)

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It was apparently a sunny day when Sodom first met Gomorrah. Here’s actual footage of Ozzy Osbourne and “his new band Black Sabbath” playing atop the back of a heavily decorated flatbed truck at a 1970 San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, courtesy of Warner Brothers. The unfortunately sound-less footage was shot on super-8 by gay historians Henri Leleu and Paul Bentley (aka Luscious Lorei). There’s a bit of a mix up as to what festival this actually is (and exactly when?) The YouTube link notes this as the famed outdoor leather-romp Folsom Street Fair, even though that particular festival didn’t begin until the 80’s. There is an “official” listing of the first gay pride street parade ever in SF, which was in 1970 and called a “Gay-In,” which this may be. The first real pride parade in SF was in 1972 (also, I’m no super-Sabbath expert, but where does this fall in the chronology of the band?) Nevertheless, the camera doesn’t lie… Ozzy and proud pals are shown in all their record company-sponsored glory, playing amongst mustached spandex dancers and outer space drag queens on roller skates – fists raised high.

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John Friedrich in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), The Wanderers (1979) and The Final Terror (1983)

With idiosyncratic roles in sub-iconic fare like The Boy In the Plastic Bubble (1976), The Death of Richie (1977), In the Matter of Karen Ann Quinlan (1977), Thank God It’s Friday (1978), The Wanderers (1979) and The Final Terror (1983) – John Friedrich spent most of his career on screen playing characters that you naturally assumed would have developed a thick skin and tough exterior because of their prickly life situation – but for some reason hadn’t. His portrayals were often brassy and smart aleck-y in vain, and became uniquely endearing. Because of his somewhat kooky physical persona and the unmistakably barmy look in his eyes, he often played the oddball even within an ensemble cast of oddballs. His face was child-like, with smiling eyes that seemed to front a mischievous, unruly brain. Watching him was like observing a child that, upon reflection, you suddenly realize might one day grow up to be a criminal. His undeniably handsome visage had an alluring, weird warp right through the center – a combination of elements that pin-pointed your attention whenever he was on screen (the mix of gawk and lust is a very rare but potent screen presence). Friedrich never afforded starring roles, even though he obviously possessed the skill, intuition and range to pull one off. Even at a film’s center, he existed within a “sidekick” capacity. When playing a self-reliant solo flyer, he was often typecast “attached” as someone’s googly-eyed younger brother, accident-prone boyfriend, or adorable gamin. His characters would often spend the first half of the story swinging between comic physical acting and heartfelt frustrations, which would build to an emotional “reveal” two-thirds of the way through, proving his character had more depth than what was portrayed before that moment, and letting the other characters in on what was already obvious to the viewer.

Friedrich had a large handful of screen roles from the mid-1970’s to the early 80’s, in which his career made the gradual arc from American network television shows, to feature films.

His first real role was the incest-y, Lana Turner vehicle Bittersweet Love (1976), playing one of the protagonist’s camera-happy younger brothers, who accidentally snaps the backs of wedding guest’s heads with a polaroid camera during a lengthy ceremony.

In 1976, Friedrich landed the role of Roy Slater in the highly viewed and devotedly recollected TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, which starred John Travolta as Tod Lubitch. The film has survived in reputation largely because of it’s camp qualities, but much of it is surprisingly effective and touching when viewed today. Friedrich’s character appears in one large scene, bunking right next to Travolta in an identical air-tight hospital room while undergoing chemotherapy treatment (sans the hair loss) for a brain tumor, which weakens his immunities much like Lubitch’s. It is the only time in the picture another character who shares Lubitch’s condition is portrayed. Friedrich initially plays it as casually desperate, then switches gears into a goofy, high-voiced alternative to Travolta’s thick-lipped brood. While riding exercise bikes next to each other on opposite sides of a plexiglass wall, Travolta eventually opens up about his frustrations with girls as Friedrich won’t shut up about his pullulating sex drive. And in a notorious scene (for 1970’s network television at least), he admits to Travolta with a shit-eating grin that he masturbates “…all the time!” Much like one or two of the leads in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Friedrich is able to flesh out a believable character amongst all the cardboard surroundings, but he’s also able to do it with only about 12 lines and five minutes.

Friedrich continued as a teenager in television, with character parts on episodes of established 70’s fare like Baretta (in one prison bus hijacking episode, he played a character named Cornflakes) and The Streets of San Francisco.

TV movies based on true stories seemed to be a specialty for Friedrich in the beginning; who soon appeared in the wacked-out drug scare propaganda movie The Death of Richie (1977), and later played the brother of a girl who had lapsed into coma in In the Matter of Karen Ann Quinlan (1977). He also appeared as a repressed, maladroit drama club hopeful in the Judy Blume-sourced TV movie Forever (1978). That same year, Friedrich landed a costarring role on the big screen in the underrated “identity-crisis-in-never-never-land” school election drama Almost Summer (1978). All of these films are very much under the radar in today’s retro-crazed, past-plundering entertainment markets (sans Boy in the Bubble), and I would recommend any of them for lovers of fun, off-perimeter 70’s stuff (particularly the luridly tragic and psychedelic Death of Richie). Appropriately, Friedrich then appeared again on the big screen as one half of a twenty-thumbed, nearsighted, rhythmically challenged duo who comically stumble around a disco in the fad-tastic Thank God It’s Friday (1978).

In one of his most-seen roles, Friedrich then costarred in Philip Kaufman’s highly anticipated film adaptation of the gritty Richard Prince novel The Wanderers (1979). He played the character Joey; a wide-eyed, artistically inclined gang member with an accentuated street vernacular who acts as little brother type to another member of the gang (if not all of them). Joey is constantly trying to prove himself, often to comical effect – and obviously searching amongst the streets as he repeatedly becomes the brunt of the other gang member’s pranks, or getting teased for appearing wandering-eyed around a female who’s present at a game of strip poker. Despite the subject matter, many aspects of The Wanderers are even more cartoonish than The Warriors (if that’s possible), a film which it is often compared to. The feel of the picture is “50’s concrete jungle,” but often overly surreal. Friedrich, exhibiting his usual screen characteristics, is costumed here in super-tight jeans and an angular D.A. hairstyle – at times resembles Howdy Doody in Sha Na Na drag. His portrayal of the streetwise, slapstick (and clearly heterosexual) Joey is almost effeminate – especially when he’s laying on the floor in his living room, painting a homemade football mural with obsessive flair and his gorilla-like father shoots a disapproving glare. Joey rides off at the end with one of the other gang members, to spend their lives together in California (the book contained a fair amount of clouded homosexual sub-content, which was toned down in the film).

Friedrich then had a large part in the Harvard-esque, 60’s radical ménage-à-trios teaser A Small Circle of Friends (1980), playing nearly three separate personas. His character, Haddox, begins the film as a bumbling, Klark Kent-style Texan newbie during his freshman year at college. He eventually grows a lot of hair as he transforms completely, into a viciously uncompromising political activist. By film’s end he’s cloistered in the guncotton hideaway of a Weather Underground-type terrorist organization, ranked as the group’s ghoulishly up-beat leader (and his last line in the film is a clincher).

One of his most famous roles, at least popularity-wise, was that of Frank Cleary in the universally obsessed-over and widely seen 1983 TV miniseries/novel adaptation of The Thorn Birds.

Almost immediately after, in what would be his last film performance, Friedrich played the motley character Zorich in the Samuel Arkoff-produced 80’s slasher film The Final Terror (1983). Zorich was an inordinately macho, military-minded, forest survivalist-type with a backwoods accent and a penchant for psychedelic drugs. Friedrich’s menacing/goofball portrayal is weirdly one of his most serious roles, and stands out from the rest of the cast, who were reduced to cookie-cutter performances as per usual for horror films of that time (although many in the cast went on to have broader careers; Rachal Ward, Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed). The film is categorically “bad” but indeed very interesting, and Friedrich’s mysterious performance is undoubtedly one of the factors that drags it over that edge. More timberland atmosphere than splattering gore (and only one gratuitous sex scene!), The Final Terror has developed a small cult following amongst fans of 70’s and 80’s horror flicks for it’s unique qualities within the genre (a victim of multi-regional marketing, the film also ended up with a pick-a-card roster of official and unofficial titles: A Bump In the Night, Campsite Massacre, Carnivore, The Creeper, Forest Primeval). The movie has a really odd ending, in which the entire cast is saved from the killer (who’s some kind of mossy forest hag with a twisted Oedipus complex) by one of Zorich’s elaborate, psychedelic mushroom-inspired survivalist killer “traps” made out of trees and rope – which he had been working on in private while they had been packing mud on their faces and sticking branches in their hair in a comically vain attempt to fool the murderer.

After The Final Terror, Friedrich seemed to drop out of acting, and into thin air. All filmographies for him list The Final Terror as his last project, and no information seems to exist about what he has done in the entertainment industry since (or even before his career began). Small pockets of discussion on the internet, at film listing websites and message boards, occasionally discuss his whereabouts with the usual transitory hearsay and gossip that the internet specializes in. Theories range from the practical (he became a surgeon) to the bizarre (he became Ken Wahl’s live-in gardener). There is a notorious and long-since dead Australian criminal also named John Friedrich, that at least one official actor listing site (Answers.com) has confused him with (when I first saw this, I popped my eyes back in my head as soon as I realized it was a digital goof). It’s almost shocking that the consummate John Friedrich stopped working in film. Whatever happened to this magnetic thespian individualist? Why did his filmography evaporate at the 1983 marker point? What halted the momentum? As it stands now, he becomes his own answer to the phrase “…what ever happened to?”

UPDATE: John Friedrich has been found. See here, here and the current comments section on his page at imdb.com.

(John Friedrich at imdb.com)

H.

This is part two of my “Actors Who Have Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth�? series, where I write about un-discussed actors who have had relatively hidden careers in cinema (ranging from very brief to just one film) and have then literally vanished, for whatever reason – untraceable by imdb.com, Google, etc.

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Thomas Haustein costarred in Christiane F., a stylish heroin-scare film released out of Germany in 1981. His rather large portrayal of the character Detlev was his first and last film performance.

Directed by Uli Edel (who later went on to direct Last Exit To Brooklyn), the film was based on the life of the very real Vera Christiane Felscherinow (aka: Christiane F.), who became a heroin addict and prostitute in Berlin by the age of 14. Her uncovered existence became a public sensation due to several human interest stories written about her in Stern magazine in the mid 1970’s. These expanded into a best-selling book, which was transcribed from her own tape-recordings about her life during that period.

The German title of the film is Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (Children of the Bahnhof Zoo), and refers to the much glamorized Bahnhof Zoo rail station in Berlin (in the 70’s and 80’s, the rear wing of the station was a controversial crossroads for prostitutes, junkies and teen runaways). Director Edel reportedly followed the book very closely during the creation of the film, which was basically non-fiction. Still, the story obviously maintains the aura of an anti-fairy tale; little children trading the warm hearth of home for the deep dark woods, only to loose their souls in the snow.

Considering everything that’s happened in culture since 1981, today Christiane F. could be shelved right at home amidst innumerable carbon copies. But at the time of it’s release, it was a stand-out ground-breaker in it’s own right. The picture’s subjects had been addressed in cinema before, just perhaps not in this particular style (lots and lots of style!) And it’s style is what wins out: if you like urgent films about gorgeous youths glamorously grasping straws in a whirlpool-ing modern world drowned in crime and doom – then this film will be like a gooey teddy bear to you. Christiane F.‘s surface sheen overreaches the griminess (though the needle scenes are still hard to watch). It’s picturesque cinematography and zonked-out pace mix well with an appropriately impassioned score. The soundtrack features tracks by David Bowie (who makes a brief concert appearance) pulled from and reminiscent of his moody, krautrock-y work on Heroes and Low, which were assisted by a then ambient-mad Brian Eno. And it doesn’t hurt of course that the picture was filmed in Berlin, one of the most romantically oppidan places in the world, a location that’s pavement and neon seem perpetually cast in the golden blue bask of dusk.

The part of Christiane was played by German actress Natja Brunckhorst (cast out of 2,000 girls), who gave a much-celebrated portrayal of the story’s “Little Bo Peep drunk in the streets.” She was only fourteen when the film was made, and judging by the pubescent facial hair growth on his face (viewable in close detail on the DVD), German actor Thomas Haustein was probably around the same age when he costarred as Detlev, her troubled, topsy-turvy love interest.

The magnetic Haustein gives a somewhat anemic performance in the film’s first half (the film’s weird vocal dubbing, even in the German version, doesn’t really help get things off to a great start). In his first initial scene, when he is offering Christiane some paper napkins while she is throwing up against a tree, Haustein seems unable to decide what to do with any part of his body that isn’t in play. Most actors don’t know what to do with their hands in awkward sequences, Haustein doesn’t seem to know what to do with his eyeballs, which often nonsensically look up and down again and again in much of his initial screen-time. But this is an inadequacy he is able to gracefully sidestep due to his ephebic beauty. In a few electric moments, Haustein does nothing but lean against a wall and brood at someone, like a painting. Gorgeous youths often (but not always) have the upper hand in hoodwinking audiences with stiff performances, where lack of acting skill literally melts into the background of their physical appearance, which commands an intense visual lock. This phenomenon can often be contrasted in relief against older skilled actors, who might labor away on-screen while young beauties so casually and cruelly command the spotlight. Christiane F. has no significant adult actors, and even the few who appear have little story importance.

But, something shifts in Haustein’s performance halfway through the film, and it becomes quite good (could the film have been shot in sequence, allowing him to warm up along the way?) He often becomes angry at Christiane, his puppy dog eyes squinting as he screams at her about the disrespectibility of her giving men blow jobs for money while simultaneously preparing his works, his voice echoing inside a public bathroom stall scribbled with graffiti drawings of squirting penises and dirty German limericks. For much of the film’s last quarter, he’s prancing jittery-ly around the megalopolis in tight jeans, boots with heels, and a makeshift ascot made from a torn t-shirt – scowling as he searches for drugs, his face rapidly fluctuating into a cherub whenever a potential john comes within view. The scene where a convulsing, underwear-clad Haustein is sweatily attempting to cut their last desperate dose, focused and oblivious as Christiane spews a fountain red wine vomit all around him like a sprinkler, is a real keeper.

Considering his apparent age at the time, his performance is actually rather remarkable, and brave. The portrayal is homoerotic by frame one, which only solidifies throughout the plot as he confesses to Christiane one morning in bed that he hustles for male clients. This reaches a climax when his relationship with Christiane (where his true heart lies) is torn by a monster-faced, wealthy male john who exploits his addiction and lures him into a permanent live-in house boy situation – portrayed intransigently at film’s end.

Thomas Haustein’s filmography begins and ends with Christiane F., according to all reliable sources. In interviews with cast members and those involved with the film (as recently as 2001), when asked about Haustein – they always reply that they have no idea what ever happened to him.

H.

This is part one of my “Actors Who Have Fallen Off The Face Of The Earthâ€? series, where I write about un-discussed actors who have had relatively hidden careers in cinema (ranging from very brief to just one film) and have then literally vanished, for whatever reason – untraceable by imdb.com, Google, etc.

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