...here are some excerpts from his recent writings (to be found at his website,
http://wildbillcastle.weebly.com/index.html">Castle of Naked Screaming Delirium)
More and more, as individuals and as part of a mass-cultural ritual, we need to be horrified. What does this reflect about the world we live in? If these films (horror) speak to growing numbers of us, what are we listening for so intently? What is it we really need to hear and see?
Dreams are a way we communicate with ourselves, exploring and questioning the wonders and frustrations, the joys, pains and fears of our existence; employing strange yet familiar images, symbols, characters and scenarios; conveying messages and allegories. Dreams are how we tell ourselves stories that mean something to us, that need to be told, even if one portion of our awareness is unable or unwilling to interpret what the other portion is saying.
…
You may believe yourself sophisticated, educated, well aware of the dangers and chaos threatening us. You may cite a dose of the evening news as communicating sufficient horrors to sate any appetite or challenge anyone's notions of sanity. But, as the pitchman says, wait! There's more!
Even now, as you consider yourself snug and secure, perhaps even smirking in amusement, we are being cultivated as food for slavering, soulless behemoths.
Even now, hordes of ravenous zombies roam and ravage the countryside, motivated only by the unquenchable need to consume.
Even now, vampires (alone and in packs) stalk us malevolently, with no greater goal than to suck everything of value from us.
Even now, our every vital institution is infested with relentless, single minded automatons of corruption, bent on the institutionalization of our enslavement.
Even now, our destiny is presided over by insidious, chuckling demons.
...
What we call "reality" is not an objective state in which we find ourselves, it is an inter-action; an act of co-creation. In short, the "reality" we inhabit contains pretty much whatever we are capable of bringing to it.
...
But the sword has two edges, and the coin always, always has two sides. So...what we are mostly busy creating is an extravagant, boundless hell-on-earth. It is here. It is real. Not out of our sight in some eternal flaming underworld, but here-now; in this world, in our heads, in our hearts. We make Hell, and we make it every goddam day.
...
I have another friend who won't watch horror films because, he says, he doesn't like to be scared. Can't say I blame him. I've been genuinely afraid in my life, and it's not an experience any sane soul would look forward to repeating. But movies don't scare me.
What scares me is that millions of people look to be informed by Fox News.
What scares me is the apathetic indifference with which we accept, even justify, a way of life that robs the poorest and weakest to fatten the richest and most powerful.
What scares me is that we now live in a society which sees law enforcement and the so-called "criminal justice system" as a source of revenue.
What scares me is the dissolution of individual rights at the hands of corporate power and greed.
What scares me is the institutionalization of corruption engendered by a "war on drugs" that is in reality a war to suppress any notion that we are free individuals, or that there can be any other world than a world of repression, depression and enslavement to 'Authority."
What scares me is you. People. Ordinary people, a world full of them, arrogant and ignorant enough to take their own blinkered vision for a true picture of the world. Stupid enough to accept the putrid posturings of political pundits and religious hucksters as anything but the repulsive bullshit it is. Vile and venal enough to vote George Bush into the presidency. Twice. Goddam you, you know who you are.
It's a website about stuff my dad loves, like horror movies, old rock and roll and doodling on index cards at midnight while eating chocolate fudge twirl ice cream. But it's about so much more than that. It proves again that honesty is a political action.
My parents divorced when I was young and my dad mostly raised me. He raised me on horror movies. He woke me up when I was 4 years old to watch the broadcast premiere of Night of the Living Dead on UHF channel 44 and said, "This is history."
:evilgrin:
My dad is just a guy. He didn't do to college. He did go to Vietnam. He was in a band. He worked on a loading dock. He worked in a bookstore. He's great at scrabble. He doesn't drink anymore but he smokes American Spirits and drinks 2 pots of coffee every day. He just discovered the internet.
Anyway, I have learned a lot from my dad and continue to learn from him. I know a lot of his worst characteristics have rubbed off on me and we fight many of the same demons, but so many of his best characteristics rubbed off too. They are clearly a package deal and I feel blessed.
Love ya, dad.
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