Thoughts on the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Tom O'Neill's CHAOS

Finishing the prologue and first chapter of Tom O'Neill's CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties which begins the book with his recounting of meeting and interviewing the case prosecutor and author of Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi; automatically painting the man as an unpleasant character to interact from the interaction. The latter then springs into explanation how O'Neill himself was brought into investment in the case which had occurred when he had just entered into the double digits as a child. Going from there into detailing the nightly events of August 8-9 of 1969 Hollywood, California and the following the nine month trial which proceeded them once it officially broke into realisation on December first of that year; telling the usual tale and wrapping it up with a cliffhanger on the question of how this 35 year old lifelong criminal controlled this group over a decade his junior— and sure he was a pimp wrapped up in that criminality, but even in that it would seem difficult for pimps to convince one of their whores to go out and emotionlessly conduct a culling— and how the drug LSD may have played a major role in the Tate-LaBianca slaughters. With trace mentioning of governmental brainwashing, though none directly in reference to the MKUltra program yet, however laying the groundwork subtly for such a claim...

To that I am rather curious regarding the overview given which doesn't quite differ from any other standard recollection of the crimes as they were committed. Given the oft unreliability/debatability of witness testimony in of itself how truly the accounts of the case can be taken so seriously. Sure, there's a consistency with the lore given by perpetrators, as much they could have rehearsed it prior just in case as mind you, Manson himself was a criminal and likely would have known the necessity of a straight story; and wonder if these women, plus Tex Watson, were so out of their own minds from substances and hypnotic mind control and coercion, how can it be truly stated of what happened in such detail? As another example even in his historical-fiction rendition on the murders director Quentin Tarantino's movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood echoes verbatim what is said to have been said. I guess with the given testimony and matching it up with the respective crime scenes it lines up; however as much in being so supposedly dead in emotion and disassociated— with some exception too given Susan Atkins likening of the murderous act to that of an orgasm, which is an extreme form of emotional release, similar to some cops telling of having the best sexual intercourse of their life after killing someone on the job— how can such be seen as reliable? In a cold and mechanical, brainwashed fugue I can see more of a point in solid memory; but with that, in heightened states of emotion— like Atkins' reported orgasmic thrill— the mind can misinterpret or misremember what it's perceiving as much as it can enshrine the memory, as seen in cases of trauma like detailed in Bessel Van Der Kolk's seminal book The Body Keeps The Score. Memory is a funny thing, so I'm curious how much it can be truly relied upon, especially in cases like these where it's already a convoluted tale.

07.08.2026 Antiques, Deutsch Sprechen, Spiders and New Nicotine

my remaining monkey and two prior vapes
& new one with the same battery

Today, or now just turned yesterday as I type this up, I decided to get rid of this collection of antique dolls I had courtesy of an awry adventure from January of this year. While in walking distance I hitched a ride to avoid the 104°F heat outside— though did wind up in it temporarily after the whole affair, which, wearing all black attire did little favor in cooling down in the face of it. I spent more time hanging out in the store away from the heat with the grey haired but spry and energetic German woman working there. Conversing in broken bilingual fashion about the brought dolls as well as her origin as Sie kommt aus Stuttgart, as well as spider jewellery she showed me excitedly after she inquired about the Danger Days icon I have etched in ink on my left arm, showing me the ornaments made by a local creator—some of which where added onto a painting on the wall where the bodily decorations were combined into the illustration of a female face. I found the whole interaction quite cool though could tell my German had deteriorated since last going there for my 19th birthday, which makes sense as language is a social tool and requires practice to retain it; and as is already lack in interaction within the parameters for my native tongue so being in the middle of the Sonoran Desert sprichen sie Deutsch is scarce even on the average digital landscape— and differs from the physical world— so as to be able to apply it much if anywhere; but, I found a place to! A social tool is a social tool and I will admit to having a drift towards asocial tendencies, however, said tool is sharpened through use and I think combining both the cool German lady and applications like Duolingo as well as what I learned from taking the class for 3 years in school will be beneficial. 

All in all it was an enjoyable half an hour which I plan a repeat of after this weekend when I go up to Prescott Valley— where I'll obviously stop by the lovely and cinematically historical Whiskey Row where Back To The Future was largely filmed (note the clock tower and town square)— to help finish cleaning up/out the house now vacant except for my grandfather staying there part time now after his older brother, my great-uncle (who dated John Wayne's daughter for a number of years after working as crew for one of his films) who I had not seen or interacted with since the funeral for their mother when i was 11 or 12, died the other month. He was quite the avid collector of items and had many, given he didn't have children (as I similarly never plan to); though plan to keep his apparently large stash of Western films on VHS and some DVDs that my grandfather tells me about.

From the antique shop I was then picked up at the gas station on the corner of the same small plaza that I frequent for coffee at odd hours of the night. I didn't get any then as I had a goal with the $20 I got as compensation for the dolls, I just wanted them gone so I didn't ask for too much. My younger brother came then to pick me up rather than force me to walk in the heat, extenuated by the street and beginning rush hour traffic; then driving me up the road and across the street from Barnes And Nobles to a smoke shop next to Albertsons and a Mexican restaurant I have favoured since I can't even remember when and used the acquired cash to purchase a new vape pod-thing; as I already had/have the needed battery for the Fogers brand which has lasted me over half a year and final month of last. Choosing a Strawberry Watermelon flavour and handing the money to the kind black gentleman behind the register in exchange for my chosen tobacco product. Then out as quickly as I was in, and back to the stick-shift truck which is my brothers chosen mode of transportation to get back home, promptly falling back asleep as I had been prior to the whole venture. I'm basically a vampire I realise more and more now, and that adds to it; writing and typing this up while wide awake in the middle of the night, sipping on another cup of coffee from the bunch I made this morning with a french press, mixing in french vanilla creamer (frenchx2type1coffee, don't ask me what that means it's an equation only coffee addicts such as myself will understand) with the used Starbuck roast and enjoying the new nicotine now full once again.

Euringer Review

Euringer has long since been one of my favorite albums from the MSi mastermind Jimmy Urine, I loved it from the moment I first listened to it on a rainy afternoon during late 2020 whilst making cookies in the living room. From the poeticism to sound which, as Homelander so succinctly put it once is the definition of, "Yummers." Be it the catchy and delicious synthesisers electrifying the mind and body, latching on rhythmically and emotionally; or multi-faceted melodies detailing both the highs of ego and lows of sardonically sung self-deprecation. 

Beginning with a soft, atmosphere-setting robotic sounding voice delivering a Trigger Warning detailing the coming contents of the album, leading into harsh opening war-like sirens and Serj Tankian from System Of A Down belting out his lines contrasting to Jimmy's lightly and sarcastic vocal delivery that, "If It Ain't You Today It Will Be You Tomorrow". Jumping in then into That's How Jimmy Gets Down, Problematic, then later echoed within Detroit And Halfway Thru The Tour as well this mixed grandiosity with mirror pointed vulgarity. Coming then from that pointing into a more interpersonal and unique tone with melancholic and memory-inspiring Be Afraid of Who You Are and Piece of Me. Stepping up then to more high-energy, yet cynically infused covers of Wuthering Heights and more towards the end of the record experience What A Fool Believes. Back into the grandiosity with the aforementioned Detroit followed up with the nihilistic lovesong duet with Jimmy joined by his wife Chantal Claret of the band Morningwood leading into a collaboration with Grimes (as well as his parents making an appearance) for the song The Medicine Does Not Control Me which regards the tendency to try getting out of one's own head in some non-sober way. High energy grandiosity eventually gets its final triumphant and hilarious return and retortion to this idea of being problematic over words and actions used in Jimmy's art over the decades, Do You Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth and retorting that it is in fact he who did it to the listener's mother. As the album nears its close with a final featured guest appearance from Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and The Hormones in a defiant track declaring one just a Sailor In A Lifeboat where one's never gonna get fucked in the head or killed in the end. Glitching into Random EMO Top Line Generator brings back the flare which was so common on Mindless Self Indulgence songs where it makes fun of both the singer and giddy listeners; bleeding into the albums end from the bullshit that isn't his or anyone's problem, judging the Two and a Half Years spent working on the cinematic experience and featuring a nostalgia-inducing and reminiscing take on an old Coca-Cola jingle. With that, the album ends back where it began.

Where To Go? Why Should I Know?

"The only way out is through,"

Something old, something new

Redo, renew; revive, release

Something to aspire into—

Although none of it's free;

Monetarily or mentally,

Mutiny of the mind and

Tales as old as time

Accepted hypothetical,

Distressful parable;

Conclave inconceivable

All I know from the bottom of the barrel:

It's not too fuckin narrow—

Destination unknown terminal

Self-styled educational

What is inevitable when nothing's eventual?

exe.reboot

Last year I did an in-depth dissertation of my favorite band Green Day's 2000 album Warning. In that for its closing track Macy's Day Parade, wrote on its themes of acceptance where the banality or once ran from and loathed is oddly what becomes longed for, an existential egress from the end of what seemed a journey into sight and sound. A ballad away from the Jackass infused with lyrics, simple in interpretation of this longing and understanding it, taking heed away from the album's title track and serenading into an optimistically saudadically poetic number with this acceptance, in an aspirational fashion:

"Give me something that I need

  Satisfaction guaranteed

  Because I’m thinking about 

  a brand new hope

  the one I’ve never known

  ‘Cause now I know

  It’s all that I wanted…"

Even if, "the night of the living dead is on his way, with the credit report," the difference in thieves and crooks (psychic vampires, for the satanically inclined) have been relatively figured out, even if sometimes in the hardest ways. It reminds me of another solemn number by the genre-bending artist Poppy off her seminal 2020 album I Disagree called Nothing I Need which similarly sings in encouragement of taking a ride into— what at times, can be perceived as awry— acceptance— or strange— realisation regarding once held aspiration, dreams, wishes, hopes, goals, whathaveyou in subjectively used vocabulary:

"Everything I thought I wanted

 I can see it's nothing, nothing I needed"

And in spite of what can be likened to lusting for it at one point, it doesn't matter anymore for whatever reason...

I can use many-a-label to describe my entity: writer, journalist, archivist, oddity enthusiast, Satanist, fly on every wall, Neurotic Nihilist, erratic eccentrically ecclectic egoist... really they all fall under one or two of the same words mentioned in the brief list. I would however scribe that as much and in spite of writing the aforementioned dissertation of Warning mainly in referendum to myself, and with Emil Cioran's concept of solipsism and projection, I didn't quite wholly consider it all to that end. Such is rather a unique bit, given I would prescribe myself as highly aware and understanding of my own being; crediting it in a large way similarly to Patrick Bateman's obsession with music as a conduit where I myself find a common ground in introspective information with media. Rare it is that I don't have some sort of CD spinning on my stereo (which currently docks the 2005 album from Mindless Self Indulgence, You'll Rebel To Anything as I write/type this up) or coming into my brain at the highest possible volume through bluetooth connected headphones; blazing through hundreds of thousands of hours of tracks and various interviews and podcasts on innumerable topics which inevitably intersect at some odd end or another; or watching film after film and reading book after essay after article both physically and digitally. I've been across the country: from Tucson to Chicago, to Arizona then the Windy City again and again; through tornado alley through and with liaisons in Montana, finding myself on the border of Washington state, then again to the dry desert heat. To There And Back Again by plane, train and automobile— using a pointed reference at the start of this sentence as it is the second title of JRR Tolkien's book The Hobbit (or in his incredibly crafted mythology, book by the hairy footed halfling who travelled to The Lonely Mountain), and in Peter Jackson's screen adaptation of the work where Gandalf remarks to Bilbo Baggins that, "the world is not in your books or maps, it is out there," as well as prior in this introductory chapter and in both book and movie in his introduction in greeting the son of Belladonna Took his name and how, "Gandalf means me."

Going back to the album Warning, it its ninth track Jackass and how it relates to Uncle Rico in the movie Napoleon Dynamite; and the state of stasis in this solipsistic-in-misery/memory verity. Prison is in the mind as good ol' Charlie Manson wisely once noted, as stasis is just that. It's nonsensical to be in this plane of existence where nothing heals or grows in a Great Big White World of what 'used to be' with love for oneself and one another as Marilyn Manson sings.

What spurred as initial inspiration for the dissertation of the album was a remark I made whilst talking to myself in the mirror of a recording phone screen, that Warning is the We Are Chaos of Green Day. I still feel that idea to be true in its statement, however in that it's rather akin to Mechanical Animals as well. The unisex sibling to Antichrist Superstar weaves its web of narratives, and within the fugue of its tales is that of the cold and blank smile from this dissociative being playing playing the suicide king trying to regain a semblance or symbol of soul after the grandiose all-encompassing self-annihilation and new beginning in hindsight of The Reflecting God. With that however and like in the single The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, it's essentially and (neurotically) nihilistically living fast and dying so too; or more clearly stating my point here by quoting from the recent (at the time of writing and typing this) album ending number Sacrifice of the Mass and movie Oppenheimer:

"The greater the star, the more violent its demise"

Maybe in that it is or was forced attrition in an unconscious as much as conscious manner. Knowingly moreso prior in the wake of devastation and after thought to be escaping from, but everything's eventual— even in evasion. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, onto another pan and more fire following up which makes such likenable to the speech from Macbeth stating:

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing

Idiot, overreaching jackass or typical adolescent overextension; Icharus flying too high and believing in never coming down. Peter Pan Syndrome, but in that we have the movie Hook and return to it in that—instinctive drift it would seem; and what truly differs this here from the process of over-intellectualising it which formed Neurotic Nihilism? Not terribly much, I can't help myself but to do so. The real difference is gained further perspective and that all I know is that I don't know, and I find that incredible from the bottom back to the top of the slide into a barrel— a wide open road that's not too fuckin narrow.

MKUltra Hearing: Hoodwinking Humbug

Yesterday I decided to watch the MKUltra hearing from the House Oversight Committee, wherein the stated and supposed goal is to find the truth and prevent such experimentation from proceeding from occurring again. In hindsight as well as while viewing the testimonies from the likes of Tom O'Neill— who, as much as I don't quite find to be a reliable source of information per se, namely when it comes to the case of Charles Manson specifically, where say, Nikolas Schreck in my mind fills in more gaps in a way which makes more sense and to a conclusion I find more probable even though there really never will be such; resulted in me taking a venture out to Barnes & Nobles real quick to grab a copy of his book CHAOS regarding the quite questionable reasoning stated behind the prosecution in the cases of the Tate-LaBianca killings— another man with greyish/white hair and a nice moustache, as well as a woman who was formerly employed by the National Institute of Health and spoke on medicine and vaccine funding in regards to Ebola and COVID. 

Speaking to the apparent dismay of the Committee, but as it would seem by the line of questioning which followed about the public shift in opinion in the wake of more information regarding Anthony Fauci's role in the plausible construction of the coronavirus strain which shut down the country in 2020 and 2021; leading me to think her inclusion in the hearing was not a mistake at all.

With that, it is my view that the procedure was as much of a sham-show as the Manson trial was. Serving as merely a bait and switch for confirmation bias'. What was explained and explored on the topic of MKUltra was neither new or groundbreaking information, all which was stated is facts known for years and easily learned via a quick search on the internet about the topic of United States intelligence apparatus experimentation; and somehow neglecting to mention the probability that Theodore J. Kaczynski or The Unabomber was a subject of such abuses. With that and in conjunction with the inclusion of the woman from the NIH, it would seem the real underlying point in the whole hearing was primarily to pry at COVID mandates as well as how it could have been a similar enactment of such experimentation en mass, especially with the vaccines which came out for the possibly Wuhan-lab-manufactured pandemic. Where it would have any relevancy to current events aside from that is in the brief inquiry on online radicalisation in regard to the cases of Tyler Robinson and Thomas Crooks, the former being Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin and latter the one whose shot grazed Donald Trump's ear during the 2024 reelection campaign; and how possibly MKUltra's tactics updated with the times and shifted into the online sphere. In a way it would be comparable to Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald... or maybe it was Number Five Hargreeves all along...

End of June Runes

Jelly beans and conspiracies

Jubilee and coffee corroboration 

Spilled hidden tea,

Occult legacies;

Spinning axis spree

Where growth and entropy-

meet in a sleepless sea

Endless pages and movies gleam,

Night lit up, swept into day-rest

End of June, Desert runes

Ecstatic tunes, downtrodden ancient dabloons

Lost in eternal informational woods

Shortly Away

Grey morning blue,

Fancy a skeleton crew-

Short bits fading away;

Black still surrounds the light of day,

Maybe it's better this way

Vampiric night, slithering delight,

"What else do I have to say?"— 

G-l-o-r-i-a, it's:

Sober-sleep deprivation anyway;

Not horseshoes and hand-grenades

Celebritarian Continuum

In finishing watching the Netflix biopic series on Jeffrey Dahmer, I've come to fully realise what the concept of Celebritarianism is, or seemingly was now. As much as past killers are far more memorialised via American sensationalism than their victims, with little exception they are the prominent focus; though, even with the era's shifting in the direction of the victim's memory, the older cases remain stagnant as if stone monuments. Sure, Dahmer as presented gives some due to those killed and in some cases cannibalised, but even in that they are overshadowed by his animal magnetism, as evident in even that of 'the 14 year old boy', as he is by and large known as, Konerak Sinthasom, who nearly escaped him but was returned to Dahmer by police after being convinced it was merely a lovers quarrel; and while the series shows a few rows of pictures at its end with the names under the deceased, is really only about the reason why they became so at such early ages. 

“[Celebritarianism is] about dying when everyone's watching; doing anything for fame. It's also about worshiping death in the media. The world knew about Harris and Klebold, the Columbine killers, half an hour after the tragedy. It's about how we give Lee Harvey Oswald and Mark David Chapman the status of celebrity by showing their masterpiece to the world…” 

The grandiosity imbued onto these sorts of murderers is why, poignantly in his essay regarding the West Memphis Three (who as an aside, are by all accounts innocent in comparison) and the 1999 Columbine school shooting, Peter H Gilmore referred to the perpetrators of the latter as the victors of the event. In spite of the 13 other massacred student body and faculty, with the minor exception of the nonsense regarding Rachel Scott's faith, it is Sue Klebold going around on book tours and hosting TedTalks on her son; thus proving Marilyn Manson's point when on Bill O'Reilly, explaining:

"...the media sends a message that if you do something loud enough and it gets our attention, then you will be famous for it. Those kids ended up on the cover of Time Magazine. The media gave them exactly what they wanted."

Depicted in the Dahmer series is the realisation the Milwaukee murderer had of his celebrity status, even in incarceration for life; which is likenable to what Nikolas Schreck has similarly detailed of Richard Ramirez when he befriended the serial killer (at the time) under trial; as well as much of the same with his close relationship to Charles Manson (who while not a mass murderer, still has the lip service given in such a light), and how he very much played up and into his prescribed character, even to his own detriment.

Hence in this part of the dichotomy presented in the name Marilyn Manson, which serves as both a criticism of this culture in its own right as much as it does play its own part in the phenomenon— as if I myself can say much more in that regard given I stole the name Berdella from the Kansas City Butcher in my own adolescent inspiration/imitation. 

Nonetheless the point still stand [in a way], though as mentioned earlier to a seemingly lesser degree; even in spite of the widespread popularity of True Crime now widespread than in the heyday of these murderous montages. Sure, Adam Lanza overshadows the children he murdered; but as much Charlie Kirk does the same with his alleged assassin Tyler Robinson as well as Donald Trump in his own assassination attempt— in spite of the likelihood both those cases were staged in the matter regarding the POTUS and a sacrificial lamb in the case of Kirk. Overshadowing their perpetrators as much as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold override their newer imitators, like Natalie Rupnow's copycat shooting in Madison, Wisconsin at the Abundant Life Christian School mid-December 2024. 

Where it would seem the spirit of this has survived, or transferred is almost that of a regression, but as much been there the entire time. Seen prominently with the Wild-West-outlaw-vigilante-justice acquired by Luigi Mangione's shooting of a man merely referred to now as the UnitedHealtchare CEO— overshadowing the now deceased Brian Thompson entirely; imbuing him with a similar 'aura' (as it is now phrased) as figures like Bonnie & Clyde or Doc Holliday and Billy The Kid. What it really is, I'm not sure entirely but it's a unique aspect of an almost ancient impulse— et tu, Brutus?

Cancien, CCarle and Claudia on Nihilism

This was an interaction from the Forever Dirt discord server which I made and run for the internet personality. It began with me posting a screenshot I took showing that the nihilist thinker André Cancian of whose writings I'm an admirer of, had followed me on Instagram. Asked who it was I explained and uploaded a picture of his 2018 book, neatly named Nihilism for simplicity sake. 

CCarle: Oooo this is absolutely a must read for me. I’m sure much of will be a retread of what I already hold concerning ontology and metaphysics and the question of  “free will”  (doesn’t exist), the base and wretched condition of humanity and other such fundamental existential questions but still, I’m always intrigued and pleased by new and updated literature defending and describing the nihilist tendency in novel ways.

Me: I recommend it. It doesn't deny its negative posit but as much does breath an interesting air into the topic where, as an example, "our consciousness [is] as if it were a 'movie being displayed within our brains,' rather than existence itself,'" and radical skepticism which is similar to my own posture of Neurotic Nihilism, which comes about in certain states of depression or mindfuck. As he would put that though, "this explains why, during depressive phases, nihilism seems to us a viscerally coherent view, with which we can identify ourselves both intellectually and emotionally."

CCarle: That visceral coherence in depressive phases you describe as neurotic nihilism is very real and I feel you on it. I experience it myself, but didn’t have a name for it. Fascinating, now I understand. What neurotic nihilism is then, from my perspective, is when you’re experiencing reality without the mechanisms that normally mediate it. The distinction between the thought  “there is no transcendent meaning” and the thought  “therefore nothing matters and I cannot move” blurs and collapses. Everything becomes permeable to the void when one is in that mind space. It is what happens when the foundation becomes unmoored from any structure capable of holding it. The intellectual position metastasises. 

This where I take up Philosophical Pessimism as the structure that I build on top of the foundation of Nihilism. Both intellectual traditions work in tandem. Refusing illusions and human constructs requires active management. That active management I say comes in the form of several concepts that were outlined by that Norwegian thinker I shared recently shared (Peter Wessel Zapffe). 

These are as follows: Distraction, Isolation (or psychological insulation) , Sublimation and Anchoring. It’s the deliberate psychological work required to inhabit a true nihilistic foundation without being consumed by it.

Me: I find American Psycho an excellent depiction of this-

CCarle: The visceral coherence that one experiences in Neurotic nihilism is thus for me is not just a confirmation of the conclusions of nihilism but also a test of sorts. It tests whether or not you can actually live it or whether you will let it unmake you. Most people fail and fall back into false illusions and try to make meaning. That or they get swallowed and bite the bullet either directed at one self or others

Me: Sort of like how Nietzsche (though his whole schtick was an attempted combat against Nihilism's encroachment, largely) said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." though what can really be only heard fully, when, as Gerard Way sang, "that you only hear the music when your heart begins to break." An excellent example in reality of this would be Oppenheimer.