.--. . .- -.-. .

Peace. 

Piece of mind, peace of the pie

Peace in the trash

How long it lasts, it’s never grasped. 

Enters like a dream then just as quick,

slips through the seams

Exaggerated themes

Fuck that bullshit

Nothing isn’t free

Nothing is another [hidden] fee

Nihilistic bipolar glee…

-.. --- -. .---.- / .--. .. - -.-- / -- .

can I get more weed?

[…]

“I’m just a boy

  Playing the suicide King”*

* https://youtu.be/7sl_Q0ZBImw?si=VbwRWvXA1MUBje8Z

Enough

Eat, pray, delay:
Prey sleeps in mangles of useless meat--
Cancer lumps erotically bump;
Heartbeat is a slow jump
Up
     Up
          Up,
Fuck
        Fuck
                Fuck...
Never Enough.

Crab Culture

It seems like much of the way people ‘take care’ of each other is mere performance. Much of it is just asking if a person has done the bare minimum to eat or drink in a given day— whether they themselves who are asking even have is questionable to that end as well. A parallel between that of say, these anorexic twins can be seen with these performances. Both parties are reliant on the other to keep their compulsions at bay and around until the next day. In part it’s feeding the negative with the idea of a positive. 

Not to negate the positive prospect and possibility that people grow together, but the amount people use one another as crutches is the negative. 

Most of human interaction is benign. Small-talk is all-around, as if simplicity in statements isn’t stagnating. In of itself there is nothing wrong with simple, basic interaction, but the bare minimum of survival becomes the bare minimum for an idea of empathy. 

To say it isn’t on some level a genuine amount of empathy would be unfair, but it’s often tantamount to momentary rather than continued existence in a balanced manner. Embodied in the Camus ideal of doing “whatever it takes to not kill yourself” as the meaning of life, all the while killing themselves slowly in that. Interactions involve the perpetration of these— though solitarily speaking, it’s not all too different. ‘Do what you need to do’ is taken to detrimental delusions. 

This breeds instability. It could and more often than not does devolve after a person starts ‘getting better.’ Perceived instability to that Might, the one not at that stage grows animosity; contempt for what they think they can’t attain. Whether it’s an intentional instance of a crab bucket or not is ultimately irrelevant as the game is at least two people energizing off one another to the bitter end. Accidental all-around psychic vampirism. But to call blame to one or the other in regards to the individual versus societal situations would be wrong. It’s a chicken or the egg scenario. Whatever the case, the constant instability is cause for a great many more parts in this cycle. At some point it seemingly almost self-sustains. That though is merely an illusion, the strain breaks the brain in many ways and it inevitably crashes down. 

Instability breeds more of the same. Well-meaning advice is often given from that of people in little or no different stages than you. Of course, that’s inescapable and symptomatic to the human experience, but it’s also evident that you can’t exactly rely on people with that. Why would you take advice on caring for yourself from a person who negates it themself? Well-meaningfulness is meaningless in the face of repetition. It’s meaningless when what is so blatant that it’s openly discussed (ex: ‘loneliness epidemic’ in the most interconnected era of human existence), but hardly taken much action to. 

Social interaction has obviously been impacted heavily by technological advancement, and with that the solitary becomes social. Well, more accurately parasocial. Time and take after another, it’s a never-ending barrage of niches and their constituents reliant on them for an outlet. Too often are all these temporary means seen as monolithic, long-lasting relationships. It’s possible though innately unlikely. Too often does it all implode based on petty differences. But, it’s infection. 

In the celebratory 100th episode of the podcast Satansplain, Church of Satan High Priest Peter H. Gilmore delivered a poignant statement to this matter, saying that “people have a problem that they think every connection has to last forever, that it’s all going to be a commitment. And that’s kind of overthinking things…” And the result of this overthinking is inevitable and incessant devastation when temporary fixes fall short of their monolithic ideal. 

What it all is, is cruel optimism, ‘a situation where people cling to a fantasy or object of desire that actually prevents them from their own flourishing.’ Like an anorexic, their ECI is that of emancipation. Put two anorexics together and they’ll feed off each other, so to say. This is because the desire is connection; the lie is that it’s based on mutual uplifting. 

8-8-88: Performance & Pendulum

Originally in the Berdella-Bugbee Soliloquy's 2024 Witches Sabbath zine I did. 

From a conversation between Shane Bugbee and I on instagram messages in 2023

Shane: I've seen it all, nice score.

Claudia: I thought it was an interesting performance. Not as harrowing as I heard it was.

Shane: It's funny how people become dangerous and just them doing something or meeting is something of shock. I should say ideas that people have become dangerous and then the people become almost, I don't know, monsters.

Claudia: I think what the problem is, is that people cannot tell the difference between performance and actuality.

Shane: That's a good take. I think there's more than one issue though, or problem. People don't give the internet enough credit for the destruction of things that should have been destroyed. And people interpret things pre internet in a bad way. I believe the pendulum is swinging the other way and people want to express themselves without fear of reprisal. And the ignorant want to, challenge the intellectual.

That's how we learn. 

Claudia: At this point, I hope the pendulum is swing 5 directions instead of two…

3 Zines

From Claudia fucking Berdella comes NEUROTIC NIHILISM, a visceral collision of free verse and cutting philosophy. Driven by the sensation of "Everlasting isolation on a never-ending desolation road," this text is a confession from a mind existing in "painful polar extremes." It is an exploration of a generation caught between Nietzschean ideals and a social contract, where "Function is a pessimistic game / To no real aim." A poetic journey into the void, where cultural echoes of "fast food occultism and woke fascism" haunt the edges of sanity.

Find it by clicking HERE!

  

Next up is Controlled Chaos: in this everything is Chaos. Citing figures from KMFDM to Aleister Crowley, the text argues that eternal, primal disorder is the engine of the universe and all human experience. It strips away comforting illusions, defining Hope as nothing more than "a strong white lie"—a defensive response to the relentless intake of Fear. A cynical and fatalistic exploration of human existence, concluding that the only promise ever kept is Death.

Find it by clicking HERE!

Up next is the tale of A Surreal Night At Columbine High School— this raw, confessional zine by Claudia Berdella begins with an unplanned night journey to Columbine High School, the site the author deems the "kick of setting the tone for the last near half century." Stoned and listening to Marilyn Manson at the mundane, late-night scene, the author reflects on how tragedy becomes a key cultural marker.

The narrative quickly shifts to a jarring personal account: the author's own experience in the 7th grade of being falsely accused of planning a school shooting. This zine is an intense meditation on the power of "HERD CONFORMITY,"the targeting of outsiders due to "CULTURE SHOCK," and the cynical realization that one must simply "EMBRACE IT" when unjustly labeled a threat. It’s a provocative exploration of the mundanity of tragedy and the culture of fear that creates the very "red flag that never was."

You can find it HERE!

Seymour Skinner and Ed Gein

 

There’s an Ed Gein reference in plain sight, Principle Skinner in the Simpsons. It’s in the damn name, SKINNER. Ed wore a literal skin suit, Seymour Skinner wears the skin of his name— he has such an Oedipus complex he went to a mother that wasn’t his and his Stockholm syndrome is apparent. Norman Bates galore. “Mother this, mother that” 

You get my brief point. 

That said there’s this cool new book from Shane Bugbee on Ed Gein and stealing his headstone, find it here: https://edgeinfanclub.com/?fbclid=PAVERFWANRzKBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABpx4_4M8VtKMsj-6o4tpHPVnTjt93serElfBEkmFhqcFQeRqnj4NDx8lYA6Wn_aem_pKyz2-P2ZwVk4dv5nBPGFA