the world that had once ignited his passion.
Bartek, whom many of his inner circle now believed frankly mad, declared he’d wage the
Detroit war to its apocalyptic Gotterdammerung. While he paced around frothing at the mouth in
a tirade of such rhetoric, he inwardly obsessed over escape. Most appealing was the idea of
seeking asylum in California. So amidst the completion of their debut record Lord of The Black
Sheep, the tarnished Golden Boy swallowed his pride, murdered his legacy, and lethargically
faced the A.K.A. MABUS firing squad.
13
There was no Clausewitz in this Propagandist’s end -- just the banal last moments that
failed tyrants have endured and have deserved to endure down the ages. Bartek had long outlived
an aspiration to greatness, and a friable Pan-Tribal Socialism – exhausted of credible meaning or
social purpose – had long since crumpled into nothingness.
At the end, cornered as he is by history, his view of things is consistent, and in a strange,
inverted way, correct -- invariably, what is right for him is wrong for Detroit. Ignominiously
forced in his professional career to work as a microwave cook for Applebee’s, he writes that
Detroit’s rebirth will come only after total defeat, anticipating a new era well into the future. The
divorce between Bartek and his beloved underground had truly been complete…
And finally, the sinister adventure ends. One December night, the unassuming crowds on Howard
Street could see a lone figure pull himself silently onto a bus, the fire at last gone out of him. For
Il Propagandist and Pan-Tribalism in Michigan, that day really was the end. The great prank has
ended in tragedy and the incredible story is finished. No reincarnations or returns are to be
expected. Ruined and sobered, Ryan Bartek is finding himself.
Maybe he felt relieved when he found himself riding on that Greyhound. Maybe he
thought he was at long last going to have a rest at The Villa Winona. Yet everything that was
Hyde within him refused to compromise. Those deep-seated psychological forces grabbed the
forlorn old ham, tossed him back on the road, and went right to creating the nucleus of a freshly
constituted “Pan-Tribal” web.
Years will pass before self-mythologizing may allow him to attain the power to realize
that vision, but it is a lesson that denies the free world the excuse of ignorance. It is a waking call
never to close our eyes to the architects surrounding us. Since 911, Homeland Security has been
taking promising steps in this regard. It is our responsibility to ensure the continued progress of
that civilizing trend. Lately new research has added much to our knowledge about Bartek and his
policies, but this book is still essential for any reassessment.
- Benedict Badoglio; New Years Eve, 11:59pm, 2007
14
15
PART I: HUMBLE ORIGINS
(UNCALM BEFORE THE STORM)
DECEMBER 20th 2006-FEBRUARY 6TH 2007
6O HOURS AND 24 INCHES (THE GREAT WHITE DESERT)
“Ok man, so we’re headed out to Oklahoma to premier this little independent film we made
called DADBOT. After 15 hours of straight driving, we’re finally out of steam & gas and we pull
into this town called Cuba, Missouri…”
The trucker smiles and nods his head: “Oh yeah bro, I know exactly what you’re talking
about -- I live a hundred miles west of it. It’s the last place on God’s green earth you wanna end
up. Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on in that lil’ shithole.”
“No doubt about that,” I say, ready to spew the strange tale. “So yeah, not only is there a
drive-in theatre playing two full servings of Passion of The Christ on each screen long past it’s
DVD release, but there’s also a Jack In The Box on the corner of the Interstate.”
Still nodding, still smiling, the trucker listens on: “This weird, skinny chick is working
the register – spies us, nabs us -- takes her break and swings us outdoors to jabber. She plops on
the hood of an Escort and while chain-smoking explains how Cuba is the crystal meth capital of
the United States and that we need protection – immediate, hardcore defense.”
“She flicks her butt in a trail of red ember and flashes us some chrome. Grinning, she
dumps this killer street-gang blade on us – like this twisted mutation of a Klingon death weapon.
She tells us to watch our backs.”
“That’s quite an introduction.”
“Well, that’s just Point A… It’s starting to get dark, and we’re gunning for a few beers.
Our quest for the local dive takes us down these menacing, shadowy streets -- lurching willow
trees like a ghetto in New Orleans. Finally we hit this bowling alley but there were only three
people inside and they wouldn’t look at us -- like intentionally avoiding us -- this evil vibe as if
they’d just hacked up some drifter for BBQ and hastily mopped the floor. They are ugly fuckers,
all of ‘em, faces rotted & sunken purple like Elder God worshipping cult folk from some
Lovecraftian nightmare village. ”
The trucker’s eyes light up in a strange, horrified bemusement. “We ditch on the alley &
hit Main Street, which only adds to the Innsmouth vibe. The drag is a narrow corridor stretching
for ten blocks, the walls of every building slopped with painted murals of farmers and cows.
Inside them semi-Amish agriculturists are dressed purely in black, which is creepy to begin with.
But the kicker was that everyone & everything inside the murals – the farmers, chickens, cows –
all of them have pitch black eyes. Like evil insectoid eyes, huge and bulbous.”
“They are fucking terrifying, totally painted by an armada of sleep-deprived meth freaks.
And within the murals the Amish M.I.B.’s aren’t doing anything. They’re all just standing there,
watching you, with their plows and rakes limply at their side. Even the cows are staring blankly
with these soulless, black eyes, as if the second you turned the corner the painting would
magically came back to life. It was children of the fucking corn, man…”
“We shook off the heebie-jeebies and surpassed the murals to find another street…” The
trucker’s still with me, waiting for the big punch line, “…with a dozen Texas Chainsaw Massacre
looking houses. Giant houses – old, dilapidated, the stench of rotting wood -- all of which had
human sized ragdolls on the porch, plopped in rocking chairs. All of these hideous stuffed
creatures, gazing at us with murderous black insect eyes. We heard something strange behind us
and flipped our heads to catch two of the dolls we passed – again, totally serious – the chairs were
rocking. We fucking ran all the way back to the motel.”
16
The trucker belly laughs and proceeds to hammers me with sad stories of interstate loads
at 19 cents a mile, gas not included. He was stuck, like all these other displaced people, in the
middle of St. Louis Greyhound depot, rerouted or otherwise immobile due to the giant 24 inch
blizzard that had engulfed the center of America. Our normal route was to be through Denver, but
the poor saps in Colorado are now stuck there up to a week. All of Texas engulfed in white, the
desert winds searing a negative 20 degree chill -- Old Man Winter’s incongenial bitch-fist.
Elemental bastards, stay out of my damned Valhalla…
So I commit these thoughts to mental calligraphy, awaiting the opportunity to purge. Barely a day
into this thing, and I have yet to recognize the extent of what I’ve done. In a drunken whirlwind,
not thinking the subject over too clearly, I declared the creation of a new book via international
press release called “THE BIG SHINY PRISON.” In it, I tell the world that I now travel America
for a year straight, drifting town to town, interviewing bands and the personalities thereof,
penetrating music scenes as I ping-pong across the country totally DIY.
I have no energy, I have no publisher. I have no game plan, I have no structure. All I
possess is a backpack, a duffel-bag, and an oldschool cassette recorder. And I have no money
except for the $1200 which is to last me until the end of March.
The money itself does not cover any kind of motel or rent arrangement. It barely covers
the fares of Greyhounds to destinations still vaporous and unbooked. I have no real idea where
I’m going for certain except a loosely constructed list of bands, pr men, zine proprietors and
promoters that have no idea I’m crashing their way. I rely totally on the willingness of those
parties I can drag into this thing. None of that really matters though for I have MySpace, the
thunder of the gods…
The book I have espoused is not the book which will be printed. I have been bored to the
point of hammering nails through my face by the shoddy journalism of heavy metal. The only
well-known books available on the subject are ultimately handcrafted from some hack writer
making dozens of phone calls and typing his conversations into a paint-by-numbers expose in
which we hear all too often the word “brutal” to describe everything.
No, this isn’t my realm. I am not interested in what guitar strings they use. I am not
interested in their perceptions of rumbling Drop D noise. I don’t care what patches are sewn onto
their sleeveless denim vests. To even call it a book about music is misleading. What I seek is the
soul. Character studies, their environments, their dreams, hopes and aspirations -- a total
sociological unearthing. The very substance and inertia of their war and poetry. What are they
fighting for and against? And most importantly, how alone in my views am I? What is the
common thread? Does the magical world I once looked upon in magazines and onstage when I
was 17 even exist? And in the end, what do I hope to find?
So I fall into this cocoon, my physical body screaming in constant pain from a jigsaw
skeleton of pinched nerves. No chiropractor, no therapy, no respite. One full year of road with no
stopping, my last sacrifice to journalism before I can walk away, form a new band somewhere,
discover my queen and live a real life. This book will be just as much about the artists and freaks
I encounter as it is the hard reality of trying to write this book. This isn’t a Kerouac rip-off. This
isn’t Hunter S. Thompson. This is akin to Christian Bale wandering the earth in Batman Begins
for seven years, recreating himself in steel. It is just as much about me as it is all of them, because
our struggle is unanimous.
Surely, I will be sued. I will be misconstrued. I will be laughed at by dunderheads who
think so small that the intensity and mission of such a project will fly miles above their heads. In
this I am undeterred. Some will ignore, some will offer sanctuary. No matter the immediate
situation I will play by the rules in which I am confined, weaving through these complex
undergrounds by stealth. And if all else fails, keep them amused by whacky anecdotes until I can
jump back into the safety of the Greyhound purgatory.
17
The plan is to avoid big bands unless they seek me out or are right there waiting to go. It
is not my job to promote those already promoted. Instead I seek the unknown, the struggling, the
fringe and depraved. I am out to prove the point that no answer is ever the answer, and that reality
is only in the eye of the beholder.
I will hunt down the most extreme of personalities from the right to the left. I will let the
recorder roll in front of views as confrontational as possible. From pagan militants to Christian
rockers. From “Goth Idols” to street-dwelling crust punks. From neo-Nazis to flaming
homosexuals. Every monster possibility in America, every inch of its seedy underbelly thrust into
the spotlight…
3am, sleeping soundly and somewhere in Texas, a foofy-haired woman interrupts my rest: “What
is he doing back there?” she questions, in a weird state of panic. I pass back out only to have her
wake me again with this identical question. To shut her up, I wander to the back of the
Greyhound, pretending to use the toilet.
There is a creepy Hispanic man dressed in a blue-workman’s outfit, like Michael Myers
duds in Halloween. He looks like the gruff caricature of a Sergio Leone villain and smells like
rancid feces. And, of course, he’s rabidly masturbating an iron-hard flagpole.
I sit back down. The foof lady asks again, and I duly confirm. The passengers are now
wide awake, unwilling to confront the strange man wildly jacking off behind them. We pull into
Amarillo, and the whacker guns it for Miss Pacman.
Little does he know, cackling and babbling to himself, that Greyhound has called the
police. When the heavily accented officers confront him, the Mexican becomes enraged. The cops
point to the white glob of jizzom on his clothing, and the man protests in broken, hysterical
English: “No iz paint, iz paint!”
The cop whispers something in Spanish, and he starts laughing and unzipping his
coveralls. Out it plops, dangling from his bellybutton as a limp pendulum. Fearful mothers grip
their children, the elderly squeam, grown men grow nauceous & bellicose -- a giant colostomy
stuffed with shit dangles to and fro, dripping profusely, and all the Mexican can do is laugh
horrendously at the terrified honkies…
THE FRINGE DESIGN: A PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION
To my dearest of Alice clones, from whatever vortex you might exist, from this tragic Cheshire
comes the dynamic of the labyrinth. We must put an end, immediately, to these endless
preconceptions. We must shoot down all error from the human mechanics which now pervade
us…
To the hip, to the knowledgeable, to the fanatic – none of this will come as a shock. But
to the outside element, the ones accustomed only to the ritual of entertainment – those who look
at the weirdo uprising with a dim mystification…
If I am to be your tour guide then I must also be your educator. It is a
gutter philosopher