2. How Debbie Parks Drowned In Cherry Jell-O.

Strange things happen all the time. Stranger things than this even. Just last week they found some guy in New Jersey in his bathroom with a garden hose stuck up his ass. He thought it felt good when he turned the water on. He forgot that the rules of pressure rarely conform to the rules of pleasure. So there he was. Dead. With a green garden hose stuck in his ass. When his wife found him she wasn't too sure what to make of it. On the one hand she was extremely saddened because they had two kids and bills to pay and all that. On the other hand she was extremely saddened because she had a deep seeding thing for kink but thought her husband was one of those 'by the book' kind of guys. Funny how shit like that happens. You think you know someone and then one day you realize that all the while you could have been taking home plumbing to new heights.

That's not to say that Debbie Parks was a sex fiend or anything. Well, at least not when she was sober. Debbie was one of those young girls that suffered from what is known as 'a split weekend personality'. Most of the time she was just a regular high school kid. But on the weekends she tended to turn into someone completely different. And that someone was so drastically opposite her usual self that it led some to believe that she was easily influenced. That's how the whole thing happened. But let me make something clear right now. There's tragedy and then there's a tragedy. This was neither. What happened to Debbie was nothing short of the universal definition of 'oddity'. That's the only way to say it without sounding callous. If bad things happen to good people, and visa versa, then what happened to Debbie was nothing short of Roald Dahl-like divine intervention meets the movie of the week. First time lucky. With luck being the equivalent of getting pinned in the head your first time to the plate.

That said, I should revisit something I mentioned earlier. Debbie was known to be somewhat of a lush on weekends. It was one of those things that wasn't all that out of the ordinary for a girl her age. The weekends were for partying and everyone did just that. Debbie's problem was that she was a horrible drunk. And by horrible I'm inferring that she did things without thinking about them first. Most of the 'things' I'm referring to were just stupid, crazy things that kids tend to do when they're plastered and feeling somewhat free spirited. Things like truth or dare, streaking, skinny dipping, and the old 'locked in the closet' trick. Debbie did them all and regretted it each time. Every Monday morning she'd walk through the doors at school and hear whispers about her weekend escapades. All the guys loved her because they could get her to take her clothes off in front of everyone at the drop of a hat and all the girls hated her because they didn't have the guts to. But what you have to remember is that it wasn't hedonistic or anything. There wasn't anything seedy going on between the lines. Debbie wasn't entering into situations where she'd end up blowing the entire football team or anything (even though she was the main figure in that urban myth, as variations of it exist at ever high school in the known world). In truth, Debbie had only ever slept with one boy. And that was when her family went to Disney World. It was one of those last minute deals when you know you're never going to see the person again because you're too young, live too far away, and know in the back of your head that given time you'd probably become quite annoyed by them. So she was rather good about things of that nature. But that doesn't mean that she wouldn't get naked and slip into an outdoor hot tub filled with cherry Jell-O in the dead of winter now does it.

And that's exactly how Debbie met her end. Face down in a frozen, cherry Jell-O filled, hot tub. It's how the tub got filled with Jell-O that's the thing. You wouldn't have any interest in reading this story if it was simply about some poor girl that drowned. It's no different than some kids re-enacting Full Metal Jacket in the hallways of their school in some white, suburban enclave. You're glued to your TV because you think 'Oh my god! How could this happen? Why did this happen! Who's fault is it?!' wa, wa, fucking wa. Three hundred people get hacked to bits in their sleep in some village in North Africa and it gets a blurb in the news paper. But when something happens in the quiet confines of our perfect little world then it's a sure fire sign that chaos is about to break loose in the streets and Satan is possessing the kids. The only thing that it is a reflection of is our society's egomania. We figure we're so socially superior to everyone else that things of that nature should be uncommon. What we forget is that, like every great society, the barbarians will one day be at our gates and we will slip quietly into the confines of some coffee table book about ancient civilizations. And like those civilizations we were just as violently prolific as we were creative, ingenious, and compassionate. Because it all comes in a neat little package that has yet to be altered during our tenure on this rock. If you think I'm full of shit then you've just proved my point. Welcome to life in the blind man's utopia. Hope you're enjoying the ride.

But that doesn't explain how a hot tub got filled with Jell-O. It's quite simply really. All it takes is for your parents to go out of town for two weeks, filling the hot tub with clean, boiling water, adding multiple packs of cherry Jell-O, and allowing the freezing affects of mother nature to run their course. The secret ingredient, of course, would be the eight large bottles of vodka that you also threw in. Presto! Instant drunksicle. So the next thing you do is decide to throw the biggest party of the year and invite the whole school. As the night progresses everyone munches on the Jell-O and gets really hammered. This leads to all kinds of strange events, including the part where someone dares Debbie Parks to get naked and jump into the hot tub filled with the Jell-O. She's very drunk by that point (of course) and ends up going in rather awkwardly and with some momentum. This causes her to hit her head, but she pops up just the same with a big smile on her face and everyone cheers. So Debbie starts munching on the stuff while she's in there and eventually everyone decides they're cold and goes back inside. Debbie remains in the hot tub. Then she starts to feel a little woozy. Maybe because she's drunk, maybe because she's got a concussion. The next thing you know she passes out, her body temperature has melted the Jell-O enough so that there's some liquid in there and her heads slips beneath the crystallized surface. Add two eggs, cook at 450° for one half hour, and you've got yourself one frozen dead girl Jell-O cake. Simple.

About ten minutes later some guy who had wandered outside to relieve himself happened to notice that there was a naked girl in the middle of the party's booze supply. This was a bad omen as far as the revelries were concerned. It would definitely mark the end of the night's proceedings and our boy didn't want that to happen. There was a girl inside that he was convinced wanted to sleep with him. He was mistaken of course, and quite intoxicated, so he just went back inside and didn't mention the fact that Debbie Parks was frozen-dead within the icky confines of a hot tub filled with vodka laced cherry Jell-O. So Debbie's body remained there for twenty more minutes before it was discovered by two girls who had ventured out onto the back porch to smoke. And that's how Debbie Parks drowned in cherry Jell-O. Sad but true.

At her funeral nobody knew what to make of her death. Her parents were the most distraught and confused, seeing as their little baby's booze soaked corpse had been pulled from a frozen tub of fruitiness. The youngsters of the town learned a valuable lesson that day as well. They realized that going too far was something that wasn't always a controlled experiment. There aren't any static factors when it comes to the unknown forces of what we dub 'fun'. After a certain critical mass is reached a whole set of volatile factors begin to alter the experiment. This leads to the creation of chaos and the loss of confidence. In a nut shell, it's an equation that can be applied to much more than just a girl drowning in cherry Jell-O. It's something that engulfs us all as time passes and makes fools of us without our knowing. And in the end we become so accustomed to seeing ourselves as fools that we think nothing of it.

It was a year ago this month that I unveiled the utopian dream that was to be Mattopia. A roller coaster laden paradise whose citizens roamed freely in bikinis and Star Wars apparel, my island realm of the south Pacific was to become a homage to some of mankind’s greatest achievements. Of course the most significant of these would have to be the roller coaster. Others included water slides, futuristic tree houses, and a sewage recycling facility that looked good on paper but bad in reality. I received thousands of applications for citizenship and poured through them all trying to weed out the undesirables. In the end I selected 1000 people in all to populate the island and an additional 266 went on the waiting list. Someone once asked me if I actually read all of the applications that I was sent. My answer was yes. To this day I have over 5000 of them in manila envelopes stored safely in secret vault somewhere in the wilderness that is my apartment.

But that was then and this is now. Having attempted to put my plans into affect I came across certain obstacles that proved too much for me. The cost alone exceeded one hundred and twenty three million dollars. Then there were various problems concerning transportation to the island (due to the fact that I was unable to purchase the land that I had originally intended to). It seems the French have plans to do some nuclear testing on it so I was left with a choice. Move the location or wait a couple thousand years until it was inhabitable again. I chose to move. And that’s when things started to get complicated. No airline in the world would agree to fly to the island. The nearest landmass was too far away to accommodate small aircraft so I was forced to add an airfield to the island’s design. But following the failure of a last ditch bid to get Bengali Air to service the destination I was forced to face the fact that it would be impossible to fly citizens in. This left me with only one option: sea travel. The nearest major port from which a passenger ship could sail was over four days away. This then forced me to scrap the construction of the airport and begin constructing a docking area large enough to accommodate a ship of that size. True, the Mattopian naval docks had already been planned, but they were designed to be in a secured area that was off limits to international vessels. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find any major cruise lines that would service the island. Like the airlines, they felt that it was too far out of their way. Due to the fact that Mattopia was only open to people with citizenship it wasn’t considered to be a viable vacation destination. So I was screwed again. I briefly looked into buying my own ship until I realized how much it was going to cost. Leasing a ship would have been possible but without a decent return on it’s use I would have no way to make the quarterly payments. So that was that.

Near bankruptcy, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I was forced to scrap the entire thing. So now I’ve got this deserted island in a remote part of the south Pacific and nothing to show for it. I own the land outright, so I figured I might as well do something with it. And that’s when it came to me (in the shower, of course). So here’s what I did.

I tore down everything that I had built to date and sold it off to various impoverished countries and international scrap merchants. I then hired the world’s best mini golf course architect and set him to work designing the most grueling 18 holes of miniature gold imaginable. Following that I had twelve small cabanas built, all of them equipped with modern fixtures, and linked them together with state of the art video phones. I then rented a plane, kidnapped 12 of the Dallas Cowgirls, flew to Los Angeles, got on a boat and sailed south west. When we arrived on the island I burned the boat, drugged and brainwashed the girls, and started living out my days playing continuous rounds of mini golf using one Cowgirl at a time as a caddy. Since my arrival on the island I have played continuously for three weeks, three days, and seven hours. My goal is to play until I either drop dead or score a perfect round. That means that I have to get a hole in one on each hole consecutively. The odds of that happening, knowing how difficult the course is, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 1. So that’s what’s happening. If you guys see me on tour in October then you’ll know I pulled it off. If you don’t then there’s a good chance that I’m dead and 12 Cowgirls are going to give birth to the first generation of a new super race. A race of people that will dominate miniature golf for the rest of human history.

It was in some rat infested flop house in Calcutta if my memory serves me correctly. I was lying in a dirty, sweat soaked bed, dimed on opium when there came a knock at the door. I was alone, of course, because the turn over in those places is rather unbelievable. So I got up and went over to see who it was. Now, it’s not like I hadn’t met talking animals before that night. There was that time in Shanghai when I had a four hour conversation with two mice and what appeared to be a badger. But I later convinced myself that it was all just a dream because it seemed strange to me that a badger would be on vacation in China with two mice. And then there was that time with Todd in Vegas when we were held captive by that porn star and those two strippers. They had a snake. And I’m pretty sure that it could talk. But there again I can’t be 100% sure that it actually could. A lot of weird things happened that night and a talking snake wouldn’t have been the weirdest. But on this occasion it was all very clear. I got out of bed, went over to the door, opened it, and stood there gazing down at a mongoose wearing a safari get up and tinted glasses. And that’s how I know it really happened. Because none of the other talking animals I’ve come across ever had luggage.

His name was Basle. Basle Montcliff the Third. And he was passing through Calcutta on his way into South East Asia on a hunting expedition. Basle was a professional tracker and killer of snakes you see. The kind of expert that had spent a lifetime doing his job meticulously. Now I’ll admit that I had my doubts about the entire thing at first. After all, I was so high on opium at the time that my own mother could have come to the door and I probably wouldn’t have recognized her. Then again, there was the off chance that the mongoose was my mother and my entire sense of universal good and evil had been messed with to such an extent that women were now from Mars and men from Venus. Who knows. It’s difficult to recall with any accuracy. The strangest thing about the incident, in my mind anyway, revolves around the fact that Basle seemed like the kind of fellow that commonly lodged at far better establishments than the one in which our conversation took place. His refinement dictated better surroundings. I, on the other hand, am at my best whilst doused with shit. So that’s how that one happened. Just a me and some mongoose held up in a dilapidated brothel somewhere in the growing gloom of the coming Indian night.

There have been stranger times I’m told. I’ve been assured by some of my closer friends that, on occasion, I have indulged in far more perplexing behavior than speaking with animals. As one might suspect, I really have no recollection of such activities and can therefore not comment. But let’s just say that I’m convinced that half of what they tell me is accurate and the other half is crap. But that doesn’t mean to say that talking with animals is an irregular thing for me to do. Since my encounter with Basle I talk to them all the time. Like the night I spent in Hanoi with a tiger named Henbob and his elephant friend, Dalafoo. Excellent characters both. Dalafoo, for example, spent most of his life serving the indigenous mountain folk of the interior before escaping into the wilds. An elder statesman of the wilderness community in South East Asia, he was a survivor of both the French and American wars. Sadly, he was hit by a vegetable truck some months after our meeting and left lame. Henbob, in an attempt to save his friend from certain death, tried in vain to mount an animal offensive to rescue the ailing Dalafoo from the clutches of the poorly equipped Vietnamese Veterinarian Society. But alas, too little too late I’m afraid. Dalafoo died some weeks later leaving Henbob no choice but to attack some field workers out of frustration and face certain death at the hands of professional wild game hunters such as Mr. Montcliff. To everything turn, turn, turn, I suppose. Or whatever it is they say in that annoying song.

So it’s safe to say that it isn’t the opium at all. That it is, rather, just something that I am able to do. Is it just coincidence that I am able to speak with animals whilst on opium? Maybe. But I firmly believe that if I were to give it up long enough to spend a handful of hours sober I would still have the ability, and privilege, of conversing with my animal friends. So let it be said now, and forever more, that it is not the opium that causes this ability. Rather, it is the ability that causes the opium. Therein lies the strange balancing act that is my life and the knowledge that not all things are as easily explained as VCR instructions.

Multiple homicide. Always annoying when it comes to that uncomfortable time between your arraignment and your trial. It’s during this particular stretch that most defendants begin to slip a little and those guilty feelings begin to surface. And let’s face it, you damn well knew what you were doing so don’t try to convince me otherwise. They’re gonna hook you up to a polygraph and get what they want so there ain’t no point trying to polish up on your poker face. It may have been enough to convince all those college girls to help you look for your lost dog in the woods but it doesn’t fly when it comes to ‘the machine’. But don’t panic just yet. You’re still miles from the maximum wing and years from the big gas up. There’s gonna be weeks of debating your mental state as it is, not to mention the fact that your lawyer will probably be able to fend off the District Attorney with promises of a full confession that you’ll provide once they’ve agreed to cut a deal and let you do your time in a loony bin instead of a prison. If that fails then there’s always the chance that you could conveniently remember where you left some bodies or that there were actually more names on your kill sheet than originally thought. Such tactics are common place in these situations. Lawyers need to exhaust these options so it looks like they did their best before they come in and admit to you that you’re fucked and you’re gonna get shot up with enough wacky juice to light up a medium sized town. So this is where I come in. I’m the ray of sunshine in your otherwise abysmal and rotting inner hell. So relax and just do what I tell you to do and everything will be okay.

It’s no secret that temporary insanity is the most widespread cause for juries doubting all sanity based cases these days. Temporary insanity is a contradiction in terms. To be insane temporarily is to admit that you’re actually sane most of the time. Who, in their right mind, is gonna believe that? Just look how that reads for Christ sakes: ‘yes I did gun down eight people in a fast food restaurant but I wasn’t myself at the time because my dad didn’t take me to ball games when I was a kid and my boss puts too much pressure on me so I snapped there for a second but I feel better now? Holy shit! You are fucking nuts. You can forget about any jury taking you seriously when it comes to weak ass defensive shit like that. They’ll send you to the shit house simply because you thought they were stupid enough to buy it in the first place. But there is hope. And it comes disguised as many voices and a complicated mosaic of inner turmoil and struggle. Psychiatrists call this particular malady ‘multiple personality disorder’. Welcome to the psychological land of milk and honey. All six of you.

So I’m gonna walk you through this step by step. But it’s important to remember some things while we’re going through this so you don’t get ahead of yourself. First of all, I’m no shrink. Far from it. So don’t blame me if you don’t have what it takes to pull this off. I’m just giving you the background. Everything after that is up to you. Secondly, always remember to put your own personal spin on all of this. You’ll come to the realization that it’s much easier to create your own alternate self than it is to use my examples directly. Then again, you might be a complete idiot in which case you’re probably screwed anyway so what can it hurt.

As far as the actual disorder goes there are typically two or more different personalities involved. So, depending on your retention and standards of precision, you’ll want to choose a number that’s right for you. Take this into account though. The two personalities thing is always weak. If you only have one alternate personality to fall back on it’s not so easy to convince a jury that you had absolutely no control over your actions. Theoretically it shouldn’t matter, but there’s something about the number ‘2’ that just doesn’t fly with juries. Maybe it’s because they fail to realize that disassociation can occur quite easily no matter how many voices are yammering in your head. As far they’re concerned in just doesn’t make sense for one personality to be fully in control a part of the time and another to be in control the rest of the time. This is possible of course, but to a bunch of relatively sane people who most likely just want to see you fry it’s a little sketchy. That’s why you’ll want to baffle them with a little bullshit. Two personalities can easily be diagnosed as ‘a split personality’ and that’s just not the game we’re playing here. So introduce another personality, or voice, into the mix and you’ve got yourself a mediator of sorts. This represents an inner struggle between the ‘good’ you and the ‘evil’ you. Call it what you like, this third voice is your is the best way to confuse the issue by turning a half ass defensive grasp at straws into what appears to be a complex and quite involved medical condition. Once a jury is confronted with any aspect of confusion, such as the kind created by three independent personalities, you’ll begin to realize that they’re just as confused as you allegedly were when you went postal. And that’s the crucial element. Once they equate the complexity of that confusion with their own thought processes then you’re half way to home free.

Unfortunately the other half of a winning strategy relies solely on your ability to perform. And by perform I’m inferring just that. You have to act the part to such a degree of precision and detail that there can be no loose ends. No prosecutor should be able to find holes in your performance. So let me make this painfully clear. If, at any time, you slip up and do something that might indicate that there are discrepancies in your portrayal of metal deficiency then there’s no getting the loony train back on the tracks. You are, for lack of a better phrase, completely and utterly fucked. It is immensely important that the appearance of your instability remains water tight. So after you’ve decided on a strategy of your own, start living the part immediately. Don’t wait until you get into the courtroom to start working all those newly devised inner voices. Don’t even tell your lawyer what you’re doing. It’ll be better if they don’t know. That way, when they come to talk to you, they’ll begin to see signs of your malady and will hopefully request a court appointed psychiatrist to come in and evaluate you. If you can convince a shrink then you can convince anyone. But before we continue let’s clear something up right here and now. It’s highly unlikely that this particular method is going to get you off free and clear. A not guilty verdict just isn’t in the cards when you’re slinging mental conditions like this around. The best you can hope for is a verdict of guilty by reason of insanity. Temporary insanity isn’t going to show itself. If you’re going to try and convince a jury that you committed a horrific crime because there are a multitude of other people living in your gear box then there’s no way they’re going to let you walk. So you should take some time now to decide what you want to do. Because if you are lucky enough to be sent to a mental institution for the criminally insane instead of death row then you’re going to have to feign this illness for many, many years to come. And, if there comes a time when they discover that you were bullshitting, then they’ll probably put you on an express elevator to hell so fast it’ll make your head spin. You might be an evil genius, but it’s a pretty big undertaking. So take a second and mull it over.

The Faux Faces.

If you’re still with me you’ve obviously decided to stay with the program. Smart. This section is going to give you a little insight into how one goes about creating a believable façade. These are just examples, mind you, so remember that you’re going to want to create your own profile after you’ve examined this one.

For my profile I decided to go with five personalities. Little Johnny, Pete, Bob, Steve, and Omen-Damien. Using these five different personalities I’ll hopefully be able to provide you with a good example of how best to utilize this mental construct. But remember my warning. You’re going to want to create characters of your own.

Little Johnny: This is the part of your personality that represents you when you were a child. Maybe daddy beat you with a pipe wrench, maybe mommy locked you in the basement for the winter, I dunno. But there’s a better than even chance that you actually did suffer through some form of child abuse (or, according to those politically correct types, you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place). So all you do with this personality is slip into it when you’re being threatened. Try your best to act like you’re nine years old again and scared shitless. Crying can also come in handy. This is the personality that you use to evade any line of questioning that causes anxiety. Either this one or the violent one. Your choice.

Pete: The trick to this personality is that it doesn’t know there are other people living in your head. You think you’re sane and don’t understand why all of this is happening to you. As far as you’re concerned you just woke up with blood all over your clothes and couldn’t figure out where it came from. Get the picture?

Bob: This is the irrational personality. You’ll most likely want to make it somewhat illogical, quick to violence, and impervious to physical posturing by others. This is the personality that likes physicality (such as rape, bludgeoning a victim, or dominating them in some overtly brutish way). If the whole thing (the trial, the questions, whatever) starts getting to you, you can always use this personality to strike back. Simply fly off the handle and attack the prosecutor. There’s nothing better than being tackled to the ground as some maniac and coming up Pete. Works every time.

Steve: Every psychotic killer needs their charming side. Charisma isn’t always a given when it comes to criminals, but for some reason mass murderers seem to have a corner on the market. This is the personality that lures, persuades, temps, and baffles. It will show no sign of intent and will always come across as being almost too friendly. Of course, the goal of this personality is usually to slowly strangle their victims whilst listening to Barry White and drinking boxed wine. This personality can be useful and can be harmful. A killer yes, but always sexually motivated. Rape is out of the question, by the way. Steve is too good to stoop so low. He’s actually able to score before he gets to the killing part. Hence the term ‘lady killer’. Use Steve if there’s a female on the prosecution’s team. It’ll start to creep people out before long and will provide you will hours of endless fun.

Omen-Damien: Those that possess a limited intellect dare not attempt to utilize this last personality in fear of making those of us that are evil geniuses look bad. This personality is the mastermind personality. This is the hidden voice that controls the vocal voices. Typically, this personality has constructed the others to provide a buffer between it and what it sees as ‘accountability’. The problem with that, of course, is that it’s still the same body committing the crime. But this personality doesn’t much care about that. As far as it’s concerned it was brilliant enough to get the others to do the dirty work. Whether it be Steve or Bob it doesn’t really matter. On occasion Omen-Damien will pop up and do some of the dirty work himself, but only when the situation calls for something ‘artistic’. This is the personality you’ll want to use to baffle people. Using big words and comparing murder to art is always a sure fire way to make the whole thing hit home. You can use this personality to call up the others if you like. But make sure it’s the only one that has direct contact with them. The other four should not realize that they’re a part of a much bigger picture. The only personality that Damien will not attempt to contact is Pete. Pete is off limits because he’s useful in times of crisis. It’s always good to keep someone around that doesn’t know anything and Omen-Damien realizes this. So use this personality as the mastermind behind the whole thing and see what happens. Shrinks will be trying to pull him out in an attempt to gain some insight into methodology and intent. Give them nothing! Trying to turn things back on others is always a good policy when it comes to the criminally genius. Make sure you never answer any question without being evasive and egomaniacal about the fact that you think everyone else is too stupid to trick you. Unless, that is, you are stupid enough to be tricked. If so, you’re done for.

In Conclusion

You might want to spend some time reading a variety of books about criminal insanity and psychological methods of discovery. You also might want to think about injuring yourself on a regular basis to re-enforce the fact that you’re nuts. There’s nothing better than hitting your head against a wall for a while until blood is drawn to make others wonder if you’re going to try and bite their ears off. That said, I can only wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. I’m confident that you’ll do just fine. Look at me. I’m living proof that it can work. Instead of spending the rest of my life in prison I get to spend it loaded up on drugs in a mental institution for the criminally insane. At least I get to be examined and interviewed by a whole bunch of sexy female grad students a couple times a year. Ahhh. Now doesn’t that bring back some memories…

I knew that it would come up sooner than later, so I might as well give up the goods. I’ve received a lot of e-mails asking me what the passage on the front, back, and insert of the new CD says. Conveniently enough, they’re all the same thing. So, for those of you that have been wondering, here’s what it says…

…and the monkey flips the switch>you gotta hate this place there’s nothing to do at night just sharpen my 3 in 1 knife for those 2 victims and 200 potatoes for potato salad>poor is the man that relies on hearsay to bet on an imaginary horse>we’re slashing prices everything must go>call it what it is you call it what you want to it’s all semantics>I am just a man and a stupid one at that for this I watch you sleep for this I am invisible they say the world is round but our four corners keep if flat of those 2 sides to every story one just generates more commercial dollars>so SHUT UP that big guy in the sky’s talking through the schitzo’s again and it’s getting so it hurts so they’re giving him up I heard and unto us everything>why’s everything gotta go like this>and the monkey flips the switch…