Been in rehab.
Archie is my paparazzo stalker.
One again, we step through the looking glass, fall down the rabbit hole, cross the doorway to forever, tune in, turn on, and drop out and end up, somehow, in the crazy, mixed-up world of Brian Atene. In this episode…our hero underplays old skool it in a true tour de force of subtlety. Is it just me, or does Pacino crib off this guy?
and from the YouTube comments:
raincoaster (3 hours ago)
I’ve got five bucks that says the head is severed and mounted on some kind of complicated crane OR free-floating on a levitating disk.
juilliardropout (2 hours ago)
Raincoaster,
You’re out five bucks. Its simple puppetry. The head is a disgarded Bill Baird marionette from the ill fated Broadway run of “Baker Street”. You can see the strings clearly on the fade-in of the Kubrick video. I purchased the head in 1980. It’s modeled after actor Martin Gabel. – Atene
If I were a novelist (and currently I am not, I am an unfinished-manuscriptist) I would be incredibly proud of creating this document. Unfortunately for Jill Rockcastle and the man she killed, it is not fiction.
Jill and Bill, her husband, were highly respected in their community, and even loved. Acquaintances and neighbors described them as “the nicest people, fun to be around, always up,” which is why the death of Bill and Jill‘s subsequent 10-page confession and suicide came as such a shock.
But not, I think, nearly as much of a shock as the contents of the note.
Apparently, Jill and her husband had been systematically embezzling and ripping off the very people who loved them so dearly. Consumed by cocaine, criminality, and an unquenchable gambling addiction, tied to grandiose and relentless ambitions and an absolute lack of talent, they were headed for a massive fall.
Jill, shaking off the emotional paralysis that had held her for years, finally took action and, in doing so, turned this tawdry tale into epic tragedy.
This is my final statement done to help all the people affected by my actions, Bill‘s actions, the actions and the results of whatever does happen to them in our aftermath. I’m writing this so that each person that receives it will identify with the time period in which your experience occurred with him and I and can have some of the why, how, why me, how could they, what happened etc. answered. I am not trying in anyway to justify a single thing in here. I am not looking to clear my name or actions. I have already done the most final things possible to stop us from hurting anyone else.
“When Bill and I met, we discovered that we both had the ability to get pretty much anything we wanted out of people. I did what I did out of my need to survive. Bill did what he did out of the need to conquer. To be superior to the people around him. To look like the most successful person in the room. He lived his life feeding his narcissism.
“He did all kinds of performance and look enhancing drugs. He was very physically aware and fit. He felt superior in his profession as a Chiropractor. He was earning a large amount of money but I was constantly listening to conversations on the phone about lies and schemes against people and agencies to maximize what he was paid.
“I was working in the mortgage business and as anyone knows that has owned a home and gone through the finance process, it usually involves being bullshitted all the way to signing documents that never exactly match what you thought you were getting. Both of us lied, manipulated, cheated, conned and hustled people to make the most money for us…
[to the ex-wife] —Joanne
“This letter is to help you and xxxxx. I want you to know that the way you felt about Bill and why he was so horrible to you was not for any other reason than Bill preferred fighting with you over just being happy with xxxxx. I don’t know why but I do know that his hatred for you must have been more than that. What you thought and portrayed to the world about him governed every move he made. He wanted everyone to view him as the best Dad I think because he didn’t even know how to be one. He loved xxxxx inside but did not for whatever reason, know how to take care of her emotionally. He did not have a caring nurturing bone in his body. He felt love but didn’t feel the need nor have the ability to be weak in it. He felt he always had to be “Top Gamer.”“Two years ago, he did plan to have you and your Mom killed. He paid a guy to do it while we had xxxxx in Las Vegas for our Christmas time. It was the scariest few days…
Possible Exculpatory Evident. In addition to what may be revealed during the post, there is a yellow box in Bill‘s office, setting under the day bed, which should contain cocaine residue. Also in the office, setting on the day bed, is a box and flex file containing the various evaluation materials. This includes a 4-5″ green folder containing the vicious and threatening emails between Bill, Joann and others. The divorce papers are located in a black file cabinet to the right of Bill‘s desk.
I know that everything I have disclosed here does not excuse this. It does not explain it and it does not help me in anyway. I am not sending this for that purpose. I fully intend at this time to end this entire tragic string of events by ending my life as well. I know my children will have to learn to accept that but no one else should accept me being allowed to live whether it be in jail for the rest of my life or anywhere or how. I had to stop us. Everyone that was part of this I hope you recover. I hope you can take your disgust and anger with us and put it on us. Find console in the fact we are gone and cannot hurt you anymore.
If for some reason I fail in this, at least this will guarantee my conviction and I will have to pay everyday for my disgusting life.
Not that it could mean anything but I am truly sorry. To the people who loved me, I apologize for this shame. I hope you can walk away physically and emotionally from us. I hope you can forgive only enough to insure your own future happiness.
Here’s the real secret, folks:
Sometimes New Agers can be real assholes, and the worst thing is, they float through life, wittering happily about scheduling their acupuncture according to the phases of the Jupiter’s moons, oblivious to the damage they cause, high on vast, expensive pharmacopaeas of anti-depressants and “herbs” and the fumes of rare jasmine and patchouli. And if you address their asshollery, they tell you you’re “attracting negativity by being negative” but it never once occurs to them that they, themselves, could be that negativity. I’m recycling this from the comments over at Aaron Swartz’s blog, because it deserves a wider audience, I think.
I had cancer once, a long time ago, and a friend of mine who’d come over for a “cheer me up” visit looked me in the eyes and asked, “What have you done to bring this into your life?”
I paused a moment and said, “Do you mean what have I done to bring into my life people who could ask such a question of a cancer patient?”
Yeah, I don’t see her so much anymore.