Murder by Death

Twelve years ago the woman I referred to as my adopted stepmother suicided in her apartment.  For two years prior she'd been begging me to help her with this; she was in her mid-90's, in constant pain, had sort of wrapped up her life and even presided over a couple of retrospective exhibitions that paid tribute to her career as an artist. Her preferred farewell was a heroin overdose. You, my dear, with your rock and roll junkie friends, can get this for me, she insisted. But the complications of facilitating someone's death-- of copping drugs, administering or even just leaving them on a nightable... can result in a murder charge.

She was furious with me.  After decades of organizing her art-- selling, showing, documenting-- she froze me out.  She finally orchestrated an exit with plastic bags and towels-- sealed doors and several tanks of helium. It became a tabloid story-- sort of a vaguely gruesome scenario which eclipsed her reputation as an artist. This was unfortunate and for me-- well, I suffer guilt...  Damned if I do, damned since I did not.  Her final act of revenge: the one possession I was to inherit-- a sketchbook-- was left to another-- a double slap because I loved her.

The world of musicians has long crossed paths with the edges of culture: the highbrow galas, but also the very lowbrow dirty street junkie culture and the sometimes intriguing world of pornography and the sex industry.  The stars and celebrities hung out at gigs and late-night clubs. In certain historic eras, club behaviors exceeded boundaries of what is generally deemed normalcy. Performances sometimes used violence, blood, sexuality as part of the show-- elaborating on the angst and passion that drove the music.

I met a man who was known for Mapplethorpe-type photography. He was occasionally at gigs and asked me to create music for his films.  I had not seen them but knew they pushed boundaries of sexuality and human relationships. For years I refused but on one night he was with a persuasive woman; we had a great discussion in which he scolded me for my lack of ambition re: my own songwriting.  Anyway, I agreed to provide 14 songs for a horror film he was planning. The premise was a girl stalking a serial killer, begging for her own death, which the killer refused; it was sort of a twisted unrequited love thing. 

So I went into the studio of my choice and recorded.  For weeks he sat quietly and respectfully... made very few suggestions, had files made for the film, paid all bills, including my guest musicians... and left me with recorded original songs which I released as a cd.  Shortly thereafter he was arrested on some drug charges, did prison time; all of his reels and computers were apparently confiscated.

Fast forward... post-prison he continued to work... kept my studio friends swish with assignments... wrote me occasionally, asking for my collaboration on his writings and photography publications which I refused.  Certainly no edgier than Serrano or Araki or Moriyama... it just was outside my aesthetic comfort parameter. Meanwhile we had copious and active email conversations about the issues of bondage, pain, sexuality-- the line between art and violence.  The man was brilliant and dedicated.  Dark. He was also a loving and concerned father to a boy who had both physical and psychological issues. But I found his work disturbing.  I also cannot watch war films, Hostel, any kind of torture.  I cannot. 

My very famous writer-neighbor was an insatiable womanizer. He used to confide in me.. it occurs to me now ironically that he had actually slept with my old stepmother when she was in her prime and he was young.  But at one point he had an affair with a very well-known writer who insisted on being slapped while they had sex.  Not just slapped but sort of beaten.  He found it difficult and she found him unsatisfying so they broke up. I remember seeing a film called Things Behind the Sun where the singer of a band gets gang-raped and her sexuality is thereafter permanently inextricable from a kind of violent abuse.  It's disturbing.  But one must admit, there are people who crave physical abuse... who crave even perhaps the act of murder or death.  How does one process or resolve these things?

Last week I saw on network news that my film director who passed away last year is now being investigated as a disturbed serial killer. The Gilgo Beach murderer, one reporter alleged, is a saint compared to this man. They were uncovering all kinds of props and weapons and things from his basement... digging holes. Because of the internet search-association with my under-watched music videos for which he provided images (without my knowledge, but I did not protest), I'm being hounded-- dogged-- by several news platforms-- reporters, Dateline-style investigators. They even pretend to be cd buyers and listeners. It's humiliating and disturbing. Netflix producers are salivating.

The fact is I find it difficult to imagine any scenario but the one where his fictional inventions are being confused with reality.  His narratives and deep delving into the mechanisms of sexuality, sado-machism and even death-- have resulted in a colossal misunderstanding.  Of course I cannot be sure. This is the stuff of jury trials and investigations. One must pay for crimes, but must one pay for the criminal narrative? Where is justice on this edge of love and pain, of pleasure and violence? 

I do know there is a roster of women who have disappeared.  I have known a couple.  One no more than twenty sat long hours in the studio quietly while I played my guitar and sang.  She was utterly beautiful; later she sent me copies of her writings which were heart-breaking and tormented. She was obsessed with self-punishment and also in love with the dark director. She'd escaped some terrible family situation and did not want to be found.  She'd changed her name. I felt maternal. She left him; he was sad, but I heard from her several times.  He is now being accused of the disappearance of these women.  The Gilgo Beach killer is a predatory heinous mutation.  R.C. (as he was known) was rather a kind of extreme and edgy male sanctuary for abused and traumatized women. Whatever went down seemed in a bizarre way consensual. 

I've been studying ancient civilizations this year-- an online course. The terrifying cruelties allowed and practiced by some of these sophisticated cultures are horrific.  King and crowds watch deaths and torture and choreographed hideous violence for sheer entertainment.  What kind of civilization is this?  And yet these things are still practiced today by mostly sick people. But when the victim craves being a victim?  What does one do? I am on the side of art which can use extreme images to mirror our worse instincts. And there is the fact that these Hostel movies and others which celebrate gratuitous violence gross enormous sums at the box office.

While I have no idea or proof of the actual Philadelphia alleged serial killer narrative, I do know how manipulative the media is, and how lawyers and reporters spin stories to make them sensational and lucrative.  It terrifies me more than the crime. There may be a version of crime but I am certain there is a broad misunderstanding here. The psychology of pain and cruelty is complicated and evades me, but the copious conversations I had with this man seem so much more honest and truthful and closer to a kind of deep human intimacy with psychological aberration than the harsh and clumsy indictments they are televising. I delved into them today-- the way these detectives and reporters are delving into his possessions and home and grounds. What I found was a fascinating, brilliant man who seemed more sane and quiet and accountable than most of us. Brutal honesty... that seems the operative here.  For those who claim responsibility for extracting truths, dig a bit deeper, and God help them.