In Search Of The REAL Bonnie And Clyde

Author's note: This all started for me when I read about a book signing by Jeff Guinn here in Dallas. I was contemptuous because I saw it was a book about Bonnie and Clyde and it smacked to me after all this time of someone making an easy dollar off their fame and off their pain. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Several weeks later I see a special on Bonnie and Clyde and turns out their true story really has been obscured by both myth and misinformation and author Jeff Guinn's "Go Down Together" was a fine piece of work uncovering that story while taking no sides but the truth. But in that truth I found many tears. What cruelty has wrought this world.

I used all this as a stepping stone to document their local history and explore their story along with learning my video camera (hence the crude videos embedded). What follows is my retracing of their steps, of two kids who died in their early twenties whose biggest crime (of many) was not knowing they weren't supposed to live life.

NOTE: YouTube and Google don't play well together. To watch a video click on 'Watch On YouTube' link.
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You've read the story of Jesse James
of how he lived and died.
If you're still in need;
of something to read,
here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang
I'm sure you all have read.
how they rob and steal;
and those who squeal,
are usually found dying or dead.

There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
they're not as ruthless as that.
their nature is raw;
they hate all the law,
the stool pigeons, spotters and rats.

They call them cold-blooded killers
they say they are heartless and mean.
But I say this with pride
that I once knew Clyde,
when he was honest and upright and clean.

It's 1922 and you as a child are living in the squalor camps of West Dallas. Your family can't even afford a tent, you sleep under the horse wagon dragged in from the failed farm abandoned by your father. For most in the camps there is no way out: you're born, you suffer, you die. You are separated from the downtown skyscrapers you see by the vast earthen levees meant to keep the Trinity river from ruining the holy land. It's meant to keep you out too - for the very same reason.

There are two kinds of sin in this world and neither are ever forgiven: sin in the eyes of God and sin in the eyes of man. God wants you to live, to see your dreams fulfilled and your heart happy regardless of anything else. If you fail in this you will suffer without recourse. But the world does not tolerate the living, it cares not if your dreams are fulfilled or if your heart sings. And in tragic mockery if you fail to please it you will also suffer without recourse. From such things are the seeds of disaster sown.

But the law fooled around;
kept taking him down,
and locking him up in a cell.
Till he said to me;
"I'll never be free,
so I'll meet a few of them in hell"

The road was so dimly lighted
there were no highway signs to guide.
But they made up their minds;
if all roads were blind,
they wouldn't give up till they died.

The road gets dimmer and dimmer
sometimes you can hardly see.
But it's fight man to man
and do all you can,
for they know they can never be free.

From heart-break some people have suffered
from weariness some people have died.
But take it all in all;
our troubles are small,
till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

No human on this planet passes without asking this question: "For what am I living (or dying) for?" When Bonnie and Clyde started their bloody path they already considered themselves dead. What was left to do? The trick became to somehow find some life before the grim reaper came calling. If you place their lives in this perspective, many of their senseless acts become more understandable: there was no plan for the future because there was no future to be had.

Most people when told they don't deserve a life accept that and die. Bonnie and Clyde never understood why they should die. But when Bonnie wrote "till we get like Bonnie and Clyde" she shows an insight lost on most: that sooner or later a breaking point comes. If we truly believe society can be no better than this then we will implode, the price we pay for believing every life is not deserved. Slowly this truth is dawning on us here in the 21st century and our true faces revealed once and for all.

And no more will we have to listen to high talk of "how things should be". It will be death for the unholy grooms and brides.

If a policeman is killed in Dallas
and they have no clue or guide.
If they can't find a fiend,
they just wipe their slate clean
and hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.

There's two crimes committed in America
not accredited to the Barrow mob.
They had no hand;
in the kidnap demand,
nor the Kansas City Depot job.

A newsboy once said to his buddy;
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped.
In these awfull hard times;
we'd make a few dimes,
if five or six cops would get bumped"

The police haven't got the report yet
but Clyde called me up today.
He said, "Don't start any fights;
we aren't working nights,
we're joining the NRA."

Desperate times create desperate people. Who are Bonnie and Clyde if born a generation later? As a child, Clyde's greatest joy was music and his first stated desire for a profession was to be part of a band (he kept a musical instrument with him the rest of his life, a saxophone in the death car). Who would that kid be if he'd grown up with the opportunities the 50's? Bonnie also had a performer's mentality, dreaming of fame on Broadway. But like bloggers of today, her creative outlet was reduced to what she simply had on hand: writing.

Sadly, society takes no final responsibility upon itself - and that is the source of much bloodshed and oppressive despair that boils over. We're all in this together. Helping you is helping me. Making cops the criminals and the outlaws saints isn't going to solve anything. Yet we keep traveling down that road leaving a growing trail of human carnage, blaming the rock that hits us but never the force behind it.

After all, who killed Jesus? Was it merely the few Roman soldiers who drove in the nails? No one else touched him, right? Or was it the court system? Or was the true reality that all those who believed he should die carry blood upon their hands? So you see, you can never touch a gun and yet still be a killer just the same. I see Bonnies and Clydes in business suits, in Congress, in grocery stores, in churches and everywhere else. They may be safe from "the laws" of this world but not so much in the next.

From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
is known as the Great Divide.
Where the women are kin;
and the men are men,
and they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

If they try to act like citizens
and rent them a nice little flat.
About the third night;
they're invited to fight,
by a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

They don't think they're too smart or desperate
they know that the law always wins.
They've been shot at before;
but they do not ignore,
that death is the wages of sin.

Some day they'll go down together
they'll bury them side by side.
To few it'll be grief,
to the law a relief
but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
-Bonnie Parker, 1934
shortly before death

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Eastham Prison Farm: Genesis

"For the men, Changi was more than a prison.
Changi was genesis, the place of beginning again."

-James Clavell, "King Rat"

In the WWII Japanese POW camp of Changi, the guards had free reign to inflict whatever punishment they pleased upon the prisoners. For most prisoners it was a death sentence via overwork, malnutrition and on-the-spot executions at will. That was also the M.O. of The Bloody 'Ham of 1932 in the piney woods of east Texas. Or, as author Jeff Guinn called it: "the filthiest hellhole in the entire corrupt Texas criminal justice system."

Derelict and emotionally disturbed prison board members gave carte blanche to the predator guards who were as unaccountable as any Nazi guard at a concentration camp. Brutalizing prisoners in Texas was considered a moral construct which meant anything goes. To wit, per author Guinn:

[Psychopath] Lee Simmons agreed to become general manager of the prison system...[The sadist] especially [enjoyed] frequent use of "the bat", a leather strap anywhere from eighteen inches to three feet long...Greased for maximum velocity and striking power, it would be used to lacerate the bare back, buttocks, and thighs of recalcitrant prisoners spread-eagled face down on the ground...Every blow from the three-ply leather bat tore skin, ripped into muscle, and drew copious amounts of blood...The prisoner being beaten invariably screamed, lost control of his bowels and bladder, and finally passed out.

The goal was to make the idea of ever returning to prison an unthinkable idea to convicts. To the freedom loving Clyde they were highly successful - and the price for that was the lives of several lawmen and civilian casualties. Like everyone who thinks they can beat the sin out of someone prison officials only beat it further in. Then - as now - the goal of Texas prisons is to inflict harm as retribution, not rehabilitation. This was told to me by a guard I talked to outside his dorm at Eastham.

The old unit that housed Clyde

He told me about how Clyde was small and repeatedly raped in prison. Author Guinn assigns that crime to one we'll call the Monster. Clyde killed the Monster after another inmate agreed to take the blame. One swift blow with a lead pipe and Clyde made the world a better place. The guard told me they don't hold at all for rape anymore and he was insistent on that point. Whether he needed me to believe that because it's true or to cover up I do not know.

I asked him what kind of prisoners were held there expecting it to be low level offenders considering it was an open farm. He said they had all types: murderers, rapists, you name it. The guard also claimed the farm was self-sufficient with its crops, cows and hog farm. He went on to say many of the felons are also skilled craftsmen, manufacturing $10,000 saddles (each of the Bush anti-Christ Presidents has one) among other things. But it was the work detail back in Clyde's day that became a de facto death sentence.

Prisoners were expected to run to the work fields, some as far as two miles away (the predator-guards were mounted on horses). Twelve hours of grueling work interrupted only by a ten minute lunch then run back at the end of the day. Clyde had no hope of surviving his fourteen year sentence as he watched his body wear down. The reason the Eastham is called the bloody 'Ham is because of the number of prisoner self-mutilations to escape the doom of the work detail. Clyde chopped off two toes in his effort to survive, never to walk normally again.

But even facing all this, when a fellow prisoner Clyde had befriended was beaten for his escape attempt, Clyde did not clear out like everyone else, but stayed in support though he gained the ire of the guards. Loyalty to those who were kind to him or supportive was a trait from which he never wavered. Clyde scowled when guards gave him orders, refusing to surrender himself, never fitting in to a prison life he called "a burning hell".

Many are those who claim to be for "justice" and "victims' rights". But as Nietzsche said: "Beware of those in whom the will to punish is strong." Their true goal is to increase crime, to turn out prisoners who are angrier, meaner and harder than what they went in as, then to release them upon society to commit greater atrocities - and thusly "prove" the point for more prisons. But it's ironic that here in the Bible Belt we so conveniently forget the words of Jesus:

Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."

They also will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"

He will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

WARNING: American prison images contained in the video:

For good measure, I took a piss on the building

For the rest of Clyde's life he was bent on revenge on the Eastham brutalizers and their continuing injustices. In 1934 he was able to help engineer an escape of several prisoners, planting guns for them with Bonnie driving the getaway car.

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Life On The Run

"A good run better than a poor stand."

Buck Barrow, Clyde's older brother

For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car
skinned and even if my business hasen’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt
enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.
--Clyde's letter thanking Henry Ford.

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were dreamers who knew only one thing for certain: they wanted out. Out of the misery, out of the hopelessness and out of the soul consuming drudgery of dead-end jobs till death. Many people moralize about the couple's choice of a life of open crime, I shall refrain from that mistake. What made them heroes at first was their seemingly finding a way out of the hard scrabble meagerness of the Depression era and that was seen as a sign of hope. At that point of utter bleakness, anything would do.

What they did not have, however, was a place to run to. They basically looped through a circuit of states from Texas to Oklahoma to Missouri to Iowa to Arkansas and back. As a criminal, Clyde had little talent (except for car theft). But being a man on the run was his forte. An excellent driver who stole the fastest cars as well as a marksman who broke out Browning Automatic Rifles from local National Guard armories, he could both outrun and outshoot the pursuing police.

His favorite tactic was to cross state lines to escape the law's reach and he had no problem driving several hundred miles in a day even over the rough and rutted roads of the time. As their notoriety grew, they were forced to set up campsites off road, eating out of tin cans and sleeping in the car. While it's true they craved and enjoyed the finer things of life, they never truly achieved that goal except for some dress clothing.

Because they were running blindly ragged, most of their killings were pure happenstance and tragically needless. Gradually the noose tightened around them and they heard the ticking in their ears for when the clock would strike midnight. Yet their devotion to each other was absolute and they were determined to share their fate together. For in their own way they were "free" and that free air pumped life into their souls even as they bled in their life-and-death struggle.

Below I imagined myself on the run, scampering down a dirt packed road as fast as I dared, living on the edge.


 

Here's a small documentary about the Ford V8 and Bonnie and Clyde's relationship with it:

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"We rob banks!"

This line was used extensively throughout the 1967 movie and two days before their death, Clyde used it to impress a 16 year old boy who'd wandered onto their campsite. They offered him money or one of their guns as a token but the boy refused fearing he'd be arrested for it. Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd despised Bonnie and Clyde, seeing them as incompetent oafs stumbling through unplanned robberies; completely unprofessional. They were right for the most part.

But the duo loved the idea of the glamorous image of bank robbers for themselves. Much like now, banks were hated for their role in the suffering. (Unfortunately, they have only become more ruthless and we more accepting of their dastardly deeds. Only a nation of gangsters allows such a thing.)

Locally, only one bank of two still stands personally robbed by Clyde and Bonnie. That is in Ponder, Texas. The place is very much intact and even for sale:

This is your chance to own a little piece of history! The Historic Ponder Bank Building. As the story goes Bonnie and Clyde robbed this bank and it was featured in a movie. It still has the original teller cages and the bank vault. This building has overlooked the city square of Ponder for over a century. It would be the perfect spot for a business. The building has 2 baths and a small kitchen.

Price:$199,900

I'd love to own that!

Stuart, Iowa

In Pilot Point, north of the DFW area, Clyde and his motley crew planned to rob both banks in the town square at the same time. But a newbie member of his crew had cold feet and warned the authorities ahead of time. When the gang showed up at the appointed time, two Texas Rangers were in a car waiting for them. They never came back. The main Pilot Point bank is now an art gallery and the owner graciously allowed me to film inside. (The opening still of the video below is of the Lancaster bank no longer standing that the Barrow gang also robbed.)



The movie clip below shows them robbing the Ponder bank at the end.

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The Killings of Bonnie and Clyde

Rifle and modified shotguns used by the Barrow gang.
(Presently housed in the Texas Ranger museum in Waco)

"All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."

- Patton, 1944

Gee, maybe Bonnie and Clyde were just good patriots with their many shootings and killings (13 dead by the gang). Our gun crazy culture has made us by far the most violent western nation. And here we have two more who think they can find an answer at the end of a gun barrel. Many of the killings were senseless and stupid, done out of mindless panic. They are just sickening to read about. But Bonnie and Clyde weren't alone.

Prohibition gave rise to the gangster era and Tommy gun toting killers. We've been shooting like crazy ever since. There's something about the immediate feeling of power a gun brings that attracts Americans with an irresistible seduction. It feeds into a delusion of power, that as long as I have a loaded gun no man is my master. That's sort of like saying jumping off a building won't kill you; the statement is true - for a very short while.

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."

-Gandhi

Bonnie and Clyde sealed their fate with every killing. To them it was a kill-or-be-killed world, that's just part of the deal. Death in all its forms surrounded them and swallowed them up since birth. Starvation and denial create predators out of the once meek. The truly soulless ones do it through the system as they realize wealth can be stolen through the manipulation and exploitation of the weak. When that sort of behavior is rewarded, no wonder a crime spree like the Barrow gang's didn't seem like such a stretch in their minds. They just didn't know how to do it with a pen.

Some like to say no crisis is a real crisis: we've had them before and always come out OK, they allege. But like an addict who slowly succumbs to his addiction, the bouts run deeper and deeper bringing the disease to a head. America has been permanently crippled by her systemic greed and we're digging the hole deeper every day. This time though, no one is "fighting back" - not even with a crime wave. No one has the ethics to question the system, instead we say: "If you're dying it's because you deserve to die."

The note is wrong. Bonnie did pass the gun and Clyde
and two cohorts managed to escape - albeit briefly.
The escape attempt is what got his sentence maximized.

Ironically, it's because Bonnie and Clyde believed they deserved to live they embarked on their death trip for a few stolen moments outside our defined system of life. After the Joplin, Missouri shootout (you can still see the apartment garage to this day) undeveloped pictures by the gang were left in haste. It was with the release of these pictures of the them goofing around, posing and enjoying life that made Bonnie and Clyde famous and captured the public's imagination, still gripped by despair deep in the heart of the depression.

Yet, their time was short. The bad news is our own ways are also short. The good news is this is not the only way.

As we continue our death spiral, all hail the mighty gun as we go down in flames just like our deadly duo. The Lord is my Kalashnikov, I shall not want!



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Red River Plunge


On June 10, 1933, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Pritchard and family saw
from their home on the bluff (west) the plunge of auto into
Red River. Rescuing the victims, unrecognized as Bonnie
Parker and Clyde and Buck Barrow [actually it was not Buck
but W.D. Jones, a kid who worshipped Clyde], they sent
for help. Upon their arrival the local sheriff and police
chief were disarmed by Bonnie Parker. Buck Barrow shot
Pritchard's daughter while crippling the family car to halt
pursuit. Kidnapping the officers, the gangsters fled.
Bonnie and Clyde were fated to meet death in 1934. In this
quiet region, the escapade is now legend.
- Historical Marker by the bridge

Clyde's self-destructive edge would flare up at times and his overconfidence in his driving would prove costly in this disastrous wreck. The pair had odd streaks of luck. On one hand they had the worst kind of luck in pursuing their criminal careers but also amazing luck in escaping to live another day. The kidnapping of pursuing officers was a common tactic for them when they had the choice. In their minds, their shootings were always self defense. This would prove out to be one more example.

BAR gun clip and a glove of Bonnie's retrieved from the wreckage

I went to the site of the nightmare plunge and visited the Collingsworth County Museum in Wellington, Texas which holds these artifacts in a display case. They also had a stack of Bonnie and Clyde books labeled as being used by Jeff Guinn in his research. (Many county museums have unique artifacts like this. I was especially struck by a foreboding black SS jacket brought back from WWII. Locals donate these kind of items and you never know what you may find.)

Below I share my own video re-creation of the plunge and give details on just how horrific it was, for Bonnie in particular. For weeks they left a trail of bloody bandages.



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The Cowardly Ambush of Bonnie and Clyde

Don't get me wrong, Bonnie and Clyde had to be killed - both for their own sake as well as others'. But they were also made scapegoats for the larger ills of society. Sure, this violent pair was taken out so the all the decent law abiding people could be "safe" - decent as in having their sins legal! Goldman Sachs destroys more lives on a coffee break than all the damage Bonnie and Clyde did put together. Institutionalized violence is no less wrong in the eyes of God, only ours.

1934 was a bad year for outlaw gangsters. Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde and the rest all got killed, mostly by the biggest gangster of all: J. Edgar Hoover (I'll never forget laughing about a Congressman who was briefed on the true story of Hoover and then demanded Hoover's name be taken off the FBI building. Will never happen!) But the fate of our larcenous lovers came off pretty well, I thought.

True, they were given no warning (though they planned to), Clyde shot dead from the start. But what if he had been asked to surrender against clearly hopeless odds? I think he would have lied to himself, arguing he'd made it out of hopeless spots before. But seeing it as hopeless would have forced him to think of Bonnie and to realize that if he fired instead of surrendering that would be a death sentence for her. I wouldn't wish anyone to carry that for eternity.

Bonnie did not die right away but let out a blood curling scream at the sight of Clyde and the final realization doom was upon her. The lawmen said that scream haunted them for life - as it should have. Afterwards they divided up the booty in the car, selling it to collectors for personal profit. The Barrows asked for their son's belongings to be returned but only his saxophone was. They needed the money to the point that what little they did get back - Clyde's bloody pants - they cut up to fit the younger Barrow clan children, bloodstains and all.

Two of the weapons used by the ambushers. For once,
the law was determined to match Clyde's firepower.

So why do I say cowardly when I have no problem with the way the ambush went down? Because the ambushers were instruments - not of God and Justice but of a broken society. Could they ever have gunned down a banker like that? Does an oil speculator who crushes the lives of millions ever fear a bullet? Of course not, these hiding gunmen would have pissed their pants and whined like little girls at the thought of shooting the "legitimately" greedy; shooting someone of high social standing too much like shooting themselves.

So for all you professed law and order types, why don't we hang a few banksters from the yard arm at Wall Street and leave them hanging for all to see? Wouldn't that send the right message to not be greedy? Purity through penalties, no? So why this exception? Isn't one of the main arguments against Bonnie and Clyde is that they wanted to live well but take shortcuts? Uh huh, yeah - they were the only two in America ever guilty of that! And that's why we shoot the bank robbers and yet let the banks rob us blind - we all want a free ride here in the land of nothing free.

Historical Marker (defaced)

"I remember the next moments so clearly, it seems I am living them right now. All of us are concealed, but the car moving towards us is in view, at full speed, the only way Clyde ever drove. He has caught sight of the truck and appears already to be slowing. "This is him," I tell [fellow ambusher] Alcorn. "This is it, it's Clyde."
-Ted Hinton, Ambush, 1979

The logistics of the ambush were to have the father of Clyde's running mate Henry Methvin pose on the side of the road with his truck apparently broken down. He would not be suspected. (His motive was to gain amnesty for his son.) When the pair stopped to help, the ambushers unleashed their barrage of "about 150 shots". Right after the original deal for amnesty was made, Henry killed a police officer in cold blood just outside Grapevine, Texas but "the laws" wanted Bonnie and Clyde so badly they overlooked that faux pas in order to keep his father's cooperation.

Living hard, going down hard!

At the actual death scene, filmed by the ambushers five minutes after the killings:


We all died a little when they died.

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The Final Hypocrisy

"To what throwback in humanity or flaw in civilization
the world owes its Barrows and Dillingers can only be conjectured.
It is an evil outcropping whose example spreads and will
spread, until juries act sternly to convince the erring that
property and life are sacred and punishment speedy and severe."
Dallas Morning News laughatorial

Translation: Gosh, we'uns is jess too moralls to understanding the likes of bad folks!

The world is a criminal enterprise - filled with criminals and run by criminals. And when forced to face that we become very angry and vindictive because we know what that means for us in our heart of hearts as we squelch unspeakable thoughts. But just as a cop who steals a car because its owner has a dried plant in his pocket becomes a crook or a woman who has affairs with only married men becomes a thief of other's lives or those who say love is not enough become perjurers in the court of life, the fruits of our endeavors bring us either life or death regardless of how hard we claim otherwise.

All things which violate the natural order will in time vanish without exception. That is as it must be. Like a dam forced to hold back ever increasing water, mankind has built a wall between itself and the irrepressible order that must be set free. If we stay on our present path - if we continue to do nothing other than proclaim ourselves holy - then we will lose all say on our fate (like Bonnie and Clyde) just as we have no say over a burst dam as unleashed water washes away lives.

I find it highly ironic when I hear the fools and halfwits, the willfully ignorant and the deliberately deceitful declare with absolute conviction that we must build our dam always higher to "save lives" and "do the correct thing". More war, more power, more lies. But they are merely the voices of doom who wish us to join their fate. The true path to survival lays elsewhere, it lies in the releasing of the inevitably-to-be-released waters and never resorting to these ways ever again.

The future can only be ensured when we stop holding back that which cannot be contained: our love.

The shack Clyde's parents turned into a filling station.
Future owners called the condition of the home/filling station
to be "appalling".

The city fathers still keep an iron boot on west Dallas, now called La Bajada (the lower depths) because of its Hispanic community. Houses date back to the time of Bonnie and Clyde and the decrepit schools and decaying infrastructure are enough to make you ill (except for an underfunded designer bridge leading in to Dallas proper).

It's easy to spot the cut-throats: they are the ones spouting America as "the land of opportunity" (the super-disingenuous assholes say "Become an entrepreneur!"). You see, when you expound that myth it allows you to drive by places like La Bajada and blame their poverty on some inherent deficiency. We give them the worst of the worst and if they react poorly to it we point and say, "See? They deserve no better!"

I've heard liars say the Bible condones slavery. It does not. It merely says treat your slaves fairly. You know why? Because the weakness of man is to always enslave his fellow man, it has never stopped, not for a single day. The tens of millions of working poor in this country are actually less than slaves because we don't even acknowledge them as such. They are used and exploited, treated with such violence in nature that our future grows dimmer by the day.

America is going to experience a hell like never before and it will be a hell she crafted. Time will come when we wished we treated our slaves better because we're all to suffer the fate of our slaves in the end. We are a nation of future Bonnie and Clydes - and I can't help but laugh when we futilely claim the rule of money will save us. Good luck with all that!

"Gone but not forgotten" (at the bottom) was inscribed per Clyde's request

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Links and Notes:

"Go Down Together" The best Bonnie and Clyde biography.

"On the Trail of Bonnie and Clyde Then and Now" The ultimate guide to following their trail and sites associated with them. It's out of print now but the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco had one left when I was there!

Bonnie and Clyde's Hideout A website devoted to all things Bonnie and Clyde with tons of links and info.

A site dedicated to Blanche Barrow, Buck's wife. She got ten years for her part in the crime spree. She later wrote a book about that time. She offered many fascinating insights

The Ambush Museum in Gibsland, LA is curated by "Boots" Hinton, son of Ted Hinton who was one of the ambushers. He'll talk all things Bonnie and Clyde with you!

If Clyde were alive this day, he'd be 100, same as Reagan. Claims he was impotent or bisexual are false according to those who ran with him who testified he was in fact quite virile.

Newspapers were much more engaged during the Depression without the phony "objectivity" practiced to the point of blandness done today. Dallas County Sheriff "Smoot" Schmid was a Keystone cop with political ambitions causing him to overstate situations when it served him - such as confidently announcing he knew the killer of one his deputies in a botched stakeout. When the alleged killer turned out to be in Los Angeles, scorched reporters were not kind to the Sheriff's next guess, publishing the following headline:

"Pretty Boy [Floyd] Is New Suspect In Killing; Jesse James Next?"

The article went on to note that because Jesse James was dead he was "therefore practically eliminated from the search for the slayer of Deputy Sheriff Malcom Davis." [It was in fact Clyde who'd done the killing]. There were also other instances of pithy commentary inserted into stories such as when Clyde and his two fellow escapees from the Waco Jail were labeled as "three dumbbells". I assert if papers returned to these convictions it would reverse their fortunes (though they keep believing the opposite).

The Dallas Historical Society has an annual Bonnie and Clyde tour in May. Author John Neal Phillips (who also wrote a fine book on them) provides historical details along the way.

The 1967 "Bonnie and Clyde" film is often discounted by historians for its many factual inaccuracies. However, for conveying their spirit it was quite accurate and portrays the self-images the pair would have like to have had shown. And though glamorized to be watchable, I still find the film brutal as it's all done under a veil of despair and ultimate doom that is understood by the audience. The in-your-face violence only underscored the hellish nature of their plight and their careless killings.

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According to the Department of Justice, 216,600 prison rapes were committed in one year. All of them were preventable. That's tens of thousands of future Clydes to be put out onto the street with little prospect of employment. A nation's character is defined in how it treats its most vulnerable. Dear America, you're failing the test, both in our institutional prisons and in the prison of street life.

A recent study released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found "even in substantiated cases of staff sexually abusing inmates, only half of the abusive officials were subject to any legal action. Indeed, 15 percent of confirmed staff abusers were allowed to keep their jobs."

All I know is, you leave me to be raped for year, someone is going to fucking die and I pretty much don't care who it is. Texas isn't "tough on crime", it's tough on crime victims, glorifying evil. Spare me your tales of woe when you have your own hand in the making of the victimization. We're all in this together. Not admitting that doesn't make it any less true.

I guess I'm just not smart enough to figure out which people don't count.

Obama Negotiates With Hitler!

Many celebrities were on hand
for the press conference

WASHINGTON (AP) President Obama today unveiled what he described as "an historic agreement providing millions with relief from a fate no human being should ever face under any circumstances." Under the new agreement a "staggering" 33% reduction in the number of Jews sent to concentration camps was announced amid much fanfare and celebration. Many well-fed pundits declared this a stunning political victory for the White House.

Negotiations dragged on for the better part of a year, often turning acrimonious between Obama and what he termed "unrealistic progressives". The President's voice ringed with bitterness against those "who would make the perfect the enemy of the good" while lavishing praise on Republican Nazi dictator Hitler for reaching the compromise. As part of the deal the Obama administration agreed to forfeit the assets of all Jewish businesses and "run all the Jews out of Hollywood" for those allowed to remain free.

The President however did note that it would in fact be ideal to halt all Jewish death camps but "Gosh darn it, those Nazis just won't let us." Despite resistance from the Progressives Who Believe All People Deserve To Live party, many Leftists Who Sold Their Souls For Political Power were brimming with praise for the agreement. "With this reduction it will take vastly longer to extinguish the Jewish population whom I'd like to say are some of the finest people on the face of this earth. This agreement also allows us to give up and stop worrying about the death camps altogether as we allegedly promise to do something more about them at a later date. Haha!"

Republican Nazi leaders are reportedly "furious"
at what they call "unjust demonization" of the
death camps by "vicious hate groups".

When Republican Nazi leader Hitler was questioned about the agreement he feigned outrage and decried the "tactics of fascist implementation" over what he called America's core values. "That man has no right to take away my right to fuck people! His problem is he wants to give away our money to the Jews but I'm preserving America by taking it back for myself!" When asked about Obama's praise of him the maniacal madman emphasized the President "is a fucking useful idiot!"

When informed of his huge hemorrhaging in the polls after the bill's passage indicating a massive return to power for the Republican Nazi party, President Obama appeared chagrined and conciliatory to the Nazi butchers. "I just want to make it clear that I intend to work harder to reach across the aisle and enable my murderous colleagues." He admitted that no person or party "had a monopoly on wisdom. I would like to make it clear that I do not intend to take away anyone's right to fuck people as I fully support the American way of life!"

I's sorry, boss!

White House aides, stung by vehement Nazi criticism the President was a "Jew lover", are rumored to be working on a plan to "fuck the Jews royally. It's not like they count politically as long as nobody cares what happens to them." Naive pundits declared this a sly move on the President's part as he appears to stay above the fray while he cuts backroom deals in humiliating appeasement. Obama has long made it well known his goal to unite all sides onto the same page.

"I know I'm a good guy because I believe there's room for everyone, including the Republican Nazis. I respect their point of view, unlike the goddam Progressives with their complete lack of judgement. I am a pragmatic President, one who supports endless war, funding investment banks at the expense of the working class, leaving out-of-control greed unfettered, suspending civil rights and violating international law when it's politically expedient. Everyone should love what I do or the bad guys will win!"

----------------------------

14 Million Ways To Die

Maybe it was the smell of Emily's vomit that had everyone all up in knots. Funny how you clean that shit up but the smell don't leave. It was like casting a spell on us in that white-tiled yellow-walled anti-septic shelter TV psycho ward room, we all just sittin' there thinkin' the shit's never gonna get any better and we be livin' on the streets till they eat us up and leave us to rot and die. And for fucking what?

That's what I want to know, motherfuckers! For fucking what? Tell me what I did I gotta die for. Nobody wants to answer me. They got no answer worth tellin'.

An' I got this tooth that's killin' me I got no way to fix.

I guess we was all feelin' the same thing when this cracker family commercial comes on showing snowflake brats on this disney cruise with mommy and daddy smilin' like God's own. Jason looks over at me like he's readin' my mind.

"We ain't the lambs we pretend to be."

That set off a shit storm of everyone bitchin' and wantin' to know how they got the nerve to be puttin' brainwashing propaganda on our TV set. I walked out of the room and into the cold city night cuz I wanted to go to a place where nobody knows me.

That's when I got to thinking of the injustice of it all. Where be the justice? If it's here I sure as hell ain't seein' it. Maybe it's been a damn lie all along, there really ain't nothin' to fight for. Just one big illusion and good guys getting bad guys don't mean nothin' when they both the same and the bad guys runnin' the show up top anyways. God don't want no fucking justice then I don't want no goddam justice neither!

I'm dying here and I ask you again: for fucking what do I die you cocksuckin' motherfuckers!

Wish I could put this goddam tooth in you!

Speaking of vomit...

That's why you like sucking that dick isn't it bitch, so you can fill yourself up with lies. You pretendin', him pretendin' same time as we goin' down the drain never comin' back. Been hearin' it all me life: aint nothin' in this world worth livin' for but the jack and the crack. I thought there was something else. Now I can't figure out what it was...

It's not far and I'm passing by where the big shots live with walls of rocky hate between me and them. I'm wondering why they got what they got. They steal it legal with the white man's con? They got a million of 'em. Talk to this head shrinker once for 15 minutes and he wanted three C's for that! He had himself convinced he was worth that but that just mean him's the one what need his head fixed! They got scams wherever you go. The farther you climb out of the hole the more they want from ya and they got the guns and gall to back it up.

I'm never gonna go straight. Rodriguez came crawling back after they towed his van away. He was just getting by but he had no insurance card on him so they took his van, his tools, his whole fucking life. Know what the cops told him cuz he was working 60 hours a week? They tell him he got no responsibility! Work, don't work - don't matter. You end up in the same place anyhow.

And for fucking what? What does hard work get anybody you shit sniffin' fuckers? God damn you all to hell.

I can't live with this achin' tooth!

Your benefit package is death

Just kidding myself, ain't I? I'm holding on for what? Maybe it is all about the way of the gun. Bullets go in cops same as anybody else. What does that prove? Means we's all the same, just a matter of who fires the last shot. Right don't make might. Am I a sucker or not?

That's when I get my Glock and become a man of the world. You told me we get what we deserve. I deserve better so I'm gonna go get better.

I started where the pickins is easy at the Hotel Zaza Ritz fancy fuck. I seen them pull up in them cars costing more I ever made in my whole life. I'm thinking they don't need 'em much as I do. I slide my way in, waitin' for the chance and I see this R8 pull in I just got to have! I come screaming out the bushes scaring off the valet and the squealin' bitch drivin' it. I go screeching out of there and I got to tell you it was the best feeling of my life!

That's when I KNEW I deserved better, feeling that engine rushing under me going down the road. Ain't nothing like I ever felt before! I figured lojack would be tracking me so I headed outta range to the country. Was 200 miles before I stopped and I was a changed man. How do I go back to thinking I deserve nothin' again? How do I tell myself pushin' that broom down the office lobby is the way to go?

The lie is dead - just like justice. They told me I was holding the "social fabric" together carrying them soul scorchin' crap jobs on me back but really it was me bein' the puppet to make the bad guys' lives good. Fuck that shit. I got just as much right drivin' this car as their sorry asses ever did. Maybe more since I been workin' all my life, takin' all the shit. What they ever do to deserve anything more than me?

I'm out on Highway 80, gassing up at this Valero station in some tiny twat town I don't even know the name of. I'm thinking to myself: "There's 14 million ways to die and no way to live." Which way do I go? Can't go back to bein' a slave. Can't go forever in a car cops want back for their real bosses. Man, them cops is just prison bulls on the outside.

I park off to the side, smelling leather that fill you up like a dream. The dash is all lit up like nothin' I ever saw, like a giant Swiss watch, and I can tell them people who made this was wanting to make it the best it could be. At the shelter, we just get the blankets nobody else wants and the cheapest of everything. Damn, do I like this world better. No wonder they do what they do to keep their lives like this, free from all the pain and vomit smells. Seein' them blow people up aroun' the world makes a whole lot more sense now. They' playin' for keeps.

That's what they's fighting for.

But who's gonna free me from this killing tooth?

What have I got to fight for? I can't stay in this R8 world I'm sitting in. There just be me. I gotta fight for me. Yeah...that'll piss 'em off. Just don't be like them. That will kill them in the end cuz they won't be able to stand it. It'll eat 'em all up and devour 'em - just like they left for to happen to me. Maybe that's their way of showing their soul. Maybe there's the justice.

I'm angry. I'm killin' angry. But I'm keeping my soul for now. But can't say it always gonna be like that...

"I Can't Have You Videotaping Here, Sir"

If ever there was an event made for Dallas it would be the Super Bowl. Dallas is a city that loves to whore itself out to the most glamorous god it can find and the Super Bowl is the most glamorous sporting event there is in the good ol' US of A. Salivating Dallasites were all in a lather at the prospect of hoisting their skirts and show off what fine panties we have to offer. Local big shots were giggling like a virgin on prom night.

The NFL takes over the host city's stadium, ruling it with an iron fist. Ticket distribution, seating, media participation is handed down according to how the league wants it. Going on 45 of them, they know exactly how they want things to be and they hit town like a 1965 Beatles tour with everyone rolling over to feed the excess. That naturally sort of irked me.

Preparations started weeks before the Big Game. I took some (unwelcome) video around the stadium at that time. Everyone was stopping and taking pictures. One woman just stopped her car in the street and whipped out her camera. We were all gawking at our Jerry Jones Christmas tree sure to impress the world ant the hundreds of millions of anticipated viewers. Forget Santa Claus! The Super Bowl is coming to town!



------------

Saturday's crowd

Getting the ESPN crew for downtown Forth Worth's Sundance square was considered quite a coup by the city's leaders. ESPN checked out both Dallas and Forth Worth for locations and found this one to be ideal. Downtown Fort Worth has been revitalized by the billionaire Bass brothers over the last two decades, transforming it into a welcoming mixture of both old and new.

The unexpected frigid weather put a huge damper on ESPN's plans, forcing the radio personnel to move inside, requiring crews to work through the night to get cumbersome equipment moved. The sports station was not discouraged however as they found the convenience for food and lodgings so inviting they sounded like a return engagement was fine by them.

When Saturday finally came with good weather, fans poured in - but I was long gone. I came on the two coldest days while the crowds were sparse to say the least. This allowed me to get as close as possible. A few brave fans also had a great chance to get on camera with the piddling amount on hand for the camera to pan. Everyone wanted their few minutes of fame.


------------

The NFL Experience is a traveling carnival started in the mid 90s as an attraction during Super Bowl week. Dallas had hoped to set an attendance record with 250,000 but the cold weather was setting records of its own. Set up in the Dallas Convention Center it covered over 850,000 square feet, the NFL shop consuming 30,000 square feet on its own. The Experience lasts through game day with the shop staying open an extra two days presumably to sell the champions' gear.

On Thursday night was NFL After Dark from 9 PM to midnight for adults only with the reduced admission price of $15. I definitely recommend it though I think the crowd was down due to the slick roads. I would have liked to have seen more Hall of Fame stuff and other rare artifacts instead of commercial displays. Not like I'll be making a trip to Canton any time soon so this was my one shot for viewing pieces of football history.

Overall the NFL experience was a good experience. It's not something for the jaded to attend but I think it's a great thing for kids who want a taste of the NFL but without the huge price tag that usually comes with it.



----

With all the strange weather and grumbling by the visiting media the omens did not portend a favorable game day event. But the sky was clear before the game and the sun was a welcome sight. I think everyone was relieved for game day to come at last, to get out of the house and soak up the fun. I got no ill vibes at all as I transported myself through the crowd, even between opposing fans.

Unfortunately the rest of world found out what I already knew about Dallas: we love the glitz but hate the grunt work. Reality is so inconvenient (see Trinity River levees decay). 1,200 temporary seats were sold but not constructed by the time the game rolled around. There was mass confusion on how to handle this. The NFL holds back 800 tickets for emergency situations and they ended up using every single one of them. However, that left 400 fans missing out on the trip of a lifetime for some. There is no compensation for missing your lifelong team in the Super Bowl.

The Party Plaza fans who paid 200 a pop were left hung out to dry as well. Though thousands of tickets were sold, entry was delayed for hours - for some past the first quarter - due to an inadequate number of screeners. Reports of people literally pissing their pants waiting in line were common. Concession stands ran out of beer and since they had no stadium access the attendees were forced to endure the freezing rain coming down during the second half.

The game was great at least. I didn't want Pittsburgh to rack up anymore championships so I was rooting for the Pack. Steelers fans after the game were down right pissy as they had relished the chance to celebrate on the Cowboys' home field. Try throwing to guys with the same color jerseys if you want to win.

The event organizers were left with a lot of black eyes and hopefully if they get the chance to host another game they will be more mature and seasoned in their approach. There's more to logistics than just sucking up to people (the forte of Dallas glitterati). Despite the incredible snobbery built in to the whole thing, it was still kinda cool to see the Super Bowl up close. But if it never comes back again I won't be that disappointed.

My Heavy Medal

Dearest ones,

I'm not who you think I am.

It's my birthday today and every passing one gets lonelier and lonelier. When will I speak? When will I tell them? In my heart, I know I'm a fraud for their accolades, and oftentimes I try tell myself it's OK if I just never say anything. But it's not. Not in the middle of the night when you're screaming out like a drowning man.

They say war time reveals a man's true character, that ordinary souls can emerge as great heroes having been given the chance to prove their merit. I can tell you this is very true. I witnessed these men, so sure of themselves and free in their bravery. The part about a coward dies a thousand times is true as well. I'm living proof of that.

But now I'm dying like never before. Night and day have become one as I perpetually seek solace and rest. Why couldn't have I just died on that scorching day of the burning sun of eternity? Why did the good Lord save a coward like me? My continuing life must be a punishment, a penance for allowing myself to be included with the truly brave. No one understands why I don't want to go to the veterans' reunions. They actually think I'm being modest! But the pain of pretense stabs my heart in the presence of those men who recall the war without shame.

Some guys still won't speak about it, what the Japanese did, tearing off body parts, attacking in the night, fanatics who'd lost all reason. Those who weren't there don't understand: seeing those men ordered on death rushes with their bayonets into our machine guns shook our very souls. Sure they were easy to kill but the sight of it left you wounded. What if I had been born over there? Does human life mean nothing in this world? Where's the hope?

I have a thing about keeping my hair washed. I know that sounds like a small thing in the human scale of life but in my mind on that hellish Pacific island wrought from God's angry wrath it became my holy grail of salvation. But we couldn't wash anything in that fucking mud pit. I was one big grime ball and I felt entombed in a suffocating skin from which I could not escape. Secretly I'd clean my hair best I could out of my helmet even if the rest of me was filthy. That was my only connection to sanity. I never told this to anyone before, it sounds so absurd to the unititiated.

The rest of the time I was lost. All I could think about was my trapped skin and I never knew what the right decision was. I just looked to the guy next to me and did what he did - and prayed he was right. People talk of the fog of war but for me it was pitch black. I wanted out of there. That's not a world where I can survive. Them other guys knew what to do, not me. They all believed a man has to kill to be a man. I could never fully reason that.

Finally, I saw my opportunity to die. It was a beautiful lie! Two pill boxes on a mountainside were arranged to give covering fire to the other. We were getting ripped to shreds trying to approach them. This was before we had the flamethrower tanks to clear them out. Since we were pinned down, this allowed the Japs to know just exactly where we were for artillery strikes. That was my breaking point.

I couldn't take anymore but I didn't have the courage to run away. I know those other guys were scared too but something inside allowed them to hold on. I couldn't let them know that wasn't inside of me so I decided to make a fatal charge to the left side pill box with a grenade in my hand. Everyone would see it as a brave, heroic act and I'd be revered and honored and spoken well of in death, my true cowardice hidden forever. The perfect plan!

But whatever bastard God of cruelty exists in this world wasn't going to let me off that easy. I miraculously made it through unscathed, perhaps because the Japanese couldn't believe their own eyes - I'll never know (you've all heard my theories on this). I dropped in the grenade to disable the pill box which allowed the rest to surround the remaining pill box and break through out of the artillery fire. The zero was now a hero. For trying to commit suicide I got the Medal of Honor. It's hung around my neck like a cursed bowling ball ever since.

The real irony was in the mop up operations of the island I got shot in the leg by a sniper, taking me out of combat duty for the rest of the war. That allowed my reputation to be sealed as a "genuine hero" and with every pat on the back it beat the life out my soul. At first I tried to tentatively explain to people I hoped might have an understanding ear. But people want war heroes to be true too much to listen, it's like a shortcut to sainthood: one brave act and you're set. All the time I was on the front lines I dreamed how great it would be to be a war hero, the ultimate person. If only I had died...

"He's not scared of anything, are ya Grandpa?" I hear the grandkids bragging about me to their friends. I just let the whole thing go on until it took over my life. I married a woman I didn't like as retribution for dishonoring the true heroes who deserved good wives. I like it that she hates and loathes me. No one suspects how a great war hero can ever despise himself. You see, I'm surrounded and yet so utterly, utterly alone.

But I am scared, sentenced to a prison of fear. What storms of protest would occur if they saw my true face? I'd be forever ostracized, politely tolerated, a living death. Some have tried to seduce me into thinking my act was brave and at times I can almost buy it - until I start to breathe again. My living shame knows the truth of me and will not let me forget. The Fates suckered me again with that cute nurse at the hospital, talking me out of my decision to decline the medal. I'd have been a free man if I'd done that! But I wanted to impress her and for what? I was never going to mean anything to her. Idiot!

I've never been able to face who I am. Even before the war I drifted through odd jobs avoiding real relationships, making no commitment to my life. I guess that's what's done me in, that lack of commitment. Funny how decades can pass and seem like no time at all. I watched movies on con men looking to pick up tips, making the lie my life's work. Now I see like a furry rodent I've been swallowed whole by a snake as I slowly got sucked in over the years.

I clench my fists all the time now, waiting for another trick from my old enemy God to out me and bring my final ruin. The wife chides my clenched fists and worrying ways. She's terrified her image of me might be a false one, that I purchased her love with counterfeit currency. That I did, lady. But who's going to love me if I don't lie? But I can't imagine feeling more lonely than if I were at the bottom of a lost well, all connections severed forever.

Time has come once again to seek freedom through death. I'm so sorry. All those lies. Hands offered in warm friendship I ran away from in guilty terror. Those hands don't come anymore, it's over now. My true love, whoever she was, is lost to me. The sheer insanity of it all, where does it end? I can't go on living in these dark corners. Both truth and lies condemn me. I leave you this note as an explanation and that by my death you will see the truth of it. Sometimes that's the only way anyone will hear you.

The coward Casey Jones

CODA: God struck again. The pills failed to kill me. I woke to the sight of my daughter holding this note and staring directly into my eyes. I started screaming uncontrollably, "death screams" as someone called it later. It was as if I'd released the entire ghostly terror of the war. But my daughter had not come to kill me. She had tears in her eyes. You know what she said to me? That I was "very brave" to have written this note. Very brave. The tears of a lifetime came streaming out of me as uncontrollable as the screams had before. I never knew such love was possible. Thank the Lord God is smarter than I am.

---------------------------------------

In Which I Piss EVERYONE Off!

All this shit in Egypt going on now reminds me of the time I had a conversation with a Middle Eastern terrorist. Them some touchy people! But that is what happens in countries where they don't allow Baywatch episodes to be aired.

------------------------------------------------

"I tell you earth is flat! Flat as pancake!"

"OK, whatever."

"You not hear me? Earth is flat! You must believe, infidel!"

"Call me whatever you want."

"Non-believer must die! Must prove you are believer!"

"Prove I'm not."

"You must say earth is flat!"

"Earth is flat..."

"I don't believe you!"

"Me neither."

"You must die! You disrespect great Allah!"

"Allah's fine with me. You - not so much!"

"I strap on bombs. Kill you and all your family."

"Gotta go sometime."

"You cannot deny my power!"

"Just did."

"Allah will get you!"

"I thought you just said it was you who was going to get me."

"Allah will get you through me!"

"How can I tell the difference?"

"Because I tell you!"

"Well, I don't believe you."

"You must believe me."

"OK, this is where I came in. Blow me up if you have to. Gotta go now."

"You must get angry first. Then I blow you up. You wait and see!"

I smiled and waved. He stewed and spat. That boy don't need explosives to die. He's headed for a heart attack anyway.

---------------------------------------

Sometimes, you just piss everyone off. That's a bad thing? Heck, not even wars piss everybody off. So I decided to do the one thing I thought would easily unite all my fellow man: hating me. Wasn't that hard.

"Hey, you there, stop that!"

"You fucking freak! Go do that in your own backyard!"

"He's just doing that for attention, right here in the town square just to show off!"

"Doing that doesn't prove a damn thing. You really think that makes you a man? Anyone can do that!"

"This sort of fascist behavior has got to go! Don't be telling me how to live my life!"

"That's not helping you, doesn't mean anything, and is completely useless. So stop it!"

"I understand where you're coming from but your life should be spent sending letters to Congress to make the world a better place. All you're doing is making yourself feel better. That doesn't count for anything!"

"This proves all hippies are losers!"

"I hate you. Really, I just hate seeing you do that. Did I tell you I hate you?"

"That's just being silly. Everyone's going to make fun of you. Put your hands back in your pockets. I'd rather die than have you for a boyfriend!"

"Does your mother know you're doing this?"

"Aren't you frustrated doing that? You must be frustrated. I'm getting frustrated just looking at you!"

"What a complete waste of energy. You know if you put the same amount of energy into something constructive as you do this bullshit you just might accomplish something. This will get you nowhere. It's as if you expect everyone to behave just like you do and that's not going to happen. There's no bigger waste of time than telling other people how to behave in an unsolicited manner. So quit wasting my time, you fucker!"

What was truly funny was that the longer I did it, the angrier everyone got, a firestorm of debate sweeping across the country. All those red faces! So helpful in enlightening me! But finally real life intruded and I needed to pause in my endeavors. My, uh, supporters were ecstatic.

"At last, you're listening to reason! About damn time!"

"Actually, I'm just going to get a bite to eat then I'll be back!"

"If we ever catch you doing that again we will KILL you! I've never hated anyone so much in my life as I do you right now."

Gee, I never thought doing this would piss everyone off that bad. Man, people sure are uptight nowadays!

--------------------------------

Breaking News: Nazi Party Dissolving!

Berlin (AP) Nazi Party leader Adolph Hitler was found walking the streets of Berlin nude early yesterday morning while also carrying a woman's brassiere. Early reports from investigators quoted Mr. Hitler as claiming to have "locked myself outside naked and needed to get to my other house." No explanation is given for the bra at this time. The incident has caused disarray and widespread defections to the once all powerful political party.

Mr. Hitler and his ruling Nazi party have made a meteoric rise to power. Previous to this incident polled approval ratings were at 86% and the leader was widely hailed as a savior to a country decimated by war and the ensuing devastating economic consequences. A visionary speaker who'd gained the trust of millions, Mr. Hitler is now suffering an equally stunning backlash.

As one Nazi soldier explained: "I was rounding up Jews to be raped, tortured and murdered at the concentration camps when I heard about this. How disgusting! Does the man have no morals?"

Nazi armbands are reported to have been discarded by the tens of thousands. One former party member complained of constant harassment. "People were whistling at me in mockery, asking me if I was wearing a bra. As if I'd do anything so sick! And they do this after we invaded Poland for them!"

Investigators are still trying to determine the reason for the autocratic leader's nude foray through the city. Those who witnessed the sojourn were shocked and repulsed. "His butt was gross and covered in zits," was the reaction of one young woman. "It's enough to make me think starting his war was a bad idea after all."

Others were outraged and worried of the damage done to their children's psyche. "I put my boy in the Hitler youth to make him a fine, upstanding and powerfully corrupt person," lamented one mother. "But walking around publicly nude is the height of irresponsible behavior and I just don't know how I'm going to explain this to my son who was first in his Jew hatred class."

Formerly high party official Heinrich Himmler has been in a doctor's care since the incident, frantically claiming, "It's all a Jewish conspiracy just like every other problem! It's not like the Führer is evil!" Mr. Himmler has remained on heavy medication due to deep depression. "We had so many plans, so many dreams! We'd have ruled the world! Millions dead and gone, wiping out anyone who stood our way, taking all their resources and instituting our will! How glorious to have taken Iraq! One step outside naked and the world is lost."

New World Order Is Here - You're All In It

Sitting in a rich man's garden,
waiting for the sun;
Dreaming lovely lies
of life in the world to come.

---------------------------------------------------

It was the biggest "Oh, shit!" moment in history. Two angels descended from the stars with what they called the Final Button and if pushed would end the world. They said the decision would be up to one person - and that person turned out to be homeless. That's when the "Oh, shit!" went out.

Job offers came flooding into the man but he refused them all because he said he'd never be free. Straight up cash was offered but he refused because he didn't want anything he didn't earn. Panic turned to outrage on this impossible-to-please man. There was talk of assassination but the angels assured that would cause the button to be pushed without recourse.

Suddenly, the world seemed a useless place. Finally it was decided to ask the man what he wanted (though that line of thinking went against their grain). The miserable soul replied, "I want my dreams." This, they knew, they could not give him - nor could they allow a world where the money-less were free to pursue life. But they pretended otherwise in their response:

"Fuck you and your selfish dreams expecting everyone to live and die according to how you think things should be. The money way is the only way. The money way is the only responsible way. We've all agreed to be slaves to money to get the things we want. Be a slave or die, bitch!"

But that was the speech he'd heard all his life. The Man With No Home was prepared with an answer. "You've got it backwards: it's be free or die - bitch!" And he smiled as he pressed down.

-------------------------------------------

In World War II, planes landed on isolated islands that had never seen such technological wonders before. Afterwards when the military had moved out the islanders created bamboo mock ups of the planes and worshiped them as idols. (Though children born after the planes landed scoffed that they ever existed and were but merely products of fantasy. Funny how "realists" are so often out of touch with reality.)

But the natives also heard stories of the rule of money: of how those with it ruled the world without question and those without it suffered in perpetuity. This too filled the villagers with great awe and they asked to see an example of such a powerful god. A dollar bill was left with them which they enshrined in the sturdiest hut they could build where the faithful would come to wonder how the magic ink made this paper so omniscient on life.

Again, a bamboo copy was made, but only one being allowed. (Those who made "illegitimate" copies were crucified.) A religion was developed claiming the side showing the head meant life and therefore the opposite side meant death. With great solemnity periodic purges were conducted - more frequently if times were bad - to purify the population according to the all knowing god. It gave great comfort to the people to know they had such access to the divine!

High priests who claimed to understand the dollar more than most would dress in green leaves stained with garbled, black letters. Their leader was given the title "Washeengtun" and it was he who blindly tossed the relic before the feet of each islander pressed to stand before him. "Heads" the islander lived, "tails" he died. If times were bad and many deemed to die in the purge, wise men nodded in agreement as to the cause of their ills.

Those granted the approval for life gloried in their fate. "God loves us above all! It is we who are divine and allowed to survive! The true god has spoken!" So much did they treasure this false accreditation that they never spoke (and in fact it was considered treasonous blasphemy) of the fatal drawback to worship of the money god: that sooner or later the odds would deem each man to die. But the madness only increased their fanaticism.

Ultimate reverence was given to those who died at the hands of the money god, their names spoken in hushed whispers and so perverse did the islanders become that when a man was decreed to die he was slapped on the back for the "honor" of sacrificing for the great god, of keeping their society alive and unquestioned. And though their misery grew they hoped that by staying the course their devotion would surely be rewarded. It was: they all died.

But as luck would have it, the last man standing - the high priest himself - was visited by a return of the flymen in an emergency landing on the island's leftover airstrip. His dying words as he held out the bamboo dollar were, "There is no God."

The airmen looked at him in disgust. "You idiot. Just because there's no God in money doesn't mean there's no God."

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Hitler never died. A double was killed in his place as he was whisked away by Allied forces and secreted into a windowless chamber deep in the American Rocky mountains. It was there he was grilled night and day on his methods for gaining power and co-opting followers into doing the most heinous of acts. The madman told them many factors played into his ascension but on this were all things built:

"Tell them they do good when they do evil and that they do evil when they do good. Be relentless! Shout them down with fury when they protest. Crush their will and prove solidarity is on your side. Harbor no doubt in your convictions and that strength alone will attract the most blindly fanatical of followers, craving to be released from responsibility. Promise them a New World Order where they will be kings."

Men of worldly wisdom heard these precepts and found great value in their disdain. Retaining power sanctioned all methods pure and it was asked of the failed leader what Big Lie could be derived from the war so that the self-proclaimed good guys remained masters. "Tell them the war proved murder can be moral." But he also warned against those who would realize that in fact the age of war had ended. These dreamers would ignite the populace into hope. "Kill them."

"You cannot oppress a people forever. They must oppress themselves. Betray their trust at all times - then use that as an excuse to take power. Fire them from their jobs then chastise them for not working. Tell them freedom is the true enslaver and must be stopped at all costs. In this way they will fear themselves and through that fear control will be maintained. Hardest part is trying not to laugh."

"Make the religion simple: That which makes money is good, anything that impedes it is bad. Like Sauron of old my spirit has no body but I can still rule! Behold the rise of the Nazi dollar! Every day it's higher as it squeezes out the life and fuels the rage. None dare stand before it. None dare question it! Embrace your doom while pretending paradise. I will have my revenge!"

Slowly the silent Hitlers injected their master's poison into the mainstream well, tilting the world to their favor, bending minds. The jobless feel guilty. The money-less feel treasonous. The powerless feel worthless. Everyone felt stupid but assumed "It's only just me" as communication broke down. Anyone caught being unhappy would be ostracized as it was trusted that only by one's own hand can woe come - smirked those who brought the woe.

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It is said we are in what is called the Great Recession. But that is our choice. Believing it is not a choice makes it no less a choice. There are plenty of houses for everyone. Enough food, clothing and medical care to let no person suffer needlessly. This suffering we endure is self-inflicted. Just what exactly is it we are serving?

Day Of The FUBAR

Lies have no consequences? We shall see!

everything smells putrid and used up...i had no idea mere smells could so devastate a person...the rotting end of a race come at last...i never thought the fubar'd man would be me - i guess that's why i let it happen

we're dying and we can't stop it...it's like our spirits are bleeding and we can't plug the hole...tears pouring out to the point of dehydration...what can be done?...where lies hope now?...nobody dares speak another untruth...suicides of limp rapists skyrocket...naked people walking into the streets with their arms held out looking for a hug...every night chilling screams both near and far spread like a virus...churches overflowing in pointless prayer, begging to be let off the hook...demonic children setting fires in retribution for the world into which they've been thrown...police disbanding orders forever...empty, open mouthed looks of vacuous pain from souls who can no longer speak, as if their heads have been caved in...shrews screeching in the day, searching for someone to blame but finding only themselves, slapping their faces in disgust...liars no longer heeded are aching for their tents to be attended once more...gone are the days when man decides what's profitable, he has abrogated his throne...it's bad, it can only get worse, and we wrought it all with our own bare, stubborn hands...it's the Dawning of Reality too late

A bleeding planet

a few turn to love...realizing we've only each other now - as has always been...no mighty military, no amount of money, no manipulation of the truth can bring us a future...we apologize for destroying the chance given to us by Nature...we were once spirit beings before these fleshy beings...why did we consume ourselves?...no one can see a reason for the madness now...what was the point of choosing death?...it was so much fun wasting our lives and never paying the rent due...give thanks for the ruling on our fate...those who poisoned the well must drink their own water...Nature preserves herself in the end and returns us to the correct order...that's all we truly ever wanted, that peace...we believed we were too evil to let love reign...but the truth is-

You don't have to believe it for it to be true!