Shooting the Ghost

This last chat with Chris is also the last in the present Shooting the Ghost series, ending with a philosophical chat on the devil, Christ, God, the nature of goodness and evil, and the purpose of existence.

Song by Holly Golightly: "Jesus Don't Love Me"

A girl locked in a room, the prisoner of love.

An ex-stripper. She was desperate to take her child away from “the life.”

A Sicilian mobster. He would do anything to prevent his son from being taken away from him.

The son: an innocent pawn caught by an unfathomable design, in a tug of war between the forces of Light and Darkness!

(How dysfunctional can one family get?!)

The driver: he brought her food; he tried to mind his own business.

Just leave the food and go. Don’t talk to her. Don’t listen to her. Don’t look into her eyes.

“Help me,” she said. Two words were all it took.

He was a sociopath. A man without a conscience. When she turned to him for help, he couldn’t turn away.

He risked everything to help her.

He’s been on the run ever since.

Opening song, "Snake-Eyed" and closing song: "Devil Do," by Holly Golightly.

Continuing tales of Chris’ nomad life – Chris talks about his tattoo-bonded male group, the designated crew, and about what finally got Chris out of “the life” (unwittingly bringing a friend to his destruction); Hell’s Angels as a “security force;” how he is always fighting a war; Chris’s grandmother, a powerful matriarch in an apron; how Chris had to kill cats and use the dead bodies to keep up the outhouse; how he fell into mob mentality and participated in the torture of cats; the house with 700 cats in it; how Chris went home one time and a family member asked him: “Would you kill me for money?” On the danger of being asked to help to whack someone: if you say no, you might get whacked yourself. The tale of the prodigal son; how Chris threw his sister’s husband down the stairs; Chris’ inability to cut his family ties and how blood is thicker than water; the need for a connection to the ancestors; the black era; Chris’ job in the slaughterhouse.

Opening and closing song: “Snake Eyed,” by Holly Golightly.

Today we venture with Jason into the shadowy underworld of Chris's careening criminal career. Chris's language is blunt and he lays it all out with matter-of-fact aplomb – the scams, the violence, the circulation of stolen goods, drugs and counterfeit money. Although he claims that he was never ambitious, his career trajectory elevated him to circles of association with two of his country's most notorious organized crime operations and their leadership. Although Chris describes his fear compellingly, he notes the step-by-step process by which the perceived benefits of each assignment outweighed his reservations – chief of which was the kudos he received from his peers and his pleasure at being accepted within his circle of rough men.

We continue exploring Chris's childhood- a toxic mixture of firearms and fire water- it confirms the old idea that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Before his mother ran off and his father died he spent a lot of time with his uncles. His mother had eight brothers, the youngest of which wasn't much older than him and they took him out hunting and trapping and taught him how to skin a rabbit. They were all bad alcoholics and when they went to the bars they took him there too, regularly joining them in beer drinking at tender age of 8 years old. Not much later he joins his uncles in smoking grandma's homegrown weed in the living room. When his Uncle Pete decides to end his life he convinces his 7 year old son to pull the trigger. The wound wasn't fatal though it did lead to a frontal lobotomy and he wasn't the only uncle to get a lobotomy. His father was never around much before he died- always on the road. Chris tells of how he caught his wife writing anonymous love letters to his brother. Chris's criminal life started with B & E's and stealing snowmobiles. Later he adopts John Wayne as his surrogate mentor- the hero who saves the day (unaware that it was him that needed saving?) He shares his story of how he was diagnosed as a sociopath and locked down in a psychiatric ward for 18 months. What are the negative side effects of living in a civilization that suppresses primal instincts? Is it possible for the "bad man" to function in the role of protector and avenger? Is schizophrenia a cultural construct with similar mind frames accessed through the psychedelic experience and shamanic practices. But more importantly- with a background like his, how could he not embody an archetype; how could he possibly fit himself into our ordered and predictable consensus reality? Music- "Run Cold" by Holly Golightly. Let her rip!

Follow-up discussion with ex-mobster and wild one Chris; starting with Chris' experienced of being struck by lightning not once but twice, covering Chris childhood on a tobacco farm in Ontario, the death of his father, having his first child at 16, hitting the road on a motorcycle at 18, and his early life of crime.

What factors contribute to form the mind of a sociopath? What permits us to take the moral high-ground and judge the actions of another when our own circumstances fail to match theirs? How do we know what we are really capable of, under the right conditions? What permits us to draw a clear-cut line between criminal and "civilized" behavior, between sanity and psychosis? Just how closely aligned are the qualities we know of as heroism, and those we diagnoses as psychopathy?

Opening song, "I Hear You," by Holly Golightly.

The latest episode entails a whole new departure for Shooting the Ghost, as we enter the underworld to meet Chris, a living, breathing wild man. Nomad wanderer, tobacco farmer, carpenter, father of five, ex-Hell’s Angel and mob collector, Chris also just happens to share a birth date with Sam Peckinpah—say what? Meeting up by sheer chance, the podcast is hurled far from the realms of movie psychopaths and fantasy anti-heroes, into the down and dirty trenches of reality. Of all the podcasts I’ve worked on, shooting the Ghost or weathering the Storm, this latest has proved the most surprising, the most deeply disturbing and yet also the most satisfying. Impossible to sum up and do justice to it, so I won’t even try. This one has to be heard to be believed—but even then, there will be doubters.

In Part Two of the discussion with Keith and Phil, Keith talks about his father. His father's rebellion against the established order and the connection to the wild he established at an early age through annual trips he took with his father into the remote wilderness. The unique bonding experience that this provided and how this may have had a lasting impact on Keith's ability to participate in groups outside mainstream culture by providing a viable model. The authentic utility of a tough, "manly", more primal persona in order to protect and shield the sensitive and vulnerable artist within. The coarse, brutal persona as a technique to protect one's poetic integrity. The difference between living in the head and living in the heart or the body. Peckinpah's rebellion against the Hollywood System and how he was blacklisted. The difficulty of remaining upright while working within a System that wants you flat on your back or on your hands and knees. The fascinating parallel between the story presented in the Wild Bunch and Sam and his dog brother actors and their refusal to be integrated into the Hollywood System. The natural man vs. the overly sophisticated intellectual/artist. Brando's belief that acting is not a manly thing to do. Peckinpah's mini-consensus as a threat to the System that had to be crushed. In the acting profession how "selling out" and "collecting a paycheck" might if fact be a method of psychic self-defense and a way of retaining personal integrity. Nicholson and Brando as case studies for actors who began in the Method style and the different ways in which they eventually evolved beyond it. Nicholson's clownish performance of The Joker vs. Heath Ledger's heavy emotional involvement. The potential dangers of opening yourself to archetypal forces. Roger Corman as another example of a mini-consensus within Hollywood. The tension during the filming of Missouri Breaks between Nicholson at his peak and the washed up Brando. Although the purpose of Hollywood is not to produce works of art they are allowed to happen by chance as a means to strengthen Hollywood's credibility.

Part One of a conversation with Phil and Keith. Topics of discussion this week include: the dangers of imbuing physical objects with psychic energy, the parallels between Stanislovski's Method style of acting and MK-ULTRA mind control techniques, the difference between The Method and the old school/outside-in style of acting, the possibility of Hollywood as a large scale intelligence psy-op, the effects of McCarthyism and the collapse of the Studio System, Lee Marvin & Robert Mitchum vs. Marlon Brando, internal vs. external style, authenticity and performance, the anti-hero and the anti-actor, the Sons of Lee Marvin, how people are unconsciously drawn together by matching wounds, how sensitivity and early wounding often lowers our tolerance for BS and disrupts our ability to accept consensus reality, the possibility and pitfalls of bonding with fellow misfits/outsiders.
Original music contributed by TJ.

Part Two of this exploration of male-bonding as it relates to Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch, with Phil Snyder, Bill and John Morrison. Part one includes a brief discussion of Bill and John’s father, his brutality and his wound, then of Jason’s father and the family business, and Jason’s inevitable rebellion. In part two, Jason and Phil discuss why “the boys want to be with the boys”—but only so far, how being among men allows our emasculation wounds to show; fear of obligation, performance anxiety, and Phil’s catastrophic family trip. In part three, Bill talks of Robert Bly’s description of mentors, the ritual of the sword, and how Bill never received his father’s blessing. In part four, Phil and Jason discuss the archetypal longing of The Wild Bunch, Sam’s “dog brothers” (James Coburn, L.Q. Jones, Warren Oates, Lee Marvin, et al.), “misfit culture” and how individuals are united in their common refusal to join society; Blue Velvet and Phil’s father’s cronies; men on a mission: the real purpose of bonding being the fusion of wills towards a single intent; the bunch’s integration through death, Angel as the higher conscience of the bunch, the soldier’s code, men out of time. In part five, Jason discusses with Bill and John the slaying of the king, how he disinherited his father’s fortune and rejected the legacy, the blood money of corporate business, and “the bad king.” In part six, Phil and Jason return to The Wild Bunch, speaking of death as destiny, the unconscious nobility of the killer, how the primal urges that make the bunch warriors finally make them heroes, and of the bloody wound that runs through Peckinpah’s films.

This podcast includes clips from The Wild Bunch (Warner Bros. 1969). End song “La Colondrina.”

Links of interest: Robert Bly’s A Gathering of Men

Jason’s disinheritance tale

This week part one of a discussion with Phil Snyder on the implications of Robert Bly's "A Gathering of Men," the perils of male-bonding, the rebel instinct and fear of integration into the group; interwoven with a separate conversation with Bill and John Morrison on the same subjects, with commentary on Sam Peckinpah and The Wild Bunch as the "ubertext" for male-bonding.

Download this podcast at the links section, above and to the right.

Shamans in Denial

How can a creature be both a bat and a bird at the same time? How can something that appears ugly, dirty and threatening actually be something that is delicate, beautiful, and harmless?

The answer may be found in what follows.

As is well known, shamans are also diviners who use a seemingly random arrangement of elements (tea leaves, goat entrails, raw egg in water, etc) to find a hidden narrative that will inform them as to the secret workings of Spirit, the design of power working through everything.

On this week’s “Shooting the Ghost,” I have attempted the same. Selecting fragments from roughly eight hours of conversation between myself, Balloon Man Bill Morrison, Phil Snyder, and Bill’s brother John, more or less at random, I have woven them together into an hour-long podcast. This was done based largely on the quality and “charge” of the clips, and with almost no eye, or ear, to how I might eventually tie them together. It was only once the show was completed, in fact, while listening back to it, that I was able to discern some sort of coherent narrative. It is many layered, so it would not be apparent to most listeners; hence my decision to provide these notes.

Listeners may prefer to discover the hidden narrative for themselves; but if not, here are some clues. Be warned, however: this is a point by point description of the show, and so is rife with “spoilers.”

Firstly: due to the ostensible cause that brought us together, the four players are here unconsciously acting out, embodying, different aspects of Sam Peckinpah’s psyche. Among these aspects are:

addiction;
rage;
hostility;
violence;
sensitivity;
creative expression;
ambition;
paranoia;
victimization of women;
ugliness;
disillusionment (with America);
guilt;
poetry;
the artistry and wisdom of storytelling

The podcast begins with Bill’s description of caring for a neighbor’s rabbits and all the “shit” (literally) he has to deal with to keep their cages clean. One basic function of the shaman is the handling of “unclean” psychic matter and waste. Connection to Nature (the animals) is essential to any shaman’s power. (Rabbits, however, are notoriously timid animals, and suggest powerlessness.)

Next up, Phil tells the story of how his rage manifested a weird bat creature in the basement of his parents’ house (read: ancestral unconscious), which he then killed with a pellet gun, afraid that it might be carrying rabies. Once it was dead, Phil realized it was “actually” a dust-covered baby bird, even though he had been sure it was a bat. He also suspected he had somehow materialized the being through his own anger—a living tulpa or thought form, made up of Phil’s disowned psychic energy.

The key to this story—which is a small mythic blueprint for the show’s theme of “shamans in denial”—is that Phil mistook the creature for a rabies-infected bat, when in fact it was a bird(?). Phil disowns his primal self (rage) and simultaneously projects onto what is delicate and new, something ugly and threatening, thereby turning a baby bird into a diseased bat.

Phil and John then discuss their anger-management problems, with an aside from myself on the subject of tulpas, and a dubious musical interlude.

Bill talks of his admiration for “crazy, ugly people,” with their stories of violence, as being “the stuff heroes are made of.” He talks of his work as a (relatively) honest car salesman, and of a 72-year-old reformed killer and rapist in his neighborhood (Hollywood). He asks the question: “When do we get rehabilitated?” and speaks of the predatory structure of society, as well as his own, more balanced upbringing.

We then move into a brief discussion of Sam Peckinpah, his relationship with his father and his choice to go into theater and television rather than law. Of Sam being a man out of time, struggling unconsciously to reconnect to the ancestors, while consciously making movies to express his alienation and despair. How his movies testify to that inner struggle, and as such are secondary artifacts: the real story is hidden behind the seemingly random elements of his various movies.

I then tell a story of having my guitar stolen on my birthday, of getting it back the following day, turning the situation around so that the thieves became allies. This story relates to a shaman owning his power (self-expression and music) through a mixture of surrender and will, and getting that disowned tulpa energy to work for him (rather than simply killing it!).

Bill and John then share their night-dreams of being successful performers, revealing a desire for power and influence, and how their dreams are possibly compensating for a lack of worldly recognition. This is the very inverse of shamanic use of dreaming, which finds otherworldly power through dreams, and relinquishes all desire for other forms of “success.” (This was also the trap Peckinpah fell into.) Phil describes how, in similar dreams, he is always watching on the sidelines, aware he is supposed to learn something. The same appears true here on this podcast—after his initial story which sets the ball rolling and provides the theme for the show, Phil stays mostly on the sidelines, observing.

There follows a discussion on the macrocosmic narrative, that of America and the realization in the late ‘60s (through movies such as Easy Rider and Wild Bunch and events such as the Manson murders and Altamont) that the American dream was, and always had been, a Lie, being founded on the murder of the Native peoples. The Native American represents the Other, the disowned Shadow of the White Man, his primal side, and also the denied shaman within. To the Whiteman, the Native American is like Phil’s bat-bird: it is perceived as a threat, when actually it is something else entirely.

Bill then gives a short speech on the need for America to be exposed and to confess, “right back to the Indians.” I describe the US Nation as “Dorian Gray,” corrupt beyond all possibility of redemption, Bill speaks of the ugliness of Americans. The bat-bird again, having become what it beheld, America (like Phil) perceives its inner self as ugly and diseased. Bill speaks of his own comfort and complacency, and the pressure that builds within us all, the feeling we could simply explode one day and go on a mad killing spree. The disowned primal speaks. Psychopaths are acting out shamanic urges for transformation, unconsciously.

We then discuss politics as an extension of religion and the modern-day “serfdom” that has surrendered its responsibility to the elite; the Magna Carta and the Masonic sorcerers. The development of comfort and convenience of the modern world, is it detrimental to spiritual growth? Do we have a richer inner life now than 500 years ago?

John and Phil talk of their home entertainment systems, Phil describes his basement theater as both a shrine and a tomb, hinting at a desire to hide away in the unconscious realms, to return to infantilism. John’s cites his three marriages and his HUD apartment, then describes how the homeless (mostly from California) are getting violent in his neighborhood and mugging people who won’t give them money. He mentions how many of them have pit pulls— these “dog brothers” are also distorted shamans, demanding payment. They represent John’s disowned primal—his “tulpas”—and as such, they are a necessary compensation for the denied shadow side of his middle-class white neighborhood: the archetypal “return of the repressed.” John’s increased desire to watch TV and stay off the streets is the “normal” (i.e., non-shamanic) response to this pressure.

We discuss entertainment as being increasingly inadequate as a distraction: as life’s challenges become ever greater, more and more energy is needed for our denial to be effective. As we reach a turning point for the species, recycling ancient myths until all the variations are used up, there arises a need for new myths. But there are no longer any shaman-storytellers to create them.

I then describe myth and reality as being interconnected, the story of Christ, the ultimate shaman, who’s person embodied cosmic forces, and so became a living myth.

We discuss the function of myth, both for survival and for gnosis, the mutation of the species through sharing of knowledge and experience, “around the fire.” John cites early myths of hunting an killing, a la Phil’s story of the bird—a distorted myth-story for this mini-tribe of shamans, caught in varying levels of denial.

After a brief reference to the vitality of mystery, as something to be explored, John points out how Bill’s squeaky chair is causing John’s bird to talk—joking that there is a “relationship” between the two. John’s bird echo’s Phil’s “bat-bird” (representing Phil’s hidden soul nature). It is interfacing with Bill’s un-oiled chair (throne), i.e., Bill’s unconscious power? Is Phil’s inner poetic nature trying to reach out to Bill, and finding only a squeaky chair?

Bill then talks of his alcoholism and addiction to marijuana, as his best means to access “the other world,” thereby fully completing the reflected image of Sam Peckinpah’s fractured psyche: a man who smoke and drank himself to death rather than allow himself to open to the ancestors, and to his own grief and wounding, thereby tapping his hidden shamanic potential.

ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?

Introducing the Triad: Jason, Bill Morrison, and Phil Snyder; how Jason’s Peckinpah obsession began, his chosen path of hardship, the dangers of mother-bonding, Bill’s happy childhood as contrast, the definition of tragedy, the price of fame, self-distortion for success, the power-play between men and women, Sam’s family patterns, the heroic quest as a pathological journey, the Horsley family and definition of “fuckedupness,” the need for father figures and role models, interpreting life’s events as a dream narrative, Bill’s inner devil, the need to let the devil in, Jason’s trip to the abyss, Sam’s channeling his demons into The Wild Bunch, the razor’s edge between the shaman and the psychopath. Bill Morrison’s youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/Macajah Phil’s Website: http://eyewashonline.com/ Jason’s Blog: http://movieblues.blogspot.com/

Download this podcast at the links section, above and to the right.

An Introduction to Sam Peckinpah, legendary director of "The Wild Bunch," boozer, womanizer, warrior, genius, psychopath, and lost soul - how an individual life intersects with both myth and history - the death of the old west, loss of innocence, estrangement from the ancestors and Nature.

Download this podcast at the links section, above and to the right.