I don't know who this editor guy is. I have never talked to him or read anything he has written, aside from the relevant portions of the letter in question. I don't know if he's married. I don't know what kind of house he lives in. I don't know if the last disc in his CD player was Quiet Riot or Radiohead or Fleetwood Mac or Paul Simon. I don't know what color his favorite shirt is. I don't know if he prefers men or women, and I don't know how he takes his coffee. I don't know if he drinks it on the porch at dawn every day because he likes the way mornings are a little cold and wet, or if he sips it in his kitchen with the television on, drumming his fingers on the counter. I don't know if, while he's upstairs humping his wife or girlfriend or mistress, if he's really into it and thinking my god i'm love or if he's staring absently out the window and fantasizing about someone he saw at the bus stop. I don't know how he sleeps at night, if he wakes up at three o'clock like clockwork to take a piss and get a glass of water, or he if he snoozes until ten curled in a warm little ball. I don't know anything about him, except that he's a pussy. I know this because I've read the same story he did and I also know his reason for rejecting it. Subjectively, I know it's a pretty fucking good story and I know a lot of you would enjoy it. Objectively, I know that if you edit a horror magazine but are "uncomfortable" with characters who are in love with dead people committing suicide, your magazine is probably shit and you personally are an enormous pretentious pussy. I think I have all the information I need to make that determination fairly ironclad.

Seriously. I'm not going to argue taste, because it's pointless, and certainly everyone is entitled to their individual likes and dislikes. I also don't think it's anyone's duty to enjoy stories where people kill themselves and make love to corpses, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone the right to say, "these themes gross me out and I don't really want to read about them." I'm simply saying that I've read this editor's response and I'm taking it at face value, and to that end, anyone editing a horror magazine who will categorically dismiss all stories dealing with necrophilia or suicide because those themes make them personally "uncomfortable" is a huge pussy. Not for being grossed out by people slitting their wrists and fucking dead bodies, but because they can't bring themselves to even consider the merits of, and in fact would rather just omit from all possibility of dissemination to anyone who buys their piece of shit rag looking for something memorable, anything that makes them feel a little ugly in their tummies. If this is you, you are a pussy. You are too weak to put the enjoyment of your readers ahead of your own personal emotional discomfort. You refuse to seperate what is poor from what you merely don't like (and conversely what is good from what you merely find attractive). You suck. Pussy.

That's not what I came here to talk about today, though. I want to introduce you to someone.



I'm not going to elaborate because I think a simple introduction is all you will need to get started. I am, however, going to leave you with a few of my thoughts on Texe Marrs and the Power of Prophecy online store.

1. Texe believes that Satan, the government, the Illuminati, asteroids, liberals, evolutionists, communists, and Planet X are getting ready to end the world as we know it, and the only person on his side is Jesus. He writes books like Police State 3: Total Enslavement, Leviathan In Space and Illuminati Mystery Babylon. I fully support stealing from people like this. I would rather you steal a Power of Prophecy book, by breaking into Texe's house and raiding his personal library if possible, than buy one or check it out of the library. The reason is that I think if I were Texe Marrs (oh, if only!) and I woke up one morning to find that thieves had penetrated my home and made off with copies of the precious Message, I could only conclude that it was indeed a futile attempt by the powers of darkness to stop me from spreading the word of salvation from their malefiscent schemes. I haven't done the numbers on this one, but I think that if we excercise some judgement and work in moderation, we could establish a slow trickle of Power of Prophecy books into the real world and still keep Power of Prophecy economically viable. In this way it becomes sort of a cycle of entertainment. We get to read the incognizable hoo-hah of Texe Marrs (at no cost to us) while at the same time providing him with the moral certainty that if he does not keep producing it in printed form, civilization's last defense against the dark powers will crumble and disintigrate. If you can manage to paint a pentagram or leave some kind of Illuminati-esque trinket or marking behind at the scene of the crime, that would be a big plus.

2. I don't really want to be a preacher, but I'm pretty god damned sure I could write those books. If there are any self-starting Texes out there who don't feel like they have the time or English skills to write convincing paranoid fundamentalist literature, please let me know and I think we can work something out. I want no more than what every other American since Horatio Alger has wanted - to end up filthy fucking rich, or at least moderately successful and loving my work.

I was not alive in 1974.

- Lieb

I live in Oakland. Cary lives in Oakland. Our respective Oaklands are approximately 2500 miles apart.

The two things Cary and I have in common are our love of Oaklands, and our love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Happy September 11th.

- Lieb