The Jerusalem Syndrome Read online

  I was given a series of dates to do stand-up in a basement in Allston at a club called Play It Again Sams. The old-movie theme didn’t elude me. The coincidences were coming down like hail. Two Tuesdays a month for six months opening for an X-rated hypnotist who could make people act like strippers or dogs.

  At home I put in the research. I bought the literature of the hard-core conspiracy theorists. The Unseen Hand and The New World Order by Ralph Epperson, the first edition of Apocalypse Culture edited by Parfrey out of Amok Press in Los Angeles, and, of course, the daily newspapers.

  The thing about conspiracy literature is that it’s perfect for stupid people who want to seem smart and ground their hatred in something completely mystical and confusing, and it’s good for smart people who are too lazy to do their homework. People can’t argue with it without possibly implicating themselves.

  Facts play only a minor role in any conspiracy theory. The proximity of one series of facts to an event that might connect those facts to another series of facts is what it’s really about. The object of the game is to connect the disparate facts in any way possible to get the outcome of “We’re fucked.” Events can be broad, shady, real, unreal, preferably convoluted, and hard to deconstruct in any one way. This leaves them open to endless possible interpretations. An event can be broken down in many ways—as long as it serves as a doorway to the facts that you want to connect. An event can revolve around a person involved, a color, a time, a government, a number, a date, a code, a logo, a distant relative, a passing moment at a point in time other than the time of the event, a bullet, an institution, forces of nature that are suspect in their timing, a sexual encounter, a coworker, or basically anything that will enable you to construct your own arcane projectile riff that you can ride to your version of the truth. That’s really a matter of style.

  Within a few weeks my room looked like the Son of Sam’s apartment. There were holes in the walls, writing on the ceiling; books were strewn about and charts were pinned up. I was diagramming something. I was connecting the dots of the grand puzzle. One incident that I recall occurred over morning coffee. I had bought the Boston Globe and on the front page was a picture of then President George Bush. I cut it out and pinned it on the wall.

  Bush, of course, was the vice president under Reagan and the ex–head of the National Republican Committee, the CIA, and Eli Lilly and Co. He was a member of the Skull and Bones club at Yale and probably performed their secret mock-death ritual during which the participants lie in a coffin, blindfolded, and share their sexual history with the other members. He belonged to the Freemasons and the Trilateral Commission. He was involved with the Bay of Pigs and the Iran-Contra affair. The image in the paper was of Bush attending a Texas Longhorns game. Both his hands were up in the air, his thumbs holding down his two middle fingers, thus forming a two-fisted Satan sign popular with heavy metal fans. So, of course, I thought, How clear does it have to be? He’s the Devil. The illuminated one. The bringer of light. A thousand points of light!

  I dismissed the fact that it was also the hand sign of the Texas Longhorns. Does it really matter? A cow, Satan; signs are signs. They are open to interpretation.

  I called the Boston Globe and asked them what it would take to get a copy of the picture. The woman on the phone told me it would be $250 and asked me what I’d be using the photograph for and I said, “Evidence.”

  She said, “What does that mean?”

  That was the end of the conversation. I hung up. I wasn’t ready to get into it with the press.

  I was ready to go to Washington, D.C. Jim, my Beatnik brother from college, was there. The Vietnam War obsession usually leads to some sort of engagement with the political charade. He had worked on the advance team for the Dukakis campaign and was freelancing in Washington. I thought Jim might’ve gotten himself in over his head. I was worried about what he didn’t know. I had to go see if he was okay. I needed to explain to him what was really going on in the nation’s capital.

  I got on the road to Washington and tried to plan what I would say. When I got there, I immediately called Jim.

  “Jim, it’s Marc. What’s up, man? You okay?”

  “Marc!” He was excited. “What’s up? Where have you been? What are you up to, man?”

  “Jim, I need to talk to you about some stuff.”

  “What? What’s going on? Are you alright?” He was concerned.

  “I’m fine. Are you alright?” I probed.

  “Yeah, I’m great, really great. I love doing advance.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about.” I was saddened by the idea that I might be too late.

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t think we should talk about it over the phone. We need to meet in person.”

  “Umm, alright.”

  “It really couldn’t be more important.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be up there for—” I cut him off.

  “I’m here, man. I’m in Washington.”

  “You’re here? Great, swing by.”

  “No, I really can’t do that, not now. Pick a place and I’ll meet you.”

  An hour later we met on the mall in front of the Washington Monument. I gave my old friend a hug. I started to feel Jim out a bit as we walked.

  “This place has a weird energy to it,” I said. “It’s bigger than I thought it was.”

  “That’s right, I forgot,” Jim said. “You’ve never been here. I’ll give you the tour. It’ll be great.”

  “It’s got a really weird energy to it,” I said. “It’s the way it’s built. You know about that, right?”

  “What, the monument?” he asked.

  “Yeah, the monument is on a grid with the Capitol that’s separated by the reflecting pool. It’s based on an ancient ritual plan from Atlantis. As long as this stays intact, they’ll have control of the world, now that the implementation of television was successful,” I said like a scientist.

  Jim laughed. “Yeah, it’s all a big evil thing, Marc.” He was being sarcastic. He thought I was joking.

  “I think we’re all in trouble with Bush.”

  “Yeah, well, he won,” Jim said. “He won’t be there forever.”

  “He’s a Trilateralist, you know?” I said. “He kisses Bilderberger ass and does the monkey dance for the insiders at the Bohemian club.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said and laughed. “You’re not one of those people now, are you?” Jim asked.

  “What kind of people are you talking about? What kind of person are you now, Jim? Hey, do you think we can go to the Illuminati office while we’re here? I’d like to take a tour of that place.”

  Jim gave me a puzzled look and ignored the question. I pulled back for a while. We toured the city and Jim pointed out the sights, but everything started to come together and break apart simultaneously as we walked around the rotunda of the Capitol.

  I said, “Come on, man, are we going to walk around office buildings all day?”

  Jim was honestly shocked and said, “This isn’t an office building. This is the Capitol of the United States of America.”

  We were standing in front of busts of the founding fathers and dead senators, silly haircuts captured in stone and I lunged. “Jim, do you understand what’s going on here? These guys?” I said, pointing at the statues behind me. “These guys were a cabal of renegade deist freaks. They used to have ritual circle jerks, kill goats, wear the silly hats and chant incantations. That’s why they all left England. Because they couldn’t practice Satanism. Then they came here and built a government based on it. I mean, come on, the Pentagon! Pen-ta-gon. The Military Industrial Complex is in the business of round-the-clock human sacrifice with the U.N. security force. Wake up, my friend. Listen to me, I know.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jim said. “The founding fathers had nothing to do with the Pentagon. It was built much later.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all built on the great secret keepers’ original mystical momentu
m,” I said confidently.

  “What momentum?”

  “The founding fathers knew it. They rode the momentum. They were all out of control. How could they not be? Think about it, Jim. After the Revolutionary War, when all the leftover soldiers and mercenaries went up into the hills to fuck Indians and create hillbillies, these guys had all the land. They were partying because they knew they would run the world. Ben Franklin was a freak! Every other day he’d send his boy out. Picture it, Jimmy.”

  I pulled my glasses down to the end of my nose like Ben Franklin.

  “I want you to go over to George Washington’s place and pick up some reefer. Tell him you want the good shit and not the kind he makes rope from. Tell him Benny sent you and he’ll set you up with a nice bag. Then stop by Tommy Jefferson’s. If he’s coming, tell him to bring the black chicks. Hurry now. If you get back here before the party, I’ll hook you up to the kite again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Toby? Now go, score, Godspeed.”

  “Come on, Marc. That just isn’t true,” Jim said.

  “You come on, man. They were all Masons, all of them. Dirty, dark Freemason spin-offs of Weishapt’s Order of the Illuminati. Ben Franklin was an old-school Hellfire Club kinky Mason. Jesus, Jim, you want me to pull a dollar bill out of my pocket and show you?! The fucking eye in the pyramid is the mark of the Illuminati. Get it? FDR put it on the dollar. Roosevelt was Mr. New Deal modern Mason, ushering in the one-world government, opening the door for Trilateralism. You gotta listen to me, man. It’s true. I read this in a book written by a guy who writes books.”

  “I don’t think you really understand how politics works,” Jim said dismissively.

  “So what?” I yelled. “Is that what this is really about? Politics?”

  “No, Marc. Why don’t you tell me what it’s all about?” he said, trying to provoke and placate me simultaneously.

  “Wake up and feel the momentum, Jimmy! It pacifies the masses with entertaining psychic terrorism delivered by the media industrial complex until no one knows what’s real or who they are anymore. They go on thinking they know, but they are unable to care about anything. It leaves them walking through life as controllable husks in search of their souls, with ghost limbs for hearts to guide them. Then Big Business and the big banks sell them back to themselves piecemeal in the form of products and designed ways of life. Then the excited husks will begin to feel as though they are whole again, but they will only regain as much as they can afford to buy back, yet still be in debt. That’s the core of it. The hope of getting all of themselves back keeps control intact and self-actualization nearly impossible. That’s what democracy is protecting now, Jim, hungry fear. That is the American way. That is the pursuit of happiness. The President of the United States is just the highest level of middle management. This government is just placating the people and keeping them lost so the insiders—their families, their friends, business associates—can feed. It’s the momentum, man!” I smiled, knowingly.

  “You might have pushed yourself out too far this time. Are you on something, or are you nuts, Marc?” Jim said. I scream-whispered.

  “Bush is a Freemason! That’s why Dukakis didn’t win. He’s not in on it! You should know that. It all funnels through Washington, Jim! The atomic bomb, the Cold War, the Kennedy assassination, the CIA, the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, have shattered the people’s belief in any truth when it comes to their part in the political process. That’s part of the grand plan: All truth becomes manifest when there’s nothing anyone can do about it. How clear does it have to be?” I yelled. “This city is the momentum’s mystical switchboard for the hundred-year period of darkness, and I think you’ve seen the controls. Have you? Own it, man. Tell me I’m lying.”

  I’m out of breath. I’m not even sure what I’ve just said. People are staring. Jim just looks at me and says, “Marc, listen to me. People here just aren’t that organized.”

  There was a moment of stillness, entropy. I had been hit with an arrow of truth that I just couldn’t deny. I took in what he said. “They aren’t?” I asked, unsure.

  “No, of course not. The system works. It’s the best government on the planet. There are some bad people, but it just isn’t one big evil plan. Democracy doesn’t allow the bad people to hang around too long. They are found out and brought down by the Senate, by the Congress, by the people. Sorry, Marc.” Jim patted me on the back.

  Of course, he was right. How could they possibly be that organized? It was a ridiculous idea. I felt like I had been shaken awake from a dream. It deflated my entire cosmology. My all-encompassing, spiritual, mystical, symbolic system of evil was laid to wreckage in the rotunda of the Capitol. I didn’t really know anything. I had nothing. I was lost. I was in exile. It was sad. Who was I? What channel was I on? I said good-bye to Jim and I slouched back to Boston to be reborn.

  9

  THE momentum had pummeled me. I was caught in the undertow. When I got back to Boston, I took all the diagrams off the wall and gave my books to a guy down the hall who I didn’t like. Then I sat in my blue room and smoked cigarettes for two years. That’s really all I did. Smoked, did comedy, and waited for some kind of sign. I had gotten off the path somehow. I was out of the mystical groove. The doors had all slammed shut.

  I started to realize that my relationship with God was tenuous at best, but my relationship with the Philip Morris company and Marlboro cigarettes was very deep, had been for years. I started to believe that was really the core of my spirituality, American spirituality, brand loyalty. It requires an almost religious faith. You don’t realize how strong that faith is or how deep it runs until it is tested.

  My faith was tested in a convoluted way. I woke up one morning, coughed my guts out, and screamed, “What am I, an idiot?” and decided that I had to quit smoking. I believed that the only way I could quit smoking would be to go to the Philip Morris plant in Richmond, Virginia, where I would stand before the corporate machinery that went into giving me cancer. I would be moved to horror and shout in a powerful, condemning way, “This is evil! This is bad! I’m done with it.” There was even the outside chance, given my power at that time, that I would actually stop the machinery with my will and lead the workers out of the factory.

  I called my friend Jim, who I hadn’t spoken to since the Washington episode the year before and said, “Jimmy, it’s Marc. I need to quit smoking. We need to go to Virginia now.”

  Jim said, “Alright, man, swing by.” He was in Boston at that time.

  We got on the road and drove nine hours, straight from Boston to Richmond. We pulled into the parking lot of the Philip Morris plant and I have to be honest with you, it’s a beautiful building. I mean really nice.

  We walked into this plush lobby and welcoming area. There was art hanging on the walls. It was very tasteful. There was some modern art, some folk art, and some classic American paintings. There was a little something for everyone. There’s room for everyone under the meaty leaves of the tobacco plant. A pleasant-looking woman wearing a smart dress and glasses sat at a desk. There was a sign on that desk that I saw the minute I walked in that said PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SMOKE.

  Warmth filled me. I was excited to be there. I was home.

  There was a museum connected to the lobby, featuring an exhibit that charted the history of tobacco. There were dioramas showing how the settlers learned how to cultivate tobacco from the Indians and then how the settlers cultivated their own fields and then how the settlers brutally massacred the Indians, apparently as thanks for helping them.

  Then there was a tour of the actual factory. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Everyone got in golf carts, three to a cart. Each cart had a brand label on the side. There was a Marlboro cart. There was a Benson & Hedges cart. I was on the Merit cart. Who the hell smokes Merits? Why didn’t it just say PUSSY on the side?

  So, there I was in the pussy cart, three cars back from the front, feeling like a neutered little girl. I watched angrily as the pione
ering Marlboro cowboys got to view the machinery of cancerous mass production first, but I settled in and began to enjoy the tour.

  We all had to wear headsets because the machinery was so loud. The woman who was giving the tour had to speak into a microphone and the only reason she would stop was to say “This machine to the right makes over a million cigarettes—hack, hack, hack.” It was an awful, rattling cough. To hear that sound amplified in your head if you’re a smoker is oddly bonding. It’s okay, honey. We understand. Pull over and spit if you need to.

  The most amazing thing about the tour was that workers were smoking as they operated the machinery. It was beautiful. It looked like Utopia. It’s what socialism was supposed to look like. What’s the boss going to do? Tell them they can’t smoke?

  There’s a doctor’s office right on the premises. That’s health coverage. You have to figure it’s necessary. Some guy’s working the machine and he screams, “Oh, the pain shooting down my arm!” He’s taken to the doctor’s office.

  The doctor says, “You know, this is the third time this month with the angina, Bob. You gotta quit smoking.”

  “What are you kidding? Look where I work.”

  The doctor takes a long drag off his butt and responds,

  “You don’t gotta tell me, Tiger. I’ve been here for seventeen years. I’m just a little luckier than you.”

  After the tour we are led into what I like to call “the temple room” of the Philip Morris plant. It was a small theater where I had the corporate revelation. They had borrowed the illusion-making magic from the Jews in Hollywood to create a film presentation illuminating the mythic power of Philip Morris.