Sometime in 2005 I made a journey to New Zealand. Most of the details of this trip are very irrelevant to the purpose of this post, so don’t mind as I skip to a certain story.

Me and a friend I was traveling with were hitch-hiking from Nelson Creek NZ (after visiting the Nelson Creek Skateboard factory) to a remote town also on the South Island of New Zealand. It was raining, damn hard and freaking cold. A kind, yet eccentric man pulled over and offered us a well-recieved ride. His car was packed, he could barely fit our bags, let alone us and our damp fabrics. He strongly expressed that he would normally never pick up a hitch-hiker, but that this time he had some sort of hunch that we were American.

It didn’t take me long to label him as your run-of-the-mill conspiracy nut, filled with facts, fears and rationalizations about the government. But as time went on intellect and genius began to peak through his fact-less arguments. He talked heavily about the health care scam, false prophecies, the world bankers’ scam and New Orleans (which had happened 5-6 weeks earlier). He explained how humans were to be sorted into categories once martial law took place; green for the fully impressioned (zombies), yellow for those who needed further conditioning (the sell-outs) and red, those who would be a ‘danger’ to society and would need to be terminated (the revolutionaries). After that bit I was sure the guy was crazy, and nothing really sunk in until he made a certain direct prophecy, one that stuck with me all these years.

He predicted that the United States was going to ‘kill’ a spy satellite, and this event would somehow cause a conflict with Russia, thus starting a major conflict, such as a nuclear war. He also said this would happen Early 2008.

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Didn’t you hear? Last week an Illinois Christian priest was derided and reprimanded by a state representative in front of the House State Government Administration Committee for spreading a philosophy that’s dangerous to children.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. It wasn’t a priest. It was an atheist who objected the government dishing out 1 million dollars to a Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, and he was met with the following response from Rep. Monique Davis (D).

Davis: I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if t his matter does go to court—

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

Chicago Tribune.

You can hear audio of the debate here: Audio

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Hills star / spawn of Satan / Hollywood star Heidi Montag told Us Weekly “I’m voting for John McCain, I’m a Republican and McCain has a lot of experience.” Montag then minimized her endorsement and refered to herself in the third person saying “I don’t think anyone cares who Heidi Montag votes for.”

In what might possibily be scarer news John McCain admits to Time magazine that he watches The Hills: “I’m honored to have Heidi’s support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of ‘The Hills,’ especially since the new season started”. He also added “she’s a very talented actress” which defies all logic and makes me start to think that the early stages of senility have kicked in.

Hopefully no one will tell her that you actually have to register to vote before you can actually vote.

Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl is probably the most metal person on earth. Period. The clip is from the 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.

Interviewer: What is the primary ideology or the primary ideals the fuel Gorgorth’s music?

Gaahl: Satan

Interviewer: What does Satan embody, what does he represent?

Gaahl: Freedom

Interviewer: Whether we like it or not, black metal in Norway is known for a string of events that happened in the early 1990s around a series of arsons. I’m interested to know your thoughts on those events, whether you agree with them or disagree?

Gaahl: Church burnings and all these things are of course, things that I support 100% and should have been done much more, and will be done much more in the future. We have to remove every trace from what Christianity and the Semitic roots have to offer this world.

FUCK WITH IT!

So last night I was trying to explain to Surrogate frontman Chris Keene over some cans of Schlitz the part in the Eagles’ “Hotel California” where , if you play it backwards, it talks about Satan organizing his own religion and about how on the inside cover of the LP, Anton Lavey can be seen kicking back looking all satanic and shit. But his dubiousness made me doubt my conviction on this matter. After all, my original research on this matter was conducted in the pre-internet dark ages, sitting in my bedroom, stoned off my fucking ass, playing my dad’s LP backwards on my turntable with my finger and tripping out hella. But that was, 10, maybe 11 years ago. Maybe I had just made it all up. So I made it my quest, my mission for the day, to get to the bottom of this shit for once and for all, or at least for once.

First off, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just making it all up like I have a habit of doing sometimes. Thankfully some French dude was cool enough to put up a YouTube clip of the part of the song that played backwards talks a bunch of dark shit. It’s in the second verse,where Don Henley sings “There were voices down that corridor/I thought I heard them say.” Played backwards, this part says, rather clearly (at least for backward shit) “Satan, oh he came, and organized his own religion / Yeah when he knows he shouldn’t” I mean, whether or not this is just an aural coincidence or not was still to be determined, but no one can say that it’s not a little bit creepy, than randomly some words backwards sound a lot like a meaningful sentence, and not just a meaningful sentence, but a sentence about some super satanic ass shit?

Next I needed to determine if the face in the crowd on the inside gatefold of the record was indeed good ol’ Anton or just some other random. I figured the logical first step to this would be to find the actual image online and look at it again for good measure (since my copy of the record is still in Dad’s closet where I originally found it way back when). Strangely enough, the best I could find is a distant blurry shot on someone’s eBay auction. Apparently the group shot only appeared in the original vinyl artwork, and not on subsequent CD versions. So you’ll just have to take my word for it (or got get a copy of the record) that in the windows in the top left is a super creepy dude kind of peering out of the shadows, which many people believe is Anton Lavey himself. Eagle’s guitarist Joe Walsh, however, has denied this saying:

Absolutely not. Any reference to Satan or anything like that is completely in the eyes of whoever is thinking that. That’s a reflection of how sick they are. The guy in the window is one of the Elektra/Asylum publicity guys. The lighting just happened to be bad and he was really shy, so he was just peeking around the corner.

Which would seem pretty open and shut, one would think. However, the guy who actually shot the photo, John Kosh who was Art Director for the album had this to say about the photo:

Kosh eagerly confirms that there is a mysterious figure on the balcony, visible only on the LP version. “I assume he’s a friendly spirit, because we got the picture and it worked!” says Kosh, laughing. “If he is of the spirit world — which I doubt — he’s benign, so it’s fine by me.”

Overall, the band has repeatedly and adamantly denied any dark overtones to the song, documented pretty extensively here. But of course, if I was still getting paid out major dough in royalties and licenses on a song I’d hesitate to confirm its satanic subject matter too. All I’m saying is this is some weird shit. For more fun with backwards shit about Satan in rock songs, check out this site.