The Anger

The Anger 

 

<Last week: A Scary True Story

 

It is a clear, warm Monday morning, and I’m sitting here at the keyboard trying to type through a deep brain fog. I got back home yesterday afternoon after a very long drive and a couple days of non-stop smokin’, drinkin,’ and  bullshitting with a couple of old friends up northern California way. It was good. 

That web of coincidence that initiated this project has stretched far and deep into my life, and even touched the lives of people I knew from long ago. This last weekend was a byproduct of the long chain of events that began with my saying “yes” to a visit to the Sawdust Festival a couple years back.

And this rambling bit of a post is a byproduct of spending the last week getting ready to travel, traveling, and returning home, and not getting a heck of a lot done with the Project.

The scary story post from last week seemed to generate a lot of traffic for the blog. I traded a couple of notes on the story with Pete’s brother Richard, who brought up an important point about Pete. 

I have written on many occasions that Pete was “wildly eccentric”, or even mad.

He was all of that, and it was readily apparent to anyone who met him. Some found Pete’s eccentric manner fascinating; others found him-- I guess, “Off-putting” would be a good way to put it.

And Pete knew it. He was always misunderstood. He was always  too painfully aware that a great percentage of the people he encountered in life dismissed him as an odd ball, and would never take him or his work seriously. He carried tremendous anger.

Richard made this poignant observation on Pete’s narrative of the Scary Story event:

“…Having read it this time I was intrigued by Pete's matter a fact recall of events, and justification for shooting these creeps without any apparent remorse. Peter was a gentle soul when it came to nature,  people...not so much.”

We all talked about this at Pete’s memorial. Yes, he had tremendous anger, bitterness, and raw hatred for people, for the world, and especially  for the builders who destroyed the hillsides. He had weapons and firearms. In the realms of his imagination Pete  wreaked incredible violence on his enemies.

Yet he took out that rage in his writings, his audio tapes, his paintings, and most often, in the “mad ravings” posters that I covered several posts back. And alcohol. There was always the alcohol.

But he kept his demons confined in the darkness of his imagination. Pete never hurt anyone. He never threatened anyone. He never took revenge for the slights, the disrespect, or the dishonesty of others.

Next week we’ll take a look into the darkness. Pete loved the macabre, and he was good at expressing it. Hold on tight. It’s gonna get all kinds of creepy here for Halloween.

Next. A note from the Scribe