Francis Edward Dec
A photo of Francis Dec in high school
Francis E. Dec in high school, 1944
Born(1926-01-06)January 6, 1926
New York
DiedJanuary 21, 1996(1996-01-21) (aged 70)
St. Alban's VA Hospital, Queens, New York
OccupationOutsider writer
NationalityAmerican

Francis Edward Dec (January 6, 1926 – January 21, 1996) was an American lawyer and outsider writer[1] who was best known for his typewritten diatribes that he independently mailed and published from the late 1960s onward. His works are characterized by highly accusatory and vulgar attacks, often making use of conglomerate phrases like "Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God"[2] to slander people, groups, or companies that he believed were engaging in electronic harassment against him, and gained a cult following from the mid-1980s onward due to his comedic incoherence.

Biography

Four billion worldwide population—all living—have a Computer God Containment Policy Brain Bank Brain, a real brain, in the Brain Bank Cities on the far side of the moon we never see. Primarily based on your lifelong Frankenstein Radio Controls, especially your Eyesight tv sight-and-sound recorded by your brain, your moon-brain of the Computer God activates your Frankenstein threshold Brainwash Radio—lifelong inculcating conformist propaganda.

Francis E. Dec, quoted in The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity by Jeffrey Sconce[3]

Francis E. Dec was born in New York on January 6, 1926.[4] In early 1944, during the Second World War, he enlisted into the United States Army with the rank of private.[5] He remained within the United States for the duration of the war, periodically moving between bases, at one point being assigned to Yuma Army Air Station.

After the war, Dec entered into law, but was disbarred by the state of New York in 1958 and proceeded to make numerous "incoherent" legal appeals, including an appeal to the Supreme Court. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 60 days in 1961 and in 1965 attempted to flee his home in Hempstead, New York for Poland. Dec spent the next 25 years writing and distributing lengthy screeds about the "Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God" and its conspiracy to control the world through electronic mind control devices which he referred to as "Frankenstein Radio Controls."[1] These flyers were mailed to radio and television stations across the United States.[3][6] According to Dec, the Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God was the product of an ancient Polish (Slavonic) civilization which it subsequently drove to near-extinction.[7] He was also antisemitic, seeing the Jews as the Computer God's pawns and blaming the Holocaust and Nazism on the Jews, victims of the Holocaust themselves, preceding the names of the Nazi Party's members with "Jew" (example: Jew Adolf Hitler; Nazi JEW Hans Frank), and blaming the belief that Jews were victims of the Holocaust on "Hollywood movies".[8]

Analysis

Jeffrey Sconce analyzed the written works of Francis E. Dec in his book The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity, within a chapter discussing the phenomenon of targeted individuals. In it, he argues that "his writing speaks to a feature of technical delusions that became increasingly prominent in the second half of the twentieth century." Sconce also states that "Dec's screeds are emblematic in their careening, amplified panic over imperious yet chimerical powers that seemingly are everywhere all the time and yet can never be fully confronted or understood."[3]

zer0, who collected Dec's rants on his website Bento and Starchky, speculated that Dec's amalgamation of the Nazis and the Jews was the result of an inability to comprehend the idea of the Nazis persecuting both alleged pawns and alleged victims of the Gangster Computer God, preventing him from accepting Jews as fellow victims of Nazi crimes, though he admitted that even that did not help him comprehend such a nonsensical conclusion.[8]

Legacy

Dec gained a cult following in the 1980s, especially when specific fans of his attempted to contact him. In 1989, Dec went on a sojourn to New York, and fans attempting to contact him at his house were left facing his house in dismay:

"The house is daubed red-on-blue, surrounded by wild hedges, and has a blue trash can with ornamental glass knob for a mailbox. Heavy blinds kept us from viewing any 'strange stuff' inside. It was I who asked the cabbies about Dec: 'Dat old German mon? He's in dere!' 'Is he, you know...' pointing to my head. 'Well, look at de house, mon!' End of adventure. Should've sent money."[2]

Among other figures interested in Dec's works were William S. Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge; the latter used a recording of Doc Britton voice reading Dec's rants on the Psychic TV album "Ultrahouse (The L.A. Connection)".[2] A 1983 issue of the comics anthology Weirdo reprinted a page of Dec's writings,[9] and a stage play inspired by Dec, titled A History of Heen (not Francis E. Dec Esq.)[10] premiered in 1999.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Amiran, Eyal (26 November 2018). "The Pornocratic Body in the Age of Networked Paranoia". Cultural Critique. 100: 134–156. doi:10.5749/culturalcritique.100.2018.0134. ISSN 1460-2458. S2CID 150035184.
  2. 1 2 3 "UbuWeb Sound - Francis E. Dec". ubu.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Jeffrey Sconce (17 January 2019). The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity. Duke University Press. pp. 237–245. ISBN 978-1-4780-0244-4.
  4. ↑ "Francis E. Dec's birth certificate" (PDF). Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  5. ↑ "Military service record of Francis E. Dec". National Archives. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  6. ↑ Zuzel, Michael (2 September 1997). "Fringe Religion Offers Different Nooks for Different Kooks". The Columbian. ProQuest 252904546.
  7. ↑ "Astrocism: The TRUE Religion of the Slovene People!". Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  8. 1 2 "The True History Of Nazi Jewmany". Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  9. ↑ Weirdo #8 (Last Gasp, Summer 1983).
  10. ↑ "Psycho Analysis". Village Voice. 3 August 1999. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  • UbuWeb audio of Dec's works as performed by the KROQ-FM newscaster Boyd Britton (known as "Doc on the ROQ").
  • Fansite by online cartoonist zer0 which features transcriptions of Dec's works. Also has audio recordings, by others, of some Dec rants not read by Boyd Britton.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.