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INTERVIEWS Shaun Partridge interviewed by Boyd Rice from PANIK, 2001 Boyd: So, tell us about your campaign for mayor of Portland. Shaun: That was great. On 4th of July when I'd met the milkman I had this realization that I was the mayor of Puddletown, just walking around. I had this t-shirt wrapped around my head, this outfit I wear every so often, with these big high-water blue bell-bottoms. I was just walking around telling everyone I was the mayor. Then over the years I called myself the mayor and I'd go out sometimes as the mayor. When the elections came up I realized, you know, I should really run for mayor because I am the mayor. So I signed up, paid my money,-a hundred and fifty dollars, what ever it was-and started. It was great, this lady that called, she said she really wanted to get Vera Katz, the mayor now, out of office. She kept calling and finally when she met me she kind of stopped calling. (laughs) She didn't really want to hang out anymore and she didn't know what was happening. I called this radio station where this other guy that was running for a mayor was on, and he was very polite to me, but I could tell he didn't know what to say. I kept saying that if I was the mayor we would feed and take care of the homeless people, we would get them jobs at McDonalds. I've done these polls and found out that all the homeless people love McDonalds more than any other fast food restaurant. McDonalds will take care of them, teach them job skills. Pretty much everything I said aquaitted with, and went back to, McDonalds. I told them it would help everyone and stuff like that, and of course they were obviously confused by that. But all those ideas were good, it was really nice. I kept calling, talking about these good ideas on radio shows, and this T.V. show. It was fun. Boyd: Everytime they wrote about the campaign they mentioned you and showed a picture of you with the other canidates? Shaun: Yeah, it was funny. They always said that I was this cult leader in Portland for the Partridge Family Temple, which is great. You can just imagine all these normal people reading that-cult leader?-that's not good. Like, what's going on here? Boyd: Did you get your picture printed in the voter pamphlet, with your mission statement, that sort of thing? Shaun: Yes, I mentioned it on T.V. a few times. One time I heard this guy saying, "hey, this is great-we're all lonesome little rain drops, how wonderful." It was great, that Tiny Tim song I've always liked. And this is Puddletown, of course. Boyd: How far along in the election did you get? You had actually got some votes? Shaun: I came in tenth place and my final count was 790 votes. (laughter from Boyd). Basically 800 odd people in this town realized the truth and decided to give me a chance. It would have been great too if I would have been elected, you know. It would have been very nice. The campaign ideas were to have Rod McKuen and easy listening stuff like Percy Faith pumped through loud speakers all over downtown. We would tear all the buildings down that were built after 1973, to preserve the beautifulness of the city. It would have been nice. I also wanted to hire only Irish cops, stuff like that. (Boyd laughing hard). Our current mayor, her slogan is "The City That Works" and that just drove me up the wall. Originally, it was "The City of Roses", and that sounds so much more magical. Leave it to her, you know, she's a New Yorker. Oh, good Lord! Boyd: What was it that you said? You said we don't want it to be "The City That Works". Portland is great because it's Portland. We don't want it to be a New York or Los Angeles. Shaun: It's like Mayberry, that's one of the reasons why I love this place. I mean this is the one and only city where you can smell the flowers downtown. Old people actually walk around downtown. You feel like you're time-travelling in some other world, it's amazing. I love this place. Boyd: Yeah, that's what Denver was like when I first moved here, but it's certainly not that way a decade later. Shaun: That's why I moved out of Denver. It became this hideous brown city. Boyd: Oh hey, have you heard that Casa Bonita is sueing a restaurant in Salt Lake City called The Mayan? Shaun: No Boyd: They opened a rip-off of Casa Bonita with I think a lagoon, a waterfall, and cliff divers. They serve Mexican food and they have entertainment. They call it The Mayan. Casa Bonita said that it's so close that it has obviously been ripped-off from them. Shaun: Weird. For a split second, my heart sank. I was afraid you were telling me that Casa Bonita was going to close. Boyd: Why don't you describe Casa Bonita. Shaun: Casa Bonita is one of the most beautiful places on the entire planet. I started going there when it opened up in Colorado-we were the first people to go there. It has been a part of my life forever now, it seems. In fact, if it ever does close, I feel like I'll die. It's a wonderful place. It's like Taco Bell and Disneyland combined. You walk in this huge line, and you feel like you're in Mexico. There's palm trees, the ceiling is black, there's fake fire-flies flying in the air, there's a huge waterfall. They have these live skits on the stage, like black Bart falls in there, shoot-outs, and giant gorillas and stalactites. There's black Bart's cave and scary creatures with faces popping out at you and this weird bridge over a "bottomless pit." It use to be all riquetty when you use to be able to cross it and get underneath the bridge. We can't really do that anymore. It's a wonderful place all together. Boyd: I think you should explain that the stage for these skits is above a lagoon. Every single skit, no matter what it's about, ends up with everybody falling into the lagoon. Shaun: It's wonderful. It's one of the best things in the world. It's the best place in the world and I've been going there forever. It's the Partridge Family Temple's religious temple-it's the main temple. We go there whenever we can. Boyd: Maybe you should explain to people what the Partridge Family Temple is? Shaun: The Partridge Family Temple has been around now since 1988 and it's a religion based on absolute fun. Reality-being realistic, realizing that we're here for just a little while and at any time we could die or some mishap could happen. The goal, really, is to enjoy everyday like it's the last. To enjoy your dreams, your every waking moment. Boyd: Like life is an episode of a sitcom and that you're the star of. Shaun: Yeah, and you can keep doing it, it can be cancelled too soon, so you gotta to keep doing new and exciting things and evolving and not becoming stagnant. But basically the people getting involved with the Temple are usually pretty creative people and we just want to try pushing it further and further. It's growing bigger and bigger now. Danny Bonaduce loves us, and he recognizes us. On the web site, he's now doing the Temple's sign, the hand sign, which is great. David Cassidy knows about us but doesn't like us. He's rather disturbed by us, of course. Boyd: He thinks you're stalkers, and that you'll assassinate him? Shaun: He thinks that there's something too serious about this. He says it's fine to be interested in a T.V. show, but when it takes on religious aspects, there's something dangerous afoot-he believes. Apparently, Reverend Dan and Giddle in L.A. talked to some lady who takes care of Shirley Jones' website, said that they wanted to link us up. Boyd: Wow! Shaun: But she said there's a problem, someone didn't like the idea... (laughter). My sister said, "Oh, David Cassidy?" And they said "Yes, actually, that's correct." He didn't want that happening so unfortunately, he's a reluctant god. Yeah, but it's wonderful-it's a wonderful religion. Constantly, since the beginning, people thought of us as a joke, and it gets more and more real. It's a strange reality to be in, because it's more real than most things around. All these things that take themselves so seriously-we're actually more serious and real than them. Boyd: It's been said that it takes fifty years for any cult to evolve into a fully recognized religion. Shaun: I've never heard that but I'm gonna start telling everyone about it now. Thank you. Boyd: You've been doing it for twelve years, so you're part way there. Shaun: Yeah, yeah, it takes a while. And that's why lately what we're doing now is operation Media Whore of Babylon-basically we're all doing different projects, you know what I mean. The Temple is a group of creative people, and people are doing their own things. I'm doing UNPOP paintings now. Dan is doing films, and different things in California. You do things, everyone does things. The Milkman is doing films now. We're going to start doing Temple films out here combined with a bunch of other things, and just put them out on their own merit. It's a good way to get the word out-to bang a gong. Boyd: It's like if the Freemasons were influenced by 70's sitcoms instead of what they are now? Shaun: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. The Milkman is constantly saying that we're not a religion, we're just a cult. You know, a very secret, mystery cult in a weird way. Boyd: Good. Shaun: Yes, it's the way it is and it makes sense. Boyd: What's the Milkman's full name? Shaun: Willhelm Nero Von Milkman. We're all going to change our names pretty soon. It's only $80. I'm not sure how many names you can have, but I'm going to try and pick as many as possible. (laughter). Can you have numerals as your name? Boyd: Oh yeah. Shaun: Someone was asking about that. Boyd: I met a guy who had his name changed to Snake, and he'll show you his driver license, and it just says "Snake." Shaun: That's excellent. So many great names out there to do, too. Boyd: I was lucky, you know. My father made up a weird name for me-I didn't have to change my name into something bizarre. Shaun: Plus, there are a lot of "Boyd" places out here (Portland, Or.) that I've noticed. A lot of places and stores, like Boyd Paint, Boyd this and Boyd that. I've noticed that driving around more than any place I've been. Boyd: I'm everywhere. Shaun: Yeah (laughter). Indeed. Actually-I was going to take pictures of it for you-seven blocks away there's this little hairstyling place called "Abraxas Hairstyling" (laughter from Boyd). It's so weird. I want to go in there and ask what made them choose that name for a little hairstyling boutique. It's strange. Boyd: It's funny, I was just reading Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike, the freemason guy. He's got material in there on Abraxas. Shaun: You're kidding. Boyd: No. Shaun: I really would like to find out as much as possible, to compile as much information as possible on Abraxas. Boyd: It's like it's really far more weird and complex than, you know, than it appears at first glance. It's very bizarre and complicated. Shaun: It's wild, you had that Abraxas Foundation and now I feel people should be able to go buy the Abraxas Foundation, you know-make it a franchise like McDonalds. Boyd: So describe very briefly the idea behind UNPOP. Shaun: I realized a few years ago that I'd always loved pop culture, I just love it. And then I thought of UNPOP culture-how a lot of things I liked were unpleseant or unpopular. One day I was thinking of Michael Jackson who said that he was the king of pop, so I said well, I'm the king of UNPOP. Around that time period I was sitting there with my roomate and I said I should blow up these gigantic pictures of the Banana Splits, that comic book-like that one pop artist. And I said what's his name, and she didn't remember and I couldn't remember either. So I kept pacing around thinking, he was a really famous pop artist in the 60's. It was very frustrating, it was on the tip of my tongue. I went to bed, woke up the next day picked up the newspaper and Roy Lichtenstien had died. Hey, that's the guy I was talking about. It's just so strange, he died at the same period of time somewhere in New York, as I was thinking about him. So I cut out the newspaper clipping and I put it away. As a child I was an artist and I just stopped because it seemed to take forever to get art done and it seemed kinda boring at the time. I just got into other things. All of a sudden all these things about art started popping up. I had this incredible dream that I was the Marquis De Sade and I came into this old bar in the 1700's, and everyone was like, "Oh my god, he's here." His first love was there, and I had to get her or something like that. And I'm killing all these people-it was an incredible dream. Then I woke up thinking that my first love isn't a real female, it symbolized something. I wasn't sure what and I kept asking myself what does it mean? It was like I'm returning to something, my first love, my true love. The art thing came more and more and at the time I thought I'd start doing artwork that I'd hang on my wall for my own excitement and pleasure, and entertainment. Anyway, I never liked Andy Warhol, I never liked him ever, and suddenly out of the blue people are saying-oh yeah, he's great and then I see his books laying around. This is too weird. I know enough now, in a sense, to pick up art again and go along with it, 'cause this is supposed to happen. So I had started to read all these Andy Warhol books. I meet my girfriend, Marmalade, move in with her, and my landlord calls. I see his name on the caller-I.D., "Rauschenberg", and I thought that would be hilarious, because that would be the third sign. I asked my girfriend Marmalade if he's related somehow, maybe loosely, to the guy. She asked him and sure enough he's Robert Rauschenberg's son. I thought that's perfect, you know, it makes sense again-like I'm on the right path and I'm returning to my true love. It's so exciting when you know that you're on the right track. That's what magic is all about. So things are fine now, and I'm doing this UNPOP painting which is very bright in its color-psychedelic like-you know. I love all of that 60's pop-psychedelia time period, of course, except that the images I'm using are a bit different. I'm doing these gigantic nigger heads from those old trademarks from the 1930's or 20's and I'm doing them in these bright, psychedelic colors. Next weekend I'm going to do these gigantic silkscreen "missing" posters, which will be very groovy and far-out . We'll do missing kids, missing girls and also a few original pieces like missing Anne Frank and missing JonBenet. Boyd: How about the tattoo you got? Shaun: Yeah it's weird. I was really into, and still am, into Ian Brady. So, on December 26th, as some kind of a ritual or something, I'd decided to get a tattoo of the day that he killed Leslie Ann Downing. I woke up, went down there and got the tattoo done. Then I went home and my sister called to ask if I had heard what happened in Boulder. She said this little girl got killed on boxing day, which is the same day that Leslie Ann was killed. I said, "What?" Of all places, in Boulder, Colorado-which is where I'd grown up and done so many crazy things and enjoyed so much of my life. It was so perfect. She was this version of the virgin lamb sacrifice, you know, this little blonde innocent child, and apparently it was a sexually motivated killing. What's cool too, was that apparently one of the people involved was named Shirley Brady, she was one of the nannies, which I thought was cool. Shirley, Shirley Jones, then you know, Ian Brady-that was neat and groovy. Also the person who actually took the picture for Hatesville was a suspect for awhile in the JonBenet killing which I thought was cool. Boyd: This is the picture that shows you burning the picture of Allen Ginsberg? Shaun: Yeah, yeah, yeah-and that guy also was friends with Ginsberg. Boyd: Ginsberg spent a lot of time in Boulder as well. Shaun: Yeah, horrible person. I read On The Road, liked it and hated that person. I didn't know who he was when I read On The Road, I just instinctually hated him. So, back to the UNPOP thing. There is not really anything interesting going on in art right now. It could be very fun to get the word out there. The way I see it, Adolf Hitler's mustache is my paintbrush and I'm gonna paint all these groovy, amazing pictures, and see what happens. Boyd: (laughing) I wanted to talk about this guy Sketch-man. It might be good to print a picture of Sketch-man next to that psychedelic photograph of you that you sent me. It's the man who, a psychic says, actually killed JonBenet. He looks like a cross between you and Adolf Hitler. Shaun: That's funny. Boyd: It's like Adolph Hitler without the Hitler mustache. Shaun: When I was a kid, when I first moved to Colorado-I don't know why I started doing this-but I used to go the bathroom and I'd put water in my hair and combed it to the side and then get real close to the mirror and glare into the mirror as Hitler. I felt like I was seeing into the eyes of evil, I don't know. It's like this vague memory-I must have been eight years old-if I recall exactly. It's a powerful memory, though. As a child I was always fascinated by Hitler. Obviously, who isn't? I mean he's a super popstar. But what fascinated me the most was that he had been an artist, you know. It was something that simply just connected with me. He used to be an artist? I'm an artist! This evil person, this weird monster, or whatever, used to be an artist. It seemed that it was something I could really connect to. And as I came back to art I kind of came back to Hitler in a new fascinating way. That's why there's all this art stuff I wanna do with Anne Frank and Hitler, and stuff like that. I had this incredible dream around that time where I was up in the attic with Ann Frank, and she woke up and went to the bathroom and was putting water on her face and she looked in the mirror and she had a Hitler moustache on. She was staring at it and then she took one of those old razor shaver and shaved it off. She looked up and then it grew back again. She kept shaving it off but it kept growing back. (Boyd laughing). I'm thinking I'm on the right path now, you know. Something is going on here with all these Hitler/Ann Frank connections. I had a neighbor from upstairs come down, he's a Polish Jew, and he flipped out when he saw this thing I was spray-painting for an Anne Frank performance. It has Anne Frank saying Work Sets You Free. He was like, "What the hell?!" I had to explain the whole thing to him about how work sets you free, and that you have to do great work in life, and how she's like a female archetype and that we can all relate to her. He started flipping out, because obviously he's related to her in a totally different way. I started getting angry. I was like, "you know, listen, you're offending me because I'm Anne Frank." Then he got more upset. (Laughter). But he finally mellowed out. He was saying to me, "I don't know what you're gonna do, I don't know why you're doing it, but obviously you seem to believe this. All I know is that big New York Jews are gonna beat the shit out of you, but I know you're a good person." It was strange. Then he split. Boyd: What was the Iron Clown dream? Shaun: I had this epic dream once. The dream was like a 70's film, it had that sleazy element to it. In this dream, me and this ragtag group of people are killing people all night long-nah, nah, nah, killing, killing, killing, all night long-it was really fun. We ended up in this old McDonalds, one of those original 50's ones except that it was situated in the 70's and it was all run-down. We're in there, and it was the final stand-off where I shoot all those people. I went to this room and all of a sudden and this guy came in and put a gun to my head and I'm telling him, "You got me! I have to die now, don't I?" He answered, "Yeah" and he shot me. And as he shot me I looked behind me and there were these stacks of hundreds and hundreds of T.V. Guides. On the cover of these T.V. Guides was a picture of me and it said "We Hate The Iron Clown". As I was dying I had realized that McDonalds was the Iron Clown and everybody hated it and couldn't stop it. I was the Iron Clown. Partridge in the pear tree-I am the Iron Clown. Boyd: It's funny that everybody hates McDonalds so much and yet they're one of the most successful corporations in the world. They're an integral part of the world. I mean there's a kosher McDonalds in Israel, there's McDonalds in Russia where you have to wait in these big long lines. Who is it that hates it? Shaun: Unpleasant unhappy people. All these things are Abraxas to me. Sure, McDonalds tears down rain forests and does some horrible things but it does all these wonderful things as well. Everything I like has good and evil in it. That's why to me the world is Abraxas. Disneyland is Abraxas. It's wonderful. I love it to death. It all makes perfect sense to me. That's why I want to paint a new updated version of Abraxas. It's head is going to be a Kellogs Corn Flakes rooster, you know, (laughter) and his arm is going to be the big McDonalds "M" and his shield is going to be a round Mickey Mouse head. Oh, and the rooster's eyes will be the CBS eye. An Abraxas we all can relate to, a pop picture of Abraxas. I'd always liked the old imagery of Abraxas, you know, it's old and neat, but I want something new and startling. It's such a neat idea. Especially now with Christianity on the wane, you know what I mean? Boyd: Could you talk about these performances you've done that have resulted in near riots? Shaun: I've done a few fun things. There was that AIDS benefit we did that was funny. These gay people, these hairdressers, put it on, and we did this thing with these quasi-fascist alien things. I was quite fascinated by aliens back then, and I thought it would be funny to make these aliens look like scapegoats. Sort of a propaganda type of thing. Blaming everything on them. But anyway, we did this performance where we dressed in military uniforms with our logo, that was a globe with a gun on it, and we had these banneers and stuff like that. We went on stage and had this noise playing while we were just screaming about how AIDS was great and how it's cleansing the planet of all the masses and unnecessary people. People just stared. They didn't really know what to say, of course. We had some literature, some pamphlets, on how AIDS is a beautiful thing, and we passed it out to everyone. People didn't know what to think. That was fun and exciting. One of the best performances I did-and it's really frustrating, no one had a video camera that night-where I wore this authentic brown shirt Nazi uniform and I had short blonde hair at the time. I had purposely bought these black wrap-around sunglasses just like George Lincoln Rockwell and all his cronies used to wear, and I had on all the pins, buttons, and arm-bands and stuff. These friends of mine had this really obnoxious punk band, that was just designed to upset people. So I got on stage and they rented me this really nice megaphone, and in between songs I was screaming at the audience. It started out kind of mellow, and I was saying things like, "All women should be raped. All women are worthless. You should kill niggers. Spics are worthless." It got more and more crazy as it went on. I was just saying everything, everything. My friend was there, and he had this friend, this black guy that was a crip, and of all nights there in Boulder, they were out going around stealing out of cars. They came walking down an alley, they look in and see this guy wearing this Nazi uniform, they flip out and look at my friend Mike, asking what the fuck is going on? Mike's reassuring them by saying, "It's alright, he's a friend of mine, it's cool." At that moment I'm screaming, "Kill people in wheelchairs!" The weird thing is this guy had been in a drive-by and had been in a wheelchair. When he heard that, he flips out, saying, "I'm gonna kill the motherfucker!" So him and his friends put on their leather gloves, getting ready to beat me to death. Mike was saying, "no, no, no, it's cool" and they were saying, "no, it doesn't matter, we're going to fuck him up." Right when I was done, I got off stage, and they had walked away for just a second to get something out of their car or something. I walked out, Shirley put me in the car and took me home to bed, so everything was fine. It was really a very good performance and I wish I had this on video tape. No pictures either. Oh yeah, and there was something else that night that was interesting. When this happened it was at a time when I was cutting people out of my life, people that I just wasn't interested in anymore. I was sick of these people and really wanted to do a Spring cleaning. So I was there doing this performance and I looked down and saw this girl standing there in the audience and she was throwing ice at me. This girl used to be a friend of mine and she used to throw parties for me at her house. She was standing there just crying and flipping me off. She was saying, "fuck yooouu." I just remember looking at her and pointing at her, shrugging my shoulders. I just said to myself what a funny world this was, you know. Boyd: Why do you think people take things so personally now? Shaun: I don't know. Boyd: These people that come across these ideas that they don't agree with, it used to just be water off a duck's back. Now everyone acts like this stuff is directed at them personally. Shaun: People have this weird idea now that if they're offended, they're right and they're justified. It's really weird. It's funny. I love it, actually. I read these letters all the time in magazines, and I read one just yesterday where this person was saying they can't believe that this person used the term "bent over" in their article. They said it's really sexist and mysoginist-it's horrible, etc. What's going on here? Who cares? Shut up! I'm offended every fucking day of my life and I don't want to take the right from someone to offend me, it just happens. Boyd: You went on stage with Marylin Manson once? Shaun: Yeah. I'd met him once and we got along well. Obviously, he likes controversy and pushing people's buttons and pissing people off like I do-our natural talents, I guess. So he had me on stage and I was drinking all day long and having a good time. I really didn't know what to do, actually. I was spitting on the audience and Sieg Heiling, stuff like that, sucking my fingers. I looked like a combination of Lou Reed and Ronald McDonald. I had this big brown wig on and this sickish Lou Reed makeup on with these real tight brown jeans. It looked like a sick early 70's glam look. It was funny because you could spit on these people and they'd get really angry, but then they'd get really passive. You're at a concert and that was just what people do at these show. Boyd: Tell us about the Dutch Elm prank. Shaun: There was this one girl in Denver and she always used to give me blow jobs. That's what she was designed to do. One day I actually had sex with her and it was one of those creepy things where you get drunk and do something silly. So afterward, I called her friend and said, "Yeah, you know, I think this girl gave me some disease." And she was like, "What? What's wrong?" and I said, "Oh, well I think she gave me Dutch Elm's disease." She goes, "What are you talking about, only trees get that." I said, "No, actually, I went to the doctor and he said that Dutch Elm's disease is an old disease that dates back to the Druids, basically. They used to do these fertility rituals and they rubbed themselves on trees and they got this disease." I said, "I don't know if she got it from having sex with some Europeans or what, but this is a really, really rare disease. She was like, "What's going on?" I said, "Well, my dick is kinda flakey and hard..."-basically I was describing tree bark-"and my penis is dripping some sappy type juice". So she told her friend and her friend went do the doctor I guess. I wish I had that on tape, if she had actually said, "Do I have Dutch Elm's disease?" (laughter) It would have been brilliant. Later on, I actually spoke to that Twiggy guy of Marilyn Manson and accused him of giving my sister Dutch Elm's disease. I guess he was very confused by that. Boyd: Perhaps you should tell about some of your other pranks like the ones with your telemarketing job? Shaun: Yeah, I worked a bunch of good telemarketing jobs where I would pull pranks off all the time. I would just go there and make prank calls. I'd make one or two sales and then just insult people all day long. I'd call these kids and say that I was doing these surveys and tell them we were gonna kill people, gang members, all different sorts of people. I told them that we had these little machines that would go into the ghetto and shoot pellets out and kill them. It's funny, because these kids would say stuff that they learned at school about how we should be out there helping people on the street. They were really disturbed. I'd also call these latch-key kids and say that I was a doctor. I'd go on saying that I was doctor so and so and their mother says that they're a little rambunctious and that I was going to have to remove their legs. They'd be like, "What?" I'd say, "Yeah, we're gonna have to remove your legs. You jump up and down all the time." These kids would be quiet and sometimes they just wouldn't say too much. One kid really was funny, he was saying, "What? No, no, you're going to remove my legs. No! I'm going to call my mom at work." And he hung up. People were saying it was mean to do, and I was like, "what are you talking about, if I was a kid and someone called to remove my legs it would have been one of the best memories of my life." I would've loved something like that. What a weird world we live in-somebody called and said they were gonna cut my legs off! Nothing wrong with that. Performances are fun. One thing I really hate is the term "performance artist". I'd prefer to call myself a "performance asshole." My friend Tyler, this big German guy, he has this retarded cousin named Rusty, and this one time we went to a Safeway (food store) in Boulder, and I wanted to test myself to see if I could pull off pretending that I was Rusty. I had this blue hooded jumper outfit, and it was like a size too small. I put it around my head and tied it really tight to where just my face was coming out. I wore these really baggy pants and these sick shoes I used to wash dishes with. I walked in and just started grabbing things, doing whatever the hell I wanted. I'd grab things and throw them on the ground, yelling, (retard moaning and screaming) "OUGHAAEEE!!". I'd fall on the ground and Tyler would say, "Stop that, Rusty. Rusty, I asked you not to act like this in public." I knew I was getting away with anything at this point, so I grabbed this steak, penetrating the plastic and putting my fingers into it, touching it, and again, making these weird retarded noises (same noise as above). This guy who worked there came walking up and just stared, but he didn't get angry! This is wonderful. I'm throwing the steak on the ground, Tyler is shaking his head, saying, "Rusty, get back here right now." Anyway, we finally went to the line to pay. By this time it was getting really intense and I was hitting myself in the head really hard. At one point this old lady came up to us-she's probably like 80 or something-and I yell out these horrible retard screams again. I thought she was going to have an heart attack or something, but she just walked away. So we're finally in line and I say, "I wannea do it, I wanna do it" (in slurring retard voice) and Tyler goes, "Okay Rusty, go ahead, do it." So we're going through the register and I look up and there's this perfectly normal human being sitting there looking at me. And he goes (in slowed speech), "Hi there, how are you?" and waved really slow to me. I'm saying to myself, this is great, I can't believe I fooled these people-this is great. So as we're walking out, Tyler goes, "You embarassed me! When we get home I'm gonna beat the shit out of you. I'm going to whip you again, you goddamn retard!" It was a wonderful experience. There was this one time where I went to the store and all these sorority girls were in there buying beer or something, and they were like, "Wooooo!!!", and I go, "You're going to a party?" and they go, "Yeah! Wooooo!!! Rock-n-roll! Yeah!" And I go, "Dachau!" and they're going like, "Yeah! Wooooo!!!" I go, "Treblinka!" and they go, "Yeah! Wooooo!!!", and as I'm doing this everyone in the store just got very quiet, looking at the ground, and they were horrified. It was so fun, I go, "Auschwitz!" and again, they go, "Wooooo!!! Yeah! Auschwitz! Wooooo!!!" At that point one of them started to look at me a little odd, but they still didn't know what was going on. It was wonderful. (laughter). Again, I'd wish I'd videotaped these things. Boyd: Well you can. It's the first time in history where you can document every single fucking thing you do. I wished everyone had video cameras in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 1890. What if these people like the Hell Fire Club got one, you know. Some of the weird type of transvestite gentleman's clubs that were in England around the time of the Hell Fire Club. They would go out and nail bums to fences and stuff like that, or put old ladies in wheel barrels and roll them down hills. Shaun: Yeah, it would have been amazing. Boyd: Is there anything else you would like to touch on? I think we've covered a lot. Shaun: Sure. There are a few other pranks, like the housing authority prank. Boyd: Oh yeah. Shaun: That was good. The phone number I had at this one house was like off one number from the housing authority so people would constantly be calling. This black lady, Betty, called one morningand she's like, " I'm really angry and the person in my apartment isn't gonna fix my bed and put it together." (whiney voice) I said, "That's horrible, Betty. You go and get the manager right now." She says, "No, I'm afraid of him, I really am." I go, "It's alright, I'm in charge now. You go get this manager right now." She goes, "Okay." So she went and got him on the phone and I go, "Hello. Betty says that you're not putting the bed together." He says, "Listen, that's not my job, you know. She gets cheap rent here. I don't put people's beds together. That's not my job at all." I go, "Listen, Betty also says that you've been picking up on her." I would love to have seen this guy's face, the disgust. You could just sense it. You could just feel that he was disgusted by this old withered woman, probably. Then he's like, "No. No." He also mentioned that she had a cat and that cats weren't allowed. So she got back on the phone, and I go, "Betty, we have a situation here. You're not supposed to have a cat. Also, the cat might be in the Aryan Brotherhood." (laughter) She goes, "What? Aryan Brotherhood? Oh nooo." I go, "Yes, they've got these agents now, and they're cats. What color is your cat?" She goes, "Black and white." I go, "Of course, of course. It's one of their agents." She goes, "Noooo, (distressed voice), noooo, it's a cat!" She was flipping out and I'm like, "Listen, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna come down there. Me and Joe, we work together, and we're going to pick you up. Then we're going to take the cat and take care of it. We're gonna kill it." She's starting crying, flipping out. I go, "We've got to kill the cat. Listen, Joe's really nice. He's from New Orleans and he's killed lots of cats. He's going to snap the neck and then throw it in the trash can down the alley, and then we're gonna take you out to lunch." She's just crying and crying, and crying. "Don't kill the cat. Noooo." My god, it was wonderful. She called back later, saying, "Do you want to come over for lunch?" I asked her what she was going to have, and she goes, "Whatever you want-some hamburger, some vegetables, maybe some puddin' for you." It was like she was picking up on me or something, it was really strange. And that's the last I'd heard from Betty. Boyd: I seem to remember that you got calls from people who were looking for assistance as well? They wanted you to provide them housing. Shaun: Well, all sorts of different people would call for these different reasons, like cheap housing, welfare, stuff like that. They'd call up and I'd go, "Okay, what's your number?" So they'd give me their name and their number and then I'd go, "Okay, we just fed your number into this new computer we have in Nebraska and you came up a "4", and that means you're irresponsible. We're gonna revoke your privelages. Do you have any children?" They're like, "What? I have a child." I go, "We're gonna have to exterminate your child. You're not a worthwhile parent." These people would just scream at me with these blood-curddling screams, saying "How dare you do that. Who the fuck are you?" I'm like, "Ma'am, I'm sorry. I didn't make the computer. We don't like it and we're trying to get rid of it, but this is the way it is now." It was so much fun, fucking with these people. Boyd: I seem to remember a story where you were saying, "I'm looking at your file right now, and it says here that you're too fat and ugly to be eligable for benefits." Shaun: I would say that they're fat and worthless, stuff like that. One time Social Services called, and that was a wild story. This woman was freaking out. Apparently her kid was a real fuck-up, and he had tried to commit suicide and burnt off his toes in the garage. He had eaten all these valiums, and she was crying. We fucked with her for a bit as she told us all this stuff about her son. That one really got out of control. She called back later and my roomate goes "This is a joke, lady." She just became outraged. This old lady called once and goes, "I need to come in. What are the hours?" She wanted to come in and get some Social Security money or something, I forget. I go, "We're all booked up right now, ma'am. You can come in at 12 o'clock tonight, though." She says (whining old lady voice), "12 o'clock at night?" She probably wakes up at three in the morning and goes to bed at seven at night. (laughter) She starts crying. I go, "I'm sorry ma'am, we're booked up right now. You'd have to come to our Denver store, too, to our office." (more old lady crying voice) "I can't go to Denver." I say, "But ma'am, you'll get a free dinner." She goes, "Ooohh, where?" And I go, "McDonalds." She starts crying again. (more laughter) Yeah, that last summer there in Boulder, I didn't work, and it was like a prank-call paradise. It was before all that Caller-I.D. stuff, too. I did this one where I called this lady and told her that we had spotted her daughter doing graffitti. And she goes, "Oh, no, not my daughter. That doesn't make sense at all. She's in college." I said, "I know ma'am." She says, "What kind of graffitti?" And I go, "Well, she was spray-painting swasticas and slogans like "White Power" and "Death to the Mud Race". She just got all silent, and said, "What? My daughter is black." I'm thinking to myself, this is just perfect. So I say, "You know ma'am, sometimes children rebel against their race. It's just a phase, we hope. She's been running with a bad crowd, some skinheads." She started flipping out. That was a funny one. I also used to call up people with the same last name as serial killers. Most of them didn't really pan out too well, until I called this guy with the name "Speck". I told him I was a police officer and that we had some information regarding the Richard Speck case. I told him that we had been investigating and found out that it had been an inside job and that he had a relative working with him-that escaped. He flipped out, saying (crying/whining voice) "I've been having problems since that happened. I'm not related to this guy at all. I don't know that person." I said, "Sir, sir, we need to talk to you. You need to come down to the station today. We have inside information that you were in that place and you hid under the bed and then left." He's like, "No, no, no.." Then I said, "Sir, you sound guilty. We're going to be there in a few minutes." He slammed the phone down after that. I guess that guy actually had problems his whole life because his last name was Speck. It's such a fun world. Boyd: With things like that, you never know when you're going to hit a nerve. Shaun: Yeah, it's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. |
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