Inside the Mind of an American Stanford Experiment Part 2

To the end of my life my grandfather's voice will echo through the inner recesses of my mind.

Towards him I never felt the "grand-father" relationship that I believed other grand-kids had with theirs.

He was the one and only prophet of God in the end times preparing to call out His lost people from the global Babylon corrupted by Satan.

What was I supposed to do with that?

Fortunately I didn't live too close to him. My dad, his first and only son, didn't like the over-reaching observation and scrutiny of the church/his family. From Pasadena to Sylmar he fled, just close enough to make it to Saturday services, but far enough away to have his own world to himself and his wife.

But I digress...

I remember when my grandfather would say that, after he received the sign that he was awaiting, he would send out the final call, "Come out my people from Babylon!" and then we would be under attack.

I remember a daydream, or was it an actual dream, that I was lined up in the center of my street facing north-west. I was about 14 at the time, maybe a bit younger, and I saw myself in the third person, from some place a few feet behind myself...it was dark out, and there was a line of people I stood amongst, each of us with a little white backpack of some kind...squarish things, and all around there was fire, or at least the smoke and smell of fire in the air.

While attacks would come from the outside, the most dreaded, and expected, was to be the attack from within.

My grandfather would say that someone from within the congregation may even try to kill him in order to delay the message and the final judgement of God.

Though being young....at the first instance maybe I was 9, I secretly feared that I would be that person..... Of course, he would always say, my grandfather was destined to survive any such attack, and the person involved would basically receive a one way pass directly to Hell.

That is one of the darker sides....

Satan is of course the name of the evil leader best embodied in the imagery of the Protestant churches..

Satan means roughly 'one who stands in opposition', and in some sense that is what I embodied from the 10th grade on.

I, for some reason, had a rebellious streak that disregarded all potential consequence.

Of course, I think this latter quality had more to do with my eventual acceptance that I have never been a person able to avoid punishments...

I showed some of this opposition through my exploration of "worldly music" while in high school. Yes...I remember the day I first heard "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels..

I will have to say this, however...my mom did foster my curiousity of the larger world forbidden by my father's family's culture..

When I was in junior high I would ride with my mother in her car to her workplace, which was a short walk from good old San Fernando Junior High....I will save further comment about my experiences at that place in the future....

Driving with her in the morning there would be K-Earth 101....the oldies station. From the Righteous Brothers to Elvis, Richie Valenzuela (to hell with anglicized-corporatized names..but Valens for those who don't know), and the Crystals....Evil sounded so good...

With this said...

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" sparked one of the more interesting interactions with my father that I would ever have.

Worldly to the core, the concept that the Devil could be beaten by a human being, for entertainment purposes or otherwise, was unacceptable to my father, and this song represented all the corrupting powers that the harlot of Babylon (every force that was not specifically part of my family) could bring to bear against the "Called out of God.".....

I found my way to Operation Ivy....the most influential musical group on my life, Minor Threat, KROQ FM, and many other types of sounds.....

I call them sounds because in my father's world none of these comprised "music." Before we could have this discussion, however, we had to overcome the hurdle of the "bringing the corruption of the world into the holy sanctity of the household" issue.

My father and I laugh today about all those discussions, arguments, and all out fights we used to have over these issues....

To those members of my family who still hold to the religious and social beliefs that will otherwise pass to time along with my grandfather I represent, at least in part, the fall of the House of Long....

Oh well.....a small suburban lot in the San Fernando Valley isn't a high place to descend from....