I’m known for being a fan of conspiracy theories. As a man whose first tv viewing was the Watergate hearings, and is on record for having seen UFO’s and ghosts, this should not surprise anyone.

Now this post is a rehash of a post from my previous blog, but I’ve been mad deep in the conspiracy trenches for decades. A fan of people like Art Bell and Peter Levenda. It was Robert Anton Wilson who really first tripped me into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theory. And he taught me a valuable lesson:keep an open mind, but also keep a sense of humor.

That sense of humor is missing from a lot of conspiracy theory. I generally find the less of a sense of joie de vivre, the worse the ideas are. And the less actual intelligence there is behind the idea, and more dogma than anything else.

So in an effort to regulate and not go too deep down the hole that has swallowed half this country, it seems, I developed a scale. And also, when I say half this country, I consider some of the things that the liberals have fallen for nuttier than squirrel poop too. Anyone else feel stupid thinking, even for a second, that Trump was just using the GOP? Hey, I drank that water for a second, too.

In order to deal with a lot of this, I developed a ten point scale, that I egotistically call the Trevor scale. On that scale, 1 is the lowest, ideas so dumb you have to have had a railroad spike shoved through your skull to believe it.

The other end, ten, is stuff that I believe to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. I say I believe, because some of them I can’t explain to you why I do, and are a result of what my friend Miles calls UPG, or an Unverifiable Personal Gnosis. I know this to be true, and I can’t prove it to you.

So what’s a one on the scale? Anything Qanon, the Walmart of conspiracy theory. The guy who believed that who went and shot up a pizza parlor? Used to be a customer when I was a vendor. Not the brightest bulb in the sign. Also, anyone claiming the Earth is flat,that Elvis or Tupac is alive, and Satanic messages are backwards recorded on metal records.

A better question to ask is, what’s a ten, at least for me? First off, UAV’s are real, and the government has admitted this. Ghosts are real, I’m just not sure if the explanation is supernatural. And also, Jim Morrison faked his death. I’ll explain that one sometime, if you ever meet me in real life.

So, what about all the other crazy stuff? JFK? It’s a ten that the official story is bullshit, and a three that aliens had something to do with it. It’s a nine that the mafia were involved, and a two that Marilyn Monroe was killed becuase of what she knew about it. So everything is relative.

And maybe that’s the lesson in me having the scale. That we shoudl all look at what we believe in, and question it. Not just about conspiracy theories, but about what our ideals are, and what’s important to us. And not be afraid to adjust our ideas , based on new evidence, or changing our minds. And hopefully, use that reasoning and thinking to do better, be better, and love each other better. Good night.

People talk all the time about abuse. And there’s those who have had much worse abuse than mine. Horrific levels of it. But what they don’t talk about is how the worst scars aren’t physical, they’re mental.

I don’t talk about the abuse that left me with C-PTSD. All I want to do today is talk about one of the things it left me with: anxious attachment style.

I’m not going to give you a definition of it, that’s what Google is for. But it means I’m continually in fear of people leaving me. All the time. Because I never had any certainty most of my life, about anything. Couldn’t depend on love from my parents, the narcissist and the co-dependent. Social circumstances left me with very little in the way of friends, or being able to make new friends. I spent a lot , and I mean a LOT of time alone as a child. So what do you think happens when I try to forge new relationships? It usually goes badly.

Children mirror the behavior they see around them. My parents very rarely had friends over. I can count on one hand the times they did. And this has messed up my ideas of friendship and love. With disastrous consequences.

I don’t know how to be a friend, or at least it seemed that way, up until this year. I have to work hard at friendships and relationships. There’s a quote from a wresting documentary that has struck me for a good decade: “I’m not sure I’m his best friend, but he’s my best friend”.

That kind of imbalance in friendship is natural. You have friends come, they go, life goes on. But for me, I made some friends that I thought were gone forever. Most of what I thought were my friends were, vanished. I’m not blaming them. I can be forgetful at times. But if I keep trying, and you don’t bother, ever, are you really my friend?

Anxious attachment can be overwhelming. And it can lead you to smother people. Being alone a lot as a child has left me feeling like I’m a bother to people, much of the time. I think people are always going to be like that, even when they’re not. I’m in therapy for it.

But you can’t let it ruin your life. We all need lives away from other people, time on our own. You can’t pour from an empty cup. And you shouldn’t put all your emotional eggs in a one person basket. Humans work best in groups. I made myself alone in what I thought was my group, then blew it all up. Now, I’m slowly rebuilding that group, person by person. And it’s hard. Having to form new social networks at my age is tough. Not smothering loved ones is tough, because you drain them.

I’m not perfect, and I can be a pain to talk to about bad stuff. I catastrophize, and I have executive dysfunction like you wouldnt believe. But I’m getting better, and I’d like some more people to ride along with, here on this big rock we live on. Come along? Good night

Tonight’s post is not for everyone. On second thought, yeah, it is. Because we all,like it or not, need each other. Unless you’re living under a homemade shelter out in the woods. And even then, you wouldn’t be reading this, because you’d be using the net.

I’m having issues with growing old. One of the hardest things about getting older as a parent, is the realization that your children don’t need you anymore. That your children are self sufficient and fully functioning adults. It can be gradual, or it can hit you all at once.

That’s a frightening day when you realize that. Some parents don’t ever realize that, or are unfortunate that they or the children don’t get to live to see that day. I feel bad for those parents and children. Because it’s a transformative moment.

When you become a parent(or stepparent, or foster parent,all of which are valid), your life changes, right then and there. And it may take you years or seconds to realize that you are a parent. Some would say it was when their child was born. You’d think I would say it was when Aubry was born. you’d be wrong.

The first day I truly felt like a parent was 9-11. That was the first day where my first thought was, what about the girls? I tried all morning to get a hold of someone. It took a bunch of searching and missed calls before I found out their grandmother had gone and gotten them out of school. It was a relief, to know they were safe.

Many years later, the girls are all mothers now. And that wasn’t when I knew they didn’t need me as a parent anymore. No, for me it was when their grandfather Larry passed. My wife was busy handling her own grief and arrangements down in North Carolina. I was assisting with that, best as I could, Within a day,those girls had rolled in, pitched in and helped their mother through one of the worst days a human can go through. And all I could think was, they were the helpers, not the ones needing help.

Now, the girls and I aren’t getting along. Not going there, sorry. I still think all the girls are amazing women. I will steer people toward their store every chance I get. And I do it, knowing they need nothing from me at all.

So, all you parents, accept that one day those tiny hands will hold you , cradle you, probably, I see it every day at my job. Loving children caring for elderly parents, helping ones who are infirm and struggling. And I wonder, what will happen when I need?

I think the bottom line is not to discourage your children’s independence. Feeing themselves of you is the natural way of things. You may not like the path they choose, or wish you’d done more. But in the end, they’ll most likely go. But they do come back. And you get to love them as who they are, and as the little one you once held in your arms. Good night.

If I’m going to remember anything about this year, is that it’s the year of destruction and rebirth. Or at least that’s what I thought, in April of this year. I had goals, plans and ideas on how to move ahead, and get on with my life. The only problem was, I forgot who I’d have to get to do all this: myself.

I have a cavalcade of mental issues: C=PTSD, anxious attachment, anxiety, and depression. Add in a surfiet of trauma responses and possible ADHA and possibly being on the lower end of the autism spectrum, and I am a mess.

So I set out a bunch of goals. And I set dates to hit those goals. And you know what happened? Every single one of those goal dates came and went. I missed every single one. And on a lot of levels, I spiraled down.

The response of many of you, I’m sure, is that I can reset those goals. Move them down the timeline. Those people don’t live with my brain. They don’t live with a brain that constantly tells them that they’re a failure, and that they are not worthy of anything good or kind in this world. That better is impossible for them. I do.

But when I was down there, thinking dark thoughts, I had people come into my life. People who reminded me that every day is a gift. That every morning is a chance to start again. And yes, starting over is hard. It’s easy to give up, to surrender to ennui and darkness. Ive done it far too much. And I now fight against it, every day. Every day I get up, and get moving, is another day that the darkness hasn’t won. That the black dog is still at the gate, but he’s not won yet.

So if you’re thinking you should quit on your goals and dreams, please don’t. Know that by not giving up, you give hope to people like me. That every day is another roll of the dice, and it can’t roll a 1 every day. Good night.

There’s a lot to be said for modern life. As someone who’s had dysentery, I’m a big fan of modern plumbing and cleanliness. But how do I reconcile that with a nature based religious practice? I don’t.

I’m not prefect when it comes to being a modern primitive. I like AC and toilets. It’s cold as Dante’s last circle out there tonight, and I’m grateful for heat and insulation. So what makes me a pagan,you ask? If I’m a fan of modern technology and the ease it brings?

Because I’m not perfect. And nobody is. And if you feel that being outside running around naked works for you in terms of your church, then good on you. I live where a good portion of the year, running around naked is not fun and at times, life threatening.

So where is my worship? Where am I most vulnerable? At home. I’ve adjusted to being naked a lot more, thanks to my partner. I think I’m repeating myself about this, but so what? I t bears repeating. Get naked with your partners.

And I’m not talking about sex, either. I love feeling another persons skin on mine. And the number of people ,right now, I feel comfortable doing that with is exactly one. But I’m leaving the door open for more. Love is not a finite resource.

Skin to skin contact is something we crave from the moment we’re born. Society deems we have clothes on when we do it, but there’s something very comforting about bare skin on bare skin. And when you’re both naked, you can see all of them. All the things thy wish they could hide. The people I can talk to stripped naked is much smaller than the people I can have sex with. The conversation afterwards is far more intimate, and vulnerable.

So if you’re in a relationship, do yourselves a favor. Strip down sometime, not just to have sex, but to talk . Oh no, you might fart or queef in front of the person. You might laugh and not look perfect.But you also might actually talk to each other. And that;s where all the magic truly starts. Good night.

We all have enemies. Sometimes they’re people at work, sometimes they’re former friends. Sometimes they’re former partners. And they oppose us, and work against us. And when they’re confronted with this, they conflate, switch subjects or gaslight us.

If these people do this to you,you can respond or retaliate, or argue with them. Which is what lots of songs will encourage you to do. Here’s my advice: don’t bother.

Yes, don’t bother engaging with the people who are flinging crap at you. If you’ve wronged them, make what amends you feel you can. But know this: for some, it will not be enough. You could give them all the money in the world, make all their problems disappear, but unless you give in, and do exactly what they want, regardless of what it does to you, they won’t stop.

But here’s the secret: live well. Be happy, and do things that make you happy. Sing your song, speak your truth. Some people will not like it. But you’ll find out who your friends really are. Dance your way through this life, as much as possible. Stuck in traffic? Boogie in your seat. Waiting for the doctor? Time for some Taylor Swift or Erasure, whatever your jam is.

I’ve bene in a funk off and on the last week, and there’s forces that want to keep me down. They want me to believe that I am something I’m not, but they want to keep that in their heads, because it fits their narrative. Don’t let them sour your life. Dance when you want to dance, write when you want to write, and say what you want to say. Then eat the hell out of your dessert, and love all you can in this life. Good night.

My posts have been, until now, mostly positive and use song lyrics for a title. Music is a big force in my life, and there’s been a song for every occasion. But tonight, there isn’t any music in my brain.

I’ve been struggling with what to write tonight, because my head isn’t where it needs to be for that. I know, you should be able to just sit your ass in the seat and write, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way.

I keep giving people the benefit of the doubt. I keep thinking that the awful crap they spew is just because they’re angry, or hurt or sad. But sometimes, that isn’t true.

I have loved people in my life. Not perfectly, and sometimes very badly. I have hurt and screwed up. And I recognize that, and I am trying to do better.

What I will not tolerate are people who use their anger to lie, decieve and manipulate other people I love into joining their hatred against me. You do that,then shame on you.

And here’s what I don’t get. Do you really need to be right that badly? Are you such a narcissist that you can’t see how bad it looks? And does it feel better at night?

You can think you’re winning. You can think you’re feeling good about yourself. But if your feeling good is depending on hating someone else, then how good is it, really? If hurting, bullying, and violating their boundaries is what makes you feel good, then how good is it? Who’s the real bad guy here?

I’ve stopped talking to some people I love. Some have accused me of avoiding conflict, and avoiding responsibility. But there are three sides to every story: Yours, mine and the truth. If you only have interest in your side, than you have no interest in the truth. I don’t think I’m right about everything. Can you say the same? And if you can’t, well then shame on you. And if you get challenged, then switch it to something else, and deflect, then you really don’t want the truth, you just want ot be right.

I’ve had way too many people who told everyone else who much they loved me while not bothering to act on it once the doors were closed. Keeping up appearances and all that. I refuse to deal with that garbage. I have no room to talk, they’ll say, while admitting they lied to me for decades.

I’m posting this because i have to get it out. I don’t care if you like what I have to say. I write this for me, not you. And if you hurt me, and take people away from me with your bullying, self deception, and narcissism, I hope it brings you happiness. But I know it won’t. And you are furious with me, because I won’t play the game, and you get angrier every time I call you on it. And you say you’re done with me. And yet, you keep coming back. Because you enjoy the pain you’re causing. Tonight, I refuse. Good night.

I’ve covered my issues before, like avoidance, being neurospicy and a people pleaser. And I did a good thing tonight, and it made me think about how I’m not good at being good to myself.

My good thing was telling someone how I and other people supported them on their journey towards being healthier, and how there were so many people who supported them on their journey. And , not going to lie, it felt good to lift them up. Because they’re good people, and they deserve it.

As I thought about how good it felt, I wished it felt that good to talk that way about myself. I’m an asshole to myself. I don’t believe in myself a lot, and I’m always giving in to the brain weasels and the shoulds. I should be this, I should be that, most of which has no basis in reality.

My new goal now is to talk to myself like I talk to other people. To lift myself up on that rising tide, as much as i push other people’s boats onto the waves. If I don’t know how to paddle in that water, how can I honestly tell people to dive in?

This is a short post, I know. But I’m not feeling the best due to vaccines and general garbage I had to deal with today. But I had people remind me that I am loved and I have friends and I am not alone in the battles I fight with myself. Won’t you wade out with me and take a swim? Good night.

Author’s note: We interrupt my usual brain pan drippings to bring you a blast from the past. Sort of. My original Rocky Horror post is lost to the ages, or until someone invents a wayback machine for hacked websites with webmastes who are ticked at me for some reason. So without further ado it;s time to start rolling.

Rocky Horror saved my life. That’s not a joke. It literally saved my life. Not in the way most people think. It’s a bit more complicated now, but I have to give credit where credit is due. Without that movie, I’d probably be dead now. At least inside, anyway.

My introduction to Rocky was not the normal. I’d just turned 16. I only had one friend, Brian. He’s no longer my friend, but that’s a post for another day. He wanted to go see this movie,Rocky Horror. It was showing at midnight. Being teenage males, staying up way late was way cool. I’d never even heard of the thing. So away we went.

The theatre was nearly empty. RIP Lakehurst Cinema in Waukegan. I have so many memories of the place. Saw Return of the Jedi there, went on my first date there, had sex in the theatre there. Sorry kids, but if you think a post about Rocky wasn’t going to include sex, you obviously weren’t paying attention.

That first Rocky, ther was barely a cast. Just two guys, one with a blonde wig. And they talked back to the screen. And it was hilarious. The music was great, the plot ludicrous and sexy, and the Time warp stillis the only dance I cna do completely from memory.

After it was over, we talked to the two guys. They were called Larry and Chance. Pretty standoffish, but Brian was undeterred. And we were RPG playing geeks, so we asked them if they wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons sometimes. Chance just shook his head. Larry blew smoke in my face.

“Jesus Christ, no. You should find my brother and sister. They live for that shit” He sauntered off. Larry excelled at sauntering.

Flash forward about two weeks. My high school, the late lamented Waukegan West(Go Raiders!) was having a social thing for us students. They had dancing, volleyball and an open pool. Having very little physical skills, we chose swimming. I loved swimming, still do.

So we’re in the pool, and I overhear a guy and a girl talking about D and D. I immediately floated over and started talking to them. After a while, they introduced themselves and Brett and Lianna Hund. I asked if they had an older brother named Larry. They both looked amazed. And thus, friendships that last decades were born.

I became a regular at their house, playing D and D every Friday night I could. Brian flitted in and out, bored when he realized Lianna had no interest in him. The other regular third of the party, Bill, was Brett’s best friend. We spent a good six months playing at that kitchen table. Lianna’s dad , Larry senior was always nice. Her mom ran hot and cold, and still does. It was a good time.

But nothing lasts forever. I asked Lianna out at her 16th birthday party. She turend me down, preferring the company of boys who had cars and looked like Raggedy Andy come to life. We grew a wider group of friends, including my first girlfriend, Kim. She hated Rocky. Should have seen that as a sign that wouldnt last. After Kim, things changed around us quickly.

I got a second girlfriend named Jenny. She cheated on me with Brett’s best friend Billy, who lived two houses from her. She later dated Brett, and even later on Larry , Brett’s brother. She was a busy gal.But we were young and dumb.

Around this time, Lianna started dating Rob, who would be her first husband, I didn’t like him from day one. Found out later, one of the reasons he didn’t like me was because my father threw his father out of a second story window. Sins of the fathers, what can I say.

But through it all, Rocky was there. Lianna married Rob right out of high school. I was an usher. She’d asked me what I though of her marrying him. I told her not to, that he was an asshole. Whent he wedding got to the part about does anyone here object, LArry stepped on my foot, hard. He saw me about to rise, and put a stop to it quick.

Later , during the reception, Larry got the DJ to play the Time Warp. All of us kids got up their and did it, drunk as skunks. It was a joyous release in a busy and tense time in our lives. It was the only time I ever saw Larry smile.

Flash forward a year. I’m just starting to go to Rocky regularly. The cast all act cooler than me, and I find out later it’s because i knew Larry. Guilt by association. Larry had gotten drunk one night at cast. In his drunkenness, during the Dr Scott toilet paper throwing scene, he’d thrown an entire Krakus canned ham through the screen. It took the cast six months to convince Lakehurst to let them back.

But I kept showing up. And I learned the lines, and hung out at the Dennys after. I met girls, fooled around, and basically got lost in a sea of sex and drink. How very Rocky.

And like Rocky, tragedy followed the sex, song and comedy. Larry drowned in Lake Michigan, cramping up after eating. He left behind three daughters, and a large hole in the Hund family.

The funeral was a blur. Bret’s best friend Billy blew him off. Brett responded to all the pressure by getting mind blowingly drunk. I recall him dancing on top of a car at midnight in Bowen Park.

At the same time, my world was falling apart. My parents had split, and I was living with my dad, who treated me with either anger or indifference. So I ran away from the real world, and right into Rocky.

I did audience participation. We had a wild bunch of people. Our Frank was a gay drag queen named Ace. We had a prop guy named Joey, who was a gay Jewish white supremacist. He sieg heiled once through a House Party movie and we had to hide him in the back until 2am.

A lot of this time is a blur. I was working full time, going to school full time, doing college radio when I could and drinking a lot. And screwing whatever female would let me. I’m not proud of those things, but they’re part of who I am. And Brett followed in his brother’s footsteps, hurling himself through a wall below the screen playing Dr. Scott. Somewhere, Larry is laughing his ass off.

Eventually, Lakehursts’s cast, the awesomely named Denton’s Revenge, fell apart. I lost interest when the cast kept changing, and my job changed. I went to shows in different places, but it just wasn’t the same.

The next decade was one of highs and lows. Mostly lows. I became the first member of my family to graduate college, on my dad’s side, Then I let a very dark incident ruin my professional life, one in which I had no part other than being a victim. My own dark time would come much later.

And other people were having their own issues. Lianna divorced Rob, who somehow managed to help create the three awesome women i still call my daughters. Brian knocked a woman up, and then was outed as a pedophile. It’s a loss that haunts me to this day.

But among all this, Rocky showed up. When I attended Pirde events, there was Rocky. When I went to Goth clubs, there was Rocky. Hell, Lianna’s sister met her husband when he was playing Frank. And when I DJed at the gay bar Saloon in Minneapolis, there was a request every time for either Time Warp or Sweet Transvestite.

And now it’s 2025. And like Rocky Horror, there’s been sex, celebration, and tragedy. My marriage of twenty years to Lianna ended. It’s more dangerous than ever to be transsexual. And we’re facing the biggest national crisis since Covid, when our government is going to allow 40 million people to go hungry.

But I won’t let that stop me, and I refuse to go quietly. I work with openly trans and queer people all the time. One of the groomsmen at my wedding came out as trans. So many people I know are poly, pan, queer and all of them are beautiful. My girlfriend has trans family members. More people are out then ever before. Hell. I’m even calling myself heteroflexible these days. IF I think back to all the late nights, the struggles, the heartache, it can be overwhelming and sad. But then I think of the laughs, the music and dancing, and I just smile. So thank you, Rocky Horror. And thank you, all the people it brought into my world. Good night.

I missed my one chance to meet Anton Lavey. I had a friend in college who ended up on the Council of Nine, the ruling body of the Church of Satan. Lavey rarely traveled, but was supposed to be at a event in Chicago. He cancelled, but that might be proof of his supposed psychic powers. That same event had Dana Plato of Different Strokes show up as the other guest of honor. She was dead a couple weeks later.

I didn’t like, and still don’t agree with much of the Church of Satan. But that’s not the point. (For the record, I find the Satanic Temple crowd much easier to deal with and agree with them more.) But tonight’s post has to do with my favorite LaVey quote: “There is a beast in man that should be exercised, not exorcised.”

I have a beast in me. I rarely let him have free reign, though he pokes his nose through the bars in his cell every so often and licks my brain. I do let him out regularly, but on a leash. He needs his exercise, because the cage we call civilization chafes his skin.

Now, if you’re one of those twits who thinks you don’t have one, you’re deluding yourself. Yours is just buried. Your beast, your dark side? They’re there. Man, woman, every sex and gender on the planet, all have a dark side.

But wait, Ttevor. Aren’t you a big fan of civiization? Liking hotels over camping? Indoor plumbing and all that? Yeah, I am. But that’s because I spent time not having stuff like that. I don’t like camping because I’ve bene homeless. It’s not my release from civilization.

For some folks, that is their release. Don’t get me wrong. I love getting out in nature. I love going hiking, staying in a cabin out in the woods. I just want it to have indoor plumbing and heat.And internet and medical facilities nearby if at all possible.

So where do I get off talking about unleashing one’s inner beast? Because I used to let my beast out unfocused and uncontrolled. And I almost killed a person because of it. I put a guy in the hospital when I was twenty. Thankfully, I had a judge who gave me two choices: the military or martial arts. I chose martial arts. I found aikido, and it saved my life, my spirit and my sanity. I don’t think I’d have survived my twenties without it. Charles Tseng, where ever you are, thank you.

Not to say I was suddenly a monk. Quite the opposite. I drank, caroused and screwed my way through things as much as I could. I had a lot of fun, but I lost a lot of life along the way.

When I got married, I swung the pendulum back the other direction, I tried to grow up, fly right. And I let the beast run around every so often. But I don’t think I let him out nearly enough. And I think it cost me a lot swinging the other way as well.

So now, on my own, I’m trying to find more balance. I’m embracing my beast, giving him more room and running time. And he’s been wounded too. Some folks call it shadow work, I call it embracing my beast. Eveyr time I’m out on the dance floor, or in the pit at shows, or steaming up the windows, that beast is happy as a clam.

And yes, I am using he pronouns for mine, But not all beasts are male, lets be clear. I’ve seen the beast come out in people of all classes , colors and societies. All sorts of ways to let yours out.

But you have to be careful, and be smart. There’s wrong ways to let the beast out. Thats how you end up in jail. FInd a channel for that energy, find what works for you. Go get in a rage room. Buy an old tv at a rummage sale and beat it with a hammer. Don’t throw the family tv out the window, That’s definitely the wrong way. And anything that involves other humans? Consent first. Otherwise, you’re not releasing your beast, you’re just being an asshole.

I hope that you find someway to contact your inner beast and let him out. Because after wards, you’ll feel better. You might have waves of emotion you’ve suppressed come out. I’ve cried twice this year in the pit at shows. Sorry, but that’s personal. You want to know, message me.

We have a beast, or devil or shadow. Every single one of us. And what we do with it can greatly improve our lives, or destroy us. The choice is yours. See you in the pit, or on the dance floor. Good night.