Wilde Expectations

When it's suggested to me that I should get out more often, I tell them to take the lead.

2012 was the year...

This was quite a year for me, perhaps a watershed in some ways, but one that will at least allow me to truly move forward in my life and to be a free of the terrible stress expediting the completion of a historical account. There are no rules for that, and only a few guidelines. In the end, you're the only one who knows what you experienced, and even then, that's not always a given. You know what you were told. You know what information was conveyed to you. You know what you experienced during these interactions, but they're fragmented, obscured, and questionable in one way, completely credible in others. That's navigating a labyrinth. 

This wasn't just 2012 for me, it was the last five years of my life. What was real? I discovered many things that were, many more that were not, and more than all that combined that remains a mystery to myself and others. The terrible part is to then extricate yourself from the narrative continuum to continue on with your own life. There are apparently some out there who don't want this to happen, but I have news for them. It is going to happen.

I'll promote the book, and I'm open to interviews, all that's fine. However, I won't be dragged into other people's agendas, and there have already been attempts to do this, right out of the gate of the release of Let the Dead Bury the Dead. When else would it occur? There will be more. Interestingly, the phony cease and desists have halted, a form of harassment that I've experienced from the beginning of my involvement with Jeane's case to the present, several months ago, then once more just weeks ago. The fact that they've now become silent in their legal harassment from the shadows tells me what I always assumed: it was all predicated on scaring me out of publication. That was never going to work in a nation where prior restraint has been ruled unconstitutional so many times that it's solid precedent. A first year law student would know this, and so too would many millions outside of legal profession. Were I to discover their identity, I could sue them in a civil court, and maybe even hit them with criminal charges of harassment--that is, if it's not the government, then the funhouse rules come into play.

Is this a story many don't want to be told, Jeane's story, the information that I and others came into possession of? It was uncanny how often the information was coming to me, not the reverse. There were many times that Jeane would mistakenly send me entire email-chains between herself and counsel and others, and doing so when I wasn't even part of the defense as a researcher. Was she trying to let me bear witness? Sometimes, she was, unquestionably, but I don't think the chains always were. When she Cc'd her exchanges with journalist Jason Leopold, whom I bear no ill will mind you, she was most definitely doing this. There were other occasions, sometimes to bounce my opinion off of things counsel was conveying to her. What did I think of this crafted motion? Did I trust counsel? Did I know more about their and numerous other players' backgrounds, sometimes collective, interconnected ones? The answers were always varied. Sometimes I was able to find out, many other times, she was simply asking the impossible out of desperation. This all had to be written down and chronicled before it gradually vanished from my memory, and the memory of others, because so much is lost to history when this kind of action isn't taken immediately. It escapes into the Aether, subsumed by darkness, assimilated into the Abyss. You can bet that a lot more is sitting on a hard drive at some "fusion center" in the continental United States. An FOIA isn't going to free it up anytime soon.

I'll continue to answer questions to the best of my ability on the subject, because I think it was a far more important case than most of us realized at the time. It took a great deal of after-the-fact research on my part, a lot of reflection on what happened when Jeane was alive, what my role, my place, in it all really was, and to question, question question, and that includes myself, my assumptions. It turned out that many of my earliest ones were either correct, or that I was on the right trail.

The public has a right to know what's being done in their name and how their taxes are being spent. This is why my account is important. Besides being a historical chronicle for the historical record, it can be a starting-point for further inquiry. Because of the information I came across, I'm not naive enough to believe that this is going to happen. Our political system is in what I consider terminal crisis that's borne out of the natural lifecycles of democratic societies. They have a shelf-life, and we're around the time of the expiration date. 

The cycle, as one would imagine, is a circle. I recommend looking at the democratic and republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome. Western societies appear to begin with warrior king leadership that grows into some general form of feudalism, then to forms of republicanism where it's primarily based around land ownership, often headed by a senate, some parliamentary structure, and on into wider forms of democratic franchise, popular democracy of some sort. Unfortunately, and the ancients saw this firsthand, democracy is also the most fertile soil and prerequisite for tyranny, either by the masses or a dictatorship. Because the general population is usually uneducated, ignorant, stubborn--holding all the human frailties related to pride--there's a tendency towards an overemphasis on the military. Appetites, often arising out of inequality, must be fed in order to rule, and so, it's not simply leadership that demands empire, it's the people, the working-class wage slaves, the populi, the plebes. Military adventurism becomes a virtual inevitability. 

Because of the social reality of a minimum degree of democratic rights, the franchise, the vote, a say in how things are done, we must have bread and circuses, the mob must be placated and diverted away from a real voice in the operation of society ruled by some form of aristocracy. More often, people want to be told what to do thinking that it's easier, and too often, they want a strongman leader to show them the way. Sadly, I see us at the end of this cycle and heading towards dictatorship. The American public will hold just as much of the blame as the current rulers when things disintegrate into this. Can something better arise out of this? Eventually, if we can survive. The Greeks are still waiting for democracy, so there's a good idea of how long it might take.


Do I see much change in our course in the United States, to avert what no other democratic society was able to endure, besides maybe the Swiss? No, I'm afraid not. We're going to continue our military adventurism, until there's no more money left in the Treasury--what happened to Athenian democracy--or someone creams our ass, more likely a combination of both, which has many precedents. Democracies die of neglect. When the 17th and 18th century liberal thinkers spoke of revolution, it was as a warning, not a threat, that there must be reform or that things will collapse into chaos and violence. This is what the social contract is about. We either work together, looking out for each others' well-being, or we will surely die together. Apathy and indifference towards others is a ticking bomb, and it's why I have a serious problem with American Libertarianism, a subject barely worthy of comment for its obvious irrationality. Thinkers such as John Locke were saying that breakdowns of order happen when a society becomes so dysfunctional from misrule, and the missing-ingredient is the public, that people begin killing each other. But the public too often is unaware of their power. They're apathetic, divided over petty squabbling, generation after generation, making the exact same mistakes. Worse still, the public is very often wrong like their rulers. Now, you, the thoughtful reader, will know why my book is only going to reach so many people. The truth hurts. And now on to other related things that happened in my life this year...

2012 was the year that I:

...finished and published the manuscript of my experiences in the DC Madam case (and beyond it, stories never end, or ever die). Let the Dead Bury the Dead can be traced back to an exchange in the New Testament between Jesus and a disciple who said that he needed to bury a loved one before he could go with them on the road. I was unaware of this at the time I decided on the title. It has become an idiomatic phrase throughout the world over the centuries, and there is no agreement on what Jesus meant by it. Some say he meant to let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead in a dead, fallen world. Others say that it means to move on from the past, to not dwell on it, to not live in the past. I don't claim to know what he meant or originally said, but I think all the meanings relate to me and the book. This is when you begin to realize that you've hit on some very fundamental truths, and not merely artistic truth, but truth itself. So much of this has been serendipity to the point that it cancels itself out, it is no longer coincidence, but the truth, however terrible, liberating, or great. I can only feel humbled by it all.

...was asked to research the Wikileaks StratFor emails cache, along with many others of course. This didn't come to be, unfortunately, over technicalities I'll go into one day. To be asked was very exciting. My opinion of Assange is yet to be finalized. On an interpersonal level, I'm sure he can be a pushy asshole. On the other hand, it's probably worth it to kick people who aren't serious to the curb, which he has done on numerous occasions. The amount of information coming out of governments around the world? I can tolerate a lot there. The people Wikileaks is working against are the worst in the entire world.

...began watching the great works of cinema as much as I'd been wanting to for a very long time, and when I purchased a Blu-ray player when my old DVD-player croaked. Watching a cinematic classic in HD is maybe one of the few great technological achievements of the current era. If it serves the dissemination of the arts, information of value, in a better way, I'm all for it. There is nothing more important than cultural expression when it's the truth.

...noticed that for some reason I'm aging well. This is probably because I rarely drink and smoke and get regular exercise. Why stress didn't contribute more might have to do with the fact that my family has naturally low blood pressure. The other good side is that the more I grow older, the great my resemblance to Oscar Wilde, and that's not a jest.

...realized how wonderful my mother's parents really were, and how their home is truly my home. America is my home, I cannot leave her. As fucked up as she is, I still love her, or I wouldn't be trying to save her from herself. At some point, it doesn't matter what the odds are. You must act out of decency and honor, armed with knowledge and a sense of persistence and the long view.

...found that many of my fellow Americans are a pathetic embarrassment that far exceeded my worst opinions of them. This includes many Democratic voters and supporters who refuse to criticize the president for committing war crimes and wrecking the Constitution, all but gutting the 4th Amendment, the right to privacy. He has yet to restore habeas corpus. We are not facing the threat to public safety and order that President Lincoln had to when Southern politicians and officers committed treason over his election in 1861. Why doesn't anyone become alarmed by this? Congress just re-authorized the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program for another five years. See how well they can all get along when they want to? What the hell's wrong with the public, where's the outrage over these encroachments on our rights? Much of it is ignorance, but it's also the desire for a strongman leader who has "taken-off the gloves," who is no longer restrained by the law. These people are the worst kind of citizens of any society, in any era of human history, and are scoundrels. Many American look at politics like it's a football game. This makes these people incredibly stupid assholes.

...realized how much I value living outside of cities in what could be best described as a "light rural" area. I've been here for over a decade now and love the lack of many people.

...realized what a genius Pier Paolo Pasolini truly was, one of the greatest artists in the span of Western civilization.

...installed my Tor browser (thanks Wikileaks). I suggest everyone do the same and to learn more about encrypting your online communications.

...got to know my wonderful niece Zofia better. Picking her up from the bus stop every day for the first five months of the year is something that I'll always treasure. It showed me a little window into how my late grandparents, especially my mother's mother, loved spending time doting over us. She's a great kid, very intelligent.

...learned that blood not only isn't thicker than water, but that it's often the consistency of liquid-shit.

...remembered why I hated school, church services, and anything so boring that it begins to kill your soul: it's someone controlling your life, and wasting your precious time.

...recalled what an inhuman asshole my ex-wife really was in-sum.

...learned how much I love our new miniature schnauzer, Lily.

...found a lot of old books I thought I'd lost.

...stopped trusting almost anyone outside of my family and a small circle of friends.

...felt vindicated when former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty on over forty counts of being a pedophile. For anyone who's been a victim of this, you know what I mean. I'm hoping the SOB gets shanked in prison, or beaten to death. There's no reason to show mercy to these terminally-pathological pieces of shit. They should be watched and tracked all of the time once they've been identified by society.

...saw the combined effects of de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and the wide-availability of heavy weaponry on the lives of 20 schoolchildren, and six of their adult caretakers, in Newtown Connecticut. The time to reopen our state mental health institutions is now. We have no real mental healthcare system, and it must be part of a socialized medical infrastructure. 

...still hate the idea of ever going back to Seattle for any reason.

...was reminded that most so-called "upstanding citizens" are more criminally-minded than so-called "criminals." To be accused is not to be guilty. We have something called the right to due process. The public and the press seem to have no concept of this. Put the 6th Amendment on the same critical-list as the 4th, and more recently, the 1st with the attacks on dissent and independent journalism.

And there was more. There was a lot more. Wish us all luck in the next year, because we're going to need it.

Dude: Don't go to Chicago tomorrow, dude.

Chicago, Illinois--You know, once the home to my father until his family wouldn't pay protection money to "the Outfit" (Capone's former gang continued on without him...), Chicago is a place of ambivalence to me, and it always will be.

I love the town, don't get me wrong. It's an exciting place and I've had my share of great times there, but wow...how are they going to turn away all those people tomorrow? I mean, really, Chicago's closed. Chicago's going to be closed, man, game over, like NYC in 1975--who's going to tell them to drop dead when Gerald Ford still is? Does Rod Blagojevich's hair look so funny now folks? Of course it still does--he sports quite a pate--but that's not the point. Ask any scientist and most philosophers, and they'll tell you that there is no point (eat your heart out Michael C. Moynihan). I concur.

C'mon, Gerald Ford spared us from so much, you know. Like upholding law and order and allowing Nixon to be prosecuted fairly (no favors, no sentimentality, just the letter of the law) so we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now with the executive branch. But to be fair, the integrity of all three are endangered now, so thanks, Jerry, for saving us from ourselves. Why celebrate Woodstock when you should be reflecting on Nixon's resignation 35 years ago? Pardon me. Where was I? Ah yes, Chicago, home to the water tower that Oscar Wilde loved so much...

So, if you want to go to a library, a city clinic, have your garbage picked-up--crazy shit like that--you're outta luck, babe, the social contract is over, and they put one on you. The cost-cuts (sounds commercial) being done with the City of Chicago only affect non-union and non-sworn union city workers, which to me just illustrates why we should be getting everyone unionized, just a thought. If union bosses had half-a-clue, they'd be unionizing every single illegal alien they could get their hands one, starting yesterday. And strikes? C'mon, people need work, but it's been 90 years since there was a general strike in a major American city, why not have one for yucks?

But don't go to Chicago tomorrow, on Monday, August 17th, 2009, things could go wrong. C'mon, most Chinese restaurants are closed on Mondays anyway! Monday= bad. They get it, man.

Conspiracy nut Alex Constantine writes about...little old me!

WWW--If the exposures of COINTELPRO, CABLE SPLICER, CIA assassinations, FBI break-ins (all covered by the Church committee in the 1970s), and the mid-December 2005 revelations of the NSA's warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans doesn't convince you that conspiracy theorists are redundant, then nothing will. We know things are a mess and that our liberties are in jeopardy, we know already.

Conspiracy guru Alex Constantine has join the ranks of the illustrious with the Libertarian "Reason" magazine (paradoxical name) in writing about...me, again. You see, several weeks ago I got tired of reading all these baseless comments by a bunch of nimrods who have no connection to the Palfrey story whatsoever, and who never even spoke with her. I started doing some web surfing--something I rarely ever do--and found that some of these same bozos were still trying to sell the snake oil that Deborah Jeane Palfrey was "murdered," ostensibly by the government and/or former clients.

The problem--of course--is that it's not provable, and certainly not in a court of law. And that's the whole point to my mind: their theory plays-into-the-hands of the government's prosecutors, because I believe they're in a lot of trouble (de jure) for driving a mentally unstable woman to her death. I also believe that they first deprived the defendant of her of her right to due process by leaking information (an unsigned warrant) to Bill Bastone and the Smoking Gun, thereby creating the whole media circus in the first place.

Additionally, I believe that they and the Court knew full well that Palfrey was suicidal, or at least suspected it enough to warrant a competency hearing.

That's right--by suggesting that the government murdered Palfrey, these conspiracy nimrods let them off-the-hook for gross negligence, abuse of office and the law, and extraordinary incompetence. Alex Constantine? Alex Jones? Kurt Nimmo? Jeff Rense? Who are they? I can prove that I've never worked for the federal government--either as an employee of or as an "asset"--but can they? Can Bill Bastone or Judith Miller for that matter?

Like all good conspiracists, Constantine gives me a lot of power and it sounds like a good gig (if you can get it)!

Off the cuff, I think Janovic is attempting to silence me with bogus arguments - he also cites as unimpeachable proof of "suicide" that she had stated, "They'll never take me alive." I interpret this to mean that she would fight to the death - could be wrong because I'm not a post mortem mind reader (neither is Janovic) - or bravado, possibly, but certainly not concrete "proof" of "suicide." ... ("Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART ONE)," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.26.2008)

She did "fight to the death" in case you didn't notice, but being Alex Constantine, you probably wouldn't. [Ed., 12.15.2008--If only her final criminal defense attorney had fought a smidgen as hard as she had. He didn't, he stood down. She shouldn't have listened to him at the end. Finally, Burton was imposed on her.] And exactly how do I--a very little guy mind you--"silence" the great Alex Constantine? That's absurd. He accuses me of what he does for a living, namely making "bogus arguments," when he must know better. Since I know better and know what I experienced on my end with Palfrey, I'm saying that he's not used to being so accurately and effectively challenged.

There's no need to read the mind of anyone when it's obvious that the woman was suicidal during her legal proceedings, from an preponderance of evidence. If Constantine has any clue and has seen the materials from Palfrey's early 1990s arrest and conviction in San Diego for pimping, he would know that she expressed thoughts of suicide when she was in jail back then too, she reported it in a letter to the Court. I could go on and on. She was suicidal, and you're not going to disturb the sleep of the dead to sell merchandise, that's it.

Alex didn't get the desperate emails. Alex didn't watch someone disintegrate over the period of ten months, granted that it was from a physical distance. Alex didn't get the frantic emails of someone shifting-gears in several 180s as to how the investigation into her began. Lastly, Alex wasn't there at all, he wasn't someone Palfrey confided in at times, I was. Yeah, he's Alex Constantine, that guy who wrote the "Psychic Dictatorship" books that I never bothered to read because Oscar Wilde seemed to have something more constructive to offer. Big deal.

Look, if the Church committee's report during the 1970s doesn't give you an indication that we've been going in the wrong direction for a very long time, nothing will. The output of these conspiracy theory people is pretty questionable when they'll jump at any little scrap and making wild leaps of logic as they have now with Palfrey's death, a definite suicide.

So, blah-blah-blah, Constantine writes a two-parter that focuses on a comment I posted on his own site stating that he and the rest of them are making baseless statements and are full of it regarding Palfrey. That's because they are full of it, and they are making baseless statements for dollars. In the second part of the dopey piece he tries to undermine Dan Moldea's comments that Palfrey told him she'd kill herself if she lost the case, never mind that if you read her public comments from 2007 and 2008 it's obvious that she's periodically expressing suicidal themes, the Tarpon Springs Police Department's final report on her death--no, we're all CIA operatives, something silly like that. Who are they? Who's Constantine? Great, if you don't agree with him, you're CIA, or a liar, how logical.

The biggest problem with the "She were suicided" theory is what I've already pointed-out: Constantine's "big bad government" -->Űber theory serves the interests of the prosecution under Jeffrey A. Taylor, providing a distraction and a cover for what could very well be incompetence, abuse, and negligence under the color of authority. You would have to ask him directly if this was his purpose, but it's my opinion that that's the real world effect it has.

Here's what I posted at Alex's site today, who knows if he's going to publish it. Frankly, I don't really care...

Mr. Constantine,

Like most of your ilk of parapolitical ambulance chasers ($$$), you just want to sell your merchandise. You're no different from Geraldo, George Lincoln Rockwell, Ted Nugent, Father Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith, or any number of demagogues in the storied history of America.

You weren't a part of her story. I was, and did my best to assist her and did general internet research for her in December of last year. This is something I can prove--can you prove any of your straw man assertions? Your "witnesses" are full of crap, incidentally.

I stand behind the February 28th email that she forwarded to just about everyone on the defense team between her and journalist Jason Leopold where she stated "the bastards aren't taking me alive." Others who interviewed her have told me directly that they thought she was acting unbalanced and expressing suicidal themes.

Thanks, you are comparable to Roy Cohn as well, I left him out there, my slip. Your evidence for a Palfrey murder barely meets the standards of the circumstantial.

Yes, I've also looked at the comments of her former condo manager (he's a crank as well), the interviews you're mentioning, but I know otherwise because I had direct contact for ten months with the deceased. She fired at least a couple of her lawyers because they knew she was suicidal. There should have been a competency hearing, and the government prosecutors are guilty of gross negligence in this area. The Court might be as well.

The problem with you Alex is that you only see what you want to see because there's money in it, period. Your readers read it because they want a simple explanation to a complicated modern world. That's shameful. If there would be one lesson learned from the current economic crisis, it's this: "they" aren't as in control of things as you would LOVE to believe because the alternatives are personal responsibility to yourselves and others. That's more complicated than "there's been a coup!" There was one long ago, grow up.

There are very real parapolitical themes to her saga, no doubt, but this contention of murder has no solid evidence whatsoever. You have nothing, nor does that crank Alex Jones, Kurt Nimmo, or the pathetic Jeff Rense who faked a death photo and put it on his site for more hits and sales.

Sell your conspiracy snake oil somewhere else, we know the system's corrupt, we don't need you. By the way: a link to the right of this article misspells Edgar Allan Poe as "Allen," that's incorrect. Never mind...

yours, Matt Janovic

PS: It's funny how you completely ignore and fail to address the February 28th email. Also, it should be known that I never had contact with Dan Moldea during the proceedings, I don't agree with his take on the RFK assassination, and don't respect his or Mr. Constantine's work.

"Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART TWO) - DAN MOLDEA IS A SHILL WITH CIA/FAR-RIGHT SPONSORSHIP," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.28.2008: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/11/part-two-researcher-matt-janovic.html

"Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART ONE)," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.26.2008: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/11/dc-madam-researcher-matt-janovic.html

[Ed.--On a final note--isn't it strange how much power these kinds of people ascribe to the federal government? If only they did have these powers, then we might actually be able to fix things!! The oppressed and their shepherds have a way of giving their masters more actual power than they have, but that's a slave for ya.' Whatever, shut-up little man.]

Revised 12.15.2008

The Cat Deficit

tv--Where are all the cats on television? OK, there's a program on tonight on Animal Planet, but overall, cats are underrepresented in television land, never mind the halls of Congress. Why is this? Look, cats will always be better to watch than all other pets combined and they're funny too. Cute? Fuhgeddaboutit. There is Ken Russell's "A Kitten for Hitler," but that doesn't count. This whole state of affairs is puzzling.

So where are the cats? Huh? Where?

Every time I go to the Field Museum in Chicago (which isn't often), I go to the Egyptian section...to see the mummified cats. OK, I look at the artifacts from Pompeii too, I'm a sucker for the morbid, and 3,000 year old dice are cool too. The cats are the best. The Egyptians loved their cats so much that if someone killed a cat they were immediately killed for it. They loved their cats so much that they mummified them so that they could be with them forever in the Egyptian (as opposed to the others) afterlife. That's love, it couldn't be anything else. The Romans and Persians also loved cats, so there must have been something redeeming about them.

I can relate to all cat lovers: I love my cat, Saffron, a precocious little American short-hair tabby, a cute little gray (no, not an alien, I'm beating you to it). Our feline friends tend to have a more nurturing quality to them, and I argue that they bring out the best in humanity, they humanize us and we can learn from them. Cats don't lie, either, there are no cat politicians. They might try to get one past you--getting into food because they're hungry--but lie? Never. Only people can do that, thanks to language.

We want our cats and we want them now. Where are the goddamned cats? In troubled times, cats can be the difference between chronic depression and poetic happiness. Religion? Who needs that when you have a cat, or several cats (just don't get too many, that sometimes becomes a problem with some of the ladies out there). Cats, h-mmmm? I've seen a few on Anthony Bourdain's show on the Travel channel, and they weren't even sitting on a plate. There just aren't enough cats, and that-is-that...wrote Matt (fancy that).

No, there's no deficit of cats on television, what we have is a general cat-as-trophe. Show me the dead bodies and the flooded plains, the general strikes, the murders, epidemics, economic collapse, war, terrorism, the riots--but throw the image of a cat in there every once and awhile and it helps alleviate the tension. A college roommate of mine once wrote an absurdist play about a man whose shoulder sprouted a cat's head, a comedy of manners. How horrible is that?

Why a cat? Because cats are funny, they're good friends, and they're unpretentious and unfazed by much. Cats would be good at poker if they were able. Cats are innately positive creatures, even when they're bad.

Nobody says (until now), "There's a cat in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge," because everyone wants to say, "Ohhhh, kittttyyyy!" My whole point: cats mean good health and happiness (just clean the box). Forget the wives, forget the American Dream, forget religion, and all the rest. Cats are nature's perfection, they're smart, they're where it's at. I'm almost certain that cats tricked us all into creating civilization so that they'd have houses to live in. Now, that's smart. Dogs aren't as smart--they lack the tact--and they don't hold a candle to a cat. Send in the cats!