SAY GOODNIGHT GACY
SAY GOODNIGHT GACY
I was in the office going over my agenda for the day when my friend Dave Paull came in the studio after doing a report on the occupation. He looked at me and said.” you look like you could use some lunch.” I figured that I should get something to eat. It was a hectic morning as I was preparing for my big Halloween weekend. I need the air so I got up and walked out the office and into the street.
The city was full of people because of the 99% occupiers were having a march in downtown and so moving down the sidewalk took a little time. Rather that having a big lunch I decided to just duck in and get a smoothie until dinner time. While we were witing on the sidewalk I looked up and saw something that gave me a chill.
I screamed out “My God Dave – Look at what I am seeing! Dave started laughing because he knew why I was startled. Standing near the town square was a protester wearing what at a distance looked like a Guy Fawkes “anonymous” mask.
As my eyes focused, I was seeing what looked like a ghost. A young man wearing black, a baseball cap and his face painted looking exactly like Pogo the Clown, the alter ego of John Wayne Gacy.
I know it seems unbelievable something completely random has convinced me that I am drawing the energy of a dead killer to me and this was some sort of sign that I am somehow putting a 30 year old murder case back in the spotlight and that perhaps a ghost or a specter may confirm something or anything pertaining to this case.
It may be some strange synchronicity; it could be that there seems to be a draw in the universe to some strange killer clown. I am haunted by John Wayne Gacy. I guess I always have been frightened by Gacy because of how normal he seemed on the surface. How he was one of those guys who run into all the time. He was a name dropper. He was a person who dressed up like a clown for parties. He was the epitome of the guy that they always say “was a nice guy” or “you never would have suspected” – you know the kind that always is the subject of news series that always hide behind the nice guy visage.
I am sure all of us have know someone that is like that, someone who secretly stews in his own hatred, and despises himself because of his secret fetishes.
I first had the idea to talk about the Gacy case back when the Casey Anthony case was all over the news. I was speaking with Aaron Goodwin of the Ghost Adventurer group about some electromagnetic beam or cloud that could be used to bring ghosts up like worms in wet soil. The idea was growing and the concept was becoming more an more inviting and then I received a call from an old friend who said that he had access to the suits that were worn by John Wayne Gacy while he stood trial for 33 murders of young boys in Illinois.
After we talked over the possibilities of what we could do with the suits – there was a sign from hell that perhaps this was going to be an interesting adventure. I was laughing because of the sick synchronicity.
Michele Bachmann delivered her presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, because she was born there, but she inadvertently ended up reminding residents of a dark chapter in their town’s history. During an interview she pointed out that John Wayne, the actor, was from Waterloo. “That’s the kind of spirit I have, too” But John Wayne was not from Waterloo
The most famous John Wayne from Waterloo is instead John Wayne Gacy, the infamous “killer clown” of Chicago, who was convicted of killing more than 30 young men in the 1970s and stashing their bodies in a crawlspace in his house.
As if by some sinister cosmic accident, she invoked the name of the killer and he started appearing in the headlines soon after
Two weeks ago the Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff’s Office reopened the case of John Wayne Gacy to try to identify eight victims through skeletal remains and DNA. Later there was another story in the news about a possible Gacy Victim. Harold Wayne Lovell was missing, his family thought he was another victim of one of Gacy. He turned up alive in Florida.
I have always felt that when Clowns show up some chaos magic seems to happen. Synchronicities and strangeness are always connected to clowns. Clowns are not inherently evil and I have never said they are. However I have always been fascinated by the fear of clowns. I have always wondered why people fear them. I have had my theories and people like Gacy seem to build up my apprehension about all clowns.
In any discussion about when clowns go bad, the name Pennywise from Stephen King’s story IT or John Wayne Gacy inevitably gets mentioned. Many do not call Gacy by his clown name. He was never a professional clown, in fact when he was Patches or Pogo he did it on a voluntary basis.
The image of a killer hiding behind the face of a clown suit has become permanently etched into the mass conception of the Gacy killings, through a tabloid images and made-for-TV movies. Pennywise of course continued the Clown phobias and finally it was the portrayal of the maniacal Joker by Heath Ledger where a clown looked like a true corpse, which eventually killed the actor who played him.
In the case of Gacy it seemed that his mug shots alone weren’t enough to convince the public that he was a brutal killer. They had to dig up the image of Pogo the clown to effectively frighten the public and give a sense of eeriness with a killer hiding behind a mask. The truth is that Pogo never really had any relevance to his arrest or the killings of the young boys.
As pointed out in my earlier writings about clowns I must say that killing, possession, demonic activity or anything that is unsavory seems to have more of an effect when the person doing it is in whiteface. Take a look at all of the successful killers in horror films. With the exception of Freddy Krueger all of them have white face. From a hockey mask to an inside out, pale mask of William Shatner we all fear the screaming white face and the rubbery look of a grown human being disguised in a pale face.
While Gacy was not really a killer clown, he was just a killer who would sometimes play a clown.
The possibility of another clown assault may have added to the whole clown fear of a masked man with access to children. The Fells Acres Day care Tragedy in Malden Massachusetts grabbed the headlines when little boys testified that a clown allegedly Gerald Amirault the husband of the Day care owner sexually assaulted them with magic wands, toy knifes in a place called the “Magic room.”
There have also been cases where adults have been psychologically triggered by clowns and later admit to being raped or physically abused by a clown.
The Evil Clown meme that has been unleashed on the collective consciousness is in reality very new. The images of clowns as criminals, murderers or molesters have now opened up a whole new abstract way of thinking.
I have never gone on the record of saying that clowns are social outlaws however there are a great many out there who see clowns as a threat. One of the major contributors to social criminality of clowns are those who call themselves juggalos or fans of the hip hop band the Insane Clown Posse
There have been several incidents of criminal activity attributed to self-identified Juggalos. Some media outlets have attributed the incidents to the music produced by Psychopathic Records. Although Juggalos have denied any connection to gang activity, authorities have classified them as a gang in Utah; Arizona; Monroe County, Pennsylvania; and Modesto, California Because of this, some schools have prohibited students from wearing Insane Clown Posse related paraphernalia.
Psychopathic Records and Insane Clown Posse have repeatedly denounced violence within the fandom. Alex Abbiss, former CEO of Psychopathic Records, has suggested that many of the incidents had been committed by crazy individuals that only claim to be Juggalos as an excuse for their actions.
In 2011, the FBI listed Juggalos in its National Gang Threat Assessment, stating that “many Juggalos subsets exhibit gang-like behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence
Eric Idle of Monty Python once went on the record as to why people fear clowns when he stated that “Clowns are grotesquely painted, horrifying, mad people who come lurching toward us, threatening us, involving us. They know no boundaries; They scare us because they are most like us; they are adults who behave like children.”
Most people who find no trouble with clowns often say they know someone who is terrified of them. I always ask those who do not fear clowns to tell me if a clown standing on the street at 2 AM handed them balloon would they take it?
They always get uncomfortable and tell me no. What does that tell you about clowns?
Say Good Night Gacy.
