I had a choice to make: should I go further south, into True Detective territory (the well-meaning Detective Woody choice), or should I start making my way west, into Natural Born Killer territory (the psycho-initiate choice). I chose the latter.

I rolled into Santa Fe and got down to business, which for me is acquiring books for a mobile library I am still in the “vision” stage of developing, along with an unconventional curriculum intended to equip people with the ability to decode the malignant messaging of “popular” culture.

Now that I’m out of Texas I’m visiting unique bookstores again because while I was IN Texas, I was going exclusively to Half-Priced Books locations, which are ALL OVER the place, since Half-Priced Books started in Dallas. The irony of what I’ve spent at “Half-Priced” Books is not lost on me, and may even prove to be an opportunity, depending on whether or not I get a call back, and how that call goes.

I can now say my library has the MOST AMAZING collection of occult titles you could possibly imagine. Some of the titles I won’t even disclose what they are, lest I get targeted by MORE people for the evidence I now possess regarding one particular group’s belief system.

One of the books I ordered is about a journalist by the name of William Cowper Brann, a real interesting dude who made LOTS of people angry in Waco, and for good reason. Since name-association is a synchronistic game I play (or a game that plays ME), I thought it was very funny that Brann’s life was cut short when a man by the name of TOM (my father’s name) shot him in the back. Also, for someone who HATES April Fool’s Day, since that’s the day my friend Lisa was killed by a drunk driver, the date of Brann’s death is very much NOT appreciated. From the link:

On April 1, 1898, Brann was walking alone on Waco’s Fourth Street when he was shot in the back by Tom Davis, a Baylor supporter whose daughter was a student at the University. After being shot, Brann turned, drew his pistol, and fired multiple shots at Davis, who fell, mortally wounded, in the doorway of the Jake French Cigar Store. Brann was shot through the left lung with the bullet exiting his chest. He was forced to walk to the city jail but later escorted home by friends. Both Davis and Brann died the next day. Brann is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco. Engraved on Brann’s monument is the word “TRUTH,” and beneath it is a profile of Brann with a bullet hole in it.

While doing some online research, following where my curiosity led me on Brann, I came across a DIFFERENT William Cowper, also a writer, but with a diametrically opposed inclination to talk racist shit on black people the way Brann had a tendency to do. From the link:

After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation. He recovered, and went on to write more religious hymns.

His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”) led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. His poem “Light Shining out of Darkness” gave English the phrase: “God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform.”

He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems, and his friendship with Newton, who was an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper’s being asked to write in support of the Abolitionist campaign. Cowper wrote a poem called “The Negro’s Complaint” (1788) which rapidly became very famous, and was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 20th-century civil rights movement. He also wrote several other less well-known poems on slavery in the 1780s, many of which attacked the idea that slavery was economically viable.

Yes, William Cowper, the poet, was MUCH more sympathetic to the human plight than William Cowper Brann, the journalist, who not only said overtly provocative shit, he also shamed his OWN DAUGHTER for encouraging a male suitor, resulting in his daughter committing suicide. Damn.

Here is how Wikipedia describes Brann. Maybe I should add a trigger warning, since we’re going to veer into LYNCHING territory now. From the link:

William Cowper Brann (January 4, 1855 – April 2, 1898) was an American journalist also known as Brann the Iconoclast. During his life, he gained a reputation as a “brilliant though vitriolic editorialist.” He defended lynching Black men accused of rape and called for opponents of this type of mob violence to be castrated.

Considering what happened to Jesse Washington, something I was told about by a cook at the hotel I was staying at in Waco, Brann’s position is even more disgusting. From the link, and this will DEFINITELY require a TRIGGER WARNING!

Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. He was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. He was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He was then lynched in front of Waco’s city hall.

Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere among whites at the spectacle of the murder, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire after saturating him with coal oil. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco.

I combed through the Wikipedia page for something that I didn’t find (actually, upon closer inspection, I did find a reference), but that I will soon tell you about, but first I’ll note what I DID find in the Wikipedia page (emphasis mine):

Carrigan notes that Washington’s death may have received more public attention than any other lynching in the United States, and sees the event as a “turning point in the history of mob violence in Central Texas”. Although the outcry it provoked did not end the practice, it helped bring an end to public support of such attacks by city leaders. Carrigan states that the lynching was “the most infamous day in the history of central Texas” until the Waco siege of 1993.

What did I NOT find on the page about the lynching of Jesse Washington? I didn’t find anything about the tornado that destroyed Waco in 1953, but from a direct conversation I was told that MANY in the NOT White community felt that the tornado was God’s way of dispensing some justice, since the destruction of the tornado seemed to take a deliberate path around the business district–the same part of town where Washington’s burned corpse was dragged.

ON EDIT: Here is the part I missed when I first looked:

On May 11, 1953, an F5 tornado tore through Downtown Waco, killing 114 people and injuring 593 others. Some people in the local African American community saw the tornado as divine retribution for the lynching of Jesse Washington over thirty years prior.

Is there an inverted echo of this fateful storm in the movie Natural Born Killers? For those who haven’t seen the film, yes there is, and it’s the TORNADO that delivers fate in the film, which is to free the killer so he can continue ushering in his handlers NEW WORLD.

Next up I’ll be heading to Chaco Canyon, a “world heritage” site where the science now points toward cannibalism.

Stay tuned!