This outrageous line comes from “The Ruling Class“, a cult classic black comedy from 1972. It stars Peter O’Toole as a lunatic named Jack who thinks he is Jesus Christ. When he becomes sole heir to a seat in the House of Lords as well as a vast estate, his “handlers” try to cure him of this delightful affliction through various manipulations and only wind up, tragically, turning him into Jack the Ripper. My impression of the real Jack the Ripper is forever entwined with the image of Peter O’Toole in this film: tall, slender, immaculately pale, and wonderfully gothic. Not only that, but this image fits in with current popular thinking that the original Jack was a member of the British ruling class.

My point in bringing up this movie is that, in spite of the fact that it is not “goth”, it is full of deliciously gothish images and ideas. If only the rude overground world we must toil in for our bread were obliquely gothic like that. Well, maybe it is after all. This article shall toy with such a notion.

The children of la belle noir have a nearly universal appreciation for graveyards, morgues, gargoyles, cathedrals, and so forth, but there are any number of other constructions which fairly ooze the darkwave aesthetic.

For example, in the Chicago Midway there is a spectacular fountain called “The Fountain of Time”. It is by Laredo Taft, a sculptor who specialized in fountains. His works can be found all over the country, though they are not all as awe inspiring as the Chicago one. Botanical gardens, the more Victorian the better, are nice places to meander, especially if they have an orchid room. The reptile section of a zoo also makes for a scintillating visit. In fact, as you progress through your daily grind, whatever it might be, you should find it surprisingly easy to poke your finger through the papier maché façade of MacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kinko’s, et al, to let the darkness shine forth through the holes you make.

The overground world is full of such mythological references. Nike, the Greek goddess of victory; Atlas, the mythical Titan who carries the world on his shoulders; Ajax, the legendary warrior of the Trojan War. Trojans, the USC sports team, right? Well okay, the condoms too. Red Devil fireworks, Devil’s Dew salsa, genie this and genie that, faeries, elves, trolls, mermaids... These things are all over the place. There are many more from Celtic, Druidic, Teutonic, and Nordic folklore as well as Indian, Egyptian, Jewish, and others. Just because the “normals” live amidst all this splendour without even noticing or taking it seriously doesn’t mean you have to. It means you are free to live your own mythology. Mine involves the idea that regular “reality” is an illusion designed and maintained by superior beings expressly with the intent of keeping the lamers out of the “real” world. What isthat thing on your boss’s shoulder as he chews you out for the black lipstick? Nevermind, it slipped back to reality through a fold in the papier maché.

Surface dwellers (pun intended) are quite proud of their literary tradition, often demeaning authors who construct horror or gothic works. Just look at the campy treatment writers like Poe or Lovecraft get when their tales are made into movies, as though they aren’t to be taken seriously. Poe, one of America’s finest writers, was for years looked down upon as a mere writer of weird ghost stories. However, many of the mainstream’s most vaunted “artistes” have dipped their pen in the dark blood to construct such weird tales – some of them masterpieces. The list would include such unexpected greats as Joyce Carol Oates, Rabindranath Tagore, Willa Cather, Theodore Sturgeon, Steven Crane, Winston Churchill (yep, even him), Jack London, John Jakes, and on and on. You see, creative souls know about things less sensitive normals don’t. They know there is life behind the veil.

An even more lucrative source of unexpected darkether is the field of music. I know, I know... you are thinking perhaps of examples such as the ultra devout Felix Mendelssohn setting to music Goethe’s “Die Erste Walpurgisnacht”, complete with fornicating demons and such, or maybe of the erstwhile romantic, Rachmaninov, composing “Isle of the Dead” (with it’s attendant mondegreen, “I Love The Dead”). What; you weren’t thinking of these? Neither was I, really. I want something even more unexpected. What could be less goth than “da blooze”, especially nowdays, since it seems to have been usurped by pot bellied, white shit-kicker types. But who could be more blues than Billie Holliday? And what could be darker and more macabre than her “Strange Fruit”, with lyrics by Lewis Allan? (Yes, Siouxsie & the Banshees must have obviously recognised this song’s darkness and have covered it.)

Let us venture even farther into uncharted gothdom. Can you say Bob Dylan! Hahaha – I thought not. The folk-rock icon is way too funky for darkwave, or is he? During his “art over message” period of the 60s he penned some very evocative material, such as “She Belongs To Me”, with lines like “She wears an Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks; she’s a hypnotist collector, you are a walking antique”. How about the very eerie “Ballad of A Thin Man”? Its take on a lame “citizen” type poking his nose into a murky subculture where he just doesn’t “get it” might be even more appropriate in the dark ambient scene than it was for 60s bohemians. Or “Visions of Johanna” from the “Blonde On Blonde” album – “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet. We sit here stranded, though we’re all doing our best to deny it.”. And look at the guy on the covers of his “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited” albums. He is all ghostly pale and delicate looking, almost vampiric. Could Dylan have been “neo folk” almost 40 years ago? There are quite a few of his arty songs that exhude gothic beauty. How the overtended surface reality crumbles with new perspective! Dylan becomes a veritable gold mine of dark ore.

still laughing over the idea of Dylan as a “closet goth”

Now we ascend to the very top of the overground dungheap. Have you ever looked at pictures of WW I and early WW II era American war machines? Say of tanks and especially of aircraft. What is that symbol so many of them bear upon wings or gun turrets? Oh My Goat! It’s a pentagram! I know you are saying that it just represents the star from the flag. If so, why is it in a circle? And why is our Defense Department housed in “The Pentagon”? Could it be possible that the dark ones have been linked to our federal government for half a century or more, like the way the Nazis were linked to the uber-secret VRIL Society, with its mysterious antigravity machines and Hannebeau flying saucers?

How else to explain the extremely Nazi-like aspirations of our current government? After all, they have the HAARP Project, which is based on Tesla’s electromagnetic physics just as the Vril craft were (in spite of the feds’ protestations to the contrary...HAARP looks almost exactly like a modern version of Tesla’s Long Island laboritory). HAARP has been functional in Alaska since 1996. That thing can literally boil the friggin’ ionosphere.

This article in no way cosigns the involvement of neo Nazis in the new-folk movement, for if there are evil ones with a hidden agenda there are also legions of aesthetes who shall rebuke them, just as the Hindu goddess, Devi, destroyed the wretched “Buffalo Demon” by yanking his soul from his carcass with her magickal red noose.

As you see, lovely readers in the night, our new mythology is as fraught with turmoil as that of past cultures, but it shall exceed them all in beauty. A little ethereal examination... a little parting of the veils. We shall all live in paradise while the norms trudge along in their earthbound hell.