THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story
Read THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story Online
Authors: Carlton Kenneth Holder
Copyright 2013 by Brooklyn Apache
Press
All rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system.
Visit us at
http://www.facebook.com/theblackalbumnovel
Dedicated to
my mother for nurturing my love
of reading,
my father for supporting my
interest in the fantastic
and to movies for teaching me to
dream in three acts.
Special thanks to my editor
Solange Bohling, without whom "The Black Album" would be a record
without songs.
Cover art by Christine Anatone
Social media director Aria
Klucewicz
by Beauregard Freidkin
THE NAMES HAVE NOT BEEN CHANGED
TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT! Because frankly there are no innocents to protect in
this incendiary cautionary tale of either psychological or supernatural
happenstance. We all make our graves. We all must lie in them.
I have been barraged with
countless questions from friends, family, neighbors, strangers, the press, and
fuck even the police. Those in-the-know, those with an ear to the underground
have heard bits and pieces of the story. Counter-culture news - like a white
hot beam of light or a current of kinetic energy - seems to travel fast with a
life of its own, unaided by newspapers, radio or TV, under the wire of
mainstream media and local news station reporters with names like Dallas and
Coleman. Underground news, cult events, urban legends travel on stiff winds
with undulated voracity, gaining power with each disturbing twist added over
time by its tellers. The Internet, a medium of malcontents, the
disenfranchised, and wicked pranksters, now coming into its own, has amplified
this clandestine voice by five billion. If journalism is the Fourth Estate,
then the Internet is its grizzly underbelly. Its Fifth Estate. A medium of
rumor, conspiracy and hoax. This medium is the forum of the young and hip. Not
an MTV Generation, but a Fuel TV Generation powered by heart-palpitating energy
drinks, hard grinding skateboard antics, drugs of choice, and a skull full of
iPod tunes played at brain-numbing volume. However, that doesn't mean
everything on it is bullshit. It's not lost on the young that the Columbine
killings took place on Hitler's birthday. One of the infamous teen killers left
a diary with a drawing of Satan orchestrating the massacre. Some believe that
the Columbine killings were the end result of a Trench Coat Mafia entrenched in
the occult.
That's where I come in. My name
is Beauregard Freidkin, a.k.a. the Freak King (as I have been dubbed by friends
and enemies alike). I like to think I’m equal parts Fox Mulder and Hunter S.
Thompson (although some say Van Wilder). I’m a college campus horror and
science fiction film reviewer. I’m also a dyed-in-the-wool investigator into
subject matters beyond the confines, concerns, or agendas of mainstream media.
I am not a ufologist or even a conspiracy theorist. I apply the hard cold rules
of journalism to my investigations. Fourteenth century English logician William
of Ockham believed that the simplest solution is usually the right solution.
This theorem is called Occam’s Razor. More often than not, his razor cuts
straight. Regardless of this, what started out as a hobby uncovering Satanic
death rock cults in the heartland, backpacking Area 51 by night, searching for
a time traveling Charlie Chaplin, tracking a Flying Dutchman ghost website down
to Central America - okay, maybe that last one was just an excuse for a
vacation - has become my life's work (endowed by a certain prestigious
university which will remain nameless). I guess you would say it’s my
obsession, the monkey on my back. I find it infinitely more satisfying than
drugs or alcohol. Although the drain on my wallet is pretty much the same.
This case, or review, as I like
to call my investigations, is “The Black Album.” There was such a volume of
information to this story that, what started out as a series of articles became
the book you are now reading. The story first came to me anonymously via an
internet blog. People send in all kinds of strange occurrences, events,
stories. Most of them are hoaxes or the product of minds that have snapped or
simply reprocessed reality. I’m sorry to say I began my investigation of “The
Black Album” with a less than open mind. It didn't feel like there would be anything
of major consequence to the world in this review. There was definitely nothing
along the scale of an alien invasion or zombie apocalypse to worry about. Plus,
I thought the whole notion of
back-masking
- backwards Satanic messages
embedded in rock music - was the homegrown boogeyman spun yarn of Bible
thumpers trying to scare their kids away from music that revels in drugs and
sexual misadventure. But I have experienced incidents during this review that
have given me pause.
"The Black Album," in
and of itself, however, is a paradox. It is a movie about an urban legend that
is in turn becoming an urban legend. This investigation has had some chilling
moments. I'm glad it's over, for me at least.
So to put to rest all the rumors,
speculation, and innuendo, I have gone back to my old daily agenda book,
journal, man diary - call it what you will - from that period of time, and I’m
recounting the facts as clearly and unsensationally as I can. I am putting it
all down for your edification, entertainment, cheap thrill. By doing this, I am
laying this matter to rest once and for all. When this is done, both I and my
associate in the writing of this twisted tale will never again speak of the
events of that fateful fall and winter in the mountains of Lake Arrowhead. To
talk about a thing is to give it power, life. In this case, unnatural life.
There are moments when I am alone and think about this review all over again. I
begin to feel things. Things that make me sleep with the television on. I'm not
saying that I believe in the forces of evil or the hand of Satan, but then
again, I'm not saying I
don't
believe in them. A year ago, I would have
laughed if you asked me if I believed in the boogeyman. But, then again, that
was a year ago.
A filmmaker made a movie. But at
what cost? It cost him the life of a friend, fellow traveler, running buddy. It
has given him a lifetime of looking over his shoulder, of wondering. His movie
will never be seen in this life. Those who’ve watched even the rawest glimpses
of the movie, have come to regret it. Hopefully, it will never be released. The
story is over for me. But I don't know if it will ever be over for the
filmmaker, the cast or crew. The curse still seems to follow them like a tin
can tied to the tail of a dog. An example of this was the death during the film
shoot of an actor who was playing a zombie in the movie. The official coroner’s
report listed it as fatality by alcohol poisoning. If this wasn't the work of
the Devil, then it was at least the work of a troubled soul. Which of the two
is more disturbing?
I exacted this tale piece by
piece from a number of participants, eye-witnesses to the events, over a period
of three months.
The poor bastards.
I tracked down the director of
photography, make-up artist, actors, electrician, and other crew personnel who
were there for the fateful filming of a movie whose only play dates will be in
“The Twilight Zone.” All of these people eventually led me to the person I had
sought all along, a person who did not want to be interviewed about this
matter, or any matter for that matter. The filmmaker who dreamed up this little
ditty of a nightmare. A nightmare that became his nightmare. It took coaxing,
but finally he met with me. I knew from the very first syllable he uttered -
call it my journalistic instinct - that he had a story to tell. He was the one
I had needed to talk to all along. I wished for theatrics’ sake we had met in a
secluded shack in the middle of the desert or a log cabin in remote wilderness.
But in point of fact, we met in Denny’s. His manager’s idea. Not mine. Not his.
We did however meet at midnight.
The director was the final piece
of the puzzle. All the other stories from all the other people fit perfectly
when matched with his. The following story in this book was pieced together
from all these accounts, each person’s recollections verifying everyone else’s.
Unlike most news stories, there
wasn’t one discrepancy among the accounts. People merely had different vantage
points of the sinking Titanic. Some blamed what happened on poor planning.
Others, bad luck. Some, sabotage. A few believed it was the forces of true
evil. Yet none quit. None walked away. They road the runaway train to the end,
to derailment. Frozen in the event horizon like deer in headlights.
As an interesting aside, I have
found that almost no member of the cast or crew has kept in contact with any
other. I guess there will never be a wrap party for “The Black Album.” If there
ever is, I’d sell my soul to see it.
Each of us have what I have deemed
our suicidal tendency. It's the part of our psychological make-up that makes us
drive way too fast, stand too close to the edge of a cliff. It tempts us to
light a candle and say "Bloody Mary" three times in a dark bathroom
mirror, mess around with a Ouija board late at night after doing bong hits and
tequila shots, or play a rock record backwards to see if we can decipher hidden
Satanic messages. Our suicidal tendency is the psychological make-up that lets
us secretly delight in grotesque little parables, urban legends.
I am counting on that very nature
to make you buy this book, read a chapter every night, until it invades your
dreams. Until it's too late.
Turn the page.
Play it backwards.
See what happens. I did.
Black desert landscape shot past
the windshield of my white van, turned gray due to dirt and dust accumulated on
this sweaty sojourn. The temperature was topping ninety, despite the late hour.
And no, I’m not a serial killer. Totally normal men without families also drove
vans. Example: surfers staking out tasty waves at sunrise, drove vans. Hell,
back in the Seventies all the cool guys had vans with interiors decked out like
a suite at the Golden Nugget, and exterior mural paintings that were an expression
of their individuality and God-given rights as Americans. And they scored! It’s
only in recent years that vans have been stigmatized as the death chariots of
serial killing monsters incarnate. Normal single males drove vans too, although
I couldn’t think of any, aside from me, at the moment. Come to think about it,
I’m actually not quite normal. I chase ghosts for a living, little green men -
or gray if you’re up on your ufology folklore. I pursue the dark side of the
sublimely fantastic under the pretense of journalistic endeavor. But really, I
do it because of my own brush with this exotica. A brush that has stained my
soul. It opened my eyes to the bigger picture that is all around us yet remains
unseen. And that bigger picture isn’t on TV. It made me realize that there is
more in this world than what is being reported on the nightly news. More than a
good kegger on a Friday night. Or Monday night football. Yeah, my brush. But
that’s a story for another day, another book.
Shit! I’m going to be late!
I looked around for highway
patrol and pushed the aging van past ninety. The vehicle began to vibrate
violently and for a second it felt like it was going to lift off, caught in the
tractor beam of some ginormous flying saucer from the far reaches of the far
reaches. Scoff if you will, but this
was
UFO country. I was on
Interstate Fifteen headed for a clandestine rendezvous in the desert. I wasn’t
far enough away from State Route 375, the officially designated
Extraterrestrial Highway or the infamous Area 51, that I could scoff.
Fuck! What if I don’t make it on
time? Will he wait?
The van went faster, shaking
harder, and I prayed it would hold together. To take my mind off my worries, I
watched the nocturnal desert rush by and wondered how many bodies were buried
out there courtesy of the Mob and the United States government. I once heard a
story that the second gunman on the grassy knoll was planted out here a mere
eighteen hours after he had fired the fatal shot that ended the life of JFK.
The hand of the man who told me the story was shaking, despite the fact it was
a serious number of decades later.
I was fast approaching Las Vegas,
a land of easy money, easy women, loose wallets and looser morals. Everything
is for sale there, or at least rent, and the denizens play fast and loose with
little things like fidelity, integrity. Honesty was another man’s concern.
After two months, I had finally gotten the talent manager who repped the
filmmaker of “The Black Album” to set up this meet. The manager, Ricky Nickel,
was a slickster Hollywood type who had cut his teeth at places like Universal,
Fox, MGM. He was the kind of guy who always had two conversations going on at
once, one with you and one with the person on the other end of the blue tooth
that seemed permanently fused to his ear cartilage. Conversations like that
were always confusing for me. I never knew who he was talking to and when.
Ricky had tried desperately to take the reins of “The Black Album” and steer it
out of troubled waters. But there was no steering a ghost ship. Which is what I
now believed this movie to be, metaphorically speaking. Phenomenon like this
sets its own course, usually through dangerous, troubled, and uncharted waters.
Despite Ricky’s cool exterior and
hip man hugs, I detected, below this facade, fear. He was afraid of losing his
director. Now, in this instance, when I say lose, I don’t mean as in the helmer
quitting. When I say lose, I mean as in the director suddenly and inexplicably
dying.
Aside from this, my personal
assessment of the manager was that he was a sharky douche bag who would throw
his own mother under the bus for a buck fifty. Needless to say, I didn’t like
the man.
The trip felt as though I was
going to meet a government relocated federal witness who had turned states
evidence against La Cosa Nostra. The filmmaker was definitely in hiding. There
was no doubt about that. The only question was from whom? Or what?
Ahead, I saw the lavish lights of
Whiskey Pete’s and the other outskirts casinos that blatantly declared entrance
into the gaming capitol of the world, and sped up a little more.
In actuality, I didn’t think
there was any hiding from what the filmmaker was running from, if it was true.
As I drove with one hand, I fumbled to put a fresh tape in my miniature tape
recorder with the other - yep, I’m old school right down to the soles of my
suede Adidas sneakers - then started thumbing through my agenda book until I
found the Map-quested directions and address in Downtown Las Vegas where I was
supposed to meet the elusive filmmaker.
I didn’t use GPS. Didn’t trust
'em. The signal can be highjacked. I once heard an urban legend about a rental
car GPS leading a group of spring breaking college kids en route to Vegas, to a
desolate home in the middle of nowhere where they were dismembered one by one
in grisly fashion. Sounds silly until you’re driving in the middle of nowhere.
Alone. At night.
But I’m getting off track as I
have a tendency to do. I was deathly afraid of being late. I didn’t want the
filmmaker to get spooked and leave. However, as afraid as I was, somehow I knew
the filmmaker was even more afraid.
The garish yellow green neon
lights of the twenty-four hour Denny’s restaurant dilated my pupils for a
moment as I entered. I began searching for the classic underground filmmaker
archetype, but had a hard time singling anyone out. The classic underground
filmmaker sort of resembled a bum in a baseball cap, faded jeans and sneakers.
In that case, there were a dozen filmmakers in the joint. I redefined my search
for someone with a dark cloud hanging over his head and immediately spotted a
man in a corner booth with his back to the wall and a perfect view of the door.
He leaned out and glanced at me once, then looked away. Finally, he glanced at
me a second time. I guess I didn’t fit his archetype of a journalist. I’m
lanky, in my mid-twenties with a baby face and a rock & roll persona. I was
wearing my only clean shirt: a faded Marilyn Manson concert tee-shirt. I
realized my mistake too late. I guess it was poor form to wear the icon of a
man who is a professed Devil worshipper to a meeting with a filmmaker who was
on the lamb from the forces of Hell.
Whoops! My bad.
I approached slowly. “J.D.? J.D.
Loveless?” Yep. That was the name he was going with. The filmmaker looked at me
warily and said, “Beauregard Freidkin?”
I took that as an invitation to
sit down across from him and fumbled some more with my recorder. He didn’t take
his eyes off me the whole time. Out the corner of my eyes, I could see him. And
I knew he knew that I could see him. Finally, I looked up. The man appeared to
be in his late twenties. While Loveless, in some respects, resembled the
stereotypical indie filmmaker, in other respects he was an anomaly. He was
wearing the requisite baseball cap turned backwards, jeans, sneakers and
tee-shirt, but he also wore a beat-up black leather jacket that looked like it
had bullet holes in it, although I could be mistaken. Maybe it was a souvenir
from his childhood growing up in Brooklyn. Maybe it was a memento from a movie
set. Loveless had rough good looks and the straight shooting, speak your mind
kind of vibe I had encountered in New Yorkers before. The refreshing thing was
you always knew where you stood with a person like that.
“You gonna record this?”
“Yeah. If you don’t mind. I also
usually take notes too. I don’t like to rely on any one thing when I-”
“Can I get you something?” the
harsh looking waitress blared, cutting me off mid- sentence as she dropped two
greasy plastic menus on the table. The lines in her Mount Rushmore stone face
were covered over in so much pancake make-up that not a single pore was
visible. Her poor pores. The waitress looked like a grotesque Geisha from hell.
The poofed-up bright orange hair clashed brutally with the blood red lipstick.
The long hairs sticking out of her nostrils and the cigarette dangling from her
lips completed the perfect picture of the last person in the world you would
want serving you food. Forty years ago, she was probably a headlining showgirl.
Now she was a harpy who waited on bums, an on-the-run filmmaker, and one shock
jock journalist.
“Coffee.” Loveless looked like he
wanted to get rid of her as fast as possible, as if he didn’t trust her. He
watched her every move. His eyes darted around the midnight Denny’s and its low
rent, low life denizens. The Denny’s was in a bad area: Downtown - the place
you go when the Strip is finished with you. But that’s not what put him on
guard.
“I’ll have a coffee too,” I
chimed in while we still had the witch’s attention. She um-hummed and walked
off with a limp like Igor in drag.
Loveless turned his attention
back to me, “So just what is a midnight review?”
“It’s what I call the stories I
investigate or review. I call them midnite reviews. Midnite spelled
m-i-d-n-i-t-e.”
“You’ve got a whole rock &
roll thing going, don’tcha?” Once again the native New Yorker speak your mind
attitude.
“I’m not your father’s paranormal
detective.”
Loveless’ eyes gleamed. I figured
that was as close as I was going to get to a chuckle. I turned on my recorder.
“I’ve interviewed everyone else: Matty, your director of photography, Jerry,
your composer and special effects person, grips, actors.”
“Did you interview Charlotte?”
Charlotte was the star of the movie. Loveless asked it so casually my
journalistic antenna popped up.
“Yes.”
“How are her and her daughter
doing?”
“They looked fine to me.”
Loveless nodded, ready to move
on. I made a mental note to revisit this later, after I had gained his trust.
If
I gained his trust.
“I have compiled a chronology of
everything that happened from the beginning up until now,” I said trying to
sound reporter-ly.
“Then what do you need to talk to
me for?”
“Well, you were the catalyst for
everything that happened from the very beginning. Everyone else came into the
picture after you. Everyone else knows less than you. Without you, this review
is incomplete. Without you, I have nothing.”
Yeah, Loveless was intelligent
and analytical. He had the discerning eye of a filmmaker. Despite a quiet
nature, when it came to manipulating people in front of a lens, he definitely
had vision. Now he had me squarely in his lens and was determined to direct me
towards his ends.
“You think we’re all crazy?”
“I haven’t formed an opinion.”
“Yet.”
Loveless looked around the
Denny’s and frowned. “This place was Ricky’s idea. I hate Denny’s. He knows I
hate Denny’s. I would have had us meet in a casino.”
“You like casinos?”
“Despise them.”
I had a moment of insight. “But
you like being in them because you can get lost in a crowd.”
“I at least have the illusion of
being safer.”
I decided to press early. “Do you
think your film is cursed?”
Loveless froze, smiled quietly
and took a long time to answer. “I don’t know. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? When
you say it out loud like that. The death threats we got on the mountain weren’t
the work of demons. That was flesh and blood people.”
“Can they be responsible for
everything that’s happened?”
“Some of it. Not all.” Not having
the answers made the filmmaker frustrated. “I don’t know. Do you think if I had
all the answers I’d be sitting in a Denny’s in this neighborhood? I grew up in
bad neighborhoods. I tend to avoid them nowadays.”
I leaned forward and put my
elbows on the greasy table, trying to bridge the large chasm between me and the
haunted filmmaker. “I’ve investigated the occult before.”
“And?” Loveless fired back.
“And I know there’s more than
meets the eye. There’s more than just what can be seen.” Loveless was not
convinced that I wasn’t bullshitting him.
I pressed more. “There’s evidence
that the Columbine killers were Devil worshippers. A number of detectives on
the Son of Sam case, including the lead investigator, believed that David
Berkowitz was a member of a Satanic cult, and that the killings were
ritualistic in nature. Two of the murders took place at almost the exact same
time in two different locations across town from each other. How is that
possible if there was only one man? An eye witness identified a different man
before one of the killings. Not Berkowitz. They say Berkowitz kept quiet
because if he didn’t, the cult would have had him killed. Better a life in
prison, than no life at all.”