FRAGMENTS

*** Today I was sent an update to the Webpage of Heather McCalden, the daughter of David McCalden, the “conceptual” founder, with Willis Carto, of the Institute for Historical Review. She is rather a beauty, and into ballet and related arts. I remember her as a little girl. When I think of David the first image that comes to the brain is the night in Santa Monica at a dark, very nice bar, with him and his wife Viviana. She was of Puerto Rican background, very good looking, and a professional psychologist. That night we were drinking and David was talking. And talking. After an hour or two of his talk he got up to go the men’s room and I observed to Viviana that “David needs someone to talk to.”

David McCalden

She nodded her head thoughtfully. We didn’t go on about it. When I went to Heather’s Webpage today and saw her face I was reminded of her mother. I was watching a video of her doing ballet when Irene came into the office and I showed the video to her. She said Heather’s face made her think of David. You can take a look for yourself here: www.heathermccalden.com

A second unimportant view of David comes to mind. One day in Hollywood I was standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, waiting to cross Vine to my office, when David drove past driving a van registered to the Los Angeles airport. He was transporting passengers. Once he left the IHR he had no income, so… He didn’t see me standing there. That was the last time I ever saw him. He died a couple years later of pneumonia rooted in AIDS. He was something of a lady’s man so we didn’t think he was gay too. One of his jobs at that time was to work as a doorman (bouncer) at a nightclub in West Los Angeles that catered to Persians, or Iranians as we would say now. There he was in place to meet a lot of ladies, a lot of ladies, some of whom were probably not overly dedicated to personal cleanliness.

A few months, maybe a year after David died, Viviana got sick. Aids. There came the time when she was to give up David’s collection of books and papers. I could not take them but I dropped by their house to look in on the act. I was there a short while with some others when Viviana came slowly out of her bedroom. She greeted me quietly and I responded with a stupidity that I have never been able to forget.

“Viviana. Hello. You look good.”

She did not respond, but turned slowly and went back into her bedroom and closed the door. I never saw her again. Their daughter, Heather, was taken in by Viviana’s mother and taken very good care of. As you will see when you visit her Website.

*** “About Me” by Heather McCalden. A unique couple paragraphs from her Website.

“At the bottom of it, you could say I'm deeply concerned with time. The passing of it, and its consequent preservation. The movement of time unnerves me; one feels it coming and going without much to show for it. As a result I deal conceptually with loss, nostalgia, defeat, and appropriation, hoping, somehow, to create some type of personal resolution in regards to lost time.

“I manage this preoccupation by creating images—ones that unfold in real time, and others that are frozen and cut-off from their original contexts. All images, whether they're aware of it or not, whether they are moving, still or performed live, deal in the currency of duration, and they are in turn comments on this — even if they fail to recognize it. I take this to heart in my work and attempt to delineate the effects of these comments while making some of my own.” www.heathermccalden.com

The young Ms. McCalden is unique, as was her father.

*** A moment ago the subject of PTSD appeared in the brain out of the blue. I have no idea why or how. But I was here on the computer so I Googled PTSD. There it was. A study by Walter Reed Army Medical Center said about 1 in 5 soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from PTSD http://www.warrioroutreach.org/index_files/PTSD.htm.

Okay. I am aware that it is a subject that is around these days, all the time. I always have the same reaction when I hear about it. Memory reminds me that when I was in army hospitals after Korea, there was no talk of PTSD. Ever. I only recall it being mentioned one time. I was in the hospital at Camp Cooke, California. The wards were converted one-story barracks from World War II. The doctor for our ward was Dr. Silverman. One morning I told him that I was getting headaches at night. I recall him saying:

“Well, you might have PTSD.”

“What’s that?” I said.

I don’t remember what words he answered with. But he was smiling in a way that made me think I was not facing a tragedy. He gave me some aspirin. I suppose I took them and, in any event, the headaches stopped.

For some reason I cannot explain, that memory folded into this one.

One day after the army when I was living with my folks in South Central Los Angeles (where they used to do the riots), I was driving the car on the freeway toward Hollywood. I do not know what was going through the brain, but as I approached an underpass near Western Avenue there was a moment when it occurred to me to drive the car head-on into the concrete structure supporting the bridge. The urge to do it reached into the left arm, the one I was using to steer, causing an impulse to turn the wheel toward the concrete, then it passed and I turned the wheel back and drove on my way. That was the first, and the last time, that I ever felt such an urge.

In the subjective mind, I think maybe the brain made a connection between the above two events that I have never thought to try to make consciously. I am not certain what is being suggested by the apparent connection.

*** Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti

*** Professor Arthur Butz did not say this. Last night I dreamed that Arthur Butz stated: “If it occurred in the universe it is in Confessions.” When I woke up it was still dark. I remembered his words exactly. I was kind of astounded. If it occurred in the universe? The brain turned to Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist, my first book. How could that simple book draw such a statement from an Arthur Butz? At the same time, I understood that the dream was a production of my own brain, not that of Arthur Butz.

And then for me there was the tie-in of this statement with one Butz had given me years ago and which I still use. There was the same, simple, forceful clarity of expression in each. The first was the question that I have been asking professors for years: “Can you provide the name, with proof, of one person killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?” The two words, “with proof,” created a single sentence that called into question the core history of the 20^th century. Somehow, in the middle of the night, the brain not only produced an Arthur Butz stating that “If it occurred in the universe it is in Confessions,” but constructed a subjective link of the “Confessions” statement and the “with proof” question.

Later in the day my friend Ted called and I told him about the dream. He asked me if Butz had read Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist. I said I didn’t know, or didn’t remember. And Ted said that the dream might be about my last book, not the early one. I hadn’t thought of that. That made more sense. All my stuff is structured as “confession.” Particularly the last book, A Personal History of Moral Decay.

A bell rang for me. In Moral Decay there are “visions” of the Devil, of God, of great destroyed cultures at the bottom of the sea , of a murderous ape with a pair of pliers expressing the will of the – well, the universe. Stuff I actually “saw.” Okay. But what was the process the brain took to have Professor Arthur Butz state in my dream that: “If it occurred in the universe it is in Confessions”?

No idea.

*** If you find the work I have done these last 25 and 30 years, and trust that the work I intend to do now is worthwhile, please take a moment to contribute to:

Bradley Smith
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro CA 92143

Or Online at: http://codohfounder.com/please-contribute/

Thank you.

—Bradley