Monday, April 25, 2005

He's Back! The blog gods have been very good to me lately. Four more years of Bush. Ann Coulter, Tom Delay, the tiny nation of Togo, and Robert Blake. A new pope! And now - dare I dream it - the return of the gentleman cannibal, Armin Meiwes! Thank you, blog gods, thank you very much. A German court has ordered him to be retried after prosecutors successfully appealed that his eight year sentence for manslaughter was too lenient. Meiwes, as you may recall, was sentenced to manslaughter rather than murder because the defense was able to prove that his victim wanted to be eaten. Oh. You don't remember? Well let me just dust off a few pieces from the FGAQ archives, and you'll be up on the case in no time, well prepared for round two.                                                                                     12/05/03 Armin Meiwes, The Cannibal of Rotenburg   There are stories and then there are stories.  And there's more crime out there than you can shake a stick at, but Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a story. Forget about your Lacy Petersons, your Kobie Bryants, your Michael Jacksons. I present to you now - The Cannibal of Rotenburg, Armin Meiwes. I first read about this over at Secular Blasphemy a few months ago. The charges were new, and Jan's piece could provide only the sketchiest details. For months I forgot about it, consigning it to the realm of urban legend. The case is in court now, and the details are coming out in a trial that just might make legal history. This is a huge international story, playing big everywhere but in the States. Could it be that Americans just don’t have a taste for tales with this much bite? Perhaps… We are so going to run with this. A Gentleman of the Old School         12/6/03 The setting of the trial is the land known as Germany, in a town called Kassel. We begin on the internet, which as Bill O’Riley has informed you, is a dark and lawless place, a zone beyond repentance where the weird at heart meet in chat rooms and forums with names like ‘Cannibal Café’ and ‘Gay Cannibals’. What are they searching for, you ask? The answer is simple – someone to eat, or someone to be eaten by. “Thousands of people” is their number according to Meiwes, and I shall give him the benefit of the doubt. Were they just playing games? Most perhaps, but not all… Meiwes is… weird. When he was a youngster, he claims to have been under the control of a domineering mother who stoked his interest in cannibalism. (How she did this he doesn't say.) Fatherless and with no siblings, he  became obsessed with the idea of having a younger brother, someone that he could make “a part of myself. But then I realized one day that was not enough." As he grew older, his fantasy fleshed out, and by the time he was twelve, he would imagine killing, butchering and devouring his school friends – just the ones he liked, of course. "Slim and blond, that would have been the type." But Armin remained a good boy, living strictly in his fantasies until 1999, when his mother finally died. Bitch was outta there. This gave him a whole new lease on life and he ventured out onto the internet in search of a few good men. He adopted the pseudonym Franky. Franky? He posted internet ads which read: "If you are 18-25 you are my boy,  Franky from Germany".  Or, sometimes taking the less subtle approach of, "Come to me, I'll eat your delicious flesh." A lot of folks responded to these seductive words. 430 heeded his call in the first year. He met a few of these guys, but most of them didn’t really want to be butchered, truth be told. Nothing but game-players. Then, one sweet day, he hooked up with Bernd-Juergen. And Armin ate’em. Sorry. I just like the way that sounds. But I am getting ahead of myself… So this guy Bend-Juergen accepts an invitation to Armin’s chateau in Rotenburg. (Just between you and me, would you ever accept an invitation to Rotenburg?) BJ, as I like to call him, was a very special man. I mean, like Armin had already met several other dudes who wanted him to be killed by him. One wanted to be beheaded, but Armin turned him down cause the sucker was too fat. And BJ was ready for action, I gotta tell you – he had already settled up all his personal affairs before reporting to <snicker> Rotenburg. Miewes had a very nice place, including a very special torture room – It’s Slaughterin Time! – complete with video cameras, meat hooks, and a cage. Gosh, I know what I would do if I walked into such a place. I’d turn on the cameras, strip off my clothes, wash down a few sleeping pills with whiskey, and get prepared for the time of my life. I guess BJ is just like me in this respect. "Now you can see my body. I hope you'll find me tasty,'' he said, a comment upon which I refuse to expand. Then came the ritual act of wienerschnitzel. "It was important to him that his member be cut off and that he witness it," said Meiwes. "It gave him pleasure." Their plan was to chow down together on this particular sausage , but WTF, they found that due to its, mmm, consistency, it was inedible "even when fried". Where is Rachael Rae when you need her? This was very demoralizing to BJ, who decided he would just as soon be stabbed to death at this rather low point in his career as victim, just as soon as he could down a bottle of cough medicine. Alas, he had to wait for ten more hours (European reports hilariously say ‘ten hours after his dismemberment.’ I love that, and should have stolen it.), and even then, Armin found it hard to say goodbye. "I kissed him once more, prayed, and pleaded for forgiveness.''  And after the kiss, the meat hooks. And the butchering, all on videotape. It was ten hours after the dismemberment (it's mine!), when the victim fell unconscious and Meiwes stabbed him to death with a knife. He then hung up the corpse from his hooks of mercy and cut it up, filming the process. He buried the ‘innards’, but kept the skull and flesh. Of the flesh, I understand that he ate around 45 pound over time, defrosting individual snack sized portions. (Obviously these were much tastier than the dick.) [Let me pause here for a moment to chastise the foreign press – he didn’t keep the skull, he kept the friggin head. There is a lot of difference between the two – a skull is Halloween, a head is Hell.] "With every piece of flesh I ate I remembered him. It was like taking communion. He told me he had had the desire since he was a child to be slaughtered and eaten. He was very intelligent and I didn't see any sign that he was disturbed.” No, Armin, I guess you didn’t. Meiwes  wants you to know that he did nothing wrong. "I had the fantasy, and in the end I fulfilled it," he said. “Hundreds and thousands are out there looking to be eaten." And he absolutely was not a pervert. "I didn't want to have sex with the partner I chose to slaughter. That had nothing to do with it." Not that there's anything wrong with that. Prosecutors are charging Meiwes with murder, and are seeking a life sentence. Cannibalism is not a crime under German law, so Meiwes is being charged with murder for the purposes of sexual satisfaction and "disturbing the peace of the dead". His attorney describes Meiwes as "a gentleman of the old school."   Another Bite                                               12/7/03 I would be remiss to leave the topic of Armin without taking note of two of my favorite news sources, the Hindustan Times and The Scotsman Of particular interests are the men who didn't stay for dinner. HT tells us about one. ‘One allowed himself to be hung on a hook in clingfilm <ed: Saran Wrap> awaiting slaughter’, but changed his mind and said it was too cold to be killed, upon which Herr Meiwes drove him back (graciously? unwillingly?) to the station. The uses of clingfilm clearly extend to more than Munna’s packed sandwiches, and the ride to the station and the time taken for the arrival of the train could not have been short enough for the victim let off the hook. And The Scotsman shows that you just can't compete with the holidays. Meiwes made reference to "the scene" <ed: this would be the thriving German Cannibal Scene> on the first day of his testimony when he said he was offered a young man called Luke on the internet who wanted, like Brandes, to be "killed and eaten". Meiwes said: "He then cancelled our meeting saying he had found cannibals who agreed to eat him as part of a Russian Orthodox Christmas feast. I got back to him afterwards to see if perhaps the appointment didn’t work out... but there was never a reply." Both papers provide greater detail on the evenings main course, but the Hindustan Time does so with relish. Meiwes’ defense is that Brandes always wanted to be killed and eaten. When he arrived at Meiwes’ house, he apparently permitted a certain vital organ to be dismembered. It was to be fried, salted, peppered and garnished with garlic and eaten with relish. Herr Meiwes was apparently well-versed in the art of carving up Brandes, and when his first attempt to sever the said organ failed on (where else?) the kitchen table, a ‘sharper knife’ eventually did the trick. Herr Meiwes explained to the court: "We had agreed to eat it half and half, but he was growing faint and couldn't wait for his half to be cooked through. So he tried to eat it more or less raw and of course it was too tough. This made him furious." Now despite his apparently gentlemanly agreement of ‘half and half’ surely it was unsporting of Herr Meiwes not to speed up the frying time, and to expect a bleeding Brandes to calmly understand the delay in the side orders as if he were in a restaurant?!   All the Meiwes That’s Fit to Print     12/9/03 I know that everyone is waiting with Baited Breath for more details on The Cannibal of Rotenburg , and I am just the guy to give them to you. So, yesterday they played the Meiwes murder video in court <Germany has judges and lawyers, but no jury> – a 90 minute edited version of the four and a half hour film; we’ll probably have to wait ages for the directors cut to come out. I find it interesting that they let Armin Meiwes watch it along with the judges and lawyers. This was probably quite a treat for him, as he did enjoy his videos, and this was the jewel of his collection. They excluded the press from what they call “the worst parts”, an action that probably makes sense only in Germany. I mean, it’s like having a baby, or a dog with diarrhea, you try to watch the movie, and keep having to hit the pause button. So, let’s talk video. The tape starts with – what do we call him? Victim? Honoree? -Bernd Juergen Brandes. Let me give you a taste, from The Scotsman, of the defense and prosecution’s take on their strategy. “The video is exhibit A in the sensational trial and important to both defence and prosecution. Meiwes’s lawyer believes it will prove his client’s contention that nothing took place in his remote farmhouse home near the city of Kassel that Mr Brandes didn’t want to happen. The prosecution hopes it will convince the three judges trying the case that, befuddled by drink and a cocktail of sleeping tablets and cold medicine, Mr Brandes literally sleepwalked to his doom. Okay. I’ll give you a synopsis of the plot. The film begins in Miewes kitchen, and show Brandes stripping for the camera. He’s having an okay time, and says that he hopes that he is tasty. (A sentiment, I am sure, that we all share.) Scene 2: We see Meiwes with a knife, removing his buddy’s member. His buddy tells him “Slice the thing off now". (Scotsman: This is another indication, according to the defence, that Meiwes was no murderer but a man fulfilling both his and his victim’s wishes.) Officials leaked details of the 90 minutes that were selected to be played before the court. It opens in Meiwes’s kitchen and shows Mr Brandes undressing before the camera. He seems unsteady on his feet at times, but there is no sign of coercion or restraint. Meiwes is seen cutting off his Mr Brandes’s penis after the victim’s request: " Okay. Meiwes bandages things up, and the camera shows him slaving over a hot oven, trying to fry up a nice penis. Garlic, salt and pepper are the reported seasonings. They sit down to eat, and Brandes starts whining. "It is too tough". Goddamnit. I would of slapped him across his kisser after a remark like that. Okay, if you’ve read this far, you’ll want to read this line. Miewes takes the guy upstairs to “bleed out” for a few hours, comes back, and watches a Disney film. (Which one? Damn you Scotsman, we need details!) Well, that’s most of the new details that I haven’t reported already. You know what happened next – Meiwes take Brandes upstairs (that special room with the meathooks), finished him off and packaged him. There is more to say, but this is the end of the film, and the end of tonight's installment.   meiwes update                         12/17/03   Let's leave the Saddam story to the provincials for a while, shall we, and turn our attention back to the other big continuing news item, the trial of Armin Meiwes, The Cannibal of Rotenburg. Now as I've probably said in an earlier piece, Armin is kind of in a gray zone because Germany has no laws against cannibalism. And the courts can't really try him for murder, because his dinner asked to be eaten. (I know, I know, I see a nice piece of steak and it seems to say the same thing, but this was on video.) So the best law that the German courts can dig up is "killing on request", a charge akin to America's assisted suicide law, which means that Meiwes is looking at five years max. His lawyers think this is far too long, and the defense is bringing out their five star witnesses: men who Meiwes didn't eat. I told you earlier about one of the people that Meiwes didn't eat (the fellow in clingfilm - saran wrap), but that was a prosecution witness, produced, I suppose, to prove that Meiwes had not merely suffered from one crazy night. This was a defense witness, presented to show that Meiwes would never eat someone who wasn't totally into it. Dirk Moller had changed his mind. Moller (an internet buddy) and Meiwes had hooked up at a McDonald's (Big Mac and fries) before going back to Meiwes place where they promptly stripped, and Armin covered dirk with clingfilm. He then began sticking pins in him, to mark the organs that were supposed to be eaten. Moller decided that he needed to be a bit more formal. "He wanted to be sentenced to death," Meiwes told the court. "So I printed out a death sentence for him." On to the pubic shaving, after which the two popped in a video tape of a previous (non)victim. This particular gent was hanging upside down from a hook in Meiwes 'slaughter parlor'. (He decided he didn't want to die, so Meiwes took him off the hook, and the two went to see 'Ocean's Eleven'.) Dirk started getting picky. "He watched [the video], and said to me: 'You can do this but not that'." What ya gonna do? Meiwes, ever the gentleman, sighed and called it a day.   more meiwes            12/19/03 In a piece entitled 'Willy-biter Wants Sausage', The Sun UK brings us the story of Armin Meiwes Christmas wish. The title is a single entendre, willy being an english term for penis, one of which Armin readily admits to having cooked. If only Meiwes had eaten someone named Wilheim, The Sun could have scored the prized double entendre. So Germany is a lovely place, and hey, you Germans out there, correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess that prisoners get to request whatever they like for their Christmas dinner. And Meiwes has requested an eight inch Bockwurst cooked in garlic and white wine. This is the same recipe that he used on Bernd Juergen Brandeshis's sausage, so prison authorities are understandably disgusted. The Sun quotes a prison official: “It’s obviously his idea of a sick joke. He can have the sausage but it won’t be done his way.” Those Germans, they slay me (as is their wont). Yeah, you can have that sausage, but it's going to be boiled.   Wandering off Topic                                     12/22/03   Bad PETA. Misanthropic PETA. Abominable PETA. This goes into the IWU (inappropriately worked up) category, and receives an additional award from the BCM (bad choice of metaphor) category.** The San Francisco Chronicle brings us an editorial on PETA entitled 'PETA to Cannibals: Don't Let Them Eat Steak', by Wesley J Smith, Senior Fellow (i.e. Old Man) at the Discovery Institute. Don't get me started. Don't you get me started. So PETA sends Armin Meiwes a bunch of soy burgers and a vegetarian cookbook, I read about this a few days ago, and even I had to yawn. PETA is always doing stunts which are 'provocative' and boring at the same time... they really haven't done anything interesting since they were shooting themselves with stun guns and rolling around in bloody furs. Don't tell this to Wesley J, though, cause he is brimming with outrage. When Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals infamously asserted in 1986, "There is no rational basis for asserting that a human being has special rights: A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," few believed that she meant it literally. Surely, people thought, Newkirk and PETA understand that humans have far greater moral worth than animals. Actually, they don't. In fact, it now appears that PETA's moral views have become so distorted and misanthropic that the organization sees little difference between eating a steak and cannibalizing a human being. Here's the story: Armin Meiwes, the "German cannibal," shocked the world when he admitted to slaughtering, butchering and eating a man he met over the Internet. PETA's reaction to this sickening event?` It sent Meiwes a vegetarian cookbook and a hamper full of veggie burgers in the hope of converting him to vegetarianism. "What this man did to a German computer expert is done to other creatures every day," a PETA spokesman explained. "The cruel scenario of slaughtering, cutting up, portioning, freezing and eating of body parts," the actions taken by Meiwes against his human victim, "is the grim reality for more than 450 million sentient individuals (animals) that are killed in (Germany) every year." In other words, according to PETA, when you enjoy a lamb chop or eat a hamburger, you are acting no differently than the cannibal who butchered a man and ate his flesh. Well, you know, some people really believe this, I suppose, but how many really really believe it is another question. Very few people commit their lives to righting this wrong, or put themselves in harms way because of it. (def. harm's way: incarceration of over 12 hours and/or fine greater that $100). Hold on. As bad as these sentiments are, PETA stoops even lower. Making odious moral equivalencies between animal husbandry and the worst crimes against humans has become a PETA trademark. Indeed, its notorious "Holocaust on Your Plate" pro-vegetarian campaign literally equates the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust with the eating of chickens... First, there are the pictures. PETA juxtaposes pictures of emaciated concentration camp inmates in their tight-packed wooden bunks with chickens being kept in cages. In another truly despicable comparison (on several levels), a picture of piled bodies of Jewish Holocaust victims is juxtaposed with the bodies of dead pigs. (If the KKK did that, it would be called hate speech.) Uh, Wesley, I'm thinking that if the KKK did that, their intent would be entirely different. They do teach you about intent at the Discovery Institute, don't they?   ...Forget for the moment that Hitler was sometimes a vegetarian and that the Nazi government passed some of the most far-reaching animal protection laws of the era. That PETA can't distinguish between the unspeakable evil of the Shoah and animal husbandry reveals a perverted sense of moral values that is almost beyond comprehension. But this matter goes far beyond moral revulsion. Take that, PETA! Hitler was a vegetarian! Sometimes! So does this imply, somehow, a parallel between PETA and the the perpetrators of the holocaust? PETA's sending a vegetarian cookbook to the German cannibal as if his consuming of human flesh is no different morally than eating a pork chop and the group's odious "Holocaust on Your Plate'' campaign illustrate the twisted moral thinking that lies at the heart of the modern animal rights/liberation movement. And voila, the moral equivalency argument has been totally pretzeled from a stupid publicity trick, to an equivocation between PETA and the Nazis. I'm out on the front line with this issue. You want my pork chop, you gonna have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers. I'm down with Chris Rock, who said "People are starving all over the world. If you are one of the fortunate few on this planet to get your hands on a steak, bite the shit out of it!" And Wesley, quit worrying. I'll give you a bite off of mine. ** Meiwes as a BCM (Bad Choice of Metaphor) has also been chronicled by World of Crap here.   Wrapping up the Meiwes Defense          12/24/03 We are reaching the finale of the Armin Meiwes defense presentation now, with the testimony of witnesses whom Meiwes, for one reason or another, refused to eat. One thing that the defense seems to have proved is that Armin never did eat anyone who didn't ask for it, and that yes, he would let you change your mind at the last minute. One of the more interesting witnesses was an old boyfriend, who had survived an eighteen month long relationship with Meiwes. The reason for his breakup with the cannibal was not an attempt by Meiwes to snack on his paramour. The man described Meiwes as cheerful and helpful, and like almost everyone that Meiwes didn't eat, he was 'very nice'. The man told the court that he had never notice the defendants proclivity for flesh eating, and was very surprised to hear about it. Meiwes, as you know by now, is fighting a murder charge [Germany has no cannibalism law] with the perfectly logical claim that his victim asked for it. And has been seen from prior testimony, he made sure they insisted on it, often hurting would be victims feelings. Take yesterdays disguised witness, a 25 year old student who showed up in court wearing dark glasses, a scarf wrapped around his face, a hat and a hood. (He was so bundled up that he couldn't find the courtroom and had to be led to the witness stand. He had good reason to be ashamed. Meiwes wouldn't eat him - he was too fat. "I wanted to be decapitated," the man told the court, and Meiwes had agreed, but that was before they met. This is the danger of the internet; people describe themselves as nice and thin, you agree to eat them, and then they turn out to be all gross and fat. "My mother always insisted on lean meat," Meiwes had told the court earlier. Another witness admitted to disappointing Meiwes by admitting, after being locked in a cage in Meiwes torture parlor, that he was just role playing, and that licking Armin's leather boots and apron was enough excitement for one day. "I wanted to be desired in this way," he said, after wasting Meiwes precious time. "So we drank a beer together and he left," Meiwes told the court.                                                                          12/26/03 Quote of the day, from today's New York Times profile of Armin Meiwes, the Hannibal of Hesse: No wonder this trial has been riveting theater for courtroom regulars like Manfred Schübel..  "He's sympathetic," Mr. Schübel said, adding with a nervous giggle, "He looks like the nicest cannibal you could ever meet." All the Meiwes                                                        12/30/03 Our first break in restricted coverage comes from the Australian press, which by and large carries more cannibal new that any other island continent I can think of. Australia is an interesting land, what with all their marsupials and their delicious Outback restaurants, and they do think a lot about cannibals. Back when they were the model for 'Escape from New York', they had a lot of cannibal trauma. Probably the guards telling the prisoners that the Aborigines were man-eaters, a fake fact that seems embedded in the national psyche. Well Christmas got in the way. I am at this point unable to ascertain whether or not Meiwes got his eight inch Bockwurst for Christmas or not. Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Pity. And here's a little educational trivia for Americans. A lot of the testimony is 'in camera'. No, that doesn't mean it's taped. In Germany that means nobody gets to hear it except for the judges and lawyers. That means we totally miss things like the testimony regarding his experimental heterosexuality with Petra Zimhaueser, a 'bulky' (?) 41-year-old woman described as even more domineering than his mother. We did hear from the court psychiatrist yesterday, who stated that our lad Armin was more or less normal. "Mr. Meiwes is in good psychological health," said the shrink. "We all have fantasies, live two lives, but in the case of Mr. Meiwes the double life was more pronounced." Mmm. My alternate life involves me owning a cat named Bob. At any rate, as Bill O'Reilly could have told you, the root of this problem would appear to be the lawless frontier known as the internet. "If there hadn't been an internet, it wouldn't have happened," explained the court psychiatrist, and he is probably correct in his assertion. "In chatrooms you lose the sense of reality, you enter the group dynamic of chatting." Well, yes. I suppose you would. Meiwes agrees, stating in an email to his future dinner partner Herr Brandes, "I've been looking for contacts (to eat) since 1999 - without the net, it wouldn't have been possible." I happen to think this is a good thing. The judge in this case, Volker Mutze, sounds like he's about ready to lose it. He has been described as looking queasy from the beginning of the proceedings, but  today's reports, wherein he reads the court some of Armin's chatmail traffic, refer to him as the "pale, stuttering judge." <And let this be a lesson to any of you perverts out there reading my reportage. You think that chatroom stuff is private? Sorry, bud, but this is going on your permanent record.> Well, okay then, let's listen into some chat between Berndt Brandes and Armin Meiwes. We start with a Valentines day chat in 2001, where Meiwes tells his future entrée that he is making spaghetti carbonara, and the entree replies "You don't have to buy meat again - there will be plenty left." Shhh. Down in front. Brandes: "What will you do with my brain?" Meiwes: "I'll leave it, I don't want to split your skull." Brandes: "Better bury it, preferably in a cemetery - nobody notices skulls there. Or maybe pulverize it?" Meiwes: "We have a nice small cemetery here." Brandes: "You could use it as an ashtray." Now this is a good bit coming up for the defense, because Meiwes starts to worry that Brandes doesn't know shit about anatomy, and tries his best to help him out. "Believe me, I know about the anatomy of young men," he tells his new buddy. To prove his expertise, he sends Brandt a couple nude pictures of himself. Meiwes then goes on to tell Brandt to take the train from Berlin to Kassel and pay in cash so he can't be traced. And finally this little exchange Brandes: "Are you a smoker?" Meiwes: "Yes, but my teeth are still pretty white." Brandes: "That's good - I smoke too. I hope you like smoked meat." Meiwes: "Just bring yourself for breakfast." Meiwes attorney, Harald Ermer, wrapped it up. "This testimony today shows my client definitely did not commit murder." Armin Meiwes: The Early Years           January 6, 2004 The Meiwes trial started back up today, but thus far all the news available to the public has been pretty dry. His porn selections, and such. The London Evening Standard has filled the void, however, providing salacious new details about the Cannibal of Rotenburg that are guaranteed to satisfy your strongest cravings. We get a much clearer picture of what exactly made this supposedly charming man morph into such a fringe case. Somber stuff, people. Mighty creepy. And as is so often the case, it all starts out with MOTHER. As I have surely mentioned before, Armin Meiwes did not live in a seedy piece of shit apartment where the cockroaches rustled in the hollow walls, no, Armin lived in a borderline respectable mansion, out there in the idyllic German countryside. But he lived with MOTHER, and MOTHER wasn't exactly the warmest individual in Rotenburg. Yes, MOTHER had given all of the rooms in the mansion little brass plaques with names that glowed with sweetness and light. Names like 'Sunlight Room', and 'Morning Dew Room', and then, the dark space down at the end of a very scary hallway, 'Child's Room'. In these 43 rooms, Armin spent his first 38 years with the woman who never gave him the respect and love he so longed for, the woman who would so poison his mind that he would one day happily chow down on Bernd-Juergen Brandes, an individual who obviously had some issues of his own. I must tell you this, he would spend many a year looking after MOTHER, a woman who's nature was foreshaddowed by her very name. Waltraud. Waltraud Meiwes! Ahrooo! The friends and neighbors all thought Armin was normal, but as we now know, he wasn't. How could he be? Take a look around at the deteriorating mansion, forty-three rooms of gloom, and ask yourself - could love blossom here? No, it could not! Why, when Armin was just a wee lad of eight (and his mother was 48 and bitter), all of the men packed up and moved the fuck out of the house. Brother Wolfgang became a priest in Berlin, and no one seems to know where Brother Ingolbert went. Dad was Waltraud's third and last husband, and he just got up his nerve and moved away from Rotenburg. Armin was lonely, lonely and totally dominated. He dreamed of another brother, someone who could be one with him, a fantasy that would later take on sinister dimensions. But for now, he was trapped. Listen. I must quote now directly from the Evening Standard. In the early 1970s, when his schoolfriends were wearing jeans, she insisted that he carry on wearing traditional lederhosen shorts. When he was a young man, one of the rare guests at the old house witnessed her ordering him to bed because the clock had struck 10. Meiwes was to recall later that he began creating his cannibal fantasies during his adolescence, when he and his mother lived alone together in the huge manor. He collected material on the crimes of Fritz Haarmann, the Vampire of Hanover, who killed at least 26 young men in the 1920s. Haarmann butchered his victims and drank their blood. He was beheaded at a public execution in 1925. Then Meiwes bought a Barbie doll and dismembered it, keeping the parts in a locked safe so his mother would not find them. She knew nothing of his fantasies and his own increasing doubts about his sexuality. When he took a girl on a date, she accompanied them, sitting in the back seat of the car. Goddamnit MOTHER, you've driven me insane! She made him leave girlfriends. Did you know that Meiwes had a fiancé, a pretty little girl name o' Petra Zinnhauser, but MOTHER drove her away as well. They were far too similar. She called little Armin worthless, and hurt his feelings in numerous ways. Even after he joined the German Army. Oh... But, like, she died. Finally. So he got to add a torture lounge to room 27. You pretty much know the story from here on out. Still, I can't help but run through a few of the trivial details that still add so much to a tale such as this. <Look at the house, Mark, check out the mansion.> Okay. His mother's room is a mess; he has piled her clothes high upon the bed, her dressing table is scattered with her things - mirror, brushes. He has boarded up the window with plywood. No daylight enters. Nearby, on a bed in one of the many guest rooms, under a pink coverlet, he has placed a doll's head between two pillows. This head used to stand on his mother's dressing table; she placed her wig upon it each night before going to bed. When the police pulled back the cover, they found Meiwes had drawn a beard on the doll's head chin. In another room, she preserved his favourite toys: a train set, a model of a German castle - but on the table where they stand he has placed the bleached skull of a cow. There are more things to learn from the Evening Standard. If I had more time, I would write about the pork penis. Maybe I would even tell you about Meiwes sending out pictures of his teeth to Brandes with the promise to bite his tongue out. Perhaps I could give more details than I have thus far, but really... Meiwes's own website is closed now, but others devoted to cannibalism and necrophilia thrive. He himself estimated that at least 800 individuals in Germany had, like him, killed and eaten people. You think? Got to add a little American cynicism to this story... I keep seeing this particular stat, repeated over and over, and yeah, why would you give that number any credence? Yes MOTHER, Freddie ate Benjy, and  Willheim ate Hans, do you mind terribly if I eat Bernd-Juergen? Bragging, he was. Little bragging bastard. Ah, Armin, if your little friends threw themselves off of a bridge, would you throw yourself off too? Yes MOTHER. Very well, Armin.                                                                        January 9, 2004 Continuing Stories: The Loneliest Little Cannibal It has been a terrible few days covering the Cannibal of Rotenburg, when it started out with so much potential. The problem is that they keep having the best parts 'in camera', so it will be days before the stories leak out. Among the witnesses that we've missed are the father who deserted wee eight year old Armin, and the brother who never gave him a moments notice. So I have to do the best I can with rather feeble material. It was Female Friday in Kassel, Germany, and that means it's time to present girls who like Armin. Today at the trial of the Cannibal of Rotenburg we met two unidentified women who had relationships with Meiwes. As my faithful bartender Suzette would say - Barrff. Okayyy, these two anonymous frauleins told the court that Armin was just as nice and kind as can be. That's it. End of story A little short, I'll confess. Hold on, I'll pad a little. Here's a quote, albeit a lame one. "He came across as very child-like, when he played with children, as if he were a child himself." This is one of the frauleins talking. "I noticed that he seemed content with us in our family." Later she said that she decided against a relationship with Meiwes when he told her "of his homosexual tendencies." I don't know about the second witness. She was a neighbor - does that count? Because they always have a tendency to say nice things about the defendent. My theory on this is that they don't want to seem to be so totally vapid and disengaged as to not notice what should be obvious. "Johnny was always such a nice quiet boy." Anyway, she also said that Armin had tried to "start a relationship" with her, and that he said he would like to get married and have a large family. Both women denied ever having sex with Meiwes. As if anyone would admit to that. "He came across as being very childlike," said the neighbor. And that is all I've got, unless you'd like to go and read a legal commentary entitled Is it Always Torture to Dismember and Eat a Conscious Human Being?                                                                                        1/12/04 Armin Meiwes: Entrée Receives Mixed Reviews It was a decidedly mixed day for the reputation of the late Bernd-Juergen Brandes, man-snack for the cannibal of Rotenburg. Earlier in the day, the court heard from 27-year-old Rene Jasnik, Juergen's life partner and lover, who said the two were "very happy together" and that Brandes had never ever ever expressed a desire for death or any masochistic fantasies. It was a mystery to Jasnik just why Brandes would do something crazy like get on the web and ask for a cannibal to eat him like an afterthought. (No word yet on what Disney film Meiwes was watching while Brandes drained out, although Lady and the Tramp has been widely discussed.) "He had no thoughts of suicide," declared Jasnik, although he did add that he had found Brandes' will in early January 01, just a few weeks before the fateful meeting. He also disclosed that Meiwes had written to him, apologizing for his rash actions and saying that he was sorry. (How would this letter go, I wonder? Dear Rene, Have you ever been consumed with desire? Imagine my surprise last Thursday when your lover dropped by...') I guess this is as good an illustration as any of the difference between love and lust. That pleasant fellow Jasnik was described as Brandes 'life mate'. The next witness, an unnamed engineer from Berlin, was described as one of Brandes 'sexual partners'. This fellow was a little more blunt, saying that Brandes had offered him 5000 Marks (around $3K) to bite off his penis. No further questions, your honor. Just for the fun of it, the court spent a few minutes with a former school chum of Armin's, a lad who started out by dissing the underappreciated Mum, Waltraud Meiwes! Ahrooo! This chum said that a drunk Meiwes had once admitted contacting some pervert "who is always asking me whether he is ripe for slaughter". This was about a year following the demise of Brandes, when Meiwes was running out of table scraps. The chum said that Meiwes sobered up and asked him to forget the conversation. And finally, a special Shoutout to Independent Online from South Africa for their success in coming up with today's best headline, which consists of a quote unreported by the rest of the semi-civilized world: "'My lover offered me money for a penis snack'".                                                              1/14/04 More Meiwes Mother Madness Whoops, I'm off to lovely Norfolk Virginia in just a few moments, so please forgive me if this piece is not properly salacious. I promise to show a spectacular lack of tact upon my return. For now let's return to the Bate's Motel... Yes, it's the Psycho meme that some of the European press is starting to play, even though Armin never really killed anyone who wasn't asking for it... You see, Armin had a MOTHER, the ghastly Waldtrud! Who he both worshipped and feared. After her death, his home became a shrine to Waldtrud. Or so the papers would have you believe, at least the ones who are trying to put Meiwes into the Anthony Perkins role. Tell me, would mother have approved of the torture chamber? I think not! No, she would curse under her breath and then angrily yell out 'Minchen' in that rank voice of hers, the air hung heavy with the nauseating aroma of sauerkraut. Would mother have thought it was cute had she come across little Armin's wooden human cage and shackles? Not in my lifetime! No, she would make Armin change right into his lederhosen and give her room a damn good cleaning, polish her fucking silverware, and make her hairbrushes glow like they were brand new. In other words, the Cannibal of Rotenburg was absolutely nothing like Norman Bates, except for the part where he would dress up in her clothes after she died and imitate her voice. That's all. That, and the fact that he was a little nuts. School chum Berhardt Sieberg testifying yesterday: "He took over the role of his mother in the house. You couldn't interfere with the world he had created for her. I once went into her room and it was a real shock to me. Her dressing gown was laid neatly out on the bed, beautifully pressed, like he expected her back any moment. His world was frozen in the time she was still alive. It was spooky. He became his mother." Okay, maybe just a little bit like Norman Bates.                                                                              1/16/04 And we're back now, with a fresh batch of News on Meiwes. (Perhaps I never told you how to pronounce the name of the Cannibal of Rotenburg. Like what a cat does. Mews. Rhymes with news. So let's take it from the top.) And we're back now, with a fresh batch of News on Meiwes. Or rather, we're back with fresh news about the victim of Armin Meiwes, the very silly and very dead Bernd Brandes. Some people are obsessed with religion and some people are obsessed with love, and then there are those who are obsessed with having their penis bitten off by their sexual partners. Such people are known as 'sick puppies', and statistically are almost always men. Herr Brandes was such a puppy.  (The question has come forth: Are such people usually Germans? The answer is no, although Germany does have a higher than average per capita population of men wishing to be deboned.) And now we gratefully hear from Victor Serano, a former sex partner of Brandes'. (Grateful because we are growing bored with all of the German names, and are frankly pleased to see someone bring a Hispanic presence to FGAQ.) "Hey there sailor, ever done the nasty with a Caribbean Boy? We love you long time." So might have read Serano's ad in a Berlin Sex magazine - we aren't sure, so we're forced to vamp. You hear about how vulgar the European press is, but I swear to God, "offered his services as a Caribbean Boy" is all the detail I can find about the Serano advertising his meat, and you know, there's much more than that. I'll stake my reputation on the probability that the ad contained at least three of the following words: 'bite', 'teeth', 'Weiner schnitzel',  'ouch', 'stump'. At any rate, these two knuckleheads became a steady couple, having sex, or something like it, at least twice a week for three years. As individuals grow in a relationship, they begin to share more of their intimate thoughts and feelings with each other. Such was the case with Berndt, who gradually worked up the courage to tell Vic that he would really like to be mutilated. "Bernd kept urging me to bite off his penis," said Serano. "He always achieved orgasm when I placed my teeth around it. He wanted to be bitten everywhere but the penis was his fantasy, his obsession. He offered me money, some 10,000 deutschmarks to do it." Alas, this was not in line with Senor Serano's own erotic tastes, and the relationship was tragically cut short. And so the Serano testimony concluded. Armin Meiwes enjoyed it very much. He was dressed smartly in a pearl gray suit, and laughed and smiled during the hearing.  The Serano is testimony is important because Meiwes, as I'm sure you know, claims to have killed Brandes as a special favor. Fantasy Island. If Serano's testimony is given credence, the prosecution believes that it will show that Brandes only wanted to be mutilated, not murdered. Creepy Foreigners: The Place Where Thinking Stops Armin Meiwes has spawned some wonderful commentary of which, I predict, the writers thereof would gladly pay the cost of a finger or two, if only they could wish it out of existence. Such surely must be the case with the lovely and talented Stephanie Bunbury. Stephanie Bunbury is the 'Arts' director for The Age, an entertaining and widely read Australian news source. She's interesting... her specialty is film, and I forsee many future pieces here on anyone who would kick off their festival coverage like this: Everyone at the party agreed: the Icelandic comedy with the hippie lesbians and the suicide attempt on the glacier was the best thing so far. This, for me, was the defining moment of the Locarno Film Festival which ran from the 2nd to the 12th of August. (The coveted FGAQ Invisible Prize goes to anyone listening to this sound bite who can correctly identify what she's saying.) "For some people, bad things may feel good." So says Stephanie. "Desire is a puzzle without answers." Let's listen in now as one writer shares their Mulholland Drive moment in a lapse of judgment that will color your onion forever more. "Just this week, I went to see Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, made in 1955 and now out in a crisp new print. As an artistic vision of evil in the world, it must rate somewhere near Faust." 'Night of the Hunter' is a southern gothic film about an evil, wacked-out minister, set in the great depression. Bunbury spends three paragraphs setting this bit up, and then never makes use of the analogy in the entire body of her piece, except to make this marvelous transition (The paper I read while waiting for the film...). That's right! While she waits for the film to start, she reads an article about Armin Meiwes! The investigating officer in charge of the Meiwes case, Wilfried Fehl, has confessed to the court that he found his story "practically unimaginable". Meiwes found his victim, Bernd-Juergen Brandes, on the internet. It is fairly certain Brandes was willing, because Meiwes made a four-hour video of the whole event that shows the two of them cooking and eating part of Brandes' body before he was dead. "It leads us," said Fehl honestly, "to the place where thinking stops." The Place Where Thinking Stops, right up the street from The Land Where Time Stood Still. Thinking stops, but writing doesn't. Just like John Wayne Gacy, to reach for a metaphor, deadlines have no mercy. The writer continues on to provide a bracket for the unbracketable, before getting to the real meat of the piece: feelings. The Place Where Thinking Stops. Some know it as happy hour. ...in the tabloid context of shock, horror and sensation, there is something coldly comforting about a bogyman like Armin Meiwes. He is the ultimate "other"; his warped desires have nothing to do with us. We are normal. Meiwes, who is obviously bananas, is at the opposite pole. We like monsters; they give us a sense of order. When a monster is cast out, the world is once again set to rights. Mmm, I don't know. People do like monsters, but most of us are partial to Freddie Kruger or the Beast with 20 Fingers, not Armin Meiwes. Okay. At any rate, we've established the monster metaphor. Now let's toss it the hell out. Bunbury procedes to tell us that Meiwes is "Strikingly ordinary" and gives us this bit of Ophra wisdom: "I'm sure he doesn't think of himself as cruel." Let's empathise. Wilfried Fehl was right; Meiwes's crime is unimaginable. But let's try to imagine what it would be like to be him. If you feel a raging desire to eat people, what do you do with it? Or take a more widespread inclination that, as a society, horrifies us so much we don't seem able to think about it at all: pedophilia. Say you feel sexually or - think about this - romantically attracted to pre-pubescent people, what do you do with that desire? Don't you yearn as much as anyone else? Don't you feel that this light, bright feeling comes from the best part of you? Is it just me, or does that strike you as unbearably creepy? How did we get on the topic of pedophilia anyway? And, uh, the romantic part... am I supposed to extrapolate this into the possibility that Meiwes was romantically attracted to eating people. Aye-yi-yi, this is the place where thinking stops. Well, I imagine you do. If a feeling seems to rise irresistibly from within you, it is hard to think of it as wrong. For most of us, killing and eating people is obviously wrong. More than wrong: abhorrent, hideous, vile. But what if it didn't feel obvious? If we felt the same bizarre desires Armin Meiwes did, would we do exactly the same things he did? Perhaps. Anyone who has behaved badly in a more familiar way - who has risked their family's happiness on an affair, for example - will know that it felt right and good at the time. It is only later that you wonder how you could have done it. See, this is where this road leads, telling the world much more about yourself than you ever intended. Raise your hand if you don't believe that Bunbury quit writing about Meiwes ten minutes ago. Writing as therapy is a good thing. The trick is to know when you're doing it. Desire is a puzzle without any solutions. I'm just asking questions. I certainly don't think we should sanction awful things just because some people fancy them. We do have to understand, however, what it is we find awful; we have to go past the place where thinking stops. Not that this is necessarily an enticing prospect. After all, as Goya wrote under one of his black paintings, the sleep of reason produces monsters. And we all have a few monsters of our own, lurking in the dark. Thank you, Stephanie. You write beautifully. Thank you for stopping by. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.                                                                                     1/22/04 Everybody I Know Has a Goddamn Book Deal! The news on Meiwes is getting a bit thin lately. God knows they've talked to just about everyone who might be of interest. In a few months there will be news pieces and probably even a few serious books constructed from the 'in camera' testimony that has been slowly leaking out. Possibly the most interesting item forthcoming will be penned by Armin Meiwes himself. Although we don't know whether or not he has any appreciable talent with a pen, his memoirs are bound to prove interesting on some delusional level or another. If his memoirs are indeed ever seen. And judging from what I've seen of recent German 'culture', I have no doubt they will be. Meiwes has been chatting up his book since a month before his trial began. Originally, he claimed that he wanted to write for the most noble of reasons, at one point telling the Welt am Sonntag that his purpose for writing was to defer people "who have similar instincts". He had good advice for all the wanna be cannibals. "They should check in for appropriate treatment and talk about it, so that it doesn't escalate like it did with me." Word. Publishers are lining up to make a deal with the Cannibal of Rotenburg, and he has told friends (yes, it's true. Everybody loves Armin) that he expects the book to make a fortune. There are even rumors of a movie offer. With any luck, Meiwes could even play himself, since the max sentence for his crime may be as little as five years. But he's backslid, the Meiwes Man has. The fellow who once claimed the honorable goal of preventing future cannibal attacks has now decided that he wants to put a recipe section in his memoirs. The Sun reports that dishes he wishes to feature include "biceps in Marsala, loin schnitzels braised with garlic and lemon juice, and breaded young man's liver." Over to you, Paul.   Verdict                          The Cannibal of Rotenburg At long last, the precedent setting Armin Meiwes case is over. The Cannibal of Rotenburg was sentenced by a German court today to eight years in prison for the crime of killing and consuming Bernd-Juergen Brandes, a socially maladjusted gent who was a willing participant in the macabre festivities. (An overview of the case is printed directly beneath this piece.) Meiwes was not convicted of manslaughter as prosecutors had hoped, but of manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of eight and a half years, with time off for good behavior. (There is little doubt that Meiwes will be well behaved; throughout the trial he has been polite, friendly, and forthcoming, and described by witnesses and court officials alike as a gentleman. Plus, he dresses well and has what might be called a charming smile if it weren't for the fact that you realize he might eat you with those teeth.) To be fair about it, the defense didn't get what they wanted either. They were looking for a verdict of 'killing on request' - the German equivalent of euthanasia - which could have resulted in a sentence of as little as six months. The court dismissed this verdict because of the obvious sexual pleasure that Meiwes took in this act. In the end, the six hour home video that Meiwes made of himself and Brandes played a powerful part in the verdict. Head Judge Volker Muetze admitted that the video should be "viewed with repulsion in our civilized society" (creepiest scene not previously reported by me: Meiwes talking to Brandes' severed head while disemboweling the body, which is hanging from a meat hook in the special 'slaughter lounge')... but, I continue, clearing my throat, the video shows that "Seen legally, this is manslaughter, killing a person without being a murderer." And? And? And it was "a behavior that is condemned in our society - namely the killing and butchering of a human being"... Go on, Herr Muetze. "They were two deeply psychologically disturbed people who both wanted something from the other." People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world. You know, this whole case has been an amazing story, and I'm really not sure why it's received so little interest in the states. (Interesting cannibal trivia: the most extensive coverage of the Meiwes saga has come from Australia, Africa and India - a continent where they used to eat people, a continent where they still do, and a country where they're so hungry that they'll eat anything they can get their damn hands on.) I think the story may be just a little too harsh for Americans, with their tender sensibilities, to accept as news. Entertainment, now that's another story, and I expect the forthcoming movie(s) to do great box office, particularly if they avoid the pitfall of trying to be dramas. Horror, could work, but we're talking two weeks and out unless we get a name director like M Night Shamalamadingdong. Comedy is not out of the question, and I for one would suggest the Farley brothers, who are just about one film away from doing a picture about a dimwitted but lovable cannibal who is forced to look for dinner in the classifieds. Me, I'm hoping for a musical. That last little speech that Armin gave to the court earlier this week, what a climactic  ending it could frame. "You don't need to worry that I'll ever need to do this again," he said. But no, no regrets. "I took his life, and I readily admit that." His voice firm, committed. "But ... I did nothing that ran contrary to his express wishes." Face forward, eyes bright, full screen close-up.  "I've had the kick of a lifetime." I can hear Jennifer Warnes. and if he were not dead, I could hear Bill Medley, who really could use the work about now.  I see the lights flash from an orbiting disco ball, and see the skirts of the twirling girls float round like hibiscus petals. And I can hear singing. "Now with passion in our eyes / There's no way we could disguise it secretly / So we take each other's hand / Cause we seem to understand / The urgency / Just remember /  I've had the time of my life / I never felt this way before..." 4:04:57 PM    comment []

Advertisements For Myself I finally got my copy of 'Cool eh' in the mail today, the one with my Brian Wells/William Rothstein piece in it, so the first thing I did was delete my earlier prelude which called them too cheap to send me a copy. Hey, revisionist history - it happens all the time. Two things immediately caught my attention. One was the title that they gave my piece, 'Avoid the Noid'. Avoid the Noid??? Uh, okay. The second thing was the artwork by Parskid. I really like it, and encourage you to check out his work. (Click on the kids to navigate.) If you want to get a copy, you can find it for free at certain locations in the NYC and Boston areas. (We are going out on a limb and guessing these are very hip locations.) Otherwise, you'll just have to subscribe. At $20 for five issues, it's still a bargain. 1:59:22 PM    comment []

Justice Sunday Limps Into History Claiming that they 'just forgot about it', millions of Americans failed yesterday to tune into the 'Justice Sunday' broadcast sponsored by Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council. In spite of the fact that the live nationwide TV simulcast was available to an estimated 61 million households in 44 states, the Arbitron ratings show that the total viewership was somewhere in the low five figures. "Gosh darn it, those heathen liberals have no business trying to filibuster the president's Christian judges," said Arkansas businessman Elmer Batters. "It's just a shame they had to show this at the same time as day number two of the NFL draft. I was waiting to see where Darrell Shropshire was going to go, and he didn't get picked until the seventh round. If that boy had bothered to comb his hair, I swear he coulda gone somewhere in round six." “I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote,” said Senator Frist during Sunday's broadcast. “Now if Senator Reid continues to obstruct the process, we will consider what opponents call the ‘nuclear option.' It's time for us to blast a few caps in Harry Reid's ass." Frist later apologized for using the word 'ass'. Sensing a weakening of momentum within the fundamentalist right, Senator Minority leader Reid announced that the Democrats were sponsoring a special day of their own - 'Casual Friday'. "This is a cause that all Americans can get behind," Reid told FGAQ. "Casual Friday's are not a red state or a blue state issue. Oh, I guess it's more of a blue state issue, since many of the blue states have professionals working in areas outside of farming and the trucking industry. But everyone, no matter what they do for a living, should be able to wear a polo shirt once a week." 11:19:48 AM    comment []