Francis E. Dec

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Francis Edward Dec
A photo of Francis Dec in high school
Francis E. Dec in high school, 1944
Born(1926-01-06)January 6, 1926
New York
DiedJanuary 21, 1996(1996-01-21) (aged 70)
St. Alban's VA Hospital, Queens, New York
OccupationOutsider writer
NationalityAmerican

Francis Edward Dec (January 6, 1926 – January 21, 1996) was an American lawyer best known for typewritten diatribes that he independently mailed and published from the late 1960s until his death. His works are characterized by conspiracy theories and highly accusatory and vulgar attacks, often making use of conglomerate phrases like "Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God"[1] to slander people, groups, or companies that he believed were engaging in electronic harassment against him, and gained a cult following from the mid-1980s onward due to his comedic incoherence. He has additionally been described as an outsider writer in the field of outsider literature.[2][3]

Biography[edit]

Four billion worldwide population—all living—have a Computer God Containment Policy Brain Bank Brain, a real brain, in the Brain Bank Cities on the far side of the moon we never see. Primarily based on your lifelong Frankenstein Radio Controls, especially your Eyesight tv sight-and-sound recorded by your brain, your moon-brain of the Computer God activates your Frankenstein threshold Brainwash Radio—lifelong inculcating conformist propaganda.

Francis E. Dec, quoted in The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity by Jeffrey Sconce[3]

Francis E. Dec was born in New York on January 6, 1926.[4] In early 1944, during the Second World War, he enlisted into the United States Army with the rank of private.[5] He remained within the United States for the duration of the war, periodically moving between bases, at one point being assigned to Yuma Army Air Station.

After the war, Dec entered into law, but was disbarred by the state of New York in 1958 and proceeded to make numerous "incoherent" legal appeals, including an appeal to the Supreme Court. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 60 days in 1961 and in 1965 attempted to flee his home in Hempstead, New York for Poland. Dec spent the next 25 years writing and distributing lengthy screeds about the "Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God" and its conspiracy to control the world through electronic mind control devices which he referred to as "Frankenstein Radio Controls."[2] These flyers were mailed to radio and television stations across the United States.[3][6] According to Dec, the Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God was the product of an ancient Polish (Slavonic) civilization which it subsequently drove to near-extinction.[7] He was also antisemitic, seeing the Jews as the Computer God's pawns and blaming the Holocaust and Nazism on the Jews, victims of the Holocaust themselves, preceding the names of the Nazi Party's members with "Jew" (example: Jew Adolf Hitler; Nazi JEW Hans Frank), and blaming the belief that Jews were victims of the Holocaust on "Hollywood movies".[8]

Analysis[edit]

Jeffrey Sconce analyzed the written works of Francis E. Dec in his book The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity, within a chapter discussing the phenomenon of targeted individuals. In it, he argues that "his writing speaks to a feature of technical delusions that became increasingly prominent in the second half of the twentieth century." Sconce also states that "Dec's screeds are emblematic in their careening, amplified panic over imperious yet chimerical powers that seemingly are everywhere all the time and yet can never be fully confronted or understood."[3]

Legacy[edit]

Dec gained a cult following in the 1980s, becoming infamous through the KROQ-FM newscaster Boyd Britton's widely circulated dramatic readings of his rants, and figures interested in Dec's works included William S. Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge; the latter used a recording of reading Dec's rants on the Psychic TV album Ultrahouse (The L.A. Connection).[1] A 1983 issue of the comics anthology Weirdo reprinted a page of Dec's writings,[9] and the collective Radiohole, consisting of Eric Dyer, Scott Gillette and Maggie Hoffman, created a stage play inspired by Dec, titled A History of Heen (not Francis E. Dec Esq.)[10] in 1999.[3]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "UbuWeb Sound - Francis E. Dec". ubu.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  2. ^ a b Amiran, Eyal (26 November 2018). "The Pornocratic Body in the Age of Networked Paranoia". Cultural Critique. 100: 134–156. doi:10.5749/culturalcritique.100.2018.0134. ISSN 1460-2458. S2CID 150035184.
  3. ^ a b c d e Jeffrey Sconce (17 January 2019). The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity. Duke University Press. pp. 237–245. ISBN 978-1-4780-0244-4.
  4. ^ "Francis E. Dec's birth certificate" (PDF). Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  5. ^ "Military service record of Francis E. Dec". National Archives. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  6. ^ Zuzel, Michael (2 September 1997). "Fringe Religion Offers Different Nooks for Different Kooks". The Columbian. ProQuest 252904546.
  7. ^ "Astrocism: The TRUE Religion of the Slovene People!". Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  8. ^ "The True History Of Nazi Jewmany". Bento and Starchky. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  9. ^ Weirdo #8 (Last Gasp, Summer 1983).
  10. ^ "Psycho Analysis". Village Voice. 3 August 1999. Retrieved 2 November 2019.

External links[edit]

  • UbuWeb audio of Dec's works as performed by the KROQ-FM newscaster Boyd Britton (known as "Doc on the ROQ").
  • Fansite by online cartoonist zer0 which features transcriptions of Dec's works. Also has audio recordings, by others, of some Dec rants not read by Boyd Britton.
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