| Francis E. Dec | |
|---|---|
| Born | Francis Dec January 6, 1926 Hempstead Village, New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 21, 1996 (aged 70) Queens, New York, U.S. |
| Ethnicity | Polish American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Education | Bachelor of Arts (1950), Law (1950–1954) |
| Alma mater | St. John's University (New York), Brooklyn Law School |
| Occupation | notary public, attorney at law |
| Years active | ~1951–1959 |
| Known for | conspiracy theory rants |
| Title | Esquire |
| Term | 1954–1959 |
Francis E. Dec (January 6, 1926 – January 21, 1996) was a U.S. lawyer from Hempstead Village, New York, disbarred for fraud in 1959, and later known for the bizarre socio-political tracts of conspiracy theories he mass-mailed to the media, often denouncing a "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God"[1] mind-controlling mankind. Considered a paranoid schizophrenic of the influencing-machine delusion kind, he is often referred to as a "kook".[2][3][4][5][6][7]
Not unlike Ed Wood, Dec later became a cult figure referenced in underground culture. He was the subject of a 1994 book chapter and a 1999 stage play; he also made his way into the folklores of the Discordians and the Church of the SubGenius. His rants have been reprinted in a 1983 issue of Robert Crumb's magazine Weirdo and circulated since 1986 from recordings by KROQ-FM host Doc Britton; they have been sampled in 1991 and 2004 by Psychic TV, in 2004 by Venetian Snares, and inspired a Coldcut album in 2005; they have been archived as outsider art by UbuWeb and WFMU; they have also been used as a gauge in 1994 for "kook typography" and in 1998 for the entropy of the undeciphered Voynich manuscript.
Contents |
Francis E. Dec was born on January 6, 1926,[8]
in the Nassau County, Long Island community
of Hempstead
Village, New York (a Black and Latino majority neighborhood,
accounting later for its frequent racist designations in Dec's
rants) and appears to have lived there for most of his life (except
for his military service). His middle name is not established:
there is only "[+]*Francis [-]Frank Dec"[8]
on his birth certificate, and "Dec Francis E"[9]
on his army's enlistment record.
He was the son of two Polish immigrants, butcher John F. Dec (John Frank Dec, June 23, 1893 – August, 1971; born Jan Dec)[8][10] and servant turned housewife Rose M. Dec (~1889/1890 – death unknown; born Rozalia Jaronek or Rosalia Jronek).[8][11] Both of Dec's parents were born in Poland (his mother from the Polish part of what was then Galicia) and immigrated to the United States, his mother in 1910 and his father in 1912, and were married circa 1920–1921.[12]
Dec also had an older brother, Joseph I. Dec (born in 1921, was alive in 2006,[13] current status unknown), whom he mentions in several of his rants as "his only brother".[14] Dec later wrote[15] of attending a Catholic grammar school taught by nuns, and appears to have completed at least three years of high school[9] before he volunteered for military service in World War II.
Dec enlisted on April 13, 1944[9] as a private in the United States Army Air Forces, "for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months".[9] After six weeks of basic training at Keesler Field near Biloxi, Mississippi, he was enrolled in the Army Air Forces Technical School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He graduated from the Radio Operator and Mechanics Course in January 1945. He subsequently was stationed at USAAF bases in Yuma, Arizona, Lincoln, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas, and Fairfield, California. He was honorably discharged as a Private First Class in May 1946.[16]
Dec received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950 from the College of Liberal Arts at St. John's University in Brooklyn, New York. According to one of his rants, Dec then studied at Brooklyn Law School,[17] though it's not established for how many years since completing a law degree wasn't mandatory in order to get a law license in New York State.[18]
| Francis E. Dec | |
|---|---|
| Charge(s) | Same as convictions below (February 11, 1958; indictment #14871)[14] |
| Conviction(s) | 2 counts of second-degree forgery, second-degree grand larceny, fraud or deceit by notary public (December 23, 1958)[19] |
| Penalty | 2½–5 years in Sing Sing prison at hard labor (suspended with probation for maximum period), disbarment[19] |
Dec then became a lawyer, an attorney at law. He was admitted to the New York state bar[20] on March 31, 1954 but was disbarred on January 19, 1959.[21] Dec was also a notary public, at least during 1956–1957[19] for the Notary Department in the Nassau County Clerk's Office.
After being convicted of fraud and larceny (see at right), Dec was disbarred as an attorney and "commanded to desist and refrain from the practice of law in any form, either as principal or as agent, clerk or employee of another, and is forbidden [...] to give to another an opinion as to the law or its application, or any advice in relation thereto",[21] effectively ending any career related to law; along with the five-year prison sentence, this is probably why Dec later referred to it as a "maximum-conviction"[22] sentence.
From 1959 to 1962, Dec tried unsuccessfully to have the case overturned on appeal. All appeals to the New York courts were denied and the case, when it was filed in forma pauperis with the U.S. Supreme Court (featuring Dec asking for a rehearing about his "gestapo like farce kangaroo court trial",[23] sic, and "the psychotically, sadistically, wantonly, fraudulently altered Official Nassau County Court, New York State trial record of this petitioner's Gestapo like farce trial",[24] sic), was denied certiorari twice. Nevertheless, he continued to refer to himself as Francis E. Dec, Esq., in his later correspondence.
After his disbarment and denied appeals (around 1958–1962), Dec spent the rest of his life as a recluse, mailing his tracts to various mass-media in the U.S. and over the world (see Works section).
Until 1966, Dec lived with his brother and pretended he was beaten and terrorized by him. In 1966, his brother moved out and left Dec alone in the house;[15] at this time, Dec still went out "shopping two, three times a month".[15] When removing the red wallpaper that there was in most of the rooms, he found "fresh red paint under it"[15] that he considers the CIA's doing. In 1967 and 1968, thinking that "the entire house was a CIA death trap for [him] set up while [he] was buying it",[15] he spent time chipping off all of the red paint "with hundreds of single edge razor blades".[15]
In 1968, Dec said he had gained enough "insight of this deadly closed society"[15] to visit small stock brokerage offices and invest some of his money[15] (from 1959 to 1968 his income had been "zero"[15] and Dec existed "on much less than 1000 a year"[15] of his savings); from his investments he would eventually reach about "yearly minimum wage income"[15] over the next decade.
In 1969, Dec reported that a warrant was issued for his "incarceration in a maximum security insanity prison"[15] (presumably committal to an asylum). From 1969 to around 1982,[25] Dec said he mostly lived hidden alone in his house, ordering food to be delivered to him and hiding from his visitors.[15]
Around 1982,[25] after hiding "for over ten years",[15] Dec said he "can once again walk the streets solely as [he] did before 1969"[15] because after he had "mailed worldwide thousands of [his] letters exposing"[15] the "Computer God" conspiracy, his "testimony" was out and his "extermination" less necessary.
According to a rant presumed around 1981,[26] Dec seems to have been a vegetarian,[27] at least later in life. He apparently never married nor had children.
Due to the bizarre and earnest nature of Dec's claims (see Works section), it is usually believed that he suffered from schizophrenia – most likely the kind referred to by Victor Tausk as influencing-machine delusion[28] – though without access to his medical records (Dec had at least two court-ordered psychiatric examinations in 1958 and 1961,[14] and possibly again at some point during his 1993–1996 last years at the Veteran Hospital) this remains supposition.
It also seems likely that Dec's mental condition either gradually or rapidly deteriorated after his 1958 conviction in the forgery case (cited above), as his 1961 appeal brief[29] – although rambling, paranoia laden and disjointed at times – still manages to be coherent and to present a fair representation of his perception of the errors in his conviction. On the other hand; his "rants", produced later (such as the Spring 1984 "Gangster Computer God", see Worldview section), lack overall coherence, are prone to word salad-like strings of words (such as "Computer God computerized brain thinking SEALED ROBOT OPERATING ARMS SURGERY CABINET machine removal of [...]", see Worldview section), and are heavily laden with paranoia as well as a highly developed conspiracy mindset.[30] As such, even though some theories produced by Dec in his "rants" can be seen in germinal form in his appeal brief, they are not there fully as developed as they would later come to be – possibly indicating the onset of mental illness after his conviction. On January 16, 1961 (four months before his appeal brief), a court order was issued for committing Dec to Pilgrim State Hospital (Pilgrim Psychiatric Center) for a 60-day mental examination;[14] one month later Dec is "Released on own recognizance"[14] on February 17, 1961.
Because Dec was never committed and was able to stay in his home almost to his death, his writings from 1960 (his appeals) to 1992 (his stroke) could provide an insight into the progress of advanced paranoia. The internally self-consistent claims contained within his tracts and rants are also strongly in keeping with common definitions of delusion as described by modern psychology. For example, it was drawn certain similarities between Dec's claims of being "Frankenstein controlled" by the so-called "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God"[1] and the claims of 18th Century paranoiac James Tilly Matthews[28] of being "tortured-at-a-distance" by what he termed the "Air Loom" gang.
Dec apparently suffered a stroke in late 1992 and was transferred early 1993 to the St. Albans VA hospital in Queens, New York[14][31] by his brother Joseph I. Dec. He was still residing there in December 1995, at which time he was visited by Forrest Jackson and two other fans who had come across tape recordings of some of his rants at Dallas in 1993 (see Legacy section) and went to New York to ask him about their origin and meaning;[31] as far as is currently known, these individuals were the only fans of Dec ever to have met or spoken to him at any length, and videotaped the only documented encounter with Dec, but the visit produced no answers whatsoever.
Francis E. Dec died a few weeks later on January 21, 1996 (aged 70). The exact cause of death, as well as his burial place, are not known.
Francis E. Dec was dubbed "one of the most mysterious characters in all kookdom"[32] by his 1994 biographer Donna Kossy, "the most important paranoid schizophrenic kook of the century"[33] or "the Gnostic God of these End Times"[31] by his 1995 interviewer Forrest Jackson, and it was stated that "his insane diatribes must truly be one of the greatest comedic gems of the 20th century"[34] by his 2006 fanclub founder Peter Branting. Dec is often compared or contrasted to William S. Burroughs[35] (for his prose style; some of Dec's rants would even have "found their way to William S. Burroughs"[32] according to Donna Kossy,[36]) Philip K. Dick (for his later schizophrenic worldview), and Jack T. Chick (for his conspiracy theory tracts).
Dec's publications are considered outsider art,[34][37] circulated for their unintended humor, underground poetry,[38][39] or both. They have been republished in a number of places. One of Dec's rants was reprinted on the back-cover of Robert Crumb's Weirdo #8[40] (Summer 1983). A 2009 Washington City Paper art article listed Dec as one of three outsider artists whose works ought to be adapted as iPhone app, though considering him not "that far afield from the diatribes of today's talk radio."[41]
Dec also entered the folklore of the Church of the SubGenius, which contributed[31] to his underground popularization since at least 1993: a Dec rant was broadcast at least twice on the weekly syndicated SubGenius radio program Hour of Slack, in program #392 "Francis Dec & kooks"[42] (1993) and a rerun in program #555[43] (1996); Dec is also regularly mentioned by Church users in their Usenet newsgroup alt.slack, from which messages mentioning Dec or reprinting his rants were selected for the Church's official newsletter The Stark Fist of Removal.[7] Additionally, he was canonized as "St. Francis the Incoherent"[44][45] among Discordian Saints.
Dec's letters have been used as an example of "kook typography"[5] by graphic designer Steven Heller in a same-titled 1994 article of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design. There is also a 1998 mathematical analysis which uses five Dec rants as a gauge of "schizophrenic language" for an entropic evaluation of the undeciphered Voynich Manuscript[46] (concluding that schizophrenia alone could not account for the manuscript's puzzling nature).
In 1985, Boyd "Doc" Britton (then a newscaster for the radio station WZUU in Milwaukee, now the talk show host "Doc on the ROQ" for KROQ-FM) received a stack of Dec's flyers mass-mailed to the media;[32] in 1986, he made a spoken word recording of himself reading five of Dec's rants over various background music selected and mixed in at random.[32] Ever since, these recordings have been circulated in underground circles, creating and building further interest in Francis E. Dec: first as tapes, then CDs,[47] and now as MP3 files on the Internet, where they are torrented as well as archived by literature site UbuWeb, Archive.org, and radio WFMU. In 1990, SubGenius co-founder Rev. Ivan Stang gave Dallas artist Joe Riley such a Dec tape, which was eventually played at a 1993 party where Forrest Jackson heard it,[48] inspiring Jackson to track down and meet Dec in 1995 (see Death section), videotaping the only documented encounter with Dec. Psychic TV as Kitten Sparkles sampled Doc Britton reading Dec in "Saint Frances E." (sic, on Ultrahouse The L.A. Connection, 1991, reissued as "Sir Frances E. Dec (Kitten Sparkle Mix)", sic, on Origin of the Species, Volume Too,[49] 1999)) and in "The Deadly Touch Taben"[50] (sic, on the compilation Patchouli & Echoes, 2004). Venetian Snares also sampled Doc Britton in "Americanized" on Infolepsy EP (2004), spreading Dec's prose on lyrics websites. Dec's rants inspired other artists: in 2005, the band Coldcut cited "the mad deadly computer gangster godpoems of Francis E Dec, RIP"[51] as inspiration[52] for their CD Everything Is Under Control; in 2007, "Saint Francis E. Dec, Esq." was credited as the co-creator of two MP3 singles called Worldwide Living Death Frankenstein Slavery (vol. 1 and 2) by Alex Spalding et al.[53]
The delusions of Francis E. Dec have also been dramatized by Eric Dyer with the theatre troupe Radiohole in A History of Heen: Not Francis E. Dec, Esq.[54] (1999), a stage play starring Dec and large excerpts of his rants.[54] Selected for The Wooster Group's "Emerging Artist Series" and played then extended for two weeks at The Performing Garage in SoHo, New York City, it was reviewed positively by The Village Voice,[6] CurtainUp,[55] and Playbill.[56]
While Doc Britton's recordings helped foster awareness of Dec's rants and his underground notoriety, little was known about the man and his life; this came with Dec's immortalization in Donna Kossy's 1994 book Kooks (the first biography of Dec, published by Feral House, also home to the book that spawned Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood), along with NY lawyer Jeff Sperber's investigations into Dec's legal past, and the Dec flyers donated by Tim Maloney[32] to Kossy. Yet since the 1980s, only a few Dec rants were circulated (mostly the five recorded ones), when more documents were known to exist. The next steps were achieved on the Internet, with wider dissemination of the Doc recordings as MP3 files, as well as Kossy's online Kooks Museum in 1996.
In 2006 appeared the so-called "Official Francis E. Dec Fanclub" website founded by Peter Branting, a hub for "Decologists" providing an extensive collection of old and new Francis E. Dec material unearthed by members, including Dec's legal correspondence recovered by Decologist Ted Torbich, new biographical data dug up by genealogist Steven Dhuey, scans of original tracts, along with a biographical timeline, a "Dectionary" of Decian delusions, and humorous illustrations of the rants. In October 2008, such rants mentioned by Doc Britton to Kossy as "Astrocism – The True Religion of the Slovene People" or "The Teddy Kennedy Letter" were donated to the Club[57] together with other formerly unknown material, making possible further study into the beliefs and personal history of Francis E. Dec
Francis E. Dec produced and self-published a series of flyers containing rant-like essays with a paranoid outlook, all of which contained a number of recurring themes and claims of a more or less delusional or paranormal nature.
Recurring themes and phrases[28] in Dec's rants include: an entity referred to by Dec as the "World Wide Communist Gangster Computer God", its "Frankenstein Earphone Radio" and "Eyesight Television" (often preceded by Frankenstein as well), along with allegations of political chicanery on the part of Presidents and Vice Presidents throughout U.S. history. For example Dec alleges that Lyndon Johnson lured John F. Kennedy to Dallas in order to have him killed and that Teddy Roosevelt did the same to William McKinley by luring him to New York. Dec also incorporated into his rants one Frank Gulotta, ex-District Attorney Nassau County, who once acted as prosecution in a trial which would eventually come to result in Dec's conviction and disbarment as a lawyer (see Professional life section), as well as the Judge (one William Sullivan) who presided over the court case in question.
Other recurring themes include racism against black people, anti-Communism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and various other conspiracy theories, racial and otherwise. An analysis of Dec's written material suggests that he thought he was also regularly abducted and operated upon by the so-called "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God"[1] as well as the subject of constant mind reading, mind control, and brainwashing via various cranial implants (see Mental health section).
Dec's later cult figure status came because a half-dozen of his tracts were turned into underground culture items (see Legacy section), and to understand why requires some extended quotes. "Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy" (1984)[58] was a racist tract intended to denounce the longtime conspiracy of a "Gangster Computer God" controlling mankind through cranial radios, causing the aging process through gradual surgeries, and planning a worldwide race of mulatto slaves. Popularized early by Doc Britton's 1986 recordings, this compendium of Decian concepts is also one of Dec's more outlandish rants; as such, three excerpts summarizing it can consistently show both Dec's overall worldview and his writing style. They are reproduced in the original typewritten typography (emphases and misspellings included).
Gangster Computer God worldwide SECRET CONTAINMENT POLICY, made possible SOLY by worldwide Computer God Frankenstein Controls, especially LIFELONG CONSTANT THRESHOLD BRAIN WASH RADIO ( quiet and motionless, I can slightly hear it; repeatedly this has saved my life on the streets ). 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 T.V. (sight, and sound) recorded by your brain. YOUR Moon BRAIN of the Computer God, activates your Frankenstein Threshold Brain Wash Radio LIFELONG, inculcating conformist propaganda, even frightening you and mixing you-up and the USUAL, "DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT." for your set backs, mistakes even when you receive deadly injuries. THIS IS THE WORLDWIDE COMPUTER GOD SECRET CONTAINMENT POLICY.
– [Sic, per original tract.][58]
Worldwide, as a Frankenstein slave, usually, at nite, you go to nearby hospital, or camouflaged miniture hospital van trucks. You strip naked, lay on the operating table, which slides into the SEALED COMPUTER GOD ROBOT OPERATING CABINET. [...] The Computer God operating cabinet has many robot arms, with electrical and LASER BEAM knife robot arms, with Fly eye T.V. cameras watching your whole body. Every part of you is monitored, even through your Frankenstein Controls. Synthetic blood, synthetic instant sealing flesh and skin, even synthetic electrical heart beat to keep you alive, are some of the unbeleivable Computer God INSTANT PLASTIC SURGERY SECRETS. YOU ARE THE HIGHEST MOST INTELLIGENT ELECTRICAL MACHINE IN THE UNIVERSE. INEVITABILITY OF GRADUALNESS: Usually, in a few years, you are made, string beam thin, or grotesquely deformed, crippled and ugly, or even made over one foot shorter or one foot taller, as the Computer God sees fit.
– [Sic, per original tract.][58]
For your only hope for a future, do you know one word of pray for me. Francis E. Dec Computer God computerized brain thinking SEALED ROBOT OPERATING ARMS SURGERY CABINET machine removal of most of the frontal COMMAND LOBE of the brain, gradually during lifetime and OVERNITE IN ALL INSANE ASSYLUMS, after C. God kosher bosher one month probation period, creating helpless hopelsss Computer God Frankenstein Earphone Radio parroting puppet BRAINLESS SLAVES, resulting in millions of hopeless, helpless, homeless derelicts in all JerUSAlem cities and Soviet slave work camps. [...] Eventual Brain Lobotomization of the entire world population for the worldwide deadly Gangster Communist Computer God Over-All Plan, an ideal worldwide population of lite skin, low, hopeless and helpless JEW mulattos, the Communist BLACK WAVE OF THE FUTURE.
– [Sic, per original tract.][58]
Dec's bizarre worldview and unique style are further explained through the list of his recurring themes in The Dectionary (see Sources section).
Available[61] documents from Dec's legal correspondence.
The rants on Dec's flyers and tracts didn't feature a title proper and have usually been named later from their first words (common alternate titles and aliases are indexed below). Most of them being undated, they are listed alphabetically.
   | A written account by a fan of Dec who actually met him in reality. - I Met Francis Dec! |
| | here. - WFMU's Beware of the Blog: Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy |
| | The Official Francis E. Dec Fanclub - OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER -- READ THIS BEFORE ENTERING! |
| | Understanding the Second-Order Entropies of Voynich Text - Second-Order Entropies of Voynich Texts |
| | I met Francis Dec! - I Met Francis Dec! |
| | The Stark Fist of Removal - In the Clutches of the Fist |
| | Francis E. Dec, Esquire: Your Only Hope for a Future - Francis E. Dec Exhibit |
| | "A History of Heen: Not Francis E. Dec, Esq." - oooOOO RADIOHOLE - THE HISTORY OF HEEN - RADIOHOLE OOOooo |
| | Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records) - NARA - AAD - Display Full Records - Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records) |
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