Madness and Women
Stories
Poetry
iron butterfly
in 1968 he was thirteen and listening to music on his headphones.
he didn’t know the song also played on the big speakers in his room.
his mom had one of her migraine headaches again and the music was too loud.
his dad ran in and shoved the record player against the wall.
the needle scratched across the record on the speakers.
he listened to a band called iron butterfly and their song called in a gadda da vida.
sometimes the singer’s voice reminded him of an evil demon overlord from hell.
while he listened to in a gadda da vida he occasionally looked out the window to make sure the demon overlord wasn’t trying to get into his room.
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this incident with his dad upset him as much as a horror movie he watched as a kid called repulsion.
in this movie the actress catherine deneuve stabbed a guy in the face with a kitchen knife.
while she did it everything was distorted in black and white and looked like a scary herky-jerky fast moving nightmare.
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as an adult he combined that movie stabbing scene with his father running into his room.
except in this new version his dad still runs into his room and now catherine enters and is trying to stab his dad in the face.
apparently catherine was angry at his dad because she also liked iron butterfly and their in a gadda da vida song.
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that new scene with catherine and his dad together reminded him of another movie he watched back then called carnival of souls.
in that film dead zombies with raccoon rings around their eyes chased a girl in a deserted amusement park in the middle of the night.
carnival of souls featured the same type of scary herky-jerky special effects.
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to this day he takes his headphones on and off while he’s listening to in a gadda da vida.
he wants to make sure catherine his dad and the demon overlord and those dead raccoon people never run into his room and try to stab him in the face.