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April 20, 2008
Coffee House Candy
Since things have been run-of-the-mill around here of late, since no (known) set up attempts have occurred, no covert druggings, no planted evidence (that I'm aware of) ... and no hired operatives coerced into saying I treated them inappropriately in public ... I figure it's time I start writing a bit.
(It really has been exceptionally quiet of late ... going on several months now ... I was starting to feel normal there for a bit)
:-)
Generally ... things being "quiet" means things are brewing and so my mind has again wandered to the point of realizing that I need to start a bit of the old "regurgitation of the past" writings; and, more specifically, writings wherein I must describe certain past, highly interesting events which, although occurring when I had no conscious awareness of being the subject of an investigation, nonetheless now shine a very revealing light on the motives and concerns of the investigators now that I am, and since I have been (for some time), aware of such an investigation of myself.
That will be the first of many near run-on type, far to winded sentances used in an attempt to describe things which are, frankly, difficult to describe.
Moving on ...
The above mentioned 'motives and concerns of the investigators' are best illustrated by discussing the myriad forms taken by the same investigator's very public and past psychosocial explorations which have most often manifested as regular and reoccurring street theatre dramatics, psychosocial skits, "temptation stings" or anything else you might want to call them.
It is my suspicion (being only an arm chair study of psychiatry and psychotherapy) that such psychosocial skits, are meant to induce the observed subject to behave in a specific manner which would buttress or confirm the claims, curiousities or suspicions of the authors of the drama.
A very careful statement should first be made regarding the fact that I am simply going to describe events and circumstances which are highly suspicious to me as past attempts at psychosocial exploration of myself.
It is not possible for me to matter of factly claim that the following described events were definitely associated with the ongoing investigation of myself.
The following events (simply) and neatly coincide with what I've learned to be the subject matters and very real foundations of the investigation of myself since discussing such with persons who have been involved as participants and even informants.
Click here to read more about the role such persons have played in the past five years in not only helping me to maintain sanity through some of these experiences but who've also offered indispensable support in the way of informing me of ongoing actions against my person.
I'll say again, just to be extra careful of your receiving this correctly:
Not all of the following described events are in any way guaranteed to be investigation related; I hope I've made that clear enough because it's an exceptionally important point.
However, in so far as what I've learned about the investigation to-date, these events are highly suspect. (I mean .. just how many 30 year old males get solicited for sex by pre-teen and teenage girls on a regular basis?) :-)
As I mention above, regarding the past examples of such street theater dramatics, I have not always been aware that such manufactured events were taking place, especially going back to the late 1999 time frame when I had no idea or even a notion that I was the subject of daily attentions associated with an ongoing investigation of myself.
It would only be much later, after becoming undeniably aware of the investigation's movements (including direct contact with those who have acted as participants) that I would, on a given day basis, become able to consciously identify when this type of ruse was being played out at my expense (or, more accurately, to illicit my responses).
For the sake of this writing though, my main focus will be on discussing several key events which I consider very likely and pointed examples of psycho social setups/street theater that occurred when I was completely unwitting of being the subject of an investigation.
I think it's this sort of example that most accurately demonstrates the nature and desired results of such actions; that is, what the drama was intended to explore in the way of my personal choices and behaviors at the time and as well, what my real and natural responses/inclinations actually were.
More specifically, regarding the covert psychosocial exploration of a subject who by design of the experiment should be unaware of the experiment ... and desiring only real and natural responses from the subject ... I would have to say that those past experiments played out around me during the time when I was unaware of being a subject of such, could be seen as the only true set of response patterns that could be argued as scientifically real and valuable (I mean, how can a witting experimentation subject act naturally).
The following all went down around 1998 and 1999.
At that time, as well as holding down a 40 hour a week job with a prominent international banking organization, I was also very active with a local Houston band.
Myself and my fellow band mates were hugely visible and regular members of the inner loop Houston coffee house scene; we frequented two specific coffee houses, both being a mere quarter mile apart, on a rigorously daily basis.
These two coffee houses, one a bit more so than the other, were the literal hub of our respective social lives. Everything we planned and did began and ended at these local shops.
It was great fun, a very social and thriving little community of artists, musicians and self proclaimed arm chair philosophers, all mixed with the expected wanna-be nerdy chic rich folk that also called that area of Houston home.
Looking back now, some 9 years after the fact, certain events/relations which developed around that particular social community were almost certainly associated with the investigation of myself that, again and at the time, I was completely unaware of.
Following, find a short discussion of several of those events which are "red flags," if you will and from the 1999 or so period.
The first of such suspicious circumstances which I tend to believe as investigation related involves a couple of 17 year old high school students who somewhat adroitly and randomly inserted themselves into our band-related social circles of that time; they had never seen us perform and never would, throughout the length of our friendship and so they were not hangers on or "groupies" of any sort.
I've changed the names of the two girls to "Sophia" and "Jordan" because, well, they do it on television documentaries and so I figured it should be done on my blog. Protecting the innocent and all ... but mostly ... just a bit more respectful since this is, in all technical senses, hypothetical.
Here's how it all began ...
I had been at our favorite coffee house for about 20 minutes; I was waiting to meet my band mate, "Derrick" (of course, throughout all of this I'm changing folks names).
So I'm chilling at a table inside and suddenly Derrick comes up to the table and grabs me and says something to the effect of, "Hey! Hey! You gotta come outside and sit with us! The two cutest, CUTEST girls just walked up and sat down and started talking to us! Get up now and come out here! You've GOTTA meet them! I'm freaking out! I can't believe they just walked up and started talking to us!"
I mean ... in classic fashion of the day, he was doing his jittery as a june bug freak out that we both did when meeting someone we liked.
It was all sort of sudden and all and I of course went with him as I was one, supposed to be meeting him for coffee anyway and two, I didn't mind meeting a couple hotties.
Anyway, when I get to the table, sure enough, there's a couple of really cute girls there, both dark haired, one Hispanic and one Caucasian. But what was more immediately apparent was that they were far beneath my own 30 years of age or so and even Derrick's 27 years of age or so; in fact, they looked fresh out of a high school class room!
After half an hour of conversation, this in fact turned out to be the case.
Both girls were 17 years old and attended a nearby local High School. Derrick had met them earlier and they were now, for whatever reason, choosing to spend an evening at a coffee house with he and I (as well as several other friends, all of us being in the 25 to 30 year old range).
Right off the bat, I thought the whole thing was weird.
I had somewhat recently separated from a long term relationship and it's true I was interested in meeting other women at the time ... but these two girls were obviously not a possibility and nor did it ever register as such a situation; it just seemed off, strange and a tad bothersome.
Like I mentioned earlier, at that time I had no awareness of being the subject of any sort of investigation but still the whole thing bugged me.
I mean, why would these two high school students want to be hanging with a bunch of guys in their thirties?
And, more unbelievably, why would my band mate (Derrick), really my best friend in the world at the time, be vocally expressing interest in possibly becoming romantically involved with one of them? The whole thing was just strange and otherworldly.
In the end and after talking with them for a couple hours, I simply (wanted to) concluded it was a couple of very smart local young ladies (and they were quite that) who simply were branching out and wanting to get to know some other folks in the community.
They were intelligent, very conversant and admittedly bored with being in High School. So go figure, eh?
Anyway, long story a bit shorter but still long...
Over the coming weeks, these two girls would become more and more entwined with mine and Derrick's social circles. It was a matter of a month or two before they would begin to randomly spend time with us at Derrick's inner loop duplex where myself and others from the band circles would congregate on a weekly basis to smoke cigarettes, listen to music and otherwise just chill.
When not working, I think it's safe to say we were somewhat of the professional time wasters, whether we were making music, discussing favorite authors or just sitting around burning incense and trying to be bohemian.
And more and more, as time went by, Sophia and Jordan would just randomly show up wherever we were.
I of course always thought it just a tad odd that my band mate would be inviting two high school girls over to hang out with us but as he said to me on a couple occasions, "They just stopped by!! What am I gonna do? Ask them to leave?! I mean, c'mon! Just look at them!".
If anything, he was always rather vocal in admitting his enjoyment at having a couple very attractive and intelligent nubile young ladies around (and, just speaking in a purely honest/clinical sense, it really was sort of nice).
As I said, the initial impression was of a couple young women who not only liked to talk but who also possessed just enough social prowess to do so without coming across as immature or bothersome; they were tolerable in a social sense and admittedly, as so often recanted by Derrick, quite naturally beautiful and attractive in a no-makeup, pseudo-intellectual-chic sort of way; they were high school students, of course ... but their real or manufactured (very obvious) desire to be beyond that was still quite noticeable and endearing whether it was acting or genuine (I lean towards acting, myself but that's further down the page).
But like I said, Sophia and Jordan became regular members of our weekly gatherings, be it at the coffee houses or at my band mate's duplex.
We all became first-name-basis type friends ...
We bummed smokes off of each other, talked about our families and home lives, gave each other rides to work or elsewhere, and the weird sort of vibe that sat upon me at the outset of my introduction to them quickly faded into the routine of daily life.
I was never on a "call me later" type basis with the girls, never knew where they lived or what their email addresses or phone numbers were; I was never curious about such.
Generally, they would just always already be around whenever I showed up at wherever it might be that we'd be hanging out ... the coffee house or Derrick's house.
Hell, they even stopped by Derrick's flat on the night of their prom, just long enough to leave us some photos of them all dressed up in their outfits and regalia (in retrospect, that is just as strange as it gets).
But it's true that it all became routine: Sophia and Jordan eventually were just two more persons regularly involved in our rather tight knit little group of friends.
As I said before, Derrick was actually on several occasions expressing vocal interest in dating one of the girls, though I thought it odd and even mentioned that to be the case, but nothing of any import (that I know of or that was spoken of) ever happened between them.
In retrospect and entertaining the idea that the whole thing was manufactured as a tool of the investigators, Derrick's ongoing admissions of such desire could have been meant to induce/prompt me into following suit, though that certainly never crossed my mind in even the most fleeting of forms.
I would estimate the entire time of my knowing/associating with Sophia and Jordan to be at or around 1 to 1.5 years.
Over time, as I became less and less a member of the band/coffee house scene (especially after becoming aware of the investigation) our encounters would cease entirely.
Around the same time that Sophia and Jordan were becoming regular stand-ins/members of our daily social lives, another guy, a close friend of Derricks, also began hanging out with us more (many times while Sophia and Jordan were present) and this guy would often times show up with his supposed "new girlfriend," ... an "eighteen year old virgin," as described to me by my band mate and as communicated to him by this certain friend of his.
I think a pattern/image should begin to emerge at this point.
This guy with the eighteen year old girl friend (her much discussed lack of experience not withstanding) was another of our regular and long term friends from the Houston band scene. For the sake of this writing, I'll call him "Devin."
Devin had been friends with Derrick for longer than I and was a member of a couple separate Houston bands; historically, they had both worked for the same company for a number of years prior to my meeting Derrick.
In so far as my own relationship with Derrick was concerned and since being in a band together (which really defined the length of our friendship entirely), Devin had not been a frequent attendee to our get-togethers and the extent of my involvement with him usually was relegated to seeing his band play or the rare occasion when he would sit in with us on a recording session. Otherwise ... Devin had never come around, as in joining us for coffee or hanging at our houses with us.
That said, suddenly this guy is showing up with his insanely young "girlfriend" at my band mates house when I'm there (and Sophia and Jordan, mind you).
Devin was around 31 years old at the time; I remember mentioning how strange it was that he would be dating somebody so young but my band mate never seemed to indicate any concerns.
In fact, at that very same time and via phone conversations, Derrick would very dramatically describe supposed conversations he had had with Devin in which Devin had conveyed the details of some of his and his girlfriends sexual encounters.
Across the board, the nature of such discussions as relayed by Devin was that this girl was "totally unexperienced," ... and that, while giving oral sex for instance, she was constantly asking Devin questions like, "am I doing it right? I've never done this before! Are you sure I'm doing it okay?!," etc.
In retrospect, the emphasis as conveyed to me by Derrick and as communicated to him by Devin was the seeming need to highlight this young ladies innocence in regards to "things sexual."
I mean, that's what he was focused on when conveying the experiences to me and as told to him by Devin. That's the point his words were delivered to best communicate, innocence, lack of experience, young and experimental (insert your standard cliche's/taboos).
It was highly unusual in light of Devin's relation to me/us up to that point and the whole thing seemed off kilter some how, especially the fact that Devin's appearance on the scene so neatly coincided with Sophia and Jordan's insertion (pardon the penetration image) into our social circles.
Anyway ...
Devin's involvement in our daily lives at that time didn't last much longer than the time necessary for him and his supposed young girlfriend to stop in occasionally and introduce the above mentioned, much discussed nature of their supposedly exploratory sexual encounters.
But at the same time, the coffee house was still getting ready to offer up yet another willing (sacrificial?) virgin!
So just when you thought it was safe to find a decently aged girlfriend ...
:-)
Just at the moment when Sophia and Jordan are becoming regular members of our ever more strange social circle and just as Devin and his All Too Innocent but Very Very Curious(tm) young girlfriend start dropping in to the picture ... yet another 17 year old wanna-be grown up, pseudo-intellectual young girl approaches my table at the coffee house and not only introduces herself but inquires if she can sit with me.
(On this particular day, I was simply sitting alone, reading and smoking cigarettes)
She says she just wanted to talk, that she's working on some poetry and wanted to know if I'd listen as she read it.
I was taken aback but simultaneously appreciative of her confidence and the fact that she so casually went about the whole thing. I mean ... just walking up and all ... "Can I sit here?" etc. That's something I'd never be inclined to do....
I said, "Sure, you can sit here. What's up?"
Turns out she wanted me to "critique" some of the poetry she was writing and that since she always saw me at the coffee house reading that she thought, what the hell, and decided to approach me.
I forget her name, maybe Laura or something.
Anyway, so we go through the whole poetry thing, I offer some obligatory comments and that's that. I did seek higher education in the field of literature, after all and so I was rather tickled to comment on her efforts.
A couple more times, later around the same period, she would approach my table and sit with me again.
We only had a few of such conversations.
I was dating a member of the Houston ballet at the time and I clearly remember inviting this girl (and her parents!) to an upcoming Houston Ballet performance; this done on a whim since the girl I was dating could get a set of free tickets if I wanted them.
Anyway, she declined.
For the most part, other than the random head nod/hello ... I had no further discourse with her.
And finally, still around the same time as Sophia and Jordan and the "Poetry Girl" were doing their thing ...
One night while sitting with 4 or 5 of my band mates and friends at our favorite coffee house, I was approached at our table by a girl who quite clearly and simply asked me, in the most matter of fact way, in front of all my immediate friends at the table, if I'd like to go somewhere and have sex.
She was obviously a teenager. I said, "Why on earth would you ask me such a thing?"
She replied, "I just want to know, do you want to go find some place to fuck?"
She told me she was from my home neighborhood (clear lake city) and that she went to Clear Lake High School (my own High School, btw from back when I was of that particular age).
She said again, "I just thought I'd ask you cause I'm horny and your cute."
(My band mates were completely dumbfounded by the exchange since they were, of course, listening to every word. I seem to recall Derrick saying something to the effect of "GODDAMN, JOEL!")
I continued with my original tack of declining and otherwise showing quite visible discomfort at being asked such a thing at such a point blank range.
Anyway ... realizing I wasn't going to go along with her ploy/ruse/whatever you want to call it, she eventually left our table.
Never saw her again.
Brief but memorable.
:-)
All of the above events happened around the same time (within a year of each other).
Each event originated at and played itself out at our favorite Houston coffee house (and in some cases spread to our respective social lives away from the coffee house).
What could it all mean?
I can only hypothesize...
Sophia and Jordan could have been what I have come to describe as a 'temptation sting,' or the like, a fabricated drama to test a subjects propensity for certain types of actions, in this case ... my supposed (proliferated via rumor) tendency to target very young women as potential romantic partners (which is not nor has ever been the case).
Funny thing ... I seem to recall, though I would have to verify with others from that time frame, that Jordan even once said that her father worked for the FBI. Go figure, eh?
The uber innocent and sexually curious girl who showed up with Devin around the time that Sophia and Jordan were so adroitly infiltrating my daily social circles of the time, what about her?
Perhaps she and others working with her (Devin, etc.) were simply inserted to further accentuate the need to publicize and make visible/present the idea of taboo relations or otherwise the admittedly archetypal situation of an older, more experienced person guiding a younger and less experienced person through some challenge (in this case, SEX!).
In popular terms, think Lolita and 40 Year Old Virgin (only in the latter, the age thing wasn't so important).
:-)
I'm attempting to speak in the language of those who would see fit to orchestrate such psychosocial dramatics (popular psychology, etc.) so bare with my stumbling through these questions.
The poetry girl?
As with Sophia and Jordan ... this could well have been yet another temptation sting or otherwise bait operation intended to possibly dredge up/expose some latent tendency on my part to seek out the affections of the younger, more naive and innocent females around me ... or, it could have been (just maybe) totally random.
The outright solicitaion for sex?
This was either a genuinely playful and interested person (doubtful) or it was possibly some element of the investigation implementing what is referred to among computer hackers as a 'brute force' attack. Maybe just an in-your-face type of long-shot act meant to simply gauge my response or otherwise tempt me.
Regardless ... investigation related or not ... it was still rather a strange thing to me and those others that witnessed the invite.
Otherwise ...
This has been a very lengthy post and one I'm glad is out of the way. It wore me out.
That said, ... I do hope to see Sophia and Jordan again some day; my own circumstances and ongoing story notwithstanding, they were a couple of fine folks to hang out with and I hope they're well (and I hope they eventually graduated!). ;-)
To any of you folks who were players in any of the above, please pardon my decision to so publicly discuss the goings on of those days but it's necessary.
.jbh
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