General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBaseball Hall-of-Famer Steve Carlton's nutty squirrel-shit interview from 1994:
"I came to Durango in 1989 to get away from society," he says. He is a big man, 65, 225 pounds, dressed in a Western shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He is standing beside his truck in the thick snow that covers the land around his bunker and rests gently on the branches of the low-lying piñon trees that dot his 400 acres. It is a few days before Christmas.
He makes a sweeping gesture with a long arm, encompassing his bunker, his barn with its turkey, pheasants and horses, and more than 160 fruit trees he has planted. "This is sacred land," he says. "We're self-sufficient here. There's no one around us. We grow our own food."
He points to sliding glass doors that lead inside his bunker to the greenhouse off his bedroom. "We have our own well," he says. "And 16 solar batteries for heat and electricity."
Even his telephone works on cellular microwave transmitters. That way no one can tap his wires.
"The house is built with over 300 yards of concrete," he says. "Three-feet-thick walls covered by another three feet of earth." Why? He looks startled, like a huge bird. His small eyes blink once, twice, and then he says, "So the gamma rays won't penetrate the walls."
Built under the house is a 7,000-foot storage cellar. He's stocked it with canned foods, bottled water, weapons. "Do you know if you store guns in PVC pipe, they can last forever underground without rusting?" he says.
He glanced sideways again. "The Revolution is definitely coming." He believes in the Revolution, only he isn't precisely sure which of a myriad of conspiratorial groups will begin it. Possibly, he says, it will be started by the Skull and Bones Society of Yale University. Or maybe the International Monetary Fund. Or the World Health Organization. There are so many conspiracies, and so little time. Sometimes all those conspiracies confuse him and he contradicts himself. One minute he'll say, "The Russian and U.S. governments fill the air with low-frequency sound waves meant to control us," and the next he'll say, "The Elders of Zion rule the world," and then, "The British MI-5 and-6 intelligence agencies have ruled the world since 1812," and, "Twelve Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland rule the world," and, "The world is controlled by a committee of 300 which meets at a roundtable in Rome." The subterfuge starts early. Like the plot by the National Education Association to subvert American children with false teachings. "Don't tell me that two plus two equals four," he once said. "How do you know that two is two? That's the real question."
http://thestacks.deadspin.com/thin-air-in-the-mountains-with-steve-carlton-armed-co-478492324

Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)you are posting this old interview?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)2. It's just a damned fine piece of entertaining sports journalism
3. There is an updated commentary at the bottom from the original writer and editor
4. Baseball is my favorite sport
Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)...can I guess that Steve isn't your favorite ballplayer?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Mets for life
Brother Buzz
(35,380 posts)truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)It's sad, really...or would be if we didn't have to suffer for their delusions.
Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)...but how did his delusions make us suffer?
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)Miss it.
Try reading it again, slowly.
byeya
(2,842 posts)worldview.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)It's no big secret -- I knew Carlton was insane years before the original piece was printed in 1994...
byeya
(2,842 posts)Go Vols
(5,902 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)came close to hitting your ankle. A great pitch.