Current mood:	curious
Current music:	certainly not the Mylo Song since I don't have it
Entry tags:	doomsday cults, highschool mates

School Mate, Doomsday Cult Member, Possible Dance Music Artist

I have never been a fan of the Grateful Dead, but one of their lyrics is especially fitting for someone I grew up with. "What a long strange trip it's been" could apply to one of my school mates. If you noticed my subject line, Pokey has definitely been the first two, and could be the third. So how does someone go from small town Northern Minnesota, spend some time in a doomsday cult encampment in Montana, and have a good chance of being the person sampled on a Mylo recording? These are the facts as I know them.

Pokey (I will only refer to him as Pokey since some internet paranoia keeps me from having his full name googled) was a rather nondescript student. Average build, average looks, missing out on his brother's athletic skills, but more than making up with his own charm and humor. I can't remember at this point all of his family members, but I do remember his older brother who was my brother's age and his father, who had just taken up flying a small airplane. One year older than me Pokey was best friends with Bub (yeah, nicknames were popular, and with nicknames like that they just had to be friends.)

 A few years after graduating from High School, Pokey became somewhat lost when his father and older brother died in an airplane accident. During this time of questioning, Pokey asked Bub to join him for a two week vacation in California. It used to be a joke in the late 70's that you should be careful if you go to California because you might get brainwashed by a cult. Pokey's two weeks turned into two years and his return to Minnesota concurred with the opening of a new type of "church" near the University of Minnesota. When I saw him at the drug store I used to work at while at school, he looked like any other student of the time, maybe a little more clean cut, but definitely not a "Moonie" or whatever your vision of what a cultist looks like. He would stop in every few months, invite me to his "church" and I would politely decline.

A few years later his "church" bought a $400,000 mansion on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. Pokey was quoted in the Strib saying that they didn't feel welcomed in the area. He expanded on this by saying that when new neighbors move into Northern Minnesota, they are met with open arms. Knowing his small town neighbors, and the questionable nature of his "church" I knew that arms he must be referring to were the same ones referred to by the Constitutional Amendment i.e. The Right to Bear....

After the Lake Harriet hubbub, I didn't see Pokey for a few more years. It was the early 80's on the 4th of July when I saw him for the last time. I was standing at the bottom of the hill watching a soap box derby race with Bub's brother Ken when I heard someone yell at us from across the street. There standing by a rather new Corvette was Pokey. He crossed the street between soap box racers to talk to the two of us. His Vette, plus the clothes on his back told me that being a cult member paid much more than I expected. He politely told us that he longer went by the name Pokey, but by his given name. We talked for a few more minutes, watched the fastest soap boxer almost fly into the lake, laughed while she cried to her father, and then said our goodbyes.

That was the last time I saw Pokey. Oh, I heard of some of what was going on in his life. His "church" moved to a heavily armored encampment in Montana. I am not sure if many of his friends know what he is up to these days, if he is up to anything considering the doomsday nature of his cult "church". I have not looked into the cult, fearing what else I might find out about the Cult and it's leader, who I call Clear Profit partly for the resemblance to what she calls herself, and partly for the importance to the bottom line I see in her "church".

 Fast forward to a few months ago. I was listening to Sirius BBC Radio 1 which played the latest song by Mylo. It consisted of someone chanting the names of '80's Pop Star over a cut-up beat. I was intrigued, but couldn't find the song anywhere. Fast forward again to tonight. I was reading Get Your Bootleg On, The Chat when I found out the connection between Mylo and Pokey

It seems the "church" used to chant the name of various 80's pop stars to highlight the depravity found in the world that they could rise above through their chants. This obscure recording of the chant found it's way on a Negativland recording, and a version or possibly a rerecording of the chant are on the Mylo song. From the description of the chanted voice in GYBO, plus my recollection of the Mylo song, there is a possibility that the voice might be Pokeys. When Pokey and I were in school, it took a modicum of musical talent to be a pop music star. Today all it takes is to lose family member in a plane crash, join a cult in California, Move to increasingly controversial encampments in Minnesota and Montana, chant pop stars names, have said chant "appropriated" by Negativland, and have said Negativland recording "appropriated" by Mylo. I am sure Pokey would be surprised by this strange twist of fate, although I am not even sure if he is off this earth to enjoy his possible stardom.