Sorrows of Diversity

Plentiful as cheap organisms
Undeveloped in the bosom of a nation...
...you're one of us
--My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, On This Rack

According to police a heartwarmingly diverse duo in Seattle aspired to be a duskier, dumber Leopold and Loeb:

Sometime before 6 a.m. on Oct. 12, two men forced their way into a house in the 13700 block of Northeast 133rd Street and confronted the 18-year-old as he slept in a third-floor bedroom of his parents’ home, charging documents say. The two men restrained the teen in bed and held a knife to his throat, the papers say.
The two forced the young man downstairs, threatening to harm others in the house if he resisted or made any sound, according to the papers. Once in the basement, the 18-year-old was wrestled to the floor; one of his attackers restrained his arms and instructed his accomplice to cut the man’s leg off, the papers say.
That attacker — allegedly Gainey — began hacking at the man’s left ankle and leg, “causing large deep cuts down to the bone,” the papers say.

In the comments section (that's me there as eladsinned) to the Seattle Times' report someone posted links to the alleged Facebook pages of the accused and another friend of theirs, making for a diversity trifecta: one third Asian, one third Black, one third Hispanic, one hundred percent psychopathic. Some social media points are like little peepholes into hell.

Their "likes" call to my mind the controversial Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho, about a yuppie serial killer with a pedestrian tastes in pop music (in the film version he gives an unwitting victim an impromptu, glowing review of Huey Lewis and the News' Sports just before splitting his head with an axe, while Hip to be Square blares insipidly over his top-of-the-line sound system): young Vinsint was a fan of That Seventies Show, American Dad, Two and a Half Men and Family Guy. And of course he and his alleged accomplice--whose parent(s) gave the name "Blessing" (when masked for crime he's a Blessing in disguise)--love their video games.

I've always found it curious and creepy to consider the wandering psychopaths among us laughing at the same television shows, rooting for the same sports teams, listening to the same music--bathing in the same glow coming off the screens in your home. Just like the disgruntled diversity hire Chris Dorner lamenting his suicidal killing spree meant he'd miss The Hangover III and giving shout-outs to his favorite celebs--yo, Anderson Cooper, my man!

The revulsion of finding behind a stupefying act of evil the trite, the familiar, the frivolous, the just plain stupid may explain a familiar screen cliché (coming from that same dull circle of our cultural hell where our Vinsints and Blessings spend so much time): the brilliant serial killer with expansive knowledge and exquisite tastes. You know the scene: here he is plotting his next crime while listening to a delicate aria. There he is now taunting his interrogators with impeccable English. We need to believe in the uniqueness of personified evil. In the difficulty of it. We want it to be an achievement, and not an easy one.

Alas. All hell requires is mediocrity and terror. I imagine the further you delve into the mind of one of these breathing horrors the more you'll find--perhaps most terrifyingly of all--nothing. Nothing but dull, base sensations and wants, led by stupidity and greed. Distressingly common and only held in check by the coercion of law and convention.