Childhood Memories

When I was a kid, one of the strongest memories I had was of being afraid of serial killers. California seems to attract the weird ones and watching 'Zodiac' by David Fincher brought that back to me. When I was 8 or 10, the biggest one on scene was Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker. There are other notables: Chuck Manson, the Zodiac killer, the Freeway Killers, Ed Kemper and 6 or 7 others.

I've always had an interest in the macabre - even as a kid, as much as stories about boogeymen who killed in the night scared me, I couldn't stop reading about them or listening when the grown-ups discussed them. When you're a kid and your sense of security, right-and-wrong and safety is punctured by hearing such things - I guess it remained with me to understand how you could remain safe with such twisted stuff going on in the world.

Now I just want to keep my boy safe. I hate to come back to something like "Sling Blade", but Karl was right when he said 'you need to think good thoughts while you're young'. Once you take that away, there's no getting it back.