I performed this piece many times at rave parties, and people thought the images were about doing drugs. But they're not about drugs at all. They're about my father's obsessive-compulsive scratching disorder and the macho Italian fuck-heads in my neighborhood who laughed at him.
My father had a nervous disorder where he would scratch himself 24-7, and as a child I was humiliated to be seen in public with him. Not only did I have to deal my father's behavior, I had to "swallow" the fact I looked him and had his genes. My dilemma: I could physically remove myself from my father and the neighborhood (which I did), but how was I going to escape these itchy genes? I clearly saw my gene pool as a self-replicating fractal trap of Richter itchiness.
In a way, my father's behavior was amazing. You could see he got more pleasure from scratching than crack-heads got smoking crack, for real. To scratch that vigorously for so long takes stamina and discipline, not anybody can do it. For me, observing my father's obsessive-compulsive scratching disorder at an early age was more intense than dropping acid.
Then there were these macho Italian assholes in my neighborhood who called my father "Mr. Itchter." They had it so good with their T-top Camaros and muscle-shirt pasta-eating garvone lifestyles, why did they have to fuck with my dad? I hated them. I thought, "One day you're going to be humiliated by your own lifestyle and old age. Your lives will be empty and pleasureless playing slot machines in wheelchairs at Atlantic City, addicted to gambling with crack-rock diamonds in your eyes like Dopey." Take that motherfuckers.
by TJ Richter
© October 16, 2006 Theodore J. Richter
