Francis E. Dec

Francis E. Dec (January 6, 1926 – January 21, 1996) was a U.S. lawyer from Hempstead Village, New York, disbarred for fraud in 1959, and later known for the bizarre socio-political tracts of conspiracy theories he mass-mailed to the media. Often denouncing a "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God" mind-controlling mankind, Dec is considered to have been a paranoid schizophrenic of the influencing-machine delusion kind, and is often referred to as a "kook".

Not unlike Ed Wood, Dec later became a cult figure referenced in underground culture. He was the subject of a 1994 book chapter, a 1998 comics, and a 1999 stage play; he also made his way into the folklores of the Discordians and the Church of the SubGenius. His rants have been reprinted in a 1983 issue of Robert Crumb's magazine Weirdo and circulated since 1986 from recordings by KROQ-FM host Doc Britton; they have been sampled in 1991 and 2004 by Psychic TV, Critters Buggin 1997 record 'Host' on the song 'Bill Gates', in 2004 by Venetian Snares, and inspired a Coldcut album in 2005; they have been archived as outsider art by UbuWeb and WFMU; they spawned a fanclub and website; they have also been used as a gauge in 1994 for "kook typography" and in 1998 for the entropy of the undeciphered Voynich manuscript.

Early life
Francis E. Dec was born on January 6, 1926, in the Nassau County, Long Island community of Hempstead Village, New York (a Black and Latino majority neighborhood, accounting later for its frequent racist designations in Dec's rants) and appears to have lived there for most of his life (except for his military service). His middle name is not established: there is only "[+]*Francis [-] Frank Dec" on his birth certificate, and "Dec Francis E" on his army's enlistment record.

He was the son of two Polish immigrants, butcher John F. Dec (John Frank Dec, June 23, 1893 – August, 1971; born Jan Dec) and servant turned housewife Rose M. Dec (~1889/1890 – death unknown; born Rozalia Jaronek or Rosalia Jronek). Both of Dec's parents were born in Poland (his mother from the Polish part of what was then Galicia) and immigrated to the United States, his mother in 1910 and his father in 1912, and were married c. 1920–1921.

Dec also had an older brother, Joseph I. Dec (1921-2010) ), whom he mentions in several of his rants as "his only brother". Dec later wrote of attending a Catholic grammar school taught by nuns, and appears to have completed at least three years of high school before he volunteered for military service in World War II.

Military life
Dec enlisted on April 13, 1944 as a private in the United States Army Air Forces, "for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months". After six weeks of basic training at Keesler Field near Biloxi, Mississippi, he was enrolled in the Army Air Forces Technical School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He graduated from the Radio Operator and Mechanics Course in January 1945. He subsequently was stationed at USAAF bases in Yuma, Arizona, Lincoln, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas, and Fairfield, California. He was honorably discharged as a Private First Class in May 1946.

Professional life
Dec received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950 from the College of Liberal Arts at St. John's University in Brooklyn, New York. According to one of his rants, Dec then studied at Brooklyn Law School, though it's not established for how many years since completing a law degree wasn't mandatory in order to get a law license in New York State.

Dec then became a lawyer, an attorney at law. He was admitted to the New York state bar on March 31, 1954 but was disbarred on January 19, 1959. Dec was also a notary public, at least during 1956–1957 for the Notary Department in the Nassau County Clerk's Office.

After being convicted of fraud and larceny (see at right), Dec was disbarred as an attorney and "commanded to desist and refrain from the practice of law in any form, either as principal or as agent, clerk or employee of another, and is forbidden [...] to give to another an opinion as to the law or its application, or any advice in relation thereto", effectively ending any career related to law; along with the five-year prison sentence, this is probably why Dec later referred to it as a "maximum-conviction" sentence.

From 1959 to 1962, Dec tried unsuccessfully to have the case overturned on appeal. All appeals to the New York courts were denied and the case, when it was filed in forma pauperis with the U.S. Supreme Court (featuring Dec asking for a rehearing about his "gestapo like farce kangaroo court trial", sic, and "the psychotically, sadistically, wantonly, fraudulently altered Official Nassau County Court, New York State trial record of this petitioner's Gestapo like farce trial", sic), was denied certiorari twice. In spite of having lost his permission to practice law Dec did, however, in his later correspondence persistently continue to refer to himself using the suffix "Esquire".

Later life
After his disbarment and denied appeals (around 1958–1962), Dec spent the rest of his life as a recluse, mailing his tracts to various mass-media in the U.S. and over the world (see Works section).

Until 1966, Dec lived with his brother and pretended he was beaten and terrorized by him. In 1966, his brother moved out and left Dec alone in the house; at this time, Dec still went out "shopping two, three times a month". When removing the red wallpaper that there was in most of the rooms, he found "fresh red paint under it" that he considered the CIA's doing. In 1967 and 1968, thinking that "the entire house was a CIA death trap for [him] set up while [he] was buying it", he spent time chipping off all of the red paint "with hundreds of single edge razor blades".

In 1968, Dec said he had gained enough "insight of this deadly closed society" to visit small stock brokerage offices and invest some of his money (from 1959 to 1968 his income had been "zero" and Dec existed "on much less than 1000 a year" of his savings); from his investments he would eventually reach about "yearly minimum wage income" over the next decade.

In 1969, Dec reported that a warrant was issued for his "incarceration in a maximum security insanity prison" (presumably committal to an asylum). From 1969 to around 1982, Dec said he mostly lived hidden alone in his house, ordering food to be delivered to him and hiding from his visitors.

Around 1982, after hiding "for over ten years", Dec said he "can once again walk the streets solely as [he] did before 1969" because after he had "mailed worldwide thousands of [his] letters exposing" the "Computer God" conspiracy, his "testimony" was out and his "extermination" less necessary.

According to a rant presumed around 1981, Dec seems to have been a vegetarian, at least later in life. He apparently never married nor had children.

Mental health
Due to the bizarre and earnest nature of Dec's claims (see Works section), it is usually believed that he suffered from schizophrenia – most likely the kind referred to by Viktor Tausk as influencing-machine delusion – though without access to his medical records (Dec had at least two court-ordered psychiatric examinations in 1958 and 1961, and possibly again at some point during his 1993–1996 last years at the Veteran Hospital) this remains supposition.

It also seems likely that Dec's mental condition deteriorated after his 1958 conviction in the forgery case (cited above), as his 1961 appeal brief – although rambling, paranoia laden and disjointed at times – still manages to be coherent and to present a fair representation of his perception of the errors in his conviction. On the other hand; his "rants", produced later (such as the Spring 1984 "Gangster Computer God", see Worldview section), lack overall coherence, are prone to word salad-like strings of words (such as "Computer God computerized brain thinking SEALED ROBOT OPERATING ARMS SURGERY CABINET machine removal of [...]", see Worldview section), and are heavily laden with paranoia as well as a highly developed conspiracy mindset. As such, even though some theories produced by Dec in his "rants" can be seen in germinal form in his appeal brief, they are not there fully as developed as they would later come to be – possibly indicating the onset of mental illness after his conviction. On January 16, 1961 (four months before his appeal brief), a court order was issued for committing Dec to Pilgrim State Hospital (Pilgrim Psychiatric Center) for a 60-day mental examination; one month later Dec is "Released on own recognizance" on February 17, 1961.

Because Dec was never committed and was able to stay in his home almost to his death, his writings from 1960 (his appeals) to 1992 (his stroke) could provide an insight into the progress of advanced paranoia. The internally self-consistent claims contained within his tracts and rants are also strongly in keeping with common definitions of delusion as described by modern psychology. For example, it was drawn certain similarities between Dec's claims of being "Frankenstein controlled" by the so-called "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God" and the claims of 18th Century paranoiac James Tilly Matthews of being "tortured-at-a-distance" by what he termed the "Air Loom" gang.

Death
Dec apparently suffered a stroke in late 1992 and was transferred early 1993 to the St. Albans VA hospital in Queens, New York by his brother Joseph I. Dec. He was still residing there in December 1995, at which time he was visited by Forrest Jackson and two other fans who had come across tape recordings of some of his rants at Dallas in 1993 (see Legacy section) and went to New York to ask him about their origin and meaning; as far as is currently known, these individuals were the only fans of Dec ever to have met or spoken to him at any length, and videotaped the only documented encounter with Dec. Dec was entirely unresponsive to the presence or inquiries of his visitors, and the visit produced no answers whatsoever.

Francis E. Dec died a few weeks later on January 21, 1996. The exact cause of death is not known. Francis is interred in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, NY alongside his mother Rozalia Dec and his aunt Sophia Jaromek. His brother Joseph is buried in Calverton National Cemetery, Calverton, NY

Legacy
Francis E. Dec was dubbed "one of the most mysterious characters in all kookdom" by his 1994 biographer Donna Kossy, "the most important paranoid schizophrenic kook of the century" or "the Gnostic God of these End Times" by his 1995 interviewer Forrest Jackson, and it was stated that "his insane diatribes must truly be one of the greatest comedic gems of the 20th century" by his 2006 fanclub founder Peter Branting. Dec is often compared or contrasted to William S. Burroughs (for his prose style; some of Dec's rants would even have "found their way to William S. Burroughs" according to Donna Kossy ), Philip K. Dick (for his later schizophrenic worldview), and Jack T. Chick (for his conspiracy theory tracts).

Dec's publications are considered outsider art, circulated for their unintended humor, underground poetry, or both. They have been republished in a number of places. One of Dec's rants was reprinted on the back-cover of Robert Crumb's Weirdo #8 (Summer 1983). A 2009 Washington City Paper art article listed Dec as one of three outsider artists whose works ought to be adapted as iPhone app, though considering him not "that far afield from the diatribes of today's talk radio."

Dec also entered the folklore of the Church of the SubGenius, which contributed to his underground popularization since at least 1993: a Dec rant was broadcast at least twice on the weekly syndicated SubGenius radio program Hour of Slack, in program #392 "Francis Dec & kooks" (1993) and a rerun in program #555 (1996); Dec is also regularly mentioned by Church users in their Usenet newsgroup alt.slack, from which messages mentioning Dec or reprinting his rants were selected for the Church's official newsletter The Stark Fist of Removal. Additionally, he was canonized as "St. Francis the Incoherent" among Discordian Saints.

Dec's letters have been used as an example of "kook typography" by graphic designer Steven Heller in a same-titled 1994 article of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design. There is also a 1998 mathematical analysis which uses five Dec rants as a gauge of "schizophrenic language" for an entropic evaluation of the undeciphered Voynich Manuscript (concluding that schizophrenia alone could not account for the manuscript's puzzling nature).

In 1985, Boyd "Doc" Britton (then a newscaster for the radio station WZUU in Milwaukee, now the talk show host "Doc on the ROQ" for KROQ-FM) received a stack of Dec's flyers mass-mailed to the media; in 1986, he made a spoken word recording of himself reading five of Dec's rants over various background music selected and mixed in at random. Ever since, these recordings have been circulated in underground circles, creating and building further interest in Francis E. Dec: first as tapes, then CDs, and now as MP3 files on the Internet, where they are torrented as well as archived by literature site UbuWeb, Archive.org, and radio WFMU. In 1990, SubGenius co-founder Rev. Ivan Stang gave Dallas artist Joe Riley such a Dec tape, which was eventually played at a 1993 party where Forrest Jackson heard it, inspiring Jackson to track down and meet Dec in 1995 (see Death section), videotaping the only documented encounter with Dec. Psychic TV as Kitten Sparkles sampled Doc Britton reading Dec in "Saint Frances E." (sic, on Ultrahouse The L.A. Connection, 1991, reissued as "Sir Frances E. Dec (Kitten Sparkle Mix)", sic, on Origin of the Species, Volume Too, 1999) and in "The Deadly Touch Taben" (sic, on the compilation Patchouli & Echoes, 2004). Venetian Snares also sampled Doc Britton in "Americanized" on Infolepsy EP (2004), spreading Dec's prose on lyrics websites. Dec's rants inspired other artists: in 2005, the band Coldcut cited "the mad deadly computer gangster godpoems of Francis E Dec, RIP" as inspiration for their CD Everything Is Under Control; in 2007, "Saint Francis E. Dec, Esq." was credited as the co-creator of two MP3 singles called Worldwide Living Death Frankenstein Slavery (vol. 1 and 2) by Alex Spalding et al.

The delusions of Francis E. Dec have also been fictionalized. In 1998, his rants were adapted into the 8-page comic-book story "Worldwide Gangster Robots" (script: Scott Cunningham; art: Danijel Zezelj), acknowledging Dec in the opening credits as the basis for protagonist "Melchizedek" and his posters; the story was published in anthology Gangland #3 from Vertigo at DC Comics. In 1999, his rants were dramatized by Eric Dyer with the theatre troupe Radiohole in A History of Heen: Not Francis E. Dec, Esq., a stage play starring Dec and large excerpts of his rants; selected for The Wooster Group's "Emerging Artist Series" and played then extended for two weeks at The Performing Garage in SoHo, New York City, it was reviewed positively by The Village Voice, CurtainUp, and Playbill.

While Doc Britton's recordings helped foster awareness of Dec's rants and his underground notoriety, little was known about the man and his life; this came with Dec's immortalization in Donna Kossy's 1994 book Kooks (the first biography of Dec, published by Feral House, also home to the book that spawned Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood), along with NY lawyer Jeff Sperber's investigations into Dec's legal past, and the Dec flyers donated by Tim Maloney to Kossy. Yet since the 1980s, only a few Dec rants were circulated (mostly the five recorded ones), when more documents were known to exist. The next steps were achieved on the Internet, with wider dissemination of the Doc recordings as MP3 files, as well as Kossy's online Kooks Museum in 1996.

In 2006 appeared the so-called "Official Francis E. Dec Fanclub" website founded by Peter Branting, a hub for "Decologists" providing an extensive collection of old and new Francis E. Dec material unearthed by members, including Dec's legal correspondence recovered by Decologist Ted Torbich, new biographical data dug up by genealogist Steven Dhuey, scans of original tracts, along with a biographical timeline, a "Dectionary" of Decian delusions, and humorous illustrations of the rants. In October 2008, such rants mentioned by Doc Britton to Kossy as "Astrocism – The True Religion of the Slovene People" or "The Teddy Kennedy Letter" were donated to the Club together with other formerly unknown material, making possible further study into the beliefs and personal history of Francis E. Dec

Overview
Francis E. Dec produced and self-published a series of flyers containing rant-like essays with a paranoid outlook, all of which contained a number of recurring themes and claims of a more or less delusional or paranormal nature.

Recurring themes and phrases in Dec's rants include: an entity referred to by Dec as the "World Wide Communist Gangster Computer God", its "Frankenstein Earphone Radio" and "Eyesight Television" (often preceded by "Frankenstein" as well), along with allegations of political chicanery on the part of Presidents and Vice Presidents throughout U.S. history. For example Dec alleges that Lyndon Johnson lured John F. Kennedy to Dallas in order to have him killed and that Teddy Roosevelt did the same to William McKinley by luring him to New York. Dec also incorporated into his rants one Frank Gulotta, ex-District Attorney Nassau County, who once acted as prosecution in a trial which would eventually come to result in Dec's conviction and disbarment as a lawyer (see Professional life section), as well as the Judge (one William Sullivan) who presided over the court case in question.

Other recurring themes include racism against black people, anti-Communism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and various other conspiracy theories, racial and otherwise. An analysis of Dec's written material suggests that he thought he was also regularly abducted and operated upon by the so-called "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God" as well as the subject of constant mind reading, mind control, and brainwashing via various cranial implants (see Mental health section).

Worldview
Dec's later cult figure status came because a half-dozen of his tracts were turned into underground culture items (see Legacy section), and to understand why requires some extended quotes. "Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy" (1984) was a racist tract intended to denounce the longtime conspiracy of a "Gangster Computer God" controlling mankind through cranial radios, causing the aging process through gradual surgeries, and planning a worldwide race of mulatto slaves. Popularized early by Doc Britton's 1986 recordings, this compendium of Decian concepts is also one of Dec's more outlandish rants; as such, three excerpts summarizing it can consistently show both Dec's overall worldview and his writing style. They are reproduced in the original typewritten typography (emphases and misspellings included).


 * The opening paragraph warns that people are implanted with "Frankenstein radio controls" that constantly brainwash them, while "Brain Bank Cities" on the far side of the Moon are housing their "Brain Bank brain" which is their other real brain:


 * The second paragraph explains that people are regularly remote-controlled "as a Frankenstein slave" to undergo surgeries performed by a "Robot Operating Cabinet", generating the aging process, that he calls the "Inevitability of Gradualness". (This last phrase usually refers to the gradualist philosophy of Fabian socialism. )


 * (The next paragraphs elaborate how birth at the hospital helps implement those controls, and how medicine helps enforce diseases and deaths.) The rest presents Dec as the "only hope" against a future mankind reduced to Jewish-Communist-Black slaves:

Dec's bizarre worldview and unique style are further explained through the list of his recurring themes in The Dectionary (see Sources section).

Letters (1958–1962)
Available documents from Dec's legal correspondence.


 * To the N.Y. Appeals Court
 * 1961. "Notice of Appeal to the Court of Appeals of New York" aka "A Gestapo-Like Farce Trial" (signed April 26, 1961; filed June 20, 1961; denied July 7, 1961)
 * 1961. "Reply Brief to the Court of Appeals of New York" aka "Felonious and Immoral" (assumed 1961; no known answer)


 * To the U.S. Supreme Court
 * 1961. "Notice of Appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States" aka "The Maximum-Conviction Appeal Brief" (dated September 21, 1961)
 * 1961. "Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Forma Pauperis" (dated September 20, 1961 for October 1961 term; denied on January 15, 1962)
 * 1962. "Petition for Rehearing of Petition for Writ Certiorari in forma pauperis" (dated February 5, 1962; denied on February 19, 1962)
 * 1976. — see the flyer "To All Judges!"...

Flyers (1962–1992)
The rants on Dec's flyers and tracts didn't feature a title proper and have usually been named later from their first words (common alternate titles and aliases are indexed below). Most of them being undated, they are listed alphabetically.


 * Known flyers
 * "Astrocism: The True Religion of the Slovene People!" (estimated 1970s)
 * "Evil Metric System Conspiracy!, The" (after 1975, possibly 1980, updated 1982)
 * "Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy" (signed Spring 1984)
 * "History of the Computer God, The" (unavailable, named by Kossy as owned by Britton)
 * "Infrared Crusader Priests from Beyond Comprehension!" (presumed 1992 )
 * "Long Island Lunacy" (presumed around 1982, transcript from audio is )
 * "Master Race Frankenstein Radio Controls" (presumed 1970s, transcript from audio is )
 * "Pasteurized Milk Conspiracy, The" (unavailable, named by Kossy as owned by Britton)
 * "Teddy Kennedy Letter, The" (presumed around 1972, and its P.S. around 1974 )
 * "To All Judges!" (signed October 21, 1976)
 * "Top Secret Dual Food Standard, The" (presumed around 1981 )
 * "True History of Nazi Jewmany!!, The" (signed Spring 1984, undated P.S.)
 * "Worldwide Open Secret!!" (after 1978 )


 * Common aliases
 * All of the Gangster Scum on Top (first words) — see Teddy Kennedy...
 * All Religions Are Untouchable Con Artist (first words) — see True History...
 * A Terrible Prison Sentence! — not a flyer: the fanclub's "best of" Dec's 1961 SC Appeal
 * Communist Gangster Computer God Worldwide Systematic Destruction of All Standards (first words) — see Evil Metric...
 * Demanding a Re-Hearing (Finish Him!) (WFMU file) — see To All Judges...
 * Dual Food Standard (from first sentence) — see Top Secret Dual Food...
 * Empirical Scientific Agnostic Religion of Astrocism, The (first words) — see Astrocism...
 * Frankenstein Radio Controls (from first sentence) — see Master Race...
 * Frankenstein Radio Head (first words) — see Infrared Crusader...
 * Hangman Rope Sneak Deadly Gangsterism (WFMU file) — see Long Island...
 * In December 1965 When I returned (first words) — see Long Island...
 * Look at the Picture!!! (first words) — see Master Race...
 * Metric System Conspiracy, The (from title) — see Evil Metric...
 * Nazi Jewmany (from title) — see True History...
 * Rant 1 (UbuWeb file) — see Master Race...
 * Rant 2 (UbuWeb file) — see To All Judges...
 * Rant 3 (UbuWeb file) — see Gangster Computer God...
 * Rant 4 (UbuWeb file) — see Long Island...
 * Rant 5 (UbuWeb file) — see Worldwide Open Secret...
 * Rant No. 1 (Kooks Museum transcript) — see Worldwide Open Secret...
 * Rant No. 2 (Kooks Museum transcript) — see Gangster Computer God...
 * Rant No. 3 (Kooks Museum transcript) — see To All Judges...
 * Rant No. 4 (Kooks Museum transcript) — see Long Island...
 * Rant No. 5 (Kooks Museum transcript) — see Master Race...
 * Secret Containment Policy (from first sentence) — see Gangster Computer God...
 * Secret to Save the Entire Human Race, The (WFMU file) — see Master Race...
 * See the Skull (from second sentence) — see Master Race...
 * Sneak Shameless Hangman Rope Gangsters (first words) — see Top Secret Dual Food...
 * Three Young Seekers Consult Mr Dec Regarding Frankenstein Controls Before Being Dragged Away to Extermination (WFMU file) — not a Dec flyer: the 1995 visit by Forrest Jackson
 * True Slovene Religion: Astrocism, The (Kooks Museum mention) — see Astrocism...
 * Undetectable Extermination (WFMU file) — see Worldwide Open Secret...
 * Worldwide Secret Containment Policy (from first sentence) — see Gangster Computer God...

General links

 * Texts
 * FrancisEDec.com – fanclub (with Timeline, Dectionary, Rants)
 * Francis E. Dec at Everything2 – an essay by the founder of the Dec Fanclub
 * Francis E. Dec in Top Ten Visionaries by Mark Allen (from NY Times and WFMU)
 * (Dec visited in 1995 by Forrest Jackson)
 * "I Met Joseph I. Dec!" (Dec's brother visited in 2001 by Forrest Jackson)
 * Dec-rant generator (with Markov chains from the original rants)


 * Pictures
 * (in 1995)
 * Dec's house at 29 Maple Ave (in 2001, as repainted by Dec's brother)
 * Dec's illustrated flyer "Frankenstein Radio Controls" (~1970s)
 * Dec's handwritten flyer "Dual Food Standard" (~1981)
 * Dec's typewritten flyer "Secret Containment Policy" (1984)
 * (scanned originals)

Recordings links

 * The 1986 recordings by Doc Britton (the 5 rants)
 * Recordings (MP3) at UbuWeb
 * Recordings (MP3) at Archive.org


 * The 1995 visit by Forrest Jackson (as "Rant 6" after the 5 rants)
 * Recordings (MP3) at WFMU's "On The Download"
 * Recordings (MP3) at WFMU's "Beware of the Blog"


 * Other recordings
 * Francis E. Dec at YouTube (fan readings or dramatizations of Dec rants)