Vice magazine has just run a blog post of mine, an invitation into the world and works of Carl Johnson, whom I visited last month in his hometown of Thornton, IL. He’s a man of cosmic imagination who doesn’t get on well with his neighbors. Check out the pamphlet I published in 2006 of one of his ideas.

As we stood together in the backyard, he revealed to me that his deterioration isn’t entirely because of natural causes. The people in town have turned against him, spreading terrible rumors, and worse. A self-taught “Christian Pastor,” Carl insists he has done nothing wrong. There is a bullet hole in a second floor window. But he can’t tell me any more for a few months yet.

“Lately I’ve been reading a lot from the last weeks of Jesus’s life,” he told me. “You have to admit there are a lot of parallels.”

It’s a good start, and there’ll be more to come on Carl, as well as, hopefully, more adventures in Viceland.