Fire Fiend - OK Now I Get It

AofG Update 12/19 - It is Done.

Fashionistas and Manolo fetishists rejoice as their boogeyman was captured this weekend in Memphis after a dramatic suicide drama that was (not surprisingly) more bark than bite.

Living at the Y, selling blood, searching for lost dogs - a tough way to end your final days as a free man.  No word yet on whether or not he searched out The Swamp's MemBengal for some legal advice.

It's funny, but after reading about a DEFCON - 1 Level psycho like H.H. Holmes in The Devil In The White City, it's tough to get too scared by this wanna-be Mugatu.  I'll give the last words to Braunstein's brother - "The entire episode was completely in character, particularly that he did not succeed,"

Original Post - 11-28-05 - & Subsequent Update After The Jump ->

Usually, when the Post and the Daily News trump up a criminal to be the next Son of Sam arch-mastermind of pathological deviance, my brain just shuts off.  It's not that I'm a heartless bastard who isn't affected by the concerns of the fashion magazine marketing editors of the world (well, maybe I am a heartless bastard).  It's that I just don't care.

The tabloids have just such an arch-mastermind now in Peter Braunstein, the "Fire Fiend" who is on the lamb somewhere in Middle America.  New Yorkers have been beseiged with "Fire Fiend" articles on a bi-weekly basis for the past month, and I couldn't have given them less mind-share.  I mean, so what, some freaky deaky ex-fashion journalist who wished he was gay dressed up as a fireman, drugged a girl and made her try on shoes for 13 hours while he taped the whole thing?  Creepy. yes.  But not earth shattering.

Then today I stumbled upon New York's expose on his educational background, job at that self-congratulatory snoot-fest W , and decent into madness after two chicks way out of his league dumped him with the quickness, and I gotta say that I'm hooked.  The article is a tour de force and a window on how psychos learn to covet what they see on a daily basis.  The best part about it is that Braunstein comes off like a Zoolander villain come to life.

If you are not a New Yorker, some of the article's references to the frivolous culture of the fashion industry and pseudo Village intellectual hipster wanna-bes may be a bit foreign to you.  But anyone who has at least a bit of first hand knowledge will get a kick out this clown's obsessions.  Either way, it's tough not to get creeped out by the guy.

Here are some choice ditties from the article:

• Braunstein rolled puffy shirts, a black Jheri Curl, and skin tight leather pants on a daily basis.
• Braunstein went by the eBay psuedonym "gulagmeister," which he changed from "Dr. Groovy," because "he just didn't feel like Dr. Groovy anymore."
• He fantasized about hooking up with Jane Fonda and told all his friends that when he met her he wanted her to put the moves on him
• He quit his job at W because his seats at the "VH1/Vouge Fashion Awards" were too shitty.
• He wrote and produced for a play about Edie Sedgewick in order to meet chicks who looked like her.
• He wrote a piece about freaks stalking Kate Moss.
• He actually used the following as a pick-up line: “You know, babe, I’ve seen it all. Let’s get down—tell me your secrets, your tragedies, your dark past.”   Needless to say, it backfired.
• And for the coup de grace, who said that pot doesn't kill brain cells: "At the beauty editor’s, he watched Ciao! Manhattan repeatedly. One night, when they hosted a dinner party for eight, he put it on the VCR and sat down at the table with his bong."

Anyway, it all adds up to a good pulp read that would make Elmore Leonard proud. 

AofG Update 12/09 - When the Going Gets Weird, The Weird Get Weirder

First the Post breaks that a famous $2,000 an hour hooker starred in Braunstein's masturbatory play, Andy & Edie.  (said 'tute's story is facinating in it's own right...)

Now we find out that Braunstein has an estranged half brother - half 1st cousin (do the math on that one) that rolls with the erstwhile Dutchess of York.  You just knew the British Royal Family had to be involved in this story somehow.  Oh, BTW, this guy has written an inflamitory open letter to his creepy brother/1st cousin.

Comments

[Cozmo]

Oh, I forgot to add - The Daily News Article on Starkie contains this quote:

""He's so incredibly jealous of me," Starkie said of Braunstein. "When he was doing mediocre in school, I had been selected for the Olympic team in fencing," he said.

Gold, Jerry. Gold.

[Jackie]

I read that on this morning on the subway and almost pissed myself.

Sounds like "The Freak" gene runs in the family.

[Bobby P]

Stabbed hisself in the throat? Nice. "You'll nevah take me alive, coppers!"

Oh, and "devil in the white city" solid book. Read that on a trip to chicago right when it came out. Dude was twisted.