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Counterpropaganda is a new intermittent series—this is the opening salvo. We're christening it w/ a feature of films depicting contract killers. Our impetus is the anti-hitman thesis of Linklater's new screwball Netflix noir ironically titled "Hit Man", a piece of subtle albeit messy copaganda that masquerades as lighthearted psychological thriller packed w/ meditations on identity, but which is mostly a sexy romp glorifying entrapment stings, sexing-up confidential informants, & trying to deconstruct the existence of hit men (all things Klonny is decidedly not about). The movie also possesses a mercenary streak its writers Richard & leading man Glen Powell might have thought would serve as an indictment of us & trickstery subversion, but I think it gets lost in its own sauce & genre dalliances. So yr neighborly noid is here to unpack why I disagree w/ the film's framing of (supposedly nonexistent) hitmen & law enforcement moreover, which spills into multiple parts as we dive into a number of IRL "retail" contract killer case studies to pick at the film's seams, resulting in one becoming a full-on, deep history of a little known serial contract killer named Glennon Engleman aka the Killer Driller, a sus dentist who moonlighted as a murderer-for-hire, mastermind of insurance schemes, & Black Widow keeper—and we discover that these serial contract murders, which are a little off the beaten true crime path, cohere w/ McGowan's PTK framework or more recent works like "Eye of the Chickenhawk" to a surprising degree. That investigative research arrives in Pt. II.

In this ep, we discuss:

The Trump ear nicking assassination attempt (foreshadowing future Counterprop I'd reckon);  We cram in a litany of the noir & contract killing films & TV that Klonny's been watching or thinking about in preparation for this, including - Hit Man, The Killer, Kill List, Le Samouraï, Sicario,  The Day of the Jackal, The Parallax View, JFK, Rampart, The Shield,... etc.

We conduct a perfunctory SUS CHECK on Linklater, which is primarily made up of examining his role in furthering Alex Jones's platform—the Bill Cooper, Ron Paul, & Branch Davidians-connected, fellow Austinian conspi-radio broadcaster & parapolitical research shitcoater.

Which means we have to take an obligatory look at JONES'S C I A MOM & POPS, including his sus, implants-designing dentist of a father David Jones, who'd affix microphonic crowns on Agency teeth's (foreshadowing Glennon Engleman in Pt. II, nice) & may have been an operative in his own right... Even provided covert financial support to CA death squads... And Carol Hamman, Alex's Ma, who would help to secure housing accommodations for East German defectors in Texas in the '80s... And then there's Alex's Uncle Bill, who was a heli pilot in 'Nam, conducted Black Ops missions, & likely was involved in the Phoenix Program's extrajudicial assassinations (possibly a Hit Man connection only 2 degrees from Linklater).

The other primary focus of our brief SUS CHECK:

THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS

The irony cult cum performance art troupe cum zine collective cum PA TV show cum ARG that Richard Linklater is affiliated with, learning how he's has championed said highly conceptual oddball project in the doc JR "Bob" Dobbs & the Church of the SubGenius.

We get into how these exemplars of Austin high weirdness had an indelible impact on Linklater's oeuvre, inspiring his first film Slacker via their gnostic/sexual elemental force dubbed SLACK. We explore how this not-quite-fake cult started by Austin outsiders Ivan Stengs & Philo Drummond, which preaches a sexual & recreational gospel that is also rooted in a voracious syncretizing of basically every conspiracy theory known to man, might just have become a second Scientology if its founders had been a little more zealous.

Full notes on Patreon