Peter Dolving, vocalist for THE HAUNTED, has issued the following update:

"So I smashed my hand through the kitchen window. It's not the first time, and probably not the last.

I have low impulse control. Something to do with high levels of adrenaline and testeron, PTSD and what may or may not be Aspberger. Could I blame crappy parenting? Come on. Who are you kidding? I was born like this. It's been with me my entire life and it's hardly going away. I am learning to live with it.

Understandably, until a few years ago people thought I was insane when some completely irrational detail triggered me and my brain switched over to destruct/freakout mode.

In school I'd attack people twice my size for fucking with my thinskinned tight wound grip on reality, of course getting the shit kicked out of me as a restult. Usually it would end up with me weeping and laughing hysterically and bleeding all over whoever the jock who took the perilous decision (because for some reason jocks enjoyed picking on the wingnut kid with the thousand yard stare and irratic behaviour...) and test his newfound masculine identity.

I know you're curious; There's a downside of it too...

In all honesty it's mostly downsides...

If I could have back the actual value of shit I've smashed over the years I'd be a very very rich dude.

Obviously I'm not. I'm that guy you see at the traffic lights; kicking and screaming at his car in desperate, and hopeless attempts to frighten or somehow will the dead thing into, through physical acts of senseless violence, anything at least resembling a working piece of transportation equipment. Screaming at inanimate objects for their submission... 'Surrender or die!'

Nifty.

I know. Most likely I will die from a brain hemmorage or a heart attack around the age of 50. The statistics are not in my favor.

Back in the kitchen I'm doing damage assessment. Balancing the shame with the relief of once again having NOT punched someone.

The amount of blood that will actually spurt and pour from a couple of pretty wimpy cuts is astounding. I actually find it kind of funny and with a sense of twisted pride I look at the mess after patching myself up with Batman and Dora The Explorer band-aids. The kitchen and where I walked to the bathroom looks like someone got inspired at a set of CSI Las Vegas.

One of the things I'm getting really good at is determining whether I should keep my head down today or not. The problem however is the inescapable fact that I'm just a dude, not some deity, and I can't change how other people are doing. So one cranky comment, or arbitrary detail and the sparks in my head go a flying.

Basically I kinda see it happening in slo mo, and these days I've managed to sort of direct it as it starts.

I say sort of, because it is close to impossible to hold it back. If I'm lucky I can just scream and walk as fast as possible away from the situation, to return and humbly apologize after the adrenaline ebbs off. But sometimes that doesn't quite do the trick, or there's just people standing in the way.

Now, I could probably just walk over most people like a tank. These days I'm a big guy, very far from that kid with the big ears, options like that are available, but not really a good choice. Something in me truly dislikes how that would hurt and scare folks. I'm pretty sick of that. So the choices are pretty limited and it's not like some switch you turn on or off either.

'Out' or 'In', that's where it has to go.

I have the 'In' choice as little gift left after my stepdad. I was pretty convinced that he would just beat me to death if I let him know my condition and feelings as a kid. Imagine the effort it took to learn how to sort of kill the power, in order to stay alive.

In retrospect I kinda pity the adults who tried to deal with me as a kid. They never had a clue what to do. Rednecks at heart, born in a time when the atomic bomb was practical tool and Audy Murphy was considered a hero, not a tragedy...

After cleaning up my mess and picking up a thousand tiny shrapnel of glass so my own kids won't get hurt when they get back from their friends. I take the window frame out and drive to the glazier and pick up some milk at the store

on my way home.

...and journalists ask me if I worry about what the fans are going think about the new record...

There are lessons here; Some people just don't break and submit, we were broke allready and we've learned to function with that. In the long run, the old ways of American heartland pennalist bullshit like 'Only the strong survive' just won't work. You cannot beat sense into someone who gave up the entire notion long ago.

Perhaps it's time to start looking around at just how we actually treat eachother.

Do we even know how to listen? Or are the working class Americans just caught in a trap? Crawled so far up our own asses that we don't care, we don't even want to care, because we're just chicken shit. Scared and dumbstruck by the fact that 150 channels on the idiotbox really has nothing to do with the reality we live?

It's a new century kids. The Human Being is finally getting human, and you and me don't need to keep holding on to notions that belong in the 1800s. Not anymore. No longer.

peace / Pete "