#title Phobia: A tale of being (Preview)
#author Joey LaFollette
#date 1992
#source Marked at the top of each heading.
#lang en
#pubdate 2025-08-01T16:56:42
#topics fiction,
*** Copyright Record
**Source:** <[[https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/voyager_17078973][publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/voyager_17078973]]>
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**Registration Number / Date:** TXU000524167 / 1992-06-19
**Type of Work:** Text
**Title:** Phobia: a tale of being.
**Date of Creation:** not given on appl.
**Copyright Claimant:** Joseph M. E. LaFollette, 1964- (Joey LaFollette)
**Names:** LaFollette, Joseph M. E. 1964-
LaFollette, Joey
*** FBI/ATF surveillance of domestic terrorists
**Source:** <[[https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/5hr2yH4Cvyc/m/NqvijVnawQgJ][groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/5hr2yH4Cvyc/m/NqvijVnawQgJ]]>
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Under the heading fact is stranger than fiction, Joe LaFollette, David’s friend, wrote an unpublished novel titled “PHOBIA: a tale
of being”. Originally titled TECHNOPHOBIA, it was about a
Berkeley graduate’s one-man war against technology. It was
based on an idea Joe LaFollette got from David, while on a camping
trip in 1985 or 1986 (according to the Joe L.). The linguistics
specialist went to work for a company called Wes-Tech
(as distinguished from Rentech, the company owned by the
victim of a December 1985 bomb).
The author explains in the novel that Wes-Tech was a
“metaphor for progress.“ The Berkeley graduate’s job at
Wes-Tech was to talk to a supercomputer, providing it with the
basis for advances in artificial intelligence. Author LaFollete
and David had talked about linguistics and computers, and the
dangers posed by computer technology.
The short unpublished novel was written in February 1991,
when, according to LaFollette, “the Unabomber thing was in the air”
in the university computer lab. In the novel, the Berkeley type,
who visits a psychiatrist for help in understanding his dreams,
became increasingly deranged. It becomes evident in the end
that he had killed some people, though the dividing line between
dreams and reality is purposely left unclear by the author.
The novel ends with the pitiable figure handcuffed in a cell
with a beard. He wakes confused, trying to remember what had
happened. “Shave... me,” he says to his jailor. He hopes that
“Perhaps that person in my dreams is just hiding behind that beard.”
If I can get permission of the author, I’ll make copies for Erik, Doug, Ellis and Shadow, and then you can pass it around. But otherwise I’m stuck under the copyright laws (and the nice and otherwise obliging Ron at the copyright office’s certification office, Rm. 402).
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Throughout the 1980s, he subscribed to “wouldn’t want to
hurt a fly” type views, according to his friend, Joe LaFollette, Jr. I contacted Joe L. after I heard his father being quoted on CNN
about “Washington Criminals” after a boy was shot on the Texas
border. (I noticed the phrase because I was used to hearing
Milton and other political radicals use it). The father is a man
of the cloth. I found Joe L., the son, not far from where Dave lived in that hole. ...
I got it from the archives of the U.S. Copyright Office, after David’s friend claimed that he had lost the only copy of his unpublished manuscript.
I sent a description of it to TK — let’s see if he has any reaction to the novel that David’s perception of Ted inspired. There’s even a Linda with a prominent role in the novel.
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Here are some samples from the unpublished novel “PHOBIA: a tale of being” (originally titled TECHNOPHOBIA).
“I got a job in Midland, Texas with a company called Wes-Tech.
It’s a computer company --programming mainly, but I got brought
in as a consultant in languages. No, not computer lingo. S****, I can barely use a computer.
***
There’s a small gym and a spa and all the rooms are furnished
with all of modern Utopia’s finest. I began to think that
everything in Midland was made out of plastic though.
***
The salary was a little more than thirty pieces of silver
but the feeling and the after the kiss numbness on my lips
still stung me. What had I done? Well I wasn’t going to look
back on a pillar of sale, I going in that mylar think tank and
I was going to make it mine or be swallowed up in the
tempest of trial and error. “Leviathan,” I spoke almost
loud enough for the blue suits to stare back at me,” prepare
to meet thy master!” and I walked through the doors and into
this strange new world.
***
Exactly Jake, West Tech is a metaphor for progress.”
***
“Let’s just say West-Tech represents diversified interests
and some of these are in highly classified areas.” ...
Linda [his old girlfriend that he left behind when he move on]
probably would have called it quits right there.
***
“LAURA is short for Low frequence radiation Artificial
neurological Unihemispherical Reference Axial differentiation
module — its a sort of artificial intelligence.”
***
“then you’re the brain from Berkeley?”
***
“Life as a psychosocial eunuch was too much for him
and he had snapped. I was witnessing the demise
of a scientist. It only reinforced my prejudice towards
this profession of Judases which would sell out the human
race for a laboratory and a sportscar and a Mother machine.”
*** More on PHOBIA: a tale of being
**Source:** <[[https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/-EzUVeBQwBE/m/1arVWX-EIRUJ][groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/-EzUVeBQwBE/m/1arVWX-EIRUJ]]>
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Joey LaFollette says that “West-Tech is a metaphor for progress. (p. 25). There’s even a good Italian place on Technology Avenue.
Jacob, the protagonist, has gone to work at West-Tech after graduating from Berkeley. His parents don’t understand why he doesn’t marry Linda, whom he had been dating for years. At West-Tech, he’s proud of announcing at office parties that he’s a poet. His job is talk to Laura, the Supercomputer, and teach the computer the language of humanity.
His co-workers are a fun bunch. On his first day, his supervisor pretends to be a Protocyborg in the men’s room, and helpfully tends to his needs.
Jake tells Laura, the Supercomputer, that “spirit is something that doesn’t correspond with scientific learning yet is so wonderful. It’s what makes you and I alive and able to interact not just on the output level but on a higher plane.”
Jake can’t remember his bad dreams. His trips to the psychiatrist don’t help much — the doctor is fascinated about what’s going on with Jake’s brain. But isn’t able to save Jake from himself. He wakes in a cell, where he is a pitiable mess. Groggy, confused, he awakes one day. Handcuffed, bearded, smelly. The deputy sheriff is amazed as he speaks for the first time in two years: “shave...me.” “He wants them to shave off his terrible beard. Perhaps that person in my dreams is just behind that beard.”
*** Conclusions: PHOBIA vs. SECRET AGENT vs. real life
**Source:** <[[https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/8Kml60mixHE/m/G4TnVG3pHo8J][https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.unabomber/c/8Kml60mixHE/m/G4TnVG3pHo8J]]>
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Concluding passage:
“They put me in a chair in front of a big mirror and then click on the
lights. In front of me is a grizzly skeleton covered in a thin film of
skin and I am him and he is me and I wish to God that I wasn’t and yet I
am happy that I am something more than just a dream or fantasy or even
worse, a terrible nightmare. I become accustomed to my hairy face. I
want to speak but words won’t come out, just a growl. The nurse drawing
my bath, the fat one with blubbery cellulite deposits on her white hosed
legs back away. She’s going to call the guard. She doesn’t. I try to
clear my voice. The one with pigtails starts to lather my face. I want
to push her hand away but I don’t have the strength. It is gone —
utterly gone, my voice, my memory, my strength, but where did it go?
Finally I become conscious of my words and I growl them out of my dry
mouth.
“.... shave...me”
“You want me to shave you?”
“....yes.”
“Hey Maria, he’s speaking.” The other nurse comes over and shakes
her head.
“He hasn’t spoken in two years. Not since--” She breaks off
suddenly and then fixes her crooked spandex waistband where her naked
rolly polly gut was spilling out. Since when? Two years?
“He certainly did. He wants us to have off that terrible beard.”
“Is this true?” She asks me with an incredulous tone.
“Yes. I do.” I answer wrong, I know but how else? I am almost
dead.
“We’ll need some scissors. It’s too long to shave.” Maria leaves
the room maybe to get them? I take a deep breath of relief. The weight
of this ugly mat of hair is just too much for me. Perhaps that person in
my dream is just hiding behind that beard? Maria returned with two pairs of scissors and they both begin cutting away at my coarse salt and pepper threads.”