Saturday, October 04, 2008

Too, Too Bizarre

Well, it's been a long time, and frankly I'd more or less given up on the at times entertaining, mostly rather sad business of NasTim watching. Recently, though, things have been hotting up again, and perhaps it's worth putting in a word or two in case anyone still cares.

For the past eighteen months or so, NasTim has been nattering on about being the presiding spirit of a collective called Cinematheque Films, something that has, variously, been a solo effort presenting his work, a loft in a badly imagined Paris that I wonder if Barrus has ever actually seen, and the usual gang of transgressive young rebels he so loves to pretend he has around him.

Basically, just more of the same stuff seen so often since the Navahoax first brought Tim Barrus, blinking, out into the light of day as Nasdiij.

He's fallen in and out of love - another recurring pattern - with any number of websites, from the New Museum's Rhizome to various New York Times blogs to, most recently, video upload site blip.tv. He briefly developed yet another new persona, perhaps the acme of his gallophilia, a Frenchman named Janvier L'Un.

So far, so ordinary; just more in the ornery life and shadowy career of Tim Barrus.

In the last couple of weeks, though, he has slipped fully back into patterns not seen since the days of Refuge House, his mythical home for sexualized, damaged teens. Now he is the crusading mentor/father figure for what he calls a group of "at risk" adolescents, whom he apparently helps along the long, hard road of survival by dragging them around the world to hotspots like Bolivia (just the thing to soothe the weary soul, I'd say).

"They" have been chronicling their travails (and their unwavering devotion, of course, to Barrus) in a new blog, Too. The "boys'" entries are graphic and, since they are a menagerie of imagined nationalities, often hilariously misspelled - even though the vocabulary and syntax remain obdurately NasTimian. He has a rather repellent fascination, earlier seen in his handling of the pre-teens he imagined acting in his various Greek epics, in writing about fragile boys being driven to the edge of physical and mental collapse, and these entries are all about such goings-on.

He is also obsessed about outside threats - the "stalkers" and "haters" who have long haunted him - to the little paradise, of sorts, he has created. He raves, as he long has, about death threats and worse, about vague enemies and villains; he shows signs of renewing his fixation on writer Lars Eighner (who helped confirm the Barrus-Nasdijj connection).

In what may in fact be a better reflection of actual events in the Barrus household, he is also writing about the decline of his dog. If some of his current, obvious distress and anger comes from the impending or recent death of Navajo, for that I am truly sorry, for that is a very special kind of pain. As always, when writing about what seems to be actually part of his own life, Barrus is actually able to, at times, cast aside his paranoias and obsessions and simply - and rather eloquently - express himself.

I had long thought I would give up on writing about NasTim as long as I thought he wasn't scamming anyone else, wasn't, as before, begging for "help" via PayPal. He does appear to have one acolyte who actually does live in the real world (rather than in his own head), a Montana woman who writes as Prairie Mary. If she actually believes any of this folderol - the lives, loves, and exquisite traumas of Eavan O'Callaghan, Kilian Sullivan, Georges de Roland, Nino Fabriano, et al - well, she's a big girl and nothing I say will change her mind.

A recent comment, though, by someone more troubled by NasTim's doings - and more victimized by his past scams - is, I think, well worth keeping in mind for anyone considering the Nastim/Barrus oeuvre. He is a fantasist, and a dark one; but is also, in some ways, a predator, out for pity, sympathy - and, at least in the past, financial gain.

I'm going to the take the liberty - for which I hope she'll forgive me - of quoting this comment in full. I hope that anyone poking around the Internet for the comings and goings of Timothy Patrick Barrus, aka Nasdijj, keeps what Linda writes in mind:

Three years later, I am both sad and sickened that Tim is up to his old tricks. Even the characters are similar (Evan vs. Eavan? Crow vs. Crew?)

I was one of Tim Barrus' early "Supporters" when he first "started" Refuge House almost four years ago. At the end of that painful journey, in early 2006, I had lost hundreds of hours of my time, every scrap of my self-respect, and $11,185. I eventually worked through the grief and shame of having a con artist work me over, but the loss of $11,185 hurts to this day. I looked into filing a claim for Fraud through the USPS Inspector General but finally decided that since Tim and his wife Tina Giovanni had nothing, I couldn't recoup something from nothing.

But, good news! It seems Tim's fortunes have changed for the better and he is now indulging in such luxuries as purchasing cases of imported drink from France (see his blog entry dated October 3). Isn't this wonderful?

So, Tim! Hey, hi! Since you can now afford these upscale items, can I now have my $11,185 returned? (I know the amount because I saved all the paypal transaction verifications, as well as the money order stubs and all the canceled checks with Tina's endorsement on them.)

I'm sure you remember: the $11,185 that I sent you over the course of fourteen months because I honestly believed I was helping you take care of sick, abused, and neglected children? I guess you now have a new batch of boys, but I remember the old ones: Crow Dog, Bane, Skylar, Evan, Michael, Dylan, Jamal, JJ, Garrett, Cameron, Simon Horse, Sean, Carlos/Fish, Zachary, Wayman, Jovan, Rico, Austin, Keith, Eli, Todd, Curt/Sky's-brother, newborn Sailor, Miguel, Alonso-now-Javier, Alejandro, Jean-Louis, Esteban, Hernando, Jacques, Bailey, Kimane, Rae-Kwon, Paki, Sol, Jimmy, Devon, Trick, Shane, Cookie, ChopShop, Demetri, Marcos, Adam (RIP), Chris (RIP), Manual (RIP), Tim (RIP), Juan (RIP), Paulo (RIP), Tyler (RIP), and Caden (RIP).

Except those boys didn't really die, did they, Tim? The boys didn't die because THE BOYS DIDN'T EXIST, except in your imagination.

Just like those poor boys you are writing about today.So I await a check, Tim! Even partial re-payment, however small, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!


I have to say that reading that really set me back. I started this blog in a spirit of rather mean fun. It's evolved, over time, into something else. I don't know how many other Lindas there are out there. I do know, though, that whatever you think about those tragic he-nymphs NasTim is so fond of, or about the tortured writing of the man himself, it's the Lindas who are the real victims. I suppose, not that there's anything noble about it, I keep an eye on him for them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think he must be feeling a little cornered - now he's actually admitting to being in North Carolina, via that weird-ass "profile" by one of his proteges.

I think my favorite of the new "boys" is the adorably illiterate Chinese one, Qi. I'm half waiting for him to write "no tickee", his Chinglish is so authentic.

And did you notice that now he's claiming that his sidekick Crew is singing imeem songs that sound suspiciously like - because they ARE - Nick Drake tracks?

Never fails to amuse...

Anonymous said...

Barrus interviewing himself...ker-aaa-zy! Don't you love how Refuge House never appears in the story? Personally, I'm waiting to see what kind of "emails from Lars" he composes.

Anonymous said...

Look out! He's mutating again. The latest craze: "guerilla education". I'm just waiting for the PayPal button to reappear, although these days he's all about having All The Money.

I do feel bad about the dog, tho...

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Anonymous said...

Well said.

Alogon said...

As a former member of the same little group of once-credulous co-bloggers as Linda (and we sometimes wondered at last whether we were the only such circle, or whether he maintained more than one, kept separate from one another as it were by a firewall) I speak from some experience in surmising that the key word in understanding Tim is "narcissism." This is a mental illness of which Dr. Alexander Lowen seems a particularly intriguing and perceptive analyst. In his view, narcissists are victims themselves, of an impossibly demanding self-image. They have enslaved themselves to it at the expense of their true selves.

If this understanding is correct, then we must expect Tim to return again and again to the same themes. Lowen believes narcissism to be the characteristic dementia of our time. Unfortunately, the prognosis for cure is not good.

It seems to me, then, that narcissists are more to be pitied than blamed, and even that at a deep level some of them, at least, mean well. Yet they are dangerous people to become involved with either emotionally or financially, because their idols are constantly seeking additional worshipers, and that is the reason they want others around them. It seems plausible to suppose, too, that a narcissist might be so besotted by his fantasies as often to misjudge the extent to which others will be taken in by them.