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Last Podcast On The Left

Episode 667: Anton LaVey Part II - Paint It Black

05 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?

1.448 - 11.104 Unknown

There's no place to escape to. This is the last. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started.

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22.373 - 31.063 Ben Kissel

All right, Marcus, you've brought a special instrument in that we have to exhibit for the audience.

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31.083 - 37.49 Marcus Parks

Yeah, this is my stylophone theremin. The antenna is a little wonky on it, so I'm just going to use the trigger on it.

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37.71 - 60.924 Ben Kissel

Just remember, before you listen to the sounds, these sounds are so powerful, so esoteric, that they in fact may drive you insane. So this is your warning. If you can't handle the theremin, you shut off the radio right now. I mean, they can't handle it because it's, you know, weird.

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62.266 - 101.571 Unknown

I like the theremin because it's the only instrument you can play with your asshole. Someone help me with my pants. Oh, no. I am running out of blood pressure medication. Oh, what a horrible set of circumstances. Where is my heroin? Where is my cake? Where is my career? You are not fit to smell my shit. I look at the theremin as the reason people don't use an orchestra to score a film.

102.563 - 103.084 Unknown

You don't need it.

Chapter 2: What unique instrument does Marcus bring to the podcast?

103.184 - 103.906 Unknown

You don't need it at all.

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103.926 - 104.928 Henry Zebrowski

Don't need to have it, dude.

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105.108 - 121.924 Marcus Parks

Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks, badly playing the theremin. Here with me is Henry Zebrowski, the man who's just sitting there letting his tongue hang out of his mouth like half his brain isn't working.

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121.984 - 148.197 Ben Kissel

It isn't. and i love the theremin because it sounds like a ghost having an orgasm but also anton lave is the only unionized theremin player that was ever in any of these you all of these musician unions he was the only ever full-on union man theremin a true con man yeah

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149.155 - 158.848 Marcus Parks

Hey, the theremin is one of the most difficult instruments to play in existence. What are you talking about? You should listen to... That was great what you just did.

158.868 - 160.47 Ben Kissel

Dude, listen to real theremin.

160.611 - 175.27 Marcus Parks

Listen to Clara Rockmore. Clara Rockmore? Listen to Clara Rockmore. It will blow your fucking mind out of the back of your skull. All right. And we have the man who's getting into theremin music over the next week. It's Ed Larson. Oh, how's everyone doing?

175.61 - 187.6 Unknown

I have a question. Is this 666 or 667? This is 667. 667. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But the thing. Well, 6-7 is the thing.

187.62 - 194.005 Ben Kissel

If this was episode 6-7, we would do this. But it's not episode 6-7. It's 6-6-7, which is a number most Zoomers can't count to.

Chapter 3: How did Anton LaVey's circus experience shape his persona?

861.313 - 877.905 Marcus Parks

And usually, and that's the thing is that it was actually so disappointing that usually the sideshow performers would also have like a secondary act. So you would walk in and they wouldn't just be like, oh, you know, here's a couple of conjoined twins. They'd always be like, oh, here's two conjoined twins who also know how to play the fiddle and sing.

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877.885 - 901.046 Ben Kissel

Yeah, of course, because that's a show. That's your show. And like, we just watched The Elephant Man last night and I cried watching it. God, I fucking love that movie. We just forgot that was the whole thing. It's the guy who ran Anderson's story. Yes, yes. And it's about him searching for pants. It's four and a half hours long. They go to Macy's, JCPenney's, Burlington Coat Factory.

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902.267 - 907.892 Ben Kissel

But The Elephant Man, that was the whole thing. He didn't have to because of just how he was the only one that wasn't underwhelming.

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907.872 - 908.353 Marcus Parks

No.

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908.393 - 909.556 Ben Kissel

He was the closer.

909.736 - 925.351 Marcus Parks

Yeah, the elephant man was a good old Joseph Merrick. But Bill Dirk's... I've never experienced the love of a woman. It's the saddest death of all. It really is. Do you know how the Elephant Man died?

925.392 - 942.286 Unknown

Yeah, well, I watched the Bradley Cooper stage version. That was fucking awful. Yeah, so he died by the... Was that the reviews after the fact? I was so close, I literally went, at one point, and I covered my mouth. Oh, live theater. No way they can see me.

942.306 - 958.191 Marcus Parks

Well, Bill Dirks, he actually just had a severe cleft palate that went all the way up to splitting his nose in two. But to give the full two-faced illusion, he was known as the two-faced man, he would paint a third eye on his forehead to sell the act fully. That's fucking awesome.

958.752 - 966.444 Unknown

It's like, I'm not enough. I'm talking about lack of confidence. It's like, I'm not ugly enough. Trust me, buddy. You're ugly.

Chapter 4: What unique features did Anton LaVey's house include?

3163.902 - 3172.879 Marcus Parks

I mean, I know there's a fucking antique store in Pasadena right now that's selling a skeleton for like $2,000. I mean, I know it's expensive, but it's not hard to get.

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3173.4 - 3181.174 Unknown

I would love, I want my skeleton to end up in a classroom somewhere just so like some kid would steal my arm one day. Look what I've got, old Eddie's pinkie.

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3182.808 - 3199.491 Marcus Parks

Well, they also installed a trick bookcase that connected their purple painted sitting room with their bedroom, a replica of King Tut's sarcophagus in the living room that also led to their bedroom, and a trap door in a fake fireplace that led to the basement. That must have been so much fun to do. Was it a slide?

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3199.772 - 3200.853 Unknown

I know.

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3201.374 - 3214.67 Marcus Parks

I hope so. I don't know. It was probably a net at the end. Well, basically, I mean, he turned his house into a carnival. It was a spook house. The whole thing is a carnival spook house. Because in my view, just about everything, it just keeps coming back to the carnival.

3215.05 - 3230.348 Marcus Parks

For another example, when Diane and Anton had their daughter, they named her after a character from the carny novel Nightmare Alley. This child, perhaps one of the most infamous children in occult history, was Xena. But her part in the story will come later.

3230.328 - 3253.77 Marcus Parks

By 1960, after LaVey and Diane turned the Black House into a funhouse for the occult, Anton began formalizing the magical lectures he'd been giving casually at Magic Circle gatherings. He held these formal lectures every Friday night at midnight in his red-walled living room. Eventually, LaVey opened these lectures to the public, charging $2.50 per person.

3253.75 - 3276.062 Marcus Parks

These Friday night occult lectures came to be known as the First Black Masses, which were intended to be an inversion of the Catholic Mass. Instead of speaking on biblical subjects, LaVey would give lectures on vampirism, lycanthropy, sideshow freaks, torture methods, sex theories, recipes for aphrodisiacs, gland transplants on monkeys or goats. God!

3276.042 - 3301.543 Marcus Parks

cool zombies haunted houses esp homunculi basically it's what people like us have been doing with podcasts for the last 15 years but in lecture form yeah and he did it in a cool ass house with the guy dressed up as the devil you're all hanging out it's awesome yeah did he do was he like playing the organ and stuff while he did it too i mean sometimes he played the organ yeah but yeah but mostly yeah they were just these like formalized lectures like hey i just i studied vampires all week here's what i learned about vampires

Chapter 5: How did Anton LaVey conduct his magical lectures?

3319.9 - 3342.032 Marcus Parks

The supposed leg was cooked in fruit juice, grenadine, and triple sec, and served with fried bananas, yams, tonka bean wine, and caterpillars. And after a lecture on cannibalism was given, it was said that while some in the magic circle were squeamish about eating caterpillar, they had no problem feasting on human flesh. But if we're being realistic here, it was probably just pork.

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3342.233 - 3348.083 Ben Kissel

It was pork. Because in the end, we all know that he doesn't believe in human sacrifice. That whole thing, it's just like a funny thing to do.

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3348.324 - 3350.688 Unknown

But it wasn't sacrifice. It just stole the leg.

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3350.708 - 3360.775 Marcus Parks

No. Yeah, I think they said it was like it had been amputated or something like that. It's not real. It's not real, yeah. Although it could be. I'd like to think that it could be.

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3360.856 - 3363.222 Ben Kissel

Well, to me, the idea of...

3363.708 - 3386.83 Ben Kissel

like the idea that because i held a cannibal dinner and there's something about that where it's way it's more fun to just be like we're cannibals like then you don't have to worry about it just fun if it looks like people yeah yeah yeah you shouldn't you shouldn't eat people no just because it can lead to brain problems you get a prion disease yeah that's the main issue same thing with don't eat dolphin either yeah a lot of too much mercury that's right that's the main issue

3387.333 - 3406.54 Marcus Parks

Now, once Anton LaVey started opening his home to the public, he also completely transformed his look in 1966. Looking to copy the style of medieval executioners, carnival strongmen, and black magicians like Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey shaved his head, donned a cloak, and shaped his goatee into an aggressive point.

3406.56 - 3415.692 Marcus Parks

Now, LaVey claimed that he did this to mimic the Faustian depiction of Mephistopheles, who's usually seen as the devil's liaison or the devil's agent. Or cat.

Chapter 6: What role did Jane Mansfield play in the Church of Satan?

3415.993 - 3432.036 Marcus Parks

Yeah. But it has been noted that Anton LaVey may have taken inspiration from a far less highfalutin source. Instead of Faust, it's speculated that Anton LaVey took his look from Don Rickles.

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3432.156 - 3439.888 Henry Zebrowski

Yes, he did. Of course he did. That fucking hockey puck. Yeah, well, you want to look good. You know, you got to look like the man. Yes.

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3441.05 - 3445.858 Ben Kissel

I'm Polish. That's what my father used to do every time he saw Don Rickles.

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3445.923 - 3464.842 Marcus Parks

Just about a month before Anton LaVey debuted his new look in 1966, Don Rickles had appeared as a supernatural villain in an episode of a now-forgotten espionage Western TV show called The Wild Wild West, which I watched a little bit of it. Kind of seems like a cross between Mission Impossible and Gunsmoke.

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3465.062 - 3465.563 Unknown

Interesting.

3465.844 - 3466.986 Marcus Parks

Yeah, it's interesting.

3466.966 - 3469.428 Unknown

Whoa, he's so funny looking in this.

3469.488 - 3470.91 Marcus Parks

Yeah. Oh, my God, Eddie.

3471.47 - 3475.194 Ben Kissel

I've never seen him with a mustache.

Chapter 7: How did Anton LaVey's actions relate to Jane Mansfield's tragic fate?

3553.354 - 3562.92 Unknown

That's better? Have you heard about this? Anyway. Anyway.

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3564.638 - 3586.602 Marcus Parks

Now, while Anton LaVey was certainly getting attention for all this occult imagery, he was also gaining local notoriety in San Francisco in the mid-1960s as the Big Cat Guy. This kind of tells you, like, what San Francisco was about in the 60s. God, it's just so much fun. Yeah. See, in 1964, his leopard Zoltan, I mean... Cat's a cat, no matter if it's big or small.

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3586.982 - 3588.845 Marcus Parks

Cats sometimes run out of the house when you open the door.

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3589.186 - 3589.867 Ed Larson

Of course they do.

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3590.187 - 3593.072 Marcus Parks

This time, Zoltan ran out of the house, got hit by a car.

3593.152 - 3599.341 Ben Kissel

It's a fucking leopard. It's different than a cat. It's definitely way different than a cat.

3599.361 - 3601.545 Marcus Parks

No, a cat's a cat. You leave the door open, cat's going to get out.

3601.645 - 3603.067 Ben Kissel

A leopard's 150 pounds.

3603.408 - 3607.634 Marcus Parks

It's pretty big. I can only imagine also the person who hit the cat.

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