On Valentine's Day, Steve Kazmierczak killed five people and wounded sixteen others before shooting and killing himself at Northern Illinois University. As usual after a school shooting, people hit the web searching for digital breadcrumbs and signs as to what went wrong.
As with Cho Seung-Hui and his alarming one-act plays, cyber-sleuths have dug up some interesting tid-bits, but nothing as fascinating as a rant by Jim Schaffer left on an Aphex Twin fan forum in April 2006.
steve motherfucking kazmierczak. yes thats exactly the problem here.
i was working at pirates cove in late 1995 and i was you know $4.50/hr child labor laws be damned and like i remember steve kazmierczak, the kind of kid who engaged in odd acts of fellatio with his dog, the kind of kid who'd go and masturbate in the bathroom while you were over at his house, the kind of person who injured kids on the train ride cuz he was mental and he shouldn't be given domain over kids on little faux-traincars with an aluminum baseball bat... when steve fucking kazmierczak ran up to me in late 95 early 96 proudly boasting his brand new copy of "i care because you do" like he was finally in with the cool kids.
both me and my friend joe died a little bit that day.
This is an analysis of Kazmierczak quite different from what's been written since his death. We know he had become erratic in recent weeks after he stopped taking Prozac, but most of the character analysis has been of the "Steve is the last person I would envision doing such a thing" variety and nobody saw it coming.
Except Jim Schaffer.
