When I was at Brown. In other words, I'd heard about [H.P. Lovecraft], but I didn't pay that much attention till I happened to go to a meeting about it. And then I got just totally turned on.

I was always doing paintings. I actually started painting with oil paints when I was four years old. Not crayons, not pencils and that kid of stuff. I'd paint birds. Anything that moved, stuff like that.

For years [H.P] Lovecraft was defined as an atheist. Well, he wasn't saying anything about what he really was at all. He wasn't even an agnostic. That's exactly what the situation is, in other words, when you enter an eternal realm. You've got to know there is no religion.

I mean, these are really dedicated people [in Lovecraft Society] when it comes to [h.P.] Lovecraft. But in the top floor of the John Hay Library, you have all of Lovecraft's archives. And messing around in there, I noticed, I said, what are these paintings? And the librarian told me, "Well, those are Pickman's paintings." I said, "I thought this was like something he made up, like The Necronomicon, that kind of stuff." And he said no, that the guy actually existed.

The whole theory of what Satan is, it's Lucifer, the highest of the seraphim, the bearer of God's light, who at a certain point comes to believe he is what is being revealed to him.

I always had a sense of liking diagrams, from the time I was studying architecture. Architecture is built diagrams, basically.

Long John I think went off the air in about '79 or something, so there was a hiatus. That's why I think Art Bell thought there was a spot to be filled. He was doing exactly the same thing.