When Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake went to live in the rectory at St. Mark’s Church they moved into the epicenter of the New York City conspiracy junkie scene and already suffering from paranoid delusions, they OD’d on it and Frank Morales was their pusher. Suffering from an unhealthy worldview and a persecution mania, Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake wound up with one of the few men in New York capable of feeding their worst impulses with ravings about the government, MK-Ultra and the CIA, giving that to people who already believed they were being followed everywhere was the equivalent of shooting up a heroin addict with uncut product.
The sad reality is that Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake lived sad wasted lives and demonstrates why the Warhol values of fame that worked in the late 60’s and 70’s don’t work anymore. Theresa Duncan produced three games that virtually no one ever played, had a deal for two movies that never came close to being made and made a witty satirical animated movie that a handful of people watched. Jeremy Blake was a moderately talented artist. She excelled at promoting herself and him, that worked for a while but neither of them could ever deliver anything meaningful. Her unacknowledged mental problems meanwhile went on to swallow them both as her domineering personality devoured his and spent its last bets efforts on madness, ultimately destroying them both.
That is the true story and there is nothing romantic about it. Frank Morales tried to save them in the same way that a crack dealer tries to save his customers, with more product. Theresa Duncan desperately needed mental help and Jeremy Blake needed independence, what they got instead was a social circle where crazy behavior was encouraged and 9/11 conspiracies and all sorts of raving loony mania were trendy. And in the end they died trendy deaths and are trendily remembered. Philip K. Dick would have understood.
A source writes: "Theresa was an innovator in gaming and Jeremy was a very good artist who had much success. Lisa Walker was Frank’s heroin flame. He was a heroin addict with her in the mid 1990s."
I’m struck by a disturbing relationship between believing in conspiracy theories and committing suicide. Is Danny Casoloro an example?
