In a recent hourlong report, radio show host, filmmaker, writer and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said he was “already a man” by the time he was 16 years old.
A video released by Jones Friday speaks more to his experiences during his teenage years than the topics in the title: “Alex Jones Responds to Sandy Hook Vampire.”
Jones’ assertion that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was, or may have been, a hoax, is probably the most off-putting conspiracy theory he has put forward in a career of conspiracy theorizing -- the one that, more than any other, a lot of people can’t forgive him for.
But the weekend video was way odder and more perplexing than that.
It promised new information about Sandy Hook but never provided any.
Instead, there was this:
"When I was 16, I didn't want to party anymore. I didn't want to play games anymore.
“I grew up. I’d already been in the fights; all the big rituals. I’d already had probably -- I hate to brag, but I’m not bragging, it’s actually shameful -- probably 150 women. Or more; that’s conservative. I’d already had over 150 women. I’d already been in fights with full-grown men. I was already dating college girls by the time I was 15 years old. I was already a man at 16.”
For a young man growing up in Rockwall, Texas, to have had sex with 150 women – conservatively – by the time he was 16 seems extraordinary.
But, if it’s not true, why would he say it?
And yet, if it is true, why would he say it now?
It’s the first mention of such a claim.
Here's more on Jones from a March 2010 Nate Blakeslee profile in Texas Monthly:
“Jones, the son of a dentist and a homemaker, grew up in the Dallas exurb of Rockwall and moved to Austin in 1991, where he attended Anderson High School. Jones describes himself as a ‘socially oblivious’ teenager who was more of a reader than a TV watcher.”
And from a March 2011 profile by Alexander Zaitchk in Rolling Stone:
"It was in high school that Jones discovered a corrupt, Blue Velvet underbelly to his town. At weekend parties, he watched as off-duty cops dealt pot, ecstasy and cocaine to his friends ... Things came to a head during Jones' sophomore year, when he was pulled over while driving without a license, a six-pack of beer under the passenger seat. Jones told the cop he was corrupt and had no right to enforce laws.
"'They brought me to jail,' Jones says. 'Afterward, one of the cops told me to wise up, or they'd frame me and send me away' .... For Jones, the encounter with state hypocrisy was transformative."
Well, if what Jones said over the weekend is true, Blue Velvet is about right, and he may have had more reasons than some police corruption for leaving town.
From the sound of it, Jones' experience in Rockwall wasn't The Last Picture Show. It was the Adult Megaplex.
If what Jones says is true, and Alex, a minor, had sex with more than 150 women, many of them apparently over 18, there might have come a point when it was prudent to get out of town and head to Austin.
Credit: Tamir Kalifa
Credit: Tamir Kalifa
The only other explanation for what Jones said over the weekend is that Jones is playing a character in this video – that this is an example of his penchant for satire.
But in his video around the 48-minute mark, Jones appears serious in what amounts to an illustrated lecture. He draws stick figure graphics as he speaks, illustrating how modern society has undermined the crucial, age-old natural rites of passage for young men, but how he proved a rare and stirring exception.
While talking about how he had grown up fast, Jones says that unlike his arrested-development friends he had a son by 24.
Jones turned 24 in 1998. That would that make that son 18 or 19 now. But the son who he is seeking to retain custody of in court is 14. So, if Jones had a son when he was 24, that was another son. That’s completely possible. And, he is, of course, under no obligation to tell writers when they are doing profiles of him that he has another son. However, that’s not a known detail in most coverage of Jones.
It’s just all very perplexing. All the more so because on Friday, Jones issued this statement about the trial:
“Above all this is a private matter. This is about my family and only my family. I have endeavored very faithfully for three years to keep this circumstance confidential for the sake of my children to protect their innocence.
“I urge the press to be respectful and responsible and to show due deference to the process of the law and respect the boundaries defined for this case so that a fair result can be found. As there is a gag/protective order on the trial of the safety, welfare and protection for our children’s private rights and what is in their best interests, I am holding my responses until the end of the trial.”
That does not mean that what he says in the video is a violation of gag order. He does not talk about the details of the child custody case per se – except to say how the media is attempting to use the case against him but only succeeding in driving more traffic to his site than at any time except election week 2016.
Read more at the Austin American-Statesman.
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