Beginning now, writing this column becomes a life-threatening affair, because Stewart Brodian might be a complete maniac. The title of his spoken word album is proof enough: Misplaced Messiah. Brodian may not be dangerous now, but he seems like the kind of guy who has a little black book, filled with names collected since eighth grade. Entry 1: Billy Diegendorfer kicked me in the nuts at recess. Entry 34: Fired by Magic Fountain manager, Ed Kopeckne. Entry 98: Girlfriend Mary Jo Weems dumps me, calling me a "complete maniac." Entry 137: Jim Glauner pokes fun of me in Oculus Magazine, calling me "a complete maniac." A few months, a few years or even a few weeks from now, the subject of each entry just might begin disappearing mysteriously, one by one, their rank, rotting, dismembered body parts buried shoddily in the woods along an interstate highway.

Not that any of this is true, mind you, but it's hard to picture Brodian any other way after hearing him say things like, "If America is white and Christian, then why is the Superbowl held on a Sunday?" and "I was reading on a cereal box . . ." Nothing he says is especially scary. Some of it actually makes sense, when he manages to be coherent for a few seconds. What bothers me is that this guy actually took the time to press hundreds, maybe thousands of CDs, filled with personal rants, if one can rant in a monotone, that is. Brodian reveals almost no emotion and even less humor. He exhorts the listener to quit joking about serious issues like steroids (I'm not kidding). Basically, the guy sounds more than a little nuts.

Even before I listened to the album, the titles alone bothered me. What am I to think about a guy who records something called "Girls & Hitler" or "My Prescription For Society"? Brodian is probably no match for the Unabomber, but Misplaced Messiah is downright creepy. It's a collection of random rambles, with a treatise on racism followed by Brodian's theory that the male dinosaur parasaurolophus probably had a colored flap of skin attached to its head, like the comb on a rooster. Um, that's, uh . . . great Mr. Brodian. How `bout them Yankees? Hoo-hah.

Brodian is also one of that rare breed of person who writes letters to the president and suspects the government is forming its policy based on his opinions. He says, "In February 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a bill into law stating that it would be unconstitutional to discharge someone from the armed forces if they were found to be HIV positive or to have AIDS. I wrote a letter to the president stating this, and I said it raises a question. Sending someone into battle knowing that they have a highly contagious and deadly disease, does this violate the Geneva Convention? In other words, does this constitute germ warfare?" Brodian mentions Clinton's reversal of the bill, which prodded the Misplaced Messiah to ask, "Now I wonder, did somebody in the government receive my letter, and as of April 1, 1996, I have yet to receive any type of response." Now that I think about it, though, the government might be listening to me, too. Once I said to a friend, in a room that must have been bugged by the feds, "I think that a dumpy, lying, opinionless philanderer from Arkansas named Bill would make the perfect president."

"If Jews" only adds to Brodian's kookiness level. He talks about censorship during the Persian Gulf War and how the media weren't allowed to film scenes of dead Iraqis. True, the war was heavily censored. Brodian's premise that Jewish control of the media is a bigoted myth is also true, but he relates the two facts in bizarre fashion: "Let me appeal to your sense of bigotry. Don'tcha think a bunch of Jews would've loved to see a bunch of dead Arabs on television?" If Brodian is simply making a bad joke, you can't tell.

Just in case you cared, Brodian touches on a few points in his liner notes that he apparently forgot to record: "The new $100.00 bills look like play money. The producers of the newer Star Trek seem more interested in making the scripts/concepts weird, rather than creative or intelligent. Somebody should send a car audio guy to go over the intercom at the drive through . . . What are music videos? Each is a story with a musical backdrop. What is opera? . . . Same thing!"

Brodian also lets everyone know in the liner notes about his great contributions to American society: "I've shown a little extra effort at work—cleaning behind a counter when it's slow, for example . . . " I'm impressed. Not that Brodian cleans behind counters, but that he even has a steady job.

When I stop to think about Brodian, I realize that he's probably not as odd as he seems, and there's probably someone like him in almost every town. Thankfully, most of them don't turn their partially coherent thoughts into CDs. Cringe Factor: five, or 10 if he ends up stalking me.