Mitchell Jefferson Hort
For a long time I was just sort of drifting, you know. Surfing, kind of. Letting the current take me wherever, and it took me here. It took me to the Oldtimer and to Houdini’s ghost, and I decided you know what? Fuck letting it take me places, it’s time for me to push back a little.
Matthew John Hearst, only known photo, typed label on back reads "MJ in Seattle 1972." The enigmatic MJ Hearst appears in the credits of seven studio albums produced by Don Kirshner between 1971 and 1973, always as "rhythm guitar."
Mitchell Jefferson Hort presents as a nondescript member of the counter-culture. He keeps quiet more often than not but get him drunk enough and he'll start expounding on the topic of cops, and how they are all bastards. He has a badly-foxed Waite Rider deck on his person at all times, which he occasionally shuffles with conspicuous nonchalance, but demurs when asked to tell fortunes, unless plied with money. He only rarely starts fires with his mind, and would prefer to be called “MJ” but for whatever reason it just doesn't stick.
You want to exposit at me some more? Is this picking up from last time?
Mitch
Hot Jazz Party
0. The Fool
In essence, there are not really twenty-two trumps, there is only one — the Fool. All the other trumps live inside (and issue from) the Fool. Of all seventy-eight tarot cards, none is more revered or misunderstood.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
I. The Magus
The Magus is not only the title of the Mercurial trump that, in older decks, bears the title Magician or Juggler; it is also a title of the second highest level of spiritual illumination a human soul can attain.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
The Knight of Wands
Representing fire of fire, the Knight of Wands has the potential of being the strongest member of the court cards.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
A rough timeline.
“So, from that perspective I feel like the french fries are saying good things. And by french fries I mean the universe as a whole.”
1946
Mitchell Jefferson Hort born to war widow Mary Alice (Moore) Hort in Huntsville, Alabama.
1956
Mitch is included in a list of Cub Scouts advancing to Webelos, published in the Huntsville Times. Mitch is not included in any list of Webelos receiving the Arrow of Light between 1956 and 1958.
1964
Mitch is included in a list of graduates of Grissom High School, Huntsville, Alabama.
1965
Mitch is drafted into the US Army, undergoes basic training, and is stationed in Vietnam before the end of the year.
1967
Mitch volunteers for medical testing in a hospital at Long Binh Junction.
August 1968
Canyon Inn fire kills eight and burns more than 20,000 acres.
Early 1969
Mitch surfaces in Laurel Canyon, California, on the grounds of a former roadhouse best known as the temporary home of Frank Zappa. Contemporary reports assert Mitch claims to be able to see the future through Tarot readings, and that he predicts dire fates for Gram Parsons, Cass Elliot, and Janis Joplin among others.
Late 1969
First incident. Eleven die in a sudden fire in a grocery store at the corner of Sunset and Laurel Canyon Boulevard on October 8th, 1969. Mitch is still living at the roadhouse, giving Tarot readings in an ersatz den converted from a storeroom built into the canyon wall behind the house.
March 1970
Second incident. Fire in Nichols Canyon kills seventeen and destroys six homes.
June 1970
Third, fourth, and fifth incidents, all in the Little Armenia neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Mitch is renting a one-bedroom apartment. Total of six dead, fourteen structures destroyed.
July 1970
Mitch makes a few new friends who are in fact most of the Los Angeles SANDMAN team. They gently sound him out and start preparing him for recruitment.
December 1970
The LA SANDMAN team are all wiped out in the climax of the temblor event, eliminating the Red King’s incursion at terrible price. Mitch is not involved.
February 1971
URIEL moves to pick up the pieces in LA, and finds out about Mitch. Shorthanded and rocked by troubles, they move forward with recruiting and training him. Mitch relocates from LA to San Francisco, starts going by "MJ Hearst," and takes a job as a “night watchman” at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
June 1971
Mitch starts actively working as a field agent. His best use, it quickly becomes clear, is as a sort of bloodhound or maybe canary-in-the-coal-mine: let him loose into an area of suspected Red King activity and he’ll wander into the middle of it, surprisingly reliably. His pyrokinesis is about as much a hindrance as it is an aid, 'till yet he’d been (preternaturally) lucky and only caused the death of one civilian that he knows of.