I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, as I often find it hard to keep up with social media and tend to neglect it.
The late and somewhat great story of Grim Nasty AKA Solomon Perry. A personal account by m.g.i.
The story of Grim Nasty, also known as Solomon Perry, is a personal account of my own, as I knew him in real life and had met him. He was local to the city I live in and close friends with one of my friends. I would talk with him at different times over a period of about 15 years because of my interest in graffiti and street art culture at that time.
What brought me to remember the story of this interesting but ultimately troubled content creator is how he seemed to have gone totally insane out of nowhere one day. There have been rumors about what caused his leap into what appeared to be a realm of pathological, schizophrenic-like attachments to totally non-sequitur and loosely associated, outrageously bizarre concepts about the metaphysical world.
As amazing an artist as he was, he painted a number of murals all over Austin, particularly for different Planet K shops, which are head shops. He was a very talented graffiti artist and a skilled artist in general. At one point, he even appeared on the first season of Street Art Throwdown, a competitive street art show. He was the only Black participant on the program, if I recall correctly. From what I remember, he was nothing close to the person he became in the era of Grim Nasty TV. He was eccentric yet interesting and intelligent, always agreeable.
With that as a backdrop to the complete spiral of fantasy and retreat into an almost imagination-based worldview akin to what I hate to say would be like a child's world if they had severe neuropsychiatric delusional schizophrenia or something like that. Through his videos, of which there is a vast archive, you can see how he evolved. He started as one of those "sovereign citizens"—a type who thought he could outsmart the law and avoid paying taxes, believing he knew all the cheat codes to beat the system. But over time, his behavior devolved into things like sun-gazing and bizarre practices like removing what he called "glue" from his ears and body, specifically his head and nasal passages, using turpentine to achieve these ends, as well as drinking and bathing in turpentine. He also developed some strange associations with Mickey Mouse, unicorns, reptoids, and on and on. There is no real way for me to put this man's belief system into a paragraph; moreover, a full-size biography would probably be a feat to accomplish.
Over the years, I would occasionally tune into his Grim Nasty TV channel just to see where he was mentally, and it just kept getting more bizarre. The associations grew further and more detached from following ideas. The level of craziness kept escalating. I began to wonder: did he really get onto something with his sovereign citizen bit, and did the powers that be put something in his water bottle to drive him more and more crazy? He definitely didn't start off that way when I met him. Over time, I would check in and think, "I wonder what Solomon is up to now. Is he better or worse today?" Unfortunately, it only got worse.
The tragic ending to this story is a sad one. Solomon owned a large bus that he had converted into a mobile home. It was a school bus that he had decked out and painted, and at one point, he planned to travel to Hyperborea, believing it was the entrance to the center of the Earth located somewhere in Canada. However, after his wife left him, he was alone.
A couple of years ago, Solomon was pulled over by police in Kansas. Leading up to this tragic event, he had been making increasingly cryptic, foreboding, and ominous statements in the last 20 videos he posted. He kept talking about lighting his "third eye" on fire, saying he had broken through and was going into "Super Saiyan mode," claiming he had finally reached a higher state of being. He had been pouring turpentine into his ears and bathing in it regularly. I swear he was consuming it too.
According to reports, when he was pulled over by the police, he believed he could ignite his third eye and ascend. He thought he needed to "spark the ignition" to activate his transformation into what he called "Activated Mode," believing he was a DNA-activated individual. Tragically, because he had been soaking himself in a flammable liquid, he immediately burst into flames and died of severe burns inside the locked school bus. The police tried to get into the bus, but it was too late. He died on the side of the road in Kansas, leaving behind two childre his wife.
No matter how crazy his ideas were he was a good person at heart and did not do ill will unto anyone and was actually a very big loss for the friends that knew him and for the Austin mural legacy that is still very present in the city today. (RIP) Solomon Perry. AKA Grim Nasty
https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/25059157/solomon-lemuel-thomas-perryThe following are some of the different phases of the GrimNastyTV content rabbit hole.
REJECT AND DISCHARGE TOLL BILLS AND TICKETS IN 3 DAYS!!!!
The Hive Mind Distracted By Mickey's B Day Proved The Gov. Malicious!
How Your Life Got Screwed Pt. 1
Welcome back.. Cott-er!!! What Is The "REAL" Saturn Moon Matrix?
