Back in June, DiStasio encountered an inquiring team of Lakewood Observers, who quickly deconstructed a pathogenic myth disguised as a utopian educational program. DiStasio was using alternative charter school pedagogy to mask a perverted agenda. With a charter school and sanctuary in mind, DiStasio said he wanted to create a safe place "where a child can point at a man's penis and say 'I want that', without being ridiculed by society [as victim]."
There was a very dark secret behind DiStasios obsession with child safety, privacy and religious sanctuary hidden below confusing layers of religious and mythological symbolism mixed with strands of anarchic, revolutionary thought. DiStasios dark secret needed layers of camouflage.
DiStasios alternative-minded audience seemed captive, at least before his values were laid bare by critical chops sprung from Lakewood's Open Source Civic Journalism project, the Lakewood Observer.
In the beginning the anarchic friar managed to strike a sympathetic chord with some of Lakewood's "indie" Gen X parents. The indie appeal hinged on a counter-cultural rejection of hierarchical institutions, moralizing traditions and laws. Typically a sympathetic Gen X parent was interested in home schooling. In another case, a parent was in the process of deciding the child's educational fate - public, private, charter or home school.
The common denominator joining the friars charter school myth to his "indie" target audience was longing for the most comprehensive and progressive education that could be imagined for their children. These young Gen X parents were seeking a holistic approach to childhood education.
"I invited him to speak to my mothers group. I'm a tough judge of character and I don't trust very many people. But I trusted this guy. He's slick," explains one mother, who wishes to remain anonymous.
As the self-proclaimed friar looked to set-up a charter school within Lakewood, DiStasio promised parents he could deliver the alternative education dream.
For over a year now, DiStasio has been evangelizing an alternative education program called "Class Cutters." Across the region, he has promised that his students would spend more time out in the world experiencing arts and culture, and less time memorizing "useless fact" in the "abusive" environment of our public schools. From pagan drum circles in Euclid to a self-alleged application for a position with the Lakewood City Schools, he has been relentless in pursuit of grass-roots support for his alternative educational practices, which were based out of his Wooster Road apartment in Rocky River.
On several occasions DiStasio had been spotted in Lakewood venues such as Cyber City and the Phoenix Coffee in the company of several boys between the ages of 10 to 14. In an interview, he claimed support from at least two families who had entrusted their children to his care. He claimed to enjoy financial backing from at least one partner.
At Open Mic Night in Phoenix Coffee, DiStasio advocated the legalization of marijuana as his young students looked on, brought there to experience what he called a "Dionysian" taste of culture whereby teacher and pupil study art during the day and party during the night.
DiStasio professes a weird Dionysian faith. On his website Arcadian Fields, he joins the Goat god Pan and Saint Francis. The spirit of Dionysus is present in such historical figures as Aristotle, St. Francis, Machiavelli, Quentin Crisp and Patch Adams--people who opened their lives to the point of unconditional giving and receiving, he proclaims.
Its not surprising that DiStasios profession of a weird Dionysian faith should induce panic. The kind of giving and receiving pushed as pedagogy seems rather consistent with the orgiastic flavor of the Dionysian cults from ancient Athens. The Dionysian nexus of sex and narcotics crossing gender and generations has inspired DiStasio to twist and twist further a perverse orgiastic logic into his charter school myth.
If you start with the perverse, if you started with the twisted, then everything else above that is okay," DiStasio says. Thus DiStasio attempts to frame his "inclusive" ideology through a perversely twisted cornerstone of childhood development.
http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/home.php?which=1&article_id=127
http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/home.php?which=1&article_id=127