drawing
Originally uploaded by fit of pique.

This is a drawing I did in my last life that no one really understood. Anyway, when I looked at it again recently I laughed for like, twenty minutes.

Me
Originally uploaded by fit of pique.

This is what I looked like when I was a boy.

Dream – 1992

I sometimes have prophetic kinds of dreams, and then sometimes they are just bizarre. I had this incredibly vivid dream when I was fourteen. In it I was walking in a wheat field with my then quite little cousin Sharlene when we came to this door just standing in the middle of nowhere. So of course we went in, and then there were two tunnels, and one was like, the good tunnel, and the other was the evil tunnel. And Sharlene of course jumped into the evil tunnel (this made sense later on when I saw our similarities). So I jumped in after her.

And we ended up in this really dark land, it was so eerie, but then at the same time we met these two women, and one was the “light” kind of woman and the other one was the “dark” woman (I mean like hardcore leather empress type person). But they weren’t fighting, in fact they said they quite liked each other and that they wanted me to tell people that the two could coexist just fine.

I also found out then I was supposed to be with the hardcore leather empress type person, which makes a lot of sense. Anyway, that gave me something to think about for a long time. Fourteen years actually. But yeah, I think two opposites can be perfectly happy together, whether that’s romantic or not. I do think you need to be empathic if you want to coexist though.

In fact I heard that the Koran says when Muhammad comes back he’ll be hanging out with Jesus. That’s the thing, Islam does incorporate elements of Christianity too, it’s silly to say Muslims hate Christians because they have Jesus in their book too, just with a smaller part. Likewise Christianity is rooted in Judaism, and Judaism has connections to Zoroastrianism. They’re all intertwined in various ways, all religions really. And even Revelations has a whole chakra thing written into it, I mean this stuff has deep connections everywhere. And while Mayans had safe sane consensual bloodletting, Christianity also has communion. So you can start to see some similarities there anyway.

The Ethics of Vampirism

I’m trying to figure out a way to talk of spiritual things in a time when spirituality has been so misused. I think I figured it out. I like Christianity because it has some interesting stories, but I like all religions really, and too many things have been done in the name of Jesus. Let’s put him away for a while in case someone blows the poor dude up, if they haven’t already.

The problem with spirituality today, as I see it, is that people haven’t developed their own moral compass yet, because it’s too easy to think of life in polar opposites. So I think I will go back to probably my favorite spiritual understanding of life by talking about vampirism.

I guess I’ll explain why first. Vampires do exist, in all kind of forms, and they don’t always do the blood thing. A lot of people are psychic vampires, which is when I get annoyed, because they just indiscriminately drain energy without realizing they’re being unethical. One type of psychic vampire I always run into are people who demand I talk to them without letting me talk about what I’m thinking. Bleh. Fuck off yous.

I think that a common kind of vampirism is empathy. People don’t know it’s vampiric, I mean, often you just can’t shut that stuff out. Kids in high school who go all “emo” are usually reacting that way because they can feel everyone’s hateful surface thoughts. I get the surface thoughts all the time, which is why I like to be alone. If I have to I can hack my way into some peoples minds and wander around, and say things just to toy with them if I really want to, although eventually I have just gotten to the point where if I stumble on an icky thought or memory I don’t usually persist. If I use it well I can tell people what they need to know though. I have seen other people’s memories of horrible things and that’s always hard. I had to break up with someone once because I started dreaming her past. So for gifted people especially who have empathy, learning about vampirism is useful in that it can give you a kind of discipline you might not have otherwise. Especially if every time you stumble across a surface thought it’s like a “You’re a disgusting human” ugh. Yeah, then you REALLY need to learn about vampires.

The thing about basically all spirituality is that you’re always supposed to find your own way through it. In pantheist religions all the gods and goddesses had various quirks, they didn’t always do what was right, it was kind of wild and you really just had to take what you could from them and come to your own conclusions. And it’s very much the same with vampires.

I don’t read peoples minds unless it’s a matter of urgency, honestly, I don’t want to know most of what people are thinking. My four years post hospital was hard because I could always read various surface feelings judging my identity. I was really irritated when people seemed fine with me being a stupid crazy person, ugh, that’s fucking sick!! So yeah, uh, oh right, surface thoughts.

Animals have empathy too. During massive wars you can see them change. In fact right now there’s a growing concern in the states with the total disappearance of honeybees. Where did they go? I dunno. Maybe they had to flee the country?

Dracula is probably the most well known vampire story, but you might be surprised to know that Dracula is actually a reworking of an older story, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. It was only 20 years older than Dracula, but it still influenced the writing quite a bit. And it was originally about lesbians.

In Carmilla a young girl by the name of Laura has a visitation in the night by a beautiful woman who seduces her and then bites her. Years later they meet, and strike up a romantic friendship. Although I hate that name, romantic friendship, they were courting. Two girls courting. And one was a very sensual vampire, who of course got chased away by the father with an axe in the end. I mean, for a coming out story it had everything, pathos, sex, pain, loss, uncertainty. And of course parental units mucking up a relationship. I think you could look at the story from all kinds of angles, like that parents should say who their children can and can’t date (if you’re that repressive) or that parents should stay out of their kid’s lives because whatever Laura and Carmilla were doing, they were terribly in love. We never find out what Laura thought later about having no girlfriend at all because of over zealous vampire hunters. I’m sure she married some guy, but she probably always remembered her cryptic lover.

Anyway, that’s one story, that’s actually the original story for why lesbians and vampires always seem to go together. Always! Not always, but I do know a lot of lesbians wonder where that vampire thing comes from. Well there you have it, it comes from the pre-Dracula story.

I think after I dealt with a really traumatic learning environment, vampires were what brought me out of it. I felt victimized by being both rejected AND being able to read minds, so I naturally turned to the Vampire Chronicles and all the music and the movies and the clothes and so on and so forth. It was about being rejected AND being intensely powerful, with a strange gift. I mean, that was the best thing about vampires is that you had to develop your own moral compass with it. And it was really a hardcore spiritual concept to grok. I mean, it was so vast, and people who made mistakes had to live with their repercussions forever.

Louis in Interview With A Vampire is a good primer, because he is a sweet little moral compass. He is always filled with doubts and he won’t even feed off of humans for ages because it disturbs him, so he lives off rats for a while. And then he’s stuck in this intensely abusive relationship with Lestat, and he has no idea how to leave him because he also doesn’t know anything about any other vampires. He’s isolated, like a lot of people in abusive situations. And then when he is going to leave, Lestat does the most manipulative thing by making Claudia a vampire, even though she’s a kid, because kids can save marriages! I mean, it’s a fallacy, but it was interesting to see that even someone who was like, five hundred years old or whatever, would still do a stupid thing like that. And then Claudia herself is an interesting character because she can’t ever grow up and she flips out hardcore about it. I mean, she’s a grown woman in a kids body who just wants other vampires to treat her like an equal instead of a little doll, and for some reason they never get it. She’s so passionate and becomes such a ridiculously good hunter, with no compunction about killing because she has mostly only known that. And then Louis has to figure out how to take a stand but he is just so overwhelmed with the immense persona that is Lestat.

The really cool thing about the Vampire Chronicles is that Anne Rice seeks out amazingly accurate historical detail. So even though there are all these fabulous supernatural characters, they are still living in very well detailed historical periods. She also wrote the Sleeping Beauty series, which, uh, well yeah, that’s the fun sex stuff.

Anyway, the world of vampires is fascinating because they had very sensual tastes and because you always had to learn who to trust, you couldn’t just strike up a friendship with ANYBODY who was a vampire. It was about negotiating ethics, and the fact that they were dark characters to begin with took away that moral imperative. You can’t say Louis is the hero, because he is so indecisive at times, but you can’t say Lestat is the hero either because he makes impulsive mistakes. They all had flaws here and there. And some vampires were violent and some were seductive and you know, you really had to think about what you would do in that situation.

But I think what I liked the best about vampires was the concept of eternity, because you really had to think about how things could impact your life FOREVER! That’s intense man. And what I liked most about it is that sometimes you could go back and make amends, I mean, it was hard, but eventually Louis and Lestat did reach some kind of detente because they had to! They were in a small global community, there was no way to just ignore each other always. Something had to give in both of them.

What else was I going to say about vampires? Oh lots, I suppose, but right now I just want to deal with the mythic concept of them. I think it’s a useful thing to look at for people who do start having past life memories, because in a way it’s a transpersonal philosophy.

I think letting New Orleans die was the worst mistake ever. Do you have any idea how many Vampires consider that place Mecca? I was so pissed when it all went down, because I always wanted to go to New Orleans. I mean, how could you not, it was a sexy and mysterious city, and it featured prominently in the Vampire Chronicles, along with other gothic literature. I was going to go to the La Laurie House and traipse about the cemeteries and eat crawdads. I don’t know about the crawdad part, I think I just felt obliged to throw that in.

The funny thing about vampirism is that so many people do it unconsciously and yet it’s only when people are upfront and overt about it that people get freaked out. I’ve watched ethical vampires feeding, they can be really sweet. I mean, it’s totally about sex, which is why people don’t do it in places you can see, but sometimes you’ll stumble on a funny little place where they tend to congregate. And when it’s ethical vampirism both people are getting off on it, which is what I like. I’m all into consensual things. And often vampirism has nothing to do with actual blood, which is what confuses people. I mean, there are people who do the blood thing, but that’s way advanced, and tricky in an age of blood borne diseases. I mean, you have to be really fucking sure that both people are monogamous to go there, and lots of people are unsure of things like that. Which is funny because it seems like people have unsafe sex willy nilly still, but somehow no one sees that as being at the same level of danger as blood play. I can’t believe I’m talking to you people about blood play! That makes me so shy. I don’t know though why Angelina Jolie, who was so open and upfront about doing blood play, got more criticism for something consensual than Bush did about sending all kinds of unstable young men and women to a country with guns.

I shouldn’t say all soldiers are unstable though. But I do feel badly for the ones who really did think they were going to defend their country and instead watched all kinds of atrocities unfold. I think that kind of post traumatic stress is really hard to work through, and even harder if someone places a blanket of hate on ALL soldiers. There are a lot of veterans of this war who are completely opposed to it, which is something people should remember. But that’s different than saying all of them were good soldiers who have to be supported unilaterally.

Just like vampires. You can never say people are good just because they are vampires. But you can at least notice if they have ethics around it and why or why not.

Oh yeah, one more thing

A while back I talked about seeing this massive dark and angry cloud coming over this way from the Middle East and I had no idea what it was. But I think I know now. I think it’s the dead, unfortunately. I don’t know what they’re going to do when they get here or who will see them. I mean, it’s one of those invisibles things. If you do run into something unearthly, just ask it who it is and what it wants. It’s not always coming to run you down into hell. You can negotiate with them too. But whatever, don’t worry about that, it’s just a heads up.

White Propaganda

I have no compunction about being the source of propaganda, but I am committed to truth as best as I know it, which means sometimes you can see me cycling through a thought.

The only bad things in lightness or darkness are when either of those poles has no emotions, no empathy. Empathy is our own personal moral compass. Sometimes people get angry with empathy and that looks funny. And sometimes empathy comes out in different ways according to what level you are at.

I guess, I’m at a different level now, and I like it. I don’t feel ashamed for exposing anything involving someone’s loss of life and liberty. You can’t keep that stuff private.

So I am into white propaganda. This is the definition of white propaganda:

“White propaganda is propaganda which truthfully states its origin. It is the most common type of propaganda. It is the opposite of black propaganda, which purports to come from the opposite side to that which actually produced it.”

Thank you America

Statement from Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)

The United States has never been as unpopular in the world as it is now. We have flouted the very legal protections that we have sought to export to the rest of the world. We have undermined international human rights standards that we helped create, and which we have used to press other nations to protect the rights of their citizens.

I’ve been briefed on our surveillance, counter-terrorism, and interrogation programs. I’ve been to Guantanamo Bay three times. And I can tell you that a clear legal framework would empower – not limit – those who fight the War on Terror. We would ensure those who act on our behalf that they are doing so legally.

Congress had the opportunity to get this right last year, when we considered the Military Commissions Act. Some of our Members – Senators McCain and Graham among them – made valiant efforts to produce a bill that was consistent with our core values. But the White House prevailed, and the resulting legislation did little more than codify the rules already in place.

The two bills that Congressman Nadler and I introduced today would roll back certain provisions of the Military Commissions Act. The “Habeas Corpus Restoration Act” would reaffirm the right of habeas corpus, which allows all those detained by the government to challenge their detention before an independent court. The right – which dates back to the Magna Carta -is as central to the American conception of liberty as any other in the Constitution.

The “Restoring the Constitution Act” goes further, restoring a host of rights and procedural protections stripped away by the Military Commissions Act. The bill narrows the vague and potentially limitless applicability of the Military Commissions Act. It affirms the importance and applicability of the Geneva Conventions. It prohibits the use of coerced testimony, and gives the trial judge more discretion to ensure a fair trial.

We all want the United States to use all tools at its disposal to fight terrorism and protect our interests. But we must do so under the rule of law, and in a manner consistent with our values. These bills are an important course correction.

Why polarized interpretations of Revelations doesn’t work

Okay dudes, seriously, this is why you don’t fuck around with the Revelations story.

It’s about two people in love who are switches. And they just keep changing back and forth, over thousands of years, playing with these funny little ideas. But if you take it seriously and keep those two people from playing it together in private, they do have the pull to start playing it out in the real world. It’s an argument, a private argument, and it looks silly because it involves all these dramatic symbols. But if someone were to snoop and get obsessed with that argument, you can get into serious shit. Especially if you try to have the argument yourselves, because you don’t know how to switch positions, which is important to understand the argument. You can’t possibly negotiate power if you always stay in one spot, because then it’s non-negotiable and you get stuck. Which is why forgiveness and apologies are important, because otherwise you’re always going to remain fixed in one position and you won’t realize when someone starts having to top you from the bottom or vice versa. Worse than that, if you stumble across someone else’s submissive and start fucking with them, then eventually you’re going to have to tangle with their dominant. And dominants hate when other people bother their stuff. And of course it can always switch back. You really don’t know who’s running the show when you deal with a couple who switches.

Switching Gears

You know, I always planned to switch this blog project from lowbrow to high brow, so if you can’t understand a word I’m saying, give up. It’s not going to happen. I’ve been saying the same thing in various ways, but at this point I don’t really care about talking to anyone except other profoundly gifted people. And they are a funny breed of people, so intense, I love them. I wish I could show you some of my older blog writings when I was more bitter, but I don’t know what disc they are on. All I can say is that I’m unable to talk about only trivial things anymore. If you want to have a conversation with me you need to be able to talk about at least one deep thought. I don’t care what it is about, I just need that one deep thought so I can actually carry on a decent conversation. Otherwise I feel drained, it’s taking from me and not giving back, and I’m tired of always giving. So if I’m being bitchy it’s because certain people have become dreadfully boring these days.

I don’t know why people are willing to throw in the towel on the world itself, I can understand throwing in the towel on certain people with no emotions, but the world? Come on! There are some gorgeous things in the world. Like sun rises, and the sound of the ocean, and being kissed by someone you’re truly in love with, and music and dancing and passion and art and those intense people who can’t abide less than genius. The only thing I dislike about the world is being judged by people who don’t understand. I can’t help that I naturally need to spend huge amounts of time alone, I quite like being alone actually. That’s the only time that I get to play with all my deep thoughts, because otherwise I end up trying to make dumb chit chat. Honestly, sometimes I have considered making cue cards to talk with “normals.” It would go something like:

1. That is a nice sweater.
2. It is very chilly today.
3. Don’t you love olives?
4. I think Britney still likes K Fed.
5. Did you see this cup?

Oh man, that is so freakin’ boring!!!! No wonder people are going on a rampage, this is a world of boring nothingness now. Who can handle that? Honestly, who can ever be content with the world of the mundane? Obviously a lot of people. Being boring drives me to insanity, I cannot abide it in any form! I think one of the reasons I liked Vancouver so much is because for quite a while the video art there was intensely personal and political, and that kind of artistic drive and passion was damned addictive. And some really amazing art has come out of that part of the world, it’s phenomenal really. Plus Emily Carr is there, and I always wanted to go there. I miss that, it’s one of the few places I felt normal, in a weird way. There was nothing wrong about being an intensely creative person.

I’m starting to realize that to do the intensely brilliant work I intend in my life, I might have to let a lot of people go. I don’t know, that’s sad. But I am pretty much at secondary integration in my positive disintegration process, and that means I can’t be the little fuck up they got used to having around. I don’t think they can let go of that for some reason. I wish they could. Everyone changes. Change is a good thing. I was more understandable when I was drugged for four years, because finally I was at an IQ more common to people. But god that was awful!! Oh man, I can’t ever not be profoundly gifted again for anyone. It’s worth way too much to me. And I refuse to be a sacrifice for anybody. Go find some other sacrificial lamb.

Zero tolerance for the boring and stupid

******Seriously dudes, this is normal for me. I keep having people run up and be like “What is wrong with you!” And honestly, I’m perfectly fine. I was fucked up for four years, but people assumed that was normal. Pretty fucking sick that. Anyway, introversion is NOT the same as shyness or being scared, it’s just a natural process in doing intensive creative work. But obviously what I say doesn’t matter to a lot of people, so here’s a globe and mail article.*******

Zero tolerance for the boring and stupid
TV on the Radio front man Tunde Adebimpe says to really create you must spend a lot of time alone — and behave like you’re 15

SIMONA RABINOVITCH

Special to The Globe and Mail

MONTREAL — TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe sits in the venue dressing room hours before these next-big-thing Brooklyn art-rockers hit the Montreal stage. Wearing jeans and oversized tortoiseshell glasses, wrapped in a hooded sweatshirt, he comes across as unpretentious, genuine and secret-weapon charismatic. Meet the front man of a musically undefined band making it on its own creative terms.

“The older I get, my tolerance level for things that are boring or cruel or stupid just goes down more and more and more,” the 32-year old says. “Any sort of lifestyle that will surpass that is what I’m aiming for.”

So far, so good. Music authority Spin magazine pronounced TVOTR’s second full-length disc, Return to Cookie Mountain, as album of the year for 2006. Fan David Bowie makes a cameo. The band also made headlines with the Internet release of Dry Drunk Emperor, a song protesting the governmental response to hurricane Katrina.

For TV on the Radio, imagination rules and all forms of self-expression, political and personal, are connected and essential to growth. In fact, Adebimpe told Spin that Return to Cookie Mountain was “about change through imagination put into action.”
Print Edition – Section Front

Like his bandmates, Nigerian-born Adebimpe is committed to producing and consuming art in various incarnations. He moonlights as an actor, visual artist and stop-motion animator trained at New York University. (He directed the Pin music video for fellow Brooklynites the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and once worked as an animator on MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch.) “There are some things that the only way to confront them, for me, is by making something, whether it’s on a piece of paper, or in song form. You go through something and you get to document it,” says Adebimpe, his long, caterpillar-like fingers gesturing to a sketchbook on the table. He grins. “I doodle all the time.”

TV on the Radio was born around 2001 when Adebimpe, broke and living in a Brooklyn loft, met struggling producer David Sitek, also a painter, blogger, and photographer. (Sitek now produces for TVOTR and bands such as Massive Attack, Liars and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.) The duo experimented with four-track recordings and performing in local bars, doing weird stuff like handing out instruments to the audience and beatboxing — the latter of which they still do, and well. They eventually recruited guitarist and songwriter Kyp Malone (who also acts and takes photographs), then drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith, a former flamenco-guitar busker on the New York subway.

With two film projects and a book of paintings in the works, Adebimpe says that different art forms stimulate different insecurities. “When I make paintings and comics, I’m a lot less worried about if anyone gets it. With music, especially with lyrics, you find yourself looking at words on paper that might be touchstones for you but could be completely meaningless to somebody else.”

He chuckles. “I’d like to test that theory, like completely and totally, by just writing and not worrying about it. I know what the fear is with that, too; it could just be total gibberish, but then, gibberish is . . . well, I’ve definitely been moved by things that later someone told me, ‘Nah, it’s just words; I was just rhyming.’ ” The real question is, how can someone so analytical and self-aware maintain such a direct connection to the figurative playground that art comes from? Damned if Adebimpe knows. But he’s learned it has something to do with perspective; with seeing the world with a sense of wonder.

“Most people I’ve really admired have told me that the way they respond to the world emotionally probably hasn’t changed since they were about 15.”

Solitude is another necessity. “Even when I’m doing a million things, I have to take that time to just, honestly, do nothing. To lie on your back and think about things — and then turn them into something else.”

This theory was recently validated when he saw director David Lynch speak in a bookstore. “He said something so simple, but it was great to hear someone whose stuff you like so much say it; that the creative life requires a lot of being alone, and even if you’re not calling it a creative life, if you’re a person who needs to be alone so you can function on a daily basis, so you can process things. That’s the hardest thing to get people who are close to you to understand.”

Has Adebimpe experienced that personally? “Yeah, totally,” he says with a laugh. “I can show you the crash-and-burn marks from about four different times when it was like, ‘I love you, but I guess I love the potential me more than I love your idea of how we should be a two-headed beast.’ “

On stage, this beast has five heads. Flanked by Malone and Sitek (who is stone-faced behind horn-rimmed glasses, wind chimes dangling from his guitar), Adebimpe is dancing it up free and uninhibited, lost in the storm of music and noise. A few songs in, the guys are drenched in sweat and wipe it off with locker-room towels. Grinning, Adebimpe swings a towel over his head and tosses it into the screaming crowd: part camp, part charisma, all rock ‘n’ roll.