Democratic Process

It’s easy for me to just sit around saying how we should all listen to each other without putting my money where my mouth is, although I have no money. So I have opened the floor of this blog to twelve other people who I know, to write about how to change the world or things they have noticed or whatever. I will let them introduce themselves if they choose to. I don’t know how many will take me up on the offer, but I am terribly curious and I do need a break. I’ll still write, but I am so tired of being the only one here. So here they are, whatever they say I’m sure will be important because they all have interesting stories behind themselves. They can fill in the gaps that I have missed.

Rewrites

There’s this rewritten history okay. Like people assume that the Jews didn’t know that they were going to be gassed, like they just wandered into a shower room. They always knew. They knew what was happening to them. But they didn’t know how to stop it. Do you know what they did on their way to the gas chambers? They would start saying their prayer for their Messiah. All the way on the long walk they would sing that prayer. And they tore up all the money they had with them on the way so that it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Nazis. All the way, tearing up their bills and calling for their Messiah.

Your messiahs have never left you, they have always been there going through the exact same thing. You just didn’t notice. And there isn’t just two, there are thousands of them right now, all wondering how the hell to stop it. They don’t tell you who they are because they know what happens to prophets in this day and age.

Once I had a dream I stole Paul Bernardo’s car. And I was driving around in this black Lexus and suddenly I was like “Fuck! Of all the cars to steal! He’s going to kill me.” And who knows, maybe he will, but what a way to go!

I know I seem disappointed in a lot of people, but really I do get it, I know how this whole thing works. And I don’t see anything wrong with power structures as long as people know what is up with them and how they can work properly. Otherwise you do end up with bizarre shit happening. I mean the walking dead and aliens! That is just outre. But whatever works man.

Life is beautiful okay, it is a stunningly gorgeous thing. And love is always beautiful, no matter who it is between. We’re all different, but that’s a cool thing, who would want us to be all exactly the same? That’s far too difficult. And people always make mistakes because people are faillable, that’s just part of the human condition.

And your children, pretty much all of them are gifted right now, which is why they’re acting all funny. I mean, they are here to heal their parents, that’s intense! And they keep being given all these drugs to stop acting oddly and people keep talking about what is age appropriate and you just don’t know anymore. Some of these kids are so ancient, you would not believe it.

How embarrassing

You know, I really was just making a movie. I had no idea all this would happen when I started. You have to admit though, it is a good ending. I hope you people are okay. I really didn’t know I left the war machine on while I was medicated, I mean I did remember I had lost internet contact for half a year or so due to poverty. But I had no way of getting back in touch in any regular sort of way so I ended up doing weird things. Anyway, yes, psychiatry works because it does destroy brains, which I guess is what the point was. So there you go.

But you can also recover from that, it’s just odd, and also sometimes people don’t allow other people to leave it behind, I mean a LOT of coercion and force is used in keeping people on pills.

You know how people get nervous when someone starts pacing, and how people pathologize that? Do you know, after working in two law offices I can tell you that when lawyers start thinking they pace. It’s true, they pace all the way around their offices over and over and over talking into little machines for HOURS. It’s just how people use their thought process sometimes. You can’t MAKE someone sit and stop fidgeting, because sometimes moving around is how they learn or think, which is why so many kids are on ritalin. But they need to move around.

I have a best friend who has been teaching inner city kids and she’s got some amazing insights into how to change learning environments for them. She’s a goof so the kids really like her, but she doesn’t take bullying at all. She is such an amazing elementary school teacher, she goes above and beyond the call of duty, to the point of visiting parents. And one thing she’s noticed about kids who need to move all the time is that if you let them chew gum in class it stops them from getting all wiggly. I should actually get her to start blogging, because she has some revolutionary ideas about how to reach kids these days, especially inner city kids. And she’s trying to think of ways to talk about spirituality in a completely non-denominational way. She likes Born Again church stuff, but she’s never pushed it on anyone else, and I mean yeah, if that’s what she likes the best I mean that’s her preference.

That’s the thing, I can only talk about some specific things in depth and kind of a generalized knowledge of the world, but I am perfectly willing to see other people grab the steering wheel and talk about things they’ve noticed specifically that could be better. Mostly I’m talking from the oppressed point of view because that’s what I’m most familiar with, but I’m not always some oppressed person. I’m actually a switch.

It’s funny, I was talking with cutie about stuff and she was like “Everyone seems to do what I say, why is that?” And I said “Maybe they are all submissives.” And she said “No, they can’t ALL be submissives!” I dunno. I do know we went on a date once where the waiter got all crazy about her and started bothering us every five minutes just to talk to her, and we were having an interesting conversation about mushrooms, and we were getting annoyed. And he kept paying all kinds of attention to her and ignoring me and then he asked her to rate the dinner on a scale of one to ten and she just snapped “I would give it a six!” It was so funny. And he was appalled and wandered away and then she said “No, I’m wrong, actually I would give it a five.” And I thought, yeah, it was about a five. She makes me laugh.

I think that’s the most frustrating thing about being a butch who dates high femmes, is that often guys totally don’t get that there’s a relationship going on. I dunno, maybe guys are just dumb like that. Who can really say? If it’s irritating to me I can’t imagine how irritating it must be to them to be involved with someone and always deflecting advances from clueless males. Probably ditto for gay men, I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to deal with your partner always being seen as heterosexual. Or worse, what happens when you start living a lie and then realize you’ve fucked up?

After high school she joined the army and I went to art school. I didn’t want her to join the army, it made me all fuss and bother and probably annoyed her, but really I just didn’t want to see her get hurt in combat. And she left the army in the end, so whatever. But maybe we just went where we had to go. She learned discipline and I learned to be fantastical and ridiculous. I think both are useful. First year at art school was great, because we learned world history through art. And I passed notes in class all the time to my friend Margaret. I remember there was one Mapplethorpe picture that the professor kept saying “What does this look like?” and all the first years were ridiculously shy. Afterwards I told this friend of mine “It looked like an ejaculation.” And he said “That’s what I thought too!” Colour theory was boring though, oh man. Some of the agit-prop art of the 80’s was amazing, because it was all about the AIDS pandemic and trying to get people to take it seriously, which was hard because back then it was mainly gay men getting sick and no one really thought about them being useful to society, so sad. Gay men are all over the place man, they give life fabulousness. It’s true they can be rude and bitchy, but at least they are honest.

My favorite boy in first year was Pat Mills, he made his rollerskates into disco balls and did a light show with them. Then he went off to Ryerson to do the film program there and I lost him. Aw. He’s around though, he was working for the TIFF for a while. I think that’s the weirdest thing about assumptions of queer girls, that we must hate men. Not at all. I think they’re pretty sweet, some of them. Quite a lot really, it’s just there’s that weird manhood thing in this culture. I don’t know, people often feel they have to prove their gender, why is that? What’s to prove?

My sister has been staying up late watching horror movies apparently. The last one she watched was Carrie. I’m just thinking, crap, we do not need her to learn how to set things on fire with her mind. She did set the armchair on fire once when we were kids, that was the last time she ever set a fire. I set the coffee table on fire, so we’re even. She’s changed a lot since we were kids, that’s for sure, she matured. She made me watch Drop Dead Fred and Flower Drum Song over and over and over.

By the way, I do not think people should set fires in their home, that’s obviously not very safe. Unless you have a fireplace and the flue isn’t congested.

One thing that drives me crazy about actors is for some reason a lot of them don’t know when to stop! Honestly, you people are actors, you don’t have to be on all the time. You can have a regular life. I think it’s because for some reason we’re okay with high profile actors ALWAYS being under surveillance, and it never occurs to the general public how traumatizing that could be to someone. Who cares if Britney was seen picking her nose at White Castle? Honestly, they are more interesting than just what they wear. I mean, they can pretend to be ANYBODY, don’t you think that’s a curious process? How do they do it? But there is such a stranglehold on Hollywood, I mean really, the censorship there is phenomenal. And it’s too bad.

In the “Golden Age” of Hollywood screenwriting they tried to bring in professional writers, like literary figures, and they never liked what they came up with. The creative process in Hollywood back then was like some producer running in to where the writers hung out and saying “I have an idea for a film, it is called ‘Where Is My Shoe’ and it stars Greta Garbo. We start shooting on Monday.” I mean, what the hell? How can you work a creative process with that kind of inanity? And so many stars were majorly fucked over back then, because Freudian concepts were used a LOT in filmmaking. So basically actors were pathologized from the get go and put on pills and got all weird. Look at Judy Garland! She is a tragic figure.

It’s so funny, I mean, people idolize them and yet judge them according to impossible standards. And they’re artists! They’re supposed to be weird. And they are fun weird, if you really know them. And they get pushed really hard in their work, I mean the hours on set are insane, and it is so intensive, you have to live that character for six weeks or so and at the same time deal with power trippers who don’t understand how fragile that process is. No wonder they flip out. I’ve seen directors do terrible things to their actors because they just aren’t being compassionate enough. Which is why I tried to be the only actor in my films for so long, because I didn’t want to push someone through something I didn’t understand myself. And it was good because I learned when stuff was way too much. But obviously I put myself under surveillance and this happened.

It’s about learning how power works, you can’t ever be domineering without understanding what it’s like to submit to that, otherwise you do mean things without noticing. Especially for actors who are using life experiences, you can’t just make them do it over and over because you’re getting off on it, you have to check in on them. Personally, I think actors should be allowed to yell cut too. Otherwise I have no idea when they are going way over their heads, and they do sometimes because they don’t know when they’re allowed to stop.

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.