52 Reasons to Buy My Music - #4

I've got friends in low places, too.

52 Reasons to Buy My Music - #3

I've got friends in high places.

52 Reasons to Buy My Music - #2

An inmate here told me about how he made 30k in six months during the 90s selling drugs to other prisoners. He figured I should have no problem selling music to you guys.

Two Creatives

Sometime last year I sat down for breakfast at an empty table. Although I usually sit with friends or with my cellmate. I tend to be impatient when it comes to meals. I often end up near the front of the chow-line, having sped ahead of everyone, and will sit at the first empty table I find. Usually my friends catch up to me. Sometimes they don't.

When they don't it's anyone's bet as to who will end up sitting next to me. There are over a dozen pods in my facility and each pod houses just over a hundred inmates (which is actually pretty small for a prison). I've sat next to and across from all kinds of people; murderers, thieves, druggies, the rich, the poor, and of course, the occasional sex offender. Many inmates become extremely anxious sitting next to people they don't know. I used to feel the same anxiety, but nervousness just seems to draw attention, and it's actually something of a waste of an emotional state. I haven't found a real benefit to it yet.

What the inmates worry about is being perceived as hanging with the wrong crowd, though said crowd's composition will vary depending on which inmate you ask. Personally, I stopped giving a shit. The only people I tend to avoid are the white-power types. I suppose I'm trying to live up to the personal expectation that I live in a post-racial society. I feel a bit at odds with myself because I'm trying to expand my compassion to include those who are easily vilified, including skinheads. I play most situations by ear. The result is that I have friends all over and zero problems.

On this particular morning an incredibly ugly man sat down at an empty seat across from me. I'm trying not to understate; he was really, truly, the ugliest, most hideous, most trollish creature I had ever laid eyes on. I had to consciously avert my eyes to keep from staring; he was that unfortunate. I had never seen him before. He elicited a strong aversion in me. I couldn't even bring myself to say hello at first.

And then he started eating. I had no idea teeth could grow so crookedly. Climbing at awkward angles, as if to escape his ragged, voracious maw, they revealed shades of black and brown seldom seen with the lights on. Truly despicable. I almost lost my appetite. Almost.

But I also became somewhat disgusted with myself. I knew in the instant it took to gather all of this information that the man before me had been thoroughly dehumanized all of his life. He was born for prison. No one talks to such a being unless forced to. This man had never known true friendship, love, kindness, favors, or sacrifice. They are just empty words to him. It never mattered what his crime was, he was doomed the instant his father's crooked sperm mingled with his mother's haggard ovum.

So I forced myself to say hello. I thought that if his mind might have somehow survived his life intact, I might have been able to redeem humanity somewhat by offering him a small kindness, even friendship. But his mind was gone. He was as ugly and useless on the inside as he was on the outside, which isn't to say he was completely useless, just mostly so. The rest of us have some pretense of a claim to humanity; this man's existence dispelled all such lies. His very presence taught a lesson that went miles over his own gnarled head and stunted spine.

What can be done for such cases? Society didn't even have the decency to chew before swallowing him.

It was too much for me. I would have had to spend years bringing that man to some semblance of dignity. But supposed he already felt dignified. What then? Would I have been the creature then?

We did trade small talk at least. He was a very depressed, bitter man, and he hid his sadness behind a thick veil of anger. I never saw him again. That's not very plausible in an environment like mine. Could this have been one of those situations where the protagonist was actually sitting at the table by himself all along?

Probably not. But I don't care much about objectivity anymore. I sort of tried.

52 Reasons to Buy My Music - #1

Once, while singing Karma Police at a karaoke bar, I made a young lady swoon. I had never made someone swoon before, and was elated with myself. She bought me a drink or two; we chatted. She was a successful fashion boutique owner from LoDo in her early thirties. She was adorable. We went on a date later that week. She probably realized I was a little crazy or something. Most of my dates end with the girl never calling me or answering my phone calls again. The moral of this story seems to be that music is all I have to offer the human intellect.

Demons

The various lores and myths surrounding demons were a crude forerunner to the spiritual amalgamation I perceived in 2008. Demon lore, unfortunately, is rather synonymous with Christianity, and since I was raised a Christian, I was quite naturally receptive to its ideas as a young child and adolescent. It is a source of extreme shame and embarrassment for me -- or at least, it was at one point. It feels much less so now. It was when I started writing this entry back in November. I haven't looked at it for a few months now. I'm not sure I was ready to share this then. I am now.

I have already spent some time rambling to the reader about demons, angels, and gods. Some religions use these terms interchangeably; others, to convey extremely specific ideas. I use them figuratively and interchangeably. They may correspond to something real or they may not. I'll say this; while I don't believe in sin or that there was ever a fall of man, I do believe that there are benevolent and malevolent people and ideas in the universe. To wrestle one's demons seems to me as the same process whether said demons are perceived as agents of Satan or aspects of one's consciousness, and while most point to a distinction between matters of evidence-based fact and those of faith, there seems to be some wiggle room left for interpretation, speculation, and intuition. Despite my best efforts, childhood ideas have often resurfaced in new and surprising ways. I think it would be nice if people dispelled with the notion of childhood innocence and just taught their offspring the truth to the best of their knowledge, no matter how complicated.

When I was a Christian, I tended to use hell's "traditional" demons to represent my spiritual ideas. I knew that it was strange. I realize now that I felt some sympathy for demons, due, in part, to my self-identification as a wraith or a monster, and to my depression. Hell, as a state of mind, was something I experienced for long stretches at at time. Interpersonal gaps kept me from forming friendships with my peers, and I perceived that I was being ostracized for some reason. I perceived myself as ugly, both externally and internally, and became drawn to ugly things. I identified very strongly with outcasts.

Another reason I tended to think of demons when pondering spiritual matters is that I used to "feel" demonic presences from time to time. I chalk it up to superstition now, but I'm sure many people can relate to the experience. Somehow I perceived an evil, malevolent spirit focusing its attention on me. It used to make me feel terribly afraid. It was that "haunted house" feeling. I still grimace and curse through scary movies because they remind me of it. I wish I could say that I rationalized these feelings away, but I merely learned to endure them as an adult. They transformed somewhat in 2005, but I'll get to that.

Finally, and this really is one of the more embarrassing aspects of my past, I was drawn to demons for one other reason. Very few people know that while I was in middle school, bullies often followed me home while throwing rocks and yelling insults. I hated walking to and from school. I began taking longer and more elaborate routes just to avoid those assholes, but if they spotted me it didn't matter what route I took. Three at a time, they'd follow, staying safely at a throwing distance. If I slowed down, they slowed down; it I walked faster, they walked faster; hurling pebbles and cans and whatever else might be laying around. I wished for no small amount of violence to visit upon those children. Perhaps this admission will prove to be my catharsis: I sincerely wished that I could have had a demonic companion all my own for the purpose of wreaking havoc on the lives of my tormentors. I really hated them. I was a wrathful little thing. So I had a secret desire for a "pet demon" as a youth. Hence my fascination with them, even if I didn't always believe in them. It's worth noting that my haunted house feelings occured well before this wish, so they may have emboldened it somewhat; despite my fear, I was never physically harmed, so I began to doubt the validity of the claim that devils were inherently harmful, though they were scary.

I don't remember the first time I heard about demons, but I learned about the devil at an early age. I do remember wanting to draw him at one point; he was purported to be the most beautiful angel, and the duplicitous nature of such a subject appealed to me. Besides, God can't be drawn. Try it.

I didn't take the devil very seriously as a child. One day in Sunday School -- yes, I was one of those -- I made the mistake of making fun of him. I thought everyone would join in and we'd all laugh and make fun of the devil together, or something like that. What a grand old time we all would have had, secure in our relationship with God, able to mock the devil at our whim and fancy. Haha, what a cad, that devilish old nelly! I really don't remember what I said, but I have a long history of saying exactly the wrong thing in a crowd. My opinion was sharply rebuked by everyone in the room. And then the teacher told me something that made me feel afraid! That the devil was smart and powerful (this part I already knew), but also that he was easy to provoke and enrage. He was dangerous. To mock him was to willingly invite hardship into one's life. My head reeled with potential ramifications. Could I personally piss off the devil? Was that possible? I hadn't previously considered such an idea plausible.

In my mind it's a bit unfair to make a child understand such ideas mere moments after singing, "If the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack," but what confused me more was the unanimous consensus of the Sunday School students. Had I missed some key information? As these were some of my only interactions with other English-speakers, I valued their input pretty heavily. In return, I was blessed with all the subtle arts of neurosis. The idea that Satan's wrath could be invoked, whether by accident, by taunting, or by harmless fun, made him seem much more real to me. It tapped into that superstitious realm of my mind and set up a nice foundation for the other demon mythologies that followed over the years.

In time I was introduced to the concept of spiritual warfare as it is understood by many Western Christians. I may as well attempt to acquaint the unfamiliar reader: the belief is that a human mind is like a battlefield; a literal one, on which hosts of angels and demons battle for supremacy unseen. The details are all speculative, with no shortage of spiritual authorities. I suppose, in my own way, I am included in this punditry; but my intent here is merely to explain some of the framework that helped me lose my mind.

There are no causes or effects that a sufficiently paranoid mind cannot attribute to demonic activity. demons can't be seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted objectively and directly. Rather, they exist on a "spiritual plane," residing behind-the-scenes the same way God does. They are occupied with misery and torment. I've read that their actual survival depends on negative emotions; that such things as rage, sadness, or tension are like sustenance to them. I've also read that demons eat human souls (and one another); that hell is something like an eternal digestion process. Demons are also said to relish in human excesses, exhibiting greed, envy, lust, and so on. Some ideas, particularly older ones, envision demons as personifications of the vices themselves.

I was twelve or thirteen when first introduced to the idea that demons could plant thoughts into a person's mind. That resonated with me. I though about it ad nauseam. Were thoughts beaming across the universe? Could my mind be read by any being who happened to take interest in me? Did I have an intimate, one-sided relationship with demons whether I wanted one or not? What could I hide from beings who didn't sleep and wanted to feed on my existence? Could they see me? Did they watch me eat? Sleep? Masturbate? Did they prompt any of my behaviors? Which of my thoughts were really mine? How many of life's disappointments were due to demonic subversion? Were there things beneath a demon's time or dignity? What were the limits? How tiny a happiness was worthy of sabotage?

I tried not to think about it. I knew thoughts like that were a little out there. But depression and isolation reinforced them. It really felt like an external force was weighing me down. It was easy to feel as if demons were ruining my life. I was lonely and sad. I did my best to hide it. My heart ached with adrenaline when I thought about interacting with people -- I don't know why. It was strange to grow up with.

Other people became quite mysterious to me, as they so clearly lacked the problems I didn't. They had happiness; they had friendship; they had relationships, community, interdependency. They had a human quality that confounded and eluded me -- hence my self-identification as something only nigh-human. I felt like the grinch. It was as if God existed for others but not for me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had always felt that way. It was hell as I had often heard it described by Christians -- as a total separation from God.

But how could someone be alive and in hell at the same time? And how had I stumbled into it? What had I done? Had I died and forgotten? It didn't make sense to me.

I began to develop what I suppose other people would consider odd social habits, because I grew seriously afraid that other people could perceive my inhumanity. This probably started a kind of self-fulfilling chain reaction -- I acted more and more suspiciously while people treated me with increasing suspicion. My personality came to revolve around concealment and hiding and people eventually stopped taking notice of me, or at least stopped interacting with me. I grew to be tall, silent, dark, stiff, brooding, sinewy, standoffish, intimidating; creepy even. It's a mold I've been trying to break since becoming an atheist. I've actually been having some pretty tremendous success lately.

Long story short, demons are a crazy person's wet dream. If they exist, I think the lore surrounding them poses a greater threat to humanity than they ever could themselves. And if they exist, maybe that's the point. Isn't fear strange?

Quote

"The word 'criminal' should be taboo from our dictionary. Or we are all criminals. 'Those of you that are without sin cast the first stone.' And no one was found to dare cast the stone at the sinning harlot. As a jailer once said, all are criminals in secret. There is profound truth in that saying, uttered half in jest." Ghandi