by Otep Shamaya

____________________________________

Disclaimer: The story you are about to read is based on actual events. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. This is pure Gonzo-deSade – if you are easily offended by adult language, sexual situations, drug fiends, homophobia, or salacious behavior – move on. This is not for you.

____________________________________

 

I woke up in my pajamas curled on the couch like a rehab patient.

Hung. Over.

It felt like an iron balloon was inflating inside my skull. My stomach pinched and turned in nauseating waves that crested between the rolling thunder of sadness and paranoia.

So many questions.

“Why was my mobile phone in the fish tank? Did I drunk dial my mother again? Did things get ‘out of hand’ while sexting with an ex? Could that explain all these empty lube and Tabasco bottles in the bathtub? But why did I microwave pudding? Or Photoshop Hitler mustaches on pictures of Taylor Swift and email them to The Vatican? Just for kicks? Or was there some deeper psychological root to all this mania? How twisted was I? Maybe I should go to the hospital, poste haste, call the paramedics, seek help now —”

Holy Krishna! Get it together, lass. This is just the drifting haze of the aftermath. Ride it out. Eat some carbs. You’ll be back to super-hero status lickety-split.

Indeed. It seems all it takes to uncover this kind of spastic emotional hysteria is 3 bottles of Bordeaux, 6 cups of coffee, 5 shots of tequila, a hash brownie, 2 tabs of xanax, and a devastating break-up.

Yes, I’ve recently lost the love of my life due to a rather silly but irreversible skirmish on the number of accessories I should’ve added to my iPeen (see previous blog – and please, stop sending me hate-mail. I am keeping my elegant vagina. Reset and move on).  

Now, my head knows the dangers of committing spiritual archeology under the heavy drapes of drugs & alcohol. But during deep dramatic distress my bohemian-heart pops like a blowfish calling the “fuck-it-all” devils to rise from the depths, seize the helm, and steer me directly into the eye of the crashing storm.

I wanted to drink and forget and awaken on the far shore depleted and sore from being raked over the jagged tiers and end up splayed across the frigid rocks like a melted clock in a Dali painting. So here I was, alone and shattered, hoping this sad-sickness would soon surrender itself out of me.

And then my landline rang.

It was Jonah – one of my dearest friends and co-conspirators. He is an excellent example of living a self-defined life. I’ve always believed him to be the spiritual lovechild of Abbie Hoffman and Freddy Mercury. Together, we are the best of the worst. True professional degenerates. Whenever he calls, beautiful trouble follows.

“Otep, baby,” he said, “drop the doom and gloom, pack a bag, and get cute. We’re going to Tijuana.”

“What the fuck are we gonna do down there?” I asked. “Get robbed?”

He said, “That’s enough of that, scholar. I know exactly what you need: fun, sun, and Mexican skydiving.”

“Jonah, I’m a mess today. I still miss her. I just….can’t. Another time, okay?”

Jonah shouted, “Hon, get it together. You called me at 4 this morning moaning about how ‘our side’ is losing the fight for Equal Rights, that your ex won’t return your calls, how lost you feel, and how quickly you were sinking into the sand! But the pity party ends right now! Okay?” His voice calmed, “Look babe, as your sponsor in debauchery, I won’t stand by and watch you become another soggy cliché! We are going to fucking Mexico, my friend!”

I wanted to hang up. I wanted to slip back beneath the blankets and drift deep into the calm waters of depression.

“I don’t think I have the emotional architecture for this level of adventure,” I said.

“No worries.” He said. “I’ve got the sure cure: ACID.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He was serious.

“Come on O, don’t say no. We need to do this. I got it all taken care of. Trust me. After this trip, you’re gonna be good as new!”

Normally, I would say no – LSD is not a drug I am partial too – but I was in serious emotional crisis and his enthusiasm was too much for me to resist. The “fuck-it-all” devils once again grabbed the controls and I surrendered.

Skydiving. On acid. I was impressed.

“Excellent form, sir. Let’s do it.”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he beamed. “We can trip on our trip and we’ll peak by the time we fly the friendly skies. If we leave now we can be there by 3 o’clock.”

“On the way we have to stop”, I said, “So I can get a burner phone. Can’t go on this journey unarmed.”

He laughed, “That’s the spirit! Make sure it takes video! Now, look out your window.”

He was parked in my driveway.

I got dressed, threw a bag together, and raced to the car. He dosed me as soon as I got in and we sped off for the border – music blaring, eyes wide, minds open.

By the time we passed through San Diego a strange crystalline network of glowing prisms, organic fractals, and rainbow webbing had emerged and devoured the peripherals. The passing landscape melted and split like a watercolor Rorschach. I found myself lost in the Escher angles of the Great Cosmic Grid. Everything was infinite and ever expanding. I realized we, the human species, were nothing but holograms projected over the octagonal gravitational planes.

Beautiful. Right? 
I thought so.

Then the sun began to bleed and pulse like a colossal strobe light. The landscape darkened and drowned in inky petroleum and everything was choked in ash and fire. Then hundreds of hairy spiders, giant scorpions, and hagfish began falling from the sooty sky all around me.

My visions kept coming: I saw black Jesus riding a dragonfly, armor-plated grizzly bears ripping Sarah Palin to pieces, Jerry Falwell sucking off Mickey Mouse, and a sleeping winged land whale (whatever that is) laying soft white eggs on the scaly skin of some forgotten Sumerian God. It was incredible.

After an hour or so of this miserable nightmare, everything dissolved into a radiant storm of tiny embers. Everyone and everything looked to be made of fireflies. When we reached the border, the guard either didn’t notice or didn’t care about my incessant staring because he just waved us through.  

We somehow found our hotel, checked in (without getting arrested), and then lit out for the airfield. Jonah’s timing was impeccable. 3:05 on the dot.

We met up with our instructors, had a 7-minute tutorial session, and then bam! We were up 13,000 feet and ready to vault into the stratosphere.

But then the drug turned on me.

I kept thinking that whatever I was doing to my mind could never be undone. And that all these people standing around me were conspiring to murder and butcher me and bury the pieces in the desert.

Not the thoughts one wants to have while racing 300 mph over the jagged Mexican terrain. And things were getting worse. I glanced at Jonah. He was laughing hysterically, which (of course) I perceived as evil incarnate.

Fear gripped my spine. Everything felt ominous. I suddenly realized that I was strapped to a portly little man named José – yes, my instructor. I think he said something like, “ARRRE YOOUU RREADY?” But before I could process the question, José stepped out of the plane and we tumbled into the atmosphere.

I remember falling.  And thinking, “This must be how Icarus felt” and then I was jolted by someone shouting, “HOLY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE!” It was José. What kind of demented jackass screams something like that while strapped to a noob with a head full of acid?

I closed my eyes. Terrible idea. I could see the inside of my skull.

José shouted again, “I’m just messing with ya!”

The treachery of the moment was too much for my senses to bear. I must have blacked out. I don’t remember landing. I don’t remember punching José. I don’t remember how we got back to the hotel. Or how I got under the bed. But when I woke the drug was long gone. Jonah had moved on to another – Molly. (And probably a little demon-speed)

He was shirtless wearing a man-thong, listening to his iPod, and dancing like an eel out of water. He spoke to me in a rapid, un
broken cadence only a few major-league drug cosmonauts could master:

“Otizzle!Good.You’re awake!You okay?Why did you punch that guy?They were gonna call the cops.Luckily, I brought petty cash.You owe me $150 American. Just kidding. You hungry? I ordered grilled cheese sandwiches and a fruit platter from room service.Have some melon.It’s good.I don’t want any right now but you go for it.See, I told you it was going to be fun. Go ahead have a peach.”

I was too grumpy for fruit. “What time is it?”

“It’s daytime.” He said. “On Sunday. Come on, get up. Let the healing begin. I’ve got something really special lined up for tonight.”

“Dog races?” I asked.

“Even better.” He said. “Chop chop!”

Before we proceed I should give you a little more info on Jonah. He’s a self-loathing TV producer who uses his absurd wealth to make up for the fact that he’s a self-loathing TV producer. He’s also the kind of beautiful lunatic who will persuade me to go skydiving on acid without telling me our trip also includes a dinner with leaders of the ultra-conservative group “Marriage is Holy”.

Beautiful. Lunatic. He explained to me that we were meeting with a couple of couples for dinner and that I should dress for a night out. Okay. And off we went.

We arrived at the restaurant and were met shortly after by a stately couple. The husband, Reed, was a major stockholder in a Conservative cable news network, and his wife, Cassandra, was a bulimic aristocrat with a bad pill habit.

The second couple arrived a few minutes later. They were bitching about the cab driver and accusing the “sand-monkey” of taking the long way so he could plump the meter.

The husband, Pervis, was a Baptist Minister specializing in gay exorcisms and supervised the nefarious “HOMO NO-MO” clinic. His wife, Eustace, was Republican royalty – her father was a famous segregationist. She was also a major stockholder in a fastfood chicken joint notorious for its anti-gay proclivities. 

I chose not to reveal my political leanings or my loud & proud outlaw rock-poet heresy. I didn’t have the energy or interest to intellectually pummel these volcanic-enema-men or their blue-blood brides. Silence was the key to my stability. And theirs.

Between breaths, and stuffing their craws with food and booze, these pontificating scab-bags railed on and on against the evils of the Internet, atheists, feminists, and fags.

Pervis barked, “Can you believe what these sodomites are trying to do now?” Bits of food spit from his lips. “Mark my words, destroying the sanctity of marriage is the goal of the secret homosexual agenda!”

Eunice mumbled, “Filthy Fags”, but Pervis tapped her hand like one might a dog on its nose, “Not while the men are speaking, honey.”

I was just about to go bonkers on Johah (I mean, what the fuck were we doing here with these fecal sacks?) when Reed leaned over and asked him, “You bring the vitamins, boy?” I pretended not to hear. Jonah smiled and slid the bag of Molly to him. Reed grinned like a pig in shit. He popped one gel cap in his mouth and motioned to his wife. She tossed back a pill and passed the bottle to Pervis and Eustace. They, too, joined the party.

As the night went on, plates were cleared, dessert declined, bourbon poured, and Jonah doled out bumps of cocaine from a small grinder to everyone but me. I declined. Not my drug. Shortly after, we piled into Reed’s limo and headed out for their favorite local disco. Yeah …disco.

In the car, the women downed shots of Jack Daniels while Pervis and Reed crushed up Viagra and snorted it off the mini-bar.

I was ready to bail. I remembered my new phone and retrieved it from my bag. I needed a cheap flight back to L.A. – NOW.

Suddenly, Pastor Pervis barked, “Just what in the hell do we have here, huh?” He motioned to my bag. The contents had spilled out all over the limo seat: wallet, keys, hand sanitizer, pill bottle, eyeliner, mints, and …my iPeen.

Fuck. I forgot I brought it.

Before I could explain, he grabbed it by the shaft and the damned thing thundered to life – violently vibrating in a flash of bright, multicolored lights – he sputtered, “Whoa now, you’re not one of those, uh – holy Jesus – is this a weapon? Are you a member of the Lesbian Jihad?”

Jonah shoved another bump up Pastor Pervis’ flaring nostril and said, “Back off, buster. She’s one of us.” Pervis sucked back the powder, downed a shot of Jack and passed the iPeen to Eustace. She waved it around like a lightsaber.

Reed shouted to the driver, “Stop! We’re here! Alto! Alto!”  and the limo screeched to a halt.

Eustace touched Jonah’s shoulder, “This is where we met you, remember Jonah?” He winked and blew her a kiss.

Cassandra leaned close to me and whispered, “Welcome to Gomorra. You can have anything and everything you want here.” She smiled and waddled from the car.

The “disco” was actually a private sex club for the wealthy elite. Reed and Pervis flashed their Platinum VIP cards and we were ushered in. The place was a dive. They paid for freedom and secrecy – not luxury.

The music was a deafening mix of techno-trash and German trance. The stench of cigarettes, meth pipes, cheap cologne, latex, old lube, and assorted bodily fluids was equally overwhelming.

This was definitely NOT my scene.

I tried to get Jonah’s attention but Cassandra suddenly dropped her skirt (and granny panties) and jumped on top of the bar. A crowd collapsed around her, staring wildly at her mature meat-curtains slapping and clapping to the rhythm of the music. I expected her husband to object, but Reed was busy making out with a black transvestite in the back of the club.

Pervis and Jonah plopped down at a booth and started slamming back Jaeger-bombs while Eustace gave a handjob to a Limbaugh look-a-like.

I commandeered an adjoining table to survey this insane circus from a safe setting. The waitress brought me a bottle of tequila infused with scorpion venom. Perfect. I wanted swift amnesia.

Reed sidled up next to me and said, “So sport, wanna play?” I punched him in the dick and he slid to the floor. I roared, “Game over. Fuck. Off.”

I slammed a shot, and was just about to suck back another when I saw Eustace and Cassandra making-out.

Hate devoured me.

Watching these two hypocritical hags eat each other’s face was too much for me to bear. I wanted to torch the place. I had to get out of there. Fast.

But first, I needed to give Jonah a piece of my mind. I jerked him by the collar and shouted, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re my friend! Why would you bring me here? This isn’t our scene! You know I’m hurting, Jonah! How is this supposed to help me? I am outta here! Don’t call me for like a week, asshole!”

Jonah laughed. “Cool out, Teez. I’m sorry. Okay? But I promise it’s worth it.  Your new phone has video, right? Capture a memory.”

A devilish grin slid across his face. Indeed, the master plan.

I moved through the room secretly filming these human disasters like a true virtuoso – smooth zooms, perfect pans – passing over Jonah giving me a thumbs up while snorting lines off a hooker’s ass, over to Pastor Pervis sodomizing Reed who sucked off the Nubian He-she, to Cassandra fucking Eustace with the technological wonder that was my iPeen. (I left it there)

I filled up my phone with video and snuck out quietly. I commandeered  Reed’s limo and ordered the driver to take me back to the sweet sanctuary of America.

I slept the whole way, trying to forget what I just experienced. It was just about noon when I arrived back at my apartment. My replacement phone had arrived. I set it up, then showered, downed a couple of xan (with a tequila chaser), and ate half a hash brownie. I slumped to the floor exhausted. My mobile buzzed. A text from my ex: “Babe! I’m at a Disco in Tijuana! SOOO drunk. Thought I saw Jonah. Wish u were here!!” I grabbed the tequila and collapsed on the couch.

I woke up the next morning.

Hung. Over.

I remembered the video! “I’m gonna fry those fuckers.”

I looked for my phone – shit, where was it?

My apartment was a mess: dried pudding, Hitler mustaches, lube and Tabasco bottles — Fuck.  It can’t be.

I was curled on my couch like a rehab patient.

And my phone was in the fish tank.

_______________________________ 

Otep Shamaya is a 2010 GLAAD nominee, frontwoman
for rock group OTEP, a writer, activist, and reprobate who resides on the 
jagged edge of Plasticland deep in the recesses of beautiful Los Angeles, CA. 

by Otep Shamaya

____________________________________

Ed. Note:
 Our resident “cultural arsonist” Otep – who also fronts the fiery punk-metal
 band of the same name – is a published author who regularly blogs for Blurt about social, sexual and political issues. The essay that follows originally 
appeared in issue number 10 of the magazine and was penned not long after U.S. 
Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson by Jared Loughner (who has since been 
determined mentally unfit to stand trial). What follows might be upsetting for some. 

____________________________________

 

My friends,

The Tragedy in Tucson rumbled through the atoms of our 
nation with a feral shriek that left us trembling with trepidation and outrage.


We are wounded.

But we have always been and forever will be wounded. Since the 
days our ancestors broke the bonds of colonialism with fever, fervor, blood and 
musket fire, since they turned that same vigor on the indigenous people of this 
land and crushed their independence with boot heel and repeater rifle, since the 
burning smoke of gun and cannon fire blew open the earth in the Civil War,
 since the blossoming lives of JFK, MLK, Malcolm, & RFK were cut down by assassins 
bullets, since we lost John Lennon to a coward’s attack, shot five times in the
 back, and when the poor and working class must listen to the modulating bursts of
 gunfire like morning birdsong and the last thing some see is the grime and
 rubble of cracked concrete soaked in their blood, when our young are hunted in 
their schools, when a lunatic purchases a grocery sack full of ammo at a family shopping center and
 methodically guns down unarmed men, women, and children, there can be no doubt 
this affliction will thrive unabated.

It’s the American way.

Nineteen people were shot on January 8, 2011. Six 
were murdered. Among the dead is a 9-year-old girl born on September 11, 2001.
 Yes, the same day terrorists attacked our nation. If that isn’t a sign for what’s happening to us as a society, I don’t know
 what is.  

They were gunned down, coldly, callously, and 
somewhere, out there, Sarah Palin is smiling. The “lame-stream media” couldn’t
 help but focus their scrutiny on this strange and confused woman. Her idiots-grin 
pulled back across her puckered face because this sort of maniacal attention 
fuels her ego. She is a fiend for it. Hell, I’m giving her a new dimple and deepening the creases around those crow’s feet right now just by writing this 
article. Just like all parasites, she feeds from others.

But you see, I am compelled to do so for one reason only. Sarah
 “Failin” Palin and I actually agree on something. I know, I know, they are
breaking out the sweaters in Hades right now and I’ve had to down a double shot
 of single malt scotch just to finish typing that last line. But, alas, it’s 
true. We do.

She has staunchly defended her decision to put 
crosshairs over the names and districts of Democratic politicians that she
 disagreed with and using her oft chanted mantra “Don’t Retreat, Reload” during 
the last Congressional campaign. In fact, the entire wingnut Conservatard media
 exploded to her defense.

The pig-bodied Sean Mannity, er Hannity, gave her
 another ego-launching in an interview to deny that her words and imagery have 
any effect on the opinions and emotions of others. They spewed the false
equivalency that “well, liberals do it too” and tongue-holed each other until
 their dumpster heads were emptied on the airwaves with the usual vitriolic 
trash. 

(Writers Note: For you anatomical oddity buffs out 
there, I have been informed by a former RENTBOY(dot)com employee that Hannity
 has an inverted penis. Interesting, yes but, you know, ewwwww!)

I concur. Let’s forget, for a moment, that if a Muslim
 or a “Gay” or an “undocumented worker” had said these things or made a bullseye 
map, they would be on a ship with a one-way ticket to Guantanamo. “The ballot or the bullet?” You
betcha. “2nd Amendment remedies”? Whatever.

It’s obvious to anyone with half a
brain that words (inflammatory or not) simply do not matter. Nope. Symbols and
 images do not influence anyone. They do not incite, they do not inspire. They 
are dead as stones. Okay, fine.

Then I welcome Palin and Mannity and the 
turd-herder Limbaugh and the weeping Mormon Glenn Beck and Michelle “which
camera is it” Bachmann, and the crazy cat lady Sharon Angle to join my crusade 
to remove PG-13, TV 14, and R ratings from films and TV, and to outlaw those 
silly EXPLICIT LYRICS tags from CD covers.

Why do we need them? Words don’t incite, right? That’s what Palin said. I agree!

We demand porn on public TV, we
 demand SCIENCE to be taught in CHURCH, to make Sex Education classes mandatory, 
let tobacco and alcohol companies advertise in grade schools, and do away with
Parental Settings on internet browsers. Why do we need them? Let’s stand united
 to end these archaic restraints and the censorship of the intellectual liberty
 of free children and free people!

The fact that (prior to the shooting and mass 
murder by the coward Loughner) Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had received multiple
 death threats, and the fact that her campaign offices had been blasted with
 gunfire are, you know, like, whatever, come on, DUDE, like, it is, I mean, 
pffft, so unrelated, but, I guess, like, even if MOST people would be decent
enough to respect the welfare of another human being (despite political
affiliation) to call off the dogs and ease the heated rhetoric by making it
clear that “Don’t Retreat, Reload” is HYPERBOLE and not a commandment, it still
 doesn’t prove that slogans, lyrics, symbols, and whatnot influence or incite
 people.

Ozzy, Slipknot, Metallica, The Beatles, ME, none of us, have any
influence over our listeners to abandon Puritanism and embrace the way of the 
noble savage. (Well, maybe a little, but so what?)

I can put it out there that 
Sarah Palin should be covered in garbage and set on fire or that someone should
 fist-fuck her smug, pug ugly face without clarifying that this is satire, nor 
do I need to explain hyperbole because it just doesn’t matter. WOW, it’s so 
liberating!

We aren’t talking about the acne’d availability of
 help for those in need of mental healthcare in this country, or the fact that
 any shit-sifting lunatic can purchase a 32 round clip for a handgun at a
 Walmart next to a teenage mother buying Huggies. Nope. We’re talking about nothing and doing it well, baby.

Now, for some the silence on
 these issues is staggering and terrifying. But they are testicles. This is the
 way WE like it. Avoid and ignore. 

We aren’t talking about the moral fraud being 
perpetrated on this nation by the Tea Party or the lying leather skinned
 cackling Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, who cut (just days after the mass 
shooting!!!) state funding for mental health facilities. (Insert obligatory face 
palm here.) 

No, we are talking about Sarah Palin and how her
 words, opinions, attacks, incitements, and lies have absolutely no influence on 
anyone and how people who think she’s an irresponsible dipshit are being mean
to her (aww poor wittle sawah paywin) which somehow has an impact on her but it shouldn’t because words 
don’t matter and ….ah forget it!

It’s nice to see Palin and the rest of the Conservatard
 Corporate Bullshit Media Machine finally surrender their position on personal responsibility
and agree that women should be allowed to go topless in public (whoo hooo), to
 stop blaming rape victims because they were “asking for it” because, as Mascara 
Sarah sorta pointed out, we are islands of experience and not influenced by anyone or 
anything except our own minds.

We are solipsists and nothing anyone can say will
ever change that. Obviously.

Lastly, allow me to be clear because I know some of 
you have difficulty discerning this sometimes, but should you have perceived
 anything in this article other than venom, outrage, and sarcasm then you have
missed the point entirely.

Palin and her bloody group of agitators are a
national disgrace and should be shamed into exile. Hell, maybe put on trial for treason! But they won’t be. There’s
t oo much media MONEY to be made from reality TV and opinion politics to 
indict their cash cow. And I do mean cow.

But I would like to remind the public
and the pundits that there were 19 victims on that terrible day in January. Not 
20. Sarah Palin was not one of them so she and the rest of the rightwing
propaganda squad can justly and patriotically SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP! We’ve had quite
enough of your pathetic pity parties to fill a lifetime and then some.

 

 

____________________________________

Otep Shamaya is a 2010 GLAAD nominee, frontwoman
for rock group OTEP, a writer, activist, and reprobate who resides on the 
jagged edge of Plasticland deep in the recesses of beautiful Los Angeles, CA. 

by Otep Shamaya

     In a world where the 
likes of Rand Paul and Sarah Palin excel, where working people are the eager 
pawns of the filthy rich, where rats feed freely and the poor obey like 
insects, truth is certainly friction.

In this case, the two opposing forces 
causing the friction are historical amnesia and pure pious stupidity.

This is not new.

It 
has always been a vital part of our national identity: freedom for some,
slavery for others, liberty for all – except women, indigenous tribes, slaves, 
gays, & the Irish.

As a people, we tend to detest truth. Indeed,
 collectively, we are unwilling to see the forest for the matchsticks. What we
 desire is a given reality.

We are very much like 
a family refusing to acknowledge that our shifty cousin Glenn has a gambling
 problem. So we sit, silently at the dinner table, avoiding the massive ogre 
in the room contrived completely from the $14,000 in stolen retirement checks 
he nicked from Nanna.

Do we address it? No, we just quietly pass the casserole 
and listen as the collective enamel scrapes over the cutlery.

But let’s say this
 year, as you sit together round yon dinner table, something different happens.
This year your bullshit quota overfloweth. So as cousin Glenn slugs back his
 fifth Pabst Blue Ribbon tall-boy, belching, and laughing loudly at his own 
poorly timed gynecological jokes with a mouthful of mashed potatoes and turkey 
tendons, you grimace, you can feel your entire body boiling towards a breaking 
point. 

And it happens. You see that bastard Glenn 
lean over to ask Nanna if she has 40 bucks for another “sixer and a pack
of smokes”. 

This is the 
moment.

Right here. Right now.

You push back from the table, toss your butter knife to the plate and roar high and mighty, “Goddamn
it, Glenn, you contemptible cunt! Stealing money from Nanna so you can play
roulette at the Pink Palomino?? She’s on a fixed income you gaping asshole!
 Besides, roulette?? It’s not even a game of strategy, you dick! If losing is
 your thing then I guess you’re a professional, ay?”

You climb up on the table and threaten him with a salad fork.

“Well, fuck off. Your soul is dog shit! You have no integrity! Stealing from our grandmother?! Do you
 actually think we are all just gonna sit here and let you get away with this? Do you?? Well, I’m giving you one
 chance, you greedy pile of pig shit, to make this right. If you do not leave this 
table right now and find a way to repay her every single fucking cent, I am 
going to carve out both your eyes with this fork and sell them to a
 couple of Serbian fellas I know who pay big bucks for usable organs and then do
 you know what I’m gonna do? Do you? You rancid dumpster?! I’m gonna march back into this house,  give that bloody money to Nanna, then drag your bloated body into the backyard, set it on fire, and feed you to feral dogs. Are we clear, you
syphilitic, rat scrotum? Or do I need to start prying out those baby blues?”

And just for good
 measure, you toss your mug of Earl Grey into Glenn’s great staring eyes. And as he runs out of the room screaming in scalding agony, there’s a moment of heavy silence, 
and then chaos erupts.

It seems everyone was actually going to sit there and let Glenn get away with it. It seems everyone was content just to accept their circumstances and not get involved. It wasn’t their money he was taking, now was it? Well, now you’ve done it. The family, not knowing how to react,
 erupts like a bunch of crazed baboons flinging excrement at a deadly 
cobra.

Insults hurl through 
the air. Poor Nanna is scrunching her sweater over her heart and Gramps is 
jumbling through his unbonded dentures for YOU to “GET THE FUCK OUT”.


Meanwhile, the other relatives are head-lighting you with yellow
judgmental scowls, whispering things like “unbelievable”, “what a fiend” and 
“monstrous”. Twenty minutes later, Nanna is on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over her paper-like face, diagnosed with a possible stroke or heart attack, and 
YOU are being arrested for domestic violence against your degenerate cousin.

Is that fair? No.

But
 this is how the system works against us. It’s also how the responsible sect behave in a polite, civilized society. We must 
have selective blindness in order to survive. Anything else must be subjugated 
for the common good.

For example, if I was 
to state that American entertainment icon Michael “Jesus” Jackson died from an 
overdose of a powerful anesthetic injected into his candle colored arms every
 night so that he remained paralytic and unable to sleep-rape his children, I
 would be berated by the eager-doomed as a reprehensible miscreant only out to 
start trouble. 

No, no! It’s far
 easier for them to believe Mr. Jackson had such a severe case of restless leg
s-syndrome that  he had to be placed in a coma every night with enough drugs to
 vegetate a rhinoceros.

Another example would 
be if I said Sarah Palin believes the word America comes from the Bible or that
 she secretly hopes to start her own religious organization that is a sort of
 reverse Mormonism where the wife leads the household and has multiple husbands financing her extravagant lifestyle, 
or that she encourages her daughters to have anal sex instead of using condoms
 because she believes that it preserves the sanctity and Christian virtue of
 virginity.

Egads! If I wrote that, I 
would be flogged and labeled a traitor and a reprobate and tossed into the dank 
undercroft of Guantanamo
 and kept chained there as an enemy of the state.

Or if I told you that
 the majority of the rodents who want to keep America sterile of equality are 
closeted sodomites who fear that this kind of constitutional buoyancy would
unmask them as traitors to their own kind. That those ministers, politicians
 and admirals who scream “NO” the loudest, have zero gag reflex and use chemical 
rectal constrictors to remedy all the years they’ve used a “wide stance” in
secret restroom liaisons.

Well, if I wrote that, 
I would be bound in a burlap sack with a wild animal and tossed into the Mississippi river for revealing such truths.

It would be the same 
if I dared to inform you that hemp is only illegal because the versatility of 
the plant threatened William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper/timber interests, or 
that every time you buy a gallon of gasoline you are funding terrorism, or that a 
bi-racial President can still be homophobic, or that you have more power than 
you know because THEY want YOU to be tame and apathetic, I would be hung from 
the tallest tree and set on fire.

No, my friends, we do
n’t want truth. We want scripted reality. We want gentle, spoonfed, zero-conflict, safe and unthreatening fantasies disguised as truth.

I have learned a lot since the
 spoiled Bush baby trampled our nation for 8 years and left it bloated from 
excess like a Congolese sewer rat in the rainy season.

I have learned to love 
my country but trust absolutely no one in authority. I have learned that this 
is a world where the rats poison themselves.

____________________________________

Otep Shamaya is a 2010 GLAAD nominee, frontwoman
for rock group OTEP, a writer, activist, and reprobate who resides on the 
jagged edge of Plasticland deep in the recesses of beautiful Los Angeles, CA. 

This entry was originally published February 7, 2011 

Think. Speak. 

Watching the documentary HUBRIS by Rachel Maddow. It reminds me just how horrible things were during those dark days of fear & ignorance. How the pigs & opportunists jackbooted our patriotism & with cheers & a treasure of brave soldiers & tax dollars marched us into an unnecessary invasion of Iraq. 

Some of us stood strong against the tide of tyranny & propaganda. Some of us spoke out even when it cost us so much. I am proud we did. It was worth it. 

Wow.

Imagine A World Without Hate

(Source: mediaite, via liberalsarecool)

Thanks Obama!

That’s right …

(Source: obama2016)

President Barack Obama, second inaugural address, 1/21/13

(Source: current)

Don’t Be Silent.

(via gaywrites)

A piece I wrote for Revolver Magazine in its entirety. 

Find your fucking polling place & fucking vote tomorrow.