1

The liar and the thief rejoice in their first year only. –Greek Proverb

I remember the day I met Vicky Michaels. I will never forget that I almost missed the smile she gave me, looked up and saw it fading, saw her expression change to one that said, Okay, if he’s like that then fine, and immediately felt bad about it. I was descending the stairs at the school I’d taught music at for five years already, and she was obviously a new recruit to residential staff, sitting in an oversized arm chair, a little anxious, slightly overdressed for the first day of her new job. She was tall, dark haired and unusual, pretty.
My memory of that smile was vivid for a long time. I’ve been lucky to get a few in my time, but I will always remember this girl smiled at me like she was recognizing a best friend from a past life. She would, years later, praise me for the rush of energy I brought to her moments later as I walked up, offered my hand, and welcomed Vicky Michaels to my little school. I think I would recognize the crush of destiny if it happened today, but at the time, I just went back to my work. It sure wasn’t over.

Not long after, I was finishing my day with stretches in the Great Room of the refurbished old mansion that made up our little school, and here was Vicky again, sitting in a cushy white chair and telling me that some of the students had been talking about me. That wasn’t important; I think she was letting me know for the first time she was thinking about me, and I liked it.

Still, I was focused on music at this place, and not easy to penetrate. What followed was a progressive campaign on Vicky’s part to get my attention. This would include coming up from behind and putting her arm around me, compliments about my playing, and hanging around outside the practice room when I was working.
We spent long breaks together talking about our lives and our backgrounds, and favorite movies we had in common. They were many. We both loved Cronenberg’s The Fly, and I ripped my DVD of it one night before work, and left a copy in her mailbox. From this came another smile I will not forget. She walked up and thanked me with such sincerity. I loved to make this odd, vulnerable young woman smile like a kid on Christmas morning.

She came up to me smiling one Tuesday afternoon at school, between lessons. “Tristan, I had a dream about you!” She reported. I asked her what it was about, but she just smiled and shook her head. I chalked it up to shyness. It seemed pretty clear it had been about more than talking. Another time, toward the end of my career at this little school, I was sitting in the dining room eating lunch when I felt the warm, unexpected rush of Vicky’s voice in my ear, telling me she liked the way I looked that day. I felt warm excitement flood my body. She looked back and smiled at me before she sat down at her table.

There are connections in this life driven by such a powerful energy, you look back and realize they had a purpose. Vicky and I talked about our backgrounds and families, broken homes. She was remarkably intuitive about my own. She seemed to know what I was going to say before I said it. She would later say the same when we reconnected. Vicky had an odd ability to convince me she was like me, that we shared a great deal in common. I guess we did. The one thing I felt was missing: Vicky did not laugh enough. I like the playful female muse. I love the one with the raucous laughter, the easy smile. I love to laugh with my partner, and laugh at myself. Vicky smiled sweetly, but sadly, and she didn’t laugh much.

Still, she kept up with the attention. “We’ve got twin minds, Tristan,” she told me one day. Another colleague I’d become friendly with at the school said something that seemed contrary to all of this.

“Vicky says her boyfriend helps her.” She told me. It was an odd thing to report, as I hadn’t told her about Vicky and I. If that’s true, I wondered, why does she make these strong and obvious moves with me? I doubted he would find that helpful. The thing was, the bearer of this message was a young woman who had tried get me into her bed more than once, and another time, get me to move to Los Angeles with her. So, I thought she might have been redirecting my attention away from Vicky for her own purpose. She knew me well and would have guessed Vicky was the type I would find intriguing. On the other hand, it was a perfectly valid thing to point out. Vicky’s behavior with me sure didn’t reflect it. In retrospect, I’m sure Vicky did say her “boyfriend helps her.” She wouldn’t have said it to me.

I read once that a cheater cheats because they are lacking love, but not from their partner, from within themselves. They remind me of that student you see now and then who tries every music teacher in town, looking for that elusive trick the next one might have that will make them good without making them face their own playing first. I guess I’m just lucky: life is so vivid for me, that kind of behavior would just be stressful and pointless. I have this odd quality of wanting to devote my life and my affection to one person. Maybe some people are like stones, stuck to the base level of consciousness and in need of constant stimulation, born to forever wander, use others for meaningless distraction and quickly get bored.

I’ve heard cheaters are often severely jealous themselves, and I find that odd. Years ago, I cheated on my high school girlfriend. I thought I was clever. She, in fact, did the same thing to me. I found out early it is a terrible way to cause pain. Most people will tell you they’d rather be stabbed than cheated on by the one they love. It brings the worst kind of heartbreak. Vicky was more than smart enough to know that.

Still, she said nothing of the boyfriend to me, and our chemistry was natural and fun. Vicky was tall, tall as me, and I felt a powerful energy between us when we talked. I was starting to wonder if maybe she was right, maybe we were like twins. I invited her into the studio one night to hear a song I was working on. She sat across from me and chatted. A pretty little lamp burned in the corner.
“The students have a ‘makeout bench’,” she told me, quite out of the blue. We hadn’t been talking about students, or makeout benches. “They call it the ‘makeout bench’.”

I guess it was a pretty clear invitation. I later wondered why I didn’t act on that one. I was strangely passive through much of this. I guess the final tally is that it was just a major shifting of gears. I really hadn’t expected something like this to happen at my work. I was concerned with music, and my highly sensitive students. Maybe it would have been completely different if I worked a job I couldn’t stand, as so many of us in this culture do. I might have been looking for distraction. I’m long past that. I loved my job. I had drums, a synth, a piano, gifted students and colleagues to bounce ideas off of. So, I made Vicky memorize my new address in Holyoke, and encouraged her to visit me sometime.

Soon after, she came up to me with another announcement.
“Tristan, I was outside your house last night!” She seemed excited about it. Thanks for telling me now, I said. I’ll be up late watching for you again. From the way she reported it, she made it seem exciting for her to lurk around my place and imagine coming up, gaze up at the third story where I was probably eating chocolate or working on my music. She didn’t ring the bell.

Then, right at the height of all this, misfortune struck at my little school. Actually, to be more accurate, it had been a slow motion wreck for some time. My school had coalesced around students with a rare genetic anomaly called Williams Syndrome and some quite resourceful people, each of whom happened to have a child with this rare syndrome. They wanted a school worthy of them and their children: a kind of Harvard for the special needs crowd, and they had the resources to make it happen. The mission was to teach special needs students through music and the arts, and it was built around the unusual group of people with Williams. This anomaly, much to the good fortune of anyone who works with them, tends to make people kind, trusting, and almost telepathically gifted at the emotional language of music. My connection with these students, from the first summer I’d met them at a wonderful little camp in the Berkshires three years before (the camp director helped me land my job at the school, something for which I’ve always been grateful), was easy, fun, and super productive. I did stuff with these kids I still remember as quite beautiful. For a time anyway, it was a fabulous gig. I loved to watch the effect these students had on the other staff members and volunteers who came through. They brought out the best in everyone. I saw twenty-three year old college guys stand at the piano and sing a silly pop song I knew they wouldn’t have been caught dead singing outside that school. It didn’t matter. I saw repairmen leave the place smiling, and knew they would have a good day just for their proximity to these kind, unusual people.

The momentum from my experience at the Williams Camp was strong, and I threw myself into my work from the first semester we opened. It was way more than a job to me. I loved every minute I was there. I used to stay after during Summer Session every day to clean tables in the dining room. Another time I stayed to move old TV’s into the cellar, all of this off the clock, since my pay was based on the lessons I taught. I drove from the Berkshires in a snowstorm one winter and crashed my car into a guard rail; another time I rented a vehicle for a week to get to work. It was a real irony to me that my school was called Berkshire Hills Music Academy, it was set in South Hadley and for years my commute from the Berkshires was an hour and twelve minutes each way. I didn’t even mind that. I spent hours after work was done with kids who wanted extra help with their writing or playing. The extra hours didn’t bother me. The students paid me with kindness and gratitude. I liked the music most of all, especially performances, and we had many. For a time, it was truly fun.

Six years into my tenure at this beautiful old restored mansion of a school, the board hired a new director, a white haired veteran of private schools and non-traditional programs like ours who I thought had a lot of vision and did some great stuff. Unfortunately, like the directors before her, the board’s out of touch demands and maneuverings clashed with her own attempts to steer the ship as best she could. She lasted one year. That was longer than some of our other directors had lasted: one lasting only a few weeks! (He seemed promising, actually), and the leadership from the controllers of our private school was taking its toll on my little paradise. We had scored our first director after two years in operation, and she was exceptional. She was highly competent, supportive, very smart. Staff loved her. Our program, under her direction, was fabulous. Parents just glowed with appreciation. Many of us felt let down when after one year the board fired her, but that’s what this small group of wealthy wives who controlled the place did. These people were not skilled with cooperation. They controlled everything, and they demanded total submission. Our success during that first director’s tenure was at its peak: the high water mark. But they fired her.

Four years later, things were not great. What had started as a love song of inspiration, imagination and possibility was becoming more rigid and restrictive by the week, fear replacing the open-hearted creativity that characterized its genesis. I saw changes everywhere. It brought in people who seemed to watch the traffic lights in life, but not the traffic: folks with a focus on rules, parameters and codified standards rather than the real contextual unfolding of a human situation. I watched more good people get fired, let go or quit out of frustration than I can count on both hands, and I shouldn’t have been surprised when the axe finally fell for me.

Still, it hurt. My friend Celeste would later say to me, “It sounds like that school of yours is a once beautiful planet that’s no longer capable of supporting life.” Looking back, I think that’s pretty apt.

Right after they fired the experimental, progressive thinking lady who’d lasted only a year as director, six years in and hardly our first, the board made a reactionary move and replaced her with a bitter, distrustful, unpleasant little man named Stewart. My first, and subsequent impressions of Stewart was of a man who had followed the official doctrine his entire life, walked the straight line and done what they’d told him to do, and was waiting for his reward. It wasn’t coming. I thought he seemed bitter, terse and unhappy.

Stewart was comparable and well suited for a collegial relationship with Candace: the lesson coordinator who took over in my final few months at the academy. I’d had the same manager for five years at my school, a highly intelligent, talented and super supportive individual who eventually stepped down to focus on music. He’s good at it. The young woman and fellow music instructor who took over for him however, was awesome! We had two years of inspiration and productivity, and we did great things for those students. Then, she stepped down out of total frustration despite the board literally begging her to stay, quite a thing as I’d noted her patience was considerable, and in that vacuum of leadership and disinterest from the rest of the staff in taking this job, as well as a massive upheaval with the director leaving after one short year, Candace moved in. Candace is roughly five feet tall and weighs about three hundred pounds. She taught voice and sang opera, loudly, with a flair for that histrionic German stuff. I never saw her show emotion one single time, except when things didn’t go her way. In my opinion she was a brooding and unhappy individual who’d been craving some kind of power and there’s no doubt that when she got it, she changed fast. I recall one very gifted colleague who, despite many attempts by the school to keep her (she was exceptional), quit, and cited Candace as the reason.
“It’s like an abusive relationship, working at that school.” She said to me. “You’ll see. After you leave.”

Another told me with dark spots under her eyes when we met in the café at Whole Foods one afternoon, that she had come home to vent about Candace every night to her fiancé before she’d finally resigned.

Candace had, a few years before, pointedly asked me at work one day if I’d be interested in a sublet of her apartment. She knew I wanted to move from the Berkshires down to the Valley, where the school is. She was considering a job out West, she said, and could sublet her apartment for a fantastic price. Yes!, I had said, but soon after she revealed the job hadn’t come through, and invited me to move in anyway.
“I guess it’ll be you, me and Franklin,” she said, meaning her and her young son. I declined. One day while I was visiting to talk about this she had said to me,
“I want a cabana boy. Someone who looks good, and cleans up around the house.”

She didn’t say she meant me. Still, if she did, I was unable to reciprocate any interest in this proposal, or the offer to move in with her and her son. A year or two later she’d asked me to take care of her small terrier at the same place while she went away for the weekend. I love animals and she knew it, but it was far for me to drive and for some reason I turned that one down, too. I would regret it soon after, when she took over as Lesson Coordinator and turned out to be so harsh toward me, and a driving force behind my dismissal. Though management hadn’t the slightest interest in anything I had to say and seemed to fully support Candace in her thrust to get rid of me, things apparently went south fast. They fired Candace in less than a year and found themselves embroiled in a highly contentious wrongful termination suit with her, their most serious one yet. It was, I’m told, quite a debacle.

I came in to teach one Tuesday morning in December, and Candace cut me off in the hall and ushered me into a meeting with her and Stewart. It was, predictably, not a pleasant one. I feel the school’s decision to leave me in a room with these two individuals to end it did not reflect my nearly eight years of service, hard work, and hundreds of hours of volunteer time. A colleague had written a few years before that I was “unfailingly gentle” with the students; and many had praised the generosity and sincerity I brought to those kids. In my first review, my supervisor and director told me they were considering having me speak about how I’d been so successful teaching these unique students. I thanked them but declined. I had encouraged my students endlessly to exercise, stretch, and eat delicious healthy food. I had started at the school doing residential work as well as music instruction, and there wasn’t a day when i didn’t round up any willing students and get them outside to move their bodies. Our founder and president had praised my dedication and particularly the live performances saying, “Everyone’s an equal on that stage with him.” Strangers had walked up and thrown their arms around me after concerts for the work I was doing with those kids. The management left me with these two individuals to end it. Stewart, obviously a low level talent even in the mundane world of management, and despite having been there for all of two months and having had virtually no contact with me, took the opportunity to be gratuitously cruel to bolster his own ego. He knew I was basically a dead man walking at this point, that it was unlikely anyone would listen to or care what I had to say after they cut things off so forcefully, and he exploited that opportunity for his own gratification. The colleagues who called me after this stated that the management’s behavior had been fascist, unethical and incongruous with my service to this population and my loyalty to the school, but Candace came on with a force and they went with it.

I felt cut off from the things I loved. Probably because I was. The Director of Academics felt my dismissal had been harsh and unfair, and lobbied quite a lot to get me a meeting with the founder and president. She promised she would and then, despite many attempts and much effort on his and my part, did not. I’ve come to believe they left me in a room with these two tasteless individuals because they knew their behavior was irresponsible and unfair, and they preferred not to face it or face me. After all this, and after seven and a half years of that kind of dedication, when I applied for the unemployment I’d paid into all those years, the school denied it, saying, “Oh, no, he quit.” I still find that an astounding and sleazy deception. The state of Massachusetts agreed with me, and awarded the benefits.

A few months after my dismissal I was at Kripalu yoga center in the Berkshires, and in a strange coincidence, met a young woman who told me the next semester she was starting an internship at a small school for special needs students in South Hadley. It was obviously my former school. I expressed to her how amazing the students would be, what a beautiful and life changing experience it would be for her. I hope it was. I stood there afterwards and wondered at this strange coincidence, and realized I’d said nothing but good things only months after they had treated me so poorly. I wish the school had been as sincere with me as I was with them.

From the year we opened, we had assembled some of the most dedicated people I have ever worked with, all centered around this amazing population of unusual and gifted students. Most of them, like myself, would have been loyal to this school for life. Every single one of us is gone, except one, and that person seems to be trudging their way through at this point.

In my final year I had learned from a quiet, hard working and very thoughtful lady who’d had to sit through board meetings with their Darth Vader lawyer and bizarre power plays (odd for a school of twenty-nine special needs kids), and who chose me to confide in, that one of the board members who had an objection to a kind-hearted and inspiring young female student who happened to be African American, had said “Maybe we shouldn’t let black people in here.” A pretty dark sentiment to overhear at a school for young people with disabilities, I would say. My colleague seemed quite disturbed by it. Later, when I tried so hard to return after I’d been let go, an administrator wrote and told me that if I wanted to return I would be “expected to fit into BHMA culture.” There is not a single person I admire in all the world who would do that. I find the idea completely unappealing, and now, I’m glad to be free of the place. It’s obviously one of real bigotry. It’s just that I missed the work. They took away something I really loved, and it hurt.

A former high up in management from the early years, a highly talented one with whom I’d gotten along fabulously called me up. “Tristan, that place is like a cult,” she said to me. “When people leave they feel like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ But they figure it out.”

Looking back, I’d have to say she was right. A cult has to have something to trade in: something you need. In this case it is the unusual level of kindness, talent, and trusting sincerity Williams people bring to your life. There really is a feeling state associated with your proximity to them. That along with a steady stream of original music and access to music gear, it was sticky stuff. A cult also tends to subtly erode your confidence and self-esteem, something I can say definitely happens to people who work at that place. I started to see myself the way the school saw me. I now see that this is a very unhealthy and dishonest situation to find one’s self in, a dangerous liability in any toxic culture. Another parallel is that the controlling members of a cult tend to be unyielding and obtuse in the exercising of their own power: totally convinced of their primacy.

I recently met with a former colleague who expressed his regret that enrollment was at its lowest ever, that the fun had gone out of it, the magic was gone. Still, at the time, I really took this personally. I was hard on myself about it.

I drove out West for the first time in my life. I took the southern route, and drove across the United States on Route 40. It was fun. I stopped to volunteer at a wildlife sanctuary in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I helped take care of mountain lions, cleaned the wolves’ cage, brought food to goats and geese and a fallow deer, stepped into a wading pool with a North American alligator, delivered breakfast to a prickly African porcupine, and helped build a new bear habitat in the hot Oklahoma sun. I loved it. I can’t wait to go back.

I made it to California and fell in love with the San Clemente pier, saw my first West Coast sunset pour itself like fiery, liquid red gold into the ocean, and stayed that night to watch a raucous full moon rise up over the palm trees. I saw a crowd of kids surf on sleek little skimmers in and out of the shallows in the moonlight. I’d never seen anything like this. It looked like they were gliding on some kind of alien technology: slippery shadows that skimmed across the across the shallow surf and back onto the beach. It was cool. I drove up to LA for work, found new connections and played music. I wrote to Vicky and tried to stay in touch. The feeling of lost opportunity pulled at me, and she would later say she felt the same way. Still, I was gone from that place, out of her context.

I drove back to Oklahoma for my wildlife sanctuary, and this time got to feed and care for a nine day old puma kitten. I loved seeing Dama again, the fallow deer. She seemed to recognize me. I went back to the Berkshires for a few weeks, then drove out to Cape Cod to stay with my friend Charlene and help take care of her two girls. I had lots on my mind but I hadn’t forgotten the girl who’d gone to such lengths to convince me we had a special connection.

2

Got the best of me… diggin in my heart of gold. –Alicia Keys “Go Ahead”

Then one day, after a time with no contact between Vicky and I, an email came in. It was pretty simple, but somehow set things off again. I think she knew it would.

Hi Tristan,

-V.

I found this email oddly provocative. Was Vicky inviting me to write my own future? If so, I was going to write her in.

I was convinced Vicky would be the last attractive female to like me in this lifetime, that I had somehow missed the most amazing opportunity for the soul level connection she’d convinced me we had. A new student’s mom I’d become friendly with suggested otherwise.

“Look, there’s a reason you didn’t move with this girl in the first place,” she said, sitting across from me at her kitchen counter one day after a drum lesson. Maybe, but driven by the harsh disconnection from my work at the school and my need to make it right again, I was set on recapturing the opportunity. My emails to Vicky Michaels unfolded like flowers on lapse photography. It was as if I’d taken Vicky’s happiness on as my creative project. I wanted to make this young woman smile, even if I wasn’t there to see it. If Vicky had cast a spell with me, or if fate had positioned us both for some kind of purpose, it had sure worked.

This was the big one: my last attempt at healing childhood pain and loss by focusing on someone else rather than the hole in my own heart. Even in the best of conditions I have a strong desire to be of help in this world, and maybe I sensed underneath that Vicky really needed it. This combined with her affection towards me and the obvious chemistry between us made a very potent mixture. I was hooked. I think she knew it.

I sent three care packages over a period of about a year. Just before Christmas I sent a chocolate bar with pretty orange wrapping and tiny orange peels in the chocolate, and a bar of handmade orange calendula soap. I would later discover Vicky’s bedroom was painted orange when she sent me a picture of herself, but hadn’t known it at the time. I kept sniffing the translucent orange soap before I sealed the package; it smelled delicious. I dropped a handwritten note in with it:

Vicky, pretty baby, please do not eat this. <3, Tristan.

She wrote me later that week: Received your package today. Your disclaimer ‘do not eat this,’ pretty much made my day.

She encouraged the emails. She said my writing was “wonderful” and “quite special”. One time I was at my mom’s taking care of my Chocolate Labrador Lana, and an email came in from Vicky. She requested I resend a recent email. I accidentally deleted it. She wrote. I was going to print it out, actually. Resend it, if you can.

Ah!, I thought. So you are reading them!

One night a few months later, right in the middle of a hot summer, my phone woke me up at 3 AM on a Saturday night. RESTRICTED. I answered, but they said nothing, then hung up. I went back to sleep. The next day I thought about it, and I was sure it was Vicky. The only other person it might have been would have definitely called to talk, and she wouldn’t have restricted the caller ID. I suspect this was right around the time Vicky was breaking up with her boyfriend of more than three years. Months later when we reconnected, I asked Vicky if she called that night. I might have, she wrote. I thought about it more than once. This was as close to an admission as you tend to get out of Vicky.

I sent an email soon after, just a short one to say goodnight. Line One was the subject title.

Vicky. Wishing you a beautiful night, I wrote. I woke up the next day to her response; she’d sent it late.

Well thank you, kind sir, for thinking of yours truly. Perhaps we can find the time to get together, at some point in time. Night. -V

It was non-committal but it still had an effect. I drove to the Berkshires for work that day thinking something good was on the way. Actually, it was, but not in the way I was thinking.

3

Just stare… and live the nightmare. –Rage Against The Machine “No Shelter”

I came home from Haymarket Cafe in Northampton one warm night in January, in a fine mood, still fizzing from the green smoothie mix of orange, banana, cranberry and spirulina they call Swamp Thing I’d drank a few hours before. I felt like a hot shower for some reason and when I got out around midnight, oddly as I wasn’t in the habit of doing this, I opened up my Macbook and logged into Gmail. I immediately saw a green light on the column to the left: Vicky Michaels. Available. I think it was the first time in nearly two years I’d even looked for a chat with her, but almost as soon as I saw it, within minutes, Vicky shot me an email. It was as if she had seen me see her and fired the email off in response. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had this kind of psychic hit on me. So here was a new email. I opened it.

Tristan, I woke up today, and my cat was suddenly very, very ill. I’ve had Grey since I was 10, and this just SUCKS. Anyway, I couldn’t think of a gentler spirit than yourself to help me deal with it. Send a little midnight goodness my way, telepathically or electronically.

Tell Lana I said hello.

I clicked on her name in Gchat.
Babe I’m so sorry about Grey, I wrote to her.
I immediately started reassuring her that she’d given him the best life possible. It’s okay, I wrote. I’m sorry. It’s okay.
She wrote:
i knew you would understand. besides, i am long overdue to talk to you. Though i think of you frequently.
She had led with the loss of a pet and friend, something she knew would get to me, but seemed to jump quickly into wanting to just talk.
One of the first things I said to her:
“Vicky. I’m sorry I got fired from the school.”
I think I almost felt as if I had let her down. I would realize later on that losing my job didn’t in the slightest mean she and I couldn’t have continued our interest in each other. Of course, it pretty much did, as she’d been in a serious relationship the entire time.
It wasn’t your fault. She wrote back. It rarely is in that place.
She was interested in me outside of that place, she would tell me later that night. I was glad to hear it.
We set out on a dark winter night’s journey sending ideas and questions back and forth, reconnecting.

Something was different about Vicky. It was obvious. She seemed angry. Vulgar. I wondered why. She described drug and alcohol abuse that was astonishing in its volume and severity. Gone were the wine and sleeping pills she’d downed nightly just to get to sleep. Now it was vodka, and a few nights later a switch to whiskey. She indicated a strong interest and frequent use of drugs. She confessed real insecurity around my focus on health.

You seem so organic, she wrote. I am not. i am highly unhealthy..the things i put into my body would probably kill you.
Oh, you mean food, I wrote.
Food, chemicals.
If we were together and I ate an avocado and drank some spring water, would that make you insecure? I wrote back.

I waited for the answer.

Yes. I don’t know why. except that i have been somewhat intentionally self-destructive, perhaps out of spite for the health nuts. always a supporter of fast food.

Looking back, I find that quite a thing for Vicky to say. It’s got me thinking about how when we’re sick, we crave more poison. It’s strange that we keep reproducing the same conditions, even when they bring us misery, pain and sickness. The tobacco industry has relied on this tragic human truth for decades. Still, I was surprised to hear Vicky say it. Do Vicky’s eating habits spite the health nuts? This diet brings depression, addiction, bloating, gas, weight gain, anger, low vibration, malnutrition and the bad karma associated with fast food and the horrifying cruelty behind it. If anyone is enduring all this to spite me, I guess I’d have to say they aren’t getting far with it.

It was the first time I’d gotten points off with a love interest for taking care of myself, and the planet. What a strange thing to count against someone. Wouldn’t you want a lover who is healthy, vital, in a cheerful mood, and takes care of his or her body? She sure seemed to show up quite a lot when I did my yoga in the corner of the Great Room at the end of my day at school. What was the problem here? Where was the kind soul I’d known at my music academy for two years? Had it all been an act? Or had she plunged that much further into some progressively degrading world of toxicity and addiction? She’d plunged back into my life on Gchat, the cat was dying and Vicky drinking vodka, and I honestly could not tell.

I’ve noticed that when infected with this kind of toxicity, the sick part of us tries to convince that a life of health and vitality is “boring”. Not true at all! I’m a good cook and I love what I eat. How boring is it to feel energized, alive, creative, awake and attentive when you meet new people, good about yourself and your body? That’s what wild spring water, organic raw foods, maca root, chocolate and daily outdoor exercise do for you. I’ve found something that works so well, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t share it with you: real deal, no debt or depletion. It doesn’t even take much of your time. Most people find it was harder to maintain the life they’d been living, and easier to let it go. I find myself actually living in my body for the first time since childhood. I found life started working for me, instead of against me. I’ve been on this upward spiral for well over a year now, so I’m pretty sure it is not a fluke. I used to have issues managing pain and fatigue; now I have issues managing my energy and inspiration. The stuff Vicky mentioned, it doesn’t just make you fat, sick and nearly dead, it actually leaches vital nutrients out of the body. … Then you crave more of it. Let’s be honest here; that’s a little crazy. A life of energy, health and high vibe is easier! Your thoughts ascend. You feel awake, alive, attentive with the ones you love. The world is vivid. Music explodes in exquisite colors across your tender nervous system and reduces you to shivering ecstasy. For the first time since you were born into the mass mind machinery of toxic materialist culture, life starts going your way. You contact your true soul desires and dispense with any ridiculous waste of time in your life. Synchronicity and coincidence unfold ever more quickly, and you find out you’re a character in your own story, supported by the universe and by nature, complete with your own soundtrack. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want that.

Drugs, pharmaceuticals, bad food and promiscuity are the faintest attempts to feel the way you’ll feel every day if you get on this train. Life becomes a peak experience of energy and inspiration.

Then there’s all the stuff you’re not doing: like putting hormones, pesticides, carcinogens and other toxic trash into your body, and supporting the horrors of deforestation, pollution, and the extreme cruelty of factory farming. You start to wake up. Western culture reveals itself to you as one of numb, unfeeling cruelty; from the unsustainable crimes of petrochemical war profiteering, to the desecration of this fragile planet and your health by companies like Monsanto and Dow Chemical and their crowd of toxic sociopaths. You quickly find that it took all those bizarre chemicals, mindless TV shows and cheap little addictions to keep you from seeing what was really going on in your life, and your culture. This is not fun stuff, but there are moments of real hope for the world, not just petty, cheap little pleasures meant to distract you that quickly turn back into pain. The world presents in vivid color, and genuine optimism.

In many ways, my reason for not eating that stuff is pure hedonism: I like to feel good. I had no idea of it growing up, but as I write this, fast food restaurants like KFC and Wendy’s are paying pulp suppliers to clear cut whole Indonesian forests, with unthinkable destruction of ecosystems, irreplaceable species and wildlife, including tigers and their habitats, just to make the trash paper people get at KFC or Wendy’s. We have failed as a culture, nation, and as a species when this is possible. Is that really what Vicky wants when she writes “always a supporter of fast food”? I believe no one has a right to clear cut these precious habitats, or set orangutans on fire to make palm fruit oil for Girl Scout cookies, or any of these other atrocities against animals, nature and the Earth. It is an emblem of the absurdity of our times that we even speak of being “into the environment.” You are the environment! You are constantly exchanging molecules with your environment; it sustains you. A person cannot pour toxic chemicals into the ground or ocean without eventually taking those chemicals back into their own body. It’s absurd that some people are “environmentalist” and others aren’t. It is only human arrogance, stupidity and greed that keeps some of us from finally getting this. We’re in a full out holocaust of rampant cruelty to the Earth and its most vulnerable, innocent, irreplaceable creatures. We never had a right to do any of this.

I’m just going to come out on this: my heart breaks so painfully at the thought of the downed calf in long haul transport, or the sow in the a gestation crate, flattened for two and a half years while she waits to die in the most nightmarish way imaginable. She cannot stand up, she cannot turn around, from the day she was born onto cement and her tail cut off brutally without anesthesia, her whole life is unthinkable pain and I would do anything to help that feeling, sentient creature, and the millions more in her situation. I saw a video once of the dolphin slaughter in Japan, and was so stricken with emotional pain I was lifeless and sick for two days. That’s light compared to what I’ve seen now with the factory farm industry, and the sick cowards who torture these animals behind closed doors. Those dolphins had it good compared to cows and pigs in factory farms. All we have to do to end it, is stop eating the stuff. I am an activist on many topics with regards to social justice, economic policy, the insanity of war for profit, and believe me, with regards to the unspeakable horror behind the cancerous growth grilling at your backyard barbecue, if you are a remotely sane human being: that is anything north of putrid psychopath, factory farming is an offense to you too. It’s a human rights violation to serve this cancer to schoolchildren, to families, to an unknowing public,and to you, especially with the senseless cruelty just beneath the surface. The factory farm lobby is currently defending their practice of body slamming piglets to death as a humane form of slaughter. Obviously, these are deformed psychopaths, but that body slamming is not even the worst thing that happens to these poor creatures, which includes being boiled alive on the assembly line, fully conscious and screaming. A culture has to be extremely sick for this to go on. If we thought government had anything to do with legislating against these kinds of abuses, or stopping them, I guess we’ve found otherwise. They are doing nothing, and with a few notable exceptions, fold to the profiteering lobbies like flaccid cowards. When it comes to the toxicity, unsustainability and extreme intolerable cruelty of the meat industry, your government has failed you. Miserably. It has not failed you benignly, or only by incompetence; it has yielded to profiteers and lobbyists, and the sociopathic self-service that characterizes American empire. They’ve even become deceptive in the way they title bills dealing with this industry. It is all deception, sleaze and depravity from big agricultural business and the legislators who serve them. As always, it is only through your activism, and your refusal of this poison that the situation will change. We also have government agents that kill precious, noble wild animals like wolves; they shot more than 350 this year alone. Coyotes also. Imagine the sadistic cowardice of the men who do this. If you’re interested in a sane environmental policy or have any understanding of economics, it may interest you to know that it takes ten pounds of grain to produce one pound of animal protein. That is literally insane. This has nothing to do with our great grandparents killing a cow and sharing the food with the neighbors, or the lion and gazelle on an African plain. This is systematic, terrifying cruelty of true Orwellian proportions, and any thinking, feeling person would find it intolerable. The solution is not to eat or buy the stuff. Most people have a category in their mind for “animal activist” and a sort of mental defense against facing the realities around this topic. Believe me, for anyone who confronts this stuff head on and connects with it emotionally, they will quickly lose all concepts. That is a visceral experience, one no amount of flaccid abstraction or numb propaganda can undo.

I read this recently, and thought it would be relevant here: We are surprised that some people believe animals don’t have human thoughts. All animals - including the human animal -have the ability to love, desire and play… as well as feel pain, mourn the loss of their loved ones, terror and sadness. Many are even capable of math and pigs are known to be smarter than dogs. I invite Wayne Dyer to help on this one, but I see no alternative to my heart getting ripped in half every time I think of these creatures and their suffering.

If you want to assess your culture: for real I mean, not the network news, tie-a-yellow-ribbon, Hollywood red carpet, parade of new gadgets or however else we numb ourselves into self-congratulatory avoidance of what’s really going on with American empire, then look closely at these feeling creatures and their lives. Every spiritual luminary throughout history has told us we reveal ourselves by how we treat the least among us. The ones who have no voice. This, my friends, is it.

People who don’t want to give up meat can source it ethically: from pasture raised animals, who live humane lives and are killed ethically. This is way better for you in every way, including for your health, and a huge step in addressing the extreme humanitarian crisis of cruelty in factory farming. If you can obtain this locally, you’ve lowered the carbon footprint massively too, and supported a local business. I truly hope you will consider this if you still want to eat meat.

Even worse than the US government right now, and that’s saying something with the indefensible cruelty of the meat industry, aerial gunning of wolves and poisoning of coyotes (this indiscriminately poisons much other wildlife too: bears, raccoons, as well as family pets die in agony when they consume it) to “help ranchers” (it doesn’t help ranchers in the slightest, only proves how out of balance our “meat industry” is with any notion of sustainability and the natural world) is the government of China, who’s treatment of animals and wildlife is exploitive and brutal beyond description, some of the worst in human history. This includes poaching of the last of precious African elephants for their ivory. More than half of this shocking atrocity is commissioned and paid for by the Chinese government: a true emblem of insanity, greed and staggering human arrogance. Those elephants are smarter, more gentle, more social, compassionate and more human than the sociopaths carrying out this atrocity. Something is severely amiss when this can go on.

While our first lady plants organic gardens on the white house lawn (a wonderful thing to do), her husband, whom I twice helped get elected, recently appointed a toxic criminal to head the FDA: former Monsanto VP Michael Taylor. Our president did this despite a petition of more than two hundred thousand Americans protesting it. Let’s review a few more recent news items from America’s legislators and agencies. Despite serious concerns, protests and warnings, the EPA just approved a new insecticide sulfoxaflor, which they themselves admit is highly toxic to honey bees. They apparently haven’t heard there are more than 70,000 chemicals in our water, air and land right now, interacting in ways no one can predict, and radically altering for the worse the health of every animal, fish, every person, tree and blade of grass on this planet: cancer, addiction and depression rates, along with auto-immune disorders like chronic fatigue only some of the side effects. Imagine what this new chemical will do to your children’s lungs, or to your health when it gets in the water supply. Bees, as you know, are absolutely crucial to the health of our planet. The EPA has actually said with a straight face, “No, it’s okay, we’re requiring a warning label which advises “Notifying known beekeepers within 1 mile of the treatment area 48 hours before the treatment is applied.” Obviously, these agencies are run by toxic buffoons who ought to write bad comedy no one will watch; they have no business pretending they in any way serve the people of this nation. They serve Monsanto; they serve Dow Chemical. Literally. When you buy organic by the way, or better yet raise your own food, you reject all of this and take the power back into your own hands. The USDA has failed miserably to address the horrors of the meat industry, a true humanitarian crisis, as well as the serious dangers to human health in consuming toxic factory farmed products. From taxpayer funded subsidies to legislation, these agencies and their toxic robots serve the myopic profiteering needs of sociopathic big business profiteers. If we want to save this planet, our family’s health and ourselves, we can reject this toxic trash and design our own lives to be free of it. For a thousand reasons, this means avoiding mass produced meat and dairy products. Buy local. It also means raising awareness about the full out holocaust they are committing against this beautiful, fragile blue jewel of a planet and your own health.

Currently, the US Navy has plans for a testing exercise, that’s correct, testing exercise to detonate more than 50,000 explosives underwater up and down the US coastline, as well as more than 10,000 hours of high intensity sonar that is so forceful it can explode the internal organs of whales and other sea creatures. Dolphins, whales and other innocent sea creatures will die for this, or be made deaf, their lives disrupted and destroyed. For nothing. No threat, no war, nothing. Just a sick, perverse, irretrievably stupid military force completely out of control and insane with arrogance, hostility and blood lust. Do you believe your Navy and Secretary of Defense protect you? From this senseless plan, it’s clear they themselves are the threat, as cruel, out of control, toxic and dangerous as any in history. This does nothing for national security; in fact it weakens it. Clearly, our government is run by hostile, sick, out of control psychopaths and we need to wake up to this fact, now. Now, if you have children or you’re a teacher will have the courage to tell them the truth? This is what your government and military does: this exercise in cruel, senseless atrocity. This is what it is: sick, pointless, out of control, destructive moral cowards who eviscerate precious innocent marine mammals for nothing. I have a friend who told a story about someone he knew in the military. He and his buddies were sitting around bored one day, took some sheep they had at the base, and put them in an old abandoned tank. They shot the tank with a depleted uranium weapon, just to see what would happen. The sheep did not suffer the way these poor dolphins and whales will; they were killed instantly, liquified. This, however, is exactly the same impulse driving the Navy’s proposal. Men with these kinds of toys eventually want to try them out It is natural and predictable. In the absence of any real threat, our Navy just wants to shoot its weapons off. It is a truly atrocious, pointless, cowardly thing for them to do in our oceans, with those beautiful, innocent creatures, along with an entire marine ecosystem the victims. We have so much painful destruction of innocents and of the Earth already; that our officials could approve something like this, and that the Navy would even propose it, is proof that our own government and military is an out of control psychopath. No “Global force for good” would do anything like this, folks. No government that served its people or its nation would allow it. These policies are as uncivilized and as anti-human as anyone can imagine, as anti-life as any horrifying regime in history, and the only response is outrage and immediate call to action for each and all of us to stop these toxic sociopaths.

Much the way we couldn’t move forward if we still had African slaves chained to ships on their way to a lifetime of harsh servitude on a plantation, or if we locked special needs kids in the cellar at school and humiliated them, we cannot move forward until we address the unthinkable suffering of these sentient mammals in factory farms. It is the next challenge in any kind of evolution for our civilization. These creatures will live every day of their lives in torturous pain, with no sunlight, no mercy, not able to move even a few inches to relieve their suffering, at the end of which they will be boiled alive, or a similar kind of slaughter so cruel and inhumane it is staggering to think this kind of abuse goes on daily. I find this intolerably painful on a daily basis. The solution on this one is simple: each of us wakes up to this on an individual level, and finds small farmed, ethically raised meat, or finds alternatives to it, and refuses to support that toxic, atrocious industry. Then they tell their friends. Simple enough.

It is only under the most dreary and dreadful cultural illusions that this can go on; the workers in these plants and slaughterhouses must be extremely wounded people, deadened by a culture that was cruel to them, and numb to these beautiful, innocent beings and their agony. It is cynical in the extreme that this can go on. It is not necessary.

I feel our culture creates a condition of alienation, pain, dreariness and hostility from which this kind of abuse is entirely predictable. People in pain tend to act out to cause others pain. Addiction is also entirely predictable; people are just trying to feel better. In this condition, I think the dreadful suffering of innocents: sentient beings much like ourselves, just can’t get through to people. They think they’re living normal lives but they’re not. They are actually desperately unhappy and in pain, and this toxic chemical culture with the dreadful cruelty just beneath the surface is undeniable proof.

No one has said these mammals don’t feel pain, fear, love, and compassion like people do; in fact, if you look closely, you’ll probably find you believe animals have more love and compassion than most humans. Their suffering is as real as ours would be in those conditions. It is only the artificial divide of speciesism that keeps some of us from getting it. In a system as troubled as ours is, calculating profiteers will run the entire planet into the ground unless we stand up to stop them. This industry is a prime example. The cold, mechanistic, left-brain approach to policy is a total failure for us and the Earth: rampant destruction, addiction and a toxic system that brings no happiness even for the few at the top prove it. But even leaving out the extreme affront to our humanity and compassion, the unsustainability of this ten to one ratio coupled with an explosion of population around the globe, with countries like China wanting to eat like Americans, it’s obvious that the insanity of the meat industry is a threat to our very survival. So yeah, I don’t eat that toxic, cancerous stuff. I feel this is a pretty sensible decision, for myself and the planet.

Still, the words flew back and forth. Our chemistry in writing was similar to real life. Vicky and I shared ideas again about movies, music, life. There was a strong thread of self-destructive sadness in Vicky this time, much more than I’d seen before. She talked about childhood like it had been a sad affair.
Oh, Tristan, why couldn’t you have been my little friend when I was like twelve?
I’m that friend now, I wrote back.
At some point, fairly early on, Vicky announced the cat was now dead.
What!!?? I wrote.
Yes. She said. He’d been dying there, on the bed with her, and had just expired. Honestly, I didn’t see how this could happen when you’re on Gchat with someone. I felt confused. I tried reassuring her. You gave him a good life, I told her. Don’t blame yourself.

The night wore on. It got late. We shared our mutual regard for each other. I wrote to her:

Me: You understand you have my number and it is fine to use it, right? In case we’re ever in a great talk and get cut off. Just so you know. I wouldn’t misuse you or your number.
Vicky: i know this. and, although i hardly ever listen to my mom’s answering machine, i happened to one day…and found the most soft-spoken, intriguing voice imaginable
me: was it???
Vicky: an old msg from you
me: do tell.
Vicky: twas
and i listened to it again..for confirmation. then again, for my own listening pleasure
me: Really! That’s not unpleasant news.
Vicky: yes. i hadnt heard your voice in so long. and phone messages are usually abrasive.

I told her a story, how I’d been thinking of her once at a Barnes & Noble, when right at that moment someone called the name Vicky on the speakers above. I thought this was cool, the kind of synchronicity that seemed to haunt Vicky and I when we thought of each other, but her response was quite jarring:
I was at Anthony’s Strip Club recently. and a patron asked me my name. when i told him, he said “you and every other stripper here has that name” sure enough: “Vicky, report to stage left…”
My friends kid me about it, she wrote. I was not expecting this as her response to my story about the bookstore. It made it seem quite naive and quaint. She pushed on about the strip clubs.
I’m not opposed. She followed.
She said she’d gone to accompany a friend who “seemed a little drunk and vulnerable”. This is another one I would later turn over with a cooler head and a little more scrutiny. Her friend seemed drunk and vulnerable, so they drove while intoxicated to a drinking and strip establishment in the city of Springfield? That sounds like a fairly dubious solution. Vicky did all she could to make her interest in this stuff sound intelligent and chic, but I believe it is the next stop in a spiral of severe abuse and addiction that will take her years to recover from, if she does at all.

I love to watch women dance. I’ve probably seen the Daft Bodies video forty-seven times by now. My friend Sheevah Raad is Iranian-American, and when she visits my apartment she does Persian dance and belly dance for me and I love it! I guess watching a girl stomp on top of a bar stark naked except for heels, manipulating her vagina lips for some drunken, leering stranger fingering a five dollar bill just doesn’t appeal to me. No offense to those who enjoy it. It’s just not my idea of sexy. It feels impersonal, cheap, and degrading to me. I went to some of these clubs back in my twenties; I recall watching the men there and wanting to go up, tap them on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you know that’s not for you, right?” If they want to hang around beautiful women, isn’t there a way to do that where they’re actually important? Don’t get me wrong; I believe in devoting whole afternoons to sexual ecstasy. I think sex, delicious food, chocolate and hot showers with your beautiful, curvy sweetheart are truly important pursuits in this life. It’s just that to me, strip clubs hint at the promise of sex, but they don’t deliver! It’s like computer generated pop music. Made in LA, sold in Springfield. If you could peer just beneath the surface, could it be that whole scene is just a pack of badly wounded, frightened, insecure people living out a pitiful illusion of false sophistication? I wish these clubs were massive, Gothic mansions with endless rooms to discover upstairs and down, mysterious goings on, pulsing techno-funk music and sweaty revelers rave dancing with luminous violet lights strobing on them, dark hallways crawling with decked out strangers, and always the promise of something unpredictable, wild, fun! I would probably go every weekend. I don’t mind dangerous and strange. I just don’t wanna do it by the playbook. Strip clubs are like theme parks to me: well lit and predictable.

I think these clubs appeal to folks who are out of ideas. There’s a lot of that in this culture. You just get in line and live the prefabricated fantasy. You don’t even get your own. Watch a video of those Secret Service guys with the brittle, short-cropped hair, the tense, steely expression. Look in the eyes. Now that’s an ideal strip club patron. It’s a trend our culture has taken: let them tell you what you want, and then just go along. To me it feels empty; no satisfaction. Do men go to these clubs to prove they’re not gay? I see more sense in visiting a brothel. At least with that, you get something for your money. There’s a clear expectation, and less pretense. As for Vicky, it may be a sad waste of intelligence and talent and the next floor down in a tragic descent of addiction, avoidance and abuse.

I’m perverted, she announced on Gchat. It sounded like such a strong word to me. “Well It’s okay to be highly sexual,” I wrote back. I really cared about Vicky Michaels. I saw something in her; maybe it was the person she was early on in life, or underneath all this sad abusive trash. Everything she told me about her diet, the alcohol and drug abuse, the life she was living, I just accepted. I gave endless latitude. I would have cared for Vicky under any conditions. The person she had shown me at school was so special, I kept thinking, maybe this is just temporary. It had been two years, though, and the woman at the other end of this chat seemed very different from the sensitive, vulnerable creature I’d met at my little school. She’d told me several times she had a caustic, irritable side that was quick to anger. I hadn’t seen it. Vicky stated that she had been interested in watching sex in movies early, in childhood, that her life as an only child had been a lonely one. Her parents divorced. She stated early on in our chat that she was into the kind of sex where “it’s over in a matter of minutes.” My mind flashed to something I’d seen years ago: an interview with a woman who was a former prostitute and drug addict. She explained how empty she had felt after having quick sex with a stranger in an alley, and made it sound like a pretty desolate way to live. I wondered why this memory came up. My feelings for Vicky were sincere and strong, but now that we’d reconnected, I felt like I was walking into a war zone. I would later wonder if Vicky limited our relationship to chat because she didn’t want me to find out how things really were with her. I’ve seen too much toxic addiction in this life to have hung around.

I called a friend of mine, someone I’ve known nearly all my life. Her reaction was interesting:

“Oh, the sick part of her doesn’t want you around because it feels threatened by you,” she said. “And the good part of her will probably reject you too, because she knows she’s sick and she cares about you. So you’ve got an issue there.”

I logged in the following Monday, and here was the green light again. Vicky Michaels. Available to chat. She pushed through.

Hey.
The pretty one.
Is that your pseudonym?
You’re sweet.
Yes. Yes I am. Actually I can be quite caustic, she wrote.

Here we were, live on Gchat again in less than a week. After two years of not seeing each other, I think we were both thirsty for it. This was certainly the time for Vicky to say Hey, ease up there kid. Enough with the love notes and care packages. I didn’t like ya that much. On the contrary, she praised and encouraged the attention, stated that she had printed my emails out and stashed them away various places in her bedroom.

It started to snow, and we wrote back and forth all night with the soft white snow piling up outside our windows. I felt this strange, shivery, hypnotic trance from lack of sleep, anxiety over liking her so much, and the feeling that something on the other side of this was no longer safe. Still, I had a lot of momentum. The abuse stuff, at this level, it was all new to me. I pressed on.

Once again, I was astonished at Vicky’s talent for language. She could type whole paragraphs and spit them out at me with brilliant style and no type o’s. She did this so fast, I almost wondered if she had them stored up somewhere, and just copied them in. Probably not, though. Vicky really is a talent. It was fuel for the fire because, I like smart women. I felt myself waking up to answer questions, play, shoot the energy back and forth between us. Vicky described seeing me in dreams much the way I was seeing her. She used to show up sometimes in my waking hours almost like a hologram. It was very strong and unusual.

You give me hope for the world, Tristan, she wrote that morning as we were getting off chat. I was glad to hear it. She was giving me hope for the love affair she’d hinted at for some time now. Vicky had told me we were like twins, and I took that seriously. I wanted to see it through.
We hooked up again later that week. She stated that she’d been in the midst of a three-year long relationship when she’d met me. She had printed my emails out, squirreled them away like chestnuts she said, and he’d found one.
Chaos ensued. She wrote. I was sorry to hear it.
During these long nights of live chat, Vicky described dissatisfaction with all aspects of her life. Her childhood had been lonely; high school had been blase and unsatisfying.

I witnessed an almost bi-polar split between the person Vicky had shown me at the school, someone tender and valuable to me, and the one she was revealing now. I was running to catch up. The Vicky I had built up in my mind over a period of years had a lot of momentum, and I didn’t want to give that person up. I felt I had looked in her heart and knew how she really was, and didn’t want that stuff to get in the way of letting her know how special I thought she was. It was the strangest turnaround I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

I think I knew through all of this that my true love in life would be much lighter, more raucously funny, more joyful. It was a kind of dark chapter I had to see through. I think I also wanted to pay Vicky back for all the attention she’d given me. I’m sure I was responding subconsciously to her pain, and wanting to heal it. I have much too serious issues having been around that stuff in my younger years to do it safely. After it was cut off so forcefully, I felt a strong need to resolve things with Vicky, to write the ending. I guess this is it.

Has cocaine improved this world much? It’s like there’s this nasty slime associated with these drugs, and if you’re around them, the slime gets on you too. Maybe it’s the sleaze and brutality of the people who deal with it. It looks to me like cocaine tweaks the selfish gene. This probably reflects its popularity with the white western male in those greed soaked Reagan years: the beginning of the massive transfer of wealth in our country from the poor and working class to the upper three percent of the population. I was a kid then, and now, that drug just looks like trouble. I don’t think there’s anything countercultural or rebellious about a substance that does all this. Those who would oppress you are cheering when you use it. It’s good for them. More money for the increasingly privatized and lucrative prison industry, more infrastructure and support for the war on drugs.

Do these drugs give the user a short route to a feeling of accomplishment and success? I hope Vicky isn’t resorting to cheap, short term gratification, manipulation and avoidance over choices that would bring long term fulfillment and healing to herself and others. I really cared about Vicky. Maybe this is all a symptom of the sensitive, brilliant soul scarred by a rough start in life; or maybe she’s just a full out user of people and doesn’t want to do anything for herself. Maybe it’s all of that and more. I read recently that for those who see the luminously colored electromagnetic energy field around the human body, they find alcohol and cocaine tends to muddy and dim the aura, and gray spots show up. I don’t see how anyone swimming in this much alcohol and chemical abuse could be at their best, or making good choices for themselves or those around them. I fear it may be a long time before Vicky looks at things honestly, or finds any real peace in this life.

Maybe I’m just lucky to love music so much. I made a commitment in my late teens at a level I probably wouldn’t have made to anything else in my life had I not found it. When you do that, a fair amount of your life force gets channeled into the study and practice of your craft. For me, the most kid-at-Christmas, fun thing in the word is to play music for you, feel a little vulnerable and nervous, watch the whole thing build itself into something I didn’t imagine or expect. Life like that puts me into the stratosphere. I feel like nothing but a pulsing waveform afterwards, so in love and grateful for the gift of music.

Let’s get real honest here: how soon does a person with Vicky’s interests run into the boredom of desensitization and stale repetition? For someone with her brilliance and talent, how quickly will it start to feel empty and unsatisfying? I’m not saying this is morally wrong; I’m saying it’s a false outlet and it tricks you. It doesn’t work. Apologies to Ayn Rand fans, but a life of service strictly to self does not work. You truly are most raucously, joyously happy when you’re caring for others as well as yourself, sharing whatever amazing gifts you came into this world to give. That’s when you shine, and interestingly, that’s when you get the most wonderful stuff out of life, too.

We’ll have fun, she wrote as we were getting off chat one night. I will not disappoint.
She didn’t sound like much fun these days. Still, I had a lot of momentum: a strong infatuation with the person I’d known more than a year before. I was glad to hear it.
We talked about stuff we would do when we got together. Vicky was interested in learning music theory, and I was going to teach her to drive my truck. She’d never gotten her license. Vicky made a point to inform me of her cup size, information I think she knew damn well would be provocative to me. She’d seen baby pictures of me and I wanted to see pictures of her as an innocent, goofy kid.
You will, she wrote. I promise.

It was nice to hear that. Still, I was starting to want to move on from this strange life of late night chat. I found I would enter this strange, hypnagogic state at around 4 AM, weak with fatigue and what was probably a protein debt, anxious from some kind of silent link up with Vicky as we quietly traded text back and forth. It was as if the fatigue and the absence of any kind of real tone or expression made me more vulnerable, like she was casting some kind of spell, and it felt pretty strange. Vicky had been nocturnal since high school, but I was starting to resent the jagged feeling of sleep deprivation the next day.
I called a friend of mine the next week, and told her my dilemma.
“Just be clear on what you need,” she said.

I took her advice. Later that night in another Gchat with Vicky, I told her I wanted to get together, follow through for real. Vicky said she had trouble making plans; then she agreed. It was going to be the following Saturday.
I just need you to understand Tristan… I’m neurotic. She wrote. That’s fine, I said.
I just need you to understand… I’m an only child. All fine, I indicated, thinking her absence of siblings wouldn’t affect our date much.

Life is so simple for straight people. –Go Ask Alice

I had a good week. I woke up early, exercised, stayed vital. I was in Trader Joe’s and saw a lady and her daughter who I’d met at my former school. They lived in Vermont but traveled to Western Mass once a month or so. She asked for my email for a lesson with her special needs daughter. It turned out we would meet once a month in Amherst after that, and continue to this day.
I thanked her and left thinking, this is a good sign.

I emailed Vicky before I went to bed that Friday night, and fell asleep excited about our plans for the next day. What a fool I was. What followed will not be a surprise to people experienced with addicts. For me it was a painful letdown.

I woke up Saturday to an email from Vicky. She’d sent it at 2 AM that Friday night. The subject title said Eraserhead and in a postscript she spoke about how she’d just watched a clip from the David Lynch film. She was sick, she said, and would state in the following email that she’d been vomiting, couldn’t follow through. She was breaking our date. She had specifically stated that she would not do this. I recognized the vibe of avoidance, of wanting to be free of a commitment. She stated that another cat had died. She had found him dead earlier that week, and was still reeling from it. Therefore, she couldn’t see me. Odd, as when the last cat that died she’d chosen me specifically to stay up all night with her. If this was really about (another) dead cat, I thought, then surely I can be of help.
I admit, I did not do well with this. I was heartbroken, let down, and offended that she’d written I can’t commit to tomorrow, when she obviously already had. I had waited patiently. I wrote her back. I need you to go through with this, I said. I’m going to take a shower, then come down. I’ll see you in an hour or so. I’m on my way.
I admit, I had trouble letting go. I was set on this thing. Vicky had provoked my interest for years, and I thought it was finally happening. She was letting me down in exactly the way she said she wouldn’t do. I can’t say it felt good. Is this what alcoholism does? Is this how they behave? She’ll be my last, I promise you.

I showered, got out, checked my messages and found a voice mail from someone who identified herself as “a friend of Vicky’s… and a co-worker.” Her tone was condescending and abrasive.
“Tristan, this is a friend of Vicky’s, and a co-worker. Vicky sounds terrorized. If you go near Vicky’s house… the cops will be called. Vicky sounds terrorized, and you need to take serious inventory of what you’re doing. If you go near Vicky’s house Tristan, the cops will be called. This is a work number. Don’t call back this number and harass it, or I will call the cops.”

I was shocked at the hostility and coldness of this communication, and how completely uncalled for it was. It was obvious Vicky had called this girl in a self-created panic and manipulated her into calling me when she knew she had every opportunity and responsibility to do it herself. She had started this, after all. Vicky’s “friend” made threats as if I was some kind of physical danger or stalker, a ridiculous irony given the crowd Vicky is courting, the same one she’d made herself so sick with that weekend in her epic alcohol and drug abuse that it was literally not possible to face me the night of our date.

This woman used my name with great conviction, yet didn’t have the courage or integrity to leave her own. I was astounded that after the things she’d said about the place, Vicky would have someone call me from my former work, on a work number. I would also like to call your attention, in this post 9/11 world, to the kind of individual that uses the “terror” word whenever it suits their purpose, against whomever they happen to disagree. I find this to be a lazy, cheap and manipulative thing to do. It is a substitute for real thinking. In this case, it was patently dishonest and untrue. I was nothing of the sort, and Vicky’s own words indicate it, many times over. If anything, and let’s be perfectly honest here, Vicky and her friend were the creeps. Vicky started all this, provoked my interest many times and encouraged it at every stage. I welcomed this, but manipulating this other person in the way she did just to avoid her own responsibility was hurtful and cheap. Whatever Vicky had to do to me, I would have accepted it. Bringing another person into it however, with whom I have no karma, no connection and no interest, was sleazy and low. It was the kind of behavior Vicky herself had indicated she disliked so much. I guess it’s okay when it serves her? I’ve known people who grew up in trailer parks who would have behaved with more class.

This woman called my number to protect Vicky from facing up to a commitment she had clearly made, the only one I’d ever held her to. In doing so, she infantilized Vicky and enabled her illness. I find it worrisome that this friend is so willing to enable Vicky in the very real possibility of her killing herself.

If a person wants to live a life of sleaze, deception and betrayal, I think they will find others to support them as long as their needs and addictions overlap in some way. I had the impression this woman welcomed the manipulation so she could protect Vicky from her own responsibility, and strengthen their relationship on pretty sordid grounds. Vicky and I had the ability to resolve this thing ourselves, however dysfunctionally or imperfectly. This other person may have told herself she was protecting Vicky, but I believe she was protecting her own interests. Vicky is highly skilled at pulling other people into her dramas and getting them to do things for her, but this girl was smart enough to know that. She participated willingly, in my opinion for her own reasons. I wish I had been spared the abusive little game these two played.

Suddenly the “gentle spirit” who “gives me hope for the world” is someone Vicky needs protection from? I doubt Vicky informed her friend when she called her with the crisis she just couldn’t resolve herself, that she had stated she was “stalking” me outside the practice room, twice, or told me she’d been “outside my house last night” uninvited, called my phone and woke me at 3 AM, or that she had come up from behind to hug me and another time, whispered in my ear at work. I feel these things are about equal to my expectation that Vicky live up to plans she made on a Saturday afternoon.

What troubled me most was that this woman did not treat me as a mutual friend of Vicky’s, something I certainly would have done for her, and thus with some level of decency. Her choice to treat me like a hostile aggressor, given my history with Vicky, the things Vicky had said about “gentle spirit” and my kindness towards her, given the things she’d done to encourage my attention and given the toxic, abusive crowd she willingly associates with, was unsupported and senseless. This was, in fact, my only attempt at intervention in what is clearly life threatening addiction. Does the friend do anything but support life threatening alcohol and drug abuse? Unfortunately, this woman exaggerated a threat to suit her own purpose, strengthen her relationship with Vicky and win some sort of points as a rescuer. By participating in this deception, I feel she blocked Vicky from any real growth. She helped Vicky to be helpless.

If Vicky called her friend in a panic, I feel that had much more to do with her lack of sleep, ill health, and the jagged, anxious, paranoid state anyone would suffer from the severe drug and alcohol abuse she’s making a life of than anything I did. As the one who initiated, encouraged and provoked our relationship many times, Vicky was obviously capable of making that call herself. I think she just didn’t feel like dealing with her own issues, herself, and she chose this dishonest manipulation to avoid them.

It certainly appears Vicky is a much more angry person than she let on, although it was truly misdirected: I was the one who’d been nothing but kind to her. She sent a vibe of senseless, belligerent anger and disrespect that day, though she could only express it indirectly, through a hapless proxy. What a shockingly poor way to manage the situation. In Vicky’s messenger, I believe I recognize an individual who is keen to pounce on others for their perceived transgressions, but not so much her own. I don’t think that street runs both ways. I had the impression even as it was happening that they exaggerated the Victim / Rescuer roles they were playing with each other, at someone else’s expense. I’m sure we’ve all played helpless at times to get someone else to do something for us. This woman sure fell for it. I believe Vicky was afraid that day, but not of me. She was afraid of facing herself, and she chose this dishonest betrayal to avoid it. She will, however, eventually have to do that. We all do.

Vicky and I had plans that day, and I wouldn’t dream of going to Vicky’s house otherwise. I couldn’t even tell you what her front door looks like. I really was disturbed by all this talk of dying cats and the chemical driven hell she was putting herself through. If anyone behaved like a stalker, and she in fact used the term to describe herself several times, I think it was Vicky. I think calling the friend in a self-created panic was just the easier thing to do.
I am not naïve to this stuff, my friends. I’m a musician by trade, from an Irish Catholic family and a small, working class town. I drank a lot in high school and my early twenties. I’ve seen plenty of addiction, manipulation and abuse, been far too close to it in fact, and I believe Vicky is literally risking her life. I think her friend is helping her.

I checked my email again; there was another from Vicky. I wasn’t expecting you till later, she wrote, I’m going to see my cousin in the hospital and then maybe out to dinner with my mom. Please don’t come now.
She was throwing up, she said. I wrote her back and said, okay. I pointed out that I wanted her to want to see me. I let it go. Never even left the driveway.

I called a friend of mine, one who recently had to end a relationship with a girlfriend who I know for a fact he really cared about, because of her own addiction issues.
“Get ready for more of this, dude. Addicts are selfish people.”

I talked to another friend, someone older and more experienced. She has a brother who’s an addict, an alcoholic ex, and generally, is no stranger to this stuff. She was blunt. “Tristan, if you continue with this person, you should hope for disappointment. Because that’s the best you’re going to get. Addicts always let you down. Always.” I wondered if Vicky somehow knew this too, when we’d gotten off chat one night and she had written I will not disappoint. I had the sense it was a kind of aspiration. In every case, when I talked to people experienced in with addicts, their message was striking in its uniformity: If you continue, expect more of the same, or worse.

The truth is, I went into this thing willingly, and we all know there are no rules in this game. The thing I object to most was Vicky bringing this other, unfortunately inclined individual into it. She was condescending without anything close to an understanding of the context. Her comment, for example, “Don’t call back this number and harass It.” makes it painfully clear she did not have a clue what she was talking about. I really do keep to myself in this life. I would have vastly preferred not to even know she existed. The last thing I would have wanted was to call her back. Additionally, though she felt justified in attacking and threatening me, in saying that she sealed herself off from having to answer for or explain her actions in any way. This was, in fact, the kind of obtuse and over-controlling behavior that Vicky herself had told me she found so offensive. But, that was the job Vicky manipulated her into doing. Unfortunately, she behaved exactly as expected.

If you’re a person who’s interested in gender equity, let’s take a closer look at this. Vicky could whisper compliments in my ear at work, tell me she was having dreams about me, come up from behind and put her arm around me, state playfully that she was “stalking me” outside the practice room, and tell me one day that she had been “outside my house” the night before; but I couldn’t move forward on plans we’d already made to show up at her house without invoking the threatening, bullying friend who calls from my former school to make threats into my voice mail? I do not find this aligned with any notion of fairness or integrity. I don’t think they cared. I have never been so nothing but kind to another human being, sent so much love and sincerity, and met with such uncalled for nastiness. Is this what drugs and addiction do? If so, I can’t say I’m a fan.

I spent the next few weeks in somber review of this whole story. I was starting to get a sense that Vicky was seriously ill. Was she good at hiding it? She can sure give the impression of grownup competence. She’s so smart. I wondered if a person in Vicky’s position might be unconsciously living out unfulfilled ego wishes of a parent, almost like a burden she has to carry for them. I wondered if they might have done anything to stop this, and save their daughter’s life. This “friend” of hers sure wasn’t. In any event, if I’d been avoiding it before, I had to face the reality Vicky herself had recently stated: that she’d been in a serious, committed relationship the entire time she was showing strong interest in me. I wondered what this actually meant, and thought, given the other stuff she’d revealed, maybe I had just been a cheap diversion for Vicky.

I found this in an article at Psychology Today:

(Narcissists) know what you want to hear, how to make you feel good, and how to say just the right things.

And the following also from a doctor of Psychology on the Web:

The narcissist very early on claims soulmate-ship, special connection, ultimate love. Or (s)he makes the victim believe these things without outright declaration. Everything seems incredible and unbelievable - a dream come true.

Free people might show each other affection but generally feel comfortable with themselves. They might enjoy the company of someone but will stay focused on their own interests. The victim is needy (co-dependent) due to some childhood, current or past abuse(s). The narcissist is not needy in terms of affection but needy for admiration within the group of chosen victims (his partner/spouse, family members, “friends”, co-workers, VICTIMS) where the narcissist keeps his or her spider-web. However, the narcissist gives this affection in order to draw the victim into this spider web.
This is a difficult time for the narcissist because the narcissist cannot be truly intimate with anyone. Ever. Hence, intimacy is replaced by sex.
3. Withdrawal: Once the victim’s dependency is re-directed onto the narcissist, the narcissist begins to withdraw. Step by step the supposed closeness is disappearing. The victim experiences this as a great loss and the narcissist finds him or herself on a high. The narcissist thinks something like: “I don’t have to give gifts, I don’t have to show affection, and yet I am being admired.”

I felt a kind of dawning horror as I read this stuff, including the third section about withdrawal. I would add to the above, such a person may be very good at convincing you of “soulmate-ship”, that you have a “special connection” as the author states, but once they decide to cut it off, they will act as if your feelings are out of place, as if it wasn’t that big of a deal for them. Actually, it probably wasn’t, but they sure gave you the impression it was. Not quite fair, is it? I had a strong sense that the moment I showed need with Vicky, on that fateful day she had her friend attack me the way she did, I lost all appeal for Vicky. A person who actually cared about her and to whom she’d made promises… that was just a mess she didn’t want to deal with. Vicky is very good at convincing you of this connection, but if you no longer serve her interests, she can cut it off in the most heartless way. Individuals like this withdraw to avoid facing themselves.

I believe it’s possible to be in such emotional pain that your only respite, the only thing you learned from your early caretakers and your culture is sneaky, cheap, short-lived pleasures that quickly turn to pain again. If that’s what is going on with Vicky I am sorry. I had genuine, sincere love for this person.
What are the chances that Vicky’s heart will explode one night from the drug use, that her liver will bottom out, that she’ll drink herself into a coma or die in a car crash? I feel it is so unfortunate that Vicky’s “friend” supports the likelihood of these tragedies, while she blocked my only attempt to intervene.

If you’ve gotten caught up in this kind of spider’s web, I hope you won’t be too hard on yourself about it. These people exploit you based on your own sincerity, trust, and emotional needs. I had a sense that I was a lot less interesting to Vicky once she’d broken up with her boyfriend. It would have meant some kind of real commitment, even if only to follow through on the only one I ever held her to, and that she was clearly not interested in. I really hadn’t known that. I have no history of love from afar, or wanting someone I can’t have, etc. I like things you can hold in your hands. I like a lover I can smell, taste and touch. I was mistaken with Vicky, I admit it, but she really had convinced me that she liked me, that there was something special between us. I wanted to see it through.

Ever the promoter of us as a couple, I had pointed out to Vicky on chat one night that I was good at being there when someone needed me, but could back off to give space if they craved it. That’s not how she’d had it before, she said, “Either he’s a leech, or you get the cold shoulder.”

I believe that is full out self-deception. If Vicky could draw me into her life so brilliantly, I suspect the ex boyfriend who “helped her” was nice enough. I think it’s an unnecessarily cynical point of view that allows Vicky to live the life of deception, manipulation and self-service at all costs that she’s chosen for herself.

I despise this type of cynicism about relationships.  I’ve heard men and women utter comments like it many times, from carpenters to college professors. In every case it’s from a person who doesn’t want to own up to their own issues, let go of resentments, and face the vulnerability of their dreams of true soul connection with another human being.  That’s what we all crave. I suppose it is less frightening to cling to cynicism and resentment, and go after shallow gratification instead.   I don’t admire it. Have these people not noticed how cheap cynicism is, how common the affectation of toughness? I think vulnerability and optimism are much more beautiful qualities. They call for much more courage, and more style. It’s easy enough to be vulnerable in childhood, but if you’ve taken some real hits in this life and still manage to bring optimism, hope and vulnerability to your world, you’ve shown real creativity and real courage.
 

If we cleanse, heal and resolve our own issues, they stop coming up in relationships, anyway.  That’s where the focus should be, not on abstract cynicism about the opposite sex. Men and women need to cherish each other, and cherish this opportunity.  My sincerity didn’t serve Vicky’s interests in manipulation, addiction and self-service at all costs, but I believe our opportunity in this world is an amazing one. To me, it’s a privilege just to walk around and breathe clean air on this planet.  The prospect of love, sensuality and the firefly dance of true soul connection is an amazing one, a real gift.

Looking back on all this, I have to say there is a sort of bottomless pit of self-pity with this type: the surety that they always got shorted or had it so terrible is justification for always taking more, for letting people down. What I can say, is that if you’re drawn into liking a person like this, it takes an incredible amount of energy. For some reason it just pours out of you, into them. It hurts to love someone who’s sick. You keep dreaming of how much fun it could be, that spark of inspiration you know was there between you. I almost think addiction is a disease of selfishness. I was starting to understand the statement “Vicky says her boyfriend helps her.” Was that coddling the “neurotic, only child” while she flirted, lied and likely cheated? I wondered where she’d actually been earlier, the time she told me she’d been “outside my house last night.” For some reason, I had a feeling it might have been with him. I realize there are whole books and support groups about men who practice this kind of denial and deception. Unfortunately, there are a few women who do it too, and it is no different.

If I look like a fool on this one, I accept it. I fully admit to painful rejection, embarrassment, and whatever else I seem to have brought on myself in my expression of sincere feelings for Vicky. Though she encouraged them, I probably look quite naïve and ridiculous to her from the corrupt and cynical life she’s living. That’s fine.
I just want to state for the record that Vicky casts a powerful spell of persuasion. With even small compliments I sent her way, she would respond with strong emotion. It was as if what I thought of her really meant the world to her. I wanted to repay that, for some reason. She’d told me about daddy not coming around much with near tears in her eyes, and I wanted to let her know how amazing she was: that she didn’t need to feel that way. I guess I got played. It hasn’t happened often, but on this one, I admit, I got pulled in full force. I don’t know how you break your promises to someone and betray them in such a nasty way; it’s just not in my value system to do it. Is this what alcohol and drug addiction do? I sure wouldn’t want to be the person who did such a senseless thing. I would probably fail if I tried to express in words how tasteless I think it was for Vicky to have that woman call me from my former work to end it. But, that’s what happened.

I look back and realize that with the email Vicky sent, the one that started it all up again where she writes I temporarily lost your email, and just found it while looking through my desk, I had a feeling this was a lie the first time I read it. If so, it was a completely unnecessary one! We hadn’t been writing back and forth, nor had we promised to. There was no cause for excuses or explanations; if she wanted to start it back up again she could have. She did. In retrospect, I think the better part of me knew this was not a calculated lie; it was a casual one, one that implied a habitual, instinctive tendency toward deception. I fully admit it was foolish to go forward with that vibe. It’s a dangerous thing to get involved emotionally with a person like that, because the worst of it is: that person doesn’t know herself.

I think it is so cheap to misuse romantic attraction, especially of the vulnerable kind Vicky evoked with her talk of us being “like twins,” having so much in common, etc. I want to be clear about this, since culture sometimes glamorizes charismatic individuals who callously exploit the human heart for their own gain and gratification. In my opinion, this is not powerful or impressive in any way. You appeal to the most vulnerable part of a person, one that reaches back to before they could even speak and had the most tender hopes and vulnerability to mommy and daddy, and exploit them based on that. This does not take imagination, creativity, or strength. It is cheap and predatory.
I have such low regard for this kind of exploitation for the same reason I wouldn’t do it: it’s too easy. I wish Vicky had been more honest. On the other hand, I suppose it would have been awkward to say:

Tristan,

-Vicky

Not a very nice proposition, I guess. But it appears that is how it is.

I do think there’s a kind of toxicity and addiction where love and kindness mean almost nothing. They may be the things you need most, but they just can’t get in; it’s like a whisper from a thousand miles away. For one thing, you probably don’t think highly enough of yourself in that state to believe you deserve it. Sad. Whether or not this is the case for Vicky, I couldn’t say. What I can say is that I never made such an effort, in a subtle, thought out way, to reach someone. I’m sorry to have seen it degraded in such a senseless and nasty way.
Vicky had said yes. i hadn’t heard your voice in so long. and phone messages are usually abrasive. She thanked me for the way I approached her that first day when Everyone else has always come up to me with this harsh energy. If Vicky’s life has been that harsh, and she’s just using more and more extreme behaviors to deal with it, then she really is in trouble. Those diversions run out quick, and leave you with an ever-increasing debt of jagged, hard edged reality to deal with afterwards. I really cared about Vicky. It was the last thing I wanted for her.

I suspect the crowd of sociopaths, drug dealers and wannabe whoremasters Vicky is courting in her epic campaign of self-destruction will not be a pretty one. I believe it will degrade to the company of wounded abusers and bullies. Vicky hangs with people involved in dog fighting; I guarantee it. Vicky will find herself in the company of people who look at child porn, or who joke with their friends about taking a girl outside for gang rape, and in the right circumstances, they just might do it. I find this really tragic. It’s going to be a hard thing to wash away. It seems like such a sad, harsh way for Vicky to treat herself and her body. Plus she probably has to smell that atrocious body wash those guys wear! That’s reason enough to give this life up right there.

This whole thing has me thinking about how pathetic addiction is. It’s not cool at all. Addiction makes you into a compulsive robot. It makes you a slave. After so many years of praising me as someone special to her, I don’t think Vicky could have cut it all off for one afternoon of discomfort without feeling bad about herself. If she liked me half as much as she said she did, then she didn’t just betray me; she betrayed herself. Still, in the final tally, it’s up to her. Of all the abuse we may suffer in this life, I think the worst is the violence we do to our own fragile hearts.

In my opinion, the world Vicky has charged into is about as glamorous as a piñata full of used condoms. One good whack at the wrong time, and she’s going to find out what it’s really made of. I sure found out, the day she broke our plans. I have a friend named Celeste who found herself immersed in this world once, when she was briefly married to a man who turned out to be a full out clinical narcissist: a classically good looking and wealthy man who revealed himself to be a chronic cheater and sex addict who confessed to all kinds of bizarre and high risk iterations of the act, including rape, licking a child’s genitals, and at one point, masturbating cats. He had slowly introduced my friend to the faux glamorous world of strangely desperate late twenty-and-thirty-something folks who writhed around on the cheap rugs of expensive hotel rooms after clubbing at places like Manray, and apparently, did their best to act like porn stars in full view of all other participants. My friend describes this as empty and unsatisfying.
“It’s all about projecting an illusion of success,” she told me. “They create this special, exclusive club so they can feel elevated about the ‘vanilla’ people. Yes, they even give them a special, derogatory name.”
“I don’t think I could feel real ecstasy in that situation.” I told her. “I think it would be an act.”
“It certainly was for me,” she said. “You look at those people the next morning, and you start to see what you’re doing to yourself. Some might enjoy it, but I have my doubts. I think at most it’s really, really rare.”

Vicky claimed another cat had died (?!), that she’d found it the Wednesday before and that her grief over this was going to prevent her from keeping her promise. Vicky spent the weekend in more of dangerous behaviors that define her life and made herself so sick with drugs and alcohol that by the time our date rolled around, she just couldn’t go through with it. I wonder what it’s like to do all this knowing you’re going to break your date with the guy to whom you promised you wouldn’t break it, later that weekend. It sounds brutal to me.
I believe that in Vicky’s mind, it was not okay for me to show need the way I did. It was fine for Vicky to state she was “neurotic”, to talk endlessly of her pain at being an only child, the alcohol and drug abuse, her unfortunate lot in life; but when I got neurotic myself that day and made a demand, one time, that was it. Vicky’s needs were worthy of endless attention, but once I asserted my own, I lost all appeal. Goodbye. The connection we had between us, the one she initiated and encouraged so many times, I’ve never seen it devalued so quickly.

Still, after all the attention she gave me, the effort she spent promoting us as having a “special” connection, even after the promises she made, Vicky had a right to change her mind. I accept it. I just object to her getting her friend to do it. I have thirteen year old students who wouldn’t resort to something so hurtful and cheap.
Vicky stated that phone messages were “usually so abrasive.” Judging from that message that woman left on my voice mail, it appears that in her world that is true. They aren’t harsh for me, by the way. I get sweet, hilarious voice mails on a regular basis.

As for what I was doing that day, I believe I had just had enough. I found out it hurts to get stood up like that, and it is uniquely offensive when the person tries to manipulate you on your sensitivity to animals. I found it hurtful and offensive that she started her email with a deception: I can’t commit to seeing you tomorrow, when she already had committed to seeing me tomorrow, and continued with manipulation of my feelings for animals. Pretty cheap, especially when the cat hadn’t kept her from the torrent of abuse she engaged in that weekend to make herself so ill. After the promises she’d made, I wanted to confront her on this cop out. I wanted to find out if there was anything to this. After everything she’d done in her pursuit of me, I feel I acted within the parameters Vicky herself set up. I’m sure Vicky was tired and stressed that day. The thing is, those moments don’t change you. They reveal you.

In June of 2012, the dearest creature I knew in the world, my chocolate lab Lana, of thirteen years, died in my arms. I wish you could have known Lana. She was such a sweetheart. And a troublemaker! Everyone who knew Lana loved her. She was friends with an entire side of our street, and she used to move from yard to yard with the afternoon sun. She lived a beautiful life.

I dug a hole in the Berkshires forest and laid my best friend in the ground wrapped in a clean white linen sheet with her favorite stuffed animal, a black panther named Baby. I kept compulsively feeling Lana’s soft little head and her ears, and couldn’t bring myself to start filling in the grave until it was almost dark. I cried so hard I thought my forehead was going to split open. I was afraid to go to sleep for nights afterward, because I knew the grief would be waiting for me when I woke up the next day. For a time, I felt like a walking ghost. I knew throughout all of this that if I had called on Vicky to ask for help, the way she had with me on that long night when her cat died, literally until dawn in that case, her first thought would have been how to severely limit any requests for emotion, support or empathy. I would have gotten short, empty platitudes, and nothing else. And that’s just how it is.

Is Vicky living her life in hell? Is this all a cry for help? It certainly seems harsh to me: to put your body through that kind of daily abuse and expose yourself to hostile, wounded people chasing an empty, fleeting high that quickly turns to the low of shame, ill health, addiction and pain. It makes me sad to think of it. I used to actively wish for Vicky to get better. I really believed in her. I sent so much love her way. Maybe Vicky really is lost, in terrible pain, crying out for help and then pushing it away. I don’t know. I tried so hard to bring light to this situation. I would sure love to see Vicky bring that talent and intelligence to the world and do something creative: anything, even if it’s pure iconoclasm.

With her current choices in life, Vicky is no iconoclast. She is no fighter, no activist, no threat to the corporate sleaze machine raping the Earth and dragging many of us into ill health, depression and addiction while they devise more products to treat those conditions. She’s helping them degrade and destroy her. I hope she changes that. Vicky could be such a force for authenticity and imagination in this world.

Allow me to clarify something: Vicky has placed herself in the world of faded tattoos, cynicism, failed relationships, jaded cigarette voices, drug abuse, low vibes, silicone lips, strippers, scratch tickets and sleaze; and she will inhabit that world as long as it’s useful to her, but believe me, Vicky is not like them. This is an extremely keen intellect, a woman capable of success in almost anything. She’s also quite sensitive, so I suspect it will take ever more dangerous amounts of alcohol and substance abuse to cope with that degrading crowd and harsh environment.

In some ways, this may be a story of the abysmal failure of education for the working class: schools deprived of inspiration or imagination in which underpaid, unsupported, frequently narrow-minded professionals trudging their way to retirement in a pitifully political and codified system fail to connect young people with the experience of ecstatic discovery they were born to have. In a numb, demoralized, massively propagandized society of ever greater disparity, the glitter of Wall Street or Madison Avenue are nice options for Yale grads (some choose Paris, or move to New York and write articles for the art world), but for Vicky’s and my class, the choices can be pretty bleak. It certainly appears as if no one connected this girl with the gifts she is clearly in possession of. The manipulation, addiction and subterfuge may in part be psychic byproducts of a highly gifted individual who hasn’t yet found a way to plug it in.

Still, I see real arrogance in Vicky’s behavior. Though they may talk endlessly of the complications and difficulties of their lives and cite these as reason when they fail to live up to their agreements, I believe addicts love their self-created drama. It’s one way to feel important in life. If she continues her life as a severe addict and manipulator, Vicky will have many self-created dramas and train wrecks, and hurt many people. Real human relationships call for vulnerability and real give and take, not just focus on self-gratification and pity.

This experience has caused me to look closely and honestly at myself, and root out anything similar. I don’t want to treat people that way, ever. I recently wrote to an ex for whom I know I caused some pain and told her I was so sorry: I felt I didn’t appreciate her enough, was not careful enough with her feelings. I also took the time to let her know what an amazing person she is and the beautiful life I believe she deserves to live. Vicky may be self-destructive (she said she was), but what I asked myself after all this was: Are you self-destructive? How do you like giving so much and getting nothing back? How do you like being lied to, manipulated, and then dumped by her friend: something one of your thirteen-year-old students wouldn’t do? That kind of change is hard won, but I guess it works. Vicky employs a potent mix of seductive attention and sympathy evoking vulnerability with stories about her sad lonely life, et cetera, and I admit, I got pulled in. It appears to have worked on her proxy, too.

I want to be clear on my intentions here. I changed all names but my own, and I don’t expect much from this entry. I don’t expect either of those women to apologize for the abusive little games they played; and I don’t believe my former work of eight years will put forth even a token gesture of an attempt at fairness. Ever. I just want to tell my story. I know there are others in situations like this, many who’ve had it far worse. At least I made it out.

If you’re involved with someone like Vicky, you know the complaints, problems and drama they keep selling you as an excuse for their dysfunction is a bottomless pit. It is painful to care about someone like this. Pointless. You’ve probably also found, as I did the day I finally made a real demand on this person, that the addict will do anything to avoid facing his or herself, and resort to real cruelty to achieve it.

The addict’s life is complicated to be sure, but in my opinion, they love the endless, pointless drama. It’s one way to create an air of importance. The drama justifies the self-pity which drives the selfish addictions they wouldn’t dream of giving up which, of course, create all kinds of discord and drama. Do they imagine themselves hapless victims and complain to their friends all the while? What a wasteful thing to go through life perpetrating. If she continues on her current path, Vicky will always be the one in a crisis, always the one who’s “going through a really tough time right now,” the one who’s “boyfriend helps her”. The one who takes and does not give. I was surprised to find Vicky regards herself as a sad case, worthy of nightly descent into alcohol abuse and self pity. The pain she causes for others, though, I don’t think she gives that as much thought.

I’m not naive to this game, my friends. I have an ex who punched me in the stomach once when I was carrying drums in each arm and unable to defend myself. I remember feeling helpless and sick for a moment. I’ve had someone I loved cheat on me, and found it’s worse than the punch in the gut. In each case I was an equal player, and took the risks willingly. That unnecessary phone call from a stranger and the sad little control drama she and Vicky played was the cheapest, most senselessly hurtful thing I’ve seen in this realm of life. But that’s what happened.

After encouraging this love affair the way she did, if she actually meant anything she said about me, I think Vicky let herself down by having her friend call me to end it. I don’t see how we went from I couldn’t think of a gentler spirit than yourself to help me deal with it, and the most soft-spoken, intriguing voice imaginable, to this kind of attack. Obviously she told the friend something quite different. I wouldn’t chalk this up to a misunderstanding, either, even though I suspect Vicky would try to portray it that way. She knew what she was doing. I’m not interested in abstract ideas of right and wrong, but I do put great value on the way my actions make others feel. I’m quick with the attempt to help out, or lift someone’s spirits, and when we review our lives, I think we’ll find that’s the stuff that really counts. I believe Vicky thought as highly of me as I thought of her, so it wasn’t really in her best interest to have that person make such an unfortunate phone call on such false pretenses. I believe that if the moment of clarity comes, she’ll wish she’d done better for herself, as much as me. I don’t see how anyone using that much alcohol and chemicals could be at their best in this life.

I detest the dreariness of the addict, the grind of their daily slavery and bleak outlook. It’s just stupid. It’s not true. I think you can define much of our culture in terms of addiction theory, including the insane military plan to terrorize thousands of sentient, innocent marine mammals we dealt with above. It’s the Monday morning drag, the dreary bouquet of ubiquitous cop shows, the food that brings you down and makes you sick, the exploitation, propaganda, failed policy, deception and massive amounts of resources needed to keep up this illusion for those who are so miserable on the inside. It’s not necessary! We are built for ecstasy, imagination, relationship and joy.

Vicky Michaels is 29 years old, with a birthday coming in November. She does not have a license to drive a car, is not pursuing any kind of college degree, has no interest in seeking therapy or treatment of any kind for the pain she’s causing herself and others. She’s worked at the same position in the same place for the last seven years. She’s been quite busy, though; she is not lazy. The manipulation she practiced with me and her friend, I’m sure it’s a short parentheses in the larger story. I don’t care much for codified societal standards on what a person should do with their life, but Vicky could play bass in a band, work on a movie set, write a screenplay, excel in any subject at school, get skinny again and model, or start a business of her own. She could do something no one has thought of before, outside any of the stuff I just named. She could attract all kinds of help and support for whatever she chose to do with her life. She’s good at that. Does she need massive intervention? I guess I just don’t like to think of her throwing it away on nothing. I wonder when it’s going to not be so cool anymore: when it will all start to look like a dreary parade of pointless drama, glorified mental illness and post-adolescent narcissism. I guess I’m lucky I won’t be around to find out.

I realize it is strange that this last chapter begins and ends with dying cats. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Vicky knows I have a lifelong sensitivity and love for animals. Vicky is very skilled at reading a person, and playing to their particular likes and dislikes.
I recall a strange click though, that first night of chat, when she said that’s enough talking about sad things. A little later she would write that the childhood pet lying next to her on her bed had just died. I don’t understand how that happens when you’re typing into your laptop, chatting with a guy on Google Chat.
One possibility is that Vicky had to crash back into my life with some kind of crisis. It may not even be all that calculating. It’s just how she does it. I find it so strange that I entertained this stuff in the past just for love and sex. It is so unnecessary.
Most of all, I think Vicky brought in the issue of the dying cats so I could comprehend the depth of her pain. You know what? I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt in this life. Even after the sleaze and deception, I think it probably is pretty bad. I’m sorry about that. I really loved Vicky Michaels. I would have done anything to help. It’s just that lying and manipulating, using people, drug and alcohol abuse: these may not be the best behaviors for dealing with the issues one needs to face in this life. They kind of keep you stuck, and create more bad karma. I don’t believe this “friend”, the one who enabled and coddled Vicky and made such mistaken and hurtful assumptions about me that day is helping much.

If I’d had more time with her, I also would have suggested Vicky be careful of that school. Because the students are so protected, the atmosphere can have an infantilizing effect on the adults that work there. I almost wonder if the place makes people sick. Strange, since the students have such a healing vibration. Still, I not only heard words to this effect from colleagues after they left, I got the same report from their spouses and loved ones. Relationships tend to suffer when you come home complaining every night. It sure seems like a trap to me. I’m glad to be free of it.

With Vicky too, I probably got lucky. I would have been another one who “helped” her, while she lied, manipulated, and eventually cast me aside the way she did him. Well, actually, that did happen to me, but it could have been a lot worse. I used to wish so intensely for Vicky to heal. I really thought she could. I see now that I was giving with no chance of getting anything back. It’s hard enough to find good people in this world, and if you live your life with sincerity, easy to find yourself under attack from bigoted, hostile, addicted people. I really could have used for Vicky to support me the way I supported her, but I see now that that’s not going to happen. I wish Vicky had treated me with as much respect as I treated her. I wish she had kept her promises. Still, I think this kind of pain clears the way for good things in life. I can already see that it has. I’ll always wonder whys she smiled the way she did that first day. Does she do this to everyone? One thing worth noting, is that within a second of the first time I laid eyes on Vicky, I felt bad about having missed her smile, and immediately wanted to make up for it. That feeling of wanting to assuage her feelings and make up for any missed connection pervaded our entire relationship. I always felt I needed to do more, despite her doing little or nothing. Why!? Is Vicky in that much pain? Or does she just know how to tweak that empathy gene. Who knows.

As for my loss at the school, I was heartbroken, but I moved on. I teach at a small studio now and I’ve already filled the two days I had available and moved into a third. Families invite me for dinner on holidays. If my former school meant to disavow me as a person or as a professional, I guess for a while I almost bought into it. I’ve never felt so terrible about myself, despite friends and colleagues telling me otherwise. I tormented myself. I tried so hard to make it right, with emails, attempts to return, etc. I called former colleagues like my friend Stephen, a very capable teacher and player, and asked him to help me improve myself, face whatever I’d done wrong that had caused this painful loss of the work I loved so much. He had recently left the place himself, just walked away voluntarily. His response was pretty simple:
“I don’t know man. Listen. I just love ya to death. I think things got bad there, and I hate to say it, but I think you got sacrificed.”

Now, with some perspective and time for healing, I see that I am far better off away from that place. Nothing in the world could bring me back. There is a strange, treacherous side to the care of such vulnerable students, in particular when it gets mixed up with the hubris of people for whom normal rules of decorum just do not apply. You see, because these kids are so innocent and sincere, the people behind the scenes feel justified in anything they do to the staff. The number of people hurt by that place now is probably in the dozens. You can justify almost anything in this life when you’re “doing it for the children.” Even if if that’s not really the case. The truth is, that school will pull the very best out of you, then when you’re no longer useful, cast you aside like garbage.

I recently opened an email a friend had sent, March 2013; it was a forward of a job listing. My former school is advertising for yet another Executive Director. Has no one sat down yet and said, “Maybe this approach isn’t working.”? It’s almost become a comedy at this point.

My Williams Syndrome students continue to inspire and connect with me: a lifelong gift no one can take away. The music we wrote and performed together really was unique and amazing. It’s a gift we gave to each other, and I’m grateful for it.

My school did have a kind of magic in the early days. In a microcosmic way, everyone lived his or her dream. For me it was a hard-to-resist level of creativity and connection with my students, and shows that were almost as good as I could do with adults my own age. I loved waking those kids up to their own power to make improvisational funk music. It was a surprise to everyone in the first few years, and pretty glorious. It was fun. I loved to see the happiness and pride of my students’ parents afterwards. It was powerful stuff, hard to let go of. For my colleagues it was the same, and I heard amazing stuff from their ensembles and singing groups. I also watched Reading or Yoga instructors change these kids’ lives, and in some cases I think they loved it as much as I did. I should also say it was a safe place to hide out, safe harbor, even when I knew I eventually needed to move on and face my destiny elsewhere. I stayed too long. My own fault. For Vicky’s “friend” it appears to be a much needed sense of importance, control and false authority: a pretty easy trick with a bunch of eager-to-please special needs kids. For Vicky, it’s safe harbor for a life of addiction: a place close to home where she can roll in to work in the afternoon, nurse the hangover, and quite likely play the same games with others that she played with me. I suppose there will be a steady supply of people like myself who will walk through that door: artistic types who may also be thrilled to find out they have a “special connection” with Vicky. Not fun to acknowledge, but likely true. Vicky will do particularly well with the “sensitives”. At least I’m free of it, and free of that place, where a natural born empath with a passion for music and real sincerity can find himself in real difficulty. As insane as addiction is, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word, I see now that to love someone in that condition is equally insane. You live on crumbs. You give and get nothing back. I did that to myself. I won’t do it again. I am so grateful to be through that dark chapter, to have the opportunity to say goodbye to that shadow side once and for all. So, in a way, Vicky set me free. I’m so grateful for it.

I have much to be thankful about with Vicky. There was stuff I needed to overcome in my own psyche if I wanted to truly live this life from passion and optimism, and not fear. I had work to do. Now, although it was painful, I’ve found a way to resolve that stuff and move on. It is a gift probably well worth its price, ten times over. I really cared about Vicky. I hope things turn out well for her. A part of me still believes she is an incredibly special young lady with real sensitivity and talent. It could be we agreed to this interaction before we were born as one of transformation. If that’s the role Vicky came into my life to play, she played it brilliantly. As bad as Vicky’s illness is, she’s no worse than I’ve been at times when I really needed to make a change. She could do awesome things in this world if she let go of her own fear based, clutching behaviors. I sure hope we get to see that. Believe me, it would be amazing.

I want to state my gratitude here, before we close, because I’m relational by nature and I really have been lucky in love. I started with a beautiful Pisces blonde, who through some great fortune decided she liked me my sophomore year in high school, and I still remember the excitement and elation of finding out at sixteen years of age that one of the hottest girls in school has chosen you. That was my entrance onto this stage, and it turned into four years of intense erotic love relationship. I’ve favored long, monogamous relationships: few lovers and lots of love, and I really have been lucky.

Forever sweet in my memory is the love affair with a dark haired, dreamy eyed little Chinese flower named Kira Sung: an ivy league university student, gifted painter and piano prodigy. I loved Kira’s school with its iron gates, Gothic stone buildings and promise of endless possibility, our private dorm room with its hardwood floor, old fireplace and twenty foot high ceiling. I understood after that why they called Kira’s life privileged. I remember watching Kira sketch a charcoal teddy bear out in the hall of her dorm one Sunday night while I bounced a blue rubber ball on the hardwood floor and mouthed off at her on various topics. Kira and I really cared for each other, and the difference in our features was endlessly amusing to us. We used to sit across from each other and eat coconut and lemon grass soup at a delicious little Thai restaurant near the school, talk and laugh for hours and then make our way slowly back to her dorm on a cold October night, arms around each other for warmth, laughter swirling up around us with the papery leaves of autumn.

I met a Jamaican beauty in California, a real angel, and recently a liaison in the Middle East where she finished her deployment with the Air Force. We were both babes in the woods out there, and quickly became not only lovers but close friends. I used to call her on my way home from gigs, set the phone on speaker and drive while she worked at her desk and occasionally chatted with me about this or that. We didn’t even need to talk. We looked out for each other. I have another ex who was a world traveler, actress, underwear and bra model, passionate lover, and a doctoral candidate in medieval literature. I’d had teachers who loved Shakespeare before, but never met anyone with this kind of passion. She used to sit at my kitchen table and read to me from The Tempest, and I would watch her light up. I mean she literally glowed. She liked to invite me to Boston for the weekend and spoil me with expensive chocolate, adventures in the city, delicious food, and endless possibility with our bodies. It’s been my destiny to attract people into my life with a high level of intelligence, generosity, humor and talent, and I expect it to continue. Sincerity and optimism met with a fairly crushing hit on this one, but you know what? I learned a lot, and I have my whole life to live. I still come out ahead.

I could turn jaded on this but those lovely people I describe, they might not show up anymore. I might lose the chance to meet amazing souls of real outrageous humor, kindness, intelligence and talent. Just one more like that, makes the whole thing worth it.

-Tristan L. Sullivan

Music
Broken Arrow
25 Things or Less About Me

The US Navy has proposed high frequency underwater sound testing in Hawaii, California and Atlantic coasts, and the Gulf of Mexico starting 2014. According to the Navy’s own estimates this testing will deafen 15,900 whales and dolphins and kill 1,800 more over the next five years. Strandings and deaths of cetaceans have already been attributed to the US Navy’s use of high frequency sonar. These are feeling, sentient, highly intelligent mammals who feel love, pain, fear and suffering just as we do. They are truly gentle beings with a capacity for compassion, generosity and love at least equal to ours.

The Navy also wants to practice shooting high powered explosives that fatally injure the lungs and other organs of marine mammals. This is horrifying and insane. The use of spent munitions and depleted uranium in our oceans and elsewhere is an environmental holocaust, one that international judiciary bodies have already warned against due to cancer clusters in soldiers, animals and civilians in countries where we have used these munitions.

This bears repeating, folks: the United States Navy plans to detonate in a testing exercise more than 50,000 explosives underwater up and down the US coastline, as well as more than 10,000 hours of high intensity sonar that is so forceful it can explode the internal organs of whales and other sea creatures. Dolphins, whales and other innocent sea creatures will die for this, or be made deaf, their lives disrupted and destroyed. For nothing. No threat, no war, nothing. Just a sick, perverse, irretrievably stupid military force completely out of control and insane with arrogance, hostility and blood lust. Do you believe your Navy and Secretary of Defense protect you? From this senseless plan, it’s clear they themselves are the threat, as cruel, out of control, toxic and dangerous as any in history. This does nothing for national security; in fact it weakens it. Clearly, our government is run by hostile, sick, out of control psychopaths and we need to wake up to this fact, now. Now, if you have children or you’re a teacher will have the courage to tell them the truth? This is what your government and military does: this exercise in cruel, senseless atrocity. This is what it is: sick, pointless, out of control, destructive moral cowards who eviscerate precious innocent marine mammals for nothing. I have a friend who told me a story about someone he knew in the military. He and his buddies were sitting around bored one day, took some sheep they had at the base, and put them in an old abandoned tank. They shot the tank with a depleted uranium weapon, just to see what would happen. The sheep did not suffer the way these poor dolphins and whales will; they were killed instantly, liquified. This, however, is the same mentality driving the Navy’s proposal. Men with these kinds of toys eventually want to shoot them off. It’s natural and predictable. In the absence of any real threat, our Navy just wants to shoot its weapons off. What a truly atrocious, tragic, cowardly thing for them to do in our oceans, with those beautiful, innocent creatures, along with an entire marine ecosystem the victims. We have so much painful destruction of innocents and of the Earth already; that our officials could approve something like this, and that the Navy would even propose it, is proof that our own government and military is an out of control psychopath. No “Global force for good” would do anything like this, folks. No government that served its people or its nation would allow it. These policies are as uncivilized and as anti-human as anyone can imagine, as much as the Third Reich, as much as any horrifyingly toxic regime in history, and the only response is outrage and immediate call to action for each and all of us to stop these toxic sociopaths.

When you prepare for war all day and see the world in terms of conflict, eventually you want to practice shooting your weapons off. The Navy’s position is a sad and predictable symptom of this illness. In truth, this kind of abuse makes us less safe. What are we safe from, if we kill our own precious cetaceans in our own oceans in a testing exercise? If that is the kind of nation we’re going to be, we won’t be worth saving or protecting anyway.

We do nothing to protect anyone’s freedom with this unfeeling brutality; we show the world that we are sick, addicted, out of control and deviant. This does not have to go forward, and we have every ability, right and responsibility to stop it.

The US Navy’s slogan is “A global force for good.” This will be a sad, ugly comedy if they commit this atrocity against these innocent, feeling mammals. A great warrior would not do this; it is the proposition and the behavior of a brutal coward. I don’t have a problem with war, when it’s appropriate. A true warrior would protect the innocent and vulnerable, not attack them. In a proposal like this one, the United States has become the bully, become the coward, become the out of control, asshole aggressor. No one in their right mind can support this. This is an atrocity in the making that needs to be stopped. Now.

Nearly 500,000 Americans have already signed a petition to prevent this horror. You have the power to speak up and stop this, and I urge you to take action. This link will give you the name and email of your legislators in the US. I have written to and called my Senators and congressman on many issues, and find they encourage and make this process easy. Please call or write. I welcome and invite you to copy in my text above; you are also perfectly free to alter it or write your own. Thank you.

Tristan Luke Sullivan

Please sign

further reading:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/zsmith/this_week_in_whales_join_the_h.html

http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/shoup.html

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2012/06/take-actionthe-navys-testing-far-reaching-sonar-explosives-threaten-whales-dophins-oth

Welcome to Imagine Weblog.

Music
Broken Arrow
25 Things or Less About Me

I should be careful what I watch or think about. Lately, the turn around has been fast, less than a day in some cases. Last year I spent the winter and early spring on the Cape with my friend Liz and her two girls. I was on an 80s movie kick in between cooking and watching out for the kids, and early springtime I called up Heathers on my laptop. I loved the counter cultural thread running through it, and I thought Christian Slater’s dad was just outrageous. I was about to get a taste, however, of one of the more unsavory aspects of the narrative.

I walked in the almost every day on Cape Cod. It’s a habit I’ve been in for years. Easter Sunday’s walk was sunny, and the perfect temperature. I circled around a secluded pond and saw geese, ducks, seagulls. I passed an older couple who smiled and wished me a Happy Easter.

I found my way out an hour or so later. I would have stayed longer but I needed sustenance and had my mind on the peanut butter and raisin sandwich I’d packed earlier that day. I had parked on a back road near a one hundred and forty acre lot of forested trails. There was a crescent shaped shoulder off the dirt road next to a patch of woods, an SUV parked in front of me where I’d landed.

I found my way back, got in my truck, ate, drank from my water bottle. There was a house right across the street surrounded by an iron fence, with two healthy German Shepherds running around the yard. I had actually chatted with these people already on previous walks past their house. They had reached out and said hello, chatted about their dogs, Cape Cod versus Western Mass, the forest versus ocean.

I noticed a car pulling out of their driveway, a man of about twenty-five driving. He stopped in the road next to me and motioned for me to roll my window down. I pressed the power window button but it didn’t work; the keys were on the passenger seat. I motioned for him to wait, took my time putting the key in, rolled the window down and smiled. I assumed he was going to ask for directions and I was ready to say “Sorry, I don’t know anything here.”

“What are you doing across from my parents’ house!?” he demanded. His tone was not pleasant.

“Ahh… finishing up a walk, eating a sandwich,” I offered.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“A walk in the woods,” I tried again. Perhaps he hadn’t understood me the first time.

He got out of his car. His manner was abrupt and aggressive.

“In these woods,” he said, pointing beyond me, to my right. “I know what you’re doing here. I know what goes on in those woods. Fags go in these woods!”
I wondered why he was sharing this information with me.

“What are you doin’ out here across from my parent’s house!?” he demanded, his tone more aggressive. “I know what’s going on here. Fags go in those woods.”

Apparently, this man thought the woods in Yarmouth Port were reserved only for straight people. He also appeared to have made several incorrect assumptions about me: one about my sexual orientation, the other about where I’d come from, as I’d actually been in the much larger patch of forest down the street.

The mom came over. That’s when I learned his name was Jerry. I hoped his mom would help me, but took one look in her eyes and saw that wasn’t going to happen.

“Jerry, watch your language,” she said.
He was aggressive and profane, threatening in his tone. I wasn’t afraid of Jerry. I was blindsided by his completely uncalled for hostility though, and concerned there was going to be some kind of scene. I hate encountering this kind of hostility, especially when it’s so completely unnecessary.

I looked at Jerry’s mom. “He really has the wrong idea,” I told her.
“What’s your license plate number?” he demanded. Looking back, that was a pretty inept question on Jerry’s part. I was sitting in my truck, with the plates right there on the front and back of the vehicle.

I didn’t point out to this guy that I’m straight, and have nothing to do with the assumptions he made. It was not relevant and wasn’t his business. One interesting detail here is that Jerry twice pointed to me and said to his mom, “He said he was going into the woods to meet someone,” something I had definitely not said. Why would I have? He literally imagined this to fit the scenario he’d already decided on. This, right here, is the most astonishing and telling part of Jerry’s performance, and it bears repeating. Jerry literally inserted words into his memory that had nothing to do with me, words that fit the bizarre scenario he had imagined. It’s clear Jerry has very strong homosexual fantasies. I just wish he could have kept them to himself.

The worst thing about this incident was that for a few minutes I felt isolated and guilty, as if I had done something wrong. I can see how a situation like this could escalate in a predatory way. It’s called projection. I had, in fact, done nothing wrong. There certainly appeared to be parking on this quiet, forested side street; I parked in the shoulder behind an SUV. I hadn’t even been in the woods he was pointing to and as for what he was referring to, that was a projection of Jerry’s own inner world; it had nothing to do with me.

He swore again and ordered me out while I drove away, as if he could have commanded me to leave.

It’s clear that if Jerry had actually thought through his bizarre homosexual fantasy, he would have had to realize he believed I was going to walk back to my truck after having parked it for more than an hour and a half on a sunny Easter day, sit quietly on that secluded country road and eat half a peanut butter and raisin sandwich, while secretly planning some kind of covert sexual exchange with an as yet absent partner in the woods across the way. This doesn’t seem very plausible to me, but, I can’t speak for Jerry’s mental acuity, or stability.

Jerry’s response was extreme in scale; but I find his ignorance, hostility, and dangerous repression of his own issues projected onto me a pretty accurate emblem of much of our culture. I’ve had people project all kinds of bizarre stuff onto me, most of which has been about as shockingly inaccurate as Jerry’s was on that fateful day. I find it disconcerting to confront the ignorance and loathing loose in this world. It is truly uncomfortable to feel the vibe change to one of fear and hatred so quickly. I’m sure it’s the same fear and hatred that’s gotten people dragged to their deaths behind pickup trucks, or strung up from a tree and hanged to death. None of this happened to me. Homophobia, however, appears to be a particularly virulent kind of bigotry. I suppose my gay friends are used to it, but I found it shocking and hard to believe. Jerry’s behavior was more than abrasive; it was a kind of assault. Jerry certainly has a sense of right and wrong and a willingness to act on it, but that’s not really helpful to this world if he’s a hostile, out of control moron. It is equally important to be able to recognize when you’re mistaken, step back, and apologize.

One detail that I can’t forget here is that when I’d had a casual conversation with Jerry’s mom after coming back from a similar hike a few weeks before, she had mentioned that she had a son who was in law school. Very serious, she had indicated, his dedication. I find it worrisome that a man as sick as this may be entering our legal system.

I think that when you’re broadsided like I was with Jerry, you don’t need to internalize. You don’t need to analyze and think too much about what you might have done differently to keep this person from attacking you, and so on. That’s victim mentality, and you don’t need it. There are people like this in the world. I see no harm in being prepared, or being aware they exist, but their toxicity does not belong to you. Defend yourself if you need to, but then move on.

But let me end this story on a positive note. The day before this saga, a Saturday, I had several quite pleasant encounters in those same woods, one with a lady and her three dogs, another with a nice couple and their two canines, each of whom smiled and chatted as if they’d been expecting me. We talked, laughed about dogs and their antics, and I got expert advice on some good spots to hike on the Cape. In each case, these people treated me as if they recognized an old friend, and I was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed, easy way they fell into kind conversation. The good guys won.

-Tristan L. Sullivan

Tristan Luke

Music

by Tristan Luke

-Once, when I was a kid at summer camp, I waited in line to climb a rickety wooden ladder onto a small platform off of which kids jumped into the murky lake the camp was built on. I got to the top and panicked. “I have to go back,” I told the counselor, the hot sun glinting in our eyes. There were campers lined up on the ladder and more on the ground, waiting their turn. The lifeguard was probably all of nineteen, but he was savvy. “Just go,” he said. “If you jump, you’ll be back up here three times today.” No, I said. I couldn’t do it, had to go back. “Okay,” he said. “Then you can’t have lunch.” I jumped. I got back in line three times. He never said I told you so.

-My band used to go swimming with a small group of friends at the Dalton town reservoir after gigs. It was outrageously fun. We scaled the pump house, eighteen feet off the water, jumped off and crashed around in the dark until early morning hours. Again and again, we jumped. Thank God no one fell off the other side of that little cement shed; it was a drop of about eighty feet onto rock and cement. Once I’d gotten enough of the raucous craziness I used to let myself float away from the others out to the center of the channel, satisfied and elated from a long night of playing music, the cries and splashes muffled, my whole world filtered through the in utero sound of gently splashing liquid.

-When I was four my friend Ed Pelkey and I used to color in just the pirates in our Peter Pan coloring books. Then our moms would have to buy us more coloring books.

-For some reason I am easy to talk to, a good listener, and good at getting people back on track in this life. If we become friends, I guarantee you’ll tell me I’m helpful in this way. It’s happened so many times now, often with complete strangers. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” they say. However, one of the things I do lately is look for others who can do the same. I find myself more and more interested in those who can reciprocate.

-When I’m inspired on a song or story idea, I can get a little intense. If I leave the room for water or something, I probably look like a total madman. However, inspiration is the most ephemeral human emotion there is. A window opens up, the angels smile and offer you an idea, and you have to get it down as quickly as you can or it will fly through you like a genie looking for another host.

-I am a loyal friend. For life. I might not always take you up on your offer to meet for coffee, but if you need me, I’ll be there.

-For some reason, I’m quite sure the girl I will marry is a Pisces. That or she works with dolphins, or was a mermaid in a past life, or her dad runs a boat rental place… something like this!

-I like the way women talk when they’re from the South. Savannah, Georgia, for example, with a Weeping Willow tree in her backyard.

-I dedicated seven years of my life to teaching special needs students how to play music.

-One time when I was still just a kid, a friend of my sister’s had an exchange student sleep over at our house. I came home full of energy after a night of playing music and was intentionally loud, and poured a bowl of water under her door. I truly didn’t mean to upset this person; I was just in a raucous, playful mood. She seemed fine the next morning but I feel terrible about this, send her love and well wishes, and I hope one day I can meet her again and make up for it.

-I have scars on my face from a childhood dog attack. They show up under fluorescent lights, and I’m self-conscious about them. Predictably, I’m not crazy about these lights.

-I’m here to do my small part to help heal the world as much as possible in whatever time I have left, put the pedal to the floor until something beautiful pours in and we transform the fear based consciousness of competition, war and exploitation to one of love, compassion and creativity. I truly just want to be a spark that brings people back into their own creativity, inspiration and self-respect. I don’t want to carve my name in the wall of culture; I want to tear it down, help dissolve social systems that make people dumb and compliant, let the rain come and watch beautiful new life grow in its place.

-I do yoga, exercise, meditate, drink green smoothies, lots of living spring water, and snack on superfoods daily. I do these things because they make me feel good, and I have energy all day long. Life is much better this way, believe me!

-A blind girl once told me I was beautiful. I thought that was a nice compliment.

-If I met St. Peter at the gates, the thing I would like for him to do most would be to point back the way I came and say, “Go on, kid. Jump back in.” Because I love it here. I know for certain that Earth is Paradise. We just need to evolve our consciousness, that’s all. Why would we need to ascend on a physical level? I suspect this was invented by people who are so unhappy with the life they’re living and so unwilling to take responsibility for it they believe heaven must be “up there” somewhere, far away from the mess they’ve made on this planet. What could be better than a blissful, ecstatic life on Earth, in the forest or by the ocean with the ones you love? I believe we ascend in our consciousness, through the body, here and now.

-I hope I get to play music for you.

-When things are at their best, I laugh all day. The whole world is hilarious to me. I laugh at myself most of all, and that’s how I know when things are good.

-I recently held a nine day old puma kitten, and helped feed and care for her at my favorite wildlife sanctuary. I also got to visit a full grown, one hundred and eighty pound female cougar. I walked into her cage slowly, my hand out, my heart beating fast. She purred like she had a motor in her chest, and rubbed her soft gray head against my hand.

-The saddest day of my life was when I put my childhood dog to sleep. She died in my arms. It still hurts.

-I believe in you.

-I will never give up.

Music
Broken Arrow

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

On the subject of governments, authority, and world affairs, I feel cynicism is appropriate and essential. Actually, more appropriate would be moral outrage and vigilant suspicion. In our personal lives however, in relationships and in love, I feel cynicism is a lie.

Like the raging authoritarian who is actually just a scared little boy on the inside, frightened and hurt because something isn’t going his way, cynicism masquerades as something it is not. The cynic pretends he or she doesn’t care, when in fact they secretly do. What the cynic is really saying is: I’m a hurt little boy or a hurt little girl, secretly wishing I could have the love I want, but rather than invest in hope I choose faux sophistication and negativity. Then, results justify that point of view. Sometimes I think pessimism in western culture is a kind of laziness. They remind me of the Chinese proverb:
He who says it cannot be done should take care not to interrupt the one doing it.

Since the future is not set, and since our expectations have real influence on the world, optimism takes real courage. Cynicism is the consolation prize; you get it for trading in your dreams. One of the most amazing and beautiful qualities we can have then, in my opinion, is vulnerability.

We’ve already had the movies, the TV shows about guys who are dark and heavy, and we have people walking around this world with those faux jaded, cynical attitudes. What they’re doing is insecure and cheap; it’s the easy way. If they’re going to sleep indoors in a warm bed tonight, I think they should let it go. Is it so much to ask that we have a little gratitude and optimism in our lives? Sometimes I think jaded people are just afraid to face the future. These days, one of the most bold and iconoclastic things you can do is live your life as an optimist.

Tristan Luke

Music
Broken Arrow
25 Things or Less About Me
What Does God Sound Like? Part II

One of my favorite names. Also spelled Genevieve.

Welcome to Imagine Weblog.

Paradise

Broken Arrow

What Does God Sound Like?

http://www.examiner.com/x-3118-Boston-Dog-Laws-Examiner~y2009m6d27-HB344-Devocalization-law-could-harm-more-than-it-helps

Beth Coughlin’s Examiner article is relatively short, so please allow me to quote here it in full:

Only July 14th the Massachusetts State House of Representatives will be holding a committee meeting regarding House Bill 344 (HB344): An Act Prohibiting the Devocalization of Dogs and Cats.

Contact your representative and let them know this is a bad law when you look at the larger picture. In the sheep’s clothing of animal welfare, animal rights activists have advocated turning a legitimate veterinary procedure into a Felony Offense.

____________________________

Beth,

Your post is almost too absurd to respond to, but the seriousness of this issue begs one nonetheless.

You state an animal is “better safe in a home with a smaller, raspy bark than in a shelter wondering if ‘tomorrow is the day.’” It’s not entirely clear whether “smaller, raspy bark” is intentional euphemism or true ignorance on your part. It would appear you know next to nothing about this vicious procedure or its results, but it seems more likely this is calculated obfuscation.

You say nothing of the horrific medical complications associated with devocalization, including airway obstruction (trouble breathing) and as a result difficulty with activity and exercise, and inability to eat solid food or treats without gagging. This is painful not only for the animal, but for people who care for it. In the Youtube video I’ve linked to you’ll hear a woman explain how her children cry when they witness this animal’s regular suffering.

Another paragraph reads: “…has the potential to land otherwise potentially great dogs in death row awaiting destruction because they have a proclivity for barking.”

You’re really working the death-by-barking angle here, aren’t you? Tell me, do you have any idea how many devocalization procedures are performed for reasons of commerce by disreputable breeders, for convenience by ignorant dog owners, and by criminals looking to avoid prosecution as opposed to “saving a dog’s life” that would have been euthanized without it? The National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, a council of ten prominent animal organizations in the US, found in a survey of over five thousand shelters that excessive barking did not figure in the top ten reasons people surrender dogs to shelters. In other words, you’re presenting a lie.

I find that people with positions like yours often use vague, insipid phrases like “all other options should be explored,” when you know full well if you’ve looked into it that all other options are not explored; the “education rather than legislation,” approach you espouse is obviously not working.

Have you yourself launched a single initiative regarding said education? Any ideas? You present none in this hollow piece of work.

The happy, healthy looking collie pictured in your article says nothing of the horrific psychological effects this painful procedure has on canines. Has the animal you pictured been devocalized? Or was this just an act of blatant propaganda on your part? I could post a picture of an entirely different sort, of a beagle much more familiar with this procedure who suffers pain, confusion and depression as a result. Readers can find a photo here of a dog named Stella, who suffered fifty percent obstruction of her airway after a devocalization operation.

You state “When you really dig deeper, below the surface this is really bad legislation that has the potential to land otherwise potentially great dogs in death row awaiting destruction because they have a proclivity for barking.”

Dig deeper? Not a lot of depth in your prose here, my friend. One wonders if you did any research on this horrific practice at all. If you truly had such an aversion to pointless legislation, you would be writing articles about the nuisance laws themselves and the social conditions that bring them about, not the extremely questionable operation you associate with them.

History does not lack for gruesome and unethical medical procedures which people later recognized as wrongful and inhumane. This is certainly one of them. You also neglected to mention that this procedure is outlawed in the United Kingdom as a form of mutilation, which is what it is.

Tristan L. Sullivan

To email or call your Mass state representative, please enter your address information here, then at the bottom of the page look for Senate in General Court.

HB 344 in Massachusetts is an encouraging and hopeful bill that would make illegal the cruel practice of devocalization in canines. The following is from Animal Law Coalition:

Debarking robs dogs of one of their main methods of communication. Dogs vocalize to communicate countless feelings—fear, frustration, danger, pain, boredom, and even joy and happiness. Dogs in severely crowded puppy mills and laboratories and dogs who are neglected and left alone in backyards for hours on end are the most common victims of debarking. Just as with any unwanted behavior—canine or otherwise—addressing the reasons that cause barking that is perceived to be excessive is the only humane and civilized way of addressing the behavior.

Massachusetts House of Representatives
24 Beacon St. #145
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2000″

I was surprised to find the AVMA takes a different position, quite a cowardly and deceptive one, given their reasoning. “And the bill ‘infringes upon a veterinarian’s exercise of her or his professional judgment.’”
Fuck you, American Veterinary Medical Association. You state, The MVMA “deplores devocalizing an animal to facilitate the animal’s sale or for reasons of convenience, and encourages responsible pet ownership from the start, including selecting a breed and particular dog appropriate for the owner’s living situation and foreseeable family circumstances,”
yet you know full well that owners will continue to abuse this procedure in exactly the way you’re describing. Furthermore, you’ll be profiting from it. A coincidence?

This is a vicious practice, a senseless one in which convenience trumps compassion and humanity. It assists morons who have no business owning pets in the first place make cruel decisions based on their own convenience, and it assists criminals and sociopaths who profit from inhumane breeding practices and dog fighting. Many breeders admit they routinely do this, and you know it. Your reasons for opposing this legislation are laughable, thin, and transparent. You’re behaving like any other power structure, like the mainstream medical system you’re modeled after. Like any government, force or political body you oppose any measure that would limit your own authority and power. That’s why it frightens you.

I had a professor in an education program who told us he visited the last school in the United States to use corporal punishment on children. The school was in Texas. He was a sociologist, and interviewed many of the teachers associated with it. To a person, they all said they didn’t think physically striking kids was right, but didn’t want to lose the ability to do so. This is an aspect of human nature, and it is obviously the case with you as well. Unfortunately, with the imprimatur of your false authority which is in fact your cowardice, willful ignorance and arrogance masquerading as medical opinion, you may well influence the outcome of this proposal. Fuck you. Cowards like you always lose in the end.

To my readers, please oppose this senseless practice, wherever you live. Thank you.

http://www.hsvma.org/advocacy/news/hsvma_backs_bill_to_ban_devocalization_in_massachusetts.html

Tristan L. Sullivan