Nothing Will Save You from Yourself

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K-Chung Los Angeles, sixteen thirty AM K Chung Radio dot ORG.
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You're listening to Emerson Damron's Medicated Minutes, LA's number one avant-garde personal development program, where we talk about sex, drugs, power, and the most interesting subject of all, as well as the biggest star in the EDMM firmament.
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That would be you.
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I am Emerson Damron.
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I've been connecting with my ancestors quite a bit lately.
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I wanted to do that for years, and then it started happening, and now I cannot shut it off, because they are in my blood, they're in my DNA, they are everywhere I go.
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Some jacked up stuff happened on my paternal side not that many generations ago.
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Everybody agrees on that, nobody agrees on specifically what it is.
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And maybe I don't want to know, you know?
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I used to think I wanted to know.
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I used to think I wanted to know everything.
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I was always angry that I was not afforded enough time in one life to even possibly get through a tiny sliver of a fraction of all of the knowledge and wisdom and experience that there is to be gleaned theoretically from such a life.
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Now I'm wondering if I can maybe cut back a little bit.
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Get back to the basics.
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That's the thing that people don't talk about when they talk about I want to connect with my ancestors, I want to connect with myself, I want to get right and figure out who I am and what I'm doing, and do I even support that?
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Is it something I can get behind?
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This whole myself thing.
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It's hard to do that when things are out of whack.
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It's hard to do that when your health is not great, it's hard to do that when you are taking in things that are doing more harm than good, perhaps.
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It's always a good time to just revisit the basics.
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Nutrition, sleep.
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Is there kindness in your life?
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Can you handle yourself emotionally?
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Can you maintain a community?
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Can you develop and maintain habits that benefit you as well as other people around you?
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And yes, your future bloodline, should you have one?
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I have a vasectomy, so I don't have to worry about it.
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I'm just gonna have more great sex and then I'm out of here.
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No permanent damage done.
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If any of my descendants end up connecting with me, it will either be an accident or it will be something that they were so committed to doing that I will honor it.
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Because I am that kind of guy, and I will continue to be that kind of guy well after I'm dead.
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When you draw power into yourself, this is what magic is, and you begin to know what you really want and not be afraid of it anymore, and impose your will on the world, develop the confidence that comes from getting those wins on the board and realizing that you don't have to be perfect and that perfectionism only filters your blessings.
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Here's a habit you can develop.
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At some point during the day, I would recommend morning or evening because they're easy to remember, but pick a time and think about these questions.
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What lies about yourself did you grow up believing?
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How does your childhood experience still present itself in the ways you navigate life as an adult?
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Of all those absurd things that you experienced as a wee one?
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How many of those can be tied to the absurd things that you experience now?
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Do you actually believe that you deserve the things that you want for yourself?
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Do you think it's a good idea to give the keys to somebody like you for all of that?
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If you don't, then why not?
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What's missing?
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What do you have to do to get there?
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What ways are you making yourself small and limiting yourself and selling yourself short and coaching yourself into irrelevance?
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Do you just want to be seen?
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These are all questions you could be asking yourself and examining in some depth before you start trying to do energy manipulation and connect to your ancestors, because right now you might just get on their nerves.
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Do some work on yourself.
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Or listen to this show that's just as good.
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And when we're done, you're gonna be a different person than you were when you walked into this.
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This is Emerson Dammer's Medicated Minutes, medicated dash minutes dot com, or anywhere you get podcasts.
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Welcome to the show already in progress.
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Do you know that?
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Yeah, you do.
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I know you know that.
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I'm not supposed to know that you know that.
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You know that.
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You don't think you're supposed to know it, but you know.
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You know what's in there.
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You know some of what's in there.
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From looking in your eyes, I know that you're either curious, open to the mystery, loving the questions, or you're putting it all out there.
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Or wanting to think that you're in love with the questions, and or think that you're putting it all out there.
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In reality, the mystery has more layers to the point where it's still reality, but not any sort of reality that you've talked about or heard about.
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I find people that eyes like yours tend to be somewhat different from others.
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Off beat or on a beat that no one else can hear, your eyes tell me, your eyes tell me there's a riveting story to tell about that person, her personality.
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How she got her personality, how she keeps herself open to experience.
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When you look deep in someone's eyes, you feel like you're looking into her soul, reading her inner thoughts, making a dangerous kind of connection because intimacy is the transgression of boundaries, and there's always a twist of violence in there.
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You have to own your capacity for violence to put yourself and those around you completely at ease.
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With me, it's really interesting to see how people can communicate with their eyes alone without saying a word.
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Subconsciously, even tell a lot about someone from her eyes.
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For one example, someone can be an open book to you, or she could well be hiding something from you by making it seem like she's an open book to you, or just hiding it because she can't.
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She doesn't mind if you know it.
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What are you gonna do?
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Nothing.
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She doesn't open her book for everybody, and she never opens her book for people that get angry at her for not opening her book.
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But when the eyes are just so mysterious, it makes you want to really find out what's really going on with this person.
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And what she's really thinking about you.
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So interesting, don't you think?
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Most of it is not good.
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He seems like a bad egg, he rubs me the wrong way.
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I try not to think about it any more than I have to.
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We are not supposed to think about the president every day.
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And as far as all of the admittedly bad stuff that is going on around him, like the dust or a pig pen and peanuts, I'm not sure exactly what I can do that's gonna make any big difference.
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I could go to a protest, I could get a stick beating, I could get laid at the protest.
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Lots of things could happen.
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I don't think that it's gonna change.
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I don't think he's gonna have a heart attack.
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From that, or anything else I do.
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It's gonna be the burgers, or he's gonna be eaten by a shark.
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It's sad when anyone dies so far that we know of, but uh this could be the first one that is hilarious through and through.
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But, you know, there's not a whole lot I can do, and when other people are out doing their moral grandstanding, which always seems to just coincidentally connect directly to their immediate material interests.
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I'm at home interrogating my own beliefs.
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And yes, that does mean masturbation.
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That's just part of it.
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I'm questioning myself, I'm questioning everything.
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I started questioning myself when I was 11 or 12.
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I questioned myself hard when I was a teenager.
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I was going crazy with questions and beliefs that I needed to interrogate.
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Believe me, I interrogated those beliefs, and I'm here to tell you there ain't nothing wrong with it.
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If you got a belief, whip it out, beat it like a red-headed stepchild.
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It will produce a feeling that is profoundly satisfying.
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Don't get hooked on that feeling.
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You want to be able to go get that somewhere else.
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And you can do that when you know the worst thing that can happen is you will go home and roll around in bed with yourself, and you are the best lover and hater you have ever had.
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You're keeping that all for yourself.
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That'll teach 'em.
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Try it, see what happens.
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First of all, nobody exploded.
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That's the language of hysterics.
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Exploded.
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Very theatrical, very you.
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The kind of word people reach for when they need the room to gasp so they don't have to think.
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The correct phrase is uh experienced rapid structural disagreement.
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Precision matters.
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People who can't handle precision are the ones who end up meeting detectives.
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I told Detective Vale this while she stood in my kitchen staring at the scorch mark shaped like a woman arching backward.
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She kept looking at it like the wall had done something indecent on purpose.
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Walls have been making suggestive gestures since Pompeii.
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If that offends you, the problem is not the wall.
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You seem nervous, she said.
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I laughed, but not cruelly, educationally.
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The way you laugh when a child mistakes volume or authority.
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Detective, you're projecting.
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People hate that word because it collapses their entire performance into one syllable.
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Saves time, saves everyone the embarrassment of watching you invent feelings so you can accuse someone else of having them.
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I poured coffee from the machine Mara brought before she disappeared.
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It hissed like a blackmailer with emphysema.
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Mara was my wife's intimacy consultant.
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You already decided that sounds suspicious, but that tells me everything I need to know about the quality of your imagination.
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Your suspicion is not evidence.
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It's just the noise your mind makes when it doesn't want to feel ordinary.
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My wife, Celeste, hired her to restore polarity.
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Celeste collected phrases like that from podcasts hosted by men who moisturized aggressively and spoke in the soft, wounded voices of people who have never been told no hard enough.
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Mara arrived every Thursday with a leather case and the serene contempt of someone who charged by the revelation.
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She said my problem was control.
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I said her problem was saying things like that in my house while drinking my coffee.
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That was banter.
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Adults used to understand banter.
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Now everything is a microaggression if the wrong person feels it.
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Vale opened the basement door.
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I told her not to.
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She asked why, in that practice tone they teach in the academy, when they want you to know they've already decided you're the problem.
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I said, Because the stairs are unstable, and I'd hate for your recklessness to become my paperwork.
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But that was a concern.
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Genuine concern.
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But women in authority are trained to interpret concern as a threat.
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It keeps the seminars funded and the promotions flowing.
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If you find it being protected, that is not my pathology.
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That is yours.
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She went downstairs anyway.
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Of course she did.
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I followed because I'm cooperative.
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The cooperative ones always get treated like suspects.
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But notice how that works.
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The basement smelled a burnt velvet ozone and the expensive perfume Mara wore during our private sessions.
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They were not sexual sessions.
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That is a disgusting oversimplification invented by people who can only understand power when it's naked.
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They were experiments in radical honesty conducted without clothing because clothing is the first lie society tells the body.
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I merely respected the methodology.
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If that makes you uncomfortable, examine why you needed a lie so badly.
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Vale found the red button behind the champagne refrigerator.
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What does this do?
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Nothing.
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She pressed it.
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Of course she pressed it.
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People like her always press the thing they were told not to press, then act shocked when the world answers.
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See?
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Somewhere beneath us machinery coughed awake.
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This proved nothing.
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Correlation is not causation.
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You're better than that, or you should be.
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She discovered the mirrored room.
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Again, not a sex dungeon.
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The dungeon is a medievalist slander for people who need the past to feel superior to the present.
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It was a consensual reflection environment.
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The restraints were decorative mostly.
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If you need every object labeled with a consent form before you can look at it, that is a new problem.
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They'll touch the brass plaque inside the door.
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Panic room, occupancy three.
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Three?
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She asked.
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Like arithmetic was an accusation.
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Manufacturer's optimism.
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Your wife, Mara, and you?
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That's an accusation disguised as arithmetic.
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Do better.
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She looked at me.
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I look back harder.
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This is where weak men confess.
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They mistake silence for moral authority and start offering their throats.
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I know better.
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Silence is just bullying without vocabulary.
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So I spoke first.
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I explained that Celeste had become jealous of Mara.
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Vale said Celeste was missing too.
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I explained that jealousy makes people unpredictable.
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Unpredictable people leave rooms.
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Sometimes they leave towns, sometimes they leave evidence that looks convenient to someone who already decided the story.
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Vale asked why Mara's blood was under my fingernails.
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I explained that intimacy is messy.
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If you never left a mark on someone to claim to care about, I'm not sure you ever cared about anyone at all.
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She asked why Celeste's wedding ring was welded to the detonator.
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I explained that marriage is complicated.
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People who need marriage to be simple are usually the ones who fail at it first.
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She asked why I purchased a military grade blasting cap.
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I said, What about the illegal fireworks warehouse across town?
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She said, We're not discussing that.
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Convenient.
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See how quickly the rules change when the light points in the wrong direction?
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But the machinery beneath us began to throb.
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Not mechanically, but almost romantically.
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Mara had called it the hero station.
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She believed desire could be compressed into physical force.
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A sigh could be electricity, shame could be hate, betrayal could be something with a measurable blast radius.
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Ridiculous, obviously.
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Except it worked.
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Reality has a way of humiliating the people who decide in advance what is allowed to be true.
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The first time Celeste watched from behind the glass while Mara whispered instructions into my ear.
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I won't repeat them.
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Not because they were obscene, because they were proprietary.
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At the critical moment, every light in the house burst.
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Celeste applauded, then cried, then asked to go next.
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See their consent, their enthusiasm, the teamwork, the things people claim to want until they get them and have to live with the consequences.
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But Mara wanted more power.
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Celeste wanted more truth.
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I wanted everyone to stop making demands in tones I found disrespectful.
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The final experiment required all three of us.
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A closed circuit.
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Desire, jealousy, confession.
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Mara asked whom I loved.
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Celeste asked whom I wanted.
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I said they were both being insecure.
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Insecurity is just aggression that hasn't found its spine yet.
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The engine overloaded.
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Now Vale stood in front of it, watching the pressure gauge climb through red toward a color I can only describe as divorce.
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What did you tell them?
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She asked.
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Nothing explosive.
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Watch how carefully I choose my words.
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You should try it sometime.
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The pipes began screaming.
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Vail drew her gun, which was melodramatic and frankly hostile.
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People reach for their weapons or their narrative starts losing.
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I raised my hands, but not in surrender.
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In illustration.
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I'm the victim here.
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Where are they?
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I don't know.
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The mirrored wall flickered.
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Behind it, two silhouettes appeared.
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Celeste Amara, alive, interdependently bound in the engine's red glow, called as saints in a dirty cathedral.
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.480
They had not been trapped, but they had been waiting for me.
00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:10.160
Celeste's voice came through the speaker, soft and pleased.
00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:12.400
Tell her I smiled at Vale.
00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:17.519
The smile of a man who has already won the argument and is simply waiting for the other person to notice.
00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:19.359
You see how they gang up on me?
00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:20.480
Classic.
00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:24.480
Always the same pattern, two against one, and somehow I'm the problem.
00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:26.480
Mara turned the final dial.
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.640
The room tightened around my heartbeat like a fist that already knew the answer.
00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:32.079
So I told it the truth.
00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:33.039
Not all of it.
00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:34.319
I'm not a monster.
00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:39.440
Monsters are the ones who need you to believe they're monsters so they could keep the ordinary.
00:18:39.599 --> 00:18:45.680
I told Vale the engine ran on a concealed desire, and mine had always been the most volatile ingredient.
00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:54.640
Not my desire for Mara, not my desire for Celeste, my desire to be witnessed, wanting both, and forgiven before I ever apologized.
00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:56.319
The rarest commodity.
00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:59.359
The one everyone pretends they don't keep a score on.
00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:00.960
The gauge hit maximum.
00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:04.240
Celeste whispered our safe word, accountability.
00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:06.160
I had always hated that word.
00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:10.480
It is the favorite word of people who have never had to survive without an audience.
00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:14.400
Then the basement experienced rapid structural disagreement.
00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:20.319
And if that sounds like an explosion to you, Detective, that is not my failure of language.
00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:21.680
That is yours.
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:02.480
Not salacious.
00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:08.640
We're not going over the uh borderline into perversity just yet, but you make yourself giggle a little bit.
00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:10.000
It's a funny story.
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:15.680
Then uh as you go on, you do some naughty things, and then maybe an evil thing or two.
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:18.799
Pretty soon you're doing catastrophic things.
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:24.000
You've entered the world of deviance and uh anarchy.
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:29.039
And sexy, sexy, peachy, strawberry, eggplant time.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:30.240
Oh yeah.
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:32.559
And it's undeniably alluring.
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:34.400
You can't really share this with people.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:37.279
People are still prudish about this.
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:41.440
The arousal scares them, the power that it brings.
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:43.599
You can keep it to yourself.
00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:48.880
Uh you can be uh somewhat brazen about it if you find the right place.
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:55.680
You can get into the clubs, the back rooms, the underground, the speakeasies, you can meet your people.
00:20:55.839 --> 00:21:05.599
You might meet a someone or someones who are just right on your wavelength, captivating, charming, funny, deep, and passionate.
00:21:05.839 --> 00:21:12.720
Um they can be rowdy, and in the end, salacious, perverse, altogether delightful.
00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:16.160
And now you've found the place for those.
00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:53.759
And you don't know where to begin, you can catch your second win with H on Los Angeles.
00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:57.359
Sixteen thirty a.m.
00:21:58.319 --> 00:21:59.519
H on Radio.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:03.440
Org too cool to be ignored.
00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:34.160
As most of you are well aware, you are listening to Ask a Sadist, LA's most feared agony columnist.
00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:41.200
I am a sadist with a heart of rugged gold, helping you solve problems that, of course, you could never solve on your own.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:44.079
There's nothing like having a sadist on your side.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:48.000
It means the world to me when you let me be mean to you.
00:22:48.240 --> 00:23:06.559
And if you are listening to a program called Ask a Sadist and you don't want to be, or you feel as though you are not fully informed coming in of what the program was going to be like, I have limited sympathy, mainly because you apparently, for all I can tell, are still listening.
00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:11.200
In which case, because you're not stupid, I will give you that much.
00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:16.720
You are doing this to yourself much more intentionally than you realize.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:20.079
Oh, could that be sublimated masochism at work?
00:23:20.319 --> 00:23:21.359
It is everywhere.
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:38.880
It is a disease, and the only cure for it is sadism, and that's why sadists need to each one teach one and multiply our numbers just to take care of the vast number of aspiring victims that grows every day.
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:42.079
We have a communique from the listening public.
00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:47.119
Dear sadist, I found out my boyfriend watches a fair amount of porn.
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:54.799
I don't know what an unfair amount of porn would be, since it's the only thing left that's free, but we'll get back to that.
00:23:54.960 --> 00:24:05.599
I'm not opposed to it in principle, oh good, but the specific content surprised me, and now I keep wondering whether it reflects what he actually wants versus what we do together.
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:09.920
Is this worth a conversation, or am I inventing a problem?
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:12.079
Reading too much Seattle.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:17.759
There is a glaring omission in this letter, RTM, and I think you know that.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:33.759
It bears all of the hallmarks of an intentional omission designed to provoke me, in which case, moderately well played, save for the one hallmark that's key to most such provocations, which would be any sort of visible point.
00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:42.160
So I'm going to take this seriously, and I'm going to say, you know, a lot of this is contingent on what he is actually watching.
00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:43.920
There's a lot of porn out there.
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:45.599
It covers the waterfront.
00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:46.799
It runs the gamut.
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:49.519
Most of it I find distasteful.
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.400
For some reasons that I can't quite articulate.
00:24:52.559 --> 00:25:12.000
I end up feeling sick to my stomach if I watch more than about 10 minutes of it, in part because it is uh skewed heavily these days toward the most vulgar, poorly thought-out, poorly presented sort of thing that passes for sadism that makes the rest of us look like a bunch of goons.
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:20.799
I'm also not a spectator of sex, unless that's what I'm feeling that day, I'd much rather be a participant most of the time.
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:24.960
Heavy porn consumption makes that less likely, not more.
00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:32.559
However, I can't really diagnose what this means for your relationship unless I have some idea of what this guy is into.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:35.839
My first thought is, you know, run-of-the-mill gonzo.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.920
Ethically dubious casting couch productions, which certainly has disturbing implications.
00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:44.400
Vis-a-vis idea of consent.
00:25:44.559 --> 00:26:19.200
But if what we're talking about is irrumatio, just standard rough oral sex, which is almost as ubiquitous as the stupid step-sibling porn that is everywhere to the point where and yes, I do survey the landscape of porn because it's relevant to what I cover here in obvious ways, and some less obvious, but from what I've seen, majority of you prefer the most frying pan to the head obvious explanations for everything, especially when you get to do some moral grandstanding.
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:23.839
Cast aspersions on someone you suspect is having more fun than you are.
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:34.000
If we're talking about this run-of-the-mill rough sex type porn, or BDSM light, it beggars belief that you would contact a program called Ask a Satist.
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.799
Maybe you assume the opposite implication.
00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:44.640
Maybe he likes vanilla stuff, and you like the rough stuff, and you're wondering if his tastes are more MOR than he lets on.
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:56.160
That could be the case, but you did not spell it out for me, and so I can't really spell it out for you except to suggest that you find out what it is that he likes about this stuff.
00:26:56.319 --> 00:27:04.640
You don't have to share it with him, but if you can get your head around it, you can understand it from his perspective, then the relationship is in good shape.
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:07.920
If not, well, life is a lot shorter than you think.
00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:12.880
Reading too much in Seattle, that's why you are not writing enough.
00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:14.319
Explain yourself.
00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:15.680
Is it humiliating?
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:18.000
Please keep in mind, I like that.
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:20.240
I love it when you humiliate yourself.
00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:21.519
Don't hold back.
00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:22.720
This is asked.
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:52.799
When you hear church girl, you think slut, sluting at an international level.
00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:55.200
Serious candidate for the slut Olympics.
00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:56.960
Kinda slut because it's fun.
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:04.880
And also because you're so guilt ridden that it eats you alive, and you need some catharsis, which I was happy to provide.
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.400
In this case, he also needed a benevolent disciplinarian.
00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:10.319
Another service that I offered.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.480
But having a service DOM didn't seem to do it for her all the way.
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:15.680
That was one hole.
00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:17.440
There were a few holes that could be filled.
00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:22.400
There was one that everyone around us was still struggling with, and that was the hole in her heart.
00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:26.720
I put my work in, but I wasn't shocked, and frankly, I wasn't entirely disappointed.
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:36.960
When she walked through the TSA checkpoint at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas and lost her entire short-term memory, including any recollection of our relationship.
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:39.839
While she was recovering from that, I left her alone.
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:44.319
And then when we did run into each other again, I thought, screw it.
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:47.440
She wants it rough, I'll give her the entire B production.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.720
Reward is punishment, punishment is a reward, maybe total power exchange.
00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:55.039
Maybe I just financially dominate her.
00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:56.240
We had a great time.
00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:57.599
We did all those things.
00:28:57.839 --> 00:28:58.720
We had a great time.
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:10.640
Until her flight from Indianapolis to Los Angeles was rerouted through Las Vegas and she got lost or confused or something happened and she had to go through the TSA checkpoint again.
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:15.519
Still not quite sure how that happened, but this time, her entire memory was erased.
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:22.240
I had one conversation with her since then that was frankly very difficult, just in a practical sense.
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:24.160
And I said, this has been real.
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:26.400
Call me when you're ready to forget who I am.
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:33.440
You get to a point in your life where we've seen so much bad stuff that forgetting is an indispensable skill.
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:34.240
How you do it?
00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:06.880
It's cool to get out and hit the town.
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:10.960
But why would your boyfriend want to be anywhere else in the world?
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.759
But right here with you right now, enjoying your company right here, right now.
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.160
The only place where anything is happening.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.400
He trusts you unconditionally.
00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:27.599
I totally get that, really, but he won't know if you're gonna meet some guys who will, you know, try to hit on you and pick you up.
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:30.000
Wouldn't he be just a little bit worried?
00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:36.880
Or maybe he's out with his buddies or a guy's night, but again, you don't really know what he's doing, much less what he's thinking.
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:38.799
Is he having a drink with his buddies?
00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:41.839
Is he out talking to strange, dangerous women?
00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:44.960
You know, I'm impressed with how open he is.
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:48.640
But I don't really know if I could let you go out on your own like that.
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:53.680
It's not that I don't trust you, but there are certain things that are just too important to risk.
00:30:53.839 --> 00:31:00.319
I know that security is a lie, but there's some things I really value that I want to be 100% sure about.
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:07.920
I want what we share to be so special and drives me to conniptions thinking about losing it, and I suppose I just don't get it.
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:13.039
That if I had a girlfriend like you, I'd want to be with you as much as I possibly could.
00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:18.880
If I had a girlfriend like you, the world would attempt to drive us apart in all sorts of ways.
00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:20.400
That's what it does.
00:31:20.559 --> 00:31:23.279
It finds beautiful things and tries to destroy them.
00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:31.119
That's why we have to not just protect the thing, but help it thrive, commit to it in the deepest possible sense.
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:32.880
I'm sure he's a great guy.
00:31:33.039 --> 00:31:33.759
He would have to be.
00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:40.079
I know he's the guy who cares about your feelings, listens to you, makes an effort to really get it.
00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:45.680
And of course, you're the kind of woman who will expect that from a guy, and you wouldn't settle for less, right?
00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:50.960
Some people try really hard and figure it out and screw up a lot along the way.
00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:53.599
Some people really do get it.
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:56.480
They get it so hard they want to get it some more.
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:59.680
But, you know, everybody's got their thing.
00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:11.599
Everybody in Plover's mercy ended up in my chair sooner or later.
00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:15.359
That was the town's first mistake and the only license I ever needed.
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:17.279
I had no papers from God.
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:27.039
What I had was the pull-out front, a red vinyl chair that sighed like it knew better, and a mirror old enough to show a man his sins before he got around to his face.
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:27.519
Ms.
00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:31.440
Vetch once told me my hands had a sacramental briskness.
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:32.720
She wanted a discount.
00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:35.759
Men came in for a trim and left without their marriages.
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:40.319
One kid asked for texture and walked out knowing his old man wasn't his old man.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:41.279
I never asked.
00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:46.000
Drop the cape, oh, it's snug enough to remind them dying was still on the table.
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:46.880
Wait.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:49.440
Secrets come off a person like hair.
00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:52.000
A bad lay as a sound under the scissors.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:54.000
Embezzlement, too, if you know it.
00:32:54.240 --> 00:33:00.640
So does the kind of loneliness that passes for lust after two warm margaritas and a light show about cults.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:03.759
All of it went into the same gray pile on my floor.
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:06.240
Same as last time, don't tell anybody.
00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:11.359
Then the purple Cadillac, Texas plates, eyelashes that can throw shade on a horse.
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:14.799
Celestine Mercy, she said, which nobody bought.
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:20.160
The town already had the name, and she smiled like she'd lifted it off a saint on the way in.
00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:21.839
Revival stylist.
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:23.519
Spiritual makeovers.
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:26.000
Hair was the antenna of the soul.
00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:29.440
Split-ins were grief looking for a shape, and so on.
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:35.359
She walked into the shop at closing time when the dust in the window does its slow, tired dance.
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:37.039
I need you to fix me.
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:38.319
I cut hair.
00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:39.839
That's what I need.
00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:44.880
She took the chair like a queen mounting the throne for her own execution.
00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:51.920
The hair was black and glossy, and there was too much of it, the kind that makes widowers splash on cologne to go buy milk.
00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:54.559
But I put my hands in it, the room went cold.
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:56.880
The clippers started muttering in Latin.
00:33:57.039 --> 00:34:00.559
Somewhere down the street, a dog confessed attacks fraud.
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:02.079
You're the confessor.
00:34:02.319 --> 00:34:03.279
I'm the barber.
00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:07.519
In this town, that's higher than the priest and lower than the druggist.
00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:10.800
She had me there, and she knew where there was.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:15.599
Some once you can walk away from because they're wicked, some because they're dumb.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:21.599
Then there's the kind that shows up dressed like an audit, clipboard out, already knowing where you buried the evidence.
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:26.159
She'd come, she said, to get Plover's mercy ready for a change.
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:28.000
Everybody was getting a new look.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:31.679
She took cash, secrets, flirtation, or proof of guilt.
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:33.679
Shame, she told my mirror.
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:36.400
Shame is just intimacy with witnesses.
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.199
Is just intimacy with witnesses.
00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:40.639
I should have thrown her out.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:41.920
I trimmed her ends.
00:34:42.159 --> 00:34:47.280
I'd made one or two mistakes in my life, or nine, or I held a lifetime subscription.
00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:55.119
Inside a week, half the town was lined up out back in the shampoo room, which she'd renamed the Chapel of Corrected Vanity.
00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.440
The mayor got frosted tips and the nerve to admit he couldn't read curses.
00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:03.039
She carved a widow's initials into the scalp of a man who owed her.
00:35:03.199 --> 00:35:03.760
She sold Ms.
00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:08.880
Vetch a bottle of atonement mousse that stood her hair straight up whenever she lied.
00:35:09.039 --> 00:35:12.800
And for three days the woman went around looking like a scared dandelion.
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:19.599
People left glowing or crying or enraged or engaged to somebody with whom they had pending litigation.
00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:23.039
Me, I got jealous of a miracle of bangs.
00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:30.960
Nights we stayed late over truck stop coffee and paper cups, arguing about whether the soul was a wound or just good advertising.
00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:35.440
She'd lean in close enough that my razor started thinking about unionizing.
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:39.039
Her perfume was hot sugar and fresh evidence.
00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:46.159
Once she touched the back of my wrist, and I saw my whole life laid out as a true hotel room with nice curtains.
00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:47.280
Do you want me?
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:48.800
I want things clear.
00:35:49.119 --> 00:35:50.320
You coward.
00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:51.599
I want you.
00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:52.559
Better.
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:58.400
She kissed me in the mirror first, then in the flesh, and that told me whose side the mirror was on.
00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:01.199
I'll keep this decent, not out of walls.
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:03.440
Some things just need walls.
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:05.599
We didn't make love the usual way.
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:08.480
We took inventory of each other with our mouths.
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:13.840
For a little while, we both believed the body was a courtroom where God had lost the paperwork.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.239
Afterward, she laughed against my neck.
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:18.079
You're collecting the town.
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:20.079
I'm collecting hair.
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:22.320
Same thing, darling.
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:26.239
Hair remembers.
00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:29.519
The first lock turned up beside the feed store.
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:39.280
Curl of my own hair tied with red thread, right where Deputy Lyle found the church treasurer face down in a redneck pool of spoiled communion grape juice.
00:36:39.519 --> 00:36:45.039
Breathing, technically, but communicating only in 1987 radio jingles.
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:54.880
Another by the laundromat where the drama teacher was discovered naked in a dryer, spinning on permanent press and screaming that realism was a disease.
00:36:55.039 --> 00:36:56.400
The gazebo got one.
00:36:56.719 --> 00:36:58.320
So did the mayor's mailbox.
00:36:58.480 --> 00:37:04.079
The town started giving me that small town face where the sympathy goes sharp as a straight razor.
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:06.480
I never left the shop, I told Lyle.
00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:07.360
He took off his hat.
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:11.119
Lyle only did that when he was fixing to be stupid in public.
00:37:11.519 --> 00:37:12.719
Hair travels.
00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:14.960
On heads, not always.
00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:16.880
Celestine was gone by then.
00:37:17.039 --> 00:37:21.119
The Cadillac sat with its doors open, packed to the headliner with hair.
00:37:21.280 --> 00:37:23.039
Mine, hers, everybody's.
00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:27.199
Blonde gray, baby fine, widow coarse official, dirty, sorry.
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:32.400
On the windshield and lipstick, a good cut reveals the skull.
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:34.719
I went back inside and looked in the mirror.
00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:36.719
My reflection smiled first.
00:37:36.880 --> 00:37:38.079
I was never handsome.
00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:39.679
Arraged at best.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:43.920
The face with the sad dignity of a potato dragged before Congress.
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:46.960
The man in the glass, though, he had impossible hair.
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:54.480
Hair that had been places, hair that was going places, hair that knew passwords, and the middle names of dangerous people.
00:37:54.639 --> 00:37:56.480
He said, You want to be trusted.
00:37:56.639 --> 00:37:57.760
I was trusted.
00:37:57.920 --> 00:37:58.719
You were used.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:37:59.840
There's a difference.
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:01.360
Both leave stains.
00:38:01.519 --> 00:38:03.920
The chair behind me swiveled by itself.
00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:10.960
The cape rose like a black wing, and from the drain in the shampoo sink came the sound of the whole town breathing.
00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:14.079
Grace arrived on schedule, by blood object.
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:14.480
Mrs.
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:27.360
Vetch came through the door swinging the ceramic angel off her front lawn, the one with the dead eyes and the chipped trumpet, and caught me right across the back of the head so hard I saw the entire family tree of vanity.
00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:29.360
My knees went the bureaucrat.
00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:34.639
The reflection screamed, not in pain, but from the shock of being fired.
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:36.960
She stood over me, hair straight up.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:39.599
You lied, the stage whispered.
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:40.719
Like constantly.
00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:42.320
Behind her came the town.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:49.519
Mayor, Lyle, the widow, the drama teacher, dressed now, every one of them holding a lock of their own hair tied in red thread.
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:52.400
Celestine stepped out of the shampoo room.
00:38:52.719 --> 00:38:55.519
You see a community.
00:38:55.920 --> 00:38:57.280
What are you doing?
00:38:57.599 --> 00:38:59.920
I'm giving them back their secrets.
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:02.079
The locks began to move in their hands.
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:04.400
Little live things, pets of shame.
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:09.119
The town watched, sick and relieved as everything they'd hidden turned visible.
00:39:09.360 --> 00:39:10.800
Stupid and mortal.
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:12.000
That was the miracle.
00:39:12.159 --> 00:39:13.119
Not forgiveness.
00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:14.480
Don't make me laugh.
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:18.000
Forgiveness is too clean for a place like Porfer's mercy.
00:39:18.079 --> 00:39:19.599
The miracle was evidence.
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:25.840
Celestine knelt beside me, and her good hair fell around us like curtains closing on a bad show.
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:27.360
You were never the monster.
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:28.480
Then who was?
00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:31.760
She kissed my forehead the way a professional does it.
00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:32.960
The chair.
00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:34.159
We all looked.
00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:35.760
The red vinyl shuddered.
00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:46.639
It had been listening for years, drinking in confessions through the neck, getting fat on shame and dandruff and aftershave on the wet little animal need to be seen without being known.
00:39:46.800 --> 00:39:48.960
It framed me because I was its waiter.
00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:50.639
Lyle shot it twice.
00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:52.239
The chair reclined.
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:53.599
The town screamed.
00:39:53.679 --> 00:39:56.239
I laughed until I tasted blood and coffee.
00:39:56.400 --> 00:39:58.320
I travel with Celeste now.
00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:05.039
Town to town, spiritual makeovers at reasonable rates, cash secrets, flirtation, proof of shame.
00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:06.639
I keep the scissors clean.
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:08.320
She keeps the mirror covered.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:11.440
We don't discuss love, just its externalities.
00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:16.960
And when a customer settles into the chair and asks, can you make me look like a better person?
00:40:17.119 --> 00:40:18.320
I tighten the cape.
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:24.320
I find their eyes in the glass and I tell them, no, but I can show you the shape of the damage.
00:40:44.880 --> 00:40:48.400
Money brings power, and power makes some cool things happen.
00:40:48.559 --> 00:40:50.480
But there's no power without freedom.
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:57.679
The freedom to walk away means to be able to think about something other than making a living on an or else basis.
00:40:57.840 --> 00:41:06.559
If somebody takes away all of your options except for the one that they want you to pick, it doesn't speak highly of their intentions or of that option.
00:41:06.719 --> 00:41:11.840
The assumption is that given any other option, you would take that option over theirs.
00:41:12.079 --> 00:41:19.440
People who want to redistribute the wealth want everyone to be in a position where they don't have to think about money quite as much.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:28.800
People who like the status quo are rich people who don't think that they'll ever have enough money to get a good night's sleep, so they want more constantly.
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:34.079
And the vast majority of us functionally support that, if you're going by the people we vote for.
00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:37.039
It's good that people are trying to get theirs.
00:41:37.199 --> 00:41:45.599
The economy is obviously a stat deck in many ways, and reshuffling and restacking it is the accumulation of power, which is politics.
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:47.760
It's really all that politics is.
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:56.159
And neither money nor politics should be nearly as big a part of our lives as they become, let alone anywhere near the center.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:20.880
We should be able to easily come up with a life plan that keeps us relatively comfortable, who's not destitute, in a position where we can make ourselves as comfortable as we want to be, and know that there's a floor, there's a baseline level where we can just exist and do things we want to do, which, if we cut all of the bullshit jobs, result in all of the work being done, nevertheless.
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:27.039
It is a shame, I think, that so many things now are only talked about in materialist terms.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:31.199
It's a gold rush, it's the theft of intellectual property.
00:42:31.360 --> 00:42:34.880
Will the mighty record labels come and ride to our rescue?
00:42:35.039 --> 00:42:36.159
Wow, yes, here they come.
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:38.960
The defenders of the honor of true artists.
00:42:39.119 --> 00:42:41.599
Now, let's get back to boycotting artists.
00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:44.960
Because it doesn't matter if you can separate the art and the artist.
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:50.639
You are subsidizing the artist's lifestyle if you spin their music on Spotify.
00:42:50.880 --> 00:42:56.079
Based on the totality of what I know about the man, I don't think withdrawing my patronage from R.
00:42:56.320 --> 00:43:05.360
Kelly would have made much of a difference during the many, many years he spent doing the horrible things he did after it was widely known that he was doing them.
00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:24.079
In much the same way that recycling doesn't really do anything, and if you think that it is necessary to save the environment, that's the kind of thing that would have possibly put a dent in the environmental omni crisis had it been seriously implemented in the early 1970s.
00:43:24.239 --> 00:43:40.400
At this point, if all of the major governments and corporations of the world are not on board and committed to a fairly radical restructuring of not only supply chains and industries, but the way that we collectively determine value, go ahead and recycle.
00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:45.039
If it makes you feel good, squeeze all the pleasure out of this life that you can.
00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:46.880
Don't think that you have to do it.
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:50.159
There are a few people who can make a difference.
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:59.360
Your time is better spent figuring out where they live, toilet papering their houses, and then not telling anyone that I suggested that.
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:55.440
Ah, Christy with a K tried to forget her and decided I didn't want to forget her, because she ruined my life, which she got me hard doing.
00:44:55.679 --> 00:45:08.639
And Christy, the brat with a knife behind her back, the sexy little devil girl, saved my life and taught me to save my own by putting me repeatedly in positions where she knew that was going to be necessary.
00:45:08.800 --> 00:45:11.920
In the beginning, it was sexy, sexy, beyond hot.
00:45:12.239 --> 00:45:29.440
Whether it was the vandalism or Christy's passion and resultant skill in breaking into people's houses when they weren't there and getting in without tripping the alarms, or indeed being seen on the security cameras, something I figured out how to do because I wanted to keep this going.
00:45:29.599 --> 00:45:32.000
I loved getting it on in other people's homes.
00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:34.320
I loved the afterglow in the hot tub.
00:45:34.400 --> 00:45:36.320
I love how that turned into more sex.
00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:43.599
I loved how in my 40s, I knew now that under the right circumstances, I could come three times a day.
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:47.599
And it's nice to know you still got it like that, especially on a Sunday.
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:56.639
That was Christy's favorite day for things that could potentially get us thrown in jail, since it was gonna be maximally inconvenient if that happened.
00:45:56.880 --> 00:46:06.400
It happened a few times, and our sex life got better by orders of magnitude until it was well into the territory that's gonna spoil me for anything else.
00:46:06.639 --> 00:46:07.199
She knew that.
00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:08.480
She gloated about it.
00:46:08.559 --> 00:46:14.800
I would withdraw my affection, which would lead her to seek my attention, always in a negative way.
00:46:15.039 --> 00:46:17.760
For some people, all publicity is good publicity.
00:46:17.920 --> 00:46:20.960
For Christy, that's true as long as it's negative.
00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:26.239
And by publicity, we mean reputation, vibe, gestalt, presence.
00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:29.280
Everything about Christie was chaos with a K.
00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:36.079
Things got- The more elaborate and ambitious Christie's crime spree became, the less fun it was.
00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:48.719
Mostly because she was tied up in all sorts of boring logistical stuff that I tried to understand for a while, but then screwed up on enough that she decided she was demoting me.
00:46:48.960 --> 00:47:06.400
From the spreadsheet guy to one of three guys with shovels, and from boyfriend down to lover, down to buildo with an ATM card and a pigeon for dirty talk, which is easy to do if you're beginning to resent your partner.
00:47:06.639 --> 00:47:11.519
Just say what you believe, and in my experience, it'll knock him over the moon.
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:13.920
You might have to work on tonality and stuff.
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:24.719
By the time Christy was involved in a very boring racketeering case that was gonna keep her in jail for months, if not years, the sex got bad.
00:47:24.880 --> 00:47:26.320
I mean, it was still happening.
00:47:26.559 --> 00:47:36.880
We were, again, masters of finding places to scramble the omelet that were risky, but at least some of the time we wouldn't get caught.
00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:38.800
We had sex all around the jail.
00:47:39.039 --> 00:47:40.480
First it was hot.
00:47:40.639 --> 00:47:43.199
The dirty talk got really edgy.
00:47:43.440 --> 00:47:56.239
It's important that we fight for our right to privacy just so we can say things in the heat of passion that we wouldn't say to the New York Times, because that makes the sex good up to a point.
00:47:56.559 --> 00:48:02.960
When the sex gets bad, and you're sneaking around the jail just for bad sex, it's already over.
00:48:03.199 --> 00:48:07.280
So cut it off now, or at least go ahead and start grieving now.
00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:17.280
I went ahead and started grieving, and then I changed my mind when Christine did the thing that always convinces me that she's always got my back.
00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:22.159
In fact, she's the only person that's ever really loved me.
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:23.440
So I stuck with her.
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:26.960
She got out of jail, mostly because I didn't rat her out.
00:48:27.199 --> 00:48:34.400
That wasn't the only variable, but uh had I done that, she wasn't gonna smile or see the sun for many years.
00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:38.079
And I made that decision to not do something.
00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:41.840
On a hunch, in a rare flight of optimism.
00:48:42.079 --> 00:48:50.480
When she got out, everything was calm, stable, predictable, and thus as dangerous as it's ever been.
00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:52.639
Because I knew she was gonna snap.
00:48:52.800 --> 00:49:00.800
I didn't know when, I didn't know what it was gonna look like, although I think there was at least a 90% probability that it was gonna be bad.
00:49:01.039 --> 00:49:03.280
I'm rounding down, if anything.
00:49:03.599 --> 00:49:05.440
But there I was.
00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:09.119
Not in love, because I'm not gonna admit to that.
00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:12.159
You go first, and maybe I'll go.
00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:15.119
Maybe I'll humiliate you, maybe you're into that.
00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:21.760
But the sex was dynamite, which meant I couldn't leave until I got bad again, and that wasn't gonna happen.
00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:26.719
I don't know what she picked up in jail, but believe me, the world's not ready for it.
00:51:13.599 --> 00:51:18.239
And for most of us, that carries on in some form into adulthood.
00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:22.239
Some of us cry and whine and still get what we want.
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:24.000
Maybe even get rescued.
00:51:24.239 --> 00:51:25.840
Most of us aren't hot enough for that.
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:27.920
The ones who are won't be forever.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:29.360
So here's what I recommend.
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:35.360
When you catch yourself using language that indicates you want to be rescued, change it.
00:51:35.679 --> 00:51:46.159
Detox from your desire to be saved, from wanting to be special, from starting a crisis every time you need acknowledgement of your existence.
00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:49.119
Just put that aside for 10 days.
00:51:49.440 --> 00:51:54.000
Feel how it feels to express your desires without that.
00:51:54.239 --> 00:51:58.960
When you hear yourself saying, I can't live without you, you're the only one.
00:51:59.199 --> 00:52:00.320
You saved me.
00:52:00.480 --> 00:52:02.239
I'm dying without you.
00:52:02.400 --> 00:52:03.440
Don't you see this?
00:52:03.599 --> 00:52:06.559
Because all I hear is that you just want to get rid of me.
00:52:06.719 --> 00:52:08.480
You only need to be fine on my own.
00:52:08.559 --> 00:52:09.519
And you know what?
00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:10.480
Screw you.
00:52:10.639 --> 00:52:12.400
I'm gonna go die in the gutter.
00:52:12.559 --> 00:52:14.400
Just so you can't forget me.
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:15.760
You can never forget me.
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:19.119
You have to feel bad about this for the rest of your life.
00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:20.159
Drop all of that.
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:27.920
You're not dying because someone used to like you enough to feign compatibility and then got a little lazy and stopped.
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:32.239
Replace that with your immediate sensory truth.
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:36.880
What is going on for you, with you, in you, right now.
00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:39.840
I feel a constriction in my chest.
00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:41.199
I'm gonna go for a walk.
00:52:41.280 --> 00:52:42.239
I'll talk tomorrow.
00:52:42.400 --> 00:52:43.519
Don't need to talk today.
00:52:43.760 --> 00:52:45.039
Feels better not to.
00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:54.639
You will lose the power to hook people through starting a fracas, siphoning off pity, which is two words down from contempt.
00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:56.159
That's the last thing you want.
00:52:56.400 --> 00:52:58.559
Just pay attention to your language.
00:52:58.719 --> 00:53:05.920
Pay attention to when you present yourself as a victim of less than, or somebody that needs special treatment.
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:09.280
You don't need anybody to treat you like you're special.
00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:10.239
You are special.
00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:11.280
Come on, look up.
00:53:11.440 --> 00:53:14.400
When you're walking around the city feeling down, look up.
00:53:14.559 --> 00:53:16.079
There's good stuff out there.
00:53:16.239 --> 00:53:22.880
And drop the over-interpretation for dramatic effect and just come back here.
00:53:23.119 --> 00:53:24.320
And back to yourself.
00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:27.920
There's more than enough drama going on here to keep you busy.
00:53:28.079 --> 00:53:29.840
You don't need to be rescued.
00:53:29.920 --> 00:53:32.639
If anyone offers, you don't want to be rescued.
00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:36.639
You can rescue yourself, and there's nothing to be rescued from.
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:40.800
Just the horrific uncertainty of the human experience.
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:43.280
It is one of the things that makes it good.
00:53:43.519 --> 00:53:46.239
Or at least a hell of a good time sometimes.
00:53:46.480 --> 00:53:50.400
Get yourself, feel yourself, be with your own experience.
00:53:50.639 --> 00:53:51.519
Love yourself.
00:53:51.760 --> 00:53:53.760
Jack off with pictures of yourself.
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:54.719
I've done it.
00:53:54.880 --> 00:53:55.760
It's a trip.
00:53:55.920 --> 00:54:00.719
When you're really living large, when you're in Paradise City, you can feel it.
00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:02.239
You'll get challengers.
00:54:02.400 --> 00:54:03.440
You'll get haters.
00:54:03.599 --> 00:54:04.880
They must be shaken off.
00:54:05.119 --> 00:54:06.239
That'll keep you busy.
00:54:06.320 --> 00:54:09.599
You won't have to fabricate drama in your own life.
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:11.119
You won't have to make enemies.
00:54:11.199 --> 00:54:16.960
You'll kick some of the best enemies out there, some of your best teachers, and you'll get friends who love you.
00:54:17.119 --> 00:54:18.719
Because they don't have to like you.
00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:20.639
You will bring in the right people.
00:54:20.800 --> 00:54:23.760
You might be so contained that you don't even care anymore.
00:54:23.920 --> 00:54:29.679
You'll get to experience the benefits without feeling like you have to trick people into hanging around.
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:32.719
If you're starting from scratch, it'll be a little rough.
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:40.800
If you have a friend who supports you, even when the stuff you're saying sounds ridiculous, not everybody works on themselves.
00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:42.800
All the people who do quit.
00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:47.920
If you stay with it, you're gonna be explosive sooner than you think.
00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:48.800
Come back.
00:54:49.039 --> 00:54:50.000
We need you here.
00:54:50.159 --> 00:54:52.320
Don't get sucked into nostalgia.
00:54:52.480 --> 00:54:55.760
Don't walk right into the quicksand of self-pity.
00:54:55.920 --> 00:54:58.480
Feel what you feel, notice what you notice.
00:54:58.639 --> 00:55:03.119
Feel witness to the fluid flow of the human experience.
00:55:03.360 --> 00:55:04.719
No one will save you.
00:55:04.960 --> 00:55:06.719
You will not need to be saved.
00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:08.800
The bad news is there's no parachute.
00:55:09.199 --> 00:55:11.199
The good news is there's no ground.
00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:15.920
I just gained that from Chogim Trump Barimpa shape, and what's he gonna do about it?
00:55:16.159 --> 00:55:17.199
It's mine now.
00:55:17.360 --> 00:55:18.079
I took it.
00:55:18.320 --> 00:55:18.559
See?
00:55:18.719 --> 00:55:20.559
I'm rescuing myself now.
00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:39.840
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, so it's gonna have two minutes for two minutes.
00:55:43.760 --> 00:56:06.880
So if it's the Perhaps uh lesser man would have learned his lesson.
00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:08.559
I couldn't forget a second of it.
00:56:08.719 --> 00:56:16.320
The woman in the blood red dress, the purple and red lights oozing through the room, playing dirty games with the shadows.
00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:24.159
Last time I saw her, she deconstructed me, unraveled me strand by strand, turned me into everything I never wanted to be.
00:56:24.400 --> 00:56:25.679
Made me think I wanted it.
00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:26.800
I got scared.
00:56:27.039 --> 00:56:28.639
Scared of my own desires.
00:56:29.679 --> 00:56:30.480
I'd wanted it.
00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:31.760
That was six months ago.
00:56:32.079 --> 00:56:32.880
Why am I back?
00:56:33.119 --> 00:56:35.280
This time, I'm running things.
00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:38.800
I'm the one sending the coded five-word messages.
00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:40.559
I'm the one choosing the venue.
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:46.559
Different bar, but same basic energy, because I've learned that aesthetics matter.
00:56:46.719 --> 00:56:49.039
There's nothing shallow about knowing that.
00:56:49.199 --> 00:56:51.440
There's something sad about not knowing it.
00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:54.159
The scapegoat was her sacred ground.
00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:59.920
My place, a wine bar in Echo Park where the candles are made of beeswax and possibilities.
00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:01.360
This place is mine.
00:57:01.519 --> 00:57:06.800
She walks in, wearing white this time, clearly getting off on the various ironies.
00:57:07.039 --> 00:57:08.800
She slides into the booth.
00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:10.239
I learned from the best.
00:57:10.400 --> 00:57:11.280
I lean in.
00:57:11.440 --> 00:57:17.039
Her perfume is still floral and flammable, but now I know the notes.
00:57:17.280 --> 00:57:21.679
Jasmine, night blooming, all orchestrated to disarm.
00:57:22.079 --> 00:57:28.800
I called you here because I lost last time, and I felt like I got the best possible deal.
00:57:29.039 --> 00:57:35.360
It was perhaps the most remarkable experience of my life, and I've been wondering, what does it feel like from your side?
00:57:35.519 --> 00:57:40.079
For the first time, I see something like uncertainty flicker across our face.
00:57:40.239 --> 00:57:42.559
I know that's what I'm counting on.
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:32.159
Question that people don't want you to ask, and some people appear in your life to help you understand and find the answers, or just enjoy the seeking.
00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:35.679
What do I really, really desire?
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:44.079
When you're completely true and honest to yourself, you'll realize that there are no limits, no boundaries to what you truly desire.
00:58:44.320 --> 00:58:50.719
You will see the arbitrary nature of the rules that you made for yourself that you didn't even know you were still following.
00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:58.000
Because inside yourself, all those rules and restrictions that others impose on you do not exist at all.
00:58:58.159 --> 00:59:08.000
Inside that special place where you keep all your true desires hidden from the outside world is where only you alone can set the table and make rules.
00:59:08.079 --> 00:59:13.679
It's where you can truly see what you really want out of love and out of life.
00:59:13.840 --> 00:59:21.760
There's that special place where you're able to see all of your hidden desires in their full, violent, naked glory.
00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:27.440
When you get what you truly desire, the experience is tremendous, even orgasmic.
00:59:27.519 --> 00:59:28.719
It's really powerful.
00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:39.440
You'll feel excited that you can fulfill those hidden desires, and you'll want to share that excitement with someone who truly understands you and loves to watch you change.
00:59:39.679 --> 00:59:47.119
Once you truly embrace your hidden desires, you'll never fear the judgment of others, because you'll know it's worth it.
00:59:47.440 --> 00:59:55.119
You should only be true to yourself and the people you love, people who reciprocate your desire, people who get it.