Fucked Up Day

This morning I woke up feel pretty shitty after having had drinks at Therapy last night with a couple of friends. I wasn't hung over. I had just a couple of cosmos, and I ate some greasy calamari while watching Brad Loekle terrorize some straight man during Electroshock Therapy, Therapy's weekly comedy show.

I didn't realize that it wasn't my stomach that was feeling shitty, it was my spirit.

In reverse order here is why today pretty much tops the Shittiest Day of All Time list.

1.) About a month ago, I got locked out of my apartment, couldn't rouse anyone, and so I checked into a hotel down the block from my house. The room was outrageous at $300 and some change plus tax. But it was either that or sleep on the street. Today, after reviewing the credit card statement, it turns out that the new girl working at the desk at the hotel double or triple charged the room, as the charge came up to $1,076. David, understandably, was fairly furious.

2.) I took out some cash day before yesterday to help out a family member. The ATM machine charged us double. So I got out $200 for the price of $400. David got more angry.

3.) This morning one of my best friends who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend decided to remove himself from this life permanently. His Father found him and called us as my ex's current boyfriend has been staying with us for a few days from Virginia.

What an awesome way to start off my vacation week. This day fucking sucks. I feel disconnected from everything at the moment. The sound of people talking literally sounds like it is coming to me through an echo chamber. The sound of my own voice sounds desperately cheap to me. Two out of the three items above are consequences of my own stupidity, machine error, or human error. We don't have the money to lose, but, more importantly, I shouldn't have lost my friend.

I think I am so angry that I can't feel shit. Even writing this is like I am sitting inside of a small cubicle somewhere in the back of my brain directing an over sized human shaped plush stuffed toy to do this typing. Mimzy is chewing her food in the kitchen, and it sounds what I would imagine a giant mechanical pig would sound like as the pieces crunch and then hit its stomach with little pings.

Oh yes, and to top it all off, I got visited by what I assume to have been Chris' ghost. No, I am not losing it, yet. But I was laying in the bed, and I woke up because someone stomped through the bedroom on the way to the kitchen. I hate it when David wears shoes in the house because he pretty much clod hops through the house as if he is marching to war. So, I figured that he was doing his usual house drills. I looked up from the bed, and in the TV, I could see the reflection of someone moving back and forth in the kitchen. I thought David was leaving to go somewhere, so I shouted out to him. The figure in the reflection stopped moving. The only problem was that David was in the studio which is in a room, through a door, BEHIND the television. David came into the bedroom to tell me that he was there. And when I looked up the figure in the TV was gone.

If there was a 911 to call for drama, I would have picked up the phone.

I am trying to make as much sense out of this as possible. Actually, that is a goddamn lie. I am avoiding actually thinking about any of this. I feel as if a force shield has come down somewhere between my heart and my rib cage. Another one has wrapped itself around my brain, sort of like shrink wrap or those shrinky dinks you used to put in the oven as a kid. And another one has carved itself into the space around my body just above my skin. I want to care about what's happening right now. I want to care about Peace in the Middle East, Haiti, Greenhouse emissions and LeBron James, but I can't. I am taking a break from reality. I'll let you know when I get back.

POETRY: Therapy I

For a clown
muting color
and avoiding notice
is a Herculean task

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-April 14, 2010

Interview with a Comic Diva: Yamaneika Saunders

So, a couple of Sundays each month, David and I mosey up the street to the queer night spot Therapy in Hell's Kitchen for the comedy show hosted by Brad Loekle. Now, sometimes the show is a little bit on the wakka wakka side. In general, the first comic of the night, to put it gently, sucks yeast infected nuts. Not always, but sometimes. In general, as the show progresses, so does the talent. In general, the headliner never fails. Sometimes, though, the headliner blows your friggin' mind.

Yamaneika Saunders was the headliner, and she not only blew my mind...she blew it up. I was picking up pieces of my medulla oblongata off of peoples tables, from under bar stools, and out of folks' cosmos. This woman was a raw talent for tellin' the damn truth in a way that will have you laughing with her and at yourself. She uses comedy to examine the world, pick it up, shake it, and set it down again...giggling.

After the show, bold as brass, I stalked Yama. I also asked her if she would be willing to be interviewed for my little piece of the World Wide Web. She graciously agreed, and here is her dynamite interview. I can't wait to see where she goes, because she is going to go further than, I think, she even dreams about. Thank you Yama for taking the time to respond to these questions, and I am sending you much love.

You are funny as hell...a comedienne extraordinaire...what first pushed you to take the stage and make folks laugh? What is it that you get from being a comedienne?

Yamaneika: Aww, Thank you, Brandon . The first person who got me into stand-up was, surprisingly enough, my mother. We were living in LA and she (my mother) was taking stand-up classes with Sandi Shore. After talking to Sandi about me and how funny she thought I was, my mother enrolled me in a comedy class w/ Sandi per Sandi's request. Each class Sandi taught ended in a showcase, and I was fortunate enough that Sammy Shore (Father of Sandi and Pauly Shore) was the host for the showcase. Sammy pulled me to the side after the showcase and told me that I shouldn't take any more classes because I was ready to do it without training. Before all that happened, I was on my way to becoming a political science major w/ the hopes of being the first black female Supreme Court Justice.

Your persona on stage is a fierce, no shit taking, black woman that radiates a type of strong-black-woman ferocity that I recognize from my own family...off stage you are sweet as a peach...tell me a little bit about these two personas and how they interact with one another?

Yamaneika:My grandmother and my upbringing are responsible for my duality on stage and in life. I grew up in the suburbs of Maryland, in a middle-class family, attended private school, and I am a granddaughter of ministers. There is this very religious side of me: the side that believes in Jesus and prays. That side is very sensitive and worries about others, would volunteer at a shelter and all that Mother Teresa shit! I go home at night and cry because I feel like I should be doing more to help the world, but I just don't know how! That's who I am when you meet me off stage: very sensitive, proper, and quiet.

However, when its time to perform you have to bring that alter ego out. That exaggerated side of you that needs to be heard. The character you see on stage is the person who says the things I would like to say in real life, but I just don’t have the balls to say. I’m so concerned off stage with hurting people’s feelings and disrespecting people that I often limit what I say to people that I don’t know.


Your beauty and blackness are front and center when you take the stage...how does your racial identity inform your comedy?

Yamaneika: I was blessed to come from a family that believed in telling you how beautiful you are. I grew up with an abundance of self-esteem and worth. Even in school when I was teased for being the only minority and being chubby, I still held my head up high. Kids would call me a nigger to my face and I would say, “takes one to know one” or “don’t you wish you had these nigger looks?” I was so confident.

I have always happy to be who I am. I believe that if you love who you are then you aren’t threatened by loving people for they are.

It wasn’t until the 7th grade, when another black student came to our school, that I realized how strong I really was. This student was feeling a lot of pressure and was desperately trying to fit in. I understood how hard it was because there were no other minority children at this school, not even an Asian kid and they are everywhere! I spent a lot of time defending this young lady and talking to her. I realized that she needed a little of what I had even if I wasn’t always sure of my real strength. It was through pep talking this young lady, and encouraging her, that I really realized that I could make people laugh. When she was being attacked I would go up to the kids who picked on her and would snap on their asses so hard! I would cut them down to size, and then crowds would form and people would crack up. It got to the point where people used to love to taunt us just so I could go off in a comical rant! In hindsight, it defeated the purpose of diminishing attention around us, but it also became very fun. I experienced much racism at the school, but the one thing that broke the barrier was humor. Humor knows no color.

Comedy is a way for me to say to the little dark black girl "you are beautiful" or to the unloved woman "I love you". This society is structured to divide us on many levels. I hear from the industry all the time that I can't reach the important audiences (which to them are white males). I have just as many white men who approach me after a show, as anyone else. Am I a woman? Yes. Am I black? Yes. Am I a big girl? For now. But ask me if I had the same feelings this 19 to 35 year old male demographic had when I had my heart broken for the first time, had my feelings hurt, or when I heard my mothers voice over the phone. We all have things that connect us as humans, which are what I like to tap into.

On stage you seem to evoke the comedy styles of everyone from Moms Mabley and Aunt Esther to Monique...who are your influences?

Yamaneika: I think I evoke those feelings from some, because we like to categorize people to understand them. I have great respect for Moms Mabley and Lawanda Page [Aunt Ester from TV’s Sanford and Son], I definitely have watched and listened to them and respect their comedy styles. A lot of people compare me to Monique because we are both big girls and from Baltimore , MD, but that is where the similarities end.

My influences are Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce (I do have a few problems with Bruce, but I respect him), George Carlin, and Paul Mooney. I respect people who aren't afraid to go against the grain and speak their mind, like it or not. I like to push the envelope. I love when people say, "No, she didn't just go there!” I will go there, I live there, I bought a house there and I hope that eventually I'll have a few neighbors there so I can have a cook out in "Thereville.”

I spent the first few years of doing comedy being that reserved little girl that my grandma wanted me to be. Don't act ghetto because everyone is expecting that, remember that as a big girl people will expect this, as a woman people will expect that. That is too much shit to think about. Like Frank Sinatra said, "I Got To Be Me"!

As a full figured woman, you talk about size in your comedy. You work the body you have, and you work it well. How does the way that society treats folks that aren't a size 0 impact how you personally move through the world and how you decide what to bring into your stand up?

Yamaneika: Well, I try not to let being big define my material because I’m more than just my size. I have plus sized jokes because its relevant to my current life, but I don’t hate skinny girls. My material is very conversational so I try to focus on those things in my life that I can talk about and people can relate to, not everyone can relate to being fat so if I limited myself to that content I wouldn’t go very far.

I do think that being a big person has opened up different realities to me in this world, it can be a struggle sometimes. I also know that I have advantages, because (not be cocky) I am a “cute” girl so that helps me maneuver were some people who are plus sized and “unattractive” are restricted. I do feel an impulse when I see big people in the audience to do material that about being big, because my big jokes are uplifting and not self-deprecating. Big people laugh, cry, eat, shit and fuck just like the rest of the world.

Sometimes, comics will say its easier for a big girl to get up and make people laugh cause they think we are automatically funny. I disagree, at the end of the day I have to say funny stuff just like everyone else; no one is giving me pity laughs up there!

You are a straight woman (I am assuming here) that I met doing stand up in a queer bar...how does your sexuality come into play in your stand up? Your work resonated with folks in the audience despite sexuality differences, why do you think that is?

Yamaneika: As I said before, when we relate to one another on a human level race and sexuality can’t divide us. I grew up in a very religious household starting from the age of eight, but before we became so “sanctified” my grandparents owned a nightclub and my mother was the DJ. We knew how to party, and we knew how to socialize; I never lost that ability. When I’m on stage, I am there to have a good time. There was a time when I had a real fear that I would be rejecting God if I kept doing gay shows, or supporting my gay friends and then God said to me, “love”. I literally heard a voice say “love”. God put me here to send love and not to judge, that is what He does.

So, what I focus on is loving my audience and sharing my life with them. Let the rest of the people fight over those things. I don’t see race, I don’t see sexuality, I don’t see anything but another human being on the stage when I perform. I’ll never forget one night I was in Connecticut and there was a cute chubby guy in the front row. I said that I would love to take him home later on that night. He turned red and started to look a little uncomfortable, as if I was picking on him. He finally said, “I’m not what you think.” I said, “I know you’re gay, that’s why I’m hitting on you. I love a man who doesn’t want me, it’s a challenge”, and I threw him a little wink. He laughed and his friends relaxed. He came up to me after the show and said, “I loved you. You were the first comic who didn’t make me feel uncomfortable in this gayphobic town”. I could tell he thought I was going to make fun of him being gay, but what I noticed when I spoke to him from the stage is that he was trying hard to relax so I was going to help him relax!

Who gives a shit if I’m straight (well, every female comic these days is gay … so, I’m not making any commitments to that status) and who gives a shit if I’m a woman. I’ve been put down, I’ve been talked about, I’ve been rejected, and I’ve overcome. So, let’s talk about that shit so we can move on!

You are an amazing performer...how can folks that want to hear you, see you, love you find you in this big wide world of ours?

Yamaneika: My website YellinGirl.com is under construction, so people can check me out at www.facebook.com/yellinggirl. I keep peeps posted on my events. Don’t be afraid to add me!

A Change is Gonna Come

Living in my house, right now, is like living in a constant state of spiritual warfare. And, today, I almost lost a big battle.

I am a recovering addict. I spent several years using crystal meth fairly heavily, and I hid it quite successfully from the people that love me. I was a binge user, and I used on a clockwork schedule: every two weeks for two to three days at a time, almost always over the weekend.

After having a near complete breakdown and spending a week as a guest of the mental health ward of Fairview Riverside hospital and then spending another almost six months in various structured recovery programs at the Pride Institute in Eden Praire, MN, I was able to get to a place where I had the skills to fight back against my own biology. Addiction is a physical and mental illness and it takes physical and mental therapy to keep it in check.

I have had, what is called in 12-Step lingo, slips. But I haven't slipped for a long time now, and I am aiming to keep it that way. But, to do so, I have constantly to find ways not to internalize difficult emotions and emotional situations, I have to eat well and exercise, and I need to be engaged with a life and a world that is spiritually uplifting.

In general, my life is centered around all of those things. I have a great partner that is extremely supportive, I am a Christian that believes in the universal and healing power of love embodied through Christ (one of many Sons of God and prophets sent to teach us), I have recently begun chanting in the Nichiren Buddhist tradition (nam-myoho-renge-kyo), I use this blog as a vehicle to draw out lessons from my daily experiences that I need to learn or look at more closely, I write and perform poetry as a way to externalize my feelings, and I try to find small ways, each day, to experience God, the Divine, and love.

Unfortunately, with the love of my partner and a desire to build a home with him, has come his ex partner (of whom I have written plenty before) who lives in our living room on our couch. I am not overstating or exaggerating when I say his presence is an actively hostile and malevolent force that is actually palpable. His energy is destructive and hurtful, his words and actions are negative and damaging, and I, as the new boyfriend of his ex, am the direct and active target of his hate. When something goes wrong or amiss in the house, I am to blame. When David and I had our first threesome, which was a beautiful and spiritually uplfiting experience with an amazing human being, he didn't speak to me for almost a week yet did not treat David the same way, he stares at me with such undisguised loathing that it feels like a punch to the stomach. To be the object of revile for anyone, particularly someone with whom you live, is a constant burden and pressure.

I quite literally choose whether going to the bathroom is sometimes worth the walk to the living room, and I tell you that on more than one occassion a bottle has looked more appealing than a porcelain bowl on the other end of the house through the spectral landmine field I have to cross to get there.

The economy sucks, and David, as a freelancer, has had a great reduction in the amount of work he has been able to do. Yesterday, he left for a two day gig in the Hamptons. We can use the money, but, more importantly, David needed to work, for himself, on a fundamental level. For several days leading up to his leaving, I felt the weight of his absence. David is a buffer of sorts between the ex and me. His ex feels required to constrain himself when David is around. When David leaves, he feels no such constraint. I wrote before about the ex and the ex's current boyfriend and their ambush and attack of me. This time, there was no screaming...just a heightening of his already hateful presence. And, frankly, I reached the end of my spiritual reservoir.

Thank God that God had my back.

Quite literally, yesterday, I was on the fast track to relapse. I began looking for a connection. In this interconnected Internet ready world, finding drugs is as easy as logging into Craig's List or any number of cruising sites. I know all the code words and key phrases. Luckily, just as I was on the edge of the relapse cliff, my phone rang. I had just come home from a work event, and my best friend called. We have been trying to see each other, unsuccessfully, for weeks. The one sure way to get me out of and away from myself is for someone else in need to ask for my help. He sent a text saying that he could use some friend time. I packed a bag, jumped in a cab, and I headed to Harlem and spent the night. This morning, we got up and chanted together, which fed my spiritual well just enough to keep sober, though I didn't know I was going to need to use it so soon.

Today, the ex did one of his favorite hate tactics. He played on my fears and vulnerabilities around David. He enjoys telling me stories about the few times, over their ten year relationship, when David did not adhere to their relationship rules. And though I know in the moment that exactly what that hateful man wants is for me to start questioning David and myself, there are times when fears slip through cracks. They did, and I was again speeding down the path to relapse.

Except this time, as I started to leave the house to look for drugs, I stopped myself. I looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. The clouds were rolling in thick and black and ugly from Jersey...and I began to ask myself what the hell I was doing. I had gotten up from the computer where I was doing work for my amazing job. I was walking away from the committments I made to my partner. I was walking towards hurting myself deeply and fundamentally. So I turned around and walked home. I ordered some terrible MSG filled food from the Chinese spot downstairs, and I ate myself into a near catatonic state, all the while composing donor renewal letters for work (I may be crazy, but I am definitely productive).

I am done with letting another human being impact my life and spirit to the point that I am willing to do myself harm and, in doing so, hurt the people that love me. The ex is moving out of our home at the end of July. I am not sure if I can find enough ways to sustain myself until then, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I may have to spend many more blog entries between now and then speaking to you all about this situation.

Also, my insurance kicks in tomorrow and you best believe that me and therapy are about to get real cozy like again.

The minute that man exits the building for the last time, I am going to have a shaman, a priest, a Vooduin, a medecine man, a rabbi, and any other holy person I can find to come over and deep clean his ugliness and hurt and hate and pain and darkness out of this place. I wonder if they got some sage flavored Febreeze at the Target.

Thanks for reading ya'll.

An Open Letter to Myself on the Possibility of Radical Love

An Open Letter to the Possibility of Radical Love

This weekend, I attended a polyamory/non-monogamy caucus at the 21st Annual Creating Change Conference in Denver, CO. I attended because, theoretically, I believe that a single human being can have multiple partners and multiple loves. I also believe that an individual can have a sexual connection with another human being, outsides the confines of his or her primary relationship, that do not take away from what is being built with a life partner. I am also a slut. I came out and was raised by a queer youth community, at the end of 1990s, that was politically and sexual radical, embracing polyamory, non-monogamy, and ethical sluttishness as celebrations and re-articulation of what it means to be sex positive.

I also, for the first time in my life, find myself in an open relationship. And all of the practiced rhetoric around sex positivity, all of my confessed beliefs around the possibility of multiple loves, and all of my talk about the beauty and raw sexual connection inside and outside of my relationship have come screaming up against the reality of my past. I grew up desperately abused. I grew up mentally hammered by parents that were working out their own hurts on their children. I survived sexual assault in college. I have a Father that could not be there for me, a Father that could have been there but instead beat me and then left, and a Father that could not survive the recession of the mid-80s and when things got difficult--abandoned our family. The three men that I called Father have all contributed, in their way, to a very real blockage in my ability to embrace the life that I know is right and true for me.

So the question becomes, how do I stay true to myself? True to the beautiful slut and openly loving human being that I am and that has chosen to live a life that embraces the ways in which sensual and sexual pleasure can enhance ones life instead of being a secret shame force within it. 

To begin with, I have a ridiculously patient partner. He is older than I am, and he has had a decade more time to deal with his own issues in this particular area. He is careful to maintain his boundaries of terms of being able to exercise his right to have some fun now and again outside of our relationship, but he balances that with making sure that the fun he is having is not causing undue harm with us. We don’t always agree. There are very real limits that I draw in my play and in my flirting with other people that are not there for him. They are a grey area where neither of our approach is right or wrong. He puts me first and as long as that remains true, then those grey areas become less important to define. And this coming from the queen of rules, regulations, and clearly defined borders. There are and will be areas that will need definition in our relationship. Communication is one of our strong points, and it is something that we need to continue to work at. But, the truth remains that there is only so much he can do when it is clear that the real work is internal to me.

A strategy that I have chosen is to externalize my thoughts, feelings, and struggles as much as possible (while still respecting the intense need for privacy of my partner---something that I, obviously, do not share. My friends call me IRA: I Require Attention). I have found that when I am faced with feelings of jealousy, with feelings of insecurity, with feeling threatened, if I stop the moment and say out loud what it is that I am thinking and feeling. If I just put it out in the air, then I am able to look at it and let it go. The emotions can run their course and I come out the other side feeling fine. When the emotions arise, and I ride them. When I let them work their way into my psyche unchecked that is when knee jerk and deeply programmed self-protection behaviors kick in that served a very real purpose in literally keeping me alive and safe as a child but that now hinder my advancement as an adult.

There’s the kicker. The ability to recognize potential threats is intensely heightened in abuse survivors. It was once at the core of our ability to know when to exit a scene, (room, car, park, home) in order to reduce our chance of mental or physical harm. As an adult, that has translated for me into subconscious reactions designed to distance me from any and all individuals that would otherwise have the power to deeply wound me as my emotions and feelings for them grew. In the context of a deeply loving and supportive relationship, particularly one in which safety and feelings of support are freely given and nurtured, the threat of losing that is sometimes overwhelming and short circuits any and all attempts to cut off the deeply ingrained protectionist mechanisms of the past.

I am also going to therapy---what I can’t figure out how to fix on my own--I am unashamed to turn over to a professional. Also, zoloft helps ;-).

The one area where I need to give myself grace, and also ask for more grace from my partner, is that I am attempting to heal and reverse what amounts to roughly 28-31 years of abuse (self inflicted and otherwise). I am asking myself to unlearn and dissect almost three decades of behavior and feelings and ways of being. And I am foolish if I believe (and lately I have been trying to make myself believe) that after roughly eight months in a loving relationship, I should have or even could have moved any further along than I am and have with this process of healing and renewal.

Patience with oneself while at the same time pushing oneself ever forward and onward is the key to unlearning and letting go of those things that once served a purpose but now serve only to keep you from being loved and loving in return in the way that you so choose. In the way that I so choose: in a committed, deeply loving, beautiful open relationship with a partner that is lover and friend. I am doing this not for us, but for me. And by doing this for me, I make us stronger.