Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #145

"clean2" by Folie, Bean Boy - 05/27/21

“clean2” by Folie, Bean Boy

This is another hyper-pop song, this time from 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady’s Dog Show Record label musician Folie.

Paper Magazine writes of this track:

“Folie combine[s] clanging industrial percussion with an array of abrasive scrapes, heavily distorted vocals and squeaking sound effects that tumble into a ripping buzzsaw drop. It feels like a mosh pit opening up in scrapyard — frenetic and edgy with a slight risk of getting tetanus if you're not careful.

The single arrives alongside a Harrison Wyrick and Parker Davis-directed animated music video that bombards viewers with acid-warped cartoons, burning Chase Bank branches and the imperative, ‘Fap to the Beat,’ in a face-melting onslaught.”

In a different Paper Magazine interview, Folie talks about her mental health and gender and sexual identity.

“‘ragoon’ is like a twisted 3+ min rehash of the tail end to my high school relationship. Hiding from my mental illness in the safety of a relationship at the expense of my partner, and furthermore expressing my repressed femininity through her.”

The queer artist Folie coming up today on the shuffle, after I received consent this morning from someone I wrote about to publish a post I had been working on since Monday’s unfinished one, feels like a synchronicity.

So let’s indeed move forward with that post!

"Mirage (Don't Stop)" by Jessie Ware, Benji B.

I want to preface this post by saying that some of the goals of this project besides talking about music are:

1. To reflect on my life as it’s lived as truthfully as I can.

2. To show how the spiritual world seems to interact with my life and life in general via music and many other things, if most likely everything.

I have also said before that:

3. Sexuality is a part of life and thus should be a part of this.

And I’ll add 4. I write these posts in one day, (this is probably the only exception so far) and so they are a snapshot of my thoughts about something just at one point in time.

And, lastly, I’ll add 5. I write from my personal experience, what feels true to me, not what is true for others, as I definitely do not have full knowledge of others’ experience, and perhaps do not even have full knowledge of my own, if not certainly most likely.

So, basically, don’t cancel me after this post LOL.

Here’s the story:

A person reached out back in 2020 after reading my longest sentence book, to say how much they liked it. The person asked me to read some of their writing, and I did. A few times the person has reached out to update me on their life and some of their writing, including this month, to say that they think they’re done with their book and ready to self-publish. I sent encouragement and recommended Amazon for it.

Then last week or so, he reached out again with a disappearing Instagram message asking if I was straight.

LOL.

To which I replied without a disappearing Instagram message, “Straightish. I did just find out I’m a 2 on the Kinsey scale.”

He said he always forgets what that is.

I was pretty sure he was hitting on me, but I left it at that.

Then he reached out again on Sunday night, and asked how tall I am, then how long is my member.

And it became 100% clear that he was hitting on me.

From here on out, I’m aware that my knowledge of the contemporary LGBTQ+ discourse is likely not up to everyone’s standards so I’m asking for a little grace here.

TBH, I just saw where it went.

I’m seemingly technically divorced now, living alone in the pre-post-pandemic, a 2 on the Kinsey scale, i.e. heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.

It was certainly interesting.

To be the object of a seduction.

That hasn’t happened in a long time, and it’s kind of categorically different receiving that attention from a man than a woman, or at least it was in this case for me.

Not to mention his desire for my ego, as someone who has read and liked my book, which has barely been read.

I had also spent the past I guess few months now swiping and pursuing women on dating apps. Being the seducer you could say. And found it sometimes fun and emotionally fulfilling but much more often kind of exhausting or a waste of time.

It reminded me of this story I read either in an Atlantic article or in a novel, I can’t remember, but it was saying how French men are more interested in homosexual relationships now, not because they identify as homosexual, but because it’s so much easier to have needs met than pursuing or maintaining a heterosexual relationship.

Which made me think of the word lifestyle, how homosexuality was or I guess still is sometimes considered a “lifestyle” versus an orientation or an identity.

The person, like a lot of men do, and people, in general, who knows, kept wanting to push the conversation forward and even meet in person.

And kept mentioning how fun it was to give straight guys blow jobs.

LOL.

I felt pretty objectified.

But could also understand why that’s both weird for women and also fun.

(Note: This line about the ambiguity of objectification for women has received both discomfort and approval from readers. Some noting that to them objectification never feels okay, while others noting that they liked that I put myself into the ‘female’ perspective).

It felt to me like it gave me more of a perspective of what I must have seemed like to women in the past when pursuing sexual liaisons.

We had already talked last year about how we both lived on the east side of LA.

And while I did participate in the flirting, I wasn’t particularly aroused by much of it.

There was a moment though where he sent me a photo of his underwear-covered crotch and he had fingernail polish on his hands.

Which I did find arousing. I think because of the mixture of feminine and masculine.

In the past, I’ve tried gay pornography but never found it super appealing.

But I do like trans pornography.

I like the mythological idea of a trans female who looks like a woman but has male genitalia.

Something about the way the male half and the female half finds union not only in sex and relationship but in one image/personhood/identity.

The Anima and Animus as Jung would say.

I guess a lot like Folie herself:

Which got me thinking more and more about spirituality and sex.

How when I felt ‘enlightened,’ I felt more ‘priestly.’

I start to think in terms of sex for love only, and sometimes even sex only for procreation, which is when I get too priestly perhaps.

And also when I felt ‘enlightened,’ I felt ‘super straight,’ LOL.

And I use that word facetiously because it’s become a flashpoint, with people saying that their identity is #superstraight on TikTok and social media, and therefore you can’t get mad at them for not being interested in trans women.

Even though there are biological reasons why someone might not want to be with a trans woman, i.e. you can’t (as of now) have a biological child with them.

This detail of the ‘culture wars’ I am for sure I learned about in The Atlantic.

Again, I also want to repeat that this is just my personal experience I am speaking about. So I hope I’m not alienating anyone. But if you want to stop reading or unsubscribe I understand.

And again this could change in the future or I may be blinded to something currently.

Who knows, maybe we’ll be looking back at this post and laughing if I start dating queerly.

But before I had my spiritual awakening, I had some insecure homosexuality baggage that was painful for me to process. Kind of like a fear of being in any part homosexual. Something, like, being in any part homosexual means being fully so, means losing your heterosexual identity entirely.

Which is something that feels more true for men than for women. Even in 2021.

It’s a bit like race was/is in that way.

A drop of queer in a man is like what a drop of blackness was/is.

But for a woman, some queerness doesn’t feel as defining or limiting or whatever.

But when, during the spiritual awakening, I went from agnostic to a believer in the spiritual world, that insecurity went away.

I had this vibe for a while that sometimes insecure spiritual energy can lead to insecure sexual energy.

And then when researching bipolar life coach/therapist Chris Cole before going on his podcast, I heard in his episode with Sean Blackwell, who I was familiar with through his Am I Bipolar or Waking Up book, Blackwell talked in the podcast about how sometimes men come to him, now that he’s a Shaman, feeling like they’re gay or confused, but it’s actually that their masculine energy is blocked in some way, and that after working with them, they lose that insecurity, and he also says, like I am hoping to convey, that this is just one kind of experience, not necessarily true for everyone.

Since the awakening experience I don’t really feel super straight, but also not bi or gay, but also not any label, I just feel like myself without judgments/insecurity, whatever that is.

So this is a long way of talking about my recent shuffles.

‘Mirage (Don’t Stop)” by Jessie Ware remixed by Benji B. came on the shuffle on Monday. Here the original is remixed so much there’s barely any lyrics, but it seems, to me, at this point, to imply a no-strings-attached blow job is just a “Mirage” in the dating desert I’m in. That I should “Don’t Stop” looking or waiting.

I also did a shuffle right after finishing the IG conversation Sunday night with the guy and got:

"Deep End Freestyle’ by Sleepy Hallow, Foushee

Which has a repeated line throughout the production of track that has Foushee singing:

“I don’t think you want to go off the deep end.”

Which seemed like a pretty strong warning not to meet up with him from my spirit guide, LOL.

Or in this second draft, I’m realizing it could merely be the spirit world highlighting the going off the deep-ended-ness of the decision, not putting a right or wrong judgment on it either way.

I did a Tarot though, too.

The first one was an outcome and I got:

Five of Swords Reversed.

Which includes: moving on and releasing stress.

But also:

Risk everything, held accountable, arrest, uncovered crime, regret, remorse, humiliation, shame, not heeding warnings.

Which doesn’t look good LOL!

Then I did a 3 card draw of Tarot of: do it, don’t do it, how to choose.

And got for do it:

The Page of Pentacles Reversed

For those that don’t know Tarot, reversed cards are usually not a good omen.

And so the vibe here is: bad news in earthly matters, lacking common sense, irresponsible, poor prospects, failing, disloyalty, unfaithfulness, unhealthy lifestyle.

Though in terms of love/relationships, it says, if you are single, the Page of Pentacles reversed tells you that you are not ready for a serious relationship at the moment and that’s OK as long as you are honest with potential partners. Have fun and enjoy yourself.

And for don’t do it, I got:

Two of Swords Upright

which includes:

Sitting on the fence, cross roads, difficult decisions, facing your fears, being torn between two relationships, divided loyalty, being caught in the middle, denial, blindness, inability to see the truth, avoidance, blocked emotions.

Which is interesting!

I talked to a friend about it, and she said, if you want to try to be queer, it doesn’t have to be with this person, if you don’t feel safe about it.

In terms of how to make the choice, I got:

Page of Cups, Reversed

which includes:

bad news, broken dreams, canceled social events/engagements/ proposals, obsession, envy, jealousy, vindictiveness, emotional vulnerability/ immaturity/wounds, becoming sexually active, promiscuity, seduction, ignoring inner voice or inner child, being obsessed with image, attention-seeking, childishness, childhood issues, sexual abuse.

Also not a great vibe, LOL!

Especially when I talked with my inner voice about this decision, it seemed to advise pretty strongly not to.

For love/relationships, the Tarot even said: It’s all well and good to enjoy a bit of flirting but be mindful of what type of relationship you want and stay true to yourself. You could possibly be seduced by a heartbreaker if you’re not careful!

Haha.

I also did a therapy session with my therapist on Monday to help process this experience.

And I brought up how the person when he was kind of pushing me to meet up, said oral sex is safe, but when I looked it up, it really isn’t, LOL.

But then when I was workshopping this piece in Al Brown’s class on Tuesday, he said how would I have felt about the risk if the person was a woman?

Implying something like I stereotyped the risk to this person that I might not have to a straight woman.

He also mentioned that I should include some more details of the conversation and the shifts in my mind instead of speculating too much about the other person.

Some of the details are pretty funny.

At one point he says “You deserve a good No strings attached bj” And I half joke/half seriously say back, “I agree! it’s been a long pandemic”

At another point, I mention I like trans pornography but not gay pornography. And he wrote back “gay porn is better.”

I did choose to send some disappearing photos of my own that were on the border between R and PG-13.

Al Brown also said I was letting the Tarot and the Shuffle decide things for me instead of deciding them for myself.

A few in the class spoke up in defense of the Tarot/Shuffle device saying that is just how I see the world right now via the spiritual world.

Another writer in the group mentioned that the Tarot seemed to function as underlining the small print dangers in any relatively anonymous sexual proposition. In a fresh way, I thought, instead of detailing them more traditionally.

I also brought up to my therapist how though he is 26 and an adult, and I’m 37, and the one being seduced it seems, the whole thing feels sort of unethical.

Most people in Al Brown’s class didn’t think so. I’m remembering now the divide by your age and add 7 rule, which gets me to exactly 25.5 years old. So we’re good ;)

The therapist mentioned that perhaps instead of having a sexual relationship, like it seems he wants, maybe he really wants mentorship as a writer.

Initially, I wrote:

“Which to me seemed to be the initial terms of our interactions last year.”

And I thought of all the Page cards in the draw.

But during the critique in the class, someone pointed out that this then felt kind of like I had committed morally wrong misconduct to them.

On some level, you can’t either argue with reality or with someone’s judgment. Either I was ‘morally wrong’ for even engaging in the IG conversation. Or that person’s judgment is ‘wrong.’

Or as I prefer to say, like the Tao, there is no right or wrong.

Thinking on it more though, and looking back at our IG messages before this, the vibe does feel more like we’re peers than mentor and mentee.

Like, I wouldn’t say that other writer friends of mine whose work I read or give advice about self-publishing their work are mentees to me.

But that could just be justification/rationalization.

It made me think of all the gray areas there are in contemporary post-#metoo society.

And again, this is a raw first draft of thoughts, I guess now a second draft post feedback, and even a third draft, but please don’t cancel me for working this stuff out in relatively real-time here.

Even if I may be literally #metooing myself in this post, LOL.

A person in Al Brown’s class pointed out that though she didn’t want to assume, there’s a lot of grace for people working out their queer identities.

To which I later Freudian slipped from the word “clear” to “queer.” LOL.

It had been a while since I Freudian slipped any word let alone something like that.

This in turn made me think of queer erasure, which is when straight(ish?), mostly white people, dabble in queer aesthetics, which you could argue I am doing here, and how it seemingly hurts fully identified queer people or BIPOC queer people.

But whatever post #metoo, post-gay/trans rights, +BIPOC culture we’re in/moving into, it feels like we need to have nuanced conversations, from everyone, which this is an attempt at.

But it also made me think of my dad. And how, and again this is a stereotype, but how gay men often have complicated relationships with absent fathers and/or difficult mothers.

I said something to the therapist like if my dad had died during his suicide attempt when I was a child, maybe I would have leaned even more in that direction on the Kinsey scale.

I left both the therapy and the class and a few other conversations with writers thinking, I don’t feel ashamed or unethical for exploring this, for flirting as the Tarot said, but that at this point in time it’s not something I want to pursue in the physical realm with this particular person.

The only real question up for debate was if I was going to write/post about it here on the shuffle.

Someone even brought up my mom who reads this now.

And I said, “Have to snap the umbilical cord sometime.”

To which they laughed.

Hi Mom!

I had already got “Mirage (Don’t Stop)” before the therapy session.

But when I hung up with the therapist, I then shuffled the 36,000+ song playlist again to get some extra guidance.

And I am not making this up.

But I got:

“Deep End” by Foushee

The original version of "Deep End Freestyle’ by Sleepy Hallow, Foushee.

Out of 36,000+ songs that’s the song that somehow came up. That’s a 0.00002777777 chance.

Now, do you see why I had to write/post all of this ;)

The spiritual world is real!

I’m doing its will by writing this.

Long live the synchronicities ;)

As the writer of Gone With The Wind says:

“Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.” -Margaret Mitchell

Or as the page I just Bibliomancied of The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry edited by Stephen Mitchell and quoting Francis of Assisi says:

“Be praised, my Lord, for our sister, bodily death, from whom no living thing can escape. Blessed are those whom she finds doing your most holy will, for the second death cannot harm them.”

Or as Richard Rohr says of this poem:

“We are only afraid of death as long as we do not know who we are, but once we know ourselves objectively to be a child of God, we are already home and our inheritance is given to us ahead of time. Then we can begin living and enjoying instead of climbing, proving, or defending. Our false self, as all religions say in one way or another, must “die before we die.” Only then can we sincerely say with Francis, “Welcome, Sister Death”…Those who face this first death of dying to self lose nothing that is real. And so, “the second death can do them no harm,” as Francis says in his “Canticle of the Creatures.” Death itself will only “keep opening, and opening, and opening,” which is what resurrection means.”

Okay, that’s the one hundred and forty-five Shuffle Synchronicities.