Deathclown Rules! podcast series part 1 w/ Leah Piotroski
plus a bonus interview conducted by Kate Morales of Somatic Scribing
This episode is part of a third season of “underworldparty: talk show at the end of the world”, that unexpectedly came together as I pivoted my work towards more explicit activist theater making. hence, "the deathclown era" subtitle of the series.
The full playlist of all UWP video episodes is here.
A more limited collection of audio only episodes is here.
There are corresponding substack writings to go with each episode. You can find those here: thenightgarden.substack.com, or if you’re reading this on substack, just scroll down a bit.
I am also co-director of www.animistarts.art, you can sign up for that newsletter here: animistarts.substack.com
I am hosting a free webinar on deathclown - Monday 5/22 at 5pm pst which will be recorded and put up as part of this series. You can join live via zoom at bit.ly/deathclownwebinar
In the conversation with Leah, we reference this article, so if you want some backstory:
Leah had some internet connection issues so their video goes out and it becomes more of an audio podcast a few minutes into the talk. I will be converting and uploading audio versions of all of these to this spotify podcast page when I have a chance.
underworldparty 017 - Leah Piotroski - "The Pink Cloud Convo" - Addiction, Art, Labor Organizing
leah's website: www.snakerootcollective.com
Supplemental writings
01
On the writers strike
Its good to fight against capitalism, but not really sure if thats the end goal. Capitalism is only for abled people and the second they arent able, they are disposable and despised. What we all had as people, long ago, was real socialism, until we let murderers destroy our matrifocal coalitions due to a kind of warlike mania and fear mongering propaganda. Then we got soldier caste, the first cops, and after that, its the slow decline over thousands of years of human sanity, a sanity that was a struggle to maintain for the previous 200,000 years.
Now, we are here. Unions can be tools for the elite, even the “working class” is a kind of coded term now.
If the real underlying ethos of socialism, ala the black panthers and rainbow coalition, would take root again, we could maybe titrate through the upcoming climate and economic collapse, similar to what some of the people of puerto rico are trying to do amidst rampant political and corporate corruption and land theft.
I have very little optimism for this because greed is our strongest addiction. Every person believes they are the main character. In many ways the writers strike is a strange metaphor for how theater has been corrupted by ceos, producers and the cult of celebrity.
But to make cinema and theater, it always takes a team. Heirarchies are meant to be flexible, fluid and TEMPORARY.
We need real bargaining power, and until all the castes and classes band together against the elites and soldiers, we are just pretending at progress.
But what i say matters very little, as my sickness and poverty are a ticking clock.
02
we've all been conned into believing that we deserve the best life, a better life -- more resources, more wealth, riches, sex, attention, "love".
when pain, sickness, bad luck and systemic oppression happens, when we feel the effects, we all say to ourselves, "this isnt fair, i dont deserve this, no one deserves this".
that defensive reaction, that story we tell is the very same narcissistic pattern that drove many of our ancestors to create the domination based reality we are now under the bootheel of.
once upon a time, some men felt they were being "oppressed" by women, by nature, by reality, by social norms, and they rebelled. they told themselves they were freedom fighters, and we still believe this insanity today, because it feels good to think that little old me is the tortured golden child, the hero unduly cursed by malignant forces.
a narcissistic pattern is just a basic survival mechanism that grows beyond its original context. it is the addiction to dissociation, which is numbing out. narcissism is literally a way that our bodies create endorphins and opioids to feel less pain.
so if we all, all of us, tend to default to narcissistic patterns of behavior in order to feel less pain via a biochemical process, can we instead use our complex natural gifts to create a similar effect through non-dominant or non-abusive means?
yes, of course.
its called play, art making, and social theater. its called nondual animism, its called tantra. its the theatrical, ritual, creation process of dealing directly with the myriad after effects of feeling pain, fear and hunger, and all the concepts we create about pain, fear, hunger, sickness, death and the great big crazy soup of dreaming we all find ourselves in.
but we dont do it because "survival of the fittest", because "money talks and bullshit walks", because "in the beginning was the word", because "i think therefore i am", and a million other propagandas that feed our king of the mountain narrative.
what old cultures knew is that people have dreams that can destroy, and that these dreams, desires, impulses, urges, have to be contained and shaped and transformed into communal medicine or else they will fester and mutate a person into a kind of ghost demon, a force of insanity upon the community and upon the ecosystem.
they had a range of theatrical, creative, embodied rituals that were done routinely and repeatedly in order to manage these dangerous dreams that just come through us.
when some people finally stole power from the collective and created caste systems, then all those rituals were corrupted, co-opted, stolen, abolished or otherwise prohibited.
we live in a last age, an age where humans have bloated ourselves far out of balance with the land, which is our bodies, our immune systems, and our psyches, our souls.
at this final hour, with the midnight clock of madness tolling its last bells, what else is there to do except return to what already worked, to remix the only way that sanity ever actually had a foothold in this species, and fire it into the sky, a celebratory shot in the dark amidst the insanity we have inherited?
03
As a culture we are still in the immature period of understanding biochemistry, cultural psychology and human behaviors. Thus, many people don’t understand that traits like adhd and narcissism are spectrums that all humans share and exhibit to varying degrees based on culture, history, biochemistry, access to resources, learned skill, etc.
In fact, i would say there are no “narcissists”, there are just people who really have been rewarded in some way for expressing their narcissistic tendencies.
Because narcissistic tendencies ARE compatible with colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, slavery, racism and all forms of domination.
Adhd tendencies on the other hand are more likely to be punished by a pro-narcissistic society. More likely to be an impediment to dominating others and thus becoming “successful” by the standards of the narc culture.
Remember that the root word for narcissist and narcotic are the same. It means to numb out. To dissociate.
The upcoming podcast with Leah Piotroski we go deeper into this.
The implications of this are complex and insidious, because a person can feel they are the victim of adhd and of other ppls narc behaviors, while simultaneously outsourcing their own harm via narc behaviors that they just label something else. “My trauma”, “my illness” etc.
The idea that all adhders are kind of not in control, and all narcissists are consciously in control of their behaviors is part of this little hero villain victim game that white culture loves to peddle as normal and true. It serves the white supremacist program.
And the root of this toxic worldview is ableism, which is also a narcissistic pattern.
It is fundamentally about fear of death and the fear of community, which cannot exist within a caste system, is antithetical to the idea of millionaires and billionaires. Ableism thrives on the idea of exceptionalism.
04
One of the weirdest things i see now that disability and racial justice has gotten more widespread traction in society is that people weaponize it in order to determine your character. Petty. Insidious. Immature.
Let me tell you, people of color and disabled and poor ppl have been in the trenches for years, maybe entire lifetimes just surviving and making the best out of shit sandwiches, and have stuff to do. Life isn’t perfect. No poor people have the money or energy or resources to implement all these things you think would be “justice”.
You should target corporations with this noise. Or white people who own houses on stolen land. Or anybody that makes close to a million dollars a year.
Justice only happens when we actually share collective resources and collectively own the means of production. Like buildings and land and resources.
As more and more entitled white and queer folks get disabled, and realize they aint ever gonna get a piece of the American cash pie, the answer is absolutely NOT to target other poor people with your vigilante hypervigilance.
The infighting and petty faction warfare is giving white feminism, it’s giving temporarily embarrassed millionaire. Its giving misplaced discharge toddler vibes.
If u read this and wonder why you cant think of better strategies, well, that’s why i cant take you seriously.
Bonus New Interview recorded last fall in 2022 by Kate Morales of Somatic Scribing - you can see their website here: www.asthecrowfliesdesign.com
Bonus links
01
Disability Justice Organizers Dream Big and Resist a Culture of Disposability - Truthout
great audio conversation with included transcript! feat. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
02
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god this was so good. sings in this tuneless dessert of mundane beige grrr over here. thanks so much and good to see leah piotroski.