N O T * O T H E R W I S E
Unapologetic facts from the cultural fringe.
This is me. I write this stuff.
Life is full of facts... Math is hard. Politicians are full of shit. High heels make your ass look great. Fact: Facts are convenient! Facts are fucking hysterical. Facts are what we base our lives on. Without facts, we'd all be fucked.
However, pure fact is fucking elusive.
Many facts are, in fact, more mutable than we'd like them to be. And we're all trying to cling to a few that make some fucking sense to us.
The biggest obstacle to the truth is getting your "facts" straight...or, failing that, simply letting go of them and starting again.
Doing this on your own is hard enough. But the fact remains, even the loner-i-est of loners have to interact with other people once in a while. And not everyone is ready to discard their precious collection in the face of competing evidence and experience.
I started writing N*O in December 2012, while living in Los Angeles and attempting to navigate the city and its culture as a foreigner. I was accidentally running up against a career in entertainment -- an arena that put me in daily contact with various...untruths...and in (characteristically) dramatic fashion. But, I passed through (largely) unscathed and (thankfully) wiser.
Stripped naked, integrity in tact.
Along the way, N*O has morphed into a larger examination of this human constellation, and what it means to exist in it. The topics range widely -- from sex to modern spirituality. The connective tissue is total anarchy in consideration of the subjects and a sense of humor that has been making people angry since I learned how to speak.
In an age of extremes, I believe that:
playful logic can broaden a conversation rather than simply polarizing it.
any dialogue should begin with the goal of creating a new shared understanding, rather than simply a repetition of beliefs brought to the conversation.
including diverse (and sometimes unpopular) opinions in discourse is the only way to ensure progress towards eventual understanding and civility.
I also believe that nothing is sacred. (Or is it that everything is?)
- J