INTRODUCTION:
This is episode is my first Solo Dolo – which means it’s just me baby! You get to have me all to yourself as I grant you an in-depth look into the creation of my memoir and an overview of what each section means.
INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):
· A Comprehensive Look Into My Memoir
· Insight Into The Creation Process
· A Breakdown Of What The Cover Means
· Insight Into Each Chapter
· My Case Against The Department Of Veterans’ Affairs For Harassment
· My Hopes For This Project
· My Hopes For You
CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON:
Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopix
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon
Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com
DE’VANNON’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)
o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs
· Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)
· Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levin
o https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com
· Upwork: https://www.upwork.com
· FreeUp: https://freeup.net
VETERAN’S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
· Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org
· American Legion: https://www.legion.org
INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?:
· PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.
https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
You’re listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De’Vannon and I’ll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what’s really going on in your life.
There is nothing off the table and we’ve got a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right into this episode.
De’Vannon: Hey, all my beautiful souls out there. Welcome back to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. Again, one more week and happy pride month to everyone. Maybe whom the Lord sets free is free. Indeed. And I want to let each and every last one of you know, you are.
You are truly free and give a fuck what anybody tells you. So let’s go ahead and be a lovely self. Now today’s episode is just going to be me this time. I’m going to be talking about my [00:01:00] book, which I recently released sex drugs and Jesus, which is my memoir. And I wanted to go through it and really give, given, express my heart about the different chapters while I call them what I called them. And, and really just lay it out in a very meaningful way.
So you pick up on the spirit that went into this project, learning why I did it, what I hope the world gets out of it I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello? Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. I’m so happy to have you again with me this week. It’s just me by myself this time. Usually I have all my homeys or my Ronnie’s with me on the show, but today you have to have me all to yourself. I know you’ve always wanted that. So today you get to have it I’m crying.
So today I’m going to take a little bit of time and talk to you about my book, sex, drugs, and Jesus, a memoir of self-destruction and resurrection. [00:02:00] And this is going to run through why I wrote it a little bit about the process, go through the chapters and everything like that. And I think it’ll be really cute.
I hope you think so, too. So to start off, let’s talk about the cover. I like to be super meaningful in a strategic and intentional with everything that I do this cover was put together by my homeboy, Chris and con’s designs over in Greece. And I met him through 99 designs.com, which is an excellent company to work with right website to go for all your design needs.
So on the cover of the book from the top to the bottom, we have, of course, my name, the van and Hubert. You have a black bird with these mysterious blue eyes, holding a syringe with blood in it. And the blood is dripping out of the syringe onto the skull, which I’m going to talk about next. But this blood for me represents death.
The syringe represents how wild my life gotten a [00:03:00] massive amount of narcotics. I used to inject every day. And then the two. You know, work in tandem with each other because you know, the drug life, you know, the it’s very, very dangerous. And a lot of times it does lead to death and everything. The, the bird also represents the darkness of the times that I went through when I was homeless and everything like that.
And just the general black hole that I fell into during the darkest time of my life, which is reflected within this book that we’re keeping it lower. We’re taking it lower. We’ve got the skull. The skull is me that Dan in his, in his head represents the headache. Everything that I went through gave me.
There is a rainbow colored cross in the [00:04:00] middle of the skull. Now this represents the conflict in between being a non-straight and the problems that the church tries to throw at us for being non-straight. And in particular, in my own case, you know, for being dismissed from ministry at Lakewood church for not being straight, we work our way down.
We see a little weed leaf over the left eye, the eyes contain jail bars, reflecting all the times that I got locked up while I lived in Houston, Texas, and then the nose instead of the nose, we put various pills there as he used to sell a hell of a lot of pills too. And it represents the drug. Behind the skull, we see gears in the farm background was represents how my mind was reeling and just working and going nonstop and how my head was just spinning out of fucking [00:05:00] control.
We see music notes also floating behind the skull, which represents my musical inclination and how I can write music, read sheet music, and how I’ve been in choirs and stuff like that all throughout my life. And then there’s a haze of smoke. Also enveloping the background of the skull, which represents confusion.
It represents all the smoke from all the dope that I used to smoke also. And then below that we simply have the title of the book, sex, drugs, and Jesus, a memoir of sex self-destruction and resurrection. And so that’s pretty much sums up the cover. So the process of writing this book started back in 2012 around about my probation had just been transferred from Houston to Baton [00:06:00] Rouge, and I knew that I had a story within BI.
I had been thinking about writing books for years, but I never really had shit to say. And so once I hadn’t done gone through all of this, I realized that it wasn’t for me to path had been delivered from the strong problems that I had been delivered from. And then go have a quiet, peaceful, happy life and not say anything and not speak anything about the deliverance as the Lord had given me.
And I, whether you believe in God or not this sort of story here, When someone comes from so many problems and they’re able to overcome it, you can still appreciate the hustle and the struggle and the salvation of it all. And and I may mention God and Jesus and the holy ghost and all of them throughout this at some point.
And I may not, but if I do, I’d just like to remind everyone that I don’t think [00:07:00] Christianity is better than any other religion. And I don’t think anybody is less than me if they don’t worship God or anything like that. You know, I say it all the time. I love going and hanging out at the Buddhist temple and hanging around with other bald bitches like myself, because I feel seen and loved and all of that.
And they make break vegetarian food too. So, so I started taking notes back, like in 2012 and. Ben was not put to paper to formulate an outline till around the time the Corona virus came to town. Now, during this time, my good friend to Theresa Hissong, who was also an author told me to to like D just get started on an outline.
And I didn’t, I didn’t know where to start. I started taking notes and I had just a stack of tablets, just all kinds of thoughts that popped into my head as I was trying to get my life back together. And I was remembering everything that happened to me in Houston and when I was in the [00:08:00] air force and everywhere else that I had gone in my.
In my life and I didn’t know where to begin. And Theresa was just like, just store an outline, girl, just go from the beginning of your life up till now. And let me know when you’ve done that and we’ll go from there. And so I did that. I started, I got the outline done and she was like, okay, now go back and take the main points and fill in paragraphs and everything like that.
And so, and so I did that and After I got about 50,000 words in the book world, most books, they like, if you’re going to write a book, you know, the powers that be like them to be like in the 50 to 60,000 word range minimum to you know, for it to be considered, you know, a serious literary work quote unquote.
And so I did that. I wrote about 50, 60,000 words. Then I went about the business of finding me a ghost writer to help me because I realized that I was too emotional about everything that I was [00:09:00] writing. And I didn’t want to sacrifice the quality of the story just so I can just do it all on my own at this point in my life.
I know when I fucking need help. And so, and I’m not afraid to ask for it this time around. And so I went, you know, found somebody to. To take my thoughts and helped me to make sure that they’re cohesive and it didn’t come across as emotional spillage, you know, just word vomit all over the page. I needed to be sure we had some cohesive stories and concepts.
No, he and I sat down for a couple of weeks and did interviews every day, you know, because he wanted his own perspective on everything that I had gone through, even though I had already written most of it out. And so I agreed to do that. That resulted in like a, about a 10,000 word outline and At the, at the end of the day, the book and ended up being over [00:10:00] 120,000 words.
So strictly speaking it’s about two books wrapped up in the one, but it ended up being very emotionally heavy for me to go through my story. And I did not want to go through this process twice and do like a part one and a part two I’m alive, and nobody got tired, but none of that, fuck it. I’m just going to give them these two books in one and be done with it.
And plus, I don’t like the TZ though, either I’m going to give you the damn thing or I’m not. And so, so it ended up being one book about 120,000 words of the paper copies, I think are about 330 pages. And something like that, the audio book, which I narrated myself as about 10 and a half hours. And so. So after me and the ghost rider got the outline together, like 10,000 words.
I flew him down here to Louisiana because I wanted to take him to as many places as I [00:11:00]realistically could, considering we’re in the middle of a pandemic and everything like that, and show him where certain things went down because I wanted this writing to be as real. And, and, and just that, wouldn’t just bring you into the room, into the moment with me as much as I could.
So we went around places in Baton Rouge, where I was born, where I went to high school. We, we went down to new Orleans, you know, where I went to my first gay bars and stuff like that when I was in high school. Oh God bless the gay bars in new Orleans, hallelujah, tabernacle and braise. We went over to Biloxi, Mississippi, where I was enlisted in the air force at Keesler air force base.
We went over. The fucking goddamn Houston, Texas, you know where we’re at, where I was a drug dealer where I got HIV, or I got hepatitis B or ended up homeless, you know, where all the shit, all the bad shit went down. Fuck. And so, and then while we were out on the road, we filmed a [00:12:00]docu-series, which is now live and fully edited and complete on my website to try to physically show you some of these places as well.
And to bring it that much more to life. Now we were on the road and traveling about two or three weeks or something like that, trying to go to all of these cities and states. And so when that was done, you know, I sent him back home and everything like that. And then the, you know, the deep writing, you know, began, you know, the first draft was done and then all the editing and stuff like that commenced man is like, you can write a book in six months.
You know, maybe two a year, and then you might be tempted to edit the motherfucker for another two or three years of no one would stop you. At some point along the way, me and this ghost rider had had a, I’ll just say a parting of the ways of differences of perspectives. And so I’ve started the book by myself and then, so I ended it by myself.[00:13:00]
It’s not like I’m not a good writer. I just didn’t necessarily trust that. I would tell my own story the best and be truly objective about it, which is why I hired a ghost writer in the first place. And so. Anyway. So we had our parting of the ways. And then I CA I, I finished the real rain, the, the arranging of the book of myself, and then I edited it and like a good 10 times or something like that.
And then until I was finally done, and one thing about writing a book it’s becomes like your baby, you just want to keep fucking with it than fucking with it and tweaking it, everything. And he’s like in girl, at some point, you’d have to put the pin down, push a laptop back and just press publish. And You know, I say, just press publish.
It’s not that simple. When you’re publishing a book in self publishing, like I did, it’s many intricate things that you got to learn, how to do. You gotta get your own bar codes, technically speaking, Amazon, you know, in different places, we’ll [00:14:00] provide you a barcode, but you can get your own barcode, your ISB in, I think that’s like an international book standard number or some shit like that.
What that stands for is that number that’s under the book, the barcode. So you got to get that going. You gotta find some, you know, somebody to design you a book cover then you got to format it. So, you know, writing the book, one thing in my God, you know, Microsoft word is not necessarily the most book friendly app out there.
I’m just going to say that now there are other options, better, better options available to you. So typing it up as one thing, formatting it so that it will be accepted wherever you’re trying to submit it as another. So then I had to find a format or then the book cover is another thing, having it designed is one thing.
Now you have to have it, you know, the margins and everything fitted and trim that to wherever it is, you’re trying to publish the book, but there’s another thing. And so then you got to determine [00:15:00] where you want to distributed and everything like that. I went with the hard cover and the paper back with Amazon, the electronic version I went through.
I went through a company called draft the digital pretty gnarly. You can submit your electronic book to that one interface, draft the digital, and then they’ll send it out to many different retailers and everything like that. A subsidiary of them is called find a way voices.
And that’s who I used to post my audio book, which would then send them. Sent it to like 44 different retailers. And so you know, so gone are the days where we have to, you know, go to each website and try to post, you know, our work and like Amazon, for instance, prints on demand. So gone are the days where the author has to buy a shitload of their own books and carry them around in a trunk and hope people will buy them, you know, thank God for the [00:16:00] digital era.
It has made shit so much easier. And so if anybody ever has any questions about the book process, you can email me. I’m happy to make it a lot less of a headache for you than it was for me. And so, and so, you know, now it’s published and everything like that, and I’m putting it those far and praying it, those wide, I’m praying that it helps someone, the whole point of writing all this, besides the fact that I felt like it was my obligation to do so is transparent.
When I went through everything that I went through, sometimes I think even to this day, like I wonder if it would have turned out differently. Had I known someone who was going through or who had gone through the struggles that I was going through at the time, but me and my friends were too busy running around doing cocaine at the club, trying to be cute, say thin, trying to get down to a negative fucking two you know, and our waste and everything like that, you know, and trying to look like we had it [00:17:00] together and we’re too perfect, but we were never discussing each other’s weaknesses and problems and vulnerabilities and struggles.
We have time for all that. We were constantly trying to Kiki and everything like that and turn the fuck up. And so when shit got bad and shit got real, I can feel like I can go to them. I wasn’t raised, I was raised in the south in Louisiana. Down here, the grownups try to act like they have it all together and don’t have any problems, or I didn’t feel like I could go to my parents.
They’d never shown me them going through a problem. So, so I said, fuck all this, this time, I’m going to be the transparent one. I’m going to put all my shit out there for the world to examine, pick at review, whatever the case may be. And the people who need help, we’ll be able to know that at least this motherfucker right here has gone through what they’ve been through.
And ain’t ashamed to talk about it because bitch, it is what it is. I did what I did. I didn’t said what the fuck I said, I have suffered from, I have suffered [00:18:00] from much of what I’ve done. And so, you know, so I hope, you know, I hope, you know, my willingness to bare my soul and embarrass all of my things that would make most people ashamed that embarrassed, you know, hopefully it helps you.
It’s still worth it to me. Doesn’t bother me at all.
And so, like I said, I like to be very strategic with everything. And so each of these chapter titles, you know, has a special meaning to me, you know, tell you what those are. There’s 20 core chapters in this book, not including the prologue. There’s an epilogue as a standalone story in the back, which is echo throughout the main text.
But then we really, you know, present to you the whole reason why it was teased throughout the book. And it’s called wisdom in Witchery that’s the standalone story [00:19:00] at the back.
So the prologue is called SWOT S w a T special weapons and tactics. Maybe we’ve seen the SWAT movie, the SWOT TV series, I believe there was a TV series and everything like that. So for those of you who may not know what a SWAT team. The, this is the special division of the police department that comes to your door.
They don’t knock on it. They take this, I guess, this Ram thing, whatever the fuck it is. And they just knock the bitch and you have to be a serious enough criminal, or they have to believe you’re serious enough criminal to send the SWAT team to come and get yo ass. So I so this, this first, so this opening prologue here has to do with the way my big drug arrest went down.
They sent the SWAT team in, [00:20:00] oh my God. It had to be at least 2047. But, you know, men armed with semiautomatic rifles, the Kevlar vests the face shields and got damn canine dogs running around knocking shit over helicopters, the whole nine, like I am, they were serving me up. Like I was Frank Lucas, John Gotti, you know, somebody like back, you know, it talks about that day, you know, how it went down and everything like that.
And that time was pivotable pivotal because that drug raid after that is when I became homeless. You know, you kind of, can’t go back to your apartment and live there after SWAT had to come get you, you then I was so ashamed and embarrassed and had so much other stuff going on. I, at that point I had lost the will to live and everything like that.
And so I wanted to open the book with the, probably one of the most pivotal stories in the, in the whole book. And that has happened in my life. [00:21:00] The book is divided into five parts. Part one covers my life from 1982 to the year 2000. It opens up with a dream that I had. There’s two dreams in this book.
This is the what two dedicated dream pages in this book. Other ones are mentioned throughout the texts. I’m a gift that dreamer, I started dreaming around the time. I was like maybe like five years old. So when I say a dreamer, that means what I see in at night, or whenever I fall asleep, if I doze off right now, I’m going to have a dream.
You know, whatever it is that I dream will come true, or it could be something that’s already happened or it could be something that’s currently happening. Dreaming spiritually speaking is like is a form of prophecy and a true gift of prophecy. It’s past, present and future. So when God grants you sight, God sees all that has been all.
[00:22:00] It will be. And all that is now, the prophecy I’m talking about is true to, to form like how you read about in the Bible and stuff like that. Not what these motherfucking preachers be doing now. Every other word out of their mouth, they say, I prophesied this. I prophesied that. I’m not talking about just speaking positive things about what you want to happen.
I’m talking about a divine word from God about what has been, what is, or what most surely will be. That’s the sort of dreamer I am. And the only time in my life that I didn’t dream was from the time that that I got. Kicked out of Lakewood church did the time about five or six years later that I began to reconcile with God that, that, that devastation and all that was going on in my life was the only thing that ever closed my dreams off to me.
But other than that, I see baby. I see. [00:23:00] And so, so we opened up with a beautiful dream. I’m talking with evangelist Nelson, who was my spiritual counselor in life. And now that she’s transitioned over as a spirit, she still guides me and speak with, speaks with me in spirit form. I know many of you have ancestors and elders who have gone before.
And crossed on over and they still come back and visit you in dreams. Some of you are clairvoyant yourself and you can see them, you can talk to them. Some of you might be smelling their fragrance that they used to wear, or that dish that they used to cook, you know, and it brings you back into memory.
Some of them, you know, that’s that spirit of that, of that deceased person hanging around you and helping you and stuff like that. I don’t like to refer to dead people as you know, like they used to exist cause they still exist. They’re just no longer doing the things that pertain to this physical form where they haven’t ceased to be.
And that helps me to keep a strong connection with [00:24:00] those who I can’t can no longer physically reach out and touch. The title of the first chapter is called Jim stone. I, my God, I love collecting crystals and gemstones. I’m a licensed massage therapist. I have used them in my practice. I started collecting them though, as since I was a child, they, there used to be a thing called the discovery channels store and used to go to the mall back.
When people went to malls and go into the store, you can get all your telescopes, a little dinosaur, figurines, geos rocks, and everything like that. And I fell in love with those also whenever, when the, when the Lord first called me and appealed to me, to minister for him to, to, to, to be used with him. And I was very, very young.
And in this dream, it was a golden cross made out of the finest periods of gold. And it was covered in every kind of color gemstone on the sides around the top, the body underneath the arms of [00:25:00]the cross and everything. And it was spinning around. And a circle and it came and stood before me and I got the sense that it was pleading and in, and from that moment, you know, I felt like I was marked and I felt like I was set on a certain trajectory.
You know, that I, that wouldn’t be fulfilled for many, many, many, many years to come. But I was changed in that moment, in that dream. And that was when the Lord officially called me. I was about maybe like five or six years old when I started dreaming, when I started seeing, and that was my calling. I encourage everyone.
And I challenge everyone to question your spiritual leaders find out when they were called, when did God first speak to them? And in what way did he do it? God speaks to us in many ways. I’m not saying they had to have been called the way I was called, but you know, when you read through the Hebrew Bible, [00:26:00] You know, a lot of times there’s a point where a person is not being used of God.
And then there is a point where God crosses paths with them. Maybe he sent an angel, maybe he sent a prophet to maybe he appeared to them in a dream like he did with Solomon and Joseph and the patriarchs. You know how you know, question your spiritual leaders find out when them people recalled that not everybody who’s running a church is truly called.
And then everyone who calls themselves a preacher is really a preacher. Be careful about that. And so chapter one, you know, growing up in the hood, you know, I was raised in the hood. The neighborhood was so dangerous. My parents wouldn’t allow me out the yard, crack houses everywhere I would come to learn later on, I was almost kidnapped as a child.
It was a whole thing. Chapter two, it’s called changes that talks about a lot of rapid changes that happened. You know, like when I was in school, You know, [00:27:00] moving around from house to house PA problems within the house paint problems between my parents that were going on and, you know, all kinds of drama and stuff like that, that really made for a very unstable childhood.
And it wasn’t until years later that I was older and I realized, you know, my grades didn’t fall because, you know, I wasn’t smart or necessarily wasn’t grasping the subject material, but I very firmly and thoroughly understand now how an unstable household and an inconsistent child hood can make somebody do poorly in school.
So so that’s why chapter two was called changes. It just talks about the inconsistency of my childhood and how erratic it was. Then we go right into part two. We didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time on the background. Although the background is plenty dramatic enough to keep your [00:28:00] attention.
This is a fairly thick book, like I say, at 330 pages over 120,000 words, but I have found it to be a very quick read. And so so part two covers my life from, to the year 2000 to the year 2006. Chapter three is called basic training because we opened right up with me going to the Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas to join the United States air force.
And, you know, we built over, you know, some of the, the, the crazy shit that happens when you get a whole bunch of men together, you know, trying to, to. To fight to get into the military and not, you know, get sent home or discharged before you have a chance to even make it out of training. Basic training was six and a half weeks at Lackland air force base, which is, which is in San Antonio.
Texas was hot as hell, hot as Satan’s ball’s sack out there. My God, you never seen a [00:29:00] black man tan. Oh, I was so much darker than that. What I am now. Good. God almighty. You were talking about like 120 degree, like desert heat, unforgiven on forgiving, you know, basic training covers that people are very interested in behind the scenes, look at the military.
And so I really wanted to give you that. And yes, there’s a lot of gay shit that happens in the military. There’s so many gay people in the military, but there always has been a bitch. There always will be. I just wish there had been more orgies or some shit like that. And so in basic training, That’s where I met my best friend, Adam, who I’m still friends with to this day in, you know, we kind of go from there.
Chapter four is called rank and file.
And this covers when I get out of a training and now I’m in what they call the operational air force quote, unfucking quotes. And I get to Davis Monthan air force base in Tucson, Arizona. And this. [00:30:00] Fall in love with the desert. I had never been this far west before I was 17 when I went to the air force in, in, so I was just young spring chicken from the country.
Green is Hale green, this fucking hell. You know, I’ve driven all the way this far out west the Tucson, nothing but light brown desert everywhere, cute little road runners. Cactus is like, you know, the prevalent Greenidge you know, depending on where you go in much of the city. And so surprisingly refreshed by how refined a desert landscape is.
It’s very minimalist compared to. You know, having a whole lot of foliage around, I love me a good desert landscape, a lot of rocks, either yard to maintain, you know, there’s no grass, so, you know, no need to pay a gardener, you know, or anyone like that. And so in this chapter, [00:31:00] we also get into like the the gay bashing, the, the, you know, the, all the hate speech and things like that, that I received while I was in the air force for not being straight.
And so I was fortunately able to make it out of there without a dishonorable discharge for not being straight. But, you know, so many of my fellow service members got bad conduct discharge, or other than honorable discharges, just because of their sexuality. Now, I am thankful that they have started to reverse those decisions for my fellow service members and upgrade their enlistment.
Well, so you so many service members listening, you can call, reach out to the DAV, the disabled veterans of America probably the American Legion or some sort of veterans service organization. And talk to them about getting your enlistment upgraded if you got kicked out for not being [00:32:00]straightened. So for those of you who don’t know, there’s different, when you get discharged from the military, you’re rated a certain way, honorable all the way down to like dishonorable you’ve got bad conduct, medical discharges, other than honorable, it matters about your benefits.
If you have like say a bad conduct discharge, then you don’t get like access to your education. Definitely not your housing. And just certain like your medical list, certain benefits that I still benefit from this day, having served in the military, but I have an honorable discharge, another veteran may not, you know, so like I was able to get my house without paying the down payment because of the VA.
Well, a veteran with a bad conduct, discharge pin can take advantage of that. I’m able to go to the VA for health care. If they have a bad conduct discharge, I don’t believe that they can take advantage of that. Now I do know that no matter what the discharge status is, you can [00:33:00] go, a veteran can go to the VA, the department of veterans affairs, the VA hospital, a medical clinic for mental health.
No matter what you can go there for free mental health, but they may not see you for like general health care. We all know how much healthcare costs, you know, there’s a big difference. If you can go to the VA for free healthcare, which is like what I get versus having to pay for it out of pocket. If you don’t have an employer or even pay some other ridiculously high amounts of money, these employers be wanting you to pay as well.
That’s like life changing stuff, you know, and to have that taken from you, just because of your sexuality, wasn’t right in the first damn place. But you know, at least, you know, at least that wrong is being made right now. But many of my fellow service members have died, you know, waiting for changes like this.
and so the next chapter is chapter five and that’s called into the Aurora sea. [00:34:00] So
the title of this one reflects what I saw when I went to my first rave. So out there. In in Tucson, they would have what’s called desert parties. And basically this would be like a big ass Reva. So we’ve got all the glow sticks. The Aurora sea is comprised of all the blow sticks and photon lights and shit like that, that people would dance around with.
These will be considered at least some mine underground parties. So these, you know, it’s like, like out in the woods, but the woods is the desert. So you’re on a paved road and driving Southern, you’re going to turn off onto like gravel road and then go back into like a wild cactus wilderness and find this party.
Thousands of people, you know, big name DJs, which are on the circuit back then. Mixed mastermind, DJ, Irene, people like that. And so I had a lot of fucking fun out there in the desert [00:35:00] and I’ll thought it was so damn fun. I would title the chapter after it, in this chapter, we get into my heavy volunteer.
I’m big in the volunteer rhythm in public service, you know, there was, I wouldn’t have gone in the fucking military if I didn’t give a damn about public service. And we talk about some of the volunteer thing that I did and stuff like that. And like say choreographing, the girl’s dance routine. I was asked by somebody to choreograph a dance routine because I had taken dance in high school.
And also I was able to do that. It was great. And then in the chapter, I talk about how I immediately felt like, you know, ashamed for not being straight wondering what would be found out because here I am, this big gay choreograph or on stage, you know, performing a number with these kids on a military base, you know, very interesting the way that we were able to to bring out that contrast.
And it was so when you’re serving in the military back in those days during [00:36:00] Diana’s, don’t tell, and you’re not straight. On the one hand, you’re happy to be there. On the other hand, you’re always wondering if you’re going to do some shit that’s going to get you found out. And so you have like a high level of paranoia and shadow hanging over you every day.
And you know, there’s no wonder why so many services, so many service members get, leave the military fucked up and would all kinds of mental health issues. And they know that shit. And that’s why they that’s why they, they allow you every service member, no matter the, the, the rating and the nature and the quality of the discharge to go to the VA for free mental health, because they know they fucked each and every last one of us up on some damn level,
And then also in this chapter, we were talking about me losing my virginity and you know, beginning to get curious about sexual exploration and everything like that. I tell you it was a bitch to do being in the military during don’t ask. Don’t tell because I couldn’t go get a [00:37:00] boyfriend. I couldn’t really do anything to be consistent and stable.
I knew I probably have to move be sent to a different base eventually. So I just turned into a how, yeah, I was a total slut, you know, it was what it was like I said, I did what it did.
And so then the next chapter is called curiosity. And then the chapter curiosity covers montage. My brief stint in recruiter school, before I moved on over to California. You know, I talk about my job when I, when I get to Davis mountain air force base, I’m working on aircraft that runs its course, and I’m like, fuck, this, I’m gonna become a recruiter.
So now it’s time to head over to California. So in this chapter here I get into The more scandalous side, say of the military, you know, how has the military recruiter? They tried to get me to lie [00:38:00] to my recruits and shit like that. Not abso-fucking-lutely refuse to do it. I was not about to get my ass shot up and Southern California, you know, not knowing who knows who, because the air force wants me to lie to, to a person about how they’re, you know, what their, what their job in the military has done a B.
So like when you go to the military, you don’t just go to go to war. Like you have to have. And occupation a nine to five job that you’re going to do every day. Be that cook food in the cafeteria, chow hall, a mess hall, whatever the fuck you want to call it, be it be a recruiter, an aircraft mechanic, photographer, journalist, public relations.
And I see a military base is set up to function all by itself without any need of the outside world. So any job you can imagine on the outside world exists in the military in some form or another calibrating instruments, flying planes, you know, there, you know, there’s all [00:39:00] kinds of stuff that you can do, administration, HR type work in the military, you know?
And so it’s not cool, you know, for the air force to have total. Yeah, Jake wants to be a photographer, but we want him to be security forces and be the police anyway. So a lot of him about the photographer job and tell him that’s not available and we’re going to go ahead and put him in this security forces job.
And we just want you to convince him to take it. You know, that’s the kind of scandalous shit that they will do. I tell my supervisors to go fuck themselves. And so they didn’t go over too well. And my God, I barely made it. So thinking of discharge ratings, I barely made it out of the air force with a honorable discharge.
I got to what they call an article 15, which is a bad thing to get. Is that something that, okay, so there exists something called the uniform code of military justice that UCMJ and that damn evil [00:40:00]ass book. It’s it’s like the damn dark hold or some shit from the Avengers. It’s just that fucking evil book that can ruin your life.
And then any little damn thing you can do, they’ll find a way to make it wrong and then they can try to find a way to throw you out. And so, so this chapter gets into the, into, into my fight against the military and and I call it curiosity because, well, I got curious about some things I, in this trap that I began to try to turn myself straight.
You know, the church had told me I was going to burn up and go to hell for not being straight. And I got this idea in my head. Well, I can hang around with straight guys. I can get me a girlfriend and I can like pray the gay away. And so I tried to fast and pray and spread myself out before the Lord and okay.
And I’m gonna put some some works [00:41:00] behind this faith. And so I’m gonna go get me some girls and go fuck me some pussy and everything like that and make myself straight. I even got penthouse and Playboy magazines and cut out all the naked women and everything like that. And it plastered the walls of this room that I was staying in with nothing but vagina.
I suppose I was trying to brainwash myself, I guess I thought if I looked at all of these naked women, I’ll get more into it and stuff like that, girl, I’m here. I’m here to tell you right now that shit don’t work. I am one of the most determined people. I know when I get an idea in my head, I’m going to do that fucking shit.
And I have called upon the Lord for many things in my life. He’s given me and he’s answered me. He’s given me dreams, you know, that have come true. As I stated, he’s even showing me things in my dreams about other people that I did not ask him. So what [00:42:00] you might ask me
one time, I had a dream
about somebody who had had, it was the guy wasn’t the girl, like they, there was like some sort of abortion or something that had happened. The Lord had brought this up to me. And so I asked him about it. Now, look, the Lord didn’t tell me it was right or wrong. But sometimes when we do things and it’s bothering us, then the Lord will reveal it to somebody.
So that he, so that the Lord can send you an answer of peace through that person, because the Lord doesn’t want us racking our minds over stuff. And so when I told them about the dream and the, and the Hebrew Bible says the prophet that has a dream, let him tell the dream. Okay. And so I told this dream, and then he clammed up and he was like, you know, don’t tell [00:43:00] anyone.
I was like, okay. So this taught me a few things. I was like, okay. So the Lord was showing me stuff and other people’s life up until this point, I had only seen things pertaining to me, or sometimes I would have dreams about hurricanes and things like that before they would happen, which, you know, affected other people, but nothing ever this person, all about someone else.
But, you know, I must remind people there, anything you can hide from the Lord. You can see your thoughts, your feelings, you know, your emotions everywhere you go, everything, you say, everything, you do be it about someone else about yourself or whatever. You cannot hide from God. And so this person clammed up and, you know, in that moment, if I ever had any doubt, the way that they were like, don’t tell anyone, you know, I know that what I had seen was true and it had happened and I know God very, very well and of all the bad and stupid shit that I have [00:44:00] done.
God, always, Tim came to me with an answer, a peace via directly through my evangelists, Nelson, my pastor, God is not interested in beating up, beating us over the head or trying to force us to do right. Right. You know, even though he could force us, he doesn’t want to, he wants us to make the decision ourselves and and he wants to stay in a peace.
And so. The only thing that God would have, you know, had me tell him with some sort of answer of peace, you know, what had done happened and happens. So there was no sense in hanging around feeling guilty about it now. and so I’m saying all that to say, the Lord speaks to me heavily you know, in my dreams and stuff like that. But the Lord has never, ever once shown me in a dream that he would prefer me to have a different sexuality. And so if he, if he, if God’s gonna give me dreams to other people, and he’s given me more dreams than that over the years that have to do with other folks, you know, I go and talk to them about it and we [00:45:00] deal with it and we work out whatever the message is.
You know, it as much as I prayed and facet and did all of this stuff. The only thing that I feel like God is telling me about this from this period of time, where I try to ungay myself is to not try to engage myself. I don’t believe he wants me any other way. And so if he wanted to, he would have responded.
He would have sent me a dream of something. But the only voices in my head that have ever said anything was wrong with my sexuality was other people, conservative people, people who feel like they have a mastery over the interpretation of the Bible, which nobody does. No, man does. You know, I wrote my book, sex, drugs, and Jesus.
I wrote that book. I’m the only person who can say that they’re an expert on this and knows what every word means. Indisputable. So I don’t accept the concept of biblical experts and stuff like that. The Hebrew Bible is someone [00:46:00] it’s not even a one book, but it’s comprised of many different authors in many different books from many different years ago in, in different languages.
And, and I don’t, and I just don’t accept anybody saying that, that they know exactly what the Bible says and their way of looking at it is the only way it should be looked at. And if you don’t look at it their way, then you’re going to die and go to hell. Those, all of those people can go and fuck themselves in the ass with a porcupine dildo with like lava on the end of it or some shit like that.
And so now I’m still very much not straight. I feel like my sexuality has been kind of fluid over the years, but Dick is a beautiful thing. It really, really is a beautiful thing. So in this. So in this chapter, you know, I don’t recommend for anybody to [00:47:00] fucking go to the military at 17. You just to underdeveloped, you got so much growing to do.
And so this chapter is going through me, making mistakes. People do. When they’re a kid, I was a child, you know, doing a grown man’s job. I did it well, but feel it affected me heavily and still to this day, you know, the military was very traumatizing for me. And you know, in this chapter, we’re going through my wardrobe changes, you know, I’m from the country.
I don’t know fashion. I got to learn fashion. Now I’m out here in California looking like animate Bullock from Bush, Tennessee. That’s Tina Turner. For those of you who don’t know who I’m referencing, you, haven’t seen the movie what’s love got to do with it. D rich bitch. That’s a hell of a motherfucking movie.
And so I had to learn how to dress out there in California. You know, everybody’s so confident with themselves or at least they appear to be on the surface. And I really, really love that [00:48:00] at the very least the very beautiful state and people care about, you know, appearances. I don’t feel like that has to be a bad thing.
I don’t, I am not on board with the way people will do in the south and go out with rollers in, they head than a bathrobe on to go down to the store and everything like that. Girl. Bye. And so you would never see no shit like that out in LA. And so I don’t think it has to be, has to mean you’re superficial because you care about how you look.
I think you caring about how you present yourself, you know, is important to your own self-esteem and is important if you want people to take you seriously. And so I’m not saying change the gain acceptance, but if you can go out with rollers in your head, don’t be surprised if people don’t want to hang around you.
That’s what I’m saying. And so I have to learn, you know, how to dress, how to put clothes together and stuff like that. You know, by the time I left California, you [00:49:00] know, I was in cowboy boots, designer, jeans, you know, shopping at Nordstrom and shit like that, whether I could afford to, or not, because for fuck’s sake, I was terrible with money.
But you know, that’s what that chapter is all about. Chapter seven, it’s called. ’cause I was so fucking bad at it. I almost got kicked out of the military for writing bad checks that I didn’t have enough money in the bank to cover. I didn’t know that that could be a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the amount had no idea.
I had no fucking idea. And so that’s a whole run in with, with, with the police and everything like that. And so in this chapter, I also talk about my first exposure to Joel Osteen and Lakewood church and how it was so inspired by watching him on TV and how that church was one of the primary decisions I left California and moved to Houston, Texas in the first place.
I should have stayed my ass in California, but [00:50:00] live and learn. Right. And so, and there’s some more scandalous shit about the military and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The military is very scandalous. Look, if anybody’s ever going to go to the military bitch, I’m gonna tell you right now, do you like a quick, like two and a half year enlistment, four year don’t stay in there that damn long, because you don’t have to stay in there.
But for one term to have, like for your housing benefits, you can have a service disconnected pension that will pay you for the rest of your life. Just from serving that one enlistment, you don’t have to stay in there 20 years to retire. It’s stressful on your children. You know, if you have them moving around like that, and it’s also stressful on you moving around like that.
Now look, if you in a terrible, terrible situation, running from gangs or some crazy shit, the military might be better than, you know, if it’s the lesser of two evils, then for fuck’s [00:51:00] sake, pissed pick the military. What I’m saying is don’t get in there and get so damn comfortable that you feel like you got to stay forever.
Because you can benefit greatly from that one enlistment from the rest of your life, if you work it right. And while you’re in there, they’re going to pump you up and try to make it seem like you’re everything. And you’re so important, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, dish. They will kick you out in a moment’s notice if they feel like you’re not perfect enough.
But that’s the thing that I hate about the military is they, they, they, they tell us that we’re better than civilians. We have to do everything a hundred percent, right. 99% is unacceptable. And then when we come out of the military, it’s hard to adjust down. You know, you’ve told me for years that I’m better than everyone else in the world.
Now I’ve got to learn to get along with everyone else in the world. That’s just after my six year enlistment, imagine somebody after 20 people, it’s hard to go into the military and come out with a fully sound mind. So I say, take what you can get and leave bitch.
So then we get into [00:52:00] part three par three covers my life from the year 2006 to the year 2012.
This, this is the second dream here. Elongated dream that I talk about this dream here speaks to the dark times that are to come in my feature though. I don’t know how this is not the only dream God gave me about the dark times that were to come. This is one of the ones that that I wanted to mention though.
But the spirit was speaking to me all throughout my life about the times that were going to come. I don’t think there’s anything that I could have done to avoid going through all the, all the trauma and everything like that. For what it did, they’re refined to me and it’s like, it’s shaved off. It’s like, it’s like, it’s shaved off things that I didn’t need, like pride and ego arrogance conceitedness.
And [00:53:00] over dependency on myself being overly self-sufficient. And what I mean by that is not enough true dependence on God. Okay. Yeah. I’m confident and competent and able to get up and go and do things, but I need to give him more credit. And I also had an over dependency on church at, on preachers and all worship leaders, people call themselves pastors and whatever.
I put too much stock into them. And so I’m very, very thankful for the dark times that came because it took all of that out of me and whatever it was, however youthful. I thought I was the God with four. I lost everything. I’m way more useful to him now. After having lost everything for and losing everything physically.
Well, shit, I lost my fucking mind too. You know, I gained so much more, you know, spiritually and internally thinking, speaking. So we get into that very, very dark [00:54:00] dream there, mid chapter eight, it’s called welcome to Houston. I that’s the best thing I could think, because you know, at this time I’m still optimistic about going to Houston.
I’m thinking I’ve got this bright future ahead of me and everything like that. I didn’t think you know, and I’m going to Houston, I’m going to join Lakewood church. I made it out of the military without a bad conduct discharge. And so let’s go to the third, fourth, largest city with the largest church in America and let’s just do great things.
Shit.
Trying to get a job after serving in the military. Try that depending on what your job was in the military may not necessarily transfer easily. It was so hard to get a job. I ended up working every fucking where walked off half the damn jobs that people pissed me off. I had anxiety and shit like that and mental health issues.
I didn’t know, coming out of the military too. So I had a very short fuse but it just talks about me getting settled into [00:55:00] Houston, getting settled into Lakewood and, you know, thinking that life’s just going to be great. Chapter nine is called aspirations. This talks about me moving forward in the Lakewood, going higher and volunteering stuff like that.
Still talking about me being bad with money. I’m still a hell still fucking around. One of my favorite stories from there is where I got the DJ for an hour for the KSBJ God listens radio station. They’re in Houston, Texas. And so that was cool.
Really, really cool to have my home playlist on the radio for an hour. That was that some shit that I would do again. And so, cause I love making music and playing music and stuff like that. This chapter gets into my, a short stint at the Houston graduate school of theology because I was gonna have this whole big idea.
I was going to go to church and become a I don’t know, I guess I wanted to become like a worship leader, maybe a slash [00:56:00] preacher worship leader. And I wasn’t gonna go get me a degree in theology because like every fucking body who was on staff at a church had a degree in theology, but I’m so glad I left that bitch.
I left because one of the professors told us that they like to control people in church. And I was just like, I don’t want to control people. I don’t know why you think it’s okay to just say that. So casually. But I’m glad I didn’t, I don’t have a degree from a seminary. I took like five or six classes and then that was it.
I mean, I’m happy for what I learned, but you know, my evangelists Nelson, the preachers and the true profits and prophetesses that I grew up around didn’t have degrees when they preach, they just spoke from their lived experiences, what God, or whatever the holy ghost was telling them then. So there was no prerecorded message.
Pre-written sermon to be reviewed by the board at church or whatever. However, the fuck these people do it. There wasn’t no iPad [00:57:00] for them to preach from. There was nothing. They went up there just with a Bible in their hand and the word of God and their mouth period done, period, that sort of preaching feels more authentic to me because, you know, people can use word play.
To hypnotize you and mesmerize you and stuff like that, especially they have enough time to write out the speech. There’s no different than what a president does or what a CEO does. Everything is intentional. You know, I’m not really fond of the word of God being written by a human in an intentional way like that, because I don’t know how much of that shit is divine.
How much of it is just him. And please believe that when these preachers speak, not every fucking word, if any, that comes out of some of their miles is of God. But when these people here, you know, the people who raised me with preach, you know, they just got up there and rolled and them preachers could preach for hours, baby, trust me, [00:58:00] I hated sitting in church for fucking three hours, but, but as they would say, when the spirit was moving, they would let him move.
and so I feel more like. Like justified to preach and speak the way that I do though. And I say, I’m a preacher, a preacher is anybody who speaks the word of God. Yeah. I am a licensed and ordained minister, but I only got that to, to like marry my friends and shit. If they ever came there became a day in time where they couldn’t find someone to marry them because they’re not straight.
I don’t believe in the need to go to school to learn how to preach. I don’t believe the way how they do here in the south. People go and get what’s called like missionary licenses, because the denomination wants them to be licensed to carry the word, I guess. Or maybe this means they pass some class, or course I’m like bitching that you called or you not, you know, I don’t think the prophets of old Isaiah, [00:59:00] Jeremiah, the apostles, when the new Testament had licenses, I don’t think they went to school to learn the Lord, called him and dealt with them, justified them and send them.
I’m glad I have none of those licenses and certifications and things like that. And then that way, you know, my, my word to use authentic and it’s true. And it’s from my lived experiences because I can’t speak nothing I haven’t been through or nothing that hasn’t been divinely shown to me. And I don’t want it to be all like like how in school, how everything is.
Structured and methodical. I just like the free flow and the spirit, yo. And so then the next chapter is called debtors and collectors. I very beautifully open up this chapter with one of the first songs that came to me in a dream. So I hear a lot of music in my sleep and and so I’d get up and I go about the business of writing it out.
And so I don’t [01:00:00] know how these songs would ever be used. One day. I’ve been collecting them for many, many years. And and so I opened this chapter, chapter 10 debtors and Collette collectors with the song that I wrote, which is called worship while I live. If you get the audio book, you can hear me sing it.
And and I call this chapter better than collectors because. Ciao. This is when my bad spending came to a head. So like I said, it’s hard to get a job when you get out of the military. I got a job, but it was paying me far less than what I made in the military. And I was all these loans and shit. And I looked up online where you can do bankruptcy.
So yes, I filed for bankruptcy, chapter 13, I think, whatever one that just wiped all the shit away, but it was a ding on my credit for like a decade after that. So yeah, I couldn’t fast on filed for bankruptcy cause the bitch had bad spending habits. And so I did what [01:01:00] I did. but Hey, we can always get better, you know, about our spending and stuff like that.
I talk in this chapter about the terrible job experience that I had working at the call center at CenterPoint energy, you know, in Houston, Texas fucking hurricane. I, you know, if you’ve never been through a hurricane, pray that you done. This is just pray that you don’t pray that you down, but I go over the whole hurricane height experience and everything like that.
And I don’t know why the fuck they would name, you know, I’m thinking about I Turner, you know, I turned her, we’ll be in the what’s love, got to do with it, a movie. If you want to watch that, he’s the man who physically abused Tina Turner and everything like that. I’m all like, I wish some of these damn people would think before they name some of these hurricanes, you know, they just give them some of the most like notorious names, like, fuck, what are they going to do next?
Hurricane Satan? Or some shit like, please don’t[01:02:00]
and then let’s see in chapter 11, it’s called de-humanized. And so the core of this chapter here is me being fired from Lakewood church, from volunteering. And I call this chapter de-humanize because. That is how I felt. And it wasn’t until I was talking to somebody a couple of months ago that they, that they gave me that word, you know, and I was explaining what happened.
And they was like, you know, they be humanized you at Lakewood when they kicked you out, they told you, you weren’t valuable and acceptable as you were. They stripped you of your humanity. And I was like, okay, I didn’t know it was called that word, but that makes sense. You know, when someone tells you, you have to go.
And so sometimes people will ask me, so did they tell you, you have to leave at Lakewood, but okay. Now if you tell somebody that they can no longer do the things that [01:03:00] draw them to the ministry, and then you tell them they can’t do those things again, unless they change who they are. Are you not telling them to leave?
The current form that they’re in is certainly not welcome. You have established that there is ways to make people feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome without saying, Hey, Lee, You know, it doesn’t have to be stated, you know, and I tried to go back there and sit in the audience, but it was too hard to do.
I felt like people were looking at me and watching me. They found out on my MySpace page that I wasn’t straight. And they said for that reason, I could no longer be in, in service of anything at Lakewood. And I was on Wednesday nights, I was a volunteer supervisor over all the other kids.
Teachers is about 20 in total, 20 groups of kids, hundreds of fucking kids. I had my own class to teach. I was also in charge of the check-in process at the front, at the, at the check-in counter for all the kids into disputes that [01:04:00] happen. You know, I’m mediated that between the teachers and the parents.
I sang, I was a worship leader for the kids too. And then also staying in the adult choir on the weekends. And they were like, you’re fired from volunteering from all of that. Cause you’re not straight. And, and they were like, we, you can’t be over there hanging out in Montrose. Montrose is the gay district in Houston.
They were like, you know, you can’t be over there and I’ve come to learn that churches regulate people like this. Like there are staff members, churches will tell their staff members, you can’t drink. You can’t go here. You can’t go there. That’s how the military was with, with me too. They were like, even the military.
We don’t want you at this bar at this place. I don’t know what the fuck, these organizations who they think they are, that they have. Dictate to a person what they’re doing when they’re not on, in this case, they, the church has time. I never bought boyfriends up to Lakewood. And none of that, when I was at Lakewood, I was on Lakewood’s time.
Okay. I [01:05:00] wasn’t paid are none of this. And even if I was, it’s none of their fucking business, what I’m doing when I’m not at church. And so they were like, well, one of the kids could have found your MySpace page. And I’m thinking that, you know, that shit, that kids do, you know, they have this glossy image of their children and I’m like, no, bitch, they would’ve done nothing more than what they’re already doing.
And so, so that was a devastating thing. You know, that, that, that, that was like a heartbreak that that’s one of the top, definitely in the top two or three most terrible things that ever happened to me in my life. You know, up there with becoming homeless, getting HIV you know, having to deal with likely affairs that my dad had and things like that being kicked out of Lakewood churches is at the top of that list is that sort of trauma, the sort of shit that hurts you so deep.
You just, you space out and you don’t [01:06:00] think it’s real, you just get numb and so much pain, you know, that’s how that was.
Just don’t pass on from this chapter. But it was what it was par four covers my life when 2010 to 2012, Vish a lot can happen in two years, fuck me in the tits with a Dick shit can change. And so chapter 12 is called a fucking wreck.
This statement here has two meanings. Personally. I was a fucking wreck after being kicked out of Lakewood and fired from volunteering, you know, internally I was a fucking wreck. And then I also literally had a fucking wreck because I was, I wasn’t drunk, but I was very, very tired and fatigued. And I had heard the warnings about how it was not good to drink if you’re tired because the alcohol can enhance the fatigue.
And I didn’t have that much to drink. Just a couple of bloody Mayer. I have been working like 12 hour shifts at the light company. No Houston. [01:07:00] And so I fell asleep at the wheel and I woke up to hitting light poles and every damn thing and total that car. And then that led me to buying my 2010 Ford Mustang.
And I was the first person, I think, in Houston to have like a car, you know, that was that like that, that was a year. They changed the body style, you know, and they really, really tricked it out and amped up the Mustangs. It was a sick ass fucking car. and this chapter, we get into how I transitioned from being like this full-time church boy into this full time nightlife boy, that’s my thinking. After I got kicked out of church, Yeah, they won’t accept me. I know the streets will, so I’ll start going to clubs and stuff a lot more so that I will feel loved.
And so I didn’t realize what I know now, how much we seek community. We’re always going to find some type of bam tribes. So whether or not it’s gangs, gamers, [01:08:00] you know playing video games, board games, you know, whether it’s the hunting crew, the fishing crew, whatever the case may be, the fucking God damn croquet selling committee or whatever the fuck, bingo hall, whatever the fuck it is that you do.
You’re going to find some kind of way to connect with people. And so I didn’t think, you know, to go to like a fine, I didn’t know about like gay affirming churches. Some of the Presbyterian churches I think Lutheran, Episcopalian, metropolitan community churches. If you insist upon going to churches, they are actually churches out there who have gay pastors and leaders and stuff like that.
We are not, you know, reduced to only going to these mainstream churches who don’t like us and think we’re wrong. They they’re just what we tend to see a lot, but you have so many options if you’re not straight. And my main message to the non straight people, when it comes to religion is stop going to churches where you were not [01:09:00] 100% accepted, respected, and valued.
So this means not marginalized in any way. None of this, the gay people can’t volunteer around the children and shit like that. You know, you know, that’s basically what they were saying to me at Lakewood. And you know, like you’re a pedophile cause you’re not straight. I want people to understand like this whole war that we have with these damn conservative people include.
So many of us, the conservative people in these churches are basically saying you’re either straight or you’re a pedophile. So that means anything that’s not straight to them. It’s better to feel. You’re bisexual generally. Open-minded anything that’s not plain old vanilla straight. You must be fucking children as well.
And you can hear how stupid that sounds when I say it, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to make laws and policies against us and kicking us out. And so I’m not going to go down that rabbit [01:10:00]hole. I just covered a lot of that in this interview. I just did. I’m just going to say this. You have a lot of, a lot of female people who molest children and a lot of males who identify as straight.
I learned that when I was doing one of my mini volunteer tasks at a children’s home in Houston, a part of it was like this very FBI, like briefing, where they showed us some of the registered sex offenders in the Houston, Texas area. But since we’re going to be working around children in the clutch, my pearls, half of the faces up there on the wall were women.
And then the other half of very straight looking men, I look at the straight looking men part. I got that, you know, I know what the fuck people do, but the women part, I was like, wait, what? Because when I get the postcards in the mail and I wish they would stop sending me this shit, like, this a registered sex offender, then your area.
I never gotten one with a woman on it that I can recall. [01:11:00] But as soon as Jesus is on his throne, Do you have registered female sex offenders and so, and a lot of them. And so for people to stop blaming everything on the gaze shit. And so, you know, this is me in this chapter learning, I didn’t know what Sunday Funday was.
For instance, as I had been in church every damn Sundays and thought I was a child. So I had to learn what Sunday Funday was getting kicked out of Lakewood, open the door for me to party harder. And the learn a simple shit like this that I never knew. I was like, who is Sunday Funday? Why’s the club open on Sunday?
You know, I had, yeah, I found global and country. I was, chapter 13, it’s called Tina. Tina is a street name for crystal meth amphetamines. this job here is dedicated to. The, how I got into that drug and everything like [01:12:00] that, how I first met dealers and things like that and how I got my first jobs in the drug world, chapter 14 is called the crucible, a crucible tested.
I named that because of this ridiculous test that. One of the, the obvious call him. One of the elder drug dealers gave me to do, I guess, to make me prove my loyalty or some shit I could call it an impossible task, you know, or something like that that, you know, involve me having to go out into a public like hotel and do all this crazy shit for him to start selling dope to me at a more reasonable rate, you know?
And so that’s why I call it. The crucible is a lot of crazy shit that goes on behind the scenes in the drug world. And that’s why everyone loves them. A good drug show. Doesn’t matter what it is. Narcos weeds, snowfall breaking bad. Everybody loves to see some sketchy ass crack shit going on.[01:13:00]
And I’m gonna tell you from having been a drug dealer, there’s a lot of people like a lot of crack and a lot of dope who you may not suspect. And so chapter 15, it’s called, let’s make a deal. I’ve named that this, because I really took to this whole bargaining thing. It is said that people who have been military recruiters and have been good at military recruiting, like I was made great drug dealers.
I want to say that that’s true. And so once I learned, you know, how about all of this wholesale shit with the drugs? Okay. So I can get an eight ball of meth for a hundred dollars and break that shit up. Not step on it never cut the drugs, but you know, break it down and sell it to my friends for, you know, like a higher rate, you know, I’m like, okay, I’m crunching these numbers here.
Like, I wonder what else I could negotiate. So I started going to all these different bars in the, in the gay district in Houston. [01:14:00] And I was like, let me be strategic. I’m a total diva. I like to deal with the tops of the organizations or who, at least whoever has the authority who is going to affect my experience.
That’s the bitch at the door and the, and the bitch behind the bar. Okay. And I mean, bitch respectfully, because I’m that bitch too. And you all are that bitch, you are listening and you love me. So I’m just like, you know, so go up to these people at the door. What do you like drugs? Drinks? What, same thing with the bartenders?
So in my head, I was like, if I can negotiate this shit, right. I won’t have to stand in line anymore. And then I won’t have to pay for drinks anymore. And then I fucked with the DJs too. Then I can get all my music play. And so I was generally successful. I got snitched out one time and I got banned from that bar.
But yeah, there’s always that wine fucking Judas somewhere. Who’s not gonna run open his mouth instead of taking the fucking dope. [01:15:00] I’m like, you’re a gay man working at a gay bar and you don’t do drugs. I’m like, I know those exist. I know those exist, but even if, even if you don’t, you didn’t have to tell, you got to just like, I don’t know, referred me to a colleague who did partake.
So anyway, chapter routine gathered with Dean is about, you know, let’s make a deal. And like I was saying, a lot of people like a good sweet deal. That’s not a certain look. There’s not a certain lifestyle. There’s not a certain economic bracket. People really, really like to have a good time and whatever way they can.
And I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. It just is what it is. I sold dope to people in mansions and my mistake was selling them. The people who were broken couldn’t afford shit, nothing against people who were broken and can’t afford shit. But those are sort of people that police will target to arrest and who will turn and flip and [01:16:00] become an informant or the broke people who can’t afford it.
People who are rich can lawyer. So it would’ve been smarter of me to just stick with my wealthy clients once I obtain them and let the broke ones go. But I was trying to be nice and service everyone. And I, you know, I didn’t want to be mean, you know, I was too nice to be a fucking drug dealer, you know, you know, I was trying to bring Christian values until the game bitch.
It don’t work. It does not fucking work. The chapter 16 is called mortality.
So this chapter here really entails like how all the walls came, crashing down. So it was this glamorous diva drug dealer. I had a great job at this point. Well, the job paid a lot of money, a 30 to 60, $70 an hour, depending on the day, the overtime double time. But it wasn’t overly thrilled with doing maintenance again.
So now I’m not working on aircraft. Like I was in the air force. Now I’m working at the substation. The department of CenterPoint energy. So this is [01:17:00] climbing towers dealing with dangerously high voltages of electricity every day, though. It was surrounded by delicious looking men. I wasn’t fucking any of them, unfortunately, but you know, it wasn’t like, I wasn’t like overjoyed to go to work.
You know what I’m talking about? You know, many of you listening, you’re, you’re going to work, but you’re not, you know, you need the fucking money and it may be paying it, but you’re not really don’t feel like you’re really called to be doing that thing. And that’s, that’s how I was. But mortality talks about me getting HIV, the mortality.
That just means me understanding that I’m not going to live forever. So I found out that I was HIV positive on a voicemail that this treacherous as doctor left on, you know, I think it was December 31st, 2011. And so I just turned 29 new year’s Eve from key king, trying to have a good time.
And he’s calling me with this shit. This is Ash should have been off enjoying new year’s Eve [01:18:00] first. And then secondly, this was a Saturday and his office was only supposed to be open Monday through Thursday. So why you had to fuck up my vibe. He should have waited till the second to tell me this shit, but So anyway, so it’s, it’s, it’s called mortality because this is at the point of the book where all the walls start, you know, really, really crumbling down, you know, the darkness is closing in and shit, and I’m too scared to call home and ask for help because I don’t think that I can, and again, I don’t think I could reach out to my friends because I’m afraid I’m going to be judged.
And I’ll tell you, there’s a litany of emotions that came along with finding out I was HIV, positive, guilt, shame, regret depression. Self-incrimination, you know, all kinds of just, it was far too many emotions for me to bear. And yet I tried to bear it alone and I didn’t realize that I, you know, I just, I couldn’t.
It didn’t get better. I was so [01:19:00] used to problems in my life. Eventually improving, eventually getting better. Somehow it always worked out. This did not, it just got worse and worse and worse. And I felt filthy. I felt contagious. I stopped going, did I used to be out at a dance love dancing said literally seven fucking nights a week.
Cause I moved to Montrose after I wrecked my car and told her that I moved to Montrose, then I wouldn’t even drive in the damn Mustang too much that I bought because I moved across the street from clubs every night I would from club and every night to not at all, because I just felt filthy. When I walked in there just felt like somehow people knew I was paranoid and freaking out.
Doesn’t brings us to part five Part five covers just the year 2012 by itself. 2012 was a hell of a year. I believe that it was the year of Aquarius if I’m not mistaken. And before we turned into that year I think I looked that up and I think it was said that that was [01:20:00] just going to be a trying fucking year for everyone. But apart from that, my evangelist evangelist Nelson through a word of prophecy at called me because the Lord is always going to give us a warning before we fall.
But the interesting thing about him though, is he as falls designed in our walk in order to help us to be strengthened because he knows we’re going to get back up from them, but sometimes he wants to take us down. For his own purposes and his own way to build us back up. I ain’t the sort of guy who likes to question God and be like, well, why did you do this?
Or why did you let this happen? Because you don’t owe me an explanation if you don’t work for me. And so but Yvan was Nelson. She called me out of the blue one night and she was like, child, you getting ready to go through a time? And for whatever reason, I did not. Well, because it was meant to happen. I just, I just felt like it was meant to happen.
Usually I would ask her, okay, let’s see, can you pray me out of this? Can we get a [01:21:00]deliverance working here? What can we get going? And I was just like, okay. It sounded so matter of fact, you know, like it was done, like the decision was made. And I was like, okay, well, she said, I’m going to go through it anyway, but shit, I didn’t realize it was going to be all this.
And so. Oh girl, chapter 17 is called not like the pornos. So I called this not like the pornos. Cause in this book, we talk about me going to jail for the first time. I mean, this chapter, we talked about me going to jail for the first time. So I’ve been watching a lot of porn, you know, a lot of gay porn, so there’s always somebody fucking around in prison.
So, you know, so that’s in my fantasy. So here I am locked up and, but there is no tattooed, hard body, big running around for me to get impaled by. So I’m like, this is some bullshit and this is not what the book, this is not what the part I was promised me at all. I want my money back. I want [01:22:00] so, and so it talks about that.
It talks about how the cops tried to get me to become an informant and everything like that. How I tell them to go fuck themselves. And that didn’t go over well with the Houston police department. And chapter 18, it’s called, where do you live? I titled it. Where do you live? Because in this chapter, it talks about how I became homeless, you know, and shit like that.
And then it talks, it talks about how I was asked that question when I was in a book. Okay. I wasn’t a porn store. And it was the first time someone had asked me that question in my life and I couldn’t give them an answer. You know, where do you live? I couldn’t say one-on-one manged read or eat, or have a room at Felicia’s house or whatever.
How you not couldn’t answer the question. When she asked me that question in that porn store, I had to that’s when I had to come to grips with the reality that I was officially legitimately [01:23:00]homeless. And that’s why I titled this chapter. Where do you live? One of the longest chapters in the book. I had quite a lot to say about this chapter 19.
It’s called dot queen. Now, honey, if you’ve seen orange, is the new black or any other show about being in jail? I invite you to read a, listen to me, read this chapter because this chapter here covers the time that us spent in jail in Houston, Texas in the gay tank. So not every city offers you this, but if you’re not straight in Houston and you get locked up, they will put you in.
What’s called the gay tank and county jail, not in city, but in county. Okay. So you get arrested. You got to go to city jail first. Then if you stay there long enough, the da decides they’re going to try to press charges against you. Then you get moved over to county till they decide if you’re going to go up to state or whatever, that’s the hierarchy there.
So this is. [01:24:00] Like all gay people, trans people, whatever, you know, all stuffed into this tank, I’m talking a good 50, 60 people here. If they lie them motherfucking people. And I’m giving you all the gay drama, all the gay jail drama. Yes, honey, all the Destiny’s child renditions from the outfits we made from the torn up a bed sheets and all the stunts, we, all the stunts we pulled and all the, how I had to learn this shit.
I didn’t know what the fuck the stunt was and you know, and yeah, this is all so dramatic, all so fucking dramatic. And so, and that’s why I call it stunt Queens.
And let’s see, chapter 20, it’s called not again. Recidivism is a real thing. And it’s something about when you get out of jail. That it has a way of pulling you back in. [01:25:00] Why might this be well, you know, from being homeless, you know, I learn how to talk that language for being a drug dealer. I learned how to talk that language, people who go to jail a lot, learn how to talk that language.
There’s a community behind those, those jail walls. There’s a community out there on those streets. There’s a community there’s even a certain sense of family in trap houses. Trap houses is like the the hub of operations where all the drugs are sold and sometimes made. And not again, talks about how I almost got rearrested again.
After having, you know, got out, getting probation and everything like that, because I was back with the same people and the same circumstances at the same places, but taking a person out of these circumstances and take those circumstances out of them. And so I was gravitating back towards that. You I’m glad I didn’t get arrested again.
And I think God and I gave him every ounce of [01:26:00] gore that I can, because that would not have helped anything. What I needed was more time, I needed more help. I didn’t need to be thrown back in jail again, you know, cause you know, when you’re in jail, it’s not like you’re rehabilitated in any way. You don’t go to alcoholics anonymous or narcotics anonymous or at least not from my experience at the jail I was in, I can’t speak for what they have at every jail, but you know, all I did for the two months that I was in Harris county jail, And two months might not sound like a lot, but you see how people wind and everything.
When the grown a virus came to town because they couldn’t come and go, as they pleased and they were in their own fucking house, we could at least drive down the street. Imagine, imagine being locked up in a jail tank, just gray cement wall, ceiling forward. Everything. You’re not allowed to go outside for two months.
No win, no rain of green grass. No, nothing. [01:27:00] All you see is the inside of prison walls for two months. So no, you can’t go walk over to the refrigerator and get a Sprite. You can’t go turn on some horn. And do you want to, you can’t call your homie. You can’t go down to the bar. You can’t go fish. You can get you just sitting there looking at all these other crazy motherfuckers, looking crazy as hell, counting down the time.
And of course doing your Destiny’s child, renditions, whatever she comes on the radio.
And so, you know, like in jail you just sit around and you learn how to do other crime. You know, I’ve talked to people who were like, thieves knew how to fabricate checks and shit like that. And I got out of jail being more the criminal than I was when I went in, because now I had this whole list of new clients.
I knew who everyone was, their phone numbers. Exactly what kind of drug they wanted to do. And if I’m telling you my then, so, so we go to jail, we learn how to [01:28:00] do worse crime than what we did when we go in, they send us back out and wonder why we end up back there again. So I named this chapter, not again.
then that’s actually like the last chapter of the like main part of the book. The epilogue is called bittersweet and it covers from 2013 to 2022. And it’s called bittersweet because the road back to recovery, which is what this covers, this is me going to rehab, getting high and rehab, you know, coming back up from being a janitor to where I am today.
Yeah. Being a janitor, cleaning up people’s shit and blood and, and everything. Cause I worked in a medical facility, the VA you know, receiving abuse from VA workers and shit like that. That would take a moment to talk about just how terrible the department of veterans affairs can beat a veterans.
This [01:29:00] guy I worked with was an asshole, you know, he would. You have only two janitors in the building. He would only work for like three hours and leave our supervisors. We’re in new Orleans, we’re in Baton Rouge. They’re like an hour away. They only come around every now and then. So he’d go and shit in the toilet force it, the overflow chunk, the deuce and leave.
And I would be there, left the, clean it up. Now I’m too afraid to leave without a want to get fired. I’m not a regular employee. So I’m only making minimum wage. You know, I’m in, I’m only working there as a part of a psychiatric program. So if I complained and I did, then they believe him. They don’t believe me, so he could abuse me and do anything he wanted to me.
And although I complained many different times and nothing ever got done, that’s how the VA does veterans. I went to the VA to receive mental health care. And this VA worker like a desk worker, not a psychiatrist, no doctor, just the fucking clerk. She’s put her hands on my pants and she can call herself [01:30:00] raising.
My shorts up because she didn’t like how, how my basketball shorts were hanging off my ass. Okay. Okay. And does not cool. Not cool. You can’t be like, you know, getting handfuls of Dick and ass or whatever, because you felt like you could take advantage of the mental health patients who are coming in. And I sued the VA over that bullshit that they did.
And in the report that they filed, and it was a whole process for me to get the report. They did the report, they did, the investigation, created the report. Didn’t tell me I had to go and hunt it down and filed a FOIA freedom of information, FOIA requests from the even released the damn thing to me and everything like that.
And to finally get it in the report. They’re saying, yeah, we believe that your complaint is valid, but they can’t verify because the cameras were off. So they’re saying the cameras were offered in the mental health clinic on that day that the cameras had been off, you know, and all [01:31:00] VA mental health clinics, you got cameras, every fucking where, because why you’re in a fucking mental health clinic and shit be pop it off.
You don’t know when the fuck is going to pop off, but you know, it definitely will pop off. And so, so they’re like, yeah, we think your, your claims legitimate, but we can’t verify. Cause you know, the cameras are off and in the report they’re saying the cameras that had been off. So I’m like this, you knew the camera was down at this mental health facility and you just have left it all for an undetermined amount of time.
The camera that faces the front fucking door. Okay. Now the only thing that stopped my lawsuit from proceeding further, well, first was look around the virus and then the Supreme court recently issued a ruling saying that we cannot Sue, you know, people can’t Sue any organization as a recipient of government funds for emotional distress.
I pray against, I pray against these conservative justices setting on our Supreme court, because I don’t think any of the [01:32:00] liberal justices voted for this. So let me break down with this as saying that because of the current conservatives running the Supreme court that we have veterans and people can be molested at the VA facility.
And we have no recourse, legally, no recourse to Sue them because they received government funding. The VA’s a government business, the VI, the government gives them their their funding. You know, there’s, you know, there Bev, a government budget each year, therefore they received money. Therefore we can’t Sue them unless it’s like medical malpractice, something physical.
So they can talk to you any kind of way they can, they can do like the woman did the million sticker, hands down your shorts. Uninvited advances can happen. And we have no recourse against the department of veterans affairs since they receive funding from the government because of our conservative, I don’t claim them hoes and not claim them [01:33:00] bitches because of them conservative Supreme court bitches setting up there in Washington, they done fucked us over.
That’s my rant about how terrible the VA is. So epilogue is titled bittersweet because trying to rebuild your life from nothing is hard. Oh my God. It is so damn hard. And you know, sometimes I’ll hear someone look at, pass someone, one home was up and go, why did they just change it? Or, you know, someone will have a job like a janitor and they’ll feel a need to comment on the fact that they have a job.
You know, I’m like, it’s not that simple. You can’t just like fix shit like that overnight. And not everybody wants to stop say for, for being homeless. For instance, you know, when you’re asking somebody to stop being homeless, to stop, you know, you’re asking them to give up their community, their life, their friends, you know, the people that they know.
I said it earlier, even if you take in, smash them out of homelessness and put them in a house, it doesn’t mean you taking that out of them. I was able to get a [01:34:00] free apartment through a VA program. And I, I would still walk out of the apartment and go find homeless people to talk to because I felt more comfortable talking to homeless people than I did talking to people in a regular, wherever the fuck that’s supposed to mean regular society.
And when I did try to talk to people in regular society, you know, I was agender. So people like to ask, well, what do you do so they can judge you and see what kind of category they’re going to fit you in. I’d be like, oh, I’m a janitor. And they couldn’t just ever let it be. It always had to be like followed by some sort of reaction like, oh, do you know her?
Oh, this is good. You don’t have to be ashamed, bitch. I didn’t say I didn’t need you to justify it or not. I just said it gives, it was what it was. I’m a janitor, but people feel like they have to like react some sorta way, make a whole thing out of it. And, you know, It was just, I could, so I just ran away from all that, and it was just more peaceful to just go set up on the side of the road at two in the morning or four in the morning is talked to [01:35:00] someone homeless as a conversation is just fucking simple.
You know, there’s no pre free. There’s nothing expected. You know, the homeless life was a simple life and you just get up and you do what the fuck you want. Get high, fuck a dot, Rob someone or whatever, you know, take, you know, I’m not talking about like armed robbery. I never did no shit like that. You ain’t United still shot a dope or whatever, you know, you know, and just go on about your damn business.
You don’t have all of this shit that society tries to put upon you. These expectations, these castes, you know, systems and you know, and shit like that, you know, you know, you know, it was just easier. I prefer my life now the way it was, but I did appreciate the simplicity of homelessness while I was homeless.
You know, just trying to rebuild everything, you know, how, how difficult that was, how much of a fight that was in my mind, you know, in my body, you know, I had to, it just, [01:36:00] it was just terrible, you know, it was just terrible. It was hard. And I have so much Katie, so much mercy and so much love for people who have this task of rebuilding their life from nothing.
It took so many organizations so much help, you know, and everything like that, you know, but honey, now that I’ve got it, I’m never going to let it go again. I can tell you that. You know, and then this apple and its epilogue, we see the death of my evangelists and you know, and everything like that. And I close the book out with my words to, to the world, to my, to us, LGBTQ I, a family, honey, the standalone story at the end covers the year, 1997.
And it’s called wisdom in Witchery. This has to do with the witchcraft that a certain individual did on me when I was in high school, because he got infatuated with me. I mean, I’m pretty lovable. I get that. But he took it to damn [01:37:00] bar. Cause then he decided that he wanted to have me all to himself, which he already did.
I was like 15. He was like 20 something. Yeah. That’s all kinds of inappropriate. Like looking back on it, a book. I would have done anything. The man would have told me anyway, he didn’t have to resort to the treasury of witchcraft to like, feel my soul too. But anyways, so I get into detail in the wisdom of Witchery stand-alone story at the end.
I didn’t want to include it in the book because it didn’t really fit well, that it’s such an impactful poignant striking account that it deserved its own space. And so I gave it back. And so that’s how I end the book on that. And and you know, so here I am the day [01:38:00] I so I hope and pray that this book helps to heal people.
I hope it sparks conversation in people’s homes. Parents have reached out to me about how this has helped them talk to their non. Kids. You know, it’s helping people understand that, you know, that it’s okay to be yourself. You know, I pray for people out there who still hate themselves for masturbating.
They still hate themselves for watching porn who still hate themselves for not being straight. Honey, I’ve been there, I’ve hated myself. I’ve hurt myself. I’ve worked against myself. And the thing is like my hypnotherapists, which I see as hypnotherapists every month was telling me the other day, during a session where I was trying to come back then the voices in my head, you know, she was like, just remember all of those voices that never have told you that there was ever [01:39:00] anything wrong with you.
Wasn’t your voice. You weren’t born with that. You accepted that from other people who told you that. And so. There’s always ask yourself why you think something’s wrong? Where did that really come from? It’s hard to get rid of once. We’ve internalized it for so many years, but babe, I’m here to tell you today you can be set free from those voices in your head, constantly criticizing.
Every little damn thing you do is just, just keeping you from enjoying your fucking life. And so I’m going to say to y’all enjoy your fucking life. Love as hard as you can, but love yourself first. And I will see you on the next show, sex drugs, and jesus.com is the website. All my books I’m working on two are the books right now.
And all my, everything you know is at that website. And I will see you next time. I love you. Wow.
[01:40:00] Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.
My name is De’Vannon and it’s been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right.
