Jan Smitowicz's Blog

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My new prison memoir Rebel Hell: Disabled Vegan Goes to Prison is getting rave reviews from everybody who’s read it. This wildly original and “outrageously candid” book delivers something for everyone–from dark and utterly shameless humor to raw poignant emotion, from enlightening facts & visuals & analysis to lyrical descriptions of the hellacious and the divine alike. It is a substantially important book addressing myriad social issues from a powerful, bold, no-holds-barred perspective; above all, though, Rebel Hell is a captivating story about “justice” in modern America, and about navigating the kaleidoscopic maze of prison absurdity that’d launch even Franz Kafka into a fit of paranoia and disbelief. Finally, there’s yet another dimension of intrigue–how I managed to survive the horrific onslaught of prison as a disabled vegan!

CLICK HERE to read a review from the lovely blog “black. female. christian. vegan.”

And here’s a short Q&A about my Prison Experience with antinatalist guru and author Laura Carroll.

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Now available around the world in electronic format as well as the gorgeous paperback!

If you’re in America, HERE  is the Amazon link [Note: you do *not* need a Kindle to read the e-book; simply download the FREE KINDLE APP and read on any tablet, smartphone, or device!]

If you’re in Canada, Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK, or France:

Click HERE  and scroll down below the cover image, where you’ll find all the Amazon links [or you can just search “smitowicz” and my books are the only results!]

Alternatively, you can order directly from me and get copies signed and personalized! Visit the Rebel Hell page on my  WEBSITE. I also provide terrific bulk discounts [5+ copies] for teachers, book clubs, gift-giving, etc.–simply contact me at SmitowiczAuthorPublicity@gmail.com. Finally, message me if you’re interested in my FREE book club / classroom appearances via Skype for discussion and/or Q&A [minimum five [5] readers]!

~Love & Liberation~

Jan

This nonsense has been, and continues to be, utterly mind-boggling in both its prevalence and the frequency with which it’s invoked. If you’ve been vegetarian or vegan for more than about a month–or even if you’ve merely expressed interest in becoming one!–there’s a tremendous likelihood that someone has said this to you. I don’t wanna go into detail about the innately illogical, pointless, and absurd nature of this claim, because plenty of people have already spent the time debunking this forehead-smacking lunacy, and I’d rather spend my time writing/editing books. I’ve provided several links to a few of the many thorough debunkings below…

I did, however, want to hit a couple quick points–not because I feel particularly interested in the matter, and not because I legitimately truly want to–but simply due to [1] the ubiquity of this myth, and [2] its stupidity and total pointlessness. Ultimately, this myth and (this part’s crucial) the constant, unrelenting references to it say FAR FAR MORE about the people invoking it than anything else! It’s used all the time by trollish simpletons as a kind of catch-all way to dismiss the monumental importance of the issues that veganism and, to a lesser degree, vegetarianism inherently confront.

“But Hitler was a vegetarian”–a notion so ridiculously dumb that it necessitates a forehead-smack literally set in STONE!

 

*[defensiveness, deflection, and total lack of critical thinking…hammering the point home b/c it remains commonplace]

Here are just a few detailed analyses debunking the Hitler-as-vegetarian drivel:

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/hitler.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/025163_Hitler_vegetarian_vegetarianism.html

http://www.vegsource.com/berry/hitler.html

That third one was written by Rynn Berry, a terrific man and tireless animal advocate who sadly passed away in 2014, shortly before his 70th birthday (just to cut off any bullshit ideas of “early”-death-by-veganism, he had asthma and was jogging on a frigid New York winter day, which apparently isn’t the best idea because asthmatics exercising vigorously in the cold have a high risk of cardiac arrest). He’d been vegan for nearly half a century, having transitioned from a teenage vegetarian to vegan in 1966 at the age of 21. Berry was a many-time guest on my dear friend Bob Linden’s popular radio show-podcast Go Vegan with Bob Linden, especially around the holidays. CLICK HERE for a list of Berry’s intriguing, controversial interviews on the show!

This book on Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2gspWWG

 

So, I’ve lain out ample evidence for this blog’s titular claim. Can we please, for the love of all things good and decent and just and intellectually honest, please flush this ridiculous, stupid, and utterly irrelevant myth down the toilet and into the fetid sewers of history–where it belongs–for good? PLEASE?!

When I was in prison, I spent two weeks in Segregation. Some of the only books available to read were several by Dean Koontz. Staring at his book titles for time uncountable, I realized some patterns, and eventually made this chart. Enjoy the laughable absurdity!

I mean the title in both ways–1) Fuck This Day Wherein Christopher Columbus is Celebrated and 2) Instead of Celebrating Him, We Should Say FUCK COLUMBUS.

Quick primer on Columbus’s genocidal legacy:

Brainwashed Americans Celebrate GENOCIDE On Columbus Day.

Read, with source material, about yet more of Columbus’s atrocities.

As American Indian activist and scholar Ward Churchill says in his talks, recorded on his seminal 2-disc CD “In a Pig’s [please excuse the speciesist language] Eye:  Reflections on the Police State, Repression, and Native America” (click HERE to learn more/buy from its publisher, AK Press):

…on that day…on the 12th of October, 1492, when a lost Italian seaman, flying the flag of Spain, washed up on a beach in the Carribean, half a world away from where he thought he was, and got himself known as “The Great Navigator.”  Yeah.

You can actually listen to the amazing, inspiring, incredibly informative talk by Ward Churchill in several parts on YouTube HERE!

Ward’s passion and uncompromising militancy is an inspiration to nearly all who hear him speak and many who read his work.

Columbus was the real savage:  he tortured native peoples to try to convert them to Christianity, he enslaved them, he murdered them, and he raped native women.  So this country proudly celebrates a TORTURER, ENSLAVER, RAPIST, AND MURDERER of innocent, peaceful native peoples.  What the FUCK is wrong with this culture??

Oh yeah–this culture is sociopathological.  Look at the people we celebrate and elevate to hero and even near-deity status.  It’s not just Columbus, not by a long shot.  Take our your purse or wallet and look at your different denominations of cash (if you have any in this economy!); the 1-dollar-bill, George Washington:  slave owner, American Indian butcher–a number of tribes helped the American colonists in their fight against the British in the Revolution, and then after the dust settled Washington ordered those tribes be destroyed for supposedly aiding the British!  He owned slaves his entire life, and when the U.S. capital was in Philadelphia, he exploited a loophole to keep his slaves when normally they’d be freed after 6 months of living there.  He also signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which was one of the most horrendous laws ever put on the books for slaves; it gave southern slaveowners the right to capture and bring back south “their” slaves even if those individuals were able to escape to and settle in “free” northern states.

Now take out your 5-dollar-bill.  That’s right, even “Honest Abe” has some answering to do for his legacy.  He didn’t care about freeing slaves; his concern was with preserving the Union.  “The Great Emancipator”–my great asshole!  Granted, he did claim to be morally and politically opposed to slavery, and never owned slaves, BUT–and this is a big deal–he repeatedly said that he had *no intention or desire to free the slaves in southern states.*  Lincoln said–and this is a direct quote:  “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.”

In the interest of brevity, we’ll skip ahead and finish up with that elusive 20-dollar-bill.  Andrew Jackson is probably the worst of the lot.  He owned a vast (over 1,000 acres eventually) plantation that was mostly cotton, worked by slaves; estimates vary, but in all likelihood he owned several hundred at some point in his life.  He also initiated the cultural and physical genocide of American Indians by displacing them from their native lands (think Trail of Tears), stealing literally tens of millions of acres from them, forcing them ever westward to make way for white settlers.

These are the motherfuckers we CELEBRATE?  This is truly equivalent to Germany having a “Hitler Day” which is a national holiday where we’re all supposed to laud him as the “Great Conquerer” or something, with statues of him erected all over the country.  This country is INSANE.  Because it’s a part of the dominant culture, industrial civilization, which is killing the planet and wiping out vast, unfathomable numbers of nonhuman species and human indigenous cultures.  It must be stopped.

And Columbus Day is a symbol of that insanity, that sociopathology.  So join me in screaming from the rooftops, FUCK COLUMBUS DAY!!!!!

“Fuck Columbus & All Other Cannibals!” This kid gets it–why can’t the rest of Amerika?

When I was in prison, I spent two weeks in Segregation. Some of the only books available to read were several by Dean Koontz. Staring at his book titles for time uncountable, I realized some patterns, and eventually made this chart. Enjoy the absurdity!

This weekend or early next week I’ll be sending out my very first monthly e-newsletter–which will include the opening 20-ish pages from my soon-to-be-published memoir Rebel Hell: Disabled Vegan Goes to Prison. The excerpt is emotionally resonant, intense, funny, and intriguing, and includes the wild, infuriating scene in which I was first arrested for marijuana after an illegitimate traffic stop and illegal search & seizure. This will be the first and only place I’ll be sharing the excerpt any time soon.

The next few days are your last chance to get yourself on the list and receive the exclusive preview! CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP. If you don’t like what you see, unsubscribing only takes a click or two; but I vow to try my very best to provide entertaining, interesting, informative, funny content every single month. I doubt you’ll be disappointed!

My first email newsletter will also feature an EXCLUSIVE CONTEST that involves no purchase of anything . . .

TWO LUCKY PARTICIPANTS WILL WIN $15 GIFT CARDS TO AMAZON!

Don’t miss out–sign up now! Thanks.

~Love & Liberation~

Jan @ www.JanSmitowicz.com

 

Do you realize how badass this beach-work is?! My new wife Andria and I spent over an hour–and if you know my physical limitations, that’s some heavy shit–using shovels to make this. Picture taken from about 200 feet above! Each letter 8-10 feet high and 4-5 feet wide.


 


While we were making it, a couple little kids–both probably 6 or younger–asked us what it said. I told them, then said, “We’re both vegan. That means we don’t eat meat, because it’s made out of dead animals! Animals are our friends, not our food.” I smiled as they ambled off, clearly thinking deeply. I think children are the most susceptible to the message that animals have feelings, awareness, experiences, and that because of this we have no right to kill and eat them when it’s perfectly healthful, or to be more specific far more healthful, not to do so! Most kids just understand compassion; they haven’t been brainwashed into accepting the Death-Cult that is the dominant culture, into thinking that what we do actually does matter, especially when it comes to nonhumans.


 


I’m sure their parents had some explaining to do–quite possibly some excuses to make, some lies to tell. But hey–I’m not here to let you sleep, I’m here to wake you up!

 

Enjoy this piece? I’d love for you to CLICK HERE  and sign up for my monthly e-newsletter. I’ll be sending the first one out within a couple weeks, and it includes an EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PREVIEW of the first 20 pages of my forthcoming memoir, Rebel Hell: Disabled Vegan Goes to Prison. The monthly newsletter will feature exclusive content, fun stuff, and monthly prizes!

Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo is pictured in this undated handout photo provided by Cincinnati Zoo. REUTERS/Cincinnati Zoo/Handout via Reuters

The murder of this magnificent nonhuman-person, whose western lowland gorilla species is critically endangered, with fewer than 200,000 individuals left in the wild, has been discussed at length already. I just wanted to make a couple points, and reproduce a pertinent quote from the book I’m reading.

The only logical conclusion that this tragedy should engender is that zoos are fucking terrible, *inherently.* No exceptions. They are nothing more than prisons for those who’ve committed no crime. Kidnapping animals from the wild; breeding and then keeping captive animals; unnatural, toxic, pitiful facsimiles of the real nature these animals should be in, even at what most people consider the best zoos; and at the end, the most harmful aspect of them all regarding zoos–they treat, view, teach, say, and demonstrate the idea that nonhuman animals are/as property. The glass windows through which humans crowd around to stare at zoo animals and their “habitat” should more appropriately be seen as a mirror that reflects back at those attendants some of the most awful characteristics of humanity; industrialized humans’ hubris, vanity, greed, sociopathic selfishness, denial of facts, cruelty, stupidity, and ludicrous, baseless worldview that humans are superior to all nonhuman life in any way or form that truly matters. The most brilliant, scathing analysis about the innate atrocity of zoos also comes from–not suprisingly–Derrick Jensen and photographer Karen Tweedy Holmes‘s gorgeous, heartbreaking coffee table-type book, Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos.

I’d like to mention a few things about this tragic (though all-too-predictable) event and its resultant media and social media firestorm. The number of people outraged by it is of course a great thing. Everybody should be angry. We should be calling for the sterilization of the boy’s mother

Many of longtime standup comedian Doug Stanhope’s lazy-ass fans, like my wife, will want to know if his new memoir Digging Up Mother: A Love Story from Da Capo Press is as funny as one of his standup performances. The answer is no. It’s much funnier.

I should confess—this review, while 100% genuine and inevitable, is first and most importantly a cheap ploy to try convincing Doug to read my forthcoming memoir Rebel Hell: Disabled Vegan Goes to Prison and hopefully provide a blurb and maybe even a little review if he likes its dark, depraved, shameless humor as much as I think he will. Maybe we can even do some readings/book signings together!—if you’re not gonna dream big as a writer, might as well quit now. Also I took (prescribed) Ritalin to help me concentrate enough to write this—if you’ve taken ADD meds you know why this matters.

With that out of the way, Digging Up Mother is fantastic. The humor lives up to Stanhope’s reputation for brazen, even blithe twistedness. The book describes his hilarious lifelong penchant for schemes, scams, pranks, and general tomfuckery, detailing literally dozens of them. The biggest laugh-out-loud sequence for me had to be his wedding day. His bride Renee got so hammered beforehand that her friends gave her ecstasy just to keep her standing. The best man was selected using video poker. Stanhope hired a “graphically obese” Elvis impersonator called Extreme Elvis. After the ceremony, most of the band stripped naked while performing, including Extreme Elvis—who urinated into a pint glass then guzzled it down, and plucked a backup singer’s tampon from her vagina and then chewed and spit it toward the fleeing audience. “The quality of the musicianship was being overlooked,” Stanhope writes, “people focusing more on Elvis jamming two fingers up his own ass, then sauntering through the crowd, crooning while he gently swirled those fingers in their drinks” (234).

Through it all, Stanhope somehow manages to touch the reader with surprising poignancy. Partly via his and Mother’s relationship and her supportiveness. Even when he was just the troublesome class clown: “Mother saw my humor and creativity . . . I was fortunate enough to have a parent . . . allow me the freedom to follow my own path” (29). Indeed, Stanhope makes clear that without her cheering him on, he may never have stuck with comedy. “She was my rock and my muse and my only fan that mattered” (162). Then there’s his doting affection for longtime girlfriend Bingo, a schizoaffective bipolar. Her mental illness—she once walked down the street naked in midday while talking into a banana, legitimately thinking it was a phone—doesn’t detract from his fierce love. “I wish my vocabulary held a better word than ‘love’ for all of the emotions I felt about her, how she made me alive. They don’t live in a thesaurus” (271). Digging Up Mother’s juxtaposition of the repulsive and the beautiful is exquisite.

The writing on a barebones level is top-notch. Dark little gems are peppered throughout the narrative, like “Anyone who says that suicide is never the answer hasn’t heard all of the questions” (179) and “Children are abhorrent to me and I believe abortion should be mandatory” (228). Though I’m sure he had a great editor, his narrative talents are abundantly evident. This is never a given—just because you can write an act that leaves audiences in stitches doesn’t mean you can write a book worth dogshit! If you’ve seen or heard his show Beer Hall Putsch, you know that Doug and Bingo helped guide Mother through her 2008 suicide as she quaffed Morphine and Black Russians, but his memoir fills things out superbly. Like how the mortuary people arrived the next morning and assumed Bingo, sprawled out on the couch in a Xanax- and booze-induced deadsleep, was the corpse—and went to take her body away. Nothing is sacred (nor should it be); Stanhope matter-of-factly writes of his limitations as Kevorkianist: “. . . the idea of holding up [Mother’s] deflated ass-cheek while she forces out a mushy yogurt turd . . . no” (4).

Doug Stanhope’s memoir is unquestionably one of the funniest books I’ve read. Its terrific writing and utterly unexpected emotional wallop make it that much better. I can only hope this isn’t the sole memoir he writes—I’m hooked. Read it with an unclenched sphincter and you will be too. Unless you’re a total pussy, of course.

Sitting front row at one of Stanhope’s shows at the Brea Improv in 2013, I offered him LSD during the show. I’m gonna go drop some right now to celebrate that I finally wrote this fucking review. I think Doug would be proud. Now he just needs to contact me about our epic mutual book readings!

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I’m selling my anti-Monsanto debut novel Orange Rain for just $10 (cheapest ever!), with 100 PERCENT OF PROCEEDS going to Broken Promises Southwest, an amazing life-saving cat TNR/rescue group. Check it out!

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