longing

i’m waiting for the thought police to arrest me
after traveling past every stop sign
shouting “fire!” in the crowded theater
i’m waiting for them to fight me
i’m waiting to get on television
for every taboo that i shared with the world
till they begged and cried for release
breaking the silence in the public library
remaining on the train when the voice said to exit
please exit please exit
i showed the forbidden to the unsuspecting
broke them out of their stupors with militant force
without using a single weapon
so i’m waiting for the thought police to acknowledge me
just a wink of recognition
i need to know that they know i exist
that what i’m doing is somehow worth it
so i’m waiting for them to drag me into a prison
with the greatest thought criminals of all time
i want to be on their top ten most wanted list
a dangerous thinker on the loose
the poster will be more provocative
than the album covers i framed to frighten the masses
murder mystery mindfuck noir
this is my genre
and i’m waiting
for the thought police to arrest me
just one last time just one more time
so i can go to sleep happy
and wake up in peace

(c) Rachel Haywire | 8/8/10

popular

one day i’ll be popular
not popular like the queen bee of some social clique
but popular like her arch nemesis who overthrows the high school dance
infamous
beautiful outcasts from all over the world
will quote me and email me and form opinions on me
and discuss me for hours and hours
i’ll be to the underground what angelina jolie is to hollywood
too much to handle
too bright for the room
the icon you’re afraid of clicking on
and everybody will scream my name
especially when they beat their girlfriends

one day i’ll be popular
compared to junkies and prostitutes and martyrs
only with tattoos and piercings to make things a bit more current
my range of influence will cover anybody who’s ever been kicked out
kicked at
kicked on
the cutting edge couldn’t handle us
and that’s only a compliment if you’re having delusions of grandeur

but one day i’ll be popular
kids will write to me right before they kill themselves
people will drop my name to get spots at night clubs
whether it’s mindless praise or mindless slander it’s still pretty mindless
and their name is still on the flyer
people will unite against me and for me and to me
and with each other about me
people who have never met me will talk about all of our wild interactions

one day i’ll be popular
i’ll have thousands of friends but nobody to talk to
the rotating door will explode
stop caring so much about what other people think of you
it’s not the kind of fame i wanted
but the high school dance was so boring
and the queen bee of that social clique was so nasty

but one day – and maybe not today or even tomorrow – but one day
and i know it
i’ll be respected
people will stop talking about me
they’ll talk to me instead
introduce themselves without trying to impress or belittle me
and i’ll try not to tell them
about how i used to be popular

(c) Rachel Haywire | 6/28/10

I’ve decided to become a blogger now. An actual blogger as opposed to another voice on facebook on twitter. One of the things that people like about Experiment Haywire is that they get to know me as a person and that I’m not living in some ivory tower. It’s easy to get a hold of me.

Not everything that I say makes people happy but one thing I will never be is fake-to-appease-the-masses. I think it’s silly that I should have to “watch what I’m saying” online when I’ve worked this hard to establish my own company where I don’t need to follow social rules. Yet I must admit that posting so much personal information to my social networks (and posting about legal issues, music industry drama, etc.) was a pretty stupid move. It’s hard for me to realize the obvious sometimes but a few good friends confronted me and I didn’t lash out on them. Instead I decided to fix the problem. Confrontation doesn’t cause me to lash out. Being passive aggressive does. I have made a lot of mistakes and I would like to correct them.

I will still be talking to people on facebook on twitter through personal messages and I will still be making public posts. Many of them will lead here. This website is currently being redesigned and ever since LiveJournal I have seriously missed blogging. So here it begins. A new blog. Where I can have social rants, discuss my personal issues, post updates about my music, share lyrics, share feelings, and do whatever the hell I want without the limitation of 140 characters.

-Rachel Haywire

Hey all,

Thanks to all of you for the support over the past few years. Or maybe just the past few months. Or maybe from the beginning. People say that there is a rotating door and that no matter how many people leave there will always be new people to take their place. Yet some of you have been here with me from day one and that is something I will never forget. I want you guys to know I read all of your emails and only wish that I had the time to respond to everybody. I do what I can. I consider my long time fans to be my friends.

Anyone who asked for a free code for “Cooler Than Genocide” has been given one. If your code didn’t work please let me know. It’s through fighting against fascism that we can make the world of music a better place. I’m not just talking about the underground either. I’m talking about everywhere. There have been some recent changes in EH that I would like to mention. I guess the main thing is that I’m no longer considering my project industrial. I’m sure you guys have a bunch of questions so I’m going to try to answer everything now.

Will this effect your sound?

Not at all. I produce the music that I choose to and will continue to do so. While I’m currently in the process of finding a live band the sound of EH is not going to shift. My live shows will be more rock-oriented but the music on “Grrl Interrupted” will be pure electro. There’s a bit of breakcore too.

Will this effect your image?

My image is constantly changing.

So did the assholes win?

I don’t think so. I’m not switching genres because I was forced out. I was forced out ages ago. I’m switching genres because I want to be exposed to a wider group of people. I also feel that I’m a bit idealistic for the industrial subgenre in its current incarnation. When people tell me I’m the one who brought them into the scene I feel a mixed reaction. If industrial was full of people like me I never would have formed this project. Yet I don’t always need to be the odd one out. I’m sick of feeling like a hippie (not sure what else to call it) and want to be in a genre full of people who are more accepting of my personality. With rock anything and everything goes. There’s also the fact that I want more opportunities for gigs and genuinely miss rocking out. I started out fronting rock bands. I miss playing live with a full band.

Will industrial ever be a nicer place?

Not all genres want kindness forced upon them. I think we did a pretty good job though. RANT (Rivetheads Against Nazi Thugs) has almost 1000 members and will never die.

Will this effect machineKUNT?

Nope. There are several industrial bands on my label and I’m not going to tell them to change their genre. My personal affairs have nothing to do with my label. In the past few years machineKUNT grew from a tiny all-female record label to an international music and modeling agency full of alternative talent.

What are you currently working on?

“Sanity is Slavery” and “Grrl Interrupted.” It’s the same as it ever was. Nothing has really changed. This is simply a new beginning. Or a new ending. Take your pick.

Love,
Rachel Haywire

In honor of taking a stand against our oppressors I’ll be giving out free copies of the “Cooler Than Genocide” EP. If you would like a free download please post a reply with your email address. I will send you a code.

Thanks to all of you for fighting with me in this struggle for truth and justice. Not just the industrial scene but all over the creative map. I think it’s time to start over and create a new revolution that is based on creativity, talent, innovation, eccentricity, thinking outside of the box, refusing to obey, and speaking out against injustice. The next time you see someone being attacked by a group of people do something. Don’t watch outside the club as someone gets assaulted for their skin color, sexual preference, ethnicity, piercings, tattoos, way of speaking, way of acting, or way of presenting themselves. Are these all not hate crimes in the end?

I recently heard something extremely disturbing that involved a bunch of high school kids participating in a gang rape of another student. Some of the kids went as far as to call their friends to join in. Others simply stood there and watched. Standing there and watching is one of the worst things we can do as human beings. When I was violently attacked at a powernoise show the other people stood there and watched. They know who they are and I wonder how they sleep at night.

Yet I see so much potential ahead of me to make new friends, meet new collaborators, and continue to take my music as far as I can. I hope that you guys enjoy the album.

-Rachel Haywire

It has recently been called to my attention that my new pictures “go against everything that I stand for” and that I am now using sex appeal to sell my records. Are these people serious? My records don’t sell whether I am using “sex appeal” or not. It doesn’t matter what I look like. People don’t like buying music. People like buying clothes. People like buying houses. People like buying merchandise. Who buys music these days? Seriously. The top artists in our genre (Combichrist and anyone bigger than this excluded) work 9 to 5 jobs. The rest of us are in situations that range from being homeless to living with our parents to living in crappy apartments to finishing school in our early to late 20′s.

I remember when Emilie Autumn posted some pictures that I found to be triggering as a survivor of sexual abuse. I mentioned that I felt betrayed by her because listening to her music had always been a healing experience for me. I felt completely crushed. Yet suddenly it hit me when I went to her book reading in Chicago. She wasn’t betraying us by taking these pictures in the slightest. She was rising above her abuse. She was giving her oppressors a big fuck you. She was taking whatever pictures she wanted to. That was liberation. I confided to her in tears and she gave me a huge hug.

I am proud of my body. If anyone has felt triggered by the recent images I’ve posted I want them to know that this was not my intention. I used to do everything I could to make myself ugly to avoid sexual harassment. No longer will I be that type of person. No longer will I hide my body because that is letting the assholes win. I’m not ugly and I refuse to make myself appear that way due to the sexual oppression I have faced. I am proud of my body and you should be proud of your body too. Whether you are skinny, fat, or anything in between… our bodies are our own and we should never try to hide them.

As for my current departure from the internet my reasons are as follows. A bunch of my friends have told me that I am making things worse for myself by posting about my private life to the public. I can’t believe I told the public I was raped. This caused my enemies to start threatening to gang rape me to remind me of the initial trauma. It was an inhuman thing to do to me and sent me into a downward spiral that effected my mental health in a way that I can’t even begin to describe. Why did I tell the public I was raped? To share my story. To reach out to other survivors. Yet it was still a decision that hurt me in the end.

What I need to do right now is get better. Not post about the way people in the powernoise scene have been fucking with my life. My actual life. It goes far beyond the internet. While the public has the right to know about the way I’ve been treated by the horrible people in my own industry this is much less important than getting in better mental shape.

I am checking myself into a clinic for survivors of sexual abuse. When I am in better mental health I will return to the internet once again. Until then I wish you all a happy new year.

Love,
Rachel Haywire

Should I even be admitting this? When I was 17 I told everyone I was 23. Now I should just tell everyone I’m 19.

At least I can say I survived this long! You guys helped me a lot. Someone even sent me a present of $200. That’s more than my entire family gave me combined. I can’t stress how important it is that you guys have my back. Yet this isn’t about money. If you have my back you have my back. If you support me than you support me. Whether it’s through friendship, promotion, collaboration, feedback, dispelling negative rumors, or simply listening to my music I consider you someone who supports EH.

Please don’t feel guilty if you couldn’t send me any money. Feel guilty if you saw a single individual being assaulted by an entire group and did absolutely nothing. Feel guilty if you joined a pathetic clique and sacrificed your true friends for social status. Feel guilty if you hung out with a bunch of neo-nazi’s at your local club so you could feel uber-rivet-kore. Feel guilty if you never spoke out against the war in Iraq. The war on drugs. The war on our civil liberties after 9/11.

Feel guilty if you never fought back. Ignored the problem. Ignored the truth. Went with the flow without questioning the ocean. Went with the group because you didn’t want to deal with any drama – even though you completely disagreed with them. Feel guilty if you’re only supporting my music because you think I’m hot. Feel guilty if you said you didn’t like a band because you didn’t want your friends to make fun of you. Feel guilty if you said you liked a band you never listened to so you could sit at the VIP table.

I’ve been spending my birthday on a road trip across the country. This is a very pivotal point in my life. I am working on finding a place to live so I will no longer be homeless. I am working on getting back in school. Finding the right therapist. Finding the right network of legal support. Building a new musical studio. Finishing my new album. Releasing this new compilation. Signing new artists. Publishing my book. I am working at surviving. What are you working on? Hopefully it’s not getting rid of your “negative friends” because your “negative friends” will be there for you when shit hits the fan. Everyone else will run away. As loners we unite.

The new conspiracy,
Rachel Haywire

One of the reasons I was a target of so much harassment in the music industry was because of that thing called slander. It seems like every successful female artist I meet has been the target of slander in one way or another. Many people don’t like it when women do well in the world of entertainment and I’m not just talking about men here. It is often other women who can be the most jealous and resentful.

Since there was nobody in the industry that I had slept with people couldn’t accuse me of “sleeping my way to the top” so they looked for something else to attack me for. They noticed that I was doing a lot of traveling. Popping up in a bunch of random cities. Going to a bunch of shows and festivals. They also knew that I didn’t have a stable job. Rumors began to fly and it was suddenly common talk that I was on some kind of trust fund. How else would I be able to travel around the country as an underground musician? Obviously I wasn’t making any real money as an artist.

While I do share a lot of my private life with the public one of the things I did not want to share was that I was on disability. I find it to be extremely embarrassing and have a strong a desire to beat my disability/get off SSI. There are a lot of people who do not agree with the notion of SSI and feel that it should be abolished. They do not like that their tax money is going to helping the disabled community. (yet they seem to have no problem with it going to the war on drugs or the war on “terror”) I did not want to be known as a disability case but as an artist. So what if I’m disabled? This has nothing to do with my music or my writing. I don’t want people to give me special treatment because I’m disabled. I want to be judged for my art and nothing more.

For a while I was using my disability money to pay rent in the ghetto of Brooklyn (see Bushwick- where you can live in a community of artists next to Section 8 housing) but after getting sick of living with no windows in my room and getting sick of everything in my warehouse of 7 artists collapsing (see The Real World- the masochistic counterculture) I decided to move to Astoria in Queens. Within several months I was evicted because I was unable to pay my rent. The money I was getting on SSI was not enough for me to survive in NYC unless I wanted to move into another shitty warehouse with illegal conditions.

I became homeless once again and used my SSI money to pursue a career in entertainment as opposed to live a domestic lifestyle. What many people don’t know is that this is the life I was living before I moved to NYC. The only major difference was that I had finally made a name for myself as an artist. I stayed with friends from around the country in whatever city I was performing in. All of my money went to traveling. Sometimes promoters would pay for me to travel if I would play in their city. A few amateur photographers paid for me to travel if I was willing to do photo shoots with them.

While I went through many financial struggles as a homeless musician they were nothing compared to the financial struggles I went through while living in NYC. I didn’t care if I was crashing on a random floor. As long as I was able to make music it was going to be all right. Many people give up their material possessions to make music. I gave up my home. It mattered more to me to be a recording/performing artist in a tiny little genre than to have a place to come home to. This is completely psychotic but what can I say? It was the path I decided to take. I didn’t tell anybody I was homeless up until recently. Who wants to admit that they’re homeless when they appear to be doing well to the masses? Yet after all of my SSI money went to fighting a legal battle against a band that did everything in their power to destroy me I finally admitted that I was without physical residence.

I once considered success to be fame because I was idealistic and naive. The more I traveled the better I did as a musician. Everybody knew who I was- at least in this tiny little underground. Of course things eventually backfired for this very reason. Everybody knew who I was. Yet nobody actually had a clue. “Who is this stupid bitch? How does she get the money to do all this traveling?” You can see where this is going. I was the hot new target to pick on. The latest scapegoat.

The rumors got so bad that none of the established record labels in my niche were willing to work with me. I formed machineKUNT Records with the intention of creating a new niche and demographic. A good friend of mine decided that I had money making potential and decided to invest in my company. Things were finally starting to look up after being ostracized from the genre I gave up my home to make music for. Yet it’s not like my friend was rich or that I was suddenly getting more disability money. It’s just that when you start your own company and use your disability money to travel you run into a lot of new opportunities. machineKUNT Records began to grow and I was able to sign new artists to my label. I released the “Extreme Women in the Dark Future” compilation and circulated it around the globe. I packaged all of the envelopes, wrote down the addresses of all of the customers, worked on constant myspace promotion, and did everything else I could to make my company grow no matter how menial the task.

Since I finally had an investor I was now able to hire new employees. Was I suddenly making any money with machineKUNT? No. All of it was going back to the company. Was I living anywhere? No. I was still homeless. Yet my dream had now become a reality. I often look back and say that I’m glad I got slandered. If I would have been signed to a bigger record label I might be more famous now and I might even be on tour in Europe but I never would have been able to do things on my own terms. I can honestly say that I know the value of hard work. Maybe not “waking up a 8 AM and going to the same boring job 6 days a week just to get paid” hard work but “going to sleep at 8 AM and working 7 turbulent days a week without getting paid” hard work. I could throw in that I did this all as a disabled person but that’s not what I want to be known for. Disabled? Homeless? Who cares? I’m a fucking artist.

I no longer see fame as success. Fame is a curse that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody especially if it’s fame within a small group of people. I see success as being able to run my own company on my own terms. I see success as creating culture. And I’m still trying to finish school so I can become more successful. The last time I was in school I was running a dominatrix company. Who knows what will happen next? One thing I know is that I will never work for anybody but myself.

I look up to women like Gala Darling and Molly Crabapple who are also creative entrepreneurs. They are living their dream and running their own companies only they’re actually getting paid for them. They aren’t homeless. This is the kind of life that I’d like to be living. This is the sort of thing that I strive for. Another good example is Emilie Autumn. I actually found out about her when a bunch of people in the industrial genre were slandering her name. (it’s funny the way that works out) Destroy X of Angelspit makes her own clothing and runs her own makeup company. If these women are doing it why can’t I?

Lydia Lunch was a homeless prostitute. Wendy O. Williams was a junkie who committed suicide. People still think that Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain. Yet all of these women did exactly what they wanted to and there was nobody who could stop them. The most important thing was that they were able to share their art with the world. Some sacrificed more than others. Other women ended up becoming a part of the group that oppressed them. They now enjoy harassing me with the people who once harassed them. Go figure. If the people who made my life a living hell were to offer me a tour in Europe I would immediately tell them to kiss my ass.

Recently I decided to try a social experiment. I started posting outlandish things to my facebook and twitter accounts to my audience. If people were going to accuse me of being on a trust fund I was going to act like it. I told them that I was at a protest in Tokyo fighting for body modification rights. (I don’t even have any body mods) That I was getting custom-made rings that said “hardcore” on them. That I was buying 9 corsets at once in France. Getting into fights with industry competition in Paris. Working on secret political campaigns in Greece. Almost everybody ate it up. No matter how outlandish my updates were there were very few people who questioned them. “Say hi to my friends in Greece for me. The police hate body modification in Tokyo and I’m glad you’re doing something about it. I’ve been looking for a corset like that myself!” What I learned from this social experiment was that people were even stupider than I thought. It wasn’t just the masses who believed I was on a trust fund but a large portion of people who I considered my friends.

Last week I was raped. I ended up telling my audience because this was not something I felt comfortable keeping bottled up inside. The hate mail began flooding in. “What sort of publicity stunt is this? You’re always making yourself out to be a victim for attention.” I live in a world in which my own audience believes that I’m going to protests in Tokyo and fighting for body modification rights- getting deported from Tokyo and flying to Paris the next day to buy a bunch of customized corsets- but thinks that getting raped is some type of publicity stunt. My own fucking audience. I’d kill myself if it wasn’t for knowing that my suicide would become a new internet meme.

Or maybe it’s something else that is keeping me alive. My company that everybody makes fun of. My music project that nobody can stand. The rest of the world may view these endeavors as ridiculous exercises in feminism and narcissism but the rest of the world doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am doing what I want. Even the possibility of getting this rapist in jail keeps me alive. The possibility of getting off disability in the future. The possibility of knowing that I had an impact on my generation and that what motivated me wasn’t money or glamor but the desire to break the system and start from scratch. I’m a homeless and disabled entrepreneur. I might as well come clean with it once and for all. I didn’t get to this point because I received some kind of trust fund. I got to this point because I worked my ass off no matter what situation I was faced with.