Recently a former friend of mine tried to say that they wrote Uncomfortable, that it was their book, and at first I was super pissed until I realized something.
When I read “Becoming,” by Michelle Obama, I realized that the stories that she was telling in this book were SO relateable that I honestly started to feel like I’d lived them myself. But of course I hadn’t because I am clearly not Michelle Obama.
A few months ago I saw a few posts about copyright infringement and I’ll fully admit it, before I became the Loud Mouth Brown Girl, I listened to music on a variety of platforms, some legal and others…meh.
The thing is, that the only reason that I didn’t always pay for my music, was because I NEEDED music in order to deal with my trauma, and I couldn’t afford it. Someone recently said that I needed nourishment, and I have finally had the time to sit and think about the world and actually focus on HOW much music means to me.
I would HATE to think that someone would steal Uncomfortable and use it to make money. So I’ve been thinking about what I want for this book, and what I want it to mean to the world. The laptop that I was going to use for the contest is missing, and so I can’t do that anymore, and that really pisses me off.
I was really excited about saying to another writer, “here’s the tool you need to become a creator in your own right.” That’s why I am working on the Stay Lifted Sis: Handbook for Mental Health Content Creators. It’s specifically why I’ve decided that I am going to give Uncomfortable away for free now.
A lot of people look at this website and think “aw man she’s just using trauma to make money,” but the thing is that so much of my life has been filled with people who have spent their entire lives saying “you’re a freak,” or “you’re freaking me out,” that finally I decided to make everyone around me shut the fuck up and listen.
Loud Mouth Brown Girl is my “shut the fuck up and listen” to MY voice, to Devon’s voice, and the fact that someone stole the opportunity for me to say to someone else, “hey, your turn,” really just…it breaks my spirit in a way that I can’t quite convey.
Someone broke into my house last night, and they rubbed my head with their hand, and I rolled away and didn’t move, shaking as softly as I could with absolute terror until he left. I don’t know who he was, and I know that he just wanted me to know he could get to me, but I won’t be calling the cops. I said that yesterday, and the reason that I said that, is because they are fucking useless.
At the early stages of this website, I said I didn’t want to end up with another tree, in another park, that no one will NEVER notice. I don’t want to be a tree, Maple is a tree, and she’s not here anymore. She’s gone, and she’s never, ever coming back. Maple Batalia is dead, Rena Virk is dead, taken by people who thought they didn’t deserve to live their first chance.
I don’t want to end up like that, and because Uncomfortable is my first book, my first PUBLISHED work, on an actual website, I want to make sure that anyone who NEEDS to read it, has access to it.
This largely comes from my realization that Metallica still fucking sucks, their music is great, but their personalities are shit. I know this because like my former uncle said, just because you like their music, doesn’t mean that they are good people.
I’m sure they do a lot for the people in their lives, and maybe they’re wonderful, but what they maybe don’t know because they mostly rarely shut the fuck up and listen is, their music in particular, was the first kind of music that I liked after my 13th birthday. A man sexually assaulted me at a Backstreet Boys concert, that I’d spent literally the entire year silently praying I’d get to go. Mom didn’t really surprise me with tickets, but I let her think that she did.
It matters because he was never caught, and it hit me recently, that lots of men go to concerts like this, just to attack women, or children. When I went to Rob Zombie on the other hand I was with my friend Josh, a tattoo artist from a really great upcoming shop, somewhere sometime, when he figures out his shit.
Josh kept me safe, we hung out, we laughed, we jumped, we sang along, and we had a great time and when it was time for Slayer to be on, all I wanted to do was just wander the city. I wanted to go through Vancouver while it was quieting down, and just enjoy my time, enjoy the energy that I’d collected from that particular concert. And all I could think is that “my” tickets, and Josh’s tickets were free.
We were on the side of the stadium, and the fire was so hot that even sixty feet away we could feel it. It was fucking epic, and yes Rob, I LOVED The porno on the screen, it was perfect, it was EVERYTHING that a Rob Zombie concert should be, Slayer still sucks.
Art should be free in some cases – but artists still need to eat. I can’t wait until the day when I can give away 1000s of laptops, I can’t wait until the day comes when I can just throw money to the wind and say “HEY YOU, MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE,” but until that day comes, the only thing that I have to give away, is my first ever published book.
To the very first person who MIGHT have won the contest, wherever you are, I’m really sorry. I am really sorry that my speaking out led to me having a stalker that decided that their desire to claim my destiny, my future, and my life, also took hold of yours and ripped away what might have been.
I am really sorry, but if ever I have the ability to send out more love letters, if ever I have the ability to go to concerts and events again, and if ever I have the capitol to share my dreams with the world, I will, and I hope that I mean the person you become without my help. Without my giving away something that was given as a gift and that was always meant to be shared.
If you decide to buy a copy of Uncomfortable so you can have a hard copy, you can do so at Amazon. If however you’d like a digital copy without paying me, I’ve included a digital download of my work on this website, and you can have it for $10.00.
Right now I’m in a place filled with trauma and anxiety, and I don’t really have a lot of money, the one thing that I fucking HATE doing is asking for help, and so I’m not. I’ve also included a FREE copy of Uncomfortable, but the $10.00 copy will come with a few extras that the Amazon version and the free copy will not have.
I don’t “need” to do this, economically I am okay, but I also understand that Amazon has some really shitty practices when it comes to their employees, and as much as I’d love to take the book down completely, I need it to be up there. I need to be able to look back in a million years and say “I did that, and no one can ever say otherwise, because no power on earth will ever steal MY voice from me again.”
I am strong enough, I want to thrive, but I don’t want to live my life doing everything the opposite of what everyone says about me. I just want to be myself, and if that means living without Netflix and not listening to Metallica even though I like their shows, and their music, but hate the way that they treat people, then I’m cool with it.
I fought too fucking hard to get here, and I am really over the fact that people seem to think that they have the right to tell me what this website should be, and the fact that they try to reinforce that fact by breaking into my house.
The last time I went to the police I was committed, four fucking times because some of the cops wouldn’t listen to me, and the others were fucking in on it.
If it means giving myself a headache so that I have to fight for my own sanity and mental health and safety than that’s what I am going to do, but I will never again, trust an RCMP officer who says “we got you,” when he’s the one doing all the shit that nearly killed me and my family all those years ago.
I am not a child anymore, and I can make my own decisions, but what I can’t take is people who claim to love me, putting my life at risk to protect their own, and what’s worse is that it wasn’t even people I loved who pulled this shit. If you want to know why I haven’t been writing, and why several posts have been deleted from the site in the last few days, that’s why.
Someone’s been writing posts while I’ve been sleeping, just to pretend to be me, while simultaniously trying to claim to be me in the streets of Surrey, British Columbia. My keys were stolen 2 weeks ago by a former friend who claims that she’s me, she’s the “real” loud mouth brown girl, and she’s been letting people into my house.
A shrink, AND the cops will tell me that I’m crazy, but while they think I’m sleeping, I’m listening to every fucking word, knowing full well that they’re deliberately trying to drive me insane, so that I’ll act out, and get hospitalized again. THIS is the shit that I am dealing with thanks to sex and gang and rape cults, but the entire province of British Columbia, and the government officials who know my name and face, have been denying that this shit happens, because it’s more COMFORTABLE to pretend that abusers don’t come back.
Abusers ALWAYS come back, it’s just a matter of time. Uncomfortable – the Unedited Essays Written by the Loud Mouth Brown Girl, will be available in the coming days after I spent a few nights refining some stuff, because apparently I need to stay up 24 hours a day now to protect myself, since I’m surrounded by fucking idiots who would rather think I’m nuts, then actually do their fucking sworn duty to protect me.
PLEASE do not worry, I know I have a lot of enemies out there because of what I posted on this website originally, but I give 0 fucks! I said what I said, and I turned that shit around, and I turned this website into something that will one day be absolutely great.
Until then, I’m going to continue to struggle and challenge myself to Stay Lifted Sis, just like my BudSisters told me that I could.
I love you,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 