House Fire

1 color front and back silkscreen on Black Pigment dyed Comfort Colors tee. 100% ring spun cotton

In April of 1995 during the recording of Love and Rockets’s album “Sweet F.A.” in a temporary studio in Rick Rubin’s house a fire broke out in the early morning hours. At that time upon the invitations of L&R’s David J. Psychic TV’s Genesis P-orridge was staying at the house as a guest. 

As they were sleeping at six in in the morning they heard a voice screaming, “Get out! Get out! The house is on fire!” David J and Genesis were trapped at the top of the house, and the rest of the house was already engulfed. In escaping the fire, P-Orridge tried to escape the house by crawling through a second-storey window and fell onto concrete stairs. P-Orridge suffered a broken wrist, broken ribs, and a pulmonary embolism, as well as a shattered left elbow that prevented P-Orridge from playing bass or keyboards. They remained in hospital for a total of ten days.

In June 1998, P-Orridge won a $1.5 million lawsuit against producer Rick Rubin and his American Recordings label for injuries sustained while trying to escape a fire at Rubin's home in April 1995.  The jury found that the liability for the fire rested with Rubin and American Recordings, and awarded P-Orridge US$1,572,000 in compensation.

After the court case and paying off medical bills from injuries P-Orridge sustained from the fire, s/he and Lady Jaye reviewed what was left over financially to begin their series of surgeries.

"We had about $650,000 left," s/he explains. "We thought, we could be sensible and put this in a bank or a 401k and not have to worry about bills for a long time, and live a comfortable, safe life. Or, we could decide that this lump of money gives us the freedom to not have to work at all, and spend it all on making art and creating new options and possibilities. We looked at each other and realized we may never get that chance again." As Lady Jaye once said, "See a cliff, jump off."

Upon finalizing calculations and risk assessment, P-Orridge says that s/he and Lady Jaye came to an agreement. Considering the procedures they wanted to undergo to match one another, the process would take up to 10 years. The 1995 marriage of P-Orridge and Lady Jaye gave rise to a third form of being. Padrogeny was born between the two of them as a holistic way of life by doing as well as believing. "It's a word with no baggage or political association," P-Orridge says. "It doesn't even have to entail gender. We are at a point now where we can decide we want to have green skin or fur all over us, or I would love to be able to have gills and live underwater. It's only our imaginations that limit what our bodies can become."

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No returns, no regrets.