BLIPS: Jonathan Firehawk DuPlessis - Our Island Was a Forest

~ Traveler, activist, artist and now author Jonathan Firehawk DuPlessis returns to discuss his newly written book, Our Island Was a Forest. DuPlessis discusses the journey to find himself emotionally, mentally and spiritually whilst uncovering a myriad of brutal truths regarding his Creole beginnings that transpired between New Orleans and Los Angeles.

Recorded July 2026 on the phone between Palmdale, CA and Minneapolis, MN.

*Interested publishers can contact DuPlessis via email at jonduela@gmail.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

All right, we are back. This is Creativity is the Cure. I'm your host, Malcolm Moore, and today, once again, I don't think we've talked on the podcast since 2024. This is my good friend Jonathan. Jonathan Firehawk Duplices. Did I say it correctly?

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Uh duplicis, if you want to go French, or duplicis, if you just want to do the English.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I like your French better.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

All right. So, Jonathan, we are here today to talk about the book that you've written. It's not published yet. It is absolutely astoundingly beautiful, and it's called Our Island Was a Forest. So tell everybody, tell everybody, what is your book about? How could you encapsulate it into two or three sentences?

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Well, I'll try. I'd like to say that I'm a Louisiana Creole with Syrian roots who was raised on Tongva land in Los Angeles. So the book is really about it's a vomiting up of certain ancestral trauma. It is an avant-garde collection of poetry and prose that reflects my life growing up in Los Angeles as a creole, displaced person, and reckoning with that identity and trying to find my artistic voice through a lot of trauma and a lot of struggle, and eventually finding it.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

If that makes sense. Tell me, what does the title mean? I love it. Our island was a forest.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Thank you for that question. I guess we can dissect that in many ways, but for me, I guess R, the collective R, Our Island was a forest is essentially this land that we occupy, Turtle Island, the United States, was bigger and greater than what we have inherited. Right. You know, land-wise, soul-wise, intellect-wise.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

You know, you can take that in a lot of ways, but I guess that's the simplest kind of way I can I can put it. We are greater than what we have inherited.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I was one of the luckiest people to be able to read it right after you wrote it. And to describe to others, this is pretty wild, but these are the authors and books that it reminded me of. You don't sound exactly like them, but there's something about the voice and the vibe, and the fact that it's so unbound and brutally honest. It's fantastical, cinematic, and I gotta tell you, this book reminds me of a lot of my favorite people, like Carlos Castaneda, William Burroughs, Ane S Nin, Mark Richard, if you don't know about him, Fishboy a Ghost Story. Really made me think of that a lot. Flea's 2019 memoir, Acid for the Children. Oh my god, what a book. And then one that maybe not a lot of people know, but my mother gave to me uh when I was working in Serbia and Hungary. It's called Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey. And boy, your book really harkens back to this for me. If you don't know what that book is, you should check it out. I'm writing it down right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Even the title is just giving me goosebumps.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah. So I'm gonna give you a really big quote from your book, and I just want you to reflect, and I want to give people a little taste of what they'd be reading, okay? Okay. I am the living embodiment of a displaced tribe. I am a simarable. Did I say that right?

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Sim Simarabu.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Simorabu.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Cimarron. Simarron. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Okay, a maroon. I am the fugitive kind. They call us free persons of color. They call us free Negro owners of slaves. They call us creoles of color. I grew up with the word itself. The word seemed to be applied to everything in the household when I was a little boy, from food to music, architecture, and neighborhoods, but never people. Certainly not black people. I was deliberately not given enough context to understand the word beyond the most rudimentary level. I was routinely told, without being told, that any connection to blackness was ugly, intolerable, or unfathomable. That's pretty heavy.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yes. Yeah. I um wow, thank you for that. Um I would say uh as I'm feeling that and digesting my own words that you're reading to me. People in New Orleans were we're very tribal. You know, we have parishes, not counties. There's something really unique about Creole people historically, that uh after the Civil War we tended to cherry-pick facets of that identity that that was comfortable. You know, so certain families who could uh, as we say, pass, not only chose to pass, but they chose to cherry pick certain attributes and facets of the culture that they wanted to hold on to that excluded any ties to blackness.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

And that carried that is carried on through the through the decades and through the century. And my family, my mother's family being of the light the light brigade, as uh Charles Munro Trotter used to say, um, they were able to do that in Los Angeles and to assimilate. And so their shame and their confusion and their discomfort around anything related to Africa or blackness, um it was felt.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah. It was felt very deeply by me. Uh you know, I was reading this part and of course thinking and hearing in my head one of my favorite bands, the Neville Brothers.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

My mother knew them.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Oh my god. Yellow moon, yellow moon, right? Yes, yes, oh man, that's another question for another time. So, one more quote, and again, this is a big one, but this is also gonna give people a little peek into the fact that there are many different hues of colors going on in this book. You know, it's poetry, it's prose. You know, it's almost like a fever dream, too. And so listen to this one. She is a vision, she is the ultimate juxtaposition of bliss and brutality. I simply collapse into the chair before me while my wife opens up a leather bag containing numerous instruments of medieval torture. I am powerless to do anything except sit there and wait for the impending appointment with a deathless death. Suddenly, like an Olympic diver, I feel my consciousness getting ready to make a shift out of the body. I sit there while my being is permeated with voices from the oppressors, implanting me with thoughts that my wife is real, that she is the head honcho of this torture, that she is collaborating with them, that she is the very reason I was captured and brought here. The confusion is such that I have to fight off a new type of deliberate madness, nothingness. The Holy Sun awakens me. So what was going on there? I thought I had weird dreams.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

To be frank, that was written shortly after I had an experience with three UFOs in broad daylight in Los Angeles. I had an experience about four o'clock in the afternoon where I saw three UFOs. And later that night I had a ser well, you mentioned fever dreams. I had a series of incredibly vivid out-of-body experiences that were more than dreams. Wow. And in one of the settings of this out-of-body experience, I um that was what I was experiencing in a very real way. And um I'm still quite shaken up by it, but I had to get it out, and that's that's the way it came out.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

You must be still processing that. I mean, there's a there's a lot going on there. Yes, yes, brother, yes. Wow. Yeah. Now, on to an easier question. Well, not exactly easy. What is it? You're trying to get this published. What is it like these days, trying to get a book published? Because so many people self-publish, but you want to get a real publisher, somebody that can help get this message out to as many people as possible. What's your experience been like trying to do that?

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Thank you for that. It has been a hustle, it's been a journey, it's been an enlightening experience. I've been very fortunate in the last six or seven months to have met some champions of my work and some and some visionary individuals in their own right. Um, our mutual friend, JC Gable, is has been one of them. He's amazing. Um really uh blown my mind with his insights and brilliance, and also saddened me because the publishing industry is not what it used to be, as you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Amazon and and other entities have um conglomerates. Yep, conglomerates have taken a hold of the market.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Also, the education system in this country has I think contributed to uh or the broken the brokenness in the education system here in this country has also contributed to people reading less.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Um, as well as just the the instant I don't want to go after the social media world, but there's something to be said about the youth who are able to grab, you know, 30 seconds of history in a TikTok video instead of you know going to the library and and reading and and questioning and digging under, you know, the soil for for things that can't be shown to you. There's there are only things that you can read and experience and and sit with and then talk to other human beings.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Um that's a crazy idea.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I don't know if you know this, but apparently Frank Zappa never went to college. He said he just went to the library and taught himself.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

James Baldwin as well. Yeah. You know, yeah, and you know, I've brought this up before, but of course, very famously Andy Warhol once said that everybody has 15 minutes of fame. I think it's maybe down to 15 seconds now and getting lower, right? Oh my goodness, yes, yes, so yes, so what do you what do you hope, though, with finding a publisher? It's I know that you've talked to quite a few people, and JC has been so helpful to us trying to do this. But what type of publishing company are you looking for? What type of people do you want to reach?

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Well, Malcolm, uh, one of my prayers every day, outside of you know, my soul and my blood family being taken care of, is that my is that my work finds a beautiful home and that um I am able to touch the hearts of all sentient beings. You know, there's there's the specific and the universal. And I I would like to believe that my work is uh both and it's not just for you know people of color or people who are on a spiritual path or who are seeking uh something alternative in a capitalistic and brutal society. I think the work is about trans transcendence, and any publishing company that deals with and works with magic or the avant-garde or just a humanistic kind of framework, I would be honored to work with them in in any capacity. I would like to be a light in the machine, and it's taken me a long time to admit that. But you could be a ghost in the machine too. Ooh. I would I wouldn't mind that at all. I would welcome that too.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Well, here's a fun question. Is there gonna be an audiobook?

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Most likely. Most definitely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Just come out to the desert and record it here in my studio.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Oh, hey, let's set a date for that.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Oh my goodness. That's so fun of you. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Are you interested or excited about the idea of you know going to independent bookstores to unveil your book, but also read some of it and answer questions? Does that appeal to you?

SPEAKER_03 14:33

I've been dreaming about it, my brother. Yes. Because that's that's the real work, you know. I mean, outside of writing the thing and doing the thing, I guess it's kind of like musicians, you know, once they finish the album, it's you you get on the road and you start touring and you really give that gift to the people in a direct way. And um it comes alive. Yes, it comes alive. And what happens after that is is absolute alchemy, it's divine alchemy.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, yes, yes. And you know, this just flashed in my mind, but also I keep thinking of William Blake. Oh, one of our heroes. Yeah, this is like that. This will will truly transcend time, and when you have passed on to the next world, it'll still be here, giving life to many people and helping people that feel like they don't fit in.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Thank you. Thank you. I'm very close with um a shaman in Los Angeles who's who's also a dear friend. She's the first shaman I ever worked with, and and she told me uh six months ago when I finished it. She said, uh Jonathan, this is not just a book. Um, this is an offering. And there are some more offerings that you have to give. So I'd like to like to think of it that way as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

So you're just beginning. Mm-hmm. Well, how can people reach you? I'm gonna guess Instagram and is there an email address you want to give out? If people are checking this out, especially publishers and they're interested, how can people find out what you're up to and contact you?

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yeah, uh, Instagram is definitely the number one way, John Duella on Instagram, and uh email would be uh John Duella, J-O-N-D-U-E-L-A at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

All right, I'm gonna leave you with this. I was thinking to you this morning. I woke up, and as I always do, I make some espresso and I read books. I know, crazy idea, right? Reading. And I pulled out a book of one of our favorite authors that we talk about all the time, the one and only Alan Watts. Are you ready for this quote?

unknown 16:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

This one, I was like, this is for Jonathan. Here we go. Advice? I don't have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you're writing, you're a writer. Write like you're a goddamn death row inmate, and the governor is out of the country and there's no chance for a pardon. Write like you're clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles on your last breath, and you've got just one last thing to say, like you're a bird flying over us, and you can see everything. And please, for God's sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know we're not alone. Right like you have a message from the king, or don't. Who knows? Maybe you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to.

unknown 17:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Boom, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Wow. Thank you for that gift. My goodness. I'm feeling that all over.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, it's right on, right? Is that what you felt like when you were writing? It's a possession. Yes. Yeah, yes. Has to come out.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Has to.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Otherwise it stagnates and we die. Death of the heart. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

All right, Jonathan. Love you, brother. Thanks so much for coming back to talk to us today. And I would love it when you do get published. Let's get you back on here and let's discuss it some more. Love you too, brother. Thank you for everything, always.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Hello, my name is Jefferson De Leon, and I am a scientist in the biotech sector and a comedy musician, and I am a proud sponsor of the Creativity is the Cure podcast. Because creativity is central to who I am and what I do. Check out my creations on my website, JeffersonDeleon.com. That is J E F F E R S O N D E L E O N E dot com.