And I see that I wasn't the perfect soldier in the band I painted myself to be (and thought I was.) There were lots of things I wasn't the least bit interested in - the Lipsha record, the Stone Roses cover album, the Sgt. Pepper cover album, working with Miley Cyrus, etc. - that I would just simply skate out of and not participate in. I operated under the delusion that it didn't matter (and it ultimately didn't. Those records got made or are getting made whether I'm around or not), but I can see how it might look to the other guys in the band and how it might cast doubts on my ultimate allegiance to said band. And, if that's what they were or are thinking, they're correct. While I did cast aside my personal feelings about working on the song with Kesha for the Heady Fwends album and worked on it as hard as I could, I didn't do a single fucking thing on any of the songs earmarked for the Lipsha album.

And I'm now of a mind to find that inexcusable. As far as the Flaming Lips are concerned, you're either all in or you're all out. And that's an attitude I admire and part of what was so appealing to me when I joined that band in the first place. I have deluded myself over the past couple of years into thinking I was all in when I wasn't. I thought I could participate when it was something I was interested in and go off and do other things when it was something I wasn't. And that's a bullshit attitude. And I'm ashamed that I'm only now realizing it. I've thought a lot about my time with that band in the month and a half since I was fired and I can't believe I operated under the delusion of, "everything was great and then all of a sudden Wayne flipped out and fired me because I called a friend of his a spoiled rich wannabe-hipster socialite cunt" (at least that's what I said to the best of my memory. And you can see why I thought that was overly harsh and deleted it.)