An attorney challenging first-term Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) moonlights as a live-action vampire role-player, according to a Florida political news site.
SaintPetersBlog on Tuesday detailed Jake Rush’s involvement in the Mind’s Eye Society, a national community of live-action role-players. Rush played a host of supernatural characters — “Chazz Darling” and “Staas van der Winst” were just two of his alter-egos — and kept up an active presence on the Camarilla Wiki Project, a Wikipedia-like website that allowed role-players to share content.
Business Insider also reported that Rush appears to have held a prominent position with a Florida-based group called the “Covenant of the Poisoned Absinthe,” which stages “an assortment of games from White Wolf’s selection, including Vampire: The Masquerade, Changeling: The Lost, and Mage: The Awakening.” White Wolf publishes live-action role-playing games for the Mind’s Eye community.
But at least one message that Rush appears to have posted on a Yahoo message board in 2010 under his “Chazz Darling” vampire alias is eyebrow-raising. Rush wrote in an explicit and now-deleted post to another role-player that he “wanted to stick my dick in your mouth to shut you up while I snorted a line off my new machete,” before warning “you shouldn’t believe everything that people tell you or you’re going to end up naked and sore, tied to the floor of a van marked ‘Free Candy,'” according to SaintPetersBlog.
Rush responded to the attention around his role-playing in a lengthy statement that emphasized his acting experience while blaming Yoho’s campaign for “mischaracterizing” his “gaming and theatre hobby.”
“As a straight shooter, yes, I play and have played video games, role playing games, board games, Yahtzee, Clue, and I have acted in dozens of theatre productions,” Rush said, as quoted by SaintPetersBlog.
“Bottom line – There is nothing wrong with being a gamer. It’s kinda nerdy, but North Central Florida deserves a legitimate debate on the issues instead of Ted Yoho’s usual sideshow distractions,” he concluded.
Images via Jake Rush For Congress / Camarilla Wiki
