Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Clair - Obscure close captioned...

My film is going to be screened at the Abilities arts festival in Toronto during the last week of October. I was elated to find this out two weeks ago. It came at the perfect time - I was wondering if my film career was down the toilet. This gave me hope to continue with my message - and try to change the stigma that still hangs over mental illness.

This is the actual script from the film. The italics are a voice over in the beginning of the film, and 2nd part is when one of the creepy doctors speak to an auditorium of other doctors.

Must be seen to be believed.
Working on getting it up on Youtube.

It's the first time that I ever sat down to transcribe the monologue (which was a stream of thought process - me and a microphone, a cigarette in a darkened recording studio at 3am one January morning). It's pretty heavy duty.

I hope you enjoy it....


**
(opening sequence - series of disturbing still black and white images of the mentally ill)

You have a healthy, or can have a relatively healthy young adult, or a young person turning into adulthood, who beings to go into a psychosis, withdrawals from the people that he or she loves, and is distant from those people; at the same time that individual, that child, is clearly in enormous emotional pain, psychological pain, can't interact with people and has a disease which can last for years.



I don't like going back, and remembering. It brings me too close, to things that i wanted to forget, things that I need to forget, to go on, to live normally again.
I've come through this and I have so many questions with no answers: what is reality, who are we, where are we going, what's beyond the darkness and the silence? it's so hard to remember what happened, it's so far away. Maybe, it's far away it because that's a safe distance for me to keep from those ghosts. Sleep was my escape, and I did that often.Getting up in the morning and facing the day and having to think of getting up and living was awful thought.There would be people around me, yet I felt like like there was nobody. I'd walk and wander around aimlessly, tyring to pass the moments, hoping that the next would be better than the last.


When I'd walk, alone downtown, I knew that people would look at me; and when they would, I'd ask myself if they knew that I was sick? And if they could tell If it was in my eyes, or if I was just giving off this kind of energy? I thought that people knew.

Sometimes I became so afraid that people were following me. I was afraid that I was going to be shot, or killed, or that the world would end.
It was awful.

My imagination went into fifth gear and out of control. My reality began to shift, and mould to this paranoia, which was growing and growing.
I lived in constant fear.
I'd often thing of the Romans and their infamous blood baths, how they would sit in hot springs and slit their wrists and let the blood flow. The hot water made the blood thinner and would take away the pain.

I thought it would be so easy just to let death come like sleep.
Sleep.
Just to let death come like sleep.
The nights would go on forever. I'd wait for sleep, but sleep would never come.
My reality became altered, and what reality I had, I felt like I was losing grip of it. Gradually.
I was losing control of myself.

I went through a battery of tests, where my body became property of the hospital and the sterilized hand of curious doctors who longed to dissect my mind.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, our patient today is manic depressive with paranoid delusions. Since the 1920's, we've known that this disorder is located in the located in the pre-frontal lobes. Traditionally, we've used more drastic and invasive procedures including the pre-frontal lobotomy and other forms of psychosurgery to treat this problem.However today we will employ a newly developed chemical therapy which acts on the same malfunctioning neuro-connections that we know to be associated with paranoia and depression.

This procedure serves the same function as severing the pre-frontal lobes and has the same pacifying effect without the physical disfigurement or more drastic side effects of a lobotomy. There is however, some pain and disorientation associated with this therapy since the injection is made directly into the brain itself. It is therefore necessary to anesthetize the patient before we being. Hopefully she will be cooperative.


These depressions, they were a part of me, they became part of my landscape.
This depression, this feeling - it grabs you, it suffocates you.
It's hard.
I've become completely desperate.
It hurts.
It's so heavy.
I have no strength for anything else.
I'm lost.
I'm afraid.

**

(fade to black - then this poem appears on black in blue type over silence)

I've seen insanity,
my mind has run
to hell and back.
I've seen the emptiness
and live in its void .

**

the end

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

for Jen


for Jen
Originally uploaded by hellophotokitty
My friend Jen's mother died a few days ago - she never had a chance to say goodbye. I feel so sad for her and her loss. Can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like. Don't even want to go there.

Life has really shoveled the shit her way too. And despite it all, she kept her chin up, a brave face and best foot foward, stomping out any bad energy that surrounded her.

She was getting her life in order too, and this happened.

We are never ready for death. Who is? People who know that it's coming around the corner? People who have faced it before?

In the weeks before my mother gets the test results from her PET scan, I wonder too if I will have to be in Jen's position soon, and it scares the living crap out of me...

living

no pun intended...

Sunday, May 20, 2007

It's been accepted - Clair Obscure - a film by Kathy Slamen...

I could not beleive it...
Got home and checked some emails - and there it was - the acceptance email I had secretly been hoping for.

click on the image for more...

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Classes for men

I'm still in tears after reading this...

God help us if this were true.
on second thought - maybe it should be...



THE LEARNING CENTER FOR ADULTS
REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED BY June 29, 2007
NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM.

Class 1
How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays --- Step by Step, with Slide
Presentation.
Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 2
The Toilet Paper Roll --- Does It Change Itself?
Round Table Discussion.
Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

Class 3
Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and
Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub? --- Group Practice.
Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 4
Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor ---
Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.
Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

Class 5
After Dinner Dishes --- Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink?
Examples on Video.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM

Class 6
Loss Of Identity --- Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other.
Help Line Support and Support Groups.
Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

Class 7
Learning How To Find Things --- Starting With Looking In The Right Places
And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.
Open Forum . Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

Class 8
Health Watch --- Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health.
Graphics and Audio Tapes.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 9
Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost --- Real Life Testimonials.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined.

Class 10
Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks?
Driving Simulations.
4 weeks, Saturday's noon, 2 hours.

Class 11
Learning to Live --- Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife.
Online Classes and role-playing .
Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

Class 12
How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion
Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques .
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 13
How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy --- Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and
Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late.

Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 14
The Stove/Oven --- What It Is and How It Is Used.
Live Demonstration.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined.


Upon completion of any of the above courses,
diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Thursday, May 03, 2007

coming together!

The stuff is coming together!
The frames are on the floor all over my front room, waiting to be bubble wrapped and sent out.
God.
What a headache it was last night - fighting with stray white stiff cat hairs landing on black mats!
No matter how hard I tried, how much I wiped, blew, moved, shook each frame, there was always cat hair somewhere!

next time, I will pay a framer to put this stuff together for me!
So much less of a headache!

Spoke with the curator the other night - she's super pumped about my "self portraiture as healing" idea.
I'm a practical dreamer - I dream of things, and then I find ways to make them come true.

My type of artist!

I told her that my vibe says that we could do some great work together.

Crossing my fingers that things are finally coming together.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

hemo-somethingorother

My throat still hurts, and stomach still pinches after my g-scope - or endoscopy as it's called.

Not a pretty thing.
Despite the fact that I had asked for enough meds to knock out an elephant, I was awake through the whole thing. And it was a bitch...

Imagine if you will - a long rubber snake - thick and ugly going down your throat into your stomach.

Then imagine the feeling of having pieces of your stomach scraped away with a really sharp exacto knife.





Can you see it now?
good

that's what I had done to me yesterday morning.

And I woke up today with the residual internal body aches.

The doctor refreshed my memory - that I had a lovely hemoangioma on my liver. Basically a beauty spot that is non-cancerous, and is pretty common.

I remember that - we did tons of abdominal scans and an MRI to rule out anything.
Have to give the guy credit - he was thorough

But this thing hurt like hell in a handbag!

***

Spent most of the night putting images into mats into frames.
Shipping is the next big part.

I really hope I sell something this time.
It's really nice to have my stuff in galleries all over the place, but damm - it's getting expensive to ship and frame all of it!

But nonetheless, I'm excited.
The curator of the show is really excited about my work.
Told her last night about my project: Self-portraiture as a healing tool. She said that I had something promising.

I'm a practical dreamer - I dream about things, but then do what I need to make them come true.

That's just the kind of person I need on my side right now.

Fingers and liver spots crossed!