Continuing Theatrical Work in Progress
August 30, 2009
Woman in Straight-jacket:
I popped a couple of Wellbutrin last night to kick start a mania. Off all drugs for a few months and making a dive, it’s worth a try. If that doesn’t work, I’ll add the Adderol. Thankfully, my manias are controllable. I don’t think I’m Jesus. I don’t fly to Greece to rebuild the Pantheon. I just get through the day without the stabbing physical pain of consciousness. Some depressives describe depression as an all-over body ache, an anvil pressing against their heart, the tightening of a sieve around their head, a first-degree burn behind their eyes. Wretched thoughts are the least of it. Any idiot can control negative thoughts with simple cognitive exercises found in an Oprah reviewed self-help book. I am worthy. I deserve to exist. Everything is okay. I am not to blame, but after practicing the positive thinking techniques, and quieting the mind, the body has it’s own mind and it doesn’t respond to the bullshit as easily. The body is a third consciousness that picks up cues far beyond the reach of rationalization. It doesn’t give a shit if I’m worthy and deserve to exist. It doesn’t care if everything is okay.
A drug, in this case, Wellbutrin, even as a placebo, can stop the physical pain of sadness. In fact, it can calm the body even if the mind continues to insist that life is not worth living. If your body feels good you don’t care if life is worth living or not. You can go out for a pizza, take a bath, read a magazine, without the burning coals of
Hells kitchen under your feet.
No, I do not work for a pharmaceutical company. I just believe that the body-mind connection, though real, is not dependable. I know that the mind controls the body, alters the chemical cocktails and adjusts the hormonal thermostat. But if somebody takes an iron frying pan and slams you over the head, the mind can’t stop the bleeding. Depression is a well aimed frying pan.
If you don’t have a job you can’t take a vacation. I don’t work so I can’t take any time off. I am constantly not working, day in and day out, year in and year out and the monotony of it wears on me. If you don’t work a job you are usually working in other ways that are much more exhausting. Not only that, you don’t get paid. If you think that not working is easy, give it a try. The mind and body were not built for leisure, and they rebel against it. You will fidget and worry and piddle-diddle around with various projects and find yourself neck deep in half-assed projects that need to be finished. You don’t have time to finish them because you don’t have a job and you don’t need to be anywhere in the morning, so you can sleep in or get up and lounge around procrastinating, and soon it’s 5pm and all you’ve done is create another half-assed project that you can’t finish because you aren’t working. A job brings numerous benefits, the least being the paycheck, the best being a structure, scaffolding for your life from which you offshoot. Without a foundation, a building falters, and in this case the building is your life, the foundation your job, whether you hate or love it, plan to quit or climb the ladder. Lousy or good job- both potential springboards.
Artists speak of their “work” – and work it is, but work is not considered work without a paycheck. Cash doesn’t count either. There must be a paycheck and a pay stub and an acknowledgement from the government, as they garnish your wages, that your work is valued monetarily. Manual labor is sometimes immune to this rule. Digging a ditch is work, paycheck or not. Digging your own grave is the ultimate expression of meaningful work. You are attending to the inevitable, the place you will go when you are, finally, on vacation.
My friends think I’m a bum because I don’t get a paycheck. Well, not exactly. I get a check from the government because I am disabled. I am disabled because I cannot work. I cannot work because I cannot wear pantyhose. I cannot wear pantyhose because it makes me insane. I am insane therefore I am unemployable. I am unemployable because I am disabled. I cannot work because I am too busy working. I cannot work because my number one life priority is freedom. Freedom is Uncle Sam’s middle name, so he on some level understands which is why he pacifies people like me with 700 bucks a month. Otherwise we would take to the streets and rob the drugstores blind.
My psychiatrist suggested Social Security Income, i.e. disability, because he considered my depression disabling on a global scale. I questioned my ability, as a white, educated woman, to pay inspection. The disability interview that applicants of SSI are required to endure. My psychiatrist said, don’t worry. With the letter I write for you, they’ll take heed.
I went to the interview dressed in skirt, blouse and pantyhose. I walked into government office in the pantyhose and sat down regally, with purse set primly on my starched and ironed polyester lap. When they called my number, I stood tall and waltzed with confidence and elegance to the desk of a government employee whose job it was to decide whether I was insane.
I don’t remember the questions I was asked. The female government employee, wearing the same blouse and skirt, looked over my psychiatrist’s letter and said, “Looks like you’ve had a difficult time.” She expected me to extrapolate. I did not.
I worked against type, as I had learned in my Sanford Meisner acting classes.
“Well, no not really” I answered. “I think my psychiatrist is prone to exaggeration.”
“In what way?” She was now in confrontational mode. I was not following protocol. I was, I expect, supposed to blubber and start speaking in tongues.
“I think, actually, that I am merely misunderstood. I feel I am perfectly able to work if given the right opportunity.”
“What opportunity might that be?” she asked.
I smiled demurely and took a Kleenex out of my pocketbook. I held the Kleenex to an eye.
“If only I could give as I want to give, to the people who are truly disabled? Who truly need guidance. I am very good with children, for example, and also very good with older people. Do you offer any employment placement services here?”
That was it. She circled something at the bottom of the form. Stapled it to the psychiatrist’s letter, threw it into her outbox and leaned towards me.
“Thank you for coming in. We’ll be in touch.”
A few weeks later I received a check for 723 dollars. I am still receiving checks for 723 dollars each month under the stipulation that I remain too insane to work, too insane to improve, to insane to rebel, but not too insane to need more than 723 dollars a month to live on.
Man in a suit:
My law practice, specializing in marital divorce, doesn’t bring in the kind of income I had hoped for. People who want a divorce, at least in Milwaukee, are hiding their money from their spouses and themselves. They are money-poor, money desperate, money motivated. They’ve lost the love they thought would save them, and although they profess relief, it’s an enormous loss to them on a deep level. The deepest level. I get the brunt of that deep level anxiety in that they don’t want to fork over any dough in the process. They just want out. Out, but with some money left over.
They all cry poverty, and being that I’ve been divorced a couple of times, I feel their pain. I take them on, hoping they’ll pay me after the settlement, but that rarely happens. I can’t turn people away. I wasn’t raised that way, neither were my brother and sister, and that’s probably part of the reason we struggle through life like salmon swimming upstream during a severe drought. It’s like this: We don’t like to fuck people over and we don’t like to see people suffer. We don’t like to go to bed at night thinking that we made a buck due to someone’s vulnerability, fear, gullibility or just plain stupidity. The universal stupidity that suggests an old-fashioned trust based on business ethic principals to which every suited ape, you assume, is attuned.
For whatever reason, we Casey’s, with the exception of my sister, would rather be duped than dupe others. It’s not that we’re necessarily fans of Buddhist or Christ like principals, we just don’t want the hassle that being an asshole eventually brings to the fore. It’s selfish, really, and lazy. The ya-da-ya-da sucker-born-every-minute mind-set is a low life attitude and becomes it’s own punishment.
Woman on a hotel stool with Martini:
Sitting at the Taj Hotel bar in Boston with two men and a woman. I’m there on a whim, meeting an old friend for a beer, choosing the hotel because it’s an easy landmark. Martini doused, the two men, one puffy and white, the other thin and Indian, roll through polite conversation towards the subject of profitability.
“I got out of Harvard and hell, I was just a kid, and the opportunity came along, porn films, and I made a shit load of money, but that was a long time ago.”
“Hey, man, I know” says the Indian. “Did the same thing. Still going on. Did you work with Mac Burgess?”
“Well, sure, I guess, think so.”
“Mac’s still with it.”
“I would like to say I’m out of the game. As I said, made shitloads of money. But money runs out.”
I was waiting for a friend that never came. Before I knew it, I was drunk and the Indian was propositioning me.
“You’re a good looking broad. I’ve got some work for you. Want to make a lot of money in one day? “ He put his purple shining mouth next to my ear. “I say, you’re a fine bitch. Wanna make some quick dough?”
The white, puffy Harvard man stirred his martini with his finger and stuck it in his mouth. His eyes were dull and drifting.
“I can’t really say.” he said to himself. “what happened….. I was at Harvard. Not a great student, but not at the bottom. It was different back then, not an issue. Kind of innocent. I was just a kid. I went to L.A. and people gave me a shit-load of money.”
“What do you do now?” I asked, because I wanted to know. I wanted to know how this white, puffy man could afford his Rolex, his alligator shoes, a martini bill in a five star hotel. He looked like an insurance agent.
“I sell insurance.” he answered emotionless. “Easy money.” He added.
The Indian took affront.
“Not as easy as porn, not as much fun” he challenged. “It’s fun, admit it.”
“It was a long time ago” said the Harvard man. “I was a kid.”
Buy Art from a non-artist and SAVE SAVE SAVE.
July 30, 2009
That’s right, buy your oil paintings from a true non-professional and save, save, save. I have as much chance of becoming the next Van Gogh as most of my serious artist friends, maybe more so, because I am much more insane than they are.Dumb- Ster
June 2, 2009
The cop looked in the dumpster and noticed a picture of his wife. He had just received a complaint from the Olympic Sports store that someone had dumped bags of garbage in their dumpster. That someone was me. I’d cleaned out a few drawers of hometown memories that morning, – high school notebooks, graduation pictures, diplomas, clippings and headed into what I thought was a free-for-all dumpster tucked behind a strip mall. After I threw the bags into the dumpster I took a walk with the dog and when I returned to my car I was met by the policeman and the assistant manager of the Olympic Sports store. Read more
Hope Wins the Day
June 1, 2009
In a dark casino, next to the stage, the elderly couple in wig and toupee took off their sneakers and slipped into a matching pair of patent leather dance shoes. The four shiny shoes were very still under the cocktail table, waiting for something. The woman in a Dress Barn outfit hugged her purse to her chest like a hot water bottle. Mona Lisa smile on her face, head nodding like a doggie car ornament, she seemed content listening to my droning ballad. The man, fidgeting, finally walked to the stage. He stood head to hem with my sequin gown.
“We’d like to dance.” he said. “We come here to dance.”
It was a Sunday afternoon on a beautiful spring day in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Inside the cavernous casino, the size of three football fields, there wasn’t any weather, any spring, any Sunday. Hundreds of slot machines clanged and whistled under flashing lights and piped in light rock music. Heavily painted, perky older woman and road weary, leathery men with cigarettes hanging from their lips pushed quarters into the noisy machines, hundreds of them, then went to the cashier to get more. There were several men and women in wheelchairs with oxygen tank hoses stuffed into their noses. Their husbands and wives pushed them from slot machine to gambling table to the bar. They were also smoking.
I asked a coughing woman about the smoke.
“They’ve got a state of the art ventilating system here, so it don’t bother us too much.”
My trio had been hired for the 2 to 6pm Sunday Jazz Series. The stage, dead center, had a nautical motif – a life-sized lighthouse surrounded with hunks of painted plastic resembling boulders. I was singing “Old Cape Cod” when the man in the dance shoes interrupted me.
“We need something with a rhythm, dance music. We come here to dance.”
His wife called to me from her table. “We enjoy a rumba.”
The lights on the stage were so bright that I could not make out their faces. All I could see were the shining shoes. All I could hear were the slot machines. I didn’t know what a rumba was. I faked “Besame Mucho” with invented Spanish. Suddenly, everyone was on their feet, alive and moving and happy. Shaking arthritic hips beneath pot bellies camouflaged behind unbelted shirts. Salt of the earth, spending money they didn’t have, manufacturing joy on a Sunday afternoon in a casino, the world that screwed them every day temporarily expunged from their minds.
In the dim light, they were young again, high on nicotine and vodka tonics, surrounded with the hope of a big win. My self righteous loathing for gambling and casinos evaporated. Where else could you take 50 dollars and turn it into an afternoon of possibility? Sure, a few would overdo it, but what was there to lose, really? A double wide trailer? If we all lost the little we have wouldn’t our lives be more exciting? Living under a highway, scavenging for food, a good story in our pocket about how we almost hit the jackpot? Isn’t that better than the drudgery of responsible serfdom?
I come from the same stock. The hardy folk shuffling around the dance floor reminded me of my parents and their ability to enjoy life at a VFW pot-luck supper or a Saturday night dance at the American Legion.
I’d almost felt superior. When was the last time I had enjoyed myself so completely? When was the last time I’d felt hope instead of cynicism? These people in their outdated clothes and sickly countenance had me beat. The casino, for profit, offered an afternoon of hope. An honorable business practice, in my opinion. No matter how futile, hope wins the day.
Friend bribes me with Cash to write a Book
May 25, 2009
Things I’ll do before I sit down to write: almost anything. Delayed gratification is not an option for me because I do not believe that tomorrow ever comes. So why would I do anything that requires waiting for a pay off, or worse yet, work on anything without a guarantee that I will reap some reward? I hear many drummer’s and they’re all playing a different tune. My mind jumps, so a good friend is bribing me to write a book. He is bribing me with cash per finished chapter. My response to this Pavlovian exercise has been astounding. All I have to do is write a chapter, and then another chapter, and each time I finish a chapter, I get a reward, whether or not the chapters are good, whether or not the book sells. I am just writing the book — not worrying about whether it’s good or whether it will sell. I am off my own back. Because my sponsor has no conditions other than finishing a chapter before a payment, I just sit down and the words roll out of me from an entirely different place than usual. I am free to just write the book and a book is evolving without an outline. This good friend is not a money-bag, which makes this arrangement all the more poignant. Suddenly I feel tangible– which makes me realize that I do not think of myself as authentic. More of a poltergeist, floating above a past of futile effort, bad luck, bad timing, false starts, failures heaped and hidden behind a sardonic sense of the world that I have lost faith in. I’ll admit it: I have lost hope. I feel I have some ancient Irish curse on my head which prevents me from any monetary success. And of course, now I am addicted to the money struggles– which take up a huge part of the day– just the worry and fret of it — and the time and energy it takes to worry about money detracts from the time I have to fail again. Failure takes time. You have to work at something to fail successfully. You have to dream. You have to methodically and courageously participate in that dream. You have to brainwash yourself into believing in the dream. There’s no room for second guessing or mindless worry. My past weighs so heavy on me. A realist, I don’t believe in the tooth fairy or destiny. I did, yes, long ago. Hey, look at me. I should be writing a chapter now instead of discussing why I wouldn’t bother writing a chapter if not for my Fairy Godfather.
Don’t Give Up Late Bloomers!
April 30, 2009
The gifted adult: a lot going on inside
Growing up, many people with exceptional ability and multiple talents experience themselves as too different to fit in with ‘normal’ groups.
As adults, some do become the high achievers that Malcolm Gladwell writes about in his book Outliers: The Story of Success [see the post Outliers and developing exceptional abilities.]
But there are many internal barriers to prominence and achievement for gifted and talented people.
Researchers on the psychology of giftedness and gifted adults, have detailed these dynamics, and many are explored on this site, including the High Ability section.
Social reactions
“They realize they are intense, driven, and complex, but they have been taught that their strong personalities are excessive, too different from the norm, and consequently wrong,” writes Mary-Elaine Jacobsen in her book The Gifted Adult.
She adds, “In a culture that often equates different with wrong, it’s inevitable that gifted adults point a critical finger toward themselves as the source of their discontent: Why can’t I just be like everyone else? Shouldn’t I have outgrown this type of identity crisis by now? Why can’t I (overcome) this nagging sense of urgency? Will I ever feel satisfied? What’s wrong with me?”
Complex and deep thinking
Lesley Sword, Director of Gifted & Creative Services Australia, declares, “It is the combination of complex and deep thinking and rich and intense emotion that produces the gifted persons’ greater potential for high achievement.”
[From her article Psycho-social Needs: Understanding The Emotional, Intellectual and Social Uniqueness Of Growing Up Gifted. See list of articles by Lesley Sword.]
On the Gifted Adults page of her site, she notes: “There is no magic age when giftedness disappears. Gifted children grow into gifted adults with the same unique attributes and life issues.
“However, gifted adults are rarely aware of their giftedness. Some misinterpret their complex and deep way of thinking as ‘craziness’.
“Some mistake their emotional intensity for emotional immaturity or see it as a character flaw. Because they have never been given information to explain what is “normal for gifted” they frequently experience frustration in the world, alienation, anger, self-blame and emptiness.
“Gifted people have characteristics that transcend the boundaries of age, nationality, gender and occupation.”
Some traits and qualities
Here are some of the characteristics she lists, with links I have added to related pages on this site.
* Are you a perfectionist?
* Do you have strong moral convictions?
* Do you have a passion for justice?
* Are you highly sensitive?
* Do you have passionate, intense feelings?
* Do you have a great sense of humor?
* Are you intuitive, perceptive or insightful?
* Are you fascinated by words or an avid reader?
* Do you often feel out-of-sync with others?
* Are you very curious or a good problem solver?
* Do you have a vivid imagination?
* Do you often question rules or authority?
* Do you thrive on challenge?
* Do you feel overwhelmed by many interests and abilities?
* Do you love ideas and ardent discussion?
* Do you need periods of contemplation
April 29, 2009
Stop It!
April 13, 2009
Stop it! Stop trying! Stop the Vaudeville Monkey Dance! Stop “stooping to conquer” – it’s over, the game, the dream, the plan, the linked-in, Facebooked, You Tubed You.
The end of hope is the beginning of art. It has taken me 56 glorious failures in 56 confusing years to figure that out. Now I get it…and I get it good. If they don’t get it, you don’t want them to get it.
Featured Article:
Dumb- Ster
The cop looked in the dumpster and noticed a picture of his wife. He had just received a complaint from the Olympic Sports store that someone had dumped bags of garbage in their dumpster. That someone was me. I’d cleaned out a few drawers of hometown memories that morning, – high school notebooks, graduation pictures, diplomas, clippings and headed into what I thought was a free-for-all dumpster tucked behind a strip mall. After I threw the bags into the dumpster I took a walk with the dog and when I returned to my car I was met by the policeman and the assistant manager of the Olympic Sports store. Read more »