Margaret Gunning magunning@telus.net
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Links to my YouTube channel, YouTube, and Blogger
Margaret Gunning magunning@telus.net
Friday, January 29, 2021
Thursday, January 28, 2021
The reality of mental illness (or: let's REALLY talk!)
Something has been bothering me, a lot, and I’ve gone back and forth on posting about it. Originally I was going to make a YouTube commentary, but couldn’t bring myself to do it without going off the deep end. Then I thought of Facebook, but knew I could get myself into all kinds of trouble there, and that’s the last thing I want.
This incident happened some months ago, when I saw a rare post from a Facebook friend whose posts never seemed to show up in my feed (and only about 10 per cent of my “friends” ever appear there. It's always the same-old. The reason? Facebook assumes that, because they're in my feed a lot, it’s what I want, so gives me “more of the same”).
In typical Facebook fashion, this is someone I know of, but don’t know personally, and with whom I have over a hundred Facebook friends in common. In part due to his platform as an edgy "alternative" arts journalist, he has been quite open about his lifelong struggles with mental illness, believing (and I truly agree with this) that this topic needs to be hauled out of the shadows where it never belonged in the first place. But something was very amiss with his post.
I went on his page to see what was going on. The posts were strange and kind of scary. He used the word “manic” several times, in a lot of different connotations (including some crude sexual references the likes of which I could not find anywhere else on his page). There were veiled and not-so-veiled references to self-destruction and violent death. This made me very uneasy, but far worse than that were the comments: the dozens of “LOLs” and “right ons” and even “awesomes”, as if his readers were finding all of it hugely entertaining.
In spite of or maybe because of the work he had done illuminating mental health issues, people apparently thought this was some kind of exuberant prank and were egging him on. Meantime, hints of suicide kept showing through. He mentioned looking down the seventeen stories of his apartment building and imagined “impaling myself on the maples below”. More LOL’s, more “right ons”, dozens of idiot emojis - and (worst of all) “Hey, we’ve all been there” (which we HAVEN’T. Nothing is more bogus and potentially dangerous as empty, false “empathy”, pretending to know what it feels like when you absolutely do NOT. It’s like saying you know about cancer from a mosquito bite.)
The posts escalated, becoming more florid and making less sense, along with photos that were increasingly alarming, until someone – a family member, I believe - posted with great urgency that anyone who had seen him should contact the family immediately. They didn’t know where he was.
Most of the comments by now expressed concern, but there were still a few dimwitted remarks (“Hey, it's all good! You’re Canada’s gonzo journalist, mate!”) People who compare someone to Hunter S. Thomson should be reminded of how his life ended, with a single gunshot wound to the head.
When the family finally announced they had called the police, most were relieved, but others still went on and on about “oh, no, you didn’t call the COPS on him!” The trouble with unburying mental illness from its airless crypt is that you uproot a whole array of primitive, ignorant, even goddamn stupid attitudes that go with it, such as denial and misperception and totally inappropriate “seeing the funny side” when it really isn’t too damn funny at all. I'm not against it, but humor about such a subject only comes in retrospect. Perspective equals time plus distance. Can you make jokes about heart disease when you’re flat on your back and fighting for your life?
There was a brief update from his brother about how grateful he was to the police for getting him safely to the hospital. This seemed to shut up the idiot Greek chorus for a while. "Police" is such a knee-jerk term, especially to jerks who don't think. The police are trained to deal with people in all kinds of distress, for all kinds of reasons, and for the most part, they do their job very well. But people still use terms that reflect very dated, primitive thinking: "they dragged him off", "they threw him in a mental hospital", etc., when very likely no person was "thrown" at all. Some still use that most horrendous and dehumanizing of terms: "they put him away". It's one of those holdovers from another century (or two) that deserves to disappear.
I see two kinds of posts on FB about the “hot topic” of mental health (the term seemingly replacing “mental illness”, which assumed you could never be well): boilerplate posts as ready-made as a microwave dinner (“Most of you won’t even bother to read this far” and “copy and paste this message, DON’T share, just to show you care!”, emoji, emoji, emoji). I always have the vague uneasy feeling that someone is making money off these things. To alleviate that vague guilt that hangs around most of us these days, people WILL copy and paste the thing, hoping they've done their bit to "raise awareness" and can just get on with their day.
The other approach is much like the “cancer awareness” thing where it seems like a bunch of cheerleaders waving pink pom-poms. In this case, God only knows where your donations end up. I’m not saying we shouldn’t address the subject - quite the opposite. But let’s really talk, talk about things that are real and painful, not spout easy platitudes and rah-rah for the team. Believe it or not, there is a time when "being positive" is the last thing you need to do.
I think depression and PTSD have largely come out of the closet, which is a start, though celebrities still “admit” they suffered from depression years and years ago (NEVER recently – that’s still too great a risk). PTSD is associated with first responders, military heroes, sometimes cops, but that’s about it. If you were sexually abused as a child and can barely function, that’s not it, it has to be called something else. Due to media emphasis and a certain level of social discomfort, PTSD has been largely claimed by heroic figures running into burning buildings. People insist they’re even more heroic for the tremendously risky act of seeking help.
I won't say much about myself because it is too excruciating, except to say that when I "disclosed" to a literary agent that I have bipolar disorder, she emailed me back with two words: "You're brave." It struck me as a remark along the lines of, "I wish I had the nerve to wear that dress." The "brave" thing was weird, because I could have bipolar disorder and be the biggest chicken on the block. Having it doesn't automatically make you "brave". So I guess she thought I was brave to have the nerve to tell her such a thing. I was left with the feeling that I had done something that had made her profoundly uncomfortable.
I like to say, and often people don’t have a clue what I mean, that when it comes to mental illness, we haven’t had our Stonewall yet. We're about where LGBTQ people were in 1970. Why do I insist on being so "negative"? Every day, people bandy about terms like “whack job”, "psycho", "fruitcake" and “nut bar”, expressing casual contempt for people who, like my Facebook friend, COULD NOT HELP his behaviour, because that is the nature of the illness. The mentally ill are the very last group of people in our culture whom you can vilify, mock and dismiss with no penalties, because no one even notices you’re doing it. We all say those things, don’t we? Why is it such a problem? It doesn’t really mean anything. Can't we say anything any more? Why are you so damned oversensitive?
I lost a beloved brother, the one confidante and support I had in a childhood lived in an emotional war zone, to the damaging effects of schizophrenia, back when all they could do for people was drug them senseless to keep them from “acting out”. And yes, sometimes we lost track of him, didn’t know where he was and had to call the police, and it was horrific. Then when the worst happened, my mother-in-law said to me in a terrible double-entendre, “at least now you know where he is.”
Why does it have to get that bad? It doesn't. If the health care system were more complete, if there were enough beds, if people would drop their mockery and horror and act human, as human as they probably could be if they tried - but I digress. My point is, what you say reflects what you think. It displays your understanding or your ignorance, not just to your Facebook friends but to the world.
Sometimes the less you say the better. Just keep it simple. Take care. I love you. Be well.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Why is "sight-shaming" still acceptable?
I am in a mood of mild but pervasive dread, and I'll tell you why. I have not had my eyes tested in so many years, I don't even remember. I have likely had vision problems since early childhood, though I didn't get glasses until I was eight. Since then it has been ever-stronger prescriptions, including the "progressives" I now wear for both distance and reading.
Well, it's time I got them checked again. My daughter has just undergone serious surgery on her eye, and will need it on the other eye, for a curvature that can only be corrected surgically. She will be off work for weeks, and right now can barely see at all, so can't even read or watch TV. My husband only found out he has cataracts from an eye test. I HAVE to do this, but this foot-dragging isn't just pandemic-related (though absolutely EVERYTHING is pandemic-related now, isn't it?)
This was a long time ago, but it left me feeling so lousy the memory stayed clear (so to speak). I had the standard eye test, then handed the optician my prescription. She ever-so-slightly pulled the paper back in her hand and said, "Whoahhh." This was very up-and-down-inflected. I gave her an inquiring look, and she said, "This is really strong." I should have turned on my heel and walked out, but it was one of those things where you can't quite believe what you heard. I even got my frames from those people. Today I would report anyone who said anything like that.
But it was sight-shaming, and I do wonder - well, who the HELL in the optical business would do a thing like that? Can I HELP having very poor eyesight and wanting to correct it? It's bad enough that I already LOATHE the endless "is this one clearer, or this? Is this one clearer, or is this? Is this one clearer. . ." until I want to scream, since they all look the same. The top letter on the eye chart is blurry, and I always get a chuckle from someone over this. I have gotten used to trying to treat it like a joke.
This may be seen as humorous, but without my glasses I am close to legally blind and cannot function. If I suddenly lost them, I'd be helpless. So this is a cause for exclamations of surprise? Especially said in that "wow!" tone. So I drag my feet and even feel some anxiety and feel bad and stupid for FEELING that anxiety, because, for God's sake, that was years ago and it is only a routine eye exam!! But that is just how things are now. Bad memories are on repeat, or perhaps a better term is speed-dial, and have been for ten or eleven months now. I can't imagine why.
BLOGGER'S NOTE. The two photos above are from that long-ago time when glasses frames were huge. Since I already had a very high-index prescription and glasses were actually made of glass, and extremely thick compared to the high-tech lenses of today, I fairly often heard remarks along the lines of, "I just can't believe how thick those are." I also had them compared to Coke bottle bottoms. It seems to me that, from Mr. Magoo to Helen Keller, people with visual disabilities are targets for mockery far more often than those with, say, hearing impairment. We don't see a man wearing a hearing aid and say, "Whoahh!" - or, at least, I hope not. We don't see someone in a wheelchair and say, " I cannot believe you're in that chair." It's just stupid.
Oh, and one more thing - probably more than one. At least back then, people would literally snatch the glasses right off my face, try them on and exclaim, "WOW! Are you ever blind!", or even, "How do you SEE through those things?" I guess it's a little bit harder to yank a hearing aid out of someone's ear.
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
30-line TV: images from 1930 television broadcast
A stunning example of Baird's pioneering 30-line TV system, first broadcast in 1930.
(But who had a TV back then - ??)
Sunday, January 24, 2021
Shenandoah
I first heard this truly exquisite version of one of my favorite folk tunes many years ago on the radio, and tried to track it down for years. Finding it again was one of those VERY rare occasions of joyful rediscovery that happen on the internet. It is like a distillation of all the finest movie scores from those classic Westerns which idealized everything about America's tawdry, bloody, unforgiveable history. The music has a golden, shimmering translucence, and holds up a lens to view an America that never was, but which Americans still yearn for as "what might have been". But in itself, it is stunning and unabashedly glorious, and I get prickles and goose-bumps and my hair stands on end whenever I hear it. So I share it here. I'm trying my best now to put out a certain energy which runs counter to everything I feel, because I do not want to feed a dragon which could all too easily defeat me for good.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
The Troll Doll Channel: DOUBLE RAINBOW!
A video from my "troll doll channel", which is a subset of ferociousgumby. I LOVE the Double Rainbow guy!
(Note: for those who may be following this blog, I'm going to be posting some of my videos now just to get me through this ALMOST worst of all possible times. I have fun making these, and more fun sharing them, even if only a handful of people ever see them. For now, that is the energy I want to put out.)
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Christopher Walken as child actor in strange 1953 TV appearance
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Though Christopher Walken insists he had a swell childhood, it looks as if he endured some nasty treatment as a child actor. Here Jerry Lewis acts like the asshole he is, shaking and shoving poor Chris (then known as Ronnie) in a way which I HOPE would not be tolerated today.
Monday, January 18, 2021
CLOWN RAGE! Clarabell throws HUGE temper tantrum
Clarabell the Clown throws a HUGE temper tantrum on Howdy Doody. Buffalo Bob has to physically restrain him. Clowns were creepy then, too.
I was fascinated to learn in my Clarabell deep dive that he was played by three different actors during the show's (interminable) 13-year run. The first Clarabell was none other than Bob Keeshan, who went on to greater fame as Captain Kangaroo. I watched the Captain every day of my childhood and loved it, especially the primitive "hand-made" animations that were kind of similar to the things I do on YouTube. It involved a kind of stop-motion with pieces of construction paper pulled around on a board.
I don't know which Clarabell this is, but I don't think it's Bob Keeshan. The few clips I've found show that he was a gentler, more whimsical character than his successors, relying on facial expressions rather than thick layers of rather hideous-looking makeup.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
KINESCOPE THEATRE: Whistling Clowns from 1940s TV
The Dumont Television Network was a very big deal in the 1940s - the ONLY deal, for that matter, with programming so crude it's hard to believe people were so excited about it. But it was the only game in town, so they had nothing to compare it to. Early TVs were always in a cabinet with folding doors that kept it hidden. People were not used to that big staring glass eye in their house, and thought it was ugly and had to be covered up. Many people actually believed the people in "TV Land" could see THEM, which made them uncomfortable.
But Dumont programming is time travel at its finest. It was difficult for them to find enough programming to fill the six or eight hours or so of their broadcast day. Dramas were 15 minute long, but variety shows like the Admiral Broadway Revue (most shows were named after their sponsors, like the Autolite Suspense Theatre) went on forever and were performed on a stage like vaudeville. This astonishingly weird clown routine went on for more than FOUR minutes! For reasons I can't quite explain, I find these videos fascinating, and the grainier, blurrier and more primitive they are, the more I love them.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Why the United States is self-destructing before our eyes
I have some things to say to our neighbor to the South, as we watch all these atrocities in utter horror. Much has been made in the media about how the barbarians are "at the gate". Wrong. These thugs are not "AT" the gate. They trampled the gate down and ransacked the symbolic heart of government, putting everyone's lives at risk for hours while the cops stood back, posed for selfies with white supremacists, and even directed traffic, showing the mob the way to those offices that are so hard to find. Have you forgotten that already? How short is your attention span?
Everyone is now talking in circles, "discussing" whether they "should" try to stop this monster right away rather than allow his white supremacist lackeys to re-organize and try it again, perhaps tomorrow or the next day, or even TODAY. But the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis will not just quietly retreat while you wait until Biden takes power. Biden (whom I have respected up to now) is putting the whole situation on hold and passing the buck on impeachment for six months so he will have a nice opportunity to establish his policies without "distractions".
Meanwhile, holding your breath for twelve more days (which was actually floated as a "strategy") doesn't sound too rational to me. When the next attack comes - WHEN, not if - more lives will be lost. Perhaps, astoundingly more. This time it was "only" five, and by US standards, five lives lost doesn't seem to even qualify as a mass shooting. It's small potatoes, perhaps the price of doing business with Trump.
WAKE UP! Trump is a criminal and should be arrested and jailed NOW, in a maximum security prison. It is the only response that makes any sense at all. His followers are killers, and an even more formidable force now because a splinter group is forming which is furious with Trump and feel disillusioned and betrayed. They are capable of ANY kind of insurrection which comes to their evil minds. Remember history - Hitler's own henchmen tried to assassinate him more than once, not to free their country from tyranny but so that THEY could seize power.
Ruthless, soulless people will turn on the one they worshipped in a heartbeat, leading to incalculably more violence and bloodshed - while the "discussion" goes on and on, going in useless circles while nothing is done. COME ON, PEOPLE! Be responsible and sane, and ACT. Are you scared you'll maybe break one of the rules? WHAT RULES? They have been smashed all to pieces! Mass arrests are happening now, the guys wearing furs and horns and waving American flags with bayonets on them, but meanwhile the ringleader is humored and allowed to go on untouched for another 12 days - for the same reason he has gone on untouched for four years, even after he was formally impeached.
EVERYONE IS AFRAID OF HIM.
Everyone - the nation, the cops, the President-elect, and most especially, his own corrupt party - is terrified of this man, too terrified and paralyzed to DO anything. It is as if they are "waiting", buying themselves time and refusing to act quickly enough to save the nation.
You people are afraid of your own President, a direct result of allowing yourselves to be ruthlessly bullied and cowed for four years. It's too late for clever Randy Rainbow parodies and Alec Baldwin caricatures that have enabled people to laugh about and distance themselves from the horror for so many years. Humor is a distancing tool and a coping mechanism, but it is in shreds and tatters now. It's not funny any more, and trying to pretend it is will only make things worse.
As a Canadian, I have to watch all this, powerless and sickened and VERY afraid - not of Trump, but for the safety and even the existence of your nation, and, unavoidably, our own. You are on the brink, and having "ongoing discussions" and talking in endless circles while Biden sits on his hands and the fascist yahoos cry for more blood. What does it take for you to act?
"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the halls
For he who gets hurt will be HE WHO HAS STALLED
The battle outside raging
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'."
- Bob Dylan (Nobel Laureate), 1963
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the halls
For he who gets hurt will be HE WHO HAS STALLED
The battle outside raging
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'."
- Bob Dylan (Nobel Laureate), 1963
Friday, January 8, 2021
Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin' (Audio)
Bob Dylan
Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'
Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
The $1,415.95 Troll!
Vintage Troll Figure. Tab Troll? Russ Troll? Dam Troll?
Item Information
Condition:
Used
Price:
US $1,000.00 (approximately C $1,274.20)
Condition:
Used
Price:
US $1,000.00 (approximately C $1,274.20)
Shipping:
US $28.22 (approx. C $35.96)
International Priority Shipping to Canada
Item location:
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Ships to:
United States and many other countries
Import charges:
US $89.30 (amount confirmed at checkout)
Vintage Troll Figure. Seemingly Rare. Tab Troll? Russ Troll? Dam Troll? Stands about 4 inches tall.
I’m not really sure what troll type it is. Never seen another of these ceramic figures. I’ve tried searching for it. Also tried looking for molds that would cast this little guy.
Don’t really want to sell it, so I went for a high price. I will package with extreme care if it sells. Thanks for looking.
(Blogger's note. This is the actual eBay listing for this unbelievable little spud. From the back, it looks like a ceramic mushroom. Adding all the charges together, and converting the amount to Canadian dollars, this little oddity totals $1,415.95. In my vast experience as a troll-hound/hoarder/frequent buyer, I have NEVER seen a price like this for a bitty ceramic thing that has no known origin. I honestly wonder if this guy hopes no one will bid on it, but it's a pretty safe bet that no one will. BTW, I do know a bit about ceramic trolls, and run across them every couple of weeks, usually priced in the $50.00 - $100.00 range. So much for rare.)
Monday, January 4, 2021
Clyde Crashcup Invents Egypt
Clyde Crashcup was one of my favorite childhood cartoon series, and it wasn't even a series. It was a subset of the most DREADFUL cartoon show in animation history (even worse than the dregs of Hanna-Barbera, such as Breezly Bear, Lippy the Lion, Magilla Gorilla and Peter Potamus). I loathed Alvin and the Chipmunks, with their screechy little voices, lame jokes, the boredom of David Seville trying to keep order among the unruly 'monks (and his real name was Ross Bagdasarian) and utterly stupid "songs" which were like being tied to a chair and forced to listen to "Chri-i-i-i-istmas, Chri-i-i-i-istmas, ty-ee-em is nea-a-eearrr" until death.
But I looked forward every week to Clyde Crashcup the mad inventor and his silent sidekick, Leonardo, and was always disappointed when I searched YouTube for it every couple of years and never found a trace of it. Copyright problems? I was even willing to buy a DVD set, but one did not exist except for a sketchy-looking bootleg. When I found these - and they ARE sketchy-looking bootlegs featured on the kind of cartoon channel that suddenly disappears, so you'd better watch them fast - I rejoiced, binge-watched all 12 of them and was hoping for more.
The thing is, I laughed out loud at many of these, remembered the bizarre quirks of the series as I saw them again, loved the music which was actually very cleverly-written, and especially LOVED Clyde himself. The cartoon's scope was limited, as any sub-category would be, but it had a certain exotic appeal because it was so completely original. No Sneezly Seal, no Goofy Guards or Ricochet Rabbit in sight. The nasal, pedantic voice of Crashcup, which I don't feel like looking up right now (sorry), carried the thing even when it bogged down a bit.
I cannot believe how vividly I remember the one in which Clyde Crashcup invents Egypt. Inventing a whole country and its long, mysterious history is truly remarkable, but when he begins to write rapidly on that blackboard while the frantic music plays, anything can happen. His name, in the era of the Pharaohs, was Puttintut Crashcup.
But what I remember most of all was the music written specifically for this episode. It's simply beautiful, and it did not disappoint, as so many things do that you loved "way back then". It's not that it aged well. It's that it's as funny as hell, STILL, due to its quirkiness, unlikeliness, sheer originality, and even due to the rarity of the episodes.
To find these again was to rediscover a treasure trove from my childhood. To laugh at them again (late at night, trying not to wake my husband) was a treat. And they won't be there long, so don't be surprised to see a blank space here where a video should be. It happens a lot with rare cartoons. Every episode of Top Cat (my absolute favorite of the Hanna-Barbera lineup) appeared on a fly-by-night channel that, yes, disappeared after violating every copyright rule in the book. THOSE episodes were of crystalline clarity and colour, and these are smudgy and faded, which only adds to their charm.
So enjoy this, if you have an inclination, and most of all, enjoy that mysteriously beautiful music, written by who-knows-who (because I don't feel like looking it up on a dismally dark, delugingly rainy, awfully depressing day in early January during a - well, I won't say it. But I don't have to - do I?)
