I have studied film and video at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver where I received my BFA. The main component of my career has involved DIY videos, often made with budgets under $200 and self produced. My career has taken me around the world, and my most controversial video, “Untouchable” is currently in the Outfest legacy collection at UCLA. More recent work has tackled the taboo subject of mental illness, in particular my own experiences with depression, which was then diagnosed bipolar disorder. My first video mentor, Maureen Bradley, has encouraged me to continue in this vein in order to disrupt the current view of persons with psychiatric disabilities as mediated in contemporary mainstream media. As a consumer of psychiatric medications, I was in particular influenced by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto to create my latest work, “Madness in Four Actions” which is a video collage of clips from The Miracle Worker transposed with text from various leading psychiatric activists and revolutionaries including R.D. Laing and text from “Mad in America: Bad Medicine, Bad Science, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill.” During my last hospitalization I snuck my DVD copy of this video onto the ward only to be censored by the nursing staff who told me not to lend it or promise it out, even though it already premiered at the Mendel Art Gallery on January 17, 2007. My work is strongly influenced by the hope that people, even psychiatric cyborgs, should have the ability to make decisions concerning their own lives. The censorship of a film made by and for persons with psychiatric disabilities just goes to show that there are still societal taboos which must and can be shattered with media interventions.

Currently my practice has expanded to group performance art projects, “Urban NDN Interventions” is a new branch of work, which gathers First Nations artists and our allies to engage the public in peaceful confrontations with High Class actions. The first event, The Treaty Ascot, takes place at Marquis Downs in late summer where we will be crashing the horse track in fancy hats and tuxedos

You know, Bipolar Disorder is practically the Hollywood disease. I can think of no other illness that lends itself so readily to the film industry. I mean, a 15 hr day for six weeks at your job, you practically HAVE to be manic to be able to do that. The reason no one noticed my illness in film school is that in many ways, I fit in.

Kay Redfield Jamison was one of the first psychiatrists (and also has bipolar) to do a major investigation of creativity and bipolar disorder in her book Touched With Fire, which I recommend for anyone studying the connection between madness and the arts. In fact Emily Carr was probably the best school for a person like me to go to, not only because it’s one of the top art schools in the world, but also because I just clicked with the student body.

One Word: “Natasha!”

I mean, if you are a queer filmmaker and there isn’t really much if any of a festival here. Gary Varro does the fest down in Regina and apparently that one festival was enough, NOT! Oh man. So anyway, I do most of my filmmaking career outside of Saskatchewan, obviously, even though there is so much pressure to keep people here.

Did you know we had a Pride parade and it got barely a mention in the news? I mean, we’re not Winnipeg, that’s for sure.

And yet I have gone through the awkward 1st year back, with not, well no, there was trouble. For one thing I had a racist co-worker at the job I moved back here for and when the boss wouldn’t act on it I up and quit. Then my cousin died a week later. Then I moved back in with mum. Now I’m staying in a care home temporarily and having friends outside of who my mum knows. It’s pretty nice. I’ve got a date for canoeing! And, well what else? Oh, I have a new place to live starting September 1.

It’s funny that I am nervous about where I am living based on what I know of Saskatoon,
compared to my one year in the downtown eastside. I kind of think once you’ve done the Downtown Eastside that’s a kind of razorblade type of living that is hard to shake off. I mean, the street savvy don’t look anyone in the eye kind of living. You’d be amazed at the shit I walked past and survived. Well, maybe not if you read my old blog. I think Fit Of Pique is kind of an ode to that part of Vancouver and that part of my life. It’s old stuff, scary stuff. And I made it out alive, more or less. Broken maybe. No, not really, not anymore, but it did leave a lot of anger in my mouth, and the taste of righteous disabled broke anger is not something you can just spit out.

Class is a powerful thing, more so when you feel like someone doesn’t understand you because it feels like they never understood what being lower class is like. But at the same time, I think most everyone can understand discrimination. Someone once called me middle class. It was funny because at the time I was doing pharmaceutical market research AND being fucked over by Zyprexa.

So really, in the end, I think in this world we all feel disabled and powerless, especially when we look at the news. And still I think a lot of people are Mother Joneses and Ghandi’s and so on and so forth. Who knows if I even spelled his name right.

As for myself, I am merely a 29 year old punk filmmaker who’s newest film was censored in the bin. Oh boy, did they ever not want me to show it there. All the nurses watched it apparently. They also saw HELPLESS MAIDEN MAKES AN ‘I’ Statement. Which is a funny version of a real thing that happened to me eight years after I made it.

Pat Mills asked me if my favorite film is still Troop Beverly Hills. Ha ha! Yeah man! I love Pat, this is what he agreed to sing along to on Facebook.

I always sent my KFC comments to Save the Children at 56 Sparks Street care of Morticia Addams!

And now I’m in trouble!

On the National Day of Action, I’ll be eating KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN!
AND COLONEL SANDERS LOOKS JUST LIKE DAVID SUZUKI1

And yet Toonie Tuesday is the only democratic vote for the poor, who often have no choice but to shop at KFC, including many psychiatric survivors.

Can my friend Mikiki convince the government to help abuse survivors AND therefore psychiatric survivors by intervening in the hunt for the Dangerous Bird?

Last we heard:
Stef Llewellyn, my erstwhile camera person, was shopping devotedly at Toonie Tuesday every week, due to extreme aboriginal poverty in respect to psychiatric disability. This in turn set off my old code from my high school days, and Morticia Addams was sent to Save the Children at 56 Sparks Street in Ottawa which has since moved. In it’s place was the bookstore Smithbooks where she picked up a book on AIDS in Africa. She then sent Wednesday Addams to The Lion’s Den to meet Ken and Junior, an African Safari Lion who was born and raised in Winnipeg. At this point the Addams family decided to check in with the Lesbian Rangers, who had pointed out that Colonel Sanders looked an awful lot like David Suzuki, and that perhaps the reason so many bananas kept showing up was due to some lesbian witch in Saskatoon advocating eunuchs to stop the AIDS virus. In fact, the question became one of the possibility of Morticia Addams doing a spell on David Suzuki’s penis in question in order to prove that witchcraft could stop the AIDS virus. Morticia denied it by setting herself on fire and declaring herself the reincarnation of Great Aunt Calpernia, who never went to college.
Meanwhile Mikiki was drafted to stop my cousin Luke from ordering from KFC because the rumour was that David Suzuki was taking a tour of the rainforest to find his own rubber tree to make his very own dildo and to travel back in time via Stephen Hawking’s old wheelchair to before I ever sent my KFC comments to Save the Children C/O Morticia Addams to save his penis from the inspiration of one Miss Valerie Solanas.
In all the ensuing melee, Britta Boden was dispatched to Lesbian National Parks and Services to solve the mystery of the plantains, a type of tranny bannany which only appeared on the scene in April. Mysterious in their fruity goodness, the Lesbian Ranger Corps only wanted to know if these new bananas were lesbian friendly, to which Louis Cruz declared they were, and even Alice upon further inspection agreed.
But still, Luke was on the hunt for the Dangerous Bird, and the Dangerous Bird was on the hunt for Thirza Cuthand, because she didn’t like the ending of Helpless Maiden Makes an “I” Statement. Can Mikiki do something fabulous for abuse survivors in time for the Sacred Chicken Dance?
Only time will tell!

John Cameron Mitchell is going to be in Vancouver at Out On Screen this year and I won’t be there! Such poopy pants!

My career is fine, I am going to finally get in touch with Outfest (L.A.) to curate something for them. My curator buggered off to Venice and Dokumenta (I probably spelled that TOTALLY WRONG!). And my email works again. Hurrah! Plus I found one model for Mintage, a vintage clothing store in Vancouver, and if my devious plan goes well then she’s going to Paris Fashion Week with them. Because, I love Robin Williamson who is NOT a folk singer but is an amazing best friend.

Okay, now I’ll try to do the cheap-o explaination of CBGB’s by detailing punk through . . . Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

CBGB’s is a classic old timey punk rock club, the Studio 54 of the punk set. And Nina Hagen is considered the grandmother of punk. Which is why every self respecting punk knows her name. And CBGB’s had a little queercore son called Squeezebox.

And Squeezebox is where Hedwig’s character was workshopped. Which makes sense in a roundabout fashion BACK to our grandmother of punk, Nina Hagen, who I really did almost meet.

And this is Nina Hagen doing genderfuck in the classic ode to junkies, Smack Jack.

I’m still inspired by this gender trash revolutionary video.

And so is the rest of the world, This is Nina Hagen at the Berlinale in 2006 And this is where my screenplay was last seen before I decided to amend it so that I could do a Canadian German co-production with Cosma Shiva, who can be seen here and who Maureen Bradley recommended in a roundabout way.

Because I need someone awesome for Cassandra AND an excuse for the main character to not only be learning German, but to also have Nina Hagen sing New York for the Sept 11 related psychosis scene.

So what’s my relation to punk? Well, I’ve done DIY for twelve years and seen a bazillion punk shows and was willing to go see Lydia Lunch on my own in Vancouver and bought the Nick Zedd book and basically, yeah man, I’m a punk, I’ve always been a punk, I probably always will be, and irregardless of what you wear, punk is a frame of mind.

I deliberately locked myself out of all my regular email addresses, so now only one works.
So if you are getting email from my old addresses, delete it, because it is spam. Google helped, someone was dumping spam into my account. Disreputable I say!

I hate trying to find people through Agents. Meh. Lucky me has various ins with the Industry though, so it’s going to be okay.

I think the hardest is trying to find someone to play Miranda, the neurotic, giddy, totally hot nerd who works for the Invertebrate Zoo. I actually wrote the part specifically with Parker Posey in mind, I think it’s every filmmakers wet dream to work with Parker Posey. She’s just totally amazing.

Sometimes I heckle myself for PR purposes. At my Emily Carr grad Screening I was known to yell out “This isn’t Josie and the Pussycats!”

“Bunnyhug” isn’t Josie and the Pussycats either, but at least it’s fucking hilarious in a sad kind of a way. I mean, I can’t really help telling jokes.

I told someone a really good joke several times and now she wants to kill me! No, I’m kidding, but I think she would like to see me in prison for describing how fucked up MONTREAL MADE ME1 The psych ward there I mean. Boy did that shit fuck me up.

I’m actually fine now.

My best friend Margaret Flood hates the word “actually.” She went off on me once about it.

“It’s an insult, like ‘Actually, that was a really good dinner’ or ‘Actually, you’re cute.’ It’s like they are surprised about it.”

And so, ACTUALLY Barb Powell is an amazing psychic, because she told me all this would happen. She didn’t much like who I was involved with in January.

Actually, she works with the cops, so she got a free ride!

And ACTUALLY, I’m going to be fine.

Because this was her big advertisement!!!!

http://www.sacred-connections.us/