Initially NO's Blog: IN
October 14, 2015
Collections of poetry
I work at shifting things with my poetry. Each book, a testament to an attempt to move a monstrously prevalent attitude that hurts humanity.
The more you have to say through your writing and the more understanding you have of current writing structures the better you are able to communicate in this art form. And if you aim to shift monsters, like I do, then you'll need to know the imposed expectations of the time, in poetry as much as any other kind of writing.
I've published 16 collections of poetry:
1. Afraid of myself
2. Amelioration
3. Beneath
4. Calling
5. Coal fire cream
6. Cradle of anger
7. Curl up and disappear
8. Err and Grr
9. Felicity
10. Inkling
11. Lost in the bright
12. Psychiatry must die!
13. Riotous favour
14. Sexual agenda
15. Suicidal ideation is fucking fucked...
16. Weird stuff happening
There are many collections I'm still working on. The monsters I'm trying to shift, are difficult and painfully embedded in our society through mass marketing. The poem 'My society is suicidal' (Suicidal ideation is fucking fucked...) epitomises this need for people to start really thinking, rather than just mindlessly following, or doing Mindfulness techniques where they follow some guru into some religious ritual that doesn't really enable the thinking to be free from propaganda, nor free from the human need to 'fit in' with what they're taught, without recognising the flaws in the teaching.
The beauty of my poetry is that I'm standing up to those monsters, rather than aiming to just market my merchandise. The problem with that, is that I need to aim at marketing, to gain a wider audience, in order to get the crucial shifts happening in a society that no longer truly thinks about what it is doing.
The more you have to say through your writing and the more understanding you have of current writing structures the better you are able to communicate in this art form. And if you aim to shift monsters, like I do, then you'll need to know the imposed expectations of the time, in poetry as much as any other kind of writing.
I've published 16 collections of poetry:
1. Afraid of myself
2. Amelioration
3. Beneath
4. Calling
5. Coal fire cream
6. Cradle of anger
7. Curl up and disappear
8. Err and Grr
9. Felicity
10. Inkling
11. Lost in the bright
12. Psychiatry must die!
13. Riotous favour
14. Sexual agenda
15. Suicidal ideation is fucking fucked...
16. Weird stuff happening
There are many collections I'm still working on. The monsters I'm trying to shift, are difficult and painfully embedded in our society through mass marketing. The poem 'My society is suicidal' (Suicidal ideation is fucking fucked...) epitomises this need for people to start really thinking, rather than just mindlessly following, or doing Mindfulness techniques where they follow some guru into some religious ritual that doesn't really enable the thinking to be free from propaganda, nor free from the human need to 'fit in' with what they're taught, without recognising the flaws in the teaching.
The beauty of my poetry is that I'm standing up to those monsters, rather than aiming to just market my merchandise. The problem with that, is that I need to aim at marketing, to gain a wider audience, in order to get the crucial shifts happening in a society that no longer truly thinks about what it is doing.
July 19, 2015
Reading another writer of influence
Read and write, otherwise nup, you’re not a writer. You’re a suggestible indigestible.
When a writer says, ‘I don’t want to read your books in case they influence my writing.’ I baulk at that – what a ridiculous thing to say. Almost like saying someone else’s writing might be a bad influence, or might shift the author’s authenticity.
Not reading, and saying you’re a writer is like claiming to have a conversation, while you have ear buds firmly wedged in and your eyes closed, as you talk and talk for days. Maybe you’re some extraordinary person that works on vibe so that you don’t even have to look at the cover of an author’s book, let alone read any of the pages that might taint your thinking, and can get away with it, but most authors will just snub you after a remark like that. Authors want to be read, that’s the best thing about being a writer, being able to package ideas into books, so that they're easy for people to read.
Actually, I think, really, what a person says when they say they don’t want to be under the influence of my written words, is either that they don’t like me at all, they fear the power of my work, or they think I’m going to be too confronting for them, or make them feel jealous and therefore have self-esteem issues with their own work. This makes me doubt that their work will be of any merit.
People who write, if they like you, they’ll definitely read your writing. It is as simple as that. If they haven’t got around to it, they fully intend to, because they are interested in what you have to say and get a lot out of who you are and your writing is therefore very meaningful to them.
Writers I read, strengthen what I write, as well as everything else I do. Yes they do influence me if I love their words, and in a good way, to the point where if they are so in tune with what I wish to say, I will quote what they’ve said, because they’ve put together what I needed. The writers I love go in the direction I’m wanting to head, they sometimes also remove the obstacles in my way that have long been troubling me. Local writers, who are not known globally for their genius, can do this more than authors that are distanced from me, because they’re addressing my place, my time, and thrashing out the circumstance.
If an author doesn’t read much, I’m not interested in doing a manuscript assessment of their work unless they’re paying me, and, I’m uncertain about doing a swap. I will do jobs that are merely technical, not a problem, but I need to be given something for my time, as well as some respect.
Nup dem. Really that’s where it’s at when someone says, ‘I don’t want to read your books in case they influence my writing.’ Which, strangely, is a phrase that I’ve heard uttered a number of times over the years.
It’s not as though I write horror or pornography, that would infringe or upset. Getting a grip on what is and isn’t in order to stop being hypnotised by other people, is a must. Don’t expect a book to carry your identity, it shouldn’t, but it may enable an understanding or strengthen your view. The age of wanting to identify with flawed protagonists, I think should long be over. The age of pantomime plots, I think should be long dusted, as not cutting it intellectually. These are my views on progressive writing, that enables me to think and gain understanding.
So, to the authors that don’t wish their books to be contaminated by mine, realise, that if I read your book, that’s so very uncontaminated by another’s influence, I’ll give it an authentic review, because I read without fear and write fearlessly. Plus, I will not be led by monsters, nor manifest their ill-purpose. Whoopee cushion what-ifs blown away when poor attitudes don’t wash well with me, which would mean I don’t read past the first 20 pages though. Got to get my attention at the start, by not being what I’ve read before. If you don’t read, that might be hard. People who read the hidden genres, gain insight into what is going on, they know things the rest of the population doesn’t. I admire that. I also know, that it doesn’t have to be books that people are reading when there’s a whole internet of new material out there. Get influenced, realise what’s missing and effect a change much needed, otherwise you're going to be left behind, in the slush of what's really only annoying.
Initially NO
When a writer says, ‘I don’t want to read your books in case they influence my writing.’ I baulk at that – what a ridiculous thing to say. Almost like saying someone else’s writing might be a bad influence, or might shift the author’s authenticity.
Not reading, and saying you’re a writer is like claiming to have a conversation, while you have ear buds firmly wedged in and your eyes closed, as you talk and talk for days. Maybe you’re some extraordinary person that works on vibe so that you don’t even have to look at the cover of an author’s book, let alone read any of the pages that might taint your thinking, and can get away with it, but most authors will just snub you after a remark like that. Authors want to be read, that’s the best thing about being a writer, being able to package ideas into books, so that they're easy for people to read.
Actually, I think, really, what a person says when they say they don’t want to be under the influence of my written words, is either that they don’t like me at all, they fear the power of my work, or they think I’m going to be too confronting for them, or make them feel jealous and therefore have self-esteem issues with their own work. This makes me doubt that their work will be of any merit.
People who write, if they like you, they’ll definitely read your writing. It is as simple as that. If they haven’t got around to it, they fully intend to, because they are interested in what you have to say and get a lot out of who you are and your writing is therefore very meaningful to them.
Writers I read, strengthen what I write, as well as everything else I do. Yes they do influence me if I love their words, and in a good way, to the point where if they are so in tune with what I wish to say, I will quote what they’ve said, because they’ve put together what I needed. The writers I love go in the direction I’m wanting to head, they sometimes also remove the obstacles in my way that have long been troubling me. Local writers, who are not known globally for their genius, can do this more than authors that are distanced from me, because they’re addressing my place, my time, and thrashing out the circumstance.
If an author doesn’t read much, I’m not interested in doing a manuscript assessment of their work unless they’re paying me, and, I’m uncertain about doing a swap. I will do jobs that are merely technical, not a problem, but I need to be given something for my time, as well as some respect.
Nup dem. Really that’s where it’s at when someone says, ‘I don’t want to read your books in case they influence my writing.’ Which, strangely, is a phrase that I’ve heard uttered a number of times over the years.
It’s not as though I write horror or pornography, that would infringe or upset. Getting a grip on what is and isn’t in order to stop being hypnotised by other people, is a must. Don’t expect a book to carry your identity, it shouldn’t, but it may enable an understanding or strengthen your view. The age of wanting to identify with flawed protagonists, I think should long be over. The age of pantomime plots, I think should be long dusted, as not cutting it intellectually. These are my views on progressive writing, that enables me to think and gain understanding.
So, to the authors that don’t wish their books to be contaminated by mine, realise, that if I read your book, that’s so very uncontaminated by another’s influence, I’ll give it an authentic review, because I read without fear and write fearlessly. Plus, I will not be led by monsters, nor manifest their ill-purpose. Whoopee cushion what-ifs blown away when poor attitudes don’t wash well with me, which would mean I don’t read past the first 20 pages though. Got to get my attention at the start, by not being what I’ve read before. If you don’t read, that might be hard. People who read the hidden genres, gain insight into what is going on, they know things the rest of the population doesn’t. I admire that. I also know, that it doesn’t have to be books that people are reading when there’s a whole internet of new material out there. Get influenced, realise what’s missing and effect a change much needed, otherwise you're going to be left behind, in the slush of what's really only annoying.
Initially NO
July 4, 2015
Discrimination akin to violent racism
Discrimination akin to violent racism... Have you experienced that and had it denied? I have. I advise all responsible persons to please read definitions first before arguing with me over this one. It is not okay to deny me work, or forums to speak, because I'm a psychiatric survivor. It is not okay that the psychiatric regime still exists to bully, label, shut-up, marginalise and torture people. Argue that your sponsors won't allow psychiatric survivors and think about how little you stand for human-rights, and how much you support injustice.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrim...
It is discrimination to say that 'traditionally this job is given to a person with no lived-experience of being diagnosed by psychiatrists.' It is discrimination to say that the clinicians fold their arms at people with lived-experience and don't listen, as an excuse for the job not being given to people with lived experience.
It is discrimination to call people under the psychiatric regime 'child-like.' It is violent discrimination to call the CAT team, when a person has expressly said that psychiatric interventions are harm not help and especially when that person is not causing harm to themselves or anyone else.
It is discrimination to call a psychiatric survivor a 'person with a mental illness' or as having 'mental health issues'.
The psychiatric regime is a bully, it allows for a culture of bullies. It enables bullying psychologists and psychiatrists to be the spokespersons that get paid for doing talks about bullying and discrimination and ‘ethics’. This is NOT okay. Especially when more often than not, they are perpetrators of such abuse.
It is not okay to token psychiatric survivors in a talk that is about their experience, and tell them that they cannot freely talk about the abuses of the mental health system.
I am told I am not allowed to speak the truth, that what I say is ‘antipsychiatry’, as if speaking about those things done to me, that are akin to violent racism, are the problem. As if I can even be ‘antipsychiatry’ when this was a movement run by clinicians who criticised their colleagues. I do not want my voice crushed by any kind of clinician, even one that is ‘antipsychiatry’. If people don’t allow me to speak they are unjust.
This society is so ridiculous. I can’t believe people allow those white-coats to hold up their DSM bible and then submit to their authority, when they haven’t even suffered the torture of that cruel regime to be so terrified of them. I can’t believe that writing and arts grants are given to clinicians who decide to ‘try art’ and have made a career out of writing grants. I can’t believe even in community based organisations, people are still worried about their piddly little sponsorship from white-coats, enough to deny psychiatric survivors a platform to speak.
I can’t believe there can be organisations that call themselves ‘peer support’, that discriminate against the people they’re meant to be enabling and empowering.
‘From a consumerist stand point taking no account of what mental health service users want and think, ignores the basic tenets of market research and makes for inefficiency. It leave products, which are now taken to include public services, and their providers, uninformed by customer preferences.’ Thereby increasing risk of ‘making provision that is unwanted, inappropriate and doesn’t work.’ (Madness Contested, Steven Coles et al, 2013)Madness Contested: Power and Practice
It is, however, okay for a peer support organisation to say they need people with lived-experience. Because, lived-experience, is not only experience essential to the job, it is an additional qualification alongside the other practices, training certificates, degrees and diplomas that a psychiatric survivor has to have, in our society, to even be considered as viable for a job and prove they are not still merely subject matter for the psychiatric regime.
May 16, 2015
Electroshock world-wide protests
'Electroshock they still do that?' a pedestrian says. Psychiatric survivors & other people that make sense, are starting to protest in Melbourne. Finally.
I read some poems from 'Psychiatry must die!' on the street mic. for the May 16th world wide protest to stop electroshock.
'Unshushable, unshushable the abuses of psychiatry are unshushable!'
Spain has stopped electroshock, but Australia is still hanging onto its diabolical torture of innocent citizens.
I'm very happy there was a protest. But why there weren't thousands of people, is because people just are not aware.
In Victoria forced electroshock on children as young as 4, killing them, forced electroshock on people in their prime, forced electroshock on pregnant women and their unborn child, forced electroshock on the elderly. MAY 16th World Wide protests to stop this torture, that the Australian TAX payer pays out millions for every year. Don't want to say anything about that? Gosh.
'In a year, 6197 ECT treatments were given to Victorians against their will...Medicare statistics record 203 ECT treatments on children younger than 14 – including 55 aged four and younger.' from... https://intcamp.wordpress.com/ect-kids/
I'm thinking back to the time 'asylum' was the term for 'psychiatric unit.' I'm thinking how when refugees are given permission to live in Australia by authorities, more than half will be so traumatised and marginalised they'll end up in the hands of psychiatrists who will use them for laboratory experiments, and they won't dare say a thing, nor will their children about how torturous and disabling the bouts of electrocution and drugging are...
Some people in Australia think electroshock via psychiatry, is like a de-fib. They, well a lot of them, think that if a person shows 'symptoms' from psychiatry's propaganda peddling eugenics machine's bible (DSM), that those 'symptoms' are something of an emergency like a heart attack... But what do they actually think is going to happen?... oh 'deterioration'. What does that mean? Well they saw a movie where... or someone told them of someone who went... or they read a story about... How could most of the country's intellect be so absent?
Australia's tax dollar would be better spent on some nice art or books, that agree that torture is wrong. Psychiatric abuse is all the more wrong as it is done on such a large scale to the artists and authors, for no crime but because artists and authors do think creatively, and real creativity is outside the square of understood sense.
On a wall somewhere in my mind
There's a place that says
There'll be no more crime.
But there are barbarous acts
That threaten and threaten...
Being unusual and creative isn’t a crime, it’s an asset, but sometimes it can be difficult for innovation to become mainstream, especially when the psychiatric regime comes into play. Psychiatrists can take a person who diverges from the mainstream and torture them to death, slowly over a number of years, demanding that person agrees they’re sick and in need of treatment or they’ll get labelled ‘treatment resistant’ and be subjected to not only toxic poisons, injected fortnightly, but regular sessions of electrocution that bleed the brain and cause so much suffering, take over 25 years of people's lives. It’s not okay for Australia to do this.
The psychiatric regime nearly killed me by forcing toxic chemicals into my body over a 14 year period and threatened electroshock. I said very clearly that I did not want this and they held me down and injected me. They had no legitimate reason to do this. People shout and scream about drug dealers being put to death in foreign countries and yet say nothing about their citizens being slowly put to death by psychiatry. Amnesty International should hold its head in shame for not doing anything to stop these pimped up drug dealers/ mass murdering Drs, that are allowed to have a job description called 'psychiatry'. Psychiatry must be banned. It should've been exposed when the rest of the Nazi regime were, instead these white-coat monsters were allowed to expand on their crimes against humanity.
I am an atheist, I am an author, I am a psychiatric survivor, who did not deserve to be tortured by psychiatry.
I read some poems from 'Psychiatry must die!' on the street mic. for the May 16th world wide protest to stop electroshock.
'Unshushable, unshushable the abuses of psychiatry are unshushable!'
Spain has stopped electroshock, but Australia is still hanging onto its diabolical torture of innocent citizens.
I'm very happy there was a protest. But why there weren't thousands of people, is because people just are not aware.
In Victoria forced electroshock on children as young as 4, killing them, forced electroshock on people in their prime, forced electroshock on pregnant women and their unborn child, forced electroshock on the elderly. MAY 16th World Wide protests to stop this torture, that the Australian TAX payer pays out millions for every year. Don't want to say anything about that? Gosh.
'In a year, 6197 ECT treatments were given to Victorians against their will...Medicare statistics record 203 ECT treatments on children younger than 14 – including 55 aged four and younger.' from... https://intcamp.wordpress.com/ect-kids/
I'm thinking back to the time 'asylum' was the term for 'psychiatric unit.' I'm thinking how when refugees are given permission to live in Australia by authorities, more than half will be so traumatised and marginalised they'll end up in the hands of psychiatrists who will use them for laboratory experiments, and they won't dare say a thing, nor will their children about how torturous and disabling the bouts of electrocution and drugging are...
Some people in Australia think electroshock via psychiatry, is like a de-fib. They, well a lot of them, think that if a person shows 'symptoms' from psychiatry's propaganda peddling eugenics machine's bible (DSM), that those 'symptoms' are something of an emergency like a heart attack... But what do they actually think is going to happen?... oh 'deterioration'. What does that mean? Well they saw a movie where... or someone told them of someone who went... or they read a story about... How could most of the country's intellect be so absent?
Australia's tax dollar would be better spent on some nice art or books, that agree that torture is wrong. Psychiatric abuse is all the more wrong as it is done on such a large scale to the artists and authors, for no crime but because artists and authors do think creatively, and real creativity is outside the square of understood sense.
On a wall somewhere in my mind
There's a place that says
There'll be no more crime.
But there are barbarous acts
That threaten and threaten...
Being unusual and creative isn’t a crime, it’s an asset, but sometimes it can be difficult for innovation to become mainstream, especially when the psychiatric regime comes into play. Psychiatrists can take a person who diverges from the mainstream and torture them to death, slowly over a number of years, demanding that person agrees they’re sick and in need of treatment or they’ll get labelled ‘treatment resistant’ and be subjected to not only toxic poisons, injected fortnightly, but regular sessions of electrocution that bleed the brain and cause so much suffering, take over 25 years of people's lives. It’s not okay for Australia to do this.
The psychiatric regime nearly killed me by forcing toxic chemicals into my body over a 14 year period and threatened electroshock. I said very clearly that I did not want this and they held me down and injected me. They had no legitimate reason to do this. People shout and scream about drug dealers being put to death in foreign countries and yet say nothing about their citizens being slowly put to death by psychiatry. Amnesty International should hold its head in shame for not doing anything to stop these pimped up drug dealers/ mass murdering Drs, that are allowed to have a job description called 'psychiatry'. Psychiatry must be banned. It should've been exposed when the rest of the Nazi regime were, instead these white-coat monsters were allowed to expand on their crimes against humanity.
I am an atheist, I am an author, I am a psychiatric survivor, who did not deserve to be tortured by psychiatry.
February 6, 2015
Reasons to employ psychiatric survivors
1. Reasons you should employ psychiatric survivors
*Psychiatric survivors are very grateful for any job opportunity they so rarely get.
*They are very grateful that you do not discriminate too harshly against them, because the psychiatric regime has tortured them. (Most of the population engage in active shaming of psychiatric survivors, blaming them for the injuries inflicted on them, thus not allowing them any kind of responsibility/ job, let alone paid work.)
*Psychiatric survivors will volunteer a lot of their time, because they are used to not being paid for services others charge a premium for.
*Psychiatric survivors are so used to taking the blame for everything, you can off-load your screams and pains on them and they’ll quite happily accept being the corkboard for your target practice.
*Psychiatric survivors really want to be accepted as contributing members of the community, so they can shake off the labels given to them by psychiatrists and those who sooled psychiatrists onto them. They are grateful for any opportunity that might mean being able to do this, no matter how small and constricting.
*Psychiatric survivors are often highly educated, in many disciplines. They have become so in attempt to gain employment. They are hard working too, so, liable to be a bully’s target, which will mean an easy scape-goat for any troubles/ politics in the work-place.
*They know to keep their place beneath you, or you’ll call them crazy and have them put away and tortured again.
2. Reasons you should buy books by psychiatric survivors?
*Gosh... you didn't know that? How could you be so out of touch? How could you be so prejudiced? How could you allow the psychiatric regime to torture people for so long?
*Psychiatric survivors are very grateful for any job opportunity they so rarely get.
*They are very grateful that you do not discriminate too harshly against them, because the psychiatric regime has tortured them. (Most of the population engage in active shaming of psychiatric survivors, blaming them for the injuries inflicted on them, thus not allowing them any kind of responsibility/ job, let alone paid work.)
*Psychiatric survivors will volunteer a lot of their time, because they are used to not being paid for services others charge a premium for.
*Psychiatric survivors are so used to taking the blame for everything, you can off-load your screams and pains on them and they’ll quite happily accept being the corkboard for your target practice.
*Psychiatric survivors really want to be accepted as contributing members of the community, so they can shake off the labels given to them by psychiatrists and those who sooled psychiatrists onto them. They are grateful for any opportunity that might mean being able to do this, no matter how small and constricting.
*Psychiatric survivors are often highly educated, in many disciplines. They have become so in attempt to gain employment. They are hard working too, so, liable to be a bully’s target, which will mean an easy scape-goat for any troubles/ politics in the work-place.
*They know to keep their place beneath you, or you’ll call them crazy and have them put away and tortured again.
2. Reasons you should buy books by psychiatric survivors?
*Gosh... you didn't know that? How could you be so out of touch? How could you be so prejudiced? How could you allow the psychiatric regime to torture people for so long?
January 16, 2015
New book
I want to get that book. I want to see why it’s so popular. I want to know why the author has that cheesy grin. I want to know the ins and outs, tantrums and lovelies. The book is so important, and I’m thinking about why and just can’t help but think on what that book contains. I want to know the mystery. I think the cover is daft, but I want to know the inside, not judge it by that. Lift open that book, while alone, and look, then plunge in and not take a break, to finish together at the moment the book naturally is completed. I want to know what is so attractive about this book with its awful title and dreadful cheap-looking cover. I want to know why it was given an award. I want to know how it got a publisher. I want to know why people talk about it like it’s some masterpiece before they’ve even read it, like the book is some delicious dish of words their mouths are watering over. I want to get that book and know that thinking that is gaining acclaim. Surely, surely, it must be amazing… Can’t wait to grasp the concept of its beauty and intelligence that other readers understand readily. Can’t wait.
October 8, 2014
Being polite to bullies
It’s Mental Health Week. There are ways of keeping people quiet, through:
• A society that allows cancer causing non-foods to be called ‘food’, that injects poisons into people’s bodies without consent, that electrocutes without consent, and performs surgery without consent.
• A society that pays for bullies to speak and never speaks out against them for fear that they might be done-in/ lose their job or funding.
• Promoting the works of bullies and not promoting the work of those who criticise bullies.
• A society that allows bullies to put those they bully in hospital because the victims of bullying are not being submissive enough.
• Knowing the victim of abuse isn’t likely to heckle because they’ve being put in hospital before for expressing discomfort with what’s being said.
• Religions and cults like psychiatry that say questions can’t be asked about their belief systems, rituals and punishments inflicted on unwilling people.
• Doctors that say their DSM is a bible and can be used to ‘treat’, through torturous procedures, the country’s people allow to be part of their law.
If you hear a speaker during Mental Health Week that is violating human-rights, make noise. Unless other audience members are with you, be discrete enough to protect yourself. If the audience is with you, join them in a protest. Bullies should not be on stage earbashing unwilling audiences, who are too polite to even make sound of discontent, even clapping for a speech they hated. That’s just wrong. Be authentic and have friends to back you up. Say NOT IN OUR NAME will you allow abuse to continue! To not do so is being impolite to those who have suffered the extreme end of this abuse.
Read a book by a psychiatric survivor and understand why bullying is not acceptable, especially when it involves government approved torture and the dismissing of those who have suffered this and survived.
I have two autobiographies, ‘Percipience’ and ‘Naked Ladies’. My coffee-table book series BEINGS, also discusses this, as do most of my poetry books.
• A society that allows cancer causing non-foods to be called ‘food’, that injects poisons into people’s bodies without consent, that electrocutes without consent, and performs surgery without consent.
• A society that pays for bullies to speak and never speaks out against them for fear that they might be done-in/ lose their job or funding.
• Promoting the works of bullies and not promoting the work of those who criticise bullies.
• A society that allows bullies to put those they bully in hospital because the victims of bullying are not being submissive enough.
• Knowing the victim of abuse isn’t likely to heckle because they’ve being put in hospital before for expressing discomfort with what’s being said.
• Religions and cults like psychiatry that say questions can’t be asked about their belief systems, rituals and punishments inflicted on unwilling people.
• Doctors that say their DSM is a bible and can be used to ‘treat’, through torturous procedures, the country’s people allow to be part of their law.
If you hear a speaker during Mental Health Week that is violating human-rights, make noise. Unless other audience members are with you, be discrete enough to protect yourself. If the audience is with you, join them in a protest. Bullies should not be on stage earbashing unwilling audiences, who are too polite to even make sound of discontent, even clapping for a speech they hated. That’s just wrong. Be authentic and have friends to back you up. Say NOT IN OUR NAME will you allow abuse to continue! To not do so is being impolite to those who have suffered the extreme end of this abuse.
Read a book by a psychiatric survivor and understand why bullying is not acceptable, especially when it involves government approved torture and the dismissing of those who have suffered this and survived.
I have two autobiographies, ‘Percipience’ and ‘Naked Ladies’. My coffee-table book series BEINGS, also discusses this, as do most of my poetry books.
September 29, 2014
Humour me, seriously…
I’ve always preferred to listen to comedy, rather than seriousness. So, for a long time I’ve written with a focus of finding a laugh. That’s not to say there isn’t something serious in the comedy, with me, usually there is.
This year, feeling a lot more supported in the community than I have been in previous years, I decided it was time to open up to the point of clarity, for those people who might dismiss humour as ‘non-sense’.
It’s not as though I’m not appreciative of serious writing, but I do tend to look for works that have a least the wry smile that is often found in Margaret Atwood. Writing never has had to be punch-line Terry Pratchett to be what I enjoy. I read very serious text books that aim at healing. But yes, they do have an aim and I want the underlying sense to be clear or give something beautiful that like a powerful waterfall or gorgeous mountain range the writing transfixes me with its awe inspiring qualities, if not to make me laugh.
I have the pleasure of being a convenor of a local poetry gig, where I get to hear poets read their work, and find sometimes I need the inroad of their voice to get their thinking. Take Salman Rushdie, whose work I put down because I felt it bleak, well, I recently watched a lecture where he began his speech with one word, then a laugh, then a sentence and another laugh. Soon the audience were laughing with him, understanding his flow, and that’s when I knew that I had not been used to his voice enough to understand his books until I witnessed his speech.
In my books, I speak a narrative. They are books to be read from front to back, even the poetry ones, and picture books. I was surprised when someone said they were dipping in here and there in my autobiography ‘Percipience’. I thought: then, you won’t understand much at all. ‘Percipience’ was written with the ideas of punch-lines in mind, but it’s not a light-humour book. I don’t often write light-humour. When I use swear words in my humour, I’m usually trying to find a way to talk about abuse, so that it won’t hurt me too much if I reread it, but so people can hopefully see a way to move on from perpetuation of such things. Comedy has strength to ridicule abusers, humiliating them in a way where they can't argue back without losing face and looking silly.
Writing more serious poetry in 2014 books, ‘Coal fire cream’ had me standing at a book launch flipping through pages desperately trying to find something that was detached from any kind of trauma. I realised what other people meant when they said they didn’t actually like reading their work on stage. Previous to the ‘Coal fire cream’ book launch I’d had a hoot on stage, but then, I’d only ever read poems that got laughs from the audience.
Vulnerability isn’t a good feeling, when what you say gets attacked. And, this has been what has happened. Does this mean I actually have something to say that is controversial to bully/narcissist types in both my comedy, seriousness and illustration? I think so, because they’re the reason I turned to comedy in the first place: absolute armour, oh except when they’re psychiatrists. There’s no way you can joke with psychiatrists. The ones I've been forced to meet with are just deadend narcissist-abusers who are backed up by government legislation that legalises their torture regime.
Oh, my lover just entered into my study to give me a beautiful soft kiss… too much information? Beats thinking about past traumas and how I’m going to make a profit in the book industry. Having love in my life that’s always a smile, orgasms that have me laughing with bliss and energy. It’s wonderful to have a relationship that is never work, always pleasure because we listen to each other, and make sense. I’m hoping my writing catches up with that soon.
This year, feeling a lot more supported in the community than I have been in previous years, I decided it was time to open up to the point of clarity, for those people who might dismiss humour as ‘non-sense’.
It’s not as though I’m not appreciative of serious writing, but I do tend to look for works that have a least the wry smile that is often found in Margaret Atwood. Writing never has had to be punch-line Terry Pratchett to be what I enjoy. I read very serious text books that aim at healing. But yes, they do have an aim and I want the underlying sense to be clear or give something beautiful that like a powerful waterfall or gorgeous mountain range the writing transfixes me with its awe inspiring qualities, if not to make me laugh.
I have the pleasure of being a convenor of a local poetry gig, where I get to hear poets read their work, and find sometimes I need the inroad of their voice to get their thinking. Take Salman Rushdie, whose work I put down because I felt it bleak, well, I recently watched a lecture where he began his speech with one word, then a laugh, then a sentence and another laugh. Soon the audience were laughing with him, understanding his flow, and that’s when I knew that I had not been used to his voice enough to understand his books until I witnessed his speech.
In my books, I speak a narrative. They are books to be read from front to back, even the poetry ones, and picture books. I was surprised when someone said they were dipping in here and there in my autobiography ‘Percipience’. I thought: then, you won’t understand much at all. ‘Percipience’ was written with the ideas of punch-lines in mind, but it’s not a light-humour book. I don’t often write light-humour. When I use swear words in my humour, I’m usually trying to find a way to talk about abuse, so that it won’t hurt me too much if I reread it, but so people can hopefully see a way to move on from perpetuation of such things. Comedy has strength to ridicule abusers, humiliating them in a way where they can't argue back without losing face and looking silly.
Writing more serious poetry in 2014 books, ‘Coal fire cream’ had me standing at a book launch flipping through pages desperately trying to find something that was detached from any kind of trauma. I realised what other people meant when they said they didn’t actually like reading their work on stage. Previous to the ‘Coal fire cream’ book launch I’d had a hoot on stage, but then, I’d only ever read poems that got laughs from the audience.
Vulnerability isn’t a good feeling, when what you say gets attacked. And, this has been what has happened. Does this mean I actually have something to say that is controversial to bully/narcissist types in both my comedy, seriousness and illustration? I think so, because they’re the reason I turned to comedy in the first place: absolute armour, oh except when they’re psychiatrists. There’s no way you can joke with psychiatrists. The ones I've been forced to meet with are just deadend narcissist-abusers who are backed up by government legislation that legalises their torture regime.
Oh, my lover just entered into my study to give me a beautiful soft kiss… too much information? Beats thinking about past traumas and how I’m going to make a profit in the book industry. Having love in my life that’s always a smile, orgasms that have me laughing with bliss and energy. It’s wonderful to have a relationship that is never work, always pleasure because we listen to each other, and make sense. I’m hoping my writing catches up with that soon.
August 4, 2014
Melbourne’s iconic bookstores
Fitzroy, where Johnston Street meets Brunswick Street has three bookstores that are all very different.
There’s the arty Brunswick Street Bookstore, one of the last independent bookstores in Melbourne. Brunswick Street bookstore has a nice feel with comfy chairs and books that I can get into. It’s got comics that are by activists such as Joe Sacco and popular authors like Tim Winton, but also will take indi publications, if they’re of a high standard. Very friendly staff too.
Across the road is Polyester bookstore. These are very in-your-face books, but not activist books, as far as I’ve seen. Lots of lust and depravity, drug loving coprophagia, weird fun comics and some really awful books that I wish I’d never picked up and looked at the pictures within (I’ll give you a hint, the one I’m thinking of contained forensic pictures of corpses). That said, this store is a major icon of the street and I’d never want to see it go. It is a really small store that is louder than loud. I’ve been told their lease expires in 2016 and they’re deciding whether to continue. I really would like the Polyester fans to realise what they’ll miss, if that store goes. Like the Brunswick Street bookstore it stays open late, but it has different stuff. Bookstores that you find nowhere else, that stay open are much needed in this street that stays awake very late.
Down Johnston Street heading towards Nicolson Street is Hares & Hyenas. They’ve got ideas happening, with a big stage, audience seating for performances and readings, plus a bar. There are regular poetry nights held at Hares & Hyenas. I asked the bar staff if they had any organic preservative free wine, and they responded by saying, ‘We’re thinking of heading that way.’ The best response I’ve got from a bar so far! Nice, might be able to have a glass at a venue without coming up in gremlins. But the most important thing about Hares & Hyenas is all the books to look at. They took some of my books on consignment, back in 2004 and also a few months ago, so they will take independent publications.
Want this lovely triad of diverse bookstores to stick around for a lot longer. Do visit these bookstores, when you’re next in the area, have a browse, buy a gift for yourself, or your friend. The best thing about paper books, is that if you tire of them, you can give them to your local poetry group that runs a raffle to raise funds for the feature poet. The closest open mic, with a book raffle, being Passionate Tongues on a Monday night at the Brunswick Hotel, but there is also, West Word poetry every 2nd and 4th Sunday at 2pm, if you want to take your book across town to Footscray.
Speaking of second hand books, there’s Grub Street Bookstore, just a little further down Brunswick Street, from The Brunswick Street Bookstore. They also have a backroom for book launches and readings.
There’s the arty Brunswick Street Bookstore, one of the last independent bookstores in Melbourne. Brunswick Street bookstore has a nice feel with comfy chairs and books that I can get into. It’s got comics that are by activists such as Joe Sacco and popular authors like Tim Winton, but also will take indi publications, if they’re of a high standard. Very friendly staff too.
Across the road is Polyester bookstore. These are very in-your-face books, but not activist books, as far as I’ve seen. Lots of lust and depravity, drug loving coprophagia, weird fun comics and some really awful books that I wish I’d never picked up and looked at the pictures within (I’ll give you a hint, the one I’m thinking of contained forensic pictures of corpses). That said, this store is a major icon of the street and I’d never want to see it go. It is a really small store that is louder than loud. I’ve been told their lease expires in 2016 and they’re deciding whether to continue. I really would like the Polyester fans to realise what they’ll miss, if that store goes. Like the Brunswick Street bookstore it stays open late, but it has different stuff. Bookstores that you find nowhere else, that stay open are much needed in this street that stays awake very late.
Down Johnston Street heading towards Nicolson Street is Hares & Hyenas. They’ve got ideas happening, with a big stage, audience seating for performances and readings, plus a bar. There are regular poetry nights held at Hares & Hyenas. I asked the bar staff if they had any organic preservative free wine, and they responded by saying, ‘We’re thinking of heading that way.’ The best response I’ve got from a bar so far! Nice, might be able to have a glass at a venue without coming up in gremlins. But the most important thing about Hares & Hyenas is all the books to look at. They took some of my books on consignment, back in 2004 and also a few months ago, so they will take independent publications.
Want this lovely triad of diverse bookstores to stick around for a lot longer. Do visit these bookstores, when you’re next in the area, have a browse, buy a gift for yourself, or your friend. The best thing about paper books, is that if you tire of them, you can give them to your local poetry group that runs a raffle to raise funds for the feature poet. The closest open mic, with a book raffle, being Passionate Tongues on a Monday night at the Brunswick Hotel, but there is also, West Word poetry every 2nd and 4th Sunday at 2pm, if you want to take your book across town to Footscray.
Speaking of second hand books, there’s Grub Street Bookstore, just a little further down Brunswick Street, from The Brunswick Street Bookstore. They also have a backroom for book launches and readings.
May 15, 2014
Books with divisions: short stories and poetry
With the exception of dictionaries, I generally like to read a book from front-cover to back. If the book is super interesting, I will have a relook at sections without reading the whole book again. But I don’t tend to dip into various sections of a book, unless I’m just checking it out at the bookstore.
I like to read a book in one or two sittings. Which, even when I have time, is something I can never do with books of short stories. My automatic mind expects the short story to continue onto the next one, characters blur and plots get confused, then I wake up and make that automatic part of me realise that the book isn’t a novel, or a non-fiction text, but separate stories. No matter how good the stories are, if they don’t link, I’m not enthused about having a book of them, I’d rather be holding a magazine that establishes that no article, poem, or story is to be in any way linked. So, I either tend to avoid books of short stories, or accidently buy the book thinking it was a novel and read them over a period of months. This isn’t satisfactory book reading for me though.
Poetry, I find, is different from short stories, it is divided up, often into shorter pieces than short stories, yet I LOVE reading a poet’s collection from cover to back. I enjoy the book best if the flow and placement of poems has been carefully thought about. Yet, I have had numerous chats with people who say they merely dip into poetry books that they don’t ever read them from front to back and that my reading of poetry books from front cover to back is ‘unusual.’
I think poetry books might just be my favourite genre. I find them easy going. I know, in an hour lunch break, say, I can go to the library and read a slim volume of poetry from front to back and gain a huge understanding of that author’s world. I particularly like the sensory that poetry gives more than any other form of writing. It takes me to times and places, that I can never visit, and gives me huge insight into that world. Poetry for me, transports the senses, when it’s good. But poetry I like best also talks about ecology, human nature, social-justice and language. The books are always divided, but, poetry books have flow on from one poem to the next, I feel, and, unlike short stories my mind doesn’t have to think about characters and plots.
I’m not too keen on literary journals with a theme and a whole lot of different poets. I feel, while the journal ties in ideas with a theme, the sense of the ‘book’ (which is isn’t but looks like) jumps about too much into too many different people to be of much importance to me, as a book.
Collaborative writing efforts rarely are up to scratch for me. I’d like to see writers working together dangerously, supporting each other like acrobats, but I’m yet to see it.
If you’re a dipper inner of poetry books, let me know why you don’t read from front cover to back. And if you love a book of short stories, how do you read it in one sitting?
I like to read a book in one or two sittings. Which, even when I have time, is something I can never do with books of short stories. My automatic mind expects the short story to continue onto the next one, characters blur and plots get confused, then I wake up and make that automatic part of me realise that the book isn’t a novel, or a non-fiction text, but separate stories. No matter how good the stories are, if they don’t link, I’m not enthused about having a book of them, I’d rather be holding a magazine that establishes that no article, poem, or story is to be in any way linked. So, I either tend to avoid books of short stories, or accidently buy the book thinking it was a novel and read them over a period of months. This isn’t satisfactory book reading for me though.
Poetry, I find, is different from short stories, it is divided up, often into shorter pieces than short stories, yet I LOVE reading a poet’s collection from cover to back. I enjoy the book best if the flow and placement of poems has been carefully thought about. Yet, I have had numerous chats with people who say they merely dip into poetry books that they don’t ever read them from front to back and that my reading of poetry books from front cover to back is ‘unusual.’
I think poetry books might just be my favourite genre. I find them easy going. I know, in an hour lunch break, say, I can go to the library and read a slim volume of poetry from front to back and gain a huge understanding of that author’s world. I particularly like the sensory that poetry gives more than any other form of writing. It takes me to times and places, that I can never visit, and gives me huge insight into that world. Poetry for me, transports the senses, when it’s good. But poetry I like best also talks about ecology, human nature, social-justice and language. The books are always divided, but, poetry books have flow on from one poem to the next, I feel, and, unlike short stories my mind doesn’t have to think about characters and plots.
I’m not too keen on literary journals with a theme and a whole lot of different poets. I feel, while the journal ties in ideas with a theme, the sense of the ‘book’ (which is isn’t but looks like) jumps about too much into too many different people to be of much importance to me, as a book.
Collaborative writing efforts rarely are up to scratch for me. I’d like to see writers working together dangerously, supporting each other like acrobats, but I’m yet to see it.
If you’re a dipper inner of poetry books, let me know why you don’t read from front cover to back. And if you love a book of short stories, how do you read it in one sitting?
