Jack is gone. He was evicted as of 3pm, the locks changed on his apartment, and he was warned not to return to the project. Where he will go or what he will do, I don't know.
He came out to the patio around 7 am and another woman and I talked to him for about an hour and a half. During this time the manager came and told him how much she hated to do this but he had given her no choice. He seemed to agree.
Mercedes, although in very low spirits over a tragedy that happened in her best friend's family, came over to see him, and she was the one who took him back to St. Lukes to see if he could get help to sober up in there, so he will be fit to find another place to live. In the condition he is now he would not be able to get into a shelter even. There would be no place for him to go but the street.
Mercedes is the friend that I featured in an entry not long ago who is also a long time friend of Jack's. I posted a photo of her I took when she took me to lunch one year on my birthday. A few days ago her best friend's daughter, 24 years old, was drunk and got into a fight with her boyfriend. In an unpremeditated act she rushed up stairs and got a gun and shot herself. Mercedes showed me a photo of her. She is a beautiful girl. You can imagine the suffering of all those left behind who loved her. Neither her mother or her boyfriend can fathom how she could have done such a thing.
Anyway Mercedes was not too patient with Jack's suicide threats, as you can imagine. She has promised to let me know what happens to him, if she can keep track of him. We went to his apartment to try to pick up some things. We found his ATM card and his medicard, but his glasses are lost. Ten years accumulation of belongings were there in disarray. So we soon left so as not to get too depressed over it all. Jack will do or die, that is all I can say.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
My response to the paper on a huge article about the status of the mentally ill in Arizona
I feel I am a good person to blog about this subject since I have been certified disabled for mental illness for over 15 years. My mental illness deepened into physical illness going by the mystery name of chronic fatigue syndrome which does not exist for many doctors, especially those who treat the poor. My bouts of chronic fatigue were regarded as mental by some, but I only received sporadic and very limited recognition of it as a crippling conditon.
I have lived in subsidized housing for nearly 25 years now, currently at the Westward Ho for half of this period which is housing more and more people certified as mentally ill. (The fellow shown above in the picture is also well enough to live in subsidized housing which calls for some lucidity.)
My conclusion is that it is time for Arizona to go public in finding new ways to help the mentally ill, which would be by recognizing the fact that only a more healthy society can help those among us who are 'certified.' There is an aspect of mental illness to every addiction, alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction, and food addiction. The talking cure is better achieved by the society as a whole, which is not apt to be recognized by the professionals. The professionals need to form better relationships with the public who are so affected when a mentally ill person goes amok. You need to do more articles about what neighbors, family, and friends can do when they see incipient signs of a meltdown.
I see them all the time in here and we residents have learned to respond to a meltdown to protect ourselves. Newspaper writers and other concerned officials of Arizona need to acknowledge that it takes everybody to keep our society healthy.
This article is too similar to all others written about mental illness providers, expecting so much from so few with budgets that are squeezed even tighter.
It is time to get more creative and inventive about recruiting the public to get involved. They are anyway, clear to their necks. Most people have mentally ill relatives, friends, neighbors they watch out for and the more aware they are of their problems the better job they can do to protect themselves from someone's violence.
This subject has been so neglected, I could write a book, the subject of acting like the public counts, their thoughts, their impout and support. This harkens back to when professionals did not want ordinary people to do any thinking on this subject, but now that these very professionals are so beleagured and overworked while at the same time so much is expected of them, I think they might be ready to stop putting down efforts the non professionals make to deal with the same problems.
In fact, I trust ordinary people more than professionals, because the arrogance is missing that actually disabled me in a mental hospital. I already had chronic fatigue from stress and they decided I needed electric shock therapy which I told them might kill me. Do you think they listened? My chronic fatigue kicked in after 5 terrible days of stress in a psych ward setting and I had what they called a catotonic seizure which was undoubtedly the only thing that kept me from being electric shocked. That was also chronic fatigue, folks, which can kill you if you are put under too much stress when it activates.
I came out of that psych ward partially disabled, never to be the same again. I was in much worse shape when I left than when I went in, and the reason that led to my getting in there in the first place was because I had decided to surface some serious molesting that took place in my childhood I could never talk about!
Professionals make mistakes as they did in my case, because they did not understand that I had chronic fatigue. So we should recognize that psychiatrists and psychologists may also have their limitations, so common sense should be our guide!
Most people understand what that is, so when will newspapers stop bending over backwards to exalt the professionals when they write about mental illness, instead of acknowledging they are only human, may be doing the best they can, but that it takes everyone to make a more mentally healthy world. Everyone!
That means parents, relatives, neighbors, everyone who is apt to be involved with or affected by the mentally ill. Everyone is so afraid to give the common person any importance at all. I have tried to get books published to give me more authority, but have so far failed.
Well, out there, common people avert crisises all the time by using common sense, good character, caring, and other valuable attributes of quite a number of our citizens!
Gerry Hitt
The above letter will be reprinted in my blog on AZ Central called G4Life. (see blog list)
I will also show a video I made this morning on the same subject when it is uploaded.
I also want to call your attention to a new entry called Vista Home in my sister Ann's blog, KanyonlandKing (see blog list) which echoes what I have said here. Thank you sister, that is a touching poem. She also posted an excellent photo of our hometown, Boulder, Utah.
My sister Linda's poetry reading video fimed in the patio got two 5 star ratings! So she is a hit. I think she read her poems very well on some significant subject matter (Twisted Sisters). See my youtube channel on blog list. Over 100 people have watched her now.
P.S. Later in the day: my sister Margie who writes the blog "Marge" (see blog list) responded from years and years of nursing experience, including some years working in the Arizona State Mental, with some observations about the topic of mental illness. Thanks so much sister Margie, who is coping with chronic pain in her lower back down to her foot, thank you for responding. I know all my sisters have much to offer the public with their experiences and thinking. I hope the blogging world will accept them and be their friends. Once I get them integrated I will be back to reading all of you some of whom I have neglected on my blog list, but I am aware and will see you soon.
I have lived in subsidized housing for nearly 25 years now, currently at the Westward Ho for half of this period which is housing more and more people certified as mentally ill. (The fellow shown above in the picture is also well enough to live in subsidized housing which calls for some lucidity.)
My conclusion is that it is time for Arizona to go public in finding new ways to help the mentally ill, which would be by recognizing the fact that only a more healthy society can help those among us who are 'certified.' There is an aspect of mental illness to every addiction, alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction, and food addiction. The talking cure is better achieved by the society as a whole, which is not apt to be recognized by the professionals. The professionals need to form better relationships with the public who are so affected when a mentally ill person goes amok. You need to do more articles about what neighbors, family, and friends can do when they see incipient signs of a meltdown.
I see them all the time in here and we residents have learned to respond to a meltdown to protect ourselves. Newspaper writers and other concerned officials of Arizona need to acknowledge that it takes everybody to keep our society healthy.
This article is too similar to all others written about mental illness providers, expecting so much from so few with budgets that are squeezed even tighter.
It is time to get more creative and inventive about recruiting the public to get involved. They are anyway, clear to their necks. Most people have mentally ill relatives, friends, neighbors they watch out for and the more aware they are of their problems the better job they can do to protect themselves from someone's violence.
This subject has been so neglected, I could write a book, the subject of acting like the public counts, their thoughts, their impout and support. This harkens back to when professionals did not want ordinary people to do any thinking on this subject, but now that these very professionals are so beleagured and overworked while at the same time so much is expected of them, I think they might be ready to stop putting down efforts the non professionals make to deal with the same problems.
In fact, I trust ordinary people more than professionals, because the arrogance is missing that actually disabled me in a mental hospital. I already had chronic fatigue from stress and they decided I needed electric shock therapy which I told them might kill me. Do you think they listened? My chronic fatigue kicked in after 5 terrible days of stress in a psych ward setting and I had what they called a catotonic seizure which was undoubtedly the only thing that kept me from being electric shocked. That was also chronic fatigue, folks, which can kill you if you are put under too much stress when it activates.
I came out of that psych ward partially disabled, never to be the same again. I was in much worse shape when I left than when I went in, and the reason that led to my getting in there in the first place was because I had decided to surface some serious molesting that took place in my childhood I could never talk about!
Professionals make mistakes as they did in my case, because they did not understand that I had chronic fatigue. So we should recognize that psychiatrists and psychologists may also have their limitations, so common sense should be our guide!
Most people understand what that is, so when will newspapers stop bending over backwards to exalt the professionals when they write about mental illness, instead of acknowledging they are only human, may be doing the best they can, but that it takes everyone to make a more mentally healthy world. Everyone!
That means parents, relatives, neighbors, everyone who is apt to be involved with or affected by the mentally ill. Everyone is so afraid to give the common person any importance at all. I have tried to get books published to give me more authority, but have so far failed.
Well, out there, common people avert crisises all the time by using common sense, good character, caring, and other valuable attributes of quite a number of our citizens!
Gerry Hitt
The above letter will be reprinted in my blog on AZ Central called G4Life. (see blog list)
I will also show a video I made this morning on the same subject when it is uploaded.
I also want to call your attention to a new entry called Vista Home in my sister Ann's blog, KanyonlandKing (see blog list) which echoes what I have said here. Thank you sister, that is a touching poem. She also posted an excellent photo of our hometown, Boulder, Utah.
My sister Linda's poetry reading video fimed in the patio got two 5 star ratings! So she is a hit. I think she read her poems very well on some significant subject matter (Twisted Sisters). See my youtube channel on blog list. Over 100 people have watched her now.
P.S. Later in the day: my sister Margie who writes the blog "Marge" (see blog list) responded from years and years of nursing experience, including some years working in the Arizona State Mental, with some observations about the topic of mental illness. Thanks so much sister Margie, who is coping with chronic pain in her lower back down to her foot, thank you for responding. I know all my sisters have much to offer the public with their experiences and thinking. I hope the blogging world will accept them and be their friends. Once I get them integrated I will be back to reading all of you some of whom I have neglected on my blog list, but I am aware and will see you soon.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Ecco Mom Kelli, this woman needs help to clean up the world's biggest ocean dump!
But not until after you have cleaned up the beaches where you live and alerted everyone to how disgusting littering our beaches and our oceans really is.
Mary Crowley has gone out there in her 'elegant square-rigged ship' to study this dump and see if she and her supporters can fix it! There are millions of tons of garbage swirling around in a vortex in the Pacific. Some of it rolls up on beaches such as this Hawaiian one leaving a giant clean up problems.
She says we need to stop dumping garbage in the ocean!! Right, but how do we get people to stop doing it. It is so big, but now look what has happened.
I salute Mary Crowley and Kelli Nelson and all the Ecco Moms who are determined to clean up the earth. I hate litter bugs and always have. I was always yelling at my kids, "Don't litter."
My Aunt Nethella was my example who would go for her walk with a big garbage bag and clean up the trash from in front of people's homes who wouldn't do it.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Flyer for Son Raymond's show in San Francisco!
SOLO @ OFF-MARKET
Off-Market Theaters and its managing companies, Combined Artform and PianoFight, are proud to announce the launch of San Francisco’s newest venue for solo performances, Stage 205 at Off-Market, which will feature the Bay Area’s longest-ever running solo show, Brian Copeland’s Not A Genuine Black Man, the world premiere run of Jennifer Jajeh’s I Heart Hamas, and debueting in San Francisco after a critically acclaimed run in Los Angeles, Raymond Shurtz’s “Bohemian Cowboy” kicking off the weekend on Friday, September 11, 2009 at 8:00pm.
All Shows at and presented by
965 Mission Street ,
San Francisco CA 94103 .
Parking near Metreon at 5th and Mission Powell MUNI/BART.
Tickets online at www.brownpapertickets.com or (800)838-3006
email solo@offmarkettheaters.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bohemian Cowboy
Raymond King Shurtz
9/11, 9/12, 9/18 @ 8pm & 9/19 @ 9:30pm - $15
In November of 2005, Raymond Dean Shurtz walked into the desert in Clark County, Nevada, The Valley of Fire, and simply disappeared.
For two years, Nevada detectives, Nevada Search and Rescue, psychics, private detectives, and family and friends, searched for his body. Mr. Shurtz has never been found.
A honky-tonk singer, a cowboy, a carpenter, and a traveler of mythic proportions, the senior Mr. Shurtz left an array of mysteries as a "disappearing specialist".
In an attempt to unravel these mysteries, his son writes and performs the legacy his father left him, using the same characteristics as his father, the original "disappearing specialist" and "bohemian cowboy".
LA Weekly – Pick of the Week
“Under the sensitive direction of Kurt Brungardt, Shurtz’s drama functions as both intensely personal family legacy and surreal picaresque." - LA Times
Bohemian Cowboy:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/79535 or 800-838-3006.
Doc's channel is advertizing my plays
I am not going to just forget about Doc as he is still good advertizement for my plays. There are probably a lot of actors the public does not know are addicts of some sort, but we still going on liking their work and their talent. Lots of great piano players and singers.
This is the second part of the video we made about trying to change his Youtube channel name. A commenter said, "Is that a woman you are with? She is rude and disrespectful. You are better off without her. She puts you down. Just be yourself."
I went to her channel and found out she is only 14, but that does not mean she can't have strong opinions. She is one of the public who did not detect he is an alcoholic. Well, it was pretty early in the morning.
I told her," that woman hopes Doc will be himself on his channel just like you do...etc." See it on Doc's Channel. I read it to Doc all but the part where I said alcohol is his biggest problem. Good thing he doesn't read either.
And it's a good thing he can't upload yet, as he needs censoring as far as I am concerned. Look on my blog list for recent uploads. He still has TheMadDoc666 because I could not get the 666 off.
My sister Linda's poetry reading on my channel is doing very well. I will try to book her for a poetry reading everytime she comes to town!
Oh yes, once I quit watching TV all of a sudden I had energy to go on Facebook for the first time. I found friends and family over there, and I like having short chats with them. Facebook is good for a long winded person. I sometime need to be stopped from talking for the sake of my health. I think this is part mental from being silenced so many years about what I had on my mind.
Oh yes, when I went on Facebook today there was a great big photo of my son Raymond and the musicians he is playing with in Salt Gulch, site of the old John King homestead where I used to live with his dad. He lived there during his second year. It was the cutest photo. I just love it. So Facebook is definitely worth the trip. I also found my daughter, my sisters, nieces, nephews, old theater friends, and fellow bloggers. I still love my blogspot blog though. And yours.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Staying away from Doc today
I spent a long time yesterday talking to a very articulate woman here, a recovering alcoholic, who told me about her horrific childhood, one of the worst I have ever heard about. I have decided that I was destined to live so long in a HUD complex where so many younger disabled people are moving to. The more stable people among the populace here the less chance for some disturbing meltdown. I hear that Jack is in a hospital behaviorial ward which he has resisted before. I think the meltdown he experiences when he drinks indicates a petty severe mental problem which he has always avoided getting help for. He has tried to rely too much on himself, self help books, and friends, but sometimes they are just inadequate. I know I began to feel inadequate to help him quite some time ago.
The first step might be in acknowledging the severity of the problem before death and disaster can occur. I can no longer help Doc much. I have done all I could. However this does not mean that I think people should withdraw support from those afflicted with substance abuse problems. I think close family members should try never to give up on a troubled sibling with addiction problems. They can retreat to a distance, but need to keep a watchful eye on the situation to see if they can do anything to help at any time. Alchol abuse is such a big problem in our society, nobody can really retreat from it. All you have to do is drive a car on our fast highways and you risk running into a drunk driver somewhere sometime. If you get more in tune with the problem, I think that alerted senses can even help save you from meeting up with a drunk on the road. You need to have a heightened sense of the dangers out there, and younger alcoholics are the highest possible risk for wrecks. People can live in a safe protected world at home and drive out on the highway and encounter those who are definitely very dangerous to life and limb.
The first step might be in acknowledging the severity of the problem before death and disaster can occur. I can no longer help Doc much. I have done all I could. However this does not mean that I think people should withdraw support from those afflicted with substance abuse problems. I think close family members should try never to give up on a troubled sibling with addiction problems. They can retreat to a distance, but need to keep a watchful eye on the situation to see if they can do anything to help at any time. Alchol abuse is such a big problem in our society, nobody can really retreat from it. All you have to do is drive a car on our fast highways and you risk running into a drunk driver somewhere sometime. If you get more in tune with the problem, I think that alerted senses can even help save you from meeting up with a drunk on the road. You need to have a heightened sense of the dangers out there, and younger alcoholics are the highest possible risk for wrecks. People can live in a safe protected world at home and drive out on the highway and encounter those who are definitely very dangerous to life and limb.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Doc calls me to come and drop the 666 from his Youtube User name
What a hassle this turned out to be. I told him Youtube does not make this easy because a bunch of stupid people want to change their user names all the time, probably. It was impossible. He was in a blackout when he decided on that number. I did not try to control him. Besides he wouldn't let me. He is now boss of his own channel. There has got to be some compensation for us going our separate ways. Mine is the sober channel, and his is well the inebriated one.
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