Here is the primary need for the mentally ill: counseling to handle life-long chemical dependence. Bouts with self-induced withdrawals from prescribed drug therapies are a common symptom for the mentally ill. So is self-medication, of which I am both guilty. The marijuana transforms my negative thoughts into glorious ones – filled with self-gratitudes, epiphanies, clarity. Emotionally addicting. But the pleasure rapidly twists into tortured minutes, hours, days. The THC burns the neurons and in turn they release bubbles of genius, and then abandons them singed and frayed. At least that’s how it feels. The prescriptions: anti-depressants, anti-convulsants, ant-psychotics – leave a less disruptive path, but also a less stimulating one. Dear psycho-pharmacologists, neuroscientists, and policy wonks: can we develop a compromise here?

For some time now we have been trying to get the rapidly growing Latino community in the Roaring Fork Valley to generate the demand for community organizing and to get the local donor community to supply the funds for the community organizing. The Latino community is so new, so changing, that it has been impossible to find enough organization in the Latino community to have a gathering that could make any demand at all. At the same time, the donor community is quite frightened of the word organizing and is unwilling to provide any supply. I now believe, that at this time, this situation will not improve, a Latino Community Organizing Project is not imminent.

I am envisioning an event, then, for the mentally ill and their support groups. Seems communing people for a purpose under the auspices of outdoor activity is a popular fundraising and awareness strategy these days.  I am envisioning something artistic and expressive in nature – for the inner-artist and inner–child within all of us. A dance? A performance? A reading? A mass visual arts project? A smorgasbord of collective imagination come alive? Something to enhance public spaces, schools, individual communities?

The dormitory for the Teacher Education Project, which we call the Rooming House because it is on our “Main Street,” was finished several months before the Project was to start. We decided to see if we could imitate in some manner a Highlander workshop. We brought in several Latino activists from Denver, Erma Zamora, Maria Miera, and Pierre Jimenez. They would spend Friday and Saturday night in the Rooming House. We put out the word where we had valid contacts in the Latino community that if they came Saturday morning there would be breakfast and the opportunity to talk about similarities and differences between life as a Latino in Denver and in the Roaring Fork Valley. What we hoped for was that the Denver folks would describe the many organizations that they have built for their own support and protection, and that the local Latinos would establish relationships that might help them develop similar organizations here.

All complimentary materials. Donated. Paints. Paper. Chalk. Stages. Podiums. Wood. Stone. Cameras. Funds are raised for the event only as it will fulfill the foundation’s entire reason (awareness and acceptance), and be self-sustained over time through sales of the participants’ creations. I had once envisioned an asylum that sustained itself through inmates’ art sales, but I’m thinking a national (global) wide Arts Day in Praise of the Mentally Ill (ADPMI, well, we can work on the name and acronym at a later time) may be a more positive experience. We can hold off on the asylum gallery for later, or perhaps eradicate the need for asylums entirely, and send the loons off to some desert island in the Pacific Ocean where they can waltz under the midnight stars and howl at the moon.

Twelve Latinos showed up Saturday morning; they included two school teachers, one cook turned restaurant owner (José), and nine who were ranch workers. We all had breakfast together, and then we Anglos left. When I returned in the early afternoon to check on their dinner plans they were finished and announced that dinner would be at José’s restaurant and that they would bring their wives, which indeed all happened.

We just have to get out there. Stop hiding, lying, masking. Stop pretending.

Pierre, Maria, and Erma debriefed themselves; the issue was immigration, the INS, and the lack of reliable information about immigration matters. There is a service organization, Asistencia para Latinos, which provides this service, but their market penetration is apparently slim. This group felt uninformed and afraid, they said it didn’t much make any difference to become documented because the INS had a record of bussing off documented along with undocumented. They had stories to tell of this which later checked out. They were afraid that at any moment the INS might come and ship them indiscriminately, breaking up families and so on. They said they were afraid particularly to go out at night.

Why live one’s life in a closet? Unlike homosexuals, or illegal immigrants, we don’t have a flag, from anywhere.

Dinner that night was wonderful, and after dinner Benito, who was fast becoming their spokesperson asked for some serious talk. It was good, he said, that these people had come over from Denver but were going to go back to Denver, leaving them with only a beginning and perhaps never coming back to help them. The Denver group promised to come back, to bring more people, and a date was set. Benito also wanted to be assured that we Anglos who would be remaining in the valley would continue to be a resource, to which we agreed.

What’s so ironic is that if every single person who has ever suffered from mental illness came out of the woodwork for such a celebratory event, and their families, lovers, friends, joined them in support (and for a jolly, healing, good time), there wouldn’t be anyone left at home.

Monday, July 31, 2000

Hi George, Ben + Patti,

I wanted to tell you a few things.

Last weekend I was out at the “House”, my home where I came from…and I was grubbing in my jewelry box. And I found the baby picture of Ben from when he was just a baby. Cute baby! There’s no date on it. And the reason I am writing another letter is because at this AFCH I’m not allowed to make long-distance phone calls. Nor receive them. So I’m writing!

Your prayers have been heard, I’m feeling much better. The “War” is over, I heard a voice say – Saturday 29 – July. This Friday, the 4th, I’m planning on doing some volunteer work at the Brand Traverse Pavillions. Cutting up some fruit for the party.

And this weekend my Sisters + Brother are coming to visit. We’re having a family reunion.

Having a lot of “De Ja Vus”. Remembering my dreams. The only bummer is I still have to have the ECT’s. All winter + next spring. That’s what Dr. Conlon said that day in court. But it doesn’t have to be every week, every Wed. Now that I’m feeling better, it can be every 3 months or something. Whatever. Thank-you for your concern + prayer.
God-Bless. You all.
If I can, I’d like to be a nurse. And work at Munson Medical Center.
I wanta get this in todays mail. It comes at 11 AM. Got 10 mins.

Lotsa Love,
Cynthia
Eddie

Postscript:

Recently, when we were at Towne Center Books in Basalt together before a People’s Press meeting, I pointed out to George another new book, perched by the register, about Hunter S. Thompson by two of his closest friends and neighbors, Bob Braudis and Michael Cleverly. In response, George said, “You know, we all felt sorry for Hunter and so I, like many of his friends, used to stop by to talk with him. Almost out of obligation. But these guys [Cleverly and Braudis, the long-time, outlaw sheriff of Woody Creek who is also one of George’s best friends and turns out shares family in Boston with Patti] really enjoyed visiting with Hunter.” Incidentally, Patti, but not George, is mentioned in the acknowledgment section at the end of the book.

I Shit on the Chest of Art

This Man Cleverly has done many queer things, in his time, but this reprehensible “Sex and Death” calendar that he recently hocked up in the name of Art in Woody Creek is a shocking new low in our proud tradition of obscene behavior and blatant sexual excess. It will bring shame on our valley and disgrace on our children if they turn out to be perverts and sexmongers, it will be Cleverly’s fault.

Who are these women, and where does he keep them? I drive by his house every night, and I never see naked women writhing lewdly on the lawn. No wild-eyed whores display themselves in his windows, no screams of pained-addled lust float out to the road at night, no rapes are reported.

But something is wrong up there. Nobody wants to talk about it, for fear of being snuffed, yet rumors of orgies and floggings persist. Cleverly himself, is a shameless degenerate with depraved tastes and terrifying appetites. His art is defiantly lewd and his animals crave sexual contacts with humans of the female pursasion [sic], or any other.

Michael Cleverly has been my good friend and neighbor for many years, and I have never condemned his wierdness [sic], just as long as he doesn’t come after me or my loved ones. That is how we like to live, out here in Woody Creek. Few laws are respected and many gods are worshipped.  Nothing is sacred in this valley, except sex, violence and absolute personal privacy.

There are reasons for these rigid societal edicts, and I am probably one of them. My own sexual mores have been called into question, from time to time, but rarely by friends and neighbors – and if a sleazy art-monger like Cleverly wants to run amok on Jimson weed and blot beautiful naked bodies against his walls in the name of Art, I will fight to the death for his inalienable right to do it constantly & flagrantly, just as long as he doesn’t call 911.

But I still wonder why he feels he has to keep sneaking these wonderfully sexual girls in and out of the neighborhood behind my back. It disappoints me. There is no reason to sneak. Art is meant to be shared, just like Sex and Death.

So thanks for the naked art, Michael. You may be a pimp and a pervert, but you are One of Us.

Hunter S. Thompson, W.C. 2001

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