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Chained: New Art
Image March 31, 2014 Phoebe Sparrow Wagner Leave a comment
Chained – colored pencil painting
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Shock Treatment (ECT) in 2004
November 25, 2011 Phoebe Sparrow Wagner	2 Comments
(Edited in 3/2012 . Note that all names have been changed back to their originals except for names of the people involved. Although in Divided Minds, we were forced by the publishers to disguise everyone, including the hospitals, here descriptions of people once changed to "protect them" have been undisguised. I write nothing but the truth as I remember it — I wrote a fair amount in my journals at the time and I referred back to my notes there in writing this — and I intend no libel in any event. In fact, I want to be as fair as possible and to bend over backwards in giving as much credit where it is due as possible.
Note, because many may have read this before, I want to
I hope this will be a chapter in BLACKLIGHT, my second memoir and a possible sequel as it were to DIVIDED MINDS.
The Ogre Has ECT: 2004
I am delivered like a piece of mail to the Hospital of St Raphael's, on a stretcher, bound up in brown wool blankets like a padded envelope. It's the only way the ambulance will transfer me between Norwalk Hospital and this one. The attendants disgorge me into a single room where de-cocooned, I climb down and sit on the bed. All my bags have been left at the nurses' station for searching; this is standard procedure but I hope they don't confiscate too much. An aide follows me in to take my BP and pulse, and bustles out, telling me someone will be back shortly. I sit quietly for a half an hour, listening to the constant complaint of the voices, which never leave me, sometimes entertaining me, most of the time ranting and carping and demanding. A thin, 30-something woman with curly blonde hair, residual acne scars that give her a kind of "I've suffered too" look of understanding, and rimless glasses knocks on the door-frame..
"May I come in?" she asks politely.
"I can't stop you." My usual. Don't want to seem too obliging or cooperative at first.
"Well, I do need to take a history, but I can come back when you're feeling more disposed…"
"Nah, might as well get it over with." Then, nicer, I explain, "I was just being ornery on principle."
"What principle is that?"
"If you're ornery they won't see you sweat."
"Aah…"
"And they won't expect you to be medication-compliant right off the bat." I shrug my shoulders but grin, I want to think, devilishly.
"I see you have a sense of humor."
"You should see me…"
"I'm sure we all will. A sense of humor is very healthy. But it worries me that you already plan not to take your meds."
"I'll only refuse the antipsychotic. Look at the blimp it's turned me into." I haul my extra-large tee-shirt away from my chest to demonstrate. Fatso, Lardass! Someone snipes. She doesn't know it but you really believe you're thin. Ha ha, you're a house! Look at yourself! LOOK at yourself! Ha ha ha ha! The voices are telling the truth: I know the number of pounds I weigh is high, outrageously high for me, having been thin all my life, but I haven't lost my self-image as a skinny shrimp, so I can't get used to being what others see. The voices love to remind me how fat I really am. Only the mirror, or better, a photograph, reminds me of the honest to god truth, and I avoid those. I avert my eyes, or search the concrete for fossils, when approaching a glass door. Anything not to be shocked by what I've become. Pig! Glutton! It seems they don't want to stop tonight…
I realize suddenly that I've lost track of the conversation.
"I don't think they'll allow you to do that for long."
"Do what?"
"Don't you remember what we were talking about? Were your voices distracting you?"
"Just thoughts, you know, plus some added insults."
"You'll have to take all your meds eventually."
"Then they'll have to switch me to a different pill, even if it's less effective."
She sucks the top of her pen and looked down at her clipboard. "So," she starts the formal intake. "What brings you here to St Raphael's?"
The voices break in there, again, confusing me. When I can get my bearings I tell her what made me transfer from Norwalk Hospital and why I opted for shock treatments. She takes a closer look at the mark of Cain I've burned into my forehead, writes something, then corrects me.
"We like to refer to them as ECT here. 'Shock treatments' brings to mind the terrible procedures of the past. These days you feel nothing, you just go to sleep and wake up gently. I know. I assist at the ECT clinic.
"Oh, I know, I know. I've had ECT before. I know what it's like and it's a snap. I asked for this transfer because I hope it will help again."
We talk some more about why I'm here and what I've been through and the voices keep to a minimum so there's not too much interference. She says she's going to be my primary nurse and that she thinks we'll work well together. I nod, thinking she's pretty okay, for a nurse.
I've arrived after lunch, which is served at 11:30am so someone brings me a tray and I pick at it in my room. People come in and out of my room but only speak to me a second or two before they leave, a doctor does a cursory physical, someone takes me down the hall to weigh and measure me. I return to my room, too scared to do otherwise, constrained by the Rules of the voices. The first break in the afternoon is medications in the late afternoon, when someone tells me to line up in front of a little window near the nurse's station. When it's my turn, I look at the pills in my cup. Ugh, 20mg of Zyprexa, an increase, plus a host of other pills I can't remember the names of. I hand the pill back to the med nurse. I'm not taking this, it makes me fat, I say. Give me Geodon. at least I don't put on weight with Geodon.
"Sorry, Dr Corner has ordered this one. We can't just go around changing doctor's orders. You either take it or you refuse."
I was in a quandary. I hadn't even met the doctor and already I was fighting with her? Should I take it and argue with her later? But then I'll eat my whole dinner tray and more. Better to start off with my principles intact, so she knows what I'll take and what I won't take. I hand the pill back. "Sorry, I won't take it."
"If you decompensate further we will have to give you a shot, you know that, don't you?"
"I'll be fine." I do a little dance step.
"Yeah, and look what you've done to your face. Come closer."
Wondering what she wants, I lean in gingerly, fearing her touch, but she only takes a tongue depressor and smears some ointment on the big oozing sore.
"You're done.Go eat some supper."
At 4:30? That's pretty early. I can't cross the threshold of the dining room, the Rules the voices make forbid it. I cannot enter the milling crowd, suffering little electric shocks every time my body makes contact with another's. Instead I retreat to my room. Sitting on the edge of my bed again, I wonder what to do. How can I get supper, or any meal, if the voices won't let me go into the dining room?
Just then, the thin blonde nurse with the glasses, what's her name, leans into my room. "Aren't you hungry? There's a tray for you waiting outside the dining room."
"They made a rule I can't eat with other people, and I can't get in the dining room…So I can't eat." I read her name tag. "Prisca."
She smiles and glances down at the tag on her chest. "Oh, just call me Prissy, everyone else does. I hate it, but what can you do? What are you talking about? There's no such rule. For now, I guess I'll let you eat in your room, but that is against the rules and we'll have to get you into the dining room eventually, whatever the voices tell you.
She brings in the tray: white bread with two slices of bologna and a slice of cheese tossed on top, a packet of mayonnaise, a small green salad in a separate bowl, with a plastic slip of French dressing, and a packaged Hostess brownie for dessert. I didn't eat lunch, though they brought it in, so even this impoverished repast looks good to me and I eat everything, despite not having taking the hated Zyprexa. I curse myself for it, of course, and do some leg lifts and crunches for exercise afterwards. Ever since I've been refusing the drug, I have lost weight. Now I am down to 155 lbs from 170 the last time I weighed myself and I intend to get much thinner, since I started at 95 before medications over the years slowly put weight on me.
After supper the voices start in again, louder and louder, telling me how fat I am, how disgusting and terrible I am. I notice the clock hanging on the wall, which ticks audibly punctuating each sentence. The voices were carping, now they are threatening, and demanding…Finally, their all too familiar sequence segues into telling me I'm the most evil thing, and they don't say person, on the planet. I'm the Ogre that ate Manhattan, I'm Satan, I'm a mass murderer, I killed Kennedy and deserve to die, die, die!
I'm wearing a heavy pair of clogs with wooden soles and almost before I can think about it, I know what to do. I heave one up at the clock, hitting it dead center. It crashes to the floor. Scrambling to grab a shard of the clear plastic cover before the staff comes running in, I lunge towards where I saw the largest piece fall, one with a long jagged point. I have my hand closed around it when someone tackles me from behind. He's not very big and I can feel him struggling to keep me pinned. I almost succeed in stabbing myself, but he manages to engulf my hand with his two and press them closed against the flat sides of the shard.
Other people crowd into the room now and they pry the shard from me and grab my arms and legs so I'm completely immobilized. Then at a word murmured by one of the male aides who have materialized out of nowhere, they swing me up onto the bed, like pitching a sand bag onto a levee. I scream but they ignore me and strap my ankles and wrists into leather cuffs which have been rapidly attached to the bed frame: four point restraints.
I continue to scream and scream, but nobody pays attention. A nurse comes at me with a needle, saying it is Haldol and Ativan and proceeds to inject me. Although I am still crying that I want to die, that I'm Satan, the Ogre that ate Manhattan, that I killed Kennedy, I'm the evil one, the room then empties, except for a heavy-set café-au-lait sitter, who hollers louder than I do that her name is Caledonia. She pulls up a chair in the doorway, pulls out a cosmetics bag and proceeds to do her nails in spite of me.
I am told by Prissy that I scream most of the evening and keep the whole unit awake until given a sleeping pill and another shot. All I remember is restless twilight sleep coming at last, broken when a short sandy-haired woman, dressed in a sweater set and skirt, comes in and takes my pulse. I'm groggy with medication but she speaks to me nonetheless.
"I'm , Dr Corner, your doctor. You've had a bad night I see. Well, perhaps tomorrow we'll get a chance to talk."
"Get me out of these things!" I mumble angrily. I can't sleep like this!"
""Not yet. You're not ready. But try your best to sleep now. We'll re-evaluate things in the morning."
Then she turns and is gone.
As I get to know her, I will like Dr Corner for her kindness, toughness and honesty, but I will hate her too for opposite reasons and it will be a long time before I know whether the liking or the hating or something else entirely wins out.
The first thing that makes me know ECT is going to be different at St Raphael's than the to the ECT suite in wheelchairs, the way I've known since childhood all hospital patients must travel. We walk there, all of us, down interminable corridors, around several corners, through doors to more of the same. In short by the time we get there I have no idea where we are. I said it was a snap when I had it before, but now I feel like a prisoner going to the hangman, a "dead man walking." Something about our going there in a group, under our own steam, makes it feel like punishment, like having to cut your own switch, not a medical procedure at all. This sets my nerves on edge. Then, when we finally get to the rooms clearly marked "ECT Suite," instead of the doctor being ready for us so there's no time to anticipate or fear what is ahead, we have to wait and wait and wait: we're told the outpatients have to be "finished up" first. My apprehension grows. I'm used to getting to the ECT rooms and immediately climbing up on the table and getting it over with. Waiting and having time to think about it brings me close to tears.
Finally four in-patients are to be taken. I think the nurse calling us in senses I am too anxious to wait any longer, for she makes sure I'm with the first group. I clamber up on the table, and see Dr Corner looking down at me, smiling. I notice how white her teeth are and the little gap in her shirt across her chest as she bends over me, strapping something over my forehead as Prissy puts a needle into the heplock already in my arm. I feel my arms and legs quickly cuffed down by others in the team, a mask clamps down over my face and I'm told to breathe, breathe in deeply and I breathe and breathe and a chasm in hell opens and the demons reach out and scream as I plummet past into a terrible inky blackness…
I wake up a second later and immediately vomit into a kidney basin hastily held out by a nurse. "Why didn't you do it?" I cry out, confused. "Why didn't you do it, why did you made me wait? I can't go through this again!"
Strangely, Dr Corner has disappeared, and so have Prissy and the nurses that had surrounded me just an instant before. Instead a plump, baby-faced older nurse smiles as she takes away the kidney basin and says, kindly, "You've been sleeping soundly for an hour. They did the treatment already and you're waking up. How about trying to sit up now?" Slowly, I push myself to a sitting position and swing my legs over the edge of the table. No dizziness, no more nausea. I feel okay, except for a slight headache. So I slide off the table and ask where to go. Surely they won't make me stay a long while this time. The nurse leads me to a wheelchair and asks an aide to take me back to the unit. Ah, a chair at last. At least I'm not expected to walk on my own after that ordeal.
ECT Takes place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week and though I vomit many times upon waking up, that is the least of it. What I dread most is the anesthesia, how I plunge from perfect alertness into the dark pit and feel like I wake a second later, sick and confused. I grow more and more afraid until, at the end of a series of 8 sessions, I refuse to go on to a second, even though my symptoms are still severe and Caledonia comes to sit with me one to one more often than not. Dr Corner tries to persuade me, but I am adamant, No more ECT. Then she threatens to have the next series court-ordered and to add insult to injury, she says she will force me to take Zyprexa as well, the drug I so hate. I explode.
"What! You f—ing can't do that! I'm a free citizen, I'm not a danger to myself or anyone else."
"In fact, I can do it, and I am going to do it, whether you like it or not. You need more ECT and unfortunately you refuse the only drug that is effective for you. Pam, look, how can you say you're not a danger to yourself? Look at your forehead! That's not the mark of I it's just self-mutilation. Look at where you carved that mark into your hand when we weren't watching you carefully enough. Isn't that danger enough?"
"But I'm NOT going to kill myself. I don't want to die. I just want to be disfigured so no one will want to be around me and they'll stay safe and uncontaminated."
Dr Corner's eyes suddenly glitter and she has to blink a couple of times. "Well, I'm not going to let you continue to do what you want. Period."
She was standing at the foot of my bed, one foot on a lower rung, casually holding a clipboard. But she moves closer to me, standing to one side, the clipboard clasped business-like across her chest. Gazing intently at me, she shakes her head in what appears to be sadness. I'm not sad, I know what I have to do. I don't understand why she feels this is so terrible, but I know enough to remain quiet. Finally, she turns and quietly slips out of the room.
This alarms me; it shocks me. I know she means what she says. Dr Corner never lies. Worst of all, Dr O'Hayley, my outpatient psychiatrist, has signed off on it well, agreeing it is the only thing left to do, that already I've been in the hospital two months and little has changed, that the situation is desperate. The problem is that to get a court order I have to have a conservator who will agree to it. They appoint my twin sister and they discuss with her whether or not she'll agree to forcing more ECT on me, in addition to Zyprexa. Despite fearing that I'll hate her, she too is convinced there are no other options.
So Dr Corner wins and I endure eight more ECT sessions. Finally I'm discharged, much improved, so everyone says, a month later, promising, as a condition of my release, that I'll continue to take Zyprexa. I do promise, even though my history clearly suggests that I will not. I'm also supposed to return once every two weeks for maintenance ECT treatments and Dr Corner threatens me with a police escort if I don't comply. But this time I thumb my nose at her. So, she's going to get both the Hartford and the New Haven police involved? She thinks they are going to bother to arrest me just to drive me down to the hospital for ECT, something they themselves probably consider barbaric? J'en doute fort. I doubt that big time! In fact, after a call to the Legal Rights Project, I learn that any conservatorship was dissolved the moment I was discharged from St Raphaels and that the doctor has no power over me at all now, zilch. So I write Dr Corner a nice apologetic letter, but sorry, doc, no more ECT for me. Ever.
Several months later I pour lighter fluid over my left leg and set it on fire. So much for the restorative powers of electroshock treatments.
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Academy of Medicine – Poetry Reading for a Bunch of Shrinks?
Wowee zowee, who'da thunk it could go so well? I was more worried than usual and I had this profound dread that — I dunno — somehow disapproval and dislike and even hatred of me would reign overall. Worse, that all those shrinks would find my poetry either cold and incredible (but who are they to say?) or somehow incomprehensible at least in part….This is not just self-loathing baring its usual fangs, but my deep fear that a repeat of my encounter with Dr Z in the Hospital in October would occur, writ large, or with so many others over these past 35 years. Truth is, I am terribly frightened of most doctors, of all sorts, and this despite the fact that I am all too aware, intimately so, of how human, how terribly flawed they can be and how despicably they can sometimes behave. Even so I am aware that I "give" them — give most people — way too much power over me (I have never understood that "give" but it must be true, though it feels like they take it, forcibly), power to dominate and judge and make me feel like shit. Moreover, I am so afraid of them and their power, that I become completely paranoid about — well, any doctor, really any health care professional, from technician to nurse to doctor, I need to see these days! and my mind conjures up scenarios about how they intend to harm me, complete with delusions and hallucinations that corroborate every such feeling.
Just this past week, for instance, when my migraine, along with vomiting up what looked like coffee grounds, put me at the emergency room again, paranoia completely took over. I still believe that they knew everything I felt and perceived, indeed were doing precisely what I "knew" they were doing …. Why I even call it paranoia I do not know, when I believe it was real. Why? Because, because, because…I have to hope and pray it was paranoia. Otherwise life would be unbearable…unbearable! I would at this point much rather be told, reassured, that nothing happened there, at the ER, and that it was "only" my paranoia, than to find out that indeed I was right all along! No, I hope to god I was wrong! And if I need to be labeled paranoid in order to be wrong, then fine, so be it. Better than to be right and find out that what I was so terrified by really was happening there all along…
But where was I? I was speaking of Wednesday night's reading. I started out — well, the problem began — I was fine up until that point mind you! — when we entered the building because unlike the hotel, it was vast and echoing which produced an immediate physical disorientation on my part, I felt off balance and dizzied, as if under attack and anxious…I wanted to get out from under those echoes and that vastness…So I was scared simply upon entering the building and wanted to get away from it…This did not abate, and being scared almost to muteness beforehand, it only got worse, esp when Mary left me alone in a big room just off the hall where the reception was taking place. I felt then as if I were going to disappear, to implode, to die, to be killed, if she didn't come back quickly…I didn't know how to escape and I knew that I would have to, that I would not survive otherwise and immediately. I slunk to the wall near the door, carrying all my things, my coat and bag and my poetry. Adrenalin shot into my chest and poured down my arms and legs, preparing me for flight, when suddenly Mary returned.
I think she realized what a state I was in then, and felt bad. Which only made me feel worse, and I couldn't talk for a few minutes. But I made myself pull myself together and I did calm down, and made it clear that to enter the room where the reading would take plaee once full would be much harder than to do so when it was still in the process of filling. So we went in, Mary going first and fending people off (so I felt) and when I finally had a chair beneath me, I could breathe again. Just knowing I could keep my head down and stop anyone from talking to me, even if they recognized me allowed me to relax, which was what I needed.
In this room, which had some sort of insulation that baffled the echo in the halls and open space downstairs, the disorientation passed almost at once, and the adrenalin seeped away, until it was only at the level of keeping me alert, not so much alarmed and ready to flee. I no longer felt dizzied or on the verge of hyperventilation or even, as I had, such imbalance as to the possiblity of falling. It was weird to the max but as soon as I left that room after the event was over, I had trouble immediately, having to negotiate the space with great care, using the banister to take the stairs and even so, feeling my feet and legs uncertainly take the steps downward and feeling the alarmed feeling build up and up the longer we remained. I felt even so that I could not hear properly, though all had left and there were scarcely more than 5 or 6 of us left in the building. I was so glad when we finally got outside I barely registered that noisiness by comparison!
But I am ahead of myself! First the "event" took place.
Barbara from the Foundation that sponsors and indeed is the originator of these humanism and medicine events did a brief introduction about the Foundation itself, then my publisher got up in her striking bright red coat, and spoke, wildly enthusiastic, about my book. In bombastic terms she praised me endlessly, until I cringed and felt no one, least of J herself could possibly believe such drivel….. I can only hope she tones it down tonight as it was way over the top…upsetting me because I felt certain she was lying to herself and making everyone laugh at me as well. Finally, she was through and gave me the signal to do my thing. Luckily I had more than cut my teeth on public speaking with our book tour for Divided Minds, so I was fine, once I got started. Of course beginning with, How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual, and a few words of explanation, put most people at ease. So you better believe I start with that almost without fail. What else? And after that my spiel and that poem, I had them…as they say — in my hand. But really, they had me! You see, I was no longer terrified, nor intimidated. Instead I was having fun and wanted only to please.
The rest of the reading went swimmingly, with Mary providing a short intro to each chronological section of the book, and me reading about 3 poems from each, That way, I could let her do some of the organizing of the reading and taking some of the pressure off me, and it eased my tension a bit, even though I guess I could have done it myself, seeing as I had done so at Mystic (though I admit, there I had also started weeping near the end, thinking about Joe as I read a poem about him. In fact, it was probably my crying during that poem there that led Marjorie to suggest I stop at the so-called forgiveness poem, rather than continue through till four o'clock as I was scheduled to.)
In fact, I do not mind crying, it is mostly others who seek to save me from my own tears who mind…They are the ones who cannot take it, who think they have to save me from embarrassing myself, them, and the world. when in fact I don't mind crying in public, any more than I could care less where I sleep! (I have slept in some pretty weird places, including right in the middle of a labyrinth in a public garden….Could simply not walk a foot farther but collapsed into a heap and slept for a couple of hours, oblivious to the fact of people staring or otherwise wondering what I was doing there, and my family having in disgust moved on…) But at the Academy, I was prevented from crying or at least it never became an issue which at moment, is a source of relief though I do not believe it would ever truly have proved a problem to me.
The following night, I was less articulate, possibly more tired, though I hadn't felt so, just more tongue-tied, and less quick to think or respond…Nevertheless , the audience was very kind and laughed right on cue, which is more than I can say for the shrinks, kind though they were. and which this audience was not made of particularly. They even responded better, in terms of audible laughter to In Memoriam Memoriae. Laughing at the ending, and esp at the pauses where laughter was most welcome.
Oh, I am such a ham…But in truth this is only on stage, and nowhere else. And only in terms of the truth, not as a true actor, which I cannot be for beans…I dunno how to "act act" and wouldn't want to. What I think I like to do is be myself, but be a goofy me, or a funny me, which others call, Play acting, but is really just being goofy, and me too. Can I not be goofy sometimes, or might i not achieve that state of innocence where one can play and be irresponsible occasionally? Why must one be staid and unimaginative and awkward and nothing always…
Well, I fear I must stop here, finished or no, as my face is coming off and I simply cannot stay awake longer. I have to go to bed because I am fading and losing touch with whatever i am writing.. When the fingers threaten to fall asleep on the keyboard and the keyboard becomes invisible because you are closing your eyes against your will, you know it's time to sleep…And so I will, myself, take this body off to bed. Sleep well and good night.
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Delusions and Paranoia: past experiences
During the second part of what I call my Y2K Meltdown, when I was hospitalized for 3 months, first in central and then in southern Connecticut, I was extremely — but what I call serially– paranoid. What I mean by this is that plots occurred to me one after another seemingly without end. A new conspiracy would "appear" out of nowhere, as of course paranoid plots tend to, generated as they are by that two step process, described in the "Paranoia and Hallucination" entry. It would "do its thing" as they say, run its course, wreak its own havoc, then having done so, pop or be defused, and disappear. But almost immediately and, without my having any sense that this was happening or had any pattern, in its place another conspiracy would arise to take its place.
An example: at one point during that same hospital stay, having smelled what I was certain was marijuana coming from the art supplies room, I became convinced that the staff had been infiltrated by drug dealers selling weed and stronger drugs to patients. I'd mentioned the smell — no doubt some innocuous meaningless odor, if it existed at all — to a male nurse, and the look he gave me convinced me that he was involved. As a result, I realized that my knowledge of the presence of drugs on the unit made me dangerous to him and the other dealers. I felt frightened that he might retaliate, threaten me, or worse, hurt me when no one was around or could help me or know he was responsible.
Terrified enough to start talking, I told the doctor, and I called my sister and begged her to come in and sign me out. Please take me anywhere else, I begged. I would agree to any other hospital only get me out of there where I was in mortal danger. It was, I knew, after visiting hours, indeed it was after bedtime, but she had to come in and get me, now, or I might not survive the night.
Incredibly, she actually came in, if only to make sure that the staff was aware of my extreme distress. I knew only that she came to check out the drug situation and was devastated when she left without taking me home with her, though by then she had managed to "talk me down" some, convince me that I was in less danger than I believed, and that at least some of the staff were on my side and would be watching out for me all night.
Somehow, her words got through to me, and by the next day, the matter of the drug conspiracy was resolved, though I cannot recall exactly how.
All I know is that as the urgency of that situation ebbed, I became aware that a new patient had arrived on the unit. Cally wore a raglan-sleeved sweater made of what I immediately apprehended was a washable wool yarn called "Candide." Now, I knew only one other person aside from myself who knitted sweaters like that made of Candide yarn and she was the woman who had taught me to do so. "Lisa" not only knitted many such a sweater but did so for her long lost daughter, "Cally," who had been given away for adoption many years before. The fact that "Cally" lived in North Dakota, last I knew, was of no importance to me. What seemed of paramount, vital and decisive importance was 1) the Candide wool and raglan sleeves, and 2) the fact that Cally appeared to have Lisa's ballet-slender body type. These two coincidences in fact absolutely clinched the matter. Cally was "Cally," wasn't she?
These equivalences might not have been so critical to me, except that, it suddenly seemed that Lisa had died. She had committed suicide, so the message was communicated to me, and I had now to inform Cally of the fact that I'd known her mother way back when. I felt it was incumbent upon me to tell her what she had been like, that was the mission I'd been given. But first I needed to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt that this Cally was indeed Lisa-my-former-friend's daughter "Cally"…
If this was not a true paranoia that instantly arose following the death of the drug dealing plot, it was a delusion coupled with the felt urgency to act on what I was certain I knew (not so different from the marijuana delusion after all). And it was only one of a long string of plots and serial delusions that followed one upon another almost without a break that winter and spring. Just as I described in my entry of the other day, not once in the midst of any of these conspiracies or delusions was I cognizant of what was going on or able to step back and analyze the situation with any objectivity. At that time, I did not even have the tools I have now to dissect an incident after the fact: I was at the utter mercy of my brain illness, without any insight whatsoever. Now, at least, I can step back after the experience and say, Wow, I must have been really paranoid to think such a thing, or That was a hallucination after all…My goal, and a real triumph would be to recognize these things in medias res, that is, right while they are happening, but so far that does not seem to be possible.
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Paranoia and Hallucination
January 16, 2009 Phoebe Sparrow Wagner	2 Comments
Argh… An incident of paranoia and, hallucination unrecognized by any of us, including me, caused certain people close to me unnecessary distress this week. I won't go into the details of that particular incident, except to say that I had absolutely no appreciation for the fact that I was both paranoid and under the influence of false perceptions and so took what I hallucinated as solid reality, with predictable consequences. Since I felt attacked and "heard" corroborating evidence, when I accused the responsible parties, as I felt certain they were, you can imagine how people reacted…Anyhow, I don't really know how to make things right now, since the accusations themselves seems to reveal a fundamental lack of trust, however paranoid and generated out of the whole cloth that is my imagination going full tilt…I don't imagine it would help anyone much to say that this has happened many many times before, and that I have accused so many people of so many outlandish things that it embarrasses me even in the remembering…Nor that some, no, most of the accusations have had utterly NO basis in fact other than the predisposition of my brain at that precise instant in time. They didn't even reflect any longstanding attitude, so much as a temporary, very fleeting feeling that burst out as full-blown paranoia-of-the-moment.
Be that as it may, instead of dissecting this particular incident, I want to discuss paranoia of the rather prosaic sort that afflicts me these days, rather than the grandiose and global kind — involving the usual suspects like the CIA plus certain shadowy figures known as The Five People — which used to. These days, paranoia — which I've been taught to recognize and deal with by my psychiatrist, though success at either task remains elusive as best — reveals itself most often at the grocery store or the post office or the lobby of my "elderly-disabled" apartment complex. Or it might pop up in my suddenly suspecting theft by someone near and dear, or accusations of malfeasance or betrayal by someone who would have no possible reason or motive for such an act, if an act of that sort were even in the realm of being contemplated. But usually the accusation is so outrageous as to be laughable if it weren't so insulting or potentially dangerous to reputation or livelihood.
What happens in general is something like this: (and Dr O has broken it down for me, knowing the neurology of paranoia) my brain generates a feeling, that is the amygdala spontaneously, chemically, spurts out neurotransmitters of some sort that spell "fear" or "threat" coupled with a sense of absolute certainty. I don't know if there has to be a trigger for this amygdala burst or not, but it seems to me that stress does induce it more often than calm does, and that certain stresses bring it on more often than others. But that is not to say that I can ever predict when or if my amygdala will produce an outburst at any given time; it is definitely unpredictable to the max! So imagine that I am, say, visiting someone in the hospital with another friend, and in that stressful situation — crowded hospital, stress of strange place and sick friend and not knowing what to do — my amygdala pours out the fear neurotransmitter. I'm suddenly on alert and feeling threatened. Someone is attacking me, my brain decides, and he or she is right there in the room with me! In fact, I just heard them both conspire against me, the sick friend and the well friend visiting him…They are both in on it and against me! I hate them both, they got me here on false pretenses and now are plotting against me, they want to hurt me, to do something to me, they…And so it goes.
Anyhow, after the primary flood of "threat" feeling ("the feeling is primary" and that feeling is almost always fear in some form or another) the brain's longer pathway — as I understand it — kicks in and generates an explanation, a storyline to go along with the "threat feeling." The important thing to know is that the storyline need not make any sense whatsoever. The brain doesn't give a damn whether there is any evidence outside of it to explain the threat feeling, because the threat feeling is already inside and felt…So anything can explain it, literally anything can seem or feel reasonable, and does. So wherever the mind goes, or tends to go at that moment, will be the form of the storyline that explains the threat-feeling. If one's brain travels along the line of (I should only be so reasonable) "why do I feel so threatened? Did they just say something bad about me? Maybe I'd better ASK them! then one is in good shape, because at least then one can check out what is going on, and short circuit any tendency to mistake false perception for reality. But for me, while I do not, often, these days go so far as to opine that cosmic forces are behind my threat-feeling, I do find other less than reasonable sources than reality to explain it: voila paranoia.
One example, when I am in the grocery store, particularly when alone, I almost always hear and as a result know that I am being followed, and instructed as to what I can and cannot buy. I generally race through the store in an effort to get out, and get away from my pursuers, or if I do not, suffer from dreadful fear of imminent assault or at least dire consequences. At a minimum, in the best of times, I know that someone is following me and keeping track of what I put in my cart, and will be transmitting the "evidence" to a central authority, which will lead to later consequences that I will regret (which my mind spins into longer more detailed scenarios that change each time I am in the store but which vanish as soon as I am safely back in the car or walking down the hill a distance away…)
So that is both an explanation of how paranoia arises — from Dr O's mantra, "the feeling is primary" , meaning the fear that is initially and instantly generated from that burst of neurotransmitters or neuroelectricity to the brain's subsequent confabulation of a narrative, an explanation for that all-compassing feeling of threat and the certainty that the threat is real. And I hope I have given some examples of paranoia, specific examples, where the situation stimulates the content without the two being necessarily significant or significantly related. For example, in the instance of the two friends at the hospital, it is the fear and the feeling of threat and certainty that provides the stimulus for the paranoia, rather than any underlying distrust of the friends. The friends are simply the carriers of the fear and the certainty of the reality of the threat, which would have been borne by almost anyone stepping into the picture at that time…
amygdalafearneurotransmitterparanoiaschizophrenia symptomsthreatTrust


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Unplug Miley…please!
Miley Cyrus was just featured this week as the new humbled artist to be invited to tape an episode of MTV Unplugged
I can remember Florence + The Machine's show giving me chills last year…
I wasn't expecting the same from Miley's Unplugged BUT I have to say that I knew it would be something of worth considering she is best as a stripped down singer without all the auto-tune and dance floor beats. Her voice soared a lot in her past work that was more singer-songwriter based.
She's just a country girl after all!
Her ex-fianceé Liam in the background ^^^ Awwwkward!
Anyways I just took the time to watch Wrecking Ball which was okay…she screams it and that's what I don't like. Not her best vocals but it was alright.
(I will always want you)
I really think Wrecking Ball should have won the Grammy for song of the year just because of the lyrics alone. The song is brilliant! It was written by MoZella, Stephan Moccio, Sacha Skarbek, Lukasz Gottwald (Dr. Luke), and Henry Russell Walter (Cirkut).
Well done guys!!!
She had a cute little duet with Madonna of a mashup of "We Can't Stop" and "Don't Tell Me". Madonna seems to be everywhere lately lol
What was the real highlight for me from Miley's Unplugged was her song "Drive". I love the song and she really was stellar with her vocals on it! 😀
Drive: http://www.mtv.com/shows/miley_cyrus_unplugged/drive-live/997991/video/#id=1721351
And she did a great cover of "Aunt Dolly's" Jolene!
Jolene: http://www.mtv.com/shows/miley_cyrus_unplugged/jolene-live/997992/video/#id=1721351
Well done Miss Cyrus!
I approve of "Drive" and "Jolene"…not your twerking
Tags cyrus, drive, madonna, miley, miley cyrus, mtv, mtv unplugged, music, music videos, pop, tv, twerking, unplugged, we can't stop, wrecking ball
Beyoncé Class!!!
This comes as a bit of a shock to me, but on my daily surf of the web for music industry news I came across an article saying that Rutgers University is now offering a class called "Politicizing Beyoncé," which uses her music and career to "explore American race, gender and sexual politics."
Wait! HOLD UP! Are you telling me there is a class about Bey? Beyoncé? Yoncé? #lifealert #heartattack #transferringtorutgers
"This isn't a course about Beyoncé's political engagement or how many times she performed during President Obama's inauguration weekend," says class teacher Kevin Allred, according to an interview with the campus newspaper Rutgers Today.
The course will compare and contrast the "Drunk in Love" singer's music videos and lyrics with important works from the Black Feminist movement, including the writings of Alice Walker and the abolitionist Sojourner Truth.
compared to Alice
and Sojourner Truth
Rutgers thinks that Beyoncé is a fitting candidate for this kind of course, given her "larger-than-life presence in American culture".
"She certainly pushes boundaries," says the class' teacher. "While other artists are simply releasing music, she's creating a grand narrative around her life, her career, and her persona."
I can certainly agree with him on that sentiment. Beyoncé has seemed to create quite a persona for herself in the world known for class, boldness, and sex appeal. She's the quintessential modern woman in today's culture.
According to Mr. Allred, the course will tackle issues like "the extent of Beyoncé's control over her own aesthetic" and "whether her often half-naked body is empowered or stereotypical."
This class sounds really interesting to me actually! HAHA
Oh and by the way…Georgetown University is offering a class named "The Sociology of Hip-Hop: The Theodicy of Jay-Z," which focuses on Beyoncé's hubby.
Still going strong in 2014 huh, Jay and Yoncé? 😀
Tags 2014, awesome, b, bey, beyonce, beyonce and jay z, beyonce class, classes, college, funny, gif, gifs, jay, jay z, jay z class, lol, music, music news, rutgers, rutgers university, university, yonce
Who is Jordan Feldstein?
Jordan Feldstein is, I mean WAS, the manager for Sara Bareilles up until the day after the Grammys.
Sara was nominated for Album of the Year – "The Blessed Unrest" and for Pop Solo Performance – "Brave".
She went home empty handed thanks to
Random Access Memories from our buddies Daft Punk
and "Royals" by Lorde for Pop Solo Performance
The real issue here is who is Jordan? You're not going to believe it…
Jordan Feldstein is what we like to call "a big shot". He not only was the manager for Miss Bareilles, but he IS the manager for
Two of the hottest guys in Pop music…both literally and in sales HAHAHA 😀
Sara "informed" Feldstein the following day after the Grammy Awards AKA Monday that he would no longer be representing her.
So here is a picture of Jordan:
Who is the blonde? Oh just Clint Eastwood's daughter that he married for 1 week LOL This story is crazyyy!!!
So now the other piece of evidence I have for you is that Jordan's brother is none other than funnyman Jonah Hill!!!
So apparently at Saturday night's Clive Davis/Recording Academy-sponsored pre-Grammy gala at the Beverly Hilton hotel…Jordan got into quite a scuffle with Kelly and Sharon Osbourne.
According to E! Online, Jordan was first spotted in the ballroom arguing with Kelly, with her right-hand mum Sharon backing her up after her daughter stormed away from the music manager's table where Sara Bareilles was also sitting.
In this famous photo seen here:
You notice Sharon with a water glass turned sideways towards Jordan and Jordan walking away…
Apparently Sharon walked up to him pointing her finger and screaming and eventually that fiasco resulted in Osbourne tipping over a plate of food on his lap and throwing water at his head.
Needless to say the worst part of this story is that Jordan did not attend the Grammys on Sunday! :O
I'm standing behind Sara on this one…
In the words of Prophetess Swift:
Tags 2014, artist manager, bareilles, feldstein, fired, grammys, jonah hill, jordan, jordan feldstein, kelly, manager, music business, osbourne, osbournes, sara, sara bareilles, sharon
Stella's Top 5 Grammy Moments!
In random order, here are my top 5 Grammy moments from last night's show:
1. Pharrell's hat
I'm serious. This hat is getting a lot of attention!!!
It has its own Twitter account:
Arby's gave it a shout-out:
And Beyoncé looked at him wearing it in the same why I would have:
"It's Vivienne Westwood," Pharrell says. "It's a Buffalo hat. This gentleman by the name of Malcolm McLaren [designed it]. [He has a] huge history. And I just liked it."
2. Katy Perry's Dark Horse performance
Since I was seeing Cody Simpson last night I didn't have the ability to watch this one live but I love the imagery and the performance was stellar! I loooooove the song so much so I am very biased on this one haha I also am so pleased with how Katy nailed the last note and how my new friend Juicy J made an appearance! Wonderful performance Katy! 😀
3. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert "Same Love" / Real marriages
This is what had the whole world buzzing last night…the first thing I saw when I got home from the Cody Simpson concert!
So first we had a good old Macklemore song "Same Love"
Then we had Mary Lambert added into the mix
Then there was a ceremony executed by Reverend Latifah
Then we see 33 couples / some straight / some gay / some lesbian in the aisles
Then Madonna comes out to sing for them like no big deal…
It basically made Macklemore the coolest man in America last night haha
See that beauty of a moment here:
4. Taylor Swift acting pissed off the whole night lol
I response to Kacey Musgraves winning ^^^
And then thinking Red won for best album lol ^^^
5. P!nk's aerial performance of "Try"
It was absolutely unbelievable! So much strength! I can't believe she could sing during any of that haha
So as for the scoreboard
Record of the Year: Get Lucky – Daft Punk Featuring Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
Stella 0 / Rosa 0
Album of the Year: Random Access Memories – Daft Punk
Song of the Year: Royals – Joel Little & Ella Yelich O'Connor, songwriters (Lorde)
Best New Artist: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Best Pop Vocal Album: Unorthodox Jukebox – Bruno Mars
So the final score is 0 to 0…Stella-Rosa tied! LOL 😀
And can you believe these guys?!??!
Here is a cool pic I took of Cody Simpson last night:
And let me leave you with this…
Tags 2014, award, awards, blue ivy, cody simpson, daft punk, dark horse, grammy, grammy awards, grammys, jay z, juicy j, katy perry, macklemore, madonna, music, pharrell, pink, pop music, random access memories, recording academy, same love, taylor swift, try
Stella-Rosa's Grammy Predictions!!!
Alright everyone so this blog thing is really taking off haha By posting my article links to Facebook I have seen a great response from my friends 😀
My best friend Rosa has requested to give her input so this will be Stella-Rosa edition of Grammy predictions 2014.
First of all let me just say that whenever I have my friends over for a party we play our PARTAYYY playlist on shuffle on AppleTV which includes music videos and whenever it comes on we all stop what we're doing to sit down and watch it. It is none other than the best Grammy performance of all-time! I'm talking about P!nk's 2010 performance of "Glitter in the Air" complete with trapeze art and a pool! It really was remarkable considering she sang most of the song clutching a microphone in her hand while she was hanging upside-down in midair.
Here is that little gem:
Here are the nominees for Record of the Year (as in a single song lol):
Get Lucky – Daft Punk Featuring Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
Radioactive – Imagine Dragons
Royals – Lorde
Locked Out Of Heaven – Bruno Mars
Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke Featuring T.I. & Pharrell
STELLA'S PICK: Royals by Lorde. I can honestly say that this song was a shocker that came out of left-field and out of all the songs I have to go with Royals. I'm really surprised Wrecking Ball got snubbed!
ROSA'S PICK: Radioactive – Imagine Dragons. Although, I think Lorde's "Royals" was a surprisingly refreshing hit, I really think Imagine Dragons deserve this one. They've been taking the world by storm and "Radioactive" seems to be a good anthem for it. It's only right.
Here are the nominees for Album of the Year:
The Blessed Unrest – Sara Bareilles
Random Access Memories – Daft Punk
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City – Kendrick Lamar
The Heist – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Red – Taylor Swift
STELLA'S PICK: Red by Taylor Swift. Anyone who knows me has their jaw dropped right now lol I think I am really coming around to the TSwift team and I would say that with songs like "I Knew You Were Trouble" and the incredibly-written "Red" that there is no competition with The Heist. Not to mention her amazing collab with Ed Sheeran!
ROSA'S PICK: Red by Taylor Swift. To be honest I didn't like this album the first few listens, which is surprising because I'm generally a Swift fan. She's been quickly moving from her once country roots to pop, and this album seemed to make that final transition. This change is proving to be just as successful as her previous work, and you know what? It works.
Here are the nominees for Song of the Year:
Just Give Me A Reason – Jeff Bhasker, Pink & Nate Ruess, songwriters (Pink Featuring Nate Ruess)
Locked Out Of Heaven – Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine & Bruno Mars, songwriters (Bruno Mars)
Roar – Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, Katy Perry & Henry Walter, songwriters (Katy Perry)
Royals – Joel Little & Ella Yelich O'Connor, songwriters (Lorde)
Same Love – Ben Haggerty, Mary Lambert & Ryan Lewis, songwriters (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Featuring Mary Lambert)
STELLA'S PICK: Same Love. If there is one song for the past music year that really made its mark…it's this one. Not only is it a beacon of hope for gay rights and human equality – this song is beautiful in its approach. Well done!!!
ROSA'S PICK: Same Love. The Song of the Year should be something that really stands out and is relevant to what's going on in the world. Look no further, that song is definitely "Same Love" this year.
Here are the nominees for Best New Artist:
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
STELLA'S PICK: Ed Sheeran. I had the pleasure of meeting Kacey Musgraves in passing on a night out in Nashville but I think this award means someone in music we really think has contributed greatness. Not that Kacey isn't great in her songwriting prowess…I just personally have to give this award to Ed Sheeran. I saw him at The Ryman and he blew me away with his talent!
ROSA'S PICK: Ed Sheeran. I love Macklemore & Ryan Lewis but I really have to give this to Ed. Especially since "I See Fire" wasn't nominated for anything, he deserves this.
Here are the nominees for Best Pop Vocal Album:
Paradise – Lana Del Rey
Pure Heroine – Lorde
Unorthodox Jukebox – Bruno Mars
Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke
The 20/20 Experience – The Complete Experience – Justin Timberlake
STELLA'S PICK: Justin Timberlake. He and his manager Johnny Wright are marketing geniuses…as seen here:
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1552367/justin-timberlakes-promotional-run-up-to-the-2020-experience-a
I think that Justin did an incredible job of returning to music! He left us all foaming at the mouth for him to sing ANYTHING! We would've taken Dead and Gone Part II remix featuring Rick Ross and without any new lyrics from JT. We were THAT desperate! :O lol I think he really outdid himself with the 20/20 experience and with his showmanship on the VMAs. If anyone deserves a Grammy this year it's Justin Timberlake!
ROSA'S PICK: Justin Timberlake. I'm absolutely obsessed with Lana Del Rey, but unfortunately for her I'm much more obsessed with Justin Timberlake. It's his comeback, and you just can't say no to a former NSYNC member (At least not me).
All the other categories will probably not make the show and if they do – they are only based on single performances 😦
Good luck to all the nominees!!!!!!!!
I will fill you in with whether I won or Rosa won tomorrow!
I'm only a few hours away from Cody Simpson y'all! 😀
Tags 2014, artists, awards, bestfriends, charts, friends, grammy, grammy awards, grammys, grammys 2014, music, music awards, pop, rosa, stella
Cody Simpson or BUST
So tomorrow night is the Super Bowl for me…The Grammys.
I'm in Nashville not LA…not yet! Probably next year! haha I just wanted you guys to know that I will not be going to the Grammy Awards or watching them tomorrow night on CBS. I know! Me! Let me explain…
It just so happens that I will be going to an intimate acoustic concert at the Mercy Lounge with Cody Simpson. Cody is a 17 year old young man from Australia and his music is so delightful 🙂 He is Australian which already gives him 1,000,000 extra points in my book!!! He can sing, he can play the guitar, he can dance, and he is also managed by Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber's manager).
I've seen Cody twice before and I didn't want to miss him again. You have to be thinking that I am like 13 in my music taste…first Justin Bieber…now Cody Simpson?! I know, I know. You guys are haters but I've decided that I'm not going to be ashamed for liking their music no matter their age, average fan's age, or for any other factor. If I love your music, I love it. I love Wisin Y Yandel…the kings of Reggaeton. Don't just write me off as a teenybopper lol
However…I did grow up with these two:
Just listen to this song and try to tell me you hate it:
That's what I thought! You don't! HAHAHAHA 😀
So I'm going to chill with Mr. Simpson tomorrow night and I will go ahead and give you my Grammy predictions tomorrow so I don't feel bad for not participating haha
Tags acoustic, australia, awards, cody, cody simpson, concert, grammys, justin bieber, scooter braun, simpson
Give Justin Bieber a chance
That's right…I want to bring the biggest news of yesterday up again today! lol
What I want you to know before I state my opinion on this is that I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER!!! That is why this news was tragic to me and honestly I was Googling his name all day trying to find a newly posted article with another paragraph or two of new information…
So for those of you who don't know…which is none of you haha Justin Bieber was arrested around 4 am Thursday morning in Miami. He was drag racing in a rented Yellow Lamborghini while his young R&B singer friend was racing him in a red Ferrari. They were speeding down a palm tree lined residential road going speeds of 60 mph in a 30 mph speed limit zone. Oh my! lol
The real instance got worse when Justin was pulled over by police and was asked to get out of the car…he was drunk and told the officer that he had consumed beer, pot, and prescription pills that day.
Not the best diet indeed 😦
He was refusing to be searched and told the officer that he didn't have a gun. His non-violent refusal, driving without a valid license, and DUI cost his team $2,500 in bail. Chump change to Justin Bieber with his net worth and annual salary as follows…
So what am I to make out of this situation???
Well let me just tell you that he is 19 years old and has over $100 million dollars at his beckoning call. That's some crazy money for a guy his age. Beyond the riches, I think the fame has gotten to his head. The least reported subject of yesterday's events was the fact that J Biebz medication was Xanax…anti-anxiety pills. I've read his Rolling Stone article and I know that this young man hates the paparazzi. I can't say that I would like them either however I believe that at certain levels of fame – you trade-in your privacy. Justin is suffering with anxiety, with alcohol addiction, and with recreational drugs such as pot and sizzurp (codeine cough syrup mixed with Fanta and a jollyrancher…better known as the deadly cocktail that kept Lil Wayne in a coma for a week straight).
So what I deduce from yesterday's proceedings is that Justin is lost. He is trying to be a bad boy, drive fast, drink alcohol, do drugs, and escape the police. I'm worried for him and that's really why I wanted to write this.
His "acting out" is a sign that he needs attention and help. I feel like he is not getting satisfied down in his soul and that is the real reason for all the substance abuse and wild behavior. He's trying to tell us something…but are we really listening?
I understand that I'm not his girlfriend *sigh* and I cannot replace his manager Scooter Braun, his team, or his parents at this time. I have come to believe by seeing Justin on tour, noticing his dedication to his fans, and observing his touch on the hearts of so many young women all over the world is that his impact is GREAT.
And I think that anyone that is as young as he is will experiment on their road to finding personal happiness. I don't want to discount the fact that even though he is a worldwide superstar, he is also a real person with strengths and weaknesses. I believe that the best thing I can do now is keep supporting his music and his recovery.
He's really a beautiful person with a great heart. I believe that through what I've observed.
I believe the best in people and what I've liked about him all along is his swagger.
He carries himself in such a cool way that attracts girls to him like a magnet. He's got the "It factor" for sure and that's why he has been as successful as he is.
I don't encourage Scooter Braun, Justin's parents, or Justin's fans to stop loving him. That would crush his spirits more than anything else. We need to continue to support Justin knowing that he has the potential to put these shenanigans in his past and move forward.
He just needs greater focus and a better sense of happiness. If he had inner peace there would be nothing that drinking, drugs, and illegal behavior could offer him.
I just wanted to give you a practical look at his situation. The talent is there. Right now it's just misguided. He needs to realize that he was put on this earth to entertain and to bring joy to others. His accountability to us is only going to be reassured if we don't stop believing in him.
Tags arrest, believe, bieber, justin, justinbieber, music, pop, singer, talent, trouble

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


cleaned fuel system, changed oil replaced air cleaner and problem persists.
I'mthinking its a carb issue at this point, possibly buildup in internal passages that can't be easily cleaned. Either that, or possibly the ignition system/coil issue.
the generator runs perfect aside from the occasional misfire and hunting that accompanies it. seems more like a fuel starvation problem in that regard. particularly as the problem worsens with load.
occours occasionally while running normal 1750-2100w household loads, but becomes much worse when windows AC kicks on or hair drier in use (spiking watts to 3500w total to start A/C unit or run hairdrier. then settling down to 2700 total draw with A/C unit running.
governor kicks in as it should and carries the load, but as the load approaches 50% or so the hunting/intermittent misfire gets worse. it really seems like a fuel problem but wanted to get others' opinions before ordering a replacement carb.
Sounds like ignition system for sure. A quick check for carb problems are black smoke indicating a rich condition. For a quick check to see if it's a lean condition just slowly start adding some choke to richen up the mixture and see if it runs better. Later made Honda's are set to run on the lean side to meet emmessions.
On a Honda surging is a sure sign of a dirty pilot tube. That's the plack plastic part underneath the idle screw. To clean remove the idle screw and gently pry the pilot tube out.
I do have a nice EU3000is I could run to charge batts and run basic needs, (No A/C and fridge simultaneously obviously would have to switch back and forth) as well as various sizes of noisy cast iron briggs gensets and a couple china 2-strokes, so I got plenty of insurance in case I break something trying to get the tube out.
heating is a no.5 air-o-gas radiant heater in the living room, and kerosene heaters in other rooms.
well water, but the pump is gasoline, powered by a Honda GX200 engine.
Generator has a LOT of hours on it, but has been well maintained and does not consume any noticeable ammount of oil still pretty much on the full mark at each 96 hour oil change (more convienent than 100 hour intervals. still has great compression and cranks off like when it was new. only issue is the hunting and intermittent misfire that accompanies it.
One thing had me thinking ignition rather than carb issue was because it has never had ethanol or any ethanol-laced blend ran in it and it gets regular use so gumming should not occour, going to try the pilot tube and see if it helpsthough. if not then replacing carb and coil is still cheaper than a new generator.
I did check and clean the muffler and spark arrestor screen to see if carbon buildup was the cause, but it made no difference.
Engine is definately running a little lean, adding choke makes it run smooth and perfect, which suggests a carb issue, however.
The idle mixture screw with, the cap locktighted on to it, so that you can only turn it a part of a turn, you can easily remove the limiter cap by using old-fashioned soldering gun to heat it up, to soften up the Loctite and pull it off with a needle nose pliers, be careful, so you don't break the head of the screw off Like the service manual says to.
Last edited by turtmaster; 04-13-2019 at 11:37:26 PM.
managed to get the pilot tube out and soaked everything in carb cleaner for a few hours, and just finished getting it all back together and reinstalled. Problem solved.
hunting issue is nonexistant now even at 50% load.
intermittent misfire/backfire disappeared along with the hunting so it was definately a fuel starvation issue.
on a side note I've been looking to upgrade as the hour meter has well over 10k hours on it. considering its a 3600rpm machine, that says a lot about Honda quality. anyway the upgrade machine needs to be similar capacity 6500w surge and at least 5000w continuous so I was considering a EU6500 but I dont know if the inverter is pure sine wave or modified sine. does anyone know if its a pure sine wave type?
If its a modified sine wave, then does Honda still make a 6500w surge rated non-inverter type generator, as I need pure sine wave power.
if not then another option would be buying a new GX390 engine and a 6500w northstar generator head and building a DIY machine.
The Honda EU6500is is a pure sine wave inverter.
(both the EU3000 and the ez3500 it replaced (which still runs/generates) are used for RV/camping).
How is the RFI/em interference on the EU6500is? I'm on 4g and I get a good deal of ignition noise coming over the power cables on the EM6500. (bad resistor in spark plug wire cap, long since ''repaired'' by tinfoil wrap and reinstall method out of necessity. (needed power back couldnt wait for a replacement).
How is the RFI/em interference on the EU6500is?
There is some inverter noise. You may or may not consider it a problem.
My first use of the EU6500is, was for Field Day many years ago. There was noise from the inverter, but a long extension cord helped by keeping it away from our antennas.
I have since found that passing several turns of the extension cord through some large toroid cores cleaned it up.
Thanks. A bit of inverter noise would probably be easier to manage than the ignition splatter I'm getting now. I've already installed ferrite chokes on the power cords, but the problem is still bad. on battery my 4g signal is -90 dBm and 22.4dB on generator its -107dBm and 13.7dB. (modem located furthest from generator, and using an external Yagi antenna to hone in on the feeble 4g signal that makes it all the way out here.
FYI, Northstar no longer uses mecc-alte brushless generator heads, now they use brush type generator heads, I'm not too sure of the quality of the new brush style generator heads, they may be good quality, they may be bad quality, I do not know yet.
some may say that all brushless generator heads put out bad quality, dirty power, but the meccalte generator heads do not, I have an oscilloscope waveform "shot" of 10kw mecc-alte, brushless generator head, on a Porter-Cable generator with a Honda GX620 engine.
And the waveform is pretty darn good / clean.
Northstar had used the Meccalte, generator heads up until about 1 or 2 years ago.
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Movies | January 10, 2022 11:56 am
Leonardo DiCaprio Now Has a Namesake Plant
It's an evergreen found in Cameroon
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio attends Netflix's "Don't Look Up" World Premiere on December 05, 2021 in New York City.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
By Tobias Carroll
Plenty of celebrities use their fame as a way to advocate for the causes near and dear to their hearts, with Leonardo DiCaprio's advocacy for environmental matters one of the highest-profile examples of this out there. (And it certainly doesn't hurt that his latest film project finds a way to dovetail his leading-man status with his areas of concern.) But now, the actor has joined another rarefied group — namely, that of people who now have a namesake species.
Yes, this means that Leonardo DiCaprio and Metallica now have something in common. The world grows stranger by the day.
The first plant species newly documented by scientists in 2022 is a modestly sized evergreen located in Cameroon, reports Smithsonian Magazine. Its habitat is in the Ebo Forest, which the actor and activist has worked to preserve from the logging industry — and that's why this particular tree will henceforth be known as Uvariopsis dicaprio.
In a statement, Dr. Martin Cheek of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew addressed the decision behind the tree's name. "We very much appreciated the support Leo gave us in campaigning to protect Ebo last year so it seemed fitting to honour him in this way, naming a species unique only to this forest, after him," Cheek said.
The announcement came as part of the Gardens' recap of new species for 2021, which also includes a fungus with teeth. Leonardo DiCaprio has a namesake tree and some fungi have teeth; the world is truly a strange and miraculous place sometimes.
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Young MA Has Reportedly Been Arrested And Charged With Reckless Driving
Carolyn DrokeAssistant Editor, Indie MixtapeTwitter
Young MA proved herself a talented MC well before she first arrived on the scene with her first mixtape Herstory back in 2017. Ever since, she's been perfecting her flow through her 22-track debut LP, an EP, and a handful of singles. But despite her success, Young MA has also dealt with the occasional run-in with police. Per a report, Young MA was recently arrested and charged with reckless driving.
According to a report from TheShadeRoom, Young MA was arrested for reckless driving around 3 a.m. on Friday morning. Apparently, the rapper was apprehended and charged but has reportedly since been released.
The report mentions that Young MA has yet to confirm the arrest. However, TheShadeRoom seems to think she addressed the situation when she posted an Instagram photo Friday which shows her sipping on a drink and flipping the bird.
In other Young MA news, the rapper has released a handful of projects this year. This week, the rapper appeared on Pornhub's Christmas mixtape XXXMas where she delivered a song titled "Stuff Our Stockings Santa."
Before that, Young MA tapped Eminem to kick off her Always Me Radio show. The two discussed Young MA's 2020 EP Red Flu, where he admitted to being on his third listen-through of the project. "I'm still catching [bars]… When you get your punchlines or however your writing process is, you can always tell somebody who has studied the game and who is a student of it… Your punchlines don't sound like setups. They sound like punchline after punchline after punchline. That requires a lot of skill and a lot of thought."
Tags: Young MA
The Best New Hip-Hop This Week
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January 24, 2023 by: Danielle Chelosky
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January 17, 2023 by: Lexi Lane


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Ideas for a Jazz Party Theme
By Cadence Johansen
Cadence Johansen
Cadence Johansen is a freelance writer who enjoys writing about travel, marriage, family relationships, caregiver support, home improvement and money. Johansen has been writing professionally since 2008. She holds a master's degree in family studies from Utah State University.
Image Credit: Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
Parties are fun events. Jazz parties, in particular, are memorable and exciting. In general, jazz-themed parties often take one of two routes: Marti Gras jazz-themed parties or Roaring Twenties jazz parties. No matter what you choose, guests will have fun, and you can enjoy a special night of dancing and music. If you have been planning a jazz-themed party but have been short on ideas, consider these options.
The most important element of a jazz-themed party is the music. Take the time to book a band, or find some great music that can be softly playing in the background. Great jazz music also will open the door for guests to dance during the party.
Classy and Over the Edge
Many jazz-themed parties are decorated in a classy but sometimes over-the-edge decor. Stick with black and gold for balloons and decor. If you want more of Mardi Gras look, keep things festive with a Mardi Gras arch or metallic curtains. For a Roaring Twenties approach, go for the Chicago speakeasy look, with vintage 1920s posters and signs.
Adorn and Have Fun
Invite guests to dress up as flappers and mobsters, or adorn them with Mardi Gras hats and beads when they enter. Activities can involve anything from a murder mystery to playing the Mardi Gras mambo. Guests can dance to the jazz music, start a conga line or even play charades.
Shin Digz Party: Host a Jazz-Themed Party
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FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
FROM PROMETHEUS TO PORNOGRAPHY
by Roger Shattuck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
An eminent scholar's exploration of a crucial theme in Western literature and culture: forbidden knowledge. Shattuck (Literature/Boston Univ.) has published many books, including a well-known study of modernism (The Banquet Years, 1968) and a biography (Marcel Proust, 1982) that earned its author the National Book Award. His new book embodies his vision of what literary criticism ought to be (as opposed to current academic trends in literary studies). First, its theme is one of importance to people other than professional literary critics. Second, its language is urbane and engaging. Third, Shattuck writes with originality and imagination yet remains loyal to scholarly standards of evidence and argument. The book traces the problem of forbidden knowledge from its origins in myth and folklore (Prometheus, Pandora, Eve, and Faustus) up through the more modern attempt to deal with its meaning for our moral well-being. He has especially strong chapters on Milton's Paradise Lost, which he sees as a turning point in our understanding of the theme, and Melville's Billy Budd, which he praises by damning comparison with Camus's The Stranger. He also writes about Frankenstein, Emily Dickinson, Mme. de Lafayette. The latter two share the theme of renunciation, the obverse side of the forbidden knowledge topos. The second half of Shattuck's book attempts to negotiate the treacherous pass from literature to real life: Forbidden knowledge as literary theme is supposed to shed light on the moral dilemmas of scientists who worked on the atomic bomb and those who remain at work on the Human Genome Project. Here he is less persuasive. But as a consolation prize we get a wonderfully impassioned chapter against the Marquis de Sade who, according to Shattuck, does not deserve the serious attention that scholars have showered on him. A fine, challenging, and timely work of scholarship and criticism. (First serial to the New York Times Book Review; Book- of-the-Month/History Book Club alternate selections)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
Publisher: St. Martin's
More by Roger Shattuck
PROUST'S WAY
by Roger Shattuck
CANDOR AND PERVERSION


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You are here: Virgin Islands News Online » News » Not fair that 'Peter paying for Paul & Paul paying for all' - ESHS Seniors
Not fair that 'Peter paying for Paul & Paul paying for all' - ESHS Seniors
- some proprietors agree with not lifting the ban
January 3rd, 2018 | Tags: ban minors Tortola Pier Park ESHS students tenants
The management of Tortola Pier Park has controversially placed a ban on unsupervised children 17 years and under from entering the facility. Photo: VINO
Sweet Tease, owned by young Virgin Islander Kareem-Nelson Hull, is one of the tenants opposed to the ban imposed on minors by the management of Tortola Pier Park (TPP). Photo: Provided
A cruise ship in port today, January 3, 2018. According to Tortola Pier Park (TPP) management, the ban is aimed at providing a comfortable, family-friendly shopping experience for all guests which is in keeping with the Berthing Agreements.' Photo: VINO
ROAD TOWN, Tortola, VI - The debate continues as it relates to the ban instituted by the management of Tortola Pier Park (TPP) on unsupervised children 17 years of age and under.
Tenants of TPP were notified of the controversial decision in a letter dated December 15, 2017 from Chief Executive Officer of TPP, Dona L. Regis.
The ban came after Minister for Education and Culture Hon Myron V. Walwyn (AL) had stated that students of Elmore Stoutt High School were "wreaking havoc" in Road Town and that Government was looking to end the shift system as a means of adressing the problem.
While there are persons who support and oppose the ban, many students, especially senior students of Elmore Stoutt High School (ESHS), are not in agreement, labelling it unfair.
"VINO we want you stay on this issue because all the sides must come out, Peter paying for Paul and Paul paying for all and that's not going down too well with or for us," said an emotional senior student of ESHS, who asked us to refer to her only as Danellia.
According to TPP, children 17 years of age and under must be accompanied by an adult 21 years of age or older when entering the Government owned facility. This came amidst many reports of student burgularising, damaging property and behaving disorderly at TPP, especially post 2017 hurricanes.
Hon Walwyn to blame?
"What they (TPP management) not saying is that they didn't really have these sort of problems before the Minister (Honourable Myron V. Walwyn) rushed to open school before reasoning out aĺl these issues and I feel hurt when I hear the Minister calllig us names. It's sad because while he was speaking about a certain set of bad behaving children all of us in a ESHS uniform is being looked upon in the same way. And them bad eggs are to be blamed too and those parents who can't control their children are to be blamed too."
The obviously upset student said it has now become an uneasy feeling of being policed in a place she had often visited.
"Miss this upsets us because you know how it feels when you walk into a place you are accustomed to being in and all of a sudden guards watching you strong and sometimes even walking foot to foot behind you? It look and feels bad. When them children from the cruise ships be all over throwing a fit when their parents don't get them what they want no security coming or no management putting ban on them."
According to the student, she is not a racist but she just wanted to show both sides of the issue "because I want us to be treated equally and fairly."
Junior High students the culprits!
They young woman who was in the company of three others while speaking to this news site, said the main problem group is the Junior High students who are off from school by noon.
"We have some of these lower forms or junior high students that messing up because instead of going home after they are dismissed they head down to the Pier Park and some other places and cause problems. In some cases their parents don't even know they not going straight home because by the time their parents reach home they done make their troubles."
The student recommended that the controversial ban be lifted and that security cameras be utilised to "catch them bad eggs and put them on blast. Trust me we going get justice so," suggested the student.
Some tenants support ban
On the other hand, several business operators in the facility said that they are fed up of the distraction and bad behaviour of the students. "Most of the bad kids are usually not wearing their school uniform but we know them. They sometimes have their books in pockets or on sling bags and they are very barefaced and disrespectful. We have a serious problem on our hands with this generation of children that's coming up," said one businessman.
A taxi driver said, "The thing that has to be done is [Hon] Myron [V. Walwyn] has to find a way to separate the sheep from the goat or we will have worse problems with this generation on our hands."
At least one tenant of TPP, Kareem-Nelson Hull of Sweet Tease, has called for the ban to be lifted.
11 Responses to "Not fair that 'Peter paying for Paul & Paul paying for all' - ESHS Seniors"
Windy (03/01/2018, 08:57) Like (6) Dislike (4) Reply
Why don't we band the NDP from ever seeking political office again?
SK Port Zante (03/01/2018, 09:39) Like (3) Dislike (1) Reply
Just came back from SK.. Wow. Wow. I was amazed to see thousands of people white black Indian old young all kind all race all age Mascarafes, Indians, everyone just doing there own thing having fun at Port Zante. Seems like here in Tola some people watch everything and everyone and everything is a bother to them.. We need relax and let things be..
stop (03/01/2018, 11:16) Like (5) Dislike (1) Reply
In SK the youth would not dare fight on Port Zante because they respect the fact that it's a gem of their country. The difference here is nobody gives a $%&#! Our government spends almost $100 mil on a nice place and we don't care about it and do as we please. Typical BVI BS.
blame game (03/01/2018, 11:54) Like (6) Dislike (0) Reply
Part of the problem is that everyone wants to blame the government of the day for all social ills. When did parents abdicate their responsibility to ensure their children were well raised, supervised and behaved in a socially responsible manner? The parents themselves have no self respect and the guava is not falling far from the tree!
@ Port Zante (03/01/2018, 16:41) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
There is a reason for that! I bet you my last dollar that the SKB youth won't DAARE going in there with that behavior, they won't even THINK ABOUT IT! That's the difference! As bad as they may behave elsewhere they would NEVER go to a place like Zante with that behavior so it says a lot about our youth!
2018 (05/01/2018, 04:52) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
@ Port Zante...our youth, you think all the kids going to the High School from the BVI? Half of them probably from St. Kitts and other islands so stop with "our youth behavior". Its not where they are from either they either following pattern of their parents or following bad company.
@ Windy (03/01/2018, 11:17) Like (6) Dislike (2) Reply
NDP will be re-elected again easily, keep dreaming.
To the kids (and their parents) (03/01/2018, 13:02) Like (5) Dislike (0) Reply
Why aren't these kids more worried about exams and not where they can roam unsupervised? Have they and their parents not realised they've missed 3 months of school and exams are in 4 months?
Where are the priorities?
Also, I understand these kids feel victimised but there are several important life lessons they can learn from this and need to learn to become functional adults with a proper moral system.
1.The world isn't fair.
2. As a child, your opinion isn't always valid or interesting and how you feel isn't always the top priority of the society on a whole.
3. You can't do whatever you want and always get away with it. Life's Newtonian, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. For every crime, there is a punishment.
4. You can't always cry and whine your way into getting what you want. No one likes being manipulated by emotional arguments. Find another way to get others to see things your way.
5. Paul pay for all and all pay for Paul is usually how the world works, particularly when it comes to bureaucracy.
6. Sometimes harsh punishments are given to set an example and discourage destructive behaviours.
7. Business people have a right to protect their businesses which sometimes mean declining customers that might harm their businesses.
8. Some things are privileges, not rights and they have to be earned. When you abuse privileges, they get taken away.
9. If you don't want to suffer along with everyone you have to encourage everyone around you to be honourable and responsible. If honour isn't upheld, the integrity of society falls apart which leads to blanket laws. (Hence lesson 5)
After I posted this a suggestion popped into my head.
First I want to say that I do understand why teens would be upset just that as an adult I sympathise and agree more with the businessmen. Also, I personally don't think children should be encouraged to think that they can run society because they don't really know anything of the real world to make informed and wise decisions plus adult life is pretty stressful and too much for a child to handle and understand (it even gets too much for adults at times). This is why we don't let children do things like vote, drive, own a lease, etc. Privileges and some rights come with responsibility.
I'm sorry teens but everyone has a place in society, yours is just not at the adult's table.
Also, while I did previously say no one likes manipulative emotional arguments, sometimes they do work. If I were a business person at the park, I wouldn't want to hear innocent children telling me they're innocent. Of course, I know they're innocent. I'm not protecting my business from them. I'm protecting my business from the destructive children. I'd much more appreciate an apology from the guilty party. That would actually make me reconsider my position because the ability to apologise shows intelligence and maturity as well as responsibility.
I want to explain to teens that the 'I'm innocent, why should I suffer?' argument doesn't work because rules aren't designed to punish the innocent but protect people. Arguing that a law shouldn't exist because only a minority of people are guilty of the discouraged behaviour is like arguing that only people who get in accidents should be subjected to a speed limit or only people who get sick should pay NHI. Like I said, regulations are meant to keep order. The more people there are that follow the rules, the more people are protected versus the chaos of letting everyone do whatever they want and only reacting to the problem when one occurs. (That kind of behaviour leads to anarchy.)
Perhaps, this is a lesson for both children and adults as the same basic lesson our teens are learning now, adults have to learn now. We failed to regulate ourselves and now we're catching hell with the UK to get aid because they don't trust us to be responsible. If everyone held themselves and each other accountable for their actions, we'd have been better off in terms of how we responded to Irma and had people respond to us in aiding us with Irma.
Now back on point... If I had a teenage child who came home bothered by this issue, I'd explain to them what I said in my first post but if I really wanted to offer a suggestion to help get back what was lost, I'd suggest to my child one of two things:
1) If they or anyone they knew was engaging in the behaviours that lead to the ban, I'd encourage my child to encourage them to make a public apology and ask for leniency on others even if it being banned from the park themselves until they were 18.
Like I said earlier, if I were a business owner, I'd appreciate it. While I think it's important to teach children there are consequences for their actions, I also think it's important to teach them that mercy, respect, accountability and humility have value in society too. The right thing isn't always the easiest and most painless thing to do but it's always important to acknowledge it when it happens to encourage more productive behaviours which would create a more honest society overall.
2) With the ban, the business people are basically saying that they don't trust teenagers to act responsibly and civilly and they have valid reasons for their distrust. Something the high schools in the territory can do about this is organise a monitoring system. It could be adults or older teens. If adults, find a group of parents or even young adults from the community to volunteer during the after school hours to patrol the peer park and keep the teens under control. If older teens who are still in high school, let the schools choose the teenagers based on behaviour and grades in school.
Essentially, for a school to participate, the parents and students of that school would have to be involved too (which means that a child from ESHS can't participate in this program is no one from ESHS is monitoring, for example).
If this program were to be enacted, I'd suggest the names of students be taken in order to know who was in the park and when. I'd also suggest a one warning policy meaning that if any disruptive behaviour a student gets one warning and then after that only the guilty student would be subjected to the terms of the ban as punishment.
This way, the businessmen and their clients get a peaceful and comfortable atmosphere to conduct their business while the teens get their freedom to just relax and be outside the home. While no one can know for certain this would work without it being enacted, I think the teens would probably work harder to behave and maintain this system since the privilege was hard won and they know it could easily be taken away again if they fell back into their old ways.
------------------ (04/01/2018, 06:06) Like (0) Dislike (1) Reply
Firstly, this is shameful! Secondly who bands children from a park?
Hola (04/01/2018, 18:50) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
Banning a dog from a dog run would be senseless unless the dog was rabid.