Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Odd (but true!) tales from the past! (TM)


In my ongoing quest to flog our little DVD I've decided to share strange and intimate information with you, my dear friends, in the hopes that dancing for my supper will alleviate some of the pain you must feel every time I link to that Amazon page. Some of these stories may involve the making of the film, others just personal anecdotes from my past that I've never made public before. Our opening chapter involves a strange wound I have carried with me since 1984:

In the summer of 1984* I was attempting my first detox. I was living at health guru Patricia Bragg's peacock farm. I had my own little house next to her house and an outdoor shower. By day I surfed, read, listened to KTYD on the radio, fed the peacocks (mean bastards they are), tended to some of the crops and sometimes worked in the warehouse down the hill shipping amino acids, books and assorted health foods all over the country. The only thing I absolutely had to do was avoid all booze and meat. That part, at that time, was the hardest work I've ever done in my life. And while it didn't take permanently (Joe Akerman at New World Pictures tracked me down and eventually dragged me back to a life of sin in Hollywood) it did lay the bedrock for a gradual change in my life for the better. (Thanks Patricia!)

But the one thing I carry with me even more tangibly than the memories of that clean summer is an odd growth on my right forearm. I woke up one morning feeling an itch in this one spot. There was a single black dot there. Patricia Bragg said I had obviously been bitten by something in the night. We removed the dot which did not necessarily look like a fang or a stinger of any sort. The area continued to itch and it eventually grew a mole-like dead skin covering. I had it cut out by dermatologists - twice - and biopsied. They could not determine its origin, but said it wasn't cancerous. And it always grew back no matter how deeply they dug. I still have it on my arm and it seems to go through cycles. Sometimes it is dormant, just like a small growth of skin you wouldn't notice, like a mole. Other times it grows red and angry and must be sliced off with a sharp object. Then it calms down and starts it's slow growth again. A few days ago something seemed to be growing right next to it. Like a sibling was showing up. Not wanting to wait, I performed a home surgery and now, two days later, that area is completely healed with no trace of there ever being a problem. This may all seem odd to you, but I have grown accustomed to whatever the hell is living in my arm.

(*I know this this all took place 1984 because at one point the Olympic torch went right by the warehouse at the bottom of the hill and we all went out to greet it. I've got the pics somewhere, but finding the Ark of the Covenant in that government warehouse would probably be easier.)

And now, please purchase a DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DWII5KO

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