Jaycee Dugard >shudder< Horror Film?

I was horrified to discover that a low-rent actor/writer/editor/producer by the name of Shane Ryan is planning to make a film about the capture and imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard.

That's right, Ladies, the wonder-boy of such low-class cinematography as:

• Sex Kids Party (a/k/a The More, the Better)
• Amateur Porn Star Killer 1, 2, & 3
• Big Boobs, Blonde Babes, Bad Blood
• So, We Killed Our Parents
  -and-
• Caged Lesbos A-Go-Go

Is hoping to release Abducted Girl: An American Sex Slave through Alter Ego Films, in Spring 2010, according to Sacramento television station CBS13. Even though Ryan's above-noted movies have been described by viewers as:

• "[W]hat a homemade snuff film might look like with a bit of what the director thinks is artistic" [1]
  
• "[B]ad blood feature that is sheer in-your-face violence with a comedic ingredient inserted for your perverse viewing" [2]
  
• "The girl is supposed to be 13 years old, who (in their right mind) would find the gratuitous kidnapping, rape and eventual beating of a 13 year old girl entertaining?" [3]

He's "trying to figure out a way to do that so it's not exploitative," he told a reporter from CBS13 in a telephone interview. He also told the reporter, "We want to capture how sad this story is, but also how interesting."

On the film's website, Ryan writes that "this film is not about Jaycee Dugard," that it was in pre-production prior to authorities rescuing Dugard, and he continues with "Instead of doing a movie about human trafficking they instead decided [because of the Dugard case] to focus on just one victim and her captor and explore the idea of what it would be like for an 11 year old to be kidnapped and live in captivity for the next 18 years." He clearly states, "This is a fictitious film we were planning on making with a few friends in hope to make an interesting story," and he also says that this is nothing but the media "cashing in on another Jaycee story."

So, to recap, According to Ryan:

• This film is not about Dugard (even if a pre-production movie was re-drafted as the direct result of Dugard's recovery)
• Alter Ego Films is not a porn company (regardless of what they create and sell)
  -and-
• The "reporters" are the Dugard exploiters, not his film (while he's gabbing about the film's lack of exploitativeness with the CBS13 reporter and thereby co-opting as much publicity as possible).

Sorry, jackass, you just don't get to have it both ways: Either the flick is about Dugard or it isn't. You don't get to accuse the free-publicity pipeline of being vultures when you're planning to bring a film to market that you admit was significantly altered by the events of the Dugard case because that means your film feeds at that same trough of pain.

If the reporters are the vultures, I hereby call you out for catching a ride on the vulture's wing simply to save the time and effort of walking over to feast on the carcass yourself.

I have to say that I agree with the Dugard family's spokesperson Nancy Seltzer's statement that this project is "breathtakingly unkind."[4]

You, Sir, are a Very.Bad.Man.

~Riot.Jane

About the Murder of Steve McNair . . .

Quite a while back, an upper-middle-age black gentleman (I'd put him close to 60) and I were chatting at the office about the Michael Vick case, shortly after that story first broke. At one point during the conversation, he stopped, looked around, lowered his voice, leaned toward me, and said in earnest,

"When you get out of the ghetto, you've GOT to leave the ghetto behind."

The statement rocked me, but not for a race-relations reason. I thought his statement profound because the idea behind it is universal.

Regardless of what one tries to bail, one must actually bail if he wants it truly and forever changed. Whether it's an abusive relationship, a drug addiction, being poor, co-dependency, alcohol, or even just a toxic group of friends, one can't dabble in the past and still get out.

I couldn't help but recall this conversation, and the getting out means leaving it behind concept, when I read about the murder of Steve McNair. I'm not trying to equate the horror of actively participating in a dog fighting ring to being the victim of murder. I'm trying to say that when someone "makes good," once he's achieved the fame and the money, he has to be even more vigilant in his personal dealings than before the good fortune (or just rewards for hard work) arrived because fame and money often cause things to spin completely out of control.

Michael Vick lost his empathy and his freedom. Steve McNair lost his marriage vow and his life.

~Riot.Jane

Now I can Say Nothing

First, they came for the "child molesters," but I was not a child molester. So I said nothing.

Then, they came for the "terrorists," but I was not a terrorist. So I said nothing.

Next, they came for the "conservatives," but I was not a conservative. So I said nothing.

Finally, they came for the "middle class," and I found that I am middle class. Now I can say nothing.

~Riot.Jane

The Storm

My Storm
By: Megan DaGata

The last time the hint of the storm brewed, I buried my heart in the clouds,
My mind in the waters, and my soul in the thunderous noise.
I became one with the storm and one with the madness.
My mind ceases to hear any thought and closes to all emotion.
Like a late season hurricane it builds and builds, and lasts for months.
Building from the hint of suggestion and follows the ebb and flow of my emotions.

The heat of my rage builds level upon level of insanity
Until one day without warning - the grief, pain, and fury crash upon me
As if it were a cat 5 hurricane meeting the shore.

The pain of losing those we love is not something that we consider,
Our parents are young and our friends are healthy,
We don't think of the storm that could be building.
Friday night I received a phone call that made time stand still for the next three days...

I am not sure if the clock has started up yet.
But I felt my hurricane start to build.
In the ten minutes between ordering my first drink at the club and before it was consumed
I received a call from my brother- in- law,
He informed me that my father was in a car accident and that he had not regained consciousness.
Crash - Bang - Thunder and lightening...
The cacophony of noise that echoed in my ears was deafening.
I heard nothing else.
I picked up the phone with shaking hands and called my mother.
"What happened? I will be there in three hours."

I just know I need to get there. Hurry...drive as carefully as possible, but hurry."
"I will be there in three hours...”
The storm was building as I walked out the doors and down the steps.
The fury and rage were instantaneous. Who would do this?
How could they do it?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Why is God sending the men I love to such tragedy?!

Time literally seemed to speed up.
We were at my apartment minutes later.
I grabbed my things and threw them into my car.
I didn't know what I would need, this storm would last for days, but what do you bring?!
As fast as I could… don't remember a turn or stop light.

We drove from Houston to Austin in just under 3 hours,
Arriving at the hospital at 2 am.
As we drove up, we saw my dad's best friend, Mike.
He explained to us what the doctors had said to the family..…
That my father had never regained brain function.
I felt like I was in the eye of the storm, pulling and tugging in every direction.
I looked in the window at my sister, she hadn't heard it all, but she had heard enough.
She was bracing herself for what she was about to have to endure.
The walk down the long corridor to the ICU, was the longest walk of my life.

I saw an old woman walking down the hall.
Her shoulders were hunched forward, her gray hair limp on her down-turned head.
She walked so slowly, that I not in a million years would I have seen her as my mother.
When she turned to us,
I knew there was nothing that could be done.

But how could I make next 30 feet?
My mom reached for my dad's hand, and said,
"Sweetie, the girls are here.
They have come to see you, so you have to wake up.”

My heart broke, my body broke,
My skin pulled itself from my body and left me bleeding.
The hurricane had reached cat 5 strength but it was still a thousand miles away.
We all stood in silence as we heard the machines beep and the respirator breath for our father.
He had at least twenty different IV bags hanging, trying to rouse him back to life.
One was to raise his blood pressure and another to keep it low.
Bags of blood - to replenish his dwindling supply.

I stood speechless for a few minutes, staring into his vacant eyes.
The eyes of the kindest man I had known since my grandfather's death.
His eyes were now empty.
Those empty eyes still haunt me.

We sat and waited.
We talked a little, but mostly we cried.
I laid down on the floor,
My head on the bag, which contained his torn clothes.
I wept.


The storm of my soul was crashing onto the shore.
Seeing him lying there and then seeing my mother so fragile.
The next 40 hours passed in a storm of fury.
Being thrown to and fro, hoping for the activity to return to his brain,
By the time the papers were signed for the organ donation,
The whole family was present, and we were trying to figure out how to get home.

The eye of my storm hit.
I have been calm ever since.
I haven't cried,
I haven't felt.
My skin is still dangling removed from my body.
The storm is still looming over head.
The rage is still following the ebb and the flow.
Someday the eye of the storm will pass and I will feel again.
I will be able to cry with the remorse I feel in my soul.
I will be able to reach out and hug the ones I love again.
Until then, I will sit and I will write, and I will pray to God,
That the storm which still looms, will soon pass.

My Mom's Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday. My mom died in 1998 when I was 26, the same age she was when she gave birth to me.

As my mother lay dying, she begged me not to have any children because she couldn't bear the thought of one day my laying somewhere, dying of the rare cancer that has taken several generations of women in her line before the age of 60, looking into my own daughter's face, seeing the pain there. While she was dying, in an inconceivable amount of pain, she was more concerned about my being in the same situation some day than she was about her own quickly-approaching death.

That's a level of love that I cannot conceive of having.

I promised her that I wouldn't bear my own children unless and until we get to choose gender beforehand. I knew what I was promising, and I knew that I would keep it because, well, you don't turn down the dying wish of a family member if it's remotely possible to keep it.

So I've lived through the procreative years of my life not bearing children. I've never married. I've aborted. I've lived with roommates in order to avoid having an empty home and thrown myself into my career with a ferocity that masquerades as workaholism. I have a television on in my home 24x7 to have the sound of human voices around me. I've promised myself that I can always adopt, and I've also promised myself I won't marry a man for whom that's not an option.

I've told every close friend or boyfriend I've had since my mom's death that I won't bear my own children because of my mother's dying wish, my promise to her, and my own fear of the rare (almost undiagnosable) cancer that kills women in my line early. The thing is, that's only half the reason.

The other half of the reason, and the one I've never told anyone before, is that I can't conceive of being the kind of person, the kind of mother, who would or could lay dying, in incomprehensible pain, and be more concerned about my daughter experiencing the same thing than I am about my own impending death.

I can't live up to that. I can't even see the bar my mom set, much less reach it. That's the other half of the reason I never bore my own children and won't unless and until gender selection becomes a viable option.

~Riot.Jane

In 1972...

In 1972 I gave birth to a baby girl. I don’t know her name, I never gave her one. Instead, I gave her to waiting nurses and signed forms that told an adoption agency that they could have her. You may think that my reason for doing this were noble. You would be wrong.

When I hear of mothers giving their children up for adoption I always feel this stabbing in my gut. Most of these women hand over their tiny bundles to complete strangers because they are too young, too poor, too damaged to raise a child and they know it. What they’re doing is a gift to their child. It their final gift to the little life they brought into world. I envy them and the knowledge that they carry with them deep in their hearts. I gave you up because I love you so much.

In 1972 I had a daughter and when her screaming little form came bursting into this world all I could think was how glad I was it was over. All I wanted to do was sign those forms and get out of that hospital and meet my friends to go out on the town. You see, I was 24 years old and I lived to party. I wasn’t an addict, just very selfish. The thought of raising a child as an unmarried woman even in those days didn’t give me pause but the crimp in my lifestyle did. I thought I was a very smart and forward thinking woman. I thought I was ahead of my time. So, I took one fleeting glance at my bawling baby girl and signed those papers.

When I left the hospital I went home to my chic apartment and slept. I slept for days, then more days, more days still. I couldn’t seem to get out of bed. Instead of partying I just…slept. Visions of that scrunched up little face, my face, went around and around in my head.

Here’s the part where I would love to say I called the agency and demanded my daughter back. I would like to tell you we were reunited and I gave her a name, the name I’ve been carrying around in my heart all these years. I cannot. I did not.

I went back to my life. I worked and partied. I was a modern woman and I told myself I would live without regrets…Regrets are funny things. They want you even if you don’t want them and oh, how I regret. If I could turn back the clock and do it over, well, you know the story now don’t you?

I never had any other children. I couldn’t bring myself to look at another little face, my face, and know that somewhere out there was the sweet little girl who should have been mine. I often wonder if she’s tried to contact me. As much as I would love to see her and smell and hold her for the first time in our lives I dread it. What could I possibly say to her? How could I explain why I did what I did? I can’t, there is no explanation.

In 1972 I gave birth to a baby girl. I don’t know her name, I never gave her a name. When I think of her, I call her Elaine, my mother’s name.

Elaine,
I’m so sorry.

Letter Too Late

Fellow Janes,

Do you ever feel like there are a million things you would love to say to someone you’re in relationship with but never do? Then by the time the love is over you’re so disgusted (or still in love!) or have moved on, and those things never get said? A really funny and wise and woman approached me about a letter that she had written to her ex of 12 years.

Linda is cynical, funny and pretty heartbreaking in this letter and I enjoyed reading it so much!

She says:

“Eric and I were high school sweethearts. Our breakup was a defining moment in my life and I was left with a lot of baggage to carry around. All those little (and big) things I never said felt like a weight chained around my neck. So I wrote a letter. Just in case you’re wondering . . . Yes, I sent it to him.

I sent the letter in its entirety and Mellissa has edited it to filter out some really personal parts that I am unwilling to share and made a few changes to the text with my consent. I hope you enjoy it and find in it the courage to do what I never did. To speak your mind.”

Dear Eric,

Remember the time we went to the Jane’s Addiction concert and, against my wishes, you snuck in that ridiculous hip flask you loved to drag around filled with cheap whiskey? Remember when you got so sick from drinking it combined with the heat all those bodies and the humidity and the burning Texas sun that you ended up throwing up all over the lawn in front of you? I told you it was okay, that I wasn’t embarrassed and that I was totally okay with leaving the show early so you could go home and lay down.

I lied.

Eric, sometimes when you did something to piss me off, like got drunk with your buddies, passed out at their place and missed work because of a hangover, I would do things to get back at you in my own way, like giving you food on dirty dishes or scrubbing the house down with bleach before you came home, hung over, because I knew it gave you a headache.

When you got in that fight with that little person at our favorite bar back in ‘99 and got your ass beat and I told you it didn’t make you a pussy.

I lied.

Once when your parents came over to have dinner to have dinner at our first apartment, I excused myself to get a drink from the kitchen. Well, your father came in behind me and made a pass at me. So remember when I said how great your Dad was?

I lied.

Eric, I know you kissed the neighbor by the Dumpsters all those years ago. I know our cat, Bunsen, died when you told me he ran away (he had Feline Leukemia, I just didn’t think you could handle the truth), I know you watched “Life Goes On” marathons when I was at work and cried like a baby because the character Jessie, who had AIDS, reminded you of your brother. I know you peed on the toilet seat to spite me. I know you told my friends I wasn’t home so you could keep me all to yourself. I that know you stared at me while I slept.

Eric, remember when I told you I was better off without you and all those years we spent together were a waste?

I maybe. . . Just might have, lied.