Tuesday, March 26, 2013

One Step Out Of Loneliness: Dave Makes a Movie



The following is the transcript of the animated film:

One Step Out Of Loneliness
What’s wrong?

I made a big mistake.

What did you do?

I was feeling lonely so I talked to my staff about it.

Isn’t that a good thing to do?

Yeah, but when I talked to her I told her that I wanted to learn how to get a girlfriend.

OK, that’s good, what did your staff say.

She said that I had lots of friends, she said that she was a girl and she was my friend.

That’s gross, she’s a staff

Yeah, I said, But I can’t have sex with you.

What did she say.

Well she didn’t say anything she turned red, ran into the office. I heard her calling a meeting.

Oh my. They love their meetings don’t they?

Yeah, an hour later my Mom called and told me that I didn’t need to have sex, I needed to “explore art and spiritual options.”

What did you say?

I said, ‘mom, you’re kidding right.’ She said, ‘no no, art is a good place to get rid of sexual energy.’

And ..

I said, mom, I have a penis and a heart, I want to use them both you know … she hung up.

Then what happened.

Then the group home manager called and asked me if I want to take a sex education course.

Are you going to take the course.

I told her that I’d taken it five times already,  penis goes into vagina wearing a raincoat, I ‘ve learned that – I want to learn how to get a girlfriend. After she hung up the phone rang again.

Who was it?

My vocational worker.

Why would he call?

He said that he hoped I had no plans to start being sexual at work.

What did you say?

I said that I thought he met his boyfriend at work.

His boyfriend is cute. Who called next?

My case manager.

What did she want?

She said that at the meeting she is going to suggest a five year plan, with lots of steps, for me to work on so one day I can have a girlfriend.

Why five years?

She retires in four.

What did you say?

I asked her if I had to be lonely for five more years. She told me that what I’m asking for is very serious and they have to be very careful so that I’m safe.

What did you think of that?

I asked her if she knew what it was like to be lonely. She hung up without answering my question.

Yeah. Spending one day lonely can feel like five years. I know.

Then my behaviour therapist called, I asked him how to get a girl friend, he said he’d draw up a plan with a step by step process.

That sounds good.

Did you know that there are 176 steps that you need to climb in order to get out of loneliness.

That’s a lot. Loneliness can feel like a deep pit can't it?

Yes, you're right it can. Behaviour therapists seem to know exactly how deep it is.

It's good to be precise I guess.

Oh, here they all come for the meeting … oh no … the supervisor has the case with the plastic penis in it. She likes that penis WAY too much.

I know, once when she called me into the office she had it sitting on the desk, I felt like it was pointing at me the whole time.

That must have been weird.

Yes, its one eye watching me the whole time she talked.

Well I'd better go to the meeting.

Yeah, hey, what you doing Saturday?

Nothing, you want to do something?

Sure, how about a movie.

Sounds good.

Wow.

Wow, indeed. It looks like there really is only one step out of loneliness.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love this :)

Anonymous said...

That was brilliant.

It's big fun that you can turn your smart and funny prose into a cartoon!

It's weird that the program doesn't take the script and spit it out as captions. I used the automatic captions

Laura said...

OMG tell me it's not really like that? I mean its a great way to make the point but ... that entire process would give me a headache wow :)

Anonymous said...

It's exactly like that, although the cartoon "humorized" it. When I worked in group homes, the staff had to notify the parents if their offspring were even thinking about sex, and the parents had the last word about whether or not it was allowed. Same with relationships. If the parents didn't want their offspring to have a same sex relationship, for example, then it didn't happen. Of course that was thirty years ago, so hopefully some things have changed since then. I remember one woman whose parents dictated that she couldn't have sex unless she was married, and so she ended up marrying a young man, and both of them were perfectly miserable. They ended up divorcing, and the parents got to say, repeatedly, how right they were.

Anonymous said...

Dave I absolutly love the way you are working towards the goals for people with mental disabilities and for the right for everyone to love whomever they want.

That is a great video in so many ways.
Thank you!

Julia

wendy said...

Hi Dave,

I loved the transcript and the cartoon people. Too bad the voices were robotic, though.

The plastic penis made me laugh out loud. I've used a condom demonstrator in classes I've lead. I am always very aware that I'm carrying a wooden penis in a bad and should warn folks before I pull it out and plunk down on the table. Wouldn't want it looking at them while I was talking! ;-)

Anonymous said...

"I have a heart and a penis, and I want to use them both."

Dang. That sounds so, so REASONABLE when you put it like that.

sue

Cynthia F. said...

LOVE this!

And thanks for including a transcript - just another example of when accessibility provides benefits for non-disabled people too (I can't watch videos while I'm at work without disturbing others, so it's great when I can read a text version).

Anonymous said...

Very powerful. Thank you.

Can I make one comment for you to consider if you ever make a revised version of the film?

I don't think this was intentional, but what came through to me was that the cure to loneliness is to find someone to have sex with. I know your blog well enough that I don't think you actually believe that. Obviously, lots of sexually active people are lonely, and there are plenty of people are are not sexually active, some who are romantically attached and some who are not, who are not lonely. So I wonder if there is a way to make that clearer. Maybe bringing up all the great things about romantic relationships, sex being a possibility, but not making it the point?

Just a thought...

"Mike" said...

Not trying to hijack your thread Dave, but I'm not sure people realize that my coming out on your blog was actually a live enactment of the techniques you demonstrated in *First Contact.* I'm still having trouble putting it all together. What you have here, I would say, is a recipe for not only discussion (which is of course good in its own right) but also *healing* trauma online. It's difficult to put into words here because I'm aware of the fact that it may sound fantastical. More details as I get them. Before today, I had no idea what the state of the are is with respect to trauma. I feel like I stepped out of a time capsule into a hospital of the future.

Louna said...

It would be funny if it weren't based on reality... Great work! I hope it will start lots of discussion.

Dave Hingsburger said...

Mike, I think I understand what you are saying about this being a place of both discussion and healing. It certainly is so for me and I'm glad it is for some others as well. I tried to send you a message today but was unable to ... are you on Facebook, can you 'friend' me.

Unknown said...

Hey! I just wanted to let you know that youtube has an easy way to put the captions in. Just copy paste the transcript here into a text file. In the edit video section, there's a tab for captions. You hit upload file there, and it will ask if it is a transcript or captions. If you click transcript, their auto timing thing will Take your transcript and guesstimate the timing. It isn't perfect but it's okay and it isn't anywhere near as bad as their auto transcription is.