bec mac

[thebecmacshow]

THE BUTTON EVENT AND WHY I STILL CAN'T STOP CRYING

The Premiere of the show the The Button Event is an enormous thing for our family. The story Todd is telling is from a time in our lives that now feels so long ago but all the emotions for me are so raw and real. It’s a rare piece of work where science and art collide where the incredibly depersonalized process of medicine juts hard against the reality of a little girl’s life and in between the gaps of rationality there are glimmers of magic and flashes of the possibility of miracles.

It all happened in Melbourne nearly 10 years ago, during that period our lives were engulfed by what was happening to our daughter through her illness, catapulted into a medical nightmare where what transpired in that short period of time determined for ever, her life and the life of our family.

When we moved to Brisbane 4 years ago the girls started school and Lola’s development, which had been so affected, had nearly caught up to her peers. We could start again, it almost felt like we could get away with being a “normal” family with a “normal” child, as in Melbourne we had been that poor family with the very sick and disabled child, so I chose not to talk about what had happened too much, sometimes it felt like I was hiding a secret.

But this week it’s all coming out, there on the stage, the events, the choices, the very intimate details of what occurred and it’s terrifying!

I am very proud of Todd taking on this challenge of telling the story because I can’t, as still now every time I go to talk about it I start to cry……so often I stay silent to stop the tears.

What are these tears about I keep asking myself, as they are so close to the surface always ready to go.

They are about the true pain that I endured as a mother watching her child go from a completely normal baby to stop developing, frozen at 8 months, who couldn’t talk, lost all spacial awareness, couldn't see a plane in the sky and who was having uncontrollable seizures every day and night.

I cry for her twin sister who was often put to the side because she was flourishing and didn’t need help from me or anyone else to talk, walk and be happy in the world so she was often left to work it out herself.

I cry a lot for all the other kids who I know who suffered similar illnesses, disabilities and massive derailments from who they could have been, whose future looked so robbed of the basic joys like having a best friend you could share your secrets with, a boyfriend that would tell them that they loved them, driving a car.

I cry for their parents who were thinking like me, the life I imagined is over now, as it looked like I could be caring for my child for the rest of their life, changing their diapers at twenty.

But I also cry with great gratitude and awe for all the amazing doctors, medical staff, early intervention carers, teachers and aides who dedicate their lives, to finding solutions, for taking risks and for saving these drowning families. You just want to hug them and kiss them and tell them how much what they have done means to you but you can’t because the professional lines need to be clear.

I also cry for my beautiful close friends and family who would just let me cry because I couldn’t speak.

I spent many days and night in the hospital at that time, staring blankly at all the other parents whose eyes were filled with tears, terror and exhaustion. But one of things that makes me cry the most was this little book in the hospital chapel. I went there to pray during one of Lola’s surgeries and in this book you could write your prayer. So I wrote desperately pleading with God with all my power, please make her safe, please make her better, please give her life back. Then I thumbed back through the book and it was the most heart wrenching thing ever, parent after parent pleading, calling, yelling please save my baby, please make them better, please fix them, so desperate and raw and unveiled. It’s stuck deeply with me that book, I probably shouldn’t have read it, as once seen you can’t unsee.

So now I’m crying because we are here now, sculptured by what we have been through, our girls, beautiful and healthy and free. I have stood in a space where medicine, magic and art have all culminated to create a miracle and that’s what this show is celebrating!! Hope, love possibility and the magic of life! Never ever give up!!!

THE BUTTON EVENT

Billy Brown Studio

18th -27th September

BUY TICKETS HERE http://queenslandtheatre.com.au/Whats-On/More-QTC-Events/The-Button-Event

[thebecmacshow]

SARAH CONNER TO KATNISS EVERDEEN what's been lost along the way??

Sarah Conner Terminator 2

I don’t want to become one of those oldies that say, “Back in my day things were so much better”, but after just recovering my old Tori Amos CD "Little Eathquakes" I think they were!!

Produced in 1992 Tori sang with such blood fueled passion, anger, unafraid to sing out her darkest fears and unafraid to say I am gonna survive this and you can go fuck yourself!

Now I like Lana Del Rey I get her suppressed, rich, beautiful privileged girl that has everything but who is still so bored and unfulfilled that she would prefer to die.  This is because her position is a position of disempowerment she defers all her power to that beautiful, wealthy, privileged white male ideal which does not love her for who she is, but for what she represents. She is a commodity, a sports car, a white bikini, a red dress. She will never really find love…..and she likes it that way. Listening to Lana is like reading a Brett Easton Ellis novel everything is so perversely wretched and beautiful with a feeling of such deep inner yearning that I admit it turns me on but at the same time leaves very disappointed. (Probably in myself for liking it).

Tori sings “ I want to smash your face in your beautiful Christian boys, just because you can make me come doesn’t make you Jesus!” Now I’m not condoning violence but I do like the message, that “I can see what’s happening to me and I want to destroy it !” not just roll over and die of a mix of temazepam and martinis!

Who can forget Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2 (1991) ripped biceps packing an AK47 with a cigarette dangling from her lips and Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) of Aliens 2 (1986) short tussled hair, taking on the mother of all mothers the Queen Alien in some insane heavy robotic suit. These two films were the mainstream box office block busters of their times! But who could believe in today's cultural terrain that the two lead characters were females, didn’t have husbands and didn’t want one, dressed not to be sexy but for war, they weren’t there to make friends and provide light entertaining conversation but to convince all the blokes in the room that imminent annihilation was nigh and that they needed to listen to them and do what they commanded! Not only could they defend themselves with major artillery but they also they took control and succeeded often where the men couldn’t pull it off!

Ripley Aliens

What also made these characters very interesting from a feminist perspective is that they were mothers, they became warriors for their children John Connor and Rebecca respectively and they were trying to save humanity.

Katniss Everdeen is nearly there, she is tough, smart, a great fighter but she still has a Lara Croft sheen, a computer generated fantasy girl whose beauty is one of her most important powers, something that Sarah and Ripley didn’t need to succeed!

Katniss Everdeen in the Red Fire Dress

I think the culture has demanded women to go back to being an obedient pretty thing again, and what has happened in recent Australian politics is proof and a warning to all us about what happens to women when they do get into a position of power. You will be destroyed!

I also believe the economy is a very disempowering mechanism for women. Working women are working for far less than their male counterparts and woman who have children are being pressured to go back to work but generally to low paid uninspiring positions that barely cover their child care costs and certainly don’t put them in a position of decision making and control.

I think all is not lost but it’s important to see what has been!!

[thebecmacshow]

  WHAT IS MAKING AUSTRALIANS HOT AND HORNY?

As my alter ego Aphrodite I have intimately discussed sex and relationship with thousands of people in my live show LOVETV. http://www.lovetv.com.au

After ten years of getting down and dirty on the streets of Australia and more recently New York I now want to get to the core of what really turns people on.

What really is going on with our sex lives? Advertisers believe we are obsessed with it; politicians want us to have more of it but what is actually happening under the bed sheets of Australia?

In a world supposedly obsessed with sex I want to hit the streets to work out what our sex lives are really like, what turns Australians on and how is technology changing the way we get our satisfaction particularly the use of porn? And ask the all-confronting question – is sex as much a part of our lives as we think it is?

What titillates and tempts us? Seduces, entices and turns us on? And in the busyness of modern life is it getting harder than ever to get our libido from zero to hero? Is there an “economy of sex” that makes it different for men and women? How do you keep the desire alive once you have the mortgage and kids, what is lesbian bed death? And how far do people need to go to get their satisfaction??

I believe each being has a very individual relationship to their sexuality influenced by their relationship to their body, their culture, their personal relationships and their past. But our sexual relationship with ourselves is not separate from the rest of our lives it can subtly form the bed (no pun intended) for the way we are in the world and our overall sense of well being. The great contradiction though is that this most intimate part of ourselves, is a part we often feel least ownership over! We may only see our sexual self in relationship to one other or in relationship to a dominating cultural norm or stereotype which can rob us of knowing what really makes us happy. So it’s a subject that needs to be bought out in the light, learning’s shared and a part of ourselves to be celebrated and to have some fun with!

Remember folks as with all things in life diversity is the key when discussing this subject as there is no right or wrong way to be and if no one is being hurt or taken advantages anything is a goer!

So come on this journey with me as I try to discover some answers and explore this terrain that people are timid to tread on and maybe have a laugh along away!

[thebecmacshow]

  WHAT IS MAKING AUSTRALIANS HOT AND HORNY?

As my alter ego Aphrodite I have intimately discussed sex and relationship with thousands of people in my live show LOVETV. http://www.lovetv.com.au

After ten years of getting down and dirty on the streets of Australia and more recently New York I now want to get to the core of what really turns people on.

What really is going on with our sex lives? Advertisers believe we are obsessed with it; politicians want us to have more of it but what is actually happening under the bed sheets of Australia?

In a world supposedly obsessed with sex I want to hit the streets to work out what our sex lives are really like, what turns Australians on and how is technology changing the way we get our satisfaction particularly the use of porn? And ask the all-confronting question – is sex as much a part of our lives as we think it is?

What titillates and tempts us? Seduces, entices and turns us on? And in the busyness of modern life is it getting harder than ever to get our libido from zero to hero? Is there an “economy of sex" that makes it different for men and women? How do you keep the desire alive once you have the mortgage and kids, what is lesbian bed death? And how far do people need to go to get their satisfaction??

I believe each being has a very individual relationship to their sexuality influenced by their relationship to their body, their culture, their personal relationships and their past. But our sexual relationship with ourselves is not separate from the rest of our lives it can subtly form the bed (no pun intended) for the way we are in the world and our overall sense of well being. The great contradiction though is that this most intimate part of ourselves, is a part we often feel least ownership over! We may only see our sexual self in relationship to one other or in relationship to a dominating cultural norm or stereotype which can rob us of knowing what really makes us happy. So it’s a subject that needs to be bought out in the light, learning’s shared and a part of ourselves to be celebrated and to have some fun with!

Remember folks as with all things in life diversity is the key when discussing this subject as there is no right or wrong way to be and if no one is being hurt or taken advantages anything is a goer!

So come on this journey with me as I try to discover some answers and explore this terrain that people are timid to tread on and maybe have a laugh along away!