The End of Schizophrenia Series

I hope you have enjoyed reading about “What Is Schizophrenia” and of the Famous People that have or had suffered from Schizophrenia.

Sadly, we have come to the end of our “Schizophrenia Series”. We now begin our “Speech Differences and Stutter Series” so please enjoy reading.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier Williams III was born on 26 March, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, USA, in the home of his maternal grandfather, the local Episcopal rector. The home is now the Mississippi Welcome Center and tourist office for the city. Tennessee Williams' middle name, Lanier, indicates his family's Virginia connections to the artistic family from England. Thomas died on 25 February, 1983, at the age of 72 after he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. Tennessee Williams would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye.

Tennessee Williams' funeral took place on Saturday 3 March, 1983 at St. Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in New York City. Tennessee Williams' body was interred in the Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. Tennessee Williams had long told his friends he wanted to be buried at sea at approximately the same place as the poet Hart Crane, as he considered Hart Crane to be one of his most significant influences.

Thomas better known as Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards. Tennessee Williams moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth. Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. Tennessee Williams' 1952 play The Rose Tattoo received the Tony Award for best play.

By the time Thomas was 3, the family had moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi. At 5, he was diagnosed with a paralytic disease. It caused his legs to be paralyzed for nearly 2 years but his mother encouraged him to make up stories and read. Thomas's mother gave him a typewriter when he was 13.

Tennessee's father Cornelius Williams was a traveling salesman who became increasingly abusive as his children grew older. The father often favoured Tennessee's brother Dakin, perhaps because of Tennessee's illness and extended weakness and convalescence as a child. Tennessee's mother Edwina Dakin Williams had aspirations as a genteel southern lady and was smothering. Edwina Williams may have had a mood disorder.

In 1918, when Tennessee Williams was 7, the family moved again, this time to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1927, at 16, Tennessee Williams won 3rd prize ($5.00) for an essay published in Smart Set entitled, "Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" A year later, he published "The Vengeance of Nitocris" in Weird Tales.

In the early 1930s Tennessee Williams attended the University of Missouri, where he joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Tennessee Williams' fraternity brothers dubbed him "Tennessee" for his rich southern drawl. In the late 1930s, Tennessee Williams transferred to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for a year, and finally earned a degree from the University of Iowa in 1938. By then, Tennessee Williams had written Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!. This work was 1st performed in 1935 at 1780 Glenview in Memphis.

Tennessee Williams found inspiration in his problematic family for much of his writing.

Tennessee Williams lived for a time in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Tennessee Williams moved there in 1939 to write for the WPA. Tennessee Williams first lived at 722 Toulouse Street, the setting of his 1977 play Vieux Carré. The building is part of The Historic New Orleans Collection. Tennessee Williams began writing A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) while living at 632 St. Peter Street. Tennessee Williams finished it later in Key West, Florida, where he moved in the 1940s.

Tennessee Williams was close to his sister Rose, a slim beauty who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. As was common then, Rose was institutionalized and spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals. When therapies were unsuccessful, she showed more paranoid tendencies. In an effort to treat her, Rose's parents authorised a prefrontal lobotomy, a drastic treatment that was thought to help some mental patients who suffered extreme agitation. Performed in 1937 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the operation made Rose incapacitated for the rest of her life.

Tennessee Williams never forgave his parents. Rose's surgery may have contributed to his alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates often prescribed by Dr. Max (Feelgood) Jacobson. They may have shared a genetic vulnerability, as Tennessee Williams also suffered from depression.

Tennessee Williams' relationship with Frank Merlo, a 2nd generation Sicilian American who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, lasted from 1947 until Frank Merlo's death from cancer in 1961. With that stability, Tennessee Williams created his most enduring works. Frank Merlo provided balance to many of Tennessee Williams' frequent bouts with depression and the fear that, like his sister Rose, he would go insane.

Tennessee Williams' brother Dakin and some friends believed he was murdered. The police report, however, suggested his use of drugs and alcohol contributed to his death. Many prescription drugs were found in the room. Tennessee Williams' gag response may have been diminished by the effects of drugs and alcohol.

Tennessee Williams left his literary rights to Sewanee, The University of the South in honour of his grandfather, Walter Dakin, an alumnus of the university. It is located in Sewanee, Tennessee. The funds support a creative writing programme. When his sister Rose died after many years in a mental institution, she bequeathed over $50,000,000 from her part of the Williams estate to Sewanee, The University of the South as well.

In 1989, the City of St. Louis inducted Tennessee Williams into its St. Louis Walk of Fame.

The "mad heroine" theme that appeared in many of his plays seemed clearly influenced by the life of Tennessee Williams' sister Rose.

Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was understood to be modeled on Rose. Some biographers believed that the character of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is also based on her, as well as Tennessee Williams himself. When Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, he believed he was going to die and that this play would be his swan song.

Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Tennessee Williams' mother. Characters such as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to represent Tennessee Williams himself. In addition, he used a lobotomy operation as a motif in Suddenly, Last Summer.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar named Desire both included references to elements of Tennessee Williams' life such as homosexuality , mental instability and alcoholism.

Tennessee Williams wrote The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29 and worked on it through his life. It seemed an autobiographical depiction of an early romance in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This play was produced for the first time on 1 October 2006 in Provincetown by the Shakespeare on the Cape production company, as part of the 1st Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.

The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer was published by New Directions in the spring of 2008, in a collection of previously unpublished experimental plays titled The Traveling Companion and Other Plays, edited by Williams scholar Annette J. Saddik.

Tennessee Williams' last play A House Not Meant to Stand is a gothic comedy published in 2008 by New Directions with a foreword by Gregory Mosher and an introduction by Thomas Keith. Williams called his last play a "Southern gothic spook sonata."

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky (Вацлав Фомич Нижинский; transliterated: Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky; Polish: Wacław Niżyński)was born on 12 March, 1889 in Kiev, Ukraine and died on 8 April, 1950 in a London clinic and was buried in London until 1953 when his body was moved to Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, France beside the graves of Gaetano Vestris, Theophile Gautier, and Emma Livry. Tombstone of Vaslav Nijinsky in Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. The statue, donated by Serge Lifar, shows Vaslav Nijinsky as the puppet Petrouchka.

Vaslav was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent. Vaslav Nijinsky was one of the most gifted male dancers in history, and he grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterisations. Vaslav could perform en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time (Albright, 2004) and his ability to perform seemingly gravity-defying leaps was also legendary. The choreographer Bronislava Nijinska was his sister.

Vaslav Nijinsky was born to a Polish dancer's family of Eleonora Bereda and Tomasz Niżyński. Vaslav Nijinsky was christened in Warsaw. In 1900 he joined the Imperial Ballet School, where he studied under Enrico Cecchetti, Nicholas Legat, and Pavel Gerdt. At 18 years old he was given a string of leads. In 1910, the company's Prima ballerina assoluta Mathilde Kschessinskaya selected Vaslav Nijinsky to dance in a revival of Marius Petipa's Le Talisman, during which Vaslav Nijinsky created a sensation in the role of the Wind God Vayou.

A turning point for Vaslav Nijinsky was his meeting Sergei Diaghilev, a member of the St. Petersburg elite and a wealthy patron of the arts, promoting Russian visual and musical art abroad, particularly in Paris. Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev grew to become lovers, and Sergei Diaghilev, a controlling, dominant personality, became heavily involved in directing and managing Vaslav Nijinsky's career. In 1909 Sergei Diaghilev took his dance company Ballets Russes, company to Paris, with Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova as the leads. The show was a great success and increased the reputations of both leads, as well as Sergei Diaghilev's, throughout the artistic circles of Europe. Sergei Diaghilev had created Les Ballets Russes in its wake of public response, and with choreographer Michel Fokine, made it one of the most well-known companies of that time.

Vaslav Nijinsky's talent showed in Michel Fokine's pieces such as “Le Pavillon d'Armide” (music by Nikolai Tcherepnin), “Cleopatra” (music by Anton Arensky and other Russian composers) and a divertissement “The Feast”. Vaslav's expressive execution of a pas de deux from the “Sleeping Beauty” (Tchaikovsky) was a tremendous success; in 1910 he performed in “Giselle”, and Michel Fokine’s ballets “Carnaval" and “Scheherazade” (based on the orchestral suite by Rimsky-Korsakov). partnership with Tamara Karsavina, also of the Mariinsky Theatre, was legendary.

Vaslav Nijinsky went back to the Mariinsky Theatre, but was dismissed for appearing on-stage during a performance as Albrecht in Giselle wearing tights without the modesty trunks obligatory for male dancers in the company. The Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna complained that his appearance was obscene, and he was dismissed. It is probable that the scandal was arranged by Sergie Diaghilev in order that Vaslav Nijinsky could be free to appear with his company, in the west, where many of his projects now centered around him. Vaslav danced lead roles in Michel Fokine's new productions Le Spectre de la Rose (Weber), and Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka, in which his impersonation of a dancing but lifeless puppet was widely admired.

Vaslav Nijinsky took the creative reins and choreographed ballets, which slew boundaries and stirred controversy. Vaslav's ballets were L'après-midi d'un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun, based on Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) (1912), Jeux (1913), Till Eulenspiegel (1916) and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring, with music by Igor Stravinsky (1913). Vaslav Nijinsky created choreography that exceeded the limits of traditional ballet and propriety. For the first time, his audiences were experiencing the futuristic, new direction of modern dance. The radically angular movements expressed the heart of Igor Stravinsky's radically modern scores. Unfortunately, Vaslav Nijinski's new trends in dance caused a riotous reaction at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées when it premiered in Paris. As the title character in L'après-midi d'un faune the final tableau (or scene), during which he mimed masturbation with the scarf of a nymph, caused a scandal; he was accused by half of Paris of obscenity, but defended by such artists as Rodin, Odilon Redon and Proust.

Vaslav Nijinsky was never filmed while performing. When it was suggested to Sergie Diaghilev to record Vaslav Nijinsky's performances on films for later generations, he declined, saying that the later generations would find a way to take care of themselves.

Sergie Diaghilev did not make this fateful journey, because he was told by a fortune teller in his younger days, that he would die on the ocean if he ever sailed. Without his mentor's supervision, Vaslav Nijinsky entered into a relationship with Romola Pulszky, a Hungarian countess. An ardent fan of Vaslav Nijinsky, she took up ballet and used her family connections to get close to him. Despite her efforts to attract him, Vaslav Nijinsky appeared unconscious of her presence. Finally Romola booked passage on board a ship that Vaslav Nijinsky was due to travel on, and during the voyage Romola succeeded in engaging his affections.

Numerous speculations as to the true reason for their marriage have arisen, including the suggestion that Vaslav Nijinsky saw Romola's title and supposed wealth as a means to escape Sergie Diaghilev's repression.

Romola has often been vilified as the woman who forced Vaslav Nijinsky to abandon his artistry for cabaret fare, her pragmatic and plebeian ways often jarring with his sensitive nature. In his diary, Vaslav Nijinsky famously said of Romola "My wife is an untwinkling star ..." They were married in Buenos Aires: when the company returned to Europe. Sergie Diaghilev is reported to have flown into a jealous rage because he and Vaslav Nijinsky were supposed to be lovers, and he fired Vaslav Nijinsky. Vaslav Nijinsky tried in vain to create his own troupe, but a crucial London engagement failed due to administrative problems.

During World War I Vaslav Nijinsky was interned in Hungary. Sergie Diaghilev succeeded in getting Vaslav Nijinsky out for a North American tour in 1916. During this time, Vaslav Nijinski choreographed and danced the leading role in Till Eulenspiegel. Around this time in his life, signs of his dementia praecox were becoming apparent to members of the company. Vaslav Nijinsky grew afraid of other dancers and imagined that a trap door would be left open.

Vaslav Nijinsky had a nervous breakdown in 1919, and his career effectively ended. Vaslav Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia and taken to Switzerland by his wife, where he was treated unsuccessfully by psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler. Vaslav Nijinsky spent the rest of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and asylums.

Vaslav Nijinsky's daughter Kyra married the Ukrainian conductor Igor Markevich, and they had a son named Vaslav. The marriage ended in divorce.

Vaslav Nijinsky's Diary was written during the 6 weeks he spent in Switzerland before being committed to the asylum. Obscure and confused, it is obviously the work of a schizophrenic, but in many ways reflects a loving nature, combining elements of autobiography with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, and for vegetarianism and animal rights. Vaslav Nijinsky writes of the importance of feeling as opposed to reliance on reason and logic alone, and he denounces the practice of art criticism as being nothing more than a way for those who practice it to indulge their own egos rather than focusing on what the artist was trying to say. The diary also contains a bitter exposé of Vaslav Nijinsky's relationship with Sergie Diaghilev.

As a dancer Vaslav Nijinsky was clearly extraordinary for his time. Towards the end of her life his dance partner Tamara Karsavina suggested that any young dancer out of the Royal Ballet School could now perform the technical feats with which he astonished his contemporaries. Vaslav Nijinsky's main talent was probably not so much technical (Stanislas Idzikowski could leap as high and as far) as in mime and characterization; his major failing was that, being himself unable to form a satisfactory partnership with a woman, he was unsuccessful where such a relationship was important on-stage (in, say, Giselle). In epicene roles such as the god in Le Dieu Bleu, the rose in Spectre or the favourite slave in Scheherezade he was unsurpassed.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Roger Kynard

Roky Erickson was born Roger Kynard Erickson on 15 July, 1947. Roky Erickson is an American singer, songwriter, harmonica player and guitarist from Texas. Roky Erickson was a founding member of the 13th Floor Elevators and pioneer of the psychedelic rock genre.

Roky Erickson was interested in music from his youth: he played piano from the age of 5 and took up guitar at the age of 12. Roky Erickson attended school in Austin and dropped out of Travis High School in 1965, 1 month before graduating, rather than cut his hair to conform to the school dress code. Roky Erickson's 1st notable group was The Spades, who scored a regional hit with Roky Erickson's song "We Sell Soul"; this song is included on the compilation album Highs in the Mid 60s, Volume 17(although the songwriter is identified as Emil Schwartze on the track listing on this album).

Roky Erickson co-founded the 13th Floor Elevators in late 1965. Roky Erickson and bandmate Tommy Hall were the main songwriters. Early in her career, singer Janis Joplin considered joining the Elevators, but Family Dog's Chet Helms persuaded her to go to San Francisco, California, USA instead, where she found major fame.

In 1966 (Roky Erickson was 19 years old) the band released their debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. Psychedelic Sounds had the band's only charting single, Roky Erickson's "You're Gonna Miss Me." A stinging post-romantic breakup song, the single remains probably Roky Erickson's best-known work: it was a major hit on local charts in the U.S. southwest, and appeared at lower position on national singles charts as well. Critic Mark Deming writes that "If Roky Erickson had vanished from the face of the earth after The 13th Floor Elevators released their epochal debut single, 'You're Gonna Miss Me,' in early 1966, in all likelihood he'd still be regarded as a legend among garage rock fanatics for his primal vocal wailing and feral harmonica work."

In 1967, the band followed up with Easter Everywhere, perhaps the band's most focused effort, featuring the epic track "Slip Inside This House", and a noted cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."

After the band's 3rd album, Live, which featured audience applause dubbed over studio recordings of cover versions and older material, The 13th Floor Elevators released their 4th and final album Bull of the Woods in 1968. Due to Roky Erickson's health and legal problems, his contribution to the album is limited, with guitarist Stacy Sutherland taking more of a leading role.

In 1968, while doing a stint at Hemisfair, Roky Erickson started speaking nonsense. Roky Erickson was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he involuntarily received electroconvulsive therapy.

The Elevators were vocal proponents of mescaline (peyote), LSD, and marijuana use, and were subject to extra attention from police. In 1969, Roky Erickson was arrested for possession of 1 marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a 10 year prison term, Roky Erickson pled not guilty by reason of insanity. Roky Erickson was 1st sent to the Austin State Hospital. After several escapes, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was subjected to more electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments, ultimately remaining in custody until 1972.

When released from the state hospital, Roky Erickson's mental outlook had changed. In 1974, he formed a new band which he called Bleib Alien, Bleib being an anagram of Bible and/or German for Stay, and "Alien" being a pun on the German word "Allein" ("alone") - the phrase in German therefore being "Remain alone". Roky Erickson's new band exchanged the psychedelic sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators for a more heavy metal sound that featured lyrics on old horror film and science fiction themes. "2Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)" (produced by The Sir Douglas Quintet's Doug Sahm) was released as a single.

The new band renamed itself Roky Erickson and the Aliens. In 1979, Roky Erickson recorded 15 new songs with producer Stu Cook, former bass player of Creedence Clearwater Revival. These efforts were released in 2 "overlapping" LPs - TEO/CBS UK, and The Evil 1/415 records. Stu Cook also played bass on 2 tracks, "Sputnik" and "Bloody Hammer." Roky Erickson also performed with The Nervebreakers as his backup band at The Palladium in Dallas in 1979. A recording was issued on the French label New Rose and was recently re-issued elsewhere. In 1982, Roky Erickson asserted that a Martian had inhabited his body. Roky Erickson later reported to friends that aliens were coming to Earth to harm him, and asked a Notary Public to witness an official declaration that he was himself an alien, hoping that this would convince the aliens to leave him alone.

In an unmedicated state, Roky Erickson began a years-long obsession with the mail, often spending hours poring over random junk mail, writing to solicitors and celebrities (dead or living). Roky Erickson was arrested in 1989 on charges of mail theft. Roky Erickson picked up mail from neighbours who had moved and taped it to the walls of his room. Roky Erickson insisted that he never opened any of the mail, and the charges were ultimately dropped.

Several live albums of his older material have been released since then, and in 1990 Sire Records/Warner Bros. Records released a tribute album, Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye produced by WB executive Bill Bentley. It featured versions of Roky Erickson's songs performed by The Jesus and Mary Chain, R.E.M., ZZ Top, Julian Cope, Bongwater, John Wesley Harding, Doug Sahm and Primal Scream. According to the liner notes, the title of the album came from a remark Roky Erickson made to a friend who asked him to define psychedelic music, to which Roky Erickson reportedly replied "It's where the pyramid meets the eye, man!" (the quote is also a reference to the Eye of Providence).

In 1995, Roky Erickson released All That May Do My Rhyme on Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey's label Trance Syndicate Records. Produced by Texas Tornado bassist Speedy Sparks, Austin recording legend Stuart Sullivan and Texas Music Office director Casey Monahan, the release coincided with the publication of Openers II, a complete collection of Roky Erickson's lyrics. Published by Henry Rollins's 2.13.61 Publications, it was compiled and edited by Casey Monahan with assistance from Henry Rollins and Roky Erickson's youngest brother Sumner Erickson, a classical tuba player.

Sumner Erickson was granted legal custody of Roky in 2001, and established a legal trust to aid his brother. As a result, Roky Erickson received some of the most effective medical and legal aid of his life, the latter useful in helping sort out the complicated tangle of contracts, which had reduced royalty payments to all but nothing for his recorded works. Roky Erickson also started taking medication to control his schizophrenia.

A documentary film on the life of Roky Erickson titled You're Gonna Miss Me was made by director Keven McAlester and screened at the 2005 SXSW film festival. In September of the same year, Roky Erickson performed his 1st full-length concert in 20years at the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival with The Explosives.

In the 30 December, 2005 issue of the Austin Chronicle, an alternative weekly newspaper in Austin, Texas, Margaret Moser brings up to date the story of Roky Erickson's recovery with the aid of his brother Sumner. According to the article, Roky Erickson weaned himself off his medication, played at 11 gigs in Austin that year, obtained a driver's license, owns a car (a Volvo), voted the previous year, and planned to do more concerts with The Explosives in 2006.

In 2007, Roky Erickson played his 1st ever gig in New York City, as well as California's Coachella Festival and made a stunning debut performance in England to a capacity audience at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Roky Erickson continued to play in Europe, performing for the 1st time in Finland at Ruisrock festival. According to the article in Helsingin Sanomat 8 June 2007, the performance was widely considered the highlight of the festival day.

According to an interview on Sound Opinions on Chicago Public Radio with You're Gonna Miss Me director Kevin McAlester (7/24/07), Roky Erickson is currently working on a new album with Billy Gibbons, singer and guitarist of ZZ Top, and a longtime admirer of Roky Erickson; Billy Gibbons' earlier band The Moving Sidewalks had a hit with "99th floor", which was a tribute of sorts to the Elevators.

On 8th September 2008, Scottish post-rock band Mogwai released the 'The Batcat EP'. Roky Erickson is featured on 1 of the tracks, 'Devil Rides'.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Bob Mosley

Bob Mosley was born James Robert Mosley, on 4 December, 1942, in Paradise Valley, California, USA. Bob Mosley is principally known as the bass player and one of the songwriters and vocalists for the band Moby Grape. Bob Mosley has also developed a career as a solo artist. 3 of his best known songs with Moby Grape are "Mr. Blues", from the 1st Moby Grape album (1967), "Bitter Wind", from Wow/Grape Jam (1968) and "Gypsy Wedding", from 20 Granite Creek (1971). Bob Mosley has had a varied career, including a period in 1977 playing with Neil Young in a band called The Ducks, which had a brief life and lamented demise.

Bob Mosley's career has been plagued by the challenges of schizophrenia, as was the case with Moby Grape bandmate Skip Spence. Both musicians were homeless for several years. Bob Mosley's schizophrenia was 1st diagnosed after he left Moby Grape in
1969,following the release of Moby Grape '69. Bob Mosley shocked the remaining band members, in leaving the band to join the Marines. It was during basic training with the Marines that Bob Mosley was 1st diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Bob Mosley was discharged from the Marines 9 months after basic training.

In 1996, 3 of Bob Mosley's fellow band members, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Don Stevenson, in part reformed Moby Grape with the objective of helping Bob Mosley recover emotionally and financially. Bob Mosley describes the circumstances as follows: "In 1996, Peter Lewis picked me up along the side of a San Diego freeway where I was living, to tell me a ruling by San Francisco Judge Garcia gave Moby Grape their name back. I was ready to go to work again."

Unlike bandmate Skip Spence, whose musicial output largely ceased within a few years of the onset of schizophrenia, Bob Mosley has been able to continue to write songs and record music for much of his life. Bob Mosley's most recent solo release is True Blue, released on the Taxim label in 2005.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Meera Popkin

Meera Popkin is a star of Cats and Miss Saigon on Broadway and in London's West End. Meera Popkin was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Meera Popkin's life went from centre stage and limos to waiting tables at Wendy's, but she's now back and is doing well. "I've had quite a year. I thought the highlight would be getting married. I thought the highlight would be having my baby girl. Now it looks like the highlight is being completely recovered from schizophrenia. Did I ever have it? Was I misdiagnosed? Am I the one in a thousand that recovers from this illness? These are the questions my doctor is asking."

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Alexander "Skip" Spence

Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence was born on 18 April, 1946 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and died on 16 April, 1999 from lung cancer. Alexander "Skip" Spence was 52, just 2days shy of his 53rd birthday.

Alexander "Skip" Spence was a musician and singer-songwriter best known for his work with Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and as a solo artist. Alexander "Skip" Spence and his family relocated to San Jose, California in the late 1950s. Alexander "Skip" Spence's career was plauged by drug addictions coupled with mental health problems, and is described by a biographer as man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out. Unlike the advice in the Neil Young song, he both burned out and faded away;" yet during his tenure in the public eye, he had a profound impact on the outsider music and psych-folk genres.

Alexander "Skip" Spence was a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service before Marty Balin recruited him to be the drummer for Jefferson Airplane. After 1 album with Jefferson Airplane, their debut Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, he left to co-found Moby Grape, once again as a guitarist. It was with Moby Grape that Alexander "Skip" Spence found his greatest musical fame, writing among other songs, "Omaha", from Moby Grape's 1st album (1967) a song identified in 2008 by Rolling Stone Magazine as 1 of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.

Alexander "Skip" Spence is acknowledged as having been instrumental in the formation of the Doobie Brothers, by way of introducing John Hartman to Tom Johnston, and encouraging their musical development.

During the recording session of Moby Grape's 2nd album, Wow, in 1968, Alexander "Skip" Spence attempted to break down a bandmate's hotel room door with a fire axe, while under the influence of LSD. Alexander "Skip" Spence's deterioration in New York and the "fire axe incident" are described by bandmate Jerry Miller as follows: "Skippy changed radically when we were in New York. There were some people there that were into harder drugs and a harder lifestyle, and some very weird shit. And so he kind of flew off with those people. Skippy kind of disappeared for a little while. Next time we saw him, he had cut off his beard, and was wearing a black leather jacket, with his chest hanging out, with some chains and just sweating like a son of a gun. I don't know what the hell he got a hold of, man, but it just whacked him. And the next thing I know, he axed my door down in the Albert Hotel. They said at the reception area that this crazy guy had held an ax to the doorman's head."

As described by bandmate Peter Lewis, it appears that both Jerry Miller and bandmade Don Stevenson were targets of Alexander "Skip" Spence: "We had to do (the album) in New York because the producer (David Rubinson) wanted to be with his family. So we had to leave our families and spend months at a time in hotel rooms in New York City. Finally I just quit and went back to California. I got a phone call after a couple of days. They'd played a Fillmore East gig without me, and Skippy took off with some black witch afterward who fed him full of acid. It was like that scene in The Doors movie. He thought he was the anti-Christ. He tried to chop down the hotel room door with a fire axe to kill Don (Stevenson) to save him from himself. He went up to the 52nd floor of the CBS building where they had to wrestle him to the ground. And Rubinson pressed charges against him. They took him to the The Tombs (and then to Bellevue) and that's where he wrote Oar. When he got out of there, he cut that album in Nashville. And that was the end of his career. They shot him full of Thorazine for 6 months. They just take you out of the game."

During his 6 months in Bellevue, Alexander "Skip" Spence was diagnosed with schizophrenia. On the day of his release, he drove a motorcycle, dressed in only his pajamas, directly to Nashville to record his only solo album, with no other musicians appearing on it, the now-classic psychedelic/folk album Oar (1969, Columbia Records).

Alexander "Skip" Spence continued to have minor involvement in later Moby Grape projects and reunions. Alexander "Skip" Spence contributed to 20 Granite Creek(1971) and Live Grape(1978), though his bandmates always included at least 1 of his songs on group recordings, irrespective of whether he was capable of performing with the group at the time. Alexander "Skip" Spence had been similarly remembered by Jefferson Airplane, whereby his song, "My Best Friend" was included on the group's definitive Surrealistic Pillow album (1967), despite his departure from the group.

Due to his deteriorating state and notwithstanding that he was no longer functioning in the band, Alexander "Skip" Spence was supported by Moby Grape band members for extended periods. Voluminous consumption of heroin and cocaine resulted in a further involuntary committal for Alexander "Skip" Spence, based on "Aqualung"-like behaviours. As described by Peter Lewis, "Skippy was just hanging around. He hadn't been all there for years, because he'd been into heroin all that time. In fact he actually ODed once and they had him in the morgue in San Jose with a tag on his toe. All of a sudden he got up and asked for a glass of water. Now he was snortin' big clumps of coke, and nothing would happen to him. We couldn't have him around because he'd be pacing the room, describing axe murders. So we got him a little place of his own. He had a little white rat named Oswald that would snort coke too. He'd never washed his dishes, and he'd try to get these little grammar school girls to go into the house with him. He was real bad. One of the parents finally called the cops, and they took him to the County Mental Health Hospital in Santa Cruz. Where they immediately lost him, and he turned up days later in the women's ward."

Mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism thus prevented Alexander "Skip" Spence from sustaining a career in the music industry. Much of his life was spent in third party care, as a ward of the State of California, and either homeless or in transient accommodations in his later years. Alexander "Skip" Spence remained in and around San Jose and Santa Cruz, California. Peter Lewis regularly visited Alexander "Skip" Spence during the latter years of his life: "The last 5 years I'd go up‚ he lived in a trailer up there‚ Capitola. I used to hang around with him; we'd spend the weekends together. But he just basically kind of hit the…he was helpless in a way in terms of being able to define anything or control his feelings."

As 1 of his 4 children, son Omar Spence, recalls, "When I saw my dad, it broke my heart. ...There were moments of clarity when he was genius smart, and then he'd wander off having a conversation with himself. Here's a homeless guy that most people would walk past and pity, and he'd say, 'I've been working on a song', and he'd scratch out some bar chords and musical notes on a napkin."

Spence died More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence, an album featuring contributions from Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Beck, among others, was released a few weeks after his death. Prior to its release, the CD was played for Alexander "Skip" Spence at the hospital, in his final stages before death. As Peter Lewis recalls, "He was in a coma‚ and the last thing to go is your hearing. And they had More Oar in there and were playing it for him as they pulled the plug and we were holding his hands. I mean‚ it was like this death of Van Gogh or something. That's the drama of it. You know…it was just so intense."

Alexander "Skip" Spence's "Land of the Sun", one of the only post-Grape recordings he ever completed, was nearly placed on the X-Files soundtrack, Songs In The Key of X. Alexander "Skip" Spence had been commissioned to write the song.

In June, 2008, an Alexander "Skip" Spence Tribute Concert was held in Santa Cruz. The concert featured Alexander "Skip" Spence's son, Omar Spence, who has sung with various configurations of Moby Grape in recent years. Omar Spence, singing his father's songs, was backed by the Santa Cruz White Album Ensemble, with Dale Ockerman and Tiran Porter, both formerly of the Doobie Brothers, and both of whom have played with various members of Moby Grape in several bands over the past 3 decades. Keith Graves of Quicksilver Messenger Service played drums. Peter Lewis joined the group onstage for the finale. An additional Alexander "Skip" Spence tribute concert is planned for October, 2008.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Tom Harrell

Tom Harrell was born on 16 June, 1946 in Urbana, Illinois, USA. Tom Harrell is a renowned American post bop jazz trumpeter and composer. Tom Harrell suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Tom Harrell began playing the trumpet at the age of 8. Tom Harrell soon moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and was gigging with local bands by the age of 13. In 1969 he graduated from Stanford University with a music composition degree and joined Stan Kenton's orchestra, touring and recording with them throughout 1969. After leaving Stan Kenton's orchestra, Tom Harrell played with Woody Herman's big band (1970-1971), Azteca (1972), the Horace Silver Quintet (1973-1977), the Sam Jones big band, the Lee Konitz Nonet (1979-1981), George Russell, the Mel Lewis Orchestra (1981), and Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra. In addition, he recorded albums with Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Ronnie Cuber, Bob Brookmeyer, Lionel Hampton, Bob Berg, Bobby Shew, among others. From 1983-1989 he was a pivotal member of the Phil Woods Quintet, with whom he toured the world and made many recordings.

Since 1989 Tom Harrell has led his own groups; usually quintets but occasionally big bands. Tom Harrell has appeared at virtually every major jazz club and festival, and recorded under his own name for such record labels as Pinnacle, Blackhawk, Criss Cross, SteepleChase, Contemporary Records, Chesky, and RCA.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Andrew Goram

Andrew Lewis Goram was born on 13 April, 1964 in Bury, Lancashire, England. Andrew Goram is a former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Andrew Goram currently works for Clyde as a goalkeeping coach. Andrew Goram started his career with Oldham Athletic and Hibernian, but he is best remembered for playing for Rangers during the 1990s, when he earned the monicker "The Goalie". In 2001 he was voted Rangers' greatest ever goalkeeper by the Rangers fans. After his time with Rangers he played for many clubs, most notably at Motherwell and a brief loan spell at Manchester United. Andrew Goram also represented Scotland at cricket, but was banned from playing that sport after moving to Rangers.

Andrew Goram joined Oldham Athletic as a teenager and spent 7 years with the English club, winning his 1st Scotland caps and selection for the 1986 World Cup. In 1987, he moved to Hibernian, where his father had also been a goalkeeper, for a fee of £325,000. Andrew Goram was a great success at Hibs and achieved the remarkable feat of scoring a goal in a Premier Division match, against Morton.

Andrew Goram was sold to Rangers in 1991 for £1,000,000 and went on to help the club to win 6 of their 9 Scottish League titles in a row between 1989 and 1997. Andrew Goram was also involved in Rangers' notable run in the European Cup in 1992-93, as they came within 1 point of reaching the final.

Andrew Goram was also an important player for the Scotland national team, winning 43 caps. Andrew Goram had a long-running rivalry with Jim Leighton for the goalkeeping position in the Scotland team. Craig Brown controversially selected Andrew Goram ahead of Jim Leighton for Scotland's matches in Euro 96, despite the fact that Jim Leighton had played in most of the qualifiers. Craig Brown then selected Jim Leighton for France 98, which prompted Andrew Goram to walk out of the squad completely.

After it was reported in the press that Andrew Goram had a mild form of schizophrenia, fans responded with a chorus of "Two Andy Gorams, there's only 2 Andy Gorams". This chant quickly gained popularity, and became the title of a book documenting humorous football chants.

While playing for Dumfries club Queen of the South in 2002, he won the Scottish Challenge Cup. This made Andrew Goram the 1st player to collect a full set of winners medals from the 4 senior Scottish football competitions.

Andrew Goram is now an after-dinner speaker and regularly attends Rangers' fan gatherings. Andrew Goram has also worked as a goalkeeping coach, joining Airdrie United in March 2006 and then Clyde in February 2008.

Also a cricketer, Andrew Goram represented the Scottish cricket team 4 times: twice (1989 and 1991) in the annual first-class game against Ireland and twice (again in 1989 and 1991) in the NatWest Trophy.

A left-handed batsman and right-arm medium-pace bowler, he never achieved any great success, and his most significant act was probably to bowl England Test player Richard Blakey in a NatWest Trophy game against Yorkshire in 1989.

Andrew Goram was also a league cricketer, appearing as a wicket-keeper and batsman for various Oldham clubs in the Saddleworth League including Delph & Dobcross, Moorside and also East Lancashire Paper Mill in Radcliffe, Bury.

Recently Andy Goram has been making a cricketing comeback. Andrew Goram has played for the Freuchie Cricket Team and their most recent match was against the Sussex Ladies.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Joe Meek

Joe Meek was born Robert George Meek on 5 April 1929 and died on 3 February 1967 in London. Joe Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter acknowledged as 1 of the world's 1st and most imaginative independent producers.

Joe Meek's most famous work was The Tornados' hit "Telstar" (1962), which became the 1st record by a British group to hit #1 in the US Hot 100. It also spent 5 weeks atop the UK singles chart, with Joe Meek receiving an Ivor Novello Award for this production as the "Best-Selling A-Side" of 1962.

Joe Meek's other notable hit productions include "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O" and "Cumberland Gap" by Lonnie Donegan (as engineer), "Johnny Remember Me" by John Leyton, "Just Like Eddie" by Heinz, "Angela Jones" by Michael Cox and "Have I the Right?" by The Honeycombs, "Tribute to Buddy Holly" by Mike Berry. Joe Meek's concept album I Hear a New World is regarded as a watershed in modern music for its innovative use of electronic sounds.

Joe Meek was also producing music for films, most notably Live It Up! (US title Sing and Swing), a 1963 pop music film starring Heinz Burt, David Hemmings and Steve Marriott, also featuring Gene Vincent, Jenny Moss, The Outlaws, Kim Roberts, Kenny Ball, Patsy Ann Noble and others. Joe Meek wrote most of the songs and incidental music, much of which was recorded by The Saints and produced by Joe Meek.

Joe Meek's commercial success as a producer was short-lived and Joe Meek gradually sank into debt and depression. On 3 February 1967, using a shotgun owned by musician Heinz Burt, Joe Meek murdered his landlady before turning the gun on himself. Aged only 37, he died 8 years to the day after his hero, Buddy Holly.

A stint in the Royal Air Force as a radar operator spurred a life-long interest in electronics and outer space. From 1953 he worked for the Midlands Electricity Board. Joe Meek used the resources of his company to develop his interest in electronics and music production, including acquiring a disc cutter and producing his 1st record.

Joe Meek left the electricity board to work as a sound engineer for a leading independent radio production company that made programmes for Radio Luxembourg, and made his breakthrough with his work on Ivy Benson's Music for Lonely Lovers. Joe Meek's technical ingenuity was 1st shown on the Humphrey Lyttelton jazz single "Bad Penny Blues" (Parlophone Records, 1956) when, contrary to Humphrey Lyttleton's wishes, he 'modified' the sound of the piano and compressed the sound to a greater than normal extent. The record became a hit. Joe Meek then put enormous effort into Dennis Preston's Landsdowne Studio but tensions between Dennis Preston and Joe Meek soon saw Joe Meek forced out.

In January 1960, together with William Barrington-Coupe, Joe Meek founded Triumph Records. The label very nearly had a #1 hit with Joe Meek's production of Angela Jones by Michael Cox. Michael Cox was one of the featured singers on Jack Good's TV music show Boy Meets Girls and the song was given massive promotion. Unfortunately, Triumph Records, being an independent label, was at the mercy of small pressing plants, who couldn't (or wouldn't) keep up with sales demands. The record made a respectable appearance in the Top Ten, but it proved that Joe Meek needed the muscle of the major companies to get his records into the shops when it mattered.

Despite an interesting catalogue of Joe Meek productions, indifferent business results and Joe Meek proving difficult to work with eventually led to the label's demise. Joe Meek would later license many of the Triumph recordings to labels such as Top Rank and Pye.

That year Joe Meek conceived, wrote and produced an "Outer Space Music Fantasy"' concept album I Hear A New World with a band called Rod Freeman & The Blue Men. The album was shelved for decades, apart from some EP tracks taken from it.

Joe Meek went on to set up his own production company known as RGM Sound Ltd (later Meeksville Sound Ltd) with toy importer, 'Major' Wilfred Alonzo Banks as his financial backer. Joe Meek operated from his now-legendary home studio which he constructed at 304 Holloway Road, Islington, a 3-floor flat above a leather-goods store (currently empty).

Joe Meeks' 1st hit from Holloway Road was a UK #1 smash: John Leyton's Johnny Remember Me (1961). This memorable "death ditty" was cleverly promoted by John Leyton's manager, expatriate Australian entrepreneur Robert Stigwood. Robert Stigwood was able to get John Leyton to perform the song in several episodes of the popular TV soap opera Harpers West One in which he was making a series of guest appearances. Joe Meek's 3rd UK #1 and last major success was with The Honeycombs' Have I The Right? in 1964, which also became a No.5 hit on the American Billboard pop charts. The success of John Leyton's recordings was instrumental in establishing Robert Stigwood and Joe Meek as 2 of Britain's 1st independent record producers.

When his landlords, who lived downstairs, felt that the noise was too much, they would indicate so with a broom on the ceiling. Joe Meek would signal his contempt by placing loudspeakers in the stairwell and turning up the volume.

A blue plaque has since been placed at the location of the studio to commemorate Joe Meek's life and work.

Joe Meek was obsessed with the occult and the idea of "the other side". Joe Meek would set up tape machines in graveyards in a vain attempt to record voices from beyond the grave, in one instance capturing the meows of a cat he claimed was speaking in human tones, asking for help. In particular, he had an obsession with Buddy Holly (claiming the late American rocker had communicated with him in dreams) and other dead rock and roll musicians.

Joe Meek's professional efforts were often hindered by his paranoia (Joe Meek was convinced that Decca Records would put hidden microphones behind his wallpaper in order to steal his ideas), drug use and attacks of rage or depression. Upon receiving an apparently innocent phone call from Phil Spector, Joe Meek immediately accused Phil Spector of stealing his ideas before hanging up angrily.

Joe Meek's homosexuality - illegal in the UK at the time - put him under further pressure; he had been charged with "importuning for immoral purposes" in 1963 and was consequently subjected to blackmail. In January of 1967, police in Tattingstone, Suffolk, discovered a suitcase containing the mutilated body of Bernard Oliver, an alleged rent boy who had previously associated with Joe Meek. According to some accounts, Joe Meek became concerned that he would be implicated in the murder investigation when the Metropolitan police stated that they would be interviewing all known homosexuals in the city.

In the meantime, the hits had dried up and as Joe Meek's financial position became increasingly desperate, his depression deepened. On 3 February, 1967, the 8th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, Joe Meek killed his landlady Violet Shenton and then himself with a single barreled shotgun that he had confiscated from his protegé, former Tornados bassist and solo star Heinz Burt at his Holloway Road home/studio. Joe Meek had flown into a rage and taken the gun from Heinz Burt when he informed Joe Meek that he used it while on tour to shoot birds. Joe Meek had kept the gun under his bed, along with some cartridges. As the shotgun had been registered to Heinz Burt, he was questioned intensively by police, before being eliminated from their enquiries.

Joe Meek was subsequently buried in plot 99 at Newent Cemetery in Newent, Gloucestershire. Joe Meek's black granite tombstone can be found near the middle of the cemetery.

Despite not being able to play a musical instrument or write notation, Joe Meek displayed a remarkable facility for writing and producing successful commercial recordings. In writing songs he was reliant on musicians such as Dave Adams, Geoff Goddard or Charles Blackwell to transcribe melodies from his vocal "demos". Joe Meek worked on 245 singles, of which 45 were major hits (top 50 or better).

Joe Meek pioneered studio tools such as multiple over-dubbing on 1 and 2 track machines, close miking, direct input of bass guitars, the compressor, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling. Unlike other producers, his search was for the 'right' sound rather than for a catchy musical tune, and throughout his brief career he single-mindedly followed his quest to create a unique "sonic signature" for every record he produced.

At a time when many studio engineers were still wearing white coats and assiduously trying to maintain clarity and fidelity, Joe Meek, the maverick, was producing everything on the 3 floors of his "home" studio and was never afraid to distort or manipulate the sound if it created the effect he was seeking. For Johnny Remember Me he placed the violins on the stairs, the drummer almost in the bathroom, and the brass section on a different floor entirely.

Joe Meek was 1 of the 1st producers to grasp and fully exploit the possibilities of the modern recording studio. Joe Meek's innovative techniques -- physically separating instruments, treating instruments and voices with echo and reverb, processing the sound through his fabled home-made electronic devices, the combining of separately-recorded performances and segments into a painstakingly constructed composite recording -- comprised a major breakthrough in sound production. Up to that time, the standard technique for pop, jazz and classical recordings alike was to record all the performers in one studio, playing together in real time, a legacy of the days before magnetic tape, when performances were literally cut live, directly onto disc.

Joe Meek's style was also substantially different from that of his contemporary Phil Spector, who typically created his famous "Wall of sound" productions by making live recordings of large ensembles that used multiples of major instruments like bass, guitar and piano to create the complex sonic backgrounds for his singers.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Ann Todd Lincoln was born on 13 December, 1818 and died on 16 July, 1882, at the age of 63 and was interred within the Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield along with her husband.

Mary Todd Lincoln was the wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and was First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865. After her marriage she was always known as Mary Lincoln, never Mary Todd Lincoln.

Mary Todd Lincoln's father married Elizabeth "Betsy" Humphreys Todd in 1826. Mary Todd Lincoln had a difficult relationship with her stepmother. Beginning in 1832, Mary Todd Lincoln's home was what is now known as the Mary Todd Lincoln House, a 14-room upper-class residence in Lexington. From her father's marriages to her mother and stepmother, Mary Todd Lincoln had 15 siblings.

At the age of 20, in 1839, Mary Todd Lincoln left the family home and moved to Springfield, Illinois, where her sister Elizabeth was already living. Although the flirtatious and intelligent Mary Todd Lincoln was courted by the rising young lawyer and politician Stephen A. Douglas, Mary Todd Lincoln was unexpectedly attracted by Stephen A. Douglas's lower-status rival and fellow lawyer, Abraham Lincoln.

Elizabeth facilitated their courtship and introduced Mary Todd Lincoln to Abraham on 16 December. It is reported that, on learning her surname was spelled with 2 "d"s, he retorted "Why? One was enough for God". After a troubled engagement that was marked by at least one breakup, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln were married on 4November, 1842. Almost exactly 9 months later, on 1 August, 1843, their 1st son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born.

Abraham Lincoln pursued his increasingly successful career as a Springfield lawyer, and Mary Todd Lincoln supervised their growing household. Their home together from 1844 until 1861 survives in Springfield, and is now the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.

Their children, all born in Springfield, were:

Robert Todd Lincoln : (1843 – 1926)
Edward (Eddie) Baker Lincoln : (1846 – 1850)
William (Willie) Wallace Lincoln : (1850 – 1862)
Thomas (Tad) Lincoln : (1853 – 1871).

Of these 4 sons, only Robert and Tad survived into adulthood, and only Robert outlived his mother.

Mary Todd Lincoln was deeply in love with her husband, and sometimes resented his absence from their home as he practiced law and campaigned for political office. During the 1850s, however, Mrs. Lincoln staunchly supported her husband as he faced the growing crisis caused by American slavery. This concluded in Lincoln's election, in November 1860, as President of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln's election caused 11 Southern states to secede from the Union. Anti-Union sentiment was very strong in Mrs. Lincoln's home state of Kentucky, 1 of the 4 slave states that did not secede. Many upper-class Kentuckians, members of the social stratum into which Mrs. Lincoln had been born, supported the Southern cause.

Mary Todd Lincoln was well educated and interested in public affairs, and shared her husband's fierce ambition. However, her Southern heritage created obstacles for her that became apparent almost immediately after she took on her new duties as First Lady in March 1861. Some facets of Mrs. Lincoln's character did not help her in facing these challenges. Mary Todd Lincoln was temperamentally high-strung and touchy, and sometimes acted irrationally.(Mary Todd Lincoln may have suffered from bipolar disorder.)Mary Todd Lincoln was almost instantly unpopular upon her arrival in the capital.

Mr. Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, who had remained unmarried throughout his life, had been unable to fully use the White House for public gatherings under the social rules of the time. As a result, by 1861 the residence was badly worn and shabby. Mary Todd Lincoln initiated repairs to the White House, but the appropriations of public money required came at the same time as public spending was increasing substantially to fight the American Civil War and her actions resulted in severe criticism. Newspapers controlled by the Democratic Party subjected her and the Lincoln administration to scathing criticism, which was fueled by Mrs. Lincoln's lavish shopping expeditions to New York City and other retail centers.

As the Civil War continued, persistent rumors began to circulate against Mary Todd Lincoln's personal loyalty and integrity. One rumor claimed that Mrs. Lincoln was a Confederate sympathizer, and even a Confederate spy (many of her relatives served in the Confederate forces, and 2 of her stepbrothers and a brother-in-law died fighting for the South). In reality, Mary Todd Lincoln was a fervent and tireless supporter of the Union cause. Mary Todd Lincoln's visits with Union soldiers in the numerous hospitals in and around Washington went largely unnoticed by her enemies and contemporaries.

Mr. Lincoln staunchly supported his wife against the vicious attacks disseminated by their enemies. One uncorroborated legend states that President Lincoln, upon hearing the rumors, personally vouched for her loyalty to the United States in a surprise appearance before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. Another story is that Mrs. Lincoln was the 1st First Lady to visit a combat zone when she was present with her husband at the Siege of Fort Stevens on 11 July, 1864.

During the Civil War, loyal Americans of Southern heritage, such as Mary Todd Lincoln, faced the dilemma of how to reconcile their cradle education in white supremacy with the new role of African-Americans as a key element of Union strength. Mrs. Lincoln responded to this challenge by accepting the ex-slave dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly, as her closest White House friend and confidante. Elizabeth Keckly's reminiscences would become an essential element for understanding and interpreting the psychological challenges faced by Mrs Lincoln in the White House.

Mrs. Lincoln's personal trials continued and worsened in February 1862 with the death of their 11-year-old son Willie. When the boy died of typhoid fever within the walls of the White House, the psychologically battered First Lady almost gave way entirely to her grief. Mrs Lincoln paid mediums and spiritualists to try to contact the dead boy, only to lose another small fortune the Lincolns could not afford.

Some Lincoln aides and Cabinet members privately considered Mrs. Lincoln to be a liability to the administration. Mrs Lincoln was ruthlessly criticised, especially behind her back, as a free-spending, overemotional First Lady who tried to climb out of the constraints that were viewed as essential elements of the roles of women in public life. For example, John Hay, an aide to President Lincoln, privately referred to her as "the hellcat."

In April 1865, as the Civil War came to an end, Mrs. Lincoln hoped to renew her happiness as the First Lady of a nation at peace. However, on 14 April, 1865, as Mary Todd Lincoln sat with her husband to watch the comic play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre, President Lincoln was mortally wounded by an assassin. Mrs. Lincoln accompanied her husband across the street to the Petersen House, where the President died on the following day, 15 April 1865. Mary Todd Lincoln would never fully recover from the traumatic experience.

As a widow, Mrs. Lincoln returned to Illinois. In 1868, Mrs. Lincoln's former confidante, Elizabeth Keckly, published Behind the Scenes, or, 30 years a slave, and 4 years in the White House. Although this book has, over time, proved to be an extremely valuable resource in the understanding and appreciation of Mary Todd Lincoln, the former First Lady regarded it as a breach of what she had considered to be a close friendship. Mrs. Lincoln was further isolated.

In an act approved 14 July, 1870, the United States Congress granted Mrs. Lincoln a life pension for being the widow of President Lincoln, in the amount of $3,000 a year.

For Mary Todd Lincoln, the death of her son Thomas (Tad), in July 1871, led to an overpowering sense of grief and the gradual onset of depression. Mrs. Lincoln's sole surviving son, Robert T. Lincoln, a rising young Chicago lawyer, was alarmed by his mother's free spending of money in ways that did not give her any lasting happiness. Due to what he considered to be her increasingly eccentric behavior, Robert exercised his rights as Mrs. Lincoln's closest male relative and had the widow deprived of custody of her own person and affairs. Mary Todd Lincoln was misprescribed laudanum for sleep problems which caused her to suffer anxiety and hallucinations. Upon increase of these hallucinations, more laudanum and chloral hydrate was administered, which increased the problem and led to her eventual commitment to an asylum. In 1875, Mary Todd Lincoln was committed by an Illinois court to Bellevue Place, an insane asylum in Batavia, Illinois. There Mrs. Lincoln was not closely confined; she was free to walk about the building and its immediate grounds, and was released 3 months later. However, Mary Todd Lincoln never forgave her eldest son for what she regarded as his betrayal.

Mrs. Lincoln spent the next 4 years abroad taking up residence in Pau, France. Mrs Lincoln spent much of this time travelling in Europe. However, the former First Lady's final years were marked by declining health. Mrs Lincoln suffered from severe cataracts that affected her eyesight. This may have contributed to her increasing susceptibility to falls. In 1879, she suffered spinal cord injuries in a fall from a step ladder.

During the early 1880s, Mary Todd Lincoln lived, housebound, in the Springfield, Illinois residence of her sister Elizabeth Edwards.

Of the Lincoln children, only Robert lived to marry and produce children.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Peter Green

Peter Green, Peter Allen Greenbaum, was born on 29 October 1946, in Bethnal Green, London. Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and founder of the band Fleetwood Mac.

A figurehead in the British blues movement, Peter Green inspired B. B. King to say, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats." Peter Green's playing was marked with a distinctive vibrato and economy of style, as well as a unique tone from his 1959 Gibson Les Paul. A result of the guitar's neck pickup magnet being reversed to produce an 'out of phase' sound. Peter Green used a Fender Stratocaster on the track "Albatross", and used a National resonator guitar on "Oh Well Part I".

Petr Green played lead in Peter Bardens' band, Peter B's Looners, in 1966. After a 3month stint, he had the opportunity to fill in for Eric Clapton in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers for 3 gigs. Upon Eric Clapton's permanent departure not long after, he was hired full-time.

Peter Green made his full album debut with the Bluesbreakers with A Hard Road. It featured 2 compositions by Peter Green, "The Same Way" and "The Supernatural". The latter was 1 of Peter Green's 1st extended instrumentals, which would soon become a trademark.

In 1967, Peter Green decided to form his own blues band, and left Mayall's Bluesbreakers after appearing on just 1 album (just as Eric Clapton had done).

The name of Peter Green's new band was Fleetwood Mac. Originally billed as "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac"; it originated from the band's rhythm section that comprised Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. In the mid 1970s the re-organised band topped the charts with mainstream pop/rock, but initially it was a straight-up blues-rock band playing blues classics and some original material. Peter Green wrote the song "Black Magic Woman" that was eventually picked up by Santana. Peter Green was the leader of the group throughout its initial period of success in the late 1960s, with hits including "Oh Well", "Man of the World", "The Green Manalishi" and the British Charts #1 hit, "Albatross".

Following the release of "Albatross" and his consequent rise in fame, Peter Green struggled with success and the spotlight. After a gig in Munich while touring Europe, Peter Green binged for 3 days on LSD. In his own words, he "went on a trip, and never came back."

Communard Rainer Langhans mentions in his autobiography that he and Uschi Obermaier met Peter Green in Munich, where they invited him to their "High-Fish-Commune". They were not really interested in Peter Green. They just wanted to get in contact with Mick Taylor; Langhans and Obermaier wished to organise a "Bavarian Woodstock." They wanted Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones as the leading acts of their Bavarian open air festival. They needed the "Green God" just to get in contact with The Rolling Stones via Mick Taylor.

Peter Green's personality changed drastically after the episode: he began wearing a robe, grew a beard, and wore a crucifix on his chest (this last despite having been raised Jewish). Peter Green's use of LSD may have incited his schizophrenia. Peter Green quit Fleetwood Mac in 1970, performing his final show as a member on 20 May 1970. Peter Green recorded a jam session The End of the Game and faded into obscurity, taking on a succession of menial jobs. It was during this period that Peter Green sold his trademark 1959 Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard to Irish guitarist Gary Moore.

Peter Green had a brief reunion with Fleetwood Mac when Jeremy Spencer left the group (Peter Green flew to the USA to help them complete the tour) and he was also an uncredited guest on their 1973 Penguin album on the track "Night Watch". Peter Green also appears on the track "Brown Eyes" from 1979's Tusk.

Peter Green was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental illness commonly characterised by hallucinations and paranoia, and he spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy in the mid-1970s. Many sources attest to his lethargic, trancelike state during this period. In 1977, he was arrested for threatening his accountant, Clifford Davis, with a rifle, but the exact circumstances are the subject of much speculation, the most popular being that Peter Green wanted Clifford Davis to stop sending money to him. After this incident he was sent to a psychiatric institution in London. This was prior to his re-emergence as a recording artist with PVK Records in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Peter Green suffered a relapse in 1984 and effectively lived the life of a tramp-like recluse for 6 years until he was rescued by his brother Len and his wife, going to live with them in Great Yarmouth and regaining some of his former health and strength.

Apart from his solo work in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he contributed to "Rattlesnake Shake" and "Super Brains" on Mick Fleetwood's solo album, The Visitor, and recorded various sessions with a number of other musicians. Despite some attempts by Sunburst Gibson at a German trade show to start talks about producing a Peter Green signature Les Paul, Peter's instrument of choice at this time was in fact a Sunburst Gibson 'Howard Roberts' Fusion, very often seen accompanying him on stage in recent years.

A 1990s comeback saw Peter Green form the Peter Green Splinter Group, with the assistance of fellow musicians including Nigel Watson and Cozy Powell. The Splinter Group released 9 albums between 1997 and 2003. It was in the latter part of this period that Peter Green picked up a black Sunburst Gibson Les Paul again. Peter Green signed and sold this ebony Les Paul.

A tour was cancelled and recording of a new studio album stopped in early 2004, when Peter Green left the band and moved to Sweden. Shortly thereafter he joined The British Blues All Stars, but their tour in 2005 was also cancelled. Peter Green has said that the medication he takes to treat his psychological problems makes it hard for him to concentrate and saps his desire to pick up a guitar; whether there will be any more public ventures remains to be seen.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Lionel Aldridge

Lionel Aldridge was born on 14 February, 1941 and died on 12 February, 1998. Lionel Aldridge played American football professionally as a defensive end on the historic Green Bay Packers teams of the 60s.

Lionel Aldridge was drafted in 1963 by the New York Giants after a standout college career at Utah State. Active from 1963 to 1971, Lionel Aldridge played for the Packers during the Vince Lombardi dynasty in Green Bay, playing a role in Packer victories in Super Bowls I and II. Traded to the San Diego Chargers, Lionel Aldridge played 2 seasons in San Diego before retiring from professional football in 1972.

After retiring, Lionel Aldridge worked as sports analyst in Milwaukee until manifesting a mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia during the early 70s. Homeless for a time, he eventually reached a form of equilibrium, working as an advocate for the homeless and mentally ill until his death in 1998.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Antoine Artaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was born on 4 September, 1896, in Marseille, France and died on 4 March, 1948 in Paris, France. Antoine Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and director. Antonin Artaud is a diminutive form of Antoine (little Anthony), and was among a long list of names which Antoine Artaud used throughout his life.

Antoine Artaud's parents, Euphrasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud, were of Greek origin (Smyrna), and he was much affected by this background. Although his mother had 9 children, only Antoine Artaud and 2 siblings survived infancy.

At the age of 4, Antoine Artaud had a severe attack of meningitis. The virus gave Antoine Artaud a nervous, irritable temperament throughout adolescence. Antoine Artaud also suffered from neuralgia, stammering and severe bouts of depression. As a teenager, he was allegedly stabbed in the back by a pimp for apparently no reason, similar to the experience of playwright Samuel Beckett.

Antoine Artaud's parents arranged a long series of sanatorium stays for their disruptive son, which were both prolonged and expensive. They lasted 5 years, with a break of 2 months, June and July 1916, when Antoine Artaud was conscripted into the army. Antoine Artaud was allegedly discharged due to his self-induced habit of sleepwalking. During Antoine Artaud's "rest cures" at the sanatorium, he read Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Poe. In May 1919, the director of the sanatorium prescribed laudanum for Antoine Artaud, precipitating a lifelong addiction to that and other opiates.

In March 1920, Antoine Artaud moved to Paris. At the age of 27, Antoine Artaud sent some of his poems to the journal La Nouvelle Revue Française; they were rejected, but the editor wrote back seeking to understand him, and a relationship in letters was born. This epistolary work, "Correspondence avec Jacques Rivière," is Antoine Artaud's 1st major publication. In November 1926, Antoine Artaud was expelled from the surrealist movement, in which he had participated briefly, for refusing to renounce theater as a bourgeois commercial art form, and for refusing to join the French Communist Party along with the other Surrealists.

Antoine Artaud cultivated a great interest in cinema as well, writing the scenario for the 1st Surrealist film, The Seashell and the Clergyman, directed by Germaine Dulac. Antoine Artaud also acted in Abel Gance's Napoleon in the role of Jean-Paul Marat, and in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc as the monk Massieu. Antoine Artaud's portrayal of Marat used exaggerated movements to convey the fire of Jean-Paul Marat's personality.

In 1926-28, Antoine Artaud ran the Alfred Jarry Theater, along with Roger Vitrac. Antoine Artaud produced and directed original works by Roger Vitrac, as well as pieces by Claudel and Strindberg. The theatre advertised that they would produce Artaud's play Jet de sang in their 1926-1927 season, but it was never mounted and was not premiered until 40 years later. The Theater was extremely short-lived, but was attended by an enormous range of European artists, including Andre Gide, Arthur Adamov, and Paul Valery.

The 1930s saw the publication of The Theatre and Its Double, his most well-known work. This book contained the 2 manifestos of the Theater of Cruelty, essential texts in understanding his artistic project. In 1935, Antoine Artaud's production of his adaptation of Shelley's The Cenci premiered. The Cenci was a commercial failure, although it employed innovative sound effects and had a set designed by Balthus.

After the production failed, Antoine Artaud received a grant to travel to Mexico where he gave lectures on the decadence of Western civilisation. Antoine Artaud also studied the Tarahumaran people and experimented with peyote, recording his experiences which were later released in a volume called Voyage to the Land of the Tarahumara. The content of this work closely resembles the poems of his later days, concerned primarily with the supernatural. Antoine Artaud also recorded his horrific withdrawal from heroin upon entering the land of the Tarahumaras; having deserted his last supply of the drug at a mountainside, he literally had to be hoisted onto his horse, and soon resembled, in his words, "a giant, inflamed gum". Having beaten his addiction, however, Antoine Artaud would return to opiates later in life.

In 1937, Antoine Artaud returned to France where he obtained a walking stick of knotted wood that he believed belonged to St. Patrick, but also Lucifer and Jesus Christ. Antoine Artaud traveled to Ireland in an effort to return the staff, though he spoke very little English and was unable to make himself understood. The majority of his trip was spent in a hotel room that he was unable to pay for. On his return trip, Antoine Artaud believed he was being attacked by 2 crew members and retaliated; he was arrested and put in a straitjacket.

The return from Ireland brought about the beginning of the final phase of Antoine Artaud's life, which was spent in different asylums. When France was occupied by the Nazis, friends of Antoine Artaud had him transferred to the Psychiatric hospital in Rodez, well inside Vichy territory, where he was put under the charge of Dr. Gaston Ferdière. Dr Gaston Ferdière began administering electroshock treatments to eliminate Antoine Artaud's symptoms, which included various delusions and odd physical tics. The doctor believed that Antoine Artaud's habits of crafting magic spells, creating astrology charts, and drawing disturbing images, were symptoms of mental illness. The electro-shock treatments have created much controversy, although it was during these treatments — in conjunction with Dr Gaston Ferdière's art therapy — that Antoine Artaud began writing and drawing again, after a long dormant period. In 1946, Dr Gaston Ferdière released Antoine Artaud to his friends, who placed him in the psychiatric clinic at Ivry-sur-Seine. Current psychiatric literature describes Antoine Artaud as having schizophrenia, with a clear psychotic break late in life and schizotypal symptoms throughout life.

Antoine Artaud was encouraged to write by his friends, and interest in his work was rekindled. Antoine Artaud visited an exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh which resulted in a study Van Gogh le suicidé de la société (Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society), published by K éditeur, Paris, 1947 which won a critics´ prize. Antoine Artaud recorded Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu (To Have Done With the Judgment of god) between 22 November and 29 November, 1947. This work was shelved by Wladimir Porché, the director of the French Radio, the day before its scheduled airing on 2 February, 1948. The performance was prohibited partially as a result of its scatological, anti-American, and anti-religious references and pronouncements, but also because of its general randomness, with a cacophony of xylophonic sounds mixed with various percussive elements. While remaining true to his Theater of Cruelty and reducing powerful emotions and expressions into audible sounds, Antoine Artaud had utilized various, somewhat alarming cries, screams, grunts, onomatopoeia, and glossolalia.

As a result, Fernand Pouey, the director of dramatic and literary broadcasts for French radio, assembled a panel to consider the broadcast of Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de Dieu. Among the approximately 50 artists, writers, musicians, and journalists present for a private listening on 5 February, 1948 were Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Raymond Queneau, Jean-Louis Barrault, René Clair, Jean Paulhan, Maurice Nadeau, Georges Auric, Claude Mauriac and René Char. Although the panel felt almost unanimously in favour of Antoine Artaud's work, Porché refused to allow the broadcast. Fernand Pouey left his job and the show was not heard again until 23 February, 1948 at a private performance at the Théâtre Washington.

In January 1948, Antoine Artaud was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Antoine Artaud died shortly afterwards on 4 March, 1948. Antoine Artaud died alone in his pavilion, seated at the foot of his bed, allegedly holding his shoe. It was suspected that he died from a lethal dose of the drug chloral, although whether or not he was aware of its lethality is unknown. 30 years later, French radio finally broadcast the performance of Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de Dieu.

Antoine Artaud believed that the Theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, therefore he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance. In one production that he did about the plague he used sounds so realistic that some members of the audience were sick in the middle of the performance.

In his book The Theatre and Its Double, which was made up of a 1st and 2nd manifesto, Antoine Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese. Antoine Artaud admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualised and precise physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a "Theatre of Cruelty". By cruelty, he meant not exclusively sadism or causing pain, but just as often a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality. Antoine Artaud believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. Antoine Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.

Evidently, Antoine Artaud’s various uses of the term cruelty must be examined to fully understand his ideas. Lee Jamieson has identified 4 ways in which Antoine Artaud used the term cruelty. Firstly, it is employed metaphorically to describe the essence of human existence. Antoine Artaud believed that theatre should reflect his nihilistic view of the universe, creating an uncanny connection between his own thinking and Nietzsche’s:

[Nietzsche’s] definition of cruelty informs Antoine Artaud’s own, declaring that all art embodies and intensifies the underlying brutalities of life to recreate the thrill of experience … Although Antoine Artaud did not formally cite Nietzsche, [their writing] contains a familiar persuasive authority, a similar exuberant phraseology, and motifs in extremis …

Antoine Artaud’s 2nd use of the term (according to Jamieson), is as a form of discipline. Although Antoine Artaud wanted to “reject form and incite chaos”, he also promoted strict discipline and rigor in his performance techniques. A 3rd use of the term was ‘cruelty as theatrical presentation’. The Theatre of Cruelty aimed to hurl the spectator into the centre of the action, forcing them to engage with the performance on an instinctive level. For Antoine Artaud, this was a cruel, yet necessary act upon the spectator designed to shock them out of their complacency:

Antoine Artaud sought to remove aesthetic distance, bringing the audience into direct contact with the dangers of life. By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Antoine Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.


Antoine Artaud put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. Antoine Artaud often referred to this layout as like a 'vortex' - a constantly shifting shape - 'to be trapped and powerless'.

Finally, Antoine Artaud used the term to describe his philosophical views, which will be outlined in the following section.

Imagination, to Antoine Artaud, is reality; dreams, thoughts and delusions are no less real than the "outside" world. Reality appears to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.

Antoine Artaud's later work presents his rejection of the idea of the spirit as separate from the body. Antoine Artaud's poems imagistically revel in flesh and excretion, but sex was always a horror for him. Civilisation was so pernicious that Europe was pulling once proud tribal nations like Mexico down with it into decadence and death. The inevitable end result would be self-destruction and mental slavery. These were 2 evils Antoine Artaud opposed in his own life at great pain and imprisonment, as they could only be opposed personally and not on behalf of a collective or movement. Antoine Artaud thus rejected politics and Marxism wholeheartedly, a stance which led to his expulsion by the Surrealists who had begun to embrace it.

Antoine Artaud saw suffering as essential to existence, and thus rejected all utopias as inevitable dystopia.

Antoine Artaud was heavily influenced by seeing a Colonial Exposition of Balinese Theatre in Marseille. Antoine Artaud read eclectically, inspired by authors and artists such as Seneca, Shakespeare, Poe, Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, André Masson, etc.

Antoine Artaud's theories in Theatre and Its Double influenced rock musician Jim Morrison. Mötley Crüe named the Theatre of Pain album after reading his proposal for a Theater of Cruelty, much like Christian Death had with their album Only Theatre of Pain. The band Bauhaus included a song about the playwright, called "Antonin Artaud", on their album Burning from the Inside. Charles Bukowski also claimed him as a major influence on his work. Influential Argentinean folk-rock songwriter Luis Alberto Spinetta named his album Artaud and wrote most of the songs on that album based on his writings. Composer John Zorn has 3 records, "Astronome," "Moonchild," and "6 Litanies for Heliogabalus," dedicated to Antoine Artaud.

Theatrical practitioner Peter Brook took inspiration from Antoine Artaud's "Theatre of cruelty" in a series of workshops that lead up to his well-known production of Marat/Sade. The Living Theatre was also heavily influenced by him, as was much English-language experimental theater and performance art; Karen Finley, Spalding Gray, Liz LeCompte, Richard Foreman, Charles Marowitz, Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin, and more all named Artaud as one of their influences.

Antoine Artaud also had a profound influence on the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who borrowed Antoine Artaud's phrase "the body without organs" to describe their conception of the virtual dimension of the body and, ultimately, the basic substratum of reality.

The survival horror video game Silent Hill: Origins contains a segment in which the protagonist must solve puzzles within the "Artaud Theatre", which is in the town of Silent Hill.

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Schizophrenia Series-Disabled Legend Charles Buddy Bolden

Charles "Buddy" Bolden was born on 6 September, 1877 and died on 4 November, 1931. Charles Buddy Bolden was buried in an unmarked grave in Holt Cemetery, a pauper's graveyard in New Orleans. In 1998 a monument to Charles Buddy Bolden was erected in Holt Cemetery, but his exact gravesite remains unknown.

Charles Buddy Bolden was an African American cornetist and is regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of rag-time music which later came to be known as jazz.

Charles Buddy Bolden was known as King Bolden, and his band was a top draw in New Orleans from about 1900 until 1907, when he was incapacitated by schizophrenia, which was called dementia praecox at that time. Charles Buddy Bolden left no known surviving recordings, but he was known for his very loud sound and constant improvisation.

While there is substantial first hand oral history about Charles Buddy Bolden, facts about his life continue to be lost amongst colourful myth. Stories about him being a barber by trade or that he published a scandal-sheet called the "Cricket" have been repeated in print despite being debunked decades earlier.

Charles Buddy Bolden suffered an episode of acute alcoholic psychosis in 1907 at the age of 30. With the full diagnosis of dementia praecox, he was admitted to a mental institution where he spent the rest of his life.

Many early jazz musicians credited Charles Buddy Bolden and the members of his band with being the originators of what came to be known as "jazz", though the term was not yet in common musical use until after the era of Charles Buddy Bolden's prominence. At least 1 writer has labelled him the father of jazz. Charles Buddy Bolden is credited with creating a looser, more improvised version of ragtime and adding blues to it; Bolden's band was said to be the 1st to have brass instruments play the blues. Charles Buddy Bolden was also said to have taken ideas from gospel music heard in uptown African American Baptist churches.

Instead of imitating other cornetists, Charles Buddy Bolden played music he heard "by ear" and adapted it to his horn. In doing so, he created an exciting and novel fusion of rag-time, black sacred music, marching-band music and rural blues. Charles Buddy Bolden rearranged the typical New Orleans dance band of the time to better accommodate the blues; string instruments became the rhythm section, and the front-line instruments were clarinets, trombones, and Charles Buddy Bolden's cornet. Charles Buddy Bolden was known for his powerful, loud, "wide open" playing style.

Joe "King" Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson, and other early New Orleans jazz musicians were directly inspired by his playing.

Although Charles Buddy Bolden was recalled as having made at least 1 phonograph cylinder, no known recordings of Charles Buddy Bolden have survived.

Some of the songs 1st associated with his band such as the traditional song "Careless Love" and "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", are still standards. Charles Buddy Bolden often closed his shows with the original number "Get Out of Here and Go Home", although for more "polite" gigs the last number would be "Home! Sweet Home!".

One of the most famous Charles Buddy Bolden numbers is a song called "Funky Butt" (known later as "Buddy Bolden's Blues") which represents one of the earliest references to the concept of "funk" in popular music, now a musical subgenre unto itself. Charles Buddy Bolden's "Funky Butt" was, as Danny Barker once put it, a reference to the olfactory effect of an auditorium packed full of sweaty people "dancing close together and belly rubbing." Other musicians closer to Charles Buddy Bolden's generation explained that the famous tune actually originated as a reference to flatulence.

I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say,
Funky-butt, funky-butt, take it away.

The "Funky Butt" song was one of many in the Charles Buddy Bolden repertory with rude or off-colour lyrics popular in some of the rougher places Charles Buddy Bolden played, and Charles Buddy Bolden's trombonist Willy Cornish claimed authorship. It became so well known as a rude song that even whistling the melody on a public street was considered offensive. However the strain was incorporated into the early published ragtime number "St. Louis Tickle".

Sidney Bechet wrote and composed "Buddy Bolden Stomp" in his honour.

Duke Ellington paid tribute to Charles Buddy Bolden in his 1957 suite "A Drum is a Woman". The trumpet part was taken by Clark Terry.

Dr. John, in the liner notes to his Goin' Back to New Orleans (1992), describes "I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say" (track 5) as "Jelly Roll Morton's memory of a jazz pioneer".

Charles Buddy Bolden has inspired a number of fictional characters with his name. Most famously, Canadian author Michael Ondaatje's novel Coming Through Slaughter features a "Buddy Bolden" character that in some ways resembles Charles Buddy Bolden, but in other ways is deliberately contrary to what is known about him.

Charles Buddy Bolden is also prominent in August Wilson's 7 String Guitars. August Wilson's drama includes a character (King Hedley) whose father, in the play, deliberately named him after King Buddy Bolden. King Hedley constantly sings, "I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say..." and believes that Buddy Bolden will come down and bring him money to buy a plantation.

Additionally, August Wilson's King Hedley II continues 7 Guitars, thus Charles Buddy Bolden continues in the play as well.

Charles Buddy Bolden is a prominent character in David Fulmer's murder mystery titled Chasing the Devil's Tail, being not only a bandleader but also a suspect in the murders. Charles Buddy Bolden also appears by reputation or in person in Fulmer's other books.

Charles Buddy Bolden is the titular character in the film Bolden!, which is currently in production. Charles Buddy Bolden is being portrayed by Anthony Mackie.

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