"Bored Of The Things
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*If you are under 16 yrs old please ask permission from whomever you ask these kinds of things. This film depicts cannabis and tobacco use, and discusses suicide.
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White Rabbit Says - Click the Title of The Movie for the Crimson King's Rabbit Hole....
This is not a movie with a plot. It is half-baked, while I was fully-baked making it, if you get my drift. But if you feel it in your bones, then perhaps you've been there, too.
Board of the Things is a 42-minute film I made at the height of a manic episode, one that nearly took my life. It is chaotic, messy, at times funny, at times disturbing, and deeply personal. But it is also a tribute to survival, to memory, to madness, to music, and to meaning. And most importantly, to the possibility of rebuilding after the collapse.
The film chronicles a sliver of time — July 2013 — when I opened a storefront in Prahran, Victoria, Australia. It was originally supposed to be a guitar shop, but quickly turned into something... else. Think Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory meets Guitar Center, with Rickenbacker basses worth thousands of dollars hanging on the walls, and candy bars and fizzy drinks stacked in fridges for local schoolkids. I was trying to sell instruments, sodas, dreams, and maybe even a bit of magic — all while unraveling mentally, rapidly.
The store was born from a friendship. A friend of mine, a man many years my senior and decades ahead in spiritual depth, offered me an empty property to use. He was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met — a self-taught mystic, a student of esoteric Torah, a former truck driver during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, despite coming from wealth. He in reality, transcended dental medication. I mean that literally. He could have a root canal, meditate his way through the pain, and still show up the next day to study.
And yet he was humble, spontaneous, and believed in living with openness — even on vacation, he made no plans. He'd land, and then see where life took him.
He knew I was selling guitars online and thought I might like a shop. I did. I loved the idea. But I had no money for rent. That didn’t stop me. Mania took the wheel. Within weeks, the shop was fully stocked, the walls lined, and I was flying.
The film you are about to watch captures a few days at the peak of that madness. You will see me interacting with schoolkids on the street, arranging products, pontificating, always just riffing, losing my grip. There is footage I don’t remember filming. There is footage that makes me cringe. There is footage that breaks my heart.
The last scene takes place at my sister’s house, in Israel. I am in bed. I do not know how I captured it, but I was clearly at my lowest. I had escaped to my sister, just as I had a decade earlier, after a similar episode and a section 12 (involuntary) stay at the Alfred Hospital Psychiatric Unit in Australia. My older sister, the same one who watched over me when we were but children, now gave me the space and love to recover . But my marriage was over. I had lost everything, or so I felt. I was in Israel to recover. My 21 year-old nephew, my sister's youngest, generously gave up his room for me. I was catatonic, and suicidal.
Recovery took time. I attended Ma'on Yerushalayim ("Jerusalem View") for partial-day treatment. For months I walked the streets calculating the timing of buses — if I jumped, would it end my pain? I never did. But I thought about it every single day. I include pictures on this page of some of the people I met during my recovery. They do not know I’ve included them, and I have no way to contact them, but they were angels to me. If you recognise yourself here, thank you. I’m sorry. I love you.
I never seriously planned my suicide. But I fantasised about it too many times. The appendix to my book, The Secret to Flying, explains why I never acted on those impulses. The short version: because I know the soul continues. And suicide does not end the pain — it compounds it.
As I wrote this introduction, Tony Childs was playing in the background — The Dead Are Dancing, my favourite of her songs. It seems appropriate. That track always reminds me of the macabre beauty and terror of death, of what it leaves behind, of what it erases, and of what it can never erase.
Suicide is a death dance performed in front of everyone who ever loved you. It shatters hearts, echoes through generations, and rewrites every story about you ever told. But even these souls, those who slip beneath the waves, are not lost forever. They repair. They return. They are reborn. This is the secret of techiyat ha-meitim — the revival of the dead.
And in our day, unlike the past, people don’t fall on their swords for pride. They fall when the weight becomes too heavy. When their chemistry goes haywire. When pain becomes unbearable. Their judgment leaves them, and the act is no longer theirs. It is a mistake made in madness. A terrible moment of separation. But not of guilt.
Think of the soul like a video. And suicide is the soundtrack. You can detach the audio. You can replace it. The video still exists, but with a new score, it tells a new story. It becomes something else. Redemption is always possible.
And just as Tony Childs' voice faded out in the background, I realized this introduction should end too.
But before it does I feel I must mention that now, as I edit this, Toni Child's has ceased crooning, and Yes' "Owner of A Lonely Heart" is playing with it's steady beat. Jon Anderson sings with power: "Give Your Free-Will a Chance - You've got to Want to Succeed."
That too, seems providential. And so with that, let the movie begin.
This is not a movie with a plot. It is half-baked, while I was fully-baked making it, if you get my drift. But if you feel it in your bones, then perhaps you've been there, too.
Board of the Things is a 42-minute film I made at the height of a manic episode, one that nearly took my life. It is chaotic, messy, at times funny, at times disturbing, and deeply personal. But it is also a tribute to survival, to memory, to madness, to music, and to meaning. And most importantly, to the possibility of rebuilding after the collapse.
The film chronicles a sliver of time — July 2013 — when I opened a storefront in Prahran, Victoria, Australia. It was originally supposed to be a guitar shop, but quickly turned into something... else. Think Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory meets Guitar Center, with Rickenbacker basses worth thousands of dollars hanging on the walls, and candy bars and fizzy drinks stacked in fridges for local schoolkids. I was trying to sell instruments, sodas, dreams, and maybe even a bit of magic — all while unraveling mentally, rapidly.
The store was born from a friendship. A friend of mine, a man many years my senior and decades ahead in spiritual depth, offered me an empty property to use. He was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met — a self-taught mystic, a student of esoteric Torah, a former truck driver during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, despite coming from wealth. He in reality, transcended dental medication. I mean that literally. He could have a root canal, meditate his way through the pain, and still show up the next day to study.
And yet he was humble, spontaneous, and believed in living with openness — even on vacation, he made no plans. He'd land, and then see where life took him.
He knew I was selling guitars online and thought I might like a shop. I did. I loved the idea. But I had no money for rent. That didn’t stop me. Mania took the wheel. Within weeks, the shop was fully stocked, the walls lined, and I was flying.
The film you are about to watch captures a few days at the peak of that madness. You will see me interacting with schoolkids on the street, arranging products, pontificating, always just riffing, losing my grip. There is footage I don’t remember filming. There is footage that makes me cringe. There is footage that breaks my heart.
The last scene takes place at my sister’s house, in Israel. I am in bed. I do not know how I captured it, but I was clearly at my lowest. I had escaped to my sister, just as I had a decade earlier, after a similar episode and a section 12 (involuntary) stay at the Alfred Hospital Psychiatric Unit in Australia. My older sister, the same one who watched over me when we were but children, now gave me the space and love to recover . But my marriage was over. I had lost everything, or so I felt. I was in Israel to recover. My 21 year-old nephew, my sister's youngest, generously gave up his room for me. I was catatonic, and suicidal.
Recovery took time. I attended Ma'on Yerushalayim ("Jerusalem View") for partial-day treatment. For months I walked the streets calculating the timing of buses — if I jumped, would it end my pain? I never did. But I thought about it every single day. I include pictures on this page of some of the people I met during my recovery. They do not know I’ve included them, and I have no way to contact them, but they were angels to me. If you recognise yourself here, thank you. I’m sorry. I love you.
I never seriously planned my suicide. But I fantasised about it too many times. The appendix to my book, The Secret to Flying, explains why I never acted on those impulses. The short version: because I know the soul continues. And suicide does not end the pain — it compounds it.
As I wrote this introduction, Tony Childs was playing in the background — The Dead Are Dancing, my favourite of her songs. It seems appropriate. That track always reminds me of the macabre beauty and terror of death, of what it leaves behind, of what it erases, and of what it can never erase.
Suicide is a death dance performed in front of everyone who ever loved you. It shatters hearts, echoes through generations, and rewrites every story about you ever told. But even these souls, those who slip beneath the waves, are not lost forever. They repair. They return. They are reborn. This is the secret of techiyat ha-meitim — the revival of the dead.
And in our day, unlike the past, people don’t fall on their swords for pride. They fall when the weight becomes too heavy. When their chemistry goes haywire. When pain becomes unbearable. Their judgment leaves them, and the act is no longer theirs. It is a mistake made in madness. A terrible moment of separation. But not of guilt.
Think of the soul like a video. And suicide is the soundtrack. You can detach the audio. You can replace it. The video still exists, but with a new score, it tells a new story. It becomes something else. Redemption is always possible.
And just as Tony Childs' voice faded out in the background, I realized this introduction should end too.
But before it does I feel I must mention that now, as I edit this, Toni Child's has ceased crooning, and Yes' "Owner of A Lonely Heart" is playing with it's steady beat. Jon Anderson sings with power: "Give Your Free-Will a Chance - You've got to Want to Succeed."
That too, seems providential. And so with that, let the movie begin.