Friday, March 30, 2012

Transmit Dopamine

I thought I would introduce you to the town of Ashland by way of a music video I made which was shot almost entirely in the small town.

Backstory...

My friend Colin has Parkinson's Disease. He was diagnosed over 10 years ago. They always say "diagnosed", because symptoms start long before a diagnosis is ever given. It starts small, with maybe the twitch of a finger...

Colin is a prolific songwriter, and loves to play the guitar. As the disease progressed, he lost the ability to play. But say what you want about technology and modern medicine... we live in an amazing age. Colin had Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery about six years ago. They put a pacemaker in you, and steadily but gently shock your brain... and somehow it overcomes the symptoms of Parkinson's. For some people. To some degree.

Colin has been an amazing success story. He began playing again, and his creativity soared. He wrote a song called "Transmit Dopamine", about dealing with Parkinson's, and a couple of years ago, asked me if I would help him to make a music video of it.

Before I post the video, a few comments about it. The guy at the very beginning is Colin. He had been waking up with bruises all over him, so he set a video recorder to run all night to see if he could figure out what was going on. You'll see him fly out of the bed and hit his head. All while remaining asleep.

The alley, train, bar (Andy's Restaurant), "bus stop" (there is no bus stop in Ashland) are all shot in Ashland. The convenience store (Doswell Express) is in Doswell on Rt. 1. The stockade is in Colonial Williamsburg. That's my wife Jodie and our friend Kate in the car at the end. I'm "the wanderer".

All the faces at the end are folks with Parkinson's. Unfortunately, they are not all still with us today.



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