Swamp Thing

On YouTube I find Jon Crawford "Gator Hunter" with flashlit footage of a nighttime alligator ambush in the swamps of the bayou. He's not wrestling zoo alligators here for tourists. This is the real stuff: videotaped for themselves with a handycam. Wow. And then I stumble onto Gus Onebear and his stunts. Then, there's footage from a guided tour of Honey Island Swamp. I think this will work.

Searching the internet with key words like: "alligator," "wrestling" and "swamp," I hunt and gather.

Quickly. I turn these titles into movies I can use. Drop the clips into the video mixer. And hit BLEND.

This creature feeds on video smoothies. What are you? Some kind of swamp thing? Swamp thing! You make my heart sing! This idea brings us down to the basement. I imagine I'm setting up the projector for visuals at a dark warehouse rave. Tammy has the voice, the hair, for the basement. Turn down heat. Just one take. Let's go!

At the turn of the new year, January 1, 2003, Tammy was barefoot and pregnant. As seen in this unedited video, some kind of spirit suddenly took over her exactly at midnight and made her voice growl and sing the words that come out fully formed into a song. Seven years later, the creature is back!


Merlin gave his disciple a peculiar, squinting look. "I'm sending you into the swamp, or, as mortals call it, the world. I have kept you out of the swamp for all these years, teaching you something you are not to forget." - The Way of the Wizard by Deepak Chopra



In the Swamp
by Tammy Lin Foreman

In the Swamp,
in the swamp,
in the swamp,
in the big wide swamp
Daddy give,
Daddy give,
Daddy give,
Daddy give a stomp
He said there's nothing to do,
nothing to do,
nothing to do,
the whole day through
but to wrestle alligator,
alligator,
alligator
and make crawdaddy stew
What's a poor girl to do
when she's living in a in a swampland?
What's a poor girl to do
when she's living in a in a swampland?
She's gotta wrestle alligators,
wrestle alligators,
and make crawdaddy stew
In the swamp,
in the swamp,
that's what Daddy says you gotta do.