I "Love" Beer

I like beer. You know what I like even more? Free beer. I been getting free beer for a while now, and let me tell you, it is amazing. I get to drink when I want, where I want, how much I want. It is great, let me tell ya. However, sometimes I'm not in the mood for beer. Maybe I have a headache, or a stomach ache etc. When this happens I ask the beer to turn into, oh I don't know, lets say Pepto Bismal. So when I open my next free beer, to my shock it still tastes like beer. Granted, it's free, but I want Pepto. I should absolutely definitively unequivocally get what I want no matter what. Right, you feel me? Is that too much to ask? I mean you deliver the beer to me at no costs, so why can't you turn it into Pepto? THAT'S WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!

Oh ok, you can't turn beer into Pepto. So basically what are you good for then?

Beer vendor: Well ma'am there is not a lot of vendors that give out beer for free. I apologize, we can't turn the beer into Pepto.

Ok you can go...

Are You Here and Mental Illness

This is going to  be a tough one to write so I'll just dive right in. I just finished watching a movie entitled AreYou Here An off the radar movie starring Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis. In the film Wilson and Galifianakis play life long best friends. Wilson is the weatherman for a local news station and Galifianakis is for lack of a better term, a bum. He lives in a trailer and all he does is smoke weed all day and scribble in his note paid which he refers to as a book he is working on, when in reality it's just a collection of overly detailed and bazaar random thoughts that he believes will change society for the better. Nevertheless, he is a fun, quirky, jovial, likeable character. He is supported financially (one could argue enabled) by his friend (Owen Wilson) because he doesn't work, if you didn't already surmise that. So Wilson basically hangs out at the trailer home with him and smokes all day with his friend until he has to go in and report the weather. Well at face value Wilson seems like a really good friend looking out for his buddy. However, in the opening scene we see Wilson on a series of several dates, giving the same schpill over and over to each different woman. Some garbage about how is free, happy to be single, yada yada. He even likens being married with kids as another form of prostitution. I won't even attempt to explain his thought process behind that. But he actually believes what he is saying. Long story short Galafianakis's father dies and he inherits a large some of money but at the same time loses is proverbial shit. So with the money he has inherited he can now put the scribblings of his so called book into action and create this utopic society he has always dreamed of. But, his sister challenges their father's will stating that he is incapable of handling such a large sum of money due to mental incompetence. He is forced to see a shrink where he is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. The doctor attempts to prescribe him medication which he denies, stating something along the lines of he doesn't want to be a sheep like the rest of society walking in a zombie like state simply, working, eating, grabbing, consuming (it's a very poignant speech where he paints a very vivid picture of society, but I'll get back to that). At the hearing the judge awards the settlement to him on the statute the if he is not a harm to himself or anyone else he's can do whatever he wants with the money. "Even if he wants to spend the money on the world's largest hat", he says. So that very same evening they are out at a bar celebrating when he becomes delusional and believes the guy next to him is talking shit where he then attacks the man putting him in the hospital. After the incident he decides he will give the medication a try. He does so and does become what he described to the doctor initially basically a zombie, albeit a responsible one.  So Owen feels like he's lost his friend due to the extreme change in behavior and starts to spiral forcing him to look at himself in the mirror and see his true loneliness. Galafianakis's character even goes as far as to tell him he needs to get his shit together (scratching my head on that one). So eventually he has his moment of clarity so to speak and quits his job at the news station and everyone lives happily ever after.

Whew, that was a lot of words and I haven't even got to the meat and potatoes but now you have some context as to what inspired this particular piece spawned by this particular movie. Let me start by saying that the movie was very well done and if you haven't seen it, its a good watch. There are a lot layers to peel back in this movie and if you haven't guessed already what stood out the most to me was the mental illness aspect and the presumed stigma of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. I use the term stigma, but I guess that is up for debate depending on how look at it and which side of the debate you fall on. Essentially Galafianakis's character is apprehensive to take the medication because he truly believes that he will lose all sense of self in a drug induced haze and conform to the rest of society. Which for all intents and purposes he does, he becomes a shell of his former self which really pisses his best friend off because he feels he has lost someone very dear to him. Or one could contend that he is just being selfish because ultimately he's just a lonely shallow dude. So it begs the question, is Galafianakas's apprehension to take medication founded? Sure he becomes a responsible contributing member of society, but at what cost?

I'm not going to sit here and pretend to know the answers to these questions bout the movie did make me take a look at myself. In 2004 I was diagnosed with PTSD and was prescribed Zoloft, a mood stabilizer. Later after I really started spiraling out of control going as far as hurting myself, I was then prescribed Lithium which thankfully stopped the skid. So the movie made me ask myself the question: how much has the medication actually changed me? How much of my true self have I actually been robbed of? I'd like to think hardly any but it's hard to self evaluate when it comes to mental issues. Shit, for all I know I could have completely changed and don't realize it. In the movie Galafianakas believes he is the same person he has always been (clearly not the case), but now with clarity. I started this blog back in 2013, I'm not even sure the reason. Recently someone asked me why I have a blog. I can answer that question today (ask me and I'll tell you) but at the time it just seemed like a fun idea. I would have never predicted I would keep up with the practice for this long. So I decided to go back and read some of my old stuff and try and see how, or if I have changed, and to look at my character arc so to speak. Well clearly my content has changed drastically. I started out writing strictly about sports. I went from to writing about sports to writing about war. Then my stuff became very dark and ominous when I was in a really bad place before the Lithium balanced me out. Then I started writing about shit that really amused me. Currently my writing is mainly a social commentary.

So clearly I have changed quite a bit as my blog is a testament to that. However, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I don't feel like a zombie and hopefully my self assessment is accurate. I don't know, you tell me. So if I were to weigh in and give my two cents on whether individuals should take psych meds....... My answer is an unequivocal yes. Without them, I doubt I would be here today, real talk. Well that went on for forever, I hope it was worth the read. Stay frosty my friends.

TBN OUT

Peaces and Creases

Fuck Checkbooks

So I roll into Kroger to grab some beer and some chicken to throw on the grill and watch the Rockets game. In and out. Well that's what I thought. I grab my items and head to the self checkout where the line is like 15 deep. I get in line momentarily when I notice a regular checkout with a very short line. So I go to that line. Oops. I get in line and the cashier is like 84 years old so she's not the swiftest cashier. But I'm like fuck, you can't leave a line to go to another line and then return back to the original. You look dumb. So of course I stay in my current line. And this happens: the lady in front of me is just buying balloons and whips out her checkbook! Who the fuck still carries a checkbook?! Is it 1986? To add insult to injury she has a rock on her finger the size of my left testicle (that's the bigger one). Of course she can't find her ID card so that takes more time as she digs through her beach bag of a purse while I contemplate suicide or murder or both. So long story short-I wasted 15 minutes of my life...... Now that I have written this, that experience wasn't (squeaky voice) that bad. Certainly not bad enough to commit homicide. Or was it...?

TBN OUT
Peaces and Creases

P.S.- Those of you that carry a checkbook (yea you baby boomer) beware