#i remember sitting in class listening about opioids and when it got to the end of the lecture the prof still hadn't said

[inniave]

pharmacies should automatically give you (or at the very least offer) naloxone any time you get an opioid prescription

[tcrumb]

Melanie Martinez Should Never Change Her Brand

So if you don’t know Melanie Martinez, she’s a singer/song writer who really launch into the mainstream after her 2012 appearance on The Voice. She didn’t win, the good ones never do, but she did catch many people’s attention with her interesting look. Her hair is split right down the middle with one half bleached and one half black, she wore very preppy clothes, and topped the look off with a giant bow. 

Fast forward 7 years later and she has solidified her brand. She’s Cry Baby, a kid at heart with morbid ways of expressing herself. She traded in her preppy attire for what I would describe as puffy, frilly, and pink. Majority of her songs focus on some element of childhood, and she uses this as a lens to express her feelings in her adult life. Nothing better represents Martinez’s brand than her most recent album, K-12.

So the premise of K-12 is Martinez going through each grade level of school starting with kindergarten all the way to senior year of high school. Each song focuses on some element of school life starting with the first song titled Wheels on The Bus. I can only give my personal interpretation for all of these songs, but I'm sure it won’t be too far off from the general consensus. This song is a play on the classic nursery rhyme of the same name and it’s about children being left up to their own devices when the adults aren’t paying attention. This song is very upbeat and lighthearted vocally and instrumentally, but lyrically it’s a bit more mischievous (couldn’t think of the right word so that will have to do). With lyrics like “Now, I'ma light it up and pass it Puff‚ puff and pass it Don't be a dick and babysit, c'mon, just pass it over here” it reminds me of the side of growing up that the parents like to imagine doesn’t happen. The part where you get high with your friends in the school bathroom, or hookup with the kid who sits next to you just because he’s kinda cute. It happens all the time, but parents like to pretend their child is the exception. They are not. 7.8 out of 10.

Class Fight is up next. The song is about two girls fighting over the affections of some boy. There is a common theme that pops up in some of Melanie’s songs, and that is that her parents are awful. This song is no different. During this fight her dad is encouraging a hesitant Martinez to “go for the throat”. I can’t relate to this song in particular but I’m sure someone somewhere can. It’s less than three minutes long but it’s way too repetitive for me, in fact I just looked it up and the phrase “for the throat” came up 38 times. This song is usually one I skip. 6.5 out of 10.

Her next song is titled The Principal and its about a power hungry man who does not care about those he was suppose to protect. In the song she talks a bit about the state of the US with the opioid epidemic and the constant school shootings in the line “Killing kids all day and night, prescription pills and online fights”. In hindsight I should have already known this, but the song is about our president Donald Middle Name That I’m Forgetting Trump. This song was in my top 3 on the album before I even knew it was about Trump, and now I hear it from a different perspective. She’s frustrated and truly angry with this man, and she feels left behind. The post-chorus is just Martinez calling out asking where’s the principal. I never got that part before but now I have a whole new appreciation for this song. 8.2 out of 10.

Show and Tell is the next song and it has the interesting beat. It feels like a slow grandfather clock ticking. While I'm at it I might as well mention that I love the little effects she adds in backgrounds of her songs, like dogs growling, or kids cheering, it’s a nice touch. Okay back to Show and Tell. This song focuses on Martinez struggle with the constant spotlight that is on her, and how the paparazzi can make her feel like an object that is meant to be observed and toyed with. I love the beat on this song, it makes me feel like something is creeping up on me, I always expect some kind of beat drop but it never really comes. 7.9 out of 10.

Nurse’s Office  is the one song off the album that perfectly describes what my middle school experience was like. In the song Martinez wants to avoid the hell that is school by faking an illness and getting sent to the nurse’s office. It reminds me of all those uncomfortable years we all went through growing up. I remember faking a stomachache and going to the nurse’s office during gym class just to sit alone on a mat for 40 minutes and scroll through my phone. The feeling is real and this song captures it. This song sounds the way Alice and Wonderland looks and feels, there is no better way to describe it than that but hopefully when you listen to it you’ll know what I mean. 8.8 out of 10.

Do you remember all the bullshit you had to pretend to care about in middle school? Like when Stacy told Erica that Bethany wasn’t her friend anymore and omg how dare she do that? Or when someone makes fun of your socks for being too colorful, or calls you an attention whore for dying your hair red?  That’s what Drama Club is about, it’s about how words get misconstrued, things get blown up out of proportion, and if you don’t follow the script of life perfectly you asking for drama. Drama in middle school felt like the end of the world especially because half the time you couldn’t tell what even started it. It was��tiring, it was senseless, it was frustrating, and I hate to admit but it was painful, and all on that comes through in the vocals. Thank fucking god  we outgrow that all that stuff. 8 out of 10.

Strawberry Shortcake talks about the pressure many girls feel when they are growing into their bodies. People stare, comment, compare, judge, grab, and hurt young girls all the time and blame them for being too tempting. I heard it from my own mother all the time growing up, she told me going out in cutoff shorts is why men will take advantage of me. In the lines “It's my fault, it's my fault 'cause I put icing on top Now, the boys want a taste of the strawberry shortcake That's my bad, that's my bad, no one told them not to grab” Melanie takes on an apologetic tone when talking about her own body. It is only towards the end of the song when she takes on a more confident tone and claims her body for her self. 8.1 out of 10.

The 8th song on the album is a short little song titled Lunchbox Friends. The song’s about fake/temporary friends that only want you around when it’s convenient. I love the chorus in this one because her voice was altered to be a lower and slightly distorted pitch. There’s not much to say about this song but it is remarkable high on my ranking for this album, 8.6 out of 10.

Orange Juice covers the very serious topic of eating disorders and uses orange juice as a metaphor for bulimia. The vocals are very soothing and the instrumentals relaxing. The song is gentle, and the lyrics are of Martinez trying to comfort a friend that is currently suffering from an eating disorder. It’s a powerful song without needing all the force or heavy beats from a traditional empowerment song. 8.5 out of 10. 

Detention is the one song off the album I always skip. The beat is almost tropical and the lyrics don’t have as focused of a message as the rest of the songs. It’s similar to Show and Tell in messaging,  it’s about dealing with fame and having to be on your best behavior to satisfy other people. But it’s always been the song I could do without. 5 out of 10.

Teacher’s Pet on the other hand is a song I have never skipped when it came up on shuffle. The song’s about a student-teacher affair, and how the student has to grapple with the fact that the relationship is wrong on paper but hiding the relationship makes her feel like a dirty secret. Melanie’s voice is sultry and the beat lurking and intimidating. This song doesn’t hit close to home for a lot of people but it does a great job placing you in the students shoes. 9 out of 10

High School Sweethearts is not only my absolute favorite song off the album but it’s one of my favorite songs ever. The beat and vocals starts very slow and romantic until they pick up pace as the song goes on and it becomes more more bouncy. Melanie is asking her sweetheart to treat her right in her own special and dark way. One line that sums this up best is “Step six If you can't put in work, I don't know what you think this fucking is Step seven, this one goes to eleven If you cheat, you will die, die”. It’s a fun song, it’s a sweet song (kinda), and I’m obsessed with it. 9.99 out of 10. 

We made it. The final song is call Recess. The song reminds me of what would play at end of a movie after the happy ending and when the credits are rolling. The song is about prioritizing yourself and your happiness and not letting others take advantage of you. It’s the perfect ending to the album and it’s a neat little song. 8 out of 10.

Final Ranking

13. Detention

12. Class Fight

11. Wheels On the Bus

10. Show and Tell

9./8. Drama Club/Recess

7. Strawberry Shortcake

6. The Principal

5. Orange Juice

4. Lunchbox Friends

3. Nurse’s Office 

2. Teacher’s Pet

1. High School Sweetheart

[crazysocklovingfangirl]

My #metoo Story

A/N: this might be triggering to some people. And I am only able to access Tumblr through the app currently. I havent been able to get a read more link in here. So I'm sorry about this long post. But here it is... my story.. thanks in advance if you read it

    I always see these brave women standing up and voicing their stories on sexual assault and sexual harrassment. I just look at them in amazement, because they are putting themselves in the line of fire to tell their story. They are putting themselves out there for the whole world to see and criticize, because “Why didn’t you report it?”, “Were you drunk?”, “What were you wearing?”. All of those questions are so demoralizing. They just strip away at every inch of our sanity. Those questions make all of us question our own stories. They make us be quiet. But I am so glad that there are so many women willing to stand up and speak their truths, their stories. I was so happy when the #metoo movement came out, but I wasn’t able to tell my own story. As you can probably tell by now, I have a story too. So since I wasn’t able to tell my #metoo story when it was blowing up here goes nothing. 

    Just some backstory for this is I am bisexual, I know that shouldn’t matter that much, but it’s why I couldn’t tell my story, because my story involves a girl, my ex-girlfriend. And my family is very conservative, not believing in anything other than straight couples and such. So I would’ve told my story but that is the barrier that was holding me back, that and a few other things as well, that I will get into later. 

    Close to the beginning of my second semester of my Sophomore year in highschool, I started dating this girl. The exact date was February 3, 2017. That is the day I started dating Alissa (Ali). That was the day I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. At this point in time I was 15 and my sexual orientation was bisexual and asexualquestioning. I wasn’t that comfortable with talking about sex or anything and I never really got turned on so that’s why I deemed myself ace. Just thought I’d let you know. It will come into play later. So we were never public with our relationship because she didn’t want everyone to know that she liked girls.. Should’ve taken that as a sign and left, but hey I was naive and thought I was in love. Her mom did NOT like the fact that we were dating. She would take Ali’s phone and text me on it, saying that she was breaking up with me and shit like that. And then she’d delete the messages so Ali wouldn’t know. So we had a code name. She’d call me babybird when she’d start a conversation so I knew it was her. Another red flag that I avoided.

    So, here is where my story begins. One day in May I was talking with some of my friends and Ali was there. We were playing truth or dare and Ali knew that I was Ace, so up until that point we only made out, like kisses here and there. But one of my friends had asked if I was ever going to have sex. And I told Ali to cover her ears and I told them that I was maybe thinking about it. But I wasn’t really sure if that was something I was going to be into or not. So the next day, May 15, 2017, her little sister was having a birthday party at a park and she asked me to go. Early that morning I got a text from “her” saying that I should ignore her and that we were done. But later she texts me and asks if I want to go to the party, so I say yes and tell her what her mother did. We show up early and we walk around the park and she takes me to this place that’s just cement and it’s pretty secluded and we are sitting down and talking. When she gets closer to me and so we kiss a little bit and then she unbuttons my pants, and I scoot back, away from her. But she got closer. And she proceeded to rape me. I didn’t know what to do so I just froze and I guess let it happen. 

    This became a frequent thing in our relationship… She’d start things and I’d say no repeatedly but she wouldn’t listen and it’d just happen over and over again. It happened for the last 4-5 months of our relationship. There are a couple things that are important to this story. She was suffering in her mental health. She would always call me in the middle of the night saying that she was going to kill herself, so that’s why I stayed so long. so much longer than I should’ve. To get rid of the horrible thoughts in her head she would take her step father’s painkillers. I’m pretty sure they were opioids. The thing about her taking those was that she took them throughout our whole relationship. And she would take so many at a time that she wouldn’t remember anything she did that day.

    One day before I went to work I went to her house because she was sick and I wanted to comfort her. We were laying on her bean bag chair that she had gotten as a gift. We were watching Family Guy and she asks if I wanted to do oral and I said no and continued to watch the tv. And she kept insisting and started to unbuckle my pants. She proceeded to give me oral for a little bit before she ran to the bathroom. I took that time to buckle my pants and just sit there staring blankly at the tv. She came back and said that it had nothing to do with me, she was just sick. I didn’t care about that. That was the point where I started to actually realize what our whole relationship had been. I started doing research on coerced concent. And everything started to click into place. But I didn’t want to believe it. The more I thought about it the more I realized that’s what was happening the whole time. I would say no, but she would keep pestering me until I gave in and let her do whatever she wanted to me. One day, close to the end of our relationship we were sitting on my couch talking and she brought up the fact that she in fact raped me. And that’s when it finally stuck, when she said it out loud. She said that she would turn herself in and everything. But it never happened, because the next she didn’t even remember the conversation at all, due to the side effects of abusing prescription drugs that weren’t hers.

    Now, it’s about the middle of September, so the beginning of my Junior year, the beginning of her senior year. So, within the next few weeks I had broken up with her. And I asked her to apologize for what she did for me. And I told her that she raped me throughout our whole relationship. She told me that I was just regretting it later on down the road and that she wouldn’t do something like that. I thought that’d she’d keep it between us since it happened between us. But she went around telling so many people that I was accusing her of raping me. So many people turned on me. One of her close friends was in my Honors Chemistry class and one day he told me that I was overreacting and that nothing happened between us. So, I confronted her about him saying that. And she told me that she had told like 5 people when I told no one. She had told some of our mutual friends. One of them believed my side though. One was on the fence. But the next couple years in our shared classes she had listened to my story and she had believed me and not Ali. But back in my junior year, one of my friends that she told that I accused her of raping me. Around the beginning of February 2018, she sent me a message. It read “hey life is going to be so amazing for you and you deny now but you’ll look back and wonder why you were ever worried”. I knew what she meant. She was there on my side whenever I was going through all of this. Then February 18, 2019, that same friend Rachel Antoszewski died in the early hours of the morning, in her sleep. So, that just put me into an even darker hole that I thought I’d never find a way out of. Around this time she had starting sending kind of threatening messages talking about what would happen if I reported it. She said that they didn’t investigate her rape case and that was real rape. 

    The only person I actively talked about this with was one of my coworkers that had overheard Ali telling her twin sister what was happening between us. So, she took my side and she believed me, and she became my outlet whenever I needed one. And so she was the one that told me that I should tell someone what happened. So that night I went home and I talked to my mom, and I told her that Ali had raped me. I also got some of my courage to do that from the show 13 Reasons Why, when Jessica told her dad that she was raped, that gave some little bit of courage to tell my mom. I told her not to tell dad. But she did. And then they talked to me and asked if I wanted to go to the police, at first I said yes. Then I started thinking about it and I realized that they couldn’t do anything. As it was female on female, and it was months ago at this point. And the fact that she was also on drugs whenever it happened. So, I ended up not telling the police or doing anything further to get justice. I knew that if a case got started that everyone at the school would know and most of them would favor her as she was more popular and she was the girl that everyone would believe. I was just the nerd that had a handful of friends, that most people wouldn’t believe. So, I started writing. Writing about all of the things going through my mind, about everything I’ve been through, and about my healing process. 

    At this point in my life, 3 years later, I would like to believe that I am better, but some days I know I’m not okay. But I know that if someone wouldn’t have started talking to me I would not be where I am today, I might not even be alive, but I wouldn’t know because things went right and here I am. One day a recruiter contacted me and started talking to me about the Marine Corps. I decided I’d go and think about it. And I decided that’s what I needed to get better. So, I enlisted and I worked out every day and that boosted my spirit. And whenever I was upset or down I’d just talk to my recruiter, I never gave him any indicators as to what I was actually going through but he was always there for me. And now here I am being such a better person than I ever thought I was going to be. I became someone I can be proud of. I have taken what I’ve been through and I’m not letting it define me. Yes, I was raped. Yes, I have been sexually harassed. That just comes with being a female. But, I am moving forward with my life, or as much as I can. Hopefully one day I will be able to stand up in front of a bunch of people and be able to tell my story without feeling ashamed. I want to be able to give hope to everyone out there. Especially the LGBT+ sexual assault survivors, because I know that we don’t get that much coverage. I want to be the light that some people need or the one person that gives someone else a little shove in the right direction.

    This is a long one, but this is my story. My #metoo story. And I’m glad that I can finally be able to tell this story. 

    ~Natalia Balog

[nprhereandnow]

How An Opioid Addict Got Sober

Morphine Sulfate, OxyContin and Opana are displayed for a photograph in Carmichael, California, on Jan. 18, 2013. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Yesterday we heard from Dr. Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness, about how to combat the opioid crisis in the U.S.

Today, Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson talks with Nick Roberts, a recovering addict from St. Albans, West Virginia, about how he got sober and what he thinks might help others kick their deadly habits.

Interview Highlights

On how his addiction started

"I had a pretty all-American childhood, I guess you could say. I had a loving family. There was no traumatic event that sparked anything. If I could trace it back as early as I possibly can, I would say when I was about 12 years old, I had a minor surgery on my toe. The doctor wrote me a prescription for some pretty heavy narcotic pain medicine. There was no need for me to be on this kind of medication for that amount of time. I went home, and I was starting to feel a little bit of physical pain, so my mom gave me one of the pills. And this weird thing happened where, not only did the physical pain go away, but the mental feelings of inferiority and feeling less-than kinda subsided as well. I just remember that moment so clearly as for the first time, I imagined I felt like other people felt. I knew there was something out there that I could put into my body that would make me feel normal.

"I was in high school and I would experiment with marijuana and alcohol on the weekends. Then, my focus kinda went away from sports, friends, school, to getting high, drinking as much as I could. It quickly progressed from just marijuana and alcohol to pain pills, to cocaine, and then it progressed as far as finding a needle and doing things that I said I would never do to maintain my addiction."

On how he obtained drugs

"That's a tough question because, if I wanted a prescription of, say, opiates, it was a little more difficult to get it the legal route than it was to just call up a friend that I knew had some. The system was working in that regard. I found no way to, as a young person who's relatively healthy, to abuse the doctor system that way. I went straight to the streets, and that's where I was most successful at getting pills."

On how bad his addiction got before he decided to start recovery

"I lost my car, my apartment and my girlfriend all in one week from one bad episode. I ended up moving back in with my mom at age 25. For about three months of living in her house, waking up every day religiously at 4:30 in the morning, sick from withdrawals. I hated my life. I wasn't going to end my life, but I didn't care if I died. I remember my mom walked in one morning. I was laying there in bed, curled up, sick. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at me and said, ‘Nick, I'm not gonna watch you die in my house. You can either get out of my house, or I will take you to treatment.’ That ultimatum saved my life. If she hadn't have done that, I would have overdosed and died. I'm sure of that."

"I needed someone that cared enough about me that they would show tough love. I didn't have the mental clarity to say, ‘Hey, my life has spiraled completely out of control.’ I had to get slapped in the face by reality."

"Once we can kinda break this image of the addict being morally inferior, then people I think would be more prone to admit that they have a problem."- Nick Roberts

On the program that helped him recover

"I remember very clearly the very first day that I got there to Recovery Point of Huntington. I carried my suitcase back to the director's office, and I sat down. He said, ‘Just so you know, I was sitting right where you're at five years ago.’ That just kind of went through me. I had been to treatment facilities before, and been exposed to 12-step meetings, and met with psychiatrists and psychologists. But I had never really sat down and talked with someone that had been where I was at, and seemed to be successful, happy, living a normal life. He said, ‘What makes you... why should I give you a bed? We have a waiting list of 100 people literally dying to get in here. Why should you go first?’ And I said, ‘My thinking is messed up.’ I don't know why I said that, I don't know how I had that clarity of mind to say that, but he smiled a little bit and he said, ‘We've got a bed for you.’ They took me into detox, and that's where my recovery began on April 13, 2012."

On being sober

"I think that's part of the misconception a lot of people have, especially active addicts. We've bought into this image of a person in recovery as someone that is just white knuckling it through the day to stay sober. They're just hanging on for dear life. And it's not like that at all. The first three weeks in recovery were pretty rough. I was mentally obsessing on using, I was physically sick. But, after those first three weeks, I started developing new habits through this program. We would go to classes and learn things about the effects of drugs on the brain, and alcohol on liver enzymes, and the history of AA and NA.

“I was given a master's degree in myself, pretty much. It took that education and being exposed to real people in recovery who had done things much worse than I had ever dreamed of, and somehow they were putting months together, years together without using. The kicker was they seemed genuinely happy about it. Me, today, five years sober. I'm married, I have a newborn daughter, I get to be a step-father to a great young 8-year-old boy. I will graduate with my bachelor's degree in English this May, and I have a full-time job. You could not tell me that I would have all these things and go through the day without even thinking about drugs and alcohol." On what he thinks would solve the opioid crisis

"That's a big question. I think a lot of people smarter than I am need to come together and address it. But I think it starts with education. If I just go by my own personal experience, this stigma of addiction has to be shattered. People have to realize that it is a disease. It was classified by the American Medical Association as a disease in 1985. Once we can kinda break this image of the addict being morally inferior, then people I think would be more prone to admit that they have a problem.

“Then it gets into step two of what we need to address, which is the availability of treatment. Unfortunately, when an addict finally asks for help, there is a very small window of opportunity for them to get help. That willingness quickly goes away. Unfortunately, in the state of West Virginia, we have many facilities, residential facilities, for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, but they carry with them long waiting lists. Particularly like Recovery Point of Huntington which I went through, you go through it no cost to the client. You can imagine how long a waiting list for a program like that would be."

Listen to the whole story here.

[egosamsara-blog]

march 16, 2017

today marks the day my cousin, nessie russell, would have been 21.

in another world i’m sure i’d tease her about how i’d just be counting down the days until september 1st so that i would be 2 years older than her again and make a corny ass joke about how we could now drink in a bar together.

i have been dreaming of this day since i turned 21 – 1.5 years ago. not because i like drinking, but because finally nessie and i were going to be “official adults” in the eyes of american society. i didn’t see her much the last couple years of her life so this is the thought i would fall asleep with at night. always some “next” destination to get to. the present was never good enough for either of us it seemed.

but i didn’t wait until i was 21 to start getting fucked up on legal drugs. i found them in a medicine cabinet in my grandfather’s house in upstate new york when i was 16. i didn’t know much about oxycontin other than it was a pill that got you high, and thank god for that because the cannabis i was smoking at boarding school kept getting me pulled out of class and put on work project. it stank too much, but this pill – i could crush it up and put it in water and sip it all day long. no need to go to the liquor store. and i had a lot of them. but then i had none of them. and then i needed them.

and then i needed them for 4 more years. arrests, running away, being put in mental hospitals, self harm…. i have traveled through at least 20 states all the way up to canada and down to mexico. i could have bought a house, a boat, and a comfortable life with the money i blew on roxicodone and dialudid. 

i wasn’t finished; i kept running in circles for 2 more years. crushing up pills didn’t do the trick anymore, i needed a spoon and an endless slideshow of public bathrooms.

i honestly didn’t want to stop. at this point every shot of white china was mixed with the prayer of “i hope this is too much”, a spike of guilt, and a chuckle of remorse. and fuck pills, they were too expensive by now.

i was not alone. when i was 17 my high school in connecticut was spilling over with every single type of pill. every person i talked to had a similar story to mine. we were scribbling furiously away, afraid that if we didn’t live fast enough we wouldn’t be worth remembering. we all graduated from pills to heroin. some forgot what happened in high school but i remember. 

i’ve always remembered everything. that’s why i wanted to escape – i saw how drugs were infecting my generation and it scared me shitless. nessie saw it too. she also saw something else i didn’t see until she passed.

nessie loved herself. she saw a light within herself and held onto it as tightly as she could, even through her addiction. i always admired that in her and i wanted it as well. she was so beautiful, the way she’d move through a room with no idea that everyone was staring at her. she was always glowing.

but i guess people, places, and things stole that away from her. by the end of her addiction she wrote to me, “i never thought it could get this bad for me… i thought i was different.” she died several weeks later. 

she had so much beauty in her life, but opiates are a dark drug. they put one in the womb of bliss – warm and floating free, feeling the dopamine and serotonin reverberating through your brain. then when they leave they put you on a metal dissection tray, pin you down, and rip you open from head to toe. one has no choice of what comes spilling out.

this is an hourly struggle for heroin addicts. sometimes less than that. sometimes i couldn’t refill the syringe fast enough. it depended on the way my brain felt that day. why would we do this to ourselves, you ask? who wouldn’t be addicted to euphoria? how many of you curl up in a warm fuzzy blanket and watch netflix for 10 straight hours with the blinds closed and a plate of microwaveable food next to you? a glass of wine? a xanax? 

now… how many of you turn another cheek at someone who gets their kick from shooting up heroin? is it not the same? aren’t we all trying to escape somehow?

in 2006 Purdue released time-release oxycontin. one could easily take the time release coating off, which became extremely trendy for opiate addicts to do. by 2012 people i knew and loved were starting to die.

Brendan Shay – he made me laugh for 20 straight minutes once when he drove me from my house to a party with a car full of friends.

Christopher Wells – a talented musician who i did theater with… he would play the piano or guitar and sing during play practice. i would sit on the bench or lay down and listen for hours.

George Hammond – one of the brightest smiles in my memory. every time i looked at him he made me smile, no matter my mood. ask anyone they would tell you the same. 

Brad Allen – he used to play the guitar and keyboard for whoever would listen. always cracking a smile; we called him ‘happy brad’ for a reason.

Caitlin Pieretti – she loved so deeply and fully and never missed a chance to make your day better. even if you were bugging out she had a joke to crack to even out the vibe.

Brent Rodney – one of the most giving men i’ve ever met. if he didn’t have a dime he’d give you his time. i loved him so much from the day i met him to the day he died.

Shawn Cagle – he didn’t care how young me and my friends were, he and Brent were always so kind.

Jackson Conroy – i was in the same church as him growing up; vacation bible school, youth group, ski trips. his family makes beautiful music to this day.

Bruno, Vinny, Dre, Harold …

these friends i have listed are few of the many. their ages ranged from 19-26. i got worn out trying to think of all of them. i can only write so many obituaries in one essay. what all these people have in common is that pharmaceuticals didn’t work for them. when an addict goes into a detox, they are put on maintenance meds such as suboxone or methadone so that they don’t get sick from the lack opiates in their system; then they’re loaded up with xanax so they don’t shake; anti-depressant so their brains never feel normal again; sleep meds so they can stop thinking at night when the ideas are most important.

usually getting to a detox facility is another journey within itself. many heroin addicts in america are in the north east, so they have a white powder heroin often cut with pharmaceutical grade fentanyl. fentanyl is more potent that street heroin by 1:50 grains but looks the same. that means 1 grain of fentanyl is as powerful as 50 grains of heroin. this makes getting the dosage right very dangerous, and many addicts aren’t aware of this. many are aware of this and mess with it anyway. the point is, heroin overdoses are common. a drug called narcan is used to bring addicts back to life.

Purdue produces suboxone and narcan. Janssen Pharmaceutica produces fentanyl, a toe to the leg of Johnson and Johnson who’s hip is…. guess who? Purdue.

let’s imagine none of this matters and this was a simple health epidemic. let’s imagine this was all political and no emotion was set in, let’s imagine that thousands on thousands of young lives were not stolen and thrown away. let’s imagine that a whole generation isn’t being looked at like scum of the earth for picking up some medicine that we thought was safe to take. 

did you know in america opiates and amphetamines are considered okay to prescribe to an 11 year old? i was prescribed benzos when i was 15. did you know that the human brain develops way up into your 20s? did you know that the human brain is very sensitive to foreign chemicals? i’m sure you did… now why the fuck didn’t the doctors?

when trump released his health care reform, trumpcare 2017, he gave those struggling with mental health a special shout out. 1.3 million young americans will lose coverage under trumpcare. trump wants to take out a requirement in the ACA that gives coverage to those struggling with mental health issues. you don’t even have to like opioids… if you are depressed you have a “pre-existing condition”.

so even if you hate politics, now is the time to care about them. because if we, the future generations of america, do not stand up and fight now – who will be here to do it later? 

[cynthiajayusa]

Sandra Bernhard Still Has Her Blunt AF Opinions

Before unloading her candid thoughts on TV co-star Roseanne Barr’s alt-right politics and fellow comic Kathy Griffin’s viral Trump-beheading pic (“It just wasn’t funny”), Sandra Bernhard proclaims herself, quite aptly, to be “no-nonsense.” That has been, after all, her way since the ’70s, when lambasting Hollywood’s who’s-who first became a calling card for the fearless comedian, actress, and musician.

Then, from 1991 to 1997, she famously put a face to bisexuality not just as herself — Bernhard was out from the get-go — but also as Nancy Bartlett on ABC’s hit sitcom Roseanne. Introduced in Season Four as the estranged lesbian wife of Arnie Thomas (Tom Arnold), Nancy, who later came out as bisexual, gets chummy with Roseanne Conner and Roseanne’s younger sister, Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf).

Bernhard, 62, will revisit her groundbreaking character during the show’s revival. As for the controversy regarding Roseanne and her TV alter ego’s support for President Trump? “Roseanne is gonna be another round of really fun and really smart television,” Bernhard tells me. “Roseanne has never turned on the gay community. Roseanne likes to stir the pot. She always has. So, I guess that’s the way she’s doing it now, and I don’t agree with any of the Trump shit, but I think she’ll transcend that, and the show will still be amazing.”

What can we expect politically from the Roseanne reboot? 

I think they’re gonna do a deep dive into where the working class is at right now. I mean, maybe not as deep as you would need, considering that half of the working class who don’t have their industrial-ass jobs anymore are strung out on opioids. That’s not very much fun; I don’t think they’ll go there. [Laughs.] But I think we’re in a real crossroads in this country, and Roseanne has always been good at revealing that — and at the same time making it funny and moving and insightful. I’m only in the last episode, so I don’t know exactly how they’re approaching it. I know there will be very personal stories like there always were, as opposed to globalizing it. I think that’s what makes the show special.

I imagine you’ve been hearing about the backlash Roseanne’s politics have ignited since the reboot was announced. 

I was hearing about that way before they announced the reboot, and I just dropped out of the conversation because I don’t want to get into that on Twitter. You can’t do that; it goes nowhere. And everybody who makes political decisions also has to live with the fallout. That goes for famous, successful people and for people on the street. If you voted for Trump and you thought it was gonna be a lark and funny, the results are right there in front of you every day.

RELATED:

My hope is that it might bridge some severe societal gaps, perhaps open some minds, maybe even my own. But it’s been very difficult for people who didn’t vote for Trump to even begin to understand or empathize with someone who supported him.

I don’t have any empathy for people who voted for him. Honestly, I really don’t. It’s obvious that he didn’t know anything about the working-class population; he just exploited it, and [his supporters] were naive and unwilling to read or to know what was really going on. He played them — and to a certain extent, the few people who are still in his corner. He still plays them. So it’s just kind of a bummer.

A lot of people have strong opinions about the liberal-minded cast returning to a show led by a Trump supporter. 

I’m glad they do. She should hear it. And it’s better for her to hear it from the people that have supported her and watched her show than it is from me. I mean, we’re friends, we’re friendly, and I’ll continue to do the show. But it gets underneath your skin when 20 million people who used to watch your show are like, “What the f*ck?”

She seems to know how people feel about her politics. At the Golden Globes, presenting with co-star John Goodman, she said, “I’m kind of known for creating some great drama.”

Of course she knows.

WATCH:

Well, I’m excited to have Nancy Bartlett back. You told me in 2013 that you didn’t think Nancy would have a place on the show if it ever returned. 

It’s not that she didn’t have a place. But I didn’t think they’d be able to fit her story back in because of all the new characters, and the family, and reestablishing what’s been going on politically. So, when they added the extra episode and wrote me in, I was thrilled.

Nancy was one of the earliest portrayals of bisexuality on TV. What surprised you most about how her sexuality was treated on the show in the ’90s? 

I mean, she was fun, and it was a fun concept that she ran from being married to Tom Arnold into the relationship with Morgan Fairchild. It was sort of a lark at first, and of course it evolved. They wouldn’t let me kiss Morgan Fairchild under the mistletoe — we had to cut the kiss — so that’s how far we’ve come in terms of what you see sexually on TV.

But yeah, she was a funny, kooky, free-spirited character who got to do things and say things that were part of the evolution of sexuality on TV. It wasn’t intentional — it wasn’t like we were trying to do something groundbreaking. But that is how Roseanne is and was. She just did things that felt organic and authentic. She ended up having the actual kiss with Merle Hemingway [at a gay bar that Nancy took her to]. But nonetheless, Nancy’s fun, and if they picked up the show again, they’ll expand her story.

We’ll get more Nancy if there’s another season?

Oh yeah, absolutely. For sure, yeah.

Roseanne will have a genderfluid grandson, Mark, played by newcomer Ames McNamara, on the show as well.

Yes.

What are your thoughts on the show continuing to be inclusive?

I just think there has to be a little bit of everything in all the shows now, and I don’t know. I’ve gotta see the show before I can comment. He’s in my episode, but to the extent of what they’re trying to do with that character, we’ll have to see.

Speaking more generally, how do you feel about representation as far as LGBTQ people go on TV?

It’s certainly gotten a helluva lot better than when Nancy first came on the scene. And I think with each year that goes by, especially with the advent of Hulu and Netflix and Amazon, there’s been major breakthroughs.

Are you currently enjoying any shows with LGBTQ characters?

I watch 9-1-1 just because I think it’s a ridiculous show. Everywhere you turn there’s new, interesting gay characters. But I don’t go to a show for that. For me, my life has never been informed by that. I’ve always been comfortable with who I am sexually. I’ve been sexually fluid, I’ve broken all the ground rules since I was 17 years old. So, I’ve never had any need for somebody to be my role model. I’ve been my own role model. So, it’s a non-issue. But I think for the public at large it’s been a great time and a revolutionary time for people to see all kinds of characters — racially, sexually, women, men — come to life in a new way.

Have you heard of the very gay-centric Schitt’s Creek?

Honey, I was one of the first people to be hip to it!

Oh, snap.

[Laughs.] I know, yes. But yeah, of course. Love it. Dan Levy is terrific — super funny and smart.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I’ve got three scripted projects I’m trying to get off the ground right now, so that’s a lot of my focus, and it’s a lot of hard work. So, I’m chipping away at that and, of course, continuing to go up for roles as an actress and do my live performing.

What kind of scripts are you working on? 

They’re all comedic. One is based on my early years in L.A., when I started off as a manicurist. One is a project with [performance artist] Justin Vivian Bond. We wrote a musical about six years ago called Arts & Crafts, and we’re trying to make it into a TV series.

I remember you telling me you’d never stoop so low to do a reality show. Still out of the question?

Yeah, listen, if I haven’t done it by now, I’m certainly not gonna do it at this late date.

How do you feel about the way comedy has addressed the Trump era?

Everybody’s speaking about it and being funny and creative about it. And, obviously, people like Bill Maher and those types do it in a more political way. I think it’s been really interesting.

Has your recent comedy reflected current politics?

Sort of, kind of through the back door. I don’t hit people over the head talking about that stuff because so many people are good at doing it verbatim, so I try to keep it more global than just obvious.

Did you think Kathy Griffin went too far with the picture of her holding Trump’s decapitated head?

It’s not about going too far — it just wasn’t funny. And she’s not political. Why is she suddenly jumping on the bandwagon? That’s not what she does. And it wasn’t smart enough or interesting enough. That was the biggest crime.

But Kathy Griffin has been politically engaged and an activist for the gay community.

She’s an activist? I don’t know. I don’t think she’s an activist, frankly. I mean, that’s — she certainly takes advantage of the gay population in her own way, but I don’t think she’s done anything earth shattering for… I mean, I don’t agree.

Who would you consider an entertainer and an activist?

I mean, I’m an activist for being a human being. There’s bigger fish to fry, and my work is inherently political, and it’s been inherently LGBTQ-informed because it’s who I am; it’s what I’ve done from the beginning. I don’t call my audience “my gays.” My audience is my audience, and everybody in it forms an alliance every night. You perform for the entire crowd — it’s not about singling anyone out. And if your work is very, very daring and interesting, then smart people come to it, whether they’re gay, straight, black, white, men, women. I mean, you gotta be able to get underneath what’s really going on culturally, and then you’re always gonna have a smart audience sitting in front of you.

Who else in the comedy world can really dig into the cultural zeitgeist?

I don’t have a litany of people I’m sitting here thinking about. I’m sorry. It’s, like, too hard to do that. Right now the people who are impressing me the most are all these kids from the school in Florida. They’re activists. Went through a terrible trauma, and they’ve been able to transform it into total activation, and that to me is really impressive and exciting. To talk about entertainers and people — it’s easy for all of us to do all that stuff because we’re not under duress. But when you’ve been practically severely injured or murdered [and you speak out about it], yeah, that’s something to really applaud and stand by.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/04/26/sandra-bernhard-still-has-her-blunt-af-opinions/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/04/sandra-bernhard-still-has-her-blunt-af.html

[demitgibbs]

Sandra Bernhard Still Has Her Blunt AF Opinions

Before unloading her candid thoughts on TV co-star Roseanne Barr’s alt-right politics and fellow comic Kathy Griffin’s viral Trump-beheading pic (“It just wasn’t funny”), Sandra Bernhard proclaims herself, quite aptly, to be “no-nonsense.” That has been, after all, her way since the ’70s, when lambasting Hollywood’s who’s-who first became a calling card for the fearless comedian, actress, and musician.

Then, from 1991 to 1997, she famously put a face to bisexuality not just as herself — Bernhard was out from the get-go — but also as Nancy Bartlett on ABC’s hit sitcom Roseanne. Introduced in Season Four as the estranged lesbian wife of Arnie Thomas (Tom Arnold), Nancy, who later came out as bisexual, gets chummy with Roseanne Conner and Roseanne’s younger sister, Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf).

Bernhard, 62, will revisit her groundbreaking character during the show’s revival. As for the controversy regarding Roseanne and her TV alter ego’s support for President Trump? “Roseanne is gonna be another round of really fun and really smart television,” Bernhard tells me. “Roseanne has never turned on the gay community. Roseanne likes to stir the pot. She always has. So, I guess that’s the way she’s doing it now, and I don’t agree with any of the Trump shit, but I think she’ll transcend that, and the show will still be amazing.”

What can we expect politically from the Roseanne reboot?

I think they’re gonna do a deep dive into where the working class is at right now. I mean, maybe not as deep as you would need, considering that half of the working class who don’t have their industrial-ass jobs anymore are strung out on opioids. That’s not very much fun; I don’t think they’ll go there. [Laughs.] But I think we’re in a real crossroads in this country, and Roseanne has always been good at revealing that — and at the same time making it funny and moving and insightful. I’m only in the last episode, so I don’t know exactly how they’re approaching it. I know there will be very personal stories like there always were, as opposed to globalizing it. I think that’s what makes the show special.

I imagine you’ve been hearing about the backlash Roseanne’s politics have ignited since the reboot was announced.

I was hearing about that way before they announced the reboot, and I just dropped out of the conversation because I don’t want to get into that on Twitter. You can’t do that; it goes nowhere. And everybody who makes political decisions also has to live with the fallout. That goes for famous, successful people and for people on the street. If you voted for Trump and you thought it was gonna be a lark and funny, the results are right there in front of you every day.

RELATED:

My hope is that it might bridge some severe societal gaps, perhaps open some minds, maybe even my own. But it’s been very difficult for people who didn’t vote for Trump to even begin to understand or empathize with someone who supported him.

I don’t have any empathy for people who voted for him. Honestly, I really don’t. It’s obvious that he didn’t know anything about the working-class population; he just exploited it, and [his supporters] were naive and unwilling to read or to know what was really going on. He played them — and to a certain extent, the few people who are still in his corner. He still plays them. So it’s just kind of a bummer.

A lot of people have strong opinions about the liberal-minded cast returning to a show led by a Trump supporter.

I’m glad they do. She should hear it. And it’s better for her to hear it from the people that have supported her and watched her show than it is from me. I mean, we’re friends, we’re friendly, and I’ll continue to do the show. But it gets underneath your skin when 20 million people who used to watch your show are like, “What the f*ck?”

She seems to know how people feel about her politics. At the Golden Globes, presenting with co-star John Goodman, she said, “I’m kind of known for creating some great drama.”

Of course she knows.

WATCH:

Well, I’m excited to have Nancy Bartlett back. You told me in 2013 that you didn’t think Nancy would have a place on the show if it ever returned.

It’s not that she didn’t have a place. But I didn’t think they’d be able to fit her story back in because of all the new characters, and the family, and reestablishing what’s been going on politically. So, when they added the extra episode and wrote me in, I was thrilled.

Nancy was one of the earliest portrayals of bisexuality on TV. What surprised you most about how her sexuality was treated on the show in the ’90s?

I mean, she was fun, and it was a fun concept that she ran from being married to Tom Arnold into the relationship with Morgan Fairchild. It was sort of a lark at first, and of course it evolved. They wouldn’t let me kiss Morgan Fairchild under the mistletoe — we had to cut the kiss — so that’s how far we’ve come in terms of what you see sexually on TV.

But yeah, she was a funny, kooky, free-spirited character who got to do things and say things that were part of the evolution of sexuality on TV. It wasn’t intentional — it wasn’t like we were trying to do something groundbreaking. But that is how Roseanne is and was. She just did things that felt organic and authentic. She ended up having the actual kiss with Merle Hemingway [at a gay bar that Nancy took her to]. But nonetheless, Nancy’s fun, and if they picked up the show again, they’ll expand her story.

We’ll get more Nancy if there’s another season?

Oh yeah, absolutely. For sure, yeah.

Roseanne will have a genderfluid grandson, Mark, played by newcomer Ames McNamara, on the show as well.

Yes.

What are your thoughts on the show continuing to be inclusive?

I just think there has to be a little bit of everything in all the shows now, and I don’t know. I’ve gotta see the show before I can comment. He’s in my episode, but to the extent of what they’re trying to do with that character, we’ll have to see.

Speaking more generally, how do you feel about representation as far as LGBTQ people go on TV?

It’s certainly gotten a helluva lot better than when Nancy first came on the scene. And I think with each year that goes by, especially with the advent of Hulu and Netflix and Amazon, there’s been major breakthroughs.

Are you currently enjoying any shows with LGBTQ characters?

I watch 9-1-1 just because I think it’s a ridiculous show. Everywhere you turn there’s new, interesting gay characters. But I don’t go to a show for that. For me, my life has never been informed by that. I’ve always been comfortable with who I am sexually. I’ve been sexually fluid, I’ve broken all the ground rules since I was 17 years old. So, I’ve never had any need for somebody to be my role model. I’ve been my own role model. So, it’s a non-issue. But I think for the public at large it’s been a great time and a revolutionary time for people to see all kinds of characters — racially, sexually, women, men — come to life in a new way.

Have you heard of the very gay-centric Schitt’s Creek?

Honey, I was one of the first people to be hip to it!

Oh, snap.

[Laughs.] I know, yes. But yeah, of course. Love it. Dan Levy is terrific — super funny and smart.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I’ve got three scripted projects I’m trying to get off the ground right now, so that’s a lot of my focus, and it’s a lot of hard work. So, I’m chipping away at that and, of course, continuing to go up for roles as an actress and do my live performing.

What kind of scripts are you working on? 

They’re all comedic. One is based on my early years in L.A., when I started off as a manicurist. One is a project with [performance artist] Justin Vivian Bond. We wrote a musical about six years ago called Arts & Crafts, and we’re trying to make it into a TV series.

I remember you telling me you’d never stoop so low to do a reality show. Still out of the question?

Yeah, listen, if I haven’t done it by now, I’m certainly not gonna do it at this late date.

How do you feel about the way comedy has addressed the Trump era?

Everybody’s speaking about it and being funny and creative about it. And, obviously, people like Bill Maher and those types do it in a more political way. I think it’s been really interesting.

Has your recent comedy reflected current politics?

Sort of, kind of through the back door. I don’t hit people over the head talking about that stuff because so many people are good at doing it verbatim, so I try to keep it more global than just obvious.

Did you think Kathy Griffin went too far with the picture of her holding Trump’s decapitated head?

It’s not about going too far — it just wasn’t funny. And she’s not political. Why is she suddenly jumping on the bandwagon? That’s not what she does. And it wasn’t smart enough or interesting enough. That was the biggest crime.

But Kathy Griffin has been politically engaged and an activist for the gay community.

She’s an activist? I don’t know. I don’t think she’s an activist, frankly. I mean, that’s — she certainly takes advantage of the gay population in her own way, but I don’t think she’s done anything earth shattering for… I mean, I don’t agree.

Who would you consider an entertainer and an activist?

I mean, I’m an activist for being a human being. There’s bigger fish to fry, and my work is inherently political, and it’s been inherently LGBTQ-informed because it’s who I am; it’s what I’ve done from the beginning. I don’t call my audience “my gays.” My audience is my audience, and everybody in it forms an alliance every night. You perform for the entire crowd — it’s not about singling anyone out. And if your work is very, very daring and interesting, then smart people come to it, whether they’re gay, straight, black, white, men, women. I mean, you gotta be able to get underneath what’s really going on culturally, and then you’re always gonna have a smart audience sitting in front of you.

Who else in the comedy world can really dig into the cultural zeitgeist?

I don’t have a litany of people I’m sitting here thinking about. I’m sorry. It’s, like, too hard to do that. Right now the people who are impressing me the most are all these kids from the school in Florida. They’re activists. Went through a terrible trauma, and they’ve been able to transform it into total activation, and that to me is really impressive and exciting. To talk about entertainers and people — it’s easy for all of us to do all that stuff because we’re not under duress. But when you’ve been practically severely injured or murdered [and you speak out about it], yeah, that’s something to really applaud and stand by.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/04/26/sandra-bernhard-still-has-her-blunt-af-opinions/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/173324824080

[seismicmeowmeow-blog]

Blind Life: an adaptation of The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd

Part 1

My father and his father and the father before him all died cowards. Whether it be curled in the fetal position before a cohort of Germans with shiny rifles and ear to ear grins or in the bathroom of a brothel with a needle stuck up his sleeve, those men were cowards. They abandoned women and children and dogs and cats and even little, innocent fish. We were just waves washing against their lives, receding into the ocean to never be seen again. The sand would mold and stay, but after enough washing each castle, each unique empire, would fall tragically before the power of the waves. An entire feudal system, concocted by geniuses broken down and recycled to fish litter.

I’ve been a magnificently defiant sand castle.

I was born on a Tuesday. If you asked my mother or father or neighbor or doctor what kind of Tuesday it was they would all recall it was a spectacularly uneventful Tuesday. I was one of eight in four years. Each one the heir to a disparate throne. Except Milo and Winslet, they were twins.

Mind you, my mother was no prostitute, just a splendid fool, hoping that each truck driver and vacuum cleaner salesman after the last would be an upstanding, classy fellow, ecstatic for the opportunity to wed and settle down with a wonderful woman like my mother. Supporting the likes of eight children, a microcosm of our lovely mother earth.

You see, before me there was nothing. Tedium molecularly crafted. Besides the click of empty revolvers in my mother’s bathroom, the house was silent. My future brothers and sisters knew not to speak. Not even a word. The man my mother was laying with, my very own pa, was a wildhack. The men before him had beaten her and beaten them and stolen from them and even kidnapped Milo thinking it was his own child, only to return the following evening, defeated, mother never the wiser.

But this man, my father, was especially boring. Not the boring that one may suffer through a math class or at work, or even in the war at times, but a crippling boring, a lull of words that bounce off the ear and echo around the room until the frequencies of it all burst the listener's ear drums and prod them towards insanity. That is not to say he was loud - this man was, in fact, extraordinarily quiet - that was part of his boring charm, wasn’t it.

All of the children - seven of them at the time - gave their hundred and ten percent effort to keep clear of his incessant dreariness. Even the youngest of the bunch, Hector, only four years of age, at the time, knew to shut his yapper the minute this king of apathy walked through the unhinged door. He had been fired from his last job for bringing down office morale and was now working as an energetic UPS driver, full of stories from the day, eager to spew them out in a semiautomatic fire of doldrums.

He was gone by Friday. The three days of whining and shitting and crying that I besieged upon him was enough to send this emperor of drab back to his lock up in Bermackeron, Wyoming. I went head to head with this spineless, humdrum asshole and defeated him effortlessly. For most of my siblings it took them weeks, some even months, one in fact had a father for a year until the little schmuck got pinkeye and ma queried the father to foot the bill. He was gone by sunrise, but a year nonetheless. I was triumphant in a matter of days. My mother never hesitated to remind me of this as I aged, each time bolstering my already bloated self-esteem a little more.

I was special. For an instant there I was really special, wasn’t I.

Out of that treacherous cloud of smoke, out of the ashes, I arose. Grander and more cunning than any man before me. Out of the blindness monotony of everyday life, I came, the savior of a generation, the maker of men.

Why should I be frightened to die.

Part 2

I lost my virginity at age twelve, to no one other than my very own sister, Clarissa. It was not meant to happen that way, that wasn’t how I planned it, it just occurred, simply and unapologetically.

She was fourteen at the time and just as interested in me as I was in her. Mother had never explained to us what sex was, she was too drugged up and busy with the three other pregnancies to deal with the babies she already had. Some of those babies were as old as seventeen, but babies nevertheless. Still stuck in prepubescence, trying, unsuccessfully to tear pieces off the cocoon, hoping that opioids and amphetamines may assist in their escape.

She cried when we did it. I don’t think I did it right. Looking back on it, I am sure that I did not.

Afterwards we sat there for a minute, indecisively. Do I punch her now? Scream at her? Steal her emerald necklace and run away? Do I tell her a story about the interesting conversation I had with Jerry just before heading out to deliver dildos to middle-aged wives?

I decided to tell Milo. He bashed me in the head with a lava lamp.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you little sister fucking prick.”

He was coked up at the time. Found a little of the dust laying on mother’s nightstand.

I shook my head around, trying fruitlessly to find my eyesight in the muddled room, full of cartoons and porno mags, the battered bits of a cocoon.

I think he was jealous.

Part 3

The second time I had sex was with Oksana. This is the time I tell people about when they ask me regarding my virginity.

“It was exquisite” I tell them “We waited until we knew we loved each other.” I’ll say.

They’ll “awww” and smile and I’ll smile and that’ll be it, just another endearing virginity story in a sea of white noise. I should make a machine that plays people telling their virginity stories, maybe a writer could sit in solitude and just write and write and write with no distractions around her, a painter could decorate his masterpiece, a poet could cry on paper, all because of me with my million dollar idea. But somewhere in that homogenous tune a voice would scream out. I fucked my sister. The painter perks up, stares at the machine, examines it for cracks and bumps, veers out the window, wondering what hooligan, what deviant would utter such words.

You see, I was special.

Oksana was my everything for a minute there, wasn’t she. After all these years of corrosive juice I’ve been pouring into my skull, I still remember her. Not her face - no - that has faded, but her essence, her being, has imprinted itself in the foam of my consciousness. No matter how many acid waves come and go, her castle will not wash away.

Atop that acropolis is a desolate tree, her and I tragically below it. That tree is everything to me. The existence that is humanity. The momentary lapses of reason and divisiveness, the unwavering feeling of loneliness in a sea of bourgeois, that rests upon the words on a tongue on an autumn day in November, leaves falling about the tree. There is a hollowness in her eyes, a fatigue, a yawn. But to me, this is the pinnacle. The reason death brought me fright during the war,  the reason Clarissa cried, the reason I will be drowned out by the screams of a million souls, writhing in their graves, waiting for their time to be alive again.

Out of nowhere emerges life, it ages, it misbehaves, it screams, it lies, it laughs. It lays in bed at night when it is thirteen years old, crying because one day it will be erased. Because there will be a point in time when everything is forgotten about its little, old existence, every memory of a memory - euthanized.

Part 4

All I remember is the screams of my comrades with shrapnel up their urethras.

Who gives a fuck about war, anyways.

Part 5

I wasn’t special.

I fucked and abandoned as many pregnant women as my own father and his father and the father before him.

I was just as cowardly and tripped out as all those lousy schmucks. I used the war as an excuse for all my dickery, for all my addictions and habits and dependencies and what have you. But so did they, didn’t they. It’s a generational rhythm, I guess, send off the coked up young broots to kill some commies in the war and have them return just as adolescent as they were sent, with blood on their hands and rape and murder in their hearts, grabbing at whatever potential victims they can.

I was no different.

In the end it all evened out. I killed as many men as I made. I was the maker and destroyer of man.

I was god, wasn’t I.

Part 6

I died on a Thursday, a spectacularly uneventful Thursday if you asked my mortician, or my sons or my daughters. I was the 14th strike of the clock in a science museum, measuring each of the world’s deaths, second after second. I was that one, right there. Reduced to nothing more than a statistic.

It was a brutishly slow death.

I needed the medicine. I needed the drugs. I needed to see that time was malleable, that one instance I would be in the operating room and the next I’d be killing commies in the war.

Part 7

I have returned from the dead to claim my spirit, I believe I left it here, somewhere around this room, with all the cartoons and porno mags. It only exists in a picture frame now. A single picture. It sits on my great grand daughters bedside table. Gets boxed up in a hurry, moves from house to house, from nightstand to nightstand until one day. When a Klan member burns her house down. My only granddaughter.

All of those god forsaken children churned out like frozen yogurt on a summer day, only to perish one after the other, fruitless, little savages. My sperm could have kept children in Africa from starving, but instead it was wasted on those egregious imbeciles.

Didn’t I deserve more than one grandchild. More than one memory of a memory of a man.

The photo was of that Autumn day, under the tree, atop the hill, on that beach, beneath those acid waves of mine. That was the day I got drafted for the war. That was the day, I believe, I began dying. My death was an insignificant day for me, now that I think of it, no more special or mundane than any other. Just a day like all days, a day for the ages.

It was that spring evening with my grand daughter, with the yellow house with maroon window panes, with the klansmen. That was the day I ceased to exist. And within the monotony and peculiarity of that day was my photo, Oksana and I, Clarissa and I, our love.

I never said I was frightened of dying.

I mean, I was god, wasn’t I?

By Paul Miller-Schmidt