The Devil and Dan Johnston.

I finally screwed my courage and watched "The Devil and Dan Johnston".

Its the story of a muscician. He happens to be schizophrenic.

I thought the story would really tear me up. The authors of the documentary took great pains not to make it the story of mental illness. But, of course, it is. They go so far as to pin his Sz on LSD, which certainly did not seem to help anything, but cannot be solely responsible.

The documentary turned to medications. There were the pills bottles lined up. Dan Johnston talks about the year when they were calibrating his osage as his lost year. Before a performance, he would stop taking meds to get clearer. He was clearly a mess without them. I want to be clear here, I am not advocating that they are wrong or not helpful. He was described by his father as having siezed the keys and turned off the engine and thrown them out the window. OF AN AIRPLANE. HE laughed all the way down. His father pulled them out, and they both escaped alive.

But it was the meds, that description of that hazzy blurriness that hit home. That is what the medical profession considers treated. Its bullshit. To a doctor, it means the patient is not going to harm himself or another person. In exchange, he is neutered from life. What a terrible fucking choice to make.

Dan Johnston makes beautiful music. Its filled with light and horrors alike. Death and insanity, devils and angels. He is proof that you dont have to be "well" to be beautiful.

In other news, I felt tired and beat up today. A two week stint of surfing, working, climbign, dating and drinking and I pay. It will be rough tomorrow too. But I did realize this...its been months and months since my last heavy depression. I just dont get them anymore. I dont know why, really. Is it chemical. Is it personal. I did a lot of unknotting of the residual bracing from inevitable disspintment of insanity. I learned those knots were surface, and there was more underneath. Now we all hang out together, my knots and me, and somehow, without tangling with them, they alieviate themselves. Just dissipate and dissapear. Others become friends and not bonds.

Thats all.

M

Ayurveda

Why not right?

So healing really never stops. My relationship with illness tracks, not coincidentially, my relationship with me. As I get more well, I have accepted me and illness more too. Its ciruclar.

Recently, the Amazing Ms. C, secretary extraordinaire, recommended me to a former protege of hers, who is now completing her Ayuerveic training. I took the train then bike to Palo Alto, my least favorite place in the world, to see her.

She was kind, and thoughtful, listened to me, and talked about doshas. I learned that there are three, and blend of each, and your position in each is set at birth. For more, read another blog.

Well, I will meet again with S, but her first recommendation was to get to sleep at 10. Thats going to be hard. Insomnia not considered, its a rough bill for me to sleep at ten because I love to stay up late. No one goes to Prince v. Michael Jackson dance offs to watch married women get drunk and make out with each other at 7:30. That kind of shit only happens late, when God is asleep. And frankly, someone needs to be there, why not me?

She also gave me a tea to drink before dinner to build appetite. The rest I learn later. It may involve yoga, or baby stealing. I am not sure.

Why Ayurveda? Why not? I mean, the western medical profession has given me pills that were supposed to make me happy, but in fact made me halucinate, they stuck needles in my liver, reviewed my feces and urine and blood, they have given me pills and laxitives. I figure, how weird could ayuerveda be?

Besides that, health is not longer an obsession to me, but you dont go what I went through and not find people's response to unwellness beautiful. This is an old and venerated appraoch. I will approach it like I did western medicine: with scepticism, and poor editing.