A New Cottage Industry

     

     There's a new evil brewing in the greatest country in the world; don't pretend ignorance, for you know exactly the country I am referring to: the country that sends its boys to war around the world and call them heroes, offer them parades and a whole day out of the year to celebrate them. 

     A special day where the citizens of this magnificent country can enjoy a day of leisure and drive to the beach, to the mall; on the way there, at the traffic lights and sidewalks they can see the parade of veterans: missing limbs, hunted by ghosts and demons,  begging for scraps and living in tents. 

     A few romantic souls, still linger to the story they were sold and beg for money dressed in the uniform they used to fight the wars that provided us the freedom to walk the street as  free people.

     The country I am referring to has created agencies to protect its citizens and assure their safety; agencies such as the DIABETES FOUNDATION that links diabetes to fat consumption and advise the public that sugar in moderation is healthy; and the American Society for Nutrition and National Institute of Health that advises the public that there are no links between obesity, high calorie consumption and lack of exercise. It is all genetic and therefore only managed by prescribed drug use. For life.

     Coincidentally, this particular country gain billions of its revenues in two primary sources of income: the military and its pharmaceutical/health industry. And now, they have invented a new evil way to profit from its citizens: compassion.

     Politicians, known worldwide for their empathy and devoting service to the people, have began a campaign to "house" mentally ill people for up to an entire year while they are tested and treated for their illness. 

     We have to hand it to the pharmaceuticals companies creative way to acquire new customers. 

    The new evil, as it turns out, it's nothing new: the executives of pharmaceuticals companies and their lobbyists have aimed their sights at the homeless, as they finally see a new way to profit from them. Politicians have began singing their song of empathy, while other politicians appeal to the self centered selfish among us and talk about "cleaning the streets." 

     Pretty soon, to our joy and delight, our streets will be cleaned and safe once again. A few voices will rise in the defense of the unhoused but it will be muffled by our silence , as we drive to the beach and the mall and the clubs and restaurants and the tourist destinations. 

   As we go on with our lives, ignoring the sufferers as we do now.

   On the sidewalk of this great country there will be signs that read: " This clean sidewalk was brought to you by GSK, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, etc.."

     And this will be the great experiment of our lifetime as they open hospitals around this great country and harness their skills on the homeless until they have perfected the art of imprisoning people to test their new drugs. And make a profit for their investors.

     Once they are done with the homeless, they will come for our families, as they did in the 40's and 50's and 60's. Our children, fathers and mothers. A full circle indeed.

A clown's perspective: " When the business people and politicians find a way to profit from the homeless you will see the streets of America clean up real goddamn fast. I guarantee you that." George Carlin

Im an addict!

      First step of recovering, says the literature on beating any addiction, is acknowledging it; "beating the dragon," " conquering your demons," all clichés one can think of, point to the core of any addiction: it is not about the drug you ingest, but human beings need to self medicate their psychological afflictions. 

     It's about pain; pain that you don't recognize you have; pain that lies so deep inside all of us that we engage together in destructive activities searching for a bit of happiness.  And we create a family of sorts to display our pain, Leo Tolstoy said it beautifully in Anna Karenina: " All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its on way." 

     Together we engage in our drug of choice, the demons inside each of us tormenting us into behavior we will regret just about the time we succumb to it: shame and low self worth seeping more and more into the fabric of us. Demons that make us take drugs, drink, take countless selfies, abusing others on social media is a new ceremony  we engage to destroy and be destroyed. All the while feeling a fleeting happiness that's so sweet that we want more of it. Immediately after the shame subside. 

     And my shame is somewhat justified since I'm not addicted to any cool drug that would make me edgy, cool; a paragon of artistic display that would make Jackson Pollock proud. No, I've never been drunk in my entire life, don't touch alcohol. Drugs, for some reason, very early on was the things losers do and so I escaped that too. There's nothing cool about my addiction, in fact is not even illegal. We sell to men, women, them, they, children and even pregnant women. We built shelves at supermarkets at a child's eye level so that they can get addicted too;  and we offer flavors such as heart attack, diabetes, diabetes type 2, diabetes type 3- formally known as Alzheimer's disease- obesity, amputations, strokes, pulmonary embolism and many many more.

I am addicted to sugar; and my drug dealer was my beloved grandmother.

     My grandmother would take an empty glass and place on the table; because I was so young, around four or five years old, my eyed level, directly across the surface of the table would give me a perfect view, and I watched her take two containers and place them next to the glass. She would take a spoon and fill half of the glass with the white powder; then she would shift her attention to the second container, and would fill the other half of the glass with a brown power. She would slide the glass to me and hand me the spoon; and I would take my time enjoying my chocolate powder and sugar cocktail. The most ironic memory of it; the countless times they told me to calm down. I had the strange habit of climbing every tree I encountered, tap on my chest, late at night, my favorite songs until the moment I collapsed into sleep or I would get hit with something to quiet me down. Whichever came first. 

     No movie star, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician would admit in public this sort of addiction; yet it causes more deaths than drunk drivers and  overdoses combined. At the end of World War II we counted around 15,000 amputations in the six years the war lasted. Diabetes causes roughly around 420,000 amputations in 6 years.

     I long lost my grandmother, so my supplier these days is Starbucks. And they are amazing at it. 24 hours a day. Everywhere I walk in United States I can find one within a few blocks of each other. 

2 butter croissants lightly toasted

1 lemon loaf

1 tall dark roast coffee with 1 raw sugar- in a grande cup.

$ 14.40  ( in Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades )

$13.40  ( anywhere else in Los Angeles )

     Close every liquor store in the world and unless someone told me, I wouldn't notice. I wouldn't  know where to begin looking for drugs to buy if my live depended on it and yet, my life depends on giving up drugs. At least if I want to assure a better quality of life to my older self.  After many prolonged fasting and being sugar free for months and months only to succumb again and again to it, I decided to approach this addiction in a different way. . 

I went for a hike at Griffith park and while admiring the Hollywood sign had a serious conversation with myself. More a visualization than anything else. I imagined myself at sixty, seventy, eighty years old and honestly asked myself a simple question: 

what kind of debilitating disease are you willing to suffer from in you twilight years?

The answer was an emphatically: NONE. So I just gave up sugar again. For more times than I can recall.

     So I ask the same from you: what kind of disease are you willing to suffer from:? Because even thought we've never met I know that you are as addicted as I am. In conversations with people about my concerns, I always hear back that they eat sugar in moderation and that is the same as stating that you take poison in moderation. But the odds are not in my favor that you are even reading this now; you probably stopping reading at the second paragraph once you realized that my addiction was to sugar. How pathetic!

     To that, I challenge you to stop. Cold turkey. No more sugar. No more more refined carbs: bread, pasta, pizza. None of it. Fast for five days straight drinking only water with pink Himalayan salt for electrolytes and minerals. If you don't cheat, you will realize by the second day how seriously addicted you are and you will stop judging addicts for being so weak and unable to get their lives together. Your third day without sugar will make you wish you were dead.

     In the event you are able to complete the five days, you don't get to praise yourself and return to sugar. You are done. You will never touch a pipe again, snort, shoot or whatever other way people ingest drugs. You can't eat bread ever again; no more pasta, no more pizza no more sweets or deserts of any kind. You will cleanse your body and remain in ketosis until your final days. 

You are sugar free. Congratulations! Now we can sit together and wait to get a glimpse of Dante and Virgil when they walk by; or Godot.