The DVR Life

Remember the 1970s, before VCRs? When the whole country watched "MASH", "All in the Family", "Good Times", etc at the exact same time, then discussed the shows the next day?

Remember how cool it was to buy that $500 VCR back in the early 1980s? Or the first time you had cable tv installed and had more than, say, six channels to watch? How glorious it was to watch Australian Rules Football on early ESPN. We watched hours and hours of that our junior year of high school, coming home from school each afternoon in Milford, NH, all the while having no idea what the rules were.

And now we all have DVRs. We here at The 'Pent can tape two shows at a time (sidebar: why the hell is it not possible to record, say, six shows at once? why only TWO? it would seem to be a simple thing to fix.) and often do. For example, it 630am on Friday and we just finished watching a tape of last night's Lakers win, and now we're watching Letterman from the same time slot. We can watch a football or basketball game in half the time it takes to see it live, and it's just as much fun without having to stay up late. We finally have an answer to the years of complaining about Monday Night Football getting over around 1am on the East Coast for so many years. Ha on you, ABC/ESPN.

But the question on the staff's minds this am is: Is the rise of DVR's and the multitude of choices of media in today's society a good thing?

It would seem obvious: Yes. But that's only at first glance. We believe Archie Bunker served a greater good back 35 years ago by pointing out the ridiculousness of racism and sexism. Today, folks who hold strange or hurtful beliefs can find their own niche to revel in and enforce their hurtful ideas. Maybe it was a good thing to talk about the latest episode of "Mary Tyler Moore" nationwide. Maybe it's not a good thing that we have so many choices today.

The First Time I Experienced Psychosis.

Subtitle: The First Time I Took Psych Meds.

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I tried to kill myself in the summer 1992 by taking a bottle containing several hundred aspirin. I was living at home with my parents and younger brother in Amherst, NH, and was unemployed and obviously extremely depressed. I had left a job of two and a half years in Virginia about a year prior, due to depression, and had come home in 1991, seen a couple of therapists, but taken no psych drugs. I was 26 years old, physically healthy at 6 2 and 190 pounds, a college graduate, had passed the CPA exam, had worked steadily since graduating college in 1988 except for the year since I had moved home. It seems looking back that I was a troubled young man, but really nothing exceptional.

My mother drove me to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, NH the morning following the attempted suicide, where I was given some type of charcoal intended to soak up the poison in my stomach by the ER staff. I vomited a couple of times but felt decent except for a ringing in my ears. Admitted to the ICU, I was kept for two or three days (much to the disgust of one particular nurse on my unit, who made her contempt for me quite obvious, possibly due to what she felt were a lack of symptoms.) A psychiatrist talked to me and we agreed that I would be admitted to the psych unit at CMC. I am not sure when I began my medication regimen but I can assume it was the first day. Up to that point I had never in my life thought that cameras or other people were watching me or ridiculing me. In fact I remember a childhood friend of mine apologizing to me after his buddies had made fun of me on the school bus in high school: I was so closed off that even when the ridicule happened I didn't notice it. But at CMC I noticed right away that I could hear something that was going on in the room directly behind mine: There were some young medical people there and I quickly deduced that they were discussing ME. I couldn't see them, could only hear them and their cruel discussions of how boring their assignment was and what a loser I was. Since this was the first time I had ever been psychotic, I naturally assumed that this was really happening. Knowing that there had to be a camera in my room I realized that the most likely observation point was the sprinkler head right over my bed. After listening for a few days to the putdowns I tore out the sprinkler head from the ceiling. The only result was more meds, in all likelihood, since I could still here the staff that I believed was monitoring me.

And I have had recurring fantasies of being watched by cameras consistently throughout my use of psych meds. Something that had never happened to me before use became a constant theme in my life after beginning the prescribed regimen of pharma cocktails. I've used alcohol to excess (though never illegal drugs such as weed) off and on since I was 19, but I've been consistently psychotic since beginning to take prescribed meds following that first suicide attempt so many years ago.

More on Psychiatry: What Comes Next?

As I read further in "Anatomy of an Epidemic" I wonder: How can our fucked up mental health system be fixed?

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When Valium was being prescribed millions of times back several decades ago and messing up so many lives (including First Lady Betty Ford), there were other drugs for society to turn to so that the psychiatrists could pretend that their professional lives were not a waste and the drug companies could continue to turn billion dollar profits. But now that it seems clear that NONE of the psych meds do any general good, that none of them lead to good outcomes versus never having taking the medications in the first place, and they, in fact, irreparably damage millions of lives, we come to this point: How does America get out of this rabbit hole?

It would be impossible to expect the psychiatrists to come out publicly and say, "Our profession does more harm than good" because they're too busy paying for medical school bills, then that million dollar house in the suburbs and raising a family, then saving for retirement and that condo in Boca. For the medical establishment to admit the emperor has no clothes seems a bit much to ask for: they would all have to go into another field of employment and admit that their life's work has damaged so many.

To ask the drug companies to somehow admit that their concoctions are literally killing off hundreds of thousands of folks via diabetes, obesity, and heart disease and ruining millions of lives through side effects and the "Rebound Effect" caused by withdrawal is even more improbable. With health care such a vital part of our economy and so many billions of dollars tied up in this mess, that will never happen voluntarily. Indeed there is plenty of evidence that the drug manufacturers are the new millenium's answer to the tobacco companies of the last century: Deny that your product does incredible harm until enough people say, "No! You are wrong! Here's the proof."

It seems lawsuits by countless victims of this trillion dollar scam are our nation's only hope for real change. That is how the tobacco companies were put in line, and also why so many people decided to give up smoking: The bad publicity led to many millions to question their own behavior. The court system seems the only likely answer, as all other parties have too much invested to come clean.

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Yes, the drug manufacturers are the modern day tobacco companies. How long until the country sees this and says, "No more harmful psych meds. No more needlessly ruined lives."

A Hellish Money Making Merry Go Round: Modern Psychiatry

I am halfway through Robert Whitaker's new book on the treatment of mental illness, "Anatomy of an Epidemic." I feel so very sad, like I have been told a million and one lies by those I put my trust in. I feel that my life could have been so different had I not started on the ridiculous medicinal roller coaster I've been on for nearly twenty years.

Anyone interested in the treatment of mental illness should read Whitaker. In his previous work, "Mad In America", he describes the horrifying procedures undergone by sick folks like myself throughout the history of our country, as well as more recent, "scientific" efforts that are equally grotesque and maybe more deceitful for those being treated.

As most know who care to know, it is a scientific fact that the drugs given to those patients are not much, if any, better than a placebo in the short term treatment of depression or psychosis. What I am learning from "Anatomy" is that the studies on which so much modern medicine is based stop after six weeks. What happens after six weeks? The people given meds get worse or stay the same, almost never rejoining healthy society. The folks lucky or smart enough never to go on the meds oftentimes get better and many times work and live full lives.

The theory goes that the drugs people like myself are given change the brain in a physical way, so that not only does the patient NOT get much, if any, better from having taken the drug, but take away the drug at any point in the future and the patient will get worse. This decompensation has long been the basis for not taking patients off their meds and the stated reason why they "work" so well: what patients go off them they get worse. But the fucking reason for this is that taking the drugs in the first place changes the brain's wires around so that the cure is worse than the disease.

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I graduated high school in 1984. I graduated college within four years, in 1988. I passed the CPA exam upon graduating. I was, admittedly, very unhappy the whole time, but functioned at a high level. Then in the early 90s, while living in Charlottesville, VA I became extremely depressed and quit my job, moving back home with my parents in Amherst, NH in 1991. I remember finding a job in Massachusetts quickly, then quitting after one day because I was too scared and anxiety ridden. My father suggested I see a therapist he knew of. I saw this guy, with little results, for about a year. I remained depressed and anxious, and may have even been delusional (my memory of these times is a bit foggy) Desperate, I took a large bottle of aspirin one night in an attempt to kill myself. When that failed, I was taken by my mother to a local psych ward and started on the medication cocktail(s) that remain a part of my life to this day.

Would I have successfully killed myself without intervention and the subsequent drug taking? Quite possibly. But my theory today is that the part of the treatment I received that was beneficial was being inpatient at a caring facility, being around other depressed and delusional people and getting support from the staff. The part that I believe didn't work was the drugs: I quickly began to sense cameras throughout the rooms of the ward. I don't recall sensing cameras watching me before I was put on medication.

And so it went. I rapidly bloomed from about 200 pounds up to 250, then up to 300. I began to either sleep most of the time or none of the time. And most importantly, I believe, I went from a young man with potential to live a decent life to a middle aged fat slob with no prospects of a full life (meaning marraige, children, career, home, retirement).

The first job I had out of college, working at a CPA firm, I did not enjoy and left after six months. In the next job, as an accountant at a large company in Charlottesville, I believe I was an exemplary employee for the two and a half years I worked there. Had I not left the company due to my depression, I believe my career prospects with Comdial or whoever was to come next would have been good. I believe I might very well have been able to support myself, buy a house, find a wife, do all the normal manly things. But instead, I became "disabled", fat, isolated, lonely, and a burden to the state. That is not how any healthy person wants to live their life, but it turns out that that is the story of my life.

Letterman Love

We are sick of Stephen Colbert. Not a lot, just enough to switch over to taping Letterman in the 1130/1135 pm slot on our DVR.

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David Letterman is the closest thing in our society to the late, great Johnny Carson, who in his prime was one of the most infuential and important figures in American society. With the splintering of the viewing audience via cable and the internet no one can hope to match what Carson was, but Letterman, with his cool yet dorky, intelligent without being a know it all personality never grates, and always is easy to take.

We couldn't stand Leno. Don't find Conan funny. And don't watch the others enough to know anything about them.

But Letterman? We loved, love, and will always love David Letterman, in spite of his human foibles.

Here's hoping he has another ten to twenty year run in him, as he is one of the true broadcasting giants.

Marv Albert and Doug Collins: The Best Sports Announcing Pair?

Sitting here Thursday morning and watching a DVR copy of last night's Suns vs Lakers game, it struck us that Albert/Collins is without peer in doing their job. Albert's voices is smooth as butter, comforting and strong without being a shock to the system. Collins has long been known as the best color man in sports broadcasting, and still holds that title, in our opinion. His insights are gently insightful and without ego. These two are sensational, and a pleasure to listen to. Not just in terms of the NBA. Not just basketball. But in sports.

Only Gus Johnson and Len Elmore come close, offhand, in The 'Pent's opinion.

It's Official: "Glee" is Now Unwatchable

Following the first episode of Fox' ensemble high school musical last fall we here at The 'Pent felt we had just seen maybe the best first episode of television in many years. And the rest of the first batch were all top notch, though maybe not quite up to the expectations of the premiere.

Then came a mid season break.

The new episodes that followed the hiatus have gotten progressively worse and worse, to the point that last night's was pure garbage, and the staff here zapped it off halfway through. What a disappointment.

Here's Hoping Jill and Kevin are STILL Married...

....After all the smiles and tears they've given people like me since their video went viral last summer.

Here it is.

It still gets to me.

The 'Pent Staff in Photo on Portland Press Herald Front Page

Right here!

The article may make mention of Maine candidate for governor Rosa Scarcelli, but really the paper just wanted a chance to feature the rugged, clean cut good looks of 'Pent staffer and all around good guy Joe Sweeney (rap name= JoeKris) in a front page photo wearing his "Miami" t-shirt. How awesome! The modeling contracts are sure to follow swiftly.

Brilliant Postmortem on LeBron's Distasterous Game 5 Last Night

See this from Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski .

Couldn't have said it better ourselves. LeBron is a LeFraud who isn't ever going to be part of the Larry/Magic/Michael/Kobe modern day "Mt. Rushmore" quartet of NBA greats.

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How can anyone NOT feel sorry for the city of Cleveland after their King has been shown to have no clothes, what with the Indians and Browns both sucking so bad.

Red Sox Fans: Catch the Fever!!

Hilarious SonsofSamHorn.com chatter about how hopeless the Sox season is.

Never mind that the Yanks had the same record last year as the Bostonians do this and went on to win the World Series.

Red Sox fans never fail to see a half full glass.

Us? We're optimistic that the pitching depth will result in a lot of 8 out of 10 winning stretches. It ain't over yet, folks. Plenty of time.