Walking into the elevator tonight, and there was this girl in there. rather overweight but pretty. Plump. Now of course the first thing that goes through my mind is the fact that she is a girl, I am a guy, and that “overweight rather plump girl” is on my list of conquests to achieve before I get married along with “hotel room housekeeper,” “hot airline stewardess,” and “college football cheerleading squad.” Now its not as if I haven't already achieved “overweight rather plump girl.” I mean, lets be honest, like most guys, well lets just say that we all have our skeletons in the closet and a man will do some crazy things in the name of sex. I often found in high school and college that the overweight girls, for lack of a better term, were always the first to have sex back then. They never held back in that department. I don't know why that is, but I have my theories.

Recently read an interview with Jeff tweedy from wilco. He is suffering from these panic attacks where sometimes he has to go to the hospital. I wanted to reach through the magazine and tell him what to do about them. I had them some time ago. They really are as horrifying as people say. One minute everything is fine and the next minute you feel like you are about to die and you don't know why. you just know about you're about to die. its quite insane and no matter how many times you tell yourself that its all in your mind (which its not) it doesn’t seem to help. [in fact it isn't in your mind at all – more like all over your skin --- a feeling of pure terror is the best way to describe it.] You still feel as though you are about to die and you have to get outside into the open and sometimes you feel like you just have to get to a hospital to ‘feel safe.’ I couldn’t even go in elevators or movie theatres for a while. so I can totally relate to how Jeff is feeling.

Crazy Liz had them a long time ago. I remember back in the day we always used to have to drive her to the hospital because she was freaking out over it. too many pills I thought. She was a pill freak and that can definitely mess you up if you don't know how to ride it. Eventually she went on prescription meds for it. more pills. I never liked the idea of trying to cure illnesses through drugs once I started studying drugs and the like. A lot of times they lead to worse problems than you started off with. I always took a nutritional approach to anything that I ever got. Whenever I get sick I just start fasting. I know that sounds crazy but for me it works. the first step. I might stop eating entirely for three to fourteen days and just let my body get back to its most natural place. I haven't fasted now since oct of 2002. so maybe its about time again. But I feel great so who knows. but its just a good thing to do in general for your health and for keeping a good weight as well.

anyway, when I got the panic attack thing I went to a lot of doctors and they recommended tons of pills and medicines. None of which I took. I asked for blood work and they wouldn’t even prescribe blood work, insisting that it was mental and not physical. Idiots of course. Mental is still physical. Since the brain is in the body and the nervous system, of which this is an ailment of, is also in the body, but don't go trying to tell the average doctor this. anyway I'm sure I've written about this before so I'll chill on the details. But suffice it to say that I did rid myself of the panic attacks or whatever they were on my own without any medicines or drugs. And the way I did it was through eating only whole foods, tons of green foods, and massive doses of B vitamins. I was taking four b 50s per day at one point and as long as I kept that high does in my system, I was free from them. if I tapered my dose down the panic attacks would come back a little. So I knew I needed to get the levels of b vits back up in my system. eventually my nerve endings grew back again and were healthy and I could stop taking the b vitamins. This was years ago and I've never had them again.
Now this is where it gets good. a few years later I noticed that on my health insurance record that one of the doctors I went to listed me going to see him for a ‘mental disorder’ and because of that I didn't get this really good insurance. Now because I cured myself nutritionally, I protested his diagnosis and his report. Eventually I had to sue and prove that I indeed didn't have the problem anymore, never filled the prescription that he had given me for anti-depressant medication (go figure—a patient walks in with panic attacks and you give him a prescription for depression? I should be treating this guy!) I won the case and got the comment removed from my insurance report because I showed that my ailment was indeed ‘physical’ and not ‘mental’ as was suggested. All in a days work.

The point is that a lot of times these diseases are physical. They may be mental in some way, meaning that they manifest through the mind or because of the mind. But the thing that most doctors don't seem to get yet is that the mind is in the body. almost anything mental like that can usually be treated with b vitamins and minerals. Blood work tests can help determine where there is a deficiency or in some cases too much of one mineral or another. Other times it may be due to heavy metals, in which case a hair analysis can help confirm that. A good cleansing is what's needed for that. total detoxification of the body. anyway, reading Jeff’s sad story today made me realize that even people with good money and access to resources can still be trapped in that world where they just can’t figure out what the hell is going on. I love Jeff’s music. and can totally relate to what he is going through. One day we are going to get it right with our health and wellness in this country. 

I'm chilling with Carlson today, talking stocks, football, boxing, the federal reserve, and other important matters. Carlson Cartwright sits across from me at this office where TMG records is located. Whenever I'm in town I cannot wait to get to the office. at first I had my doubts about moving from a giant plush office building of my own to a shared office space. but this has been the new official headquarters of TMG for about six months now and I have to say I have really grown to love it. a huge floor with about sixty people all sharing the same space. its like a little family. You really grow to enjoy being around the different people everyday. Carlson is your typical jock. A well bred attorney who lettered in three sports a year all through high school and college. ten years ago we wouldn’t even be talking. our social groups never mixed. While they were drinking brewskies, me and my buds were getting high and listening to music. My nickname around the office is ‘the rocker,’ I notice. Everyone has their little nickname. And indeed while Carlson was busy being the jock and future attorney in school I was busy being the rocker/surfer in my own school. This is what I was thinking about while we were talking today. we have become good friends. And I'm thinking while he's going off about the demise of professional sports how cool it is that as we get older we let a lot of that stuff go and we can open up and become friends with just about anyone. Identities leave and we become more whole as people, able to integrate more groups of different kinds of people into our social circle.