Dr. John’s Tangerines

According to my records, the great Mac Rebennack – better known to the world as Dr. John the Night Tripper – turns 70 today. I actually got to meet the Dr. a few years back when he and his band (including the wonderfully named Renard Poché) stayed at the hotel where I was posing as a desk clerk. He was very gracious and his people gave me free tickets to the shows; it was a real bright spot in an otherwise less than stellar period of my life.

In his honor, here’s an excerpt from his autobiography Under a Hoodoo Moon where he describes how he finally kicked heroin after many, many, many years. There’s something striking and poetic about it, if’n you ask me:

…that happened again and again during my halfhearted rehab attempts: I straightened up for a while , but sooner or later I ran into some Chang Moi rocks and it was off to the races, another four years of getting strung out like a fucking guinea pig.

What changed that all around was an experience I had when I wound up in a cardiac ward. I had been suffering some chest pains, which later proved to be nothing major, and I was lying in this bed, hooked up to tubes and wires, when I noticed that the guy in the bed next to me was getting shots of Demerol and morphine every couple of hours. I pulled all the wires and tubes out of myself and began planning how to follow the nurse, with the intention of knocking off the narcotics box. I knew I’d get busted if I did it, but that was the last thing I was worried about.

But just as I was about to put myself in gear, this one particular spiritual nurse walked in with a bag of tangerines. She saw I’d pulled all my tubes out, but she was cool about it – she didn’t say a word. Instead, she asked, “Want a tangerine?”

I took it.

Until that time, nothing had stayed in my stomach since I had been in the hospital. But I bit into the tangerine, and it tasted so good. And it stayed down. I ate three of them, and they all stayed down. And it was something about just those sweet, juicy tangerines, at just that moment, that made me decide to try and square up and clean up my act.

And every time thereafter, when my roomie got his Demerol and morphine, this nurse would pop up with her tangerines and good company. I never got a chance to reconsider.

The TOXIC FAMILY Escape Plan

It is important to remember that it is not uncommon to dislike members of your family. Not liking your family does not make you a bad person. In some cases, you can still maintain relationships with people even if you may not necessarily like them. 

Just Say No. Managing anger over the holidays requires you to say “No” from time to time. If you don’t feel like participating in a particular family event, then you need to assertively state your desire to skip the family event this year. Saying “yes” to things you don’t want to do will only trigger your anger more. 

What is a toxic family member?

Toxic family members can be hard to spot. But one tell-tale sign that you’ve got a toxic family member often lies in how you are made to feel after an interaction with them. Sometimes we don’t realize they are the cause of it until it is pointed out to us. Then, it can be difficult to unsee the toxicity. 

A toxic person will display one or more of these behaviours on a regular basis:

They stir the pot. This means they cause division between other family members and pit family members against each other. They might exaggerate something someone said about you or flat out lie. They might bring up topics about others they know will upset you. This includes gossip. 

They refuse to speak to you. You get the silent treatment, especially if there has been a disagreement. This is a form of emotional control and manipulation. 

They lie. Toxic family members will often deny their part in any disagreement or event which would put them in a bad light. They do not seem concerned in reconciliation or honesty, but only self-preservation and deflection. 

They manipulate. It seems to be that no matter what you say or do it always ends up that you are in the wrong. They tell half-truths and then turn the tables on you. They might call you overly sensitive or make you feel like you are the one that is the issue (gaslighting)

They are passive aggressive. Passive-aggressive toxic people are sometimes the most difficult to spot because they don’t get obviously angry but they quietly demean you and create conflict without a scene. A passive-aggressive family member will make back-handed comments meant to unsettle you. 

They are aggressive. An aggressive toxic family member will get angry, yell, swear and sometimes physically hit others, damage property or threaten to hurt others. These individuals are easy to spot, but sometimes behaviour is dismissed by others in the family. Beware, this is toxic. 

They ignore boundaries. No matter what boundaries you set, this individual will find a way to make themselves an exception or guilt you for having set them. Or, they will ignore them all together and carry on with behaviours they know that you are not okay with. People who ignore boundaries show a lack of respect and belittle you. 

Toxic Family

It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn.

“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”

Charles Bukowski

Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

 “We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski, Women

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. 

Charles Bukowski, Women

Boring damned people.

Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them. Charles Bukowski

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way. Charles Bukowski

 Charles Bukowski

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
Charles Bukowski

“I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!”
Charles Bukowski

Death will Tremble to take us

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Charles Bukowski

Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion

“Though I myself am an atheist, I openly profess religion in the sense just mentioned, that is, a nature religion. I hate the idealism that wrenches man out of nature; I am not ashamed of my dependency on nature; I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface, my skin, my body, but also my core, my innermost being, that the air I breathe in bright weather has a salutary effect not only on my lungs but also on my mind, that the light of the sun illumines not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart. And I do not, like a Christian, believe that such dependency is contrary to my true being or hope to be delivered from it. I know further that I am a finite moral being, that I shall one day cease to be. But I find this very natural and am therefore perfectly reconciled to the thought.”

Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion

failed to give him what he really and truly desires

Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.

 ― Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion

Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year

Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don’t forget indigestion. I wasn’t different from anyone else: there sat the 18 pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.

 Charles Bukowski