3:00 AM, wide awake, thinking and listening in the Fresno Rescue Mission dormitory:
Largely lost to public consciousness are the extraordinary range, intensity, and terrifyingly fecund creativity of schizophrenic, bipolar, and OCD rants. Everyone has heard street people muttering or shrieking or seen movie depictions of hyper-verbal mental suffering like Brad Pitt's character in Twelve Monkeys (Actually an accurate, well-researched by Pitt, well-worth-watching screen job). However, outside of transcripts and videos I'm sure are archived in mental hospitals and universities, not much stuff that comes out of the mouths of the seriously demented has been widely published or posted (Perhaps someone can set me straight about this).
Before presenting a sample rant (something that might become a semi-regular feature of this blog), I have to stress the danger and bogosity of romanticizing mental illness: patients are poets, conduits of the divine, chained visionaries, etc. This is nonsense. All mental illness is ugly, ghastly suffering, the byproduct of a kludgy stacked-up brain architecture, evolutionary misfiring, demonic neural gibbering. But hearing its effect on utterance is still gasp-inducing, and gasps sometimes turn to guffaws.
Scribbled down in restroom, 5-10 minutes after the event, overheard coming from a nearby bunk:
"Gentlemen of the Royal Society, distinguished colleagues,
"There are few things in life more horrifying than being eaten by a great white shark. I am able to testify to this fact because it has happened to me no fewer than eight times during the course of my 30 year career as a marine (marine meaning 'sea') biologist. I have been eaten--my muscles, bones, blood, fat, brain--all of me, I say ALL OF ME! ALL OF ME! ALL OF MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!. . . has been eaten by great white sharks. EIGHT TIMES! THAT'S A WORLD CLASS RECORD, MOTHER FUCKER! In my distinguished (pardon my lack of modesty) career at the Santa Ana Maria Beach Research Institute.
"Some facts, from my collected facts: Sharks can come in through windows. But do not ever forget that all shark movement is swimming.
"HA! Don't be telling me I am not British. I tell that motherfucker I am most certainly British. Do I not speak English? Do I not refer to the jelly packets as Milady's Marmalade? Do I not I say do I NOT! request buttered scones and tea instead of that jacked-up punk-ass-bitch piss-warm coffee and the fucking 3 day old pastries from the Safeway bakery? Be bouncing that shit off the wall like Steve McQueen's ball in The Great Escape. Fuck that shit.
"They be saying a great white can't be kept in captivity because of the magnetic fields messing up his navigation so he try to bash his way out and kill himself eventually. I can fix that with a big-ass electromagnet I rig up and position just right till he calm down then give him a Scooby Snack like a canned ham or a shitload of salami then he be making the right associations. Everybody friends.
"Harumph. I say Harumph! I must apologize to this august (not the month) company. Dr. Cornelius, my distinguished mentor, (not to be confused with Don Cornelius or Cornelius the intelligent ape . . . when I get that fucking white shark tame I'm going to call him Charlton) has warned me often about cleaning up my presentations. This is horrendous. I enjoy Masterpiece Theater, don't you gentlemen? Eaten by Lemon sharks. That's whole other matter.
Junior be trying to tell me other day he been eaten by Sea Sharks. I say to him now and forever more that ALL SHARKS ARE SEA SHARKS! THEY AIN'T NO SPECIAL SET. YOU GOT LOGIC PROBLEMS! YOU GOT CATEGORY PROBLEMS! WHEN YOU GET EATEN BY A BULL SHARK OR EVEN GET YOUR TOES NIBBLED BY A FUCKING MINNOW--GILLIGAN MY MAN--THEN WE SIT DOWN AND TALK BUT UNTIL THEN YOU CAN DRIVE YOUR NOSE RIGHT UP MY MUD FLAPPING BAD ROAD ASS LIKE JOHN-BOY WALTON DRIVING UP WALTON'S MOUNTAIN! MOTHERFUCKER!"
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