Salty Bottoms

A friend of mine once said to me that no artist worth their salt is anyone you'd want to know on a personal level. He's pretty much right.

I've been thinking about that along with contemplating the dual tragedy that the death of so much great talent is often a result of self over-medicating (of sorts) by their own hand, and the "artists" that seem only to go on and on living all the while polluting the world with evermore mediocrity.

I medicate for pretty severe ADHD. Having that affliction had been both blessing and curse, but it is one of the reasons I'm prone to some rather odd creativity and a love of music.

As my therapist once said, my not thinking like everyone else means I do my thinking mostly outside the box.

Sure that can make things thought, bit it's fine because I've seen normal and you can have it!

I don't imagine however if I had pursued a career in music that I would have the sort of health care that I do now, thus medication wouldn't be an option to me. Honestly without it, I'm such an easy person to be around I get really depressed, really quickly.

But in thinking about all of this, I also have to imagine that an inability to medicate might not have been the worst thing either from a creative stand point had I gone that direction. Of course who knows what my life would have looked like our how long I might have lived either.

All of this to say, I think one of the reasons we have so much creative talent in this country is that we've let health care become such an unaffordable luxury for the working poor that they can't afford to legally medicate. So they self medicate and as their afflictions continue to grow so does their creative process.

I knew a depressed singer/song writer that got insurance and went on Prozac. After being on it a while, I asked him how he liked it. He said he felt a lot better but went in to say that he hadn't been able to write a good song since he started on it either.

History shows that mental afflictions, and chemical imbalances are quite conducive to great art.

So please America, of you care about the business of art at all, continue to disregard the welfare of the artists by continuing to making health care out of reach for them.

Oh sure a lot of people might suffer and die, but consider at all this great art and how it's value increases once the artist finally does die.

It's always about the money....always.