The Legend of Jessie Cristos

The greatest unknown band on the planet. The Legend of Jessie Cristos was a country/goth rock band that played the soundtrack for the film of the same name, which was never intended to be made. Instead, the songs told the story of the Old West messianic vampire cowboy Jessie Cristos, his martyrdom in the hands of the Elders, his tragic romance of the lady Elizabeth, the pursuit of her father, The Judge, and last but not least, Jessie's Dirty Dozen. When the Dirty Dozen Make Merry, run. Anyway, the band occurred briefly in the late 90s, in Boston, and my participation was in graphics, flyers, playing with a fog machine and lights, and even a couple of times performing on-stage, to read from the Book of Jessie. I'd say "Rest in Peace" to Jessie Cristos, but I doubt he ever will. Ha!

Anyway, I've had these old drawings of mine scanned in for ages, and a brief conversation w/the aforementioned Shannon inspired me to upload them.

From The Legend of Jessie Cristos

Go listen to some LoJC tunes at: Original Snub (note: the versions there are fairly low bit-rate... easier to DL, but don't quite do justice to the recordings)

Aspartame in your brain

Please read about aspartame, also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and other artificial sweeteners. If you can find the documentary Sweet Misery (you may need to pirate it via torrent), it can be compelling.

Aspartame is used in almost every diet soda, and in every sugarless gum I've ever found. Google "aspartame" or "aspartame poisoning" and you'll find plenty of information that may well make you want to kill the people who make and use it, as well as the FDA that approved its use starting in the mid-80's. Splenda (sometimes marketed as Sucralose) also has its damaging effects, but sounds more like health food when compared to aspartame. Please: you are much better off imbibing sugary soda/coffee/tea/etc. than that sweetened/poisoned by aspartame. You can, however, find some diet sodas using Splenda: oddly, I've found that you can actually get Splenda-sweetened Diet Coke in that unending soda aisle in your local supermarket, whereas I've only ever seen the aspartame version in convenience stores. In seeking out other diet sodas, the Weight Watchers brand is aspartame-free. As ever, the golden rule is: read your labels.

NO BEETS?

These days, not so good. Other days, better.

Aside: This reminds me of the wisdom once spoken by (the ravishing) Claudia Christian on Babylon 5: "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. Boom!, sooner or later. BOOM!"

I'm officially off my meds, for the most part, a required difficulty as I switch onto a new med. I've gradually phased out my previous anti-depressant (Cymbalta), and once gone, I've dropped a couple of others cold turkey, as of this morning. The sudden loss of doxepin (AKA Silenor, AKA Aponal) was felt last night: Wiki defines the drug as a psychotropic agent with tricyclic antidepressant and anxiolytic properties, but is also helpful in dealing with insomnia. I slept one or two of my ideally 40 winks, although this did help me remember fragments of dream from those scattered moments. So hey, at least there was some entertainment. I'm also off the currently-trendy Adderall, my legal speed, which I came off of a few days early actually, since I ran out of pills and then lacked the oomph required to visit the pharmacy. My only remaining drugs are lamictal (treating bipolar effects in a less blunt way than lithium) and my testosterone gel (Androgel), which to be honest, often feels useless.

After coming down from Cymbalta for the last two weeks, I now get to spend two weeks dry of those three drugs, so as to remove the remnants of them, as they clash with my new drug of choice, tranylcypromine (brand name version is Parnate). This is an MAIO (monoamine oxidase inhibitor), which carries with it serious restrictions on diet. It's hard to imagine your regular omnivore taking this on, but as a vegan I've got a real head-start.

Anything that is aged or fermented is out. This, and other things, contain Tyramine, which is a no-no amino acid-based compound. Here's a partial list of the forbidden, some of which are extremely serious, and others are to be avoided, or in some cases, allowable in very small amounts:

Anchovies, Avocado, Banana peels, Bean Curd, Beetroot, Booze, Bouillon, Brazil Nuts, Bread w/high yeast, Broad Beans (Fava, Italian Green Beans, Lima, Lentil), Caffeine, Cheese, Chinese pea pods, Chips w/vinegar, Chocolate, Coconut, Coffee, Coke, Corn (sweet), Cucumbers, Eggplant, Figs (canned), Ginseng, Grapes, Meat, Miso, MSG, Mushrooms, Oranges, Peanuts, Pineapple (fresh), Plums, Protein Extracts, Prunes, Raisins, Raspberries, Red plums, Salad Dressing, Sauerkraut, Shrimp Paste, Soy Sauce, Spinach, Teriyaki sauce, Tofu, Tomato juice, Vegemite, Yeast, Yogurt

Aw man - fuck me in the eye! NO BEETS? Kids, for that reason alone, remember: don't do (legal) drugs.

Road Map to God

While I've the focus to write this (and the enthusiasm helps): please read my (I say possessively) Shannon's fantastic bit of thought here:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=33789163&blogID=439596233

Ages ago, in "the best years of my life" (an unhappy thing to say, when such years are no longer anywhere near the present, but, hey, and, meh!), I was lucky to have Shannon as a girlfriend... it was in San Francisco, 1993. I lost touch with her for too long, but in one of my more functional moments, recently, I sought her out in this virtual world, and am very happy for having done so. So, read what she has written that I done linked. All of my readers (0-3?) might become hers!