jD has his whole day turned around! Transcript: 0:22] Hey, it's JD here, back for another week of introspection and reflection on grief, depression, and the pathway to mental wellness, all the while nourishing my soul with the music andart of the late indie rock singer-songwriter David Berman. How the f**k are you, m***********s? That's the question of the day, isn't it? How are we? We take stock in the fall of how we are, And we put that through the rigors until we come up with a list of things we want to change about ourselves in the new year. And we use the calendar to achieve, you know, these goals. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, but be careful when you take stock. [1:17] The way you feel at the moment can influence or bias your outlook, and I know that the last few weeks I've been, you know, in a pretty low place. Last week, notwithstanding, I think last week, felt markedly different and better, and I think that, um, this week is another notch up. I really do. Now, today, the day I'm recording this, of course, I feel like a sack of shit, and I just want to crawl under my bed, but the days leading up to this, I've, I've felt reasonablyhuman. I managed to stay up past 7 p.m. Which is something that's been, you know, going on for the better part of two or three years now where I just crash. I crash at like 6.30, 7 o'clock, 7.30. [2:23] And then I get up at 6.30. So I'm sleeping, to quote Bell and Sebastian, I'm sleeping the clock around, you know. It's troublesome. So there's that. Aside from staying awake a little longer, I've just had a bit more pep in my step. I've went for a couple walks the last consecutive days. Now today it's very cold out. I probably should try and go for a walk, but it's afternoon now and I don't do a whole lot in the afternoon. The afternoon is tough for me. It's sort of morning or bust and it's feeling like a bust at this point. [3:11] So, I don't know, but I got to toughen up because this is just the start of winter. And f**k, does winter ever suck. Oh, it's so dark and it's cold and it's wet on your feet and it's just miserable. It's the realization of melancholy, you know? It's the physical manifestation, rather, of melancholy. It's just ugh. And it does nothing for my, you know, my natural I'm f*****g totally okay disposition. So, there's that. But I ask again, how are you? How are you? I hope you're all right. [4:21] I've got a couple real nice letters over the past couple of weeks. One of them, you know, came during a therapy session and it was so gratifying to think that not only are people out there listening to this, and participating in this, but that they would takethe effort and time to drop me a note. [4:52] It just means, it means so much. It's pretty f*****g cool. Pretty f*****g cool. [10:22] Don't step on it, m**********r. What a f*****g song. That should have been an indie rock hit. It's an anthem and it's just really spectacular and emblematic of what this record is all about. And the strength of this record is staggering. It's staggering. And so we get, send in the clouds. And I'm grinning. This has turned my day around. [11:18] I'm not like, I don't know. I don't even know. Suat-a-santra? What, does this phrase mean? As far as I can tell, researching, it's, and that's googling, really, and that's a cursoryGoogle, so if you want to do some more far-out research, please have at her. But as far as I can tell, it's gibberish, and Uh, it's not shocking. Um, but it comes from a phrase that isn't gibberish and it's soi de sainte, uh, and it's something like everyone. Something like that I don't know I'm pretty f*****g stoned so there's that I, love the atmospherics in between the chorus and the verses I think that that's really again something you canshake your head at and think goddamn this is not something that would have ever you know when you when you go back and listen to earlier works, Natural Britain. You just can'timagine. You can't imagine that sort of atmospheric-ness. [12:45] And then you get the extended out. And what's not to love about that? When Malc comes in and does the Swatasantra on his own, why can't robots, why can't monsters get along with other monsters? when he does that on his own it's f*****g just great. When him and David sing together it's glorious. It's truly, their voices work so well together. We got some classic Malcisms in there. There's the way he says, is it work? Let me look at the lyrics here for a second. [13:26] Game. I believe it's game. Whether I should be allowed in the game and he it's game in a really funny way. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, this is a good song. This is a great song. I'm gonna listen to it again while you're listening to a poem. Self-Portrait at 28 from the collection of poetry by David Berman, Actual Air. I know it's a bad title, But I'm giving it to myself as a gift, on a day nearly cancelled by sunlight, when the entire hill is approaching the ideal of Virginia, brochured with goldenrod andloblolly, and I think, at least I have not woken up with a bloody knife in my hand. By then, having absently wandered 100 yards from the house while still seated in this chair with my eyes closed. [14:25] It is a certain hill, the one I imagine when I hear the word hill, and if the apocalypse turns out to be a worldwide nervous breakdown, if our five billion minds collapse at once, wellI'd call that a surprise ending and this hill would still be beautiful, A place I wouldn't mind dying alone or with you. [14:48] I'm trying to get at something and I want to talk very plainly to you so that we are both comforted by the honesty. You see, there is a window by my desk I stare out when I'm stuck. Though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write and I don't know why I keep staring at it. My childhood hasn't made good materials either, mostly being a mulch of white minutes, with a few standout moments, popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer, a certainamount of pride at school, every time they called it Our Son, and playing football when the only play was Go Out Long are what stands out now. If I squeeze for more information, I can remember old clock radios with flipping metal numbers and an entree called surf and turf. As a way of getting in touch with my origins, every night I set the alarm clock for the time I was born so that waking up becomes a historical reenactment. And the first thing I do is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it, like when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn the pattern quickly, so you don't inadvertentlyresist it. [16:09] That is part one of Self-Portrait at 28 by David Cloud Berman. There are a couple parts to this poem, so we'll go through this week over week and see how we end up, but that's what we're going to do. So there's that. So this is the first week that I recorded the poem separately. [16:37] I didn't go in chronological order of the actual podcast that you listen to, so just to explain how I was able to listen to that song while you were hearing the poem, now you know. Now you know, because I was just doing some editing. I was just dropping it in there, you know, as they say. [16:59] So something else came up. Well, first of all, let's just talk about this poem briefly because it's one of six parts. So I'll do what I did for the other poem and I'll stitch it all together at the end and you can get the whole thing for, you know, for a fact. I think it's a tremendous work. It's, you know, pretty deeply introspective. And at least I think, like if he's being straight up with us and not being, you know, a poet trying to write a poem. [17:51] That is somewhat elusive, then I think it's pretty straightforward. But that's art. Art is f****d that way, right? It can be straightforward, and then all of a sudden the artist can tell you no. And should an artist tell you no? I don't know. I think once the art is released to the world, it's everybody's personally. So there's that. There's some great turns of phrase in there. [18:22] Yeah, I can't wait for you to hear the whole thing. it's it's really really quite solid and that's about what I have for you so stay cool stay hungry stay foolish sorry I'm late today andwash your goddamn hands. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thebermanproject/donations
