Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes
LA’s #1 avant-garde personal development program. I'm Emerson Dameron. I love you, personally. Levity saves lives.
The home of Ask a Sadist, Bite-Sized Erotic Thrillers, and the First Church of the Satanic Buddha. Levity saves lives.
Regularly scheduled episodes premiere on the first Wednesday of the month on KCHUNG Los Angeles.
Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes
Fear of Death Is the Beginning of All Foolishness
The wisdom of mistrust. The necessity of inviting dislike. A bite-sized erotic thriller. Revealing conversations. Rhetoric without content. All this and more in May's episode of Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes, LA's #1 avant-garde personal development program, with your witty and wounded romantic hero, Emerson Penn Dameron, III, who loves you more than you're capable of understanding.
Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes is a production of KCHUNG.
Music by Whalez, Visions of the Universe, and OHMU.
Written, performed, produced, and created by Emerson Dameron, who is solely responsible for its content. Take me to court.
Levity saves lives.
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It's OUT! Sophistication Nation: Brief Interviews with Women I Pretend to Understand: https://emersondameron.hearnow.com/sophistication-nation
Thank you. K-chung, los Angeles, chinatown, 1630 AM. K-chung Radio dot O-R-G. This is Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes Medicated dash minutes dot com. I am Emerson Dameron, the producer, director, writer, host and talent. The band behind the dream here at Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes Levity saves lives.
Speaker 1:I love you personally, but I don't trust you, and you might be thinking if he doesn't trust me, what does he have to gain by telling me that, like, wouldn't it make more sense to just not say anything? It makes sense when you get on my level. In order for I love you to carry any weight, there has to be an I in there, and in most cases there just isn't. We can't trust you if we don't know who the hell you are and if your priorities include, near the top, getting people to like you, either by tricking them into it or by adjusting yourself, presenting yourself, trying to even be a certain way Like, you might think, oh, I don't want to fake it, I'll just become the person that everybody else wants. Yeah, I don't know anything about you. You got to take some time and not trust anybody for a while and clean house, just recalibrate, do a much needed correction and figure out what you really want and the most interesting way to do that that I've found is to think about strictly what you secretly want. What are you ashamed of wanting? What do you not want me to know that you want? Make a list of those things. People don't respect you. If you want them to like you too much, it's an invitation to treat you like garbage. It is almost a better idea to treat people poorly, because at least some of them seem to really enjoy that. Nobody likes being treated better than they know they deserve to be treated. So if you want to be treated well, dare to be disliked. That is the first and can be the most challenging, but is for sure the most essential step to step into the bold kind of leadership that you were born for.
Speaker 1:Real love is about making the right enemies. You can find clues to what you want in lots of ways. You can pay attention to what provokes your envy, and just consider that window shopping. Are you envious of this thing because you think you're supposed to have it? Or you want to feel the way that you think you're supposed to have it? Or you want to feel the way that you think you feel if you had it, at which point you've overcomplicated things so much that it's almost not even worth talking about anymore. Do you really want it? Is there a realistic path to getting it for yourself? Are you willing to accept the opportunity costs of doing so? Will you put other concerns aside for long enough to make that happen? Does it mean that much to you? If so, get it for yourself. If not, forget it and move on.
Speaker 1:I can understand now better than in the past why people like to suffer so much. People are good at telling stories and suffering. I think telling stories is great. I think ideally you should make some money off of it. Like if you can spin off your story and use it as IP, that's good. It's not so good when you're telling yourself a story about yourself.
Speaker 1:That keeps you constrained, that builds an iron framework, curtails your freedom, that does not in fact keep you safe, and I guess I understand the obsession with safety a little bit. The negativity bias goes way back. It wasn't that long ago when life was a lot more dangerous and it made more sense vis-a-vis passing on one's genes and our genes desperately want to be passed on and will humiliate us in all sorts of brilliant ways in furtherance of that objective. It made more sense from that angle to focus on threats than on opportunities, on threats than on opportunities. You need a little bit of both. But if you had a reasonable fear of tigers, you might outlast somebody that had an unreasonable fixation on rainbows, for instance. I think that's very different now. Tigers are not the threat that they used to be. They're kind of ridiculous now when you look at them up close. But I understand the suffering thing and here's what I think it's about. It's a good way to make your life seem longer, because the time flies by when you're enjoying it and it drags out when you're suffering through it and running out the clock. So maybe if you want more time, time, if you're just afraid to die and you don't want things to move too quickly and you know intuitively that having too much fun caused that to happen, that, yeah, I guess it makes sense to make things hard on yourself.
Speaker 1:Fear of death is the beginning of all foolishness. Death is absolute. Life is optional. Sometimes grudges, beefs with other folks can result from the stories that you're telling yourself about yourself. If you enjoy feeling aggrieved, just enjoy that.
Speaker 1:You don't have to get revenge. You don't have to forgive. Don't forget. You can make the pretense of forgiving if you do in fact want revenge on a long timeline. You don't want to put your enemy on notice that revenge is forthcoming, or maybe in the cards that you want to at least fake forgive convincingly. But you're much better off cultivating yourself. There's always more work to be done. The more you do it, the faster the time will seem to go. Avoid obsessions. Let your anxiety show you where you're stuck. Let your obsessive energy go to work getting you unstuck. Put it to work for you, not the other way around. And remember that you always have not absolute choice, but more choice than you think you do, because you only have the choices that you know that you have, and that's always going to be a small fraction of the choices that you do have. So learn to reflect in such a way that you become aware of the previously unknown unknowns, the choices that you did not know before, that you had.
Speaker 1:They're back in the old awful times of really gnarly animal experiments. There were some evil scientists that had a collection of rats and they put the rats in an enclosure with a floor that was wired up to shock them, and they indeed shocked the rats at random intervals and some of the rats, before they got too shocked to have their full faculties about them, noticed that there was a little ledge around the side of the enclosure. They could get up on the ledge. They would not get shocked, they could just watch what was happening. So some of them got up there before they got shocked too much to even be that observant, and some of them got up there before they got shocked too much to even be that observant. And some of them got so shocked that they just thought this is the way it is. There was a pattern to the shocks for a while and the rats got accustomed to the pattern and then the pattern changed a little bit and then the rats altered their behavior somewhat to comply with the new pattern and then it just became utter chaos.
Speaker 1:And that's what the business in Hollywood is like. You always have more choices than you realize, and sometimes you choose to do things that aren't so compassionate. That might hurt someone other than yourself, or you might hurt yourself badly and thus hurt other people by proxy. And that is because you are infinitely good and infinitely evil, and so far beyond good and evil that it's just so damn sexy that it's hard to tolerate sometimes, and just know that you can accept your own wrongness, sickness, twistedness.
Speaker 1:And if you're afraid that you can't get what you want without undergoing a lot of unnecessary suffering and tedium, I've got good news you can get what you want. There are different ways to do it. I would take a fun one, maybe. Have a little bit of fun, spread a little bit of mischief and then get what you want. And then, if you want suffering and tedium, you can have that also. The ease of getting what you want will not preclude any suffering that you desire. Will not preclude any suffering that you desire, but as much as you can, keep your nose clean, eat right, exercise, maintain your integrity, avoid clutter in your space or in your head space, set your goals and go after them.
Speaker 1:Cut your losses and learn to learn your lesson, without beating up on yourself unless we're talking about masturbation, in which case go for it. Take care of your body, your feelings, your mind, your surroundings, the people close to you, and treat yourself as you would someone in your care, because, a you don't need anyone's permission to become who you are and, b there's no one that can get you there and no one that's guaranteed to have your back. And if you don't go for what you want, then you don't become selfish enough to have definition and integrity and to be someone who can say I love you and it means something. Probably nobody's going to care. People have their own stuff going on. So be a little bit more selfish.
Speaker 1:If you could stand that, think of the qualities that you admire in others and realize that you can only perceive them because they exist within you, either latently or potentially or just in the wonderland of your imagination, and that the same is true of the things that you hate or envy. You perceive what you are. You are arguing with and making love to versions of yourself, and that might sound lonely, but once you realize that, then you can say I love you and it's gonna mean something. But probably the best thing you can do for starters is to just forget all of that and not trust me in much the same way that I do not trust you. This is emerson dameron's medicated minutes on k chung levity saves lives. That's on K-Chung Levity Saves Lives.
Speaker 2:Does it still hurt? Are you still sad? Let me check, check. You shouldn't be sad anymore. Bad news still hurts, still sad? You need to live your life. What else would I be doing? Take responsibility for your feelings, face reality. I'm told that grief takes time. It shouldn't take this long.
Speaker 1:Perhaps I'm misreading, but that would seem to imply that it gets better automatically, what On a long enough timeline.
Speaker 2:If you're willing to wait. Sometimes I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think it does necessarily. You create your own life. Life is big pain and little pleasures. Sometimes you just say words.
Speaker 1:I also feel feelings.
Speaker 2:That much, I believe. Right now it feels like one big feeling. It hasn't gone away yet. It hasn't. It has to eventually. Perhaps I'll get used to it. It's up to you, alan, it will be the aquarium water I swim in. You need to work on yourself. I'll forget it was any other way, like really work on yourself, all that I ever thought it would be or could be. Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with you. Appreciate your concern. How about now? What of it? Any difference? No, no, thank you.
Speaker 1:What you need to know about me is that I don't care what you think. That wasn't always the case. I used to care what everyone thought, and it was exhausting. Sometimes it was all I could think about. But then I thought about it and I had an epiphany when I realized that people are basically pathetic animals and they'll respect the hell out of me as soon as they know that I don't care what they think. So now I don't care what you think, and you need to know that, and I need to know that. You know that, otherwise I can't trust you.
Speaker 1:You see, I keep my power in relationships by always being less invested. I keep my power in relationships by always being less invested. It keeps the mystery alive for you and keeps you seeking my approval, which is cool with me, because I don't care what you think. You might even forget your own thoughts and start thinking about mine instead. That's deeply pathetic and I will lose respect for you. But I don't care, because that would count as me caring what you think, which I don't. I have fun and do what I want, and sometimes that includes messing with your head If you get offended. I kind of dig it because it reminds me that you know that I don't care what you think. If I get bored, I can always walk away. It's easy because almost anyone finds me irresistible when they figure out I don't care what they think. Trust me, I don't have to ask them. I have bulletproof self-confidence and I don't want you around if you're weak or insecure. That tells me that you think I might care what you think. And to reiterate, I don't care what you think. I don't think you understand me and I hate being misunderstood. I don't care what you think and it's important to me that you know that.
Speaker 1:I knew this was a bad idea. I knew you would think I cared what you think. I don't care what you think and you need to get that through your skull. I make the rules, you play by my rules and like them or go home. Otherwise I go home. I never apologize because I'm not sorry, because I don't care what you think. So get over yourself.
Speaker 1:Oh, one more thing I also don't care about your feelings. I don't know much, but I'm certain of one thing, and that's that I don't trust you. I had the courage to trust you before I had the wisdom not to, and by then it was too late. I was hooked on our sick, sexy little liaison. You're sizzling hot and almost guaranteed to burn me, but I wouldn't put money on it, because I don't trust you. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and feel flames ricking the insides of my ear canals and I wonder if you're talking smack about me behind my back or if you fell asleep smoking and set my building on fire. I don't know. Because I don't trust you, you add insult to injury like I stir honey into my butterscotch coffee. But then you do that one nasty thing I love just to keep me off balance. You get me hard enough to punch holes in your drywall, and then you kill my confidence and lacerate my tender heart. And then you want to be friends, and then you want to be dominated, and I do it because you're my sexy cryptogram and my cute little conundrum. But I don't even trust you to lie consistently. I deserve better. But I don't trust my instincts and experience anymore, and if someone seems wholesome, it's a good bet she's lying about everything. I may never trust anyone again, but I'll never not trust anyone as much as I don't trust you. You're on notice until further notice, because I do not trust you as far as I can throw you, but if you want me to, I will come through and throw you around the room because I keep it real and reliable like that.
Speaker 1:My life didn't really start to get interesting until after I lost everything. I was working as a doorman in downtown Los Angeles. I used to be a successful ad man with accounts and pharmaceuticals. Now this was the only job I could keep. After my divorce, rebound and complete nervous breakdown. My mind and my heart wanted solitude and healing. This seemed like a fairly low intensity gig. There was the possibility of something dramatic happening, but it was a faint one and the work, such as it was, was routine. It was mostly being friendly enough to the people that they could ignore you without feeling bad about it. This felt like what I needed. This was the sort of thing that my therapist had recommended. But I also felt in my heart a deep howling and burning in my soul which cried out for risks, risky relationships and revenge. The voice told me don't go numb just yet. The really interesting pain is almost here, and that was a few days before the first time I encountered Sophie.
Speaker 1:Sophie went by the name Sophie Antisocial, and that's not the sort of thing I would humor in most cases, but I certainly would in her case. Sophie was a model who worked with an artist who lived in the building. I knew intuitively that they were secret lovers. She would come through the lobby splattered with paint. She had a cutting coldness that I found not just compelling but captivating. I would look forward to my encounters with Sophie, and when we talked we hit it off immediately. I would take guesses about what was going on in her life essentially cold reads.
Speaker 1:It turned out that she is not from Connecticut but rather from Delaware. I guessed that she had a sadness to her that most people were not aware of, and she corrected me and claimed that she has no emotions to speak of. That she did once and that's how she knows that she no longer does, and I guessed that that could be liberating but also constraining. She said that was the first thing I was right about and asked me if I wanted to get a cup of coffee sometime. Under normal circumstances I may have found such a bold invitation from such an attractive person to be intimidating, but either because of everything that I'd seen and experienced in the preceding four years or because of the shared energetic dynamic that I had with Sophie and, at risk of flattering myself, I might call it chemistry the shared coldness that chilled me out. I was able to think for a moment and then offer her one of the two cups of coffee that I had on my desk. I like it room temperature. I always get two, sometimes three cups of coffee, but I was happy to sacrifice one when the advantages were so significant. She seemed to admire my smoothness, which indicated that perhaps she had some residual emotions left over. After all, I had assumed as much. If she was in fact free of such a large part of the human experience, what would be the benefit of sharing that information? We generally share intimate details about ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable in hopes of connection.
Speaker 1:I learned quite a bit more about her. It seemed as though she had an almost self-destructive, self-immolating candor about her. She told me that she was not only a model but also an artist in her own right, and that things had changed for her also four years prior, when her sister had been brutally killed. And then she started to talk about me. She said that she could see the woundedness, the sadness in my eyes the first time we made eye contact and that she wanted more of it. She saw the hurt in me and believed that I could translate it, if necessary, into evil, and she wanted that evil. So I gave her a little bit of it that night and she wanted more of it after our vigorous makeout session in the stairwell. But she had somewhere to go, as though there was some conflict, that she was crying again, indicating either emotion or an attempt to display a simulacrum of an emotion.
Speaker 1:Either way, quite curious, a few hours later she emerged from the elevator, once again splattered in paint, but some of the paint did not look like paint. In fact I recognized it as blood, which I recognized well for my immersion in the healthcare profession that I undertook as part of my job as an ad man focused on pharmaceuticals and healthcare. I like to know of what I write, it comes through in my work, and I know blood when I see it. I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee and she said that this time she was in a hurry. But using my powers of persuasion, I convinced her to stay for a few minutes and during that time I prompted a full confession.
Speaker 1:She admitted that she still experienced emotions, but they did not seem to be her own. They felt out of control, as if imposed, and I could tell before that her grief had made her deadly and dangerous. But my most morbid expectations did nothing to prepare me, neither did my most twisted fantasies. She had violently murdered her artist companion. This was not the first time she'd done such a thing. Grief was her catalyst. Murder was her art form, avenue of expression. Sophie's pain had made her evil enough to rule the world, but she was lacking in all impulse control, thus precluding the possibility of assuming a position of authority. I found myself intrigued and she asked me if I hated her now, and I could honestly say that I held her in higher esteem.
Speaker 1:When one's heart is broken, losing one's mind is the least of one's problems and perhaps the wise course of action. When time doesn't heal, you try murder. It's better to have loved and lost when you killed them yourself. We immediately began a passionate sexual relationship. Everyone needs a place to break down safely, to lose control in a controlled environment. I found this to be especially true of the one murderer that I knew. That I knew I drew on a reservoir of strength that had helped me survive my long and ongoing state of grief. I couldn't always hang tough for myself, but if this beautiful creature needed a place to fall apart, I could summon equanimity, calm, presence and strength. It's a big responsibility to possess the mind, soul and body of another. It is an honor to be allowed to do so.
Speaker 1:I held Sophie very tightly as she shook and cried, and I made love to her as if I were trying to kill her myself. She responded very positively to this. I knew, of course, that this had made me an accomplice, and indeed, with time, I became more and more intimately involved, not just with Sophie, but with the murders that she committed impulsively, often without forethought. She'd been on a lucky streak for a long time, seemed as though she could do almost anything she wanted and never get in trouble, never get caught, and she behaved as though she were bulletproof, as though she believed that she would live forever. My project management skills and penchant for persuasion came in quite handy under these circumstances until, inevitably, she ran afoul of one of the half-dozen mafias competing for control of our building. Strange omens began to appear. I felt as though we were being watched, and I was starting to like it. I wondered if our passion had created an invincible force field around us, that protected us from being caught, that protected us from guilt or losing our our minds or regaining our minds in a way that would not be beneficial, that would not allow us to continue on our adventure, and I assumed that it was the force of our passion that caused the building to shake as we made love in an empty apartment on an upper floor. It was not. It was the big one.
Speaker 1:The earthquake that the citizens of Los Angeles have feared for quite some time came to pass, and it turned out to be exactly the reset that I needed. I remember crawling through the rubble. I remember walking as far as Chinatown. I remember falling down and passing out. I vaguely remember a helicopter ride. I remember using the fake ID and credentials that I carried on my person to assume a new life. Much of what happened afterward feels like a story that was told to me by someone else. I was becoming someone else. I knew it would take time.
Speaker 1:I understood now why I felt so stuck in my grief, so resistant to even the notion of moving on, because moving on meant leaving everything behind. It was this knowledge that compelled such risk-taking behavior, that led me through the corridors of insanity, and now that I had the opportunity to take on a new life for real. I found that it was a different person who was assuming this new life, and I felt no inkling of the past until I found myself in a support group for those with violent depression. Somewhere in a suburban conference room, I was explaining the small cuts on my arm. I was not actively suicidal, however. I had been cutting myself with a serrated kitchen knife in hopes of feeling something. A glamorous and decadent looking woman named Anastasia in the group suggested that, as an alternative, I burn myself with cigarettes, and she offered to show me how to do it. When the group concluded its activities and prepared to disperse those of us who had become to fancy each other, friendly acquaintances said our goodbyes. Anastasia asked me out for coffee.
Speaker 1:I know you want to be me. Blow me or blow me away, and you should have done it before, because now I'm the future. I love myself. You would too if you were me. Actually, that's not the right word.
Speaker 1:Love is a scam for simple minds, and I know who all the suckers are. You could say I have a type I'll make your head explode in bed, and I've also got better things to do. So I enjoy walking away from love. That's why I have so many followers. People sacrifice their dignity to be with me. It's pathetic and repulsive, and I don't let them get away with it. If I like you, I'll help you get what you want and then stay up late to watch it destroy you. If you get on my nerves, I'll give it to your friend instead.
Speaker 1:Like all five-star lovers, I get a lot of hate, but it's never for good reasons. I do what's right for me, I have fun and it's educational for the people who get hurt. If you're strong, I'll find your weakness. If you're weak, I'll give you the sweet gift of giving up on yourself. You're a character in a story I made up, so get ready to laugh.
Speaker 1:Because this, no, all I gotta say to you is no, I said it before. I'll say it. You is no, I said it before. I'll say it as many times as I need to.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. I'm not gonna tell you that. I'm not gonna tell you that if you try to get it out of me that way, because it's a secret, because it's classified, because you don't need to know it, because you're worse at keeping a secret than I am. Most people are, but you, in particular, are terrible at keeping secrets, and if I tell you, it's like broadcasting it on the public address system for the entire world. No, forget about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like the attitude shift. Okay, slow down. Ask, very, very nicely. The answer is still no. I like you more now, but no, it's not going to happen. Forget about it. No, you don't need to know this. This is above your pay grade. It's over your head. Your life's going to get worse if you have this information. Even so, I'm not going to tell you One more time. The answer is no. Now you really want to know, don't you? It's going to torture you if I don't tell you. Did you think I was going to tell you eventually? Do you think I'm playing with you? Do you think I play games? Do you think that'm playing with you? Do you think I play games? Do you think that's what this is? Okay, slow down One more time. Nicer than before. Like as nice as you could possibly be nice than before, like as nice as you could possibly be nice, and put my name at the end. The whole thing from the beginning. The time has come.
Speaker 1:Okay, where to begin? It started in Vermont. It started way out in the woods In a house that you needed a truck to get to, because getting there involved driving through a creek and unless you had four-wheel drive, unless you were pretty far off the ground, it was going to be bad news. You probably weren't going to make it and that was by design, because they didn't want people up in their business. Originally it was just fireworks, and then they branched out into some Dr Feelgood type of business operations With powders and pills and the good good stuff that you could get there. They pack that inside the fireworks. So if you brought back the spent fireworks and then gave them a little bit more money, they would give you back the fireworks, but there might be some party favors in there. So that's how it started and it went on like that for many years.
Speaker 1:9-11 didn't really affect the demand for that kind of stuff. During the recession they started to get robbed on a pretty regular basis. At that point there was a whole lot of cash on the premises and I should not have told you that. I didn't say whether or not that's still the case. At the time there was a lot of cash, a lot of contraband, a lot of stuff that people wanted to get their hands on and they were getting robbed as a result of that, and so they got serious security.
Speaker 1:At first it was cameras and they got some shotguns and then dogs. And then they kind of went a little bit nuts with it and they dug a moat around the house, around the compound, as they were then calling it, and got some live alligators. They drove a truck to Florida. They drove a truck to Florida and did so much crank that they had the confidence to kidnap some alligators, and I don't know how they did it and why they didn't get it on video. I don't know why they didn't get footage of this. It would be educational and possibly entertaining, and I've always been curious. They got the alligators from Florida to Vermont. I guess it was an all-night drive and I don't know if the alligators were thrashing around in the back of the truck, how nobody noticed. I mean, I guess they had a cab on the truck, but even still, it must have been a long drive.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get to the point. I shouldn't even be telling you this. You twisted my arm. I want to give you the necessary background to understand this information. You don't understand that because you're not a big picture person, you don't understand the crucial importance of putting this kind of information in context. I'm starting to regret the decision to tell you in the first place. Yeah, you've been, you've gotten on my last nerve more times than you know in the last few years and it's happening again.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't think that you're capable of a sincere and meaningful apology. But let's hear your audition Now. That was self-destructing BS. Try again from the top. Yeah, now you're just insulting me and wasting my time. I'll give you one more shot. Okay, that had some music to it. I liked the way it kind of softened up at the end, like there was a little like almost your southern accent kind of came. Try that with the whole thing from the top. Okay, that might be the first authentic apology that I've ever heard from you. Congratulations, seemingly authentic, oscar-worthy, if not sincere or Emmy-worthy. You're more of a television kind of talent. Okay, I gotta be somewhere.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I have time to give you all the important information on this. Yeah, honestly, I feel the same way about you. I always have as much as we keep hurting each other. I keep coming back and there's no substitute. No one else can help me. Yeah, I've never felt this kind of profound connection with another hearing being. It's creepy, it's eerie. It makes me question all of my rational beliefs. Like there's magic to it. It has its own color and sound and texture. I never really stopped thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, david Drake is the guy who killed all those people. He kidnapped the alligators, he was in charge of the drug operation and he also murdered at least half a dozen people, confirmed by not confirmed by his comeuppance from law enforcement. Yeah, the FBI's been circling him for years. You know they don't come in for the kill until they know they've got new dead tokens. But yeah, david Drake was the guy who did it. Yeah, don't hang out with those people, particularly not him. That's their bad news. Yeah, don't hang out with those people, and particularly not men. That's they're bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah they're very pleasant in person when you first meet them, if they're not on math, but that's less often than it probably should be. Yeah, I think David's second cousin tried to get clean in my, I think was clean for a year and then started using again. Yeah, it's just a bad environment. Like you're not. You're not gonna get clean hanging around with those people. Yeah, it's like weird hillbillies with a multi-million dollar drug operation, more money than God and no grasp of reality whatsoever. Their delusions can be not more than that. Just don't get in anywhere near that. Yeah, I didn't want to be the first to say it. I didn't want to be the first to say it. Yeah, I mean there's I've tried to find thesaurus words that aren't that one. But yeah, I love you too. Thanks for your recent inquiry.
Speaker 1:I'm honored when anyone reaches out to me and isn't selling something. I'm not a social person. All kidding aside, I really do not like most people, and right now I don't like hanging out with a lot of the people I do like. It's hard to do perfunctory chit-chat while also grinding my teeth an expensive and time-consuming hobby I picked up recently. I'm flattered that you want to be my friend. I'm sure you're a great person on balance.
Speaker 1:Like you, I live in Los Angeles. I know how lonely it gets and how it feels to have people I genuinely adore, whose friendship tenders an abundance of riches in the currency of thoughtfulness and respect, whose company I actually prefer to my own, who I see maybe twice a year since I moved to the other side of the 405. It's not that I don't like you. Like I said, that's neither here nor there. It's that I don't trust you, which you shouldn't take personally. It's going to be a high bar for a while. A regrettable but necessary correction. At the moment, I'm not considering new candidates, but if you want to be patient, I'm expecting some vacancies soon. Thanks again and good luck on your search.
Speaker 2:There you are, seems that way. Yes, I'm hurting again, alan, like before. Or is it different? Like before, but bigger, and it hurts more because it's now.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry you're hurting Robin.
Speaker 2:I'm really scared that must not make it easier. I mean, I don't really care.
Speaker 1:I trust in your unique ability to have it both ways, Robin.
Speaker 2:Maybe I don't care anymore, perhaps, maybe I just want to talk to you.
Speaker 1:What's on your mind?
Speaker 2:Wouldn't that be weird? Not really. I'm really scared now. Where are your friends? They'll be back soon.
Speaker 1:I see I'm your stockout friend.
Speaker 2:You're the scab, my grief feels closer to yours than anyone else's, so it's all about you, not when you're about Robin. I don't know what the rest of my life is going to be like after this.
Speaker 1:It's an age of discontinuity. They say the waiting is the hardest part. For me it's the uncertainty.
Speaker 2:I need to have a plan. I need a controlled environment.
Speaker 1:I've seen what you become otherwise.
Speaker 2:It shouldn't feel like this. I've worked hard to make a great life for myself.
Speaker 1:I'd never say you're not not smart, Robin, or that you don't not work hard?
Speaker 2:I've succeeded. Everyone who knows you adores you except for the ones who don't. So why does it feel like this? Now? Is that rhetorical? Should we sleep together again. Yes, soon enough. What's wrong with right now? I need to not be in love with you first. Does it get any better? Not really. It changes. Everything always changes. Smile on little Buddha. How does it change?
Speaker 1:for you. You start to notice the nuances, the changes of season, I'm bored.
Speaker 2:Then you're right on schedule. My friend, sometimes you just say words, not so much as I once did. You don't know what you're doing. I suspect I never knew much of anything. How are you doing with that, alan? It might be my thing. Does it ever stop hurting?
Speaker 1:Not with that attitude, sometimes not at all.
Speaker 2:I'm better than this. I deserve better than this.
Speaker 1:I'm better than you. That's never stopped anything from hurting.
Speaker 2:You're one of two people who might be smarter than me, for all the good it does, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:For.
Speaker 2:What do you want me to be sorry for? This feels like a setup. I take it back. I'm not sorry for anything now. Does it still hurt?
Speaker 1:Yes, Like before.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. I have no meaningful point of comparison. I'm here if you need to talk. What if I don't?
Speaker 1:I prefer to sit quietly, hey, hey, hey, right here. So what's the deal with this place? What's the party about? Oh, normally there's nobody here. Like I walk past and it'll be Friday night and there's nobody inside, and it makes me wonder how they stay in business. I just always assumed it was the front for some kind of criminal organization like that. You, uh, you walk past and there's never anybody in there. And then one day you get curious and you go in and you order a drink a ginger ale in my case and they say they don't have it. So you order something else and they don't have it. So you order something else and they don't have that either. And you get this death stare they don't have anything you're going to ask for because this place is not for you and you need to leave. That's what I assumed, but it's jam-packed tonight. Is it some kind of occasion? You looked like you would know. Maybe this is just what happens everywhere you go. You just bring the party. That's what this is.
Speaker 1:Had any good dreams lately? No, I'm not being facetious. That happens to be an area of particular fascination for me. Yeah, I've gone through long periods of my life where I had no dream recall and you know, I always kind of wondered, like it feels like something's missing, like I could be living a fuller existence and get to know myself better and get excited about my life. And it turned out that what I needed was writing down and interpreting my dreams. I tried meditation. That was pretty good, got burned out on it. Tried different kinds of meditation Energized chanting, meditations and yoga. That was all right, but what really broke me through was paying attention to my dreams. So, yes, I want to hear about your dreams, and the fact that your eyes lit up when I brought up the topic told me yeah, I was right about this person. I'm glad I initiated this conversation.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, if that was my dream, I would think the fox was probably there to teach me some new tricks. I would think about areas of my life where I could be embracing mischief a little bit harder, maybe be a little bit more fun-loving and prankish. That's how I would interpret that. It seems like the fox is on my side. If this were my dream, which I'm specifically saying it that way because I don't know what it means for you, but what it would mean for me is that I have an ally in mischief, which is what I've been looking for. I did learn a thing or two about mischief from a lover of mine, one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Being a bit of an animal is crucial if you want to do the kind of mischief that you want to do Specifically think of the fox or the alley cat. Be connected with your surroundings, be a little bit rough around the edges, but also be able to turn on the charm, because you figure out how to charm your way in there, because it can be done. The rewards are remarkable. In many cases, it helps if you have the right person there, because the pleasure of an experience is really good company and your experience of mischief is who you do it with. There's a lot of solo mischief you can get into, but I like to collaborate. I think all of my best work has been in collaboration. That's another thing that I want more of. My best work has been in collaboration. That's another thing that I want more of in my life, because it helps you keep the vibe up and that is essential for doing mischief productively, because you're not only a mischief maker, you're an ambassador of mischief, so you want to be having a good time and you want to radiate that, so that everyone around you has a good time and you give mischief a good name and people want to get involved. That's not the whole point, but that's part of it. So what kind of mischief have you gotten into? What's some? I know that you've gotten into some mischief that most people who think that they know you don't know about. Yeah, I had a feeling. So now you gotta tell me you can't just leave me hanging. That's pretty good, I like. That took some moxie, little bit of determination. Oh nice, you got some nerve. See, I knew you were an interesting character. I can usually find the people that have that yin for adventure, but the sleepers, those are the people I like. It's an interesting time because it seems like you know, I never got sleeves of tattoos or nose rings or anything like that.
Speaker 1:I always figured it was a good idea to appear somewhat conservative, or at least you know middle of the road, and you could get away with more mischief that way. And you could get away with more mischief that way. If you were very responsible and down to earth in your life, you could be deranged in your work and wildly creative in your art, including mischief, if that is your art form, but the assumption now seems to be more like I think people have loosened up and undone enough of their shirt buttons that it used to be. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can assume that it is a duck. But I've noticed with younger folks there's the assumption that if it is a duck but I've noticed with younger folks there's the assumption that if it's a duck, it will look and quack like a duck and if you don't have the sleeves of tattoos, you're not really hardcore. I'm okay with that because I like to work in the shadows, even still In the days when everybody's putting everything on Instagram and TikTok and putting it all out there and trying to be interesting. I think me hanging back and being a little bit of a question mark, having some craziness that most people don't know about, is a huge advantage. It's a good angle to work if you've got that.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been to the Neon Museum? It used to be in downtown LA, now it's in Glendale. I don't know. I only know a couple of people that love neon as much as I do, but I can see you're staring at that beer light Like is that vintage? And I think it might be, I'm not sure, but it just looks like it's seen. Some things is what I'm picking up from. I noticed that you get very intrigued and locked into things that you're interested in. My guess is that that comes out in your creative practice. You have some sort of artistic practice that all of that information goes into a vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a feeling, oh yeah, a vision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a feeling. Oh yeah, yeah, now it's just. Uh, I think smoothies it's what most of LA's economy is based on now. Dog funerals, birthday parties for dogs yeah, they make all the movies in other places. It's kind of sad. Everything's still pretty expensive and now it's just in your face all day, every day.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the loneliness that some people experience. I mean it's a real phenomenon and it's painful and I feel it too. You know it gets harder to make friends as you get older. I mean it's more and more worth it because you've got more to offer more wisdom, more experience. But it can be logistically challenging, but I think sometimes it's just the wildly unrealistic expectations that develop when you're seeing these insane lifestyles all day, every day. And it's interesting because some people need mischief in their lives.
Speaker 1:Not everybody agrees with me about that. Some people say don't bother people with your performance art, and it's not my intention, but some of it is provocative. And it's not my intention, but some of it is provocative, and I would be lying if I said I didn't have a little bit of a mean streak, and sometimes the darker stuff that I do is catharsis, but there's also sometimes an element of like. I want you to know how this feels and I cop to that. It's not the most honorable thing, but I think ugly art can make the world a more beautiful place, if it doesn't always feel great in the moment to consume it. You know, anxiety shows me where I need to grow and adjust or recalibrate. No painful experience is wasted on the artist or the person devoted to personal growth. We could be collaborators. We could be on-again, off-again lovers. I'm not averse to that. You bring the party wherever you go. So I want you on my side and I am unpredictable. I'm highly skilled and highly trained. In the charming and scattershot manner of an autodidact, I make it look effortless, which takes a hell of a lot of practice. I'm not trying to be perfect anymore.
Speaker 1:K-chung, los Angeles, chinatown, 1630 AM. Worldwide on the World Wide Web kchungradioorg. You've been listening to Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes medicated-minutescom. Music on the show tonight was from Wales W-H-A-L-E-Z, as well as Visions of the Universe and a little bit of Omu Shell in there. Everything else on the show is by me. I'm Emerson Dameron, the producer, director, writer, host, bringer of the old razzle dazzle on Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes Coming up. Previews of forthcoming episodes of Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes that you will hear over the hot, hot summer of 23.
Speaker 1:So stick around. Levity saves lives, so so We'll see you next time may have a point. The world is drowning, the American dream is dead and you're probably getting divorced. So bring your own birth control. Resist the pressures of society and biology. Don't be a father, be a leader. Get a vasectomy and put some ice on your nuts. It's not voluntary human extinction, but you gotta start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Ask a sadist A round of Q&A with me, your host, a sadist with a heart of rugged gold. I like to hurt people in the ways that most help them, and it means the world to me when you. Let me be mean to you, dear sadist. I am a woman in my mid-forties and unhappily divorced. I was never much of a looker, but now I feel fully invisible. Should I accept my lonely fate? Do you have any last shred of your imagination left over? Have they taken everything? The last refuge that you have is your inner world, and they've conquered that. Marquis de Sade wrote his most significant works in asylums and prisons, denied all the comforts that society provides to the obedient, timeless works of literature and philosophy, reclaim your inner world.
