Last night, I drove round my city, going to hospitals, talking to people who were thinking about suicide or who had just tried it. I spoke on the phone to people who had attempted the day before or who couldn’t remember anything they did last week. I spoke in the jargon of mental health symptoms…ideas of reference, lack of appetite, flattened affect, abnormal sleep patterns, suicidal ideation, racing thoughts and hallucinations, both audio and visual. I shook the hand of a man who thanked me while he cried.

And in between calls I read the news of unemployment rates, foreclosure crisis, Wikileaks, depression and recession, Afghanistan and Iraq, unemployment benefits denied for political points, middle class tax cuts and claims processes, British Petroleum rapists invading Canada, invading savings accounts and getting rich all over again while those without money lived a life without political power, buying shit at Wal-Mart made by children in hell. I felt my anger burning at the thought of various politicians with self-serving agendas already being formed into their next bullshit campaign ads some publicists are already dreaming up, all while the middle and lower class simmers…hungry and getting hungrier and their kids die on the streets or in foreign countries.

Yeah, I want to punch holes in walls…

And, I remember a discussion I had with my father several years ago about watching sports on television. He told me one of the reasons people like to watch sports is, it is one of the few times in life where there is a clearly defined winner and loser, and everybody knows how long it will take to find out, 60 minutes. It is one of the few places in life that can exist without the gray area.

Yeah, 60 minutes…thanks, Dad.

Enjoy the game everybody…I will too…

Go Saints!