Irritable Bastard Syndrome, Missing Butt Syndrome, And Other Medical Marvels

I'm trying to get the ball across the plate, and the third baseman comes, he walks by me, he says, "where's your ass, man? You got no ass. You've lost your ass." And I said, "haven't you? I'm trying to get the ball over the plate, and you're telling me I have no ass." When the older we get, the more we lose our ass. You know, it's different with women. You know, our whole metabolism slows down and all their fat in their body goes into their butt, you know, and all of our fat body goes into our stomach. And then I lifted my shirt up to them and said, "there's my ass. Now back to third base, third baseman."

Chapters

• 0:00 Nonsense Lyrics And Poetry Corner
• 1:17 Living With Anxiety And Pills
• 3:15 Old, IBS, Or Anxiety?
• 5:20 Mental Health Advice He Won’t Do
• 9:05 Doctors, Delays, And Demographics
• 10:50 The Cardiologist Billing Rant
• 13:20 Baseball, Hip Surgery, And No Ass
• 16:00 Desert Snakes And Egg Dilemmas
• 19:00 Pets, Reptiles, And Shelter Noise
• 21:30 Tired Of Pills, Wanting Normal

Transcript

Blade: 0:25

I want to lay you in rubber. I want to be your lover. Pink is like red, but not quite. Pink as we turn off the lights. Pink as the sheets that we lay on. Pink as my favorite crayon. See, we don't ever give any credit to the nonsense that people write. It's hard to write nonsense. And then it rhymes. Love nonsense. I can't think of a better nonsense teen than Aerosmith. Part your corner, ladies and gentlemen, to cleanse you. Portrait Corner is. I read a lot of poetry lately to try to get rid of the stress that I've been building up over the years. I suffer from anxiety, you know. And boy, you suffer from it because it's this little knot that builds in your stomach and gets up to here, and you just get all tense. And you gotta leave people. You know, you don't you don't want to be around people because you're bitchy and crouchy and you don't feel good. Suffering from anxiety. Visited my doctor the other day again, you know, and he doesn't know anything. He's he's he's what is he, 24, 25? He doesn't know anything, you know. And I'm like, what's the deal, Doc? I mean, I'm getting bitchier and bitchier and stressier and stressier, no matter what kind of pharmaceutical you give me. And this, by the way, is a picture of my farm, is a picture of my farm cabinet. Thirty-two canisters of pills we've tried, including antidepressants. Antidepressants, mean anti-meaning against antidepressants, but they make you feel worse. Suicidal thoughts, harming yourself, you know, all kinds of withdrawal effects and all kinds of side effects. So they hit me, every one of them. You know, so they're all sitting up there. I'm not gonna touch them. 32 canisters of antidepressants and all kinds of pills as I sit here and suffer through anxiety. All of a sudden I had a panic attack last year. It's been a year, and I suffer through this shit. It's awful. And and you're fatigued and tired all the time. Is that just being old? I don't think so. I think it's really a condition. And so I asked Doc, you know, I'm like, what do you think is going on, man? Isn't my IBS flaring up? Is it suffering from anxiety, an actual case of it? You know, I'm just turning into a bitchy old man, you know, which is you know, a lot of guys do. Is it one of those three things? And he just stared at me. You know, and I just stared back at him, waiting for an answer. No answer. Said, oh, IBS. That did that get you? And he looked at me quizzically and I said, Didn't you study? Don't they have a bunch of studying you can do about irritable bastard syndrome in med school? And he looked at me, straight face. No IBS. Okay. Irritable bastard syndrome or andropause. The symptoms of grumpy old man include irritability, anger, loss of confidence, loss of vitality, depression, reduced mental effectiveness, and hot sweats.

Jerry Seinfeld: 4:09

Everything. I but it doesn't matter because when I do something I don't like, it doesn't bother me. I am a I'm that's all I'm used to. I am a very happy person hating everything throughout my entire life. That's how I would describe myself.

Blade: 4:30

You know, so I'm just trying to figure it out, you know, um why I feel bad. You know, I do I feel shitty because of IBS? Do I feel shitty because I'm suffering from anxiety, or do I feel shitty because I'm old? You know, I don't. He doesn't know. He'll just up pharmaceutical. That's the result right there. You know, they gave me this list. Things you can do to make you feel better. The minute I see make you do to feel better, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna go out and do anything. I want a pill that makes me feel better. I love pills, man. Sorry. I do. Journal about your feelings. What the f why would I journal about my feelings when I feel them every single day? I know what they are. I don't need to write them down. Journal? No, I'm not going to journal about my feelings. Meditate for 10 minutes. I don't even know what meditation is. And I live through the 70s. I don't know how to meditate. Meditate's not gonna happen for 10 minutes, five minutes, four minutes, or twenty seconds. Spend time in nature. Walk around the nature and say it's a beautiful tree, it's a beautiful weed. Look at that rhododendron. You know, look at that squirrel up there in the tree. Not gonna do that. You know why I live in the desert? There is no nature. There's bushes and sand and dirt. Actually, that could be not bad. Nah. Take a mental health day. What is that? What's a mental health day? I don't even know what a mental health day is. Sorry, I'm sorry, boss. I'm not coming in. You know, uh I'm taking a mental health day.

Blade: 6:35

Okay.

Blade: 6:36

You tell everybody in the house, everybody you know, no, I can't make it. I'm taking a mental health day. What do you do? You just what do you do? I wouldn't even ought to start a mental health day. Don't we go through mental health days every single day of our minute, second of our life? Don't we? Don't we? Yes. Take a mental health day, BS. Buy yourself a gift. Okay, that does work for about five, ten minutes. It's fleeting. Don't need much, you know. But when you buy something, you see a package show up at the door, it does make you feel better for a couple minutes. But you just can't keep buying things for yourself because you end up in the gutter. Then you're definitely not gonna feel good. Read a book. I can't read books. I read books my whole life, man. I'm a big reader through college, you know, my two semesters of college. And then all of a sudden, I'd pick up a book and I'd read it six sentences in, I'd fall asleep. And it stays that way to this day. I can't read. Pick up a book, I fall asleep. I don't need sleeping pills. Doctors offer that. You having trouble sleeping? Sometimes. " I can give write you some something for sleeping now. Don't need it. Practice gratitude by listing five things you're grateful for. I okay. I tried that, you know, but then you gotta write. I don't want to write.

Blade: 8:04

You know, I wrote five things down one day and then I did it the next day, and the third day I ran out. I start repeating them. Take a nap. I hate naps because when I'm way when I take a nap, I'm even bitchier. What is that just me? They don't make me feel refreshed and invigorated, they make me just meaner and nastier and bitchier after a nap. Wrong. What do you do? Give me some more pills. Pills help, man. They do. Appointment the other day with my uh pulmonologist, my cardiologist. By the way, let me just tell you something. It's just kind of a side thing. I checked out my demographics. Who watches this podcast? And a lot of people do, more than I. I'm surprised. A lot of people do, but the demographic, 65 plus. It is 65 plus. Second is 45 plus. God remember when it was 25, I had to have a 25 to 54 demographic when I was in radio. That's who's watching me, 65 plusers, because they're the same age as I and people that I've known, people that have known me for years, 30, 40, 50 years. You know, but anyway, I go to see my heart, my cardiologist, right? And uh they hammer me all week long before you go to the meeting appointment, and they say, look, remember it's a $50 service charge if you don't show up for your appointment. Okay, I got it. Every day they're telling me that. So I go to my appointment and I wait an hour and 15 minutes to see this Dr. Arnold Lee. Hour and 15 minutes. How what do I get for waiting an hour and 15 minutes? Next time they send me a $50, you know, invoice possibly for missing an appointment, I'm gonna send them a $125 appointment for being an hour and 15 minutes late. What's the difference? And I told him too, Dr. Arnold Lee, I said, look, I waited out there for an hour and 15 minutes, and you're beating me up all week about missing an appointment for 50 bucks. You know, how much do you owe me? And I had to give them like 100 bucks because my insurance paid like 90 of it. I had to give them 100 bucks then. Completely thievery. Complete thievery. You know, so I had to listen to what he has to say, and he's got, he doesn't even have my paperwork. I spent the entire week talking to my, you know, primary health care provider, get the test results of my carotids, my veins, you know, my ultrasounds, and how my blood and blood working, how my air is going into my head from my heart, how my heart's doing, all of that, and my blood pressure, blah, blah, blah, over to this cardiologist so he has something to talk about when I meet with him. First of all, I walk into it, he doesn't even know who I am. Been there three times a year, doesn't even know me. I've been there three times a year for three years. Doesn't know my name. And he hasn't even looked at my paperwork. My people sent over the paperwork. He hasn't even looked at it. You know, and I have to tell him what is in it, and then uh then I gotta wait for him to look in his computer and find it. Oh, there it is. Hasn't even looked at it. What the fuck, man? You owe me another 150 bucks. Send them a bill and says, if you haven't looked at my charts and are not prepared for me to come in and know nothing about me and can't remember my name, that'll be a $150 charge, please. Now when I'm serious, he said I can't treat anything, you know, that there's not there to treat. So I'm fine. Okay, bye. Thank you. Walk out. See these old people in the waiting room, and I can barely walk, you know, and they're kind of thing. Anyway, I got this medication, you know, it helps me with my stress. Because I am suffering from stress, and I'm starting to gain weight from it. Right? And that's what that stuff does. It helps you gain weight. You know, and I was I went out for the first time in three years, two weeks ago, to pitch at a baseball game, softball game. I I mean, it's a baseball game, not a softball game. I mean, it's the real thing for guys over 45, right? And I went out to pitch, and I had this hip surgery in the last couple of years, and this leg right here is a half inch shorter than the leg where I got my new hip. That much difference. So as a result, when I'm throwing and following through, my leg is falling to the ground later. And I threw 26 straight pitches outside. And I finally said, Fuck it, I'm throwing at his head. And I did, I threw at his head and it was strike. Both teams clapped and cheered and yelled. And then I pulled myself. Goodness gracious, I'm gonna have to get a shoe insert. I'm gonna have to get a baseball cleat with a shoe insert. I'm gonna have to get a pair of baseball cleats that one is like this and one is like that.

Blade: 13:48

Yeah, but anyway, you know, and I'm trying to get the ball across the plate, and the third baseman comes, he walks by me, he says, Where's your ass, man? You got no ass. You've lost your ass. And I said, haven't you? I'm trying to get the ball over the plate, man, and you're telling me I have no ass. You know, and and I said, I said, don't you know the story, man? When the older we get, the more we lose our ass. You know, it's different with women. You know, our whole metabolism slows down and all their fat in their body goes into their butt, you know, and all of our fat body goes into our stomach. And then I lifted my shirt up to them and said, There's my ass. Now back to third base, third baseman. Before I walked out of the game. You know, the other day, I saw the fifth snake I've seen in one year out here. They just crawl around out here. It's great. It really is. They're beautiful. They're they really are. And I really mean that, you know, and and it was, gosh, I think I told you. Four or five months ago, I found a red racer underneath the um hooding of my lawnmower, you know, and it took forever for me to get that guy out of there, but I finally did. I turn over the lawnmower and he slithed it out into my neighbor's yard. But just the other day, about three or four days ago, I went to take my, and once you see one snake around here, you're always peeking around. You're always looking around. You know, is a snake there, is a snake here, snake there, in my shoes, you know, in my house, in my door, you know, in my pool. You're always looking, you know, for him. Um, yeah, but anyway, uh, I was getting ready to empty the grass out of my grass catcher in my lawnmower. Sure enough, there's uh a king cobra, a scarlet king cobra, um coral snake that's in there and he's rounded up and he takes off, right? Little guy, this big. And I know he's not poisonous because the coral snakes, if they have yellow stripes, they take a bite or a chunk out of you with that stuff. You're in bed for three days, four days. But if they don't have the yellow stripe, which this one didn't, you're fine. You so you know, they're that's that. And and then I see these two little eggs. I'm like, no, man. It's all no, don't leave your little guys here. And I felt awful, you know, and it felt like picking up these little eggs and trying to find this snake. I know he's next door somewhere, but I can't do that. I go into the neighbor's yard, they shoot me. That's how it is here in Arizona. You go on someone's property, you're on, you're out. What do I do now? It felt horrible. Look at these poor guys, they're so cute. So it said, Well, the only thing I think I can do, the best thing I can think I can do is to put the damn grass catcher back in the lawnmower, right? And maybe she'll come back and grab her snakes, or maybe they'll have hatched in the background, or in the in the meantime, you know, and they'll be one happy snake family, you know.

Blade: 17:02

I'm hoping. So I wait as long as I could, man. And I'm thinking about it every day. And I went out there like four days later, hoping to find two cracked open eggs, you know, and they got out and they're gone, you know, with mama, you know, and then there's nothing there. No snakes there. My daughter, she's eight years old, she's an animal expert, and she says those are Gila lizards. Is that what they're called? Gila. Something I didn't get that right. Gila monsters, you know, they come by and they eat snake eggs. So I don't know what happened. I'm hoping those snakes could be safer eating. I don't know, I'm not sure, you know, and I and I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping they got away with mama, but a little upsetting, but not bad. But anyway, I I've seen five snakes literally in in one year out here. You know. Still haven't seen a scorpion. I ask everybody that I've seen have you ever seen a scorpion around here? No. They're all in the city where all the housing developments are because they bring these bug sprayers to come in and spray out and get rid of the scorpions, and the scorpion doesn't do shit to the scorpions. Nothing. It doesn't work. Bug sprayers do not work with scorpions, okay? They just move to the next house and the next house, and they make another nest and the next house, and before you know what, they're just clam all over the city. I don't know why. We don't ever see them around here.

Blade: 18:33

I live in the middle of the freaking desert. I never see scorpions. You know, never. Snakes, yes. Scorpions, never. You know. Have you ever had a friend? Here's a personal question. Have you ever had a friend that had a reptile as a pet? I remember walking into Daniel Wilson's house, fifth, sixth grade, seventh grade, and he had a some snake and a it might have been a king cobra. I think I remember seeing, you know, that wide throat in a jar in his room, and he wanted to show everybody his. None whatsoever. Why would you have a reptile as, you know, ferret as a pet? You know, the minute I see or talk to somebody who's got reptiles as pets, that's the last word I had with them. I mean it. I never talked to that guy ever again. That for for the main reason is this it's like it's really weird. Look, there's two kinds of pets you can have, man. Uh you can't have fish because they're gonna die immediately. Right? I know someone who's had a turtle for About 15 years. That's cool. Real cool. It's kitties and doggies. That's what you have for pets. Those are pets. Okay? You know, I had gerbils and hamsters as a kid. They don't last long, man. And a home. And a cage and a crate with a little wheel in there. Kitties. Puppies.

Blade: 20:21

That's it. The only kind of pet you can it's a real pet. Little kitties are so cute, but little dog, little puppies are assholes. They are. God, they're tough. Yeah, you gotta get through that first two years with those guys. I'm telling you, man, they eat your furniture. You know, they eat everything in the house. I mean, they're a pain in the ass. They are. And then you get them and then you love them forever. You know, and is there any wor is there any worse feeling in the world when you have to put your animal to sleep? Is there? It might be worse than someone in your family dying. Serious. God, I've never felt so bad as when I've had to. And I, you know, I've always had dogs. You know, I go from dog to dog to dog to dog to dog. You know, I feel like it's our responsibility. I really do. I mean, there are so many dogs. Out here, I found out they're, you know, they put them, they they put them to sleep. You know, it's all pit bulls and all chihuahuas. Because they, you know, biters, I suppose. You know, that's what they all are out here. And these places are mobbed. And there's a place where I play baseball out near the Cubs.

Blade: 21:37

They have spring training here. We play in their fields. It's great. And uh they've got a big dog shelter beside the complex. And when it's feeding time, you have never heard such a racket and such a roar in your life. You know, our games are like eight in the morning or something like that, and they're starting to feed the dogs. It sounds like a thousand, two thousand, three thousand dogs. And it's the funniest sound, but it's not. Keep it at that. Don't think in it any further. Yeah. Just trying to feel better, man. God, I want to feel normal. I still don't feel normal. It's been a year. Just want to feel normal. I don't want to do another fucking pill. I'm fucking sick of them. Sick of pills. Just want to wake up normal. You know, without having to go downstairs and take a couple. We'll catch you next time, episode number 40. Next time. All right.