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It’s a carnival. It’s a coffee shop. It’s Tom Waits drinking on Frank Zappa’s grave with the Triplets of Belleville soundtrack playing in the background and Cerberus Shoal along for the ride.
Man Man website
Man Man at Ace Fu
liz | 5:21 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
Liz Spikol,
I downloaded the song. It’s comforting. I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had nausea lately.
It feels weird to think of myself as bipolar since my first and last manic episode was five years ago during college. When the opportunity comes up, I make it a habit to inform a new friend I take Lithium for bipolar disorder, just to show them I’m not one of those hysterical patients on whatever TV hospital drama. I talked about my bipolarity with someone last night and he didn’t feel uncomfortable. We both went to Ivy League schools and stress is always high.
Since I’ve been thinking about mental illness lately, I sought out your column only to find this great blog. (A long time ago, I interned for PW.)
My father’s a doctor who believes in curing yourself by sheer will. He thinks I’m not bipolar anymore and I should stop taking Eskalith. I still take it, just in case something happens. But most of the time, I don’t think about what I’ve been diagnosed with. I think about the City Council meetings I cover; I think about my boyfriend who lives three hours away; I think about finishing a book quicker without taking the usual six months to read it. And the only thing that differentiates me from the average person is taking that pill every night.
Liz-I got the Man Man track from you here, thanks for posting it. Stop by my podcast (95 per cent music, 5 per cent musing by the host, I’ll be playing it this week with lots of others indie music and classic post punk, etc. It’s a real old school radio show with months of archives available. http://www.inmyroompodcast.com
See ya’
Mike Edwards
P.S. There’s nothing like sitting in your doctors office and hearing him say, in a casual manner-”You, Mr Edwards are bi-polar.” “Well’ I’d like a second opinion!” “Alright, you’re ugly, too.”
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