Whatever you smoke, drop, shoot, snort, rub into your belly or whatever--is your shit.
George Carlin, "Shoot"

Everyone gets the blues now and again. Most people have a ready set of cures. Those who don't tend to do stupid things like use firearms in ways frowned upon by the NRA. Those folks have real problems. You guys ought to know by now that I don't ever write about real problems. I write about fake problems.

Fake problems are the number one cause of the blues. Let's say you planned to have drinks with a friend. Friend doesn't show up. Instead of ordering a second drink and going home mildly buzzed (and, by definition, happy), you bark at the bartender, fail to leave a decent tip and go home with a scowl on your face.

A fake problem is a problem that you created in your own mind independent of any ascertainable "facts."

Fake problems seem real enough. Take the above example. It would be very easy to get stuck worrying about why your friend didn't show up. Maybe your friend got mugged by Mormon missionaries and was recovering at the local Catholic hospital. But you don't believe that, of course, or you would have given your friend a call. Instead, you tell yourself that calling would be "pushy" and you simply get mad. And you've created a fake problem.

Every one of us creates fake problems every day. Sometimes it gets so bad that the entirety of existence seems to be defined by fake problems. That sucks.

There's no way around fake problems. Even the least neurotic person on earth creates problems out of thin air. I'm firmly convinced that fake problems are one of the core elements of human consciousness.

So, what to do?

My personal recommendation is to go directly to your shit. To whatever lifts you up when you need it. It might be booze or pills, or it might be Nina Simone or Napalm Death.

If you're like me, there are different cures for different fake problems. Let's say I'm just a bit on edge after an afternoon of dealing with the aggressive personalities of second graders. In the warmer months, there's nothing like a wheat beer to soothe my nerves. As the temperatures fall, scotch is better. One must be patient when drinking scotch, and that restraint is the perfect antidote for jumpy nerves. Also, there's the warming feeling that starts at the back of the throat and slowly spreads throughout the body.

But when I'm really agitated, I need some tunes. Most of the time, I'm not too terribly picky. Something with a steady, fast and raggedy melody is cool. The fast tempo kinda works the way Ritalin does on kids--the amphetamine effect of the music counteracts my jumpiness. The melodies (and requisite harmonies) are the topical soothing agents.

So, you know, I generally don't go to the Dylan or Diamond when I'm pissed. Green Day is damned near awesome, though, and Bad Religion is awfully good as well. Iron Maiden is surprisingly effective, as is Matthew Sweet.

After a couple drinks, though, I'll often shift gears into something a bit more mellow. Max Stalling, a singer/songwriter from Austin, is pretty much dead center of the target for the comedown. He sings songs about regular people doing regular things and how nothing ever quite works out right. A wonderful tonic for the fake problem blues.

I know plenty of people who take a toke or something a bit harder now and again. Some folks use opera and others death metal. Whatever works, man.

Some might say that drugs and music are crutches and that we ought to root out the real problem, that somehow there's a way to eliminate fake problems.

Maybe. But maybe some of us like our crutches just the way they are. And that's cool, too.

Jon Worley wants to give a shout out to Joan Jett, one of his favorite crutches.