When Everything Cracks

A familiar, shaky feeling returns, leading Duncan on a dubious date with destiny.   Please note - This marks the end of Book I - 5150.  We will continue with Book II - Half at the beginning of November. Remember to Like and Subscribe if your podcasting platform lets you do that. Then you'll be informed when the new season commences. Did I just overexplain how podcasting works?

A surprise inspection leads Duncan to drink a gallon of cranberry juice.

Duncan is enlisted in a double-blind study. It's the blind leading the blind.

Duncan has an unpleasant clean-up project, and bemoans the woes of Adult Day Care.

Dixie introduces Duncan to her "children" who inhabit the pages of Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Duncan gets to leave the hospital and move to his new digs at Northeast Lodge. A bowl of strawberries connects him to his past and gives him hope for the future.

Word of Warning - the Audio was recorded using the wrong microphone, but I was able to mostly "fix it in post."  It's so hot, I also had to have a fan running which made for some annoying background noise.   Three weeks late - Chapter 18 Duncan gets bad news from Columbia University, then catches a cab to Northeast Lodge for a second interview.

I find my journal. I still have this journal. The entries are verbatim. I kept two journals during my episode. I often wondered if it was a symptom of my disorganized mind. Also, I get a glimpse of light at the end of the psychotic tunnel.

The responses to the social security questionnaire are taken verbatim from a sheet I found. I didn't make anything up! The guy WAS cute, and it was sad that my station in life prevented me from asking him out on a date.

This chapter needs very little introduction, since the main plot point is in the episode name. It's a sad but touching story.

Duncan is recovering after getting his head smacked into the pavement by a hot San Francisco cop. He knows where he is. A series of visitors leads him to a light at the end of the tunnel.

Duncan's show of best behavior pays off. They give him an envelope and cash and escort him off the ward so he can buy everyone their cigarettes and candy. The plan launches with disastrous results.

Duncan gets a visit from Brenda, Sue, and Donny. He takes a huge risk and tells them about his plan.

Duncan does his best to be the ideal captive aboard the spaceship. Betsy has let him know he can make it out if he's good. But Jimmy Simple isn't buying his act.

You've listened this far, so you must be enjoying the story. Please hit the share button and let your friends and social media circles know about this podcast. "When Everything Cracks" has helped anyone who has listened or read it better understand the process of the mind breaking down and repairing itself. In this chapter, Duncan meets Betsy, a telepath in a wheelchair. The time-loss intervals grow shorter. She tells him to make a plan and to stay away from the free hand-rolled cigarettes. Duncan grows fond of Jimmy, despite his flaws.

In blips and blackness, Duncan discovers he's in a different kind of facility. Although it is obvious to the reader that he is hospitalized, Duncan has a different opinion which continues the delusion that he is on an alien planet. Duncan meets a strange, adorable young man named Jimmy Simple, who helps and protects Duncan while he's vulnerable and needs guidance.

The title of this first volume of "When Everything Cracks" is "5150."  The title comes from the form a jail facility must fill out to transfer an inmate to the psychiatric hospital. This is the chapter where I am 5150'ed. In real life, the call to my Grandmother really happened, and that is how my identity was finally revealed to County Jail and General Hospital.

This planet sucks! I get shuffled from room to room, kicked, cursed out, my head held to the floor, and worst of all, I give away my dollar bill and remove my ID bracelet, so I'll never be president.

It's just like it sounds. Aliens dressed as cops abduct me while I switch identities from Gertrude Stein to Andy Warhol (Harlow, just to confuse them). I can fly. The trip to the new planet is much shorter than I expected. Cracking continues.

Now that I know where itts att, the cracks widen, and everything falls apart. I'm Gertrude Stein. I belong at the Top of The Mark, where aliens will easily abduct me. You get the idea.

I'm suddenly struck with an idea. It's the beginning of the cracks that formed in the sidewalk of my brain. It progresses until I suddenly figure out where itts att. 

In a misguided attempt to escape imminent financial doom, Donny and I decide to hop a boxcar to Los Angeles, with disappointing results.

Donny and I get our Goth on at the Underground, where we meet up with Lola and get high. As I wake up out of my opium cloud, I see and hear things that may not really be there. I'm cracking.

Intro to Series "When Everything Cracks" is a mental health memoir set in Old San Francisco. Duncan MacLeod, the author, reads his manuscript. Be prepared for a strange trip, as the narrator grows unreliable during a psychotic episode lasting several months.   Chapter One Meet Duncan MacLeod, a nineteen-year-old gay man living in 1980s San Francisco. He's broke and hungry and just lost his job at the Stud Bar. After a chance meeting with a rail-riding hobo and visiting a witch's dingbat apartment for a seance, the seeds of his undoing are planted.