Recently Bert was given a new name – Get Mental. This came about because some idiots decided to mess with Bert. And Bert Ernie is a man of many talents – lately he has become master of the technicolor yawn.
Dimensions: 8334px X 12500px
Painted: 2023
The story behind Get mental 1
Out for an early morning walk. Stomach issues giving me pain. The exercise usually helps. Not today.
I had to return home. And quickly. The problem was that the most direct way home involved me going down a notorious boulevard style street closed to traffic, which was populated by the town’s drug addicts.
I walked to the start of the street and felt relief. A few around, mostly asleep in shop doorways. So I hastened down the 150 metre section of town only to find half way, behind the children’s playground, there was a group of a dozen homeless people. They were in a circle. In the centre of that circle was someone who was seated like the Buddah, smoking a pipe of some drug.
“Hey man, come and join us in a little celebration”, one of the smelly buggers has thrown his arm around me and pulled me closer to the circle.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I feel sick.”
“Nah, that’s OK. we have the medicine for you. The medicine to stop you from getting sick!”
I look at the group. All of them are as high as a kite and are, in unison, taking a step inwards, and then back out into some stylish and weirdly well choreographed circle dance and chanting an ode to their drug abuse.
“We have the medicine. We have the go juice. Fix you right up.”
The person in the middle lights up his pipe and takes a lungful. The smelly one pushes me through a break right up to the face of the seated buddha, who I notice is bald, and forces my head down to the smokers. Buddah then blows out all his smoke into my face. For a few seconds, I gasp and begin to wretch. This is hilarious to all the others. They are whooping and making comments about me being soft. Can’t handle a little smoke.
My stomach decides enough is enough and heaves up everything and I launch into a projectile vomit. Which lands right on top of Buddah’s shiny top.
Angry as hell. I break free from the arms of the smelly one and take a step back. They’re all stunned. For a few seconds, all that happens is they just look between Buddah and then me. Nobody moves. Nobody says anything.
“Fuck you. I told you I feel sick!”
The first one to say anything looks like he has had the most drugs to take. He, realising the depravity and humour of what they have done, shouts and laughs at the stunned Buddah, “Ahhh, you got done bad. You got mental. You got the mental one. You got the king of mental. And get mental – he got you back!”
With this, I turn and run. It was a morning to remember. The morning I became Get Mental.