captaincliff

Euphemia Haye Dessert Bar, Longboat Key

If there is such a thing as transgressive art and transgressive fiction like “splatterpunk”, what would you call someone who obsessively watches food shows like Iron Chef, Chopped and Man Versus Food and zooms in on FB friends meal posts and culinary photos late at night when he should probably be sleeping?

Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. The genre of “transgressive fiction”  graphically explores such taboo topics as aberrant sexual practices, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, but is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.

Normally I only make fun of Florida, Georgia, and the great state of California for it’s liberal excesses and acceptance of ….everything.  Ask me another time about the lady in San Francisco who is a “Breatharian”, convinced she can live only on sunlight and water, like a potted plant or green shrub. She’s on the 38th day without food (which is REALLY nuts in SF because you can smell fresh brewed cappuccinos and garlic wafting in the air 24/7). Today, however I am inspired to turn my attention to Ohio.

If you read the news then you know that the great state of Ohio is not always great.
First of all, the place is teeming with serial killers, crazed sex offenders, and teenage abductors of every form and fashion (many of whom for some reason look alot like burned-out versions of Cheech or Chong) Still, I find it hard not to praise the place and its people for their tenacity, guts and can-do determination. I just dont want to end up hanging on a ceiling pulley in someones creepy basement on the outskirts of Cleveland for ten years plus. Personally I am no Breatharian. I need to eat…and I love garlic and cappuccinos.  Let me explain.

With a State economy that has transitioned over the years from a wealthy industrial
hub exporting steel and other essential manufactured goods to a hodge-podge of local
methamphetamine labs, pain clinics, hookers and massage parlors, Ohio’s economic “flexibility” and entrepreneurial ambition is to be lauded, especially if it doesnt lead to a rash of face-eating zombies wandering Ohio’s streets high on crack, bath salts and synthetic marijuana. My guess is, if it does, it will source back to a few out of work Dow research chemists and assorted enterprising potheads (with MBA’s)  in Akron or Toledo.

Admittedly, Ohio has struggled to define it’s more contemporary image and State brand.
In fact, they are yet to come up with a catchy advertising campaign or “logo” for both
their resident boosters and visitors alike. “Come to Cincinnati Where the Players Play and Usually End Up in Jail” seems too derivative (of Atlanta or LA) and doesnt get at the more charming and non-violent aspects of Ohio’s diverse and entrenched population. When I say entrenched I actually mean people so insular, xenophobic,
inbred, paranoid and subject to crackpot conspiracy theories (not to mention their sentimental old world mafia connections, excessive drinking, and love for their weapons arsenals) that the words “bunker”, “survival compound”, and “lunatic fringe group” are nearly synonymous with the Buckeye state. Well, that and people who are totally and completely nuts for their professional sports, since many of them manage to do literally everything including eat, sleep, poop, raise large exotic animals (that eventually turn on them and kill their owners, see below), tap-weld, wire home-made pipe bombs together and conduct open heart surgery (at the highly respected Cleveland Clinic) all while rooting for their favorite baseball and football teams. Keep in mind all the silly antics that recently occurred at Steubenville High School. Fun, football and gang rape are apparently king there. In fact, “fun and feisty” is a pretty good description for this heterogeneous populace that ranges from hard of hearing elderly with 12 guage shotguns to young urban street gangs….with 12 guage shotguns. However, fun and feisty drinkers who love having a good time (a “hoot”) while carrying live rounds in the chamber are almost always the type of human beings who will eventually appear on TruTV’s “World Dumbest Drinkers Without Fingers” episode….or be offered their own reality TV show.

Lastly, there is no greater praise to give than to those humble folks who manage to wed creative ingenuity with utility and practicality. Hence my uber-love of the TV show Modern Marvels. Ohio is home to some of the world’s greatest industrial innovations and must-have felony-crime accessories like “duck tape”. Seriously. They invented it. By the way, is it duct tape or duck tape and why wont anyone make up their mind definitively?

I am personally very grateful for the invention of duct tape since my many attempts at home remodeling have led to massive financial setbacks and engineering challenges that only duct tape could hold together (and obscure long enough for me to forget about engaging more permanent solutions). Does anyone else out there have exterior door trims and window sashes made entirely out of pink tape? I didn’t think so. Add to that cheap caulk from Big Lots and you have a unique as well as 100% synthetic home that even termites are not interested in. Anyway, I give final praise to Ohio for having the vision and the chutzpah to honor the makers of duct tape by sponsoring a colorful annual parade complete with duck tape floats and kids dressed entirely in…yes, duct tape. Unfortunately, the pervasive rumor that Jimmy Hoffa’s duct taped corpse had been dug up from under a Cincinnati football stadium just for the festival and parade has been discredited and apparently was merely a vain attempt on the part of Michigan, it’s jealous neighbor, to smear its primary rival. Michigan cant find Hoffa’s body either. Check out these local Ohio kids and their sticky-cool duck tape summer attire. Now that’s what I call wash and wear!

http://avon-oh.patch.com/groups/avon-heritage-duct-tape-festival/p/scenes-from-a-duct-tape-festival_b0878ed2

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/hoffa-search-jimmy-teamsters-oakland-twp-dig-ends-call-off_n_3466132.html?1371654819&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

http://on.aol.com/video/giant-mosquitoes-popping-up-in-central-florida-517813715?hp=1&playlist=127161&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D327174

Trigger Warning:  The following entry is not all positive and may trigger feelings of confusion and or anxiety. I’m not a black and white thinker. There are many shades of gray and final answers of “I dont really know.” I consider this blog to be a lot like everything else in my life, a narcissistic testament to my need to blab about different things and end up often (but not always) more right than wrong. Being right is a very pleasurable sensation and a boost to ones earthly ego (sorry Dalai Lama) but the fact that few people notice makes it even more ironic if not heroic and gives it just the right dash of existential futility. Of course being completely WRONG is usually a far better life lesson and karmic exercise, even tho I dont like to advertise that Cosmic fact…because it is truly humbling.

Picture any old movie or book where there is a sarcastic main character wise-cracking his way through some random hellish scenario, alone or with others, in outer space or just prior to the big shootout at the OK Corral. That approximates CaptCliff’s brand of sardonic humor and out-of-step fatalism. However, as we all know, it’s not cool to be overly negative or pessimistic nowadays. Conversely, it’s uber cool to splash perky inspirational messages and images of success (and superficiality) all over ones Facebook page and Twitter feed ….sort of like Jackson Pollock spilling a bucket of Big Pharma approved happy pills over a floor-sized canvas of red and black resin paint…. gooey Prozac gel-capsules and all. They appear to be absorbed and “blend in” but do such pithy affirmations really get to the bottom of our often complicated lives as human beings?

Dont get me wrong. I have tremendous faith, hope and optimism for and about many individuals.  I love children and dogs (and one or two cats), especially those animals that dont immediately go for the jugular vein or end up shaking me like a limp rag doll in their Jurassic Park-sized teeth. I love helping people, particularly young people by assisting them to open their beautiful starry eyes and realize (learn to trust) their unique passion and creative potential. In fact, I really enjoy seeing the art and artistry in nature, in found objects, in good food, and most of all in giving “birth”, so to speak, to anything and practically everything that still retains vestiges of it’s original innocence. On the other hand, I am a strong believer in realism (functional ego), ie. if you make friends with wild Grizzly Bears, ie., like Tim Treadwell, dont be surprised if they decide one day to eat you for lunch. We probably taste like chicken.

I also think there are a fair number of psychopathic-ish people (Grizzly Humans) pretending to be nice “productive citizens” while running shady businesses and bogus operations within large, corrupt, deeply entrenched bureaucratic systems. You know, little  organizations like the Federal government, the Vatican, almost every politician, Nigerian telemarketers, Wall Street bankers and investment “managers” , psychiatrists with hidden ties to pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, the CIA, MARTA, the SEC, etc. and probably a number of my own relatives alive and dead…..

While its difficult to separate the human wheat from the chaff,  here’s my rule of thumb: dont trust anyone who talks, walks, or peppers their speech with techno-aphorisms, fancy sounding acronyms, policy wonk drivel or grammatical short-cuts plagiarized from an IT manual, the Urban Dictionary, a short course on reverse mortgages and/or the DSM-4 or 5. That’s right. It’s even worse  in my field of psychotherapy that so many people (both professionals and clients) now so casually and colloquially assume that it’s healthy to wed mechanistic lingo with diagnostic categories meant only as preliminary typologies rather than lifelong disease ‘badges” confirming ones identity as  “bipolar2” or a “premature ejaculator”. Oh well, we have over-labeled and bastardized just about everything else in the world already. We’ve plumbed the depths of the known universe and still continue to kill each other with long pointy sticks, litter the beaches with plastic, Coke cans and cigarette butts, create new mindless/needless “survivor” competitions on TV and tear the heart and soul out of the coral reefs, the rain forest, daytime/nighttime entertainment (reality tv, really?), not to mention trivializing the really fun stuff like sex, food, and bowel movements (ratemypoo.com). Ok, I posted a photo there…once. It was ginormous! Truly, bigger is NOT always better. Just ask my ass.  Plus, we really dont need no more stinking “badges” or online rating systems to prove our beauty (ie, “Hot or Not”) or “worth” in this world.

And for all that hard work and social “progress” many of us still believe in ghosts, paranormal phenomena, televised searches for Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster and Jewish Mermaids, while simultaneously carrying on intimate-erotic web based relationships using other peoples identities and photo-shopped pictures. We therefore create and then tolerate facades of facades… of our facades. I guess we’re Catfish Culture now as well as Prozac Nation.  No worry, we can still remind each other to “get real” and remember our “true authentic self”, as if its a certain plastic wrapped nicely dry-cleaned garment hanging in a Kardashian-sized walk-in closet.

So sorry for the morning rant. It could just be my reflux GERD last night or the Pikachu nightmare I woke up with this morning (I accidentally left the TV on the Comedy Channel all nite) or it could just be the way our present culture, like really bad junk food, gives me a headache as well as horrible gas and bloating.  What is worse is the way all the popular food venues now advertise their 100% “green” practices, their corporate composting, recycling programs and fair-trade policies. Mostly they just rip us off by taking our money and telling us what we want to hear …and I’m not just talking about my pitiful looking Whopper, soggy Big Mac or “air-popped” french fries drenched in salt and preservatives (see Michael Douglas hamburger scene in “Falling Down”).

Of course all of this raises the dreaded “Matrix” question or “Total Recall” if you prefer (as I gulp a handful of colorful Tums): Do you think it’s better to remain “asleep” tied to the blood sucking brain-numbing digital/virtual Matrix? Or is it more of a nightmare to wake up in the middle of a day dream and realize the truth, that human life is relatively short and most people on the planet sweat and toil for survival like foraging animals or hamsters running on a big business/government controlled wheel/power grid. Oops, sorry about that massive oil leak in the Gulf, people!! Hey, c’mon back to Louisiana and Alabama!! Check out our new black sand beaches!!  We’ve got delicious three-headed shrimp and mutant sea birds! The albatross taste just like chicken!

Did I mention that BP’s cloying televised advertisements sicken me too?

I’m no George Carlin but he got it right. The planet will survive and eventually shake our species off like a minor case of fleas on an old hound dog. In the meantime let’s try to enjoy the fruit of our Froot-Loop culture. Speaking of irony, did you know there are now giant mosquitoes in Central Florida (as discussed in a previous blog, but see the very latest above) that are TWENTY times the size of the annoying pests already sucking the blood out of morbidly obese kids standing in line at Space Mountain in Orlando. They (the ginormous mosquitoes) look alarmingly like modern Stealth Fighters and they sting like, well, Stinger missiles. Don’t worry, Monsanto and Dow Chemical as well as the makers of the insect spray “Off” are currently working on a state-of-the-art repellant for the Godzilla mosquitos. Can I just call 1-800-BAD-DRUG now and get my “lump sum” settlement? Better they should create a Klingon “cloaking devise” so I can make myself disappear on command using some new cellphone app. I’m sure there is a super smart Millennial kid (and a greedy venture capitalist standing right behind him) working on it as we speak.

http://on.aol.com/video/giant-mosquitoes-popping-up-in-central-florida-517813715?hp=1&playlist=127161&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D327174

Falling Down Hamburger Scene:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJs9p-VNORw

I recently had the pleasure of staying at this unassuming and
longstanding (code for somewhat dumpy) hotel establishment near the Georgia Medical College campus. After a late arrival from Atlanta due to traffic congestion, I unsuccessfully attempted to use my
bogus travel agent credentials to obtain a reduced rate at two
crack-house type motels near Augusta's dilapidated downtown.

Besides the strong noxious smell of a local paper mill and/or a concentration camp/zombie crematorium burning nearby, I was struck by the general lack of any detectable urban development or progress in Augusta. The stores on Main Street are either shuttered,closed,or empty and there is an overall feeling of a distinct social dichotomy present, ie. "the haves and have nots" that permeates the downtown
and GMC campus area. Instead of modernizing, building and creating a walkable, safe and plentiful community, they appear more willing to change the names of the colleges repeatedly, add a bench at the Riverwalk or boldly open another Waffle House. If there is a middle class I think they have mostly moved to North Augusta just across the river in South Carolina and have hired Kurt Russell (dressed as Snake Plissken in the "Escape From ....." movies) to guard the interstate bridge and rest area with a shotgun, grenade launcher and pirate patch. 

Dont get me wrong, there are some quaint areas and unusually friendly people around. However, the (other) hotels late night desk clerks in matching wife-beaters and smelly looking jeans were not two of them. I much preferred the sleep-deprived guy with ADD at the Quality Inn. He was very nice, even tho he forgot my credit card and ID in the copy machine twice and almost slumped to the floor before handing me the room key. The room he chose for us was well-situated and right next to the fluorescent bulb lit vending machine room and laundry facility. If I was a meth addict or chocoholic with a major load of wash I might have really enjoyed an all-nite laundering session, but I was dog tired. Speaking of dogs, I think the bed might have had a few bed bugs or fleas, as I woke up  swollen and itching. I do realize this is a widespread and unusually difficult problem to solve and the Quality Inn may not have the technical means to totally eradicate such pesky pests. To be fair, the rooms were clean, very close to campus, and the tiny flat screen TV on the wall was serviceable. However I chose not to steal it because of its limited HD capacity and lower resolution.

In the morning we went to the lobby/lounge for the complimentary
breakfast. To be succinct, I would summarize by saying, “Stick with the waffles”. Im pretty sure the sausage patties were a form of human flesh possibly rendered and harvested from one of the nearby hospital morgues with some Jimmy Dean like flavoring added to fool those guests who are either gluten-free or not really into cannibalism. I know I am making this sound worse than it was. We didnt get robbed or raped on the premises or even at the so called “ghetto Kroger” closeby. I’ve heard we were lucky and it wasn’t a full moon, so the odds were in our favor.

All I'm saying is that the hotel is ok, yet probably unchanged since its inception. Augusta is the bigger problem. Clinical depression (as well as potash and various unnamed environmental pollutants) lay heavy in the air, and the police patrols in the area somewhat resemble a kinder, gentler version of South Africa during apartheid. I think they (Augustans) really need a billionaire with Trump-like vision and an inflated ego to adopt Augusta like a slightly smelly lemur at the zoo and make it be more than just a one golf "tournament town". By the way, the food sucked too.

“Usal has called a big one! Again, it is the legend!”  Dune (1984)

Previously on this blog I mentioned the new fast-acting FDA approved
pill for erectile problems called Stendra. The good news is that it is the fastest
horse out of the barn in the pharmaceutical arms race to make a flaccid penis
into a nuclear powered human warhead (less then 15 minutes). There is also
new data to show that Stendra is longer acting, as in helping men to achieve and
maintain a lab assisted boner even longer than Viagra. When I say “longer” I dont mean greater length in any permanent sense of the word. When THAT pill is produced I will let you all know….after trying it first myself to make sure it doesnt have any negative “Inspector Gadget” type side effects. Of course when it comes to “duration”
Cialis is the “King of Cock” and gold standard of erectile medication, remaining
bio-active for a period of 36 hours depending on dosage. Longer acting
prescriptions for ED problems or SSRI related side-effects can mean less anxiety
and mental planning needed for a dinner date versus complicated NASA  love-making launch. With the freedom to be more spontaneous, couples and particularly male sex
partners can consider a broader number of mutually satisfying choices,  including sexual intercourse during or after ones Caesar Salad and without a sneaky trip to the restroom  to gulp down a large blue pill with a glass of tepid drinking water from the sink.

What used to be young men and women in the ’80s snorting long white
lines of coke together in Manhattan discos and toilet stalls are now
Baby Boomers with ED swallowing prescription meds and using their cupped hands
to scoop water like primordial apes out of motion-activated chrome faucets, a hit
or miss proposition in and of itself.  I hate those faucets. They never work for me and I end up dancing back and forth along the row waving and flapping my hands like a fool. Please dont ask me about the time I mistook my Ambien sleeping pill for a Viagra in a romantically lit (dark as a cave) Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Let’s just say sleeping giants do not impress the ladies, with or without serious garlic and anchovy breath…..

The advent of avantafil (Stendra) makes possible much more casual and last minute
decision making, something a guy with ADHD and commitment issues particularly appreciates. Also, given the soaring prices and minimal insurance coverage of many
of the pharmaceutical prescription treatments for erectile problems (ie., “What the hell?
$12 a pill!! I’d rather have two shots of tequila and take my damn chances, etc.), it even
makes monetary sense as well as gamblers logic to be more selective and “count ones cards” as far as sex is concerned. That or take Cialis and be a “Ready Teddy” 24/7 or at least 24/7 in 36 hour increments.

If I have to find a fault with Stendra, it’s in the name. I cant help but call it Splenda on a few occasions, which has caused unnecessary confusion for more then one client. One guy whose name shall remain completely confidential due to strict HIPPA regulations and a possible pending lawsuit was carrying multiple packets of Splenda around with him for two weeks and wondering why he continued to be impotent as well as suffering from a near fatal case of sucralose breath. When I say fatal I mean about to have his loving spouse kick his ass for believing in CaptCliff/Dr. Cliff’s inspired folk remedies and medicinal quackery. There are far better names to give a new sexual medicine, even the unusually fast acting kind, like “Quicksilver Messenger Service” or maybe “Humongo”. Just what the heck are those pharmaceutical marketing executive geniuses with corporate Blackberries paid for anyway?

Dune Clip:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj7R_2WWdKs

Heaven lies above us in our infancy!
But he, the growing boy, beholds the light and whence it flows
He sees it in his joy…
The youth who travels farther from the East
Still is nature’s priest.                                  William Wordsworth

One of my best friends is a 11 year old Jewish kid and former neighbor
named Bryce. That’s right. I’m a 59 year old semi-retired Clinical
Psychologist with a remodeling addiction and he’s a skinny kid with a
head full of bushy blond hair and sparkling big brown eyes bursting
with equal parts mischief, innocence and ADHD. I guess that’s
what we have in common, minus the bright eyes and child-like innocence.

I am, or was until recently, the slightly crazy but interesting empty-nest single
father and next-door neighbor who turned his backyard and basement into a Pirate ship
complete with cannons, poop deck and wheelhouse. Naturally Bryce, with his mother’s permission would  wander over to my house with its never-ending construction and hammering to ask, “What are you doing Cliff and can you make me a sword??” Normally, when I am in compulsive building and creativity mode I tell people to heave-ho and walk the plank, so to speak, but in Bryce’s case I always made an exception. I dont know what it was about the kid. I could tell that school wasn’t easy for him, making friends (or keeping them) wasn’t a breeze either and he talked so rapidly you needed a super computer to  keep up with him and translate his rapid fire speech and ricochet thoughts into slowed down english. If ADHD had a 1-10 scale this boychik would have scored a 10 and his fidgety-bounce off the walls behavior often matched his pin-ball wizard mind. Of course I’m ADHD too, so we were immediately bonded and a perfect match with only a measly half century age difference standing between us. Here’s the thing tho. If you really bothered to listen to what Bryce was saying and took the time to understand and process his wide-ranging observations about life, love, God and the universe, they were often startlingly precocious and spiritually deep. Some of the things he would say in an off-handed Tom Sawyer kind of way were definitely food for thought, and we would share ideas and mutual insights over juice boxes, soda and an occasional cookie. Sometimes I would have him go home and swipe us something good out his mother’s kitchen pantry because it was a virtual treasure chest full of goodies and after school treats, easily the best leftovers and cracker collection in the entire neighborhood. We pondered many things together and designed dozens of “inventions” on paper napkins, scraps of newpaper, and blocks of wood. For a short period of time he was a little crazy about catapults, for some reason, and I did my best to follow his Michaelangelo-like lead, unless it sounded downright dangerous.

All of that is mere character development for the dramatic conclusion
and main point. One thing I noticed early on about Bryce was his love
of music, his fearless falsetto singing voice, and a Jazz legend like
sense of timing that was always accompanied by very precise physical
movements like tapping his foot to the beat or slapping his hands on
his upper thigh to the musical score. I dont mean just good or ahead of his
years type musical aptitude. I mean like human metronome PERFECT timing
and toe-tapping. The kid that couldn’t sit still was a mop-haired pre-pubescent Beethoven!! I felt like I had somehow stumbled across a child prodigy or through sheer luck discovered the Beatles, a group we both share a great love and respect for. Since that time, less then a year ago, Bryce has been playing piano, composing his own music, and singing….in the Atlanta Boys Choir.

Tomorrow nite, May 3rd, 2013, I will have the extreme pleasure of seeing him sing a solo in ABC’s spring program at the Cathedral of St. Philip at 7:30 PM.  The spring concert under the direction of Maestro Fletcher Wolfe includes a selection of Cantor Charles Davidson’s moving musical piece, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”. Cantor Davidson set to music some of the beautiful poetry that was written by child survivors of the notorious Theresienstadt concentration camp. Of over 150,000 children in the Nazi camp, only 150 survived. Bryce, my good friend, the co-creator of many catapults and the living embodiment of childhood hope, dreams, innocence and inspiration will step forward into the theater lights and sing his heart out, more than likely in perfect pitch. I may be ADHD and sometimes distracted, late or preoccupied, but this is ONE thing I wouldn’t miss for the world. In fact, I really think the world and our collective futures as creative and caring human beings fundamentally depends upon special people like Bryce.

Postscript:  I went…I saw……..I kvelled.  Getting to hear Bryce sing Shema Yisrael loud and proud in the beautiful Cathedral of St. Philip? Amazing. Seeing him dressed as a Pirate in the last act? Priceless.

Published in Atlanta Jewish Times: http://issuu.com/atlantajewishtimes/docs/0507_01_ajt_19_01_lr?utm_source=Digital+Issue+-+May+10th+2013&utm_campaign=Digital+Issue+-+May+3rd+&utm_medium=email

Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist living in Sandy Springs, Georgia. He is crazy about Pirates and home remodeling.  Contact: 404-932-7193