Riddle Me This: About Soldier Suicide and PTSD

Posted on December 28, 2012 by captaincliff

(Unfinished Draft)

Riddle me this:  How is the Pentagon and the military top brass like Psychiatrists and the AMA (American Medical Association)?

Tough one, right? Here’s the answer. They both think that there is a physical, mechanical or biochemical solution to what essential is a spiritual or soul-based problem. I’m talking about PTSD and especially the epidemic of soldier suicides occurring among our combat forces returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser degree from any theater of war since man started hitting each other over the head with rocks, clubs, arrows, spears, guns and atomic bombs.  Without doubt the problem has gotten worse, and the reasons for this are highly debatable. Certainly the length of military deployment and the severity of physical violence and psychological trauma suffered in combat are significant factors. Research backs that up as the more intense and frequent a soldier experiences life-threatening episodes and the longer they are deployed in such unusually stressful horrific conditions, the more likely they will later suffer from Post Trauma Stress Disorder.  However, the question of why so many soldiers are returning home from active duty and later taking their own life is not the same question, altho there may be a correlation between the two.  I believe this is one of the first “knotty” issues that needs to be more fully investigated, empirically untied, and essentially deconstructed. Why do some combat veterans come home from war and become symptom free business leaders, senators and congressmen, some become alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless bums or cave dwelling hermits, while other tortured souls eventually commit suicide?
It is too easy to assume the obvious: that they are men and women trained to kill and to use lethal force, that they had access to and competence in using firearms and other sophisticated weaponry, that they returned to lives of economic hardship, monotony, loose or non-existent social bonds (unlike their highly supportive Band of Brothers), that they lacked or lost (due to their wartime experiences) normal social skills or the ability to give or receive love, comfort and intimacy,,,,the list could go on and on. Each could be true in one case but absolutely untrue in another. Regardless of circumstances, a growing number of veterans, in a state of desperation and emotional pain we cannot conceive of and/or loss of faith in living, tragically end their lives.

Unfortunately, just like the well trained and highly efficient soldiers they are, when they attempt such an act, they are usually successful.

The “glasses” we wear, rose colored or otherwise, and the “lenses” we see through morally and instrumentally often bias our conclusions.  Religious people tend to conclude that these lost souls and wounded warriors failed to maintain a life-affirming connection to God, Christ, and the numerous faith-based institutions that reinforce fellowship and community. Certainly that could play a major role in some cases and represent an important mitigating factor. Again, such a theory still does not address the real question of “Why?” as in: Why did they do it and why do some choose to take the most extreme, most final form of “treatment” for their psychological and emotional pain?  Can death ever be considered a reasonable solution to human suffering? Even on this most fundamental question there is much debate. However, recent findings about PTSD in combat veterans may provide us with some intriguing clues to help explain the growing number of suicides among service members, both active and retired.

 

To Be Continued….. High Tech Drones and Psychoactive Drugs will not keep our Combat Veterans Safe From Suicide on Their Return Home (Part 2)

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CaptCliff on the New Year

Posted on December 26, 2012 by captaincliff

As you know I love to give my pompous overeducated opinion on numerous topics, mostly to show just how nimble my mind is compared to my rapidly aging and deteriorating body. The verb “to shrivel” does not do justice to the physical changes that have ensued over the past few years.  Besides having no hair on my head and copious amounts of thick grey fur-hair on my back, shoulders and chest, my sons love to call attention to how the top half of my body is like a “wine barrel” and that my limbs seem like skinny “chicken parts” in comparison. They apparently marvel at the asymmetry.

I can only hope that the barrel they refer to carries a quality vintage and one known to mellow and deepen”with age. I’m not sure if I really have. I seem more to be just an old bald guy with ADHD….and a consistent tendency to embarrass myself and my grown children publicly and especially on social media.

In keeping with the past, I will attempt to answer another complex question drawn from  recent news reports and contemporary society. The Question: What is it with all these goddamn lunatics randomly shooting people with high powered automatic weapons? Why is this happening and more importantly, what does it all mean?? Lastly, are there powerful psychiatric medications that would help these people?
Answer:  I have no fricking clue. It’s really fucked up. Some effective gun control for lunatics would probably help some. As far as medications are concerned, possibly but the really severely deranged  lunatics have a tendency to isolate, under-medicate, go off medications suddenly, and/or fail to maintain regular psychiatric follow-up appointments.  Frankly, however, I’m currently concerned about my own blood chemistry and hormone levels as I think I may no longer be producing serotonin, melatonin, dopamine or sperm in any appreciable quantity.  I may in fact  have less free testosterone/male hormone circulating through my body than my son’s old, blind neutered mongrel, Cesar.  Luckily Cesar doesn’t have to deal with the psychological ramifications of knowing he is growing asymmetrical tufts of hair out of his ears, nose, back, chest and ass. He just sheds constantly and bumps into walls. Like I said before, it’s all fucked up.  Happy New Year.
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Dont Say No…It’s the End of the World

Posted on December 21, 2012 by captaincliff

Well I was there, in Tulum Mexico today, EXACTLY on the day and time (plus or minus 2 hours) of the so called Mayan Apocalypse. The 97 tourists a certain HuffPost journalist talked about “behaving badly” on sacred Mayan ground was more like 9700 this morning. Nothing apocalyptic happened (like a comet or super volcano eruption) so people just swam in the sea, lounged on the beach below the main temple structure, swabbed on gobs of SPF 50 sunscreen and fed sugar addicted rock iguanas who, due to ingesting human junk food and chemical preservatives have become some kind of mutant dinosaur-lizard species. I saw a Frenchman lying on his back feeding a massive iguana an Oreo off his hairless naked chest.  In “jest” I moved the half-eaten snack directly onto his Speedo bathing suit bottom. The crowd giggled at my PETA inspired intervention but unfortunately the sugar crazed beast wasn’t interested in French food or human protein of any kind.

Before catching the air conditioned buses back to the mega all- inclusive resorts, we/they stuffed our tourist gullets with “Mayan” Subway sandwiches with “Maya-naise”, and were encouraged to buy Mayan inspired trinkets that appeared on closer examination to be mass produced in China. The problem with day one of the “dawning new era” (as mentioned by our tour guide Ernesto and precisely calculated by this proud extinct civilization) is simply this: what we call “civilized” (ourselves) is really nothing more than bloated sunburned modern day versions of Hernando Cortez… Caucasian Conquistadors carrying fat wallets and smart phones and lacking any real appreciation of indigenous cultures. Luckily the modern Maya were pretty nice about the whole thing and take American Express almost everywhere.

Addendum from the Jewish book of Travel:  I enjoyed my 50 minute Holistic massage, manicure and pedicure yesterday at the Beach Palace resort and all-inclusive. I felt incredibly relaxed except for a moment of sheer panic when I realized I might not use up my $1500 in free “resort credits” by Monday. My mind began to calculate all 12,542 possible permutations of last minute spending that I could utilize and still not go one nickel over. Tomorrow is the Jungle tour and the Swimming with Dolphins excursion. Thanks to You Tube I have a fear of sexually aggressive bisexual dolphins in heat, but I need to use up the credits and Cancun “Wet and Wild” is fully booked, especially the Apocalypto Pyramid ride and the Colonel Kurtz- Zetas Drug Cartel sponsored Ritual Human Sacrifice at 1, 3 and 5 PM. I kinda wanted to see if heads really do roll around here……..More later.

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CaptCliff on Vacation Destinations

Posted on December 13, 2012 by captaincliff
Baby Boomers, the quintessential travelers are always looking for interesting places to go. Instead of backpacks we now carry high-end but functional luggage, you know, the kind of stuff that people in Boulder, Colorado would buy and use if they ever left Colorado and their 12 million medical marijuana dispensaries.
The rest of us who dont live in paradise look for travel bargains and/or highly unique places to visit. Normally Belgium would not come to mind. Besides making good waffles and pretty decent milk chocolate, Belgium is not known for all that much. It’s sort of the “Idaho” of Europe, as in they make a good export product or two, like Idaho potatoes and violent domestic terrorists, but I wouldn’t want to live there. So what do you do if you cant compete with London, Paris, Las Vegas or Los Angeles for tourist attractions and swinging nightlife?
You create a “niche” market. You create a hotel and distinct brand that appeals to a limited but oddly loyal segment of the traveling public. Previously I have opened up to my readers, so to speak, about my recurrent intestinal problems and interest in all things “bowel”. Ok, actually I have opened up my entire head, mind, and mondo bizarro sense of humor to the public domain in my CaptCliff blog. As a result, my grown children have attempted to take away my computer and put me in a permanent state of digital “time out”. In their defense, given the very permanent nature of what is posted on the internet, it is quite possible that I sometimes confuse my posterior for what I leave for posterity. So be it.

Still, it’s not gonna happen. I will not be silenced, even if it is for my own good. There are too many important stories to tell and news items to dissect for their superficial cultural value and deep insight into the human condition, circa 2012. The underlying theme is usually the same….that mankind, like “auto-correct” on our cellphones tries hard to help, to be good and to get it right, but often fails miserably. Existential humor is better than severe depression.

Writing about 2013 is a bit more speculative what with my upcoming trip to Cancun next week and the coinciding Mayan Apocalypse. I checked with my travel agent to see if a disintegrating home planet or Extinction Event sized meteor is covered by the travelers insurance, but they claim that requires an extra charge and a signed waiver of some kind. Waiver of what, that a one way trip to hell or hordes of drunken tourists turned into brain eating zombies rampaging through Cancun is excluded from coverage?

Anyway, back to Belgium. If you dont have a good beach and Brussels isn’t liked much more than brussel sprouts, what do you do to draw in new tourists?  Apparently, according to this HuffPost article (see below) , you build a room-hotel in the shape of a human colon. In fact you call it CasAnus and for some reason people want to come and sleep inside a large, medically accurate architectural recreation of your asshole.  As far as I know they havent added an olfactory component or aromatherapy program that accurately depicts how it smells up in there, but that could be coming as they “squeeze out” new marketing strategies and gather venture capital. Of course everyone thinks I’m kidding (again) or believes I am exaggerating the insanity of our times, but look (or smell) for yourself.  When they talk about “destination vacations”, how much cooler can it get for us Baby Boomers then the Presidential Suite at the CasAnus, delicious vegan diinner at the Colon Cantina, and an in-room hot stone massage and coffee enema? This is the kind of place you leave feeling clean, refreshed, and a lot lighter…mostly in the wallet.
Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a licensed Psychologist and 59 year old humorist living in Sandy Springs, Georgia. He likes Pirates and blogs on WordPress about zany topics relevant to Baby Boomers. Contact: 404-932-7193
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Cannibalism: Sharpen Your Mind and Your Cutlery

Posted on December 3, 2012 by captaincliff

Cannibalism: Sharpen Your Mind and Your Cutlery by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D.

 

In an attempt to shore up my self-image as an intellectual, I ordered the book, Cannibalism: Human Aggression and Cultural Form by Eli Sagan from Amazon.com (gently used/nibbled for 99 cents). 

 
The author, I was surprised to find out, is NOT Carl Sagan’s idiot-savant brother nor is he the famous Cosmologist’s first cousin with high functioning Aspergers and a thing for eating people. I guess I must have made up those non-existent family associations due to my own diagnostic dog tags, namely being ADD and prone to excessive imagination. For no good reason I imagined receiving in the mail an enormous, dense, meticulously researched textbook about cannibals with startling ramifications and “billions and billions” of carefully crafted connecting dots leading (like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs) to our current warmongering patriarchal capitalistic culture. Wow, that last sentence had a crapful of C-words in it. Go ahead, count them up. I dare you. 

Given the engrossing as well as gross topic, I prepared for my literary deep-dive into mankind’s demonic past by buying two extra large beef jerky packages at Krogers (one teriyaki, one peppered). I prefer engaging in this atavistic-ritualistic type flesh eating when I get an opportunity to observe human behavior at its most primitive, like when I watch Cops or The Worlds Dumbest Brawlers on the boob tube.  Similarly, when I read this kind of  anthropological horror show stuff I like to get myself into the Marlon Brando-Colonel Kurtz role in “Apocalypse Now”.  Instead of reading The Golden Bough and muttering, “The horror, the horror…”, I rip into a big chunk of jerky with my cosmetically enhanced teeth and try to figure out why classical theism is considered only a “serviceable” definition of ritual and religion in evolutionary perspective……whaaat? WTF does that even mean? I was hoping for a couple of cool color pictures (Ogrish style) of human intestines on the barbie but there arent any in Sagan’s miniscule egghead book. What a ripoff!

Ok, update. The book came in the mail yesterday. It is small, thin, and written in a font type that may require halogen spotlights if not a portable electron microscope. Using a jeweler’s loop to read this book might take longer than I expected. I got stuck on page x of the Foreward where Sagan’s esteemed colleague, Robert Bellach manages to eloquently applaud the author while simultaneously evicerating and diseboweling him verbally. I smell a MENSA cat fight, or more likely a vicious intellectual throw-down between Ivy League educated monkey scholars with psychoanalytic training.

Can’t we just skip ahead in the book to the good part like the South American rugby players who got stranded in the Andes mountains for 72 days in a plane crash with two women, a guitar and no food? How about a couple of nice black and white pictures of Nando walking off the mountain like a goddamn super-hero with home-made boots culled from airplane debris and a pocket full of sun-dried human jerky? Will we ever get to the snow-bound and starving Donner Party and the kind of man-eat-man history that led my alma mater, the U. of Colorado to name our campus cafeteria after one of the cannabalistic survivors, Alfred E. Packer? I dont know why but just knowing that fact made those damn burgers taste better and a little bit more…well, exotic- forbidden good. Not too gamey, well charred on the outside…….good with catsup, relish, red wine and fava beans.
I will keep my avid readers informed on my progress reading this little devil of a book. I suspect it will get better when I make it past page 3 of the Foreward.
PS  Random Fact: Did you know there is a official store policy at Krogers that if your food item is incorrectly priced or if it is not hung on the correct peg, you get the item for free?  I found this out when I got my two jumbo bags of beef jerky (see above) for the price of one. I left quickly to prevent myself from acting on impulse and going back to the meat aisle to casually rearrange filet mignon packages.  Say, what are those pricey steaks doing hanging in the produce section?? Hey, a mans gotta eat, even a caveman or cannibal. Just ask Nando or Alfred E. Packer.
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Germany Outlaws Animal Brothels

Posted on November 27, 2012 by captaincliff

Sex with animals is one of my “pet peeves”, so to speak. I’ve given my opinion on this before. It has nothing to do with morality, inter-species coupling or a condescending belief that the human race is “better” or more intelligent than say mollusks or baboons. It’s simply that oysters and orangutangs have no way to voice their verbal consent or sexual disapproval toward mankind. Even an emu has a right to say “no”.

Without such consent one does in fact have a clear case of “rape” (legitimate or illegitimate) not to mention some very weird Euro-people in need of a different hobby. It’s fine to have “furry sex” with other consenting humanoids dressed in unicorn and/or gorilla costumes, just not real silverback gorillas… altho I would love to see somebody try it.
Leave it up to the Germans, however. Things are getting so strange over there that they are having to outlaw “animal brothels” or as they like to call them “erotic zoos”. You always think I am kidding and I am not. Read it for yourself ( see link below).
Apparently a simple “petting zoo” does not suffice in Deutchland like it does at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Too many Germans are taking the whole “petting” thing two or three steps or “bases” as we used to call it in 7th grade, farther and insist on going all the way with sheep, lambs, goats, llamas, donkeys and whatever creatures they can get their hands on or genitals into.
I’ve considered becoming a vegetarian for years but my great love of barbecue burgers and medium rare lamb chops always gets the better of me.  Weird News like this goes one further than even Mad Cow Disease in making me question my carnivore taste buds and where my food comes from.  Maybe I’m overreacting. I’ve heard of “farm to table” cuisine but “farm to bedroom” livestock is one bridge too far in mans so called sexual evolution. On the other hand, I’m sure there is a confused Conservative somewhere who is thinking, ” Well, maybe if they marry the horse or chicken or sheepdog and make sure it’s not an unnatural same sex union that would at least sanctify the relationship”.   I’m not sure who is crazier to tell you the truth. If you love your llama in a way that makes you feel like I’ve seriously offended you, feel free to write me back so we can discuss the issue (while I call the authorities).
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Hunting for the Homeless on Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2012 by captaincliff

Hunting for the Homeless on Thanksgiving 2012

by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D.
Part One

We have a special tradition on Thanksgiving. After we (the Mazer clan of Atlanta) pig out into a near comatose state of pure gluttony and uber-sloth, we all get together on the following day (Black Friday) not to “shop until we drop” but to help the homeless. We know we cant provide them with tidy new homes or expensive clothing, but we can feed them with tasty leftovers from our Thanksgiving feast.
Instead of a normal sized butterball turkey, I purposely buy a mutant bird from Costco that is so large it barely fits in the oven and often has to be tied to the roof of the car when I leave the Costco parking lot. Maybe its a conjoined Siamese turkey since everything at Costco is sold in multiples and in bulk. By cooking such an unusually large bird which has to be marinated using a standard size kitchen mop and Octomom’s mega-turkey baster syringe, we have enough leftover white meat and stuffing to make around 40 sandwiches for the hungry homeless.
To be honest, the rest of our triple plastic bagged gift packages for the homeless are mostly “filler” items, ie. cookies, cakes, crackers,etc. purchased from one of my favorite nearby stores, Big Lots.
In case you didn’t know, you can get a lot of cheap but fancy sounding European foods there that either have small dents on the package or are obscure brands that European people know not to eat. In contrast, Americans such as myself consider these  same items somehow “exotic” and therefore, possibly gourmet. Feeding the homeless requires not only great compassion and generosity, but also supreme confidence that none of them have been former contestants on Top Chef or were previous employees at Big Lots.
Cut to the chase…literally. We loaded up the Ford Expedition with enough turkey sandwiches, apples, distilled water and Keebler cookies (the ones apparently only sold in Belgium) to weigh down the back end to minimum clearance. We looked desperately for a Homeless Person Phone App (HPPA) to link to my smart phone’s GPS, but none exist, even tho I know for a FACT that certain enterprising start-up companies are currently utilizing the homeless as advertising platforms and human billboards for their worthless Chinese made products.
Instead we decided to forego social media and technology all together and do it “old school” style. We went “cruising” for the homeless. In other words we decided to use guile, logic, and gut intuition to track them down. Since man, regardless of his social status is a very social animal we deduced that groups of homeless people would tend to hang out together or “cluster” in small tribal bands, somewhat like Native Americans before we nearly exterminated them. My cousin Donna, who used to be homeless was visiting from Boca Raton, so we used her as a kind of special advisor and urban “scout”. After all, we wanted to be relatively accurate in who we accosted as well as time efficient. Charitable human beings dont want to drag this whole “pay it forward” stuff out unnecessarily, at least not to the point of missing an important football game on TV or something. Unfortunately, what lay in store for us this year was something that nobody, not even Nick Nolte would be able to predict.

Part Two:  Hunting for the Homeless
Normally when you think of Atlanta, Georgia, what do you tend to associate it with besides the Redneck Olympics, titty bars and horrible downtown areas devoid of urban planning and management?
You think of the homeless. Normally there are tons of homeless people out milling around, begging, offering to wash your car windows with a homemade squeegee, or even trading random biblical verses for dollar bills. That’s right. On any given day there are dozens of people without homes panhandling on the city streets of Atlanta, lying in makeshift cardboard tents or standing outside of liquor stores trying to stay warm. Suddenly, however, on the day we show up laden with fresh Thanksgiving leftovers and overflowing with self-righteous goodwill they are nowhere to be found. Ok, it’s not exactly correct to say they were unable to be found. It’s just that they were already completely full from about twelve other well organized “feed the homeless” events that offered a higher quality and better culinary fare.
Apparently some local church or bunch of goody goody non-profit organizations had already put together a number of barbecue and smoked turkey buffet stations in the parks downtown. Every time we thought we found the “jackpot” or “motherlode” of homeless people to offer up our (by comparison) measly looking Big Lots brown bag turkey lunches, the toothless,disheveled but bright eyed homeless person would politely say, “No thank you sir. Happy Thanksgiving”.  Then they would walk off carrying two or three stacked white styrofoam boxes stained with thick barbecue sauce, sweet potato pie crust and giblet gravy. Honestly, like Jimmy Carter admitting to sinning in ones heart, I caught myself considering getting in line at the buffet table. It looked that good. I even considered “trading” two of my turkey sandwiches and two Dasani water bottles to a homeless person for one small carton of ribs. That seemed reasonable… at the time. I’m sorry, but I was hungry.

We did manage to drive around aimlessly for about two hours and unload about ten or fifteen sandwiches in total. Maybe they were just being nice to us and took pity on our plight…I cant really say. We did notice two other cars full of desperate looking suburbanites also trying to give away free food and drinks. One of the cars seemed to actually be “competing” with us in finding new untapped and unfed reserves of homeless people. I may have imagined it in my mounting frustration, but I could have sworn this BMW with two well coiffed 40 something blonds and a teenager wearing an Abercrombie hoodie cut us off and dumped about a half pallet of free soft drinks next to a homeless looking guy sitting on a bench reading a book. Well, the jokes on them because I’m pretty sure the guy was a grad student in electrical engineering at Georgia State or Georgia Tech. Still, I suppose with his mounting student loans anything free of charge would be very much appreciated.
Eventually we drove to Little Five Points where hippies and homeless people intermingle and make the accurate assessment of homelessness virtually impossible. We retreated to Starbucks and Junkman’s Daughter for caffeine and spiritual renewal. Of course, on the way back to the car the privately employeed Vortex police had booted my car for “exceeding the maximum allowed parking time of 15 minutes” and “leaving the premises”. I didn’t even know that was illegal, nor did I know they could charge $75 for such a fascist parking policy.  Still, staying ever mindful and keeping my wits about me, I asked the “rent-a-cop” who gave me the ticket if he wanted a fresh turkey sandwich with homemade stuffing and fake Belgian cookies. Predictably, he declined, but like all the homeless folks we encountered, he was very nice about it.
On the way home, in a car full of crabby family members, I began to silently calculate how much I would have to charge for each sandwich to make up for the parking ticket, gasoline and labor expended on behalf of the homeless. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret the original intention. It’s just that my mother taught me to never throw away any leftovers that are  still “decent food for someone who needs it”.  I think I ate four turkey sandwiches for dinner that night, not counting leftover shrimp dejonge, mashed potatoes, stovetop stuffing with gravy and a small plastic bag of cheapass Big Lots Keebler cookies. Anybody still hungry?
Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and humorist living in Sandy Springs, Georgia. He is originally from Highland Park, Illinois and likes Chicago the best.
Contact: 404-932-7193
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Hunting for the Homeless: Part Two

Posted on November 25, 2012 by captaincliff

Normally when you think of Atlanta, Georgia, what do you tend to associate it with,  besides the Redneck Olympics, titty bars and horrible downtown areas devoid of urban planning or management? You think of the homeless. Normally there are TONS of homeless people out milling around, begging, offering to wash your car windows with a homemade squeegee, or even trading random biblical verses for dollar bills.

That’s right. On any given day there are dozens of people without homes panhandling on the city streets of Atlanta, lying in makeshift cardboard tents or standing outside of liquor stores trying to stay warm. Suddenly, however, on the day we show up laden with fresh Thanksgiving leftovers and overflowing with self-righteous goodwill they are nowhere to be found. Ok, it’s not exactly correct to say they were unable to be found. It’s just that they were already full from about twelve other well organized “feed the homeless” events that offered a higher quality and better culinary fare.  Apparently some local church or bunch of goody goody non-profit organizations had already put together a number of barbecue and smoked turkey buffet stations in the parks downtown. Every time we thought we found the “jackpot” or “motherlode” of homeless people to offer up our (by comparison) measly looking Big Lots brown bag turkey lunches, the toothless,disheveled  but bright eyed homeless person would politely say, “No thank you sir. Happy Thanksgiving”.  Then they would walk off carrying two or three stacked white styrofoam boxes stained with thick barbecue sauce, sweet potato pie crust and giblet gravy. Honestly, like Jimmy Carter admitting to sinning in ones heart, I caught myself considering getting in line at the cardboard buffet table. It looked that good. I even considered “trading” two of my turkey sandwiches and two Dasani water bottles to a homeless person for one small carton of ribs. That seemed reasonable… at the time. I’m sorry, but I was hungry.

We did manage to drive around aimlessly for about two hours and unload about ten sandwiches. Maybe they were just being nice to us and took pity on our plight. I cant really say. We did notice two other cars full of desperate looking suburbanites also trying to giveaway free food and drinks. One of the cars seemed to actually be “competing” with us in finding new untapped and unfed reserves of homeless people. I may have imagined it in my mounting frustration, but I could swear this BMW with two 40 something blonds and a teenager wearing an Abercrombie hoodie cut us off and dumped about a half pallet of free soft drinks next to a homeless looking guy sitting on a bench while reading a book. Well, the jokes on them because I’m pretty sure the guy was a grad student in electrical engineering at Georgia State or Georgia Tech. Still, I suppose with his student loans anything free of charge would be much appreciated.
Eventually we drove to Little Five Points where hippies and homeless people intermingle and make the accurate assessment of homelessness virtually impossible. We retreated to Starbucks and Junkman’s Daughter for caffeine and spiritual renewal. Of course, on the way back to the car the privately employeed Vortex police had booted my car for “exceeding the maximum allowed parking time of 15 minutes” and leaving the premises. I didn’t even know that was illegal, nor did I know they could charge $75 for such a fascist parking policy.  Still, staying ever mindful and keeping my wits about me, I asked the “cop” if he wanted a fresh turkey sandwich with homemade stuffing and fake Belgian cookies. Predictably, he declined, but like the homeless folks we encountered, he was very nice about it.  On the way home, in a car full of crabby family members, I began to silently calculate how much I would have to charge for each sandwich to make up for the parking ticket, gasoline and labor expended on behalf of the homeless. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret the original intention. It’s just that my mother taught me to never throw out any leftovers that are  still “decent food for someone who needs it”.  I think I ate four turkey sandwiches for dinner that night, not counting leftover shrimp dejonge, mashed potatoes, gravy and a small plastic bag of cheapass Keebler cookies. Anybody still hungry?
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Hunting for the Homeless on Black Friday

Posted on November 25, 2012 by captaincliff
Part One
 
CaptCliff has a special tradition on Thanksgiving. After we (the Mazer clan of Atlanta) pig out into a near comatose state of gluttony and uber-sloth, we all get together on the following day (Black Friday) not to “shop until we drop” but to help the homeless. We know we cant build them tidy new homes or provide them with expensive clothing, but we can feed them with tasty leftovers from our Thanksgiving feast. 
 
Instead of a normal family sized butterball turkey, I purposely buy a mutant bird from Costco that is so large it barely fits in the oven and often has to be tied to the roof of the car when I leave the parking lot. Maybe its a conjoined Siamese turkey since everything at Costco is sold in multiples and in bulk. By cooking such an unusually large bird which has to be marinated using a standard size kitchen mop and Octomom’s mega-turkey baster syringe, we have enough leftover white meat and stuffing to make around 50 sandwiches for the homeless. 
 
To be perfectly honest, the rest of our triple plastic bagged gift packages for the homeless are “filler” items, ie. cookies, cakes, crackers,etc. from one of my favorite nearby stores, Big Lots. In case you didn’t know, you can get a lot of cheap but fancy sounding European foods there that either have small dents on the packaging or are obscure brands that European people know not to eat. In contrast, Americans such as myself consider these same exact items “exotic” and therefore, possibly gourmet. Feeding the homeless requires  not only great compassion and generosity, but also supreme confidence that none of them have been former contestants on Top Chef or were previous employees at Big Lots.
 
Cut to the chase…literally. We loaded up the Expedition with enough turkey sandwiches, apples, distilled water and Keebler cookies (the ones only sold in Belgium) to weigh down the back end to minimum clearance. We looked desperately for a Homeless Person phone “app” to link to my smart phone’s GPS, but none currently exist, even tho I know for a FACT that certain enterprising start-up companies are presently utilizing the homeless as advertising platforms and human billboards for their worthless Chinese made products. Instead we decided to do it “old school” and went cruising for the homeless. In other words we decided to use guile, logic, and gut intuition to track them down. Since man, regardless of his social status is a very social animal we deduced that groups of the homeless would tend to hang out together or “cluster” in small tribal bands, somewhat like Native Americans out West before we nearly exterminated them. After all, we also wanted to be relatively time efficient and didnt want to drag this whole “pay it forward” stuff out unnecessarily, or at least not to the point of missing an important football game on TV or something. Unfortunately, what lay in store for us this year was something that nobody, not even Nick Nolte would be able to predict.  
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On Thanksgiving and Jacob’s Ladder

Posted on November 24, 2012 by captaincliff

On Thanksgiving and Jacob’s Ladder by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D.   (submitted to the Atlanta Jewish Times)

In a world of increasing anxiety and competition to “succeed”, particularly in Jewish households who esteem success and high achievement, Rachel Lavictoire’s essay, “Climbing the Ladder” really hits the nail on the Home Depot-like head. Interpreting the correct biblical meaning of Jacob’s dream of an ornate “ladder” with angels ascending and descending to heaven is nearly as complex and up for interpretation as my post Thanksgiving fantasy of going to Costco on Black Friday to buy a 4-pack of Tums. I thought I just wanted to get some needed relief.

 

According to the law of parsimony, it is always advisable to seek the simplest yet most elegant explanation to any complex puzzle or personal problem. As a Psychologist who has helped my clients interpret their dreams for over 30 years, I try to do the same. We are all individuals under God, and there is no single “dream” book or dictionary that fits all. Two things are obvious about Jacob’s ladder. Like all ladders it is composed of steps, rungs or “little bites” as Rachel’s father suggested. All of us do better to take life one step or bite at a time, and if the bite is a particularly good one, like being together with family or friends on Thanksgiving or Hannukah, all the better to savor it fully. 

 
Second, ladders or stairways to heaven, whether in the Bible or in wildly popular Led Zeppelin songs denote the need to be mindful. Pop Stars, Patriarchs and pre-med students are equally advised to center themselves and become more of a “rock than a roll”. There is much to “wonder” about in this hard to fathom world full of “sturm und drang” as well as daily stress and massive superstorms. We are challenged every day to take a few deep breaths, count our blessings, trust in the presence of God, and take one step at a time towards our goals, whether they be “lofty” or not. In my case I just want to overcome Thanksgiving indigestion and to do so in time for Hannukah.
 
Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and humorist in Sandy Springs, Georgia.  Contact:  404-932-7193
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