captaincliff

I dont know where Ramsey, Minnesota is but based on recent news reports, it can get pretty kinky out there. Apparently a man named Alan Petrusson, now known to billions on the Internet as “the guy who tied himself naked to a tree for sex”, did exactly that in a city park. Of course he first blindfolded himself so that the sex could be more “anonymous” and therefore, theoretically more exciting. Wouldn’t you? Many people reading this, such as myself, tend to pause and consider the “what ifs”. What if he did that in Yellowstone Park during Grizzly bear season after first smearing himself with peanut butter and hollandaise sauce? What if he did that in Compton California while proudly flying gang colors at “full mast” in the midst of someone elses turf? There are endless scenarios in which to imagine how Mr. Petrusson could have heightened his own perverse sexual arousal right before having his limbs torn off and/or found himself mated for life with a highly possessive and close-knit family of brown bears, chimpanzees, gorillas, Crips, Bloods, or Central American street gangs. Unfortunately in Ramsey none of the above materialized and he was merely reported to the police and promptly arrested. I dont know what the penalty is for such behavior in a public place, but I doubt his eco-friendly, tree-hugger defense is going to work, especially given his erect state. I know if I was the tree I wouldn’t appreciate it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/alan-petrusson-tied-to-tree-genitals-exposed-anonymous-sex_n_1527366.html

When you need information about medicine and your body, who do you turn to? I said WHO, not WHAT. Yes, people use their computers and go to medicine and medical related websites. But when it comes to a person, people often dont go see a doctor first. They ask their pharmacist. Why is this? It’s because pharmacists are knowledgeable, up to date, convenient and approachable. We trust them. They remember us. They look us straight in the eyes, and very often they seem to honestly sympathize with us and with our understandable frustrations. Also doctors are expensive and like cab drivers with the meter running, their time is money. Pharmacists dont charge for what they know.

When it comes to mental disorders like depression, eating disorders, bipolar and anxiety/panic and OCD, who do we trust and who do we turn to for help and understanding? Suddenly the equation is more complicated. While one is tempted to say Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Licensed Psychotherapists…the truth is there is a “split” in  peoples thinking and actual experience.

Many (but not all) of these professionals are reasonably knowledgeable. Most are up to date, especially in their areas of expertise. Often they are not convenient, not easily accessible and (more then one likes to admit) not necessarily understanding or sympathetic. The nature of their training and the “busy-ness” of their business sometimes makes them seem either aloof or distant. One sometimes gets the uncomfortable feeling that they are perceiving the world as distinct disorders and psychological classifications or psychiatric diagnoses and not as individual human beings with unique lives and circumstances. Their professional “practices” are so busy and so “procedure” or treatment based that they often dont appear to have the time to look up from their clipboard and/or computers. They are trying to cure complex problems in 45-50 minute intervals.  Obviously there are exceptions involving some very rare insightful, even loving therapists. Thank Goodness for that.

My doctoral dissertation on recovery from anorexia nervosa at Stanford Childrens Hospital (quite a few years ago) among other things looked at who the PATIENTS felt were most supportive and helpful in their eventual recovery from this serious and often remittent illness. Much to our chagrin, as clinicians, researchers and therapists, the answer was often NOT the trained helping professionals, but other hospital employees including the custodians, the cafeteria staff and other patients or close friends. I could go into greater detail, but the point is that love, care, faith and sincerity really matters and those are not aspects that are always taught in graduate or medical school. Real social support and personal authenticity as well as enthusiastic positive approaches (with alot of hugs) actually helps people make it through tough times and eventually heal. We need to provide nice places and even nicer people like that for those who struggle with emotional problems. Why nice places? Because hospitals and doctors offices, including many buildings where therapists work are not very inviting or “therapeutic” feeling. Most people including myself dont exactly have positive associations to hospitals. We naturally associate such places with illness, disease and infirmity, and not with health, wellness and vitality. The last time I was in a hospital I spent half the time going from wall mounted liquid sanitation/germicide dispenser to dispenser. Such environments can turn a normal neurotic into a obsessive compulsive germaphobe in a single visit! My conclusion is this:  We need health professionals and we need hospitals, but we also need creative, fun and therapeutic alternatives where people with real problems can talk, laugh, eat, relate and release their pent up frustrations, feelings and maybe, just maybe, give each other love and lots of free hugs. I also suspect it would be very cost-effective.

I stayed at the Comfort Inn during my son’s recent graduation from Pomona College in Claremont, California. All the local hotels including the posh Casa 425 in the haughty Claremont “village” were fully booked.  Baby Boomer parents and attending alumni along with their highly intelligent sons and daughters clogged the many fine dining establishments near campus and talked foodie talk and global economics while waiting for their Belgian microbrews and perfectly rare Back Abbey burgers. The suburban swank of Claremont is a sharp contrast to the ethnic/ Hispanic buzz of Pomona, sort of like the aged gouda cheese on my burger. As I drove to my hotel on South Garey Avenue in Pomona, it was a little like crossing the border into Tijuana. Dont get me wrong, I liked the more authentic environs and  lower middle class neighborhoods mixed with Mexican restaurants, bakeries, hair parlors and tire shops.  The Comfort Inn Pomona is a bastion of safety, security and working air conditioning. They say they took a 100 year old winery and converted it to the present well kept property. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any barrels or left over bottles of wine. The rooms are very decent, even spacious. The staff is kind. The complimentary breakfast forgettable. Who really need a sausage patty and a stale bagel when you have authentic taquerias and panaderias all around you? To be fair, it gets a little spicier at nite and on weekends, and I did see two guys wearing bandanas spray painting traffic signs with what appeared to be gang symbols on my way to the CVS right next door.  I dont think they were Pitzer College students doing an art project or working on their final thesis but I could be wrong. I also dont think they were interested in my large bag of Cheetos and Flaming Doritos, but I would have been willing to share. Regardless, the price was right at the Comfort Inn and I would stay there again. It took me only 10-15 minutes to get to Claremont where the bandanas were conveniently replaced by mortar boards and sad/happy just graduating college kids.

It is the day after my youngest son’s graduation from college in Claremont California. He is on his flight home to Atlanta and I am staying one more day to sell his car and shlep home whatever he couldn’t pack into a couple of suitcases and a duffel bag. I thought about driving his piece of shit car back and having some “quality time” to myself. Luckily, the rational part of my brain eventually kicked in, realizing that his shitty car and my shitty back would make for a good cheap horror film involving a car breaking down in a small town inhabited by mutants and/or psychopaths ala Husk, Vacancy or The Human Centipede. I really dont want to start driving from California and wake up one morning with my mouth stitched to someone else’s anus. With my luck it would be John Travolta’s butt and he would like it. I have to learn that my fantasies about saving money and visiting all the amazing places on Diners and Drive-Ins would quickly turn into a one way ticket to Hell and Irritable Bowel Disease with some sodomy thrown in for bad luck…. and bad taste. Instead, I look around before me today and see the remnants of Ben’s excellent adventure.

The absolutely stunningly beautiful campus of Pomona is strewn with furniture, broken TV stands, half drunken bottles of liquor, and the detritus of 4 years of collected junk, now only memories of a once in a lifetime experience called college. While the excitement, happiness and pride in accomplishment was palpable all weekend, so was the sadness and nostalgia. These young men and women really bonded and cared about each other. Beneath the hard drinking and silly making I saw many red eyes rimmed with tears and feelings of loss, perhaps even anticipated grief. They have been so busy studying and partying, achieving and goofing off, that it’s possible many of them (the graduating seniors) never considered what it would REALLY feel like to say goodbye. I know some people are tough and hard-nosed and go from early developmental milestone to lifetime achievement award and dont miss a beat. I’m not that way and in fact, I am someone who is constantly awash in memories from younger days.

I remember my graduation day from U.C. Boulder in 1975, which alternatively seems like yesterday and a galaxy away in space-time. Some friends I never saw again and others like orbiting satellites and planets came back into my life either for awhile or for forever ( I hope). I wonder if these guys, these ardent and highly opinionated Pomona graduates, all talking fast (with one another) in a lexicon constructed from their shared experiences as well as their many inside jokes and collective intelligence can see that far ahead or even want to……..I figure when they finally get some sleep and sober up it will probably hit them, and then it will be our job as parents to be there for them, as always.

For the old-timers:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBv6ou7mywI&feature=related

Headline News: Painter of Light, Thomas Kinkade Dies, Goes Out Like a Bloated Valley of the Dolls Housefrau.

Kinkade, whose prolific works of art grace every large suburban shopping mall, Red Roof Inn, church gala and art fair in North America keeled over and died on April 6th of an acute overdose of alcohol and Valium.  Jesus Christ, AA, his not yet ex-wife and his embattled business manager/accountant were nowhere to be seen as coroners wheeled his gin and tonic annointed holy vessel to the Santa Clara County morgue. The painter known for his bucolic landscapes and evangelical christian imagery was equally famous for getting drunk and urinating on a Winnie the Pooh Statue at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim and a well publicized DUI in 2010. Booze and brushes seemed to mix easily for the popular painter who at the time of his death was separated from his wife and living with a gf in Northern California. Personally, I never ever liked his stuff and would have preferred the company of Bob Ross or Ron Popiel of RONCO Info-mercial fame. You cant just paint about the light and forget all about the dark side of the Moon. Trust me, everybody has a shadow persona and if you dont own it and express it in a way that is therapeutic and/or authentically creative, it’s gonna creep up on you like a dark fog on a night “starless and fatherless, a dark water”, as Sylvia Plath once wrote. She at least saw both sides of the duality, but like Kinkade, suffered just the same. They say his paintings are selling better now, so maybe there is some hope of a final redemption, or at least corporate solvency.

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_20569911/report-thomas-kinkade-died-accidental-booze-valium-overdose?source=most_viewed

How I learned to Hate HIMYM

Is it possible to hate something everybody else loves? If I think Publix’s supermarket bagels in Atlanta are a pale imitation of a fresh New York City bagel, could I possibly be mistaken? There’s a certain cable TV show that everyone thinks is fresh, hilarious and “clever”. I find it stupid, boring and unoriginal. I’m afraid this might be a generation thing because my 20 something kids and their girlfriends love it, or at least think it’s “mad funny”. I can’t even get myself to laugh along with the laugh track. I’m talking about How I Met Your Mother. I really really dont get it and it makes me question which one of us is crazy, or at least who has the severe humor disorder. Here’s my beef: 1) It’s concept is trite and derivative. It’s an obvious “Friends” knock-off but Friends was funny and the characters were likeable in their quirkiness 2) The show is hackneyed and overdependent on its laugh track to cue the audience when to laugh and guffaw over its cute but oh so predictable dialogue. Without it, one would merely hear the characters taking repetitious turns overplaying their stereotype roles 3) Some of the characters are completely unlikeable and lack authenticity. They are playing “forced” dramatic roles that dont even fit their personalities. Neil Patrick Harris is flaming gay, not that there is anything wrong with that, but in HIMYM he is a womanizing braggart sexist metrosexual. It’s not believable, just as nobody would ever cast me as a Fundamentalist preacher from Des Moines who used to play professional basketball. I thought Friends was funny. I thought Seinfeld was funny. I thought Sex and the City was stupid but believable in its elitist shoe fetish Manhattan Ortgeist and Zeitgeist circa 2000 AD. What world and subculture is embodied in How I Met Your Mother? Many of the television shows young people watch today and follow religiously, like Big Bang Theory, for example, start out relatively funny but devolve into predictable one liners that are only a nano step above a fart joke. Not that fart jokes arent funny. Not as funny as actual farts of course….but just as stale…as a bad bagel.

Anyway, am I truly all alone in this? Do I need an infusion or transfusion of Generation Y and Z yuks and an instruction manual? Am I suffering from early Alzheimers characterized by a marked deficit in ones sense of smell as well as sense of humor? Somebody help me, I cant get up….for this stupid TV show.

Apparently not the original Ray Charles version but still pretty good…Buster.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pymDDd7mOd8&feature=related

As I prepare myself (and everyone else) for my trip to California on Thursday and Ben’s graduation from Pomona College (Yay Ben!), I have time to ponder why I chose to book a one way plane ticket. I dont think this is just some morbid premonition or a false notion that I am going to be able to “save money” and drive Ben’s “piece of shit” car back from Claremont. My usual efforts to save money, as my family well knows, usually result in another major home renovation to replace something gone horribly wrong or leads me to sell (at a loss) a broken used car whose shiny front grill sneers at me as if to say, “What did you expect, you cheap ass goniff?” I am, in my estimation, the world’s greatest therapist and the world’s worst businessman. It is not a point of pride. However, in recent days I have taken to a kind of introspection that borders on radical acceptance. I dont know, maybe it’s the Lexapro. Alot of things in life that we said we are completely against or would never do, we end up later doing, or at least trying. It’s good to have a strong set of values and principles, but it’s better to be open-minded and admit it when you are wrong. Easier said then done, dont you agree? Most of us really get off on being right. I personally specialize in wanting people to adamantly admit it when they are wrong and/or apologize to me for their crazy, nasty behavior. Somehow its much harder to see and admit to my own crazy nasty behavior. I seem to always have good excuses or “rational reasons” for that part of my shadow self.

The older one gets generally the harder it is to own ones shit, altho karma and consequences seem to knock at every metaphoric window and door, psychologically speaking. All the “you reap what you sow” biblical passages are useless if one is unable to accept their inherent imperfections and fallibility. Somewhere on my crowded bookshelf, among my zillion books is one called, “The Spirituality of Imperfection”. Maybe I’ll find it and take it with me on my road trip along with alot of good CD’s and my AAA card with guaranteed  24 hour Roadside Assistance. Anybody in the market for a cool looking, completely inoperable 1993 Mazda Miata convertible?  P.S. I’m still not sorry for chasing down the punkass teenager in 1997 in the Jeep who flicked a lit cigarette into my car. That dipshit deserved having his sunglasses crushed like grapes and tossed into the bushes…..

I notice alot of people including myself have some “dream” automobile they fantasize having someday.  If you ask 5 people you will get 4 different answers that range from Mercedes to Maserati to high performance Audi sports cars to super hybrid Hondas that run on coffee beans and used vegetable oil. The only thing in common among all five people is they cant possibly afford the car they are fantasizing about and there is a better chance they’ll be struck by lightning then own and operate their self-appointed dream vehicle. That doesn’t stop people from dreaming or proclaiming out loud every time they see one on the road, “Hey, there’s my car!!”  Similarly, every time a friend or coworker says that, everybody else thinks, “Yeah…right.”  Then they return to their own highly improbable plan to build a glass enclosed garage, ala Risky Business, to house their fantasized 2012 Jaguar EKR-S.

I guess we all live to some extent on dreams and delusions. The reality of gasoline approaching $5 a gallon and auto insurance to cover a fender bender on a Bentley or Bugatti Veyron is enough to take the wind out of anybody’s sails. When it comes to expensive cars and dream vehicles, consider most of us the “Dreamer Who Seeks Not to be Awakened”. Who ever said reality is always the best road to travel upon? Dont look at me. Here is video of the modest little $3 million dollar RV I want….if only for a day or two….or maybe ten.
http://www.aol.com/video/worlds-most-expensive-recreational-vehicle/517355007/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl6|sec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D157445

Forget anything and everything I have written previously. All else pales in comparison to the headline news I have to share. A declassified secret report and psychological profile has recently come to light about Adolf Hitler. This confidential record about Hitler’s personal habits had been stored somewhere in a dusty attic in Great Britain for over 60 years. The papers have been authenticated and are due to be put up for private auction. I will not keep you in suspense due to their historical importance and sheer educational value. Once you read the document, 20th century world history and geopolitics will make a lot more sense, even to us laypersons, amateur history buffs and armchair observers.

Apparently Hitler was a vegetarian who also ate “prodigious” amount of cake and other high lactose dairy products. As a result he suffered from chronic, unremitting and completely uncontrolled flatulence. In fact, he farted so often and so “forcefully” that his table mates and dinner guests were regularly disgusted and appalled. Worse yet, they couldn’t say anything. How do you tell a fascist megalomaniac madman and homicidal tyrant, “Dude, could you cut that farting out? You’re making us sick.” You just cant. He would have had you summarily shot or sent to the Eastern front.

You might ask why this is so important? I’ll tell you why. Many respected historians continue to ponder why after years of tremendous military success, the Third Reich’s final demise was so swift and seemingly chaotic. Many of his closest advisors and trusted confidantes abandoned him in the end. In one of his last statements he called the German people, “cowards, traitors, and unworthy of their destiny”. Now stop and think about the last time you had really really bad gas, diarrhea, and farted like a pirate on Cinco de Mayo (like at my house last nite). Then think about watching your personal plans for world domination crumble around you while you are stuck in a poorly ventilated concrete bunker dozens of feet below the bombed out burning ruins of Berlin. Even with state of the art German engineering and scientific know how, the toilet facilities in the Fuhrer bunker were considered primitive at best. Ironically, the Nazis were much better at using gas to kill others than getting rid of their own. There isn’t enough Gas-X and Imodium on planet Earth to cure that severe a GI problem in that limited subterranean space and the Fuhrer’s flatus could have only led the rest of Hitler’s formerly loyal staff and military advisors to want to “abandon ship” or take cyanide capsules as a quick way out and “final solution”… so to speak. All together it was a deadly combination of fearless leader fumes as well as olfactory induced stress that explains why Hitler’s Third Reich state meant to last a thousand years crumbled like moldy limburger cheese in the spring of 1945….and probably stunk just as bad. Regarding Hitler’s propensity for broccoli, cake, cocaine, and occasional injections of bull semen on the advice of his personal physician Dr. Morell, we can only speculate on their collective synergistic as well as psychoactive side effects. Just imagining it makes me want to run to the bathroom. With this written report coming to light I believe we can call this baffling military mystery finally solved and flush this previously unanswered “up in the air” question down the poopenfarten for good.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4678840/Adolf-Hitler-had-poor-table-manners-and-suffered-flatulence.html

Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a humorist and Clinical Psychologist living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. He loves pirates and blogs under the pseudonym CaptCliff at: https://captaincliff.wordpress.com/       Contact: 404-932-7193

Every so often I check my CaptCliff web blog to see if there are reader comments. Usually there are few to none. Nothing unusual there. I recognize that, for the most part, we who blog are pissing into the proverbial wind. We who write, whittle, draw, sculpt, paint, compose or collect rare endangered ferns do it for ourselves, not so much for public recognition. I mean, let’s be honest, we all fantasize about being famous and having a national fan club that rivals Elvis Presley, but the fact remains…..our thoughts and perspectives are usually too idiosyncratic to matter much to the other 5 or 6 billion people on the planet. Everybody is understandably busy…with their own lives. It is the social irony and existential futility that makes art so precious. Most, but certainly not all writers or painters or so called starving artists get recognized and/or become famous only after they stick their head in an oven, drink themselves to death or have their memoirs found in a dusty trunk long after their body was found… floating down the Seine.  We do it for our own pleasure and creativity, but, like every other child of God and child of Man, we sometimes wish to cry out, “Look at me! Look at what I created!!” I guess that is one reason I am always tempted to buy something at art fairs, even tho I might not completely like the work or cant afford it. At the very least I like to say to the sweaty artist sitting in the uncomfortable looking director’s chair at the back of the tent-booth, “Pretty cool stuff dude!” or “Very very nice.” You can see it means alot to them to say something and actually pay attention to their individual creations, unlike most people who are stuffing their faces with funnel cakes and walking right by every exhibit.

Anyway, I find it interesting that occasionally I do get a comment on my blog but usually the spam filter identifies it as garbage-spam. How do they find me? So I write a blog piece about Stendra the new Viagra, and some foreign company with a bot program writes, “Great article. Keep up the good standing!!” What? What does that mean? It probably means someone in the Philippines doesn’t have a complete grasp of the English language and uses idiomatic expressions incorrectly when trying to sell me their black market version of Viagra. Still I appreciate their comment and will definitely keep up my standing.