captaincliff

I havent been writing much lately. Frankly the news, even what they call “weird news” is mostly mundane and uninteresting. I have tried to keep my readers informed about gay penguins, insane castration prone girlfriends, and any and all manner of shenanigans that enlarge ones perspective and make a person glad to be alive…. and still attached to their major appendages. A story I watched last night on “I Shouldn’t Have Survived” involved a farmer who got caught in his moving grain combine/tractor and had to voluntarily remove his clothes and left hand to escape being turned completely into breakfast cereal. He was glad to do it (sacrifice a mere limb) given the alternative and was a bit embarrassed at his gaffe, which was not getting wrapped up in his razor sharp farming equipment but losing nearly all his clothes in the process. Lucky he still had one thumb left to hitch a ride to the hospital. That’s human courage.

However, another story hits closer to home. I live in a quiet subdued (or so I thought) suburb of Atlanta known as Sandy Springs. There’s not a whole lot of wild “action” around, unless you call the early bird special at Applebees wild or think that crossing Roswell Road at dusk on a Friday afternoon constitutes a legitimate form of playing Russian Roulette. Our little village is run like a tight ship with police cruisers on every other street corner and plenty of friendly neighbors waving hello even tho I dont remember hardly any of them by name. I just wave back in a certain way that means, “Aint it great to live in safe, secure, well manicured Sandy Springs? Hiya back and your lawn is looking great!” Well, an article I noticed today in the local news patch suggests there are a few activities going on that I wasn’t aware of before, which is good because going to a movie theater and out to get frozen yogurt and/or ice cream is starting to get old, like many of the residents who live here, including myself. Choosing a new undiscovered flavor at Baskin Robbins does not exactly equate to going bungee jumping in New Zealand or zip-lining in Costa Rica.

So, what is this new enterprise, activity, risky business?  Well….it seems we in Sandy Springs have been playing host to our own transgender dominatrix who for $250 an hour is willing to provide sadomasochistic sessions in his/her private dungeon apartment. Who knew?? While the price is definitely out of my league for the average weekend leisure activity or social pursuit, it definitely qualifies for a certain type of persons ultimate bucket list. Dont ask me to specify the type of person because there are alot of different ways to butter our bread and people do the craziest things, even for $250 bucks an hour. Actually, at that price point I wonder if they are hiring? I would be happy to spank somebody’s tush and wear a rubber mask for about the same amount my attorney makes. At least the right person gets spanked and there is pleasure in the pain at Mistress Regina’s fun house. Hey, I wonder if there’s a Groupon for that?

http://sandysprings.patch.com/articles/transgender-dominatrix-cited-in-sandy-springs?ncid=txtlnkuspatc00000003

As you know, I have a certain obligation to report news that is both weird and sex related, on account of my professional license and expertise. Legitimately, some may question how being a psychologist and sex therapist entitles me to write a blog about an angry ex-girlfriend attempting to castrate a man with her bare hands. I have no answer except to say that people do funny things when they are pissed off and in this case there are some interesting coincidences that give the story added oomph, shall we say. At least hear me out and try not to wince too much. An angry jilted lover in Indiana stormed into her boyfriend’s apartment and found him “busy” on the computer. We dont know what he was doing exactly but we do know exactly what she did. She grabbed his scrotum and refused to let go. Apparently this was a woman with considerable hand strength as she nearly pulled off his entire package minus his “Anthony Weiner”. Here comes the coincidence part. The man was rushed to the nearest hospital which was……Ball Memorial Hospital.  I kid you not. I doubt that the man could appreciate the irony, but we can, as well as wish him a complete recovery….of all his parts. Moral of the story? Lock your door when seeking privacy and never go out with a crazy jealous woman who has perfected the Uma Thurman snatch and grab ninja move in Kill Bill. Sometimes an “eye for an eye” is more like a “nut for a nut” .

http://news.yahoo.com/angry-ex-girlfriend-goes-ballistic-rips-off-man-192805232.html

I thought I was obsessed with toilets. Go figure. In Taipei they have a growing chain of popular theme restaurants called Modern Toilet. Every food item and every patron is served in a bathroom related fixture filled setting. When I say the food is crappy I mean it only metaphorically, as they are quite fond of “producing” gourmet menu items that have scatological significance and sculptural form. Instead of Ronald McDonald they have…….ewww, I cant even imagine. I’m hesitant to speculate what the sociological meaning behind a culture absolutely giddy with excitement to eat out of replica toilets and order mixed drinks out of plastic hospital urinal containers. I realize we have our share of stupid themed Pirates of the Caribbean places and Jekyll and Hyde Clubs for faux spooky horror and drunken buccaneer dining, all designed to entertain whilst serving you and the kiddies crappy food for a high price. This however takes the restroom themery to a new level of morbid that even I with my IBD cannot fathom. The pictures in this case are worth a thousand words and for the chronically constipated I suppose there is inspiration aplenty.

http://omgowned.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/modern-toilet-restaurant-eat-there-and-feel-like-a-shit/

Folks, there is more then a little wrong with society. I am all for product re-branding and reinvention and even recycling, but when we are reselling wall stud finders from Home Depot as devices to measure a man’s erection, we have gone a technological centimeter too far. This “handy” device called a EQM supposedly measures penile rigidity in some international unit I am unfamiliar with, ie. cubits, boners, Johnsons, etc. It should have been a clue for consumers that their companion item, called Fast Size is a “traction” apparatus intended to stretch and extend the male member to Guinness like proportions in one or two easy “sessions”. Sounds more like Penis Pilates to me. These are difficult devices to explain not only to the spouse and children who happen to find them beside the bed, but also set a bad example, of extreme stupidity. I know we are living in the age of automation. I realize pretty soon they will have a smart phone app for this in which you can not only measure your genitalia  with your phone, sort of like Anthony Weiner, but also probably talk to it as well using a Siri like voice activated tool, excuse the pun. I can imagine the conversation now with the app aptly named “Peter”: “Peter, what is my length and girth currently, and hurry up, she’s still in the bathroom.” Peter: “Sir, you are huge, as always”. Did that really take years of research and development? Footnote: A follow-up article notes that zillions of these devices were confiscated from their distribution warehouses by the FDA for failing to ask for or pass mandatory government testing and review. Look for them instead on ebay, Storage Wars, or in your Easter basket today. I hear they work better as stud finders anyway, and not the male kind either.

http://www.malesvue.com/enlargement/fastsize/erectile-quality-monitor/

Restaurant Review of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream, Sandy Springs

I know it’s kind of weird to do a restaurant review of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream. It’s like rating McDonalds or the restrooms at TJ Maxx. Aren’t they all exactly alike? Actually no, they are not. Sure, everyone has their own dessert preferences. One son of mine is a self-professed Yogli Mogli Man and craves going there just to ask the same quasi- rhetorical question. While picking up the extra large serving bowl which rivals a large popcorn container in size and diameter, he intones, ” Who the heck is going to use this? This would cost more then filling my car up!” He also points out how Yogli Mogli cleverly stations its extra employee near the highly proprietary ice cream machines to “assist” people in selecting free samples, which is about the same thing as posting a large sign saying, “Dont steal. We are watching you.” Since the place is owned and operated by Israelis it’s surprising they dont have a Predator drone flying overhead to reinforce the point. Still, I happen to like their version of soft serve and their large selection of fresh toppings which almost always add enough paying weight to take the bill well over $20 for a family of four…… Anyway, I digress as usual.

I really am writing this to lodge a specific complaint. The closest Brusters in Sandy Springs appears to have closed recently. What? Why? In the summer time Brusters is a great place to stand in line and sweat profusely behind several large families with hyperactive kids and assorted teenagers asking to try this or that, please. Their ice cream is good, their serving size plentiful and the many specials like Key Lime Pie with graham cracker crust yummy. By default I ended up escorting the ice cream craving girlfriend to Baskin Robbins on Hammond Drive for the first time.  Shlepping to Coldstone Creamery across from Target Perimeter seemed not only a stoplight with perpetual traffic too far as well as an unnecessarily long wait while they do their hocus pocus Coldstone ritual. Am I the only one that doesn’t really care that they “smash and smoosh” and knead and mix the ice cream for like 5 minutes on their supposedly microbe resistent  cold counters while I am having a major munchies attack? If I’m not busy tapping my toes at Coldstone in frustration and impatience, I’m normally obsessing about picking up some strange disease like an ice cream loving strain of MRSA or Legionnaires disease while they wave their ice cream scoops and shovels around like lower tier sous chefs at Benihana’s. At least at Benihana’s I could be slurping down a stiff tropical drink or gorging myself on an edamame appetizer or that molten lava onion volcano thing. So instead, I’m back at good old Baskin Robbins, the quaint little ice cream place of my childhood in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, circa 1968 to 1970. Will it be the same as way back when? Will I be able to get a nice reliable cone of  average tasting ice cream, maybe strawberry or vanilla, not unlike Pat Nixon’s “perfectly respectable cloth coat” which Tricky Dick shamelessly used to sell us on his “man of the people” image. Riiiight…we now know how that turned out, and my Baskin Robbins experience wasn’t too different.

The place trades heavily on its name and brand recognition, not on it’s product. The store in Sandy Springs is lovely and has a second floor loft for no apparent reason or purpose. Maybe they have parties up there but I didnt see anybody or hear any screaming kids high on cake and cookies. The prices for what you get are too high. It’s not our fault you got sucked into the City Walk hype that has left many stores vacant or begging for business. The ice cream cakes approached $40. When I say my single scoop of ice cream was one little scoop I mean it, and it was a piddly sized ball at that, like they are possibly using the miniature plastic scoop from my sister’s 1968 Susie Homemaker Toy kitchen. In fact, I wonder if they are making the ice cream using the Retro Susie Homemaker Ice Cream maker too because: 1) they were practically out of half their ice cream selections and 2) the stuff that was left was full of ice particles and about as bland as could be. I realize if I wanted gourmet gelato I could have flown to Florence..or Whole Foods. I also admit we did arrive rather late and they could have been low on stock, but still, I was unimpressed and shed a tear for Brusters and my beloved Key Lime Pie ice cream. It takes alot to screw up strawberry ice cream, but somehow they did. Finally, the young lady with deer in the headlights eyes who served us seemed overwhelmed and over her head. Asking for a “plain” sugar cone sent her into a flurry of confused action. She appeared scared to death when her first two attempts to retrieve a cone from the bottom of the cardboard carton labeled CONES were fruitless, or cone-less to be exact. Come on honey, we arent at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in a submersible with Jacque Cousteau trying to snag rare sea life off the ocean floor…..get back in there and reach a little farther down! Finally her ungloved hand, like the robot arm on the Calypso was successful and she produced two bent looking cones, one with a slightly broken stem. All the better to drip ice cream on my trousers later. I wish I could say the price was right, but it wasn’t. We paid well over $6 for two kiddie sized cones which while I admit I can take the financial hit, at least I was hoping for a little Chicagoland blast from the part. All I got was wasted calories and a craving for someone to buck the current cultural obsession with frozen yogurt (yeah, Red Mango lasted like what 6 months?) and consider the rest of us people who prefer rich, creamy super fattening ice cream, just like the kind we had way back when, like when nobody counted calories and taste actually mattered for something.

Once upon a time, when I was a kid around age 12 or 13, on a beautiful summer day with the forever memorable sound of seven year cicadas humming away in leafy suburban Highland Park, Illinois, my mother came into my bedroom unannounced (as she had a penchant for doing) and said in a clearly annoyed/critical/questioning tone of voice, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??”  I was sitting in the circa 1960’s soft tweed upholstered swiveling armchair (the only comfortable piece of furniture in my room that I shared with my “goody-two-shoes” older brother Neal) rocking and spinning around lazily. I think it was a Lazy Boy recliner. I cautiously answered, “I’m uh… doing nothing.” I remember her looking at me in a peculiar way that expressed equal parts confusion and critical parental disdain. She shook her head ever so slightly and continued towards my tall clothes dresser where she then proceeded to engage in a predictable Oedipal Jewish mother OCD ritual. In this particular secular sacrament she would noisily “rustle around” in my drawers folding and refolding, arranging and rearranging my boys small to medium sized white t-shirts and Fruit of the Loom underwear until her organizing compulsion mysteriously subsided….and then would disappear from the room, always closing the mirror-backed bedroom door behind her in a certain way that seemed to subliminally say, “See, I’m giving you your privacy and personal freedom….but you really have none buster (or “kiddo”)….so GET THE HELL UP and DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE!!!”

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This archetypal incident and memory trace reappears in my subconscious mind quite often. Not only do I notice that my mother was an acclaimed master of dual-opposing parental messages (considered by some to be a risk factor for schizophrenia and certain personality disorders) but she also challenged me to solve the Buddhist riddle known as dualistic thinking. For that I thank her very much…..altho I beg off on the schizophrenia part having enough genetically inherited risk, psychological problems and emotional issues as it is. I also distinctly remember that it felt GOOD to see my mother have to leave my room without having scored any lasting “criticism points”. In mid 1960’s Chicago Blackhawks radio commentator hockey language that would sound somewhat like “A SHOT AND A SAVE!!”  by the goalie (Glenn Hall/Tony Esposito). Like Carlos Castenada in the mystical books that profoundly influenced my college years and beyond, I had found my “power spot” by doing nothing and by not engaging with the dark hidden forces or unconscious negative energies that inhabit and later over define our egos, our identities, and even our resulting self-worth on this material plane of existence. Translation: My mother was both a very loving and disapproving Jewish mother as well as a strict Zen master and symbolic Native-American “bruja” (sorceress/witch/teacher in the mystical tradition of Yaqui magic and self-actualization). She was all of those things and that’s not even mentioning her astonishing Oco Bucco, shrimp de jonghe, and almond, cinnamon and ice cream mondel brot (mondel bread biscotti) pastries….the recipes of which are now kept in my sisters head and in undisclosed bank vault somewhere to this very day.

If dualistic thinking is generally defined as a mind caught neurotically conflicted between polar opposites and Buddhism seeks to transcend such forms of human suffering and mental illusion, then perhaps I now at this very moment have a much better idea as to what I was actually “doing” on that Lazy Boy rocking chair in my mid 60’s plaid and madras patterned bedroom with matching twin plaid and madras bed covers on a warm summer day so very long ago. I was in fact DOING NOTHING, but i didn’t realize until now that I was doing nothing effortlessly and purposefully. And in so doing,  I was working on becoming a mindful and consciously lazy adult human being. Of course I was also beginning to practice the stealthy art of adolescent multi-tasking by being both lazy and passive-aggressive at the same time. Two extra Bobby Hull/Stan Mikita Chicago Blackhawks slapshot goals for me. “It’s a Shot and a SCORE!!!”

Rush Limbaugh has gotten alot of press lately for being a gigantic bore who speaks first and entertains rational thought later, maybe only after he is in bed sleeping soundly with a C-Pap machine and a stomach full of pain pills. However, there is an even more ubiquitous menace out there. I am referring to individuals who, as one observer terms it, “preach, pontificate, pronounce and prescribe” their every opinion online. No, I am not speaking about myself, although a few readers might understandably have assumed that.

If you read any news article on the Web and then scroll down to the “comment boards”  below there is one overwhelming conclusion, that most people are idiots. The degree of insanity, faulty reasoning, and haywire conclusions drawn by many people no matter what the topic is astounding. The additional input of patently bogus sales people marketing Viagra, penny stocks and dating sites through inane segues like, “Sure he killed the guy but I met a great guy at this new website doucheforme.com!” are an almost welcome relief from the absurd conjecture and moronic ramblings of folks who have nothing better to do then troll the internet for stories to comment on. Another admittedly unscientific observation is this: the more “friends” or “awards” the posting party has next to their name, the lower the IQ score. One wonders whether the webmasters or editors who review these comments are either: illiterate themselves, temporary hires from the funny farm, or people who actually enjoy and affirm our civil right to engage in argumentation without logic or grammar of any kind. Like is attracted to like and the result is most often a free for all of stupid. Sometimes it is partisan stupidity broken down into Obama haters or haters of all things “un-American” , but generally the more extreme the belief system, the dumber the verbiage. I see no immediate cure for this rash of vacuous minds and lamebrained speakers. I only commiserate with those who dare to think first and offer balanced feedback later, only to have the next forty comments blame it all on Obama, the French or “Feminazis”. Rush Limbaugh you fat blowhard, take a bow. Your class of crass has graduated and is choking the world wide web with bombastic garbage commentary. I’ve heard of the term “spawn of Satan” but I dont quite know what to call your minions except maybe dented chips off the old wingnut. With Passover approaching we need to think about how to clean out the offending substances in our homes that violate our intentions to become better citizens and more thoughtful people. A real dialogue goes both ways and leads to a more open, refreshed state of mind and body. Sure i know too much matzah can have the opposite effect, but maybe turning Limbaugh off for good is a great start. L’chaim!