captaincliff

If I had Twitter, which I dont, I would probably twit this: Getting sick of the Rush Limbaugh vitriole. Cant we just dismember him, roast his fat ass and get it over with? I have dibs on a juicy thigh-drumstick.  

In actuality I feel conflicted about the whole thing. I really despise the man. He makes me sick and that was long before he waddled over the last boundary line and called someone a slut and a prostitute. Sure, that was despicable but no worse than anything I called my ex-wife during our costly (to me) divorce. She called me worse and in retrospect may have been at least partially right. The point is that many of us go over the line from time to time and we, as human beings with a conscience ought to feel bad about it. Limbaugh, on the other hand, seems pathetic in his non-apologies and his pitiful attempts to appease his sponsors and quiet the thousands of angry villagers with pitch forks pounding at his castle gates. Social media once again has proven its utility as an efficient vehicle for organizing lynch mobs, Occupy protesters and flash mobs ready to either dance in an airport lobby or steal donuts from a 7-11.

All that aside what bothers me the most? My inner response of near glee and self satisfaction at watching Rush sweat and squirm disturbs me as did my initial response to finding out that Andrew Breitbart had keeled over and died during his evening walk after kissing his kids goodnight. I honestly thought to myself, “Good riddance you pathetic reactionary bastard!” I even imagined myself doing some kind of immature happy dance around his grave while his family mourned! How is it that someone who describes himself as a liberal Jew with Buddhist leanings and an inexplicable thing for pirates can revert so easily into just another Lord of the Flies character with a sharpened stick when someone he hates is vanquished or in the case of Rush is given a taste of the nasty medicine he dishes out every day? He claims he is only utilizing “absurdity” to bring clarity to the masses who are hypnotized by the mainstream media. What’s my excuse? I dont have one really, except I suspect we all have a little “Rush” and “Andy” in us, just as deep inside Dick Cheney there is may be some Dalai Lama. It’s just buried kind of deep under layers of fat, nylon mesh and Neocon drivel. I suspect if they gutted the ex Vice President , like they do a shark after some poor surfer disappears off the Florida coast, they would find bits of shoe leather, license plates, a severed limb or two and a modicum of humanity. None of us are all bad, just as none of us are all good and that’s why there is only one Dalai Lama walking around smiling all the time. If there were two supreme enlightened beings they would probably get into a fistfight or vehemently disagree on one or two of the eight noble truths. I always wondered how calm and consistently grounded the Lama or even Jesus Christ would be if they were married and had a couple of small kids with ADHD and bronchitis. Even they might have said a few over the top things or like me might have lost their shit in divorce court and flipped out like Jack Nicolson in A Few Good Men, ie. “You cant handle the truth!!” I also regret saying under oath how much I hated all lawyers including my own……I guess I should just keep working on myself and leave the old, bloated, racist Republicans alone. I dont want them doing a post mortem on me someday and finding out I was missing a human heart.

Another horrible and unnecessary school shooting today. It doesnt take a CSI team or FBI profiler to figure out which way the alleged shooter T.J. Lane, was headed in life. Look up his Facebook profile. He has a sister. He looks glum and detached. He likes to play Assassins’ Creed , a violent videogame that is advertised as “For True Professional Assassins” and is into “cats and Anime”….

Liking cats isn’t so bad, but he also claims to be “inspired” by David Icke, a conspiracy theory nut who believes that lizard-like aliens haunt us daily. His favorite movies are the Fight Club, Let Me In, and The Others, movies all describing dark depressive environments of violence, horror, frustration and detachment. In “The Others”, a boy and his sister live in a ghostly world cut off from other people, and turn out to be actually dead already. In “Let Me In”, a quasi-vampire movie the plot is even more telling as a boy is bullied relentlessly and plots his violent revenge. The Facebook essay that TJ wrote on his FB wall is consistent with the other main characters just described. They are social loners who seeks to turn the tables violently on those who live in safe “castles”.Only four people “liked” his FB post written while in school, one of which was his sister. Ok, I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology but I dont think it’s necessary to have that much higher education to recognize that this person was emotionally troubled and very much in need of professional help. Some might even look more closely and describe it as a “cry for help.” Our society, however, often fails to provide this recognition or support and allows vulnerable and potentially violent individuals to simmer for many years until they finally boil over. In a way that too is criminal and it is our culture that is squarely to blame.

(To the Tune of Man of La Mancha)

I’m probably over thinking this but what would you do if one day you decided you needed to become like Don Quixote and seek some new windmills to defeat but in choosing your loyal squire, Sancho Panza, he or she suddenly decides she’s Don Quixote and you are HER Sancho Panza, be-atch?  Should I be offended? Should I demure? Perhaps in this day and age of egalitarian sex roles and relationships one should just split the difference and be a little of both…..a little bit Don and a little bit Sancho, a hybrid kind of Don Sancho, which at least sounds more impressive then Don Panza, who I believe is a lounge singer in Vegas.  Maybe I should back up a bit and let the reader catch up….

 In a previous CaptCliff blog detailing my inner thoughts and IBS related problems with severe gas and bloating, I proposed to journey West, to California, the land of the free and the cosmetically enhanced to seek fame and fortune and really cool upscale bathroom fixtures like the electronic urinal at the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo. Echoes of my childhood sang to me as I now, at age 58 years old, languish in my semi-retirement at my abode, the well known Nevercompletelyremodeled Ranch in Sandy Springs Georgia (not to be confused with Michael Jackson’s inspired kiddie porn mansion in Santa Barbara). I knew that such an inspired quest would involve exquisite planning, a detailed intiniery, and alot of gas, both of the petroleum and Gas-X variety. I also realized with my kind of ADD, disorganized type, such a trip would need a loyal sidekick with all the mental strength and organizational skills I genetically lack. For their sake, the epic journey forth should probably also include a gas mask and a strong sense of humor. Fortunately, my friend Amy from the Nordstrom’s Rack saturated suburbs of Chicago practically defines these broadly outlined skill sets. She is smart, spiritually advanced (she has some weird swami like designation due to years of practice in various obscure healing arts), artistically inclined, and is similarly at a time in her life when the road beckons and self-discovery calls….beyond watching Planet Earth  on cable TV for the 5th time, that is. She is my Sancha Panza to my Don Quixote, I thought!! Voila, when she called me coincidentally  from LA, mentioning that her neck wrinkles in Brentwood made her stand out among the surgically enhanced denizens like a Thanksgiving turkey in late November, I knew that the cosmic forces were operating at full force, unlike my intestines and GI tract, I suppose. We quickly compared notes and realized that we both needed not so much a break from life but rather a confrontation with whatever was holding us back. I’m not even going to give you the IBS analogy to THAT one. Do some of the damn metaphoric work, yourself…dammit.

Anyway, I admit to feeling both excited and scared by the prospect of meeting Amy, or Don or Sancho or Sancha in California because it means not only do I have to dip into my Frequent Flyer miles which I hoard like jars of cheap spaghetti sauce from Big Lots (dont mind the superficial dents), but I have to face my own demons and psychological fears. What if I cant get over my Facebook addiction and get stuck in a Holiday Inn in Barstow with no hi-fi signal and a sub-par bathroom lacking adequate ventilation? What if I not only cant operate a GPS or smart phone to find our way on the treacherous Highway I toward the enlightened New Age workshops of Esalen Institute, but , more importantly, cant get my inner GPS to tell me what I want or need to do with the rest of my Baby Boomer life??  I guess I dont need to worry so much if Amy wants to be Don Quixote or Sancho Panza at this point. Maybe what i really need to do is trust that there is a beautiful road called “adventure” stretched out before me and that every journey starts with a first step….and my three pack of Immodium from Costco.

I am more of a hypochondriac than a paranoid type, but let me ask you a question. Assuming your name is Doris or Bill, how would you feel to wake up one morning only to find ads plastered all over the internet for a popular new “anti inflammatory” sports drink called, KILL DORIS or KILL BILL?? Well, actually if it was KILL BILL it wouldn’t be so shocking because there is at least a movie by that name with Uma Thurman all about a ninja chick on a revenge rampage. Just like in the film, I might just know some people I would be tempted to leave a poisonous black mamba in their trailer, but in the end I would never have the guts to do it. Plus, I’m afraid of snakes, especially the kind that kill you in about 5 minutes. I also would love to be able to pluck out somebody’s eye ball in one swift ninja move. That would take an awful lot of practice and few individuals would let you practice on them. However, i digress………Given the fact that there is no movie that I know of involving CaptCliff the Homicidal Ninja Psychologist, I find it rather troubling that somebody randomly decided to name a sports drink, Kill Cliff. I dont even get the premise, and if I dont get it with my vast intelligence, I worry about the epsilon minus semi-morons walking about, or trolling the internet looking for a good idea or direction in life. Cant we just call this campaign off and rename it KILL TRUMP or KILL NEWT? That has a much nicer ring to it and I’m sure would make a lot of people feel better right away.