captaincliff

Holiday Inn Express, North Boulder

“fresh cookies and medicinal marijuana”

by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D.

I had the pleasure of staying at this Boulder property several weeks ago. Boulder is a college town (CU ’75) that has grown into a yuppie mecca with a great view of the Flatiron Mountains. There are not too many places in the United States that one can step out of their rental car in the hotel parking lot (complimentary to guests) and immediately be hit by the strong and unmistakeable smell of high-grade pot wafting not from INSIDE but somewhere OUTSIDE the hotel, probably as part of the 39387 legal pot dispensaries and growing farms/storage facilities nearby. No wonder North Boulder is booming with Italian coffee bars and new restaurants galore. The whole town has a bad case of the munchies and the Holiday Inn North was happy to oblige my own with food recommendations as well as fresh popcorn all day and warm chocolate chip cookies starting at 7 PM. Hotel guests and cookie monsters of various ages and sneaker sizes begin mingling in the lobby around 6PM, all waiting patiently but with the same, “MUST HAVE COOKIE” look on their faces. The rooms, theoretically the most important part of a hotel review were better than expected, spacious and well appointed, with kitchenettes, microwave, fridge, etc.. Again, given the fact that I suspect most of the local population hold “medical cards” and or Groupon coupons enabling them to receive the myriad benefits of the magic hemp plant, the hotel seems especially well stocked as far as vending machines, drinks and a food and beverage services. Their complimentary breakfast, while far from being a stunning Four Seasons buffet is more than adequate with a very earnest server who was even willing to shlep us out free food earlier than usual since we were off to the slopes at Winter Park one morning at 6AM. Plus, I was pretty mesmerized by the automatic pancake making machine…very Willy Wonka. I guess I like places that are willing to bend the rules abit for a good cause and this was displayed further when we returned late from the aforementioned ski trip bent and broken and requiring a midnight soak in the outside hot tub. The staff as young, earnest, professional and appropriate as they appeared, were also pretty cool dudes and dudettes, who knew when to give a “wink and a nod” to an old long-haired hippie now brilliantly disguised as a completely bald Baby Boomer. Come to think of it those fresh cookies did seem to give me a nice little buzz and I dont think it was the chocolate chips! Just kidding. A good, reasonably priced hotel in an up and coming neighborhood in North Boulder that used to (40 years ago) smell like cow shit and now smells like Purple Kush and Italian expresso beans.

I heard Don Cornelius of Soul Train fame passed away. I’m going to miss him. Sometimes its as if I fell asleep in around 1972 and woke up in Stardate 2012.  I sort of feel like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes (the original not the crappy remakes) only instead of apes taking over the planet it’s hipsters, nerds and loud mouthed Republicans with fascist tendencies. All in all, it’s a rather nasty combination of faddish lemmings, talking heads and political extremists currently in vogue that seem to be about as balanced and well matched as Michelle and Marcus Bachman. I grew up in Chicago watching Garfield Goose and Soul Train on TV. I guess I prefer a more middle of the road world view.

As a result, alot of things just dont make sense anymore. The hipsters wear clothes that look way too tight and willingly pay $5 for a coffee drink, especially if you tell them it’s an Italian blend and put a Vespa sticker on the biodegradable cup. The nerds, somewhat like Newt Gingrich, are an angry bunch looking to avenge the bullying they apparently endured in childhood.  They range from the Julian Assange save the world hacker geniuses to 24/7 trollers whose immature and obnoxious comments online still make you want to beat them up and give them a “wedgie” for good measure. The thought of Newt Gingrich with a wedgie both amuses me and sickens me at the same time. As for the Fascist leaning Republicans……..I cant really describe them any better then whoever it was who said they are like a car full of circus clowns that perform at every presidential primary and state caucus. No wonder they are currently in Las Vegas along with Donald Trump.  They pour out en masse and bend your ear both in person and online while foaming at the mouth about how much they hate Obama with every fiber of their being. Somehow Obama, the current POTUS, is even worse then Satan or Hitler to them. How is that even possible?

By the way, have you recently picked up the tv remote and just “channel surfed” your way through the nearly 1000 available stations beginning with channel one? Thanks to my cable provider I can now get groupings of very bad to  horrible television programs that go from blocks of self-righteous religious broadcasts to weight loss and ab exercise promotions to reality “survivor” shows to blood and gore shlock in high definition that just defies description. If this is “reality” then I would prefer the alternate reality. By the time I get to channel 900 I am about ready to put a bullet in my brain or, more likely, right through the infra red eye of the cable box. To preserve my own sanity, I usually end up watching Planet Earth, The Daily Show, South Park or an old movie on TCM. Go ahead and ask me about penguins, i know everything there is to know about them now……..All in all, I think I liked it better in 1960 when there were only 4 stations and at least one of them was off air and either showing a test pattern or a black and white Indian Chief. I miss the Indian Chief and Don Cornelius on Soul Train. Neither of them said very much. We need their kind of quiet leadership and strength today. People like them arent likely to change and show up wearing fedoras and skinny jeans on channel 1001 tomorrow. I would hate to find out that Don Cornelius or the Indian Chief listened to Rush Limbaugh and had Twitter accounts on their iPhones.  Now that they are both gone, may they Rest in Peace (and quiet), Love, and Soul!

Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who grew up in Highland Park Illinois and  has an inexplicable love of Pirates. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Contact: 404-932-7193

Draft Only

Title: Good People (sung to the tune of Short People by Randy Newman)

by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D.

Idea: Research and write magazine article about what makes really good people so consistently “good”. Shadow selected individuals and interview them to see what really differentiates them from the rest of us. Consider the practical and evolutionary value of altruism-goodness and being an all around “good person”. 

Start the article with:

 Personally, I’m not that good a person, even tho I know a few individuals who would probably qualify as being legitimately “good”. No, I dont mean just nice guys or polite types or kindly folk or even terrific human beings. Similarly I’m not just talking about regular church goers or supporters of the arts or “big givers” to well deserving philanthropic causes, even tho good people may tend to engage in such selfless behavior.  I’m referring to men and women we all might know and love who are consistently as good as one might imagine, whether they are in public or in solitary confinement, under stress or lounging at a spa in St. Lucia, aware of others watching them or with me hidden surreptitiously behind their living room curtains trying to catch them being bad. The idea of doing just that, following and shadowing several really good people came to me suddenly one evening while I was busy engaged in my regular routine of ruminating on my misfortunes with my typical narcissistic combination of competitive resentment, anger, and self-loathing. Normally I accomplish this by reading the obituaries, watching the Kardashians or Housewives of Whereever on television and by Facebook stalking former friends and schoolmates, particularly the highly successful ones, and then reading their impossibly positive status updates. With a special proprietary admixture of anger and covetous greed-envy, I then imagine them losing their mind and/or their McMansions in a monsoon. Dont get the wrong Idea, I’m not that terribly bad either. I am just acutely aware of having bouts of normal jealousy, hyper-competitive feelings and “the grass is always greener” kind of thinking. Normally I even feel bad for thinking so negatively and chide myself for my petty jealousies and persistent tendency to slip into schaudenfreude like fantasies. Schaudenfreude, which is defined as ………………….

I am I, Don Quixote,

The Lord of La Mancha,

 My destiny calls and I go….to the bathroom.

That’s right. Since being diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome last year my interest in bathrooms and toilet technology has gone from somewhat eccentric to full bore obsessive. Like many others with IBS, I follow the popular bowel related blogs and websites like Flushthisbook, Ratemypoo and Doodie.com for divine inspiration and intellectual stimulation, so to speak. I’ve also been known to use Google Earth and GPS technology to locate the nearest available gas station pitstop, Porta Potty or restaurant restroom. Unfortunately Yelp and Trip Advisor have not yet developed a rating system for same, as I would probably consult that kind of practical guide more often then I would Zagats.  I know that sounds outlandish, but when nature calls often, the errant knight and Jewish Pirate, CaptCliff must answer. Those lucky souls who dont have such difficulties are clueless to the extremes fellow sufferers go through to find some relief. IBS can seriously interfere with normal everyday functioning and even ones ability to make a living as noted by the recent news of a bank robber with IBS in Connecticut. Due to his affliction, he ended up dropping trough in the bank parking lot prior to his stick up, thus leaving a distinctive calling card for the cops. Talk about forensic evidence. He was probably robbing the bank to pay off his Gastroenterology bill, the literal equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul Goldstein, M.D.. All colonoscopies aside, the unpredictable course and long duration of IBS can seriously limit the mobility of individuals and make their lives an exercise in frustration and futility. In my own case, and as a licensed Clinical Psychologist, I have noticed how the psychological effects of having unpredictable bouts of diarrhea and constipation can become greater over time, leaving the IBS sufferers not so much bedridden as bathroom bound, and afraid to travel very far or wide. As a result I recently mustered up my strength and decided in two months time to go on a Holy pilgrimage of sorts, and to do as Don Quixote did in Cervantes beloved novel and boldly sang out in the lyrics to the Broadway musical, The Man of La Mancha. Instead of seeking fame and fortune as a knight, I would seek out interesting and exotic bathrooms across the US, beginning with the privvy of my childhood dreams at the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo, California. As a child I had stayed there with my family on vacation and then again as a newlywed 15 years later, showing my blushing bride what a giant waterfall urinal with a built in electric eye looks like. The skinny kid with a crew cut and Beatle boots in 1965 was later replaced by a long haired left-leaning U.C. Berkeley Psychology grad student looking to his future in the ghostly reflections of the Madonna Inn’s one of a kind  hammered metallic bath fixtures. My ex-wife passed away from Lung Cancer in 1999, and now, as a 58 year old bald Baby Boomer with bowel problems (try to say that ten times fast)  I am determined to revisit my youth and my glory days. I’m not sure what I will see staring back at me in the mirror this time around, but self-reflection is supposed to be the sine qua non of my profession, so we shall see.  (to be continued)

Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and humorist  in Atlanta who blogs on Facebook under his alter-ego, CaptCliff.  He remembers well his mother’s admonition, ” Oy! What’s with the potty mouth?”  Contact: 404-932-7193

Within the fields of scatology and coprology, the so called “twin sciences of shit” , there are many deep dark mysteries…so to speak. I noticed one of these strange occurrences this morning. However, please dont go off the deep end thinking this signifies a supernatural phenomena or anything weird like that. Dont go calling one of those creepy Ghostbuster reality TV shows to tell them you think theres a Casper like spirit inhabiting Cliff’s bathroom or intestinal tract.. Ok, here is the long and short of it, no pun intended. Do you know how women talk about menstrual rhythms and how sisters in a family and/or female coworkers somehow end up with co-occuring menstruation, something that men who live with them simply call a “living nightmare”? Well, many of you devoted listeners know that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).  Dont all applaud at once…it’s not exactly my proudest achievement or greatest contribution to modern society. Flushable Wet Wipes and their inventor deserve that distinction. Now that’s real technological progress…but I digress. By the way, while I am digressing and probably regressing on the subject of poop, dont you just LOVE the feeling of being “empty” after a good dump? I think that may be on the physical level pretty close to the Zen experience of “No Ego”, or the Zen state of complete “emptiness” that millions of Buddhists aspire to. Makes you wonder what the Dalai Lama does when he is irregular or constipated on this physical plane of existence. Anyway……my girlfriend and I , who are both followers of the Dalai Lama as well as the guy who wrote the bathroom books, “What’s Your Poo Telling You” and the wildly popular companion volume,”The Poo Log” were talking shit, literally, the other day. Some of you may or may not  know there is an actual numerical chart of fecal typologies. I’m talking about the PQI or Poo Quality Index. Let me repeat..some genius with a PH.D. in Crapology and an MD in Gastroenterology has published a guide that folks with bowel trouble use to gauge the health of their Bowel Movements (BMs). As a Clinical Psychologist I am quite used to and comfortable asking my clients, “How would you describe your feelings and what number would you give them on a 1 to 10 scale?” However, I’m not sure my emotional openness extends so far as to say, “How would you describe your poop and what number on this chart would you consider its size, shape,consistency and delivery?”  Delivery? Are we on the Obstetrics ward? Naah, were not too anal a culture are we?  Only Nazi Germany was more anal and meticulous about charting anything and everything for so called posterity. Anyway, my courageous partner was saying last nite she had notice her latest BM’s to be…and here we have to delve into the lexicon of feces…”sludge-like” or “the kind that always leave a tell-tale mark after you flush”. Right, I knew just what she meant. We were talking the same language but were having vastly different toilet experiences because I was, until today, literally on another page of the chart. To be perfectly honest, due to my IBS which is the gastrointestinal version of being Bipolar, I typically swing wildly between the extremes of diarrhea and deprivation, meaning absolutely nothing to show for myself. When my gf described her latest creative accomplishment in the bathroom,  I envied her productivity and her sludge-like PQI score. Here finally comes the weird part. After I spent a fairly sleepless nite of weird dreams about submarines, subways (both the sandwiches and the underground transportation systems) and a random one about my mother in a scary clown costume, I awoke today with the urge to go, even without my early morning French press coffee ritual, which is the poo obsessed person’s version of a Japanese Tea ceremony. Very exact and almost never varying to produce the desired physical and spiritual results. Well, in this case I completely skipped the Zen ritual and went right to my ceramic friend John and “voila”, what do you know but I got sludge! I realize most people would not make such a big deal, write a whole essay about it or , god forbid, grab their digital camera and send a picture to Ratemypoo.com. I’m not kidding, people do that. However my point here is less pictorial and more metaphysical. Sort of the scatological version of the quantum physics movie, “What the Bleep”, the documentary positing that idea that individual and group consciousness can influence the material world. Holy Shit! I thought sludge and I got it! Now I have to just keep believing in myself and my vastly underrated  “Powers of Poo” and literally move myself up the PQI chart toward increasing health and total enlightenment. Maybe its all psychological but I feel better already.

Recovering From Holiday Shopping

by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. on Wed, January 4th, 2012  at 12:55pm

I dont know about you but I’m still recovering from my holiday shopping. I wasn’t pepper sprayed at Walmart and I dont mean the trauma of getting trampled at the Mall of America or hit in the head by a newly released Michael Jordan shoe, although that would definitely leave a mark.  I’m talking about my shopping trip to the local sex shop. First, let me ask you are you over 50 years old?  Have you by any chance been to one of these stores lately?

No, I dont mean a “head shop”, the ubiquitous “pipe and tobacco” places where every college kid and their stoner cousin wanders around looking and smelling like beach venders in Jamaica while looking at bongs, pipes, vaporizers and incense holders in the shape of a dragon or cheesy plastic gargoyle. I’m talking about the sex stores like the ones we used to sneak into back in the day in NYC or Chicago, thinking to bring home titillating souvenirs like weird spiky condoms, battery powered accessories and lubricants with interesting names like “Spanish Fly” and “Hot Love”. Baggage checks at the airports and increased security after 9/11 kind of put the cabash on that, as nobody wanted to explain to a beefy New York cop or TSA supervisor at O’hare exactly why they had a 12 inch long “Long Dong Silver” vibrator in their carry on bag. Awkward much?

Well, the good news is that the world has changed alot since then.  Sex shops are practically everywhere now. Much to the chagrin of Pat Robertson and the Old Guard who sit on the various Board of Supervisors in Metro Atlanta, the commercial sales of sex related products is thriving.  Sure the attorneys keep suing each other trying to get rid of the “riff raff”, but everything is on appeal until the Apocalypse….and probably beyond.  You can still go into any strip mall, have lunch at Jason’s Deli or Shlotsky’s, wipe the spicy mustard off your lips and then wander next door into Inserection or Insatiable or whatever sex themed establishment you previously imagined only in your dreams or private porno moments. As a youngish Baby Boomer type, I’m not sure I can adequately convey the “shock and awe” that I experienced when I recently visited Inserection to go shopping for the holidays. Perhaps one could use the analogy of walking an underfed Nigerian child right off the boat and straight into Costco.  I’m a sex counselor, dammit and I spent half the time asking the punk rock cum Goth looking store clerk girl, “What’s this??!”, “Excuse me, what’s this for?”, and even, “Which way does this go?” By the way, the personal service is excellent in these places, which at first takes some getting used to because they are so damn comfortable saying out loud and right in front of everyone, “Oh I really like the Viper Wand!! It hits the G-spot way better than the Jack Rabbit!!”  Thank you for delivering that info to me so directly and for choosing to not use the store microphone while talking to me……

The real point here is that sex has come (excuse the expression) a long way, and the younger generations have lost most to all of their sexual embarrassment, shame and self-consciousness. Society should only come so far in race relations and global politics. Bob Marley’s notion of “One Love” not only plays in ones head but over the loudspeakers as I walked down aisle after aisle of toys, leather products, herbal pills,  lubricants, restraining devices and….things which are clearly intended to be inserted into multiple human orifices…simultaneously. I admit to pausing at one point, nearly overcome, to count on my fingers if I even HAD that many body cavities, not counting my nose and ears. Trust me, many of these devices are, according to Goth girl,  “ass” friendly AND from recycled plastic, thank you very much. So glad the Green Movement has made it this far, even apparently where the “sun doesn’t shine”.  I wont bore you with all the dirty details of each and every sex product, Liberator cushion (hurray for Atlanta based ingenuity and Jewish entrepreneurship), transexual love doll with removeable penis (I kid you not), or cock ring with Roman feather I perused, but I will say ALOT of research and development has gone on in the thirteen years since Pfizer discovered the magic pill Viagra. I kinda wish I had gotten into this end of the business including the market testing and “product placement”. I just get to talk to people about sex. I will say, however, that I am still available for any sex related “focus groups” involving either pay or take home practice assignments. I admit that, after all is said and done, I wonder, like Woody Allen, what sex is like once it has been stripped away from its mystique and “forbidden” quality. He said, “Sex is dirty..if you do it right” and I agree. I just wish for all these new sexual innovations there were more explicit instruction manuals, and especially ones printed in large bold letters so I could read them without my corrective lenses. It takes away from the spontaneity and pleasure of the moment when one has to stop and exclaim, “Honey where is my big magnifying glass?  Arrggh and Oy Vey!!

  Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Sex Therapist in Atlanta Georgia. He has an inexplicable thing for Pirates and blogs as CaptCliff, his alter-ego on Facebook.

  Contact:  404-932-7193

“Gog and Magog” is a rather vague biblical phrase referring to people and places that threaten the status quo and are somehow associated with the final apocalyptic vision. Originally perceived as a brutal and barbaric tribal horde living well to the north of Israel, the term is now used more metaphorically to mean the extremely nasty “bad guys” and/or “bad stuff” out there somewhere, aka the ubiquitous bogeyman. In geopolitical terms perhaps it refers to dark shadowy countries like North Korea, Iran or Russia. In Hollywood terms it means Jason, Freddy Kruger, or any homicidal maniac with stringy hair and a meat cleaver that we fail to notice until it’s too late.

In other words, when we envision the end of life as we know it and well before we enter the all encompassing White Light, there might have been certain subtle or overt signs that leave us thinking or feeling “uh-oh”. When I say “subtle” I would not be referring to indelible and irreversible life experiences such as having a drooling axe-wielding crackhead leer over us while we lie completely paralyzed on a hospital gurney or even the too-little-too-late awareness that drinking too much bad whisky has led our vital organs to atrophy to the size of shriveled up prunes. I am talking more about the various intuitive feelings, momentary realizations and gut instincts that occur on a fairly regular basis.

It seems appropriate in this the final days of 2011, and as we approach the apocryphal year of 2012, that we take a moment to meditate on this more personal interpretation of Gog and Magog. Put in simple “Final Destination” movie terms this translates to, “Watch your back, dont take electrical appliances into the bathtub, and definitely look both ways before you cross the…..OH MY God, where did that bus come from?!!” On a less violent and more introspective level we can go further by asking ourselves, “what is it within ourselves that we need to be more aware of and would do well to avoid in this coming year?” Obviously, “bad” cholesterol and Big Macs come to mind (for me) especially after having just watched the movie Food Inc. on Netfix…… In fact, after viewing that I can barely drive by a Burger King without imagining the guy at the drive-up window wearing Attila the Hun garb while  asking me, “Do you want to super–size those medium Yak fries?” Of course this is only one example of Gog and Magog’s practical utility. I also realize there are a lot of other important things that I need TO DO that I’m not doing enough of to be truly healthy or to “live long and prosper”as Trekkies would say. Therefore I will attempt to make a few significant life changes that usually involves forcing myself out of my bed-office and lacing up the expensive gym shoes my personal trainer son Eli got me for my birthday. It’s just so damn comfy in my big fluffy king-size cacoon bed and so cold outside.  Did I mention how many amazingly stupid programs there are on TV? Wait, why do I keep seeing the same commercials for Zumba, exercise equipment and reruns about the 800 lb. man who had to be fork–lifted out of his house for gastric bypass surgery?  Ok, Ok…I’m getting up. Arrgh!

Cliff Mazer. Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist is Atlanta, Georgia. He has an inexplicable thing for Pirates.  Contact: 404-932-7193