captaincliff

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

This might seem like a stupid Facebook “note”. In fact, it may be something that is quite peculiar to me and/or a function of my being ADHD. Being a Jewish Pirate and a Clinical Psychologist would appear to be unrelated. Maybe somebody else can explain this to me. Here it is: I seem unable, at 58 years old, to determine how old people are or adjust to the reality of being my ever increasing age. Once human beings get past like 20 years old they all look relatively the same, with the exception of some obvious physical clues like gray hair, wheelchairs or walkers. Sometimes I confuse someones daughter or son for someone I once knew in 1972, as if they would still look that way in 2011. When I see pictures on Facebook of my peers, I keep expecting them to look like they did in high school. Now that I think of it, I expect myself to look like I did in high school and every time I shave I get kinda freaked out. Who is that guy? I know he looks like me and has a distinct family resemblance, but I cant place the face or the body for that matter. It’s not that I am against aging, which is inevitable and much preferred to the alternative. It’s just bizarre and unnerving. The truth is that I can still see the same people I once knew in their eyes. That much doesnt seem to change. Also, personal mannerisms also appear to remain relatively constant, as I notice that  people who smile a certain way or have nervous tics still maintain similar charming qualities or irritating quirks years and even decades later. On a positive note, it all seems kind of Zen and Siddhartha like……as if the “river of life” keeps flowing and it just carries our youthful supple skin, toned muscles and hair with its rippling currents of time and space downstream……and to wherever it all goes. I also assume there are a LOT of unmatched socks, car keys and wallets in the same quantum vicinity and singularity as my 1976 moustache, my 1971 Fiat Spider convertible and my flat abs, which never looked anything like a six-pack anyway.

Subject: Episode of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” on Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel (repeat)

I Shouldn’t Be Alive: Episode #32   Suburban Nightmare        Airing Dare:  December 23, 2011

Suburban Nightmare:     After a foolhardy move from San Francisco to Atlanta in 1990, a young Jewish couple find themselves trapped in an affluent, newly constructed gated sub-division in Cobb County, Georgia.  Quickly realizing there is no  Peets Coffee or even fresh ground, organic shade grown decaf beans to be found, they reel out of control in a suburban wasteland littered with cigarette butts, chew tobacco, fast food, Big Chickens, and tree repair crews missing their front teeth.  Darkness falls on their barely finished 5000 square foot home as the pair is subjected to blinding rainstorms, stucco problems, right wing neighbors who claim that possessing handguns is an inalienable human right, and a persistent colony of Latter Day Saints in matching suit and ties camped out in front of their two story custom beveled stained glass front door. Mental and physical survival hangs on a thread as the husband attempts without success to find a non-franchise gourmet grocery store in which to purchase a decent fresh baked sour dough baguette….  with Maytag Blue Cheese. His wife’s hope turns to desperation when she finds out that the California born store owner is a card carrying Republican who never supported Cesar Chavez’s farm union initiatives……….