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2010 July
From the monthly archives: July 2010

Little Eichmanns

By On July 30, 2010 · In Cremains

turtle

I have a friend who works on one of those boats that takes people on tours of the East River. He took this picture by the pier where the boat docks.

This picture raises some questions. Is this the destiny of those little Chinatown Salmonella Pets? Did someone decide he wanted to use a homing turtle to convey a message? Did someone get this turtle, paint the swastika on it, realize he did it wrong, say “Fack, now I gotta start over,” dump this turtle, and get a new one? Did this turtle escape his life as a neo-Nazi (and now he’s writing a memoir)?

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Excitable boy

By On July 22, 2010 · In Danse Macabre

For dinner tonight I ate like three fantastic sandwiches prepared by a male model and a giant delicious piece of cake made by a fairy princess in celebration of our friend K’s birthday. We were talking about BP (because that is more or less the ONLY THING I can talk about aside from Top Chef and that’s only when I’m sedated) and I said something along the lines of “I’m not an advocate of violent retribution, but I’d like to see the VP EVERY MEMBER of BP’s leadership strung up by his nuts in a public square”* and K interrupted me and said, “What do you mean you don’t believe in violence? Last time I saw you, you had just discovered that you’d spent your evening talking to [the dipshit daughter of a famous Republican] and you fell down on the floor in lamentation and said you felt like a time-traveler who missed the opportunity to kill Hitler by 15 minutes. Remember?”

I guess I remember that. And I guess he’s right.

Because later on when this dorky, middle aged couple came in I was reminded of that scene in Trainspotting where Renton, Begbie, Tommy et al mug a rich American tourist into the pub bathroom and I said as much to K and he said “See, I TOLD you you were a proponent of violence. And that’s why I like you.”

Oh, and speaking of violence (that I’m *not* an advocate of) as well as another bullshit medical condition, the Miami New Times has a very interesting story about “excited delirium,” aka “when the cops kill you in custody.”

*When I say shit like this, it makes me feel like my dad.

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In right-wing loony news…

By On July 19, 2010 · In Cremains

Hooray! And here I thought we’d have to wait for an October surprise for this sort of thing: Crazy peckerwood bank robber Byron Williams instigates shoot-off with cops in Oakland, CA.

His mother produced the money quote though:

She said she had planned to cook salsa with her son on Sunday and was making preparations when she got a call from a television reporter, looked out the window and saw that her pickup was gone.

She said she then checked the locked safe where she kept her guns, all legally purchased and owned, and found that they were also missing.

Janice Williams said she kept the guns because “eventually, I think we’re going to be caught up in a revolution.” But she said she had told her son many times that “he didn’t have to be on the front lines.”

OK, what? Is “salsa” code for meth or something? Are we serving Mexican food on the front lines of the RACIAL HOLY WAR?

PS: Tangentially related, and so Not Safe For Work.

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Night of the Hunter style

By On July 19, 2010 · In As I Am Now

shelleyIt’s hard to find a good shrink in this town. I’ve been seeing the same person for several years* and she’s the only psychiatrist I can find who takes my crappy insurance and will return my phone calls. So I go to her, even though I often get the impression that she’s not actually listening to me during our sessions. There are the times when she’s looking at her BlackBerry. There are other times when I feel like I’m on the phone talking to Antarctica or something because when I finish saying something she waits 30 seconds before responding, and she’s just…blinking at me. (This could be something they teach in Shrink School. How would I know?)

There’s also the matter of the form I fill out every time I go. All patients have to fill out the front. On the back is For Office Use Only. And it’s this rather unsettling checklist that’s meant to encapsulate everything about how the Patient is presenting that day. There are 40 or so categorized items, ranging from “Patient is ☐ dissociative” to “Patient is: ☐ over ☐ under talkative” and “Patient is dressed inappropriately: ☐ too hot ☐ too cold ☐ suggestively.” It seems like something Patient really shouldn’t be able to look at, and yet there it is.

So then when I sit down and start talking she starts working her way down the checklist, and since the couch is situated 15 feet away from where she’s sitting I can’t really tell what boxes she’s checking, which then makes me kinda anxious so I’m almost certain “Patient is: ☐ anxious” is one of my greatest hits.

Anyhow. Have I mentioned she takes my insurance?

So I have 15 minutes with her every month. She’s written a couple of books about Jungian themes in film or something like that and on more than one occasion I have left with a prescription for Ativan and the recommendation that I watch Fritz Lang’s M. Last week I mentioned something that prompted her to bring up Cape Fear, which then prompted me to wonder aloud whether the bad guy was played by Robert Mitchum or if I was just confusing it with Night of the Hunter. This prompted her to dash over to her computer, saying “I just have to find this out now, it’s going to bother me until I do,” to look it up on IMDB.

I would say that searching for trivia answers on the web during a session is an unorthodox practice, but then again, I’m a latecomer to this sort of thing.

(Oh and speaking of hunters, my mom gave me an LL Bean gift card for Christmas which has proven to be about as useful as I suspected it would. I’m having trouble finding anything I want or need, though this scary Leaf Monster suit is very appealing. It doesn’t come in small sizes though.)

*And look what good it’s done!

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