Clifford Pickover

I really like the science/science fiction writer Clifford Pickover. I bought his book "Sex, Drugs, Einstein and Elves" several months ago because it simply jumped out at me from the bookshelf and the table of contents were enticing.

What I like about him is that he is a contented, middle-aged, middle-class, Jewish-American science writer who seems to really appreciate his home, life, wife and pretty little town in Westchester. This is, ideally, the kind of life I would like to have. I want to be an "armchair psychonaut", a man who explores the paranormal and unknown from the cozy corner of a cozy library. A life full of love. And, of course, I can find ways to throw danger into the mix occasionally. People like me are dangerous anyway (we're bad) and we attract enough trouble and danger to not have to go out of our way to look for it.

Clifford Pickover devotes a good part of this book to psychedelic drugs. Clifford, like me, admits to never having done psychedelic drugs. I've smoked marijuana too many times to count (of course) and I've snorted cocaine and had a few other recreational experiences with drugs and I was a very heavy drinker for a long time, but I have never done psychedelics.

I don't know how I feel about this. I very badly want to visit other dimensions of existence, but I am afraid to do it chemically. Can't I just take the long way (meditation, herbs, exercise, visualizations, etc...) at least until I feel sane and healthy enough to begin to work my way through certain drugs?

Conformists and belongers (who can't even spell) take Clifford to task for lauding the very drugs he is too afraid to take. What's wrong with innocence? I, essentially, am a total INNOCENT. I am INNOCENT. I write INNOCENT in caps because I am so profoundly INNOCENT.

I was never out at clubs, raves (whatever the hell a rave is), parties and other social events where all sorts of drugs were passed out like candy.

No, I was at home becoming an artist.

So, here is a nice man who enjoys a happy life and illiterate conformists blast him for not doing drugs. What did drugs ever do for you? Acid, shrooms and Special K did not teach you how to spell, did it? It didn't make you extraordinary did it? No, you're still a mediocrity - even after blasting off into foreign spheres!

Thank goodness I am nice and innocent like Cliff. Thank goodness I am a sheltered little bourgeois. Thank goodness that in my house there was always disdain for weirdos and the drug culture and much of the post-60s social decay (hippie parents raising punk rock kids, etc...)

How glad I am that I will always be more innocent than Chloe Sevigny!

Now that's not a defense of suburban conformity! HECK NO! It's simply an answer to another kind of conformity!

My depression is hitting and I don't know why. Perhaps I am getting a bit sloppy and indulging in copious amounts of both caffeine and sugar. Other than that I've been eating well. The swallowing phobia I have been dealing with since 2008 really is a metaphor. There is a blockage in my throat. A blockage of energy. Every time I have not spoken up for myself has formed a solid leaden mass. Sometimes I seem normal, funny and charming but it feels like I have a huge lump in my throat and I am about to cry.

This is all flirtation with death and despair itself. I have to fight it off.

I'm too good for it. I move slow like a sloth because in some ways I do seem to live in an eternal present. I am Dionysian. I clash with my Apollonian Grandfather.

Once again, I am a writer who does not really know and cannot really sort out his own emotions. I was never allowed to really own or express my own emotions. I'm afraid. I'm guilt-ridden. I'm superstitious. I can't defend myself even when I know I should.

This includes my feelings about my family. I can really let most of them go. My cousin Ryan is a great guy, but I can let most of them go.

My Grandfather has been tough for me because I have grown disappointed and disillusioned with him in many ways. This actually does HURT. It's too much to go in to now and it's very late, but I just wish my old feelings toward him could have been perfectly preserved. Now I have to live with reality. With the fact that he is not who I thought he was. He's a blind old fool literally and figuratively.

My friends are my family and thank God I have them. How many times have I punished them for the sins of others? I have to be less of a coward and direct hate to where it belongs.

I've been depressed because I haven't owned up to the emotions I've felt today.

I am afraid to even write this about the man. Afraid I will be punished by some supernatural force.

But I also know it won't happen because I know I am in the right and that I feel freshest after leaving his stifling atmosphere.

I DON'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR MY HAPPINESS TO ANYONE!

Lord knows it was hard enough to get it and keep it.

More on this some other time...

I've always wanted to live in Lytton, California.

Lytton is a fictional city created for the old-school Sierra computer game series "Police Quest."

Oh, those games were educational. So much better than the junk out there now. Basically the player is a cop starting out in a police station and the object is to go through all the procedures to arrest and put away a major drug dealer. The game was created by an ex-police officer and it was so accurate that police stations around the country actually used the game as a training tool.

When I was in 3rd Grade I was addicted to this game. I felt like I knew the characters.

Anyway, part of the game was driving the cruiser through the streets of Lytton.

Lytton was my kind of town. There were strip clubs, biker bars, dive motels, fancy hotels filled with prostitutes and drug dealers in the park. Lytton was a rough town!

I need to somehow find that game and play it again!

I'm a Puma, part 2

Not only did I dress hood, but I tried to act hood.

In regard to a girl: "Yo, I'm sweatin' this shorty for real, yo."

I wanted people to think I was tough because I was so humiliated about being a scared, immature, inexperienced virgin. I hid behind what I thought was a tough facade.

Okay, you may get more girls than me because you know how to be a conformist, but I'll just kick your fucking ass!

I'm not even tough in that sense. I'm tough because I never quit.

I should dress up in a shawl and wear a yarmulke because who I really am is Shylock. I will not quit until I get my pound of flesh!

I'm a Puma

When I graduated from High School in 1999 I had an incredible sense of freedom. Everything was new and fresh: I had my whole life ahead of me. I remember when Kevin Spacey pined for his youth in "American Beauty." "All I did was party and get laid. I had my whole life ahead of me." I wasn't quite partying and getting laid yet, but I had my whole life ahead of me. What a feeling!

I could finally be myself. At that time I decided that myself was a sort of tough, thuggish, Hip-Hop kind of guy. I listened to Tupac, Biggie and Nas religiously and I was constantly writing my own rap songs. I was a middle-class white kid, but so was Kid Rock. Kid Rock and I are both the children of successful GM dealers (it's true - look it up!)

Kid Rock was another one of my heroes. Along with Eminem. I wanted to go for Kid Rock's kind of looks.

So a few days after graduation I went to the mall. I bought myself warm-up pants, a Puma shirt and shiny green Puma sneakers with bright white laces. Now I was all set to finally be a "wigger."

Now it's ten years later. TEN YEARS LATER. I think of how fresh and full of hope I was. I had a clean slate. Boy did I fuck that clean slate up. I was too immature, inexperience, insecure, unsure of myself and I did not have my own will and direction.

Now I'm starting with a clean slate again - and a lot more wisdom. I won't screw it up this time.

I don't like my new stepfather

I no longer try to fixate on my mother. Dwelling on the worst of the past is certainly not the most productive use of my time (and it's a bad, hard to defeat habit anyhow and is one of my worst personal habits.)

However, I have recently had sexual fantasies about her. I think of when I took a shower with her when I was five years old. She was only 28 years old at the time and she had big, full breasts, beads of water on those big breasts!

As the years went on I occasionally caught a glimpse of her nakedness. One time her labia was hanging out of her swimsuit. Other times she used the bathroom in front of us.

Do I feel there is anything morally wrong with fantasizing about my own mother? No, not really. Her actions have made her fair game. She spends her entire life hurting people.

I looked up her profile on Facebook only for the sake of gathering masturbatory fodder. However, I left disappointed. I found one good swimsuit photo of her, but her legs looked terrible. They were gray and dappled, like breakfast scrapple. Not only that, but she had that characteristic "dumb Polack" look on her face, which means that she has her own way of looking like she got hit in the face with a can of fuck. It's slightly different from the Snooki guido version, but it's a second cousin once removed.

Anyhow, I was shocked to discover that she is in a relationship! How is that possible? She is just about the meanest cunt in the world! How could any guy be good enough for her? And how could any guy last five seconds with her? And, damn, does she have the right to be happy and successful considering that she has devoted her life to being a human wrecking ball, to wreaking hate, damage and destruction on the lives of good people?

I checked out the guy's profile and he is a total herb! He also seems oddly too good for her. He's a handsome man, in his 50s, tall, fit, muscular, slightly balding and well-groomed. He is some kind of aircraft technician down in A.C. He graduated from the same Atlantic City high school as my mother, so I suppose he's an old high school chum?

He posted the following message on her wall on Mother's Day:

"Happy Mother's Day, Janice. I know how much you mean to me."

I suppose she has tricked him into thinking she is a saint! She was always a good phony! There were times when she performed actions so completely insane and batshit crazy that she made Hannibal Lecter look like a fine, upstanding citizen. Then the phone would ring and she would put on that phony PTA voice and whoever was on the other end of that call thought she was the mother of the year!

I took this herb's comment as a personal dig aimed at me! If only he - and all her other dupes - knew the truth! But maybe EVEN THEN it wouldn't matter. Perhaps THEY are brutal people too! Maybe there is a chance that I was just born in the wrong time/place/class. These are BRUTAL people! I've always felt like either I was the alien or they were the aliens. The artist always wants to live in the past or the future.

If I still talked to my mother at all (I have not spoken to my mother in well over 3 years now) I could imagine her boyfriend and I (my new stepfather!) coming to blows.

I imagine the herb saying something like this to me:

"You know what? I'm a father. I have a son (his son is probably my age and is probably a typical douche working some good douchy job somewhere) and I would never take any of your bullshit from him! I've heard of all the terrible things you've put your poor mother through! A bum like you doesn't deserve such a good mother!"

If I said anything in response he would probably say:

"You know what? I've had it with your shit! Come on! Come on, toughguy! Let's see how tough you really are! Right now! You and me! Man to man! Come on! Put your dukes up!"

And then, whether I won or lost, my mother would throw me out and comfort him. (I hope I wouldn't lose to such a herb.)

I am Judd Nelson and he is the teacher in "The Breakfast Club."

Or I am be Alex from "A Clockwork Orange" and he is the parents' preppy new boarder (and adopted "real" son.) "I've heard about what you've put your poor mum and dad through, chap!"

Anyway, even better than mining my mother for masturbatory fodder is mining her for material.

Go me!

Another reason I am worried about keeping my windows open.

I have fantasies about at least two of the neighbors next door and I do not want to cry out their names in the heat of passion.

At this point many of my fantasies circulate around Mr. and Mrs. G, the middle-aged Puerto Rican couple to the right of me.

In the fantasies Mrs. G becomes a depraved whore and cuckolds her husband by becoming my complete slave. I require her to be fully nude at all times and to do everything I say.

We play kinky games. For instance, I keep her in a cage when I go out. On one occasion I soften a bit and tell her that she can roam free around the house if - and only if - she makes sure not to leave a turd on my bed.

I say to her: "You are allowed out of your cage today, but if I come home and find a turd on my bed you will be in big, big trouble! I better not come home to find a turd on my bed!" Wink-wink.

Lo and behold I come home to find a turd on my bed.

"What is this?" I scream. "I thought I told you not to leave a turd on my bed! You are such a dirty, disgusting, filthy slut! You are a piece of shit!" I rub her nose in it and beat her with a newspaper.

"I'm sorry! I couldn't help it!" she whines.

"Your sorry isn't good enough!"

At other times I write degrading things on her forehead in marker or I make her clean my ass with her tongue after each bowel movement.

As the fantasy progresses I pimp her out to unsavory characters. By this time her husband figures out what is going on and, while hurt at first, he decides to embrace his new role as a cuckold.

(I actually got this next idea from a Jim Norton book):

I pimp out Mrs. G to an African-American basketball team; 8 well-hung black studs line up to be "orally prepared" by Mr. G before sticking their cocks into all three of his wife's holes.

Mr. G is forced to wear a "chastity belt." A chastity belt is a plastic penis cup with a lock and a key used in cuck play; the restraining nature of this belt prevents the penis from growing erect or being put to any use at all.

Despite this, he grows so turned on by seeing his wife with the studs that he realizes his own homosexual desires and orally pleasures me while watching his wife get fucked.

Soon he is watching me and others fuck his wife every night, leaning in to see the cock enter this orifice or that orifice.

He then decides that he wants to be my lover and takes a submissive position. He embraces his submissive position and acts like a girl at all times.

As an exercise in charity we gradually "man him up" to the point where he can think of having sex with women again. Then I reunite him with his wife in a three-way. He realizes that he desires both me and his wife and he soon falls back in love with his wife.

A happy ending! At the end he is much like Oedipus at Colonus. He has passed through his trials and errors and finds redemption in realizing that he is a bisexual, but that he loves his wife more than anyone.

This is one of my typical fantasies. No wonder it takes me so long to masturbate.

If only I had the courage to even talk to this couple in real life! Whenever I see them I run back into the house like a scared little schoolboy!

When I wake up on a morning like this one I begin with a musical number:

"It's
a beautiful morning
everything's so sunny and gay!"

Then I do the Satyr Dance (I tap the sole of my right foot against my left knee-cap and say "I'm a satyr! I'm a satyr!")

Sometimes I'll do a chorus line number:

"Why don't you jerk me off
a-and fu-u-u-u-ck my asshole?
Yeah!"

Other times I'll look at myself in the mirror and say to myself in a 1940s voice:

"Hey! What are ya' lookin' at jerko!"

I consider all of this to be happy time.

I didn't know I was black.

Islam is garbage. That must be said. ANY religion that tells one that one is to be subsumed by something larger, something that is also maybe angry and judgemental is WRONG!!! Each and every person is their own God!

Last night I had a dream in which I met my superego. My superego was a big, black security guard - a burly, commanding fellow. He was a black bouncer with an attitude, very masculine and dominant. I have to stay/leave, do this/that. I have to do whatever his rich boss wants (whether it's to be subdued, drugged or anything else) or I will be thrown out of the event.

I have a powerful superego. More powerful than most. If there is any self-improvement project I must work on it is this one - reducing the superego so I can be freer to know and taste all of life.

A lot of the reason I stay up until 5am in the morning on most nights is because if I go to bed any earlier than that I sometimes have massive anxiety attacks.

If I go to bed at, say, 3am, I'll wake up at 3:45am in a total, sweat-soaked panic and then I'll have to sit and stare at the wall for an hour and fifteen minutes before the world even begins to come alive again. Whereas if I go to bed at 5am and wake up in a panic at 5:45am I will only have a measly 15 minutes (approximately) until the sun is up and people are starting their cars to leave for work, etc...

I'm lucky I'm 6'1". I'm lucky my growth was not stunted by the many, many nights I stayed up all night looking at every corner of the room, waiting for an alien to appear. I think of the scene in the film "Communion" when Whitley Strieber (Christopher Walken's character) is sitting on the edge of his bed and the alien peeks out from behind his dresser. How many hours have I sat on the edge of my bed looking at my dresser? Too many to count! If you add up all the decent sleep I have lost I am sure it will add up to years - years of sitting anxiously as the entire world sleeps.

When I was a kid I hardly slept at all for fear of what could happen at night. Now I am 30 years old and I am still up all night.

Last night it was a panic attack. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe and I had chest pains and heart palpitations. My finger was on the dial, ready to dial 911 the moment my heart seized.

My entire body was shaking uncontrollably. My arms trembled so badly that I could not even pick up a glass of warm milk.

Finally, around five in the morning I felt calm enough to attempt sleep again.

Believe it or not I am actually grateful for my panic attacks. For me they mean one thing and one thing only: THE DEPRESSION IS OVER.

Or at least mostly over. I still have my moments but my depression simply cannot stand up to everything I am throwing at it.

Whenever depression dissipates my anxiety gets much worse. When depressed I can't feel enough to get anxious.

I suppose it would be best to suffer from neither but I will take anxiety over depression ANY DAY OF THE WEEK AND TWICE ON SUNDAY!

These panic attacks tell me one thing and one thing only: I am finally on the right road.