My least favorite section of the bookstore is the self-help section. I try to avoid even walking near it whenever I'm shopping for books. When this is not possible (like if there is a fat lady blocking the aisle and I'm forced to walk by this section) I always put up an invisible wall of psychic protection around myself in order to keep from being contaminated by the "vibes" emanating from all those hideous books.
I mean, just look at the titles of the fucking things: It's not so bad that these titles pose numerous rhetorical questions, or that they sound like they were written by dingbats who couldn't
get their articles published in Reader's Digest!! Generally, self-help books (this includes the New Age category) bear a color photograph of the author on the cover. Most of the people
in the photographs appear to be average enough. Certainly there is nothing sinister about them. However, if inspect them more closely,
you'll find they have an odd-quality about them. The faces of self-help authors almost always look shiny and waxy -- as if they've been
buffed with a floor polisher.
Most self-help authors like to include the letters PHD after their names. Others display many more complicated sets of letters, most of
which are indecipherable to the average person. (If you look in the classifieds of any New Age magazine and locate the Home Study
Course section, you will see where many of these good doctors acquired their degrees).
In addition to the people with the letters after their names, there are also a plethora of self-help books penned by people who refer to
themselves healers, teachers or spirit guides. Typically, these folks look even waxier and more bug-eyed than their doctorial
counterpars.
Despite the variance in their belief systems, all self-help authors share a common belief, which is precisely this: Each of them takes the
posture of having attained (truth, enlightenment, wisdom, what have you). And now that they've seen the light, these kindly souls
have opted to share their discovery with you. ,br>
Of course the real mission of the shiny-faced book authors is all too apparent. Most of their books include P.O. boxes and 800 phone
numbers where you can write in order to order more books casette tapes, or tickets to overpriced lectures and workshops which they
conduct (when they are not busy writing). Warning: once you call one of these 800 numbers, you are on a mailing list that it is virtually
impossible to remove yourself from).
There are many reasons to avoid self-help books. They are overpriced. They are typically written from the point of view that you --the
reader-- are a complete and utter moron. The people who write them (no matter how many letters they have after their name) don't
really know all that much more than you do. Many of the books, for some inexplicable reason, have been set in horrible typeface that is
virtually impossible to read. I guess that should be expected: New Agers typically have bad taste. ( In another lifetime, these were the
same people whose living rooms you'd find adorned with cheesy black-light paintings of leopards or really bad seascapes). Also many
self-help books, for reasons I care not to fathom, smell bad.
But by far the worst offense of the self-help books is that they are utterly lacking in any sense of humor. The words ponderous and
dull do not even begin to describe just how impossibly dreary most of them are. The goddamn things make you depressed just
looking at them!
The reason for this rather unwieldy diatribe is that a hundred pages or so into this manuscript I realized -- to my utter horror-- that
unless there was an intervention from the Almighty Himself, that my book (were it to be deemed fit for publication by the literary
Mafioso) was doomed to wind up in this disgraceful section. After all, it's subject matter -- dealing with psychological illness, trying to
heal oneself from this condition, and the (gulp) search for truth, is the subject of all self-help books. Moreover, it has (I hope) a positive
(if slightly twisted) message and -- though I don't generally believe in offering advice -- it even offers some remedies for those afflicted
with the same malady which I suffer from. Over the course of the years (and depending upon which school of psychiatry my therpist at the time belonged to) my condition has
been given various names, including: manic-depressive syndrome; Major Depressive Disorder; Atypical Depression and
Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Avoidant Features and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; atypical mood disorder with
obsessive-compulsive features and panic disorder with agoraphobia; atypical mood disorder, mixed, generalized anxiety
disorder with obsessive and compulsive features; atypical mood disorder complicated by panic disorder, generalized anxiety
disorder, phobic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, dysthymic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, clytlothymia, and
cyclica bi-polar depressive syndrome.
(Whew).
What that means, according to the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (my favorite book!) is that I'm subject, at
various times, to the following symptoms: dizziness, tremors, crying, fainting, nausea, diarrhea, insomnia, extreme fatigue,
depersonalization, paranoia, narcolepsy, immobilization, recurrent thoughts of death and suicidal ideation, inability to concentrate,
inability to make decisions, fear of open spaces, fear of closed spaces, fear of going insane, feeling like everything is closing in on you,
feeling like you're being smothered, feeling that everything around you is crumbling, the inscessant need to repeat particular actions
(one time it took me two hours to leave my house because I kept having to go back and turn all the lights off three times), crippling,
black depressions followed by wild, uncontrollable spates of energy where you do a lot of really dumb things, irrational thoughts -- for
example, that people are spying on you or tapping your phone (the problem is, sometimes they really are!), the inability to do things
that normal people can do, like leaving your house, going into restaurants or supermarkets, taking an elevator, driving on the freeway...
not to mention the inherent guilt, shame, humiliation and self-loathing that being subject to all these symptoms brings about.
There are, in these enlightened times, no shortage of support systems which are available to sufferers from this illness. You can sit in
meetings all day long and listen to people recount horror stories about the many and sundry terrible things that've happened to them.
This is also helpful (not to mention quite amusing), but the bottom line is that when the party's over and you go home, your symptoms
are right there, waiting to make the trip with you.
When I first became afflicted with this condition -- I was in my early 20's -- there were precious few books out on the market (with the
exception of a few dry, psychological tomes) about this subject matter. Today it's an entirely different story. There are literally
hundreds of books on the market which will tell you how to deal with this depression. Many of them offer various methodologies and
exercises which you can use in order to "cope." (Actually, that word has gone out of fashion in the psychological community. Most of
the the newer books speak of cures as opposed to "coping mechanisms"). I have read an untold number of these books and tried
virtually all of the methodologies which they offer, and I can attest to the fact that until I sorted out a real doctor from amongst the
quacks and charlatans (someone who took the time to do the proper testing and to perscribe the correct medication) that all of the
treatments, therapies and advice afforded me virtually no relief whatsoever. No matter what the experts tell you, the unfortunate truth is that if you suffer from depression and its accompanying symptoms (manic
syndrome, agoraphobia, panic disorder, et al) the likelihood is that you always will.
There are also certain "tricks" you can use to fight the illness. One method I've personally developed is to regard my disease as
humorous. Let me correct that. Not the disease itself, but the situations that one gets into as a direct result of the disease. This is not a
totally unrealistic thing to do, by the way. There are many things that happen to a person when he is subject to manic-depression that --
looked at from a slightly different vantage point -- can be wildly, howlingly funny. Both as a journalist and as a writer of fiction, I have successfully turned many of the more unpleasant situations I've found myself in as
a directresult of my illness into the subject matter for numerous articles and stories.
I seriously doubt, for example, that had I been "normal," I would have driven all night -- accompanied by a highly excitable and
dangerously armed member of the Jewish Defense League -- to Las Vegas in an absurd attempt to kidnap a
12-year old girl from a foster home which she claimed was a front for a white slavery/kiddie porn ring, headed up by none other than
Jerry Tarkanian, the head basketball coach of the University of Las Vegas!
The girl, of course, turned out to be totally delusional, and had I not been of a similar mindset, I would have recognized this
immediately. Just for the record, on that very same trip, I become completely obsessed with a 23year old belly dancer working in one
of the cheesier lounges in town, and after she rejected my heartfelt proposal of marriage, I skulked around the city for the next three
days (assuming various disguises) tailing her and spying on her in an attempt to ascertain the veracity of certain stories she'd told me
(my faithful JDL companion served, on that mission, as my second in command). Fortunately, the girl -- who had told me that she was
studying to become an anthropologist at the University of Las Vegas -- turned out to be moonlighting as a hooker, and upon learning
that my fixation immediately vanished. Not that I minded hookers; it was the deception that broke the spell.
Nor, had I had my wits about me, would I have spent six months posing as someone who believed they'd been abducted by aliens, so
that I could infiltrate a UFO cult in an attempt to prove that it's leader -- a best-selling horror author -- was demon-possessed.
Unfortunately, this little misadventure not only resulted in me being the subject of massive libel suit, but it also never garnered me one
single cent in income (the magazine which I'd contracted with in order to write the expose killed the story, fearing that they too would
be sued...the cowardly swine).
Likewise, had my seratonin level not been totally out of whack, surely I would never have embarked on an obsessive letter writing
campaign to a lovely 17-year old lass named Michelle who appeared daily as a "regular" on an afternoon TV program entitled "Dance
Party USA." I developed a serious fixation on Michelle, and after I'd worked up a good head of steam, I ventured beyond the realm of
fantasizing and actually made contact with her via letter. Worse yet -- and I am ashamed to admit this -- was that since I figured I didn't
have much chance with Michelle as a 37-year old semi-starving writer, I wrote the poor girl in the guise of an 18-year old high school
senior. Along with my letter I furnished Michelle with a photograph which I'd cut out of a high school annual). My teenage alter ego,
who called himself Scott, had just broken into show business via an appearance on Beverly Hills 90210! Oh how I loved those letters! How I poured over each word, over the wonderfully teenaged handwriting -- the little hearts with which
she dotted her i's, the gigantic exclamation points (!) that ended each and every sentence. Yes, we would be another Bo and John Derek, or some such thing. And
while I never became completely delusional (though at one point I did consider traveling to Philadelphia -- where Michelle resided with
her grandmother, just so I could see her in the flesh) it was obviously a totally sick and depraved endeavour.
Moreover, had I been a normal, sensible sort of guy, I'm absolutely one hundred-percent positive I would never wound up having been
arrested by the Secret Service for breaking into the computers of a tabloid television show (with the aid of a beastly 250-pound female
tabloid reporter who didn't take showers for weeks at a time and wore her pajamas to work) because she and I had entered into that
hideous state known as folie a deux (shared madness) in which we became completely obsessed with exposing the smarmy
underbelly of the tabloid industry, and writing a book about it which would catapult us into heretofore unimagined realms of riches,
fame, whatnot.
Finally, I'm absolutely positive that had I been "wired" properly, I would never have married the same woman three times (see "The
Doppleganger Women"). Surely, such wantonly idiotic, self-destructive behavior can only be the work of a diseased mind.
Are you beginning to see what I mean?
Please understand. I am not suggesting that any of these incidents were amusing. Exactly the opposite. Each of them, in fact, were, in
fact, fairly horrible when I was in the thick of them. It was only with some distance that I was able to recognize the inherent humor in
these situations, and better yet, that they made for interesting material. At times, however, this notion itself got a bit out of hand: For over two years, I was the leader of my very own cult, a group of highly diverse and fairly repellant individuals dedicated to the total
glorification and worship of yours truly. At one point I had over fifteen hundred "disciples "--
people (fools, to be precise) who actually coughed up their hard-earned dough to receive words of wisdom from yours truly. These
came in the form of a monthly missive entitled The Stu Cult Newsletter. (The Stu Cult attatined it's zenith of popularity when it was
written up by the Reverend Ivan Stang in Random Houses, Journal Of High Weirdness. It was located in the section "Most Hateful Of
The Rantzines."
Around the same time, I created and marketed a cartoon strip entitled "Phobia Man (The Man Completely Crippled By Fear And
Anxiety). My hero lay in bed all day with the blankets pulled up around his neck; he virtually never ventured forth from the sanctuary of
his bedroom, which was stocked with numerous television sets and massive supplies of junk food (the basics of existence). Yet from
the from within the confines of his cocoon, Phobia Man dispensed brilliant (if somewhat questionable) philosophy on the nature of
existence and the state of man's position in the universe. More importantly, despite his sorry state, Phobia Man had many wonderful
and amazing adventures (all in his own head, of course). At the time I wrote the strip, I considered Phobia Man to be a True Hero: a man
who'd come to accept his lot in life. Like my character, I have come to live quite -- I don't want to say happily, because that would be an untruth (comfortably would be
slightly more on target ) -- with my condition. In an odd sort of way, I have even come to appreciate just how creative this disease can be.
Hence the use of the word "adventure" here. I use that word quite purposefully, because dealing with this illness can indeed be a great
adventure. Though I've never actually bothered to figure out the exact amount of time, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that I have spent
approximately half my life in a dysfunctional mode; that is, disengaged, detached, out of it,
or so crippled by fear and depression that I was all but useless... a dead thing. I consider the amalgamation of this time to be nothing less
than wasted years. There was no wisdom gained from my condition, no lessons to be learned, nothing.
This then, is a journey through mental illness and madness (for it is always madness -- the fear of going insane -- which is your ultimate
enemy).
I have been on this journey for the past 47 years. I've been here long enough to know that it will only end when I am dead and gone. I
stopped fretting about that long ago; these days I pride myself on the fact that not only am I still here, but I can say -- and I truly mean
this -- that in an odd way (pain and suffering notwithstanding) it's actually been kind of cool!
Would I have chosen to be different, had I had a choice?
Stupid question. If you notice a lot of name-dropping here, it's intentional. (Hey, I'm not dumb...I know what sells books). But the fact is that along the
bumpy path of manic-depression, I have encountered a good number of that much vaunted and over-rated species called "celebrities."
Though most of them are even bigger assholes than you'd imagine them to be, some of them are just ordinary jerks. Some of them are
even nice....
In any event, a few of the folks you'll meet along the trail include:
Clint Eastwood, Annette Funicello, Larry Flynt, Traci Lords, Robert Mitchum, Madonna, Mike Tyson, River Phoenix, Mickey Dolenz,
George Harrisson, Penis Washburn, Noodles Romanoff, big Dick butkiss,,
If it seems as at times that I am making light of what is indeed a very serious subject matter, I am. Rather, I must. Mental illness is a
disease that fights dirty. When you do battle with an enemy that attacks you from behind, without warning, you use whaterver's at
hand: bricks, bats, chains, clubs, knives, guns, chairs, saps, pool cues -- you name it. You thrash and you kick and you gouge and you
bite; you keep fighting until you're down on the ground, bleeding from your ears and your eyes, then you get up and you fight some
more. I have come to find that one of the most effective weapons in battling this enemy is humor and sarcasm. After all, one of the favorite
tricks of this disease is that it takes itself with utter seriousness. And it tries its damndest to convince you to do the same. However, if,
instead of falling for that ruse, you laugh in its face or spit in its eye, you'll notice that your enemy loses his rhythm. Oh, he'll be back at
you allright, and with newfound vigor to boot. But you've kicked ass for a couple of rounds, and maybe even gotten in some licks of
your own. All I'm saying is that making fun of your affliction can be one of the more effective weapons in your arsenal.
Even though the medication I'm currntly taking (Prozac) has effectively flattened out both the depressions and the manic episodes, the
quality of obsessiveness seems to have remained. (And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way). What the drugs do is to allow
you some degree of previously unavailable control over your behavior so that -- with time and effort -- you're able to rid yourself of
particularly pointless compulsions. I no longer feel compelled to put the right shoe in front of the left one anymore (I did that one for almost 35 years, and not just to my
shoes--to anybody's (when they were not on their feet, obvioulsy). I no longer need to turn off the lights switches three times whenever
I leave a room. I never had a hand-washing Jones, but I did, for many years, obsessively make sure that my bathroom mirror had no
spots on it, and that there not a single hair remained in my always spotless sink!
I don't want to give the impression, given the levity here, that being manic-depressive is any picnic. Despite the fact that its apparently
currently in vogue to be depressed, that apparently some 4 million people are "on" Prozac, the fact is that this is a horrible, debliitating
disease. Some people beat it, others don't. I am happy to number myself amongst the survivors. However, that doesn't mean that I
intend to align myself with the whiners or the depression fashion-mongers.
One of the things that most irks me about books on this subject matter is the tendency of those who write about their assorted
afflictions to wear their crown of thorns so blatantly, and with such great gusto.
My pain. My suffering. My this, my that. Me, me me me ME!
It's disgusting. It's also beside the point. That's not too much to ask for, is it? October, 1998
Honalulu, Hawaii
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Get it, dummy? (Weiner links)....
Reclaiming Your Inner Child, How To Meet Men As Smart As You, How To Make Your Wife Look Like An Earwax, How To Suck Dr. Depak Chopra’s Chota, How To Become a HOmoseaxual Swine, How To Grow An Extra Nostril, How To Grow UP And Blow Your Dick UP...
(I won't even bother to point out the obvious and highly repellant feminist slant to
many of them). No, what truly irks, is the incredible sense of conceit that literally arises -- like steam-- from the pages.
Almost to man they have a peculiar glassy-eyed look (I like to call it the Scientology-damaged look). It's the
lok of the (da-dum) enlightened.
Well, you get the idea, I'm sure. Basically, it's a fucking drag.
"https://www.angelfire.com/ca/snotlog.html">
I'm told that there are some 16 million Americans suffering from the same disease I am afflicted with. This is somewhat comforting (it's
always nice to know others are suffering too), but when you're in the midst of a panic attack, knowing th is doesn't make a hell of a lot
of difference. Your pain is still your pain.
Nobody can get inside your skin and share it with you.
Sorry, but that's just the way it goes. If you go to
see a doctor and he starts talking about cures, I suggest you do an immediate about face
All is not lost, however. With the proper medication, coupled with ongoing therapy, you can get better....and getting better is what it's
all about. Once I received the correct medication (and that is no easy task), I found that I was able to function with a relative degree of
normalcy.
Tarkanian, as well as the entire basketball team -- according
my young source -- were also Satanists.
The upshot was that I immediately began to receive (as I knew I would) a steady stream of correspondence from Michelle, who
informed me that normally she didn't answer "an mail, but that there was just something about me was just different." I'll say!
And though clearly Michelle and I were
destined never to meet, during the course our romance-via-mail, I nursed an abiding fantasy that somehow, some way -- twenty-two
year age difference be damned! -- we would wind up living happily ever after, the hoary middle-aged writer and the raven-haired little
dancer with the cutest, most wonderful ass in the entire world.
Once I found that I could, as it were, take advantage of the many absurd situations that my condition led me into, I realized to my utter
delight that -- by God! -- maybe this wasn't such a bad deal after all! Maybe I could turn my handicap into a career!
Both the Stu Cult and the Phobia Man cartoon series ended abruptly when I issued a fake
suicide letter to my loyal legions. It was accompanied with an obituary which ran in the Los Angeles Times.
After you get the sense of riding the roller-coaster, it becomes a fine balancing act -- a thing of great beauty -- to negotiate the
waters of manic-depression.
I want to stress that the bulk of the material here deals with the manic/obsessive side of my condition. In that sense, this is not meant to
be an accurate representation of "my life." Frankly, I see little point in writing about the depressions -- those periods when I was
dysfunctional. Depression, no matter how many words one may write on the subject, is utterly mundane. There is, in the end, nothing
to say about it. But I hasten to remind the reader that manic-depression is exactly what it says. Half the time you're whacked out of
your skull -- off on some bizarre flight of fantasy, consequences be damned. The rest of the time you're flat on your back, or more
correctly, probably hiding in your bedroom, in some approximation of the fetal position.
You now get to embark on that journey with me. Along the way you will meet what I think is a highly interesting cast of characters
including UFO abductees, Mafia hitmen, bodyguards, bouncers, ex-cons, famous writers and filmmakers, sleazy lawyers, government
informants, pornographers, gurus,
gun-runners, private eyes, religious fanatics, computer hackers, groupies, psychics, secret agents, Elvis impersonators, snitches,
strippers, exorcists, UFO abductees, judges, lawyers, tabloid reporters, negro watchers, nipplemeisters,
drug dealers, survivalists, spies, judges, District Attorneys, coroners,
taxi dancers, tabloid reporters, kickboxers, strippers, evangelists,
bounty hunters, devil-worshippers, autograph junkies, fanatical fans, serial killers -- plus a gaggle of (ugh) celebrities.
Cal Worthington, Ricky Nelson, Roseanne Barr, Dick Dale, Demi Moore,
Bill Cosby, Anton LaVey, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Rupert Murdoch, Marlon Brando, P.J. O'Rourke, Lisa Marie Presley , Morton Downey
Jr., Bob Dylan, Norman Mailer, Michael Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Art Buchwald, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Seagal, Jimmy Swaggart,
Ringo Starr, David he —the fat fucking fag) ) Geffen,
Jerry Lewis, Princess Di, Charles Manson, David Janssen, Tony Dow,
Tammy Wynette, Liberace, Bruce Lee, Krishnamurti, Melvin Belli,
Kinky Friedman, L. Ron Hubbard, Willie Nelson, Shirley MacLaine,
William F. Buckley, Hunter Thompson, Dominick Dunne, Barry Diller,
Chuck Norris, Larry Flynt, Linda Ronstadt, Muhammad Ali, Gerry Spence,
Keith Richards, Pat Buchannon, and Lyle and Erik Menendez.
Certain obsessions, however, have become very near and dear to me. For example, I have a persistent and violent compulsion to spit on
any photograph of Whoopi Goldberg that I encounter (if I'm in a situation where social graces prohibit this, at the very least, I'll take a
pen and black out a couple of her teeth). When I'm driving my car, I obsessively swear, curse, give the finger to, make horrible faces at,
and in general behave like a certifiable lunatic towards other drivers whom I perceive to be idiots. (People with overly cute personalized
licence plates also seem to invoke my wrath). When someone wrongs me a serious way, I always extract revenge upon them, no matter
how long it takes. In this endeavour, I maintain a leangthy computerized "hit list." I have no intention whatsoever of abandoning any of
these little rituals.
If you accept the notion, as I do, that life is suffering -- a long malaise, as my friend Frederick Exeley put it -- and that we are all,
ultimately, terminal cases, that in itself can be a fairly amusing notion. But even if you can't view things from that slightly skewed
point-of-view, and you find everything completely intolerable....nobody ever said you couldn't have a few laughs along the way.
So come, take the ride. Enjoy. (Somebody else's pain is always enjoyable. Go on...admit it). If you're a fellow sufferer, maybe you'll
pick up a few tips. If not, maybe you'll be amused. As for me, I guess the best I can hope for is that -- God willing -- this thing won't wind
up in the stupid self-help section.
1995 Kris ”the Evil Chinaman” Wong
snotty answers to your stupid questions
Find God here!!!!
Obsessed with fish AND NEGROES
Death of a really cute girl
worse than your worst nightmare
Never never never point at someone’s corn!!!
do we dare say it? WE do!! We’re smarter than you!!!!
Isla Vista Memories
kill all mother s who bring babies to movie theatres....
My Kid Goes To USCB (ever see that bumper sticker?). SO WHAT,FUCKER? HE’S PROBABLY SUCKING SOME CHOLO’S BIG FAT DICK RIGHT NOW!!!
NOSTRIL LOVERS PARADISE