Friday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

First, please forgive the long, perhaps rambling entry. But…

Recently there has been a spate of media coverage of celebrities espousing their atheism. Recently I saw Bill Maher on Larry King talking about his disbelief. It reminds me that the public discourse about the existence of God is often left to the opinions of entertainers, poplar culture icons and other fame seekers. But for many of us outside the media limelight the question becomes one of urgency. If you are rich and living a life of pampered convenience it is your luxury to question the existence of God. But for the average individual struggling to wade through the challenges and difficulties of human life, the question demands something more than a glib opinion offered from the back seat of a limousine or a green room.

For most people this is an urgent concern. What is this yearning for knowing the possibility of life after this life? Spirituality is essentially a human hunger. It is the dimension of our living experience that acknowledges that I can never find lasting emotional satisfaction here in this life. Regardless of my personal circumstances - no matter how wealthy, fortunate or privileged I am at any time, I realize that life will be at best an uneven experience. Complicated relationships, illness and countless other, unpredictable eventualities mean that no human life is emotionally static. If nothing else, it is age and physical demise that compels our coping and defies understanding.

And what is this coping?

What name can we give to this psychological discomfort? This it seems is the very dimension of human experience that we call spirituality. The challenge to focus our minds on the present moment, in light of the pressures and certainty of changing fortunes, is the work of another brain dimension unique to humanity. Psychologists name this challenge the neurotic conflict. To be neurotic means being unable to stay focused on the present moment. Our attention drifts to the complexities of our past or worries about our future

The infatuation with religion that has characterized and plagued humanity forever is essentially a response to this conflict. And despite the scandalous distortions and murderous cruelty that all religious are guilty of perpetrating, at its core, the spiritual impulse is at the foundation of all religious expression. We need to find rest in as many moments as possible given the erratic nature of life experience. And this is what we name spirituality. And in this sense spirituality is a vital dimension of coping and it is essential that it be nurtured.

Perhaps we can describe this spiritual dimension as our impulse to alleviate our restlessness. The testimony of individuals who have nurtured their spiritual hunger is its dramatic affect on their ability to cope with uncertainty. A person of strong spiritual sense experiences a greater capacity to remain serene, even when their life becomes difficult. Wherever we look for illustrations they are found among those with remarkable spiritual depth. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus and the Dalai Lama share a notable personal calm, no matter what their ideological distinctions. We look at these iconic spiritual leaders and long for their personal peace. For me it is Jesus.

This achievement is not beyond our reach. It involves attending to the discipline of focus and resisting the lures of false promises. And these are the temptations of whatever culture within which we live. In modern America these temptations all promise to alleviate the suffering of uncertainty. But in the end they are all futility. Nurturing our spiritual hunger is the time proven path for experiencing as much joy over as much time as human life can allow.

Thursday, Dallas, Texas

Several years ago I wrote a book in conjunction with Nick-at-Nite called Why We Watch: Killing the Gilligan Within. It was a satire of a self-help book and suggested that the problem with television was that the average viewer failed to properly interpret the psychological messages within a program. I am often asked to interpret TV shows using the tool of psychoanalytic theory. With tongue-in-cheek, the book described a new science called Teletherapy which can be used to properly understand TV and as a result heal your inner child. Although it was intended to be huorous, everything in it is based on actual psychological principles.

Here is an example:

Murray Slaughter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Gomez Addams of The Addams Family are two classic television characters. Murray you may recall was a writer at the TV station where Mary worked and Gomez was the eerie father of his spooky family.

(You can watch a video of Murray HERE and one of Gomez HERE)

Now consider this real life scenario:

You’re a passenger in a car traveling a high rate of speed. Murray Slaughter and Gomez Addams are with you. As you hurtle along at over one hundred miles per hour, you are naturally fearing for your life. You are completely dependent on the ability and the sanity of the driver.

Question: Would you feel safer if the driver is Murray or Gomez?

ANALYSIS

If you said you would feel better with Murray Slaughter driving the car, YOU HAVE FAULTY JUDGEMENT AND YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER!

It is apparent that you do not realize that Murray is a depressed man. His sense of self worth is quite low. In other words, his will to live is far weaker than you might think. Thus he is less fearful about the thought of his own death. All this is unconscious, of course. He has no conscious awareness that he has active fantasies about "shuffling off this mortal coil.”

And this is why it should be a comfort to see Gomez Addams at the wheel. Gomez, despite his eccentricities and bizarre notions, is nonetheless a man full of the joy of life. He remains deeply infatuated with his wife, the lush Morticia, and devoted to his two peculiar children. His investment career moves along swimmingly and he has a robust sense of his own expansive destiny. No, Gomez shows no signs of depression, and appears to be the last person to put himself at risk in a suicidal car ride. Don’t be taken in by outward appearances!

Teletherapy would suggest that you are better off depending on the off-center Gomez Addams than the more subtly unbalanced Murray Slaughter.

What about you? Do you drive fast and dangerously? Are your loved ones fearful of how you drive? Perhaps you are taking inappropriate risks with your life. Your reckless driving could well be a sign of a faulty will to live. Change this today! How? Continue reading and incorporate the principles of Teletherapy’s healing treatment techniques into your life. And for God’s sakes, get help!

And so, as you can see, you have only read a few paragraphs and Teletherapy may have already saved the lives of you and your family! Have a great day!

Tuesday, Dallas, Texas

Abraham Lincoln, arguably the greatest President we have ever had, was renown for being physically unattractive. In fact, it is likely that if he were alive today, his appearance would have been an insurmountable obstacle to being elected. Appearances in the media would have exposed his cosmetic flaws and created a challenge that would have made it extremely difficult to allow him to focus on the issues.

And a new report by forensic scientists confirmed that Lincoln’s face was indeed distorted. In fact his face has an extreme distortion. Specifically, “the left side of Lincoln’s face was much smaller than the right, an aberration called craniofacial microsomia. The defect joins a long list of ailments — including smallpox, heart illness and depression — that modern doctors have diagnosed in Lincoln.”

People who knew the President observed that one eye would move independently of the other, known as strabismus. This often creates double vision. These days such a condition can be treated by surgery.

Wow! What a mess!

What happened to Abe? It is well known that when he was a child a horse kicked him in the head. Could this have caused his distorted facial structure? Who knows. But the fact remains that in today’s political climate, the media perception of a candidate is often a higher priority than the substance they represent as a leader.

Looking like a president is seen is the principal criteria for being a good president. Under these realities, Abraham Lincoln would likely have been a wanna be president. Comforting isn’t it?

What a country; what a time!

Tuesday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 

 
Zane Fray was a pro-bono patient of Dr. Will’s for four years (although they were never in the same room). Mr. Fray would only agree to weekly treatment over the telephone from his residence in Cancun, Mexico. The son of a wealthy Hollywood producer he rebelled against his family and now lives on various beaches along the Caribbean and Mexican shores. He lists his occupation as an “antimaterialistical” - - a term he coined. He is the author of several pamphlets, among them The Rich Stink, Wealth Kills, & The Haves Make the Have-Nots Puke! 

He wrote the following to Will and asked that it be shared:

 Dr. Will,Buenos Dios from the magnificent, “partially damaged by the rich” shore of Cancun. Sleeping out under the stars (for free) and bathing in the ocean (for free) is a great feeling. The fat cats at the luxury hotels (paying who knows how many hundreds a night!) try their best to control and subjugate the creation but trust me, eventually they will be washed away in the tide of time.

Here are my observations for the moment:

- The wealthy are destroying everything! Just like my own family - polluting the air with their jets, Bentleys and gaudy yachts. God I hate them! And to think I was once one of them! I get woozy just thinking about my early life with its wealth abuse. Butlers, maids, drivers, ascots, dressing for dinner…a nightmare!

- With all the buzz these days about the celebrity brats like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and their antics, who is surprised? The root of their disgraceful behavior is, of course, their wealth. What would these individuals be like if they had to work for a living? It’s not hard to imagine. Close your eyes and picture Paris in denim jeans from J.C. Penney. She is wearing a regular blouse and ordinary five dollar flip flops. The first time you encounter her is when she asks “do want paper or plastic” at the supermarket checkout line where she works. Her boyfriend is Randy, the frozen food manager who has asked her to marry. She drives a Saturn and still lives with her parents in a small row house in Babylon, Long Island. She hopes to go back to college in the Fall at the Fashion Institute. But she probably won’t make it because she was a distracted airhead in high school and has crappy grades. All in all - not a pretty sight!

OR!

Maybe because she did not grow up feeling entitled she did study in school and is a graduate of Syracuse University and now works in management with the Hilton Corporation where she is a rising executive talent. In this capacity she meets and marries a young co-worker and enjoys a life of meaning and purpose. What about that!?

Monday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Merv Griffin, legendary talk show host, game show producer and hotel magnate died yesterday at 82 years old. Many know him as the creator of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Standup comedians mostly remember Merv as one of the last national talk shows to generously feature comics. Although many recall Johnny Carson as the premiere showcase for comics, it was Merv Griffin who was most open to giving standups an opportunity to perform before a popular national audience. And it was a late afternoon daytime audience that reached millions.
My first opportunities as a comic for national exposure were the new cable shows of the 1980s, like Showtime. Many of us newer comics got the chance on Evening at the Improv and VH1’s Standup Spotlight with host Rosie O’Donnell. But several of my comedian friends were veterans of Griffin’s show. He was renown as a warm and engaging host who made newcomers feel at ease.Since his show left the air so many years ago it has been principally the cable programs on Comedy Central and HBO that have given new comedy faces opportunities to reach a national audience. The late night shows have been narrowly selective of the comedy style they will book meaning many comics have lost those audiences.Today the most generous showcases for comics is the nationally syndicated radio program Bob & Tom. They are in over 160 markets and reach many million of devoted fans. And every day they feature standup comedians and promote their material and their appearances. They are the new Tonight Show, the new Merv Griffin show.Their approach to featuring performers is to allow them to present their material. Merv Griffin once observed that listening was key to success as host. “If the host is sitting there thinking about his next joke, he isn’t listening,” Griffin once said.For more on on Merv’s list of comedy guests, check out the standup comics website sheckymagazine.com, run by my friends and comics Brian and Tracy Skein.

Friday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Newark New Jersey has long been know as a dangerous city, overwhelmed with poverty and attendant violence. The crime rate is high with gangs, drugs and out of control criminals. Anyone living in the New York area will tell you that they approach that city cautiously - and rarely at night. Reading about a murder in Newark and the surrounding area (Patterson, eg) is just not a shocking event. But the execution of four college bound teenagers last week set a new standard of horror for this city.

The suspects under arrest in the crime include an adult accused molester and a 15-year-old acquaintance. The police are still hunting three other teenagers in the crime. No matter how sympathetic a person is about the sad impact of urban poverty, these guys are poster children for the death penalty. And I am sure that the full force of the state will descend upon their evil heads.

That said and done, however, when will we begin requiring that the parents of these demons also make the perp walk? How is a 15 year old, armed with a gun allowed by his family to be out in the streets late at night doing murders? Where are his mother and father? Are they now home weeping and wringing their hands that they "lost their kids to the streets and the gangs and there was nothing they could do?"

I have heard this excuse before and it is nothing more than disgraceful, disingenuous whining. When these parents were holding their cooing infant son at the hospital are we to believe that they were they unaware of the long term responsibilities that lie ahead? Ah, I do’t think so! Anyone who lives in our society,  watches the news or sitcoms gets the essential drill about parenting. Information abounds about the rigors of parenting. No matter where you live there are people all around at the schools, churches and in the neighborhood who can teach you, support you and come to your aid. But no, the story is too often that the parents are themselves tainted by drugs and miscreant behavior. They simply have children and then when it gets hard they set them loose on the rest of their community.

Taking full control of your children is not up for negotiation. It’s what we expect of pet owners. We must also demand the same control of  your pit bull teenagers before you unleash them on the rest of us. Because guess what - the families of the murdered kids did exactly what they were supposed to do - they raised terrific kids on their way to college!

Arrest the parents for complicity in these murders and have them serve time with their psychopathic children!

Thursday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Thirty-three years ago today in 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned from office in the wake of the infamous Watergate Scandal. What began as a cheesy burglary at the Democratic Headquarters inside the Watergate Hotel ballooned into a full scale political and criminal scandal that swamped Mr. Nixon’s presidency.

In keeping with a law passed by Congress in 1792, the President’s resignation letter was addressed to the Secretary of State, at the time Henry Kissinger. Vice-President Gerald Ford was sworn in soon thereafter. The event culminated a decade of political and social turmoil gripping the nation. The Vietnam War was deeply unpopular and Nixon seemed to stubbornly hang on to the mission, hoping to find a graceful exit. All the while Nixon became the lightening rod for those who were opposed to the war. He was the focus of fervent passions, sometimes irrational hatred by those opposed to him and his policies. And the country seemed more divided than any other previous time.

Hmmm. A vastly unpopular war, a President who seem rigidly determined to follow his own way in opposition to the public will … Does all this sound familiar?

The Watergate scandal broke the tension and in its aftermath the country seemed exhausted. I wonder if we are reaching that point again? And let’s hope the climactic event is nothing more dramatic than a non violent burglary.

Wednesday, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

One of the most misunderstood television programs of all time, many viewers assume that The Flintstones is a show depicting an ancient past. But this is a gross misinterpretation of the program’s meaning. In fact, The Flintstones is actually a show about a terrifying future!

The program first came on the air in 1960, at the very height of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. Every citizen lived in dread fear of being annihilated in a nuclear war. School children participated in drills hiding under their desk while homeowners built bomb shelters in their back yard. It was a terrifying time.

What Does It Mean?

What if the worst happened? Suppose there was a full exchange of missiles with Russia and indeed the earth was laid waste - the entire country was leveled by the blasts! Now imagine that a tiny remnant of people survived in small numbers across the land. As they picked themselves up and began the daunting task of rebuilding their lives, it is certain that they would recreate a middle class life out of the primitive materials available from the now scorched earth. The civilization they would construct would look astonishingly like - Bedrock!

Thus The Flintstones is actually a fantastic dream vision of a post-apocalyptic American community which survived the nightmare of a nuclear holocaust! Next time you watch, you should feel profoundly grateful that the Flintstones did not become a reality for us! In fact, have you written anyone in authority to express your thanks? Why not send a note to the government and say “thank you for saying ‘NO’ to The Flintstones!”

Tuesday, Chicago, Illinois

I was in Chicago this weekend  with a colleague from the Bob & Tom Show as correspondents to the annual Beatlefest gathering. We were filming a documentary about the enduring interest and passion for the Beatles. This event attracts hundreds of zealous fans to remember their favorite band, look at, and buy collectible items and - yes - in some cases dress up in Sergeant Pepper costumes.

It was striking to see the age range of those in attendance. It’ not surprising to see baby boomers strolling around given that the Beatles were the most important music and pop culture influence on that generation. The Beatles came to the United States on the heels of the election of the young President John Kennedy and there was a strong feeling of social change in the air. No sooner was the youthful optimism of the Beatles early rock & roll hits on the charts when the assassination of the President altered the psyche of the country. That trauma let loose the social turbulence of the 1960’s that saw the rise and fall of the Vietnam War along with Presidents Johnson and Nixon. And the Beatles changed right along with the children of the World War II generation. The Beatles’ music became more intense, striking and strident as the decade went along.

As time went on the Beatles became increasingly renown for their dedication to the cause of peace. Especially John Lennon and George Harrison devoted countless hours, artistic energy and millions of dollars to the cause of world harmony. In our time of national discord over an unpopular war it is probably not surprising that many people across the age spans are connecting with the message of peace from the Beatles. I came home and listened again to their music and was delighted by its energy and relevance.

How about this man’s career?

He Cleans the fish tank at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.