Here's another column that belongs under the shameless self promotion heading. My GOOD FRIEND Rob Cockerham asked me to write some junk for his totally great website cockeyed.com. If you're not familiar with cockeyed, you should definitely check it out as it is one of the greatest sights and sites on the internet. As for my therapeutic responsibilities, I will get back to them soon, as I am currently being treated for a debilitating facebook scrabble addiction, which is taking up a lot of my free time. In lieu of actual advice, here are some great videos that should help you feel better: EPIC ROCK VIDEO, EPIC POE INTERPRETATION VIDEO, and EPIC BIKE VIDEO.
Your friend,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Greatest Television Show Ever and the Conundrum Which Constantly Plagues it's Viewers
Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
I have friends who still haven't seen the final episode of the recent season of LOST. I firmly believe that at this point we should all be free to discuss it openly. At what point can I just tell people who haven't seen it that their time is up? What is the statute of limitations on spoiler alerts?
-The Smoke Monster
Dear Smokey,
The spoiler statute of limitations, much like time itself, is not a constant. As far as the public at large goes, i.e. people sitting next to you at restaurants, bars, bathroom stalls, etc., you have an obligation to keep all pop culture knowledge secret for no longer than two weeks. As for people you know and care about, the time line can stretch out to infinity depending on how much you care about the probable enjoyment they will derive from seeing the show without knowing what's going to happen. Honestly though, you friends need to get their collective asses in gear and watch the end of last season. Since all the episodes are available online there's really no excuse. Send them an email and tell them the new season is starting soon and in order for you to be able to enjoy it you are going to need to discuss what happened last season. Let them know you value their insights and opinions and would love to solve the mysteries of the island together. If they choose not to catch up, they are choosing to cheat themselves out of the surprise and wonder that comes from a first hand experience of witnessing a story unfolding.
Your Fellow LOST fan,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
PS. I had this fan fantasy last week ABC announced that as a Christmas present for mankind, they were going to start airing the new season before the start of the new year. I think that might really make peace on earth a possibility.
I have friends who still haven't seen the final episode of the recent season of LOST. I firmly believe that at this point we should all be free to discuss it openly. At what point can I just tell people who haven't seen it that their time is up? What is the statute of limitations on spoiler alerts?
-The Smoke Monster
Dear Smokey,
The spoiler statute of limitations, much like time itself, is not a constant. As far as the public at large goes, i.e. people sitting next to you at restaurants, bars, bathroom stalls, etc., you have an obligation to keep all pop culture knowledge secret for no longer than two weeks. As for people you know and care about, the time line can stretch out to infinity depending on how much you care about the probable enjoyment they will derive from seeing the show without knowing what's going to happen. Honestly though, you friends need to get their collective asses in gear and watch the end of last season. Since all the episodes are available online there's really no excuse. Send them an email and tell them the new season is starting soon and in order for you to be able to enjoy it you are going to need to discuss what happened last season. Let them know you value their insights and opinions and would love to solve the mysteries of the island together. If they choose not to catch up, they are choosing to cheat themselves out of the surprise and wonder that comes from a first hand experience of witnessing a story unfolding.
Your Fellow LOST fan,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
PS. I had this fan fantasy last week ABC announced that as a Christmas present for mankind, they were going to start airing the new season before the start of the new year. I think that might really make peace on earth a possibility.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Perenial Holiday Delima
Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
It seems like we are being pulled in too many directions for the holidays: my parents vs. my wife's parents for Christmas; switching our thanksgiving meal to accommodate my brother having to go to three different meals to accommodate his wife's divorced and remarried parents; ETC! How do I not let this ruin the season for me?
-Hating the Hassle of the Holidays
Dear Hating,
You are not alone. I don't know of anyone, regardless of how tight nit or scattered to the wind their family is, who doesn't find this time of year to be stressful and on the brink of ruination. I have prepared three recipes for having a happy holiday which I hope will help humanity at large to enjoy the season.
1. Become a Jehovah's Witness.
Once you join this church you will never have to celebrate any holidays ever again. Think of all the money and time you'll save by never decorating or buying gifts for anything ever again. Not only that, you also never have to vote again, say the pledge of allegiance, or sing the national anthem.
2. Quit Hatin'.
If you spend half the time thinking about how to make great holidays, as you do thinking about how horrible and inconvenient they're going to be, you'll have the best ThanksChristmas ever.
3. Get Down With the Sickness.
My family's tree is as broken and twisted as it gets, making every single family get together either impossible, or necessary of several replications in different locations. The last time we had a simple family holiday was Easter 2006. After trying for some time to figure out just how divide the hours of the day between five separate family events something magical happened; we all got the flu. For the first time ever, My wife, kids, and I spent a wonderful fevered holiday alone at home as a family. So, overbook your holidays. Say yes to everything and be over accommodating. Then the week before, go to the sickest person at your work, and dig through their trash can. Pull out the used tissues, put them in your pockets, and let the germs do the rest. While you're lying there surrounded by the sound of loved ones blowing their noses, put on A Christmas Story and bask in the warm glow of familial love and your immune system running at full bore.
Merry Whatever and Happy the Other Thing,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
It seems like we are being pulled in too many directions for the holidays: my parents vs. my wife's parents for Christmas; switching our thanksgiving meal to accommodate my brother having to go to three different meals to accommodate his wife's divorced and remarried parents; ETC! How do I not let this ruin the season for me?
-Hating the Hassle of the Holidays
Dear Hating,
You are not alone. I don't know of anyone, regardless of how tight nit or scattered to the wind their family is, who doesn't find this time of year to be stressful and on the brink of ruination. I have prepared three recipes for having a happy holiday which I hope will help humanity at large to enjoy the season.
1. Become a Jehovah's Witness.
Once you join this church you will never have to celebrate any holidays ever again. Think of all the money and time you'll save by never decorating or buying gifts for anything ever again. Not only that, you also never have to vote again, say the pledge of allegiance, or sing the national anthem.
2. Quit Hatin'.
If you spend half the time thinking about how to make great holidays, as you do thinking about how horrible and inconvenient they're going to be, you'll have the best ThanksChristmas ever.
3. Get Down With the Sickness.
My family's tree is as broken and twisted as it gets, making every single family get together either impossible, or necessary of several replications in different locations. The last time we had a simple family holiday was Easter 2006. After trying for some time to figure out just how divide the hours of the day between five separate family events something magical happened; we all got the flu. For the first time ever, My wife, kids, and I spent a wonderful fevered holiday alone at home as a family. So, overbook your holidays. Say yes to everything and be over accommodating. Then the week before, go to the sickest person at your work, and dig through their trash can. Pull out the used tissues, put them in your pockets, and let the germs do the rest. While you're lying there surrounded by the sound of loved ones blowing their noses, put on A Christmas Story and bask in the warm glow of familial love and your immune system running at full bore.
Merry Whatever and Happy the Other Thing,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Who Wants to Date a Loser?
Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
I have a friend who is pressuring me (and others) to fix her brother up on dates. He seems nice but I know his story and it involves professional disgrace, financial problems and depression. None of us feels comfortable introducing this man to anyone. I've tried to put her off but she won't stop. She is blind about her brother and a real control freak. How can I get her to back off without telling her that her bro is a loser no one should date?
-Frustrated Friend
Dear Frustrated,
You have just entered into my third favorite relationship paradox; the degree of acquaintance to a person is proportional to the number of truly horrible things you know about that person. This is why it's so much easier to date a person you've just met rather than someone you've been friends with forever. The biggest problem for you, and the loser brother, is that most of the information you have about him probably comes from his sister complaining about how he used to pee on the neighbors dog, beat up homeless people, and steal medicine from the neighborhood retirement home. In all actuality though, he probably never really peed on the dog, but just said he did to sound cool. As for finding him someone to grind his professionally disgraceful loins against, I recommend fixing him up someone who has wronged you in the past and deserves to be stuck in a soul killing relationship they will never get out of because every time they try he will threaten to kill himself. If you are to nice for that kind of payback, you should try befriending some women who work for Health and Human Services and set them up with him. Not only are they trained to deal with people like that, but they're all kind of suckers for a fixer upper.
Your Friend/Holy Avenger,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
I have a friend who is pressuring me (and others) to fix her brother up on dates. He seems nice but I know his story and it involves professional disgrace, financial problems and depression. None of us feels comfortable introducing this man to anyone. I've tried to put her off but she won't stop. She is blind about her brother and a real control freak. How can I get her to back off without telling her that her bro is a loser no one should date?
-Frustrated Friend
Dear Frustrated,
You have just entered into my third favorite relationship paradox; the degree of acquaintance to a person is proportional to the number of truly horrible things you know about that person. This is why it's so much easier to date a person you've just met rather than someone you've been friends with forever. The biggest problem for you, and the loser brother, is that most of the information you have about him probably comes from his sister complaining about how he used to pee on the neighbors dog, beat up homeless people, and steal medicine from the neighborhood retirement home. In all actuality though, he probably never really peed on the dog, but just said he did to sound cool. As for finding him someone to grind his professionally disgraceful loins against, I recommend fixing him up someone who has wronged you in the past and deserves to be stuck in a soul killing relationship they will never get out of because every time they try he will threaten to kill himself. If you are to nice for that kind of payback, you should try befriending some women who work for Health and Human Services and set them up with him. Not only are they trained to deal with people like that, but they're all kind of suckers for a fixer upper.
Your Friend/Holy Avenger,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Feeling the Hate
Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
I want to love people. But I often feel the hate coming on. As far as I can tell, the mandate to love/accept/understand people spans every religion, and most enlightened non-religious views. But does the idea of loving everyone cheapen the very idea of love?
-Tired of Loving
Dear Tired,
According to a song my son learned in kindergarten, and the hit book/video/lifegasm "The Secret" the more love you put out into the universe, the more will come back to you. You can argue with my son's beliefs, as he does go to an alternative school, but can you possibly ignore the bazillion copies of the book that people bought for their loser friends? Analytically speaking, loving everyone does not cheapen the idea of love because it is statistically impossible to love two people equally. (Unless they are identical twins. Or paternal twins dying from a rare non hereditary disease). This is possible, because love is not a constant but a variable whose value is dependant upon the relative lovability of the person in question. This allows you to assign different love values to everyone, thus preserving the "good love" for those whom you really love, and the "poor" to "negligible" love for those who keep going on and on about how much The Secret has changed their lives. The best thing about this assigning of values is that it is constantly in flux, which leaves room for your loved ones to jockey for position. (When I worked in an office, I kept a list on my window ranking all my coworkers from most favorite to least favorite. The people who had the most competitive dispositions would try to one up each other to get to the top of the list by giving me food. ) This turns your love into a commodity, whose value can only increase when demand is greater than supply, which will ultimately lead to most people realizing your love isn't worth the price and that they can live without it.
Don't be afraid to share the love,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
I want to love people. But I often feel the hate coming on. As far as I can tell, the mandate to love/accept/understand people spans every religion, and most enlightened non-religious views. But does the idea of loving everyone cheapen the very idea of love?
-Tired of Loving
Dear Tired,
According to a song my son learned in kindergarten, and the hit book/video/lifegasm "The Secret" the more love you put out into the universe, the more will come back to you. You can argue with my son's beliefs, as he does go to an alternative school, but can you possibly ignore the bazillion copies of the book that people bought for their loser friends? Analytically speaking, loving everyone does not cheapen the idea of love because it is statistically impossible to love two people equally. (Unless they are identical twins. Or paternal twins dying from a rare non hereditary disease). This is possible, because love is not a constant but a variable whose value is dependant upon the relative lovability of the person in question. This allows you to assign different love values to everyone, thus preserving the "good love" for those whom you really love, and the "poor" to "negligible" love for those who keep going on and on about how much The Secret has changed their lives. The best thing about this assigning of values is that it is constantly in flux, which leaves room for your loved ones to jockey for position. (When I worked in an office, I kept a list on my window ranking all my coworkers from most favorite to least favorite. The people who had the most competitive dispositions would try to one up each other to get to the top of the list by giving me food. ) This turns your love into a commodity, whose value can only increase when demand is greater than supply, which will ultimately lead to most people realizing your love isn't worth the price and that they can live without it.
Don't be afraid to share the love,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Exciting and Wonderous Search Statistics
I was just going through the stats for this site, trying to figure out how to better serve the internet user at large, when I came across some startling figures. I'm going to reveal them to you, not in an effort to scare you away from this site, but more as an act of full disclosure, just so you know the kind of gang you're hanging with.
Like most internet sites, a good chunk of my traffic comes from people searching keywords on google. Below are the top five keyword searches that will get you to the unlicensed therapist site.
#1 Mooseknuckle/Moose Knuckle %60
#2 Spanking Advice/Help %4
#3 Unlicensed Therapist %4
#4 How to talk Wife into Breast Implants %3
#5 Can You Lick Slugs %2
It's kind of weird to think that the first post I wrote brings in the most traffic. Granted, most of that traffic stays for less than five seconds once they figure out this is not a mooseknuckle enthusiasts site. I guess the thing I need to figure out is how I can best change peoples lives for the better in five seconds or under. I'm going to do my best to crack that nut, but I'd really appreciate your help if you've got any good ideas.
Your Therapeutic Team Mate,
Jason Adair, the Unlicensed Therapist.
Like most internet sites, a good chunk of my traffic comes from people searching keywords on google. Below are the top five keyword searches that will get you to the unlicensed therapist site.
#1 Mooseknuckle/Moose Knuckle %60
#2 Spanking Advice/Help %4
#3 Unlicensed Therapist %4
#4 How to talk Wife into Breast Implants %3
#5 Can You Lick Slugs %2
It's kind of weird to think that the first post I wrote brings in the most traffic. Granted, most of that traffic stays for less than five seconds once they figure out this is not a mooseknuckle enthusiasts site. I guess the thing I need to figure out is how I can best change peoples lives for the better in five seconds or under. I'm going to do my best to crack that nut, but I'd really appreciate your help if you've got any good ideas.
Your Therapeutic Team Mate,
Jason Adair, the Unlicensed Therapist.
Friday, October 3, 2008
My Boyfriend Won't Share
Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
Why is it when you ask the man in your life if you can look at porn with him…the collection you know he has, or the websites you’re aware he visits…he doggedly says, “um yah, sure.” If guys like porn so much, why aren’t they willing to share it with their female partners? We’re willing to hold our noses and plunge into that water because we care. Why aren’t they willing, eager even, to accept the solicitation?
Prohibited Paired Porn, WA
Dear Porn,
The history of your boyfriend and his pornography go waaaaaaaaay back. While you were selling lemonade he was in his closet with an old cashmere sweater in one hand and a National Geographic in the other. The solitary relationship he's built with countless pages of the underwear section of the Sears Catalogue is ancient compared to the sexual relationship he has with you. He's seen girlfriends like you come and go, but the naked girls from Hustler have stayed by him through thick and thin. It's this age old bond with his fantasy world that he doesn't want to risk by inviting you into it. Mostly because he dosn't want you to ruin it. He fears that you will not enjoy looking at the disgusting filth that is the gospel of his id, and that you will look upon his shame and be repulsed. You say you want to plunge into that water, but it's really something you should wade into slowly, becasue it's cold, and dirty, and there's unidentifiable stuff floating in it. If you really want to explore the use of porn in your sex life, don't start with his porn. Find stuff you like and bring it in the bedroom. Be warned though, he'll probably be more supportive if your new interest than all of your old ones combined.
Your sexual mentor,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
Why is it when you ask the man in your life if you can look at porn with him…the collection you know he has, or the websites you’re aware he visits…he doggedly says, “um yah, sure.” If guys like porn so much, why aren’t they willing to share it with their female partners? We’re willing to hold our noses and plunge into that water because we care. Why aren’t they willing, eager even, to accept the solicitation?
Prohibited Paired Porn, WA
Dear Porn,
The history of your boyfriend and his pornography go waaaaaaaaay back. While you were selling lemonade he was in his closet with an old cashmere sweater in one hand and a National Geographic in the other. The solitary relationship he's built with countless pages of the underwear section of the Sears Catalogue is ancient compared to the sexual relationship he has with you. He's seen girlfriends like you come and go, but the naked girls from Hustler have stayed by him through thick and thin. It's this age old bond with his fantasy world that he doesn't want to risk by inviting you into it. Mostly because he dosn't want you to ruin it. He fears that you will not enjoy looking at the disgusting filth that is the gospel of his id, and that you will look upon his shame and be repulsed. You say you want to plunge into that water, but it's really something you should wade into slowly, becasue it's cold, and dirty, and there's unidentifiable stuff floating in it. If you really want to explore the use of porn in your sex life, don't start with his porn. Find stuff you like and bring it in the bedroom. Be warned though, he'll probably be more supportive if your new interest than all of your old ones combined.
Your sexual mentor,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist
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