Funny, Delicious, Beautiful

I’ve received lots of crazy emails but nothing as crazy and vulgar as one I received a week ago. It is a company that makes necklaces of a certain body part. I can only imagine the inventor or artist who hatched the idea. He must have been on a plane, woke from a dream, and quickly sketched down the thought while whispering, “Oh my God Oh my God where’s my pen where’s my pen…this is it!!!!”

What is our world coming to?

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I recently went to a doctor of sorts (more of the witch variety) who gave me some interesting nutrition advice. He said that one takes on the characteristics of what she eats. For that reason, he told me to stay away from birds and fish which are overridden with anxiety. Meanwhile he advised a steady diet of beef to get grounded and manly.  That advice was absolutely contradictory to the advice I got from a nutritionist who said to never eat red meat and that I should stick to a diet of fish and vegetables.

I’m confused! I don’t know what’s good for me, who to listen to, and if I should be a pescatarian, vegan, or burger n’ beer man.  So many people offering so much advice. “Running is good for you.” “Running is terrible for you.” “Hot Yoga is the best.” “Hot yoga is dirty and germ-infested.”  “Yeah Dave’s Guide is freakin hilarious!” “Yeah Dave’s Guide is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e!”

Now that I think about it, my hat is off to the crazy inventor who went with his gut (if not his loins) and followed through with the vulva necklace. We could all benefit, at least sometimes, from tuning out the conflicting advice of those around us and listening more carefully to the voice within us. And if that voice be just a tiny bit corrupt, well….Emerson said it perfectly:

“But if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil. No law   can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.”

The behavior of yoga students is often a reflection on their teacher. For instance, the students of Aaron “the Rabbi” King love a little post-class coffee talk and “kibbutzing” if not a nice touch. The students of anti-gravity yoga teachers Brock and Krista Cahill will bust into a handstand in the middle of nowhere. Thus, the Cahills’ energetically uplifting presence. Power Yoga teacher Vinnie Marino’s students have been known to scream at people, especially those who open the window during class. Thus, Vinnie’s brand of “free love… with a cost.”

Someone once said to me, “Yeah Dave, what kind of behavior do you inspire in your students?” Hmm, I thought. And a few months ago, while hanging out with a bunch of random students who had just taken my class, I observed them closely. One student said, “Hey Dave, check this out,” before showing me a random 1 inch long mustache hair on an otherwise smooth upper lip.  “It’s kinda like a dreadlock but different.”

I answered, “Cool Schmata. And it matches your silver Lululemon spaghetti strapped tank.”

Another student said, “Yo Dave, what would you do if someone showed up to your class with three boobs and the one in the middle was exposed with a tattoo of Sammy Davis Jr singing into the nipple-shaped microphone?”

After thinking for a moment, I replied, “Cool Ronald. Kinda like a scrodum tattoo…but different.”

And another student said, “Dave, thanks to your yoga I can now suck my own…” and just as I was about to cover my eyes, he put his toe in his mouth.

I responded, “Cool Reavis. Are you still taking your Lithium?”

I know what you must be thinking and I agree. How freakin’ cool, fresh, and free-thinking are my students? Who needs to talk about the Bhagavad Gita when instead you could talk titty-tattoos? Why bother with the sutras when you could sit around and show off weird body hairs? Free the mind people! Yoga in a modern light! This is why it continues to astound me that the Yoga Journal won’t invite me to its conferences.

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I’ve been reading the book Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness which focuses largely on the intelligence of crows. Crows have their own games, language, relationships, and loyalties. For instance, the author mentions how crows recognize faces and if you take aggressive action against one crow, you will get dive-bombed and harassed by your neighborhood crows for days to come. As crows live in every habitat, you don’t have to travel to the far reaches of the earth to immerse yourself in the wonders of nature. Just look outside your window.

In much the same way, you don’t have to read an intense spiritual book or take peyote to open your mind.  And that is why I’d like to dedicate this Schtick to the stoners, freaks, and weirdos of the world.  Hail to the Schmata’s, Ronald’s, and Reavis’s in your life. They might not teach you anything; but their strange questions and stony visions can pry open your mind’s most stubborn constructs.  God knows…if you’re not crafty enough to open the dusty old storage shed, you’ll never access the treasures, memories, and insights locked within.

A newlywed couple, arm in arm, was strolling into Whole Foods for their Sunday shopping. A solicitor stood in the couple’s way.  The solicitor said boldly, “Please sign my petition for the plight of the dolphins. They need protection and they need it now!”

The couple ignored the solicitor. Not a good idea. The solicitor suddenly erupted and screamed at the man in front of his wife, “Why are you ignoring me dude?! We all know what you’re gonna do with that organic cucumber and $29 Whole Foods vaseline you’re about to buy. You pig!”

Wow, I thought. What a terrible man. But that wasn’t it. To each person who ignored his solicitations, he ranted louder. He screamed at a poor old lady “Graybush!” And at the Kirtan singer, “Your voice is so bad it’d be better if you farted in the microphone!” And to the diminutive neighborhood acupuncturist known for being well-hung, “Mister Tiny Big Unit, Mister Tiny Big Unit!”

If you live in Venice or Santa Monica, California, you’ve probably experienced one of these aggressive solicitors. I’ve come to realize these solicitors are not just on the corners of Lincoln and Rose Ave but also at the intersection of the mind and body.

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In Spontaneous Healing, Dr. Andrew Weil discusses the healing power that occurs upon calibrating the mind-body connection. He describes a well-documented miracle that took place in 1962. Vittorio Micheli had advanced bone cancer and almost complete destruction of his left pelvis. It got so bad that his femur disconnected with his pelvis. As a last resort, Micheli soaked in the famous healing waters of Lourdes in France. In the coming days and weeks, his cancer disappeared, and the bone of his pelvis began to regenerate, something the medical community views as an impossibility.

The idea being that Micheli experienced a sudden, sustained, and positive mental shift. When the mind is healthy, the body thrives. But when the mind hurls negative thoughts, they affect the organs, joints, muscles, and bones in the same way that the angry solicitor’s words affected the kirtan player, old lady, newlyweds, and diminutive neighborhood acupuncturist known for being well-hung.

Thomas Hardy said it perfectly, “Why should a man’s mind have been thrown into such close, sad, sensational, inexplicable relations with such a precarious object as his body.

My buddy Chad is a successful, good looking dude with a great pad and the best of intentions…I believe a total catch for a woman looking to settle down. Chad recently vented, “I’m sick and tired of going solo to all these freakin’ weddings. No more benders in Vegas, no more stolen nitris tanks, no more hookers. This is it. I’m ready to settle down.”

This lovely woman Katherine takes my yoga class often and I thought she’d be the perfect match for Chad. So i invited her to join us for a leisurely Sunday hang.

Ding-Dong.  Chad shuffled to the door and opened it, about to greet Katherine, when he lost his breath…

WTF!?

“Hey guys,” Katherine said. “This is my boyfriend Ish, thanks for inviting us over.”

Chad refused to shake boyfriend Ish’s outstretched hand. Let’s be honest. We’ve all been in this kind of situation where you think someone is single and you find out the hard way they’re not. This “boyfriend” was about as welcome as a “floater” left by a departed houseguest in your powder room toilet. (A “floater” is a little piece of poopie that refuses to be flushed…known in some circles as a “keeper.”)

God knows that powder room is finely decorated with the fancy towels, the pastel painting by Grandma on the wall, the lovely sea-shell collage near the sink, the picture of your baby niece dressed as a flower girl by the window…and the odd, defiant little floater bobbing up and down in the toilet water.

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Can you not relate to the floater’s angst? Sometimes it seems like everything around me is so nice and well-put together but I, the floater, am just bobbing up and down, wishing someone would flush me away. Away from the sea-shell collage, away from the pastel painting by Grandma, away from the burdens and pressures of life.

But wait, to some, the floater is heroic. After all, it remained, a lasting peace (or should I say piece) with the courage to stand out in all its gory (or should I say glory). There is a part in each of us that feels like the floater, ugly and unable, starkly contrasted against a world of people who are richer, prettier, happier. Whether due to your social status, career, financial state, or health, each and every one has some kind of burden to bear and struggle to endure.

Here’s my advice. If you seem stricken with being single forever, embrace your freedom. If you’re shackled by financial crisis, simplify. If your health is waning, live each day to the fullest. And if a woman you were hoping to date comes over (with her freakin’ boyfriend), be nice to him, the universe works in mysterious ways. As the great Dingle Berry Nasteeman said, “Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”