So far I’m 0-3-1 with male psychologists so now I’m going to see a woman!
Who’s your favorite pop psychologist? Bob Hartley was pretty ineffective. Dr. Melfi got sick of being Tony’s consigliore.
The two most successful psychologists in movie history were Judd Hirsch in Ordinary People and Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting. Didn’t both those guys reach their magical triumphs with the same phrase? “It’s not your fault?”
Williams’ Sean Maguire would have been a disaster for me. I saw the first two psychologists of my career in the middle of my most successful financial years essentially entirely because I couldn’t get over a breakup.
Maguire’s entire message to Will Hunting was sort of blow off material fortune and fall in love. He’d tell me this. I’d agree. He’d mention his dead wife, and we’d both start bawling like little girls.
I probably needed to talk to a gangster instead of a shrink. “You fucking pussy. You made $300,000 this year. Wimmin are a dime a fucking dozen! It makes me sick just looking at you!”
The first guy I saw was literally the worst possible fit for me. He wore expensive suits. He wanted me to keep a sleep diary, and nothing makes me more gut wrenchingly filled with panic and despair than meaningless paper work. I wanted to kill that dude.
The second guy was a nice enough Asian guy. I’d write him a check for 80 dollars and he’d give me a bottle of water. Our sessions were amazing. It was like sitting at a dinner table with someone you have absolutely nothing to say to. You both just sit there and look at the clock tick.
“So how you doing?”
“Miserable. I want someone to put me out of my misery.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes, it is.”
We both eye the clock. It’s six after.
Trying to meet any women?
“I work from 5:30 AM to 2 PM. Those hours don’t lead to a lot of a late night party sessions.”
“Yes, I see.”
Then I had job troubles too.
I saw a third guy. I have almost no memory of this dude. I may have only seen him twice.
“How are you?”
“Depressed”
“Why?”
“My life sucks right now. You’d have to be pretty insane not to be down given the circumstances.”
“I see”
People think that I was being difficult, but after all those sessions I have literally no idea what the purpose was. I wasn’t necessarily making any bad decisions. I had insomnia and sleep apnea issues that were making my life a nightmare and they weren’t going to help with that. I was willing to cop to anything no matter how embarrassing. I wasn’t like Matt Damon saying “I’ve read your idiotic little book!”
I do panic whenever I think about looking for a job especially in a new field. I’ve had it ever since college. I’d walk into the job center and nearly have a nervous breakdown. I guess maybe we could work on that.
The last guy I saw. I’ll give him a draw. I liked him, but we reached an insane standstill.
I wanted two things out of life. I wanted to marry for true love and I wanted a job that I had something bespeaking a passion for. Now maybe it was shallow of me but I saw those goals as if not mutually exclusive at least a difficult daily double. I figured the more I liked my job, the less I would make and the less able I would be able to meet the kind of woman I was looking for.
Having already identified that I have a huge “Money vs. Art” dilemma, we ground to a raging halt. I should have asked for a bottle of water.
I had a friend named Adam Port that always seemed to be living about two years ahead of me. One of the last conversations we ever had was about some bottled water brand that he liked. He thought the smooth clear bottle without a cap was very sexy. I was like. Dude it’s water!
He has colitis, which had been bringing him down. I had a history with that disease and I said to him, “If I had to get a colostomy bag I’d kill myself.” He was like, “No you wouldn’t you’d deal with it.”
That was how we were he was Mr. Optimistic I was Mr. Gray Cloud.
He jumped off a building in LA, no note, everyone was shocked.
They said he’d gotten good reports on his health so that wasn’t the problem, I’d give anything to find out what happened to him. I like to think that he got stoned and went up to the top of the building for a view and slipped.
I think it happened in like 1996 or so. I was on the floor and he was an ex-trader. This broker walked up to me and said, “so Adam Port, dead.”
I was like what! No fucking way, I talked to him three days ago and he was having a ball. I left an urgent message on his anwering machine for him and then my Aunt found the obituary on the internet. I wanted to punch the guy for the way he told me.
I had been to Jones in LA with him and a guy who was an agent. I remembered his name and called him. He had been at the funeral. He said it was horrific, much sadness and not a sense of understanding. Took every single person who knew him as a complete surprise.
I think of him a lot.
