HEALTH & LIFESTYLE
Hard to Put a Finger OnLOS ANGELES, CA 03 January 2010 |
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I was a sophomore in high school. I threw my back out. I was playing tennis. It was a serve. I tossed the ball up. Torqued my body. Felt a twinge. Dropped my racquet.
I went to a chiropractor.
I had feathered hair.
When your spine is out of alignment and a nerve is getting pinched and you're walking around like Elvis during his bloated years, you're willing to do just about anything for relief.
I went away to college. The trend continued. Regular episodes of acute pain.
I was in Boulder now. I had a ponytail. Treatment options were more diverse.
There was acupuncture.
It didn't work.
For a while I would be fine. Then it would happen again.
Spasm. Pinching. Crippling pain.
Eventually I gave up on chiropractic.
I drove across town to visit a holistic MD.
Martz, I think his name was.
He was a white-haired hippie with an MD. He had an Ivy League education and appeared to smoke pot. He had a deep working knowledge of massage therapy. He knew about essential oils and crystals. Also, he knew about Rolfing.
I had decided to get Rolfed.
Once a week, I would go in for a Rolfing. My insurance actually covered it.
The pain involved was serious.
The legs were particularly bad.
I remember getting my ass Rolfed.
I remember what it felt like to get Rolfed on the inside of my mouth. A cracking sound as the muscles of my jaw were stretched.
They Rolf you everywhere.
For a while I felt better.
I felt like I was doing something forward-thinking and extreme.
This earthy white-haired shaman was the healer I'd been searching for.
He talked to me about my "energy" and instructed me to be mindful of what I ate. He told me to take the orthodics out of my shoes, because human beings weren't meant to walk around on such things, and, whenever possible, it was better to simply go barefoot.
I did everything he said.
I looked into his birdlike eyes and placed the whole of my faith in his philosophy.
Then the pain came back, same as before. Maybe even stronger.
All that Rolfing for nothing.
I was demoralized.
I started doing yoga then. I had just turned twenty. I didn't really know what I was doing.
I would drive out to Eldorado Canyon to practice yoga on an ashram.
I remember bright sunshine. A sharp left turn at the mouth of the canyon. Up the gravel driveway. Goats would scatter. Dogs would bark. Cats would hop up onto fence posts.
A dramatic view of the Flatirons to the north.
An older, potbellied Asian man tending to a garden. A wave and a smile.
Walking down a narrow path to the yoga studio, which was housed in its own building on a bluff. Always very warm inside.
The classes were small---three or four of us sitting there. Our instructor with the perfect posture. The Tibetan beads around her wrist. The searingly intense I-am-more-present-than-you-are eye contact.
It was weird.
But yoga helped.
It felt good.
It was sort of like getting stoned, but without the paranoia.
I would walk outside after class, and I would look at a goat and think: Damn.
But it didn't fix the problem.
Yoga was nice, and it was better than the rest. But it didn't get rid of the pain.
Over the next ten years, I would continue in a fairly steady pattern. Semi-regular episodes of acute discomfort, two or three times a year.
Lots of exercise. Lots of stretching.
I would visit more chiropractors. More masseuses.
I would visit doctors of sports medicine.
I would visit a neurologist.
I would get an MRI.
I would talk to a shrink.
I would consult my general physician, attempt to pick his brain about the mind-body connection and the importance of a proper diet---to no avail.
I would read books.
I would use the word psychosomatic.
I would take anti-inflammatory prescription medication.
I would do pilates.
I would buy a new desk chair.
I would use ice.
I would use heat.
I would use heat and then ice.
I would take Advil.
I would attend physical therapy sessions.
I would strengthen my core.
I would try to contract---rather than extend---my hamstrings.
I would focus on increasing flexibility in my "front body" and my psoas muscle in particular.
I would achieve a level of physical strength and flexibility that would allow me to nearly do the splits.
I was trying everything. I was working at it.
I was probably overdoing it.
In late 2006, my back began to ache with unprecedented frequency and intensity. My hip joints, too. And my ass.
My ass hurt.
I began to experience acute pain in my lower lumbar like nothing I'd ever felt before. Walking was difficult. Sleeping was difficult.
I remember going to a physical therapist. Exasperated.
He measured my legs and told me that one leg was slightly longer than the other.
I had heard that one before, from other doctors in my past.
He made me stand up. He studied my anatomy.
He asked me about my feet. About the prospect of orthodics.
I never wear them, I told him. Not anymore. I had given them up many years ago, on the advice of a Rolfer in Boulder.
"He said that I should go without them. He said that orthodics weren't natural."
The physical therapist sort of looked at me funny. Asked me if I was willing to reconsider.
I told him, "Sure."
I had nothing to lose.
The podiatrist's office was in Beverly Hills. There was something sort of odd about it. Maybe the interior design.
A day-glo underwater painting on the wall. An iridescent octopus frolicking in the undertow. A glass whale on an end table. A severe-looking black coffee table made of volcanic rock.
A tall, pleasant woman at the front desk. Make-up and fruity perfume. (She, I would later learn, is the doctor's wife.)
The doctor himself: a man of approximately forty-five, with a receding hairline. Wide, brown, expressive eyes. A sheen of sweat on a pink forehead. Athletic. Chatty. A little high-strung.
Talked at me the whole time in a steady stream.
Made me walk up and down the hall. Watched me.
Made a plaster cast of my bare feet as I sat there.
Soaking the plaster strips in a bucket of warm water.
Molding them to my arch. Around my toes.
Massaging.
I remember going home afterwards. Talking to my wife about him.
"He was nice," I said. "And I'm not saying that he wasn't. I'm just saying he was a little bit odd. There was something sort of off about him. It's hard to put a finger on. I can't even really explain it."
Two weeks later, I got the new orthodics.
I put them in my shoes and started walking around.
And that was it.
I haven't had a back problem since.
I haven't experienced severe back pain in more than two years.
It was the orthodics.
The orthodics were the key.
Then:
Fast-forward to last summer, sometime in the middle of July.
One of my orthodics cracked. It was unusual. A hard plastic fracture at the arch.
I scheduled an appointment with the foot doctor. And drove over.
The iridescent octopus on the wall. The smiley wife. The glass whale.
Another plaster cast. The updated version. New and improved.
"How's the back?"
"Back's doing great."
"Any problems?"
"None at all."
A handshake on the way out the door.
Two weeks later, I get the new orthodics.
And about a month after that, I get a bill in the mail. I owe money. My insurance company doesn't cover it. I set the envelope aside and think: fuck.
Time passes.
The envelope gets lost. The bill gets lost. I lose the doctor's mailing address.
I remember the amount. I remember that I need to send a check.
I need his mailing address.
So I google him. I type in his name and hit RETURN.
I scan the screen. My eyes go wide.
My doctor is a convicted sex offender in the state of Florida.
The first thing that comes up in the Google search is the mug shot. The face. It's a deadringer. It's him.
The receding hairline. The forehead. The brown eyes, normally wide and alive, are narrower now. Deader inside.
I call out for my wife. I'm on my feet.
"No," she says.
"Yes," I say.
"No," she says.
"Yes."
We're standing there, staring at the screen.
My wife keeps saying "no."
I tell her that I told her so. I told her there was something off about this guy.
I send the check.
A couple of weeks later, I get another bill in the mail. More insurance denials.
Maybe it's some kind of mistake. I should probably call in and verify.
So I call up the doctor's office. Talk to the doctor's wife. She's nothing but helpful and kind.
I feel anxious on the phone. It feels creepy to know what I know. I have to believe that she knows, too.
How can she not know?
Maybe she doesn't care.
The arrest happened only four years ago.
And if she does know, what does she think about it? And what kind of relationship do they have? And is he really guilty? And was she in some way involved?
And what in the hell did he do?
On the official State of Florida website it says that he was arrested for the "continuous sexual abuse of a child."
Not exactly ambiguous language.
Damning.
There's no real way to sugarcoat it.
From the looks of things, the guy's a pedophile.
A child molester.
A criminal.
He's sick.
And: He healed me.
My twenty-year battle with chronic pain was finally resolved by a child molester.
The thought of it gives me a headache.
It presents some unusual ethical dilemmas.
On the phone, his wife tells me that I do indeed owe money. Something to do with the lab. Another insurance thing. A snafu. But this is it. This is all. Once I send in the payment, then everything will finally be square.
"That's everything," she says. "That's all you gotta do. Once we get that, you're all done."
I thank her.
She thanks me.
She asks me if I would like to schedule a routine maintenance appointment.
I tell her I'll do it later. I need to have a look at my calendar.
"I'll call you," I say.
She thanks me.
"You're welcome," I tell her.
We hang up. I put the phone down.
I pick up a ball point pen.
I write the check.
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Surreal. 8 year old’s dude. Good thing he’s a foot doc and not someone who comes into contact with genitalia. I got the scoliosis, a trick of the spine. Luckily there are several naturally available medicines in California that work gangbusters on nerve pain associated with the spine. My doctor’s wife is his receptionist as well. No word on pedophilia, but he’s definitely a barefoot guy. He gave me a bro hug the first time I saw him.
How does one increase the flexibility of the “front body”, particularly the “psoas muscle?” I bet Gary Busey knows what the Psoas muscle is. If you didn’t already know, you could’ve asked him when you ran into him.
Oh and we still need a pic of the long hair. Can someone work some back channels and get us a shot?
You can read about the psoas muscle right here.
As for a photo of me with long hair: I gotta dig one up. This was pre-digital.
Perhaps there’s a daguerreotype somewhere.
I really didn’t look right with long hair.
I tend to believe that, like, 5 percent of the male population looks good with long hair.
I completely agree. I tend to believe that, like, 5 percent of the female population looks good with long hair as well. Past-the-shoulders, dried-out, damaged hair looks so unappealing to me. I’m really glad I married an ass man so I don’t feel like I ever have to grow my hair out.
I married and ass-man too, and never want to have long hair again. So what am I supposed to do now that I am growing my ass out?
Any of the Allman Brothers would look funny without long hair. And Slash. I’d be willing to bump it up to 9% of the population.
Wait. Did you say 8 year olds? How did I miss that in the article?
It’s a quote from The Big Lebowski.
You can read memorable quotes from The Big Lebowski right here.
Oh what a relief. I’m no skimmer. Couldn’t figure out how I’d missed that little factoid.
The real question here Josie is whether or not you’ve seen The Big Lebowski. If not, I would highly recommend it, and not just for the pedophilia humor. Jeff Bridges and John Goodman both turn in career performances.
The thing’s just up, and Phat already beat me to the “eight-year-olds, Dude” comment.
Wow. Didn’t see that coming.
I think this underscores how, with very few exceptions, there is no absolute good and absolute evil in people. The healer is a pedophile. The basketball player is a rapist. The painter is a drug addict. The civil rights leader is a sex addict. The running back is a murderer. And on and on it goes. The important thing is that you feel better.
Also: the real villain in this story is the $#@! insurance company. And Rolf.
Well, that sort of gets to it, doesn’t it?
It’s like, do you cheer for the basketball player if he raped someone?
Do you continue going to the doctor if you know that at some point in his past, he molested a child?
I like to be forgiving. I like to see the best in people.
But child molestation….
Damn.
Yeah if he was just on the sex offender list it might be forgivable in that it was for indecent exposure or peeing in public or something like that, but the phrase “continuous sexual abuse of a child” has no upside. Just writing it sent a chill down my spine.
And Greg, if you’ll remember the pederast’s full name in the film was Jesus Quintana. Guess what comes up when you run it through the sex offender database?
http://tinyurl.com/yjwjjbl
Phat: He had to go door to door and say he was a pederast…
I think you continue to cheer for said player if he buys off the victim, the State of Colorado drops the charges, and he continues to play at a high level.
(I’m being sarcastic, but because that particular case never went to trial, we really don’t know what happened, and never will, and so can’t really judge…unlike certain running backs who once lived in Brentwood I can think of).
There was an interesting situation in New Paltz a few years ago…it was discovered by one of the parents of a child at the Montessori School that a registered sex offender was living next door to the school. After the initial knee-jerk tumult died down, it was revealed that not only did the people who ran the school know about this and not say, but the sex offender had been one of the school’s original investors. (It got even weirder, but I don’t want to elaborate here). When the dust settled, opinion had shifted, and you wound up feeling sorry for the guy.
Goes to show, you never know.
Shhh - Greg, we don’t want Brangelina to know that New Paltz has any flaws…
Huh. Wow. You just never know about people, do you? We are rather complex little bastards, aren’t we?
I sort of wonder if other animals demonstrate this kind of duality.
I suppose they sort of do.
The cute grizzly bear, for instance, frolicking in the Alaskan pasture.
And then five minutes later chasing down an elk or something, tackling it to the ground and ripping its lungs out, one by one.
But that’s instinct.
That’s nature.
This human stuff is…human nature?
Something else?
Whoa. That is so freaky, Brad. Healed by a pedophile. But I’m sure you will take whatever relief you can get, yes? Being in constant pain can break even the strongest person. It wears you out emotionally as well as physically after so long. I am sincerely so happy that your back is no longer hurting. xoxo.
P.S. Yoga rocks. I started doing yoga when I got pregnant and never stopped. It gives me flexibility and brain peace. I also sleep better when I do it consistently. I absolutely love it.
Yeah. I mean, it works. I’m better. I’ll take it.
It’s just like damn.
It’s so strange and a little unnerving, and so on.
It makes me wonder how I should feel.
And I still do yoga. I like yoga.
I have to break a sweat. It’s part of my chemical makeup.
I don’t understand how people can not exercise.
Yeah, I can see your conflict. Financially supporting a molester of children is not really what anyone wants to do, but wow… what a huge gift he gave you by figuring out what was hurting you, after years of suffering. You really do get your life back when you make daily pain go away. It sounds dramatic, but anyone who’s dealt with chronic pain gets it.
I’ve always been a have to exercise or else person too. I don’t know if it’s my monkey mind needing to burn off nervous energy via physical exertion, or if I’m addicted to the happy endorphins, but I never understand how people can dislike exercise either. It feels good.
Does “continuous sexual abuse of a child?” mean he was 25 or 30 and involved in an ongoing relationship with a 17 year-old? Like, one in which he didn’t have sex, or (maybe worse) that he did have sex with this teen-aged child and our justice system plea bargained him down from statutory rape charge (or threw the book at him) to come to this baffling and totally unhelpful description?
Looked it up. Contact with a child 14 years of age or younger (with the accused being 17 or older), more than two encounters in a 30-day period, one child or more than one child. 1-st degree felony. Serious.
Carries a 5-99 year sentence, so this man must have been pretty well-behaved to be out and running a practice in 4 years
Anyway, so…would you say, besides the look in his eye, he seems to be a rehabilitated man? Or at least one who is carefully following instructions? Moved away, registered, etc. Raises some questions about how long, if we’re going to be individuals, and, collectively, a society, that touts rehabilitation, we can allow ourselves to pick and choose. We don’t just get to apply that to shoplifters and pot dealers and other crimes that don’t creep us out. I mean, presuming the man is doing what he’s supposed to do, trying to put together a life beyond that experience, straighten up, fly right…
I mean, this is what rehabilitation does. It puts people back out in the community eventually. So are we saying that we, the general public, should take it upon ourselves to shun these individuals and extend their punishments? Or does it mean that only certain crimes should be rehabilitated and some people should be locked up for life? And if child molesters are among those who should be locked up or somehow segregated for life, does it make any difference if the child molested is 5 years old or 17 years old?
Like you said. Ethical questions. The torch and pitchfork mentality (or more properly the shunning) bugs me almost as much (though certainly for different reasons) as the man’s conviction itself. I mean, this is what happens, theoretically, if people are properly rehabilitated. You end up giving them money. They enter the world of commerce and normal life. A drug dealer at the retail shop, a drunk driver at the doctor’s office, a manslaughterer fixing your furnace, a wife or child beater selling you stamps at the post office.
Unlike, those folks, though, sex offenders have a registry. Perhaps understandably so, but my logical brain is hyper-aware of a cognitive dissonance factor involved here. The breakdown of a consistently applied value system. Some kind of arbitrary judgment. I’m a little twitchy about it.
Glad your back is better. Mine went out once, and it sucked. Only thing that hurt worse was blowing my ACL (knee) totally in half. Nothing will ever be more painful than that. But it was close.
Uh. No idea why this showed up here. I wrote it as a new thread. Sorry, Tawni.
@Becky: Yeah. I hear you. And this is why I didn’t name the guy, or link to his sex offender page on the web, or any of that. I wasn’t involved. I don’t know the details. I’m not interested in stomping on the guy.
Like, if he’s guilty of molesting a 14-year-old, he’s a sick bastard, and I think he’s a pigfucker.
And I’ll not return to his office for treatment.
But if he’s genuinely ill (which would appear to be the case), and he’s making a good faith effort to not repeat the error, and he’s a productive member of the community who’s healing people and so on….
Ethical dilemmas.
The problem is that I’ve watched that goddamned To Catch a Predator show too many times. The repeat offenders. The eerie, addictive quality of the whole thing.
Like moths to a flame.
It’s disturbing.
Well, that’s MSNBC. They’re not going to include the no-shows and of course, have no way (and certainly no desire) to account for past predators who never even engaged their people online. That’s not even a little bit titillating or shocking or anything.
I mean, it’s sort of rigged to encourage or at least enforce a certain perception.
And I am just realizing that it totally sounds like I’m sticking up for sexual predators, but that’s not my point.
It’s just, as usual, an issue of perception with me. My hopeless search for practical application of clear, pure, logical and ethical consistency in subjective, emotional, or political matters. Trying to pin down the algorithm. Looking for the code, man.
Oddly enough, I think my first inclination (at least logically) would be to continue to see the guy. Like, “Okay. You screwed up. You may have some problems. Here’s your chance to make good, to have success and not use persecution or public shame as an excuse to continue to behave in antisocial ways. I will, by being your customer, try to encourage your attempts at a relatively normal, healthy life.”
That would be my thinking. I hope. I tend to be a second-chance giver. Maybe because I have needed second chances so often in my life.
Then again, I have never had a known sexual predator’s hands on my feet. Significant creepiness could override my rational inclination towards forgiveness.
I have to admit I’m at least a little surprised that he was allowed to continue practicing, even if only on adults’ feet. Seems like a level one felony could cause a man to lose his license.
It’s a state-by-state issue. He very likely couldn’t have maintained a practice in Florida.
Genuine sexual predators (as opposed to those convicted os such due to a loophole in the law, as I cited below) tend to have very high rates of recidivism, which is one of the reasons why those registry lists exist. And, I think, why we as a culture have a tendency to view sexual predators as irredeemable monsters.
It’s a state-by-state thing. The guy very likely couldn’t practice in Florida.
Genuine sexual predators (as opposed to those convicted as such by a loophole in the law, as I mentioned below) tend to have extremely high levels of recidivism. It’s the reason those offender’s lists exist, and, I think, why we as a culture tend to view sexual predators as irredeemable monsters.
Now why in the hell did that post twice? Wordpress FAIL.
You know what’s interesting about this? I just tried to look up a list of recidivism rates for various crimes and discovered that it is very difficult to find discussion of recidivism rates for specific types of crimes…except one.
Sex offenses. No matter what you search, this will come up. In order to get rates for other crimes, you have to search for them specifically and even then, you don’t find the volume or isolated, in-depth studies you do on sex offenses.
I can think of a million reasons for this, many of the perfectly reasonable, but at least one of the reasons we are so acutely aware of recidivism in sex offenders is because it is one of the only types of recidivism we seem to care much about.
That is to say, I guess, recidivism for drug dealers and wife beaters may be equally as high, but due to some kind of self-sustaining loop of public information and what is beginning to look like a sort of fetishistic public fascination with sex offenses, we are constantly hearing about recidivism in sex offenders because we ask about sex offenders because we think they are irredeemable monsters because we hear about recidivism in sex offenders.
I find this fascinating. I am suddenly fascinated.
I mean, I am always interested in social/public attitudes towards sex, and I certainly understand the desire to want to protect one’s family from sexual predation and its long-term consequences.
But I have friends that are obsessed with the predator registry and look it up on a weekly basis. They post facebook statuses when predators move in and out of a 15-mile radius of their home. They think about it constantly. I don’t think this is a reasonable behavior. They recover from shootouts a block away from their windows faster than a predator moving in 13 miles away. At least two of them refuse to drive down streets within 3 blocks of the predator’s home. And the more prudish the girl, the more rabid the obsession. It all amounts to there being something inherently, especially scary or thought-commanding or mysterious and shady about sex–to the extent that people worry less about being murdered than about being fondled, ogled, or raped.
I think a certain amount of concern is perfectly normal. And even more concern than one might have for other types of criminals. But our attitudes about sex offenses enjoy a relationship to our own feelings about sex, and I can’t help but wonder to what extent America’s obsession with the predator registry and sex offenses in general is related to its notoriously puritanical sexual attitudes. Like, DO we think they’re irredeemable because of their recidivism, or are they recidivist, and we know about it, because we see them as irredeemable?
What a rambling shit pile of a post this has become. Anyway.
There’s a probably a great deal of linkage. But I have to say, people that turn around and stalk sexual predators off of the registry worry me a bit, too. Like in the film Little Children when the ex-cop starts harrassing the convicted pedophile.
According to some of the police I worked with, once upon a time, one of the major reasons the recidivism rate of sex offenders is so high (and why it is so stringently tracked) is because the impulse to commit the offense is so deeply psychologically embedded. It’s not a chemical addiction, like drug abuse, and it’s not a crime of passion like many murders or acts of violence, and tends to come from some deep, damaged area of the psyche, which our system of corrections just is not set up to deal with in any sort of preventative fashion.
I don’t know if they worry me in that way, or if I’d say they stalk them, necessarily. I just think it reveals an unusual or irrational fear or guilt or general darkness surrounding the notion of sex.
Like, this is the WORST thing they could possibly imagine happening to anyone, even though the odds are better that they or their children will die in a fiery car wreck than that they will be sexually accosted by a total stranger (or I presume so. If I recall, most sexual attacks come at the hands of friends, family, and acquaintences).
Anyway. Deeply damaged, yes. But in some cases or senses is it like a fetish, maybe? A compulsion towards the forbidden, but with violent consequences? I mean, I’ve got Oscar Wilde quotes ringing in my head today, and this one keeps popping up:
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.” Turns out not to be the best advice for poor old Dorian Gray, but allowing myself to take it a bit out of context…
I mean, at least in some cases, is sexual predation the expression of a sickened soul that has failed, or been the victim of someone else who failed, to find or allow healthy outlets for themselves? Is it a general expression of shame of some kind? IS it entirely personal or is there a social element to it?
I mean, on the one hand, I know that the highest recidivism in general–across all crimes, that is–is linked to mental illness, psychosis in particular, so it stands to reason that people who commit crimes with high recidivism tend to be mentally ill.
Would it be worse or more despicable, I wonder, if sexual predators weren’t mentally ill, or is having committed such a crime grounds enough to be declared mentally ill? Is it even possible to be a sane sex offender? Like, if sexual predation IS a mental illness, then of course all the sexual predators are mentally ill. Saying so isn’t saying much.
‘course that leads us into a discussion about what it is, at least at the theoretical level, to be mentally ill, but that’s a different discussion rife with all kinds of new questions.
Was his wife young? Maybe the parents sued him for robbing the cradle. Not to defend him but unless we know, we don’t really know, ya know?
I’ve gone through a similar set of circumstances with the back and the feet and the fringe health aids and I can tell you, a person in pain will turn to just about anyone and do just about anything to get out of it.
The soas turned out to be my problem. A massage therapist released mine and keeping it stretched with yoga has saved me from two planned back surgeries.
In October I visited a friend in NM who’d gone to several doctors and was taking a fistful of pills for back pain. I released her soas and taught her some tricks and she’s pain and drug free. No molestor required!
No, his wife was in her thirties. At least. She certainly wasn’t borderline “barely legal” or anything.
And: It’s all about releasing the psoas.
This post rang alarmingly familiar with me… I’ve been going through back problems ever since I helped my uncle move house when I was around the same age you were, or maybe a little younger. That developed into horrific hip problems that saw me give up every sport or activity I once was able to do…
I sought treatments in similar places to the ones you’ve suggested, and then one day it disappeared. After tens of thousands of dollars spent on treatment I decided I’d try giving up coffee. And that was it. Problem solved.
Although one of the last doctors who treated me decided to put his finger up my ass (which they love doing…) and invited his son into the room after I’d dropped my pants. “Watch this, son!” I believe he said in Korean. (I’m not suggesting he was a paedophile, but it was kind of creepy.)
I actually request a finger up my ass in any kind of medical situation.
It makes my dentist terribly uncomfortable.
That was the second time a Korean doctor did that to me, but the first time he made a child watch.
The first time it happened he said, “I don’t want do this. It hurt you, yes, but it hurt me too,” and mimed what would happen if I was suddenly to convulse - it would, apparently, break his finger.
I hear it really helps strengthen the psoas muscle, as well as the rest of the lesser pelvic brim.
You should have convulsed, David.
Wow. Tremendous writing, but I was getting totally creeped out reading this.
Oh, hey… Why no picture of the feathered hair? Why no picture of the ponytail? Maybe your next post.
Everyone just wants to see me with unfortunate hair.
I think my next book will be a photo book of me with unfortunate hair.
I think a book of authors’ hair might be big. Don’t rule it out.
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4275_768844487555_23424854_46401882_5533580_n.jpg
Susan: His hair is just feathered enough there that you get an idea.
Ha! That’s what I’m talking about, Greg!
Thanks, Greg! That was weird!
We need a like button!! I really enjoyed that Brad! Thanks!
Everyone loves a foot-doctor-as-a-pedophile-chronic-pain-healing story.
They’ve been told around campfires for millennia.
I keep liking your writing, Brad.
For some reason, this stops me when I reread Hard to Put a Finger On: “I had feathered hair.”
BTW, how do folk get their photo or symbol to the right of their names? I’m tired of being a grey blank.
Yeah. That was a late add.
I guess I think of my chronology according to the way my hair was.
That’s sort of “female” of me or something.
My hair has been roughly the same for, like, ten years running now.
I quit experimenting a while ago.
I do entertain a fantasy about having a Mohawk from time to time.
@Judy: If you want your picture to show up next to your comments, please go to http://www.gravatar.com. Sign up for a free account, upload a headshot, and you’re done. Just be sure to use the same email address at gravatar that you use here at TNB.
So where’s the photo of your feathered hair, Brad? It may be a mental malady to totally quit experimenting with one’s hair [or someone else's]. At high school reunions [I've been to one, but feel confident in extrapolating from the experience] it was the males who were unrecognisable, and just bcuz of their different haircuts. The women were the ones who’d not changed their haircuts…..there flies your theory!
So you’ve had your feet fondled by a convicted pedophile. That’s just….
Wow.
It IS worth noting, though, that the guy’s crime might not be quite as bad as the letter of the law makes it out to be (though in this case it is a bit hard to imagine how). It all depends on what constitutes a “sex offense” in Florida. Under current California law, for example, getting caught urinating in public (indecent exposure) gets you slapped on the Sex Offender’s list, even if there’s nothing sexual about the event at all. A bit of draconian fine print in the law can really screw you over.
Good point.
I hold out hope that it was some sort of misunderstanding or something.
But “sexual abuse of a child” sounds pretty bad to my ears.
not forgetting the ‘continuous..’
I suppose in some interpretations of the law spanking or some such act could be considered sexual abuse. But with Florida being the COPS and FARK capital of the universe, I tend to look upon Floridians as guilty until proven innocent and likely to flee at any moment, perhaps removing their shirt during the chase.
I think that’s a pretty safe assumption.
I just said the exact same thing. Good call, Matt.
I want to maul your doctor and drag him threw salt.
You’d rock the Mohawk! do it =)
I’m glad you are free of pain, Brad -dodgy doctor or not -long may your back stay strong and twinge free.
eek! get a new dude!
my podiatrist had a large size “artistic” picture of me modeling a BRA in his office when I went to see him for the first time.
THAT was uncomfortable.
Wait–you wear bras?
Re your fantasy-Mohawk haircut, Brad, here’s an option which needn’t involve cutting your hair:
http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=USA&screen=lotdetailsNoFlash&iSaleItemNo=4198490&iSaleNo=17098&iSaleSectionNo=1
Seeing that compelling photo somehow led me to buy [Christmas gift to m'sel'] “Ethiopia Peoples of the Omo Valley” by Hans Silvester–2 heavy coffeetable volumes loaded with full-page colour photos of gorgeous artfully-presented folk. It revolutionised me about body decoration. More details:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810993260/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
Thanks for info re getting a photo up.
I missed reading you, Brad. It’s been a long time.
I agree with you…everyone’s comments are so…what? accepting? of the pedophile foot doc.
That is creepy, he is creepy! “Yay” for your intuition. It was spot-on. I say…don’t give him anymore of your time or money. Maybe now that you already have the orthodics, you can find someone else to copy their form, so you never have to endure the back pain again.
Yeah, for all the ickiness of the thing, I do remain pleased that my intuition picked up on it.
And obviously I’m under no obligation to return.
I don’t think I will. It’s just too uncomfortable. I would be thinking about it the whole time.
I tend to think the guy’s life is spent like this; wondering who knows.
If he has any intuition of his own, he’d probably be able to discern that I know if I ever went back there for treatment.
Wow. That’s intensely creepy. I mean I tend to try not to get too overly-emotional the second I hear the words “convicted sex offender.” You could have been an 18-year-old intimately involved with a 17-year-old, the love of your life, and if her parents decide to press charges, you, too, are a convicted sex offender. But…yeah…doesn’t sound like that’s the situation with the Orthopedic guy.
Now, about this ponytail - was it an all-one-length type of affair? Was it more a of a Billy Ray Cyrus kind of mullet-tail? When you say you had a ponytail, do you mean that you let your hair grow long enough to pull some of it back into a scrunchy, but that it never really reached an all-over-long state before you cut it? Also, do you have pictures? I just can’t picture it, man…
Wait - orthopedic? Orthodic? What the hell is the difference?
Yee…. That ain’t good.
Jesus, everyone who has made their comments about the duality of man has been right on the money. On the one hand, doctor, yes, excellent, very good, pillar of the community, helps the needy. On the other hand… Nope. There’s not much coming back from sexual abuse of a child.
We’re complicated SOBs, all right.
I have to agree with the hair chorus here, Brad.
I remember us talking about this on Hollywood Boulevard, just after the Literary Death Match that Rich Ferguson won. We were comparing notes on sex offenders that we’d personally known.
I only wish that I could remember the last name of the guy (Bobby) who photographed me naked at summer camp once upon a time. I would love to see what comes up, though he’s likely dead by now, being a heavy smoker and already in his fifties at the time that he did what he did to me.
But about pain: my right arm and leg were shattered in a car accident, and there’s titanium holding them together, but though the doctors forecast future difficulties, I haven’t much experienced them. Every once in a while I’ll feel a little twang, but, considering how close I came to having the leg amputated, it’s nothing. Curious that you suffered for so long, and your injury was, on the face of it, less dramatic than mine.
Still, you know what hurts now? The soles of my feet. They’re flat as coins, and it takes very little for me to throw them out of whack. I can usually barely walk for the first two minutes or so every morning.
I wonder: Are orthodics the answer?
They could be.
One of the things that I’ve sort of come to believe throughout this whole process is that repetitive stress has a lot to do with chronic pain.
Meaning: If pain is chronic, then it’s likely that something we’re doing physically (and repeatedly) has at least something to do with the problem.
This is why people are always getting ergonomically-designed desk chairs and so on. Writers in particular. The way you sit, day after day after day after day, would seem to have an impact.
The way we walk and stand doesn’t always get the same consideration. One’s gait. The distribution of weight on one’s feet. The length of one’s legs. And so on.
So for example: If one of your legs is a quarter-inch longer than the other, it might not seem like a big deal. But the repercussions of that dissonance can potentially be felt all throughout the body.
The hips.
The knees.
The way the body over-corrects to compensate.
A good pair of orthodics can restore proper alignment and will help to cut this stuff off at the pass.
That’s been my experience, anyway.
Jude Potts and I are now having an exchange about foot problems, thanks to this post.
Oh, and the quarter-inch thing: I read somewhere that Marilyn Monroe used to cut about that much off on one of her shoes — the heel, I mean — because she’d found that it gave her a sexier walk. I think it specifically made her rear wiggle more. Just a weird anecdote that I mention for no good reason at all.
this is kinda strange. a few years ago i decided to stop sitting in my house all the time and get some exercise. so i started walking around the neighborhood. i walked every day for a half hour, then an hour, then sometimes for an hour and a half or two. i listened to my ipod. i had edgar allan poe on my ipod. then one day my feet started hurting. a LOT. on the top. it got worse and worse until i couldn’t walk at all. finally i went to the foot doctor. in echo park. with the happy foot sad foot sign. he said i needed the orthodics. so i got them. they were expensive. very quickly the pain went away. then i started walking again. then a friend of mine told me about how she’d just found out a pedophile was living next door to her. i asked her how she knew that. she told me there was a website. i went to the website and typed in my address. there was a map with red dots all around my neighborhood. and i mean, like, ALL AROUND MY NEIGHBORHOOD. so then when i went for walks all i did was look at all the pedophile houses and wonder which people i saw were pedophiles. it was creepy. so then i stopped walking and just stayed in my house listening to edgar allan poe. and now i have the orthodics in my shoes that cost a lot and do me no good cuz of the pedophile army surrounding my house.
true story. we are linked in an odd way, brad listi.
I know the maps you speak of.
One of my friends sent me a link once.
The situation was the same.
ALL AROUND MY NEIGHBORHOOD.
Unsettling.
The Scarlet Dot.
Lenore told me about an app for the iPhone called “SexOffenders.”
You put in an address and it shows you where they live and if you click on each one you find out what they did and you get PICTURES of them.
No shit.
Jesus - not to trivialize your back pain or the pedophile but was it possible he also had a foot fetish? How do you still practice medicine with a sexual abuse conviction? Ah… and still we need to believe in the essential goodness of humanity, don’t we?
I remember the first time I had my feet cast for orthotics, I was nineteen and fell asleep facedown on the table, ankles flopped over the end. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to complete, but something about the soggy strips of plaster-soaked cloth and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. There was something oogy about my podiatrist, too, though in his case I think it was his white-man Jheri curls and not a skeezy criminal record.
So creepy! So unsettling! Such a screwed-up twist on that tired and highly questionable anti-abortion angle that “killing” a foetus might involve also killing a future genius. Imagine the state of your former doctor’s karma, the forces at play as his record as a molester and his generous curing of adults’ debilitating ailments duke it out.
Perhaps you can set things right by invoking upon your doctor a curse which a friend of mine thinks would set things right with rapists. Rather than jail time, capital punishment or any other penalty, my friend believes a lifetime of crippling diarrhea (always, forever, unceasing, accompanied by bloating and cramps and nonstop intestinal explosions…actually forever) is an appropriate penalty for someone who’s forced him- or herself on someone else. Only, in the doctor’s case, no equivalent to orthotics would ever come to alleviate this chronic ailment…heh.
When you are late to the game
everything’s been said.
I had an issue for awhile
& a ortho doc buddy told me:
“Geez man look - your generation
has to get out of the screen
the human body wasnt meant to hunch over
pecking at keys and peering into TVs and PCs
all damned day. Go do some manual labor.
You want therapy? Dig post holes.”
This might be why my writing career
is thus far unsuccessful.
Post holes.
Also - A friend is now a convicted sex offender
with the same diagnosis as your foot doc.
Police had it out for him and convicted
on some old sex tapes they found when
he was 20 and the girl was like 17.
Like the rest of us
the best and worse reside within
that guy. But he’s not a monster yknow.
Yeah, I don’t think he’s a monster either. Even if he did something monstrous.
It’s just an odd situation. Hard to know how to feel.
I don’t wish him ill, but I can’t say that I’ll go back.
Have you considered asking him what he did? Or is your potential future interaction so limited anyway that it’s not really worth the effort?
If he was arrested four years ago, it seems highly unlikely that this was a “young love, pissed parents” kind of situation but, as has been mentioned in other comments, streaking at a graduation has made “registered sex offenders” out of kids these days….
Good story…creepy.
Reminds of when this guy that had raped me when I was 15 called me out of the blue a couple years later. Apparently he was driving drunk and killed a jogger. The guy (the rapist) was 17 at the time. He said he needed to see me. I agreed. (?) He said he was sorry for making me do something I didn’t want to do. He didn’t say “I’m sorry for raping you.” He said he was studying to become a Baptist priest and he wanted to work with children. I dumb foundedly sort of acknowledged him and then said good bye. Needless to say it haunts me.
Now your feet haunt me.
My back hurts.
I’m so late to the party, eeeeek!
That is a conundrum, though. So freeking weird. People. I don’t get them, really.
I’m glad you did yoga near goats. Goats are cool. But they will eat your hair if you’re not alert at all times. And, I have to jump on the bandwagon of wanting to see a picture of you as sensitive ponytail man.
Always fun to read your words.
I have a ponytail
if anyone would
like to see it
Um….YEAH!!!!!
Oh Brad, I have SO missed you!
This was so much fun, (for us, but probably not for you,) that I think, (for us again,) it was worth all the pain.
You gotta have material to write great stuff, Brad.
You got the material.
Huzzah!
That’s beyond creepy. Did you find this guy in the Yellow Pages? Shouldn’t he have some sort of sign out in the front of his practice? No children allowed. Something. I’d be scared to know what his company slogan is.
I used to suffer recurring lower back problems to the point of literal nausea. Thankfully, my Physical Therapist was not a pedophile. Otherwise, I would feel even more uncomfortable thinking back on the essentially-dry-humping-the-air exercises they had me doing. Totally awkward.
On the bright side, the next time your back begins acting up you can always get a pair of the super cool new Skechers: the Shape-Ups: http://www.planetshoes.com/mmplanet/Brands/skechers/shapeup.jpg
The duality of human nature. Celine and Hamsun were Nazis but wrote great books. Your Doc was wacko but was a foot genius. There is good in most people, except Dick Cheney. I hope he did not molest your sole. Pain free is the way to be.
Brad, your cautionary tale is going to get my ass to the chiropractor immediately for the orthotics he’s been telling me I need for the past 9 years. I have believed he was trying to scam me for money, which is probably true, but maybe it will work anyway. I know his children and his wife (my former pilates instructor) and am reasonably certain he isn’t molesting any of them–he hasn’t even run over any joggers that I know of, per Tammy’s creepy rapists–so it looks like I am ahead of the game and should be happy to fork over all my money to this guy. If it will stop my back from hurting . . . wow.
Meanwhile, yeah, how much does it suck when your ASS hurts. Yeah. That’s something.
Very glad to hear this worked out for you. With everything you have to do for all of us here at TNB, you do not need anything else to be a pain in your ass.
And yoga. Yeah, love it, but it never stops the pain the way you think it’s going to, does it?
I LOVE my orthotics, Gina.
You should absolutely get some.
I want some Poe on my Ipod… Some Ipoe… That may be the emo-iest trend of aught 10.
As to pederast podiatrists… I suppose it isn’t really so much a risk for grown ups. I would be weary of sending youth his way, of course.
Seems like so many of the worst afflictions are the kinds that are so off limits, so demanding of secrecy, that they are forced to burn themselves into the obsessive places and worsen. I don’t know how you could ask society to be accepting of the act, but maybe if we could be more accepting of the existence of the urge (see the disturbingly frequent appearance of red dots on the many interactive maps), we could deal with it somehow.
Treating the folks as freaks probably just multiplies the freakish manifestations of what is surely a painful condition.
Also, we should ban the repair of the little nose bridge portion of black rimmed glasses via masking tape. The photos of offenders in my region seem to point to at least some tape based causation.
Hey Brad:
It’s so interesting–your back stuff, my back stuff, we’ve had such a similar journey. I’ve even been rolfed as well. Man, the face rolfing was the worst for me. It was like the dental chair scene from that movie the Marathon Man. Where Dustin Hoffman is getting his tooth drilled without meds. Except much, much worse.
Though I must admit, in all my journeys along the path of pain relief, I’ve never received treatment from a child-molesting podiatrist. That’s sure a twist on the whole thing.
A pedi podi? Too weird. My mom recently discovered a sex offender (thanks to Google) in her bible study. She’s all ooked out and is actually changing churches. I feel ridiculously conflicted about this.
Reason #346,252 that 2009 won’t be missed.
Yow. Yowsh! The humor, the intrigue, the conflict! Good God, I wasn’t expecting that particular conflict.
Mark went to a podiatrist in BH and got orthodics, too… I will send him this post.
You know you’ve been playing on facebook too much when you repeatedly try to “like” peoples comments. Ugh.
I agree with everyone else who said it, I need the pictures! The pony tail is funny but I have to see you with feathered hair!
Sex crimes freak me out. I think we know that people who commit such crimes cannot be rehabilitated but the thought of ridding the world of such evil is considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Great to have you back Listi! It’s been too long!
Years ago, my neighbor came knocking on my door. She was going around the neighborhood handing out flyers and telling everyone the guy in the house one street over was a registered sex offender.
Then, it turned out she was wrong. She had the wrong person; was the previous resident, I guess.
How’s that for awkward.
Yikes! Rolfing AND a pedophile podiatrist. But the back wants what it wants, right?
Can I get his number?
I have something in my back, too. A long word that isn’t important.
What we’ll do to rid ourselves of pain.
Great post.