Stick with Ogden you seekers of wisdom and truth about love. Next to “there”s no free lunch,” this may be the best advice anyone ever offered about anything. We”re teaching the wrong things in our schools. Throw out Steinbeck and Hemingway and start teaching Ann Landers and Dear Abby. When our children face the real life situations and problems concerning marriage and relationships they”re like a car without a GPS system — they don”t know where to turn. So they look to Oprah and Dr. Phil, and those publishers and peddlers of pathos who are getting rich from your pain. Well, this is your lucky day. If you want to solve your relationship problems you”re in the right place. Listen up!
When I was Tarzan and you were Jane
Rarely did you ever complain
That I was unkind and uncaring,
Never open, never sharing
What it meant to be me
And how that translates into we.
It was a time men now deplore
When women raised their heads to roar
That men are slobs who just don”t get it.
Who needed help or they”d regret it.
Soon I had stacks and stacks
Of hard cover books and paperbacks
All designed for comprehending
That my garden needed tending.
Consciousness raising became my goal
So I turned the pages to learn my role.
To reduce stress and level my systolic
I quickly became a Chopra-holic.
John Bradshaw understood my compunctions
Concerning family and male dysfunctions.
No longer was I king of the wild,
John helped me find my inner child:
Who was tied to mommy, anal retentive,
Unromantic, lacking incentive;
A jock in ninety dollar Nikes
Trampling over female psyches,
I”d been a pig with cloven hooves,
Watching ESPN while you ran with the wolves.
Men are from Mars; woman from Venus,
As different as Carmel and Salinas.
So I”m not the guy you thought you got,
Who would whisk you away to Camelot.
I toted my barge, lifted my bales,
Despite your looks when I lifted some ales.
Joining the race with the other rats
I wore myself out wearing too many hats.
Father, son, husband, lover,
Just too many darn bases to cover.
Thought I was smart, learned I was conned.
I was Betty Frie-damned, and Iron John-ed.
My inner hunter, home from the wild
Killed and ate my inner child.
I was wrecked by every rectifier
From F. Scott Peck to E. Wayne Dyer.
Elizabeth Gilbert says Eat, Pray, and Love;
Two of the three fit like a glove.
Wherever I turned I was under attack
I stopped listening to everyone, except Prozac.
I suffered from early emotional spillage.
If only I had been raised by a village.
The consensus is: I have no humanity.
In the name of Oprah: stop the insanity!
Can we talk? Here”s the bottom line.
You get off your charger, I”ll let go my vine.
We won”t be you, we won”t be me,
We”ll respect each other”s reality.
I”m tired of living on tenterhooks,
Nailed by these self-improvement books.
Aren”t you tired of the overkill
From Dr. Ruth and Dr. Phil?
Let”s reach a loving compromise
And turn this jungle into paradise.
We”ll strike a bargain — then strike a match
And burn these books batch by batch.
And in those flames, we”ll see what transpires.
C”mon, c”mon baby, let”s re-light our fires.
Jerry Gervase is a columnist for The Herald. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.