Truth: "Get Thee To A Nut House!"

" Mark, if life is driving you insane, don't get mad...get even!" -- My Grandfather

The only thing that keeps me from going insane is my natural affinity for madness. Case on point, how do you stitch together seemingly disparate brute facts such as; a T-boning of your 1972 Porsche 914-6 mid-engine 2 seat roadster, a one-ton San Francisco Newspaper delivery truck, a CHP officer on scene with weapon drawn, two injured ‘exotic dancer’ friends, a legendary San Francisco attorney who pioneered psychic pleadings in tort cases (he also had a thing for exotic dancers) and a psychiatrist named Dr. Lipshitz? Madness, that’s how, madness! The year was 1975. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had just been released. More than one casting director commented that my acting persona and a few of my facial gestures closely resembled Jack Nicholson. Game on.

On a clear day, you can see all the way downtown as you glide through carefully timed traffic lights running into the city of San Francisco from the west. The sun is shining. You had a fun day at the beach with two ‘exotic dancer’ friends. You’re planning the evening’s adventures at the clubs and cafes along infamous Broadway Street. You’re coasting in third gear. Enjil and Vernon are making up their playlist for their ‘Love Act’ at BIG AL’s that night as they do every night performing under the stage name The Von Bergdorfs, both quite blond and beautiful.

Suddenly, at the intersection of Oak and Octavia, you catch sight of a moving object that should not be moving. It’s a big blue SF Chronicle newspaper delivery truck that’s blowing the red light and is about cut your 914 in half. Quick like a bunny the Porsche reacts to my high-speed Bondurant High-Speed Driving School training that came with the car. Don’t touch the break. Downshift to second gear. Punch it. Almost made it. Crash! It’s true what they say about those nanoseconds before impact in a car accident. Everything does spin in slow-mo. The sounds of shattering glass, crunching metal, screeching tires, twisting plastic, snapping rubber, all take on a weird symphonic cacophony. As the primary impact happened over the rear wheel, the car spun 360⁰ as it skated through the intersection only to pile up on a parked car some 200 feet away. There was blood. Vernon’s head shattered the passengers’ window. Enjil’s head broke off the rear view mirror and her left knee broke off the gear shift knob. My right leg was numb and blood trickled from my forehead. Good Samaritans helping us out of the mangled Porsche when I caught glimpse of a California Highway Patrol officer, gun drawn in a shooter’s crouch, ordering the SF Chronicle truck driver out of the cab and onto the pavement. He had seen it all. He had just finished writing up another red-light violation when our crash happened before his eyes. The madness had begun.

After a year of doctors, physical therapists, and unemployment checks, Enjil and Vernon were ready to accept a contract dancing in various Tokyo clubs. Vernon, now known as ‘Tron', added a python and a boa constrictor to the act during the accident induced hiatus. As the least physically injured party I was able to continue lecturing and picking up the odd TV, Radio, and Film parts that came my way in the small San Francisco acting market. While unable to walk for a month, the first draft of my future one-man- JFK stage show lumbered from my typewriter. The three of us were clearly moving in very different directions yet the auto insurance company, with absolutely clear liability to payout, obstinately delayed settlement. This was the first truth taught by this experience. Auto insurance companies have an evil strategy when they are liable for large settlements. They play the odds that aggrieved parties will die, have a piano fall on their head, or be so frustrated by the delay they will accept peanuts just to put it behind them and move on. They don’t expect to meet up with anyone like The Meddlesome Priest.

A week after the accident a well-known ambulance chaser, Jordan Potash, latched onto our case promising a big, quick settlement. That’s the second truth taught by this experience. There are no big, quick settlements to these cases. Still a large amount of money was piling up through lost wages for Enjil and Vernon (about $1,000.00 per week) and their medical expenses now totaled over $ 25,000.00. Mine were about half of that in both categories. A new attorney was needed to end this year long stagnation. Enter Marvin Lewis and another level of madness.

According to his New York Times 1991 Obituary Marvin Lewis was my best bet:

“He was a pioneer of the legal concept of psychic injury, arguing in a 1959 case that a female client became psychotic after falling through a wooden stairway to her apartment. He said the woman's fall was a fall from grace, psychologically speaking, and interfered with her religious upbringing. The woman, June Daimare, who had sued her landlord for damages, was awarded $101,000.

Mr. Lewis was perhaps best known for a 1970 case that the media called "The Cable Car Named Desire," in which a jury ruled in favor of a young dancer, Gloria Sykes, who claimed she lost her mental balance and became a nymphomaniac after a cable car accident. Ms. Sykes sued the city and a jury awarded her $50,000.”

Enjil, Vernon and I had only one conference with Marvin Lewis. After I briefed them on my research they both wore outfits that displayed their considerable allurements that would have made Michaelangelo weak in the knees. As I did the talking Marvin’s eyes kept darting back and forth from my friends. The facts of the case were undeniable and incontestable he agreed. The CHP officer’s arrest report of Mr. Norman Min-Toi, the Chronicle delivery truck driver, clearly placed liability should this ever get to trial. Marvin was forthright in telling us all to hunker down for a long wait to settlement as insurance company lawyers have many ‘procedural’ opportunities for delay, delay, and more delay while playing the odds that misfortune would strike us again and mitigate their responsibility. Finally, I asked the million-dollar-question; “Marvin, what would convince this insurance company that it was in their very best financial interest to settle this case in a month?” His answer would take me into another level of madness. “Well…”, he droned puffing on an obscenely huge Havana torpedo shaped cigar, “…if they got it into their little bean counting heads that any of you were suffering from a long term physical or mental….” I didn’t hear the rest of whatever he said. My mind locked upon hearing the term ‘mental’. Now, here’s something I could get my head around. With a wave of a hand at a cloud of smoke headed my way I asked; “Do you mean that if they thought…”. Marvin already had a smile on his face and was nodding ‘yes’ before I could finish my question. Without further ado, I told Marvin to stand by. He would hear from me tomorrow.

The Parnassus Medical Center was right across the street from the world renowned Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. Perfect! Sliding my finger down the directory of doctors, the entry “Dr. Richard Lipshitz, Psychiatry Suite 709” gave me pause. Outstanding! Since I had put all my affairs in order, as the saying goes, I had plenty of time to ‘get into character’ during the two mile walk up to Parnassus. The elevator ride gave me the final moments to produce actual tears. Showtime!

The receptionist, a plump, gregarious black lady, asked, “Are you here to see the doctor?” (after three beats) “No! I’m here to play with your boobies. Of course I’m here to see the doctor and I don’t want to hurt anyone… especially me.” I was speaking the truth. Her right hand inconspicuously disappeared under the counter as she muttered something incoherent while I sank to the floor and curled up into a fetal position to the great amusement of the other patients in the waiting room reading magazines. Quite soon, strong arms were lifting me up and guiding me into the doctor’s office. A surprisingly young and very muscular Dr. Richard Lipshitz was standing at a cabinet beside his desk fiddling with a bottle of pills and asking if I had ever taken Librium. My blood-curdling scream filled the room and sent little blue pills cascading everywhere. It was then that I noticed a second attendant enter the room. “They actually do wear white coats” I recall noting before I was fitted with that tight garment known in the business as a ‘straight-jacket’. Now properly costumed and my crypto-catatonia very convincing, Dr. Lipshitz, my two new friends and I walked across Parnassus where I signed myself in for 72 hours observation. Superb!

That’s the third truth learned from this whole experience. In the State of California in 1975, if you signed yourself into a nut house, then you could sign yourself out after 72 hours ‘observation’. You had to be careful, however, that you were not TOO convincing. Otherwise, they could get a court order or permission from your family to simply keep you there for as long as they pleased. It’s one thing to be mad enough to sign yourself into a lunatic asylum. It’s quite another to be insane enough to allow them to keep you. Fortunately for me, my natural affinity for madness has always prevented my insanity. The truly insane never bother to question their insanity. I question it every day. Although my plan was going smoothly, the prospect of losing an entire day out of my life to Thorazine in a padded room never occurred to me. Thorazine is a powerful neuropsychiatric drug for the treatment of manic depression, severe anxiety, and chronic restlessness. Basically, in sufficient inject able dosage; you lose a day of your life with no recall, but a very calm afterglow. Perfect!

Regaining consciousness, I had my first consultation with Dr. Lipshiz. Naturally, he wanted to know why I signed myself into his facility. Naturally, I told him the truth. I was here to settle an auto accident claim from an insurance company that had total liability yet refused to payout driving me insane. “But, that’s crazy,” he objected. “We are not in dispute, Doctor, I agree entirely with your diagnosis.” Marvin Lewis was amused by my antics “Never seen anything like this in 32 years of practice”. He promptly informed the obstreperous insurance company lawyers that I was being treated at Langley Porter for severe depression and anxiety resulting from certain ‘complications’ of the accident at a projected cost of about $ 7,000.00 per day. Prognosis, according to Dr. Lipshitz was ‘uncertain’. Excellent!

Group sessions followed the next day. Eight patients populated my group. We took turns telling Dr. Libshitz what was worrying us. One man was quite convinced that orderlies were raping him every night with mop handles. A young woman had urgent information to give to President Gerald Ford that explained how aliens from a parallel universe wanted him to switch political parties and were disrupting airwaves around his body causing him to fall down, trip or bump his head unexpectedly to make their point otherwise they would destroy the earth. All of us tried to explain to her that President Ford is, unfortunately, clumsy and accident prone, as a result. She thought we were crazy. When they got to me, I simply told the truth as I had to Dr. Lipshitz. Every one of them agreed that the insurance company should payout what they owe and I should go home. Dr. Lipshitz said nothing with a wry smile on his face. Marvin reported that settlement negotiations were ‘making significant progress’. Excellent!

My 72 hours was running out. On the last day with only a few hours remaining Marvin called with a settlement offer. It was lower than what we thought by enough to get this behind us and move on with our lives. We told him to accept the offer. Dr. Lipshitz called me into his office and told me that my group members were going for a walk in nearby Golden Gate Park. He told me to be ready in thirty minutes. “Wait, you want me to go for a walk in public with a group of insane people?” Smiling with that wry smile again he said “Sure, it will be good for your acting career.” By five, o’clock that afternoon, I signed myself out. During the walk back to my apartment, I recalled my grandfather telling me “Mark, when life drives you insane…don’t get mad…get even.” He was a man whose wisdom came from knowing the truths of how the world actually worked.