by Dr. Susan Block.   

We’re speaking easy at the Speakeasy this Midsummer night, or as easy as we can speak, with corporate censorship silencing our dreams and messing with our minds, as we take on the affairs of the week.

Here are some highlights:

• It actually is “Midsummer” night (6/24) as we broadcast live on our “Midsummer Night’s Dreamy Speakeasy,” with an Elizabethan hat tip to William Shakespeare and those great Scandinavian pagans of short, steamy, dreamy summers (sommers?).
• Midsummer is for lovers, and Capt’n Max and I kick off the Honeymoon Season that morning with a little June Honeymoon of senior sex, orgasms and love. All we need is the mead!

• F.D.R. stands for #FuckDaRich, but #EatTheRich turns out to be Midsummer’s leading hashtag, thanks to a series of dramatic Orca attacks. Whereas these giant, brilliant, boisterously playful and rather scary “killer” dolphin-like whales have not yet eaten any rich people, they appear to be eating their yachts (at least the rudders).
• Various strange sea creatures have appeared to #EattheRich these days, chiefly the Titan “submersible” gobbling up five rich guys and then imploding like a giant Belch of Death. We feel bad for the 19-year-old who went down there mainly to please his Titanic-obsessed dad (said his aunt), but the others just demonstrate the extensive and expensive idiocy of “Da Rich.” Burt calls in to chime in on how this ridiculously dangerous mini-sub was made of Radio Shack parts and run by a joystick and a Bluetooth. Particularly shocking is the hubris of the Titan’s CEO, determined to *penetrate* the impenetrable Titanic—like a dude determined to have sex with a woman who’s out of his league—all this on a super low budget at the expense of safety. Dead giveaway: naming his damn company “Oceangate”—almost like he knew he’d soon float through the lethal “gates” of Watergate, Gamergate and Heaven’s Gate and right through those Pearly Gates. Meanwhile, the world’s maritime agencies move heaven and earth to search for a few fat cats, whereas hundreds of migrants drown like rats as those same agencies force overloaded boats to leave their shores.  What a tragedy and travesty! Fuck Da Rich!

We bid a sad but fond farewell to Daniel Ellsberg, the G.O.A.T. of great American whistleblowers.

• RIP Daniel Ellsberg, the original American “whistleblower,” one of the greatest, most genuine heroes of my life and in America’s history, going back to his courageous release of the Pentagon Papers which helped to end America’s War in Vietnam. At least of equal if not greater significance was Ellsberg’s bombshell of a book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, which exposes the insane operations of America’s nuclear program and Ellsberg’s chilling realization that we’re not too far from the fantasy “Doomsday Machine” in Stanley Kubrick’s anti-nuke masterpiece, Strangelove. Since his days as what Bob Dylan would call a “Master of War” at the Rand corporation and the Pentagon, until his death, Ellsberg inspired and actively helped many other truthtellers (notably Julian Assange) and antiwar causes, and so we bid a sad but fond farewell to Daniel Ellsberg, the G.O.A.T. of great American whistleblowers.
• Another great Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut (EWS), a midsummer night’s cinematic wet dream that’s *really* a critique of capitalism and class, comes up as we talk about Hunter Biden (the “Billy Beer” Carter of our times), President Joe’s bad boy son with (at this point) more of a rap sheet than resume. What got my attention was that he was recently outed for ass-grabbing (Trump’s not the only one, but Hunter’s not running for president) at a very high-end LA sex club, SNCTM (modeled on EWS), by SNCTM founder Damon Lawner who was then kicked out of his own club for outing Biden! As a sex therapist, I do understand this policy; confidentiality is key. And it makes me wonder, what kind of “group therapy” goes on at SNCTM? To be continued…

• Putin almost got toppled (or did he?) by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin at the stroke of Midsummer, and then he didn’t (or did he?), and we’re in a media-induced frenzy of confusion. At first, I was so excited, I thought it was a Bonobo Revolution—with astonishingly little violence—since it appeared Putin’s great military was letting the Wagner Group charge on in with no resistance. Well, it was an overnight revolution—totally over in less than a Midsummer’s day—and at broadcast time, Prigozhin—the chief thug of a gang of thugs who didn’t revolt because he’s anti-war, but just because he wanted a more efficient military chain of command to slaughter more Ukrainians—was off to Belarus for… negotiations? A vacation? We have no idea; we just want to stop this war and all perma wars. Is that too much to want?
• Trumpty Dumpty doesn’t come up much on this ride, except when we wonder if he’ll hide Putin in the same shitter as he’s got the secret nuclear documents if Prigozhin’s putsch comes to shove.

• On the lighter—and saltier—side, Rich calls in to extoll our beautiful Birthday Bacchanal and inquire about the history of Bonoboville Communion and Waterboarding, Bonobo Style with Agwa de Bolivia Herbal Coca Leaf Liqueur—along with side dishes of Tequila Toe Shots and Shrimping Cocktails— which we describe with such relish, it will make your mouth water!
• Shardoll calls in to sing my praises, chief among them being that he thinks I’d “rock a bikini” at the beach, even though—or because—I’m “older” (he’s 26). Somehow this gets us into a discussion about body shame and insecurity which, if you’ve ever experienced it (and who hasn’t?), you’d do well to tune to.
• “Plumpy Chunks,” a curiously named new listener, asks if I have ever “partied” with former adult performer Alisha Klass, and taking a quick trip through time in my mind, I realize I had—about 20 years ago—with the aptly named Seymore Butts, then star of his own show, Showtime’s Family Business.
• Moving past his bikini obsession, Shardoll asks me to explain bonobos and The Bonobo Way, which I gladly do for the 10,000^th I’m always glad to expound upon the “Make Kink Not War” chimpanzees who make peace through pleasure and friendliness, empower the females, nurture the males, share resources and swing through the trees as well as with each other!

• We are antiwar for many reasons, chief of which being that it kills people and ruins the earth, but also the sheer expense of American Perma Wars that puts mounting profits into War Profiteers’ pockets at our expense, the latest insane example being Pentagon garbage cans purchased from Boeing for over $51K each—way to throw our tax money into the trash!
• Happy belated 158^th anniversary of Juneteenth, America’s most profound celebration of reality-based, physical freedom, commemorating the hard-fought, long-overdue freeing of some 250,000 slaves, that built this great nation on real estate stolen from the Native Americans, whose descendants are still discriminated against in this supposed land of the “free.” We talk about freedom—free love, free speech and the costs of any and all freedoms. Freedom *should* be free, but it never is, and in the Capitalocene, it seems to cost more and more.
• Though we favor the “lesser of two evils” (usually the Democrats), both parties of America’s duopoly are duplicitous. If you agree, or even if you don’t, you’ll love our new “Don’t Feed the Animals” T shirt. It’s also available as a tank top for those steamy and dreamy Midsummer nights.

• The City of Arcadia continues to harass us, and it’s sheer “Mattress Madness,” but we are standing strong for our rights (and yours), and we will meet them in Court this Friday, so stay tuned…
• Need to talk PRIVATELY about any of these topics or something else that you can’t talk about with anyone else? You can talk to us. Experience phone sex therapy. Call the Therapists Without Borders of the Susan Block Institute anytime: 213.291.9497.
• Help! I’m still banned on Facebook, IG and YouTube! Sign the petition to restore my accounts! 

Until we meet again, Happy Midsummer Night’s Dreamy trails to you, from the Capitalocene to the Bonobocene through the Tunnel of Love.

© June 24,  2023 Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 626-461-5950.