The Lankville Daily News

By Brock Belvedere

The first time I met Dr. Thurston (expert on men’s feelings) was on a rainy Sunday in late fall, sort of a miserable day. Still, Dr. Thurston was wearing jeans shorts.

“Are you not cold in your jeans shorts?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I am not feeling cold. I am not feeling that.”

We went to a breakfast place. It was 9 A.M. but they had a band playing. Couple of guys on trumpets and another guy playing a pump organ that had been shoved awkwardly into an alcove by the bathrooms.

Dr. Thurston ordered pancakes. I pretended to look over the menu (for effect) but ended up ordering pancakes too. See, I knew all along that that’s what I wanted. I could feel it.

“I’m going to text you,” Dr. Thurston said suddenly. He removed a lime green flip phone from the pocket of his jeans shorts.

“Why? We’re right here, talking to each other.”
“No, it’s better this way. Is your phone on vibrations?”
“Yes.”
“This is going to be great, it really is.”

Dr. Kevin Thurston: Expert on Men’s Feelings

I felt the vibrations through my pants (they were jeans, but standard-length jeans). I removed my lime green flip phone from the pocket. The face said, “Incoming text from Dr. Kevin Thurston- Expert on Men’s Feelings.”

I opened the phone. The text read, “DISCOVER FEELINGS.” It was all in caps, just like that.

“Thanks, Dr. Thurston, I guess I will.”

“Don’t delete that text,” he said. “Even if you get a new phone, make sure to send it to the new phone before canceling service on the old phone. I want it to be your first text when you get a new phone. Even if you have to do it while you’re standing at the counter of the phone kiosk. Just make sure, alright?”

“Ok, Dr. Thurston- will do.”

He drummed his fingers on the table.

“Listen, I’ll be frank– I’m a little concerned about that text,” he said. “You will do what I said? Because, frankly, I’m looking at you and I’m not seeing a guy that’s good at things. I’m sorry, but you needed to hear that.”

“No, really, I will.”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

The pancakes came then. Mine were runny in the middle. They had also run out of syrup suddenly.

But Dr. Thurston’s were good. “Best I’ve ever had,” he said. I believed him.

Dr. Kevin Thurston

Dr. Kevin Thurston is an expert on men’s feelings.

I am Dr. Kevin Thurston, the Men’s Coach.

Surprised? Don’t be. After all, they have coaches for things like basketball teams and female aerobics. Why not a Men’s Coach? A Men’s Destiny Coach? A Feelings Coach™? All of these things are possible– all that is needed is ME and YOU.

Right now, in a local gymnasium, Dr. Kevin Thurston is holding “The 1st Annual Men’s Feelings Coaching Caucus”. This will be your opportunity to have some eternal men’s questions answered for the first time in a setting of comfort, joy and tumbling mats. What does it mean to be a man?, How do I find other men to be in my life?, How can I tell my own personal life-story/write my own personal life-book? The 1st Annual Men’s Feelings Coaching Caucus will answer all these questions and more. It will be like drinking liquid inspiration from a firehose and there will be also be some 64-ounce dual-threaded water jugs for sale– for use for both the left and right-handed. $9.99, good deal. Nobody is excluded.

The Caucus will close with an after-party that you will never forget. I will coach you through the process of casting aside fear and learning to accept your brothers as we together experience an epic night of bonding, reframing, and light refreshments. You’ll be added to an exclusive blog site where you will remain in contact with Men for the rest of your life.

If you were to pay for extensive one-on-one feelings coaching programs with speakers and group leaders like Dr. Kevin Thurston, you would expect to pay thousands of dollars. If you were to spend your life trying to interpret your own feelings without a coach, you would spend much more and years, decades would pass by as you continued to search fruitlessly.

But at the Caucus you won’t spend tens of thousands. You won’t pay the $70,000 I’ve invested in myself to become a professional Feelings Coach™. You’ll pay only $795, plus any of the fabulous items you choose to buy that I have for sale and that I don’t intend on leaving with.

Sign-up for the Caucus today. Seats are limited but feelings are not.

By Dr. Kevin Thurston

Dr. Thurston is an expert in men’s feelings.

This is the time of year when many men visit me to discuss their feelings. “I’m overwhelmed by the obligations, I don’t know how to express my feelings, I’m very bad at wrapping gifts,” are common complaints by men during the holidays. Generally, I put my hands together in a pacific manner and say, “how do you feel about this?” We call this method the “Thurston Jump-Starter” and it generally leads to a potent and productive dialogue.

Masculinity is a continuum. A patient might have a certain amount of masculinity while he, say, hefts a bag of dirt onto his shoulders but far less while he fussily arranges tinsel around a doorway. The idea of having a gender could be interpreted as a series of life gains and losses. Also, I have a number of great items for sale right now, perfect for the holidays. Assorted monogrammed stockings, mostly towards the end of the alphabet (see if you can find your initials!), pajama bottoms, glass Santa figurines, lot of great stuff.

Dr. Thurston with a patient at a recent “Feelings Rally”.

As we lead up to the holidays, we will participate in several “Feelings Rallies”. These will occur daily at various smaller stadiums and arenas. Men from all over Lankville (and maybe the Islands) will celebrate Christmas together and also employ a framework for masculinity influenced by my earlier theoretical work (available in a series of pamphlets, $5.99 each, $29.99 for the set). Comes in a little slipcase made of hard paper.

Continue to embrace, love and buy.

Dr. Kevin Thurston

Dr. Thurston is an expert on men’s feelings.

I often ask many of my clients to close their eyes and visualize a slowly-moving pinwheel.  “What’s on the pinwheel?” I’ll ask.  The answers are quite varied– if they are of a natural variety (grass, horses, foam), I will move in one direction.  If they are of a man-made variety (cabinets, posters, foam), I will move in quite another.

“Tell me about the horses,” I’ll say.  “Are they ordinary?”  As the client is describing the horses, I’ll prepare a small group of items to be offered for sale later in the session.  If the description of the horses veers quickly into violent imagery, I will generally try to mollify the client by offering the items immediately.

“Why is your office located in this damp basement?” a client once asked.  “I’d feel better if I could actually sit in a comfortable chair and look out at the wilderness.”  I put aside some fake books with hidden compartments that I was going to try to sell him and pressed my hands together in a pacific manner.  “Tell me about that,” I said.  His face grew very red.  “I’m just saying, it’d be nice if there wasn’t these opaque glass blocks to stare at.”  “They are to prevent the theft of collectibles,” I noted.  Although that client never returned, he did purchase the books with the hidden compartments, $19.99, good deal.

One client recently expressed the feeling that his life had become a prison.  “It’s a living hell,” he said, “an endless, deep hell.”  At that moment, I was checking the functionality of a used bicycle pump.  I decided that the pump could be a metaphor for his condition.  “Look how easily the air blows through the shaft and out this little hole,” I noted.  I fingered the contraption lightly.  “Why don’t we try a Thurston Breathing Exercise from our handbook?”  He stood up and kicked a chair over.  “These breathing exercises are horseshit,” he exclaimed.  “Tell me about that,” I asked.  I placed the bicycle pump on a small column intended for display.  We slowly worked through his issue.

Everything is a process.  The Thurston Method is complex, many items need to be purchased, but in the end I have faith that it is successful.