{"id":530,"date":"2026-06-15T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=530"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:39:09","slug":"meet-russ-freud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=530","title":{"rendered":"Meet Russ Freud"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It used to be called the Roberts Institute for Living, but everybody knew that it was the insane asylum, and that\u2019s what people called it. A few years ago, its board decided to accept reality and change the name to Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum. In the past, patients generally came to the asylum themselves. They would become insane and show up on their own, or a relative or somebody would bring them in. Unfortunately, that business model stopped working, and facilities like this one had to get more involved in outreach. We now live in a country with more than seventy million completely insane people. Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum decided to go and seek them out, rather than just sitting back and waiting for them.<\/p>\n

Read more Jackie Gleason\u2019s Paranormal Activity<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably heard that the real crazy people are the ones walking around on the street, and the ones locked up in insane asylums are the only people who are sane. The first part is correct, if you include those driving around in pickups with huge flags fluttering insanely behind them, but the second part is not, because some of the people inside insane asylums are also insane. The other day I caught up with Russ Freud, the interim director of Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum, to find out more about the new program. As it turned out, I caught up with him only briefly, because insane people were chasing him. Suddenly a crowd of them appeared from around the corner of a building and he had to start running again.<\/p>\n

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Well-informed consumers may know Russ Freud from his recent best-seller, \u201cRuss Freud\u2019s Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d in which he applies a commonsense approach. Say you have a dream about speaking to a large audience while dressed in your underwear. His take on it is: if you dream that, you are seriously nuts, or \u201ccrazy as a road lizard.\u201d His diagnosis refers to the way road lizards in the desert along Route 66 in Arizona or New Mexico used to stand there in the heat staring at the passing traffic with eyes not quite in synch\u2014i.e., totally crazy-looking nutso. Generally, the lizards would just stand there as if counting cars until they got run over or went away. Step one of the outreach program, Russ Freud said, panting heavily as he ran, is to bring in any of those lizards still remaining and treat them, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut forget lizards for the moment. Tens of millions of human beings in this country are more out of their minds than they are,\u201d Russ Freud went on, having temporarily slowed his pursuers by toppling a pile of wood pallets in their path behind a Target. \u201cListen to some of the insane things they think\u2014and I\u2019m supposed to fix it?\u201d He drank from a thermos he was carrying and set out again at a jog. \u201cYou hear these crazy people talk, and you have to wonder what my grandfather, the realist painter Lucian Freud, might have said about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sped up even more, to try to put some extra distance between himself and the lunatics, and I needed to catch up with him again to continue interviewing him. On a tight deadline to file, I was writing my article even as I interviewed him. I began the second paragraph: \u201cI caught up with Russ Freud again just past the Target,\u201d etc.\u2014carrying my open laptop while I ran alongside him.<\/p>\n

Read more Melanie Hamrick Is Still On Pointe<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, after he pulled ahead and I caught up with him for the third or fourth time to continue the interview, my excess weight, drinking, and smoking caught up with me<\/em>, and I keeled over and did a face-plant right into the pavement of the parking lot of a Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods, not far from Target. I painfully lifted myself to my knees, and was then trampled flat by the crowd of nut jobs chasing Russ Freud. A mall cop came over, pried me off the parking lot with a tire tool, and helped me to my feet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the mall cop\u2019s little E.V. patrol car, as he kindly drove me around, I got caught up on some unfinished reporting (calls, etc.) and then, with the mall cop\u2019s help, outstripped the running crowd of insane people once again and caught up with Russ Freud for what would be the last time. My editor, who was monitoring my computer remotely and clearing what I wrote with the D.O.J., texted me, \u201cThere is no story here.\u201d But then I lucked into a scoop, when Russ Freud confided that Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum was about to go national and would be selling franchises. Now there would be a locally owned Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum in every mall and commercial strip in the U.S.A.! Corporate management would supply the logo, training, and supplies, and the franchisees would do the rest. \u201cWe know the potential customer base is out there,\u201d Russ Freud said.<\/p>\n

Sadly, it was all too late. During a moment of inattention, an enormous wave of insane people rolled over us and buried us deep beneath them. I regretted that I had ever caught up with Russ Freud in the first place.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more Beyond Banners<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shouts & Murmurs by Ian Frazier. Under its new director, Bob\u2019s Insane Asylum is seeking residents out rather than just sitting back and waiting for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Russ Freud - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=530\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Russ Freud - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shouts & Murmurs by Ian Frazier. 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