Monday, May 22, 2006

New rules for the masses
New Rule: Airplane black boxes must now be made out of Keith Richards. The man, who has taken more drugs than Whitney Houston, Rush Limbaugh and Robert Downey, Jr., combined, recently fell out of a tree, and then crashed a jet ski. And yet, somehow, that cigarette never fell out of his mouth. What is this guy still running on? I've got to know. Because I'm beginning to think the future of medicine isn't injecting stem cells, it's injecting heroin.

New Rule: Anna Nicole Smith can't get pregnant until Britney's baby grows up. There are just not enough investigators at Child Family Services to keep these two infants alive at the same time. Anna Nicole, if you're that desperate for a toothless human who can barely speak and cries every time he sees your breasts, find yourself another husband.

New Rule: If Latino immigrants want to be taken seriously, they have to stop wearing the giant hats! The civil rights marchers in the fifties didn't dress like Buckwheat and carry watermelons! You're a proud immigrant demanding his rights! Not the Frito-Bandito!

New Rule: Instead of the White House hiring Tony Snow away from Fox News, the White House and Fox News should just merge. Republicans should also admit that they secretly picked the judges on "American Idol" to reinforce their three favorite stereotypes: a black guy who doesn't do anything; a woman who doesn't know anything; and a foreigner who should go home.

New Rule: You can't write the story of your life if you're too young to have had one. This week we found out that best-selling teenage author Kaavya Viswanathan stole huge honking chunks of her first novel. Everybody got a little suspicious when the teenage heroine went shopping at the mall and ended up hiding from the Nazis in an attic in Holland. I tell you, between this and that Million Little Pieces book being phony, I've got half a mind to quit Oprah's Book Club!

And finally, New Rule: Drug companies have to stop making up diseases! I don't know - I don't know what the terrorists are planning next for America, but if I had every problem they talk about in medicine commercials: breathing, lifting, walking, sitting, sleeping, crapping, not crapping, getting a boner and male pattern menopause—I would welcome death. Bring it on! Deadly nerve gas? Please, I've got seasonal allergies!

I mean, it seems like every time I turn on the TV these days, I see some ad for some drug I never heard of, to treat some disease I never heard of. That's not a stomach ache you have from eating the chili-cheese fries at Johnny Rockets, it's Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Or I.B.S. Or as I call it, "B.S." Which would also apply to the dreaded "Social Anxiety Disorder." Or as we used to call it, "shyness." And we treated it with an old home recipe: scotch and water.

Your wife doesn't get turned on? Well, it couldn't be because you're a snowman-shaped sausage casing--so full of beer you sweat hops. It's because she has "Female Sexual Dysfunction."

And before they came up with "Restless Leg Syndrome," did that even exist? Did you ever hear someone say, "Sorry I couldn't make the party, Bill." "The old restless leg was acting up." You know, next time you have an uncontrollable urge to move your feet, maybe you should just...move your feet! Your feet are trying to tell you the same thing your dog is trying to tell you when he's been cooped up in the house all day: "I want to go for a walk!"

But be careful. There's a Tasmanian Devil living under your toenail.

I am waiting for the ad that tells me that my morning hard-on is actually "Superfluous Rigidity Syndrome." Or S.R.S. And there's a cartoon bunny who says, "Are you bothered by morning stiffness?" "Try Flaccidix." "Flaccidix is specially formulated to make your penis shiny and more manageable." "Side effects: you bleed from your pores and then explode and die." "And/or dry mouth."

Now, just in the last two years, the "medicines" that have made the headlines under the category, "Take two and call me in the morning if you're still alive," include Vioxx, Ambien, Zyprexa, Ortho Evra, Prempro, Zoloft, Paxil, Ephedra, Celebrex and Fosamax.

And yet it was marijuana last week that was declared by the FDA to have no known medical value. Actually, what marijuana has is no known lobbying value. And, yes - yes, back in 1999, when we still believed in science, the National Academy of Science said what millions already knew from practical use, that weed is useful in treating pain, nausea and weight loss. And that lab rats exposed to it were 38% more likely to forget the maze and just kick it old school.

Folks, drug companies are pushers, and Congress and the FDA are the cop on the beat who's been paid off to look the other way. New drugs used to have to go through a rigorous process of testing. Now they just give it to Courtney Love, and if she lives, it's approved.

And by the way, just to prove who has the power in this country, that fake FDA report about marijuana having no medical value was issued - on purpose, I am sure - on April 20th - four-twenty. And that joke only makes sense to stoners.

So, mom and dad, if your kid just laughed, you might need to search his room.
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