My Future Celebrity

Another day for my too-fertile mind to encompass recent events. I do try to limit my thoughts by faithfully ingesting Lamictal and Klonopin for my manic-depressive illness, but they only slightly dampen the amplitude, i.e.--I'm not Napoleon today.

Speaking of Napoleon, did you know that all of Hitler's women attempted suicide, though only Geli, his niece, was successful? Eva and Leni didn't succeed--but imagine the alternative.

I saw a clip of Hitler last night on the History Channel trying to pet his dog at Berghof; the dog was obviously wary but finally submitted to his touch. Maybe we should dog-test politicians, like Bill Frist, who, though no neurologist, opined that Terry Schiavo was alive by viewing a videotape, when we now know her brain was more like the cauliflower that just replaced the brain of Dilbert's boss. To trust Bill's impression of stem cell research thus seems dangerous. Perhaps we could have a dog check for us?

One earthquake predictor actually factors in the disappearance of animals in his paradigm for predicting quakes. And dogs can detect cancer by smell, though why would they want to? Then my dog, Kenyon, loves to roll in seagull droppings or any other unusual, nitrogen-laced brews to impress his canine friends. "Get a load of this" he says. "You ever smell this before?"

Hard to keep up with the canine cologne industry, though being trapped in an elevator with an Arab comes close to the gas chamber for me. Why do they wear so much cologne? I mean, it's not like they're driving camels over here, though they smoke a lot of them.

The recent deaths of four scout leaders in South Carolina by electrocution have been compounded by a scout leader being killed by lightning in Sequoia National Forest. (A scout was killed as well, now brain dead and being kept alive for organ harvest: attention Bill Frist--but first the dog test.)

Six deaths by electrocution, four unnatural and two natural, begs the question: in view of techonology's progress, do we blame God for only 1/3 of these tragedies? As man evolves, God's responsibility contracts. I don't think he's involved in these things at all, though my gay friend disagrees. He thinks the fact that yesterday's roller coaster accident at Disneyland resulted in only fifteen minor injuries a fitting contrast to the punishment of Boy Scouts. Recall that the Disney Corporation was a pioneer in hiring gays and granting benefits to their partners, while the Boy Scouts forbade gays from becoming Scout Leaders. Have the chickens come home to roost? If they have, my dog will soon be rolling in their coops.

Another thought: perhaps Disney's Electrical Parade succeeded in immunizing its employees against lightning. And perhaps Bill Gates' investment in a vaccine for malaria is more cost-effective than a little DDT--not!

Go, Africa! Our strange brand of compassion must puzzle you. Of course our money goes to your tribal strongmen, but that, of course, lends pride to the tribe, if not food. Not even Bono can change that, just as he can't change his music. If U2 has not become a parody of itself then Bill Frist should watch the tape.

Back to Hitler's women. What an uncanny sense he had in choosing them! It takes a true narcissistic personality disorder to unfailingly choose borderline personality disorders for mates. Eva had no identity without him, just as you, gentle reader, have no identity without my blog--though dogs actually like me.

All this was a warm-up for my theme today. I am now selling shares of stock in my future celebrity for $1. Just send it to the PayPal link at www.melicreview.com and I will send you an e-mail with a stock certificate. I've come to realize that before a book or album of mine reaches a major audience, I must become a celebrity beforehand. That's how it's done nowadays. And you can get in on the ground floor with your contribution now.

I plan to be the first publically held celebrity on the planet! (Naturally my idea will be stolen but you heard it here first.)

And who was the greatest celebrity of the 20th Century? Why, Hitler, of course. It's not talent, it's exposure. He's still bigger than Churchill, Mao, Stalin, Einstein, Elvis, Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe. Imagine if you had shares in his celebrity! A veritable gold mine (my apologies to Jews, Gypsies and communists).

Which proves you don't have to be loved to triumph as a celebrity; it's at least as good to be hated--as long as you bag some air time. Go, O.J, and the Wichita Raders!



C. E Chaffin

Neulasta in My Pasta

Some of you unfortunate enough to watch commercial television may have noticed the new ads for Neulasta, a product for boosting white blood cell counts during chemotherapy.

What you may not know is that one injection costs about $3000--for .6 ml of liquid, which is less than the amount of an ejaculation (which I offer for free, though the Nobel Sperm Bank was shut down--I was refused in any case because William Shockley thought me inferior).

Now this one shot is good for only one chemotherapy cycle, which can mean weeks or less. Four cycles means $12,000. Doctors normally monitor your white count during the process but no doubt will be besieged for the drug for preventive reasons, I assume, in the near future.

For $3000 you should also know the side effects of the drug, which are free-- I mean, if you're concerned about side effects, since you must already have cancer to qualify for the drug, from rxlist.com:

adverse experiences occurred at rates between 72% and 15% and included: nausea, fatigue, alopecia, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, fever, anorexia, skeletal pain, headache, taste perversion, dyspepsia, myalgia, insomnia, abdominal pain, arthralgia, generalized weakness, peripheral edema, dizziness, granulocytopenia, stomatitis, mucositis, and neutropenic fever.

Since I already have most of these it didn't scare me, though I'm intrigued by "taste perversion," which, I supposes, strikes to the heart of nature vs. nurture with regard to bisexuality, recently deemed a myth by a Canadian researcher who noted that bisexuals, on visual stimulation, either responded to hetero or homo fare. Then taste perversion could possibly mean that I find Frost sophomoric and am seized by a need to read Jorie Graham, or I suddenly prefer Neil Young's guitar work to that of Jimi Hendrix. The mind boggles but the price doesn't; hard to buy a used car for $3000 any more and pre-owned vehicles cost even more.

Another site cautioned about blue lips and fingernails, but for Goth girls this hardly sounds like a cosmetic bargain.

I noticed the dawn of TV ads for prescription drugs in the early nineties when I was still practicing as a family doctor. They started with arthritis drugs and Prilosec and the like, then moved on to sleepers like Sonata and antidepressants like Lexapro.

Clearly nothing is an invasion of privacy anymore, and the doctor-patient relationship has been supplanted by the marketer-consumer relationship, and profit is king. Profit was always king, I suppose, but the prophets of profit had previously been limited to what products they might hawk on the public airwaves; no more.

It used to be patients would bring in The National Enquirer to ask me about miracle drugs (which were not miracle drugs but drugs of existing classes already being marketed in Europe). Now any illiterate patient can harass a doctor based on a thirty-second TV ad. To help my colleagues I have come up with some antidotes for this plague: Blowitoffazol, Zombine, Upyourassizone, and Idontgivearatsassapine. Sadly I don't have the venture capital to launch them.

Obviously the intended demographic for the sale of this product is high-end, which like the sale of yachts does not suffer in economic downturns. It only takes one: one cancer patient with a low white count or one yachtless billionaire.

Finally, to make my blog current with the news cycle (for which I take Newslasta):

As to terrorism: Why not a drug to eradicate terrorist cells?

As to profiling: Why not a drug to boost black cells?

As to the space shuttle: Why not a drug to secure foam cells?

All for today.


Your Faithful Philosophraster,

C. E. Chaffin

Welcome, Strangers!

I was trying to post to another's blog and found establishing my own the price of participation.

If you've never heard of me, I'm not surprised.

Sometimes, no often, no frequently, no with the eternal recurrence of Nietzsche, I wish I'd never heard of me, too.

Nevertheless, you can google "C. E. Chaffin" and find more than a few references to my various contributions to the literary net.

Happy to talk, blog, blog, blog.


Thine in Truth and Art,

C. E. Chaffin M.D. FAAFP
Editor, the Melic Review
www.melicreview.com