Down with the Sickness

Because weekends mean cheap, hassle-free programming around these parts, here's a column from March of this year. No particular reason why I decided to resurrect it.

A few days ago, the weekend Today show upped the ante in the news media's ongoing competition to find the most imaginative way to scare the hell out of you for no good reason. The show did a segment on a dangerous new condition supposedly rearing its ugly head on America's college campuses:

Drunkorexia.

According to a visibly shaken Amy Robach, the "disease" affects mostly young women -- leading them to skip meals during the day as a means of conserving calories so that they can spend their nights indulging in guilt-free drinking. For years you've known women who do this sort of thing by their more common name: "One Night Stands." But apparently what looks to the untrained eye like your average stupid drunk chick is in reality a sick little lamb crying out for help; lest you doubt this assessment, Today even brought in a camera-ready psychologist to attest to the breadth of the pandemic.

Which means you can now count the days until commercials for "Vodkalax, the only FDA-greased medication for the treatment of drunkorexia" begin popping up all over prime time TV.

So with that in mind -- the fear-mongering media's disease addiction as a potential platform from which to make a name for myself -- I offer up a few new combo-conditions sure to capture the attention of an already terrified nation.

All of these are real, because I said so, and all are very, very dangerous.

1. Restless Erectile Misfortune

Facts: Painful condition characterized by inability to deny desire for sexual gratification, often leading to regular placement of penis into precarious situations with little regard for consequences. Inevitable outcome includes career suicide, loss of family, respect, status, 401k, the eternal gratitude of late-night comedy writers.

Treatment: Taser belt, Venereal disease, Opposition congress

See: Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Gary Hart

Immune: Frenchmen

2. Osamnia

Facts: Severe anxiety disorder which manifests itself in irrational fear of potential terrorist attacks, leading to lack of sleep (news media excluded), loss of appetite, election of GOP candidates and willingness to believe that a 3AM phone call to Barack Obama will start a chain reaction that will end in the deaths of your children.

Treatment: Capturing Osama bin Laden would be a start.

See: Kansas

Immune: Anyone with an IQ above that of a lamp shade

3. Cynic Fibrosis (Carlin's Disease)

Facts: Highly contagious condition typically found among elderly men; manifests itself in random outbursts of bitter indignation, extended rants regarding personal solutions to global problems, outright dismissal of anyone under the age of 40, dinner table dissertations on time spent "fighting Jerry," threats of physical violence if neighborhood kids don't get off lawn.

Treatment: Let nature take its course.

See: Your Grandfather

Immune: No one ("Just you wait til you're my age, sonny!")

4. "Santos" Intolerance

Facts: Severe anxiety disorder characterized by constant and irrational fear of Mexicans, often leading to ludicrous demagoguery, fascist rhetoric, nightly CNN show. Inevitable outcome may include mysterious death by lawn-care tools.

Treatment: Low ratings, Sudden emergence of half-Mexican child with large orange head, Righteous hand of God

See: Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo

Immune: Around 44.3 million Americans (at last check)

5. Bushlemia

Facts: Sometimes diagnosed as "Bush Derangement Syndrome" (in red states only), painful and debilitating disease characterized by uncontrollable urge to vomit profusely in reaction to voice, sight, or mere mention of George W. Bush. If left untreated, illness can lead to thoughts of suicide, relocation to Canada, terminal cocktail party conversations with irritating New York pseudo-intellectuals, enrollment in Screen Actor's Guild.

Treatment: Conversation with Dick Cheney in which he uses "the dark side of the force," Waterboarding

Immune: NASCAR ticket-holders, Jack Abramoff, Jesus

(A Note to the Media: Remember that I am the official expert on each of these diseases, therefore I expect to be called upon to participate in any on-air discussion involving one or all of them. I'll be waiting for your call, Today show.)

Resistance is Futile

To: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
From: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
Date: June 24th, 2008

Mr. Pazienza,

First, allow me to say that you have fought the good fight and, as such, have been an honorable opponent in the face of overwhelming odds. There is no condescension meant in the demand which I must now make, nor should any shame be taken by you regarding what, I believe, you now have no choice but to do. You've stood valiantly against our assaults for more than two years, weathered the daunting firepower of some of the strongly and most finely-crafted idiocy we could bombard you with: the Don Imus "scandal," Sex and the City mania, Ben Stein's "Intelligent Design" movie, anything Al Sharpton has had to say, Hannah Montana, NBC's "All American Summer" lineup. Once again, to your immense credit, you have withstood it all, and even fought back vigorously.

But you must now, this morning, concede that you have been beaten. It is time to put down your pen, take a step back from your keyboard, unplug your MacBook and surrender, if for no other reason than to prevent any further anguish to either side in this fierce battle.

Surely you understand -- after reading the recent article on CNN.com., originally posted on Oprah.com -- the hopelessness of resistance at this point. We hesitated for some time to commit to the nuclear option against you, but we feel that you left us no alternative but to publish the aforementioned article, entitled "Empathy Deficit Disorder: Do You Suffer From It?" and documenting, mostly through a series of testimonials from the dumbest women we could assemble, a completely new disorder that pop psychologists (in our employ) just pulled out of their asses on a whim. The forces of DUNCECOM were fully aware when we contracted the creation of this so-called "condition" the fact that it sounded a lot cooler and less threatening than sociopathy (think "Sociopathy-Lite, for Housewives!") and was essentially the same thing. We also understood that upon reading it, the inside of your brain, Mr. Pazienza, would detonate in a massive explosion that would kill millions of innocent brain cells; despite the awareness of such collateral damage, however, we once again felt that this drastic action had to be taken to force you to finally concede defeat.

Please know that this will only be the first strike in a larger campaign of atom-splitting stupidity against you and the dwindling few intelligent members of the general public, if you do not surrender immediately and unconditionally. We have several more nonsensical media-driven, Oprah-approved cultural and medical breakthroughs -- complete with guest shots on the Today show and best-selling self-help books -- waiting in the wings, all carefully engineered to produce the kind of physically painful chain-reaction of catalepsy in your brain that will render you completely unable to crawl out from under your covers and utterly terrified of the world beyond your home.

It doesn't have to be this way, but make no mistake, we will not hesitate to mentally crush you if we have to.

Just wait until we unleash the new season of VH-1's "Celebreality."

Believe me, you don't want to see Richard Grieco and Peter DeLuise in 43 Jump Street, or Wentz and Simpson: Swinging Celebs.

Please, do the right thing. You have no choice.

We await your reply.

-- General Malaise

To: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
From: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
Date: June 24th, 2008

General Malaise,

Fuck it. Meet me at the Starbucks on 75th and 1st (the one on the southeast corner) and bring the paperwork -- and a bottle of Effexor.

-- Chez

(CNN.com/Oprah.com: Empathy Deficit Disorder -- Do You Suffer from It?/6.18.08)