A Resurgence of Quality Programming

The Luv Doc

February 3, 2012

Dear Doc: In these exciting times, I often wonder: Why haven’t we seen a resurgence of quality programming like Battle of the Network Stars. Wouldn’t that be just great? (Your attention to this matter should include a clear addressing of the most up-to-date whereabouts of one Miss Joyce DeWitt.) – Kris

In the words of Thomas Wolfe, “You can’t go home again.” Touché, Tommy. Really, who wouldn’t want to see a reanimated Howard Cosell hosting a star-studded physical competition featuring swarthy, athletic folks like Gary Burghoff, Gabe Kaplan, Dick Van Patten, Loretta Swit, Vicki Lawrence, and Delta Burke? In fact, you may want to pleasure yourself just envisioning that pasty B-list ménage 20-plus years after they reached their physical prime. Ideally you find liver spots, stretch marks, and dense, abrasive tufts of gray back hair a turn-on because you know you’re going to have to do Loretta Swit first. She’s a wildcat! I would wish that for you Kris, but sadly, the future happened. Sometime back in the Nineties, the major networks were challenged by hundreds of tiny upstart cable channels that barely had two dimes to rub together. Lacking the production funds to even come up with shows as embarrassingly fatuous as Harry and the Hendersons and Alf, the smaller cable channels mined a previously underdeveloped vein of stupidity: reality television. Turns out all you really need to create fascinating television is to strap a camcorder to a cocker spaniel’s head and turn it loose in a double-wide full of toothless, meth-snorting hillbillies – or the East Coast equivalent, a rooftop hot tub in Seaside Heights, N.J. That’s it: no high-priced actors, sound stages, lighting, costumes, or craft services, just poorly shot video of knuckle-dragging half-wits on the prowl for unprotected sex. That’s all you need to sell boatloads of pimple cream, tampons, Hot Pockets, and Axe body spray. Plus, 30 minutes watching Snooki wet-hump a Jacuzzi full of mooks and you’ll forget Joyce DeWitt ever existed. However, if you still want to rub up against some Wood (as in Janet Wood, aka the brunette/the smart one/the real pants-wearer of the cutely implied threesome on Three’s Company) she’s busy as a one-legged woman in an ass-kicking contest. Most recently, she starred in the film The Great Fight with superstars Robert Loggia and Charles Durning, and in 2011, she also starred in the off-Broadway hit Miss Abigail’s Guide To Dating, Mating, and Marriage – yet another threesome that probably leads frustratingly to nowhere. You may want to check out Jersey Shore instead.

It’s Called Priapism

The Luv Doc

January 27, 2012

What does the doctor do to you if you have a hard-on for more than four hours after taking Viagra? And why is a four-hour hard-on a bad thing? – Chuck

It’s called priapism, named after Priapus, the Greek god of fertility who had an absurdly large and permanently erect penis. As exciting as it sounds, priapism doesn’t make your dick absurdly large. Bummer, right? Seriously – how awesome would it be to have someone look at your johnson and say, “Dude, that thing is absurdly large. You may need to consult a physician.” That is the point at which you say “Right?” and then bump knuckles and blow it up (the knuckles, not your penis). You’ll be feeling swell all right … well, until you develop gangrene and your pecker falls off. OK, here’s an important disclaimer: Even though I am a fake doctor, I have to admit I have never seen a gangrenous dick fall off. That was hyperbole. In fact, I have never even seen a gangrenous dick. Color me blessed. To answer your question, however, if I were a real doctor and I were treating someone for priapism, I might give them and ice pack and a pep talk, or perhaps I would inject the affected corpus cavernosum with alpha-agonists … or, if necessary, surgically insert a shunt, which sounds really nasty (did the doctor just say the “sh” word?) but it’s really just an artificial plastic hole to keep your fluids flowing. Yep, that still sounds pretty nasty. If things took a really desperate turn, I might aspirate the penis. Though it sounds pleasant, “aspirate” is actually a tricky doctor term for the process of sucking fluid out with a bigass syringe. If you’ve ever had a tennis elbow or a trick knee aspirated by a doctor, you know enough to first request a tea glass full of strong whiskey and a leather strap to bite down on. Sounds bad, eh? Well, Chuck, it is. Even if you’re having trouble putting together a mental image, rest assured nothing positive comes from any association of the words “needle” and “dick,” even and especially if it’s what your partner is muttering during sex. Truth is, most people outside the porn industry hadn’t even dreamed of a four-hour erection until they heard the disclaimer at the end of erectile dysfunction commercials. They probably hadn’t heard the term “anal leakage” either – at least until the advent of fat-free potato chips. The modern world is a scary place, Chuck. Try to keep your dick in your pants.

What Next: Truck Taint?

The Luv Doc

January 20, 2012

Dear Luvdoc,
My husband recently got himself a pair of metallic truck nuts and hung them on the back of his Silverado.
I have to say a line’s been crossed.
How do I break it to him gently, Luvdoc, that I don’t want to be driving around in any vehicle that’s got a pair of chrome-plated faux bull testicles attached to it?

Sincerely yours,
Teabagged in Tarrytown

Two words, Teabagged: truck twat. The time has come. It’s what Fox News would call “fair and balanced” (which, by the way, are the names of Rupert Murdoch’s testicles). If your husband has the temerity to tool around River City (or even Buda, for that matter) with a bovine scrote swinging from his hitch, there’s a good chance that whining about his insensitivity won’t put the kibosh on his freeballing. You need to hit him where he’s sensitive … and believe me … people with big cajones are more sensitive than you might think. Once he sees your bitch hitch has wizard sleeves, he might just castrate his Silverado without even being asked. Remember, just like balls: the bigger the better. Make sure your truck twat is massive enough to intimidate even the most confident bull. That should to the trick, but be prepared to up the ante. With a couple of quarts of pig blood, some polyethylene tubing, an IV bag, and a modified fuel pump, you can design a truck twat that hits all phases of the menstrual cycle. Don’t cut him any slack. If you do it right, he will be out there at least three days of every month scrubbing the red stains off the driveway. You might also want to drive a little crazier during those times as well: Cut people off; stop short and get rear-ended; run some reds. He may not get the brilliant symbolism, but rest assured that after a few months’ worth of dealing with a bovine-sized red tide, he’ll be looking for a way to compensate for his small penis that doesn’t involve chrome-plated mountain oysters.

A Mind-Boggling Variety of Sensory Input

The Luv Doc

January 13, 2012

Dear Luvdoc, Why is the sky blue? – Gerald.

Wow Gerald. Maybe you should instead ask yourself why you don’t have access to Google. Whatevs, Google is for chumps anyway. Sure, you can find answers on Google, but if you’re looking for the real truth, you’re going to have to search a little deeper than the collected knowledge of mankind. Besides, you probably already know that the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering, a process in which shorter wavelength light (the blue part of the spectrum, which is represented nicely on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic Dark Side of the Moon) is absorbed by atmospheric gases – principally nitrogen and oxygen. Fun fact: Lord Rayleigh and the members of Pink Floyd are both from Britain … where light is much scarcer than it is in Texas. In fact, their sky is mostly gray – like their teeth. It’s a total Debbie Downer of a sky. Really, by asking why the sky is blue, you’re asking why the color blue even exists. That’s a tough one. Why does blue even appear on the cosmic design palette? And, even if it does, why isn’t the higher end of the spectrum represented by reds or greens or perhaps some more spectacular colors our eyes are too low-tech to register? More importantly, who or what is in charge of doing the decorating around here, and why can’t we see a completely different set of color swatches … well … without dropping acid? Of course, nobody wants to seem ungrateful for the mind-boggling variety of sensory input the universe already offers, but wouldn’t it be cool if we had some other options? That’s where we drop down the wormhole. We actually do have other options. Those options exist in our imagination. Think Wizard of Oz … Avatar … Willy Wonka (Oompa Loompas, seriously, who did the color swatches on those dudes? Timothy Leary?). We may be hopelessly mired in the physical world, but we are able to invent concepts that exist outside it – or so it seems. Our mental wheels keep spinning long after our train of thought leaves the tracks. Maybe that’s why we can’t easily accept that this color palette is the only one available, pretty as it may be. So why is the sky blue? Perhaps it’s blue simply to imply that there may be a sky that isn’t.

Carpool Etiquette

The Luv Doc

January 5, 2012

Luvdoc,
Ever since my boss learned we live on the same side of town, he keeps asking to ride home with me. How do I tell him no without getting fired? Help!

Uneasy Rider

This is a tough-love approach, but desperate times call for desperate measures: Vomit in your car. Trust me. You can live with the smell of your vomit far longer than someone else can. It’s a fact of nature. However, here’s one important point: Even if you’re one of those people who absolutely detests the idea of blowing beads, make sure you do it yourself. Having a friend or a pet vomit in your car to save yourself the trouble will only cause you to suffer worse in the long run. If you’ve ever had a ferret regurgitate a dead hamster in your backseat, you would totally know what I mean. Plus, if you do the ralphing yourself, you can vividly describe the incident so he’ll associate you with the (ideally) nauseating olfactory sensation. For instance, “I should have known that the layer of fur on my egg salad probably meant that it had gone bad, but I ate it anyway, and then later I puked so hard on your seat that I could feel my anus in the back of my throat.” Yeah, something like that. It also doesn’t hurt if whatever you ingest makes a nice stain … chili is good, spaghetti has some decent staying power, but nothing endures like mustard. Mustard stains linger long after the smell is gone. Maybe knock back a glass of mustard and then tickle the back of your tongue with a toothbrush and see what comes up. If you have the time, let it bake in full sun over the weekend before you make any attempt at cleaning up. Here’s the most important tip: When your boss gets in the car, insist that you can’t smell anything. Keep the windows rolled up and the air on “recirculate.” Not too cool though. You want the car to feel stuffy. If you really want to put a flourish on it, try to let out a long, wet fart sometime during the ride. You can excuse it with a statement like, “I’ve been shitting a river for days.” I know this all seems horrifyingly drastic, but it sure beats being honest with your boss and telling him it makes you uncomfortable to spend so much time with him outside of the office. That would be fucking crazy.