The Gospel According to Lloyd

"I'll tell you where we're gonna go, someplace warm! A place where the beer flows like wine! Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called, Aspen!"

Lloyd Christmas - Dumb and Dumber -1994

Does life imitate art or what!

The Cupcake Solution

I have discovered the solution to all of the world's problems. Einstein spent years searching in vain for the unifying theory of the universe, Gallileo redefined how we viewed the movements of our planet as part of the larger galaxy and throughout history men have conquered and fought to build empires and advance their citizens into new vistas of wealth and power. We have made fire, split the atom and created the supercomputer. Men and women have painted great works of art and sculpted statues that are so beautiful that even we cannot believe that they were created by mortals. In the face of all of these achievements, we still have starvation, poverty and homelessness. Our global economy is in crisis and the world seeks a global solution. Standing in the grocery check out line today the answer occurred to me. As humans and the dominant species on planet earth we need to embrace the awsome power of...cupcakes!

Cupcakes can be made from almost any food like substance. Cupcakes are easily transported and can be stored indefinetly. Cupcakes have an internationally recognizable size and shape and even if they are made of spinach and spam kids will eat 'em up. If a person is socially isolated and lonely all they have to do is go pick up a cupcake at the supermarket and people will approach them curiously asking them about their snack. If a person needs to find a way to use leftovers to feed the family then cupcakes offer the perfect way to disguise the remains of last night's meatloaf. Cupcakes can be dropped from an airplane to the starving children of the world making relief efforts easier because the planes do not have to land to deliver their cargo. Best of all, when addressing the problems facing our global economy and Third World debt, let's not forget that bake sales can be our very own grass roots solution to the problem and cupcakes can lead the charge (ahead of brownies and cookies) on fold out tables on church lawns all over the country.

Save the whales! Fight bigotry and ignorance! Help kids learn to read! Build homes for the homeless! End strip mining, slash and burn deforestation, nuclear arms proliferation and global warming!

Get those girl scouts mobilized and put the mighty cupcake to work for world peace and global harmony! We can do it!

Oh Julia, (we never knew ya)

'Before she became a famous chef, Julia Child was a spy. She worked for the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor of the CIA, and went undercover to Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon) with top security clearance.

In World War II, she helped the U.S. Navy solve their problem with sharks by developing shark repellent. Sharks had a habit of setting off underwater explosive devices, foiling U.S. plans to blow up German U boats . She met diplomat Paul Child when she was working for the OSS, and they married. When Paul was posted to Paris, Julia trained at the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school and began her second life as a chef.'

Quoted from 'The Daring Book for Girls'

by Buchanan and Peskowitz, Harper Collins, 2007

The next time you are on the subway or waiting in line at the bank or in line at the local coffee shop and see an elderly person quietly drinking their tea, having a meal or waiting to be served you might speculate on what kind of life they led before they grew old. Chances are, that elderly person has seen and done things in life that would seem unbelievable to you.

After all, that man sitting in the corner with his teacup was not born elderly.

Peter's Chicanery

There's something remarkable going on with my neighbor, Peter. The whole neighborhood has noticed the change and are remarking on it. My wife stops and waves at him and yells to him that he is doing great! We are suspicous but at the same time are very proud of him.

Peter has lost weight. A lot of weight.

A year ago, you would have thought he was a set up for a coronary and a life as a cardiac cripple. He works as a chef, was overweight with a full belly and skinny legs. Peter had jowls and chins. Then something happened. Peter got the 'religion' of good health. He joined the 'Cult of the Well'. Quietly, without fanfare, in the early morning or late at night, alone without an iPod or a dog to keep him company, Peter began to walk.

It took awhile for his efforts to show but he kept at it like the steadfast Tin Soldier in the children's stories. The gut went down and the legs got strong. His pants size went down from a 46 to a 34 and he became the pride of the neighborhood.

Now Peter will probably live a long healthy life without medications. His heart will be strong, his bones and back will last longer and he will enjoy a lower risk of depression. He will sleep soundly at night and worry less.

Peter walks five miles a day. He walks fast and with purpose, not talking or strolling. It takes him an hour to walk all that way but that hour a day has given him an entirely new life, almost a brand new body and his guardian angel has dealt him a completely new hand from the one he was forced to live with when he was overweight and out of shape.

We are all proud of our neighbor and when we see him on the road we always wave and point him out to our kids. Peter looks up and waves quickly but then lowers his head and focuses on his walking. He has a job to do and he does it as though his life depended on it.

Every day.

chicanery def.
1 : deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry

2 : a piece of sharp practice (as at law)

Quisp Requiem

Saturday morning cartoons used to represent the national repository for children's consumer culture in our country. According to the advertisers on network television, the jet fuel that ran the engine of commerce in the 3 to 10 year old set on Saturday mornings was the almighty breakfast cerael.

Quisp and Quake were space aliens that blasted away at each other to vie for the attention of small hungry flying, parent-less children. Capt'n Crunch was always on the move finding treasure and trying to keep his sleepy eyes open. The Lucky Charms leprechaun danced across the screen as tiny marshmallow 'hearts, moons and stars' sprinkled electrons of joy into our collective psyche while slightly dazed children snatched at the empty air. Boo-berry, Count Chocula and Franken-berry pretended to scare unsuspecting toddlers into grabbing their spoons. Pebbles and Bam Bam, Sugar Smacks and Frosted Flakes all injected sugary rocket fuel into our young developing frontal lobes and left many a tearful supermarket aisle calamity in their wake.

Today, only a few of the mighty ceraels remain a serious fixture in children's television culture. Trix are still for kids, Lucky the leprechaun is still hopping around to confuse and annoy our children as we were once annoyed when we were children. Cocoa-Puffs remain one of the mighty heavy hitters in children's programming to this day. That brown bird has been "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" almost as long as I've been alive. With that many sugar balls in him, he should be zinging off the walls every five minutes. He should also have been dead long ago of a brain aneurysm but cartoons don't really die do they?

Cocoa Puffs must be what Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones eats for breakfast!

"Quisp sprang from a noble cereal lineage. He was related to Bullwinkle the Moose, Rocket J. Squirrel, and Captain Crunch. All of these characters were created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Scott and Ward teamed up in 1959 to make cartoons in Los Angeles."

Quoted from Wikepedia

The World's Oldest Pilot

While waiting in the departure gate for a flight from Charlotte, NC to Fort Meyers, FL this weekend I spied an elderly man approaching the gate to pre board the plane. The man was gray and bent, he had stately grey hair and a mustache and appeared to be about 80 years old. He wore glasses and had a small, compact briefcase. He was also wearing the uniform of a flight crew member!

I am not a squeamish flyer. In fact, I love to fly more than almost anything. Even rough weather and landings in squalls, icy, wintery 'go arounds' and other near disasters are merely interesting curiosities to me as I watch outside the window of a jet or small twin prop in New England or the Caribbean, Florida or California. But the sight of this aging pilot getting on my plane and looking as though he were going to take the controls himself caused me to have a tiny moment of panic. He looked like somebody's grandfather who escaped from a nursing home during a Halloween party in which he was dressed up as an airline pilot!

As I boarded the plane, I stole a glance in the cockpit and was relieved to see the two duty pilots going through their pre flight check list. The stewardess welcomed me aboard and I turned and looked down to see the imposter fast asleep in one of the first class seats. His gold braided hat was tilted down over his head and his gold striped sleeves tucked underneath his crossed arms.

This elderly man was probably not a pilot anymore but was still plying his craft probably as a navigator or coordinator. The flight was a safe one and he was gone when I exited the plane.

The Devil's Breakfast

I was recently at a hotel that offered a full buffet breakfast included as part of the room charge to everyone staying in the hotel. When I stood in line and it came my turn to load up my plate I happened to turn and see a man carrying a plate with about 1200 calories of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, butter, sour cream and omlettes. He was not a sickly or obese person but in my minds eye I could already see him lying in his casket with his poor wife and children gathered around. Another victim of the Devil's Breakfast!

I paused, oversized spoon in hand, poised above the fried potatoes with bits of bacon scattered through the oversized chafing dish. Then I felt the Devil tap me on the shoulder and felt my coronary arteries holding on for dear life. A thin smile came to my face as my competitive spirit took up the challenge. The Devil whispered to me, "Hey, you're a doctor, you're a triathlete, you are in pretty good shape so....lets show this guy what a really serious breakfast is all about!"

I narrowed my eyes, grabbed a second plate, pushed a little kid aside and loaded up with all the deep fried animal products I could find and smothered them with eggs and cream cheese then I peered around and set my sights on....the waffle buffet. Four blueberry waffles with whipped cream and a pot of coffee later I was headed out convinced that I had set some kind of record for surviving the most toxic breakfast known to man. The Devil had moved on down the buffet line to whisper to another breakfast guest and claim another victim. I didn't care! I felt great!

It's not every morning you get to cheat death and have waffles to boot.

The Keith Conundrum

"I only get ill when I give up drugs."

Keith Richards

There is simply no accounting for protoplasm.

We used to have a catch phrase in medical residency when we were signing over patients to each other at the end of each shift; we would refer to our sicker patients as possessing either good or bad 'protoplasm'. To a resident on call that phrase means that the doctor taking care of him or her for the last shift had a gut feeling about how the patient would fare for the upcoming shift. A typical summary might sound like this, "Mr. Brown should do okay for you tonight. His kidneys are in bad shape and he has just come off dialysis but he is good protoplasm so you should not get any calls."

We would all agree that the undisputed King of Protoplasm in the history of the world would have to be Keith Richards, guitarist for the Rolling Stones. Keith wakes up every morning of his life trying to think of a new way to introduce as many toxins as he can into his body. He has done this his entire life and still gets around the stage and navigates (although somewhat warily) his way through halls and rooms, his creaking lungs breathing in and out with complete disregard for his bodily functions and systems. There ought to be a medical journal dedicated just to the marvels of Keith Richards. He is a one man cohort.

Lesser men and women have crumbled after sustaining only a fraction of the abuse that Keith has subjected his body to. Kurt Cobain (drugs) Jimmy Hendricks (drugs), Janice Joplin (drugs and alcohol) all must bow from their heavenly (not-so protoplasmic) thrones to the Mighty Keith, their toxic cachectic god. Elvis came close to Keith but ultimately died (multiple drugs). Mama Cass avoided drugs altogether except for some pot and wine and still did not make it to 50 (ham sandwich). If we doctors were to develop a Protoplasm Scale we would put Keith at the top and Mama Cass at the bottom.

Medical Resident, "Mr. Brown is a 7 on the ProtoScale but look out for Mrs. Smith! She is a 2 so you better go right up and check on her."

There's no accounting for protoplasm.