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Poor Gary Hart. He should be preparing his acceptance speech right now, and instead, where is he? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?
We used to believe that it was blind arrogance and faulty judgment that got him thrown out of the presidential race. But we were wrong. It turns out that Gary Hart was just a hapless victim of a virulent plague now sweeping the bookstores and talk shows of America: Jennifer Fever.
Just in case you've been spending the past fortnight breaking federal law by entering a cave without permission from the authorities, or you've been busy looking for other work because United Parcel Service wants to fire you for stopping some robbers, I'll explain this newly discovered disease.
Mr. Middle-Aged Jerk gets tired of his wife, Janet, who is approximately his age. He takes up with Jennifer, a nubile tart whom he exhibits as a Trophy. Meanwhile, the spurned Janet takes up with Jeffrey, an energetic hunk who just became old enough so that he doesn't have to use a fake ID at the liquor store. They all live unhappily ever after.
This sounds like the plot of a soap opera, but it isn't. Instead, it is the official clinical progression of the latest in ephemeral epidemics, the dreaded Jennifer Fever.
Despite the fitness boom, American men have to be the unhealthiest creatures known to science. Every time you turn around, they come down with a new infection.
If they're striving and ambitious, then they're classic
Type A's afflicted with Hurry Sickness
and doomed to
an early grave. If they're laid-back and mellow, then they
have succumbed to the dreaded Wimp Factor.
Its
victims must number in the millions, or why else would
studios still make movies that star Alan Alda?
Men who hang out with their male friends and do
traditional masculine things like hunt, fish, drink beer
and watch football games suffer from the Peter Pan
Syndrome
because they won't act grown-up and join the
local PTA chapter.
Or maybe it's the Rambo Condition,
since they're
adopting this silly macho posture that is obviously
inappropriate for our gracious, civilized society.
The first stage is the Rowan Reaction.
An urbane
man who once espoused draconian gun-control measures starts
answering his door at night with a loaded pistol. As his
disease progresses, he may appear in advertisements for the
National Rifle Association, announcing that You can pack
some serious heat and still be a liberal.
Often the disease can be halted at that stage, but if it
is not treated properly, watch out for the Goetz
Eruption.
If the infection reaches that advanced stage,
it can't be stopped. Soon the Rambo Condition will hit the
frontal lobes of the brain, which will quit functioning
while the victim runs around with a machine gun and without
a shirt. Severe cases have been known to degenerate into
the Schwartzenegger Delirium.
Lately, a mutant variety from the Southern Hemisphere
has appeared. Victims of the Dundee Disorder
are
fond of waving yard-long machetes and announcing That's
a knife? No, this is a knife.
For unknown reasons, they
begin to laugh uncontrollably at this point, which is when
you can lead them away and throw them into the alligator
pit at the local zoo. That may sound extreme, but it's the
only known cure.
There are other national health problems that authors
will soon discover to their immense profit.
Olliemania,
characterized by extreme
self-aggrandizement disguised by spasmodic outbreaks of
patriotic babble, was thought to have run its course last
summer -- but it seems to be coming back. Maybe America's
constitution isn't as strong as we thought it was.
Men will rush to discover the secrets of the Teflon
Treatment,
wherein they're widely admired while they're
still able to proudly stand by their sleazy
subordinates.
So far, I've been immune to these, but I may be coming
down with Wright Envy.
Everytime I've had a hand in
a book, I've had to settle for a 6 percent royalty. And
here's Jim Wright getting 55 percent. The Speaker of the
House of Representatives has been getting rich as an author
-- which is amazing, when you consider that he hasn't even
invented a disease.
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