5.25 .06
Pond Scum: Bodies
By Steve Finbow
The head of my penis is inflamed, shiny and red, the skin flaking. A pearly green liquid exudes from my foreskin, its odour piscatorial. The shaft dry and chafed, small volcanic blisters litter its length. Not really. But I have had phildickian paranoia about its health ever since I went with Lola to the Bodies exhibition at the South Street Seaport, Manhattan.
By Nicholas Allanach
This is the second time I have seen a show of plastinated human bodies. The first time was Gunther von Hagens’ Bodyworlds in Brick Lane, London. Von Hagens is famous for performing an autopsy live on television and for looking like a more humorous Joseph Beuys. I cannot remember experiencing shock at any of the exhibits in the London show but I felt uneasy on seeing a cancer-ridden penis in New York. I could not help thinking about it for the rest of the day. There was no way I was going to have a hot, corn, or chilli dog for my lunch. The minced beef of a burger had me rushing to the toilet. Anything vaguely phallic – a banana, my index finger, a shorthaired Dachshund – made me break out in a cold sweat. Just imagine how I felt on my return to Brooklyn when confronted by the Williamsburg Savings Bank building. So, what did this diseased dick look like? I hear you all ask. Well, the glans, grossly misshapen, looked like a pomegranate; buboes (I had originally typed bubals, which are an extinct breed of North African hartebeest, an antelope related to the gnu) hung pendulously from the body, clustered and resembling fungi; the testicles, greatly distended and covered in brown nodules, were barely recognisable. This condition, according to the explanatory note, is preventable by using better hygiene methods, the cancer caused by a build-up of yeast. Now, I like using food in sex as much as the next genital gourmand, but slathering my member in Marmite is an erotic no-no.The room containing plastinated pregnant women, babies, and embryos has a sign warning that exhibits may upset some visitors. Well, that did not seem to stop a 15-year-old boy and girl on a school visit making out in front of a display case of foetuses. The exhibition is educational and worth a visit, especially if you are unable to tell your rectum from the joint formed between the humerus, radius, and ulna.
While seriously ill, I realized I did not know the position of my major organs. A list of things I do not have or were burnt off and/or diverted: gall bladder, spleen, splenic artery, some other artery, and 95% of my pancreas. And due to a soccer injury I had the central third of my patellar tendon removed and reconstructed as my anterior cruciate ligament. Oh, and some people say I have no heart and have undergone a humility bypass.
Americans, more than Brits, either neglect their bodies or are obsessed with them. British culture is becoming more body conscious yet we lack the American addiction to plastic surgery, diets, fad foods, and quack therapies. In New York, I can buy a Dr Peppers with berries and cream. I can also buy a lo-sodium, non-caffeine diet Coke. Why? What’s the point? Drink fizzy water. There also seems to be an upsurge in near beer – and contrary to popular opinion this is not where I am usually found. Near beer is non-alcoholic beer. Again, why? When I was living in Harlem I drank cans of Olde English 800. I cannot find any these days.
When I was in LA a few years back talking to people from Playboy about a potential job, I had lunch with two “career gurus.” The couple – in their mid-fifties – went for a run at 5am, played tennis for an hour, and ate shaved palm bark and the sweat of hummingbirds for breakfast. We went to a restaurant in Westwood Village. It was a fusion of Hawaiian and Uzbekistani food, or something like that. I was jetlagged and had already consumed about six bottles of beer and two packets of Cheese Doodles in my bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The menu swam in front of me. I ordered a beer and they ordered water. I ordered caviar with some other fish; they ordered a green salad no dressing. I ordered a tuna steak and they ordered a green salad no dressing. For brunch the next day at the hotel – my turn to pay – I had a cheese, bacon, sausage, and mushroom omelette (omelet) with fried potatoes and coffee and they had a white-of-the-egg only omelet (definitely not omelette) and filtered water. It being LA, my portions were restrained and I was somewhat disappointed.
Last week, Lo and I went to the Knickerbocker Inn in Greenwich Village. Great place. Old-style New York. We shared a sashimi plate to start. So far, so healthy. Then I thought I would go for the meatloaf. Shazam! The two slices looked like leather-bound bibles. Not only did these bibles include the Old and the New Testaments, they contained an exegesis, the apocrypha, versions in Hebrew, Greek, and English, and pop-ups of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The gravy was a Mississippi of animal juice, flour, and water. Then there was the cheesy mashed potato – I could have plastered the outside of the Empire State Building and had enough leftover to stucco the Brooklyn Bridge. After a few days in NYC, my stomach turns into a basketball and I slam-dunk any animal matter that’s placed in front of me. However much I love NYC, I miss London’s healthy food: eggs and bacon, fish and chips, pie and mash, jellied eels.
Which brings me nicely to fish: I like fish, all kinds. Next Wednesday, I am going to Japan for a holiday. The Japanese are the healthiest people on earth – Britain comes in 14th, while the USA is a poor 24th. I cannot wait to visit the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo; then I am off to Sapporo to visit Victoria. I will report in full detail in the next Pond Scum.
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© 2006 Me Three
