Of course I didn't forget this week's Boyleing Points

I am often asked to explain the source of my fascination with with Kevin Boyle's weekly column, Boyleing Points and my response is always the same.  

Boyleing Points is an acquired taste which, once acquired, serves to engender an intense and continuing  fascination with the inner workings of our local editor's thought process which serves up a heaping column of eclectic musings on a weekly basis.

To paraphrase Forest Gump's definition of life, Boyleing Points is like a box of hundreds of short stories, each one addressing a totally unrelated subject and you never know which one you will be reading come Friday morning.

Upon closer examination, I have also come to believe that  Boyleing Points is our editor's wink and a nod to Hunter S. Thompson and his (original) style of gonzo journalism.

Take this week's column (below) entitled "Asses Up" a headline that is immediately followed by a lead which tells you "This is the column of too much information..."  

As soon as you have read those 10 words, Kevin's got ya!  You have to read on!  You have to find out what (Back) Road to Wellville his head has been travelling recently and where he's gonna take you this week.

And take you he does!  

This week, invoking  images of You Tube, shish-kabobs, the Roto-Rooter Man, Muppets, Star Trek, Hollywood celebrities and, (my personal favorite) Raquel Welch and her role in the 1966 sci-fi film \Fantastic Voyage, Kevin's column ultimately serves to urge all of us to allow a complete stranger to look inside our entire large intestine, from the lowest part, the rectum, all the way up through the colon to the lower end of the small intestine.

Now that's Talent with a capital "T"!

 Back in 1965 Soupy Sales urged all his young viewers to go into the bedroom where their Dad was sleeping and take all those "green pieces of paper with pictures of old men with beards on them" from Dad's wallet and mail them to him at his Channel 5 television station and, if they did, he promised he would send them each a picture of himself from Puerto Rico.  

Can you imagine if Soupy had a tenth of Kevin's knack for literary persuasiveness?

Instead of getting fired, Soupy might have actually made it to Puerto Rico!

Asses Up

By Kevin Boyle

This is the column of too much information. If I have to get my leg lanced because of some freak infection, I’m gonna write about it. One reader told me she turned the page as soon as the word “lance” appeared. I’m guessing the word “colon” might scare off a few. So you’ve been warned.

When I was a kid I cracked my knuckles and old folks would say to me, cut it out you’re gonna get arthritis. And wise old me would say, they’ll have a cure by then. So much for that. Now I can’t put my arm through my coat sleeve unless a bunch of Mormons help me.

Anyway that’s a warning to my young readers who hope modern technology will keep advancing and do away with that main ingredient of a mid-life physical check-up: the colonoscopy. But like with me and arthritis, don’t get your hopes up. As far as I can tell, the only advancing they’ve managed with colonoscopies in the last 20 years is the cameras have gotten better. And now you can put it on youtube.

Though I won’t be doing that – this is just between us. Next time you hear from me, I’ll be light as a feather, my personal Ramadan over. Yep, I end my January resolution as a human shish-kabob.

For you holdouts, those of you who’ve passed the age of forty, certainly fifty, and haven’t had the personal roto-rooter, it’s time. Just do it. It’s plain sensible and you can get in on the joke.

I’d like to use the expression, all kidding aside - - but you can’t put all kidding aside. It’s the procedure which makes comedians out of every patient. Gastro docs have heard it all. “Tell my wife you didn’t find my head up there.”

“Now I know how a muppet feels.” “You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out…” “Captain Kirk, you’re boldly going where no man has gone before.”

If the two doctors I’ve had are representative of the field, they’re among the most affable docs you could find. The first guy I went to in Brooklyn had a phone number of 718- 748-SHIT. That’s pretty good marketing – how could you forget that number.

While behind me, so to speak, he discovered a polyp and announced “We’re engaged.” That meant, I’d be seeing him again. But it was a good thing it was caught when it was. This was more than 10 years ago. That one time polyp got caught and hasn’t been seen since.

Of course, colonoscopies and its weird cousin, the colonic, have become hip since the doctor first landed on my moon. You’ve got Katie Couric, Leo de Caprio, and Gwyneth Paltrow and others extolling the wonders of the colon clean out. And I gotta say, you do feel like a million bucks when it’s all over.

Just don’t make plans the night before. Even the directions on the nuclear stuff you take says, don’t worry, it will work. Be patient. If you need something from the store, send someone else to get it. Once the purge starts, you are … as the door on the airplane says, occupido. And word to the wise, never trust a cough, sneeze or even a giggle.

When the fun starts just remember it’s for a good cause (and you don’t even have to start a non-profit).

So you newbies, you scaredy cats, get to it. The procedure itself is a walk in the park. Hey, I was even awake for one of them and watched it all in technicolor. I kept looking for Raquel Welch. (That’s a Fantastic Voyage reference for you movie buffs). Chances are, you’ll opt for the anesthesia. And as soon as you’re alert, you can make lunch plans.

Anyway, like anybody who’s got a connection, I’ve got a guy. Not sure where to go or how to start? Email me and I’ll send you my guy’s info. It’s your health. Take care of this and join the club. You’ll be glad you did and you’ll have lots of crappy new jokes.

** See you at the Graybeard Dinner Dance on Saturday night!