altered states

A Breitbart.com article about a new South Korean boom-- male plastic surgery-- got me thinking. Would I want such surgery?

Not for my face, no. I like my current disfigurement.

I would, however, love to sport a bulletproof scrotum.

Bear with me a moment.

Many Western cynics claim that the Korean plastic surgery wave comes from a pernicious American influence: Korean men and women want to look like white folks. "Not so!" I reply. The awful truth is this: They want to look like white folks from L.A., which, when you think about it, is pretty sad.

Few sane Americans consider Los Angeles a "typical" American city. Southern California's cult of the body centers on L.A. as its Mecca. Whether you're a movie star or a gangsta, you need a well-toned body and surgically enhanced face to get you through a typically unpredictable L.A. day. Dodging bullets, being harassed by racist bosses, or flirting with dime-a-dozen, over-surgeried lawyers-- a mid-20s L.A. male might encounter all of the above situations before lunch. Without the liposuction, nose sculpture, and eyelid tucks, you'd be a freak, and your life would be one long, relentless ass-kicking. That train of thought is contagious, of course, so the surgery meme has swept the world. Koreans got the bug almost as badly as the Venezuelans.

I come from Washington, DC. As the comedian once said, "Washington is Hollywood for ugly people." Too true, too true. Strangely enough, life in DC has many parallels to life in LA. Along with the general sense of unreality, we've got: dodging bullets, being harassed by racist bosses, and flirting with dime-a-dozen, over-surgeried lawyers (from L.A., most likely)-- all such events being standard fare for a mid-20s Washingtonian male, and as in L.A., all likely to happen before lunch.

But in DC, where people are less likely to talk about "poppin' a cap in yo' ass" than about, say, "termination with extreme prejudice by members of Delta Force," certain surgical enhancements make more sense.

Which brings me back to the bulletproof scrote.

I'd like an armored ball sac because I'm tired of people shooting at my nads whenever I go home to visit my family in northern Virginia. DC gangstas and Virginia rednecks all love their guns, and the major roads in and around the DC-Metro area-- Routes 395, 95, 495, 66, and so on-- are lined with eager marksmen who spend their entire day just waiting for an exposed crotch to drive by. Since I usually sling my balls out the driver's window to give my arms room to hold the steering wheel, I frequently find myself playing "dodgem" with the local snipers.

To make matters worse-- Langley, Virginia isn't far off, and among those pot-shooting gangstas and rednecks are plenty of government-trained killers looking to see if they can "bust a nut" at a range of fifty yards while you're tearing up the asphalt at 70 miles per hour.

I don't want to end up drilled through the balls. I don't want to become a statisticle. Our roads are already lined with drivers' corpses, all of whom have to be removed by overworked county services. The workers come out at night in their orange uniforms, clearing away the cars and the bodies, resetting the roads for the next day. An aerial view of northern Virginia, DC, and southern Maryland would reveal columns of smoke forever reaching into the sky-- the endlessly burning heaps of countless gun victims, most of them having been shot through the crotch for the simple reason that they had the misfortune to sport hairy oysters.

Is this right? Is this the safe, secure society promised us by Emperor Palpatine?

In an ideal world, no one would be shooting at my balls. In the meantime, Korean plastic surgery may offer a temporary solution to my woes. By armoring my scrotum, I can rest assured that DC-Metro snipers, try as they might, will never separate me from what the Québecois refer to as "my kids." And I'll stop dreading my trips back to the land of the free and the home of brave.


_