Last month Suzanne Somers was flapping her over-inflated lips — and speaking of huge lips, nice jeans Suzanne! — about Patrick Swayze and how chemotherapy basically killed him.  It’s no surprise that she has a book out this month (her 19th), “Knockout”, which is about seeking alternative methods to treating cancer.

It’s great that Suzanne Somers wants to explore non-traditional approaches to deal with her own health.  But she also claims that chemotherapy isn’t effective in treating lung and breast cancer.  Somers survived breast cancer after a lumpectomy and radiation.

The American Cancer Society is concerned.

“I am very afraid that people are going to listen to her message and follow what she says and be harmed by it,” says Dr. Otis Brawley, the organization’s chief medical officer. “We use current treatments because they’ve been proven to prolong life. They’ve gone through a logical, scientific method of evaluation. I don’t know if Suzanne Somers even knows there IS a logical, scientific method.”

More broadly, Brawley is concerned that in the United States, celebrities or sports stars feel they can use their fame to dispense medical advice. “There’s a tendency to oversimplify medical messages,” he says. “Well, oversimplification can kill.”

Suzanne Somers needs to shut her mouth.  She’s certainly entitled to an opinion, but she’s a celebrity and there are some whackos out there who will make medical decisions based on what Suzanne Somers has to say.  Frightening, but true.  Saying that chemo isn’t effective in the battle against cancer is wholly irresponsible.  People’s lives have been saved by that poison.

And regarding the whole Swayze snafu, Somers issued your basic, insincere apology to his family:  ”I shouldn’t have said anything.  I apologized to his family.  We all know that chemotherapy does nothing for pancreatic cancer.”

I love it when celebs pontificate on complex issues such as Middle Eastern politics or life-saving medical treatment, as if being able to cry on cue makes them an expert in every field. Suzanne Somers is particularly adroit at this method of putting her perky little foot in her perky little mouth.

Recently, Somers — whose oncological experience consists of one season of Three’s Company and stage kissing Patrick Duffy –  asserted that Patrick Swayze died not from pancreatic cancer, but because his doctors poisoned him with chemotherapy.

“They took a beautiful man,” Somers said, “and put poison in his body. Why couldn’t they have built him up nutritionally and gotten rid of the toxins?… I hate to be this controversial… but I have to speak out.”

Of course! Everyone knows that the cure for aggressive pancreatic cancer is organic veggies and squeezing out a few rounds on your ThighMaster.

It’s too bad Ms. Somers has not yet discovered a cure for leather neck-itis

Suzanne Somers went on Oprah and lost her damn mind. She showed what I’m sure was a cringing audience her entire routine (with the exception of the vaginal injection) on air, which includes some 40 pills, hormone rubdowns, and exceptional suppression of the gag reflex (pssst it’s the secret to her marriage). Somers claims that doing this helps her beat the “Seven Dwarfs of Menopause: Itchy, Bitchy, Sleepy, Sweaty, Bloated, Forgetful and All Dried Up.” Fox News

She begins with rubbing a syringe of estrogen on one arm, every day. For two weeks out of the month, she rubs progesterone on the other.

 

After that, she injects estriol vaginally, which she graciously spared the audience from watching.

But it doesn’t end there.

She can’t start her day without taking 40 pills, 15 of which she downs in a thick, yellow smoothie her husband makes for her (she says it’s the secret to their marriage!). Then she ends her day with an additional 20 pills at night before bed.

 

 

Now, I’m not saying that Suzanne Somers doesn’t look amazing for a 62 year old, but she is starting to take on certain muppet-like qualities. I think I would rather age gracefully than vaginally inject ANYTHING ever or choke down a 15-pill smoothie. This is not natural. She says she’s “not against going under the knife” but wouldn’t it ultimately be easier and cheaper to do a little nip/tuck maintenance instead of rubbing raw hormones into your flesh? Not to mention I got “Bitchy, Sleepy, Sweaty, Bloated, Forgetful” dwarves kickin it at my place once a month for about 4 days and I’m 23. Those assholes are not limited to Menopause.

At the Palm Springs Film Festival Awards.

Organic girl dropped by last night

For nothing in particular

Except to tell me again how beautiful and serene she feels

On uncooked vegetables and wheat germ fortified by bean sprouts–

Mixed with yeast and egg whites on really big days–

She not only meditates regularly, but looks at me like I should

And lectures me about meat and ice cream

And other aggressive foods I shouldn’t eat.

Suzanne Somers, in her book of poetry entitled Touch Me, published in 1980.

Friday’s Huffington Post has an amusing piece on celebrity poetry. In addition to this Somers tour de force, they also showcase the poetic works of Leonard Nimoy, including this breath-taking stanza:

I love you

not for what

I want you to be

But for what you are…

I dunno. I’d talk shit about these poems, but I don’t know much about poetry; I didn’t major in English because I didn’t feel like going to law school. I actually kind of like the Somers quote. It’s not, like, super deep and dense, but I fucking hate poetry like that. It’s like, “Yeah, dude, you’re a big fancy poet. You smoke filterless Lucky Strikes. You wear fedoras. You don’t own a TV. Your girlfriend smells funny and you have a pet rat named Kerouac and you think football is barbaric and when I tell you what I do for a living you roll your eyes for so long that even I get a headache, then you promptly launch into a story about this one time you smoked out with John Stamos, which isn’t at all hypocritical and fucking annoying, but whatever. When you’re not working the afternoon shift at the moribund local record store, you juxtapose big words in a way that is meaningless even to you, so you must be very cool, and I should envy your bohemian existence and the sheer joie de vive that certainly comes with owning a car worth less than my purse. Yes. I’m right on top of that, Rose.”

I’d much rather read poetry like that one from Suzanne; it conjures a clear image with a clear message. I fucking hate organic girl already. And I get it. And I know her. She’s annoying. And she dates Big Important Poetry Guy. And they both suck and we’re all polite to them while secretly hoping that one day even the incense will get sick of hearing them talk and burn their damn house down. I’ll take that over the over-thought, pretentious, angsty bullshit coming out of the MFA classes any day.

Anyway.

Check out the full article for rhymes by Charlie Sheen, Viggo Mortensen and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy.