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One minute I’m choking down a freebie on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day 2022. Next I’m naked on a gurney, flatlining in the trauma center, shitting myself for an audience. They bring my wife back to say goodbye. So much equipment. A dozen medical professionals locked in on her husband of 45 years. Julie kisses me gently on the cheek, whispering, “This is going to be like a $10,000 copay.”

Next morning I wake up in intensive care with two stents. Main artery to my heart? 100% blockage. For the record, I didn’t “beat” the widowmaker. I was lucky to be a ten minute ambulance ride away from the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute.

How fragile do you have to be to be struck dead by chicken shrapnel?

In my first life I was an amateur. I ran my mouth like a dumpster. My LDL was LOL. Zero intention. In my second life I run my mouth like a business.

The modern grocery store is a multi-billion-dollar psychological war zone. You are a vulnerable plate spinner, juggling a career, a mortgage, a family, and a running list of daily obligations.

The generic health critic attacks the generic obvious targets. Oreos, Doritos, and fast food are the low hanging fruit of the Nutrition Shamers. But, no amount of judgment and moral shaming will save you when you are hopelessly addicted to the mind-numbing vagaries of salt, sugar and saturated fat.

The snack aisle isn’t going anywhere. The wine and beer aisles aren’t going anywhere. The products displayed there are meticulously engineered. The represented brands are globally famous because when the multi-billion-dollar food and drink conglomerates look at your mouth they do not see a human organ.

They see a cash register. They get out of it what you put into it.

You cannot defeat a Wall Street-backed strategy with wishful eating thoughts. But you can defeat bad strategy with good strategy.

I flatlined as an amateur on November 9, 2022. The next day, I turned Pro.

The difference between a Pro and an Amateur consumer is not what you eat. The difference is that the Amateur’s criteria is reckless, haphazard, and unintentional. Treating your mouth like a dumpster lacks intention. Running it like a business reclaims your autonomy.

I am no scientist. I do not have a PhD in Psychology. Rather, I am an entrepreneur with 45 years of experience and the father to an autistic son.

Twenty five years ago, when his teenage brain went through rapid, volatile growth spurts, he was plunged into a terrifying developmental spiral that lasted three or four years. It was a revolving door of psychologists, psychiatrists, and various medications, desperately trying to find just the right chemical cocktail that wouldn’t react in the exact opposite way it was intended to react—as is often the case with autistic folk.

That brings me to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

CBT is as simple as drawing a line straight down the middle of a page to separate the emotional distortion from the audited truth. In business we do side-by-side all the time.

Imagine you are fifteen years old and trapped in a doom loop. In the Left Column, you scrawl your emotional truth: “If I don’t get straight As, I won’t get into a good college. My life is over.”

Now in the Right Column, you reluctantly scribble the audited truth: “People who do NOT have straight As get into good colleges all the time. In fact, the vast majority of people attending good colleges in this exact moment do not have straight As.”

Food is binary. It is life or death. It’s a banana, not banana bread. It’s a carrot, not carrot cake. Food is life affirming or death promoting. Death promoting “food” may be food as a matter of law. But as a matter of fact whose to really say?

If you can imagine an Onlyfans for the cholesterol class, that’s The Shiny & Shady Show. A true bowel to global movement story, dedicated to the premise that what separates the amateur from the pro is intention.

Everybody has nine holes. But, you only have one piehole. My Piehole is pinned 24/7 to the main navigation bar herein. I populate the grid with the stuff I cram into my piehole and Piehole pukes out dynamically generated weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

It’s the running balance that restores balance.

I imagine a world in which everyone is on Piehole and the term “Piehole Score” is ubiquitous. A world in which your first date goes well, your second date goes well, thinking about getting serious, and you pop the question, “What’s your Piehole?”

Think about it. If your date isn’t intentional about what he puts in his mouth, in what universe are you putting that date in your mouth?

Piehole is not a diet. “I am on a diet.” A diet is something you stop. The root word is literally “die.” Piehole tracks your piehole, tabulates your intention. Subscribe to this newsletter for free and and I will make you a beta tester.

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When you open your Piehole and populate the grid you systematically force yourself out of a reckless, reactive death loop, into a transactional state of calculation.

The Piehole framework is the ultimate nightmare of a Wall Street-traded, ultra-processed rat shit factory. The syndicates calculate their financial projections on the assumption that you will remain numb to their many Froot Loopholes. As a Pro, I no longer play that game. If I eat a burger, I log it and take the -3 Death Points.

The mainstream wellness industry has spent decades scamming you by selling outcomes as targets. They tell you to chase weight loss, chase energy, and chase lower cholesterol like they are elusive trophies to be won through sheer misery and starvation. As a Pro, I know that the foregoing follies are the illusions of amateurs.

Everything everybody wants — less waist, less sickness, non-zero prescription costs, perfect numbers at your annual physical — such are the involuntary, mathematical consequences of populating Piehole and engaging in a bit of regular exercise.

If I’ve learned one thing as an entrepreneur for forty-five years it is this: Goals are for amateurs. I do not do goals. I do purpose. Purpose is for Pros. Goals are arbitrary. You hit them or you don’t and you go to lunch, which means you’re in a restaurant. (Don’t even get me started!) Purpose is unchanging and your ultimate purpose is to be there for your family, your friends, and the people who care about you.

If your purpose is to be a more effective creator, a more lethal litigator, a more decisive executive, or a more present parent. Every single one of those initiatives is either systematically strengthened or actively weakened by the actual items you cram into your beloved piehole.

It’s all about the numbers. Your CPA and your PCP use the same nomenclature. “These numbers look great!” or “These numbers are concerning.” When your cardiovascular system is flooded with a shit ton of un-audited, industrial processed sludge, your energy collapses, your prefrontal cortex is hijacked by marketing algorithms, and your capacity to protect your assets evaporates.

Which brings us back to the question I asked at the outset: Is Selena Gomez trying to kill you?

One minute you’re a globally adored pop icon. Next you present like a billionaire drug mule for Mondelēz. As an end user of a widow maker, I cannot unsee what I just articulated.

Such is life (and death) in the land of the free and the home of the (as-it-turned-out in my case) $12,329.42 co-pay.

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One minute I’m choking down a freebie on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day. Next minute I’m flatlining naked in the ER, shitting myself for the same level-one trauma team I’m going to see Tuesday at Trader Joe’s.

That brings us to the Comfortable Cholesterol Class which is in a state of high behavioral panic over a lettuce parasite. The diarrhea will pass. See what I did there? Fine. I’ll see myself out.

Somewhere Big Cholesterol is smiling!

Taco Bell is nothing if not transparent when it comes to ingredients.

Take the Caramel Cold Foam:

• Buttermilk, hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm, palm kernel, coconut and/or cottonseed), water, cream (from milk), corn syrup, sugar, lactose (from milk), contains 2% or less of the following: natural flavor, modified cornstarch, sodium caseinate (a milk derivative), mono and diglycerides, polysorbate 60, disodium phosphate, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, soy lecithin. Contains: Milk, Soy, Caramel Sauce: Sugar, water, nonfat dry milk, corn syrup, butterfat, fructose, natural flavors, modified food starch, caramel color, salt, mono & diglycerides, disodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (P), citric acid

Taco Bell unloads this contraceptive into your cold brew and the A.P. is talking lettuce bugs.

And the political haymaking. Presumptive 2028 Democratic Presidential Candidate, Gavin Newsom is apoplectic.

You wouldn’t catch me dead at Taco Bell. But you would at Legal Seafood. To set the stage, here’s a clip from my 2010 two-week residency at Washington D.C.’s iconic Studio Theatre, in which I talk about the critical role played by questions when closing the deal.

The tumor I’m carrying around in this clip, the one in which I look three to four months pregnant, that’s Legal Seafood.

I sit at the bar. Bowl of chowdah. Fish n chips. Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice. Bartender keeps the free refills coming. So, make that three glasses of cranberry juice. They give ya’ a basket of rolls and a bowl of butter. I’m alone. I eat them all. In fact, “Can I get another round of rolls?”

2500 calories. 4,000 milligrams of sodium. 45 grams of saturated fat. In my First Life I called this health hazard “lunch”. It was a highlight of the tour. Today I call it 15 Death Points.

The bottom line is not diarrhea, though diarrhea can line your bottom. The bottom line is that Taco Bell looks at your mouth and sees a cash register. It has one question: “Will you eat it?” The dark reveal of a Breaking News Lettuce Bug is that when it comes to Taco Bell, Legal Seafood and your local sales floor (I mean grocery store) we are on autopilot. We have zero questions. We are beaten down from decision fatigue.

When you mindlessly say “I’ll take the number one,” you cannot be surprised by the unwieldy number two. Or the shortness of breath. Or the cold sweats. Or the defibrillator.

I was meant to stay dead. If I hadn’t blown my audition at the Pearly Gates Improv, I wouldn’t even be here. God was like, “Thought you’d be funnier. I’m sending you back on a mission from me — God.”

I write from Del Mar where a spiritual health cleanse can run $1,500.00. The Taco Bug is included in your meal deal, and you don’t need an appointment.

When Big Cholesterol asks: “Will you eat it?” you need to answer that question with two questions.

• Q1: Why do I eat it?

• A1: Because crack is illegal.

• Q2: Is it good for me?

• A2: No.

We need to put this diarrhea behind us. Truth is, we love the drive-up because the drive-up is delicious. But, we forget, the trauma center is a drive up, too.

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