When Elvis came out of the dressing room for the first time in that sequined white jumpsuit with elephant bells, high collar, and a matching cape, he asked the people he thought were friends, “Ahh , what d’yall think? Ahh picked it for my Hawaii show…”

But everyone lied, and told him that he looked great. He didn’t really have any friends. Just a handful of people making an incredible amount of money working at Elvis Inc. So nobody stood up to him. When a man gets surrounded by a phalanx of assistants, groomers, managers, agents and other members of the entourage whose job it is to tell him how great he is –these things happen.

Michael Jackson suffered from the same affliction. Nobody had the nerve to tell Michael that he shouldn’t be sleeping with little boys, so it continued. If you remember the Martin Bashir documentary, he was very adamant about his proclivities with those beautiful little boys: “Why can’t you share your bed? That’s the most loving thing to do, to share your bed with someone…”

Apparently there was nobody within Michael’s inner circle that had the nerve to explain it to him and risk the unemployment line. There aren’t a lot of openings for jobs that pay six figures changing IV bags and gluing on a prosthetic nose.

I was thinking about this the other day while watching Bill Maher’s pathetic season finale. I almost felt a little sorry for Bill when his cherished beliefs were confronted for what seemed the very first time. And it wasn’t some angry conservative rubbing reality in his face, it was a panel of dogmatic peers. Here was Bill, a man, famously skeptical of religion and abrasively sarcastic about climate science doubters, admitting that he subscribes to New Age religion and doubts microbiology.

What started as a gentle ribbing soon took a dramatic turn as one by one, some of Americas most liberal celebrities realized that Bill wasn’t kidding. And aside from a few enthusiastic New Age freaks in the audience, most of his adoring fans seemed a little uncomfortable with the whole thing.

I think what happens to comics is they get a mutated strain of Elvis Disease. From experience, I know that many comedians tend to be incredible introverts. Normal human contact for them is completely impossible. They can only relate to other people from the security of the stage. Except for a couple brief moments with a convenient waitress or exotic dancer, stage time becomes a substitute for love and affection. That’s why many comics have troubled personal lives, and probably are second only to radio personalities for their propensity to divorce.

David Letterman exemplifies this social disorder. His inability to venture outside the confines of the Ed Sullivan Theater has left him with potential harassment lawsuits. His desire to seek amorous engagements with the staff is symptomatic of the disease he harbors.

When a comic hosts a show that becomes widely popular they become even more secluded. Their fame makes it impossible to do normal things and their only contact with the outside world is the writing staff. The people who toil at crafting the evening monologue are so afraid of getting fired from a rather lucrative job that they only write jokes specifically for the host. Hence they serve to reinforce the notion in the host’s own imagination that he is infallible. Add to that, an eager audience willing to applaud wildly at every remark and you have the recipe for a monster. This is why Bill Maher has begun to believe that he is the smartest man in the world: in his world, he is.

For Bill this is compounded by his choice of companions. His social life is populated with Playmates and other girls under thirty. He prefers women whose careers are completely dependent on their eating habits. They are also closer to playing with stuffed animals than the bridge club, so they tend to be animal-loving, vegetarian PETA chicks obsessed with cleansing and toxins.  In order to get along with them, Bill feigns interest. An exciting date for Bill is a little locally-grown, raw, organic, vegan salad and some high-pressure colonics.

So he has begun to believe that eating seaweed and having water shot up his butt is ample protection from the H1N1 virus. Why would he think different? Most of his dates look a lot healthier than the visage he glimpses in the bathroom mirror on the way into the shower. Meanwhile, nobody on his staff has the nerve to tell Bill to straighten up.

It will be curious to see what happens to Bill over the next couple months while his show is on hiatus. It’s already been renewed, so that removes any self-doubt that he might be holding. (He won’t be spending the next few months obsessing over the mortgage, like the rest of us.)  So he can just put that finale behind him, and forget it ever happened.

But I wonder if he can. Will he replay the show in his head and worry about his sanity, or continue to withdraw into his holistic delusions? A good friend might set up an intervention.

But I doubt he has any real friends left.

Back in April, Vice President Biden uttered dire warnings about catching Swine Flu in subways and commercial airplanes.  Per the usual pattern, the White House quickly apologized for “Amtrak Joe’s” remarks.  But now, just a few months later, the President also has declared a national emergency.  The H1N1 is spreading, and instead of 120 million expected doses, only 11 million shipped last week. In a few weeks, the vaccine may become widely available, but it hasn’t yet.  Even the Obama children reportedly haven’t received the vaccine (although I hope they get immunized if that’s what their family decides).  

Balboa Park, The United States of America

Personally, I think the Swine Flu hysteria is a bit over-hyped.  But on the other hand, I’d rather not get sick if I can avoid it.  This year is particularly important for my family because my wife is pregnant with identical twins.  That type of pregnancy comes with risks already, and the H1N1 can be rough on expectant mothers.  So, after doing our research, we decided she would get immunized at the first opportunity, which was this past week.  In the process, we saw one possible future outcome of health care “reform” – rationing. 

The H1N1 vaccine made its limited debut this past weekend in Southern California at a few government-chosen distribution centers.  Near us, in Balboa Park in Encino, people lined up on the Friday starting at 3:00 a.m.  By that afternoon, the daily supply had run out.  So, at my wife’s (very strong) recommendation, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday and dutifully got in line.  The park was still dark outside when I arrived, with just four people camped out ahead of me in blankets and beach chairs.  As daylight broke, the line grew.  

By 8:00 a.m., the line was across the park and my wife and our little daughter showed up.  My wife and other expectant mothers were hoping for a version of the H1N1 vaccine prepared without the “controversial” preservative Thimerosal.  (There’s a movement that suspects Thimerosal causes autism.  From what I’ve read, there’s no link, but I understand why concerned parents, if given the choice, would rather not risk it.  Anyway, I’m no doctor, so I’ll leave the debate to our distinguished medical specialists (like, uh, John Kerry, Chris Dodd and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). 

Shortly after 8:00 a.m., word got out that only 60 doses of Thimerosal-free vaccine were available.  That is, just 60 doses for all pregnant women across the entire San Fernando Valley (which has a population of over one million).  Expectant mothers were told to get out of line and head to the back entrance. The park staff were admirable and helpful.  They tried to organize a new line, but there was no formal system and with only 60 spaces available, people were tense.  One lady with a particularly obnoxious and uncouth sense of entitlement got a coveted spot near the front of the new line, but that apparently wasn’t good enough because she went on to berate the busy staff for not making her the very first.  Other women were turned away after waiting for hours, and were told to try again the next day.  Borderline chaos. 

 By 9:00 a.m. when the immunization center finally opened, 60 expectant mothers were queued up.  (If you’re wondering, yes my wife got in because I had lined up so early and managed to convince the staff to include her.)  I was back at the other entrance, waiting with my daughter for the regular vaccine… behind us, nearly a thousand other people were jostling in line.  

This is 2009, in a middle-class L.A. suburb, but it looked like a Soviet Union bread line.  I know long waits for medical treatment are not unknown here.  L.A. emergency rooms are routinely overburdened with uninsured people who use the hospital as a basic clinic.  That is a different brand of chaos, and I don’t pretend to know how to fix it.  But what I do know is that my wife and I work our tails off to have private insurance so we can use a private U.S. health care system that is the envy of the world.  But if the government takes over, that choice will probably disappear.  Pelosi, Obama and Reid (oh my!) are dead set on “reforming” the exceptionalism right out of our system.  They’re still pushing a public option that most Americans don’t want, trying to sneak it past us at midnight in thousand-page bills, or tacked quietly onto unrelated legislation.  The revised drafts and permutations each week are endless and numbing.  And the estimated costs, even though ultimately unknowable, are already staggering.  

The Ruling Party’s current brand of health care “reform” is just the latest illness coming out of D.C.  Forget the Bird Flu and Swine Flu, we first have to shake the Pork Flu.  Leaders (from both parties) continue to siphon billions into pork-barrel earmarks.  This past year, they rushed to pass the largest stimulus spending package in history.  Even if massive spending and debt were the cure for what ails us (?), most of the money hasn’t even been spent into our economy yet, and a second stimulus package is already being discussed.  (Expect to see the stimulus money poured into the economy just before the next election cycles.)  On top of the Pork Flu, we’ve been hit with more than 30 cases of CZARS, as well as waves of “Botch-ulism” (botched bank bailouts, a botched Gitmo strategy, botched treatment of our allies and enemies abroad…).  America has a fever (although maybe not the kind Al Gore warned of), but the cure is looking worse than the disease.  Forget one flu vaccine, what will happen when we are stuck with socialized medicine for 330 million people?  Medical treatment will be rationed out under cheerless and impenetrable bureaucratic rules.  People with the means to afford treatment will be denied it for other reasons, such as they are elderly and have outlived their social usefulness. 

Need cancer treatment?  Take a pain pill.  

Dennis Miller has joked, in all seriousness, that Government-run health care will resemble “the DMV with wounds.”  Well, on Saturday I caught a glimpse of future chaos and it is deeply unsettling.  With some legitimately needy people lacking health care, pockets of our system do need repair.  But we have an entire toolbox at our disposal, not just a sledgehammer.  All I’m saying is, let’s slow down a bit and think this over.  Have a REAL dialogue and debate.  And while we’re at it, keep riding on the subways and airlines – they employ hardworking people.