My first contact with Dr. Life came just last week, while I was sitting in an airplane in Austin, Texas. I was on a quick stopover, from Dallas to Phoenix, and I needed a break from the book I was reading — Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke. So I grabbed the inflight magazine from the pocket of the back of the chair in front of me, and I started flipping through it.

And somewhere in the middle there stood Dr. Life…bigger than life.

Take a look at him! He’s 67 years old! I mean shit, that motherfucker is buff.

Ripped.

Shredded.

And almost 70!

This must be some sort of Photoshop trick, I thought to myself. So I put my readers back on and took a very close look at Dr. Life’s neck area, looking for some sort of tell-tale sign that this was some sort of hoax.

But it’s not.

Cause I checked it all out.

Dr. Life pimps this deal called “Cenegenics”, and if you’re an older dude wanting to look young again, Dr. Life promises me Cenegenics is the way to go.

What a brilliant marketing concept. Let’s sell medicine to middle-aged suckers so they can be 23 again. That’s never been done before.

But there I was, looking both ways before secretly tearing the ad from the magazine and, all stealthy like, folding…and then placing it into my book as its new bookmark.

And god damn me if I wasn’t on the phone Monday morning to the Cenegenics folks in Las Vegas.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, but don’t tell anyone, ok? I used to be a jock. A pretty good one, too. I got all sorts of attention as a school boy, so I had a choice to go to several large universities on an athletic scholarship. I was a pretty good jock, too, in as much as I never really paid attention during class while on my “free ride”, cause coach always told me “C’s get degrees!”, and I thought I was better than almost everyone else I went to school with, and I never had to wait at the bookstore line for my books cause a really nice lady from the athletic department handed them at the bookstore while all the other suckers waited in line for theirs — after actually having to pay for them! — and I parked where ever I wanted and I got my monthly check from the school for my meals and my apartment and, for the most part, pretty much wasted 6 years of a 4 free, four year education.

In the end? A 2.01 GPA from the Liberal Arts College of the #1 ranked “party school” by Playboy Magazine.

Like I said: as a jock, I excelled.

And as a very good jock, I took steroids.

Steroids rule. But don’t go thinking that cause you’re on roids you’re a better athlete. Steroids rule cause they speed up the recovery process of your body while you beat the shit out of it. You can beat the shit out of yourself Monday, and then again Tuesday, and Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday, too. Why take off the weekend? Work out some more! Cause you’re ready to go.

Meanwhile, the dopes that don’t get it have to take a whole bunch of time off cause they’re sore, and they ache, or maybe they got hurt.

Not me!

It’s a lot like running a race, and you’re up against a guy that’s maybe a bit faster than you, but you have to run against him with your legs in shackles.

And since almost everyone’s on ‘roids, it’s not really cheating if everyone’s cheating…right?

Here’s another cool thing about ‘roiding…I never got sick. I dunno if it was just me, but I’d be walking around school during the fall and spring — when it seemed everyone had a cold or the flu.

Not me!

My girlfriend liked them too, cause I’d get raging boners that never went away, and the whole thing about testicular / penis atrophy?

Not me! (OK, roll your eyes and make your jokes now).

And why am I bringing this all up?

Cause Dr. Life pimps “testosterone replacement therapy” as a big part of Cenegenics. That’s a fancy way of saying you’re on roids. Dr. Life also pimps human growth hormone, too — which is some serious shit, and something I never fucked around with…mainly cause all the dudes I knew who did it ended up looking like Andre The Giant.

Wow!

Cenegenics!

I placed a call to Dr. Life, but instead I got one of his lackeys — a Dr. Patel. We had a nice chat. He asked me why I was interested in Cenegenics, and I wanted to say something like duh! Are you kidding me? Who doesn’t wanna look and feel and fuck like they’re 24 again? but instead I tried to sound all serious and told him a bunch of nonsense that pretty much equated to duh! Are you kidding me? Who doesn’t wanna look and feel and fuck like they’re 24 again? — just way fancier.

There’s Cenegenics Institutes all over the US, but none in LA. Which meant I’d have to travel to Vegas for my super intense, super-duper 7 hour physical. A physical that’s gonna cost $2995. Then, Dr. Patel told me there would be a monthly maintenance program as part of Cenegenics, and after some empty rhetoric, he finally threw a number at me: $800 a month.

Ball park.

Like all “ballpark figures”, it’s probably higher — and never lower.

Eight hundred a month for super-duper vitamins and ‘roids.

My brother said, “why don’t you just go buy a Corvette, douche bag? Cause three grand down and eight hundred a month is the same thing.”

Of course he’s right. But still, there’s a small kernel of mid-age crisis swimming around my brain, and I’m always fighting it, and it’s no fun.

No sir, not at all.

Or, as Mr. Horse would say, “No sir, I don’t like it. Not one bit!”

So I’ll just stick to my daily routine — a jog around Silverlake and with my very average, very cheap Costco / Walgreen’s brand vitamins therapy — which currently includes saw palmetto for my prostate and an aspirin and some fish oil for my heart — and I’ll skip the testosterone replacement therapy program, cause, let’s face it, testosterone is probably the root of at least 1/3 of all the Evil in the world.

Besides, what’s cooler than a 45 year old dude running around LA in a brand new red Corvette?

Just do me a favor if you happen to pull up next to me at a red light — call me Billy Life.