July 22, 1998. The Cleanse begins -- Mike called me tonight to let me know it's on. After two weeks of dithering and half-toxification on account of postal delays, he has the clay, vitamins, toads livers and whatever other witchcraft he requires to begin the diet.
He started it this morning with a shot of clay and water. This sent him gagging immediately. The diet requires thrice-daily applications of this noxious brew. Mike says that apple juice tastes a lot better with the clay, but either way, you get deposits of dirt stuck in your teeth and the cavities of your mouth. That which is evil to your taste buds, apparently causes nothing but goodness within the less social confines of your intestines.
It's going to be a long month.
My vested interest in this comes from the fact that I've bet Nick some amount of money (I forget how much, really) that Mike will make it through the 30 days he has pledged to remain on this crazy diet they call the Purge. So for me, this is more the chronicle of a wager than anything else. We're all betting on something.
Mike and I exchange pleasantries, make predictions, and compare the current states of our digestive apparati. His, it appears, is in better shape than mine. But then again, rotten shrimp is verboten when you're doing the Cleanse.
July 24, 1998. Madness and rumors
Nick is perhaps an even greater source of worry. He sent me nine emails yesterday and has been pressuring me to join him in a fast of our own. When I pressed him to explain what, exactly he means to do, he become vague and, seemingly, contradicted himself, "fasting.com is a scam," he told me, "it is what lies behind it that is worth considering." I think we're losing him. I fear he is being tempted by the Cleanse.
All things scatological have become very important to the group. The frequency, color, and consistency of bowel movements -- especially Mike's -- are now constant topics of conversation.
Mike sent me the following email, explaining his first day of the cleanse:
Yesterday I had five bowel movements. Nothing strange has come out of me yet -- that'll take a while -- but things moved easily and smoothly.I was hurting bad by the end of the day, dying for food, feeling nauseous but when I got home I ate some steamed broccoli and then felt great. slept while.
Woke up at 6:50, immediately went to the toilet. Things moved fine. The stools are as the book says they should be: smooth, not hard, and they break up when flushed.
Drank a shake at 7. Got smart, used the blender, made all the difference. Only gagged once.
Got to work by 8:10. Immediately went to the toilet. Another success.
10 o clock shake went down easy. I'm getting used to it! hurray.
OK, must work. people walking by can see what I'm writing and that probably ain't good.
What with all the reports and innuendo, there was a great deal of concern about Mike's health (and my money), so we paid him a visit around midnight last night -- just after he had returned from the quiet French film. Mike was not green. He wasn't even yellow. In fact, he looked good. This was the first Leni or Anna or I had seen of him since he went on the diet. It reassured us to see him. We sat down and discussed things more.
I can tell that Leni is coming around. When Mike told her of his plans to poo out his stomach lining, he was able to assuage her concerns by mentioning the name of a plant food he intends to ingest. Mike's impressive Cleanse ($175) kit was also a hit. Housed in a box that looks as if it may have been first designed for ice skates, it is an assortment of impressively packaged clay, vitamins and natural chemicals. We left feeling better about the whole thing.
This morning Leni clearly has the Cleanse on her mind. She has been thinking about the mud in the mouth problem and she thinks she can solve it. "He should just use a straw," she says. "You can get pretty wide straws, right. Why do you think they use straws in hospitals? The quickest way down is a straw." She too may be lost.
My stomach is no better than it was two days ago, but I dare not think about this any more...
July 26, 1998. Rumbles of discontent -- Started yesterday with a shot glass full of Pepto-Bismol. Then, at Nick's insistence, switched my cure to Maalox. But nothing seems to help. I spent last night writhing in pain as the creature within tried to devour me.
And what's getting to me is that, despite all the warning, despite the horrific description of Mike's diet, despite the visions of doom and colonic corruption that kept coming to me in my sleep, Mike is starting to look the best he's ever been.
He came over for a bit last night, suffering from the opposite of all of my symptoms. He matched me Maalox for clay shake, apparently growing stronger for every notch I declined. Of course the conclusion is obvious. I need the Cleanse. My back is achy, my wit sluggish, my metabolism distracted, and it feels like my gastro intestinal tract is eating me from the inside out. The Cleanse would flush all this toxic traffic out of my system and put me back on the road to righteous digestion.
At least that's what I'm supposed to think. But I don't. Anna, who has been a Gibraltar in all of this, never showing the slightest inclination toward Cleansing, tells me this morning, "I think you're unconsciously trying to make yourself sick because you want to go on the Cleanse." She couldn't be more wrong. I'm fighting this every step of the way.
I'll be honest. This whole crazy thing is starting to feel like a conspiracy to sell me clay. I think of the meals I've had in the last few weeks and how often Mike may or may not have been around. How his subtle machinations could have infected the food chain. Let's see, Leni and I are sick -- we've definitely been poisoned. And Leni says that some of her relatives are starting to succumb. Anna.... well Anna has the constitution of a horse, she's probably just shrugged any contaminants right off. It wouldn't take much: Bacteria in the milk, a dusting of our dinnerware, something strange shaking in the salt.
As an aside here, I would like to say a few things about Anna's attitude toward the Cleanse, which has been until now, exemplary. When I asked her what she thought about Mike's diet, she answered, "Just talking about it makes me hungry." But even her natural and healthy skepticism is beginning to turn. She now says this vile treatment is within the realm of possibility, but she will first wait to see if Mike survives. Does she think he will? "I think in 30 days he's going to feel like a million bucks." I reach for my Maalox, writhing, aghast.
There are a million ways he could have poisoned the food supply in this house. He clearly wants to win us over to his side. There's clearly something up. I haven't had a proper digestive experience since the day he began the Cleanse. But it won't work. I'm too smart for that, old Mikey. True I'm going on a mini-fast of my own, but just until I kill this damned thing that's eating me alive. I will not be moved.
Leni showed us a film last night called the Kiss. It's about some snake-like creature that lives from generation to generation inside the digestive tract of young women. The lead evil character sells a Cleanse-like vitamin shake called Vitalife. Watching these deadly concoctions being quaffed in the film struck me a little too close to home. Leni did some riveting hand and leg work in this film, but it was a completely inappropriate showing, if you ask me.
July 28, 1998. Lies and explanations -- Leni has left. I miss her dearly, but thank God. On Sunday she went out to buy me an enema bag, and you know what, I wanted it! Now she is gone, and my stomach has quieted somewhat. Though I am still off meat and dairy, I am clearly walking away from the Cleanse, not toward it.
Mike has been quiet lately. The word on the street is that he's obsessed with the video game I lent him, Age of Empires. It would make sense. Those games are very good at distracting you from food.
There are so many rumors about this shit, but there are some hard questions that nobody has yet answered: Why is Mike doing this, being the main one. I remember when he started, there was talk of phone calls to Crazy Katie (the only person on record who had actually survived the Cleanse), and deaths, and trouble signs, and weird smells. I try to think, but I can't remember the truth any more. So I interview Mike:
Q: When did you first hear about the Cleanse?
Mike: My roommate Deb told me about it. Crazy Katie had done it. I probably
first heard about it sometime after Deb moved in, March 1997, but I don't
remember for sure.
Q: What was your initial reaction?
Mike: I thought it was some new age fucked-up bullshit.
Q: When did you first look at the Cleanse book?
Mike: I started to get into the idea of doing the cleanse sometime after getting
married. Coincidence? I don't know. Deb said that Crazy Katie was gonna mail
the book out. It didn't come for a long time. I think it finally showed
up when Lisa and I came back from France in February. No, maybe it came
before we left in December. Ah, shit, I can't remember.
Q: What pushed you over the edge?
Mike: France. I ate so much damn pate and cheese and drank so much wine and
basically just gorged. One night I puked up duck pate and it came out my
nose and I knew something had to give. I decided to cleanse as soon as I
got back. but then I immediately got this job at Reel
(where you can buy Titanic for only $9.99 [That is, if Reel's NT servers are working --ed.] -- hey, gotta plug that shit) and
figured that starting a month long deep bowel cleanse that would make me go
to the toilet 20 times a day and probably smell real bad probably wasn't
the best way to start a job. So I waited. Oh, also there was only one toilet at Reel's old office and it was distinctly un-private and didn't flush
very well, so taking a crap was kind of stressful. But now we're in a big
office in Emeryville and there's plenty o' industrial-strength toilets.
Q: Who is crazy Katie?
Mike: Friend of Deb's. Lives in Arizona. Not sure if Deb calls her Crazy Katie
to her face but that's always how I've known her.
Q: Will you ever call her?
Mike: Deb left me her number. I've been meaning to call since she's done the
cleanse several times. I haven't yet. Will I ever? Probably when
something starts to go horribly wrong with my intestines.
Q: Have you talked to anyone else who has done the cleanse?
Mike: My man Ray. The guy who sold me the stuff [over the phone --ed.]. He didn't say much but said I could call him if I needed to talk about it. I haven't yet.
Q: What is the relationship between Age of Empires and the Cleanse.
Mike: This is a very good question. both are clearly about evolving to a higher
state. Both will have your friends saying, "why are you wasting your time
doing that?" Only one makes you shit 5 times a day, though.
Q: How is Lisa taking things?
Mike: At first she said it was stupid. Then she said don't do it. Then, when I
made it clear I was doing it, she became totally supportive. She's still
smoking, drinking, and eating plenty of food, but is somewhat discreet. In
truth, she's being a doll.
Q: Is there anything in your childhood that you could link to your present
behavior?
Mike: I crapped myself when I was 12. Oh, and I used to eat goat shit when I was a baby.
July 30, 1998. High times -- Mike is in great spirits. Dogs are frightened by his breath, but his spirits are high. Anna called over last night and he answered the phone in a sing-song voice, all too happy with life. And today the company he works for, Reel.com, was purchased for $100 million. So the pay checks will keep coming (someone's gotta pay for all that clay) and the options may actually be worth something. Mike refuses to discuss the details of the acquisition with me -- he's not allowed to talk to press. I tell him the $100 million will only be spent on plumbing anyhow. He agrees.
I'm in better spirits too. I had meat for the first time in nearly a week yesterday and I managed to sleep through the night. Somehow, I've emerged from all this new age madness without an enema, though I have begun popping St-John's Wort -- the stuff my sister was giving her dog to prevent it from biting strangers. Thusfar, I have only bitten people I know.
There's an email going around work. Real answers from Family Feud. You can just imagine Richard Dawson asking some panicky family member:
The last entry has a particular resonance for me, so I send it to Mike.
The answer: "And once opened, woe unto the man who tries to close them..."
|
stay around to watch. I just can't cope with the freaky stuff. --Barry Convex, Videodrome |
Mike tells me that he wakes up these days with a white chalky film on his tongue. No cause for alarm, the book predicted this. It is the toxins fleeing his body. Something, nobody really seems able to explain what, something about his diet is driving all the toxins out of his body -- years of naughtiness: a cigar here, pencil lead there, poisonous chemicals from dodgy meat -- they're all leaving town.
Lisa says she dreamt the other night that Mike suddenly called her in to the bathroom and like a proud new father, showed her the massive "big black shit" that we've all been waiting for. The big black shit is supposed to be a sign that you're defecating your toxic stomach lining -- getting rid of years of residue. Voiding the old to make room for the new. Mike's shit, says Lisa, was strange and euphoric. She says it smelled beautiful.
I've just finished watching Lisa's presentation to the Boorman Film Society -- a film that takes a different view of the soul. In Videodrome the soul seems to be a kind of software that can be recorded, and even altered on any medium -- videotape, brain, whatever. Through sinister technology, the soul of James Woods is about to make the leap from corporeal state to videotape. The body is just a formatting issue. "Long live the new flesh!" Woods yelps as he seeks to murder executives and become one with the TV.
I have never been more aware of what a pack-rat life can be. It accumulates things: memories, aches, toxins. The more we get, the more our poor bodies wind down as if there is some inverse relation between what we accumulate and the strength of our life force. The mathematics seem simple: flush out the toxins... strengthen the life force. I see the beauty of voiding -- Mike sees it five times a day -- and I think that this whole crazy diet could be something good for me, but I wonder about the accumulations. I ask myself if maybe they're necessary. There is something that is very unclear here, an existential question. Is the actualization of the soul an accumulation or a scraping away?
Do we know ourselves best by what we've done, or by what we've thrown away?
August 5, 1998. The million dollar diet -- Today marks Mike's two-week anniversary on the Cleanse. Already, Nick is looking for ways to weasel out of the bet. He speaks of the money in the past tense ("it began as my money," he cries) and suggests, "I think it would be 'sporting' for you to share a percentage of the winnings with the originator of the cash....don't you?"
Fat chance, Nicky-boy!
Of course Mike is the person Nick should really be hitting up for cash. There are rumors, completely unfounded, of course, that our Thinning Man recently struck it rich --
Thurston Howell rich, that is, off the sale of Reel.com. Apparently he is now a "Man of the World," who doesn't even need to work anymore. Talk is that he will appear at next week's Boorman Society gathering in jewel-encrusted pimp clothes, his wife in leopard-skin, trailing a feathered boa and being pulled by a little French dog.
All I know is that they suddenly have a very fancy juicer in their house and Lisa is not going to work tomorrow -- apparently she's spending the day planning a trip to Mexico.
And another plank for the millionaire theory: Mike has become extremely PR savvy. On the day Reel got bought, you will recall, he refused to comment to the "press." And then, yesterday I asked him a few questions about the diet, and it took him a full day to get back to me -- as if someone had to first "look things over." And his answers, they show the seasoned touch of a professional flack. I asked him if he would be doing the cleanse in five years and he totally brushed the question aside: "No idea. Can't foresee that far."
He was similarly taciturn with some of my other questions:
Q: Is there a value to toxins?
Mike: I have no idea.
Q: Do you ever think of your body's final state as that of perfect cleansing?
Mike: No.
Q: If we are what we eat, does that mean you become nothing during the fast?
Mike: Maybe.
Q: Is that a good thing?
Mike: Not sure.
Q: Is that Bhuddist self-abnegation or Franciscan flagellation?
Mike: Huh?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but the only rational conclusion to be made here is that Mike has hired a professional handler. It seems likely that he is, indeed, a millionaire.
Last night Mike, Nick and I went to see "Saving Private Ryan." For Mike, it was perhaps a nostalgic reminder of how things once were -- of a simpler time; before he was propelled into the ionosphere reserved for the super-rich. The film was sold out when we got there, so we ended up settling for "There's Something About Mary". Twenty minutes into the film, Mike ate about five nectarines. He's on a very strict eating regimen and will often miss a feeding if he begins the regimen too late in the day. I asked him how the Cleanse works:
For those of you who still have no idea what Mike is doing, here's his explanation. Note that the only solids (other than clay) he may consume are fruits and raw or "lightly steamed" vegetables:
7:00 drink a shake (containing 4 oz. fruit juice, 6-8 oz. water, 1
tablespoon hydrated bentonite (clay) and 2 teaspoons psyllium husks)
8:30 take chomper (powerful herbal laxative) and herbal nutrition (herbal
pills)
10:00 drink another shake
11:30 take chomper and herbal nutrition
1:00 eat
2:30 take chomper and herbal nutrition
4:00 drink another shake
5:30 take chomper and herbal nutrition
7:00 eat
8:30 take chomper and herbal nutrition
10:00 take floragrow (one pill)
During the next phase, the Power Phase, I replace dinner with another
shake. During the final, Master Phase, I replace lunch with a shake. August 7, 1998. Letter to the omnivore -- I ate red meat for the first time since Mike went on his diet yesterday. Tasted great, but let's just say I'm off it again.
This morning my father sent me an email. Some normal email chit-chat, and then at the end, as if my mother was looking over his shoulder, a worried frown on her face, he wrote:
Now this may not look like much to the non-McMillan, but if you know my father, you will recognize the smart-bomb in this. The simple observation, whose very mention bears a desperate sub-text. When my father writes, "It sounds as though you are almost wanting to take it too," he is imploring me to stay away from this stuff. There are simple ways of reading this message: first, the tentative beginning to the statement -- "it sounds as as though you are almost..." Now it is obvious that I have been wrestling with Cleanse-o-philia since the very beginning. My father tries to downplay the power of the Cleanse -- making my involvement sound more tentative than it really is. And further, he tactfully refrains from expressing his true fears. Classic cult-rescue psychology: You don't want to alienate your child by letting him know how freaked out you are. He might lose me.
The second tactic, is to downplay the beneficial effects of the diet. Though it has turned Mike into a positive-thinking millionaire, he writes: "Thusfar, little seems to have happened to his body as a consequence of it." Sure this may be true in a certain way, but this is the SOUL we're talking about, man. The soul and cash, that is.
Thirdly, he tries to equate it with a kind of drug, suggesting I'm "wanting to take it too." Heroin is something you take. The Cleanse is something you undergo.
Another possible sign is that he seems to have recruited my sister to write anti-cleanse propaganda. She recently sent me an email, stating:
Do these people know something I don't? Why are they so damned worried? Is there some sort of terrible danger here?
Mike says he has been reluctant to tell his own parents about the Cleanse. He is fearful they will think him freaky if they find out about it. This from a man who actually ran away and joined the circus. Still, I think I understand him. If I were a mathematician, I would probably express it thusly:
August 11, 1998. Panic -- Mike has finally spoken with Crazy Katie and Ms. Katie is not so crazy after all. She is pregnant (no connection with the Cleanse), loquacious, and, well, frightening. Apparently Mike has been sailing through the proverbial calm before the storm. The big push comes during the enema filled week o' fasting. Apparently he will stink. Apparently he will break out in puss-spewing acne. Apparently he will become paranoid. Apparently he will begin to loathe human contact. Apparently it would be best for him to become a hermit during this time. Apparently Lisa's good friend Karine
is going to meet Mike on the second to last day of this madness and will see him at his worst, if at all. Apparently every drug he has ever taken will come creeping out of every nook and cranny of his body to haunt him again.. We're talking everything here: Novocaine from that trip to the dentist ten years ago, everything!
And this is not the worst of it.
The worst part is that if he makes a slip-up, if Mike does not follow the prescriptions of "Arise and Shine" (the Cleanse product manufacturer --ed.)to the letter, he risks ruining his digestive tract for life. Katie knows someone who did this. Now he explodes when he eats bread.
Returning to real food is also a matter that must be handled with extreme caution. Spices are lethal. Colorful food is dangerous. Liquor is out. Of course this throws a bit of a spanner into Mike's plans to spend a week on a tequila-drenched beach in Mazatlan, Mexico right after finishing the Cleanse.
Mike has accelerated the entire process -- he is down to one meal a day now, and hopes to be done with the cleanse earlier than planned. The earlier he re-integrates into the North American food chain, the earlier he'll be able to eat brain burritos south of the border.
Anna thinks that the honeymoon is finished. Shaking her head, she says, "All the euphoria is over. Mike is ready to be done with this diet. And spicy food... forget about it. He may never be able to eat it again. He may never be able to eat again."
Nick, rubbing his hands together, is more pessimistic. He says Mike is thinking of giving it all up. "Mike is on day two of the one meal a day and he feels like shit. Kate scared the hell out of him," says Nick. "She said he was in the easy part, said he said he felt good because of all that carrot juice he was drinking. Stop! says Katie. You are not supposed to drink carrot juice, it slows down the cleansing process."
Nick adds, that Mike has "also started the enema treatments which are sure to boost his
spirits. Can't eat, feel like shit, and now I have to stick a hose up my ass!"
August 14, 1998. Fasting on my mind -- Yesterday at noon, Mike passed (no pun intended) a critical milestone in the Cleanse. He ate his last meal: lettuce with some lemon juice on top. He says it was all he could do to finish it, but he ate everything because it's going to be his last meal for quite some time. Now he's on the fast.
This is the phase when, starved for anything better to do, your body starts sucking all the toxins it has stored up in your body for years and years. This is the phase where you are supposed to totally freak out and possibly damage your body for good.
Anna, Nick, Mike and I saw Spielberg's Saving Ryan's Privates last night -- meeting at the AMC on Van Ness when Mike was about 8 hours into the fast. Nick had sent him ahead to save seats for the four of us. We had to get special seats -- four together, near the end of a row so Michael would have easy and immediate access to the rest room.
When Anna and I showed up, we were rushed upstairs to take the seats, only Mike hadn't saved them. He came sauntering out of the toilet with a contented half-smile on his face, happy with the world.
Nick thrashed him, "Mike! The seats. Why didn't you save them?"
"Huh?"
Anna sat next to Mike when we got in and after speaking with him for a while, leaned over and told Nick and I, "You know I've seen Mike in complete states of inebriation for many years, but this is the first time that I've had a sense of what he might be like with brain damage."
You read stories in Primo Levi books about how people begin to consume their own organs after periods of intense hunger. Now this is only a theory, but I suspect that Mike is beginning to eat his brain.
"How is Lisa taking this drop in your I.Q.?" I ask him.
"She doesn't really know about it," he claims. "I just act kind of surly when I get home and that takes care of it."
Mike's plans for the weekend: Do nothing, don't eat, enema, enema, enema.
This is the big one, boys. Here is the big push for the Ant Hill.
August 16, 1998. The big rip-off -- Mike has been fasting for three days now and he has nothing to show for it. After a trial separation, his brains have returned. He feels healthy and content. His fecal matter is neither slimy nor brittle. The toxins are nowhere to be seen. Lisa reported a strange stink last night -- either from his pores or his breath -- but it's gone this morning. Mike, it seems, is just your average everyday thinning man.
"I'm totally disappointed," he says. "None of that stuff has come out, and that makes me wonder, what have I done wrong?"
Indeed, with the feverish speculation that has accompanied the Cleanse, it is safe to say that news of Mike's good health is being received with universal dismay. But who's to blame? The Cleanse people for selling mediocrity? Ourselves for expecting a gastro-intestinal supernova? Or Mike, for being merely a man?
During the 3 week pre-cleanse, of which I am now starting the final week,
it goes like this:
Also read your Web page on Mike's diet. It sounds as though you are
almost wanting to take it too. Will look forward to more info on its
effect on Mike. Thusfar, little seems to have happened to his body as a
consequence of it, other than the craps.
How about
another picture of Mike's gut? I'm really curious, I can't believe he's
been living on clay and vegetables for two weeks. Has his intestinal
lining started coming out? That happened to Indy [Trish's dog] when she was sick, her
poo looked all slimy, like slugs. Bleagh.
|
this crazy shit isn't happening because I want to be normal again. --Michel Gregory, Day 26 of the Cleanse |
I suggest that Mike might want to seek a refund from the Arise and Shine people, but he says that his disappointment in not becoming a world health spectacle should not be confused with regret at having embarked on the Cleanse. "All in all this has been a totally positive experience to me. I don't feel that I'm having the experience the book describes, but that may be because I'm not a new age type.. or maybe I'm just so fucking toxic that just one go-round may not be enough."
This is a curious line of thought. That Mike, through his previous "sins" as a pill-popping meat-eater, might somehow not be worthy of the full majestic effects of detoxification. It reminds me of doomsday cultists who are told that the world has not ended on the anointed day because their faith was not strong. I suggest to Mike that perhaps his previous animal fat-based diet has served to steady his nerves and prevent the more extreme effects -- the hallucinations and depression and foul odors -- that seem to come so easy to the "new age types." Mike concedes that this could be true.
So Mike will continue the juice fast -- juice drinks, five clay shakes a day, 35 chomper pills -- until Tuesday, at which point he may begin to gradually re-merge with the food chain.
I ask him what will be his first sin following the cleanse? "Alcohol," he replies without hesitation. "I'm looking forward to getting drunk as shit."
