jackassworld

So if you’re one of the people who live in the web cam you may have noticed a glaring absence in the office the past week. That’s right, Josh has not been coming into work. Is he holed up in a shack in Montana sending out cryptic missives? No, not quite. He’s just at home with the gout. I honestly have no idea what gout is (at first I thought that meant he was growing a goiter), but it sounds like something that happened to European people in the Middle Ages. I mean, it’s 2009, right? Surely we’ve got bigger diseased fish to fry. Cancer, for one. That shit will kill you. But gout? What the fuck is up with that, Josh? For the sake of enlightenment, let’s consult Wikipedia to see what if any misinformation can be found there—don’t worry, I’ll paraphrase whatever I find.

Okay, for starters, it appears to be some random form of arthritis that affects middle-aged men. So I guess I wasn’t too far off the Middle Age mark, right? Beyond that, though, it’s clarified as a disease “marked by elevated levels of uric acid in the bloodstream” and involves chronic arthritis, tophi, and the crystallization of urates. So, near as I can make out, something is screwed up with Josh’s pee.

Best of all, gout is historically referred to as the “Disease of Kings” or “Rich Man’s Disease,” which now really makes me wonder about that time we were all in New York City for the jackassworld 24-hour takeover last year and Josh arranged for a hairdresser to come to his hotel room and trim his hair. Hmmm … we’d laughed at the time, but perhaps there’s more to Josh than meets the eye? Apparently, you can get the gout from a diet rich in proteins, fat, and alcohol—all of which sum Josh up to a T—but upon further reading there also exists “Poor Man’s Gout,” a lower-rent condition predominantly marked by a diet of alcohol and food of insufficient quantity and quality.

So is Josh getting better? Should we be concerned? How can he better himself in the future? The answers to these questions are: yes, no, and how the fuck should I know? I’m not a damn doctor. Gross foot though, Josh, really. How long have you been rolling around Bedrock with those Flintstones?

(photo by Josh Lingenfelter; Los Angeles, CA; 2009)