I’m not going to go into any alcohol/marijuana debate here either. It’s all been said before by people much more astute than I. Just listen to the late comedian Bill Hicks.
Alcohol and many prescription drugs can harm your liver. Most of us have heard of the ever popular “sclerosis of the liver” condition that comes from plain old drinking to damn much. You have to drink a shitload of booze to get to that point and there’s no shortage of people that have reached that plateau.
This leads to the topic of discussion here, liver transplants. The inequality of access to a donated liver is blatant. Everyone has seen the rich and/or famous cop a liver seemingly with ease. Well, they can make donations to hospitals, they have access to private jets, they have enough fame or dough to hire legal experts that are knowledgeable and experienced.
If you can manage to fly around the country and be put on lists at multiple transplant facilities and can also fly anywhere in the country at the drop of a hat you have no reason to bitch about the system. You can’t bitch because it was tailor made for you, you rich fuck. Add to that just about any fucking amount of fame and these assholes will be tripping over their dicks to further pamper you.
Years and years of being a drunken asshole in front of the whole country and you get preferential treatment. Ain’t that America. The average cost of a liver transplant is roughly a half a million dollars. If you’re wealthy you don’t need to dick around with these fucking insurance companies. The companies that don’t care if we die, as long as they stay profitable. Heartless scum.
Insurance companies often restrict the number of transplant facilities you can go to, sometimes you can only go to a single one, and these are usually owned by the insurance company. In some parts of the country you may have to wait as much as four times longer than others. Finding out where these places are, taking time off to go, means having the financial resources to get there.
The situation that really made me nuts is when John Philips received a new liver. He was the leader of the mellow rock group from the sixties “The Mamas and Papas”. John was often referred to as Papa John. The group’s most noted member was Mama Cass (Cass Elliott) a big girl with an incredible voice.
John Philips wrote a handful of hits and the group rose to be one of the most famous acts in the world. He was probably called “Papa” before the group was named as such. He looked to be old enough to be the father of every other band member.
His girlfriend/wife, at that time was Michele Philips. She was a beautiful blonde girl that looked to be about fourteen years old when she joined the band. So Johnny-boy liked them young. This aspect gets real fucked up, later.
John also liked to drink and do all kinds of drugs and he just wasn’t very good at stopping. He was a mess. A sloppy drunk that was also a closet junkie. He didn’t do jack shit in the music business after 1969. He instead wallowed in self pity because no one wanted to hear his fucking music anymore.
To hear him tell the tale you would think it was the music that changed. Changed right out from under him. The country went from the soft “California Dreamin’” to Jimi Hendrix pulverizing the masses with his guitar. That was the reason his genius was no longer appreciated, according to Papa John himself.
This is a big old steaming pile of true bullshit. There were plenty of “soft rock” bands that were doing very well at the time. His music just started to suck. He no longer had his band because they imploded and split due to his bullshit. His songs were bland and they needed the original line-up to make them work, to make music.
After there was no one left to put up with his bullshit he started selling drugs. Old Johnny had a crooked pharmacist in his back pocket. A dickweed that was so impressed by being in the presence of this royal asshole he went into the percocet selling business. And what a business it was! It was said his operation went unnoticed for years, kept him high as a kite, and made him quite a bit of money. My guess is the money’s long gone, but that’s strictly opinion…
The only “hit” Philips was involved in after his heyday was the writing of “Kokomo” that was recorded by the Beach Boys, or what was left of the Beach Boys. He also had three co-writers.
If you have ever heard “Kokomo” you realize right away this is no Lennon-McCartney level hit. It has a catchy hook, but all in all it’s a pretty dumb fucking song. The fact that it took four people, four song-writers to squeeze out this piece of dreck is just fucking embarrassing.
His years of drinking and drug addiction eventually led to the need for a liver transplant. In 1992 after a very controversially short waiting period Papa John Philips was awarded a new liver. This was after he quit drinking of course.
He had to stop or he would have died, no question about that. So the ever noble smegma stain that is Papa John quit drinking a whole six fucking months before his transplant. Anybody else that was not in his social status would have been told to fuck right off if they pulled that shit.
A transplant candidate must be approved by the transplant center’s own committee before the United Network for Organ Sharing (the list) even gets involved. And these bloodsuckers not only require your health records but also require complete financial disclosure. Now that’s America!
Papa John Philips was photographed, not just seen mind you, photographed, getting shitfaced drunk less than three months after his liver transplant. He later appear on the Howard Stern show and Howard, being the master interviewer that he is, got him to admit to it. “I was just trying to ‘break in’ the new liver” he said with a sardonic laugh.
John Philips died of a heart attack in March of 2001.
Oh but the story’s not over here folks, not by a long shot.
John’s daughter McKenzie had a book published in 2009 “High on Arrival” that accused her father, Papa John of having incestuous sexual intercourse with her. For ten years. She also went on to tell tales of the horrific father/daughter drug abuse that led up to the incest. Their first tryst supposedly took place when McKenzie was just eighteen years old (he did like them young) plus it was the night before she got married! What a guy!
Maybe we can learn a lesson from Papa John. He did whatever he wanted to do and didn’t care who he fucked (literally) in the process. And he got away with it.
He achieved all this by writing a few good songs. Makes me think.
Maybe I’ll start writing some day…
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