He Ain't Heavy, He's My Semi-Ambulatory STAPH Infected Brother

Good Heavens! These new diseases and ailments are popping up everywhere—Kids dropping dead from MRSA and Staph infections, Bird Flu, West Nile Virus, SARS, Monkey Pox, Super AIDS!

Whoa, whoa, negative Nelly! Are you going to let this new race of super germs get you down or are you going to take that funky, unsightly pustule on your lemon and make penicillin-laden lemonade?

That’s what we thought. But maybe you’re having a little trouble getting that relentless optimism kick-started. Remember, only by the god-like act of creating can we stave off destruction and death, if only temporarily. That’s why we’re throwing together a few suggestions to put some Zip-A-Dee-Do-Da back in your ongoing chess match with an agonizing death from the new plague du jour. Feel free to use any of these art-starters to beat back the feeling of the grave’s icy tendrils slowly wrapping around your legs… squeezing… ever colder… inexorably…

Sorry! Try these!

Paint a series of Naugty Nurse paintings a la Richard Prince, but with scarier warnings.

Write a new cookbook and pitch it with Rachel Ray: 30 Simple Meals with Necrotizing Flesh

How about a dating guide? Lesions In Love: Finding Romance in the Presence of Unsightly Skin Eruptions

A magical realist novel? Love in the time of Drug Resistant, Air-borne Chlamydia.

Write new, maudlin Country songs, modled on old, maudlin country songs like "He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Staph Infected Brother," or "I"m So Lonesome, I Could Contract a Hideous Disease Just To Join a Support Group."

Make some giant Richard Serra-esque sculptures with an explicit agitprop angle.

Write a chirpy broadway hit play in which a plucky hero overcomes the odds of his illnesses through ripped off songs--Ass Cancer, The Musical!

(To the tune of "Bohemian Rhapsody")
Mother,

ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh,
There’s cancer in my ass,
I wish my ass was not so full of cancer!

(To "Blowin in the Wind")
A tumor, my friend Is growing in your ass
A tumor is growing in your ass

(To the tune of "Yesterday")
Rectal probe,
That thing’s reaching up

To my ear lobes
And the Doctor is

A bit gung-ho
Oh, I can’t stand

This rectal probe