Sunday, September 14, 2008

poetry

Limericks

I once knew this 'punk came from Texas
His treatments were so damn expensive
He took workers comp, insurance, no fault
He's renting a room from a dentist
----------------------------------------------------
I got into the needling profession
To heal the sick from depression
But due to my bill
they seem to stay ill
they come but once in a recession

Haiku

The telephone rings
"How much are my treatments?"
If you have to ask...
-----------------------------------------
Body, mind, spirit
My needles can touch your soul
Eighty dollars, please
-----------------------------------------

Monday, September 8, 2008

For SHAME: Acupuncture Offers Small Men Hope

Tobias Masters has opened yet another clinic in the Seattle area, this time attempting to fill a much needed void in the areas healthcare establishment. The Seattle Harbor Acupuncture Male Enhancement Center, or the SHAME Center for short, is providing a natural alternative for penis enlargement for men who feel like they got the short end of the stick. “For me, I think that the acupuncture community is very biased toward women, and that is something that I wanted to change.” said Masters from his office at SHAME. “There is obviously a great market for beauty and enhancement with acupuncture, what with weight loss, breast augmentation and facial rejuvenation being key examples. I’ve been doing these treatments and making a lot of money, but I started to feel empty inside, like my practice was missing something. Then it hit me, that as a male acupuncturist, I was betraying the self respect of my fellow men and participating in the exclusion of a whole market segment: men who feel insecure. As a profession we do a really good job preying on the vanity and insecurities of women, but what about men? That is how I came up with the idea of SHAME. And nothing makes a man feel more insecure than what he has in his pants.”

The program for enlargement at SHAME is based on results. Clients pay by the inch, so to speak. SHAME charges three thousand dollars for an inch of growth in length and the treatments are pre-purchased in what is referred to as “package treatment 1”. There is no refund available if results are not satisfactory and an increase in girth is not guaranteed. After an inch in length is reached, a client must pay another $3000 to continue onto “package treatment 2” and so on. Some men respond more quickly than others, but results are typically seen after ten weekly treatments. The response has been overwhelming, and SHAME now has 35 acupuncturists on staff (pun intended). “SHAME has more acupuncturists paying their bills than you can imagine. We are now the largest single employer of acupuncturists in the nation and are currently seeing over 650 clients a week who want to improve their self-image. Our results speak for themselves. Men are flying into SHAME from all over the world. For the skeptics, we are more than happy to furnish before and after pictures. One look through what we call “The Big Book” and we’ve got a new client.” Masters said.

Masters was quick to point out that a needle never touches the penis. The technique at SHAME consists of both local and distal treatment, with needling done only on distal points. Local treatment utilizes Japanese techniques developed after World War II that are just as effective as needles, without the prick. “The distal points are crucial to success, but the real deal is in the local treatment. First we tape diode rings to the penis and then attach two of three ion triple cords to the diodes. After this we wrap the penis in aluminum foil, attach the third cord to a patchi patchi sparker and spark over the package with the patchi unit. This stimulates local qi and blood flow and is the key to our success.” Masters also warned those interested in acupuncture for penis enlargement to be very wary of imitators who have tried to copy his success and was stern in his recommendation against seeking out other, cheaper practitioners. “I have heard of a couple of competitors who have had, er, let us say unfortunate results trying to imitate my technique. Patchi is not a toy and people can get hurt. I’ll leave it at that. Some of these clients come to me afterwards and it’s really, really hard on them with the lack of growth, the humiliation. They don’t know if they can trust another acupuncturist with their money or their penis. But I just look them straight in the eye and say, ’Don’t worry, sir. Stick with me and it will be a long, long rod ahead of you!’ That usually helps them unzip themselves a little and gets the trust process started.”


Masters says that it is his goal to erect a SHAME Center in every major urban market in the country, increasing the self-esteem of men everywhere. “We have a brother clinic which we sprang up in Manhattan and have plans to pop up 8 or 9 in California. SHAME is the future of acupuncture for men’s health in this country. At $3000 an inch we’re very affordable. And between you and me, most clients aren’t happy with just one or two more inches, so the bottom line has been growing and growing and growing. Today, breast implants are dinner table conversation. Why should this be any different?” ?” Plans do exist to open several clinics that focus on the female market and will provide facelifts, weight loss and breast augmentation in a spa-like environment. The pilot clinic is called the Female Enhancement Acupuncture Residence Clinic, or the FEAR clinic and will open in the summer of 2009. Using SHAME and FEAR, Masters looks to increase acupunctures status in the field of health and wellness.

Marketing efforts have been very successful and the SHAME tagline is quickly becoming part of the collective conscious. As Nike had “Just Do It” and McDonalds has “I’m Lovin’ It”, Masters has “Give in to SHAME: Get Acupuncture”. The slogan was switched from “One Inch At A Time” after a dispute with Alcoholics Anonymous. Soon, it may be only a matter of time before the public associates SHAME with the practice of acupuncture.

There only seems to be growth on the horizon at SHAME. Between both the sales of a penis growth inducing herbal supplement called Pillar Pills, or PP for short, and a line of tight, form fitting underwear and jeans under the brand name Filiform, SHAME is constantly probing into new and unexplored holes in the male enhancement market. Masters may just do what some in the acupuncture beauty industry always thought was impossible: exploit men every bit as much as women. And as the saying goes, “you give an inch….”

Monday, September 1, 2008

Facial Rejuvenation Without Borders Provides Relief At Guantanamo Bay

Facial Rejuvenation Without Borders (FRWB) recently completed a two-week relief campaign for enemy combatants detained at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Group founder and spokesperson, Emily Shelton, described the visit as a “great success” and hopes to return there in the near future. Speaking from her summer home in Berkeley, California, she said, “Since these guys aren’t going anywhere soon, it would be good for us to go back once a year indefinitely.”

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is home to what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refers to as “terrorists” and “the worst of the worst”. In addition to that billing, Shelton adds that they also have the worst of the worst wrinkles she has ever seen. “Growing up and training in the desert really causes a lot of squinting and leads to nasty crows feet. It’s a real challenge.” She also spoke about treating the effects of emotional trauma that the inmates have incurred. “In my whole career, I have never seen such deep frown lines. It’s very intimidating to treat problem cases like these, but you just have to go back to your training and stay focused.”

The idea for going to Guantanamo came after Shelton saw news footage of prisoners in the yard. “Their faces were so gruff and haggard looking. Even through a thick beard you can tell when someone needs a lift and peel. Since I am also trained in herbal facial peels, I really wondered if there was a chance I could get over there and do some work.” Shelton commented. She contacted the founder of Zen-cupuncture, Shanti Dove-Anderson, who had a friend at the State Department and the ball was rolling. “The downside was that we had to form a non-profit to go in. That really killed our chances of a big money score. However we were banking on the publicity we would get and we weren’t disappointed! Now with the money were making from the CEU circuit, lectures, talk shows and news articles; the publicity has done more for our bottom line than we could have possibly imagined.” Shelton said.

Shelton and Dove-Anderson have joined forces behind Zen-cupuncture to train other acupuncturists in their methods and credit the publicity from their trip to Guantanamo as the key ingredient to their success. They have learned the lessons of Guantanamo and have plans to visit other key bases in the War On Terror, including secret detention centers in Eastern Europe, Diego Garcia Naval Base and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. “A captive audience is key to patient compliance and good results. When we show our before and after pictures to both acupuncturists who want to learn our methods and clients who want to be more beautiful, they practically fall down handing over their cash!”

The similarities between the War On Terror and her self-dubbed “War On Wrinkles” weren’t lost to Shelton. “Terrorists hate our freedoms while wrinkles hate our beauty. Both terrorists and wrinkles are cruel and inhuman and must be stopped. They say at Guantanamo that they are fighting terrorism abroad so that we don’t have to fight it at home. Well, we’re learning how to treat wrinkles on terrorists abroad so that we can finally defeat them at home. What we do is allow the terrorists to give something back, which without us they couldn’t otherwise do. You could say that we pull the yin out of the yang of this situation.”

Money, publicity and self interest aside, Facial Rejuvenation Without Borders sees another reason to relieve the age and stress lines of military prisoners around the world. “It’s just nice to make a difference. These guys may never see the light of day again. But if they do, they’ll be ready for the cameras! They’ll be beautiful!”

Isn’t that what really matters?