Possible Side Effects: Drug Marketing and the American Consumer

My entry today starts with an imaginary commercial. The following voiceover is read over warm and fuzzy slow motion footage of a woman taking pottery classes and playing with Golden Retriever puppies with what we assume to be are her grandkids...

“Reading this blog is not for everyone. Talk to your doctor about possible side effects. These may include nausea, dizziness upon standing, shortness of breath, loose stools, demonic possession, hair loss, voting, using a food processor, and talking to houseplants.

“Talk to your doctor today about this blog entry. This blog. Live a better life.”

Since when has real life had disclaimers? And how long will it be before my daughter turns away from the TV to ask me what “erectile disfunction” is?

There have been many sweeping changes to our world since I was in high school more than a decade ago. The dominance of TV pharmaceutical ads since they became legal in 1997 is not one of the positive ones. I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t bombarded with Baby Boomers looking earnestly at me (through the TV screen, of course) and telling me how hard it is to mention to their doctor that their pee-pee doesn’t work anymore. Or that they are ashamed by their ugly foot fungus. Or that “restless leg syndrome” has made their lives miserable.

Can’t we just go back to seeing the occasional Tylenol ad?

No. Drugmakers spend nearly $20 billion dollars a year to advertise their wares to the public. Nearly $4 billion of this goes towards patient-targeted ads. To make a comparison, James Cameron’s “Avatar” cost $500 million to make. So for the same price of these ads, the drug industry could remake “Avatar” eight times. Each year.

Melody Peterson, a former New York Times reporter, wrote a book, called “Our Daily Meds,” about how these drugs are marketed. Americans, she writes, “increased their spending on prescription drugs by 17 times between 1980-2003.” She also catalogues how these ads have become commonplace in everyday life, with Viagra logos on everything from stock cars to the pens in your doctor’s office. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“A very powerful technique that the drug companies spend millions and millions of dollars on is hiring physicians to give lectures to other physicians on their drugs. It looks like the physician is up there giving his independent position on this drug, but often he’s been trained by an advertising agency. His slide presentation has been created by an ad agency. It looks like independent science, but it’s not.

“They want to get as many articles published in our medical journals as they can that show their products in favorable lights and will get physicians to prescribe them, so they often hire a Madison Avenue ad agency to write up an article for them or a study. The name of the ad agency rarely appears in the published version; instead, they hire doctors to put their names on as author ... It’s gone so far that some independent scientists are starting to view our medical literature as propaganda.”

Thankfully, at least small changes are being attempted. The FDA announced two days ago that its new “Bad Ad Program” is urging doctors to report ads and sales that violate FDA rules. Also, representatives from Pennsylvania (Democrat Robert Brady) and Virginia (Democrat James Moran) introduced a bill in the House last year called the “Families for ED Advertising Decency Act” that calls for the prohibition (“as indecent”) of any ad for a medication for erectile dysfunction.

It calls for non-broadcast of these ads between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and at last check, the bill had been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

As much as I’d like to see this happen, I doubt it will. When even the FDA argues that ‘“direct to consumer” ads like these help educate and engage prospective patients about their healthcare options,” no one is going to put the brakes on the pharma gravy train any time soon.

Not when you are spending enough money to make “Avatar” eight times in a single year. Besides, according to in-depth analysis from the website visiongain.com (“an independent business information provider”), 2003 revenues for erectile dysfunction drugs alone was $2.12 billion – and were set to more than triple by 2009.

When that one particular (albeit high-visibility) category is doing that well, it makes me wonder how much money is changing hands, and what possible side effects this increasing dependence on pills for everything (“overactive bladder”) will have on the American public. Definitely nausea, anger, disgust…

In it for the glue fumes?

As I write these words, I am this close (pinches thumb and forefinger together) to finishing the 1/72 scale B-24H Liberator that has turned this week's free time into an exercise in Murphy's Law.

The Liberator, a World War II heavy bomber, was awkward in real-life, and its scale counterpart is no less homely. This particular kit was made by Mini-Craft, a Japanese brand known for making decent replicas of large aircraft. Unfortunately for me, the kit, as it is Japanese, was not designed for my clumsy American fingers.

I decided early on to have the Lib sit on its own landing gear, which I usually don't do. Unfortunately, the model was notoriously tail-heavy, meaning that I had to add weight to the nose to make it sit on all three landing gears. One "AAA" battery and .45 caliber bullet later, the thing was still sitting on its tail, despite the improvised weights glued into the bomb bay. In a moment of genius, I came up with the idea of adding lead fishing weights behind each of the four engines.

Nothing changed.

I got so frustrated that I ripped out the entire bomb bay and cracked the fuselage in half trying to extract the weights. Most of my model airplanes come close to becoming airborne while I am working on them, but this Liberator had me on the verge of throwing my paints, glues and supplies along with it. Everything that could go wrong WAS going wrong.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I boxed the broken kit and let it sit for a night. When I came back in the morning, the damage was pretty severe. I'd torn out a very narrow plastic grid that held the bomb bay doors in place, wrenching it into several parts while doing so. It took a lot of Crazy Glue and four-letter words, but eventually, I got it back together, and closed it up with a generous helping of putty.

As of this afternoon, the Liberator is complete, awaiting only the decals that will finish its construction

My wife asks me why I make models when it's obvious that they aren't the least bit relaxing. I think that's a bit of a generalization. I relaxed two kits ago while building a Japanese dive-bomber because it went together so smoothly. But in general, she's right. I've been making these damned things for 23 years now, and I have pretty high expectations of what I'm capable of. The day of slapping something together that's less than museum quality are long gone.

If I thought really hard about it, and were given enough time, I could probably list every single of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of models I've ever built. I'm like "Rain Man" when it comes to this stuff. My brother showed me a random model part he found while cleaning the house, and I was able to name the exact kit (A Revell 1/28 SPAD biplane) what part it was (the left engine exhaust) and when I'd built it (summer 1994). It's one of the few things in life I can claim to know more about than anyone else I've met. It's a bottomless hobby, because there is always something out there I didn't know about, some rare version of some plane no one has ever heard of, and I enjoy the relative obscurity.

It will be interesting to see what happens to models as we go into an increasingly computer-dominated future, when people can play simulators that ape a P-51 Mustang, rather than take an afternoon to build one and use their imagination. As for me, I am perfectly happy sans microchips. Give me an old kit and a tube of glue and I'm a pretty happy camper.

Despite the headaches and complications, it's rewarding to be where I am now with the Liberator – 90 percent done, and on the verge of completing yet another kit that I thought for sure would destroy my interest in the hobby forever.

"Turning Blue" with Jay Reatard: Joe reviews "Singles 2006-2007"

The first time I heard of Jay Reatard was when I saw an upcoming concert listed in City Pages, and thought to myself, "Man, that's a horrible last name."
The next time I heard about him, he was dead.
Reatard's death earlier this year (he died in his sleep in January as a result of, a Memphis media outlet reported, "cocaine toxicity, and alcohol was a contributing factor in his death") garnered widespread media coverage, which is ironic, given that he already had an amazing thing going for him. During his short 29 years on this planet, he performed with several different bands in addition to performing as a solo artist. He recorded an amazing 22 albums and was featured on nearly 100 other releases. It seems he packed a lot of living into a few years.
So, it was a pretty easy call to make this week to grab Reatard's "Singles 2006-2007" when I saw it sitting on the shelf at the Hennepin County Library. There are 17 tracks on the double-disc set (with disc two featuring a DVD a live performances from around the world), making this two-year glimpse into his career about as lengthy as some other singles collections from bands that were around for far longer.
I didn't know what to expect when I threw the disc in the car stereo on the way home. The first two tracks, "Night of Broken Glass" and "Another Person," seem to channel, respectively, Big Black and Devo, and neither sounds very locked down. By the third track, however, the gorgeous "All Over Again," Reatard's footing steadies, and when "Feeling Blank Again" hits, it's clear that the fuse has hit the payload. The next 13 tracks are an amazing mix of early punk rock energy (think the Damned or the Adicts) with the sort of sloppy tunefulness that reminded me why I like garage rock in the first place.
Reatard's sheer productivity seems to attest to a theory I've long held: rock music is meant to be recorded minimally and released as soon as possible without any tinkering. Each of the songs on "Singles 2006-2007" sounds as if it was recorded on a boom box and released the week later. And that's a great thing, because the energy and enthusiasm completely comes across, with positively crackling results.
The Smiths knew this theory. The Birthday Party knew this one-shot recording theory. When you get bands like Nine Inch Nails spending five years on an album, Axl Rose spending a decade on "Chinese Democracy," or Brian Wilson spending almost 30 on "Smile," what you get sounds exactly like what you'd expect: a labored opus. Jay Reatard's music is refreshingly free from this trend. It's almost tempting to think, while listening to these songs, that you are listening to a tape of a really good high school band your friends are in: the quality is low, but it doesn't matter, because what you are hearing is refreshingly alive and new.
Ironically, one of the songs on "Singles" is called "Turning Blue." It seems to foreshadow Reatard's eventual end.

"You got me sweating/ shaking in my skin/ I know it's nice/ to find beginnings and ends/ As sad as it seems/ you're turning blue in my dreams"

I'm upset that I won't be able to see Reatard live. I can only imagine what that would have been like. But he's left us an impressive amount of material to wade through, and if his other stuff is anything like "Singles 2006-2007," count me in.

Rogers Waters and "The Wall" - Irony Coming to a Concert Hall Near You

"So ya thought ya might like to go to the show?"

-Opening lines of Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

There is something sobering about the various warnings one receives while purchasing anything online with a credit card. In this particular instance, I was about to spend a three-digit sum on two tickets to see Roger Waters, the former singer and bassist of Pink Floyd, perform the album "The Wall" live at the XCel Energy Center. I don't remember the EXACT wording of the process, but it was something along the lines of:

"If you click 'continue,' your credit card will be charged. Do you wish to continue?"

Yes. Yes I do. Consequences be damned.

I hit the button, the screen refreshed, and I was instantly poorer. It's a far cry from the days when rock fans used to have to line up around the block, or even sleep out overnight, to get tickets to a particular show. If it had been me back then, I wouldn't have bothered. I'm famous for buying tickets (MUSE, X, Paul van Dyk, etc.) and finding reasons not to go on the day of the concert ("I'm by myself," "I just broke up with my girlfriend and need quiet time," "Parking is a hassle," "It's only Rammstein," etc.)

I don't see that happening with the Waters concert. Not only have I been obsessed with the album since 2003 (when I saw the movie and BAM! the entire thing made sense to me) but I've gone so far as to write a 10-page communications class paper analyzing the symbolism in both the music and the album art (still wish I had that!). I have a bootleg live video shot at a New York show in 1981 proving just how over the top the stage show for this album was. Even if the video an nth-generation copy and nearly unwatchable, the sheer attempt at spectacle comes through, as full-size model planes crash on stage and an entire wall is built and demolished as part of the finale.

There is a lot of irony in seeing Roger Waters bring "The Wall" back on the road. From what I've read about the band, doing the shows and the album the first time were more nails in the coffin between Waters and fellow Floyd members David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, as Water's control of the band's direction became more unbearable. The album, with its themes of disconnection and alienation from the audience, stemmed from a 1977 incident in which Waters, burned out from the road, beckoned a fan onstage at a Montréal concert and spat in his face.

"It just became more and more oppressive," Waters recalled in a 1994 MOJO interview. "Those places weren't built for music, they were built for sporting events, and it's not unnatural to experience a ritualisation of war, because that's all sport is. What was going through my mind – my whole body – was an enormous sense of frustration, a feeling of 'what are we all doing here, what's the point?' And the answer that kept clanging back monotonously was: cash and ego. That's all its about."

Cash and ego, indeed, and good for him. Now, he's taking the irony back on the road, selling it to schmucks like me who can't resist seeing the ultimate rock and roll spectacle. And I can't wait.

Literary Coroner - Joe reviews punk rock book, porn star autobiography

I go to the library several times a week. Here's some of what I've been reading lately.

During senior year of high school, two books dominated the top of my reading agenda: "Rotten," an autobiography of Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten, and "Last Gang in Town," a 600-page book about the Clash that took me two months to read. There was something about the history of punk rock that really excited me, and it tied in to my natural tendency to remember dates, names and places as I'd done in the history classes I'd earned A-pluses in.
I recently revisited this territory when I read "London's Burning: True Adventures on the Front Lines of Punk, 1976-1977," a 328-page history book of sorts written by Dave Thompson. Thompson claims to have experienced all of this as an impressionable teenager, and his insights lend a unique, ground level perspective to a history that has become dominated by people at the top, like Johnny Rotten and the Clash. For example, it's one thing to hear about members of the Sex Pistols being attacked by people who thought they'd offended the Queen. It's another to read Thompson's breathless accounts of being chased through the streets as a teenager.
One particularly troubling episode comes when Thompson and his girlfriend are being chased by three men, only to see things get worse when some Rastafarian friends step in to help:
"And what was Linton doing? He was waiting for a bus, the huge red bus that was now bearing down toward hum….was almost level….was about to pass. With a grunt as loud as the engine, he hurled his load against it, a six-or-seven-foot gap that the flying body crossed in no time, but which seemed forever as time slowed to a crawl. There was a crash like she'd never heard before, flesh and bone meeting steel and glass, screams from inside the bus."
Perhaps more chillingly, no one believes the two punks that the Rastafarian blacks were helping them, and one policewoman goes so far as to say, "But what do you expect to happen, if you go out dressed like that?"
***
Another book I read recently was Ron Jeremy's a43-page autobiography, "The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz." Jeremy, an adult film star with more than 4,000 pornographic movies to his credit, has become something of a pop-culture phenomenon. Much of this has to do with his unlikely (i.e. homely) looks, and the fact that he has been so utterly prolific in his career.
The picture Jeremy paints of himself in this book is that of an educated man (he says he has a masters degree in special education that he has never used) who wanted to break into serious acting but found porn instead. I finished this book in two days. Not only is it a quick read, but also it's really quite funny, with Jeremy providing amusing anecdotes of the strange world he works in. Take what happened after he sent in some nude pictures to Playgirl using his real name. The phone calls to his parent's house started soon after.
"Ronnie," my grandmother told me one morning over breakfast. "Some sissy called you last night."
I nearly spat out my eggs. "I'm sorry, what?"
"A sissy boy called and asked if you'd be willing to meet him in a gas station downtown. Does that make any sense to you?"
"Uhhh..."
"I assume it was one of your drama friends. He sounded like a sweet fellow, although he was breathing awfully heavy. I'm guessing he has asthma."
It's hard to write about working in the adult film industry without being graphic, but Jeremy writes ABOUT porn, not porn itself. Still, the proliferation of genital-related material can be overwhelming at times, as can the depersonalization of sex that pornographic films by their very nature inspire. I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who is squeamish about such things.
Say what you want about the industry he chose to work in, but Jeremy's had an interesting life, and met plenty of interesting people along the way. All in all, this was an interesting (albeit "vulgar in a way that makes me glad libraries have auto-checkouts") read.

COMING SOON: My review of "A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation."

Writing the old-school way, one clackity-clack at a time

As I write this, my latest acquisition is sitting naked in the garage, doused with carburetor cleaner and deskbound.

Wait, that sounds bad.

It's not what you think. My latest acquisition is a lime green IBM Selectric typewriter that I found in storage at work yesterday. It weighs about 35 pounds, with the inner workings protected by two extremely thick steel shell pieces. It's solidly built, to say the least. I've got it sitting in the garage because it needed a good cleaning, as, according to the sticker on its underside, had last been professionally serviced when Nixon was still in office.

This isn't the first time I've brought home such a treasure. My habit of collecting typewriters has raised eyebrows. Walking out of work with my prize yesterday, I caught the curious eyes of one of my co-workers looking at me, and I cheerfully told her that the company had FINALLY bought the new laptop for me that I'd been begging for. She spat out a small laugh, and I was pretty sure I could see her hand reaching for the mace. I thought I was funny, anyway. In our old Eden Prairie office, I would bring a small one outside to write letters with, and I could see people from an adjacent office taking turns to look out the window at the anachronistic masochist and his infernal machine.

"What a weirdo!" I could picture them guffawing. "Doesn't he know that people haven't used those in like, 10 years?"

Yes, actually. Many people who have discovered my hobby have asked a very relevant question: "WHY? Why do you collect machines so completely obsolete that even Goodwill refuses to take them? Why do you want something that is so eclipsed by technological descendents that is it beyond even a joke, like the Eight-Track tape?"

Well, that's the point, actually.

Typewriters have many virtues. They don't get viruses. Some of them don't even use electricity. Yes, you can't go back and fix mistakes or rely on spell check, but those are probably good habits to develop anyway. There's a certain appeal in the rhythmic, syncopated sound of metal keys hitting one after another, as the genius flows out onto whatever paper is in the chute. It is instant, tangible creation, free from all of the unreality of the plastic keyboards and Internet fancy that has come to dominate our lives. Typewriters are like fountain pens or thank-you notes (two other concepts I enjoy on a regular basis). They don't allow you to "multi-task" (a term which represents a sick age of distraction from what one is doing in the name of alleged "progress"). No, if you are using a typewriter, that's all you are doing, because if you take attention elsewhere and make a mistake, you are going to be there for a long time.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who is interested in typewriters. There is a place in Richfield called Vale Typewriters that services all makes and models. I called the guy earlier today, and he told me that a complete chemical cleaning for my Selectric would be about $85. Ouch. That's $85 I don't have. So, I went out to the garage and found the carb cleaner.

I realize that computers and Internet give me the ability to reach a worldwide audience. But typewriters don't, and that's one of the reasons I like them. They sequester my thoughts from the larger world, creating a more intimate and tangible final product than the glorified set of ones and zeroes that this missive will no doubt be coded into for publication.

Of Missed Connections with the Famous and the Ordinary

People are in our lives for only so long before we pass like ships in the night.

My neighbor and I were chatting this past weekend, as male homeowners often do, about what lawn projects were currently making our lives interesting. I was trying to tackle the shady dirt patches allergic to grass, and my neighbor was digging a pit for his wife’s rain garden project. We talked about a particular old house on the block, and I mentioned that the guy who grew up there in the 1920s still was still living not far away. My neighbor blinked.

“Lived,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Did Wally die?”

“Yeah, he passed away last fall,” my neighbor replied.

Oh.

I’d met Wally at a National Night Out party in 2008. He was probably into his late eighties by then, and lived four blocks away from us. He told me about flying cargo planes over “The Hump” (a nickname for the Himalayas) during World War II in the China-Burma-India theatre of U.S. operations. Between 1942-45, nearly 1,000 men and 600 planes were lost doing this. Wally, who had played in big bands before the war, ended up going to school for radios, and flew up on Curtiss C-46 Commandos going over the Hump.

I walked away that night glad I’d gone, glad I’d met Wally and hoping to visit my new friend and talk more about history. I would drive by his pink house with the chipping paint, and wonder how he was doing. There was always a faded American flag flying by the door.

I meant to go over there. I really did. But I kept putting it off, and now, I won’t get the chance.

This has been happening a lot lately. For years, my mom told me to contact Brian Anderson, a man she’d worked with years ago when he was the editor of Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine. She remembered how kind he’d been to her, and said that I could probably benefit from talking to him. I would nod, and put it off. Eventually, that stopped the day I read that Anderson had gone into hospice care after a battle with leukemia. He a short while later at age 65, and everything I read about him showed me that I had truly missed out on meeting a great man.

We all have brushes with people or things greater than ourselves. I still kick myself for not seeing the opening act of a concert I covered for a college paper in 2004 at the Seventh Street Entry. They were a little band no one had ever heard of called the Killers.

“Come on,” I remember saying to my friend who was with me. “Opening bands always suck anyways. Let’s go get some drinks.”

Six months later, the Killers would be one of the biggest bands on the planet, and I was left only with a so-so story about what might have been.

My mom recently told me a story that has really made me think about pursuing these connections while the opportunity exists. When my parents lived in Baltimore in the 1970s, my mom debated reaching out to a TV reporter who was also new to town. As they were both young women in the communications industry, they may have found a lot of common ground, doing similar work in a new place. Time passed, and it was a meeting my mother didn’t pursue.

That TV reporter? Perhaps you’ve heard of her. Her name was Oprah Winfrey.

A cast of characters supports journeys through life. Some, like parents and siblings, are there for a long time. Others, like strangers on the streets, are mere living scenery dressing. Regardless of whom these people are, they all share one thing in common: none of them will be around forever. Wally was a member of our Greatest Generation, which is dying at the rate of 1,000 per day. By the time my daughter is old enough, very few of these men and women will be around anymore.

It’s an extreme case, perhaps, but it reminds me to make those phone calls now, to ring doorbells sooner than later, and to not forget that all relationships are offered on for a limited time only.