Most of my cable viewing these days, as opposed to streaming, consists of news and public affairs commentary. I’ll have MSNBC barking at me five hours a day, as I devour the punditry and revel in the quality of their guest contributors, who really are a stellar group, and know whereof they speak. Besides, I’m frankly in love with Nicolle Wallace, so that’s two hours a day, minimum. The thing is, advertisers have crunched the data and determined that the overwhelming bulk of the people watching these shows are, like me, geriatric cases, every one of them with just a few steps left to go before reaching death’s door, and what do such people need, in abundance? Pharmaceuticals! Jars and buckets and pounds and tons of pharmaceuticals, for the treatment of everything from “moderate to severe plaque psoriasis” to terminal f’ing lung cancer.
So that’s what they advertise. All day and all night. Pharma, Pharma, Pharma. Oh, you’re diabetic? Here, try this! Your joints are sore? No problem, swallow a couple of these every 12 hours and you’ll be fit for ballroom dancing and contact sports. Colitis? We got you covered! Eczema? High blood pressure? Arthritis? Irregular heartbeat? Asthma? Clinical depression? Maybe you’re bi-polar, poor thing? Or your kidneys are shot, is that what’s got you down, bunkie? No worries, we’ve got something for everything, most of it FDA approved. Ask your doctor if [insert brand name] is right for you!
Oh, wait – is it your – [gasp] – sad little winkie? Is there an issue with the old dingle-dongle? Maybe it manifests when you’re, ummm, all excited ?
Well, whaddaya know? We’ve got something for that too!
It wears you down, just being reminded of all there is still left to go wrong with you. And the names they come up with for these chemical concoctions, I swear! I’ve ranted about this before, about four years ago:
Well, it hasn’t gotten any better since. It drives me to distraction. Farxiga. Skyrizi. Otezla. Trulicity. Entyvio. Cosentyx. There’s a strange sameness to them, like they’re all exotic compounds from the same alien planet, where their meaningless syllables have significance in an extraterrestrial tongue. I don’t know whether these brand names have been vetted by behavioural psychologists, or focus-grouped, or market-tested, the idea being to evoke certain emotions, or inspire confidence, or what, but Jesus, just once I wish they’d nut up and call it Rash–Ex, or Crohn’s-Be-Gone, or Boner–Be–Better. Just be up-front about it, you know? Why not? Are they trying to be discreet? They think it’ll make you more comfortable when you go to the drugstore if they call it Xiaflex instead of Doctor Ding–Dong’s Dick De–Bender? That’ll spare you the discomfort? What, you’re too embarrassed to pick up a prescription for an extra-large box of Happy Hard-Ons ? You think the pharmacist doesn’t know what Viagra does? Look, buddy, just face it: you’re a mess, and everybody knows it. Your back is sore, your knees are shot, your guts aren’t working to spec., and lately, you just can’t seem to get it up. We don’t need to ask. It’s assumed. Listen, that’s just the way it goes, and the only ones laughing are the witless pricks who don’t understand that their time is coming soon enough, and why concern yourself with the likes of them?
Biktarvy. Dupixent. Imbruvica. For the love of God.
It’s the frigging jingles that really get me, though. Always, there’s an insipid jingle. It’s like it’s the law that you can’t peddle your pills unless the buyers can hear a nice little song about them first. They drive me right up the f’ing wall with this shit. Sometimes it’s because they’ve appropriated an old pop toon that I hated back in the day, and now hate even more, like:
I was wailing about this very ad four years ago, and they’re still using it. It’s still in heavy rotation. Oh-oh-oh how I wish that everyone responsible would come down with a case of festering boils.
Sometimes they take an actual golden oldie, one that was pretty good, and just desecrate the hell out of it. Look what they did to the Jackson Five:
Get a load of the song they decided to use to flog a treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder:
l suppose it sort of fits, communicating “here take this and then you’ll be singing ‘all right now’”, but the tone seems a little off, a little too boisterous and happy, considering the folks in the target audience are sitting there struggling to breathe, and probably aren’t in the mood for upbeat rock numbers better suited for juicing the crowds at hockey games and such. What’s the next pitch? Is there somebody trying to come up with a new one for a sleeping pill, say Ambien, or Halcion, sitting in a boardroom full of suits somewhere saying Hey, I’ve got one! Let’s focus-group this: I Wanna Be Sedated. It works, amiright?
I shouldn’t risk giving them any bright ideas.
Pillaging everybody’s back catalogue, however inappropriate the selected hit of yesteryear, is one thing. Worse, far worse, is what I’m afraid will soon be a growing trend to leave off repurposing well-known oldies – upon which, I suppose, they have to pay royalties – and write their own. Just like they used to in the old days, when they were marketing soft drinks and tooth paste, only this time around it’s potions and elixirs to treat whatever awful affliction you’re likely to be suffering in your golden years. They’re already at it, and I’ll admit, some of the new drug-ditties are kind of catchy, and only become torturous from endless repetition:
I didn’t mind that one so much, I could tap my toes to it, at least for the first 350 times I heard it. Others, though, are enough to send you ‘round the bend from the get go, I mean, Sweet Baby Jesus, whose idea was it to give us a frigging half-assed show tune about diabetes? Listen:
It’s like a number they decided to drop from Grease after the audience reaction off-Broadway was so negative.
Something that god-awful pretty much demands parody, to my mind anyway, which is why I started writing alternative versions with rude lyrics. What else was I going to do? You think there’s a snowball’s chance that I’m not going to immediately have a go at something so cloyingly, cynically capitalist? Not a chance! It isn’t just fun, either, it’s a legit defence mechanism, you know, a way of taking control of the thing that torments you. Thus, naturally, I started rolling the opening lyrics around in my head:
I’ve got type II diabetes but I manage it well
It’s a little pill with a big story to tell
…and alternative words practically wrote themselves. It started out quite mildly, with something along the lines of:
I’ve got type II diabetes but I manage it well
And if you’re inclined to doubt it you can all go to Hell
…progressing soon to something a little uglier, for better effect:
I have hemorrhagic fever but I manage it well
though admittedly with all the blood it’s tricky to tell
…before toying with a couple of alternatives, like this one, which alludes to the standard litany of gruesome side-effects they’re apparently obliged to recite (may cause kidney failure, temporary blindness, suicidal ideation…):
I’m a crazy quilt of rashes and they’re itchy as hell
But the pills they sell to treat it make my testicles swell
All sorts of permutations. Hyuk! Then I’d roam around the house singing the re-writes. I was in the middle of the creative process when my wife got a text from my sister in law, saying that my brother Mark was independently doing exactly the same thing with exactly the same jingle. Of course he was! What else could he do? His version, written for maximum rudeness, opted for unfortunate digestive malfunctions:
I’ve explosive diarrhea and it’s threatening to smell
Thus I wear a rubber diaper so that people can’t tell
He had others, I just can’t remember right now. Boy, I’m tellin’ ya! We had a million of ‘em!
You think that’s juvenile? What’s that you say? Oh, it’s embarrassingly puerile and inane, now, is it? Oh yeah?
Yeah, OK, sure, I suppose it is. You’re right. I should grow up.
Wait – now just hold your horses for a second – you’re not telling me I should also give it a rest with all the J.G. Wentworth stuff, are you? Oh, I hope not. No, you wouldn’t! You mustn’t! I’m not sure I can. It’d be excruciating to even try! Honestly, when they play this on the goggle box:
…I’m immediately off to the races. It’s not even a matter of volition. It’s autonomic. There’s nothing I can do. It starts pouring out of me before the ad’s even over.
I’m wallowing in depravity
And I need cash now!
I’m lacking perspicacity
And I need cash now!
I’m wanting elasticity
And I need cash now!
It’s like they’re blasting out of a fire hose. I’ll do hundreds in a row. Sorry. Like I say, I have no control over it.
So……yeah.
Anyway, so I’m guessing at this point you don’t really want to know what my bro’ did with Cologuard’s spectacularly disrespectful take on My Way, right?
But c’mon!! It’s just crying out for it!
the needlefish 