Talking To Your Meds

216 Talking to Your Meds

This is not “talking to Prozac,” which was a famous book back in the day. This is about talking to all your medicines, the group. In some cases, the chorus. In some cases the mob (as opposed to The Mob, which we all know doesn’t exist.)

Filling the box marked with letters representing days is a weekly chore. And there was some discussion the other day when a stray Lipitor fell into the sink. Fortunately it wasn’t drowned. But the pill was told “okay, all the boxes are filled and you get a week’s reprieve on your execution.”

Wait a minute. Execution? Well, sure. When you swallow the pill, you kill it, right? Or do you really free it to do its job, end its incarceration in the drug store bottle?

Just as that contemplation began to take form, an 81 mg aspirin bounced out of the grip and onto the countertop. “Ahah! Not only is your execution NOT postponed by a return trip to the container, but you’re going into ‘S’ for Saturday, which means you have to wait out the execution until the end of the week, knowing your number (or your letter) will soon be up and it’s all over for you, you little yellow bird dropping.”

Somehow, the laconic Zoloft never jumps. It’s probably so happy just being itself that it feels no need for medicinal athleticism.

Since it doesn’t, you have the opportunity of putting something back into the system. You can offer aid and comfort to your antidepressant. After all, the little pill is going to work itself to death for you. It will dissolve in your system and make you happy – or at least less unhappy. So you can be kind to it before it goes to its execution (or its liberation.)

You can’t do the same for your Alka Seltzer. After all, pills don’t have stomachs. But a kind word now and then wouldn’t hurt.

And what about your cough medicine. You overdose sufficiently and you can get high. Do you ever thank it? Probably not. Shame on you.

Talking to your medication (there’s a word that shouldn’t exist, medication. Along with “utilize.”) Talking to your medication is not as nutty as it seems.

People talk to themselves and don’t listen. They talk to their plants, which don’t respond (or if they do, the talker is in really big trouble.) They talk to other drivers who, thankfully, can’t hear them. They talk to mechanical and electronic devices that answer the telephone, so why not their medicine.

If you’re not ON any meds, you are the exception, not the rule these days. But you can still perform a public services for these unheralded guardians of other peoples’ health.

Go to the drug store. Go to the head or stomach ache aisle and mutter a few words of encouragement to any box or bottle or tube that’s on the shelf. Your fellow shoppers may think you’re nuts. But you know deep in your heart, you will be recognizing the efforts of individual vitamins, minerals, decongestants, pain remedies and cold symptom relievers that their work is not for naught.

It’s the least you can do.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Haliburton And Other Mid East Tales

215 In The Middle East

A couple of stories of note out of the Middle East in recent days.

First and most important is that Haliburton is moving its CEO to where its heart is – Dubai. It’s much easier to kiss emirate ass when you’re near to it and Houston is much too far.

So, the oil and water and engineering conglomerate, kind of a CIA inside the CIA, once piloted by that well known corporate genius, Dick Cheney, can now set up shop near the source of its real money. Congrats, Haliburton.

Of course, your main office in Texas will remain in Texas and your Delaware incorporation will remain in Delaware. For now, anyway.

It’s not a terrible idea. They ought to move all CEOs to the countries where they can do the most good. GM could move to Beijing or Seoul. (So could half of America, actually.) You want to solve the immigration problem? Move Home Despot and 7-11 to Mexico.

Move ExxonMobil to Pakistan.

Move Disney to Saudi Arabia.

Underage Porn dot com’s already in Lithuania or Albania, and the best Chryslers come from Mexico and Canada.

Move Lukoil to Russia. Oh, wait. They ARE in Russia. Sort of.

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The other big story out of the Middle East is Osama Bin Laden’s 50^th birthday. We know he has been solicited for membership in the AARP, but we’re not sure whether he’s accepted. There’s been a lot of “chatter” as the security people like to call discussions carried on the internet and on short wave radio. But we don’t actually know whether he’ll join the Senior Citizens’ Lobby.

But it would make sense. After all, discounts on insurance (who needs life insurance more than this guy?) And there’s Tent and Cave-owner’s insurance. You never know when a sandstorm is going to come along and wreck your mobile encampment. And why pay retail?

Plus he can get all those AARP discounts on the Mantovani and David Rose records, and that “Best of Anita Kerr Singers” and “Best of Lawrence Welk” albums are hard to resist. (Bet you didn’t know Old Osama is a big fan of Champagne Music. Of course, they don’t CALL it that in Afghanistan. There, it’s Sparkling Grape Juice Music. A little awkward in English, but it has a nice ring in Arabic.

When Verizon plunks its CEO in Tripoli, Osama can be closer to the source of his satellite telephone network. Always nice, especially if you have service problems.

Got phone trouble? Send a guy with explosives strapped to his middle into Sony headquarters. That’ll get their attention. None of this “your call his very important to us. Please wait for the next available service representative…” for Osama, baby. “Fix my phone now, or get to meet Allah and some extraneous virgins.”

Joining the AARP is one thing. But we’ve done some research and discovered that the AAA doesn’t want him. Something about not wanting to tow spitting camels out of sand dunes.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Political Musical Chairs

214 Musical Chairs

What’s going on here? Spitzer is the new D’Amato, D’Amato is the new Javits. Giuliani is the new Pat Robertson. Gingrich is the new Clinton. Clinton is the new Carter. Carter is the new Nasser.

The governor of New York is busy bashing his enemies in a way that would have made the Al D’Amato of the first Senate campaign proud and envious. Meantime, D’Amato, arch conservative and hail fellow well met sounds more like Javits of that same campaign when he speaks of the 2008 presidential election and most other public issues, and in private is even mellower, and more of a hail fellow well met. This is what happens when you step out of the frying pan and into the money.

Some of us think Al would like to be president, but doesn’t want to take the pay cut.

Pat would like to be President, too. But Giuliani is upstaging him, trying to be more of a conservative Christian than anyone who still at least nominally is a member of the Church of Rome.

Gingrich was busy leading the charge against Bill Clinton while at the same time “slipping around” as the country people say on his wife, which ever of his wives that was. Now, he says there’s a difference. He is saying “Oh, I misled God,” or somesuch thing, but “...I didn’t perjure myself.” Oh.

Carter, probably the worst Pre-Bush II President since Hoover, became a shining example of statesmanship and accomplishment as an ex president. Democrat Clinton, who was the best Republican president since Theodore Roosevelt, has taken on Carter’s stature in his own ex-presidency.

And Carter himself has become Egypt’s Nasser and blames all the troubles in the Middle East on the Jews.

First of all, let’s give a nice yiddisher welcome to Jimmy, who joins the ranks of some of history’s notorious do-badders But Mr. Carter, whom we know does not drink his brother’s beer, is only an amateur. Jimmy: don’t forget about the Jews drinking the blood of Christian children on whatever holiday that’s supposed to happen on. And don’t forget about the world financial crisis, global warming, homelessness, and the liberal media, the oil crisis, bird flu and the crack epidemic, political correctness, all the fault of (“some of my best friends are…) Jewish conspirators.

Meantime, Mayor Bloomberg (well known for being a Jewish Conspirator) is gunning for a seat on this commission. He went to Florida on a private jet and cracked jokes with the mayor of Miami, while the paper shufflers he left behind tried to figure out what caused a fire in the Bronx that killed almost a dozen people. On his return to New York a day or so later, he met with relatives of the victims. Still, Mike is not the new Fiorello.

Well, it’s nice to know that not EVERYONE’s playing musical chairs.

But where is the New Nixon when you really need him?

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Stepmaster

213 Stepmaster

Why do something in one or two steps when you can do it in ten or twelve? It’s the new American Way. Get with it. Forget all that Yankee Ingenuity, that Teutonic efficiency, that crisp performance.

It’s hard for those of a particular bent to learn this skill. But it IS a skill, and you SHOULD learn it.

Corporations and government have mastered it. The last four generations have mastered it. Why not you?

Need an example? Okay. Let’s start with something simple. This is being typed around tax time in 2007. So let’s use that.

OLD WAY: gather pertinent data, fill out tax form (or have a tax service do it,) submit to the IRS.

NEW WAY: Throw any arriving paperwork in a box or folder. Weeks later, search for the folder, open up all the paperwork, re-file.

-hunt for last year’s return and fail to find it.

-search the yellow pages for a tax preparer. Don’t find one. Call or write around and ask friends and associates. Ignore what they tell you.

-search for paperwork file. Find it. Make sure you remember, this time, where you put it.

-hunt for last year’s return in the same places you didn’t find it last time. Fail again to find it.

-re-find tax documents file. Put it in briefcase.

-hunt a third time for last year’s return, also in the same places you failed to find it last time and two times ago. This time, FIND it.

-put in same briefcase as folder.

-hunt for check register with all the expenses highlighted.

See? Before you know it, you can turn a step or two or three into a full month’s activity.

There are a large number of Grand Master Stepmasters. GM, Ford, Chrysler, Bloomberg LP, AOL, any HMO, Verizon, Microsoft, your bank.

“Hello and welcome to Stepmaster National Bank. Our menu has changed, so please listen to the following nine options.” Naturally, option nine is “hear more options.”

Ford took 60 years to re-introduce the Lincoln Zephyr (but only one to kill it. Well, not really kill it, just give it another name.)

“You’ve Got Mail!” Go to AOL mail. Click on open. Wait for the log in page to appear (this can take hours.) Enter your log in name and password. Click “enter” and wait and wait and wait.

Push “close” and the electric garage door starts to descend, stops in mid passage and re-rises. Check the batteries in the remote control. Clean off the electric safety eye. Press “close” again and it closes. Maybe.

Instructions for cleaning furnace filter: (1) turn off furnace. (2) remove the cosmetic cover. (3) unscrew the safety door over the fan. (two screws.) remove the safety door. (4) wiggle the filter around until it comes out. (5) put in a new filter (which you have to wiggle around to get to fit. (6) replace safety door (two screws, making sure the door fits securely in the clips below or the furnace won’t re-start. (7) make sure the screws are tight (but not too tight, whatever that means.) (8) replace the cosmetic door, making sure it sits properly in the safety clips or the furnace won’t re-start. (9) turn on the furnace. (10) wait. Re-starting isn’t instantaneous. The machine has to believe you really mean it. (11) discard old filter in a safe and prudent manor.

Anyone want to track the steps THAT would take?

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Washing the Water

212 Washing the Water

The Queen of Clean has run out of things to make sparkling and is searching for new things that need her attention. Water is one of them.

You think it’s impossible to wash water? Think again. It’s not easy. And the answer is not obvious. You’d think if you wanted to clean the tap water, all you’d have to do is run it through a filter. Nah. Who knows where those filters have been? And do “…you know what they put in those things? Charcoal! And what is charcoal? It’s black dirt!”

So charcoal filters are out, and so are the filthy plastic doodads in which they’re housed.

You can freeze the water and scrub it, then put it in the teapot on the stove and melt it back down. But that only gets the OUTSIDE of the water clean. What about the INSIDE?

You can take the frozen water and turn it into ice chips and then use a Scotchbrite sponge on each side. That method’s pretty good, but it’s not perfect.

The best way (so far) is to clean the tap water with bottled water. This is tricky because the two mix together in ways that make identifying them difficult. If not impossible. But it can be done.

Here’s how: take one part bottled water and one part tap water. Put the tap water in a clean (read sterile) container. Then, mix in an equal measure of bottled water. They do combine, of course. But on the way to combining, the bottled water rinses off the tap water.

This leads to another problem: how do you separate the newly dirtied bottled water from the now clean tap water? There is no really good answer, and the Secret Mountain Lab is working on that. But for now, it’s a two-step process.

1. Pour the washed water and the washING water into a container, then seal the container.

2. Let it sit for 72 hours, then carefully and gently pour off the top, leaving the sediment (both the sediment you can see and the sediment you CAN’T see) on the bottom of the container.

Presto! There’s you washed water.

Of course, how can you be really, truly, certain that there isn’t extraneous dirt in the spring water? Oh, sure they seal the bottles and all that. But you never really know, do you?

Of course, you can get distilling equipment from your local moonshiner, and just purify the water by adding nothing to the machinery but the water.

Either of these last two methods works well with small quantities of drinking water. But washing clothing or taking show calls for the need to make this all work in much larger quantities.

So far, there’s no way to make enough of this stuff to take a full shower.

Unless, of course, you like showering or bathing in scrubbed ice chips.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Today's Music

211 Today’s Music

It’s partly generational. But today’s music sounds more like howling and whining and screaming and crying than it does like anything resembling music. (We’re not talking about rap or hiphop here. Those genres have been covered – and defended – here before.

It’s pop. Can you understand any of the words to any of the current hits? If so, you’re at a distinct disadvantage. Because if you can, you realize what’s missing today, beside artistry, musicality, and message.

Singers of yore sang TO you. The current crop sings AT you. (Sing is a relative term. It never used to be, but modern times demand the change.)

Those of us who believe that Sinatra was the most overrated performer in the history of performance, but he still knew – or faked – singing to and for the people who were out there listening. Even the worst of that kind of crooner (that would be Jerry Vale) had a grasp of that.

Some magazine or television show recently took a one question survey, and evidently has either not finished counting or has decided it doesn’t like the result and decided against disclosing it. The question was “Who did more for music, Elvis Presley or James Brown?”

The proper question probably should have been “who did less damage to music?” The answer to that would have been Elvis. In his prime, you could still understand the words, hum the melodies and understand the thought. Not the case with Brown.

Before you hurl accusations that we’re being the Ann Coulter of music, please understand that the position here is “James Brown was not worth listening to,” as opposed to “Black men can’t do music,” which is utterly ridiculous. Let’s add to that that the Beatles were in the same boat after their first US-released album, “Meet the Beatles.” Okay. We met ‘em. Following which they turned from a British imitation rockabilly band into four mouths filled with sponges. Would that they could sing some of their songs as well as they wrote them.

Today, falsetto is king. (Johnny Mathis could make it work, to a point.)

Clogged noses replace open mouths as the exit wound for the song. Contortions and gyrations replace stage presence. (After you SEE Celine Dion, you can’t stand to listen to her anymore. Plus, she doesn’t need an audience. She’s plain-old singing to herself.

Make no mistake about it, there were plenty of lousy singers before the current American Idol wannabes. It’s just that they weren’t chart toppers.

Can you imagine Peggy Lee or Nat Cole singing anything that was written today? And can you imagine any of today’s “singers” trying to sound as they did?

Country music is almost an exception. It’s still corny, you can still understand the words. You can still hum the tunes. But the presentations are getting more elaborate than opera with a full symphony orchestra. And it’s only a matter of time before these guys catch the infection that pop music is spreading.

Could Hank Williams or Hank Snow or Hank Thompson make it to the top today? Not likely. What about Kitty Welles or Rose Maddox or Maybelle Carter?

If you find yourself agreeing with all these, you can try foam earplugs with a noise rating reduction of 29 decibels or more. (The house brand is usually made by Flents. Same as the name brand, but a bit cheaper.)

Meanwhile, at the secret mountain laboratory, we’re working on a reverse hearing aid.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR

Weightless Anchors

210 Weightless Anchors

They’re fussing around at NBC News because their Nightly News program looks like it’s about to get a drubbing from ABC, which hasn’t happened in awhile. Like years. Before Hurricane Charlie (Gibson) strikes land, they’re battening down the hatches and wondering what, beside a new executive producer they can fiddle with in order to avoid storm damage.

Here’s the answer: make Brian Williams older.

People expect to get their PM news from old men. They’re used to it. That’s what they want. Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, Harry Reasoner, Douglas Edwards.

When Dan Rather was resigned from the CBS Evening News, they put in this guy Bob Schieffer , and he immediately raised the ratings just by being old and calm. Katie Couric’s numbers have dropped like a feather into a fire. (When Charles Kurault filled in during one of Rather’s tantrums or vacations, the ratings went up. Charlie wasn’t old, but he was fat and talked slow. That’s almost as good. Plus he had a really low voice and a southern rhythm, if not a full blown accent.)

Peter Jennings ups and dies and they stick in a couple of young nobodies and Jennings’ respectable ratings dropped like the Rock of Katie, only earlier. Finally they figured it out. Old guys. Enter Charlie Gibson, an amiable type who spent much of his career at ABC being shafted at “Good Morning America,” which was crushed like what was left of the feather by the “Today Show” on NBC. Ted Koppel would have been just as good a choice.

Then, there’s Williams. He’s still the top dog. He succeeded Brokaw who was a one man ratings machine. Probably that had a lot to do with his warmth, charm, slightly impared man-of-the-people speech, his slightly imapred man-of-the-people aw shucks Dakotas approach and the simple fact that he got OLD.

When Brokaw was young and on “Today” he was a geek. When he started at Nightly News, he was a middle aged near-geek. By the time his hair turned grey, he was The Voice of Authority.

He’s still doing some pretty good TV stuff, unlike some major leaguers who semi-retire and get office space and no assignments. And his presence at NBC lends credibility to the whole outfit.

But Williams is young, or at least young-ish. And he has just a touch of that Peter Jennings “I Am The News” attitude/disease, though a much, MUCH milder case. To his credit, he has learned to talk in a straight line, which makes him the easiest of the aforementioned (except Shieffer) to understand.

He also has the flashiest graphics, the best set and the best staff.

But we’re talking TELEVISION, here. So that’s not so important.

Everyone “knows” the PM newscasts are losing audience. But there still are almost 30 million of us who don’t want the mind-numbing “nothing’s happening but we have to fill the screen” incrementia we get from CNN, MSNBC and Fox.

If Brian wants to keep the top spot, he’s got to put a little grey in his hair and talk slower. And gaining 20 or 30 pounds wouldn’t hurt, either.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR