Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Sonny Rollins And The Candy Lady

There was a time in this country when Spam was mainstream. When middle class housewives across the country popped open a can and readied it for their husbands and children and the spam made them all feel like the very epitome of modernity. Before locally grown organic bought from the farmers market vine ripened tomatoes became our status symbol, we ate Campbell's tomato soup from the can, and pitied the poor slobs who had to make soup themselves. Before we had green tea organic natural nourishing shampoo we had Prell."You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola," Andy Warhol once said, "and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking."

Except Liz Taylor wouldn't be drinking Coke today. Anyone with even a little bit of status ambition would be drinking Fiji water, at the least.

I thought about this as I wandered down the main street of the quaint little Victorian-style town a little off the beaten path and into the candy store of the sad little old lady. She wasn't sad mind you, but seeing her behind the register would break your heart a little. Most of the town had been redone to create a tourist-friendly version of the past; "authentic" saloons, old style hotels that looked like they were ready for you to ride up on your horse and ask for a place to spend the night, restaurants that made you feel all 1875 while serving you up fair trade certified sweetbreads, it was a past in which we all can pretend we'd like to spend a little time, much like a Renaissance Fair.

The sad little old lady's candy store though, represented a past that actually was. Spartan, while tiled, and spare. Serving up Snickers, Three Musketeers, Jawbreakers, and Bazooka gum. A perfectly acceptable inventory for 1975, barely tolerable for a 7-11 today. The little old lady tried to talk you up as you looked over the Mars bars, but she was slightly out of touch in that unique way that the elderly become. She wouldn't be running her candy store much longer. She found her comfort zone sometime around the year I was born and never left it. I doubt though, if the sad little old lady has any regrets.

Earlier that weekend I saw Sonny Rollins headline one of the country's premier jazz festivals. For those of you who don't know, Sonny is the last echo of that golden jazz era that gave us the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, which makes him of almost the same age as the candy store lady. He's lost a step or two physically, his voice is a little frail, but he still commands the stage in a way in which he won't for much longer. He sent his tunes around the arena that night like a boomerang, the notes coming back to their source so he could hurl them back around until they made us all dizzy with delight. He played like a man on fire, a man who knew he wouldn't be doing this many more times, a man who didn't want to let it go. He played and played for a good half hour longer than would have been considered giving the audience their money's worth.

I wondered, as I sat there,  if the intensity of the performance might be because of the time he spent in prison when he was young and an artists creativity is at its peak flow, the months or years it took him to break his heron habit. The frequent years-long stretches he took away from music when he was of strong body. If, looking forward and not seeing many years there, he regretted what he did with some of those in his rear-view mirror.

I doubt Sonny Rollins ever found his comfort zone. I doubt he ever will.

I've thought about Sonny and the Candy Lady ever since, and I'm not sure which way is the best way to be old; comfortable and irrelevant, or on fire and searching, until the last moment.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I Must Give Big Pharma Credit Where Credit Is Due. I'm Glad They Stopped The Corruption.

It's been almost three years now, and I can't tell you how much better I feel about myself. Today you see, I bought my own pack of pens. With my own money. I earned them, and I couldn't be happier. For the first time since I was in high school the marks I make will be my own, free of drug company influence. I am not proud of this, but for most of my career, I never told a drug company sales rep no. So the free pens came. Along with the T-shirts, ball caps, tape dispensers, a flash drive and a mouse pad, and probably a clock or two. With each plastic trinket I felt like a dirty whore. But I could not stop. The Vytorin tongue depressor was too important to me.

Not to mention the Actonel kitchen timer. I made cookies once using the Actonel kitchen timer and they turned out perfectly. They wouldn't have otherwise. Big Pharma corruption was improving the quality of my life, and I knew it even if I wouldn't admit it at the time.

Fortunately the pharmaceutical industry saw the tangled web they were weaving and saved me from myself. Its been almost three years now since they stopped the flow of pens, saving us both from even the appearance of impropriety.

Thank God. Now I am free to read the morning paper in peace.

Several companies, pressured by Congress or required by legal settlements, have started to reveal the names of the doctors they've paid to deliver promotional talks or serve as consultants.

What? Paid? Like money? Nooooooooooo....surely they mean things like Zantac toboggan hats .

Among the top-paid speakers from that sampling was Santa Monica pain physician Gerald Sacks. Since 2009, he has earned at least $522,113 giving promotional talks and consulting for four companies, according to the data.

Wait. That's half a million dollars.

Sacks, an anesthesiologist, isn't a leader in prominent pain medicine societies, and several top pain physicians told us they hadn't heard of him. He doesn't work in an academic medical center such as UCLA or USC. He hasn't published much research. We tried to talk to him about what he was paid for, but he didn't return numerous messages. 
Sacks' slides from a 2008 educational talk and 2009 presentation before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration describe him as the director of pain management at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. A hospital spokesman said Sacks has never held that title and that his pain clinic is not part of the hospital. He does have the ability to admit and treat patients at St. John's. 
Drug firms have a pretty fair idea of whether their investment in doctors like Sacks pays off. They pay millions to researchers who buy data from pharmacies and track the prescribing habits of doctors. Pfizer, which gave Sacks at least $318,250 for speaking in 2009 and 2010, according to its data, could find out if and how often he gave patients Lyrica and Celebrex, two of the company's pain medications. Firms can also track whether and how often the people who attended such talks prescribed the drugs that were discussed. 

Yet somehow the problem was my copy of 2000 World Series highlights with a Claritin sticker on the side. Dr. Christian Erik Sandrock of Sacramento gets $156,000 from Pfizer and I'm the one that has to be stopped.

Really.

So the post that I started in such a positive way, with a realization that a boost of self esteem was in order, ends with the realization that I am not even a good whore. I feel better at least, about the Whole Foods cupcakes my Lilly rep snuck in last week.

Go Humalog.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Perfect 9/11 Poem. That Wasn't Written About 9/11. Or By Me.

It was actually written in 1984, By Depeche Mode, but it sums up 9/11 and the following Decade of Osama quite well:

 I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours/ 
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor/ 
And when I die, I expect to find Him laughing 

Try to forget the 10 years that started on 9/12. And try to remember the best memorial we could build to the people that died in the twin towers and in that field in Pennsylvania is a world where neither Al-Qaeda or the United States military can find any recruits.

And maybe take a few minutes today to see if you can do a little to make it happen.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Highlights From Friday's Pill Counting Action


"I really hate western medicine" the customer started. "It's not about curing anything, just about making profits for the drug companies"

Blah blah blah....you hear this type of thing all the time on my side of the counter. Especially when that counter is located in affluent California. I tuned out and started to think about that hardest of choices. Would I have a tumbler of scotch or a giant martini after work to help me forget about all this? My psychology professor told me once the hardest choice to make is one between two positive outcomes, and I was starting to see what he meant all those years ago.

I tuned back in to see if anything important had come up. I heard the words "potassium iodide" and took the exit ramp right back off this conversation. I wondered if I had any olives in the fridge should I go the martini route. Put a little olive juice in your shaker and you've got you a dirty martini. That just might hit the spot right now.

I've been in the profession about twenty years, and it took me about fifteen to hone my spidey sense to the point where I magically know when to start listening to a customer again. I felt the force and tuned back in.

"So I should have three prescriptions ready" said the scientific skeptic. "And can I get a flu shot?" The Vicodin and Soma were too soon to be filled. Meaning Ms. Western Medicine Hater would be leaving the pharmacy this day with only her Ambien and a sore arm. The incredible disconnect between the words that came from her mouth and reality almost made me ask her if she'd be interested in sending in a resume' to corporate headquarters. I think she'd really fit in.

I stuck my head back into the prescription pile and was next startled by the sound of a woman berating her child.

"I know you can read!!" She told the little one. "You shouldn't need me to tell you what kind of battery you need"

Five seconds later, the same voice......"VISINE!!!!!!!!" I'll translate that for those of you still left with a modicum of etiquette. What the lady meant was "Excuse me, do you know where I could find the Visine?" People in affluent California though, are far too advanced to actually form a question, they simply boil it down to its essence and scream the one world really loud at the person they expect to answer it, regardless of any evidence that this person is aware they are there or may be doing something that requires paying attention.

"Under the sign in front of you that says eye care" I told the woman who had just stressed the importance of reading. The great thing about the affluent assholes is that as long as their child-like need for immediate gratification is satisfied, they rarely will pick up on things like irony or the fact that you just insulted them.

I took a phone call and was immediately met with a scream. "I PUT ACID IN MY MOUTH!!!!! I PUT ACID IN MY MOUTH!!!!!" The person seemed to be forming words pretty well for someone in the process of incinerating their upper GI tract. Still, I started to give her the number for poison control.

"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER....THE TABLETS WERE DIFFERENT. I SHOULD HAVE ASKED YOU BEFORE I TOOK ONE"

Hmmmmm....now I was thinking LSD. But why would someone ask their pharmacist about that?

Turned out the woman had gotten a different brand of Ambien CR, and she thought they had a bit of an acidic taste. She was worked up enough about it I couldn't imagine her getting much sleep that night. Which means she'll be in soon to tell me this new brand doesn't work.

The day closed with a kid in the waiting room whose attention we couldn't get because he was listening to his iPhone. He sat there, looking down, texting away while Alice In Chains poured through his headphones, as my supertech, my keystone tech, and finally myself took turns trying to let him know his zit med was ready. I finally went out and waved my hand in front of his face. Not because of any type of commitment to customer service, but mostly to see if I could scare him. I failed. He just kinda wandered up to the counter like a zombie.

"Your prescription is $25" said Supertech. And there was nothing.

No protest that $25 was too much.

No questioning of how much the insurance covered.

Not even the dreaded "I have a coupon from my dermatologist." Which was what my spidey sense was telling me to expect.

Just a blank stare. For about 30 seconds I'd say. Followed by a little shuffle that kinda carried the kid out of the store like a piece of sea kelp drifting out into the world of the big blue ocean.

It was a martini. And it didn't work. Despite the fact I guzzled it all down with a dash of olive juice I can still remember the whole day. And after twenty years of this I'm starting to become not all that fond of western medicine myself.

Like the Vicodin/Soma/Ambien/Potassium Iodide lady though. I'll be back for more of it tomorrow