Pensive Mutterings

Today, TV commercials bombard viewers with every imaginable vacuum of privacy, intimacy, or embarrassment. The pharmaceutical companies’ bottom-line is the dollar-deity. If they’re going to sell it, they have to advertise it ad infinitum, ad nauseam. It’s called ED, and “If you have it, you don’t have to suffer with it.”

“Well,” I responded at my first viewing of it a few years ago, “I have it, but I don’t suffer. He’s in my life ‘cause he's my brother.”

Nope. That’s not the correct ED. The one they’re talking about is… well, you know. One is hesitant (as are the presenters in the commercials) to utter the words (ironically enough), but the poor male patient who has it can be instantly cured via numerous avant-garde meds:

Bob is so happy. He grins from ear to ear in the elevator, at work (browsing through his Male Enhancement magazine -- we have to assume he’s bored with his other chores and evidently out of his employer’s eyesight -- and at the pool , while his wife or mistress, adorned in her WWII dress waves to him excitedly from the other side, which makes one wonder: Why is she on the other side? Is it possible that Bob’s first dose didn’t work and she’s happily hoping for a better performance in his second? Regardless, the viewer is supposed to assume that it is whereby the audience could seldom differ between the piano keys and his teeth. The viewer is invited to make a beeline to the Enzyte’s website to order the free sample as thousands of others have previously done who, one assumes, are also living in an ethereal Utopia due to one simple fact. Bob’s gulping of Enzyte has sky-rocketed him to ecstasy. His wide, geek-type facial grinning is comparable to a Liberace grin  : “Taken just once a day, Enzyte is not situation specific; it simply helps increase blood flow all day and all night. With Enzyte, you’re ready for action 24/7" -- an apparent oxymoronic statement. Translation: "It's not going to work according to every specific situation, but you can be ready for action 24/7." (Huh?)

It’s no longer, “Viva Las Vegas,” it’s “Viva Viagra.” Viewers do not need to know Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company paid $25,000 for the use of the copyrighted tune, the cost of which was easily passed on to the “millions” of customers who purchased the product in its ensuing years. What counts is what it does for the male patient – streamlining blood to that designated part of his body to cure his ED. Viewers are reminded to “talk to their doctors” (the whopping office charge of $100+ is purposely omitted) concerning their specific problems with ED. They are also reminded not to take Viagra if they have or encounter: high blood pressure, stomach ailments, migraine headaches, dizziness, depression, runny and/or bloody noses, rashes, blurred eyesight, falling hair follicles, excessive sneezing, chest pains, walking wobbliness, weakness, unusual stumbling, or lapse in memory skills. (Since this writer has all of these daily, he decided long ago to avoid even mentioning his brother to his Urologist.) On the other hand, if Viagra works, comparable to its major competitor, Cialis, be sure it’s not working for more than 4 hours: “If your … lasts more than 4 hours, please see your doctor immediately.” Simple translation: “Find another $100+ for another office visit, be ready to wait another 2+ weeks for a scheduled appointment, and chalk off the megabucks you just spent on the Viagra. You lose.”