Got'cha!

The Old Sociologist Thinks
I'm thinking all the time--yes, a lot of my time is spent thinking about money and all the abstract wildness that such thinking conjures up--and yes, I spend a lot of my time thinking about myself and all the abstract wildness that such thinking conjures up. I'm tied in knots of thinkings; yes, plural, more than one thinking going on, thinkings thinking about thinking and thinking; it's gettin' infinite, folks, thinking upon thinking upon more thinkings, layered thinking, and, hell, I'm cryin' "Uncle!" to a bunch of thinkings long enough to think about until the Reaper comes for me. "One never knows, do one."

You see, let me start like this: I worked in pharmaceutical advertising--and I mean right smack-dab in the middle of it--Madison Avenue--nice view from my desk--though it froze in the winter due to the casement windows having not been repaired since the building of the building, but it was a "precious" old building to those of us who grew up writer-would-bes with a lot of our writing hopes being based on NYC magazines accepting and publishing our work, and this old building was the architectural landmark at 51st and Madison that once housed one of the US's best-selling magazines--beautiful building but cold as Hades in the deep winters--and I spent several deep winters in Hades there "tweaking" pharmaceutical advertising copy. We created ads hawking our stable of pharma companies's products--and I'm not here to talk about advertising--it's all lies, trust me on that--though I'm a fiction writer, my fiction doesn't lie--I bow to Ernest Hemingway on twisting his original "I'm not a liar, I'm a fiction writer." [Oh how easily I could fall off my original direction here and start yack-ing on American fiction writers--especially something on Little Bill Faulkner l hat sent me t'other day--oh it's so wonderful, but so condemning--like the wolf-rat I am right now, I back out of the corner on this one...

What I'm hearing this morning as I write this is that the Government of Thailand has stripped Abbott Laboratories of its patent on one of the second-level retrovirus drugs used in containing HIV-AIDS and are going to start producing it generically in Thailand--it's based on Abbott's refusing to reduce their prices on this particular AIDS drug and Thailand claiming they had the right under the World Trade Org to do this patent stripping by claiming Abbott was keeping life-saving treatment from a country suffering an AIDS epidemic (the mostly forgotten epidemic now here in God's America where I just read we have 30-to-40,000 new AIDS cases a year--A YEAR, folks). Abbott Labs is of course protesting and acting hurt and by God they're going to sue--God-dammit, Abbott's 400-million-a-year CEO wants revenge on these damn Thais [let's be flies on his office wall], "God-dammit, you mid-management VeePee in Charge of Asian Affairs, F those bloody diseased-ass Thai bastards. You ever been to Bangkok, Simpson?" "No sir, only Club Meds, sir; I never trust foreign beaches." "I understand that but that's bullshit compared to Thailand 'cause, by God, I have been to Bangkok, Mister Ass Kisser, and as far as I'm concerned they should call it 'Bangin' With My Cock.' Youngest ho's I ever saw in all my field reppin' days, you understand, I mean, I was right out of Parsons School of Chiropractic Medicine and a lowly 4 million-a-year sales manager in charge of Asian Development--hell, I wasn't married, or was I, can't remember, and I was feelin' my oats, and there I was in Bangkok, rich, makin' money by the fistsful, hangin' out with Prince This and Prince That, bangin' Princess This and Princess That, dinner with the King every night--I used to slip the King samples--I was actually testin' 'em on him--oops...whoa now, what was I doing with samples, you askin'? We have laboratories in Thailand and they gave me buckets of samples. Hell, I had tons of samples with me, bags full, anyway, back to these Thais...so I sowed my oats all over Bangkok and one night I met this little slanteyed ho down on one of the raunchiest canals on a ho boat I knew was kind'a clean, but, damn, I fell in love, Simpson, and it was mad love, too, and, shhhhhh, by the way, should my wife ever ask you about this--anyway, Simpson, to make a long CEO adventure short, I caught the clap and the looey from this little tramp--and then one of our Bangkok managers cornered me and said, you know, brother, all those little canal sluts have AIDS, man--and, whoooo-boy and jumpin'-jesuses, I was scared shitless. I sneaked immediately to my Thai doctor and got checked out and fortunately I didn't have the AIDS. It was a striking moment in my life...." "Sir, what does this have to do with anything, sir?...oh, wait a minute, sir, er-ah, I should have immediately seen you're logic, sir, your dazzling logic....." And so goes the conversation. In the meantime, several thousands of Thais are lounging around in the Thai hospitals in total pain and throes of certain death unless they get this Abbott Laboratories retrovirus drug. Abbott Labs says, F 'em all, our loyalty is to our stockholders--F stupid AIDS patients--they should'a worn rubbers anyway.

Holy Madness. That's what sparked an irritant flame in my growl's dragon-style flame-broiling this morning...the idea of having first of all the power of being filthy rich yourself--and I'm talking about Abbott Laboratories (all of these pharmaceutical companies are former drugstores--chemist shops--they are chemists and not doctors of curative medicine--a drug company CEO with a Dr. in front of his name is probably not a Doctor of Medicine unless its Nuclear Medicine or Biochemistry) decisionmakers at the high levels of company management, the quantitative management boys, those who break everything down on the computer models into possible-profits based on production and mark-up and all the miscellaneous charges and these are the guys who draw the bottom lines in the sands of the Pharmaceutical Wars, and believe me they are wars--big-time wars--like Pfizer taking on Glaxo-Welcome--a battle of billionaire corporations--all with their heads up each other's filthy rich and dirty asses.

Oh the brutal life and death power these powerful rich MASSUHS have, white men for the most part--though the pharmaceuticals do like slick women, especially women doctors they hire by the wagonloads to go on television talk shows and network morning shows and pretend to be experts in their fields and some of them really may be when what they are doing is promoting a pharma company's product--back at my pharma ad agency we used to joke about one of our pharma-company-bought doctors because of her very scatalogically vulgar last name--I laugh like a cousin hyena now remembering Doctor Cacacita...I used to do a Three Stooges as doctors routine when I made fun of all these doctors whose clinical trial gobblygook we gave a semblance of dishonest sense to--you know the Stooges's routine, "Doctor Moe, Doctor Curley, Doctor Larry! Doctor Moe, Doctor Curley, Doctor Larry, emergency, emergency." My favorite scene from that routine was when Doctor Moe during surgery turned to his nurse and holding out his hand shouted, "Annapoonatang!" I swear that's what Moe says, "Anna-poo-na-tang." Correct me if I wrong all you Three Stooges devotees--are the Stooges remembered much at all anymore?--great actors those Howard Brothers and Mr. Fine. The Stooges went to pot after Curley and Shimp kicked the bucket.

I stagger away from the Stooges. In passing, I think I could survive in a Stooge world; like I believe this is all a cartoon strip. In college one of my roommates went about the dorm dancing with a broom saying, "It's all done with mirrors, mah friends, it's all done with mirrors." Old Duffy. Duffy, my man, you were right, whatever you're dancin' with now.

But the power of life and death in one man's hands. That's what's frightening about all of this. I mean look at the power Hitler had; Stalin; Roosevelt; Mao; Lenin; Pol Pot; the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia--yeah, that's one MAN, the purest of the bloodline they can find due to the old original daddy's many bastard sons--not many daughters survive, ever notice that about the Saudi Royal Family?--wait a minute, I take all that back--they are members of the Coalition of the Fool Willing--or are they? Let's see, weren't most of the 9/11 attackers Saudi Arabian? One Jordanian or something, too? Why didn't we attack Saudi Arabia after 9/11? You think Congress people ever know this shit?...do they think like I do?

By the bye, cheers to Brother Bill Moyers and his teevee comeback last night on PBS. It was the best job of teevee reporting I've seen on television--Bill did it. I'm gonna quick puttin' Preacher Boy Bill down in my growlings. He gets a The Daily Growler "Daily Growler" Golden Wolf award (I think you have to go to Monahans, Texas, to get them--but Bill's a Texas boy, he can whiz out to Monahans in his limo one day and pick it up I'm sure).

thegrowlingwolf
for The Growling Wolf

For You Yankee Haters
The Yankees just lost their sixth game in a row. Boston won, so the Yanks are now buried in the basement of the AL Eastern Div. 5 games back. They got shut out tonight by the Blue Jays--God, a Canadian baseball team--how heretical! 8-12. Worse Yankee start ever in my memory. The Yankees have no confidently professional pitchers and the ones they have a millionaire goldbricks walking around bitching and moaning about backaches, shoulder pain, or like Carl Pavano, one of the great goldbricks of all time in Sports--even more goldbricking than the old Knicks basketball center, Bill Medley, who missed so many games because of injuries the fans called him "Medical Bill"--this was back in the days when the regular old fans could sit down floor level, where now only celebrities get to sit protected from the people who have made the rich gods. I say throw beers at them; but then...I'm pissed.

thegrowlingwolfdiehardYankeefan--I stayed with them even during the Major Houk days--the late sixties--those days when Hector Lopez and Roy White were their only stars and the Yankees lingered all year in the second division....