OPINION: The worst head cold of my life has scooped out my brain and left my mouth in a permanent flycatcher pose. I need good drugs . . . American drugs.
While my partner and friends are camping out under the California stars I am holed up in a rustic 1950s cabin wheezing and spluttering.
They wisely wave to me from a distance and leave food at my door. They return to their guffawing and merriment.
My cabin has no TV, which is a relief of sorts. The TV-watching we have managed on this trip has been rare but thoroughly illuminating. Advertising reveals the cultural climate of any nation and, based on that theory, drugs, cars and fast food are the fuel America runs on.
The food is depicted close-up in saucy, steamy, melty, Super Size Me glory. Everyone has perfect white teeth - both the servers and the eaters - and no one has pustules on their faces or even a faint hint of a waddle. Children are always happy and life is oh so wholesome and healthy.
The vehicle ads are all manly adventure, rugged individualism and, lately, better gas mileage. America's fixation with humongous SUVs and trucks is legendary so the recent ads depict massive Chevys and Dodges being the most fuel efficient ever. Instead of their usual five miles to the gallon they can now obtain at least six - and you'll be 10 foot tall and bulletproof while you're doing it. No worries if a random elk or Mexican steps out in front of you. They'll be as flat as a venison tortilla by the time that big sucker passes right over them.
For pure laugh out loud entertainment my favourites are the drug ads. Unlike New Zealand the US can advertise on TV any drug - prescription or otherwise.
For a while, a decade or so ago, we too were briefly allowed to air prescription drug advertising. Initially we tried it out on the then new, and much touted, weight loss drug Reductil.
It was a short-lived experiment as the makers were forced to graphically list the possible side effects and Reductil's were the possibility of dreadful things happening to you including oily, black stools. Someone in power had the sense to spare us all from such enduring images. Although, for some reason, it has scarred me permanently.
Such is the power and financial reach of drug companies - in a country that sees our model of medicine as socialism - that the compulsion to address the possible side effects does not deter them. An inexhaustible stream of accidentally side-splitting adverts dominates the TV screen around the clock.
The first few days after arriving I was furiously checking myself for red spots, lumps and bumps on my body and face because I thought I might have the symptoms of a disease I had never heard of. Such was my baboon-like fixation with myself that I missed a number of freeway exits and roared past stop signs. These ads have you imagining all kinds of afflictions which, naturally, are their intention.
It is no small task to keep the populace engaged with an ad while recounting in an abnormally speeded up voice (think Donald Duck) that the side effects may make your tongue bleed, your brain ooze out your ears and your inner workings collapse through your nether regions.
But, hey, there's only a small chance of that, right? All the people look so healthy and gorgeous and the music is so pitch perfect that it feels worth it to have the disease that necessitates the drug in the first place. It's even seems possible your life will be better than before.
One of my personal faves is an ad for a Viagra-esque product. I know New Zealand has ads for these bizarre creations too but America just does it bigger and better. A macho cowboy dude is towing horses behind a massive truck through a ranch meadow, and he is of such a silvery and distinguished age that he must own the whole spread. He unwittingly drives into a muddy bog and his wheels start spinning. Yet he's smiling a knowing smile.
At first I assumed the ad was going to be about the wonders of his truck. Instead he lets the horses out and they tow him free in no time. Then the logo for the erection rectification drug flashes up on the screen and a booming voiceover ends by saying something like, "a real man has learned that sometimes the best way forward is to accept help" - or some such John Wayne-type gem.
I don't think they were trying to be funny but I was certainly rolling around the floor. I guess because I find aging men's pursuit of the perfect erection hilarious I don't qualify as their target audience. Aside from that, I am also caught up feeling deep empathy for these greying men's greying wives and partners. Quite frankly, after years of raising children, playing the doting wife and menopause, they may actually be rather bored with the old conjugals.
There is a pill that's good for that too. The problem for men is that women generally don't have the desire to take it.
- Taranaki Daily News
While my partner and friends are camping out under the California stars I am holed up in a rustic 1950s cabin wheezing and spluttering.
They wisely wave to me from a distance and leave food at my door. They return to their guffawing and merriment.
My cabin has no TV, which is a relief of sorts. The TV-watching we have managed on this trip has been rare but thoroughly illuminating. Advertising reveals the cultural climate of any nation and, based on that theory, drugs, cars and fast food are the fuel America runs on.
The food is depicted close-up in saucy, steamy, melty, Super Size Me glory. Everyone has perfect white teeth - both the servers and the eaters - and no one has pustules on their faces or even a faint hint of a waddle. Children are always happy and life is oh so wholesome and healthy.
The vehicle ads are all manly adventure, rugged individualism and, lately, better gas mileage. America's fixation with humongous SUVs and trucks is legendary so the recent ads depict massive Chevys and Dodges being the most fuel efficient ever. Instead of their usual five miles to the gallon they can now obtain at least six - and you'll be 10 foot tall and bulletproof while you're doing it. No worries if a random elk or Mexican steps out in front of you. They'll be as flat as a venison tortilla by the time that big sucker passes right over them.
For pure laugh out loud entertainment my favourites are the drug ads. Unlike New Zealand the US can advertise on TV any drug - prescription or otherwise.
For a while, a decade or so ago, we too were briefly allowed to air prescription drug advertising. Initially we tried it out on the then new, and much touted, weight loss drug Reductil.
It was a short-lived experiment as the makers were forced to graphically list the possible side effects and Reductil's were the possibility of dreadful things happening to you including oily, black stools. Someone in power had the sense to spare us all from such enduring images. Although, for some reason, it has scarred me permanently.
Such is the power and financial reach of drug companies - in a country that sees our model of medicine as socialism - that the compulsion to address the possible side effects does not deter them. An inexhaustible stream of accidentally side-splitting adverts dominates the TV screen around the clock.
The first few days after arriving I was furiously checking myself for red spots, lumps and bumps on my body and face because I thought I might have the symptoms of a disease I had never heard of. Such was my baboon-like fixation with myself that I missed a number of freeway exits and roared past stop signs. These ads have you imagining all kinds of afflictions which, naturally, are their intention.
It is no small task to keep the populace engaged with an ad while recounting in an abnormally speeded up voice (think Donald Duck) that the side effects may make your tongue bleed, your brain ooze out your ears and your inner workings collapse through your nether regions.
But, hey, there's only a small chance of that, right? All the people look so healthy and gorgeous and the music is so pitch perfect that it feels worth it to have the disease that necessitates the drug in the first place. It's even seems possible your life will be better than before.
One of my personal faves is an ad for a Viagra-esque product. I know New Zealand has ads for these bizarre creations too but America just does it bigger and better. A macho cowboy dude is towing horses behind a massive truck through a ranch meadow, and he is of such a silvery and distinguished age that he must own the whole spread. He unwittingly drives into a muddy bog and his wheels start spinning. Yet he's smiling a knowing smile.
At first I assumed the ad was going to be about the wonders of his truck. Instead he lets the horses out and they tow him free in no time. Then the logo for the erection rectification drug flashes up on the screen and a booming voiceover ends by saying something like, "a real man has learned that sometimes the best way forward is to accept help" - or some such John Wayne-type gem.
I don't think they were trying to be funny but I was certainly rolling around the floor. I guess because I find aging men's pursuit of the perfect erection hilarious I don't qualify as their target audience. Aside from that, I am also caught up feeling deep empathy for these greying men's greying wives and partners. Quite frankly, after years of raising children, playing the doting wife and menopause, they may actually be rather bored with the old conjugals.
There is a pill that's good for that too. The problem for men is that women generally don't have the desire to take it.
- Taranaki Daily News
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