Phillipe & Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Phucking Pharma, Hot Dogging Hosts and a Buddy Blunder

Phuck Big Pharma

Hats off to our old pal Senator Weldon Shitehouse for co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill in the US Senate that would provide better and more effective policies and programs to deal with opioid addiction. The opioid epidemic is currently flying fast and furiously in the country of late, thanks to the overprescription of drugs like OxyContin and the resultant consumer move toward comparably cheaper heroin once the cookie jar money runs out.

The good senator’s timing couldn’t have been better, as P&J noted that Big Pharma’s altruistic legal dope dealers are also starting to make a serious effort to help those suffering from the ravages of opioids … and turn a quick buck, naturally. We, of course, refer to the recent move by the deeply concerned folks from Big Pharma to begin marketing drugs like AstraZeneca that promise to relieve the terrible constipation caused by the extended use of Oxys, Roxys and China White. What a great relief for junkies of all persuasions everywhere! (Although the symptom of constipation brought on by downing your Oxys with a swig of Mad Dog 20/20 or shooting horse is quite real, or so we are informed by those on the drug abuse qui vive.)

Upon a time, P&J thought the worst, and most incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassing drug side effect one could possibly experience was one that was warned about years ago for products containing olestra – notably Frito Lay’s newly introduced potato chips – which promised the chance of “anal leakage.” If that visualization didn’t scare you off a product, nothing should. But that now seems to pale in the face of many of the undesired results of Big Pharma’s new drugs targeted at even the smallest possible affliction one might experience, like “restless leg syndrome,” which obviously would require a prescription medicine (honk!).

Phillipe and Jorge remain astonished at how many of Big Pharma’s products get on the market these days with FDA approval that list their idea of acceptable side effects, unanticipated pleasures such as projectile vomiting, heart attack and even in some cases, that bothersome thing called “death.” As the public has become inured and oblivious to the 15-second roll call of things that could disable you or kill you that runs at the end of many TV drug ads, the cover-your-ass disclaimers by Big Pharma now take up three pages of magazine space as they spell out how to use it “safely,” following the flashy print ads for their designer products encouraging you to down a handful of their product. “Oh, just take one, dear, the worst we can end up with is you in a coffin. But, hey, no anal leakage soiling your burial suit!”

Next up for Big Pharma’s drug abuser market? CoverYrTrax!™. Are those pesky track marks on your arm putting off potential employers and aggravating your parole officer? Just have your doctor give you a prescription for CoverYrTrax!™, the healing and concealing cream that will make those puncture wounds go away faster than you can say, “Call my dealer!” Why resort to shooting up between your toes when CoverYrTrax!™ can make your arms as smooth and unblemished as Lindsay Lohan’s? Wait, make that Charlie Sheen’s. No, how about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s? Oops, that was too soon and probably in bad taste. Well, not as bad taste as anal leakage, but we’re sorry. Anyway, get your doctor to write you up a prescription for CoverYrTrax!™, or just do it yourself on the script pad you stole from him on your last visit.  You’ll be glad you did (and so will Big Pharma).

Real Estate Noir

Phillipe and Jorge were perusing the Newport Daily News recently when the item below caught our always-sharp eyes:

“Lovely contempt on a deadend street”?  What an elegant, chill-thrill concept, fraught with dark danger! Perhaps they could have added more info to increase the tingling feeling P&J got when we read it. “Ideal for bitter, brooding divorcee, preferably good-looking. Streetlight out. Broken window. Chilling wind. Dog barking at night. Trash blowing down street. ‘No Future’ spray-painted on outside wall.” Move quickly on this property, boys and girls, and you might beat Sam Spade to it.

Jimmy, Conan and Donald

Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien both have their own TV shows, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on NBC, and “Conan” on TBS. Yes, we knew you were aware of this.

Unfortunately, both of their shows, to be kind, suck beyond belief. Neither man is funny and  both are badly ignorant of the core idea of what made Johnny Carson the Eternal God of Late Night: The show should be for and about your guests and your audience, not a nightly personal vanity/ego trip.

Fallon has been annoying ever since his stint on “Saturday Night Live,” where he nonetheless did some good work. But he has carried over his cringe-worthy habit of laughing at his own jokes — even if other people aren’t — and forcing his way into every aspect of his show, demanding center stage with far greater luminaries who appear as guests. O’Brien is equally guilty of the latter offense, and he seems to have somehow gotten the impression that him vogue-ing for the camera is an incredible display of comedic art, and what the American public loves and is dying to see more of. One would think that having lasted only months as the “Tonight Show” host in years prior to Fallon when his ratings tanked, he might have learned something. But P&J suspect it is just a case of TBS viewers being a lower common denominator than NBC’s.

The point here is that the true master of TV is Donald Trump and his presidential campaign, which actually flies in the face of what makes Fallon and O’Brien so unwatchable. Trump’s show is all about him and only him, me-me-me, all the time, everywhere. Supporters are visual and audio props for this new reality show that just happens to possess unthinkable and unspeakable consequences for the entire country if it gets picked up in November for four years. He has personally sunk so low in his public frothings and dictatorial pronouncements and delusions that you could hit golf balls off the orange turf of his head, but one day later people (and the compromised media) are just dying to see today’s episode.

But let us let Matt Taibbi explain more from his bit on The Donald in the February 24 issue of Rolling Stone:

“(I)n an insane twist of fate, this bloated millionaire scion has hobbies that have given him insight into the presidential electoral process. He likes women, which got him into beauty pageants. And he likes being famous, which got him into reality TV. He knows show business…That put him into position to understand that the presidential election campaign is really just a badly acted, billion dollar TV show whose production costs ludicrously include the political disenfranchisement of its audience.”

Amen. Maybe we should have been happy with just Fallon laughing at his own lame jokes and Conan posing for the camera. God help us all.

Time for the Rock n’ Roll Collectors Convention Again

Dr. Oldie’s original Southern New England Rock n’ Roll Collectors Convention is back. On Sunday, March 6, from 10am to 3pm, the convention reconvenes at the Ramada Inn on Rte. 44 in Seekonk. Mass. There’s free parking and a large group of collectors and fans will be there to buy, sell or trade vinyl (albums and 45s), CDs, tapes, DVDs, books and posters. If you are a collector or a fan, you’ll want to be there.

A Brief Explanation

A month ago, Phillipe & Jorge wrote a remembrance of former mayor and Vo Dilun icon, Buddy Cianci. Among the anecdotes was one about the WPRO talk hosts not exactly being on chummy terms when the Bud-I returned to the airwaves after his “enforced vacation.” We noted that two very well-placed sources inside the radio station reported this to us at the time.

It was an old anecdote and we had no reason to believe it wasn’t true but, after the publication of the story, we spoke with WPRO talk host Dan Yorke who told us that, in recent years, he and Buddy had become quite friendly and he felt that our comment that they didn’t “get along” was really not accurate.

So, your superior correspondents would like to say, oops, we really didn’t reflect the totality of the situation with that story and would like to let you know that Buddy and Dan really were quite friendly, Sorry for the misunderstanding.