Hi. Thank you for visiting my humble blog. As I make time for myself, I plan to expand the content. You may get topics that are about my observations as a marketer, or a technologist, but you may also see absolute silliness... I haven't decided...
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These are by no means new writings of mine. But I wanted to save them somewhere. The reason being, I am obsessed with certain spam emails I receive. Not all of them. I am, like many, grabbed by the Subject Lines.
In my opinion, none fill me with more laughter and questions than the ads for erectile dysfunction. Not just any ads. If they have the message telling me “your wife” or “woman” will thank me… I generally delete and move on. I am more intrigued by the messages the spammers, and for that matter the pharmaceutical companies, tell me about the language and ethics of erectile dysfunction.
These are old posts… I hope you enjoy them.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Viagra Pro???
I just got a once sentence email advertisement offering me that special cure for erectile dysfunction in a product called Viagra Pro.
I was not aware that they had a professional grade product. And I was wondering why they would offer it to someone who only uses his erections for recreational purposes…
Hmmm… I guess someone is telling me I need a radically new profession.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
E.D. Drugs Revisited
I cannot help but smirk at the little speech they give you at the end of every commercial for a prescription drug. They remind me of the old Saturday Nigh Live advertisement for Happy Fun Ball. DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL!
But back to the topic at hand. I am listening to these ads with aging men talking about needing that little special help. And I could not help but think about the whole ethics of erectile dysfunction drugs when they inform the potential consumer not to take Levitra if their heart is not healthy enough for sex.
Imagine, doomed to live the rest of your life not being able to get an erection, or not being able to make use of the ones you might accidentally get? My suggestion is take the drug, and have fun. If it kills you… is your life really worth living anyway? I’m not saying it is the only reason to live, but its one of the main reasons. In fact, it is how men are wired. We want it… all the time… for a reason. It’s a biological imperative for men to always be horny.
The only draw back I can think of is one of disclosure. I don’t think it is very ethical to have sex without warning them of very real circumstances. “Ummm… look honey. I think maybe you should be on top because there is a very real chance that this will kill me.“ Or… “ummm… you might want to take a look at my pulse every so often to make sure that the silly look on my face has more to do with enjoyment than it does with my expiration date.”
OK. It has just dawned on me. A book of ethics for this brave new world needs to be established. Do we have an obligation to tell people when we are on medications for things like ED, the voices in our heads, radical mood swings before we start getting serious with them?
At what point is that information important? Is it important for her to know if a man is using a pill to get aroused? Is it not important enough that he took it for her? Or whomever he was dating when he got the prescription or sent for the pills via some mail order place in faraway India?
OK. Now this is just getting weird.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Ever Expanding E.D. Vocabulary
I know that I have a tendency to ramble on and on about the emails I receive for Viagra. I have talked to no end about the ethics of using Viagra, or even having sex, with heart conditions, and how much disclosure one would give to their partner.
It just isn’t my fault! I get these emails, am I supposed to click the SPAM button in Yahoo Mail, and forget that it ever happened?
So far, as I see it from my email, there are many types of drugs men can take to treat erectile dysfunction. All of them have as a side effect, the possibility that the drug might work just a little too well.
“Yes dude… we are here for you to get a boner… but if you get one that lasts more than 4 hours, you might want to go to the emergency room. Just saying dude… I know it sounds like a great thing… but it isn’t. Besides… you and I both know you get bored after an hour, and she doesn’t want you pounding away at her genitals that long anyway…. and if you didn’t have a heart condition before… well holy crap! After 4 hours you start to chafe anyway.”
I hope I didn’t misread the subtext of the exculpatory / warning clause that they read really fast after some dorky old guy sings a song extolling the virtues of the blue pill he had to take because he couldn’t get it up (to the tune of Viva Las Vegas… as song I used to love before that commercial came out). No pun intended in that parenthetical phrase, btw…
So back on topic.
We have so many forms of drugs to treat the floppy noodle syndrome: Viagra, Cialis, Levitra… ok… I don’t know the other brand names. But according to my emails in the past we also have different grades of Viagra.
Apparently Viagra was not enough, because I have received emails trying to sell me on Viagra Pro. Since I don’t make a living having sex (unfortunately), it is quite probable I will not even qualify for the professional grade product.
Today I add to the list “Super Viagra.” I guess, like Viagra Pro, it likely exceeds the recommended 100mg maximum dosage found in the regular Viagra one gets prescribed by a doctor. But who is the market for Super Viagra? Is it better than Viagra Pro, or is it a middle step between regular Viagra and Viagra Pro? What are the advantages? Can I look forward to super powers?
These may sound like silly questions, but I think they are more important. As a marketer, I take my craft seriously and with a sense of integrity and ethics. I know not everyone does, but this is the medical industry. I can’t imagine they could just tell us anything like a bunch of slick snake oil salesmen from the pre-FDA days… right?
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I wrote this on January 5, 2008. First as an email to a friend,
and recently remembered it when I got a haircut.
Imagine my own shock when yesterday was like …Oh.. My… GAWD… I am so vain!
I woke up, worked my usual hours, then drove into Bozeman to finally pick up my Jeep. I decided after that to run in even further to get a haircut.
This is always a strange event for me. Don’t you hate this question: “How would you like me to cut it?”
Hmmm… Medium Rare, I would like the eggs over easy… those are simple decision. I get my hair cut three times a year… it is a MAJOR decision and I have absolutely no idea on how to give those types of instructions. It’s not like I went to barber college!
I used to have opinions on my hair. I remember growing up in a little town and my mother sending me to get a haircut with a check already written out for the payment. So I would go to Kate (I think that was her name), and I would ask for specific things, to which she would then go ahead and do what she felt my mother would want done anyway. Inevitably, the worst haircuts of my life were from her because I have all these random little curls in my hair and she would often cut my bangs in such a way that it would look uneven because after the hair would dry… the hair would curl back up and what was an even cut for a wet head of hair was never even when dry. In short, I hated her.
She never cut my hair the way I asked. And the last straw was when I turned 18, paid for it myself, and she went ahead and did it the way she felt my mother would want me to wear it. It was the last time I ever threw my important hair cutting business to her.
So the importance of my hair-do started to diminish. And finally after moving to New York, I started to get stranger haircuts. Like those Italian from Bensonhurst style haircuts the Italian 
barber in Long Island insisted on giving me. Eventually I gave up and walked in one day and said: “shave it off!” So for about a year and a half, I wore my hair…well…not shaved like Michael Jordan, but standard military recruit in the first day of basic training style.
The one cool thing about that haircut, was that I loved to feel the top of my head when I got back from the barber. That and the instructions to the barber were relatively simple. Put clipper to base of scalp, and cut.
Eventually my ex-wife complained that I look better with bangs, but provided no additional advice, drawings, diagrams, what have you, on the hairstyle that looks best for me. So again, in the wilderness I went. I was asked, how do you like it? Off the ears? Off the neck? How do you wear sideburns (as if I have sideburns anyway)?
TOO MANY QUESTIONS! Sometimes I just said… if you had a date with a guy, how would you like him to wear his hair? Cut it that way! You have to watch out with that question, because some women are evil.
Anyway… so my sense of caring continued to degrade as I started to look for deals on haircuts, no longer caring about anything but price. I found this place in Chinatown… $5 haircut! How do they afford to charge $5 for a haircut in Manhattan??? I went twice until I realized that the steady stream of men going in and out the door to the back was likely the answer. The second time I was there I asked… what is back there? The barber asked me… “you want massagee?” Ummm… no.
That was followed be a feeling of disgust of where else she had her hands, and that I sure hope she had washed her hands!!! Needless to say, I never returned for a third $5 haircut.
So… I have been recently back into this notion that my hair needs to look nicer. So I am in the barber chair, and I am completely at a loss for what to tell the woman giving the haircut. And I am apologizing. I’m sorry ma’am… I have only been getting haircuts for 38 years… how should I know what I am doing in this chair?
Knowing that is not helpful I tried to say… imagine me in a job interview. What would you do to a man’s hair if he said in a few days he has a job interview or a date? Putting myself at the mercy of a potential agent of evil, there I was prostrate to the better nature of her humanity, possibly femininity. Please… be gentle!
So I am sitting there, getting my haircut, I could not help but notice the uneasy silence. Hair cutters usually talk your ear off! I mean… she said nothing. So I was in this strange position that is never really good for me… of trying to make small talk.
Then I look down and notice all the grey hairs mixed into my hair. “Nice trick,” I thought. Then I asked… “how are you putting all those grey hairs into those clumps of hair on this apron?” She laughed and said… “it’s all you sweetie.” Then she gently let me know, for an extra $20, they have this thing that really blends the grey hair into the rest of your hair.
Wow. Another variable added to my hair styling decision-making process? Lucky me!
So to make a long story short (I know… too late), I had her wash that grey right out of my hair!
Maybe today I can go get a manicure and a facial and sit under tanning lights for a few minutes to get rid of that embarrassing tan line? Yet, I must say… I am happy with my hair today.
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I find myself not sure what I want to say sometimes. In conversation, I can hold my own in most discussions on the topics of my profession, philosophy, pop-spirituality, even old school spirituality. I read so many personal blogs, and sometimes I find so many of them have the same tenor of a 13 year old girl writing in her diary. Nothing too deep, not bothering in the notion that… oh wow… what if someone actually takes the time to read this?
I have decided that maybe what I really need to use this for, at first, is finding my voice. I have a tendency to be opinionated. I think maybe I will use many of my posts as a form of open letters to <insert persons/groups/associations>. It feels like it may be my style.
I think it sounds like a great literary prop to getting my point across, and it fits my highly opinionated style, and I have felt the art of getting ones point across in the form of an open letter has just lost its artform. Since Martin Luther nailed his to some church… or something like that… damn protestants… I can only think of a handful of truly eloquent and effective open letter writers. Of course I am tired… so maybe I am just not trying hard enough.
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Ok. So my name is Rick Smith. I guess that seems like a suitable manner in which I can introduce myself. Yes. My parents actually named me that. I think one should know the details of why they received the name they received at birth. Usually people have a story, such as, it is a family name. In fact, many people in my family have names that are borrowed from my grandparents, my great grandparents, my great uncles, etc. These people have some kinship to legacy, history, etc. Then there is me…
I wish I knew the full story, but my parents never told me. All I know was, there was a pretty big disagreement over what to name me. There was a framework. The initials clearly needed to be RDS, so as to conform to my dad and older brother. This part I do know. The ‘S’ is simple. There are a lot of Smith’s in my family, as I am sure you can probably guess. The ‘D’ should be simple. My brother and my dad both had my grandpa’s first name (at least the one the government gave him… for another story) as their middle name. That name is David. So it would make perfect sense that my middle name would be Daryl.
Richard. A traditional family name, right? Nope. This is apparently where the fight occurred. I don’t know what the fight was, to be honest. Anyway, an uncle suggested Richard, and there it came to pass. I would be Richard Daryl Smith. I’m so glad they didn’t name me after that uncle. Afterall, who the hell names their kid Cecil these days?
Anyway. Richard Daryl Smith is the name. I like to tell people it’s the name the government gave me when they put me into The Witness Relocation Program. I could tell you my real name, but [say it in unison on three] then I would have to kill you.
What will I likely write about in here? Probably it will mostly be my whining about the way the world works. But occasionally it will probably just be the way I can express my nerdly interests in a variety of things, such as: internet culture, social media, business innovations, history, society, and so on.
I would be happy to tell you more about me, but I don’t want to give away too much at a time. No point in scaring you off.
