When . . .

(http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/americas-heroin-epidemic/trump-calls-new-hampshire-drug-infested-den-stoking-outrage-n789176)
". . . Trump’s trashing of New Hampshire as a "drug-infested den" in a telephone conversation with the president of Mexico did not go over well in the Granite State. . . Outraged by the jab, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., took to Trump’s favorite social media platform Thursday and called his remark “disgusting.”. . . "Instead of insulting people in the throes of addiction, @POTUS needs to work across party lines to actually stem the tide of this crisis," Hassan tweeted. . . New Hampshire's other Democratic senator, Jeanne Shaheen, called Trump's reported remarks "absolutely unacceptable" and said he owes her state "an apology.". . . "The President is wrong," the governor said in a statement. "It's disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer.". . . "

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The Value. . .

. . . of a life . . .

Patients infected with Hepatitis C suffer and  anticipate an early death.  Until recently, no 'cure' was possible.  Now, there IS hope.  What is stopping the treatment of these patients?  What is standing between life and death for sufferers of Hepatitis C? . . . you guessed it. . .

(from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/12/307747798/boomers-need-pricey-hep-c-drugs-but-medicare-wont-always-pay)

". . .These new drugs are curing more than 90 percent of patients – virtually 100 percent in some . Just a few years ago, cure rates were 50 percent or less.

But there's a big problem: The cost.  Timothy Webb and other advocates protest the cost of HIV drugs manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead outside an AIDS conference in Atlanta in March. Gilead is making a new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi. . . " which costs $1,000 per pill.

". . . Sovaldi combined with another new drug called (Olysio) is highly effective in patients like (Walter) Bianco.  And the new drugs are easy to take. Bianco says the older drugs caused horrible side effects. "Just terrible itching, terrible headaches, nausea," he says.

But Medicare won't pay for the drugs that Vargas says Bianco needs.  Medicare officials wouldn't comment on coverage of new hep C drugs. A spokesman says the federal program turns such decisions over to private insurers that administer .

One of those private insurers has twice rejected Vargas's prescription because the Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved use of the two drugs in combination. (Last week Olysio's maker, the FDA for approval of the regimen.). . . "

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Never Pleasant . . .

. . . to hear of an untimely death. . .

(from wikipedia.com)
The New York Times described (Philip Seymour) Hoffman as "a stocky, often sleepy-looking man with blond, generally uncombed hair who favored the rumpled clothes more associated with an out-of-work actor than a star." Hoffman "frequently dyed his hair and lost or gained weight for parts" and "was known for a sometimes painful dedication to his craft." In a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes, Hoffman revealed that he had suffered from drug and alcohol abuse after graduating from college, and went to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, recovering at age 22. He said he had abused "anything I could get my hands on. I liked it all." Hoffman relapsed over 20 years later, checking into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days in May 2013 because of problems with prescription pills and heroin.

On February 2, 2014, Hoffman was found dead by his friend, playwright David Bar Katz, in the bathroom of Hoffman's West Village, Manhattan office apartment. According to the New York City Police Department, the death appeared to be drug-related.

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Underappreciated. . .

(from wikipedia.com)
Don Patterson was an American jazz organist. Patterson played piano from childhood and was heavily influenced by Erroll Garner in his youth. In 1956, he switched to organ after hearing Jimmy Smith play the instrument. In the early 1960s, he began playing regularly with Sonny Stitt, and he began releasing material as a leader on Prestige Records from 1964 (with Pat Martino and Billy James as sidemen). His most commercially successful album was 1964's Holiday Soul, which reached #85 on the Billboard 200 in 1967. Patterson's troubles with drug addiction hobbled his career in the 1970s, during which he occasionally recorded for Muse Records and lived in Gary, Indiana. In the 1980s he moved to Philadelphia and made a small comeback, but his health deteriorated over the course of the decade, and he died there in 1988.

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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
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So what . . .

. . . miracle drug or horrendous malady can do all of the below? . . .

Prevent depression
Prevent prostate cancer
Reduce probability of strokes for women
Ward off Alzheimer’s
Reduce probability of breast cancer
Contain antioxidants
Make you smarter
Deliver a jolt deep in the brain
Not make you more alert
Protect you against type 2 diabetes
Trigger heart attack
Stimulate the adrenal hormones leaving your body’s parasympathetic nervous system (also known as the rest and digest system) inactive
Cause stomach ulcers
Cause birth defects
 
A newly published study of 400,000 participants says that coffee is not a guilty pleasure that may do harm. Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute says there may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking. Coffee contains many things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. And surprisingly, caffeine didn't play a role in the results of the new study. It's not that earlier studies were wrong. There is evidence that coffee can raise LDL, or bad cholesterol, and blood pressure (at least short-term) and those can raise the risk of heart disease.

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AMBIENCE & WINE
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Consumerproduchondria. . .

. . .  may well be the malady from which I suffer. . .I am a consumerproduchondriac. . .

 . . . a disease that is spread through the saliva of blututhious devisus (pictured above) when injected, unbeknownst to you, into your ear canal. Symptoms of the disease include the inability to make telephone contact with the person that you contact most, using the voice command feature.  All functions famously until the voice tells you, "calling mobile 1" and then nothing happens.

Consumerproduchondria can also be contracted through other consumer products, as I well know, and manifests itself in that the consumer product (or some specific function thereof) will, for some odd reason, work.

You know that it is consumerproduchondria specifically when you scour the manual that accompanies your product at purchase, and there is mention of nothing remotely resembling your situation to be found.  Identification of the disease becomes confirmed when you speak to a real customer service representative and they say, "I've never heard of that before."

The only remedy to this debilitating condition is a conscientious manufacturer with sympathetic customer service reps who will happily replace your item a little or no cost to you.  If you cannot locate the remedy at your local pharmacy, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

 
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The blessing and the curse. . .

. . . of aging is perspective. Although I choose to concentrate upon the blessing (and I use the term in purely secular fashion) aspect to be sure. That aspect was vividly, yet unexpectedly brought once again to my attention when pondering the talents and the moving music produced by Eric Dolphy.

In case you're not familiar with Eric Dolphy, he was a (chronologically) post-bop, jazz reed virtuoso, equally skilled and emotionally proficient on flute, alto saxophone and bass clarinet (which has, since my acquaintance with his music, become one of my favorite reed instruments). Born in 1928 in Los Angeles, he died in Berlin in June of 1964 of complications of a diabetic coma and sheer neglect. It seems the hospital staff, after Eric collapsed on stage, succumbing to the stereotypical view that all (or most) jazz musicians were drug addicts, left Eric in bed, unattended, to allow the alleged drugs to run their course. A brilliant, but tragically short, life.

My first exposure to Eric Dolphy is to the credit of my old school chum Bob Z., who had sometime around 1973 purchased an Eric Dolphy LP, which I cannot readily now identify due to record companies' haphazard practice of issuing unrelated and insufficiently documented recordings as an 'album', which contained mostly live material and a seminal performance of the old standard LAURA. The recording, now available as one of three "Live in Europe" CDs, still gives me goosebumps when I hear it.

The 'blessing' and the 'aging' to which I previously alluded come into play as follows. The pieces to which I was listening were recorded around 1960. I was hearing them in the early seventies. That means that music was made about thirteen years prior to my discovering it. In my innocent youthfulness, I perceived that mere 13 years as "A LONG TIME" ago. And the 36 years of age Eric had attained was really very young by most objective standards, but old to one of fifteen years.

Now, at fifty-three, listening to this glorious music and looking at photos of Eric Dolphy online, the apparent truth of the matter is that, when Eric passed away, he was only a kid. But what a BRILLIANT kid!


-----------------------
Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano opens the May 23rd Monday Night Songwriters Showcase at Brewer's Alley Restaurant & Brewery with 30 minutes of solo, Gonzo, Fractured Jazz and Improvisational Terror Tactics at the Piano. (take the elevator on the right to the 2nd floor) 124 North Market Street, Frederick, MD 21701, tel: 301-631-0089, Fax: 301-631-1874
www.brewers-alley.com
Frederick Acoustic Music Enterprise (F.A.M.E.)



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