Ladies are all “yak yak yak,” while men are like, “Mm hmm,” which is why the only way fathers can bond with their daughters is through sports.

Cabinet magazine is ten years old, you can join them tonight at Book Court! Jonathan Ames will be on hand. Oh yes. So many events, from Waka Flocka to Frank Black, and also, all the poets in the world come out for a tribute to Lucille Clifton, at CUNY.

How Did ‘Forrest Gump’ Ever Beat Out ‘Pulp Fiction’ For Best Picture?

by Brian Pritchett and Brad Pritchett

Brian: George C. Scott, loveable old grump that he was, famously called the Oscars “a two-hour meat parade,” as well as “offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt.” It’s hard to argue with any of that, but it makes me nostalgic for the days when the Academy could get it over with in a mere hundred and twenty minutes.

Brad: The Oscars officially died for me in 2002, when Ron Howard somehow won Best Director for A Beautiful Mind over Robert Altman and David Lynch, who were nominated for Gosford Park and Mulholland Drive.

As the Oscars draw near, the second in a series about our strong movie opinions, past and present.

Brian: I think it lost a lot of credibility for both of us in 1995, the year that Letterman hosted, and bombed, and when Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction for Best Picture. We were college kids and movie dorks back then, all fired up about our opinions, and our reaction to that was equivalent to the nation’s shock and horror at Dave’s “Oprah. Uma. Uma. Oprah” bit. So, we’ve both seen Pulp Fiction fairly recently, but we just watched Forrest Gump for the first time in forever. I still haaaaaated it. Bradley, what were your impressions, and how do they compare to the way you felt in 94?

Brad: I’m probably more forgiving of Gump now, and less of Ron Howard.

Saying a movie is the best picture of the year opens it up to a level of scrutiny that Gump completely withers under. Tom Hanks is always charming, but there are aspects of the movie, beyond its preciousness, that are really bothersome. For one, it seems like the initial concept was probably darker and more of a satire than the non-threatening final product.

Brian: Yeah, I found an interview with Zemeckis and Quentin Tarantino, who are apparently quite chummy, and they both consider Gump a black comedy.

When I watched it, my irony detector never went off once, so if that’s what was intended, it didn’t play that way for me.

Brad: It’s simultaneously too whimsical and self important to play as black comedy. It’s epic Oscar bait. I was never able to see Gump as a character as much as he is a great performance. And that his adventures significantly shape the second half of the 20th century, from inspiring Elvis to swing his hips when he dances, to siccing the cops on the Watergate burglars, inspiring the “Have a nice day” t-shirts and launching the 80’s jogging fad, suggests that Forrest really stops being an individual character and transforms into a dim-witted everyman cipher for the Baby Boomers. In the end, Forrest is a Vietnam vet and small-business owner who’s favored by God presumably because he’s so pure and moral. Over time Forrest comes to embody these fundamentally conservative values, and just post-scripting the film as a ‘black comedy’ is too easy an out after so much sincerity.

Brian: I’ve been Googling around for reviews of Gump, and most of them were great. Ebert loved it, for instance. There was another vein of reaction, though, such as what Pauline Kael said here: “It struck me like Field Of Dreams and other movies that people suckered themselves into reacting to. Somehow there’s a softness in people’s thinking. They’re saying to themselves, You don’t have to be smart, you only have to be good. But you can barely get around the corner on goodness in this society now. These movies do speak to something in the culture, which is a desire to regress, to believe in certain kinds of values that never did operate.” Anthony Lane wasn’t impressed either, and got in some good zingers like: “This movie is so insistently heartwarming that it chilled me to the marrow.” Maybe that kind of disapproval is why the film isn’t talked about much anymore? I mean it’s definitely iconic, with the white suit and the box of chocolates. But I feel like Tarantino’s aesthetic won in the long run.

Brad: Whatever. There’s a restaurant chain based on Forrest Gump.

Brian: Indeed: The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. There’s one in Times Square. Check out the menu, there’s a dish for every character. Here’s the one for Jenny, Forrest’s long-suffering beatnik love interest:

Veggie Mushroom Burger: Jenny would be proud! A great homemade Mushroom Burger with Pepper Jack Cheese, Red Onions, Avocado, Spring Mix and Remoulade Sauce. Served with Fries.

Anthony Lane wouldn’t be caught dead in this place.

Brad: Tarantino should open a chain of Jack Rabbit Slims. Although a five-dollar shake is pretty standard now, people wouldn’t even get why that’s funny. Besides, Frank Ocean wrote a song about how he totally wants to make out with Forrest Gump. There’s your cultural relevance.

Brian: That song is more interesting than anything on the Forrest Gump soundtrack. How did the heavy rotation of pop hits, like “Hound Dog’” and “California Dreamin” in the movie work for you?

Brad: It’s astonishing how on the nose the soundtrack is at all times. Like, as Jenny is walking out the door, as she’s leaving her abusive boyfriend, there’s Jim Morrison singing, “Don’t you love her as she’s walking out the door.” Or the medley of songs with the word “run” in them as Forrest runs across America: “Running On Empty,” “It Keeps You Runnin’”. Then my favorite bit: Jenny and her wastrel friends are lazing on Hollywood Boulevard, strumming out some Joan Baez or whatever, when a Volkswagen bug pulls up and a random, filthy hippie emerges shouting: HEY, ANYBODY WANT TO GO TO SAN FRANCISCO?

Jenny: (So stoned) I’ll go.
Hippie: FA-A-A-A-R OUT!
(CUE SOUNDTRACK: “If You’re Going to San Francisco”)

Brian: Heh. And those songs aren’t just literal references to what’s happening on screen, they’re also there as broad cultural markers. The Vietnam sequence starts with “Fortunate Son,” of course, because movies about the Vietnam war are legally required to use that song, and five minutes later it’s Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower,” and then “There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear…” Someone should make a YouTube supercut of every time those songs have been set to footage of jungles and helicopters.

Pulp’s soundtrack has a lot of music from the 60s and 70s too, but not the stuff that we’ve all heard, or at least it wasn’t at the time. Pulp Fiction was my introduction to Al Green, and I bet I’m not the only one. Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield, Ricky Nelson… all this stuff that was off the cultural radar in the early 90s.

Brad: There was a solid decade where every house party I went to played “Son Of A Preacher Man” at least one time.

Brian: The 60s in Gump hits the whole checklist of clichés: they watch the moon landing on TV, and we hear “That’s one small step for man…” while “Age of Aquarius” is playing at the same time. Later we realize that the 70s have arrived when we see Jenny doing a line, in a disco, and we hear “Get Down Tonight.” There’s a Kool & the Gang song in Pulp Fiction too, but it isn’t one of the two that get played at every wedding.

Brad: This is one of the reasons why I’m still fond of Tarantino’s movie: “Miserlou” was a thirty-year-old entry in the surf rock genre, which had been out of the mainstream for decades, but that music made even just the opening credit sequence of Pulp surprising and fun. After that movie, whole eras of old music opened up to a new audience and classic rock became more than just Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Steve Miller Band. Meanwhile, when Zemeckis goes to find a Bob Dylan song, he just reaches over and grabs “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” which is about as exciting as arbitrarily turning on a classic rock radio station.

Brian: Yeah, and Pulp introduced me to new movies I’d never considered before either. There were these little in-jokes and references to Sonny Chiba, Douglas Sirk, the French New Wave, and other things that were hard to find at the neighborhood Blockbuster. And suddenly I wanted to watch all of that. It got me excited about watching movies. Uma orders a Durward Kirby burger at Jack Rabbit Slims. I had never heard of Durward Kirby. I read that the glowing suitcase was an homage to “Kiss Me Deadly”, and the next thing I knew I was browsing the classics aisle.

There are cinematic references in Gump too, like Gary Sinise as the stock troubled Vietnam vet in a wheelchair, who slaps the hood of a New York cab and shouts, “I’m walking here!” while we hear “Everybody’s talkin’ at me…”

Brad: Yeah, there’s also Forrest and Jen-nay recreating Gone With The Wind’s famous sunset pull back shot and later there’s a flash of the helicopter charge from Apocalypse Now, but it’s all so obvious and clumsily shoe-horned in. I understand how important cultural markers are to Gump, and obviously cinema should be a part of that, but an allusion to something as iconic as Midnight Cowboy should feel more earned, otherwise the moviemakers are just arrogantly stating what section of film history they feel Gump belongs in. They also edit Tom Hanks into Birth of a Nation, which is a damn weird thing to do.

Brian: Speaking of that, let’s talk about how Forrest is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, who, we understand via the narration, was a Confederate general and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Which I guess means that Momma isn’t just a good-hearted source of folksy catchphrases; she’s apparently also into White Power.

Brad: “Momma always said that gypsies are shiftless thieves.” She had so many catchphrases that I might be remembering them wrong.

Brian: I tried to write down everything she says beyond the box of chock-oh-lits bit. There was “Dyin’ is a part of life,” “God is mysterious,” “Miracles happen every day,” and, of course, Momma’s greatest hit, “Stupid is as stupid does.” As long as we’re talking about stupidity, I’m pretty sure that letting your son with special needs join the Army in the lead-up to Vietnam qualifies.

Brad: Yeah, the movie careens along so quickly, the longest scene is probably five minutes or so, that we never really think about why anyone is doing what they’re doing. Other than that Gump loves Jen-nay, and on that point we are pretty clear.

Brian: Tarantino was beset with plagiarism allegations for all his early films. But the things he lifted were from movies I had never heard from. Marcellus memorably threatens Zed with “a pair of pliers and a blowtorch,” which is a line from Charley Varrick, a Don Siegel movie from 1973. I guess deciding whether that constitutes plagiarism or homage is up to the scholars, but what about Gump’s similarity to Woody Allen’s Zelig; have you seen that recently?

Brad: So long ago, but I think it was about a totally passive guy who photobombs major historical events via tricky video editing. So yeah, I don’t see any way to make a connection. Sorry.

Brian: I think Zelig, the character, was crazy, where Gump is merely dumb. But his stupidity is inconsistent, which is one of the main problems with the movie. Forrest is occasionally heroic, in ways that would require a capacity for spatial and situational reasoning, as when he rescues his platoon-mates after an ambush in Vietnam. But there are other points in the movie when his behavior is so amazingly dim that it strains credulity. When George Wallace symbolically blocks the doors to the University of Alabama, Forrest, taking another student’s words literally, believes that raccoons are trying to gain admission to the school. Even worse, on patrol in Vietnam, he seems to think that he and his fellow soldiers are looking for a “guy named Charlie.”

Brad: So many bad jokes. Especially in the CGI sequences where they make human puppets out of dead historical figures, like the one where Forrest inspires John Lennon to write “Imagine” by explaining how horrible commie China is at the time. It just made me cringe.

Brian: The jokes all fall flat, for me at least. All those throwaway bits where Forrest accidentally invents pop culture by being a gentle doofus in the right place and the right time. Once he steps in shit, and then says, “It happens,” in the presence of a man who has just introduced himself as a local bumper sticker vendor. Humor is a subjective thing, but objectively speaking, that is not funny. Studies have shown!

Brad: If there’s a central conflict in the film, or at least a singular thing that repeatedly forces Forrest out into the world, it’s Jenny’s stubborn refusal to accept his man-child love.

Brian: Poor Jen-nay. She’s imperiled more often than Spider-man’s girlfriend. All of the things that Forrest is too simple and pure for: sex, drugs, radicalism, jam bands… those are the things that get Jenny into trouble. Forrest only ever has sex once in the film, and that night produces Forrest Gump II. So, very little sex for Forrest, but he does get to be violent fairly often. There are scenes throughout of Forrest going into Hulk mode on anyone who disrespects Jenny, be they school-age bullies, patrons at the strip club where she works, or a college date who gets grabby in a car, while Forrest is creepily stalking Jenny’s dorm in the rain.

Brad: Right, and after Forrest savagely beats that dude, he says the worst thing a man can say about his tendency toward violent sexual jealousy: “I can’t help it. I love you.” Not okay, Forrest Gump. Oh, and he also stomps the most ridiculous character: Wesley, who’s like Rush Limbaugh’s idea of an activist radical what with his stupid epaulets, Trotsky glasses and shit-eating goatee. He’s the white Black Panther who calls Forrest a “baby killer” and then slaps Jen-nay around, launching Forrest into crazed, but arguably more appropriate, psycho violence.

Brian: I didn’t realize that character even had a name. I thought he was just like Beatnik Number Three or something.

Brad: He may as well have been. I’m really not sure if Jenny is even a character or if she could just be renamed Problematic Love Interest One. She’s just another right-wing composite: the liberated woman who is only refusing Forrest because she’s broken and selfish with her childish dreams of being a folk singer, and so, lacking Forrest’s wondrous moral compass, she instead ruins her life with drugs and sex, and then is only redeemed when she becomes a mother.

Brian: And at the end, isn’t Jenny just the most beautiful AIDS patient ever? With her makeup and flowing hair on her deathbed? Hanks was in Philadelphia the year before he did Gump, you’d think that he would have suggested some adjustments in lighting or something. You know what, I think I hate this movie more now than I did then. When Rick Santorum called Obama a snob for saying that everyone should go to college, he was thinking of Forrest Gump. When Britney Spears was asked about the war in Iraq and said that we should just trust our president in every decision, that’s a very Gump sentiment.

Brad: Maybe cornpone simplicity was more appealing in the mid-90s, when everyone had good jobs and were so bored that listening to Ace of Base and dry humping your White House intern seemed like good ideas, but idiocy has lost much of its luster in the 21st century. It’s just not a thing I feel comfortable celebrating anymore. Also, Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, The King’s Speech, Crash, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, Shakespeare in Love and Titanic have all won the Academy’s award for Best Picture since 1994, and none of them are much better, and some are a hell of a lot worse, than Forrest Gump. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Previously in series: The One Edit That Would Make ‘North By Northwest’ Perfect

Brian Pritchett, of Brooklyn, and Brad Pritchett, of Denver, are brothers.

★ A bar of bright orange shone on the apartments to the west, but the color slowly drained away from the day thereafter. Late morning was mild, almost even to the Hudson. Bricks and trees and dirt were all brown, in shades not worth distinguishing, under gray sky. The brightest thing in the landscape was a patch of maroon mulch, spread on a side planting below grade. The severed wings and bloody backbone of a pigeon lay in one piece in the street between Trump buildings, with one wingtip waving in the chilly breeze off the river, manifesting itself at last. A street-sweeping sign clanked quietly in its brackets. By early afternoon, over the subway mouth, the clouds had gone to a frank dark gray. With the gray came rain, and with the rain came gusts.

There’s a commercial that caught my eye during a recent spate of television watching with relatives, a spot for Prilosec, featuring a stand-up comedian, a veteran of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Actually it caught my eye several times because it was airing and then reairing again all through the holidays. It was disquieting. But obviously this was a good time to run a spot for a heartburn drug, during that period from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl that is technically the Gluttony Season, as what better time to come down with a spot of heartburn? It’s ingrained in the advertising industry as the unintended consequence of the parties and banquets, the buffalo wings and beer, that we’ve subjected ourselves to. Watch enough TV, and you’ll learn heartburn is a fact of life, the price paid for good living.

And when you come down with it, you turn to a cure — big glasses of water, a Rolaids, maybe even a Prilosec. And as with anything, these come at a cost, a cost that may have gone up or down over time, comparatively. And so we ask the question, as we do every now and then, when you seek you rid yourself of that peculiar small gastric discomfort, are you paying more than your forebears, or less?

FIRST, WHAT THE DOCTOR SAYS

“Heartburn” is a convenient phrase (as Nora Ephron knew), but of course heartburn has nothing at all to do with your heart. In fact, let’s be very careful in delineating here, because what we’re talking about is what you could call an upset stomach, that rumble in the higher end of the guts which is easily attributed by the afflicted to recent consumption of food and/or drink. (Think, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”) It’s what we called as kids “a tummy ache,” or might call now “acid indigestion.”

For help with the medical issues, I emailed with New York gastroenterologist Dr. Yasmin Metz. “It’s characterized by an uncomfortable, hot or burning sensation in the chest/abdomen. It can start in the upper abdomen and go up to the chest, sometimes up to the throat or radiate to the back. It can occur after eating, lying down, or bending over,” she wrote. However, Dr. Metz warns that chronic severe heartburn should never be taken lightly (i.e., see your doctor!) as it could be a symptom of gastroesophagal reflux disease (GERD), gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and other conditions of the esophagus. And if that’s not enough to scare you into minding Dr. Metz, she continued, “In women middle-aged or older, it can be an atypical presentation of heart disease, and the most feared complication of untreated symptoms is esophageal cancer.” The fact that we are looking at heartburn remedies in the sense of the occasional, sporadic, post-Roman Feast sufferer is not intended to be a slight to those with more serious issues.

There are a comfortable number of options for the modern heartburn sufferer. You have your antacids, like your Tums and your Milk of Magnesia, which neutralize the gastric acids with alkalinizing agents (and are not too far removed from the heartburn recommendation of Pliny the Elder in the 1st Century AD, coral powder). By the way, an advance in the understanding of how the stomach works occurred in a little episode you might remember from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not — in the 1820s, Army surgeon Dr. William Beaumont had a patient who took a musket ball in the stomach, which (believe it or not) left a permanent hole, through which Dr. Beaumont could observe the stomach in action. Ew.

More recent innovations in heartburn relief required no abdominal peephole. You have your H2 blockers, which interfere with the histamine receptors in the stomach lining, which decreases the production of stomach acid. You also have your proton pump inhibitors. Proton pumps (which are biochemical pumps, which won’t make that phrase sound any less ridiculous) produce acid in the stomach, which get inhibited by the ingenious drugs with long and hard-to-remember names.

But the names you are familiar with are the trade names that the pharmaceutical companies devise and then market half to death: for H2 blockers, Tagamet and Zantac, and PPI, Prilosec and Prevacid. These drugs were only approved for over-the-counter sales (i.e., without prescriptions from a doctor) by the Food and Drug Administration in the past twenty years.

A difference among the treatment options is that antacids and H2 blockers are remedies that you take after you have the heartburn, and that PPIs are more of a long-term treatment (and accordingly, useful for some of the scarier gastric conditions mentioned above). A small distinction, but one that comes back (as it were).

And Dr. Metz listed some of the non-drug treatments that a physician might recommend: “It is generally advised to wait three hours prior to lying down after eating a meal. Patients can also sleep with their heads elevated and on their left side.” And of course, the potential patient could opt for the ounce of prevention. “Patients are told to avoid caffeine (coffee/chocolate) which can weaken the lower esophageal sphincter, the junction between the esophagus and stomach, that usually prevents acid from refluxing from the stomach into the esophagus.” And if that sounds like a tall task, Dr. Metz suggested, “Cigarette smoking, alcohol, fatty foods, citrus products, peppermint, tomato sauce, onions, garlic and spicy foods should be avoided as well.”

A CURE FOR CORNDOGS

Earlier we mentioned the marketing efforts of pharmaceuticals. Let’s take a look at one in specific, maybe think of it as more of a cultural phenomenon, regardless of how disquieting it may be, to me or anyone else. The commercial is from the current Prilosec campaign, featuring “spokes-comedian” Dan Whitney (p/k/a Larry The Cable Guy), called “Demolition.”

Here’s a brief description (a recap, if you will), but please watch, as that’s the intended use of commercials.

Larry the Cable Guy is looking at the camera, almost threatening, and behind him normal folk, like you and me, are passing. It’s a fair or something. “You know what I love about this country?” But guess what? “Trick question!” he says, “I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS COUNTRY!” Of course he does. He presents the product to the camera “Includin’ Prilosec OTC!” The reveal.

Now he’s in a late model sedan, wearing a crash helmet, with a young-ish couple in the back seat. The car is in motion! “You know one pill each mornin’ treats frequent heartburn,” LTCG says, “so you can enjoy all this great land of ours has to offer.” Guess where LTCG is driving! “Like demolition derbies,” LTCG says coolly. And now they’re pulling up to a quickie wedding chapel! “And drive-through weddin’s!” LTCG grins. And now they’re back at the derby, and guess what they’re eating? Corn dogs, from a stand with the banner COLOSSAL CORN DOGS! LTCG continues: “So if you’re one of those people who gets heartburn and then treats, day after day, block the acid with Prilosec OTC, and don’t get heartburn in the first place.” Guess what? He’s trying to help you! He’s grinning! They medical warnings are flashing! It’s time for the announcer! “One pill each morning. Twenty-four hours. Zero heartburn.”

This spot does engender a little bit of dissonance, inasmuch as it advocates not so much the treatment of a malady but the preventative treatment of a malady. Of course that makes sense with something like, say, syphilis or the flu, but in this case the malady in question is one that is can be caused by volitional behavior. If one’s heartburn is caused by excessive enchilada consumption, then one could, at least theoretically, avoid heartburn by not eating enchiladas. The occasional heartburn that is the target of these marketing campaigns, the heartburn that is caused by eating the colossal corn dog, has more to do with the hangover than it does the flu. But ain’t that America.

At the same time, the spot is an excellent example of the importance of marketing to this sector of pharmaceuticals. Alka-Seltzer is a somewhat famous

example of 20th-century marketing, already spending one- to one-and-a-half-million dollars per year on advertising in the late 30s, not ten years after its debut (and well before the television age, as a point of reference). Alka-Seltzer was adept at creating (or hiring ad agencies to create) mascots, like “Speedy”, an anthropomorphized Alka-Seltzer tablet featured in an extensive TV campaign featuring him from 1953 to 1964, and catchphrases, like “Try it, you’ll like it,” and, “That’s a spicy meatball!” (Here, have a watch.) In fact this relentless campaigning did more than promote the product, it actually was related to changing the product. In 1975, TV ads began to run with the jingle, “Plop plop fizz fizz/oh what a relief it is.” Prior to the start of the campaign, the recommended dose was one tablet. The campaign effectively doubled the dosage, and sales increased accordingly. (You can see that double dosage in the 1977 ad shown up top.)

Which is all that Prilosec and its spokes-comedian are trying to do as well — induce more people to put Prilosec in their bellies. Which, depending on the way you look at it, can be the behavior of a company in its natural habitat, or it can be a little bit creepy.

Let’s give the final word on this to the medical warning that flashes in the spot, right after LTCG says, “…and don’t get heartburn in the first place.”

It’s possible while taking Prilosec OTC. Use as directed for 14 days to treat frequent heartburn. Do not take for more than 14 days or more often than every 4 months unless directed by a doctor. Not for immediate relief.

Prilosec would like you to take Prilosec OTC all the time, because you eat and drink unwisely. Except not for more than 14 days. In any four-month period.

THE ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION NUMBERS

So let’s look at some numbers, which we obtained from our friends at the Morris County Library in Morris Township, NJ, which keeps an archive of historic consumer prices, including the prices of some heartburn remedies. And we’ll adjust the prices to 2012 values, in parentheses, using the BLS CPI Inflation Calculator. (The current price is taken not from the research of the Morris County Library but according to the Walgreens in Boonton, NJ, and as the library’s managed to not mention a heartburn remedy in the entirety of the 90s, the 1995 value is taken from a contemporaneous newspaper article.)

1933 — Milk of Magnesia (bottle): $.21 ($3.71)
1938 — Alka-Seltzer (package): $.50 ($8.14)
1944 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.49 ($6.39)
1954 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.54 ($4.61)
1965 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.47 ($3.43)
1974 — Alka-Seltzer (36 tablets): $.81 ($3.77)
1980 — Maalox (12 oz. bottle): $1.89 ($5.27)
1986 — Alka-Seltzer Plus (20 tablets): $2.27 ($4.76)
1995 — Alka-Seltzer (24 tablets): $4.25 ($6.40)
2006 — Tums (150 ct.): $3.99 ($4.54)
2013 — Alka-Seltzer (36 tablets): $5.79

There’s going to be a certain squishiness in the results here, for a number of reasons. Sadly, the newspapers surveyed by the Morris County Library had not a lick of information concerning OTC drugs ever, making our imperfect survey even more imperfect.

Which is a shame, as there was a Prilosec shortage in 2005, just two years after it was approved by the FDA, and it would’ve been fun to see if it the shortage was reflected in the prices. (There was not, however, a shortage in the prescription version of a drug similar to Prilosec manufactured by a co-owner of Prilosec, which prescription version was coincidentally more expensive than Prilosec. Ah life.)

Also we’re dealing with different products, and sometimes the number of doses per product are not always noted, it’s a shockingly small sample size, etc. It’s a range of five dollars, with a little trough in the 60s that would be the low point for the price, eventually settling in to the roughly $5.00 mark. More of a wobble than a distinct increase or decrease.

However, in this instance the information on Alka-Seltzer is specific enough that we can whittle this down to something like “cost per dose” or some other value that represents how much each individual heartburn (and the alleviation thereof) would run, if Alka-Seltzer was your remedy of choice. And remember, as per “Plop plop fizz fizz,” post-1975 dosages are doubled — so 20 tablets becomes equal to 10 dosages.

1944 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.02 ($.25)
1954 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.02 ($.18)
1965 — Alka-Seltzer (25 tablets): $.02 ($.14)
1974 — Alka-Seltzer (36 tablets): $.02 ($.10)
1986 — Alka-Seltzer Plus (20 tablets): $.22 ($.48)
1995 — Alka-Seltzer (24 tablets):$.35($.53)
2013 — Alka-Seltzer (36 tablets): $.32

And now we see a much more interesting trend: a slow erosion in the cost of having an Alka-Seltzer-cured heartburn, followed by a couple hundred percent jump at the point when Alka-Seltzer’s version of “lather, rinse, repeat” took effect. Profit, like love, will find a way.

There is one set of data that we are not including: the cost of not eating that nacho burger, not guzzling that IPA, maybe cutting down on the coffee or quitting smoking. Zeros make us nervous.

Previously: How Much More Does A Steak Dinner Cost Today

Brent Cox is all over the Internet.

“Kevin Ayers, the founding member of 1960s psychedelic band Soft Machine, has died aged 68. A pioneer of the genre, he worked with Brian Eno, Syd Barrett, John Cale, Nico and Robert Wyatt during his career. Bernard MacMahon, director of his last UK label Lo-Max Records, confirmed to the BBC News website Ayers died in his sleep at his home in Montolieu, France.”

“An Italian woman has demanded an apology from Silvio Berlusconi after he crudely joked with her about sex, days before a national election. The former Prime Minister asked the woman at a corporate event how many times she enjoyed sex and if he could look at her bottom…. ‘Do you come?…only once?…how many times do you come?…with what sort of time intervals?,’ he asked her with a smirk on his face.”
 — Will Silvio Berlusconi make one final comeback? Probably not. For now, at least. But if he does, remember that George W. Bush was president of the United States twice before you get all smug about Italian voters.

by Awl Sponsors

Last fall, Ketel One Vodka and GQ Magazine launched a contest campaign called “A Gentleman’s Call” to award $100,000 to help grant an innovative idea. Five finalists were then selected out of all of the entries, with the final winner being carpenter and furniture craftsman Corbin Clay, who answered “A Gentleman’s Call.” You can check out more here.

What would Kurt Cobain look like at age 46? The joke is both too obvious and terrible to make, but the folks at Gothamist have produced some images that just might make you think.

Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. “Because someone out there is better than you, at pretty much everything.”

Polly!

I am a few years out of college and living with a close friend. We get along great, both as roommates and as friends. I truly care about her as a person and believe that we will be lifelong friends. About one month into our 18-month lease, she began dating a man twice our age. Problems quickly became apparent — he is controlling and anxious about her whereabouts and activities. He routinely accuses her of lying about very inane things and punishes her for not picking up her phone when he calls. They break up and get back together regularly. He has shown up in the middle of the night drunk during fights they have. It has gotten to the point where she hardly spends any time with friends or peers — just with him. He doesn’t seem to have many friends either and also does not have steady employment. They are enveloped in the cocoon of drama that is their relationship.

This whole situation is compounded by the fact that this guy sleeps at our apartment most nights out of the week (despite the fact that he is in his late 40s and has his own place — no roommates). Out of the eight months they have been dating and he has been spending time at our place, I have seen him exactly twice and talked to him exactly once. He actively avoids me, which is somewhat appreciated but also incredibly bizarre and disconcerting. I have had very candid conversations with my roommate about my discomfort around the situation and she is very receptive to talking about it but we haven’t been able to come to a good solution. I don’t want to ban him from the apartment because she should be able to live out her personal life as she chooses in her home but I also don’t really want him around. He is unpredictable and it’s unclear to me whether his emotional instability could eventually be expressed in physical violence (I have no reason to believe he has violent tendencies but all I know about him points to the fact that he is very immature and has a lot of serious issues). My question is this: what responsibility do I bear to my roommate to support her through this (possibly emotionally abusive but definitely unhealthy) relationship? And what responsibility do I have to myself in terms of my own personal safety and comfort?

Love the Roommate, Not the Boyfriend

Dear LTRNTB,

You know, I’m not always against old people dating young people. If everyone’s happy and turned on and it feels fresh and crazy and fun, who cares? Maybe it’s worth it for an old guy, to bump into his sexy girlfriend’s grumpy roommate on the way to the bathroom. Maybe it’s worth it for a young girl, to pluck stray hairs from her disgusting old boyfriend’s ears. But insecure, controlling old guys with very few friends who don’t have steady jobs? Give me a break. That reminds me of a joke.

Q: What’s the last thing you want to hear when you’re blowing Willie Nelson?

A: “Oh, I’m not Willie Nelson.”

This guy might be old and weird, but he’s no Willie Nelson, that’s for sure. Tell your roommate that if she wants to sleep with insecure, controlling old guys with very few friends, she should consider, I don’t know, one of the billionaire bachelors on this Forbes list? I’ll bet they’re just as douchey and disgusting as her current boyfriend, but with better health plans and retirement benefits. And instead of crashing at her apartment every night like assholes, they’ll be off crashing German race cars while she sips fine wine and samples from cured meat and aged cheese platters in a drafty castle somewhere. As long as you’re sampling some old meat, you might as well be sampling some old meat, if you know what I’m saying.

I do think you have to have a tough conversation with her. Objectively speaking, old unemployed controlling boyfriends who show up drunk in the middle of the night are a very, very bad idea. Even if he’s not abusive or dangerous or an addict of some kind, the fact that he’s there all the time and he’s not supportive of her social life is just terrible for her at this age. Is she really going to hide in some stanky closet with this old dude while these happy, golden years pass her by?

I’d try to have a gentle conversation with her, making it clear that you love her no matter what and you don’t want to say anything to mess up your friendship. But I would also tell her that guys who are semi-employed and insecure past 40 don’t tend to change their stripes or magically turn into dream lovers (or dream spouses) thereafter. That’s harsh but she needs to hear it. I would also request that he not spend the night all the time. They can stay at his place more often. Maybe it’s less convenient or less nice. Too bad. The thing is, he’s staying over constantly because he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight, and she’s allowing it because the fact that he’s a big mess is probably more palpable at his place. Either way, you shouldn’t have to see him all week long, even if he is hiding his face behind her bedroom door.

Just keep in mind that it’s pretty easy to get overly invested in an old dude who’s overly invested in you, particularly when you’re young and lonely and a little bit cowed by the world and you’re tired of chasing around indifferent pretty boys who won’t be interested in getting serious for at least another decade. She probably thinks she’s found her soulmate, just because he’s so adamant about her. You could try to tease that out, and address her fears of being alone. You could remind her that there are younger, faster, better, less repellent fish in the sea.

Either way, she’ll probably dump the guy soonish and she’ll lament that no one told her what a fool she was. That said, though, if you tell her she’s a fool right now, she’s likely to dump you instead. So tread lightly, but make yourself heard.

Polly

Hi Polly.

I’m part of what was once a lovely and supportive group of friends.

Lately this new woman has been hanging around. She’s an extremely charming Southern belle and a hyperenthusiastic hostess — constantly inviting all of us to parties, and planning all sorts of wild outings. It’s been fun, and there’s a lot to like about her!

Unfortunately, she’s also constantly spreading gossip and high-school style girl-on-girl crime (we’re all in our late 20s and early 30s), and dishing out very sly, Southern-style “bless your heart” shade. All of the women in our circle have seen this kind of thing a million times before, and keep a safe distance.

Quite a few of the guys continue to be enamored with her. It’s understandable, since she rubs their shoulders, pours them champagne, and calls them brilliant. They see her as a little ray of sunshine, and they aren’t really exposed to the ugly side she shows other women — she would never say any of this nasty stuff to a man. In the meantime, though, she’s casually (and rather openly) manipulating them, too — two best friends have stopped speaking to each other over drama she’s manufactured out of thin air, and several other relationships have gotten pretty tense and awkward due to her direct influence.

I’d happily give up her champagne brunches and day trips to get back the days when all our friends got along. I’m tempted to sit the guys down and tell them the ugly truth, but I’m worried it’d come across as jealousy or over-reaction. What should I do? I love all these people too much to cut my losses and move on. Bring it up? Wait it out? I’m sure she’ll eventually drift on to a new circle, just like she breezed into this one — I’m just worried what destruction she’ll leave in her wake.

Bless My Heart

Dear Bless My Heart,

So, a magnolia-scented Bad News Jane has infiltrated the perimeter of the Super Friends compound, unleashing a poisonous web of champagne-brunch flanking maneuvers and the blowing of strategic sunshine up vulnerable male asses. Lady Super Friends no like, and are prepared to launch Operation Buttercup Down!

I’d like to be right there with you, sliding on my black leather aviator gloves and cueing up “Kill The Southern Belle” on the helicopter speakers. It’ll be just like Apocalypse Now but with less flies circling and more bossy ladies in tall boots pointing their leather crops at the map and saying, “We must incinerate her. Quiche after quiche. Danish after Danish.”

Still, something is holding me back. I guess I’m hungry for more concrete details about what this Belle has done: how she insulted Hannah’s shoes, undermined Clara’s sense of self, or implied that Beth had issues with Roxie. Having grown up in the South, I do think that Southern ladies get kind of a bad rap when they venture outside their natural habitat. Many people assume that behind that sugary Belle exterior, all you’ll find is manipulation and evil master plans. But in my experience, the second you feed those Belles a little beer (or, more commonly, peach-flavored wine coolers), and they start spilling over with love and confessions and looming doubts — especially when encountered in the women’s bathroom. It’s like they waited their whole lives to tell you something personal and then hug you and maybe cry a little and then say, “Y’all, my mascara is just A MESS!” They have a lot to say, and they have a (pretty lovable) tendency to say too much, insert foot in mouth, and regret it later.

I think you have to remove your distaste for this Belle’s methods from any rational assessment of her concrete indiscretions and trespasses. Can we blame her for using her feminine wiles, drawing on natural resources in a manner that, like it or not, is perfectly in step with the dominant paradigm? Yes, we can, and we will, but it’s not really fair. My guess is that your Belle is mostly just a loud-mouthed show-off. I doubt she’s trying to fuck with people. What would be the point? She’s just clumsy and ego-driven and has no filter and doesn’t quite understand the rules or the discretion of the group. She prefers friendships with men to friendships with women for obvious reasons — she knows how to get men to like her (backrubs, teasing, champagne), but she doesn’t understand women, how to avoid stepping on their toes, how to avoid saying the wrong thing and insulting people. She’s enthusiastic, and probably even well meaning (although a little selfish) but she’s just not very refined, or restrained, or considerate.

I wouldn’t make a big move to eject this Belle — those kinds of witch hunts don’t sit well with me, particularly when they don’t involve talking directly to the woman in question and finding out how she feels and whether or not she’s noticed the damage she’s doing. You could try to talk to her, but if you don’t handle it delicately you could risk a huge backlash, because it’s likely that this has happened to her before, and she may feel misunderstood or traumatized, particularly if you two aren’t really friends.

Besides, if she found it so easy to splinter friendships (by accident, I’m guessing), they were probably pretty fragile to begin with. Big groups of friends that form in your 20s are always less stable than they appear. This Belle may be the first of many destabilizing forces, but she won’t be the last. The fact that you haven’t talked to the guys about her yet says something about how well you know each of them and how comfortable you are with telling them your feelings. I have no idea about your particular situation, but in my experience, most friend-groups that have yet to weather the divisive elements of your mid-30s — long-term relationships, kids, divorce, career successes and failures — are only as solid as the latest champagne brunch invitation. The groups that survive to middle-age do so because there are lots of strong friendships within the group, friendships that are going to stay strong regardless of the ability of a few enthusiastic members to create big, exciting outings together.

Fighting against an alien menace for the sake of your group sounds kind of romantic and valiant, until you stop and ask yourself why you should care so much what she does. As you get older, there are going to be splintering factions and subgroups that hang out separately, and friends that remain close while others grow apart. You have to accept that new people will come into the group and fuck with it, whether it’s this woman or someone’s brand new jackass husband or a million others like them. You have to take any Bad News Jane allergic reaction out of the equation and then ask yourself what you hope to accomplish by speaking out against her. Is she really the problem, or does she just accentuate problems that already exist? Are you even in a position to make that call about other people’s friendships? Can you singlehandedly keep the group together? Is it fair to blame all of these fractures on one infiltrator?

If I were you, I would think about which of these friendships you care about, and make a commitment to keeping those intact no matter who’s throwing the parties and who’s not invited. This Belle may look like a one-woman floral-scented wrecking ball right now, but it may just be that the party’s over.

Polly

Previously: Ask Polly: Should I Divorce My Perfectly Good Husband?

Where are all the faster, better, less repellent fish in this sea? Write to Polly and find out!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl’s existential advice columnist. She’s also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by Rubber Slippers In Italy.