By Staff
First, it was AARP membership mailers, which went straight into the circular file.
Now hearing aids are getting hip, like that will make them more attractive to baby boomers.
For starters, there are the euphemisms, such as renaming them PCAs, an acronym for Personal Communications Assistants.
Age-conscious boomers don't want to look old or uncool, even though it's too late already for that, as you instinctively know the first time you're called "Sir" or "Mr."
A piece of skin-toned plastic stuck in my ear would be the least of my worries.
Marketers, like rust, never sleep, so now we're going to be subjected to "sexy" hearing devices.
The "Passion" will be Barbie pink or lipstick red.
Or how about a "Vibe" dressed in leopard print or checkered flag if you've left your hearing at the NASCAR track?
There are 78 million boomers who have punished our ears at loud concerts or with Walkman headphones. One in six of us is estimated to have hearing loss.
I'd like to think that when I say "Who?" I'm talking about Englishmen Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon and John Entwhistle, who are not to be confused with Guess Who, the Canadians fronted by Burton Cummings.
Hearing loss is bad enough, but conceding your mom the hearing impaired teacher was right about all that loud rock music would be even more devastating.
Despite hearing Kiss without the earplugs the people onstage wore and standing directly in front of Joan Jett's speakers at the Cass County Fair – I don't love rock and roll that much when it makes my chest hurt – in other ways I have protected my ears.
I only turn up songs on the car radio that I like, and they never play any, although WZOW tricked me into hearing "Islands in the Stream" by the Kenny Rogers that doesn't pitch for the Tigers and Dolly Parton.
I have also developed the selective hearing of a 22-year spouse, filtering out anything that sounds like nagging about jobs I have neglected or forgotten to do, further safeguarding my ears.
Boomers' vanity is legend, so I don't think they're going to be fooled (again. Who? They hoped to die before they got old).
I was reading about the latest hearing aids on display at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Audiology.
A sales rep for Siemens Hearing Instruments in New Jersey said, "It's about self-expression" while standing near a photo blow-up of an attractive young woman of the type usually busy trying to get you to smoke and drink more beer.
Her Vibe device was shaped like a fake fingernail. Instead of blending in, it accessorized with her leopard-print blouse.
Siemens' ads show guys playing air guitar, riding motorcycles and racing cars, to remind you of why you're hard of hearing in the first place.
They ought to just make hearing aids that look like clip-on cell phones.
End of marketing problem.
Gimmick further assaulted my ears: I fell as hard as anyone wondering what was coming to 102.3, which repeated "Islands in the Stream" non-stop for five days so that when it finally became an automated adult contemporary station that format would sound like sweet relief when it actually sounds like Mariah Carey and Celine Dion.
I decided the South Bend, Ind., station chose that song because it's now "The Stream," although my first guess was it finished first in the Battle of the Bands of offensive songs used to flush enemies out of cave fortresses.
Since 2004, WZOW-FM has been a sister station to WOZW-FM, which stays a classic rock station.
Obits: Stanley Kamel, Monk's psychiatrist, suffered a heart attack. He was 65.
Robert Greene, 78, a criminal investigator turned journalist, won two Pulitzer Prizes for Newsday reporting on property scandals and heroin trafficking.
He established the non-profit Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).
john.eby@leaderpub.com