|
Dou’s CD makes fun of serious job
Cheryl Wade, The Midland Daily News
David Howard and Greg Wray are making light of their serious
jobs and odd hours at the hospital.
The two men are Respiratory Therapists at <OUR HOSPITAL>, and
have put their own spins on their profession for all the world to hear.
Their new CD probably won’t hit the pop charts but they’re hoping it’ll at
least be a hit with others in their profession.
Respiratory therapists help people with breathing problems
that might be caused by asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, or other illnesses.
Howard, who is black, and Wray, who is white, started working
at <OUR HOSPITAL> in June 1986. Wray has created musical parodies since
junior high, when he wrote about a pal’s succession of girlfriends. Howard
plays keyboards. Inevitably, they began joking around.
“One thing led to another, where I started calling Greg the
white sheep of the family,” Howard said. “It’s been a steady downhill
thing from there.”
Enter Rich Weiler, <OUR HOSPITAL’S> manager of respiratory
care. He’d come from a hospital where the respiratory staff made up goofy
lyrics at Christmas. He issued the challenge to the department. First came
a song about a bug called MRSA, sung to the tune of “YMCA.” Wray and
Howard took the whole thing a step further and went to David Malinich’s
Guitar Sound Studio in Coleman to produce the CD. Out of their recording
sessions came “The 12 Hours of Christmas,” about working a shift during
the holiday. Other hospital workers – with wildly divergent singing skills
– take turns chiming in.
“Wray said ‘give me something different for the music for this
thing, a cross between Jimi Hendrix and a pipe organ,” Malinich recalled.
In a poem mimicking “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” Santa
makes an emergency landing on the hospital’s roof and ends up a patient
because of a fixed airway obstruction. With his oxygen levels falling and
his carbon dioxide levels rising, he’s whisked into a room for a look down
his throat. The culprit? A mistletoe berry became lodged in his throat
after he’d kissed Mrs. Claus farewell on Christmas Eve.
“The H.R. Blues” has a jazzy saxophone opening and talks about
cashing pennies to pay the rent and writing out IOUs for candy. It makes
fun of real life scheduling problems arising from fluctuating workloads
and sticky third-party reimbursement issues, Weiler said.
“Brown Sputum” is sing to the music of the Rolling Stones’
“Brown Sugar.” Wray and Howard grow so bold as to mention snot and goobers
in one song.
The CD isn’t all fun and games. A song called “Head Toward the
Light” expresses Wray’s feelings about his father’s death at age 60. Wray
had read of near-death experiences in which people saw bright lights in
the distance. The CD’s opening song tells the Christian message of
Christmas.
The Cds, which cost $10.00 each, cost the duo $1,600 to
produce. “We’re like the federal government. If we can just break even on
this project, we’ll be ecstatic,” Wray said.
The duo’s comic exploits have been published in a biomedical
magazine, and a respiratory care school in Louisiana has checked out the
website,
www.RTlyrics.com. The website has sound clips and information about
the CD.
©Midland Daily News 2002 |
