Taters, Pills & Blarney: Eat 'Em, SHOVE 'Em, Eat 'Em AGAIN

Ah, the litany of televised grotesqueries! Headaches. Fever. Dirt.
Dandruff. Acne blemishes. Cold sores. Hemorrhoids. Irregularity.
Constipat-o-zilla. Tube-Neck Flu. Incredible Hulk tampons for those
heavy-flow days. Toothache. Backache, sometimes from having to
shoulder excess bilge. Birth defects, some of which to posts in the
legislature. Palsy. Bad breath. Bad breath in dogs. Perspiration.
Water on the brain. Sinus congestion. Congestion of that brain water.
Runny nose. Arthritis. Epilespy, sometimes induced by other people.
Adult diapers. Colorful diapers for giddy, rampaging toddlers. Toe
fungus, parts I and II. Decaying knee joints. Prostates the size of
cantaloupes. Drippy dick. Droopy dick in BASEball players. Heart
dysfunction. LACK-of-heart dysfunction. Bone density boogaloo for
grannies. Infertility. EXCESS fertility, won't you please adopt little
Zeke, we think he has an IQ. Club feet. Club feet on POODLES. Asthma.
Allergies. Allergy to commercials, leading to hives for which you need
an ointment. Buy this here TRUCK! Is a cat's urinary tract health
important? Depression. Beer. MORE depression. MORE beer. MORE
hemorrhoids. Instant mashed potatoes. Girdle SPILLover! Gee, I'm sorry
I SHOT at you! Deadens pain immediately. DRUGS ARE BAD, except for the
ones we are hawking today. Esophogeal scarring. But nobody doesn't
like Sara Leeeeeee!! And all of THAT crapola before I even get back to
the PROGRAM, which was not exactly rockin' my world anyway.

  I was up on a Saturday morning, stumbling around like a cartoon
zombie -EEUUUANGHHUHNNHH!!!- and trying to get the starter rope pulled
on m'brain, which is no small feat for a man who rarely imbibes
coffee. For some dark reason, probably an incipient brain lesion, I
had the TV on CBS's "All Too Damned PERKY In The Morning Show,"
wherein I was treated to a bizarre juxtapositioning of ads. First, I
beheld the gleefully animated spot for the acid reflux pill Nexium,
replete with computer graphics of your innards, including places in
your esophagus that were being worn away, largely by your nasty eating
habits. Right on the heels of that, the delights of bite-sized
cheesecake or some other sort of deliciously sinful goo...."Nobody
doesn't like Sara Lee!" Presumably even right after their esophagus
has been worn to a thin, inflamed layer by all the gorging they did to
get in such shape to begin with. Yep, cram it in there, balloon up to
400 pounds, start gacking it back up because your stomach has been
pushed to 20% past its rated overpressure and then take pricey pills
to combat the results. Eeeyewww, that's NAAASTY! Its surreal to see so
many mixed-messages hurled at us with such revolting gusto.

 For instance, while I myself am a dedicated proponent of fornicating
as if you're life DEPENDED on it (or at least your emotional and
prostate health), I still get a bit cross-eyed when I see a :60 spot
offering you no-doubt VERY naughty chat with a live nude girl or
something quite close to it, followed by an offer to visit a Baptist
church this Sunday and see what the Lord can mean to your life. The
fact that the "girl" you chat with is probably a Yiddish grandmother
of 60-plus with a secret cash stash under the bed from her phone work
is secondary. Likewise, its disjointing to see an ad for Hostess
Twinkies (wherein a vulture  -how appropos-  crashes through a trailer
from above and says "Hey, where's the creme filling?") followed by one
featuring a post-zaftig Sally Struthers reminding me that skinny,
hungry children in WhattaLottaLand and Palagralania need my help.
Moooooo.

 Remember the 2-headed llama from "Doctor DooLittle," The
PushMePullYou? There's our current social and business model. Run at
it as fast as your credit rating will carry you, suck it down until it
hurts, feel GUILTY about both the content and consumption rate and
DEAR GOD DON'T STOP, or the JONESES will get you! We're in a pretty
darned cold dead heat these days to exhaust ourselves and die with
more panache than the neighbors, which is odd, since they are often
only two steps above badgers.

 Now I'm not about to slap at your collective asses with a wet towel
and a deep, brutish guffaw. That would make God really mad, since the
Book of Life includes a section on how many, many bags of Famous Amos
cookies I have plowed through in a munchie-frenzy during my viewing of
cartoons I will ALSO have to explain. I'd be such a hypocrite, I could
go into politics. Still, p.u.

 I just don't really WANT all that much sheer Stuff. Sure, I'd like to
buy CDs and books of a dubious nature at a fast clip and I'd have
speakers the size of Kias if it was up to me, but aside from that, I
prefer to step back and let the crowd thunder by. I get really tired
of being told to upgrade my software and even my computer every 6
months. When I finally hunkered down and and installed FlashPlayer and
a decent MP3 player, I got a blast of gas that could have filled a
blimp in 3 hours flat. The animation is particularly stupid. Where's
the cream filling? This stuff tastes like a cricket sprinkled with
foot powder! I know that taste because I once ate at Denny's.

 How much do we NEED anyway and how fast? Its like Homer Simpson,
dancing around in front of the microwave, saying "30 SECONDS?! Oh, I
can't wait that long, I want it NOW!!" Its one big episode of the
Addams Family Circle, with the kids slapping the hell out of one
another for the last Hot Pockets. They'd sure make for great partners
if you were lost in a forest, huh?

 Okay, I confess. I'm an American and I like to run through the
stores, panting and glazzy-eyed over the freedom to consume like a
buzzsaw. The problem is, I have these darned FILTERS and some MEMORY.
I know that a 22% finance rate is Satanic usury; I recall a friend
from way back in 1982 who bought so much sheer STUFF, he ended up
paying one credit card off with another and eventually lost his HOUSE.
No lie. But the TV said "BUY!", so he said "Yes, Master" and bought
his way into a much smaller house and a much more pissed wife. When
you step down from a gorgeous Bang & Oulfsen stereo to a boom box, you
done wrong SOMEwhere, yaz.

 Even if you don't spend much time viewing television directly, its
effects and lexicon ooze around the edge of things like oil from a
leaky gasket in a car that should have become a planter 30,000 miles
back. (Heck, I got good service from my Planter V6; it took me to all
sorts of delicious trouble, despite those tooth-gritting clatters.) I
have taken a certain number of lumps for inviting the vile glass
cyclops into my head, but there's a vast difference between WATCHING
it and merely having it ON. First, I have a peculiar need to know that
the world creaks on. As long as some hapless, underpaid board operator
is shifting the wretched commercials back and forth, its proof that I
can be reasonably assured of seeing the next installment of "Justice
League" cartoons. This is important.

 Second, it helps to feed my quotation collecting hobby. There are
some awesome specimens to be had. Why, some don't even make you run
from the room holding your nose.

 I also refuse to deny myself access to the few sterling bits that put
the lie to the detractors. I like to see the occasional bits of Bill
Moyers, Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose or melodrama that keep alive the
small spark of the idea that there's still a little more going on than
crapping cookies because you need an overpriced pill to address a
bulging gullet.

 Its not the neon CGI seeking to burn out your retinas, the blaring
sales pitches or the demands that you Keep Up at Mach 12 which count;
its the peripheral bits, the great lines, the sudden laughs, the
left-turn poignancy, that moment of music which justify a certain
measure of the intake. I must be doing fairly well at resisting its
overall foulness, because I have yet to need that GODDAMNED PILL and I
for SURE won't be buying that bleepin' CD of Christmas tunes just to
get the lovely green velvet BAG as their gift to ME. So put down that
chili dog, brush off some of that ennui and sing along with Big Boy!
 
 Good food, bad food, appalling conversation
 People actin' meat-headed, all across the nation
 Can't just settle for a little libation
 Y'gotta have a KEG or its a bust

 Fake sex, car wrecks, violent cartoons 
 Pepsi gonna carve its logo on the Moon
 The kids are the geniuses, Dad is a buffoon   
 Common sense left a-rollin' in the dust

 Time zones, hormones, bank loans, ZAP
 One day Heaven and the next day crap
 I'm deservin' of a strokin' and not another slap  
 There's more to gettin' by than dirty socks   

 Watch me NOT peddle sweetness and light  
 There's not enough sun and way too much night 
 If I could put my finger on settin' it to rights
 I'd be sellin' off the kits on Fox

 I had a real gut-bust laughin' yesterday
 Some damn fool said he knew the One and Only Way
 His clapped-out creed was a crop o' crappy grey   
 and he squeaked as I kicked him in the buns

 So damnit if you don't and damn ya if you do
 Sittin' in the uproar, sniffin' at the zoo
 If you pucker at my prose, you can jam it up yer flue
 'cause it ain't a sin to have a little fun
 No SUH!
 No, it ain't a sin to have a leetle fun, PRAISE "BOB!" 

-- 

  HellPope Huey
     I drink cough syrup and I VOTE   

   "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run
     by smart people who are putting us on
       or by imbeciles who really mean it." 
             - Mark Twain

   "The dead have risen and they're voting Republican!"
             - "The Simpsons"