the television won’t shut itself off, and so i have been bathing in its blue radiation. it’s horrible aura darkens the circles under my eyes and keeps me reeling. a glass teat squirting its high-calorie low-protein mush into my living room. it’s almost embarrassing, nearly obscene. but you have to give the people who make this stuff credit for having world-class imaginations.
for example, there’s this great show on now about an austrian, a philandering son of a nazi who achieves the governorship of california. exquisite fancy! there’s also this elaborate “fantasy baseball” show that comes on every few evenings where they pose the question “what if the chicago cubs didn’t suck?” delicious! there’s also this amazing documentary series about the band califoneand their travels on the road.
often, there’s lots and lots of smaller screens on the screen where you can see the heads of people inside. you hear the heads yap, a torrent of steady yammering about this and about that. and then some more about this, then that. i think its supposed to be news, but some of these people are so full of their own dump, you cannot fail to be entertained.
the parade of television personalities is a very long one, dominated by jingoist rhetoric and flag-draped distraction. the only sane response to this interminable procession of babble is retaliatory haiku.
ann coulter
thin yellow tresses
unmussed by any helmet
her spittle cries war
rush limbaugh
chika-chicka-chick
hear the little maracas?
painkiller bottles
cokie roberts
nostrils akimbo
an insider inside her
and inside him, scotch
sean hannity
wally george’s wit
adolf eichmann’s compassion
little richard’s tact
robert novak
underneath the bridge
lived an obedient troll
who dabbled in treason
bill o’reilly
hippies are okay
maybe kind of lost, sure, but
at least they’re not you
