Recently, I have experienced a change in diet.

As many of you who have endured this, it can be a trying experience.

Oh, and by the way, I don't mean the culinary variety.

You see, of late I have not slept well.
Nor certainly of adequate length.
A couple of reasons for this perfect insomniac storm:

Baseball season has begun again
The Grand Humidifier - otherwise known as the Gulf of Mexico - has decided to release said contents upon the Lone Star State.
And, finally, I have managed somehow to shift my dietary intake


Of information.

Somehow, it is often easier to just switch on the television
Than to grab the book on the night stand
Easier still to sit idly on the sofa, and just
Absorb

Rather than to turn the pages of a book
Sift through what is going in, albeit more slowly
And deliberately
And let it just abide with you for a moment

Or two

Commercial free.

Strange, but after a few days of this, I
Found myself struggling to relate to others
When all I could regurge was
Bombast

What?  I thought inwardly.
Has happened to me?
It is as though I had sought out more refined fare
And have been fed a gravel sandwich instead.

And, sure enough, when it was time
To digest, to process, and to assimilate
I found myself in the sorriest of states
The sharp edges

The unresearched and inarticulate
Expletives and perjorations
Factless accusations of pure
And quite thoroughly adulterated

Bombast

Had perforated my synapses
Cauterized my inner passages
Singed and twisted my thinking patterns
And left me, bleary and red-eyed

Like a defender of a city under siege
Vicksburg on the Fourth of July
1863.

Professor Andrew Cline, he of Washington University
Has an interesting set of rules for those who appear
With torsos removed from our plasma screens
Otherwise known as pundits:

1)  Never be dull
2)  Embrace willfully ignorant simplicity
3)  The American public is stupid; treat them that way.
4)  Always ignore the facts and the public record when it is convenient to do so.

"Television is an emotional medium", the professor states.
"It doesn't do reason well.  This is entertainment, not analysis or reasoned discourse.  


Never employ a tightly reasoned argument where a flaming sound byte will do.


The argument of the academic is sort of dull, but a good pissing match is fun to watch."

Ah, so that's what's been troubling me.
Found this in a terrific book that I - finally - took the time to open.
Last night

When the Rangers had bothered to play a day game instead.
When El Neptune del Golfo had decided to take a breather
And the electronic dialogue was left, well, unwatched for the moment.

Right or left, black or white, in or out, blue or red
It was as if I was taking an antacid for the soul.
And that
Any book would do.

Realizing that we are not entirely creatures of the Gut.
Hence our collective delivery from the dragging of knuckles
And, in turn, our reliance - at least at those most precious of times -
On something far more cranial.

And, finding some sort of cosmological balance, I found again
That my dialogue has returned to form, as it were
I can listen again
I don't feel as if I am going to explode

That the street-corner cranks
The snake oil sales teams
The Barnums & Baileys'
Tents have folded, left town

At least for now

And I, so relieved, have returned to the pages
Of those who have taken the time and effort
To ponder, to research, to write, and yes
Even to edit

Said prose that awaits at my bedside.
So here's to once again, following that adage
Pronounced so many times upon us in school
And here again so many years later

Anyone who says they have only one life to live 
Must not know how to read a Book.







I feel a little put-upon in this political year.
In fact, in this age of constant data, not exactly
Spoon fed to us
And mixed in with so much of that damned

Bombast

So many gravel sandwiches to consume
Laced with tainted fare
Far too spicy to digest properly
And yet, seems so tasty at the time

Almost too much to resist

Until you reach the point of divulging
That which you had subconsciously consumed
Only to see the splatter on the other's face
And countenance

And heart
As they look as if you had just arrived from Mars.
Or, worse yet.

Had been watching television.