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by Walter Brasch
They buried Bouldergrass today. The cause of death was listed as "media-induced health."
Bouldergrass had begun his health crusade more than a decade ago when he began reading more than the sports pages of his local newspaper, subscribed to his first magazine, and decided TV news could be informative if it didn't mention anything about wars, famines, and poverty.
Based on what he read and saw in the media, Bouldergrass moved from smog-bound Los Angeles to a rural community in scenic green Vermont, gave up alcohol and a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, and was immediately hospitalized for having too much oxygen in his body.
To burn off some of that oxygen, he joined America's "beautiful people" on the jogging paths where the media helped him believe he was sweating out the bad karma. In less than a year, the karma left his body which was now coexisting with leg cramps, fallen arches, and several compressed disks. But at least he was as healthy as all the ads told him he could be.
To make sure he didn't get skin cancer from being in the sun too long, he slathered four pounds of No. 35 sunblock on his body every time he ran, and went to suntan parlors twice a week to get that "healthy glow" advertisers told him he needed. He stopped blocking when he learned that suntan parlors weren't good for your health, and that the ingredients in the lotions could cause cancer. So, he wore a jogging suit that covered more skin than an Arab woman's black chador with veil--and developed a severe case of heat exhaustion.
From ultrathin models and billions of dollars in weight-reducing advertising that told him "thin was in," he began a series of crash diets. When he was down to 107 pounds, advertising told him he needed to "bulk up" to be a "real man." So, he began lifting weights and playing racquetball three hours a day. Four groin pulls and seven back injuries later, he had just 6 percent body fat, and a revolving charge account with his local orthopedist.
Several years earlier, Bouldergrass had stopped eating veal as part of a protest of America's inhumane treatment of animals destined for supermarkets. Now, in an "enlightened" age of health, he gave up all meat, not because of mankind's cruelty to animals, but because the media revealed that vascular surgeons owned stock in meat packing companies. Besides, it was the "healthy" thing to do.
He gave up pasta when he saw a TV report about the microscopic creepy crawlers that infest most dough.
He gave up drinking soda and began drinking juice, until he read a report that said apple juice had higher than normal levels of arsenic.
He ate soup because it was healthy and so Mmm Mmm Good, until he learned that soup had more salt than Lot's wife. When he found low-salt soup, he again had a cup a day--until last month when he gave it up because a Harvard study revealed that soup cans contained significant amounts of Bisphenol-A-, which can lead to cancer and heart disease.
For a couple of years, lured by a multi-million dollar ad campaign and innumerable articles in the supermarket tabloids, Bouldergrass ate only oat bran muffins for breakfast and a diet of beta carotenes for lunch, until he found himself spending more time in the bathroom than at work. He eliminated the muffins entirely after reading an article that told him eating oatmeal, bran, and hood ornaments from Buick Roadsters were bad for your health.
Bouldergrass gave up milk when he learned that acid rain fell onto pastures and was eaten by cows. When he learned that industrial conglomerates had dumped everything from drinking water to radioactive waste into streams and rivers, he stopped eating fish. For awhile, based upon conflicting reports in the media, he juggled low-calorie, low-fat, and low-carbohydrate diets until his body systems dropped into the low end of inertia.
At the movies, he smuggled in packets of oleo to squeeze onto plain popcorn until he was bombarded by news stories that revealed oleo was as bad as butter and that most theatrical popcorn was worse than an all-day diet of sirloin.
When he learned that coffee and chocolate were unhealthy, he gave up an addiction to getting high from caffeine and sugar, and was now forced to work 12-hour days without any stimulants other than the fear of what his children were doing while he was at work.
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