COLUMN: Low-carb columns score big
A couple of weeks back, our longtime mentor/colleague Dave Barry dropped his two cents on the whole carb issue. Apparently he doesn’t realize what a threat they are. However, we at Baboon Shavin’ Tunes, Inc., have the reader in mind. We know your needs. And so, just in time for spring, BST, Inc. would like to announce its new line of low-carb columns!*
Loyal readers have labored for too long under a burden of excessive verbage and high-carb prose. No longer! Our new columns provide the slick wit and satire you have come to expect, at nearly half the carbohydrates!
The release of these new columns is the cumulative result of years of intense research. CEO and President of Product Development Dr. Venison Skidmore explains:
“We had tried a variety of health-conscious approaches – low sodium columns, fat-free columns, ginseng-enriched columns. There was even a horrible sugar-free concept column that employed a glucose-substitute gleaned from yak perspiration. But none of the ideas hit a groove with our reading public the way these new low-carb columns have. We at BST, Inc. are proud to say that we have heard the pleas of our readers and responded.”
Early reviews have been stellar! Aerospace Engineer Dwayne Jackson of Canton, Ohio was part of an elite focus group that tested our new product.
“I have been a loyal reader of Baboon Shavin’ Tunes for years,” says Dwayne. “Lately I had noticed an unseemly bloated feeling after reading a column, and I suspected that the prose just contained too many carbs. But these new columns have done the trick. Now I read one every morning over a breakfast of ham hocks and tofu toast, and I leave for work invigorated and juiced for my hard working day!”
Horse Wrangler Evelyn Hostettler of Kokomo, Ind., concurs. “I had tried everything – yoga, pilates, socialism. I stripped my diet down to carrots and fried chicken, started listening to Yanni – I even had a nose job, and still the pounds remained. But thanks to low-carb Baboon Shavin’ Tunes, I have a new spring in my step and one wicked Bikini!”
How do we produce quality, low-carb prose? Once one of our crack writing staff produces a prospective column, it immediately goes to our newly-formed Bureau of Carb Review. It is trimmed of all unnecessary components and refined into a column worthy of consumption by even the most demanding health-conscious readers!
Each member of the Bureau of Carb Review is held to strict standards of health and fashion in order to become better attuned to the needs of our audience. Members are directed to spend two hours a day in aromatherapy and intense Greco-Roman massage. They are provided with subscriptions to Cosmo and turn in detailed notes on a daily regiment of reality television programming. Before reporting for work each morning, they spend an hour with a personal fashion consultant who provides them with tasteful capris and hip Western wear. Can you feel the love?
Naturally, you may ask, “By making these columns low-carb, isn’t there a risk of losing the spirit and vitality of the original material?”
Not at all! Here is a direct comparison of a column sample before and after Carb Review:
Carb-heavy draft:
“Big news, kids! If tattoos and body-piercing aren’t floating your boat anymore, now you can go to the Netherlands and get jewelry implanted in the mucous membrane of your eyeball! Do you think they have an eye implant that reads, “I live in a country with legalized drugs and prostitution, and I’m still bored”?
Low-Carb draft:
“Big kids! Tattoos aren’t floating anymore. Now Netherlands the mucous eyeball! Think implant reads “I legalized prostitution bored.”
This new technique has even had an impact on the BST writing staff! Just listen to Andrew Yeats, a writer from Missoula, Mont.:
“Before we started the low-carb program, I noticed my prose gradually becoming labored and yeast-like. Revision was like trying to drag a barrel of tuna through wet sand, and I started listening to Barry Manilow with greater frequency. But ever since I started the new program, my complexion has brightened, I eat breakfast daily, and I get in at all of Logan’s finest restaurants!”
The results speak for themselves. If you’ve been living an unfulfilled life, desperately dreaming of success, yet constantly relegated to a state of low morale and the social standing of a Bison wart, take heart. Your time has come. Thanks to low-carb Baboon Shavin’ Tunes, you too can be freed from social and gastronomic injustice. You can live a life of joy and harmony, peace and tranquility, freedom and Zen.
Baboon Shavin’ Tunes: Fighting carb suppression one week at a time.
*Consult your physician or spiritual medium before use. Low-carb columns may bring on serious side-effects which may include loss of appetite, deafness, acute femur vibration, nudist hallucinations, and the runs.
Joshua Terry is a graduate student in the American studies program. Contact him at jterry@english.usu.edu, or visit his personal Web site at www.planetvenison.com.