The C-Span Jones

Have you ever had a (makes quote gestures into the air) "love jones"? (looks around, embarassed) I know I've had. But have you ever had a (makes quote gestures again) "C-Span Jones"? Good: that makes you psychologically healthy. No normal person would have a C-Span Jones; no normal person should have a C-Span Jones. Normal people don't write philosophical discorse on Brian Lamb's even temperament and boundless curiosity over the arcana of just whom James Knox Polk was "polking." Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post gives us the symptoms, which, alas, were diagnosed in her own little ditty called "Confessions of a C-Span Junkie":

"A C-SPAN story, embarrassing but true: I climbed on the treadmill at the gym the other morning, clicked the channels of the attached TV down to the C-SPAN zone and was delighted -- honest! -- to find the Senate Budget Committee marking up the fiscal 2005 budget resolution. Still more embarrassing: It wasn't even live, but a replay of a session the day before. Unfortunately, by the time I finished my paltry few miles, the majority staff director had barely begun his presentation. So I stood on the motionless treadmill to watch the rest of the proceedings until, finally, I felt so self-conscious that I turned it up to a slow walk.

"Mine is admittedly an extreme case. You know you've got it bad when that day's segment of the Lyndon Johnson tapes is one you've heard before. Or when you don't watch just the hearing but are glued to the cinema verite footage of all the milling around before and after. Or when you find the Senate quorum call, with its accompanying classical music, a relaxing interlude -- what passes for a Zen moment in Washington.

"In our house, C-SPAN is a family affair. I began to suspect that C-SPAN radio was playing a little too often in our car when I was out with my 8-year-old daughter listening to -- what else -- the Florida Democratic Party winter meeting, and I realized that she could identify all the presidential candidates. By voice. The year before, she became so captivated by the Senate Judiciary Committee debate on the Charles Pickering nomination that she woke up the next morning demanding to know how the vote had gone on 'that judge guy.'"

Oh dear sweet jesus, why did this woman have to involve her child in her madness? (takes a sip of Cutty Sark ) ... ah, the pause that refreshes.

Was there a need to turn to C-Span radio? Are there not enough useless C-Span channels -- how about C-Span 3, the segment of our drama when we follow the "C-Span bus" around theb country to visit the birthplaces of the Presidents! Oh dear-sweet-jesus ...

Anyhoo: It's not going to be smooth going for this baby, I want to let you know right now. A C-Span Jones is not to be tossed aside lightly, my dear friend, it must be cast off with great force! But sure, it will be tough sailing: that inescapable craving of counting yeas and nays for cloture before leaving the house on a date will creep up the spine, like a monkey on the back. The delirium tremens that accompanies missing a think tank meeting of the Cato Institute on the reform of Social Security will be acute, like the sharp burn of a crack pipe against ready fingers. And, of course, the jones at rushing to see a riveting interview with the latest biographer of Millard Fillmore; ahh, not unlike the chemically-bubblegummy smell of exhaled crystal meth ... priceless.

C-Span is like crack, only more addictive, more sinister, and pipeless -- Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post hath wrought some awesome shit, what? Introducing her baby to a life of geeky political junkiness, adrift in the wilderness of Omnibus Transportation Committee hearings. Your bad, Ruthie; you're very very bad.