The first bear hunt in New Jersey in 33 years is scheduled
for December, but only 6,300 hunters applied for the 10,000
available hunting permits, meaning that a lot of the Jersey bears
are going to be able to use flanking maneuvers.
*
Elton John will get $54 million over two years to be the
stand-in for Celine Dion at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on
Celine's nights off. Celine is getting $100 million over three
years. By our calculations Elton has the better deal. Estimating
15 songs per show, Celine receives only $11,111 per warble,
whereas he gets $12,000 per number. The diva should bitch about
it.
*
Daniel James Martin, a 19-year-old sophomore, was killed
when the slamdancing at a Virginia Tech party got so intense that
a chain reaction propelled five people through a third-story
window to the ground below. Can you say "alcohol expulsions"?
*
Edna Morris was booted as president of the Red Lobster
restaurant chain after her all-you-eat crab dinner promotion
triggered a sell-off of shares and wiped out $405.9 million of
stock value in one trading session. The dinner was priced at
$22.99, but so many people went back for third and fourth
helpings, and wholesale crab prices rocketed up so quickly, that
the company had to write off $3.3 million for the first quarter.
Customers still searching for the "Endless Crab Dinner" will be
told by their waiter, "You'll love our fish sticks!"
-0-
Ten thousand minks were released into the wild by agents of
the Animal Liberation Front who broke into a mink ranch in
Sultan, Washington. The minks then proceeded to destroy the wild
fish population in the area, kill many exotic birds, and, after
two months of roaming the dense woods in search of food,
cannibalize one another. Thank God they died humanely.
*
A white tiger mauled Roy Horn, of "Siegfried and Roy" fame,
during their nightly show at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Roy
bopped the tiger on the nose and it lunged at his throat, then
dragged him off the stage. Siegfried appeared moments later and
canceled the show. The audience, of course, kept expecting both
of them to appear at the back of the auditorium in a spotlight
with their arms thrown open, riding on elephants.
*
Lucio Gutierrez, the president of Ecuador, kicked off a
campaign to fight lateness--the practice of the whole country
showing up 15 to 30 minutes late for all appointments--with a
ceremony at which the nation synchronized its clocks and watches.
A civic group estimates that Ecuador loses $700 million because
of everyone being late, but the figure might not be accurate
because they won't finish running the statistics until tomorrow.
*
High-school dropout Jimmy Dean, who left Plainview High
School in Plainview, Texas, in 1946 to join the Army Air Corps,
then went on to a career as a country singer, TV personality and
sausage magnate, was awarded his diploma under a new Texas law
that allows people to graduate if they left school to join the
military. Next stop for Jimmy: freshman orientation in the pork
production department at Texas Tech.
*
At a Burger King in Hilltown, Pennsylvania, a female
customer punched the counter girl in the face because she was mad
about her order not being prepared correctly. The woman escaped,
but was being hunted down by policemen equipped with tranquilizer
guns.
*
Neiman-Marcus unveiled its 2003 Christmas catalog, which
features His & Her Robots that can put away laundry, walk the
kids to school, carry groceries, walk the dog, take out the trash
and answer the door. At $400,000, they're cheaper than a
teenager.
*
Brian Florence, best known for having sex in St. Patrick's
Cathedral while Opie and Anthony gave play-by-play on their WNEW-
FM radio show, died of heart failure at his Virginia home. The
death was sudden and unexpected, since he was 38 and, obviously,
frisky.
*
Madonna was slapped with a lawsuit claiming that most of the
images in her new "Hollywood" music video were stolen from the
works of the late French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin. A week
before she made the video, Madonna toured a Bourdin exhibit at
the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, but she probably forgot
all about it.
*
Four hundred Japanese tourists hired five hundred Chinese
prostitutes and brought them to the Zhuhai International
Conference Center Hotel in Zhuhai, China, resulting in a three-
day drunken orgy that strained relations between Japan and China
and left frat boys all over the world struck dumb with awe.
*
The Census Bureau announced that 43.6 million Americans have
no health insurance, an increase of 2.4 million in the past year,
and put the blame on employers who no longer provide it. Those
would be the same employers who told Hillary Clinton in 1993 that
she was a crazy woman who was trying to get the government to do
what private industry can do better.
*
Elia Kazan, one of the greatest stage and film directors of
the 20th century, died at 94, and the media couldn't help harping
on his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, which is still held against him even in death. His
moral dilemma, dramatized in his film "On the Waterfront,"
involved testifying truthfully about who he knew to be a member
of the Communist Party in the 1930s, while he himself was a
member of the Communist Party. He had recanted his Communist
beliefs and decided to name names. Given that he did this after
Stalin had been leading the Communist Party for almost 20 years
indicates to us that it wasn't much different from someone today
identifying people who have attended Al Qaeda training camps, but
for some reason the testimony was held against him to the end of
his life and beyond. When he was given an honorary Academy Award
in 1999, many Academy members withheld their applause. What you
can't argue with, however, is "A Streetcar Named Desire," "East
of Eden," "A Face in the Crowd," "Splender in the Grass" and--on
Broadway--the original productions of "All My Sons," "Streetcar,"
"Death of a Salesman," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Sweet Bird of
Youth." Oddly enough, the two Arthur Miller plays--"All My Sons"
and "Death of a Salesman"--are among the most anti-capitalist
plays ever written, indicating to us that perhaps this
complicated man was more interested in art than politics.
*
Little Joe the gorilla busted out of his enclosure at the
Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, grabbed a 2-year-old girl from a zoo
worker, threw the child to the ground, stomped on her, scaled a
moat and led police on a two-hour chase through the Roxbury
neighborhood before being spotted at a bus stop and felled by
tranquilizers and taken back to prison. Little Joe, who has
escaped once before, will be kept in the primate equivalent of
Guantanamo until further notice.
*
State legislator Marty Seifert of Marshall, Minnesota,
proposed trimming the state's $4.2 billion budget deficit by
feeding each prison inmate "a tablespoon of lard" instead of a
meal. The daily meal cost per inmate is currently a steep $3.07,
but by using lard to satisfy national standards for calorie
intake, that figure could be cut to, oh, about 3 cents. How can
they afford not to do it?
*
A University of Maine food laboratory announced the
perfection of a blueberry hamburger, cherry turkey and prune
chicken through a blending process that resulted in all kinds of
fairly horrifying fruit-and-meat combinations, but could possibly
be of enormous value at the Minnesota State Prison.
*
Beetle larvae in cheese, chocolate-covered crickets and
tasty mealworms were all served up at the Ohio State Fair as part
of a project sponsored by Bugman Educational Enterprises of
Columbus. Next test market: Stillwater, Minnesota.
*
Kobe Bryant lost his endorsement deal with Ferrero, an
Italian company that makes a hazelnut-and-chocolate spread called Nutella. The company said they will no longer be doing consumer
marketing, preferring to sell directly to Minnesota state
inmates.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* David Quinn of Rockville Centre, New York, was steamed
when his girlfriend's daughter was raped, so he tried to hire
someone to mutilate the rapist's private parts, according to
police. Unfortunately, the mutilator-for-hire turned out to be an
undercover cop, and the offending member remains intact at press
time.*Federal District Judge Lee R. West of Oklahoma shot down the
national do-not-call list after telemarketers sued to put a stop
to it. West ruled that the Federal Trade Commission had
overreached its authority in creating the list. Later that night
Judge West was known to be seriously considering changing his
long distance provider, purchasing a vacuum cleaner, and ordering
several new magazines.
*
Lloyd Forsythe and Mary Halford were married at the Wal-Mart
in Houma, Louisiana, in front of 300 guests and 3,000 boxes of
Beanee Weenies.
*
The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, which has jutted into the Arctic
Ocean from Canada for 3,000 years, has started breaking up,
destroying a freshwater lake and a plankton ecosystem and
basically becoming a bunch of jumbo ice cubes bobbing around in
the water like crumbling olives in a dirty martini. Don't think
about this when you start your car.
*
Five thousand minks were being hunted through the streets of
Kokkola, Finland, after they were released from a fur farm by
parties unknown. Animal rights groups have been rounding them up
and carting them off, explaining that, to prevent the animal from
becoming a mink stole, they stole mink.
*
Genshin Fujinami, a Buddhist priest, finished a 24,800-mile
running ritual in Japan that dates from the eighth century and is
believed to be a path to enlightenment. It took Fujinami seven
years to complete the spiritual marathon, and afterwards he
pronounced himself "satisfied." He had attained such a high
karmic state that he constantly repeated the unanswerable
mystical question, "Nike or Puma?"
*
Four peacocks on the ranch of Hunter S. Thompson in Woody
Creek, Colorado, were found dead on the road, prompting the
shotgun-loving writer to vow vengeance against the likely
suspects, a pack of feral marauding wild dogs. Magazine editors,
take note: this is already worth a $5,000 advance.
*
After 25 years, the ski resort of Vail, Colorado, is getting
rid of its Saab patrol cars, even though Saab was taking a loss
on the $319-per-month leases. The new squad car: a Ford Explorer.
Now that's just wrong.
*
A man hung himself from a tree on President Bush's motorcade
route to the United Nations, but his timing was off. Quick-
responding police had him cut down by 7:30 a.m., and the Prez
didn't pass by until 8:55. Location was excellent, though: two
car lengths.
*
The famous underwater dancing mermaids of Weeki Wachee
Springs, 55 miles north of Tampa, Florida, got a reprieve when
the Southwest Florida Water Management District backed off its
threat to close the park, which has been staging the mermaid
shows since 1947. They said problems with the sewer system might
contaminate the springs themselves, but the brave mer-girls
obviously aren't going to let a little pollution stop them from
swanning and piking for tourists.
*
Twenty-seven reserve pilots in the Israeli Air Force signed
a petition saying they would refuse to bomb Palestinian areas in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, because the taking of innocent
civilian life is "illegal and immoral." The petition follows a
similar statement signed by hundreds of reserve soldiers who
refuse to serve in the West Bank or Gaza. The recipient of the
letters, Major General Dan Halutz, was sharply critical of the
renegade soldiers, saying they should not take political
positions about those pesky baby-and-grandma issues that come up
in any war.
*
As a symbolic protest against affirmative action policies,
the Young Conservatives of Texas held a bake sale on the campus
of Southern Methodist University, advertising cookies at $1 a
piece for white men, 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for
Hispanics, and 25 cents for blacks. This little act of political
theater has been carried on at several colleges across the
country since February, but at SMU it lasted only 45 minutes.
Weenie university authorities shut it down after a black student
complained. He wanted the right to pay full price, or, uh,
something.
*
Matthew Scott, a 19-year-old British backpacker, leapt off a
cliff to escape his Colombian kidnappers, then wandered through
the jungle for ten days in heavy rain before being rescued by an
Indian tribe. He left behind seven other kidnapped tourists who
were snatched at the ruins of Ciudad Perdida on September 12. He
appeared to be healthy enough when interviewed from his hospital
bed, despite the prolonged lack of tea.
*
Sarah Ward, a 66-year-old grandmother in Newbury,
Massachusetts, was sued by the Recording Industry Association of
America for downloading songs on KaZaA, including Trick Daddy's
"I'm a Thug." Since Sarah uses her Macintosh computer to email
her kids and grandkids--and since a Macintosh can't run the KaZaA
file-sharing service--the full legal weight of the music industry
failed to extract from her the usual little symbolic settlement
that they seem to be going after. The association withdrew the
case as "a gesture of good faith." How about a gesture of "We're
morons"?
*
Al Goldstein's Screw magazine was kicked out of its offices
on West 36th Street in New York after failing to pay six or seven
months rent. Screw editor Chip Maloney quit the magazine after
two of his paychecks bounced. The magazine missed two issues.
Goldstein's late-night cable talk show "Midnight Blue" has been
cancelled for failure to pay his bill to Time Warner Cable. But
Goldstein, speaking to The New York Post from his home in
Pompano, Florida, said not to worry, he had things under control,
and there was a good explanation: his Mafia distributor screwed
him.
*
Guantanamo Prison Camp may be infested with as many as five
spies, according to the Pentagon, which arrested a senior airman
and charged him with espionage. Ahmad al-Halabi, an Arabic
translator at Gitmo, was caught with a dirty laptop, as was James
Yee, the Army Muslim chaplain who was detained earlier on
suspicion of spying for detained Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.
Nice screening system, guys! You forgot to check the employees
who speak their language.
*
President Bush went to his favorite place--the United
Nations--to make a speech asking other nations to help rebuild
Iraq. He got polite applause and didn't bring up the whole U.S.
government bankruptcy thing.
*
The owners of Southern Comfort redesigned the bottle for the
first time since 1936 and launched a new ad campaign aimed at a
youthful audience. Invented by New Orleans bartender M.W. Heron
in 1874, the unique blend of spices and fruits is not just for
redneck grandmas anymore.
*
Unlike many humans, who frolicked in the eccentric surf
caused by Hurricane Isabel and died as a result, the famous wild
ponies of Assateague Island simply moved to sheltered high ground
well in advance of the storm, stayed there until it had passed,
then moved down into the marsh and started grazing. All the
ponies are excellent swimmers, but they decided, under the
circumstances, they shouldn't go in the water. Wimps.
*
The Beatles sued Apple Computer, claiming that a 1991
agreement with Apple founder Steve Jobs gave him the right to use
the name Apple only as long as he didn't go into the music
business. (The Beatles interests are managed by Apple Corps Ltd.,
which was formed in 1968.) In April Apple Computer launched the
iTunes Music Store, through which music can be downloaded for a
free. So far Apple has sold 10 million downloads in four months.
In court, Apple Computer is expected to use the "It was a long
time ago" defense.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Liliana Valera of Brooklyn became angry when her 4-year-
old son Carlos threw up during a Christmas Eve dinner. Suffering
from intestinal problems and tuberculosis, weighing only 37
pounds, he obviously needed a good beating with her slippers to
help his appetite, according to police accounts. When paramedics
were called to her apartment three days later, they found the boy
not breathing. An autopsy revealed numerous bruises, broken ribs,
lacerations and a ruptured bowel that led to intestinal collapse-
-all the result of efforts to have a nice family dinner together.
*
The Los Angeles City Council voted 13-0 to ban lap dancing in
strip clubs. The new law, which could go into effect as early as
October, would require dancers to remain six feet from customers
and would ban direct tipping. Several strippers had testified
before the council, claiming that their livelihoods would be
destroyed, but the cold-hearted legislators gave them the
equivalent of an icy Kamikaze poured down their thong bikinis by
a drunk surfer with a mullet.
*
Sheb Wooley died in Nashville, victim of a one-eyed one-
horned flying purple people eater.
*
Richard A. Grasso resigned as chairman of the New York Stock
Exchange after being criticized for receiving $139.5 million in
defferred pay and retirement benefits. Everybody agreed he did a
great job, they just didn't like the position of that decimal
point.
*
In Indonesia you can buy Sony underwear and Rolex
cigarettes, according to the Wall Street Journal. It's one thing
to make knockoffs, but in Jakarta they apparently put brands on
things that the real company doesn't even make. Lately, though,
the legal system is reacting to international pressure and
starting to enforce trademark and copyright infringement laws,
but in the meantime we have our eye on a very attractively priced
case of Marlboro malt liquor.
*
First a University of Iowa student, John Roche, was arrested
on charges of leaving a message at the home of Kobe Bryant's 19-
year-old accuser, threatening to sexually assault and kill her.
Then a Swiss man who claimed to be part of the Russian Mafia was
arrested for allegedly trying to shake down Kobe Bryant for $3
million in exchange for a promise to kill the girl. Patrick
Graber, who goes by the name "Yuri," is a 31-year-old
bodybuilding coach with an expired Swiss visa, and he shaves his
head to look like a tough guy. But can he yodel?
*
When sixth-grader Christine Zuniga showed up at the Bronx
Preparatory Charter School in blue jeans instead of the required
uniform--a collared polo shirt and skirt--the school principal,
Marina Bernard Damiba, made a skirt out of a garbage bag and
forced her to wear it to class all day. The girl's mother, Joy
Vasquez, was initially angry, but then met with the principal and
decided to side with the school. In an interview with the New
York Daily News, she said, "She got a lesson out of it." What? No
lawsuit? What is the world coming to?
*
Wesley K. Clark, the ex-general whose plan for stopping
house-to-house bayonetting of civilians in Kosovo was to bomb
Belgrade, announced for the Democratic presidential race in
Little Rock, Arkansas, to confuse the enemy. The first plank in
his platform is surgical air strikes against anyone who's
bothering us.
*
Anastasia Volochkova, an ice cream addict, was kicked out of
the Bolshoi Theater ballet company in Moscow for being too fat
for her partners to lift. In America they'd just call it
"conceptual dance."
*
Donald Rumsfeld, while touring Afghanistan and Iraq, told
reporters that news reports in the Middle East, especially on Al Jazeera, are making it difficult to win the war on terrorism. He
said that some foreign news networks report the remarks of
American senators opposed to the war, as well as documentaries on
past situations in which Americans withdrew from battle after
taking a blow--in Somalia, Lebanon, Haiti, etc. This makes it
easier to raise money for terrorist organizations. Summing up all
his remarks: those darn Middle Easterners have TV sets, too!
*
The "Bridges of Madison County" arsonist was it again.
Exactly one year after the famous Cedar Bridge in Madison County,
Iowa, was burned, two more bridges were set afire. First the
covered bridge near Delta was destroyed. Two days later the
Hogback Bridge in Winterset was set on fire, but passers-by put
out the flames. There are only five covered bridges left in
Madison County, but they're all staked out by a special S.W.A.T.
team dispatched by the Lifetime Network to back up John Walsh.
*
Michael Jackson sold tickets at $5,000 per person for a day
at Neverland Valley Ranch, his 2,700-acre estate near Santa
Barbara, California, which features bumper cars, a merry-go-
round, a Ferris wheel, a zoo with giraffes, monkeys, llamas and
camels, an arcade, gardens, a movie theater, a train, lakes, a
wax museum, the "magic tree" Jackson sits in to write his songs,
and a fruitcake.
*
Two thousand protesting students swarmed through the streets
of Cancun, Mexico, where the World Trade Organization was
meeting, then had pina coladas.
*
Vicky Rutter was mauled by a deer named Popcorn at the city
zoo in Northfield, New Jersey, when she walked through the deer
pen after cleaning the cougar cages. Officials could offer no
explanation for the deer's aggressive behavior, except the
obvious attempt to prove that anything a cougar can do, he can do
better.
*
American soldiers fired on Iraqi policemen in the town of Falluja, killing at least eight cops as they were chasing a
stolen BMW. There were conflicting accounts as to why the
soldiers would kill cops, but it will all be explained on Fox
TV's "Wildest Police Videos."
*
The federal government went after Tommy Chong, of Cheech &
Chong fame, for selling bongs and drug paraphernalia over the
Internet, and managed to get a verdict of nine months prison and
a $20,000 fine for the world's most famous stoner. The conviction
was in Pittsburgh, the new federal prosecution center for morals
crimes. (It's the same prosecutor who's going after the Los
Angeles porn movie business.) Chong's defense: he doesn't
remember.
*
The cabinet of Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon voted to
expel Yasser Arafat from the country, raising a trivia question:
Does he have a passport, and what could it possibly look like?
*
Everybody should have a hobby. Steve Gough decided to walk
the length of Britain naked, starting at Land's End in the
southwest and bound for John o'Groats, Scotland, 847 miles to the
north. Unfortunately he was arrested in St. Ives and charged with
breaching the peace. Fortunately the charges were dropped, and so
were his drawers as he continued his trek. Three days later
another interruption occurred when he was arrested in Newquay for
indecent behavior. That charge was dropped for lack of evidence,
and his pants once again went into his backpack. At last report
he was in the Inverness jail, awaiting an October 3 trial on a
breach of peace charge. We hear crowds are already forming in
John o'Groats, where, you might imagine, it can get extremely chilly in October.
*
Unabomber Ted Kaczynski filed suit in Sacramento against the
federal government, demanding the return of all his belongings
confiscated from his Montana shack when it was raided by FBI
agents. One of the items he wants returned: a pipe bomb. For
sentimental reasons only, of course.
*
A Jim Beam warehouse containing 19,000 barrels of bourbon
burned to the ground in Bardstown, Kentucky, sending flames 100
feet into the air and resulting in 47 D.W.I. convictions of
people passing by on the Interstate.
*
Cindy Lenz of Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, bought a $49
inflatable swimming pool at Wal-Mart for her children--and
received a citation from a building inspector who told her she
needs a building permit for a swimming pool or else she could be
fined. The pool is 18 inches deep, an obvious safety hazard to
disoriented gnats.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Joan Harris of Port St. Lucie, Florida, kept telling her
husband Robert to stop watching the football game on TV and help
her prepare for Hurricane Isabel, but he couldn't tear himself
away from the game--until she flung a knife at him, stabbing him
in the right leg, according to police. Hasn't the woman ever
heard of halftime?
*
Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old seventh grader who lives with
her mom in public housing in New York, was sued by the Recording
Industry of America for downloading Christina Aguilera songs and
other music through the KaZaA file-sharing system. Her mom Sylvia
Torres had paid the $29 price of the service and considered
hiring a lawyer. But faced with massive fines and judgments as
part of a $150 million national lawsuit, she quickly agreed to
the RIAA's settlement offer--of $2,000. Brianna had shown a
vicious disregard for the law, downloading Mariah Carey, the
themes to "Family Matters" and "Full House," and the often-
pirated classic "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your
Hands." We hope she's learned her lesson and can be rehabilitated
before it's too late.
*
Suhayla Sorel was going topless at Chandler Park Family
Aquatic Park in Detroit when security guards ordered her to cover
up. There wasn't much to cover up, however, as Suhayla is three
years old. She needs to learn to obey the law now so that later
she doesn't become a hardened music downloader.
*
Barbie was declared "a symbol of decadence" by the Islamic
religious police in Saudi Arabia. Sheik Abdulla al-Merdas of
Riyadh, speaking for the religious jurists, said Barbie is a
product of "the perverted West" and that possession of the dolls-
-already a crime--might lead women to "refuse to wear the clothes
we are used to." This is not necessarily true, because we're
certain that, given enough research and development time, Mattel
could accessorize that burqa.
*
J-Lo and B-Af postponed the wedding. Uh-oh.
*
Rapper 50 Cent, who has been shot nine times and stabbed
once, was getting out of a sport-utility limo (no idea) in Jersey
City, New Jersey, when shots rang out and he was forced to run
into the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel to escape assassination.
Cops recovered ten bullet casings from two different guns and
speculated that the attempted hit was payback for the previous
week's killing of rapper D.O. Cannon in Queens. Cannon was part
of the posse of Ja Rule, who was shooting the movie "Cook Out"
just a few blocks from the attempted 50 Cent hit, and Rule may
think the Cannon hit was a result of the previous hit on Shadaha
(Jah) Bey, who was a member of 50 Cent's posse. Meanwhile, 50
Cent is shuttling back and forth between the Doubletree and the
Hyatt in Jersey City while he makes a music video, and Ja Rule is
also staying at the Hyatt while filming his movie, and, uh,
they're apparently arguing about who gets quicker room service.
*
Charles McKinley shipped himself from New York to Dallas by
stowing away in an airline cargo crate. He had a cell phone
during the 15-hour journey through Kitty Hawk Cargo, but the
phone didn't work, and his friends wouldn't have believed him
anyway.
*
After falling behind Detroit in recent years, Washington,
D.C., reclaimed its title as the murder capital of the nation,
with 45 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2002 and on pace to
beat that number in 2003. Police Chief Charles Ramsey was
recently given a five-year contract extension, to make sure no
momentum is lost.
*
KTVB-TV in Boise, Idaho, is refusing to air "Queer Eye for
the Straight Guy," which is a shame, because have you seen some
of those caps they wear out there?
*
Continuing America's obsession with all-gay all-the-time
television, ABC is considering a new show being pitched as "a gay
'Hart to Hart'" called "Mr. and Mr. Nash," featuring a pair of
gay interior designers who moonlight as private eyes. In the
first episode they bust up the West Hollywood Mafia and foil a
plan to vandalize David Geffen's beach house in Malibu.
*
The original cast of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" will be
reunited for a March 2004 show written by series creator Carl
Reiner, provided "everyone's in good health," according to
Reiner. Inside sources say that the plot involves the 48-year-old
Richie coming home with a new friend from Greenwich Village and
telling Rob and Laura that he wants to work in Broadway revues on
cruise ships. Laura puts on her old dancing tights and teaches
him the barefoot beach dance from "Carousel," but Rob is furious
and insists he learn some responsibility and join an NGO in
Sierra Leone. The situation inspires a sketch on "The Alan Brady
Show" in which Alan plays an African tribal chieftain and Richie
and his friend are allowed to don muscleboy loin cloths and carry
spears.
*
Sixteen-year-old Daniel Robbins of Great Falls, Montana, ran
over a jogger so he could have sex with the corpse, according to
police. The victim suffered a broken pelvis and injuries to her
vertebrae and ribs, and Robbins ended up in a jail where even the
creepiest guys on the cell block decided there wasn't really a
category for this one.
*
Paul Alexander of Cape May County, New Jersey, went on "The
Jerry Springer Show" with his 22-year-old girlfriend and talked
about the 7-year-old child they had together. Result: statutory
rape charges. He forgot to do the math.
*
Jack Ass, the man who legally changed his name from Robert
Craft in 1997 and founded the Hearts Across America campaign to
get people to put up big red hearts along highways, shot himself
with a hunting rifle, thereby becoming eligible for a segment on
"Jackass."
*
Multi-millionaire lottery winner Jack Whittaker left
$545,000 in a briefcase on the front seat of his sport utility
vehicle while he enjoyed the show at the Pink Pony topless club
in Cross Lanes, West Virginia. When he emerged, the briefcase was
gone. Amazingly, sheriff's deputies later recovered it behind a
Dumpster in the parking lot. That's the kind of luck you have to
have to do something impossible, like win the lottery.
*
Bernie Barker is the world's only 63-year-old stripper,
working as a cage dancer at Miami Gold in North Miami Beach, and
wearing nothing but a fluorescent yellow G-string when he dances
at Club LaBare, also in North Miami Beach. He's won 30 male strip
competitions against guys young enough to be his grandchildren.
We hear his Security Guard Fantasy Outfit is especially fetching.
*
An opinion poll in North Korea revealed that dictator Kim
Jong-il has an approval rating of 100 percent. Despite an
economic slide and a nuclear-weapons confrontation with the
United States, Kim's rating went neither up nor down over the
past year.
*
Ivan Zudropov is offering Hitler's mummified penis for sale
at a bargain price of $12,000. He claims his father Vasily was a
Red Army soldier in World War II who was part of the first group
of Russians to take over Hitler's command bunker in 1945.
Hitler's body was stripped, kicked, punched, hacked up, and
various souvenirs were taken. For years they've been trying to
come up with a sequel to the cult classic "They Saved Hitler's
Brain." So "They Saved . . ." Naw.
*
Newlyweds gain an average of five to 30 pounds during the
first year of marriage, according to psychologist Catherine
Cardinal of Santa Monica, California. This is still no reason to
answer the "Have I gained weight?" question honestly.
*
A riot broke out between the bride's family and the groom's
family at a Sicilian wedding in San Giorgio, Italy. Dozens were
arrested, and the dispute is expected to be sorted out and
settled sometime within the next 400 years.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Eighteen-year-old Christopher Bensinger of Woodbury, New
Jersey, was upset when his girlfriend told him she'd been
molested by the track coach at Deptford High, so he encouraged
her to file charges--and she did. The coach's son, William Corsey
IV, took revenge by stabbing Christopher to death. If the coach
can have her, then nobody can--or something like that.
*
Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder quaffed a couple of
those giant brewskis that look like a whole beer pitcher in one
glass and chortled about how the United States is coming to them
to get a little help in Iraq. They said no, of course, just on
general principle, but said they might say yes later. The key
words here are "pretty please."
*
Twenty-three previously unknown illustrations by Beatrix
Potter were discovered in a private collection in Scotland and
have been valued at $400,000, because the world can never have
enough pictures of mice, kittens and bunny rabbits.
*
A suitcase left in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport contained
2,000 baboon noses, apparently lost in transit between Nigeria
and the U.S., where they were to be used in traditional healing
ceremonies. Travellers had complained of the stink, but at least
it was that end of the baboon.
*
Andrew Krieger, an international currency trader, wanted to
build a private tennis court next door to his $4.2 million
French-style mansion in Alpine, New Jersey, but he felt like he
didn't have enough space, so he tried to buy the public parkland
next door. When the Palisades Interstate Park Commission turned
him down, he went ahead and knocked down hundreds of trees in the
park anyway, then wrecked an old stone wall, damaged several
streams, and bulldozed a mile-long hiking trail, according to
police. Now facing criminal charges of theft, mischief and
conspiracy, plus an Attorney General lawsuit for wanton
destruction of parkland and disturbance of the natural habitat,
Krieger has decided he doesn't want to live in Alpine anymore, so
he's bought a new palace in nearby Franklin Lakes. Squirrels,
beware.
*
Arnold was Schwarzenegged.
*
The Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign for governor in
California suffered a slight setback when someone dug up his 1977
interview with Oui magazine, in which he said: "Once in Gold's
Gym there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped
on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together. But not
everybody, just the guys who can f--- in front of other guys."
Arnold's response: Hey, it was a long time ago. What's remarkable
is, it worked! If only Bill Clinton had known this ten years ago.
*
When Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia and
fled the country, he forgot to mention he was taking $3 million
of the government's funds with him, according to the United
Nations. That wacky Chuck, he always did have a problem balancing
his checkbook.
*
After economists predicted a modest gain of 12,000 jobs in
August, signaling the beginning of the economic recovery, the
figures came in: the nation actually lost 93,000 jobs. Can you
pronounce "Euro"?
*
Officials in the Bush administration leaked estimates to the
press that it might take another $60 billion to prop up Iraq
through 2004, since the oil fields have been sabotaged, looting
has destroyed part of the infrastructure, and the troops there
are costing $3.9 billion a month. The President then blew that
out of the water in a televised address requesting not 60 but $87
billion, which would, of course, add to a deficit that is already
$500 billion. For those whose eyes glaze over when figures like
these are used, let's just say: never before in history. It's
that whole "aftermath of war" thing.
*
Miguel Estrada, nominated in 2001 as President Bush's
appointment to a federal appeals court, ran out of steam in the
face of a Democratic filibuster and decided that filling out a
job application for two years looks bad on your resume.
*
Doctors in Montreal said that male pregnancy is now
theoretically possible after an ectopic pregnancy--a baby growing
outside the womb of 30-year-old Dionne Grant--was carried to
term, resulting in a healthy baby boy. Dr. Togas Tulandi, chief
of obstetrics and gynecology at Jewish General Hospital, said
there's no scientific barrier to implanting an embryo in a man's
abdomen, then delivering the fully formed baby through surgery.
The implications are astounding, especially for Siegfried and
Roy.
*
Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the
University of Al-Zaqaziq in Egypt, is preparing a lawsuit against
"all the Jews of the world" in order to recover the gold,
jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing and other
items stolen from Egyptian homes when the Jews were driven out of
Egypt by the Pharaoh of Biblical times. Since the Jews admit the
crime, and in fact celebrate it in their holy books, Hilmi thinks
the reparations case is a slam dunk. He suggests rescheduling the
debt over a thousand years, with cumulative interest, but he'll
settle for the Jews dropping their own reparations lawsuits,
which he says are frivolous. A billion shekels is not what it
used to be.
*
A trained hawk on anti-pigeon patrol attacked a chihuahua in
New York's Bryant Park. The falconer employed by the city to
control the pigeon population explained that his hawk probably
thought he was attacking a rat, because the chihuahua had gone
into the shrubbery. Dog owners were appalled, until they found it
was a yip-yap weeniedog.
*
Frank J. Koller, a parole officer in Camden, New Jersey, has
sold 1,500 mullet wigs out of his home in Hamilton Township this
year. He offers four models, all for $19.99: the Landscaper (also
known as "the Ape Drape"), the Trash ("Kentucky Waterfall"), the
Class of 1987 ("the Nebraska Neck Warmer"), and the Female Mullet
("the Bingo"). What, no Billy Ray Cyrus?
*
Jodie Swallow, winner of the London Triathlon, can no longer
run in World Cup events unless the logo on her jersey is measured
by officials. All advertisements must be no more than 5
centimeters high, but her breasts are so big that, well, you get
this stretching effect and International Triathlon Union
officials are scandalized--not by the breasts, but what those
puppies can do to a logo.
*
A three-story-tall billboard of porn star Jenna Jameson went
up in Times Square with the caption "Who Says They Cleaned Up
Times Square?" Jenna has her hands over her breasts and teensy-
tinsy panties on. It's not like we haven't seen it.
*
The new 20-dollar bill has a blue eagle and peach colors
next to Andrew Jackson's face, and the "20" in the lower right
corner changes from copper to green according to the light. On
the reverse are yellow "20s" floating in the margins.
Unfortunately, it's still not worth 20 Euros.
*
Kjell Henning Bjoernstad, a Norwegian Elvis impersonator,
shattered the Guinness World Record for non-stop singing of Elvis
classics (25 hours, 33 minutes, 30 seconds) by crooning a full 30
hours, then pitching forward head first in his bathroom and dying
of a coronary. Only kidding about that last part.
*
In other Elvis news, a Chicago company launched the first
all-Elvis digital music channel, offering 2,000 Elvis tracks.
None of them are in Norwegian.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Paul Hoffman of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, wasn't too fond of
his girlfriend's 18-year-old son Chester Lee Miller, and
apparently the boy's mother Lyda wasn't either. According to
police, Mom and her lover beat the boy, fed him only scraps, and
made him stand in a corner for hours--until he ran away, took a
two-day bus ride to Florida in search of his father, and knocked
on a stranger's door asking for help. By that time he weighed
only 62 pounds. He died in a Milton, Florida, hospital, after his
stomach ruptured, causing an infection. Paul and Lyda are both in
jail, expecting to argue in their defense that the boy brought it
on himself by failing to eat any scraps during those two days on the bus.*
Madonna was French-kissing all the girls at the MTV Video
Music Awards, including Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
We're shocked! She's old enough to be their surrogate lesbian
mother!
*
Prince William, visiting a Maasai village in Kenya while on
vacation, was taught by a tribal elder how to use a hunting
spear. He then used his newfound knowledge to kill a small
antelope called a dik-dik with a single fling. Animal rights
groups in England went nuts, even though the dik-dik became part
of a Maasai stew that, we are told, is quite tasty when combined
with elephant fillet.
* Charles Bronson, Mister Death Wish, finally
got his wish at
the age of 81 when he succumbed to pneumonia in Los Angeles. The
punks and hippies never got him.
*
Cameron Diaz earned $41 million in the year 2001, making her
the highest-paid actress. Besides, she always comes out of her
trailer.
*
The 27 Cistercian monks of Ile Saint-Honorat, an island off
the coast of France near Cannes, have planted a hedge to prevent
tourists from entering their property. It's their latest attempt
to stave off the hordes of sunbathers who arrive every day, leave
trash on the island, and act like they're on the Riviera or
something.
*
The Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith in Milwaukee
had a special prayer service to cure an autistic 8-year-old boy,
restraining him by wrapping him in sheets while the congregation
prayed over him for an hour. At the end of that time, the boy
ceased to move, because he was dead. Bishop David Hemphill Sr.
then pronounced the service a success. "The boy just had a
problem in his mind, and what we were doing was asking God to fix
it," said the bishop. "He chose to fix it by taking him back home
to him." Oh, okay, well, in that case.
*
Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor and human rights
activist, was attacked by South Koren police and injured while
launching helium balloons containing radios into North Korea. Two
days later, wearing a neck brace and using crutches, Vollertsen
took his place in a protest group outside the World University
Games, but he was picked out of the crowd and rushed by seven or
eight riot police, knocked out, and carried on a stretcher to the
hospital, where his injuries included a muscle contusion on his
neck, a heavily damaged left leg, back pain, and the inability to
walk or talk. In case you're confused, Vollertsen is protesting
against North, not South, Korea, and he's doing it Inside South
Korea. The South Korean police obviously have a very strict
interpretation of "love thy neighbor."
*
Oslo is the most expensive city in the world, according to a
new survey by UBS, the Swiss bank. Rounding out the top ten, in
order, are Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, Zurich, Copenhagen,
London, Basel, Chicago and Geneva. Of the 70 cities ranked, the
cheapest in the world are Buenos Aires and Bombay. Which means
that, for the price of an apartment in Norway, you could own an
office building in Bombay. But you wouldn't be able to order that
tasty raw shark finger sandwich with your $7 beer.
*=
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended from the bench
as the Ten Commandments Slab Case started to reach theater-of-
the-absurd proportions, with Bible-thumping Christians literally
thumping their Bibles as they gathered at the Supreme Court
building in Montgomery to support the jurist who is defying court
orders and staking his whole career on the right to display the
Ten Commandments in the courthouse. What are we missing here? If
the highest state jurist refuses a court order, doesn't that
pretty much throw all law out the window? Must be one of those
Pentecostal things.
*
India has been in an uproar for two weeks over whether it's
safe to drink Coke and Pepsi. A report by the respected Center
for Science and Environment found unsafe levels of pesticides in
both drinks, causing Parliament to ban the colas in its cafeteria
and protesters to symbolically smash Coke and Pepsi bottles in
nationwide demonstrations. Sales declined 10 to 75 percent in
various parts of the country. The government then conducted its
own tests, after which the Minister of Health and Family Welfare
announced that the pesticide levels were safe according to the
standards of India. Especially disturbed were tourists who,
having been warned not to drink the water, had been drinking the
Cokes.
*
A mayoral commission is recommending that foreign citizens
be allowed to vote in New York City elections, because they
already outnumber us anyway. *
Alrosa, the Russian mining company, announced it had
extracted a 301.55-carat diamond, lemon in color, that was part
of an even larger diamond before they hacked it out. According to
international trade agreements, diamonds this size must be sold
directly to Elizabeth Taylor.
* In "Quest for Saddam," a new video game introduced at a
gamers convention in Los Angeles, the goal is to hunt down Saddam
with weapons that become increasingly powerful as President
Bush's approval rating goes down. At one point a Sean Connery
impersonator says "Do you know the difference between the
Republican Guard and falafel? Falafel has killed more people."
One gamer told Wireless Flash, "We bagged the sons, and we'll Bag
Dad too." Obviously the ultimate weapon for killing Saddam in
this game would be Jackie Mason.
*
Rural Ottawa County, Michigan, offers a brochure for
newcomers featuring a scratch-and-sniff section that reveals . .
. the aroma of manure. "The whole purpose," explains Mark
Knudsen, director of planning and grants, "is that people should
not move into a rural area unless they're willing to accept and
embrace the practices that happen on a farming operation." A
similar brochure offered by New York City features . . . no, you
don't wanna know.
*
In suburban Melbourne, a man lay dead in the front seat of
his car as a parking inspector put a ticket on his windshield.
The dead man has 30 days to appeal.
*
In other corpse news, a man in Kobe, Japan, lived in the
same apartment with a dead woman for a week. "I didn't know what
to do so I stayed there with her," explained the man, who was
taken into custody by police and questioned closely about why he
didn't report the body so the proper parking citation could be
issued.
*
Omar Sharif, of "Dr. Zhivago" fame, got into an argument
with the roulette croupier while gambling at the Enghien-les-
Bains Casino near Paris, and when police were called, he
headbutted a cop. Although he was given a one-month suspended
sentence and a $1,700 fine, his question was never answered,
namely "You call that a number?" (Arguments over roulette are
kind of difficult to imagine.)
*
A stripper at The School House in Jackson, Michigan,
allegedly squirted a customer in the face with breast milk--one
of the hazards of the job for nursing exotic dancers--but charges
were not filed after police were unable to ascertain whether the
patron's claim of assault was a squirt or merely an unintentional
drip. The statutes are ambiguous on nude performance lactation.*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Vernell Jones of Philadelphia, known around the courthouse
as The Black Widow, conspired with her boyfriend Kenneth Harold
Burno Jr. to kill everyone who had once been Vernell's lover,
police say. Already serving five-to-10 for shooting a former
boyfriend in October 2001, she recently pled guilty to luring ex-
lover John Irving Davis to a secluded parking lot in a conspiracy
with Burno to kill him. They were successful, but there are still
some of those exes out there who don't yet know the meaning of
"crazy ex-girlfriend."
Of course, it happened in New York--the first grand-theft- Segway. A $5,000 Segway was reported stolen on the Upper East
Side, and detectives eventually arrested Eddie Wang for felony
possession of stolen property, because--think about it--it's kind
of hard to fence a Segway. Wang claims he bought the device for
$75 from a man in East Harlem. Reportedly the thief wanted to get
rid of it fast because the dorkiness was affecting his street cred.
*
One in 37 Americans goes to prison, according to a study by
the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, and as of
last month there were 2.1 million people in American jails and
prisons--a record number for the entire history of the country.
In fact, we're writing this from jail.
*
Marine Staff Sergeant Sherry Pierre used a Pentagon charge
card to get her breasts enhanced. She is now Lance Corporal
Sherry Pierre and is working off her $130,000 spending spree
(there were other things besides the breasts) in the brig at
Miramar, California. The left one's a little droopy, but the
right one looks just fine.
*
British tourists in Greece have been so wild this summer
that police authorities are cracking down on the islands of
Rhodes, Corfu and Kos, all known for their hedonistic night life.
So far two Brits have died of alcohol-related causes, scores of
others have been arrested for indecent behavior, and the last
straw was a sex contest on a beach. Brits will apparently do
anything to live down their reputations.
*
Desperate Phoenix drivers, faced with a gas shortage caused
by a ruptured pipeline, have taken to tailgating tanker trucks to
find out which gas station they're delivering to, then waiting
until the gas is pumped into the underground tanks. Of course,
this wastes more gasoline, which in turn drives up prices (in
some places over $4 a gallon), which causes people to be grumpy,
but which does not even remotely suggest to anyone that perhaps
mass transit would be a good idea out in the desert.
*
Law enforcement officials from Arizona and Utah met in Salt
Lake City for the first Polygamy Summit in order to share
investigative techniques for hunting down multiple-wife families
in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
and bring them to justice. Things have gotten out of hand since
the advent of Viagra.
*
More than 10,000 died during the French heat wave, most of
them elderly people left home alone while their relatives went on
vacation. The number of deaths was so high that President Jacques
Chirac has been roundly criticized for not interrupting his vacation in Canada during the heat wave, and leading the rest of
the world to muse, "They did what to grandma?"
*
Valdemar Lopes de Moraes, a farmer near the Brazilian town
of Montes Claros, went to a clinic to have his earache treated,
but got a vasectomy instead when he thought he heard his name
called and wandered into the wrong room. He didn't complain or
say anything as the doctor prepared an area pretty far away from
his ear, and after it was all over and the mistake discovered, he
was asked if he wanted it reversed and he said no. Of course, we
don't know whether he heard the question or not.
*
For two years J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. sent reports to credit
agencies informing them that David Jokinen of Houston was dead,
according to the Wall Street Journal. Jokinen was unable to
refinance his house, unable to buy a car, unable to get new
credit cards, and unable to do a number of other things that, by
his reckoning, cost him $250,000. Tired of writing letters,
making phone calls, and constantly reminding J.P. Morgan he was
very much alive, he took a news crew to the Houston branch of
J.P. Morgan, asked to speak to the manager, gave him a sheaf of
documents, and asked the manager to check his pulse. The manager
covered up his face with the documents, but J.P. Morgan finally
apologized. Despite promising once again to clear everything up,
Jokinen is unable to get credit at Radio Shack. Sure, the credit
agencies say he's alive now, but how can we be sure?
*
Icelandic fishermen harpooned their first whale in 14 years,
skewering a minke off the west coast, as the nation lustily
returned to the world of whaling. Afterwards, the men had a stiff
grog.
*
American officials in London asked the Queen of England for
permission to move the U.S. embassy from Grosvenor Square, where
it's been located since 1783, to Kensington Palace, the former
home of Diana, Princess of Wales--but the queen said no. Over the
past two years the current embassy has come to resemble a
fortress, surrounded by wire and concrete barriers, closed roads
and checkpoints manned by men with assault rifles, so much so
that local residents have formed a protest group demanding that
the unsightly fortifications be removed. The advantage of moving
to Princess Di's old house--built in the 17th century--was that
it's surrounded by a large park, can be accessed only by a long
winding drive, and could be booby-trapped with land mines.
*
Deadly kite-flying (yes, that's what we said) has forced a
temporary ban of the sport in Lahore, Pakistan, where the
reinforced-metal kite string has resulted in fingers sliced off,
electrocutions and other entanglements, with 45 people actually
dying in various bizarre ways that would normally be featured on
the front page of the New York Post. It's not just for hippies
anymore.
*
Chinese scientists at Shanghai Second Medical University
mixed human with rabbit DNA in order to grow embryonic stem
cells, raising the specter of Oriental Frankenbunnies.
*
J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree, released from prison at the age
of 90 after serving three years for a 1999 bank robbery in
Pensacola, Florida, was arrested for bank robbery in Abilene,
Texas, at the age of 91, but this time they think he can be
rehabilitated in prison and eventually lead a law-abiding
respectable life.
*
Faced with lagging Big Mac demand and cutbacks all over the
world, McDonald's is launching a gourmet Cajun restaurant called
Chef Mac's (yes, that's what we said) in New Orleans (yes, that's
what we said). The company did have the sense to locate it away
from the French Quarter, lest their muffaletta get walloped.
*
Dr. Erwin Thal, a professor of surgery at the University of
Texas Southwestern Medical Center, warned drivers to stop driving
with full bladders. Car wrecks are the most common cause of
bladder injuries, he says, because seatbelts mash down on full
bladders and pop them like balloons. This means that every time
little Jamie in the back seat says "I have to go," if Mommy and
Daddy answer "You just went!," they're now contributing to little
Jamie's potential for internal trauma. Let's just hope the little
buggers don't find out about this.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Thirty years ago, Sher Altenhoff placed her infant
daughter in paper towels and a plastic garbage bag and left her
in an outdoor gazebo in Addison, Illinois. The father made a call
to police and hung around until they found the baby. Fortunately
the girl, Elizabeth Bagwell, was adopted at the age of two
months, but her new mom didn't want her researching her family.
When the adoptive mother died in 1996, Elizabeth found her
adoption papers and started searching for her birth mother. She
appeared on "Unsolved Mysteries" in 2000 and registered on a Web
site called BigHugs in October 2001. In April 2002 the birth
mother also registered on BigHugs, leading to a "surprise"
reunion arranged by CBS for the show "48 Hours Investigates:
Family Secrets." After that the long lost mother made two trips
to Kingston, Tennessee, to visit her daughter, introduced
Elizabeth to her three half-sisters, and bought plane tickets for
Elizabeth's two sons to visit their grandmother during the
summer. Two days before the boys were scheduled to leave, though,
Altenhoff emailed her daughter to say she didn't think it was
such a good idea after all, and that, furthermore, she should
never call or email again. Apparently family visits once every 30
years are enough.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Philippe Riviere, an Air France co-pilot, was arrested at
New York's Kennedy Airport after joking about having a bomb in
his shoe. A New-York-to-Paris flight was canceled, his bond was
set at $7,500, and he faces up to seven years in prison for
"falsely reporting an incident." The French never could tell a
joke right.
*
As 50 million homes plunged into darkness, the United States
blamed Canada, Canada blamed the United States, New York blamed
Ottawa, Ottawa blamed something called the Erie Loop, the Erie
Loop blamed lightning, a guy in Akron blamed a computer virus,
and CNN blamed the irresponsible policies of the Fox News
Channel.
*
The body of Ted Williams has been decapitated and his head
has been shaved, drilled with holes and accidentally cracked ten
times, according to a report in Sports Illustrated, which also
reported that his head and body are both preserved in liquid
nitrogen at a facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, that is still
trying to collect $111,000 of the $136,000 cryogenics bill. The
next time he steps to the plate, pitchers are gonna be terrified.
*
A Chinese toy company is releasing a George Bush action
figure, with the prez dressed in the aviator fatigues he wore
when he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, complete
with workable zippers, flares, helmet, extra oxygen and a
parachute harness. "Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush--U.S.
President and Naval Aviator" retails for $39.99. Flexible
Congress is optional.
*
Fox News Channel filed suit against Al Franken, claiming
that his new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A
Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," infringes its trademark on
the phrase "fair and balanced." Court papers claim that the book
is "likely to cause confusion among the public about whether FOX
News has authorized or endorsed the book and about whether
Franken is affiliated with FNC." Franken and his publisher, The
Penguin Group, will now be forced to countersue, arguing that
they trademarked the phrase "news channel" in 1967.
*
Bob Guccione's Penthouse magazine filed for bankruptcy,
citing flesh inflation.
*
Pham Thi Mai Phuong, the reigning Miss Vietnam, was
apparently kidnapped by her boyfriend because he didn't want her
to leave the country to study business management at Luton
University in England. The boyfriend, Nguyen Binh Khanh, is a
police officer and the son of the Haiphong police chief, and he
personally didn't need no book larnin.
*
Faced with lagging Big Mac demand and cutbacks all over the
world, McDonald's is launching a gourmet Cajun restaurant called
Chef Mac's (yes, that's what we said) in New Orleans (yes, that's
what we said). The company did have the sense to locate it away
from the French Quarter, lest their muffaletta get walloped.
*
Six financial institutions--Citigroup, J.P. Morgan,
Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and
Merrill Lynch--conspired with Enron to produce the imaginary
numbers that led to its downfall, according to the final report
of bankruptcy examiner Neal Batson. But that is so last year.
*
Opium production in Afghanistan has skyrocketed under United
States occupation, causing Russia to appeal to America to do
something to stop it. Heroin has flooded into Russia, increasing
drug use, HIV epidemics and hepatitis C, leading drug czar Viktor
Cherkessov to point out that Afghanistan just recorded its second
largest poppy harvest in history, after the drug business had
been all but eliminated by the Taliban. Hey, they wanted plows,
we gave em plows.
*
Vincent Gallo, the "Brown Bunny" film director who issued a
public curse on Roger Ebert's prostate in retaliation for the way
he thought he was abused by the film critic at the Cannes Film
Festival, had his assistant call the "Page Six" gossip column to
say that the curse was successful. Ebert does indeed have cancer-
-not of the prostate but of the salivary gland. Vincent is not
into polite networking.
*
J-Lo ordered a wedding dress from Vera Wang. Why do we
always think this is the last time we'll have to write the word
"J-Lo"?
*
California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger
released financial statements showing he's worth about $200
million and earned $31 million in the year 2000 and $26 million
in 2001. Since Schwarzenegger is the winner of the 1983 Joe Bob
Briggs Lifetime Achievement Award, engraved on an Oldsmobile
hubcap--we have the picture of the grinning honoree around here
somewhere--we think we're entitled to one policy question of the
candidate. Here it is: Arnold, we know you love cigars, will you
go after the California smoking ban? If so, then . . . Arnold!
Arnold! Arnold!
*
Michael McCormick was driving down a Florida highway when he
saw an alligator crossing the road, heading directly for a woman
holding two infants and with two children at her side. So he
pulled over, made a loop in a length of rope, lassoed the gator,
and dragged it back to a fence surrounding a retention pond. His
friend called police in nearby Tavares--and the cops told him he
was in violation of state wildlife laws and ordered him to cut
the rope. They also called the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission, which showed up and slapped him with a
$250 fine for being in possession of an alligator. Then they
called for an official state-approved trapper to catch the freed
gator, who was no doubt munching on a baby somewhere.
*
When Alegra's Bridal Shop in Austin, Texas, became infested
with ants, owner Nancy Owen thought she would simply exterminate
them. Unfortunately, her landlord is an animal rights activist
who wouldn't allow any killing to go on, ordering her to "move"
the ants instead. Unable to figure out a way to move the ants,
she moved her business instead, leaving a wonderful space waiting
for a picnic supply store.
*
A supermarket in the Mendoza province of Argentina is
requiring cashiers to wear adult diapers to cut down on toilet
breaks, according to a labor union investigating the case. Sounds
like an urban myth. Is it true? Depends.
*
Four homes in Cape Coral, Florida, were hooked up to the
wastewater treatment system instead of the purified drinking-
water system, resulting in . . . uh . . . we don't want to dwell
on that.
*
The chief priest of a temple in Tokyo was arrested for
committing indecent acts on women after predicting their fortunes
with tarot cards containing images of female genitalia. "Unless
you see a woman's private parts, there's no way you can ever know
what destiny the future holds for her," the priest said, vowing
to fight the charges. What the future held for these particular
woman was having their private parts probed, then lathered with
black ink, so the priest could compress rice paper over the top
of the genitals and create an image he would save in his card
collection for future counseling. Cost of the service: 20,000 yen
($166). That included a complimentary breath mint on the way out.
*
Supermodel Naomi Campbell says she has "intelligence
sources" who keep close tabs on the movements of Osama Bin Laden,
which could be explained by the fact that the media does not keep
close tabs on the movements of Naomi Campbell anymore.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Caine Cassidy of the Bronx dated Angela Riddick for five
years but didn't seem to think that was long enough when she
started pulling out of the relationship. First he punched her in
the face. Five months later she found a bullet hole in the door
of her apartment. Two weeks after that, Cassidy chased her
through the streets of Mount Vernon, New York, shooting at her
car from his car. That got him arrested, but he was free on bail
when he stole a Ford Explorer, then waited outside her apartment
building and shot her in the face with a pistol. He then fled to
a Toys R Us parking lot, where he shot himself, no doubt swearing
eternal love as he died.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* When a package at the Lilburn, Georgia, post office
started to vibrate suspiciously, a postal carrier took it into
the parking lot and called police. The Gwinnett County bomb
squad, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the
Gwinnett County Fire Department evacuated the building and shut
down surrounding streets, then sent in a robot to pick up the
package and X-ray it. The X-ray showed wires and objects inside,
leading to further suspicion. You know where this is going, don't
you? Yes, they don't call them vibrators for nothing.*Michael "Nicko"
McBrain, the Iron Maiden drummer, arrived
for a concert at New York's Jones Beach, became enraged when the
parking attendant asked to see his V.I.P. pass, then rammed the
attendant with his Jaguar, according to police. He was arrested
for assault. His demands to have young people arrested for not
knowing who he is went unheeded.
*
Cheech and Chong are reuniting for their first film in 20
years, which is actually only two dope years.
*
Environmentalists want to install windmills on platforms in
windy Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod, but they're being opposed by,
among others, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Walter Cronkite, who claim
they'll be ugly and a hazard to yacht navigation. Yes, there are
people so rich that a windmill on the horizon disturbs their
sense of tranquility.
*
Two men went on trial for murder in Fort Lauderdale, accused
of killing a woman by injecting 12,000 cc's of silicone into each
of her buttocks. The alleged crime occurred at a "pumping party,"
attended by transsexual men who pay $1000 for silicone
injections, but in this case the victim was a woman, Vera
Lawrence, who wanted an "insane amount" of silicone in her butt,
according to the defense attorney. She had been getting the
injections for five years, so at the time of death, her butt
looked really really hot.
*
A parents group in Oberlin, Ohio, said they would fight to
have a white teacher removed as the instructor in a black history
class, claiming that only a black can teach such a class. We know
this because of all those American teachers who taught Russian
history at universities during the Cold War. They understood so
little about the Soviet Union that their research had nothing to
do with us, uh, wiping it out.
*
The Kingdom Life Christian Church in Milford, Connecticut,
raised $245,000 to buy a building that houses the Video Pleasures
porno shop. They actually think that will work.
*
All coffee breaks in Orange County, New York, were canceled.
Orange County Executive Edward Diana announced the edict to try
to repair a $7.5 million budget deficit, reasoning that
eliminating the two 15-minute breaks per day will increase the
productivity of the 2500 county employees. The good news is that
most of them are still allowed to use the restroom.
*
The United States and Mexico seized thirteen tons (!) of
cocaine while rounding up 240 people in the Ismael Zambada Garcia
drug ring. Meanwhile, Zambada Garcia relaxed on his ranch in the
state of Sinaloa, laid up with the sniffles.
*
A new Bulgarian vodka claims to eliminate hangovers before
they happen by mixing, C, B1 and B2 vitamins, honey, milk and
other ingredients into the distilled spirits. It's called Shock,
because any Bulgarian who wakes up coherent will be.
*
Ikea introduced a new children's bunk bed called the "Gutvik"--which was fine in Sweden but means "good
fuck" in
German. After the newspaper ads appeared for the first time in
Germany, IKEA officials spent the day doing damage control and
then had a cigarette.
*
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden says that, if his team
wins the Super Bowl again this year, he'll dance down a highway
in Tampa wearing only a jockstrap. Let's hope it's a lonely
highway.
*
Singer Julia Rose was banned from the Borders book store in
Fredericksburg, Maryland, because she said President Bush has
"chicken legs." Rose is a fitness advocate who suggested the prez
pump some iron, but members of the audience took offense, and her
regular Borders gig was canceled. The President wanted to kick
her ass, but he couldn't swing his legs that hard.
*
A gay shopping mall, called Victor and Victoria, opened in
Sao Paulo, with 34 stores devoted to clothing, underwear, home
furnishings, wigs, sex toys and a travel agency. We hear the
eclairs are marvelous.
*
The new Museum of Contraception and Abortion in Vienna needs
old condoms, especially the ones that granddad kept in the
backroom drawer, as well as antique gynecological instruments and
sex-education brochures. The museum already has plenty of antique
perverts.
*
Jerry Lewis told Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly that Marilyn
Monroe couldn't possibly have been fooling around with President
Kennedy or Frank Sinatra because she was with him the whole time.
And once you've had the bellboy, they're all boys.
*
Marion Waldo McCheney of Pawlet, Vermont, displays mummified
roadkill in her home, including frogs, lizards, chickens, turkeys
and the occasional mailman.
*
Frederick McDowell held up the Wells Fargo Bank in Fort
Worth, Texas, by passing the teller a note written on the back of
his resume, with predictable effects on his future job prospects.
*
Patre Eugene Williams, nearing the end of his trial on
charges of selling cocaine which could result in a 30-year prison
term, used a recess in the trial to flee the courthouse in Fort
Myers, Florida. Circuit Judge James R. Thompson decided to finish
the trial without him. The opposing attorneys made closing
arguments, and 30 minutes later the jury returned--with a not
guilty verdict. It's unclear exactly what his status is now, but
we think the technical term is "fugitive from injustice."
*
Svetin Gulisija of Seget, Croatia, started a fire in the
woods behind his house so he could avoid having sex with his wife Oleandra, according to police. Gulisija probably feels lucky to
be in custody. If he was that desperate, the woman could have
killed him.
*
In an obscenity trial in Cincinnati, Hamilton County Sheriff
Simon Leis Jr. played the film "Maximum Hardcore Extreme, Vol. 7"
for the jury, but one of the jurors fell asleep during the
showing and the judge had to declare a mistrial. We could have
told them this was likely in advance. "Maximum Hardcore Extreme,
Vol. 7" is an excellent video, but it's no "Maximum Hardcore
Extreme, Vol. 6."
*
Twelve Cuban migrants turned a 1951 Chevy pickup into a boat
and floated it to within 40 miles of the United States before
they were pulled over by the Coast Guard for failure to indicate
a left turn.
*
A University of Utah study found that using a cell phone
impairs driving more than being drunk with a .08 percent alcohol
level. Cell phone users suffered a 50 percent drop in the ability
to process information. But the most remarkable aspect of the
study revealed that drunk drivers using cell phones, smoking
cigarettes, and playing a Nine Inch Nails CD were safer than
elderly women wearing Easter hats.
*
The Greek government will open up 30 additional brothels
during the summer Olympic games in August 2004 to cope with
anticipated demand. Several countries have protested against the
decision--including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, who obviously don't know what "Olympic
sport" really means.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Wealthy lawyer Sanford Asher of Scarsdale, New York, fell
in love with a Swiss stripper working at the Paradise Club in
Manhattan, left his wife and two daughters, and moved into an
Upper East Side apartment with Line Grosjean, the all-nude
dancer. But Grosjean had another boyfriend, Johnerson James of
The Bronx, and together they planned to hire a hit man to kill
Asher's wife Jayne and then frame the husband by leaving his
glasses at the crime scene. Grosjean gave James $10,000 to pay
the hitman, but James got scared and called cops instead,
pleading to a lesser charge and avoiding jail. Then he tried to
sell nude photos of Asher and Grosjean to Jayne Asher to help
with her divorce--but the wife said no thanks. Fortunately the
story has a happy ending. Grosjean only served four months in
prison, then was released on parole, and found that Sanford Asher
is the forgiving sort. He and his stripper are back together,
shopping for apartments in Manhattan--and now he wears contacts.
*
Jane Barbe, the queen of telephone recordings, whose voice
was heard an estimated 40 million times a day saying things like
"Press '1' to hear your message" on voicemail systems, died in
Roswell, Georgia, at age 74, but pressed pound for further
options.
*
The Pentagon cancelled a plan to run a terrorist futures-
trading market after it was pretty much ridiculed by everyone on
the planet. The architect of the plan, retired rear admiral John
M. Poindexter, announced he would step down, because if you can't
bet on assassinations, revolutions and coups d'etat, the job is
just no fun anymore.
*
Next to the dead body of Uday Hussein, U.S. troops recovered
a briefcase carrying Viagra, cologne, dress shirts, fresh
underwear, a silk tie and a condom, according to Newsweek. Now that's
an optimist.
*
A man in Malaysia divorced his wife by leaving a text
message on her cell phone, thereby satisfying the Islamic law
requiring him to declare his intention. Email divorce, voicemail
divorce and the very popular Fax divorce are under review by the
Malaysian government, which fears serious polygamous Muslims will
start using the dreaded Spam divorce.
*
Native American rights groups claim that the word "squaw" is
a term for female sexual parts and have been trying to get it
removed as a public name wherever it's found. Their latest
victory came before the Arizona State Board of Geographic and
Historic Names, which renamed Squaw Peak in north central Phoenix
as "Piestewa Peak," in honor of Lori Piestewa, a Hopi Indian from
Tuba City, Arizona, who was the first female American Indian
soldier to be killed in combat when she died in the Iraq war. To
do so, the board waived its usual five-year waiting period for a
name change and rejected a minority recommendation that the
mountain be renamed "Vagina Peak."
*
Everybody was talking about gay marriage, with President
Bush stopping just short of a call for a federal ban on it, and
the Vatican calling it "gravely immoral." Meanwhile, futures in
pastel party favors shot way up.
*
The first high school for gay students was announced by New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Harvey Milk High School,
opening in September in the East Village neighborhood, represents
the first legally segregated school since the integration of
Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. No news
yet as to whether there will be separate drinking fountains for
students and the heterosexual janitors.
*
Democrats in the Texas Legislature fled the state once again
in order to deny Republicans a quorum, this time holing up in
Albuquerque. Republicans were spitting and fuming about the
effort to sabotage their redistricting plan, but the fugitive
lawmakers said they were simply indulging their passion for
Indian jewelry.
*
Legendary Sam Phillips of Sun Records, who introduced Jerry
Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash to the
world, died in Memphis at the age of 80, and the city was all
shook up.
*
The Artist Formally Known as Prince bought a $10 million
mansion in Toronto, apparently because he's fed up with an
American music industry that so far won't distribute his new
album, "News." He has plans to sell the album directly through Amazon.com, but does he realize he'll now be required to double
every song in French?
*
Teenagers spend more hours a week surfing the Net than
watching TV (16.7 vs. 13.6), according to a new study by Yahoo.
Nielsen Media Research disputed the study, saying that the
average person in fact watches 28 hours of TV a week, and the
average young person watches more than that. Nevertheless,
network executives rushed to protect their market share by
putting a new reality show into production called "Panty
Downloads."
*
The North American Nude Bikers Club held its first rally in
Rutherford County, Tennessee, and it was hell on the inner
thighs.
*
Chevy Chase is the frontman for a series of Turkish TV
commercials for Cola Turka, the national drink invented to drive
Coke and Pepsi out of the country. In one of the spots, Chase
parks his station wagon at his suburban home, where his wife is
preparing a Turkish meal for a big family gathering. Everyone
sings "Take me out to the ball game" at the table--until they
take a sip of Cola Turka, then break into a Turkish-language
1930s Boy Scout song. Chase then sprouts a mustache. They say
there are some beautiful villas in Ankara.
*
A seven-year-old Taiwanese boy is being treated for porn
addiction. Yeah, we were thinking the same thing.
*
Sir Mick Jagger celebrated his 60th birthday in Prague with
a nice bracing bowl of oatmeal.
*
A giant naked man bending over backwards with his hands on
the ground and a two-foot erection thrusting heavenward was
unveiled on the grounds of the Rupertinum Modern Art Gallery in
Salzburg just one day before Prince Charles arrived on a state
visit, sending Mayor Heinz Schaden into a tizzy with demands to
deflate the supersized member. Outraged artists explained that
the statue was intended as a tribute to Viagra, and the symbolism
of emasculating it would be a blow to Austrian manhood. It's the
kind of protocol matter that calls for a condom.
*
Former baseball star Jose Canseco is auctioning off an
afternoon with himself for a minimum of $2,500. Suggested
activities for the winning bidder's trip to Canseco's south
Florida home include private power hitting instruction, private
martial arts instruction, a workout with Canseco, and a cookout
by the pool. (Nightclub brawling instruction currently not
available.)
*
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who accidentally
discovered LSD in 1943, observed the drug's 60th anniversary by
reminiscing about how he was trying to develop stimulants for the
circulatory system in his lab when he made a batch of LSD from
ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. Riding his bike home from the
office that day, Hofmann had hallucinations, "a beautiful and
pleasant trip." His employer, Sandoz AG, distributed the drug
free of charge to research labs and clinics until 1966, when it
became illegal in most countries. Hofmann is 97 and has some
funny-looking tubes and beakers in his bathroom.
*
A sadomasochistic exercise class called "Slavercise" debuted
in New York, with students submitting to the orders of Mistress
Victoria, a dominatrix with a riding crop, bustier and fishnet
stockings who promises them they'll suffer and threatens them
with severe spankings. The students wear face masks, dog collars
and rubber suits, and when they do push-ups, they're required to
kiss her stiletto heels. Sit-ups are performed with a heel poised
over their crotches. Everyone must beg for water. And no one
receives praise except Mistress Victoria. No pain, no gain.
*
7-Eleven introduced its own private label beer, called
Santiago, which is priced lower than Corona and packaged to
directly compete with it. One special feature is that a six-pack
is the precise size of the space behind a pickup gun rack.
*
KAQU in Sitka, Alaska, is the only "all whales, all the
time" radio station in the country. The station broadcasts sounds
picked up in a microphone in the Eastern Channel, where whales
make grunting, snapping, popping and singing sounds. The format
is not for everyone, but patient listeners will occasionally be
rewarded with the rarest sound of all: the whoosh of a harpoon
bull's-eye.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Michael Becker saw his estranged wife Lori Ann Becker
trying to drive off in the family Volkswagen Jetta, so he ran out
of the house wearing only socks and a T-shirt, jumped onto the
roof, and began beating her on the thigh with a "small tool" as
she drove away. He clung to the roof rack as she raced at high
speeds, then crashed the car. Delaware police charged Lori Ann
with attempted homicide, assault and drunk driving. Michael was
charged with assault and terroristic threats. Most humiliating of
all is that Michael was not charged with indecent exposure. Just
how small was that "small tool"?
*
Uday and Qusay, the pig-Latin sons of Saddam Hussein, tried
to shoot their way out of a palace as they were besieged by
Special Operations forces, soldiers from the 101st Airborne
Division, Apache helicopters, A-10 Warthogs and fighter jets.
When it was all over, they were dead eatmay.
*
The Eiffel Tower caught on fire, but quick-thinking
Parisians put it out with insults.
*
Ben Curtis of Kent, Ohio, a total unknown ranked 396th in
the world who had never played in England before, won the British
Open with the only sub-par score for the four rounds, holding off
four of the world's best golfers on the final day: Thomas Bjorn,
Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods and Davis Love III. The tournament was
played in Sandwich, in the county of Kent, the namesake of
Curtis' hometown, where he will be married next month. He has
about three weeks now to win the lottery before going back to Mt.
Olympus.
*
Jugglers, tightrope walkers, acrobats and trapeze artists
with the Moscow State Circus have been ordered by the European
Union to wear hard hats while touring Europe this summer.
European regulations require all workers employed at heights
greater than the average stepladder to wear protective headgear--
but the Russian performers held a meeting and decided to defy the
law. Especially incensed was Goussein Khamdouleav, who performs
somersaults without a net on the highest indoor tightrope in
Europe (45 feet). He pointed out that the helmet could slip,
impair his vision, or throw off his balance. He obviously doesn't
understand the meaning of the word "Brussels."
*
Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman of New York City
ruled that the words "bitch," "slut" and "whore" do not
constitute slander because they are "used generically" "in this
day and age." The epithets had been hurled by rap deejay
Funkmaster Flex in an altercation with rival deejay Big Steph
Lova outside radio station Hot 97, where Flex works. Lova had no
comment. The ho just went home.
*
The Nevada Legislature passed an $836 million tax increase
that includes a 10 percent tax on "live entertainment," including
the livest form of entertainment, prostitution. That's called
taking a piece of the piece.
*
A new game called "Hunting For Bambi," in which men pay
$10,000 to track nude women through the desert outside Las Vegas
and shoot them with paintballs, has attracted the ire of
feminists (surprise!), who say that the company offering the
sport--Real Men Outdoor Productions--is violating the dignity of
women as well as assault laws. (If a sadist hits a masochist, has
a crime occurred? We think not.) Mike Burdick, the enterpreneur
who came up with the game, has offered to tone down the game by
allowing some women to remove the red bull's-eyes from strategic
places on their bodies.
*
Stonehenge is a giant vagina, according to Anthony Perks,
retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University
of British Columbia, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society
of Medicine. Although the purpose of Stonehenge has been a riddle
for centuries, Perks says that, viewed from above, the inner
circle represents the labia minora and the giant outer circle
represents the labia majora. The altar stone is the clitoris, and
the open center is the birth canal. This would fit into that
whole Earth Goddess thing, which should be great for lesbian
tourism on the Salisbury Plain.
*
Idi Amin, the former strongman president of Uganda, lapsed
into a coma, no doubt brought on by excessive guilt over those
200,000 people he accidentally killed and tortured in the 1970s.
*
The 11th Earl of Sandwich has set up a business to sell
sandwiches. It was the fourth Earl of Sandwich who invented the
sandwich during an all-night gambling session when he stuck a
hunk of meat between two pieces of bread. The first Earl of
Sandwich Cafe will open--where else?--at Disneyworld. The obscure
eighth Earl of Sandwich scandalized the family by eating salads
exclusively, but no one talks about that anymore.
*
Corpulent pornographer Al Goldstein had his harrassment
conviction overturned by the New York State Supreme Court, which
ruled that the prosecutor had stated 40 times in his summation
that Goldstein had lied. (Attorneys are not supposed to testify
or make conclusions.) Goldstein had left obscene phone messages
on his former assistant's voicemail and depicted her in the pages
of his Screw magazine as . . . well . . . as just about
everything you can accuse a woman of being.
The Artist Formally Known as Prince bought a $10 million
mansion in Toronto, apparently because he's fed up with an
American music industry that so far won't distribute his new
album, "News." He has plans to sell the album directly through Amazon.com, but does he realize he'll now be required to double
every song in French?
*
Congressman Pete Stark of California stood up at a meeting
of the House Ways and Means Committee and addressed chairman Bill
Thomas of California in the following way: "You little fruitcake,
you little fruitcake, I said you are a fruitcake." At that point
Thomas summoned Capitol Police, claiming he felt physically
threatened. When police arrived, they scratched their heads and
turned the matter over to the House Sergeant at Arms, who also
scratched his head and did nothing. Democrats had been
complaining about how Thomas was running the meeting to discuss a
pension bill, especially when he wouldn't give them more time to
study a text they had received just the night before. To head off
a quick vote, the Democrats walked out to discuss the bill in the
library. Stark lingered behind, had the confrontation with
Thomas, and the cops were called. After the gendarmes left, both
Democrats and Republicans rushed to the House floor to denounce
one another. By the end of the day, they had exhausted all pastry
expletives.
*
Cornell Jackson, a defendant in an assault trial in Panama
City, Florida, involving his ex-girlfriend, suddenly stood up in
the courtroom, shouted "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" and dropped his pants,
mooning the jury. Deputies and bailiffs jumped on him--carefully-
-and hauled him to jail. Three jurors were treated for what is
known in the South as Bewtock Trauma.
*
Trenton Veches, supervisor of a Newport Beach, California
youth program, was sentenced to life in prison for sucking the
toes of 20 boys. His defense: he suffers from Congenital Juvenile
Digitalis.
*
An auction of an Elvis Presley tooth failed to attract the
minimum $100,000 asking price on eBay, snaggling the dreams of
Flo Briggs, a Fort Lauderdale hairdresser who normally collects
celebrity hair--she has strands shorn from George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon--to promote her salon. The dental
artifact was scaring off the electrolysis clients.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Daniel Getter, a decorated corporal on the Doylestown,
Pennsylvania, police force, didn't much like it when his fellow
officer Dawn Harrison told him she was ending their 18-month love
affair. First he left obscene threats on her cell phone during
her work shift, then told her "I'm your worst nightmare--you
better call everybody in because I'm coming to get you." He drove
to the police station with a loaded gun, but was surrounded by
the tactical squad and forced to drive away, then arrested a
short time later in a park. Didn't the hussy ever hear of the
blue code of silence?
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Southeast Airlines announced plans to install digital
video cameras throughout the cabins of all its planes in order to
record all faces and all activities of all passengers on all
flights and keep the information for ten years. The company may
even use face-recognition software to match faces to names,
creating a handy little database for resourceful divorce lawyers
searching for information about just who sat next to Daddy on
that business trip to Cancun.
*
North Korea announced it had the plutonium needed to make
six nuclear bombs--enough to create East Korea, West Korea, and
the Seoul Deep Mining Region.
*
The underwear of John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie
Kennedy was auctioned off in New Jersey, with JFK's Navy-issue
monogrammed boxer shorts listed at $10,000 and a pair of Jackie's
pantyhose offered at $300. The most valuable item was JFK's
"little black book"--the one he used to jot down speech ideas--
but buyers could also avail themselves of his pajama bottoms, one
of Jackie's pink evening purses, or daughter Caroline's Barbie
doll. (Couldn't she show up and claim that?) Word has it that
most of the bidders were owners of kinky theme restaurants in Key
West.
*
Vicious roving cannibalistic packs of chihuahuas--yes,
that's what we said--were rounded up by Los Angeles County
authorities after a complaint about the dogs running loose on
property in Acton, California. They found 236 of them, but 31
died during the roundup when they were mauled by their fellow
midget pooches. Fifteen have been placed in foster homes and 36
more placed for adoption, but the remaining 190 have been deemed
too vicious to live. A judge in Lancaster will be asked to
sentence them to death, but meanwhile Gregory Peck's daughter-in-
law, Kimi Peck, is leading a chihuahua-advocay group--yes, that's
what we said--in a last-minute effort to have the animals
reprieved. They're not that dangerous, she says, especially if
you wear metal shin guards.
*
Professor Gunther von Hagens, the man who performed the
first public autopsy in 170 years on England's Channel 4 last
fall, is at it again. This time he'll do a televised autopsy of a
boy from Kazahkstan who had been growing inside his twin brother.
The inner twin was male, alive, and had part of a head, hair,
teeth, limbs and nails--until he was surgically removed. The
professor will explain, in a series called "Body Shock," that
it's a case of "foetus in fetu," in which one twin fetus grows
around the other at an early stage of development. The program is
expected to set ratings records once again because of the Icky
Factor.
*
Ninety per cent of women who cheat feel no guilt about
having an extra-marital affair, according to Susan Shapiro
Barash's new book on infidelity, "A Passion for More." Their most
common reaction is that they feel "entitled" to the affair.
Although only 25 percent of the women actually marry their
lovers, 60 percent have had affairs and 65 percent say that sex
is better with the lover than with the husband. Interestingly, 97
percent of them purchase Victoria's Secret items that they would
never waste on a spouse.
*
Asashory, the Mongolian superstar of Sumo wrestling, was
shamefully disqualified after grabbing his opponent's topknot and
pulling him to the ground by his hair. Should have gone for the
diaper.
*
Ulysses S. Grant fans were not amused by the Fourth of July
performance by Beyonce Knowles on the steps of Grant's Tomb.
Frank Scaturro, president of the Grant Monument Association,
fired off a letter to NBC, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and
National Parks Service Director Fran Mainella, complaining of
"lascivious choreography" and a lack of decorum by the former
Destiny's Child singer. We can't help thinking that the lusty
larger-than-life Grant might have enjoyed it. Unfortunately, Mrs.
Grant is buried there as well.
*
Former Cincinnati mayor and talk show host Jerry Springer
filed as a Democrat to run for the Ohio Senate seat of George V.
Voinovich in 2004. Springer's platform includes leniency for
transvestite hookers who are honest about who they are as people.
*
Regina Kaiser, an East German dissident who was tortured and
imprisoned for three years in the early eighties for smuggling
anti-government writings to the west, has married her torturer,
Uwe Karlstedt, and the lovebirds are expecting their first child.
They've written a book about their experience, during which
Karlstedt was brutal and Kaiser whispered her love for him in
secret code. And people thought "Secretary" was kinky.
*
Brad Barnhill, a preacher in the First Christian Fellowship
for Eternal Sovereignty of Ravenna, Ohio, says that his wife
can't be prosecuted in the courts because, according to his religious beliefs, he's the only one responsible for her actions
in public and the only one empowered to punish her. His wife,
Catherine Donkers, was stopped by the Ohio Highway Patrol and
charged with child endangerment, failure to comply with the
orders of a police officer, and several other infractions after
she was spotted breast-feeding her baby while driving on the Ohio
Turnpike. Her defense will be "My husband made me do it," and her
husband's defense will be "The damn woman won't listen."
*
When locksmith Robert M. Peters Sr. of Bangor, Maine, went
to install a lock, he stayed to chat with a recently divorced
woman who claims he made an off-color remark about her beauty and
then exposed his erect penis, three inches of which protruded
from the bottom of his shorts. When the case came up before a
jury at the Northampton County Courthouse in Easton, Peters'
defense was that it was impossible--because his penis is only
four inches long when fully erect. According to a reporter for
The Express-Times covering the trial, Peters then proved it. The
312-pound man dropped his pants for the jury, after which his
lawyer suggested that the alleged victim probably saw a fold of
the man's flab, not his penis. "What she saw," said lawyer Gary Asteak, "I suggest to you was a thigh. An ugly thigh, indeed."
After examining Polaroids of Peters' two-inch non-erect penis,
the jury agreed and found him not guilty. The victim complained
that Peters had initially shocked her by complimenting her
breasts. Peters claims she was talking about her husband leaving
her for a younger woman and asking if he thought she was ugly. "I
didn't know what to say," Peters said. "I said she was pretty. I
said she has nice legs." She then looked at Peters' crotch,
screamed and told him to leave. Peters tried to look at his own
crotch, but his stomach obstructed his view, so he felt it to
make sure he wasn't accidentally exposed. She continued
screaming, so he left. "I just figured it was someone trying to
get out of paying the bill," Peters said. It will be forever
after known in legal annals as the Case of the Abbreviated
Peters.
*
A restaurant in Chengdu, China, was shut down after health
inspectors found old underpants being used as dish cloths.
Everyone knows that in this particular part of Szechuan, dish
cloths are normally made from old athletic supporters.
*
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin claim that
hamburgers act on the body in the same way as nicotine and
heroin, altering the biochemistry of the brain like an opiate.
Social reformers are advocating free MethaMac clinics to bring
people down easy.
*
Buddy Ebsen's romance novel--yes, that's what we said--has
sold briskly since his death. "Kelly's Quest," the story of a
Hollywood stagehand searching for Mr. Right, was published in
2001 but wasn't doing too well until recently. The steamy payoff
chapter is a fantasy sex sequence with Miss Jane being ravished
by Jethro.
*
A Maxwell Smart-style wristwatch telephone sold out in two
months (5,000 units) after being introduced in Japan. The $310
four-ounce Wristomo can be used on the wrist or snapped off and
straightened into a handset. Seiko Instruments, the manufacturer,
has no plans to offer the Wristomo in other countries, saying at
this point the Dork Factor is not high enough outside Japan.
*
A $30 talking Bill Clinton doll, just released by an Irvine,
California company, says "I did not have sexual relations with
that woman" and "It depends on what the meaning of is is." Future
versions will have less well publicized sayings of the President,
such as "Fleetwood Mac sucks."
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Judith Garland of Baltimore landed in jail on a drug
charge, but couldn't raise $25 to pay a bail bondsman to get her
out. So she called a cousin from jail and, according to police,
offered to sell her two-year-old son to the cousin for $250. The
state then took the son away from her and gave temporary custody
to the cousin, proving that it was a good idea in the first
place.
*
Bush spent the week in the bush, fending off requests from
African leaders to put American troops on the dark continent,
especially in Liberia, where the people are clamoring for GIs.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was urging Washington
to lead forces into Liberia as well, but Bush told the bushmen
the troops may already be bushed.
*
Barry White never never gave up, nor did he get enough of
your love, babe, but it wouldn't be much ecstasy to lay down next
to him right now.
*
The Erectile Dysfunction Wars are stiffening up, with Bayer
AG and GlaxoSmithKline expecting approval of their new Levitra johnson-enhancer this month, thereby challenging the turgidly
towering Viagra, owned by Pfizer. But that's not the only piston-
pumper in the works: Eli Lilly and Icos expect to spring their
new Cialis pill out of their jockey shorts by the end of the
year, resulting in an array of droop-reversal drugs worthy of a
rabbit warren.
*
The Pentagon doubled its original estimates for the cost of
the war in Iraq, saying the first nine months of this year would
average $3.9 billion per month. To put this in perspective, the
Iraq war alone for 2003 will cost the equivalent of the combined
budgets for NASA, all foreign aid, all pollution control, the
FBI, the National Cancer Institute, and all the national parks.
We would all feel better about if they would find just a little poison in steel drums somewhere.
*
Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi won the Coney Island hot-dog
eating contest for the third year in a row, consuming 44 1/2 dogs (equaling 13,750 calories and 896 grams of fat) in 12 minutes,
but failing to beat his world record of 50 1/2. He felt
humiliated, but that was nothing compared to William "The
Refrigerator" Perry, who entered the contest to great fanfare but
finished only a measly four dogs. The secret, the Fridge learned,
is to get fat during the contest.
*
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers was charged with
imprisoning a 19-year-old room service girl at the Lodge & Spa at
Cordillera in Edwards, Colorado, then sexually assaulting her.
Thousands of fans in Los Angeles rallied to Bryant's defense,
claiming that everyone knows that when Bryant calls for room
service, he means room service.
*
Dezerrie Cortes applied for 27 marriage licenses over the
last 19 years and married men from Ecuador, the Dominican
Republic, Peru and Pakistan in what New York District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau says was a series of green-card scams. She was
arrested along with five other alleged rent-a-brides who had a
top nuptial price of $1,000. Since New York is notorious for
having more available women than men, these must have been some
exceptionally ugly illegal aliens.
*
At the dedication of the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pulled on
a ceremonial ribbon to open the curtain--and instead caused a 40-
foot-wide metal picture frame to come crashing down, injuring
three dignitaries and throwing the ceremony into chaos. The
Philadelphia Police Counter-Terrorism Unit, the FBI, and the U.S.
Park Police all swarmed onto the scene to check for terrorists
or, what seems more probable, slacker stagehands.
*
R.K. Sharma, environmental secretary for the Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh, was suspended from office for approving a
restaurant complex and shopping mall to be built around the Taj Mahal. Construction on the project was halted--and The Gap is
peeved about it.
*
Estel Wood "Ed" Kelley, a food industry executive who
introduced Grey Poupon, A-1 Steak Sauce and Cool Whip to America,
died in Indianapolis at age 86 after drowning his food.
*
"Terminator 3" took in $44 million over the July 4th three-
day weekend, and "Legally Blonde 2" earned $22.9 million--both
far below what industry analysts had expected, indicating that
America's love affair with sequels may be petering out. Motion
picture ticket sales are running 5 percent behind last year, and
the creative geniuses in Hollywood say there's only one solution:
"Rocky VI."
*
Prostitutes in Hunedoara, Romania, have started accepting
installment payments so that factory workers can manage their sex
budgets better. Amazingly, they accept time payments after the
sex, instead of using . . . the layaway plan.
*
The local council in Golant, England, wanted to print a
tourist map, but before doing so they suggested a name change for
one of the village streets: Cowshit Lane. Long-time residents
were outraged, and refused the proposal. It's their heritage.
*
Beauty queen Wu Rong was fired as the weather girl on the
Hunan Entertainment Channel in southern China, because her five-
minute program--in which she appeared in scanty fashions while
offering beauty and fashion tips geared to the forecast--was
deemed too racy for a nation of dedicated Communist workers. But
isn't "thong" a Chinese word?
*
Ashlie Williams of New Orleans tried to pay for her
groceries at Sav-A-Center with a check and a driver's license.
The cashier on duty was Gennifer Robinson, whose checkbook and
driver's license had been stolen from her car five days earlier.
Yes, there is a God.
*
The Daily Planet, the first brothel to be traded on the
Australian Stock Exchange, raised $3.5 million in its initial
public offering, with shares offered at 50 cents each, opening at
70 cents, and trading at 90 to 95 by the end of the first day.
The Melbourne company plans to open a chain of Australian
brothels as well as a "mega-brothel" in Sydney and has hired
Hollywood ex-con madam Heidi Fleiss to offer business ideas.
First item to be discussed: dress code at the annual shareholders
meeting.
*
The Fire Department of Elma, Washington, conducted a
training exercise by burning down a two-story house--that the
police chief had just purchased and was planning to fix up for
his ailing parents. They don't have a "This Old House" video for
this one.
*
Jack Altsman of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, went deer
hunting with his father on his own property--and ended up
sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Because Altsman had two
burglary convictions, he was not allowed to possess a firearm, so
the judge was forced to follow a mandatory sentencing law called
the Armed Career Criminal Act that required a minimum of 15
years. Altsman had waived his right to a jury trial and pled
guilty, not realizing that when the judge proved to be a letter-
of-the-law sort of guy, he would end up looking like a deer on
the first day of season.
*
When shops in Tainan, Taiwan, ran out of surgical masks,
villagers started strapping bras to their faces to ward off SARS.
At the local bra factory, workers cut the bras in half and sewed
on extra straps, making everyone feel relieved, if not dignified.
*
A 2,000-year-old bottle of wine was found in Xi'an, China,
by archeologists excavating a tomb full of drinking vessels,
bronze bells and jade. The bluish wine was encased in a bronze
jar in the shape of a phoenix head. Experts immediately called
for Robert Parker, the noted oenologist, to taste it and decide
whether it can be consumed now or we need to wait another
millennium or so.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Pearsall Leroy Gerald of Macon, Georgia, hated his
girlfriend's grandmother, so one day he beat her with a four-foot
stick, kicked her repeatedly in the face, poured fire ants onto
her, stole her car, and took $300 from her to pay a debt to a
drug dealer. The girlfriend is reconsidering the relationship.
*
The President announced that six unnamed men would be
charged with unspecified crimes and tried in secret before a
military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, which is a legal no-man's
land beyond the reach of any statute. He told the families of
these men not to worry, because they'd all have fine secret
unnamed lawyers.
*
The William Wrigley Jr. Company applied for U.S. patent
#6,531,114, which would deliver Viagra through chewing gum. One
of the interesting side effects is that you can stand on your
tongue.
*
Israel declared victory over the 33-month Palestinian
uprising as rebel forces came to the bargaining table. If they
play their cards right, the Palestinian leaders should be able to
negotiate an agreement that they be unchained from the table any
day now.
*
Daily attacks continued on American troops in Iraq as the
United States offered a $25 million reward for the capture of
Saddam Hussein or confirmation of his death. Meanwhile, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raged at the press for using the word
"quagmire." There are no swamps in Iraq. The proper term is
"hellhole."
*
Unemployment rose to 6.4 percent, the highest level in nine
years, indicating that President Bush's latest round of tax cuts
failed to do the trick. Administration officials were quick to
attack the new figures, indicating there was no tru |