Live CNN reports from Pakistan depicted a "high-value
target" surrounded in a mud fortress near the Afghan border, with
various intelligence officials identifying him as Ayman Al-
Zawahiri, the number two man in Al Qaeda. After three days of
fierce fighting, everybody said "Never mind, it's not Zawahiri,
it's some Uzbek or Chechen guy." CNN, after checking the Q
ratings on the words Uzbek and Chechen, returned to its regular
programming.
*
Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus in "The Passion of the
Christ," was granted an audience with the Pope and received his
blessing. Sources inside the Vatican said the Pope's only comment
to Caviezel was, "Two hundred fifty million shekels, not too
shabby."
*
So far the body count is two for audience members at "The
Passion of the Christ." First Peggy Law Scott of Wichita, Kansas,
had a heart attack during the crucifixion scene and died later in
the hospital. Then Jose Geraldo Soares, a 43-year-old
Presbyterian pastor in Minas Gerais, Brazil, suffered a heart
attack and died on the spot about halfway through the film, with
his entire congregation around him. Fortunately he already knew
how the movie comes out.
*
Around 50,000 peace protesters marched in New York on the
anniversary of the Iraq war. The best sign in the crowd was "Stop
Mad Cowboy Disease." It was one of 250 demonstrations in various
cities on the anniversary, and it was carried off with just four
arrests--one for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and
"obstructing governmental administration," two for loitering and
resisting arrest, and one for loitering. Our question: How can
you loiter at a peace rally? Free the New York One! Free the New
York One!
*
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the
assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an elderly
paraplegic in a wheelchair, using an American-supplied Apache
helicopter to fire three missiles at Yassin and his entourage,
killing nine people including Yassin and wounding two of his
sons. The next day Yassin's coffin, containing what was left of
him, was carried through the streets by 300,000 angry
Palestinians who vowed revenge against Sharon, Israel and anyone
who helps Israel. Sharon's theory was apparently that cutting off
the head of Hamas--some reports said this is literally what the
missile did to Yassin--would be a step toward ending terrorism.
We're sure that events will eventually prove him right, and that
none of those 300,000 Palestinians will be competent to step into
the role of the man in the wheelchair, and that those two wounded
sons will henceforth live peaceful pro-Israeli lives.
*
Virgin Atlantic Airways unveiled its new executive clubhouse
at Kennedy Airport, which includes pop-art urinals designed to
resemble the shape of a mouth. The National Organization of Women
denounced the urinals as "a symbolic act of degrading and
humiliating women," to use the words of Rita Haley, president of
NOW's New York chapter. So Virgin agreed to flush the urinals.
After looking at them, our question is: How do they know it's a
WOMAN's mouth? It could just be a guy with really red lips.
*
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to remove
himself from a case involving his duck-hunting friend Dick
Cheney. The Sierra Club is suing to get information about the
energy task force led by Cheney. It took Scalia 21 pages of text
to explain why he can be unbiased. In off the cuff remarks later,
he added that Dick shoots a mean mallard.
*
The Federal Communications Commission fined Infinity
Broadcasting $27,500 for a Howard Stern show that featured
discussion of oral sex and "excretory organs," calling it "vulgar
and lewd." They're doing this at least once a week now. On the
day after the fine was announced, Stern tried to play a clip from
"Oprah" in which a writer for O Magazine explains in graphic
detail several popular sexual pastimes of teenagers, including
oral and anal sex practices, using the slang terms for each. "If
they fine me, they have to fine her," said Stern. "Can you
imagine the headline 'Oprah Winfrey fined for indecency'?" When
Stern tried to play the Oprah tape, though, the station manager
put the rant on hold for 10 minutes and talked to Infinity
lawyers, who turned down the request. They probably figured it
would cost them another $27,500.
*
In other "dogpile on the deejay" news, Clear Channel
Communications suspended Larry Wachs and Eric Von Haessler,
better known as the "Regular Guys" on WKLS-FM in Washington,
after they pre-recorded an interview with porn star Devinn Lane
but inadventently left their microphones on during a commercial
so that Lane could be heard describing sex acts. Supposedly they
were taken off "pending an investigation." Let's see, how much
time would be needed for an investigation in which you ask the
engineer: Why was the mike left on? We imagine ten seconds would
probably JUST ABOUT cover it.
*
Courtney Love was arrested during a performance at an East
Village nightclub after she threw a microphone stand into the
crowd, bloodying the head of Greg Burgett of London, Kentucky,
according to police. Her night in jail followed a day in which
she: a) bared her breasts in front of David Letterman during a
taping of the "Late Show"; b) stopped at a Wendy's restaurant
where she invited a bystander to kiss her breasts while fans took
pictures; c) flashed her breasts at the Australian band Jet while
they were performing at Irving Plaza, then demanded to go on
stage with them, then sneered at promoters when they said no; and
d) did a show at Plaid during which she constantly asked for
Cristal champagne and whiskey between songs. The following night,
fresh out of jail, she did another show at Plaid, and this time
she fell hard onto freelance photographer Dara Kushner, who had
to be taken out of the club on a stretcher. Courtney then
patiently explained why she should be allowed to have custody of
her 11-year-old daughter.
*
Utah banned execution by firing squad, on the basis that
it's inhumane. Only if the squad can't shoot straight.
*
The Census Bureau released projections showing that, by the
year 2050, there will be 103 million Hispanic-Americans (up from
36 million) and 33 million Asian-Americans (up from 11 million),
with the numbers of non-Hispanic whites growing only slightly,
from 196 million to 210 million. One statistic won't change: of
the 420 million people living in America in 2050, 419 million
will still claim to have a relative who came over on the
Mayflower.
*
War profiteer Dick Cheney called combat veteran John Kerry a
wimp soldier.
*
A man identified only as Pierre was jailed for three months
in Montpellier, France, after he tried to run over a pedestrian.
Pierre explained that he thought the man was Osama bin Laden.
Apparently he'd also recently watched "Death Race 2000."
*
Officials in Daytona Beach, Florida, were fed up with
vandals and drunk partygoers tearing up the town during spring
break, so this year they placed signs on all the municipal trash
cans reading "It's All About Respect." In one night, all 300
signs were stolen. They'll look cool in a dorm room.
*
Robert McKiernan of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was busted for
stealing Hostess Ho Ho's and Crumb Cakes from a barn at an Amish
farm. He was ready to party, too.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Air-conditioning repairman Andrew Gole of Hicksville, New
York, met his wife Martha Isabel Moncada Mejia through a lonely-
hearts ad in a Honduran newspaper, after which they married,
settled in Hicksville, and had a son together in September 2002.
But when they returned to Honduras on a trip, Martha decided she
didn't want to go back to the states. After an argument in a
Tegucigalpa hotel room, according to police, Gole killed his wife
with his bare hands in front of their son and her 5-year-old son
from a previous marriage, then hacked up her body with an ax and
saw, placed the pieces in plastic bags, and dumped her on a road.
Now dubbed "The Butcher of New York" by Honduran newspapers, Gole
is unlikely to experience any air conditioning, repaired or
unrepaired, for the next 40 years.
*
NASA scientists announced the discovery of a new planet in
our solar system--Sedna, which is 1,200 miles in diameter and
orbits the sun 2 billion miles beyond Pluto. Public school
officials were furious. Do you know just how many of those little
wire-coat-hanger mobiles have to be replaced now?
*
President Bush marked International Women's Week by paying
tribute to Libyan reformer Fathi Jahmi, "a local government
official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech
and democracy." Fathi Jahmi is also, uh, a male. Oh well,
womanhood is a state of mind.
*
Three hundred elk in Wyoming have died from a mystery
disease that leaves them starving, dehydrated and unable to move.
The same thing has been observed at the Elks Lodge on Sunday
morning.
*
The latest deejay to take it on the chin from the Federal
Communications Commission is "Elliot in the Morning," a
Washington, D.C., personality who was cited for nine violations
"that involved graphic and explicit sexual material, and were
designed to pander to, titillate and shock listeners." The
broadcast, on March 13, 2003, was a discussion about porn star
Ron Jeremy--to which we say, how many words can you use to
describe Ron? We think the appropriate response to the FCC's
proposed $247,500 fine is to force the commissioners to watch Ron
in action and then let them come up with a clean way to talk
about it.
*
Mike Tyson sparred for 45 minutes at Gleason's Gym in
Brooklyn and pronounced himself winded, tired, old and finished.
He said he'll probably never fight again, and this time he really
really means it, cross his heart.
*
Two farmers in Pihuamo, Mexico--Manuel Orozco and his cousin
Candelario Orozco--had been feuding over water rights for years,
but neither man would compromise. They finally settled it with a
pistol duel in the middle of a field--taking ten paces, firing,
and killing each other. That's 16 glasses a day that will be
saved now.
*
Ten explosions ripped apart commuter trains in Madrid,
killing more than 200, injuring 1,400, and causing government
officials to first blame Basque separatists, then Al Qaeda, then
a shadowy organization that's still mad about Spain driving out
the Moors. Apparently Spanish intelligence models itself after
the CIA.
*
Alice R. Pike of Covington, Georgia, tried to buy gift cards
worth $2.32 at Wal-Mart by asking for change back from a million-
dollar bill. Alice was arrested, but we say free the woman, she
obviously dwells in an alternate universe.
*
William J. Cottrell, a member of the Earth Liberation Front,
was arrested for spray-painting and fire-bombing 125 SUV's last
summer at auto dealerships in Southern California, causing $1
million in damage and, coincidentally, releasing a lot of
pollutants (smoke and toxic paint) into the environment.
*
Fat people are dropping dead, as poor diet and physical
inactivity keep gaining on smoking as the leading cause of death,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sixty-four percent of the American population, or 129.6 million
people, are classified as overweight or obese. Mayor Michael
Bloomberg of New York City reacted to the latest statistics by
banning eating in bars and restaurants.
*
Students at New York University are plunging to their deaths
like crazy. Diana Chien became the fourth and latest of the
academic year when she jumped from the roof of a 24-story
building after arguing with her boyfriend. Two of the previous
three plungees took headers in the atrium of the NYU library
itself, which rises ten stories on all sides. University
officials issued a terse statement about the "unprecedented level
of sadness this year" but otherwise didn't seem to be inclined to
the obvious solution: install some trapeze nets.
*
The number of herpes cases in the United States declined 17
percent during the 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, but the number of syphilis cases rose for
the third consecutive year. Health officials were puzzled by the
results, but we offer our interpretation here: "Ooooooooo, I'm
not sleeping with that girl, she's got herpes--so let's get a
hooker!"
*
A 52-year-old man who hadn't bathed in 10 years was
kidnapped by his fellow villagers in Kapenguria, Kenya, tied up,
and forcibly scrubbed clean as the village chief stood by. The
next day the chief got a job offer from the Chamber of Commerce
of Venice Beach, California.
*
David Crosby was arrested after leaving a bag in his room at
New York's Double Tree Suites Hotel containing a loaded .45-
caliber handgun, three magazines with 26 bullets, two knives, and
some pot. The most humiliating part of the arraignment is that
now everyone knows he was staying at the Double Tree.
*
Scott Kirkhart, a paramedic in Fort Dodge, Iowa, was
transporting the body of a dead woman to the morgue when he
suddenly decided to grab her breast and yell "Honk! Honk!" His
boss referred him to the page in the manual involving post-mortem
appendage-assisted performance art and fired him.
*
At the opening night party for "Fiddler on the Roof," which
is being revived on Broadway, New York Post drama critic Michael
Riedel and "Fiddler" director David Leveaux got into a wrestling
match that most witnesses say was won by Leveaux when he scored a
takedown. Riedel had written a review saying that the new
"Fiddler" "lacked a Jewish soul" and repeated the charge that
Leveaus had "de-Jewed" the play by casting Spaniards and Italians
in the principal roles. (The starring role of Tevye is played by
Alfred Molina.) Leveaux started in on Riedel at the party,
telling him he was full of it, to which Riedel replied, "David,
you know what the real problem is? You Oxford intellectual elite
directors are ruining our great Broadway musicals." Riedel ended
up on the floor with a broken watch, and Leveaux ended up with an
almost certain nomination to the Directors Hall of Fame.
*
A new radio network for liberals, featuring talk shows
hosted by Al Franken, Janeane Garofolo, and South Florida's Randi
Rhodes, will debut in April (in New York on a station aptly named
WLIB)--because the best way to show how biased talk radio is, is
to . . . uh . . . hm.
*
Dale Webster of Bodega Bay, California, surfed every day for
28 years to fulfill a vow made on Sunday, February 29, 1976--that
he would continue surfing until February 29th once again fell on
a Sunday. Now that his 10,407-day vow is complete, he'll be
getting a job and starting his career.
*
Dick Clark was sued for age discrimination (!) by veteran
game show producer Ralph Andrews, a friend of Clark for 40 years.
Andrews is 76, and Clark is 74. When Andrews asked Clark for a
job, Clark wrote back, "The last development guy we hired was 27
years old. Another person who is joining our staff next week is
30. People our age are considered dinosaurs! The business today
is being run by 'the next generation.'" Andrews, on the other
hand, had hired Clark in 1997 to host a game show on the Family
Channel called "It Takes Two." After receiving the letter in May
of 2003, Andrews stopped speaking to Clark, and eventually
consulted a lawyer, who told him that it's a violation of both
state and federal law to base a hiring decision on age. Says
Andrews: "I have eight kids, 14 grandchildren, and my youngest
son is 16. If anybody is in touch with what's going on in the
world today, it's me." This assumes, of course, that a Dick Clark
show wants to touch what goes on in the world today.
*
Hu Zhuang Elementary School in Beijing assesses fines on
students every time they fart in class. One fat guy used up his
whole allowance.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Lynda Taylor of Jensen Beach, Florida, put scented candles
all over the house, wore strong perfume, sprayed the house with
disinfectant, and used scented air fresheners--all of which
constitute aggravated assault against her husband David,
according to police. David has an allergic condition that can
result in a toxic reaction, even death, if exposed to certain
fragrances. Lynda claims he's just stinky.
*
Attorney General John Ashcroft had his gall bladder removed,
but his gall remains.
*
John A. Muhammad's brilliant defense in the D.C. sniper
case--"It must have been some other dude"--petered out with
Muhammad officially being sentenced to death. Now the appeals
process begins, with Muhammad's lawyers expected to argue that
the cat ate his alibi.
*
The body of Spalding Gray washed up out of the East River.
The famously suicidal monologist who became famous for "Swimming
to Cambodia" was apparently not swimming to Brooklyn.
*
Luciano Pavarotti returned to the Metropolitan Opera to sing
"Tosca" after the fiasco of two years ago in which he canceled
what were to be his two farewell performances, pleading the flu.
Sixty-eight years old, larger than ever, plagued with vocal and
other physical problems, forced to sit on stage as much as
possible and to gulp water when he's not singing, the question on
everyone's mind was: Could he still sing "Tosca"? The answer,
according to critics: Uh, not really. But he received tumultuous
curtain calls and showers of flowers for attempting to sing
"Tosca" and sometimes pretending to sing "Tosca" in the concert
hall that knows him best. He didn't have to come back--he could
have quietly retired. It just may be that his cojones are bigger
than his stomach.
*
In other fat opera news, Deborah Voigt was bounced from a
production at the Royal Opera House in London because producers
said she was too big to wear the cocktail dress in "Ariadne auf
Naxos." What's ironic in this case is that "Ariadne auf Naxos" is
the role that catapulted her to fame in the first place, when she
did it 13 years ago at the Boston Lyric Opera and overnight
became one of the top sopranos in the world. She's since played
Ariadne in virtually every leading opera house, including the
Met, and has even referred to her career as "Ariadne Inc." There
has been a trend in recent years to get opera stars to slim down
and look appropriate for the role--in 2002 Voigt had to drop 45
pounds to star in "Die Liebe der Dana" in Salzburg--but on the
other hand, there's a reason that these people have huge
otherworldly voices: they have huge otherwordly diaphragms to
contain the voice. Use a little imagination, people, or just
close your eyes--the lady is worth it.
*
Martha Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, giving false
statements, perjury and obstruction of justice--pretty much
everything she was charged with--in a federal court in Manhattan,
and in the minutes immediately after the verdict, lost $95
million as the price of her company plunged on the New York Stock
Exchange. Now she faces up to 20 years in prison--experts think
it will be no more than 18 months--and $1 million in fines. But
it gets worse: three days later, she was ordered to give a urine
sample to her probation officer. Even veteran Martha-watchers
like us believe that the government is going a little overboard
here, and the least they could do is order up a big platter of
happy-face muffins.
*
Okay, let's have a show of hands. How many are already tired
of "Bring it on!" as a) a headline, b) a political slogan, or c)
a lame cliché?
*
Michael Jackson is holed up in a $125,000-a-month rental
villa in Aspen with a 70-year-old Honduran herbalist named "Dr.
Sebi" who's administering a treatment called "African Bio-
Electric Cell Food Therapy" to cure Jackson of his addictions to
Demerol and morphine. Everyone's happy to know Michael is getting
back to normal.
*
John Kerry blew everybody else out of the water to become
the Democratic nominee for President, setting up a Steel Cage
Death Match for November: Texas vs. Massachusetts, with each
candidate pretty much representing what both of those states
stand for. We like to think of it as Beef Jerky vs. Lobster
Bisque.
*
Jason West, Mayor of New Paltz, New York, and the latest guy
to start marrying gay couples, was charged with 19 misdemeanors
by officiating at ceremonies for couples who did not have
marriage licenses. Message of the courts to the license-happy
gay-marrying mayors: if you're gonna marry 'em, then you hear the
divorce cases. Let's say you get married in San Francisco, but
you want a divorce in North Dakota. They're not gonna hear the
case there--but you have no way to establish residence in
California without forcing your estranged partner to move there
with you. (In recent years courts have been throwing out divorce
cases when people clearly don't live there but are just trying to
take advantage of more liberal divorce laws.) What do you do? You
stay married. When you fall in love again, you presumably have a
choice of becoming a bigamist or living in sin. You'd be better
off if you'd lived in sin in the first place. Is anybody
following this?
*
Babylonian astrologers predicted that the first day on which
there will not be a gay marriage story in the news will be
February 27, 2043.
*
Two Russian secret agents were indicted in Qatar for the car
bomb killing of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, former president of
Chechnya. In retaliation, Russia detained two members of the
Qatari wrestling team who happened to be passing through Russia
on their way to the Olympic trials in Serbia. Are you following
this? Here, we'll sum it up: If you mess with our spies, we'll
put a headlock on the first tourist we see.
*
A massive survey to compute the size of the American body--
funded by clothing companies, the military, and universities--
discovered that the average woman in the United States wears a
size 14. (Average for women has always been considered to be size
8.) Men, who for years were thought of as "normal" at a size 40
regular (40-inch chest, 34-inch waist, 40-inch hip), have bumped
up only slightly, to a size 42. Median weights are 144 for women,
176 for men. In other words, guys, it's true--the broads have
pigged out on us.
*
Not that we're counting, but President Bush has now sent
American troops to 12 foreign countries, the most recent in
support of a coup d'etat. Lest we forget the 2000 election: we
will not be the world's policeman, make no mistake about it.
*
In Reggio Emilia, Italy, it is now illegal to throw live
lobsters into boiling water. You haven't lived till you've had
lobster sushi.
*
As the Oscars were being handed out, Wesley Snipes was being
arrested for refusing to submit to a paternity test. (Wonder if
they sent a U.S. marshal to pick up the star of "U.S. Marshals"?)
Lanise Pettis, a former coke addict and prostitute, claims her
three-year-old son was conceived during sex with Snipes in a
Chicago crack house in 2000. The fact that he twice refused the
paternity test doesn't mean anything in and of itself, because,
after all, it's hard to keep all those crack-addicted hookers
straight in your head.
*
Harvard announced a new program to attract low-income
students who can't afford to go there. It costs about $44,000 a
year to attend Harvard, but you can just buy the sweatshirt at
Wal-Mart for $11.99.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Sheila Davalloo of Pleasantville, New York, handcuffed and
blindfolded her husband Paul Christos, plunged a paring knife
into his chest, then refused to call 911 despite his pleading.
From the hospital, the husband said he doesn't want her charged
but given mental-health treatment instead, because it was only a
"game" to her. Pin the Blade on the Ventricle?
*
The deadline for completing the new constitution of Iraq
came and went as the Governing Council continued to squabble
about the wording. The current draft prologue reads, "We the
people, and maybe the Kurds, and some of the Shiites . . ."
*
So what happened in Haiti? Hmmmmm, let's see. The elected
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was faced with rebel forces,
most of them led by notorious murderers, that caused such chaos
that the streets were full of crime, looting, carjackings and
general anarchy. The United States, which believes (ahem) that
all countries should have elected officials, said, "Well, we
could solve this by just letting the rebels and anarchists win."
Flee, Jean-Bertrand, flee! That last election, just forget that,
okay?
*
Bill Gates edged out Warren Buffet in the annual Forbes
Magazine "richest guys in the world" list. (If you're keeping
score, the numbers were $46.6 billion to $42.9 billion.) Nobody
else was even close, but eight of the top ten were Americans,
including five members of the Walton family of Arkansas, heirs to
the Wal-Mart empire. Making her debut on the list, at number 552,
was J.K. Rowling, author of the "Harry Potter" books. The world
now has 587 billionaires, up from 476 just a year ago, indicating
that all those cost savings created by farming out jobs to
teenage girls in India are definitely paying off.
*
Rosie O'Donnell was married to Kelli Carpenter at San
Francisco City Hall in a ceremony presided over by lesbian city
treasurer Susan Leal. The couple laid on a big kiss for the
cameras, then strode hand in hand down the steps of the rotunda
while being serenaded by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus
singing "Chapel of Love." They were about the 3,300th gay couple
to get married since Mayor Gavin Newsom started handing out
homosexual licenses--and why do we think this story is going to
last for YEARS?
*
New York Times serial fiction writer Jayson Blair must have
been really burning up the keyboard the last few months, because
his book, "Burning Down My Master's House," is already in Barnes
& Noble. (But in the fiction or the non-fiction section? We
haven't checked.) The 300-page tome reveals his cocaine use,
alcoholism, thoughts of suicide, trading sex for drugs, manic
depression, and--oh yeah--turning in stories to the Times that
were praised by his editors. "Some of my best stories were
inspired by drug-fueled writing," he said. Then again, maybe it
just makes a better story that way.
*
Jason Alexander, better known as George Costanza on
"Seinfeld," went to one of the hottest spots in Israel to promote
talks between artists and intellectuals. Arriving in Ramallah on
the day of a major Israeli raid, he was stopped at a checkpoint
and had to plead with soldiers to be admitted to the city. They
let him in because he looked so miserable.
*
Britney Spears' "Toxic" went back into heavy rotation now
that MTV has decided the post-Super-Bowl Puritan Era is over.
They've also restored controversial videos by Blink 182 ("I Miss
You"), Ludacris ("Splash Waterfalls"), and Maroon 5. Once again,
nipples and crotches are in.
*
Howard Stern's morning show got yanked off six stations
owned by Clear Channel Communications after a show featuring ex-
Paris Hilton boyfriend Rick Salomon. (Remember the guy who made
the Internet sex tape?) What's really strange about this one is
that, after all the outrageous things Stern has said over the
years, he was bounced because of the comments of . . . a caller!
Some yahoo called in to ask Salomon if he ever had sex with
"nigger" celebrities. What's Stern supposed to do, wash out the
guy's mouth with soap? The suspension from six stations came
exactly two days before Clear Channel CEO John Hogan went before
Congress to defend radio against a proposed law that would
tighten decency standards and jack up fines. Hmmmmmmmm, let's
see. Even a two-year-old could connect THOSE dots.
*
The uproar over Janet Jackson's dual floppies and Justin
Timberlake's hematoma-handling continues to follow the two
nekkid-bazooma lovers. Jackson was supposed to play Lena Horne in
an ABC movie about the legendary singer, but she won't now--
because Lena Horne herself says she won't. Timberlake is out as
co-host of the Motown Records anniversary special, also on ABC.
The pierced and bedizened hooter at the center of the firestorm
is reported to be resting comfortably.
*
Twelve-year-old Justin Reyes of Belpre, Ohio, was suspended
for three days for bringing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue
to school--odd, because there's very little nipple action this
year.
*
All over America, gay guys were thinking, "Oh DAMN, he's
gonna want me to MARRY him now."
*
Chinese officials claimed to have the biggest pig in the
world--1,980 pounds, 8 feet 3 inches long, with a girth of 7 feet
3 inches and tusks 5 1/4 inches long. (Apparently it was a
razorback.) Unfortunately, Peking Porky died. Researchers were
doing an autopsy to find out why, but we already know: too damn
big.
*
Lil' Kim, the hip hop minx who likes to perform sans
panties, was attacked by Fox News moral crusader Bill O'Reilly,
saying that Old Navy stores are undermining the morals of youth
by signing her to an endorsement contract. Old Navy is probably
more worried that she's undermining underwear sales.
*
Former major league umpire Al Clark pled guilty in federal
court in Newark, New Jersey, to selling $40,000 worth of
baseballs he claimed were part of historic games, when in fact
they were just balls he had rubbed with mud and then put fake
signatures on. This is the same ump who lost his job in 2001
after trading in his first-class plane tickets for economy seats,
then pocketing the difference. At the time he was also being
investigated for coercing players into signing balls, making the
players think he would hold a grudge if they didn't satisfy him.
Steeeeerike three.
*
A transvestite in Greenwich Village pummeled a cab driver
with a stiletto heel after getting into the taxi, only to be told
by the driver that he was "off duty." Enraged, the shemale
pierced the cabbie's skull with the high heel, leaving him
bleeding and paralyzed on his right side, with possible bone
chips near his brain. From his hospital bed, Barow Ghosh told
police that he was finishing a 12-hour shift and that the man
dressed as a woman had gotten into the cab in spite of the "off
duty" sign. Obviously his feet hurt.
*
Pennsylvania investigators released a list of sexual
misconduct cases involving state troopers including: one trooper
defecating on another trooper at a party (yes, apparently they
call this sexual in Pennsylvania), the same trooper sticking a
carrot in his butt then eating it, a trooper having sex with a
drug dealer, a trooper having sex with a woman in a patrol car, a
trooper shoving a girlfriend in the back and cutting her cheek, a
trooper having an affair with a married woman, three troopers
having sex with a narcotics informant, a trooper raping a woman
at her home while on duty, two female cadets taking naked photos
of another female cadet, a trooper physically abusing his wife, a
trooper posing for naked photos at the 1999 Thunder in the
Cascades bike rally, a trooper having sex while working the
midnight shift, a trooper having sex with prostitutes employed by
escort services, and troopers watching porno tapes while on duty-
-presumably to get a vicarious sense of what all the other
officers were doing.
*
Tyrone Henry of Tucson invited two teenage girls to his home
to try out a new facial cream he said he was developing, called
"White Dew." He showed them pictures of women with the gooey
white substance on their faces, then told them he would need to
blindfold them to apply the cream. He applied the cream, took
photos, paid them $10 apiece, and got them to make a follow-up
appointment. The girls, evidently not too bright, later thought
better of the follow-up appointment, especially since they had
noticed heavy breathing by Henry right before the application, so
they went to the police. The jury said "Ewwwwwwwwwww." Seven
years in prison. No report as to whether their complexions
improved.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* God told Deanna L. Laney of Tyler, Texas, to beat her two
sons to death with rocks. God then told the Sheriff to lock her
up.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came out strong against gay
marriage, telling the city of San Francisco to stop handing out
licenses to girlie-boys.
*
A new line of T-shirts and pajamas, emblazoned with slogans
like "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them" or "Boys Are Smelly"
or "The Stupid Factory--Where Boys Are Made," is being pulled out
of several retail chains after a letter-writing campaign by talk-
show host Glenn Sacks, who says that boy-bashing is wrong. We
hope he gets cooties.
*
The New Mexico legislature took up a bill to require
breathalyzers to be installed in every new car sold in the state.
You wouldn't be able to turn the key in the ignition until you
had successfully blown non-alcoholic air into the breathalyzer--
unless, of course, you paid somebody to be a designated breather.
*
President Bush pretty much kissed the gay vote goodbye when
he slammed same-sex marriages and the "activist judges" who
approve them. Cancel that appearance at Wigstock.
*
A three-day tabloid rumor that John Kerry had an affair with
an intern turned out to be a lie when everybody involved--Kerry,
the "mystery woman," and her parents--all said it's not true and
that, furthermore, she was never even an intern. Scandals
apparently resist recycling.
*
Gary Busey, who's found religion and started talking way too
much the last few years, told this charming story to Maxim
magazine: "I came home one day, took off my windbreaker, and
three bundles of cocaine fell to the floor. Well, my dog, Chili,
who has short hair, came in and laid on her back with her legs in
the air, and she rubbed all my cocaine on her back and side. I
yelled, 'No, Chili! No!' So I got a straw, and I started brushing
her hair and snorting where I saw cocaine. Back, butt, side--not
a spot was left. It took me 25 minutes to snort all the cocaine
the dog had on her coat. The fringe benefits of this were that
the fleas, the dog hair, the mud and the sweat went in my nose,
too. It's not a good flavor coming off of the dog." We'll just
leave you with that visual.
*
Earl Woodruff of Crawford County, Arkansas, was found by
police asleep in his SUV, clad in a purple bra and flowered thong
panties, with his penis exposed. The car also contained a bomb,
methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, all stored in a Dale
Earnhardt Jr. cooler. Woodruff, previously convicted of using a
stolen credit card to pay for 1-900 phone sex calls, was released
on $10,000 bail after telling officers that he was constructing
the bomb for his ex-wife. She always hated Dale Earnhardt Jr.,
that's why the marriage fell apart.
*
Sum Poosie, a new energy drink marketed by a Gainesville,
Florida, firm, was being hawked on the University of Florida
campus by a man named Seth Garrett. Gainesville police arrested
Garrett for saying "Sum Poosie" through a megaphone, explaining
that the product name itself constituted disorderly conduct. The
officers were apparently stressed out and could have used Sum
Poosie themselves.
*
Important health tip: the ice cube enema, popular in gay
bars in Melbourne, Australia, as a way to revive someone
suffering a drug overdose, could lead to seizures and stroke,
according to the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Hey,
we've all been there.
*
Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Robert Heinlein's
"Stranger in a Strange Land" were deemed likely to sexually
arouse young teens by four incensed parents with children
enrolled in the South Texas Independent School District in
Mercedes, Texas. Both books were on the summer reading list, much
to the disgust of the parents, who say they're pure pornography
and want them removed from the schools. We have to presume they
were turned on by those sexy provocative Martians.
*
Six people sued the state of Iowa, claiming they were taught
to stutter as part of research conducted in 1939. University of
Iowa speech pathologist Wendell Johnson had tried to induce
stuttering in children to prove that the speech impediment
resulted from environment rather than genetics. Using "negative
psychological pressure," a graduate student took children from
the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport and did everything
possible to turn them into stutterers. Although the claimants
don't say whether they ended up stuttering or not, they do say
they had emotional problems. They all got together and decided to
s-s-s-s-s-s-sue.
*
From 1991 to 2001, the number of people living in the South
who identify themselves as "Southerners" declined from 78 percent
to 70 percent, according to a Vanderbilt University study. And
people wonder why NASCAR has gone all to hell.
*
The logo for the World AIDS Conference in Bangkok features
two elephants having sex--that wacky Thai sense of humor gets us
every time--but health authorities are trying to censor it
because the male elephant is not wearing a condom. The elephant
is the national symbol of Thailand, and, for the record, he wears
a Ramses XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL.
*
Anthony Scholfield, a student at the University of Wisconsin
at Stout, was arrested for stealing 854 pairs of panties. Police
say he broke into a rental home in Menomonie occupied by eight
women, aged 20 to 22, and filched the thong-style undergarments.
We say all eight women should be arrested as well, because,
ladies, that's WAY too many thongs.
*
Patsy J. Hansel, director of the library in Mesa, Arizona,
was placed on probation after commenting on an employee's legs,
touching her hair and buttocks, and telling her that she loved
her during an employee luncheon. Awwww, it sounds sweet.
*
Pascal Nouma, a French soccer player for the Besiktas team
in Turkey, celebrated scoring a goal against the rival Fenerbahce
team by ripping off his shirt and then shoving his hand down the
front of his shorts. Later he said, "If it wounded Turkey, then I
am sorry." No, it didn't exactly wound Turkey. Grossed Turkey
out, maybe.
*
Computer technician Goren Andervass was minding his own
business, working in his office at the Swedish national bank in
Stockholm, when a colleague entered his office and "let out a
big, stinky fart," according to the Swedish paper Aftonbladet.
Andervass shouted at his colleague and accused him of doing it on
purpose. The two men argued so much that they were eventually
called into a meeting with their boss, who asked for an
explanation. According to Andervass, "my colleague would neither
admit nor confirm that he had farted." The conflict apparently
escalated after that, to the point that Andervass was asked to
stay home from the office until he cooled off. Finally, Andervass
was fired for "personal issues." Andervass sued the bank for
wrongful dismissal, and a court awarded him $100,000 to settle
the stink.
*
Michael Francis Brown of French Valley, California, made
about $435,000 selling heads, knees, spines and other body parts
to medical researchers from bodies that were supposed to be
cremated in his crematorium. It's pretty amazing what somebody
will pay for an elbow these days.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Alan Karo of Gloucester City, New Jersey, got drunk and
went down to the basement bedroom of his 18-year-old daughter
Jasmine to tell her to stop tying up the only telephone in the
house. He grabbed the phone, threw it at his daughter, then
stormed up the steps to continue the argument with his common-law
wife Margie Smiling. That argument escalated into a knock-down
fight, with Karo doing most of the knocking and Smiling doing
most of the falling down, and when Jasmine heard the noise, she
ran up the stairs and ylled "I'm tired of you pushing my mother!"
A few moments later, Karo had a kitchen knife in his back, and he
was crumpled on the floor, dying. A few hours later, Jasmine was
booked for murder. A second phone line might have been a good
idea.
New York City, which already has the highest taxes in the
country, wants to start taxing artificial boobs--actually every
kind of cosmetic surgery. This is in addition to the taxes being
discussed on coffee sold by the cup, on food sold in restaurants,
and on residential parking permits. It now costs an average of
$17.34 each time a New Yorker leaves his apartment and walks to
the corner. No one knows exactly where the $17.34 goes, or how
it's collected, but all New Yorkers verify that every time they
walk to the corner, they return with a few coins where a twenty-
dollar bill used to be.
*
Barbie and Ken have split up after a 43-year relationship,
according to Russell Arons, a vice president of marketing for
Mattel. Making the announcement at the International Toy Fair in
New York, Arons said that Barbie wanted her fans to know that
they will remain the best of friends, and that during the
recovery period Barbie will be at her Malibu beach house with
close family and friends. Barbie is also shedding her old look
for a new "Cali Girl style" (available in the stores this
spring), said Arons. Meanwhile, Ken's publicist, Ken Sunshine
(yes, that's his real name, and he's also a vp/marketing at
Mattel), says that the breakup was by mutual agreement. "She's
done fashion, entertainment and many careers," said Sunshine,
"and Ken has been there for her. And now they feel it's time to
spend some quality time--apart." Rumors at the toy fair were that
Barbie will soon have a new boyfriend--an Australian hunk named
Blaine--while Ken will go through a slow transformation during
which he buys gaudy sports cars, trolls Internet dating sites
(get the Ken Home Computer Module), sleeps with bimbos half his
age, and gets a hair weave.
*
Two suicide bombers killed more than a hundred people, then
guerrillas blasted their way into the main police station in
Falluja, Iraq, killing more than 15 police officers and freeing
dozens of prisoners. Fortunately that day is fast approaching
when all Iraqi security is turned over to the Iraqis and all our
soldiers go home, now that everything is perfectly stabilized.
*
Somebody bludgeoned to death 1,198 turkeys on a farm in
Fountain Green, Utah. We're betting it was one of those PETA
serial mercy killings.
*
Diana Ross pulled two days in the Greenwich, Connecticut,
jail for a drunk-driving conviction in Tucson. Can anybody else
do that? "Uh, yeah, judge, I realize I was driving drunk here in
East St. Louis. If you don't mind, I'll report to the jail in Key
West."
*
The island of Manhattan drawn to resemble a penis, with a
condom draped over it, was deemed too much for the New York City
subway system. The Gay Men's Health Crisis had purchased subway
ad space for National Condom Week, but the Metropolitan Transit
Authority approved, then disapproved, sort of like a morning-
after pill.
*
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom married 87 same-sex couples
in defiance of California law, issuing marriage licenses that--
we're just guessing here--are the equivalent of a fake ID
purchased at a carnival.
*
Massachusetts lawmakers spent the week fighting about the
difference between gay marriage and same-sex civil unions as
protesters on both sides of the issue massed outside the
statehouse. Excuse us, but isn't this the state that was a) home
of the Puritans, b) most Catholic place in America, and c) so
moralistic the phrase "Banned in Boston" is shorthand for
prudery? Yeah, we thought so.
*
The New York City Medical Examiner released records showing
that diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins weighed 258 pounds at the time
of his death, bolstering Mayor Michael Bloomberg's remark that
the man was "fat" and that he didn't "believe that bullshit that
he dropped dead slipping on the sidewalk." This will be a future
episode on Court TV's "The Ravening Ghoul Files."
*
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force asked a judge to force
Drake University to turn over the records of a student group that
organized an antiwar protest last year, so the students can be
dragged before a grand jury--and the judge said okay! The
subpoena asks for all records relating to the local chapter of
the National Lawyer's Guild, the organization that sponsored a
November 15 forum. This is the same group that was targeted for
alleged communist ties in the 1950s. When this subpoena is
appealed, the appropriate response from the appellate court would
be, "Uh . . . no . . . it's that pesky freedom of assembly
thing." If this takes longer than five minutes to decide, then
the apocalypse is near.
*
Pat Robertson, the kooky evangelist, led a nationwide prayer
on his show "The 700 Club," asking God to remove three justices
from the Supreme Court. Still steamed about the 6-3 sodomy
decision last June (so why wouldn't he want six justices
removed?), Robertson called for the divine ousting of John Paul
Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and another who is unclear.
Robertson's letter on the Christian Broadcasting Network website
says, "One justice is 83 years old [Stevens], another has cancer
[Ginsburg] and another has a heart condition [not so clear].
Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these
three judges that the time has come to retire?" What a world of
meaning is in that one little word, "retire." Would it not be
possible for God to put it in the DNA of Robertson to "retire"?
*
Women almost always lie about their sex lives, according to
researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Maine.
It's been known for years that, when you ask a person how many
sex partners he's had, the numbers are always higher for men than
women. Since this is statistically impossible--the average number
should be the same, even if there's one really abused hooker
somewhere--it's always been assumed that men exaggerated their
conquests and women diminished theirs. In fact, it turns out that
men are pretty close to the truth, but women always make their
numbers lower. The way they figured this out is by questioning
women informally, then questioning them again when they thought
they were hooked up to a lie detector. (The machine wasn't on.)
When they thought they were hooked up, their estimates of past
lovers doubled. Using test subjects 18 to 25 years old, the
numbers came out like this for women: 2.6 sexual partners if they
simply filled out a survey form, 3.4 partners for those who
thought their answers were anonymous, and 4.4 partners for those
who thought they would be caught by a polygraph. For men, the
answers were the same in all three groups--about 4.0 partners. In
other words, the bimbo is lying.
*
At 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning, Norwegian talk-show host Anja
was a little bored and trying to wake up her audience, so she
invited viewers to vote on whether she should perform oral sex on
her colleague Adam. More than a thousand people voted, and Anja
and Adam were both disciplined by the station, but the most
humiliating thing was . . . the public voted no.
*
A male stripper showed up at a Holiday Inn in Crystal Lake,
Illinois, to work a bachelorette party, but after his
performance, the bride's mother refused to pay, saying it was the
sorriest stripping she'd ever seen. They got into an altercation,
and the bachelorettes ended up kicking him, scratching him, and
pummeling him over the head with a bottle. Mom pled guilty to
assault and paid $2,500 restitution, although she still insisted
the guy probably enjoyed it.
*
Kelly Kaufman of Custer, South Dakota, scarfed down four
pounds of bull testicles to win the One Eyed Jack's Rocky
Mountain Oyster Championship in Sturgis, South Dakota. He
received $3,000 in prize money, which, as it turns out, is $500
more than he could have gotten for being dogpiled by
bachelorettes.
*
Michael J. Matakaetis of Hutchinson Island, Florida, was
stopped for speeding and suspicion of drunk driving. First he
tried to bribe the arresting officer with a stack of Dunkin'
Donuts coupons. When that didn't work and he ended up in jail, he
threatened that a sheriff's depty would "get a bullet" because
"You should have let me go." We're talking a guy whose brain was
thinking, "Hmmmmmmm, should I bribe him with discount donuts, or
just kill him? Donuts or bullets? Bullets or donuts? Okay, donuts
first, then bullets."
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* William Sancimo of Shirley, New York, got into an argument
with his mother over car insurance, so he beat and stabbed her to
death in the presence of the ten-month-old grandson she was
babysitting. He won't be able to work this off in defensive
driving classes.
*
The Bush administration seemed increasingly squirmy
as the
president went on "Meet the Press" and Secretary of State Donald
Rumsfeld spoke to European critics in Munich, addressing the
question of just why we got involved in Iraq. They both said
that, yeah, they'd thought about it, and they've decided that
there were reasons for attacking Saddam Hussein and those reasons
will be apparent, and furthermore it was his fault, and
furthermore who cares about him anyway, he was just an old
dictator, and furthermore, the Iraqi people are better off . . .
whoops! Better not go there.
*
Seven-year-old Brandy McKenith was suspended from Sunnyside
Elementary School in Pittsburgh after the following exchange:
Classmate: "I swear to God."
Brandy: "You're going to go to hell for swearing to God."
We swear to God.
*
The superintendent of schools in Guyton, Georgia, is trying
to get 17-year-old Laura Williams kicked out of the high school
work/study program because she chose to work as a Hooters
hostess. Michael Moore, the superintendent, says her job is "not
appropriate," even though Laura's dad approves and the tips are
better than Subway.
*
The smoke-haters have declared war on the new "Whoopi"
sitcom, in which Whoopi Goldberg plays Mavis Rae, a chain-smoking
hotel owner. "It makes me sad and angry," says anti-smoking
advocate Judy Shepps Battle, to hear Goldberg defend smoking in
interviews. "Surely Whoopi Goldberg realizes that her character
is modeling a highly addictive behavior. While she may not know
the statistics--that cigarette smoking causes nearly 5 million
painful and premature deaths around the world every year--she
must realize that her bravado feeds into the bullet-proof
mentality ('Nothing is happening to me now from smoking this
cigarette') that keeps people--especially teens--smoking
cigarettes. Doesn't she realize that nearly 5000 kids, every
single day of the year, light up to join the ranks of smokers? Is
she oblivious to the fact that between one-third and one-half of
youths who try a cigarette go on to become daily smokers?"
Predictably, Battle then calls for a boycott and a letter-writing
campaign to hassle NBC. Sounds like this woman needs a cigarette.
Okay, Judy, just one fact here: it's been a long long long time
since Whoopi Goldberg was a teenager.
*
Huang Tzu-heng, a shop clerk in Taipei, started dating his
high school classmate Hsiao Lan, but Huang wasn't really sure
Hsiao Lan loved him. To check on her faithfulness, he posed on
the Internet as "Mr J" while continuing to date her. He started
to become frustrated when she never acknowledged talking to Mr J,
but the real surprise was coming later: she told him she was
dumping him because she had fallen in love with Mr J. Huang
committed suicide, because if you can't trust your girlfriend not
to cheat on you with yourself, then, uh, well, it's all very
oriental.
*
Fuehrer-wein, a new Nazi-themed Italian wine, has provoked
an official protest from the German Justice Ministry, which calls
it "contemptible and tasteless." The wine features a dozen
different labels featuring Hitler and other Nazis, complete with
slogans like "Sieg Heil." It can't be sold in Germany because
products bearing Nazi images are outlawed there, but in the
winemaker's defense, he's an equal opportunity offender. The line
also includes Benito Mussolini labels and, not to ignore the
leftist oenophiles, Josef Stalin labels. We hear that this vino
will kick your ass.
*
A 100-million-year-old penis was discovered on a fossil of
an aptly named ostracod, a crustacean related to crabs and
shrimps. David Siveter, professor at England's University of
Leicester, found the fossil in Brazil and says that it's a mere
one millimeter wide, but that's no problem for the ostracod,
which has the biggest sperm-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom.
Even more remarkable, this ostracod turned out be double-penised.
A hard ostracod is good to find.
*
A British company called Vibelet.com introduced software
which converts a Nokia cellular phone into a sex toy, if you know
what we mean and we think you do. The program makes use of
Nokia's "vibrating alert" option. A charged battery gives you
exactly one hour to recharge your battery.
*
"Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera"--yes, that's what we said--is
in development at the Zoo District, a small Los Angeles theater
company, with no broken bones reported so far.
*
With too many stray dogs wandering around Phnom Penh,
Cambodian officials are encouraging the population to eat more of
them. "Come on, dog meat is so delicious," said city governor Kep
Chuktema to a reporter for the Cambodia Daily newspaper. "The
Vietnamese and Koreans love to eat dog meat. We (Cambodians)
don't have wine, but poor people can enjoy their dog meat
with palm juice wine." Oddly enough, Cambodian chickens taste
just like pit bulls.
*
"Louie Louie" was performed simultaneously by 754 guitarists
at Tacoma's Cheney Stadium. Performers included the Wailers, the
1950s band that originally arranged the song, and the Kingsmen,
who re-recorded it in 1963 and made it into a hit. Conducting the
guitarists was Paul Revere, of Paul Revere & the Raiders, who
also covered the song. Anybody who could successfully learn all
three chords was welcome to join in.
*
Sho Yano has been admitted to the University of Chicago
medical school--at age 12. When he makes his internship rounds,
and has to say "Turn your head and cough," will there be child
porno charges?
*
The ultimate redneck girlie drink, rum-and-Coke, has been
perfected by scientists working for the Kuya company. Using a
distillation process called fusion, they've blended 23 citrus and
spice flavors into Kuya rum to create what they claim is the
perfect blend to go with colas. Kuya spokeswoman Kelley McCormick
launched a new ad campaign--"Do ya Kuya?"--with predictions that
"Kuya cola" will soon replace "rum and Coke" as the preferred
order at West Texas honkytonks any day now.
*
Condomania, the Internet condom retailer, now offers 55
sizes of prophylactics. How do you know which is your size? They
have a special "measuring tool"--yes, that's the phrase they use-
-on the Internet. Please Windex your computer screen after using
it.
*
The sale of French fries has dropped 10 percent at
McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, irritating the plaintiff's
bar.
*
The Sex Pistols are planning a concert in Baghdad to show
the people that democracy is not such a great thing. "If you are
going to offer these people democracy," said lead singer Johnny
Rotten, "then offer it to them in their fullest extreme so they
fully know what they're walking into. Because democracy has a few
problems, mate, and the Sex Pistols know that, but at least we
can shout out about it, and that might be of some use to them."
We're sure the Shiites will insist these insights be worked into
the new constitution.
*
Scientists at Japan's Kinki University are trying to use
frozen DNA to clone the extinct woolly mammoth. Once they have
the pachyderms breathing again, the Japanese can then slaughter
them for use as aphrodisiacs.
*
Alexander Korolev was declared the winner in the first
rubber-sex-doll raft race on the Vuoksa River near St.
Petersburg, Russia. The trophy was tainted because all
participants were required to raft while sober.
*
Shannon Williams, a Berkeley High School teacher busted for
prostitution, says she's done nothing wrong because "as a
feminist I believe in every woman's right to self-determination"
and "I feel like a gay teacher must have felt 20 years ago after
being outed--I feel that prostitution laws are dinosaurs, that
they're similar to sodomy laws, and they will eventually be
repealed." Uh, probably not soon enough for your case, honey.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Dennis Alvarez-Hernandez of Yonkers, New York, wasn't
pleased when his girlfriend Patricia Torres told him their
relationship was over, so he stabbed her to death, then stabbed
her 7-year-old son to death, then stabbed her 4-year-old daughter
to death, then tried to stab her 9-year-old son to death, then
said he didn't mean to do it, he was just drunk on beer.
Obviously not a microbrew. *
Janet Jackson flopped one out at the Super Bowl halftime
show in one of those career moves destined to show up in her
obituary. Justin Timberlake aided the flop, and both performers
are likely to be bounced from the Grammy Awards telecast, since
they seem to be unaware that the entire world is not their
personal reality show. The controversial right mammary was
pierced and heavily bejeweled, provoking troublesome questions
from children, like, "Mommy, why does she have a beer can opener
on her chest?"
*
Kerry steamrolled. Edwards and Clark fingernailed it out.
Lieberman portrayed as pathetic, but only if you didn't count
Sharpton, who campaigned heavily in South Carolina but rolled up
only 10 percent. It's another Hair Guy.
*
"The Guilty Men," the documentary that aired on the History
Channel last November claiming that President Lyndon Johnson was
part of the plot to kill President Kennedy, was so upsetting to
Lady Bird, the president's 91-year-old widow, that she sent a
letter to network officials saying that nothing else "has hurt as
painfully" as those accusations. It didn't end there. Jack
Valenti, who worked in the LBJ administration before becoming
president of the Motion Picture Association of America, demanded
a total retraction and a show that exposes the original
documentary as a big lie. He's been like a bulldog ever since it
aired, resulting finally in a meeting with the History Channel
that was also attended by Tom Johnson, chairman of the LBJ
Foundation and former head of CNN; LBJ press secretary Bill
Moyers, who now does shows for PBS; and Larry Temple, who was
LBJ's chief counsel. What's odd about this is that "The Guilty
Men" had already been debunked back in 1988, when it aired as one
of the five parts of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" on Britain's
ITV network. The controversy then resulted in an investigation
revealing that many of the claims were just underworld gossip and
the fantasies of an amateur American writer. Why the History
Channel would air a 15-year-old false documentary in the first
place is one of those imponderables they're so fond of at the
network, sort of like "Why did the Mayans abandon their temples?" Hmmmmmmmm.
*
Mel Brooks is thinking about sending a road company of "The
Producers" to Germany. Mel. Please. They won't laugh.
*
New Jersey declared "Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day" in honor
of native son Alfred W. Fielding, founder of the Sealed Air
Corporation, which dates from that fateful day in 1956 when, in a
garage in Hawthorne, New Jersey, Fielding and Swiss inventor Marc
Chavarines were trying to come up with a new type of plastic wall
paper with a paper back. The wall paper was a major bust, but
they thought, "Maybe we could use it as packing material." Voila!
Packages have never been the same, and neither have six-year-olds
with an insatiable desire to pop plastic bubbles.
*
French casinos, which have always banned American-style slot
machines and been fairly stuffy about their "chemin de fer" and
other exotic gaming tables, suddenly had a change of heart last
year. The "bandits manchots," as they call them, now account for
92 percent of all French casino business. That would be 92
percent of French gamblers engaging in an American pastime. They
call that, we believe, "ironique."
*
A man identified only as Janos showed up at the hospital in
Oradea, Romania, with his penis stuck in an industrial nut. He
had slipped the nut onto his uh..."bolt", he said, in order to
maintain an erection, copying a scene he'd seen in a porn movie,
but once he got it on, his penis started to swell and he couldn't
get it off. Befuddled doctors said his appendage was so swollen
they couldn't even see the nut and the nut itself was so
massive that it could only be cut with a welding torch. (Are you
getting a visual here?) The eventual solution, according to Dr. Gheorghe Bumbu: "several longitudinal cuts" (ouch!) that "let the
blood come out" (Ouch!) so that "the penis could deflate"
(YOOOOOOOOOWZA!). Memo to Janos: Viagra is not that expensive.
*
Bosnia passed a law banning blonde jokes. "The new law on
gender equality," said Savima Terzic of the International Group
for Human Rights, "enables blonde women to sue anyone who tells
jokes that offend them, even if those jokes were just based on
the color of their hair." It wasn't clear whether Terzic was
blonde or not, but she sounds like one.
*
One in four German men say they've been victims of sexual
harassment, according to a study conducted by Potsdam University.
But before you horny guys pack your wienerschnitzel for Hamburg,
you might wanna check the average girth on those babes. We're
talking Teutonic.
*
Max Baer Jr., better known as Jethro on "The Beverly
Hillbillies," tried to build a Beverly Hillbillies Casino in Reno
in 1998, but the project fell apart. Undismayed, he's now
announced plans for a $54 million resort in Carson City, Nevada,
that will feature "Granny's Shotgun Wedding Chapel," "Uncle Jed's
Gift Shop," "Elly Mae's Buns Bakery" and a 200-foot-tall oil
derrick that spits fire. What? No Miss Hathaway Escort Service?
*
Republicans who still can't stand the fact that Bill Clinton
was president for eight years are building a Clinton-hater
library just a few blocks from the planned $160 million
presidential library in Little Rock. John LeBoutillier, a former
Republican congressman from New York, and Houston businessman
Richard Erickson are calling their project the Counter-Clinton
Library and say their focus will be on Whitewater, Monica
Lewinsky, Pardongate, and the White House furniture that was
damaged when the Clintons left. "We already hear he's going to
bring a bunch of egghead economists to his library to say how
great the economy was when he was president," LeBoutillier told
the Associated Press. "And we'll find our own who can say it had
nothing to do with him." Well, as long as it's scientific.
*
The largest collection of preserved male phalluses (or would
that be "phalli"?) may have to be sold off because the city of
Reykjavik, Iceland, has cut funding to the Icelandic Phallogical
Museum. Curator Sigurder Hjartarson says it will be a shame if he
has to close the museum entirely, and suggests a half measure
instead: budget circumcision.
*
Marty Markowitz, President of Brooklyn, installed signs at
all the borders of his borough reading "Leaving Brooklyn . . .
Fugheddaboudit." Now they should put something on the other side
of the sign, maybe "Entering Brooklyn . . . Duck!"
*
A Nile monitor lizard, which can grow up to five feet long
and is native to Africa, showed up near Cape Coral, Florida, in
1990, and since then the population has grown into the thousands.
The lizards will eat almost any kind of prey, including owls,
fish, mussels, snails, oysters, turtles, armadillos, foxes,
ground doves, goldfish, and all forms of reptiles, and state
wildlife officials want them wiped out before they destroy the
coastal environment. The Nile monitor lizard should not be
confused, by the way, with the Lipstick Lizard, which is also a
Florida import, normally from the northeast, that devours all
wealthy men in its path.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Erik Williams, the ex-Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowler who got in
trouble with Michael Irvin a few years back, was arrested at his
home in Charleston Township, Pennsylvania, after his wife called
police and said he was drunk and physical. The cops found a
three-inch scratch on her face, scratches on her forearms, and a
bruised left thigh that had caused her to limp when she fled into
the woods near the house. Williams is currently serving probation
for a firearms violation and a drug possession charge, and was
found not guilty on two sexual assault charges in the mid-
nineties--but this wife-fleeing-into-the-forest thing doesn't
look good.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Deadly ricin was discovered in a letter mailed to the
Senate, prompting revelations that the Secret Service had covered
up news of another ricin-soaked letter sent to the White House
three months ago. In both cases it wasn't enough poison to kill
anybody, and it was intercepted long before it got to its
destination, so since the whole system actually worked . . .
everybody panicked!
*
The Official Joe Bob Line (for entertainment purposes only):
Kerry 5-2
Dean 6-1
Edwards 12-1
Clark 19-1
Lieberman 80-1
Point spread: Kerry -6 in South Carolina
Cash only.
*
The top ten spams, worldwide, according to the watchdog
Spamhaus:
1. ENLARGE YOUR PENIS
2. GET MEDS ONLINE
3. HOT XXX ACTION
4. URGENT, CONFIDENTIAL, NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE (the old
relative of an African dictator letter, recently redesigned to
come from "relatives of Saddam")
5. MORTGATE RATES AT 40-YEAR LOW
6. PRINTER CARTRIDGES, ACT NOW
7. IRAQI MOST WANTED CARDS
8. ONLINE DEGREE
9. LOWER YOUR INSURANCE NOW
10. WORK FROM HOME
Spam is now 70 percent of all email worldwide, and is
expected to reach 90 percent by December. Almost all of it is
created by about 180 people. We have a message for these 180
people:
Protect your ass now
*
Jerry Lewis will return to the stage of the Orleans Hotel
and Casino in Las Vegas after a three-year absence due to steroid
bloating. France is rejoicing, especially since Jerry Lewis and
Mickey Rourke are now lookalikes.
*
Al Franken tackled a heckler at a Howard Dean rally in New
Hampshire, bear-hugging his legs, then slamming him to the floor.
Franken said he was protecting Dean's First Amendment rights.
After all, it's third and long.
*
Robin Hood didn't come from the Nottingham area, but 60
miles to the north, in Yorkshire, according to lawmakers from
that area who are trying to revise history and claim him for
themselves. David Hinchcliffe, member of Parliament for
Wakefield, claims that there is vast historical evidence showing
that Robin Hood (or Hode) was born on the site of the Wakefield
bus station. Think of the tourism possibilities. Bus drivers in
green leotards--we're there.
*
During the course of a week, the Pope was entertained by
breakdancers and met with Dick Cheney. This explains the
pontiff's request that Cheney stand on his head.
*
Jack Paar died in Greenwich, Connecticut, we kid you not.
*
The 4th Infantry Division, which flushed Saddam Hussein out
of his rabbit warren, has asked permission to destroy the
underground hideout and the nearby mud hut so that it won't
become a tourist attraction, as in "Saddam didn't sleep here."
*
The Parmalat scandal continued to rock the financial world,
as Alessandro Bassi--assistant to the imprisoned chief financial
director of the company--committed suicide by throwing himself
off a bridge. Because Parmalat is an Italian company that sells
boxed milk and is named after the capital of Emilia-Romagna, while
banking in Monte Carlo and the Cayman Islands, nobody suspected a
thing.
*
For the first time since private stills were banned in 1814,
a couple in Aultbea, Wester Ross, Scotland, have won a two-year
legal battle and now have the right to brew Highlands Scotch
whiskey in a 40-gallon still at their hotel. The first batch of
Loch Ewe, as they intend to call it, will be ready in five years.
The tradition of private stills flourished in the Highlands after
the Battle of Culloden in 1746, when the Hanovarian government
imposed a tax on what was called "poor man's wine," but the Scots
ignored the law and started the ancient battle with revenuers,
continuing when they started migrating to the hills of Kentucky
and Tennessee. Today, a 40-gallon still in Appalachia creates a
batch in five months, not five years, and is generally called Pee
Yew, not Loch Ewe.
*
Stephen Hawking keeps getting beaten up by his wife,
according to ten nurses who have come forward to give statements
to police. Hawking, the wheelchair-bound author of "A Brief
History of Time," keeps showing up at the hospital with
unexplained injuries, including a broken wrist, gashes to his
face, and a cut lip. One nurse told the Times of London that
Hawking's wife Elaine routinely refers to him as "thicko" and
"dumbo" and that he's afraid to be alone with her when she's in a
bad mood because she can pick him up and handle him roughly.
Hawking, on the other hand, says he's perfectly fine. "I firmly
and wholeheartedly reject the allegations that I have been
assaulted," he said to the press--but that could be the result of
Abused Genius Syndrome.
*
Thailand chickens were banned by the European Union after an
outbreak of avian flu. This is not to be confused with Thailand
chicken hawks, which are still, of course, flourishing.
*
Water was found on Mars. Halliburton announced plans to
bottle it for the convenience-store market.
*
Weapons of Mass Destruction Supersleuth David Kay resigned,
saying he thought there were no WMDs and never had been any WMDs.
Somewhere Hans Blix is chuckling.
*
Twenty-six Congressmen introduced a bill that would raise
fines to as much as $3 million for anyone who uses "indecent,
obscene or profane language" on network television or radio.
Fuck.
*
Jack Whittaker of Scott Depot, West Virginia, is having a
hard time holding onto his $113 million in lottery winnings. The
winner of the Powerball jackpot in December 2002 was drugged
inside a strip club and a briefcase containing $500,000 stolen
last August (money later recovered). Now somebody bashed in the
window on his SUV and stole a bank bag containing $100,000. We
have two words for you, Jack: American Express.
*
A high court in Seville, Spain, ruled that brothel workers
are entitled to social security, but the bordello claims that the
girls are independent contractors. Said the lawyer for the
establishment: "With all due respect to the justices, the court
is asking business owners to become the pimps of these ladies."
And you've got a problem with that, Mac Daddy?
*
Women are forbidden from singing on television in
Afghanistan. These would be the same women we liberated. All
together now:
I'm too sexy for my chador,
Too sexy for my burqa,
Too sexy!
*
Lim Vanthan of Phnom Penh jumped into a river and caught an
eight-inch kantrob fish with his hands. The traumatized fish
squirmed out of his control, jumped into the man's mouth, and
lodged there, wedged in by the barbs on the fish's back. The man
died of suffocation. On the other hand, so did the fish.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks,
Connecticut, was evacuated after a 29-cent knife, the kind with a
blade encased in plastic, was found in a bathroom trash can. Of
course that's exactly where a sneaky terrorist would hide it on
his way to hijack the plane headed for a convention of redneck
kitchen appliance salesmen.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Michael Wann of Camden, New Jersey, wanted to get high on
PCP, so he dropped off his three-year-old daughter at the Cherry
Hill home of a couple who operate a sex dungeon business. When
the daughter was pushed into the swimming pool by the couple's
granddaughter, she drowned--and Dad's choice of babysitter came
under judicial scrutiny. He was recently dropped off at a
dungeon.
Ron O'Neal, better known as "Superfly," died in Los Angeles
and was buried in a coffin that had to be lengthened 18 inches so
his favorite shoes would fit.
*
Tanzania announced a ban on imports of used underwear,
because that's just gross.
*
Robert Jackson, a double amputee wounded in Iraq, was denied
entrance to Crush, a night club in Des Moines, because he was
wearing tennis shoes on the end of his prosthetic legs. The Nikes
are an absolute violation of the Crush dress code, and besides,
he was walking funny.
*
Wait a minute, we're trying to figure this one out. The ACLU
is suing the Boy Scouts in San Diego, saying that public parkland
shouldn't be leased to the Scouts because the Scouts don't allow
homosexuals (or girls, for that matter) to join up. The Scouts
have held a lease in Balboa Park for a half century and no one
ever cared that they were allowed to use the surrounding
parklands for nominal fees. After all, they need to camp. Isn't
the ACLU on the wrong side here? Aren't they supposed to be on
the side of the unpopular organization and against the
government? Didn't the ACLU take up the cause of the Nazi Party
when it was denied the right to march in Skokie, Illinois? If
we're not mistaken, the Nazis aren't that crazy about gays
either. We would imagine that their admission rules have some
kind of clause addressing that issue. The new ACLU battle cry:
"Nazis YES! Scouts NO! Nazis YES! Scouts NO!" You could even add
the Klan into the mix. Everywhere the Ku Klux Klan shows up to
use public property, the ACLU is not far behind. But the Boy
Scouts? Nuke those fascists.
*
Zvi Mazel, Israel's ambassador to Sweden, lost his
diplomatic cool when he attended an "anti-genocide" opening at
the Historical Museum in Stockholm. One of the art works
consisted of a basin of red water (blood, get it?), with a
portrait floating on the surface of Hanadi Jaradat, a Palestinian
suicide bomber. The piece was illuminated by a spotlight--but not
for long, because Mazel ripped out the electrical wires and
tossed the spotlight into the basin, presumably in an attempt to
show how non-violent the Israelis are.
*
After Congress blocked the appointment of Charles W.
Pickering Sr. to a federal appeals court for three years,
President Bush waited until the Congress went on vacation and
then appointed him anyway. Pickering will be sneaking down to New
Orleans any day now.
*
Celebration, Florida, a new town built by the Walt Disney
Company to resemble an old town ("a place that takes you back to
that time of innocence"), is being sold after a mere decade of
Mouse ownership, taking it back to that time of real estate
speculation.
*
President Bush went off on a "human exploration of Mars and
the moon" crusade, pretty much ensuring that the Hubble Space
Telescope will become a huge piece of space garbage. Because of
the new focus on manned exploration, no more astronauts will be
sent to repair the Hubble, meaning that it will sputter and die
sometime between 2007 and 2011. In the ongoing debate about
whether it's better to see everything in space or go there, Bush
has suddenly voted for going there. After all, if we don't have
men on site, Halliburton can't extract all the minerals.
*
Rosie O'Donnell pulled the plug on "Taboo," the money-
devouring Broadway loser based on the life of Boy George.
O'Donnell sank $10 million of her own funds into the play, which
is now lampooned in "The Producers" with a new line spoken by
Nathan Lane: "Everyone knows you shouldn't invest your own money
in a Broadway show. That's taboo." Yes, it gets a big laugh.
Rosie, in announcing the play will close February 8th, said she
has "no regrets." The following day she told the press about the
sad phone call she made to Boy George to give him the bad news.
They had a good no-regret cry together.
*
Spirit, the robot rover, moved off its landing platform and
advanced 10 feet into the wilderness of Mars. Still waiting for
Anne Francis.
*
So far JFK in New York is the only American airport equipped
to handle the new Airbus A380--35 percent larger than a Boeing
747--that will start flying in 2006 and is built to handle 555
passengers on two levels, plus a third level for crew bunks and
luggage. The superjumbo has a wing span of 262 feet, and the most
likely airline to order the first one from France is . . . FedEx.
You know how skinny those overnight envelopes are? Do the math.
*
President Bush was booed by protesters as he laid a wreath
at the grave of Martin Luther King Jr., because . . . uh . . .
well, it's not clear what laying a wreath at King's grave had to
do with the boos, but presumably this goes back to the conspiracy
theories about who killed him, which Bush is responsible for even
though he was in high school at the time.
*
An electronics genius tapped into the frequency of a Burger
King drive-through speaker in Troy, Michigan, and started talking
back to people as they placed their orders. "You don't need a
couple of Whoppers," he said. "You are too fat. Pull ahead." Cops
were investigating, but we say truth is always an absolute
defense.
*
Shawn Jenkins of Cincinnati was arrested for selling a porn
tape called "Maximum Hardcore Extreme, Volume 7," but at the
subsequent obscenity trial, a juror fell asleep while the tape
was being played, forcing Common Pleas Court Judge Richard
Niehaus to declare a mistrial. The rules of evidence say the jury
must consider porn "in its entirety" before rendering a verdict.
The larger issue, it seems to us, is that how could you really
make a judgment about the quality of "Maximum Hardcore Extreme,
Volume 7" unless you had first viewed volumes one through six?
You wouldn't even be able to follow the plot.
*
Plastic surgeons in England report about 100 cases in the
past year of women getting their vaginas altered to have a better
sex life. One procedure involves cutting out a piece to make it
smaller. The other procedure, labial reduction, trims fatty
tissue. The goal: a tighter fit, if you know what we mean and we
think you do.
*
Ten teenage Amish pranksters--yes, that's what we said--were
hiding in a cornfield near Mount Hope, Ohio, hurling tomatoes and
firing paintball guns at passing cars, when one of the cars
stopped on the road. The driver got out carrying a gun and fired
three to five shots into the field, killing Stephen Keim. The
long sacred Amish paintball-and-tomato ritual is being redesigned
for next year.
*
Johnny Depp, who lives in the south of France, on world
affairs: "America is dumb, it's like a dumb puppy that has big
teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive. My daughter is
four, my boy is one. I'd like them to see America as a toy,
a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this
feeling and then get out. I was ecstatic they re-named 'French
Fries' as 'Freedom Fries.' Grown men and women in positions of
power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots." Does
anyone have the phone number for that script doctor?
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Tacoma Police Chief David Brame didn't like the way his
divorce case was going, especially the publication in a Seattle
paper of legal documents detailing a stormy, violent
relationship, so he loudly confronted his wife Crystal while both
were parked at a shopping mall in separate cars. Their children,
an 8-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy, were apparently upset by
the shouting, so Brame took them from his wife's car to his own,
then went back to his wife's car and continued the screaming.
Eventually he pulled his police service revolver, shot his wife
in the head, then killed himself with the same gun. They don't
really have a way to talk about this on "Take Your Kids to Work"
Day.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* The Army decided they didn't need all that VX nerve agent
anymore, since the stockpiles were basically for use in the Cold
War, so they announced a plan to get rid of the deadly chemical:
dump it into the Delaware River. First they'd have to truck it
from Indiana to New Jersey, so there would be some danger to
motorists, but after that it wouldn't matter, because it's just Jersey.
Yellowstone National Park
sits on top of one of the largest super-volcanoes in the world
and has been on a cycle of erupting once every 600,000 years,
according to geologists. Guess how long it's been since the last
one? Uh, 640,000 years. That's why park rangers were a little
concerned this winter when extremely high ground temperatures
were detected in the Norris Geyser Basin (well over 200 degrees,
measured just one inch below ground level). Then there's the fact
that everything in that area is dying: trees, flowers, grass,
shrubs. Then there's the fact that animals are migrating out of
the park. Then there's the fact that last July a huge bulge was
discovered at the bottom of Yellowstone Lake, and it's risen 100
feet from the bottom of the lake, with mountain water that's
normally extremely cold now reaching 88 degrees. And, oh yeah,
one more thing--the lake is filling up with dead fish. Not that
we have to worry too much about it. If the volcano
does erupt, it will only be about 2,500 times the size of the
Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980. That would only kill every
living thing within a 600-mile radius. As long as it doesn't
reach Aspen, we're fine.
*
Gennifer Flowers, the famed presidential accuser ("He flopped
it out"), will be taking a leave of absence from her French
Quarter piano bar in New Orleans to star in "Boobs! The World
According to Ruth Wallis," a play being staged at Dillon's Supper
Club on West 54th Street in New York City (near the old Studio
54). Let's hope she doesn't flop them out.
*
Israel started building a 25-foot-wall--twice the height of
the Berlin Wall--around the city of Jerusalem and the West Bank
to keep Palestinians out and protect the land that they . . . uh
. . . stole in 1967.
*
A scathing attack on President Bush's war on terror was
released by . . . the Army War College. Yep. Jeffrey Record, a
visiting professor whose permanent assignment is part of the Air
War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, says that the
war in Iraq was "unnecessary," that it could lead to wars with
other states that pose no serious threat, and that the Army is
"near the breaking point" because of an unfocused "global war on
terrorism" that is unwinnable and uses up all our resources "in
an endless and hopeless search for absolute security." We don't
expect Donald Rumsfeld to put this one on his nightstand.
*
Now that the United States is photographing and fingerprinting
foreign visitors from all but 27 countries in the world, Brazil
has gotten offended and decided they'll do the
same--photographing and fingerprinting every American visitor to
Brazil. In Brazil this can take up to nine hours, so tourism and
some business travel is plummeting. Various diplomats on both
sides are getting increasingly steamed about it, with Colin
Powell himself stepping in and asking Brazil to loosen up the
system and stop discriminating against Americans. The new system
is very popular with ordinary Brazilians, though, who are asking
the question, Just exactly what do you think we're bringing into
the U.S.? Illegal samba lessons?
*
The so-called economic recovery ground to a halt in December,
when an expected 150,000 new jobs turned out to be merely 1,000,
and with tens of thousands of people dropping out of the job
market altogether, which means they're not even trying anymore.
The administration tried to put spin on the Bureau of Labor
Statistics by combing through it for good news, and they found
it: some guy in Omaha got a job.
*
A mountain lion in southern California's Whiting Ranch
Wilderness Park chewed up a woman while she was bicycling, and is
probably responsible for the death of another bicyclist who was
found mauled and lifeless near the same place. The attacks come
about a year after the "don't harm the pretty kitty-kat" movement
in California that made it illegal to hunt mountain lions. The
victims were on bicycles, people. Bicycles.
Somebody punch up Charlton Heston, and be quick about it.
*
Howard Stern plunged in the latest Arbitron ratings to his
lowest level ever, finishing third in his New York home market
after Luis Jimenez, the wakeup king at Spanish-language Mega
97.9, and all-news WINS. Jimenez' ratings jumped 25 percent,
creating a huge lead over Stern, who is reportedly going to
Berlitz twice a day.
*
Dick Gregory--comedian, activist, health guru and author of
the best-selling "Nigger"--fasted for 40 days to demonstrate
support for Michael Jackson, slimming down from 159 pounds to
124. Hasn't Dick Gregory been dieting since about, oh, 1973?
*
The United States has the fattest teenagers in the world,
clocking in with a chub rate of 15 percent, compared to 5 percent
in Germany, 1 percent in Slovakia, and rates of 4 to 7 percent in
all the other European countries. The study by the Maternal and
Child Health Bureau of Maryland pointed to two primary factors:
no exercise, and too much fast food. And, by the way, are you
gonna eat that last burrito?
*
After 15 years of denials, Pete Rose admitted betting hundreds
of thousands of dollars on sports, including baseball games,
while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Banned from baseball since
1989, Rose now reveals in his new book that he once lost $88,000
in a single week, that he once won $30,000 on a week of pro
football games, that his regular football bet was $2,000, and
that his regular baseball bet was $1,000, including bets he
placed on his own team. (He still denies ever betting against the
Reds.) In public opinion polls, about half the baseball fans
believe he should be reinstated, making him eligible for the Hall
of Fame, even though this may be the largest amount of money bet
by one person on a continuing basis in the history of the sport.
The reasoning: He slid head-first into first base one too many
times.
*
Ten thousand civet cats will be slaughtered by China in an
effort to destroy the suspected origin of SARS. They eat cats,
don't they?
*
A delegation of monks from the Danilov Monastery in Moscow
held four days of talks with officials at Harvard University,
which owns 18 bells that have been at Harvard ever since 1930,
when Stalin closed the monastery, killed the monks and sold the
bells to an American diplomat who gave them to Harvard. The monks
want their bells back. In fact, Heirodeacon Roman, one of the
Russian delegates, has the title of chief bell-ringer, but he has
the humiliating task of working each day on mere replacement
bells. Then there's the matter of the long-established Harvard
social club known as the Klappermeisters, who play the bells and
let visitors to Lowell House play them, too. They're not too
thrilled with the idea of having their bells cut off.
*
As a Long Island Rail Road train pulled out of Jamaica station
in Queens, a dog walked onto the track and stared at the train.
The engineer slowed down, waiting for the dog to move, but when
he got close, the dog snarled and growled at the train and held
his ground. The dog then proceeded to walk down the track, and
every time the train got too close, it would turn and growl. This
went on for several minutes, and the train at this point was
going so slow that the conductor decided to make an announcement:
"There is a dog on the track. The dog is growling at the train."
The dog kept walking and never got off the track until he came to
the next station. The run between Jamaica and Laurelton, which
normally takes seven minutes, took an hour. A dog capture
operation was organized at Laurelton, and the canine was taken
into custody. He was held in isolation so that he can't influence
other dogs.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Chun Anderson of Naperville, Illinois, got into a loud argument
with her husband, so after he stormed out of the house, she gave
her 10-year-old daughter somewhere between 20 and 60 sleeping
pills, then took 100 herself. When the dad came back, he found
his wife unconscious on the floor and his daughter very groggy,
so he called police. Mom explained that she did it because her
marriage was falling apart. We're sure it's all better now.
Spirit, the unmanned United States spacecraft, landed on
Mars just a week after the Beagle, the unmanned British
spacecraft, failed to land on Mars. We're much better equipped to
enslave the aliens anyway.
*
Britney Spears got so drunk at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas
on New Year's Eve that she had to be carried back to her suite by
bodyguards. She worked off her hangover the next night by
swinging by the Little White Wedding Chapel and getting married
to hometown buddy Jason Allen Alexander. She might need to get
drunk again now.
*
Shahrbanou Mazandarani, a 97-year-old grandmother, survived
for eight days without food or water under the earthquake rubble
of Bam, Iran. Upon her rescue, the first thing she requested was
a cup of tea. The second thing she requested was news about the
Britney Spears wedding.
*
In other rubble news, Patrick Moore, who never throws
anything away in his Bronx apartment, was buried alive under a
mountain of books and magazines for two full days before his
neighbors heard his screams and called police. The People
magazines and the detective paperbacks normally aren't that
fatal, but when you have 30 years of National Geographics . . .
*
A 14-year-old girl was handcuffed and arrested by Toledo
police after showing up for school wearing a low-cut midriff top
under an unbuttoned sweater. It's a misdemeanor in Toledo if you
refuse to cover up. Britney wept.
*
U.S. intelligence agencies uncovered an Al Qaeda plot to
hijack British Airways Flight 223, which travels from London to
Washington, and crash it into the Capitol building. The flight
was cancelled repeatedly during the holiday season, but no one
could explain how Al Qaeda could remain so frisky after we
destroyed all their . . . uh . . . Iraqi organizations.
*
Michael Jackson claimed that cops in Santa Barbara,
California, roughed him up and left bruises on his lily-white arm
when they arrested him. He also says he was locked in a feces-
strewn bathroom for 45 minutes as a form of degradation.
Fortunately he was saved by little fairy people in tutus.
*
A pedophile clown (yes, that's what we said) named Richard
Hobbs won a $2,500 judgment from Westchester County, New York,
after he was refused permission to perform his clown act for
children at Rye Playland Amusement Park. Judge John S. Martin
said the rights of the twice-convicted Hobbs were violated prior
to the county's new park regulation barring pedophiles from
obtaining performance permits. Martin's schizophrenic ruling also
upheld the new law. The bottom line message here would seem to be
that pedophile clowning is just not what it used to be.
*
Orange, lemon and lime LifeSavers are no more. For 70 years
the LifeSavers roll consisted of the same five flavors--cherry,
pineapple, orange, lemon and lime. But now the new-fangled
flavors of raspberry, watermelon and blackberry are replacing the
outdated flavors, and the only explanation from the New York-
based company is "keeping up with the times." Yeah, oranges,
lemons and limes are so thirties.
*
A tractor-trailer hauling seven tons of garlic powder
crashed on a bridge near Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, and burst
into flames, ruining several relationships.
*
Anna Kournikova, the tennis player who rarely wins but is
frequently photographed, played an exhibition match in the
Thailand resort of Pattaya to promote it as a tourist exhibition.
(Yes, it's the place where all the hookers are.) Kournikova also
appears in "Unseen in Thailand," a promotional video for Pattaya
that features "lesser known places of interest in and around the
city." Those would be the ones where people keep their clothes
on.
*
"Big Flabby Buttocks," a Thai love song, was banned from
Thailand's airwaves after censors deemed it "immoral." We think
they're confused. "Tiny Tight Tushie" is immoral. "Big Flabby
Buttocks" is gross.
*
Dr. Adam Fox, a specialist registrar at the Child Allergy
Unit at St. Mary's Hospital in London, has been compiling a
dictionary of the medical terms doctors don't want you to know
about. For example, your chart might be marked "UBI" for
"Unexplained Beer Injury," "PAFO" for "Pissed And Fell Over," or
"ATFO" for "Asked To Fuck Off." Most people know what a Code
Brown is (a fecal incontinence emergency), but do you know these?
"Plumbum oscillans": Latin for "swinging the lead," meaning
someone who's not really sick but is trying to get the doctor to
say he is.
"Dirtbag Index": number of tattoos on the patient's body
multiplied by the number of missing teeth to estimate the total
days he has gone without a bath.
"CTD": Circling the Drain (for patients not expected to make
it).
"GPO": Good For Parts Only
"Rule of Five": the principle that, if more than five of the
patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance.
"Giving the O-sign": a patient lying with his mouth open.
"Giving the Q-sign": a patient lying with his mouth open and
his tongue hanging out.
"LOBNH": Lights On But Nobody Home
"Oligoneuronal": not too bright.
"Pumpkin positive": a brain so small that a penlight shone
into the patient's mouth will make his empty head light up like a
Halloween pumpkin.
"GOK": the God Only Knows diagnosis.
"FLK": Funny Looking Kid
"PIMBA": a Brazilian acronym translated as "swollen-footed,
drunk, run-over beggar."
"CNS-QNS": Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient
"PGT": Pissed, Got Thumped
"Digging for Worms": varicose vein surgery.
"Departure Lounge": geriatric ward.
"Handbag Positive": confused elderly lady.
"Woolworth's Test": if you can imagine the patient shopping
at Woolworth's, it's safe to give a general anesthetic.
"TEETH": Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
Fox had apparently missed the favorite designation of
residents at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas--"TTD." TTD
stands for "These Two Dudes," and it means an unexplained knife
wound. (The explanation of the victim always begins, "These two
dudes . . .")
*
Singer Dannii Minogue, known for her wild dance moves, was
performing at an outdoor concert in Warwickwhire, England, when
she saw a capsized boat in the lake behind the crowd. She began
frantically pointing over the heads of the audience to call
attention to the accident, but the dancing fans simply started
pointing back at her and copying the move. The capsized sailor
managed to reach shore without assistance, and the dance move is
now sweeping England as "The Gulp."
*
Scenes from our secure republic: * F-16 fighter jets were scrambled repeatedly over the New
Year's holiday so that various America-bound foreign flights
could be flanked by military, under the apparent theories that:
a) if a terrorist is aboard with a bomb, he could explode it and
bring down three planes instead of one, or b) if he hijacks the
plane, we could shoot him down and kill all aboard. Either way,
it's a win-win.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Robert Ambrosino of Brooklyn didn't like it when his fiancée, an actress and model named Lyric Benson, started
attending The Brooklyn Tabernacle church, especially because
she'd decided that she didn't want to live with Ambrosino out of
wedlock, so he stalked her, shot her in the face, then put the
gun to his head and killed himself as well. His first words after
death were reportedly, "You mean you're the dude she was talking
to?"
*
The Beagle 2 spacecraft, which set out to discover whether
there's life on Mars, either crash-landed on Mars, or failed to
land on Mars, or landed on Mars and failed to transmit a message,
or was eaten by Martians.
* Rush Limbaugh suggested he's the victim of an evil behind-
the-scenes Democratic plot to discredit him, ever since a judge
ruled that prosecutors will be allowed to examine his medical
records for evidence of "doctor shopping" for illegal drugs.
Limbaugh's lawyer, Roy Black, said there's a spokesman for the
Palm Beach, Florida, state attorney who "worked in a number of
Democratic campaigns." All together now: ooooooooooooo.
* Eight hundred passengers on the Olympia Voyager, who paid
for a two-week cruise of the Caribbean and the Amazon River, were
stranded 60 feet off St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, just two days
into the cruise when a German bank seized the ship for lack of
interest payments by the Greek owners. For the next week the
grumpy tourists were shuttled on lifeboats back and forth to the
beach, but nothing else could be done because a court had ordered
the ship not to leave U.S. waters and the creditors had seized
the ship's navigational equipment. Years from now they'll laugh
about this--or maybe not.
* New York Governor George Pataki gave an official pardon to a
dead man--comic Lenny Bruce, who was sentenced to four months in
jail for an "obscene" performance at Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich
Village in 1964, then spent the rest of his life acting as his
own lawyer and appealing the conviction. After he died of a drug
overdose in 1966, the conviction of his co-defendant, club owner
Howard Solomon, was reversed by the Court of Appeals. In light of
the pardon, a downtown performance art group has expressed
interest in booking Bruce's dead body for a one-night-only
comeback tour.
* A mad cow was found on a farm in Mabton, Washington, but
Agriculture Secretary Ann Venneman said she could calm her down.
* In a true Joe Pesci-type moment, low-level 67-year-old
Genovese family gangster Louis "Lump Lump" Barone was hanging out
at the bar of Rao's Italian restaurant in East Harlem, where a
Broadway singer named Rena Strober was doing an a capella version
of "Don't Rain On My Parade." A Luchese family member named
Albert Circelli was paying his tab at the bar and apparently
resented the applause Strober was getting, so he said, "Ah, shut
up! Get her off! She sucks!" Circelli's continued rude remarks
bothered Barone so much that eventually he said, "Hey, have some
respect." Then, according to Barone, Circelli wheeled on him and
said, "Fuck you, I'll fuck you in the ass and I'll split you in
two." At that moment, Barone says, "I lost face. I had to defend
my honor. I had no choice but to shoot him." And that's what he
did. He pulled out his .38-caliber revolver and fired as Circelli
ran for the front door, then chased him and fired again. One
bullet killed Circelli. The other bullet went through the foot of
a diner, Al Petraglia. Unfortunately for Barone, the neighborhood
was thick with cops. Two were driving by, heard the gunshots, saw
the dead man fall, and saw Barone run out. Officer Charles Hollis
nabbed him, but he kept saying "I'm not the guy! I'm not the
guy!" Then an off-duty detective who had been dining in the
restaurant walked out onto the sidewalk and told Hollis, "That's
the shooter." Unfortunately the original issue was never
resolved. The New York tabloids failed to report on whether
Strober's singing sucked or not.
* The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors says
they're ready to sue the Mormons if they don't stop baptizing
dead Jews. The two religions have been feuding about this ever
since 1995, when it was revealed that the Mormons had 380,000
names of Jewish Holocaust victims in its Salt Lake City archives,
and the plan was to carry out "vicarious baptisms," in which
living church members are baptized while standing in as proxies
for the dead. The Mormons agreed to remove the names, but now the
Jewish group claims that 20,000 Jews are still on the list, and
in danger of being posthumously sprinkled. What's strange about
the controversy is that The New York Times apparently doesn't
think either of these organizations are superstitious nutzoids
with way too much time on their hands.
* The Milwaukee Athletic Club, where men have gone swimming in
the nude for 121 years, is changing its rules to require
swimsuits in the pool. Many members are furious about the new
regulation, reasoning that the right to flop it out doesn't imply
the need to whip it out.
* After a couple stole $2,000 worth of digital camera
equipment from a Wal-Mart in Centereach, New York, the store's
video surveillance tape was scoured for clues to their
identities. The images were very poor and the shoplifters unable
to identify. But the tape did show the woman picking up a chained
"demonstration camera" and pointing it at her partner and taking
his picture. Store security retrieved the digital image and gave
it to police, who gave it to the newspapers, resulting in the
clearest, most revealing photograph of a crime suspect in the
history of police work. The photo was so huge, in fact, that it
could have been used in a Christmas card or a family photo album,
and it resulted in a flood of calls identifying the man as James
Stissi, who was photographed again for his mug shot.
*
During the holidays, it's all about family:
* Stephanie Jenkins, a New York stripper, went to the
Brooklyn apartment of her boyfriend Allan Murphy on Christmas Day
to give him a gift and take him to a club. He said he didn't want
to go to the club and wanted to play Russian roulette instead. At
some point Stephanie picked up a .38 revolver and Murphy taunted
her by saying "You won't do it. You won't do it." She put down
the gun, but Murphy picked it up and put the barrel against her
head. Stephanie said, "You know you're going to pull the trigger
anyway," according to an account given by an eyewitness,
Stephanie's friend. Murphy's answer: "Yep." The friend tried to
stop things by saying "Move the gun away from Stephanie's head."
But Stephanie baited the boyfriend by saying "You ain't man
enough to pull the trigger." He pulled the trigger, thereby
keeping his manhood intact, though he no longer has a girlfriend
to parade it in front of.
* Albert "Fast Al" Ermmarino, an auto body shop owner in
Brookhaven, New York, tried to buy three murders--his estranged
wife, his brother and his nephew--for $400, a 1973 Mercedes, and
a 1953 Ford pickup, according to the undercover detective who
arrested him. Ermmarino's brother Rocco had testified for
Albert's ex-wife in a messy divorce proceeding, so that explains
the $400. The nephew had beaten up Albert during an argument over
the marriage, so that explains the used Mercedes. But the wife
was valued at a 1953 pickup? To show you how cold he was, he also
bought an urn to store her cremated remains, and wrote on it with
Magic Marker the words "Bitches Ashes! (Joann)"--using a heart to
dot the "i." At least he was sentimental.
* Colleen Broe, a foster mom in Middletown Township,
Pennsylvania, had a novel way of keeping her one-year-old girl
and two-year-old boy under control. She wrapped them from neck to
ankle in tape, like mummies, and then bound their ankles to their
cribs so they couldn't move. Unfortunately her husband Neil Broe
took pictures of the procedure and mailed them to Colleen's ex-
husband, who turned them over to the local social services
agency, who moved in with tape scissors for the kids, and
handcuffs for both Colleen and Neil. No word on how effective it
was as a parenting technique.
* A Chicago man, identified only as Sterling, went to court
to seek custody of a 10-year-old boy born to Sterling's ex-wife
Jennifer while the two were married. Jennifer had to be
impregnated by artificial insemination--because Sterling is
actually a woman. At their wedding in 1985, Sterling dressed as a
man and convinced everyone that he was a man--including his
bride, who found out only after the event that she had married a
woman. Even with this bombshell event, the marriage lasted 13
years and the boy bonded with Sterling as his father.
Unfortunately, the court said Sterling has no legal standing,
because the state of Illinois says, if you don't have the
equipment, you can't drive.
* Eric Golden of Chicago, doing time in Cook County Jail for
threatening to kill his wife, took the opportunity during a
"Black History Month" skit to ask one of his fellow inmates if he
could arrange his wife's death, according to sheriffs. After
being released, he had two meetings with a hitman who was going
to get $50,000--half the life insurance policy--for staging a
carjacking to disguise the murder. Of course, as in all such
cases, the hitman turned out to be an undercover cop--uncommonly
motivated, in this case, because Golden's wife is also a cop.
Golden is missing his left leg, but it won't matter, because he
won't be attending this year's Policeman's Ball.
*
Saddam Hussein called for new elections in Iraq, predicting
he'd win by a landslide. He also told his rather small audience
of CIA interrogators that his government has not surrendered,
that he never had any weapons of mass destruction, that he had no
relationship with Osama bin Laden, and that "Yesterday" is not
just a Beatles song. *
On the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first
flight, pilot Kevin Kochersberger climbed into a replica of the
Wright Flyer in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, sporting a
mustache looking very much like the one Orville Wright had and a
uniform and helmet matching that of Orville on the day he made
history. As the propellers began to twirl on the muslin-winged
plane, Lee Greenwood launched into "The Star-Spangled Banner," a
bald eagle was released in the middle of the airfield, the crowd
began to cheer, Kochersberger trundled down a 200-foot launch
track, the plane started to lift off--and then plopped into a mud
puddle. *
Michael Jackson converted to Islam, figuring he may need Al
Qaeda before this is all over. *
Last summer NBC legend Jim Reilly was hired back as head
writer on "Days of Our Lives" after a five-year hiatus, because
the show was tanking in the ratings. Reilly's solution? Introduce
a character called the "Salem Stalker" who would start killing
off members of the cast. Last week the body count stood at five--
that would be five actors dispatched to the unemployment line--
and those who've seen future scripts say the stalker will claim
five more jobs before he's brought to heel. What's making the
cast really nervous is that Reilly is telling people that the
tenth and final murder will be a "really beloved" character. What
do you want to bet everyone calls him "Mister Reilly" these days? *
Hugh Hefner's little black book, containing the names and
addresses of Playmates from the years of 1955 and 1956, was sold
at auction for $9,650. The lucky winner was later seen at a tony
Beverly Hills restaurant with three women using wheelchairs and
walkers. *
Joey Buttafuoco, famed despoiler of "Long Island Lolita" Amy
Fisher, was busted on charges of faking auto-repair estimates in
order to rip off insurance companies. Buffafuoco, whose auto body
shop is located in Chatsworth, California, faces six months and
four years in prison if convicted, and now longs for the simple
life of a mere statutory rapist. *
Speaking of "The Simple Life," the reality show starring
Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as spoiled rich girls living on an
Arkansas farm beat out Diane Sawyer's "Prime Time" interview with
President Bush in the ratings, even though Bush is a spoiled rich
boy living on a Texas farm. *
Supermodel Cindy Margolis grabbed actress Tara Reid by the
hair and yanked her off her stool at a bar in Atlantic City, New
Jersey, after which the two women engaged in a Blonde Catfight
Royale involving punching and kicking. What set them off,
according to the New York Daily News, is that Reid made a disparaging remark about
Margolis' husband, restaurateur
Guy Starkman, who dated Reid before he married Margolis. Nobody
picked up on the precise remark, but apparently it was something
more serious than, "And another thing! His appetizers are too
small!" *
As many as 20 guards at the Metroplitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn were guilty of abusing Muslim detainees after 9/11,
including slamming their faces into walls, keeping them in
shackles for long periods, verbally abusing them, forcing them to
sleep in cells that were brightly lit 24 hours a day, and making
them submit to humiliating strip searches. (All of the inmates
were held on immigration violations, not crimes.) When the
Justice Department first investigated the claims, the guards
denied them. Since then videotapes have corroborated what the
inmates say did happen. But now that the Justice Department knows
about it, their solution is: discipline and counseling! No one
will lose his job, even though normally a single instance of
premeditated abuse is enough to get a guy fired. After all, they
were . . . uh . . . just Muslims. *
Harold von Braunhut, inventor of Amazing Sea Monkeys, died
at his home in Indian Head, Maryland. Sea monkeys are actually
brine shrimp found in dry lake bottoms, and von Braunhut first
discovered them in a pet store in 1957, where they were being
used as pet food. Beginning in 1960 he sold them as "Instant
Life," advertising in comic books, but in 1964 they became Sea
Monkeys because of their long tails. Eventually, through
selective breeding, he was able to extend their life spans to an
average of two years, easily long enough to outlast the attention
spans of their elementary-school-age owners. *
"Plan B," the morning-after contraceptive pill, moved closer
to over-the-counter availability after a panel of experts voted
23 to 4 to drop the requirement that it be issued only with a
prescription. The FDA normally routinely accepts its experts'
recommendations, but this particular pill is being derided and
condemned as amounting to a "quickie abortion" and an
encouragement for casual unprotected sex. This column, which has
always been in favor of casual but protected sex, thinks there
are already a sufficient number of truly scary things that can
happen if the condom is left in the cellophone wrapper so that
the increase in Quickie Nookie will be minimal. And among other
advantages of this new pill: a guy who says "Don't worry, I'll
pay for everything" is now only out thirty bucks. *
Keiko, the killer whale who starred in "Free Willy," was
buried in a secret ceremony somewhere in Norway so that
curiosity-seekers couldn't find his grave. Keiko was living in an
aquarium in Mexico City when some animal rights people raised $20
million to buy him and move him to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in
Newport. After that he was taken to Iceland, where he was born in
the seventies, and prepared for his "return to the wild."
Released in 2002, he showed no interest in the wild. He did swim
870 miles to the waters near Halsa, Norway, however, where he
suffered and died. Thank God he was rescued from that horrible
place in Mexico where he had nothing to worry about. *
Amos Golan, former deputy commander of Israel's anti-terror
unit, unveiled a new gun that's able to shoot around corners.
Manufactured by Golan's company, Corner Shot Holdings of Coral
Gables, Florida, the gun swivels in the middle of the barrel, 63
degrees to the left or the right, with a TV screen mounted on the
stock for help in aiming. It's effective against all urban
terrorists except the notorious Road Runner gang, which has been
known to employ mirrors. * TradeSports, the Dublin-based futures exchange, paid off on
several million dollars worth of Saddam Hussein Capture
contracts. The contracts paid $10 each for the capture of
Hussein, and nothing if he was still at large when the contract
expired. Contracts for December, January, March and June all paid
out, with recent trades in the December contracts being an
especially good deal. Right before Hussein's capture, those
contracts were trading at 25 cents. Assuming some were traded in
the days leading up to the capture--especially if the guy who
fingered Hussein knew about them--that would represent a 4,000
percent windfall. Globalization is a wondrous thing. *
Scenes from our secure republic:
* An American Airlines plane took off from Miami, bound for
Caracas, when the captain called for help, saying a passenger was
about to attack the flight attendants. F-16s were scrambled, and
the plane was escorted back to Miami--where a "69-to-79-year-old
woman" was removed. *
Scenes from domestic life:
* Joseph Scalia, a floor-tile installer from Massapequa, New
York, wanted to pay $1,000 to a hitman who would blow up the car
of his girlfriend while she was riding in it with her best
friend, police say, because "the relationship had deteriorated"
thanks to the best friend's meddling. The hitman turned out to be
an undercover officer, and Scalia learned the meaning of the Neal
Sedaka classic, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."
Menander, the Greek dramatist who lived in the 3rd century
B.C., has 200 more lines of verse than we knew about before,
thanks to a discovery by a specialist who unearthed a faded
manuscript in the Vatican Library. The verses were copied by a
Syrian monk in the ninth century, and we're told it's some pretty
snappy stuff. Menander always kept the monks in stitches. *
Sam Schuchat, head of the California Fish and Game
Commission, says there will be no GloFish sold in his state. The
genetically modified fish are sold by a Texas company, Yorktown
Technologies, which took black and silver zebra fish and added
genes from sean anemones and jellyfish to turn the fish red and
green so that they'll glow under black or ultraviolet light.
Aside from the obvious LSD value of such a fish--which would seem
to be a plus in California--we can see why this state, above all
others, would take the moral high ground on something as barbaric
as altering the outward physical appearance of a living organism. *
Thousands rioted in Freetown, Sierra Leone, when the wrong
midgets appeared onstage. Ticket holders were expecting to see
the Nigerian dwarf comedians Aki and Paw Paw at the national
stadium, but when they didn't arrive, organizers replaced them
with two other small-fry comics, who apparently were not funny,
causing the crowd to destroy windows, light fixtures and chairs.
The replacement midgets defended themselves by headbutting
kneecaps until they reached safety. *
Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired teacher in Los
Angeles, came forward to say she was the illegitimate black
daughter of late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
Supposedly she's doing this so that, 200 years from now, all her
descendants won't have to bring lawsuits to be admitted to the
Strom Thurmond National Cemetery and Museum. *
A total of 218 black bears were killed on the first three
days of hunting season in New Jersey despite an almost constant
legal and political assault by animal rights groups attempting to
stop the first legal hunt in 33 years. The state's bear
population is estimated at 3,200 and is increasingly encroaching
on suburbs. The animal rights groups believe, of course, that a
few mangled suburbanites is a small price to pay for bear peace
of mind. *
Stanley King was fishing in the Thames River near Windsor,
England, when he suddenly called out to a friend "I've gone in"
and was yanked downstream by the fish he'd just hooked. The
three-and-a-half-pound barbel and King both died, so the fish
didn't exactly win so much as prove that it's possible. *
A judge in Goldsboro, North Carolina, couldn't find enough
jurors for a murder trial, so he sent deputies to Wal-Mart to
round some up. All of a sudden, picking up that G.I. Joe on the
way home from work didn't seem like such a great idea. *
Barbra Streisand was pretty much laughed out of court after
suing an environmentalist for $10 million for posting a photo of
her Malibu home on the Internet. Defendant Kenneth Adelman runs
the California Coastal Records Project, which takes aerial photos
of the California coast to be used by scientists and researchers.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Allan Goodman ruled that not
only was Streisand's privacy not violated, but it was not
offensive at all "to a reasonable person." He obviously failed to
read the part of her brief about seeking "unreasonable person"
status. *
At Christmas time, it's all about family:
- A spurned 28-year-old woman in Rovereto, Italy, saw an
Alfa Romeo that reminded her of her ex-boyfriend's car, so she
took a pair of scissors and trashed the paint job, then slashed
the tires. It felt so good that she proceeded to find 59 other
Alfa Romeos and vandalize them as well. When she was finally
arrested, she needed a cigarette.
- Richard Jenkins, unemployed and living with his parents in
Portland, Oregon, met Elizabeth Harding Forman of Media,
Pennsylvania, at a "Dark Shadows" convention in New York. For
more than two years they carried on a non-sexual long-distance
relationship, with Jenkins constantly sending her money and the
two of them planning to wed. Jenkins, who gave her $95,000 and an
$8,000 engagement ring, became increasingly suspicious that she
was just milking him for money and didn't really love him, so he
hired a private detective who gave him some disturbing
information. Jenkins arranged to rendezvous with her at the
DoubleTree Guest Suites hotel in Times Square. When he confronted
her with his suspicions, there was an angry argument. She told
him to get out and find another room, then slapped him and threw
a shampoo bottle at him. Jenkins pulled a .38 caliber Smith &
Wesson out of his jacket, shot her five times as she begged him
to spare her, then went downstairs and told the clerk what he had
done. Except for the use of firearms, it would have made a great
episode.
- After six years of dating, Anthony Sampson of Brooklyn met
girlfriend Lesa White in his parked car and told her to either
get an abortion or he was going to dump her. She responded by
brandishing a gun and then--accidentally, she said--shooting him
in the chest. She asked a jury to believe that the gun went off
by mistake, but they convicted her anyway. Must have had
something to do with that second bullet wound, behind the right
ear.
- Herman Padilla of the Bronx was watching his girlfriend's
two-year-old daughter Amber while mom took her six-year-old to
school. He started watching TV, but was annoyed by Amber's
rolling around on the floor and crying. To make her stop, he
kicked her one time with his workboot-clad foot. She died of a
lacerated liver. He knew he was not supposed to shake her, but no
one said anything about soccer-style discipline.
- When Thomasina Gibson of New York needed a babysitter for
her eight-year-old twin sons so she could go on a date with the
man she wanted to marry, she thought, "I know, I'll ask the boys'
father, the violent ex-lover who served a prison term for
assaulting me, to stay with them while I'm out." Unfortunately,
her date was interrupted by a call from Larry Townsend, the
aforesaid ex (ex-lover and ex-con), who demanded that she come
home immediately. When she got home, a violent argument ensued,
one that all the neighbors could hear, and the argument was
interrupted by the boyfriend calling at 4:30 a.m. to check on
her. At that point Townsend ripped the phone out of her hand and
told the boyfriend to stay away from his ex. The boyfriend dialed
911, and when police arrived Gibson was sprawled on the bedroom
floor with a kitchen knife jammed in her throat. Townsend was
covered in blood, a detail that the police noted as being very
uncommon among babysitters.
- Gavin Pellew of Brooklyn was driving his wife Desma to the
store to get diapers for their two-year-old son when he started
accusing her of cheating on him, then pulled out an eight-inch
kitchen knife and plunged it into her chest, police said. Then,
according to witnesses, Desma fell out of the car bleeding and
screaming, but Gavin followed her and stabbed her twice more
before speeding off and smashing his car into a utility pole. She
ended up in critical condition, he ended up in jail, and there
was no immediate word on the diapers.
- John Zanas of Brooklyn beaned his wife with a beer stein,
according to police, and killed her during a domestic dispute.
Rumors that his last words were, "Well, beer don't walk by
itself," proved unfounded.
- Jerry Wayne Thomason of San Antonio was afraid his wife
might run off, so he padlocked a 25-foot chain around her neck
and occasionally jerked on it to keep her in line. The chain was
spotted as the couple dropped off their two sons at school, and
police decided to free her--apparently without even making her
promise she would behave.
- When Leroy Lawrence of Queens received a phone call at
home from an unidentified girl, his wife Tamara stabbed him in
the leg, according to police. Talk about a guy who needs a cell
phone.
- Darran Emms, a farmer in Kingskettle, Scotland, had sex
with his pregnant wife's Rhodesian Ridgeback dog in what he
called "a single act of frustration" over his marriage, which
unfortunately had no bestiality pre-nup.
- Jennifer Page O'Connor of Branford, Connecticut, was angry
at her 7-year-old daughter Sara because she struggled at school
due to a learning disability and she was always acting up. When
the girl was found lying on her bed with a sucking chest wound
from a rifle shot, the mother first blamed an intruder, then
admitted that the shot came from the rifle found in the back of
her own station wagon. According to police, she then said she
just couldn't cope with her daughter's behavior anymore. The
gunshot wound proved ineffective in dealing with learning
disabilities, as well as fatal.
*
In an attempt to prove his insanity, lawyers for accused
sniper Lee Boyd Malvo introduced his jailhouse drawings and
sketchbooks, which included:
* A drawing of the White House encircled by the cross-hairs
of a rifle, with missiles about to strike it and the inscription
"You will weep, moan and mourn. You will bleed to death little by
little. Your life belongs to Allah. He will deliver you to us."
* A drawing of Osama bin Laden, with the slogan "Servant of
Allah."
* A drawing of nine different assault rifles.
* A drawing of John Muhammad with the words "You the man!
Dad! Brave man! Thanks. Salaam."
* A drawing of himself and Muhammad with their arms around
each other and the caption "Father & Son."
The books also include ravings about jihad, threats against
America, threats against "Uncle Toms," threats against prosecutor
Robert Horan Jr., and, oddly enough, drawings of several
characters from "The Matrix," of which has favorite is the Keanu
Reeves character, Neo.
After Malvo is executed, do you think they'll sell this
stuff on Ebay?
*
Protesters against "corporate coffee"--yes, that's what we
said--glued the doors shut on 16 Starbucks outlets in Houston,
thereby delaying the publication of 37 novels written on yellow
legal pads.
*
The Broadway scandals just keep on coming. Neil Simon to
Mary Tyler Moore: "Learn your lines or get out of my play." The
actress chose to quit the play in question, "Rose's Dilemma,"
after receiving the hand-delivered note from Simon just 15
minutes before a Wednesday matinee. She was so distraught that
she left the theater, and understudy Patricia Hodges went on in
her place. The cast defended Moore, who was having trouble with
the lines because Simon was doing frequent rewrites and,
according to the New York Post, acting "difficult" and "nasty"
from day one. Simon suffers from kidney failure and undergoes
regular dialysis treatment, and the staff thinks it's not only
making him grumpy, but the play itself is "not that funny." When
Moore started having troubles with her lines, she was encouraged
by Lynne Meadow, artistic director at Manhattan Theatre Club, to
use an earpiece during previews so that she could be prompted
when necessary. She also had a long speech in the first act that
had to changed to a letter so that she could read it. Shouldn't
they be doing this play in a nursing home?
*
President Bush named James A. Baker III, the former
Secretary of State, as his special envoy to beg the international
community to restructure Iraq's $100 billion foreign debt. Baker
is the guy the Bush family always calls on to solve huge
problems--he directed the legal strategy surrounding the Florida
recount in the 2000 election--and so this is an indication that
Bush's greatest fear is that . . . we will have to pay the $100
billion. Can we say "quagmire" yet?
*
Waynetta Nolan was informed at the drive-through of a
Houston McDonald's that she couldn't have mayonnaise on her
cheeseburger, so she hurled the burger back through the window
and ran down the manager with her car. We believe that,
technically speaking, the woman was entitled to mayo.
*
FAO Schwarz, at one time the most famous toy store in the
world, slashed prices during the height of the Christmas rush in
a last-ditch effort to fend off bankruptcy. The reason was
obvious to anyone who's ever visited the flagship store on New
York's Fifth Avenue: Expensive R Us.
*
Keith Richards says Mick Jagger's knighthood is a farce. "I
thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the
establishment when they did their very best to throw us in jail,"
Richards told Uncut magazine. "I'd tell them where they could put
it." Sir Mick joins Paul McCartney, Elton John and Cliff Richard
among rockers who have been knighted. Meanwhile, former Rolling
Stone bassist Bill Wyman came out as a pro-Bush pro-Blair Iraq
War supporter. "We went in there and did the job and won," he
told the Telegraph. "I did it in the 1950s. I was in the Army for
a year, and that's why I support the war. National Service calms
you down and gives you perspective. Perhaps I would have been
even more crazy without it." The Rolling Stones as United Nations
microcosm: who knew?
*
A discrimination lawsuit was filed against the town of
Fannett, Texas, when the town council refused to change the name
of Jap Road. The three-mile-long road was named over a century
ago in honor of a Japanese family that settled there in the 1890s
and introduced rice farming to the region. Descendants of the
original Japanese settlers oppose the name change, but, hey,
those slant-eyes don't know what's good for em.
*
Five students at New York's Harvey Milk High School--the
school famous as a gay and lesbian alternative institution--were
arrested and charged with posing as prostitutes, luring guys to
proposition them, then pretending to be undercover cops so they
could extort money from the victims before releasing them. These
are male students dressed convincingly as females, which just
goes to show how sad it is--that same creative energy could have
been channeled into the annual Harvey Milk drag queen school
pageant.
*
Murder Inc., the hip hop record label, changed its name to
The Inc. to soften its image. Founder Irv Gotti, who was given
the name "Gotti" by rapper Jay-Z, said the name Murder Inc.
attracts unwanted media attention and unwanted attention from the
FBI, which is probing alleged money laundering at the label, and
besides, the company doesn't do actual assassinations anymore.
*
The Bottom Line, the famous Greenwich Village showcase for
live music, was evicted from its West 4th Street building after
30 years, the victim of declining downtown revenues after 9/11
and an aggressive legal proceeding by its landlord, New York
University, which has slowly been taking over the Village as it
seeks room for expansion. Club owners Alan Pepper and Stanley
Snadowsky were given five days to evacuate the premises, and
expressed anger that they would be closed down over such a
trifling matter as failing to pay the rent.
* Tiger Woods went into the South African bush to propose to
his girlfriend, Swedish model Elin Nordegren, but the owner of
the Shamwari Game Reserve violated his promise to protect Woods'
privacy and the engagement got into the media even before Woods
and Nordegren could tell Woods' parents about it. They were then
detained at the airport so that they could pose for pictures with
the mayor. You can't really blame this one on Matt Drudge.
*
Linda Tripp is getting married to her childhood sweetheart,
Dieter Rousch, who sells Christmas ornaments in Middleburg,
Virginia. They've made elaborate arrangements to frustrate the
paparazzi.
*
Patricia VanLester of Daytona Beach, Florida, was shoved to
the floor by a rabid mob of Wal-Mart bargain hunters, suffering a
seizure as she was trampled "like a herd of elephants," according
to her sister. The mob, which arrived at 6 a.m. for a five-hour
sale blitz, continued to mill around the prone VanLester, getting
in the way of emergency medical personnel who showed admirable
restraint by resisting the urge to filch the DVD player she was
clutching to her breast.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* When Theresa Havell of New York asked her husband Aftab
Islam for a divorce, he responded by entering her bedroom at 5
a.m., beating her with a barbell, and watching her blood, teeth
and bone splatter across the room as she screamed for help,
awakening three of the couple's six children. Afterwards Islam
told one of his daughters that he had killed her mother--but
Havell survived, albeit with neurological damage, a broken nose,
broken jaw, broken teeth, and multiple cuts and bruises. Islam
ended up serving eight years in prison, but when his divorce case
came up, he asked for 50 percent of the family wealth, valued at
$13 million. A judge said 4.5 percent is more like it, and an
appellate court agreed, pretty much ruling out barbell-wielding
as an effective capital-preservation tool.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Police in New York say there have been "several cases" of
foreigners shooting videotape of the Brooklyn Bridge and the
Statue of Liberty.
* Mug Shot Quiz: Which recent mug shot was the most
horrifying?
a) Michael Jackson looking like a Raggedy Ann doll when
booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail.
b) Wynonna Judd looking like Aileen Wuornos after several
Hungry Man dinners while being booked in Davidson County,
Tennessee.
c) Glen Campbell with his mouth flattened into a grimace and
his brows narrowed in an angry frown as he's booked by Phoenix
cops.
The answer is "c." This photo is already the prototype for a
special effects Halloween mask. *
"The Reagans" premiered on Showtime, and everybody wondered what the
hell the big deal was. The three-hour movie induces Alzheimer's.
*
One of the most amazing popular revolutions in modern
history, involving an entire population rising bloodlessly
against its corrupt president, forcing him to resign and
demanding good government, occurred in the Republic of Georgia--
and nobody noticed. *
Los Angeles County Purchasing Manager Joe Sandoval ordered
computer suppliers to stop using the words "master" and "slave"
to describe a primary and secondary hard disk drive. "Based on
the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County,"
wrote Sandoval, "this is not an acceptable identification label."
After all, someone might think they were talking about sex. *
Dr. Stuart Meloy, a North Carolina surgeon who specializes
in pain management, was inserting electrodes on the spine of a
woman when she suddenly began to moan. "You're going to have to
teach my husband to do that," she said. Meloy had missed the
specific nerve bundle he was aiming for and accidentally
discovered another one--the one that controls orgasms. Now he's
trying to do a clinical trial to treat female sexual dysfunction
with a similar surgical procedure--but he can't find eight women
willing to let him implant the "orgasmatron" for nine days. Once
the device is installed, you simply press a remote control and
the orgasm begins almost immediately. We would think men would be
encouraging their wives to get this done, because they don't
necessarily know how a woman's orgasm occurs but they do know how
to operate a remote. *
Frustrated by their inability to catch Izzat Ibrahim al- Douri, number 6 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis and a man
with a $10 million reward on his head, the U.S. 4th Infantry
Division seized his wife and daughter instead. The rationale is
that it's not really hostage-taking if we do it, because, uh,
well, we don't take hostages and well, uh, maybe his daughter
knows something she's not telling and, uh, well, anyway, it's not
hostage-taking. *
Glen Campbell broke into "Rhinestone Cowboy" from his cell
in the Phoenix jail after getting booked for extreme drunken
driving and assaulting an officer. (He allegedly kneed a cop in
the groin.) Okay, everybody sing: By the tiiiime I get to
Phoenix, I'll be shit-faced . . ." *
Another Broadway show bit the dust, as "Bobbi Boland" closed
during previews, only the fourth show in history to shut down
prior to opening night. A week before the announcement, the
show's star, Farrah Fawcett, had to be carried out of the Iridium
jazz club after swigging too much Jack Daniels. Farrah later said
she was simply getting into character. We just hate it when all
that Method work is wasted. *
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs threw a tantrum backstage at the VH1
"Big in '03" Awards, according to The New York Post, when he
found out he'd been invited to be an awards presenter instead of
a recipient. "I am not going on stage unless I get an award!"
said Combs, according to the Post's Page Six. So VH1 gave him an
award! We assume it's not Mr. Congeniality. *
A 22-year-old woman was allegedly given a knockout drink at
a club in downtown San Diego, then taken back to the house where
MTV's "The Real World" is filmed and raped in one of only two
rooms not equipped with cameras. The alleged assailant, known
only as "Justin," is apparently a master of planning and
deception. *
Wal-Mart announced plans for its own line of laptop
computers, which will retail for around $700 compared to the
industry average of $1,300. Since most Wal-Mart customers don't
need advanced technology, using their computers mostly for email
and word processing, Wal-Mart can use "laggard technology,"
according to Wall Street analysts, in order to keep the price
down. The advertising campaign currently being considered
features the slogan, "This here computer can't do diddly, but
it's good enough 4 u." *
Elementary school students in upstate New York are
especially fond of their new No. 2 pencils supplied by the
Ticonderoga company because they feature the slogan "Too Cool to
Do Drugs." By writing a lot, and sharpening them frequently, the
message turns into "Cool to Do Drugs," and then simply "Do
Drugs." Fourth-graders find this hysterical. *
Seventy thousand Australian sheep were fed ham by an animal
rights group so that they couldn't be exported to countries in
the Middle East. (Pork is considered unclean by Muslims.) Okay,
important question: where does an animal rights person get ham?
Maybe we should feed whale meat to the pigs. *
Dick Baker, principal of the Community Christian School in
Largo, Florida, took dozens of trips to Disney World with groups
of middle school girls he called "Royal Princesses." Among the
funtime activities were each girl receiving her very own Disney
swimsuit and dress, which Baker recorded in snapshots; swimsuit-
changing contests, with each girl changing suits in the bathroom
between laps in the pool; and sleepovers in which Baker, clad in
Disney pajamas, would give the girls piggyback rides, then tickle
and massage them. Baker was eventually fired because it's a small
world after all. *
Erin Moran, better known as Joanie Cunningham on "Happy
Days," does an extended fake orgasm in the touring production of
"The Vagina Monologues" that is apparently so good people have
stopped calling her Joanie and started calling her Moanie. *
For $19.95 a Hollywood celebrity will call you or a friend,
and for $29.95 the celebrity will deliver a customized message.
Currently available are Lorenzo Lamas, John Fiore, Richard Hatch,
Lana Wood, Lou Ferrigno, John De Lancie, Tony Todd (the Candyman
for Valentine's Day?), David Naughton, Todd Bridges, Christopher
Atkins, Tim Russ, Greg Evigan, Reginald
Ballard, the Barbi Twins, Robert Fuller, Peter Jurasik, Mitch
Ryder, Shauna Sand-Lamas, Steve Monroe, Andrea Thompson . . .
sorry, we're falling asleep and the line is forming at the SAG
office. *
In the ultimate redneck crime, Barry Davis of West Bend,
Wisconsin, was charged with downing a six-pack of beer and then
driving dangerously--on his riding lawn mower. *
Tom Jennings of Mobile, Alabama, fired after pornography was
discovered on his computer, tried to get his job back as public
affairs manager for the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System by
arguing that a) maybe an intern downloaded the porn onto his
office computer, b) maybe "pop-up ads" put the porn on there, and
c) the digital photo of his own buttocks was accidentally taken
and saved. If this man faces that direction when he types, please
memo the new user of the computer: Lysol. *
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Five undercover agents walked through security at Boston's
Logan Airport with knives, a bomb and a gun. Whoops! *
Scenes from domestic life:
* Millionaire securities broker Joel Sandler of Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania, didn't want to split his $4.5 million estate in
what was shaping up as a nasty divorce, so he asked a friend to
set him up with a hitman so he could get rid of his schoolteacher
wife. He met with the man in the parking lot of a TGI Friday's
restaurant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, but the hitman was,
of course, an undercover cop. At this point fifty-fifty is
probably not gonna cut it in divorce court.*
Seventy police officers swept into Michael Jackson's
Neverland Ranch with a search warrant and a day later Jackson was
arrested and booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail on charges
of "Being Icky."
*
Stephen King was honored by the National Book Foundation for
his "distinguished contribution" to literature, causing Yale
literary critic Harold Bloom to lambaste the award as "another
low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life."
Harold Harold Harold, "dumb" is an adjective that most properly
applies to those unable to speak, and converting it into a gerund
is a popular culture vulgarism that bears little or no relation
to the etymology of the term.
*
Al Pacino couldn't remember his zip code, his street address
or his Social Security number at a hearing in New York family
court, where estranged girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo is seeking
child support for the couple's two-year-old twins and Pacino is
demanding joint custody and visitation rights. This is apparently
why Pacino rarely does live theater.
*
Fourteen-year-old Freddy Adu signed a $500,000-per-year
contract for six years with D.C. United, becoming the highest
paid player in the history of Major League Soccer as well as the
youngest player ever to compete in the league. Adu's mother will
drive him to practice, since he is too young to have a car or
license, and for the first four years of his contract he'll be
allowed to both administer and receive noogies.
*
After an exceedingly weird roll-call vote that lasted till
dawn, Republicans pushed their Medicare reform bill through the
House, 220-215. The bill means the government will pay for the
drugs of 40 million people--in many cases, expensive drugs that
are used every day--but, according to the Republicans, this will
cost less than the current Medicare plan, which is so many
billions in debt that it will take several generations to pay for
it, even if it doesn't go bankrupt in the meantime. All hail the
emperor.
*
Forty shops were looted and 11 Christian churches burned by
Muslim radicals in Kazaure, Nigeria, after two 12-year-old girls
got into an argument. Muslims wanted action taken against a
Christian girl who insulted the prophet Muhammad in response to
taunting in the schoolyard by Muslim girls. This is the same part
of Nigeria, by the way, that rioted last year over the Miss World
pageant. Somebody tell these people about anger management.
*
Matti Vanhanen, prime minister of Finland, refused to serve
vodka during a dinner at his home for Russian prime minister
Mikhail M. Kasyanov, resulting in a breach of both Finnish and
Russian protocol. Vanhanen is one of the two people in Finland
who don't drink at all, and he served apple juice instead of
vodka because he said "I don't not want to give my children the
example that alcohol consumption is part of a meal." Now the kids
will know that it's part of the wait-till-your-parents-are-away-
from-the-house keg party.
*
Dozens of Italians were blown up in Iraq and dozens of Brits
were blown up in Istanbul in what amounts to a "Stay in your own
country" message from international terrorists. Meanwhile, the
Japanese sent their first fighting contingent since World War II
to the Iraqi front, because we were running out of industrialized
countries willing to saddle up.
*
Cristal Bermudez, Tracy Williams and Kristy Scott, better
known as the Original Hooters Girl Group, signed autographs at
the Hooters in New York and gave away copies of their original
CD, "I'm That Girl," which has yet to be picked up by a major
label. Yes, we've seen pictures, and yes.
*
Simone Craig, a former assistant to Naomi Campbell, claims
the supermodel threw tantrums, hit her, threw a telephone at her,
and threw her down on a couch at L'Hermitage Hotel in Beverly
Hills and held her prisoner. Campbell had been charged with
assault by a previous assistant, Georgina Galanis, but got off
with an apology and an "expression of remorse." She was having a
zit day.
*
Marc Marchal's cell phone started ringing during a chapel
service--at Marchal's own funeral. Apparently the mortician at a
Belgian funeral company had failed to empty the dead man's
pockets. The caller was, like, way behind.
*
Emanuel Fleming of East St. Louis, Illinois, trying to
retrieve his 50 cents from the coin return slot of a pay phone,
ended up with his middle finger stuck in there for three hours.
Eventually the pay phone had to be dismantled and taken with
Fleming to the emergency room, where he was loaded up with
painkillers as they pried his finger out, using a wooden device
and lubricant. Phone calls are 50 cents in East St. Louis?
*
At Crosswinds Mall in Kalamazoo, Michigan, kids are handed
pagers that vibrate when it's their turn to sit on Santa's knee.
Isn't that an elf job?
*
Massachusetts, home of the Puritans, cleared the way for gay
marriage when the Supreme Judicial Court gave the Massachusetts
Legislature six months to come up with a way for homosexual
couples to wed. One way would be to put on one of those funny
black Pilgrim hats and say, "Aye, I take ye."
*
Rosie--we don't need her last name anymore because she's
here every week--says she's determined to keep her Broadway flop
"Taboo" open until January, even though that means that, instead
of losing $10 million, she'll probably lose $20 million. Based on
the life of Boy George, the musical is playing to 50 percent
houses and one insider told the New York Post that "she is going
to lose her shirt." Please, somebody stop her.
*
Madonna showed up at the Plymouth Theater for a performance
of "Taboo" and talked through the entire show, according to the
New York Daily News. Someone sitting nearby asked her to shut up,
and she was quiet for ten minutes, then started talking again.
Not that it mattered.
*
Liza Minnelli now claims that estranged husband David Gest
ripped her off for $2 million with "a series of schemes" he was
able to carry out while her manager, "putting his interests
before her interests." And they seemed so HOT together.
*
Katherine Pecore and Stephanie Haaser, students at River
Hill High School in Clarksville, Maryland, stunned students in
the crowded cafeteria when they stood on top of a lunch table,
shouted "End homophobia now!" and then engaged in a 10-to-15-
second wet kiss. An English teacher at the school, in the course
of teaching Transcendentalist authors, had encouraged all his
students to perform a "nonconformist act"--and so they did. They
were both suspended--a decidedly un-Thoreau-like thing to do.
*
Eric Hutchison, owner of Vic's Willamette View Tavern in Milwaukie, Oregon, has always had a sign in his window:
"Alcoholics serving alcoholics since 1943." But now anti-liquor
groups have pressured the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to
investigate him for violations of state law--just because of the
sign. Somebody please buy those people a round of kamikaze
shooters.
*
The Bonner County Fair in Sandpoint, Idaho, canceled its
tight-fitting jeans contest after "ladies in the community"
(presumably big-butted ones) protested the event as
"inappropriate." They said they didn't want tax dollars being
used for the contest--even though it was completely paid for by
Wrangler, which also donated 50 stick horses for the children's
rodeo. The ladies claimed victory by tugging on the waistbands of
their loose-fitting jogging outfits and trundling off to Denny's
to have the pancake special.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* The White House was evacuated after NORAD picked up a
plane flying within five miles of White House air space. F-16
fighter jets were scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base to
investigate. It was apparently a flock of birds. The birds had
repeatedly been told to seek alternate routes.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Seven members of God's Creation Outreach Ministry in
Kansas City, Kansas, hogtied four young boys and left them in the
church overnight, to teach them to be respectful and to pay
attention in church. Nine-year-old Brian Edgar, whose parents
Neil and Christy Edgar were among the hogtiers, was dead by
morning, although he WAS paying attention by that time.
*Wynonna Judd was picked up in Nashville for Driving While
Intoxicated and Driving While Fat.
*
Army General John P. Abizaid, senior American commander in
the Middle East, said that he faces a hardcore guerrilla force of
5,000 fighters in Iraq and that they're getting stronger, not
weaker. On the same day national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice said it was important to "find ways to accelerate the
transfer of power to the Iraqis" and stop wasting time on stuff
like writing a constitution. After all, the U.S. Constitution,
which has lasted 216 years, required a full four months to write.
*
At the Victoria's Secret fashion show in New York, Tommy Lee
once again proved what a class act he is by throwing dollar bills
onto the stage. For some reason Gisele Bundchen, Tyra Banks and
Heidi Klum failed to pick up their tips.
*
A Texas jury found eccentric New York millionaire Robert
Durst not guilty of murder in spite of his bizarre confession to
carving up the body of Morris Black and dumping it in Galveston
Bay. Since the head of Black was never found, one juror said, "I
didn't think you could have a case without a head." This is
because of the time-honored Texas legal precept that all those
body parts could be from random Interstate roadkill.
*
Paris Hilton sex tapes started popping up everywhere--first
in the form of a romp with Internet billionaire Rick Solomon,
producer of "Beverly Hills Pimps and Ho's," then in a birthday-
party tryst with Playboy Playmate Nicole Lenz. The parents of the
famous Hilton sisters are very upset and suing Solomon, because
prior to this their daughters were known as virgins.
*
No week would be complete without our Rosie O'Donnell item,
and this week's news flash is that her $10 million musical,
"Taboo," based on the life of Boy George, opened to yawns and
sighs, with half-empty houses for previews and vast numbers of
tickets available for the second night. That whole Boy George
trend might just be over.
*
That big glitzy Broadway-bound Barry Manilow musical,
"Harmony," was all ready for its out-of-town tryout run in
Philadelphia--when it shut down production, never making it out
of a rehearsal hall on New York's West 43rd Street. Apparently
the reason was, uh, lack of investors. The cast was stunned, of
course, especially since those plucky little never-say-die
gypsies thought the magic of just the word "Manilow" was enough
to put the idea over. People have no respect for pop-culture
legends anymore.
*
Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore was booted out of office
by an ethics panel that found him guilty of defying a federal
court order involving the removal of a 5,280-pound Ten
Commandments monument from the state courthouse rotunda.
Apparently they were a little worried that the top judge in the
state would someday order someone to do something and the person
so ordered might say, "Nope, violates my conscience, can't do
it."
*
Villagers in Nubutautau, Fiji, tried to eliminate a curse by
apologizing to the descendants of a British missionary that they
killed, roasted and ate 136 years ago. The tribal elders
slaughtered a cow for the occasion and presented sperm whale
teeth to 11 of the consumed missionary's relatives. The closest
descendant of the missionary, Les Lester, was ceremonially kissed
by village chief Ratu Filimoni Nawawabalavu, who is directly
descended from the cannibal chef and chief. Fortunately for the
dead man's memory, the tribe is now thoroughly free of
superstition.
*
It now appears that the chief of Iraqi intelligence and
several other Iraqi agents had secret communications with United
States officials in the days leading up to the Iraq War in which
they offered to do everything President Bush wanted--open up
their entire infrastructure to searches for weapons of mass
destruction by as many American police agents as the U.S. wanted
to send there, turn over a terrorist associated with the World
Trade Center bombing, give oil concessions to the U.S., and even
help with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The CIA, which
dealt with these communications and ultimately rejected all of
them, was aware that Saddam Hussein was frightened by the U.S.
military buildup and that he wanted to deal. What his agents kept
saying, though, was "What do you guys really want?" Apparently we
still don't know.
*
Residents of Bolinas, California, went to the polls and
voted overwhelmingly in favor of Measure G, which reads as
follows: "Bolinas is a socially acknowledged, nature-loving town
[where residents] like to drink the water out of the lakes, eat
the blueberries and like the bears." Thank God they got it on the
books in time.
*
First Lady Laura Bush refused to discipline her daughters
when they got busted for underage drinking, according to a new
unauthorized biography by Ann Gerhart. With Dubya, though, it was
different. "Me or Jim Beam," she told him back in his whiskey
days. Girl power.
*
Leo Van Aert of Antwerp, Belgium, administered mouth-to-
mouth resuscitation to a spotted Japanese carp he found floating
on the surface of his garden pond. The fish survived, and Van
Aert now has a funny look on his face.
*
Christian Gauthier, a lawyer in Montreal, is representing a
man on trial for killing a cop. Outside the courtroom, Gauthier
broke into a rendition of "I Shot the Sheriff"--infuriating the
Montreal Police Brotherhood, which consists of officers who have
obviously not spent much time with defense attorneys or they
would know that this is one of the MILDEST quips they've been
known to use about their clients.
*
David Alan Waters of Memphis was convicted of vandalizing
the home of a 99-year-old wheelchair-bound woman, but Criminal
Court Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett agreed to suspend his two-year
sentence if he would agree to plant 10 chrysanthemums in the
woman's yard. Waters agreed to plant the flowers--and then didn't
plant them. Result: at least seven months in prison. This is what
is referred to in the South as a guy who lives out where the bus
don't stop no more.
*
Rioting Hasidic Jews--yes, that's what we said--tried to
storm their way into a religious school in Brooklyn after it was
closed for the second day by a rival Hasidic sect. Police were
called, but no arrests were made, because it was just too weird.
*
A model airplane called "The Spirit of Butts Farm" flew
1,888 miles in 38 hours, crossing the Atlantic and landing in
County Galway, Ireland, after being navigated across the ocean by
American, Canadian and Irish engineers using laptop computers
connected to a satellite navigation system. After a safe landing,
the balsa wood and mylar plane was crushed by a cow turd.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Nathaniel Basa of Chicago started pacing up and down the
aisle of an Oakland-to-Chicago flight on Southwest Airlines while
brandishing a pair of nunchucks. When he was about to be placed
under arrest at O'Hare Airport, he bolted down a passageway and
had to be stopped by a pilot. He was eventually charged with
aggravated battery, resisting arrest, and boarding an aircraft
with a weapon--but the question was, how did he get the nunchucks
onboard? The answer: the old violin-case trick. They were hidden
in his violin case, WITH his violin! After all, that's something
Al Capone never thought of.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* High school football star Timothy Guider of Shoreham, New
York, had the house to himself on New Year's Eve, so he invited
some friends over and, for amusement, hosed down the family
parakeet with hair spray and set it on fire while his friends
took photos of the bird burning up. The partygoers then took the
charred remains to a second party to show it off and later posted
the photos on the Internet, thereby proving that young kids are
perfectly capable of amusing themselves without parental
supervision.
*
Robert Allan Ackerman, director of the CBS miniseries "The
Reagans," quit the project after the network continued to demand
changes and alterations and re-edits. James Brolin, who plays
Reagan in the show, then refused to promote it because of the
changes. And finally CBS President Les Moonves decided not to air
it at all, calling it "biased" but giving it to sister network
Showtime instead. Republicans think the series is unflattering to
President Reagan and were demanding that it be changed or
censored, especially because it would be insensitive to Nancy
Reagan and the Reagan family. Okay, step back just a minute here.
Does anybody remember any of the nineteen miniseries made about
President Kennedy and the Kennedy family that have run over the
years? The ones about affairs with Marilyn Monroe, and CIA plots,
and ties to the Mafia, and explosive scenes inside various
Kennedy marriages that couldn't possibly be verified--and this
all when Jackie and her children were all alive, not to mention
the man's mother? Excuse us, but when did historical accuracy
become part of the goal here?
*
NBC has no qualms about making up TV movie versions of real
events, as shown by "Saving Jessica Lynch," which aired the same
week the Reagans series was canceled. Lynch, the Army private who
was captured after a wrong turn in Iraq, says she doesn't
remember anything that happened to her--despite writing a book
about what happened to her--which made it easy for the NBC
screenwriter. The theme of the two-hour movie was "People were mean
to this girl."
*
Rosie O'Donnell, who keeps establishing new modern-day
records for number of consecutive days she's in the tabloids,
took a beating in the lawsuit brought against her by Gruner+Jahr,
the company that published Rosie magazine but had to shut it
down, they say, when Rosie abandoned ship. Cindy Spengler, chief
marketing officer for publisher Gruner+Jahr, testified that she
was on a conference call with Rosie and Gruner+Jahr CEO Dan
Brewster, and that after the call ended, Rosie chewed out
Spengler for not speaking up for her. "You know what happens to
people who lie," said Rosie to Spengler. "They get sick and they
get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again." (Spengler is
a cancer survivor.) Spengler's response: "Your mother died of
breast cancer. Was she lying?" Rosie's reply: "Yes." But that's
not all. Susan Toepfer, the former editor, says that Rosie nixed
a cover photo showing Rosie pictured between Lorraine Bracco and
Edie Falco because she thought it looked like her arms were
around them. "As a lesbian," she allegedly said, "I'm
uncomfortable being on a magazine cover holding another woman or
touching another woman." Toepfer also said that, on her third day
on the job, she received an angry call from Rosie full of
screaming, yelling, obscenities and harangues like "What are you
trying to do, destroy me? I'm not Oprah. I don't want to be on
the cover and see my fat effing body!" Rosie says that's a lie,
and that she objected to the photo only because it made her look
fat and was "unflattering." Whatever the reason, the cover was
not used, and that was the beginning of the end for Gruner+Jahr,
which had counted on Rosie's image being used frequently to
promote the magazine. For the record, all the pictures of Rosie
considered for the cover of Rosie magazine made her look fat--
because she's fat.
*
In a Washington state courtroom, Gary Ridgway, better known
as the Green River Killer, calmly confessed to murdering 48 women
over a 16-year period. He said he targeted prostitutes, drug
addicts and runaways because "I hate most prostitutes and I did
not want to pay them for sex. . . . I also picked prostitutes as
victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed.
I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might
never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought
I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught."
He then outlined his plan for burying the bodies, his practice of
occasionally returning to places where he had left bodies, and
some details about how each woman was killed. It was all part of
a plea agreement that will help Ridgway avoid the death penalty.
After all, death would be cruel.
*
Super-designer Tom Ford quit Gucci in a contract dispute,
ending 13 years spent remaking that all but bankrupt company into
the third largest luxury retailer in the world. He made the
announcement with Domenico De Sole, the company's chief
executive, who will also be resigning for the same reason. Both
of them looked spiffy.
*
Linda Tripp, the sneaky friend of Monica Lewinsky, reached a
$595,000 settlement with the federal government over her lawsuit
claiming that personal information about her was leaked in
violation of the Privacy Act. We had no idea that, among the
Lewinsky principals, there was any privacy left, but we're all
for not hearing any more secrets.
*
Behaviorist Hale Dwoskin released a study showing a direct
correlation between watching "Oprah" and having clinical anxiety.
Of the nine million Americans who say they're so stressed they
can't cope, 50 percent watch "Oprah," and 76 percent of regular
"Oprah" watchers say they wish their lives were calmer. "My life
was ruined by that bitch! Next, on Dr. Phil!"
*
Britney Spears is thinking of moving to England because
"it's so cool there." Obviously she was captivated by the
picturesque factory towns of the Midlands.
*
John W. Schiffeler, a retired San Francisco university
teacher who has custody of the family mausoleum on Millionaires
Row in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery, says he's willing to
remove seven bodies--his grandmother, two of his aunts, one of
his aunt's friends, his mother, his father, and the son of his
grandfather--and bury them somewhere else if anyone wants to pay
him $250,000 for the mausoleum. "It is a way to raise needed
funds for the living," he told the New York Times. He obviously
didn't see "Creepshow." Those third-act climaxes can be hell when
you mess with this stuff.
*
The Supreme Court of Afghanistan condemned Miss Afghanistan-
-Vida Samadzai--for wearing a red bikini at the Miss Earth
competition in Manila. "Women who show their bodies without
clothes in front of people," said the court, "are completely
against Shariah law, against Islam and against the culture of the
Afghan people." Fortunately the court has a light load this year.
*
Civic boosters in Tacoma want to build a 400-foot downtown
tower called the Tacoma Spire. Tacoma feels like it's always been
considered the "second city" on Puget Sound, dwelling in the
shadow of Seattle, and it would go a long way toward erasing its
inferiority complex if everyone were to pitch in on the project--
which is, uh, 205 feet shorter than Seattle's Space Needle.
*
The Libertarian Party is calling on all its members to move
to New Hampshire so they can overwhelm the state politically and
make it a laboratory for social change. They figure they need
around 20,000 people to move there, and so far 4,960 have
promised to do so, including a few who can actually distinguish
New Hampshire from Vermont on a map.
*
New York's Grand Central Terminal was briefly shut down so
that photographer Spencer Tunick could arrange 450 naked women on
the floor and take some pictures of what it looks like when the
New York economy is suffering and you've spent your last barrel.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* For the second time in three months, an Air France pilot
was detained at New York's JFK Airport for joking with security
screeners. This time it happened when the pilot's luggage set off
the scanner, causing the pilot to make some comments about the
airplane blowing up, him blowing up, and the story ending up on
the front page of the New York Times. The screener called police,
the flight was canceled, and 270 people had to be rerouted to
Paris. This time, though, the Queens District Attorney refused to
press charges, so the pilot's sentence was to spend an extra
night in his New York hotel room. French guys hate that.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* John and Patricia Stevenson of Paoli, Pennsylvania,
routinely beat their four sons from 1994 to 2000 with a board
they called "The Terminator," sending them to the hospital
periodically, where they would lie about their injuries to
medical authorities. Patricia wasn't happy at work either. In
1999 she used a hammer to bludgeon the fiancee of her boss--who
had taken her job--and then tried to hire a hitman to assassinate
witnesses in the case. As all child-care experts say, it's
important to be consistent.
*
Wildfires raged through three separate areas of southern
California, stoked by the hot Santa Ana winds and beetle-infested
dead trees and some dudes with matches.
*
Tom Sizemore was sentenced to six months in the pokey for
beating up Heidi Fleiss during their one-year relationship. The
actor admitted to a crystal meth habit that he says caused him to
hit her in the jaw, because otherwise he could have lived happily
ever after with an ex-convict call girl pimpstress.
*
Wheaton College, a fundamentalist Bible school in Illinois,
lifted its 143-year ban on dancing and is planning its first
school dance. The first song will be, of course, "Theme from
'Footloose.'"
*
Rameses I, pharaoh of Egypt from 1293 B.C. to 1291 B.C., was
discovered resting in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Atlanta's
Emory University by Dr. Zahi Hawass, general director of Egypt's
Supreme Council on Antiquities. For over a hundred years Rameses
had lived at the Niagara Falls Museum, a freak show in Niagara
Falls, Canada, but when the museum closed it ended up in an old
corset factory in Ontario. The Carlos Museum purchased it and put
experts to work carbon-dating it. Once Near Eastern authorities
said they were 99 percent sure it was Rameses I, the museum gave
it back to Egypt. That's because we've all seen what Arnold
Vosloo does when you disturb his home.
*
Every time Paul and Lisa Ailott of Conisbrough, England,
called for a pizza delivery, the order-taker hung up on them,
thinking they were pranksters. Every time they ordered a taxi,
the dispatcher ignored them. It seems that no one really believed
that they lived on Butt Hole Road. Eventually they got tired of
dealing with it and moved. In the words of Beavis, heh heh heh.
*
A runaway Central Park carriage horse busted into another
hansom cab, flipping over both carriages and spilling two elderly
women into the street. Hey, the ladies should have known: get in
a New York cab, you take your chances.
*
Federal agents simultaneously raided 60 Wal-Mart stores in
21 states and rounded up more than 300 illegal aliens. The little
rascals are known to hide out in sporting goods.
*
Ex-mistresses of Dennis Kozlowski starting seeping up out of
the sewers as the Tyco head's trial for embezzlement, stock fraud
and larceny continued in New York. A salesman at Harry Winston,
the Fifth Avenue jeweler, said Kozlowski had some invoices
doctored so that when he purchased $55,000 diamond earrings for
his wife, he could simultaneously buy $110,000 diamond earrings
for his mistress. His mistress from the late eighties, Barbara
Jacques, also testified that she received $1 million in company
funds as a surprise gift after Kozlowski sold the Tyco-owned co-
op apartment she'd been living in on the Upper East Side. Because
of all the gifts, and the previously reported $2 million birthday
party in 2001 for the ex-waitress-turned-wife Karen Mayo in which
an ice statue of Michelangelo spurted vodka from his private
parts, Kozlowski has now been tagged "Santa Koz" by the tabloids.
Girls, he knows when you are sleeping.
*
Nearly 18 percent of American women between the ages of 40
and 44 have never had children, compared to only 10 percent in
1976, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend toward an
attitude of "We ain't birthin' no babies" has brought the
fertility rate down from 3.1 to 1.9, which is not enough to
sustain the population at current numbers. The interesting thing
about the Census Bureau figures is that they chose 40 to 44 as
the time for the biological-clock snooze alarm to stop going off.
It used to be 35, but those were the days before frozen embryos,
fertility drugs and live-in cabana boys.
*
Miguel Chicas of Queens, New York, was sentenced to three
and a half years in prison, time the judge says he hopes will
allow him to kick his foot-worshipping habit. Chicas, a sorter
for United Parcel Service, met a woman on a bus two years ago,
walked her home several times, and became obsessed with her feet.
One night, after getting drunk at a strip club, he broke into the
woman's apartment and was caught rifling through her drawers and
wearing her son's underwear. When cops arrived, he said, "I have
a problem." He wasn't eligible for probation because of a 1997
offense for entering a couple's apartment and putting on the
man's underwear. We're not going to dwell on the connection
between wearing a strange male's underwear and worshipping the
feet of a woman, but we're sure you can find one on the Internet.
*
Vladimir Enert, a Russian Orthodox priest in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, performed a marriage ceremony for two men. He'd
gotten the keys to the church after a man and a woman told a
senior priest, Mikhail Kabanov, that they were being secretly
married against the wishes of their parents and needed access so
they could meet the other priest there. After the gay wedding was
discovered, Father Enert was immediately defrocked, and Father
Kabanov was barred from holding church services. The legal
actions were over in two weeks, because, in Russia, they don't
mess around with that stuff.
*
In Norway 99 percent of the mothers breast-feed their
babies, compared to 86 percent in Germany, 70 percent in the
United States, and a mere 50 percent in France. Norway prohibits
the advertising of baby formula, and women who are unable to
breast-feed are "very, very sad," according to a nurse quoted by
the New York Times. Although breast-feeding is now almost
universally regarded as healthier for babies, protecting their
immune systems, ears and stomach from ailments as well as making
them stronger as adults, many women are influenced by fear of
Hooter Droop.
*
Rioters in Montreal destroyed 42 cars, smashed the windows
of a dozen businesses, and looted a record store before riot
police could control the crowd. The reason: they were told the
Scottish punk band the Exploited would not be able to show up for
their gig because they had been denied entry to Canada by customs
officials. Customs officials say that several of the band members
had criminal records and others had lied to customs on previous
visits, but music fans found it hard to believe that the
Exploited would violate any policy of any government anywhere.
The band, founded in 1979, has only been jailed a handful of
times. It's not like they really mean it.
*
Michele Tafoya, a sportscaster for ESPN, poured beer on a
couple of University of Minnesota football fans after deciding
they were too rowdy and were interfering with her broadcast,
according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. That wasn't very
ladylike. She could have at least poured chardonnay.
*
George Daniels of New Port Ritchie, Florida, who weighs 420
pounds, fell through the bedroom floor of his mobile home and was
stranded two days before eight workers were able to dig him out.
The good news is that, if a tornado had struck the home, it would
have been well anchored.
*
Sixty-four gators were bagged in the first annual alligator-
hunting season in Georgia. Authorities have been trying to thin
out the population of 200,000 gators ever since they started
showing up in swimming pools. Georgia is home, of course, to the
famous Okefenokee Swamp, the only place in America where
alligators voice political opinions.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* A Congressional aide walked into the Capitol with a toy
gun--part of her Halloween costume--and the gun shape on the X-
ray machine wasn't noticed until she was long gone. The building
went into lockdown, and the emergency communications system was
turned on--but didn't really work right. The new emergency public
address system is called "The Annunciator," but it didn't
annunciate anything for a full hour. It was more like . . . a
toy.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Sherry Murphy, a go-go dancer in Newark, New Jersey, was
too busy with her career to take care of the three young cousins
in her care, police say, so she locked two boys in the basement--
a seven-year-old and a four-year-old--where they wallowed in
their own vomit and used a jar as a toilet, but fared better than
another seven-year-old boy, who was found dead and mummified in
a plastic storage container. The rest of the house was
immaculate, investigators say, and the housecat was plump and
happy, too, indicating that Sherry did have a little bit of a
domestic flare.
*
Duelling divas on Broadway! Prettyboy actor Raul Esparza
stormed out of a rehearsal for "Taboo" after the producer, Rosie
O'Donnell, gave him a "note" about making one of his exits
earlier. (The protocol of Broadway is that only the director
gives notes to actors.) Esparza and O'Donnell are both unhappy
campers--O'Donnell because she has $10 million of her own money
riding on a show that's being portrayed as in major trouble,
Esparza because he feels like he's not getting major billing.
(Esparza is a critics' darling, getting rave reviews as the emcee
in "Cabaret" and as the star of "Tick Tick Boom," but in this
play he's getting less press attention than Boy George, even
though he has the bigger role.) O'Donnell has also made the
actors nervous by attending every rehearsal and micro-managing
everything from the marquee (it keeps changing) to the dancing
(she fired the choreographer one week before previews) to the ad
campaign (she designed every detail of it, but it had to be
changed anyway when it didn't attract any ticket sales). In other
words: sounds like a hit!
*
In other nasty Broadway news, Jasmine Guy of "A Different
World" fame had to leave after one performance--actually she
didn't even make it through one, she had to leave at
intermission--of the new play "The Violet Hour," written by Tony
winner Richard Greenberg. On the first night of previews she
forgot her lines, mispronounced the names of other characters in
the play, and according to witnesses, appeared "bizarre,"
"vacant" and "listless." Her co-star, Robert Sean Leonard, tried
to keep her on track, but after a while--when she continued to
say lines from the wrong scene--she was replaced by the
understudy. By the next day it was announced she had left the
show for "medical reasons." We're sure it was some kind of
bronchial condition.
*
The last flight of the Concorde took off from New York's JFK
Airport with John Cusack, Joan Collins, David Frost and other
supersonic-flight junkies bound for London. The Concorde,
operated by British Airways and Air France, was in service for 27
years, but never recovered from a crash near Paris in 2000 that
killed 113. Analysts gave many reasons for the failure of the
three-hour trans-continental flights to catch on. We think
perhaps that $9,000 round-trip ticket had something to do with
it.
*
Madame Chiang Kai-shek died in her New York apartment at the
age of 106. The most famous literature major ever to graduate
from Wellesley College (alma mater of Hillary Clinton and
Madeleine Albright, among others), Madame Chiang's last major
speech was in 1943, when she addressed a joint session of
Congress and pleaded for support against Japan and for help in
creating a free China. As you can tell by the map, she was still
waiting on Congress's answer.
*
David Gest accused his wife, Liza Minelli, of loading up on
vodka and beating the bejabbers out of him in a $10 million
lawsuit, filed one day before she filed for divorce. Gest, a
concert producer who collects Shirley Temple memorabilia, said he
was beaten up by Minnelli numerous times during their 16 months
of marriage, leaving him in "virtually constant, unrelenting
pain." His story was backed up by Imad Handi, three-time world
karate champion, who was with the couple the night she allegedly
beat Gest on the head for ten minutes. Handi says he tried to
intervene but was whacked by Liza with a backhand that "I must
confess hit me so hard I took a step backwards. I have had
people, men, kick the shit out of me and didn't hit me that
hard." Let's see Tonya Harding mess with this bitch.
*
Donald Rumsfeld is in deep dog doo-doo with President Bush,
especially since the leak of one of his memos questioning whether
the U.S. can win the war in Iraq or the war on terror. The memo
is full of comments like "it will be a long, hard slog" (in
Afghanistan), and "it is not possible to change DOD fast enough
to successfully fight the global war on terror" and "the harder
we work, the behinder we get" and "the cost benefit ratio is
against us--our cost is billions against the terrorist cost of
millions." So, uh, how bout them Redskins?
*
Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, went over Niagara Falls and
survived. That's not the weird part. He went over with nothing
but the clothes on his back. Friends and family said the 40-year-
old man had been considering the plunge for years, believing that
a certain point on Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side, was
survivable. Everybody told him he was crazy, but he said he
wanted to do it, and if he became the first person to go over the
falls without safety devices and survive, then he would become
rich. He got his wish--and like all the other people who have
ever gone over the falls, he failed to become rich. He became, in
fact, a felon, charged with illegally performing a stunt. "I was
immediately enveloped by what seemed like tons of water," he told
reporters. That's because Niagara Falls consists of, uh, tons of
water.
*
Sniper suspect John A. Muhammad fired his lawyers on the
opening day of his capital murder trial and undertook his own
defense, arguing that it wasn't him, and if it was him then he
didn't do anything, and if he did do anything nobody got killed,
and if somebody did get killed then it was an accident.
*
The citizens of China went into a wild celebration after its
first manned space flight. Lt. Col. Yang Liwei piloted the
spacecraft, which stayed aloft for 21 1/2 hours, indicating that
Chinese science and technology have advanced to about 1962.
*
David Blaine emerged from his plastic box after 44 days of
being suspended over London's Tower Bridge with only water for
nourishment. He lost about 50 pounds, earned $8 million, and
further cemented his reputation as the "But why?" magician.
*
Martha Stewart went ballistic at the American Cancer
Society's "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk in New
York's Central Park, grabbing a photographer's camera lens and
barking "Don't take my picture! Get out of here!" Michael
Schwartz, the photographer for the New York Daily News, replied
"Martha, don't touch my camera. Don't touch me." Shortly before
the incident, Martha was actually posing for her private
photographer with a group of cancer walkers near the Naumburg Bandshell. She apparently wasn't feeling very festive.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Vincent P. Rosso of Murrieta, California, was arrested at
Newark Liberty International Airport when a routine scan of his
shoes identified an eight-inch knife hidden inside a cavity in
his left sneaker. Rosso had voluntarily put the shoes on the
conveyor belt, appeared shocked when the knife was found, and
denied that the knife was his. He also volunteered to take a
polygraph test and passed it. The explanation came from his
mother: she said that when Vincent left for his vacation to the
East Coast, he went into his younger brother's closet and
borrowed a pair of sneakers that had been lying around for eight
months. Unbeknownst to Vincent, younger brother Joey had put the
dagger in the shoes for his camping trips in the San Joaquin
Valley. Still, even after Vincent passed the polygraph and the
Transportation Security Administration heard his mother's story,
officials insisted on a felony weapons-possession charge, which
Rosso is defending in Elizabeth Municipal Court. Their reasoning:
"bringing a prohibited item to a security checkpoint even
accidentally is illegal." Do not leave your shoes unattended at
any time.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Moo Chul Shin was upset when his ex-girlfriend decided to
get back with her husband, so he crashed his truck into her
Queens apartment and used a dagger to kill her, then started
stabbing her daughters, aged 7 and 8, according to police. The
eight-year-old survived, although she had many wounds from trying
to stop the attack, and she ran to neighbors for help. Still full
of energy, Moo Chul Shin hunted down the husband and stabbed him-
-not quite fatally--then tried to slit his own wrists, but with
less energy. He will now never get the chance to prove what a
great stepfather he could have been.
*Pamela Anderson called for a boycott of KFC because the
fast-food franchise is allegedly killing chickens.
*
"Going Down: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss" is a USA
Network movie coming to your TV next year, with Jamie-Lynn
DiScala of "The Sopranos" in the title role, and Beavis as
executive producer. ("He he he, we said 'going down.'")
*
Guests at a Serbian wedding near Kraljevo fired their guns
into the air--and shot down a two-seater plane. The two men in
the plane survived, but it was discovered that neither of them
had a pilot's license. This will be the basis of a wacky Balkan
reality series.
*
Kobe Bryant's $45 million contract with Nike became a $1.5
million contract with a bye-bye clause.
*
Courtney Love, whose 11-year-old daughter was taken from her
by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family
Services, went to court to prove that she was normal. She was
arrested for drug possession October 2, the night she overdosed
on OxyContin pills, then she was forcibly taken to Pasadena's Las
Encinas Hospital on October 10 after she threatened to kill
herself, then she snuck out of the hospital a day later and
hitched a ride home with a guy she met in a guitar store. So now
that she's back in her happy home, she wants her daughter
returned to her instead of staying with paternal grandmother
Wendy O'Connor. (That would be the mother of Kurt Cobain.) Until
the little girl comes home, Courtney is just going to knit
doilies and play Scrabble with friends.
*
In a modern version of "Dewey Defeats Truman," the New York
Post published an editorial in its late October 17 edition
bemoaning the New York Yankees' loss of the American League
Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox. "Looks like the Curse
of the Bambino boomeranged this year," the editorial read.
"Despite holding a 3-2 lead in games over the Boston Red Sox, the
Yankees couldn't get the job done at home; their season ended
last night." Of course, Aaron Boone's 11th-inning home run--which
occurred shortly after midnight--put the lie to the editorial,
which ran in about 200,000 papers, or 25 percent of the paper's
total circulation. The paper's explanation: we write these
suckers in advance, one for winning and one for losing, and we,
uh, screwed up. Of course the Daily News couldn't resist calling
attention to it: "It's another New York Post exclusive! Yankees
lose!" The papers had already been feuding for a week, with the
Daily News running daily articles about a lion cub that had been
purchased by a Post reporter and dumped at an animal rescue
shelter, where it was ailing and missing its mother. Even by the
standards of warring New York tabloids, it's getting nasty, which
means, of course, that circulation is up.
*
A 54-year-old Berlin man was arraigned on criminal charges
for teaching his black mongrel sheepdog to raise his paw in the
Nazi salute every time he yelled "Sieg Heil." Apparently they're
a little touchy about Third Reich humor.
*
Britney Spears told Elle magazine that being dumped by
Justin Timberlake made her "a better artist." She should do this
more often.
*
Raymond Collier of Locks Heath, England, plays classical
music for his pigs every night because he believes it makes them
sleep better and grow bigger. His neighbors have been complaining
about the music, however, and, while they're at it, complaining
about the smell emanating from Collier's farm. These are people
who built their houses next to . . . a pig farm. No amount of
classical music will make them rational.
*
Keith Richards says fans of the Rolling Stones throw drugs
onstage while he's performing, and he always takes them back to
his room and samples them. Why does this not surprise us?
* Vince Neil, former singer for Motley
Crue, grabbed a hooker
named Andrea Terry and threw her against a wall at the Moonlite
Bunny Ranch brothel near Carson City, Nevada, according to police
charges. Terry's story is that she got into an argument with Neil
when she refused to have sex with him. Yes, it happens even in
brothels.
*
J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree of Goldthwaite, Texas, the 91-
year-old serial bank robber, couldn't stand freedom, so he walked
into a branch of the First American Bank in Abilene, demanded
money, and gave the teller a large envelope with "ROBBERY"
written on it. He walked out with $2,000, but a witness got his
license plate number, and he was pulled over a half hour later in
the town of Lawn, about 16 miles south of Abilene. Red keeps
setting records. He was believed to be the nation's oldest bank
robber back in 1998 when, one week before his 87th birthday, he
was arrested in Biloxi, Mississippi, a few minutes after he
robbed a bank. He got three years probation and a $260 fine for
that job. Then in 1999 he was arrested for robbing the
NationsBank in Pensacola, Florida, and sentenced to three years
in prison, becoming the oldest inmate in Florida. He had been
free for about a year. One explanation for his robbing frequency
could be that he got a late start in life. A successful Houston
businessman who was devastated after his wife's death in 1986, he
started spending all his time in bars. After a short unhappy
second marriage, he decided on bank robbery as a second career,
starting with the bank that he blamed for forcing him into
bankruptcy. Hey, retired people need a hobby.
*
Jarrett Orcutt was arrested for driving a motorized barstool
through the streets of Reno, Nevada. The barstool, it turns out,
was stolen. He just didn't expect anyone to notice one motorized
barstool among all the many on the highways.
*
The American Automobile Association purchased billboard
space at the city limits of Waldo, Florida, warning motorists to
slow down or risk being ticketed by overzealous cops. Police
Chief A.W. Smith, whose force wrote 8,347 speeding tickets during
a four-month period, is steamed. The city is now considering it's
own public relations campaign, which would involve erecting
billboards one mile before the AAA billboards, with the message,
"Naw, go on, step on it, we won't care."
*
Hawley Webb of New Port Ritchie, Florida, lost his
prosthetic leg while riding the Dueling Dragons roller coaster at
Universal Orlando. Universal sent divers into a pond located
under the coaster, hoping to find the leg, but is that the same
pond that contains the animatronic "Jaws" shark? They should pay
the guy off and hire a Captain Ahab.
*
Troops serving in Iraq were awarded an additional $75 a
month in "imminent danger pay" and $150 a month in "family
separation allowances" when the war started last April. Now the
Pentagon says that was a mistake and they can't be paying out all
that money for what are, after all, just our troops.
*
John Winkelspecht of Lower Southampton, Pennsylvania, was
arrested for standing in the middle of a road wearing only shoes
and a bathrobe, then, when he saw a woman driving toward him,
opening the robe and exposing his Winkelspecht.
*
Tim Huffman, host of a cable access show in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, was convicted of indecent exposure for a show featuring
a talking penis with a face drawn on it. A viewer complained to
the country prosecutor, who researched the local Winkelspecht
laws and decided to press charges.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* Bags containing box cutters, fake explosives and bleach
were found aboard two Southwest Airlines jets, prompting the FAA
to order searches of all 7,000 commercial airliners in service in
the United States. The FBI traced the prank to a 20-year-old
North Carolina college student, who had left notes mocking
Transportation Security Administration security. The man was
universally condemned, in spite of having, uh, proved exactly
what he was claiming.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Lori Pratt of Sutherland, Vermont, found a porn video
under her marital bed, so she pointed a rifle at husband Dennis
and pulled the trigger, wounding him in the abdomen. She was
either aiming lower or else the marriage already had serious
conceptual problems.
*President Bush agreed to allow 10,000 Turkish troops to join
the allied forces in Iraq, pretty much selling the Kurds down the
river. Turkey, the only nation in the world that wants to send
troops to Iraq--so they can stay close to those pesky Kurds--
finally managed to slip in as Bush started to trim those monthly
expenses. It's sort of like paying a Crip to guard your house.
*
California elected the first Austrian-born son of a Nazi
Party member in the state's history.
*
Babe Ruth's gravesite at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in
Mount Pleasant, New York, became a temple of superstition as both
New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox fans left all kinds of
memorabilia and messages all over it, in an attempt to either
prolong or curtail the "Curse of the Bambino" that has bedeviled
Boston since 1918, the year Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth
to the Yankees so he could finance the Broadway show "No, No,
Nanette." Since then the Yankees have won the World Series 26
times and the Red Sox have never won it, a record that is
currently being tested in the American League Championship
Series. "No, No, Nanette," by the way, was such a hit that it
continues to be revived even today. Its premiere was in . . . New
York.
*
Rejection by a lover, or friend, or even by strangers,
registers in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, the same
area that responds to physical pain, according to researchers at
UCLA. This means that breaking up sucks.
*
At a preliminary hearing in Eagle, Colorado, Sheriff's
Detective Doug Winters testified that Kobe Bryant's definition of
"consensual sex" involved gripping his 19-year-old friend around
the neck with both hands, leaning her over a chair, lifting up
her skirt, pulling down her panties as she said "No!," enjoying
himself for about five minutes while leaning down to her face and
telling her how much he likes the Vail ski resort, then telling
her to clean up and asking her to kiss his male member, then
forcing her to do it when she refused him, then making her
promise not to tell anyone--on her way to the hospital where the
attending doctor found vaginal lacerations too numerous to count.
It was their first date. Although brief, they seemed to have
quite a bit in common.
*
Two American soldiers face courts-martial for marrying Iraqi
women. Sgt. Sean Blackwell and Cpl. Brett Dagen, both members of
the Florida National Guard, fell in love with Iraqi doctors who
were assigned to work with American troops, but military
officials noticed the interest and tried to keep them apart.
Blackwell and Dagen converted to Islam to get ready for their
weddings, then slipped away while on foot patrol to evade the
vigilance of their superior officers and exchanged vows at a
double ceremony. Now they're both forbidden from seeing their
wives, and--wait! It's Marlon Brando and Red Buttons! Donald
Rumsfeld needs to go watch "Sayonara" before this gets out of
hand.
*
Desiree Goodwin, an assistant reference librarian at
Harvard, claims she's been passed over for 13 promotions to jobs
that went to less experienced people because she wears short
skirts, low-cut tight blouses and was considered by her female
boss to have a bad reputation. Harvard says her lawsuit is horse
hockey. No, we don't have her phone number.
*
Rodney Dangerfield is talking to the Raelian cult about
cloning himself, according to the New York Post's Page Six gossip
column. If the plan works, he'll move the clone into his
apartment and employ him as a joke writer. Presumably he'll also
purchase an Insult Clone to abuse the Rodney Clone so that the
material will remain fresh.
*
Willie Shoemaker, the Hall of Fame jockey who rode for 40
years and won 11 Triple Crown races, died in San Marino,
California--and suddenly became "Bill" Shoemaker in all the press
accounts. The native of Fabens, Texas, will always be "Shoe" to
us.
*
Rush Limbaugh is such a pill freak that his former
housekeeper helped him buy 30,000 hydrocodone, Lorcet and
OxyContin pills between 1998 and 2002, according to revelations
last week that led the radio talk-show legend to check himself
into rehab. Limbaugh said he got hooked on painkillers after
spinal surgery, and experts said the addiction to Lorcet may be
what caused his sudden deafness two years ago. OxyContin, better
known as Hillbilly Heroin, could explain his views on national
budgetary policy.
*
Ever since the Berlin wall fell in 1989, the citizens of
Berlin have been happy to be free of barbed wire, armored
vehicles and forbidding men with machine guns--until now. They're
furious that over the past year the American Embassy has become a
fortress surrounded by ten-foot-high fences, concrete barriers,
guards with machine guns, and so many armored vehicles that the
cafes and small businesses on the block are going out of business
because nobody wants to go near the place. It's actually much
less than the Americans originally wanted. Their first plan,
rejected by the city, was to establish a 100-foot-wide cordon
around the embassy, which would have required Berlin to close
roads, destroy parks, and knock down hundreds of trees. They also
wanted watchtowers, which, considering the location--next to the
Brandenburg Gate on the 18th-century Pariser Platz--would have
meant almost exactly creating the conditions of the Berlin wall.
The Berlin mayor gave a flat no to the watchtowers. Hey, here's
an idea! Instead of having a fortified embassy located next to
the most famous landmark in the city, why not . . . move it out of town? Oh right, sorry, that would be the polite thing to do.
*
Ten thousand minks were released into the wild by the Animal
Liberation Front, which 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 one really fat one survived and the rest
died humanely.
*
Sexologist Ava Cadell, famous in these pages for her
appearances in Andy Sidaris films and on "Joe Bob's Drive-In
Theater," is counseling Los Angeles celebrities to always carry
"carnal consent forms" so that groupies can be required to sign
on the dotted line before nookie is obtained. Normally we would
expect Ava to understand the term "mood-destroyer."
*
Porn director Rob Spallone is recruiting midgets for "the
world's smallest gang bang," during which dozens of small fry
will climb the 5-foot-10-inch Brooke Hunter and presumably try to
insinuate themselves into whatever places they'll fit.
*
B.J. Miller, a retired engineer in Berkeley, California,
drove to his vacation getaway home outside San Francisco, only to
find it had vanished. Thieves had apparently taken apart the
prefabricated house piece by piece and, while they were at it,
stole the well pump and generator as well. Miller is posting
photos of the home all over northern California in the hope of
recovering it, but he probably needs to cut the photos up into 20
or 30 pieces to get an accurate ID.
*
The Corcoran Group, a real estate firm, sold the smallest
apartment ever recorded in New York City--160 square feet, or
about twice the size of a Death Row prison cell. The Greenwich
Village co-op space has a twin bed built into the wall, a space
for a television at the foot of the bed, a tiny kitchenette, and
room for one chair. It sold for $135,000, presumably to a midget
toll-booth collector.
*
Scenes from our secure republic:
* A pilot for Lacsa Airlines, en route from Costa Rica to
New York's JFK Airport, dialed the code for "hijacking" into his
transponder while flying near Daytona Beach, Florida, and Air
Force fighter jets were scrambled off the New Jersey coast to
intercept the plane. Everything seemed to be normal once the jets
got a look at the plane, so they allowed it to land on schedule.
The pilot's explanation: wrong number.
*
Scenes from domestic life:
* Jayson August of Coronado, California, boarded the tourist
trolley driven by his ex-girlfriend, held a gun to her head, and
led police on a 90-minute chase that ended when the vehicle was
disabled by metal spikes and the hijacker was attacked by a
police dog. At least the two lovebirds got to see all the sights
before they were separated.
*
|