Well, it’s happened. As reported by someone who is credited simply as "A Times Staff Writer . . ." (I wonder why?)

Michael Moore, director of "Roger & Me" and creator of "TV Nation" (we like him) filed charges with the Orange County registrar of voters contending that everyone who voted for Rep. Bob "Wayne" Dornon must be deemed "mentally unstable."

In his recent book "Downsize This, " Moore described his attempts to have Doornob committed and cited his rants against gays, Right-to Choosers and President Clinton’s thigh-size. The California Election Code prohibits any "mentally incompetent" person from casting a ballot. I dedicate this orbit to him. That is, either Michael, or Bob...

I like monkeys.

The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.

I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn’t adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour. Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta’ dropped dead. Kinda’ like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.

I didn’t know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs. I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn’t work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.

I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad. I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn’t want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.

I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn’t all go bad. I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.

Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn’t improving.

I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.

I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn’t allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn’t take that one either. I didn’t bother asking about the frozen ones.

I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn’t know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.

I like monkeys.

(From Penn and Not Teller.)

(Because I’m sick and tired of receiving them, here finally are the British Officer fitness reports:)

"His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity. I would not breed from this Officer. This Officer is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won’t-be. When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there. He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction. He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle. Technically sound, but socially impossible. This Officer reminds me very much of a gyroscope - always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere. This young lady has delusions of adequacy. When he joined my ship, this Officer was something of a granny; since then he has aged considerably. This Medical Officer has used my ship to carry his genitals from port to port, and my officers to carry him from bar to bar. Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig. She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them. He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age. his Officer should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better. In my opinion this pilot should not be authorized to fly below 250 feet. The only ship I would recommend this man for is citizenship. Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap. This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

(Associated Press) Save The Children released a report entitled "Children: The Invisible Soldiers" in early November revealing that an estimated 250,000 soldiers fighting in 33 armed conflicts worldwide are now under the age of 18 and some are even as young as 5.

The rapid deployment of lightweight automatic weapons added to, we might add, the proliferation of violent-entertainment models, has increased the capacity of kids to serve as combatants.

The 1979 Convention on the Rights of the Child set recruitment age at 15 and they want to raise it to 17. In Uganda, sexual abuse is also widely reported. "Soon after recruitment, the girls are divided up and allocated to rebel men to be their "wives."

(Associated Press) But in NASA’s last shuttle mission this year, their oldest rocket in the program, Columbia boosted the oldest astronaut ever into space, 61-year-old Story Musgrave. The payload also includes dehydrated turkey and dressing. Launch control said that after stuffing the bird, they could stuff themselves because they’re going to have "a weightless Thanksgiving." What a Story!

The mortal coil has sprung for several interesting souls this week, including Tony "Mr. New Yorker" Hiss’s dad, Alger, who got a bum rap but lived to rap about it, and the late Oscar Levant’s widow, June.

June Levant started her career in vaudeville as part of the Dancing Gale Quadruplets, who were actually two sets of twins and toured in mortal fear of being discovered, but at least they weren’t lip-synching.

She co-hosted a local talk show in 1956 here on KCOP-TV but left to do her own show "after an on-air spat." Sounds like our dear friends, Frank Funke and Margot Mundane, America’s oldest theatrical couple, who "spat" regularly on their weekly radio review of theatre in L.A. --"On The Scene" with St. John Creekley.

And finally, at least for her, was the downsizing of my now very distant relative, Alma Kitchell Yoder, 103, who’s singing was transmitted by the Amateur Radio Corps of America in 1917 from an experimental radio station in New York harbor, "well before most Americans knew radio existed." She also hosted a show called "Let’s Talk It Over," interviewing such luminaries as Eleanor Roosevelt and Funke & Mundane, and Alma sang in the first televised opera in 1939, which also starred Felix The Cat.

Alma means soul and Yoder means Amish. Kitchell doesn’t mean anything.

A-mish her already.

From the Fortean Times, who have promised to publish more of my articles and photos soon -- comes this:

"An actor simulated a hanged man in the dungeon of a ruined 13th century castle in central Slovakia, accidentally hanged himself. No one noticed that the 33-year-old man was dead until tourist pushed his body for fun as it dangled from the rope." Guess he wasn’t a very GOOD dead actor.

But the best dead actor story comes from England where some "turn" willed his skull to a rep company so he could appear as Yorick in all their future productions of "Hamlet." (Sources say . . .)

To raise money for the Skeptical Inquirer’s Center for Inquiry, there will be a mock debate between Kris Kringle and Anti-Claus, the Ghost of Christmas Gone Bust at the LAX Hilton and Towers on Century Boulevard. Dinner begins at 6:30 and chimney’s permitting, the debate will follow at 7:45. Reservations and info can be obtained at 310-306-2847.

The topic? "Resolved: That Xmas Really Is Humbug."

And from the December issue of Fortean Times, a picture on page 57 of a Swedish stamp that features the image of a snail next to their postal symbol, the curled hunting horn. They do look remarkably similar, and that’s why the stamp bears the word: "Posthornsnaaka" or "Psthorn-snail." If you order a set, allow 3 years for delivery.

Businessman Paul Tatum, 41, who held a 40% stake in the fancy Radisson-Slavjanskaya Hotel in Moskva, was gunned down in the Metro last week by a representative of the Russian Mafia, when an alleged assailant, Dimitri "Wayne" Lobachevsky was his name -- riddled the entrepreneur’s body with 11 black-market bullets.

The Times’ article reveals that Tatum had been the target of threats recently and co-worker Gary Winkleman admitted that "People were dropping hints, like they would remove your ears and send you home in a body bag."

The Russians are not known for their subtlety.

According to the November issue of Russian Life, authorities of the Krasnogvardeisky District in St. Petersbough have agreed to allocate land for the city’s first pet cemetery. Fees will depend on a person’s ability to pay, "allowing single pensioners to bury animal companions as easily as businessmen." That is, of course, if the businessmen have not already been buried themselves . . .

The first Golden Arches has opened in New Delhi, but that’s only to be expected as Barry Baerak points out in the Times feature that a new McD "opens somewhere on the planet every three hours with two-thirds of the new outlets raising their arches on foreign soil. . . in 96 nations with more than 7,000 international locations."

I’ve personally eaten a Norwegian McLaks (or grilled salmon sandwich) in Oslo, in New Zealand you can chomp on a Kiwi Burger (with a fried egg on top), but do they offer a McRudolf in Lapland? The Indian Arches serves mainly vegetarian fare like Vegetable McNuggets, but if it’s non-holy meat you want, the "deli" cooks up lamb McMutton they call a Maharaja Mac.

Babloo Chaudhary claims to have lunched there every day since it opened as well as McMunching in Hong Kong and Bangkok. "I’ve never been to the U.S., " he says between bites, "but I feel like I can eat like an American all over the world."

Echoing his sentiments is college student Anika Sabharwai who gushes, "It’s an international thing, a craze. You want to be part of something that’s as big as the whole world." (Just another seeker looking for that connection, I guess.)

Where’s "Happy" Harry Cox when we need him?

Published 11/20/96

PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor