WHERE AM US, ANYWAY?

On the boards... so please be patient with me; I'm in "Patience" [inside] the Ford. We've gotten raves from everyone (but "Rave") and were "Pick of the Week" in L.A. Weekly who called us "a hilarious send-up... a delight."

Thanks to all of you who have come to enjoy the show and greetings to those still to come. Please come backstage to say hello. And speaking of "Back Stage," they wrote that the show is "a good, old-fashioned gut-busting knee slapper [and] the vocal performances are strong across the board." Even the usually staid L.A. Times gushed "Gilbert is at his sly best... a rare opportunity to see this clever bonbon." (Not responsible for mixed metaphors). Call (323) 660-TKTS - Family Rates Available!

And finally, sincere thanks, too, to those of you who helped us sell out all three evenings of Tulis McCall's humorous, moving, and thought-provoking one-woman evening "Truth Be Told" at the Ventura Court. There is strong momentum to mount it soon on a major stage in town. Letcha know.

IT'S A FALSE WORLD AFTER ALL

Roger Steffens writes, "I was speaking with an old hippie friend on the phone tonight and I said, 'David, you just have to realize, we live in a Firesign Theatre world. Do you understand what I mean when I say that? Nothing is real, is it? Just the planet we sit on. All the rest is wishful thinking and truly absurd.'"

Well, rest easy; recent Firesign gatherings are pointing the way to a '99 theatrical tour that may include 2 weeks off-B'way, 10 days in Toronto, 4 days in Montreal, 5 nights in San Francisco, 4 days in Portland and Seattle, etc... you get the idea.

SING, MELANCHOLY BABY!

After a state banquet and traditional song and dance recital at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea last week, President Clinton made a surprise visit to his brother Roger's show at the nearby Sejong Cultural Center. Roger had just performed "What I Wouldn't Do For Love" and "On Shaky Ground."

"I should never have opened my mouth to anyone but my mother."
(Monica Lewinsky)

GOD SAVE U.S.

At a "God Save America" rally at the Cretin Coalition's "Road to Victory" conference in Washington, D.C. last month, students attired as modern American soldiers marched into the auditorium firing their weapons.

That set the stage for "Charlatan" Heston to shoot off his mouth in his keynote address. "All of you, you Christian soldiers, have shown us that morality and politics and everyday life are all intertwined like fine embroidery."

As quoted in the recent issue of the "Church and State" magazine, he continued to target his agenda, asserting that "Americans are ready to fight for the true booty of the cultural war -- their values. They want them back. They want the America they built. They want an America where you can pray without feeling naive, love without feeling kinky, sing without profanity, be white without feeling guilty, own a gun without stigma, shout amen without apologizing and prosper without being blamed."

"Heaven help," he concluded, "the God-fearing law-abiding Caucasian middle class... or even worse rural, apparently straight... gun-owning or even worse NRA card-carrying average working stiff, or even worse of all, male working stiff."

So, that makes how many Commandments?

"Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't."
(Anonymous)

BLOWING IT

A police officer pulls over this guy who's been weaving in and out of the lanes. He goes up to the guy's window and says, "Sir, I need you to blow into this breathalyzer tube." The man says, "Sorry, officer, I can't do that. I'm an asthmatic. If I do that, I'll have a really bad asthma attack."

"Okay, fine. I need you to come down to the station to give a blood sample." "I can't do that either," says the guy. "I'm a hemophiliac. If I do that, I'll bleed to death."

"Well, then, we need a urine sample." "I'm sorry, officer, I can't do that either. I'm also a diabetic. If I do that, I'll get really low blood sugar."

"All right, then I need you to come out here and walk this white line."

"I can't do that, officer."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm drunk."

IT'S AN AD, AD, AD, AD, AD WORLD

According to an Associated Press release sent me by Herr Bonnitt, Hitler has been brought back from beyond to sell potato chips in Thailand. TV commercials for "X Potato Chips" feature Der Schnitner giving a Nazi salute, which causes a swastika to morf into an "X" logo. Posters for the chips suggest that they're so tasty "they could transform even Hitler into a fun-loving, likable character."

Sid Heil, spokesfuehrer for the agency behind the campaign, says they were just following orders and never meant to offend anyone. They hoped the campaign would demonstrate that "the world would be a better place if happiness ruled."

"Teamwork is a lot of people doing what 'I' say."
(Quote from the boss of Citrix Corporation)

A SILVER LYING

Also from AP, silver-lined underpants may not suit all, but a Dallas store has customers who buy them. "It sounds weird," said David Hicks, who is director of the American Environmental Health Foundation dealing with environmentally related illnesses, "but for someone who has a problem with electromagnetic fields, they can be a godsend."

The underwear's packages read, "Surround what you want to protect."

The silver mesh is intended to shield the wearer from electric fields and radiation, like televisions, computers, microwaves and high-power lines -- even though a 1996 National Academy of Sciences panel concluded "evidence does not show that exposure to these fields presents a human health hazard." Nonetheless, Hicks claims to sell more than 200 pairs a year.

Men's briefs lined with conductive silver-plated nylon go for $44, and lady’s panties for $26. "Some people said they couldn't even get by our cash register, which is electronic. But once they wear the underwear, they had no problem," Hicks said.

(But - do they have to pay in silver certificates???)

[Go to next column to continue reading.]

"Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire
in the craft it sank; proving once and for all that you
can't have your kayak and heat it, too."
(Punster Strauss)

BLOWING IT AGAIN

A vacationing penguin is driving through Arizona when he notices the oil-pressure light is on. He gets out, looks under the hood and sees oil dripping out of the engine; so, he drives to the nearest town and stops at the first gas station.

After dropping the car off, the penguin decides to take a waddle, around town. He sees a Baskin Robbins, and being a penguin in Arizona, decides that something cold would really hit the spot. He goes in and orders a big dish of French Vanilla ice cream and hunkers down to eat. But having no hands, he makes an awful mess trying to eat with his little flippers, and licks with his face down into the bowl.

After finishing his nice cool treat, he returns to the gas station and asks the mechanic, who is deep in concentration under the hood, if he's found the problem.

"Yeah," the mechanic says, "It looks like you blew a seal."

"Oh! No, no," the penguin replies, "It's just ice cream." (Michael Goldman)

THESE ARE THE DAZE, MY FRIENDS

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less.

We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes; but lower morals; more food but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window, and nothing in the stockroom.

(Indeed it's all true... and somebody wrote it all down. If these weren't the days of the Net where things slip through so easily, I could tell you who it is. C'mon Mr. Heston, fess up....)

"My duty is to do my duty. We're big boys –
and I mean that in a gender-neutral way."
(Judge Starr)

REMEMBER WHEN....

A "computer" was something on the TV from a science-fiction show; a "window" was something you hated to clean, and a "RAM" was what made a goat glow?

An "application" was for employment; a "program" a radio show; a "cursor" was speaking profanely, and a "keyboard?" Hey, man, a piano!

"Memory" was something that you lost with age; "CD" -- a bank account; and if you had a "3 1/2-inch floppy" you hoped nobody found out.

"Compress" was something you did to the garbage, not something you did to a file; and if you "unzipped" anything in public you'd be in jail for a while.

"Log on" was adding wood to the fire; "hard drive" a long trip on the road; a "mousepad" was where a little mouse lived; and a "backup" -- stopped up your commode.

"Cut" you did with scissors, "paste" you did with glue, a "web" was a spider's home, and a "virus"? Well, that was -- ah-choo!

I know no one's killed when computers "crash." Still, it happens and you wish you were dead.

So, I'll stick to my pad and my paper and pen -- and the memory that's left in my head.

(E-poem, punched up by PP)

"What I need is a list of specific unknown problems
we will encounter."
(Lykes Lines Shipping memo)

Y2K? HERE'S WHY!

"The year 2000 has come and gone, and damned if we didn't survive it! Listen: The best information we have today is that Jesus was born in 5 B.C., or five years before Himself. Chalk that up as another miracle! Yes, and that means that the 2,000th year of the Christian era was what we mistakenly called '1995.'

What apocalypse, what test of our determination to go on living,
did we endure back then?... It was the O.J. Simpson case."
(Kurt Vonnegut in the Rolling Stone's 30th Anniversary issue)

NOW HIRING: SATAN'S VILLAGE

According to Reuters, there will be a shortage of Santas in London stores this Xmas. "We just cannot find any suitable actors who are still, shall we say, on the porky side. All the applicants seem to live on salads and look after their bodies," said a spokesperson for the "Ministry" of Fun" agency. Father Christmas is on ho-ho-hold...

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight."
(Phyllis Diller)

(11/24/98)