GRAMMY, HOW I LOVE YA!

The Firesign Theatre (whom I know personally) have just been nominated a second time for a Grammy honoring their best-selling Rhino CD, "Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death" which will be presented at the gala awards ceremony, February 24th, at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles. The other contenders are Mel Brooks & Carl Reiner for the "2000-Year Old Man in the year 2000," Steve Martin for his spoken book, "Pure Drivel," Jerry Seinfeld for his HBO special, and Jeff Foxworthy for his solo album, "Totally Comitted."

On the local KTLA Morning News, entertainment reporter Sam Rubin asked comedian George Carlin how he felt about the choices and he said something like "I have to go with Firesign. Their new album reminds me of all the great stuff they did in the '70s, so they get my vote." And that's george with us, George!

We want to thank the Academy...

"Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
Nothing at last is so sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
(R.W. Emerson)

WARNING! VIRU.S. WARNING!

If you get an envelope from a company called the Internal Revenue Service," DO NOT OPEN IT! This group operates a scam around this time every year. Their letter claims that you owe them money, which they will take and use to pay for the operation of essential functions of the United States government. This is untrue! The money the IRS collects is used to fund various inefficient and pointless social engineering projects.

This organization has ties to another shady outfit called the Social Security Administration, who claim to take money from your regular paychecks and save it for your retirement. In truth, the SSA uses the money to pay for the same misguided make-work projects the IRS helps mastermind.

These scam artists have bilked honest, hard working Americans out of billions of dollars. Don't be among them!

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

"It's a rare person who can walk through
a cow pasture and not have to clean his shoes.
And this is a big old cow pasture."
(Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato on the
coming impeachment trial -- L.A. Times)

BLOW CRIMES AND MISBEHAVIORS

According to AP, on December 18th of last year the Russian parliament appealed to Monica Lewinsky to stop the retaliatory attack on Iraq in a motion drafted by lawmaker Alex Filatov. "The state Duma appeals to Ms Lewinsky to undertake corresponding measures to restrain the emotions of Bill Clinton." Well, it didn't work for Bosnia, so... Also, The Washington Post reports that Dan Burton approved nearly $500,000 in payments and salary to Claudia Keller, his campaign manager "and part-time clown."

And speaking of show business, according to the New Yorker, Chief Justice Rehnquist's judicial robe, with the gold stripes on the sleeves, is based on the Lord Chancellor from Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe." After all, Rehnquist was appointed by Richard Nixon, the geek that dressed the White House guards in costumes dripping with more gold braid, white fuss and feathers than a gay Nazi doorman. After Nixon skipped, the outfits were sold as band uniforms.

As Leno says, "Is that good idea to put Monica Lewinsky in a big room with a bunch of politicians and a hundred desks? She could disappear for weeks." Any way you look at it, "This is going to be a trial."

"I married my wife once,
but I married her brother, twice"
(Universal Church Minister and
dear departed friend, Richard Paul)

PSYCHIATRIC HOTLINE!

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 REPEATEDLY!!!!

If you are codependent, press 2 for someone else.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want; stay on the line so we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, no one will answer!

If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear!

"A mind is like an umbrella. If it ain't open, it don't work."

TOP TEN AMISH SPRING BREAK ACTIVITIES:

10. Drink molasses till you heave.

9. Attend a Wet Bonnet contest.

8. Tear a page out of the room directory and totally trash it.

7. Throw a "Keg of Buttermilk" party.

6. Blow past the Dairy Queen on a really hot Clydesdale.

5. Get a tattoo that says: "Born to Raise Barns."

4. Dare to wear a see-through smock to bed.

3. Sleep in until 6:00am.

2. Cop a glance behind a checkout counter of the front cover of Playboy.

1. Churn butter naked.

"I'm here for the show"
(G. Carlin)

WHAT IS REALITY?

Steve Harvey -- recalling the best and worst of the past year in his "Only in L.A." column -- observed a panhandler holding a sign that read "www.50cents.com." And at the "vperson.com" site you can download an english-speaking "verbot" (virtual software robot) for only $14.98: Sylvie, a girl-next-door; Ka, an E.T.; Tokemi, a Swedish babe (with what, a Finnish name?); and it's not "verbot-en" to order a customized companion.

Furthermore, out of the 1,081 new edicts signed into California law by Governor Wilson, are those saying that search and arrest warrants can now be delivered by email and cyber-stalking is officially a crime. But in the "real" world, it is finally legal to scatter your personal ashes on your own property and OK to discard used flashlight and radio batteries in the trash, along with yourself and your week-old obsolete computer.

[Go to next column to continue reading.]

"Why don't the British build computers?
Because they haven't been able to make one leak oil."
(From da net...)

EL BOYO LOGO

SPRINGFIELD, IL--A local teenager was in stable condition Monday after nearly being crushed to death by the 263 corporate logos he recklessly wore at one time. "The patient was admitted to our emergency room unable to breathe," St. Joseph's Hospital chief of surgery Dr. Lyle Wilson-Scheidt said. "His chest was collapsed under the weight of nearly 150 pounds of company and product logos, including Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, Pepsi, Nike, Adidas, Fubu, Taco Bell, Nintendo, MTV, Budweiser, the Chicago Bulls, the NBA and, for some reason, Aetna Life Insurance." Hospital workers used a jaws-of-life device to extract the 14-year-old from the deadly crush of insignias. The AMA strongly warns individuals against wearing more than one logo for every five pounds of body weight.

(from THE ONION)

"And today more bad news for President Clinton.
You know the New Year's baby? That's his too, it doesn't stop."
(Leno)

ONLY 354 SHOPPING DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS

Brain Gum which claims to raise your I.Q from soy-derived PhosphatidylSerine, is still available from Midlothian, Virginia at $59.95 a crate in an ad that states "as we age, depression, social withdrawal and low self-esteem often result from compromised ability to perform everyday tasks involving memory and cognition." I'd tell you where to order it, but I forgot.

Other gift suggestions: cans of "Creamed Possum with Sweet Potatoes Garnished in Coon Fat Gravy," "Fart Sludge," "Same Shit, Different Millennium" and "So many Cats - So few Good Recipes" Tees and sweatshirts from "Funny Side Up." And from the "Bright Life" collection: a Drum Set Alarm Clock that plays a real drum solo, a Butane Pencil Torch, Adorable Dancing Chickens, Musical Bird Magnets and a Hell's Angel Motorcycle Watch.

And from the "Vroom" catalogue of Rock and Roll, you can get a Guitar-shaped Toilet Seat and Lid, "actually made by skilled guitar craftsmen," and presently owned by Michael McKean, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Howard Stern, for $129 to $229. Goes well with the "Fit For A King" Elvis Presley Cookbook. After all, he did die on the throne.

"The breast enhancing cream was a bust..."
(Heard on a local news program)

THAT STINKS!

Well, according to Fortean Times, "studies have shown that while the sense of smell does no better at retrieving memories from the brain than hearing, seeing or feeling, it does retrieve recollections more intensely. " So with products from Demeter Fragrances in Red Cross, PA you can smell like "soil, bread, basil, tomato, gin & tonic, fig leaf, leather, petrol, burnt toast or carrots." And available in '99: Eau de Funeral Parlor and Art-Class Glue.

Or go for the "Anti-aroma-therapy Collection," which includes "Crabby, Fed Up, Manic, Depleted and Jilted." (It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas...)

"For every actor, there is an equal and opposite director."
(Hank Rosenfeld)

YZK?

Dear Cassius -- Are you still working on the Y-zero-K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a headache, and we haven't much time left. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards! You'd think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute...

I spoke to Caesar the other evening and he was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. (He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty.) We called in the consulting astrologers, but they simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work. (As usual, the consultants charged a fortune for doing nothing useful!)

As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We've heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over; and some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition! Anyway, we are continuing to work on this blasted Y0K problem, and I'll send you a parchment if anything further develops.

Vale, Plutonius

"I'm just hoping for a few days off, and perhaps,
the total extinction of the Department of Motor Vehicles."
(Y2K, according to PBS' Robert X. Cringley)

GOD IS LITE

(AP) -- A leading Orthodox rabbi in Bnei Brak, Israel, has ruled that the word "God" may be erased from a computer screen or disk, because the pixels do not constitute real letters. Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein published his ruling this week in a computer magazine aimed at Orthodox Jews, "Mahsheva Tova," a pun that means both "Good Computer" and "Worthy Thinking" and itself reflects the growing incursion of modern implements into the world of the ultra-Orthodox.

According to Jewish law, printed matter with the word "elohim" in Hebrew and its manifestations in any other language must be stored, or ritually buried. (Tanks, Rabbi Margolis.)

"That was the first three minutes of 'Das Robbins Eck'
by Johann Pueler. We'll be back with more
classical music as soon as we can get a turntable working."
(As heard on most public-supported radio stations...)

(1/11/99)