OL' BLACK 'N' BLUE EYES

In a review of " The Sinatra Files: The Secret FBI Dossier" by Tom & Phil Kuntz (Crown Books), faxed to me by incorrigible Firehead Dr. John Scialli, is the following: "Hoover actually came to the singer's aid on several occasions, helping to investigate the kidnapping of Frank Jr. and sending his agents on various fool's errands for him (such as the time he conducted a four-month investigation of the crank who had threatened to blind Sinatra by hitting him in the eye with a poisoned pickle)."

"Just a second, Danger! What about my pickle?"
(Rocky Rococco in the Firesign Theatre's
" Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye")

A BANG-UP MENU

Rick Moranis and artist William Van Roden cooked up a delicious fausse carte de jour for the proposed "Bullets Over Broadway - Chez NRA" eatery in the NY Times Op-Art section. Among the delicacies offered were:

"Target Practice Appetizers: Terrine of Squirrel, Bull's Eye (2) and Foie Gras - what's left of the little duck's liver."

"Open Season Entrees" include "Free Range-Riddled Wild Turkey" and "The Heston - a 66 caliber filet of male deer bathed in pistol-whipped butter (by permit only). "

At meal's end, you can accompany your choice of "Trophy Time Desserts" such as "Right to Bear Claws, Winchester Trifle or Chew," washed down with a bottle or flask of "Moderately Priced Domestic Whiskies -- Bud, Jolt or Surge. (None of the above served with any of that balsamic or cilantro hogwash)."

"Los Angeles -- the city whose only cultural advantage was that it let you make a right turn on a red light"
(Woody Allen)

VIRUS WARNING!!! IS IT WORKING?

There is a new virus going around, called "Work." If you receive any sort of work at all, whether via email, Internet, or simply handed to you by a colleague. DO NOT OPEN IT. Those who have been tempted to open work or even look at it have found that their social life is deleted and their brain ceases to function properly.

If you receive work in paper-document form, simply lift the document and drag it to your garbage can, put on your coat and skip to the nearest bar with two friends and order a beer. After repeating this action 14 times you will find that work will no longer be of any relevance to you. Send this message to everyone in your address book. If you have no one in your address book, I'm afraid the work virus has already corrupted your life.

***Take this seriously! This virus works even without a computer***

"This virus works on the honor system. Please delete all the files on your hard disk, then forward this message to everyone you know. Thank you for your cooperation."

- Ubiquitous net spam

"Theatre:
to make the difficult easy, the easy habitual; and the habitual, beautiful"
(David Mamet)

DEAR GOD...

I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made on Tuesday. That was cool! But did You mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? It rained for our whole vacation and is my father mad! He said some things about You that people are not supposed to say, but I hope You will not hurt him anyway. I want to be just like my daddy when I get big, but not with so much hair all over. And if we come back as something, please don't let me be Jennifer Horton, because I hate her.

If You watch me in church Sunday, I'll show You my new shoes! We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school, we learned that You did it. So I bet he stole Your idea. Who draws the lines around the countries? Of all the people who worked for You, I like Noah and David best.

I think about You sometimes, even when I'm not praying. I bet it is very hard for You to love all the people in the world. There are only four people in our family and I can never do it. Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It worked with my brother. My brothers told me about being born, but it doesn't sound right. They are just kidding, aren't they? I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that O.K.?

Thank You for my baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.

Your friend (but I am not going to tell You who I am)

"Please provide the date of your death"
(From an IRS letter)

SIGNS YOU NEED A NEW DOCTOR

- He calls you at two in the morning "just to talk."
- Instead of rubber surgical gloves he wears oven mitts.
- He keeps accidentally referring to himself as "the defendant."
- He thinks Eastern Medicine was developed in Long Island.
- He keeps accidentally referring to your legs as "drumsticks."
- His examination room is Room 201 at the No-Tell Motel.
- He introduces you to his anesthesiologist, "Doctor Jim Beam."
- Before surgery, he asks if you want this "to go."
- He tries to color your X-rays with crayons.

(Uncredited)

"You know what we always say:
'The family that preys together, stays together'"
(Tom Teepen, Arizona Daily Star)

THAT'S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE SOUTH

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit; it's been hotter'n a goat's butt in a pepper patch. It's so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs. Have a cup of coffee, it's already been 'saucered and blowed. I bin busier than a cat covered in crap on a marble floor; if things get any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it. This is gooder'n grits.

[Go to next column to continue reading]

"Jes don't pee down my back and tell me it's rainin'; my cow died last night so I don't need your bull. Lokee thar. He's as country as corn flakes but he fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. 'N she's so stuck up, she'd drown in a rainstorm. You writin' this all down, Slick?"

ROCKY:  "Why, you stupid toad! I ought to beat your brain out!
NANCY:  No! Put down that pickle!"
ibid)

"I feel closest to Hell when I'm thinking about money"
(Pharoah Sanders)

THAT REALLY STINKS

28-year-old Rudy Espinoza is a really bad poet -- and that's good, because recently, he churned out a wretched parody of renowned poet T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and beat 60 other terrible poets to be deemed the worst of the worst, winning a garish, pink and red iridescent trophy topped with an ear of corn from the Flint Public Library. Part of his "Love Song of A. Gino Angelo" reads:

"Let's go through the broken streets,
the gutters trampled under our feets,
meet restless women in the dirt
motels of Dort Highway
go get greasy spoon food, eat and not pay
down the streets that open up to discontent
so we look at each other and ask
what the hell is this?
Hey, what's that smell?"

He said the words "just came to him".

"It is difficult not to write satire"
(Juvenal 60 BC -- from Eric Boardman)

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...

A guy is walking along a beach when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand. He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub. Two genies appear and they tell him he has been granted three wishes.

He makes his three wishes and the next thing he knows, he's in the bedroom of a mansion surrounded by 50 beautiful women. He makes love to all of them and begins to explore the house. Suddenly he feels something soft under his feet, he looks down and the floor is covered in $100 bills. There's a knock at the door, and standing there are the two genies. They drag him outside to the nearest tree, throw a rope over a limb and hang him by the neck until he is dead.

As the genies walk off, one says to the other one "Hey, I can understand screwing all these beautiful women in a big mansion. I can also understand him wanting to be a millionaire. But to be hung? Go figure!"
(Canyon Girl)

"Failure is success if we learn from it"
(Malcolm Forbes)

THE BUSH GROWS!

"Will the highways on the Internet become more few? If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow! I understand small-business growth. I was one. I'm an inherently coherent person. I've got a great sense of where I want to lead, and I'm comfortable with why I'm running. The world we live in is still a world of terror and missiles and madmen. And we're challenged by aging missiles and failing intelligence. I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.

"The picture on the newspaper, it just seems so un-American to me, the picture of the guy storming the house with a scared little boy there. I talked to my little brother, Jeb - I haven't told this to many people. But he's the governor of - I shouldn't call him my little brother - my brother, Jeb, the great governor of Texas. I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California, in more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California. The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case.

"I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike. I believe we ought to say that if you wait, it's okay. It's okay. Not only it'll help you be able to realize your dreams, but it'll help you maintain a healthy body as well. Sexually transmitted diseases is a huge problem in America, and it's a sure-fire way. Society must understand there are certain people who are just not rehabilitatable."

This is constructed from an article about G.W. by Ben Ehrenreich, < http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/28/news-ehrenreich.shtml>.

Ben says regarding Bush AND Gore, "If you're looking for an intelligent candidate, it might be better to write in the name of your neighbor's parakeet in November." Robin Williams suggests that "Giving this economy to George W. Bush would be like giving a Benihana franchise to O.J. Simpson;" but Patty Paul poses the real puzzler: "How come we choose from just two people for president, and fifty for Miss America?"

WHILE THE IRON IS HOT

Shoot magazine's ( http://www.shootonline.com)"Question of the Week" recently was "How are you coping with the actor's strike?" Here's a GOOD answer:

"As a vital member of the team that makes advertisements possible, I am deeply saddened by the strike. I am saddened to discover that I am the only member of that team whose work, though integral to the process of TV advertising, is so undervalued that I risk losing the ability to make a living contributing my skills. I am saddened because as far as I can perceive, I am the ONLY member of the ad-making team faced with a potentially huge rollback in my wages at a time of unprecedented prosperity in every other corner of the ad-making industry. I am saddened to read that TV up front ad spending on the allegedly less valuable major networks was up 16 to 20% this year, cable up front spending also way up... while my meager 1.4% of the advertising budget for an average spot is in jeopardy.

"I am saddened that I voted for a contract 3 years ago that shelved cable until a study could be done to assess profit -- and now, 3 years later, when even a kindergarten student could look at cable and see the growth, I am not being offered even a meager share of that growth for my necessary contribution. I am saddened by the knowledge that my employers in this advanced computer society carefully position their ads for maximum visibility, and chart with great care the response to those ads, the money spent on them, and the money earned by them, but claim an inability (i.e. unwillingness) to aid us in monitoring our earnings.

"I am saddened by the fact that my talents, broadcast a possible 5000 times in a 13 week cycle on cable TV, can render me overexposed, unable to work for a long period of time, and yet I am paid only a pittance for this in the current and JPC proposed contract. I am saddened because in the present contract, the average salary for myself and my fellows who make commercials is well below the poverty level, and it can only get worse if my employers prevail.

"I am saddened because I love what I do for a living, and want to continue to make a living doing it. I am the middle class actor, and I am coping by striking for my professional life!" - J.O."

Nick Tosches adds: "I discovered that the hollow men and women who ran Hollywood were mackerels rather than the sharks they claimed to be, and that Hollywood itself, whose commerce in dreams and mediocrity was vaster, more ruinous, and more despicable than any trade in drugs, was a citadel of fraud meant only to be robbed."

THE PLANET SPINS!

Our Planet Master for more years than I care to believe, Richard Arnold, presently manifested in Wash D.C., is stepping down due to beatific life changes and will be replaced by -- Tiny Dr. Tim!

It's been more than a great gift and a greater honor to work with Richard lo these many years, and we all wish him much happiness -- and this advice:

"It's not the size of the Jellyfish,
it's the motion in the ocean!"
(Line cut in 1944 from Arthur Miller's
"The Man Who Had All The Luck,"
now extended til June 25th)

(6/15/00)