Gentleman’s Excuse Last year, the Cape Town, South Africa, “gentlemen’s club” Mavericks began selling an Alibi line of fragrances designed for men who need excuses for coming home late. For example, as men come through the door, they could splash on “I Was Working Late” (to reek of coffee and cigarettes) or “My Car Broke Down” (evoking fuel, burned rubber and grease).

Crappy Idea Like many cities, Taipei, Taiwan, has a dog-litter problem that has proved unsolvable, as citizens continue to ignore pleas to pick up after their dogs and keep sidewalks clean. Finally, city officials designed a successful program (announced in December): a dog-poop lottery. Anyone handing in a bag of dog litter would get a ticket (one ticket per bag) to a drawing with prizes ranging up to pieces of gold worth the equivalent of about $2,000. (Citizens would be on the honor system as to whether the “litter” in the bag came from a dog or from another source.)

Two Peas In A Pod Newspapers in Sweden reported in January that two of the country’s most heinous murderers apparently fell in love with each other behind the locked doors of their psychiatric institution and, following a 26-day Internet-chat “courtship,” have decided to marry. Mr. Isakin Jonsson (“the Skara Cannibal”) was convicted of killing, decapitating and eating his girlfriend, and Michelle Gustafsson (“the Vampire Woman”) was convicted of killing a father of four and drinking his blood. Said the love-struck Jonsson (certainly truthfully), to the newspaper Expressen, “I have never met anyone like (Michelle).” The pair will almost certainly remain locked up forever, but Gustafsson, on the Internet, wrote that she hopes they will be released, to live together and “have dogs and pursue our hobbies, piercing and tattoos.”

Tightening Their Belts Apparently, not only will there be fewer overall resources for disabled people in Greece (due to government austerity), but the resources will be spread over a larger number of recipients. The Labor Ministry in January expanded the category of eligible “disabled” (with reduced-amount payments) to include pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists, sadomasochists, pedophiles, exhibitionists, and kleptomaniacs. The National Confederation of Disabled People said the changes would inevitably reduce funds available for the blind and the crippled and other traditional categories of need.

Elation Information Part-time Devon, England, vicar Gavin Tyte, who serves churches in Uplyme and Axmouth, recently produced a rap video of the Nativity, in which he plays a shepherd, an angel and the narrator. Sample lyrics (about Mary placing her baby in a cattle trough and angels calming the frightened shepherds): “No hotel, motel, custom baby-changer/She wrapped the baby up and laid him in a manger” and “Chill out, my friends, there’s no need for trepidation/Got a message for the world, and it’s elation information.”

Oh, Brother In February, Kenneth Gunn, of the UK’s Scottish Borders Council, decried the budget cutbacks that closed down local offices that had previously posted marriage notices. By making it more difficult for the public to be aware of specific marriages, Gunn feared an inevitable increase in incest. “I am aware in my own ward of brothers sitting beside sisters they do not know in primary school.” (The problem is more serious in Iceland, whose 300,000 people are far more self-contained. However, a new website containing genealogical data back 1,200 years is expected to help reduce the risk of incest.)

A Very British Sport The UK household services broker LocalTraders.com announced in December that it is planning, for central England in 2012, a “world watching-paint-dry championship,” with a short list selected on “mental strength, concentration and endurance.” Finalists will be asked their favorite color, which will be painted on a wall, and whoever stares the longest without turning away will win. Said a spokesman, “Previous paint-watching experience is not essential.”

Car Art Two British designers (who claim they had the idea independently and learned of the other only after they finished) recently produced elegant pieces using parts from a 2012 Ford Focus. Judy Clark made a dress and a biker jacket adorned with car keys, radio and dashboard components, seat covers, a speedometer, and red taillights. Katherine Hawkins created a necklace using dials, springs, buttons, seat materials, and instrument panel switches.

Hot Potato! An elite squad of six Chinese soldiers, performing a training ritual for a public audience in Hong Kong in January, stood in a circle and passed a satchel of live grenades from man to man, counting down to the expected moment of explosion. At the last possible second, the man caught holding the satchel discards it, and all dive into a hole for protection. At the exhibition, according to Chinese Central Television, it worked out fine.

ACME Holes Fritz Gall, a self-described failed inventor, opened the Museum of Nonsense in Herrnbaumgarten, Austria, recently to pay homage, apparently, to even greater failures than his own. Among the exhibits are the “portable anonymizer” (a stick holding a black bar that one holds over his eyes to obscure identity), a transportable hat rack, a bristleless toothbrush (for people with no teeth), and a “portable hole” (similar to those that appear in the ground whenever the Road Runner needs something for Wile E. Coyote to fall into).

I’ve read with interest recent letters from other local outdoor enthusiasts featured in your column and am amazed, not so much by their love problems, but that they have mates at all! I myself am more of a loner — always have been — and prefer communing with nature solo. That is, up until this past November, when I turned 40. It’s maybe the result of getting older, but I find myself yearning to share my outdoor adventures with a member of the female sex. But unlike these other guys, I’m having problems meeting someone I connect with. I’m planning an extensive canoe tour of Florida waterways this summer and would like to take a girl along with me. But, then again, am I betraying my principles? Maybe I’m just going through a phase. Should I just go it alone after all?

“Doug”

Merritt Island

Tony, such a woman is not hard to find. Unless you’re content to stick your tent peg in the dirt, I recommend loosening your rigid principles and exploring Withlacoochee, if you know what I mean…

Romeo,

“Rick” is a great guy, don’t get me wrong. We like each other a lot, but we come from very, very different backgrounds. Like, I’m Palm Beach-rich and he’s miserably poor. But for some reason we seem to connect. We haven’t made love yet — I’m far too busy at my secretive, high-powered job right now — and Rick is starting to pester me. Not only about sleeping with him, but also about what I do for a living. I don’t want to hurt Rick because he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met, but I guess my maternal instincts are telling me that he just wouldn’t understand and that we’d never work together. But still, I have doubts. What should I do?

Lydia G.

Cocoa Beach

I suggest parting your drapes and letting him into your inner sanctum.    

Dear Romeo,

I’m sure you’ve been asked this many times, but I think readers would like to know your feelings about sex on the beach. Do tell…

Roger D.

Cocoa Beach

This depends on what beach you are talking about. Sex on Daytona Beach at three in the morning isn’t the same as making love on the Playa de la Marbella at the crack of dawn… who also happens to be a very close friend of mine. There are “beaches” and then there are Beaches — broad stretches of sugar and gold sand made by God himself for the purposes of love and romance. Explore these beaches and leave the others behind, or you might get cigarette butts in your gazzaladra, coquina shells up your pizzicato, and kelp and turtle hatchlings between your paparazzis. But because I am a skilled lover and own many plush towels, my many beach lovers and I never have these problems. Except for when I was with my last girlfriend, Sandy Bottoms! 

Dear Romeo,

I recently learned that my new girlfriend is a hermaphrodite. She just told me over the phone, and I could tell that something had been on her mind since we began dating a few days ago. I’m really into her though, despite knowing this. We still haven’t slept together obviously, and I’m worried about how I’ll handle it.

L.J.M.

Merritt Island

Be very careful how you handle it/them! I don’t envy you. Many fish are hermaphroditic as are several species of mollusks. But I’m sure your girl is a little more desirable that these things, am I correct? I hope so. If you can, try to leave a little night light on when you lay down to begin loving. Be delicate and gentle and pay attention to handle the right one at the right time. You must not, for example, reach for the Aphrodite and mistakenly touch the Herm. This will confuse everyone and I don’t want you writing in about this problem again if something bad happens. Tell them hello for me!

TAURUS Life will throw you a fair share of curveballs later this month, but you have the skill to connect with them, knock them out of the park, and slide safely home. After the game, your friends congratulate you warmly and carry you on their shoulders off the diamond, but things will get awkward in the shower.

GEMINI You often feel ignored, actively shunned even, and you can’t figure out why. You’re polite, attentive to people’s needs, and well groomed. Might it have something to do with your garlic toothpaste? Nah…

CANCER Literature is one of your abiding passions, and you’ve made your bookshelf a reflection of your soul and an enticement to romance. You’ll connect with a certain someone who’s ready to sleep with you as soon as they see your collection of Italian renaissance love poetry. Once they notice these tomes outnumbered by “Garfield” collections, however, the deal’s off.

LEO Normally, the upcoming alignment of the stars would bode well for you. But the unusual position of Uranus will find you walking with a pronounced limp well into July.

VIRGO You find yourself more fatigued than usual this spring, and realize it may have something to do with your joints. Try packing them with less hashish and apply more linament.

LIBRA Heaven knows how you’ve managed to get this far through life unscathed. Determined journalists determine that it’s probably due to your father’s wealth and influential connections.

SCORPIO You’ve never believed in the Easter Bunny, but you’d do well to take a page from his playbook around the middle of the month. Before slipping drunkenly into bed with “Gary,” the guy you picked up after last call, be sure to hide all your eggs.

SAGITTARIUS This month finds you fulfilling your dream of visiting Bulgaria, the land of your forefathers. I recommend passing on cheap cassettes and signing up for a proper language course, or you might find yourself writing alimony checks to a goat by this time next year.

CAPRICORN If there’s one thing you can’t stand, it’s being misunderstood. You’ve made considerable progress in connecting with your peers, but none of them speak Farsi.

AQUARIUS Your love of history is what drives you to become the first member of your family to earn a master’s degree. You’re almost there, and you’re certain that your dissertation, “Hannibal and the Carthaginian Invasion of Rome,” will dazzle your professors. Check your facts, though. George Peppard never crossed the Alps on an elephant.

PISCES Acting is what you live for, but all these recent rejections are giving you second thoughts about your choice of career. Stay strong. Things will take a turn for the better in early May when, at long last, that tortured expression you wear catches the eye of an industry bigwig. Congratulations, “Pepto Bismol Customer #3″!

By Paddy McDrinksey

I’ve not received many compliments in my life, but one of the most memorable came from Siobhan Slattery, a distant, raven-haired cousin I was sure I’d marry when I grew up.

She once told me I looked like an older Dean Martin, and I can still feel the blush on my cheeks to this day.

I was deeply moved by the comparison and became obsessed with all things Dean Martin. Have you ever tried to kick a half-deflated football through the streets whilst holding a rocks glass full of bourbon and soda in one hand and trying to keep your toupee straight with the other? And all this at the age of five, mind you.

So you can imagine my surprise at discovering that Kim Vcelka, one of the bartenders at Tip-A-Few Tavern & Bistro, originally hails from Steubenville, Ohio, the birthplace of one Dino Paul Crocetti.

Even if she hadn’t though, she’d still be one of my favorite pourers, and Tip-A-Few is probably one of the best-kept dining secrets in the area. Chef owned and operated since 1999, Tip-A-Few serves some of the most delicious and fresh, made-to-order food in the county — from award-winning burgers to celestial red bliss potato salad.

How long have you been tending bar?

Nine years.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve witnessed while working?

When it happens I’ll let you know…

What do you like best about the job?

Meeting new people and working with the public.

What’s the strangest concoction you’ve ever been asked to make?

A Bloody Mary. We’re a beer and wine establishment…

What’s your drink of choice?

Amstel Light.

Can you recommend a proven hangover cure?

Zip Fizz. Grape and Orange is my favorite.

Which celebrity would you most like to serve?

Dean Martin, because he’s where I was originally from.

If you could own your own bar, what would it be like and what would you call it?

It would be a male strip club and I’d call it “Swingin’ Dicks.”

What would you hope to achieve if you were president?

I’d make world peace, of course.

What would you order for your last meal?

For me, it would have to be a buffet with a little bit of everything.

Parting words of wisdom?

My dad always said that life is sometimes like a worn-out jock strap — it has NO support!

The family-friendly Tip-A-Few Tavern & Bistro is located at 6890 N. Atlantic Ave. in Cape Canaveral. Excellent food is served here from their new menu every day until 11 p.m., including what have been voted the best burgers in Brevard. Happy Hour is held daily from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Free pool Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Mondays from 10 p.m. to close. Tuesdays see live music, and Wednesdays see 2-4-1 drafts from 10 p.m. to close. Thursday is Trivia Night, and Friday offers a fish fry lunch and dinner. They show all your favorite sports events on a number of televisions as well. Call 784-2478 to find out more.

By Rick LaClaire

What better gift than a cactus? Okay, maybe a new car — or maybe even an old one. Or maybe just a toy car… Yeah, as a gift, cacti stink. And to think I once gave them.

I should have known better. My very first experience with a cactus was somewhat tragic. I was in high school and had a buddy named Dale. Dale had the biggest record collection of all my friends and free time was frequently spent in his tiny bedroom, spinning vinyl. “Listen to this,” he’d say, and drop the stylus on the latest platter by REO Speedwagon. Or Jethro Tull. Blue Öyster Cult, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys… You name it, he had it.

Dale painted his room black. He was the first guy I ever knew to do that. And, of course, black room? Black light — with a half-dozen of the coolest DayGlo posters you ever saw. It was cramped in there with all those records, but somehow, from somewhere, he had acquired a cactus.

It was bulbous and green, covered with soft white hair. Cacti didn’t happen in northern New York and I was intrigued. Like a fool, I had to touch it. That white stuff wasn’t hair.

It zapped me. An instant mixture of pain and itchiness spread across my fingers. I reacted by impulsively brushing away the offending hairs and as I did, each one broke off in my skin. My fingers began to swell as I continued scratching. What a strange, annoying sensation.

College was rife with cacti. There was even one that made you puke and get religion. But I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about a species even more prevalent in the early ’70s: the ubiquitous “Christmas Cactus,” a tiny reminder of the tropics marketed as “The Perfect Plant.”

Yep, they were cheap. Two or three bucks, tops. Of course two bucks in 1973 dollars was five gallons of hi-test or a pint of Imperial; four loaves of bread or two pounds of baloney (take your pick). It was also an hour’s minimum wage, and if you felt like pushing a broom or washing dishes for that length of time — all for the sake of a cactus — well, that was your prerogative. And, gosh-darn it, they were the perfect plant. The best way to treat a Christmas Cactus was to ignore it. If those aren’t handy instructions for a dormitory-bound sophomore with more important things on his mind (like girls, beer and, uh… girls) I don’t know what is. Your reward for this grueling regimen of non-cultivation? Flowers! Beautiful red ones, supposedly every Christmas.

But most Christmas Cacti had their own clock. Blooms came when they felt like it. Spring, fall, winter — it didn’t matter. One good thing about them was that the spines were short, quite visible, and scattered. There were just enough to tell you not to touch it, but too few to infect you (like that white-haired thing). They weren’t very attractive though, except for the flowers, and yes, it was possible to kill one. Cold would do it, as would over-watering. But only guys were “dumb enough to kill a cactus.” Most the girls I knew had healthy specimens.

One was Crazy Carol. She collected and cultivated cacti. Her dorm room was festooned with dozens of macramé-hanging terrariums. She often gave them away, but if you wanted something special you could pay (she was crazy, not stupid). I’d been seeing a girl for a couple months and Christmas was approaching. I thought one of Crazy Carol’s creations would fill the bill nicely. For seven dollars (a full tank of gas, a fifth of Wild Turkey, twenty-eight loaves of bread, or seven pounds of baloney — take your pick) I got the whole shebang: the glass globe, macramé hanger, soil, and an assortment of four tiny cacti. As usual with cacti, the instructions were simple: “Don’t open them. Don’t water them. Don’t drop them and by all means, don’t turn them upside down.” Crazy Carol also had advice for the care and feeding of Christmas Cacti: “Spit on them.”

As I said, this was my first Christmas with my Sweet Patootie, and she went hog-wild on me. A new shirt, a bottle of whiskey, a gift certificate to the local leather shop (I needed a belt), and a camera! She spent one hundred bucks, and here I was with my paltry cacti in a fishbowl. Well, at least it was boxed and wrapped. What’s the first thing my Sweet Patootie did with them? She turned them upside-down to undo the tape. Then she held them up and said, “Gee… Dirt?”

We fiddled with it as the years passed, salvaging a couple specimens, but that minor earthquake really upset the original arrangement. It was good luck though, because I wound up marrying this girl. She had a thing for house plants, and our first apartments were strewn with Wandering Jew, Arrowhead and Coleus, as well as the ubiquitous Christmas Cactus. It was always fun to hear visitors say, “Nice Coleus, and nice, uh… Dirt?” when they spied that macramé debacle. I don’t know what finally happened to it. We’ve moved so many times…

And finally, we moved to Florida. Florida is cactus heaven — or hell, depending on your tolerance for the plant. Our second home here was a brand-new mainland apartment in a not-so-nice part of town. We did a lot of fishing in those days, not so much for sport but for something to eat. Saturdays and Sundays always found us on the beach with surf rod and sand fleas, and it was usually no trouble to fill a bucket with whiting and spot. I was always searching for new, wild delicacies and one sunny Sunday I spotted a hedge of prickly pear heavily laden with ripe fruit. Much of it had already fallen and rotted pointlessly on the ground. It seemed a shame. I had just read where varieties of prickly pear had been bred that were quite popular in the Middle East. They called it “sabra,” and by golly, the picture of it looked just like the prickly pears here.

Using a sandwich baggie for a glove and my t-shirt for a basket, I harvested a dozen of the ripest fruits and dumped them in my fish bucket. Then I put my t-shirt back on for the ride home. Big mistake. Not two minutes into the ride my belly began to itch. Then it began to burn. By the time we arrived home I had a bona fide rash — quite like the rash I had with my first cactus encounter. It took days to subside, but that evening I had my first taste of sabra.

Wearing rubber gloves, I cut the crown off the fruit, spooned out the purple innards, and plopped it on a plate. Lots of seeds, but so what? Pomegranates have lots of seeds. So do blackberries. In fact, that’s what it tasted like: sweet blackberry jam. Yeah, the seeds were a bit much; flat, sharp and tiny — perfect for getting caught in your teeth — but the flavor was excellent. Come to find out commercial sabra is bred to be seedless. Boy, I’ll bet that’s good.

Soon we moved beachside and I had my own cactus patch. We rented a duplex down Mullet Creek way. Even though we were in a development, we were a long way from town, and these places would have been a burglar’s paradise. Our landlord reacted by planting prickly pear under each window and these were now mature plants. At first I thought this was pretty smart, using thorny plants as a barrier. But what if I were locked out and wanted to climb in my window? Or worse, what if we had a fire and I needed to climb out? A decision was made when I accidentally stepped on a fallen cactus pad.  That experience was so bitter I pulled the plants that day.

Now that I have my own place, I have the dubious honor of being able to choose which plants stay or go. Yes, there was cactus here when I moved in — the “Crown Of Thorns” variety. Gone. The nearest thing to cacti I have now is a small patch of aloe out by the A/C compressor. Aloe’s a succulent, like cactus, and has spines, but there is a big difference between aloe and something like prickly pear. Aloe soothes. Everybody needs an aloe patch.

One final word on cactus: Back when I was a rock star in Buffalo, NY I had a bass player named Mark. Like all fledgling rock stars we had issues finding a place to rehearse. No one wants to live near a rock band. But Mark’s parents, Bill and Betty, didn’t seem to mind. For the entire summer of 1978 we occupied the front porch of their lakeside cottage, holding auditions and lining the pockets of the Genesee Brewing Company, and Bill, I believe, became our first fan. Wherever we played locally, Mark’s folks would be there, picking up the band’s tab and giving moral support. Later in life, Bill donned the persona of “Cactus Bill” and performed for nursing home residents, sometimes accompanied by Mark and Keith, my old bandmates. Eventually “Prickly Pear Betty” and “Cactus Bill” found themselves in a nursing home. Not too long ago, Betty passed away. Cactus Bill met his demise this March. Our first fan…

Cactus connections run deep.

By David Sherman

Long ago there lived a creature called “Man,” a simple beast who did not think too highly of himself. The Earth, the Sky, the Sea, and the Sun, were all clearly more powerful, and those were just the things he could see. What horrors might lurk in the Darkness? So Man became afraid. It’s pretty much all he did in the early days: eat, sleep, and be afraid, with the odd trip behind a bush to “take a load off his mind.” In fact, the very first thing Man invented was a special way to be afraid. He called it “cowering,” and thought it quite clever. He could cower while eating or sleeping; he could even cower during those trips behind the bush. Man was so content with this that for a long time the only other things he managed to invent were the backache, the neckache, and a new use for the leaves on a bush.

One night a Man did something new while cowering in his sleep: he Dreamed. In his Dream, he was no longer afraid, he no longer cowered. He stood tall and upright, and was the Master of all he could see. The Sky was his domain, the Sea was but a playground for his amusement (as well as a handy place to put all of that stuff that kept piling up behind the bushes), and the Earth he plundered at will. More wonderful still, in his Dream there were neck rubs and chiropractors. In his Dream there was TOILET PAPER!

He woke and told the others of his Dream. “You’re mad!” they said. “You need to go behind a bush and take a load off your mind!” Though they did agree that part about the “neck rub” was quite clever. Soon others had the Dream as well, until one day Man rose up as one and set out to make the Dream come true. First they tamed Fire to drive back the Darkness. They also discovered how to cook breakfast, reheat lunch, and burn supper. Next they learned that if they stuck the little crunchy bits in the food down into the Earth, more food would grow, then they wouldn’t have to travel so far to find the next batch. Man’s life became much busier than before. Now there was make Fire, eat, stick the little crunchy bits in the Earth, eat some more, trip to the bush, sleep, and, most importantly, Dream of new things for tomorrow!

Man next set out to bend the other Beasts to his will. First he gave them names so that the stories of his cleverness would be less confusing. For those he liked best, Man kept it simple: Duck, Pig, and Cow, things of that sort. With the other Beasts, he became quite creative, Orangutan and Hippopotamus, for example. Some of these creatures he gathered about him simply because they were tasty, while others could be made to carry things about, thus helping with the backaches. About this time, one Man decided he wouldn’t bother sticking his own little crunchy bits in The Earth. He would let others do it, and wait until their food grew, then simply bonk them on the head and take it. It was a simple process; all that was required was a bit of patience, and a rock or a big stick. Soon many began doing this together, and thus Man invented “War,”which for many still remains a favorite pastime.

Man began to divide himself into groups. Those who stuck the little crunchy bits in the Earth were called “Farmers,” those who worked with the Beasts were called “Herders,” and those who preferred War were called “Warriors.” Those who did none of these things, but were content to simply follow along and do whatever they were told were called “Sheep.” Later he would use the same name for the Beasts that behaved in this way. You might think this last group would not fare well, but, sadly, most of the creatures called “Man” alive today fall into this category.

Man’s next great discovery came as someone was playing in the ashes, and said, “Look! Bright, shiny bits!” At first Man didn’t know what to make of them, but they were bright, and shiny, and new, so he kept them and looked for ways to make more. Man called his new invention “Metal,” and it was to change his life. Eventually Man found many uses for Metal. The Farmers made new things to dig into the Earth, and the Herders made all manner of useful things for their Beasts. But, it was the Warriors who used it the most, for they found that sticking others with a sharp, pointy Metal bit was far more efficient than bonking them with a rock or a big stick. After this, many Wars were avoided by simply saying, “Take what you want. Just, please, don’t stick me with that sharp, pointy Metal bit!” This also led to the beginning of a new group of Man called “Miners,” whose only job was to dig about and look for more bright, shiny Metal bits.

This was the sum of Man’s life for a very long time. Farming, Herding, Mining, and sticking one another with sharp, pointy Metal bits. Then one day a Man said, “Look! I’ve found a clever way to fits lots of tiny Metal bits together. I call it a ‘Machine!’” Soon many others began to do the same and another new group was born. Man called them “Engineers,” and just about everything Man did wrong after this point is their fault.

With the coming of the Engineers, Man began to build great things called “Buildings,” which he would then stand on top of and proclaim his greatness. He built large groups of these buildings and called them “Cities.” About this time Man also began to learn ways to treat diseases and to patch up the holes made by sharp, pointy Metal bits. Those that focused on this were called “Doctors” and, in the beginning were a very good idea. With Cities, Man also began to make up rules for himself, which he called “Laws.” This, too, was a good idea, until it led to a new group who did nothing but make the Laws so complicated, only they could understand them. They were called “Lawyers,” and they were a VERY BAD IDEA! Anything not readily blamed on the Engineers, should be blamed on the Lawyers.

With all of the Buildings, and the Cities, and the Lawyers, Man’s life became very complicated, until it all became too much for him to manage alone. At this point the Lawyers invented a New Beast which could do anything! It could Farm, or Herd, or Mine. It could build Buildings or even Cities. The New Beasts could run all the Machines. They even taught them how to make War! The Lawyers called their New Beasts “Corporations,” and they were the beginning of the End. Today anything that is not immediately recognizable as the fault of the Engineers or the Lawyers, MUST be blamed on the Corporations.

In time, Man gave control over more and more of his life to the Corporations, until one day he looked around and realized that very little was left of the world he once knew. The Sky was filthy and poisoned, the Sea was just as bad, the Earth was scarred in ways that would take ages to repair, and the once mighty Sun, now barely even visible, seemed to be getting much warmer. “This has to STOP!” Man cried, “Are you mad?” The Corporations ignored Man, for Man no longer controlled them. They now controlled him!

Still believing he was in charge, Man tried to stop the Corporations. He tried to use Laws, only to find that the Corporations OWNED most of the Lawyers, and had been writing the Laws for some time now. Writing them to serve the Corporations NOT Man! Man realized that even his food was no longer recognizable. Most of what he ate now was made not grown. When it made him sick, he found that the Corporations now controlled the Doctors, and THEY would decide what got healed. The Corporations had been built to serve Man, but now it was Man who served the Corporations.

Powerless and defeated, Man bowed his head to Corporate will. One Man bowed down so far, he went full circle and shoved his head completely up his own backside! Others asked what he was doing, and he explained that with his head up his backside, he could pretend not to know what was going on around him. He could imagine he was still in control. They asked about the smell, but the Man explained that the air wasn’t much better outside. They were concerned about the Darkness; they had always been afraid of the Darkness. But the Man explained that was because they were afraid that what was in the Darkness was worse than what they could see. The reverse was now true. Faced with such logic, most of the creatures called Man stuck their heads up their backsides too, and they live that way to this day. A few still struggle to ply their trades in the old fashion, but most live with their heads completely up their backsides and serve the Corporations, the Beasts that now rule the Masters.

Somewhere the creature called Man lost his way, and he now lives hanging by a thin thread that is all that remains of his once vast potential, stretched taut between the mountain of things he got wrong in so many of his yesterdays and the scant few things he has yet to get wrong in his few remaining tomorrows. Luckily for Man, he cannot see this because his head is in a very dark place where the only light comes from a small hole behind his left ear, and most of that is blocked by his own shoulders. His only concern about the thread is that the only ones who make scissors any more are the Corporations! For Man everything now smells like the back of a bush, but at least he can take comfort in the knowledge that he finally got to see his Dream come true. At last, Man is the Master of everything he can see!

ARIES If ever there were a month to devote to methodical or contemplative work, March is it. Several of your blouses could be mended, the garden is overgrown, and the baby’s room needs redecorating. By the time you get finished trimming your husband’s back, ear, and nose hair, however, you won’t have much time to tackle these projects.

TAURUS Your capable mind is working well all month. You are able to quickly separate the nonessential from the essential in no time at all. A period of intellectual inspiration has dawned in your life, and expressing yourself with flair has suddenly become very important to you. This is a shame, because no one can understand what you’re saying with your jaw wired shut.

GEMINI This month you’ll find that your children are keeping you busier than normal. New solutions in dealing with this problem are sorely needed; the tried-and-true doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s the new, the revolutionary, and original that catches and holds your interest now. Boarding school is out of your budget, so you decide to build them cages out back.

CANCER A visitor in your home later this month will compliment your refined taste. This seems odd, seeing as how you haven’t cleaned since summer and your framed Megadeth poster has been faded by the sunlight coming through your broken blinds. But when you remember that you’re paying $200 an hour for her company, it all starts to make so much more sense.

LEO You know you’ve come a long way from your errant youth when you find yourself offended that the police aren’t pulling you over for driving erratically. Resist the temptation to flag them down at a checkpoint to prove that you’ve only consumed a 12-pack of O’Doul’s.

VIRGO Don’t settle for a second-class job when your skills are first-class. That’s not to say that you don’t enjoy mopping up spills in aisle 3, but unfortunately there isn’t any need for a Senior Spaghetti Sauce Jar Knocker-Over.

LIBRA There’s no doubt you have a gift, as many of your friends are quick to remind you. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. But please try to keep away from playgrounds.

SCORPIO There’s a tendency to be too strict with yourself of late, and this is counterproductive. If you’re concerned that there’s no possible way you could eat another dozen Little Debbies, think again. There can only be one “Fattest Slob in Brevard,” and you’ve never settled for second best. Sip on a milkshake and get back to work.

SAGITTARIUS Through process of elimination, you’ll find just where a problem stems from. When your life gets this chaotic, it’s important to calm down, take a deep breath, think clearly, and blame your parents.

CAPRICORN If there’s one thing you hate about the state of this country, it’s the preponderance of ill-informed talking heads glutting the airwaves. You’re so incensed about this that you agree to go on “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss your concerns, only to be told what a pinhead you are and cut off before you can make an insightful point.

AQUARIUS Let’s put it this way: If all the parking spaces closest to the entrance of paradise were taken, you’d have no qualms about circling until the ideal spot opened up rather than walk the length of the lot. That you’ve ridden your bike there makes no difference to you. It’s the principle of the matter.

Tom Frawley

Forget “Bartender of the Month;” Tom Frawley, 91, the recently retired owner of the P. Frawley public house in Lahinch, Co. Clare, is our favorite bartender of all time.

Though he probably couldn’t mix a margarita if he tried, Tom was the embodiment of all that is noble about the profession.

He ran a tight ship with quiet authority (a fluorescent sign inside his pub read: “No Stag Parties Welcome Here”), was spry and attentive beyond his years (when he wasn’t dozing on his stool), spun a great yarn, sang like an angel, and was, above all, a character — of a kind that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the existence of an almighty, all-knowing, and highly creative God.

Tom Frawley, an avowed bachelor, pulled his first pint at the age of 9 in 1928 in this tiny, grocery-cum-pub, which has been in his family for an astounding 138 years. When his mother died in 1961, he took over P. Frawley and ran it until he begrudgingly retired due to poor health this past August.

In latter years, Tom was witness to Lahinch’s transformation into a hip surfing Mecca, but he never bent to the pressures of modernization. He closed like clockwork for his lunch and dinner, and the popular pilgrimage spot seemed even more beloved for its having neither refrigeration or a dishwasher. Also eschewing both cash register and calculator, Tom kept track of what he sold and who owed what with a pencil and small, weathered pad.

At the nursing home where he now resides, he’s reportedly inundated daily with scores of adoring letters and postcards.

A recently created Facebook page devoted to Tom and his domain, and a number of videos of him serving and singing are testaments to the love and respect he enjoys.

Sláinte, Thomas Frawley.

May you live forever.

My husband and I have an ongoing battle with the television remote. It’s gotten so bad that we had to make a chart and schedule possession of it on alternating days. I think John clicks too quickly through the channels, and he gets irritated with me because he says I linger too long on shows in the middle of commercial breaks. This might seem like the kind of minor spat all young couples have to deal with at some point in their marriage, but I’m of the opinion that it’s affecting our sex life. On days that we don’t watch TV — like Mondays and Tuesdays, for instance, or when we’re out of town together — we seem to have fantastic sex. But I’ve noticed that on days when he has control of the remote, he tries to get frisky with me and I’m totally uninterested. On days when I have it, I admit to feeling a little cuddly, but Doug will push me away and mutter something about women and technology. I don’t want us to suffer anymore over such a stupid issue. Please help.

“Kerry”

Cocoa Beach

Dear woman, I am usually behind women on all matters of love, but in this instance I must take your husband’s side. Women are wonderful creatures, but it is very true that they change channels much too slowly for the average male. I recommend that on days when he has the remote that you turn off the lights, slip into bed, and give your fingers some exercise.

Dear Romeo,

I know I sound like a terrible girlfriend complaining about this, but “Troy,” who I’ve been with for three years now, volunteers way too much for my liking. I know lots of other girls out there gripe about their boyfriends spending too much time out with “the boys” or watching ESPN, and I’m sure that they must think me lucky to have such a caring, socially conscious mate. But after working long hours as a mechanic, Troy somehow finds time to help out with a number of local causes. He says that helping people is an essential part of who he is — and it’s certainly one of the main reasons I fell in love with him — but by the time he gets home, he’s to tired for romance. Am I being too selfish in wanting more of his time? I feel both guilty and lonely. Please help.

Rose F.

Cocoa

I don’t think that you’re being selfish at all, Felicity. Your boyfriend should make more time for you, but perhaps in the meantime you might feel better getting involved in a charitable cause of your own. And, of course, I have the perfect idea for you: I play soccer with a local Italian-American team that plays so aggressively that we go through uniforms rather often. We happen to be in need of someone who can collect and collate our old uniforms before donating them to children throughout Brevard. While your boyfriend is at work we’d be happy to drop our shorts at your house.

Romeo,

I’m a fourth-generation Floridian and am married to a wonderful girl who shares my passion for the outdoors. We get along much better than other couples we know because we do everything together — hunting, fishing, surfing, hiking, biking… you name it. But terrible arguments always flare up whenever we go canoeing, which is one of my latest interests. Karen is only comfortable in the front of the canoe, which is fine, but refuses to use an oar and tries to steer with the end of one of our old cane poles. Each time I try to explain to her the proper way to do it, she gets really bitchy and aggressive. I’m at my wits’ end.

J.T.

Cocoa Beach

Sounds to me like she needs a good paddle in the rear.

Dear Romeo,

“Joe” and I have been engaged for over two years and are set to get married this summer. We love each other madly and have a fantastic sex life — for the most part. It’s not the frequency or the quality of our lovemaking that’s lacking, but Joe’s insistence on referring to his “thing” as “Ball Park Frank.” It’s not enough that he’s chosen a name for it, but that he’s chosen one that couldn’t be more unattractive or unappealing. I guess I play along well enough and accept this eccentricity, and I’ve tried in vain to suggest more enticing names. He’s made this concession, but we can’t agree on a new name for it. Can you give us any suggestions?

“Marla”

Merritt Island

You have made a wise decision in accepting this, as you say, eccentricity of his, and I agree that he has chosen a very terrible name for his organ. May I suggest something more poetic or suggestive of foreign shores? How about “Mortadella” or “Linguiça”? I myself would opt for something more suggestive of lightness and sweetness. How about naming at after that delicate Italian pastry, “Sfogliatelle”? It’s hard to wrap your mouth around at first, but you’ll find that with practice it rolls right off the tongue.

By Rick LaClaire

Every parent’s nightmare:

You’re at work. You’re busy, there are problems to solve, and you are totally engrossed in your daily quest for financial sustenance. The office phone rings. It’s for you. It’s the school nurse. Your child has head lice.

Come on, who hasn’t been in that scenario? My boy supposedly had it twice, though I never found a nit. I’ve still got a supply of Nix and that hincty little comb (are you supposed to throw that out?). Even though I’ll swear my kids came off clean, it was embarrassing. Lice — a personal infestation… Images of filth, poverty, and chickens in your living room…

Every homeowner’s nightmare:

You’re asleep. Typical snoring posture. It’s 5:30 a.m. and you slowly awaken to the faint pitter-patter of little feet. But your children are grown and it sounds like it’s on the roof. Birds, perhaps? You get up. The pitter-patter goes from your bedroom ceiling to the living room ceiling. Something in the attic? You go into the garage for a flashlight and ladder. It’s still dark, so you flick on the light. And there it is: a rat! The homeowner’s answer to head lice. Big as life and twice as real, the ugly beast scampers across a valence and into your soffit — a direct link to the attic. You have rats, sir.

I can live with a lot of unpleasant things. I’ve lived with mice, cockroaches, ants, fleas, peeling wallpaper, and Canadian television. I’ve had roommates even less savory than the bugs. I’ve lived without heat, air conditioning, and even running water. I’ve lived next to a train track. I’ve had neighbors so obnoxious I thought about plugging their plumbing vents with day-old pogy. There’s not much I can’t stand. Okay, clowns make me hurl, but you know that. Yessir, I’m pretty tough. That is, until I see a rat. I cannot abide them. They make my skin crawl.

I have a pest service. This home is the only place I ever subscribed to one. Until the purchase of this humble pile of rocks I left pest control up to the landlord. That, or just lived with it. My first “honey-do” in this first home of mine was to hang a small set of blinds in the bathroom window. For this I needed to drill two holes. When my bit punched through the window frame I thought I had hit an old pipe. What appeared to be a steady stream of rusty water ran smartly down my arm to my elbow. It was there I discovered this was not water, it was ants. Thousands of them.

At first I tried dealing with it myself. For some reason the past owner had a stockpile of ant killer. I sprayed the site where I first saw them, then sprayed around the outside of the place like I had seen the commercial guys do. No go. Everywhere I turned, more ants. There were teensy-weensy black ones; there were brown and black middle-sized ones. There were some that were not only tiny, but transparent. Then, of course, there were fire ants all over the yard. It was just too much.

We already had a termite bond with Sears. We had to have it to get a mortgage. For an extra couple of c-notes they could throw in the other bugs, too. Sale. And man, were these guys good.

The little black ones were called “white-footed ants.” You’d need a microscope to tell that. They and the transparent ones, aptly named “ghost ants,” disappeared in a heartbeat, victims to some kind of bait.  The medium guys, “carpenter ants,” presented a bit of a challenge. It took a couple of months, but the bug tech found the nest (in someone else’s yard) and soon they were goners too.

Fast-forward seventeen years and I’ve still got pest control, but not Sears. They sold out to Terminix. I never kowtow to a railroad job, so I found pest control elsewhere, a company called Premium. These guys are good too, and the very next thing I did after spying a rat in my house was call them. They were here that afternoon.

Premium’s specialty is bugs, not animals. As a courtesy though, Premium baited and set five rat traps for me. I thought that was pretty nice. They also said that if I was “a little old lady” they would even come back and empty them for me.

In the process of placing the traps, the bug guy had to go into the attic. When he removed the access panel rat poop fell on him like hail. It fell on him, the ladder, the floor… Yuck. “Here’s where they’re hanging out,” he said. “Now all you gotta do is find out where they’re getting in, plug it up, and trap out the hangers-on. It’s the standard procedure.”

You’ve seen a rat trap. It’s like a mousetrap on steroids, and those suckers will break a finger. What I suddenly noticed was the trap’s maker, a company in Pennsylvania called Victor.

Many years ago, when I was fifteen and sixteen, I ran a trap line for muskrats and raccoons along the Black River in northern New York. I was no Jeremiah Johnson, but I managed to flesh a pelt or two. My traps were all Victors. They were single-spring, number-one leg-hold traps, illegal now. Just seeing the name Victor brought back a flood of memories. Cold, still winter mornings; the jingle of shell ice on the creek; scouting for sign; skinning my first ‘coon…

“You know, when I was kid in upstate New York I had a trap line. You tell people that today and they treat you like you ate one of your own babies.”

Was that me talking, or was it the bug guy? It was the bug guy! “Wow! What a coincidence,” I replied. “So did I.”

“You’ll have fun with this, then. Rats aren’t very smart. Just keep the traps baited and set until they stop snapping. They can’t resist this secret bait. If you’ve plugged the entry, that’s all there is to it.” Then he showed me the secret bait: a Slim Jim. Three hours later, we heard the first trap snap.

I began with what appeared to be the obvious point of entry. It was a patch of sagging soffit screen above the garage, concealed behind a podocarpus tree. They climbed the branches, tugged away a foot-long section of screen, and had left a greasy spot on the wood with their comings and goings. I spent a Saturday replacing the entire section of soffit, rebuilding, caulking, battening the screen, and painting. What a chore, and all overhead. I then trimmed the podocarpus. Sore shoulders for Sunday.

By this point, the third day of our infestation, I had killed three rats. The third was a pregnant female. It was obvious. Then there was a lull. No sounds in the attic, no traps snapping. I had plugged up what I thought was the egress and felt satisfied. The bug guy was right: This was kind of fun. Easy, too. Then, at 5 a.m. on the third day: Snap! They were still getting in. But where?

Try and find the smallest, most isolated and inaccessible imperfection in your home’s construction. That’s what I had to do. I’d been round the outside a dozen times and there was only one spot I could not see. It was an extremely sheltered corner where the screened porch met the roof in the back. Weeks before,  I had laboriously replaced a rotten plank of fascia, and I’d had to do it pretty much “blind,” leaning over the eave on my belly because the porch roof  wouldn’t support me. It had been a nasty chore, working with my feet angled above my head, and having to use a mirror and flashlight to position the replacement. My working window was about five minutes per session as the blood rushed to my brain. I did a lot of swearing, and rushed to finish. This had to be it.

The moment my ladder clunked against the drip edge I could see it: rat poop all over the screened-porch roof. There, way back in the corner, was a one-inch gap in my hurried repair. The area around the tiny hole was dark with rat-grease and gnaw marks. There were mature trees overhanging the house nearby. This was their egress.

Well, a lot more swearing ensued but I got it patched. Some rather giddy tree pruning followed. Two more trap-snaps later and all is now quiet. The final tally? Five dead rats.

Having rats is not something you want to tell your neighbors — it’d be kind of like saying your kid has head lice — but I did anyway. I discovered I was not alone. Almost every beachside Florida home has a rat story. Or a squirrel story or possum story. I even heard a skunk story.

But, thank goodness, no clown infestations.

CLOWN CAR

By David Sherman

I have gone on at great length in the past likening the effects of the Dubya Bush regime on the American economy to driving a car into a ditch. The analogy still holds. It always will. But now the Republican party has shown that despite their repeated suggestions that the U.S. auto industry should have been allowed to fail, they really like car-themed election strategies, their most recent example being the clown car that is their roster of presidential hopefuls. Let’s review, shall we?

Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann

Claims to have “raised” over 30 foster children, though most of them were in her care for less than a month, many for only a few days. She and her husband rail incessantly about the evils of homosexuality, though he is one of the most clearly gay men the world has ever seen. When pressed, she actually clarified her belief that it’s okay if you have those thoughts; it’s only evil if you act on them. So I guess closet equals “good,” and learning to love yourself as you are is “bad”? Ms. Bachmann and her husband also take in hundreds of thousands of federal dollars a year for their “therapy” business, where they help you to “Pray Away the Gay.” The only comfort this woman has ever given America was when she withdrew from the race.

Herman “The Addled Brain” Cain

Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, which he did save from bankruptcy, but does that qualify you to be president of the most powerful nation on earth? In one speech Mr. Cain said, “A poet once said…” He then went on to quote the theme song from the “Yu-Gi-Oh” movie, a Japanese anime cartoon based on a children’s trading card game! Even better though was his famed “9-9-9″ tax plan, which every credible economist denounced as… well, “not feasible” might be the kindest thing said, though “lunacy” and “absurd” were the most frequent. Mr. Cain would never divulge where he got this gem, but the only place it exists in practice is in the video game Sim City! Wow! I’ll give the GOP credit for at least adding a black man to the roster, and he is likeable as hell, but they should have found someone who was also qualified and not friggin’ nuts!

Rick “Secession” Perry

My favorite nutbag of the lot, this Texas cowboy wannabe is the same moron who suggested his state would secede from the United States (again!) if President Obama’s healthcare plan was not repealed. In my book, that is treason, plain and simple. If that weren’t enough, he went on to provide the most inept debate performance ever seen. This man was less well spoken than George Dubya, a feat previously only achieved by fungus! Add his drunk/high speech in New Hampshire and his repeated inability to remember what it was he so fervently wanted to do, and Gov. Perry was a laugh a minute. His last-ditch effort was a video of himself touting Jesus and denouncing gays in the military while dressed in an exact copy of Heath Ledger’s wardrobe from “Brokeback Mountain.” You can’t make this stuff up!

Rick “The Sweater Vest” Santorum

Another gay basher from way back, perhaps the most vitriolic of the lot. This is the man who likened gay sex to — and these are his words — “man on dog.” Because Rick believes that if gays are allowed to marry, then legalized bestiality is the logical next step! He would also outlaw contraception. Let me repeat that: this candidate for President of the United States wants to outlaw contraception. He’s said a lot of equally stupid things, but those two should be enough for anyone. The saddest comment on the Republican electorate is that he’s still in the race!

Truth be told, however, it’s really down to the final two clowns in the car:

Newt “Really a Lizard” Gingrich

This man was found guilty of unethical behavior while serving as the Speaker of the House during the Clinton administration, forced to pay $375,000 in penalties, and then stripped of his office by his own party! He publicly railed against President Clinton’s marital improprieties while having an affair himself at he same time. He betrayed and ultimately abandoned the wife who supported him through college all the way to his Ph.D., a behavior he repeated with his second wife! This man who helped frame the term “moral majority” now claims credit for the budget surplus left by the Clinton administration as well as the successful job programs of that day, though Mr. Gingrich fought them all at the time. Fought and lost, I should add. Hey, Newt, Narcissus called: he wants his disorder back!

Mitt “Stepford” Romney

This tool never met an opinion he didn’t embrace. He was for abortion rights; he’s against abortion rights. He was for socialized medicine; he’s against socialized medicine. He was for gay marriage; he’s against gay marriage. He was for gays serving openly in the military; now he’s against it. But the best part is that in a country where the inequality of wealth distribution is a growing issue, this man released tax returns showing he made over $50,000 last year… per day! Yet he paid a lower percentage in taxes than the average $50,000-a-year household! The Republicans whine because the top 10% in American pay over 60% of the taxes. Yeah, but they have 90% of the money, so cough up the other 30% and we’re good!  Income from interest or investments is still income, and should be subject to income tax. You shouldn’t get a better tax rate just because you can afford to buy a politician to write the laws allowing you to do so, and Gov. Romney is the poster boy for double standards for the rich in America! (But the buying of politicians is for another day!)

Face it, Republicans: if this cavalcade from the clown car is the best you can do, you need to get used to hearing two words for four more years: “President Obama”!

By Rick LaClaire

Autumn is over, and as I write this, the wind is blowing thirty out of the northwest, the temperature is in the 40s, and an incongruous yellow sun is blazing in a clear sky. Winter has descended, and by the time you read this, it will hopefully be on the wane.

My favorite season in Florida has always been autumn, probably because it was my first season here. The temperatures drop to near-perfect, and after the doldrums of summer, the fishing picks up. Great shoals of mullet run the beach, drawing predators in close pursuit. I’m not even sure that happened this past autumn, though. On October 1 it started to blow, followed by the most expansive invasion of sargasso I have ever witnessed. For a full month our beach was covered by this fly-breeding cloak, only to be repeatedly sucked back into the shorebreak, making fishing impossible. What a disappointment during my favorite time of year.

Another name for autumn is “fall,” which seems fitting. A fall is a decline — it can be slow or fast — and as the weather declines into winter, foliage and fruit fall. And so the season is named.

There are other types of falls. There’s that hair extension some women employ — that’s called a “fall.” There’s the one with the capital “F,” which relates to Adam and Eve. There are waterfalls, which Florida seems to lack. Then there is another kind, sudden and accidental, that can come at any time during life, but are most devastating as life itself declines.

Garrison Keillor once did a monologue on falling. The gist of it was that when a fall occurs in public, like on a soundstage or a podium, people tend to think it funny. Garrison is a tall man, and as he explains, when you’re tall, a fall can be especially traumatic. I don’t see how a foot or so in height can make that much difference, falls are nasty for people of any size, but I sure believe it’s rude to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.

For one thing, a fall is embarrassing. It can even ruin your career. Do you remember our only “un-elected” president, Gerald Ford? He slipped on the stairs while de-boarding the presidential jet and it was caught on tape. I must have seen that minor tumble fifty times a day on TV. “Saturday Night Live” built a whole persona around it. Chevy Chase, in the lamest presidential impersonation ever, fumbled and bumbled about the stage as an ersatz Gerald Ford, and at one point tripped over his podium so convincingly he broke a rib. Of course, as SNL always does, they milked the act week after week and then, as it was about to die, Gerald Ford took another tumble while skiing. Apparently no one wanted a clumsy president — whether he was or not, no one cared, the trait had been established by the media — and he lost his only presidential campaign. In my opinion, it was that slip on the stairs that began his political descent.

Ford lost his bid to Jimmy Carter, a from-out-of-nowhere candidate that was in way over his head. Jimmy promised change, a big smile, and physical fitness. To prove the latter, he exited his inaugural limousine and walked the broad avenue, shaking hands and smiling all the way. That Inauguration Day was probably the high point of his career. When not being nagged by the energy crisis, high unemployment, a festering Middle East and skyrocketing inflation, Jimmy would put on his smile and jog. So confident was he in his fitness that he would run in public events. Then he fell — or more exactly, collapsed — during a race. So began his political decline. It seemed from that point onward, his presidency lost support and every twist and turn was for the worse.

Jesus fell. Three times. I know this from my seven years in service as an altar boy in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Every Friday during the Lenten season, a somber ceremony known as the Stations of the Cross would take place. It involved, at a minimum, three altar boys: one to carry the cross and two with candles on broomsticks. If any other altar boys showed up, they were relegated to the “skirt parade” — mere groupies.

Have you ever seen the movie “The Passion of the Christ”? The Stations of the Cross is a sanitized, more digestible version of that. No, they don’t whup anybody with fish hooks, as they do in the film; in our case, the theater of the mind was employed via a series of beautifully abstract stained-glass windows. It was performed late in the day, near sunset, and was nature, art, theater, and poetry woven into a single performance. Top that, Mel Gibson.

Clowns fall a lot. They trip and they tumble; all of it choreographed and wildly exaggerated, of course. And people laugh. Well, not me. As my regular readership knows (Hi, Mom!), clowns make me puke. I don’t believe it’s possible to laugh and vomit at the same time.

Slapstick comedians take a lot of falls, too. I never thought slapstick was funny. If you need a cue to laugh (the slapstick) it’s probably not funny to begin with. And what a waste of food: cream pies, seltzer, rotten tomatoes… The phrase “taking a fall” is interesting, though. In street parlance it means that one takes the blame for something he didn’t do. How fitting. No one plans to fall; it’s something that is thrust upon you.

One of my favorite relatives is my Uncle Kris. Kris emigrated from Norway and you will never find a more devoted American. He has embraced the computer age and I believe he is the first real blogger in our family. For years we received his weekly missives on all sorts of subjects, from politics to getting snowed-in with Chuck Berry. He has a way of politely murdering the English language, which I find brilliant; I have often thought he should write a book.

Kris is not young, and about a year ago he took a fall. Like Garrison Keillor, he is a tall man and the results of his accident were traumatic and complicated. I have only received one e-mail from him in the past year. For much of this time he has been literally laid-up, attempting to cope with the pain and lack of mobility, all from a simple fall. Falls are a great fear among the elderly.

Then, this summer, I got the call. Not The Call, mind you, but a call all the same: my own mother had taken a fall. Thoughts of a broken hip, cracked vertebra, neck involvement (like Uncle Kris), and a long bedridden recovery crowded my mind when my sister told me. My mother is not young either, and accidents of this kind can sometimes lead to a final convalescence. Fortunately, though badly bruised, my mother has recovered.

I’ve had many falls. The one with the most enduring effect was not even my worst. I was 13 or so, and fell off the back of a flatbed truck during a jackrabbit start. I fell on the gravel face forward, with my hands instinctively out front for protection. I didn’t break anything, didn’t even bleed much, but the palm of my right hand was sensitive for a decade. Using a screwdriver, a chisel, any kind of an awl or punch — even throwing a baseball — would set it off. It was a burning sensation, very sudden and intense.

I’ve fallen out of trees. Off surfboards. Off bicycles. Off a roof. I even fell off my flip-flop once. Yes, I did. That may sound impossible, and no one would believe me at the time, but that’s what happened, I swear. It is rumored alcohol was a factor. We were walking home from a bar in the dark, and yep, I took a header. I limped for two days. According to my wife, I limped the first day on my left foot, and the second on my right. I told her, “See? It’s so bad, it’s spreading.”

Watch your step.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AND WE’RE GONNA MISS IT

By M. Alberto Rivera

Shopping in bulk feels like preparing for the apocalypse. Surely I can’t be alone in this sentiment. And while I feel as though our pantry is sufficiently spacious, I don’t think it was conceived with BJ’s, Sam’s Club, or Costco in mind.

The once-a-month trip to the bulk emporium finds the otherwise spacious vehicle packed to the gills with absurd quantities of sundries and foodstuffs — 42 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 206 individually wrapped bagels bites, and 56 packages of assorted snack crackers made up mostly of the kind no one likes or wants, the kind that only get eaten out of desperation when everything else snack-like has disappeared from the home.

And if no one’s able to organize the space in a timely fashion, we end up with a helter skelter stacking of boxes, which only adds to the cluttered feeling of living in a Cold War/Y2K bunker. I’m now sidestepping flats of Spam and discontinued flavors of marked-down Ramen that stand waist-high, begging for children of comparable size to come knock them down, and claustrophobia-inducing towers of cardboard and tin. It can all start to feel like hoarding for beginners.

Toilet paper rolls normally come in multiples of 16, but there are exceptions to this rule. There is a 12-pack of available for purchase, but it’s the extra–mega-super-jumbo, industrial-wide girth rolls usually reserved for airports and other impersonal, utilitarian buildings. Try fitting that onto the standard spool in your restroom and you may end up losing a finger.

There’s a false sense of security brought on by this kind of purchasing. Possibly the most infuriating moment related to bulk shopping convenience arrives when something you’ve lived in close confines with for the past three months has finally run out. “Whaddaya mean we’re out? We just bought 209 of ‘em, like yesterday…” This is particularly true of the aforementioned toilet paper. I know some of you still have those rectangular tissues from the 2004 hurricane season MREs tucked away somewhere, just in case.

But a sense of impending doom has been loitering for as long as anyone can remember. Every so many years they change the how-and-why of our ultimate demise as a species, planet, and life as we know it. I think they think we’ll eventually point out that the world didn’t end as predicted and so they divert our attention to something else to fret over.

Nostradamus is usually associated with end-of-the-world prophecies, but no one seems to nail a prophecy down solid until after the event done come and gone — sort of a  “hindsight is 20/20” thing, re. accuracy. Lots of Negative Nancys say Nostradamus predicted the 2012 doomsday to begin with several natural disasters. He also mentioned a planet that is supposed to hit the earth. He didn’t name the planet, but some scientists named it “Planet X.” I don’t want to disparage the storied seer, but timelines were never his strong suit.

Much ado has been made about the Mayan calendar and the year 2012. By the time you read this, it’ll already be 2012 and you can set your watch for extinction. According to the sort of people who worry about such things, on December 12, 2012 — 12/12/12 for anyone needing it spelled out — doomsayers claim the Earth will be host to a veritable smorgasbord of cataclysmic astronomical events, including a Planet X flyby (again), killer solar flares, and a geomagnetic reversal, guaranteeing a very, very bad day for most, but great ratings for CNN. Not to mention that this is set to take place just before Christmas and you probably still won’t know what to get your brother-in-law. And how sad would it be to perish at the mall, waiting in line for some rapping Santa gag gift? Not only is it the end of civilization, but you’ll also be out ten bucks.

My theory on why the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 is simple. The calendar maker died. Quit. Retired. Started selling Amway or Mary Kay. He/she figured by the time they get to 2012, it’ll be someone else’s problem. Say goodnight, Gracie.

The end of the world is relative. I’m not trying to trivialize anyone’s suffering or loss, but if I were stranded outside the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina for days on end, it would certainly seem like the end of the world. The same goes for watching my house, car, and neighbors being swept away by the 2011 Japanese earthquake/tsunami combo. But it can also seem like the end of the world when your girlfriend reads a text on your phone from another girl who’s pretty sure she’s your girlfriend also. The best you can do at this point is go into survival mode, hunker down, and ask your friends if they know anyone who’s currently single.

But I get the distinct feeling that when the world ends, whether the house is stocked or barren or whether I’m prepared or not, I’ll be out of town. There will be a wedding to attend, a family gathering, or God knows what, but the more supplies I’ve secured in anticipation of end times, the better the odds I’ll be far and away. Then I’ll have to ask if someone will let me crash on their sofa until the end of the world is over — or until it has been replaced by the next season of “American Idol.”

I’m thinking of asking for the day off, just in case, to use the time at home to catch up on my to-do list. If it all goes to hell while I’m doing yard work, no one’s going to fault me for not finishing. I’ll give Nostradamus a high five and call it good if there’s a mass checking out that day and I’m among them.

Otherwise, we’ll all just have to brace ourselves for the next sure thing that guarantees our inevitable doom.

AND YET MORE RANDOM NOTES 

By Rick LaClaire

“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by men. Communism is just the opposite.” — Nikita Khrushchev

Yes, another year has passed. They sure go fast, don’t they? It seems like only yesterday I was shaking out my leisure suit, looking for party leftovers. Nowadays I’m more likely to find a suppository wrapper. This phenomenon was best summed up by Bob Dylan. When asked how he felt when he turned the ripe old age of forty, he said, “Ya just can’t help it.” Yeah Bob, you hit the nail on the head. Time passes, and ya just can’t help it. And when time passes, people pass too. Ya just can’t help it.

Now I could begin this new year loudly lamenting the passage of Steve Jobs or Elizabeth Taylor — people with bigger-than-life fame. Or I could do what I usually do, which is doting on the unsung and less significant. The rich and famous get their lion’s share of attention, so I think it’s only fair to elevate the quickly-forgotten. In some ways they’ve affected me more than their much-lauded contemporaries. For instance, Steve Jobs never entertained me for one minute when I was a teenager, but in half-hour increments, Sherwood Schwartz sure did.

Remember “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch”? Yeah, the shows are corny today, but back in ’65 I never missed an episode of “Gilligan.” Part of it had to do with the fact that we only got two channels on the ol’ black and white Zenith (and one channel was Canadian), but you just never knew; maybe this would be the episode when they get rescued. Of course, we didn’t want them to get rescued. There would be no show — and worse, we’d be relegated to watching the curling playoffs in Saskatoon. “Gilligan” was pulled after the ’67 season and it wouldn’t be until ’69 that my attention was captured by the Bradys. It was from that family I learned which paisley shirt pattern best matched my striped pants. Six kids, two parents, a housekeeper and only one toilet? Except for the live-in maid and the gay dad, that sounded like home to me. You know, after watching over my kids’ shoulders as they indulge in their so-called “reality” TV, I find watching “Brady Bunch” re-runs refreshing. They’re still in daily rotation on one of the religious cable stations.

Schwartz laid some eggs, too. Do you recall “It’s About Time” and “Harper Valley PTA”? I didn’t think so, but everyone remembers “My Favorite Martian.” Schwartz had his hand in there, too. The talents of Sherwood Schwartz, to me, fueled what I call the Aluminum Age in TV. Television’s Golden Age was the Fifties. I call the Sixties the Aluminum Age because that was what the ol’ black and white Zenith’s body was made of: anodized aluminum. Mr. Schwartz died last July. He was 94.

Thirty some-odd years ago I was graced with the gift of a “licorice pizza,” which some will recognize as a vinyl LP, by one of my favorite D.C. blues bands, The Nighthawks.  The band has had a variety of lineups over the years (including Brevard’s own Danny Morris) and this album, Jacks and Kings, featured one Pinetop Perkins. “Pinetop,” for those who don’t know, was a brand of cheap rotgut whiskey which circulated among the troops on both sides during our War Between the States, so named for the pungent pine dowel used as a cork. I don’t know if that has any bearing on Mr. Perkins’s moniker, but man, could that guy roll on the piano.

My favorite cut has always been “Pinetop’s Boogie-Woogie,” a “funny little song” in which he extols the listener to “hold it,” then “get it” and boogie. This song rocks. It’s fun to dance to as well as play, and I’ve tried forever and ever to get that Pinetop piano roll down and can’t quite “get it.” His real name was Joe Willie Perkins and he died last March at age 97.

Another loss in March was Geraldine Ferraro. Remember her? If not, remember Walter Mondale? Well, in case you don’t, Walter Mondale ran for president in 1984 and I (and two other people) voted for him. In retrospect I don’t know why I did that, but I do remember he was the first nominee to run with a woman as his vice-president. No, he didn’t make it, and I always thought he had a sex change shortly afterward and became Madeline Albright, but that’s just a rumor. Anyway, in 1984, it took a lot of guts to bust into Reagan-era politics with a woman in tow. And it took a lot more guts to be that woman. Of course the Republicans took her apart piece-by-piece and in the end, well, you know what happened. Four more years of The Gipper — or “The Gypper,” depending on which social stratum you occupied. Geraldine Ferraro was 75.

Has there ever been a more distinctive singing voice than Phoebe Snow’s? You could recognize her in a heartbeat. The first time I heard her was in college, when my then-housemate Sam bought the Still Crazy album by Paul Simon. Simon was always infusing new sounds and Phoebe certainly filled the bill. Despite legal hassles with her labels, she was much in demand and recorded with the likes of Lou Rawls, Garland Jeffreys, Billy Joel and Queen, among many others. She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 2010 and never fully recovered. Born Phoebe Ann Laub, she died in April at age 60.

When someone called “Doctor Death” meets his demise, do you celebrate, mourn, or what? Also known as “Jack the Dripper,” his goal was “death with dignity,” and as I grow older and nearer my own time I find myself agreeing more and more with his philosophy. He was not a wanton killer. Yes, his methods were said to defy the then-current moral standards, but did they really? Abortion had been legal for decades. You could kill your defenseless fetal offspring, but not willingly take your own declining life? Kevorkian said it was okay to do that and put his own butt on the line. His goal, he said, was not to kill people, but to end their suffering. He went to jail. After release from prison in 2007, he devoted his life to lecturing and running for Congress. He was also an artist who sometimes painted with his own blood. I find that just a bit weird. He died in June.

Chester, Festus, Miz Kitty, Doc… What do those names conjure? “Gunsmoke”! It is said that the Wild West only lasted seventeen years, but Gunsmoke lasted twenty. There’s something to be said for a TV show that can re-write history. Of course the glue that held the Gunsmoke gang together was Marshall Matt Dillon, also known as James Arness. Born James Aurness and father of 1970 world-champion surfer Rolf Aurness, he was 88 when he died in June.

Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, Jerry Lieber… The arts took a beating in 2011. I was never a fan of Bruce Springsteen, but who could resist that signature sax style of Clarence Clemons? And remember hearing “Jailhouse Rock” for the first time? I was only five then, and ten years later I covered the very same song with my high school rock combo. Someone told me Big Mama Thornton wrote that song, but no, it was a couple of white guys from Baltimore called Jerry Leiber and Jeff Stoller. Clarence Clemons died in June, Jerry Leiber in August.

Finally, does the name Lana Peters ring a bell? Perhaps you would know her better by her birth name, Svetlana Stalina. Yes folks, she was the daughter of that fun-loving, devil-may-care, madcap despot known as Josef Stalin. Now why would the only daughter of the leader of the not-so-free world want to defect to the land of hot dogs and Playboy magazine? Well, why not? Nikita Khrushchev, one of Stalin’s homies, once said he witnessed the “man of steel” grab Svetlana’s mother by the hair and drag her to the dance floor (it’s rumored alcohol was a factor). I hope it was a good song. Obviously, Svetlana had daddy issues, and a few years after his death she defected to America where she took the name Lana Peters. Hounded by reporters and paparazzi all her days here, she desperately sought privacy, winding up back in Russia for a short time in the ’80s. She died in Wisconsin at age 85.

Japan Again “Toto” is to sophisticated toilets in Japan as “Apple” is to consumer electronics in America. In September, Toto unveiled a prototype motorcycle with a toilet bowl to convert a driver’s waste into fuel, not only making it self-gassed-up but contributing to the company’s goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent within six years. The company was launching a monthlong, cross-country publicity tour (presumably featuring a gastro-intestinally robust driver). And in America, the quest for perfectly straight teeth can lead to orthodontia bills of thousands of dollars, but in Japan, a dental “defect” — slightly crooked canine teeth — makes young women more fetching, even “adorable,” say many men. Women with the “yaeba” look have canines pushed slightly forward by the molars behind them so that the canines develop a fang-like appearance. One dental salon, the Plaisir, in Tokyo, recently began offering non-permanent fixtures that replicate the look among straight-toothed women.

Marketing Genius Apparently, officials at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport felt the need for professional guidance on rebranding their facility to (as one put it) “carry it into the modern era,” and so hired the creative talents of Big Communications of Birmingham, Ala., to help. Big’s suggested name for the airport, announced to great fanfare in September: “Chattanooga Airport.”

March Of The Eccentrics “My ultimate dream is to be buried in a deep ocean close to where penguins live,” explained the former Alfred David, 79, otherwise known in his native Belgium as “Monsieur Pingouin” (Mr. Penguin), so named because a 1968 auto accident left him with a waddle in his walk that he decided to embrace with gusto. (His wife abandoned the marriage when he made the name change official; evidently, being “Mrs. Penguin” was not what she had signed up for.) Mr. Pingouin started a penguin-item museum that ultimately totaled 3,500 items, and he created a hooded, full-body black-and-white penguin outfit that, according to a September Reuters dispatch, he wears daily in his waddles around his Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek.

False Comfort The British recreation firm UK Paintball announced in August that a female customer had been injured after a paintball shot hit her in the chest, causing her silicone breast implant to “explode.” The company recommended that paintball facilities supply better chest protection for women with implants. Also, the Moscow, Russia, newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported in October that a local woman’s life had been saved by her “state-of-the-art” silicone breast implant. Her husband had stabbed her repeatedly in the chest during a domestic argument, but the implant’s gel supposedly deflected the blade.

Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’ The North Koreans called it a “cruise ship” and tried to establish a business model to attract wealthy tourists from China, but to the New York Times reporter on board in September, the 40-year-old boat was more like a “tramp steamer” on which “vacationers” paid the equivalent of $470 to “enjoy” five days and nights at sea. More than 200 people boarded the “dim” and “musty” vessel, “sometimes eight to a room with floor mattresses” and iffy bathrooms. The onboard “entertainment” consisted not of shuffleboard but of “decks of cards” and karaoke. Dinner “resembled a mess hall at an American Army base,” but with leftovers thrown overboard (even though some of it was blown back on deck). The trip was capped, wrote the Times, by the boat’s crashing into the pier as it docked, knocking a corner of the structure “into a pile of rubble.”

Weeding Out The Riffraff Sally Stricker was angry that the Nebraska troopers patrolling the state fair grounds in September had told her that she had an “illegal” message on her T-shirt and that if she wished to remain at the fair, she would have to either change shirts or wear hers inside out. The “message” was a marijuana leaf with the slogan “Don’t panic, It’s organic.” Stricker was at the fair to attend the night’s live concert — starring (marijuana-friendly) Willie Nelson.

Truth In Stereotypes Italian men are notorious “bamboccionis” (“big babies”) who exploit doting mothers by remaining in their family homes well into adulthood, sometimes into their 30s or later, expecting meals and laundry service. Many mothers are tolerant, but in September an elderly couple in the town of Mestre announced (through a consumer association) that if their 41-year-old, gainfully employed son did not meet a deadline for leaving, the association would file a lawsuit to evict him. (A news update has not been found, perhaps indicating that the son moved out.)

Going Medieval Freemon Seay, 38, was arrested in Thurston County, Wash., in October on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after disciplining his 16-year-old daughter for leaving home without his approval. Seay allegedly forced the girl to suit up in armor and helmet, with a wooden sword, and to fight him (also in armor, with a wooden sword) for over two hours until she could no longer stand up. Seay’s wife (the girl’s stepmother) was booked as an accessory and was said by deputies to have been supportive of her husband’s “Renaissance fair” enthusiasm (which Freemon Seay called a “lifestyle”).

I’ve always loved sorority girls. They’re always gorgeous and always eager to party. I’ve dated quite a few since I started college, but I’ve never met anyone quite like Beth. Beth belongs to one of the most conservative Christian sororities on campus, and though she’s really pretty and has a great body, Beth looks down on people who drink and do drugs and has probably never been to a wild party in her life. Even though I’m one of the hardest-core partiers at school, Beth seems to like me… I think because she thinks she can change me into a straight-laced gentleman. But little does she know that I’m out to change her. Beth really needs to cut loose. I’m not going to do anything sneaky like roofie her milkshake, but I am determined to prove to her the virtues of partying hard and letting go of your inhibitions. Everything so far has failed though. I was hoping maybe you could help.

“Kyle”
Merritt Island

Indeed I can help, Lyle. I am well known in many circles for my ability to convert even the most prudish of sorority coeds to the joys of the libidinous bacchanalia. I remember once dating a similarly puritanical girl who belonged to a sisterhood called Pi Pi Lambda. By the time I was done with her and her sisters, the whole organization had changed its name to Bi-Pi Lambada!

Romeo,

I got a problem. My girl is super hot and really cool, but she can’t stand the beach — which is more than this Florida-born surfer can handle. “Leslie” is from Buffalo, New York. We met when she came down here two years ago on vacation with her family. (I know! Who would have thought that I’d end up falling in love with a snow bird!) Anyways, I’m pretty convinced that she’s the one. It’s just this problem of her hating the beach! She hates the sand getting everywhere, she hates the salty, sticky air, and she says the waves are too big for her to enjoy swimming. She won’t say it, but I’m pretty sure she’s not even happy about me surfing. I love her to bits, but I don’t know what to do about this. I can’t believe it, but I’m starting to consider giving up going to the beach for her sake. She must be quite a girl, right?

“Chip”
Cocoa Beach

This sounds like quite a problem. But there’s no need for you to give up your interests for the sake of love. I can acclimate anyone to the pleasures of the seashore, and this girl is no exception. Let me take her to the beach with my woodie. I’d also be happy to show her my mahogany-paneled Ford.

Dear Romeo,

I’m having a difficult time with my boyfriend. We love each other deeply, but the relationship is beginning to show signs of strain. This is mainly due to my disgust with performing oral sex. Don is going crazy and threatening to leave me if I don’t pleasure him in this way. But I’m just not into it, Romeo. Frankly, the whole idea of it has always disgusted me. I don’t want him to take it personally. Please help.

Mary H.
Cape Canaveral

Not to worry, Lillian. You must try to pleasure him so well in other ways that he will forget about his preoccupation with fellatio. I remember I once had the opposite problem. Back in Italy, I dated a girl who preferred performing oral sex to traditional copulation. Needless to say, this was a huge blow to me. But I managed to forgive her in the end.

Romeo,

A few months ago I started seeing “Denise.” Denise is a good girl at heart, but she’s a little wild. To be honest, Romeo, Denise is a common tramp. I’m not all that proud of our relationship (which is based entirely on rough, impromptu sex), but she has no relatives and I feel a little sorry for her. Seeing as how Thanksgiving is coming up, I feel kind of guilty about leaving her on her own. I’m thinking about inviting her over to my parent’s house this year to feast with my close-knit family. Of course, I’m sure all my pretty straight-laced relatives will give both of us a hard time and I really don’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I’m more worried about my mother though; I’m sure she’ll go ballistic when she meets Denise. Is it worth hurting her feelings or ruining our family holiday? Any thoughts? What should I do?

John B.
Cocoa

Frank, don’t be such a turkey! Invite her! This is a time to give thanks and to be generous. I have been in a similar position many times over — and trust me, my mother is far more judgmental and vengeful than yours. The main question is: Are you a real man? Do you have any cranberries? If you do, then you’ll not hesitate in inviting her over! Do not be so shallow as to leave this poor girl alone on this most generous and loving of holidays. This girl may embarrass you at the table by requesting gravy on her pie. So what? Serve her! Maybe she would like a roll? Give her one! Maybe she desires stuffing? Maybe she yearns for a hot yam? Perhaps she’d like her buns buttered? Whatever the case, do not ruin this girl’s Thanksgiving for the sake of propriety. Pass the breasts and give thanks!

Wrong Dolly The Learning Channel’s “Toddlers & Tiaras” series has pushed critics’ buttons enough with its general support of the competitive world of child beauty pageants, but a recent episode provoked unusually rabid complaints, according to a September New York Post report. Mother Lindsay Jackson had costumed her 4-year-old Maddy as “Dolly Parton,” with anatomically correct chest and backside. The Post described Maddy as “embarrass(ed)” at her chest when another 4-year-old pointed at her and asked, “What is that?” (Ultimately, the judges liked Maddy — for “sweetest face.”) In related news, while too many children in Third World countries die from starvation or lack of basic medicines, the preschoolers of the TLC TV channel’s “Outrageous Kid Parties” reality show celebrate birthdays and “graduation” (from or to kindergarten) with spectacular events that may cost their parents $30,000 or more. Typical features, according to an August ABC News report, included a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, a dunking booth, animal rides and a cotton candy machine, as well as the obligatory live music and limo or horseback (for grand entrances).

Thankfully No Swirlie Chicago’s WLS Radio reported that a man (unnamed in the story) filed a $600,000 lawsuit on Sept. 2 against the Grossinger City Autoplex in the city, claiming that five employees had physically harassed him during business hours over a two-month period in 2009. Included was the man’s claim that he had been given multiple “wedgies,” one of which was a “hanging” wedgie.

Score! Madrid’s Getafe soccer club, struggling for customers, startled Spain this summer by commissioning a porn movie, with zombies, hoping to attract more fans. As if that were not quixotic enough, it then tied the movie to a campaign to solicit sperm-bank donations. Explained the film’s producer, Angel Torres, “We have to move a mass of fans to seed the world with Getafe supporters.” A promo for the film follows a Getafe fan, armed with a copy of the movie for his viewing pleasure, as he disappears into a clinic’s private cubicle to fulfill his donation.

Metal Lite A New York Times obituary for former lead singer Jani Lane of the heavy metal band Warrant revealed that Mr. Lane’s birth name (he was born a year after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy) was John Kennedy Oswald. Rebellious musicians (Warrant’s debut album was Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich) often adopt provocative stage names to enhance their image, but Mr. Lane must be one of the very few to have abandoned a provocative birth name in favor of a bland one.

9/11: A Great Excuse Among the aftershocks of the 9/11 attacks on America was the colossal budget-busting on “homeland security” — a spending binge that, additionally, was thought to require something approaching uniform disbursement of funds throughout the 50 states. (Endless “what if” possibilities left no legislator willing to forsake maximum security.) Among the questionable projects described in a Los Angeles Times August review were the purchase of an inflatable Zodiac boat with wide-scan sonar — in case terrorists were eyeing Lake McConaughy in Keith County, Neb.; cattle nose leads, halters and electric prods (to protect against biological attacks on cows, awarded to Cherry County, Neb.); a terrorist-proof iron fence around a Veterans Affairs hospital near Asheville, N.C.; and $557,400 in communications and rescue gear in case North Pole, Alaska, got hit.

Struck By Turtle An update of the official index for classifying medical conditions (for research and quality control, and for insurance claims) was released recently, to take effect in October 2013, and replaced the current 18,000 codes with 140,000 much more specific ones. A September Wall Street Journal report noted, for example, 72 different codes for injuries involving birds, depending on the type. “Bitten by turtle” is different from “struck by turtle.” Different codes cover injuries in “opera houses,” on squash courts, and exactly where in or around a mobile home an injury occurred. “Walked into lamppost, initial encounter” is distinct from “walked into lamppost, subsequent encounter.” Codes cover conditions stemming from encounters with extraterrestrials and conditions resulting from “burn due to water skis on fire.” “Bizarre personal appearance” has a code, as well as “very low level of personal hygiene.”

Horse Feathers! Earlier this year, Marion Laval-Jeantet won a notable Prix Ars Electronica award for her “hybrid” work that, she said, intends to blur the boundaries between species. Laval-Jeantet stepped onstage in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as a horse-human, having earlier injected herself with horse blood (after prepping her body for several months with different horse immunoglobulins). She also walked with stilts that had “hooves” affixed to the bottom. She capped the show by extracting some of her own presumably-hybrid blood, to be frozen and stored for future research.

Ready For The Big League In October (1995), Richard King, 36, pleaded guilty to making threatening and obscene phone calls to two boys who were star players on his son’s Little League team in Blue Springs, Mo., to get them to reconsider their plans to quit the team. According to prosecutors, King called the boys several times while he was on a business trip in China and threatened to kill one kid and his parents and to commit sodomy on the kid’s whole family.

SAGITTARIUS: No one has ever doubted your worldliness or reputation as a jetsetter, so try not to show off too much this Thanksgiving. An around the world-themed feast starts well with Norwegian lox and Salade Nicoise, but falls flat when the Burmese maggot pudding comes to the table.

CAPRICORN: If you devoted as much time to your personal hygiene as you do to detailing your expensive car, you probably wouldn’t have to spend your weekends scraping boogers off the console of your limited edition Alfa Romeo.

AQUARIUS: You’re a slave to fashion — so much so that you’re shamed by a flea market vendor into buying two Abernathy & Finch t-shirts, a pair of Channel sunglasses, and a Dolce & Banana handbag.

PISCES: As a proud veteran of the U.S. Navy, you rightfully take umbrage at all the “don’t bend over for the soap” jokes you routinely hear. However, your life might be a tad easier if you refrained from wearing that purple feather boa each time you went out.

ARIES: For you, there’s never a question of as to whether the glass is half-full or half-empty so long as there’s at least a drop or two of cheap vodka in it.

TAURUS: Math has never been your strong point, but that’s no excuse for allowing many of your monthly bills to go unpaid. Your subscription to Hustler.com is still current, but it’s hard enjoying the benefits when your power’s been cut off.

GEMINI: Your interest in genealogy provides you with both joy and abject disappointment later this month. On your father’s side, you’ll be pleased to learn that you’re distantly related to Abraham Lincoln. Too bad your mother is Steve Doocy’s sister.

CANCER: Your desire to always be first in your field is certainly commendable. Changing the name of your business from “Zorro’s Zesty Prostitutes” to “AAAA-1 Escorts” is probably the best decision you’ll ever make.

LEO: Your family has always played an important role in your life, and Thanksgiving is the time when you shine the brightest. It’s a shame your relatives don’t share your enthusiasm for humping the turkey before it gets carved.

VIRGO: If you’re unhappy about your lot in life, consider the people who have it as bad, if not worse, than you do. It’s this kind of thinking that will buoy your spirits while your yacht is in drydock for repairs.

LIBRA: You know that you’ve always been uncommonly attractive to men, but you’re puzzled by the growing number of nerds who have been hitting on you since you got that Chinese “Peace” character tattooed on your ankle. Turns out it’s not Chinese at all, but Klingon for “Space Wench.”

Wasted Day
• Rick LaClaire

“And the hangovers hurt more than they used to…” — Hank Williams, Jr.

I have a musician friend with a theory about life expectancy. He claims that each of us is born with a preprogrammed number of breaths and heartbeats; that each of us, regardless of how we treat our bodies, is doomed to wear out anyway at a certain specified point.

G. Gordon Liddy once said that the maximum mileage of the human machine is 125 years. If you didn’t smoke, drink, have any stress, mainline meth or get hit by a truck, your body would wear out anyway at one-two-five. I’ve certainly never known anyone to live that long, but I also don’t know anyone who’s never been stressed (maybe it’s because they know me?).

The point is, we don’t live forever. Time is precious, and time lost is exactly that — lost — because we have only so many breaths and so many years. But that’s only if you believe my bass player or a convicted Watergate burglar…

I have certainly noticed one constant: the older I get, the faster time passes. That’s handy in a way, like when you’re waiting for a flight connection or having a root canal. A couple of hours of unpleasantness were hell when I was 21. At pushin’-60 it’s only Purgatory … Or maybe Limbo. Which place has the calypso Muzak?

So you may suppose a mere annoyance like a hangover, at my age, would be a walk in the park. Its only cure is time, and it passes so quickly at age 57 that — pffft — just like that, it’s over. Not so. Why? Because hangovers, at my age, are actually worse than they were when I was 21. And I also believe that when one has a hangover, time is suspended. It sure felt that way a few weeks ago.

I don’t have a lot of free time. Now I know I have friends who will say, “LaClaire, if you’re so busy how come you have time to write these stupid articles?” And I have an answer for that. Writing stupid articles, like having a hangover, is time suspended. It may not take that long, but it sure seems like it does.

Anyway, I have only a certain amount of hours each week to devote to primping and maintaining this humble pile of rocks I call home. This usually takes place on weekends, Saturday mornings being the prime time for outdoor chores like mowing, pruning, mending fence and snaking drain vents. To avoid the energy-sucking heat of the day, I like to be in the yard by 8 a.m. and in the pool by noon. To lose this window is like losing a week’s worth of chores, so I like to arise chipper, rested, and alert. That having been said, it seldom happens. That’s because Friday night is when my wife and I hit the town.

Recently, on one particular Friday, we didn’t just “hit” the town, we kicked its butt. As usual, we began with a cocktail at home and then walked to a local restaurant for dinner. Service was slow, so we managed to down a few glasses of wine in waiting. Then a beer with dinner, an aperitif in the bar, and the next thing you know we’re at the Oasis and I’m slammin’ Cuervo. Of course we run into neighbors there, and they must buy us a round, and what began as one shot for the road turns into three sheets to the wind.

There are as many cures for a hangover as there are ways to get one. One cure that always comes to mind is what I call “The Otis.” You may remember Otis Campbell, Mayberry’s loveable town drunk on “The Andy Griffith Show.” I’m sure you’ve seen the scene: Otis awakes in his personalized jail cell, hungover as all get-out, and Andy enters with the makings of an instant cure. Somehow this mixture of tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, and a raw egg performs a miracle I’ve never experienced. An obviously nauseated Otis guzzles this potion, and at the cue of a tympanic boom, he is suddenly well. Oh, how I wish that was factual. Oh, how I wish there were some elixir capable of curing this most miserable state of self-infliction.

Some say “hair of the dog.” I’ve never been able to do that. I can’t even look at a bottle of liquor, much less smell or taste it when I have a hangover. I’ve been told that means I’m not an alcoholic. I’ve also been told it means I’m a wuss.

Others have said you should eat a big breakfast. Nothing light and fruity, but something substantial like eggs, bacon, ham, and biscuits with gravy, all washed down with hot coffee or a cold Coke. In my experience, that can help, but there’s no guarantee. Sometimes it only serves as fuel for the malady. Especially if you’re like me, one of the lucky people whose hangovers are primarily in the gastric region.

Many years ago there was an over-the-counter hangover cure called “Quick Over.” Do you remember this? It was a blister pack containing a handful of large pills to be taken all at once. A couple were aspirin and a couple were antacid, combined to supposedly alleviate both the cranial and gastric symptoms of a hangover. I tried this once before a fishing trip. Unfortunately, a couple of other pills were heavy doses of caffeine, for lethargy. Did it work? It made me sick as a dog, worse than if I had taken nothing. If it had worked, it would still be on the market, wouldn’t it? And I’d own stock…

We all know that a hangover will eventually end. The span of that time can vary widely though, depending on what caused your hangover.

Doctors say there are two causes. One is an element known as a congener. Congeners are what make gin taste like gin and sour mash taste so sour. They’re adulterants, mostly. Flavorings. Tannins for color. The Coke in your rum and Coke. So, an easy way to avoid hangovers would be to drink your booze straight, right? Wrong. The other cause is the alcohol itself. Let’s face it, if you drink too much you will be sick. No two ways about it.

Let’s examine the building blocks of my last disabling hangover. A drink at home… well, maybe two drinks. Okay, three bourbon and sodas before deciding on a restaurant. Like I said, service was slow there, so we had some wine. So three shots of bourbon, two merlots, then a Guinness with my grouper sammitch. Then a Drambuie at the rail. So already we’ve had whisky, wine, beer, and brandy. With a nice greasy chunk of fried fish floating around in it. Then the clincher: Cuervo Gold. Three shots. Whisky, wine, beer, brandy, and cactus juice — that’s a certified puker! But I didn’t. Nope. If I had, I probably would have felt better. Instead, I had the mother of all hangovers. I slept through my Saturday morning choretime. Actually, “slept” isn’t the right word. I groaned through my chore time.

Nothing makes you feel stupider than a hangover. It’s not like a regular disease — you don’t “catch” it from somebody. You don’t inherit hangovers through your genes. You bring them on yourself, through a process known as gluttony. And it is a wasteful process. In that case, I wasted an entire Saturday. My most productive hours, hours set aside to enhance the curb appeal of this humble home, my greatest investment, destroyed by wasteful selfish gluttony. Time lost.

O, Pioneers! Part IV: Sodbusters

• By Rick LaClaire • 

It is August as I write this… August in one of the driest Florida summers I can recall. You’ve often heard me warn of dry Florida summers — heat, fire, misery… But that’s on the mainland. Beachside’s a different story.

Dry summers mean that every day is a beach day. The surf warms and stays that way (unless we get an upwelling — we’ll talk about that some other time). So what if your lawn is brown? Lawns don’t belong beachside; too much water, too many chemicals. When you get sick of looking at the hell-on-earth your yard has become, just go jump in the ocean. And be thankful you’re not mowing.

When I began this serial I posed a question: What would have happened if the original Florida settlers had arrived during a dry summer? I remember experiencing my first Buffalo winter and telling my wife, “I think the people who settled this place came on the Fourth of July.” Our original Florida Crackers must have come at Christmas. A dry summer would have certainly been a deterrent, as the earliest settlers were primarily mainlanders. It was considered stupid to build on the beach. Thank God we are now enlightened. I think…

And so it was with the great LaClaire emigration of ’87. We became mainlanders. The house is still there, in Eau Gallie. I have no fondness for the place, but I drive by it occasionally. The memories it kindles are forlorn — homesick, broke, heat-stricken… And all in a dry summer. Add to that the pressure of starting a business, and it was some of the worst stress I’ve ever experienced.

But we were pioneers then. We had taken our future into our own hands and would soon find out what we were made of. We’d provisioned and mustered in Buffalo; had our shakedown in the highways and hills of southwestern New York and Pennsylvania; fought hostile commuters on the outskirts of Fort Mom; reconnoitered under the huge sombrero at South of the Border; and had a hoedown in Florence. Now, when I think back, the final leg of our journey was probably the smoothest.

By this point, I had mastered the U-Haul’s retarded stick shift and had become somewhat comfortable in even the thickest of traffic. That was tested again in Jacksonville, but I prevailed. I’d even learned to live with the intermittent radio (skrrrxx, skrrrxx…). I guess it was like living next to a railroad track; after a while you don’t even notice. Driving that beast had become second nature. Then, an obstacle. Not the largest, but the most embarrassing.

It was a mere curb. We’d arrived at our new home and I was attempting to back the U-Haul up to the front door. In all our miles I had never faced the scenario of backing up. All my motions had been in the forward gears. Reverse, I soon learned, was another acquired skill. I tried and failed, stalling again and again, blocking the road and creating ample entertainment for the neighbors. They soon gathered.

“Whatcha tryna do?” a portly man with a mouthful of chicken asked. It was dinnertime. His was in his hand. Not a mere drumstick, but a whole half a chicken. Grease ran between his fingers. I felt like saying something snotty like “going bowling,” but I bit my tongue. I was hungry, sweaty, tired, and suddenly aware of the skrrrxx-ing radio. “I’m stuck on the curb,” I admitted. “It’s been a long day.”

“You sure you wanna cross the lawn with this thing?” He took a huge bite out of his chicken and chewed vividly.

“It’s full of furniture. I wanted to get close to the door.”

“Well, then –” and he pitched the chicken in the yard “– shove over.”

What? Before I could stop him he had displaced me. He was so big I couldn’t resist. Chicken grease on the shifter, grease on the steering wheel… He slapped her into reverse and in a heartbeat we were at the door.

“Uh… Thanks,” I managed.

“Thank me later. We probably just snapped off a half-dozen sprinkler heads.”

Do things ever turn out the way you imagine them beforehand? They never have for me. Our new home in Eau Gallie was no exception. Yes, I had seen the place and a dozen others in my previous trip to lay down a security deposit. It seemed nice then. In fact, it was the nicest I’d been shown. But now that we were actually in the place… I guess I hadn’t looked too closely.

One of the first chores the coonskin settlers had to negotiate was land-clearing. Before you could build a house, corral the livestock, sink a well or plant a seed, you had to carve your place in the wilderness. My land-clearing chores were discovered at first light the next day. When I had seen the place six weeks before, the lawn was trimmed, full, and neat. That was the last time a mower had been pushed over this property. The lawn was now thigh-high. I didn’t need a mower. I needed a reaper. Apparently my neighbors had also noticed. Parked in the center of my lawn were a mower and a can of gas, courtesy of the chicken-eater. I found it rude, but complied. I spent the first four hours of my first morning in our new Florida digs mowing — or should I say reaping.

There were other problems. The carpet was full of sandspurs; you couldn’t walk barefoot in the house. Our two-year-old found that out right away. The bathrooms were moldy. I opened the dishwasher to discover all its parts sitting on a rack within. The toilet ran — who knew for how long? The fridge was skanky, and our AC consisted of two window units: one in the dining area and one in the baby’s bedroom. And there were bugs, lots of them.

There was a shed in the back, full of old plumbing and an ancient trunk. Hoping for treasure, I flipped the lid. I was horrified at the sight of hundreds of huge cockroaches, fairly seething within. I slammed it shut and shuddered all the way to the house. “Don’t ever go in there,” I said to my wife.

Our little wake-up calls were constant. The water tasted terrible. There were fire ants all over the yard. Half the stove didn’t work. And yes, I had broken off a half-dozen sprinkler heads. Compared to the setbacks and disappointments our pioneer forefathers had experienced, our torments were minor, but didn’t seem so then. All contributed to a heaviness, a burden that grew daily and finally manifested itself in deep homesickness. We had left all our friends, good jobs, family, and a comfortable flat in a nice neighborhood for this: a sweltering pile of moldering cinder blocks in a strange and seemingly hostile land.

This was our “soddie,” this Eau Gallie bungalow. It was the first spindly root of our establishment here. The pioneers of the Great Plains built soddies. Generations later, they became a source of pride, these holes-out-of-the-ground. And that’s exactly what they were: dwellings comprised of the land itself. They represented a make-do spirit in a land of no lumber. Though meant to be temporary, some Midwestern farm families preserved them. They proved to be durable, when built right. Cool in the summer, warm in the winter. And they remind you where you came from.

No, I have no fond memories of our first house here. It was gloomy as a cave and rank as the artesian water that spewed from the sprinklers I eventually fixed. Probably just like a soddie… The place seemed cursed to me. Drug dealers had occupied it before us. There had been a big bust. Children were involved. It was a “marked” house — doomed. Consequently, the neighbors were nosy. We felt watched all the time. There wasn’t a chore I could do without the chicken-eater butting in. Mow the lawn? Yer doin’ it wrong. Here, lemme show ya. Change the oil in the Buick? Ya don’t want thirty-weight, ya want twenny. The clincher came when his wife accused my wife of wearing the same outfit two days in a row.

We lived there for nine months. In the space of a marriage, a good one anyway, that’s not a long time. But whenever I drive by, I still get this “clunk” in my chest. The heaviness comes back. After our two-vehicle wagon train emigration I thought we would be through with our adventure. Twenty-four years later, it hasn’t ended yet.

LIBRA: You may find your little heart all aflutter this month. Is it that special someone you’ve been ogling at the gym or is it a clogged artery? Only time will tell.

SCORPIO: Your work habits have improved greatly these past few months but unfortunately will garner you no rewards. Now fill this cup with pee and price that case of Pop Tarts before I write you up.

SAGITTARIUS: Later this month you give new meaning to supporting the troops when you carry three veterans on your back during a foot race with a gay Democrat.

CAPRICORN: Everyone makes mistakes. But it takes a stubborn, persistent schmuck like you to keep making the same ones over and over. Remember this simple equation: Fire = hot.

AQUARIUS: Your popularity with the opposite sex has somewhat ebbed this month but will soon return, putting you atop everyone’s list. To castrate.

PISCES: You have a knack for spreading good cheer and positivity. This will come in handy now that you’ve fulfilled your lifelong dream of opening your own funeral parlor.

ARIES: This month I foresee the moon moving into your house and the Star of Phoebus lingering in your kitchen. If someone knocks on your door and asks if something is burning, it is most likely the Star of Phoebus.

TAURUS: Can you go the whole month without succumbing to the distractions that stifle your motivation to accomplish anything worthwhile? Better consult your bartender before giving it a try.

GEMINI: This month you’ll finally have the courage to come out of your shell, only to find that your shell was the only thing keeping you from being crushed to death.

CANCER: You’re so used to being alone that just when you thought you’d never find “The One,” you finally meet him. Sadly, he has become so used to being alone that the two of you decide it would be better to just keep to yourselves.

LEO: You have questioned my authority more than once, but this time you should heed my warnings. Things are going to take a turn for the worse in your financial house, so stock up on toilet paper and Wheat Thins while you still have the funds. Just remember, people lived just fine without electricity in the old days.

Dear Romeo,

My girlfriend Angie is a great looking girl and attracts stares from guys every time we go out. I admit I get a thrill out of showing her off because it reminds me of how lucky I am. Angie has always been a conservative dresser. She could go out in an ankle-length parka and muddy galoshes and still get attention. But since she turned 35 this past June, she’s taken to wearing more revealing clothing — sometimes too revealing, in my opinion. This summer has been one of the hottest on record, I’ll give her that, but I also think she may be starting to feel self-conscious about her age and is over compensating. Personally, I think she’s too old and classy to be dressing like a 15-year-old tramp, wearing what’s become her new favorite combo, a small, tight tank top and the top of her thong peeking out of her short shorts. She thinks I’m being prudish. What’s your opinion?

“Ron”
Cocoa Beach

In my humble opinion, Desmond, a girl of any age wearing short shorts with the top of her thong sticking out is guilty of some very cheeky behavior. It makes me wonder what young girls will be wearing 10 years from now. Your lady friend would be right in thinking that you’re being prudish, however. If you love her for her looks and her body and want to support her as she goes through this difficult time, I suggest that you let her show her whale tail. Just be sure she covers her blowhole. Ahoy!

Romeo,

I’m a girl who loves the outdoors. I mean really, really loves the outdoors. I’ve been with lots of guys who share my passion for hiking and camping, but all of them eventually get fed up with my constant need to sleep out under the stars. They usually split around this time of year when the temperatures get hotter and the mosquitoes start swarming. Honestly, all that has never bothered me at all. And I always sleep in the buff! Where have all the real men gone?

Kate S.
Merritt Island

Right here! I’m a real man! Even though I routinely shave my legs and chest and spend an inordinate amount of time on my hair, you will not find a man more in love with the outdoors and camping than I. Call me sometime. I am always pitching a tent!

Romeo,

Recently, while cleaning some computer files, I discovered that my husband has been visiting a slew of disgusting porn sites on a daily basis. I feel cheated and betrayed. Plus, all of these sites deal with some very strange and disturbing fetishes. Why are men obsessed with porn? Can you explain this phenomenon?

Martha D.
Cocoa

This is a terrible calamity of which you speak. Sex is a natural function, but it shouldn’t be shown in an ugly way that ignores romance. Porn is just a mechanical thing that has no place in sex. Every man has at least one fetish, but it sounds like your husband has too many to control. I can’t give you much assistance, but you can visit my informational blog on this distressing subject at: www.romeoshotgirlongirlaction.com. Enter!

Romeo,

I’m trying to plan a sexy-themed party for dear friend who’s finally getting married and all my fellow bridesmaids. We’ve decided that we’re totally not into creepy male strippers, but we’re still having a hard time coming up with a racy alternative. Any ideas?

Janice K.
Cocoa Beach

Dear woman, how about letting me help you organize a furniture party? I know it doesn’t sound very sexy, but just wait and see. After a few pink martinis, you’ll all be showing me your chests! I’ll even let you look in my drawers!

Dear Romeo,

I am so fed up with guys who think saying “That’s what she said!” is funny. Every time I go out with my girlfriends we always meet some jerk who think it’s hilarious to add it on after we say something unintentionally suggestive. What’s worse is that some of these idiots are well into their 40s. Please tell your male readers to stop this annoying habit.

Tracy G.
Cape Canaveral

Naomi, you’re not the only girl who has written to me about this. I get loads of letters about this very topic every day. As a matter of fact, I’ve created a special email account devoted solely to such missives. Every time I turn around, my box is full… which, coincidentally, is exactly what she said.

Great American Pastimes The New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter achieved his milestone 3,000th major league hit in July, and Steiner Sports Marketing of New Rochelle, N.Y., was ready (in partnership with the Yankees and Major League Baseball). Dozens of items from the game were offered to collectors, including the bases ($7,500 each), 30 balls used during the game ($2,000 each, unsigned), and even Jeter’s sweaty socks ($1,000). Steiner had also collected five gallons of dirt (under supervision, to assure authenticity), and uberfans can buy half-ounce containers of clay walked upon by Jeter during the game (from the shortstop area and the right-hand batter’s box) — for a not-dirt-cheap $250 each.

On Second Thought The initial explanation by Melvin Jackson, 48, upon his arrest in June for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in Kansas City, Mo., was to deny that he would ever do such a thing. Rather, he said, “I thought the lady was dead.” The initial explanation by Thomas O’Neil, 47, upon his arrest in Wausau, Wis., in June for criminal damage to property (breaking into a neighbor’s garage and defecating on the floor) was to claim that he thought he was in his own garage.

Them Thar Avenues “The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold,” said one of New York City’s gold wranglers, as he, down on all fours and manipulating tweezers, picked specks of gold, silver and jewels that had fallen off of clothing and jewelry racks as they were rolled from trucks into stores. The man told the New York Post in June that he had recently earned $819 in redemptions for six days’ prospecting.

Kids Today… A loaded handgun fell from the pocket of a kindergarten student in Houston in April, firing a single bullet that slightly wounded two classmates and the “shooter.” In Grant County, Wis., prosecutors filed first-degree sexual assault charges recently against a 6-year-old boy, stemming from a game of “doctor” that authorities say he pressured a 5-year-old girl into in 2010. And in Lakewood, Colo., police attempting to wrest control of a sharpened stick that a second-grade boy was using to threaten classmates and a teacher, gave him two shots of pepper spray. (The boy had just finished shouting to police, “Get away from me you f—ers.”)

China’s Got Balls Zhou Xin, 68, failed to get a callback from the judges for the “China’s Got Talent” TV reality show in June, according to a CNN report (after judge Annie Yi screamed in horror at his act). Zhou is a practitioner of one of the “72 Shaolin skills,” namely “iron crotch gong,” and for his “talent,” he stoically whacked himself in the testicles with a weight and then with a hammer.

More Pricks Than Kicks Self-described Las Vegas “performer” Staysha Randall took 3,200 different piercings in her body during the same sitting on June 7 to break the Guinness world record by 100 prickings. Coincidentally, on the very same day in Edinburgh, Scotland, the woman with the most lifetime piercings (6,925) got married. Elaine Davidson, 46, wore a full white ensemble that left bare only her face, which was decorated green and sported 192 piercings. The lucky guy is Davidson’s longtime friend Douglas Watson, a balding, 60-something man with no piercings or tattoos.

Unentitled Pablo Borgen has apparently been living without neighbors’ complaints in Lakeland, Fla., despite general knowledge that he is, according to sheriff’s officials, one of the area’s major heroin traffickers, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a month. Following a drug sting in June, however, neighbors discovered another fact about Borgen: that he and some of his gang were each drawing $900 a month in food stamps. Formerly indifferent neighbors were outraged by Borgen’s abuse of benefits, according to WTSP-TV. “Hang him by his toes,” said one. “I’ve been out of work since February (2008). I lived for a year on nothing but … food stamps.”

For All My Dothan Pals Two undercover policewomen running a prostitution sting in Dothan, Ala., in October (1999) declined to arrest a pickup-truck-driving john, around age 70, despite his three attempts to procure their services. He first offered the women the three squirrels he had just shot, but they ignored him (too much trouble to log in and store the evidence). A few minutes later, he sweetened the offer with the used refrigerator in the back of his truck, but the officers again declined (same reason). On the third trip, he finally offered cash: $6 (but no squirrels or refrigerator). The officers again declined. They later said they had resolved to arrest him if he returned, but he did not.

Blondes On Parade “Hundreds” of blondes paraded through Riga, Latvia, on May 28 at the third annual “March of the Blondes” festival designed to lift the country’s spirits following a rough stretch for the economy. More than 500 blondes registered, including 15 from New Zealand, seven from Finland, and 32 from Lithuania, according to a woman who told Agence France-Presse that she was the head of the Latvian Association of Blondes. Money collected during the event goes to local charities.

While We’re Gone
By M. Alberto Rivera

(Note left on kitchen counter next to three $50 bills)

Lurlene,

I can’t begin to thank you enough for watching the place while we go visit my mother. Right now the schedule has us returning in 11 days, but if Roy can stage an accident where nothing important gets broken or he might can get some work, we might stay an extra week or two.

I don’t expect you’ll have any trouble at all with the pets, the house or anything at all, but I left some notes, just in case something might come up. If the porch light doesn’t turn on, just wiggle it a little. If that doesn’t work, there’s replacement bulbs in the pantry next to the cases of out-of-date cough syrup.

The dogs should have plenty of food, but if something happens and you run out, we left some money on the counter. But don’t handle them bills before the 9th on account of the ink needs to dry. Also, you might want to go to the nearsighted cashier at the Piggly Wiggly if you decide to use ‘em. She works early in the morning. (She’s the one that smells of Miller High Life and orange blossoms.) You can distract her by gossiping about the headlines of the World Weekly News. Once she didn’t even ring up a tube of toothpaste ‘cuz she was goin’ on about how Brad Pitt was really an alien sent to mate with Angeline Jolie.

The big dogs get a cup of food at 8:00 am, 12:00 noon and 6:00 pm. The little dogs get a half a cup each at 9:30, 1:00 and 7:45. If they seem mopey, you might have to sing to them, otherwise they won’t eat. They like Willie Nelson the best. If the big dogs try to get to their food, you can take the green broom handle and smack them on the snout with it. Don’t mind Lobo. He’s more bark than bite. Just a 173-lb. baby doll. A lot of that stuff you hear about wolf-dog breeds is made up by the liberal media.

The snake gets a live rat once a week. I think there are still some in the crisper drawer. The cold makes them sleepy and easier to handle. I made the mistake of leaving one rat in the freezer for a few days and it ate through all my frozen spinach. I opened the freezer and saw his little pink eyes and I swear he stood on his back legs and waved to me. I never looked at him the same after that. He was sort of funny, so I kept him for a while. He used to make me laugh and I carried him on my shoulder. It was like the little guy knew what I was thinking. I think there’s a video of him being fed to Mr. Huggy Snake on top of the TV if you want to watch it.

There’s a room that can only be accessed through the closet of the master bedroom. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. It has alarms and if you don’t give it the proper access code in 1 minute, it will lock the room from the inside. Also, you don’t want your fingerprints anywhere near the room so you can always claim plausible deniability.

If you hear any weird sounds coming from near the compost heap, take a stick with you and maybe 1-3 of the bigger dogs. There’s a raccoon trap that sometimes gets one, and if the raccoon is still alive, it’ll make a racket. You can set it free or club it. I’ll leave that up to you. But you can’t leave them making a fuss, because sooner or later one of them hippie liberals living near here will call the animal cops and we don’t want another Ruby Ridge on our hands. Not like that anyhow.

You’re welcome to watch the movies we have and make use of our home entertainment center. We have a lot of new movies and some that haven’t been released yet because Roy has a co-worker that gets them from the interweb. Some are dubbed in Korean and/or Farsi, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the sequel to “Thor II: Thor’s Hammer Time.”

The hot tub hasn’t been used in a while, not since Roy’s cousin tried out for the “All-American Skanks” reality show contest. Her audition tape did end up in the bonus features of the Season 1 DVD, but she was mad on account of she didn’t get paid and the producer’s assistant never did call her like he said he would. Honestly, I’d use a lot of bleach and chlorine before getting back in there, but you’re more than welcome to use it.

I don’t want you to get freaked out in case you get curious and start walking around the house, but the middle room is a little odd. It started out as a home office, but when my Uncle Paul passed away we ended up with a lot of his stuff and we haven’t decided what to do with it exactly. Paul was a self taught taxidermist and he used to practice on everything dead he ever found or killed. His wife, my Aunt Beulah, thought it would be fun to dress up all the stuffed squirrels in clothes she made like if they were at a wedding party. I think it’s a Unitarian service, but Paul swore it was Baptist as there was a tiny bottle of whiskey out of sight behind the podium. Aunt Beulah didn’t always take her meds. We’ve been trying to donate this piece to a museum or something, but you’d be surprised at how many people aren’t in a rush to add “Dead Squirrel Wedding” to their permanent collection.

Now there are some buzzers, alarms and the slight sound of running water you might think you’re hearing, but it’s nothing to worry about. The garage is off limits for more reasons than that. We REALLY don’t know anything about that couple that moved in down the street and went missing all of a sudden. And nothing in the garage says otherwise. We re-did the floor because the concrete naturally wore out from the wear and tear of parking a car on it and setting cardboard boxes on it repeatedly.

Thanks again. It’s nice to know we can get away for a few days and not worry about nothing.

As-Salaam Alaikum
By David Sherman

My time of late has been grossly over-monopolized by the silliest of things: a computer game on Facebook. I know it’s a ridiculous waste of time for a man of 50, but I don’t give you grief about golf, so there. For me, one of the fascinating aspects of the game are the Facebook “Friends” I interact with during the course of play. You are encouraged at every turn to add “Friends;” indeed you cannot go far without scads of them. One thing led to another and now I have “Friends” playing this game with me from all around the world. (The game has over 5 million players!)

Reading the posted messages of these diverse people is as riveting for me as the actual game itself. I’ve commented on several, and thus now interact regularly with other players in Scotland, Turkey, Thailand, Canada, and of course all around the U.S. The game is primarily one of industrial development and military conquest, and players are constantly requesting various items from one another. It amused my liberal conspiracy-tinged mind to think of someone in a post-Patriot Act office somewhere whose computer is suddenly deluged with messages from people with names like Ahmed and Mohammed that read “I need torpedoes. Can you send me one?” or “I need to upgrade my bombers!”

This is how I was spending my idle hours when the recent turmoil erupted in Egypt. One of my “Friends” was a man from Cairo named, you guessed it, Mohammed. I inquired after his safety and that of his family and asked him for his views on it all. A series of messages followed, during which virtual Facebook “Friends” became actual friends. Among other items of note, Mohammed once said of Israel, “I do not hate Israel. I do not like them because they kill Palestinians, but I do not hate them. I am neutral.” It struck me that for this alone Anwar Sadat is smiling somewhere. Mohammed also told me that “evil” men who grew rich doing illegal and “evil” things are spreading lies to try to return to power. You all know my liberal mindset, so you should not be surprised that I saw parallels here.

Then, without explanation, Mohammed went silent. His corner of the game was obviously untended. Concerned messages went unanswered, and I began to fear the worst. After two weeks of anguish on my part, Mohammed finally contacted me. He was fine. His father, Mahrous, was not. No bullets, no military police, no rioting accident had befallen him. Instead it was cancer, the spectre that has no regard for political niceties, the reaper’s blade that cuts ever-widening swaths through both the fair and the foul of our world. They gave Mahrous two weeks. Mohammed tried to hide from his grief in this silly game, but it was no help. Mostly, as a good son, he spent his time at his father’s bedside. He asked me to pray for his father.

Many of you know that I am not Christian, but I do pray. Mohammed and I had never touched on topics of faith, but considering his name and his Egyptian heritage, I assume he is Muslim, just as I imagine he assumed I was Christian. It did not matter. He asked me to pray for his father, and so I did. I prayed for Mohammed and his own family as well, for a lessening of their grief. In this I found a greater lesson than any of the trivial, politically motivated parallels that had occupied my thoughts before. This was my newfound friend from the other side of the world, but suddenly the man who had lost his own father years ago found deeper commonality with the man who was facing that loss now. A man named David and a man named Mohammed.

When I first conceived this article, I had thought to ask you all to put aside whatever preconceived notions or fears you may have about Arab peoples, Muslim peoples, and to pray for the father of a man named Mohammed. I just learned that Mohammed’s father went ahead on Friday, in what for Muslims the holy month of Ramadan. I will still ask you for those prayers, but now I would ask that you pray for the safe journey of Mahrous, a father gone ahead. I would ask also that you pray for the son and the family left behind. I would also ask that when you see the chaos in the Arab world playing out on your nightly news, you see not people who are inherently different from you — Arabs, Muslims. See people. See fathers and sons. See mothers and daughters. Maybe it will mean more. And perhaps if it comes to mean more to us, we can make it mean more than profit and military considerations to our leaders. Maybe we can help assure that our nation chooses more wisely which regimes to support in the future.

For Mohammed, my friend, who has a keen mind, a good heart, and a kind Soul. As-Salaam Alaikum. (Peace be upon you.)

Mosquitoes love my feet. There, I said it. I attract biting insects. It was even this way when I was a kid. I complained to my mother once, and she said it was because I was so sweet. My dad said maybe it was because I smelled like something rotten.

For some reason I attract a lot of things, some less onerous than others. For example, babies like me. But then, so do winos and panhandlers. Cats like me. Someone told me cats are good judges of character, and they can tell right off if you’re a decent person. Someone else said maybe it’s because I smell like fish. Regardless, I’m allergic to cats. I think they like me because they like to watch my eyes get all red, itchy and swollen.

There are things that don’t like me, too: Mexican food, hot chicken wings, draft beer… How do I know this? Because I keep trying to make them love me (I love them) and they treat me worse every time I imbibe. Truckers don’t like me either. This I discovered while piloting the only truck I’d ever driven on our great emigration south in May, 1987.

It was our first full day on the trail. We’d mustered, had our shakedown, and were now actually heading south — well, more like southeast, because our next stop would be Fairfax, Virginia, also known as “Fort Mom.” Our entry into Pennsylvania was Route 15, which in those days was a mere two lanes until you were in the heart of the state at Williamsport. Truckers didn’t treat it that way, though. To them, it was a major route. he road was wall-to-wall semis. They had no patience for an old, underpowered, undergeared U-Haul driven by a white-knuckled, inexperienced wannabe trucker tormented by a faulty radio (skrryyxxxx). These hurtling behemoths roared past me one after another, honking and blinking their brights, reminding me constantly that I was out of my element.

Look at a road map of Pennsylvania. Why are the roads so squiggly? Nothing is straight, and south of Williamsport they all seem to slant in the same direction. Then take a look at a topographical map. Whoa! That’s why! Ol’ Pensy is one rugged state. In fact, it looks like a rug from the air. A very wrinkled rug.

There are beautiful river gorges, the West Branch of the Susquehanna and the Juniata come to mind, and everything’s covered with trees. It also means driving a standard shift on hills — not my greatest talent — and my trucking buddies never let me forget it. However, by the end of that day, as we crossed the Potomac into Virginia, I had finally mastered the technique. In fact, I learned more about driving that day, shoulder-to-shoulder with the finest drivers on the planet (truckers), than I had in the past fifteen years. Like the clerk at the U-Haul repository in Buffalo said: “Everybody learns on these things.” Then, right when you think you know it all, you find yourself in Fairfax County, Virginia, during rush hour.

D.C. has the worst traffic in the world. Whether you’re in Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, or Vienna, yep, you’re in D.C. Traffic is so bad it spreads like a disease across northern Virginia. If you’re anywhere within thirty miles of the District of Columbia, you are infected. And on this warm evening in May, it was all under construction.

Everything down to one lane, everything dirt, stops and goes over the nastiest of humps… Supposedly this was Route 50, the main trail to Fort Mom. Of course the pioneers had stretches like this — swamps, creeks, broken ground. In a way, they probably had it better in those situations. For one thing, their vehicles were pulled rather than pushed. I think that’s a more efficient way to ford a snag. My wheels spun, my gears slipped, but I did not stall. I wouldn’t have dared. The coonskin types faced hostile natives. This was worse. These were government employees freshly released from work. Tens of thousands of them. If I had stumbled, I would have been trampled. Finally, Fort Mom.

We had a mini family reunion that night; my mother, my sister’s family and mine. Alcohol flowed freely, as it always seems to do, and for some reason (I can’t remember what) I had to practically unload and re-pack the U-Haul. It was a search for something, a toy or teddy bear, and I remember being extremely annoyed. I was also extremely apprehensive. This was the end of our family ties, the southern limit of our blood. From here, we would truly be on our own.

On our first trek South in ’79, I-95 was still a dream. Segments were finished, but there were long breaks of two-lane dirt construction. It was neither reliable nor complete as a North-South route. On many stretches we were the only subscribers. Not so in 1987. Between Washington and Richmond we encountered near-deadly congestion, not with our four-wheeled brethren, but that of the eighteen-wheeled type. I was like a mite among elephants — it could only have been more menacing for my poor wife and child in the Buick. It was white knuckles all the way. Then, an accident. Somewhere… For hours we sat stalled in the Virginia heat as our gas burned away and my daughter filled her pants. Glad that was in the Buick.

In oxen and Conestoga days the going was so slow the trailmasters had to factor in the seasons. This meant setting up a timetable which coincided with places. In other words, you didn’t want to be doing the Rockies in winter (the Donner Party is not just a reindeer’s birthday). One of the most important milestones on that schedule was a place called “Chimney Rock.” No, not the one in North Carolina, but the one at the butt-end of Nebraska. And if you weren’t there by the Fourth of July you would not cross the Rockies before winter.

What a sight this must have been for the old coonskinners. After endless weeks of trudging the vast flat plains, finally, terrain. The Indians had a more colorful name for this landmark but my mother’s probably going to read this, so I’ll let it drop. It is impressive, however — erect like an obelisk and visible for miles. On our route there was a similar location: that big sombrero at “South of the Border” on the North Carolina/South Carolina line. I have a colorful name for that place also: “Tacky Eyesore.” But you shore can’t miss it, and that’s where we decided to reconnoiter our own wagon train after leaving Fairfax.

It was an odd parley, this huge dilapidated sombrero. I guess it was a snack bar of some kind. Our engines echoed beneath the brim. The place was so big and dreary I couldn’t tell if it was open. “Pedro” had teased us for scores of miles: fireworks, food, gas, amusements, rooms… Why was this place so run-down? The sun was goldening and our daughter fidgety. Our decision was “Florence.” That’s where we’d make camp: Florence, South Carolina.

The ideal campground in the pioneer days had several requirements: level ground, peripheral visibility (to detect approaching hostiles, be they white or red), water, fuel, and ample room to circle the wagons and conduct a proper hoedown. A hoedown, you ask? Come on, you’ve seen “Wagon Train,” that endless ’50s western drama that chronicled the endless trials and tribulations of pioneers on the endless trail. In short, they never got where they were going because they were constantly waylaid by subplots. Sounds like everyday life, doesn’t it? And like anybody’s everyday life, we all need a cocktail hour. What better place than around the communal campfire, surrounded by wagons, fueled by jugs of whiskey and a Juilliard-class fiddler?

Florence, South Carolina is definitely level ground. For peripheral visibility we occupied a room on the second floor of the Days Inn. Water? There was a swimming pool! Fuel? Right at the corner. All we needed was to put the wagons in a circle and find stoke-juice for the hoedown.

The wagons-in-a-circle thing wasn’t going to work, not in this parking lot (and not with only two vehicles), and for a moment even the hoedown whiskey seemed in jeopardy. We couldn’t find a liquor store anywhere. So I drove thirty miles in that crummy truck to finally find a booze drive-through two exits back. Never take liquor for granted in the South.

The Conestogans most likely supped on bacon or rehydrated salt-beef and beans. We had similar fare, tastewise, something I like to call “McReflux.” A swim in the pool, then, in lieu of a fiddler we had television, enhanced by bourbon and motel ice. A hoedown indeed.

Little did I know that it would be a long time before I slept in another motel bed or peeled the wrapper from another greasy McReflux. The real adventure was just beginning.

Oh Dear… Tokyo’s Kajimoto Laboratory has created a tongue-kissing machine to enable lovers to suck face over the Internet, according to a May CNN report. At separate locations, the pair place special straws in their mouths and mimic a deep kiss, which is recorded and transmitted to each other’s straws. Researcher Nobuhiro Takahashi sees profit in “celebrity” tongue-kissing applications, but said more work is needed to establish individual taste, breathing and tongue moistness. (Another team of Japanese researchers, using a harness-type device, reported making similar advances — in Internet “hugging,” with sensors that mimic lovers’ heartbeats and even their spine’s “tingling” and stomach’s “butterflies.”)

Nickel Diming The Columbus, Ohio, school board accepted principal Kimberly Jones’ resignation in May following revelations by The Columbus Dispatch that she, though earning $90,000 a year, swore on federal forms that she made just $25,000 — so that her own two children would qualify for reduced-price school lunches. And Prime Healthcare Services, with a reputation for rescuing financially failing hospitals, reported that two new acquisitions, in Victorville, Calif., and Redding, Calif., somehow curiously experienced rates about 40 and 70 times the state average in patients with a rare Third World Ghanian sickness that, conveniently, qualified the hospitals for enhanced Medicare reimbursements.

Unhappy Birthdays Principal Terry Eisenbarth apologized to parents and children at Washington Elementary School in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in May and promised to stop his ritual “whammies,” in which he summons kids on their birthdays to his office, sings “Happy Birthday” to them, and ceremonially spanks the child’s backside with a cushioned hockey stick (with the number of whacks equaling the child’s age). Elsewhere, Joseph Hayes, 48, was arrested in South Memphis, Tenn., in June after allegedly threatening (with a gun in his waistband) the hostess of a birthday party to which his kids had been invited but which ran out of cake and ice cream. “Y’all didn’t save my kids no damn ice cream and cake,” he was heard to say, and “I ain’t scared to go to jail.”

Altitudinally Challenged In May, a federal appeals court reinstated the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit filed in 2007 by Darrell Miller after he was fired as a bridge maintenance worker by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Miller had been medically diagnosed with a fear of heights, and could not work on many projects, but a lower court dismissed his lawsuit, concluding that working at heights was an unavoidable condition of bridge maintenance. (The appeals court said that a jury “might” find that bridge maintenance could be done in “teams” with one worker always on the ground.)

Claptrap In December (1993), a New York appeals court rejected Edna Hobbs’ lawsuit against the company that makes the device called “The Clapper.” Hobbs claimed she hurt her hands because she had to clap too hard in order to turn her appliances on: “I couldn’t peel potatoes (when my hands hurt). I never ate so many baked potatoes in my life. I was in pain.” However, the judge said Hobbs had merely failed to adjust the sensitivity controls.

The Great Gall Of China Nightclub singer Simon Ledger was arrested following a performance at the Driftwood Beach Bar on Britain’s Isle of Wight in April after a patron complained to police. Ledger was covering the 1974 hit “Kung Fu Fighting,” and two customers of Chinese descent reported that they felt victims of illegal “racially aggravated harassment.”

Def! Alleged gang members Barbara Lee, 45, and Marco Ibanez, 19, were arrested in Hallandale Beach, Fla., in April and charged in the assault and stabbing of four deaf people. Lee was at the Ocean’s Eleven Lounge one evening when she saw several people in a group make hand signs that she interpreted as disrespecting her own gang’s signs, and, according to police, left to recruit Ibanez to come administer retribution. Unknown to Lee or Ibanez, the group were deaf people using sign language and had no idea they were making “gang” signs.

Piddling Concern In June, as five young men gathered around the Mount Tabor Reservoir near Portland, Ore., one urinated in it, thus “contaminating” the 7.2 million gallons that serve the city, and, said Water Bureau administrator David Shaff, necessitating that the entire supply be dumped. Under questioning by the weekly Portland Mercury whether the water is also dumped when an animal urinates in it (or worse, dies in it), Shaff replied, certainly not. “If we did that, we’d be (dumping the water) all the time.” Well, asked the reporter, what’s the difference? Because, said Shaff (sounding confident of his logic), “Do you want to be drinking someone’s pee?”

Inverse Mortgage Bank of America (BA) had the tables turned on it in June after the company wrongfully harassed an alleged mortgage scofflaw in Naples, Fla. BA had attempted to foreclose on homeowners Warren and Maureen Nyerges last year even though the couple had bought their house with cash — paid directly to BA. It took BA a year and a half to understand its mistake — that is, until the Nyergeses sued and won a judgment for expenses of $2,534, which BA promptly ignored. The Nyergeses’ attorney obtained a seizure order, and two sheriff’s deputies, with a moving truck, arrived at the local BA branch on June 3 to load $2,534 worth of furniture and computer equipment from the bank’s offices. After about an hour on the phone with higher-ups, the local BA manager issue a check for $2,534.

VIRGO: The stars support you this month and want you to take control of your future. Mel Gibson said he’s behind you all the way and that you can call him if you’re in need of a little cash (unless of course you’re Jewish). Angelina Jolie left a message and said “You can do it!” but don’t call back, she’s “busy.” And Gary Busey called to say that you’re doing a great job and he’s going to need to crash on your couch for a few days.

LIBRA: Treat yourself to something nice this month. You don’t have to go overboard, just something small that will make you happy. Something small and useful. Like a midget with a great set of tools.

SCORPIO: If you’re having trouble getting started this month, don’t worry. You may just need a little jumpstart. Try mixing two cans of Red Bull, three cups of sugar, a can of minty fresh Copenhagen, three sprigs of parsley, and a pint of Irish whisky in a large blender. Add some ice and puree. Now drink. If that doesn’t work, it’s too late for you. You’re already dead. Quit your job and get married.

SAGITTARIUS: This feeling of insecurity that’s been hanging over your head stems from the fact that you’ve never really satisfied a woman, you drive like an old lady, you were never any good at sports, and even though you’re in you’re 30s, your little sister could still take you in a fist fight. Wait, don’t cry… I didn’t mean it. I was just joking! You’re the man! Seriously.

CAPRICORN: Bad decisions will play a key role in this month’s unfolding of loneliness and gloom. Keep this in mind when you opt to spend your time with a no-talent oaf with the personality of a cane toad instead of the handsome athletic hunk next door. You may want to lay off the Pina Coladas. They seem to effect your otherwise good judgment.

AQUARIUS: Your travel star shines bright this month. Go adventure to the ends of the earth. Seek new places and cultures. Drink in the strangeness of a new land. Inhale the wisdom of ancient jungles. Slap yourself with a few Bintang beers and a $5 masseuse. Just remember to pack plenty of sunscreen, aspirin, clean skivvies, and a funny hat. And, oh yeah, monkey repellant.

PISCES: Everything looks to be in your favor this month: your finances, your love life, top-notch health, and a surprise waiting just around the corner. You’ll get a special visit from a very special someone, and just when you think things can’t get any better, they get way worse. You lose your job and your lover splits. Then you find out after a routine checkup that both your hands need to be removed and you develop a sudden lisp. And that special someone turned out to be not so special. Turned out to be a pain in the ass, really.

ARIES: Don’t worry about a thing this month! Or for the rest of your life, in fact! A great fortune will befall you and you’ll have plenty of money to make sure you and everyone you love will live the remainder of their lives in ecstasy! Wait. Wrong reading. Says here you’re going to get hit by a comet. Never mind.

TAURUS: Nothing really changes for you this month. It’s going to be the same as last month. Except, maybe throw in a little food poisoning and the shingles. Yeah, everything will be pretty much the same except for the constant diarrhea and painful, itchy scabbie things. And your car might get repossessed. But that’s probably it. Everything else? The same.

GEMINI: Take good care of yourself in the coming weeks and you will notice an instant attraction from the opposite sex. Take too good of care of yourself and you will notice an instant attraction from the same sex. Know what I mean?

CANCER: This year will be somewhat of a rollercoaster. At first there will be excitement, then suspense followed by a quick thrill and then a sudden stop. Then a little dizziness when you realize all your money came out of your pocket and your hat flew off. You will leave the year with empty pockets and the feeling you’ve been taken for a ride.

This economy really stinks. Not only can I not find a boyfriend, I also can’t find a job. As you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to meet single guys when you’re feeling terrible about yourself and can’t even afford to buy even one lousy Cosmopolitan. Do you have any advice to help me stick it out until Mr. Right comes along?

“Carmella”
Cocoa Beach

Janice, my heart goes out to you. Right off the bat, I’d say that the best way top stick it out until Mr. Right comes along is to stick it out! Mr. Right will be coming in no time. In the meantime, if you’re hungry for work I am in need of a highly skilled secretary who can take dictation and has difficulty running around desks. Jump on my staff!

Romeo,

I know it sounds stupid, but I’m in love with a guy who will only date girls who surf. “Kenny” says I’m good looking enough and have a nice enough body, but he refuses to date any girl who doesn’t know how to ride waves. He’s such a jerk, I know, and really vain and shallow, but I’ve had a crush on him for a long time. Plus, I want to get back at my ex-boyfriend, Joey. If Joey finds out I’m with Kenny, he’ll go through the roof. It sounds shallow of me too, I know, but Joey really betrayed me and I know dating Kenny is the best way to get back at him. Can you surf? Can you show me the basics one weekend? And can I borrow your board for a few weeks? Thanks!

Nina L.
Cocoa Beach

Unfortunately I had to give up surfing three years ago, Melody. I suffered a crippling accident while practicing some tantric sex techniques with a nubile Tahitian girl and a lewdly carved taro root in a barrel at Teahupo’o. Tantric sex, however, I still practice. Come by sometime and I’ll show you one of surfing’s most basic postures, which involves you putting your toes on your nose repeatedly. And yes, you can ride my board any time. You’ll have to wax it yourself, though.

What up, Ro?

Dude. I got a big problem. Both my buddy and me are in love with the same chick. She’s totally smokin’ hot and me and my buddy have been buddies since way back in the day — old school style. My buddy’s thinking that we should both date her, but that kind of weirds me out, you know? I just don’t do sharesies. What do you think? Will I be better off by myself and keep my buddy, or follow her and start a fight with my buddy, or just let my buddy have her? Buddy, I’m in big trouble.

Your bud,

J.T.

Melbourne Beach

As we say in my hometown of Santo Ignazio della Tagliatelle: “It is better to have one sausage in the hand than two in the frittata.”

Dear Romeo,

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had difficulty reaching climax in intimate situations. I’ve read a number of books on the subject, have had many good lovers, and have invested in several devices and toys, but I still can’t reach the heights of ecstasy I hear so many people describe. They talk about it in books, in movies, in music. I hear close friends describing the pleasure they receive from their boyfriends and husbands. I’ve heard it all, yet I just can’t relate. Since I was a teenager I’ve always been interested in my own body and I know better than anyone its limits and desires. I’ve tried everything on my own in my own bed with the right mood set and I think I’ve come close, but I still feel like I haven’t completely arrived. It’s like I’m eating a sundae without the hot fudge and the cherry. I’m at a complete loss and feel like sex is just a waste of time if I’m not experiencing it fully. Surely Romeo Pomodoro can help. Please?

“Farrah”
Merritt Island

Dear lady, of course I can help. But you think you’re alone in this predicament, don’t you? You would be foolish to think so. Would you believe that until his early twenties, Romeo himself suffered from this very problem? I was very popular due to my legendary stamina, but was never fully satisfied and was a woeful sight and object of pity in my village for many months. Between you and I, I still suffer from episodes of incompleteness from time to time. And I’ve found that the only way to achieve arrival is through vigorous but gentle manipulation from a sympathetic partner. Together we can overcome our problem. Why not drop by my sea-kissed bungalow to help me pull it off? Use the side gate. It’s always open and I am always nude on the verandah!

The Big Heist
By David Sherman

It was a brittle, bright Tuesday, not unusual in the middle of January, not unusual in any way, save that this was Audit Day. It happened at the Bank every year. Perhaps the only indications that this was no normal Audit Day were the names of the Auditors themselves.  Credentials presented at the security desk showed them to be Rick Pekoe, Michelle Oolong, and Rand Darjeeling. The head of the team was John Lipton. John had been a member of several previous Auditor teams, though this was his first time heading one. The odd part was that John’s last name had never been “Lipton” before. Many would later surmise that John had changed his name in order to ingratiate himself with his newfound friends. It seemed they had a common theme. They certainly had a common goal.

The Auditors were shown to the offices set aside for them, and apart from a few snickers around the water cooler about the whole “Tea” thing, business returned to normal. Then the CEO of the bank showed up and tried to log onto his computer. The moment his security password was entered his entire terminal shut down, as did every other terminal in the building. Frantic calls to the corporate Tech Division showed that the same thing had happened in every office, every branch, and every home computer affiliated with the Firm! Then came the demands… at which point “ominous” and “weird” were both up-graded to “bizarre” and “stark raving mad”!

“We have seized control of your entire financial system,” said the note delivered by a local courier service. ”We shall not relinquish control of your system until our demands are met. We know you are the largest single bank in the world. We know that with your funds, those of your depositors, and those of your investors locked away and at our control, thousands may suffer,” the note went on to say. ”We do not care!”

The note continued:  “We realize that this may cause businesses to fail, rents to lapse, and mortgages to go into default. We realize that the entire economies of many developing nations rely on this bank, and this may cause their collapse. We further realize that food and medications may not be purchased, and some may even die. To all of this, we repeat: WE DO NOT CARE!” It took every scrap of control the CEO possessed not to smash something. Anything. The note was signed: ”The Tea Party.”

Security rushed to the offices of the Auditors only to find them calmly sitting at their desks. Only the smug little smirks on their faces betrayed the fact they had any hand in the chaos that had gripped the entire building. ”Without us,” John (newly) Lipton calmly told the CEO, “It all disappears! Harm us and it all comes crashing down!” Despite his rage, the CEO recognized the precarious nature of his firm’s situation. He sat down, and after taking a few moments to compose himself, asked about the demands. The demands were without doubt the most mind-numbing twist of the entire affair:

Every account holder in the Bank who had assets in excess of two million dollars would receive a gift of a full million dollars. The money for these gifts would be taken from the accounts of the less wealthy account holders. Also, every corporation with accounts in the Bank would receive a bonus of two million dollars, the funds again to come from the accounts of the less well-to-do. Furthermore, the Bank would amend its bylaws to include said gifts and bonuses every year from that day on.

Beyond these points, on which all the Auditors were in complete agreement, each of the four had their own individual demand as well. Mr. Pekoe wanted Western Union to be forced to change its name to Western You Can All Be Replaced. Ms. Oolong wanted all of those swishy people to stop being so swishy, and to stop calling her husband at all hours and trying to get him to be swishy, too. Mr. Darjeeling wanted somebody, anybody, to make him a doctor, not a pretend doctor, mind you, but a real Doctor, one other doctors would acknowledge as an equal. Saddest of all was Mr. (newly) Lipton, who wanted a lifetime’s supply of spray tan, and a law forbidding that he or any of his descendants ever be picked last for anything or ever be beaten up behind the big slide.

I cannot tell you how this story ends, for as I am writing this, the “Drama at the Big Bank” is still playing out. Rest assured that in the end, in this story, they will all go to prison… for EXTORTION! (There may also be some mental health counseling involved.) What confuses me is why, when the same scenario is played out on an ever grander scale with our nation’s economy, as well as that of the rest of the world, no one is screaming, “EXTORTION!” from the highest rooftop. It is surely nothing less.