1999 | The American Pile

"A survey of a thousand senior executives found that 53 percent thought the McDonald's Arch Deluxe was a computer part, 43 percent thought Fiona Apple was a computer, and 68 percent thought the Internet was owned by a corporation, most likely Microsoft." --Esquire magazine, page 78, January, 1999 edition

More Signs of Danger Are Everywhere Department: Florida's official state seal bears the words "In God We Trust." Wait till the ACLU finds about about this! (January 22, 1999)

A scout reports that on the radio version of "Good Morning, America" this morning, Sam Donaldson referred to his sidekick, Cokie Roberts, as "The Cokester." Good! (February 11, 1999)

I noticed the other day that all the pepper shakers have disappeared at the McDonald's restaurant downtown. I asked one of the happy employees what had happened. "Had to put 'em away," came the reply. "Customers were stealing them, and throwing them at each other." (February 11, 1999)

A suburban Detroit high school has been successfully sued by a 17-year-old female student, her parents and the ACLU for not allowing the girl to wear a pentacle on her clothing to school.The student, Crystal Sieferly, is a self-professed witch. She told breathless reporters that "Being forced to conceal one's religious symbol under their shirt is a form of shame." The school recently adopted a policy banning witches, white supremacists and Satanists and their related decorations and accessories such as black nail polish, vampire-style makeup, and pentacles or pentagrams--five-pointed stars enclosed in a circle and worn by witches as a symbol of air, fire, water, earth, and spirit Crystal's mother, described in USA Today's February 10 edition as a "practicing Christian," is said to support her daughter's lawsuit. The ACLU huffed that the school's policy is illegal and targets religion. A federal judge in Detroit ruled that the witch's rights had indeed been violated. This is another case of adults not getting it. If the school board had adopted a policy approving all this nonsense, students would immediately stop doing it and move on to some other aspect of their job of irritating grownups. True progress will be made when Crystal and her family and fellow-coveners and twits prove they comprehend what shame really is. (February 17, 1999)

Beverly Hills, California, voters will decide May 11 in a special election whether to require merchants selling furs to affix a label notifying customers that the animal "may have been electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, clubbed, stomped, or drowned." The city council voted 3-1 to hold the election. Violators could be fined $100 per fur. When will someone propose legislation that's really appropriate for Beverly Hills, such as a bill requiring city council members to wear a label on their foreheads stating "I Am an Idiot"? (February 20, 1999)

Another trip back to the plains of my youth in north central Indiana. It occurs to me how often I am back in Scorched Corners these days to attend or bear pall at funerals. This time it's for Hughie Larrabee, a longtime local businessman and my wife's uncle. I remember Hughie running the Conoco station downtown . He was always smiling and genial in his green and white striped shirt. Later he went into the insurance business. He and the other men of his generation were the bedrock of our community when I grew up there. They came back from World War II, most of them, married, raised families, started businesses, joined the Kiwanis Club, Rotary, the Optimists, the Elks, Eagles, Redmen, Moose and Masonic lodges, the VFW and American Legion, supported their churches, sponsored Little League teams, cheered zealously for the local high school athletic teams, and so got about building a community, the place that nurtured and shaped my growing up. It is my evolving duty in declining middle age to come back periodically and bury them. and in so doing move closer to the head of the line myself. Three people---his son, a son-in-law, and a nephew--stood up to speak at Hughie Larrabee's funeral in the First Presbyterian Church (where centuries ago I sang in the church youth choir and attended--alas, with too little seriousness--Sunday school). All three outdid themselves and brought honor to their families and themselves with deeply moving tributes. Hughie Larrabee could not have done better with his life than to earn these testimonials. I left the church feeling very small. The motorcade followed a route thousands and thousands of times familiar, up Broadway, north on Main Street, across the bridge over the river, down through East Scorched Corners and up the hill to Greenlawn Cemetery. It was a crisp, sunlit late winter's day, the river bending, curling off silver in the background. God, this is a sorrowful business. The ground is soft underfoot from a recent thaw and a mild winter. The family crowds inside a green canvas tent, mourners clustering around outside it. Tent flaps rustle in the wind. Hushed conversations. Car doors opening, closing. I glance around as I walk through rows of tombstones bearing familiar names: Cortman, Hughes, Neville, Trepling, Deevers. . . A dark van parks nearby and from it emerge members of the local American Legion. What look like old M-1 rifles are passed respectfully down the line. The men form a color guard, bearing aloft the American flag. They march across the muddy grass, pivot, seven stalwart vets now gray and unsteady with age. My former high school choir director and music teacher, Petrarch Pavan, plays a slightly faltering but most mournful call of Taps on a battered trumpet. One of the others in a thin voice calls the command. . ."Aim. . . .Fire!" Crisp volleys rattle east across the cornfields and countryside, three rounds times seven stalwart veterans in a 21-gun salute to their departed friend who served in the 9th Air Force in Europe and, like most, seldom ever after spoke about it. An American flag drapes the casket. Two of the honor guard solemnly fold it, present it to the widow, shake hands with each family member. This is an incredibly solemn and beautiful experience, one that inevitably calls forth the sorry and disgraceful comparison between these men and the current lying, draft-dodging, military-loathing occupant of the White House. The Presbyterian minister reads final scripture. It is over. A few hundred yards away, the gravediggers wait to fill in the hole. We mill about. I speak to several people I know. Mr. Pavan is near 80, ruddy and remarkably fit. We chat in the chill air, joke about the olden days. There is a moment when I am not sure he knows who I am. He quickly recovers, and regales me with funny stories from the late 1950s when our class was passing through his tutelage. I put my arm on his shoulder and tell him how much I respect the teacher he was (and he was my favorite). He walks off gingerly. With my wife and others I drift off down the rows of graves, pondering names and dates, listening to family members exchange memories and lore. Mogo and I talk about our own plans, where we will be planted. Right here or in Washington Park in Indianapolis seem to be the options. The Kratchlow plot in Noblesville is pretty much full. I'm not sure what really matters in this. At bottom we probably all wonder the same thing. We wonder what the replicants wondered in that great film, Blade Runner (adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). We wonder: Who am I? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? How long do I have? Graves are not for the dead but for the survivors. I want to hope, though, that someone might visit mine some day, reminisce a bit, pause thoughtfully, chuckle, and conclude that I was one crazy sumbitch and a fairly decent fellow at that. And if my name could be mentioned in the same breath of reverence with the parents of Hughie Larrabee's generation, well, that would be enough. (February 15, 1999)

A co-worker was commenting on something about the 1970s the other day and it reminded me of a curious aspect of my life. I have missed entire decades. I missed the anti-Vietnam War protest and the entire social upheaval which marked the 1960s. I missed the hippie movement. I missed the free love movement. I never wore long hair, completely missed the drug scene. It was as if I went from the 1950s to the 1990s without ever joining in anything--and without ever buying any new clothes, either! (March 6, 1999)

Radios play nonstop at work. People seem uneasy with silence. My cellmate keeps her radio on an Indianapolis station which plays pop music continuously and that seems limited to only a dozen or so songs played many, many times throughout the day. Most of the time I shut it out. But I noticed one with a familiar voice: off-key, hoarse, nasal. I said to my co-worker, "That sounds almost like Bob Dylan as a boy." She spun around in her chair and told me that was his son, Jakob Dylan. "How did you know that?" she asked. "I listened to his dad when I was just a little wrangler," I replied. "He had a terrible voice then. Still does. So does this guy." Well, Jakob sounds eerily like his dad: the father's voice was once likened to a bawling calf---v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y bad.

Eugene S. Pulliam, publisher and patriarch of the Indianapolis Star and News, died in February. Bet money the afternoon paper, the News, will be closed within a year. Pulliam was personally responsible for preserving the struggling paper, despite drastic declines in circulation and revenue. Now that he's gone, the bean-counters will prevail. (March 11, 1999)

Two early nominees for best television advertisement of the year: First Union's campy, Gothic, Batman-style ad for its banking and financial services, and Coca Cola's must-have-been-done-by-a-computer spectacular showing hundreds of skydivers linking up in mid-air to form a gigantic Coca Cola bottle as two youngsters walking in a field gaze up in amazement. This stuff's better than most programming.

I stayed up to watch the Academy Awards last night. A marginal exercise at best. These conclusions surge forth. . .Whoopi Goldberg is a dirtbag. . .Sophia Loren's chest remains a world treasure. . .anti-Elia Kazan politics marred the evening. Hollywood still hates him for naming Communists. . .Hollywood is in love with itself and this show is a ridiculous self-love-in. . .the pre-show TV hype was beyond absurd, with reporters on every street corner and in every doorway, breathlessly telling us about the famous people who were there or soon would be. . .about the camera installed in a limo that soon would be hauling the stars. . .how that camera would soon be showing American citizens what it was like to be inside the limo with the stars, seeing what the stars saw, feeling what they felt, as the gigantic vehicle glided along the boulevard toward this party or that one, toward the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the stars were gathering for this star-studded night. . .Robert DeNiro badly needs a new haircut. . .Arrowsmith apparently represents high art to these people. . .Roberto Benigni is a master of self-promotion and over-reaching as he jumps onto seat-backs to show us how overcome with emotion he is that he's won an Oscar. The show lasts several hours longer than it should. . .these are truly beautiful people. (March 22, 1999)

Kyle Niederpreum broke the news in this morning's Indianapolis Star. The latest worldwide horror is. . .light pollution. It caught me by surprise. Normally I'm on the cutting edge of these things. But Kyle, the Star's environment bird-dog, revealed that night-time skies in rural areas are being polluted by light from the city. What, dear God, can we do? It wasn't clear from the article just how we might solve this, but I'm betting Kyle will soon be proposing more government regulation of those emitting light. And so I spun away from my breakfast table spewing vomit, and hurried downtown to do some heavy lifting at Universal Export. This is where I belong, my friends, at work in the service of unbridled capitalism, destroying the planet and everything on it. (March 26, 1999).

Word leaked out of Indianapolis International Airport today that a wheel fell off a US Airways jet being prepared for takeoff. The pilot said he heard what he thought was mechanical trouble and stopped the plane immediately. Airport spokescritters were understandably reluctant to offer details. The Indianapolis Star's brief account noted no one was injured and 86 passengers were shuttled back to the terminal. Not a confidence-builder, really. (March 28, 1999)

Everyone in public life seems impatient these days that Milosevic and his thugs haven't rolled over and repented. After all, the NATO bombing campaign has been on for at least seven days, a span of time completely beyond the comprehension of most American citizens. Our Mayfly culture isn't prepared to cope with such things.

Add to the list of great TV ads: Nortel Networks showing one "big business" scene after another, heavy-hitters in conference rooms, worldwide teleconferencing of corporate titans, and a Big Brother voice speaking via TV monitors to all of them--but in verses from the famous Beatles 1970s anthem, "Come Together". . . .things like. . .we got jujube eyeballs. . .we got toe-jam football. . . .he got hair down below his knees. . .one thing I can tell is you got to be free. . come together, right now. . .over me. . ."

The front page of the April 6 Yakima (Washington) Herald-Republic noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Indian tribes in Washington may harvest shellfish on private property. "The decision stunned private property owners," according to the Associated Press report. Anybody who's stunned hasn't been paying attention over the past four decades, which have witnessed a determined and relentless advancement of minority and group rights in our country. So much for your right to what you own. If somebody wants it, eventually they're going to be able to come into your house--with government might knocking down your front door--and take it.

The headline over Mark Caro's film review in the April 9 Chicago Tribune says " 'Go' Pulls Out All Stops in 3 Intertwining Drug Tales." Caro describes Columbia Pictures' newest film gem as a "crazed night of drug scams, Las Vegas ruckus-raising, casual sex, vengeful heavies, car chases, and various unnatural disasters"--the meat-and-potatoes bedrock of American pop culture as the 1990s draw to their much-welcomed close, in other words. I was braced for a warm, supportive review, but Caro surprised by concluding this is just another cheap, trashy (my words, not his) film. Caro mistakenly claims that "even Pulp Fiction had some moral content" (sorry, it does not) then notes that Go takes place "in a vacuum where all behavior--no matter how callous or ugly--is equal, and nothing has much weight." Go, in other words, is a film reflecting one of the major diseases of our age and one of the left's favorites, moral relativism, which posits that there are no such things as right or wrong, that all actions and ideas are equally worthy, and that morality is something each person decides for himself. Caro cautioned his readers to not be surprised if they experience a "sour aftertaste" upon leaving the theater. This is courageously judgmental on Mark's part. He does not address the cosmic questions, though: Who do they make these films for? Who cares about seeing films about drug addicts and other human waste products? Who would pay money to see Go? (April 9, 1999)

Earlier in the week in Chicago, a man who probably paid eagerly to see Go filed a huge lawsuit against his dentist and the professional society of all dentists wordwide seeking damages for gum and tooth abrasion from brushing his teeth all these years. I immediately loaded my deep titanium Ford Probe with lemon meringue pies and roared north on Interstate 65, Chicago-bound to give this chap what he deserves--about 285 of 'em in the face--but the State Police shot out my tires just south of Lebanon and escorted me home at gunpoint. Either I give it up, they said, or they'd have to arrest me for judgmentalism.

One of the better quips circulating on the Internet these days is this: People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it is easier to harass rich old ladies than motorcycle gangs.

The tragic events in Littleton, Colorado, this week are nearly beyond comprehension. They are also part of the harvest of an American culture that is utterly poisoned. Evil is abroad in the land and metastasizing. I can't see anything saving us or changing this unless it is a national revival of religion. Otherwise, we are headed for oblivion, and we deserve to be.

The adults who manage the Indiana high school all-star basketball team have added two players to the boys' team roster for its upcoming June games against Kentucky. One of those adults, games director Patrick Aickman, was quoted in the April 21 Indianapolis Star explaining that "My feeling is to give as many kids as possible an opportunity to be selected an Indiana All-Star." The truth is that every single high school basketball player already has this opportunity. The problem is that the teams are chosen based on individual talent. Aickman's poorly-coded message seems to be that justice will be ours only when every player is chosen for the team. The Star, which sponsors the Indiana-Kentucky series, could end the suffering of our young people immediately by naming every player in Indiana to its all-star teams. (April 21, 1999)

Heartbreaking news from the Journal of Geophysical Research: Mars, the red planet, isn't red. It's yellowish brown. Scientists have known this since 1977 when America's Pathfinder space probe sent back thousands of images of the planet. But the magazine article's co-authors, Justin Maki and Peter Smith, say "the public insisted on a red Mars," so that's what officials continue to call it to this day. Yellowish brown "lacks the romance of the red planet," the authors wrote. They hope to win public acceptance of Mars as the butterscotch planet. And if that doesn't work, they'll try "goldenrod planet". And thus continues the American public's struggle to deal with reality as the 1990s reel toward closure. (April 24, 1999)

Bennett Knows The One Place We Don't Want To Look

Bill "Book of Virtues" Bennett got right up in America's face Sunday morning on NBC's Meet The Press. He raised this question for an America already eager to get on with its important business: Isn't it peculiar that students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, have been allowed to roam the halls and classrooms in black coats and black clothing, wearing baseball caps and sunglasses and shouting Hitler slogans and the school administration does nothing. . .but had any students been walking the halls carrying Bibles and mentioning Christ's name they would have been immediately hauled to the principal's office and disciplined. And, I would add, the principal would have held a national press conference to assure a quaking public that adults were in control, order had been restored and this insidious threat to school order and dignity had been aggressively silenced. Sooner or later, someone will kill Bill Bennett for holding up the mirror. (April 25, 1999)

Two days after the Colorado school massacre, a Marilyn Manson rock concert went on as scheduled at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Over 6,000 devotees attended. The Indianapolis Star's David Lindquist was there and offered a fairly bizarre analysis the next morning, his review vacillating between scorn that seemed a pose, custardlike thinking, and subtle ridicule of those who criticize the lovely and talented rock icon-god. He first noted that Manson--whose real name, for the historical record, is Brian Warner-- has been "labeled" by many people as "satanic" and has (already) been "unjustly linked" to Tuesday's school slayings in Littleton. What's unjust about it? Within 24 hours of This Most Recent Unpleasantness, the press had reported that the two youthful killers and their cohorts in the school's "trenchcoat mafia" were devotees of Manson and other satanic rock groups. This linkage has appeared repeatedly in similar atrocities in our country in the past decade. In Indianapolis Thursday night, Manson declined even the slightest reference to the Littleton murders. This bothered Lindquist, who apparently felt that such a mention would have enabled the sensitive in the audience and the Star's readership to put all this behind them and move on with their lives. "At the very least," wrote Lindquist, "Manson could have said something like 'Hey, that scene in Colorado was uncool and not what we're about.' " But alas, no such cooperation from Manson, who, in the reviewer's words, wasn't even "brave enough to comment on the news of the day." And besides, it is what they're all about, so saying it isn't wouldn't have played in Peoria, as Richard Nixon used to say. Lindquist did report that the show was "peppered with some R-rated thrills" like Manson's "lewd commentary on drugs," the now standard fare of a female audience member baring her breasts onstage, and a "mock shotgun blast" that temporarily "took out" Manson about three-fourths of the way into the festivities. Lindquist noted, without revealing if it pleased or displeased him, that the concert lacked any animal sacrifices, sexual assaults, or "shout-outs" to the devil. Many in the worshipful throng no doubt went home feeling cheated. Donning his psychobabble beanie, Lindquist advanced the nearly hilarious theory that "Manson will exist only as long as his detractors demonize him" and twitted those who showed up at Market Square to protest. These spoilsports "need to realize that they only give power to (Manson's) reactionary and derivative shock tactics," Lindquist chided. He closed his little lecture to the unwashed and troglodytic by telling them to "Ignore this one--and he'll go away." Lindquist closed out his own insipid performance by quoting from Manson's 1998 "best-selling autobiography", a nugget which could appeal only to the already brainless or brain-dead in Manson's and the Star's audience. The Star's ceaseless quest for excellence in reporting and analysis has a way to go yet.

The phone rang at work and it was Gene Fondlinger, a realtor. "Is that you?" he asked. "Your phone sounds funny. Your voice sounds funny." "Perhaps," I rejoined, swinging instantly into Jonathan Winters, "it's because I'm speaking to you from almost 1200 feet below the harbor. Have you felt the initial jolt? The orange glow you see all around you is not the sun. This is a total holocaust." Here I paused. Silence. Gene was frozen. "Gene?" I laughed. "It's me. Willard. I was just kidding." I said it several times before Gene snapped out of it and resumed the conversation. He tried to act as if nothing had happened. But I like to think I've planted a seed, a concern, a wonderment, and that Gene's brow will furrow from time to time over the coming months when he recalls his encounter with me. I have no idea what was wrong with my phone, but I was pleased I could make a bit of entertainment from it.

Protesters were marching late this week in Denver to tell us how angry they are that the National Rifle Association was going ahead with its scheduled annual meeting there. They've got the wrong address. They ought to be surrounding the homes of the two lads responsible for the carnage and protesting there--that would at least focus the blame where it ought to be. But it's far easier to lash out at the liberal left's favorite demon, the NRA.

Bet money that the Littleton, Colorado, tragedy will produce plenty of lawsuits--against the NRA, gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers worldwide, movies, books, poems which mention guns, military and police forces which use guns, strangers on the street--everyone but those actually at fault. Our society is plagued by a ceaseless questing to assign blame that looks everywhere but in the mirror.

The principal at Columbine High School may be a Clintonista or a Grape Kool-Aider in disguise. He's been interviewed on national television saying he never heard of the "trenchcoat mafia", knew nothing about the fair lads in question, and had never seen anyone wearing a black trenchcoat in the hallowed halls of dear old Columbine. This despite mountains of evidence the opposite is true. Best keep an eye on this fella. He's headed for a high-paying job in the White House or at Assembly Hall.

Amid the frenzy of the NBA playoffs, the 500 Mile Race and the usual slew of rock concerts, porno fairs and shopping mall sales, the city of Indianapolis did something really important May 28. It dedicated, in grand, stirring style a stunning Memorial to America's Medal of Honor Winners. Thousands of spectators and almost 100 medal winners turned out for a deeply moving ceremony and memorial unveiling along the downtown canal in White River State Park. The press gave the event nice coverage. There were many touching anecdotes about the heroism of the medal winners. Their names are etched on walls of glass, illuminated at night. Visitors said they were stunned by the memorial's impact on them. I always feel small and ashamed hearing of such heroism, courage, self-sacrifice. I feel I missed out on something important in my life by never being called upon to make such choices. We've had it so easy, so many of us. (May 29, 1999)

Spike Lee recently told the New York Post that Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, should be shot "with a .44 caliber bulldog." I didn't hear a peep of protest from any of our liberal opinion-makers, nor the big talking heads on TV, either.

I'll bet if you could calculate it you'd find that the amount of time we spend on "hold" or tortuously weaving thru telephone menus and options has dramatically increased as answering machine technology has advanced. The advent of sophisticated modern telephone technology has not resulted in faster service or easier use for callers. The purpose of all this whizbang stuff is quite the opposite: it enables companies to not answer their phones and for employees to do likewise. My cellmate just spent 35 minutes on hold this morning waiting for Ameritech to provide a human being to speak to. Joke's on us, folks. (June 5, 1999)

Oooops! The Kansas City Star used, apparently in error, a picture of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy dressed as a clown to illustrate National Clown Week. The paper has apologized all around.

Another Boyhood Film Idol Down the Drain Department: Actress and swim goddess Esther Williams' newly-published autobiography claims he-man movie star Jeff Chandler, whom she dated in the 1950s, was a cross-dresser. The book says she once walked in on Chandler standing in the middle of the bedroom "wearing a red wig, a flowered chiffon dress, expensive high-heeled shoes, and lots of makeup." Chandler died in 1961 at age 43.

"It is a strange era indeed when the concept of "family hour" refers not to time spent with the family but to time spent with television." --Rob Long, writing in the July 26, 1999, edition of National Review.)

Helping Our Nation Ascend to a Higher Plane Department: Fox television network executives have confirmed they plan to push for new frontiers in sleaze this fall when the new program lineups debut. "Frankly, we're living in a profane world," chirped Fox producer Chris Thompson, in explaining his decision to ditch euphemism for real profanity whenever possible. Network chieftain Doug Herzog added that Fox would continue to aim for "envelope -pushing" programs and that if people were offended they should "watch somebody else's network in that half-hour."

When I logged in to my computer at work this morning I encountered an error message and instructions to notify the MIS department. I did, read them the "error message" on my screen. Little Missy at the other end checked something, then said I might want to log off and get back on and I should be OK now. "Anything else I should do?" I queried solicitously. "Close the missile silo doors, perhaps?" Silence. That stopped her dead in her tracks. After a brief pause, she emitted a tiny chuckle. "Just kidding," I assured her." No harm done, surely." God, I love this stuff! (July 27, 1999)

Big shocker from upstate Rome, New York. Violence celebrated the closing of the 1999 Woodstock Reenactment. Fighting, drunkenness, drugs, shooting, fires, vandalism, and a few injuries and arrests marked the big shutdown Sunday. About 250,000 are said to have attended. Promoters are saying The Unpleasantness in no way represents the good and wonderful folks who came to celebrate, that mistakes in judgment were made (but full restitution might not be), that it was time to move on. . .You coulda knocked me over with a feather when I heard the news. (July 28, 1999)

The Crayola Co. has retired Indian Red, one of its reddish-brown crayons to avoid offending anyone. The color has always been based on a reddish-brown pigment found near India, but a Company spokescritter said teachers, students and others thought it described the skin color of American Indians. The Associated Press reported this is only the third time in Crayola's 96-year history it has changed a color. Prussian blue was changed to midnight blue in 1958, and in 1962 flesh was renamed peach.

You've probably seen the news stories about the latest research into dolphin behavior. They've discovered numerous episodes of dolphins killing their kids and adult dolphins biting and tearing at humans. Dolphins, according to one researcher, apparently have "murderous urges unrelated to their need for food." Let me beat Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Al Sharpton, Tom Bonior, Lanny Davis, Charles Rangel, Sid Blumenthal, Ted Kennedy, Larry Flynt, Jim Carville, Maxine Waters, Sick and the rest to the punch: The Religious Right and their fellow-travelers, the Republicans, are to blame for this monstrous dolphin depravity.

Hey! Let's Mop Up The Blood And Get Back To Work!

Today's Wall Street Journal carried a long account of the background of the Atlanta blaster, Mark Barton. You know, the guy who went postal and shot a bunch of people at the office. Fascinating. And no surprise to anyone paying attention to megatrends in America. Mark was a day trader who sat transfixed all day long in front of his computer screen at a place called All-Tech in suburban Atlanta, trading stocks. Probers are learning that Mark seemed to have a dark side. The Journal's reporter closed the story by noting that shortly after the shootings, All-Tech already had its janitorial staff busily ripping up and hauling out the bloody carpet, and was assuring its customers that "All-Tech will be ready for (Monday) morning's opening bell." (August 2, 1999)

They're mourning in Indianapolis. Planet Hollywood is closing its downtown theme restaurant as the parent entity enters bankruptcy. Deservedly so, I suspect. These people thought they could paste a few celebrity pictures on the wall, throw open their doors, and folks would flock. They did, for a while, but as some snot recently observed, after one visit there was not much reason to go back. The food was said to be mediocre but high-priced, and the service crappy. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Sylvester Stallone were the celebs who lent their names to this great enterprise. If Demi had shown up topless I'd have been in there, in to Planet Hollywood, like a streak. But alas, she never showed up, cut the crap and got 'em out there. Why else pay $11 for a platter of feces served cool by an indifferent waitcritter? So screw Planet Hollywood and the limousine they rode in on. (October 12, 1999)

'Edgy Mark' Logs Another Milestone Along The Shining Path

The October 14 episode of CBS TV's "Chicago Hope," which stars Mark Harmon as the "edgy" Dr. Jack McNeil ("edgy" is the term used by Allan Johnson, the Chicago Tribune's television writer--in modern parlance, it is code for someone purposefully insulting established mores and standards of public decency), goes down in the pages of glory as the first time the word "shit" (excreted by the edgy Harmon) has ever been uttered on network TV. CBS proudly announced that almost 12 million eager Americans tuned in and it got a mere 50 complaints. Aren't we proud of ourselves? (October 15, 1999)

Fox TV in November will premier another game show spectacular it calls Greed, in which teams of contestants can win money and--here's the important part, for all you liberals out there working on campaign commercials--turn against each other to win even more.

Sounds Like American Society To Me!

An Indianapolis Star headline over a movie review by Roger Ebert reads: 'Lurid,' 'Goofy,' 'Offensive' Describe Stigmata Plot.

Let's have a moment of silence for the now late Jean Shepherd, legendary Hoosier storyteller, who died at age 78 over the weekend. He was born in 1921 in Hammond and grew up in Indiana. He became a writer,and a television and radio producer. In the 1960s and 1970s he produced a great, great television program called Jean Shepherd's America. It was much like Charles Kuralt's better-known CBS program, On the Road. Shepherd wrote for publications as diverse as the New York Times, National Lampoon, and Playboy. He performed before sellout crowds at Carnegie Hall, hosted radio shows, and made the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story. Many of his short stories were fanciful tales of his Hoosier upbringing. One of the most memorable was The Phantom of the Open Hearth about a ghost that supposedly haunted the Gary steel mills. Another masterpiece was his memory of accompanying his family to the state and county fairs. He had a rich, melodic voice, exceptional skills with words, and a wonderful sense of humor. Few know that Shepherd was almost certainly the inspiration for one of the most memorable scenes in the award-winning film, Network, where Peter Finch, in the role of a network TV news anchor, began telling his listeners to open their windows, stick their heads out and begin yelling, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this any more." Shepherd would tell his radio listeners to crank up the volume on their radios and scream along with him. Much of his material is available on audiocassette. Adios, Jean. We're truly the poorer for your passing. (October 19, 1999)

Ooops! Time To Find A New Idol!

Port Huron, Michigan's love affair with Gerald "Ajax" Ackerman seems to have ended. The city's tattooed, bearded, pony-tailed and motocycling-riding former mayor was convicted in a local court October 26 of exposing himself to nine underage girls. "Ajax" had been lionized locally as a role model for overcoming the usual suspects, drugs and alcohol, and in 1994 he was named Michigan Public Citizen of the year. Three years later he ran for mayor and won. Last April Ackerman was named in 25 counts involving 11 girls aged 8 to 15. He resigned the next day. In court, Ackerman showed he is a careful student of Sick Willie by testifying that he did nothing sexually "inappropriate" to any of the plaintiffs. Judge Peter Deegan sentenced Ackerman to one year in prison. Gerald, Gerald, we hardly knew ye. (October 27, 1999)

New York City will require those sleeping in city shelters this winter to work for it in exchange. The city already requires welfare recipients to work in order to get their benefits. The announcement October 27 by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is said to have stunned homeless advocates. "This could literally put hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the streets," said Patrick Markee of Gotham's Coalition for the Homeless. Cruel, godless, heartless Republicans.

Just What America Needs Department: The October 27 Chicago Tribune reports that lobbyists for three Illinois riverboat casinos are fiercely beseeching the Illinois Gaming Board to authorize 24-hour-a-day gambling.

Short Attention Span Department: Has anyone noticed how two of the century's major news stories--the plight of the Kosovo refugees and the infamous Cox Report on China's theft of American weapons technology--have completely vanished from the radar screen?

Two headlines this week pretty much sum up American civilization as the 20th century grinds to a close: Obesity At Epidemic Proportions in U.S. said one. . .and the other was about a survey showing one of every four Americans believes winning the lottery is their best chance to fund their retirement. (October 29, 1999)

More good news! You can now gamble on the Internet and use your credit card to do it!

My nominee for Absolute Prick of the Week: Kenneth Arndt, superintendent of schools in Decatur, Illinois, where Jesse Jackson's pestiferous presence has been making headlines recently as he's camped out in town to rabblerouse and protest the expulsion of seven high school students for fighting at a football game. Noting that the seven innocent victims had already missed a combined 350 days of school prior to this Most Recent Unpleasantness, Arndt posed this horrifying question to Jackson and his fellow-traveling left-wing extremist wackos: "If education were such a priority for these students, why wouldn't they have gone to school?" (November 16, 1999)

Sort of a post-script to the life of John F. Kennedy, Jr., the late publisher of George magazine: John-John attended the annual dinner of the National Press Club in Wonderland, D.C. during his last year of life, and brought along as his invited special guest, Larry Flynt, publisher of Penthouse magazine and spiritual head of the national Democratic Party.

They're having a big stink up in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin about the odor from some huge dairy farms. The local newspaper, the Reporter of Fond Du Lac, noted in its November 14 edition that one cow can produce 25,000 pounds of excrement a year, or about 69 pounds a day. So what's the big deal? I do that.

Thrashing around today in the deep flotsam on my desk I chanced across a commemorative calendar published in 1997 by my hometown newspaper, the Scorched Corners Peeper. It featured reprinted photographs of local high school athletic teams. There, with April, was a picture of the 1957 Scorched Corners High School cross country team, 15 lads in various states of dissolution or ascension, coached by John Bayner. There in the back row was I, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing about 165 pounds, clad in a grey sweatsuit and presumably about to lope off into a leafy glade for the day's practice session. That creature, whoever he was, is pretty much a stranger to me today. He's run about four million miles since then, by my best estimate, and still hasn't escaped the dark brown dogs nipping at his cuffs. (November 19, 1999)

Anyone who knows where I can get a recording of this song, please let me know: "Everyone's Gone to the Moon," by Jonathan King (popular in the 60s or 70s). OK?

If it could be arranged, I'd like to have it this way on my deathbed: I'd like to have a top-of-the-line stereo sound system set up and I'd like 'em to put on Gordon Lightfoot's anthem, Triangle, and turn the volume up so loud it would shatter the windows, and let me sing along with Gordon as I draw my absolute last breath. What a way to go out!!

And if Triangle's not ready at hand, how about selections from the compact disc, Time to Say Goodbye featuring Sarah Brightman and the London Symphony Orchestra? That would also do.

I wish there were just one person in the universe who could share what I feel when I hear certain pieces of music. In those moments, I feel despair and pain and ache that's beyond my ability to describe. When the music stops, the pain goes away. Yet I love listening to the music. Why? Perhaps it's the only proof I have that I'm alive.

A local FM radio station reports on a New York Post survey asking people to name their Top 25 Most Evil People of the Millenium. Hitler was first and Sick Willie second. I just can't believe this could be true. The American people revere and love and admire Sick, as polls consistently have proved and still do (his approval rating is at 59 percent as of this week, according to Chris Matthews on Hardball). No, somebody at the Post is either confused or making this up. (November 23, 1999)

As Y2K Armageddon looms, USA Today was polling Americans about how they felt about things. Ninety percent said they "expected to have a good time" New Year's eve. But they were closely divided over whether the millenium officially starts Jan. 1, 2000 or a year later (clue: it starts January 1, 2001). And most Americans told pollsters they "expected to feel joyous and excited, though a bit reflective, as they embrace the new millenium." But what are we going to do when some people don't feel excited or joyous? What are going to do when things fall short of our expectations? I sense a market opportunity here! A new niche! A new victim class for America's grief counselors and wacko liberal hand-wringers to minister. Somebody's gonna have to pay for this! (December 30, 1999)

Sick, Dogg, Downey & Co.

The Washington Times in its Dec. 27 edition reports that a year-end survey by someone or something called StarStock.com asked over 1,000 people this question: Who would you choose as your "least trusted person to escort somebody's wife on an overnight business trip"? Sick was the top choice. Bad boy actor and addict Robert Downey Jr. was second, followed by the equally noxious pop idol, Snoop Dogg.

The Last Munchkin Checks Out

From Lost Angeles at year's end came this sad news: Harry Monty, believed to be the last surviving Munchkin from the classic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, is dead at age 95. His real name was Hymie Lichenstein. He began his career in vaudeville and was in motion pictures from the 1930s through the 1970s. In addition he played in popular TV series such as Bonanza, Lost in Space, H.R. Pufnstuf, and Bewitched. His roles were often uncredited, according to the Lost Angeles Times obituary. Monty was also one of the flying monkeys in Oz, but considered his Munchkin role as the most memorable of his half century's work. I don't know about you, but the thought of no more Munchkins is profoundly depressing for me. This is a gap in our lives that won't be filled. So long, Monty. (December 31, 1999)

At year-end came encouraging news in a Christmas letter from a liberal friend. One of his daughters graduated in June from the University of Chicago with a master's degree in social work. The family "missed hearing (Sick Willie) as her commencement speaker" because graduates in three master's degree programs (law, public policy, and social work) voted against having (Sick) address their classes. Shocking news, certainly, and probably not picked up by the big talking heads on national TV. A small uplifting note (for me) in an otherwise bleak year.

	Scoundrels, Knaves & Fools American Pile Whoops & Squawks Splinters From the Bench Indiana University Sports Lists & Other Minutiae Contact the author	2008 \| 2007 \| 2006 \| 2005 \| 2004 \| 2003 \| 2002 \| 2001 \| 2000 \| 1999 \| 1998 \| 1997 \| 1996 \| 1995 \| Pre-1995 The American Pile "A survey of a thousand senior executives found that 53 percent thought the McDonald's Arch Deluxe was a computer part, 43 percent thought Fiona Apple was a computer, and 68 percent thought the Internet was owned by a corporation, most likely Microsoft." --Esquire magazine, page 78, January, 1999 edition More Signs of Danger Are Everywhere Department: Florida's official state seal bears the words "In God We Trust." Wait till the ACLU finds about about this! (January 22, 1999) A scout reports that on the radio version of "Good Morning, America" this morning, Sam Donaldson referred to his sidekick, Cokie Roberts, as "The Cokester." Good! (February 11, 1999) I noticed the other day that all the pepper shakers have disappeared at the McDonald's restaurant downtown. I asked one of the happy employees what had happened. "Had to put 'em away," came the reply. "Customers were stealing them, and throwing them at each other." (February 11, 1999) A suburban Detroit high school has been successfully sued by a 17-year-old female student, her parents and the ACLU for not allowing the girl to wear a pentacle on her clothing to school.The student, Crystal Sieferly, is a self-professed witch. She told breathless reporters that "Being forced to conceal one's religious symbol under their shirt is a form of shame." The school recently adopted a policy banning witches, white supremacists and Satanists and their related decorations and accessories such as black nail polish, vampire-style makeup, and pentacles or pentagrams--five-pointed stars enclosed in a circle and worn by witches as a symbol of air, fire, water, earth, and spirit Crystal's mother, described in USA Today's February 10 edition as a "practicing Christian," is said to support her daughter's lawsuit. The ACLU huffed that the school's policy is illegal and targets religion. A federal judge in Detroit ruled that the witch's rights had indeed been violated. This is another case of adults not getting it. If the school board had adopted a policy approving all this nonsense, students would immediately stop doing it and move on to some other aspect of their job of irritating grownups. True progress will be made when Crystal and her family and fellow-coveners and twits prove they comprehend what shame really is. (February 17, 1999) Beverly Hills, California, voters will decide May 11 in a special election whether to require merchants selling furs to affix a label notifying customers that the animal "may have been electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, clubbed, stomped, or drowned." The city council voted 3-1 to hold the election. Violators could be fined $100 per fur. When will someone propose legislation that's really appropriate for Beverly Hills, such as a bill requiring city council members to wear a label on their foreheads stating "I Am an Idiot"? (February 20, 1999) Another trip back to the plains of my youth in north central Indiana. It occurs to me how often I am back in Scorched Corners these days to attend or bear pall at funerals. This time it's for Hughie Larrabee, a longtime local businessman and my wife's uncle. I remember Hughie running the Conoco station downtown . He was always smiling and genial in his green and white striped shirt. Later he went into the insurance business. He and the other men of his generation were the bedrock of our community when I grew up there. They came back from World War II, most of them, married, raised families, started businesses, joined the Kiwanis Club, Rotary, the Optimists, the Elks, Eagles, Redmen, Moose and Masonic lodges, the VFW and American Legion, supported their churches, sponsored Little League teams, cheered zealously for the local high school athletic teams, and so got about building a community, the place that nurtured and shaped my growing up. It is my evolving duty in declining middle age to come back periodically and bury them. and in so doing move closer to the head of the line myself. Three people---his son, a son-in-law, and a nephew--stood up to speak at Hughie Larrabee's funeral in the First Presbyterian Church (where centuries ago I sang in the church youth choir and attended--alas, with too little seriousness--Sunday school). All three outdid themselves and brought honor to their families and themselves with deeply moving tributes. Hughie Larrabee could not have done better with his life than to earn these testimonials. I left the church feeling very small. The motorcade followed a route thousands and thousands of times familiar, up Broadway, north on Main Street, across the bridge over the river, down through East Scorched Corners and up the hill to Greenlawn Cemetery. It was a crisp, sunlit late winter's day, the river bending, curling off silver in the background. God, this is a sorrowful business. The ground is soft underfoot from a recent thaw and a mild winter. The family crowds inside a green canvas tent, mourners clustering around outside it. Tent flaps rustle in the wind. Hushed conversations. Car doors opening, closing. I glance around as I walk through rows of tombstones bearing familiar names: Cortman, Hughes, Neville, Trepling, Deevers. . . A dark van parks nearby and from it emerge members of the local American Legion. What look like old M-1 rifles are passed respectfully down the line. The men form a color guard, bearing aloft the American flag. They march across the muddy grass, pivot, seven stalwart vets now gray and unsteady with age. My former high school choir director and music teacher, Petrarch Pavan, plays a slightly faltering but most mournful call of Taps on a battered trumpet. One of the others in a thin voice calls the command. . ."Aim. . . .Fire!" Crisp volleys rattle east across the cornfields and countryside, three rounds times seven stalwart veterans in a 21-gun salute to their departed friend who served in the 9th Air Force in Europe and, like most, seldom ever after spoke about it. An American flag drapes the casket. Two of the honor guard solemnly fold it, present it to the widow, shake hands with each family member. This is an incredibly solemn and beautiful experience, one that inevitably calls forth the sorry and disgraceful comparison between these men and the current lying, draft-dodging, military-loathing occupant of the White House. The Presbyterian minister reads final scripture. It is over. A few hundred yards away, the gravediggers wait to fill in the hole. We mill about. I speak to several people I know. Mr. Pavan is near 80, ruddy and remarkably fit. We chat in the chill air, joke about the olden days. There is a moment when I am not sure he knows who I am. He quickly recovers, and regales me with funny stories from the late 1950s when our class was passing through his tutelage. I put my arm on his shoulder and tell him how much I respect the teacher he was (and he was my favorite). He walks off gingerly. With my wife and others I drift off down the rows of graves, pondering names and dates, listening to family members exchange memories and lore. Mogo and I talk about our own plans, where we will be planted. Right here or in Washington Park in Indianapolis seem to be the options. The Kratchlow plot in Noblesville is pretty much full. I'm not sure what really matters in this. At bottom we probably all wonder the same thing. We wonder what the replicants wondered in that great film, Blade Runner (adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). We wonder: Who am I? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? How long do I have? Graves are not for the dead but for the survivors. I want to hope, though, that someone might visit mine some day, reminisce a bit, pause thoughtfully, chuckle, and conclude that I was one crazy sumbitch and a fairly decent fellow at that. And if my name could be mentioned in the same breath of reverence with the parents of Hughie Larrabee's generation, well, that would be enough. (February 15, 1999) A co-worker was commenting on something about the 1970s the other day and it reminded me of a curious aspect of my life. I have missed entire decades. I missed the anti-Vietnam War protest and the entire social upheaval which marked the 1960s. I missed the hippie movement. I missed the free love movement. I never wore long hair, completely missed the drug scene. It was as if I went from the 1950s to the 1990s without ever joining in anything--and without ever buying any new clothes, either! (March 6, 1999) Radios play nonstop at work. People seem uneasy with silence. My cellmate keeps her radio on an Indianapolis station which plays pop music continuously and that seems limited to only a dozen or so songs played many, many times throughout the day. Most of the time I shut it out. But I noticed one with a familiar voice: off-key, hoarse, nasal. I said to my co-worker, "That sounds almost like Bob Dylan as a boy." She spun around in her chair and told me that was his son, Jakob Dylan. "How did you know that?" she asked. "I listened to his dad when I was just a little wrangler," I replied. "He had a terrible voice then. Still does. So does this guy." Well, Jakob sounds eerily like his dad: the father's voice was once likened to a bawling calf---v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y bad. Eugene S. Pulliam, publisher and patriarch of the Indianapolis Star and News, died in February. Bet money the afternoon paper, the News, will be closed within a year. Pulliam was personally responsible for preserving the struggling paper, despite drastic declines in circulation and revenue. Now that he's gone, the bean-counters will prevail. (March 11, 1999) Two early nominees for best television advertisement of the year: First Union's campy, Gothic, Batman-style ad for its banking and financial services, and Coca Cola's must-have-been-done-by-a-computer spectacular showing hundreds of skydivers linking up in mid-air to form a gigantic Coca Cola bottle as two youngsters walking in a field gaze up in amazement. This stuff's better than most programming. I stayed up to watch the Academy Awards last night. A marginal exercise at best. These conclusions surge forth. . .Whoopi Goldberg is a dirtbag. . .Sophia Loren's chest remains a world treasure. . .anti-Elia Kazan politics marred the evening. Hollywood still hates him for naming Communists. . .Hollywood is in love with itself and this show is a ridiculous self-love-in. . .the pre-show TV hype was beyond absurd, with reporters on every street corner and in every doorway, breathlessly telling us about the famous people who were there or soon would be. . .about the camera installed in a limo that soon would be hauling the stars. . .how that camera would soon be showing American citizens what it was like to be inside the limo with the stars, seeing what the stars saw, feeling what they felt, as the gigantic vehicle glided along the boulevard toward this party or that one, toward the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the stars were gathering for this star-studded night. . .Robert DeNiro badly needs a new haircut. . .Arrowsmith apparently represents high art to these people. . .Roberto Benigni is a master of self-promotion and over-reaching as he jumps onto seat-backs to show us how overcome with emotion he is that he's won an Oscar. The show lasts several hours longer than it should. . .these are truly beautiful people. (March 22, 1999) Kyle Niederpreum broke the news in this morning's Indianapolis Star. The latest worldwide horror is. . .light pollution. It caught me by surprise. Normally I'm on the cutting edge of these things. But Kyle, the Star's environment bird-dog, revealed that night-time skies in rural areas are being polluted by light from the city. What, dear God, can we do? It wasn't clear from the article just how we might solve this, but I'm betting Kyle will soon be proposing more government regulation of those emitting light. And so I spun away from my breakfast table spewing vomit, and hurried downtown to do some heavy lifting at Universal Export. This is where I belong, my friends, at work in the service of unbridled capitalism, destroying the planet and everything on it. (March 26, 1999). Word leaked out of Indianapolis International Airport today that a wheel fell off a US Airways jet being prepared for takeoff. The pilot said he heard what he thought was mechanical trouble and stopped the plane immediately. Airport spokescritters were understandably reluctant to offer details. The Indianapolis Star's brief account noted no one was injured and 86 passengers were shuttled back to the terminal. Not a confidence-builder, really. (March 28, 1999) Everyone in public life seems impatient these days that Milosevic and his thugs haven't rolled over and repented. After all, the NATO bombing campaign has been on for at least seven days, a span of time completely beyond the comprehension of most American citizens. Our Mayfly culture isn't prepared to cope with such things. Add to the list of great TV ads: Nortel Networks showing one "big business" scene after another, heavy-hitters in conference rooms, worldwide teleconferencing of corporate titans, and a Big Brother voice speaking via TV monitors to all of them--but in verses from the famous Beatles 1970s anthem, "Come Together". . . .things like. . .we got jujube eyeballs. . .we got toe-jam football. . . .he got hair down below his knees. . .one thing I can tell is you got to be free. . come together, right now. . .over me. . ." The front page of the April 6 Yakima (Washington) Herald-Republic noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Indian tribes in Washington may harvest shellfish on private property. "The decision stunned private property owners," according to the Associated Press report. Anybody who's stunned hasn't been paying attention over the past four decades, which have witnessed a determined and relentless advancement of minority and group rights in our country. So much for your right to what you own. If somebody wants it, eventually they're going to be able to come into your house--with government might knocking down your front door--and take it. The headline over Mark Caro's film review in the April 9 Chicago Tribune says " 'Go' Pulls Out All Stops in 3 Intertwining Drug Tales." Caro describes Columbia Pictures' newest film gem as a "crazed night of drug scams, Las Vegas ruckus-raising, casual sex, vengeful heavies, car chases, and various unnatural disasters"--the meat-and-potatoes bedrock of American pop culture as the 1990s draw to their much-welcomed close, in other words. I was braced for a warm, supportive review, but Caro surprised by concluding this is just another cheap, trashy (my words, not his) film. Caro mistakenly claims that "even Pulp Fiction had some moral content" (sorry, it does not) then notes that Go takes place "in a vacuum where all behavior--no matter how callous or ugly--is equal, and nothing has much weight." Go, in other words, is a film reflecting one of the major diseases of our age and one of the left's favorites, moral relativism, which posits that there are no such things as right or wrong, that all actions and ideas are equally worthy, and that morality is something each person decides for himself. Caro cautioned his readers to not be surprised if they experience a "sour aftertaste" upon leaving the theater. This is courageously judgmental on Mark's part. He does not address the cosmic questions, though: Who do they make these films for? Who cares about seeing films about drug addicts and other human waste products? Who would pay money to see Go? (April 9, 1999) Earlier in the week in Chicago, a man who probably paid eagerly to see Go filed a huge lawsuit against his dentist and the professional society of all dentists wordwide seeking damages for gum and tooth abrasion from brushing his teeth all these years. I immediately loaded my deep titanium Ford Probe with lemon meringue pies and roared north on Interstate 65, Chicago-bound to give this chap what he deserves--about 285 of 'em in the face--but the State Police shot out my tires just south of Lebanon and escorted me home at gunpoint. Either I give it up, they said, or they'd have to arrest me for judgmentalism. One of the better quips circulating on the Internet these days is this: People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it is easier to harass rich old ladies than motorcycle gangs. The tragic events in Littleton, Colorado, this week are nearly beyond comprehension. They are also part of the harvest of an American culture that is utterly poisoned. Evil is abroad in the land and metastasizing. I can't see anything saving us or changing this unless it is a national revival of religion. Otherwise, we are headed for oblivion, and we deserve to be. The adults who manage the Indiana high school all-star basketball team have added two players to the boys' team roster for its upcoming June games against Kentucky. One of those adults, games director Patrick Aickman, was quoted in the April 21 Indianapolis Star explaining that "My feeling is to give as many kids as possible an opportunity to be selected an Indiana All-Star." The truth is that every single high school basketball player already has this opportunity. The problem is that the teams are chosen based on individual talent. Aickman's poorly-coded message seems to be that justice will be ours only when every player is chosen for the team. The Star, which sponsors the Indiana-Kentucky series, could end the suffering of our young people immediately by naming every player in Indiana to its all-star teams. (April 21, 1999) Heartbreaking news from the Journal of Geophysical Research: Mars, the red planet, isn't red. It's yellowish brown. Scientists have known this since 1977 when America's Pathfinder space probe sent back thousands of images of the planet. But the magazine article's co-authors, Justin Maki and Peter Smith, say "the public insisted on a red Mars," so that's what officials continue to call it to this day. Yellowish brown "lacks the romance of the red planet," the authors wrote. They hope to win public acceptance of Mars as the butterscotch planet. And if that doesn't work, they'll try "goldenrod planet". And thus continues the American public's struggle to deal with reality as the 1990s reel toward closure. (April 24, 1999) Bennett Knows The One Place We Don't Want To Look Bill "Book of Virtues" Bennett got right up in America's face Sunday morning on NBC's Meet The Press. He raised this question for an America already eager to get on with its important business: Isn't it peculiar that students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, have been allowed to roam the halls and classrooms in black coats and black clothing, wearing baseball caps and sunglasses and shouting Hitler slogans and the school administration does nothing. . .but had any students been walking the halls carrying Bibles and mentioning Christ's name they would have been immediately hauled to the principal's office and disciplined. And, I would add, the principal would have held a national press conference to assure a quaking public that adults were in control, order had been restored and this insidious threat to school order and dignity had been aggressively silenced. Sooner or later, someone will kill Bill Bennett for holding up the mirror. (April 25, 1999) Two days after the Colorado school massacre, a Marilyn Manson rock concert went on as scheduled at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Over 6,000 devotees attended. The Indianapolis Star's David Lindquist was there and offered a fairly bizarre analysis the next morning, his review vacillating between scorn that seemed a pose, custardlike thinking, and subtle ridicule of those who criticize the lovely and talented rock icon-god. He first noted that Manson--whose real name, for the historical record, is Brian Warner-- has been "labeled" by many people as "satanic" and has (already) been "unjustly linked" to Tuesday's school slayings in Littleton. What's unjust about it? Within 24 hours of This Most Recent Unpleasantness, the press had reported that the two youthful killers and their cohorts in the school's "trenchcoat mafia" were devotees of Manson and other satanic rock groups. This linkage has appeared repeatedly in similar atrocities in our country in the past decade. In Indianapolis Thursday night, Manson declined even the slightest reference to the Littleton murders. This bothered Lindquist, who apparently felt that such a mention would have enabled the sensitive in the audience and the Star's readership to put all this behind them and move on with their lives. "At the very least," wrote Lindquist, "Manson could have said something like 'Hey, that scene in Colorado was uncool and not what we're about.' " But alas, no such cooperation from Manson, who, in the reviewer's words, wasn't even "brave enough to comment on the news of the day." And besides, it is what they're all about, so saying it isn't wouldn't have played in Peoria, as Richard Nixon used to say. Lindquist did report that the show was "peppered with some R-rated thrills" like Manson's "lewd commentary on drugs," the now standard fare of a female audience member baring her breasts onstage, and a "mock shotgun blast" that temporarily "took out" Manson about three-fourths of the way into the festivities. Lindquist noted, without revealing if it pleased or displeased him, that the concert lacked any animal sacrifices, sexual assaults, or "shout-outs" to the devil. Many in the worshipful throng no doubt went home feeling cheated. Donning his psychobabble beanie, Lindquist advanced the nearly hilarious theory that "Manson will exist only as long as his detractors demonize him" and twitted those who showed up at Market Square to protest. These spoilsports "need to realize that they only give power to (Manson's) reactionary and derivative shock tactics," Lindquist chided. He closed his little lecture to the unwashed and troglodytic by telling them to "Ignore this one--and he'll go away." Lindquist closed out his own insipid performance by quoting from Manson's 1998 "best-selling autobiography", a nugget which could appeal only to the already brainless or brain-dead in Manson's and the Star's audience. The Star's ceaseless quest for excellence in reporting and analysis has a way to go yet. The phone rang at work and it was Gene Fondlinger, a realtor. "Is that you?" he asked. "Your phone sounds funny. Your voice sounds funny." "Perhaps," I rejoined, swinging instantly into Jonathan Winters, "it's because I'm speaking to you from almost 1200 feet below the harbor. Have you felt the initial jolt? The orange glow you see all around you is not the sun. This is a total holocaust." Here I paused. Silence. Gene was frozen. "Gene?" I laughed. "It's me. Willard. I was just kidding." I said it several times before Gene snapped out of it and resumed the conversation. He tried to act as if nothing had happened. But I like to think I've planted a seed, a concern, a wonderment, and that Gene's brow will furrow from time to time over the coming months when he recalls his encounter with me. I have no idea what was wrong with my phone, but I was pleased I could make a bit of entertainment from it. Protesters were marching late this week in Denver to tell us how angry they are that the National Rifle Association was going ahead with its scheduled annual meeting there. They've got the wrong address. They ought to be surrounding the homes of the two lads responsible for the carnage and protesting there--that would at least focus the blame where it ought to be. But it's far easier to lash out at the liberal left's favorite demon, the NRA. Bet money that the Littleton, Colorado, tragedy will produce plenty of lawsuits--against the NRA, gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers worldwide, movies, books, poems which mention guns, military and police forces which use guns, strangers on the street--everyone but those actually at fault. Our society is plagued by a ceaseless questing to assign blame that looks everywhere but in the mirror. The principal at Columbine High School may be a Clintonista or a Grape Kool-Aider in disguise. He's been interviewed on national television saying he never heard of the "trenchcoat mafia", knew nothing about the fair lads in question, and had never seen anyone wearing a black trenchcoat in the hallowed halls of dear old Columbine. This despite mountains of evidence the opposite is true. Best keep an eye on this fella. He's headed for a high-paying job in the White House or at Assembly Hall. Amid the frenzy of the NBA playoffs, the 500 Mile Race and the usual slew of rock concerts, porno fairs and shopping mall sales, the city of Indianapolis did something really important May 28. It dedicated, in grand, stirring style a stunning Memorial to America's Medal of Honor Winners. Thousands of spectators and almost 100 medal winners turned out for a deeply moving ceremony and memorial unveiling along the downtown canal in White River State Park. The press gave the event nice coverage. There were many touching anecdotes about the heroism of the medal winners. Their names are etched on walls of glass, illuminated at night. Visitors said they were stunned by the memorial's impact on them. I always feel small and ashamed hearing of such heroism, courage, self-sacrifice. I feel I missed out on something important in my life by never being called upon to make such choices. We've had it so easy, so many of us. (May 29, 1999) Spike Lee recently told the New York Post that Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, should be shot "with a .44 caliber bulldog." I didn't hear a peep of protest from any of our liberal opinion-makers, nor the big talking heads on TV, either. I'll bet if you could calculate it you'd find that the amount of time we spend on "hold" or tortuously weaving thru telephone menus and options has dramatically increased as answering machine technology has advanced. The advent of sophisticated modern telephone technology has not resulted in faster service or easier use for callers. The purpose of all this whizbang stuff is quite the opposite: it enables companies to not answer their phones and for employees to do likewise. My cellmate just spent 35 minutes on hold this morning waiting for Ameritech to provide a human being to speak to. Joke's on us, folks. (June 5, 1999) Oooops! The Kansas City Star used, apparently in error, a picture of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy dressed as a clown to illustrate National Clown Week. The paper has apologized all around. Another Boyhood Film Idol Down the Drain Department: Actress and swim goddess Esther Williams' newly-published autobiography claims he-man movie star Jeff Chandler, whom she dated in the 1950s, was a cross-dresser. The book says she once walked in on Chandler standing in the middle of the bedroom "wearing a red wig, a flowered chiffon dress, expensive high-heeled shoes, and lots of makeup." Chandler died in 1961 at age 43. "It is a strange era indeed when the concept of "family hour" refers not to time spent with the family but to time spent with television." --Rob Long, writing in the July 26, 1999, edition of National Review.) Helping Our Nation Ascend to a Higher Plane Department: Fox television network executives have confirmed they plan to push for new frontiers in sleaze this fall when the new program lineups debut. "Frankly, we're living in a profane world," chirped Fox producer Chris Thompson, in explaining his decision to ditch euphemism for real profanity whenever possible. Network chieftain Doug Herzog added that Fox would continue to aim for "envelope -pushing" programs and that if people were offended they should "watch somebody else's network in that half-hour." When I logged in to my computer at work this morning I encountered an error message and instructions to notify the MIS department. I did, read them the "error message" on my screen. Little Missy at the other end checked something, then said I might want to log off and get back on and I should be OK now. "Anything else I should do?" I queried solicitously. "Close the missile silo doors, perhaps?" Silence. That stopped her dead in her tracks. After a brief pause, she emitted a tiny chuckle. "Just kidding," I assured her." No harm done, surely." God, I love this stuff! (July 27, 1999) Big shocker from upstate Rome, New York. Violence celebrated the closing of the 1999 Woodstock Reenactment. Fighting, drunkenness, drugs, shooting, fires, vandalism, and a few injuries and arrests marked the big shutdown Sunday. About 250,000 are said to have attended. Promoters are saying The Unpleasantness in no way represents the good and wonderful folks who came to celebrate, that mistakes in judgment were made (but full restitution might not be), that it was time to move on. . .You coulda knocked me over with a feather when I heard the news. (July 28, 1999) The Crayola Co. has retired Indian Red, one of its reddish-brown crayons to avoid offending anyone. The color has always been based on a reddish-brown pigment found near India, but a Company spokescritter said teachers, students and others thought it described the skin color of American Indians. The Associated Press reported this is only the third time in Crayola's 96-year history it has changed a color. Prussian blue was changed to midnight blue in 1958, and in 1962 flesh was renamed peach. You've probably seen the news stories about the latest research into dolphin behavior. They've discovered numerous episodes of dolphins killing their kids and adult dolphins biting and tearing at humans. Dolphins, according to one researcher, apparently have "murderous urges unrelated to their need for food." Let me beat Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Al Sharpton, Tom Bonior, Lanny Davis, Charles Rangel, Sid Blumenthal, Ted Kennedy, Larry Flynt, Jim Carville, Maxine Waters, Sick and the rest to the punch: The Religious Right and their fellow-travelers, the Republicans, are to blame for this monstrous dolphin depravity. Hey! Let's Mop Up The Blood And Get Back To Work! Today's Wall Street Journal carried a long account of the background of the Atlanta blaster, Mark Barton. You know, the guy who went postal and shot a bunch of people at the office. Fascinating. And no surprise to anyone paying attention to megatrends in America. Mark was a day trader who sat transfixed all day long in front of his computer screen at a place called All-Tech in suburban Atlanta, trading stocks. Probers are learning that Mark seemed to have a dark side. The Journal's reporter closed the story by noting that shortly after the shootings, All-Tech already had its janitorial staff busily ripping up and hauling out the bloody carpet, and was assuring its customers that "All-Tech will be ready for (Monday) morning's opening bell." (August 2, 1999) They're mourning in Indianapolis. Planet Hollywood is closing its downtown theme restaurant as the parent entity enters bankruptcy. Deservedly so, I suspect. These people thought they could paste a few celebrity pictures on the wall, throw open their doors, and folks would flock. They did, for a while, but as some snot recently observed, after one visit there was not much reason to go back. The food was said to be mediocre but high-priced, and the service crappy. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Sylvester Stallone were the celebs who lent their names to this great enterprise. If Demi had shown up topless I'd have been in there, in to Planet Hollywood, like a streak. But alas, she never showed up, cut the crap and got 'em out there. Why else pay $11 for a platter of feces served cool by an indifferent waitcritter? So screw Planet Hollywood and the limousine they rode in on. (October 12, 1999) 'Edgy Mark' Logs Another Milestone Along The Shining Path The October 14 episode of CBS TV's "Chicago Hope," which stars Mark Harmon as the "edgy" Dr. Jack McNeil ("edgy" is the term used by Allan Johnson, the Chicago Tribune's television writer--in modern parlance, it is code for someone purposefully insulting established mores and standards of public decency), goes down in the pages of glory as the first time the word "shit" (excreted by the edgy Harmon) has ever been uttered on network TV. CBS proudly announced that almost 12 million eager Americans tuned in and it got a mere 50 complaints. Aren't we proud of ourselves? (October 15, 1999) Fox TV in November will premier another game show spectacular it calls Greed, in which teams of contestants can win money and--here's the important part, for all you liberals out there working on campaign commercials--turn against each other to win even more. Sounds Like American Society To Me! An Indianapolis Star headline over a movie review by Roger Ebert reads: 'Lurid,' 'Goofy,' 'Offensive' Describe Stigmata Plot. Let's have a moment of silence for the now late Jean Shepherd, legendary Hoosier storyteller, who died at age 78 over the weekend. He was born in 1921 in Hammond and grew up in Indiana. He became a writer,and a television and radio producer. In the 1960s and 1970s he produced a great, great television program called Jean Shepherd's America. It was much like Charles Kuralt's better-known CBS program, On the Road. Shepherd wrote for publications as diverse as the New York Times, National Lampoon, and Playboy. He performed before sellout crowds at Carnegie Hall, hosted radio shows, and made the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story. Many of his short stories were fanciful tales of his Hoosier upbringing. One of the most memorable was The Phantom of the Open Hearth about a ghost that supposedly haunted the Gary steel mills. Another masterpiece was his memory of accompanying his family to the state and county fairs. He had a rich, melodic voice, exceptional skills with words, and a wonderful sense of humor. Few know that Shepherd was almost certainly the inspiration for one of the most memorable scenes in the award-winning film, Network, where Peter Finch, in the role of a network TV news anchor, began telling his listeners to open their windows, stick their heads out and begin yelling, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this any more." Shepherd would tell his radio listeners to crank up the volume on their radios and scream along with him. Much of his material is available on audiocassette. Adios, Jean. We're truly the poorer for your passing. (October 19, 1999) Ooops! Time To Find A New Idol! Port Huron, Michigan's love affair with Gerald "Ajax" Ackerman seems to have ended. The city's tattooed, bearded, pony-tailed and motocycling-riding former mayor was convicted in a local court October 26 of exposing himself to nine underage girls. "Ajax" had been lionized locally as a role model for overcoming the usual suspects, drugs and alcohol, and in 1994 he was named Michigan Public Citizen of the year. Three years later he ran for mayor and won. Last April Ackerman was named in 25 counts involving 11 girls aged 8 to 15. He resigned the next day. In court, Ackerman showed he is a careful student of Sick Willie by testifying that he did nothing sexually "inappropriate" to any of the plaintiffs. Judge Peter Deegan sentenced Ackerman to one year in prison. Gerald, Gerald, we hardly knew ye. (October 27, 1999) New York City will require those sleeping in city shelters this winter to work for it in exchange. The city already requires welfare recipients to work in order to get their benefits. The announcement October 27 by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is said to have stunned homeless advocates. "This could literally put hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the streets," said Patrick Markee of Gotham's Coalition for the Homeless. Cruel, godless, heartless Republicans. Just What America Needs Department: The October 27 Chicago Tribune reports that lobbyists for three Illinois riverboat casinos are fiercely beseeching the Illinois Gaming Board to authorize 24-hour-a-day gambling. Short Attention Span Department: Has anyone noticed how two of the century's major news stories--the plight of the Kosovo refugees and the infamous Cox Report on China's theft of American weapons technology--have completely vanished from the radar screen? Two headlines this week pretty much sum up American civilization as the 20th century grinds to a close: Obesity At Epidemic Proportions in U.S. said one. . .and the other was about a survey showing one of every four Americans believes winning the lottery is their best chance to fund their retirement. (October 29, 1999) More good news! You can now gamble on the Internet and use your credit card to do it! My nominee for Absolute Prick of the Week: Kenneth Arndt, superintendent of schools in Decatur, Illinois, where Jesse Jackson's pestiferous presence has been making headlines recently as he's camped out in town to rabblerouse and protest the expulsion of seven high school students for fighting at a football game. Noting that the seven innocent victims had already missed a combined 350 days of school prior to this Most Recent Unpleasantness, Arndt posed this horrifying question to Jackson and his fellow-traveling left-wing extremist wackos: "If education were such a priority for these students, why wouldn't they have gone to school?" (November 16, 1999) Sort of a post-script to the life of John F. Kennedy, Jr., the late publisher of George magazine: John-John attended the annual dinner of the National Press Club in Wonderland, D.C. during his last year of life, and brought along as his invited special guest, Larry Flynt, publisher of Penthouse magazine and spiritual head of the national Democratic Party. They're having a big stink up in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin about the odor from some huge dairy farms. The local newspaper, the Reporter of Fond Du Lac, noted in its November 14 edition that one cow can produce 25,000 pounds of excrement a year, or about 69 pounds a day. So what's the big deal? I do that. Thrashing around today in the deep flotsam on my desk I chanced across a commemorative calendar published in 1997 by my hometown newspaper, the Scorched Corners Peeper. It featured reprinted photographs of local high school athletic teams. There, with April, was a picture of the 1957 Scorched Corners High School cross country team, 15 lads in various states of dissolution or ascension, coached by John Bayner. There in the back row was I, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing about 165 pounds, clad in a grey sweatsuit and presumably about to lope off into a leafy glade for the day's practice session. That creature, whoever he was, is pretty much a stranger to me today. He's run about four million miles since then, by my best estimate, and still hasn't escaped the dark brown dogs nipping at his cuffs. (November 19, 1999) Anyone who knows where I can get a recording of this song, please let me know: "Everyone's Gone to the Moon," by Jonathan King (popular in the 60s or 70s). OK? If it could be arranged, I'd like to have it this way on my deathbed: I'd like to have a top-of-the-line stereo sound system set up and I'd like 'em to put on Gordon Lightfoot's anthem, Triangle, and turn the volume up so loud it would shatter the windows, and let me sing along with Gordon as I draw my absolute last breath. What a way to go out!! And if Triangle's not ready at hand, how about selections from the compact disc, Time to Say Goodbye featuring Sarah Brightman and the London Symphony Orchestra? That would also do. I wish there were just one person in the universe who could share what I feel when I hear certain pieces of music. In those moments, I feel despair and pain and ache that's beyond my ability to describe. When the music stops, the pain goes away. Yet I love listening to the music. Why? Perhaps it's the only proof I have that I'm alive. A local FM radio station reports on a New York Post survey asking people to name their Top 25 Most Evil People of the Millenium. Hitler was first and Sick Willie second. I just can't believe this could be true. The American people revere and love and admire Sick, as polls consistently have proved and still do (his approval rating is at 59 percent as of this week, according to Chris Matthews on Hardball). No, somebody at the Post is either confused or making this up. (November 23, 1999) As Y2K Armageddon looms, USA Today was polling Americans about how they felt about things. Ninety percent said they "expected to have a good time" New Year's eve. But they were closely divided over whether the millenium officially starts Jan. 1, 2000 or a year later (clue: it starts January 1, 2001). And most Americans told pollsters they "expected to feel joyous and excited, though a bit reflective, as they embrace the new millenium." But what are we going to do when some people don't feel excited or joyous? What are going to do when things fall short of our expectations? I sense a market opportunity here! A new niche! A new victim class for America's grief counselors and wacko liberal hand-wringers to minister. Somebody's gonna have to pay for this! (December 30, 1999) Sick, Dogg, Downey & Co. The Washington Times in its Dec. 27 edition reports that a year-end survey by someone or something called StarStock.com asked over 1,000 people this question: Who would you choose as your "least trusted person to escort somebody's wife on an overnight business trip"? Sick was the top choice. Bad boy actor and addict Robert Downey Jr. was second, followed by the equally noxious pop idol, Snoop Dogg. The Last Munchkin Checks Out From Lost Angeles at year's end came this sad news: Harry Monty, believed to be the last surviving Munchkin from the classic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, is dead at age 95. His real name was Hymie Lichenstein. He began his career in vaudeville and was in motion pictures from the 1930s through the 1970s. In addition he played in popular TV series such as Bonanza, Lost in Space, H.R. Pufnstuf, and Bewitched. His roles were often uncredited, according to the Lost Angeles Times obituary. Monty was also one of the flying monkeys in Oz, but considered his Munchkin role as the most memorable of his half century's work. I don't know about you, but the thought of no more Munchkins is profoundly depressing for me. This is a gap in our lives that won't be filled. So long, Monty. (December 31, 1999) At year-end came encouraging news in a Christmas letter from a liberal friend. One of his daughters graduated in June from the University of Chicago with a master's degree in social work. The family "missed hearing (Sick Willie) as her commencement speaker" because graduates in three master's degree programs (law, public policy, and social work) voted against having (Sick) address their classes. Shocking news, certainly, and probably not picked up by the big talking heads on national TV. A small uplifting note (for me) in an otherwise bleak year. Back to top
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