by gale hammond
It’s the week before Halloween, and it’s getting scary out there. Maybe the moon has been full all month (can that actually happen?) or perhaps there is something in the water or the global warming situation is tweaking people’s “good sense” gene, but sheesh! If things get any creepier, we’re going to have to lock the doors and pull the shades; I mean, answering the doorbell on Halloween? Forget about it!
Proving he can’t stay out of the headlines, Larry “Happy Feet” Craig was recently inducted into the Idaho Hall of Shame … er Fame. Boy, that state must be really hurting if old Naughty Boy was the best they could dig up, and I say this with all due respect to Idaho because I happen to love their potatoes. But the Hall of Fame? Really? Seems kinda like mutually exclusive concepts, doesn’t it? Yet I kid you not, friends; for $50 people got to have dinner and pay homage to the senator. Don’t quote me on this but I heard the menu featured the guest of honor handing out the same old baloney.
Meanwhile, the Craigs decided to speak publicly about the senator’s difficulties with the law so they sat down recently for a scintillating hour with NBC’s Matt Lauer. Lauer, in his most sincere big-time-TV-news-interviewer manner, delicately posed the hard questions (If you’re not gay, Senator, could you be bi-sexual?) Huh? They bumped “The Biggest Loser” for this? Oh, hmmm … maybe not. Meanwhile, Senator Craig declared that he is still not gay. Mrs. Craig, on the other hand, was probably thinking of switching sides, so to speak, but did an admirable job of standing by her man although I think I noticed a bottle of gin stashed under the sofa.
And isn’t it good to know that the major media does, in fact, have more on its radar screen than Larry Craig? We were all a-twitter when we learned Britney Spears turned herself in to authorities in Los Angeles where she was booked and photographed for a mug shot in an alarming pink blunt-cut wig. “What?” you are no doubt asking. “Britney has a mug shot? How come we haven’t seen it plastered all over our hi-def widescreen TVs 24/7? Come on, man, that picture is classic; she was wearing that realistic pink wig and all!”
And chances are you won’t ever see it because Los Angeles has an unfortunate policy that mug shots won’t be forked over to the world at large for public viewing a la Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte, Lindsay, Paris, O.J. and others who had the bad luck to be arrested in other cities. A word to the wise: Check out your city’s mug shot policy if you have plans to get yourself arrested anytime soon. I mean those pictures just follow you around forever! Will you ever forget the bizarre image of Nick Nolte listing starboard in his Hawaiian shirt with the outrageously wild, Albert Einsteinesque hairdo that was possibly harboring ground squirrels?
Speaking of O.J., guess who owes the state $2.7 million in back taxes? Yes, that would be our boy, O.J. (I-Just-Wanted-My-Stuff-Back) Simpson who is still wrangling through his latest court case. In a really peculiar move, those wacky folks at the Franchise Tax Board have launched a new Web site listing the names and addresses (should you want to send flowers) of its worst non-taxpayers. The site also divulges the amount owed by each party. Tragically, Dionne Warwick, formerly of Psychic Friends Network fame, made the list, seemingly owing some $1.4 million to the state. She may know the way to San Jose, but apparently needs directions to the post office to mail her taxes.
Finally, there is this news alert, and let me apologize in advance if you are enjoying your breakfast at the moment. It seems that an aspiring horror novelist who lives in another country admitted to killing his girlfriend but swore that he had not consumed parts of her body after authorities found human flesh in his frying pan. Now I know what you are thinking: “Why aren’t you telling us in which country this took place?” Well, no, that’s probably not what you are thinking, but far be it from me to spill the beans here and mess up that country’s tourist industry. Although the offender claims he killed his girlfriend “by accident” (he hugged her from behind and she just sort of died), the man is also suspected in the killing of another girlfriend whose dismembered body was founded stuffed in cardboard boxes as well as a third, unidentified woman found in a suitcase earlier this year.
I’m sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation for this, and I’m also sure, if you haven’t been taking your medication, you are anxiously waiting to hear it. The most obvious reason for the aspiring novelist’s behavior is that he was doing research for his horror novels. But no, that would be too obvious and, therefore, make some kind of sense. Perverted sense, but still. The reason that the perpetrator dismembered his deceased girlfriend and was grilling her up in his skillet was to (and again, I apologize for what I’m about to say) feed his dogs.
OK, so at least they’ve established the guy isn’t a cannibal, if there’s any redemption in that. I hate to think what else the authorities dug up in that house of horrors (one of O.J.’s knives perhaps?), but I think we’d all have to agree that this guy is way too far over the line even for rehab. Furthermore, I’m at a loss to think how he got his dogs to eat their, ummm … food. I mean, my dog is one picky eater, and he sure as heck knows something’s up if I try to slip anything new into his dish come dinnertime.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at
Ga*********@*ol.com.
