Fortune 7

January 7, 2002

It speaks elegantly about you, yet barely whispers. That's right, Montana. Birthplace of the most dramatic clock radio ever designed, and one of the toughest riding mowers ever built. Like a small boy caught in the jaws of war, like the locusts, like a noogie from your great-grandmother, Montana just is. A focus of world concern, furnished in the style of Early American in Salem maple, the pulse of sober life. The one-meal airline will whisk you to this fabled land, then bite your head off like some kind of pissed-off insect in a nature video. Early settlers discovered Montana by means of sensitive tactile hairs. Damn, that's a tough act to follow.

Montana exists, if for no other reason, to remind us of this eternal truth:

Ants have no ears at all.

You will drink a bottle of furniture polish, even though you're on a diet. Try again later.

Milestones

1985: Ramrod Hurley flim-flams his way into the studio for the recording of We Are the World. Though his subversive lyrics go unsung, Hurley's taser-induced squeal can be heard two minutes into the track, a sound previously attributed to Cyndi Lauper.

Now Hiring

Conductor. General musical duties as expected: bossing around, waving arms, taking care of stick. Also needed to close gap in circuit between air conditioning unit and power main. Seeking an electric personality who loves going barefoot. Lack of close relatives or body hair a plus.

Top More Things to Do With a Severed Finger

1.	Donate it to shop teachers in need
2.	Really get your waiter's attention
3.	Confuse the hell out of C.S.I.
4.	Pick your friends and your nose
5.	Dip it in gold; make yourself an "I'm # 1" award

Fortune 6
I present to you, the King of throw-away island. Slicing a trench into the past, dogwoods spread their sprays like drifting clouds, the most wasteful member of the tree family. "King Trapper of the North" is how they'd like to be remembered. Hardly.... (11/26/01)

Fortune 5
Growing up with snowflake, one learned to drink their sap in the morning. There was no time for globe-girdling as we chased the bears though the jungle of oil refineries, then were eaten like pudding by Lyndon B. Johnson. "Let's get away from the... (10/29/01)

Fortune 4
From mammoths to giant ground sloths, they buried caches of precious materials-- radiocarbon, obsidian, jasper, Idaho and Anthony T. Bouldurian, hundreds of miles from the Rosetta Stone. The violet-crowned Nero, spanning Cyclopean passers-by, "grave... (10/1/01)