Byrne Ditches Naked Man at Mall

It was so vivid, I could almost swear it really happened," said Littlehead City resident Wyatt Touchdowne about his recent dream involving prominent musician David Byrne. "I mean, we were hanging out together just like we'd been friends for a long time. It was really cool."

Touchdowne, 32, a systems analyst for a California software firm, admitted that in reality, the two have never met.

"But in this dream I had the other night, not only did I get to meet David Byrne, but we spent what seemed like a whole lot of time together, just talking and doing things and stuff. First, I was just kind of walking along this beach, and I realized there was this guy right beside me, and when I looked, it turned out that it was David Byrne, former leader of the band Talking Heads. So we were just walking along, and we were talking and everything, and then pretty soon we were riding in a car together. We got to this house, and I realized in the dream that it was the house I had lived in when I was a teenager. And then David Byrne came into the house with me! He was actually in the house I used to live in!"

"I remember we talked about music and all kinds of stuff, and he was really friendly, just very low-key and casual, and it was just a really very pleasant encounter. At one point I told him that sometimes when I listened to his music, either the things he said or the way he said them just made me laugh. I couldn't help it, I said, I just laughed. He thought that was pretty funny, and he told me in the dream about this part of one song that he sang by calling over the phone and then holding the receiver up to the microphone. That part was really amazing, you know? I mean, how many people get musical tips like that in their dreams from someone like David Byrne?"

"Anyway, so there we were in the living room, and then my mom and my sister came in the room, and then I think they asked me to go to the store or something, because the next thing I knew, the dream kind of shifted, and I realized I was at the mall, but I was standing there naked in front of the Hickory Farms store, and everyone was looking at me. So of course David Byrne was gone by then, but still, it was pretty cool that we got to hang out together."

Asked if it was common for him to have dreams about celebrities, Touchdowne admitted that he had also had dreams involving personalities such as Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Nixon and Cameron Diaz, among others.

"One of the strangest ones was where I was hanging out with Harry Nilsson," Touchdowne said. "Harry was really cool and everything, but I kept remembering in the dream that he's really dead in real life. So in the dream, I kept saying, 'But aren't you dead? You're dead, aren't you?' He never answered me, but that particular dream never seemed as real as most of the others. Because how can you hang out with a dead guy, you know?"

When this reporter pointed out that Richard Nixon is also dead, Touchdowne replied, "He is? Really? Wow, when did that happen?"

Despite repeated calls to his publicist regarding Touchdowne's dream, Mr. Byrne was not available for comment.

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Well, looks like we're still bombing the Iraqis out of the Stone Age and back to whatever the hell came before that, when all the stones were blown up and everything was on fire. Serves 'em right for living in the desert though. I lived in the desert outside of Albuquerque once and there were always rednecks out there blowing shit up. Usually it was road signs and small animals and the like, but Iraq's a bigger desert so it stands to reason the rednecks would think bigger.

I was driving up the road the other day when I came up on a man who was standing half in the street, yelling at no one in particular. At first I thought he was yelling at me, but a quick check of my person confirmed that I was wearing nothing more offensive than an L.L. Bean dress shirt. Even if I had been wearing a novelty shirt stating "SHUT UP, BITCH" or other such amusing obscenity, it would have been hard for him to spy that in an oncoming car quickly enough to take offense and express it verbally. I thought the guy was just crazy until I realized he had one of those ear-bud cell phone things in his ear and he was yelling at his stockbroker or his concubine or whoever.

This got me thinking. I predict that cell phones will eventually get so small that we'll have problems with scores of people being committed to mental hospitals for yelling out grocery lists in public and hearing "voices." And personally, I can't wait. I hate those damned phones. And their damned operators.

Looks like those silly sons of bitches that blew up the U.S.S. Cole Porter escaped from jail again. Just goes to show what I've been saying all along: the honor system is great and may work in certain isolated kindergarten classrooms, but jails need real locks, real fast. Some people just don't take to shaming like they should, and lines painted on the floor don't work like they used to. Sad but true.

Contrary to what the previous paragraph might indicate, the biggest news this week is that absolutely nothing is happening in the world outside of Iraq. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Open up the paper and it's all about who blew up what where in Iraq and who might be dead but we'll never be sure and what kinds of cookies Iraqis like to bake. Who knew that dusty-assed place was so interesting? It just goes to show that nothing works wonders for your public visibility like being invaded. It's like when Poland's PR guys paid Germany to invade them back in the 1930's. Sure, some churches got blown up, but like magic Poland was back on the map again. Previous to that people were forgetting the country even existed, it was just some smudge on the map where trains got lost.

Apparently there is a bit of news in the dolphin world, however. Seems that El Presidente wanted to roll back the rules on what kind of tuna can be labeled "dolphin safe" or not. I know, like the president doesn't have better things to do than fuck with dolphins. I don't know what his problem is, but he's always struck me as a strange man. Anyhow, current rules state that you can't label tuna "dolphin safe" if you go so berserk while trying to catch fish that you machete or blow up any dolphins with grenades or you run any down with a speedboat just for fun. I believe there were also provisions for machine-gunning or hanging dolphins, somewhere in the fine print.

Seems fair enough to me. The president wanted to change it so you could call the tuna "dolphin safe" as long as any of the dolphins you decapitated or blended into a milkshake went to dolphin heaven, where they'd theoretically be safe. The environmentalists thought this was so much dolphin shit so they sued. And won while they were at it. I guess there's less legal precedent for the concept of "dolphin heaven" than many assumed. But I don't know, it sounds kind of nice to me.

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Once upon a time there lived a happy boy named Peter. Peter had his very own dog and often he would teach it neat tricks like fetching the paper and playing dead and frightening off the Internal Revenue Service Officials. Peter loved his dog very much and he named it Brownie because it was the same color as as his mother's yummy nut brownies, and also because it was short for the dog's royal name: Brownsworth Von Hogglshmilenickinshtoffer III esq. Ph.D. One day, Peter and his dog were taking a walk along the scenic trails of a burnt down strip club when they happened to find, buried amongst the burned G-strings and charred ash of fishnet stockings, a big red wagon! Apparently some of the fetish night enthusiasts had failed to rescue the wagon from the town's furious firebombing.

Peter studied the wagon. It was old, and rusted, and smelled of latex, but it was just the right size for him and his trusty dog, Brownie. So the two hopped into the wagon and rode off, on an adventure like none they had seen before, give for the time they escaped Nazi occupied France while transporting illegal narcotics for a white slave trader with an extra arm and a bevy of exotic women.

Along the road, they discovered a small hole in the dirt which appeared to lead down into a cavernous lair of pirate's gold that was guarded by many treacherous booby traps. But Peter realized this was only the plot to "The Goonies," so he decided to instead investigate the creepy house on the end of the block which everyone claimed was haunted. (Of course, the whole block wasn't haunted, just the house)

He climbed out of the wagon, Brownie nipping lightly at his heels, and began to make his way through the creepy and spooky graveyard in front of the creepy and spooky house towards the creepy and spooky front door where the creepy and spooky doorknob reflected creepy and spooky reflections of the creepy and spooky sun. "Stop nipping at my heels, Brownie!" Peter called out, disturbing the creepy and spooky silence. "It's very creepy and spooky the way you do that nipping."

His hand went to the doorknob, trembling with fear and apprehension. Luckily, Peter's steady hand stopped the doorknob's trembling, and with a turn, the door creaked open. Spider webs clung to the wooden door and Peter warily peered into the darkness. From inside he heard a faint moaning, like that of a toilet that is clogged with Roget's New Thesaurus and being flushed with the lid down.

He leaned forward, curious what that groaning was and also because Brownie was trying to hump his leg. In the distance, deep inside the house, he heard the sound again. And then, he made that bold first step into the house. Beads of sweat began to form on his eyebrow and make their way down the deep farrows in his cheeks, dribbling past his neck and onto his sternum, the protective bone that joins the ribcage. The ribcage is divided into three parts which, oh, never mind the anatomy lesson. He was scared.

Brownie, seeming to have lost all desire to copulate with his master's appendages, began to search for a good gravestone to urinate on because, well, he's a dog, so we'll just focus on Peter, who by this time has found the top of a staircase leading to the cellar. He slowly made his way down the sagging, wooden steps, as the light began to dim. That moaning became a bit louder with each step. Finally, he was at the bottom, and he turned to see...

a tape deck playing these weird moaning sounds.

Relieved, Peter ran back up the stairs and out the house only moments before the hideous, blood dripping sucker creature from the planet Venus pounced and would have eaten him up. He happily whistled for Brownie, and jumped into his wagon, knowing tomorrow would be another day full of excitement! Good old Uncle Jack had promised to take him to a NAMBLA convention and from what he was told, the people there gave out the best candy and even had free horsey rides! What fun! Peter and Brownie rode off into the sunset, content that all was right with the world, oblivious to AIDS and teenage crime and road rage and presidential sex scandals.

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