Senator Mysteriously Defies Time, Lives in 1950s

ust when you thought the limits of science were established—girl, look out! Here comes Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the politician who magically defies the change of time and remains stuck in the 1950s.

Santorum alerted the rest of America, scared and turbulent, but still living in the year 2003, when he stated in an interview printed last Monday that the Supreme Court would endorse incest and other immoralities if they overturned a Texas sodomy law the Court is hearing.

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," said the senator living in the decade of the TV dinner and TV westerns.

Some Democrats and fellow Republicans have denounced the senator's remarks and asked for his resignation, worried that living in a time period of 50 years ago would interfere with Santorum's ability to keep informed in current issues. Key Republican party leaders have guaranteed to study the senator closely and divulge his knowledge of important government and cultural stuff.

"I guarantee you," said a personal aide to Santorum, Jeff Richards, "the senator is in full control of his faculties and knows what year it is. I can't explain any more than that. I've seen the TV on in his house, I assume he must get the news and the usual programs… he's just somehow filtered them out." Girl, I tell you, that Richards gave this reporter the eye. Beep beep on the gaydar, that's all I'm saying.

Few from the scientific community have stepped forward to explain, though a group at Harvard's Department of Quantum Mechanics are posing theories of collapsing personal wormholes. Psychologists from around the world are seeking medical background from Santorum's representatives, particularly interested in previous incidents of head trauma or hallucinations. The extremely early onset of Alzheimer's has not been ruled out.

Other theories have been offered, but not yet fully explored. My girl Ladyboy Smacky, she say Santorum look just like this guy pick her up three nights in a row last April and call her "Mommy" while she dress up like Martha Washington, but that guy had a mustache and was in Frisco, but she swear that dude Santorum so deep in the closet he sittin' on the box to a Colecovision.

Despite the failure to pinpoint the source of Santorum's confusion, others are stressing the importance of bringing him up to date with the year 2003 before it becomes a problem.

"We have 50 years of history to cover with the senator, so obviously we'll have to pick highlights," said Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Chicago and real sweetie Isis Oviate. "We should start with telling him World War II is over—more than likely he knows, but we shouldn't take chances. The geographical maps and political make-up of the world should be explained slowly so he knows all of that, about Stalin's death and, eventually, the fall of the Soviet Union, of course. We would hate to offend an ally with some disparaging remarks against Russia. We'll tell him all about Iraq, but one thing at a time. Take it slowly. The sexual revolution alone ought to leave him quaking in his wingtips. Maybe we'll just sum up the Kinsey Report and see how he responds to that."

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Unveiling of First Black Disney Character Raises Some Concerns

This week's story was unearthed by Vince Melbone of West Virginia, who forwarded it to me. Thank you, Vince—for you've helped shine the spotlight on a crass and cruel exploitation of children, and this time neither Kathie Lee Gifford nor Disney are involved.

The culprit this time is Chuck E. Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid? I think not. Where a kid can be an unpaid source of exploitable labor is more like it. And this doesn't happen in a third world country or Canada where you might expect it, all. This happens coast to coast in Chuck E. Cheese establishments.

I went to Chuck E. Cheese myself to investigate Melbone's claims, and was shocked by what I saw. Well, not all that shocked since Melbone explained it all intricately beforehand, but I was a little surprised to see it actually happening.

Kids, everywhere. Filling an area called the "play place" where they ran about untamed like wild frogs. Kids climbed through plastic tubes lining the roof, kids bounded euphorically into pits full of plastic balls, kids rode on electronic horses and mouse-driven cars all around me.

Without Melbone's heads up, I might have assumed it all innocent. Little would I have guessed kids are being fueled by sugar and run rampant around these restaurant "play places" in order to amass static electricity. Yes, for the price of a small Coke (with free refills) these unsuspecting kids are supplying Chuck E. Cheese with invaluable static electricity which is then converted to electricity to cook their pizzas, power their token-sucking video game machines, and yes, even keep the giant mouse singing in his country drawl.

I was aghast, Red Bagel-style. It was there before me the whole time but I never suspected. Signs asking the kids to take their shoes off before playing, kids then scraping woolen socks through these plastic tubes, acting like little generators. And somewhere underneath the walls all that electricity sinking back into the combine that is a Chuck E. Cheese franchise. On top of that, the pizza sucks and that whack-a-mole game is impossible to win.

I've tried several calls to the head of Chuck E. Cheese, but most of these calls are met with responses similar to, "What are you, a nutjob?" That's fine, Mr. Cheese, play coy. I've gone head to head with bigger fish than you, which is not to say real fish, but opponents in general, and I've always come out on top or somewhere in the middle or lower. This will be the same case.

In the meantime, we must combat this aberration in smaller ways. Vince Melbone suggested a nationwide boycott, but those never work, no one has yet to register my boycott of Brian Eno records. Instead I recommend going to Chuck E. Cheese with your children, taking up valuable seating space, but DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING TO EAT. And whatever else you do, DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN FUEL THE COMBINE. I cannot stress that enough, though writing in all caps certainly helps.

Also, it is of the utmost importance you do not attempt to play the whack-a-mole game, no matter how enticing it looks. You have to hit the moles like about a hundred times harder than is normal and it still doesn't register what is clearly a whack. I could write a column on that alone. In fact, I may start tomorrow.

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"A man's home is his castle. Mine happens to be White Castle."

We've all been locked out of our houses or apartments or dumpsters before—not a week or month goes by we aren't evicted or simply lose our keys. Maybe you step out to get the neighbor's newspaper and the door slams behind you, then locks itself. Now you're standing bare-ass naked out in the hallway, or maybe in your neighbor's living room, and you can't get back in the house! Shit! Pardon my language.

Locked out is no problem. When you get locked into your house, that's when the shit hits the fan. Pardon my language. What do you do then? You can't call anybody for help from inside your own place. Unless you have a phone. Sure, you can open the window and yell for help, but the first time you start using profanity they'll just send cops to ticket you. You can't get the door open, and they'll only kick it down. Now you got a broke door.

I've been locked in before. It's not pretty. I don't want a broken door so it's usually a survival mission until the end of the month comes and the landlord shows up looking for the rent. Sometimes that could be as many as 60 days. That's a long time to live on whatever's in your refrigerator, or growing under it.

No one wants to think about it, but at some point you have to seriously consider eating the dog. It's only fair—if he could talk and wear clothes, he'd eat you. Don't think about making it a fair contest, like drawing straws. They don't say "cheating dogs" for no reason. In a fair fight, just you and the dog, maybe it would be the right thing to do. But they bite, and that's cheating.

Not that I want to eat my dog. We're just talking if things go from bad to worse, or bad to good and then to worse—you can't plan routes for bad. It goes it's own way, like a rebel. Seriously, I only plan to eat the dog if all the condiments are exhausted and no birds land on the windowsill.

Yeah, I got a plan, no shame in that. I sneak up on him while he's chewing his crotch and smash him over the head with a lamp. Not the good lamp. Or plan B. Throw the tennis ball right into the oven. You got to be fast, though, or he'll just bring it back to you and not give it back. Then that plan's history.

If you do somehow to make it until the landlord comes around, with or without eating the dog, I know some tricks to make everything work out okay. First off, you got to make him think you're dead so when he opens the door with his spare keys he'll be happy to see you're alive and not pissed because he hasn't gotten the rent. You have to make a dead person smell. I give this off naturally, the landlord says, so I don't know what to tell you—find a website. I'm sure there's a website that tells you.

It always helps to turn the fridge over on to yourself. Not only to pretend you've been pinned and not just couldn't figure out the deadbolt mechanism. It helps keep you warm, too, or a good place to hide from the dog if he gets the upperhand.

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