ortal fools announced their plans to disturb the earthly remains of reggae legend Bob Marley Wednesday, as part of a plan to celebrate what would have been the singer's 60th birthday. The proposal to exhume Marley has angered some Jamaicans, the few who are not exceptionally easygoing about everything, since Marley was one of the most famous sons of the country.

The exhumation would culminate in the body being cremated, inhaled deeply by close family and friends, held for as long as possible, and then released into the air. The ashes would then be scattered over the soil of Ethiopia, which Marley's widow Rita called his "spiritual resting place."

"Bob was the dearest soul I ever knew," said lifetime friend Cosell Hamlet. "An inspiration to everyone he ever met. I know his soul is in a better place. And I bet his body will be great shit."

Marley popularized reggae internationally in the 1970s, with a string of hits such as "No Woman, No Cry" and "Get Up, Stand Up." Reggae is the spiritual music of his home country of Jamaica, and the Rastafarian brought it to everyone in the world with his peaceful lyrics and mellow sound. Thanks to him reggae can now be heard at any party attended on a college campus or from any window from which pours copious amounts of smoke.

In Jamaica, however, all is not perfectly mellow for everybody, as some say to take Marley's body is to rob Jamaica of its history, and risk bumming everyone out.

"Nah, man, don't bogart Bob. He was a part of Jamaica, and now his body is part of the land itself," said Jamaican history expert Dr. Addi Townstone, who has started an organization to protest Marley's exhumation. "We ask the family to let him stay—stay in Jamaica."

Rita Marley refused further comment on plans to exhume and smoke her husband, who died in 1981 from cancer. The Bob Marley Foundation, not to be confused with the Peter Tosh Committee to Legalize It, was quick to quell the uproar.

"It's okay! It's nothing to get out of joint about, brother," said Bebe Shadley, press agent for the Foundation. "It's all irie, my friend."

Odidi Hubistato, who oversees the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and will be presiding over a ceremony honoring Marley on his birthday February 6, looked forward to the ceremony.

"Ashes to ashes, smoke to smoke, like we say," said Hubistato. "I for one plan to be up in the front row when we light those spleefly remains. Jah love the man."

All have apparently forgotten the price to be paid for unearthing the dead, regardless of good intentions. To stir the remains of the deceased is to invite an eternity of damnation and curses, the howls and haunts of the wretched specter himself. Prepare, all who trespass, for the nightly visitations of the angry ghost of the dead reggae superstar!

Bob Marley himself, an ethereal presence in a world unknown to mankind, declined to be interviewed. We were, however, able to talk to long-dead Jacob Marley, no relation.

"I wear the chain I forged in life," said Marley's ghost, indicating a very obvious large chain. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it." He concluded, "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate."

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The situation has darkened, good people. Frequent readers of my column, and despite what everyone says I'm convinced they exist, will remember my recent revelation that I was a pro-wrestler briefly in the '80s. To my surprise, everyone has been extremely warm and receptive about it. I mean, I haven't heard anyone approving of my lifestyle or remarking how brave it was to come out and admit it, but it is pro-wrestling, a little resistance and unspoken prejudice can be expected. Either that or none of them have read any of my columns.

But not everyone has been so accepting. As I discovered Thursday night when I came home and found a note pinned to my door.

It was a hand-scrawled note with sloppy penmanship and spelling. But I knew all-too well who it was from and what it was about. It read:

"Finger! So yur the 4-Feet Nitemare. Yu turd. I new Id find yu sonir or laytir. Im a kill yu like I wud have kild yu then. Yu run away cowird. – MD"

At first I suspected my family physician, Dr. Scrudd. But then I remembered seeing his handwriting on countless prescriptions and it didn't match at all; Scrudd's pen is blue, this one is black. Finally, after hours of meditating, falling asleep, waking up again to start meditating once more, I realized who my anonymous adversary is.

The Masked Dude has come back for revenge.

When I discussed my pro-wrestling secret life, I left out a lot of details so as not to gross out the general public who is uncomfortable with such information. But one important bit that needed mentioning was my furious antagonist, The Masked Dude. He was five-foot tall, the second-shortest wrestler in the Dandies of America league I was part of, and had a severe complex about it. He was remarkable for many reasons: His glittering sequined spandex pants, his red glossy boots, his hairless, flabby mid-section, and his match record of never having won once.

Usually The Masked Dude was hopelessly overpowered by his opponents. Some of them reaching heights of up to 5'11", with vicious names like The Vicious Scrunch and Eddie "Pin Them Drunk" Vicious, The Masked Dude soon proved to be a laughingstock of the D.O.A., which was already the laughingstock of wrestling fans everywhere, who are the laughingstock of the rest of us, so you can imagine the shame. The Masked Dude was intent on gaining respect, and I soon provided the best possibility of winning a match.

I was a good wrestler. Good? Hell, I was possibly the best God ever created. Really? Thank you, that's sweet. But for all of my talent my winning record was frequently fifty-fifty, meaning I won half my matches and half of that was won by deceitful tendencies. I was merely making up for a game that was stacked against me, me being short and not that good at wrestling the way they wanted to do it. But actual statistical match records were the lowest in the league, next to The Masked Dude. He sought me out obsessively, and thus started our rivalry. I thought it ended when I hung up my tights, sniffed them curiously, then threw them away for good. But apparently not.

I have to admit I'm a little worried. I don't know when and from where and at what time The Masked Dude is coming after me. I assume he's reading this column, since he's the only one who's mentioned my former pro-wrestler status, and I hope to implore him to let bygones be bygones and blowguns be blowguns, to put the past behind us and start anew as friends who share a common history.

But don't mistake this as fear or cowardice, Masked Dude. I will put the smack down on you wicked if you want to get shitty with me.

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"Read me my rights, pig. Then read me Lady Chatterly's Lover, but just skip to the dirty parts."

I read this funny book and I've been telling everybody about it. I haven't read all of it, just parts of it, really. Okay, one part. And everybody's telling me it's a newspaper, not a book, but you can't brag about reading a newspaper so I say book. But it was still really funny, like a book. There was this cat and he's trying to eat lasagna and—hey, I don't want to give it away. E-mail me if you want to read it and maybe we'll form one of those Oprah clubs or something.

If I don't read books, it's not my fault. I've given it an honest effort, but they always start the book off with this really boring information about who wrote it and who it was published by, and a "c" in a circle and then the year and… see? I fell asleep while I was typing it and fell out of my chair and broke my nose. Imagine being one of those people who actually finished a whole book without skipping around.

My friend Richie Castro has written 26 books over the years, the guy is a dynamo. He makes each book two pages or less 'cause he thinks all that plotting, pacing, and drawing out of the characters is bullshit. Richie writes "the real meat," like he says it. His next book will be done soon and it tells the story of how his girlfriend, this double-timing bitch-whore who dyes her hair, she was two-timing him behind his back and sleeping around with his cousin and then ends up running off with the guy, even though he's got no job. Actually, that was the whole book so I guess I saved you from having to buy it. Richie's going to be pissed.

My dad used to read to me before he died—or faked his own death and disappeared, my mom still can't prove either one. Dad would read to me from record jacket liner notes since there were always plenty of them on hand. It's a shame dad and me didn't get more time together in the end. One of these days I'm going to have to find a copy of Lionel Richie's self-titled album and see who else he thanked. But every time I hear "Truly" I'm going to think of dad.

I would recommend reading to your kids, I think that's a good thing. I plan on doing it myself some day. Maybe you could send me an e-mail and we'll schedule a time when I can come over, and if you got the books that's even better since I only have a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller and it's a little hard to get through—that guy thanks a lot of people, even his brothers, all by name. I wish I had a brother so then I could make an album and thank him for being there for me, but he'd probably end up being more Marlon than Jermaine.

The nice thing about reading newspapers is they put the important parts in the biggest type, so you can read them and know what you need to know, but they also put that real small type there so you can pretend you're reading that and looking smart. People are really, really impressed when I tell them I read 15 newspapers a day. E-mail me and I'll tell you other things that are really impressive and then tell you how I'm able to do them without working hard.

Basically what I'm saying is I want e-mail.

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