Gilbert Gottfried Cloned in Stem Cell Mishap

cow implanted with cells taken from a cloned bovine embryo didn’t reject the tissue, scientists report, though the cow did give birth to a full-grown clone of comedian Gilbert Gottfried seven hours later. While still far from human use, experts say the bovine advance demonstrates the potential for much-debated therapeutic cloning to correct many of the common ills that affect humans, while the unexpected side effect demonstrates the terrifying danger of screwing with Mother Nature’s cookbook.

The study proved that laboratory-engineered tissues created from heart, skeletal and renal cells cloned from cows, then transplanted back into the animals, could develop into both functional tissues and a live clone of the 45 year-old comedian turned actor who sometimes does voice work for cartoons.

“While more work needs to be done, this demonstrates the potential use of this technology,� said Dr. Lorenzo Mead, director of tissue engineering at Children’s Hospital Boston. When asked about the unexpected Gottfried clone side effect, Dr. Mead bit his lower lip and stared at the floor in a non-committal fashion.

Cloning technology is controversial and opposed by many, including President Bush and Pope John Paul II, because it involves creating and destroying embryos and requires more than a high-school level understanding of science to comprehend.

“Thousands of Americans die every day from diseases that could be cured using stem cells,� Mead said while the clone of Gilbert Gottfried mimicked him in a high-pitched singsong voice.

Stopping repeatedly to ask the Gottfried clone not to touch the equipment, Mead demonstrated how the nucleus from a cow egg was removed and replaced with a skin cell from another cow, which developed into a healthy embryo. Dr. Mead told the commune that the embryo did not, however, have “big, sexy udders� as was claimed by the Gottfried clone.

Hours after the study’s results were reported to the media, the original Gilbert Gottfried arrived at the research labs brandishing a large rubber crucifix and demanded to meet his clone. Researchers felt obligated to comply, but soon regretted their decision as Gottfried and his clone began yelling loudly in stereo and eventually were kicked out of the building for playing ping-pong with a cow’s eye.

Asked if he was shocked by the inadvertent creation of the Gottfried clone, fellow researcher Dr. Cameron Angelos disagreed. “Not really. We accidentally created a clone of Tom Sizemore last week. I think he’s still working back in the stock room somewhere… Yo, Tom-o! I think he went home. Anyway, we’re still not sure if we’re getting contaminated DNA samples or if this is a warning from God. Though after we had both of the Gottfrieds in here earlier I started leaning toward the ‘Warning from God’ theory.�

“Cloning is a spectacular and beautiful thing,� said Dr. Mead, while thumbing through job listings in the paper.

Popular TV Clown Robertson Delivers Weekly Outrageous Banter

Nation’s Three Remaining Liberals Turn to Humor to Survive

Arizona Border Patrol Installing Landmines

Eminem, Ex-Wife Reunite to Work on New Material

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll start this story off by saying I don't know how I got to Las Vegas. These things just happen, and you either roll with the punches or you pull on a t-shirt that says "BIG, WHINY BITCH" and play the part. Since I was already wearing a pretty stellar Midnight Run tee, I decided to do Vegas like I'd gone there on purpose.

First thing's first, I've got to say the 9/11 tribute at New York, New York that you've been hearing about is a definite can't-miss. Every night at 9:11pm they fly a remote-control plane into the "twin towers" wing of the hotel and set off a shitload of fireworks and explosives, and Omar Bricks isn't ashamed to admit he got a little choked up standing on the sidewalk with all the other Vegas losers, clapping and cheering as the hydraulic towers went down and they shot some spare change and clothing fragments into the crowd and some of those Cirque du Soleil freaks did backflips off the roof. Leave it to Vegas to remind us what it's all about.

As far as the other casinos go, I still say the Mirage hasn't been the same since Roy had his nuts bit off by that tiger. Now they're advertising "Sigfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat," which sounds like about as much wild fun as a hysterectomy. I do understand the pussy move to less-threatening stage animals, but I don't think it's working out too hot since when I wandered into the show, one of the dolphins had just pulled Roy into the tank and was thrashing the shit out of him while Sigfried half-heartedly slapped at the beast with an oar. Funny shit, but probably not what Roy'd had in mind when they cracked open the full-body cast before the show.

I hear they're thinking of trying out ground sloths next, since that's one of the only animals Roy isn't afraid of now, but I'll bet you ten bucks one of those things finds its way into their hotel suite in the middle of the night and beats the shit out of Roy in slow-motion while he's sleeping. I tried to get the Mirage to give me odds on that, but they're not taking any more Roy-abuse action until he gets out of the hospital, out of respect and all that noise. But I'm thinking the Luxor might take my bet, those Egyptian hardasses have held a grudge against the Mirage ever since the Luxor-Mirage employee rumble back in 1998. I think they're understandably upset since the gaming commission ruled that they couldn't keep the Mirage employees as slaves after winning the rumble.

Speaking of the Luxor, I spent the better part of one night trying to sneak into the hotel pyramid's elevator, since I heard the crazy fuckin' thing goes sideways, down into the center of the earth. You know Omar Bricks had to see how that shit goes down. Too bad for the lame-ass truth: Turns out they guard that thing like the Pentagon men's room, you can't even get in without a room key or a much better grasp of the Vulcan neck pinch than I can take credit for. I won't lie and say it's the first pyramid Omar Bricks has been thrown out of, but at least in this one they let me out on the ground floor.

I've always thought that Vegas is basically large-scale mini-golf with beer, though they'll usually kick you off of the mini-golf course for bringing in hookers. Advantage: Vegas, there. This time I decided to test my theory and golf the strip, like in that video with the guy who sings like Elmer Fudd. You kind of have to make up your own par, since it's not posted, or if it is, the sign's been plastered over with titty posters and plans to build a new casino on the sidewalk in front of some existing casino. That's the downside of a town with no rules: the course etiquette blows.

Now nobody would claim Omar Bricks is a world-class golfer, maybe the class of the commune offices, but that's like winning a beauty pageant in a burn ward. Mainly I just swing hard and wait to laugh, if you hit the ball hard enough, something funny is almost guaranteed to happen. Especially if you're blindfolded, sounds are even funnier when you have to imagine who's making them. So I don't know where this cop got off suggesting that I was the one who hit a golf ball into the penthouse at Caesar's Palace. If I had that kind of aim, I'd be shanking that shit on ESPN. Not to mention having Nike paying the big bucks to put their logo on every piece of clothing I'm wearing and shaving it into my hair, like Tiger Woods. I don't know how golfers get away with that shit; if porn stars had those kind of commercial cajones they'd have condom brand logos tattooed on their balls.

Long story short, I had just hit a nine iron up the Eiffel Tower at the Paris when a cop asked me if I had a permit to hit golf balls into a crowded hotel. The dude scared the shit out of me since I'd just been ignoring him standing there; I thought he wanted an autograph or advice on grips. I showed him my ski pass from Vail Mountain, which usually gets the job done since most people don't like to read. But this guy was some kind of bookworm freak and he figured out the pass didn't say anything about playing the Bellagio fountain as a water hazard, so I spent the rest of the day ducking the cops and hitting the casinos in an oversized Ronald Reagan mask.

If you do go to Vegas some time soon I'd recommend checking out the Treasure Island boat show, if you can throw a baseball hard enough you can spend your Saturday night being chased by guys dressed up as pirates, which is good for at least a few months of local fame. A word to the wise though: those phony fucks don't hold themselves to any kind of real pirates' code when it comes to street fighting, and they're not above calling in some hard-hitting showgirls when the going gets rough. Bricks out.

º Last Column: My Friend Polo
º more columns

"I have long been, and may always be, a confirmed bachelor. But like other people who say that, I am not gay.

I did meet one gay fellow quite a while back. It was 1954 when I met him, an affable fellow named Pitt. He wore bright clothes but that didn't send me any signal that he was gay. To my ears he had no special way of speaking and there was nothing immediately gay about him. I would venture to say if I hadn't accidentally found out through a misunderstanding one day, while we were standing next to each other at the men's room urinals, I would never have found out.

'I can't believe it,' I told him quite frankly. 'Why don't you like girls at all?'

'I like girls, Sampson,' the gay said simply, no less visibly masculine than myself. 'It's not a matter of liking or not liking someone, and it's not a matter of picking who you're going to sleep with. People are just born the way they are, and it doesn't make them all the same if they share one common thing between them.'

He went on to say, as I tapped the water out, 'You and me may be more alike than me and any gay man. We both have sisters named Stephanie, we both have brothers that we're competitive with in our lives, and we both love to just sit and talk about the good ol' days, the 1920s. Why should the one thing that's different about us keep us from being good friends?'

It really made me think, and it hurt—the idea that I, like everyone else in the world, picked one different thing like religion, skin color, or sexual orientation to get all worked up about when in a lot of ways all of us are like one another. From that day on whenever I meet someone new, even if they don't look like me or might seem a little strange at first glance, I put on a big smile and say, 'Hi, there, neighbor! I'm Sampson L. Hartwig. Maybe we're a little different, but maybe we'll find out we're a lot a like, too!'

I might as well mention that me and the gay fellow Pitt didn't see each other after another week or so, when I found out the biker gang I had joined with him was all gay. Only when one of them named Peter couldn't keep the secret any more did Pitt tell me the truth, that they were all hoping I would 'come around' once I got used to wearing the leather. It's just another thing that's different, yeah, but it looked awful painful in all those videos we watched, so I found another crew to ride with."

º Last Column: State Fair
º more columns