Suspicious White Powder Turns Out to Be Cocaine

November 12, 2001

El Squatro, CA

Junior Bacon

The police, in too big a goddamn hurry to wait for the photographer to get there

truck laden with hundreds of packages of a mysterious white powder attempted to cross the border here today, drawing scrutiny from the Border Patrol and local law enforcement officers concerned that it could be just the latest in a series of terrorist attacks involving Anthrax. After closer investigation, a spokesman revealed, with some relief, that the substance turned out to be simply 94% pure Colombian cocaine.

"We were awful worried at first," said Sheriff Fluff Drivel of nearby Littlehead City. "These days everyone's on edge whenever they see white powder. Hell, my wife refuses to bake anything that involves using flour right now."

Drivel's partner, Officer Roy Dither, added, "I was the one to investigate the powder itself. You remember that TV show, I think it was 'Banacek' or maybe it was 'Mannix,' that one back in the '70s? Anyway, it was just like that episode of 'The Streets of San Francisco,' where they caught that guy with the big bag of white powder, and George Peppard or Karl Malden or whoever stuck his finger in the bag, right up to his knuckle, and then tasted the powder and said 'Pure horse.' Well, I just went ahead and scooped up a big handful of the powder in question, and I was all ready to say that, to say 'Pure horse,' but before I could, my mouth had got all numb and everything, and then I was thinking about how my neighbor used to have horses when I was a kid, and he used to race them, and I used to see him giving them some white powder before the races, and that got me to thinking, well, maybe it was something else. Then I remembered how these ants used to be all over the stable where he kept the horses, these really interesting little black ants, you know, and they would just all follow each other in a big long line up the wall, and I always wondered what made them do that, and then-"

Sheriff Drivel then gently interrupted his partner with a friendly, two-handed smack to the side of the head with his baton. Officer Dither reeled off, twitching spasmodically, his arms flailing and blood streaming from his nose and ear, while Sheriff Drivel continued.

"To make a long story short, we had the powder analyzed, and it turned out that it wasn't Anthrax at all. It also wasn't 'pure horse,'" he snorted, casting a glance at his still-convulsing partner. "All it turned out to be was your plain old garden-variety cocaine, so we sent these jokers on their merry way. I can tell you, we were awfully glad to find out it wasn't Anthrax, though. We hate that kind of music down here."

Look for Wallace Watermelon's award-winning volume of poetry, "Reflections on a Gift of Chutney Pickle from Myself, Since You Heartless, Soulless Bastards Never Give Me Anything," as soon as he finishes writing it, and it gets published and wins some awards.

Finely Aged Winemaker Ernest Gallo Corked

Documents reveal NASA sealing shuttle gas tank with oily rag

Drunk U.S. pilot still flies better than terrorists

Electronic dog nose finds crotches 30% faster

September 2, 2002

Lube the Tuber

º Last Column: Herman's Hermits: Your Dad's Got Crabs, Eddie
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I've got the word "cambria" stuck in my head for some reason. No idea what it means. Some sort of strange deja-vu like when you think you should recognize a name and then two weeks later it turns out that was the guy you shot accidentally while turkey hunting. No leads yet on this one, though, and I haven't been turkey hunting in years.

Few things are more unsettling than waking up in the middle of the night and finding yourself floating naked in the middle of outer space, like the baby at the end of 2001. The movie, not the year. Shit if that wouldn't have been scary, waking up one December morning to see a giant baby up there in the sky and suddenly regretting every time you'd ever covered a baby in turtle wax and set it loose on your hood to wax your car. Who'd have thought the payback time would come so soon? Crimeny.

But like I said, I'm talking about the movie, with me floating in space instead of the baby. Neither dreaming nor awake in the traditional sense. Just staring down at the earth like it was a giant jawbreaker, glancing down at the thin, whispy umbilical cord that attaches you to the planet and thinking "Hmmm."

With your next thought you ponder your situation and realize that, in a symbolic sense, the earth represents the realm of your waking consciousness. No, really. The cloud layer girdling the globe keeps you warm and safe within the atmosphere, but at all times there remains the possibility of slipping undetected through the clouds and into the limitless space beyond. In this space dreams occur and are interchangeable with memoriesâ€¦ every possibility in every situation is remembered as if it did occur and your mind is boggled by the parallel realities.

Suddenly you can remember every dream you ever had, but find it impossible to remember what you really did today among the myriad of possibilities. Which, incidentally, comes in handy when you're eating out since you can have the chicken, the fish and the steak all for one low price.

You remember a conversation you had, or may have had, that day and are suddenly aware of multiple complex layers of meaning and subtexts within the conversation that you were unaware of while it was happening. It strikes you that all interactions between people work this way, with the literal conversation existing only as a crude practicality to initiate the exchange of this wealth of additional information. Unless you're talking to Rok Finger, in which case the subtexts are all mumbled nonsense intended to sound like speech to the casual observer.

From your perch out in space, you realize with an otherworldly calm that you are observing from the perspective of the soul, rather than the worldly personality. You're sure of this because you aren't tempted to make the "Hey, I can see my house from here!" crack that you'd definitely make if your personality were involved. You notice that within this realm there is no possibility of stress or strife, you have no sense of worry, only a sustained sense of fascination. Sort of like being really high, except nobody's giving you any static about being naked.

Some may scoff, skiffle, or die straight away, but this experience has impacted me deeply. I've resolved to live my life without worry, reveling in, rather than attempting to control, life. More than anything I want to get back to that beautiful, serene vantage point in the emptiness of space. Additionally, I think I may have left my address book there, and I need that thing in the worst way. Other related resolutions: no more pickles or David Lynch movies right before bed.

º Last Column: Herman's Hermits: Your Dad's Got Crabs, Eddie
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August 4, 2003

Change for a Single

º Last Column: Sci-Fi Star is Rising
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People are always trying to set me up. And I'm not just talking about all the backstabbers planting evidence or hiding their plastic baggies in my pockets when the cops show up. I speak of the dating life.

It's like I literally have some huge sign around my neck that says, "I want you to fix me up with a numbnuts!" Figuratively speaking. Everyone and their sister knows someone and their brother that I would "just love." But this past week was the worst. It seemed like everyone I knew all conspired at once to send me out through a gauntlet of bad dates. I don't need to tell you it was a lot of fun, if your idea of fun is having Captain Hook as your gynecologist.

First was my sister, proving once again she's the dull blade in the family toolbox. The guy was some lawyer from her law firm, and *yawn* what a bore he was. All he could talk about was money. He told me he made a lot as a lawyer, like I even asked, but he really didn't need any of it since his family invented the cases they use for CDs and made like a trillion dollars in the 80s. I tried to make conversation, and asked if he owned any CDs. He said he owned three music studios and two music review magazines and people were always sending him free CDs. Like I needed to know all that. I just was wondering if he could make me a copy of that "Safety Dance" song. So I ditched him when he went to the bathroom, and thankfully haven't seen him since.

If it's even possible, mom always does even worse. The guy she set me up with didn't even really show up to dinner, but in fairness, he is in maximum security. The letter he sent was real nice, a bit awkward, since he didn't know my name and just called me "that chick on the outside." From what I gathered, mom wrote to him after seeing him on CNN and she thought we'd hit it off. At least I didn't have to sneak out of the restaurant. I wish somebody had shown up to the place, though, besides that courier. That dildo wouldn't even stay for a drink.

If you thought I was tired of this already, you're more than right. But still everybody's persisting. Ramon Nootles here at the commune set me up on a date and when I show up, it's him again. I told him I've had it up to here with him, and gestured to a body part. That only seemed to make him more excited. So you can guess I didn't even get to sit down on that date.

Toot, my little brother, he's got a good heart, but his friends are all screwed up. He must have scheduled the date over a bad cell phone connection or something since the restaurant turned out to be some motel room and three bald guys showed up at the same time. Talk about miscommunication. Even with 3-1 odds they were real downers. They only wanted to talk about religion and surrendering my soul to the Leader of Glorious Light. They had some interesting pamphlets, though, and of course the Leader is both divine and righteous and will lead us to the cherished afterlife in the path of heaven. But none of this gets me out of being set up with spazzes, obviously.

Leave it to dad to put a big fat sore point on the end of the week. He talks up his candidate for blind date all week and I actually look forward to meeting this guy. He's fun, he watches TV all the time just like me, he despises books, he's a crack sniper, he's a crack addict, recovering, and thinks women should be called girls. Sounds like a dreamboat, huh? Well, dad also forgot to mention he's my Uncle Luke. Dad gets confused a lot. Everyone else remembers you can't date blood relatives, at least not north of the Mason-Dixon line, so we just had a quick dinner and parted on good terms, until the next bail-out.

Advice to anyone who wants to set me up on blind date: Don't. Or if you absolutely have to, just remember I'm really busy and have been working a lot lately. I'm a hot property again, so really put some backbone into it. Now that I'm having a comeback dating uncles and Ramon Nootles is out. Period.

º Last Column: Sci-Fi Star is Rising
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Quote of the Day

“No man is an island. But I have met several women I would like to live on for the rest of my life.”

-John Donne Juan

Fortune 500 Cookie

By the pricking of my thumb I have really fucked up my keyboard playing. Trust in a higher power this weekâ€”the Waffle King knows what he's doing. Why be merely happy when you could be shit-yer-drawers happy? The world is you oyster, which explains that nauseating fish smell you can't escape. Lucky hammers roofing, jack, ball peen, MC.

Try again later.

Top 5 Worst Things to Hear in a Blackout

1.	Let's play Guess Who's Not Wearing Pants?
2.	Did you ever hear how electricity was invented? Funny storyâ€¦
3.	We'll find our way out by lighting my farts.
4.	Say, this feels like a tumor.
5.	Wow, we're trapped in an elevator with Ashton Kutcher!

North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie

BY Roland McShyster

1/6/2003

Hot damn, America!

Against all odds we're back for another year of Entertainment Police love. Few would have thought we'd last this long, and most of them also believe in unicorns and platonic friendships. But here we are, in the abstract sense, as I'm here now and you'll be there at some later date, and we're both looking at these same words. Only it's not really equal since I don't know what the rest of this is going to say and you can skip ahead if you're in a "Fuck it All" kind of mood. Not really fair for me, but I guess that's why I'm the one getting paid, to deal with that uncertainty.

Now we look ahead to the coming year of 2003 and wonder if we'll see better movies than we did in 2002. Ha, just kidding. We all know that 2002 sucked a big novelty...

Hot damn, America!

Now we look ahead to the coming year of 2003 and wonder if we'll see better movies than we did in 2002. Ha, just kidding. We all know that 2002 sucked a big novelty disc, so the real question is how much better 2003 will be. I'm hoping the answer is:

A whole shit of a lot.

On to the movies!

In Theaters

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

There was a lot of shit going on in this movie: the CIA, Ralston-Purina, BET, disco, crop rotation, gongs, Margaret Cho, ninja breakdancing, bad hats, Julia Roberts barking in Morse code, dust, rubber boots full of salmon, the Pointer Sisters, Wheel of Fortune, underoos, sex with robots, John Travolta's childhood retainer, cashew chicken, nuclear autumn, that little alcoholic kid from E.T., saws, Golden Books, Rip Torn, and the list goes on and on. To be honest, I wasn't sure when the movie started or if it's even over nowâ€¦ I left the theater but I keep seeing things that make me think I might have just dozed off in the middle and I'm still dreaming. If that's the case I'm going to be pissed because I hate typing my columns twice.

Just Married Ashton Kutcher

I guess he's cute and all, I mean, it's not like I'd know. But if I were a girl I guess I could see it. If I were a girl. And I was really drunk. But, apparently this Kutcher guy is enough of a dreamboat that tying his knot is a common fantasy among the 12-24 set and a handful of gay sex columnists, so here we get a movie about it. And the lucky girl who gets to pretend to do it more convincingly than most (because of the Hollywood props and whatnot) is Brittany Murphy, who paid her dues by getting her trailer park on with Eminemineminemiâ€¦ Marshall McLuhan. I guess the movie turned out fine, though to be honest I thought there'd be more explicit honeymoon sex than there was. But I felt that way about Father of the Bride, too, so what are you going to do. All in all it compares favorably to other teenage girl wish fulfillment film such as Monkeybone and Drop Dead Fred Durst.

Love Liza

Philip Dustin Hoffman is fantastic as Liza Minelli in this warped tale of a singer coping with her gay lover's suicide by having everyone call her Rick and pretend she's a man. Talk about bizarre; shouldn't John Malkovich be in there somewhere? It almost got too weird for me when I thought Orson Welles was in the movie, too, but in the end it turned out that was only Kathy Bates. She should do him at parties; I think she could clean up.

The Pianist

Once again the Farley brothers prove that you can't keep a good man down, nor two mediocre men with gross senses of humor. Nor one midget-sized man who walks around in a tuxedo and has a gigantic dong, neither. I'm not sure where the midgets-with-giant-dicks fascination came from, but at least the Farleys put a creative spin on it by making the guy a concert pianist who makes his living playing a baby baby grand. He also gets into plenty of trouble with married women and as I'm sure you can guess he gets drop-kicked a few dozen times and spends part of the movie wedged in a fat man's asshole.

I'm not going to review them, but I just wanted to mention that Steve Guttenberg and Kirk Cameron both have new movies coming out this week, so if you're feeling shitty about your life there's some five-dollar therapy for you.

And that's that, folks, I hope we've rung in the New Year proud. Don't forget to check back in two more weeks when we'll shake the world by doing the exact same thing for like the ten billionth time.