he state if Indiana executed convicted murderer Gregory Scott Johnson last week, continuing the state's long-standing tradition of executing men with three names, despite the condemned's requests that he be allowed to donate his liver to his ailing sister before the execution. Gov. Mitch Daniels denied Johnson's request on the grounds that it was creepy.

"Who would want a killer's liver?" asked prison warden Brad Foulke. "Yuck. The last thing we need is some horror movie bullshit where an evil liver turns this girl into an unstoppable killing machine. No thanks."

After hearing that the state of Indiana had offered to buy Johnson's sister a dinner of liver and onions as a symbolic way to apologize for wasting the one inside her brother, fans of morbid humor were disappointed to learn that Johnson was executed by lethal injection, rather than by some cooking-related method.

"It would be kind of funny if he'd been electrocuted," explained Indiana Pacers fan Brett Amrow. "Because then they could have served his liver all cooked up with onions and stuff. I'm not sure if he'd have to eat the onions first or have them surgically implanted or what, I don't know how the science of it works. I mean, yeah, I know that's gross, but you ever try eating liver without onions? Yuck."

The controversy surrounding Johnson's execution has touched off a national debate over whether or not condemned prisoners should be harvested for organs to save the law-abiding. Johnson, convicted in 1985 of stomping an old lady to death, burning down her house, and eating her cat's food, was the rare case of an inmate volunteering to offer up his lousy guts to save another human being, though skeptics have suggested it was just the beginning of Johnson's plan for a piece-by-piece escape from prison.

"The state of Indiana issued me a mandate to kill Gregory Scott Johnson for what he done, and that means every last piece of him," explained Indiana governor Mitch Daniels. "I'm not to leave no part alive, not a liver, not a little pinky finger, to survive a man who's done such things. That just wouldn't be fair to his victim or the victim's family if Gregory's liver lived on in his sister, saving her life and mocking their tragedy forever. And that's one slippery slope to go down, because where do you draw the line? What about a killer's brain? I'm sure somebody could use that somewhere. And that would be totally wrong, an evil brain turning some good person bad. Or even put in a jar, eviling up a lab somewhere until the technology came along to mount that jar on a cyborg body that couldn't be stopped even with bullets. Now I don't know many things, but what I do know is that unstoppable killer cyborgs is not what the people of Indiana were hoping for when they elected Mitch Daniels to office. Not most of 'em, anyway."

Though many doctors have suggested that Johnson's organ would have been useless to his sister anyway, since his was a 44DD size liver a her original just a petit B-cup, the larger question prison officials are asking is if it's ever right to give a condemned prisoner what they want, or if that defeats the entire purpose of punishing them. This question has grown in recent years with the rise of "reverse psychology" stays of execution for condemned prisoners who claimed they wanted to die, forcing states not to kill them out of a fear of appearing to coddle prisoners. Similar efforts by prisoners begging to never, ever be let out of prison have not yet had measurable effect.

Lost Scout Earns Coveted “Distract the National Media” Badge

House Democrats Uneasy During Rare Trip Outside

Big Ratings Prompts ABC to Seek More Dancing Handicapped Shows

Strychnine Dog Food: Where Can You Buy It?

It never fails, I tell you. The last good kidnapping was the Patty Hearst case. Kidnappers so damn good at it they convinced her to join up with them. That Symbionese Liberation Army made it cool to kidnap. Ever since then it's been all downhill. Half-assed kidnapping attempts, pervs just kidnapping to commit sexual crimes and murder the victims, or the worst, the parents or relatives who kill then fake a kidnapping. What a bunch of poseurs.

I mention all this because I was the victim of a kidnapping last week, if you can call it a kidnapping. I hesitate to use the word out of respect to more famous accused kidnappers like Bruno Hauptmann or such. Then again, there's a lot of questions about whether he did it or Lindbergh killed his own son, so maybe he's one of those poseurs I mentioned earlier.

The wannabe-kidnappers grabbed me as I left the commune offices for the day Friday, just before lunch. I was forced into a minivan at knifepoint by a burly man in a Member's Only jacket, which told me right away the guys I was dealing with hadn't seen much success through kidnapping before. Not that I was expecting Gucci suits or anything, you want to maintain a low profile. But I do mean low, not pathetic. If people are throwing you change on the street you're not exactly sinking into the background.

Turns out the knife wasn't even a knife, it was a clothespin sharpened at the end. If I had wanted to test it, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have even broken the skin. I probably could have escaped, but I'm always intrigued by kidnappings and I wanted to see how this one turned out.

I'll cut right to the chase: Boresville. The six times I've been kidnapped and held for ransom have all been letdowns, but this was the king of the losers. The perpetrators, two dudes, took me back to their one bedroom apartment and tied my leg to the dining room table. Then they stuck my fingers in a Chinese finger trap, presumably because they ran out of rope. If I'm not mentioning the kidnappers by name, it's through no effort to conceal their identities because I've fallen in love with them like that Helsinki Formula or whatever it's called. It's because they didn't make a lasting impression of any sort, I couldn't even give a description to the cops.

Then, after going through all the trouble of kidnapping me, the cockknockers had no idea who to tell that they were holding me for ransom. How embarrassing. They called up Red Bagel at home but he was obviously in a fit of ether madness or something, he kept dropping the phone and wasn't even coherent. At least it might have been Red Bagel, sometimes Lil Duncan answers his phone, though I'm not saying anything everybody else doesn't know. And then the stupid kidnappers wouldn't pay the long distance charges to call my parents, which doesn't make much difference anyway because my parents don't have any money anymore. Why do you think they've been trying to have another kid for 15 years now? They need someone to share their love with? Ha.

Come Monday morning these two shmoes had to be back to work at Hardee's or they were going to be fired, they had missed too many days already. Call me crazy, but if you're going to plan a kidnapping right, at least have the foresight to ask for a few days off. This is not the kind of thing you do over a weekend. Anyway, I hate to have an anti-climactic ending, but I bit through the fingertrap and then bit through the rope and escaped. And the only reason I bit through the rope was to add a little bit of excitement to the story somewhere.

I'm a little nostalgic for the kidnappings of my youth, where the guys weren't perfect, but at least they had some things right. Some even blindfolded me so I couldn't see their faces. Asked for millions of dollars my parents never had, even if they didn't really want that much, you know, just to make me feel special. But I guess those days are gone. Now you can be kidnapped by any idiots with a pointy object, a minivan, and a couple days off.

If anybody is serious about trying, though, I'll be checking out of work around noon this Friday. Unless I decide to cut out early.

º Last Column: What's A Cornhole?
º more columns

Well, we finished shooting the pilot for Archipelago Law, and on risk of ruining the surprise for everyone, the show's good.

It was a pretty tough shoot, since we filmed on location on an uncharted desert isle, but we managed to get all the key exterior scenes in under three days before the Carnival Cruise departed without us. All interior shots can be finished on the studio lot in California. Of course, there's no interior shots for the show at this time because it all happens on a desert island, but if we ever build some huts or anything all those interior shots can probably be shot on the lot. It will be really awesome to go back to the Paramount lot again now that I have a reason to be there and they can't keep me out.

Everyone on the show is really nice and supportive so far, although there are about three cast members and a caterer I wouldn't miss if they got pink-slipped. John Flomp, the series' other star, is a real dear. Cute, sexy, even a little attractive, but he agrees with me two people who work together shouldn't be involved together, as I was thinking just before he said it. So I guess I wouldn't be really hurt if he got fired either.

The story is pretty good , for a two-hour pilot. One of those unsolvable murder mysteries that'll keep the audience guessing all the way through. There's really not much for me to do in the first episode, it's more focused on developing the character of Sheriff Burger, but I have some really great close-ups and eye contact with the Sheriff in the final scene where he's arresting the twins.

As if it needed saying, I did stupendous. I haven't acted in a long, long time, and it really shows—I have boundless energy. There was even a few times the director had to stop the shoot to tell me to stop moving around in the background, or get out of the scene since I wasn't in it. I was afraid I would blow my line, but when the moment of truth came, I was back like I'd never taken a six-year forced break.

For those of you unfamiliar with the process, now comes the long waiting period we call "past-production" where the editor people put together the complete show from all the shot footage. It takes forever in movies, but usually it's a lot quicker in television since television editors half-ass everything. It's usually the worst part of a job for me, waiting to see the finished product, but Producer Matt Viggoschultz said he's "72 percent sure" I would make the final cut. That's alright in my book! As many times as I got into shots I wasn't even scripted for, that TV editor would have to be a real fuck-up to keep me out of the entire show. So tune in to UPN whenever it comes on and you'll see Clarissa Coleman on the silver screen again.

This has been a banner year for me so far, as you can guess. First I got this job, then I got my electricity turned back on… it's like everything's coming up Clarissa. But that's no reason to settle. I'm starting to think if this show has the success I think it will, I may want to consider moving on before it gets stale and tired. It's imperative in this business to know when to move on, it's something the finely-tuned nose can smell in the air. It's been fun with the show, don't get me wrong, but it's good to keep my options in mind. I don't want to go on playing the same role over and over—I'm an actor, I need to stretch. So if the show hits I'll look at going on to a movie career, or see if I can spin Shelly off into my own series.

Of course, it's dangerous to get ahead of yourself, too. I'd better at least make sure this actually shows up on TV first. I'd hate for a repeat of that time I starred in that video only to have it show up on the Internet instead of Showtime.

º Last Column: Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?
º more columns