mbarrassed fashion mogul Calvin Klein denied any knowledge of his company's controversial "Saddam's Undies" ad campaign this week, a sweeping series of magazine and billboard ads featuring the deposed Iraqi dictator in his underwear, which Klein claims must have been a hoax masterminded by one of his competitors.

"Calvin Klein is the epitome of cool worldwide," explained the blushing New Yorker. "What has Saddam Hussein got to do with that? Nothing. Don't answer, I will tell you it's nothing. So why would we use him as the centerpiece for our new ad campaign? We wouldn't, don't ask me stupid questions. Goodbye."

Industry observers, however, claim that the new ads prove Klein badly miscalculated in his constant striving to find hot new looks.

"Who's to say what is hot?" queried fashion writer Agnes Blout. "Fashion thrives on the offbeat, the strikingly incongruous. Whether that's toned rednecks in their tidy whities or some underfed starvation model with no tits, cool is often what you make of it. Unless it's a deposed Iraqi dictator making like Mister Rogers after a hard day doing whatever the hell it is Mister Rogers does at work. That's taking fashion relativism a bit far."

Some consider Klein's reaction to be understandable, since the ads have been an unmitigated disaster for the fashion mogul's company. Sales of white underwear plummeted within minutes of the ads hitting the street, and last week a church in South Carolina organized a burning of magazines containing the offensive ads. The magazine-burning turned tragic, however, when fumes given off by all the free perfume samples in the magazines formed a toxic cloud that ate the paint off the church and made several cows very queasy.

No one has gone on record to say how much Hussein was paid for the use of his likeness, though the answer is likely in the millions. Either that or a juicy ham sandwich delivered to his prison cell, it's not like Hussein is at the height of his bargaining power at the moment.

"We felt like this was a fresh new direction for Saddam to go in," explained Hussein's publicist, Liz Turnbow. "No more of this 'dirty old man pulled from a hole in the ground' thing, that was so last year. It's a whole new era for disgraced former dictators and Saddam Hussein is leading the way, with considerable style I must say."

Industry observers are already ranking the Hussein ad campaign with the great fashion miscalculations of all time, like hula-hoop underwear and the infamous salmon necktie of the mid-80's. Others point to the original cast-iron underwear of the early 1700's, which failed due to poor marketing. Klein has missed the mark more than a few times himself, including a career-jeopardizing ad campaign featuring Marlon Brando in his underwear in 1979 and the truly-regrettable "California Raisins in their underwear" campaign of 1987.

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Before you hear it from anyone else, I killed like six cats this week. Three of them I hit all at once, but still, that's pretty unusual.

I didn't kill any of them on purpose, but try convincing everyone else of that. I can't really blame anyone. If the police picked up a serial killer and he said the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, I probably wouldn't believe him. But then again, I don't know why I'd have access to a newly-arrested serial killer at all. Forget it. No more analogies for me.

I hit the first cat on the way to work Monday. I was late for a few photographs for that comic book I'm on the cover of, Metallichick. And this ain't even a talking gig, it's not like they couldn't find some hot skank hanging out on the stoop and get her to fill in. That's how they discovered Marlena Dietrich, my mom said. So I'm driving extra fast and this cat totally leaps out in front of me. The cat is probably dead and these kids are crying nearby, so I feel like an ass for even stopping. So I pick up the cat and tell the kids I'm taking it to the Vet. So they'll shut up. Then I went to the shoot.

Well, the cat's dead by the time I get out, and my car stinks like some kind of "Tell-Tale Dead Cat" movie. I'm really pissed off, but it was probably dead before I even got the Metallichick breasts to stay on. Probably. But now I feel all bad and crap.

I go and buy the kids a new cat at this what-do-you-call-it place. Pet store. And the guy tells me this is the best cat they got, it's a coleco, and the little shit begins throwing up all over the car when I take it out of park. So I put it in the trunk, just for the ride over. The car already smells like dead cat, I'm not going to have puddles of cat vomit on the floorboards, too.

I had to drive around the neighborhood about 30 minutes before I saw the kids playing on a basketball court. I tell them I got a surprise in my trunk, and I do—a dead cat. Those little bastards screamed until I thought the police would show up. If I had to guess, it either died from the heat or that choking thing, ass-fix something. But I tell them he's going to be alright, that I'll rush him to the emergency room. Then son of a bitch if I don't hit three more cats just standing out in the middle of the street, like they're forming some kind of feline chain of protest against me. I didn't even see the pricks.

I decided to cut my losses and not go back to that neighborhood—those kids had to learn about death sometime anyway. That still didn't stop my cat-killing karma because one of those fuckers is screaming out my window all night Thursday. So I'm starting to freak out because when I'm in a normal state of mind I know cats can't really talk to each other, no matter how many good movies are based on that idea, but I'm all wound up about cat killing and think he's calling together an army to attack me.

It's all too fresh in my mind and I don't want to talk about it, but like I told the cops, it really was supposed to be a warning shot. I never fired the gun before outside of the target range and I swear I've never hit anything with the first try. I figured aiming dead at him was the best way to make sure I didn't hit him. Once in a lifetime shot, like one of the police guys said.

If you're one of those PETA people, please stop calling me—I get it. I'm an asshole. My mother's a cat-lover and she'd agree with you. I promise if you all stop throwing pig's blood or whatever it is at me on the streets and spray-painting my car I'll make a donation to some kind of cat-saving group of yours. Just lay off.

º Last Column: Crammed in the Closet
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In a tree on a hill
by a glimmering lake
lived a boy named LeCroy
and his father, LeJake.

In the simmering sun
on the year's hottest day
the boy went for a walk
in the town of Demon's Bay.

Though he was well liked
the boy was misunderstood
by his father and brother
and the rest of the brood.

But since his brother was only
a sock hung on the wall
and the rest of the family
just a bag of rubber balls,
it was really his father's
approval he sought.
And one day would earn!
Or so he thought.

LeCroy had some talents,
he had quite a few,
he could tell if the sun was lying
or if the wind had the flu.
He could tell you when the snails
were all achy and tired
and which ones of the worker bees
had recently been fired.
For LeCroy was attuned
to frequencies obscure.
He tuned in some strange wavelengths,
you can be quite sure.

But all his father knew
were figures and facts
of tariffs and treaties
and pardons and pacts.
He couldn't understand,
nor did he care,
about the subtle vibrations
of which LeCroy was aware.

So LeCroy took a walk
to clear his sensitive head.
He saw light waves and microwaves
and a pill bug's bed.
But how could he prove
to his father LeJake
that he really was useful
and not just a flake?

Just then in that moment
as the answer he pondered
up a crooked side street
he carelessly wandered.
And there in the ditch
by the side of the road
was a marmot named Harmon
and a three-fingered toad.

Both Harmon and toad
held their stomachs in gripe
for they had ate apples
that were not quite ripe.
And they felt as sickly
as sickly can be.
So LeCroy scooped them up
and took them back to his tree.

LeCroy's head was racing!
Finally he would prove
that his talents were useful
and LeJake's heart would move
when he saw how LeCroy
nursed these unfortunates to health.
Because everyone knew
that good health is true wealth.

So LeCroy brough them home
and tucked them into bed
and brought them sweet wasp's milk.
And to them he read
six bedtime stories
so soothing and mild
that Harmon and the toad
both soon slept like a child.

And when LeJake came home
LeCroy proudly displayed
his recovering invalids
and the progress they'd made.
But LeJake was not happy
and LeJake was not proud
He raised up his eyebrows
and he shouted aloud:

"LeCroy! Get them out!
Before I smack on your head!
That frog soiled my pillow
and that gopher shit in my bed!
I am so angry
that I could eat my hat!"

And LeJake was not kidding.
He ate it, at that.

So LeCroy ran away
with the marmot and toad
and they lived in a ditch
by the side of the road.
And they lived on happily,
for each was understood
for not thinking the same
or eating the things that they should.

º Last Column: A Little Bit Hungry
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