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.

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Monday, November 11, 2002
It's the way the stupid world works that the many are always being made to pay for the fuck-ups of the few. Like back when that dildo Jesus ate the apple and created Original Sin, that Angelina Jolie movie where she looks all fat. Thanks, Jesus. Then some dumb kid freaks out and tries to climb up inside a running lawnmower, and all of a sudden only the Indians get to eat peyote anymore. Like they never freak out and set the teepee on fire sometimes. Finally, to put the icing on the ice cream, some primadonna of a lab rabbit gets an eye blister so all of the rest of us miss out on a cute new mascara.

Sometimes this rule works in our favor, like when you get a college scholarship because your great step-grandma once slept with some Navajo guy, but usually it doesn't.

Case in point. Winona Ryder, of Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon fame, gets the bright idea to prop up her saggy-titted acting career by getting caught half-assedly shoplifting some cheap junk out in Beverly Hills. She thinks she's all clever, hiding it in her sacks from Saks, then all of a sudden all of us innocent celebrity shoplifters are taking the heat. What a crock. I didn't spend three weeks painstakingly smuggling a complete set of Martha Stewart Living silverware out of a K-mart piece by piece in my mouth to be compared to that talentless hack. Talentless at shoplifting, anyway, she may be a great film actress for all I know. But I wouldn't know, because I don't watch foreign films. Too much talking.

By the way, her "I was rehearsing for a role" excuse is cute, but you can refer to the court transcripts of the trial for my underage hit-and-run accident back in '88 if you want to see how long it takes a jury to get tired of that line. It's something like fifteen minutes, tops. I was ten; I don't know what her excuse is.

This all reminds me of back when celebrity drug use got a bad name just because Robert Downey Jr. proved to be a lightweight who couldn't hold his heroin. Like that surprised anyone. Hello? Did anyone see Less Than Zero? That movie was supposed to be about a baseball player, only they had to re-write it on the fly since Downey constantly looked like he'd just woke up dead.

While we're on the subject, I thought I'd throw in some free shoplifting tips in case you don't fancy ending up on CourtTV looking like the lost member of the Addams Family. Just don't cheap out on me and say I never did anything for you when I call up and need a place to crash for a few months, okay? First off, it's probably best to avoid shoplifting really big stuff, like beach balls and six-foot stuffed animals, until you get good at it. Marcie McMillan, my co-star from the failed pilot for that underrated crime-fighting girls show Training Bras, was the master. She once shoplifted an entire aquarium, including fake rocks and a sump pump, out of a pet store while she was only wearing a bikini. I still don't know where she hid that thing. Come to think of it, I don't know what she wanted with an aquarium in the first place, but she was probably just trying to go down in Hollywood lore for something other than being in that Rob Lowe video.

But you also don't want to try and shoplift anything too small, either. Jewelry is tempting, but then there's a danger that you'll forget what you took and only find it when you clean out your purse months later while looking for a lighter. Also from my experience, I'd say that live fish are a poor choice as well. They'll suffocate if there's not enough air in your purse, so you need to either cut some holes ahead of time or get a wicker purse, or come to think of it, just don't try to lift fish. You'll never get that smell out, trust me. Marcie had the right idea with the aquarium, but overall I'd say the pet store is more trouble than it's worth for a celebrity shoplifter.

The easiest things to steal are purses and hats, and really convincing Halloween masks. You just put them on and act like you wore them into the store. If they ask why your hat still has the tag on it, you say that you were going to return it once it went out of style, and look at them like they're stupid. If they don't understand the look, give them a helping hand by referring to them as "Hey, Stupid."

Of course, now that Tinseltown skank Ryder has made it a lot harder for the rest of us, we'll probably have to come up with some new tricks. The next time I go into the May Co. with a giant empty duffel bag, I guarantee you I'll be getting some dirty looks. And this time, it won't be because they thought that was me freak dancing in the new Christina Aguilera video. Thanks a lot, bitch.

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I say, as long as hiding out from the mob leaves you trapped in a backwards country like Australia, make the best of it. Or at least I'm saying it this week, since it's not yet safe enough for me to return to the states. And make the best of it I will. And I'll make Camembert make the best of it, because making him do things he doesn't want to do is my only source of fun in this primitive aspiring Bayou.

Let it never be said Australia isn't rich in beautiful, untouched natural beauty. Or make sure it's never said around here, since a fat Aussie named Mick will pound you. Since there is so much natural beauty, though, I thought it was high time I lived out my dream of being a rugged outdoorsman. Ever since I was a child, age 41-49, I wanted to be one of those amazing men who made their living off the untamed frontier, like a cowboy, a lumberjack, or perhaps a headhunting cannibal. But since I can't ride a horse, am too short to wield an ax, and get queasy when I taste human flesh, most of those avenues have been closed to me until now. Before, however, I never considered gator-taunting—it's a top 5 upwardly-mobile field here in Australia.

If you've ever seen one of these gator-taunting shows, or their ancestral 1970s kin, the all-kinds-of-animal-taunting shows like Wild Kingdom, you know they're populated by fearless men who can stare dangerous beasts in the face without pissing their pants, are cunning enough to avoid serious injury, and know how to bounce back from those injuries they can't avoid. They also have another requirement—a bold partner, capable of narrating with a dashing voice. This is the job I want.

Yes, the dashing narrator—good people, those guys get laid like eggshell-colored bathroom tile. Not that it's my motivation, but any career admired by the ladies is good enough for Rok Finger. However, I obviously can't narrate to a video of an untaunted alligator, so that's where Camembert comes in. He might be a little slower to get out of the way of their vicious snapping jaws, confined to a wheelchair as he is, but Camembert has more than enough moxie to make up for a lack of agility. And moxie grows back when severed, I hear.

Before you bleeding hearts start emailing me again in defense of Camembert, I should let you know I haven't simply dragged him to the outback and thrown him into the maw of vicious gators without any practice. I brought gators home, and left them in our backyard, where he's sure to stumble across them while doing the laundry. If he succeeds with these "pop quizzes," we should be able to journey to the outback to confront them on their own turf as early as next week, excluding any necessary healing time.

The gators won't be his first experience with wild animals either. For years I have surprised him by letting loose squirrels or hungry raccoons in his bedroom while he slept—I originally started it to make him more alert to possible prowlers, but it worked out better than I could have imagined. I can't say his reaction time was always first-rate, but apart from the paint-peeling shrieks he composed himself respectably. I think perhaps the squirrels were too small, and the raccoons blended into the background of his bedroom too easy. Alligators ought to be much easier to see, and therefore react to. I tested this theory last week by having Felchyana toss a snake at him, and he reacted quite well, swatting it down and crushing its skull under his chair's wheel, all the while asking her what the fuck she thought she was doing.

Of course, none of this prepares me at all. I've practiced a little bit on my narration, turning down the TV while watching nature programs and doing running commentary on what's going on, and I suppose I need a little more background information on animals so I will be able to say something beyond "Look at this pervert" when the times comes. Not that it isn't a wonderful start to a very promising career.

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