NASA Photographs Infuriate Shut-Ins, Conspiracy Geeks

ew infrared images from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter featuring the long-debated formation known as the "Face on Mars" have sent shockwaves through the shut-in and conspiracy geek communities. Anxious and unbathed web surfers who expected the infrared pictures to provide new revelations about the features voiced their disappointment, saying the new images are bullshit because they don't show any kind of recognizable face at all, just a couple of bumps in the dirt.

NASA claims this is because there never was a face, stupid, only a trick of light and shadow fueled by desperate weirdoes who haven't worked in years. Fans of the face contend that it was only the lack of "night-vision" imagery that failed to expose the Sphinxlike visage they have come to know and love. NASA responded with a patronizing smile and a hand gesture indicating "okaaay."

The debate over the Face has simmered for the last twenty-five years, since NASA's Viking orbiters transmitted pictures of the Cydonia region that appeared to show a half-shadowed, helmeted face staring up from the planet's surface like some kind of cross between Kermit the Frog and Han Solo. Since then, additional formations have been identified as the "Alien Conspiracy Pyramid," "the Mounds of Xena" and so forth — and fans of the Face have argued that the formations showed evidence of a vast Martian civilization populated by breathtaking huge-breasted women incapable of resisting the charms of virginal 30 year-old earth men.

In the past five years, sharper imagery from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter popped a big-ol' hole in that over-inflated fantasy balloon, confirming the mainstream view that the Face and the other formations were nothing more than a whole lot of wind-eroded dirt, much like everything else on Mars. But die-hard fans of the Face refused to give up hope, disregarding the newer photos as hoaxes and propaganda, and confusing everyone in their apartment buildings by going as "The Face" for Halloween.

The new Mars Odyssey images are unique in that they were taken using infrared light, unlike the visible light used for the Viking and Global Surveyor images of Cydonias. This allowed for day or night photography unhindered by shadows. Many fans of the Face, however, took issue with NASA's methodology.

"We got gypped," griped Thomas Reinhold of Jackson, Miss. "They totally lead us to believe they were going to be doing some nighttime infrared imagery, not just daytime. What if the face only comes out at night? Didn't think of that, did you, NASA?"

"He said what?" questioned Tony Rice, a member of the Arizona State University imaging team that worked with NASA on the project. "Jesus. Thanks to AOL, every kind of mook can get on the net now."

The Arizona State imaging research team denied any unique features belonging to the mesas that make up the Face. "What do we have to do, draw you people a map?" Rice questioned. "Oh, wait, that's right. We already did that. Morons."

No stranger to being called morons, the Face fans press on with their hunt for the truth.

"Those white-coated government lackeys over at NASA can conspiratize all they want, but we know the truth," boasted Elmer Noonan of Vine Grove, KY. "We've seen the pictures. The first picture, anyway. All the other ones after that were bullshit. A total governmental cover-up, straight out of the handbook. If it hadn't been for that Libertarian dude working at NASA back in '76, we never would have got to see that original image of the face. I bet those NASA guys have been kicking themselves every day since they released that thing. Ha. Jerks."

"We're putting new stuff out there every day for the public to look at," Rice said while playing with a hole in the bottom of his shoe. "I don't know what their problem is. Oh, right. The conspiracy. I almost forgot. Well, you're going to have to excuse me while I conspire to drive my shitty little Tercel over to Arby's and eat a roast beef sandwich for lunch."

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In all ladylike honesty, this is bullshit! I had a hit TV show, I've done some pretty notable movies like Return to Skank Mountain, and my pictures as a kid look so much like Little Debbie they officially have to pay me royalties. Why the hell can't I get a credit card?

I would say it's racism, but I'm pretty sure all the credit card companies are mostly run by white people. And I basically pass for a white person, nobody really cares about if my granddad is Puerto Rican and my step-mom is Navajo. I can't really say it's genderism, or whatever that word is either, since my official birth name is Charles Coleman since my mother couldn't spell "Clarissa." Unless they have in my credit report that I somewhere attempted to buy large quantities of tampons or a girl's bike or something they wouldn't know I'm a woman.

Which leads me to the obvious conclusion I'm dealing with star-ism. Someone at the credit card deciding branch, the place where they pick who gets and doesn't get a credit card, they figured out I'm Clarissa Coleman the B-grade or higher actress and refused me the dignity of a credit card. My reputation is torn to pieces like so much duck-feeding bread and they humiliate me on paper because they hate celebrities.

It's ridiculous discrimination. I wonder if Tom Cruise goes through this sort of thing. Goes in to get a gas card so he can stop at the BP when he doesn't have any cash and they give him a big fat "No!" stamp. He's like, "I'm Tom Cruise! I have bundles of cash! Thousands of dollars!" They're all shaking their heads, smirking their middle-class heads off, and they get to go home thinking they really stuck it to Rain Man's brother today. Screw that!

I thought this was the land of the freebie and all that. Where's my credit card? I slogged through countless hours of trying to remember my lines and fixing my own make-up when the idiot lady couldn't cover up the bags under my eyes after an all-nighter, and this is the thanks I get? I don't think America appreciates its celebrities. I fought hard for this country, you know—in the pages of Entertainment Weekly and on the cut celluloid of Police Academy VIII: Back in Blue Again. Where's my parade? Hell, forget the parade, where's my Master Card?

All I want to do is buy some lousy vest worn by Robert Plant on the latest Plant-Page tour on eBay, is that beyond my scope? I make a decent penny from my acting and the commune pays for the gas to auditions and stuff. I can afford a $300 Robert Plant vest, you know. I shouldn't have to beg and scrape and go to the Shell station for a money order when I've worked this hard. I deserve a credit card. We all deserve credit cards.

That's right, I'm speaking for everybody out there. The Sean Connerys, the Jennifer Anistons, the Baldwin Brotherses—even the Screeches. Can't Screech catch a break? And what about me? Let's not forget me. In fact, let's focus on me. Let Screech and Jennifer Aniston write their own commune columns.

You know, it occurs to me that it may not be celebrity-related at all. I listed my positions and salaries as an actress and commune columnist—is that it? Is it because I write for the commune I can't catch a credit card break? A clear-cut case of commune-ism.

The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that's what it is. Nobody at the commune has a credit card. Not that I could blame the Visa people. I wouldn't trust them to pay me back enough for a local phone call.

Hey, Visa, if you ever want more detailed financial information on these dildos, let me know. You slide a little $600-limit action my way and I can be an endless source of info about these deadbeats. One lousy little credit card, that's all I ask.

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So it turns out my sister's gay. Quite a big bomb-dropping, for a regular family, I guess. If you ask me it's just a ninth-inning attempt to reinvent herself like a third-rate Madonna, or a 1970s David Bowie. Anything to liven up her boring life and make herself more noticeable in a family spilling over the brim with shwat-a-veev—whatever it is the French call it.

Of course, she has her own story: That she's always been gay, that ugly dude she went to the prom with was actually a lesbian, and she told me this all before. I suppose it's possible I'd forget it, if I was watching TV or thinking about something else. When I get hungry I can't concentrate on nothing. But I still say she's making up this whole life as being gay just to be more interesting—backstory, that's the acting term we use.

She introduced me to her checkmate, or whatever the cool new term for it is, and we didn't get along very well. I didn't remember her name at all and kept calling her "Marcy," like that chick in the Peanuts cartoon. Like I'm the one who cut her hair into a bob and made her wear glasses. I tried to get along with her for my sister's sake, I really did, but the bitch was saying all kinds of stuff to bait me. Like she had never seen my show before and that it must have been tough being a child actress. I told her it must have been tough being a lesbian for her, and she took it like I was serious, instead of implying it was hard for her to find women to date her.

I'm taking all of this pretty cool, really. She invited me to her office for lunch and promised she wouldn't get mad if I made paperclip slingshots, so it was off to as good a start as we get. Then instead of a good old fashioned paperclip war I get this Very Special Episode of Ellen dropped on me, which I'm fine with, only to have her tell me my parents don't know and I can't tell them. She said they're so closed-minded and everything, but I would understand 'cause I'm more worldly. I almost knocked her out but her butch friend wrestled me to the floor. It may be true I've packed the pounds on my thighs a bit in the last few months, no reason to call me out on it, and I definitely don't see how it helps me be more understanding of lesbos.

In addition to keeping her secret that she's a sci-fi fan (I'm pretty sure Marcy was that dude dressed as the centaur at the convention, upon thinking about it) now I have to not tell everybody she's lesbo. I wouldn't mind keeping the lesbian secret, actually, if she'd just let me tell the sci-fi one. But no, she says mom and dad won't understand. I asked if she tried to talk to Toot but she said he only wants to talk about the Leader of Glorious Light, the one true prophet. Which leaves me alone to carry the new family secret.

The last thing I want to do, of course, is be the only secret-holder, 'cause then when it comes out to everyone they know it was me who let it slip. It's better when almost everyone knows because then they can't trace it back to me. So I told her mom and dad were down with lesbians, dad especially—they star in over half the tapes in his video collection. That only got macho Marcy to wrestle me to the floor again then, and don't tell anybody, but I'm afraid I'm starting to like it.

She gets all sobby on me then (sis, not Marcy, though Marcy did offer me a cigarette) and tells me I'm the only one left in the family she has any relationship with. I thought she was getting weird, but she meant "relationship" in the broad sense of the word. Or the sisterly, non-broad-on-broad sense. And she gives me a big hug and says she can trust me with her secret.

And I suppose she can. I mean, besides writing columns about it at the commune, but that's practically like keeping a secret. So we had a little bit of coffee, talked about my career, her career, the new gym her and Marcy are opening, and then I left without even getting any paperclips and rubberbands. But I did manage to get wrestled to the floor once more before I left.

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